The best documentaries have a way of transcending their subject matter, of using particular stories to explore significant human themes. Such is the case with All This Mayhem, the first theatrical effort from director Eddie Martin. Although ostensibly set in the world of professional skateboarding, the film is in fact a deeply personal portrait of brothers Tas and Ben Pappas — the Melbourne-born siblings who helped reinvigorate the sport, only to fall victims to the perils of their spectacular rise to fame. "This is the challenge, getting people [to] realise that it's not just a skate film," Martin told us. "For us, it's a story about brothers that just happens to be set in the world of skating. They're Greek boys, and it is like a Greek tragedy in a sense." The film begins with the siblings as teenagers, and chronicles their journey from a skate ramp in Prahran, Melbourne to becoming the two highest ranked skateboarders in the world. But with the success came money, and drugs, and soon the two brothers began throwing their good fortune away. Martin intercuts archival footage with a series of interviews with Tas, who speaks with devastating candour about the duo's fall from grace — one that culminated in his younger brother's tragic suicide in 2007 and his own incarceration for drug smuggling the following year. Now, after successful screenings at local film festivals, along with a recent UK premiere at the prestigious Sheffield Doc/Fest, All This Mayhem has hit Australian cinema screens. https://youtube.com/watch?v=8wDiszmA2o8 Just getting on camera was a huge act of trust "As a teenager I used to skate at Prahran Skate Park, and that's where I first met the boys," remembers Martin. "Then I stopped skating and we parted ways, but I still saw Ben around socially … then when he passed, that was obviously a huge shock for everyone. No one saw that coming." After Ben's death, the Pappas family was approached by a group of documentary filmmakers, but Tas wasn't happy with the direction they wanted to take the film. "They had approached Tas, who had said no, but they were still moving forward, and it just felt really exploitative," says Martin. "So we got ourselves motivated to go and talk to Tas, to try and do it properly." "Tas and Ben are incredible characters," Martin continues. "They've got a lot of heart and a lot of humour, and I knew Tas had the presence to carry the film. Obviously he had trust issues because of what had happened with that project … so it was just a process of making sure that everyone felt comfortable and that we were all on the same page and doing it for the right reasons." They don't shy away from rock bottom Since his release from prison, Pappas has slowly returned to skating, while steering clear of the temptations of his former life. As he tells it, part of his reason for wanting to do the documentary was as a way of reaching out to his estranged children in the United States. "I had to bear my soul, so my kids could see who I truly am … hopefully they'll see it one day and want to come find me," Pappas says. "Eddie's been a godsend. He's very understanding. He knows how sensitive the material is." Despite their friendship, Martin doesn't pull any punches when depicting the depths the brothers fell to. "We lived like pirates," says Pappas, looking back. "I didn't think about tomorrow. I didn't think about it [as a] career, or that my days were numbered … once I became number one, it was the best time in the world, but I remember thinking 'now what?' So then I really got right stuck into the drugs. I tried for years to get off them, but then I'd end up back on them even harder every time I relapsed." "It's like ripping open old wounds," he continues. "Sometimes I can watch the doco and it means nothing. And then other times I'll watch it and I'll find I'm depressed for days afterwards. Watching my little brother go all gaunt and then die … it wasn't really my brother, in the end." Mercy is the message "We've been blown away by people's response to the film," says Martin. "The response from the exhibitors has been so strong in the UK that they're going to bring it out on 30 screens, which is huge for an Australian film, let alone a doco." When asked about the positive response, Pappas says it feels "undeserved." At the same time, he's pleased by the prospect that his story might help others. "I've got a lot of regret, and I don't really esteem myself too highly with a lot of the stuff that I've done," he says. "But people seem to be forgiving. God is merciful, I've started learning that. If I've been shown this much mercy, I sort of have to try and help some kids who are going the wrong way." All This Mayhem opens on July 10 exclusive to Cinema Nova in Melbourne and Dendy Newtown in Sydney. Read our review here.
Since July 2024, The Zoo has been no more, with the beloved venue on Ann Street in Fortitude Valley closing its doors after more than three decades of hosting live tunes. If you're a heartbroken Brisbanite who still can't imagine the city's music scene without one of its most-famous places, that's understandable — its influence was that big — but soon the pivotal space will no longer be empty, or silent. The team behind Crowbar Brisbane also know what it's like to have to close the doors on one of the city's favourite hangouts — and now they're saving the day at The Zoo. Four years after shutting up shop in the River City due to the impact of the pandemic, Tyla Dombroski and Trad Nathan are bringing Crowbar back, taking over The Zoo's old digs. "The Zoo has been an institution in Brisbane for over three decades. Crowbar intends to honour the amazing path laid before us and continue offering great events for years to come," said Nathan, announcing the news. "As a former punter, band member, booker and promoter, playing The Zoo was a great achievement for aspiring bands — we're excited to be able to keep music within its walls." "We are so grateful to have the opportunity to work with the landlords, the Apostolos family, in maintaining the property as a live music venue. Our focus is to continue providing a great space for artists and music lovers, while working with industry and government to ensure the survival of grassroots venues across Australia," added Dombroski. There's no exact date yet for 711 Ann Street's reopening as Crowbar Brisbane, but the revival will continue the Crowbar brand in its birthplace. It was back in 2012 that the venue initially launched as a live music space, expanding to Sydney in 2018. When it is up and running at its new location, Crowbar Brisbane 2.0 will include American-inspired, smashed burger-slinging eatery Ultimate Pig, where fried chicken, barbecue and more will also be on the menu — and a rebrand by Melbourne artist Callum Preston, who'll be doing the same for Crowbar Sydney. To celebrate its launch week, the new Crowbar Brisbane will host a week of special events featuring well-known Australian names, too, with details still to be revealed. The Zoo's 32-year run saw it host gigs by local favourites such as Resin Dogs and Screamfeeder, Aussie greats like Nick Cave and Silverchair, and international acts including The Pixies and The Black Keys — and plenty more in-between. The team behind the venue shut up shop due to "rising operational costs and decreasing returns". "Sadly, the financial reality of keeping music venues afloat in 2024 is all too stark. The Zoo reached its highest ticket sales in its 32-year history last year, yet this was still not enough to combat rising operational costs and decreasing returns," The Zoo crew advised when they broke the news. "As a music venue, we try our best to keep venue hire costs as low as possible for artists and promoters, which means that the financial risks are on the venue, and we depend on bar sales for profit. The cost of supplying alcohol is rising, and bar sales are going down, likely due to a mix of lifestyle changes and cost of living stress for our patrons." "The hard truth is that we've been running at a loss for over three years. Despite exploring every avenue available to us, we could not secure the level of support needed to surmount the continued financial strain. We have no choice but to call last drinks for both of our beloved music venues." [caption id="attachment_873288" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Luke Henery[/caption] Find Crowbar Brisbane in The Zoo's old digs at 711 Ann Street, Fortitude Valley sometime in the near future. For further information in the interim, head to the venue's Facebook and Instagram pages. The Zoo images: Cat Clarke / Luke Henery.
We all know that Sydney and Melbourne have shared the 'Cultural Capital of Australia' title for a long while now, but enough is enough. Brisbane is quietly becoming a cultural mecca, with the art and music scene thriving. In fact, music is one thing Brisbane has always done well, and to save you the trouble of jumping on the bandwagon when these bands blow up, we are giving you a slight heads up so you can say you liked them before everyone else did. Be quick though; more people are taking notice daily. The Creases A band that gets the collective nod from The Guardian, NME and Franz Ferdinand is one you should take note of. The fact that they come from our fair city is even more exciting. The Creases have been touring with big acts and fellow locals all over town, with their infectiously upbeat ‘70s style indie pop. Daggy caps and oversized denim have never looked so cool. And that’s just the debut single; check out 'I Won’t Wait'. The Kite String Tangle Danny Harley, known to his devoted fans as The Kite String Tangle, is selling out shows left, right and centre. Millions of online hits, remixes to boot, and even some fandom tattoos to his name, this solo experimental aficionado has seemingly exploded on the scene in the past 12 months. His unique and endearing strand of “ethereal pop” manages to fill the room with soundscapes. He’ll be going back into the studio for more releases; however, it seems almost impossible to tie him down. Jeremy Neale Jeremy Neale, the king of Bris-pop, the champion of hearts and the seducer of ear drums. He has been making serious splashes in the deep end of Brisbane’s talent pool. From his time with the riotous racket funsters, Velociraptor, to playing a '60s swinging, crooning, turtleneck-wearing pop outfit, the J. Neale stamp knows no wrong. He has recently released a new EP, spread the love to nationwide stages, all while managing the ongoing emotional output of social media streams. Major Leagues Major Leagues are of major excitement. From playing BIGSOUND in September, to hitchhiking interstate with pal Jeremy Neale, these guys are making home runs. They’ve recently released their debut EP, Weird Season, and gaining some serious media attention surrounding their live shows. The John Steel Singers Sometimes, when a band appears to be taking the world by storm, it’s a wonderful to remember that they share your hometown. The John Steel Singers, apart from releasing some mighty cool tunes in recent times, have been touring non-stop to share the Steely love. Their new album Everthing’s a Thread has been a long time coming from the five-piece, and is truly an album worth shouting about. Yes! Brisbane! Well done! The Trouble With Templeton BIGSOUND 2013 (plus 2012) was just the beginning for the nicest folks in the biz. The Trouble With Templeton played their part in the annual showcase, before jetsetting across the US and over to select parts of Europe to treat those in search of a great riff, a nice lyric, and a heathy dose of musical intrigue. They are the masters of the delicate ode to love and loss, and will hopefully continue their reign for some time to come. Morning Harvey There are many a great psych-rock outfit in our fair city, and Morning Harvey is no exception. Their dreamscapes of guitar fuzz and unstructured onstage jams are mesmerising to watch and are delivered with a charm that cannot be faulted. After a string of delicious shows, these guys will be heading into the studio next month. We eagerly await their next release. Rolls Bayce This band has a whole lotta groove. Rolls Bayce is the wunderkind from Brisbane gold stars Dean McGrath and James Wright. They’ve leapt straight into the spotlight, having played a string of shows and are wasting no time getting some tunes on deck in the studio – newest single 'Arrows' is a good time. Fans of their other bands will not be disappointed; in fact, we’ve got high hopes that these kids will fit in just nicely.
Fining guests for posting bad reviews of your Vanderbilt-built hotel? Might want to think twice on that poorly-formed brainwave and avoid giving internet reviewers a reason to unite. Union Street Guest House in Hudson, New York is doing exactly that. The Rockefeller/Vanderbilt estate hastily took down a controversial rule from its own website yesterday, according to Huffington Post. The super dumb, money-grabbing rule charged wedding guests (primarily the newlyweds themselves) for any bad reviews posted on review websites like Yelp and Trip Advisor. Yep. Apparently, as pointed out by the initial New York Post story on Monday, couples holding their wedding at the USGH would see a sneaky $500 deducted from their security deposit for each thumbs down posted online by their guests. After a few WTF inquiries, the hotel took to Facebook and pulled the ol' 'it was all a joke' card to quash the backlash, but then mysteriously that post went missing too. "The policy regarding wedding fines was put on our site as a tongue-in-cheek response to a wedding many years ago," read the Facebook post. "It was meant to be taken down and certainly was never enforced." Although it's no longer (obviously) up on the hotel's website, Business Insider snapped it up before it was lost to the ages. Here's what the rule read, seriously: If you have booked the Inn for a wedding or other type of event anywhere in the region and given us a deposit of any kind for guests to stay at USGH there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review of USGH placed on any internet site by anyone in your party and/or attending your wedding or event. Although the team attempted to put out the fire, the sparks had already flown. Over 500 angry reviewers threw the hotel major shade with the lowest possible rating, again and again and again. Although sites like Yelp delete reviews who haven't actually stayed in the venue up for review, the slams are still coming for USGH: Now Union Street Guest House's rating looks like this: Yikes. Think before you joke-fine. Via Business Insider, Huffington Post and New York Post.
Over 150 artists and designers will take over Brisbane this May for the inaugural BRISBANE ART DESIGN (BAD) festival. From Friday, May 10, this new festival will showcase emerging and established talents in 25 spaces throughout the city — from the festival hub at the Museum of Brisbane and across the CBD, West End, Fortitude Valley, Woolloongabba and surrounds. A multi-dimensional exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane will sit at the heart of the festival, featuring works across robotics, object design, performance art, video, installation, virtual reality, ceramics, sculpture and painting. BAD@MoB will include new commissions from artists and designers like Justene Williams, Nicolette Johnson, Craig and Karl and Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan. The BAD program will also include Shared Connections, a series of outdoor installations, projections, tours, workshops and conversations by First Nations artists including Michael Cook, Sonja Carmichael, Dale Harding, Delvene Cockatoo-Collins, Tamika Grant-Iramu. Also on the agenda is the BNE DESIGN market with jewellery, homewares, fashion, ceramics, stationery, accessories and more for sale on Friday, May 24, from 4–9pm, in Reddacliff Place. There'll be food trucks and a live performance by gypsy jazz band The Van Dijk. Meanwhile, you can take part in roaming street and public art tours through various city precincts on foot, on a bike or camera in hand, meditate in QUT's The Cube or channel your creative skills in a spray painting and screen printing workshops. BAD runs from Friday, May 10 to Sunday, May 26. The Museum of Brisbane's BAD@MoB exhibition will continue until Sunday, August 11. To check out the full program and register for workshops, visit the BAD website. Images: Craig & Karl, Triptych (2018), Liu Haisu Art Museum, Shanghai; Kellie O'Dempsey, installation shot, National Gallery of Australia; Derlot, QTZ chairs, photo by Florian Groehn; Nicolette Johnson, Spire, Two-Pronged Vase (Ore), Crucible I.
Turning off your alarm at 6am is one of the easiest things in the world. But turning off a coffee machine half asleep? That's a little bit harder. Perhaps that's what designer Josh Renouf had in mind when creating a genius new coffee-brewing alarm clock. Well, that and the irresistible lure of a fresh cup of coffee waiting at your bedside. In the latest of things to be invented that really should have been invented already, comes The Barisieur. Unlike this ultimate tease of a breakfast-scented alarm clock — which wakes you up with smells of coffee and bacon — this designer device a is the real deal. Not only will it emit smells of coffee (or loose leaf tea, if you prefer) throughout the night as a natural relaxant, but it will wake you up at your desired time with "the sound of bubbling water and the smell of freshly brewed coffee". And just like magic, you'll have a cup of coffee waiting when you pry open your eyes. So how does it work? The water is boiled in the left vessel by an induction hob, forcing it to move up and over into the stainless steel filter on the right. The Water then moves through the coffee to create a super fresh (and convenient) cup of filter. There's also a cooled tray that can store milk and a drawer for sugar and whatever else you might like to pop in your coffee. Like all great devices of our time, The Barisieur is currently being funded on Kickstarter. So far 766 backers have raised almost £200,000 — over half of the £380,000 goal. UPDATE: OCTOBER 10, 2016 The Barisieur has been fully funded, with 1186 backers pledging £383,623 for the most amazing alarm clock of all time. You can pre-order one here.
After spending the summer focusing on play, Museum of Brisbane has turned its attention to clay, heroing pottery and ceramics in all their forms. Moving from getting active to appreciating earthy objects, the seasonally appropriate switch has arrived courtesy of the site's new Clay: Collected Ceramics exhibition — its latest free excuse to wander around level three of City Hall in King George Square. Premiering as part of Brisbane Art Design 2023, but gracing the museum's walls and halls until Sunday, October 22, Clay: Collected Ceramics isn't just showing an age-old art form some love (or endeavouring to appeal to fans of Patrick Swayze film Ghost). It's also celebrating Brisbane's clay, pottery and ceramics community, specifically 60 years of clay-based practise in the River City, all via more than 300 pieces. If that sounds like a lot of clay, it is — and there's a vase by Bonnie Hislop decked out not only in colour, but with the words "a bit much" that irreverently sums up the massive showcase. The Yeerongpilly-based ceramicist's works sit among the exhibition's range of newly commissioned, never-before-seen contemporary pieces from local artists, which also includes contributions by Nicolette Johnson, Jane du Rand, Kenji Uranishi and Steph Woods. A big focus: mould-breaking uses of the medium. Other highlights include leaning into the colour often associated with clay — brown — by grouping together works by Carl McConnell, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, Milton Moon, Lyndal Moor, Kevin Grealy and more that showcase the tone in a variety of shades. And, the private collection of author, poet and Paper Boat Press founder Kylie Johnson features heavily, capitalising upon her lifetime love of collecting pottery. There's also exhibition-within-the-exhibition Commune, with hundreds of memory vessels lent by Brisbane's ceramics community — marking the biggest-ever artist-sourced display in MoB's history, in fact — and an evolving installation by artist-in-residence Jody Rallah. Clay: Collected Ceramics also spans functional pieces dating back to the 70s, plus items that were only ever going to sit on someone's shelves from a range of talents, encouraging a conversation about the plethora of ways that the tactile material in the spotlight can be used. Although a screening of the aforementioned Ghost isn't on the bill, MoB has commissioned a film for Clay: Collected Ceramics, letting attendees see inside ceramics' intimate spaces — and also getting makers chatting about why they adore sinking their hands in. Clay: Collected Ceramics is on display at Museum of Brisbane, Level 3, City Hall, Brisbane CBD until Sunday, October 22. Head to the exhibition website for further details. Images: Claudia Baxter.
Following a Golden Globe haul earlier this year, Donald Glover's series Atlanta has landed an Australian premiere. Heading to the newly minted SBS Viceland channel on Tuesday, February 28 at 9.30pm, the award-winning series will be shown in double episodes weekly. Even better, the entire series will be available on SBS On Demand from the same date. Created, co-written, and produced by Glover, also known as artist Childish Gambino, Atlanta follows the life of Princeton dropout Earn Marks (Glover) and his cousin Alfred 'Paper Boi' Miles (Brian Tyree Henry). The series sees Earn supporting his two-year-old daughter and managing his rapper cousin trying his luck at breaking into the music industry. The series took out two Golden Globes in January, with Glover landing Best Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy, and Atlanta taking out Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy. Atlanta is one series we think you should catch up on after the Golden Globes. Read the whole list here.
Calling all history buffs: now is an excellent time to plan a long weekend in Canberra, with an incredible exhibition celebrating the might of the Roman Empire arriving at the National Museum of Australia (NMA) on Friday, September 21. Rome: City and Empire is a collaborative exhibition with the British Museum and makes the NMA only the second institution to host it worldwide — and the only museum that will do so in Australia. The exhibition showcases over 200 jaw-dropping objects, including marble sculptures, illustrations, geometric jewellery, gold medallions and burial chests — many of which have never toured internationally, let alone reached the Southern Hemisphere. This is once-in-a-lifetime stuff. Whether you're a history aficionado who smashes all the ancient Rome questions at trivia or a total novice, the exhibition offers an opportunity to step back in time to experience what daily life was like in one of the most sophisticated, culturally diverse and creative civilisations the world has ever known. You'll leave with an insight into just how Rome became such a mighty empire — one whose aesthetics, ingenuity and approach to design continue to influence us today. Rome: City and Empire will run from Friday, September 21, 2018 to Sunday, February 3, 2019. Tickets can be purchased via the NMA's website. Images: Fragment of a diadem, Naukratis, Egypt, 67–98 CE, gold; Roman Republican coin for Julius Caesar minted in Rome, Italy, 44 BCE, silver; Mosaic panel, Halicarnassus (modern Bodrum), Turkey, 4th century CE ©Trustees of the British Museum
It has played host to everyone from the Beastie Boys to The Chemical Brothers — plus plenty of festivals, too — and is one of the city's main live music venues. And, on Saturday, September 7, it'll be exactly 30 years old, with the Brisbane Riverstage launching on the same date in 1989. Brisbane Festival is celebrating the occasion, naturally, with help from Hot Dub Time Machine, Cub Sport, Confidence Man, Last Dinosaurs and Clea. They'll all take to the stage as part of a huge birthday bash that also doubles as a one-day festival — and, thanks to the headline act (aka Tom Loud), you can expect plenty of retro tunes. We're guessing that more than a few late 80s bangers will feature as he hits the decks, because this shindig is all about nostalgia.
Trump. Inequality. Charlottesville. North Korea. Taylor Swift's 'Look What You Made Me Do'. It's been a, er, testing year thus far. And if it weren't for our ability to talk about it — whether it's desperately debating asylum seeker policy in a pub corner, scrolling through Twitter for solidarity or listening to a critical analysis of covfefe on the way to work — we would probably all be hiding under makeshift bomb shelters in our kitchens by now. But when do we stop talking (and talking) about the state of the world and actually start doing something? That's what the Sydney Opera House set out to address this weekend at ANTIDOTE, a new festival that has replaced the Festival of Dangerous Ideas on their program with the intention of inspiring action. The inaugural ANTIDOTE, which ran over two days, featured a range of speakers, artists and activists whose subject matter moved, for the most part, past the visceral into the practical. They showed us that action isn't always seen through protest — that it can come through satire, by lifting yourself up with 20,000 balloons or just moaning really loudly until someone listens. While it's hard to say if the audiences at ANTIDOTE will put any of their newfound learnings into practice — except perhaps those who are bound by contract from immersive theatre game The Money — here's five things we took away from the festival. It's up to you to crawl out from your bunker and put them into action. [caption id="attachment_635687" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Prudence Upton / Sydney Opera House[/caption] IT'S ACTUALLY DIFFICULT TO SATIRISE DONALD TRUMP — THE ONION America's finest news source has been satirising US politics, everyday life and the power ranking of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen since 1988. They've found ways to cover presidents like George W. Bush ('Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over') and Barack Obama ('Black Guy Asks Nation for Change') — and so, with the election of Trump last year, you'd think it would have made The Onion's job a total cakewalk. Not so. According to managing editor Marnie Shure, video director Katy Yeiser, and senior writer Dan McGraw, who appeared in conversation with The Chaser's Craig Reucassel, Trump's absurd behaviour is inherently hard to satirise because readers often can't tell the difference between satire and reality. Unlike other government figures who usually say one thing but mean another, Trump just says what he means — and there's very little you can do with that. Although they seem to have managed just fine. [caption id="attachment_635686" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Prudence Upton / Sydney Opera House[/caption] PEOPLE WANT TO HELP THE HOMELESS BUT DON'T KNOW HOW — THE MONEY This was no more apparent than at Kaleider's performance of The Money. Held in the Utzon Room — with its views that dissolve into the harbour water — the concept is this: a select number of 'players' sit around the table and decide what to do with a wad of cash. They can put it towards anything legal they can unanimously agree on, but they can't donate it to charity or split it with each other. A group of 'silent witnesses' also present; they don't have a say unless they slap some money on the table, in which case they are then embedded into the decision-making process. At a session on Sunday, discussion quickly turned to acts of non-direct charity. With only $500 on the table — unlike the jackpotted $6000 that went to the YES campaign the night before — the participants wanted to find a way to use the money that would actually make a difference in someone's life. Homelessness — unlike organisations in which members had a vested interest in — was a neutral cause that no one could find a suitable opposition to. But the main question was how. Without giving directly to a charity that would help people without a home, the players decided (after much discussion and disagreement) to put the money on a gift card, that would then be donated to a non-profit to, hopefully, provide food and goods to those who need it. [caption id="attachment_635684" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Prudence Upton / Sydney Opera House[/caption] SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO SAY THE WORDS TO REALISE PEOPLE WERE WAITING TO SAY THE SAME THING — EVE ENSLER When Eve Ensler started first performed The Vagina Monologues in a Greenwich Village cafe in 1996, the word 'vagina' was rarely spoken out loud. Nowadays it's much less taboo. And while the playwright and activist thought her play would be redundant by now (if only), the ongoing response and shift of how society views women and their bodies is still a prime example of how art has the power to transform thinking and urge people to act. Ensler took to the stage in what can only be described as a fierce powerful takedown of the "predator-in-chief", the Australian Government's policy on asylum seekers and violence against women and girls. She urged the audience to speak out, refuse to be silenced, stop looking away and say the words that everyone's thinking — because that's how they get introduced into the conversation. She then proceeded to perform a monologue that ended in all-in audience moaning. [caption id="attachment_635721" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Letícia Almeida[/caption] TURNS OUT, HELIUM BALLOONS CAN LIFT A HUMAN — CHEROPHOBIA If you've ever watched Up, then the elation of artist Noëmi Lakmaier taking flight by way of helium balloons would not have been lost on you. Especially after the uncertainty and shared suspense of the coming-and-going audience members that visited over the nine-hour work. While her actual lift-off wasn't as dramatic as Carl and Russell's, it did offer a source of contemplation on happiness and fear for those who'd stuck around. Plus, the Concert Hall filled with 20,000 balloons was a pretty lovely sight to see. [caption id="attachment_635685" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Prudence Upton / Sydney Opera House[/caption] WE NEED TO DISMANTLE DOMINANT IDEOLOGIES — RENI EDDO-LODGE Reni Eddo-Lodge refuses to explain race to white people — which is fair enough, really. But after a blog post titled 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race' blew up in 2014, Eddo-Lodge has become a prominent journalist and blogger on the topic of, well, just that, having recently released a book of the same name. In her conversation with Benjamin Law she spoke about whiteness as an implicit but ever-present power structure that upholds the dominant ideologies that suit white people. So how do we break the cycle of dominance? Question them. Read up on indigenous history, campaign to change the date of Australia Day — don't accept the structural systems of society just because that's the way they are. Also, read her book. Top image: Letícia Almeida.
The Gold Coast, with its enviable combination of good weather and beaches, already gives off festival vibes all year round. But the real kicker happens when you add beer to all of that goodness. Add vitamins B (beer) and C (cider) to the vitamin D you cop on the coast with the Crafted Beer and Cider Festival, on Saturday, September 7. Taking place in Kurrawa Park in Broadbeach, the beer festival will unite more than 40 of Australia's top craft breweries, over 200 different brews and some good food and live music to line your stomachs and ears. It's as good an excuse as any for a cheeky getaway to the Goldy. Locals like Balter Brewing Company, Black Hops Brewing and Burleigh Brewing Co join up with visitors like Sydney's Akasha Brewing Company, Yulli's Brews and Young Henrys, plus Victoria's Bridge Road Brewers and Moon Dog — and that's but a few of the many beer houses to be represented on the day. More of a cider person? Far From the Tree and Granite Belt Cider Co. are some of the cideries making the pilgrimage to the Coast. Food-wise, your picks span Little Havana, Smokin' Grill BBQ, Mac From Way Back, The Wiener House and more — including a hot dog-eating contest. The music lineup is equally eclectic with The Delta Riggs, Wharves, Seaside and Nice Biscuit among the bands providing the soundtrack to your day. Also on the day's agenda is comedy, a ping pong competition and beer yoga, where you can perform a few downward dogs before you down your beer — it's all about balance, after all.
It's safe to say that Australia's COVID-19 vaccination rollout hasn't been all smooth sailing. Nor has it come without its (unfair) share of highly divided opinions. But, we can all agree that getting back to a world where we're all able to do the things we love would be very nice, indeed. For many, the arts industry is one of the biggest things we've sorely been missing in the last 18 months, and it's also one of the sectors that has been hit the hardest by the pandemic. This was the catalyst for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's compelling new ad campaign aimed at overcoming vaccine hesitancy in Australia. The Performance of a Lifetime was created with the help of a diverse cast of local artists and arts organisations in order to encourage audiences to get on board and get vaccinated when they're eligible. Its message? The sooner people play their part and get their jab — aka the performance of a lifetime — the sooner we can all get back to doing what we love. Best of all, it ditches any alarmist chat in favour of clear, straightforward messaging and a hopeful outlook. Musical comedy trio Tripod, who appeared in the ad, summarised the sentiment nicely in a media statement: "The sooner everyone mucks in and gets the jab, the sooner the arts community can get back to what we do best — providing a focal point for communities to gather, so we can all share our joy at being alive on this big, stupid planet." The two-minute-long ad features a rollcall of other familiar faces from Melbourne's music, theatre, dance and performance communities, including iconic entertainer Rhonda Burchmore OAM, composer and soprano Deborah Cheetham AO, and actress Virginia Gay. You'll also spy appearances from members of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Theatre Company, The Australian Ballet and national Indigenous opera company Short Black Opera. As comedian and songwriter Tim Minchin said in a statement, "Get vaccinated Aussies…as soon as you possibly can. Let's show this fucking bug the door." You can check out the full 'Performance of a Lifetime' ad video here on YouTube.
The What We Do in the Shadows franchise shows no signs of dying, with the American TV comedy spinoff from Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement's hilarious movie still going strong. But one part of this saga did say goodbye, with fellow television sitcom Wellington Paranormal running for four seasons between 2018–2022. Been missing its comic take on Cops? It's now living on with a companion podcast. Back before Wellington Paranormal initially arrived, Waititi described it as "Mulder and Scully but in a country where nothing happens". With the brand-new podcast — which is called The Wellington Paranormal Podcast — the actors behind those fictional New Zealand police officers are chatting through the show. So, get ready to spend time with Karen O'Leary (Red, White & Brass) and Mike Minogue (My Life Is Murder), who played officers Karen O'Leary and Mike Minogue, as they dive into the making of the hit series. On TV, O'Leary and Minogue were Wellington's trusty paranormal investigators, with help from the always-eager Sergeant Maaka (Maaka Pohatu, Our Flag Means Death) and Officer Parker (Tom Sainsbury, Loop Track). That meant not only trying to keep the city safe from not only vampires and werewolves, but also from ghosts, aliens and more, in a show that was equally funny and silly — and never afraid to enlist familiar faces. As podcast hosts, O'Leary and Minogue will also be bringing in guests, including Pohatu and Sainsbury. Other actors will also feature, plus writers and directors, with exactly who else will be popping up left as a surprise. Listeners can tune into the end results from Thursday, November 23, with new episodes available weekly, via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast apps. Definitely present from the get-go: O'Leary and Minogue's familiar banter. "Karen and I are excited to be bringing this podcast to our fans all around the world. They'll both be thrilled," said Minogue about The Wellington Paranormal Podcast. "We're looking forward to dissecting each episode as well as talking to both the people who created the show, and celebrity fans who, correctly, think Wellington Paranormal is the greatest thing to ever appear on screen." The Wellington Paranormal Podcast starts streaming from Thursday, November 23, with new episodes available weekly, via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast apps.
New York City could soon be home to the world's longest skyscraper. No, not the tallest. The longest. An ultra-skinny, two-legged skyscraper that curves at its peak before returning back to earth, the fittingly named Big Bend would stretch 4,000 feet (1.22 kilometres) end to end, making quite a unique addition to Manhattan's already iconic skyline. The proposed luxury apartment block was designed by local studio Oiio. "The story of The Big Bend follows a recent trend that has appeared in New York City: the emergence of myriad tall and slender residential skyscrapers," explains the studio on its website. "But what if we substituted height with length? What if our buildings were long instead of tall? If we manage to bend our structure instead of bending the zoning rules of New York we would be able to create one of the most prestigious buildings in Manhattan." It's unclear exactly how narrow The Big Bend would be. According to The Telegraph, it would feature a lift that can travel both vertically and horizontally around the building's entire length. The proposed site for the super-long skyscraper lies around West 57th Street, just south of Central Park. Home to numerous luxury apartment complexes and high-rises, the area is sometimes referred to as Billionaire's Row. The Big Bend doesn't actually have planning permission as of yet. But you have to admit, it'd be a hell of a sight.
As well as being one of Brisbane's best concert venues, The Triffid is an ace place to enjoy a drink. While you don't need to be there for a gig to kick back in the beer garden, combining both tunes and brews is one of this Newstead favourite's drawcards. At the Sip Happens Festival, that's still the formula — but at an afternoon-long wine-tasting fest with a live music soundtrack. Up-and-coming small producers are in the spotlight at this excuse to sample more than 100 drops, with folks making organic, minimal-intervention and biodynamic tipples — and with a focus on sustainability — earning the event's love. These kind of wine fests aren't just an experience to indulge in for a few hours; they're a way to top up your vino knowledge, expand your drinking horizons and discover your next favourite plonk Sip Happens Festival debuted in 2023, proved a wine-adoring hit and is now returning from 12–5pm on Saturday, August 3 — and, alongside vino, attendees will also be sampling craft beers and spirits. Your $71.81 ticket includes everything that you're keen to taste, a glass to sip from and a $25 wine voucher for purchases. Opt for the VIP treatment instead for $96.29 and you'll also receive a welcome glass of prosecco, snacks to nibble on and access to the VIP zone.
Of all the stars that can be traced back to Australia, few fill people with joy like the late, great Olivia Newtown-John. An iconic voice of Australian music, her ballads and sweeping melodies will live on forever thanks to fans and tribute concerts like Queensland Symphony Orchestra's 'Hopelessly Devoted: A Celebration of Olivia Newton-John' — hosted by Brisbane-native drag superstar Courtney Act on Saturday, April 6. Conducted by Nicholas Buc, the orchestra will provide the backings while Courtney Act and her fellow stars of screen and stage (David Campbell, Jess Hitchcock, Georgina Hopson and Christie Whelan Browne) provide vocals for the discography of Newton-John in a tribute fitting of a legend. Expect all the hits, from the sing-alongs of Grease to the bops of Xanadu and other classics like 'Magic', 'I Honestly Love You', 'Make a Move on Me', and of course, 'Hopelessly Devoted to You'. It's all happening amid the fabulous acoustics of the QPAC Concert Hall and it will inevitably sell out so get in quick. Fitting of Newton-John's legacy and the hosts for the night, you're encouraged to dress up in drag or otherwise colourful, sparkling and vibrant outfits to enjoy the energy of the night. Hopelessly Devoted: A Celebration of Olivia Newtown John is taking place at 1.30pm and 7.30pm on Saturday, April 6 at the QPAC Concert Hall, for more information or to get tickets, visit the website.
Writing a prescient tale is the science-fiction holy grail, and a feat that Philip K Dick firmly achieved. Making a movie that becomes the prevailing vision of what the future might look like in the entire world's minds? That's a stunning filmmaking feat, and one that Ridley Scott notched up as well. The reason for both? On the page, 1968's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. In cinemas, 1982's Blade Runner. And if you need reminding of how stunning a story that the iconic sci-fi author penned, or how spectacular a film that the legendary director then turned it into, look no further than Blade Runner's return to the big screen — with a live score. When Dick pondered the difference between humans and artificial intelligence more than half a century back, he peered forward with revelatory foresight. When Scott followed fresh from Alien, he did the same. Now, with the clash between the organic and the digital a daily part of our lives in this ChatGPT-heavy reality, of course it's time for Blade Runner to flicker again. Film lovers, get ready for another dream movie-and-music pairing. Get ready for synths, too. Vangelis' stunning score will echo as Scott's feature screens in at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on Saturday, February 10, 2024 for Blade Runner Live — an event that premiered in London in 2019, made its way around the UK, then hit Japan earlier in 2023. This session will screen the Final Cut version of the movie. Wondering how it differs from the OG release, and also the House of Gucci, The Last Duel and Napoleon filmmaker's Director's Cut? First unveiled in 2007 for the feature's 25th anniversary, it's the only version that Scott truly had full artistic control over. Blade Runner's narrative, if you're new to the franchise — which also includes exceptional 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049 and recent animated series Blade Runner: Black Lotus, with a new Blade Runner TV series also on the way — focuses on the one and only Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) as cop Rick Deckard. His task: finding replicants, aka androids, which turns into quite the existential journey. It's almost impossible to name a movie or TV series in sci-fi that's popped up over the four decades since Blade Runner first arrived that hasn't owed Scott's film a massive debt — and any synthesiser-fuelled score that hasn't done the same with Vangelis.
Lean, mean and a Nazi-killing machine: that's Sisu and its handy-with-a-hunting-knife (and pickaxe) protagonist alike. This stunningly choreographed Finnish action film's title doesn't have a literal equivalent in English, but means stoic, tenacious, resolute, brave and gritty all in that four-letter term; again, both the movie and the man at its centre fit the description. Former soldier Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila, perhaps best-known internationally for 2010's Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale) has one aim. After he strikes gold and plenty of it in Lapland's far reaches, he's keen to cash in. For someone who has already lost everyone and everything to World War II, that requires transporting his haul; however, the year is 1944 and German troops still lurk even as the combat winds down. Accordingly, getting those gleaming nuggets from the wilderness to a bank means facing a greedy and unrelenting platoon led by Helldorf (Aksel Hennie, The Cloverfield Paradox), who can spy a payday and an exit strategy for himself. Before anything yellow shimmers, Nazi-filled tanks are sighted, a single shot is fired or a blow swung, Sisu explains its moniker as "a white-knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination". Text on-screen also advises that "sisu manifests itself when all hope is lost." As a film, Sisu may as well be shorthand for John Wick meets Inglourious Basterds meets Django, the iconic 1966 spaghetti western that Quentin Tarantino riffed on with Django Unchained, too — plus all of that meets the work of legendary spaghetti western director Sergio Leone as well. The carnage is that balletic. The Nazi offings are that brutal, roguish and inventive. And valuing deeds over dialogue as a lone figure dispatches with nefarious forces against an unforgiving landscape, and no matter what they throw at him, is firmly the setup. "He is one mean motherfucker that you don't want to mess with," the Nazis are told of Sisu's one-man death squad after they cross paths, the Germans think that their numbers will win out, and Aatami swiftly and savagely shows their folly. Of course, Helldorf and his underlings don't heed that advice. They're heading to Norway, destroying villages and also transporting a wagon filled with Finnish women they've taken captive, such as the spirited Aino (Mimosa Willamo, Memory of Water) — and the nihilistic Helldorf is soon fixated on the gold at any cost. That's a bad choice for the Nazis but great news for audiences. Enter: minefields proving deadly and also coming in handy, oh-so-many limbs going flying, the most grisly way to breathe underwater that's possibly been seen in cinema, taking the battle onto boats and planes, and Aatami continually demonstrating why he's earned such a fierce reputation. The latter doesn't take kindly to Nazis, as no one should, nor to being attacked, having his gold stolen and, like Keanu Reeves' best character of late, seeing his dog threatened. Sisu writer/director Jalmari Helander also helmed dark festive action-comedy Rare Exports, giving seasonal flicks a memorably twisted spin. Then, although to much lesser success, he cast Samuel L Jackson (Secret Invasion) as a US President evading terrorists-slash-hunters in the woods in 2014's Big Game. Here, he knows which footsteps he's treading in — Mad Max: Fury Road also springs to mind in Sisu's staging, setting and elements of its story — and also how to make his film its own extravagantly bloody and entertaining spectacle. There's ticking boxes, and then there's colouring them in with your own hues and designs so that yes, they've been marked off but in your distinctive manner. Sisu works through everything that audiences think will happen, even winkingly signposting via named chapters splashed across the frame with western-esque font, and yet it's no mere exercise in lazily fulfilling a checklist. Helander is too willing to get as OTT and pulpy as he can manage, to get as immersed in the film's playfully and gruesomely engrossing violence as he's able to, and to keep one-upping the creative and downright novel kills at Aatami's hands. In every case, he's giddily going for broke — and frequently getting in close via cinematographer Kjell Lagerroos (another Memory of Water alum). Sisu casts its solo hero against a sprawling setting that's oppressive in its immenseness in classic western style. The colour palette is colder, though; the feature surrounds Aatami with visible, inescapable, ever-present and grey-tinged desolation, as reality dictates of war movies. Helander paints this intense, grim and devastating big picture, while also seeing the gore and dirt and sweat intimately and intricately. What would the John Wick franchise be without Reeves? Django without the great Franco Nero (who popped up in John Wick: Chapter 2) in his breakout role? A Fistful of Dollars and its sequels without Clint Eastwood (Cry Macho)? The question now: what would Sisu be without the irrepressible Tommila? Every single one of the films just mentioned boasts a sublime mix of perfectly chosen stars and directors doing their utmost — brothers-in-law Tommila and Helander among them. With so few words uttered, Tommila's physical performance has to convey everything. So, a stare screams with ferocity, a gaze at Aatami's dog bubbles with emotion and a twitch is never just a twitch. Watching silent protagonists dispensing with a constant onslaught of foes also gets audiences mirroring the characters, aka surveying the scene for even the slightest change or sign given that even the smallest details can alter so much. As villains get slain again and again — and Aatami keeps weathering what's blasted his way — Sisu unleashes its barrage with weight. That isn't only because the atrocities of the Second World War should never be forgotten. All those lingering views of messy and madcap carnage? They don't just notice Aatami's actions, but show what he goes through as he persists and subsists. This is a film about survival as much as it's about payback. It has stakes and makes them plain, even as it's as blatant a good-versus-evil movie as they come. It's grounded in the past, stripped down to bangs and smacks and crunches that pack a visceral and emotional punch (smashes and crashes, too, with meticulous sound design that makes every pop and snap echo), and pulled off with cartoonish flair. Sisu is many things, just like the term itself in its native Finland — and impossible to stop watching is one of them.
How does a stage production recreate Charles Darwin's famous voyage on the HMS Beagle, and do justice not only to the real-life tale of discovery, but the creatures the scientist came across? Dead Puppet Society's involvement in The Wider Earth might just give away the answer to that question. And we're not just talking about using shadows and felt to recreate everyday animals, either. From Saturday, February 5–Saturday, February 19 at The Princess Theatre, expect the delicate flutters of longhorn beetles and the slow lumbering of ancient tortoises to come alive on stage — and the naturalist's journey from the Andes through the Amazon to the Galapagos Islands as well. On the human side of things, expect a cast led by Tom Conroy as Charles Darwin to bring a piece of history back to life in a lively coming-of-age narrative. Plus, not only does The Wider Earth let a real-life quest play out with 30 custom-created puppets and eight actors — it also boasts a collaboration between two of Australia's leading musical creators, too. Singer-songwriter Lior and producer Tony Buchen have joined forces to ensure that the sounds of this adventure are as magical as the underlying story. And, this is the first time that The Wider Earth has played Brisbane since its world-premiere season back in 2016. Images: Guy Bell / Prudence Upton.
Whether or not you've ever splashed in its wave-filled waters or taken a selfie around its edge, where the pool borders the ocean — or even if you've simply seen images of it everywhere, including sometimes featuring Margot Robbie in Barbie mode — feeling the urge to plunge into Bondi Icebergs is a side effect of watching Ian Darling's The Pool. The yearning to take a dip in your nearest body of water also strikes. Equally radiating from the screen as the Sydney landmark receives a cinematic tribute: the sensation that just by viewing the latest documentary from the filmmaker behind The Final Quarter and Paul Kelly — Stories of Me, you've enjoyed the next best thing to hopping in. Everyone knows Bondi Icebergs, thanks to about as many photographs as there are grains of sand on Bondi Beach, or perhaps more. It's the most-snapped pool in the world, in fact, The Pool notes. Darling's film explores its allure beyond its scenic aesthetic, even if the movie is stunningly gorgeous to look at (how could it not be?) and perfectly set to a 60s-inspired soundtrack. This is a doco about community, and about why one has formed around the haven of blue at the southern end of Bondi Beach that's been welcoming in swimmers for almost a century. Some come to Icebergs to relax. Others come to train and compete. Some head along with friends and/or family. Others arrive solo, knowing that their fellow swimmers are their friends and family. Some do indeed fill their Instagram feeds with photos, and The Pool sees them. But the film spends its time largely observing the immense cross-section of folks who frequent Bondi Icebergs, from daily devotees to casual weekenders, newcomers to veterans, young to old, and lifeguards and swimming coaches to baristas as well, as they congregate, revel in the spectacular tidal pool's gifts no matter the weather and discover a place to belong in the process. That's how Darling overcame what might've been a challenge for other filmmakers: diving beneath the surface of a place that is so instantly recognisable, and for good reason. It's also how he's made a movie that is meditative to watch, mirroring what many of its interviewees say about the body of water. And, it's why The Pool has been getting the love flowing from audiences around the country — not just in Sydney, where it fittingly world-premiered at the 2024 Sydney Film Festival; which "was actually quite emotional, because three of the key characters had died in only the month or two beforehand, and this was the first time that a lot of the audience had seen them again," Darling tells Concrete Playground; not only among swimmers as well. "We've been doing a lot of the film festivals, and so just meeting people all over — after launching at Sydney Film Festival, we went over to CinefestOZ in Margaret River, and then Byron, Sunshine Coast, Adelaide Film Festival. Then we've been doing a few pre-cinema release screenings up at Noosa when the triathlon was on, and Brisbane and Gold Coast," the director notes when we chat in the lead up to the film's release nationwide. "What I'm especially pleased about is that we weren't sure whether it was such a Sydney-centric film that it wasn't going to speak to other audiences, but it it's been wonderful seeing that there are so many common themes in it that it's speaking to people not only all across Australia, but to swimmers and non-swimmers. Which I was surprised about. Coming out of COVID, people are still hurting and yearning for a community, and really putting a greater value on any community they're a part of. And so it's had a much more emotional response than we than we expected." "I was especially pleased at the screening over at the Orpheum, where a number of people came up — and a couple of ladies who were very emotional said 'we don't swim, but we're part of a book club. And we feel that you've spoken the same language in terms of what we do in our book club. And we value it even more, it's about community and it's about a shared language'," Darling continues. "I was asking them exactly what they mean. She said 'well, we talk about a book and we could see here people were just talking about swimming'. And the penny dropped, and it made me realise that's so much about what we look for in a community — whether it's a film festival where we're all talking the same language, or a book club, or even at a pool. It never ceases to amaze me how long people can talk about swimming. But it is a shared language, and everyone comes from all different walks of life and they have this common link." Where inspiration strikes as a filmmaker, the 'I need to make a movie about this' moment with Bondi Icebergs, his own first experience with the pool, choosing interviewees, finding the doco's ebb and flow, the importance of community, what Bondi Icebergs both says about and means to Sydney: we also spoke with Darling about all of the above. On Darling's First Bondi Icebergs Moment "I came up from Melbourne in the early 90s, and my wife and I were swimming in the middle of winter at the beach, and suddenly realised how many people were swimming — and coming from Melbourne, I'd never swim in winter. And I was thinking 'how long does this happen?'. I saw this building down the end — and I wasn't familiar with the Icebergs. And I always was intrigued by it. I actually thought that it was more of a private club. Actually, for the whole of that decade, I never went to it. When someone told me that it was a public pool in the early 2000s, I remember walking in and it just blew me away. I suddenly actually did feel like I was in a 60s film, and it was one of the most-beautiful places and pools I'd ever swum in. There are so many pools I've swum in and I don't have any recall, but I remember walking in and just feeling like I was in this time warp, and it was a very positive experience." On When the 'I Need to Make a Film About This' Moment Came with The Pool "I think it was post-lockdown, and I think when we have something taken away from us — we're social creatures and we all realised that that we do need a sense of community. Also having come out of The Final Quarter and The Department on child protection, I wanted to give myself permission to actually make a happy film and a feel-good film, and a film where people could just meditate and contemplate their own life. I was sitting down at Icebergs with a friend of mine, Marg Simpson-Lee, who's a swimmer. And I was saying 'I'm really looking for something which is a connected story about a community that is uplifting'. And she said 'well, what about here?'. And so it was right under my nose. The more I thought about it, I thought 'actually, it is going to give me a platform to tell these stories about community and connection'. So it was as simple as that. I wasn't sure what it meant. And it took us a while to get a sense of how to make it and why we, in the end, decided to make the pool the central character, and let all the other characters, almost like 30 sets of arms and legs, give us context of to what was in there. But I think I was ready myself as well — I think we often wear the hair shirt as documentary filmmakers, and I had to give myself permission to say 'actually, it's okay to make a film where we just actually sit back and think and observe and hopefully feel happy at the end of it'. So that was the the intent." On Digging Into What Makes the Most-Photographed Pool in the World Special Beyond Its Aesthetics "It's a good question, because I think with the notion of it being the most-photographed pool in the world, with that comes all the connotations of Instagram and body image, and all of that. And we almost wanted the film to be the antithesis of that. One of the things we weren't sure of was how people would feel when we were down there with cameras, because people are perhaps at their most vulnerable when they're just in their swimmers. And we were very aware and respectful of it. So we had signs up everywhere, and we made sure, our producers went around, that anyone who didn't want to be in the film could come and tell us, and we'd make sure that they weren't and absolutely honour that. On the first morning, about three people came up and I thought 'wow, this is going to be challenging over the course of the year'. And then over the the whole year, I think only one or two other people came up and said that they didn't want to be in it. So we gained the trust, but it also made me realise that the people down there were actually very comfortable in their own skin, and all different body shapes and all different, all different types. I think that is very different from the notion of it being the most-photographed pool in the world. It was a very grounded experience, and the pool jumps out as something very beautiful — but I think whenever we were there on weekends, we'd see people doing selfies and everything, and we wanted to reflect that in the film but also highlight that it wasn't the story we were telling." On the Process of Choosing Interviewees From the Bondi Icebergs Community "On the website, we did 100 full-length interviews — because we never wanted to make the film about the history of the club, but we thought 'well, let's grab a time capsule of history and get the full stories'. And from that, we got a lot of clues. It was almost like an audition. A lot of the characters jumped out, and the stories. We didn't want to make it a character-based film. We said 'let's make the pool the central character, but let's define them by themes'. So what we saw was the characters were around things like friendship and routine — there are a couple of friends that get there at 13 minutes to seven every morning, and that's a very important thing about commitment. And then there are stories around mental health and physical sickness and endurance, and volunteering and perseverance and fear. A number of the characters were fearful of the water and learning to swim. So it was more 'how do we represent all those themes?' rather than characters. And so the two went sort of hand in hand. We had so many people that unfortunately we couldn't fit in, more because they told the same story rather than not having a great story. And I think that was the thing, as I was saying before, very few people didn't want to be in it but we I think we upset a number of people who desperately wanted to be in it but didn't make the final cut." On the Film's Crew Swimming at Bondi Icebergs Themselves for 99 Days of the 100 Day-Shoot "I think it was an important part. So the only day we didn't swim was the one when the huge storms were there. And I think people at the start of any film are wary when these outsiders come in, and we just we started very gently, but right from the start, we got in. And we started in May when the water was getting really cold. I think that helped with the locals, when they saw that we were prepared to get in the cold water and that we actually swam ourselves, and that we could speak the same language. I've never really asked them, but I know we were always observed — and I think just in a quiet sort of way that that enabled us to get even closer to everyone. But also, I thought if we're making a film at a place like this, if we don't actually get in and enjoy ourselves — because when we were at the homeless shelter, that was a three-year film shoot and that was all hours of the night. And when we were there at three o'clock in the morning, I was thinking 'hmm, we're certainly earning our stripes as documentary filmmakers here'. So unashamedly, we thought if we're doing a fun film, let's enjoy it." On Making a Meditative Film to Match the Mindset That Bondi Icebergs Can Inspire "I think we had two intents. One, sometimes we'd jump into a scene of a storm or the word of the coach and everything — it's quite bracing when you jump in the cold water. But also, the meditative nature we thought was really important. I think we've forgotten sometimes just to sit when we're on top of a mountain, just to look out and not look at our phone. And I thought it's really important for us just to have a feeling of what it's like just to sit and look at the waves, and that it's actually okay to sort of — bored is not the word I'd want to use in a film, but it's actually okay to do nothing. So we have an unusually long opening-credit sequence, but we wanted to play the whole of the Cream song 'I Feel Free' and just get people into the rhythm. Sometimes, I certainly know at the theatre when I'm there, sometimes I go 'wow, ten minutes has gone and I haven't been concentrating'. It can take us a while to get into it, so we thought let's just try and set up the rhythm of the film so that audiences give themselves permission just to sit and get into that meditative state. It felt like it was in sync with the intent of when you're swimming, because we wanted to make it immersive. But also I think sometimes it is good to let audiences — and a number of them have said during those meditative sort of scenes, the swimming or a storm or the purple tumble turns scene, that that's where they're actually thinking about their own place in a community. Or they're yearning for it. And so people have been doing a lot of self-reflection during the film as well, and that's really pleasing, because that was the intent as well." On What Darling Learned About the Importance of Community From Making The Pool "I think it really is that sense that we all need to be a part of a community and we all need to find people that share a common language — and, as I say, it means we can talk for hours about swimming or films or whatever. That, as a community, we deeply have this yearning to connect. And when it's taken away from us, we really miss it. If we haven't got it, we're yearning for it. It's such an important part of — at a pool, our physical health, but I think the most important thing is around our mental health. And as time goes on, we've got to ensure that cinemas remain open as a shared experience and that pools remain open. So many pools are closing, and we're going to do a bit of a campaign to try to get every mayor and council to come to watch the film, and actually see the importance that a local pool has on a community. As I say, so much of it is just around that connection, a meeting point, the importance of being with others. And I think that was very much the intent of the film, just to show how we do have to keep working hard at creating these gathering points, because the health of the community is very much dependent on them." On What Bondi Icebergs Means to Sydney — and Says About It "It says 'look at me', which is one of the things that, coming from Melbourne, where there are different seasons and everything, Sydney seems to have one season and it's sort of saying 'look at me' — which can be positive, but also I can be cynical about it. So that's on the surface, but I think it also says 'have a look below the surface and you'll find something that's far more profound and grounded — and if you are looking for a community, you'll find people with a common language there;. At the outset, it's a shining beacon and a tourist destination. The amount of times we've heard people go 'oh, I've had that swim. It's been on my bucket list'. People like to go to Bondi Beach. They'd like to go to the Opera House. In Queensland they love to go to the Gold Coast or the Barrier Reef. As a destination for Australians, but also as tourists, I think it's very much an important part of — unashamedly Australia has a strong beach culture, and I think it reflects that as a piece of beach history." On Where Inspiration Strikes for a Filmmaker with Documentaries About Everything From Bondi Icebergs, Adam Goodes and Paul Kelly to Capitalism and the Welfare of Homeless Youth on His Resume "Because I've had so many films that have fallen over, answering this way, typically the films that have fallen over are ones where I haven't had a strong-enough contact or connection with the subject matter. I'm a pretty slow filmmaker, most of the film shoots have been at least a year, and we take a long time in the edit suite. And I think to go on that long journey, I have to have a real interest in it. So with this one, The Pool, swimming's my main physical activity. I'm not a member of Icebergs, but I like cold-water swimming, so that gave me clues. With Adam Goodes, I'm a huge AFL fan and I go out every week — and we were thinking before he retired, actually, because he was one of my favourite all-time footballers, of making a film on him in his twilight years. So it ended up being a very different one, but having been so aware of it and been in the crowds when he was being booed, and being there when he was celebrated, suddenly he retired and I thought 'wow, are we going to' — I was just confused — 'are we going to let history be rewritten?'. So it took a few years but it just never left me, I think because I'd had such an intimate relationship with watching him as a player. I hadn't met him at all until we spoke about the film, but he was certainly present. [caption id="attachment_715066" align="alignnone" width="1920"] 29th September 2012, The Age Sport, Picture by Wayne Taylor[/caption] And then with Paul Kelly, I grew up in Melbourne — and in the 80s, just the Melbourne band scene was just extraordinary, and Paul Kelly spoke to me like no other sort of musician had. And again, I hadn't met him until we sought his approval, but he was my favourite musician — which can be dangerous, making films about your hero, as such. Then with the homeless, I'd spent a lot of time volunteering at this homeless shelter in Sydney and really got to know a number of the street kids, and just saw that homelessness was totally off the agenda, and felt it was really important to bring it back and try and put it into every home. We got a lot of philanthropic funding to present a report to the government. It's those sort of things, where I've had a connection and felt that I was in a place to be able to tell a story." The Pool opened in Australian cinemas on Thursday, November 7, 2024.
It doesn't take a fool to figure we in Australia have a nasty habit of throwing out perfectly fine food for petty reasons. You can blame it on Pete and Manu for making us believe the flower is the only edible part of the zucchini, or the natural and overpowering fear of eating the brown bit of a banana. But in reality, we put more edible food in the trash than we do our tum and it's a something that needs to change. As part of the Human Rights Film Festival, the Brisbane Powerhouse will be screening Just Eat It: A Food Waste Story. In a Super Size Me-type gonzo documentary, Just Eat It follows Canadian food lovers Jen and Grant as they dive head first into the issues surrounding overconsumption and food wastage. By surviving solely on food waste for six months, they provide an entertaining and shocking look into how much food we throw away and how it effects our earth.
Whisked from her idyllic farm with the promise of a job cooking for a high-level government official, it is only when Hortense Laborie (Catherine Frot) gets to Paris that she learns the position will actually involve being the private chef for French president Francois Mitterand. She has a moment of faint surprise, but only a moment. The job offer is a bolt from the blue, but she knows she's up for it. Based on the true story of the first woman to be the president's chef, Haute Cuisine alternates between Hortense's time in the palace and a later spell as the inscrutable but beloved head chef on an Antarctic research station. In a clunky plot device at odds with the rest of the film's unhurried feel, an Australian journalist (Arly Jover, doing a deplorable accent) is making a documentary about the station and tries to unravel the enigma of Hortense, including why she left her high-profile role for such an unlikely and isolated outpost. Not unlike last year's similarly foodie-friendly Step Up to the Plate, Haute Cuisine is almost defiantly low-key, offering little in the way of revelation but instead opting for a detailed, quiet character study and a wealth of lovingly filmed food preparation scenes. Initially feeling isolated in her position, Hortense finds herself ill at ease in the rarified surrounds of the Elysse palace, all cavernous rooms and chilly stylishness. She is unsure of the tastes of who she is cooking for, is eyed suspiciously from the chefs in the much larger public kitchen and has running battles with bean-counting bureaucrats who can't understand the time and money she pours into sourcing the finest truffles and foie gras. Eventually she does meet Mitterand (played with sparkly eyed verve by Jean d'Ormesson, making his film debut at age 86) and the pair bond over the heartfelt, rustic food of his childhood. Working with the timid but capable sous chef Nicholas (Arthur Dupont) she becomes a favourite of the ageing president, only increasing the jealousy of her male counterparts. Haute Cuisine is a small story but it is an interesting historical vignette, and it is to the film's credit that it does not overstay its welcome a minute.
UPDATE, April 19, 20201 The Invisible Man is available to stream via Amazon Prime Video, Binge, Foxtel Now, Google Play and YouTube Movies. In the latest version of The Invisible Man, Universal unwraps the bandages from one of its iconic horror figures in an astute, unnerving and thrillingly contemporary fashion. But it almost didn't happen, with the studio originally pursuing completely different plans. Let's all take a moment to thank the cinema gods that Tom Cruise's stint as The Mummy didn't work out. If his time dallying with Egyptian spirits had been a success, we'd now be watching Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man instead. That's what Universal's 'dark universe' — aka the studio's modern-day remakes of its old 1930s monster movies — had in store. Then the 2017 version of The Mummy proved a flop, forcing the company to change course. Suddenly, Depp's slated film disappeared into thin air just like the imperceptible man he was supposed to play. So too did an Angelina Jolie and Javier Bardem-starring take on The Bride of Frankenstein. And that left Universal with a gap — which Australian writer/director and Saw co-creator Leigh Whannell fills grippingly and convincingly with his top-notch update of cinema's most famous see-through character. In the Upgrade filmmaker's hands, The Invisible Man has been through some significant changes since HG Wells' 1897 novel and James Whale's 1933 first film adaptation. In fact, this movie doesn't really tell the eponymous figure's story, but that of the woman terrorised by the unseen guy. After years of suffering through an abusive relationship with hotshot optics pioneer Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) works up the courage to leave him. Fleeing from his remote mansion in the middle of the night with the help of her sister (Harriet Dyer), she's petrified that he'll track her down and retaliate. But, as she hides out with a cop friend (Aldis Hodge) and his teenage daughter (Storm Reid), word arrives that Adrian has committed suicide — although when strange things start happening around Cecelia, she's convinced that he's still somehow messing with her. To not only make The Invisible Man today, but set it in today's world too, two areas needed to be addressed. The first is technology, recognising that turning a person invisible is far more plausible than it once was — and that being involved in someone's life without being physically present isn't just possible these days, but commonplace. The second is gender politics. Watching a man terrorise a woman sight unseen has very different connotations in the 21st century, as does the stalking and gaslighting that comes with it. Crucially, Whannell embraces the complexities of both areas in this thoroughly modern take on the tale, switching focus from villain to victim, and bolstering his narrative by pondering the underhanded capabilities of technology as well as the ongoing problem that is domestic violence. Accordingly, this slow-building version of The Invisible Man isn't an account of a scientist corrupted by his latest discovery, as seen in its predecessors. Rather, it's a portrait of a woman at the mercy of a man who'll do anything and use any means to get what he wants. The end result: psychological horror mixed with futuristic science-fiction and layered with a piercing societal statement, and it's as effective as it sounds. Of course, anyone who saw Upgrade will realise that this is the only interpretation of The Invisible Man that Whannell could've made. The Aussie filmmaker continues his fascination with body modification and tech-enabled surveillance, as well as his fondness for hyper-kinetic action, a pervasive mood of dread and tension, and a sparse, sleek look — plus his interrogation of the kind of society that, with not too many imaginative tweaks needed, we just might be headed for. Forgetting the terrible Insidious: Chapter 3, the only blip on his directorial resume to date, Whannell is swiftly establishing a reputation as a genre filmmaker with smarts, style and something to say — as well as the skill to combine all of the above into a thrilling, harrowing and engaging package. He also has canny casting instincts, with The Invisible Man as much Moss' movie as Whannell's. The Handmaid's Tale and Her Smell actor has had more than a little practice in this terrain of late — aka battling insidious enemies, navigating persecution, and devolving into distress, distrust and paranoia — and she draws upon that experience here. Indeed, watching someone face off against an unsighted foe can play as hokey or unintentionally comic, but not with Moss and her haunted yet determined stare taking centre stage. This definitely isn't the movie that Universal imagined when, high on dreams of building its own megastar-studded, monster-fuelled universe, the studio announced its now-defunct Depp-led project. That's something else to continue to thank the movie gods for — because no one needed Depp's usual daffy schtick wrapped in gauze, but cinema definitely does need Whannell's savvy, unsettling, spirited and refreshing The Invisible Man remake. Great horror movies have always reflected and responded to the times they're made in and, in the same vein as Jordan Peele's Get Out and Us, The Invisible Man helps lead the charge as the 21st century reaches its third decade. This is a socially conscious, savagely creepy, supremely clever reinterpretation of a classic scarefest that takes every part of that equation seriously. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLAJyugYEiY
Get ready rock fans, for the Arctic Monkeys will be returning to Australia and New Zealand next year. The British band will embark on their biggest down under tour to date this autumn for their latest album, AM. The album, which was released this past September, is the band's fifth consecutive number 1 in the UK and also debuted at the top spot in the ARIA Albums Chart. So, Aussie and Kiwi fans, get stoked because you'll soon have the chance to hear their awesome collection of new jams, including chart toppers such as 'R U Mine?' and 'Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?' Original fans needn't worry, because the Monkeys never forget to pay tribute to their old school favourites. You'll probably still get your chance to belt out 'Fluorescent Adolescent's, "Oh the boy's a slag / The best you ever had / The best you ever had." Arctic Monkeys 2014 Tour Dates: Auckland: May 2, Vector Arena Wellington: TSB Arena Sydney: May 6, Entertainment Centre Brisbane: May, Entertainment Centre Melbourne: May 9, Rod Laver Arena Adelaide: May 10, AEC Theatre Perth: May 13, Perth Arena Tickets go on sale December 11 https://youtube.com/watch?v=6366dxFf-Os
By this stage, most of us have come to terms with the fact that jetting off to USA or Europe is a seriously long slog, made worse by unavoidable (sometimes long, always painful) stopovers. But that European or American trip could soon become a whole lot more bearable, with Qantas not only working towards launching direct flights between the east coast and both London and New York by 2022, but beginning to run trial journeys this year. In October, November and December, the airline will pilot three ultra long-haul research flights, using new Boeing 787-9s. The aircraft will simulate two routes that are at the heart of Qantas' proposed new non-stop plan, which is called Project Sunrise, flying from New York and London to Sydney. That New York trip will mark the first world's first flight by a commercial airline direct from the Big Apple to Sydney, while the London jaunt will be the second time such a journey has been made. The last time the latter happened was back in 1989, when Qantas made the trek on a Boeing 747-400 with just 23 people on board. Don't go packing your bags, though — the aim is to gather data about inflight passenger and crew health and wellbeing, with only around 40 people making the trip. They'll be comprised of crew and Qantas employees, and they'll be fitted with wearable technology devices to monitor their monitor sleep patterns, food and beverage consumption, physical movement and use of the entertainment system during the flights. The results will then be assessed by scientists and medical experts from the Charles Perkins Centre. Pilots will also take part, working with Monash University researchers to record their melatonin levels before, during and after the flights, as well as their brain wave patterns and alertness — to help ascertain the best work and rest pattern when they're commanding those long-haul services. While spending nearly a day on one single plane is better than jumping on and off different vessels multiple times, it's not without its physical, mental and emotional toll — as anyone who has made the trip with Qantas from Perth to London knows, which is what makes this testing so important. Announcing the trial, Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce explained that, "for customers, the key will be minimising jet lag and creating an environment where they are looking forward to a restful, enjoyable flight. For crew, it's about using scientific research to determine the best opportunities to promote alertness when they are on duty and maximise rest during their down time." Back in 2017, Qantas first revealed that it was exploring non-stop routes from Sydney — routes that would eclipse those direct flights between Perth and London, which launched in March 2018. Since then, the airline has been pursuing the idea enthusiastically, putting out a call for aircraft that can handle the trip and widening their plan to include departures to and from Brisbane as well. In numbers, the planes will need to be able to handle more than 19 hours in the air (around 20 hours and 20 minutes between Sydney and London, and 18-hours and seven minutes from Sydney to New York). The airline has done its homework, analysing a decade's worth of wind and weather data to confirm the lengthy routes are actually possible. Now it just needs the aircraft, with Airbus and Boeing both pitching vessels (A350 and 777X) that are capable of doing the job. Qantas is expected to announce their decision, including whether the whole project will progress to making commercial flights, by the end of December 2019. Right now, the world's longest direct flight clocks in at over 19 hours, with Singapore Airlines flying 15,322-kilometres along its Singapore-to-New York route. Previously, the journey from Doha and Auckland earned that honour, taking around 18 hours to travel 14,529 kilometres.
Remember when your mum told you that it's what's on the inside that counts? At the Australian Interior Design Awards, that's definitely the case. Returning for 2021, the country's premier interior design gongs reward excellence in hospitality, installation, residential, workplace, retail and public design, as well as residential decoration — and it has just revealed its lengthy (and obviously eye-catching) 2021 shortlist. A word of warning for those who like their interiors swish, plush, luxurious and stylish all round: you're going to want to live in or visit all of the places vying for this year's awards. Thankfully, with plenty of bars and restaurants in the running, the latter is definitely possible. In Sydney, in the hospitality field, the likes of Harbord Hotel, Ciccia Bella, Sydney Tower and Atomic Beer Project are among the spots vying for glory. Well, for a shiny prize and plenty of recognition to go with their shiny interiors, to be exact. Melbourne's Farmer's Daughters, Poodle Bar and Bistro, First Love Coffee, Hero at ACMI, Byrdi, Citizen Snack Bar and Next Hotel also rank among the places in the running, while Brisbane's Industry Beans and Ping Pong Thai Restaurant also made the cut. In South Australia, Never Never Distillery and Hotel Indigo join the places in contention. [caption id="attachment_803565" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] First Love, Rebecca Newman[/caption] The list goes on — both for bars, cafes, restaurants and hotels, with 33 places in contention in total, and throughout the awards' other categories. A whopping 190 places have made it through to this stage across all fields, which means that there is no shortage of strikingly deigned new, revamped and refurbished places demanding your attention around around the country. After the event went virtual in 2020 — handing out its gongs via a virtual broadcast — this year's winners will be announced in-person at a dinner the Hyatt Regency Sydney on Friday, September 3. For the full Australian Interior Design Awards 2021 shortlist, head to the AIDA website. Top image: Sydney Tower, Robert Walsh.
Twenty-five years ago, a 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, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer, the hit series has done just that. Sure, Friends wrapped up its ten-season run in 2004, but the show has lived on — on streaming platforms, by sending an orange couch around Australia and by screening anniversary marathons in cinemas. In news that was bound to happen someday — no pop culture entity truly comes to an end in these reboot, remake, revival and spinoff-heavy times — it looks like Friends is going to live on in a much more literal sense, too. The Hollywood Reporter reveals that a deal is in the works to bring back the show for a reunion special on HBO's new streaming platform HBO Max. Naturally, if it happens, all of the gang will be involved. Almost certainly set to be called 'The One with a Reunion', the special will be unscripted — which means that Aniston and company aren't likely to actually step back into Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Joey, Phoebe and Ross's shoes; rather, they'll chat about their experiences on the show. Still, they'll all be on-screen at the same time celebrating the series that so many folks love, which is probably enough for fans. And, really, who knows what could spring from there. We're purely speculating, but if other big 90s sitcoms like Will & Grace, Mad About You and apparently Frasier can make a proper comeback, then surely everyone's favourite Central Perk regulars can as well. Friends creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman are also slated to join the reunion special, if it comes to fruition. If you're wondering when it could happen, THR notes that it'll largely depend on the relevant parties' schedules — although HBO Max is due to launch in the US in May 2020, so perhaps it'll be sooner rather than later. For folks Down Under, there doesn't seem to be a current plan to bring the streaming platform to our shores. Instead, the company appears to be continuing to focus on its existing arrangements with local channels and streamers for the time being. Via The Hollywood Reporter.
In multiple different web-slinging franchises across multiple decades, everyone's favourite friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man has been on quite the on-screen journey. He's been played by different actors, faced a whole heap of different foes, and spun his way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, too — and in Spider-Man: No Way Home, all this chaos is set to converge. The third Spider-Man movie starring Tom Holland (Chaos Walking) in the role, Spider-Man: No Way Home already teased plenty of multiverse madness in its first teaser trailer. Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog) plays a pivotal part this time around, too, ahead of the character's own dedicated next flick — Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — which is set to arrive in 2022. But the just-dropped new Spidey sneak peek shows just how far the movie is willing to go when it comes to all those other Spider-Man films that've reached screens over the years. No, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield don't show up, but some of the villains they fought make an appearance. Get ready to get reacquainted with Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin from 2002's Spider-Man, as well as Alfred Molina's Otto Octavius from 2004's Spider-Man 2 and Thomas Haden Church's Sandman from 2007's Spider-Man 3. Also re-emerging: Rhys Ifans' the Lizard from 2012' The Amazing Spider-Man and Jamie Foxx's Electro from 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2. If you're wondering how this all works, it stems from the big reveal at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home, where Peter Parker's secret identity was unveiled to the world. No Way Home picks up with Parker struggling to deal with the fact that everyone now knows who he is, and that he can't now just be an ordinary high schooler when he's not acting the hero. So, he asks Doctor Strange to spin a time- and space-twisting spell, which tears a whole in the world and sparks all of this multiverse mayhem. So far, there's still no sight of Maguire or Garfield — but that could be the kind of surprise that's being saved for cinemas. And, whether the film gets playful as the phenomenal animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is obviously still yet to be seen. No Way Home will feature a heap of other familiar faces, including Zendaya (Space Jam: A New Legacy), Marisa Tomei (The King of Staten Island) and Jacob Batalon (Let It Snow). Behind the lens, Jon Watts returns after previously helming both Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home as well. In a nice piece of symmetry, when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness does hit cinemas next year, it'll be directed by Sam Raimi — who also directed the Maguire-starring Spider-Man movies in 2002, 2003 and 2007. Check out the full No Way Home trailer below: Spider-Man: No Way Home opens in Australian cinemas on December 16. Images: ©2021 CTMG. All Rights Reserved. MARVEL and all related character names: © & ™ 2021 MARVEL.
In 2026, a brick hall perched on Wynnum Road in Brisbane's east will turn 100. That place: Morningside School of Arts. The art deco structure is no longer operating as a place to enhance your creative talents, but it has been everything from a library to a market site over the years. Ballet, karate, gymnastics, life drawing, line dancing: classes on each still pop up within its walls, too. A year before it reaches its centenary, Morningside School of Arts is getting celebrating by joining a different party: Brisbane Open House. This is the first time that it'll be on the event's lineup, letting folks head by to peer behind the scenes — which is what this architecture-loving weekend is always all about. Taking place across Saturday, July 19–Sunday, July 20, 2025's Brisbane Open House is embracing its usual agenda to not only let Brisbanites play tourist in their own town, but to take them exploring the River City's key buildings and landmarks. In total, 91 structures and sites are on the itinerary, spanning returning favourites that welcome in sticky beaks every year and newcomers. Among the second group, Morningside School of Arts is joined by Milton House, Rivière by Aria at Kangaroo Point, St Laurence's College and Bradbury Park Playscape in Kedron. Historical and heritage-listed spots, apartment towers, schools, playgrounds: even just Brisbane Open House's brand-new additions for this year give a decent glimpse at the variety of buildings that attendees can meander through. In the returning camp, Newstead House, Brisbane Arcade, ABC Brisbane at South Bank, Queensland Ballet's Thomas Dixon Centre, Centenary Pool and Roma Street Fire Station are just some of the other locations to hit up. Speaking of Roma Street, it's also on the program a second time, but taking visitors underground. Thanks to the Cross River Rail works, you can venture 30 metres beneath the road to where the new station is set to sit. Brisbane Airport is 100 years old this year, so one tour on Brisbane Open House's agenda commemorates that milestone. Still on huge pieces of infrastructure, Wivenhoe Dam and Port of Brisbane are on the itinerary, too. Plus, 2025's lineup marks the first time since 2020 that private homes are back on the program, letting the public into ten architect-designed houses, thanks to a collaboration with the Australian Institute of Architects. As well as tours and guided walks — such as one through Kurilpa — the program also features an exploration of ancient Egypt's architecture at Queensland Museum, Brisbane Open House's photography competition making a comeback, live tunes and performances, film screenings, a PechaKucha night at ARUP and more.
The charming Black Bear Lodge is celebrating its third birthday in style this Saturday. Over the years it has become one of Brisbane's most-loved live music venues having hosted acts such as The Preatures, The Kite String Tangle, The Trouble with Templeton, Vance Joy and so many more. While live music is most definitely their forte, the team are also known for drawing a crowd on the weekend with their funky DJ sets and oh so groovy atmosphere. Playing on this special occasion are The John Steel Singers, Babaganouj and Tempura Nights. Like any good birthday party there is a theme and quite fittingly the evening will be lodge-themed. So dust off your finest flannelette, and make like a lumberjack by navigating the steep mountain of stairs leading to the lodge. Be sure to whet your whistle with maple and bacon shots and pine needle vodka. Happy birthday Black Bear!
Everyone loves heading overseas for a holiday, but no one likes spending more time actually getting from point A to point B than they absolutely have to. So, before the pandemic grounded international getaways from Australia for the better part of two years, Qantas had been working to make stopovers a thing of the past — introducing direct flights from Perth to London, and exploring the possibility of doing the same from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. While those non-stop east coast legs are currently on hold, the Aussie airline has just announced a new direct trip — and the only flight that'll connect Australia to continental Europe. Between June and October 2022, the carrier will fly return from Perth to Rome three times a week. And yes, that timing is 100-percent aimed at letting Australians take full advantage of European summer holidays. The new flights will technically end and begin in Sydney, with a stopover in Perth — and they'll be more than three hours faster than the current quickest travel time from Australia to Rome. That means fewer hours spent in transit, and more to actually soak in Italy. It also means spending a big unbroken block of time in the air, which still sounds a bit like science fiction after so long without international travel. If that's your 2022 plans sorted — why just have an Australian summer when you can enjoy Europe's warmest season as well? — tickets for the new route have gone on sale, starting from $1785 return. The Sydney–Perth–Rome flights will debut on Wednesday, June 22, and are currently scheduled to run until Thursday, October 6. And, if you're keen to head elsewhere on the continent, you'll be able to use Rome as a connection point to fly to 16 other European destinations, including Athens, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Nice, Madrid and Paris — and 15 spots in Italy, Milan and Venice among them. Also, if you fancy flying into Rome but coming home from London, or vice versa, Qantas will let you combine the two direct routes on the one return ticket. Qantas' new Australia–Rome direct flights will fly from Wednesday, June 22–Thursday, October 6. For more information, or to book tickets, head to the airline's website.
Although Stones Corner isn’t the most bustling urban hub in Brisbane, I can’t deny the attachment I’ve made to the area in recent months. Maybe it’s because it’s home to my drycleaner, my seamstress and the studio where I got my first tattoo, or maybe it’s because the area’s potential seems to be becoming more and more tangible as some great cafés start to move in. Somewhere along the main strip and beneath the tattoo studio, you’ll find That Monkey Espresso, a charming addition to the developing precinct. You won’t find them on Facebook, in the phone book or on a business card, but that’s the way the team at That Monkey like it. “We do what we do and we do it well,” says Savannah, the café’s head lady and delightful barista. And she’s not wrong. Not only did she whip up a perfect flat white, I managed to score it for two bucks during their daily happy hour! Like any typical espresso bar, That Monkey specialises in hot drinks, cold drinks, toast and treats, but unlike many, these guys can boast a good brew every time. Take a seat outside, utilise their free Wi-Fi and watch this space. My bet is Stones Corner will be a little more than just a ‘corner’ in the months to come.
By now, we all know that plenty of streaming platforms are constantly vying for our eyeballs. We know that those services boast always-expanding catalogues of movies and TV shows, too. And, we're well aware that picking what to watch when you're settling down on the couch is rarely a simple exercise. So, while the fact that Australia's latest streaming service features 20,000 episodes and films is definitely great news, it won't simplify your viewing choices anytime soon. Australians now have another streamer to choose from, with new streaming service Paramount+ launching on Wednesday, August 11. The platform actually rebrands the existing 10 All Access streaming service, with parent company Viacom CBS Australia and New Zealand bringing it into line with the global Paramount+ subscription offering that launched in America in March this year. Paramount+'s big drawcard? Its library of titles from Paramount Pictures — obviously — as well as from Showtime, CBS, BET Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, the Smithsonian Channel and Sony Pictures Television. So, if you're the kind of viewer that loves rewatching your favourite flicks, you'll be able to head to the service to stream movies from the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Godfather, Mission: Impossible, Indiana Jones, Transformers, Jackass, Batman and Dark Knight Trilogy franchises. Plus, the likes of Austin Powers in Goldmember, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Grease and Good Will Hunting will also be available on the service, all as part of the $8.99 per month subscription fee. On the TV front, existing series like The Good Fight, The Twilight Zone, Why Women Kill, Charmed and SpongeBob SquarePants will find a new home. Paramount+ is also betting big on new television shows being a big drawcard, so you can expect to add a heap of titles to your must-watch list — including revenge-fuelled miniseries Two Weeks To Live, starring Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams; Leonardo, a historical drama about Leonardo da Vinci; and Anne Boleyn, with Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim) as the titular figure. If you're feeling nostalgic, there's also the revival of Nickelodeon's iCarly, following the characters now they're adults; the return of Rugrats, this time with computer-generated animation; and Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years, which gives everyone's favourite absorbent, yellow and porous character an origin story. New Mark Wahlberg-starring movie Infinite, which sees him play a man haunted by memories of a life he didn't live, also launches in Australia with the service — and as does new seasons of Five Bedrooms, Why Women Kill and Evil. And, before August is out, you'll be able to stream the Nancy Drew TV series, the latest season of In the Dark, all of Ziwe and Coyote, six-part satire The Bite and horror anthology Monsterland as well. Down the track, Paramount+ will also be home to the new Dexter revival; the Chiwetel Ejiofor (The Old Guard)-starring TV adaptation of The Man Who Fell to Earth; The First Lady, which sees Viola Davis (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) play Michelle Obama; and page-to-screen adaptation The Luminaries. New Australian drama Last King of The Cross is also destined for the platform, as are Melbourne-shot comedy Spreadsheet and coming-of-age feature film 6 Festivals. The list goes on, including spy drama Lioness, a TV adaptation of video game Halo and The Offer, a scripted drama about on the making of The Godfather. Paramount+ is available in Australia from Wednesday, August 11, rebranding the existing 10 All Access streaming platform, with subscriptions costing $8.99. For further information, head to the Paramount+ website.
One of modern art's most argued-about works has been sold. Tracey Emin's famously debated 1999 work My Bed went under the hammer for the very first time, complete with dirty sheets, cigarette butts and condoms — and taking away a cheeky £2.2 million. Emin, who showed up to the auction yesterday, gained notoriety when her work Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 debuted at a 1997 Charles Saatchi's Sensation exhibition at London's Royal Academy. After getting drunk, going on national TV and getting all sweary, she'd release My Bed two years later to colossal debate. One of modern art's classic "Is this art? What is art? Is this bag of wrenches art?" generators, My Bed was expected to sell between £800,000 and £1.2 million (roughly $1.4 million to $2.2 million) at auction — instead raising the bar to £2.2 million. With the buyer's premium, My Bed really went for £2,546,500; a world record for Emin at auction. Francis Bacon's Study For Head Of Lucian Freud was also put under the hammer, fetching a quiet little price of £10.2 million. The highly-scrutinised installation is a recreation of Emin's actual bed during a rough time — the artist spent days in the bed during relationship difficulties and dealt with suicidal thoughts. Scattered with paraphenalia from the artist's own bedroom (condoms, menstrual-stained underwear, slippers), My Bed caused controversy not for the collective sum of confrontingly personal items but for the stains on the sheets. Gallery-goers saw the traces of bodily secretion as a little too human. "It's a self-portrait, but not one that people would like to see," Emin said. "I took everything out of my bedroom and made it into an installation," Emin said. "And when I put it into a white space, for some people it became quite shocking. But I just thought it looked like a damsel in distress, like a woman fainting or something, needing to be helped." The new owners (who haven't been revealed yet) might be able to recreate the work of two performance artists, Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi, who jumped on Emin's bed in a performance creatively titled Two Naked Men Jump into Tracey's Bed. Most interestingly will be the conditions under which the new owner must actually display My Bed. Previously (when not displayed in a gallery setting) the work has been on display at the home of its owner Charles Saatchi. As The Guardian reports, the work — a flurry of seemingly random miscellany — has very meticulous installation instructions. "It's a very complicated piece to put together," Director of Cadogan Tate Fine Art Stephen Glynn says. "It comes with a dossier of photographs of every object, and a list of where exactly everything needs to go." A bit like an Ikea instruction manual, then? "A bit. You're certainly trying to make sure that everything goes in the right place." Displayed at the Tate Modern in 1999, My Bed was shortlisted for the Turner Prize that year. Saatchi can now count its sweet, sweet Emin pennies, with proceeds going straight back to the Saatchi Gallery — the team are moving to make the gallery have free admission. Via BBC, Reuters and The Guardian.
Of course Tim Burton did a Dumbo remake. How could he not? For a director who's built his career around tales of misunderstood misfits, outcasts and oddities, an orphaned and absurd-looking circus elephant must've been all but irresistible. 'Edward Aero-Ears', if you will. And yet, this is more of a reimagining than a remake, melding modern themes of gender equality, animal welfare and anti-corporatisation with Burton's trademark touch of the macabre. The first notable difference between this version and the animated original from 1941 is its timeline, set now in post-war 1919. Burton certainly doesn't shy away from the bleak realities of the WWI era. His protagonist, Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell), is a traumatised veteran who's lost an arm to the War and a wife to influenza. Finding work scarce and his injury an added obstacle to employment, Holt rejoins the old circus where once he dazzled as a horseback entertainer, but now merely shovels elephant manure. It's there, though, where he and his children (Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins) discover Dumbo, the baby elephant with enormous ears, whose appearance sees him mocked by audiences and dismissed by the circus owner (Danny DeVito). In one of the film's more heartbreaking scenes (and there are few; this is definitely a tissues-at-the-ready situation), Dumbo's mother Jumbo is wrenched from her son and hauled away after she kills her torturous trainer and handler (a suitably loathsome Phil Zimmerman). It's not the only grim moment in the film, either. With his mother now gone, and amidst grief and despair, Dumbo's miraculous ability to fly becomes apparent, launching him into stardom and attracting the interests of an unscrupulous Walt Disney-esque theme park owner named V. A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton). From there, predictably, the circus's seemingly golden ticket reveals itself to be a far darker deal from which escape offers up all manner of perils. The live-action remake is Disney's new cash card (as if it needed one). Having already made bank with Beauty and the Beast, the studio is now poised to release both Aladdin and Mulan, followed later in the year by the Lion King, which will doubtless eclipse all manner of box office records. Where Disney has been successful so far is in melding human actors with their digital counterparts, and Dumbo, if you'll forgive the pun, soars in that respect. His enormous blue eyes and delicate expressions imbue him with almost more emotion than any of the actors given speaking parts, and when he flies so too does the film. Sadly, however, too much of the remainder feels entirely lacklustre, despite its exaggerated colourful palette. The characters, aside from DeVito and, to a lesser extent, Farrell, are woefully underwritten, while the performances are borderline pantomime. And in a movie named after him, not nearly enough focus is placed on Dumbo himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocWpGdITSR4
If a great getaway to a beach, island or faraway city can be life-changing, what does a journey to space do? So ponders Constellation, among other questions. This new Apple TV+ series, which started its eight-part first season on Wednesday, February 21, is another of the platform's beloved mysteries — see also: Criminal Record, The Changeling, The Crowded Room, Hijack and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters since mid-2023 alone, and that list isn't exhaustive — with no shortage of queries floating through its tense frames. Inquiries are sparked instantly, from the moment that a mother in a cabin in northern Sweden, where there's snow as far as the eye can see but a frost infecting more than just the temperature, leaves her pre-teen daughter to follow a voice. The screams that she seeks out are yelling "mama!" — and what they mean, and why she's abandoning one girl to find another, is just one of the matters that Constellation interrogates. The woman is Jo Ericsson, as played by Noomi Rapace with the maternal devotion that also marked her turn in Lamb, plus the protective instincts that were key in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant as well — alongside the scrutiny and adaptability that was evident in her work in You Won't Be Alone, and the fierceness that helped bring her to fame as Lisbeth Salander in the original Swedish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films. Jo is an astronaut, and Europe's representative on the International Space Station when Constellation jumps backwards from its opening icy horror to a different kind of terror. Not long out from returning back to earth, she FaceTimes with her nine-year-old daughter Alice (Rosie and Davina Coleman, The Larkins) and husband Magnus (James D'Arcy, Oppenheimer). Then, something goes bump in the sky. Trauma leaves people changed, too; what if this incident, during which setting foot on our pale blue dot again is anything but assured, isn't the only distressing facet of travelling to the heavens? On the at-risk ISS, on a spacewalk to locate the source of the collision, Jo finds the mummified body of what looks like a 60s-era Russian cosmonaut. There'll soon be another astronaut dead inside the station, destroyed infrastructure, the first escape pod shuttling her three remaining colleagues back to terra firma and Jo left alone trying to repair the second so that she herself can alight home. Where both Gravity and Moon spring to mind in Constellation's initial space-set scenes, plus Proxima in the show's focus on mother-daughter connections (Interstellar, Ad Astra and First Man have dads covered), it's the earthbound Dark that feels like a touchstone once Jo is back among her loved ones. There's a similar moodiness to this series, a feeling that characters can't always trust what they think is plainly apparent and a certainty that nothing is simply linear about what's occurring. Her stint above the planet has made its imprint on Jo, but it's her everyday life that seems altered. Whether or not Alice can speak Swedish, the colour of the family car, if Jo can play the piano, why Magnus is chilly towards her: with each, what confronts Jo post-ISS conflicts with what she can recall prior to ascending to the station. Roscosmos' Irena Lysenko (Barbara Sukowa, Air) is also wary of her claims about spying a decades-old USSR cadaver. And the NASA equivalent, Nobel Prize-winning former Apollo astronaut Henry Caldera (Jonathan Banks, Better Call Saul), is concerned only with a quantum-physics experiment that was taking place on the orbiting base, gathering data about a possible new state of matter, which Jo has no recollection of. It might appear convenient that the psychological effects of long-term space travel fuel Jo's research mission on the station, but Constellation creator and writer Peter Harness — who boasts Doctor Who, Wallander, McMafia and The War of the Worlds on his resume — could never be accused of valuing neatness over depth. Unravelling the show's debut season with patience and deliberation, and with Joseph Cedar (Our Boys), Oliver Hirschbiegel (Unwanted) and Michelle MacLaren (an Emmy-winner for Breaking Bad) directing, he's dedicated to ensuring that the series intensely ruminates on the liminal. Constellation is about disorientation and transition, about the space where being too much of something and not enough of another smash and clash, and about coping with realising that life is always what happens in-between — as well as the fact that sometimes that truth applies more literally than others. As a thriller and a mystery, Constellation names Jo's daughter cannily; tumbling down the rabbit hole is a solid parallel. Viewers won't spy cakes and bottles labelled "eat me" and "drink me", but there are pills and supplements. No one goes chasing a walking, talking white bunny; however, a rabbit toy does feature, and clinging onto what Jo knows is real is just as elusive. While there's no Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Bud Caldera (also Banks) mirrors much about Henry, except that he's now working the sci-fi convention circuit. And although cries of "off with her head" are absent, the dismissals from those around Jo about what's happening with her perception is its own equivalent. Alice in Wonderland comparisons were always going to fit a story about curiouser and curiouser minds pursuing wild adventures, then endeavouring to reclaim their footing. At times, especially in remote lodgings in freezing woodland, the dark fairy-tale vibe beats stronger. But again, even when Constellation dances with fantasy like it's clutching onto a waltz partner — and does the same with eeriness as well — the series never stops being grounded in human bonds, emotions, yearnings and existential concerns. As the reality of both being alive and facing mortality, the urge to understand our place in the cosmos and the sheer enormity of the universe thrum throughout the show regardless of whether it's in space or on land, each is always brought back to people, rather than remaining mere concepts. Rapace, Banks, both Coleman sisters and Sukowa are especially instrumental in anchoring Constellation's twists, turns and big-thinking ideas in the show's characters — and making it so compelling. It isn't just as slickly made as Apple TV+'s fellow excellent recent sci-fi series Severance and Silo, then, and as gripping in its mysteries, but as rivetingly acted. Banks, doing double duty after over a decade as Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul's Mike Ehrmantraut, is particularly emblematic: that there's a chasm between what we want to comprehend and what's around us gleams in his eyes as both Henry and Bud, while his twin parts equally demonstrate how differently it glints from person to person. Check out the trailer for Constellation below: Constellation streams via Apple TV+ from Wednesday, February 21. Read our interview with Jonathan Banks.
Maybe you'll see a glowing giraffe. Perhaps you'll spy a dazzling koala. Or, you might find yourself peering at the sun — but much closer than usual. They're just some of the lanterns that could be brightening up the inky night sky at the 2023 Luminous Lantern Parade, with the event making its return to South Bank Parklands from 5pm on Friday, June 9. The parade doesn't just give the riverside spot a new glow for the fun of it. It celebrates multiculturalism, and has for more than 15 years now. Over that time, it has grown to become quite the hefty — and radiant — event. Crowds in recent years have been a little more spread out than usual for obvious reasons, but the parade champions diversity — and welcomes new Queenslanders, including migrants, refugees, international students and people seeking asylum — no matter how jam-packed attendees are. As well as the main event — which is free to head along to — there'll also be live music and performances in the South Bank Piazza afterwards.
Ah, Sriracha. Possibly the only condiment with a true cult following. From ramen to lollies, it can be used on and in anything, literally. Devotes can’t live without that so hot but so good burn that leaves mouths on fire, noses runny and eyes watery. Well, people, there’s some bad news. The major Sriracha factory in California is partially shutting down. All because the citizens of Irwindale couldn’t take a little heat. Residents complained of heartburn, inflamed asthma and even nosebleeds that were caused by a "spicy odour" coming from the factory. They took Huy Fong Foods to court, where a local judge ordered the manufacturer to stop doing, er, whatever they were doing to cause the stench. The ruling does not order the company to stop operating entirely, nor specify the types of actions that are required. Basically, they can go back to making their spicy sauce once they get that damn smell under wraps. The best part: the judge conceded to the "lack of credible evidence" linking the apparent health problems to the odour, but said that it seems to be "extremely annoying, irritating and offensive to the senses warranting consideration as a public nuisance." Weeeak. So what does this mean for Sriracha lovers? Well, because Huy Fong uses only the freshest chillies in its secret recipe, the fiery little guys must be ground within days of harvest. This process, which happens only two or three months out of the year, has fortunately been completed. The bottling process goes on year round, but a partial shutdown of this factory, the largest of two, could leave the sauce to spoil. Since the company already struggles to keep up with its growing global demand, this is no bueno. Huy Fong’s founder, David Tran, claims he’s never raised the wholesale price for the sauce in over 30 years, but that might have to change. So you might want to think about making a supermarket trip or two, like soon. Image via ilovememphis. Story via Quartz.
Sofia Coppola is not the first director that comes to mind when you think Disney. In fact, with her consistent focus on complicated and dreamy sadness — see Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides and Somewhere — she seems like the perfect buzzkill to all the joy and greatness that Sebastian the crab worked for all those years ago. Nonetheless, this divisive filmmaker is currently in negotiations to direct a live-action adaptation of the classic Hans Christian Anderson tale. Deadline reports that the script has already gone through multiple drafts from Kelly Marcel (Fifty Shades of Grey) and Abi Morgan (Shame) and is currently in the hands of Caroline Thompson (Edward Scissorhands). With that in mind, it's safe to assume the film will in fact be a darkly sexual story that may or may not feature either Johnny Depp in BDSM gear or Michael Fassbender in no clothes. Although this will Coppola's first feature where she didn't write the screenplay, it's easy to see how her brand of 'beautiful and bothered young things' will work seamlessly with the original story. Ariel is, after all, a girl with problems. She's besotted with a boy she can't have, she's split between two worlds, and the story finishes with her taking the less than lovely form of sea foam (I'd warn for spoilers but, hey, you've had over 100 years to read it). As ridiculous as it first sounds, we're actually excited by the news. Now all that's left is to decide whether Kirsten Dunst or Scarlett Johansson would make the better hipster Ariel.
Everyone has a favourite date night routine, as well as a favourite date night spot. Usually, they go hand-in-hand — you head to the same place, do the same thing and bask in the warm, cosy glow that comes with enjoying a night with your favourite person. The above can be true at the King Street precinct in Bowen Hills. Of course, you can take your pick of the many restaurants and venture back regularly. But there are plenty of ways to level up your romantic adventures, too. That means sipping drinks while listening to jazz one night, playing games and taking things casually the next, then adding some art to your afternoon jaunt. You'll never have the same date night twice — and if you're not sure where to start, we've done the legwork for you. ALFRESCO DRINKS AT MONTRACHET TO THE SOUNDS OF LIVE JAZZ When beloved French fine diner Montrachet made the move across town from Paddington, it was big news. Thankfully, it's a case of the same stellar restaurant with an ace new spot — and a few improvements. There's a relaxed feel to the restaurant's new Bowen Hills home that suits its elegant vibe perfectly, and there's no better way to experience that for yourself than by grabbing a few drinks outside while live jazz provides a cruisy soundtrack. Feeling like a bite while you're there? The alfresco menu includes oysters, charcuterie and foie gras, too. CHEESE WHEEL PASTA AT IL VERDE If cinema has taught us anything, it's that sitting down to a plate of pasta is one of the most romantic things you can do. Okay, that might not always be true, but you can still take a leaf out of Lady and the Tramp's book. Head to Il Verde, order the Italian eatery's famous cheese wheel pasta and get slurping — and yes, your spaghetti will come covered in hot, creamy parmigiano reggiano cheese. It's only available on Tuesday nights, so this is a great weeknight date idea. As an added bonus, the cheesy package also includes a glass of wine, an entree and dessert, so settle in for a three-course date-night experience. WANDER THROUGH ARTISAN You've had a wonderful time with your significant other, you feel like you're walking on air and you just want to remember the gloriousness forever. Standout dates are like holidays that way — but you can't always end your date with a few souvenirs. Well, you can't unless you make a trip to Artisan. A craft and design gallery with its own gift store, it both showcases and sells exceptional Australian-made pieces. Wander inside, and you just might find fashion, jewellery, wood carvings, metalwork, textiles and more. Or, make a date out of attending one of Artisan's regular workshops and craft each other some one-of-a-kind gifts. STROLL OVER TO HANDMADE GELATO AT LA MACELLERIA When you're walking and talking with the apple of your eye, the rest of the world fades into the background. Leading into the Brisbane Showgrounds, King Street is perfect for strolling casually while you're caught up in conversation — and, mid-mosey, for treating yo'selves to handmade desserts. Brisbane's homegrown, rapidly expanding gelato outfit, La Macelleria's frosty sweet treats are both creamy and flavoursome, with a range of classic and special varieties on the menu. King Street is one of only two of the Italian-style gelateria's locations to offer gelato milkshakes, too. STAYCATION AT RYDGES Fancy shaking up your routine and enjoying a change of scenery with your other half, but can't venture out of town? That's why staycations were invented — and if you book a night at Rydges on King Street, you'll completely forget that you're in the heart of Brisbane. With two restaurants onsite, you don't even need to leave the building if you don't want to. Of course, you can also use the hotel as a base while you cram all of the other date ideas on this list into one memorable weekend. Either way, expect to feel rested and relaxed (and romantic) after an evening away from home. SEE A SHOW AT THE TIVOLI When it comes to romantic charm, there's no venue in Brisbane quite like The Tivoli. The art deco building dates back 102 years, has been used as everything from a bakery to a rare book repository to a restaurant, and now plays host to concerts, comedy and shows most nights of the week. This date night option will likely require a little pre-planning (you don't want to miss out on tickets), but it's worth it for a big night out. A Romeo + Juliet-themed masquerade-ball rock show certainly fits the occasion (especially if you and your other half love Baz Luhrmann's late-90s take on the Bard) — and you'll also want to keep an eye out for intimate gigs in The Tiv's new venue-inside-a-venue, What's Golden. [caption id="attachment_707288" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Adam Shaw[/caption] GAMES AND PIZZA AT WELCOME TO BOWEN HILLS Food trucks and fun times: that's what Welcome to Bowen Hills is all about. Since launching back in 2018, it has become one of Brisbane's go-to spots for food- and booze-themed weekend parties; however, you can stop by for a slice and a few arcade games five nights a week as well. Both are on offer at permanent pizza joint Harry's Pizza. The titular dish clocks in at less than $15, too, so this is a top option if you're after a special night with your special someone, but payday seems too far away. On Wednesdays, the site hosts free trivia, if you're a particularly knowledgable kind of couple — and you'll hear live tunes on Friday and Saturday nights. PING PONG AND BEERS AT BEERHAÜS Any old pub can serve up cold brews and hearty meals. But at King Street's sprawling Beerhaüs beer hall, you can also pair your drinks (and free American and German-style snacks if you head by from 4–6pm) with a zesty stint of ping pong. Just remember the golden rule of getting competitive with the object of your affection: all's fair in love and ping pong-based wars. If you'd both like a chance to best each other at a variety of games, and not just table tennis, you can also take part in a foosball tournament, or break out the giant Jenga and Connect Four. SASHIMI AND CHAMPAGNE OVER CANDLELIGHT AT SUSHI & NORI Does your dream date involve whisking your favourite person off to Japan? We know, we know — that's not something that you can do every day, unfortunately. At Sushi & Nori, however, you can do the next best thing and pretend. Sit below lanterns, soak in the candlelight glow and eat your way through whichever sashimi dishes happen to take your fancy. From classics to inventive options, there's plenty to choose from. And, if you'd like to level up this date night, add some champagne. We're sure you'll both say cheers (or kampai) to that. Take your senses on an adventure to Bowen Hills and find more great date spots at King Street here.
After closing its doors two years ago, Woolloongabba's popular Chalk Hotel is set to spring back into business. Don't go queueing for a drink on the corner of Stanley and Reid streets or planning your post-cricket or -footy brews just yet, however. The watering hole's revamp will form part of the surrounding site's redevelopment, meaning that it's likely to be a couple more years in the making. Still, the resurrection of the pub on the city's outskirts will come as welcome news for locals, or anyone who headed to the inner east for a pint and a pizza during the ten years it was in operation. Since shutting up shop when the company behind the hotspot went into receivership, the building has lain dormant, with nothing else popping up inside to replace it. The Courier-Mail reports that the Barakat Group and Dyldam Group will spend $3 million on the venue, including a new beer garden and an interior refurbishment, aiming to bring the site into line with the commercial, hotel and residential buildings that are in the works at adjacent properties. The Chalk's reopening is planned once the rest of development is finished, with construction slated to start within the next year, and to take up to 18 months. Via The Courier-Mail.
This summer, the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre is hosting a sales event of most peculiar stock. Strange things they are, full of pages, rampant with words and with covers of the most beautiful colours. You can't charge them, they don't run out of battery, their brightness is unalterable, and they won't smash when you drop them. After being forced to shake up its usual schedule over the past few years due to the pandemic, Lifeline Bookfest is coming back for another round of vintage bargains between Saturday, January 14–Sunday, January 22, 2023. It's where you'll find everything from Australian Women's Weekly cookbooks to a bit of cheeky erotica, as well as games, DVDs and puzzles. If you've been before, you'll know there are warehouse quantities of books for sale – your grade five diary is probably hidden under a copy of Shantaram, and you'll come across at least three copies of Cooking with Days of Our Lives. In fact, over this year's nine-day summer run, more than one million items will be up for grabs. Prices range from $2.50 to the big bucks, and you'll have plenty to choose from. Whenever Bookfest hits Brisbane, it always brings hundreds of crates of reading materials with it. You'll still want to bring a trolley and your glasses, obviously, and to clear some space on your shelves at home. And, you'll want to bring your cards, because this Bookfest is cashless. Also, you'll need your own bags, as books won't be wrapped for you this time around. Head along from 7.30am–6pm on Saturday, January 14; 8.30am–6pm between Sunday, January 15–Thursday, January 19; 8.30am–9pm on Friday, January 20; and 8.30am–6pm between Saturday, January 21–Sunday, January 22. Images: Bookfest.
The Lamb Council of Australia (otherwise known as Meat & Livestock Australia/We Love our Lamb) is back on our screens — and this time, it's political. Their 2017 campaign has just launched and, whether you're a lamb fan or not, it's already spreading warm fuzzies across the country. The ad opens on a trio of First Nation peoples picking a spot for a primo beach barbie, but it's not long before the First Fleet and other nations arrive, all by boat (accurate historical fact). While everything's underway, the most recent 'boat people' are seen coming towards the shore, at which point ex-MasterChef contestant Poh Ling Yeow asks, "Aren't we all boat people?" Damn right. It's an inclusive, anti-racism message that's sure to win the lamb lovers and creative agency The Monkeys a spate of awards despite trotting out a few well-worn stereotypes. And although it is an obvious comment on Australia Day — the way we celebrate it and the day we celebrate it on — the ad doesn't actually make any overt references to it. Nonetheless, it's a huge shift away from their regular Australia Day campaign and a move towards something much more inclusive. Plus, it's got a diverse group of Aussie celebrities to help out, including olympian Cathy Freeman, rugby legend Wendell Sailor, cricketer Adam Gilchrist, comedian Rhys Nicholson and, of course, a small cameo from Sam "Sam Sam the lamb man" Kekovich. The result is one ultimate Australian beachside barbie.
Record Store Day might only come once a year, but each month, Brisbane gets into the spirit of the occasion. A treasure trove of vinyl descends upon a specific spot in this fair city of ours, showering music fiends in the stuff collectors' dreams are made of. Brisbane Record Fair is the type of event that gives aficionados reason to salivate, deliberate, negotiate, and then spend, spend, spend — after rifling through crates and crates of rare material, obviously. And from Saturday, November 13, it'll pop up in a brand new place. Thousands of items will be for sale as usual, with Brisbane Record Fair now making its home at Coorparoo Square. Expect a smorgasbord of sounds — offering up music of all types — when you head along from 8.30am–3pm. Vinyl-wise, whether you're after a decades-old gem or something newer on an LP or a 45, chances are you'll find it here. Sellers come from far and wide to share their wares, including private collectors parting with their sonic pearls. And no matter the time of year, a selection from their stash would make a perfect present — whether for someone else, or for yourself.
A good night's sleep is one of life's pure joys and what better way is there to enhance your new year with a new set of bed sheets or a new mattress. Melbourne-designed Eva Mattress is here to help up your comfort level with its end-of-year Boxing Day sale. Think half-price sheets and hundreds of dollars off mattresses — and that's just the start. For its 13 day sale, running from 10am, Wednesday, December 23 until 10am, Tuesday, January 5, the local Aussie retailer is offering big end-of-year discounts. Expect $150 off its Eva mattress, $40 off the Eva pillow, $50 off Eva hemp linen and $50 off timber bed-frames. The award-winning mattress-in-a-box has been engineered as a hybrid, which means it combines the comfort of memory foam with the support of pocket springs. The memory foam pillow uses activated charcoal to keep you cool and dry throughout the night. The timber bed frame, winner of a 2020 Good Design Award, has been certified by the Forrest Stewardship Council meaning it's made from sustainably sourced timber. If you do spring for the mattress, sheets, pillow or bed frame, they come with a 120-night free trial, so you can be sure they'll help you get a good night sleep before you commit. All mattress orders come with free next-day delivery to metro areas and a 12-year warranty, ensuring you'll be sleeping pretty for years to come. Browse the store and pick up a discount. FYI, this story includes some affiliate links. These don't influence any of our recommendations or content, but they may make us a small commission. For more info, see Concrete Playground's editorial policy.
With its four-word title, Brisbane music festival Let the Music Play sends a clear message. After a couple of years of lockdowns and restrictions, all of which have impacted the city's live music scene, this event wants to let gigs go on. That was the case in 2021, too, when it first popped up and took over multiple Fortitude Valley venues. Being told to stay home may currently be a thing of the past, but the fest is back for another huge day in 2022 anyway — complete with an impressive lineup. Taking place at the Fortitude Music Hall, The Zoo and outside at The Brightside again on Saturday, August 13, Let the Music Play celebrates everything we know and love about heading to a gig — including being able to hop onto the dance floor. So, you'll be able to do just that as you mosey between venues and check up a roster of talent that spans Northeast Party House, Thundamentals, Wafia, Jesswar, Mash'd N Kutcher, Bullhorn and more. The fest is being called "the largest ticketed single-day festival in Fortitude Valley history", if you need an idea of just how big it'll be — and it'll pop up in a fourth venue as well. For the day, Warner Street will be shut down and turned into an outdoor precinct dubbed 'Unicorn Alley'. Brisbane's own Fluffy will be behind it, hosting a huge and characteristically opulent disco-themed street party. Also on the agenda: hopping between the Valley's usual bars between gigs, aka a regular part of a night out in Brisbane. Or, an afternoon, given that Let the Music Play will kick off at 3pm, then run through until 11.30pm. LET THE MUSIC PLAY 2022 LINEUP: Northeast Party House Thundamentals Wafia Jesswar Mash'd N Kutcher Bullhorn Cloe Terare Collar Dancing Water Great Sage Kinder Joy Pink Matter Saftey Club Tseba Wiigz Warner Street 'Unicorn Alley' takeover with Harry K (Fluffy) Let the Music Play will take over The Fortitude Music Hall, The Zoo, Brightside Outdoors and Warner Street from 3–11.30pm on Saturday, August 13. Pre-sale tickets are on sale from 11am on Wednesday, June 8 via Ticketmaster, with general sales kicking off at 9am on Friday, June 10. Top image: Vincent Shaw.
When the weather starts to cool down, the urge to devour big bowls of pasta, warm soups and pot pies usually comes with it. Despite all the blankets and fuzzy slippers in the world, sometimes you just need some carbs — and a few boozy concoctions to wash them down with. And, really, there's nothing like curling up with just the thing you're hankering for. When the heart is calling for a cheesy carbonara or a bespoke negroni, you'd best answer it. To help you out when the cravings strike, we've teamed up with Australia Cocktail Month. The inaugural month-long celebration of Aussie-made cocktails takes place throughout May, so it's just the ticket as winter approaches. Alongside everything from yum cha to countryside fire feasts, it's also one of our six recommended ways to indulge when only cocktails and comfort food will do. [caption id="attachment_644421" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Parker Blain[/caption] HIT UP YOUR LOCAL FOR A SUNDAY ROAST Warm up from the inside out with a hearty Sunday pub roast. Based on the traditional British end-of-weekend meal, the Australian take on the pub roast usually features all the fan favourites (yes, including brussels sprouts) to help chase away the cold weather blues. Think succulent roast meats, crunchy potatoes, juicy vegetables, copious pours of gravy, and a nice glass of red or two on the side. Right across the nation — including in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane — there are plenty of pubs to hit up. Pick your favourite, then spoil your tastebuds with a filling roast lunch or dinner. Is there anything more comforting? [caption id="attachment_755166" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Death and Taxes[/caption] CURL UP WITH A COCKTAIL AT A TOP BAR If you're in the mood for a cocktail, you're going to love Australian Cocktail Month, a month-long celebration of Australian bars and bartenders that starts on Saturday, May 1. Across the event, 72 bars in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide are partnering with local and international alcohol brands to shake and stir up some bespoke cocktails, and to also offer discounts and unique bar experiences. To attend, all you need to do is grab a general admission ticket from the event's website, then head to a participating bar. Show said ticket and you'll be able to sip a $14 cocktail (or a $10 non-alcoholic version) while you're getting comfy. [caption id="attachment_780994" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Cassandra Hannagan[/caption] TUCK INTO A YUM CHA FEAST It's pretty universally known that one does not leave yum cha hungry. After all, the meal involves a steady rotation of small portions of dim sum dishes, including steamed, pan-fried and deep-fried options. Think juicy dumplings, prawn har gow, xiaolongbao (steamed soup dumplings), barbecue pork buns and pork ribs — all washed down with piping hot tea. There are plenty of places in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to get your feast on, too. So, forget the cooking and feed your hankering for Cantonese food by heading to your local yum cha house — and indulging until your heart (and tummy) is content. Just make sure not to eat beforehand. [caption id="attachment_779829" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Cassandra Hannagan[/caption] HIBERNATE IN A CINEMA WITH POPCORN AND CHOC TOPS Grabbing a snack at a movie theatre isn't always easy to justify. But when you're nestled in your seat, it's hard to be sorry about the big box of popcorn in your hands. A choc top never goes astray, either, and neither does a bag of Maltesers. Accordingly, to feed that comfort food craving in your belly, grab a mate or date and head to your local cinema. There, you can hibernate in a supremely cosy setting and enjoy a flick with some quality movie theatre bites. Some venues even serve cocktails too, such as Golden Age Cinema and Bar in Sydney, Classic Cinemas in Melbourne and Blue Room Cinebar in Brisbane. THROW A POTLUCK DINNER WITH YOUR MATES Why indulge in comfort food and cocktails all on your own when you can do it as a group activity with your nearest and dearest? The easiest way: get on that group chat and arrange a potluck dinner at yours with your friends. Either get everyone to bring a surprise dish, or arrange for someone to take care of entrees, others to look after mains and the best cooks in the gang to whip up desserts. You could even try out a new recipe or two, and wow your pals with a skill they mightn't have realised you have. And the best part? There are usually leftovers for tomorrow's lunch. COOK A FEAST OVER FIRE IN THE COUNTRYSIDE Fill up your car, pack an overnight bag and hit the road. It's time to escape the hustle and bustle of the city for some fresh country air and camping-style food. Get a fire roaring, then try your hand at some damper, classic s'mores, snags or corn on the cob. You could even give campfire nachos or some camping quesadilla a whirl. There are plenty of country towns to stay at just a hop, skip and jump from main cities, too, including near Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. It's a two-for-one deal, really, because you'll indulge in the charm of the countryside and fill your belly at the same time. Australian Cocktail Month is taking over top bars across the Australia from May 1–31. To buy your ticket, and for the full list of participating bars, head to the event's website. Top image: The Duke of Clarence, Kitti Gould
UPDATE, December 23, 2021: The Sparks Brothers is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies and iTunes, and will be available on Amazon Prime Video from January 1. "All I do now is dick around" is an exquisite song lyric and, in Sparks' 2006 single 'Dick Around', it's sung with the operatic enthusiasm it demands. It's also a line that resounds with both humour and truth when uttered by Russell Mael, who, with elder brother Ron, has been crafting art-pop ditties as irreverent and melodic as this wonderful track since 1969. Sparks haven't been dicking around over that lengthy period. They currently have 25 albums to their name, and they've taken on almost every genre of music there is in their highly acerbic fashion. That said, their tunes are clearly the biggest labour of love possible, especially as the enigmatic duo has always lingered outside the mainstream. They've had some chart success, including mid-70s hit 'This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us', Giorgio Moroder collaboration and disco standout 'The Number One Song in Heaven', and the supremely 80s 'Cool Places'. They're beloved by everyone from Beck and 'Weird Al' Yankovic to Jason Schwartzman and Mike Myers, too. They're the band that all your favourite bands, actors and comedians can't get enough of, but they're hardly a household name — and yet, decade after decade, the Maels have kept playing around to make the smart, hilarious and offbeat songs they obviously personally adore. Everyone else should love Sparks' idiosyncratic earworms as well — and, even for those who've never heard of the band before, that's the outcome after watching The Sparks Brothers. Edgar Wright, one of the group's unabashed super fans, has turned his overflowing affection into an exceptional documentary. It's the Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Baby Driver director's first factual effort, and it's even more charming and delightful than the films he's best known for. That said, it'd be hard to mess up a movie about Sparks, purely given how much material there is to work with. Russell and Ron, the former sporting shaggier hair and the latter donning a pencil-thin moustache rather than the Charlie Chaplin-style top lip he's brandished for much of his career, are also heavenly interviewees. That's the thing about these now-septuagenarian siblings, every Sparks tune they've ever blasted out into the world, and this comprehensive yet always accessible film that's instantly one of 2021's best: they're all joyously, fabulously, eccentrically fun to an infectious and buoyant degree. There's a joke in this doco's title, in fact; when it came to naming the group after cycling through a few monikers across other projects, they firmly rejected The Sparks Brothers. That's one of the many anecdotes that fill Wright's film — some shared playfully and self-deprecatingly by the Maels, some offered by worshipping aficionados that join the entertaining love-in. There's no escaping the documentary's devoted tone, but again, that attitude is quickly contagious. As the movie steps through Sparks' ups and downs, taking the chronological approach and giving as much time to their lesser-known albums as their cult hits, being as enchanted as Wright just comes with the package. He does an exhaustive job of charting the ebbs, flows, jumps, swerves, successes, disappointments and reinventions that've littered his subjects' careers, even as he leaves viewers wanting even more detail in plenty of instances. Crucially for a feature about musicians that many watching will be unfamiliar with, Wright does just as stellar a job at conveying exactly why Sparks have always deserved far more fame and acclaim, why they're so completely and utterly beloved and obsessed over by everyone who comes across them, and why music, comedy and the intersection of the two will forever owe them a debt. The audience first meets Russell and Ron today, looking as hip and unconventional as they always have, before The Sparks Brothers jumps back to their Los Angeles childhood, their teen penchant for movies and then everything that's come since. They originally weren't certain if they'd become filmmakers instead — and there's a theatricality to the pair's songs, shows and sublimely off-kilter music videos that speaks to that cinematic fervour. Wright weaves in an abundance of Sparks' gigs and tunes, showcasing both their creativity and their presence. This is a movie with a killer soundtrack, obviously, and it also appreciates the artistry that goes into creating such clever, distinctive and amusing songs that are always one step ahead of the pack. One clear highlight: a live rendition of 'My Baby's Taking Me Home', a tune that repeats that phrase 100-plus times, doesn't include a single other word, and is an emotional tour de force. Another pivotal message: just how hard the Maels have always worked to do what they love, to make such musical pearls and to keep challenging themselves. In 2008, they did 21 shows in London in 21 nights, playing every one of their then 21 albums through in full, for instance. It's with inescapable melancholy that The Sparks Brothers is also an account of what didn't quite happen; watching it, it's almost impossible to grasp why they haven't been one of the biggest bands in the world for the last half-century. Their 1994 synth-pop track 'When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'', a hit in Germany at the time, manages to be both an anthemic smash and a commentary on what hadn't worked out for them; yes, as Russell's voice echoes and Ron's keyboard skills constantly strike a chord, that's how witty and humorous and just all-round magnificent their music is. 2021 is the year of Sparks, though. Every year since 1969 should've been, but The Sparks Brothers sings their praises with irresistible passion. And, it gives viewers a brief glimpse at their next big project, Annette — the musical that just opened the Cannes Film Festival, is directed by Holy Motors' Leos Carax, stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, and reportedly features the former crooning tunes while getting rather intimate with the latter. The world has always needed more Sparks on a bigger stage; now, to the benefit of everyone that's ever loved them and anyone just discovering them, it's stopped dicking around and is finally delivering.
The Sydney Film Festival wrapped up on Sunday, June 15, after a perfectly eye-opening 12-day movie marathon. Here's what our critics loved, loathed, admired and squirmed over. The Best Films https://youtube.com/watch?v=baJK7EhCTEI BLACK COAL, THIN ICE Black Coal, Thin Ice is an exceptionally rare film in which not a single frame feels wasted. A run-down industrial city in China's frozen north provides a perfect backdrop for writer-director Diao Yinan's archetypal film noir, about an alcoholic former cop obsessed by a dead-end case. Slow pacing and minimal narrative exposition rewards an attentive viewer, but the true appeal of this ice-cold thriller is Jinsong Dong's immaculate cinematography. Although rarely flashy, every shot is invested with both an eerie beauty and a fascinating purpose, while simple images often take on new meaning as the camera patiently lingers. You'll be lucky to find a better made film this year. https://youtube.com/watch?v=06BNjqSsGqo TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT Riveting dissections of realistic situations: that's where siblings Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have made their careers. Continuing in the same finessed vein, Two Days, One Night compels by rendering relatable, repetitive circumstances without sentiment but with surprises, following Sandra's (Marion Cotillard) attempts to convince her co-workers to forgo a cash bonus to save her job. The precision with which the filmmakers present a feature almost solely comprised of conversations cannot be underestimated, nor can Cotillard's expert efforts in illustrating the fragility of her striving but uncertain protagonist. Small in stature yet striking in its statement, this is a rare and rewarding example of the best film of the festival emerging victorious as the competition winner. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ISaSHUSrEUw BOYHOOD We usually give a film props for being either wildly experimental or successful in what it does. So to watch Boyhood, a film that's both of those things (as well as hugely entertaining), is almost overwhelming. The applause once the credits started to roll was instant and resounding, and it's surely poised to take out the Audience Award. The film's point of difference is that it was filmed over 12 years, using the same cast of actors, including Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette. Its focus is Mason (Ellar Coltrane) as he grows from 5 to 18, capturing his coming of age in a way that's ultra authentic and driven by the cast and creatives' real experience of the world. The effect is to transport you back to childhood and adolescence without your attendant judgement or cynicism, and it's a wonderful little gift. If you thought director Richard Linklater had already made his biggest impact on the film world through Before Sunrise or rotoscoping, think again. https://youtube.com/watch?v=rIEf5T3U2YA YOU'RE SLEEPING NICOLE Many films spring to mind during French Canadian comedy You're Sleeping Nicole, including Frances Ha's quirky quarter-life crisis, Ghost World's vagaries of female friendship, and After Hours' freewheeling overnight anarchy; however, Stéphane Lafleur's direct-from-Cannes offering never suffers for the comparisons. Charting its 22-year-old titular character (Julianne Côté) as she navigates the summer sans parents and struggling to sleep, it crafts a love letter to its influences and an endearing effort in its own right. There's slightness in its concept and skit-like construction, but also a sweet mood and amusing tone in its vignettes of mostly ordinary, sometimes eccentric escapades. The exquisite black-and-white cinematography draws the eye just as the eclectic gags charm the soul, in the epitome of an offbeat delight. https://youtube.com/watch?v=KinAEqb3Kts TOM AT THE FARM Xavier Dolan's Cannes Jury Prize-winning Mommy rightly overwhelmed audiences with its onslaught of aesthetics and emotions; however, it is Tom at the Farm, his previous feature, which stuns with its several layers of sheer audacity. Ostensibly the odd film out in the wunderkind writer/director's oeuvre, his fourth effort in as many years is a tense and twisty thriller of grief, desire, acceptance and identity. Playing Tom, Dolan nourishes on screen (as with off), conveying the claustrophobia and complexity of the character's rural trip to pay respects to the family of his deceased boyfriend. When awkwardness begets a strange accord within visually and thematically constrained confines, so blossoms an elegantly disarming offering that earns its Hitchcockian parallels. https://youtube.com/watch?v=TyvfQIdx_Ao WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS The perfect antidote to a program full of worthy social dramas and three-hour-long Palme d'Or winners, Sydney's closing night film was an unmistakable highlight. Flight of the Conchords star Jemaine Clement and Eagle vs Shark director Taika Waititi write, direct and star in what's billed as the latest project from the New Zealand Documentary Board: an in-depth look at the lives of four vampires who share a run-down apartment in Wellington. Think This Is Spinal Tap but with more severed arteries. Clement and Waititi have enormous fun playing with undead mythology (for example, their characters can't get into clubs unless they're specifically invited in.) Keep your eyes peeled for a release before the year is out. https://youtube.com/watch?v=K1nEmIZtrFU PARTICLE FEVER This is the film that makes physics funny and personable. Particle Fever went behind the biggest, most expensive and most controversial scientific experiment ever conducted — the Large Hadron Collider, which recreates the conditions of the 'big bang' in an effort to view the basic particles needed for a stable universe and create a blueprint for modern physics. But what it really showed us was the Mensa-style odd-bods working on the LHC — funny, yearning, obsessive individuals who make coffee, play ping-pong, decipher unintelligible contemporary art and carry regrets just like all of us. Particle Fever meets the universe's biggest questions with simple, elegant, beautiful answers, or the prospect of total, inexplicable chaos. Who would've known that documentaries can provide such childlike escapism. Miracles and wonder. The Boldest Experiments https://youtube.com/watch?v=gZscgKNT2MI FISH AND CAT A two-hour film, made in one take? A film with no editing? Once again, Iranian cinema showed us that it's at the forefront of global filmmaking. Fish and Cat went beyond what could be a gimmick to deliver one of the most compelling experiences of the festival and divide audiences (including our little reviewing team). The film portrayed a collection of professional kite-flyers embarking on a camping trip by a wintery lake and spindly forest, a series of ghostly presences, and a cyclical narrative that plays with time by showing us the same moments from different characters' perspectives. Often high concept films elevate tricky narrative ploys, but Fish and Cat went beyond cleverness to show us something honest and true. Rehearsed for two months and shot in only one take — and inspired as much by mathematics, MC Escher and physics than by cinema — Fish and Cat suggests more films need less editing and more spirit and intelligence. https://youtube.com/watch?v=TgsfyMMYAZI MANAKAMANA A cable car traverses the lush greenery of the Nepalese mountains, ferrying its contents to and from the Manakamana Temple. Each load of passengers contains pilgrims seeking the wish-fulfilling gifts of the temple's Hindu goddess — and while diverse in their constitution, they remain united in their journey. Filmed in 16mm and comprised of 11 rides towards and away from the famous destination, the documentary that shares its name continues the immersive observational ambit of Harvard University's Sensory Ethnography Lab, as previously evidenced in 2009's Sweetgrass and 2012's Leviathan. Each segment, shown uncut and spanning approximately ten minutes in duration, stands alone as couples sit in silence, friends chatter about music and play with a kitten, and even goats enjoy the aerial view, yet together they make a hypnotic and rhythmic whole. MOMMY The latest film from 25-year-old enfant terrible Xavier Dolan pours unconstrained emotion into a claustrophobic space. Shot in boxy 1:1 aspect ratio, the film tells the story of fiery widow Dianne and her troubled teenager Simon, a pair of bombastic outsiders in a white-bread, buttoned-down world. Anne Dorval and Antoine Olivier Pilon are both stunningly good, their performances positively glowing with uninhibited feeling. The tightness of the frame, meanwhile, reflects Di and Simon's limited options, even as their energy threatens to force the edges apart. This is a funny, earnest, devastating film, one that's vitalised, rather than limited, by its intriguing technical conceit. https://youtube.com/watch?v=a8vy-DO-I5E 20,000 DAYS ON EARTH 20,000 Days on Earth is a documentary that's fiction. So, there's that. It imagines the 20,000th day on earth of singer and raconteur Nick Cave, and it's a day that includes him talking to his shrink, recording an album, helping archivists make sense of his historical record, lunching with his pals, driving Kylie Minogue around Brighton, and playing at the Sydney Opera House. A pretty great day, by any standards. Instead of clarity and chronology, what you get is a fragmented sense of biography that is sometimes deeply insightful, sometimes electrifying and sometimes frustrating. Artists-turned-directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard have basically conjured a new format here, and there's a sense that it could be applied to tell nearly anybody's personal tale (though having the flair and flamboyance of Cave certainly helps). It's not like anyone would want every documentary to be made this way, but it sure is an interesting divergence. Most WTF Moments https://youtube.com/watch?v=9gahZEIg73I Miss Violence Greek cinema has been pretty weird lately, but no one in the cinema for Alexandros Avranas Miss Violence was quite expecting it to take the turn it did. And that's even after it started with an 11-year-old girl committing suicide at her birthday party to the soundtrack of Leonard Cohen's 'Dance Me to the End of Love'. Things got repulsive around the time of the graphic, several-minute-long teen rape scene, and they did not improve. No matter your stance on the use of trigger warnings, you'd probably feel this could have been signposted a little better in the synopsis. On Tuesday this played directly after Ruin, so the truly unlucky copped a double feature of confronting sexual violence akin to watching Irreversible twice. https://youtube.com/watch?v=lHLLMaJ27SQ LAKE AUGUST We were hoping Lake August would provide us with the kind of telescopic view of China that Westerners rarely glean. It didn't. A series of extremely long takes of characters whose names and backgrounds, desires and regrets were never revealed, left us cold and, well, a little bored. Fans of slow-burn, long-unrolling cinema will go for this, and festival curators will love the offbeat perspective this offers us — there are so many kaleidoscopic ways to understand and access the non-monolith that is China. We appreciate a tiny chip in the blockbuster schedule of sequels and comic-book franchises, but Lake August was too oblique, too distant and like China, too inexplicable. Most disappointing films https://youtube.com/watch?v=vFnmRNMBL4I COLD IN JULY Although it certainly has its defenders, few films on the festival program were as cringingly uneven as Jim Mickle's Cold in July. Set in Texas in the late 1980s, the film stars Dexter himself, Michael C. Hall, as a mild-mannered family man who shoots a home intruder. But what starts as an exploration of guilt soon takes a bizarre-left turn into John Carpenter-style slasher territory, before shifting again into pulpy film noir and then again into vengeful vigilante thriller. Good on Mickle for attempt to skew genres, but the tone is all over the map. Moreover, the character dynamics are flimsy, while certain dramatic scenes are pitched to such histrionic heights that they end up being unintentionally entertaining. https://youtube.com/watch?v=t3ofy3B90gI RUIN Amiel Courtin-Wilson's previous film Hail was an unforgettable story of down-and-out Australians whose voices are rarely heard in cinema. So Ruin, co-directed with Michael Cody, arrived with more than a little cinephile hype. It was an interesting film. But was it a successful one? Not so much. Set in Cambodia, and portraying a romance of two abused and terrified runaways, Ruin did a beautiful job of mixing a sense of observational documentary with lovely abstract, textural sequences, and it pivoted on two extraordinary, hyper-naturalistic performances.The dream fantasies were beautiful, emotionally complex and visually stunning. But it was right on the line between an open-ended film and an underbaked one. It's good to see challenging cinema that doesn't spoon-feed audiences exposition. But more answers and more context to match the gorgeous cinematography and dreaminess would have gone a long way. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ChM2icbWo9w The Rover A dark Shakespearean crime drama, 2010's Animal Kingdom was one of the most resounding Australian films in years. Not only did it launch the international careers of Ben Mendelsohn and Jacki Weaver, it also heralded the arrival of writer-director David Michôd, a filmmaker whose tightly controlled aesthetic suggested even greater things to come. His sophomore effort is The Rover, a barebones narrative that mirrors his debut in both its technical precision and its nihilistic tone. What's missing, however, is a similarly compelling set of characters. Without them, a pervasive sense of bleakness soon swallows the movie whole. Full review here. https://youtube.com/watch?v=4_8nOSuRFE4 Palo Alto Um, yuck. It may have sold out three screenings over, but Palo Alto was one long, empty cliche about coming of age. It goes to show we can't assume James Franco can write with depth just because he can act, and we can't assume that Gia Coppola can direct with expertise just because her family can. It makes an ass of u and me. By Rima Sabina Aouf, Lauren Carroll Harris, Sarah Ward and Tom Clift.
