Courting might have been sweet back in your grandparents' day, but with the advent of Facebook, relationships have taken on a whole lot more complexity. Admit it - if you like someone, you'll periodically check out their Facebook profile, click through their photos, ascertain their general whereabouts and any signs that their lack of obtainability might be about to take a turn for the better. This practice, commonly referred to as Facebook 'stalking' - with all the overtones of obsession and garbage-bin rifling the word implies - is perhaps coming closer to the world of real-life courting, with the release of the BreakUp Notifier, the app most likely to get you laid by someone on the rebound. Using the app, you can bookmark the profiles of people in a relationship, and then you'll be automatically notified should that status change in the slightest. As the app itself explains,"You like someone. They're in a relationship. Be the first to know when they're out of it." Woe betide the person chasing after someone with the enigmatic 'It's Complicated' relationship status. Or those who refuse to divulge their status at all. While the Breakup Notifier is perhaps another step down the road to normalising creepy behaviour, you know that thousands of people are going to be downloading this app and making damn sure their's will be the first attractive and available shoulder to cry on. BreakUp Notifier
On a brisk April morning, the busiest destinations in countryside New South Wales aren't the pubs, local cafes or anything in the main stretches of these quaint towns — crowds are flocking to the various state forests. To the untrained eye, these forests have nothing of value but pine trees, but in the right conditions, the soil comes alive with carpets of glorious pine mushrooms. These crown-protected woodlands are the last bastion of mushroom foraging in NSW — a practice of times gone by that's now making a comeback in the modern world. Helping to stage that comeback is the jovial wizard of foraging: the self-proclaimed 'weedy one', Diego Bonetto. With a lifetime of foraging practice that began as a child in Northern Italy, Bonetto has made it his life's mission to share everything he can about the lost art of foraging, not only mushrooms but native plants, seaweed and weeds. But it was a brisk April morning in the Lidsdale State Forest when he led Concrete Playground on an expedition into the trees, specifically in search of juicy mushrooms and knowledge. [caption id="attachment_1007875" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Alec Jones[/caption] The Good, the Bad and the Deadly It's no secret that mushroom foraging should not be undertaken lightly. With over 5,000 species of mushrooms that grow across NSW, an inexperienced, unguided amateur forager is at immense risk of misidentifying their harvest, which can have painful and life-threatening consequences. That's why you should never forage without expert advice. As an expert himself, Diego Bonetto cannot stress that enough — for your sake and the forest's: " The biggest mistake people make is trying to go mushroom foraging just by reading an article on the internet and downloading some pictures. There are lookalikes, there are similarities [between mushrooms]. There are ethical steps that you need to understand to protect the ecology. Harvesting wild produce is not walking into a supermarket". That's because the mushrooms you can safely eat, and even those that should be left alone, are vital to the ecosystem. Fungi decompose dead organic matter into raw nutrients to be reabsorbed into the soil. How would you feel if a giant walked into your home and ripped your compost bin off the ground? "Be nice to nature", Bonetto adds. "Nature has got plenty to worry about already". [caption id="attachment_1007974" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Helen Algie[/caption] You may be wondering: why pine forests? Legalities and complexities of fungi ecology aside, pine forests are home to two edible and easily recognisable – to the trained eye – mushroom species: Saffron Milk Caps and Slippery Jacks. The former boasts a reddish-orange cap, typically four to 30+ centimetres across, with gills and an orange, milky sap that leaks from cuts in the flesh. They're meaty and have a mild bitter taste, and work great pan-fried, pickled, as schnitzels, or to bolster pies and casseroles. The latter has a brown, slimy cap and a spongy yellow underside free of gills, which grow up to 25+ centimetres across. With the slimy layer peeled off, it can be chopped and used in Asian-style soups, fried with butter or worked into an omelette. Any other species in a pine forest, even the iconic red-and-white-spotted fly agaric (aka fairy toadstool), is either too risky to prepare safely or outright dangerous to consume, so don't be greedy. [caption id="attachment_1007873" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Alec Jones[/caption] Listen to the Experts Only an experienced forager can tell the edible from the deadly, so you should never claim to know how to mushroom forage until you have the qualifications, not just a weekend of research online. Booking a foraging session with someone like Diego is non-negotiable. You don't want to take home something poisonous — or break a law you didn't know existed. " It doesn't need to be me, but someone who can take you there, who's done it before, done it for a few years, and can take you through the steps of what it is you're looking for and why all those others are not [edible]." No matter what, there are three things Bonetto believes every forager should remember in the forest. "First, the assumption of knowledge is very problematic. Second, people always want to be right — be humble, it's not about you being right, it's about you being safe. Third, only harvest what you can eat that night, mushroom frenzy can make you fill six boxes, but then you don't want to process it and end up wasting it." [caption id="attachment_1007972" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Helen Algie[/caption] Find Your Nearest Legal Foraging Ground A little-known fact: NSW is the only Australian state where mushroom foraging is legal, as long as it's done inside a State forest. While permits are required for commercial foraging, foraging for personal consumption is legal and open to all. That means you'll need to make a drive out of it. Bonetto explains it best. "I teach mushroom foraging in pine plantation State forests for a very specific reason. And as such, there are no pine plantations in Greater Sydney. The closest pine plantation you will find [to Sydney] would be in the Southern Highlands or the western slopes of the Blue Mountains". "And that's where I teach. So if you would like to harvest mushrooms legally, you need to come to a pine State forest. Unless you do it on your own property, if you have a property big enough to have pine trees and big enough to support a mushroom ecology, then you can do it on your own property. But most people do not have the kind of land in greater Sydney, am I right?". [caption id="attachment_1007973" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Helen Algie[/caption] Plan Ahead — Far Ahead The other key consideration for a foraging booking is that the mushroom season in NSW is only eight to ten weeks long, typically from March to May. You're waiting for Goldilocks conditions, since fruiting bodies of pine mushrooms grow only after heavy rain and overnight temperatures in the single digits. Any colder, though, and the season will grind to a halt. An easy way to remember: the best time for mushroom foraging (and also the busiest) is the Easter long weekend. Bonetto preaches foresight. "Your readers might just be a bit disappointed to know the season is already over [for 2025]. So join the mailing list. If you're into mushroom foraging, join our mailing list and we'll let you know when we've released the workshop dates for 2026. Or just check all of the other workshops available on the website, or just go and talk to your neighbour. You don't need to come to Diego. There's also plenty of foraging knowledge in ethnic communities, they'll offer you tea and sit you down in the garden. People love to talk about plants. Lemme tell you." To book a foraging experience with Diego Bonetto or join the mushroom foraging waitlist, visit his website. Concrete Playground joined a foraging workshop as a guest of Destination NSW. Foraging for wild mushrooms is not without risk — some mushrooms are toxic and will cause bodily harm and even death if consumed. If in doubt, throw it out, and if you become unwell after eating wild mushrooms, call the Poisons Centre on 13 11 26. Header image courtesy of Destination NSW
Independent Byron Bay-based craft brewer Stone & Wood is getting some bigger boots, launching its brand new major brewing facility at Murwillumbah in northern New South Wales. Sitting 40km north of its first brewery in Byron Bay, the brand new brewery has been in the works for 18 months — now with a a 50-hectolitre brewhouse ready to brew up more of that sweet, sweet Pacific Ale that Australians are apparently guzzling by the bucketload. According to The Shout, S&W have been struggling to keep up with Pacific Ale demand lately; Australian beer enthusiasts are chugging PA quicker than the dudes can brew it. Opening the new brewery in addition to their Byron flagship, co-founders Brad Rogers, Ross Jurisich and Jamie Cook quashed any beard-stroking suspicion that their new batches will be lower quality for their unwavering fans. "We want to reward the loyalty of those guys by giving them as much beer as they want," Jurisich told The Shout. "Once they're comfortable that they've got enough, then we'll start looking outside of that." Sounds like the most demanding, squawking nest of hungry chicks in the bar business. "We've continued to try and expand the brewery here for the last four years, to try and keep up with demand, and it really has gotten to a point where we are unable to put any more tanks into this place," said Cook. Local distribution is the priority for S&W, with the S&W trio noting their dedication to their geographically immediate market. "We're a local brewery and we want to make sure that we maintain that local connection with our backyard. Our backyard really is from Northern Rivers through to South East Queensland," said Jurisch. Now the brewery has opened its doors, the S&W team will get that Pacific Ale under customer demand control before tackling the Jasper Ale and Lager. Plus, the team have unveiled a brand new beer to celebrate the new instalment: the Cloud Catcher. With the brewery about to phase out the core brews from the Byron HQ and the promise of a bar to open at the new brewery, the S&W have even unveiled a new motto: "Born and raised in Byron Bay, growing up in Murwillumbah". Via The Shout.
What happens when a 20th-century pizza delivery guy gets cryogenically frozen for a thousand years, defrosting when 2999 is flicking over to the year 3000? Futurama has been telling that tale for a quarter of a century now. The animated series hasn't spent the full 25 years since its 1999 debut on-screen, weathering a chaotic run; however, it's been back again, baby, since 2023. The latest comeback's second season — dubbed the show's 12th overall — arrives from Monday, July 29, 2024, and it has a trailer. As always, shut up and take our money. This time, viewers can expect robot villages, a world dedicated to coffee and the survival of Earth under threat. Birthday party games to the death, AI proving both friendly and villainous, cute beanbags, the Planet Express team's usual interplanetary antics: they'll all feature, too, when Futurama returns to Disney+ Down Under. The Matt Groening-created show about life in the 31st century was in vintage form when it dropped its ten-episode 11th season, which embraced the fact that anything and everything can and will happen as it always has. When Futurama's return was first announced in 2022, it was for a 20-episode run, so season 12 was always going to follow. Then in 2023, the show was also renewed for two more seasons beyond that, so season 13 and season 14 are also on the way — taking viewers back to the future for even longer. Both soon and in years to come, get ready for more time with Philip J Fry (voiced by Billy West, Spitting Image), distant uncle to Planet Express cargo company Professor Hubert J Farnsworth (also voiced by West), plus the rest of the outfit's crew: one-eyed ship captain Turanga Leela (Katey Sagal, Dead to Me); fellow employees Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr, Craig of the Creek), Amy Wong (Lauren Tom, Dragons: The Nine Realms) and Zoidberg (also West); and everyone from self-obsessed starship captain Zapp Brannigan (West again) and his amphibious 4th Lieutenant Kif Kroker (Maurice LaMarche, Rick and Morty) through to scheming corporation owner Mom (Tress MacNeille, The Simpsons). Bender Bending Rodríguez is causing more mayhem as well, with John DiMaggio (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) also back with the cast when season 11 arrived. When the revival was first announced, that wasn't the case — but it wouldn't be Futurama without its constantly sauced robot exclaiming "bite my shiny metal ass!". You can put a beloved show into suspended animation, but someone is going to thaw it out one day — and more than once, as fans have experienced for decades now. Initially airing from 1999–2003, the futuristic series then returned from 2008–2013, before now being given another run. Check out the trailer for Futurama season 12 below: Futurama streams Down Under via Disney+, with season 12 arriving from Monday, July 29, 2024. Read our review of season 11.
In the kind of punishment Cersei Lannister might dream up, the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones isn't due until mid-2018 at the earliest — and sometime in 2019 at the latest. However, one London cinema is offering fans an immersive way to pass at least some of that period. Taking the movie marathon idea to the extreme, they're showing the entire series' seven-season run to date in one massive sitting. Fans of Westerosi dramas, resilient Stark siblings, formidable dragons and more can expect to get comfy in The Prince Charles Cinema for four days, as they screen all 67 episodes between November 27 and 30. It all kicks off at 7pm on Monday and runs until just after 6pm on Thursday. And while that might seem like quite the commitment — in hours, in the willingness to sit in cinema seats for that long, and in sacrificing your normal life for your favourite show — if there's one thing that GoT fans love more than shipping Jon Snow and Daenerys, it's spending as much time in the Seven Kingdoms as possible. The event is designed to promote the DVD release of the seventh season, which just finished airing in August. For anyone who happens to have a spare week, it's free to attend. There'll also be a pop-up pizza bar onsite for sustenance. If you're in London, the Game of Thrones Marathon Screening runs from November 27 to 30. Visit the event Facebook page for further details, or to register for tickets.
Call this 'The One with Familiar But Still Exciting News': Friends! The Musical Parody is bringing its comedic, song-filled take on a certain 90s sitcom to Australia in 2022. Yes, this announcement has been made before, and more than once. The show has even opened its umbrellas in some parts of the country already. But we all know how the past two years have turned out — so the fact that the production is doing the rounds again should still make your day, week, month and even your year. This time around, Friends! The Musical Parody will kick off its tour in Adelaide in May, before being there for audiences in Hobart, Wollongong, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne. So, wherever you live, get ready to spend time with the show's versions of Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica, Joey and Phoebe — hanging out at their beloved Central Perk, of course, and sitting on an orange couch, no doubt. The musical starts with caffeinated catch-ups, but then a runaway bride shakes up the gang's day. From there, you'll get to giggle through a loving, laugh-filled lampoon that both makes good-natured fun of and celebrates the iconic sitcom. Yes, no one told you that being obsessed with the Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc, Lisa Kudrow and David Schwimmer-starring show about six New Yorkers would turn out this way — with on-stage skits and gags, recreations of some of the series' best-known moments, and songs with titles such as 'How you Doin?' and 'We'll Always Be There For You'. And no, no one told us that being a Friends aficionado would continue to serve up so many chances to indulge our fandom 17 years after it finished airing, either. FRIENDS! THE MUSICAL PARODY AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2022: May 4–15: Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide May 20–21: Wrest Point Entertainment Centre, Hobart May 26–28: Illawarra Performing Arts Centre, Wollongong June 10–18: Riverside Theatres, Parramatta July 13–15: The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre, Canberra July 20–24: The Tivoli, Brisbane September 9–11: Regal Theatre, Perth November 23–December 17: Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne Friends! The Musical Parody tours the country from May–December 2022. For further details, and to buy tickets, visit the production's website.
Opinions may be divided on what is truly the best medium of entertainment, but there's no denying the simple pleasure of going to a musical. The feeling of being swept off your feet by a particularly memorable tune, doubled over laughing or drenched in your own tears, its a stagecraft that's captured the love of millions around the world. This year is is no exception for killer musicals, so we partnered with Destination NSW to curate a guide to the biggest musicals coming to stages in Sydney in 2023. Whether you want to laugh, sing or cry, there's a stage show below for you.
When 2020 hits, one of Brisbane's big music and party venues will cease to operate in its current form. That'd be The Brightside, which is joining forces with Crowbar to create a mega venue at ol' Brighty's current address. It'll be called Crowbar Brisbane, with the adjoining space currently known as The Valley Drive In taking on the Brightside name. Obviously, this big change is something worth celebrating, which we're sure the revamped site will do when it relaunches. For now, The Brightside is throwing a big party to say goodbye to the status quo — and it's calling on DZ Deathrays, Bugs, Jeremy Neale and Sycco to hit the decks to help. All of the above will take on DJing duties and, as always, there'll be plenty of drinks on offer. Head along to Bye Bye Brightside from 7pm on Saturday, December 28 to mark the end of an era — with tickets costing $10.
Acclaimed the world over — and named the World's Best Gin Producer for two years running to prove it — Australian's Four Pillars has built up quite the following in boozy circles. Since 2013, the Yarra Valley-based distillery has given Aussie gin lovers plenty of covetable drops to drink, including via famed tipples such as its beloved Rare Dry Gin and bloody great Bloody Shiraz Gin. Even if you don't sip the hard stuff, you've heard of Four Pillars. You've also got a mate with a gin shrine filled with Four Pillars bottles, because everyone does. But now, thanks to the distillery's latest range, folks who don't indulge in alcohol can taste what all the fuss is about — and anyone who is having a break from cocktails for whatever reason can keep knocking back the brand's beverages. Meet Bandwagon, Four Pillars' new booze-free line, which'll arrive for hangover-free drinks at the end of June. Those two popular tipples mentioned above, Rare Dry Gin and Bloody Shiraz Gin, have been given the sans-alcohol treatment — after the distillery spent two years getting everything just right. With Bandwagon Dry, the Four Pillars team started with the same ten botanicals that make up the Rare Dry Gin. Those flavours are extracted in a different way for this boozeless version, though, with the oils and flavours from juniper, lemon myrtle, coriander seed and the like gathered using steam distillation. And, each is distilled separately in order to control the flavour contribution and the quality. They're then mixed together with a water base, and combined with steamed and vacuumed fresh chilli to give the not-quite-gin the heat that comes with alcohol — and with a natural fructose from plants for weight. As for Bloody Bandwagon, it starts with Bandwagon Dry. Bloody Shiraz Gin is made with a base of Rare Dry Gin, too, so that process is replicated — but without alcohol. Then, the clear Bandwagon Dry liquid is mixed with shiraz juice, which is crafted with shiraz grapes that haven't been fermented (so, no booze). Basically, forget soft drinks — you only need to drink these booze-free spirits from now on. When the Bandwagon range hits shelves just in time for Dry July, you'll find it at the Four Pillars Healesville Distillery and Surry Hills Laboratory, as well as from BoozeBud, Coles Local, Dan Murphy's, IGA, Liquorland and Sans Drinks. You'll also be able to pick up just Bandwagon Dry at First Choice Liquor, Vintage Cellars and Woolworths. Wondering how to drink both tipples? Four Pillars co-founder and distiller Cameron Mackenzie recommends using "around 60 millilitres of Bandwagon Dry with 100 millilitres of of your favourite tonic. As ever, use plenty of ice and an orange slice as a garnish." For Bloody Bandwagon, Mackenzie says "this is a unique, purple, and slightly sweet alcohol-free spirit that you can use just as you would your Bloody Shiraz Gin. Combine 60 millilitres of Bloody Bandwagon with 100 millilitres of tonic or soda and you'll have yourself a deliciously grown-up, booze-free drink." It's also advised to use a bit more of the Bandwagon drinks with your mixers to help highlight the flavour. And no, Mackenzie didn't initially think a decade back that this is something that Four Pillars would ever whip up. "When we launched in 2013, never in our wildest dreams did we think we would make a non-alcoholic product. But as we've grown older and wiser, booze is not always your go-to and you a need quality alternative. Enter Bandwagon," he said. Four Pillars' Bandwagon Dry and Bloody Bandwagon will be available to buy from the end of June at the Four Pillars Healesville Distillery and Surry Hills Laboratory, as well as from BoozeBud, Coles Local, Dan Murphy's, IGA, Liquorland and Sans Drinks. You'll also be able to pick up Bandwagon Dry at First Choice Liquor, Vintage Cellars and Woolworths.
Not all that long ago, the idea of getting cosy on your couch, clicking a few buttons, and having thousands of films and television shows at your fingertips seemed like something out of science fiction. Now, it's just an ordinary night — whether you're virtually gathering the gang to text along, cuddling up to your significant other or shutting the world out for some much needed me-time. Of course, given the wealth of options to choose from, there's nothing ordinary about making a date with your chosen streaming platform. The question isn't "should I watch something?" — it's "what on earth should I choose?". Hundreds of titles are added to Australia's online viewing services each and every month, all vying for a spot on your must-see list. And, so you don't spend 45 minutes scrolling and then being too tired to actually commit to anything, we're here to help. We've spent plenty of couch time watching our way through this month's latest batch — and, from the latest and greatest through to old and recent favourites, here are our picks for your streaming queue from February's haul. Brand New Stuff You Can Watch From Start to Finish Now Mr & Mrs Smith 2005 movie Mr & Mrs Smith isn't the first time that title adorned a spy caper about a literally killer couple. That honour goes not to the Brad Pitt (Babylon)- and Angelina Jolie (Eternals)-starring, Brangelina-sparking film, but to a 90s TV series. No one remembers 1996's Mr & Mrs Smith, where Scott Bakula (who was not long off Quantum Leap at the time) and Maria Bello (Beef) took on the eponymous parts. It didn't last, with just nine episodes airing and a further four made but left unseen. But its existence gives 2024's Mr & Mrs Smith a full-circle vibe, with Donald Glover (Atlanta) and Maya Erskine's (PEN15) now both adopting the monikers and ushering the premise back to episodic storytelling. Bakula and Bello's Mr & Mrs Smith didn't inspire Pitt and Jolie's; however, the latter did give rise to Glover and Erskine's — and any history isn't mere trivia. Instead, it speaks to a concept that's so appealing that it keeps being reused, whether coincidentally or knowingly, and to an idea that's now being given its full Mr & Mrs Smith due, in line with True Lies and The Americans: that relationships are mysteries, missions and investigations. The backstory behind Glover and Erskine bringing glorious chemistry to John and Jane Smith doesn't stop there, because Mr & Mrs Smith circa 2024 has been in the works for three years. When announced in February 2021, it was with Atlanta-meets-Fleabag hopes, with Glover co-starring and co-creating with Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny). Then creative differences with Glover saw Waller-Bridge — who also co-wrote the No Time to Die screenplay and created Killing Eve — leave the project within six months. While it's impossible to know how that iteration of Mr & Mrs Smith would've turned out, whether with more overt comedy, talkier or boasting a darker tone, Glover's interpretation with fellow Atlanta alum Francesca Sloane lives up to the promise of two creatives from one of the 21st century's best dramedies turning their attention to espionage and romance. There's an intimacy, a lived-in feel and hangout charm to this Mr & Mrs Smith, even as it swaps Brangelina's already-wed pair discovering that they're assassin rivals for a duo only tying the knot for the gig. Mr and Mrs Smith streams via Prime Video. Read our full review. Shōgun Casting Hiroyuki Sanada (John Wick: Chapter 4), Cosmo Jarvis (Persuasion) and Anna Sawai (Monarch: Legacy of Monsters) as its three leads is one of Shōgun's masterstrokes. The new ten-part adaptation of James Clavell's 1975 novel — following a first version in 1980 that featured Japanese icon and frequent Akira Kurosawa collaborator Toshiro Mifune — makes plenty of other excellent moves, but this is still pivotal. Disney+'s richly detailed samurai series knows how to thrust its viewers into a deeply textured world from the outset, making having three complex performances at its centre an essential anchoring tactic. Sanada plays Lord Yoshii Toranaga, who is among the political candidates vying to take control of the country. Jarvis is John Blackthorne, a British sailor on a Dutch ship that has run aground in a place that its crew isn't sure is real until they get there. And Sawai is Toda Mariko, a Japanese noblewoman who is also tasked with translating. Each character's tale encompasses much more than those descriptions, of course, and the portrayals that bring them to the screen make that plain from the moment they're each first seen. As Game of Thrones and Succession both were, famously so, Shōgun is another drama that's all about fighting for supremacy. Like just the former, too, it's another sweeping epic series as well. Although it's impossible not to see those links, knowing that both battling over who'll seize power and stepping into sprawling worlds are among pop culture's favourite things right now (and for some time) doesn't make Shōgun any less impressive. The scale is grand, and yet it doesn't skimp on intimacy, either. The minutiae is meticulous, demanding that attention is paid to everything at all times. Gore is no stranger from the get-go. Opening in the 17th century, the series finds Japan in crisis mode, Toranaga facing enemies and Blackthorne among the first Englishmen that've made it to the nation — much to the alarm of Japan's sole European inhabitants from Portugal. Getting drawn in, including by the performances, is instantaneous. Shōgun proves powerful and engrossing immediately, and lavish and precisely made as well, with creators Justin Marks (Top Gun: Maverick) and Rachel Kondo (on her first TV credit) doing a spectacular job of bringing it to streaming queues. Shōgun streams via Disney+. Read our full review. American Fiction Here's Thelonious 'Monk' Ellison's (Jeffrey Wright, Rustin) predicament when American Fiction begins: on the page, his talents aren't selling books. Praise comes the Los Angeles-based professor's way for his novels, but not sales, nor attendees when he's part of writers' festival panels. And even then, publishers aren't fond of his latest manuscript. Sick of hearing that his work isn't "Black enough", and also incensed over the attention that fellow scribe Sintara Golden (Issa Rae, Barbie) is receiving for her book We's Lives in Da Ghetto, he gets a-typing, pumping out the kind of text that he vehemently hates — but 100-percent fits the stereotype of what the world keeps telling him that Black literature should be. It attracts interest, even more so when Monk takes his agent Arthur's (John Ortiz, Better Things) advice and adopts a new persona to go with it. Soon fugitive convict Stagg R Leigh and his book Fuck are a huge hit that no one can get enough of. Because of the story spun around who wrote the bestseller, too, the FBI even wants to know the author's whereabouts. Deservedly nominated for five 2024 Oscars — including for Best Picture, Best Actor for Wright and Best Supporting Actor for Sterling K Brown (Biosphere) as Monk's brother Clifford — American Fiction itself hails from the page, with filmmaker Cord Jefferson adapting Percival Everett's 2001 novel Erasure. Wright is indeed exceptional in this savvy satire of authenticity, US race relations and class chasms, and earns his awards contention for his reactions alone. Seeing how Monk adjusts himself to a world that keeps proving anything but his dream is an utter acting masterclass, in big and small moments alike. As the film dives into the character's personal chaos, that's where Brown's also-fantastic, often-tender performance comes in, plus Leslie Uggams (Extrapolations) as Monk's mother and Tracee Ellis Ross (Candy Cane Lane) as his sister, and also Erika Alexander (Run the World) as a neighbour who is a fan of his — not just Stagg R Leigh's — work. Don't discount how excellent American Fiction is beyond its literary hoax setup, in fact; as a character study, it's equally astute. American Fiction streams via Prime Video. The Vince Staples Show It was true when Seinfeld made a series about a real-life standup comedian playing a fictionalised version of himself one of the world's biggest sitcoms in the 90s. It remained accurate when Larry David started riffing on his own existence in Curb Your Enthusiasm — and also when Pete Davidson leapt from making his life movie fodder in The King of Staten Island to turning it into TV in Bupkis. Donald Glover wasn't directly referencing his own career in Atlanta, and neither The Other Two nor Girls5eva bring exact replicas of real-life figures to the screen, but the same idea pumps through them as well: fame or proximity to it doesn't stop anyone from grappling with life's frustrating minutiae. Add The Vince Staples Show to the list, with the five-part series featuring its namesake as a take on himself. Whether or not you know who he is is part of the show's joke. On- and off- screen, he's a rapper and actor. Staples' very real single 'Norf Norf' gets quoted to him in the TV comedy. The fact that he's been in Abbott Elementary is referenced in the debut episode. But just attempting to have an ordinary day doing everyday things in an average way — driving home, heading to the bank, attending a family reunion, visiting an amusement park and returning to his old school — is as impossible for him as it is for us all. Sometimes, Staples' celebrity complicates matters in The Vince Staples Show. It also never helps. Usually, he's stuck navigating Murphy's law, so asking for a loan ends up with him caught up in a robbery, while endeavouring to source something decent to eat at a theme park takes him on an absurdist odyssey that winks at David Lynch and the Coen brothers. Having an entertainment career doesn't stop him from being confused for someone else by the police (Killing It's Scott MacArthur, You People's Bryan Greenberg and The Menu's Arturo Castro) — the same cops who ask for free tickets to his shows while they're locking him up — or ensure that cashiers treat him politely. If it assists with anything, it's with giving Staples a deadpan acceptance that anything and everything might come his way. Twice asked if something interesting happened during his day by his girlfriend Deja (Andrea Ellsworth, Truth Be Told), his reply is "not really", even though viewers have just witnessed the exact opposite in both instances. The Vince Staples Show streams via Netflix. Read our full review. Orion and the Dark Learning to face life's chaos, or even just recognising that life is chaos, has a particular term when Charlie Kaufman is making movies and audiences do the confronting. Describing something as Kaufmanesque sprang from the screenwriter and filmmaker's stunning run at the end of the 90s and beginning of the 00s — the Spike Jonze (Her)-helmed Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, plus the Michel Gondry (Microbe & Gasoline)-directed Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — and it's stuck ever since. Joining the trio of Synecdoche, New York, Anomalisa and I'm Thinking of Ending Things as well, all three of which he penned plus helmed, is new family-friendly animation Orion and the Dark. A Kaufmanesque kid-appropriate flick? It exists, and it's wonderful. Feature first-timer Sean Charmatz (TV movie Trolls Holiday in Harmony) directs, and Emma Yarlett's 2014 children's book provides the source material; however, this account of a boy afraid of the dark who then meets the literal Dark (voiced by The Afterparty's Paul Walter Hauser) is a Kaufman affair through and through. Also, iconic German filmmaker — and one-time Parks and Recreation star — Werner Herzog (The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft) pops up. Loaned the vocal tones of Jacob Tremblay (The Little Mermaid) as a child and Colin Hanks (The Offer) as an adult, Orion is petrified of sleeping without the lights on. And, just like the kids in Monsters, Inc that are scared of creatures in their cupboards, Orion and the Dark's protagonist is frightened of something real. Dark exists and, alongside Orion's parents (The Fall of the House of Usher's Carla Gugino and Bull's Matt Dellapina), is exasperated by the boy's response to nighttime. He can't help taking it personally, in fact, then offers to assist. For one 24-hour period, as darkness falls around the world, he gets Orion to accompany him on his travels with friends Sleep (Natasia Demetriou, What We Do in the Shadows), Insomnia (Nat Faxon, Our Flag Means Death), Quiet (Aparna Nancherla, The Great North), Unexplained Noises (Golda Rosheuvel, Bridgerton) and Sweet Dreams (Angela Bassett, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) to demonstrate that being distressed is unfounded. It isn't just Herzog's involvement and a joke about David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest that prove that this is a movie as much for adults as kids; amid its gorgeous animation, its understanding of existential dread is also that astute. Orion and the Dark streams via Netflix. Dario Argento: Panico Filmmakers love filmmakers, so much so that new documentaries about directors arrive all the time. Paying tribute to the creative forces behind everyone's big-screen obsessions: what's not to love? With Dario Argento: Panico, there's plenty to adore, including the considerable participation of the Italian master of giallo himself. A film about the man behind Suspiria, Inferno and Tenebrae was always going to be a portrait of his influence upon his chosen genre. Accordingly, who better to take viewers through it? He begins the doco unhappy about the location of the latest hotel that he's decamping to to write, as has been his custom for decades, but he's a fascinating interviewee, especially when he's reflecting upon his work and his processes in his own words. For company, he's joined among Dario Argento: Panico's talking heads by his sister Floriana, daughters Fiore and Asia, ex-wife Marisa Casale, and collaborators such as Franco Ferrini (who co-penned screenplays such for Phenomena, Trauma, Dark Glasses and more) and Claudio Simonetti (the composer, also of the band Goblin, who has been so instrumental) in giving the filmmaker's movies their sound. And to unpack his impact both in general and on their work, Guillermo del Toro (Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio), Nicolas Winding Refn (Copenhagen Cowboy) and Gaspar Noé (Climax) all feature as well. Noteworthy quotes and links abound from the documentary's chats beyond its titular figure, such as when del Toro notes that "everything in Argento's movies is trying to kill you", Refn admits that Tenebrae's synth-heavy score is responsible for the tunes in his own features and the fact that Noé had Argento star in his drama Vortex. Simonetti's reflections on Goblin's role in helping Argento's work have such resonance, and the ripples that his film's scores have enjoyed across the industry since, are also riveting — and accurate. And for an understanding of who Argento is personally, Asia (who has acted in her father's flicks since making her debut at ten) is particularly enlightening. Simone Scafidi also deftly weaves in clips from Argento's movies, plus behind-the-scenes footage and archival materials, to ensure that audiences have a burning yearning stirring while watching: the need to see everything featured, whether for the first time or again. He knows how to make this kind of movie, after all, given that he did the same with 2019's Fulci for Fake, about fellow giallo talent Lucio Fulci. Dario Argento: Panico streams via Shudder. The Greatest Night in Pop One of the biggest songs of the 1980s was largely recorded in one night. 'We Are the World' wasn't just huge on the charts, either. When it came to people buying the single, it was massive — it's still the ninth biggest-selling physical single ever — but the list of talent making it happen was just as hefty. Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Dan Aykroyd, Harry Belafonte, Bob Geldof, Waylon Jennings, Bette Midler, Smokey Robinson, The Pointer Sisters: they're just some of the names involved. Even Kenny Loggins, fresh from 'Footloose' being a hit, joined in. This roster of names and more teamed up in 1985 as supergroup USA for Africa, taking cues from Band Aid and 'Do They Know It's Christmas?', to raise funds for African famine relief. Belafonte had the idea. Richie and Jackson wrote the tune. The whole thing came together on the night of that year's American Music Awards, with everyone going from the ceremony to the studio. The Greatest Night in Pop tells this tale, and adds another entertaining music documentary that's also a blast from the past to Netflix's catalogue (WHAM! in 2023 similarly fit the bill). Regardless of whether the song itself suits your taste in music, or whether it's before your time and so you haven't heard of it, this behind-the-scenes look at its creation is illuminating — especially if you're interested in the recording process, how it works when there's so many figures involved and simply what it was like to have all those people in the one room. Accordingly, The Greatest Night in Pop is the kind of documentary that thrives thanks to its archival material. Putting audiences in the space with all those famous faces as they navigate who sings what when, and how, and also their various personalities, is can't-look-away viewing. A number of the talents involved also reflect upon the experience now, and the notion that some didn't want it to end at the time echoes through in both recent and decades-ago glimpses. Watching along, it's easy to understand why. The Greatest Night in Pop streams via Netflix. New and Returning Shows to Check Out Week by Week Constellation 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. 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 — and the fierceness that helped bring her to fame as Lisbeth Salander in the original Swedish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films. Jo, an astronaut, is 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, which also features Nobel Prize-winning former Apollo astronaut Henry Caldera (Jonathan Banks, Better Call Saul), who has had his own incidents in space — and there's a feeling that characters can't always trust what they think is plainly apparent to the show, too, plus a certainty that nothing is simply linear about what's occurring. Constellation streams via Apple TV+. Read our full review, and our interview with Jonathan Banks. Curb Your Enthusiasm A quarter of a century is a long time to spend with Larry David, even with gaps along the way. Friends and acquaintances of the fictionalised version seen in Curb Your Enthusiasm might have some not-so-positive things to say about investing that chunk with TV's great curmudgeons. If you're a fan of the satirical series that's been airing since 2000, however, 12 seasons isn't enough. But David has called time on his second small-screen smash. CYE won't beat Seinfeld's episode count, but it has been on-screen on and off for far longer than the famous show about nothing. And with its ending in sight, of course the inimitable force behind both starts Curb Your Enthusiasm's final season with the series' version of Larry going where Seinfeld's characters closed out their story: jail. He's there not due criminal indifference, though, but rather thanks to the opposite. In Atlanta to attend a rich fan's (Sharlto Copley, Beast) birthday party, on a paid gig courtesy of the success of Young Larry — CYE's in-show show about David's childhood — he gives a bottle of water to Leon's (JB Smoove, Office Race) Auntie Rae (Ellia English, Blood Pageant) while she's in line to vote. That's illegal, the cops pounce immediately and one of the season's key threads is born. Larry being Larry, of course he wasn't really trying to make a stand against ridiculous voter-suppression laws. Larry still being Larry, he's also content to capitalise upon being seen as a hero, complete with droves of media attention. And, Larry never able to be someone other than Larry, he's still his petty normal self regardless of how much praise flows from Bruce Springsteen. Before Beef was winning Golden Globes, Emmys and other awards for trivial squabbles, David got there first — and before The Rehearsal and The Curse's Nathan Fielder was inspiring cringing so vigorous that you can feel it in your stomach, David was as well. The show's swansong season so far is vintage Curb Your Enthusiasm, including when a lawyer who looks like one of David's many enemies, overhearing golfing lessons, throwing things at CODA Oscar-winner Troy Kotsur, getting disgruntled over breakfast menus cutting off at 11am and bickering with the late, great Richard Lewis (Sandy Wexler) are involved. As always, it continues to be fascinated with whether someone as set in his ways as David, who was the inspiration for George Constanza, can and will ever change. He won't, and watching why that's the case will only stop being comedy gold yet when the ten-episode 12th season says farewell. Curb Your Enthusiasm streams via Binge. The New Look The New Look, Apple TV+'s ten-part series about Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, hasn't chosen its points of focus because they were frequently in each other's company; as depicted here, at least, they weren't. Instead, it's a portrait of rivals, but it isn't that concerned with why the two Parisians might be adversaries beyond their shared field. That said, they're tied by more than both being French fashion figures who were working at the same time, made pioneering haute couture choices and started labels that retain household recognition today. And, when the show opens in 1954, it does so with Chanel (Juliette Binoche, The Staircase) offering harsh words about Dior (Ben Mendelsohn, Secret Invasion) to the press as she's about to unveil her first post-war collection. Her chatter is crosscut with his at the Sorbonne, where he's being honoured — and asked by students why he kept working during the Second World War while Chanel closed her atelier. Dior's answer: that such a description of the two designers' actions during WWII is the truth, but that there's also more truth behind it. Unpicking the reality — and stitching together Dior and Chanel's plights at the same time — is the series' mission. The garments that its two couturiers make might be pristine in their stylishness, but neither's history can earn the same term. Creator Todd A Kessler (Damages, Bloodline) makes a drama about choices, then. Again, it isn't fuelled by the pair being in close physical proximity, which only happens twice in the show — or even acrimony between them — but by comparing and contrasting the moves that Dior and Chanel each made during Nazi-occupied Paris and immediately afterwards. The New Look also takes its overarching perspective from the notion that haute couture's impact in assisting to revive French culture following the war was revolutionary and "helped humanity find beauty and the desire to live again". That said, with Dior and Chanel's prowess treated as a given, the bulk of its frames, handsomely shot as they are, hone in on the personal. The New Look streams via Apple TV+. Read our full review. Recent and Classic Movies to Finally Watch — or Revisit The FP, The FP 2: Beats of Rage, FP3: Escape From BAKO and FP4: EVZ Part-dance movie, part-dystopian comedy, The FP is a rare beast of a movie. It's an instant classic that feels both alluring familiar and completely its own creation, and that immediately sears every frame into your brain. Given the premise, none of the above should come as a surprise. This low-budget 2011 flick is set in a time when gangs fight over control of their home turf, aka Frazier Park, by dance-fighting it out while playing a Dance Dance Revolution-style game called Beat-Beat Revelation. Basically, if Footloose was set in a post-apocalyptic future, it would look something like this. As, yes, it would look rather amazing. Indeed, that's The FP from start to finish. That isn't where it ends, however. After becoming a true cult-favourite, it has spawned three sequels over the years since: 2018's The FP 2: Beats of Rage, 2021's FP3: Escape From BAKO and 2023's FP4: EVZ. This isn't the kind of saga that's blown up and sold out, either — every single entry feels like you can see the filmmaker's fingerprints on every frame. That writer and director is Jason Trost, who also stars as well. Beyond The FP movies, he was last seen in Foo Fighters-driven horror effort Studio 666, with his mere presence there showing the huge gap between the kind of midnight movie that flick wanted to be and the real thing. Trost plays JTRO, who starts The FP franchise training to defeat a rival — but that's only the beginning of a storyline across four films that needs to be experienced by going in as fresh as possible. In a different world, the OG movie and its sequels would get The Room treatment, returning to cinemas regularly. In Australia, big-screen sessions have been rare. That makes being able to settle in and watch all four at once via Brollie quite the treat, and a unique way to spend some couch time. Wanting to play Dance Dance Revolution also comes with the territory. The FP films stream via Brollie. Yuni Again and again in Yuni, a heartbreaking clash echoes. Its sounds stem from schoolyard gossip, superstitious tut-tutting, ultra-conservative demands and reminders that its titular character shouldn't steal anything purple that she sees. In the third feature from Indonesian filmmaker Kamila Andini (The Seen and Unseen), Yuni (Arawinda Kirana, Angkringan) is a 16-year-old in a Muslim society where agreeing to an arranged marriage is the only thing truly expected of her. When the movie begins, a proposal from construction worker Iman (Muhammad Khan, Memories of My Body) already lingers. After she declines, her classmates chatter. Then another offer comes from the much-older Mang Dodi (first-timer Toto ST Radik), who is looking for a second wife. Yuni knows the accepted myth that any woman who refuses more than two proposals will never wed, but she's also keen to make her own choices. She has a crush on teacher Mr Damar (Dimas Aditya, Satan's Slaves), and spends time with the younger and infatuated Yoga (Kevin Ardilova, Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash). She's also the smartest student at her school, with dreams of attending university. Andini's film is full of specifics, diving into the minutiae of Yuni's life — surveying Indonesian society and its customs, the roles thrust upon women from their teenage years, and enormous gap between the path that she's supposed to follow and the yearnings of her heart. This is a movie where scenes of its protagonist hanging out with her friends, whether kicking back on the grass talking about boys or dressing up with her beautician pal Suci (Asmara Abigail, Satan's Slaves 2: Communion), could be scenes from almost any teenage girl's life. Of course, then the reality sinks in, be it in discussions about husbands, babies and virginity tests, or in the teary worries about horrific power imbalances. The ability of poetry to capture everything that can't be easily uttered otherwise also floats through Andini's deeply moving picture, so it should come as no surprise that Yuni is both naturalistic and lyrical. It's precise and universal, follows an easily foreseeable path and yet proves full of surprises, and is astutely directed as well — and Kirana is a star. Yuni streams via SBS On Demand. Need a few more streaming recommendations? Check out our picks from January this year, and also from January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December 2023. You can also check out our running list of standout must-stream shows from last year as well — and our best 15 new shows of 2023, 15 newcomers you might've missed, top 15 returning shows of the year, 15 best films, 15 top movies you likely didn't see, 15 best straight-to-streaming flicks and 30 movies worth catching up on over the summer.
Something wicked this way comes: the first trailer for the 29-years-later sequel to Hocus Pocus. Yes, The Sanderson sisters are back in this follow-up to beloved 1993 favourite, with the trio wreaking havoc in modern-day Salem. For viewers, they'll be getting witchy on Disney+ in the lead up to Halloween. The Mouse House's streaming platform sure does love dropping seasonal-themed movies at the appropriate times. Here's hoping this one turns out better than last year's Christmas-focused Home Sweet Home Alone, though, when it hits the platform on Friday, September 30. Three things that Hocus Pocus 2 instantly has in its favour: original stars Bette Midler (The Addams Family 2), Sarah Jessica Parker (And Just Like That...) and Kathy Najimy (Music), all returning as Winnie, Sarah and Mary Sanderson. In the new film's first sneak peek, the magical trio make a reappearance thanks to a different threesome — a trio of teenage pals who, early in the teaser trailer, are told that "it's on the 16th birthday that a witch gets her powers". Cue a black cat, a book of spells, chanting in a graveyard and big The Craft vibes. Soon, cue Winnie, Sarah and Mary as well. Story-wise, Hocus Pocus 2 obviously follows what happens next, as the Sandersons try to unleash their child-eating ways — and the high schoolers who conjured them up attempt to stop them before dawn on All Hallow's Eve. It's been 29 years since someone last lit the black flame candle which resurrects the 17th-century sisters in the movie's world, just as it has in our own, and the witches aren't happy about it. "Lock up your children," Winnie cackles, of course. Yes, Midler makes the line count. Hocus Pocus 2 also features Sam Richardson (The Afterparty), Doug Jones (The Shape of Water), Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso), Whitney Peak (Gossip Girl), Belissa Escobedo (American Horror Stories), Lilia Buckingham (Dirt), Froyan Gutierrez (Teen Wolf) and Tony Hale (Veep). While the original film was directed by Kenny Ortega — before the filmmaker gave the world the High School Musical movies — this one has Dumplin', Hot Pursuit and The Proposal's Anne Fletcher behind the lens. Check out the trailer for Hocus Pocus 2 below: Hocus Pocus 2 will be available to stream via Disney+ on Friday, September 30. Images: courtesy of Disney Enterprises, Inc. © 2022 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Three little letters. That's all it took back in the day, to kickstart a bonafide mad chat with a perfect stranger. And now you'll be able to dredge up those three simple little alphabet members again, wielding all the power and responsibility of sending those feelers into the cybersphere. We're talkin' A/S/L. Anonymous chatrooms are about to ignite the heyday flame once again in Australia, with the launch of Facebook's new anonymous chat app, Rooms. Having launched in the US in October, the stand alone app takes cues from the IRC-type chatrooms, message boards and forums of internet beginnings. Available only on Apple devices, users can create 'rooms' to chat with other users on any topic of their choice, from baking recipes to The Hunger Games (and probably everything sordid and el rauncho in between). "Pick a topic, customize the look and feel, choose a different nickname for each room you're in and share your room with others," says the app rundown. "Rooms is perfect for the things you love and interests that makes you unique." Don't worry, your Facebook profile isn't your user profile; you can use a pseudonym (you can even use different ones for each room). Invites go through direct message invitations or public recommendations. Once you download the app, you're prompted to screenshot a QR code to see your first room. After you let the app access your photos, you're prompted to join the 'recommended rooms' picked by the Rooms team: anything from Chihuahua Lovers to Cross Stitch Room, God Talk to Depression Support. Alongside the predictable anime, TV show and music rooms, you'll find rooms for people with diabetes, ceramics and pottery lovers, trailrunning enthusiasts, rabbit parents, electric car owners. Screenshot the invite (QR code) and post to be let into the room — you'll have to wait for a moderator to approve you. Most rooms are image based, kind of like an Instagram feed-based forum. The app could be seen as an attempt to nab traffic from Reddit, already well-known and established as the current platform for this type of niche discussion. But the key to Rooms (heh) seems to be the anonymity factor, one bound to be compromised by creepy idiots at one point or another. Few reviews have been posted since the app's October release, but some have been pretty negative — one reviewer called it a "social media Burn Book". "I'm sure the creators of this app have good intentions," wrote user KSully54. "I live in Washington where a room was made to allow naked pictures or screen grabs to be posted. Without consent of the poor people who are just ridiculed and bullied. By our peers no less. hysteria has begun in my gay community which is essentially a social media Burn Book. It's incredibly sad." Via SMH. Image: Chapendra via photopin cc.
Before Snow Machine became everyone's excuse to hit up Queenstown for a stint of music and skiing, the festival launched its mix of tunes in wintry climes in Japan. That was back in 2020 and it hasn't been back there since — until 2024 rolls around. Although Snow Machine Queenstown is still to come for 2023, Snow Machine Japan has locked in its return for Monday, February 26–Saturday, March 2 in Hakuba. On the just-dropped bill: everyone from Diplo and Marc Rebillet to Bob Moses and Todd Terje, plus Japanese talents Risa Taniguchi, Satoshi Tomiie and Shinichi Osawa. Snow Machine Japan might return when summer will be shifting into autumn Down Under, but it's one helluva excuse for a frosty holiday during the northern hemisphere's winter — and Japan's snow season. No matter where it's taking place, this is the hottest festival for the colder months, packed with a snow-filled week of music and adventure. Attendees will be treated to action-packed days on the slopes, après ski events, and a hefty roster of international acts against an idyllic backdrop. And, because this is Japan, onsen trips, sake aplenty and yakitori bites are also on offer. Other than the wintry setting, one of the things that sets Snow Machine apart from other music fests is being able to book your entire getaway with your ticket. Packages span five or seven nights of accommodation, and include a festival ticket across the entire event, plus a four-day lift pass for Goryu & Hakuba 47, Tsugaike, Iwatake and Happo One. A word of warning: unsurprisingly, the packages are popular. Although the Snow Machine Japan 2024 lineup has only just been announced, packages are already 85-percent sold out. If you're keen to take care of your own place to slumber and just nab a festival ticket, that's an option as well. Lift passes, rentals, lessons and activities can be then booked on top at additional cost, and you can opt for VIP access including heating and seating while you party if you're feeling particularly cashed up. SNOW MACHINE JAPAN 2024 LINEUP: Bob Moses (club set) Busy P Claptone Denis Sulta Diplo Ewan McVica George Fitzgerald (DJ set) GG Magree Marc Rebillet Nina Kraviz Risa Taniguchi Satoshi Tomiie Shinichi Osawa Todd Terje (DJ set) Reuben Styles and Danny Clayton present First Base Snow Machine Japan 2024 will be held from Monday, February 26–Saturday, March 2 in Hakuba. Presale tickets go on sale from 12pm AEST on Thursday, August 3, with general tickets available from 12pm AEST on Friday, August 4. For more information, visit the festival's website. Images: Pat Stevenson. Feeling inspired to book a getaway? You can now book your next dream holiday through Concrete Playground Trips with deals on flights, stays and experiences at destinations all around the world.
It has always been impossible to watch TV shows by Nathan Fielder, including Nathan for You and The Rehearsal, without feeling awkwardness gushing from the screen. The films of Josh and Benny Safdie, such as Good Time and Uncut Gems, are such masterclasses in anxiety and chaos — and so astute at conveying life's anything-that-can-go-wrong-will certainty — that viewers can be forgiven for thinking that their chairs are jittering along with them. From Easy A, La La Land and Maniac to The Favourite and Poor Things, Emma Stone keeps proving an inimitable acting force. Combine Fielder, the Safdies and Stone on one series, then, and whatever sprang was always going to be a must-see. Streaming in Australia via Paramount+ from Saturday, November 11, exquisite new dark satire The Curse is also as extraordinary in its brilliance as it is excruciating in its discomfort. As well as co-creating the ten-part series, Fielder and Benny Safdie co-star, co-write and co-direct. Stone joins them on-screen and as an executive producer, with Benny's brother Josh doing the latter as well. The Safdies' regular collaborator Oneohtrix Point Never, aka Daniel Lopatin, gets the show buzzing with atmospheric agitation in one of his best scores yet — even after winning the Cannes Soundtrack Award for his unforgettable work on Good Time. And yes, The Curse is everything that the sum of these parts promises. It's more, in fact, then even more again. It flows with disquiet like a burst hydrant. It fills each almost hour-long episode with a lifetime's worth of cringe. It's relentless in its unease second by second, moment by moment and scene by scene. It's also a marvellous, intense and hilarious black comedy that apes the metal Doug Aitken-esque houses that Stone and Fielder's Whitney and Asher Siegel like to build, reflecting oh-so-much about the world around it. The Curse takes the show-within-a-show route, with the Siegels eager to grace the world's screens as reality TV hosts. Their angle: environmentally sustainable passive homes that only use energy that they create, which Whitney and Asher consider their contribution to their adopted New Mexico hometown of Española. The newly married pair have American pay TV network Home & Garden Television interested in Fliplanthropy, as well as their efforts to green up the community, create jobs for locals, and revitalise a place otherwise equated with struggling and crime stats. Lurking between the couple and HGTV is producer Dougie Schecter (Safdie, Oppenheimer), Asher's slimy and manipulative childhood friend with a nose for sensationalism — particularly when he gets the scent of disharmony among his stars as they try to start a family, get their show on the air, build their gleaming houses, find ideal buyers, honour the area's Indigenous history and overcome The Curse's title. As the series dives into, parodies and interrogates unscripted television, gentrification, whitewashing, white saviour complexes, racism, appropriation, marriage, privilege, authenticity, spiritualism, inherited burdens and more, its moniker can refer to many things. A white couple sweeping into the region, trotting out altruism for fame — and, in Whitney's case, to scrub away her association with her parents (White House Plumbers's Corbin Bernsen Search Party's and Constance Shulman), who have been dubbed slumlords for treating their tenants poorly — is hardly the gift that the Siegels think. Accordingly, while their actions around Española don't just span futuristic abodes that couldn't stand out more, but also enticing new businesses to the area with free rent, supporting campaigns for land rights and celebrating local artists, it's forever plain that every move that the pair make is about getting something out of it. Fielder has long unpacked what it truly means to show reality on-screen, plus the machinations behind it — and with unsettling precision, The Curse is no different. Stress would ripple through this series as inescapably as Whitney's desperation to become TV's next big thing anyway, and Asher's onslaught of neuroses and humiliations (you'll never think about cherry tomatoes the same way again); however, The Curse's name is also literal. Being filmed for B-roll footage for the pilot at Dougie's suggestion, Asher gives primary schooler Nala (debutant Hikmah Warsame) a $100 note while she's selling soft drink in a carpark with her father Abshir (Captain Phillips Oscar-nominee Barkhad Abdi). Then, when the shot is over and his performative compassion is no longer needed, he snatches the money back. The girl's response, as accompanied by a steely gaze and the unfettered anger of a child wronged by an adult: "I curse you". As bad luck springs for the Siegels afterwards, arriving in both big and small ways, those words keep lingering. Again, Fielder ponders what is real and isn't, finding another way into his favourite topic. Whitney already oozes must-do-now urgency — served with a wide Stone smile — about anything that could stymie her quest for television domination, and Asher is a walking portrait of please-accept-me torment from the get-go; then comes the hex and the fudging of lines between what's a mess of their own making, what springs from paranoia and what may be supernatural. Aptly, when The Curse's title appears on-screen at the start of each episode, it shimmers with wavy lines looking glass-style to kick off this streaming mirror mirror, distorting and disorienting in the process. Birds sometimes fly directly into the Siegels' shiny houses, meeting their ends after not spotting what's looming right there in front of them, which also makes a fitting metaphor. Squirming and watching Fielder might go hand in hand, but the experience has rarely been better than in The Curse. Neither has Fielder. His familiar directorial instinct to let moments persist to the point of aching mortification continues here, sparking his most purposefully perturbing performance yet — because watching someone this bumbling yet authoritative, and this muddled and self-conscious in everything they do yet bolstered by their status, race and bank balance, is meant to be this incisively agonising. With the show often shot like it's spying, including through windows and doorways, Stone and Safdie are equally exceptional and difficult to look away from. The yearning to be worshipped and praised non-stop, and the fear of her carefully constructed do-gooder facade being cracked, is weaponised in Stone's portrayal. Meanwhile, Safdie plays the kind of shifty that can't be shaken devastatingly well. In a plethora of ways, The Curse ticks all the boxes that it was always going to, especially via Fielder, the Safdies and Stone's exacting involvement. Throw in the fact that A24 is behind the series, placing it on a slate alongside Beau Is Afraid, You Hurt My Feelings, smash-hit Australian horror movie Talk to Me and fellow TV series Beef from 2023 alone — each of which could pair with The Curse for different reasons — and that truth only grows. And yet, no one can pick exactly where this show is heading while watching, even when you're sure that you have and those predictions come to fruition in an exchange, plot point, theme or revelation. Consider it a funhouse hall of mirrors, then: you know that something warped will confront you wherever you look, but you can never be confident of what it'll be. Consider The Curse one of the best new TV shows of 2023, too, and the type of unique viewing that's a glittering treasure even it inspires non-stop dread and horror that threatens to swallow you whole. Check out the trailer for The Curse below: The Curse streams from Saturday, November 11 via Paramount+. Images: Beth Garrabrant and John Paul Lopez/A24/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME.
Unlike Dorian Gray, surely Sarah Snook doesn't have a portrait in her attic that withers as she succeeds. The Australian Succession star might want to make some room on her mantle, though, or wherever she keeps her trophies. After winning a 2024 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for the London version of Sydney Theatre Company's The Picture of Dorian Gray, she has now picked up a Tony nomination for the production's current Broadway season. Snook is in contention for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role of a Play — and she's the only actor from The Picture of Dorian Gray to earn recognition because she's the show's sole cast member. Thanks to collecting five other nominations, for Best Direction of a Play (Kip Williams), Best Scenic Design of a Play (Marg Horwell and David Bergman), Best Costume Design of a Play (Marg Horwell again), Best Lighting Design of a Play (Nick Schlieper) and Best Sound Design of a Play (Clemence Williams), the production is now the most-nominated solo show in Tony history. "I couldn't be prouder of our incredible production and all of the individuals who have created it and bring it to life. Sarah Snook's nomination for her absolutely extraordinary performance is so very well-deserved, as are the nominations for our entire Australian creative team," said producer Michael Cassel. "The response to this production, be it in Australia, the West End and now Broadway is testament to the creativity, talent and sheer vision of all those involved and is wonderful recognition of Sydney Theatre Company and Kip Williams who took the bold risk of originating such a visionary and daring piece of theatre, right here in Sydney". Whether Snook will be adding to her Olivier Award, plus her Emmy, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards for Succession, as well as her multiple AACTA Awards (including in 2025 for Memoir of a Snail), will be revealed on Monday, June 9, 2025, Australian time. Before The Picture of Dorian Gray gave Snook her Broadway debut playing all 26 of the play's parts, it was a smash in Australia with Eryn Jean Norvill (Love Me) in the lead. When it made the leap to the UK starring Snook, it became the talk of West End. It's also been picked up by Cate Blanchett's (Disclaimer) production company Dirty Films to get the film treatment. Not only does the show feature just one performer playing every single character but, to make that happen, it uses video to help. It's the work of writer/director Kip Williams, it's groundbreaking, and it's been understandably earning audiences raves and winning accolades. On the page, The Picture of Dorian Gray is also exceptional, as well as astute and unnerving, as it follows the selling of its namesake's soul in order to keep indulging every corporeal whim, urge and desire. There's a reason that it just keeps getting adapted for the screen and in theatres, after all. But there's never been a version like Sydney Theatre Company's, which the Tonys now clearly appreciate. Check out the trailer for the Broadway season of The Picture of Dorian Gray below: The 78th Tony Awards are taking place on Monday, June 9 Australian time — head to the accolades' website for more details. The Picture of Dorian Gray has been playing Broadway in New York since March 2025 — for more information and to join the waitlist for tickets, head to the play's website. Images: Marc Brenner.
Motoi Yamamoto’s sculpture is bringing a new meaning to ‘living in the moment’. The supremely disciplined artist from Hiroshima creates installations out of grains of salt. Using intricate techniques that involve layering, shaking, sweeping and infinite amounts of patience, he has made a labyrinth, a set of steps, a ‘corridor to remembrance’ and a series of complex patterns that imitate biological systems. When the works have run their course, he sends them back to the sea. Yamamoto’s engagement with salt as a form started eighteen years ago, when he lost his sister to brain cancer. She was just 24, and struggling to cope with the loss, Yamamoto sought a way to recall his memories through his art. His very first piece was a bed comprised of bricks and the second, a three-dimensional representation of the human brain. In Japan, salt symbolises the processes of cleansing and mourning. Its use forms an important part of funeral rituals. Restaurateurs and small business owners often place salt at their doors, in the belief that it deters evil spirits and magnetises forces for good. “I can’t tell if my feelings of death have been changed by the passage of time or by the process of creating my work,” Yamamoto told the Daily Serving in June last year. “I don’t have any way to compare to the two alternatives because I’ve only experienced this through my work, not through a more conventional mourning process. I would like to think that it altered my thoughts on loss gradually, but I don’t know.” Yamamoto’s salt installations have been exhibited in galleries all over the world, from the Ierimonti Gallery in Milan to the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, USA. Last month, they were on show at the Mint Museum in Charlotte.
Mandatory across all of Victoria (from tonight) and encouraged elsewhere when you cannot maintain social distancing (on public transport and at supermarkets, for example), face masks have become a part of everyday life for many Australians. There are plenty of shops across the country selling them now, but if you want to make yours a touch more unique, Petflair is here to help. The company is selling custom face masks with your pet's adorable fluffy (or not-so-fluffy) face on them. Whether you have an iguana, schnoodle or misanthropic cat, you can get their face emblazoned on a mask for all your fellow grocery shoppers to see. The masks are made to Department of Health and Human Services guidelines with three layers — a 100 percent polyester outside layer and 100 percent cotton face and filter-pocket layers — and come in ten different colours, including pastel pink, yellow, red, blue and black. They'll set you back $39.95 each — or two for $70 — with free shipping across Australia. Because of high demand, Petflair is only taking orders until 4pm on Wednesday, August 5 and shipping may take three-to-four weeks. So, you may need to get another couple of masks in the meantime (we've got some suggestions here). As an added bonus, the company is giving a portion of profits to charity Pound Paws, which helps pounds and rescue centres rehome animals across Australia. If you're set for masks, Petflair also makes towels and bathers with your pet's face on it. You'll be more than ready for a summer of social distancing on the beach if you get a set of these with Fido on them. Petflair is selling its custom print pet masks for $39.95. Orders must be submitted by 4pm on Wednesday, August 5. Top image: @dobiejax
If his headline speaker gig at the first-ever SXSW Sydney filled Charlie Brooker with tech nightmare inspiration, viewers are about to reap the benefits: more Black Mirror is on its way. The dystopian anthology series released its sixth season in 2023, and now Netflix has renewed it for another batch of episodes. Imagining how humanity's use of technology can keep going wrong clearly hasn't met its limits yet. Variety reports that Black Mirror will start production on season seven before 2023 is out — but details from there are scarce. The number of instalments, who'll star and which storylines will feature haven't yet been revealed, but Brooker (Cunk on Earth) and fellow executive producers Annabel Jones (also Cunk on Earth) and Jessica Rhoades (Station Eleven) are expected to return. Locking in Black Mirror's next season so soon after its last is a contrast to the show's fate between season five and season six. After the former dropped its three episodes in 2019, fans were left waiting and wondering about more to come. Then, in 2022, word started circulating that the sixth season was in the works. In April 2023, the series' Twitter account posted "what have we missed?" — then the trailers started coming, ahead of season six's arrival in June. The show's most-recent instalments pondered streaming algorithms with Salma Hayek Pinault (Magic Mike's Last Dance) and Annie Murphy (Kevin Can F**k Himself), true crime with Samuel Blenkin (The Witcher: Blood Origin) and Myha'la Herrold (Bodies Bodies Bodies), and an alternative 1969 with Aaron Paul (Westworld), Josh Hartnett (Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre) and Kate Mara (Call Jane). Also on its list: a paparazzi tale with Zazie Beetz (Atlanta), Clara Rugaard (I Am Mother) and Danny Ramirez (Stars at Noon) — and the first Red Mirror episode, going full horror, with Anjana Vasan (Killing Eve), Paapa Essiedu (Men), Katherine Rose Morley (The Syndicate) and David Shields (Benediction). Season six was teased as "the most unpredictable, unclassifiable and unexpected season yet", which is saying something given everything that Black Mirror has thrown at the screen in past seasons (and in choose-your-own-adventure-style movie Black Mirror: Bandersnatch). And yes, Brooker does keep facing quite the challenge: making something that manages to be even more dispiriting than reality over the past few years. That's increasingly been one of the show's dilemmas — and noting that something IRL feels just like Black Mirror has become one of the cliches of our times — but clearly he has more ideas. There's no trailer yet for Black Mirror's seventh season, of course, but you can check out the trailer for season six below: Black Mirror season seven will stream via Netflix, but doesn't yet have a release date — we'll update you when one is announced. Read our review of season six, and our interview with Charlie Brooker. Via Variety. Images: Nick Wall / Netflix.
If you're heading to Byron Bay this summer, get ready to ride the world's first solar-powered train. The two-carriage chugger was built in Sydney in 1949, but, from December 16, it'll travel along a three-kilometre track between downtown Byron Bay and Northbeach Station up near Sunrise Beach and the Byron arts and industrial estate, driven solely by the sun's energy. Byron Bay Railroad Company, which is operating as a non-profit, has spent four years restoring the train, which was in disuse. There are seats for 100 passengers, as well as standing room for extras and, importantly, space for surfboards and bicycles. To begin, the train will operate on a limited timetable, but will run once per hour between 8am and 10pm — at a cost of three bucks per person — from January. More frequent runs will be considered in line with passenger demand and operating costs. Back in the day, the train ran on diesel. Its conversion took place at the Lithgow Railway Workshop, where solar panels were added to the roof and solar-charged batteries installed. While Indian Railways did launch a solar-powered train earlier this year, the sun only powers the lights, fans and displays on that vehicle. By comparison, on this train, the batteries can power every system, including lighting, air compressors, control circuits and traction. And, should the sun hide its face for a while, they'll gain energy from the grid's green arm. One diesel engine has been removed and replaced with an electric drive package. The remaining diesel engine is staying on-board for to provide emergency back up in the case of an electrical glitch. The Byron Bay Railroad Company's services operate from 8am to 10pm daily from January. For more information, visit byronbaytrain.com.au.
Not all fresh seafood is created equal. Sure, whatever your local fish 'n' chippery sells was probably caught that day, but it wasn't caught just moments ago. If you're keen on the freshest batch of prawns you can get short of catching them yourself, then head to Shorncliffe. Around Cabbage Tree Creek, you'll hit the payload, trawlers unloading their latest ocean bounty. There's nothing like chatting to the folks that caught your seafood, after all — your meal just might come with a story. Arriving early and taking an esky with you is highly recommended — then, go exploring for the ideal spot to eat your feast. Getting the most out of your fresh batch involves peeling them yourself and devouring them as fast as possible, and whether you head to a park or the pier, you're in the right place to do just that.
Ask writer/director Sally Aitken about more than a year spent celebrating her documentary about Los Angeles' hummingbirds — a movie that premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, also screened at SXSW in Austin and Hot Docs in Toronto, then made its way Sydney and Adelaide's film fests as well, and was nominated for an AACTA Award across that journey — and she answers with a sense of humour. "I was about to make a little joke about 'it's like a little hummingbird migrating everywhere'," she tells Concrete Playground. That's a parallel drawn with the utmost of affection, however, as anyone that has seen Every Little Thing and witnessed the immense care that it has for the gorgeous tiny birds in front of its cameras will instantly recognise. "It's amazing," the Australian documentarian also notes about the film's global tour, flitting to Greece, Poland, New Zealand, the UK, the Netherlands, Estonia and Sweden, too, before it opened in Australian cinemas to kick off March 2025. When Aitken turned her lens towards beloved Australian film critic David Stratton in 2017 doco David Stratton: A Cinematic Life, the end result played at Cannes. 2023's Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles, the movie immediately prior to Every Little Thing on her resume, screened at the first-ever SXSW Sydney. The last time that the filmmaker peered at nature on the big screen, in 2021's Valerie Taylor: Playing with Sharks, she also scored a Sundance premiere. Together, those four titles paint a picture not just of an Aussie director's success and recognition around the world, or of her versatility, but of her desire to dig into an array of different stories of our humanity. "I like to make films that look at this incredible world through a new lens or through the other end of the telescope," she advises about a recent resume that's spanned appreciating cinema, reappraising ocean predators, the origins of iconic childhood entertainers and now a hotline for hummingbirds. Every Little Thing is indeed about hummingbirds in LA, but it's also about a person who has dedicated decades to tending to the birds' injuries. It was Terry Masear's book Fastest Things on Wings: Rescuing Hummingbirds in Hollywood — a review of it, to begin with — about her Los Angeles Hummingbird Rescue that sparked Aitken's second film of the 2020s about women and their connection with animals. That text was a memoir of its author's endeavours since 2004, but Every Little Thing's personal aspects, stepping through Masear's experiences beyond rehabilitating the smallest mature birds there are as well, is exclusive to the documentary. In interweaving the two, Aitken has crafted a pivotal chronicle of resilience among winged critters and humans alike. Wildlife rescue is a field of highs, hopes, healing and heartbreaks, as the film captures in detail. Existence is for all creatures anyway, great and small, as the documentary also examines. A phone call for Masear, a retired UCLA professor, usually means that a hummingbird in the City of Angels is in trouble. The reality of human life in the Californian city isn't always kind to the American-native species, but Masear unceasingly is. Every Little Thing flutters through her efforts as birds after birds are brought to her door — and as she attends to them in their various stages of need, aiming to get each one back flying over LA in the wild. Cactus, Jimmy, Wasabi, Alexa, Mikhail: they're just some of the hummingbirds that flap in and out, and that Masear treats with the sincerest of compassion. [caption id="attachment_995806" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jacquie Manning[/caption] Every Little Thing surveys the ins and outs of the rehab process, including syringe-feeding fruit flies to babies as dawn breaks, taking birds through workouts to test their flying capacity, and transitioning them from incubators to aviaries and ideally back into the sunny skies. It explores the characters, feathered and human — and among the former, it is also well-aware that some under Masear's supervision won't make it. This deeply empathetic film sees the hummingbirds in all of their glory, using cameras capable of capturing their super-fast speed, and also peers at Hollywood as they do thanks to bird's-eye view imagery. Crucially, it's as much about what it means to devote your time to another creature, to commit to riding the rollercoaster of their wins and setbacks, and to truly care. After watching Every Little Thing, no one should look at feathered friends above, or at any animal life, in the same way again — and while viewing it, everyone should enjoy witnessing its critters in detail that they've likely never seen before. This is a touching movie, for audiences, those in it and the folks behind it. We also chatted with Aitken about the kindness at the picture's core, the inspiration to bring Masear's work to the screen, the film's personal turns, the extensive editing process thanks to hundreds of hours of footage, its often-breathtaking visual approach, and weathering the act that bird rehab involves both soaring joy and aching sorrow. On Every Little Thing's Year-Plus-Long Journey From Premiering at Sundance to Releasing in Australian Cinemas, Via Playing at Other Film Festivals Around the World — and the Reaction to It "It's so incredible as a filmmaker when you can see, very visibly in these kinds of scenarios like film festivals and in front of cinema audiences, how people are affected by the film. And I don't mean you perversely sitting there waiting for people to clap, or to cry or whatever, but the fact that the film is an emotional film for people. I think that's the affirming part of it, because we set out to make something that would be an invitation and something that would be a work that wasn't necessarily literal — that invited people to these ideas of compassion and kindness in a very beautiful way, with the sunny cinematography and the delicate hummingbirds — and that was supposed to also be about us as much as the birds. To have a film that premieres at Sundance is a thrill. To then be consecutively invited to all of these incredibly prestigious marquee film festivals, and then now to be in a cinema run, that's extraordinary — especially, especially right now, in the marketplace right now, where most of the offer is murdered bodies and people in office doing pretty crazy things. So, yeah, it's lovely." On What It Means as an Australian Filmmaker to Have Your Work Repeatedly Embraced by Festivals Across the Globe, as Aitken's David Stratton, Valerie Taylor, The Wiggles and Now Terry Masear Docos Have Enjoyed "It's funny because all those films are really quite different, but maybe they're also helmed by something that you're not even conscious that you're necessarily reaching for when you're making the film. I am very interested in our humanity. I like to make films that look at this incredible world through a new lens or through the other end of the telescope. So it's a thrill when that work gets invited to any of those festivals that you're mentioning. These are extraordinary environments to see work from all around the world. And I think it just speaks to the fact that we have an industry in Australia that is pretty challenged right now, and we are making work that that is as good, on par, right up there with everybody else — and that feels really good to be part of this global independent filmmaking sector." On Why Aitken Was Inspired to Bring Masear's Work with Hummingbirds to the Screen "Initially, I was sent the review of Terry's memoir and I genuinely thought 'what the heck? A hotline for hummingbirds?'. 'That is really very particular' was my initial thought. The curiosity of that was amazing to me. Not that I'm unaware that wildlife rescue happens, but I just never conceived that somebody would have such a singular focus — that hummingbirds would have this 24/7 helpline. And what on earth did that look like? So it was very much initially a curiosity, and when I read Terry's book, I realised it was so much more than that. The way she writes about the birds, it's very metaphorical. I realised in that moment there was an incredible opportunity to see these birds not just in their cinematic beauty — obviously the visual appeal of this film was always there — but that they could be this carrier of these much bigger philosophical ideas, these universal truths about our humanity. They were like a mirror to us. So I thought 'that is a really interesting film', that possibility, that invitation. It felt to me like this was much more than the story of someone just rehabilitating the hummingbirds that may be in that rehabilitation. It was actually a rehabilitation for ourselves. That was the starting point." On Making Two Films in the Past Four Years About Women and Their Work with Animals, and Their Place Among Aitken's Diverse Filmography Otherwise "It's certainly no secret that I am a huge champion of women's stories — women who are brilliant, women who are badass, women who are dastardly, women who are heroic. I think we can't scream those stories enough. But actually, what was quite funny, especially at Sundance — because Valerie Taylor: Playing with Sharks played at Sundance, and then this just played three years later — so many of the moderators, exactly like you, observed, they say 'oh, Sally was here three years ago with this film about this woman and the natural world, and what draws you to these stories of women?'. And the truth is that I make films about all kinds of things. I do true crime. I do music. I do all sorts of stories. So what I would say was 'well, fun fact, between Playing with Sharks and Every Little Thing, I made a small film about a small group called The Wiggles'. And actually the crowd, who are American by and large, they all cracked up laughing because it's so incongruous, right? This story about this childhood band in the midst of these films about ourselves and the interconnectedness with the natural, amazing, wonderful, miraculous world that we live in. But I think it's the same thing as what we were talking about before: it's finding a story that you think you know and telling this totally different story about that thing. So whether that's about sharks and the demonisation of sharks, and actually seeing them through the eyes of a woman who's quite literally been playing with them since the 1950s; or whether that's seeing the most well-known yellow-, purple-, red-, blue-clad characters that we see every day or every week on our breakfast television, and suddenly seeing them not in those colours, but seeing them as an incredible, incredible story of chasing your dreams, and this audacious idea of school teachers making it to Madison Square Garden; or whether it's hummingbirds, which in America are ubiquitous, they're just in everybody's backyard, and actually seeing them as these kind of magical fairy creatures — it's that same idea. It's just taking these things and putting a whole new lens on them, and telling a really hopefully cinematic, emotional story in the process." On How Every Little Thing Also Became About Masear's Personal Story "So it is really an act of faith, making a documentary. She says in the film she doesn't trust easily. That is true. What is also true is that when I read her book, her book doesn't talk about her personal story at all. Her book very much deals with the hummingbirds that she has looked after in the last 20-odd years, and it takes a few of those very memorable hummingbirds and explores the stories of how she came to care for those birds and what happened to those birds through rehab. That's essentially what the book is talking about. So the book is very much about her and the work with the rehabilitation. But it's this funny thing when you're making a film, especially a film that is observational — and documentaries on that kind of film, you're a very small crew. You're very, very tight. You're very intimate. And you're all signed up to this unknown adventure, because it's not like a drama. I always joke, I always think this is so much harder because we don't have a script, you don't have paid actors, you're not able to write your way out of the scene. You're actually filming real life. But she became increasingly comfortable. I'm very transparent in the way that I work. I like to tell people what my intention is, and also share my own vulnerabilities. I don't know how it's going to work out. Certainly that's not a statement that's not confident, but it's saying 'we're all in this together' — and I think that's very disarming for people, and certainly for Terry. She felt like she was among people who really valued her work, and so of course she started to trust us. And then so what actually happened is that she started opening up about her personal life — and of course, as soon as she did that, that was amazing, because so much fell into place in relation to some of the motivations for why she does the work that she does, or what might inspire her to do this work in the first place. So while that all happened, I also then, when I got into the edit with my brilliant, brilliant editor Tania Nehme [Monolith], I didn't want to make a film that was completely didactic. And so, like I said before, it was really an invitation. I wanted to draw this idea of Terry's biography, but to do it still in this lyrical, poetic way that just revealed the layers of her biography as we moved through the rehab process." On the Challenges of Editing, Including the Difficulties of Whittling Down the Footage and Deciding Which Hummingbird Stories to Tell "You are not wrong: the edit is absolutely the challenge, the moment that you go 'oh my god, I think I need to go and open a florist shop. Can I do it? It's really hard. How can these tiny birds be so goddamn heavy?'. You definitely have these moments where you think 'what?', and the volume of the footage was a big part of that. Terry takes so many calls through the season, and of course we captured as much as we could, but it's really a process, an iterative process. And so we got into the edit suite, and the one clear thing that I remember discussing with Tania was that our task in the edit was really to make the smallest things feel giant, to feel epic, to feel the stuff of grand cinema. So with that aspiration in mind, it was really just a process of working and working our way through the volume of footage. And then some of the characters, they reveal themselves to you. Jimmy is hilarious. Cactus is vulnerable. Alexa and Mikhail are thwarted love. In the mix of things, we wanted these characters to — in a way — be this mirror to the human experience as much as they were their own individual heroes, or are their own individual heroes, in the film." On Capturing Stunning Footage of Birds Known for Their Super-Fast Speed, and Pairing It with a Bird's-Eye View of Los Angeles "Right from the beginning, it felt like a film that had all of this visual potential. So if you've seen a hummingbird in real life, you know that they are incredibly fast — and magical. They look like fairies. They just whip in, they kind of come up and look at you, and then they whip off again. But the way that Terry wrote about them was very metaphoric, like I was saying. So I wanted to reach for a visual style and a visual treatment that was really replicating the way that Terry sees the birds — and the way that she sees them is otherworldly. So in the same way that a hotline for hummingbirds is quite specific, there is also a cinematographer whose specialty is hummingbirds. That's also pretty specific. So her name is Ann Johnson Prum [Terra Mater] and she lives in America. She is American. And she's an expert cinematographer with a camera called the Phantom Flex. The Phantom Flex is a camera that shoots at an incredibly high frame rate — it goes up to 1000 frames a second. And what that means is that when you film footage at a high frame rate, you can then really slow it down. So from the beginning, we wanted to lean into this idea of being able to enter into the hummingbirds' realm and not just be in our human limited sensory experience of them. And the other thing is that we have also two other cinematographers in the camera team, two Australian DPs, Dan Freene [Skategoat] and Nathan Barlow [a Valerie Taylor: Playing with Sharks alum]. And so we leant into cinematic time lenses, and that gave us macro lenses. So that gave us an ability to be really close to the birds — so close, in fact, that at times you can see their eyelashes. I mean, who knew that hummingbirds have eyelashes? So it was a huge challenge, but we really wanted to meet that challenge in order to make the birds feel worthy of this big-screen treatment, because they are worthy of a big-screen treatment. And it's really quite trippy, actually, when you know that a hummingbird is quite literally the size of your little finger, and then you're looking at it on a giant cinema screen — it's quite trippy, the experience for the viewers. So I was quite interested in playing with all of those ideas." On Every Little Thing's Crew Coping with the Casualties in Masear's Line of Work — as Newcomers to Facing It — But Ensuring That This Is a Film of Hope "That's a really perceptive question. And we were talking before about that intimate relationship — absolutely, of course, every time you make a film about whatever subject, it changes you or it affects you, not only because you're learning new things, but because you're working with, encountering, engaging with, being trusted with other people's experiences and their stories. So I found the whole experience incredibly moving. I think that, at the same time that I was in the edit — and Tania and I worked incredibly closely together. The shoot is very intense, you have the whole team, but when you're in the edit, it's really just the two of you. And the algorithms didn't make this film. It's a film that really, really does come from the heart, and it's exploring things that aren't always talked about or aren't always obvious. So to circle back to your first question, which is about the reaction, it's hugely affirming when people respond to that because it tells you that that need is there in all of us to have these stories about what is good in our humanity, what is kind, what is empathetic in a world that's actually constantly cynical — and constantly telling you that people are bad and politics is awful, and the world is existentially threatened with climate change. When you are in this news cycle, which is a horror show, when there's a story that comes along that reminds you that humans are resilient, imaginative, kind and empathetic, that's a good news story. And it's not like a Pollyanna good news — as you say, birds die. Life is tragic. Life is unfair. Life is awful. But the message, I suppose, in the film is that what matters is how you respond to that and the compassion that you put in when you're engaged in life. And I just thought that was such an extraordinary idea, along with the idea that if you take the time to get on bended knee for something that is so small, that's a giant act of your own humanity. I just thought that was such a strong, compelling call to arms for all of us, for how we can be — we can just be better." Every Little Thing opened in Australian cinemas on Thursday, March 6, 2025.
Yesterday afternoon, Melbourne hosted a climate change rally and knocked it out of the park. Upwards of 60,000 people attended the march through the CBD, which according to organisers would make it the largest rally of its kind in Australian history. The demonstrators marched from the State Library to Parliament House, and were joined by the likes of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, Greens Senator Richard Di Natalie and national treasure Paul Kelly, who led the crowd in a rendition of 'From Little Things, Big Things Grow.' The People's Climate March in Melbourne was the first of many set to take place around the country this weekend, with Australian's calling on their leaders to take a strong stand against climate change ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris next week. According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, a further 10,000 people marched through Brisbane this morning, while there's a demonstration scheduled for Sydney tomorrow afternoon. Here's hoping they can amass even bigger numbers. If there was ever a time to put the ol' Sydney-Melbourne rivalry to good use, this would have to be it. To find the closest People's Climate March near you, go here. And if you want to feel good about humanity, we've gathered some of the best social media reactions from the Melbourne rally, below. "Coal- don't dig it! Leave it in the ground, it's time to get with it!" Huge crowds at Melb #peoplesclimate march! pic.twitter.com/IHRG8mLm1L — Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) November 27, 2015 'The largest climate change rally we have ever seen in Australian history' #peoplesclimate #COP21 #melbourne https://t.co/Rcs2IjuU58 — CAHA Inc (@healthy_climate) November 27, 2015 That's a great view #Melbourne #peoplesclimate march @Peoples_Climate 50,000 pic.twitter.com/MPAXtslZgo — Samantha Dunn (@SamanthaDunnMP) November 27, 2015 Pics from the #peoplesclimate march in Melbourne this evening. Organisers think they have 30,000. #PeoplesMarch pic.twitter.com/IA1zFib0om — Melissa Davey (@MelissaLDavey) November 27, 2015 Pretty sure this guy just won #peoplesclimate (via @350Australia) pic.twitter.com/dAN3TSEjjO — GetUp! (@GetUp) November 27, 2015
Aussies are embracing the no- and low-alcohol movement. When we go out to a bar, bottle shop or even our local supermarket, we are spoiled for choice with options for non-alcoholic wines, beers, mocktails and spirits. One such offering is from premium alcohol-removed winery Edenvale Wines. It has positioned itself as an alternative range of wines for wine lovers if they've decided to go booze-free for whatever reason. We caught up with Edenvale Wines winemaker Aaron Milne to find out how the heck you even get the alcohol out of the wine, and what the future is for the no and low trend. First up, tell us about your background. How did you become involved in the wine world? I started in wine by picking up some work during the holidays working in the cellar door. About 16 or 17 years ago, I took a vintage job with Lindeman's Winery and I really enjoyed it. While I was there, I researched and jumped on a winemaking degree at Charles Sturt University. I was offered to come and work at AVL (Australian Vintage Limited) and they offered to help me with my studies. I did that and I really haven't looked back. It's been hectic! What was it about the wine industry that drew you in? It's just very different. When you're working in a factory or other production facility you do one thing every day, all the time. Whereas with wine, because it's so seasonal, we're doing a different thing at each time of the year and each wine is different and each season is different. So, although you are kind of making the same product every year, there's always something very exciting and challenging about it. So how, and why, did you end up making alcohol-removed wines? It was actually just fate. I was working at AVL and they had a division that had an alcohol-removal facility. They offered me a position to run the place. I was interested in the process, the spinning cone, evaporators, thermo flash extractors and all sorts of different pieces of equipment. Back in those days, there was some scepticism about the concept — "Who is actually going for alcohol-removed wines?" — and then suddenly it just turned around. People became really keen on it and it just grew and grew. AVL is where I met Michael Bright, he was our biggest customer and really championed the alcohol-removed wine category with Edenvale. I worked closely with him to improve and develop products and processes. When Michael asked if I wanted to join Edenvale and help them build a brand-new processing plant, I jumped at the opportunity. Can you bring me through the process of actually making alcohol-removed wines? The basic winemaking process is the same. We harvest the fruit, remove the stems and leaves and then crush the fruit to get all the juice, then add yeast and ferment it. Once fermented, it is clarified to remove impurities and put through cold and heat stabilisation to prevent spoilage. There are other potential steps like ageing in oak barrels and so on. But essentially, you get it to the bottle-ready stage and then we start the process to remove the alcohol. The standard method is with a spinning cone that uses vacuum distillation. This puts wine under a vacuum to reduce the pressure and lower the boiling point of alcohol. Before this method, winemakers would just boil the alcohol out of the wine — cooking out all of the flavours. Now we're able to remove the alcohol at quite low temperatures down around the 30–40-degree range. This first round is called the 'de aroma step' because the alcohol that is removed also includes all the aromas of the wine. We hold the alcohol and aromas to one side and pass the wine through again more slowly to get rid of the rest of the alcohol. What's left is a quite harsh, severe wine that's been concentrated as well. It's honestly undrinkable. So then we restore balance. Alcohol is very sweet. So when you remove the alcohol, you remove a lot of sweetness. We normally put in some grape juice concentrate to replace that. When it's ready, we return a small portion of that aroma that we took out back into the wine — but only a little bit at a time as there's alcohol in the aromas. We're not adding artificial flavours and trying to blend artificial or natural sorts of flavours to recreate wine. We're taking the original flavor and we're returning it to the wine. So, it's almost like you kind of deconstruct the wine and you reconstruct it again? Yes, we essentially pull it apart, get the alcohol out and then try and put it back together. And the alcohol by-product doesn't go to waste either. We sell it to distilleries for further processing and they sell that on to brandy makers. It makes for a good spirit because we use good quality grapes and wines. What's the biggest challenge you'd face when making alcohol-removed wines? It can be challenging, not just because of the flavour, but also trying to make it not look like watery juice. We also have issues with spoilage. As we've removed the alcohol, we've removed the main preservative that stops it from going bad. We have a really short time frame from when we remove the alcohol to trying to get it into a bottle nice and safe in a sealed environment because it really wants to ferment. With regular wines, you can leave it for months or longer before bottling, but we don't have that luxury with alcohol-removed wines. We need to get everything right in one go. Do you think an average wine drinker would be able to tell the difference between alcohol-removed wines and traditional wines? If you don't prime them and just pour wine at dinner and don't mention it, you might get away with it for an average wine drinker. It'll be much harder to detect that there's no alcohol in a sparkling wine than in aromatic whites. We find that sparkling wines are the easiest to make as the bubbles help to fill the palate and lift the flavour so you don't notice the missing alcohol quite so much. Then the next is probably our aromatic white like sauv blanc and riesling because they are fresh and fruity. Then more complex heavier whites like chardonnay. It gets a little bit easier to tell with reds. When we pull that aroma out, what's left is an extremely floral red berry flavour, not the expected complex notes and then there are the tannins. I was going to ask, do you lose any of that tannin structure? No, it actually comes forward really aggressively. The sweetness and mouthfeel of alcohol tend to help soften those tannins. When you take that away, the tannins become really quite harsh. That's why the alcohol-removed wines have grape juice concentrate in them to replace that alcohol sweetness and also to make those tannins a lot less harsh and more drinkable. Our GSM from Fleurieu Peninsula is a more serious de-alcoholised red that stacks up. We've done our best to dry up that wine as much as possible. How would you go about pairing Edenvale Wines? The wines pair excellently with food. You can even cook with them — there's no alcohol to cook off. I would say to pair seafood with our sem sauvignon blanc, canapes with our sparkling and for a big rich fatty steak I'd probably go with our sparkling shiraz. It might seem like an odd choice but it's got a big body and mouthfeel that would help to balance out a nice big steak. Do you see a point in the future where traditional wine is a competitor to your wines? I think right now it's different enough that people are choosing us specifically because we have no alcohol. If it gets to a stage where they're deciding whether or not they feel like alcohol and we're a good alternative, that would be a good place to be. But it's great that punters have the choice now between a mocktail, zero-alcohol beer and zero-alcohol wine. And why do you think there has been such a trend towards non-alcoholic beverages of all kinds? There's definitely an underlying trend in younger people to drink less alcohol and a growing health awareness around the consumption of alcohol. Speaking from my own point of view, if I get a hangover before a weekend when I have plans, that then makes me feel like I've wasted my entire weekend. With these wines, we retain all the good things about the drink, all the good extracts from the grape, just no alcohol. What do you think would be the future for Edenvale Wines and alcohol-removed wines in general? I think right now the focus on this side of the wine world is fantastic. There's a lot more energy in the industry. We're getting a lot more funding into research and I think we may see new developments and new technology to make the process even better. Edenvale Wines is a premium range of alcohol-removed wines that are available to purchase directly from the website or at most major supermarkets and liquor retailers.
Given how 2020 has turned out, we can all be forgiven for hoping that next year is much, much brighter. In Sydney, that'll happen literally. After cancelling its 2020 festival due to COVID-19, Vivid has announced that it'll make a comeback in 2021, returning with another jam-packed lineup of light installations, live music and interesting discussions. When Vivid re-emerges next year, it'll do so with one big change: a later time slot. Usually, the luminous fest's events and city-wide glow mark the end of autumn and the beginning of winter; however, in 2021, it'll run from August 6–28 instead. Whether you're a Sydneysider in desperate need of a bit more light in your life, or you're located elsewhere and contemplating local 2021 holidays — seeing that Australia's international border is likely to stay closed for some time — you can now look forward to a late-winter feast of projections, tunes and talks. Exactly what the program will hold hasn't yet been announced, with the lineup usually unveiled a few months before the event. [caption id="attachment_761801" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Jordan Munns[/caption] If it had gone ahead in 2020, this year's Vivid was set to be headlined by US neo-soul singer and poet Jill Scott. The festival cancelled before it released its full lineup of gigs, installations, light shows and other cultural events. As well as a change of date, it's sensible to expect that moving around Vivid might look a little different in 2021, too. The event hasn't announced anything along those lines but, in 2019, it attracted more than two million attendees. That's quite the crowd in general, and even more so in these pandemic-afflicted times. In terms of restrictions, New South Wales has been easing them, though — including announcing just this week that outdoor music gigs will be able to host up to 500 people from Friday, October 16, and that outdoor venues can double their capacity to one person per two square metres. Vivid Live 2021 will take place from August 6–28, 2021. For more information, visit the event's website. Top image: Yaya Stempler.
Even in 2020, the most unpredictable of years, the end of November marks two things: the shift to warm summer weather and an influx of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. While we may not celebrate Thanksgiving here in Australia that doesn't mean we can't enjoy some outrageous deals in the lead-up to the holiday season. To help you sort through all the emails and Facebook ads you're being served up right now, we've collected a few of this year's biggest sales in one place for you — so you can pick up between 20 and 70 percent off a new gym outfit, mattress or reusable cup.
The 'art world' is a concept just as tricky to define as 'art' itself. Opinions on what distinguishes 'good' from 'poor', 'high-brow' from 'low-brow', 'contemporary' from plain bizarre are essentially endless. No one seems quite sure what qualifies an 'artist' to be labeled as such. And what is this 'world', this community, they belong in? One thing all artists and art enthusiasts cannot dispute, however, is a cold, hard fact. The Art Newspaper serves up an annual batch of exhibit attendance figures to reveal which exhibitions were best attended. No matter what your taste or opinions, 2011 brought an eclectic jumble to the forefront; here are 10 of the most attended exhibits. 1. The Magical World of Escher Where: The Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Visitors per day: 9,677 This exhibition brought together the best-known trippy drawings and prints by the Dutch artist. 2. Kukai’s World: the Arts of Esoteric Buddhism Where: The Tokyo National Museum Visitors per day: 9,108 Featuring 99 items - some certified national treasures - related to Kukai, the famous Japanese Buddhist priest, this exhibit celebrates 'Esoteric Buddhism'. Kukai brought the practice with him from China during the early 9th century. 3. Landscape Reunited Where: The National Palace Museum Visitors per day: 8,828 Reuniting the two halves of Huang Gongwang's Chinese scroll painting Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, this exhibit pieced together the 660-year-old work from the sections formerly split between China and Taiwan. The piece, considered one of the most important in Chinese painting, has not been exhibited in its entirety since 1940. 4. Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty Where: Metropolitan Museum of Art Visitors per day: 8,025 The Costume Institute's posthumous tribute to Alexander McQueen featured his groundbreaking works of fashion. 5. Claude Monet (1840-1926) Where: The Grand Palais Visitors per day: 7,609 The likes of this exhibit had been MIA in Paris for years, making this collection of over 200 impressionist Monet works even more of a must-see. 6. Photoquai Where: Musée Quai Branly Visitors per day: 7,304 A free, outdoor celebration of non-Western photography, Photoquai held its third edition in 2011. 7. Mariko Mori: Oneness Where: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Visitors per day: 6,991 Toyko-born, New York-raised Mariko Mori designed this contemporary exhibit to be interactive, with some pieces visually interpreting attendees brainwaves, and others lighting up when touched. 8. Monumenta: Anish Kapoor Where: The Grand Palais Visitors per day: 6,967 Kapoor's temporary, site-specific installation challenged the confines of the Grand Palais belle epoque exhibition hall. 9. Laurie Anderson Where: Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil Visitors per day: 6,934 For her first solo show in Brazil, Anderson chose to feature 31 works that "told stories". 10. The Prado Museum Where: The Hermitage Visitors per day: 6,649 Madrid's Prado Museum created its own little 66-piece museum inside of St. Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum as the first of a two-part exhibition exchange. The Hermitage Museum will be featured at the Prado through March 2012. [via Flavorwire]
Returning for its third iteration, The Fork Festival sees top restaurants across the country offering sit-down meals for half the usual price. Yep, 50 percent off your total food bill, folks — think of it as the proverbial carrot luring you out of the house. Kicking off on Monday, February 15, the offer is a blessing for those feeling a little light-pocketed after Christmas, NYE and Valentine's Day. To snag a half-price meal, you just need to make a reservation through The Fork website or app at one of the participating eateries for any service (breakfast, lunch or dinner) during the six weeks. There are some great venues coming to the party, too. In Sydney, you'll find cheap eats at the likes of Tayim in The Rocks, Marrickville's Poor Toms Gin Hall, No 1 William in Darlinghurst, Cottage Point Inn, Dulwich Hill's Bambino Torino Pizza and Lone Star Rib House in Blacktown. [caption id="attachment_701766" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tayim by Guy Davies[/caption] Brisbane's lineup includes the CBD's Pool Terrace and Bar, Baos Pop Bistro in South Brisbane and Albion's Nutmeg Indian Cuisine, while Melbourne's Giro d'Italia, Undercover Roasters, Don Taco, Temple Brewing Co and Tulum Restaurant will all serve up discounted eats — as soon as they're allowed to reopen, of course. All of Victoria is currently under a snap five-day lockdown until 11.59pm on Wednesday, February 17, and restaurants can only serve up takeaway until then. You might want to revisit an old favourite or you could get a little adventurous and road-test somewhere new. Either way, there's ample time to squeeze in a fair few discount feasts before the festival wraps up on Sunday, March 28. The Fork Festival runs from Monday, February 15–Sunday, March 28 at select restaurants nationwide, excluding the NT and Tasmania. Victoria's Fork Festival will begin when restaurants reopen. Top image: Giro d'Italia by Parker Blain
It's easier than you think to find pockets of nature in Singapore's concrete jungle. Take a walk off the beaten path and discover some lesser-known places to get lost in Singapore's greenery. Whether you hop on a bike or venture out on foot, exploring Singapore's expansive outdoors doesn't have to cost you. We've teamed up with Singapore Tourism to showcase some of the Lion City's top outdoor trails and activities — all for free. Coast-to-Coast Trail The name gives it away, but this 36-kilometre track stretches across the whole island of Singapore, from the Jurong Lake Gardens in the west to Rower's Bay Park in the north. The trail passes through 10 major checkpoints and takes about 11 hours to complete on foot, or three hours by bike. For this reason, it's recommended that you get an early start or divide up the trip across two days, so you can finish up in time for the sunset at Rower's Bay Park. Start off at the 90-hectare Jurong Lake Gardens, which boasts a Chinese and Japanese Garden, a freshwater swamp with various wildlife, water-sport facilities, an outdoor lap pool, a skate park with a bouldering wall, and a children's water playground. You can pick up a rental bike at the GoCycling outlet here, before returning it at Punggol Jetty towards the end of the trip. From Jurong Lake Gardens, you can trek on to Bukit Batok Nature Park and Hindhede Drive to reach Adam Road. Grab some much-needed fuel at the nearby Adam Road Food Centre and take a breather at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Rested and ready? The journey continues past Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park, Ang Mo Kio Town Garden West, Luxus Hills Park and Sengkang Riverside Park. Make a pit-stop here to explore the man-made floating wetland, the elevated bridge across the river and over 20 species of fruit trees throughout the park — but you'll have to refrain from picking any fruit. You'll get to enjoy the views across the Jewel Bridge, Adventure Bridge and Kelong Bridge as you pass through Punggol Waterway Park, before you reach Coney Island Park and your final destination, Rower's Bay Park. Celebrate your achievement with spectacular sunset views from the waterside boardwalk or pavilion. [caption id="attachment_977504" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Danny Santos[/caption] East Coast Park With attractions like a water-sports centre, skatepark, yoga studio and beachfront bar, East Coast Park is a hub of activity for all ages. The seafront park and beach is spread across almost 15 kilometres, so you can enjoy a leisurely two-hour stroll or 30-minute cycle along the water. If you choose the latter, pick up a bike at GoCycling or Coastline Leisure. The dedicated bike lanes and flat terrain make cycling around the park a breeze. If you're feeling adventurous, you can bike to Marina Bay or head in the opposite direction, where you'll pass through the Jurassic Mile and end up at Changi Airport. If you've got tots in tow, there's no shortage of fun to keep them entertained. Kids can clamber up Singapore's tallest playground at Coastal PlayGrove; try windsurfing, stand-up paddleboarding or laser sailing at the Aloha Seasports Centre (which opportunely has a beach bar for accompanying adults); or practise their tricks at one of Singapore's largest skateparks. You've also got plenty of options when all that action inevitably rouses your appetite. Grab some local cuisine at the East Coast Lagoon Food Village, enjoy a chilli crab at popular chains JUMBO Seafood and Long Beach Seafood, keep it simple with healthy cafe food at East Coast Commune, or tuck into some Italian fare at Fico. Rail Corridor This 24-kilometre track stretching from Tanjong Pajar in the south to Kranji in the north was formerly a railroad bearing trains to and from Malaysia. Since being revitalised in 2021, it has become a popular hiking trail that takes explorers through expanses of greenery, across restored bridges and alongside native flora and fauna. The trail is divided into North, Central and South sections, if you'd prefer to split up the journey. Due to its significance to local wildlife, parts of the Rail Corridor are not lit at night, so be sure to time your visit to end by sunset — the whole walk can be completed in less than six hours. In the central portion of the trek lies Bukit Timah Railway Station. The refurbished train station and staff quarters date back to 1932, and now house a gallery and café. As you continue further north, you'll come across the Bukit Timah Truss Bridge, before passing by the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve — home to the city's largest peak. For striking views, take some time out to admire the quarries at Rifle Range National Park, Bukit Batok Nature Park and Dairy Farm Nature Park. Conveniently located about halfway through the Rail Corridor, the Rail Mall includes numerous eateries, so you can snag a much-needed feed and put your feet up before venturing on to the northern stretch. Book your Singapore holiday now with Flight Centre. Top images: Lim Wei Xiang, Marklin Ang. All images courtesy of Singapore Tourism Board.
From sets of plastic cutlery in their own little wrappers to countless scraps of disposable packaging, plane rides usually equate to a veritable tidal wave of plastic waste. But that could soon change, with the world's first jet-age passenger flights completely free of single-use plastics trialled at the end of 2018. And, the airline behind it has committed to becoming the world's first plastics-free carrier within the next 12 months. Kicking off on December 26, the trials saw Portuguese charter airline Hi Fly make four of its usual trips between Lisbon and Natal, Brazil, but this time there was one very big difference — not one single-use plastic item was on board the Airbus A330-200. Around 700 passengers were involved in the history-making journeys, making return flights between home and holiday destinations. With an estimated 100,000 commercial flights jetting off around the world each day, the airline industry is a massive contributor to the earth's plastic waste woes. According to Hi Fly's principal sustainability partner, the Mirpuri Foundation, the plastic-free trials prevented a huge 350 kilograms of harmful single-use materials from making their way to landfill. They also provided an opportunity to roadtest a variety of plastic-alternative products that have been in development by environmental experts. Think soft drink bottles, single-serve butter pots, sickness bags, food dishes, toothbrushes, cutlery, and salt and pepper shakers made from bamboo, paper and compostable substances.
If you’ve been to the Himalayas lately, you’ll know just how big a problem plastic water bottles are. Rubbish left by trekkers ends up in villages, where waste treatment systems are often non-existent. What’s more, about 50 billion plastic bottles are produced globally each year and, in Australia alone, 373 million or so become landfill. So, a bunch of Spain-based design students have invented a water vessel that leaves no waste behind whatsoever — because you can eat it when you’ve finished drinking. Named ‘Ooho’, it’s actually more a sphere than a bottle, and it’s made of brown algae and calcium chloride. While that might not exactly sound like a MasterChef creation, it is digestible. And there’s every chance it’s good for your teeth. The ingredients are cooked to form a double gelatinous membrane that protects the water inside, keeping it hygienic and well-sealed. "Liquid forms drops because the liquid exhibits surface tension," designers Guillaume Couche, Pierre Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez explain. “Bounded completely, or almost completely, by free surfaces. Ooho replicates this behaviour, encircling the water in an edible membrane of algae.” Spheres cost just 2 cents a pop and can be made in various sizes. None of the serious infrastructure involved in PET plastic manufacturing is necessary. In fact, the designers are pretty certain that it won’t be long before everyone will able to cook their own Oohos in their kitchen. The Ooho was one of 12 winners in the 2014 Lexus Design Award. ‘Curiosity’ was the theme, and other awarded inventions included an innovative time-telling device from India, an e-wheel from Vietnam and a den-building kit from the UK. Via Inhabitat.
If you've even the smallest creative bone in your body, Django Unchained will tickle it. Wildly creative, funny, and frightening, true to form yet never predictable, this is one of those films that makes you want to write one of these kinds of films. Set two years before the start of the American Civil War when slavery was still rampant in the south, it's tempting (if also stupid) to think of Django Unchained as some sort of bizarre prequel to Spielberg's Lincoln. Initially the eponymous Django (Jamie Foxx) walks wearied and defeated in a chain gang until he's unexpectedly freed by the eccentric dentist Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). This mannerly yet murderous bounty hunter then offers Django the chance to both exact revenge and make his fortune by murdering white outlaws in exchange for money. With the crosshatched scars of countless lashings on his back a daily reminder of such men's cruelty, Django leaps at the chance and soon proves a natural in the business. His wife, however, remains the property of vile plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a character so heinous and sadistic that Tarantino subsequently deemed him 'beyond redemption', and hence a rescue plan takes form. It's perhaps no surprise, then, that this Tarantino tale of slavery and vengeance dials the violence up to 11 from almost the opening scene and never looks back. It does occasionally border on 'look-away' levels of horror; however — just as it was with Inglourious Basterds — this 'revenge porn' sub-genre of cinema uncomfortably satisfies through its savagery. Moreover, Tarantino's preparedness to brutally kill off any (and, often, all) his principal characters without even a moment's notice lends every scene an undercurrent of unpredictable tension that commands your attention. Traditionally, Tarantino's main shortcoming as a director has been his fondness for playing with form in a manner that denies his audiences the opportunity to entirely immerse themselves in the experience. Whether through unexpected soundtrack choices, mid-movie title sequences or just direct conversations with the audience, you're aware you're watching a movie and hence sit entertained but not always engrossed. Those same elements are at play again in Django, but for the first time since Kill Bill, they advance and enhance the plot rather than specifically (and jarringly) draw your attention to it. In short, it's a delightful return to form. https://youtube.com/watch?v=_iH0UBYDI4g
It's pretty difficult to make a bad film with Paris as your backdrop, but it's nigh on impossible when that backdrop is Paris in the 1920s and the city is brimming with creative royalty like Hemingway and Picasso. Throw Woody Allen into the mix and you're pretty much guaranteed a witty, artfully shot piece of cinematic brilliance. Allen's latest, Midnight in Paris, offers a snapshot of the world's most adored city in its glory days, where avant-garde intersected with the everyday at the height of the Modernist movement. After opening the Cannes film festival in May, this blend of history and fantasy is finally being brought to Australian screens. The film's protagonist, Gil, is played by Owen Wilson, potentially an unlikely candidate for a Woody Allen film since findinga place in mainstream films since his Wes Anderson years. But like your typical Allen protagonist, Gil is utterly dissatisfied with his charmed life. His successful career in Hollywood, his trip to Paris and the beautiful woman on his arm, Inez (played by Rachel McAdams), all offer little pleasure to this jaded writer, yearning to produce a novel to match the literary works of masters gone by. One Parisian night, Gil's fantasy is indulged when he is picked up by a vintage car conveniently doubling as a time machine. The film follows Gil's adventures in the intellectual treasure trove that was Paris in the Roaring Twenties, rubbing shoulders with the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot and Salvador Dali. Midnight in Paris will take you on a journey into the Paris of the past - one we all wish we could visit - with cinematography to show off the City of Light as it stands today. To win one of ten single passes to see Midnight in Paris, just make sure you are subscribed to Concrete Playground then email your name and postal address through to hello@concreteplayground.com.au https://youtube.com/watch?v=dL95WR4Jzhc
When you spend all day every day in a place, playing tourist in your own town can be easier said than done. Book in a staycation at a newly relaunched hotel in the CBD, however, and Brisbanites will be seeing the River City in a whole new light as they hang out on the deck, take a swim with a skyline view and drink cocktails at the lobby bar. Your destination: the revamped Amora Hotel. If you're keen for a night or several away from home in five-star surroundings, this Creek Street spot now has you covered. The site previously known as the Novotel has undergone a huge revamp, with $30 million being spent on the refurbishment. Now officially open in its new guise after announcing the details back in November, the Amora Hotel features 296 rooms located over 14 floors, plus an outdoor rooftop pool with a deck that sounds — and looks — perfect for Brisbane's usually sultry weather. When you're hanging out indoors, you'll be surrounded by the work of interior designer Cottee Parker. Think: greenery, natural light and tones, and a tradition-meets-contemporary approach. Rattan, plus walnut and tan hues, feature heavily. And, because the made-over Brissie venue is going with a vacation vibe regardless of its central location, you'll smell Italian mandarin, amber, jasmine and patchouli while you're onsite. The rooms also play up the getaway mood, including via wallpaper that nods to a Tunisian oasis and open wardrobes to help make each space look bigger. Some come with city views, with the premier suites on the top two levels featuring balconies — and complimentary mini bars. Amora Brisbane also boasts a restaurant, a fitness studio and sauna, and 11 spaces for events and conferences. Food-wise, the hotel's new culinary highlights are set to launch in January complete with a new menu and new fitout. The Amora Group purchased Amora Brisbane in 2020, adding it to a suite of properties that spans six hotels in Australia and Thailand. As a result, elsewhere in Australia the family-owned hotel brand operates Amora Hotel Riverwalk Melbourne — which has been on its books for 25 years — plus Amora Hotel Jamison Sydney. Find Amora Hotel Brisbane at 200 Creek Street, Brisbane City — head to the hotel's website for reservations and further information.
With Soohun Jung’s new invention, cyclists can communicate with drivers in ways that were never possible before. The Korean designer has come up with an ‘i Backpack’, which functions as a rear view mirror, as well as providing break signals, turn signals and a message board. A tablet is placed in the backpack, and connected with a smartphone, which rests on the handlebars. The two are integrated through a Bluetooth-enabling app. The smartphone works as a rearview mirror, and at the same time, sends messages to the tablet, which displays them for the benefit of drivers and pedestrians. So, a bright yellow arrow on a blue screen communicates the intention to turn, while block letters reading ‘SLOW DOWN’ indicate the cyclist is hitting the brakes. The app responds to the bicycle’s movements through sensors. Riders can also opt to send friendly messages, such as ‘Have a nice day’, ‘Ride with me’, ‘Thank you’ and ‘Sorry’. It’ll be interesting to explore the i Backpack’s potential to improve motorist-cyclist relations, particularly in cities that aren't especially well-designed for the incorporation of two-wheelers. Soohun Jung is currently studying product design at the Samsung Art and Design Institute. He has received a number of awards, including two Red Dot Design Winners in 2012 and a Bronze at the D2B Design Fair 2012. The i Backpack was shortlisted in IF 2013. [via PSFK]
It's all well and good to poke fun at what's wrong with Melbourne. Its shitty weather, the lack of beaches and the fact that no one thinks it's a priority to have a rail link to the airport (sorry about that one). You will have to bring an umbrella, pack a jacket as well as well as your sunglasses and ride an expensive bus into the city, but you will not be disappointed. Melbourne is so much more than bad weather, and once you get past the trams and laneways, you'll see a side to the city that isn’t — and can't possibly be — translated through tourism ads. Because perfect weather is overrated anyway, maybe I can coax you away from your golden circle for a trip down south. Once you work out the transport system, the city's grid is easy to navigate and you can work your way northside to southside, east to west. To ensure you won’t waste time sipping bad coffee in sleepy suburbs, let this guide be your compass. Explore all the diverse pockets of the city, from Brunswick to Balaclava and back again. CITY: CBD, Docklands, Southbank Devoid of any notable landmarks, the CBD is subtle and charming. Little Bourke Street houses a cluster of serious coffee — get a takeaway from Patricia (standing room only) or walk a few blocks up to Brother Baba Budan and Manchester Press. Keep going and you'll hit Chinatown, where Shanghai Village is where you gotta go for copious amounts of dumplings (it's also BYO). If you want fine dining (or just clean cutlery), join the queue at Chin Chin or order tapas at the newly-reopened Bomba. Some of the city's best breakfasts can be found at Cumulus Inc. and The Grain Store, and for sweet treats your ice cream go-to is Spring Street Grocer and the signature salted caramel crepe from Creperie Le Triskel. See what exhibition is showing at the Ian Potter Centre, and make sure you head out to Southbank to check out open-air arts space and bar, Testing Grounds. We're all about the rooftop bars, with some of the best being at Rooftop Bar in Curtin House and Goldilocks, which is a smaller, cosier alternative. Weather permitting, the Queen Victoria Night Market is always busting during summer, and literally no one can turn down a drink under a bridge right on the Yarra at Ponyfish Island when the weather's warm. Go to: Flinders Lane, Little Bourke Street (Chinatown), Cathedral Arcade See: Ian Potter Centre, Queen Victoria Market, Testing Grounds Eat: Shanghai Village, Chin Chin, Bomba, The Grain Store, Cumulus Inc., Spring St Grocer, Creperie Le Triskel Coffee: Manchester Press, Brother Baba Budan, Patricia Something Stronger: Goldilocks, Ponyfish Island, Shebeen, Rooftop Bar, Trunk, Mesa Verde NORTH: Fitzroy, Collingwood, Carlton, North Melbourne, Abbotsford Just a quick tram ride out of the CBD and you'll hit the inner north. Aside from the bearded men and creative not-so-sub culture, this pocket of the city is also known for its high-grade cafes, pop up food vans and ridiculously successful restaurants. Lately, the only place you want to open a restaurant is Smith Street, Fitzroy — where you can slurp noodles at Shop Ramen, down a famous Huxtaburger or get to Rockwell and Sons for Fried Chicken Wednesdays. Further over on Brunswick Street you'll find the cult of Vegie Bar, and be sure to make a trip to De Clieu or Everday Coffee for a killer brew. Over in North Melbourne, Auction Rooms has unanimously been voted Melbourne's best brunch and Beatrix's cakes are worth travelling for. Get one of the best views of the city from Naked in the Sky, sip the city's best cocktails at the Everleigh or make a night of it with live music at Brunswick's Howler. On a weekend, grab a coffee and stroll around the Rose Street Artists' Market or, if it's hot, join the rest of the northsiders heading to Edinburgh Gardens for a picnic and beers. Don't miss a visit to Abbotsford Convent and their Shadow Electric Cinema on summer nights. Go to: Smith Street, Brunswick Street, Gertrude Street, Sydney Road See: Edinburgh Gardens, Abbotsford Convent, Rose Street Artists Market, Juddy Roller Eat: Auction Rooms, Beatrix, Huxtaburger, Neighbourhood Wine, Rockwell & Sons, Vegie Bar, Shop Ramen Coffee: Everyday Coffee, Storm in a Teacup, De Clieu, Cafe Rosamond Something Stronger: Naked In The Sky, The Everleigh, Rum Diary, Howler SOUTH: South Melbourne, St. Kilda, Balaclava Crossing south of the river is a whole different ball game. Here, palm trees replace terrace houses and the asphalt horizon becomes the sea — yes, the sea. Get the best view of the bay from Captain Baxter's lush rooftop at St. Kilda Sea Baths or over a more casual burger at NSHRY up at Albert Park. Head up to Balaclava's Carlisle Street for some rooftop pho and rice paper rolls at Uncle, tacos at Si Senor or a drink at The Local Taphouse. Tucked behind a Coles carpark you'll also find Monk Bodhi Dharma serving their own roast and sustainable vegetarian and vegan fare. Also a must-visit is Melbourne institution St Ali and the South Melbourne Market, where you have to line up for a South Melbourne dim sim and fresh Turkish gozleme from Koy. Go to: Coventry Street, Carlisle Street See: South Melbourne Market, St. Kilda Sea Baths Eat: Uncle, Koy, NSHRY, Si Senor, Hannah Coffee: Monk Bodhi Dharma, Giddiup, St. Ali, Clement Something Stronger: Newmarket Hotel, Captain Baxter, The Local Taphouse EAST: Richmond, South Yarra, Windsor, Prahran Leafy and tailored, the east is the ying to the north's yang — and Chapel Street is the vein that pumps blood its suburbs. From South Yarra's boutiques to the Windsor-end bars, you can go Vietnamese at Saigon Sally, Mexican at Fonda or Japanese at Mr. Miyagi. Drink impeccable cocktails at The Woods of Windsor or something with house-infused bacon vodka at Sweetwater Inn. Richmond links the inner north with the east, and Church Street is home to top brunch at Top Paddock and I Love Pho on Victoria Street is the closest you'll get to Vietnam without crossing borders. And, disappear from the city with a stroll in the Royal Botanic Gardens or in the gardens at Como House, where you'll also be able to have a very lovely Devonshire tea at The Stables. Go to: Chapel Street, Victoria Street, Swan Street, Greville Street, Church Street See: Royal Botanic Gardens, Como House Eat: I Love Pho, Fonda, Saigon Sally, Touchwood, The Stables, Meatmother, Mr. Miyagi, Top Paddock Coffee: Little Big Sugar Salt, Pillar of Salt, Dukes Coffee Roasters Something Stronger: The Woods of Windsor, Sweetwater Inn, Borsch, Vodka & Tears WEST: Kensington, Footscray, Flemington Traditionally the west isn't a destination for tourists or even for locals who reside on the opposing side of the city. While it isn't renowned for fine dining and sleek bars, the west is rich in culture and has managed to maintain a sense of local community. Take the train out just two stops to Footscray, where you can lose yourself in the multilingual chatterings and exotic ingredients at Footscray Market. Between Footscray and neighbouring Seddon, you'll find some of the best (and cheapest) African food, as well as well-known cafes such as Common Galaxia and West 48. Also easily accessible by train is one of Melbourne's best-kept brunch secrets, The Premises, and the best laksa in town at Laksa King. It's a side to the city not usually seen, but the burgeoning food and arts scene is sure to put the west on the map. As the locals say, the westside is the bestside. Go to: Macaulay Road, Victoria Street (Seddon) See: Footscray Market, Footscray Community Arts Centre Eat: The Premises, Laksa King, West 48, African Taste, Union Food & Wine Coffee: The Rusty Fox, Guerilla Espresso, Common Galaxia Something Stronger: White Rabbit Records Other helpful hints You will have to buy a myki card to use public transport — they cost $3 and you load up money on it. More information here. Download the PTV Journey Planner app (super useful). Look at CP Melbourne’s bar and restaurant directory for more eating and drinking. Images thanks to Farbenfrohe Wunderwelt, Manchester Press, Nicolas Boullosa, NSHRY, Fernando de Sousa & Shantanu Starick from Pixel Trade
"I've never been to school, but I can read and write." Penny Penny takes a moment to chat from Limpopo, the northern South African province where he grew up. Born Giyani Kulain in 1962, the cult musician was just four years old when his father passed away; a local doctor who left behind his 25 wives and 68 children. "After that, we started to suffer a lot," Penny says. "I taught myself [literacy], because I suffered so much. In 1968, I started working on a farm, then I worked in a mine, then I went to the village and sold vegetables and then I worked in a restaurant... Everything I've done, I've done it myself." For the 52-year-old dubbed "the next Rodriguez" by Rolling Stone, this independent drive lead him to singing — except that it didn't involve so much arduous autodidacticism. "I never learned to sing," he says. "Singing just happened." In 1994, while working as a cleaner in a Johannesburg music studio, Penny approached producer Joseph Shirimani, who related the meeting in a 2013 Rolling Stone interview. "I said, 'Can you sing?'. [Penny] didn't say yes — he just sang a song for me. And that's when I heard this unusual voice and those melodies." The resulting collaboration led to the recording of the song 'Shaka Bundu'. Its infectious combination of traditional melody, Tsonga disco and contemporary dance pop sold 250,000 copies, turning the odd jobs man into a national star. "'Shaka Bundu' means 'bad guy', trouble," Penny explains. "I had a girlfriend for more than eight years. After I lost my job, she dumped me. And one of my friends, who used to come to my house, he proposed to her. That's where the song comes from, you see." He breaks off the story in favour of singing the chorus down the phone. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Blk2nsFCt8I Several subsequent albums continued to keep the fans dancing in South Africa, but (like the music of Rodriguez) didn't receive much international attention. That was until a few years ago, when a Penny Penny cassette landed on the desk of DJ and Awesome Tapes from Africa blogger Brian Shimkovitz. "It took a bit of time to track down the busy politician, humanitarian and stadium-filling musician," Shimkovitz wrote. But track him down he did, releasing 'Shaka Bundu' worldwide on November 12 last year. "People like it a lot in Africa," Penny says. "Then I find out that they like it in Australia — and that makes me happy. I've seen Australia on television; I've read about it on the news. I never believed that I would come to meet you, on that side. I think I'll kiss the soil when I land there." He's sorry though, that he won't get the chance to meet Yothu Yindi. "I heard that he passed away recently. He is one of my favourite Australian musicians. That song [he starts singing 'Treaty'] was very big in Africa. I though maybe I'd see him one day, but no." Like Yothu Yindi, Penny is an activist. In fact, in 2011 he became an African National Congress (ANC) Council Member — the first African musician to do so. "I just want to give something back to the community," he says. "Politics is fine, but my heartbeat is music." When he plays VIVID as part of Goodgod's Tin Pan Alley, he'll be bringing a ten-piece band along for the ride. "You can expect to see me dancing up there. When I see people on the dance floor — 75,000 people, 90,000 people — if more people want to come, I say let them come! I've been asking myself, 'How to introduce my style of dancing to Australia?' I want to leave the country dancing my style, with my spirit. I want to leave my mark." Penny Penny will headline Good God Small Club's Tin Pan Alley in the Joan Sutherland Theatre on Friday May 30 for Vivid LIVE. He'll be joined by Bart Willoughby of seminal indigenous band No Fixed Address, ever theatrical Royal Headache frontman Shogun flying solo, Melbourne soft rockers Montero and Sydney's indescribable Donny Benét. Head here for more details.
If you're a fan of 90s horror getting a new lease on life, we know what you're doing this winter Down Under: watching the latest instalment in the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise. Although a TV series ran for one season in 2021, it's been almost 20 years since the last film in the series hit screens — and, as both the initial trailer and the just-dropped fresh look at the newest movie shows, familiar faces are back, and spouting familiar lines of dialogue as well. A slasher premise. A script by Dawson's Creek creator Kevin Williamson. A cast member of Party of Five being terrorised. That setup worked well twice three decades back, first with Scream and then with I Know What You Did Last Summer. Indeed, when they each initially released, sequels followed in both instances. Here's the latest part of the trend: both franchises have made or are making 2020s-era returns after jumps to the small screen, in flicks sharing the same name as the original movies in each saga and featuring OG cast members. First came 2022's Scream. Next arrives 2025's I Know What You Did Last Summer. Once again, Jennifer Love Hewitt (9-1-1) follows in Neve Campbell's (The Lincoln Lawyer) footsteps — and as Scream did, I Know What You Did Last Summer picks up with a mix of recognisable and new talents. As the sneak peeks for cinema's return to Southport illustrate, Freddie Prinze Jr (The Girl in the Pool) is also present again. Being stalked for their past misdeeds this time: Madelyn Cline (Outer Banks), Chase Sui Wonders (The Studio), Jonah Hauer-King (The Tattooist of Auschwitz), Tyriq Withers (Me) and Sarah Pidgeon (The Friend). On the big screen on Thursday, July 17, 2025 Down Under, the results will play out — aka a group of friends getting involved in a car accident where someone dies, they cover it up and vow not to tell anyone, but that secret and a vengeance-seeking killer haunts them a year later. The new film layers in the fact that this has all happened in the past, with the quintet in focus needing help from two survivors of the Southport Massacre of 1997. Enter Hewitt and Prinze Jr, as part of a cast that also includes Billy Campbell (Mr & Mrs Smith), Gabbriette Bechtel (Idiotka) and Austin Nichols (The Six Triple Eight). Starting as a 1973 novel, which Williamson adapted into the first 1997 film, I Know What You Did Last Summer initially spawned two sequels: 1998's I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and 2006's I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer. Then came that shortlived television effort. On the franchise's return to the big screen, Do Revenge filmmaker Jennifer Kaytin Robinson directs — and continues her connection with the OG I Know What You Did Last Summer cast, given that Sarah Michelle Gellar (Dexter: Original Sin) featured in that 2022 movie. Check out the trailer for I Know What You Did Last Summer below: I Know What You Did Last Summer releases in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, July 17, 2025.
Now before you say anything, this isn’t another fold-up bike. Let’s be honest, fold-up bikes can often be kind of awkward — even if they're as small as your umbrella. Indian company Lucid Design have created a conceptual 'Bike in a Bag' that would quickly disassemble into separate parts so you could fit it into your bag. The Kit Bike would be made up of 21 parts and assembled by twisting joints together using a rotating mechanism and secured with an Allen key. The diamond-shaped frame would be made up of hollow aluminium tubes and powder-coated white for a minimal, classic look. The bike would even come with its own circular leather bag designed specifically to carry the parts — wheels go on the sides and the extras in the middle compartment. "Conventional bikes are awkward in every way except when you ride them," says creative director of Lucid Design, Amit Mirchandani. "The Kit Bike was designed to make problems of shipping, traveling with and commuting with a bike, a thing of the past." Yes, there would be some challenges if you left home without your Allen key, and we have to admit we’d be a little worried about a detachable bike coming undone on our way to work, but there’s also great benefits to consider if you're travelling and you want to take in the sights on your own two wheels. Think about it. Just to clarify, this bike is not yet in production. It did receive a Red Dot 2014 Design Award earlier this year for the concept, but the comments left on the original Dezeen post show not everyone's as impressed: "Nice looking but I don't see it being sturdy enough." "It's awful, any design student can make a CAD model of a bike. No thought has gone into this design at all. Look how flimsy it is — does the designer even know what a bike is? Do they understand stress and material properties?" "Just look at that ridiculous gear ratio. Good luck pedalling over 10 mph on this thing... although I probably wouldn't feel safe riding it much faster." "People complain if they have to assemble an Ikea chair made of six pieces. Have fun assembling and disassembling your 20 piece bike every day, when commuting to work." "Never seen such bullsh*t." Watch this space, maybe Lucid Design can prove the haters wrong. Via Dezeen.
This winter, garage goths, a fusion of jazz and metal played by musicians in clown masks, a head-on collision and sand raining down on a man in an hourglass are all on the agenda — on Dark Mofo's 2025 agenda, that is. If you needed any proof that the Tasmanian winter arts festival is back after sitting out 2024, consider the above sample of the lineup as overwhelming evidence. This has always been a fest where expecting the unexpected is the baseline, and that isn't changing in 2025. Dark Mofo already gave the world a sneak peek at what's to come from Thursday, June 5–Sunday, June 15, 2025, when the bulk of the event takes place — the Nude Solstice Swim is on Saturday, June 21 — when it announced Nathan Maynard's We threw them down the rocks where they had thrown the sheep back in March. Accordingly, when it revealed that it'd be hosting a mass installation from the multidisciplinary Trawlwoolway artist, and one that uses sheep flesh to make a statement about the treatment of First Nations people, it signalled that it was still the boundary-pushing fest that folks love flocking to when the weather cools. Now comes the full program, the first under new Artistic Director Chris Twite, which has a date with riverbanks, deconsecrated churches, rooftops, basements, bank vaults and more. 'Dark Mofo is back!" said Twite, revealing the lineup. "Once again we will bathe the city in red, filling it with art and taking over disused and hidden spaces all across Nipaluna/Hobart. Night Mass — the late-night labyrinth of revelry — will carve new paths through the city and a host of Australian-exclusive artists from around the world will storm our stages." That filling downtown Hobart with art and music for Night Mass was set to be a part of Dark Mofo 2025 was announced last year — as was the return of the aforementioned Nude Solstice Swim, the Ogoh-Ogoh and culinary highlight Winter Feast. The festival has shared more details on each now, however, including that Niyati Rao from Mumbai restaurant Ekaa is Winter Feast's guest chef, working with Craig Will, Bianca Welsh and James Welsh from Launceston's Stillwater; that Night Mass: God Complex boasts 100-plus talents involved; and that a giant Maugean skate is the focus at the Ogoh-Ogoh. [caption id="attachment_998147" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Netti Habel[/caption] On the music side of the lineup, the full program now adds The Horrors and Clown Core, plus Tierra Whack, Cold Cave, Boy Harsher, Baroness, Crime & the City Solution, Show Me the Body, Alabaster DePlume, LUCY (Cooper B Handy), Machine Girl and Mong Tong — all in Australian-exclusive gigs, and all demonstrating how wide-ranging even just the fest's tunes will be. Rap and R&B, progressive metal, art-punk, hardcore both ceremonial and digital: they're just some of the genres on offer. Portishead's Beth Gibbons is also performing at Vivid Sydney, RISING in Melbourne and Brisbane's Open Season, but her spot on the Dark Mofo bill is no less exciting — and via two shows at The Odeon, she's launching the music program. Or, you can catch Rival Consoles give the ambient synth of Landscape From Memory its Australian premiere; see Spectral Wound, Imperial Triumphant Hymns, Hulder and Slimelord at the return of Hymns to the Dead; and witness Dead Can Dance founding member Lisa Gerrard and William Barton perform their Under In Between project live for the first time. DIIV, Jessica Pratt, Drain Gang's Thaiboy Digital, Keanu Nelson, Shackleton, Siddhartha Belmannu, Gut Health, Forest Swords, Brighter Death Now, Evicshen: they're hitting the stage as well. So is a new project from German music festival Berlin Atonal, and London Contemporary Orchestra's Robert Ames teaming up with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Featuring Brazilian artist Paula Garcia and a stunt driver, Crash Body is one of the performance highlights. The Havana-born Carlos Martiel is contributing two pieces, video work Cuerpo and new unveiling Custody, which is where the hourglass comes in — and, as part of his unpacking of systemic violence against people of colour, where Dark Mofo gets another must-see. A empty warehouse will be lit up like the sky thanks to SORA by Nonotak, Simon Zoric's Coffin Rides contemplates the afterlife and collaborative music project Everything Is Recorded from Richard Russell will ponder the winter solstice in an improvised piece. Claudia Comte's La Danse Macabre is set to combine two pianists playing the titular piece as a motocross rider jumps through a the flames from a wooden sculpture on fire — as everyone can witness on a screen in Dark Park — to comment on capitalism, while Ida Sophia's video work Witness muses on religious fervour, and Nicholas Galanin's Neon Anthem will get visitors taking knee and scereaming. From Ronnie van Hout's Quasi and Travis Ficarra's Chocolate Goblin sculptures to the extreme metal vocalisations of Karina Utomo's Mortal Voice and Dark Mofo Films making a comeback, too — with Sound of Metal, Eraserhead, The Proposition, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Lighthouse, Wake in Fright, Melancholia and more — if you're not finding at least 20 events on the program to get excited about instantly, then you're not looking hard enough. [caption id="attachment_994599" align="alignnone" width="1920"] We threw them down the rocks where they had thrown the sheep images: Jesse Hunniford, 2025. Image courtesy of Dark Mofo 2025.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_998148" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ednid Alvarez[/caption] Dark Mofo returns from Thursday, June 5–Sunday, June 15, 2025 and for the Nude Solstice Swim on Saturday, June 21. Head to the festival's website for further details and tickets. Images courtesy of Dark Mofo. Top image: Marcos Cimardi.
After opening 90 bars over the past eight years, bringing its worldwide footprint to 94, Scottish brewery BrewDog has finally set up shop in Australia. And, sprawled across a hefty parcel of land by the banks of the Brisbane River, it has arrived with a splash. That said, while a brand new jetty has just been built right next to the company's Murarrie site — which has been dubbed DogTap Brisbane — don't go planning on pairing your brew with a dip in the ol' Brown Snake. Brisbanites, you really do know better than that. Still, Calvin McDonald, BrewDog's operations manager for Australia, isn't ruling out making the most of DogTap's impressive location. "There aren't many bars in the world that are totally accessible by jet ski," he notes, without giving away what fun activities the company might have in store down the line. If you've been following the brand, you'll know that it has engaged beer-lovers in many inventive ways over the years, including launching a craft beer hotel in the US, brewing up a Subwoofer IPA for pooches and taking to the skies in the world's first craft beer airline. [caption id="attachment_751722" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Pandora Photography[/caption] In Brisbane, brew aficionados can look forward to the BrewDog basics when DogTap opens to the public on Thursday, November 21. Acting as the brand's Australian base, the brewery will pump out beer that'll get shipped around the country. It'll also have a huge taproom with food and plenty of opportunities to learn more about craft beer. There'll be tours of the facility, once the fully automated four-vessel 25-hectolitre brewing system and accompanying canning line is completely up and running in January, while eager drinkers can also enrol in Beer School — aka two-hour guided tasting sessions where one of BrewDog's Cicerone-certified staff will talk you through the BrewDog and craft beer basics. First announced in 2018, and only the company's fourth taproom directly attached to one of its breweries, BrewDog's $30-million street art-covered Brisbane site boasts a range of other reasons to drop by. Heading to the end of a Murarrie industrial estate hasn't ever been high on locals' to-do lists, but making the journey to sip freshly poured cold ones on a 485-square-metre riverside patio soon should be. The sizeable outdoor area comes with views towards Hamilton and the Gateway Bridge, as well as ample seating. There's also a selection of games, such as giant Jenga, giant chess and giant Connect Four. And, both the public and staff car parks are licensed too, so beer festivals and other events could be in DogTap's future. [caption id="attachment_751727" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Pandora Photography[/caption] If you're coming by for the beer, BrewDog's headliners (including its famed Punk IPA) sit alongside a heap of small-batch brews. Nodding to the growing local craft beer scene — one of the reasons that BrewDog chose Brisbane as its Aussie base, McDonald advises — is a rotating range of guest tipples from other Queensland breweries, such as Range Brewing, Currumbin Valley Brewing, Balter, Aether, Brouhaha and Black Hops. All-Australian wines, an Aussie-heavy spirits list and local soft drinks are also on offer, should you want something other than beer. Of course, if you fall into that category, McDonald hopes that BrewDog will convert you. He's adamant that there's a craft beer for everyone, and that anyone who says they don't like beer just hasn't tried the right brew for them yet. Food-wise, it's a lineup of familiar bar favourites. Think 11 types of burgers and eight kinds of pizza — plus Korean-style chicken wings, crispy pork, baby squid and barramundi fritters. On weekends, a brunch menu will feature chicken and waffles, eggs benedict and other classic meals, while you can tuck into two-for-one vegan dishes on Mondays. In addition to 16 blue leather booths and high-top tables, DogTap's industrial indoor area also has arcade games, including Addams Family and The Munsters-themed pinball machines. [caption id="attachment_751728" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Pandora Photography[/caption] Really love BrewDog? There's a merchandise stall that's already been selling items before DogTap even opens. Want a few brews to take home? Stop by the takeaway area on the way out the door. And if you're an interstate BrewDog fan hoping that it'll be coming your way soon, McDonald explains that the plan is to open five Aussie venues in the next five years (then, hopefully, another five before the brewery marks a decade in Australia). Find DogTap Brisbane at 77 Metroplex Avenue, Murarrie from Thursday, November 21. It's open from 12pm–midnight daily. Images: Pandora Photography
Now in its eight year, the Qantas Spirit of Youth Awards is looking to inspire passionate creatives across Australia by inviting them to submit their work for the chance to win the prize of a lifetime. In 2011, the SOYAs has expanded the categories of entry, with the roster now including fashion, interactive content and gaming, written word, visual design and communications, film and video, photography, visual arts, craft and object design, music, architecture and interior design, and animation. Australians under the age of 30 are encouraged to present their work in one of these categories, with the closing date of one category occurring each month until October 2012. Each winner will receive a handy $5000 cash prize. Furthermore, each category has a different one-year mentorship program which will allow the winner to work with some of the leading figures within their chosen industry. These include fashion icons Nicky and Simone Zimmermann, Legally Blonde director Robert Luketic, and music producer Lee Groves, whose portoflio includes the likes of Gwen Stefani, Marilyn Manson and Craig David. This will provide newcomers with invaluable experience from industry experts. If that wasn't enough, Qantas will also send the winners on a trip to an exclusive event within their field. These events are scattered all over the world, but are united by their prestige and widespread recognition. These include London Fashion Week, the Edinburgh Film Festival and Cannes Lions. Previous winners of the Spirit of Youth Awards have soared to new heights, such as fashion designers Romance Was Born (pictured), musicians Wolf & Cub and photographer Penny Lane. With the competition's expansion into unprecedented categories, there are now more opportunities for Australia's finest creative minds to showcase their work to the world. Furthermore, winners will be financially assisted and treated to experiences that will allow their talents to flourish.
Not all that long ago, the idea of getting cosy on your couch, clicking a few buttons, and having thousands of films and television shows at your fingertips seemed like something out of science fiction. Now, it's just an ordinary night — whether you're virtually gathering the gang to text along, cuddling up to your significant other or shutting the world out for some much needed me-time. Of course, given the wealth of options to choose from, there's nothing ordinary about making a date with your chosen streaming platform. The question isn't "should I watch something?" — it's "what on earth should I choose?". Hundreds of titles are added to Australia's online viewing services each and every month, all vying for a spot on your must-see list. And, so you don't spend 45 minutes scrolling and then being too tired to actually commit to anything, we're here to help. We've spent plenty of couch time watching our way through this month's latest batch — and, from the latest and greatest through to old and recent favourites, here are our picks for your streaming queue from December's haul. BRAND NEW STUFF YOU CAN WATCH FROM START TO FINISH NOW CAROL & THE END OF THE WORLD Mental health professionals counsel against catastrophising; however, that advice clearly doesn't apply to the film and TV industry. Assuming that the worst is on its way is such a go-to that it's always doomsday somewhere on-screen. In 2023 alone, The Last of Us, Good Omens, Silo, No One Will Save You, Leave the World Behind and animated series Carol & the End of the World are among the examples, but that doesn't mean that every instance — and the list goes on — serves up more of the same. Grappling with the fact that life is finite inspires a wide array of responses, which is one of the ideas at the heart of The Onion writer and Rick and Morty producer Dan Guterman's dance with the apocalypse. Few musings on existence being snuffed out are as meditative, surreal and thoughtful as his ten-part effort, though, which finds beauty in the mundanity and monotony of being human while facing mortality head on. If your days and the entire planet's were numbered, how would you react? What would you spend your final months, weeks, hours, minutes and seconds doing? Who would you want to be with? What would matter? So also asks Carol & the End of the World, while embracing routine — so, embracing everyday reality. The eponymous 42-year-old (Martha Kelly, Sitting in Bars with Cake) is well-aware that everything she's ever known, herself included, will soon be extinct when Carol & the End of the World kicks off. There's only seven months and 13 days left until a planet called Keppler crashes into earth — an event that cannot be avoided, nor is anyone trying to thwart it (this isn't Armageddon, Deep Impact or Don't Look Up). Most folks attempt to cope by indulging their wildest dreams. Carol's daredevil sister Elena (Bridget Everett, Somebody Somewhere) sends videos from her adventurous travels around the globe. Their parents Pauline (Beth Grant, Amsterdam) and Bernard (Lawrence Pressman, Reboot) have ditched clothes and become a throuple with the latter's carer Michael (Delbert Hunt, Monster High). But Carol isn't sure what to do until she discovers The Distraction, aka an accounting office where others — such as mum-of-five Donna (Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Craig of the Creek) and first-time employee Luis (Mel Rodriguez, Made for Love) — find solace in the patterns and repetitions of the nine-to-five grind. As anyone who saw Melancholia and These Final Hours will understand, it's the connections between people that linger when the end is tangible. And as anyone who watched Baskets will instantly recognise, Kelly is perfectly cast as the woman facing the apocalypse with matter-of-fact malaise. Carol & the End of the World streams via Netflix. EVERYONE ELSE BURNS End Times are here again in Everyone Else Burns — except to David Lewis' (Simon Bird, Sandylands) disappointment, they haven't quite arrived just yet. The dutiful Order of the Divine Rod member starts this British sitcom's six-episode first season by ushering his wife Fiona (Kate O'Flynn, Landscapers), high-schooler daughter Rachel (Amy James-Kelly, Gentleman Jack) and pre-teen son Aaron (debutant Harry Connor) out of bed in the middle of the night, grabbing their go bags, and hightailing it to high ground as he shouts about the apocalypse descending and the rapture beginning. It's just a drill, however, with Aaron devastated but Fiona and Rachel relieved. David is certain that being prepared for doomsday will help him become one his cult-like church's elders. A parcel-sorting courier company worker by day and dedicated to his family's piety always, he's desperate for the approval of their chapter's leader Samson (Arsher Ali, Funny Woman), plus the congregation as a whole. Such strict devotion isn't quite the path to family harmony that he thinks it is, though — especially when Fiona is struggling with being the compliant homemaker, as aided by newly divorced neighbour Melissa (Morgana Robinson, Stuck), while Rachel wants to study medicine at university and finds a new friend in expelled Order member Joshua (Ali Khan, A Haunting in Venice). It's been almost a decade since Bird was last The Inbetweeners' stuffy suburban teenager Will McKenzie (the fellow TV comedy ran from 2008–10, with movies in 2011 and 2014). Now, he's the stodgy dad in another comic quartet — and, sporting a bowl cut made with an actual bowl, he's equally suited to the part. Bird's casting is just one stroke of mastery by Everyone Else Burns creators and writers Dillon Mapletoft (BBC3 Quickies) and Oliver Taylor (a small-screen first-timer). Skewering patriarchal religion's extremes, evangelical sects, power dynamics, mindless obedience in the name of faith and the conflicts of all of the above with 21st-century existence within a family sitcom is a divine concept, as it keeps proving across the show's initial run. The series' witty scripts deliver a flurry of jokes and pitch-perfect one-liners in every episode, but this is also a sitcom with heart and excellent performances across the board. See: Fiona's quest for fulfilment, Rachel's yearning to be herself, plus the portrayals — with O'Flynn a deadpan delight and James-Kelly expertly relatable — that bring both to life. Everyone Else Burns streams via SBS On Demand. SQUARING THE CIRCLE (THE STORY OF HIPGNOSIS) Art design can change the world, and Hipgnosis has the story to prove it. Five decades back, the English studio created the most-famous album cover ever — an image that is still as well-known now as it was then, becoming shorthand for the psychedelic and experimental both in music and life in general in the process. Everyone knows The Dark Side of the Moon's artwork. When it comes to triangular prisms, only the Great Pyramids of Giza top the black-hued illustration with a three-sided shape at its centre, a single beam of light hitting its left side and a rainbow of disbursed hues filtering out its right surface. How it came to be, and Hipgnosis' tale as well, is the focus of the Colin Firth (Empire of Light)-produced Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis). While that's a fascinating tale anyway, with Pink Floyd's Roger Waters, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Paul McCartney and Noel Gallagher among the talking-head interviewees — plus Hipgnosis' Aubrey Powell chatting to camera, and his fellow co-founder Storm Thorgerson featured via archival discussions — it benefits from having Anton Corbijn as the documentary's director. In two of Corbijn's best features, music and imagery receive his attention. The Dutch director made the leap from music videos for Depeche Mode, Nirvana, U2, Nick Cave, Roxette, Metallica and Red Hot Chili Peppers to cinema with the Joy Division-centric Control, one of the finest music biopics there is. After thrillers The American and A Most Wanted Man, he then honed in on the friendship between James Dean and American photographer Dennis Stock in Life. Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) is his first doco and, as well as proving an outstanding fit for his career and interests, it's as rich and detailed as the filmmaker's work always is. Come for some of the foremost examples of album art — Wings' Band on the Run, Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy and 10cc's Look Hear? are also featured, on a lengthy list — and stay for the insider accounts behind capturing those visuals, and the folks who made them happen, as well as a reminder that masterpieces don't just hang on gallery walls, and of the importance of album art to begin with. Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) streams via Docplay. DR DEATH Late in the second season of Dr Death, the concept of trust in healthcare fuels a rousing speech. In a plea for a hospital to make the right choice about the titular practitioner, the importance of doctors doing their utmost to earn, deserve and uphold the faith that patients put in them — and that the entire medical industry is based on — is stressed like it's the most important aspect of being in the healing business. It is, of course. That anyone with an ailment or illness can have confidence that they're being given the best advice and treatment, and that whether they live or die matters to the doc caring for them, is the most fundamental tenet of medicine. It's also why this anthology series keeps proving shiver-inducing nightmare fuel, initially in its debut season in 2021 and now in its Édgar Ramírez (Florida Man)- and Mandy Moore (This Is Us)-starring eight-episode follow-up. Season two of Dr Death again explores the actions of a surgeon who threatens to shatter humanity's shared belief in doctors. The first time around, Texas neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch was sparking terror. Now, the series tells of Paolo Macchiarini, whose tale hops across the 2010s, and between Sweden, the US and Russia. Where Duntsch specialised in operating on spinal and neck injuries, often with heartbreakingly grim results, Macchiarini was dubbed 'Miracle Man' for his pioneering research into synthetic organs and regenerative medicine. In 2008, he was among the team that undertook the world's first-ever windpipe transplant aided by using the patient's own stem cells — a procedure that he hailed as a ground-breaking step forward, then kept building upon. Even without knowing the specifics of Macchiarini's life and career when sitting down to binge Dr Death's can't-look-away second season, it's obvious that everything that the Swiss surgeon claims can't be true. If it was, he wouldn't have been the subject of the third season of the Wondery podcast that originated the Dr Death moniker, or of this TV adaptation. Hospital horrors are one strand of true-crime's trusty go-tos. Another: romantic scandals. So, when the audio network that's also behind Dirty John learned of Macchiarini, it must've felt like it had hit the jackpot. With devastating results that are chilling to watch, his patients did when he offered them hope, too, as did investigative journalist Benita Alexander when she made him the focus of a gushing report, then fell in love. Dr Death streams via Stan. Read our full review. NYAD When most sports films bring real-life exploits to the screen, they piece together the steps it took for a person or a team to achieve the ultimate in their field, or come as close as possible while trying their hardest. Nyad is no different, but it's also a deeply absorbing character study of two people: its namesake Diana Nyad and her best friend Bonnie Stoll. The first is the long-distance swimmer whose feats the movie tracks, especially her quest to swim from Cuba to Florida in the 2010s. The second is the former professional racquetball player who became Nyad's coach when she set her sights on making history as a sexagenarian — and reattempting a gruelling leg she'd tried and failed when she was in her late 20s. It helps that Annette Bening (Death on the Nile) plays the swimmer and Jodie Foster (The Mauritanian) her offsider, with both giving exceptional performances that unpack not only the demands of chasing such a dream, but of complicated friendships. Also assisting: that Nyad is helmed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, directors making their feature debut beyond documentaries after The Rescue, Meru and winning an Oscar for charting Alex Honnold's El Capitan climb in Free Solo. Extraordinary efforts are this filmmaking pair's wheelhouse, clearly. Nyad and Stoll fit that description easily, as do Bening and Foster. With the latter, who brings shades of Michael J Fox (Still: A Michael J Fox Movie) to her portrayal, Nyad also provides a reminder of how phenomenal the Taxi Driver, The Silence of the Lambs and Panic Room star is on-screen, how charismatic as well, and how missed she's been while featuring in just four films in the past decade (from January 2024, the fourth season of True Detective thankfully places Foster at its centre). Understandably, the movie's main actors have been earning awards attention. The picture around them never stops plunging into what makes both Nyad and Stoll tick — and keep shooting for such an immense goal, even as setback after setback comes their way — with Chin and Vasarhelyi experts in conveying minutiae. Whether or not you know the outcome, Nyad is rousing and compelling viewing, floating on excellent work by its four key creative talents. Nyad streams via Netflix. MY NAME IS ALFRED HITCHCOCK Documentarian Mark Cousins knows how to delight cinephiles: turn his attention to a chapter of movie history, or the whole subject itself, then talk his way through it over a deftly spliced-together compilation of clips. So unspooled the mammoth 915-minute The Story of Film: An Odyssey in 2011, plus 2013's A Story of Children and Film and 2021's The Story of Film: A New Generation since. With 2018's Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema, he took the same path but with the likes of Jane Fonda (Book Club: The Next Chapter), Thandiwe Newton (Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget) and Tilda Swinton (The Killer) on narration duties. His current focus is one of the greatest filmmakers to ever tell tales using a camera — who, 43 years after dying, chats through his life's work. That said, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock obviously hasn't enlisted the real Master of Suspense from beyond the grave. Rather, it gets mimic Alistair McGowan (Creation Stories) pretending. That approach is a gimmick; however, after it worked well-enough for Cousins' also-2018 effort The Eyes of Orson Welles (with The English's Jack Klaff doing the voicing), it does again in the latest in a long line of his informative and passionate filmic explorations. If you've ever wanted a Hitchcock director's commentary track spanning his entire career, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock is as close as you're ever going to get. Cousins has his faux Hitch dig into his work via six themes, examining how escape, desire, loneliness, time, fulfilment and height ripple through everything from silents such as The Pleasure Garden and The Ring, plus his British talkies like The 39 Steps and Young and Innocent, through to Rebecca, Spellbound, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain and Family Plot. Finishing the two-hour doco with a massive Hitchcock to-watch or to-revisit list goes with the territory. So does taking a close, shrewd and playful look at recurring ideas, motifs and obsessions in the famed filmmaker's fare, with meticulously examples and evidence to illustrate every point. Accordingly, it's classic Cousins, then — as once again filled with snippets of classic cinema. Indeed, My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock is so engrossing in its clips and insights that it didn't need to cheekily pretend that Hitchcock is voicing them. My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock streams via Binge. RICK AND MORTY Long before Rick and Morty's seventh season arrived — 11 months before it wrapped up its ten-instalment run in mid-December, in fact — the beloved animated series with one of pop culture's most-intense fandoms had everyone talking about its latest instalments. When Adult Swim dropped co-creator Justin Roiland due to domestic violence charges in January 2023, it cut ties with the voice of Rick Sanchez and his grandson Morty Smith. New vocals would be deployed, of course. Still, how the necessary change would impact the sci-fi sitcom lingered over the show's return. Solar Opposites, which Roiland was also behind and loaned his tones to, opted to work the swap into its storyline — and enlisted Dan Stevens (The Boy and the Heron) to do the new honours. The answer for Rick and Morty? With the largely unknown Ian Cardoni (Dead of Night) and Harry Belden (Christmas… Again?) providing sound-alike replacements as Rick and Morty's titular madcap scientist and high-schooler offsider, the switch in actors couldn't be more inconsequential. That's exactly how it should be; the series might've made Roiland a household name, and not only for his on-screen efforts, but blending the gleefully silly with the astutely insightful — and finding endless riffs on its Back to the Future-esque premise on the time-, universe- and galaxy-hopping journey — has always been its biggest drawcard. New voices, same tune: that's Rick and Morty season seven, then. Now 71 episodes in, the show isn't non-stop perfection, but that isn't a new development. Also, its best instalments remain must-see gems. So, while an entire 20-minute stretch based around warring factions of letters and numbers falls flat, even with Ice-T (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) as a T-shaped letter called Water-T, that underwhelming effort is surrounded by anarchic, absurd, creative and contemplative delights. Rick's ongoing search for the source of his misery fuels two of Rick and Morty's finest-ever episodes, in fact — and hilarious surprises still abound second by second, scene by scene, in the whip-smart dialogue and hidden in almost every pixel of every frame. Rick and Morty streams via Netflix. BUMP Four festive seasons, four Bump seasons: whenever the end of one year and beginning of the next has rolled around since 2020 became 2021, this Australian dramedy has arrived with it. Not just starring Aussie national treasure Claudia Karvan, but co-created by the Love My Way, The Secret Life of Us and The Clearing actor (with Scrublands writer Kelsey Munro), it has now become a December-January tradition. Also a constant: within its frames, the Davis-Chalmers-Hernández family remains its focus. Everyday ups and downs both big and small keeps fuelling its storylines, too. And, no matter which bumps are faced by matriarch Angie (Karvan), her ex-husband Dom (Angus Sampson, Insidious: The Red Door), their daughter Oly (Nathalie Morris, Petrol), the latter's partner Santi (Carlos Sanson Jr, Sweet As), and Oly and Santi's own daughter Jacinda (TV first-timer Ava Cannon) — back when the show began, an unexpected teen pregnancy that only announced its existence when Oly went into labour at school was the first — this is one of the best-cast and most-heartfelt local productions in recent years. Bump's fourth go-around has a favourite recurring theme in its sights: the constant struggle for balance. Never one to back away from her ambitions, Oly has a dream job in politics, but for demanding boss Shauna (Steph Tisdell, Total Control), who thinks nothing of expecting her to front up to a meeting on a Saturday mere hours after getting off the plane from a week-long conference overseas. At work, Oly is even lying about Jacinda's existence. At home, Santi is frustrated with the changed status quo's impact on the couple's relationship and his attempts to chase his artistic dreams. As for Angie, she's decamped to a protest site to save trees that Shauna wants to bulldoze to build social housing, which helps distract her from her own romantic situation. In its first ten-episode season and its returns since, Bump has always felt like a sibling to Heartbreak High. Initially debuting before that beloved favourite made a 2022 comeback, it explores the out-of-hours chaos surrounding a teacher's family — with Karvan as an educator again after The Heartbreak Kid, the movie that sparked the OG Heartbreak High in the first place. That isn't a fresh insight but it keeps proving true, including in a new run of Bump that adds Dylan Alcott (Scarygirl) to the mix. Bump streams via Stan. CHICKEN RUN: DAWN OF THE NUGGET In 2023, the factory that made the modelling clay that film and television viewers have seen shaped into inventors, dogs, chickens, sheep, pirates and more closed down. With it came reports that Britain's Aardman Animation might not be able to keep fashioning its beloved claymation movies after 2024, when its next Wallace and Gromit feature is due. The studio nixed those claims, thankfully, amid delivering its first flick in four years: Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. A return to the clucking world of its first-ever full-length release, this 23-years-later sequel still boasts much of Aardman's usual magic. It's a caper with cute creatures, contraptions, heists and puns, and it has clearly — and literally — been crafted with the utmost care. The one unavoidable struggle if you've also seen the big screen's Migration, with both films arriving in the same month: demonstrating how formula has become far too prevalent among family-friendly animation, given that that duck-focused picture from Minions creators Illumination and Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget follow almost the exact same storyline. This chook version reteams with the poultry that escaped from Mr and Mrs Tweedy's farm back in 2000's Chicken Run, albeit with changed voices. Instead of Julia Sawalha (Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie), Thandiwe Newton (Westworld) now lends her vocals to Ginger, the British bird that masterminds the flock's breakouts — and, in Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, break-ins — while Zachary Levi (Shazam! Fury of the Gods) does the same for her American husband Rocky, not Mel Gibson (The Continental: From the World of John Wick). The pair are now parents to Molly (Bella Ramsey, The Last of Us), who they've brought up on an island away from humans, but the 11-year-old wants to know more about the world. Enter a chicken processing factory on the mainland, with ads that pique Molly's curiosity because she knows nothing of the food chain's horrors. Even when the writing isn't as smart as previous Aardman movies — or the sight gags up to Shaun the Sheep Movie and A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon's standards — this is a likeable escapade from one of the best in the animation business. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget streams via Netflix. A NEW TV SHOW TO START THE FAMOUS FIVE What do Enid Blyton and the filmmaker behind the Pusher trilogy, Bronson, Drive, Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon have in common? The answer is one of the wildest swings in pop-culture history, plus a move on Nicolas Winding Refn's part that absolutely no one could've anticipated. At home making small-screen fare in the seven years since his last film, the Danish director hops from the overtly Winding Refn-esque Too Old to Die Young and Copenhagen Cowboy to a new TV adaptation of The Famous Five. Yes, that The Famous Five. Yes, he's created a series based on the children's novels about four kids and their dog Timmy, which rank alongside Noddy and The Secret Seven franchise as one of English author Blyton's best-known creations. Yes, it instantly seems an unlikely fit, and makes getting nostalgic with the first of three movie-length episodes set to result across 2023–24 a must-watch. In debut instalment The Curse of Kirrin Island — with chapters two and three due in 2024 — Game of Thrones' Jack Gleeson also adds another rare post-Joffrey role to his resume after season four of Sex Education. Still present, as readers will remember from the page: a 1940s time period, spirited tomboy George (Diaana Babnicova, Don't Breathe 2) at the centre of the action, plus her cousins Julian (Elliott Rose, The Northman) Dick (Kit Rakusen, Foundation) and Anne (newcomer Flora Jacoby Richardson) helping her solve mysteries. Among the thoroughly Winding Refn touches, even though he isn't doing the helming (The Pentaverate, Brockmire and Fleabag alum Tim Kirkby directs The Curse of Kirrin Island): neon and candy-coloured hues over both the opening and closing credits, plus a synth-heavy score any show or movie would love to have. This is no bloody reimagining, however. The man behind The Famous Five's new guise isn't killing anyone's darlings — or, not that he's ever belonged in such company or ever will, going all Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey on a childhood staple. Rather, as co-created with Matthew Read (The Pursuit of Love), co-starring Ted Lasso's James Lance and Moon Knight's Ann Akinjirin as George's parents, he's crafted a lushly shot new take on a favourite that starts with an Indiana Jones-style caper involving a dusty goblet and the Knights Templar. The Famous Five streams via Stan. STANDOUT MOVIES FROM THE LAST FEW YEARS THAT YOU NEED TO CATCH UP WITH ASAP SOMETHING IN THE DIRT The pandemic's stay-at-home era gave rise to Bo Burnham's Inside, Zoom horror effort Host and Steven Soderbergh thriller Kimi, three ace examples of creatively adapting to and exploring unexpected circumstances. Add Something in the Dirt to the list, which Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead direct, star in and produce — as well as co-edit with their regular collaborator Michael Felker, while Benson wrote the script and Moorhead lensed the entire picture. Made during lockdown, it was also shot in Benson's own Los Angeles apartment. In their latest mind-twister, there's no missing the Resolution, Spring, The Endless and Synchronic filmmakers' fingerprints all over every millimetre of this movie. It's another unnerving sci-fi-tinged puzzle, too, as they've also pursued via the small screen's Archive 81, The Twilight Zone, Moon Knight and Loki. In other words, Something in the Dirt is exactly what Benson and Moorhead fans should expect from two of the most-interesting cinematic forces today riffing on being stuck in one location, virtually in isolation, while everything feels eerie, unsettling and otherworldly. Moorhead's John Daniels and Benson's Levi Danube both live in the same Hollywood Hills apartment complex, but bond over a series of unusual and seemingly linked paranormal occurrences. Their swift response to strange symbols, crystals, lights and levitating objects is to team up on a documentary, hoping that Netflix might snap it up — and down the rabbit hole the duo eagerly tumble. Paranoia, alienation, coincidences and conspiracy theories all swirl, plus uncertainty about how much they can actually trust each other. As the feature flits between interviews and experts, proving a film within a film, whether Something in the Dirt's viewers can trust what they're being told also swells. Benson and Moorhead dedicate the picture "to making movies with your friends", but could've also shouted out humanity's easy willingness to clutch onto anything and everything to attempt to make sense of chaos. This is a movie about where the brain spirals and, as it parodies and puzzles, it's another standout from its inventive filmmaking pair. It'd also slip nicely into two stellar triple bills, either with Under the Silver Lake and Mulholland Drive, or Pi and Eraserhead. Something in the Dirt streams via Shudder and AMC+. ANNETTE Dreamy and dazzling from its first moments, rock opera Annette bursts onto the screen with a question: "so may we start?". "Please do", fans of Holy Motors director Leos Carax should think to themselves, and devotees of Ron and Russell Mael as well — and yes the later, aka art-pop duo Sparks, have clearly been having a moment since 2021 (see: documentary The Sparks Brothers, their 2023 album The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte and their first tour Down Under in two decades). Carax and the Maels all appear on-screen in Annette's opening, joined by Adam Driver (65), Marion Cotillard (We'll End Up Together) and Simon Helberg (Poker Face). In a glorious, song-fuelled, sing-and-walk scene, no one is playing a character yet, but they're all still playing a part. They're setting the vibe in a sensational way, and the tune is pure Sparks, with the pair both composing the movie's music and writing the feature itself with Carax. The tone bubbles with the duo's avant-garde sensibilities, too, and the whole song echoes with the promise of remarkable things to come. In 2012, Carax gave the world a once-in-a-lifetime gem. Annette is a different film to Holy Motors, obviously, but it gleams just as brightly and with the same beguiling, inimitable, all-encompassing allure. There's an ethereal, otherworldly quality to Carax's work — of heightening reality to truly understand how people feel and act, and of experimenting with artforms to interrogate them — and that sensation seeps through every second of his gleefully melodramatic musical, which deservedly won him the Cannes Film Festival's Best Director award. Everything about Annette has been turned up several notches on every setting, from its lush and lavish imagery to its cascade of toe-tapping, sung-through tunes that keep propelling the narrative forward. Every detail of that story has been amplified, too, as this tragic fairy tale follows standup comedian Henry McHenry (Driver), opera star Ann Defrasnoux (Cotillard), their mismatched but passionate and all-consuming love, and their titular daughter — with the latter played by a marionette. Annette streams via SBS On Demand. Read our full review and our interview with Sparks. Need a few more streaming recommendations? Check out our picks from January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October and November this year. You can also check out our running list of standout must-stream shows from this year as well — and our best 15 new shows of 2023, 15 newcomers you might've missed, top 15 returning shows of the year, 15 best films, 15 top movies you likely didn't see, 15 best straight-to-streaming flicks and 30 movies worth catching up on over the summer.
Visiting Europe sadly isn't on Australians' agendas in the near future. Heading to New York to wander through The Metropolitan Museum of Art isn't at the moment either. But, for four months in 2021, a heap of European art masterpieces from The Met will be making the journey to our shores — so you'll be able to feast your eyes on some of the greatest paintings ever committed to canvas at Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art. From June 12–October 17, 2021, 65 works that almost never leave The Met's galleries will grace GOMA's walls, in what'll be the Brissie venue's biggest ever survey of the history of European art. And if you're wondering why these paintings are so treasured, well, that's because they're by everyone from Monet, van Gogh and Vermeer to Renoir, Rembrandt and Degas. The list of artists featuring in the exhibition, which covers a whopping 500 years of European art and is fittingly called European Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, just keeps going — with Rubens, Poussin, Gauguin, Raphael, Boucher and Velazquez all included as well. Also impressive: the different types of artworks that'll be on display, spanning everything from portraits and still-life pieces to landscape paintings and figure studies. From the full lineup, the earliest work will date back to 1445, courtesy of an altarpiece panel depicting the Crucifixion of Christ by the Florentine artist Fra Angelico. Also among the centuries-old highlights are Titian's Venus and Adonis from the 1550s, Caravaggio's The Musicians from 1597, Rembrandt's Flora from around 1654, and Vermeer's Allegory of the Catholic Faith. And, for works from the 19th-century impressionist and post-impressionist period, the likes of Monet, Renoir and van Gogh have things wrapped up — complete with Monet's 1919 piece Water Lilies. [caption id="attachment_781830" align="alignnone" width="1920"] 'The Flowering Orchard' (1888) by Vincent van Gogh. The Mr and Mrs Henry Ittleson jr Purchase Fund 1956/56.13. Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.[/caption] GOMA's program will also feature hands-on digital and analogue activities to accompany the masterworks, plus — as is always the case with its major exhibitions — a lineup of yet-to-be-announced Up Late events that'll let you check out these art wonders after dark and over a few drinks. European Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York is a Brisbane exclusive, too. So, if you're an art lover in New South Wales or Victoria, cross your fingers that Queensland's borders have well and truly reopened to your states by June 2021. European Masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York will display at Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art from June 12–October 17, 2021. For more information — or to buy tickets — visit the GOMA website. Top images: Water Lilies (1916-19) by Claude Monet. Gift of Louise Reinhardt Smith 1983/1983.532.; Still Life with Apples and Pears (1891-92) Bequest of Stephen C Clark 1960/61.101.3. Both collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Rumours are fun, but knowing which bands are confirmed to play at Australia’s premier music festival is even better. The lineup for Splendour in the Grass was fed to early risers on Thursday morning via the Triple J Breakfast Show, quashing some rumours, verifying others and turning Coachella, Prince and holographic Tupac into nothing but distant memories. Generally regarded as Australia's biggest winter music festival, Splendour originated in 2001 at Belongil Fields outside of Byron Bay. The 2010 and 2011 festivals were relocated to Woodford, Queensland due to Byron Bay area restrictions, but this year's festival will return to its spiritual home. The three day festival, which this year takes place July 27-29, has a history of legendary line-ups, with past festivals including music greats like Kanye West, The Strokes and PJ Harvey. Tough acts to follow, but 2012's list won't disappoint. Headlining the 2012 festival will be Jack White, Bloc Party, Smashing Pumpkins, At The Drive-In and The Shins. Feast your eyes on the full lineup below and start saving your coin (is anyone still reading this anyway?). The lineup for Splendour in the Grass 2012: Jack White, Bloc Party, Smashing Pumpkins, At The Drive-In, Lana Del Rey, Azealia Banks, The Shins, Hilltop Hoods, The Kooks, Gossip, Miike Snow, Dirty Three, 360, Tame Impala, Explosions In The Sky, Ladyhawke, The Afghan Whigs, Missy Higgins, Wolfmother, Metric, Kimbra, Mudhoney, Band Of Skulls, Spiderbait, Django Django, Gypsy & The Cat, San Cisco, Last Dinosaurs, Electric Guest, Muscles, Angus Stone, DZ Deathrays, Howler, Lanie Lane, Wolf & Cub, Fun., Big Scary, Michael Kiwanuka, Seekae, Friends, Yacht Club Dj's, Bertie Blackman, Jinja Safari, Blue King Brown, Youth Lagoon, Pond, The Beautiful Girls, Yuksek, Tijuana Cartel, Ball Park Music, The Rubens, Ben Howard, Bleeding Knees Club, Zulu Winter, The Medics, Shihad, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Husky, Kate Miller-Heidke, Father John Misty, Emma Louise, Chet Faker, Here We Go Magic, Parachute Youth, Mosman Alder, The Cast Of Cheers, Gossling, Beni, Sampology (AV/DJ show), Canyons (DJ Set), Nina Las Vegas, Danny T, Alison Wonderland, Nice and Ego (AV/DJ show) Flume, Gloves, Luke Million, Harris Robotis, Alley Oop. Festival dates: Friday 27, Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 July. For more info check the Splendour in the Grass website. Words by Hannah Ongley and Anya Krenicki
Tropical North Queensland is so rich in natural beauty that it's easy to forget that the region also boasts an impressive art scene. Local and international artists flock to the tropics, finding inspiration in the stunning scenery throughout the area. From local theatres and art galleries, to beachside markets and concert venues, there are plenty of ways to get your culture fix while in the tropics.
If you like eating breakfast, brunch and lunch in leafy surroundings, then you're probably fond of parkside and al fresco dining. Step inside James Street's newest addition, however, and you'll still be be greeted by plants aplenty. You can browse through and buy some before or after your meal, too, now that nursery pop-up The Green has set up permanent digs — and also combined it with a Middle Eastern eatery. After selling potted greenery further along the busy Fortitude Valley street, and earning a following in the process, The Green has nestled into its long-term home in the same vicinity. You'll find it in a space that's been designed by Channon Architects to resemble an urban oasis, and boasts timber, raw concrete, marble and red-hued interiors by Borhan Ghorfran. You'll also spy cascading plants both indoors and in its outdoor dining pavilion and garden room. Offering a curated, design-driven range of plants and homewares, The Green stocks everything from eye-catching leafiness to items made by Relik Designs, by local artist Luke Mansini — if you're looking for something green for your home, and something to put it in. Handmade Japanese ceramics also sit on the shelves, and the store will soon feature its own flower bar. Need some advice? You can also pick up tips and information on plant styling and landscape design options, and get design consultations. When it comes to food, owners Christina Habchi and Angela Sclavos — the latter of whom is also behind fellow Valley diner Essa — turn daytime dining up a few notches, combining fine-diner cooking techniques with Middle Eastern dishes. Plus, it also does takeaway and catering. And if you're wondering how The Green came about, it was originally sparked by Habchi and Sclavos' aim to give the area a great place to buy plants — and somewhere that paired them with coffee, too.
The lucky country is at the top of global travel plans for British holidaygoers, according to a recent survey by TravelBag. Specifically, Australia ranks as the third most appealing destination on Earth, beaten only by Canada and Japan. The survey details that almost half (46 percent, to be precise) of Brits are aching for their next overseas adventure — unsurprisingly, Japan takes the top spot. Plenty of Australians also want to go there or have already gone. But Australia sits well within the top three, with 30 percent of survey respondents ranking it as their most sought-after holiday destination. There's no surprise there, considering our world-famous beaches, natural scenery and busy urban atmospheres. There's a bit of everything for everyone, visitor and resident alike in Australia. For active travel planners, Australia came in second place. Gen X travellers are most drawn to Australia, but its Millennials who are actually making the plans, 9.6 percent of them specifically. Classically, most of those trips are aimed for the dreary UK winter and red-hot Australian summer period of December to February, a season that we who live here know is where everything really comes alive. Take the beaches. Bondi is likely first in mind for many of these tourists-to-be, but there's plenty more great ones to discover all over the Harbour City, and the rest of the country for that matter. When the heat becomes too much to bear, travellers are likely to head indoors, and the majority of them (26.7 percent) intend to add shopping to their itinerary. Otherwise, ancient ruins and local history draw 21.4 percent of tourists, and road trips make up 21.5 percent of itineraries, too. It's time to start planning a summer adventure, so have a tour of our guides for NSW, VIC and QLD to find the experiences that are right for you.
Overworked? Jet lagged? Hung over? Desperate for a nap, with nowhere to run? Kickstarter is your new best friend. Without crowd funding, the 'Ostrich Pillow' might well have been just another designer's castle in the air. But with 1,846 backers having provided support to the tune of $195,094, it's become every dreamer's reality - in airports, offices and parks all over the world. Architecture and design studio Kawamura-Ganjavian (also known as Studio KG) ran their Ostrich Pillow campaign last year. Not only did they met their initial $70,000 target, they nearly tripled it. 'Ostrich Pillow is a revolutionary new product to enable easy power naps anytime, anywhere,' they explained. '[Its] unique design offers a micro environment in which to take a cosy and comfortable power nap at ease . . . Its soothing soft interior shelters and isolates your head and hands (mind and body) for a short break, without needing to leave your desk, chair, bench or wherever you may be.' It's not difficult to understand why weary travellers and office workers might have rushed to pledge support. Made of 'Flexible Fabric' and filled with 'micro balls', the pillow measures 45cm x 28cm x 15cm, with a 70cm round opening, which means that pretty much any human head should be able to find its way in. Studio Banana Things is selling it online for $US99. [via Kickstarter]
New season of True Detective, new cops, new case: since 2014, that's been the setup for this HBO hit, as viewers will enjoy again in January 2024. When True Detective: Night Country arrives, Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster, The Mauritanian) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis, Catch the Fair One) are in the spotlight, investigating an icy mystery in Alaska. Eight men on an arctic research station disappear without a trace — and it's up to the franchise's latest duo to discover what's going on. Whether or not you believe that time is a flat circle — and everything we've ever done or will do, we're gonna do over and over and over and over again, too — watching new episodes of this sleuthing series is indeed about to become a reality again. When True Detective returns for a six-episode fourth season after a five-year absence, it'll head to the town of Ennis, spend time with a pair that's hardly happy to be working together, and serve up plenty of chills and darkness. In both True Detective: Night Country's initial teasers and its just-dropped full trailer, Danvers and Navarro team up to discover why the Tsalal Arctic Research Station staff have gone missing. In the latest sneak peek, a potential supernatural angle is teased, too — ice zombies, anyone? When it hits Down Under on Monday, January 15 — via Binge in Australia and Neon in New Zealand — True Detective: Night Country will also feature Finn Bennett (Hope Gap), Fiona Shaw (Andor), Christopher Eccleston (Dodger), Isabella Star LaBlanc (Long Slow Exhale) and John Hawkes (Too Old to Die Young) in front of the camera. Behind the lens, every one of the series' episodes is written and directed by Tigers Are Not Afraid filmmaker Issa López, with Moonlight's Barry Jenkins an executive producer. Each season of True Detective tells its own tale, so there's no need to catch up on past chapters if you watched the Matthew McConaughey (The Gentlemen)- and Woody Harrelson (White House Plumbers)-led first season in 2014 — as everyone did — but didn't keep up from there. Taylor Kitsch (Painkiller), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Rachel McAdams (Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret) starred in season two, while Mahershala Ali (Leave the World Behind) and Stephen Dorff (The Righteous Gemstones) took over in season three. Check out the full trailer for True Detective: Night Country below: True Detective: Night Country will stream in Australia Monday, January 15, 2024 via Binge in Australia and Neon in New Zealand.
Leaning into Coorparoo's love of community is Maude. This family-friendly cafe and restaurant is owned and run by local husband and wife duo, Brandon and Caity Hemmings. Here, guests are treated to breakfast and lunch every day of the week with a broad range of healthy, indulgent and simple dishes on offer. Classics like the breakfast burger, pancakes and calamari sit beside fresh takes on dishes such as broccoli fritters, bacon-wrapped bangers and mash, and charred octopus. The drinks menu covers coffee, smoothies and wine, plus some pimped up sparkling waters that are a must-try — think combinations like vanilla bean and passionfruit, rosella and raspberry and lavender and elderflower. And you can add in a shot of your favourite spirit to make it into a cocktail if you're in the mood for something cheeky. Images: Kiel Wode
