Navigating the vicissitudes in a relationship can be tricky at the best of times, but cross-cultural unions more often than not face additional difficulties. So it is with Ella (Eleanor Barkla) and Hasseb (Oz Malik). The pair meets at a performance workshop. They are from opposite sides of the Thames. He is a poet and she is…
It has been said that the first casualty of war is the truth. Unfortunately, as human casualties escalate, the task of knowing what the truth is becomes murkier. All My Sons looks into this issue at a family level, where grief, hurt and anger is matched by lies and cover up. Written by Arthur Miller…
For a film featuring several brutal murders, Neil Jordan’s Marlowe is oddly bloodless. That’s not to say it’s bad – it has many fine things going for it – but it lacks the grit those familiar with Raymond Chandler’s iconic detective may be expecting. That could have something to do with the fact the source…
La Boite Theatre’s first mainstage presentation of 2023, the world premiere co-production of The Poison of Polygamy comes with an array of content advisories. The work, which is recommended for audiences aged 15+ contains descriptions of murder, violence, drug use, sexual activities and references to suicide. The production also contains loud noises and the use…
Adrenalin pumping action and a big-name cast feature in Fast X. The film is the tenth in the Fast and Furious franchise, which began in 2001. The pretence for Fast X goes back to 2011’s Fast Five. You might recall from the earlier movie that Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew took out nefarious…
Today, deteriorating mental health is spoken about far more often than it used to be, which is a good thing, but what does it look like up close and personal? Based on her own experiences, Chelsea Plumley’s insightful work takes us there. 41-year-old Shelley (Petra Glieson) is quite a handful. She always has been. She has…
Tony Burge, who assumes the role of lead FBI agent Carl Hanratty chasing boyish con man Frank Abagnale Jr. excels in Cloc’s production of Catch Me If You Can. He is strong vocally and as an actor, with a fine command of comic timing, which is a key ingredient in the musical. With book by Terrence McNally,…
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…
Writer-director Elegance Bratton’s own story of overcoming fierce odds to become a US marine inspired his film The Inspection. We’re in New Jersey in 2005 and 25-year-old Ellis French (Jeremy Pope) leads a threadbare existence. Estranged from his mother, Inez (Gabrielle Union), he’s been on his own since the age of 16 and the one…
A new Australian work, The Critical Marriage by Mark Andrew is the inside story of a relationship between a couple of intellectual heavyweights. The wife and narrator, Imogen, is an economist. She first set eyes upon her German husband Bernhard, an evolutionary psychologist, in an Oxford University lecture theatre. The sparks flew instantly and wedded bliss followed soon…
