From moonlit rooftops to moody underground dens, Brisbane almost has it all when it comes to bars. But this hasn't stopped a horde of new and inventive ones from opening this year. A adults-only arcade bar pairing vintage prizes with alcoholic bubble teas, a specialty gin bar in a food truck bark and the city's only inner-city microdistillery with over 100 rums. This year's newbies are nothing if not diverse. At Concrete Playground we encourage exploration and showcase innovation in our city every day, so we thought it fitting to reward those most talented whippersnappers pushing Brisbane to be a better, braver city. So, these six new bars were nominated for Best New Bar in Concrete Playground's Best of 2018 Awards. You can check out all the winners here.
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols should never be far from anyone's ears — but there's listening to the iconic 1977 punk album, the only studio record from Sex Pistols, and then there's hearing it played live in full. Down Under in 2025, Australian and New Zealand music lovers will be treated to that very experience, with the group locking in a tour. Band members Paul Cook, Steve Jones and Glen Matlock are heading this way in April, as part of a project dubbed Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter. As the band's moniker makes plain, this is a case of punk figures joining punk figures, as first happened back in August 2024 for fundraiser gigs in London. Clearly the setup worked. This will be Sex Pistols' first trip this way in almost 30 years, since 1996 — this time pairing drummer Cook, guitarist Jones and bassist Matlock with Gallows, Pure Love and Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes alum Carter on vocals. The group have announced seven stops, starting in Auckland in Christchurch in Aotearoa, before playing Aussie gigs in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane and Fremantle. John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, the band's well-known former lead vocalist, was last part of their lineup in 2008 — which is when Sex Pistols last toured before 2024. Hearing Never Mind the Bollocks live and in full almost five decades since its original release means hearing 'Anarchy in the UK', 'God Save the Queen', 'Pretty Vacant', 'Bodies', 'Holidays in the Sun' and more. If this feels like an incredibly rare chance to experience a slice of music greatness, that's because it is — and if you need any more motivation, Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter's UK gigs earned rave reviews. [caption id="attachment_986909" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Henry Ruggeri[/caption] Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter 2025 Australia and New Zealand Tour Wednesday, April 2 — Town Hall, Auckland Thursday, April 3 — Town Hall, Christchurch Saturday, April 5 — Festival Hall, Melbourne Sunday, April 6 — Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide Tuesday, April 8 — Hordern Pavilion, Sydney Wednesday, April 9 — Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane Friday, April 11 — Fremantle Prison, Fremantle Sex Pistols Featuring Frank Carter are touring Australia and New Zealand in April 2025, with ticket presales from 11am on Tuesday, January 21 and general sales from 12pm on Thursday, January 23. Head to the Australia and New Zealand tour websites for more details.
Visitors to the Sydney Opera House might soon be able to stay the night, under a bold new plan being considered by NSW state authorities. According to The Guardian, the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment is currently mulling over a proposal that would see certain sections of the Opera House — including the Utzon Room, the Board Room, the Joan Sutherland Theatre and the Concert Hall — temporarily transformed into luxury accommodation on a small number of nights throughout the year. Under the proposal put forward by the Sydney Opera House Trust last year, the Opera House could be utilised for "two types of experiential events". The first would offer "up to two nights' accommodation for a maximum of five guests, offered five times per year". The second would offer "up to two nights' accommodation for a maximum of 100 guests, offered on a single occasion per year". According to the proposal, the activation would "provide a unique opportunity for the community to experience the iconic Sydney Opera House in new and innovative ways", while allowing corporate partners to "promote their support of the Sydney Opera House". The idea sounds cool in theory, but has caused some controversy, particularly in relation to the Opera House's corporate partnership with Airbnb. In a submission to NSW Planning, a former Opera House employee called the plan "bold and brazen marketing" and described the partnership with Airbnb "evil genius". Speaking to The Guardian, a spokesperson for the Opera House said that they did not intend to charge visitors for an overnight stay, but would instead utilise the accommodation for "ballots, visitor experiences, competition prizes or promotional activities". It doesn't sound too dissimilar to the types of competitions that accommodation sites Airbnb and HomeAway have run overseas, which have included overnight stays. It doesn't sound too dissimilar to the types of competitions that accommodation sites Airbnb and HomeAway have run overseas, which have included overnight stays in the Eiffel Tower, the catacombs in Paris and Dracula's Castle. And while it could prove a handy option if the Opera House decides to run its all-night Bingefest this year, we'll wait and see if the proposal gets the final sign-off. Via The Guardian. Image: Frances Gunn.
Being named the world's best gin producer for two years running, selling half of its business to beer behemoth Lion and opening a Sydney bar in the middle of the pandemic — they're just some of reasons that Four Pillars has had a big couple of years. The Australian gin company is in for a hefty 2021, too, especially at the Healesville site it calls home. Over the next 12 months, it's undertaking a $6 million redevelopment, which'll enable twice as many juniper spirits-lovers to head to the Yarra Valley and enjoy its tipples. Come December 2021, you'll be able to visit Four Pillars' Lilydale Road address and check out a much larger setup. New hospitality, production and bottling facilities will be part of the revamped site — including the company's sixth German-designed Carl still — as will an events space. The latter will be able to house 250 guests, and there'll also be a retail space and something that Four Pillars is calling 'a special sensory surprise', should you want to do more than just taste its gin. Giving the site an eye-catching new facade designed by Breathe Architecture, the new works are taking place adjacent to Four Pillars' existing distillery, and are designed to blend the two together seamlessly. So, if you're fond of the current setup — as around 100,000 people were in 2019 — it's sticking around. When the new addition opens, however, the Healesville facility will be able to welcome more than 200,000 visitors per year. [caption id="attachment_799170" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Artist's impression of Four Pillars' distillery redevelopment. Breathe Architecture/Neverstop.[/caption] "When we began making Four Pillars, the Yarra Valley was always intended to be our home — and when we found our original site, we couldn't believe our luck," said Four Pillars co-founder Cameron Mackenzie. "When the opportunity came to buy the land next door, we simply had no choice but to roll the dice and back our Yarra Valley dream to the hilt." Four Pillars' current distillery and hospitality space will continue operating as normal while the new works are taking place, and continue serving up the brand's award-winning range — which includes barrel-aged, bloody shiraz, rare dry, spiced negroni, Christmas, overproof, olive leaf and summer-inspired gins. And, if you've made the visit since the Healesville spot reopened over the summer, only to find queues snaking outside, that's one of the things the big revamp is designed to address. Four Pillars' revamped distillery will open at 2–6 Lilydale Road, Healesville, in December 2021. The company's existing site at the same address is still open as usual during the redevelopment.
That day of the year is coming up… you know the one. The one day of the year when the world is split into two categories: those who are loved up feel even more so, and those lonely hearts are made to feel even more lonely. Love it or hate it, St. Valentine’s Day is almost here. For those in the former category of people it can be hard to think of an original and special gift for your partner. Roses are a bit cliché, chocolates the same, and it is always nice if you can do something together to celebrate your loving state. Ta da! Enter Shri Yoga’s Valentine’s Day Partner Yoga Playshop. This is an afternoon of exploring and strengthening your trust, love and connection with your partner, while gently stretching together and learning ways to be yogic as a pair. Not just for lovers, the workshop could be done with a good friend - essentially it is a chance to build on your relationship through yoga. Following the yoga session things just get better with each participant receiving a Thai massage to have you floating out of the workshop on a relaxed, loving high! This special session will fill up so surprise your love and book in quickly.
'Based on real events'. It's been an incredibly popular theme of late, with an almost unceasing run of biopics and historical dramas coming our way every year for the past decade or so. Those four simple words imbue a movie with an immediate sheen of credibility, commanding the audience's attention and respect in equal measure. The thing is, it's also particularly sneaky. 'Based on real events' doesn't mean 'happened'. Instead, it provides filmmakers with a sizeable caveat upon which almost almost any fact can be supplanted by something far more exciting, or more moving or…whatever the movie needs, really. Hacksaw Ridge, Mel Gibson's first directorial offering in over a decade, stands apart on this front for two distinct reasons. Firstly, it opts for the far more concrete 'A True Story' at its opening. Secondly, it takes the almost unprecedented step of underselling the feats of its protagonist, American war hero Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield). In real life, as in the film, the famous WWII conscientious objector refused to carry a weapon because of his religious beliefs as a Seventh Day Adventist, yet still earned himself the Congressional Medal of Honour when he single-handedly carried 75 wounded men on his back during the battle for Hacksaw Ridge, lowering them one-by-one down a cliff face to safety while under constant fire from the enemy. Doss' real world battlefield valour, however, extended far beyond this feat, with his citation referencing numerous other instances of extraordinary heroism that fail to even rate a mention in the film. Perhaps it was cut for time, or perhaps Gibson and his team concluded that Doss' actions were already so unbelievable, to detail all of them would challenge even the most faithful historian. Either way, it's refreshing to see an already humble hero presented without the need to over-emphasise, over-sell and over-indulge. Filmed in Australia with a predominantly local supporting cast, Hacksaw Ridge offers a surprisingly conventional first half for a director of Gibson's talent. The flashbacks to Doss' childhood and his troubled parents (Rachel Griffiths and Hugo Weaving), the romance with his sweetheart (Teresa Palmer) and his initiation into the military (under the supervision of Vince Vaughn and Sam Worthington) all play dangerously close to melodrama, saved only by the quality of the actors' performances. The sole purpose of this first phase is to establish with none too subtle a touch Doss' fervent religious conviction, cataloguing each and every instance of persecution, bullying and even the court martial that threatened to see him imprisoned for the duration of the war. But Gibson has made a career out of terrifyingly visceral combat scenes (see also: Braveheart and Apocalypto), and from the moment the first bullet tears through the air and into the flesh of the soldier it finds, Hacksaw Ridge sheds its corniness and transforms into a brutal, confronting and violent recreation of one of WWII's bloodiest battles. Neither as involved as Saving Private Ryan, nor as haunting as The Thin Red Line, Hacksaw Ridge nonetheless delivers a truly frenetic sense of warfare, at times seeming closer to the clashing armies of the middle ages than the modern combat of the last century. The film is unashamedly unilateral in purpose, and the closing shot of Doss essentially ascending to Heaven is rather on the nose. Still, as a tribute to a genuinely extraordinary man and a return to form by Gibson, both are as welcome as they are overdue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2-1hz1juBI
He's an accountant. But he's also a hitman. But he's also a high-functioning autistic. But he's also a martial arts expert. And a marksman. Oh, and he's an art lover. He has a Renoir, but he prefers the Pollack. Man, it would've been a fun room to be in when they pitched The Accountant. And yet, the pitch worked, with the film they ended up making turning out like the lovechild of A Beautiful Mind and Jason Bourne. If that sounds somewhat genre bending, it is. There's even a bunch of quirky comedy in there to really mix things up. Ultimately, the premise of The Accountant, by director Gavin O'Connor (Warrior), is as out there as it sounds: Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is a genius mathematician whose autism saw his mother abandon the family during his childhood, and his military father apply psy-ops (psychological operations) training to inure both Christian and his brother to the world of hardship that awaited them as adults. 20 years later and all grown up, Christian now operates as an accountant to the international worst of the worst: mafia, drug cartels and gun runners, oh my! The Treasury wants to know who he is, while a cutting-edge robotics company wants his services to track down missing millions from its accounts. Wild as they sound, the opening stages of this movie actually hold up pretty well. Affleck plays Wolff very much like his recent portrayal of Bruce Wayne: hulking, detached and extremely socially awkward. There are the clichéd maths montages featuring blinking-eyed number crunching and frenzied writing on walls, but on the whole his depiction of a misunderstood neurological conditions is impressively understated. But the film takes a sudden turn for the worse about an hour in. Its determination to throw in plot twist after plot twist results in some excruciating exposition-heavy scenes. The violence, meanwhile, is extreme and comic-booky (think John Wick with a tick), and the characters' lives all end up being far more intertwined than necessary. The supporting cast is strong, featuring the likes of Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jeffrey Tambor and Jon Bernthal. Sadly, none are given the kind of material needed to properly showcase their talents. The result is a film adrift, floating from one genre to the next without ever properly settling. It has some touching (and much needed) language about 'different, not worse' when it comes to non-neurotypicals, but the constant limb-cracking and blood-smattering that surround it means the message is fast muddled and forgotten. One suspects the film itself may suffer a similar and disappointing fate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBfsgcswlYQ
It's that time of year, somehow. Christmas is fast approaching, winter has well and truly fallen by the wayside, and you're probably thinking about your summer shenanigans. While jetting overseas still isn't an option for Australians at the moment, you can make plans to roam around much of this country we all come home now that borders are reopening — and, if you'd like to head up to the Northern Territory, its government wants to give you an extra incentive. As part of the NT Summer Sale campaign — which launched at the beginning of October — the NT Government and its tourism body are offering discounts on trips to Australia's red centre and top end. To all of the Northern Territory, actually. For each $1000 you spend up to $5000, you'll receive a $200 discount. It maxes out at $1000 off, but that's still 20-percent off the price. The discounts are available for a number of things too — covering plenty of essential elements of every holiday. You can use them on flights, accommodation, tours and attractions, and vehicle hire. You will need to both book and travel between now and March 31, 2020, however. The other big stipulation: you'll need to book through one of Tourism NT's campaign partners to score the discount. They include retailers such as Holidays of Australia, Helloworld Travel & Viva Holidays, and Flight Centre. [caption id="attachment_785574" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Tourism Australia[/caption] If you've always been meaning to make the trip — and you've had both Uluru and its incredible Field of Light installation on your must-see list for ages — here's a mighty fine excuse to put those dreams into action. Border-wise, the NT currently doesn't require interstate visitors to quarantine unless you've been in a declared hotspot in the 14 days prior to your arrival — which, at the time of writing, only covers a number of Local Government Areas in Victoria. It's best to keep an eye on the NT Government's coronavirus hub, though, for any future changes, For further details about the NT Summer Sale campaign — which is available for travel between now and March 31, 2020 — head to the Tourism NT website. Top image: Field of Light: Bruce Munro. Photo by Mark Pickthall
Usually, Australia's various film festivals only pop up once every 12 months; however, there's little that's been usual about the past few years. So in these chaotic times, the fact that the Jewish International Film Festival is returning for a second stint in 2022 doesn't seem all that out of the ordinary. Already enjoyed the fest during its March and April run? Get ready to do so all over again. JIFF will screen 50 features and documentaries across Australia this iteration, alongside episodes from two TV shows and three short films — covering titles from 21 countries as it tours between October–December. The whole program isn't coming to Brisbane, but consider the bill that is coming our way a best-of sample. Leading the highlights, filling JIFF's biggest-ever lineup from Thursday, November 10–Sunday, November 20 at New Farm Cinemas: a pre-fest session of Armageddon Time, which arrives after premiering at this year's Cannes Film Festival and will have its Aussie debut at the fest. Starring Anthony Hopkins (The Father), Anne Hathaway (Locked Down) and Jeremy Strong (Succession), and written and directed by Ad Astra and The Lost City of Z's James Gray, it tells a coming-of-age story in 80s-era Queens. Also among the standouts, Jeff Goldblum (Jurassic World Dominion) narrates Fiddler's Journey to the Big Screen, about bringing Fiddler on the Roof to the big screen — and Israel's Karaoke arrives after being nominated for 13 Ophir Awards. Or, there's doco The Art of Silence about mime Marcel Marceau, plus 60s-set comedy My Neighbour Adolf, featuring Udo Kier (Swan Song) as a Holocaust survivor in Colombia who thinks the German man who just moved in next door is Hitler. The full lineup includes closing night's As They Made Us, the directorial debut of directorial The Big Bang Theory's Mayim Bialik — and Reckonings, about the negotiations between Jewish and German leaders that led to the 1952 Luxembourg Agreement.
Anywhere Theatre Festival is back in Brisbane for another year of impressive, imaginative and spontaneous performances. With a vision to propel theatre outside the traditional stage spaces, Anywhere Theatre is providing exactly that. It's a smart, simple concept appealing to a logical yet creative notion. You don’t need a big expensive stage to have a big performance. They maintain an any time, anywhere type of experience for anyone who wants it. So you're thinking, this sounds fun but how exactly does it work? Don't fret, we've got you covered! This ten day theatre festival is packed with instructions and options of how, when and where to enjoy its incredible experiences. Because each performance location is different, you must check out their website to determine what show and what setting you're after. There is an amazing array of options for you to choose from. You don't need to be a theatre buff to enjoy this event. It's a festival for everyone. Get out to experience and explore the unique, outer theatre venues of Brisbane. With many performance mediums to appeal to almost anyone, there is sure to be a performance and location that fits you. We recommend: The Gremlins - Gravity Is Only The Beginning (pictured), The Alleyway Project and 'Merica.
Winter might be all about staying in doors, rugging up and avoiding the frosty weather, but if you want to see a pair of meteor showers at their peak this week, you'll want to head outdoors. Not one but two celestial events will be visible in Australia's skies to end July 2024: the Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids. Arriving in the thick of winter, the Southern Delta Aquariids may not be quite as famous or frenetic as other meteor showers, but it's still considered a strong one, with around 15–25 meteors hurtling across the heavens per hour during its peak. In good news for those Down Under, it's also typically best seen in the Southern Hemisphere. [caption id="attachment_727210" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Mike Lewinski via Flickr.[/caption] Caused by the breakup of the Machholz comet, the Southern Delta Aquariids is visible each year from around July 12–August 23 — so now. But the ideal time to catch it is between July 28–July 30, aka until Tuesday this week. And, like many astronomical shows, catching an eyeful around midnight is recommended — when the moon has set and its light will not interfere. Also soaring through the skies at the moment: the Alpha Capricornids, which tends to run from around July 7–August 15. Yes, that means that you can peer up at night and catch a glimpse now, too, but it tends to peak around July 30–31 — so Tuesday and Wednesday this week. This one comes from the comet 169P/NEAT, and was discovered in 1871. It's known for its bright meteors and even fireballs, although they're infrequent, at around two-to-nine per hour. For your best chances of getting a glimpse at both, the usual advice applies. Get as far away from bright lights as possible — this could be a good excuse to head out of the city to a clear-skied camping spot — and pray for no clouds. The Delta Aquariids' name comes from Aquarius, the constellation from which they appear to come. Accordingly, that's what you'll be looking for in the sky. For the Alpha Capricornids, you're looking for the Capricornus constellation. To locate them all, we recommend downloading the Sky Map app — it's the easiest way to navigate the night sky, and is also a lot of fun to use even on a non-meteor shower night. The Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids meteor showers will peak between Tuesday, July 30–Sunday, July 31, 2024. Top image: Mike Lewinski via Flickr.
Just like a picture is worth a thousand words, a good gift can speak volumes. And when it comes to your nearest and dearest, it's worth forking out the big bucks to make them feel suitably special. Socks and undies simply will not do, you need to up the ante and pick out a present that is nuanced, thoughtful and unequivocally them. We know it can be tough; you may feel as though you've exhausted all your options. There's only so many times you can buy their favourite necklace, after all. To give you some fresh gift ideas, we've partnered with Australia Post and pulled together some real humdingers for the super important people in your life. From retro turntables to limited edition RMs, these pressies keep your key peeps smiling. Moreover, they can all be ordered online and conveniently delivered to your nearby Parcel Locker so you don't even have to go to the shops. Let your fingers do the walking, forgo the crazy Christmas crowds and rest easy knowing your parcel is stored securely till you're ready to collect. Happy shopping, Santas. PORD WINE BARREL If you've got a legit wine lover on your list, go beyond a bottle of primo vino or even a stylish decanter, and blow their socks off with one of these mini wine barrel masterpieces. The three-litre barrels are covered in art by three eclectic artists — Filippa Edghill, Hannah Nowlan and Evi O. — and filled with top-notch Mitchelton drops from the 2017 and 2018 vintages. Choose the design and the wine — pinot grigio, shiraz or rose — and get ready to be praised for your awesome gift. Each barrel holds a neat four bottles' worth of wine and will keep it fresh for up to six weeks. They can also be repurposed once empty. Cheers to that. How much? $160 CUSTOM HABBOT SHOES There's nothing better than a pair of comfy shoes. Wait, we take that back, there's nothing better than a pair of comfy and stylish shoes. Treat your special someone to a pair of custom Habbot shoes — they're super chic but have Hush Puppies-level comfort. The Aussie-designed and Italian-made footwear company has a great online customisation tool that lets you pick and choose everything, from the shoe type — classic derby, micro-sole derby, point pump or mid-heel sandal — to the material, colour and laces. So, you can design one-of-a-kind kicks for your numero uno that'll stand out from the crowd. How much? From $405 EVERY EDITION OF TRUTH, LOVE & CLEAN CUTLERY If your nearest and dearest is both an eco-warrior and a food lover — congrats, they sound awesome — surprise them with every edition of Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery. Basically the A to Z of sustainable eating, these guidebooks feature more than 1300 organic, ethical and sustainable restaurants from around the world. To take the gift up a notch, let your loved one pick out a few of their favourite restaurants and treat them to a night of ethical fare. Hey, it's a present for you, too. How much? $145 for all four books RM WILLIAMS EXCLUSIVE BOOTS These boots were made for walking and showing off, the limited edition metallic RMs are the shoe of the season and the perfect gift for any Carrie Bradshaw-status shoe fiends. At $545 a pop, they're not cheap — but the RM brand is renowned for its rock-solid craftsmanship and the kicks will last a lifetime. Luckily, silver is seldom out of style and goes perfectly with tinsel. But if silver is a bit too flash for your giftee, there's also the more subdued limited edition high-shine black boot. No matter your choice, each pair is crafted out of a single piece of leather and is made to order, so expect a two-week delivery timeframe. They're worth the wait, trust us. How much? $545 GOOGLE HOME HUB Hey, Google. Tell us how many hugs we're going to get for this kick-ass gift? Forget it, we already know it's going to be a heap. Yep, anyone who receives a Google Home Hub for Christmas is going to be over the moon. They're basically getting their very own assistant to set alarms, turn off lights, read out cooking instructions, organise daily routines, play music, take photos... the list goes on. They might even get a new lover if they're anything like Joaquin Phoenix's character in Her. Now that's a gift. How much? $219 FUJIFILM INSTAX SQUARE SQ6 INSTANT CAMERA Remember when Polaroid cameras were so big and bulky they basically required their own carry bag? While the promise of pretty photos (in an instant) was enticing, nobody wanted to lug around a brick. Thankfully, those days are long gone and you can now gift a nice, compact FujiFilm Instant Camera to your number one. The clever square format means your pal won't waste time choosing between portrait or landscape, they can just pick up the camera and take the snap. It's kind of like Instagram in real life. Plus, its small size means it can be carried around with ease. How much? $199 RETRO-LOOKING TURNTABLE If you've got a bigtime muso in your inner circle, there's a good chance you've heard them rabbiting on about the beauty of vinyl before — how records sound so much better than CDs or MP3. Something about audio data and lossy formats? Anyway, treat them to this Thomson 3 Speed Retro Look Turntable with built-in speakers and get them spinning their favourite tracks. The turntable's sleek, vintage design makes it a nice addition to any home — even a muso's dark and dingy lair. If you want to add a personalised touch, pick out a vinyl to gift with the turntable — it's a combo that's guaranteed to make their head spin like, well, a record. How much? $99 NOKIA STEEL HR WATCH This one's for the fitness fanatics in your life who also appreciate a bit of style. The Nokia Steel HR Watch is a watch-activity tracker hybrid that's both aesthetically pleasing and hella practical. The watch monitors your heart rate during workouts and can assess your overall performance, then deliver a personalised in-app report directly to your smartphone. The intuitive gadget makes your fitness goals that little bit easier to achieve, which means it's also a thoughtful gift for somebody you know is keen to get fit in the new year. How much? From $299 MODERNIST BREAD BOOK SET Bread, glorious bread. You'd be hard pressed to find a person who doesn't love it. But if you've got a special person who's particularly fond of baked goods, this is the book set for them. Modernist Bread: The Art and Science is a deep-dive into one of the most important staples of the human diet; it's the most in-depth look at bread to date. The five-volume set, housed in a sleek stainless steel case, contains more than 1500 recipes and breadmaking techniques. The best part? You can sample all their tasty dough-based creations. Forget cake, let them eat bread. How much? $700 HP SPROCKET PHOTO PRINTER A gift for the selfie enthusiasts, the HP Sprocket Photo Printer allows you to instantly print photos straight from your smartphone quicker than you can say 'duck face'. The printer has an ultracompact design — it's small enough to carry on the go — so it's also a great gift for budding photographers or designers as they can quickly print their snaps. The printer uses Bluetooth technology, which means there are no annoying cords and each photograph can be edited (hello, filters) before printing via the HP Sprocket app. Also, the special adhesive photo paper means you can easily stick your photos into albums or journals. How much? $159 Christmas shopping has never been so simple — order online, ship to a Parcel Locker and avoid the hectic shops with Australia Post.
Whether we're putting stickers on everything because Yayoi Kusama told us to, or drawing on the walls because that's not just allowed but encouraged, everyone loves an interactive art exhibition. It's the reason that installation-based pop-ups filled with ball pits and supremely photogenic backdrops are such a hit, too. So, Museum of Brisbane is taking that idea and running with it at its latest showcase — and while sprinting through the City Hall gallery still isn't recommended, dancing, feeling and otherwise putting your hands on the art definitely is. Running from Saturday, December 10–Sunday, April 16, and free to attend, Play Moves is the CBD museum's largest participatory exhibition to-date, in fact, and it's all about the thing we've each been doing since we were born. Play isn't something anyone grows out of, after all, as the popularity of boozy mini-golf bars and challenge room hotels shows. While this exhibition is family-friendly — and doesn't involve drinks — it shares the same underlying idea that you're never too much of an adult to get creative and have fun. Six major projects comprise Play Moves, each one immersive, interactive and designed for audiences to be a key part in making them what they are. Sure, a giant loom catches the eye just by existing, and so does a fur-lined bathtub. But when you weave on the former and relax into the latter, they're not just objects to view but items to engage with. That loom comes via Slow Art Collective, while Sai Karlen's addition to the exhibition focuses on digital motion tracking. Or, thanks to Counterpilot, a party with dancing pot plants takes over an 80s-style office. Tara Patterden has art lovers focusing on a sound interactive environment, and Michelle Vine has contributed soft cocooned sculptures. Fancy a technicolour party as well? That comes via UnitePlayPerform. You'll discover — and play with — all of the above as you move through the museum's rooms, with the six pieces bringing together six national artists and collectives. Keep an eye out for the venue's events lineup as well, with after-hours sessions and pop-up performances planned for Friday nights. "Play Moves places you at the heart of creative expression and cultural exchange by transforming you from spectator to contributor, inviting you to connect and learn from those around you," said MoB Director/CEO Renai Grace. "It's a dynamic space that can be visited multiple times to watch the exhibition change and grow over time." Play Moves runs from Saturday, December 10–Sunday, April 16 at the Museum of Brisbane, Level 3, City Hall, Brisbane — open from 10am–5pm daily. Images: Katie Bennett.
Now in its third year, Frankly! It’s A Pop Festival is back again, providing Brisbane with its annual festival of left-leaning music and avant-pop. Having closed last year’s festival with the likes of Xiu Xiu, High Places and Crayon Fields, Frankly! has stepped up their game yet up again with this year’s line up, bringing LA’s LA Vampires and Wet Hair and Japan’s Miko, Ytamo and Oorataichi down to the Brisbane Powerhouse, alongside a medley of Australian acts. If you need something to tide you over before the festival in September, Frankly! have released a pop sampler with tracks from all acts on the bill. Best of all, it’s free! Click here to download. Frankly! It’s A Pop Festival is on Saturday 10 September at the Powerhouse, and tickets are on sale now. Lineup: LA Vampires (US) Wet Hair (US) Blank Realm Angel Eyes Miko (JAP) Ytamo (JAP) Oorataichi (JAP) Pikelet The Twerps
It's time to get festive beneath one of Newstead's most striking features: the Gasometer. For one night in December, The Market Folk is taking over the eye-catching Gasworks space, bring a heap of stalls with it and helping you finish your Christmas shopping — because, let's face it, no one ever gets 100-percent of their gift buying done too far in advance. From 4–8pm on Saturday, December 10, the Gasworks Plaza precinct will be home to plenty of market stalls as the sun goes down, all brimming with items that'd make perfect presents (for your loved ones, and for yourself). [caption id="attachment_758933" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] The Market Folk[/caption] If you're wondering just what kinds of things you can expect to pick up, think fashion, art, homewares, ceramics and vintage goods — and plants as well — from 40-plus businesses. There'll be a particular focus on Brisbane creatives, too. So, you'll also be gifting them some Christmas cheer by supporting their hard work. These markets include live music on the lawn, plus bites and drinks from surrounding eateries and bars. And, they're also doggo-friendly. [caption id="attachment_814294" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kgbo via Wikimedia Commons[/caption] Top image: Andrew S via Flickr.
Brisbane's thriving music scene is taking over an unexpected venue, and it's turning the volume up loud. For almost eight months between Friday, August 30 and Sunday, April 19, the Museum of Brisbane will play host to High Rotation. The in-depth exhibition showcases the city's songs, singers, stars and all-round sonic wonders from the past 30 years; celebrates the wide range of folks helping make Brissie's music magic happen; and explores the local industry's national and international impact. Across a range of film clips and photos, instruments and souvenirs, plus other bits and pieces, more than 80 artists will be in the spotlight. Whether you like pop, rock or indie, adore today's up-and-comers or obsess over big names that have shaped the last three decades, you'll find someone to tap your toes to. That includes Regurgitator, Custard, Powderfinger, Savage Garden, Kev Carmody, The Veronicas, Sheppard, George, Kate Miller-Heidke and Keith Urban, as well as The Grates, Violent Soho, WAAX and Thelma Plum. The lineup goes on, and it'd make quite a playlist — or festival bill. Fancy creating your own all-Brisbane playlist while you're perusing the CBD site's walls? Playing along with some of the city's standout hits? Hearing the tales behind the tunes from folks who've spent their lives reporting on them? Listening to those who've been living the rock 'n' roll life, such as music labels, managers, artists, producers and venue managers, all recount their experiences? They're all on the program too, as are other talks, panels and workshops. Tickets cost $12, with MoB open daily from 10am — closing at 5pm every day except on Fridays, when you can revel in Brissie music history until 7pm. Image: Stephen Booth / Lachlan Douglas.
The Gold Coast, with its enviable combination of good weather and beaches, already gives off festival vibes all year round. But the real kicker happens when you add beer to all of that goodness. Add vitamins B (beer) and C (cider) to the vitamin D you cop on the coast with the Crafted Beer Festival, which returns for 2023 across two huge days — after first doubling its run in 2022 and clearing loving it. Held at Kurrawa Park in Broadbeach each year, the beer festival will unite more than 50 of Australia's top craft breweries, over 400 different brews, and some good food and live music to line your stomachs and ears. The dates to pop in your diary: Saturday, September 9–Sunday, September 10. Locals like Balter Brewing Company, Black Hops Brewing, Currumbin Valley Brewing, Burleigh Barrels, Madocke Beer and Two Mates Brewing will be joining up with visitors from elsewhere in Queensland and interstate, such as Ballistic, Slipstream and Revel — and that's but a few of the many beer houses to be represented on the day. More of a cider person? Expect a range of cideries making the pilgrimage to the coast, too. Although the focus on beer and cider is right there in the name, Crafted will also welcome Granddad Jack's Craft Distillery for cocktails and craft spirits served out of a vintage two-storey bar. And, if that still doesn't cover everything that you want to drink, Carafe Wine will be on vino duty, while seltzers, ginger beers and non-alcoholic beers will be on offer as well. Food-wise, there'll be food trucks and other street food eats, including Bigoli Italian Street Food bringing its truffle gnocchi. German sausages from Brat House, Samba Catering Co's paella and Brazilian barbecue, Flamin Grillas' low-and-slow meat plates and brisket burgers, 2 Serial Grillers' Mexican bites and I Heart Calamari's seafood dishes help round out the menu. As for music lineup, Polish Club and Fat Picnic top Saturday's bill, while Tijuana Cartel and Kurilpa Reach are among the bands doing the honours on the Sunday. Also on the fest's agenda is beer yoga, where you can perform a few downward dogs before you down your beer — it's all about balance, after all. Or, enjoy some comedy, play tipsy Twister and enter a hot wing-eating contest instead. CRAFTED 2023 LINEUP: SATURDAY Polish Club Fat Picnic Sputnik Sweetheart Being Jane Lane Lucid Safari Fragile Animals The Dandys Beatniks DJs SUNDAY Tijuana Cartel Kurilpa Reach Nana Klumpp Ruby Gilbert The Colliflowers James Street Preachers Beatniks DJs Crafted Beer Festival runs from Saturday, September 9–Sunday, September 10 at Kurrawa Park, Broadbeach. Head to the festival website for tickets and further details.
The impression I had of The Spectacular Now before seeing it was that it was another teen movie about a cool guy falling in love with a dorky girl — but this time genuine and refreshing. 'Not possible!', thought I, as I anticipated counting off all the ways that the film failed. Cool guys and dorky girls don't mix, and if they do, Hollywood filmmakers cannot be counted on to explain it. Now I'm forced to eat my words. The Spectacular Now definitely is that genuine and refreshing take on the cool-guy-falls-in-love-with-the-dorky-girl story. It succeeds by focusing secondarily on the romance, and primarily on the shambolic and troubled life of its protagonist, Sutter Keeley (Miles Teller). Sutter is cool not because he's a jock, a leader, a looker or a bully — he's just the most fun. He and his girlfriend, Cassidy (Brie Larsen), are the life of every party. And that's in good part because Sutter has no self-worth, no ambition and knows how to drink without cessation. The Spectacular Now is unique in its portrait of what alcoholism can look like in adolescence, beyond the usual hysteria over binge drinking. Cassidy leaves Sutter when she realises that, even though their chemistry is the stuff of legend, she wants more out of life. Sutter then meets Aimee Finecky (Shailene Woodley, last seen in The Descendants) — a quiet, swotty girl whose interests include manga and French club (the type who's going to own the college campus soon enough) — when she finds him passed out on a neighbour's lawn in the wee hours. Remember, Sutter is good and fun; he has no ulterior motive for hanging out with Aimee afterwards, besides that he likes her company. But, aided by his inebriation and her infatuation, that friendship quickly escalates. The Spectacular Now has ten times the nuance and complexity of the previous film from the writing duo of Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, (500) Days of Summer. It might be that they had strong source material in the book by Tim Tharp, or that they've simply matured as writers. The Spectacular Now is a standout achievement that makes you care for its characters and leaves you with plenty to think about afterwards. It's true the character of Aimee is sidelined, but she's not just a cipher; she's a multidimensional character who is only known to us through Sutter's eyes, because he's who the film is really about. The relationship between the two characters is strong, interesting and believable, with their complicated mothers being a particular source of commonality. Woodley and Teller really help to sell the roles with their incredible performances. "When you look at her, you really see her," Sutter tells his buddy at the halfway point of the movie, and much the same can be said of the two actors. They add so much depth with their mere presence. The Spectacular Now is a beautiful surprise package. High school has never looked so worth revisiting. https://youtube.com/watch?v=wceaLzbtuDY
When social distancing became our new way of life, the good folk at Audible released a stack of audiobooks for free, all to help keep everyone entertained while we were spending more time (read: all our time) at home and indoors. Now that things are slowly starting to return to normal, summer is on the horizon and prime road trip season is upon us, the online retailer is doing the same — so you have something ace to listen to while you're heading away for a getaway. The free audiobooks are on offer in collaboration with the tourism-focused initiative Empty Esky, which aims to support small businesses, including those affected by the Australian bushfires. So, the idea is that you'll hop behind the wheel, mosey out beyond the city limits, see the country, and patronise local retailers and hospitality venues — and that you'll listen to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald and Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia by Anita Hess along the way. Almost 60 hours of audiobooks are available for free, and they all tie into seven set itineraries, covering Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Tasmania, and both New South Wales' south coast and northern regions. Follow your chosen route, keep an eye out for Audible posters at participating small businesses, and download a free audiobook at each stop. You'll need to follow the whole process, because you'll have to scan the QR code on the poster at each place to get access to the relevant text. If you knew you wanted to hit the road this summer, but you weren't sure where to venture to, Audible and Empty Esky have basically taken care of that decision for you. The itineraries also include Audible podcasts, if you're in the mood for something other than literature. Among both the books and podcasts, you'll also find JM Barrie's Peter Pan, the Beatrix Potter Collection and Jojo Moyes' Me Before You — as well as Heist with Michael Caine, Australia's Funniest Stand-Up, and Nakkiah Lui and Miranda Tapsell's Debutante: Race, Resistance and Girl Power. They'll all stream on your phone, tablet or laptop, although you will need to either sign into your existing Audible account or create a new one to start listening. To check out the Empty Esky itineraries — and the Audible books available — head to the Empty Esky website.
Not quite certain what to get your loved ones for Christmas this year? Then you clearly haven't spent enough time at a festive market. It's virtually impossible to browse your way through hundreds of stalls and come up empty-handed — in fact, that'd take more effort than picking gifts for your nearest and dearest. Your next place to put the above theory to the test: the Nundah Christmas Twilight Markets, which take place from 4–10pm on Saturday, December 7, 2024. Yes, there really will be quite the lineup of places to grab handmade presents, including clothes, jewellery, art, homewares, soap, candles and all things edible. You'll find both gourmet foods and festive treats on offer as well (including bites to eat while you're there). For your $3 entry fee, you can enjoy a stint of shopping under the site's fairy lights at Nundah Markets' usual spot on Station Street. And, you can stop in at the North Pole-themed bar, too. Decorations will be decking the walls with more than boughs of holly, and live music is also on the agenda.
Two Sci-fi fans have taken their excitement at the release of the new Tron: Legacy film to the next level. Drawing inspiration from the film's nightclub scene, Brits Ben Rousseau and architect Ian Douglas-Jones have toiled under freezing conditions to create the Legacy of the River suite at Sweden's Icehotel. The futuristic light installation is just one of several art suites at the hotel. Literally the coolest hotel in the world, Icehotel is no Travelodge. An annual fixture in the Swedish town of Jukkasjärvi situated 200km north of the Arctic Circle, the site stands vacant through summer. But as soon as winter starts to push temperatures below zero, a bunch of artistic little elves from all over the world get to work. Using only frozen water from the Torne River, they create this spectacular, functional ice sculpture with a different twist each year. Meanwhile in sunnier Sydney, the rest of us are still counting down the days to the Australian release of the Tron: Legacy film on 16th December. The sequel to the 1982 classic Tron has already been elevated to cult status, featuring cutting edge futuristic special effects and an electro-freaky soundtrack by cult French artistes Daft Punk. [via Wired]
Everybody, be cool. This isn't a robbery — but it is a raucous rush through the filmography of one of the most distinctive directors of the past three decades. Two Man Tarantino is exactly what it sounds like, with two people hopping up on stage to re-enact diamond heists, twist dancing contests, blowing up bad guys, hunting down the hateful and more. Running Wednesday–Sunday between Wednesday, May 17–Sunday, May 28 as part of the 2023 Brisbane Comedy Festival, it's a 70-minute-long recreation that also has the perfect framing device: it's set in a video store. Everyone knows that's where Quentin Tarantino's love of movies blossomed long before he was asking Samuel L Jackson to wax lyrical about royales with cheese — and revisiting the kind of shop that has died out in recent years is also part of the fun. Two Man Tarantino first hit up Brisbane a couple of years ago, then returned in 2021, and now it's back for a return season because it's that popular. Get ready to fly, folks. If you need some motivation — or just a refresher on one of the filmmaker's very best movies — check out the trailer for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELeMaP8EPAA Update May 2.
Cycle-fashion: most people consider the term an oxymoron, bringing to mind images of brightly coloured lycra, or even worse, cycling shorts worn so thin that they’ve become transparent. If you’ve been afraid of joining the cycling revolution for fear of committing a crime against fashion, then allow British fashion designer Paul Smith to put you at ease. His new collaboration with cycle clothing brand Rapha brings some style to the two-wheeled set. Their new spring/summer range blends Smith’s fashion sense with Rapha’s cycling nous to create cycle-wear with a stylish look, but maintaining the technical and functional elements needed to stay comfortable on a bike. Unfortunately, style comes at a price, so the hip pockets of hipster cyclists will be a little light if they’re sporting these threads. And of course, compulsory helmet laws in Australia mean you can’t legally look as cool as these models. [via Hypebeast]
Brisbanites, prepare to start feeling a big dose of deja vu. Folks in the rest of southeast Queensland, and in Townsville, Palm Island and Magnetic Island, get ready to spend the next three days at home as well. In these areas of the Sunshine State, a new lockdown will come into effect from 6pm today, Tuesday, June 29 — running for three days until 6pm on Friday, July 2. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced the news in her daily press conference, with the stay-at-home conditions coming into effect due to the state's latest COVID-19 cases — including in Brisbane and on the Sunshine Coast. One case has also recently travelled to Magnetic Island and Townsville while infectious, which is why those areas will also go into lockdown. "This is absolutely essential and we want to make sure that we stop the virus in its tracks," said the Premier. "This is really important that everyone does the right thing. I know Queenslanders will. These are tough decisions. We have had two extensive meetings this morning about this. We have to take the advice of Dr Young. I have accepted that advice." If you're wondering what counts as southeast Queensland, it covers the 11 Local Government Areas that were put under new restrictions yesterday, Monday, June 28: Brisbane, Moreton Bay, Logan, Redlands, Ipswich, Noosa, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, the Scenic Rim, the Lockyer Valley and Somerset. Folks in these LGAs, as well as residents of Townsville, Palm Island and Magnetic Island, will return to the rules that've been in place during previous Queensland lockdowns — as happened in Greater Brisbane in both January and March 2021, and statewide in March 2020. So, that means you're only allowed to leave the house for four reasons — to head out for essential work or education if you can't do that at home, for essential shopping, for exercise in your local area, and for health care or to provide support for a vulnerable person. Otherwise, you must stay at home during the three-day lockdown period. https://twitter.com/AnnastaciaMP/status/1409689394798157827 As part of the lockdown, there is a limit of two visitors in homes. Masks are already compulsory in southeast Queensland, and will be required to be worn everywhere in the lockdown areas — other than if you're at your own home. Cinemas, entertainment venues, recreational venues, beauty and personal care services, and gyms will all close, as will places of worship, while cafes, pubs and restaurants are only allowed to open for takeaway service. Also, folks who decide to come to any of the areas going into lockdown during the stay-at-home period will be bound by the same restrictions, although travel is discouraged — and no one should leave their locked-down area during this period. And, if you decide to leave southeast Queensland, Townsville, Palm Island and Magnetic Island before 6pm tonight, you must still go into lockdown and follow the conditions no matter wherever you are. As it has been during the pandemic so far, Queensland Health is maintaining an active register of locations that have been visited by positive COVID-19 cases, which you can check out on its website. In terms of symptoms, you should be looking out for coughs, fever, sore or scratchy throat, shortness of breath, or loss of smell or taste — and getting tested at a clinic if you have any. The Greater Brisbane area will go into lockdown from 6pm on Tuesday, June 29 6pm on Friday, July 2. For more information about the status of COVID-19 in Queensland, head to the QLD COVID-19 hub and the Queensland Health website. More details about the lockdown and associated restrictions can also be found on the Queensland Health website.
Almost five decades ago, a filmmaker wanted to journey to a galaxy far, far away, and he needed a republic cruiser's worth of epic tunes to go with it. Enter John Williams and the theme everyone now knows. When the first notes of Star Wars: Episode VI — A New Hope's score started playing over the film's opening crawl, movie and music history was made. Neither Williams nor George Lucas could've known just what they'd unleashed, nor that Luke and Leia, Han and Chewie, plus the next generation of wannabe jedis and empire lackeys, would be gracing cinema screens years and years later. They also couldn't have known that the Star Wars movies, classic and recent alike, would keep hitting the big screen in a new concert format — pairing all those space-opera antics with a live orchestra playing the soundtrack. Thankfully, that's what's been happening on this very planet — alongside oh-so-many other reasons to embrace The Force, including TV shows such as Andor and The Mandalorian — and one such gig is returning to Brisbane in 2023. Get ready to revisit the first film in the franchise's third main trilogy, the seventh movie in the saga all up, and the one that brought in Daisy Ridley (Chaos Walking), John Boyega (The Woman King), Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight) and Adam Driver (White Noise) alongside a host of returning faces: Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens. We don't need to have a good feeling about what promises to be a force-filled evening of sound and vision, because it's been doing the rounds for a few years now. Still, on Saturday, April 22 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra will pick up their instruments to perform the corresponding score as The Force Awakens plays. The flick itself is already epic, and so is this experience. QSO will bust out Williams' Oscar-nominated music live across two concerts, thanks to a 1.30pm matinee and a 7.30pm evening gig.
What's better than a film festival that brings the best and brightest new Japanese movies to Australian cinemas each year? One that also returns a few months later with a solely digital lineup that you can check out from your couch. Yes, after the IRL Japanese Film Festival last hit locations around the country in late 2021, it's now time for the Japanese Film Festival Online for 2022, aka your next excuse to indulge in your Japan obsession without hopping on a plane. This year's online program spans 17 films over two weeks, screening from Monday, February 14–Sunday, February 27. That gives you plenty of choices, plus ample time to catch comedies, mysteries, dramas, documentaries and more — some from the past year or two, others dating back to 2008. And, in particularly exceptional news, they're all streaming for free. Highlights include the food focused Mio's Cookbook and The God of Ramen, with the former offering up a period drama about a young chef and the latter honing in on famed Tokyo figure Kazuo Yamagishi; mystery Masked Ward, which unleashes its thrills and twists in a hospital; It's A Summer Film, about a high schooler obsessed with old samurai flicks; and comedy Happy Flight, as set during an emergency flight from Tokyo to Honolulu. While you won't pay a thing to watch, you do still need to register via the fest's website.
Made out of sponge cake, chocolate coating and desiccated coconut, the humble lamington is a jewel of a sweet treat. Australian childhoods aren't complete without them, and neither are trips to the bakery any old time. But Sydney-born dessert chain Tokyo Lamington likes to mix up the classic cake, making a great thing even better by serving it up in an array of inventive flavours. And, in a first, the brand is also spreading the lamington love by releasing its own custom sneakers as well. To eat, Tokyo Lamington's wares have come in varieties such as Ferrero Rocher, Neapolitan (yes, taking inspiration from the ice cream combo), yuzu meringue, vegan red velvet, black sesame and more. To wear, the brand's shoes also reimagine the dessert's usual setup — so you'll see cream and brown colours like you do on OG lamingtons, and also blue and pink hues as well. The shoes: Nike Dunk Lows, which the artists at Customs Den are using as a canvas. Tokyo Lamington hasn't formed a partnership with Nike, but has purchased 40 pairs, then tasked Customs Den with working their magic on them. Yes, the range is that limited. As a result, these kicks don't come cheap. If you love lamingtons, Tokyo Lamington or both so much that you need a pair of sneakers to show it, they'll set you back $450. At that price, you might want to display them rather than wear them — calling all sneakerheads as well as lamington fiends, obviously. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tokyo Lamington (@tokyolamington) Every pair of Tokyo Lamington x Customs Den shoes is individually handcrafted, and bespoke for each order — so your kicks won't just be one in 40, but unique as well. When you woke up this morning, you likely had no idea that lamington-inspired footwear exists. Now, you're probably keen on new shoes and, understandably, craving a cake. [caption id="attachment_774463" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tokyo Lamington x Koko Black collaboration[/caption] For more information about Tokyo Lamington's sneakers, or to buy a pair, hit up the chain's website.
After spending the summer focusing on play, Museum of Brisbane has turned its attention to clay, heroing pottery and ceramics in all their forms. Moving from getting active to appreciating earthy objects, the seasonally appropriate switch has arrived courtesy of the site's new Clay: Collected Ceramics exhibition — its latest free excuse to wander around level three of City Hall in King George Square. Premiering as part of Brisbane Art Design 2023, but gracing the museum's walls and halls until Sunday, October 22, Clay: Collected Ceramics isn't just showing an age-old art form some love (or endeavouring to appeal to fans of Patrick Swayze film Ghost). It's also celebrating Brisbane's clay, pottery and ceramics community, specifically 60 years of clay-based practise in the River City, all via more than 300 pieces. If that sounds like a lot of clay, it is — and there's a vase by Bonnie Hislop decked out not only in colour, but with the words "a bit much" that irreverently sums up the massive showcase. The Yeerongpilly-based ceramicist's works sit among the exhibition's range of newly commissioned, never-before-seen contemporary pieces from local artists, which also includes contributions by Nicolette Johnson, Jane du Rand, Kenji Uranishi and Steph Woods. A big focus: mould-breaking uses of the medium. Other highlights include leaning into the colour often associated with clay — brown — by grouping together works by Carl McConnell, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, Milton Moon, Lyndal Moor, Kevin Grealy and more that showcase the tone in a variety of shades. And, the private collection of author, poet and Paper Boat Press founder Kylie Johnson features heavily, capitalising upon her lifetime love of collecting pottery. There's also exhibition-within-the-exhibition Commune, with hundreds of memory vessels lent by Brisbane's ceramics community — marking the biggest-ever artist-sourced display in MoB's history, in fact — and an evolving installation by artist-in-residence Jody Rallah. Clay: Collected Ceramics also spans functional pieces dating back to the 70s, plus items that were only ever going to sit on someone's shelves from a range of talents, encouraging a conversation about the plethora of ways that the tactile material in the spotlight can be used. Images: Claudia Baxter.
Before the pandemic, when a new-release movie started playing in cinemas, audiences couldn't watch it on streaming, video on demand, DVD or blu-ray for a few months. But with the past few years forcing film industry to make quite a few changes — widespread movie theatre closures and plenty of people staying home in iso will do that — that's no longer always the case. Maybe you've been under the weather. Perhaps you haven't had time to make it to your local cinema lately. Given the hefty amount of films now releasing each week, maybe you simply missed something. Film distributors have been fast-tracking some of their new releases from cinemas to streaming recently — movies that might still be playing in theatres in some parts of the country, too. In preparation for your next couch session, here are 13 that you can watch right now at home. AIR Bouncing across the screen with charm, energy and an 80s sheen, Air says one name often: Michael Jordan. This supremely crowd-pleasing and engaging film spins an origin story so closely linked to the NBA all-timer that the true tale simply wouldn't and couldn't have happened without him; however, it isn't actually the six-time championship-winning former Chicago Bulls player's own. Instead, Ben Affleck turns director again for the first time since 2016's Live By Night to recount how Jordan also became an icon in the footwear game. Think shoes, and everyone knows the word that usually follows this flick's title. Think Air Jordans, and Nike also springs to mind. Those sneakers are still being made almost four decades after first hitting stories — in fact, the brand is now notching up $5 billion in annual revenue, $150 million of which is going to its namesake — so Air answers the question no one knew they had until now: how did it initially happen? Affleck's feature heads back to the 80s, to 1984, when Jordan was a 21-year-old college standout newly in the NBA and facing a life-changing decision. Damian Young (Prom Night Flex) plays the basketball GOAT, but this is a movie about the making of a legend — so the pivotal character gets all the flick's admiration and praise while bounding into the boardroom wheeling and dealing. Crucially, Air doesn't block out Jordan. Rather, it pays tribute to his talent even without staging on-court scenes, and to the shrewd wrangling and negotiating that his no-nonsense mother Deloris (Viola Davis, The Woman King) did on his behalf with Nike's in-house basketball expert Sonny Vaccaro (Damon, The Last Duel) under CEO Phil Knight's (Affleck, Deep Water) watch. The ultimate outcome is clearly well-known, because if there was no agreement, there'd be no Air Jordans and therefore no movie (and the Beaverton, Oregon-based Nike would still be best known for jogging shoes). But the slam dunk this endorsement proved for giving athletes their financial dues when their talents make bank for sponsoring companies is no minor matter, and nor is it treated as such. Air is available to stream via Prime Video. Read our full review. AFTERSUN The simplest things in life can be the most revealing, whether it's a question asked of a father by a child, an exercise routine obeyed almost mindlessly or a man stopping to smoke someone else's old cigarette while wandering through a holiday town alone at night. The astonishing feature debut by Scottish writer/director Charlotte Wells, Aftersun is about the simple things. Following the about-to-turn-31 Calum (Paul Mescal, The Lost Daughter) and his daughter Sophie (debutant Frankie Corio) on vacation in Turkey in the late 90s, it includes all of the above simple things, plus more. It tracks, then, that this coming-of-age story on three levels — of an 11-year-old flirting with adolescence, a dad struggling with his place in the world, and an adult woman with her own wife and family grappling with a life-changing experience from her childhood — is always a movie of deep, devastating and revealing complexity. Earning the internet's Normal People-starring boyfriend a Best Actor Oscar nomination, and deservedly so, Aftersun is a reflective, ruminative portrait of heartbreak. It's a quest to find meaning in sorrow and pain, too, and in processing the past. Wells has crafted a chronicle of interrogating, contextualising, reframing and dwelling in memories; an examination of leaving and belonging; and an unpacking of the complicated truths that a kid can't see about a parent until they're old enough to be that parent. Breaking up Calum and Sophie's sun-dappled coastal holiday with the older Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall, Vox Lux) watching camcorder footage from the trip, sifting through her recollections and dancing it out under a nightclub's strobing lights in her imagination, this is also a stunning realisation that we'll always read everything we can into a loved one's actions with the benefit of hindsight, but all we ever truly have is the sensation that lingers in our hearts and heads. Aftersun is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. WOMEN TALKING Get Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Frances McDormand and more exceptional women in a room, point a camera their way, let the talk flow: Sarah Polley's Women Talking does just that, and this year's Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar-winner is phenomenal. The actor-turned-filmmaker's fourth effort behind the lens after 2006's Away From Her, 2011's Take This Waltz and 2012's Stories We Tell does plenty more, but its basic setup is as straightforward as its title states. Adapted from Miriam Toews' 2018 novel of the same name, this isn't a simple or easy film, however. That book and this feature draw on events in a Bolivian Mennonite colony from 2005–9, where a spate of mass druggings and rapes of women and girls were reported at the hands of some of the group's men. In a patriarchal faith and society, women talking about their experiences is a rebellious, revolutionary act anyway — and talking about what comes next is just as charged. "The elders told us that it was the work of ghosts, or Satan, or that we were lying to get attention, or that it was an act of wild female imagination." That's teenage narrator Autje's (debutant Kate Hallett) explanation for how such assaults could occur and continue, as offered in Women Talking's sombre opening voiceover. Writing and helming, Polley declares her feature "an act of female imagination" as well, as Toews did on the page, but the truth in the movie's words is both lingering and haunting. While the film anchors its dramas in a specific year, 2010, it's purposefully vague on any details that could ground it in one place. Set within a community where modern technology is banned and horse-drawn buggies are the only form of transport, it's a work of fiction inspired by reality, rather than a recreation. Whether you're aware of the true tale behind the book going in or not, this deeply powerful and affecting picture speaks to how women have long been treated in a male-dominated world at large — and what's so often left unsaid, too. Women Talking is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. SCREAM VI Going into Scream VI, viewers know who the killer definitely isn't: the horror franchise's OG final girl Sidney Prescott. Neve Campbell's (The Lincoln Lawyer) character has been a pivotal part of every Ghostface-stalked flick from 1996's initial Scream through to 2022's fifth entry Scream, but famously isn't in the stab-happy saga's latest chapter due to a pay dispute. That's one big change for returning filmmakers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett to grapple with in their second slice of the blood-splattering, scary movie-loving action. À la Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan — which gets an early nod, naturally — they also move said action to New York. But even if you take Ghostface and the murderer's targets out of Woodsboro, and shake up who the masked maniac swings a knife at, Scream is going to Scream in a screamingly familiar fashion. It has before in Ohio in Scream 2 and Hollywood in Scream 3, and the series knows it. New movie, new city, same setup, same gravelly Roger L Jackson voice, same 'Red Right Hand' needle drop, same overall formula: throw in the same winking, nodding, self-referential attitude, plus the same penchant for mentioning horror movies, their tropes and cliches, and general film theory, and that's Scream VI's easy cut. Once again, someone dons Ghostface's ghost face, of course, and uses whichever blade happens to be in the vicinity (and a shotgun) to terrorise teens and long-victimised targets. Murder Mystery's James Vanderbilt and Ready or Not's Guy Busick haven't taxed themselves with the screenplay — their second Scream effort, after the previous flick — but the franchise's pattern keeps making a comeback for a reason. While intrepid reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox, Shining Vale) notes the world's current "true-crime limited series" obsession, whodunnits and murder-mysteries date back further, and that's where every Scream instalment has also carved a niche since the late, great Wes Craven and Dawson's Creek creator Kevin Williamson started things off. Scream VI is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. 65 If there's one thing that a film about Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs shouldn't be, it's average. Only ridiculously entertaining or ridiculously terrible will do, and those two outcomes needn't be mutually exclusive. The appeal of 65 is right there in that four-word premise, as it was always going to be, because getting the intense White Noise, House of Gucci, Annette and Star Wars actor (and BlacKkKlansman and Marriage Story Oscar-nominee) battling prehistoric creatures is that roaringly ace an idea. He should brood, and his dino foes should stalk, snap and snarl. That is indeed what happens thanks to writer/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who penned the first A Quiet Place, plus have horror movies Nightlight and Haunt on their past helming resumes. But for a flick that isn't required to offer anything else and knows it — well, other than laser guns to shoot at said dinosaurs, because not even the man who plays Kylo Ren can confront a Tyrannosaurus rex or pack of raptors barehanded — 65 doesn't possess enough B-movie energy. Beck and Woods have taken the very B-movie path story-wise, though. As 65's trailer made plain, this is a Frankenstein's monster of a film mashup, stitching together limbs from a stacked pile of other sources to fuel its narrative. The Jurassic Park and Jurassic World franchise, the Predator series, the Alien and Prometheus saga, Logan, The Last of Us, The Man Who Fell to Earth and, yes, A Quiet Place: they each earn more than a few nods, and never with subtlety. So too does Planet of the Apes, but the fact that 65 is set on earth all along isn't a late-picture twist. What else would the title refer to? That said, Beck and Woods begin their movie elsewhere, taking time-travel 65 million years backward out of the equation. Instead, Driver's pilot Mills ends up on our pale blue dot from a civilisation out there in space, and one more advanced during earth's Cretaceous period than humankind is today. 65 is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. LIVING Turning in an Oscar-nominated performance, Bill Nighy (The Man Who Fell to Earth) comes to this sensitive portrayal of a dutiful company man facing life-changing news with a wealth of history; so too does the feature itself. Set in London in 1953, it's an adaptation several times over — of iconic Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film Ikiru, and of Leo Tolstoy's 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, which the former also takes inspiration from. That's quite the lineage for Living to live up to, but Nighy and director Oliver Hermanus (Moffie) are up to the task. The movie's second Oscar-nominee, Nobel Prize-winning screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro, unsurprisingly is as well. Also the author of The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, he's at home penning layered stories with a deep focus on complicated characters not being completely true to themselves. When those two novels were turned into impressive pictures, Ishiguro didn't script their screenplays, but he writes his way through Living's literary and cinematic pedigree like he was born to. A man of no more words than he has to utter — of no more of anything, including life's pleasures, frivolities, distractions and detours, in fact — Williams (Nighy, Emma.) is a born bureaucrat. Or, that's how he has always appeared to his staff in the Public Works Department in London County Hall, where he's been doing the same job day, week, month and year in and out. He's quiet and stoic as he pushes paper daily, overseeing a department that's newly welcoming in Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp, The Trial of the Chicago 7). It's through this fresh face's eyes that Living's audience first spies its central figure, adopting his and the wider team's perspective of Williams as a compliant and wooden functionary: a view that the film and its sudden diagnosis then challenges, as Williams does of himself. Living is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. MISSING Screenlife films such as Missing should be the last thing that moviegoers want. When we're hitting a cinema or escaping into our streaming queues, we're seeking a reprieve from the texts, chats, pics, reels, searches, and work- and study-related tasks that we all stare at on our phones and computers seemingly 24/7. (Well, we should be, unless we're monsters who can't turn off our devices while we watch.) There's a nifty dose of empathy behind thrillers like this, its excellent predecessor Searching, and the similar likes of Unfriended and Profile, however, that relies upon the very fact that everyone spends far too much time living through technology. When an on-screen character such as Missing's June (Storm Reid, The Last of Us) is glued to the gadget on their desk or lap, or in their hand — when they're using the devices that've virtually become our new limbs non-stop to try to solve their problems and fix their messy existence, too — it couldn't be more relatable. As Missing fills its frames with window upon window of June's digital activities, cycling and cascading through FaceTime calls, Gmail messages, WhatsApp downloads, Google Maps tracking, TikTok videos, TaskRabbit bookings, plain-old websites and more, it witnesses its protagonist do plenty that we've all done. And, everything she's undertaking feels exactly that familiar — like the film could be staring back at each member of its audience rather than at an 18-year-old who starts the movie unhappy that her mother Grace (Nia Long, You People) is jetting off to Colombia with her new boyfriend Kevin (Ken Leung, Old). That sensation remains true even though Missing's viewers have likely never had their mum disappear in another country, and their life forever turned upside down as a result. We've all experienced the mechanics behind what writer/directors Will Merrick and Nick Johnson (who make their feature debut in both roles after editing Searching) are depicting in our own ways, with only the vast power of the internet able to help. Missing is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. TO LESLIE A character drama about a West Texas woman who wins the lottery, but six years later has nothing to show for it except pain, alcoholism and burned bridges, To Leslie is all about English talent Andrea Riseborough's remarkable performance — famously so thanks to her Best Actress Oscar nomination for an indie film widely underseen until that nod of approval. Nothing can take away the power of the Mandy, Possessor and Amsterdam star's stunning portrayal. A spectacular performance is a spectacular performance regardless of what surrounds it. So, Riseborough's work in the debut feature from seasoned TV director Michael Morris (Better Call Saul, 13 Reasons Why, Brothers & Sisters) remains a gut-punch no matter the controversy around the campaign by high-profile names to help get her the Academy's recognition, with Kate Winslet, Edward Norton and Jennifer Aniston among those advocating for accolades. To Leslie remains Riseborough's movie despite comedian and actor Mark Maron uttering the words that sum it up best, too. In his latest compassionate performance — with a less-gruff edge than he sports in GLOW — he plays Sweeney, the co-proprietor of a roadside motel in Leslie's hometown. That's where she ends up again after the money runs out, plus her luck and everyone she knows' patience with it. As scripted by Ryan Binaco (3022), Sweeney is another of To Leslie's flawed characters. The movie teems with such folks because everyone of us is flawed, and it sees that truth with the clearest of eyes. In a sincere but awkward chat, Sweeney explains how his now ex-wife's drinking helped end his marriage; however, he catches himself afterwards, making a point to say that just because his story turned out like that, that doesn't mean Leslie's will as well, or that he thinks it that'll occur. To Leslie is available to stream via iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOUR AMONG THIEVES More than most games, Dungeons & Dragons thrives or dies based on the people rolling the dice, creating their own characters and casting spells. Whether Stranger Things' demogorgon-slaying teens are hunched over a table imagining up their fantasy dreams, or flesh-and-blood folks who aren't just part of a TV series find themselves pretending that they're fighters and clerics, an adventure or campaign is only as good as the party at its core. Writer/directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley understand this. The latter definitely should: the one-season TV great Freaks and Geeks, which gave him his start as an actor when he was just a kid, threw D&D some love, too. As filmmakers, Goldstein and Daley jump from Game Night to Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves with a clear mission: making the swords-and-sorcery flick's cast its biggest strength. This game-to-screen flick sports a stacked roster, starting with Chris Pine (Don't Worry Darling) as Edgin Darvis, a bard and former member of the Harpers who turned petty thief — complete with a Robin Hood-esque attitude — after his wife passed away. Since his daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman, Avatar: The Way of Water) was a baby, he's been co-parenting with his gruff best friend Holga Kilgore, a stoic exiled barbarian, who is played with exactly the stern look that Michelle Rodriguez (Fast & Furious 9) was always going to bring to the part. They start the film in a dungeon, but Edgin and Holga are soon trying to reunite with Kira after rogue and con artist Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre), their former pal, turned nefarious while they were in prison. Cue help from Simon Aumar (Justice Smith, Sharper), a sorcerer with hefty confidence issues; tiefling druid Doric (Sophie Lillis, IT and IT: Chapter Two); and paladin Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page, The Gray Man). Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves is available to stream via Prime Video. Read our full review. TILL There's no shortage of heartbreak in Till, a shattering drama about the abduction, torture and lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955. Clemency writer/director Chinonye Chukwu tells of a boy's tragic death, a mother's pain and anger, and a country's shame and trauma — and how all three pushed along America's 20th-century civil rights movement. Heartache lingers in the needless loss of life. Fury swells at the abhorrent racism on display, including in the justifications offered by the unrepentant perpetrators. Despair buzzes in the grief, personal and national alike, that hangs heavy from the second that Emmett is dragged away in the night. Fury seethes, too, because an atrocious murder like this demands justice and change, neither of which was ever going to be easy to secure given the time and place. Indeed, the US-wide Emmett Till Antilynching Act making lynching a federal hate crime only became law in March 2022. Heartbreak builds in and bursts through Till from the outset — and in sadly everyday situations. Emmett, nicknamed Bo by his family, is played as a lively and joyful teen by the impressive Jalyn Hall (Space Jam: A New Legacy). He's confident and cheery, as his mother Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler, Station Eleven) has lovingly raised him to be in Chicago. But even department-store shopping for a trip to the Deep South is coloured by the threat of discrimination. So, as his departure to see relatives gets nearer, Mamie utters a few words of advice. She's stern and urgent, trying to impart to him the importance of adhering to Mississippi's unspoken rules. She implores him not to do anything that could be construed as looking at white people the wrong way, to apologise profusely and instantly whenever he has to, and to heed the different set of norms. "Be small down there," she says — and it's one of the movie's many crushing moments. Till is available to stream via iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. EMPIRE OF LIGHT They don't call it movie magic for nothing, as plenty of Hollywood's leading lights have made it their mission to stress. A filmmaker's work should ideally make that statement anyway — seeing any picture and taking any trip to the pictures should, not that either always occurs — but overt odes to cinema still flicker with frequency. Across little more than 12 months, Kenneth Branagh's Belfast has featured a scene where his on-screen childhood alter ego basks in the silver screen's glow, and Damien Chazelle's Babylon made celebrating Hollywood and everything behind it one of its main functions. With The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg revisited his formative years, following the makings of a movie-obsessed kid who'd become a movie-making titan. Now 1917, Skyfall, Spectre and American Beauty director Sam Mendes adds his own take with Empire of Light, as also steeped in his own youth. A teenager in the 70s and 80s, Mendes now jumps back to 1980 and 1981. His physical destination: the coastal town of Margate in Kent, where the Dreamland Cinema has stood for exactly 100 years in 2023. In Empire of Light, the gorgeous art deco structure has been rechristened The Empire. It's a place where celluloid dreams such as The Blues Brothers, Stir Crazy, Raging Bull and Being There entertain the masses, and where a small staff under the overbearing Donald Ellis (Colin Firth, Operation Mincemeat) all have different relationships with their own hopes and wishes. As projectionist Norman, Toby Jones (The Wonder) is Mendes' mouthpiece, waxing lyrical about the transporting effect of images running at 24 frames per second and treasuring his work sharing that experience. Empire of Light is that heavy handed, and in a multitude of ways. But duty manager Hilary (Olivia Colman, Heartstopper) and new employee Stephen's (Micheal Ward, Small Axe) stories are thankfully far more complicated than simply adoring cinema. Empire of Light is available to stream via Disney+, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA In the 31st Marvel Cinematic Universe film's opening beats — and the third Ant-Man movie, after directed OG flick and 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp — the titular shrinking hero (Paul Rudd, The Shrink Next Door) is indeed Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's star. As returning filmmaker Peyton Reed initially revels in, he's a celebrity basking in the fame of being among the Avengers and dealing with Thanos, and he's written a memoir about it — a book, Look Out for the Little Guy, that'll genuinely exist IRL come September. But the bliss of Scott's success gets cut down when he learns that his now 18-year-old daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton, Freaky) has been secretly tinkering with Hope and her ant-obsessed physicist father Hank Pym (Michael Douglas, The Kominsky Method). The trio's project: sending signals down to the quantum realm. Hank's wife and Hope's mother Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer, French Exit) is also unimpressed, given that rescuing her from that microscopic place, where she spent 30 years, was no minor part of the plot of the last Ant-Man entry. Viewers should savour the precious time outside the quantum realm in Quantumania; there isn't much of it. No sooner are the Lang/van Dyne/Pym swarm talking about Cassie, Hope and Hank's experiments than they're all transported to said subatomic space, with working out how to get home far from their only worry. Janet had led the others to believe that all she found when she was gone was nothing upon nothing, but entire civilisations and species, akin to Star Wars' different planets, people and critters with a dash of Dune's and Mad Max: Fury Road's landscapes and themes, lurk below. So does the banished, trapped and genocidal Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors, The Harder They Fall), the time-hopping, world-destroying new adversary who likes annihilating things just because he can — and he desperately and nefariously wants out as well. Audiences will, too, thanks to a rote threequel that has a key series-building task — kicking off the MCU's phase five — first, foremost and at a giant cost. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. WINNIE-THE-POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY Never meet your heroes. Kill your darlings. A murderous rampage through the Hundred Acre Wood — a slasher take on a childhood favourite, too — Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey sticks its paws in both pots. Based on AA Milne's famed creation, which initially appeared in kids' poetry book When We Were Very Young in 1924, this schlockfest is exactly what a headline-courting low-budget horror flick about a homicidal Pooh and Piglet seemed sight unseen, and in its trailer. Blood and Honey is all about that high-concept idea, and splashing around as many instances of bloody bother as possible, to the point of repetition. It slathers on well-executed gore, but isn't anything approaching good or so-bad-it's-good. That said, it's also a reminder that everything changes, even a cute, cuddly stuffed animal revered by generations — and that carving away cosy notions about comforting things is a fact of life. Commenting on ditching one's safety blankets and inevitably being disappointed by one's idols is an unexpected — and perhaps unintended — bonus here. With so little plot and character development to writer/director/producer Rhys Frake-Waterfield's (The Killing Tree) script, making a statement is hardly Blood and Honey's main meal. This is a film of opportunity. Milne's loveable bear of very little brain entered the public domain at the beginning of 2022, which is what gave rise to this gruesome spin on figures seen on the page, in plenty of cartoons, and also examined in recent movies such as Goodbye Christopher Robin and Christopher Robin. As sure as the titular teddy's historical love for ditching pants and palling around with Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Owl, Kanga and Roo, this Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style Pooh twist primarily exists because the premise was too irresistible thanks to copyright laws. Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. Looking for more at-home viewing options? Take a look at our monthly streaming recommendations across new straight-to-digital films and TV shows — and fast-tracked highlights from January, February, March and April, too. You can also peruse our best new films, new TV shows, returning TV shows and straight-to-streaming movies, plus movies you might've missed and television standouts of 2022 you mightn't have gotten to.
A man struts into a diner and asks "who've I gotta kill to get a coffee?". When a woman hears the doorbell ring, she instantly grabs her gun, baseball bat and taser. The series that'll include both? Fargo, the anthology TV show inspired by the big-screen Coen brothers masterpiece, which is returning for its fifth season in November. 2023 marks almost a decade since writer, director and producer Noah Hawley leapt from Bones, The Unusuals and My Generation to diving back into crime in often-frosty American places — and always with a strong streak of black comedy pumping through its veins. The first two seasons arrived back to back in 2014 and 2015, with season three then following in 2017 and season four in 2020. Now, after another three-year gap, the show returns with a whole new story and cast, but still set in the same world as the Fargo movie. Oh you betcha there's accents, crime capers, dedicated cops, and people doing dark deeds for selfish reasons and then getting karmic comeuppance. When it arrives in Australia via SBS On Demand on Wednesday, November 22, Fargo's fifth season will do so with a stacked lineup of talent, too: Juno Temple (Ted Lasso), Jon Hamm (Good Omens), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Hunters) and Joe Keery (Stranger Things) all included, plus David Rysdahl (Oppenheimer), Lamorne Morris (Woke), Richa Moorjani (Never Have I Ever), Sam Spruell (The Gold) and Dave Foley (The Kids in the Hall) as well. Like season one, two and the movie, this season spends its time in Minnesota and North Dakota. The year: 2019. Dorothy 'Dot' Lyon (Temple) is the otherwise-ordinary person falling afoul of the law — so, when she grabs those weapons in one of the show's sneak peeks, she's clearly not an average Midwestern housewife — while Roy Tillman (Hamm) is the North Dakota Sheriff (and preacher) on her trail. In a case of spectacular casting, Keery will put his famous hair to good use as Tillman's son Gator, in a franchise that also loves unpacking the ties of blood that bind and cause chaos. Spruell plays a drifter who is enlisted to help on the search for Dot, while Rysdahl is her husband Wayne. Leigh hops on board as his mother, aka the 'Queen of Debt' thanks to being a debt collection company CEO, and Foley plays her in-house counsel. Among the cops, there's Moorjani as a deputy from Minnesota and Morris as a North Dakota counterpart. Everyone on-screen joins a saga that's seen Billy Bob Thornton (The Gray Man), Allison Tolman (Gaslit), Martin Freeman (Breeders), Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog), Patrick Wilson (Insidious: The Red Door), Jesse Plemons (Love and Death), Jean Smart (Hacks), Ewan McGregor (Raymond & Ray), Carrie Coon (Boston Strangler), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Ahsoka), Chris Rock (Amsterdam), Jessie Buckley (Women Talking) and Jason Schwartzman (Asteroid City) all feature in past seasons. Off-screen, Hawley is back as showrunner, writer and director, guiding a series that started with the hard task of living up to the masterpiece of a movie and hasn't struggled so far. Check out the teaser trailers for Fargo season five below: Fargo season five will start streaming via SBS On Demand on Wednesday, November 22. Images: Michelle Faye/FX.
Cinemas may be closed around the world at present but, thanks to the proliferation of streaming platforms over the past few years, film buffs can still get their movie fix from the comfort of their own couches. If you're a fan of going to your local picture palace for more than just the flicks, though, you might be currently missing some of the other elements that come with heading out to see a movie — enjoying the communal viewing experience, attending premieres and listening to Q&A sessions afterwards, for example. Enter FanForce TV, the new streaming offshoot of theatrical distributor FanForce, which usually organises screenings of new films as driven by community demand. If you're part of a local group looking to screen a particular movie to support a specific cause, it also helps you host your own sessions. Like plenty of other businesses, FanForce has been forced to adapt to the current COVID-19 situation — so it's now shifting its setup online. Just launched — and available not just Down Under, but globally — FanForce TV lets you rent movies you'd like to watch on a pay-per-view basis. So far, so standard; however the streaming platform will also live stream Q&As, complete with live chats so you can join in from home. You'll be able to talk to fellow viewers, and direct your questions at filmmakers and expert panellists — and, if you're still eager to host your own virtual screening of a specific flick for a particular group, you can do so via FanForce TV's 'Home Premiere' function. Film-wise, the current FanForce TV range includes Oscar-winner Parasite, eco-conscious documentaries 2040 and The Biggest Little Farm, and Aussie music flicks Mystify: Michael Hutchence and Gurrumul — plus Adam Goodes-focused doco The Australian Dream, the puppy-fuelled Pick of the Litter, eerie true-crime tale Ghosthunter and even Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop. The list goes on, spanning docos on college sexual assault The Hunting Ground, organ transplant Dying to Live and outback dirt-racing Finke: There and Back as well, among other titles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmahNqD3Dvw More films are set to join the service, too, such as Sydney-shot comedy Standing Up for Sunny, whales in captivity documentary Blackfish and — with accompanying Q&A sessions — moving Aussie doco In My Blood It Runs. If you not only like watching movies, but recommending them, FanForce TV also boasts an affiliate program that'll pay customers cash for directing their friends to watch a particular film. For further details — or to stream a movie or organise your own online community screening — visit the FanForce TV website.
A cast-out-of-time vibe tumbles and rustles through Fallen Leaves. In Aki Kaurismäki's 20th feature, his first since 2017's The Other Side of Hope, a calendar advises that it is 2024 and the radio reports on the war in Ukraine, but the look and mood could've been taken from decades and decades back. An account of two lonely souls in an uncaring world grasping a bond amid the grind that is just endeavouring to get by never dates, after all. Neither do the Finnish filmmaker's movies, with their love of droll humour, understatement and melancholy. Indeed, with tragicomedy Fallen Leaves, Kaurismäki links to the 80s and 90s, and to his Proletariat trilogy. Trust him to add a fourth title to the trio, which previously spanned 1986's Shadows in Paradise, 1988's Ariel and 1990's The Match Factory Girl; his love of absurdity doesn't age, either. Ensuring that Helsinki resembles a relic of the past — even more so at California Bar, which throws back to America in the 60s — keeps a state of arrested development lingering in Fallen Leaves. What makes a place and its people feel as if moving forward is something that only happens elsewhere? In Kaurismäki's hands in a movie that's quintessentially a Kaurismäki movie from start to finish, the answer is as simple as being caught in a monotonous routine, the very reality that the writer/director's features also give audiences a reprieve from. He knows this. On-screen here, he has Holappa (Jussi Vatanen, Koskinen) and Ansa (Alma Pöysti, A Day and a Half) find solace in a cinema themselves. They don't see a Kaurismäki picture. Instead, they catch The Dead Don't Die by Jim Jarmusch, the closest person that he has to an American equivalent. That's Holappa and Ansa's first official date, but not the start of Fallen Leaves' story. Before that, it gets to know him as a metalworker and her as a supermarket employee, methods of receiving a paycheque that neither is overly fussed about. Holappa is also an alcoholic, which eventually costs him his job. Ansa gets fired for trying to take home out-of-date food. The pair cross paths at a karaoke bar, and awkwardly, yet the audience can almost see the string tying them together as soon as they're both sharing a frame. For someone who so regularly processes the world's sadness through deadpan laughs, Kaurismäki isn't averse to kindred spirits — again, see his shoutout to Jarmusch, and also the fact that Fallen Leaves, as many of Kaurismäki's movies do, features a key canine connection. Dialogue doesn't come easily or abundantly in a film by the creative force who clearly didn't retire after The Other Side of Hope, as he said he was going to — and who won the 2023 Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize with Fallen Leaves, the proof that he's still behind the camera. Understanding his characters by being in their presence has always been his approach. Valuing silence and pauses plays like a throwback, too, increasingly so when words being flung about incessantly at literal presses of buttons is life circa 2024. His casting, and also the cinematography that splashes Kaurismäki's movies across the screen, are always pivotal as a result. With Vatanen and Pöysti, the latter collecting a Golden Globe nomination, Fallen Leaves boasts actors who reside fully in Holappa and Ansa's skins and sorrows. With Timo Salminen doing the lensing, as he has since the director's first film four decades ago, Fallen Leaves also knows how to deeply observe everything that its stars bring to their on-screen figures. The plot might be slight — Holappa and Ansa meet, gravitate towards each other, then attempt to clutch what respite they can from the winter that is existence — but that isn't the same as lacking detail. Seeing Ansa need to shop before she can host Holappa at her flat for dinner screams with minutiae about how accustomed she is to being alone, and for how long; she only has one place setting otherwise. While she's still stacking shelves for a gig, watching her employer demand that expired food be thrown out instead of going to those who need it says everything about the cruel corporate attitude that oppresses not just the working class, but 21st-century society at large. It isn't just that Kaurismäki wants his viewers to see Holappa and Ansa's lives, rather than hear them chat about it; to explain who they are, and why, plus the emotions simmering inside each, he also knows exactly what's crucial for audiences to peer at. There's a sensation that springs from Kaurismäki's films: a feeling of stepping into a world so distinctively crafted by the filmmaker while also still spying a poignant reflection of reality. That's why his script for the graceful and gorgeous Fallen Leaves can chart such a familiar scenario — template-like, almost — and yet is anything but a by-the-numbers effort. He lets his characters be who they are, ups, downs, strengths, flaws and all. He perceives them and their plights with such evident empathy, and also with hope. Anyone watching can spot how they could be or have been Holappa and Ansa, including when Kaurismäki frequently finds the hilarity in this cycle that we all call life. Naturalistic, humane, wry, sincere, tender, taking the bad with the good when it comes to each and every day and person: that's his remit, winningly, warmly and meaningfully so. In another of Fallen Leaves' touches that might seem at odds with setting it in 2024, pushing its protagonists together is complicated by the fact that they initially can't contact each other. Their names are hard-earned. Phone numbers are lost. This romance isn't easy to come by, then; for Holappa and Ansa both, and for viewers as well, it's worth striving for. Kaurismäki is a master at mirroring in his style, narrative and themes, such as showing how something that appears standard so rarely is via his plot and imagery, or telling a tale that takes away the always-on nature of modern life to stress what's truly important. He's a filmmaking great in general — and if the sexagenarian is encroaching upon the autumn of his career 41 years after his feature debut, his talents remain as verdant as ever.
The big friendly giant of the streaming world has found itself a golden ticket, with Netflix bringing the work of beloved author Roald Dahl to its platform. Viewers can expect to feel like Charlie Bucket walking into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, with a whopping 16 of Dahl's classic books set to get the Netflix treatment. Teaming up with The Roald Dahl Story Company, the outfit is turning everything from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its sequel Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator to Matilda and The Twits into new animated television shows. Oompa Loompas, everlasting gobstoppers and everyone's favourite book-loving schoolgirl with telekinetic abilities will be joined by basically every Dahl novel you read and adored as a kid — including The BFG, Esio Trot, George's Marvellous Medicine, The Enormous Crocodile, The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, Henry Sugar, Billy and the Minpins, The Magic Finger, Dirty Beasts and Rhyme Stew. His autobiographical efforts Boy – Tales of Childhood and Going Solo will also hit the service, with one detailing Dahl's youth and the other delving into his journeys to Africa as well as his service in World War II. For many, including the tales about the author himself, it'll be the first time that they've been adapted for the screen. Netflix plans to turn Dahl's stories into event series and specials — so limited-run shows across a number of episodes, plus one-offs. Announcing the news, the company said in a statement that it "intends to remain faithful to the quintessential spirit and tone of Dahl while also building out an imaginative story universe that expands far beyond the pages of the books themselves". In other words, expect the tales you know and love, as well as tales that expand upon those tales. Work will start on the first Dahl animated series in 2019, although just which one it'll be is yet to be revealed. Netflix also hasn't said when the shows will hit the platform, but expect them soon — it's usually pretty speedy when it comes to turning content around. And if you just can't wait, Wes Anderson's delightful stop-motion animation version of Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox is currently streaming on the service.
A thriving garden of fruits and vegetables in the middle of a city isn't something you come across very often. Thornton Budgens supermarket in North London argues that this shouldn't be so, and is taking steps towards a more sustainable future with produce. Thornton Budgens along with project leader Azul-Valerie Thome has created Food From The Sky, a rooftop permaculture garden of organic fruits, vegetables and herbs. The ultimate goal of the project is to prove that produce can be grown in cities and sold locally in a manner that is efficient and not wasteful. The grocery store began the project in May 2010 with only 10 tons of compost and 300 recycling boxes, but with care from employees and over 20 volunteers the garden now yields enough produce to sell every Friday. Any fruits or vegetables that are not sold, instead of simply being thrown away at the end of the day, become compost that will enhance the soil for the next batch of produce. What makes a rooftop garden a great idea? The warmth from the store's heating and lighting systems heat the floor of the roof, preventing the plant seeds from freezing during the colder months, and is free of the slugs and snails that cause pigeons to dig up the soil during vital growth periods. Why didn't we think of this before? In addition, the grocery store is offering courses about this alternative approach to food production in order to instill the power in others to sustain produce gardens in the city while being conscious of the planet. The Food From The Sky project aims to extend its influence to other supermarkets and be a template for other rooftop permaculture gardens in cities. "One day, I want to see supermarket roof-gardens all over the country," said Thome.
Sometimes, your tastebuds crave something special. They hanker for the kind of dish you're not going to eat every day, aka a treat yo'self type of culinary experience. Here are three things that they'd likely demand in that situation: lobster, truffles and champagne. If that sounds like your idea of an indulgent meal, Lobster & Co has you sorted until Friday, January 27 at the Gasometer at Gasworks in Newstead. During another season of decadence, you'll only find those three aforementioned items on the menu; the Lobster & Co van is solely serving lobster rolls with truffle fries and flutes of Pommery champagne. Prices start at $50 for the food combo, which features a whole confit lobster tail sourced from Western Australia, served warm on a caramelised brioche bun with buttermilk fennel slaw, plus a side of parmesan truffle fries. A chilled glass of the champers will cost you $20 extra. Generally, Lobster & Co operates Wednesday–Sunday, but dates and times vary over the holidays — so keep an eye on the pop-up's website. Updated: January 5, 2023. Images: Karon Photography.
When Caper Byron Bay Food and Culture Festival debuted in 2022, Louis Tikaram from Stanley in Brisbane was on the lineup. In 2024, the chef from the standout Sunshine State restaurant has curated the program. He has ties to the area, growing up on a 110-acre farm in Mullumbimby before hopping from Sydney's Tetsuya's and Longrain to E.P & L.P. in Los Angeles and then the Queensland capital's go-to Cantonese fine-diner — and he's now doing his part for this culinary fest's second event. Caper returns with a few changes. The festival has expanded its lineup from a four-day weekend to a ten-day run, and also moved from spring to autumn, taking place from Friday, May 17–Sunday, May 26. But its focus remains on celebrating food and culture in its seaside New South Wales home and the surrounding region, whether you're keen to eat, drink, listen to live tunes, or enjoy a drag night and trivia show. "Being part of the first-ever Caper Festival as a guest chef back in 2022 was a blast, and now I'm stoked to come back home to Byron Shire and curate," said Tikaram, announcing the 2024 lineup. "With heaps of mates in the chef and supplier scene, and top-notch produce at our fingertips, we've got some cracking events lined up. Can't wait to get stuck in and show off what we've got cooking." Tikaram's program is filled with fellow culinary names, including when the opening party takes over Three Blue Ducks. On the bill just for that night alone: Dave Moyle from Salty Mangrove (who organised the first Caper), Jason Saxby from Raes on Wategos, Ben Devlin from Pipet, Matt Stone from You Beauty, Mindy Woods from Karkalla, Karl and Katrina Kanetani from Beach Byron Bay, Pepsi Nakbunchuay from Bang Bang, Robbie Oijvall from Lightyears, Bruno Conti from The Hut, Marcello Polifrone from Harvest and, of course, Darren Robertson from the host venue. At the other end of the fest, the closing-night event will see Tikaram, Hawaiian chef Kanetani, Ross Magnaye from Serai Kitchen in Melbourne and Jedd Rifai from North Byron Hotel hone in on Hawaiian buffet-style snacks. In-between, long lunches, a yakitori party and a five-course smoke-fuelled feast are all among the fellow Caper highlights. Some meals will get you eating seaside. Other events are serving up an Italian-inspired aperitivo hour or a gin garden party. With Tikaram doing the honours again, you can also tuck into east-meets-west canapés at Byron Chinese restaurant Hutong Harry's. Whatever you're heading to, the North Byron Hotel is the fest's official watering hole, hosting tunes, cooking demonstrations, and cheese and wine tastings. If you've got a ticket to the fest, you'll score a drink coupon for a complimentary beverage, too. Caper Byron Bay Food and Culture Festival runs from Friday, May 17–Sunday, May 26, 2024 at various locations around Byron Bay and the Northern Rivers region. For more information, head to the festival's website. Images: Jess Kearney / Ella Dice.
After another helluva year, we find ourselves once again entering the festive season. This time maybe a little more wearily, but still aching to hug our loved ones, and, in many cases, shower them with gifts. We all have that one person we have trouble buying a present for. Maybe it's your stubborn old man? Perhaps a wealthy aunt? Or it could be your partner (who you know got you something awesome and, even though it's not at all a competition, you still want to make sure you got them the better gift). Whatever your motivation, there's never a better gift option than to give someone an experience. If you add travel into the mix, you're also supporting some great regional areas around the country that are home to unique cultural experiences. It's a win-win. We've teamed up with Tourism Australia to put together ten top-notch cultural experiences to help you give a memorable, meaningful gift this holiday season.
With new locally acquired COVID-19 cases identified in southeast Queensland over the past week — including two new local COVID-19 cases announced today, Monday, June 28 — wearing masks will become mandatory again in parts of the state. From 1am on Tuesday, June 29, covering up will be compulsory indoors in the Brisbane, Moreton Bay, Logan, Redlands, Ipswich, Noosa, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, the Scenic Rim, the Lockyer Valley and Somerset Local Government Areas for at least the next two weeks. So, if you're spending any time inside — other than in your own house — you'll be masking up. That means you'll need to cover up in places such as shopping centres, public transport, hospitals, aged care facilities and churches. And, you'll need to mask up in workplaces where you can't maintain physical distancing. You'll also need to always carry a mask with you when you aren't at home as well. https://twitter.com/qldhealthnews/status/1409290190087081986 The mask mandate is being implemented in tandem with new restrictions in the same areas, with caps on at-home gatherings and patrons in hospitality venues being tightened again — for the second time in two days. Announcing the changes today, Monday, June 28, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said that "there's a lot of things happening across the nation at the moment, and there's some things that are happening in Queensland. We've got to act very quickly." At the moment, compulsory mask-wearing will only be in effect in the 11 specified LGAs; however, "if we see any further spread in other parts of the state, the mask mandate will come into other parts of the state as well," the Premier said. Two new local COVID-19 cases were identified in Queensland in the past 24 hours, including one with the more contagious Delta variant. That's why restrictions are being tightened and masks introduced, the Premier noted. Yesterday, three community acquired cases were reported, covering both Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. As always, Queenslanders are asked to keep social distancing, and maintaining the hygiene practices that have been in place since March 2020. You're also requested to keep checking the state's list of exposure sites — and to get tested if you're feeling even the slightest possible COVID-19 symptoms. Face masks will be mandatory in the Greater Brisbane area from 1am on Tuesday, June 29. For more information about the status of COVID-19 in Queensland, head to the QLD COVID-19 hub and the Queensland Health website. More details about the lockdown, masks and associated restrictions can also be found on the Queensland Health website.
Captaining an eco-friendly boat, sipping biodynamic wines and feasting on farm fresh produce — this is just the very beginning of what a sustainable weekend in Canberra could include. The nation's capital is an ideal location for travellers who want to reduce their environmental footprint while uncovering new sights, tastes and adventures. We've rounded up a list of some of the top eco-friendly eateries and drink purveyors, sustainably powered activities and luxe experiences, plus accommodation options focused on preserving the natural beauty of the territory. Use this as your guide to exploring Canberra's renowned city sights and discovering the region's hidden gems — while staying green. Please stay up to date with the latest ACT Government health advice regarding COVID-19. [caption id="attachment_810977" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Capital Brewing, Kara Rosenlund, VisitCanberra[/caption] EAT AND DRINK Canberra's top farm-to-tote-bag source for fridge and pantry staples — plus, early morning sustenance — is the Capital Region Farmers Market. More than 100 local stalls pop up every Saturday from 7–11.30am at Exhibition Park, offering everything from fresh fruit and veg to flowers, honey, bread, smoked meats, eggs and pastries. Explore it all with a coffee in hand, and get to know the local producers' tips for planet-friendly cooking and growing. For a second breakfast, head to vegan cafe and bakery Sweet Bones to enjoy another caffeine fix and sugar rush. Order a plant-based big brekkie or stock up on sweet wonders from the treats cabinet. Next, make a quick trip southeast to Pialligo Estate. It wears many hats, including cafe, restaurant, grocer, vineyard, smokehouse, small farm plot and children's playground. Enjoy the fruits of the estate over an al fresco lunch, before touring the grounds for a real paddock-to-plate experience. [caption id="attachment_810980" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Lark Hill Biodynamic Winery, VisitCanberra[/caption] Ready for a tipple? Start with sustainable malted magic at Capital Brewing Co. This Canberra craft beer baron is well on its way to becoming a zero-waste brewery, sending spent beer-making ingredients to farmers for cattle feed, composting leftovers, minimising water and energy consumption, eliminating unnecessary packaging, and more. Chip in on the environmental effort and order a banana-forward Belgian blonde ale or exquisitely tart pear and elderflower sour from the warehouse taproom. If you prefer vinous varieties on a drinks list, check out Lark Hill Biodynamic Winery. The drops here get gold stars in the organic and biodynamic wine categories, while also hitting the mark on the delicious scale. Regular sippers of riesling, chardonnay and pinot noir will be well served at this lofty location in the hills above Canberra where shale and clay soils let these hardy grapes thrive. Book a $10-per-person tasting by the open fire at the intimate cellar door and work your way through some zesty whites and dark cherry reds. [caption id="attachment_810979" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jindii Eco Spa, VisitCanberra[/caption] DO Reconnect with nature while you enjoy a little self-care luxury at Jindii Eco Spa. This dreamy retreat is hidden within the vibrant Australian National Botanic Gardens, offering spa treatments that utilise wild harvested native ingredients and Indigenous knowledge. Unwind with a massage and mineral bath, allowing botanicals like lemon myrtle, white flannel flower and banksia seed to hydrate your skin while the expert therapists pummel all the stress out of your weary muscles. Add a little retail therapy to the rejuvenation mix and stock up on a few goodies from the spa's signature skincare range after a wander through the gardens. One fun way to explore Canberra is zipping around on an e-scooter. You might have a few childhood memories of tragic scooter tumbles, but these electric beauties are far easier and safer to handle. You can tour Lake Burley Griffin and track down famously transient The Pop Inn, which moves its wine and pizza bar to new locations around the capital most weekends. Hire e-scooters from the Canberra and Region Visitors Centre for an hour at $15 or for two hours for $25, or book the Beam and Neuron scooters via their own apps. [caption id="attachment_810978" align="alignnone" width="1920"] GoBoat, VisitCanberra[/caption] Keen to get out on the lake? GoBoat provides eco-friendly electric vessels that can ferry up to eight inland pirates (and seafaring dogs) around Lake Burley Griffin. You'll be captaining the boat yourself. It's super simple to steer and doesn't require experience or even a driver's license — however, skippers will need to be over 18 years old. Pre-packaged boat picnics and a sensible amount of BYO alcohol for passengers are encouraged, but GoBoat can also supply snacks from local eatery, Bean & Table. If you've got enough steam left for one more activity, make it an epic hike up Mount Gingera, which sits atop the western NSW/ACT border in Namadgi National Park. If you want to conquer the full 15-kilometre return journey from the carpark, expect an intermittently steep but stunning trek with endless mountain views at the summit. There are shorter trails to follow in the area and plenty of opportunities to spot native birds and frogs throughout the carefully preserved park. Keep in mind this peak can be covered by snow in the depths of winter. [caption id="attachment_810983" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Nil Desperandum, Australian Capital Tourism[/caption] STAY You can get well and truly off-grid staying in Canberra while maintaining accommodation elegance. The bell tents at Naked Cubby Co provide luxe mattresses and linens you can get lost in, as well as breakfast in bed and easy access to the cellar door at Mount Majura Vineyard, all just a 20-minute drive from Canberra's CBD. Choose between the solar-powered glamping tents perched among the vines and the tiny house on wheels near the pine forest. The facilities are similarly minimal but the nature is top-notch at Nil Desperandum, a heritage cottage in the foothills of the Tidbinbilla Range. You'll need a 4WD to make the last leg of the 45-minute journey here from the centre of Canberra, but intrepid explorers with smaller city wheels can hike the last six kilometres along the dirt roads. The charming two-bedroom cottage has solar lighting, a kitchen with a wood stove, a long drop toilet, and a veranda and fenced yard where you can spend the night cooking on the gas barbecue and reclining by the fire pit. Just remember to bring in your own firewood. Also be aware that there's limited phone reception and no power outlets, so you'll need to be pretty self-sufficient to enjoy a night or two in the reserve. [caption id="attachment_810984" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ovolo Nishi, VisitCanberra[/caption] Alternatively, you can stay within the city limits for access to all the mod-cons you've come to love at Ovolo Nishi. While this CBD hotel is 'plugged in', it does have a clear commitment to sustainability and nature. The retro furnishings and artworks in each room are made from materials like clay, cork, refurbished eucalyptus timber and natural fibres, and the lofty atrium rooms gaze into an internal courtyard of salvaged Tasmanian tree ferns. The in-house dining at Monster Kitchen and Bar also has a sustainable focus, including a 100-percent vegetarian menu for the next year led by local seasonal produce. Discover more experiences to have in Canberra at VisitCanberra and start planning your next city break. Top Image: Mount Majura Vineyard, VisitCanberra
No one asked for a global lockdown, but here we are. Working from home and practising social distancing has been a successful move to flatten the curve of COVID-19, and it's all been possible because we care about the health and wellbeing of others. We also, no doubt, care about the impact we have on the natural world — and though the negative impacts of being in lockdown may take months to recover, there've been some surprising upsides. The peaks of the Himalayas are visible in some parts of India for the first time in decades thanks to the drop in pollution and New York and Los Angeles have reported lower pollution levels linked to the lack of vehicle traffic. Though these upsides are likely to be temporary, you can make some small but effective changes to your routine to help minimise our collective contribution to the ongoing climate crisis. With support from our friends at Tripod Coffee — who make certified compostable, Nespresso-compatible pods filled with fair trade, cafe-quality coffee — we've come up with a list of ways you can make positive changes while you're living your best stay-at-home lives. Read on for inspiration. [caption id="attachment_767688" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Markus Spiske[/caption] DITCH SINGLE-USE PLASTIC IN THE KITCHEN Three years ago, KeepCup's co-founder Abigail Forsyth reported a 400 percent increase in sales of the brand's reusable coffee cups, showing that Australians are willing to adapt their daily habits for sake of the environment. Now that your reusable cup is stored away for a while, it's worth looking at your day-to-day cooking and food preparation habits to see if there's a simple swap you can make that's just as convenient but a lot less wasteful. Cling wrap is a good example. National Geographic reported that plastic wrap is difficult to recycle and made from potentially harmful materials "especially as they break down in the environment". A more environmentally friendly purchase is beeswax, which you can get online from Bee Wrappy and Eco Food Wrap — or you can learn to make it yourself. Then there are silicone covers from Byron Bay eco-store Seed & Sprout or Food Huggers, which are handy for half-used onions and citrus, and 100-percent organic cotton produce bags like these ones, which are best for containing loose veggies like green beans, carrots and brussels sprouts. Vegan dish washing blocks also claim to replace three plastic bottles' worth of washing up liquid. And, as you're eating more meals at home than ever before, investing in reusable and longer-lasting kitchen products can save you money in the long term. [caption id="attachment_767924" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sippakorn Yamkasikorn[/caption] START A WORM FARM According to Foodbank Australia, the average Australian household sends almost five kilograms of food waste to landfill each week. That's a lot of veggie peel that could be feeding a clew of worms. Instead of chucking eggshells, banana skins and unused lettuce leaves into the bin, consider collecting organic scraps and adding them to a worm farm. You can create your own worm farm with a plastic storage bin or oversized food containers — or, if you prefer, you can buy worm habitats online. Order these worms born-and-bred in Australia, and, according to chef and writer Palisa Anderson, as long as you're not overfeeding, overheating, under-watering your worms you're probably doing it right. The main things to avoid are adding too much citrus, bones or meat, and to remember to add carbon, like newspaper and empty toilet rolls (cut into small pieces), to maintain a healthy carbon-nitrogen balance for your wriggly friends. Space is rarely an issue here, so you can start a worm farm even if all you have is a balcony, and the benefits include a rich vermicompost for your soil and worm juice that's a rich fertiliser for your house plants. Find handy maintenance tips from the War on Waste team here. [caption id="attachment_768047" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Cornersmith[/caption] LEARN TO PICKLE AND PRESERVE Itching for a new hobby? Instead of buying your favourite brined veggies and preserved fruits on your supermarket dash, learn to do it yourself and you'll come out of lockdown with sweet life skills as well as that beaming glow of someone with enviable gut health. Cornersmith owner Alex Elliott-Howery is the queen of pickling and preservation; she hates to see food wasted and, no matter where you live, you can learn the art of Cornersmith's distinctively flavoured pickled veggies through its online preserving courses. You'll pick up tips for bottling briny cucumbers, pickling beets and creating a jar of sweet preserved pears. There's also courses in tomato preservation in which you'll master passata and additive-free ketchup. Not your first rodeo? Find refresher recipes from the ABC, Bon Appétit and Cornersmith. More of a live, hands-on learner? Book into this fermenting and pickling class via Zoom from wholefood educator Marcea Klein or this one from Sugar-Free Home Preserving author Valerie Pearson via Work-Shop. SWITCH TO COMPOSTABLE COFFEE PODS Reaching for the coffee machine between Zoom meetings? Those with a Nespresso machine at home might be looking for a more sustainable alternative to wasteful aluminium coffee pods that can't be recycled. Australian brand Tripod Coffee produces 100-percent certified compostable coffee pods, made from plant-based bio-polymers. It has a Pod-to-Plant returns program that means you can return your used pods to be converted into fertiliser for local farmers, or you can place the entire pod and paper lid in your green council bin, if they accept organic waste. Tripod's fair trade coffee beans are roasted and ground in Australia in an air-tight environment, which means the coffee is as flavourful as any freshly ground blend. Find out more about Tripod's subscriptions and returns program, here. [caption id="attachment_767670" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Markus Spiske[/caption] GROW YOUR OWN HERBS Step away from the plastic-wrapped basil leaves and pick up a packet of seeds, or potted plant, instead. There's never been a better time to try not to kill house-bound babies, like a luscious row of basil, coriander and parsley. Bunnings, which is practising social distancing and cashless payments across its stores as well as offering a drive and collect service, recommends starting out with coriander, chives, mint and thyme as they're easy to maintain and don't require a lot of space. Basil and flat-leaf parsley grow prolifically, so make sure you have more space and plan to use the leaves regularly. Pick up a small pot and potting soil from your local gardening centre, or order a self-watering one from Mr Kitly, and find a place with lots of sunlight. The Little Veggie Patch has lots of educational resources if you want to track growth or need to order more seed bundles and planters. And once you're all set up, you can start planning pesto and mojito nights to make your evenings at home more fragrant and flavoursome, as well as financially and environmentally friendly. Tripod Coffee produces Australian certified-compostable coffee pods. Find out more about the range and delivery options, here.
Forget about Ingmar Bergman, Stellan Skarsgard and Noomi Rapace. The cinema of Sweden has a brand new face — and by new, we mean very, very old. Adapted from the bestselling novel by Jonas Jonasson, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is the single most profitable film in the history of Swedish cinema. What drove audiences in such numbers to such a singularly unfunny comedy we'll chalk up to cultural misunderstanding The film, to its credit, delivers exactly what it promises to. On the day of his centennial, geriatric explosives expert Allan Karlsson (Robert Gustafsson) decides he's had enough of life in his retirement home and promptly shimmies through the curtains for a stroll. While at the bus station purchasing a one-way ticket to wherever, Karlsson accidentally comes into the possession of a suitcase full of drug-money — the first in a series of hi-larious coincidences and knee-slapping misunderstandings that follow the senior citizen wherever he seems to go. Indeed, the addlebrained pensioner is no stranger to misadventure. As flashbacks soon reveal, Karlsson apparently met, and influenced, most of the major figures of the 20th century, including Franco, Stalin and both Eisenhower and Reagan. He was also the lynchpin in the Manhattan Project, served as a spy for both sides during the Cold War, and spent some time in a Siberian gulag for his troubles. The film's most obvious compatriot would be something like Forrest Gump, but frankly, the comparison doesn't flatter. Gump wasn't exactly the sharpest hammer in the cutlery draw, but he had a certain childlike innocence that helped endear him to an audience. Karlsson, on the other hand, is just plain dumb. As such, it's difficult to care about either his past or his present, the latter of which sees him on the run from some skinhead bikers, intent on getting their money back in whatever way they can. The comedy is broadly slapstick, but with an undertone of callous black humour. Putting aside the fact that Karlsson helped invent the atom bomb and apparently feels not the least bit bad about it, the film regularly sees him cause the deaths, albeit mostly accidental, of people who cross his path. As it turn out, stupidity and nastiness doesn't make for an entertaining mix. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared can hardly disappear from cinemas soon enough. https://youtube.com/watch?v=6SEiaODjTZw
Brisbane's busy market scene loves an occasion. Accordingly, it should come as zero surprise that Christmas markets are a massive thing around town, including at Redcliffe's regular excuse to get shopping by the sea. Indeed, only the Redcliffe Christmas Twilight Market will take you browsing and buying by the Redcliffe jetty. Fancy a merry theme and an ace waterside location? That's on offer from 4–9pm on Saturday, December 9. Also on the bill: a whole Christmas wonderland set up, complete with fireworks, festive-appropriate decorations all over the place, and music and live entertainment to fit the mood. And, a heap of food stalls serving up bites to eat, and drinks, also to suit the theme. Entry is free, but you'll want your wallet for all that browsing and buying — there's usually hundreds of stalls to peruse. And yes, dressing up is welcome for this wander along Redcliffe Parade till 9pm.
It won 11 Tony Awards. It's one of the Obamas' favourite musicals. A filmed version of its Broadway production was nominated for several Golden Globes. It's also proven a hit in Sydney and Melbourne — and, it's finally on its way to Brisbane. That'd be Lin-Manuel Miranda's game-changing Hamilton, of course, which makes its River City debut from the end of January 2023. Even better: if you're as keen to see the hottest thing in musical theatre as its namesake was about American politics in the 18th century, you just might be able to nab yourself a cheap ticket. As happened with Mary Poppins, a ticket lottery is being held for Hamilton's Brisbane run at QPAC. And, this one is cheap. Very cheap, in fact. Via TodayTix, you can sign up for your chance to score a ticket for just $10. Yes, that figure is accurate. Obviously, you won't want to throw away your shot to see the most talked-about musical of the decade for less than the price of a cocktail. To take part in the lottery, you will need to download the TodayTix app — which is available for iOS and Android — and submit your entry each Friday. The lottery will go live at 12.01am every Friday morning and close at 1pm the next Thursday, with winners drawn between 1–4pm on that Thursday. If your name is selected, you'll have an hour to claim your tickets from when you receive the good news. The first lottery will open on Friday, January 13, covering performances for dates between Friday, January 27–Sunday, January 29. From then onwards, you'll be entering on a Friday, then hearing if you're successful on the following Thursday, all for performances that start the next week. And, if you need a reminder, you'll also be able to sign up for lottery alerts via TodayTix, too. The critically acclaimed hip hop musical, for which Miranda wrote the music, lyrics and the book, is about the life of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, as well as inclusion and politics in current-day America. In addition to its swag of Tony Awards, which include Best Musical, it has nabbed a Grammy Award and even a Pulitzer Prize. After hitting Broadway in 2015, then West End in 2017, Australians have been finally getting their turn since 2021, with Brisbane the show's third stop. Usually, tickets start at $70, so the $10 lottery really is an absolute bargain. [caption id="attachment_817298" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Hamilton, Daniel Boud, Destination NSW.[/caption] This isn't Miranda's first musical to hit Australia, of course, with his take on the classic 2000s film Bring It On: The Musical hitting Melbourne in 2018 and quadruple Tony Award-winning In The Heights playing a short season at the Sydney Opera House in 2019. While you wait for your lottery shot, you can watch the filmed version of Hamilton with the original Broadway cast on Disney+ — yes, it's as phenomenal as you've heard. Hamilton's Brisbane season kicks off on Friday, January 27 at QPAC's Lyric Theatre. Visit the musical's website for further details. To enter the TodayTix $10 lottery, download the company's iOS or Android app, and head to the company's website for more information — and to set up an alert. Hamilton images: Daniel Boud.
Talented pooches have been barking their way to big screen stardom since the birth of the medium, and Cannes Film Festival even gives out awards for ace pupper performances. In Australia for a few years now, we also celebrate the intersection of canines and cinema — via our very own dog-themed movie showcase. At the Top Dog Film Festival, doggos and puppers cement their status as humanity's favourite film stars in a touring program of pooch-centric shorts. For more than two hours, dogs will leap across screens in a curated selection of heartwarming flicks about humanity's best friend. Over the last few years, the lineup has included films about dog-powered sports, dogs in space, dogs hiking through the desert, senior dogs and more. The festival hits Brisbane Powerhouse on Tuesday, July 26 as part of its 2022 run, and rushing after tickets the way your best four-legged friend rushes after a frisbee is recommended. Given how much we all love watching dog videos online, not to mention attending pupper-centric shindigs in general, this event is certain to be popular. You'd be barking mad to miss it, obviously.
Canberra's light rail, the swish new(ish) north-to-south route that delivers passengers into the heart of the city, is more than a commuter line. It's an easy — and cheap — way for visitors to get around town between 6am and 11.30pm (or 1am on Saturday nights). Yep: no designated driver, no ridesharing, just you and the open rails. Well, 12 kilometres of them, anyway. Make your Canberra weekend away as simple as possible, and leave yourself with more money to spend on food and fun, by touring the capital via the light rail. Some of Canberra's best eats, well-stocked bars and intriguing curiosity shops (plus a surprising nighttime sports hub) are waiting to be explored along the light rail line. Here, we've got the ultimate hop-on-hop-off adventure for a day out in Canberra. Please stay up to date with the latest ACT Government health advice regarding COVID-19.
When most people graduate from high school they leave behind their days in the science lab, where they once learnt about the periodic table and played with magnets. However for those who keep a flame burning for Miss Frizz of the Magic School Bus, it can be very hard to find adult opportunities to satiate the need to conduct experiments, create hypotenuses and make rockets fly. Hearing your cries of desperation, South Bank’s The Edge has created The Science Fair – an experience to fulfil every desire your 9am-5pm job is lacking. The day is jam packed with a large and eclectic varieties of workshops and activities to inspire you to release the mad scientist within. Best of all, everything is free! So hunt around in the back of your cupboard for that white lab coat you know is in there, and keep next Saturday free.
What do Gertrude Stein, J.K. Rowling, Jack Kerouac, Rudyard Kipling, Sylvia Plath and Colonel Sanders have in common? On top of collectively penning a notable portion of the most memorable and well-known literature ever (the king of KFC came up with that song about Kentucky fried chicken and a pizza hut, right?) they are all familiar with the harsh sting of rejection, each having had their unpublished manuscripts rejected by people whose names no one remembers now. If only these seminal thinkers had been familiar with premier print-on-demand publishing company Blurb they could have cut out the middleman and saved themselves the heartache. The creative platform allows anyone with a computer (aka anyone with a pulse) to create, promote and flog his or her own seriously schmick looking book, photo book, magazine or e-book. This weekend Blurb hosts a series of free masterclasses and workshops run by photographers Daniel Milnor and Garry Trinh, who wax lyrical on the bookmaking process, the future of print and advancements in modern storytelling. Book now to avoid the kind of disappointment experienced by Stein, Rowling, Kerouac and co. Image Garry Trinh via Blurb
Each individual member of How I Met Your Mother seems to do something cool. Jason Segel resurrected the Muppets. Neil Patrick Harris produces interactive theatre and dresses his adorable babies in adorably elaborate Halloween costumes. Alyson Hannigan was Willow freakin' Rosenberg. When you break it down, the omnipresent sitcom might be less than the sum of its parts. Josh Radnor, the personal pronoun of How I Met Your Mother, follows suit by being an indie film writer and director of some repute, having won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for 2010's happythankyoumoreplease. His newbie, Liberal Arts, is about a 35-year-old demi-achiever, Jesse (Radnor), who works a dull job as a university admissions officer and reads dead-tree books constantly, while walking even. When he visits his alma mater to honour his retiring former professor, Peter (Richard Jenkins), Jesse also starts a romance with sparky 19-year-old student Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen). Between her exuberance for new knowledge and the campus's leafy, Midwestern nourishment, he rediscovers some of the wide-eyed optimism of his own college days — and also learns why he can't have them back. Really, you can't blame anyone for falling a bit in love with Olsen. She elevates the whole movie, bringing a flood of beauty and intelligence to a character already written to be quite beautiful and quite intelligent. She's not a manic pixie dream girl, although the film pales from being made in an MPDG world. The story of 'unremarkable pre-middle-aged male seeks shaking up, via female, into remarkable life' is a little tired. Sure, seedy, equivocating men deserve our empathy, but arguably they've already had their time in the sun. We know you shouldn't sleep with the girl; we don't need to see your working out. There are other flaws in the film that follow on from all this obviousness: One character, Dean (John Magaro), a random student among thousands, appears in front of Jesse 'by coincidence' with such frequency he'd have to be a ghost stalking our protagonist (he's not), and his arc becomes too foreseeable. Perhaps Liberal Arts would have meant something more if all these other characters didn't so perfectly serve Jesse. They awaken him, confront him, absolve him, and release him. That said, arts graduates will nod in recognition of post-modern theory references, and Allison Janney fans will delight in her cameo as an ironically hard-hearted Romantics professors. There are several estimable bon mots. Liberal Arts may make a forgettable thesis, but you'd still find a couple of passages within it to highlight.
The music industry often takes itself too seriously. Funny photos of serious musicians are scarce, but hilarious. Take a took at these photos of (usually) serious musicians. We've got everything from Dallas Green (City and Colour, above) in underwear with an umbrella, Elvis Costello in a fedora hanging with Elmo, and the always intimidating post punk band Swans squatting awkwardly in a swimming pool. Even the deepest and darkest of musicians have a soft side (or at least a somewhat funny side). Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson Elvis Costello Ian Anderson John Cage Radiohead Elliott Smith Iron Maiden Jeremiah Greene and Jim Fairchild of Modest Mouse Swans Hans-Joachim Roedelius
Some cocktails feature both gin and whisky. Usually, though, if you're sipping one then you're not sipping the other. That means you're either enjoying the citrus and juniper taste that comes with gin, or indulging in the malty flavour that whisky is so well-known for. Or, you can now opt for Never Never Distilling Co and Sullivans Cove's newest release. The two Australian distilleries have teamed up on a tipple they've named Jennifer, and the South Australian gin outfit and Tasmanian whisky fiends really have combined the best of both worlds. This flavoursome spirit takes its cues from Dutch Genever, which is all about blending malt wine and botanical flavours. The aim here: to make a new concoction that nods to both gin and whisky, and works in cocktails that normally feature either. Taste-wise, you can expect notes of pine fresh coriander, spicy cinnamon scroll and pepperberry. You'll smell malt, toasted cereal and warm spice scents, too and also coriander and juniper. So, it's both rich and fruity — and it's part of Never Never's limited-edition Dark Series. Jennifer also marks the first time that two trophy winners from the World Gin Awards and World Whiskies Awards have joined forces to make to hybrid spirit style, and it's also quite the rare tipple. Only one batch has been made so far, and getting your hands on some will set you back RRP$92 for a 500-millilitre bottle. "We wanted to create something that was generous in flavour and luxurious in mouthfeel that will be appreciated by enthusiasts in both camps," said Never Never Head Distiller Tim Boast. "It was a perfect candidate for a Dark Series release, which are exciting experimentations in flavour that push the boundaries of the spirit category." "Our aim is to present, in the most delicious way possible, the most authentic expression of our ingredients and people," said Sullivans Cove Distillery Manager Heather Tillot. "An innovative mindset is vital for this, and centres around perspective, approach and detail." Jennifer will be available to purchase via the Never Never Distilling Co website from Wednesday, September 15, and from Never Never's McLaren Vale Distillery Door. Images: Meghan Coles.
