If you’ve ever seen and enjoyed Baz Luhrmann’s kinetic Romeo + Juliet (1996), you’ll probably enjoy Die in a Gunfight. Like Luhrmann, director Collin Schiffli updates Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet for a contemporary audience. Although the result is a mixed bag, Schiffli gets it mostly right. The film reminded me a lot of the recent…
For those unfamiliar with John Steinbeck’s classic 1937 novella Of Mice and Men, a strumming pre-show soundtrack accompanying the rustic bunkhouse staging (Bill Haycock, designer) plants Ad Astra audiences firmly in its Depression-era California setting. Lighting also warms us to the tender take at the heart of the story as we meet is main characters,…
If you combine Captain Hook with a swarm of bees you have an idea of the antagonists in the horror-thriller Candyman. This 2021 version is based on the 1992 film of the same name written by Bernard Rose, and the short story The Forbidden by Clive Barker. Jordan Peele (Get Out), Win Rosenfeld and Nia…
You don’t have to look hard to see the shadows looming over Lisa Joy’s Reminiscence. The film is essentially a re-working of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, with futuristic elements overlaying the noirish story. What Joy does with the tale is clever, but it never surpasses the original. Joy is better known as a screenwriter, notably for…
La Verónica centres on social media star and footballer’s wife Verónica (Mariana Di Girólamo). Her persistent efforts to procure a sponsorship deal could be derailed by re-surfaced murder charges concerning an infant. Director Leonardo Medel frames the entire film in medium close-up with Verónica’s face in the centre. This conceit hinges on the idea that…
Liam Neeson’s new action thriller Ice Road is as a cross between reality series Ice Road Truckers and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s tense 1953 drama The Wages of Fear. If you’re not familiar, in The Wages of Fear, a group of men were hired to transport a shipment of volatile nitroglycerine through treacherous mountain passes and across…
The slow-moving period piece Fanny Lye Deliver’d is a film mired in pain. The year is 1657. The place: Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Fanny Lye (Maxine Peake) is a hard-working farmer’s wife, living a life of Puritan stricture. Her husband, John (Charles Dance), is a cruel former army captain returned from…
“Welcome Julius Caesar” we see posted on a side-of-stage whiteboard before La Boite’s world premiere contemporary reimagining of Shakespeare’s political thriller Julius Caesar fills the space. As the show starts, notices are added, a rack of costumes wheeled in and hand props put in their place. Soon, the actors being arriving for their first rehearsal. Chenoa…
Stellar lead performances, brilliant staging, evocative lighting, a healthy dollop of Disney magic and a delightful sense of humour underpin a triumphant story of sisterly love in Frozen The Musical. It is the perfect blend of comedy, emotion and theatrics, and brings to life the story of Elsa and Anna, separated by a potentially deadly curse. The…
With book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and choreography by Jerome Robbins, West Side Story is one of the most celebrated musicals of all time. Opera Australia and GWB Entertainment’s production of the classic is vibrant and textured, balancing the contrasts in its story of gangs and love. The plot, which…
