The Oscars love her, moviegoers adore her — and no doubt, you do too. Alexandra Keddie certainly does. In fact, she's so fond of the woman widely considered the best actress of her generation that she's written a whole show about her obsession. Of course, the object of Keddie's affection is none other than Meryl Streep, and she's clearly been harbouring her devotion for some time. Set from the perspective of a 17-year-old girl with dreams of following in Streep's footsteps, I See Me & Meryl Streep not only steps through the thespian's celebrated, multifaceted career, but into the shoes of her biggest fan. To the delight of Mamma Mia! aficionados everywhere, ABBA features heavily. This is one of our five top picks from this year's Queensland Cabaret Festival. Read the full list.
It's back, it's big and it's heading around Australia in February 2023: St Jerome's Laneway Festival and its impressive lineup, that is. Returning for the first time since 2020 — since celebrating 15 years since Danny Rogers and Jerome Borazio first decided to fill a Melbourne alleyway with tunes — the beloved fest boasts a phenomenal list of talent taking to its stages for its huge and eagerly awaited comeback tour. Here are three names to get you started: HAIM, Joji and Phoebe Bridgers. Laneway has been teasing its 2023 return since early 2021, then locked in dates and venues — and come Saturday, February 4, 2023, it'll hit up Brisbane Showgrounds. Also on the bill: Finneas, Fontaines DC, Fred again..., Girl in Red, slowthai and Turnstile, as well as 100 Gecs, Chaos in the CBD, Knucks and Mallrat. Yes, the lineup goes on from there. Clearly, there's a whole heap of reasons to be excited — from HAIM's first Australian tour since 2017 (and definitely the first since Alana killed it on the big screen in Licorice Pizza) to Bridgers' return after a huge few years, just to name a couple. Also on the list: just Laneway being back and livening up late summer in general. General ticket sales start at 9am on Thursday, September 29 via the festival's website. ST JEROME'S LANEWAY FESTIVAL 2023 LINEUP: Haim Joii Phoebe Bridgers Finneas Fontaines DC Fred again... Girl in Red slowthai Turnstile 100 Gecs Chaos in the CBD Knucks Mallrat Ross From Friends The Beths Yard Act Adam Newling The Backseat Lovers Harvey Sutherland Jacoténe Jamesjamesjames Logic1000 Sycco Tasman Keith The Lazy Eyes Top image: Dave Kan.
Another week, another Shakespeare adaptation treads the boards ‚ but don’t dare think you’ve seen it all before. As theatrical minds continue to be driven to tweak the bard’s texts in different directions, much of the fun stems from the varying interpretations, as well as the many modernising touches that often result. In both areas, La Boite’s new take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream promises to deliver beyond the enchanted lovers, fools and fairies fans already know and love. Here, writer and director Benjamin Schostakowski (of A Tribute of Sorts) uproots the charmed romantic tale from Athens to a nostalgia-tinged vision of the ordinary Australian neighbourhood. The story still centres on a love rectangle, amateur actors rehearsing a play, an impending wedding and the interference of magical creatures. Just add lava lamps, slide nights and macrame wall-hangings for an over-the-top local spin both offbeat and amusing.
Whether this is your first Valentine's Day together as a couple or if you've been partnered for years, it's always nice to save a bit of money while still showering each other with love and affection. With our thrifty and fun date ideas, you'll be able to enjoy the best part about Valentine's Day — that is, each other — while getting off the couch and away from the undeniably strong appeal of takeaway and a movie. And, even if you're not romantically partnered, none of these options are so oozing with loved up romance that you couldn't just as easily take a mate along. Use this V Day to celebrate love, whatever form and shape it takes, and whomever you choose to spend it with. Make this one to remember. DIY PICNIC BY THE WATER If you're the kind of couple that shirks restaurants and shies away from the chintzy romance commonly thrust upon partnered people at this time of the year, then why not avoid the fine dining scene altogether? Grab a rug, a basket and a selection of your favourite olives, cheese and crackers, and watch the sunset from a waterside vantage point near you. Brisbane has plenty to choose from. Try Kangaroo Point Cliffs, New Farm Park or Howard Smith Wharves — they're all close enough to the city that you can pop down after work and have plenty of time to have a plate of cheese in hand before the sun goes down. And depending which one you choose, you can wander through South Bank, stroll around the gardens or mosey around Brisbane's newest waterside precinct afterwards. HEAD TO AN ADULTS-ONLY ARCADE For a retro date night that'll place you firmly in kidult territory, make your way to B. Lucky & Sons or Archie Bros Cirque Electriq. You'll find one bar-meets-arcade in Fortitude Valley and the other in Toombul — so take your pick. The bars' games are clear throwbacks for the millennial generation, featuring everything from Mario Kart and Dance Dance Revolution and Daytona to NBA Hoops. At Archie Bros, you'll also find bowling and bumper cars. Thankfully, both are strictly adults-only at night, so you don't have to worry about being laughed at by a ten-year-old ruining your romantic vibe. For drinks, you'll find canned cocktails, alcoholic bubble teas, boozy shakes and other creative concoctions. If you live further south, you could always hit up Timezone. [caption id="attachment_760192" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Animation Alliance Australia[/caption] WATCH LOVE-THEMED SHORT FILMS IN A LANEWAY Cosying up in a cinema is an incredibly standard way to spend Valentine's Day. Watching inventive, vivid and creative short films in a laneway definitely isn't. Forget Love Actually — it's Love Animated when Bakery Lane turns its tiny stretch of Fortitude Valley's pavement into a free openair cinema for one night. In conjunction with the Animation Alliance Australia, 14 animated shorts about romance will grace the big screen, including one of this year's Oscar nominees for Best Animated Short Film. And you can forget popcorn and choc tops as well, with Bakery Lane's restaurants and bars getting into the appropriate mood. You just know that Cakes & Shit will have the perfect dessert for the occasion, too. HIT THE ICE Take a chill approach to Valentine's Day in a very literal way — by heading to Iceworld. As too many movies to count have taught us (including last year's Last Christmas, to mention just one), hitting the ice is a surefire way to set hearts a-fluttering. And, it's fun. That's always the case, whether you're such a whiz on the blades that you can bust out a few tricks or you definitely need to hang on to your favourite person for support. At both its Acacia Ridge and Boondall locations, Iceworld is decking out the joint with romance-themed decorations, a playlist to match and prizes for best couple — and entry, including skate hire, will set you back just $20 per person. [caption id="attachment_752321" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Andrew S via Flickr[/caption] WANDER AROUND A TWILIGHT MARKET Setting up a heap of stalls at Newstead's Gasometer, The Market Folk is turning Valentine's Day into a celebration of artisanal goodies. Grab your other half, take a gander at everything from homewares and clothes to plants and ceramics, and enjoy wandering beneath one of inner-city Brisbane's most striking sights — especially when it's lit up at night. The couple that browses together, stays together, after all. Plus, if you haven't yet bought your special someone a gift, you'll be in the perfect place for it. When you're done enjoying the Gasworks Valentine's Day Market, you'll find plenty of eateries in the vicinity for a post-market bite to eat as well.
In today's art world, it's hard to establish yourself as an emerging artist. Galleries will rarely take the risk of featuring your work, and investors won't even know you exist. Equally tough for wannabe art buffs is to develop a reputation of being a seasoned collector, known for having your proverbial finger on the pulse of the next big thing. The solution could be Artsicle — a try-before-you-buy art rental program based in New York which provides much-needed exposure to artists and affordable art pricing options for art afficionados. The site allows first-time investors to road test art before handing over the big bucks. Simply select from Artsicle's online catalogue, which largely features the work of young artists, and the original art is delivered to your doorstep. $50 a month gets you the pleasure of hanging new works on the walls of your home or office on regular basis. If you love the art enough you can buy it for your very own; if you don't you're under no obligation to purchase and can simply swap it for a new work. [Via PSFK]
Putting yourself in someone else's shoes is what empathy is all about. Wondering how a stranger's life plays out is one of the most common ways to kick your imagination into gear. Combine the two with artist Fiona Tan and an exploration of the concept of representation — both how we choose to portray ourselves to the world, and the way that we perceive others — and you have the video work Nellie. Exhibiting at the Institute of Modern Art from April 1 to 29, Nellie focuses on Cornelia van Rijn, a real-life figure largely overlooked by history. She was the daughter of seventeenth century painter Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, and moved to Batavia — which is now Jakarta — when she was 15. The rest of her tale, well, through a combination of film and photography, as well as research and storytelling, that's where Tan's piece comes in.
If one place has proven the cornerstone of Aussie society, it's the humble local pub. A space of solace for anyone in need of a refreshing beverage and a tasty dinner, it's our modern-day meeting ground, and it attracts all sorts. Perhaps that's why The Foxy Morons decided to stage their latest show at Hotel LA — and why they're satirising everything that makes the nation great while they're there. Come for anthem-filled, skit-heavy autobiographical cabaret, stay for the Sia and Nicki Webster jokes, and even enjoy a pub meal as part of the ticket price.
We all know how fast Splendour tickets sell out. It’s an often heartbreaking ordeal getting in the queue and then finding yourself ejected out of line or just missing out on tickets entirely! Some of us don’t have the cash to buy tickets either, and some others are just after some live music that’s a bit more on the alternative side. Too Poor For Splendour is the perfect event if you are one of the types of people mentioned above. The festival is on again this Splendour weekend for all you Brisbane music fans and the line-up is absolutely packed with great local talent. The line-up includes Tiny Migrants (Pictured), Cannon, The Otchkies, Cheap Fakes, Running Gun Sound and many, many more. Bonus information in case you aren’t convinced: the event is all ages, they have food stalls and the venue has a licensed bar on premises. Get a ticket, get yourself to Davies Park in West End and enjoy 12 hours of Brisbane’s best music. Please take note: Tickets are only available in-store at select locations.
No one can know for certain what tomorrow will bring; however, the tales told on screens big and small, and through games and comics as well, have delivered plenty of visions of what might come. Will androids dream of electric sheep? Will a Keanu Reeves (John Wick: Chapter 4)-voiced rock star and terrorist make their presence known? Will Afrofuturist technologies transform life as we know it? These are some of the future possibilities conjured up by beloved pop-culture titles — and they're all part of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image's world-premiere exhibition The Future & Other Fictions as well. Displaying at the Melbourne screen museum across Thursday, November 28, 2024–Sunday, April 27, 2025, taking pride of place as its big summer showcase, The Future & Other Fictions is a love letter to and deep dive into futuristic storytelling. More than 180 works feature, including from Blade Runner 2049, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Creator. Saltsea Chronicles, comic series NEOMAD and Björk's music video 'The Gate': they're all also covered. Before he was just Ken, Ryan Gosling (The Fall Guy) starred in the 35-years-later sequel to Blade Runner — and before he brought Dune and Dune: Part Two to the screen, Denis Villeneuve directed Blade Runner 2049. The Future & Other Fictions lets attendees follow in their footsteps via miniature sets, which are one of the exhibition's definite must-sees. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever gets the nod thanks to Academy Award-winning costumes by Ruth E Carter, while sketches from NEOMAD also feature — as do concept art from The Creator, Cyberpunk 2077 and Saltsea Chronicles. This showcase isn't just about well-known renderings of the future, though, thanks to work by Olalekan Jeyifous, Osheen Siva and Tāgata Moana art collective Pacific Sisters. Plus, via new commissions, DJ Hannah Brontë has her own take, and so does Liam Young and Natasha Wanganeen (Limbo). As it celebrates how screens imagine the years ahead via its array of artwork, sets, props and scripts — alongside clips, costumes and original design materials, too — The Future & Other Fictions also features a film season focusing on Björk, complete with Björk: Biophilia Live on the lineup. [caption id="attachment_974750" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Mahia Te Kore[/caption]
Clear your Saturdays, gather the gang, and get ready to eat, drink and enjoy brunch like it's meant to be enjoyed. Prepare to hop down the coast, too, for a mid-morning meal by the beach with bottomless booze. Whether you're weekending at Burleigh, find yourself in the area often or love brunch so much that you'll make the trek via public transport, you'll want to pop The Tropic's new weekend event on your calendar. Kicking off on Saturday, July 6 and running weekly from 11am–1pm afterwards, this excuse for a feast will pair executive chef Guillaume Zika's menu will your choice of beverage options. Driving? Not feeling like hitting the sauce? That's okay, too. Whichever you pick, you'll munch your way through freshly shucked oysters, a truffle and mortadella toasted sandwich, prawn cocktail rolls and wood-fired pork bun. Then, because every good brunch involves dessert, you'll tuck chocolate and strawberry cupcakes, plus lemon meringue tarts. The food-only package costs $55, while you can down bottomless NV Chandon and NV Chandon Rosé for $99 in total (including your meal), or opt for Veuve Clicquot and Veuve Clicquot Rosé for $129 (again, including food). From 11am, DJs will be spinning tunes, should you want to make a beachy day of it. Reserve your spot via email by contacting reservations@burleighpavilion.com.
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of cinemas worldwide, two questions arose: when will they be able to reopen and, with movie release dates instantly thrown into disarray, what will they show? Picture palaces are now welcoming movie buffs back through the doors in some portions of the world, including parts of Australia and in New Zealand, so that's the first query taken care of. Just what they're able to screen, however, is still the subject of constant manoeuvring. Many of the big films that were due to release in 2020 have been shifted to 2021, such as Fast and Furious 9, In the Heights, Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Halloween Kills. Some have remained committed to reaching the silver screen this year, but have still moved their release date over and over, like Tenet. And some have decided to make the jump online — including after rescheduling in-cinema release plans a few times, as is the case with Disney's live-action Mulan remake. As announced this week, the new Mulan will head straight to streaming platform Disney+ in many areas of the world, including Australia and New Zealand. It'll hit the service on Friday, September 4, but it won't be a part of your regular subscription. Instead, you'll have to pay to view it on a video-on-demand or 'premier access' basis, at a cost that's yet to be announced for viewers Down Under. If you want a ballpark figure, though, the US price is $29.99. This isn't the first Disney project to make the move to digital this year, with Pixar's Onward doing the same after a very brief cinema run as the globe went into lockdowns in March. Terrible family-friendly fantasy Artemis Fowl bypassed theatres altogether, hitting Disney+ in early June, while the phenomenal recorded version of Hamilton debuted on the streamer in July. In Mulan's case, it'll mean that fans can not only watch the highly anticipated blockbuster at home, but also finally enjoy the latest screen iteration of the famed character. In Chinese history, the legend of Hua Mulan dates back to the sixth century. At the movies, the formidable female warrior first fought her way across the big screen in a 1927 silent film. Mulan has been no stranger to the page, stage or cinema over the past 92 years, but many folks know the tale thanks to Disney's 1998 animated musical. Now, as it has done with everything from Alice in Wonderland to The Jungle Book to Aladdin, the Mouse House has turned the story into its latest live-action remake. Once again, Mulan (played by Chinese American actor Liu Yifei) will evolve from dutiful daughter to kick-ass combatant, all to protect her family in a time of war. She's originally due to be married off to a husband chosen by a matchmaker, until the Emperor of China issues a decree stating that one man per household must serve the Imperial Army as it endeavours to fend off northern invaders. To save her ailing ex-soldier father from having to fight, Mulan disguises herself as a man, takes on the name Hua Jun and becomes an icon. Forget rousing tunes or a talking dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy. This time, the tale hits the screen without a singing and smart-talking sidekick, but with plenty of sword-swinging, arrow-flinging antics. In New Zealand director Niki Caro's (Whale Rider, The Zookeeper's Wife) hands, this version of the story goes heavy on the action and empowerment, as shown in the spectacularly choreographed scenes seen so far. As well as Liu (whose resume includes The Forbidden Kingdom and The Assassins), the new Mulan features Jet Li as the Chinese Emperor, Gong Li as a witch, Donnie Yen as the protagonist's mentor, Jason Scott Lee as a villainous army leader, and Yoson An (The Meg, Mortal Engines) as her fellow fighter and love interest. Check out the full trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK8FHdFluOQ Mulan will be able to view via Disney+ — on a 'premier access' video-on-demand basis from September 4, 2020. Image: © 2020 Disney Enterprises, Inc.
At this time of year, everywhere feels like a party — every bar, pub, venue, club and restaurant, and sometimes every street corner as well. We're all in a festive mood, there's plenty of beverages to be drunk and much to celebrate. That's what Christmas is all about. On Friday, December 6, The Fox Hotel is leaning into that idea by hosting Cheers and Beers. While the taps will be flowing inside the South Brisbane watering hole, as usual, plenty of tipples will be on offer outside as well. In fact, the shindig will take over Hope Street for a huge block party from 6pm. Entry is free, and attendees will find DJs spinning tunes on the street, as well as pop-up bars serving beer, wine and spirits. If you're keen on a cocktail, you can grab one inside, then bring it outside to the festival. And, if you're feeling hungry, there'll also be a pop-up taco bar too. Image: The Fox Hotel.
Yesterday LCD Soundsystem made a surprise appearance on this year's Coachella lineup, almost five years after the band called it quits. But guess what? That is only the start of it. And proving speculation to be true, frontman James Murphy has posted a lengthy (read: really long) note on the band's website confirming that, yes, the band has officially reunited, yes, they'll be doing an "all over" tour, and they'll be releasing a new album in 2016. Holy shit. We'd almost be angry if we weren't so insanely excited right now. It seems that Murphy has anticipated some backlash from fans who have already mourned the band, and are presumably (hopefully) already on the other side of their seven stages of grief. In his apologetic post, which was also shared on the band's Facebook early this morning Australian time, Murphy acknowledges the fans who "feel very attached to the band, and have put a lot of themselves into their care of us, who feel betrayed by us coming back and playing". These fans did, of course, shell out and possibly sold a limb and/or firstborn child for their last glimpse of LCD at their final Madison Square Garden show back in 2011 — a moment that may now, according to Murphy, may feel "cheapened" by their reunion and promise to do a wider tour. He writes: "to you i have to say: i’m seriously sorry. the only thing we can do now is get back into the studio and finish this record, and make it as fucking good as we can possibly make it." An expected album release date is currently unknown, as are the details of the proposed "all over tour" — but we expect the Internet will start wildly speculating on that too. As for an Australian tour? Well, we'll be sitting here quietly, crossing all our things. Image: Matt Biddulph via Wikimedia Commons
When Jennifer Kent's The Babadook creeped its way across screens in 2014, it became an Australian horror classic. Now, five years later, the Aussie filmmaker is back with a completely different type of unsettling film. Prepare to feel just as uncomfortable in The Nightingale, which steps back to Tasmania circa 1825 to follow a young Irish convict (Aisling Franciosi) seeking revenge on a cruel British officer (Sam Claflin) — with assistance on her trek from an Aboriginal tracker named Billy (Baykali Ganambarr). Premiering at the Venice Film Festival last year, the movie made an instant splash, winning a special jury prize for Kent and nabbing the best young actor award for Ganambarr — a dancer from Arnhem Land who had never appeared on screen before. The Nightingale then screened at the Adelaide Film Festival, as well as at Sundance; however the bulk of Australia has been waiting for the film to finally hit cinemas. And, to even catch a glimpse of just what's in store. The just-released first trailer for The Nightingale takes care of the latter problem. "You don't want trouble, but sometimes trouble wants you," Claflin's character snarls menacingly in a particularly chilling moment, with the Hunger Games star definitely playing against type. As for when it'll release locally, the film is set to play this year's Sydney Film Festival before rolling out in cinemas around the country at the end of August. Unpacking Australia's colonial history, as well as its treatment of both women and the country's Indigenous population, it's an absolutely essential and shattering masterpiece — something we say from experience. The vengeance-fuelled film is also far from easy to watch, filled as it is with trauma, darkness, visceral shocks and deep-seated pain. Inspiring walkouts at the movie's sessions in Adelaide, Kent can't be accused of holding back. Check out the trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfPxmnMAyZw The Nightingale releases in Australian cinemas on August 29, 2019.
Because every big event needs an alternative, Riverlife has come up with the thing to go to when you're not going to the Ekka. Their Winterfest is a riverside chillout session at Kangaroo Point, where relaxing in the sun is the main affair. Every ticket includes a winter warmer meal complete with freshly made waffles and a hot chocolate rum, i.e. the perfect food and drink for the season. If you're feeling a little cool — well, Brisbane-level cold — while you're browsing the markets and watching DJ Cliftonia and Sharif on the sax provide live entertainment, you won't be shivering for long, as blankets and heaters will even be provided.
There’s just something about celebrating the end of the year by stepping back in time: next stop, the 1990s. You lived through it, so you know what you’re in for: everything from neon and leggings to flannelette shirts and Doc Martens to cargo pants and backwards caps. You’re also in for the biggest club hits and dance anthems from the decade that gave us boy bands galore, rap and R&B racing up the charts, and everything in between. DJs from some of Brisbane’s biggest clubs at the time help bring a slice of authenticity to this blast from the past. You see? You really can still party like it’s 1999.
Proving that the Australian film industry isn't immune to the sequelitis that has plagued American horror franchises for decades, director Greg McLean has teamed back up with star John Jarratt for a follow-up to their stomach-turning 2005 sleeper hit, Wolf Creek. Not unsurprisingly, the result feels very much like a cash grab. A film no one was asking for, Wolf Creek 2 trades the raw, taboo-shattering violence of its predecessor for a cheaper, more predictable yet somehow nastier kind of carnage. The difference between the two films becomes obvious almost immediately. Although notorious for the graphic tortures inflicted on its backpacking protagonists, the original Wolf Creek actually runs for almost an hour before the first drop of blood is even spilled. Prior to that, McLean spends his time getting us to care about his characters, making their eventual demise, at the hands of Jarratt's Akubra-wearing serial killer, that much more distressing. In comparison, Wolf Creek 2 puts the villain front and centre, allowing him his first kill before we even see a title card. Focusing on the killer is a standard move for a horror sequel, and seems all the more logical here in light of Jarratt's fantastic performance. A blood-soaked ocker stereotype from hell (with a sick sense of humour to match), killer Mick Taylor is a cinematic sadist for the ages; his menacing chortle sends shivers down your spine, even as his profane, xenophobic rants strike savagely at the heart of so-called Australian values. But while Jarratt's performance is the sequel's best feature, his character's increased role is also its biggest problem. Unlike in the first film, McLean never bothers to flesh out Taylor's prey, which this time consists of two Germans and a Pom. Conversely, Taylor is clearly the character that viewers are meant to be most excited to see. At times, it even feels like we're meant to root for him, which I found difficult to reconcile with the fact that he's a murderer and a rapist. Wolf Creek was effectively shocking because it made no attempt to make its violence entertaining. Wolf Creek 2 does just that, making it a far more exploitative film. This might be less of a sticking point if the movie was actually scary. But it's not — just intermittently gory. Most of the film consists of Taylor chasing his helpless quarry through the outback, their capture or grizzly death (probably both) a glum inevitability. Things briefly get interesting in the film's final third, when McLean finally rediscovers the notion that terror comes not just from violence, but from the threat of it. But by then it's too little, too late. https://youtube.com/watch?v=s4bqeT5edbs
The new decade has only just landed, but already we're getting a taste of some futuristic things headed our way — like the much-hyped air taxis from Uber, for example. This week, the company unveiled the latest designs for its new flying vehicles. We already know Aussies will be among the first in the world to experience this Uber Elevate aerial rideshare network, after Melbourne was named as one of three global cities where the service will commence testing. Along with Dallas and Los Angeles in the US, the Victorian city is set to host Uber Elevate trials from some time this year. Now, the world has scored a glimpse of just what these aerial taxis will look like, as Uber Elevate and Hyundai (the company's just-announced first automotive partner) unveiled their new full-scale aircraft concept model at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Dubbed S-A1, the Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) has been designed to cruise at speeds of up to 290 kilometres per hour (similar to a helicopter), flying around 300–600 metres above the ground on trips of up to 100 kilometres in distance. Initially, the taxis would be flown by pilots, though there are plans to make them completely driverless over time. Sitting in an autonomous helicopter-like vehicle flying through the sky at 290 kilometres per hour sounds like a potential nightmare, but we're sure (or we hope) they'll do a lot of testing with drivers before it gets to that. The vehicles are also set to run entirely on electricity and will have several smaller helicopter-style rotors, instead of just one, helping to keep things a lot quieter. It's expected that during peak times, the electric vehicle will only take five to seven minutes to recharge, which is bound to seem pretty speedy to anyone who's ever been stuck in peak-hour traffic in a regular taxi. The Uber Elevate vehicles can carry up to four passengers and they'll take off and land vertically using helipad-style 'Skyports' located on high rooftops at key points around the city that might look a little like this: As this is just as concept at the moment, the PAVs (and helipads) that eventually take to Melbourne's skies could look wildly different. Last year, Uber Elevate revealed the aerial taxi system would be available to riders from as early as 2023 and that eventually, flights would cost the same as an UberX trip of the same distance. So, we guess we can get set for some Jetsons-style travel action in the not too distant future. Uber Elevate is slated to start tests in Melbourne by the end of 2020 with regular services kicking off in 2023. To read more about the program, head to the Uber website, and to check out the vehicle designs, see Hyundai's website.
In Encanto, the Madrigal family might not talk about Bruno, but they sure do sing about him — and, thanks to that earworm of a Lin-Manuel Miranda-composed track, everyone watching soon does, too. Just try to catch the Golden Globe-winning, Oscar nominated animated hit without getting that song stuck in your head for weeks. No matter what you do, it's impossible. In fact, even mentioning the tune in this very paragraph will cause the same result. Yes, we know that everyone reading this now has 'We Don't Talk About Bruno' burrowed into their brains again — and there's absolutely nothing that we can do about it. But when a ditty takes up residence inside your skull and won't leave, you may as well lean in. And, over at Disney+, you can stream a sing-along version of Encanto that'll get you crooning with the movie from your couch. No longer solely the domain of special cinema screenings, Disney's sing-along takes on its famous musicals are heading to its streaming service. It was always bound to happen, and the Mouse House has started with the movie of the moment. As you watch, lyrics will dance across your TV screen when it's time to belt out ballads — so if you don't know all the words yet (or if you're viewing with someone who thinks they do, but inserts their own mistaken lyrics), they'll all be there for you. While Encanto is the first flick to get the sing-along Disney+ treatment among the company's popular musicals — and it hit the service back on Friday, March 18, so it's there to watch and warble along to now — it obviously won't be the last. The Mouse House has plenty of other tune-filled movies to its name, after all, and it's planning to build up a catalogue of them on its streaming service. Accordingly, before 2022 is out, Frozen, Frozen 2, and both the animated and live-action versions of Beauty and the Beast are all set to make their way to the platform. Exact dates haven't yet been revealed, but at least you now know there'll be other chances to get different Disney tunes stuck in your head — or 'We Don't Talk About Bruno' will just have 'Let It Go' and 'Be Our Guest' for company. The sing-along version of Encanto is available to stream via Disney+ now, with Frozen, Frozen 2, and both the animated and live-action versions of Beauty and the Beast set to hit the platform throughout 2022.
It's never been a better time to go no-alc than right now. Today, it's not odd to be going dry, it's accepted, celebrated and understood. Alcohol isn't for everyone or every occasion, but no one really wants to be excluded from the fun. The underwhelming or straight-up bland alcohol-free options of the past have evolved. Bartenders are getting creative with mocktails, there are numerous no- and low-alcohol brands now on offer, and even traditional alcohol brands are getting involved with alc-free versions to shift with the changing times. If you're booze-free, reducing your boozing or just curious about what's available out there, we've teamed up with Edenvale Wines — a premium alcohol-removed wine range — to create this list of our best takes on the top alternative alcohol-free beverages in the market today. WINE — EDENVALE WINES It's tricky to make non-alcoholic wine that doesn't taste just like grape juice. With lots of research — and some tinkering to the custom spinning cone column technology which removes the alcohol — Edenvale is constantly perfecting its range. The beauty of Edenvale Wines is that the alcohol is removed after the wine is made, meaning it retains all the flavours, tannins, complexity and aromas of traditional wines. The winemakers are slinging both Aussie and international wines to offer a range that is true-to-varietal and expressions of the regions they are grown in. So whether you want a semillon sauv blanc from Frankland River, WA, a GSM from Barossa or even a verdejo from Spain, Edenvale Wines have options for you. If you are a wine drinker looking to make a change or sober curious and wondering if you could dupe your mates with a non-alc version of their favourite varietals, Edenvale is recognised as being one of the best non-alc versions out there. The sparkling shiraz was just awarded a gold medal at the International Wine and Spirits Competition (IWSC), London 2023 and is an excellent match for red meats like a juicy steak. BEER — HEAPS NORMAL Many of our favourite beer brands are putting out their own non-alcoholic ranges of beers, but few are primarily dedicated to creating a quality booze-free beer option. Enter Heaps Normal, which has solidified itself as a top beer choice with its considered range that includes an XPA, hazy pale ale, lager and — most recently — a stout. The team behind Heaps Normal are champions of the no-alcohol and low-alc movement and mindful drinking and aim to serve great-tasting beer without the potential downsides. WHISKEY — THE GOSPEL Whisk(e)y is a tricky spirit to create a satisfying non-alc version of, as most bonafide whiskey fiends love to drink it straight. The trademark burn at the back of your throat satisfies those who love a dram. And that burn is alcohol. Australia's first-ever dedicated all-rye distillery, The Gospel, (recently named the maker of Australia's Best Whiskey) is now one of the first to produce non-alcoholic rye whiskey: Responsible Rye. Under the guidance of its Sommelier and R&D distiller Ellie Ash and over a year in development, the rye-lovers at The Gospel have perfected the non-alc alternative to a dram. It is made using de-alcoholised rye whiskey — a similar process to alcohol removal used by Edenvale Wines — to ensure the liquid is full of the classic rye whiskey flavours: underlying smokiness, candied nuts, cardamom and cola. GIN — LYRE'S SPIRIT One of the first non-alc offerings on the market was non-alcoholic gin. Numerous brands duped G&T lovers with bottled non-alc spirits that emulated the alcoholic brethren on the shelves. Craft spirits lovers assumed they were the latest craft gin on the market, only to discover that they were all flavour and no hangover. One such brand is Lyre's Spirit. An innovative brand pumping out non-alc spirits — they even have a bitter orange liqueur so you can enjoy a summer spritz free from booze. The Lyre's London Dry is a take on the traditional gin style. Expect juniper flavours, peppercorn and citrus. Ideal for a dry G&T or not-so-classic classic Tom Collins. And those that like a bitter orange spritz can opt for the Italian Orange and Aperifit Rosso for their day-time summer sipping. TEQUILA — DRUMMERBOY MEXICAN AGAVE SPIRIT Another dedicated spirits brand pushing out award-winning versions of our favourite sips is Drummerboy and its Mexican Agave Spirit, ideal for those that love a margarita but not the alcohol. Like Edenvale Wines, it has also been recognised by the International Wine and Spirits Competition. A bright and zesty alternative to your traditional tequila that is perfect in cocktails or by itself. Edenvale Wines is a premium range of alcohol-removed wines that are available to purchase directly from the website or at most major supermarket retailers. Top image: Moira Vella Photography
Attending film festivals around the world is the cinephile dream, but it's rarely a reality for most movie lovers. If you spend the end of August and beginning of September each year wishing that you were at the Venice International Film Festival, you'll understand. Brisbane's own annual cinema showcase has given big-screen obsessives a way to cope two years in a row now, however, boasting Venice' Golden Lion-winning flick as part of its lineup in both 2023 and 2024. Last year, Poor Things headed straight to BIFF from its prestigious Italian counterpart. This year, The Room Next Door is doing the same. This time, Brisbanites can look forward to the latest film from Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar (Parallel Mothers, Pain and Glory), which is also his English-language feature debut, with the iconic director spinning the story about a fracturing family starring Tilda Swinton (Fantasmas), Julianne Moore (May December) and John Turturro (Mr & Mrs Smith). Also hitting BIFF direct from overseas is Venice's Silver Lion-winner The Brutalist, which picked up the fest's Best Director prize. Actor-turned-filmmaker Brady Corbet is back behind the lens after The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux, directing Adrien Brody (Asteroid City), Felicity Jones (Dead Shot) and Guy Pearce (Inside) while following architect László Toth and his wife Erzsébet to America from Europe after the Second World War. The two just-announced films are on the BIFF agenda as special presentations, only screening once each. Accordingly, if you're keen to see them, you'll want to hop on tickets quickly. BIFF 2024 takes place between Thursday, October 24–Sunday, November 3, screening at Palace Barracks, Dendy Coorparoo, Reading Newmarket, Five Star Cinemas New Farm, Angelika Film Centre and Dendy Powerhouse. The full lineup is also on the way, with tickets for the complete program on sale from Thursday, September 26. So far, the fest has revealed that backstage comedy Saturday Night will open the event and documentary Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story will close it. Similarly already on the lineup: Anora, the latest feature from Tangerine, The Florida Project and Red Rocket filmmaker Sean Baker, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival; the Amy Adams (Dear Evan Hansen)-starring Nightbitch; Riley Keough (Daisy Jones & the Six) and Jesse Eisenberg (Fleishman Is in Trouble) playing a sasquatch family in Sasquatch Sunset; Aussie horror The Red; and the female Iranian judo athlete-focused Tatami. The 2o24 Brisbane International Film Festival runs between Thursday, October 24–Sunday, November 3 at Palace Barracks, Dendy Coorparoo, Dendy Powerhouse, Reading Newmarket, Five Star Cinemas New Farm and Angelika Film Centre. For further information, or to buy tickets, head to the festival website — and check back here on Thursday, September 26 for the full program.
When a music festival takes place in a winery, it already has two of the three fest essentials taken care of before it even announces its lineup: an ace location and booze. But, that doesn't mean that Grapevine Gathering slouches on talent. The acts hitting its stages around the country are always chosen to impress, and 2023's fests are no different. Leading the charge: Spacey Jane, King Stingray and Vanessa Amorosi, with the latter meaning that 'Absolutely Everybody' will be stuck in your head for weeks afterwards. The Wombats and Hayden James are also on the bill, both doing Australian-exclusive shows at the wine-fuelled festival. Rounding out the list: Cannons, The Rions, Teenage Joans and Bella Amor, plus podcast duo Lucy and Nikki on hosting duties. [caption id="attachment_905845" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sam Hendel[/caption] Grapevine Gathering's 2023 tour will hit Queensland on Sunday, October 8, taking place at Sirromet Wines. Naturally, sipping wine is a huge part of the attraction. As always, attendees will have access to a heap of vino given the fest's locations, as well as an array of food options. GRAPEVINE GATHERING 2023 LINEUP: Spacey Jane The Wombats Hayden James King Stingray Vanessa Amorosi Cannons The Rions Teenage Joans Bella Amor Hosted by Lucy and Nikki Top image: Jordan Munns.
You’ve probably woken up to his voice for the last year, so now it’s time to see him in person. No, we’re not being creepy. We just think you should take your fondness for Triple J’s breakfast show co-host Matt Okine to the next level by checking out his stand-up. Okine certainly has plenty to talk about, and we know he’s not afraid to make jokes about just about everything, too. Everything from professional success to personal pain gets a mention in this new show by this Brisbane local made good. That’s right, he grew up in Indro — and he calls it Indro, so you know it is true.
Over the past ten years, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat have spent a considerable amount of time focusing on the most portrayed human literary character in film and television, all thanks to their Benedict Cumberbatch-starring series Sherlock. After four seasons, the series doesn't appear to be making any more episodes anytime soon, so the TV writers and producers have turned their attention elsewhere. To start a new decade, they're sinking their teeth into only literary character, human or otherwise, that's featured on the big and small screens more often than their beloved detective. That'd be Dracula. Adapting Bram Stoker's 1987 gothic classic for the BBC and Netflix, the duo's new take on the undead figure tells unravels the bloodsucking count's tale across a three-part mini-series. From ol' Drac's origins in Transylvania to his run-ins with Van Helsing, it's all covered — plus his encounters with solicitor Jonathan Harker and his wife Mina, and his impact in Victorian-era London, too — although Dracula promises to revisit and reshape the famous horror story in a fresh way. Baring his fangs as the most notorious vampire of all is Danish actor Claes Bang (The Square, The Girl in the Spider's Web), while the show's cast also features Dolly Wells (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), John Heffernan (Official Secrets) and Morfydd Clark (Crawl). Naturally, it all looks suitably creepy and brooding — and, in more than a few scenes, rather bloody. Netflix has just revealed the full final trailer ahead of dropping the entire show itself, which'll hit the streaming platform Down Under on Saturday, January 4. The exact time hasn't been revealed, but Netflix's newbies usually release at 6pm AEST / 7pm ADST. Check out the Dracula trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-b2HXpbg7U Dracula hits Netflix on Saturday, January 4.
When there's an occasion worth celebrating, Brisbane Quarter joins in. So, now that Lunar New Year is upon us for 2025, the inner-city precinct is doing just that. The CBD spot is marking the Year of the Snake with a day of roving lion dances and — in great news for your stomach — special menu options for a couple of weeks. For the dances, you'll need to make a date on Wednesday, January 29. The performance is free, taking place at 7pm. Between Tuesday, January 28–Monday, February 10, gathering the gang is recommended at Brisbane Phoenix. The restaurant is doing indulgent group feasts across the two weeks, including a ten-course version for six or ten people — for $1688 and $2288 respectively. On the menu: flaming lobster, salmon sashimi salad with flying fish caviar, steamed scampi, black moss dried scallop and oyster, slow-cooked pork hock with truffle oil and more. Fancy an a la carte selection instead? That's also an option. [caption id="attachment_939762" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Claudia Baxter[/caption]
Just like Lego, dodgem cars and games arcades, no one ever grows out of Easter eggs. Sure, once you're no longer a kid, you know that they're an expensive way to eat chocolate. You know that regular old blocks of the stuff are sold in the same supermarkets at the same time, too. But, when the world becomes obsessed with oval-shaped sweet treats each year, a familiar feeling kicks in. Your tastebuds still want what they want — and they want something round and chocolatey. In 2021, Mr Black has a new option to tempt your sweet tooth: dark chocolate Easter eggs filled with coffee liqueur caramel. Yes, they're the ideal option if you don't want to choose between a boozy beverage and chocolate — and you'd prefer to eat your dessert, not sip it. Hand-painted and measuring just over six centimetres tall, the Mr Black Easter eggs are a collaboration with chocolatier Meltdown Artisan, and cost $20 each. Both Mr Black and Meltdown Artisan are selling them. Usually, the latter's eggs sell out, so getting in quickly is recommended. If you decide to pick up some of Mr Black's coffee liqueur at the same time — or its bottled coffee negroni or old fashioned — you can also score a free egg if you spend over $50. The coffee liqueur-filled Easter eggs are available for $20 from both Mr Black and Meltdown Artisan.
No, this isn’t just the easy option — although it might be the cheapest. Watching fireworks is a New Year’s Eve tradition, and they’re much better seen in person than on television. Brisbane’s annual display at South Bank is up there with the best, but if braving the crowds rushing for the 8.30pm and midnight pyrotechnics isn’t your thing, why not make a day of it by packing a tasty picnic and staking our your ideal spot along the river? Or venture out a little bit further to seek out a few lofty peaks to peer down on the action. Mt Coot-tha, Highgate Hill, Coorparoo and Kangaroo Point also offer great vantage points.
Over the past few months, residents of southeast Queensland have weathered quite the rollercoaster ride when it comes to COVID-19 restrictions. The area has been through two separate lockdowns, and seen strict rules put in place after each stay-at-home stint, with requirements tightening and loosening — and then tightening and loosening once more — again and again. But, in some welcome good news, current restrictions will start to relax earlier than originally expected. And, these new changes will come into effect just in time for the weekend. From 4pm on Friday, August 20, southeast Queensland will ease some of its limits and caps even further, including rolling back existing restrictions regarding gatherings and events. So, get ready for bigger parties, more folks hanging out in the great outdoors, and busier shows, gigs and sporting matches. That's able to become a reality thanks to low local COVID-19 case numbers over the past few days, including zero new cases on Wednesday, August 18. At this stage, the new rules will apply until 4pm on Friday, August 27. Wondering what's changing in the Brisbane, Moreton Bay, Ipswich, Lockyer, Somerset, Logan, Redland, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Noosa and Scenic Rim Local Government Areas? There'll be a 30-person limit on gatherings in homes or outdoors — and a 100-person cap on weddings and funerals. At weddings, 20 people will also be able to hit the dance floor. Community sport can resume with reduced spectators and in line with density requirements. Up to 30 people will be able to gather in homes and public spaces. Weddings and funerals can have up to 100 attendees, and up to 20 people can dance at weddings. — Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) August 18, 2021 Another big shift that'll hit at the same time: amending the capacity at both indoor and outdoor stadiums and events. If they're ticketed and have allocated seating, they can fill to 75-percent capacity. Also, community sport can return, albeit with the 75-percent ticketed and allocating seating capacity requirement for spectators — or the one person per-four-square-metres indoors and one person per-four-square-metres outdoors rules in effect. And, folks in the 11 LGAs that've been under tighter rules are no longer asked not to travel to regional Queensland — so yes, venturing further afield is back as well. Mask rules are changing, too, with covering your face only required in indoor spaces, while waiting for or using public transport or ride share services, at schools, and if you're outdoors and can't socially distance. Queensland has a standing mask mandate for flights, airports and stadiums, though, so you'll always need to mask up there. And, you'll still always need to carry a mask with you. Here's what you need to know about the easing of restrictions in some parts of Queensland from 4pm Friday 20 August 👇 pic.twitter.com/XeoAE7otTg — Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) August 18, 2021 Announcing the changes — and the fact that the rules are relaxing earlier than the originally advised date of Sunday, August 22 — Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said "we faced a very tough test in the past month with the Indooroopilly cluster and two cases in Cairns. But once again, Queenslanders proved they were up to the challenge." "I have no doubt that the restrictions put in place saved lives," the Premier continued. "But we are now in the fortunate position of being able to wind back these restrictions so people can resume a life as normal as possible." Queenslanders are asked to keep social distancing, maintaining the hygiene practices that have been in place since March 2020, and checking the state's list of exposure sites — and to get tested if you're feeling even the slightest possible COVID-19 symptoms. Southeast Queensland's COVID-19 restrictions will relax further from 4pm on Friday, August 20. For more information about the status of COVID-19 in Queensland, head to the QLD COVID-19 hub and the Queensland Health website.
There 'aint a whole lot new about Antoine Fuqua's The Magnificent Seven. The iconic Western was previously an American TV series running from 1998-2000, which itself was based on the 1960 movie of the same name, which in turn was based on Akira Kurosawa's 1954 epic The Seven Samurai. The story, of course, is always the same: when a big bad man runs riot through a small, peace loving town of good and decent god-fearing folk, the survivors turn to a lone vigilante and offer their every last possession in the hope of driving the evil away. In Fuqua's version, that vigilante is Denzel Washington's Sam Chisolm. As seen in recent Tarantino fare Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, the African-American lead cowboy has become a popular choice for the 'neo western', and Washington, as always, is outstanding. His silky-soft voice, penetrating stare and wily smile are so perfectly suited to the genre, it's extraordinary to think it hasn't happened sooner. Washington is joined in this adventure by a motley crew of historical and cultural juxtapositions: the exiled Comanche and the Scalper, the Confederate and the Yankee, the Mexican outlaw and the Irish gambler (whose grandpappy died at the Alamo). They should all hate each other, but they don't, and while it's a fun crew to camp with, the total absence of tension between them is as baffling as it is clearly a missed opportunity. All the same, the ensemble cast – Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Martin Sensmeier – play nicely off each other, and support Washington as best they can. On the direction front, Fuqua is no fool when it comes to high-end action, having helmed previous heart-thumpers such as Southpaw, Shooter, Training Day and The Equalizer (the latter two both with Washington in the lead). Here in The Magnificent Seven the gunplay feels impressively fast and frantic, if also wildly generous in the range and accuracy of the old-time six-shooters. It's also surprisingly gore-free despite the extreme body count, which makes for a welcome change and contributes to the old-school western vibe. In all, while The Magnificent Seven is far from perfect, it's undeniably fun, and that has to count for something. It's a western, with good guys, bad guys, gunplay and grit, and thanks to Fuqua and Washington, you get more than enough bang for your buck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-RBA0xoaWU
Music-streaming service Spotify is set to launch in Australia this week, finally blessing Australians with its promise of "all the music, all the time". It's about time, as Spotify has already become the music service of choice for over 10 million users in 13 countries. With an estimated 10,000 musical tracks added each day, Spotify is essentially a vast music library. It allows users to listen to any of its millions of tracks in real time (no irritating buffering required) on any desktop computer or mobile device, and to share those tracks effortlessly with friends. Spotify is forward-thinking in its approach to online music streaming; instead of fighting the changing face of the music industry, it is embracing the fact that people are just not purchasing CDs in the volume that they used to. Thriving off of an audio advertising revenue model, Spotify identifies a demographic target audience based on users' musical tastes. This method has proven satisfactory to advertisers and record labels alike; the majority of US and UK record labels seem to be of the thought that some revenue is better than none. The social aspect of Spotify sets it apart from other music services. It integrates into Facebook and Twitter alike, allowing users to create and share playlists. It's simple to see and hear what friends are listening to: just press 'play' on another user's playlist. All you need to get started is a username and password, and to download the service to either Windows or Mac. The Spotify website currently offers Australians the option to sign up pre-launch. Enter your e-mail address and be one of the first in line to delve into this gigantic music library.
Get ready to feel your age. After the definition of a runaway debut album, a couple of Grammys, a world tour, a collaboration with Disclosure and worldwide fame, Lorde is returning to Australia for a handful of shows — and she's still only 20 years old. The New Zealand artist — also known as Ella Yelich-O'Connor — has this morning announced she will tack on four Australian shows to her Melodrama world tour in November. All outdoor venues, she will play in Sydney's iconic Opera House Forecourt, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, Kings Park in Perth and Brisbane's City Botanic Gardens. It will be Lorde's first visit back to Australia since 2014, when she toured Pure Heroine as a wee 16-year-old. This time around, she will showcase her new album Melodrama, which is set to be released next week. General tickets go on sale at noon on Monday, June 19, but if you're a Frontier member or signed up to the Sydney Opera House's newsletter, you can access pre-sales ahead of time. Find more info on the tour here. LORDE MELODRAMA AUSTRALIAN TOUR Saturday, November 18 — Kings Park, Perth Tuesday, November 21 — Sydney Opera House Forecourt, Sydney Thursday, November 23 — Riverstage, City Botanic Gardens, Brisbane Saturday, November 26 — Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne
After almost two years of waiting, there's less than two weeks left until Stranger Things returns to your Netflix queue to unravel more of the Upside Down's mysteries. Come July, the beloved series will finally unveil its latest 80s-set supernatural chapter, much to the delight of fans everywhere. And if you've been counting down the days for far too long, the streaming platform has gifted fans with another look at the series' new eight episodes. As we saw in the show's first full season three trailer three months ago, everyone is back — although the main crew is a little older, so expect teenage versions of Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Eleven (Millie Bobbie Brown), Will (Noah Schnapp), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) and Max (Sadie Sink) this time around. Elsewhere, Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) still looks shaken, Hawkins police chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) is still a man on a mission, and everyone's favourite walking hairstyle — aka Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) — is now working in an ice cream parlour. Of course he is. Steve's place of work isn't a minor detail. As the marketing campaign has made plain and this new trailer expands upon, the brand new Hawkins mall plays a major part in the new batch of episodes. It's the sunny summer of 1985 in the small town, and its inhabitants are making the most of the warm weather, lack of school and abundance of free time that comes with it by hanging out at the shops. And dallying with more monsters, naturally. Said critter don't appear to be just regular ol' Demogorgons, either. This time, the creatures have a voice, too, advising Eleven and the gang that "we're going to end you, we're going to end your friends, and we're going to end everyone." While she thought she had banished them from our world at the end of the last season, it seems that's not how things have turned out. Adding to a list of trailers, alongside the season's initial cryptic teaser, this new footage also serves up plenty of other bits and pieces, but we'll let you discover the rest by watching. Check out the full trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcnHOQ-cHa0 Stranger Things season three arrives on Netflix on Thursday, July 4. Images: Netflix.
Love the fact or not, as far as top-notch tipples and world-class watering holes go, Melbourne just kicked a serious goal. Here to add a little more fuel to the 'which city does it best?' debate, the Victorian capital has outranked all other Australian counterparts to nab a spot in Punch's 2023 guide to the world's most travel-worthy drinking destinations. The international drinks publication has revealed its Where to Drink in 2023 wrap-up, naming Melbourne as one of just five cities worldwide. Also making the unranked list were Buenos Aires in Argentina, Portugal's capital Lisbon, Osaka in Japan and, flying the flag for the United States, Madison in Wisconsin. [caption id="attachment_787570" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Nick & Nora's by Brook James[/caption] Punch's drinks connoisseurs selected their top five locations based on their ability to deftly balance long-held traditions and old-school sensibilities with fresh, forward-thinking philosophies. "The results are often surprising, sometimes frenetic, tense, even bewildering, but never boring," Punch explains. As for what specifically earned Melbourne a spot in this year's lineup, the publication cited its penchant for the unpretentious, its new-school take on casual service and the cultural diversity that continues to shape its drinks scene. That broad assortment of genres proved a wining formula, too — whether you're into divey rock 'n roll joints like Heartbreaker, sophisticated cocktail haunts like Nick & Nora's, intimate wine bars such as The Moon, or something in between, Melbourne's got a drinking den to suit. The city's commitment to sustainability and innovation also scored a shoutout, as did its famed pub culture — according to Punch, "rivalled only by the U.'s, with a diversity and familiarity that feels particularly Australian." [caption id="attachment_835092" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Pearl Diver Cocktail & Oysters[/caption] The publication also shared its top three picks for Melbourne's must-drink cocktails, naming the espresso martini (no shocks there), the New York-style sazerac and the Melbourne-born Japanese Slipper. This boozy new badge of honour comes after Melbourne scored a slew of drinks-related accolades in 2022. CBD bar Caretaker's Cottage nabbed a spot in latest's edition of The World's 50 Best Bars extended 51–100 list, Pearl Diver's Alex Boon was crowned 2022 winner of the Patrón Perfectionists Australian Cocktail Competition and Nick Tesar of Bar Liberty took out the title of Australia's Best Bartender. [caption id="attachment_623310" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Bar Liberty by Brook James[/caption] Check out Punch's full Where to Drink in 2023 list over at its website. Top image: The Moon.
It's the film that first made the world fall in love with Hugh Grant, screenwriter Richard Curtis and their brand of British rom-coms — and, just like everything else with a well-known name in the entertainment game, Four Weddings and a Funeral is coming back. This time around, the hit flick has been remade as an American TV miniseries. If you're unsurprisingly a little skeptical, the news that Mindy Kaling is one of the show's creators and writers should change that. Kaling's six-season sitcom The Mindy Project was basically a long-running ode to the romantic comedy genre, complete with plenty of references to plenty of classic flicks. As a result, reworking one of the huge rom-com successes of the past 25 years really does feel like the logical next step. Across a ten-episode series made for US streaming service Hulu, the new Four Weddings and a Funeral will follow four American friends who meet up in London for a wedding. Clearly, given the title, three more ceremonies are in their future, as is a tearful farewell to someone they know. The show tracks a year in their lives, their romantic escapades and even political scandals — all with a cast that includes Game of Thrones' Nathalie Emmanuel as Maya, plus Rebecca Rittenhouse (The Mindy Project), Brandon Mychal Smith (You're the Worst) and John Reynolds (Search Party) as her best buddies. Nikesh Patel (Doctor Who) also features as Maya's potential love interest, who she first encounters in an airport meet cute, naturally. And while Hugh Grant doesn't show up in the trailer — sorry, 90s obsessives — original Four Weddings star Andie MacDowell does. Because Kaling isn't averse to nodding to other rom-com favourites of the era, My Best Friend's Wedding's Dermot Mulroney also makes an appearance. Watch the charming first trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=604JeF9RNu8 While Four Weddings and a Funeral drops on Hulu in the US on July 31, it doesn't yet have an Australian platform or airdate — we'll update you if and when that changes.
This Tuesday, Torbreck winemaker David Powell hosts the latest dinner in The Art of Wine series. Once a lumberjack and now an award winning winemaker, Powell will present his perfectly crafted wines – varietals that happen to be some of the most sought after sips among international connoisseurs, including powerful American wine critic, Robert Parker. We bet this has got your taste buds salivating! For those of you who aren’t familiar with Torbreck wines, here’s a little Torbreck 101. Torbreck is a Barossa Valley vineyard that specialises in Shiraz, Grenache and Mataro. The vineyard makes both red and white varieties, all with such intense, rich flavours inspired by the wines of France’s Rhone Valley. Guests will enjoy a five-course meal created by Lyrebird Restaurant Chef James Pearce, and QPAC Executive Chef Anthony Fullerton. Each course will involve wine that has been expertly matched by Powell.
If something relaxed suits your partying style, then Brisbane’s newest festival has the event for you. The gang from The Motor Room takes over the entire Boundary Street Markets Complex for 12 hours of revelry, spanning from the early afternoon to the early hours of the new year. Kick about watching musical acts such as Weekend Money, Resin Dogs, DJ Butcher and MANTRA; gorge yourself on scrumptious street food; and give your wallet a workout at the artisan markets. There’s also an urban beach and a tiki bar for true blissing out. That’s right, New Year’s Eve can be both epic and easy.
Think of art school, and a very particular image probably pops into your head. The room is sparse and solemn, the models are quiet and unclothed, and wannabe artists draw what they see onto big sheets of paper. Offering the very opposite of that experience is exactly why Dr Sketchy's creative extravaganza has been deemed an anti-art school. Here, newcomers and experienced artists alike can gaze upon burlesque performers instead of traditional life models, soak up an atmosphere of boozy chaos and generally have fun. BYO drawing equipment from home and drink from the Powerhouse bar. The latter is just as important as the former.
It's official: for only the second time in the more than three decades that the country's professional Aussie Rules competition has called itself the Australian Football League, the AFL grand final will be hosted outside of Melbourne. The game will move outside Victoria for the second year in a row, too. After flagging last week that Perth's Optus Stadium would hold the biggest match of the 2021 season if the Melbourne Cricket Ground was unable to welcome in spectators, AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan has now confirmed that the grand final will indeed be held in Western Australia. Given that Melbourne is currently under lockdown for the sixth time during the pandemic, and that those stay-at-home conditions won't be ending this week as last outlined — and, even if Victoria's lockdown does end by grand final day, Melbourne's stadiums may not be permitted to host crowds under post-lockdown restrictions — the news comes as absolutely no surprise. The game will still go ahead on Saturday, September 25, although exactly what time it'll kick off is yet to be revealed. Moving the match to Perth does means that 2020's night grand final won't be repeated, due to the time difference between Australia's west and east coasts — and McLachlan said that the AFL is looking at an afternoon or twilight time slot. Also yet to be announced: the crowd capacity under Western Australia's restrictions. Optus Stadium can host 60,000 people, however. The move comes after the 2020 grand final was held at the Brisbane Cricket Ground, aka the Gabba, thanks to Melbourne's lengthy stint of stay-at-home conditions at the time. This year, Perth will also host a Brownlow Medal function in the lead up to the decider. Still, the grand final won't feature any Western Australian AFL teams, with both the West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Dockers failing to make the code's finals season. At the time of writing, Melbourne, Port Adelaide, the Brisbane Lions, Geelong, Greater Western Sydney and the Western Bulldogs remain in the running. [caption id="attachment_823646" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Optus Stadium, Government of Western Australia[/caption] Just like last year, it really shouldn't have taken three decades for a competition that's not only named after the entire country, but that changed its moniker in 1990 to reflect the fact that it was no longer just about Victoria, to host its deciders in other cities. Before 2020, the grand final had actually been played at venues other than the MCG before — but still in Melbourne. The MCG remains contracted to host the grand final for a significant period moving forward, however, with its agreement originally running through until 2057, then extended until 2058 as part of the arrangement to allow the game to be played at the Gabba in 2020. With the move to Perth, that contract with the MCG will be extended again until 2059. If you're a Victorian — whether you've been missing the footy over the past month, or you're not fussed about the sport at all — you might be wondering about the usual pre-grand final public holiday. Although an official announcement hasn't been made as yet, Victorian Sports Minister Martin Pakula said during the press conference about the move to Perth that he expected that the public holiday will still go ahead, as happened last year when the game was played in Brisbane. The 2021 AFL Grand Final will take place on Saturday, September 25 at Optus Stadium in Perth. For further information, head to the AFL website.
You know when you're travelling and you receive a red-hot tip from a local? They point you in the direction of the best fried chicken joint, a secret underground bar or an offbeat gallery — something that transforms your trip and lets you see the real city as you would've never seen it. It can really make a trip. So to help you uncover some local gems on your next Sydney visit, we've partnered with the City of Sydney to create a local's guide to the city. We've honed in on ten inner-city suburbs and pulled out experiences to take you past the Opera House and Harbour Bridget and deeper into the local's locales. [caption id="attachment_696573" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Continental CBD by Kitti Smallbone.[/caption] SMALL BARS IN THE CBD There was a time when after the hustle and bustle of Sydney CBD's nine-to-five crowd subsided, the streets turned tumbleweed quiet. But thankfully, that time has passed. Over the last ten years or so, the CBD has acquired several top-notch venues. While you may have visited some of the small bar stalwarts — The Baxter Inn, The Barber Shop, SILY, Bulletin Place (just to name a few) — there are several newcomers to discover, too. Be sure to stop by Old Mate's Place rooftop bar with a warm and welcoming library-esque aesthetic, head to Continental Deli, Bar and Bistro CBD to enjoy a mar-tinny (a martini in a can) with a plate of charcuterie and cheese at the luxe marble-top bar or seek out 1950s-inspired Maybe Sammy where cocktails come in tubes or matched with passionfruit-scented hand cream. [caption id="attachment_660514" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Paramount House Hotel by Tom Ross.[/caption] A HUB OF COOL IN SURRY HILLS The effortlessly cool Surry Hills is bursting at the super-stylish seams with must-visit bars and eateries — a few of which conveniently reside together in Paramount House. The heritage-listed building on Commonwealth Street is home to Golden Age Cinema and Bar, new natural-wine-plenty restaurant Poly, a lush boutique hotel, rooftop fitness centre complete with on-call massage therapists and a cafe which serves arguably the best coffee in Sydney. Start your day with a cup of joe at Paramount Coffee Project in the lobby of the building, then make your way up to the Paramount Recreation Centre. Even if you aren't a guest at the Paramount House Hotel, you can still grab a day pass to the gym and attend one of the classes on offer. Come evening, park yourself at Poly for pre-cinema seasonal share plates and excellent wine before making your way to a showing at the in-house cinema's petit theatre — the former Paramount Pictures screening room. [caption id="attachment_705398" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Social Outfit by Luisa Brimble.[/caption] SUSTAINABLE SHOPPING IN NEWTOWN Newtown is known for its abundance of street art, eccentric residents and overall buzzing vibe. To really do the suburb like a local, we suggest spending a day sustainably shopping along main drag King Street — before checking out one of the best bars in the area. From the top of King down, you'll come across the likes of U-Turn, Cream on King and SWOP Clothing Exchange where you'll find well-curated, secondhand fashions to dig into, plus Good Times Vintage, Vintage 585, Faster Pussycat and Retrospec'd, which house fashion, homewares, decor and plenty more from decades past. If that isn't quite enough, you can exercise your gem-finding prowess at the Red Cross and Vinnies shops, too. And if you're really after something new, check out The Social Outfit. While you won't find any vintage, the store is an ethical enterprise that supports people from refugee and migrant communities by providing training and employment in the fashion industry. You can pick up a unique piece that tells an amazing human story all while financially empowering people. It's a win-win. [caption id="attachment_652447" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ellery by Kitti Gould.[/caption] AUSTRALIAN FASHION AND DESIGN IN PADDINGTON If vintage and op shopping is not your forte (we get it, not everyone has the eye and/or patience), head for a shop in Paddington. This Australian fashion hub has a host of homeware shops and fashion boutiques to browse. If you're keen to get up close and personal with our best and brightest designers, The Intersection should be your starting point. Flagship after Australian designer flagship line the street here and pull you deeper into the suburbs via the likes of Alice McCall, Camila and Marc, Dion Lee, Ellery, Manning Cartell, Scanlan Theodore and Zimmermann (to name but a few). As for homewares and decor, independent design shop Opus will sort you out with vintage board games, quirky gadgets and retro video consoles; Dinosaur Designs will help you find some statement resin jewellery and free-form wares for your home; and Jardan will indulge any design addict with a shop full of gorgeous furnishings — you'll wish the space itself was your actual home. [caption id="attachment_664457" align="alignnone" width="1920"] White Rabbit.[/caption] ART GALLERIES IN CHIPPENDALE The suburb with more independent galleries than you can poke a paintbrush at, Chippendale is a must-visit for any art lover. Start by checking out Galerie Pompom on Abercrombie Street — a space dedicated to developing and nurturing mid-career artists from Melbourne and Sydney — and White Rabbit, a four-storey gallery showcasing a beautifully curated, impressive private collection of contemporary Chinese art. Other art spaces championing Australian (and some international) artists in the area include Wellington St Projects, Nanda/Hobbs, Harrington Street Gallery and Verge Gallery. And for an even deeper dive into the arty precinct, you can join the Chippendale and Redfern walking tour by Culture Scouts, who'll take you beyond the galleries to discover the local public artworks, architecture and street art. [caption id="attachment_705409" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Frenchies Bistro and Brewery.[/caption] A HUB OF FOOD, DRINK AND SHOPPING IN ROSEBERY If you've visited Sydney before, you've almost certainly been to The Grounds. A cafe, bakery, florist, restaurant, farm and mini market all in one, the place is a mecca for highly likeable Instagram posts. It's also a brunch mecca, with locals and visitors alike making the pilgrimage to Alexandria each weekend. If you're after something a bit more subdued, set your sites on The Cannery in the neighbouring Rosebery. Similar to The Grounds in how its helped transform this former industrial area into a food lover's haven, The Cannery is home to an even larger variety of food, drink and shopping options. It's here where you'll find Archie Rose, Sydney's first distillery to open in over 160 years Archie Rose; Frenchies Bistro and Brewery (with an on-site brewing facility); and boutique bottleshop Drink Hive, which slings natural wines, independent brews and local spirits. There are also several eateries in the precinct including the Aussie-Japanese-serving Stanton and Co, purveyors of watermelon cakes (and other sweets) Black Star Pastry and Argentinian grill masters Three Blue Ducks, to name but a few. Visit on an empty stomach, guys. [caption id="attachment_635940" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Bearded Tit by Katje Ford.[/caption] LOCAL CREATIVES IN REDFERN When a place is called the Bearded Tit, you know it's going to be good. This brazen art bar on Regent Street is just one of many left-of-centre venues in Redfern and, beyond the crocheted penises and taxidermy boar, it highlights what the suburb does best: intersect art and culture with a good drink. 107 Projects is another creative space where you can experience regular art shows, gigs and performances by local artists, musicians, comedians and theatre groups, all while enjoying a tipple or two. You can even channel your own creative energy with some locals at one of the weekly Wednesday Night Creative Hangouts or Life Drawing Socials. While in the area, make sure to pop into Indigenous-owned cafe The Tin Humpy. Run by Bundjalung woman Yvette Lever and her family, the cafe slings homemade pastries alongside coffee from The Grounds and presents a stunning Indigenous art collection to boot. [caption id="attachment_653243" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Dae Jang Kum by Kitti Gould.[/caption] A CULINARY JOURNEY THROUGH ASIA VIA HAYMARKET Running adjacent to the CBD, Haymarket is a melting pot of different Asian cultures and cuisines. Whichever eats you're craving, you'll find them here (along with muchos bubble tea to wash it all down with). Keen for Chinese? Hit up yum cha favourite Marigold for a morning feast of dim sim, pork buns, rice noodles and creamy mango pancakes, or stop by the noodle and dumpling haven at the Prince Centre for some of Sydney's favourite cheap eats — there are at least four dumpling eateries to choose from but many Sydneysiders are quite partial to the spot lovingly known as 'grapes on the roof'. In the mood for Korean? Make tracks to Koreatown for barbecued sizzling meats at 678 Korean BBQ, steamy spicy hotpots at Dae Jang Kum or some finger-lickin' Seoul-style fried chicken at Arisun (a favourite spot for many Sydney chefs). Have a hankering for Japanese? Pop by Menya Noodle Bar and take your pick from 17 different types of ramen (the black garlic ramen is a go). We could continue with Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian… but it's best you just check it out yourself. [caption id="attachment_524715" align="alignnone" width="1280"] The Old Fitzroy Hotel.[/caption] DINNER AND A SHOW IN KINGS CROSS The Cross has undergone a pretty drastic transformation. The days of teapots at World Bar and rowdy all-nighters may be gone, however, excellent restaurants and independent theatres have helped keep the neighbourhood alive. Step into the 1930s at Dulcie's basement bar and enjoy a punchy espresso martini with a side of nostalgia. The bar is a homage to the Cross's past with an art deco aesthetic and stage that hosts theatre, dance and cabaret shows after midnight. There are also several small theatres in the area conveniently located within a few blocks of each other (and some of Sydney's top restaurants), including the Griffin, Hayes Theatre Co and The Old Fitz. At the Griffin, you'll find brand new works and Australian stories; cabaret and musical theatre are the go at Hayes Theatre Co (the Monty Python's Spamalot will run from Wednesday, March 6 to Saturday, April 6 this year); and The Old Fitz, run by Red Line Productions and located inside a pub, offers quality independent productions for as little as $20 a ticket. LOCAL SOUVENIRS IN GLEBE For boho vibes, a throng of neighbourhood eateries and some of Sydney's most chill humans, head to Glebe. Before heading for this incredible burnt butter hummus at Middle Eastern eatery Thievery, pay a visit to The Works. At this three-storey space on Glebe Point Road, local creatives design, make and exhibit their work. It functions as a cafe and coworking spot, as well as a pop-up shop where local designers can showcase their wares. This is the spot to hit for some truly local souvenirs with everything from jewellery, shoes and environmentally conscious activewear to prints, greeting cards and screen-printed totes to vegan soaps and hand-poured soy candles. With an ever-changing roster of local artisans, each visit will bring something new to the table (and probably your home). Forgo the tourist traps and instead traverse the great City of Sydney like a local. Discover more around the city here. Top image: Continental CBD by Kitti Gould.
In 2020, the pandemic forced international sport come to a halt for months, Australian football seasons to be played in condensed blocks and the AFL Grand Final to be held in Brisbane for the first time ever. In 2021 so far, it has also seen parts of the Australian Open played without spectators. Now, COVID-19 is affecting the Aussie leg of this year's World Surf League Championship Tour, too, with the WSL announcing that it's making some big changes to its upcoming stint Down Under. Usually, WSL's annual Australian events include high profile stops in Bells Beach and on the Gold Coast, but they've both been cancelled in 2021. Instead the sporting body will head to New South Wales, and over to Western Australia for two events as well. From April 1–11, the Rip Curl Cup will take over Newcastle's beaches, while the Rip Curl Classic will hit Narrabeen in Sydney's northern beaches from April 16–26. Then, Margaret River will become the centre of the surfing world from May 2–12, before the tour will head over to Rottnest Island from May 16–26. Announcing the change, WSL advised that it would concentrate on NSW and WA this year "following approvals for pre-approved quarantine bubbles" for surfers and staff. In a statement, it explained that it "could not achieve these bubbles in Victoria and Queensland in the short amount of time it needed to do so". https://twitter.com/wsl/status/1361449251172061185 Victorian surf fans — and anyone who has memorised the final Bells Beach-set scene from Point Break — can rest assured that WSL will be returning to town from 2022. Earlier this month, it announced that it had signed a deal for a three-year stint in the Surf Coast Shire until 2024. Regarding the Gold Coast event, its future hasn't been revealed; however, WSL advised that the decision to "cancel this event was based on the genuine possibility of multiple risks attached to sudden public health measures in reaction to COVID-19 such as lockdowns, state border restrictions and event cancellations". Under an agreement with the NSW Government, international competitors heading Down Under for the Australian leg of the 2021 World Surf League Championship Tour will board a chartered flight in Los Angeles that'll fly to Sydney, which is where all traveling athletes and support staff will then undergo 14 days of hotel quarantine. They'll also need to obtain a medical clearance from public health officials before they can enter the general community and start preparing for competition events. The Australian leg of the 2021 World Surf League Championship Tour will head to Newcastle and Narrabeen, plus Margaret River and Rottnest Island in Western Australia, between April 1–May 26. For further details, head to the World Surf League website.
Cheap eats don't come so easily these days. Yet the Sunnybank Food Trail is here to help, celebrating a decade of accessible, affordable bites that won't weigh heavily on your wallet. Running from 2pm–8pm on Saturday, June 28, across Sunnybank Plaza and Sunny Park, this jam-packed event is holding nothing back for its tenth edition. The lineup of food vendors is simply massive, with a record-breaking 53 restaurants and vendors getting involved in 2025. Serving a staggering 173 dishes, from sizzling skewers and barbecue pork buns to bubble tea, this is your chance to empty your spare change jar. Each plate is priced between $2 and $5, with 34 dishes available on the low end. Whether you're a regular attendee or this is your first visit, an incredible array of flavours is freshly served. There are even nine new venues making their Sunnybank Food Trail debut, with Charcoal BBQ House, Roro Restaurant and BiteJoy ready to impress. Meanwhile, returning favourites include Udonya Tokoton, Hot Cake House, Chatime and Landmark. If you're too full for even one more bite, the trail comes to life with lion dancing at 2pm and 6pm, while live music will keep the mood lively throughout the day. Plus, two dedicated family zones include face painting, balloon twisting and pop-up surprises, meaning there's no shortage of cuisine and entertainment on offer.
Your suitcase isn't going anywhere, and you don't have a date with Palm Springs. Instead, you've got yourself a dose of Coachella FOMO. Thankfully, there are two ways to cure that state of affairs in Brisbane in 2023: watching along with the fest's livestream, which is playing all acts across all stages on both weekends for the first time ever; and hitting up the River City's very own Linafest. The latter is taking over South Brisbane's Lina Rooftop — and taking inspiration from Coachella, obviously. A brand-new festival running from Friday, April 14–Sunday, April 30 (so, longer than the OG music fest), it comes complete with DJ sets, drinks by the pool, dips, fireworks and light shows. Yes, there'll be palm trees on the rooftop. Stace Cadet headlines opening night, followed by different talents on the decks — Australian and international alike — across the event's duration, with the partying kicking in from Wednesday–Sunday weekly. Pop by on Wednesdays for $10 rosé all day, Thursdays for acoustic tunes and a Coachella-inspired two- and three-course menu, and Fridays for the big names and pyrotechnics. Saturdays include free pool access, and Sundays are shifting boozy brunch to 1–4pm. You'll soak in views across Brisbane, too — and you'll forget that you didn't make it to California after all.
If you're looking to expand your palate, enhance your culinary skills and be inspired by idyllic natural wonders, look no further. Taste Port Douglas is back this year with a four-day festival of the senses. From Thursday, August 11 to Sunday August 14, a dynamic program, curated by founder and culinary director Spencer Patrick, will showcase local produce and industry-leading chefs at the Sheraton Grand Mirage. If feasting on unforgettable culinary delights isn't enough to get you excited, you can't look past the location. Between meals, you can explore all this tropical paradise has to offer, including incredible access to two of Australia's best natural gems: the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest. The full lineup is expected to drop this month, so stay tuned for more info. You can register your interest here to receive more information on early bird releases.
The Commodores and Faith No More might've been easy like Sunday morning, but at Saccharomyces Beer Cafe, you can be cheesy like Sunday afternoon. And, let's face it, who doesn't want to spend the last hours of their weekend gorging on dairy products while enjoying a few beverages? At Boatrocker Cheesey Sunday Afternoon, you'll sample five beers from Boatrocker Brewery paired with five cheeses from Fino Fine Foods. You'll fork out $45 for a few hours of eating and drinking fun, and we can guarantee that your stomach will thank you for the deliciousness. Now, we know what you're thinking: doesn't something like this happen in Brissie every few weeks? At the moment, it certainly seems like it. But hey, if matching quality beers with tasty slices of cheese is the city's newest food trend, we're all for it.
You can discover a lot about a city by cycling through it, which is what many places have public bike schemes — Brisbane included. And even if you're a local rather than a tourist, you'll see some sights you'd normally ignore if you hop on a bright yellow CityCycle, put pedal to the pavement, and go for a leisurely ride from Davies Park to the City Botanic Gardens. The river, West End's leafy confines, South Bank and the Goodwill Bridge line the 4.9-kilometre path, aka some of the most scenic spots in the inner city. Plus, as well as proving a fun way to get active, it's also affordable, with bike rental free for the first 30 minutes, $2 for the next 30 minutes and $5 per 30 minutes afterwards.
It's 'The One Where They Get Back Together' — and, after more than a year of teasing, it's finally about to hit screens. First hinted at in 2019, officially confirmed in 2020, releasing its initial teaser last week and now dropping a full trailer, Friends: The Reunion is exactly what it sounds like. If you know everything there is to know about orange couches, smelly cats and whether a couple is on a break, you'll be more than a little excited. It has been 27 years since the TV sitcom about six New Yorkers made audiences a promise: that it'd be there for us. And, as well as making stars out of Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow, Friends has done just that. Sure, the hit series wrapped up its ten-season run in 2004, but the show has lived on — on streaming platforms, by sending an orange couch around Australia, by screening anniversary marathons in cinemas and in boozy brunch parties, for example. Friends: The Reunion promises to take pop culture's lingering affection for the show to another level, though, by reuniting its cast for a big dose of nostalgia. And, for trivia, too. That's the first thing that Aniston, Cox, Perry, LeBlanc, Schwimmer and Kudrow do in the new trailer for the special, which is slated to hit HBO's streaming platform HBO Max on Thursday, May 27 in the US. During the unscripted special, the actors behind Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Joey, Ross and Phoebe all chat about their experiences on and memories of the show — all on the same soundstage where Friends was originally shot, so expect to see some familiar faces and some recognisable decor. Aniston, Cox and the gang also have a few other famous pals for company, with the hefty guest lineup spanning folks with connections to the show and others that must just love it. On the list: David Beckham, Justin Bieber, BTS, James Corden, Cindy Crawford, Cara Delevingne, Lady Gaga, Elliott Gould, Kit Harington, Larry Hankin and Mindy Kaling, as well as Thomas Lennon, Christina Pickles, Tom Selleck, James Michael Tyler, Maggie Wheeler, Reese Witherspoon and Malala Yousafzai. The special was initially set to air in America last May, but those plans delayed due to the pandemic. For friends of Friends Down Under, just when and where Friends: The Reunion will surface hasn't yet been revealed; however, it's bound to be here for us sooner or later. Check out the full trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRXVQ77ehRQ Friends: The Reunion will be available to stream in the US via HBO Max on Thursday, May 27. It doesn't currently have an air date or streaming date Down Under — we'll update you when one is announced.
Isabella Rossellini is coming to Australia, dressing as a praying mantis and talking about sex. Set to perform her critically acclaimed, one-woman show Green Porno, Rossellini will hit Australian shores in March with her hilarious take on the fascinating sexual habits of land and marine animals. The playful stage show, based upon Rossellini's short film series and subsequent book of the same name kookily exploring mating in the natural world, will first premier in Los Angeles this November. The screen icon — who is currently studying animal behaviour at Hunter College in New York — says that she's always been interested in animal behaviour: "...and I certainly know a lot of people that are interested I sex. So here you have the three elements that make the core concept of Green Porn." The show first originated in 2008, when Robert Redford asked the Italian actress to create short, environmental films for his Sundance TV Channel. Rossellini then wrote the stage production, alongside Jean-Claude Carrier —well-known author, actor, opera librettist and director. Expect a mix of live performance along with some of Rossellini's short films. The actress dresses up in a variety of ridiculous insect and sea-creature costumes, while providing a storyline that is completely scientifically accurate. Isabella Rossellini's Green Porno is on Monday, March 24, at the Brisbane Concert Hall, and we have two double passes to give away. To be in the running, subscribe to the Concrete Playground newsletter (if you haven't already), then email win.brisbane@concreteplayground.com.au with your name and address. https://youtube.com/watch?v=BckqviVaWl0
As one big HBO series came to an end, another signalled its return, with the US cable network dropping the first trailer for Westworld's third season during the Game of Thrones finale. Say goodbye to dragons, fighting over a fancy chair and living in a medieval-looking fantasy realm, and hello to robots, flying cars and stepping outside of everyone's favourite futuristic amusement park. Say hello to Aaron Paul, too, with the Breaking Bad actor not only joining Westworld for the next batch of episodes, but also starring in the initial trailer. His new character was promised a better world, but this dream hasn't come true, so he's now searching for something real. Given how Blade Runner-esque everything is around him, he's probably channelling Jesse Pinkman and exclaiming "yeah, science!" more than once, too (at least internally). As the teaser makes plain, this season steps beyond the confines of the titular amusement park and into the world around it. That's as far as it goes, plot-wise, for the moment, but it's still revealing. While the show has always been futuristic, with its Old West-themed attraction featuring robots who are virtually indistinguishable from normal people, the third season appears to be dialling the sci-fi — and accompanying technology — up a few notches. Here, robots actually look like robots, except when Evan Rachel Wood's Dolores pops up. Now, the bad news: although Westworld's second season aired in 2018, the third season won't hit until 2020. HBO hasn't announced an exact airdate as yet, so watch this space. If a year seems like a long time between android dramas, remember that the first season of the show arrived 43 years after the Michael Crichton-directed movie that it's based on, and 40 years after the film's sequel Futureworld. If you haven't done so already, both are worth viewing while you're waiting for the TV series to return. Check out the first trailer for Westworld's third season below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deSUQ7mZfWk Westworld's third season will air in 2020. We'll keep you updated with an exact airdate when it comes to hand.
Godzilla is finally an Oscar-winner. It's about time. But the septuagenarian reptile didn't score Hollywood's top trophy for curling up in the Colosseum for a snooze, rocking electric-pink spikes, thundering into Hollow Earth — the world literally within our world where titans spring from — and teaming up with King Kong to take on a rival giant ape that rides an ice-breathing kaiju and uses a skeletal spine as a rope. Japan's exceptional Godzilla Minus One, which took home 2024's Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, wasn't that kind of monster movie. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which hails from the American-made Monsterverse, definitely is. Reaching cinemas in the same month as one of its titular figures received such a coveted filmmaking accolade, this sequel to 2021's Godzilla vs Kong is patently from the goofily entertaining rather than deeply meaningful brand of Godzilla flicks. Yes, there's room for both. It might seem a hard job to follow up one of the best-ever takes on the nuclear-powered creature with an action-adventure-fantasy monster mash that also features a Hawaiian shirt-wearing veterinarian dropping in via helicopter to do dental work on King Kong, the return of the Monsterverse's resident conspiracy-theorist podcaster and a mini Kong called Suko — plus, in its very first minutes, several other animals being ripped apart by Godzilla and Kong. When he took on the gig of helming pictures in this franchise, however, You're Next, The Guest, Blair Witch and Death Note filmmaker Adam Wingard chose fun chaos. His two entries so far aren't dreaming of competing for thoughtfulness with the movies coming out of the country that created Godzilla. Rather, they're made with affection for that entire legacy, and also Kong's, which dates back even further to 1933. Getting audiences relishing the spectacle of this saga is the clear aim, then — and Wingard's attempts put exactly that in their sights above all else. It may also appear difficult for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire to arrive so swiftly after related streaming series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters achieved a feat that hasn't been easy in the Monsterverse: delivering human drama that leaves an imprint. Godzilla vs Kong couldn't. 2014's Godzilla, 2017's Kong: Skull Island and 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters seesawed in their efforts (some admirably, some woefully). The small screen continues to reign supreme, but Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire values its people. There's fewer of them than in its predecessor, with just four at its core. Dumping exposition or acting as comic relief stay among their tasks, respectively, and yet Rebecca Hall (Resurrection) and Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta) are treated better by the material in their saga comebacks. As the aforementioned monster zoologist, Dan Stevens (Welcome to Chippendales, and also from Wingard's The Guest) knows exactly the type of part and flick he's in; he's the bulk of the film's mood personified. As the orphaned teenager tied to Kong, and similarly cast out from her home as he has been, Kaylee Hottle (Magnum PI) capably remains the feature's human heart on what also becomes a coming-of-age journey. Doing the scripting, Godzilla vs Kong screenwriter Terry Rossio (also The Amazing Maurice), Wingard's regular collaborator Simon Barrett (You're Next, The Guest, Blair Witch), plus Jeremy Slater (Moon Knight) — all working with a story by Rossio, Wingard and Barrett — can't be accused of putting people first in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. It's a low bar to say that they don't play as an afterthought, but it's an improvement from the last movie. The storyline's quest: to show how its eponymous beings are managing to co-exist, then must join forces to protect the world. Initially, they're like a divorced couple still sharing the same abode. Godzilla has taken over the planet's surface, while Kong is swinging around in Hollow Earth. The Skar King can't be quickly vanquished, though, requiring their combined might to try to stop his maliciousness wreaking havoc upwards as well as down. Around the simple but welcome Godzilla + Kong = titan siblings-in-arms saviours equation, and before pop culture's biggest lizard and monkey pal around, the humans-driven aspect of the narrative is likewise as straightforward. Kong's troubled tooth, odd signals from below and visions seen by her adopted daughter Jia (Hottle) have Dr Ilene Andrews (Hall) pondering what's happening beneath the planet's crust. Still as obsessive as ever, whistleblower-turned-blogger (and documentarian wannabe) Bernie Hayes (Henry) is one of her ports of call for assistance. The Ace Ventura-esque Trapper (Stevens) is another. Also, Jia's shared time on Skull Island with Kong as one of the landmass' indigenous Iwi tribe, alongside the fact that the teen, who is deaf, can communicate with the simian using sign language, keeps proving relevant. By throwing away the obligation to dig thematically below any surfaces, akin to a beast disposing of the carcass of its last meal — apart from knowing that its namesakes are guardians, and the blunt Jia and Kong connection — Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire revels in animals being animals. Painting Godzilla and Kong empathetically, and as more than fright-inducing monsters, has always been Wingard's angle, even when they were going claw to paw; Andrews is the Jane Goodall of Kong, after all. Here, the movie's main pair are basically towering pets, including while clambering around, snatching some rest, needing medical attention and securing their territory. As the film hops to Cairo, Paris, Gibraltar and Rio de Janeiro as well — and does ample exploring in Hollow Earth, where the Skar King has an army obeying his commands, but Suko sides with Kong — it's no wonder, then, that the good doctor and company are left endeavouring to react and respond as best they can. Cat owners especially can relate. Although Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire's VFX crew likely won't nab the same Oscar as Godzilla Minus One, this CGI-heavy affair has a vibrant look to it. Nothing matches the neon-lit Hong Kong throwdown of Godzilla vs Kong but, amid 80s needle drops, that isn't Wingard's mission. Instead, he enjoys putting iconic landmarks in peril and going all Journey to the Centre of the Earth — and his splashes of pink, purple-topped mountains, crystals, other eye-catching titan and animal designs, and the swirling cinematography by fellow returnee Ben Seresin (The Mother). Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the cheese to Godzilla Minus One's chalk, clearly, as it fittingly tells of a chalk-and-cheese twosome, but always eagerly and happily.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas in some parts of the country. After numerous periods spent empty during the pandemic, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, picture palaces in many Australian regions are back in business — including both big chains and smaller independent sites in Brisbane at present. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. HALLOWEEN KILLS They can't all be treats. That's true each time October 31 hits, sending children scurrying around the streets in search of sweets, and it's true of the film franchise that owns the spookiest time of year. Since debuting 43 years ago, the Halloween series has delivered both gems and garbage — and off-kilter delights such as Halloween III: Season of the Witch — but its latest and 12th entry carves a space firmly in the middle. Halloween Kills ticks plenty of boxes that a memorable Halloween movie should, and is also a horror sequel on autopilot. Somehow, it's also a Halloween movie lacking purpose and shape. It has The Shape, of course, as Michael Myers is also known. But it's more an exercise in spending extra time in Haddonfield, in its boogeyman's presence and in world inhabited by franchise heroine Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, Knives Out) than a compelling slasher flick on its own. After giving the Halloween realm its second-best chapter in 2018, it's easy to see why returning writer/director David Gordon Green (Stronger) and his frequent collaborator Danny McBride (The Righteous Gemstones) have taken this approach. When you've just made a classic follow-up to a stone-cold classic — again, only John Carpenter's iconic franchise-starter is better — you keep on keeping on. That's not quite how Halloween Kills turns out, though. It picks up immediately where its predecessor left off, lets Michael stab his way through small-town Illinois again, and brings back Laurie's daughter Karen (Judy Greer, Where'd You Go, Bernadette) and teenage granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak, Son) from the last spin. It also pads things out with a vengeance storyline that endeavours to get political, yet proves about as piercing as a butter knife. In the last film — called Halloween, like the flick that started it all — Laurie faced the man who turned her into a victim back when she was a 17-year-old babysitter. She unleashed four decades of rage, fear and anxiety during a moment she'd been preparing for across all of that time, and it proved cathartic for her and for viewers alike. This saga was always going to add another sequel, however. As the second part of a trilogy under Green and McBride's guidance, Halloween Kills will also gain its own follow-up in a year's time. When it arrives in 2022, Halloween Ends won't actually live up to its name. No horror movie lover would want it to. Still, it already haunts Halloween Kills — because, like the townsfolk that the latex mask-sporting, overall-wearing Michael just keeps stalking, it feels uncertain about where it should head. First, Halloween Kills sends its three generations of Strode women to hospital, riffing on 1981's Halloween II. Sadly, it also replicates one of the latter's missteps, leaving Laurie there as her nemesis keeps slicing — and splitting its attention around Haddonfield. Here, both Karen and Allyson have also had enough of Michael's nonsense. So has Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall, The Goldbergs), one of the kids that Laurie babysat on that fateful night all those years ago. So, he rallies a mob and transforms the grieving and scared locale into a haven for vigilante justice; "evil dies tonight!" is their cheer. Read our full review. PASSING Locking gazes across the room, staring intently with a deep fascination that feels fated, seeing oneself in the sparkle of another's eyes: when these moments happen in a movie, it's typically to fuel the first flushes of romance. When they occur early in Passing, however, it's because former childhood friends Irene (Tessa Thompson, Westworld) and Clare (Ruth Negga, Ad Astra) have spied each other in a swanky Manhattan hotel. The pair peer back and forth, intrigued and attentive. That said, it isn't until Clare approaches Irene — and calls her Reenie, a nickname she hasn't heard in years — that the latter realises who she's been looking at. It's the immaculately styled blonde bob that fools Irene, as it's meant to fool the world. As becomes clear in a politely toned but horrendously blunt conversation with Clare's racist husband John (Alexander Skarsgård, Godzilla vs Kong) shortly afterwards, Irene's long-lost pal has built an entire life and marriage around being seen as white. Passing's eponymous term comes loaded not just with meaning, but with history; adapted from Nella Larsen's 1929 novel of the same name, it's set in America's Jim Crow era. This introductory scene between Irene and Clare comes layered with multiple sources of tension, too, with Irene only in the hotel because she's decided to flirt with visiting a white establishment. Still, she's shocked by her pal's subterfuge. When she initially spots Clare, the film adopts Irene's perspective — and its frames bristle with a mix of nervousness, uncertainty and familiarity. Irene rediscovers an old friend in a new guise, and also comes face to face with the lengths some are willing to go to in the name of survival and an easier life. Friendships can be rewarding and challenging, fraught and nourishing, and demanding and essential, including all at once, as Passing repeatedly demonstrates from this point onwards. Irene can't completely move past Clare's choices and can't shake her fears about what'd happen if the vile John ever learned Clare's secret; however, she's also quick to defend her to others — to her doctor husband Brian (André Holland, The Eddy), who swiftly warms to Clare anyway; and to acclaimed white novelist Hugh Wentworth (Bill Camp, News of the World), who's her own entry point into an artier realm. Indeed, in household where talk of lynchings is common dinner conversation, Irene recognises far more in Clare's decision than she'll vocally admit. Almost everyone she knows is pretending to be something else as well, after all, including Irene in her own ways. Largely confined to Irene and Brian's well-appointed Harlem home and other parties in the neighbourhood — after that first hotel rendezvous, that is — Passing is an economical yet complicated film. It may seem straightforward in charting Irene and Clare's rekindled acquaintance, but it's exacting and precise as it interrogates both societally enforced and self-inflicted pain. Its Black characters live in a world that pushes them aside and worse merely for existing, with its central pair each internalising that reality. Their every careful move reacts to it, in fact, a bleak truth that actor-turned-filmmaker Rebecca Hall (The Night House) never allows to fade. That's one of the reasons she's chosen to shoot this striking directorial debut in elegant, crisp and devastatingly telling monochrome hues: both everything and nothing here is black and white. Read our full review. ANTLERS When daylight nightmares infiltrate the horror genre and expose humanity's fears to the sun — in 2019's Midsommar, for instance — viewers tend to take notice. That isn't the case with Antlers, a film that's as gloomy in appearance and mood as an unsettling movie can be, whether it's finding darkness in mining shafts, neglected homes or the memories that haunt teacher Julia Meadows (Keri Russell, The Americans) upon returning to her home town after fleeing as a teen decades earlier. This is a grim and bleak feature in every way it can be, in fact, but it also throws sunlight upon troubles that too often go unmentioned. Writer/director Scott Cooper (Black Mass) uses Antlers' brooding hues and tones to lurk in the realm of myth, to confront domestic abuse, and to muse on the persecution of and violence against America's First Peoples and their land — and, as grey as this creature feature always proves, it wields its colour palette like a spotlight. Antlers can be blunt and blatant, traits that don't bode well for a film about a ravenous beast out of Indigenous American folklore that's biting back at its oppressors. It can be delicate and savvy as well, though, especially when it explores how Julia and her student Lucas Weaver (feature debutant Jeremy T Thomas) both grapple with childhoods no one could ever dream of. Julia has only come back to live with her brother Paul (Jesse Plemons, Jungle Cruise), who is now the town's sheriff, after their father's death. She still sees her younger self cowering in fear wherever she looks, and she can't help but gaze with yearning at bottles of liquor in the local store. Lucas, a slip of a boy, is nervy, jittery and defensive. He looks at the ice cream parlour with the same desire, wanting to lose himself in something fleeting but soothing — a sugar rush, in his case. It was never going to take long for Julia to notice that Lucas is also victim; however, in adapting Nick Antosca's short story The Quiet Boy, one of the smartest things that Cooper, Antosca and their co-scribe Henry Chaisson do is to make the connection via a lesson on storytelling. Julia informs her class about the importance and function of spinning tales. Then, only because he's called upon, Lucas shares his own illustrated version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears that's definitely no fairytale. Antlers may too often opt for the obvious route as it tracks the horned creature stalking the town, as well as the illness that's overcome Lucas' father (Scott Haze, Minari) and younger brother (Sawyer Jones, Modern Family) — two things that are linked from the movie's very first scene in that aforementioned mine shaft-turned-meth lab — but in baking the way we use stories to cope with life's horrors into its frames, it's also devastatingly astute. When Antlers is at its best, it echoes with unease, longing, guilt and sorrow. As both Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace have shown, Cooper is no stranger to the latter trio emotions — and as both prior movies also demonstrated, he's at his finest when his cast is up to the task of conveying all three. Russell and Thomas each fit the bill here with a sense of trauma that's always haunting. Their respective characters tussle with threats both external and internal (and supernatural and domestic), and weariness and tension seeps through their every move. Antlers perceptively makes that malaise pulsate in a broader sense as well; it's the malaise of people and towns, and of a culture and a land subjected to far more than it should have to bear. And, in its gore, ooze, horns and crunched bones, it ensures that pain feels visceral. Cooper can't always find the right balance from scene to scene, but when Antlers pierces, it wounds. RON'S GONE WRONG In Ron's Gone Wrong, an internet-enabled R2-D2-style kids' gadget starts operating beyond its standard programming. Illegally sold to Barney Pudowski's (Jack Dylan Grazer, Luca) father (Ed Helms, Rutherford Falls) and grandmother (Olivia Colman, The Father), who are desperate to get the pre-teen the belated birthday gift he wants, the damaged robot sports an off-kilter personality and is nowhere near as concerned with mining the details of its owner's life for corporate data as it's meant to be. The same can't be said of this family-friendly animated film, unsurprisingly. It's a tech-focused all-ages flick straight out of the box, and designed to sell merchandise to its target audience. It's sweet, lively and bouncy enough, but also thematically problematic; stressing the importance of individuality and switching off while also positing that everyone needs an online device and social media to make friends and unlock their best will do that. Ron (voiced by Zach Galifianakis, Baskets) is a B-Bot; "your best friend out of the box" is the marketing slogan. When Facebook-meets-Apple style tech giant Bubble releases the product, every student at Nonsuch Middle School soon has one — except Barney, who gets teased about his rock collection instead. The peer pressure to get his own robot soon gives way to disappointment when he learns of Ron's idiosyncrasies; however, in its broad strokes, Ron's Gone Wrong tells a story of acceptance. After Bubble learns that one of its products has gone rogue — including pushing around Rich (Ricardo Hurtado, Malibu Rescue), the prank-loving bully making Barney's life hell — it decides to claim Ron back and crush him, but an entire grade's worth of children come to discover that that's not how you treat a friend. As spirited as Ron's Gone Wrong repeatedly proves, there's still a strong and inescapable sense of disconnection between its cavalcade of conflicting messages, which include: be yourself; be authentic; love your friends for who they are; don't try to change people; appearances don't matter; everyone has something in common; let technology help you find pals by showing what you all share; connect with others via your gadgets; and living your life online will lead to your best self. As a result, the film plays like a colourful mechanism for turning young viewers into eager consumers — of the Ron-shaped toys they'll now want immediately, and of social media — especially given how weakly it satirises big tech. When it's just about Barney, Ron and the joys of having a best friend, a warm-hearted thread of human-AI buddy comedy does manage to lurk inside writer/director Sarah Smith (Arthur Christmas), co-directors Jean-Philippe Vine (Shaun the Sheep) and Octavio Rodriguez (The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants), and co-screenwriter Peter Baynham's (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan) film. Much about the movie's parodies of technology's insidiousness and the way mobile phones have changed our daily lives balances both truth and humour, too — but not enough to make the overall formula, soulless product-spruiking and Ron's Gone Wrong glossy #sponcon Instagram post-esque atmosphere go right. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on June 10, June 17 and June 24; July 1, July 8, July 15, July 22 and July 29; August 5, August 12, August 19 and August 26; September 2, September 9, September 16, September 23 and September 30; and October 7, October 14 and October 21. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as Lapsis, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Fast and Furious 9, Valerie Taylor: Playing with Sharks, In the Heights, Herself, Little Joe, Black Widow, The Sparks Brothers, Nine Days, Gunpowder Milkshake, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Old, Jungle Cruise, The Suicide Squad, Free Guy, Respect, The Night House, Candyman, Annette, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Streamline, Coming Home in the Dark, Pig, Big Deal, The Killing of Two Lovers, Nitram, Riders of Justice, The Alpinist, A Fire Inside, Lamb, The Last Duel, Malignant, The Harder They Fall and Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain.
