Towards the end of Tokyo Vice's gripping eight-episode first-season run, its lanky American-in-Japan protagonist struts down an ordinary Tokyo street donning a suit and shades while smoking a cigarette. Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort, West Side Story) sports a post-coital glow, too, and looks as if he feels on top of the world. He also stands out awkwardly, no matter how cool he thinks he is, even before a high-school pal from home in Missouri spots him and bursts his bubble. This stride-of-pride scene sums up Tokyo Vice perfectly, because what's going on around Jake, and simply the complex city he's in, is always far more intriguing than he is. Don't go thinking that this HBO series doesn't know that, though. Available to stream in full in Australia via Paramount+ — and already renewed for a second season by HBO Max, the US network's streaming service — Tokyo Vice's first season uses an outsider as its entry point into the Japanese capital's neon-lit hustle, bustle and underworld. It uses two, in fact. Also making the city her base is fellow American expat Samantha Porter (Rachel Keller, Legion), a club hostess who spends her nights charming men who'll pay for her glamorous barside company, and also just generally being as far away from the USA as she can manage. But this series is about Tokyo happening around Jake and Sam, as it would regardless of whether they were there or not, as much as it's about the pair in Tokyo. It's a noir series about the bucket-list travel spot's shadows, and it knows that they'd linger no matter who was playing tourist. A smart and sleek crime-thriller? Tokyo Vice easily checks that box. A fish-out-of-water swim through yakuza territory? Yes, that one, too. A mostly after-dark trip through streets and spots that've largely been off limits to travellers for more than two years now? Naturally, the series ticks that one as well. It's also a 90s throwback, taking place in 1999 with Faithless and ATB bangers helping to rick gleaming nightclub dance floors, featuring references to The Matrix, and offering one of pop culture's great 'I Want It That Way' sing-alongs (and discussions about its true meaning). And, Tokyo Vice is the latest release from one of America's best directors, who is finally back behind the lens seven years after making his most recent movie. Indeed, this must-see series is many things — and the fact that it's Michael Mann project is among the reasons that it's essential. The filmmaker's last stint in the director's chair, the Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Love and Thunder)-starring 2015 film Blackhat, also followed a determined and ambitious American, and used every visual and audio trick it had to immerse its audiences in his mindset and his world. That's not the only parallel from the Thief, Heat, The Insider and Collateral helmer's resume that makes its presence known here, either. Mann only directs Tokyo Vice's pilot, but what a tone-setting debut episode it is — as stylish and gritty a piece of television as you're likely to stream any time soon, and one brimming with the filmmaker's usual look and mood. He also serves as the book-to-screen series' executive producer, which explains why its slice of Japanese-set thrills always feels like it bears his fingerprints. Of course, Tokyo Vice isn't shy about its links to Mann, who also executive produced the original 1980s TV series Miami Vice, and wrote and directed the 2006 big-screen remake. Attaching any other filmmaker's name would've simply felt incongruous. That said, the show's moniker actually stems from the IRL Jake Adelstein's memoir Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, about his years writing for Yomiuri Shimbun as a non-Japanese journalist. Adapted for the screen by playwright JT Rogers (Oslo), what a twisty, gritty, fast-paced narrative it spins, too. Still, everything about the HBO-backed program feels as if it was always fated to end up in Mann's hands. Adelstein was Yomiuri Shimbun's first foreign staff writer, with Tokyo Vice exploring his quest to cement himself inside the publication from the bottom up. Just like in that aforementioned stroll down the street, the on-screen version of Jake always sticks out, as does his dogged enthusiasm to chase the stories he's explicitly instructed to ignore. He aces the strict and gruelling Japanese-language test needed to even get his job. He makes history by earning his post. But murders don't happen in Japan, he's told. He's advised of plenty more, sometimes yelled at him insultingly by his boss Baku (Kosuke Toyohara, Deliver Us From Evil), sometimes offered as cautious words of wisdom by his immediate supervisor Emi Maruyama (Rinko Kikuchi, Pacific Rim: Uprising). The deaths he's witnessing on Tokyo's streets scream otherwise, though. So, Jake starts spending his own time investigating, befriending two Tokyo detectives for guidance and tips: the vice squad's Jin Miyamoto (Hideaki Itô, Memoirs of a Murderer), plus organised crime division veteran Hiroto Katagiri (Ken Watanabe, Godzilla: King of the Monsters). Both know that their new pal is desperate to make a name for himself, and that he's potentially playing a dangerous game; both are just as involved in charting the yakuza's actions, including the war between faction heads Hitoshi Ishida (Shun Sugata, Tomorrow's Dinner Table) and Shinzo Tozawa (Ayumi Tanida, Killing for the Prosecution), in their own ways. Jake's pursuit of the truth also involves getting close to Sam, who knows the lay of the land and has dreams of starting her own club. And, it sees him cross paths with jaded yakuza enforcer Sato (Shô Kasamatsu, Love You as the World Ends), an underling to Ishida and Sam's best-paying customer. Noting that Elgort is the weakest part of the series isn't quite the criticism it would be in any other show. The Baby Driver and The Goldfinch actor is well cast for precisely that reason, because making Jake the least interesting aspect of Tokyo Vice wholeheartedly suits the overall narrative, its focus on the city's underworld, and its embrace of the layers of complication that thrive and thrum beneath its must-visit exterior. Also, everything around Elgort, especially the performances by Watanabe, Kasamatsu, Kikuchi and Itô, proves stellar — both demanding and deserving attention. Getting drawn into this supremely well-made turn-of-the-millennium-set jaunt through Tokyo's underbelly is easy; instantly wanting more, especially from its exceptional Japanese talent, is as well. Check out the trailer for Tokyo Vice below: Tokyo Vice is available to stream via Paramount+.
Since its inception last year, Dan and Andy's Hawthorne Garage has been warmly received by locals. Hard to miss for the big red truck outside, this grocer, deli and cafe is open from six in the morning until eight at night, seven days a week. The majority of other cafes in the area close by around the 3pm mark, so if you find yourself in the 4171 postcode after that time, keep the Hawthorne Garage in mind. Especially if you are hankering for a late afternoon/early evening coffee but are dreading the prospect of trying to find a park on Oxford Street. While the deli cafe is a great place for a quick bite and a coffee, the Hawthorne Garage's main purpose is as a gourmet grocer. They stock an excellent selection of fresh produce and meats to go with their range of deli goods, specialty foods and gourmet wares. If you're the type of person who delights in trying out new and exotic brands of smoky barbecue sauce, masses of Italian cured meats, ice-creams flavour combinations previously unheard of, and cheese, cheese and more cheese, then definitely take a look. Hunt and gather inspiration and ingredients to whip up a dinner that is sure to impress. If the wealth of food items on offer somehow does not move you to cook, then fear not; the Hawthorne Garage offers home-style cooking for less than $10. Using seasonal produce, last week's delectable dinners included roast beef cakes with chilli jam soy glaze; vegetable soup with chicken meatballs and coriander; and ragu of Moroccan lamb, apple, fig, preserved lemon and chickpeas served with couscous. A mid-week takeaway does not necessarily have to mean pizza. If you're just after a light lunch or afternoon tea, then there are plenty of tasty treats ready prepared and waiting in the display cabinet. Falafel wraps, bagels, pasta salads, lemon tarts, muffins and friands number amongst the varied selection of ready to eat items. The salted caramel tart is particularly delicious. All food can be taken away, eaten while you meander the aisles, or while sitting out on the leafy patio.
On four upcoming Mondays, if you travel by train, your commute to and from work won't impact your Go Card balance. To start each week between November 18 and December 9, Queensland Rail is giving everyone free trips on what it's calling 'free train travel days'. If you don't have your calendar app open, you'll be able to ride the rails for free on November 18 and 25, as well as December 2 and 9. Translink advises that you won't need to tap on and off (or buy a paper ticket) — instead, just stroll on through the fare gates, which'll be open at all stations. All Citytrain services are included, which means all services on the Gold Coast, Beenleigh, Caboolture, Ipswich/Rosewood, Springfield, Cleveland, Doomben, Ferny Grove, Shorncliffe, Sunshine Coast and Redcliffe Peninsula lines. If you happen to be heading out of town via plane — or arriving back from elsewhere — on one of the four Mondays, Airtrain services are also included. Wondering why Queenslanders are getting four days of train travel without spending a cent? Announcing the plan, the Queensland Government said that it's to "thank customers for their loyalty as Queensland Rail worked to restore services earlier this year". Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey is referring to the government's efforts to increase driver and guard numbers, as well as services — but given how unreliable Brisbane's trains can be sometimes, his sentiment really could apply in general. Of course, QR's staff will still need to be paid on the free train travel days, so the costs will be covered by funding that had previously been allocated for the company's senior managers. Queensland Rail's free train travel days will take place on November 18 and 25, as well as December 2 and 9. Top image: John via Flickr. UPDATE, NOVEMBER 17: Translink has revealed how rail commuters can take advantage of the four free train travel days across November and December. This article has been updated to include these details.
When Taika Waititi received an Oscar in 2020 for Jojo Rabbit, he became the first person of Maori descent to achieve that feat, as well as the first Indigenous person to be both nominated in and win the Best Adapted Screenplay category. When Meyne Wyatt won the 2020 Archibald Packing Room Prize for his self-portrait, he became the first Indigenous Australian to win any Archibald award across the competition's 99 years. Both Waititi and Wyatt deserve the acclaim and awards that have come their respective ways. But the fact their recent wins made history — more than nine decades after both the Oscars and the Archibalds were first created, too — demonstrates the ongoing lack of diversity in the arts. So, when NITV and Sydney Theatre Company decided to team up to make a three-part series exploring the topic, as well as other Indigenous issues in creative fields, the two must've been at the top of the guest list. The resulting show is called The Whole Table, and its first episode is available to stream now via SBS On Demand. The following two episodes will air at 8.30pm on Wednesday, January 27 and Wednesday, February 3 on NITV, and then stream online afterwards — and Waititi and Wyatt are in great company. The Sapphires, Top End Wedding and Redfern Now's Shari Sebbens is on hosting duties, while Sydney Festival artistic director Wesley Enoch, Black Comedy's Nakkiah Lui and Sydney Opera House's head of First Nations programming Rhoda Roberts sit on the show's panel. Joining them at the table each week is a lineup of guests, not only including Waititi and Wyatt, but also The Dry's Miranda Tapsell and musician Adam Briggs — all chatting about their experiences. Expect to hear spirited discussions that not only touch upon the arts in Australia and New Zealand, but also explore Indigenous involvement and representation worldwide — in the past, now and the possible future. The series forms part of SBS and NITV's 'Always Ways, Always Will Be' programming leading up to January 26 — such as its Australian Made TV collection, curated by Enoch, that's streaming on SBS On Demand as well. Check out the very brief trailer for The Whole Table below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FabOIRhNC0 The first episode of The Whole Table is available to stream now via SBS On Demand, with future episodes airing on Wednesdays at 8.30pm — and streaming online afterwards.
Every great exhibition should make you feel like you're surrounded by the artist's work, whether or not it includes giant fairy tale forests or a towering spider. Melbourne-based outfit Grande Experiences takes that idea to heart, turning peering at masterpieces into an immersive 360-degree experience. Fancy seeing Italian Renaissance works, including the Mona Lisa, get the multi-sensory treatment? That's on the company's list in Australia next. When you've ushered the world into Vincent van Gogh's art — getting them not just peering at it but stepping through it — and Claude Monet's as well, what follows? Showcasing Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael, Botticelli, Caravaggio, Titian, Veronese and their peers. Van Gogh Alive proved a smash hit when it toured the country, even hitting up some cities multiple times. Monet in Paris dazzled Brisbane in 2023. Now, come 2024, Italian Renaissance Alive will become everyone's new reason to visit HOTA, Home of the Arts on the Gold Coast. The idea remains the same as Grande Experiences' other art must-sees, but the works being splashed across the walls, floors and ceilings will now hail from Italy from around the 15th and 16th centuries. And yes, that includes some of the big ones. The Sistine Chapel, The Last Supper, The Birth of Venus: they're all part of Italian Renaissance Alive in a huge way. Given the large-than-life manner in which they're presented, we really do mean huge, too. From Saturday, March 30–Sunday, August 4, 2024, you'll mosey around, spy iconic art surrounding you everywhere you look, and be part of not just a showcase but an experience. So, there'll be light and colour, obviously, but also sound and scents. Providing the soundtrack: Puccini, Verdi and other Italian operatic tunes. Images: Grande Experiences.
Bangs is the Sudanese refugee turned viral internet star who just wants to take girls to the movies and meet them on Facebook. His innocent song topics combined with his unique video aesthetics have lead to his YouTube channel receiving over 5 million hits. Tess Cameron caught up with Bangs prior to his appearance at Lovecats for a quick chat on all things related to meeting people on Facebook and taking girls to da movies. Are you excited about performing at Lovecats in Brisbane? I am. Can't wait. Have you ever been to Brisbane before? Yes, I've visited a lot. Will you be taking any girls to the movies in Brisbane? Yeah I will take them, I will take them all. What was the last movie you saw and did you like it? Day and Knight. It was fun. What snacks do you buy for girls at the movies? Whatever they want. Every time I take them to the movies I let them get whatever they want. Was the song Take U to Da Movies inspired by anyone? Lupe Fiasco. Do you want to meet him on Facebook? Yes. I'm a friend of his fan page. How do you come up with song ideas? I just get it from my gut. Any idea what your next song will be about? No idea yet but I'll be in the studio soon. Will you be doing any new songs on Thursday? Yes I will be. Your boi Bangs will be performing at Lovecats this Thursday. We've got two double passes to give away - visit our Facebook page for more information.
Bright lights aren't hard to find in Tokyo, and neither are gorgeous patches of greenery. And yet, the city's best blend of both sits inside a warehouse on an artificial island. Lengthy lines (another Tokyo hallmark) snake outside the seemingly average building from mid-morning until early evening, with the eager masses queuing beneath a giant ferris wheel. They've ventured over the famous Rainbow Bridge to get there, and possibly spied both a replica of the Statue of Liberty and a towering Gundam monument on their travels; however what awaits inside eclipses it all. Welcome to Tokyo's Borderless Digital Art Museum. Open since June 2018 in Odaiba, and run by interdisciplinary art collective Teamlab, it's an immersive playground teeming with kaleidoscopic digital works that move, shift, evolve and interact with each other. And we do mean teeming — this hefty collection of digital art spreads across more than 10,000 square metres, using 520 computers and 470 projectors for more than 50 works. Indeed, from the moment that patrons step through the museum's black curtains, the entire space is alive with pieces begging them to look and touch. And to sit in wonder and stare at as well. As you'll see if you scroll through the #borderless Instagram feed, it also invites audiences to take many, many, many photos. If some of them look familiar, it might be because Teamlab ran an exhibition at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum earlier year. Given the astonishing digital art on display, dropping your jaw and capturing the art on camera are completely understandable reactions. There's just so much going on. One instant, you're frolicking in a field of flowers. The next, you might be relaxing on a suspended net while watching fish swim, or wandering through a sea of glowing lamps, or feasting your eyes and ears on an astonishing concert of light and music. You could be relaxing as the ocean's waves come towards you, or spying flowers bloom from your cup of tea. It just might be the most vibrant place in a city filled with more stunning sights than anyone could see in a lifetime, and it's an absolute must-see on any trip to Tokyo, with more than a million people doing just that in the museum's first seven months. For those making the journey, we've run through seven of the dazzling delights that await in this digital art wonderland. WANDER THROUGH AN EVER-CHANGING FOREST OF FLOWERS If The Forest of Flowers and People was all that the Borderless Digital Art Museum had to offer, it'd still be a stunning achievement. The space's main section is a labyrinthine assemblage of halls, corridors and open voids where animated flowers grow, bud and blossom — and weave and wind their way around the huge room. Each bloom also withers, sheds its petals and decays, and responds to both the other works in the space (think butterflies, stampeding animals, waterfalls and more), and the museum's visitors. It's never the same work twice, with its cherry blossom hues proving equally calming and energising. You could walk around all day, never be bored and never see the exact same thing, although you will want to find your way to the cavernous Rock Where People Gather at the heart of it all. WATCH LIGHT BEAMS TURN INTO A SYMPHONY OF SCULPTURE It looks so straightforward: a darkened square room, with lights mounted on all four walls, as well as along the floor and across the ceiling. You scamper inside and find a spot to sit on the ground, and then look up. But what happens next is far from straightforward. Across ten pieces with names like The Haze, Light Vortex and Descent of the Gods, beams of light erupt through the space, building both monochromatic and colourful sculptures out of nothing more than their luminous rays. Each work is also set to a mesmerising soundtrack that's played loud to truly immerse you in the moment. While the entirety of the Borderless Digital Art Museum feels futuristic, this feels like being steeped in a sci-fi film in the very best way. LET THE OCEAN WASH OVER YOU Whether rushing towards the shore in stormy weather or lapping gently under the glistening sun, the ocean is an ongoing natural artwork. It's also a soothing sight, especially at a time when we all spend our days staring at screens rather than at the planet around us. Black Waves combines the best of both worlds, turning walls into a canvas and projecting a constant barrage of digital water across it. Unsurprisingly, people don't just sit here — they recline upon the island in the room's centre and simply let the waves wash over them. Prepare to feel vey calm — you'll want to get cosy and stay here for hours. WALK THROUGH A HYPNOTIC FOREST OF COLOURFUL LAMPS To enter the Borderless Digital Art Museum, there's a line. To then enter The Forest of Resonating Lamps, there's another — but both are worth it. Specifically, this walk-through installation lets you mosey through a mirrored room where suspended lanterns made of Venetian glass and hung at different heights are the main attraction. As you get close to a lamp, the colour changes, and then the whole space starts to cycle through a palette of eye-catching pastel views. Only a select number of people are allowed inside at a time, and you won't spend more than two minutes within the forest; however you will want to queue up for a second wander immediately afterwards. JOURNEY THROUGH A MOUNTAINOUS RICE FIELD First, you'll feel small. Then, you'll feel tall. Yes, playing with size and scale are what this piece is all about. You'll enter a room that resembles a mountainous rice field, wandering beneath a sea of plant sculptures and then towering above them, and you'll feel the enormity of the landscape. That said, that's just the structural part of the artwork. The Memory of Topography is located in a digital art museum, after all. While the main projection evokes life in a real field, complete with insects and flowers and changing seasons, another fish-fuelled effort flows across the space's varying elevations, painting with colour in reaction to whoever's in the room. BOUNCE BETWEEN BULBOUS FLOATING SCULPTURES Sometimes, the simplest things are the most thrilling, which is true in this interactive installation in Borderless Digital Art Museum's more active Athletics Forest. In The Weightless Forest of Resonating Life, bulbous sculptures float through a room as you — and plenty of other folks — roam between them. Some are weighed to the floor, and tip and sway when you walk past. Others rise into the air, heading towards the ceiling. Their colours change when someone touches them, which in turn influences all of the other 3D sculptures around them. If it's busy in here, which it always is, expect a rainbow of hues and a cavalcade of movement. ENJOY AN EXTRAORDINARY CUP OF TEA Walking around the Borderless Digital Art Museum is exciting and exhilarating. Given that you can spend hours inside, it's also a little exhausting. That's where the EN Tea House comes in, and it doesn't just serve up different flavours of both hot and cold green tea. While you're sitting at long benches in a dimly lit room, your cuppa will come to life thanks to Flowers Boom in an Infinite Universe Inside a Teacup. It all starts with a flower on top of your tea, then moves with your drink. When you've finished sipping, this gorgeous piece finishes as well. Find teamLab Borderless Tokyo: MORI Building Digital Art Museum in Odaiba Palette Town, 1-3-8 Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan. It's open seven days a week — for more information, visit the museum's website. Images: Sarah Ward.
It has been a couple of years since Brisbane's Metre Market transformed into The Market Folk, and since the latter started holding regular markets at Coorparoo Square, too. In 2021, they're still going strong. Whether you're an inner east local, or you're always looking for an excuse to browse and buy independent goods somewhere around town, they're a great weekend go-to. Head along from 9am–1pm on Sunday, February 21 to next get your fix, and to treat yo'self to more than a few nifty items and objects in the process. More than 40 stalls will be showcasing everything from fashion and food to arts, homewares and design items. There'll also be skincare, accessories and eco products as well. Back in the day, the pre-worn rack sales were a big highlight of Metre Market, and they've stuck around here as well. So, you can rehome someone else's unwanted threads, find yourself with a new outfit and save more textiles from going to landfill.
All you holiday-planners, Queensland is calling with a long list of weird and wonderful things to do in 2023 — and it's time you knew about them. Wanting to experience something a little bit different? Longing for events that can't be found anywhere else? Listen up. In 2023, the Sunshine State is celebrating everything from rock music in the desert to Mary Poppins, Elvis and medieval times — there's even a festival that celebrates both jazz and jumpers (yep, that's a thing). So, together with Queensland, we've rounded up 11 fantastically different events that need to be added to your 2023 travel diary, stat. Plus, while you're there having a memorable time, make a real trip out of it and explore some of Queensland's regional areas — or scoot back to Brisbane and dive deeper into the thriving arts scene. AGNES BLUES, ROOTS & ROCK FESTIVAL, 1770 The town of 1770, at the Great Barrier Reef's southernmost tip, will host the eighth Agnes Blues, Roots & Rocks Festival from Friday, February 17 till Sunday, February 19. The three days will be packed full of music (courtesy of over 30 bands, including headliner Busby Marou), stand-out food from local vendors and free-flowing bevs. Discovering new music or soaking up your faves, dancing away your Queensland days — in a numerically named township — is a terrific way to live. You could be leaving with new skills as well, with a range of workshops run by performers. All this takes place on a stunning stretch of Queensland's coast — so be sure to spend a few extra days swimming and surfing in the area. Agnes Blues, Roots & Rocks Festival, Friday, February 17 till Sunday, February 19, 2023 [caption id="attachment_881866" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Visual Poet Society[/caption] FESTIVAL OF OUTBACK OPERA, OUTBACK QUEENSLAND Opera in the outback? Delightfully different. Outdoor concerts under star-filled skies, pop-up performances taking over main streets and panel discussions in local parks — these are the experiences that made the 2022 Festival of Outback Opera a huge success. And Opera Queensland is bringing it back for its third year from Friday, May 19 until Monday, May 22. Forming part of this year's Queensland Music Trails, the festival will be running in the towns of Winton and Longreach, offering visitors the opportunity to interact with a diverse group of local and national artists all while experiencing some proper outback culture. Festival of Outback Opera, Friday, May 19 till Monday, May 22, 2023 [caption id="attachment_881863" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Bianca Holderness[/caption] COOLY ROCKS ON FESTIVAL, GOLD COAST From Wednesday, June 7 until Sunday, June 11, Coolangatta will go back in time with this old school rock 'n' roll, swing and rockabilly festival. Expect this coastal Queensland town to welcome all who are ready to rock out to classic tunes, appreciators of retro motors and countless hip-shaking groovers making moves towards the preliminary round of the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest — with the winner heading straight to Memphis to compete in Elvis Week. It's a must-see part of the Cooly Rocks On Festival. But that ain't all. The festival also includes a pin-up pageant celebrating the days of rockabilly fashion and beauty, a 1940s-themed Harvest Moon Swing Ball and a huge selection of vintage cars for the motoring enthusiasts to gawk at. Either come to dress up and join the festival-goers who attend religiously each and every year, or come as you are and watch on as fun-loving fanatics do their very own version of larping. Cooly Rocks On Festival, Wednesday, June 7 till Sunday, June 11, 2023 [caption id="attachment_881862" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Matt Williams[/caption] BIRDSVILLE BIG RED BASH, OUTBACK QUEENSLAND This music festival is kind of like an Australian version of Burning Man — but significantly more family friendly. People head to the Simpson Desert, dressed up in their brightest and wackiest costumes, to party along to the sweet sounds of Aussie music legends. This year, Icehouse is headlining, with Pete Murray, Human Nature and the Hoodoo Gurus taking to the big stage as well. Hire an RV with your mates or bring your own camping gear along to the Birdsville Big Red Bash from Tuesday, July 4 till Thursday, July 6. Along with the stellar sounds, you can take part in a bunch of super quirky activities too. From a colourful drag race (a literal running race) along steep sand dunes to a fashion show for pooches, air guitar championship and camel rides, this is one fun-filled desert party. Birdsville Big Red Bash, Tuesday, July 4 till Thursday, July 6, 2023 MARY POPPINS FESTIVAL, FRASER COAST Each year, lovers of all things Mary Poppins descend upon Maryborough's Portside Precinct. Dressing up in their best Mary Poppins garb, they gather to celebrate Pamela Lyndon Travers — the author of the classic tale — who was born in the town. (We bet you didn't know that nugget of Australian trivia!) The most hardcore attendees dress up in their very best outfits to take part in The Great Nanny Race (where competitors attempt to reach the finish line first with their baby doll still safely in its pram), the Chimney Sweep Challenge (a race to guide a balloon up a chimney before demonstration of the best chimney-sweep jump) and the Costume Competition. But, you don't need to go all in at the Mary Poppins Festival — many come to watch the beautifully bizarre activities and wander around this part of the Fraser Coast, enjoying sidewalk performers, pop-up art installations and great local grub. It's a whole lot of wholesome fun. Mary Poppins Festival, Sunday, July 3, 2023 JUMPERS & JAZZ IN JULY, SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND COUNTRY 'Jumpers' on trees and jazz — who knew such an unlikely pairing could be so popular? Back in 2004, the Jumpers & Jazz in July festival was created in response to a streetscaping project by Warwick Art Gallery. The idea was simple: get the community together to enliven the wintery locale by knitting some jumpers to put on leafless trees and then play some jazz. And now? The festival is massive. From Thursday, July 20 to Sunday, July 30, the population of Warwick will almost quadruple in size as visitors descend to get in on the arty merriment. And as it's grown, so has the lineup of events. There's the usual — trees in the town centre covered in brightly hued yarn and live jazz music performances all over town — but there are also art exhibitions, markets, workshops, a vintage car show and heaps of pop-up food and drink stalls. It's a really unique way to brighten up your winter. Jumpers & Jazz in July, Thursday, July 20 till Sunday, July 30, 2023 [caption id="attachment_881860" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ken Huntley[/caption] ABBEY MEDIEVAL FESTIVAL, BRISBANE Live your best A Knight's Tale fantasy at the 2023 Abbey Medieval Festival on Saturday, July 8 and Sunday, July 9. Yes, it is super geeky, but that's the fun of it all. Geeks are cool. Get on board. Join the club. Dress up in your finest ye-olde 'fits and go watch some jousting or shoot your shot in an archery competition. As you explore the Abbeystowe grounds you may also happen across actors playing Vikings and Turkish oil wrestlers while a string of food stalls sling medieval-themed food — think venison pies and other delights. You can even rest up at The Stag Inn to refuel while you sip mead or cider. Abbey Medieval Festival, Saturday, July 8 and Sunday, July 9, 2023 CRAFTED BEER & CIDER FESTIVAL, GOLD COAST Beer and cider fans best get around the beachside Crafted Festival in September. While the exact dates are yet to be announced — keep your eyes peeled in the coming months — in 2022, more than 50 of Australia's top craft brewers landed on the Gold Coast's Broadbeach, with a whopping 250-plus sips on pour. (This lineup included wine, spirits and cocktails for those who needed a break from the hopsy bevs.) If it's anything like last year, you'll be tasting all your favourite brews in the ocean air, with live music in your ears and stacks of local food stalls dishing out delicious bites to eat. Crafted Beer & Cider Festival, August 2023 CAPRICON POP CULTURE CONVENTION, ROCKHAMPTON Cosplayers, this one is for you. CapriCon Pop Culture Convention is a yearly event that celebrates comics, collectibles, anime, medieval larping, gaming and steampunk culture in Queensland's Rockhampton — and it's back for one day only on Saturday, September 2, 2023. In years gone by, there have been Star Wars lightsaber classes, cartoon and manga drawing workshops and monumental LEGO competitions (for all ages). There are also awards for those with the most spectacular costumes — so come dressed to impress. CapriCon Pop Culture Convention, Saturday, September 2, 2023 [caption id="attachment_881868" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Leximagery, Clayton Blake's Bathing Box[/caption] SWELL SCULPTURE FESTIVAL, GOLD COAST You'll be hard pressed to find an Australian outdoor art exhibition in more breathtaking surrounds. From Friday, September 8 till Sunday, September 17, over 70 large-scale contemporary sculptures will pop up along the picturesque Currumbin Beach while several other parts of the Gold Coast host a series of art exhibits — a huge (and fantastically arty) undertaking. But Queensland's biggest outdoor art festival isn't just about the artworks themselves. Throughout SWELL Sculpture Festival, there will be guided twilight walks around the installations, live music performances, comedy shows, masterclasses and talks. Be sure to stick around to get the full experience. SWELL Sculpture Festival, Friday, September 8 till Sunday, 17 September, 2023 MITCHELL CREEK ROCK 'N' BLUES FEST, SUNSHINE COAST This annual music festival in the Noosa Hinterland brings a wide range of Aussies together — that all have a common love for classic rock 'n' roll and blues. For three days and nights, over 140 local bands hit the stages to perform to excited crowds. But, it's super laidback, with visitors drinking and eating the day away at their campsites or hitting up pop-up markets and vintage car shows. A diverse selection of food vendors are also at the Mitchell Creek Rock 'n' Blues Fest throughout the festival — from Friday, September 15 right up until the last tent packs up on Sunday, September 17. The event organisers are also known for making this festival — its amenities, stages and camping grounds — accessible for those with disabilities. They even have an area for those who come camping with their dogs — everyone's welcome at this party. Mitchell Creek Rock 'n' Blues Fest, Friday, September 15 till Sunday, September 17, 2023 To explore more arts and culture events taking over Queensland in 2023, head to the website. Top image: Ravel, Alejandro Propato's Permanent Sunrise at SWELL Sculpture Festival
Young Adult tells the story of Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), a teen author and recent divorcee who lives in a spacious apartment in Minneapolis. Tired of spending alcohol-soaked nights alone, she decides to venture back to her hometown of Mercury in an attempt to rekindle a romance with her high-school sweetheart, Buddy (Patrick Wilson). However, Buddy is recently married and has recently become a father. Always determined and slightly sinister, Mavis develops a plot to break up Buddy's marriage and further her own love interests. Along the way she manages to form an unusual bond with a former classmate (Patton Oswalt), who is also keen on reliving his earlier teenage years. Young Adult is a romantic comedy with an unusual twist, exploring the concept of forbidden love and the extreme lengths at which we go to recapture happiness. Although we may see Mavis as a villain, we identify with her sense of nostalgia and desperation. What results is a hilarious insight into human nature and our adaption to change and age. The film marks the reuniting of director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody, who previously collaborated on the Academy Award-winning Juno. To win one of twenty double passes to see Young Adult, just make sure you are subscribed to Concrete Playground then email your name and postal address through to hello@concreteplayground.com.au
For those, like us, who like their festivals a little more niche and boutique, you can't go past St. Jerome's Laneway Festival. From its modest debut in a Melbourne back alley, the festival has grown to tour nationally and has consistently provided audiences with the newest and most innovative independent artists. After last year's successful international launch in Singapore, St. Jerome's Laneway Festival returns in 2012 with another instalment that is sure to please. French electronic project M83 is the festival's greatest drawcard, fresh off the release of his widely-praised album Hurry Up, We're Dreaming. Combining a beautifully mellow sound with pop appeal, M83 will close the festival in spectacular fashion. A refreshing break from the brash sounds associated with the dubstep genre, British producer SBTRKT will perform his brand of deep bass music behind his trademark mask in February. SBTRKT has recently remixed the likes of Basement Jaxx and Franz Ferdinand, and labelmates Young Turks Sound System will also be in attendance. After a four-year hiatus, Feist returns to treat audiences at St. Jerome's Laneway Festival once again. With the recent release of her album Metals, audiences can expect a powerful performance from this Canadian songstress. Jonti will grace audiences with his diverse instrumentation and distinct arrangements, while he has collaborated with the likes of Santigold and Mark Ronson prior to even releasing an album. The renowned musician, deisgner and photographer Toro Y Moi will bring his live show to Australia, which has been described as "a flashy, sex-fueled 80s rooftop fiesta." Need I say more? Pitchfork and NME heroes Girls will also make an appearance. Begin ironing your vintage-print shirts in excitement, because St. Jerome's Laneway Festival is not to be missed. Want to win a double pass to St. Jerome's Laneway Festival in Brisbane? To go in the running , just make sure you are subscribed to Concrete Playground then email your name and postal address through to hello@concreteplayground.com.au by 5pm on Thursday, January 26. https://youtube.com/watch?v=r-hMISLG8nY
Do you guys ever think about all the new movies that didn't get as much love while everyone was seeing Barbie and the rest of 2023's huge box-office hits? If you haven't so far, the time to do so is now. This year's's slate of cinema releases is like the year's biggest blockbuster, serving up multiple variations for everyone. So, while The Super Mario Bros Movie, Oppenheimer, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, John Wick: Chapter 4, The Little Mermaid, Elemental and Fast X were among the typical successes (and 2022's Avatar: The Way of Water and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish as well), the massive money earners are just a fraction the flicks that've graced the silver screen over the last 12 months. All of the aforementioned pictures made piles of cash from Australia audiences, and earned attention and chatter along the way. Elsewhere, stunning thrillers, warped mindbenders, thoughtful dramas, queer romances, propulsive action efforts, twisty delights and gorgeous animation also awaited — and they're worth catching up with ASAP. As we have since 2014 (see also: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022), we've picked a heap of must-see movies that you likely didn't see in 2023, because that's what the cinema takings tell us, but you should definitely add to your list. Thanks to our 15 selections, don't say that you don't have anything new to watch. HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE Every story is built upon cause and effect. One thing happens, then another as a result, and so a narrative springs. Inspired by Andreas Malm's non-fiction book of the same name, How to Blow Up a Pipeline isn't just strung together by causality — it's firmly, actively and overtly about starting points, consequences and the connections between. Here's one source for this impassioned tale about determined and drastic environmental activism: the warming world. Here's an originator for that, too: fossil fuels, humanity's reliance upon them and the profits reaped from that status quo. Now, a few outcomes: pollution, catastrophic weather changes, terminal illnesses, stolen and seized land, corporate interests prioritised over ecological necessities, and a growing group that's driven to act because existence is at stake. Turning a text subtitled Learning to Fight in a World on Fire into a fictional feature, How to Blow Up a Pipeline joins all of the above, stressing links like it is looping string from pin to pin, and clue to clue, on a detective's corkboard. In his second feature after 2018's smart and effective camgirl horror Cam, writer/director Daniel Goldhaber isn't trying to be subtle about what dovetails in where. With co-screenwriters Jordan Sjol (a story editor on Cam) and Ariela Barer (also one of How to Blow Up a Pipeline's stars), he isn't attempting to rein in the film's agenda or complexity. This movie tells the tale that's right there in its name, as eight people from across America congregate in Texas' west with a plan — an octet of folks who mostly would've remained loosely connected, some strangers and others lovers and friends, if they weren't desperate to send a message that genuinely garners attention. Goldhaber's latest is explosive in its potency and thrills, and startling in its urgency, as it focuses on a decision of last resort, the preparation and the individual rationales before that. How to blow up hedging bets on-screen? That's also this tightly wound, instantly gripping, always rage-dripping picture. Read our full review. INFINITY POOL Making his latest body-horror spectacle an eat-the-rich sci-fi satire as well, Brandon Cronenberg couldn't have given Infinity Pool a better title. Teardowns of the wealthy and entitled now seem to flow on forever, glistening endlessly against the film and television horizon; however, the characters in this particularly savage addition to the genre might wish they were in The White Lotus or Succession instead. In those two hits, having more money than sense doesn't mean witnessing your own bloody execution but still living to tell the tale. It doesn't see anyone caught up in cloning at its most vicious and macabre, either. And, it doesn't involve dipping into a purgatory that sports the Antiviral and Possessor filmmaker's penchant for futuristic corporeal terrors, as clearly influenced by his father David Cronenberg (see: Crimes of the Future, Videodrome and The Fly), while also creating a surreal hellscape that'd do Twin Peaks great David Lynch, Climax's Gaspar Noe and The Neon Demon's Nicolas Winding Refn proud. Succession veteran Alexander Skarsgård plunges into Infinity Pool's torments playing another member of the one percent, this time solely by marriage. "Where are we?", author James Foster asks his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman, Dopesick) while surveying the gleaming surfaces, palatial villas and scenic beaches on the fictional island nation of Li Tolqa — a question that keeps silently pulsating throughout the movie, and also comes tinged with the reality that James once knew a life far more routine than this cashed-up extravagance. Cronenberg lets his query linger from the get-go, with help from returning Possessor cinematographer Karim Hussain. Within minutes, the feature visually inverts its stroll through its lavish setting, the camera circling and lurching. As rafters spin into view, then tumble into the pristine sky, no one in this film's frames is in Kansas anymore. Then, when fellow guest Gabi (Mia Goth, Pearl) gets James and Em into a tragic accident, which is followed by arrests, death sentences and a wild get-out-of-jail-free situation, no one is anywhere they want to be, either. Read our full review. BROKER No matter how Hirokazu Kore-eda's on-screen families come to be, if there's any actual blood between them, whether they're grifting in some way or where in the world they're located, the Japanese writer/director and Shoplifters Palme d'Or winner's work has become so beloved — so magnificent, too — due to his care and sincerity. A Kore-eda film is a film of immense empathy and, like Like Father, Like Son, Our Little Sister, After the Storm and The Third Murder also in the prolific talent's past decade, Broker is no different. The setup here is one of the filmmaker's murkiest, with the feature's name referring to the baby trade. But showing compassion and humanity isn't up for debate in Kore-eda's approach. He judges the reality of modern-day life that leads his characters to their actions, but doesn't judge his central figures. In the process, he makes poignant melodramas that are also deep and thoughtful character studies, and that get to the heart of the globe's ills like the most cutting slices of social realism. It isn't just to make a buck that debt-ridden laundromat owner Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho, Parasite) and orphanage-raised Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won, Peninsula) take infants abandoned to the Busan Family Church's 'baby box' — a chute that's exactly what it sounds like, available to mothers who know they can't embrace that part for whatever reason — then find good families to sell them to. There's a cash component, of course, but they're convinced that their gambit is better than letting children languish in the state system. In Kore-eda's usual kindhearted manner, Broker sees them with sensitivity. Even if blue hues didn't wash through the film's frames, nothing is ever black and white in the director's movies. The same understanding and tenderness flows towards mothers like So-young (Lee Ji-eun, Hotel Del Luna, aka K-Pop star IU), whose decision to leave Woo-sung (debutant Park Ji-yong) isn't easily made but puts Broker on its course. Read our full review. REALITY Sydney Sweeney is ready for her closeup. Playwright-turned-filmmaker Tina Satter obliges. A household name of late due to her exceptional work in both Euphoria and The White Lotus, Sweeney has earned the camera's attention for over a decade; however, she's never been peered at with the unflinching intensity of Satter's debut feature Reality. For much of this short, sharp and stunning docudrama, the film's star lingers within the frame. Plenty of the movie's 83-minute running time devotes its focus to her face, staring intimately and scrutinising what it sees. Within Reality's stranger-than-fiction narrative, that imagery spies a US Air Force veteran and National Security Agency translator in her mid-twenties, on what she thought was an ordinary Saturday. It's June 3, 2017, with the picture's protagonist returning from buying groceries to find FBI agents awaiting at her rented Augusta, Georgia home, then accusing her of "the possible mishandling of classified information". Reality spots a woman facing grave charges, a suspect under interrogation and a whistleblower whose fate is already known to the world. It provides a thriller of a procedural with agents, questions, allegations and arrests; an informer saga that cuts to the heart of 21st-century American politics, and its specific chaos since 2016; and an impossible-to-shake tragedy about how authority savagely responds to being held to account. Bringing her stage production Is This a Room: Reality Winner Verbatim Transcription to the screen after it wowed off-Broadway and then Broadway, Satter dedicates Reality's bulk to that one day and those anxious minutes, unfurling in close to real time — but, pivotally, it kicks off three weeks earlier with its namesake at work while Fox News plays around her office. Why would someone leak to the media a restricted NSA report about Russian interference in getting Donald Trump elected? Before it recreates the words genuinely spoken between its eponymous figure and law enforcement, Reality sees the answer as well. Read our full review. CORSAGE Britain's two Queen Elizabeths have enjoyed their fair share of film and TV depictions, aided by Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, Margot Robbie, Helen Mirren, Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, Imelda Staunton and more — to name just a few — but they're not the only royals of that first name to grace the screen. While the spelling differs slightly and she's played as more of a Diana-style people's princess in her latest stint in cinemas, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (also Queen of Hungary) has received several celluloid and pixel resurrections of her own. Corsage ranks among the best of them, as famed as Austria's Sissi films from the 50s are and as recently as Netflix's The Empress hit streaming, in no small part due to two other outstanding women. One is Luxembourgish actor Vicky Krieps (Bergman Island), who is shrewd, wry and wily as the Bavarian-born wife to Emperor Franz Joseph I. The other is Austrian writer/director Marie Kreutzer (The Ground Beneath My Feet), whose handsomely staged and smartly anachronistic feature is no mere dutiful biopic. Corsage's lead casting is the dream it instantly seems on paper; if you're wondering why, see: Krieps' scene-stealing work opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in 2017's Phantom Thread. Here, she's been earning deserved awards — the Best Performance prize in the 2022 Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard section among them — for a portrayal that never feels like she's stepping into someone else's shoes or jumping back to the past for a part. Krieps is, naturally. Also, given that Sissi lived between 1837–1898, viewers have no way of knowing how close this characterisation is. But Krieps' fierce, dynamic and layered performance goes far further than easy impersonation, or providing a period-appropriate rendering of the Empress based on how history dictates that women of the era behaved (or what flicks set then or focusing on regal women back then have served up before). Corsage is a portrait of a lady, after all, and not of a time. Read our full review. SCRAPPER Trust a movie that's all about connection and pluck to boast plenty itself. The second of cinema's 2023 father-daughter pictures out of Britain that's directed by a first-time feature filmmaker called Charlotte — the first: Charlotte Wells' Aftersun — Charlotte Regan's Scrapper couldn't be better cast or any more fearless about telling its tale. Starring as 12-year-old Georgie, a pre-teen striving to survive on her own with any help from adults or the authorities after her mum Vicky's (Olivia Brady, The Phantom of the Open) death from cancer, debutant Lola Campbell is an electrifying find. Fresh from playing a model in Triangle of Sadness, Harris Dickinson is now an absent rather than ideal dad, a part that he infuses with equal doses of soul, sorrow, charisma and cheek. And, recognising that she's hardly skipping through new narrative territory, writer/director Regan heaps on character and personality. This is a perky, bright and bubbly take on a kitchen-sink story. There's sadness in 2023's Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-winner, too, with Scrapper scoring its award in the fest's World Cinema Dramatic Competition. There's anger as well, especially about a society that has Georgie convinced that staying solo in the council flat she lived in with her mother — a space that she's now fastidious about keeping exactly as it was before heartbreak struck — is her top choice. But Regan sees colour amid the grey, plus possibilities alongside struggles. Her view is clear-eyed but never steely. Regan unblinkingly witnesses the realities of working-class existence, yet also spies joy and whimsy, and similarly isn't afraid of getting surreal. This is a flick with talking spiders — cue literal bubbles, of the speech variety — alongside scrapping to get by. Read our full review. SHAYDA Whether or not Noora Niasari was ever explicitly told to write what she knew, the Iranian Australian filmmaker has taken that advice to heart. Her mother listened to the same guidance first, even if it was never spoken to her, either. The latter penned a memoir that has gone unpublished, but helped form the basis of the powerful and affecting Shayda. This account of a mum and her daughter attempting to start anew in a women's shelter doesn't entirely stick to the facts that writer/director Niasari and her mother lived through. The Sundance-premiering, Melbourne International Film Festival-opening, Oscar-contending feature — it's Australia's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2024 Academy Awards — isn't afraid to fictionalise details in search of the best screen story. Still, the tale that's told of courage, resilience, rebuilding lives and finding a new community is deeply and patently personal. Perhaps even better, it's inescapably authentic. Niasari peers back at being barely of primary-school age and making a new home. Fleeing to a women's shelter is the only option that the film's eponymous figure (Zar Amir Ebrahimi, 2022's Cannes Best Actress-winner for Holy Spider) has to get away from the abusive Hossein (Osamah Sami, Savage River), whose controlling nature is matched by that of their patriarchal culture. So, Shayda leaves with six-year-old Mona (debutant Selina Zahednia). As she waits for her divorce proceedings to go through — a complicated task under Iranian law and customs — she seeks refuge at a secret site overseen by the caring Joyce (Leah Purcell, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart). Even surrounded by kindness and filled with desperation for a better future, every iota of Shayda's decision is fraught and tense; Niasari starts the film with Mona at an airport being told what to do if she's ever there with her father, should he try to take her not only away from her mum but also back to Iran. Read our full review, and our interview with Noora Niasari. OF AN AGE You Won't Be Alone isn't just the name of Macedonian Australian writer/director Goran Stolevski's debut feature, which hit cinemas in 2022. It's also a phrase that applies now that his second film is here. Of an Age initially premiered in the same year as well, bowing in Melbourne International Film Festival's opening-night slot — and, while it tells of growing up queer in 90s Melbourne, falling in love for the first time, then sifting through the aftermath a decade later, it's a glorious companion piece to its predecessor. No one is chosen by a sorceress here. The place isn't Macedonia, the period isn't the 19th century and supernatural shapeshifting isn't part of the narrative. But even just a mere duo of movies into his helming career, Stolevski makes pictures that profoundly ruminate upon two of life's purest truths: that absolutely everything changes and, consequently, nothing completely lasts forever. 1999 is inching towards becoming Y2K when Of an Age begins, and 17-year-old Nikola aka Kol (Elias Anton, Australia Day) is only hours from taking to the floor at a Melbourne dance championship. That's how his day is meant to pan out, at least, and what he's preparing for when the film meets him practising his smooth ballroom moves in his suburban garage — conjuring up visions of John Travolta in a flick made famous two decades prior, in fact. Kol's ordinary morning fever breaks, however, thanks to friend and dance partner Ebony (Hattie Hook, Savage River) and her bender of an evening. She's awoken on the beach in Altona with no idea where she is, scrounging up change for the payphone call to say she thinks she'll miss the recital unless Kol can pick her up. To attempt to make his big performance, he has to convince Ebony's older brother Adam (Thom Green, Eden) to play taxi — and he's still all aflutter with anxiety, and just the inertia of being so keyed up from endeavouring to sort things out, when he slides into the twentysomething's brown car and feels sparks fly instantly. Read our full review. THE ORIGIN OF EVIL Laure Calamy doesn't star in everything that's hitting screens big and small from France right now, but from Call My Agent! and Only the Animals to Full Time and The Origin of Evil, audiences can be forgiven for feeling otherwise. Calamy isn't new to acting, either, with a resume dating back to 2001; however, her in-demand status at present keeps showering viewers with stellar performances. Indeed, The Origin of Evil is a magnificent Calamy masterclass. She's playing a part while playing a part, and she makes both look effortless. The Antoinette in the Cévennes César Best Actress-winner is also a picture of unnerving determination and yearning, and resourcefulness and anxiety, too, as a seafood-factory worker usually tinning anchovies, then packing herself into a mix of Knives Out, Succession, The Talented Mr Ripley and Triangle of Sadness. Unleashing in-fighting upon a wealthy family residing on Côte d'Azur island Porquerolles, this instantly twisty and gripping thriller from Faultless and School's Out writer/director Sébastien Marnier (who collaborates on the screenplay with Amore mio scribe Fanny Burdino) takes a setting that'd do The White Lotus proud as well, then wreaks havoc. On the agenda in such lavish and scenic surroundings, which come filled with an unsettling menagerie of taxidermied animals: witnessing savage squabbling over who'll inherit a business empire, bathing in the kind of bitterness that only the bonds of blood among the affluent and entitled can bring, more than one person wishing that patriarch Serge Dumontet (Jacques Weber, The World of Yesterday) would shuffle off this mortal coil and, just as crucially, not everything being what it seems. Read our full review. FINGERNAILS In the world of Fingernails, 'Only You' isn't just a 1982 pop song that was made famous by Yazoo, is easy to get stuck in your head, and is now heard in this film in both French and English. It's also the philosophy that the first English-language feature by Apples filmmaker Christos Nikou has subscribed its characters to as it cooks up a fascinating sci-fi take on romance. In a setup somewhat reminiscent of Elizabeth Holmes' claims to have revolutionised blood testing (see: The Dropout), Fingernails proposes an alternative present where love can be scientifically diagnosed. All that's needed: an extracted plate of keratin, aka the titular digit-protecting covering. At organisations such as The Love Institute, couples willingly have their nails pulled out — one apiece — then popped into what resembles a toaster oven to receive their all-important score. Only three results are possible, with 100 percent the ultimate in swooning, 50 percent meaning that only one of the pair is head over heels and the unwanted zero a harbinger of heartbreak. When Fingernails begins, it's been three years since teacher Anna (Jessie Buckley, Women Talking) and her partner Ryan (Jeremy Allen White, The Bear) underwent the exam, with the long-term duo earning the best possible outcome — a score that's coveted but rare. Around them, negative results have led to breakups and divorces as society's faith is placed not in hearts and souls, but in a number, a gimmick and some tech gadgetry (one of the sales pitches, though, is that finding out before getting hitched will stop failed marriages). As their friends go the retesting route — satirising the need for certainty in affairs of the heart pumps firmly through this movie's veins — Anna hasn't been able to convince Ryan to attend The Love Institute as a client. She's soon spending her days there, however, feeding her intrigue with the whole scenario as an employee. When she takes a job counselling other pairs towards hopeful ever-after happiness, she keeps the career shift from her own significant other. Quickly, she has something else she can't tell Ryan: a blossoming bond with her colleague Amir (Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal). Read our full review. THE INSPECTION If war is hell, then military boot camp is purgatory. So told Full Metal Jacket, with Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece making that observation echo and pierce with the relentlessness of machine-gun fire. Now, The Inspection stresses the same point nearing four decades later, plunging into the story of a gay Black man enlisting, then navigating the nightmare that is basic training. This too is a clear-eyed step inside the United States Marine Corps, but drawn from first-time fictional feature filmmaker Elegance Bratton's own experiences. New Yorker Ellis French (Jeremy Pope, One Night in Miami) is the Pier Kids documentarian's on-screen alter ego — an out queer man who has spent a decade from his teens to his mid-20s homeless after being kicked out by his ashamed mother Inez (Gabrielle Union, Strange World), and pledges his post 9/11 freedom away for a place to fit in, even if that means descending into a world of institutional homophobia and racism. It would've been easy for Bratton to just sear and scorch in The Inspection; his film is set in 2005, "don't ask, don't tell" was still the US military forces' policy and discrimination against anyone who isn't a straight white man is horrendously brutal. Life being moulded into naval-infantry soldiers is savage anyway; "our job is not to make Marines, it's to make monsters," says Leland Laws (Bokeem Woodbine, Wu-Tang: An American Saga), Ellis' commanding officer and chief state-sanctioned tormentor. And yet, crafting a film that's as haunting as it is because it's supremely personal, Bratton never shies away from Ellis' embrace of the Marines in his quest to work out how he can be himself. There's nothing simple about someone signing up for such heartbreaking anguish because that's the only option that they can imagine, but this stunning movie is anything but simple. Read our full review. SISU Lean, mean and a Nazi-killing machine: that's Sisu and its handy-with-a-hunting-knife (and pickaxe) protagonist alike. This stunningly choreographed Finnish action film's title doesn't have a literal equivalent in English, but writer/director Jalmari Helander's (Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale) latest effort means stoic, tenacious, resolute, brave and gritty all in that four-letter term; again, both the movie and the man at its centre fit the description. Former soldier Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila, also Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale) has one aim. After he strikes gold and plenty of it in Lapland's far reaches, he's keen to cash in. For someone who has already lost everyone and everything to World War II, that requires transporting his haul; however, the year is 1944 and German troops still lurk even as the combat winds down. Accordingly, getting those gleaming nuggets from the wilderness to a bank means facing a greedy and unrelenting platoon led by Helldorf (Aksel Hennie, The Cloverfield Paradox), who can spy a payday and an exit strategy for himself. Before anything yellow shimmers, Nazi-filled tanks are sighted, a single shot is fired or a blow swung, Sisu explains its moniker as "a white-knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination". Text on-screen also advises that "sisu manifests itself when all hope is lost." As a film, Sisu may as well be shorthand for John Wick meets Inglourious Basterds meets Django, the iconic 1966 spaghetti western that Quentin Tarantino riffed on with Django Unchained, too — plus all of that meets the work of legendary spaghetti western director Sergio Leone as well. The carnage is that balletic. The Nazi offings are that brutal, roguish and inventive. And valuing deeds over dialogue as a lone figure dispatches with nefarious forces against an unforgiving landscape, and no matter what they throw at him, is firmly the setup. Read our full review. COBWEB When Song Kang-ho hasn't been starring in Bong Joon-ho's films, he's been featuring Park Chan-wook's and Kim Jee-woon's, plus Lee Chang-dong's and Hong Sang-soo's as well. One of Korea's acting greats boasts a resume filled with the country's directing greats — so getting the Memories of Murder, The Host, Thirst, Snowpiercer and Parasite star, plus Joint Security Area, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Lady Vengeance and Secret Sunshine talent, to play a filmmaker for his The Good the Bad the Weird and The Age of Shadows filmmaker feels like perfect casting even before Cobweb starts spinning its reels. Song's career highlights are already many, complete with a Cannes Best Actor Award for working with Japan's Hirokazu Kore-eda in Broker. Here, he's reliably and rakishly charming in a movie-making ode and on-set farce. For his own director Kim, Song plays a director Kim — but on-screen version Kim Ki-yeol is living in the 70s, and also in a rut. Once an assistant to a famed and acclaimed helmer who has passed away, now he's openly mocked by critics for his trashy fare in one of Cobweb's first scenes. He's made most of a masterpiece, however, or so he believes. The only thing that's required to ensure it's a complete classic is two more days to undertake re-shoots. His film is meant to be finished, but he's adamant that the cast and crew reteam (and his producer foot the bill) to ensure that the creative visions that keep haunting his dreams can become a feted triumph. Convincing everyone that he needs to isn't the only tricky feat, with challenges upon challenges unspooling the longer that the fictional Kim and his colleagues spend bustling. Read our full review. THE BLUE CAFTAN In The Blue Caftan, a tailor's hands say everything that needs conveying about how he holds himself in the world. That garment-maker is Halim (Saleh Bakri, My Zoe), and he plies he trade in the Moroccan city of Salé, in a humble store overseen by his no-nonsense wife Mina (Lubna Azabal, Rebel). Refusing to use machines, Halim is meticulous in his work. He's patient, careful and thorough, as one needs to be in the painstakingly detailed job of hand-embroidering women's traditional tunics. As a result of his precision and artistry, he isn't short on customers — and that rigour and commitment seeps from him like breath whether he's letting Mina run the show; training Youssef (first-timer Ayoub Missioui), the apprentice brought on to help meet the demand for his exquisite wares; or finding ways to deal with his feelings, including the pull he feels towards his new protege. For her sophomore feature after the also-tender and moving Adam, writer/director Maryam Touzani again makes a delicately layered and intricately woven film — a movie that digs deep into a subject considered taboo in Morocco, too, via an exceptionally well-observed triple character study. If her pictures say everything they need to about the filmmaker herself, then Touzani clearly values intimate and weighty connections, examining the needless pressures enforced by antiquated attitudes, the bonds that spring in such complex circumstances, and heartbreakingly poignant pictures about that list. She both appreciates and elicits sensitive performances, too, with Adam alum Azabal again superb under the helmer's gaze, and Bakri just as wonderful. It's no wonder that The Blue Caftan, with its resonant tale, rich cinematography and willingness to surprise while remaining emotionally raw as well, was chosen as Morocco's 2023 Best International Feature Oscar contender. MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON Every couple has in-jokes, a valuable currency in all relationships, but only Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp have turned a cute private gag into Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. The Parks and Recreation actor and the Fraud director are no longer together romantically, marrying and divorcing in the 13 years since they first gave the world the cutest talking shell anyone could've imagined; however, they've now reteamed professionally for an adorable film based on their 2010, 2011 and 2014 shorts. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On also gave rise to two best-selling children's picture books, unsurprisingly, following a familiar internet-stardom path from online sensation to print and now the big screen. Neither Slate and Fleischer-Camp's faded love nor their joint project's history are ignored by their footwear-sporting seashell's cinematic debut, either; in fact, acknowledging both, whether subtly or overtly, is one of the things that makes this sweet, endearing, happily silly, often hilarious and deeply insightful movie such an all-round gem. That inside jest? A voice put on by Slate, which became the one-inch-high anthropomorphic Marcel's charming vocals. In Marcel the Shell with Shoes On's three initial mockumentary clips, the tiny critter chats to an unseen filmmaker chronicling his life, with earnestness dripping from every word. ("My name is Marcel and I'm partially a shell, as you can see on my body, but I also have shoes and a face. So I like that about myself, and I like myself and I have a lot of other great qualities as well," he advises in his self-introduction.) The same approach, tone and voice sits at the heart of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On's feature-length leap, of course, but so does a touching meditation upon loss, change and valuing what's truly important. Fleischer-Camp plays the movie's documentarian, mostly off-camera, who meets Marcel and his grandmother Connie (voiced by Isabella Rossellini, Cat Person) after moving into an Airbnb following a relationship breakup — and, yes, their work together becomes a viral phenomenon. Read our full review.
Adele Frost is the face of the 2012 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Festival. From the camera to the catwalk to the clothing rack, Ms Frost has all layers of the fashion industry covered. She's a young, fun, busy lady who calls Brisbane home and she caught up with us to chat about modelling, music and a mutual love of our beautiful Brisbane. Tell us, how did you crack the fashion/modelling/beauty/design industries at such a young age? Things just seemed to flow from my interest in fashion. I was about five when I first stepped onto the catwalk and I just loved it. The early photographs still make me laugh when I look at how seriously I took it when I was only young. I was discovered by Dally's when I was in high school in Townsville which is how I met Jodie Bache-Maclean, and she has really encouraged me in my career. I moved to Brisbane, finished high school and really began modelling then. I've always loved fashion, looking at fabrics and designing and making clothes. I'm constantly thinking about designs that I can create or how I can style my wardrobe. What does it take to become a successful model? I think you have to love travelling and enjoy the whole process. You also have to enjoy a very unstructured routine. You never know where you will be working next or how long the next assignment will be. You have to be able to go to castings and enjoy the company of other models. Casting agents, whether for fashion parades, still photo shoots or television commercials, always have a vision of what they are wanting to create. You really have to make the most of all the experiences you get along the way and often you will be asked to walk or to act out a role according to what the goal of the casting is. It can be an extremely rewarding profession. What's the best thing about living in Brisbane? Brisbane is a fantastic base to work from. Brisbane has a wonderful climate and although it is a large city, it is still very easy to get around and get to places. We are close to the coast and I love the beach. It is a very liveable city, affordable and full of wonderful fashion and designers. And, if you have to travel a lot it's a great departure point. I love the nightlife, the restaurants, the shops and the different sports you can get involved with here. We're really lucky to be able to live in a place like Brisbane which has so many offerings and is so accessible. Where are your favourite places to shop in Brisbane? I love the Valley and most of the fashion shops there as well as Myer, West End and the new Wintergarden. Who are your favourite local designers? I can't really think of any local designers that I don't like. Darb Couture and Paul Hunt design exquisite wedding and evening wear, designers like Pia du Pradal and Tengdahl design beautiful race and formal day wear. I love Akira's simple and delicate designs and then my other local favourites include George Wu, Francis Leon, Ash To Gold, Easton Pearson and Bora. We have so much choice both from our fantastic local designers and then all the high end European brands that have a presence in Brisbane. Can you tell us a bit about your new fashion label? Friends of the Heart is a directional, alternative label, designed for men. Initially it was targeted towards the music industry, being casual and quirky. We're nearly a year old now and we have focused on being in cool, interesting boutiques, rather than mainstream fashion houses. We are stocked in Dirtbox and Angus Black in Brisbane (my two favourite mens shops)! Why menswear? There seemed to be a bit of a gap in the market for menswear that was casual and cool but not mass produced. It just seemed to evolve very quickly from an initial concept. What inspires and motivates you? Art, music and fashion have always inspired me. I am my own motivation and have always got some new idea or plan to move forward with. What music pumps you up before a show? At the moment I'm loving Flight Facilities, Parachute Youth and Santigold. What can our readers expect from the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Festival this year? What are the highlights? The Mercedes-Benz Fashion Festival is, as always, a showcase for our young designers so that's always a must for anyone interested in seeing the emerging talent in Brisbane. The Treasury Casino is going to be a wonderful backdrop to the Mercedes-Benz group shows showcasing all our established and highly respected local designers. Queens Plaza, the Myer Centre and the Brisbane Arcade are all showcasing collections of their retailers at different venues throughout the city centre. Then there are the wonderful hats from The Hat Box and jewellery from our local, talented jewellery designers. Swimwear is another must-see event. I'm also looking forward to the working studio glimpses we are going to get to see in the 'Behind the Seams Tour' and of course, the very social High Teas and Cocktail events scattered through the week-long festival.
Abel 'The Weeknd' Tesfaye is swapping screens for stages, and ditching playing a sleazy nightclub owner on HBO for his usual music superstar beat. Fresh from starring in The Idol, the Canadian singer-songwriter has locked in Down Under dates for his After Hours Til Dawn stadium tour, heading to Australia and New Zealand in November and December this year. The 'Starboy', 'I Feel It Coming', 'Can't Feel My Face', 'The Hills' and 'Blinding Lights' artist will hit up arenas in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland, as part of a tour that's been notching up soldout shows far and wide. In the UK, The Weekend saw 160,000 folks head to London Stadium across two nights, smashing the venue's attendance record. And in Milan, he became the first artist to sell out the Ippodromo La Maura for two nights. Those feats are just the beginning. In Paris, he scored Stade de France's biggest sales this year — and in Nice, the 70,000 tickets sold across his two shows are the most in the city's history. Will his Down Under dates add to his record-breaking run? Australia in particular has been loving the return of huge international tours. See: the Taylor Swift frenzy. The reason for the Aussie and Aotearoa gigs, other than just because, is to celebrate The Weeknd's 2020 record After Hours and its 2022 followup Dawn FM. Obviously, he'll be playing tracks from 2013's Kiss Land, 2015's Beauty Behind the Madness and 2016's Starboy as well. In support across The Weeknd's four Down Under shows: Mike Dean and Chxrry22. The tour will help a good cause, too, other than your need to see The Weeknd live. The artist has been contributing funds for his shows to the United Nations World Food Programme's XO Humanitarian Fund, as one of the organisation's Goodwill Ambassador, raising over $1 million from his Europe run alone. THE WEEKND'S 'AFTER HOURS TIL DAWN TOUR' 2023: Monday, November 20 — Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane Friday, November 24 — Accor Stadium, Sydney Friday, December 1 — Marvel Stadium, Melbourne Thursday, December 7 — Eden Park, Auckland The Weeknd is touring Australia and New Zealand in November and December 2023. For more information, and for pre-sale tickets from Friday, August 25, then general tickets from Friday, September 1, head to the tour website.
The world's most-famous enigmatic smile is beaming down on Australia in 2024, all thanks to the team at Grande Experiences. The Melbourne-based company is the mastermind behind the immersive walkthrough art experiences that've been sweeping the country, both touring them and opening the nation's first permanent digital-only art gallery The Lume — and Leonardo da Vinci and the Mona Lisa are its latest point of focus. The Lume in the Victorian capital is all-in on the artist and inventor. The site's major 2024 exhibition is Leonardo da Vinci: 500 Years of Genius, with the gallery is calling its "most ambitious, immersive and breathtaking yet". That's quite the claim for a collection that follows a van Gogh celebration, a focus on Monet and his contemporaries and the current First Nations-centric Connection. Leonardo da Vinci: 500 Years of Genius displays to art lovers from Saturday, March 16. The Last Supper also enjoys the spotlight in a big way, because Grande Experiences' whole setup is making iconic, important and stunning works larger than life, surrounding attendees like never before. The Mona Lisa links in with the segment of the exhibition that's all about French optical engineer Pascal Cotte, who invented a multispectral camera and has peeled back the artwork's layers using his research. So, get excited about Mona Lisa Revealed, which will include an exact 360-degree replica — the only one in the world — as created thanks to Cotte's 240,000,000-pixel multispectral camera. That said, Leonardo da Vinci: 500 Years of Genius isn't just about its namesake's well-known works, with the 3000-square-metre multi-sensory gallery also exploring his inspirations and contemporaries. So, you can also scope out Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and works by Caravaggio. Melbourne is home to an experience that steps through da Vinci's journey, too, including Florence's streets, Venice's canals and Milan — as brought to life via sight, sound, scent, touch and taste. Also among Leonardo da Vinci: 500 Years of Genius' highlights: 50 of da Vinci's "machine inventions", which are on loan the Museo Leonardo da Vinci in Rome. Alongside the Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and his anatomical drawings — and more — da Vinci is well-known for his flying machine concepts, with his 15th-century vision of human flight set to score The Lume's attention. This part of the exhibition heroes recreations made in Italy from the artist and inventor's sketches, and also using the materials and techniques he would've at the time. Updated Friday, October 25, 2024.
No one likes it when their phone rings from an unknown number, whether "no caller ID" or digits that you don't recognise flash up on your mobile's screen. Telemarketers isn't going to change that response. It won't dampen the collective ire that the world holds towards the pushy people on the other end of the line, either. HBO's thrilling three-part docuseries doesn't just reinforce what viewers already feel about the nuisance industry that thinks it can interrupt your day and life with a spiel that no one wants, and impact your bank balance in the process. In addition, it spins a true tale that demonstrates why a deep-seated dislike of telemarketing is so well-founded, and also why cold-calling operations can be so insidious. This true-crime story about the New Jersey-based Civic Development Group surpasses even the most call centre-despising audience member's low expectations of the field — and it's gripping, can't-look-away, has-to-be-seen-to-be-believed stuff. "Every other telemarketer who drives you crazy in the whole world is because of CDG," advises one of the series' interviewees. That might seem like a big claim, but co-directors Sam Lipman-Stern (Live From the Streets) and Adam Bhala Lough (The New Radical) step through its truth. The former knows the outfit's approach from experience, working there for seven years from the age of 14 after dropping out of high school, while the latter is the filmmaker cousin he wasn't aware of. Lipman-Stern is Telemarketers' on-screen guiding hand, too, but his ex-colleague Patrick J Pespas is its heart and soul. As seen early — with the show streaming its trio of chapters weekly via Binge since Monday, August 14 — Pespas is called a "telemarketing legend". Although he's happy snorting heroin on-camera in 2000s-era footage, he's switched on to CDG's shonkiness; more than that, he's determined to expose it even if it takes two decades. When Lipman-Stern began earning $10 an hour convincing ordinary Americans to donate to charities represented by CDG, he found himself at a place where anyone could get hired with few questions asked. The only requirement: bringing in funds while hitting the phone. As long as the company's employees kept making money, anything went. Those workers are a motley crew of vulnerable misfits in Lipman-Stern's low-res fly-on-the-wall footage, spanning not just dropouts and addicts but also ex-cons recruited directly from halfway houses and folks who didn't fit the usual nine-to-five grind. And their work environment? It "was like you was just going to a big-ass cookout every fucking day," one past staff member notes. Drinking, drugs, sex, nodding off on the phone, getting tattoos in the office, baby turtles crawling over keyboards, general seediness and raucousness that even telemarketing sitcom Workaholics didn't dream up: that was all a part of cashing a CDG cheque, as Lipman-Stern captured at the time, then uploaded to YouTube. Telemarketers' main pair and their boiler-room colleagues were paid to ring their way through the organisation's sales lists, rustling up financial support for police officers, their widows, veterans, firemen, dying children and cancer survivors. When it's the cops they're touting — typically under the Fraternal Order of Police, which is akin to a law-enforcement union — they also send out stickers emblazoned with the particularl lodge's logo. It usually goes unspoken, but those decals come with shifty promise: if you display them on your car, house or shop because you've slung some funds towards the police, you might get favourable treatment if an officer ever has cause to cross your path. Yes, that's dodgy. If only it was the most dubious aspect of CDG's gambit. Everywhere that Lipman-Stern and Pespas look, this tale gets worse. It's no wonder that Uncut Gems and Good Time filmmakers Benny and Josh Safdie are among Telemarketers' executive producers, plus Eastbound & Down's Danny McBride, Jody Hill and David Gordon Green. Barely giving any of the money raised to any of the charities represented? Tick. Using underhanded and forceful tactics, flat-out lying and adopting voices resembling a "cartoon caricature of police officer", all to con people into donating? Check there, too. Unsurprisingly attracting legal attention across several states, and multiple levels of government, yet managing to keep operating? Tick again. Slippery founders — two sets of brothers, one of which includes the member of a Christian rock band — who aren't fussed about CDG's ongoing legal troubles? Check once more. Turning nonprofit fundraising into a complete sham? Keep on ticking. Constantly devolving, whether by letting fear-inducing convicted murderers loose on the phones, using artificial intelligence to keep calls going without needing staff or capitalising upon America's increasingly polarised political landscape? That's all part of this story as well. Making for jaw-on-the-floor viewing, Telemarketers is a wild portrait of greed, exploitation and corruption — and while screens aren't short of those of late, this isn't a Succession or Squid Game-style eat-the-rich effort. There's nothing luxurious or stylish here. All that's on display is pure predatory behaviour from CDG's owners and their cronies towards everyone below them, employees and folks picking up the phone alike alike. Lipman-Stern and Pespas are as much scam victims as the people they called. But, when a disguised player in the industry notes that "it's not the telemarketers you should be worried about", Telemarketers gets even more sinister. When the strikes end, expect Hollywood to pounce on a dramatised remake. The Bear's Ebon Moss-Bachrach could easily slip into Lipman-Stern's shoes, and Saturday Night Live and Mr Mayor's Bobby Moynihan into Pespas'. Fantasy casting aside, any future retelling of CDG's exploits needs Lipman-Stern and Pespas at its centre — because Telemarketers wouldn't be what it is without them, or even exist. As much as HBO's series is a takedown of a horrific swindle, it's also an ode to guerrilla journalism by a couple of average guys fighting back, and a character study of the pair as well. As the show jumps across 20 years, it surveys who Lipman-Stern and Pespas are, what changes in their lives, their evolving friendship, their commitment to exposing their old workplace and why they took up this battle. It also doesn't shy away from the fact that they're plucky amateurs doing what they feel compelled to. The Safdies were approached to direct Telemarketers, only to glean what audiences can now see: that authenticity couldn't be more crucial. When 2022 became a banner year for true-crime deceptions on-screen, unravelling real-life stories through Inventing Anna, The Dropout and more, polish reigned supreme. Getting an inside view from everyday sleuths taking on the crooks who gave them a gig, as chronicled through rough-around-the-edges footage and scrappy chats — that's a raw, like-you're-there experience, and it's both powerful and electrifying. So too is Lipman-Stern and Pespas' transformation as they get immersed in their investigation over the years. Initially, Lipman-Stern just wants to film office pranks, while the ever-earnest Pespas has his own personal tussles. Before our eyes, they become the tenacious duo revealing a billion-dollar fraud and bringing this stunning whistleblower documentary to the world. Check out the trailer for Telemarketers below: Telemarketers streams via Binge from Monday, August 14.
No one makes neon-lit, red-hued, emotion-dripping tales of yearning and loneliness like Wong Kar-Wai, as everyone who has seen 2000's In the Mood for Love knows. It isn't the Chungking Express, Happy Together, 2046, Ashes of Time: Redux and The Grandmaster filmmaker's only masterpiece, but the 1960s Hong Kong-set romantic drama is utterly unforgettable as it unfolds its love story against a backdrop of festering societal tension. Viewers have fallen for the film for almost a quarter of a century now. Sydney Opera House clearly feels the same way. Back in 2020, it hosted and livestreamed dreamy song cycle In the Mood — A Love Letter to Wong Kar-Wai & Hong Kong, which delivered exactly what its title promised. Come 2025, the venue will also welcome in the Australian premiere of In the Mood for Love in Concert. As everything from Batman, Back to the Future, Home Alone and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to The Lion King, The Princess Bride, Black Panther and Star Wars films has in the past — and plenty more — the iconic movie will return to the big screen while an orchestra brings its score to life. In this case, the film will flicker across Sydney Opera House's HD silver screen as conductor Guy Rundle leads a 39-piece group of musicians playing live. Ready to get audiences swooning, In the Mood for Love in Concert has locked in two shows on the one date, at 2pm and 7pm on Saturday, March 22. The BAFTA-nominated and César-winning film — which also picked up two awards at Cannes, including Best Actor — stars the great Tony Leung (Hidden Blade) and Maggie Chen (Better Life) as Chow Mo-wan and Su Li-zhen. In a complicated time and place, the two neighbours are drawn together when they begin to suspect that their partners are not only being unfaithful, but that they're having an affair with each other. While In the Mood for Love is rightly acclaimed for its affecting performances and evocative direction, as well as its gorgeously lush cinematography, its score is just as exceptional. Indeed, the filmmaker has called it "a poem itself". This is a stellar opportunity to find out why — and to discover why this movie, and Wong Kar-Wai, keep proving so influential. Check out the trailer for In the Mood for Love below: In the Mood for Love in Concert plays Sydney Opera House's Concert Hall at 2pm and 7pm on Saturday, March 22, 2025, with ticket presales from Tuesday, November 5, 2024 and general sales from Thursday, November 7, 2024 — head to the Sydney Opera House website for more details.
Despite our country being one that's girt by sea, as our anthem reminds us, we've become rather obsessed with waves of the man-made kind of late. Surfing legend Kelly Slater intends to open his second surf ranch on the Sunshine Coast and NSW's Hawkesbury region is getting a giant wave pool and luxury resort come 2022. But, most excitingly, Australia's first inland surf park Urbnsurf, near the Melbourne Airport, finally started pumping waves in 2020. Now, the Urbnsurf team is setting its sights on three more landlocked locations across Australia. Because, these days, you no longer need the beach to be able to hang ten. After a tumultuous first year at the Melbourne location due to the global pandemic — and with the on-site Three Blue Ducks' all-day diner now open — Urbnsurf is set to open locations in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. The 3.2-hectare Sydney spot got approved way back in 2017 and, after the success of the Melbourne outpost, the team is now focusing on delivering its NSW project at Sydney Olympic Park. Construction on the Sydney surf lagoon is expected to commence in 2021. While an exact opening date is yet to be announced, the wave pool is set to make a splash come summer 2022/2023 — don't worry, we'll be sure to keep you updated. [caption id="attachment_796164" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Render of Urbnsurf Sydney[/caption] Meanwhile, the company also plans to make headway on projects in Brisbane and Perth. With the progress of these two locations still very much in the early stages, the details are under wraps for now. Urbnsurf Melbourne powers up to 1000 waves per hour, day and night. Plus, every wave has six different take-off spots equating to 3600 surfable positions every hour. So, if that's anything to go by, Sydneysiders, Brisbanites and Perthians can expect A-class surfing year-round — come rain or shine. Urbnsurf Sydney is slated to open in summer 2022/2023. Urbnsurf's Brisbane and Perth locations and opening dates are yet to be announced — but we'll be sure to keep you posted. Top image: Courtesy Urbnsurf and Ed Sloane
The first of Harvest's headline shows has now been announced, following the festival's cancellation last week. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club will tour in November, playing Billboard in Melbourne, The Hi-Fi in Brisbane and Sydney and the Metro Fremantle. After weeks of speculation, AJ Maddah announced the official cancellation of Harvest 2013 on September 16. "I am very sad to confirm that Harvest 2013 is cancelled. All tickets will be 100% refunded (incl. all charges) by Oztix in the next week," the promoter tweeted. Later he mentioned that his partner, Jo Ward, had had "a nervous breakdown" over it. The event was scheduled to happen in mid-November in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. With Massive Attack and Franz Ferdinand already established as headliners, the festival announced the addition of Volcano Choir just a fortnight ago. Maddah did manage to offer some relief to devastated ticket holders when he stated that most of the (now ex-) Harvest artists would perform their own headline shows. "Will be announcing headline shows by most of the Harvest artists in the next 10 days," he tweeted. "Those who have purchased Harvest tickets will be given priority access to these headline shows. Please stay tuned for details." According to theMusic.com.au, "industry sources have confirmed" that the outspoken promoter, who was named the most powerful person in the music industry earlier this year, has purchased Ken West's sizeable share of the Big Day Out (the rest of which is owned by US promoters C3 Presents). Watch this space for more news of Harvest artists' headline shows. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Wednesday, November 13 – Metro Fremantle, Perth Friday, November 15 – Billboard, Melbourne Saturday, November 16 – The Hi-Fi, Sydney Sunday, November 17 – The Hi-Fi, Brisbane
On a standard visit to Sydney's Central Station, you're likely too busy dodging fellow commuters or rushing for your train to really give much thought to its past. But, in fact, the bustling CBD hub boasts quite the dark and eerie history: it once home to the city's first major colonial-era cemetery. And now you can dig even deeper into the unsavoury stories of that era, thanks to gripping new local podcast The Burial Files. True crime buffs, grab your headphones — this'll be right up your alley. The State Library of NSW curator Elise Edmonds has been busy diving into the colourful history of the Devonshire Street Cemetery, chatting to leading historians, archaeologists, forensic experts and railway enthusiasts to create her six-part audio series. You'll hear tales of mischief, madness and questionable activities, grim accidents and scandalous crimes, glimpsing into the lives of some of the 30,000 residents that were buried here between 1820 and 1900. The one-time burial ground was deemed overcrowded by 1860 and finally abandoned in 1867, with (most of) the remains exhumed in 1901 to make way for the site's next use. In The Burial Files, you'll discover the history behind the exhumations, as well as the building of Central Station, from humble tin shed to the grand stone structure it is today. Along with the podcast, the sketchy stories of the Devonshire Street Cemetery and the surrounding parts of old Sydney have also spawned a new exhibition at the State Library of NSW. Dubbed Dead Central, it's brought to life through a 35-minute audio recording and curation of historic photographs. The first two episodes of The Burial Files are available now to download and stream from your favourite podcast platform. Further episodes will be released in the coming weeks. Dead Central is showing at the State Library of NSW until November 17.
1980s Brisbane is coming to your streaming queue, and one of Australia's iconic novels along with it. It's been four years since Harper Collins sold the television rights to Boy Swallows Universe in 2019, then a year since Netflix announced its involvement in bringing the tale to the screen in 2022. Now, when 2024 hits, the wait to see what Trent Dalton's beloved award-winner looks like as a streaming series will be over. Boy Swallows Universe has won a swag of awards, including the Book of the Year, Literary Book of the Year and Audio Book of the Year at the 2019 Australian Book Industry Awards — and was longlisted for Australia's most prestigious literature prize, the Miles Franklin. It sold a heap of copies and been turned into a play. The Brisbane-set story trod those boards in Brissie, too, and now it's a Netflix series that was shot in the River City. After releasing behind-the-scenes glimpses of the production, initially advising that it would arrive in 2023 and dropping a first teaser trailer, the TV adaptation has now locked in its release date and unveiled its full sneak peek. First, mark Thursday, January 11, 2024 in your diary. Then, check out what's in store for this coming-of-age story on-screen via the new trailer. Dalton's novel and now the television show that follows spin a tale about a young boy, his prophetic brother and his jailbreaking best friend as they navigate the heroin-filled underworld of 80s Queensland. Also included: Eli Bell's (Felix Cameron, Penguin Bloom) attempt to understand how to be a good person, with his plight spanning a lost father, a criminal for a babysitter, a mum recovering from addiction, a mute brother, a stepfather who deals and a red telephone. Netflix's Boy Swallows Universe adaptation features eight episodes, running as a self-contained limited series, as it plunges into the space between childhood's magic and adulthood's reality. Travis Fimmel (Black Snow) also stars as Lyle Orlik, while the cast includes Simon Baker (Limbo) as Robert Bell and Phoebe Tonkin (Babylon) as Frances Bell — plus Lee Tiger Halley (The Heights) as Gus Bell. Also appearing: Bryan Brown (Hungry Ghosts) as Slim Halliday, Anthony LaPaglia (Nitram) as Tytus Broz, and Sophie Wilde (Talk to Me) as Caitlyn Spies, plus Christopher James Baker (Ozark) as Ivan Kroll, HaiHa Le (Spooky Files) as Bich Dang and Deborah Mailman (The New Boy) as Poppy Birkbeck. And, you'll see Ben O'Toole (Barons) as Teddy, Zachary Wan (Never Too Late) as Darren Dang, and Millie Donaldson (Jack Irish) and Eloise Rothfield as Shelley Huffman (aged 17 and 13, respectively). Boy Swallows Universe is directed by Bharat Nalluri (The Man Who Invented Christmas), Jocelyn Moorhouse (The Dressmaker) and Kim Mordaunt (The Rocket), and scripted by screenwriter John Collee (Master and Commander, Happy Feet, Hotel Mumbai). The impressive names involved extend to the show's executive producers, too, which include Joel Edgerton (The Stranger), Troy Lum (The Water Diviner, Saving Mr Banks, Mao's Last Dancer), Andrew Mason (The Matrix, The Water Diviner), Sophie Gardiner (Howard's End, Chimerica) and Kerry Roberts (Foe, Boy Erased). Check out the full trailer for Boy Swallows Universe below: Boy Swallows Universe will stream via Netflix from Thursday, January 11, 2024. Images: courtesy of Netflix © 2023.
Brisbane's balmy summers aren't just a blessing for beachgoers. If you're fond of cooling down on dry land with a spritz in your hand and the sun's rays on your face, this is your time to shine. Queensland's gorgeous climate, tastebud-tempting cocktails, and that carefree vibe that floats across the Brisbane River as soon as the season hits is certain to bring us back together. If you're wondering where to head, we've teamed up with Aperol to pick seven must-visit spots that'll take care of the holy trifecta: all that glorious sunshine, ample space for you and your pals, and, of course, spritzes.
Despite the many different varieties of margarita available, only one is the undisputed best — no matter which tequila-soaked flavour it actually is. That type of marg: a free marg. And for three weeks from Wednesday, February 15–Tuesday, March 7, 10,000 of them are up for grabs around New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. International Margarita Day is upon us for another year, hitting on Wednesday, February 22, and tequila brand Altos is celebrating. That's where the hefty giveaway comes in, but starting early and running for a couple of weeks after the date itself. Days commemorating different foods are really just an excuse to sell more dishes, drinks and/or ingredients, but this is an occasion — and stack of freebies — worth saying cheers to. Exactly how many bars are pouring free 'ritas across the three-week period varies per state, but Sydneysiders can head to Employees Only, Watsons EQ, Coogee Beach Club, Marrickville Bowling Club, Club 77, Chula, Mejico, Kid Kyoto, Applejack Group's venues and more. For Melburnians, you'll want to make a date with places like Maeve Fox, Death or Glory, Fitzroy Beer Garden, Fable, Mejico, Public House and Common Man. Brisbanites, pop Emporium, Southbeach Social, Victoria Park, Brooklyn Standard, Pig 'n' Whistle West End and others on your list — and Adelaide residents, you're heading to Republic. [caption id="attachment_698575" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Employees Only[/caption] There are a few caveats, as always comes with these types of giveaways. You do need to sign up online first, which'll get you a voucher for that free marg and entry into a competition to win a trip to Mexico. Altos is calling the promo a Mexican wave, because if you get a friend to sign up as well, you'll score an extra entry in that contest. That — and those free cocktails — is excuse enough to get clicking and sipping. [caption id="attachment_869703" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Mejico[/caption] Altos Tequila's margarita giveaway runs from Wednesday, February 15–Tuesday, March 7. For more information, to register for your free drink and to find your nearest venue, head to the brand's website.
UPDATE, December 23, 2021: The Lost Daughter released in select Australian cinemas on Thursday, December 16, and will be available to stream via Netflix on Friday, December 31. Watching Olivia Colman play a complicated woman is like staring at the ocean: it's never the same twice, even just for a second; it couldn't be more unpredictable, no matter how comfortable it appears; and all that surface texture bobs, floats, swells, gleams and glides atop leagues of unseen complexity. That's always been true of the British actor's absolute best performances, which could fill any body of water with their power and resonance. It's there in her acidic work in The Favourite, which won her an Oscar, and also in The Crown's more reserved turn as a different English monarch. It flowed through the devastating Tyrannosaur, which perhaps first truly showed the world exactly what Colman could do — and has marked her Academy Award-nominated supporting part in The Father, plus TV standouts Peep Show, Broadchurch, The Night Manager and Fleabag. It's fitting, then, that The Lost Daughter tasks Colman with glaring at the sea, and doing so both intently and often. A necessity of the narrative, as penned on the page by My Brilliant Friend's Elena Ferrante and adapted for the screen by actor-turned-filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal, it's a touch that washes through the movie with extra force due to its star. Colman plays comparative literature professor Leda, who fills much of her time peering at the ocean as she summers on a Greek island — and also people-watching thanks to the loud, entitled Queens family that keep invading her chosen patch of sand. While both gazing at the waves and taking in the onshore domestic dramas, Leda sees her own ebbs, flows, thorns and flaws reflected back. Vacationing alone, Leda isn't on a getaway as much as she's escaping — not actively, but because that's her default mode. She's never willing to stray far from her work, shuffling through papers as she sunbathes and flirtatious young resort manager Will (Paul Mescal, Normal People) moves her lounger to keep her in the shade; however, as flashbacks show, the urge to flee all markers of apparent normalcy has long gushed in her veins. Leda tells anyone who asks that she has two daughters (Bianca is 25 and Martha is 23, she frequently offers), but they're heard via phone calls rather than seen as adults. She's prickly when mum-to-be Callie (Dagmara Domińczyk, Succession), of those noisy interlopers, asks if her extended group can take over Leda's beach umbrella. But in Nina (Dakota Johnson, The Nowhere Inn), the raven-haired mother of frequently screaming toddler Elena (debutant Athena Martin Anderson), she spies more of herself than she's been willing to confront for decades. The Lost Daughter's title references an incident one sunny day when Elena disappears as Callie, Nina and company — the latter's shady husband Toni (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, The Invisible Man) as well — idle by the water's edge. The Americans react with distress, but Leda calmly strides forth amid the chaos, all while battling memories of being a young mum (Jessie Buckley, I'm Thinking of Ending Things) searching for her own absent child. Indeed, loss and escape are serpentine concepts here, winding through Leda's past, her affinity for the clearly unhappy Nina and the second wave of mayhem that erupts when Elena's beloved doll also goes missing. The concept of trouble in paradise proves just as layered, infecting idylls scenic and, in pondering the supposed bliss that we're all told motherhood brings, societally enforced. The idea that bringing life into the world isn't the existence-defining triumph of femininity it's sugar-coated as doesn't simply sit at the heart of Ferrante's novel and Gyllenhaal's debut stint behind the lens — from the instant that Colman is seen collapsing on the pebble-strewn shoreline in the picture's opening, it laps over The Lost Daughter's every moment. Leda is a woman haunted by everything having kids has brought, as well as guilt-stricken by all that's followed, and this bold and affecting movie confronts that rocky truth. It's the filmic antithesis to keeping calm and carrying on, or relishing the rewards while disregarding the sacrifices, whether Leda is trying to retain a sense of self in the feature's journeys backwards, grappling with the gnawing consequences of her choices and the parallels in Nina's exasperation, or obsessing over dolls, those symbols of maternity routinely given to girls at birth. For any director, this is audacious and intricate terrain, but Gyllenhaal is as exceptional and daring a filmmaker as she is a performer. As her own impressive acting career demonstrates, complete with knotty and slippery turns in Secretary, Sherrybaby, The Kindergarten Teacher and The Deuce, she could've played Leda and just as phenomenal a film would've likely resulted. Her decision to enlist Colman doesn't only spring from humility, though, but from spying what we all notice whenever the star graces any screen. One of Colman's extraordinary skills is her knack for ensuring that her characters could swim in any direction and, whatever swings and lurches they take, it always feels like the most natural development there is. She's a master not just of complicated women, but of conveying the innate and relentless state of being complicated. Daughters get lost, mothers struggle, prickly exchanges pepper the picturesque setting — Leda isn't afraid to voice her displeasure to Callie and her relatives, or to teens ruining a trip to the local cinema, and she's positively awkward with Lyle (Ed Harris, Westworld), the caretaker of her holiday apartment — but so much of The Lost Daughter's tension rushes from Colman's performance. From Buckley's, too, with the movie's two Ledas echoing each other — the woman she once was and the one she becomes — with precision and synergy that's too shrewd and naturalistic to resemble mere mimicry. It's also telling that Gyllenhaal has cinematographer Hélène Louvart (Never Rarely Sometimes Always) lens the film like a volatile memory, probing closeups, lingering details and slight but inescapable jitteriness all included, while the jazzy score by Dickon Hinchliffe (The Third Day) skews towards the melodic. Everything about Leda's experiences has been stressful rather than peaceful, but the prevailing view of being a mum keeps trying to tell the world otherwise — and both the character and the film refuse to accept those false platitudes. The Lost Daughter releases in select Brisbane cinemas on Thursday, December 16, and will be available to stream via Netflix on Friday, December 31.
Jimmy Chin is no stranger to peering at the world from angles that most folks don't see. He's also familiar with hitting peaks. As a mountain athlete, scaling great heights has been his job; however, the above descriptions also apply to his work as a filmmaker. With his partner Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, he won the Best Documentary Feature Oscar for Free Solo. Before that, the pair took home an audience award at Sundance for the also climbing-focused Meru. The Rescue, their doco about the efforts to free 12 Thai schoolboys and their soccer coach from the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system, earned them more acclaim — and both Annette Bening (Apples Never Fall) and Jodie Foster (True Detective: Night Country) scored Academy Award noms for starring in the duo's feature debut Nyad. Get Chin talking, then, and he'll clearly have much to discuss — about his work as a director and a mountaineer alike. On his first appearance in Australia, he'll be doing just that at Sydney Film Festival and Vivid Sydney. The two events are co-hosting Beyond the Summit with Jimmy Chin, where the Oscar-winner, National Geographic photographer and author will be behind the microphone for one night only. [caption id="attachment_706085" align="alignnone" width="1920"] National Geographic/Jimmy Chin[/caption] How does someone who clambers up mountains then become a celebrated documentarian? How did skills in the former help with the latter — not just when climbing is the focus on-screen, as was clearly the case with Meru, and also with Free Solo's chronicle of Alex Honnold's El Capitan ascent sans ropes, but in general? Why do extraordinary feats, including Diana Nyad's 110-mile ocean swim, appeal to Chin as a filmmaker? They're just some of the threads that this in-conversation session, which is taking place on Friday, June 13, 2025 at Sydney Town Hall, might cover. Chin will dig into shooting in extreme conditions, too, alongside how being a professional adventurer influences the way he sees the natural world on film. [caption id="attachment_833518" align="alignnone" width="1920"] National Geographic[/caption] "I'm excited to be a part of Vivid Sydney and the Sydney Film Festival this year. It's a great way to celebrate storytelling and creative risk-taking, which have both shaped my life in the mountains and behind the camera. To share my experiences in one of the world's most iconic cities is an incredible opportunity," said Chin about his upcoming trip Down Under. "Vivid Sydney's collaboration with Sydney Film Festival this year helps bolster the calibre of both festivals and this event is testament to that. Jimmy Chin is a captivating creative with an equally impressive resume, and this conversation promises to be one to remember," added Vivid Sydney Festival Director Gill Minervini. "Jimmy Chin's work sits at the intersection of art, athleticism and ambition. His films are as exhilarating as they are emotionally resonant, and we're honoured to welcome him to Sydney for this one-of-a-kind conversation," noted SFF Festival Director Nashen Moodley. [caption id="attachment_945212" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kimberley French/Netflix ©2023[/caption] Sydney Film Festival and Vivid Sydney have a number of collaborations on their 2025 slates, including a screening of Justin Kurzel (The Narrow Road to the Deep North)-directed documentary Ellis Park, about iconic musician Warren Ellis establishing an animal sanctuary to protect endangered species in Sumatra, plus An Evening with Warren Ellis at City Recital Hall. At the first, at the State Theatre, audiences will obviously see the film. Afterwards, its subject — a Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds collaborator and Dirty Three founder, as well as a pivotal force in movie scores, including on The Proposition, The Road, Far From Men, Mustang, Hell or High Water, The Velvet Queen, The New Boy, Back to Black, Kid Snow and newly minted Oscar-winner I'm Still Here — will chat about the doco, and also put on a short musical performance. Then there's Planet City: Live. Courtesy of designer and director Liam Young, the speculative fiction experience takes attendees to a different future — one where humanity has responded to the environmental destruction of the planet in a decisive fashion. Young's film is set at a time where there's just one city, which is where everyone on earth resides, with the rest of the globe left to rewild. At SFF, Young will provide live narration for the film, while Forest Swords will play its score live as Planet City screens. All of the above are just a taste of Sydney Film Festival's program, which has unveiled a few other sneak peeks so far — a batch of other initial titles, a Jafar Panahi retrospective and Together as the opening-night flick, for starters — in advance of the full lineup releasing on Wednesday, May 7. Check out the trailers for Meru, Free Solo, The Rescue and Nyad below: Beyond the Summit with Jimmy Chin takes place on Friday, June 13, 2025 at Sydney Town Hall — head to the Sydney Film Festival website for tickets. Sydney Film Festival 2025 runs from Wednesday, June 4–Sunday, June 15 at cinemas across Sydney. Hit up the festival website for further information and tickets — and check back in with Concrete Playground on Wednesday, May 7 for the full lineup. Vivid Sydney 2025 runs from Friday, May 23–Saturday, June 14 across Sydney. Head to the festival website for further information.
It's been 100 years since the art world welcomed an icon with the birth of Jeffrey Smart, who went on to become one of Australia's most celebrated artists. And this summer, the National Gallery of Australia is paying homage to his life and work when it hosts a retrospective exhibition, aptly dubbed Jeffrey Smart. Running from Saturday, December 11–Sunday, May 15, the exhibition will dig deep into the renowned artist's legacy through a major survey of his works. Greatly inspired by the urban environment and the age of industrial modernity, Smart was known for his hyperrealist streetscapes, theatrical stylings and penchant for geometric composition. Vehicles, highways, factories and water towers are common motifs within Smart's art, as are eerily empty streets occupied by solo travellers. The National Gallery of Australia's centenary showcase will feature pieces from throughout his illustrious career and highlight the many varied themes Smart explored via his painting, as well as chronicle his evolution as an artist. Book your timed visit to check out Jeffrey Smart here — it'll be open daily (except Christmas Day). [caption id="attachment_834494" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jeffrey Smart, Wallaroo, 1951, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1959, © The Estate of Jeffrey Smart.[/caption] Top Images: Jeffrey Smart 'Self portrait, Procida', National Gallery of Australia, copyright The Estate of Jeffrey Smart. Jeffrey Smart 'Corrugated Gioconda', National Gallery of Australia, copyright The Estate of Jeffrey Smart.
Trying not to think about Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet is about to become impossible in Australia. So will getting Celine Dion's 'My Heart Will Go On' out of your head, where it's dwelled for most people since the Oscar-winning track was released in 1997. The reason: a new Titanic exhibition is dropping anchor Down Under, making Melbourne Museum its berth for four months. From Saturday, December 16, 2023–Sunday, April 14, 2024 Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition will bring 200-plus items from the ship to the Victorian capital, in its Aussie trip after selling out its Paris season and also proving a hit in the US. The pieces on display are legitimately from the vessel's wreck site, too, after the RMS Titanic's ill-fated voyage in April 1912 — aka the events that James Cameron (Avatar: The Way of Water) turned into the DiCaprio (Killers of the Flower Moon)- and Winslet (Ammonite)-starring Titanic more than a quarter-century ago. For everyone bound to exclaim "I'm the king of the world" while walking through Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition's Australian-exclusive stop, this is the king of all Titanic exhibitions. In fact, it's the most extensive in the world. As well seeing the genuine objects from the ship, attendees will wander through full-scale recreations of the vessel's interiors, such as the veranda cafe, first-class parlour suite and grand staircase. "Tragedy, heroism, sacrifice, survival and loss — these are themes the evokes which continue to resonate today, with people of all ages across the globe," said Museums Victoria CEO & Director Lynley Crosswell, announcing the exhibition. In addition to the recovered items and recreations of the Titanic's spaces, the exhibition will tell tales about those who were onboard the ship that launched its maiden voyage on April 10, 1912, only to sink five days later on April 15 after hitting an iceberg. This exploration of a tragic chapter in history will focus on passengers and crew alike, while also stepping through the vessel's class divisions and pondering the boat's legacy. Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition will display at Melbourne Museum, 11 Nicholson Street, Carlton from Saturday, December 16, 2023–Sunday, April 14, 2024 — head to the venue's website for further details and tickets. Images: EMG / Alexandre Schoelcher / Museums Victoria.
To take a page out of Charles Baudelaire’s book, I’d like to think of myself as a modern day flâneur. That is, “a person who walks the city in order to experience it,” in the Baudelairian sense, anyway. There’s something really satisfying about wandering off the beaten track and into the depths of your town, whether it’s in search of a shady place to read a book, a cosy winter night spot or even just a new place to grab a coffee before work. And I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking there‘s something truly satisfying about stumbling upon one of these urban treats by chance. That’s exactly what happened when I found Five Sisters Art House Café hidden down a laneway in South Brisbane. Tucked away between Melbourne Street and Fish Lane, Five Sisters is a café with a traditional breakfast and lunch menu infused with a touch of Greece. If you’re partial to moussaka or souvlaki every once in a while then you’re probably already aware that the south bank of the river is home to some of the best Greek cuisine to be found in Brisbane. From the Greek Club to the various blue-and-white tableclothed restaurants on Boundary Street and, of course, the annual Paniyiri Festival, the area is a known hotspot to sample the delights of the Mediterranean. According to the five sisters who run this neat little café, nothing beats a home cooked meal "just like Mama used to make" and thus generations of recipes were passed down to grant the success of the ever-inviting Five Sisters Art House Café. Whether you fancy a hot bevvy, a sweet treat or a generous meal, take a wander down the laneway and check out what my new favourite ‘quiet place’ has to offer!
Taco Bell did it. Mark Wahlberg's Wahlburgers and fellow burger joint Five Guys, too. And now Wendy's is officially following suit. Add the square burg-slinging fast-food franchise to the list of American joints making the jump Down Under, with The Wendy's Company announcing that it has locked in a master franchise agreement with Flynn Restaurant Group to launch a heap of Aussie outposts. And we do mean a heap: 200 stores, in fact, as slated to open by 2034. The news comes after Wendy's started making moves to hit our shores in 2022, enlisting Australian franchise consulting firm DC Strategy to work with the burger brand to come up with an Aussie strategy. And, it follows the success of a 2021 Wendy's pop-up in Sydney, where it handed out free burgs and desserts. Indeed, Wendy's announcement mentions the one-day pop-up's success among the reasons for giving Australia a couple of hundred places to nab its burgers within the next 11 years. It's expected that the stores will largely start launching from 2025, with other timing yet to be announced. Exactly where Wendy's will set up shop also hasn't been revealed. "Australia is a strategic market for long-term growth for Wendy's. Flynn Restaurant Group has incredible experience in the restaurant space, and we are thrilled to expand our relationship with them," said Abigail Pringle, President, International and Chief Development Officer of The Wendy's Company, announcing the Aussie move. "They have a strong leadership team, great culture, vast industry knowledge, success with our brand in the US, and we are confident that Flynn Restaurant Group is the right partner to unlock growth for Wendy's in Australia." Flynn Restaurant Group and Wendy's have history, with the former already running nearly 200 of the latter's outposts across five US states. Also on Flynn Restaurant Group's plate in America: operating Applebee's, Taco Bell, Panera, Arby's and Pizza Hut restaurants. When Wendy's hits Australia, it won't be the only food joint with that name. Across 120 venues in Australia and New Zealand, that moniker also graces a South Australian-born ice cream chain which is now known as Wendy's Milk Bar. With more than 7000 stores worldwide, the American Wendy's is one of the globe's biggest and most recognisable burger chains. While most of its outposts are scattered across the US, the chain also has over 1000 international locations in countries like New Zealand, Canada and the UK. The first Wendy's was opened by Dave Thomas in Columbus, Ohio in 1969. It quickly grew due to the popularity of its burgers and iconic Frostys, growing to over 1000 restaurants in its first nine years of operations. Those square burgers, the ice cream-meets-thickshake combos, perhaps the chain's French toast sticks and pretzel cheeseburgers, too: start looking forward to eating them in Australia. [caption id="attachment_811853" align="alignnone" width="1920"] PRNewsfoto/The Wendy's Company[/caption] [caption id="attachment_869874" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sharon Hahn Darlin[/caption] Flynn Restaurant Group is set to develop 200 Wendy's restaurants across Australia by 2034. Check out Wendy's announcement for further details.
Things are looking up in Brisbane, with rooftop bars popping up all around the River City in recent years, plus a new 100-metre-high Sky Deck set to follow. Sydney has the Sydney Tower Eye, Melbourne has its Skydeck and now the Queensland capital will gain its own lofty tourist attraction — complete with a restaurant, bar, glass-floor viewing platform, and 360-degree vantage out over the Brisbane CBD and Brisbane River. The Brisbane Sky Deck forms part of the city's $3.6-billion Queen's Wharf precinct, a project that's been in the works for at least eight years now. Finally slated to open by the end of 2023, and sprawling between Alice, George, Queen and William streets, the development will be crowned by the sky-high spot to grab a bite, drink and take in stunning views — which'll sit atop everything other dining options, hotels, shops, apartments and a heap of public space. While part of one of Queen's Wharf's resident resorts — it's set to feature four hotels — Sky Deck will be open to the public. Also, it isn't small, with a capacity of 1500 visitors at a time. Here, folks keen to scale great heights can also host parties, with an events space part of the setup. Brisbanites, your shindigs are looking up as well. Specific details about Sky Deck's restaurant and bar, including their menus and operators, haven't yet been revealed; however, that glass-bottomed platform will sit around the midway mark of the structure. From the just-released artists impressions of the venue, locals and tourists alike can expect ample greenery and crucial outdoor seating elsewhere, the latter giving everyone plenty of places to stop, sit and take in the panoramic vista. Expect Brisbane's Sky Deck to be popular, too. The Queensland Government certainly does, with Deputy Premier Steven Miles advising in a statement that "the Sky Deck will be a magnet for the estimated 1.4 million international, interstate and local visitors to the city each year." As for the rest of the Queen's Wharf Brisbane redevelopment area, it spans across 12 hectares in the CBD, and will include around 50 new bars, cafes and restaurant; a casino; those four aforementioned hotels; approximately 1500 apartments; and a swathe of retailers in a huge new shopping precinct. The full precinct features repurposed heritage buildings, too, plus the Neville Bonner Bridge and Brissie's first riverside bikeway cafe. For Brisbane inhabitants, Queen's Wharf has been in the making for so long — and the construction around it just seems to be taking forever, too — that it feels like it has always been coming. But "let's meet at Queen's Wharf" is something that'll soon be able to be said, including by visitors. Ahead of the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, the River City is transformation central, including tearing down and rebuilding the Gabba; renewing and reinvigorating South Bank, complete with a treetop walk, a permanent handmade goods market and new riverside lawns; making over Victoria Park; and revamping and expanding Northshore Hamilton. Also, a new seven-hectare riverside parkland is set to join South Brisbane, QPAC's fifth theatre is under construction and Kangaroo Point is set to score a new green bridge with an overwater bar and restaurant. Queen's Wharf is slated to start opening in the Brisbane CBD from late 2023. We'll update you when a specific date is announced — and you can find out further details in the interim via the development's website.
Spring Hill Deli is another fine establishment that has realised that using real chocolate on top of cappuccinos makes them approximately 1000% better. We probably don’t need to say much more, but if you still need convincing, the beans come from celebrated locals Cup Coffee Roasters and the moreish food menu is the perfect accompaniment.
Wintertime is gallery time in Melbourne, so it's no surprise the NGV took a go-big-or-go-home attitude to follow up their extended Van Gogh and the Seasons exhibition. Thankfully, they haven't disappointed with a huge display of the works of Katsushika Hokusai. Running until October 15, the Hokusai exhibition is the largest single assemblage of the artist's work ever to be seen in Australia. More than 150 of his works are on display – including his five career-defining series of woodblock prints, the complete 15 editions of handprinted manga, plus silk works and rarely exhibited paintings. To make the exhibition a reality, NGV curator of Asian art Wayne Crothers worked closely with the Japan Ukiyo-e Museum (JUM), a privately owned gallery and one of the world's largest collectors of Japanese woodblock prints. Crothers says this relationship allowed the NGV to showcase the "highest quality examples" of Hokusai's work available. On entering Hokusai, you'll get to know the artist from works from his early career before coming to his universally acclaimed Thirty-six Views of Mt Fuji series. Created during Hokusai's own circumvention of Mt Fuji and his eventual summit, this series is the best instance of Hokusai's uncanny ability to depict everyday Japanese life and the population's closeness to nature. Next up is the unmistakable centrepiece — The Great Wave off Kanagawa — while across the gallery threshold is A Tour to the Waterfalls in Various Provinces, which rests against a distinctly 'Hokusaian' Prussian blue backdrop. Here, the gallery splinters into various spaces dedicated to his many manga volumes, and other lesser-known (but equally as impressive) works. While we're fortunate enough to be able to see many of Hokusai's headline artworks for the first time in Australia, Crothers explains the artist's most famous works are only the beginning to this exhibition: "One of the things we wanted to show through this exhibition was for everyone to enjoy 'The Wave', but then move beyond it and to experience the imagination in Hokusai's other creative projects." Here, with the help of Crothers' nuanced insight, we've selected five great works (aside from The Great Wave) from the Hokusai collection that you can't possibly miss. [caption id="attachment_630150" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Amida Falls in the far reaches of the Kisokaidō Road, courtesy of The Japan Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto.[/caption] THE AMIDA WATERFALL ON THE KISO ROCK, A TOUR TO THE WATERFALLS IN VARIOUS PROVINCES, (C. 1832-1833) The Waterfalls series represents some of the most experimental and creative works Hokusai produced at any time throughout his career. A stunning design piece, The Amida Waterfall on the Kiso Road shows an overhead view of flowing water, before halfway down the work changing perspective to a right-angled illustration of a waterfall. [caption id="attachment_630153" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Hokusai install at NGV, shot by Tom Ross.[/caption] VIEW OF THE PONTOON BRIDGE AT SANO IN KOZUKE, REMARKABLE VIEWS OF BRIDGES IN VARIOUS PROVINCES (1830) One of Crothers' favourite works of the exhibition, this piece captures the beautiful Japanese winter landscapes, while the travellers trudge across the snow covered pontoon in silence. Throughout this series, Hokusai illustrates the changing of the seasons across diverse locations and depicts the lives of working class Japanese people during this period. [caption id="attachment_630155" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The ghost of Kohada Koheiji, courtesy of The Japan Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto.[/caption] 100 GHOST STORIES (1831) Based upon numerous well-known Japanese supernatural tales, the Ghost Stories series is Hokusai's surreal interpretation of these stories. Taking a satirical and humorous approach, for this woodblock print series Hokusai took one small detail from each popular fable and crafted caricatures, which mocked government corruption, societal wrongs and other common issues during this era. An immaculate collection, Crothers says these prints best demonstrate Hokusai's "vivid imagination". [caption id="attachment_630159" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Hokusai installation, shot by Tom Ross.[/caption] CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN, THIRTY-SIX VIEWS OF MT FUJI (C. 1830-1833) While you might assume Thirty-six Views of Mt Fuji has 36 accompanying prints, in fact, the series was so popular that Hokusai created an additional ten prints (although the original title was kept). Described by Crothers as the perfect 'final gesture', this 46th print depicts a group near Mt Fuji's summit, which was said to hold the key to immortality — a topic Hokusai often showed interest in. REFLECTION IN LAKE AT MISAKA IN KAI PROVINCE, THIRTY-SIX VIEWS OF MT FUJI (C. 1830-1833) Depicting a peaceful reflection of the summertime summit of Mt Fuji in its lush landscape, this woodblock print is another from the subsequent ten prints to the original series. Hokusai is known for including many subtle details and references throughout his work, and on closer inspection of this piece, you'll notice the distinctly summer time Mt Fuji shows off its wintery side in the lake's reflection. Hokusai is now showing at NGV International.
Summer might be over, but that doesn't mean you should stop sipping spritzes and snacking on oysters by the water. Blackbird Bar & Grill is inclined to agree. To usher in autumn, the riverside venue has launched Bottomless Spritz and Seafood. Swing by on a Saturday or Sunday, between 11.30am–3.30pm, to give yourself one-and-a-half glorious hours of gazing at the water while drinking and eating as much as you like. [caption id="attachment_759153" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Blackbird Bar and Grill[/caption] Rolling up at your table will be endless share plates, loaded with freshly shucked oysters, crispy Australian bay lobster rolls, and cod croquettes with seaweed mayo. Look out, too, for seaweed crackers layered with tuna ceviche and finger lime, alongside octopus takoyaki with seaweed teriyaki and bonito mayo. The drinks list gives you loads of spritzes to choose from. If you're a limoncello fan, go for the classic or get more adventurous with a tropical twist. Other classics include the Hugo and the Venetian spritzes. Then, among the signatures, you'll find the Eastside Elderflower (Fiorente elderflower, Botanist gin, cucumber, lime, prosecco, soda), the Select Passion (Select aperitivo, passionfruit, moscato) and the Blackbird Spritz (Rhubi mistelle, Lark pinot noir gin, prosecco, grapefruit soda).
Thanks to our sunny, warm weather almost all year round, Brisbanites are always willing and ready for a pool party. The event happening at Musgrave Park swimming pool on Sunday, February 24 isn't any old splashfest, though. For the third year in a row, it's all about celebrating several good causes. Here's what's on the agenda at the Body Positive Pool Party: having a dip, having some fun, and reclaiming a space and a pastime in that have traditionally caused plenty of stress about beauty standards and gender norms. So, grab your togs and cannonball into action. On second thoughts, maybe scrap the last part. No one wants to be that person. There'll be swimming, obviously. There'll also be live music, food, thematically linked art and market stalls. As for where the other worthy causes come in, that's thanks to the beneficiaries of your entry fee — although neither the exact cost or the recipients of your funds have been announced just yet. 2018's event was a pay-what-you-can-afford affair, ranging between $5–25. And in past years, the likes of Sisters Inside, Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance, 4ZZZ and Right to the City Brisbane have received a helping hand.
Prepare to exclaim "yeah, science!" like Jesse Pinkman — and to see a whole lot more of Aaron Paul's Breaking Bad character. The acclaimed series is making a comeback, cooking up a movie that'll serve as a sequel to the show's finale. In the spotlight: Walter White's former student and protege, who might just be in a spot of trouble. While this follow-up will span a single two-hour package, rather than span multiple episodes, it is still coming to a small screen near you. As revealed by The Hollywood Reporter, it's heading to Netflix before screening in the US on AMC, the network behind the original show. Just when it'll hit the platform hasn't been announced. First revealed last year, the film has a working title of Greenbriar, and begin shooting back in November. Plot details are scarce; however it'll reportedly focus on Pinkman and chart a kidnapped man's escape. It hasn't been confirmed if the former and the latter are one and the same, but it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to put them together. As Better Call Saul diehards are well aware, Breaking Bad has never completely gone away since the OG show wrapped up in 2013; however fans eager to look forward in the show's chronology, not backwards at the early life of Bob Odenkirk's shady lawyer Saul Goodman, have something to add to their must-watch list. There's no word yet on who else will feature in the film — and although Bryan Cranston confirmed the news of the movie, but whether he's in it or what it's about is still the subject of rumour. Via The Hollywood Reporter.
The Upside Down has arrived in Australia, specifically Sydney, again. When season four of Stranger Things dropped in 2022, a rift to the show's netherworld popped up in Bondi. Three years later, as everyone waits for the Netflix favourite's fifth and final season to stream sometime before 2025 is out, Stranger Things: The Experience has brought a whole host of Stranger Things nods this way — and entering its eerie realm is indeed one of them. Stranger Things: The Experience is making its Aussie debut at Luna Park Sydney courtesy of Vivid Sydney's 2025 program. Between Friday, May 23–Saturday, June 14, wandering into the venue's Crystal Palace means visiting 1986 — and also Hawkins, Indiana, of course — in an interactive stint of Stranger Things-loving fun. Locations from the show are part of the setup, as is a supernatural mystery. And yes, you can expect to feel nostalgic, even if you don't have your own memories of the 80s because you hadn't been born yet. Stranger Things: The Experience isn't just about exploring recreations of settings that you've seen while watching Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown, The Electric State) and the gang, however. The installation features its own storyline, where playing along means trying to save Hawkins from yet another threat, alongside making a date with the Upside Down. Christmas lights in the Byers' living room? Tick. Vecna? Tick again. Scoops Ahoy serving up banana splits and Surfer Boy Pizza offering slices? Keep ticking. The latter pair are found at Mix-Tape, an 80s-themed mall experience — as is the Palace Arcade, where MADMAX's high score begs to be bested, plus the themed cocktail-slinging Upside Bar. It's also where you can grab limited-edition merchandise. This trip into the TV series created by the Duffer Brothers was designed and developed with the duo. In its first-ever journey to Australia — after initially opening in New York in 2022, then enjoying stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Seattle, Toronto, London, Paris and São Paulo since — it falls into the Ideas portion of Vivid's lineup. Luna Park Sydney and immersive experiences based on Netflix shows keep going hand in hand of late; since the end of 2024, the Harbour City tourist attraction has been hosting Squid Game: The Experience, letting small-screen fans dive into another streaming smash. At the time of writing, playing Red Light, Green Light with Young-hee in Luna Park's big top is on the agenda until late June, which is also when the South Korean show's third and final season premieres. Stranger Things: The Experience runs at Luna Park Sydney, 1 Olympic Drive, Milsons Point, Sydney from Friday, May 23–Saturday, June 14,2025. For more information, head to the Luna Park Sydney website. Vivid Sydney 2025 runs from Friday, May 23–Saturday, June 14 across Sydney. Head to the festival website for further information.
There's a difference between embracing the fantastical and making fantasy. As a book since 2018, then a stage production and now a seven-part Netflix series, Boy Swallows Universe knows how to fly in the first direction without becoming the second. Author and journalist Trent Dalton spins a semi-autobiographical 80s-set story, which surveys his childhood and its challenges with clear eyes, but also brims with hope and zero judgement. That's protagonist Eli Bell's (Felix Cameron, Penguin Bloom) approach to everything, including his recovering addict mother Frankie (Phoebe Tonkin, Babylon), his heroin-dealing stepfather Lyle Orlik (Travis Fimmel, Black Snow), his alcoholic and agoraphobic dad Robert (Simon Baker, Limbo), and his elder brother Gus (Lee Tiger Halley, The Heights), who hasn't spoken since a traumatic incident in the siblings' past. It's also how he sees family friend, babysitter, father figure, and no-nonsense but supportive source of wisdom Slim Halliday, as played by Australian acting icon Bryan Brown in Boy Swallows Universe's leap to the screen. The character is one of Dalton's great inclusions and, as with much in the novel, doesn't merely stem from Dalton's imagination. The name, that he spent decades in the Queensland capital's Boggo Road Gaol for the death of a taxi driver, his multiple escapes from the notorious prison: they're all 100-percent real. So is the fact that the young Dalton knew the convicted murderer when he was a boy growing up in Brisbane's west. Casting Brown is like most talent choices in Boy Swallows Universe: a dream pick. Chatting with Concrete Playground about the part and the Brisbane-made series, he's full of praise about Cameron as 12-year-old force-of-nature Eli. "He's a fabulous young kid and he's done a fabulous job," he advises. But Brown's own inclusion, like Tonkin, Fimmel, Baker, Halley, Totally Completely Fine's Zac Burgess as the older Eli, Talk to Me's Sophie Wilde's as Caitlyn Spies and more, is just as pitch-perfect. To Eli, Slim is a man with answers, encouragement and no sugarcoating — someone who believes in him, wants the best for him, but won't skip over life's realities. Try to picture an Aussie actor who'd nail the role and Brown is alone in springing to mind. Boy Swallows Universe joins his almost five-decade-long resume, at a time when Brown jokes that "someone asking me to do a job now is quite a good thing". In the past five months, he's been on-screen almost constantly — in fellow streaming series C*A*U*G*H*T, the recut of Baz Luhrmann's Australia as miniseries Faraway Downs and in US-produced but Sydney-shot rom-com Anyone But You. His career has followed the same path since the mid-70s, and reads like a history of Aussie film and television. For both 1980's Breaker Morant and 1999's Two Hands, he has Best Supporting Actor Australian Film Institute Awards. In the latter as with Boy Swallows Universe, he was paired with up-and-comer: there, it was Heath Ledger. [caption id="attachment_935699" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jono Searle/Getty Images for Netflix[/caption] Brown's credits also span The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Newsfront, The Shiralee, Dirty Deeds, Beautiful Kate, Red Dog: True Blue and Sweet Country. The list goes on. Over in Hollywood in the 80s, after TV's A Town Like Alice was a hit overseas as well as at home, he earned Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for The Thorn Birds, led action-thriller F/X, famously mixed drinks with Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One) in Cocktail and starred opposite Sigourney Weaver (The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart) in Gorillas in the Mist. In 2004, he featured in the Ben Stiller (Locked Down)-led Along Came Polly as well. With Boy Swallows Universe, Brown was drawn in as everyone who has come across it in any form has been: by the story. Initially introduced via screenwriter John Collee's (Hotel Mumbai) scripts, he found it as astonishing as readers, theatre patrons and viewers keep doing. The series that results is now streaming — and we spoke with Brown about his first responses to Dalton's tale, his eagerness to play Slim, taking on someone with layers both on the page and in reality, mentoring Cameron, why everyone loves Boy Swallows Universe and more. ON BROWN'S FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH THE BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE STORY "The scripts. I hadn't read the book, and the producer Troy Lum (Palm Beach) sent me John Collee's — at that stage — eight one-hour scripts, and I thought they were quite wonderful, the scripts. That then led me to go get the book and read the book, and to thoroughly enjoy it and go 'this is a remarkable story this', given it was basically true. And so to be able to be a part of it, I was only too willing." ON WHAT APPEALED TO BROWN ABOUT PLAYING SLIM HALLIDAY "I think the fact that he was a crim, but we don't meet him doing anything criminal. We hear about what a crim he was, and how he'd been in jail for 30 years and how he'd escaped, but we see him as someone that really wants to help the boys not go the way that he did. So I think it's the fact that he's not as you would expect him to be. When someone says 'I've got a part for you to play, it's a crim, love you to do it' — [but] basically I'm babysitter in this." ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR A PART THAT ISN'T JUST A CHARACTER IN TRENT DALTON'S BOOK, BUT A REAL-LIFE PERSON "Basically I can only play the scripts. So if there's something missing in the scripts, then I go 'this conflicts with something else, I need to know more about it'. But the scripts were so well done, the character was so well-outlined, the relationship with the boy was so clear and it felt quite instinctive to be able to play — I didn't have to research his criminal activity. None of that came into the playing of this piece. So it was about trying to understand why he wanted to be with the boy and behave as he did, and pretty well the scenes answered that for me." ON PLAYING SLIM AS NO-NONSENSE BUT SUPPORTIVE, AND A FATHER FIGURE FOR ELI "Once again, I come back to how well something's written. If a character is written well, you're just pulling the glove on and getting on with it. It's where something comes into conflict or it doesn't make sense that you're at sixes and sevens in trying to play something. But this was so well-written on the page that I was able to play it pretty easily. It was a part that was enjoyable to play." ON HOW BROWN SEEES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SLIM AND ELI "I guess it is a bit father-son, but it's better than that. It's like he doesn't have to be the parent and exercise certain disciplines — he just has to be there as someone that appreciates and would always be there for the boy. And just that knowledge that he gives to the boy, there is someone solid here that believes in me, that's the relationship that I think that Slim brings." ON HOW THAT MENTORING RELATIONSHIP TRANSLATED WITH FELIX CAMERON OFF-SCREEN "People would probably say it did. We got on very well. We had a lot of fun together. He's a cheeky little bugger, and I really enjoyed mucking around with him. But behind all that there's a very bright young fella — and there's a fella who, obviously he's got wonderful parents. There's a boy that appreciates pretty well everything that's going on here. He appreciated doing this. It never went to his head in any way. I'm sure there were areas of confusion for him, but he never brought that to the table." ON WHY BOY SWALLOWS UNIVERSE CONTINUES TO STRIKE SUCH A CHORD "I think it is a story of hope. The boys want and hope that their life will be better, and do everything — they don't judge their parents, there's no judgement in this show about people, but there is the boys who just see that there's a life out there, and hope that they can have a life that's different to the ones that their parents are experiencing. I think that there's a joy in that. It's not a dour story. It's not a dark story. There's darkness in things that happen with the characters, but it's not a dark story. It's a story of hope and desire from the boys to have a real life, and I think you can't help but get affected by it." [caption id="attachment_935703" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Chris Hyde/Getty Images for Netflix[/caption] ON WHAT BROWN LOOKS FOR A ROLE "It's pretty easy. I read it. I go 'do I like the story?'. If I don't like the story, there's no point even thinking about the part. And if I do like the story, then I look at the character and I go 'how does this character contribute to the story?' and 'can I do something of value with that character that makes that story live?'. It's pretty straightforward. I know pretty well straight away if I don't want to something. But if I'm a bit intrigued, then I have to ask myself more questions as I go through it. Once again, it's instinct. I look at it and I go: 'am I there? Can I be there?'. And if I can, the other side of it is, I like to know who else is doing it, and I like to know who the production company is and who the director will be to make me feel confident about that it can be done well." Boy Swallows Universe streams via Netflix, arriving on Thursday, January 11, 2024. Read our review. Images: courtesy of Netflix © 2023.
Between them, Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, JRR Tolkien, Bram Stoker, the Brontë sisters, Virginia Woolf and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are responsible for a wealth of literary treasures. So are Oscar Wilde, Harold Pinter, William Blake, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Lord Byron, TS Eliot, Thomas Hardy, James Joyce, DH Lawrence, John Keats, William Wordsworth and Rudyard Kipling, plus AA Milne, Beatrix Potter, Dylan Thomas, Sir Kazuo Ishiguro and Zadie Smith. HOTA, Home of the Arts on the Gold Coast mightn't seem like the usual place to celebrate them all, but it is until the start of August 2025, all thanks to Writers Revealed: Treasures From the British Library and National Portrait Gallery, London. Announced earlier in the year, open since mid-April and running till Sunday, August 3, this exhibition is all about paying tribute to great authors and writers — beyond libraries, bookstores, and your own bookshelf or Kindle. Indeed, getting the chance to revel in the talents behind some of the finest works of literature ever committed to paper in a stunning showcase across a gallery's walls is rare. Writers Revealed is a world-first. What features at an exhibition devoted to wordsmiths? Eager word nerds can see author portraits, plus rare handwritten manuscripts and first editions. More than 100 literary artefacts and portraits span the likenesses of the writers responsible for Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet, The Lord of the Rings, Dracula, Wuthering Heights, Sherlock Holmes and other masterpieces, as well as texts themselves, with five centuries of literature covered. As the exhibition's full name states, this is a collaboration between the British Library and the National Portrait Gallery, London. If you're wondering why the two institutions are pairing portraits with books, one of the showcase's aims to explore how literature and visual expression are linked. Also in the spotlight: the legacy of influential writers, plus digging into their creative processes. A draft of Dracula, what's thought to be the only Shakespeare portrait to be painted while he was alive, a picture of Austen by her sister, John Milton's publishing contract for Paradise Lost, letters from both Smith and Ishiguro: they're among the highlights that can be found across 1000 square metres in HOTA's Gallery 1. "We are thrilled to collaborate with the National Portrait Gallery on Writers Revealed, a truly unique exhibition that brings together some of the most exceptional objects from our collections. Visitors will experience rare first editions and exquisite manuscripts alongside celebrated portraits of the writers who created them," said Alexandra Ault, Lead Curator of Modern Archives and Manuscripts at the British Library, announcing the exhibition. "Featuring treasures that rarely leave our gallery in London, this major new exhibition will bring HOTA's visitors closer to some of the most-important figures in English literary history," added Catharine MacLeod, Senior Curator of 17th Century Collections at the National Portrait Gallery. "Encountering these displays, visitors will discover what is revealed and what is hidden when life, writing and portraiture intersect." Writers Revealed: Treasures From the British Library and National Portrait Gallery, London displays at HOTA, Home of the Arts, 135 Bundall Road, Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast until Sunday, August 3, 2025. Head to the gallery's website for further details and tickets.
Sitting in a middle seat is few people's favourite way to fly, so Virgin Australia ran a lottery that gave away prizes to make the dreaded perch more enticing. Not knowing where your bag is when you disembark the plane is a downright travel nightmare — and now the airline is tackling that, too, this time by rolling out a baggage-tracking tool. Virgin Australia has been testing the new feature since May, but Monday, August 28 marks its launch on almost 70-percent of domestic flights. Accordingly, the next time you fly there's a high chance that you'll be able to track the status of your luggage via the carrier's app. The function marks a first for an Australian airline, and is included free on the routes that it's available on. Obviously, this feature covers checked luggage only. If you're carrying your bags into the cabin with you, you'll know where they are. For those stowing their suitcases in cargo, you'll be able to see where they are across your entire journey. Here's how it works: you'll need that aforementioned app, and to check your bag. You'll also want to enable push notifications. From there, you'll be informed via your phone when your luggage is checked in, when it's available for collection on the ground once you land and also when it is transferred to an international partner airline if you're travelling overseas. The app will tell you which baggage carousel to head to as well, solving another airport annoyance. The routes covered so far include select flights out of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, the Gold Coast, Canberra and Newcastle, and also from Ballina/Byron, the Sunshine Coast and Hamilton Island. Joining them on the list right now: Launceston and Hobart, plus Townsville, Rockhampton and Mackay. In Western Australia, the service will become available on select flights out of Perth soon. "We know the potential of lost baggage is a concern for travellers globally and anticipate this announcement will give many guests that extra level of comfort knowing where their bag is at every step of the journey," said Virgin Australia Group Chief Customer and Digital Officer Paul Jones, announcing the rollout. Virgin Australia's baggage-tracking tool starts rolling out from Monday, August 28. Find out more via the airline's website, and download the app online as well.
It's safe to say that as we enter the final month of summer, it's still boiling out there and we could all use a little something to help us through the hot summer days. So why not cool things down (like, -196°C down) with the help of Suntory -196? And if anyone knows how to keep it cool, it's Suntory -196, thanks to their patented Freeze Crush Infuse Technology. This involves flash-freezing whole fruit at -196 degrees Celsius before crushing and infusing it with shochu and vodka, enhancing the flavour profile and providing an extra burst of fruity intensity. See out summer with Suntory and be in the running to win one of 80 Suntory -196 prize packs. While temperatures are still scorching, cool down with -196's refreshing, fruit-flavoured drinks and exclusive, never-seen-before merch created in partnership with Japanese artist Kentaro Yoshida. Lucky winners will score a Suntory -196 Double Lemon four-pack, plus a limited-edition Kentaro Yoshida x Minus -196 A2 screenprint and embroidered cap. The brand new merch designs a one-time-only run of Yoshida's ongoing partnership with Suntory -196 and can't be purchased anywhere else. Thirsty? Enter your details below to go in the running. [competition]988725[/competition] If you can't wait that long for a refreshing tipple, you can head to your nearest store to get your hands on a limited-edition Variety Pack featuring all the classic Suntory -196 flavours — Double Lemon, Double Grape and Double Peach — in a handy 10-pack. The perfect shareable option for you and your mates this summer. Check out Kenny Yoshida's work for an idea of the aesthetics in store, and what you've got to look for next time you're in the bottle shop. Enter now to beat the heat with Suntory -196 or head in store to pick up a Variety Pack now. The competition is for Australian residents aged 18 years and over; T&Cs apply. Images: Supplied.
Ever since the days of The Island, Brisbanites have been ditching dry land for partying on the Brisbane River. Sailing where Seadeck, Yot Club and GoBoat's picnic boats have also gone, Oasis is the River City's about-to-open latest floating venue — a 500-person, 35-metre-long, three-level bar on a steel-hull catamaran that'll host DJ-soundtracked shindigs by both day and night when it launches in mid-April. It isn't hard to find something to do near, around, in or on the Old Brown Snake, but this one involves hopping aboard a$10-million vessel at the City Botanic Gardens River Hub. And, it's sticking around permanently, rather than cruising in and out seasonally. Oasis was also custom-designed for Brisbane's windy waterway, with Alex Zabotto-Bentley — who also did the honours for Seadeck and Sydney's Glass Island — taking care of the hues, fixtures and fittings. The aim: to immerse partygoers in a Sicily and Capri vibe. Thanks to The White Lotus' second season, nodding to Italian islands is quite the vibe right now. When it takes to the water from Saturday, April 22, Oasis will let its passengers rove over three levels all decked out in their own way, providing different experiences on each. Each comes with its own bar, sound system, standing areas, and seating including VIP tables; however, the lower floor is going with copper, dark tones and a pressed tin ceiling, and the middle deck with greenery and wood aplenty. Up on top, pink and white stripes are a feature, alongside tropical plants. The vessel will make its maiden voyage with a literally cruisy afternoon session featuring Faint One, Anna Sonnenburg, Apollo, Fig Jam, Geordie and Darren Sommerville on the on-deck decks, then celebrate its launch in a big way the next week with Torren Foot, Airwolf Paradise, Paluma, Kessin and De Saint on Saturday, April 29. The lineup of DJs and artists will rotate weekly, and Oasis will also serve up sips and bites to eat. And, if you want to book the whole place out for your own soirée, that's available Monday–Friday. "Brisbane is famous for its energised spirit, its youthful vitality, its vibrant love of the outdoors and its love of celebration, and Oasis has been designed to amplify this," said Oasis founder Dave Auld. "As we look forward to the Olympics in 2032, Brisbane will become one of the hottest cities in the world, and the Brisbane River one of the hottest pieces of real estate — and that's where Oasis calls home!" Oasis is set to launch on Saturday, April 22, departing from City Botanic Gardens River Hub, 147 Alice Street, Brisbane City. Head to the vessel's website for bookings and further details. Images: renders of Oasis.
It wasn't simply debuting during the pandemic's first year, in a life-changing period when everyone was doing it tough, that made Ted Lasso's first season a hit in 2020. It wasn't just the Apple TV+ sitcom's unshakeable warmth, giving its characters and viewers alike a big warm hug episode after episode, either. Both play a key part, however, because this Jason Sudeikis (Saturday Night Live)-starring soccer series is about everyone pitching in and playing a part. It's a team endeavour that champions team endeavours — hailing from a quartet of creators (Sudeikis, co-star Brendan Hunt, Detroiters' Joe Kelly and Scrubs' Bill Lawrence), boasting a killer cast in both major and supporting roles, and understanding how important it is to support one another on- and off-screen (plus in the fictional world that the show has created, and while making that realm so beloved with audiences). Ted Lasso has always believed in the individual players as well as the team they're in, though. It is named after its eponymous American football coach-turned-inexperienced soccer manager, after all. But in building an entire sitcom around a character that started as a sketch in two popular US television ads for NBC's Premier League coverage — around two characters, because Hunt's (Bless This Mess) laconic Coach Beard began in those commercials as well — Ted Lasso has always understood that everyone is only a fraction of who they can be when they're alone. That's an idea that keeps gathering momentum in the show's long-awaited third season, which premieres the first of its 12 episodes on Wednesday, March 15, then keeps rolling out more week by week. Season three starts with Ted left solo when he desperately doesn't want to be, in one of the rare situations that can cut through the Kansan-in-London's usually unflappable optimism. Season two helped unpack his perennially upbeat ways, and started to see fractures, so a less-than-chipper Ted is no longer a complete surprise. But Ted questioning why he's on the other side of the world, and alone away from his son Henry (Gus Turner, Life After Life) and now-former wife Michelle (Andrea Anders, That '90s Show)? That's how Ted Lasso's third season kicks off, and it scores a goal with that choice. The series has already established that its various figures — Ted, Beard and the AFC Richmond crew they joined when owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham, Hocus Pocus 2) brought them to the UK initially to tank her ex-husband's beloved club — can work as a team. Now it's going deep on why they want to. "I guess I do sometimes wonder what the heck I'm still doing here," says Ted. "I mean, I know why I came, but it's the sticking around I can't quite figure out," he continues. That's a new core thread, and a notion that echoes across other plots. After becoming West Ham United's manager under Rebecca's ex Rupert Mannion (Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Anthony Stewart Head), the Greyhounds' former assistant Nathan 'Nate' Shelley (Nick Mohammed, Intelligence) is thrilled and overwhelmed — and happy to keep his nasty streak going publicly, while also grappling with it privately. He knows why he joined a different team, as everyone who has seen the past two seasons does. But, as showdowns with his old club and mentor keep bubbling up, that isn't the same as knowing why he should commit to being Rupert's version of himself to stay with that team. Season three also has delightfully grumpy retired player Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein, Uncle) leaning into his coaching role at Richmond in Nate's absence, and face why he's doing it, including pushing him closer towards star striker Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster, The Devil's Hour). He has time, after his relationship with Keeley Jones (Juno Temple, The Offer) — now an ex to both Roy and Jamie — ended in season two, while she's exploring why she was so eager to start her own PR film. As for Jamie, his arc since episode one has been one of cockiness humbled by stark truths, then finding a sustainable status quo. When a new hotshot arrives, he also has to confront why he's part of the team and what he wants that to mean. As celebrated as Ted Lasso's entire cast is, with two acting Emmys for Sudeikis and Goldstein in two seasons, one for Waddingham, and nominations for Hunt, Temple, Mohammed, Jeremy Swift, Toheeb Jimoh, Sarah Niles and more, Dunster's performance deserves more notice. What will all this questioning lead to in season three? Ideally, to happier, kinder people who understand themselves better — Ted's ultimate goal always, ranking high above winning. But with Richmond back in the Premier League, Britain's football media predicting it'll be relegated again when the season is out, Rupert securing West Ham's success however he can and Rebecca desperate not to lose to the man she's already lost plenty to, winning matters more than it ever has in Ted Lasso. So, whether everyone will benefit from that journey, why they're taking it, what it'll cost and what it'll mean for the show's various teams sits at the heart of the season. Of course, as every TV viewer knows, a lot can happen in a season. Every sports fan, and anyone who has ever just watched a sports-themed TV show or movie, is well-aware, too. Higher stakes, deeper emotional dives: that's the first four episodes of Ted Lasso season three, across longer episodes that clock in between 40–50 minutes apiece. As the second season did, this go-around also broadens who it spends time with, giving Richmond players Colin Hughes (Billy Harris, The Outlaws) and Thierry Zoreaux (Moe Jeudy-Lamour, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan) a bigger spotlight as Sam Obisanya (Jimoh, The French Dispatch) and Dani Rojas (Cristo Fernandez, Spider-Man: No Way Home) gained before them. There's that team focus again, so much so that Ted Lasso can't stop filling the field. Beard and Higgins (Swift, Housebound), the club's Director of Football Operations, still have Ted's back, and Dr Sharon Fieldstone (Niles, The Sandman) remains a call away. No Ted Lasso devotee wants to start thinking about its end game, but its creators have; a three-season arc has been discussed. Unlike Succession and Barry, a finish to the acclaimed hit hasn't been announced going into this new round of episodes — but as the series ponders why Ted and company have chosen their teams, what keeps them there, and what makes them better by being there, a feeling of change lingers in the air. Everything that's always made Ted Lasso a delight remains in season three, including its sincerity, warmth and care, determination to see both the joys and the struggles, and the pitch-perfect performances. Also, every season of the series has always started with new beginnings of a sort. If this one concludes the way it kicks off, though — whether or not there's a season four — then it looks set to embrace why teams achieve, fail, find success out of mess, are stronger together, but can only win when everyone does. Check out the trailer for Ted Lasso's third season below: Season three of Ted Lasso starts streaming via Apple TV+ from Wednesday, March 15. Read our full review of season two.
Of all the new TV shows that are heading to streaming in 2023, only one has a groove and a meaning. Well, only one is based on a movie with a theme song that claims that, at least. And yes, you now have that tune stuck in your head — because 'Grease', the track, is that much of a catchy and persistent earworm. The entire Grease soundtrack is, and perhaps the tunes that come with Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies will be as well. This new prequel series steps back into the 70s-made, 50s-set musical rom-com's world, giving its titular girl gang an origin story. Based on both the initial teaser and the just-dropped full trailer, Rise of the Pink Ladies is hopelessly devoted to taking that task seriously. Here, in a ten-episode series set to stream via Paramount+ in Australia from Friday, April 7 — with New Zealand airing details yet to be revealed — it's the 1954–55 school year. It's also when the eponymous young women are given words of warning about appropriate behaviour. "Ladies, you must be careful with whom you associate," Assistant Principal McGee (Jackie Hoffman, Only Murders in the Building) tells them in the first trailer. "A girl's reputation is all that she has." Welcome back to Rydell High, clearly, but before Danny (John Travolta) and Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) walked its halls. If the OG Grease and its tale about an Australian transfer student falling in love with an American high schooler in California is the one that you want — always — then you'll know that this franchise hasn't ever just been about the hit 1978 movie anyway. Before it became a silver-screen classic, it was a popular stage musical. After the first film's success, it spawned a 1982 Michelle Pfeiffer-starring sequel, too. Pink jackets, T-Birds, dance scenes (including while wearing mechanics' overalls), a new take on a familiar track advising that Grease is indeed the word: they're all included in show's two sneak peeks so far. Cast-wise, Marisa Davila (Love and Baseball), first-timer Cheyenne Isabel Wells, Ari Notartomaso (Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin) and Tricia Fukuhara (Loot) play the four teens who start the Pink Ladies, and are joined on-screen by Shanel Bailey (The Good Fight), Madison Thompson (Emergency), Johnathan Nieves (Penny Dreadful: City of Angels), Jason Schmidt (FBI: Most Wanted) and Maxwell Whittington-Cooper (The Photograph). This isn't the last time that all things Grease will pop up again, either — not including the stage musical and OG movie's enduring popularity, of course — with a Danny and Sandy-focused prequel flick Summer Lovin' also in the works. Check out the full trailer for Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies below: Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies starts streaming via Paramount+ in Australia on Friday, April 7. New Zealand release details haven't yet been revealed — we'll update you when further information comes to hand.
Stellar LGBTQIA+ celebrations, the Sunshine State capital and sparkling spring weather: that's the Melt Festival formula every year, including in 2025. Brisbane's annual ode to "queer joy, protest and pride", as Melt Executive Producer Emmie Paranthoiene dubs it, is taking over the River City between Wednesday, October 22–Sunday, November 9. On the lineup: 18 days packing more than 60 venues with hundreds of performances and events. Getting excited about 2025's Melt Festival has been easy for a few months now. First, the Brisbane LGBTQIA+ fest announced that Broadway icon Bernadette Peters was making the River City her only Australian stop just for the event. Then, it also confirmed that the River Pride Parade would float its boats for another year. After that came news of 1000 Voices, uniting singers from queer and pride choirs en masse. Next came its initial big program drop. Now the full bill has been unveiled — one that Paranthoiene describes as "celebrating the full spectrum of LGBTQIA+ voices, from bold new talent to iconic artists who continue to break boundaries with this diverse program. Melt is a love letter to our community and everyone's invited to the party." Think: pageants, parades, musical theatre, comedy, choral installation, burlesque, visual arts, theatre, films such as Lesbian Space Princess and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and plenty more. The fringe-style celebration of queer arts and culture fills Brisbane Powerhouse, and also spreads further across the city. Sugar by Tomáš Kantor is one new highlight, with the cabaret taking cues from Pretty Woman and boasting tunes from Chappell Roan, who has been on the Melt lineup herself in the past. Or, catch the return of BRIEFS with Jealousss, plus the Briefs Bus doing guided tours that explore Brisbane's queer history. Comedian Urzila Carlson is on the program, too, as is actor and activist Zoe Terakes (Ironheart, The Office, Talk to Me) doing an in-conversation session. 2025 newcomer Melting Pot is giving Brisbane Powerhouse a pop-up venue each week, featuring the likes of QUIVR DJs, Miss First Nation heats and queer line dancing — plus Melt artists putting on showcases and other surprises. Theatrical performance Rhythmology digs into factory resets as a theme, while daytime disco Play Date is designed for families. [caption id="attachment_1017773" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Atmosphere Photography[/caption] Reuben Kaye, the full Miss First Nation drag contest, a queer wrestle party, Femme Follies Burlesque: they're all on the lineup from past announcements. Kaye is heading to the fest to give his cabaret show enGORGEd, which'll feature Camerata — Queensland's Chamber Orchestra, its Sunshine State premiere. Shining the spotlight on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander drag queens, Miss First Nation is also making a date with Brisbane for the first time, bringing the finale to the city after putting on state heats around the nation in the lead-up. The Tivoli is your go-to for Melt's high-energy queer wrestle-party, while Femme Follies Burlesque will bring its sapphic moves to The Wickham. Or, you can catch The Lucky Country, a new musical about what it means to be Australian — and the myths and contradictions that come with it — in 2025. Malacañang Made Us and Whitefella Yella Tree are also treading the boards, the first about the Filipino Australian experience and the second telling a love story. There's also a queer boat party on floating venue Oasis; the return of Queer PowerPoint; and a drag Scream Queen shindig with Naomi Smalls and Yvie Oddly, plus Drag Race UK's Kyran Thrax. Or, check out a heap of instruments and performers suspended by rope to pay tribute to Brisbane's punk history, Gerwyn Davies' series of portraits in collaboration with Open Doors Youth Service's trans and gender-diverse young people, and Instagram imagery given a new life in Micah Rustichelli's Demon Rhythm. [caption id="attachment_1007544" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Claudio Raschella[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1007548" align="alignnone" width="1920"] David Kelly[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1007545" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Markus Ravik[/caption] [caption id="attachment_1007547" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Gregory Lorenzutti[/caption] Melt Festival 2025 runs from Wednesday, October 22–Sunday, November 9. Head to the festival website for more details. River Pride Parade images: brizzypix.
It's no coincidence that everyone's dream occupation is astronaut. Astronauts get to travel into truly unchartered spaces; they are pioneers who feel and see things the rest of us humble earthlings could only dream of. Until now, I guess. Today NASA have launched the very first live HD broadcast of Earth thereby making all the wonders of the universe free and accessible to every slovenly astro-novice sitting at home on their couch. Basically, the internet is the greatest. Live HD Earth viewing from the space station! Sit back, watch & enjoy our home planet: http://t.co/3rUbOQEWpt #ISS pic.twitter.com/DfGBVB2FI9 — NASA (@NASA) May 8, 2014 This thing is so good it might just beat Pandacam. Maybe. Set from a vantage point on the International Space Station, NASA has positioned four cameras facing Earth. Housed in temperature specific casing these cameras have in fact been designed with the help of American high school students, and the High Definition Earth Viewing Experiment (HDEV) is only an experiment with which to test their durability. So far, it's safe to say the cameras are doing their job. The footage is surprisingly clear and the stream is relatively uninterrupted. A grey screen does however separate footage from each camera angle, and if you can only see darkness that's due to the ISS orbit. (Come on — I know you're not an astronaut, but you have a basic understanding of how planets work, right?) While watching the stream, users can also add comments and interact with other viewers via Facebook plugins and chat options. Already viewed over 7 million times, the footage is an incredibly humbling experience not only for its astronomical proportions, but for its communal nature. Even Garth from Wayne's World is on board. NASA is streaming HD video from space: When it flies over California you can just about see me waving...I'm tiny. RT http://t.co/3bfwyM3EWb — Dana Carvey (@danacarvey) May 7, 2014 Best of all, the broadcast footage comes in total eerie silence. "There is no audio on purpose," NASA state. "Add your own soundtrack." We recommend Pink Floyd or anything from The Beatles psychedelic phase. This is every stoner kid's dream come true. Live streaming video by Ustream Via BGR and Mashable.
A trip to the tropics isn't complete without a wander through Rusty's Markets in Cairns. Open every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, at Rusty's you'll find everything from exotic fruits, tropical tasting plates, freshly baked bread and more. With over 45 years of trade under its belt and more than 180 stalls to visit, there are plenty of reasons locals love to load up on fresh food at this bustling marketplace. During summer Rusty's is abundant in tropical fruits including lychees, rambutans, dragonfruit, coconuts, mangoes, custard apples, jackfruit, black sapote and more. The top-tier produce found at Rusty's also attracts many of Tropical North Queensland's finest chefs who can often be spotted roaming the stalls as they source the best locally grown ingredients for their restaurants. Make sure you stock up on fresh fruit for your day exploring the local waterfalls — there's nothing quite like polishing off a bag of lychees or rambutans while cooling off at a freshwater swimming hole.
On his first-ever trip Down Under, on a tour that'll see him become the first Latin act to headline stadiums globally, one gig was never going to be enough for Bad Bunny in Australia. Accordingly, before general tickets for that already-announced show go on sale, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio has locked in a second Aussie concert due to presale demand — also in Sydney. Bad Bunny has won three Grammys and 11 Latin Grammys, starred in Bullet Train and hosted Saturday Night Live, among plenty of other achievements; however, he hasn't hit the stage in Australia — yet. By the time that summer 2025–26 is out, he'll tick a trip Down Under off of his list, with his DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS world tour now including two shows in the Harbour City. ENGIE Stadium in the New South Wales capital is set to play host to Bad Bunny on both Saturday, February 28 and Sunday, March 1. He's playing the New South Wales capital in-between dates in Brazil and Japan, two other countries where the 'Mia', 'Callaíta', 'Qué Pretendes' and 'Vete' singer will perform live for the first time ever. Also on his itinerary: Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Poland, Italy and Belgium, all between November 2025–July 2026 so far. His DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS-themed jaunt around the world is named for his latest album, which released in January this year and spent three weeks in a row atop the Billboard 200 chart. The Puerto Rican superstar's global tour will follow his upcoming No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí gigs, a 30-date residency at José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in his homeland, which has sold over 400,000 tickets. Before that, he toured North America in 2024, and both North and Latin America in 2022. His DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS shows will take him to Europe for the first time since his 2019 X 100pre tour. On the charts, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, his sixth album, has kept garnering love — also sitting in the Billboard 200 top ten for 13 weeks, taking the number-one slot on Billboard's Latin Albums chart for 16 consecutive weeks and helping him become the first-ever Latin artist with 100 Billboard Hot 100 entries. Prior to both his No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí residency and DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS world tour, Bad Bunny also has another date with SNL, this time as the musical guest on the season 50 finale that's being hosted by Scarlett Johansson (Fly Me to the Moon). Bad Bunny DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS World Tour 2026 Australian Tour Saturday, February 28–Sunday, March 1 — ENGIE Stadium, Sydney Bad Bunny is playing ENGIE Stadium in Sydney in February and March, 2026. General ticket sales start at from 11am on Friday, May 9, 2025 —head to the tour website for more details.
