Taylor Swift has already played Australia in 2024, as the entire country knows. Billie Eilish will hit the country's stages in 2025. Arriving in-between: Olivia Rodrigo, with the former Disney talent — see: Bizaardvark and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series — bringing her huge GUTS world tour Down Under in October 2024. When we say huge, we mean it. With the addition of four Aussie dates alongside new gigs in Bangkok, Thailand, Seoul, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore, the tour now spans 82 concerts around the globe. In Australia, Rodrigo has a two-night date with Melbourne and then another two with Sydney. Fans elsewhere, you'll be needing to travel. Touring in support of her second studio album that's also called GUTS, three-time Grammy-winner Rodrigo is hitting Rod Laver Arena Wednesday, October 9–Thursday, October 10 to start her Aussie visit. The next week, from Thursday, October 17–Friday, October 18, she'll play Qudos Bank Arena. In both Sydney and Melbourne, New Zealand singer-songwriter Benee will also take to the stage in support This is 'Drivers License', 'Good 4 U' and 'Vampire' singer Rodrigo's first arena tour, as well as her first tour Down Under — and she'll have her debut album SOUR to work through as well. The GUTS tour started in Palm Springs in February, saw Rodrigo do four shows at Madison Square Garden in April, and is currently making its way around the UK before heading to Europe, back to the US, then to Asia and Australia. Olivia Rodrigo GUTS World Tour 2024 Australian Dates: Wednesday, October 9–Thursday, October 10 — Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne Thursday, October 17–Friday, October 18 – Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney Olivia Rodrigo is touring Australia in October 2024. Ticket presales start at 1pm on Wednesday, May 15, and general sales at 1pm on Thursday, May 16 — head to the tour website for further details. Images: Chris Polk, Polk Imaging.
Lost Paradise is back for the fourth year in a row, after selling out its past three incarnations. Returning to Glenworth Valley from December 28 to January 1, the event will host 76 local and international artists, including local electronic goalkickers RÜFÜS, Sweden's Little Dragon, Aussie folk favourites Matt Corby and Meg Mac, Sydney lads DMAs, dynamic Melburnian duo Client Liaison and more. There'll be two new stages this year, My Mum's Disco, where, in between retro beats and '80s kitsch, you'll be playing bingo and banging out karaoke, and K-Sub Beach Club, to be run by Kraken, a collective dedicated to all things Victorian. Main stage Arcadia will host what's been designated as 'indie', while techno and dance will settle into the Lost Disco stage. Meanwhile, the Paradise Club will take care of late night shape-throwers with DJs and surprise guests. If you've blissed your way through previous New Year's Eves at Lost Paradise's Shambala Fields, you'll be glad to know they're making a return, with their cornucopia of yoga classes, dance workshops and meditations. Teachers on the schedule include Ana Forrest, Jose Calarco, Mark Whitwell, Simon Borg Olivier, Nicole Walsh and Mark Breadner. In between dancing and getting mindful, you can fuel up in Lost Village, where a herd of food trucks will be dishing out all sorts of tasty morsels. Look out for Eat Art Truck's hot smoked pulled pork buns, Agape's organic goodies, The Dosa Deli's handmade samosas, Maverick Wings' crispy chicken and kimchi coleslaw, Harvest Life as Tsuru's poke bowls and Cuba Cantina's street food from Havana. Here's what you're in for this year: LOST PARADISE 2017 LINEUP: RÜFÜS Little Dragon Matt Corby Meg Mac DMA's Client Liason Cut Copy San Cisco Tourist Stephen Bodzin Cigarettes After Sex Patrick Topping Jon Hopkins (DJ Set) Jackmaster FKJ Middle Kids Âme (Live) Skeggs Palms Trax Apparat Nadia Rose Sampa The Great Koi Child Mall Grab Dean Lewis B.Traits Roland Tings My Nu Leng Cut Snake Human Movement Billy Davis & The Good Lords CC:Disco GL Tiny Little Houses Alex The Astronaut Nyxen Sloan Peterson Mammals The Ruminators Motorik Vibe Council Robongia Krankbrother Thunderfox Gypsys of Pangea Uncle Ru Ariane Ben Nott Brohn Dibby Dibby Soundsystem DJ Gonz Elijah Something Foreigndub Inner West Reggae Disco Machine Kali and more... Lost Paradise returns to Glenworth Valley from December 28 to January 1. Tickets are on sale now from the festival website. Image: Dave Anderson and Boaz Nothham.
Not only is Troye Sivan one of Australia's brightest pop stars, he's also a Queer icon with a strong perspective on diversity and inclusion. At Town Hall, he'll be in conversation with Lillian Ahenkan — AKA Flex Mami, the multidisciplinary Sydney-based creative — to discuss "beauty, art and fluidity" as part of Vivid Sydney's Global Storytellers series. Despite being only 26 years old, Sivan has been in the eye of the public since his teens — performing on TV and online from 2006 — and has spoken out about his discomfort around being singled out while also wanting to be a voice for the Queer community. This layered experience forms a unique standpoint, with the creative force sure to have some fascinating insights to share in this intimate event.
Lengthy is the list of Australian actors who've started their careers on home soil, then boosted their fame, acclaim and fortunes by heading abroad. Some have won Oscars. Others are global household names. One plays a pigtailed comic book villain in a big film franchise, while another dons a cape and wields a hammer in a competing blockbuster saga. David Gulpilil doesn't earn any of the above descriptions, and he isn't destined to. It wouldn't interest him, anyway. His is the face of Australian cinema, though, and has been for half a century. Since first gracing the silver screen in Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout, the Yolŋu man has gifted his infectious smile and the irrepressible glint in his eye to many of the nation's most important movies. Indeed, to peruse his filmography is to revel in Aussie cinema history. On his resume, 70s classics such as Mad Dog Morgan and The Last Wave sit alongside everything from Crocodile Dundee and Rabbit-Proof Fence to Australia, Goldstone and Cargo — as well as parts in both the first 1976 film adaptation of Storm Boy and its 2019 remake. The latest film to benefit from the Indigenous talent's presence: My Name Is Gulpilil. It might just be the last do to so, however. That sad truth has been baked into the documentary ever since its subject asked director Molly Reynolds and producer Rolf de Heer — two filmmakers that Gulpilil has collaborated with before, including on Another Country, Charlie's Country, Ten Canoes and The Tracker — to make something with him after he was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer. That was back in 2017, when he was given just six months to live. Gulpilil has been proving that diagnosis wrong ever since. This heartfelt portrait of an Australian icon like no other also benefits from his defiance, particularly in practical terms. Initially starting out as a 30-day shoot, the doco eventually extended over twice that period, with Gulpilil, Reynolds and their movie alike all given the most precious thing there is: more time. The film that results celebrates a star who'll never be matched, and reminds viewers exactly why that's the case — but My Name Is Gulpilil isn't a mere easy, glossy tribute. Anyone could've combined snippets of Gulpilil's movies with talking heads singing his praises. In the future, someone probably will. But Reynolds is interested in truly spending time with Gulpilil, hearing his tale in his own words, and painting as complete a portrait of his life, work, dreams, regrets, spirit, culture and impact as possible. Accordingly, this touching feature steps through Gulpilil's highs and lows as relayed by the man himself. It spends much of its duration enjoying simply being with dancer, painter and actor, in fact. It surveys his daily routine in Murray Bridge in South Australia, too, where he now lives with a carer so that he can get western medicine's help. It also follows him to appointments, then watches on as he weathers his treatments. In her thoughtful, contemplative, affectionate and astute approach, Reynolds lets her audience peer deeply and listen intently. Her film favours soaking, basking and ruminating over clapping and cheering, and it was always going to be all the better for it. Marking and commemorating Gulpilil's many achievements is important, and his feats should and will rightly be remembered and saluted — but even the most vivid collection of clips and most enthusiastic rundown of his awards and other successes can only convey part of his story. There's just nothing like just passing the minutes with Gulpilil, especially when he stares directly at the camera, dives into his memories and unleashes one of his many sprawling but powerful tales. There's also nothing like facing him, taking in all that he's done for Aussie cinema and Indigenous representation, and simultaneously confronting the fact that he's unlikely to brighten up our screens again. My Name Is Gulpilil is many things, including a clear-eyed picture of a man trying to navigate terminal cancer and everything that comes with it — and it doesn't shy away from that reality at any turn. Just as moving and pivotal is its commitment to showing Gulpilil's approach to the end that awaits us all. By choosing to live in Murray Bridge to undergo treatment, he chooses to live away from Country, a decision that visibly haunts him. So, he prepares for what he describes as a one-way ticket home by planning. He spins his hair into fibre, and talks through the ceremony that will farewell both his body and spirit. For Reynolds, he poses in a coffin beneath unspooled reels of film. There's playfulness in the latter image, but such a forthright approach to death never comes as a surprise. When My Name Is Gulpilil addresses Gulpilil's time in the long grass, his run-ins with the law and his addictions, mentioning them alongside his trip to Cannes, meeting with the Queen, and interactions with everyone from Muhammad Ali to Bob Marley, the film is similarly frank and unflinching. My Name Is Gulpilil does still feature glimpses of its namesake's movies, of course. Given the wealth of material at hand — spanning plenty of the aforementioned titles, plus plenty more — no ode to Gulpilil would be complete without clips here and there. Just as Reynolds ensures that her audience genuinely takes in his inimitable presence, his culture, his health, and his ups and downs, she finds poetic ways to segue from archival and film footage to present-day scenes and back, putting them all to the most meaningful use. With editor Tania Nehme's (ShoPaapaa) considerable help, this documentary proves an act of cinematic weaving, rather than unfurling. It knows when to watch Gulpilil and an emu walk the same dusty path, when quiet reflection from the man himself is in order, and when snippets of his candour and charm from his 2004 one-man autobiographical stage show are needed instead. It's also well aware that no one will ever get the chance to make this movie again, and that only a film of astounding intimacy, honesty and insight could ever do the face of Australian cinema justice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK1DLvEkvtA&feature=emb_logo
With the last film finally released, the Harry Potter juggernaut has finally ground to a halt. No more books. No more films. For many fans it marks the end of childhood and for a few people, it will thankfully mean the end of acting careers. Sure, JK Rowling has moved the empire online with Pottermore, but for many, the magic is gone. If you find life a little empty without Hogwarts perhaps you should give quidditch a try. The muggle version is a little like lacrosse or handball, but with broomsticks, and an extra person dressed in yellow playing the role of the snitch. Some Australian universities have founded teams, and there's talk of a trans-Tasman competition. All eyes will soon be on the 5th annual quidditch world cup, contested by American colleges and teams from around the world, being held in New York in November. The event has been described by Fox sports as "a cross between the superbowl and a medieval festival" and although people might dress up to go along, the competition on the field is fast-paced and hotly contested.
The Germans and Brisbane have had a long-term relationship for as long as as our short history allows. If you thought The German Club was just some fun drinking hole for post-Gabba shenanigans, then you were wrong. It wouldn't be right not to share this photo of the original Brisbane German Club from 1896. Boasting some bad-ass turrets, sadly this guy burnt down in the 40s. Immediately it becomes clear that despite the inclusion of beer halls, the German Club is now tragically sans turrets. The beauty of the club is that it is one for all ages. Membership costs $5 for five years and may be the best $5 ever spent. If you are still undecided about whether you wish to pay for membership in this worthy club, then let these words assist you: 'Brisbane's Best Pork Knuckle'. The German Club's 130+ year-old restaurant Zum Kaiser makes this claim boldly, in lights at their entrance, and there is little disputing this. If you want German pork knuckle, this is the place to go in Brisbane. At $25.90 for a slow-roasted pork hock with fried potatoes, sauerkraut and smoked beer gravy, this is why you visit. The meal is enormous, but when else can you have an entire pork roast, with a surface area that is almost 100% crackling, all to yourself? If you find navigating a knife around a giant hock too finicky, and you're too dainty (or well-mannered) to pick it up and gnaw the bone, then the pork belly — coal roasted with buttered parsley potatoes and braised sweet red cabbage ($24.90) — is a pretty solid second choice. Ja, das ist schmeckt lecker. If you are not there for the pork knuckle (though it must be to accompany someone who is) there is something for you too: schnitzel (chicken, pork or veal), sauerbraten (German style beef pot roast in a red wine vinegar marinade with potato dumplings and braised sweet red cabbage), bratwurst and knackwurst with mashed potato, sauerkraut, vegetables and mustard are all warming and filling. They have a huge selection of German beers, but consider their signatures to be the Schlösser Alt (with a dry and malty finish) and the Munich lager, Löwenbräu. Unless you are a member of the hungry and thirsty horde that descends upon the German Club, don't bother trying to get a table after a match. The place attracts a reasonable crowd on most evenings, but it practically bursts at the seams on game days with folks streaming in from the Gabba.
Another month, another round of Lune Croissanterie specials — aka the tastiest thing about flipping over your calendar. The beloved bakery celebrates all 12 parts of the year with a different lineup of treats, such as lamington cruffins among its January specials earlier this year, bolognese and bechamel-filled lasagne pastries in June, and Iced Vovo cruffins and tiramisu pastries in July. With spring now upon us, it's going pink and floral. On Lune's September menu: finger bun croissants and cherry blossom cruffins. If you like beloved desserts that have been turned into other sweet treats — or mashups, food hybrids and the Frankenstein's monsters of baked goods, all those labels fit — prepare to be in culinary heaven. They're both exactly what they sound like, which is delicious, and you can only get them between Thursday, September 1–Friday, September 30. If the finger bun croissants have your tastebuds in a tizzy, they're an old Lune favourite that's making a comeback in-store in Fitzroy and South Brisbane, and also online at the latter. They're made with traditional croissants that are brushed with strawberry syrup, then filled with a coconut milk frangipane and house-made strawberry jam. On top: a whipped coconut icing, because a finger bun isn't a finger bun without the icing. And yes, they're also dipped in desiccated coconut. Feel like celebrating spring with cherry blossom cruffins? You know how cruffins work by now — the ol' muffin-croissant mashup that they are — and these ones have been piped with whipped cherry blossom ganache and raspberry jam. That's what you'll find on the inside, which definitely counts. On the outside, expect a dusting of icing sugar and freeze-dried raspberry powder, then a cherry blossom meringue on top. And you can nab these from the same spots: in-store in Fitzroy and South Brisbane, and online at South Brisbane as well. The September specials list also boasts an everything croissant at all stores — a new product that's made from strips of herb filled pastry which are twisted into a bun, then covered with Lune's 'everything bagel'-inspired seasoning, and also piped with a chive cream cheese after they're baked. And, all stores are doing choc-chip cookies, too, which sees Lune fill its pain au chocolate with a biscuit frangipane and extra chocolate chips, then add dulcey ganache and chunks of choc chip cookies on top when they're out of the oven. Just at Fitzroy and South Brisbane (including online at the latter), there's coconut Kouign Amanns as well — and as a South Brisbane exclusive, asparagus danishes. If you're on snacks duty for September — in the office or at home — your job just got easier and tastier. Lune's September specials menu runs from Thursday, September 1–Friday, September 30, with different specials on offer at Fitzroy and the CBD in Melbourne, and South Brisbane and Burnett Lane in Brisbane. From the South Brisbane store only, you can also order them online. Images: Pete Dillon.
A night out at at one of Brisbane's top restaurants doesn't have to start or end with dinner. An evening at Stanley, the Cantonese go-to at Howard Smith Wharves, will soon be able to expand beyond your meal without leaving the premises, in fact. While there's no change to the eatery's operations downstairs in its heritage-listed 1930s-era former water police building by the river, the restaurant's upstairs space is relaunching as a new lounge bar called Stan's. Accordingly, of the city's best places to eat is about to become one of its must-visit places for a drink as well. Stanley announced its new addition early in September 2024, and will open the doors at Stan's on Thursday, October 3. So, when you're not tucking into a feast of dishes on the ground level — including yum cha daily for lunch — you'll want to head up a floor for beverages over snacks in a newly transformed part of the site. At Stan's, the vibe and the decor take inspiration from Hong Kong — and the idea is to mix old-world touches with modern flourishes as well. Think: jewel-hued furnishings and decor, such as rich red seating and velvet curtains in emerald tones; dark and moody lighting; antique mirrored wall panels, including the back bar; timber aplenty as accents; hand-painted mural walls across the private lounge; and aged brass cocktail tables to sit at. This is also a place to make shapes or simply enjoy DJ-spun tunes, thanks to a vintage JBL sound system. The promise for the music choices: extensive and eclectic. The bar will have folks on the decks most evenings, and also host album listening sessions in the middle of the week. Turning the space into a late-night dance floor is encouraged. Naturally, cocktails feature prominently on the beverage list — and the approach here is classic-meets-new, too. Martinis and daiquiris are highlights, with the signature martini menu letting patrons pic their gins or vodkas, bitters and extracts to taste. If you're just after spirits and you have some cash to splash, a collection of vintage tipples from around the world, some dating from as far back as the 60s, is also a drawcard. You'll find the range of rare drops on display in a custom-built cabinet. Stanley Executive Chef Louis Tikaram isn't just focusing on the main restaurant downstairs when Stan's begins trading. He's whipped up a new range of Cantonese bites just for the upper floor, designed to match the beverages. Options span steamed lobster and truffle dumplings, rolled peking duck pancakes and painted tropical crayfish, ensuring the venue's luxe vibes come through in its food offering. "My aim was to design a menu to complement the vibrant energy of Stan's, with every dish crafted to elevate your experience — bringing refined Cantonese flavours to life in a way that feels modern, approachable, and perfect for sharing alongside great music and drinks," explains Tikaram. "We've reimagined a space that captures the charm of Hong Kong's past while delivering an unforgettable bar experience where people can come together to enjoy exceptional drinks, food, music and service. It's an elevated offering while keeping the fun front and centre. We can't wait to welcome everyone to Stan's," adds Stanley and Howard Smith Wharves owner Adam Flaskas. Now start imagining how Stan's will fit into the newly announced development plans for HSW, which — if approved — include a second hotel, a new music hall, and an overwater pool. Find Stan's on level two at Stanley, Howard Smith Wharves, 5 Boundary Street, Brisbane, from Thursday, October 3, 2024 — open Monday–Thursday 3pm–1am and Friday–Sunday 12pm–1am. Head to the venue's website for more details.
We don't recommend taking regularly life advice from cartoon characters, but ever since an animated crab sang about the joys of living under the sea, it's an idea that's been lodged in everyone's minds. Nearly three decades after The Little Mermaid told us "darling it's better down where it's wetter", you can now experience the underwater life for yourself. If you've ever wanted to make like Ariel and slumber surrounded by sea life, Conrad Maldives Rangali Island has made that dream a reality by building a lavish underwater hotel suite. Now open and welcoming guests, the US$15 million space is being called the world's "first undersea residence" — and while a series of submerged villas in Dubai and a room at an African hotel might beg to differ, this still looks and sounds mighty impressive. Named The Muraka, which means coral in Dhivehi, the Maldives' local language, it's a two-level apartment that comes complete with sleeping and living quarters both above and five metres below the waterline. While the top floor boasts two bedrooms and bathrooms, including one with an ocean-facing tub; a powder room, gym, living room, kitchen, bar and dining area; two separate decks facing directly towards the sunrise and sunset; an infinity pool; and even butler's and private security quarters (with staff on hand 24 hours a day), it's the lower level that's the main attraction. Let's face it — you know that's exactly where everyone will head first. Down a spiral staircase, guests will find a king size bedroom, living area and bathroom, all surrounded by 180-degree panoramic views of the Indian Ocean's marine inhabitants. In total, the suite sleeps nine, making it a luxe destination for travelling groups with plenty of cash. And we do mean plenty, with Architectural Digest reporting that a stay costs around US$50,000 per night. That's not the only underwater experience on offer at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island — for the past 13 years, the resort has also been home to an undersea restaurant, so you can eat beneath the ocean's surface as well. Images: Justin Nicholas. 2018 Hilton.
In front of the camera, Thomas M Wright's first credit came courtesy of Round the Twist. Two decades later, he has roles on everything from The Secret Life of Us, Top of the Lake and The Bridge through to Van Diemen's Land, Balibo, Everest and Sweet Country to his name. But since hopping behind the lens in 2018, the Australian actor-turned-filmmaker has proven one of the country's most fascinating new directors — first with Acute Misfortune and now with the upcoming The Stranger. That initial helming stint saw Wright take on the story of artist Adam Cullen and journalist Erik Jensen, after the latter was invited to stay with the former in 2008 to turn his life story into a biography. One of the most stunning recent Aussie filmmaking debuts, Acute Misfortune not only explored its subject in a riveting warts-and-all fashion, but also interrogated the nation's fascination with festering masculinity — and yes, it truly was something special. Premiering at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, then set to arrive in Australian cinemas on October 6 before hitting Netflix around the globe on October 19, The Stranger also draws from reality — from the effort to apprehend the person responsible for Daniel Morcombe's abduction and murder. That said, this isn't a recreation or a dramatisation. If you didn't know about the ties to reality going in, or even before pressing play on the just-dropped new trailer, you probably wouldn't pick it — even with lines like "this is the largest missing person's case in the history of our state and is one of the largest in the history of our country". Crucially, The Stranger isn't about the crime, but focuses on the undercover operation to bring the perpetrator to justice. Joel Edgerton (Thirteen Lives) stars as Mark, who goes undercover to befriend drifter Henry (Sean Harris, Spencer) — first striking up a conversation while travelling, with Henry unaware of Mark's true identity and motives. While fictionalised, The Stranger joins Australia's growing list of unsurprisingly tense films unpacking dark chapters in the nation's past, such as Chopper, Snowtown and Nitram. Check out the trailer for The Stranger below: The Stranger will release in Australian cinemas on October 6, and stream Down Under via Netflix from October 19.
When a well-loved venue gets a sibling, the connection between the two spots usually earns a lot of chatter. You sit, you enjoy, you compare, you discuss all those times spent at the first watering hole — all while you're scoping out the new location. And, at Newstead's Stratton Bar & Kitchen, that's likely to be the case. It's the latest venture from Mrs Brown's Bar & Kitchen owners Ben and Tarryn Brown, so there's plenty to talk about. That said, this newcomer's ties to another Newstead go-to isn't the only thing that's worth noticing. Conversation topic number one: the fact that that Stratton calls two old World War II hangars home, which the Browns have converted into quite the impressive hangout. Thanks to not only the site's curved roof, but all of its exposed beams hovering above while patrons eat and drink, that history is inescapable. More than that, it's downright striking to look at. The 920-square-metre venue boasts four sections: a 150-seat dining area, which still retains the laidback vibe that's such a feature at Mrs Brown's; a central bar perched under that eye-catching curved ceiling; a 150-person function space; and a covered courtyard. That gives Brisbanites plenty of reasons to drop by, but one of the biggest comes from its address. As the name makes plain, you'll find the bar and kitchen on Stratton Street — and right next door to The Triffid to be specific. Whether you're heading in pre- or post-gig, or just because, Stratton serves up a menu that goes heavy on home-style share plates and one-handed bar snacks, with chef Andrew Toms overseeing the food. Culinary highlights include cheeseburger dumplings, chicken karaage milk buns, sweet and sour broccoli and roast duck breast with citrus sauce. Or, there's peanut butter soba noodles, cacio e pepe udon, bolognese and burrata pizza, and a choc-orange delight of a dessert dubbed 'jaffa garden' that features orange jelly, burnt orange puree, burnt orange curd and dehydrated chocolate mousse. When it comes to washing down those dishes — with a sizeable amount of gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian options also covered — the drinks list hits around 70 bottles in 250-millilitre pours, plus a hefty cocktail range. Standouts include the Kill Bill (Nikka whisky from the Barrel, Midori, Oscar.697 Rosso vermouth and pineapple), the cheeseburger bloody mary (which adds an in-house blend of herbs and spices to vodka and tomato juice to make your tastebuds think they're drinking a cheeseburger) and the Cherry Ripe (Wildflower vodka, cherry, Borghetti coffee liqueur and Tempus crème de cacao). Or, you can show some homegrown love with the Lamington (Wildflower lamington vodka and lemon) and the Aussie negroni (Four Pillars olive leaf gin, Rhubi Mistelle and Davidson plum aperitif). The non-boozy cocktail list spans four drinks, too — and, back on the hard stuff, Aussie spirits get pride of place.
A decade ago, Australia's film festival circuit caught a winter chill. Thanks to both the Sydney Film Festival and Melbourne International Film Festival, the country's cooler months were already a prime time for checking out cinema's latest and greatest from around the world, but the Scandinavian Film Festival levelled up the idea. Do you feel welcomely frostier if you're watching flicks set in and hailing from icy climes while the weather is cold? At this excuse to head to the pictures, yes, yes you do. Focusing on movies from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, the Scandinavian Film Festival has spent the past ten years highlighting both the region's big names and its emerging talents. In 2024, cinemagoers are in for the same format; however, every film fest fan knows that no two iterations of any film fest are ever exactly the same. When it tours the nation between Wednesday, July 17–Wednesday, August 14, this year's event has everything from straight-from-Cannes newcomers to a retrospective dedicated to two of the area's biggest icons on its lineup — plus a span of genres from historical dramas and romances to detective tales and sci-fi epics. Making stops in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Perth, and Byron Bay and Ballina, the festival will kick off with The Riot, which relives an IRL battle by miners in the second-largest workplace in Norway against dangerous conditions at the start of 20th century. Still on period-set tales, Stormskerry Maja is the Scandinavian Film Fest's centrepiece flick, with the Finnish movie about a peasant woman married off to a fisherman bringing the book series by Anni Blomqvist to the screen. Also making the leap from the page to cinemas is Boundless, the latest in Denmark's Department Q franchise, which is no stranger to this festival thanks to past entries The Keeper of Lost Causes, The Absent One and Conspiracy of Faith. From Everest, Adrift and Beast filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur, there's also Iceland's Touch, a romantic drama that adapts the novel of the same name, and hops across continents and decades. Elsewhere, When the Light Breaks similarly hails from Iceland — hitting Australia direct from opening Cannes' Un Certain Regard, in fact — alongside thrillers Cold and Natatorium. From Sweden, 2004's King's Game gets a sequel in Kingmaker, Hammarskjöld — Fight for Peace spins a true Cold War tale and Hunters on a White Field heads off on a weekend away in a forest. And Norway's contribution also spans closing night's Songs of Earth, a documentary about the country's wilderness that boasts Wim Wenders (Perfect Days) as an executive producer. The feast of Danish cinema includes Nordic noir Sons starring Borgen's Sidse Babett Knudsen as a prison guard, the Trine Dyrholm (Mary & George)-led Birthday Girl and the World War II-set Before It Ends with Pilou Asbæk (Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom). Or, there's also sci-fi Eternal, about a climate change scientist and a singer falling in love when a fissure splits the ocean floor — and The Promise, about a woman in her car trying to save her nephew's life. 2024's Scandinavian Film Festival's retrospective spotlight is shining on the great Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman, heroing their collaborations, which means screening Autumn Sonata, Persona, the OG Scenes From a Marriage (not the recent American remake) and Cries and Whispers. The fest is also looking backwards with a 35th-anniversary session of Leningrad Cowboys Go America from Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki (Fallen Leaves). Scandinavian Film Festival 2024 Dates: Wednesday, July 17–Wednesday, August 7 — Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas, Adelaide Thursday, July 18–Wednesday, August 7 — Palace James St and Palace Barracks, Brisbane Friday, July 19–Wednesday, August 7 — Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Cinema Como, Palace Westgarth, Palace Penny Lane, The Kino, Pentridge Cinema and The Astor Theatre, Melbourne Wednesday, July 24–Wednesday, August 14 — Palace Norton St, Palace Moore Park, Palace Central and Chauvel Cinema, Sydney Thursday, July 25–Wednesday, August 14 — Palace Electric, Canberra Thursday, July 25–Wednesday, August 14 — Luna Leederville, Luna on SX and Palace Raine Square, Perth Friday, July 26–Wednesday, August 14 — Palace Byron Bay and Ballina Fair Cinemas, Byron Bay and Ballina The Scandinavian Film Festival tours Australia in July and August 2024. For more information or to buy tickets, visit the festival's website.
The Pebble E-Paper Watch campaign, run in April last year, is the most highly funded in Kickstarter history. Having set their initial goal at $100,000, the creators raised a whopping $10,266,845. The second most successful, if you're curious to know, is that of 'OUYA: A new kind of video game console'. Selling itself as 'the first watch built for the 21st century', the Pebble is compatible with both iPhone and Android. It's also fully customisable. The wearer can choose from an array of watch faces, making changes as often as desirable. The designers write that they 'strove to create a minimalist yet fashionable product that seamlessly blends into everyday life'. The selection of apps is growing all the time, from biking and running monitors to golf rangefinders to music software. Bluetooth enables connection with a nearby smartphone, which means that the Pebble can access GPS, and communicate notifications from social networks and email accounts. The phone weighs in at 32 grams and its black and white screen offers a resolution of 144 x 168 pixels. Drawbacks include the tendency to reduce a smartphone's battery life, by up to 10%. Plus, owners of a Blackberry, Windows 7 or Palm phone don't have any chance of compatibility yet. Following delays, the first Pebbles were shipped to Kickstarter supporters in January this year. On July 7, they (the watches, not the supporters) became available on shelves in America's consumer electronics store, Best Buy. [via mashable]
Some venues feel like they've always been there, even if you haven't ever stepped inside. Perched in a prime location on Lutwyche Road in Brisbane's inner north, the Crown Hotel is one such spot. It's been part of Lutwyche since 1881, in fact — and if you need a reason to finally drop in, it's just had a $2.4 million makeover and reopened its doors. Brisbanites can now check out the Crown's new beer garden and heritage pavilion — which seats 140 people — as well as its revamped main sports bar. Overall, the renovations are designed to keep the pub's heritage character, while completely overhauling the interiors. So, design-wise, that means a sleek, warm and airy look and feel, especially if you're sat underneath the strung-up lighting in the beer garden or on the deck overlooking the outside space. The Crown's new colour scheme skews neutral with splashes of black, white and colour, too — as seen in the blue backdrop behind its towering outdoor mural. In the sports bar, there's screens that'll play a range of different sports, brews on tap (obviously) and a counter menu that includes karaage chicken ($14), fried haloumi ($15), chicken parmigiana ($24) and three steak choices ($29–46). You'll find most of those dishes on the bistro lineup as well; however, Executive Chef Dylan Kemp and Head Chef Jamie Blake are also serving up everything from prawn rolls ($16) and confit duck leg ($32) to half Tasmanian salmon ($28), and both beef ($16) and beetroot ($14) tartare. For something sweet, the dessert selection includes whipped baked cheesecake with strawberry and salted shortbread, vanilla bean crème brûlée, and a chocolate brownie with hokey pokey gelato and espresso caramel (all $14). And whether you're looking to drop by for a bite or a beverage, the pub is also set to host weekly bistro specials, plus themed trivia nights, drag bingo, jazz and blues, and live comedy. Images: Markus Ravik.
Brisbane, there’s a new live venue in town. Actually, it’s more than just a place for gigs; it’s a creative music hub. Behind the scenes, all things entertainment have a new place to call home, but that’s not what The Foundry’s opening night is about. Throwing an awesome launch party is the only thing on the agenda when its doors open to the public, a feat that seems to be in the bag. The buzz already surrounding the backpackers-turned-bar — complete with a 300-person live room and adjacent beer garden — is certain to do most of the work; however, it wouldn’t be a party without some blistering tunes. In the first of many nights of speaker-shattering sounds to come, The Foundry has rounded up some of their favourite acts to gets things started. Local 10-piece-plus garage groovesters Velociraptor, Sydney legend SPOD and White Lodge take the honours of being the first bands to grace the stage, while Babaganoüj and James Wright will be keeping the vibe going on the decks between sets. You know you want to be there.
Aussie Aussie Aussie! ...No? We don't do that for literary awards? Regardless, Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan won the Man Booker Prize last night in London, and we couldn't be more proud. Commended for his harrowing POW story The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Flanagan is just the third Australian to ever win the prestigious award. In related news: the first book on your summer reading list is now sorted. The Man Booker, for those not in the know, is one of the most respected awards in the industry. Established in 1968, past winners of the prize have included J.M. Coetzee, Peter Carey, Margaret Atwood, and last year's NZ-born recipient Eleanor Catton. The award (and the $88,000 in prize money) is given to the author with the best book published in English in the UK each year. Though previously reserved for those in the Commonwealth, 2014 was the first year the prize was opened up to authors of any nationality. Because of this Flanagan beat not only a few Brits, but a couple of Americans to win the top prize. Though Neel Mukherjee was tipped to win for his story of family life in Calcutta The Lives of Others, Flanagan prevailed. The Narrow Road to the Deep North is the third consecutive Man Booker winner with a historical focus. Inspired by the hardships of his father, Flanagan's story is about prisoners of war on the Burma Railway. His father died on the day he finished the book. We suggest heading to a bookstore soon, this little Tasmanian gem will be flying off the shelves. If all else fails, a free sample of the book is available via Random House. Happy reading. Via SMH and ABC.
When working nine to five isn't panning out for Raylene 'Red 'Delaney (Krew Boylan, A Place to Call Home), she does what all folks should: takes Dolly Parton's advice. Pouring yourself a cup of ambition is never simple, but when you're a Parton-obsessed Australian eager to make all things Dolly your living, it's a dream that no one should be allowed to shatter. That's the delightful idea behind Seriously Red, which pushes Parton worship to the next level — and idolising celebrities in general — while tracking Red's quest to make it, cascading blonde wigs atop her natural flame-hued tresses and all, as a Dolly impersonator. That's a wonderfully flamboyant concept, too, as brought to the screen with a surreal 'Copy World' filled with other faux superstars; enlisting Rose Byrne (Physical) as an Elvis mimic is particularly inspired. Seriously Red doesn't just get its namesake adhering to Parton's wisdom, whether sung or spoken over the icon's 55-year career. It also splashes the country music queen's adages like "find out who you are and do it on purpose" across its frames as well. They help give the film structure and assist in setting the tone, as this rhinestone-studded movie comedically but earnestly explores two universal struggles. Everyone wants to be true to themselves, and to work out what that means. We all yearn to spend our days chasing our heart's real desires, too. As penned by Boylan in her debut script, and directed by fellow feature first-timer Gracie Otto (after documentaries The Last Impresario and Under the Volcano, plus episodes of The Other Guy, Bump, Heartbreak High and more), Seriously Red spots a big question lurking in these missions for Red, however — because what does it mean when being yourself and scoring your dream gig means being someone else? When the film begins, Red isn't loving or even liking her lot in life, and definitely doesn't want to keep the status quo on purpose. Tension lingers in her real-estate valuer job and at home, where she's turned her mum Viv's (Jean Kittson, Fat Pizza: Back in Business) garage into a flat — and the daily tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen, then to work, is a grind. Even worse, she's tricked into showing up to the company party in her Dolly regalia to be the butt of the office's jokes, although it does get her an in with an impersonator talent agent. Teeth (Celeste Barber, The Letdown) sees an opportunity, Red is willing to take it, and employment and a whole new world follows. Still, Viv can't see how going full Dolly can pay the bills, withholding her support. Also at home, Red's friendship with her best mate Francis (Thomas Campbell, Love and Monsters) feels the strain. Just like its protagonist, embracing this trip down the impersonator rabbit hole — using a Parton-shaped key and plenty of pluck — is easy for Seriously Red. It revels in the look and feel of all things Dolly from outfits to paraphernalia; if something is adorned in a Parton-esque way, this film will likely always love it, short of the flick becoming a movie version of Dollywood. Plunging into the Copy World happens with just as much spirit and affection, and with gags like Dannii Minogue as a Dannii Minogue impersonator. Trevor Ashley's Barbra Streisand tribute gets a whirl, and everyone from Elton John and Freddie Mercury to Madonna and George Michael scores a doppelgänger. If The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding spring to mind — because movies about taking to the stage in big, camp theatrical displays based around music legends has long been in Aussie cinema's DNA — there's a tangible link to the former courtesy of Oscar-winning costume designer Tim Chappel. It should come as no surprise, too, that Boylan's script has Red team up with a Kenny Rogers impersonator (Daniel Webber, Billy the Kid), including to do more than croon 'Islands in the Stream'. In the business, as she flits around the country and even the world busting out her best Dolly, there's no shortage of people who respect the gig — Bobby Cannavale (The Watcher) plays Wilson, an ex-Neil Diamond impersonator-turned-agency owner, as another example — but Seriously Red's Kenny is something else. He lives like his hero 24/7, right down to the attire, locks and facial hair. He's also made 'The Gambler' singer's moniker legally his. And, he's the impetus for Red making a similarly hearty commitment, then also evaluating whether Dolly or Red should actually come first. Glimmering with the same fantastical vibe that gleefully silly recent new instant comedy classic Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar also boasted — cinematographer Toby Oliver lenses both, roving over jewel tones here instead of pastels — there's more verve and attitude than poise to Seriously Red. That always feels fitting. There's a scrappiness to being even the best impersonator, as Red's Parton shows; over and over, she sums up the bulk of the movie. While the film can fall on the awkward side of comic, and its dramatic beats aren't quite in tune (see: Red's conflicts with her family and friends), that can-do attitude keeps shining. Of course a feature about taking a big swing does that itself again and again. Of course a picture about adoring and taking life advice from a legend that has never let anyone else define her, and has proven the epitome of kindness-fuelled resilience over her time in the spotlight, dances to its own song as well. Parton's music isn't always as bright as her smile, though, a truth that Seriously Red also works with. This Dolly-approved flick — with her likeness so prominent and her music instrumental, including sung by both Boylan and the artist herself, it couldn't have happened without Parton's seal of approval — grapples with Red's lows as well as highs. It shows the impact that her self-centred behaviour has on others, too, and the way the world often beams anything but sunshine her way. As an actor, Boylan weathers those ebbs and flows with adaptability and commitment. As a performer playing an aspiring performer whose whole routine is based on another performer, she ensures that Red's raw edges are never buffed away. As a writer, Boylan noticeably leans on tropes, but Seriously Red doesn't need to beg its viewers to have an entertaining time.
Carraway Pier, a cult fish and chip favourite. Oh, it had been a while - years in fact. But a trip down memory lane – to QUT Kelvin Grove – called for a stop by Carraway Pier. And it is safe to say (unlike many nostalgic childhood memories I’ve ruined by recreating) it lived up to the good name. Student favourite, the establishment dishes up fresh fish and chips, salads and burgers to the masses. It's student prices for everyone here - a fillet of barramundi is just $9.90, while a cod, three calamari, two prawn cutlets and chips will only set you back $12. Fortunately low prices doesn't equal poor quality or small portions. The decor is simple with cafe tables and blue plastic chairs, but you can eat in and dine on white ceramic plates using real cutlery and service with a smile. We went with the salt and pepper calamari, chips and salad. The calamari was tender and stacked high, the chips were crispy and the salad, fresh. Be sure to order a tub or tartare or aioli to dip. If fish and chips ain’t your gravy, Carraway’s hearty home-style burgers come in at $7.50, and fruit smoothies are just $5.50. The store just celebrated its eighth birthday and we hope the legendary store sticks around for at least another eight. At nearly half the price of my local fish shop and with no compromise on quality, I might have to go back to uni or move to the other side of the city.
When you have a favourite bar, brewery or eatery, or a beloved joint that offers a great combination of the three, scoring a second place to enjoy its beverages or bites is always welcome news. Slipstream Brewing Company has delivered just that. A beer-pouring — and -making — go-to on Brisbane's southside for the past seven years, it has now opened another location. Meet Slipstream Brewing Social House. Brisbanites will need to head out of town for a sip here, so add checking out the brewery's latest venture to your next trip to the Sunshine Coast. Since Wednesday, October 16, 2024, you'll find Slipstream Brewing Social House in Birtinya, in the local Stockland Shopping Centre, sprawling across a 300-person greenery-filled space with 40 taps, plus both steak and seafood on the food menu — and featuring indoor and outdoor seating, combining al fresco dining with cosy booths. If the word that comes to mind is "hangout", that's by design on co-owners Deale and Elisa Stanley-Hunt's parts. Brisbane's Slipstream Brewing brewpub in Yeerongpilly, which has been open on Wilkie Street since 2017, has the same vibe. The two sibling venues both take cues from America's west coast across their food menus, as Slipstream's beers do as well. On the brews front, the brand has also created a new North Coast pilsner that you can knock back exclusively at Social House. For something other than beer, cocktails, independent spirits, boutique wines and non-boozy choices — coffee among them — are on offer. The culinary options under Head Chef Jarick Quesada include new dishes and highlights from Yeerongpilly across a range of plates to share, grilled eats, burgers, salads, sandwiches and desserts. Think: southern fried chicken tenders with pickled vegetables, popcorn cauliflower, salmon tostadas, crumbed mushroom burgers, rib fillet steak sandwiches, 450-gram pork tomahawks with wagyu fat potatoes, fish tacos made with beer-battered barramundi and chocolate stout brownies. Unsurprisingly, Mooloolaba prawn are also on the menu — served barbecued with 'njuda butter, white wine, napoli sauce, parsley, preserved lemon and toasted ciabatta. Entertainment-wise, Social House is also set to host live music, Oktoberfest shindigs, pinball competitions, weekly trivia nights and more.
When Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art's (MONA) hosts an arts and music festival, it doesn't just compile a standard lineup of shows and events. It curates talents that will hit other bills in other cities, of course, but it also hunts down the kind of gigs and experiences that you generally won't see elsewhere. Take 2023's just-dropped Mona Foma program as a prime example. It was already packed with Pavement, Bon Iver, Bikini Kill, Angel Olsen and Peaches (and Perturbator, The Chills and Kae Tempest), as announced back in October, but now it includes a tunnel of light, 'Complaints Choir' and punk bunker — because of course it does. MONA's summer fest — aka its sunny alternative to its sinister winter arts and culture festival Dark Mofo — will return in February 2023 in a big way. How big? With 370 artists across two weekends. The dates to get excited about: Friday, February 17–Sunday, February 19, 2023 in Launceston, and Friday, February 24–Sunday, February 26, 2023 in Hobart. Now, here's what you'll be seeing. [caption id="attachment_875442" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Debi Del Grande[/caption] Launceston's weekend-long Mona Foma stint will feature a free three-day party at a new hub in the city's decommissioned old TAFE called the reUNIÓN district, which is where those unusual vocals — singing local Launceston grievances — will echo. It's also where there'll be queer woodchopping in the quad, Soccer Mommy taking to the stage and that punk bunker featuring, yes, punk tunes played loud a bunker. Also on the list in Launceston, where Mona Foma has been hitting up since 2019: underwater electronica by Leon Vynehall in the Basin Pool; dance work Body Body Commodity from Jenni Large; James Webb's Prayer, where you will indeed need to kneel while listening to recordings of prayer, song and vocal worship; and Van Diemen's Band and Ensemble Kaboul teaming up for Afghanistan-meets-baroque music. [caption id="attachment_880157" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Prayer, 2012, James Webb. Photo credit: Anthea Pokroy. Image courtesy of the artist and Mona Foma.[/caption] Plus, there's a Fantastic Futures exhibition, a late-night book club overseen by 'sonic librarians', Kenneth Tam's Breakfast in Bed theatre experiment — featuring seven guys he found on Craigslist — and the delightfully named Anthem Anthem Revolution, where you're asked to beat a robot at a game of table tennis. A certain highlight is Hyperbolic Psychedelic Mind Melting Tunnel of Light, with Robin Fox letting attendees take over the light, sound and motion controls one person at a time. Also set to stun is CHANT, with Tasmanian women's sporting clubs performing historic and contemporary feminist protest chants; Lost in Place, a pairing of electro-ambient psychedelic jazz with live dance; Arnhem Land documentary Christmas Birrimbirr; and Martina Hoogland Ivanow's film Interbeing, which only used thermal cameras to shoot human interactions and capture the heat behind them. [caption id="attachment_880156" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Christmas Birrimbirr, (Christmas Spirit), (video still), 2011, Miyarrka Media. Image courtesy of the artist and Mona Foma.[/caption] MONA's summer event was initially held in Hobart, as seasoned fans will remember, and the fest hasn't forgotten its OG home. If that's where you're getting your Mona Foma fix in 2023, you have a stacked lineup in store as well. Many of the fest's big-name acts are playing there — Bon Iver, Bikini Kill, Peaches and Pavement all included — and the MONA lawns will also host a show featuring songwriters from the Pilbara town of Roebourne singing for freedom on the 40th-anniversary year of John Pat's passing in custody, as guided by Ngarluma and Yinjibarndi Elders. Also, Amber McCartney and Tasdance's dance performance Baby Girl will enjoy its world premiere, Nico Muhly takes over the fest as an artist in residence, and the Theatre Royal's program includes IHOS Amsterdam's time travel-inspired PRIMORDIAL For Piano and Diverse Media and film noir opera A Deep Black Sleep. [caption id="attachment_880154" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Climate Notes, Anna McMichael and Louise Devenish. Photo credit: Lucian Fuhler. Image courtesy of the artist and Mona Foma.[/caption] Or, see Climate Notes in Rosny Park, playing five new works for violin and percussion that all take inspiration from scientists' handwritten letters about global warming — and explore Tomas' Garden by Cici (Xiyue) Zhang, where monsters and spirits will feature in an immersive magical landscape. The list goes on, complete with Morning Meditations in both cities — and Chloe Kim doing 100 hours of public drumming over ten days. [caption id="attachment_784488" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Robin Fox laser installation at the Albert Hall, Launceston, Mona Foma 2019. Photo Credit: MONA/Jesse Hunniford. Image courtesy of the artist and MONA Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.[/caption] Already keen to get booking? Fancy a Tasmania trip in the interim? Our Concrete Playground Trips Hobart getaway might also be of interest. Mona Foma will take place from Friday, February 17–Sunday, February 19, 2023 in Launceston, and from Friday, February 24–Sunday, February 26, 2023 in Hobart. Tickets go on sale at 11am on Tuesday, November 29 — head to the festival website for further details. Top image: Regurgitator & Seja & Mindy Meng Wang on guzheng perform The Velvet Underground & Nico. Photo Credit: Mona/Rémi Chauvin. Image Courtesy Mona, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Feeling inspired to book a getaway? You can now book your next dream holiday through Concrete Playground Trips with deals on flights, stays and experiences at destinations all around the world.
Perched next door to Milton craft beer hangout The Scratch Bar, Pita Pit opened its doors last Tuesday. Pita Pit is a franchise with a difference and it has finally found its way to Australia by way of Canada and New Zealand, Bro. There is some debate as to the pronunciation of the word 'pita' but once you take your first bite all will become irrelevant. Perhaps the best thing about Pita Pit is the quality of its ingredients. Rather than having snap locked veges, and processed meat, everything is fresh and the meat is cooked on the grill. My personal favorite is the Chicken Caesar Pita (Small $8.90, Large $10.90), which includes chicken breast, bacon, and your choice of extras. Pita Pit offers all the standard fillings as well as a shipload that you would normally only get at home, including beetroot, pineapple, sprouts, feta cheese, and hummus. If you want a quick, healthy, working lunch, or a post workout feed that won’t have your trainer up in arms then Pita Pit is the answer.
If you're starting to feel like a new season hasn't truly started until Finders Keepers has come to town, you're not alone. The ever-expanding art and design market has been bringing us face-to-face with some of the country's most quirky and creative designers for over a decade now — and it's set to do it all over again when it returns from Friday, October 15–Sunday, October 17. The focus remains, as ever, on helping you discover and connect with the next wave of independent and emerging artisans. Expect to find everything from jewellery, fashion and ceramics to leather goods, body products and items for your pets. Many of the market's seasoned vendors will also return — so, if you've been kicking yourself since last round that you didn't pick something up, you're in luck. And, you're covered when the inevitable shopping-induced hunger strikes, with food trucks and coffee spots on offer. Tickets are $5, which you'll need to buy online this year in advance — whether you're planning to head along on Friday from 5–9.30pm, or on Saturday or Sunday from 10am–5pm. Keen to start creating your shopping list now? You can head to the Finders Keepers market lineup to see the full scope of vendors.
A weekend at the Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre is the ultimate way to start the summer. One stage, two nights, three days: that's the setup when the regional Victorian town that gives both the venue and Meredith Music Festival its name welcomes the warm weather. For more than three decades now, this event has become a tradition — and it'll be back in 2024 to do it all again. When Meredith returns across Friday, December 6–Sunday, December 8, it'll celebrate its 32nd festival. Who'll be helping, aka the lineup, hasn't yet been revealed. But something just as important is on the cards already: the ticket ballot opening as at Wednesday, July 17. Book that long weekend now, pop your name in the running, then cross your fingers that you'll be spending three days at The Sup. Meredith has long stopped being the kind of festival where attendance is dictated by whoever is taking to the stage. Whatever the bill holds, it's a must-attend event anyway. So, now's your chance to attempt to nab your ticket. To obtain a pass to the beloved three-day BYO camping festival, you've got until 10.32pm AEST on Monday, August 12 to enter the ballot. And as for the lineup, anything could happen. 2023's festival featured Kraftwerk, as well as Caroline Polachek, Alvvays, Alex G, Eris Drew & Octo Octa, Flowdan, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Sneaky Sound System, No Fixed Address and Souls of Mischief — and more. In 2022, Meredith's first festival since 2019 due to the pandemic, Caribou, Yothu Yindi and Courtney Barnett led the roster. The full lineup is usually announced in mid-August. We'll update you when details drop. Meredith Music Festival will return to Meredith from Friday, December 6–Sunday, December 8, 2024. To put your name in the ballot to get your hands on tickets, head to the festival's website before 10.32pm AEST on Monday, August 12. Images: Chip Mooney, Ben Fletcher, Chelsea King and Steve Benn.
Writing a prescient tale is the science-fiction holy grail, and a feat that Philip K Dick firmly achieved. Making a movie that becomes the prevailing vision of what the future might look like in the entire world's minds? That's a stunning filmmaking feat, and one that Ridley Scott notched up as well. The reason for both? On the page, 1968's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. In cinemas, 1982's Blade Runner. And if you need reminding of how stunning a story that the iconic sci-fi author penned, or how spectacular a film that the legendary director then turned it into, look no further than Blade Runner's return to the big screen — with a live score. When Dick pondered the difference between humans and artificial intelligence more than half a century back, he peered forward with revelatory foresight. When Scott followed fresh from Alien, he did the same. Now, in 2023, with the clash between the organic and the digital a daily part of our lives in this ChatGPT-heavy reality, of course it's time for Blade Runner to flicker again. Film lovers, get ready for another dream movie-and-music pairing. Get ready for synths, too. Vangelis' stunning score will echo as Scott's feature screens at Melbourne's Hamer Hall, in the only Australian stop announced so far for Blade Runner Live — an event that premiered in London in 2019, made its way around the UK, then hit Japan earlier in 2023. The Victorian capital will host two sessions, on Saturday, November 4–Sunday, November 5, and show the Final Cut version of the movie. Wondering how it differs from the OG release, and also the House of Gucci, The Last Duel and Napoleon filmmaker's Director's Cut? First unveiled in 2007 for the feature's 25th anniversary, it's the only version that Scott truly had full artistic control over. Blade Runner's narrative, if you're new to the franchise — which also includes exceptional 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049 and recent animated series Blade Runner: Black Lotus, with a new Blade Runner TV series also on the way — focuses on the one and only Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) as cop Rick Deckard. His task: finding replicants, aka androids, which turns into quite the existential journey. It's almost impossible to name a movie or TV series in sci-fi that's popped up over the four decades since Blade Runner first arrived that hasn't owed Scott's film a massive debt — and any synthesiser-fuelled score that hasn't done the same with Vangelis. And yes, add Blade Runner to the list of favourites getting another silver-screen run that celebrates their tunes heartily, alongside everything from Star Wars: Into the Spider-Verse to The Lion King to Star Wars and Harry Potter, plus The Princess Bride, Home Alone and Toy Story. Check out the trailer for Blade Runner below: Blade Runner Live will play Melbourne's Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne, on Saturday, November 4–Sunday, November 5. Head to the event website for further details, and tickets from 10am AEST on Friday, August 11.
The beginning of a new year isn't solely about deciding how you'd like to change your life for the better. That's just one January tradition. Another: plotting out where around the world you'd like to travel to across the 12 months to come. Arriving mere days into 2024, The New York Times' annual '52 Places to Go' list is a handy guide for inspiration — including for Down Under spots earning global recognition. After 2023's list included Auckland, Kangaroo Island and Australia's Red Centre to soak in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park's wonders, 2024's counterpart features New Zealand by train, the entire state of Tasmania and Queensland capital city Brisbane. Experiencing Aotearoa's charms by rail placed fourth, while the Apple Isle came in at 29 and Brissie took 39th spot. The NYT gave a 17-day journey across NZ some love for being "a simpler and more sustainable way" to see the country, calling out stops at "transcendent sites like the volcanic peaks of Tongariro National Park and Te Papa Tongarewa Museum" to begin with. Also earning a mention: getting the ferry to the South Island, then taking "a ride through world-class vineyards and along the jagged coast", plus whale- and dolphin-watching in Christchurch, before hitting the Southern Alps for "views to white-capped peaks, rushing rivers and alpine lakes". Tasmania earned its placing for enabling visitors to get out in nature via guided walks, celebrate Indigenous culture and focus on local produce. Taking a three-day trek across Bruny Island, foraging for wattle seeds and pepperberries, and chef Analiese Gregory's wild-cooking dishes all scored a specific callout. Brisbane keeps popping up on lists like this lately — see also: travel guide Frommer's, which also named the city one of 2024's best spots to visit; TIME, which put it on its world's greatest places list for 2023; and the World's Best 50 Hotels, which picked The Calile as its only Australian and Oceanic entry in its inaugural countdown in 223 — and the obvious reason was called out in the NYT's first sentence. Yes, that'd be hosting the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Queen's Wharf precinct and its towering Sky Deck, restaurant Agnes and the Brisbane Powerhouse — including eating dinner hanging off the side of the building at vertical dining experience Vertigo, and the upcoming Melt OPEN queer arts fest — all were singled out. So was The Calile, which is clearly Brissie's most-famous hotel. [caption id="attachment_921654" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Markus Ravik[/caption] Topping the '52 Places to Go' rankings for 2024: North America's path of totality, where a total solar eclipse will be take over the skies in April, followed by Paris — the host of the 2024 Olympics — and Yamaguchi in Japan. Maui in Hawaii rounded out the top five, while Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni in Arizona (the sacred Indigenous land around the Grand Canyon), Singapore, O'Higgins in Chile, Ladakh in India and Geneva in Switzerland filled the rest of the top ten. Across the full 52 picks, Manchester in England, Negombo in Sri Lanka, Morocco, Lake Toba in Indonesia and Ireland's Waterford also featured. So did Mustang in Nepal, Vienna in Austria, the Albanian Alps and Flamingo in Florida — and plenty more spots to instantly put on your must-visit list. For The New York Times' full 52 Places to Go list for 2024, head to the publication's website. Top image: Feeling inspired to book a getaway? You can now book your next dream holiday through Concrete Playground Trips with deals on flights, stays and experiences at destinations all around the world.
There's so much more to experience in Europe than what Tripadvisor will have you believe. If you're planning a multi-country, multi-city trip, don't break your spirit negotiating flights, sleeper trains, wild taxis and hellish overnight buses — cruise from stop to stop and set out to do things a bit differently. Experience an unfamiliar side of these countries at your own pace with the freedom of a river cruise, which includes food, a bed and most importantly, a unique waterside view of Europe's cities. And while you're in the planning stages, be sure to jot one or two of these ideas in your itinerary to make your Euro trip worthwhile. EXPLORE PARIS BY ROOFTOP Sure, The Catacombs of Paris are pretty mind-blowing, but once you've had a squiz at your 30th underground skull, we suggest you set your sights up. The Paris skyline is one of the most inspiring in the world; it's a city filled with rich and wonderful buildings, iconic slate and zinc rooftops, windows and façades of unrivalled grandeur, plus the Eiffel Tower, of course. Take your time sightseeing from Paris's rooftops. Join a Parisian Rooftop tour on the Seine cruise or choose to wander and show yourself around town. Start the morning doing the touristy thing at Notre Dame (if you get there at about 9.30am you shouldn't have to wait too long to get up top), head up to Canal Saint Martin for a weekend brunch or weekday evening charcuterie planche on the rooftop at the water-side Point Éphémère, and round off your day with drinks at Le Perchoir, overlooking the 19th and 18th arrondissements with Sacré Coeur in the distance. CLIMB SOME ROCKS IN SWISS FRANCONIA If you've sunk a few too many of Bamberg's famous smoked beers during your cruise through Deutschland, here's your opportunity to sweat it all out. This area of Bavaria, known as Swiss Franconia, is one of the most popular climbing regions in the world boasting over 6500 different routes. Test your strength and Spidey skills traversing crags, chimneys, boulders and overhangs, and you will be rewarded with some pretty spectacular views. If you're a climbing pro, you may want to give the Action Directe route a try, which has long been considered one of the most difficult free-climbing routes in the world. But novices needn't worry as there are plenty of guided tours, too. DINE IN AUSTRIA'S OLDEST WINERY After a day of strolling through Dürnstein's cobblestone lanes and castle ruins, head to the Nikolaihof winery. Steeped in over 2000 years of history and tradition, the estate is something to behold: the stone walls, which are left over from the site's time as a monastery chapel, are covered in creeping vines; the cellar is set in an ancient Roman crypt; and the courtyard is dominated by an enchanting 100-year-old linden tree. The Saahs family have been running the winery since the late-19th century and are seen as pioneers of organic winemaking; no herbicides or artificial fertilisers are used on the vines and grapes are harvested by hand. Settle in for a few top-notch drops and a home-cooked Austrian feast prepared with organic produce, before you continue on your way down the Danube. LISTEN TO CLASSICAL MUSIC IN VIENNA You don't need to know your Schubert from your Strauss to appreciate the musical nightlife of Vienna. While cruising the Danube, put aside a night to do nothing but sit back, relax and enjoy a schnitzel and bier at Vienna's famous concert cafes. Most of these cafes have an in-house pianist with others offering small bands and a rotating program of live music. Concert café Schmid Hansl is one of the city's most famous — during the war it still hosted jazz sessions. It's open late every night but closed Saturdays. The Cafe Museum is another worthy of a visit. Gustav Klimt, Peter Altenberg and Adolf Loos were all regulars of this little joint and we can't blame them; it's a great place to relax during the day and a magnificent option for a night of music. TASTE AUTHENTIC DUTCH CHEESE IN AMSTERDAM Between all the bike-riding and club-hopping, you're likely to expend quite a bit of energy in the 'dam during the Rhine cruise. So, what better way to refuel than with an afternoon of traditional Dutch cheese? Over the course of an hour, you'll learn all the ins and outs of Dutch cheese: how it's made, how to identify the characteristics between different varieties and how to pair them with wine like a pro. All with plenty of samples, of course. Your course will take place in the tasting room of the famous Golden Age Cheese shop, based in the heart of Amsterdam. It's a real gouda time. Next Euro trip, opt to explore the continent via their rivers. Find out more here.
The epitome of grace and good taste, a finely crafted suit can make all the difference in a number of occasions. No longer relegated to the bland en masse uniform of the corporate nine-to-fiver, the suit is experiencing a resurgence as a statement of personal style, flair and elegance. But how do you know which suit is right for you or should be worn at which occasion? Indochino has made picking the details of your suit nice and simple to build your own personal touch to your corporate, formal or marital attire. The brand lets you customise your suit from shoulder to cuff, pockets to hems. But if you need some guidance in figuring out how to get started, that's where we come in. Here, we've broken it all down for you. Find out about the importance of each part of the suit and how best to accentuate (or downplay) these elements for the strongest effect — no matter the occasion. [caption id="attachment_725467" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Indochino Spring/Summer 2019.[/caption] COLOUR The most immediate impact of your suit will be its colour. Suits, like all clothing, are inherently linked to eras and fashion. Certain colours can accurately indicate the period in which they were popular — think bright blue a couple of years ago, black during the late 90s and early 2000s and, for the more out there, aubergine, brown and fawn from the 70s. Nowadays we see mostly grey, navy and black but occasionally, a colourful number comes along that makes for a great statement. Indochino offers a wide variety of colours that allow for versatility across a number of occasions; a forest green might be a good choice for someone wanting a suit that's a little outside the box but still maintains a level of formality and style. For the occasion where you can be a little bolder, you may choose a purple hue for more effect. And, of course, there are the classic blues, greys and blacks available, too. You could always go with a pattern as well, with multiple patterns like checked, herringbone and striped available — plus there's always a vibrant pocket square and/or tie that can take your look up a notch. [caption id="attachment_725466" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Indochino Spring/Summer 2019.[/caption] LAPELS Essentially there are three types of lapel: notch (the standard), peak lapels (usually found on double-breasted jackets) and shawl, wherein the collar and lapel are made from one piece of fabric. Indochino recommends notch or peak lapels in slim, normal and wide for suits and offers shawl lapels for its tuxedos, as these are always found on traditional dinner jackets and tuxedos, giving a sense of elegance and grandeur. The width of one's lapels is often indicative of style and era — think of the wide Saturday Night Fever-style from the 70s versus the Mad Men-esque slim lapels of the 60s. Another thing to look for is the height at which the lapel joins the collar (the gorge). Currently, the trend seems to hark back to the 60s when gorges were high in order to enhance the slim silhouette of the suit. Another thing to note about lapels (who knew there was so much to know): the lapel hole, made to hold flowers — or a fob or pocket watch if that's more your style. You could even attach a brooch if you want to add some personal flair on a special occasion. You've got a lot of options; now you just need to decide the style (and decade) you're going for. [caption id="attachment_727121" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Indochino Spring/Summer 2019.[/caption] BUTTONS For such a seemingly innocuous detail, buttons bring a suit all together depending on colour and count. Brown buttons tend to be the go-to, with black reserved for black or dark suits and cream for lighter suits. And when it comes to counting 'em, the number of buttons on the front of a jacket is traditionally indicative of your profession, though now, it's more about your style preferences. The most common count on a single-breasted suit is two, though three-button fronts come and go with trends. But the most important thing to remember is the button rule that's accepted the world over: if a jacket has more than one front button, the lowest shouldn't be buttoned. POCKETS Invariably, all suits will have an outer breast pocket, which is always on the left and undoubtedly stems from the fact that most people are right-handed. For the most part, these never have a flap but are made from a single piece of fabric which is folded and sewn into the body of the jacket — a welt pocket. Most jackets will also have at least two 'side' pockets, located above the hip and usually made with a fabric 'flap'. Traditionally the flaps are straight but can be angled to achieve a more rakish look. Slim fitting jackets often have a smaller version above the right hip pocket, which sits almost in the jacket's waist. These are referred to as ticket pockets, because, fun fact, their original purpose was for carrying one's theatre tickets. Inside the jacket, there are usually two breast pockets and often a lower inside ticket pocket. Maintaining the clean line of the suit should be top of mind when wearing a suit, so try not to put too much in them. TROUSERS Well-fitting trousers can make or break the look of a suit. Just think of that suit from year ten formal that just looked a bit silly all bunched up at the ankle and saggy in the seat. You're no longer 16; this look won't cut it. These days, most suits favour a particularly slim leg, though depending on the suit, baggier cuts are also in style, but generally with a higher waist. Broadly speaking, baggy trousers are to be worn with baggy jackets and slim with slim, and for the most part, don't have cuffs. Now that you know where to start, let Indochino help you through the rest of your suit customising journey here. Plus, from now until September 30, 2019, the brand is offering its premium custom suits at a discounted price of $599 for all Concrete Playground readers. Use code CONCRETEPLAYGROUND to receive the discount.
Winter is not traditionally ice cream weather. However, when that ice cream is being served up by Gelato Messina — voted best gelato in Australia, officially by Good Food Guide and unofficially by our taste buds — seasons no longer matter, only taste and the chance to devour as much as you can. With sadly no Messinas opened (yet) in Brisbane, that chance just became a whole lot easier thanks to Uber. The on-demand private driver service has teamed up with the Sydney-founded cult gelato giant for Friday, July 18 only to deliver their deliciousness directly to your door. From 11am, Uber ice cream trucks will be transporting specially prepared packs of Messina around Brisbane (and to cities in over 130 countries), all lucky spots who are in for a very good Friday. And you can enjoy this service with the simple flick of a finger. To order, download the Uber app, then just open it, move the slider to the 'Ice Cream' option and request a delivery to your door in minutes — $20 will get you a 500ml tub ($15 for a cheeky extra one) and some Uber merch. It's easier than serving your own ice cream at home, and definitely more delicious (no offence to your sub-par, store-bought ice cream, but this is pretty much the best there is). If you're a first time user, the tub is free. FREE. Just use the promo code ICECREAMBNE when you sign up for Uber and you'll nab $25 off your Messina purchase (covers the tub and some). You can keep up to date with all of the action on Twitter and Instagram at #UBERICECREAM and @Uber_Brisbane whilst devouring your mouthwatering treat but remember, this is for tomorrow Friday, July 18, only (or Ice-Cream Christmas if you will), so take advantage of this offer whilst you can. Maximum of two tubs per customer, so maybe steer clear of your friends afterwards if you're precious with your iced confections. Get ready Brisbane. We're talking delivered Messina here.
By almost every conceivable metric, 2020 wasn't great. It was downright terrible, in fact. We know that you already know this, but let us share a sliver of good news: it was still a fantastic year for cinema. That's true even with picture palaces across Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the world closing for considerable periods. Indeed, when silver screens reopened again Down Under, and everyone was able to once again sit in darkened rooms and stare at celluloid dreams blown up big just as they're meant to be, we all remembered why the term 'movie magic' exists. And, in those theatres with their popcorn smells and booming sounds, we were able to see truly exceptional films. Every year delivers a treasure trove of movies — so much so that, here at Concrete Playground, we always put together multiple lists of film gems. As part of our end-of-year wrap-ups for 2020, we've already highlighted ten excellent movies that hit cinemas but sadly didn't set the box office alight, as well as 20 other standout titles from this year that really you owe it to yourself to have seen. From everything that flickered through a projector in general release in 2020, we're now down to the pointy end. Each year delivers awful, average and astonishing movies, and we've picked the cream of the crop when it comes to the latter. Some released pre-pandemic, in what seems like another life. Some are yet to hit cinemas, but will before the year is out. From movies that'll have you dancing in the aisles to unsettling head trips, these are the ten absolute best films of 2020 that made their way to the big screen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSFpK34lfv0&feature=youtu.be NOMADLAND Frances McDormand is a gift of an actor. Point a camera her way, and a performance so rich that it feels not just believable but tangible floats across the screen. That's the case in Nomadland, which will earn her another Oscar nomination and could even see her win a third shiny statuette just three years after she nabbed her last for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Here, leading a cast that also includes real people experiencing the existence that's fictionalised within the narrative, she plays the widowed, van-dwelling Fern — a woman who takes to the road, and to the nomad life, after the small middle-America spot she spent her married life in turns into a ghost town when the local mine is shuttered due to the global financial crisis. Following her travels over the course of more than a year, this humanist drama serves up an observational portrait of those that society happily overlooks. It's both deeply intimate and almost disarmingly empathetic in the process, as every movie made by Chloe Zhao is. This is only the writer/director's third, slotting in after 2015's Songs My Brothers Taught Me and 2017's The Rider but before 2021's Marvel flick Eternals, but it's a feature of contemplative and authentic insights into the concepts of home, identity and community. Meticulously crafted, shot and performed, it's also Zhao's best work yet, and 2020's best film as well. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsWV2qTX21k NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS When some movies mention their titles, they do so via a line of clunky dialogue that feels forced, overstressed and makes viewers want to cringe. Never Rarely Sometimes Always isn't one of those films. It does indeed task a character with uttering those exact words, but the scene in which they're voiced is the most devastating and heartbreaking movie scene of the year. Given the premise of writer/director Eliza Hittman's latest feature, that perhaps comes with the territory. It shouldn't, which is one of the points this layered film potently makes, but it does. Upon discovering that she's expecting — and being told by her local women's centre that she should go through with the pregnancy — 17-year-old Autumn (first-timer Sidney Flanigan) has no other choice but to take matters into her own hands. With her cousin Skylar (fellow feature debutant Talia Ryder), she hops on a bus from her Pennsylvania home town to New York to seek assistance from Planned Parenthood. Given that Skylar has stolen the funds for Autumn's abortion out of the cash register at work, and that they don't have enough to cover a place to stay, this isn't a straightforward quest. Hittman's naturalistic style, as previously seen in 2014's It Felt Like Love and 2017's Beach Rats, makes every second of Autumn's ordeal feel intimate, real and unshakeably affecting, as does Flanigan's internalised but still expressive performance as well. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97nnV0fNd30 AMERICAN UTOPIA On paper, American Utopia's concept doesn't just sound excellent — it sounds flat-out superb, stunning and spectacular. A new David Byrne concert film, capturing his acclaimed American Utopia Broadway production, as directed by Spike Lee? Sign the world up, and now. In the most welcome news of the year, the execution matches the idea in this instant masterpiece (and wonderful companion piece to 1984's Stop Making Sense). It'd be hard to go wrong with all of the above ingredients, but Lee's second film of 2020 (after Da 5 Bloods) makes viewers feel like they're in the room with Byrne and his band and dancers like all concert movies strive to but few achieve in such engaging a fashion. Every shot here is designed with this one aim in mind and it shows, because giving audiences the full American Utopia experience is something worth striving for. Byrne sings, working through both solo and Talking Heads hits. He waxes lyrical in his charming and accessible way, pondering the eponymous concept with an open and wise perspective. And he has staged, planned and choreographed the entire performance to a painstaking degree — from the inviting grey colour scheme and the open stage surrounded by glimmering chainmail curtains to the entire lack of cords and wires tethering himself and his colleagues down. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-fxRXzfi0U KAJILLIONAIRE Awards bodies don't tend to recognise performances like Evan Rachel Wood's in Kajillionaire, but they should. It's a career-best effort from an actor with an array of terrific work to her name (most recently in Westworld), and it operates so firmly on the same wavelength as the film she's in that it's impossible to imagine how it would work without her. Kajillionaire is filmmaker Miranda July's latest movie, following Me and You and Everyone We Know and The Future, so it was always going to stand out. It was always going to need a knockout portrayal at its centre, too. Wood plays a 26-year-old con artist called Old Dolio Dyne, who has spent her whole life working schemes and scams with her parents Robert (Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water) and Theresa (Debra Winger, The Lovers) — to the point that it's all that she knows, and it has made her the closed off yet still vulnerable person she is. But when her mother and father take lively optometrist's assistant Melanie (Gina Rodriguez, Annihilation) under their wing, Old Dolio is forced to reassess everything. That might sound standard, but July has never made a movie that's earned that term and she definitely doesn't start now. Kajillionaire is a heist-fuelled crime caper, and an eccentric and idiosyncratic one; however, it's also a rich and unique character study, an astute exploration of family and a love story — and Wood is essential at every turn. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFqCTIdF7rs POSSESSOR The possibility that someone could hijack another person's brain, then use their body as a vessel to carry out corporate-sanctioned murder, is instantly distressing and disturbing. Whatever your mind has just conjured up reading that sentence, it has nothing on Brandon Cronenberg's vision of the same idea — as Possessor, his sophomore feature, illustrates in a brilliant and brutal fashion. As chilly and also as mesmerising as his first film, Antiviral, this horror-thriller spends its time Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough, The Grudge). It's her job to leap into other people's heads and carry out assassinations, and she's very good at it. When the movie opens, however, she experiences difficulties on a gig. Then she takes on another, infiltrating Colin's (Christopher Abbott, Vox Lux) brain, and struggles to maintain control over his personality and actions as she attempts to kill his fiancé (Tuppence Middleton, Mank) and her business mogul father (Sean Bean, Snowpiercer). Possessor's writer/director is the son of David Cronenberg, of Shivers, Scanners, Videodrome and The Fly fame, so exploring unnerving body horror has been implanted into his own head in a way, too. He certainly carries on the family name in a daring, determined and expectedly gruesome manner. Also striking and unforgettable here: the concepts that Possessor probes, including present analogues to Possessor's body-jumping technology. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLNXHJB5Mto BABYTEETH Filmmaker Shannon Murphy made her feature debut with Babyteeth, but she shows no signs of merely cutting her chompers on this heartwrenching film. Based on the Rita Kalnejais-penned play of the same name and scripted for the screen by the writer as well, this Australian drama tackles a well-worn premise — that'd be: terminally ill teen falls in love as she endeavours to manage her grim health situation — with such shrewdness, vivacity and understanding that it puts almost every other movie about the same concept to shame. Milla (Eliza Scanlen, Little Women) is the cancer-afflicted high schooler in question. When she meets and clicks with 23-year-old small-time drug dealer Moses (Toby Wallace, Acute Misfortune), it takes her pill-popping mother Anna (Essie Davis, True History of the Kelly Gang) and psychiatrist father Henry (Ben Mendelsohn, The Outsider) time to adjust. Their struggles have nothing on Milla's own, though, because Babyteeth sees its protagonist as a person rather than an illness, and as someone with their own hopes, dreams, troubles and disappointments instead of the reason the folks around her have their lives disrupted. That's such an important move, but's just one of the many that the movie makes. Aided not only by superb (and AACTA Award-winning) performances all round, but also by arresting visuals and clever but realistic dialogue, Babyteeth proves both raw and dynamic from start to finish. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFOrGkAvjAE SOUND OF METAL It's one thing to tell viewers that the character they're watching is losing their hearing. It's another entirely to ensure that they understand exactly how that feels. Sound of Metal adopts two methods to achieve the latter feat — one expected but still extraordinary, the other truly earning the usually overused term that is 'immersive'. Firstly, Riz Ahmed (Venom) gives his all to the role of heavy metal drummer and ex-heroin addict Ruben Stone. Realising that one of his senses isn't just fading but disappearing obviously upends every facet of Ruben's life, which Ahmed conveys in a powerfully physicalised performance (and his second portrayal of a musician coping with health struggles after this year's festival hit Mogul Mowgli, too). Just as crucial, however, is the soundscape created by debut feature director Darius Marder and his team. It mimics what Ruben can and can't hear with precision, and it couldn't be more effective at plunging the audience inside his head. Both choices — lead casting and the film's audio — invest weight and depth into a story that isn't lacking in either anyway. Putting his tour with his bandmate and girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke, Ready Player One) on hold, Ruben reluctantly moves to a rural community for addicts who are deaf to learn to live with his new situation, does whatever is necessary to rustle up the cash for a surgically inserted cochlear implant and faces more than few hard truths along the way. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gOs6gKtrb4 THE LIGHTHOUSE It initially hit cinemas pre-pandemic, but The Lighthouse might just be the most relatable movie of 2020. There are no prizes for guessing where it is set, but The Witch filmmaker Robert Eggers has zero time for scenic seaside escapades, turning his attention to two men holed up in the coastal structure, unable to leave and going stir-crazy (to put it mildly) instead. Those lighthouse keepers are played by Willem Dafoe (At Eternity's Gate) and Robert Pattinson (Tenet), who both commit to the narrative with gusto. The former steps into the shoes of cantankerous sea dog Thomas Wake, while the latter endures quite the uncomfortable welcome as eager newcomer Ephraim Winslow — and, as anyone could predict given their talents and respective filmographies, they're gripping to watch. That sensation only increases when a storm sweeps in, with the fact that Winslow frequently fondles himself while holding a mermaid figurine marking just the beginning of The Lighthouse's claustrophobic chaos. Shooting in black and white, and boxing the film in via the 1.19:1 Movietone aspect ratio that's a throwback to a century ago, Eggers dives right into a vivid and entrancing nightmare that simultaneously unpacks masculinity, unfurls a manic head-trip and explores how people react when they're thrust together in a heightened scenario. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU-Z90SEqGQ CORPUS CHRISTI An Oscar nominee this year — losing the Best International Feature Film category to Parasite — Corpus Christi examines faith with blistering and unflinching intensity. This quietly powerful Polish drama doesn't just contemplate what it means to believe, but how the supposedly pious actually enact their convictions (or don't, as the case often proves). Freshly released from reform school, Daniel (Bartosz Bielenia) is drawn to the seminary after connecting with the facility's head priest, Father Tomasz (Lukasz Simlat), during his sentence. Alas, his record instantly excludes him from following that calling, even though he's only 20 years old. Then, through a twist of fate that always feels organic, he's given the opportunity to act as the new spiritual advisor in a rural town after its residents mistake him for a man of the cloth. Given that this is an imposter tale, Corpus Christi proves inherently tense and bristling from the outset; however, just as much of that mood and tone stems from the way that Daniel's new community say one thing but act in a completely different manner involving a recent tragedy. Warsaw 44 and The Hater filmmaker Jan Komasa willingly steps into thorny territory as he tells the young man's tale (with top-notch help from Bielenia), and wonders why it's so easy for so many to cling to centuries-old concepts and stories, but so hard for most to put them in a modern, realistic and everyday context. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzqevBnUUZU THE ASSISTANT Charting an ordinary day in the life of a junior staff member at a film production office, The Assistant is as unsettling as anything else that reached screens in 2020. Jane (Julia Garner, Ozark) has the titular position, working an entry-level job for a demanding head honcho who everyone in the office indulges — although viewers never get to meet him. She arrives at work before daylight, trudges through menial tasks and is treated poorly by her male colleagues. She's expect to anticipate everything that her boss could ever need or want, or face his wrath if she doesn't. And, as the day progresses, she realises just how toxic her workplace's culture is and how deep its inappropriate conduct burrows. Seeing how predatory the man she works for acts on a daily basis, and how his behaviour has a significant impact, she also learns how those who even try to speak out can still be powerless to effect change to stop it. If you've kept abreast of the #MeToo movement over the past few years, you'll know exactly what has inspired The Assistant, of course. However, Australian filmmaker Kitty Green wants her audience to experience this devastating scenario via Jane, rather than merely read about it. She doesn't just succeed; although she's working in fiction here, she directs a film as searing and perceptive as her last project, the excellent documentary Casting JonBenet.
Attention all wannabe heroes: something big is coming. This March, much-loved comic company Marvel will bring its world-class Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. exhibition to Melbourne. The immersive exhibition, held at Federation Square, will give would-be caped crusaders the chance to delve into the history, engineering, genetics and technology behind Captain America, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and the rest of their superhero team. Visitors will also undergo training, as if they were learning to become agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and can explore bespoke equipment and costumes including the Hulkbuster suit, Captain America's uniform and shield, Iron Man's MK armor and Thor's hammer, Mjölnir. Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. combines complex science and technology, developed by Marvel to help bring the successful film franchise to life. Space agency NASA have also contributed to the interactive experience, helping to enhance its scientific authenticity. After successful stints in cities including New York, Seoul and Paris, the exhibition will now head down under for the very first time. Organisers hope it will be an epic fan experience as well as a way to pique visitor interest in real-world science and technology. Earlier this year Marvel broke records when it brought its Creating the Cinematic Universe exhibition to Brisbane, drawing in close to 270,000 fans. Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. is expected to be even bigger. Marvel's Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. will open at Federation Square in March 2018. More information on ticketing will roll out in the coming months – you can sign up for updates here.
With its latest movie-fuelled event, Underground Cinema is hoping that you've never felt like this before — and that you love Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey dancing up a storm in a much-loved 1987 romantic drama. As part of the outfit's new Immersive Cinema spin-off, it's promising to plunge cinephiles into the world of Dirty Dancing. And give you the time of your life, presumably. Hitting outdoor venues for three nights in each Sydney and Melbourne in March 2019, Dirty Dancing: The Immersive Cinema Experience won't just screen one of Swayze's biggest film roles, but will recreate the world of the popular film. That means that attendees will travel back to 1963 in spirit, check into Kellerman's Mountain House in the Catskills, and enjoy a day of painting classes, volleyball, croquet and — of course — dance lessons. You can probably also expect a stint of carrying watermelons, as well as a talent show. It all ends with a sunset screening of Dirty Dancing on the big screen. You'd be just a fool to believe that's all that's on the agenda. Actors and dancers will roam around like the wind, and, food and drink-wise, Americana-style eats and several pop-up bars slinging summery cocktails are on offer for those with hungry eyes (and stomachs). You'll also be able to wander through recreations of Kellerman's famous fictional spaces, from the staff quarters where Francis 'Baby' Houseman gets her first taste of dirty dancing, to the studios where she learns all the steps from and starts swooning over Johnny Castle, to the restaurant where nobody puts Baby in a corner. Like the film version of Kellerman's, the event is also an all-ages affair — Underground Cinema's first that'll welcome families and kids along. And everyone is encouraged to dress up like it's the 60s, although appropriate footwear for dancing is a must. Tickets are available in two tiers, with the $89.90 'Kellerman's Guest Experience' giving you access to all of the above, and the $129.90 'Time of My Life Package' (naturally) also letting you sashay in via express entry, nab a premium elevated viewing spot, explore secret spaces and take a group dance class with one of Kellerman's dance instructors. Dirty Dancing: The Immersive Cinema Experience will take over The Domain in Sydney on March 15–17, and Flemington Race Course in Melbourne on March 22–24, 2019. Tickets for members go on sale at midday on Thursday, November 15, with general public tickets available from 10am on Monday, November 19.
If you tend to take out your stress and anxiety on your innocent writing utensil, then it's about time you chomped on something a little less plastic-flavored and a lot more delicious. Feast your eyes upon the edible pen. Dave Hakkens was one of those nervous pen-chewers, leading him to invent this tasty ballpoint. He wanted a pen that he could chew on without making it dirty or, for lack of a better word, gross. After realizing that the only essential part of any pen was the ink, Hakkens set about designing a pen that he could entirely eat, and that he did. The body of the pen is made out of 22 pieces of sugary candy, similar to those in candy necklaces, which enclose edible ink. The only part that cannot be consumed is the small tip, which can be thrown away or transferred to another refill once the whole pen is eaten. The best part? The candy is made so it won't melt in your hands or stick to anything. Hakken's first prototype was peppermint flavoured, but the edible pen now comes in five other fruity flavours. As well as being a treat for your sweet tooth, an edible pen makes ecological sense when you consider all the ballpoints that get binned every year.
Winter has come to Scotland — and with it, the perfect place for Game of Thrones fans to have a pint or two. Here, pretending that you're wetting your whistle in a boozy establishment in the Seven Kingdoms is easy as heading to Edinburgh's latest popup. Taking inspiration from the pages of George R.R. Martin's epic 'A Song of Ice and Fire' as well as the accompanying TV adaptation that no one can stop watching, Blood & Wine is the latest venture from events team The Pop Up Geeks. Every Wednesday and Thursday evening throughout January and February, they'll serve up GoT-inspired wines, ales, spirits and infusions. When you're sipping on Myrish fire wine and eating Frey pies (yep, they went there), you'll forget that new episodes of everyone's must-watch program aren't slated to return until June. https://www.instagram.com/p/BPKpLalDCok/?taken-by=thepopupgeeks Drinks wise, you'll also find the likes of Dornish Sour Red, The Imp's Delight and The Old Bear's Hot Spiced Wine on the menu, as well as a flight of seven tipples that lets you sample everything that Westeros and its fellow realms has to offer. Or, if you still have a Lannister-like thirst, opt for a Goslings Hot Mead or a glass of Icelandic Mountain Vodka. If the picture on the back of the bottle doesn't tip you off, the latter is made by a company co-owned by Hafþór Júlíus "Thor" Björnsson, the actor who plays Ser Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane on the show. To add the requisite finishing touches, the whole candlelit space is decked out with the appropriate bits and pieces; think shields, swords, posters, props and medieval-like flourishes. If that's not enough to send you scurrying over land and sea like a lost Stark child, then keep an eye on The Pop Up Geeks next venture, Perilous Potions, where they'll delve into the wizarding world of — yep, you guessed it — Harry Potter. Via Uproxx. Image: The Pop Up Geeks.
Cringe-worthy talent shows really have ruined it for everyone. Not only do they give false hope to wannabes looking to break into the industry, but their successful contestants usually end up fading into obscurity anyway (not to mention their dated format has been wearing thin since Shannon Knoll whined What About Me?) I hate to get all parental on you but it takes hard work and dedication to make it big in the music business. But don’t listen to me, listen to Amandah Wilkinson of Operator Please, Adele Pickvance of The Go-Betweens, Susie Patten of I Heart Hiroshima and Katie Noonan, all of whom are ready to share their wisdom with you at Q Music’s Women in Music. Originally created by a female focus group aiming to engage young women in the local music industry, Women in Music is a one-day forum designed to inspire, educate and engage women passionate about music. There to host the day’s panel discussions, workshops and interactive breakout sessions will be a slew of successful artists as well as women who have found success behind the scenes such as Angus and Julia Stone’s Manager Cathy Oast and triple j Magazine's Music Editor Samantha Clode.
Since premiering on Broadway in 2015, winning 11 Tony Awards and nabbing the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Hamilton has become a pop culture phenomenon. As a result, it was always going to make the leap to the screen in some shape or form. So, it's no wonder that Disney has jumped at the opportunity, albeit via a filmed version of the stage production rather than a traditional theatre-to-film adaptation. An actual Hamilton movie might still happen — creator, writer and star Lin-Manuel Miranda has talked about it, and apparently the first draft of a script has been written — but that's not the case just yet. Originally, the Mouse House intended to bring this recording of Lin-Manuel Miranda's historical hip hop musical to cinemas in late 2021. Then, as we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic came along. Doing everyone a solid, the company has instead fast-tracked Hamilton to its streaming platform — with this vibrant, whip-smart and immediately dazzling tale of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton available from today, Friday, July 3, on Disney+. If you haven't been lucky enough to catch the popular all-singing, all-dancing production in New York, as it toured the US or on London's West End, this "live capture" version is here to fill the gap. Now, everyone who missed out on the opportunity to see the musical's initial run live can experience the next best thing. Shot at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway back in 2016, the recording features the show's original Broadway performers, including Miranda in the eponymous role. Also seen on-screen as part of the production's colour-blind approach to casting (including enlisting actors of colour to play white historical figures): Daveed Diggs (Snowpiercer) as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson, Leslie Odom Jr (Murder on the Orient Express) as Aaron Burr, Christopher Jackson (When They See Us) as George Washington, Jonathan Groff (Mindhunter) as King George III, Renee Elise Goldsberry (The House with a Clock in Its Walls) as Angelica Schuyler and Phillipa Soo (the Broadway version of Amelie) as Eliza Hamilton. The story, for those who aren't intimately acquainted with US revolutionary history, chronicles the Caribbean-born "bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman" from his arrival in New York in the early 1770s. As the musical's informative opening number explains, Alexander Hamilton will go on to become "the ten-dollar Founding Father without a father", with the production charting how he "got a lot farther by working a lot harder, by being a lot smarter and by being a self-starter". It's a tale that, unlike those of US Presidents Washington and Jefferson, you mightn't have heard before — which is one of the themes that the musical addresses. Just who is charged with recalling and immortalising the past, and who is remembered in the process, is a significant factor in shaping a nation's vision of itself. Hamilton isn't the first stage show to release a filmed version, of course; however it arrives on streaming after half a decade of buzz, chatter, acclaim, awards and cultural obsessiveness — and instantly demonstrates why it's been the most talked-about production of the past five years. Infectiously exuberant from its first moments, and not only lively but frequently funny, Miranda's rich, dense but always accessible words and songs interrogate US history with passion, intelligence and energy. Via an array of tunes that prove as clever as they are catchy, Hamilton ponders America's battle for independence from the British, the situation the fledgling country finds itself in afterwards, and what it truly means to start a new nation. Along the way, it also casts a light on political wheeling and dealing, the framing of the American Constitution, as well as Hamilton's complicated personal life. When the musical isn't turning discussions about debt into rap battles, for example, it's letting Groff's scene-stealing King George III sing absolute show-stoppers about imperialism, then breaking up the politics with yearning ballads sung by Goldsberry and Soo that also unpack the plight of women at the time. By now, the fact that Hamilton is excellent really isn't news — but, if you haven't already seen it for yourself, prepare to be wowed. Miranda, Groff, and Tony-winners Diggs and Odom Jr couldn't turn in better performances and, as directed for the screen by the stage production's helmer Thomas Kail, this filmed version gets up close to their potent and compelling portrayals. Visually, viewers always know they're watching a recording of a live theatre show, too. Pretending otherwise just wouldn't do the production justice. That said, this on-screen presentation of Hamilton is also engagingly shot and edited, not only cutting between different angles, but successfully capturing the rhythm of the choreography, actors and moving set. Getting swept up by Hamilton's wonders is easy. Recognising its added weight, importance and resonance now, as Black Lives Matter protests continue to take place across the globe and America finds itself at another crossroads, is just as straightforward, too. Once you've watched the small-screen version, Australians can also get excited about seeing the stage production, as it's finally set to arrive Down Under in March 2021. Under present circumstances, though — and with international travel still banned for the foreseeable future — it's possible that this could be delayed. Check out Disney+'s Hamilton trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSCKfXpAGHc The filmed version of Hamilton is available to stream worldwide from Friday, July 3, via Disney+. Images: Hamilton filmed version courtesy Disney+.
More than most video games, Until Dawn always felt destined for the big screen from the moment that it first had players pressing buttons. The premise of the 2015 hit is straight out of a horror movie, with a group of eight friends attempting to make it through a trip to Blackwood Mountain — the place where one character's two sisters disappeared a year prior, and where everyone is now looking for answers — alive. The cast boasted star power, including a pre-Oscar Rami Malek (The Amateur), plus Hayden Panettiere (Scream VI) and Peter Stormare (So Long, Marianne). Visually, there's also its pivotal third-person perspective. Something that Until Dawn featured as a game, however, that was unlikely to make the leap to cinemas: the choose-your-adventure approach to play. Interactive films exist, but the two best-known recent examples are each streaming releases: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend, both on Netflix. In adapting Until Dawn into a movie destined for the silver screen, so lurked the dilemma — aka how to nod to the butterfly effect-style element, where player decisions dictate the storyline. The answer came by still focusing on choice, and also nodding to the fact hundreds of endings are possible in the game, making selecting an option a move that requires careful consideration about where any path might lead. Enter the mechanism that's fuelled everything from Groundhog Day and the Happy Death Day films to Edge of Tomorrow and so much more: time loops. In the movie directed by David F Sandberg (Shazam! and Shazam! Fury of the Gods), and penned by Gary Dauberman (Salem's Lot) and Blair Butler (The Invitation), there's still a group of friends, a missing sibling and a remote setting. That said, neither its helmer nor one of its writers, both of whom first collaborated on Annabelle: Creation, set out to make a direct adaptation of the game, Sandberg and Dauberman tell Concrete Playground. "It's more like a new chapter of Until Dawn," advises Sandberg, who first made the leap to full-length flicks in horror courtesy of the short-to-feature Lights Out. "The game is so cinematic, we just didn't want to try to replicate that experience," notes Dauberman, a mainstay behind the scenes on The Conjuring Universe films, including Annabelle and its sequels — he directed as well as penned Annabelle Comes Home — and The Nun, alongside scripting IT and IT: Chapter Two. [caption id="attachment_1000992" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Stewart Cook/Sony Pictures via Getty Images[/caption] Here, then, the characters are different, and the absent sister as well. The cast fighting to survive has changed, too. As a film, Until Dawn steps into a new scenario also, although Stormare remains the link among the actors to its gaming beginnings. This time, it's Clover (Ella Rubin, Anora) who is in search of Melanie (Maia Mitchell, The Artful Dodger) a year since she was last seen. The rest of her travelling group — Max (Michael Cimino, Never Have I Ever), Megan (Ji-young Yoo, Expats), Abe (Belmont Cameli, The Alto Knights) and Nina (Odessa A'zion, Am I OK?) — have helping Clover as their main aim rather than finding Melanie, though. She's determined to look for her sister. They're eager to assist her with facing her trauma and moving on. Of course, no one expects that following Melanie's path to an abandoned visitor centre in a secluded valley will lead them to being stuck battling an array of killers in a time loop, and dreading an hourglass flipping again and again. When they all die, Until Dawn's latest figures just find themselves in the same place, yet caught in another scenario. Sometimes that plunges the movie into slasher-film territory. Sometimes it skews more supernatural. Sometimes, Clover and her friends are caught in a creature feature — and the list goes on. The only way for them to be free of the nightmare, and from an experience that hops between horror subgenres, is right there in the feature's title. Make it until dawn and the hellish ordeal ends. What excited Sandberg and Dauberman, other than being gamers themselves, about taking on the task of bringing Until Dawn to cinemas? That's where our chat with the pair started. From there, we dug into selecting the different subgenres, basically making multiple horror flicks in one, Stormare's return, and how you enlist a cast when their gig is to get murdered over and over — plus interrogating choice via time loops, calling out other films using temporal repeats, the current wave of successful video game-to-screen adaptations (think: The Last of Us, Fallout, The Super Mario Bros Movie and A Minecraft Movie) and more. On What Excited Sandberg and Dauberman About Adapting Until Dawn Into a Movie Gary: "I think the thing that excited us the most — I'll speak for me — but was really being able to do a couple different subgenres of horror within one movie. The game is really this cinematic experience that's a true love letter to the genre. We wanted to make sure that was captured in the movie, and do that ourselves with the movie. And so that was really exciting. So then it just became about, 'well, how are we going to do that?'. Because it's not going to be a direct adaptation of the game — because, as I said, the game is so cinematic, we just didn't want to try to replicate that experience. So it was really about, 'okay, how can we stay true to the game, the world and all that, but also be able to do our own thing as well within the genre?'." David: "And what excited me was that Gary and Blair, they didn't try to just recreate the game — which was already so much like a movie and already cinematic. It's more like a new chapter of Until Dawn. And the fact that we have all these different horror genres in one movie. So I got to try out all these different things, including genres I'd never done before — like slasher or found footage. It was just a dream come true." On Deciding Which Horror Subgenres to Jump Between in the Film Gary: "It's interesting — Blair and I always had slasher first, and I think a large part of that's just because, I mean I know that's because of the game itself and the psycho mask and all that. And then I think it was just what could be different from slasher? We leaned into supernatural because that felt so different and a stark contrast to just the visceral kills of the slasher. So you just try to think of what's going to give that sharp contrast to whatever came before. Then you go supernatural, then you go right into body horror — which is super real and gross, whereas supernatural generally isn't that. That's the thought behind how it's laid out in sequential order, I guess." On Feeling Like This Movie Meant Making Not Just One Horror Film, But Multiple Horror Films David: "For sure, because it also, like schedule-wise and time wise, felt like we were trying to do six or seven movies in one. It was a challenge. It's a very ambitious movie for the time we had, so we had to do a lot of planning — and sometimes adapting on the day, where it's like 'okay, we're not going to have time to do all of these things, so we'll focus on what's most important to get'. So it was a challenge, but it was also the reason why I signed up for the movie — to get to do all of this. So I happily did it." On Making Dr Hill (and Peter Stormare in the Role) One of the Key Connections Between the Game and the Movie Gary: "Dr Hill, to me, was always the character I was most curious about in the game, and felt like he could be a great link, connective tissue, between the game and the movie. And he could really be the steward of the franchise, of these stories. He always felt like he's got more going on. And I think talking with the game developers and what they had intended with Dr Hill as well, it was a constant dialogue and conversation, so he just made the most sense organically to what they had in mind and what we had in mind to use. And plus, it's Peter Stormare. If you've got Peter Stormare, you want to use him every chance you get. So that was also a part of the decision. But from a storytelling aspect, I saw him as a great face of the franchise." On How You Build a Cast When the Gig Is to Get Killed Over and Over Again David: "We did a lot of auditions to try to find the right people. Michael, who plays Max, came recommended — he's worked with Gary before. But otherwise, it's just doing a lot of auditions and finding the right people who are not just good actors, but who are willing to go there, to these places. Because I had to warn the cast that this is going to be a challenging movie, like physically challenging and mentally challenging, because you're going to have to be wet and bloody and dirty and crawl through mud, and all of these things. And work nights and work in uncomfortable locations and all these things. But they were really up for it. And once we'd done all this extensive casting, they just worked as a team right away, just became instant friends and were just a pleasure to work with. And I know they really appreciated getting to do — like Maia was saying that in most movies and TV shows, she has to look pretty and perfect, and all these things. In this movie, you don't need to look perfect. You need to look like you've gone through hell. And you get to scream and let it all out. So they were more than up for it." On Calling Out How Popular Time-Loop Flicks Are in the Film — and Knowing How This Addition to the Genre Needed to Stand Out Gary: "We knew we didn't want to do the Groundhog Day-esque time loop. Happy Death Day does that so, so well and effectively. If we were going to do it, we needed to own it for us and make it different. So in a way, the knowledge of those made us just work against that — like going 'okay, we know that's out there, so we've got to do something different'. So that's kind of how we went. And then in terms of the subgenres themselves, it really was about the tropes within the subgenres that we were using as elements to each sequence — but not any specific movie per se." David: "Yeah, you don't want to shy away from some of these tropes, because you want people to feel like 'okay, now we're in this kind of film'." Gary: "Yeah, exactly." David: "But you try to subvert it so you don't know exactly what's coming, but you just need to feel familiar enough." Gary: "That's right." On Still Interrogating Choice, Even If the Film Can't Mirror the Game's Player-Shaped Storylines and Hundreds of Endings, in a Movie That's Also About Trauma Gary: "It was a really important element from the character standpoint of like, 'okay, the terror is new, but we're still here, we're still a part of this group'. And as the group starts to fracture a bit because they have different ways of how they want to go about solving this puzzle of how they're going to survive until dawn, I think it's about, one of the things is sticking together and surviving through trauma and leaning on each other to get through something — as opposed to just being off in a corner by yourself, because that's not going to get you through it, much like Clover was at the start of the movie. For Clover, for instance, she's someone who had to die over and over again in order to know how to live again. So that's kind of how we saw the character choices affecting the character arcs in the movie." David: "Yeah. And I thought it was so brilliant to have this restarting in the movie, because it does make it feel so much like the game — where you can play it several times and make different choices and see different deaths and different kills and stuff. And this was a way to get that in movie form." On the Film's Commitment to Practical, In-Camera Effects as Much as Possible David: "It's something I've always wanted to do. Since I was a little kid watching horror movies, reading all these books about effects done with latex and silicone — and makeup effects and all these things, something I've wanted to do forever, and this was a chance to do that. And I like when horror movies, in particular, do that. I'm not opposed to visual effects in any way, and there's visual effects in this movie, too, but we wanted to try to take practical as far as we could — and have things there for our actors to see and feel and react to, because it just makes it more fun for us. But I think the audience can feel that coming through as well." On How Sandberg and Dauberman's Working Relationship Has Evolved in the Eight Years Since Annabelle: Creation David: "Gary produced this movie as well. It all started with him, the project. So I guess you were more involved now. I mean, you were involved in all of Annabelle: Creation as well. So it's very similar." Gary: "I think it was similar, but I think we just got more comfortable with each other." David: "Yeah." Gary: "So I think it's evolved from that standpoint. But I think I just have a confidence in him that I don't have in a lot of people, so he's like a safe place for me. I just know that he's going to elevate whatever material I hand over to him. And so, yeah, I think it's just the familiarity and the comfortability that you oftentimes don't get in this business, because it's so transactional and it's new faces every time you go somewhere. So it's nice to have somebody who's consistent and constant." On Why Adaptations of Video Games Are Such a Focus at the Moment — and Striking Such a Chord with Audiences David: "I think it's because people who grew up with video games are now in positions to make to make and write these types of movies. And I think that really helps — because I think back in the 80s, making that Super Mario Bros movie, I don't think those people were gamers. Maybe they were, I don't know. So I think it's just like, for this generation or for us now, it's like 'well, of course video games are just as important as comic books or other movies or whatever'. So it's gotten to the respect that it deserves." [caption id="attachment_1000993" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Stewart Cook/Sony Pictures via Getty Images[/caption] Gary: "Yeah, and I think from a business standpoint, it's such an IP-driven business that comic books feels a little probably picked over. And so it feels like now the attention has turned to video games — and that IP, it's just been kind of sitting there. But as gamers, we've always known it's been — it's right there. You go do this stuff, give it the money and the time it deserves, and the talent. So I'm happy and excited to see that that's coming to fruition." David: "And games, of course, have become more and more cinematic, closer to movies as well." Gary: "Yeah, yeah, which becomes part of a challenge." Until Dawn released in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, April 24, 2025.
Oh god, it's happened. We knew it would. Ever since we first tried to make a 'beer spider' by heaping some vanilla bean into our third or fourth pint, we knew it was a possibility. The method just needed some work. Unsurprisingly, adding dairy to beer was never the answer. Now the Japanese legends at Kirin have perfected the recipe for the ultimate beer slushie, and are selling a home version of the machine that makes it. Here's the kicker: the drink is actually super tasty. The slushie portion of this frozen treat is made with frozen beer instead of ice cream so instead of clogging your brew with curdled milk, it just keeps the whole thing freezing cold. The machine has been floating around as a promo tool in Japan and the USA since 2012, but — because it's basically a pure form of liquid happiness — it's stuck around until now. The machine is currently available for purchase via the Japan Trend Shop online, however it does come with some drawbacks. For instance, although the initial cost of the product is only US$67, you'll have to add another US$47 on for shipping. Also, it only runs off C batteries (for some reason) and all of the instructions are in Japanese. Eek. Of course this won't stop the hardcore enthusiasts, but if you consider yourself a more casual beer slushie drinker, head out to Harajuku Gyoza to try it first. The Japanese gyoza and beer restaurant in Potts Point and Fortitude Valley are currently one of the only (if not the only) place serving it in Australia. Bon appétit! Via Thrillist and Hospitality Magazine. Images via Kirin USA Facebook.
Yoda? Cartoon characters? Pamela Anderson emerging in slo-mo from the surf, flicking her hair to the Baywatch theme? Such are the visions that come to mind when viewing the high-speed photographs of violently shaking dogs, shot by Carli Davidson for her new book, Shake. With plenty more flabby skin and saliva at their disposal, our furry friends put human jowlers utterly to shame. Davidson appears to be a bit of a badass known for her wildlife photography, and according to her bio, was "raised on a secret volcano island by cheetahs". (Her biopic is recommended viewing). She first began photographing animals while working at the Oregon Zoo. The shake project was inspired by her pet dog Norbert (a name which I choose to interpret as an Angry Beavers reference), whose drool Davidson is apparently obliged to scrub from the walls of her home with some frequency. In Shake, she shares 130 high-speed photos of 61 dogs from a range of pedigrees, including a Chinese Crested, that exquisite breed famed for its tendency to win the World's Ugliest Dog competition each year. Different textures of fur coat and jowl surface area contribute to the extremity of 'shake', floppy ears and eyelids flying in opposing directions with a majesty comparable to that of hawks swooping above the Far Northern tundra. One can only imagine the sheer volume of drool lopped onto Davidson's bystanding studio assistants, who by the end must have resembled the victims of some terrible slug fight. The resulting portraits truly inspire — buy them singly as prints, ideal for your stylish home or super tasteful office wall. If that's just not sufficient, order the book on Amazon to be reminded of just how cute and demented doggies really are. The video below, created in conjunction with Variable, is an instant mood-lifter, as all kinds of puppies rattle and roll to an appropriately sentimental soundtrack. Via Colossal.
Sometime in the near future, Brisbanites will be able to mosey through wetlands, kayak and canoe in a lake, ride along rainforest mountain-bike trails, peer out from a treehouse lookout and climb a high-ropes course — all on the edge of Brisbane's CBD. That's what's slated for the revamped Victoria Park, with the Herston spot in line for a hefty makeover. The first step: shutting the Victoria Park Golf Course and reopening its 45-hectare expanse as a public park. That initial move has already been taken, in fact. Sorry, golfers. And, with all that land now reclaimed, the Brisbane City Council has announced that everyone can head along to the grassy locale for picnics, to kick a footy around and to walk your dog. It's the first time in nearly a century that the land has been open to everyone, too, if you need even more of an excuse to head by. Given that this is just the first step in the site's transformation — which has been dubbed Victoria Park Vision — more changes are on the way. Brissie residents can still make the most of all that greenery while that's happening, though, including by sitting underneath the site's jacaranda trees. And, the existing putt putt course, driving range, bistro and function centre are all staying open while the revamp takes place, should you have the urge to play mini golf or grab a bite to eat. "Opening the park to the public is a major step in our plan to deliver a once-in-a generation project which will restore the park to its former glory and reconnect visitors with local history, culture and nature," said Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner. "Brisbane residents have helped shape what all 64 hectares of parkland will look like and we're in investing $83 million over four years to start to bring this vision to life, which will eventually see waterholes and wetlands, nature playgrounds, an adventure valley and so much more," he continued. First announced in mid-2019, the new vision for Victoria Park will significantly change the current space. Late in 2020, following several stages of community consultations and draft proposals, the council released its final plan for what that'll entail. Over the 64-hectare site — the golf course's 45 hectares, plus some surrounding land — the park will specifically increase the area dedicated to green space. Also on the agenda: a cultural hub, artwork and trails paying tribute to Australia's Indigenous heritage, plus plenty of shady foliage including revegetated forests and pockets of native bushland. There'll be dining areas and picnic spots, too, and community gardens — or perhaps even a small urban farm or urban orchard. Multipurpose spaces such as a green amphitheatre will be designed to host events year-round as well, including performances and exhibitions. [caption id="attachment_793561" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] An artist's impression of Victoria Park once the revamp is complete.[/caption] In addition to the aforementioned Lake Barrambin — where you'll be kayaking and canoeing — the site will feature lagoons and wetlands, a 'nature and water play gully' for kids, restored waterholes for wildlife, and waterside boardwalks to mosey along. And the existing Centenary Pool will be part of the park, if you're keen for a dip. When it's all done, the transformed Victoria Park will become Brisbane's biggest new park in five decades, and one that'll alter the face of the inner city. A completion date for the revamped park is yet to be set, but we can all now drop by, laze around on the grass and watch that change happen. Find Victoria Park on Herston Road, Herston. For more information about the overall transformation, visit the Brisbane City Council website.
Some pop star dreams just aren't meant to be, and The Idol's are now among them. Whether you watched some of it, the whole thing or simply read about it (because no one could avoid the latter), the HBO series has been one of the most talked-about shows of 2023 — when it started dropping sneak peeks from July 2022, too, but especially once it hit streaming in June this year. All that chatter hasn't inspired the US network to bring it back for a second season, however, and unsurprisingly. As per Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, the show has been cancelled after its first season — which ran for five episodes, and focused on singer Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp, Voyagers) and nightclub impresario Tedros (Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd). "The Idol was one of HBO's most provocative original programs, and we're pleased by the strong audience response," said a HBO representative in a statement. "After much thought and consideration, HBO, as well as the creators and producers, have decided not to move forward with a second season. We're grateful to the creators, cast and crew for their incredible work." Set within the music industry, The Idol followed Jocelyn as she attempted to make a comeback, got caught up in controversy and met Tedros. It bears more than a passing resemblance to UK series I Hate Suzie, but with its own stacked cast — and with Sam Levinson, the mastermind behind Euphoria, creating it alongside The Weeknd. The Idol's packed list of on-screen talent also spanned Red Rocket's Suzanna Son, Boy Erased's Troye Sivan, Schitt's Creek's Dan Levy, singer-songwriter Moses Sumney, BLACKPINK's Jennie Kim, Only Murders in the Building's Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Hacks' Jane Adams, Bodies Bodies Bodies' Rachel Sennott and Inglourious Basterds' Eli Roth. Also appearing: Hank Azaria (Hello Tomorrow!), Hari Nef (Barbie), Steve Zissis (Happy Death Day 2U), Melanie Liburd (This Is Us), Tunde Adebimpe (Marriage Story), Elizabeth Berkley Lauren (Saved By the Bell) and Nico Hiraga (Booksmart), plus Anne Heche (All Rise) in what was one of her last performances. Controversy surrounded the show not just once it was releasing episodes, but beforehand. Prior to arriving on streaming — before it premiered at 2023's Cannes Film Festival, too — the Los Angeles-set series started with She Dies Tomorrow's Amy Seimetz directing every single episode. But back in April 2022, it was revealed that Seimetz had left the project and reshoots were underway as a result. Reports also surfaced about the working environment — and, neither the viewer nor the critical response was anywhere near glowing, making The Idol's cancellation far always likely. Check out the trailer for The Idol below: The Idol season one streams via Binge in Australia and Neon in New Zealand. Via Variety / The Hollywood Reporter. Images: Eddy Chen/HBO.
The Game of Streaming Services has a new, long-awaited and undeniably powerful player vying for the throne. Apple have unleashed their streaming champion, Apple Music, announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) at San Francisco's Moscone Centre today. Apple Music is set to launch on June 30, locked in for $10 a month (or $15 for the family plan, designed for up to six people). For this monthly fee, you'll get access to the full Apple Music library, 'expert recommendations', Apple's own curated lists of new music, and unlimited skips on Apple's radio stations. Will it work? Can Apple successfully sweep Beats Music under the rug? We're keen to try it out. So where's all this music coming from? Apple Music is linked directly to iTunes, iTunes on-demand and the cloud — we're talking 30 million songs. The streaming service combines music you've bought with music you haven't bought. The new Apple Music interface will show you music videos and artist pages, as well as 'For You' recommendations (one of Spotify, Pandora, Tidal's biggest opportunities for sweet, sweet business). All playlists will be user or DJ generated; a big bird-flip from Apple over algorithm-generated playlisting. Recommendations will also come from the social network element of Apple Music, Connect. Made particularly for artists, the service allows artists to make their own pages (or their labels, managers etc.), allowing artists to share new music and users access to behind the scenes content, photos, interviews, B-sides (yep, all the extra bits Tidal is offering). There's no word yet on the royalties artists will receive (Spotify and Pandora, for example, don't have the most ethical fees around), so watch this space. Radio plays a big role in Apple Music too, with the Beats 1 service (the one BBC's Zane Lowe left his top radio host spot for this year) announced by Apple's Jimmy Iovine today. Apple is calling this the world's first truly global radio station, one which will broadcast 24 hours a day to over a hundred countries worldwide from bases in New York, London and LA. In case you're wondering whether Siri will have her say in Apple Music, you're bang on the money. You can ask Siri to play her favourite song, bring up playlists, or use the service like Shazam with questions like, "Siri, play the LL Cool J song from the end of Deep Blue Sea." Boom. Streamed. Apple Music will be available on Mac, iOS, Apple TV on June 30 and (wait for it) PC and Android later this year. Apple are offering three-month trial membership so you can test it out for yourself. Via Apple and Wired.
UPDATE, November 25, 2021: Due to the weather forecast, BrisStyle Twilight Christmas Market has been postponed from Saturday, November 27 to Friday, December 3. This article has been updated to reflect that change. You might have thought King George Square looked pretty fine during the day and maybe a tad finer at night, but it's at twilight City Hall really shows off its colours. And what better backdrop when you're shopping the evening away — especially when the King George is filled with some of Brisbane's best designers and makers, and you're looking for Christmas presents, The festive offshoot of the regular Brisbane Twilight Market, this event will show off a sizeable array of stalls — more than 80, in fact — all staffed by some pretty nifty and talented local artists. Expect an eclectic selection of items, so prepare to browse and buy. You'll be perusing everything from handmade clothing, accessories and leather goods to paper goods, homewares, art and ceramics (and more). And seasonal gifts, obviously. This market is all about sound, smell and sales — so live music will provide a soundtrack to the evening, and expect to be hit with that spring flowerbed smell that always lingers when there's a soap stall around. Food trucks are also on the agenda, with the market running from 4–9pm on Friday, December 3. So take along some cash and stock up on all things crafty. [caption id="attachment_666947" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] BrisStyle[/caption] Top image: Brisbane City Council.
There are two highly misconstrued clauses about exhibition openings. Firstly, that you have to know a lot about art to go to them. Secondly, that you need an invitation. To set things straight, you actually need neither. Most openings are come one, come many so we've enlisted the experts to help us brave our debut into the commercial art world with A Bluffer's Guide to Art Parties. Who goes? "Exhibition openings are celebrations of art and welcome community participation through discussion," says Nicky Ginsberg, Director of NG Art Gallery in Sydney. "Openings serve to promote awareness and support in the contemporary art scene." Openings are about engaging with art, the artists, gallerists, artsy types and non-artsy types. They are exciting events where guests are in the privileged position of being able to actually meet the artist and talk to them in person about their work and practice. Don't shy away from openings because you 'don't fit the mould' – there's no such thing. Rhianna Walcott, Manager at Artereal Gallery in Sydney, is another oracle we asked. "Exhibition openings in commercial spaces attract a very diverse mix of people including the artist's friends, family and supporters. You also find a mix of the gallery's regular clients and ongoing supporters, as well as collectors and arts industry professionals," she says. What to expect And what should we expect from the evening's festivities? Well, ordinarily, guests are given ample time to browse the art on offer, chat with artists and soak up the atmosphere. Next there's normally a formal speech from either the gallery's director or a guest speaker who will declare the exhibition open. And yes. Complimentary wine and canapés are the norm. But remember not to over indulge. No one enjoys the token drunk kid in the corner who has suddenly become an expert on all things contemporary art. Needless to say you're there for the art and engagement, not the free booze. Art criticism 101 Now that we've covered the who and what, we should probably discuss the how and when. The question of how to navigate your way around an opening can be a tricky one. For first timers, Ginsberg offers the advice: "Don't be shy, on arrival survey the room; if in doubt, go clockwise. Take in the art by asking yourself: do I like it? Why don't I like it? How was it made?" "Spend the first ten minutes or so looking at all the work and reading through the available information on the exhibition – curatorial text, artist biography etcetera. If you are serious about engaging with the work in the exhibition it is best to read up on the artist via the gallery's website in advance. This gives you some context and prior knowledge, which will allow you a better appreciation of the work when you do see it in the flesh," adds Walcott. The when of exhibition openings varies. Most, however, are hosted during the week, after hours, from around 6-8pm. Talking art Before presenting our fast fact manual, we'd like to leave you with a few crucial words of departure from the experts. "If in a conversation about the art on offer, it is advised to engage your companion's opinion and relationship to the artist before slandering harsh criticism," offers Ginsberg. And from the Walcott camp: "The art world is not as uptight as it is made out to be. Never be afraid to approach people whether it is the artist or the gallerist, or just the person standing next to you. Galleries feel a responsibility to create a welcoming environment where anyone can come to experience and learn about the work." Fast facts Who: Commercial exhibition openings welcome all and it is not necessary to RSVP. What: An exhibition opening is an event hosted by an art gallery/institution to formally open an exhibition. You go to them to be educated, to celebrate and to congratulate. When: Varied, but usually on a weekday evening from 6-8pm. Where: All galleries on the commercial circuit host exhibition openings to expose artists' work to the public. How much: Usually free, with the exception of invite-only openings or ticketed launch events (usually reserved for major public art institutions). Mingle like a pro: Don't: Use fancy words you don't know the meaning of when discussing a work just to impress someone. Do: Try descriptive words like 'costly', 'historic', or 'monotonous' rather than 'rip off', 'big', or 'boring'. Don't: Overlook the art nearest the bar. Do: Use the art near the bar as a conversation starter in the likely event there is a queue. Don't: Assume you know everything about the artist just because you've read the catalogue essay. Do: Read up on the artist before the show if you want to get the most out of the opening. Don't: Forget that 'modern' and 'contemporary' are different genres in art history. Do: Be inquisitive if other guests start dropping art historical terms, mid-conversation, that you don't understand. Don't: Say 'I could do better than that'. Do: Say you've been inspired to create your own art.
Haute couture. Murder. Disco tunes and Studio 54. Throw in one of the biggest names in fashion — and a tale that's filled with both glam and grim strands, too — and that's House of Gucci. Ranking highly among the most anticipated movies set to hit the big screen across the rest of 2021, this Ridley Scott (All the Money in the World)-directed drama steps inside the Gucci family fashion dynasty, charting its successes and shocking moments over the course of three tumultuous decades. If you've read the book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed, which this new film is based on, then you'll know the details. If you've seen news coverage about or can remember the events that rocked the Italian family back in 1995, you will as well. The focus: Maurizio Gucci, grandson of company founder Guccio Gucci, and the head of the fashion house throughout the 80s and early 90s — until he was assassinated by a hitman in 1995. Adam Driver steps into also Maurizio's unsurprisingly stylish shoes, in what's proving a big year for him in cinemas. He'll also grace the big screen in Scott's next film The Last Duel, which is due to release in October — a month before House of Gucci arrives in November. In the latter flick, he's joined by Lady Gaga in her first big-screen role since A Star Is Born, this time playing Maurizio's wife Patrizia. Obviously, there's quite the tale to tell — and, as the just-dropped first trailer for House of Gucci shows, Scott is going big on striking threads, 70s and 80s tunes and vibes, indulgence and luxury dripping through in every frame, and also an unavoidable air of melodrama. To help, the star-studded cast also includes Jared Leto (The Little Things) sporting plenty of prosthetics and makeup, as well as Al Pacino (The Irishman), Jeremy Irons (Love, Weddings and Other Disasters) and Salma Hayek (The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard). As the trailer reminds us, that's a whole lot of Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated talent in one flick. Check out the trailer below: House of Gucci will release in Australian cinemas on November 25.
Everyone should be able to fill their walls with art no matter their bank balance. That's the idea behind Affordable Art Fair, and has been since 1999. Back in the 20th century, the event initially popped up in London to share eye-catching pieces with the world at manageable prices, and then started spreading its art-for-all ethos around the world. A quarter-century later, it's now set to make a Brisbane appearance. For four days in May 2024 — from Thursday, May 9–Sunday, May 12 — the first-ever Affordable Art Fair Brisbane will debut at Brisbane Showgrounds. On offer at the Bowen Hills venue will be original artworks by the thousands, with prices starting from $100. If you are feeling flush with cash, however, costs will max out at $10,000 per piece. The fair's arrival in the River City adds to a footprint that spans 17 fairs in 16 cities, including in Melbourne and Sydney already. The 2024 run will also see both Berlin and Austin join Affordable Art Fair's ranks as host spots. Making repeat visits, the event will return to London, Brussels, Hamburg, Stockholm and Amsterdam in Europe, Singapore and Hong Kong in Asia, and New York in the US as well. Unsurprisingly, democratising art has been proving the hit as Affordable Art Fair notches up the years. Across its stops worldwide since 1999, the event has sold 568,000 artworks at a value of over AU$820 million. In Brisbane, more than 40 independent Australian galleries will have pieces up for sale, alongside Asia-Pacific institutions. Among the Aussie contingent, Studio Gallery, Revival Art & Design, The Toowoomba Gallery, Wentworth Galleries, MG and Co and JUMBLED will all be represented. Buying art isn't the only drawcard, though, with talks, tours, workshops, live tunes, bites to eat, drinks and live artist demonstrations all also on the agenda. "Affordable Art Fair focuses on the fun side of viewing and buying art and seeks to put art into every home, no matter the size or buyer's budget," explains Australian Fair Director Stephanie Kelly. "The mission of the fair is to democratise and demystify the art world and make art accessible to all. Unlike traditional art fairs, every exhibited work is from a living artist, every artwork on display lists a sale price and every artwork is looking for a new home." Affordable Art Fair Brisbane will take place from Thursday, May 9–Sunday, May 12, 2024 at the Brisbane Showgrounds Exhibition Building, 600 Gregory Terrace, Bowen Hills — head to the event's website for tickets and more details.
Already home to grapevines as far as the eye can see, a restaurant with views over Moreton Bay, a nine-hole modified form of golf and regular concerts, Mount Cotton's Sirromet Winery has added another attraction to its expansive 560-acre grounds: onsite glamping. Dubbed 'Sanctuary by Sirromet' and launching on June 1, the new accommodation option lets wine-loving campers spend a night or several in one of 18 luxe tents. It's also the first vineyard glamping experience in Queensland. Visitors can get cosy in one of 15 couples' abodes, two family tents and one specifically designed as a bridal suite, with each featuring king beds, indoor day chairs, outdoor tables and seating, bathrooms with a shower and toilet, and reverse cycle air-conditioning to cope with southeast Queensland's usually-warm weather. Every safari-style tent also includes a breakfast hamper filled with croissants, bagels, smoked salmon and coffee — and, naturally, a mini-bar filled with Sirromet wine. And while you'll be able to connect to the outside world via free wifi, what you won't find is a television. Instead, everyone is encouraged to soak up the scenic surroundings. Or drink wine. Or both. Let's face it, you don't go glamping at a winery without hitting the vino and revelling in nature. Wallabies are known to graze around the tents, so you might have company. For those more keen on drinking side of things, you can enjoy the daily tastings and tours, grab a snack up on the Tuscan Terrace and stock up on supplies to take home from the cellar door. Unsurprisingly, you can expect to drop a few dollars on the experience, with tents at Sanctuary starting at $280 per night — with a two-night minimum. Eventually, 54 tents will be littered across 20 acres, with the winery spending more than $10 million on its new addition. Find Sanctuary by Sirromet at 850 Mount Cotton Road, Mount Cotton, or head to sanctuarybysirromet.com for bookings and further details.
After a brief sneak peek featured in Disney+'s teaser trailer for its 2025 slate, The Handmaid's Tale has unveiled its first proper look at its upcoming sixth season — the dystopian thriller's final run. Since 2017, watching the series has meant wishing for one thing: the end of Gilead, the totalitarian, male-dominated society that rules the show's dystopian version of the United States. (No, not the masterplanned Sydney community of the same name.) In the award-winning series adapted from Margaret Atwood's book, that outcome is finally coming in a way, and fans will be able to see how the tale wraps up from April 2025. For June (Elisabeth Moss, The Veil) and her fellow red-wearing women, revolution is also coming. Rallying against the oppressive status quo however possible has sat at the heart of this series since day one — and in the last season, June is back in the fight. The teaser trailer for season six is narrated by its protagonist, noting the ways that the regime tried to push her and her fellow women down, including via their restrictive attire. "The dress became a uniform — and we became an army," June advises. Of course, it's highly likely that The Handmaid's Tale won't conclude with the total destruction of Gilead, because a TV version of The Testaments in the works — and is set to arrive sometime after The Handmaid's Tale finishes its run. It too is based on an Atwood novel, on her sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, which hit shelves in 2019, which means that her fictional nightmarish realm isn't going far. If you haven't read the book, The Testaments is set 15 years after the events of its predecessor, and also includes familiar characters. How that'll play into the end of The Handmaid's Tale on-screen obviously hasn't been revealed. For now, blessed be your streaming queue with The Handmaid's Tale season six this autumn — and praise be what looks like one helluva reckoning. Alongside Moss, Yvonne Strahovski (Teacup), Bradley Whitford (The Madness), Max Minghella (Maximum Truth), Ann Dowd (The Friend), O-T Fagbenle (No Good Deed), Samira Wiley (Breaking News in Yuba County), Madeline Brewer (Space Oddity), Amanda Brugel (Dark Matter), Sam Jaeger (Wolf Man) and Ever Carradine (The Neighbourhood) all return among the cast, with Josh Charles (Moss' The Veil co-star) a new addition. The sixth season of The Handmaid's Tale debuts in the US on Tuesday, April 8. Down Under, it streams via SBS On Demand and Neon. Check out the first teaser trailer for The Handmaid's Tale season six below: The Handmaid's Tale season six debuts on Tuesday, April 8 — and streams Down Under via SBS On Demand and Neon.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around Brisbane, as happens each year once Halloween ends and November arrives. But from Friday, November 25, for a whole month leading up to the big day, the Brisbane CBD and South Bank will be brimming with festive cheer — whether you're keen on shopping your way through markets, peering at dazzling lights or getting comfy (and merry) with a drink in your hand. The lineup of Christmas events that'll be decking out the city's two major inner-city precincts is as stuffed as a stocking, and filled with both beloved returning highlights and new reasons to get merry. Some, like the Enchanted Garden in Roma Street, are popular favourites set to dazzle again. Others, like the 'Tinsel Tavern' and Christmas jazz lounge, are fresh additions to your seasonal itinerary. It all kicks off on Friday, November 25 with the annual lighting of King George Square's 22-metre-tall Christmas tree, as well as the Enchanted Garden's launch. But, mark most of December in your diary, as that's when the bulk of the rest of the events take place. For nabbing gifts, Brisbane Arcade's two-day Christmas markets, the BrisStyle twilight Christmas markets in King George Square and The Collective Markets' six-day Christmas edition at South Bank all return, joining the city's hefty list of places to browse and buy beyond shopping centres. In the CBD, there'll also be nightly light shows at City Hall, running from 7.30pm–12am from Friday, December 9–Saturday, December 24; daily roving performances in the mall across the same dates; and the Lord Mayor's Christmas Carols on Saturday, December 10 at the Riverstage. Or, kick back at the jazz lounge around the Queen Street Mall's stage, with performances by Scat Jazz. South Bank will concentrate its festive fun between Saturday, December 17–Thursday, December 22, including daily pantomime shows, a free Santa photo station at Flowstate, and the return of Christmas Cinema by the river — complete with free double features, with Elf, Last Christmas, Arthur Christmas, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, The Holiday, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Happiest Season among the flicks on the bill. And, the Tinsel Tavern will set up on Little Stanley Street Lawn, serving tipples nightly from 4.30–10pm — and thoroughly saying cheers to the silly season.
If a great restaurant is all about the location, food and talent, then Brisbane's next big addition has hit a trifecta: it's opening on Queen Street in the CBD with prime river views, features a meat-heavy menu with a particular focus on steak, and hails from restaurateur Chris Higgins (ex-Cha Cha Char) and TV chef Adrian Richardson. That new eatery is BŌS, a 120-seater settling into Otto Ristorante's old Dexus Tower digs from Tuesday, November 15 — and that's just the first stage of its launch. BŌS takes its name from the Latin word for beef, which is indeed reflective of its menu. Here, you'll find steak tartare, eight cuts from the grill included a bacon-wrapped fillet mignon, and two giant 1.2–1.5-kilogram options to share all on offer. The pasture- and grain-fed beef and wagyu range is also complemented by a lineup of cuts in a glass dry-ageing cabinet, which guests can buy and reserve, then eat via the BŌS 'Cleaver Club' whenever they feel like it. View this post on Instagram A post shared by @bos_brisbane Clearly, if steak is your favourite meal, you'll be in heaven, with Higgins, Good Chef Bad Chef and Richo's Bar Snacks star Richardson, and lawyer Liam McMahon teaming up to give the River City its next carnivorous go-to. Diners will also find oysters three ways, chargrilled Fremantle octopus, house-smoked salmon, sand crab lasagne, crackling-wrapped pork loin and duck breast with black garlic on the menu, however, as part of BŌS embrace of different types of proteins. The culinary theme, other than meat: modern Mediterranean, as also seen in the lineup of handmade small goods like salamis, bresaola and pastrami; the southern rock lobster with hand-cut mafaldine pasta; and the hand-stretched buffalo mozzarella. Overall, Richardson is also taking cues from La Luna, his bistro in Carlton in Melbourne since 1998. "For over ten years we've been waiting for the right time to bring the soul and character of La Luna's style of cuisine to Brisbane," he explains. View this post on Instagram A post shared by @bos_brisbane BŌS' sides range covers creamy mashed potatoes, wagyu-fat roasted spuds and a selection of other vegetables, while the dessert options include vanilla bean crème brûlée, Basque cheesecake, strawberries and cream, cheeses, ricotta doughnuts and dark chocolate brownies. Espresso martinis and affogatos fall into the 'liquid dessert' category, but thanks to restaurant manager and sommelier Romain Maunier (Montrachet, La Cache a Vin), the drinks list spans far further. The vino choices favour drops from high-end producers in Australia, France and Italy, and the cocktail and spirits offerings fills seven pages. Keep an eye out for an around-the-world gin selection, Bond-style martinis, share jugs of sangria and three kinds of spritzes. Decor-wise, this Sunshine State newcomer heroes green hues and a plush fitout, with local interior design outfit Alkot Studio also favouring rounded edges, warm light, plenty of linen, and polished marble and brass. That's what you'll soak in while sitting at tables and banquettes, or in the restaurant's al fresco seating. View this post on Instagram A post shared by @bos_brisbane While all the above should tempt you in the door ASAP, plan a return trip to BŌS from January 2023, which is why its champagne and cocktail terrace bar — called The Aviary Terrace Bar — will open. Primed for summer sips, but also bound to be a must-drink spot year-round given Brisbane's usually sultry weather, it'll do full bottle service with city views. Find BŌS on level four, 480 Queen Street, Brisbane, from Tuesday, November 15 — open 11.30am–12am Tuesday–Saturday. The Aviary Bar and Terrace is set to open in January 2023, and we'll update you with further details close to its launch.
Australia's hot springs fiends and bathing connoisseurs have a lot to be excited about — if a trip to Victoria is in your future, or will be now. First, we learned the much-loved Peninsula Hot Springs crew was planning a new wellness and bathing precinct for East Gippsland, the Metung Hot Springs. Then, a proposal for a 900-kilometre trail linking the state's hot springs and other bathing spots was unveiled. And now, it's time to actually start planning those Gippsland-based bathing adventures, because the Metung Hot Springs has announced an initial launch date, with bookings to open in a matter of days. The first phase of the $100-million precinct's long-awaited grand opening is slated for Saturday, October 29 — and you can jump online to book a visit from Monday, September 19. Much like its Mornington Peninsula sibling, the Gippsland site is set to be one giant haven of wellness and indulgence, nestled on 25 acres surrounded by coastal bushland and located within strolling distance of the quaint lakeside village of Metung. Guests will be able to soak in cliff-top barrels overlooking Lake King, let off steam in various architecturally designed saunas (including a floating one), pamper themselves at the day spa and rejuvenate while bathing in pools filled with geothermal water. There'll be bush walks to wander, plunge pools to get your blood pumping, and all-day dining options to refuel in between dips, too. Located four hours out of Melbourne, Metung Hot Springs will also feature onsite accommodation, including safari-style glamping tents each decked out with its own private balcony and geothermal bathing barrel. As announced earlier, the bathing precinct is also joining forces with — and renovating — the nearby former Kings Cove Golf Course, soon to relaunch as the Metung Country Club. It'll have its own resort-style accommodation and facilities, and a revamped clubhouse and restaurant, with 'stay, bathe and golf' packages on offer across the two sites. [caption id="attachment_869322" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Metung Hot Springs glamping[/caption] Meanwhile, those looking to indulge in some 'me' time can immerse themselves in the offerings of the onsite day spa, centred on authentic Larn'wa Aboriginal Lore wellness rituals incorporating native botanical spa products. The hot springs project is being brought to life with the help of $1.5 million in funding courtesy of the Victorian Government's Gippsland Tourism Recovery Package, as well as an additional $1.5 million from the federal and state governments' Local Economic Recovery Program In other related news, Victoria's proposed bathing and hot springs trail is set to start taking shape over the coming summer months, with the latest map and venue updates available to scope out online. Keen on multiple trips south to hit the hot springs? Back on the Mornington Peninsula, Alba Thermal Springs and Spa is on track to open its own doors in a matter of weeks, now taking spa and bathing bookings from September 26 onwards. Metung Hot Springs will open to customers from Saturday, October 29 at 73 Storth Ryes Avenue, Metung, Victoria. Online bookings are open from Thursday, September 19.
