For too long, stories of rebellious youth have tended to focus on boys in popular media. The troubled teenager, always misunderstood by parents and police, provides plenty of dramatic material for a good story. In Girls In Boys’ Cars, a female version of angst during those all too important adolescent years gets a thorough airing….
Inspired by the 2009 Dutch horror film The Human Centipede, Synergy Production Co. has given us a musical parody featuring the same characters. Like the movie, it concerns a deranged German surgeon – Dr Heiter – who kidnaps three tourists and conjoins them surgically, mouth to anus … I kid you not. Dr Heiter is renowned for…
A Dodgeball Named Desire is a clever, creative and involving hoot, contrasting the literary with the sporting. It is a decidedly fresh take on A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. First performed on Broadway in December 1947, that is the story of former Southern belle Blanche DuBois, whose personal circumstances have changed for the worse. An…
After a three-year break, David Fincher is back with a very un-Fincher-like film with The Killer. This finely crafted film sees the director subverting just about every convention of the hitman sub-genre in a way I found both inventive and a little perplexing at the same time. Fincher is of course known for the directorial…
A moving depiction of the early days of colonialism and its impacts on the First Peoples, The Visitors is set on a day the mercury reaches 44 degrees. We meet six Aboriginal Elders and a young indigenous woman, who gather on the shores of Warrane (Sydney Cove) on 26th January, 1788. The 11 ships of the First…
The powerful Australian produced and shot drama Shayda is set in suburban Australia in 1995 but has contemporary resonance as it deals with some important themes. It centres around Shayda (Iranian actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi) who is married to Hossein (Osama Sami) who has moved to Australia to study medicine and become a doctor. He…
Martin Scorsese’s new film Killers of the Flower Moon is a Western crime drama set in Oklahoma in the 1920s. Based on fact, it looks at the serial murder of native Americans living on oil-rich land. After arriving home from WWI, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), moves in with his wealthy cattle rancher uncle, William King…
What an uplifting experience Hour of the Wolf is. It is 65 minutes of intriguing, immersive theatre that sees 12 characters interacting across a dozen rooms, arranged as a labyrinth within the Merlyn Theatre and dock. Patrons can choose to wander from room to room at will, follow one or more performers, or a combination thereof. We…
Identity and family are the key ingredients in the incendiary world premiere comedic drama Flake, written by Dan Lee and co-created by Chi Nguyen. With fine direction from Ella Caldwell, the cast does a mighty job bringing to life the story of two 68-year-old Aussie mates and a young Vietnamese woman. Surly and sickly, Bob (Robert…
A gravely dysfunctional family is dealing with the matriarch suffering from dementia in the drama Broken River. When she is lucid, Linda Cookson (Virginia Morris) remains seething with anger over her husband, who left her for another woman decades earlier. She is also deeply suspicious of her two children and daughter-in-law Lily Johnson (Tracey Hamilton), who she…
