It’s a week of limited cinema releases, and they couldn’t be more different. In contrast to the thoughtful Nine Days, Gunpowder Milkshake lets you leave your brain at the door. This colourful adult fairytale from writer-director Navot Papushado is a rollercoaster ride. It’s shamelessly entertaining in that brutal way favoured by the likes of Quentin…
– The Mousetrap – Only at QPAC, Brisbane We have 2 double passes for the performance of The Mousetrap at the Playhouse, QPAC, Brisbane at 6:00 pm on Sunday, 28 May 2023. *Please make sure before you enter that you will be 1) in Brisbane, and 2) available to attend on that date* Note: If…
Safely ensconced here in the Southern Hemisphere, few Australians have first-hand experience of America’s sometimes-toxic racial politics. In general, we experience it from afar, via either the news or some other media (like the recent film Get Out). Our national experience, while arguably no better than the USA’s, is however markedly different. So the Netflix…
This is a new production of Carmen, by John Bell for Opera Australia (OA), opening the 2016 Winter Season. A major event , then. I had had, as a kid, a copy of an old 78 recording of Lawrence Tibbett, singing his ‘swaggering’ Escamillo’s Toreador Song – played ad nauseam , according to my siblings,…
Colossal is one bizarre film, and this low budget effort serves us a weird mash-up of sci-fi, Korean kaiju style monster movie, romantic comedy and domestic drama. Gloria (played by Anne Hathaway) is an insecure and self-destructive alcoholic on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Following her breakup with her increasingly frustrated career-obsessed boyfriend Tim…
A story within a story, set at the height of the Second World War, Their Finest has drama, pathos, humour and subtlety. With increasing numbers of men drafted to fight for their lives on the front line, bombs continued to drop relentlessly on London. Those left behind, made up predominantly of women, children and the…
A comment often made about Bruny is that readers going in did not know it was going to be such a political read. Bruny is one of those works that very effectively puts the frighteners on for many fronts; climate change, politics, foreign investment, cultural divides – swing the proverbial, you’ll find it here. The…
Truth or lie? That is the question at the centre of a fun-filled night at the Brunswick Ballroom featuring a number of highly regarded showbiz-types, drawn from comedy, television, film and music. They are divided into two teams of three, with the “players” varying from show to show. The night I attended, there was Emily Taheny, Mike…
Henry Lawson’s short story, The Drover’s Wife, was a reading that most of us of a certain generation had at school. Ms Purcell in her program notes tells us that it was a part of her growing up, a personal and familiar story shared with her by her mother, regularly, such that at the last…
This clever, thoroughly entertaining French comedy is the latest from co-writer and director Carine Tardieu (The Dandelions). The breakout hit of the 2017 Cannes International Film Festival, Just to be Sure premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight and received multiple standing ovations. The charming rom-com is a tale of parenthood, love and family – both lost and found….
