So you've experienced another winter, and it's safe to say we're all ready to shed our layers and head outdoors for some quality time in the sun. Instead of sticking to your favourite beach or local park in the warmer days ahead, why not venture a little further afield and explore NSW's countryside? Spanning ocean and desert, NSW boasts an abundance of local food, live music and breath-taking nature to take in. From the lush Hunter Valley vineyards to the dusty flats of Broken Hill, there are festivals and events for every taste. And it's all happening in spring, the season that isn't as hot or busy as summer. Do you need any more convincing? Without some planning, however, your next three months are going to look a little dull. To help you out, we've pulled off our winter mittens for good, and teamed up with Destination NSW to put together a handy list of road trip-worthy events to attend with your entourage, just in time for the sun to reveal its glorious face.
Melbourne temporarily lost a legendary party spot and uni student haunt when the Hawthorn Hotel closed its doors last year. But now, the long-running boozer has been reincarnated by hospitality giant Australian Venue Co (Fargo & Co, The Smith, State of Grace) — and it's reopening on Tuesday, June 22. The Burwood Road pub is sporting a brand-new look after its recent refurb, so expect a slightly different vibe to what you might remember from those second-year uni nights out. The space has been fitted out with a healthy dose of indoor foliage and exposed brick walls, as well as new TV screens — to show sports — and a revamped all-weather beer garden. Dishing up affordable eats, regular specials and a friendly, neighbourhood feel, the Hawthorn's newest incarnation is set to tempt students and regular pub-goers alike. Even its famous Tightarse Tuesdays are making a comeback, offering a budget-friendly serve of late-night entertainment and happy hour drinks each week — although they won't return until Melbourne's current COVID-19 restrictions ease. From the kitchen comes a strong lineup of pub classics — think: fish 'n' chips, a parma, and a beef pie with mushy peas and gravy — along with newer creations like a lamb and cos salad, pan-roasted salmon, and a whole fried chicken served with both piri piri and gravy. There's a handful of burgers — hello, double beef and bacon burger — while snackers will be chuffed by the likes of barbecue chicken nachos, house-made sausage rolls, and a garlic and mozzarella cob loaf. The usual suspects grace the tap-list and the Aussie wine selection, though you might find it hard to pass up the lineup of $15 cocktails. It features sips ranging from a classic negroni and old fashioned to the signature sour cherry gin smash. Kicking off from Monday, June 28, expect a regular program of weekly specials, live tunes, Sunday roasts, daily happy hours and more, too. Find The Hawthorn Hotel at 481 Burwood Road, Hawthorn, from Tuesday, June 22. It's open 12pm–12am Monday, 12pm–1am Tuesday, 12pm–12am Wednesday and Thursday, 12pm–1am Friday and Saturday, and 12–11pm Sunday.
If you've already worked your way through all the jigsaw puzzles, cryptic crosswords and Sudoku you have at home, then get ready for a new kind of problem-solving game. Australia's iconic cultural institution the Sydney Opera House has just launched a virtual escape room, The Trials of Wisdom, which — as the name suggests — is sure to put your brain to the test. Inspired by Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, the online experience is a collaboration between the SOH and Dani Siller of Escape this Podcast — and is unlike the vampire-slaying, tomb-raiding and treasure-hunting escape rooms you're used to. Instead of being immersed in a world unknown, you'll be entering a place people frequent all the time: the Opera House. Yep, you'll be locked inside the Sydney Opera House overnight — virtually, of course — and you'll have to use some serious brain power to get out. You'll be navigating your way through backstage and off-limit areas of the Opera House, such as the orchestra pit, props room, theatre and costume department. On your journey, you'll be hunting for four clues, from decoding ballerinas' dance positions and unscrambling the ramblings of an orchestra player. Ultimately, the aim is to get out, naturally, so you'll need some lateral thinking up your sleeve, plus a little music knowledge wouldn't go astray. To check out The Trials of Wisdom, head to the Sydney Opera House website. Top image: Hamilton Lund
Cosying up next to your date on a horse-drawn carriage ride through the snow may be Hollywood's answer to a date in winter, but, in Victoria, plenty of romantic adventures in the chilly weather abound. Just an hour's drive from Melbourne, the Mornington Peninsula has plenty of wintry date activities that trump anything on the flicks. You and your person can go truffle hunting, walk along a sculpture trail or eat some hearty dishes made from fresh, seasonal produce while you sip on cool-climate vinos — there's something for all the couples out there. We've put together a list of out-of-town date ideas to help you woo your significant other. So, turn Netflix off, put on a big coat and grab your date by the hand for an adventure down south. [caption id="attachment_699976" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Pt. Leo Estate[/caption] FOR ART LOVERS Wow your date by eyeballing some art at Mornington Peninsula's most impressive galleries and sculpture gardens. Start off at Pt. Leo Estate, where a mammoth cellar door is paired with a restaurant boasting seasonal produce. The estate's rolling vineyards overlook the ocean, plus there's a sprawling sculpture park, featuring 50 large-scale works, with panoramic Western Port Bay views. After you scope out the sculptures, you can have a cosy lunch at the restaurant, which champions seasonal produce. In winter, expect wallaby pies, wood-roasted snapper and quality local proteins like lamb and beef, cooked in a central woodfired oven. Then, head to Montalto for an afternoon tipple in the vineyard's cellar door before strolling hand-in-hand through the Sculpture Trail — a one-kilometre outdoor gallery of over 30 works. Alternatively, escape the winter chill and head indoors at one of Australia's top regional galleries, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery. Here, you will see artworks by both local and international artists. Plus, the gallery hosts both traditional and contemporary works in a variety of mediums — so there's something for every art aficionado. [caption id="attachment_705358" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Red Gum BBQ[/caption] FOR EPICURES For a heartwarming feed, head to Red Gum BBQ, which cooks up local meats barbecued over local wood. Share a plate of beef brisket with potato salad or the slightly spicy, slightly sweet pulled pork with mac 'n' cheese. You'll probably need a caffeine hit while exploring the region with your partner, too. So, stop off at Merricks General Wine Store's cafe to escape the winter air, with a hot mug of coffee and a sweet treat. If you're after something a little more substantial, the space also offers a hearty bistro menu and sells hampers of homemade goodies, too. You can also get your hands dirty on a truffle hunting tour with MP Experience at Red Hill. After digging in the dirt, you'll finish with your choice of a cooking class or a five-course truffle degustation — both equally romantic. And, while you're in the area, it would be remiss not to stop into Green Olive at Red Hill, where you can wander through the farm, snack on tapas at the restaurant and sip wine from the cellar. Cooking classes are also on offer at Green Olive, plus you can even have a cosy overnight stay in its tranquil farmhouse. [caption id="attachment_725741" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Crittenden Estate[/caption] FOR LOVERS OF A GOOD DROP We all know nothing complements a winter date better than a nice glass of red, which is why taking a DIY tour of the region's wineries is a must. Kick things off at Montalto — an award-winning vineyard known for its pinot noir (in a region known for its pinot). You can warm up by pairing your glass with dry-aged duck with burnt onion and quince or the sirloin with oyster cream and wasabi greens, which have been cooked over an asado grill. if it's a sunny winter's day, head to Polperro next and stay nice and toasty next to a heater on the restaurant's expansive outdoor deck. Next up is Port Phillip Estate, where you can drink wines made with minimal intervention. Marked by its sculptural limestone building, Port Phillip has sweeping views across its vineyards and the ocean and houses a cellar door, fine-dining room, a more casual eatery and luxury accommodation. Then, push on to Crittenden Estate, where you and your partner in crime can sip on Spanish, Italian and French varieties as well as the estate's foundation range of pinots and chardonnays and its few vegan vinos. Or, drop into Rare Hare and sit by the indoor central fireplace. If you're more of a craft beer lover or after some good ol' fashioned firewater to warm you up, then follow the Beer, Cider and Spirits Trail. Stop into Mock Red Hill Cider before making your way to some of the region's best microbreweries — Twobays Brewing Co, St Andrews Beach Brewery and Red Hill Brewery, to name a few. Make your own gin at Bass and Flinders Distillery, then sip on some single malt whisky at Chiefs Son Distillery before rounding things off with some rum at JimmyRum. [caption id="attachment_726805" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Peninsula Hot Springs[/caption] FOR THE INTREPID Just because it's winter, it doesn't mean all your one-on-one time needs to be spent rugged up indoors. With such invigorating scenery and rugged coastline, the Mornington Peninsula has plenty of sights that'll make you want to embrace the crisp winter air. If you're after some R&R, head to Victoria's Peninsula Hot Springs. Here, you can relax in the warm spring pools and get cosy with your date while still taking in the crisp winter air. If you'd rather stay dry, take a scenic horse ride. Don't worry if you are a bit of a novice — there are trails suitable for all so you can romantically ride side-by-side from the bush to the beach. Alternatively, get walking. Take in ocean views and gaze at basalt cliffs as you stroll along the two-hour Cape Schanck to Bushrangers Bay Track or hike the 26-kilometre Two Bays Walking Track which takes you onto Kings Falls. For views across Port Phillip Bay, amble along the Arthurs Seat Circuit Walk, which is a leisurely 1.8-kilometre loop. [caption id="attachment_725555" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ashcombe Maze[/caption] FOR THE KIDULTS For the couples young at heart, brave the outdoors together and head to Ashcombe Maze. You can get lost in the hedge maze, which will be flowering with hellebores (winter rose), camellias and rhododendrons at this time of year. If you're more of a thrill-seeking duo, take your date to greater heights and go Tree Surfing at Enchanted Adventure Garden. Here, your hearts will race with adrenaline levels as you clamber along the obstacle course through the trees — nothing says bonding like seeing each other's faces as you take a leap of faith, 12 metres up on a glorified Tarzan swing. For more wintry places, spaces and events in regional Victoria, visit Your Happy Space. Top image: The Peninsula Hot Springs.
In April, Australia scored a promise of international hotel luxury, when global chain Waldorf Astoria announced plans to open its first Aussie outpost in Sydney in 2025. Then, we learned famed Marriott-owned hotel brand the Ritz-Carlton is set to open a sprawling property on the Gold Coast by 2026. But before that all comes to pass, it's Melbourne's turn for a slice of the action, with the Ritz-Carlton also gearing up to launch in the Victorian capital in March 2023. Perhaps best known for its iconic Manhattan hotel that overlooks Central Park and has starred numerous times on the big screen, the Ritz-Carlton will now be making its home on Lonsdale Street. And it's on track to be Australia's tallest hotel, soaring high at an ear-popping 80 storeys, with 257 guest rooms and suites. [caption id="attachment_881631" align="alignnone" width="1920"] By Gabriel Saunders[/caption] The hotel itself will have all the high-end trimmings you could imagine, including marble bathrooms, custom-made leather and velvet furniture, and a heated indoor infinity pool with views across the city. The glam lobby is perched all the way up on that 80th floor, too. It's also set to deliver some primo food and drink offerings, if the newly-appointed culinary team is anything to go by. Taking the reins as Executive Chef is the renowned Michael Greenlaw, who counts stints at London's Bibendum, Gilt in New York and Vue de Monde on his star-studded resume. Backing him in the role of Culinary Advisor is Aussie food legend, and the celebrated chef behind classics like Peninsula Bistro and Marque, Mark Best. The Ritz-Carlton Melbourne's upscale dining offering will include a restaurant perched high up on the 80th floor, open to both hotel guests and visitors. [caption id="attachment_881634" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Best and Greenlaw[/caption] Find the Ritz-Carlton Melbourne at 650 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, from March 2023. We'll share more details as they drop.
Every year, when spring hits Toowoomba, the regional city becomes the brightest place in southeast Queensland. Blooms blossom, greenery sprouts and flora reaches towards the sun — that's right, it's Carnival of Flowers time. Usually, the carnival only runs for ten days. In 2021, however, it's sticking around for an entire month. Accordingly, mark all of September in your diary — from Wednesday, September 1–Thursday, September 30 — and start planning a weekend trip west for the event's 72nd year. As always, the Carnival of Flowers will bloom at a variety of Toowoomba locations — including Laurel Bank Park and the Botanic Gardens of Queens Park — showcasing all of the gorgeous florets, growths and gardens around town. Each year, more than 170,000 blossoming bulbs and seedlings are planted, so this huge (and free) carnival won't be short on natural splendour. Attendees can also expect everything from park tours to kaleidoscopic arrays of tulips, petunias and poppies. Food trucks slinging bites to eat, a food trail showcasing local eateries and a ferris wheel with a blooming great view are also on the bill, as are a series of talks in local pubs, a dog-friendly program so that your pooch can get in on the action, both guided and non-guided walking tours, a big food and wine festival, a cinema under the stars and a floral parade. And, yes, the illuminated night garden will return as well. If you're keen to check out live tunes in flower-filled parks, the lineup for this year's ticketed Festival of Food and Wine within the broader carnival includes Sarah Blasko, Ash Grunwald, The Beautiful Girls, Grace Knight, Wendy Matthews, Richard Clapton and GANGgajang. They'll be hitting the stage between Friday, September 10–Sunday, September 11. Basically, there's no bad time to visit — and you might want to make the trek more than once. Indeed, when it comes to scenic spring sights, there's no prettier place to be. And, given it takes less than two hours to head up the mountain from Brisbane, it's perfect for a weekend day trip. Make a playlist, take a picnic and there's your Saturday or Sunday sorted. Naturally, the event will be adhering to COVID-19 requirements — so expect some social distancing with your bouquets. Image: Tourism and Events Queensland Updated June 1.
It's been a big year for Melbourne’s Teeth & Tongue, and thankfully for us it's not quite over yet. Instigator Jess Cornelius and her collaborators Marc Regueiro-McKelvie, Damian Sullivan, James Harvey and Jade McInally have enjoyed wide critical acclaim for their latest record Grids, including a few nominations for this year's The Age Music Victoria Awards. In this year alone they've embarked on three national tours and they're also heading to the supernatural amphitheater for Meredith Music Festival in December. But, before they do any of that, they're dropping in to the Shadow Electric to play to a home crowd. The alternative pop group will be playing a mix of their latest tunes as well as work from previous albums. Teeth & Tongue will be joined by Kangaroo Skull, The Ancients, Time For Dreams and projection artist Keith Deverell. Thankfully, this is something we can get used to. The Shadow Electric bandroom is now open all year long for killer local sets like this.
The iconic Healesville Hotel has been the beating heart of Healesville for over 130 years. This winter, it's finally reopening its doors following a massive renovation. The new owners are the same crew behind Armadale's Orrong Hotel: publicans Matt Vero (Marquis of Lorne, Union House, Mt Erica Hotel) and Scott Connolly (Moore St Tavern). That should give you an idea of the quality we can expect from the new venue. The pair both spent time in the Yarra Valley region throughout their childhoods and fell in love with the pub ages ago. So, when the call went out for new ownership, they jumped at the chance. "Scott and I were really excited at the opportunity to take on another historic icon and restore it to its former glory for all to enjoy. The ethos behind the interior design was to reimagine the Healesville Hotel; to honour its beautiful bones from its past, and restore a sense of nostalgia through the interiors. It is something we are very much looking forward to," says Vero. The hotel will keep its original public bar, bistro and beer garden setup – but the menu will be given a serious revamp, with interiors and exteriors getting the usual 'preserve-heritage-meets-gastro-pub' treatment. Vero and Connolly are presumably hoping this place can rival other Yarra Valley heavy hitters like Four Pillars and Innocent Bystander. And with their experience and pedigree, we wouldn't bet against it. We'll keep you updated on this one as details emerge. Accommodation is currently operating as per usual, but the pub itself should be open in mid-July, so watch this space. Images: supplied.
An upcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria will bring together the realms of high fashion and high art. Celebrating the extraordinary work of Dutch designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, Viktor&Rolf: Fashion Artists will showcase some of the luxury fashion house's most iconic haute couture pieces, as it celebrates one of the most remarkable partnerships in the world of modern fashion. Running from October 21 through to February 26, 2017, the world-first exhibition has been developed by the NGV in partnership with Viktor&Rolf, under the curatorship of international guest curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot. In addition to the more than 35 original items, the exhibition will also feature the duo's upcoming work Dolls, a collection of antique dolls dressed in some of the pair's most memorable designs. "We are extremely excited to be working in collaboration with the National Gallery of Victoria on this exhibition and highlighting the craftsmanship involved in creating our wearable art," said Horsting and Snoeren in a joint statement. "It is an honour for us to bring our designs to the Southern Hemisphere." Collaborating for the first time in 1992, Horsting and Snoeren have long been renowned for their boundary pushing designs and experimental runway shows. Perhaps their most memorable showing was in 2003, when they teamed up with actress Tilda Swinton (of course) along with an army of Tilda lookalikes for their One Woman Show autumn/winter collection.
Not too long ago the only place to eat at Flinders Street Station was Lord of the Fries. Then Arbory opened right next to platform 13 and made killing time while waiting for the train not a horrible proposition. And now the station has scored another actually good food offering — and it's located in the Swanston Street-facing Clocks space. If you're familiar with Clocks then you're probably thinking RSL vibes and pokies noises right about now. But, after a renovation that took nine months and $3 million, the place is looking pretty different. Unfortunately the pokies are still out the back as the venue is still owned by Doxa Social Club, but the bistro has been replaced with Green Light Diner, an American-themed joint run by Steve Schreuder and Darran Smith (the ex-owner of Carlton's Roving Marrow). The duo took inspiration from the late-night diners of Los Angeles and have created their own day-to-night venue with all-day breakfast and a 1am license on weekends. The impressive fit-out has been designed by Studio Nine Architects, and looks like Edward Hopper's Nighthawks come to life. Think marble counter tops, leather booth seating and brass and copper fixtures, along with restoration of the building's original windows that haven't been used in decades. "The interior has a 1920s train station feel, like Grand Central in New York," says Smith. It certainly has an old-world vibe, one that works particularly well within the setting of the historic station, which was built in 1909. "[The clientele] is really a cross section of people who come through the station, from old locals who came in before the renovation to business folks and tourists" says Smith. Smith took inspiration from LA diners and their "brekkie sandwiches that you can eat all-day or late at night", as well as the salt beef bagels from Brick Lane in London. The breakfast menu is egg-centric, and accompanied by pub staples like porterhouse steaks, pork schnittys (with a fried egg if you so fancy) and parmas. For drinks, it'll start slinging pre-batched cocktails in the coming weeks, including negronis, espresso martinis and cosmos. The transformation isn't done yet, either, with a late-night whisky bar also in the works. Miss Guns will be located downstairs and is slated to be completed by the end of the year. This June, Green Light will also roll out monthly after-midnight feasts for hospitality folk, which will run on Sunday nights from midnight till 3am. "It's a chance to get people in the hospo industries together at the end of their work week for some networking, music and good food," says Smith. "There will be guest chefs each month, along with a few seats reserved for non-hospo people to come along and see what we get up to."
In 2022, Melbourne Exhibition Centre is set to be overrun with pooches of every shape and size. Heading by for cute canine cuddles, the Melbourne Dog Lovers Show usually welcomes more than 200 exhibitors and upwards of 30,000 visitors. Whether you're in the market for a new family pet or are just looking to spend a day in the most adorable way possible, you won't find a better event in Melbourne. Obviously, cat people need not apply. Taking place between Friday, October 14–Sunday, October 16, this year's show includes a number of special events for guests on two legs and four. There'll also be a doggy pool show, a parade of famous Instagram puppers, and a paws and prosecco bar, while celebrity vets will run seminars on canine health. Several of Victoria's dog shelters will also be there, with no shortage of rescued animals looking for permanent homes. Oh, and in case that doesn't make your heart melt, they've also got a dedicated puppy patting zone. A note: while the Dog Lovers Show is all about dogs and features dogs, it isn't for dogs to attend — so you'll need to leave your own pooch at home.
If a comet was hurtling towards earth on a collision course that'd wipe out all life as we currently know it, you'd think that humanity would react — and fast. But in the trailer for Netflix's new disaster comedy Don't Look Up, only two people really care: astronomy professor Dr Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and his grad student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence, X-Men: Dark Phoenix). To everyone else, the impending end of the world isn't really something to worry about. The President (Meryl Streep, The Prom) and her son and Chief of Staff (Jonah Hill, The Beach Bum) barely seem to mind, the media definitely doesn't, and neither does the general public. Instead, Kate goes viral for screaming about the apocalypse as she and Randall embark on a media tour to try to convince the planet that being obliterated — in less than six months, and by a Mount Everest-sized comet that's orbiting our solar system — really is kind of a big deal. Forget Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck endeavouring to save the world from an asteroid, because that's so 1998. The former "king of the world" and Katniss Everdeen teaming up to stop a comet from eradicating earth is the firmly 2021 version. And, after first being announced at the beginning of the year — as part of Netflix's lengthy list of new flicks heading its way before 2022 hits — and then dropping a teaser trailer back in September, Don't Look Up now has a full trailer so you can catch a glimpse of how that'll all play out. The film thankfully isn't a sequel to the aforementioned Armageddon. Instead, it's the latest movie from The Big Short and Vice director Adam McKay — and it's set to hit both cinemas and the streaming platform in December. As well as its two high-profile leads, Don't Look Up also stars basically every other actor you can think of, including Timothée Chalamet (Little Women), Cate Blanchett (Where'd You Go, Bernadette), Mark Rylance (The Trial of the Chicago 7), Tyler Perry (Those Who Wish Me Dead), Ron Perlman (Monster Hunter), Himesh Patel (Tenet), Melanie Lynskey (Mrs America), Kid Cudi (Bill & Ted Face the Music) and Ariana Grande. The film will hit Netflix just in time for your Christmas break, dropping on Friday, December 24. It'll also screen in some cinemas from Thursday, December 9, if you'd like to see it on the big screen. And if you're wondering how Don't Look Up will fare tonally, McKay looks like he's in The Big Short and Succession mode, rather than harking back to his Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers days. That said, Blanchett does play a TV host, so maybe the filmmaker will have audiences thinking about Anchorman as well. Check out the full trailer for Don't Look Up below: Don't Look Up will be release in select Australian cinemas on Thursday, December 9, and will be available to stream via Netflix on Friday, December 24. Images: Nico Tavernise/Netflix.
It's stretchy pants time, Melburnians — trust us, you're going to need them. You'll want to be comfortable as possible when you're sitting down for an unlimited feed of pizza and beer on a Thursday evening. That's the $35 deal Pizza E Birra is now serving from 6pm each week, and yes, your slices and sips won't come to an end during a two-hour period. Fifteen different woodfired pizzas are on offer, so you can try every one on the menu as long as your stomach can handle it — all paired with Italian brews that'll just keep on coming. It won't come as a surprise that this free-for-all has a few conditions, with the most important being that everyone in your group has to take part. Only two pizzas will be brought to the table at any one time, and the beer comes in jugs. But, if you're not up for the alcohol, you can still devour as much 'za as you like for $20.
If you're the kind of person who picks their getaway spots based on great travel prices, then we come bearing important news: you're going to Australia's Red Centre. That's a worthy holiday destination regardless of whether or not you can nab a deal, but Webjet's current flight sale is likely to get you packing your bags ASAP. Until 11.59pm AEST on Thursday, August 18, the travel site is slinging one-way flights to the Northern Territory from just $15 one-way — at a discount of up to $200 off in total on some fares. Of course, that first figure is just the starting point, so you mightn't score such a cheap flight depending on which day you're planning to travel, but there are still some mighty cheap prices available. The sale covers trips to Uluru and Alice Springs, for travel between September 2022 — yes, next month — through to March 2023. Fancy a spring jaunt to the middle of the country? Making summer plans to help cope with the last of the winter chill? Know that you'll be craving an early-autumn break next year? They're all options. One key caveat: the discounted prices are available for inbound flights only, so you won't receive the same discount to come home. [caption id="attachment_773731" align="alignnone" width="1920"] NT by Tourism Australia[/caption] As always, the prices vary depending on where you're leaving from, too — but, at the time of writing, $16 tickets from Sydney to Uluru, $15 from Melbourne and $17 from Brisbane are available on select dates. A variety of airlines are covered, too. Wondering what to do once you get there? Uluru's incredible Field of Light installation is a permanent recommendation — and you can also check out our guide to visiting the Red Centre. [caption id="attachment_773730" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Field of Light by Tourism Australia[/caption] Webjet's Red Centre sale runs until 11.59pm AEST on Thursday, August 18.
Your dream plans for 2025 can now include jetting off to Japan, Hawaii, Bali, South Korea, Thailand, Vanuatu, Singapore and New Zealand, then flying home for free — or, holidaying in Australia while scoring the same deal for getaways to Hamilton Island, Uluru, Cairns, the Gold Coast, Byron Bay and more. For Black Friday 2024, Jetstar has brought back its popular 'return for free' sale. You buy a ticket to your vacation destination, then the carrier covers the cost of you coming home. This time around, in this year's biggest 'return for free' sale, the airline is doing discounted flights across Australia and to a range of international destinations, including to Tokyo, Osaka, Honolulu, Bangkok, Phuket, Seoul, Auckland and Queenstown. Wherever you'd like to head, the key part of this sale is making your way back without paying for the return flight, which'll also make your holiday oh-so-much cheaper. Running from 12am AEDT on Friday, November 29 1–11.59pm AEDT on Sunday, December 1, or until sold out if that happens earlier — with Jetstar members getting an extra 12 hours to access the sale from 12pm AEDT on Thursday, November 28 — it really is as straightforward as it sounds. Whatever flights you opt for as part of the sale, you'll get the return fare for nothing. Prices obviously vary depending on where you're flying from and to, but some include Brisbane to Tokyo from $373, Sydney to Osaka from the same price, Melbourne to Bali from $219, Perth to Singapore from $165, Sydney to Port Vila from $209, Melbourne to Honolulu from $316 and Sydney to Seoul from $349. Domestic fares span deals such as Sydney to Ballina/Byron from $42, Sydney to Melbourne from $51, Melbourne to Hobart from $67, Sydney to Hamilton Island from $109, Melbourne to Uluru from $115 and Perth to Cairns from $189, You'll be travelling within Australia from mid-July to late October 2025, and from mid-February to mid-September 2025 if you're going global. The caveats that are always in place with Jetstar's 'return for free' deal remain this around. So, you need to book an outbound fare, then you'll get the return fare for free — and the deal only applies to Starter fares, and only on selected flights. Also, checked baggage is not included, so you'll want to travel super light or pay extra to take a suitcase. Plus, you have to use the same arrival and departure ports for your flights — which means that you can go from Brisbane to Tokyo and back, for instance, but can't return via another place or to another city. Jetstar's 2024 Black Friday 'return for free' sale runs from 12am AEDT on Friday, November 29–11.59pm AEDT Sunday, December 1 — or until sold out prior. Jetstar members get an extra 12 hours access to the sale from 12pm AEDT on Thursday, November 28. Feeling inspired to book a getaway? You can now book your next dream holiday through Concrete Playground Trips with deals on flights, stays and experiences at destinations all around the world.
Abbotsford is a little pocket of awesome sometimes and, with the arrival of Admiral Cheng Ho, it just got that little bit better. For those playing at home, Admiral Cheng Ho was an explorer during the Ming Dynasty who, under instruction from the Emperor of China, embarked on naval expeditions where he offered new lands gifts. These gifts were often some of China's finest teas. See the clever connection? While Abbotsford's Admiral doesn't do all that much exploring, he does have some fine teas — and coffee blends, for that matter. From the people behind Monk Bodhi Dharma in Balaclava — owner Marwin Shaw, to be exact — Admiral Cheng Ho serves up fair-trade teas and single estate coffee with an overwhelming six grinders filled with their own single origin coffee beans. Order what you drink, and they will happily pick the roast for you. The menu is similar to that found at Monk, with a few of their signature dishes thrown in there amongst the consistent theme of food that is both health and allergy conscious, whilst still being damn tasty. Virtuous and delicious. We're sold. For something vegan, gluten free and raw, try the Cheng's Granola topped with seasonal fruit and house made organic hazelnut milk ($14.50), or the Banoffee Pie, a mix of banana cream, Ethiopian Nekisse coffee mousse served with marinated banana, macadamia nut crumble and raw white chocolate ($14.50). How they make these creations, we are none the wiser, but colour us impressed. For those who like their breakfasts cooked and hot, the Avoca Ho of avocado tossed with feta, mint and lemon served on sourdough ($15.50) rivals some of Melbourne's best, while The Admiral — zucchini fritters served on sauteed kale, seasonal vegetables, tangy beetroot relish, basil cashew cream and local fennel ($18.50) — is a crowd favourite. The pancakes are also gathering a cult following. The Northside Quinoa Pancakes are served up with candied orange, coffee soil, raw vanilla cream and butterscotch sauce ($18.50). Is it possible to fan girl a dish? This is a go now and go often situation folks. We're serious.
The only show at the Melbourne Cabaret Festival where the crayons are provided, The Naked Truth is part cabaret, part art class. Armed with her ukulele, life drawing model Taryn Ryan recounts the pitfalls of her chosen profession, from cramps to crying to accidentally passing wind. Between stories, audience members are encouraged to try a little sketching, and may even get the chance to join Ryan on stage. Oh, and while it should probably go without saying, the show contains nudity — so consider yourself forewarned.
2012 was a year of some serious ups and downs in the plight of the English language. The concept of 'literature' took a serious blow thanks to the likes of E.L. James and the growth of what has been aptly described as "mummy porn". The astronomical success of the Fifty Shades Of Grey trilogy has meant that such terrifying turns of phrase as "he's my very own Christian Grey-flavoured popsicle" was read by over 60 million people worldwide in 2012. Yet it wasn't all bad news for literary-lovers. Two-time Man Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel continued to make the well-worn story of Henry VIII eminently readable and enthralling, publishing a sequel to the universally acclaimed Renaissance thriller Wolf Hall. While such highly esteemed sources as The New York Times and The Guardian have had their say on what they saw as the best books of 2012, the Goodreads Choice Awards offers readers the closest thing the literary world has to a People's Choice Award. A phenomenal 1,156,852 votes were cast in over 20 different categories ranging from Fiction to Romance to Memoir to Cookbook, and without the discerning and supercilious eye of critics to dilute the vote, many of the year's most commercially successful books were also unsurprisingly amongst the biggest winners. The Goodreads' unofficial 'Book of the Year' award for best work of fiction went this year to a woman who is no stranger to literary success: J.K. Rowling. For those of us who grew up cheering on the adventures of Harry Potter and his motley crew of magical pals, the publishing of Rowling's first adult novel The Casual Vacancy is perhaps the clearest proof that Gen Y'ers are now all grown-up. So if you are in search of a little summer reading or you want to see if your vote counted have a look at the complete list of categories and winners below. You can also check out Concrete Playground's Summer Reading Guide for our picks. Fiction The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling Mystery and Thriller Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Historical Fiction The Line Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman Fantasy The Wind Through The Keyhole by Stephen King Paranormal Fantasy Shadow Of Night by Deborah Harkness Science Fiction The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett Romance Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James Horror The Twelve by Justin Cronin Memoir & Autobiography Wild: From Lost To Found On The Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed History & Biography Elizabeth The Queen: The Life Of A Modern Monarch by Sally Bedell Smith Nonfiction Quiet: The Power Of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain Food & Cookbooks The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes From An Accidental Country Girl by Ree Drummond Humor Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir by Jenny Lawson Graphic Novel & Comic The Walking Dead, Vol 16: A Larger World by Robert Kirkman, Illustrated by Charlie Adlard Poetry A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver Goodreads Author Veronica Roth Young Adult Fiction The Fault In Our Stars by John Green Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction Insurgent by Veronica Roth Middle Grade & Children's The Mark Of Athena by Rick Riordan Picture Books Olivia and the Fairy Princesses by Ian Falconer
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas in some parts of the country. After numerous periods spent empty during the pandemic, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, picture palaces in many Australian regions are back in business — including both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. SPENCER With two-plus decades as an actor to her name, Kristen Stewart hasn't spent her career as a candle in the wind. Her flame has both blazed and flickered since her first uncredited big-screen role in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas but, by Elton John's definition, she's always known where to cling to. After jumping from child star to Twilight heroine and then one of the savviest talents of her generation, she's gleaned where to let her haunting gaze stare so piercingly that it lights up celluloid again and again, too. Spencer joins Stewart's resume after weighty parts in Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper, Certain Women and Seberg, and has her do something she's long done magnificently: let a world of pain and uncertainty seep quietly from her entire being. The new regal drama should do just that, of course, given its subject — but saying that director Pablo Larraín has cast his Diana well, pitch-perfect head tilt and all, is a royal understatement. Larraín also trusts himself well, making the kind of movie he's made three times now — not that Jackie, Ema and Spencer are carbon copies — and knowing that he does it phenomenally. Both essaying real-life figures and imagining fictional characters, the Chilean filmmaker keeps being drawn to tales about formidable women. His eponymous ladies could all be called strong female leads, but Larraín's features unpack what strength really means in various lights. Like her predecessors in the director's filmography, Diana faces searing traumas, plus ordinary and extraordinary struggles. She scorches away tradition, and values letting her own bulb shine bright over being stuck in others' shadows. Viewers know how this story will end, though, not that Spencer covers it, and Larraín is just as exceptional at showing how Diana's candle started to burn out. The year is 1991, the time is Christmas and the place is the Queen's (Stella Gonet, Breeders) Sandringham Estate, where the Windsors converge for the holidays (yes, Spencer is now prime seasonal viewing). As scripted by Peaky Blinders and Locked Down's Steven Knight, the choice of period puts Diana in one of the most precarious situations of her then decade-long married life, with her nuptials to Prince Charles (Jack Farthing, The Lost Daughter) turning into an "amicable separation" within 12 months. Spencer's focus is on three days, not all that defined the People's Princess' existence before or after, but she can't stop contemplating her past and future. The Sandringham grounds include the house where Diana was born, and those happier recollections — and time spent now with her children (debutants Jack Nielen and Freddie Spry) — give her a glow. Alas, all the monarchical scrutiny simmers her joy to ashes, unsurprisingly. Larraín is one of today's great detail-oriented filmmakers, a fact that glimmers in his approach to Spencer — and did in Jackie, too. Both character studies let snapshots speak volumes about broader lives and the bigger narratives around them, including when poised as "a fable from a true tragedy" as the title card notes here. 'Poised' is one word for this fictionalised imagining of real events, which builds its dramas in an immaculate chamber, lets heated emotions bounce around as it tears into privilege and power, and allows audiences to extrapolate from the meticulous minutiae. Specific tidbits are oh-so-telling, such as the demand that Sandringham's guests hit the scales upon arrival and leaving, their weight gains deemed a sign of how much they enjoyed themselves. Bolder flourishes are just as exacting, like the way the place is lensed to make the Princess of Wales resemble a doll being toyed with in a playhouse, as well as a Jack Torrance substitute trapped in her own Overlook Hotel The Shining-style. Read our full review. NIGHTMARE ALLEY Don't mistake the blaze that starts Nightmare Alley for warmth; in his 11th film, Guillermo del Toro gets chillier than he ever has. A lover of gothic tales told with empathy and curiosity, the Mexican filmmaker has always understood that escapism and agony go hand in hand — in life, and in his fantastical movies — and here, in a carnival noir that springs from William Lindsay Gresham's 1946 novel and previously reached cinemas in 1947, he runs headfirst into cold, unrelenting darkness. As The Shape of Water movingly demonstrated to Best Picture and Best Director Oscar wins, no one seeks emotional and mental refuge purely for the sake it. They flee from something, and del Toro's life's work has spotted that distress clearly from his first dalliance with the undead in his 1993 debut Cronos. The Divinyls were right: there is indeed a fine line between pleasure and pain, which del Toro keeps surveying; however, Nightmare Alley tells of trying to snatch glimpses of empty happiness amid rampant desolation. That burning house, once home to the skulking Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper, Licorice Pizza), is surrounded by America's stark midwestern landscape circa 1939. Still, the terrain of its now-former occupant's insides is even grimmer, as Nightmare Alley's opening image of Stan dropping a body into a hole in the abode's floor, then striking a match, shows. From there, he descends into the carny world after hopping on a bus with only a bag and a radio, alighting at the end of the line and finding a travelling fair at this feet. Given a job by barker Clem Hoatley (Willem Dafoe, Spider-Man: No Way Home), he gets by doing whatever's asked, including helping clean up after the geek act — although, even with his ambiguities evident from the outset, stomaching a cage-dwelling man biting the heads off live chickens to entertain braying crowds isn't initially easy. While set in an already-despondent US where the Depression is only just waning, the shadows of the First World War linger and more are soon to fall via World War II, Nightmare Alley still gives Stan flickers of hope. Adapted from the novel by del Toro with feature debutant Kim Morgan, the movie doesn't ever promise light or virtue, but kindness repeatedly comes its protagonist's way in its first half. In fortune-teller Zeena the Seer (Toni Collette, Dream Horse) and her oft-sauced husband and assistant Pete (David Strathairn, Nomadland), Stan gains friends and mentors. He takes to mentalism like he was born to it, and his gift for manipulating audiences — and his eagerness to keep pushing the spiritualism further — is firmly a sign. Soon, it's 1941 and he's rebadged himself as 'The Great Stanton' in city clubs, claiming to speak to the dead in the pursuit of bigger paydays, with fellow ex-carny Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara, Mary Magdalene) as his romantic and professional partner beyond the dustbowl. The tone may be blacker than del Toro's usual mode — positively pitch-black in the feature's unforgettable ending, in fact — but Stan is just doing what the director's main characters tend to: trying to find his own place as he runs from all that haunts him. "My whole life, I been lookin', lookin' for somethin' I'm good at — an' I think I found it," he says, his elation palpable. Although his first altercation with Dr Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett, Don't Look Up) starts with a public scene at one of his swanky gigs, he's equally as thrilled that his crowd-pleasing act attracts her attention, and by the psychologist's suggestion that they team up on wealthy mark Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins, Kajillionaire). But here's the thing about being a grifter, even one who was so recently a drifter: if you're fleecing someone, you're likely being fleeced back in turn. Read our full review. BELLE When Beauty and the Beast typically graces the screen, it doesn't involve a rose-haired singer decked out in a matching flowing dress while singing heart-melting tunes atop a floating skywhale mounted with speakers. It doesn't dance into the metaverse, either. Anime-meets-Patricia Piccinini-meets-cyberspace in Belle, and previous filmed versions of the famed French fairytale must now wish that they could've been so inventive. Disney's animated and live-action duo, aka the 1991 musical hit that's been a guest of childhood viewing ever since and its 2017 Emma Watson-starring remake, didn't even fantasise about dreaming about being so imaginative — but Japanese writer/director Mamoru Hosoda also eagerly takes their lead. His movie about a long-locked social-media princess with a heart of gold and a hulking creature decried by the masses based on appearances is firmly a film for now, but it's also a tale as old as time and one unafraid to build upon the Mouse House's iterations. At first, there is no Belle. Instead, Hosoda's feature has rural high-schooler Suzu (debutant Kaho Nakamura) call her avatar Bell because that's what her name means in Japanese. That online character lives in a virtual-reality world that uses body-sharing technology to base its figures on the real-life people behind them, but Suzu is shy and accustomed to being ignored by her classmates — other than her only pal Hiroka (Lilas Ikuta of music duo Yoasobi) — so she also uploads a photo of the far-more-popular Ruka (Tina Tamashiro, Hell Girl). The social-media platform's biometrics still seize upon Suzu's own melodic singing voice, however. And so, in a space that opines in its slogan that "you can't start over in reality, but you can start over in U", she croons. Quickly, she amasses an audience among the service's five-billion users, but then one of her performances is interrupted by the brooding Dragon (Takeru Satoh, the Rurouni Kenshin films), and her fans then point digital pitchforks in his direction. Those legions of interested online parties don't simplistically offer unwavering support, though. Among Belle's many observations on digital life, the fact that living lives on the internet is a double-edged sword — wielding both opportunities to connect and excuses to unleash vitriol, the latter in particular when compared to the physical experience — more than earns its attention. That said, all those devotees of Suzu's singing do rechristen her avatar as Belle, and she starts living up to that fairytale moniker by becoming fascinated with the movie's Beast equivalent. He's mysterious to the point that no one in U or IRL has been able to discern who he really is, but the platform's self-appointed pseudo-police force is desperately trying. Suzu is also mortified about the possibility of anyone discovering that she's Belle, although she's drawn to Dragon because she can sense his pain. Hosoda has repeatedly proven an inspired filmmaker visually — one just as creative with his stories and storytelling alike, too — and Belle is no exception on his resume. After the likes of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, Wolf Children and Mirai, he's in especially dazzling form in a movie that wields its images in two distinctive modes. In U, Belle is an epic onslaught for the eyes, its animation lively, busy and hyper-real in a way that cannily mirrors the feeling of wading through always-on online realms. This is where that whale swims through the air, concerts are held in what appears to be a hollow planet and Disney-style castles turn gothic. When it's in Suzu's reality, the film opts for naturalistic tones in a look that notices the everyday beauty in the flesh-and-blood world, even amid daily routines in fading small towns filled with average teens and their families. Hosoda revels in the contrast between the two, in fact, because that clash constantly sits at the film's core. Read our full review. ONE SECOND Any new film by Zhang Yimou deserves eyeballs the world over, but One Second, the Raise the Red Lantern, Hero and House of Flying Daggers director's latest, hasn't charted the smoothest route to screens. Pre-dating the filmmaker's Cliff Walkers, which reached Australian cinemas in 2021, it was originally scheduled to show at the 2019 Berlinale. But after the festival began, it was removed from the lineup — and while a "technical problem" was cited as the official reason, Chinese censorship was floated as the real cause. One Second eventually surfaced on home soil late in 2020, and elsewhere around the globe in the last few months of 2021. It's now an immensely timely movie, although purely by coincidence. Every great feature by a great director inherently pays tribute to the medium of film, so that's hardly new for Zhang — but celebrating the silver screen, and the pandemic-relevant yearning to bask in its glory when life conspires to get in the way, isn't just a side effect here. It's 1975 when One Second begins, and crowds are flocking to makeshift small-town picture palaces to see propaganda films. The specific movie drawing in the masses: 1964's Heroic Sons and Daughters, which prison-camp escapee Zhang Jiusheng (Zhang Yi, Cliff Walkers) is desperate to catch. Alas, after finding his way into one village through mountains of sand that wouldn't look out of place in Dune, the fugitive discovers that he's already missed the showing that the night. Worse still, the film's canisters are being packed onto a motorbike to be driven to their next destination. And, he isn't the only one keen to make the movie's acquaintance, with the orphaned Liu (Liu Haocun, another Cliff Walkers alum) swiftly stealing its sixth reel before it departs town. An unlikely pair seeking the same thing for different reasons — he's heard that his estranged daughter appears in newsreel footage in the feature, while she wants the celluloid to make a lamp for her younger brother — Zhang and Liu are soon following the rest of the film through the desert to its next stop. That's where Mr Movie (Fan Wei, Railway Heroes) awaits, courting profit and glory compared to Zhang's desperation to glimpse his family and Liu's resourcefulness (that said, sporting a mug calling himself the 'World's Greatest Projectionist', the man behind the travelling cinema that's screening Mao-approved fare to entertainment-starved locales does still love his a clear fondness for his job). But the reels don't return intact, sparking a homemade restoration campaign that needs the entire town's help. Yes, loving film is also a tactile experience here. Zhang has always been able to make any kind of movie he's put his mind to, and has the four-decade-long resume to prove it. With 2009's A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop, he even remade the Coen brothers' Blood Simple. One Second sees him masterfully blend film-adoring melodrama with a Cultural Revolution-era portrait that's laced with just the amount of commentary that managed to escape the censors. He revels in sight gags and chases that could've been lifted out of silent comedy greats from a century back as well, giving cinema yet another ode. The end result mightn't be Zhang's absolute best — his resume isn't short on highlights — but it easily ranks among his most endearing. One Second makes exceptional use of its dust-swept setting, too, and its trio of chalk-and-cheese main players; plus, in celebrating an artform that's both tangible and an illusion, Zhang still makes a clear statement. One Second is currently screening in Sydney and Brisbane, after opening in Melbourne in December 2021. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in Australian cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on September 2, September 9, September 16, September 23 and September 30; October 7, October 14, October 21 and October 28; November 4, November 11, November 18 and November 25; December 2, December 9, December 16 and December 26; and January 1, January 6 and January 13. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Streamline, Coming Home in the Dark, Pig, Big Deal, The Killing of Two Lovers, Nitram, Riders of Justice, The Alpinist, A Fire Inside, Lamb, The Last Duel, Malignant, The Harder They Fall, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, Halloween Kills, Passing, Eternals, The Many Saints of Newark, Julia, No Time to Die, The Power of the Dog, Tick, Tick... Boom!, Zola, Last Night in Soho, Blue Bayou, The Rescue, Titane, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, Dune, Encanto, The Card Counter, The Lost Leonardo, The French Dispatch, Don't Look Up, Dear Evan Hansen, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Lost Daughter, The Scary of Sixty-First, West Side Story, Licorice Pizza, The Matrix Resurrections, The Tragedy of Macbeth, The Worst Person in the World, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, House of Gucci, The King's Man, Red Rocket, Scream, The 355, Gold, King Richard and Limbo.
Before you install that hot tub in your backyard, allow HotTug to welcome you to the future. A wood stove in the front of the boat heats the 2000 litres of water to a toasty temperature. You can rent the HutTug in two different versions, one with integrated electric motor of 2.4 KW and another with outboard engine. The office is located in The Netherlands, but don't panic: international rentals and sales (starting at around 9,000 Euros) are possible. HotTug is available in the standard black but is available in blue and red, too. All you have to do is find some friends, pick a colour and before you know it you'll be hanging out in water submerged in more water.
When SXSW's OG film festival in Austin swoons, the entire movie world can fall in love. Just two years ago, Everything Everywhere All At Once premiered at the fest, then won a swag of Oscars exactly 12 months and one day later. Over the past decade, A Quiet Place, Us, Atomic Blonde, The Disaster Artist, Bodies Bodies Bodies and Bottoms have all premiered there. 2023 Aussie horror hit Talk to Me made the influential event one of its many early stops. And in 2024, alongside everything from Immaculate to The Fall Guy, Dev Patel's feature directorial debut Monkey Man was on the program. The line spanned blocks, and the response was rightly glowing — a standing ovation included. Of course the festival that hosted John Wick: Chapter 4's premiere a year prior first introduced this propulsive new revenge-thriller to audiences. Patel's instant action classic even namechecks the Keanu Reeves-starring franchise in its dialogue. But with Monkey Man, its star, helmer, producer and co-writer (the latter with Boy Swallows Universe's John Collee and Keith Lemon: The Film's Paul Angunawela) takes a lifetime of loving his new picture's genre in all of its forms around the globe, plus his fondness for vengeance-fuelled Korean cinema and also Bollywood musicals, then mixes it with the story of Hindu deity Hanuman, all to make his dream movie — while making one of his big dreams happen as well. 2024 marks 17 years since Patel initially came to fame in his debut acting role, playing Anwar in British teen drama Skins. In his first-ever film performance in Slumdog Millionaire, he starred in an Oscar-winner for Best Picture and Best Director. If that isn't the kind of start to an on-screen resume that fantasies are made of, then nothing is. Just a decade after stepping in front of the camera, he had an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for Australian drama Lion, too. But even as his career took him to the Aussie-made Hotel Mumbai, not one but two The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel films, TV's The Newsroom, The Green Knight, The Personal History of David Copperfield and a pair of Wes Anderson shorts (including another Oscar-winner in The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar), wanting to lead an action flick — and helm one — was always an ultimate goal, Patel tells Concrete Playground. "It was always an aspiration. It feels really far-fetched and it took a long while to realise it, and at times I didn't even think I was going to be the director," he advises. "I was pitching it to a director friend of mine, Neill Blomkamp [who directed Patel in Chappie], and slowly I think I got nudged into the director's seat or the driver's seat of this whole thing. But it was truly a very humbling experience and a dream come true all in one." Monkey Man follows a character known only as Kid, who Patel plays in a magnetic action-star performance (Bond producers, take note) — and also introduces as a Hanuman-worshipping adult donning a gorilla mask in the ring, where he gets pummelled at an underground fight club to get by. His true brawl is with far more than just whoever his opponent happens to be in any given bout, though. Searing with pain ever since his mother's murder when he was a child, he's on a quest for retribution not just against the man responsible, but the system and its authorities that let it happen in the fictional Indian city of Yatan — a mission that's also about the oppressed mobilising against the forces pushing them aside. Patel's film is many things, then. It's an underdog story. It's a revenge movie, clearly. It's a feature about faith as well. It's about a son's devotion to honouring his mother. It's a rally against corruption and cruelty — and subjugation and exploitation, too. It's also a picture that was originally destined for streaming only, until fellow actor-turned-filmmaker Jordan Peele (Nope) came onboard with his Monkeypaw Productions company. As a result, Monkey Man is also one helluva big-screen experience. With the movie releasing in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, April 4, we chatted with Patel about making it his own quest to bring his dream film to fruition, his first experiences with Hanuman, the ten-plus-year process of getting Monkey Man to theatres and its mix of elements. He also told us about the balancing act of starring, directing, writing and producing — as well as his cinematic influences, including from directors that he's worked with in the past, plus his journey from Skins to here, and the film's SXSW experience. On Taking It Upon Himself to Make the Kind of Movie That Patel Has Always Wanted to Be In "It's been over ten years since I first started with the idea, and started writing it. And at that point in my career, more so than now, I wasn't getting roles like this — and I don't think the industry saw people like myself like that. We were more going to be the comedic relief, or the guy that hacks the mainframe for the lead guy or whatever. But I love action cinema. I love Korean revenge films. And also, I've been exposed to Bollywood cinema with my grandparents and my parents. And I just wanted to put that in this one cannon and fucking blast it out — sorry, mind my French, but that's where this was born from." On Patel's First Experience with the Deity Hanuman — and When He Knew He Wanted to Draw Upon It for Monkey Man "My dad had a chain — or has a chain — around his neck with this little cool little Hanuman figure on it, and I always used to ask him about it. And he's like 'wait till your granddad comes and he'll tell you the story better than I can'. My granddad used to fly in from Kenya, and he used to sit in my little box room and I wouldn't let him leave, and he would tell me these cool stories of these big epic battles. And Hanuman was the character that I absolutely loved. He was kind of an outsider. He had superhuman strength. Half man, half monkey — just so cool. If you go to India, you'll see in every rickshaw or taxi, there's a little Hanuman thing swinging from the mirror. If you go to the gyms, they've got Schwarzenegger, the weightlifter Ronnie Coleman and Hanuman on the walls. He represents nobility, masculinity, strength, courage, all of those things." On How Monkey Man Evolved Over the Ten Years That It Took to Bring It to the Screen "It kept changing. You keep adding bits of armour to it. But the genesis of it, I wanted this guy who was inspired by this iconography to be a self-flagellating, masochistic young man who doesn't know how to deal with trauma, so he dons this rubber mask and is a literal performing monkey in this really claustrophobic wrestling ring. The politics of the world started to fill out the more I researched, and the mythology, but at its core it's a revenge film about faith — but it constantly evolved and changed." On Making a Film About Faith That's Also a Revenge Movie, a Rally Against Corruption and Oppression, and About a Man's Devotion to Honouring His Mother "It all does sprout from that one notion — so it's how can faith be manipulated and weaponised to the masses? How can it sway elections and influence officials, police brutality, violence against women? These systemic issues are global issues. They're not just Indian issues. And it kind of just started falling out of me. Once you have a guy that's grappling with his own beliefs in himself, in the iconography that he so fell in love with as a child and then faced trauma, and then stopped believing in anything, it starts writing itself in a way." On the Balancing Act of Making Patel's Feature Directorial Debut While Writing, Producing and Starring as Well "It definitely was. There was an imbalance more than a balancing act, I guess. It was chaos. It was absolute chaos. Looking back on it, I really don't know how I did it, actually, because we're in the middle of the pandemic and it was madness. I don't know if you've seen the documentary Hearts of Darkness, about the making of Apocalypse Now? It was kind of like my own version of that. There's a lot of hats to wear." On Preparing for the Film's Impressive and Relentless Action Choreography, Both as an Actor and a Director "I just spent a lot of time with the stunt team. We were just trying to push the action as far as we could without it feeling like choreo — I wanted it to feel primal and animalistic and raw. And actually, to try make choreo feel jagged and messy is the most difficult thing. So you're not preempting a move and waiting — and it's like, how does it feel like it's coming at you? You're getting caught off guard, and stumbling and tripping and sliding, and bouncing off windows and biting. That was the challenge with it. And we wanted to try to create a camera movement that was trying to keep up with the action, instead of preempting it." On Finding Inspiration in a Love of Action Cinema, the Art of Action Choreography, Korean Cinema, Bollywood and More "All of it, to be honest. I'm a huge fan of the genre. I am a fanboy and a consumer of this stuff. So everything from Bruce Lee — as a kid, who was my entry point to cinema — and Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Sammo [Hung], Iko [Uwais] from The Raid franchise to Keanu [Reeves] and John Wick. And then the Koreans, and the way they just blisteringly make the best revenge cinema there is — movies like The Man From Nowhere, Oldboy, I Saw the Devil. These guys — and the pathos they can infuse in their stories, as well as the most gory violence. And Bollywood, and that musical bombastic kind of cinema, all of it lives in this." On What Patel Has Learned From the Filmmakers He's Worked with That Helped with His First Stint as a Director "Having never been to an acting class or a directing workshop or anything like that, I didn't know about lenses or anything starting this. It was all just being super excited — and I guess through osmosis being around these great, very different kind of filmmakers, it's bled into this. You'll see little hints and hat tips to Danny Boyle [his Slumdog Millionaire director], and some humour, comedy to Armando [Iannucci, who directed him in The Personal History of David Copperfield] — or even David Lowery [The Green Knight's filmmaker] with some of the more spiritual aspects that deal with time and all of it. So it's all in there. On What Patel Makes of His Career Almost Two Decades After Skins First Made Him a Star "It's so hard to step back and take it all in. When you're in it, you have no objectivity. But I would say more than anything, it constantly surprises me how good the audiences and fans can be. Like with SXSW — I'd been away for a while, and I was like 'are people going to even remember me or show up for this thing?' It's been ten years. I've turned down a lot of work to make this thing. And then, lines three blocks down the road and a standing ovation. We won the audience award. It was amazing." Monkey Man opened in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, April 4, 2024. Read our review.
The term 'live art' has always been a bit deliberately vague. Popping up on festival programs for years now, you never quite know what to expect going in. Some kind of experimental theatre? Will you have to participate? It could just be some kind of installation piece — something seemingly innocuous that takes on a new meaning when you stand alongside it. But as of March next year, this wild card of a genre will be stepping into the spotlight. Australia's first dedicated Festival of Live Art has been announced. It will be no small affair either. Brought to us by the talented people at Arts House, Theatre Works and Footscray Community Arts Centre, FoLA will encompass over 35 events over nearly two weeks in four suburbs around our diverse city. According to the first festival announcement there will be performances in the street, on the website, and even over the phone. An audience for each event will vary from a crowd of 200 to an intimate audience of one. Angharad Wynne-Jones of Arts House says the festival will also be a perfect opportunity to explore the direction of contemporary art as a whole. "[It's] a great way to cast a light on the art form breakers, the risk takers, the mavericks, the socially engaged and the determinedly experimental," she says. This is understandably a pretty large task, and the three organisers will be divvying up the work in curation. Opening weekend will be run by the Footscray folk and will kick off with an international keynote yet to be announced and a new annual symposium by artists Amy Spiers and James Oliver. The following weekend will be on northern turf at Arts House, and the final week will take audiences to the seaside St Kilda home of Theatre Works. Though the full program has not yet been announced, we do have some exciting work to look forward to. Performance artist Tristan Meecham will be bringing us a very special game show where 50 people with no performance experience compete on stage to win the host's own possessions. Edinburgh Fringe Festival Award winner Bryony Kimmings will be presenting a scathing satire of tween pop stars with her nine-year-old niece in Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model. Yana Alana will bring us a show from her bed (in the least dirty way possible), there will be art floating by the Yarra on your way home, and even an hourly performance event that features 24 live works over one long-haul day. Your favourites from this year's Sydney or Melbourne Festival may be popping up too. Tawdry Heartburn's Manic Cures (pictured) is already confirmed. In a 20-minute act that resembles a live-action Post Secret, performance artist James Berlyn takes audience members in one by one, paints their fingernails and exposes any secret they're keeping. Live art really is diverse. We're excited to see what else makes the cut. The full program for the first Festival of Live Art will be released on February 3.
If you haven't got along to see Melbourne Now yet, you've been missing out. As the largest exhibition in the NGV's history, it's not only doing huge things for contemporary art, but also for the city of Melbourne at large. Now, from February 28 onwards, Melbourne Now will be supporting Australian music too with the inclusion of a late-night program featuring some amazing local indie bands. The initiative, Friday Nights at Melbourne Now, follows on from last year's successful Friday Nights at Monet's Garden and features a stellar line-up of bands you would usually be paying $20 entry for at The Corner. For four consecutive Fridays, the NGV will be graced with the good vibes of World's End Press, Big Scary, Brighter Later, and Hiatus Kaiyote on a pop-up stage in the Great Hall of the NGV International. There will also be pop-up talks from artists, late-night access to the exhibition, and a range of food and drink offerings to tide you over for the evening. Better yet — the shows will be completely free. Get down to the NGV on February 28 for World's End Press, March 7 for Big Scary, March 14 for Brighter Later or March 21 for Hiatus Kaiyote. The full exhibition, Melbourne Now, will be on display at both the Ian Potter Centre and the NGV International until March 23. Image credit: McLean Stephenson
There's nothing unusual about ordering cocktail at London's One Aldwych hotel. Knocking back one of their beverages, however, is completely different. Before you sip on a blend of Dalmore 12-year-old whisky, Merlet cherry liqueur, grapefruit juice, chocolate bitters and Lallier Champagne, you'll get whisked away to the Scottish Highlands — without leaving your seat. The boozy concoction is called The Origin, and it might just provide a glimpse of drinking in the future. Strapping on a VR headset, taking a jaunt through barley fields and the Dalmore distillery, and then following the ingredients on their trek to theCovent Garden bar is all part of the fun. Yes, the tasting, sipping and just generally enjoying the drink part is real — it's the preamble that toys with virtual reality. "We take our guests behind the scenes to show them how the drink is made," One Aldwych head bartender Pedro Paulo explained to MUNCHIES. "Two minutes before the drink is ready, we say, 'We'd like to take you to the origin of the drink.' Then, we give them VR goggles and headphones to take them on the journey." If you find yourself in London anytime soon, The Origin will set you back £18; however, that's a cheap price to pay for a top tipple and a detour to Scotland. And it you're worried that the combination of virtual reality and alcohol mightn't go down smoothly, don't worry. "It's really quite more of a swooping, gentle experience," says Paulo. Via MUNCHIES. Image: One Aldwych.
The Hunter Valley is that perfect spot to chill out with some friends, have a romantic weekend away with your special someone (alternatively, your mum) or go and have a staring competition with a cow. Most Sydneysiders have lost count of the number of times they’ve headed north, like some kind of stocking-up-the-cellar and stuffing-their-faces-full-of-cheese migration, but for Melburnians it remains a largely undiscovered playground for big kids. Here's our take on the perfect Spring weekend away in the Hunter. Hit the Wineries Take a leisurely drive up north and don’t waste any time hitting up the wineries. Getting a few photos with the wildlife and vines along the way is a must. Make sure you stop by the tourism centre to pick up an all-important map of the wineries. You'll be surprised by how many (and spread out they all are). More so without the map (and you'll keep on seeing the same fence again and again). If you're a chardonnay lover, there's no escaping Scarborough. Seriously. They know what they're doing. You'll find it hard to leave without a case. Just remember that boot space is at a premium, and you may have to con a friend into scooching their stuff over just a little bit. The cellar-door-only White Label Chardonnay (the Yellow is also good stuff) would be easy to write an essay on, but also worth your quaffing is the dessert wine and pinot noir. Tyrells, just past the Hunter Valley Gardens, is worth stopping by, not only because of the cute little rustic shack (which the good man used to live in — not quite as comfortable as where you're hopefully spending the night), but also because of the vino. And for those who get splitting headaches the day after a long drinking session, you need to check out Tamburlaine. Yup, it's the organic stuff. This means: no headaches (or not as bad) because there's none of the naughty stuff in it. The Christmas pudding sticky is a must for any sweet-tooths out there (and makes fab Christmas pressies, too). For the sparkling lover, Peterson House will be your next destination. They have the oh-so-easy-to-drink Blush bubbles (perfect for when the girls get together), or ones with a bit more oomph like the Museum. From bubbles to balloons If you can still stand after these tastings and the bubbles haven't gotten to your head, it's time for a hot air balloon! This isn’t just for the kiddies, it's the most gentle and relaxing thrill you can get that's legal. Sunset is the perfect time for it (and remember to take some of the wine you just bought and some smelly cheeses and lavosh from the Smelly Cheese shop — they do good cheese boards here too.) One place that does ballooning is Balloon Aloft, but there's plenty of options. Apart from the noise when the gas gets released, it's like you’re floating on a marshmallow. Can't get much more romantic than that (unless the marshmallow is being toasted on a fire). If you've taken it easy on the wine tastings, another afternoon plan could be a horse ride with the kangaroos. You'll score a large dose of fresh air and most are pretty gentle rides (unless you get a particularly spirited horse who doesn't like following trails much. There's always one). Lie Down in the Valley By this point, your eyes will most likely be ready to shut (either from the wine, or the activities), so it's worth hitting the bed, pronto. You could try out a suite at the Chateau Elan at The Vintage, if spas and golf are your thing. Or for views over the Brokenback mountain range, you could try Talga Estate — a good option for a big bunch of friends. The barbecue on the verandah is perfect for your own cook-up. If you're not quite sure what you're after, Hunter Valley Resort is worth checking out. It's got a wine school, horse and carriage tours, a wine theatre, vineyard tours and a whole lot more. We figure that if you're surrounded by wine, like you are at the Hunter, you might as well know a thing or two about it. You’ll find out the correct way to swirl the wine in your glass, really give it a good looking at, create air while sipping it and feeling it in your mouth. Or you could just drink it. The Quest Singleton is near the local shopping area, and if you're already feeling a bit wine and cheesed out — you can hit the gym. Yep, there are a lot of options. Sunny Side Up Hopefully hangover free, the next morning you’ll be needing a big breakfast. There are options in all of the hotels, or you could try out Cafe Enzo for a meal next to a fountain, and then look at the antiques next door. They usually have awesome vintage cheese knives — as well as a whole lot of random goodness, and very expensive antique engagement rings. Hint hint. Botanica and Esca are fancier options for a brunch or lunch or any time really. At Esca you can arrive by helicopter if that's the way you roll. Just remember to pack oversized sunnies and a designer bag to make this really work. Make sure you try the white or red wine tasting plate, which comes with a trio of smaller meals. Or you could make a picnic and find a scenic spot to park your bottom for the day. Last-minute leisure Before you head home, remember to stock up on wine (if you've finished it all off by now), cheese, chocolates and some more fresh air. And if you’ve got time, go for a spa treatment. The Hunter is all about spoiling yourself, inside and out. Even if you spend Monday rubbing your cheese belly or feeling slightly pickled. Just make sure you pack a friend who is a good ol' responsible driver, and you'll be just fine. Regional NSW is on sale now at Lastminute.com.au. You can check out The Hunter options on sale here.
Now in its fourteenth year, this lazy little gem of the summertime festival circuit is still holding strong with a healthy list of wineries to tour and seminal pub rockers Hunters and Collectors in the 2014 headline slot. If you've never been along before, A Day on the Green has been best described as "the Big Day Out for grown-ups" — a one-day festival much more concerned with home-brought brie than any kind of head-banging. On the Victorian leg this year, ADOTG will be visiting The Hill Winery, All Saints Estate and Rochford Wines; a tour that will be accompanied by the likes of Something for Kate, You Am I, and British India too. However, most people don't go along for the music on its own. This day is much more about you, a few good friends, some great ambience in the fields of a winery, and that all important picnic lunch. Check out the full ticket options here.
Performance art has earned itself a solid reputation as being kind of crazy. Artists can go to extreme lengths to push their audiences or examine an issue. But, while this show is comprised of challenging performance works from four talented Australian artists, the results are much more silly than they are crazy. Something Happened is a collection of recorded performance pieces from Ross Coulter, Hannah Jackson, Tanya Lee and Stuart Ringholt. Baring all in bizarre public and private situations these artists examine our understanding of embarrassment. Why do we blush? Why do we think modesty is a good thing? Why can't we all just be naked all the time? Or maybe that last question will be posed by just one of the artists. Earlier this year Stuart Ringholt hosted a nude daytime disco at MOMA. Similarly Ross Coulter's work has been known for a sense of silliness — in 2011 he set flight to 10,000 paper planes inside the State Library of Victoria. We don't yet know how Jackson and Lee feel about nudity and origami but we're excited to find out.
Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire's highly-acclaimed storytelling event is coming back to where it all began. This Sunday, October 26 letter-lovers young and old will be packing into Northcote's Regal Ballroom for some cozy Sunday afternoon feels. Though things won't quite be as you remember them — this offshoot event of the better known Women of Letters, will mark the fourth time men have been invited to the stage. Once again they'll be penning their letters to the "woman who changed [their] life". Iconic Indigenous actor Uncle Jack Charles will be kicking things off with what will no doubt be a great performance, news presenter Peter Hitchener will be taking a break from his journalistic diction and crime writer Shane Maloney will be keeping everyone intrigued. Other actors on stage will include Alex Papps and Offspring's Patrick Brammall, joined by writer and comedian Paul Verhoeven. Representing their fields alone will be filmmaker Richard Lowenstein, musician Darren Hanlon and chef Shane Delia, but the real highlight of the afternoon will be actor Samuel Johnson. Earlier this year Samuel rode 15,955 kilometres across the country on a unicycle to raise over $1.4 million in support of his sister who was diagnosed with breast cancer. No guesses at who he'll be writing about.
For so many, being self-employed is the dream. You don't have to answer to anybody, you can work from wherever you want, and if it's a beautiful 30 degree day, hey, maybe you can go to the beach instead. The only downside is that it's easy to get a bit lonely. All that time alone in your cramped home office would send even the best of us a bit nutty. This is where co-working spaces come in and, after a huge 18-month revamp, Nest is among the best of them. Housing industry professionals from fields as diverse as horticulture, software development and performance art, Nest is the ultimate collaborative environment for creative types. "The idea is to have the best of both worlds — the flexibility of working for yourself, but with the professional networks, resources, and a professional space away from noise, where you're proud to bring clients and collaborators," says founder Jay Chubb. No longer confined to dingy home studios, freelancers now have a space to work together, communicate and enjoy a clean and dynamic aesthetic to reignite those creative juices. In fact, design was a big motivator for the project. Melbourne architect Nicholas Eric Harding upcycled most of the materials from demolished local mansions, then installed acoustically designed raw wood panelling on the walls. Tables and light fittings are all handmade, and there is even a sound recording studio floor designed by Brent Punshon from Head Gap Studios. Of course, it's not all work and no play. Behind the office space lies a 40-people amphitheatre and microcinema that is soon to be used in partnership with the Shadow Electric. The space will also be used for pop-up exhibitions, BBQs, talks and screenings open for local enjoyment. Far from the world of bad air-conditioning and broken photocopiers, this is an office space we can get behind. Thanks to Nest Coworking, we have a month membership of 32 hours valued at $200 to give away. To be in the running, subscribe to the Concrete Playground newsletter (if you haven't already), then email win.melbourne@concreteplayground.com.au with your name and address. For more information about membership and pricing, see the Nest website.
Prepare yourself for a serious dose of girl power: Janelle Monáe and Kimbra are joining forces for an Australian tour. The two pop heavyweights, who bonded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland last July, are coming to Australia for The Golden Electric Tour at the end of May. Scheduled for four shows throughout Australia, the dynamic duo is finishing the tour with serious kaboom at The Plenary on Monday, May 26. The award-winning pop powerhouses will co-headline the tour, combining forces for a portion of the show while also playing individual sets. Kimbra and Monáe first made sweet music together at an impromptu bar gig when they met last year. Their taste for eccentric pop music coupled with fierce vocals proved a heavenly match, thus the idea for a joint tour was born. To (successfully) hype us all up for the endeavour, the pair released an unfathomably adorable video singing a mash-up of Aretha Franklin's 'Rock Steady' and Michael Jackson's 'Wanna Be Startin' Something', both of which are sure to be on the set list. Monáe will feature tracks from her 2013 release The Electric Lady, as well as her celebrated 2010 debut album The ArchAndroid. Kimbra is expected to release the follow-up to her 2011 album Vows later this year, so fans should expect some new gems amongst the singalongs. Tickets go on sale 10am on Thursday, April 17 via Live Nation. Pre-sale is available for My Live Nation members at 10am on Monday, April 14. https://youtube.com/watch?v=SyqltX5lRhQ
You're never too old to get a kick out of a carnival — especially one that's popping up for the festive season. That's what to expect from The Christmas Carnival, which is bringing ten days of all-ages fun to Birrarung Marr from Wednesday, December 14–Friday, December 23, as part of the month-long Melbourne Christmas Festival. The free-entry carnival is packed with classic games and rides on which to unleash your inner kidult — from dodgem cars and the cup and saucer, to a neon-lit ferris wheel and the soaring high Skyflyer. Prices start from $7 per ride, which means cheap thrills abound. Of course, you can't have a carnival without appropriate snacks and this one is bringing the goods with a roster of food trucks slinging all the classics. The Christmas Carnival is running from 11am–10pm each day, so it should be easy to squeeze in a few visits around your Christmas shopping duties. Top Image: Adam Renyard
Back in 2018, the big friendly giant of the streaming world announced that it had found itself a golden ticket, with Netflix planning to bring the work of beloved author Roald Dahl to its platform. But if that news made you more excited than Charlie Bucket walking into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, you've probably noticed that nothing else has happened over the past year — until now. While Netflix's new Dahl-based shows aren't hitting the streamer just yet, the company has revealed just what it's focusing on to begin with — and who they're working with. To the surprise of no one given that it has already been adapted into a movie twice, as well as into a stage musical, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the first book getting the Netflix treatment. To the delight of fans of Boy, What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Thor: Ragnarok, Taika Waititi will be writing, directing and executive producing two series based on the beloved tale about a poverty-stricken boy visiting a sweet and wondrous place. The first, called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, will be based on the world and characters of the book — so you can probably expect everlasting gobstoppers and chocolate rivers aplenty, plus appearances not only by the Bucket family, but by Veruca Salt, Augustus Gloop and Willy Wonka, too. If you noticed that we didn't mention Oompa-Loompas above, that's because they're getting their own show. It's named The Oompa-Loompas, naturally, and it'll offer a new take on the factory's small human workers. [caption id="attachment_573711" align="aligncenter" width="1280"] Hunt for the Wilderpeople[/caption] Fresh from winning an Oscar for Jojo Rabbit, Waititi is presumably slotting the two animated programs onto his schedule after upcoming Marvel sequel Thor: Love and Thunder. Whenever the Netflix shows do join the New Zealand filmmaker's increasingly busy resume, they'll "retain the quintessential spirit and tone of the original story while building out the world and characters far beyond the pages of the Dahl book for the very first time," according to the streaming platform's announcement. In total, a whopping 16 of Dahl's classic books are in Netflix's sights. Teaming up with The Roald Dahl Story Company, the outfit is turning everything from Matilda to The Twits into new animated television shows — and The BFG, Esio Trot, George's Marvellous Medicine, The Enormous Crocodile, The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, Henry Sugar, Billy and the Minpins, The Magic Finger, Dirty Beasts and Rhyme Stew as well. Dahl's autobiographical efforts Boy – Tales of Childhood and Going Solo will also hit the service, with one detailing Dahl's youth and the other delving into his journeys to Africa as well as his service in World War II. For many, including the tales about the author himself, it'll be the first time that they've been adapted for the screen. Netflix plans to turn Dahl's stories into event series and specials — so limited-run shows across a number of episodes, plus one-offs. There's still no word on when work will start, however, or when Waititi's or any of the other series will start dropping on the platform — although you can watch the 90s live-action versions of Matilda and The Witches on the streamer right now. If you're keen for a taste of the first-ever screen adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, revisit the trailer for 1971's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cBja3AbahY Top image: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Ten months in, 2020 has served up all manner of challenges and surprises. But in one area at least, it's rolling on as planned. Because few years can sneak by without serving up multiple new film and/or television adaptations of Stephen King's work, viewers are about to score 2020's latest — a new mini-series version of the author's 1978 novel The Stand. Due to hit American streaming services in December — with release plans Down Under yet to be revealed — The Stand joins HBO's The Outsider as the two new TV shows bringing King's work to our eyeballs this year. Of course, as avid fans will know, this isn't the first time this particular book has made the leap to the screen. Back in 1994, it aired as a big-budget, star-studded, four-part mini-series featuring the likes of Gary Sinise, Miguel Ferrer, Rob Lowe, Ruby Dee, Laura San Giacomo, Molly Ringwald and Ed Harris. Plenty of well-known names are onboard this time around, too, because there's quite the sprawling story to tell. And, quite the timely one, although that's obviously pure coincidence. The Stand is set in a world devastated by a plague, with a battle between good and evil playing out among the survivors. Featuring prominently is the character of Randall Flagg, a common figure in King's work (see: The Eyes of the Dragon and The Dark Tower series). Alexander Skarsgård plays Flagg, while the rest of the cast includes James Marsden, Whoopi Goldberg, Amber Heard and Heather Graham, as well as Watchmen's Jovan Adepo, Paper Towns' Nat Wolff, IT: Chapter Two's Owen Teague, Arrow's Katherine McNamara, and Australian Shirley and The Daughter actor Odessa Young. Behind the lens, The Stand is the latest project from filmmaker Josh Boone — whose latest movie, The New Mutants, hit cinemas in the past few months after years of delays. Check out the trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l--4gu4CQBM The Stand screens in the US from December 17 via CBS All Access — we'll update you with an air date Down Under when one is announced. Top image: CBS All Access.
In the country for Laneway Festival, this London electronic duo are bringing their deep chillwave tunes to The Corner for a one-off Melbourne sideshow. Coming fresh to the scene with their ground-breaking 2009 EP Maybes, and debut full-length Crooks & Lovers in 2010, Mount Kimbie have been at the top of their field for a while now, but you'd be forgiven for not hearing about them till recently. Their most-recent release, Cold Spring Fault Less Youth, has blown up in a big way. After collaborating with King Krule on 'You Took Your Time', the band's second LP has been described as "cerebral and arresting" and much bolder than their last release. Their unique sound will make for an amazing live performance too, with the band playing live instruments and creating an act as dynamic and rich as similar acts such as James Blake and How to Dress Well. If you haven't caught them already, now's the time. This gig is going for a bargain at $30 so you best make the most of it — before they blow up even bigger after Laneway.
If it feels like you've been seeing a lot of Benedict Cumberbatch lately, there's a reason for that. On screens big and small, the British actor has featured in no fewer than five movies in 2021. Thanks to The Power of the Dog, he even looks poised to collect an Oscar for the best of them — and, with Spider-Man: No Way Home, he's also a significant part of the flick that's certain to be crowned the biggest box office hit of the entire year. Cumberbatch popped his Doctor Strange cloak back on in the hit web-slinging movie and, as anyone with an interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will know — anyone who watched No Way Home, too — he's set to reprise the role next May. That's when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will reach cinemas, in what's both a sequel to 2016's Doctor Strange and the 28th movie in the MCU. As the just-dropped first trailer shows, this new dive into the mystic arts promises to live up to its name. In No Way Home, Doctor Strange was asked to cast a spell to make the world forget it knew Spider-Man's true identity — and that had big repercussions in that film, exposing the MCU to the multiverse. Those consequences will flow over to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, as will trippy Inception-style imagery, Strange's brooding demeanour and Marvel's usual world-in-peril shenanigans. Few MCU movies ever just feature one of the franchise's superheroes, so a post-WandaVision Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) also pops up — alongside Benedict Wong (Nine Days) as Wong, Rachel McAdams (Game Night) as Strange's ex Dr Christine Palmer and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Locked Down) as fellow Master of the Mystic Arts Mordo. In one of Marvel's nice pieces of symmetry, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness marks the MCU filmmaking debut of acclaimed Evil Dead franchise director Sam Raimi — the man who helmed the original three Spider-Man movies in the 00s, way back before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was even a glimmer in the comic book company's eye, and obviously long before Doctor Strange and Tom Holland's Spider-Man became pals. Check out the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness trailer below: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness releases in cinemas Down Under on May 5, 2022. Images: Photos courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.
Dazzling lights brightening up the Harbour City. Must-see gigs filling venues big and intimate around town. Fascinating talks musing on ideas, innovation and technology. That's the standard Vivid Sydney format, not that there's ever anything standard about the creativity-fuelled annual festival's yearly program. In 2023, however, it'll have a brand-new addition to that trusty template: Vivid's first-ever food fest, Vivid Food. Prepare your stomachs for a delicious time spanning both bites to eat and drinks to sip, all in an array of venues across the Sydney CBD. Today, Wednesday, February 15, marks 100 days until Vivid kicks off in 2023 — running from Friday, May 26–Saturday, June 17 — and fest organisers have started releasing a few details. If you're fond of Sydney's dining scene, Vivid Food is clearly now at the top of your must-attend list. [caption id="attachment_889194" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Vivid Sydney 2022[/caption] Vivid Food will have two main aims. Firstly, it'll activate the Sydney CBD's venues after a tough few pandemic-afflicted years — a period that saw Vivid cancelled in 2020 and 2021, in fact, before returning in 2022. And, it'll go all in on Sydney's culinary creativity and innovation, aka two of Vivid's main fascinations. The details are still scarce, but the event will span everything from pop-up restaurants to haute cuisine, involving chefs, producers, restaurateurs and more, and including one-of-a-kind menus from renowned figures heading to Sydney for the fest. And, there'll be multi-sensory degustations, food along the returning Vivid Sydney Light Walk, and mixologists and bartenders literally getting things shaking. [caption id="attachment_797353" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Maybe Sammy, DS Oficina[/caption] "We are proud to have curated an impressive collection of local and international artists and food creatives to provide Vivid Sydney audiences with new and exciting experiences," said Vivid Sydney Festival Director Gill Minervini, announcing 2023's first highlights. "We have expanded and evolved the festival further this year and have curated an amazing lineup for 2023. The festival offering includes some significant new and Vivid-first experiences, as well as Vivid Food to deliver world-class culinary talent, events and activations as part of the program." [caption id="attachment_889195" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Destination NSW[/caption] The theme for Vivid overall in 2023: Vivid Sydney, Naturally. Also on the bill so far: the return of that aforementioned (and understandably super-popular) Vivid Sydney Light Walk, this time with 49-plus light installations and 3D projections along its illuminated eight-kilometre stretch; Barerarerungar from First Nations artist Maree Clarke, which will be projected across the Museum of Contemporary Art; and Jen Lewin's The Last Ocean, which hits Sydney after premiering at Burning Man in 2022. There's also light festival Lightscape — yes, a light fest within a light fest — which has proven a huge hit internationally and in Melbourne. It'll take over The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney for its Sydney debut. The full Vivid 2023 lineup will be announced mid-March, but you can also look forward to spending time elsewhere in the Sydney CBD, Circular Quay, The Rocks, Barangaroo, Darling Harbour, The Goods Line, Central Station, Sydney Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Museum of Contemporary Art and more — as is always the case when Vivid unfurls its wonders. "Vivid Sydney is NSW's biggest annual event and makes a vital social and economic contribution to our state. From our creative industries to entertainment and hospitality venues, accommodation and retailers, it supports and creates jobs across the NSW economy," said NSW Minister for Tourism Ben Franklin. "Last year Vivid Sydney was attended by over 2.5-million people and injected $119 million into the NSW economy. With internationals borders fully reopening, we're anticipating this year's festival to be our biggest and best yet. Vivid Sydney 2023 promises to be a significant driver for domestic and international visitors to travel to NSW and attend Australia's brightest event and immerse themselves in our city," Franklin continued. [caption id="attachment_889193" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Glenn Turner[/caption] Vivid Sydney 2023 will run from Friday, May 26–Saturday, June 17. We'll update you with the full lineup when it's announced in mid-March — and for further information in the interim, visit the event's website. Top images: Destination NSW.
Dance, drink, pizza, repeat. Pizza and late-night partying remains one of history's most iconic duos and they're coming together in full force from next month, when 24-hour Hawthorn club Untz Untz launches its adjoining pizza joint and sports bar, Holy Moly. The new venue will take over the ground floor of the newly refurbished Glenferrie Road space and enjoy the same 24-hour liquor license, In addition, coffee and doughnut spot Cop Shop will launch next door shortly after. With a crack team of hospo pros behind it, Holy Moly is promising some intriguing features, not least of which is the $5 pizza menu, designed by Henry Chan (Lucky Coq and Bimbo Deluxe) and available until 3am, every single night. Jenna Hemsworth (former Black Pearl bartender and runner up for Bartender of the Year 2015) has taken the reins of the drinks offering, which will feature a mix of classics and new-school creations, as well as three varieties of Bloody Mary. The space comes courtesy of interior designer Michael Delaney (Honkytonks, Sorry Grandma), along with venue director Nick Foley, with the pair describing it as "a shrine to pizza and good times". Expect artwork by local artist Billie Justice Thompson, a memorabilia-packed sports bar screening classic sporting moments on an 80" plasma, and Melbourne's first VOID sound system. Find Holy Moly and Untz Untz at 660A Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn.
Scroll down the page and take a look at the pubs listed. Recognise a few names? That's because most of them aren't new, but overhauls of historic buildings and pubs that were closed or burnt to the ground. But these overhauls aren't just new paint jobs — they're impressive. The East Brunswick Hotel has returned, sprawling across three levels, with its famed band room making a long-awaited return; the Albion hotel has risen from the ashes with one of the city's biggest rooftop bars, and a Carlton favourite is back and buzzing after laying dormant for two years. There are two new pub, too, one that deserves to be on this list not only for its tasty brews but for its commitment to sustainability and eco-friendly production. But, more on that below. At Concrete Playground we encourage exploration and showcase innovation in our city every day, so we thought it fitting to reward those most talented whippersnappers pushing Melbourne to be a better, braver city. And so, these six new pubs — and impressive overhauls — were nominated for Best New Pub in Concrete Playground's Best of 2018 Awards.
In one of the many audio clips that comprise One to One: John & Yoko's impressive array of 70s-era archival materials, the documentary's two namesakes are asked how they want to be remembered. John Lennon's answer: "just as two lovers". It's an apt description, and one that applies in multiple senses in the latest film by Kevin Macdonald — a doco that joins the likes of Oscar-winner One Day in September, plus Touching the Void, the crowdsourced Life in a Day, and the also music-focused Marley and Whitney on the Scottish director's resume, as well as features such as The Last King of Scotland, State of Play, How I Live Now and The Mauritanian. Standing out in the the well-populated realm of Beatles movies, factual and dramatised alike, One to One: John & Yoko steps through Lennon and Yoko Ono's love for each other and for music, and also for doing what they can to make the world a better place. As much as that "two lovers" quote resonates in the movie, that idea wasn't one of the lenses through which Macdonald, a lifelong Beatles fan and someone who considers Lennon his first pop-culture hero, approached the film. "Not specifically, actually, the kind of love affair between them," he tells Concrete Playground. "I think that comes across as between the cracks, in a way." Instead, in a film that explores a marriage, a milestone concert that also gives the doco its title, and a moment — that's as fascinated with the reality that greeted John and Yoko when they moved to the US from Britain in 1971, how the couple witnessed the era through American TV and their activist efforts to make a difference IRL — he was keen to show Lennon and Ono's romance as a union of equals. [caption id="attachment_1010512" align="alignnone" width="1920"] © Bob Gruen / www.bobgruen.com[/caption] "I was very interested, though, in trying to give Yoko a bit more of a voice and get her perspective on this period, and on the immediate aftermath of this breaking up of The Beatles and the influence she had on John. And for the audience to see, I think, what to me was very clear as I looked at all this material — is that this is a real marriage of true partners, love partners but also creative partners, and the respect that they have for each other comes across in the film," Macdonald continues. "I think it's a very mature kind of love, I suppose, as in it's not the kind of usual movie romantic, tweeting-birds kind of love. It feels like love that is part of a profound relationship of respect. I think that's what's so striking about it." "And I'm particularly struck always by, when I watch the film, by seeing John go to the International Feminist Conference at the end — and thinking in early 1973, which other massive rockstar of that period would do that, would be the only man in the room with a bunch of very hardcore feminists, and be open to that, those ideas and that experience, and giving the platform to their partner in such a way? I think that even today, that would be quite rare with a male star." Macdonald's latest documentary started its life with the One to One concert footage, which was John's last full-length gig — and also his only one after The Beatles. An interview that the filmmaker heard with John speaking about how all he did was watch TV when he arrived in the US, which is quoted at the beginning of the movie, was just as crucial. So began a project with a tricky task, given how frequently cinema's focus falls upon John and The Beatles still. The job: when Sam Mendes' (Empire of Light) four films starring Harris Dickinson (Babygirl), Paul Mescal (Gladiator II), Barry Keoghan (Bird) and Joseph Quinn (Warfare) are on the way — and the Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon)-produced Beatles '64 arrived in 2024, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week from Ron Howard (Jim Henson Idea Man) came out in the last ten years and The Beatles: Get Back by Peter Jackson (The Shall Not Grow Old) isn't even half-a-decade old (and that's without thinking about Nowhere Boy and Backbeat and so much more) — how do you come up with something that feels new? The answer here: fleshing out One to One: John & Yoko not only around the Madison Square Garden benefit concert for children with intellectual disabilities at Staten Island's Willowbrook institution, and not even just through the pair's music, either, but also by using their television viewing to give context to what was happening in America at the time. Also, by giving the movie the vibe — with home movies, plus unheard tapes of John and Yoko's phone calls, too — of hanging out with the pair. Accordingly, Macdonald pairs restored 16mm footage of the pivotal gig with personal clips, archival news, TV snippets and commercials, and even a recreation of John and Yoko's Greenwich Village apartment from the era. The duo's presence in the political and social movements of the time is in focus as well, as is simply revelling in their presence together. Sean Ono Lennon has said that it's the first film that's truly captured who his mother was as an artist and a person, Macdonald has shared. That's one of many striking elements to the doco. How clearly it highlights the similarities between the 70s and now, how it embraces John and Yoko's fondness for creative experimentation in its approach, its collage-like structure that the director likens to TikTok: they're others. We chatted to Macdonald about the above, plus what it means to him to make One to One: John & Yoko as such a Beatles and Lennon fan, his career journey and more. On Sean Ono Lennon Saying That This Is the First Film He's Seen That Has Truly Captured His Mother as an Artist and a Person "I was really happy with that, obviously, because first of all, you make anything about The Beatles or about The Beatles solo and there's so many films and so many books, and so much has been said and written. So to try to do anything that's new, that was my starting point. I don't want to make a film like every other film that's been made. I want to show something different. But I'm not going to factually show you much that's new — there are probably some things up here that the real Beatles fans can go 'oh that, I didn't know this little fact, that little fact', but it's not really about that. To me, it's more about the experiential thing of being with these people in a very domestic, everyday setting for a lot of it. I mean, just hanging with them. And I wanted people to have the sense of hanging out on the bed with John and Yoko. So naturally, of course, that means that you, because you're seeing Yoko not always in her public persona, I think you feel closer to her. And I think there's something about the phone calls, the phone calls that she's on — particularly the one where she talks about how The Beatles treated her, and how people sent her dolls with pins in them and things, which I think give you a great deal of empathy for her, which then is redoubled when you hear the story of her daughter Kyoko. Which, by the way, I thought I knew quite a lot about The Beatles — I didn't even know about Kyoko. And I think that says an awful lot about how her perspective has not been taken in terms of telling the story in the past. Because John and Yoko went to New York largely because they were looking for Kyoko. They were escaping from what they perceived as the unwelcoming attitude in Britain for Yoko, but they were primarily there because they were trying to find Yoko's daughter. And that drove them through all of this period, and yet that's not something that's talked about. So I as soon as I started to learn about that story and learn about how that was really the emotional driver for the concert being put on in the first place — this sense that both of them had for the terrible conditions that these kids were being brought up in, which was particularly raw for them because they both undergoing this sense of loss of Kyoko — I think once I put all that together, that gave a perspective on Yoko emotionally, which I think changes the way you feel about her. Because when you empathise with someone, you tend to like them more." On the Importance of Giving One to One: John & Yoko a Tangible Element Through a Detailed Recreation of Lennon and Ono's Greenwich Village Apartment "When I got involved in the film, as I said, I was thinking first and foremost about 'how can I open up a different kind of window on them and give people a sense of getting to know them on a deeper, more immediate level?'. And I heard this comment that John made, very early on in my research, where he talked about how television was his window on the world, and how he spent most of his time when he first arrived in America watching TV and learning about the country through the TV. And I thought — that's a light-bulb moment, I thought 'well, that's how I should structure the whole film, is around that concept. And we should see them watching TV or feel like we're with them, feel like they just left the room and they left the TV on and the cigarettes still in the ashtray'. And so, as I said earlier, to have the feeling that we are on the bed with them, watching what's going on in America — and I like the idea that we're understanding history through shards, in the same ways we do in everyday life. We don't have a perfect knowledge or understanding of what's going on around us. We pick up little bits and pieces, and we create a narrative in our heads. And that's I wanted to reproduce, that experience, which is the experience of how human beings pass through the world. We don't have perfect narratives that are presented to us and everything coheres and makes sense. We are taking these imperfect little moments and giving them meaning and putting them together in narratives." On Whether Macdonald Anticipated the Parallels Between America in the 70s and Today That Are Evident inthe Documentary "No, I actually didn't. I didn't. We started this, I guess, in early 2023, and the legal situation, the political situation in the world, was very different. And it did feel at times — still does feel — like the world is copying our movie. Things keep happening that we're like 'oh my god, that's like the scene where such and such happens in the film'. And I did for a long time wonder about whether, is this kind of echoing, is this something? I've since read quite a lot about it, actually, and I'm not the only person to have noticed it — it is something which quite a lot of historians have commented upon. And I think even if you go back in time, there's even earlier periods in American history which have a similar rise of populism, demonstrations, economic turmoil. I think a lot of those things come back in some cyclical way in America every 50–60 years. And I think that they'll probably come back in different ways in other countries. I think it's something I'd be very curious to find out more about. But I was struck, as we were making the film, that all these echoes and similarities just arose around me. Because it really was — we didn't know that Donald Trump was going to have an attempted assassination. We didn't know that Kamala Harris was going to be the first Black woman to stand for presidency. And we had Shirley Chisholm, who was trying to get on to that ticket [in 1972]. All these many, many connections, they weren't there when we started cutting the film, even. So it was peculiar. But I think that why I find it comforting in a way, is that we all like to think that our period is a particularly catastrophic, apocalyptic period. It's a kind of vanity, I suppose, we all have as human beings — you think 'oh my god, we're living through the worst of times'. But actually, to see that things were pretty bad before, passions were very high, and then we had Jimmy Carter and things. We had sort of boring presidents and stabilisation in the world, and things did get a little better. I suppose I took some comfort from that. But I guess you can read it also the other way around. You can read it as 'oh my god, why don't we learn anything?'." On Making One to One as a Lifelong Beatles Fan and Someone Who Considered Lennon His First Pop-Culture Hero "I think I — maybe in common with other people, I don't know — the passions that you have when you are in your early teenage years, or between the ages of 11 and 16 or whatever, you never feel passion for anything quite as much again in the way that you did for those things. Whether they be movies or songs or artists, whatever it is, I think you're more open and raw, and everything is new to you and it's super exciting. And so to be able to go back to one of the people who really was my great hero of that [age]. I think I was aware of The Beatles in 1979 when I was 11 or 12, and then John was shot, and then that confluence of those two things is what made him such a focus of attention for me. But I think that to be able to revisit that period of your life is real pleasure — from an adult perspective, from a more cynical, seen it all, been-there-done-that perspective. Because it reminds you of who you are and the passion that you had. And you can see how right you were in some ways, to love those things. And it reawakens that love that maybe you were a bit cynical about it. So yeah, I think I find myself, interestingly, in a lot of films and documentaries I've done, going back to this period in the 70s — which is, I guess, the formative period for me. I had an American grandmother and I used to go to stay with her all my holidays in America and watch TV. I remember the Nixon hearings and things like that being on TV. And I remember my grandmother supporting Nixon. I remember her vividly saying 'oh, that poor man, Mr Nixon, why don't they leave him alone?'. So maybe we're all revisiting our childhood experiences." On Whether One to One Was Actively Aiming to Match Lennon and Ono's Creative Experimentation with Its Own Approach "No, not so much. I was looking at what remains of them and what it says. I thought it would be an interesting process to just say 'I'm not going to take any extraneous information, very little extraneous information, in the film, except that which exists in archive footage and audio and whatever. I'm going to see what I can make, how I can create an experience, but also somewhat of a story'. And it's always a balance in this sort of film. I wanted it to be something that when you experience narrative, you feel like things move forward and change, but for it to also feel moment to moment like it's chaos and anarchy, and you don't know where it's going to go. But actually, I want the audience to feel that, as they watch it, like 'oh, the filmmakers do have an idea — they are taking me somewhere. This is going somewhere. There is a progression. There is a narrative'. So it's trying to finely balance the chaotic and the structured. And there is a very thought-out structure to it. But it just seems to me like it's interesting to use the crumbs that have been left down the back of the sofa. You can put it like that. It's like you live your life and most of it vanishes with you when you're gone, and those times are gone, but certain crumbs are left down the back of the sofa, and a few coins that fell out of your pocket — and what do they say about you? And they're not the whole truth. They can't be. Because we can never reconstruct the whole truth of the past. And then, not to get too pretentious, so that's what different documentary forms which are about the past are trying — different ways to evoke and describe that which you know can't be fully brought back to life, can't fully be understood, in an hour and a half or two hours or whatever it is. And so there's a joy for me in the experimentation, and in the trying to find a different way to bring this period to life, to bring these characters to life, to mix their personal lives with the bigger political scene, and the bigger cultural scene, without trying to explain it all too much. I've had younger viewers watch the film and say 'this is like the TikTok experience'. This is basically how young people experience the world, watching TikTok, where you just see people, characters, situations appear, and you are very rapidly are making calculations in your head about 'who are they? Where they from? What's the purpose of this? Are they selling me something? Are they just trying to be funny?'. And I think that's the way I want be able to experience this film — that you're making all these connections. You're not being totally passive in it. You have to bring your own mind, bring your own sense of narrative to it." On Macdonald's Three-Decade Career So Far, Including Jumping Between Documentaries and Dramas "I feel, on one level, just really lucky to continue to be able to make films and continue to be able to make them in the way that I want to make them. And I have to give thanks to Mercury Studios, who let me make this film — sort of a mainstream experimental film, if we call it that. And to get the opportunity for people to give you money to be able to make a film is always a privilege. To get a make a film which is idiosyncratic and personal is really an exceptional thing. So after 30 years of making documentaries and films, yeah, first of all I just feel lucky to have been able to do that and to have supported myself and made a living out of doing it. And I love doing something which you can never perfect. You're always having to realise what did and didn't work in what you last did, and try to do something new — and I think that's maybe the defining feature of my work, which is that it's very varied and I'm always excited to try something different, try something new and go with my own passions for the most part. Although sometimes, obviously, we do things for money — but for the most part we do things for passion. And also, I'm very happy that I've continued to do both documentary and fiction — and the breathing space that each one gives me and renews in me, that gives me the time to renew my passion for the other one. So when I make a documentary, I'm at the end of it and I'm like 'oh my god, I really want to work with some actors who give me exactly what I asked them to so I don't have to find it in all this footage' and vice versa." One to One: John & Yoko opened in Australian cinemas on Friday, June 20, 2025 — and streams via DocPlay from Monday, July 21, 2025. Images: Magnolia Pictures.
Update: Unfortunately, due to staff shortages, Wong's Late Night Hot Pot has had to cancel this giveaway. The CBD restaurant will still be open for normal service during these times. The Mid-Autumn Festival — also known as the Mooncake Festival — is coming up once again, and the crew at Wong's Late Night Hot Pot is celebrating by giving away 100 mini hot pots. Rock up to this Melbourne CBD hot pot spot on Tuesday, September 17, and you'll score a complimentary one-person hot pot right away — as long as you're one of the first 100 customers to visit. Wong's champions Chinese hot pot from the Chongqing region, meaning you should prepare for some proper heat. And even though these hot pots tend to be massive — best shared with a big group of mates — these mini ones should still satisfy any hungry customer. As is in the name, this spot is also open til late (2am), so if it doesn't sell out of the mini hot pots early then you'll be able to score these free eats after a big night out.
There's nothing quite like getting spirited away by a Hayao Miyazaki movie. Studio Ghibli isn't short on enchanting on-screen wonders hailing from a range of filmmakers, but the Japanese animation house's best-known co-founder truly does make films like no one else. Since 2013, however, fans have had a Miyazaki-shaped gap in their lives, ever since the director's last feature The Wind Rises reached screens. In fact, the movie maestro even announced his retirement, but thankfully changed his mind quickly. Since news that director wasn't farewelling filmmaking came to light, no new Miyazaki-directed features have hit screens as yet — but that's finally changing in 2023. After gifting the world a short trailer for the now-open Studio Ghibli theme park, the filmmaker will release his latest full-length effort midyear in Japan. Fingers crossed that it arrives Down Under around the same time. That film? How Do You Live, which has been in the works ever since it was announced that Miyazaki was returning from his short-lived retirement. Few details have been unveiled since, but Ghibli has just locked in that July 14 Japanese release date, and dropped a poster. The new feature film from director Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli has been announced! HOW DO YOU LIVE (tentative title) opens in theaters in Japan on July 14, 2023. https://t.co/fHnLM6epTS — Studio Ghibli (@GhibliUSA) December 13, 2022 As reported by Variety, How Do You Live is believed to be based on a YA book from 1937 by Genzaburo Yoshino, and to focus on a 15-year-old boy. Ghibli films are always about journeys of some sort, and this one is expected to hone in on its central teen's efforts to understand the meaning of life, and cope with poverty, via advice from his uncle in a journal. How Do You Live will mark Ghibli's fifth film since Miyazaki's last feature, following Isao Takahata's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, page-to-screen treat When Marnie Was There, gorgeous French co-production The Red Turtle and the CGI-animated Earwig and the Witch. おはようございます。 pic.twitter.com/ayRkppbmT1 — スタジオジブリ STUDIO GHIBLI (@JP_GHIBLI) December 12, 2022 The movie gods are clearly shining upon 2023, and every film lover's must-watch list now has a couple of spectacular entries for the new year — with My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle icon Miyazaki's new flick set to drop around the same time as Wes Anderson's latest Asteroid City. Like that film, it's easy to predict that How Do You Live might premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May ahead of its Japanese release — and ideally hit the midyear film festival circuit Down Under (aka the Sydney Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival and New Zealand International Film Festival). There's no trailer for How Do You Live yet, but you can get excited by revisiting the trailer for Miyazaki's The Wind Rises: How Do You Live will release in Japan on July 14, 2023. The film doesn't yet have a release date Down Under — we'll update you when one is announced. Top image: How Do You Live poster, Studio Ghibli.
Maybe you have a date with the 2024 Paris Olympics. Perhaps Paris is the ultimate stop on your travel bucket list. You might've been to the French capital before, but dread the lengthy trip that always accompanies heading to Europe from Australia. Whichever fits, Qantas has excellent news: the Aussie airline is now getting passengers to the City of Light speedier, launching direct flights from Perth to London. Non-stop legs from the Western Australian city to Europe have just kept joining Qantas' itinerary in recent years, giving travellers faster journeys with fewer stopovers. First, Qantas launched direct flights from Perth to London. Then came straight-to-Rome routes as well. The Perth to Paris flights were announced back in 2023, and have now taken off timed perfectly for the soon-to-begin 2024 Olympics, Euro summer getaways and hitting up Europe in general all year round. Sitting on one plane for almost an entire day isn't for everyone; however, if you can handle looking at the same aircraft walls, screens and fellow travellers for 17 hours and 20 minutes, that's now on the agenda. Expect to spend three hours less in transit from Perth to Paris as a result, which is three hours more that you get to spend in the City of Light pretending you're in Lupin or Emily in Paris. Expect to fly on a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, too, and to be travelling on the longest non-stop flight to France from anywhere across the globe. To begin with, the flights are running four days a week, moving to three days per week in mid-August 2024 after peak season. Qantas is the only airline doing direct Perth-to-Paris flights, with the new service adding 75,000-plus new seats from Australia to Europe annually. And yes, at least for July, passengers have Amelie among the in-flight movie options. "In recent years we have seen a significant increase in customers wanting to fly direct on long-haul routes and avoiding stopovers wherever possible. Our direct flights from Perth to London and Rome have some of the highest customer satisfaction on our international network," said Qantas Group CEO Vanessa Hudson "With these new flights, our customers can depart Perth in the evening and arrive in Paris in time to enjoy brunch overlooking the Eiffel Tower." Of course, if you hail from another part of the country other than Perth, you will have to make your way to the Western Australian capital first. Still, that flight from Perth to Paris won't make a layover — getting you from Down Under to France quicker, plus without switching planes, worrying about connecting legs and navigating other airports. Wondering about the possibility of travelling non-stop to Europe from Australia's east coast, which Qantas has been looking into for years now? The carrier announced that in 2022 that it was aiming to begin direct Sydney-to-London flights (and direct Sydney-to-New York routes as well) in late 2025, but now is targeting a mid-2026 launch. Fingers crossed for departure dates from Melbourne and Brisbane as well, plus adding a direct leg to Berlin among the non-stop Euro destinations. Qantas' new Perth–Paris direct flights are now flying, running four times a week until mid-August 2024, after which they'll run three times a week. For more information or to book tickets, head to the airline's website. Feeling inspired to book a getaway? You can now book your next dream holiday through Concrete Playground Trips with deals on flights, stays and experiences at destinations all around the world.
In this very time, in this very galaxy, someone is usually on a screen somewhere talking about the force. It might've been three years now since a Star Wars movie hit cinemas — 2019's Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker, to be exact — but Disney+ has been filling the gap with The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. And if you still need more intergalactic drama in your streaming queue, Obi-Wan Kenobi will soon be here to help. Your new hope for another step into the Star Wars realm, the six-part series hits Disney+ from Friday, May 27, with Ewan McGregor (Halston) once again donning the iconic Jedi master's robes. As both the original Star Wars trilogy and the prequel films showed, however, it's impossible to tell Obi-Wan's story without also stepping into the tale of a certain padawan-turned-sith — and the latest Obi-Wan Kenobi trailer makes that plain in a big way. The fact that Anakin Skywalker-slash-Darth Vader (Hayden Christensen, The Last Man) is a part of the series isn't new news, but it's a key focus of this sneak peek anyway. Initially, Kenobi is reminded about his time training Anakin when he approaches Owen Lars (Joel Edgerton, The Green Knight) about trying to do the same with young Luke. Before the trailer is out, though, the familiar suit and sounds of Darth Vader take centre stage. Disney+ dropped the new sneak peek as part of May the Fourth celebrations. Yes, the force is clearly still with this franchise. It's been 45 years since a little movie called Star Wars — now known as Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope — first hit screens, and the George Lucas-created space-opera franchise has been with us ever since, including through prequels, sequels, spinoffs, theme parks and, as of this week, meditation apps. Timeline-wise, Obi-Wan Kenobi is set ten years after Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, and bridges the gap in its namesake's narrative between the prequels and the OG Star Wars flicks. So, that means following the fallout after Anakin's turn to the dark side and reinvention as Darth Vader, and also chronicling the fact that Obi-Wan is now being pursued across the galaxy. Following on from the show's initial teaser back in March, the new trailer another glimpse at the Empire's search for Obi-Wan, and also includes Kumail Nanjiani (Eternals) — who, based on appearances here, could be playing a jedi. Also set to pop up in the series: Bonnie Piesse returning as Beru Lars, plus Moses Ingram (Ambulance), Indira Varma (This Way Up), Rupert Friend (The French Dispatch), O'Shea Jackson Jr (Just Mercy), Sung Kang (Fast and Furious 9), Simone Kessell (1%) and Benny Safdie (Licorice Pizza). Check out the full trailer for Obi-Wan Kenobi below: Obi-Wan Kenobi starts streaming via Disney+ on Friday, May 27. Top image: © 2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
If you managed to nab a ticket to Paul Kelly's Making Gravy tour in Melbourne last year, then you were one of the lucky ones. If you weren't and have been lamenting ever since, you can stop. The songwriting legend has just announced that he'll be performing the show all over again this December, in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. As in 2017, you can expect to hear a stack of songs from Kelly's four-decade long career. Listen out for all the hits, from "Dumb Things", from the album Live, May 1992, to "Love Never Runs On Time" from Wanted Man (1994). The Christmas classic "How To Make Gravy", first released in 1996 on an eponymous EP, is on the menu, too. Chances are, you'll also hear some tunes from Kelly's new album, Nature. Due out on 12 October, it features poems by Dylan Thomas, Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Phillip Larkin, alongside original poems and songs. Last year, his 23rd studio album, Life is Fine, topped the ARIA Albums Chart, becoming the first of his albums to do so. Kelly won't be hitting the road alone: he's inviting a bunch of special guests. He'll be joined by Angus & Julia Stone, playing tunes from 2017 album Snow, Alex Lahey at all shows, with Angie McMahon and D.D Dumbo joining the lineup in Sydney, and Mojo Juju jumping on board in Melbourne and Brisbane. All three shows are outdoors and all-ages. Paul Kelly Making Gravy presale tickets will be available from 2pm on Monday, August 20. General sales will kick off at 10am on Thursday, August 23. Paul Kelly Making Gravy will hit Sydney's Domain on Saturday, December 15; Melbourne's Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Friday, December 14; and Brisbane's Riverstage on Friday, December 21. Image: Cybele Malinowski
If your idea of a Queensland holiday involves sun, surf, sand and the Gold or Sunshine coasts, we understand. That's been the norm for many a decade. But it's 2019, not 1989, meaning it's high time to expand your northern getaway horizons. If you fancy all of the above, plus exploring an inner-city playground teeming with arts, bars and eateries, then you should tee up a weekend away to Brisbane. While city-based vacations can be more expensive than simply setting up at the beach, Brisbane is a budget traveller's paradise — especially if you book a stay with Brisbane City YHA. Book in for a few nights at the hostel on Upper Roma Street and make one of its premium ensuite rooms your base — or opt for a four-to-six person multi-share suite if you're gathering the gang for a jaunt. [caption id="attachment_728173" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Brisbane City YHA rooftop bar.[/caption] The hostel's sustainable ethos will make you feel good about the environmental impact of your trip, and its rooftop pool, bar and games room will make you feel relaxed. Outside of the hostel, you'll surely want to explore, so we've fleshed out the rest of your agenda below. From strolling leisurely by the river to hunting down the best bites around, you'll be set for a highly affordable but jam-packed mini-break. SNACK ON SAVOURY CHURROS — $9 Travellers in the know venture beyond the obvious tourist hotspots. And in Brisbane, you won't have to venture far. A trip down the winding roadway that turns from Caxton Street into Given Terrace into Latrobe Terrace offers up everything from concrete couches with a view, to huge antique centres to peruse and bars and eateries to duck into whenever the urge arises. At the Petrie Terrace end of Paddington, Nota is one of the latter, with a $5–10 snack range that spans beyond the usual. Think savoury churros with honey, tempura fish sandwiches and blinis, to name a few options. And yes, they'll all go down rather well with the venue's cocktail and wine-heavy drinks list. [caption id="attachment_701809" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Greca by Nikki To.[/caption] RIDE THE RIVER TO BRISBANE'S NEWEST PRECINCT — VARIES When any city gains a new culinary precinct, it's a kind of a big deal. And Brisbane's latest spot is by the river in the middle of the CBD, so it's even more cause for excitement. Howard Smith Wharves holds Brissie's only riverside brewery, its only overwater bar, a Greek taverna, a joint serving Shake Shack-style burgers and grassy areas for hangs by the water, plus the precinct will continue to welcome even more restaurants and bars — including a Japanese izakaya and multi-level Cantonese eatery. Adding a visit to your itinerary is also an excuse to use the city's favourite form of public transport: the CityCats. You'll be in for a walk at either end of the journey (from Brisbane City YHA to South Bank Ferry Terminal, and then from Riverside Ferry Terminal to Howard Smith Wharves), but it's all part of the experience. [caption id="attachment_649663" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Atlanta Bell.[/caption] SING KARAOKE AND EAT CHICKEN PARMIGIANA SPRING ROLLS — $16 Many a day has been lazed away at Little Big House, the multi-level pub set in a heritage-listed Queenslander. This party spot has just kept adding reasons to stop by since it opened a few years back. Sometimes, it's boozy bingo; others, it's trivia. No matter when you drop in, you'll find breezy verandahs to sit on and chicken parmigiana spring rolls on the menu. Yes, you read that correctly. Another highlight is the free karaoke room, which is especially ace if you've got the gang in tow. Make sure to book in advance because it's a first-in, best-dressed type of scenario. [caption id="attachment_628008" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Green Jam sessions, QPAC.[/caption] LISTEN TO LIVE MUSIC OUTDOORS — FREE Not so eager to belt out a song yourself, but love watching other people do it? South Bank, the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and Roma Street Parklands regularly host free live music across the weekend, so you're never too far from a tune. It's a case of picking your preferred picturesque setting — do you prefer grooving by the river, relaxing in sprawling parklands or sipping and eating on a nice little green patch? Time your wanders around town just right during your Brisbane stay, and you can probably even fit in all of the above. [caption id="attachment_711839" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Paul Giggle.[/caption] ENJOY A LEISURELY RIVERSIDE BIKE RIDE — FREE Your first stop starts at Brisbane City YHA's doorstep, where just a few you paces away you can hire one of CityCycle bikes (free for the first 30 minutes) and hit the pavement. You couldn't be in a better place to explore Brisbane on two wheels, with the river and its bike paths just a few pedal pushes away. Everyone's favourite destination is South Bank, understandably, where you can bike gently along the shoreline with the water on one side and parklands on the other. But don't be afraid to go slightly further afield, including through West End's hilly expanse, or through Paddington, Red Hill and Milton in Brisbane's inner west. Hot tip: at the latter, you can even see Brisbane's mini Eiffel Tower, should you be keen to spy replica landmarks out of context. TAKE IN THE CITY FROM A ROOFTOP POOL AND BAR — FREE WITH YOUR STAY Sometimes as a visitor to a city, you get the unique advantage of enjoying places that even lifelong locals don't know about if you stay at the right spot. The rooftop pool and bar at Brisbane City YHA is one of them. If you haven't dropped by for a night, you wouldn't even know that it was there. As well as a scenic view over the CBD and beyond, and a great place for a refreshing splash, it's also where you can wind down with a beverage and a bite to eat. Feeling inspired to whip up your own feast and really stick to a budget? There's a supermarket just up the road at Barracks, where you can grab some snags to whack on the poolside barbie. There are kitchen facilities by the pool for your use, too. That's the real Brisbane experience. EAT YOUR WAY THROUGH THE MARKETS — VARIES When the weekend hits, South Brisbane and West End come alive with markets. In good news for anyone staying at Brisbane City YHA, they're all just a short stroll away. From Friday to Sunday, mosey over to Stanley Street Plaza to browse the trinkets, fashions and accessories (every holiday needs a unique souvenir, after all). If eating your way through an array of cuisines is more your style, then Boundary Street is your destination with treats from around the globe including Brazil, France, Sri Lanka and Taiwan. Plus, for the vegans among us, the Boundary Street Markets go vegan every second and fourth Sunday of the month with sweet and savoury offerings, as well as a selection of vegan beers and wines. [caption id="attachment_646498" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Anwyn Howarth.[/caption] FEAST YOUR EYES ON A CAVALCADE OF ART — FREE For most of the year, Brisbane is blessed with sunny weather; however, if you've caught a few too many rays or if rain is on the horizon, then the Queensland Art Gallery and its sibling spot at the Gallery of Modern Art are your central go-tos. No matter what's gracing the walls of either building on any given day, you'll find a heap of paintings, sculptures and more, as well as an airy, dry space to escape the weather — plus general admission is completely free. At GOMA, you can also head to the gallery's Australian Cinematheque, where free and cheap films hit the big screen every weekend. And don't avoid the Children's Art Centre either; if you like your art with more than a dash of interactivity, you'll find fun for all ages. TAKE A WALKING TOUR OF BRISBANE'S HISTORY — FREE The best way to get to know a city is to delve into its history and Brisbane has plenty to teach you. Strap on your comfiest shoes, then throw a stone in whichever direction you feel like. Wherever that pebble lands, there'll be a heritage trail waiting to be walked. If you're eager to find out more about Brisbane's convict history and big 19th-century fire, then the CBD is your destination. Always wondered what lurks in Fortitude Valley's history? Make a beeline to the Fortitude Valley Post Office to start your tour through the notorious past. If you're keen for a dip, venture through Spring Hill and make sure to stop by the heritage-listed Spring Hill Baths. And the old faithful, of course, is any track by the river. Take a tour through Brisbane's close history with its river or walk along the other side of the river to learn the secrets of South Brisbane. Plus, the hostel offers free walking tours through Brisbane City every Wednesday and Sunday if your keen for more guidance through the city. Let YHA Australia help you explore more of Australia without breaking the bank. Plan a trip to Brisbane (or Sydney or Melbourne) and book a stay right in the middle of the city with YHA Australia. Top image: Greca at Howard Smith Wharves by Nikki To.
Chucking a sickie is as true blue Australian as breaking out an impromptu Nutbush boogie. Now you're being encouraged to mute your office notifications, as Visit Sunshine Coast is giving away all-expenses-paid, two-night escapes designed to clear your head through pristine nature and non-stop warm weather. With applications now open until Thursday, September 11, ten lucky winners will be randomly selected on Thursday, September 18. If you're among the chosen few, you have just 12 hours to pack your bags and organise a friend to join you on this spur-of-the-moment 48-hour adventure. Touching down on the Sunshine Coast, winners get to choose from three relaxing mini-breaks designed for peace, calm and wellness. Think ocean floats, tranquil spa treatments, rainforest walks, long lunches and farm stays — all intended to help with workplace-related burnout. According to Visit Sunshine Coast CEO Matt Stoeckel, almost two-thirds of Australians have experienced professional burnout. "Whether it's a dip in the sea or a hike through the rainforest, a nature-based break is just the right medicine, and we're inviting Aussies to come and find their own sunshine moment." Top image: Jesse Lindemann.
Seeing the Great Barrier Reef sits on every Australian's bucket list, especially given the thriving underwater expanse is under threat from climate change. And while most of us have been content to simply swim, snorkel or sail through it — or stay in the Whitsundays and gaze out at it from a sandy beach — visitors to Queensland's far north will soon be able to spend a night underwater. Prepare to sleep under the sea at Reefsuites, the Great Barrier Reef's very own underwater hotel. It's not the first space of its type around the world — a resort in the Maldives, submerged villas in Dubai and a room at an African hotel all boast similar experiences — but it will be the first at this Aussie natural wonder. Due to open at a yet-to-be-revealed date this summer and built into a new floating pontoon called Reefword, Reefsuites will feature two underwater rooms that can sleep four in total, with guests able to choose between king double or twin single options. A stay onsite includes all meals and beverages, a night dining experience under the stars, a guided snorkelling tour and a semi-submarine tour. Of course, that's all well and good, but it's the floor-to-ceiling views of the Great Barrier Reef and its marine life that are the real drawcard — not only in the bedrooms, but in the attached private ensuites. Enjoying all of the above will start from $749 per night per person, so it doesn't come cheap — to the surprise of no one. If you'd be happy to sleep above sea level, that's also available on the pontoon's upper deck, catering for 28 people at $595 per night. As for the $8 million Reefworld pontoon itself, it's a partnership between Cruise Whitsundays and the Queensland Government, and will have the capacity to host 300 visitors per day. Measuring 12 metres by 45 metres, it'll be located at Hardy Reef off Airlie Beach, and will feature an underwater observatory. A hub for diving and snorkelling, it'll also offer guests access semi-submersible vessels. Announcing the project, Queensland Tourism Industry Development Minister Kate Jones noted that Reefworld and Reefsuites will add something new and unique to the popular tourist hotspot. "This will give more people the chance to see the Great Barrier Reef and will allow tourists to experience this natural wonder in new ways." The aim, of course, is to ramp up tourism, with an extra 60,000 visitors per year expected thanks to the new attraction. For more information about Reefsuites, visit the Cruise Whitsundays website. Images: Cruise Whitsundays.
