Director Kriv Stenders (Red Dog, etc) seems like he is trying to set up a series of films centred around significant national holidays. In 2007, he gave us the powerful but bleak, grim drama Boxing Day which told the story of one man’s desperate struggle to try and reconcile his estranged family on this one…
Australian singer/songwriter Leah Senior’s second album finds the artist travelling the quiet path of the folk song troubadours of years past. Pretty Faces is recorded, for the most part, in the minimalist folk-singer tradition of Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and the early work of Joni Mitchell. Senior’s gentle voice floats over finger-picked or lightly strummed…
Eliza Henry-Jones is a new writer to me. Everything about Ache is beautiful, from the cover, with those piercing eyes, to the prose, which tumbles from the page and into readers’ hearts. Here’s the blurb: A year ago, a devastating bushfire ripped Annie’s world apart – killing her grandmother, traumatising her young daughter and leaving…
A compelling doomsday scenario underpins the dystopian drama, The Way Out. Mankind is hanging by a thread after a civil war 15 years earlier. The air is polluted. Facemasks are mandatory for survival outdoors. Unless sanctioned, travel is banned outside one’s “zone”. All clothing is synthetic. Food is of a low quality and in short supply, while much…
With all the anti-Muslim bile being peddled at the moment, along comes Ali’s Wedding. This feel-good entertainment, based in fact, puts a smile on your dial. There’s something of The Castle’s sensibilities about this one. It’s funny and silly at the same time. Some of it seems incredibly far-fetched, but given what we are dealing with here, that…
Siren by Rachel Matthews was sent to me by Transit Lounge and proves uncomfortable reading for its exploration of sexual assault through the eyes of a teenage girl. And yet, despite the discomfort, it’s important reading because it challenges readers to think about a) the necessity of speaking out against sexual violence and b) the…
All For One is a slick documentary about the first Australian professional cycling team to compete in the Tour de France. The film follows the first five years of GreenEDGE cycling team. United by their renegade spirit, these riders take on the international circuit. In particular, it focuses on three members of the team – Melbourne-born…
Killing Ground is part of a long tradition of Australian cinema, which delves into our sense of unease in our own backyard. When young urbanites Ian (Ian Meadows) and Sam (Tiarnie Coupland) go camping, they arrive at their isolated destination to discover a tent already set up, but no sign of its owners. With the other campers at…
The Murlocs are part of the current wave of Australian psychedelia that keeps rolling on. The group has that 60’s swag of the 13th Floor Elevators and the bounce of the nice guys next door like The Association. Not experiencing the 60’s for some of us music fans feels like a total missed opportunity, so…
The Making of Christina by Meredith Jaffe is the first I’ve read by this author, but will not be the last. She’s taken the story of an intense, all-consuming affair to a confronting, evocative level. Here’s the blurb: Interior designer Christina Clemente is caught off guard by an intense affair with her charismatic client, Jackson…
