This second instalment of the action science fiction thriller picks up where The Maze Runner left off. As the Gladers are unloaded from the chopper that flew them away from the maze, the helicopter doors fly open and masked soldiers whisk them into an underground bunker. The bunker is run by the duplicitous Janson (Aidan…
Enthusiasm for Shakespearean adaptations shows no sign of waning, as Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel (Snowtown) assembles an A-list cast for a stunningly visual and viscerally gripping version of the classic Macbeth. At its most basic, Macbeth is the tale of a struggle for power in Dark Ages Scotland; and Kurzel has wisely decided to strip…
After a two-year hiatus and a restructure, JYM Theatre Co, Australia’s only Jewish musical theatre company is back, re-launching with a Stephen Sondheim musical, from a book by George Furth. Born in 1930, Sondheim has a rich and enduring legacy in musical theatre. He has received an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards, eight Grammy Awards,…
Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Incendies) has proven himself to be a director with few peers. Now he is at it again, with tough and gritty filmmaking at its finest. In Mexico, Sicario means hitman. When Arizona FBI agent and kidnap response team leader Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) uncovers a Mexican house of death, her shocking find…
Gritty and raw, this is no film for the feint hearted. During the late ’80s, the streets of Compton, California were some of the most dangerous in the country. The plague of crack cocaine was escalating at a rate as alarming as the violent, gang-driven business that propelled its use. The LAPD and its specialised…
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…
This fascinating insight chronicles the adventures of an eclectic group of young pioneers who … well … changed the world. These were Canadian hippie journalists, photographers, musicians, scientists and American draft dodgers who set out to stop Richard Nixon’s atomic bomb tests in Amchitka, Alaska and end up creating a worldwide green movement. Greenpeace was…
As we filed into La Boite’s Roundhouse Theatre the stage was set as the square ring – the boxing arena. Boxers sparred and trained, skipping rope, punching the heavy bag, doing push-ups while being urged on by a thumping sound track and the bellowing voice of trainer Luke, played beautifully by the diminutive Margi Brown…
Ride and Fourplay are two early works from Jane Bodie. Both are lengthy one act plays. The evening is three hours long. It didn’t feel like it on the night I attended. Ride (2001), is a two-handed journey as two ‘moderns’ wake up in a bed not remembering how they got there or what subsequently…
Another week, another reboot of a defunct film franchise. This time it is The Transporter series, which was first created by Luc Besson in 2002. Besson is the French filmmaker who makes kinetically exciting, fast paced but formulaic Euro thrillers and vapid Hollywood-style action movies like Lucy, Kiss Of The Dragon, etc. But it’s been…
