What a thoroughly entertaining showpiece! I last saw The Wedding Singer when it played at the Athenaeum Theatre last May. Now, at the State Theatre, at the Arts Centre, it remains just as fun filled and comedic, but it appears even slicker. The leads are intact among the 20-strong cast and are truly memorable. Collectively, the company sing,…
A geriatric Mean Girls? The likeable romantic comedy Queen Bees is set in a retirement home is a moderately entertaining crowd-pleaser that will appeal to older audiences. Helen (played by Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn) is an independent 80 something widow living alone in the house that she and her husband built. But she is becoming…
When vastly different publishing firms merge, sparks fly between two key employees. Insults fly. It’s six-shooters at 20 paces in the romantic comedy The Hating Game. The pair – Lucy Hutton (Lucy Hale) and Joshua Templeman (Austin Stowell) – sit opposite one another. He’s neat, cold and ambitious. She’s a people-pleaser. He calls her “shortcake”…
A near death experience is revealed as an adventure story in MTC’s comedic drama Touching the Void, which kicks off its 2022 season. The vehicle is the wake in a Scottish pub for climber Joe (Joe Klocek). It is being orchestrated by his potty-mouthed sister Sarah (Lucy Durack). Attending are the two members of Joe’s party on the…
After Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle, director Matthew Vaughn delivers a prequel. The King’s Man is the origin story, explaining how and why the spy organisation the Kingsman was formed. And it’s jam-packed full of action. The story starts in South Africa in 1902. Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) from the Red…
Littlies (several wearing angel wings) danced and clapped. They cheered and waved their arms about. Truth be told, so did their parents and grandparents. That is because The Australian Shakespeare Company really knows how to tap into audience sensibilities. Tinkerbell and the Dream Fairies, in the magnificent Ripponlea Gardens, is a treat for those after colour, movement,…
The term “fan service” is getting a lot of play right now. The idea is that filmmakers and movie studios owe it to “core” fans to give them what they want. In politics, they call it “playing to the base”. Of course, in this age of social media, just who are the “core” fans often…
If 2020 was a shock to the movie-going system, 2021 was – in many ways – worse. Lockdowns, delays and uncertainty cruelled both the Australian and international film industries. Many studios deferred their biggest releases, hoping for smoother sailing ahead. As a result, it was no coincidence that the two biggest films at the box…
Magic, mayhem and mirth combine for a delightful family offering in Clifford The Big Red Dog. Emily (Darby Camp) is a smart 12-year-old who lives with her paralegal single British mother Maggie (Sienna Guillory) in a small New York apartment. They have just moved there from upstate and Emily is friendless. More than that, she…
Lady Gaga packs a hell of a punch in the tangled web that is Ridley Scott’s new film, House of Gucci. When we first meet him in the late 1970s, Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) is a shy, mild mannered man studying law. He doesn’t show a great deal of interest in the family’s successful fashion…
