The ‘50s and ‘60s continue to resonate as Shake Rattle ‘N’ Roll gives us a cavalcade of song, movement and colour. The fuse is re-lit and burns for more than two hours, thanks to a poised, polished and preened cast of four singers and 10 dancers. The pretence is the re-creation of famous, gravelly voiced American DJ…
I don’t know about you but I’ve felt a bit jaded going to the movies lately. I mean, there’s only so many explosions, car/boat/spacecraft chases or unlikely romances a person can take. Which is to say, if you want an antidote to all that, you really should consider the terrific French thriller November. Co-writer and…
The latest film from Brandon Cronenberg (son of legendary Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg) is a hybrid mix of sci-fi, horror and trenchant social commentary. He takes on class, wealth, privilege, artistic conceits, power, western decadence, guilt and the breakdown of civilization. It comes across like a fevered, darker and more transgressive variation on the recent…
A couple of bumbling, small time crims luck out in the farcical comedy The Wrong Horse. I speak of best mates Noddy (Darren Mort) and Big Ears (Dom Phelan). Big Ears – who has a “wind” issue – is forever sponging off Noddy … dropping in at his place all hours of the day and night, drinking…
Based on the novel Text for You by Sofie Cramer, Jim Strouse’s (The Incredible Jessica James) Love Again is a fantasy dramedy, where everything is carefully manufactured to get to the outcome you know is coming. That, of course, involves inevitable bumps along the road. Naturally, it’s the journey that counts – at least from…
Rose City Band’s Garden Party is a delightful blend of psychedelic and country sounds that create a truly unique listening experience. This fourth album in the band’s catalog is a continuation of the group’s porch music which features the signature sound of guitarist Ripley Johnson (Wooden Shjips, Moon Duo), the fantastic smoldering pedal steel runs…
Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. That may well be the signature tune for 19-year-old unemployed, reckless, gay Australian Ari (Danny Ball), except that his “poison” is grunge and hip-hop. Ari is drawn to Melbourne’s gay clubs, unprotected sex, hard drugs (it is dead set easy to get hold of stuff) and thumping music. He distances and denounces…
Book Club: The Next Chapter is a feel-good sequel to the 2018 film Book Club. It concerns the ongoing fate of the four women at the centre of the original as they undertake a special girls’ trip. Vivian (Jane Fonda), perpetually single, has just been asked for her hand in marriage by her long-term, suave…
A brilliant slice of musical theatre, Once has an inspiring, ear and eye pleasing balance of heart and humour. Based on the 2007 movie by John Carney, it concerns a struggling Irish musician on the verge of giving up and an effervescent Czech woman. The latter (Stefanie Caccamo) sees the guy (Toby Francis), guitar in hand, singing…
American writer Dennis Lehane burst onto the crime scene with his hard-hitting debut A Drink Before the War (1994), the first of his Kenzie and Gennaro novels. That series probably hit its apex with one of Lehane’s best-known books (thanks to the movie version), Gone Baby Gone. These books, along with the standalone Mystic River,…
