I regularly whine about the quality – or lack of it – in Australian movies. Today is the turn of a ham-fisted family comedy. Caroline Morgan (Robyn Butler) is delighted when her sister, ‘stage mum’ Beth (Portia de Rossi), brings her precocious movie star daughter, Honey (Lucy Fry) home from LA for a visit, complete…
The Darlinghurst Theatre and the Enright family have joined together to produce a-play-a-year by Australian writer, Nick Enright. Last year they produced together Daylight Saving, next year, A Man with 5 Children. In the Eternity Playhouse, Iain Sinclair has directed Enright’s Good Works (1994). Good Works presents the story of two families over a 50…
Minusonesister is the Sydney Theatre Company’s (STC) Patrick White Playwright’s Award of 2013, by Anna Barnes. The action of the play is set in a contemporary, salubrious household of an Australian city, with a set of siblings – three sisters and brother – struggling, inside a wrapped crime scene room, to make sense of the…
The seed of the book that became The Patterson Girls, Rachael Johns’ first foray into contemporary fiction, came from a weed. As Johns tells it, the paddocks around the town where she then lived were covered in what appeared to be a beautiful purple flower. She soon discovered that the flower was an invasive weed…
Quirky, comedic and endearing are three words to describe this charming independent film starring Jemaine Clement, from Flight of the Conchords. Clement plays Will Henry, a 40-year-old graphic novelist (he draws cartoons), a teacher at a school of visual arts and the father of twins. At the girls’ fifth birthday party, his seemingly picture-perfect Brooklyn…
Debate continues regarding the issue of marriage equality and same sex marriage, particularly here in Australia where our conservative politicians are slow to react to the change in public consciousness on a global basis. And those opposed to the concept still bandy about concerns about “the welfare of the children” and the lack of either…
With an unlikely but extremely talented lead (who also happens to have written the piece), Judd Apatow (Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin) is at the top of his game directing this politically incorrect comedy. Since she was a little girl, it’s been drilled into Amy (Amy Schumer) by her womanising father Gordon (Colin Quinn…
Rarely will you see such a powerful script acted by such a powerful actor. For 75 minutes Libby Munro mesmerised the audience with a one-woman performance that made the audience chuckle, sympathise, admire, and finally weep for her. She played The Pilot, who opened the show as a highflying American fighter pilot who flew lethal…
Boxing films of distinction have a long and illustrious history. Think Rocky, Raging Bull, When We Were Kings, The Boxer, Million Dollar Baby and The Fighter, to name but a few. First up then, a technical explanation. Southpaw, in boxing parlance, for those not associated with the sport, is the regular stance for a left-handed…
Some books you save for a rainy day. Season of Salt and Honey by Hannah Tunnicliffe landed on my review shelf a while ago, but I’ve been saving it. I sensed that this was a book for savouring … and I was right. The cover spoke to the foodie in me and finding out there were recipes…
