Benediction is a complex but ultimately moving biopic about the revered Siegfried Sassoon, one of Britain’s great war time poets. Sassoon wrote about the futility of war, the loss of lives and the waste of a generation on the battlefield. He was also a homosexual who had to hide his sexuality in public. This is…
Love in the slaughterhouse? On Body and Soul is a quirky drama about an unlikely romance between two lonely employees in a Budapest abattoir. The film won the prestigious Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; but it’s an art-house film that will have limited interest to a broader audience. Endre (Géza Morcsányi) is the…
A gritty piece about the travails of an ageing Las Vegas showgirl and those around her, The Last Showgirl feels real. Back in the day, decades ago, Shelly (Pamela Anderson), was one of the headline acts in Le Razzle Dazzle, which was fashioned on erotic Paris shows, like the Lido. Now, at 57, she is…
In the present fetid political climate, maybe, overheated by the media in its rush to find ‘villains’ and ‘victims’, to entertain our appetites for the moral humiliation of others, with the official exposure and investigation of child abuse in Australian schools and institutions, Melvyn Morrow’s new play, VICE – Private School Scandal, attempts to bring…
Sometimes a book knocks you off your feet and into a completely alien environment – no, I’m not talking sci-fi, but Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s The Lebs. I grew up in Sydney in the same timeframe as this book, but Ahmad’s Sydney is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. ‘Bani Adam thinks he’s better than us!’ they…
This tale of redemption is based on the writings of French travel writer and adventurer Sylvain Tesson, who was the central focus of the 2022 documentary The Velvet Queen, which depicted his search for the elusive Tibetan snow leopard. In 2014 Tesson fell from a balcony after a night of heavy drinking and was severely…
Living in Paris, American/French psychiatrist Lilian Steiner’s (Jodie) life is spiralling. A patient she has seen for eight years, Pierre Hallan (Noam Morgensztern), who originally came to see her to quit smoking, abruptly cancels all future appointments. Pierre claims one visit to a hypnotist cured what Steiner couldn’t and he maintains that he is 40,000…
The most problematic of the Marvel superheroes is given a reboot in Spider-Man: Homecoming. When I say problematic, I mean because of his movie history more than anything else. In just the past 15 years, there have been no less than six movies featuring the teenage web-slinger. Sam Raimi’s 2002 – 07 trilogy starring Tobey…
A confronting new play from the co-artistic director of the Owl and Cat Theatre, Thomas Ian Doyle, RIOT concerns a 30-year-old bisexual anti-establishment druggie whose life is just drifting. Jim (Jonathan Peck) works in a fast food restaurant because he needs the money. Otherwise, he wouldn’t, as the job means nothing to him. His former…
Sarah Perry returns to the locale of her hit novel (and TV series) The Essex Serpent to deliver another deep, dazzling book. Enlightenment takes place over three time periods and concerns itself with a historical mystery so that it becomes, like the comets that come into the narrative, an elliptical tale. While linear on the…
