Don't work at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. That's the message at the heart of video-game franchise Five Nights at Freddy's, and has been since 2014. The folks earning a paycheque at the fictional joint, particularly the unlucky night-time employees, tend to get some rather unpleasant company: the restaurant's animatronic animal mascots turning murderous. In the button-mashing space, the concept has unsurprisingly proven a hit. So far, nine games have brandished the Five Nights at Freddy's name in the franchise's main series, plus a range of spinoffs. Next, however, it'll be cinemas that are splashing that moniker around. Joining The Super Mario Bros Movie and Gran Turismo among 2023's big-screen game-to-film releases, a feature version of Five Nights at Freddy will hit picture palaces in October. Josh Hutcherson (The Disaster Artist), Matthew Lillard (Good Girls), demonic robots: they're all in the just-dropped full trailer for movie take on the horror favourite. Hutcherson plays a security guard clocking in for this first night on the job, then discovering what's really in store. And those animatronics Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy? They're courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop. Also appearing on-screen are Elizabeth Lail (You), Piper Rubio (Unstable), Kat Conner Sterling (We Have a Ghost) and Mary Stuart Masterson (Blindspot). Putting Scream star Matthew Lillard in any horror movie is always a nice touch, too. Emma Tammi (The Wind) directs, while prolific horror producer Jason Blum is behind the movie via his company Blumhouse, adding it to a roster that's also given us The Black Phone, Freaky, Black Christmas, the Happy Death Day flicks and the most recent Halloween trilogy in the past few years. And, yes, Blumhouse just brought M3GAN our way as well, because 2023 is clearly the year of the unhinged machines. Also, Willy's Wonderland riffed on the same concept a few years back, if you're not a gamer and you're wondering why the concept sounds familiar. That movie's highlight: starring the one and only Nicolas Cage. Check out the trailer for Five Nights at Freddy's below: Five Nights at Freddy's releases in cinemas Down Under on October 26.
Fellow mama-lovers, if you've let the annual celebration of maternity known as Mother's Day (Sunday, May 8 btw) slip your mind this year, we're here to help out. There are scores of ways to acknowledge just how incredible your mother (or grandmother or aunt) is with some good old-fashioned spoiling, but if you've yet to find a gift, it's really time to get looking. Whether your mum is the type to want dinner, flowers, or to spend a week in a camper van — we've got you covered. These personal Mother's Day gifts will have your beloved mum thinking you've been planning for weeks, so now you only have to worry about what your siblings are doing. [caption id="attachment_852109" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Photo courtesy of Camplify.[/caption] IF SHE'S PARTIAL TO A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ADVENTURE Think your outdoorsy-type mum may be looking for an escape? Gift your mum a voucher to spend some time traveling in one of Camplify's stylish camper vans. Perfect for a sustainable adventure, help your mum go on the much-deserved road trip she's been missing over the last two years. Whether your mum is looking to spend more time with you — or to drive as far away from you as possible — Camplify's gift vouchers are a unique and thoughtful gift for the adventurous mum. If road tripping is not quite your mum's speed, you can still gift her an unforgettable experience with Red Balloon's 20% off sale on gift vouchers this Mother's Day. Whether you think she wants a massage, a cooking class, or to jump out of a plane at 15,000 feet — take advantage of this sale to give your mum a memorable experience. And, if all else fails, take your outdoorsy mum on a hike. Whether you live in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne or anywhere else, check out some of our guides for the best hikes in your city to spend some quality time with nature and your mum. [caption id="attachment_852107" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Photo: Cocktail Porter's Bubblegum Fizz cocktail kit.[/caption] IF SHE LOVES HER FOOD (AND DRINKS) You can get definitely get more creative than a reservation at your mum's favourite restaurant (which, don't get us wrong, is still a great gift idea). Being a mum is hard work. If you think she may just want to relax at home and have a drink, check out Cocktail Porter's at-home drink-making kits. Delivered to her door, these boxes contain everything that she needs to make a variety of cocktails. Sydneysiders can even pick up their kits from Cocktail Porter's warehouse as soon as two days after ordering for the true eleventh-hour gift. If the weather is nice, take your mum on a picnic. Pick a park or beach, stop by her favourite local cafe for some sandwiches, and sit down at a picnic table for some quality time with your mum. Sydneysiders looking for a true luxurious outdoor eating experience can spoil their mum with the Catering Project's Mother's Day Picnic hamper — which includes everything you need from a picnic blanket to locally-sourced gourmet produce, mains, and sweets. [caption id="attachment_763458" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Photo: Clay Sydney[/caption] IF SHE'S THE CREATIVE ONE IN THE FAMILY Check out Champainting for a paint-and-sip painting class this Mother's Day weekend. With locations in Melbourne and Sydney, Champainting offers classes where you can paint with your mum on Mother's Day, or any day after. The two of you can learn to paint just about anything: from Disney characters to Monet-style water lilies to each other in a Picasso-inspired style — which is almost guaranteed to make the artistic (or hilariously not-so-artistic) mum laugh. If you and your mum live in different cities, or you're just looking to stretch a different creative muscle, check out Class Bento. With classes offered online as well as in person, you and your mum can learn her dream skill. Whether she wants to learn glass blowing, resin art or dumpling making, she will likely enjoy it even more if you do it together. You can also look around at studios in your city like Clay Sydney, which offers both in-person and at home pottery-making classes. AND IF ALL ELSE FAILS... You can't go wrong with classic. Whether you're far away from your mum this Mother's Day or just down the street, sending her flowers is a foolproof way to make your mum feel your love. Check out Fig and Bloom or Lvly for bouquets available for delivery on Mother's Day in cities across Australia, or look to a local florist in your mum's hometown. Regardless of where you get it, a bouquet on your mother's doorstep on Sunday is likely to make her day. That is, as long as you also remember to call.
If you're lucky enough to count Woolworths' Double Bay store as your local, you might soon be in for speedier shopping trips and a whole lot less time spent battling the self-serve checkouts. As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, the supermarket chain will launch a trial of 'shop and go' technology in the Sydney eastern suburbs store from today, Thursday, September 6. The first of its kind in Australia, the program allows customers to dodge the checkouts completely, instead scanning and paying for products via their smartphone as they shop. The new technology has already been embraced overseas, with retail giant Amazon famously opening its first checkout-free, fully automated shop-and-go grocery store in Seattle earlier this year, and China's bricks-and-mortar Alibaba stores using a similar technology. The Woolworths trial will see a few thousand members of its loyalty program — who are also Double Bay regulars — invited to shop there using a special Scan&Go app, which they can download to their smartphones. The customer can then use it to scan the barcodes of each item they take from the shelves, while specially-designed scales will handle the weighing and scanning of fresh produce. At the end of their visit, the shopper can pay for their haul via the app, 'tap off' on a pole near the exit, then leave the store — without interacting with either a human or robot checkout. As well as being faster and, potentially, easier, the new technology has the added benefit of letting customers track their spending while they're going. So, you'll know when those $2 chocolate bars push you over budget. There's no word on how long the Scan&Go trial will run for, and Woolworths says it currently has no plans to roll out the technology to other stores.
When St Jerome's Laneway Festival announces its lineup each year, it gives music fans a hefty piece of good news. But, that's never the end of the story. As well as taking to the stage for the fest's main shows in Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth and Auckland, plenty of artists on Laneway's bill do sideshows — and the 2024 batch of gigs has just been announced. If you're keen to catch Steve Lacy, Raye, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and AJ Tracey doing their own concerts, now you can. Also on the list: Blondshell, Faye Webster, d4vd, Paris Texas, DOMi & JD Beck and Hemlocke Springs. The one caveat: as can be the case with festival sideshows Down Under, this batch is not only east coast-focused, but almost all about Sydney and Melbourne. Still, you now have more chances to hear 'Bad Habit and 'Escapism', including the former at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall for two big shows — which is where Unknown Mortal Orchestra will bust out their tunes for one night. If you're wondering about Stormzy and Dominic Fike, they're doing exclusive Laneway tours. Accordingly, if you want to see either (or both), you'll only catch them at the fest. Also, Lacy is exclusive to Laneway in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth, hence the Sydney-only sideshows. [caption id="attachment_916473" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Callum Walker Hutchinson[/caption] LANEWAY FESTIVAL 2024 SIDESHOWS: BLONDSHELL Friday, February 9 — Corner Hotel, Melbourne Sunday, February 11 — Oxford Art Factory, Sydney FAYE WEBSTER Wednesday, January 31 — The Croxton Bandroom, Melbourne Thursday, February 1 — Metro Theatre, Sydney STEVE LACY Wednesday, January 31–Thursday, February 1 — Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, Sydney UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA Tuesday, January 30 — Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, Sydney Thursday, February 1 — Odeon Theatre, Hobart Friday, February 9 — Forum, Melbourne AJ TRACEY Friday, February 2 — Enmore Theatre, Sydney Thursday, February 8 — Forum, Melbourne PARIS TEXAS Thursday, February 1 — Oxford Art Factory, Sydney Thursday, February 8 — Night Cat, Melbourne DOMI & JD BECK Friday, February 2 — Brunswick Picture House, Brunswick Heads Friday, February 9 — Factory Theatre, Sydney Sunday, February 11 — Corner Hotel, Melbourne D4VD Friday, February 2 — Liberty Hall, Sydney Thursday, February 8 — Croxton Bandroom, Melbourne HEMLOCKE SPRINGS Friday, February 2 — Night Cat, Melbourne Wednesday, February 7 — Oxford Art Factory, Sydney RAYE Wednesday, January 31 — Enmore Theatre, Sydney Thursday, February 1 — Forum, Melbourne St Jerome's Laneway Festival will tour Australia and New Zealand in February 2024. Head to the festival's website for further details and tickets. The festival's sideshows run throughout January and February, with ticketing dates depending on the show — find out more via the Steve Lacy tour website, Unknown Mortal Orchestra tour website and Handsome Tours.
From the youthful rough and tumble of 1973's Mean Streets, to the bona fide masterpiece that is 1990's Goodfellas, to the Boston-set crime machinations of 2006's The Departed, Martin Scorsese's filmography is filled with gangster movies. Throw in 1996's Casino as well, and the acclaimed director has basically become synonymous with the genre. As a result, it should come as no surprise that his latest film once again steps into the mobster fold — or, given Scorsese's penchant for working with the same actors over and over again, that it tasks a heap of familiar faces with getting down and dirty in America's criminal underworld. In the pipeline for years (since back before 2013's The Wolf of Wall Street, in fact), The Irishman corrals Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel into quite the true tale — of organised crime in the US post-World War II, as experienced by union official and hitman Frank Sheeran. De Niro plays the main role, while Pacino plays notorious union boss Jimmy Hoffa, with the movie particularly interested in the ongoing mystery that is the latter's disappearance. If that's not exciting enough, there's also the fact that Pesci — who won an Oscar for Goodfellas — makes his first on-screen appearance in almost a decade. The rest of the cast features plenty of big names, too, including Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Jack Huston and Jesse Plemons. And, because The Irishman's story spans decades, there's also the movie's use of 'de-ageing' special effects, with De Niro and Pacino playing their characters in both their younger and older versions. With the film releasing via Netflix sometime this spring, the fact that a filmmaker of Scorsese's calibre is making a huge, star-studded, potentially Oscar-worthy movie for the streaming platform is also notable, as well as a sign of the times. For those keen to see the great director's first flick since 2016's Silence on a big screen, watch this space (and probably cross your fingers, too). The Irishman will premiere at this year's New York Film Festival in September, and receive a limited theatrical release in the US; however, whether Netflix will pop it into cinemas Down Under has yet to be revealed. Check out The Irishman's first trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3hh68LpkWQ&feature=youtu.be The Irishman will hit Netflix sometime this spring — we'll update you with a release date when it's announced.
Swing into London's Tate Modern until April 2018, and you'll literally be swinging thanks to their latest large-scale installation. Teaming up with Danish artists' collective SUPERFLEX, the gallery's Turbine Hall now boasts playground equipment as part of its newest commission, which comes with the apt title of One Two Three Swing! The numbers in the piece's moniker don't just refer to the countdown everyone does in their head before they set a swing in motion. They also indicate that each of the installation's pieces has been built for three. That means gathering up two pals and heading for a swinging good time is on the agenda, with the work designed to get audiences to be more social through collaboration — the coordination it takes to get a three-person swing to do its thing, for example. 22 swings feature in total, all connected by their orange frames and all conceived "as an assembly line for collective movement," according to the exhibition's press release. They comprise of the movement section of the work, which also features apathy and production components. In the former, attendees can lie on a 770-square-metre carpet — in a colour scheme inspired by British currency — and view a a large pendulum suspended from the ceiling by a 20 metre cable. In the latter, a factory station assembles swing seats, storing them for later use. During the installation's six-month run, One Two Three Swing! will also expand beyond the Tate Modern, with plans to spread the swings throughout London and even possibly further afield. If that sounds like an ambitious project, it's just the latest for SUPERFLEX, who were formed in 1993 by Jakob Fenger, Bjørnstjerne Christiansen and Rasmus Nielsen, and helped designed Copenhagen's 30,000-square-metre Superkilen park. One Two Three Swing! runs at the Tate Modern, London until April 2, 2018. For more information, head to the gallery's website. Via The Guardian. Images: Tate Modern.
If you're just a hunk, a hunk of burning love for the one and only Elvis Presley, and you live in Australia, you've been having quite the few years. A massive exhibition dedicated to the king of rock 'n' roll came our way, Baz Luhrmann's AACTA-winning and Oscar-nominated biopic Elvis wowed fans, and a new Presley-focused stage musical is playing Melbourne's Athenaeum Theatre from Saturday, September 30. Called Elvis: A Musical Revolution, this brand-new production features more than 40 of the singer's hits, because there's just that many songs to include. Expect all of the favourites to be worked into the biographical musical, which means everything from 'Jailhouse Rock', 'Hound Dog', 'That's All Right' and 'All Shook Up' through to 'Suspicious Minds', 'Heartbreak Hotel', 'Burning Love' and 'Blue Suede Shoes'. 'Good Rockin' Tonight', 'Earth Angel', 'Don't Be Cruel' and 'Are You Lonesome' are also set to get a whirl as well, as are 'Blue Moon of Kentucky', 'See See Rider', 'Can't Help Falling in Love' and 'A Little Less Conversation'. That's what you'll be hearing. As for what you'll be seeing — what'll make the musical one for the money, naturally — the show's action will tell Elvis' tale from his childhood in Tupelo, Mississippi through to his triumphant '68 Comeback Special. If you've seen the aforementioned Elvis, none of it will be new news, but expect Elvis: A Musical Revolution to work its hip-swinging magic anyway. Starring Rob Mallett (House Husbands, Singin' in the Rain), Elvis: A Musical Revolution hails from David Venn Enterprises, which has also been behind Cruel Intentions: The '90s Musical, The Wedding Singer and Bring It On: The Musical — and arrives via a partnership with Authentic Brands Group, the owner of Elvis Presley Enterprises. Also behind the scenes, the musical's book comes courtesy of David Abbinanti and Sean Cercone — who have Saturday Night Fever: The Musical and Ghost: The Musical on their resumes — with Abbinanti also composing the orchestrations, arrangements, and additional musical and lyrics. Updated: Friday, October 5, 2023. Images: Ken Leanfore / Daniel Boud.
Kitty Green doesn't just direct films that demand attention; she makes movies where paying the utmost notice to small moments and details couldn't be more pivotal. With her 2013 debut Ukraine Is Not a Brothel, she deployed her documentarian's eye to explore protest group Femen with revealing and probing intimacy. With 2017's bold and unforgettable Casting JonBenet, Green honed in on the minutiae that can swirl around a crime — especially when true crime has become its own genre, sparking non-stop theories even decades later — all while structuring her picture around holding auditions for a film about the infamous case that shares the feature's name. The Melbourne-born filmmaker moved into fiction with 2019's The Assistant, and now stays there with The Royal Hotel. The shift has still seen Green unpacking reality. The Assistant is a #MeToo movie set in a film production company's office where sexual harassment at its head honcho's hands has become distressingly normalised. The Royal Hotel sprang to life after Green watched Australian documentary Hotel Coolgardie, about two Finnish women encountering the worst of Australia's drinking culture while working in Western Australia's Denver City Hotel, with the director then inspired to dramatise the situation. Diving into insidious everyday horrors in topical thrillers: that's Green's fictional niche right now, even with both The Assistant and The Royal Hotel born from facts. Getting three-time Ozark Emmy-winner Julia Garner playing women confronted with problematic gender dynamics and power imbalances in ominous spaces is also her current terrain — as is peering as closely and intently as Green can. "People keep asking about how my background in documentary helps, and I'm not sure it does really," Green tells Concrete Playground about taking her cues from Hotel Coolgardie this time around, and how her time making docos factors in. "I mean, I think maybe it affects what I watch and my references, and what sort of inspires me." "I really like the close stuff. I like movies that are about these tiny moments. That's something you can't really do in documentaries, because have to stay wide because you don't know what will happen. But with a fiction film, you can really hone in on a facial expression or gesture or a glance — these kinds of little moments that can make you know that a woman in that space feels very uncomfortable, but often get missed by the environment at large. So I was able to amplify those moments with a fiction film." The Assistant spends a day in the life of Garner's Jane, lingering claustrophobically in her New York workplace as the junior staffer navigates the impact of her boss' actions, as well as the hostilities engrained in the industry for women in general. The Royal Hotel finds its terrors in an outback pub where backpackers man the bar, with Garner's Hanna and Jessica Henwick's (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery) Liv the latest arrivals at the titular mining-town watering hole. In both, unsettling men surround young women doing a job, with The Royal Hotel's male cast reading like a who's who of Australian talent. In her first Aussie-made feature, Green enlists Hugo Weaving (Love Me) as the pub proprietor, with Toby Wallace (Babyteeth), James Frecheville (The Dry) and Daniel Henshall (Mystery Road: Origin) among the regulars. "It's been good to have it back home," Green explains of the film, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, also played Toronto and London, then opened the first-ever SXSW Sydney Screen Festival and the 2023 Adelaide Film Festival. "Honestly, we screened it in the US, in Canada, in Spain and in the UK, and I feel like while they seem to really enjoy it and it seemed to play really well, I think it there's an element, a lot of kind of nuances, that they miss. There's a lot of Australian humour that they don't really pick up on over there." With The Royal Hotel now showing in Aussie cinemas — and The Assistant a must-see since it first arrived a few years back — we spoke to Green about taking inspiration not only from Hotel Coolgardie, how her two fictional features pair well together and the importance of casting, as well as adopting a female perspective on Australia's drinking culture, working Kylie Minogue's 'The Locomotion' onto the soundtrack and the hope to do a third film with Garner. ON BEING INSPIRED TO MAKE THE ROYAL HOTEL AFTER WATCHING HOTEL COOLGARDIE "I was just immediately struck by Hotel Coolgardie, and just the dynamics at play in it. And I had seen Australian drinking culture on film before, but I haven't seen it through the eyes of two young women, foreign women, who didn't understand the rules of it and were trying to make sense of it. So that to me was really interesting and great territory for a film to take place. It became the jumping off point for our screenplay. I worked with co-writer Oscar Redding (Van Diemen's Land), who lives in regional Australia. The two of us threw around a lot of the dialogue and figured it out that way. But mostly it's based on our own experiences of being in pubs and seeing things happen, and stories our friends told us. You basically soak a bunch of things up, it sits in your brain, and then you figure out what you want to use, and what's fun and what works, and what adds to the tension. It's definitely never one thing. It's all come from a few different places, I think." ON THE ROYAL HOTEL'S PARALLELS WITH THE ASSISTANT "You always want a challenge with the next project you take on, but I also liked the idea that I could work with Julia again. It was something I knew could work in a similar way — that is, a character trying to make sense of her environment. But with The Royal Hotel, everything is up. Everything is wilder and weirder and stranger — a lot more noise and craziness. So it was a fun challenge to take on." ON RETEAMING WITH JULIA GARNER FOR THE SECOND FILM IN A ROW "We worked really well together on The Assistant. And often we don't get the biggest budgets in the world, so we have to work quite quickly. So there's a shorthand that we have, we have this ability to communicate — you don't have to discuss things at length. We get each other, in a way, so that really works. So I was hoping to work with her again, and this project, when I saw Hotel Coolgardie, I was like 'ohh this could be a role for Julia which is interesting to me' — putting her in that environment was interesting to me. So yeah, it just fit. I dragged her out here, and she did it, which was great. She was excited about the project. I think landing here, we drove them [Garner and Henwick] straight out to the middle of nowhere, and I think they were a bit freaked out for a moment there. We kind of had to live the movie a little bit. We put them up in pubs nearby our shooting location, so they really had the full experience — which, I think they had a great time, but it took them a second just feel comfortable in the place and figure out who the people were. Yeah, it took a minute, but they really, honestly, they had such a good time, the two of them. They were so happy." [caption id="attachment_927983" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Royal Hotel[/caption] ON CASTING THE ROYAL HOTEL'S MEN "The set was a pretty warm and loving place. When you call cut, it feels very safe. That was something we intentionally tried to create, which was making sure we cast the right men, essentially, to play those roles — who understood the sensitivity of the material. I think we got the right people and it was able to feel good for everyone. We wanted them all to feel a little different. We wanted them all to have their own energy. They all bring something something different. And they're all wonderful and warm and kind lovely people, which was great, too. We knew we needed someone cheeky and young to play Mattie, and Toby Wallace was available and a sweetheart, and understood what we're trying to do. Then James [Frecheville], I'd loved in Animal Kingdom, so it was exciting to get to work with him. And Dan [Henshall] was in Snowtown and was absolutely terrifying, so I knew that he could deliver in terms of Dolly. We have fun with that because I think Australians come to it with that understanding. Americans don't, but they still find him really intense. He's not like that in real life, though. Somehow we convinced them all to say yes, and put ourselves together a lovely group." ON SEEING AUSTRALIA DIFFERENTLY BY EXPLORING THE OUTBACK AND COUNTRY'S DRINKING CULTURE THROUGH THE EYES OF WOMEN "That became the agenda, I guess, in a way, but it wasn't a political thing. It was more just this is a story I want to tell, and this is something I have experienced in ways, and it felt real and it felt honest. It was about getting the right collaborators who understand what you're doing. I know that when we were pitching it around, people wanted more violence, they wanted Wolf Creek, but we weren't going to give them that. You have to just find the right partners that understand the project, and the mission statement, and once you've got the right collaborators, it should fall into place, really, from there." ON AVOIDING TURNING HANNA AND LIV'S EXPERIENCES INTO WOLF CREEK "We were looking at the type of behaviour that's the entry point for sexual violence — like how do we prevent it from ever getting to that point? And so the film is about trying to figure out when you can speak up for yourself, when you can say no before the behaviour crosses the line — just when it's dancing on the line. So the aim of it is to prevent that sort of behaviour from ever happening. If we can be a little more responsive a little earlier, then maybe we can create safer spaces for everyone. Essentially, this is the conversation that we want to have." ON PUTTING THE ROYAL HOTEL'S AUDIENCE IN HANNA'S SHOES "That's what they do really have to. They do that with The Assistant, too. I think a lot of these, it's about the behaviour that gets missed in big spaces like that where there's a lot going on. It can be someone creepy, but other people wouldn't really notice it — but Hanna's character would. So it's giving audiences a glimpse of what it's like to be that person behind the bar who's a little worried and feeling a little uncomfortable and not sure how to express it." [caption id="attachment_927984" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Royal Hotel[/caption] ON A QUINTESSENTIAL AUSSIE PUB AS A SETTING, BACKDROPPED BY THE AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE "When you're coming to a project, it's about what's the right environment for some drama and some tension, and I think an Aussie pub is a great one. Not only is it for the interior of this pub, and the claustrophobia of it and all these men — there's 60 miners in that pub and two young women serving them, just that kind of dynamic is interesting to me — but also the exteriors, and this idea that they're in the middle of nowhere in the remote setting adding to that tension, and the isolation making it feel a little terrifying. It just was a really great starting point for a story. The isolation really adds to the tension. It's nice to keep a lot of the action in the bar, and to feel that claustrophobia of being kind of trapped in there. But also the idea, that even though they're not claustrophobic outside, it's somehow just as terrifying but for very different reasons. The contrast of the two spaces was really interesting to play around with. I haven't made an Australian film since film school, so it was nice, if I'm going to make an Australian film, to take advantage of the uniqueness of the landscape and play around with that." ON GETTING KYLIE MINOGUE'S 'THE LOCOMOTION' ON THE SOUNDTRACK "It was about going 'if you're going to teach some foreigners about Australia, where do you begin?'. And so Kylie Minogue, swimming in a water hole, seeing a kangaroo — ticking a few of those boxes." ON POTENTIALLY MAKING A THIRD FILM WITH GARNER TO ROUND OUT A THEMATIC TRILOGY "We would love to do a third one. We've just got to figure out what that should look like and how to get that done, and how to make sure it's a little different. If we're going do it again, we need to play around with it. I mean, hopefully we get to get a chance to do it. It'd be great to work with Julia again." ON WHAT GETS GREEN EXCITED ABOUT A PROJECT "It has to feel like something — often it's something like a gut instinct, and it's something that I feel in my bones, like a story that needs to be told. And often it's because I haven't seen it elsewhere, or it's something that I want say. With The Assistant, we were looking at the larger picture — the news was focusing on Harvey Weinstein and we were saying that we want to look at something wider, like at the systemic problem, sexism in the industry, and how that creates an unsafe workspace and contributes to all of that sexual violence. So then with The Royal Hotel, it was looking at, I guess, just looking at my own discomfort in some of those spaces and how we can voice our concerns a little more, and kind of ripping that apart. Generally, it's just something that gets me interested in something [where] I feel like 'oh, I want to say something here'. That's the starting point, and then there's a lot of people involved. It takes a village to get a movie to the screen, so it changes as it goes, but often I go in with the kernel of an idea that I think is interesting." The Royal Hotel opened in Australian cinemas in November 23. Read our review. Images: Neon / Transmission / See-Saw Films.
Collingwood's RVCA Corner Gallery and the Heavy Time Institute presents Party in The Back, a photographic exhibition from celebrated skateboarder Tino Razo opening on April 21. Razo's evocative images of sunset-drenched skate-sessions document the faded grandeur of South California's abandoned suburban pools. The same adventurous spirit that drove him to use word-of-mouth, satellite technology, and pure luck to track down deserted territories also permeates the tone of his art. Steeped in nostalgia for a thrill-seeking youth gone by and increasingly ungraspable notions of the American Dream, the exhibition, categorised as a 'lyrical photo eulogy', is a narrative of decay and discovery. Having skated for over 30 years, Tino Razo lives his photo project, and his perspective is accordingly authentic. His work is being exhibited in Australia for the first time, alongside an Anthology Editions book of all images, available to purchase alongside limited prints for the duration of the show.
Sure, we've still got winter to get through, but it's never too early to start dreaming about sunny spring afternoon G&Ts. And to help us get there, Brunswick-based gin producer Patient Wolf will open the doors to its Brunswick distillery for one day this Saturday, June 23. It's been almost 18 months since Matt Argus and Dave Irwin joined the growing ranks of Victorian artisan spirits producers, launching their first small-batch dry gin with the help of a Pozible campaign. And they've certainly been busy ones, with Cookie, Howler, and award-winning cocktail bar The Everleigh just some of the local venues quick to add Patient Wolf to their collections. But there's nothing quite like enjoying your gin-fix straight from the source, which you'll be able to do from 1–6pm, when the label's tasting bar opens to the public for the second time. Patient Wolf will deliver the full gin experience out of its Albert Street digs, where gin lovers can not only indulge in their favourite tipple, but enjoy free tastings, learn all about the botanicals that give this spirit its unique flavour and buy a bottle from the cellar door. All while marvelling at the boys' shiny 220-litre copper still, which was custom-made in Germany and takes pride of place in the distillery. Over 500 people turned up to Patient Wolf's last open day — so we reckon you'd best rock up early.
They're acting icons with four decades of work to their names. They also each played a part in the delightful Paddington movies — but in different films. We're talking about Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant, who finally share the screen in six-part mini-series The Undoing. As married couple Grace and Jonathan Fraser, a renowned psychotherapist and a celebrated children's oncologist respectively, they seem to have the perfect New York City life. The drama's title tells you that change is coming, though. When a woman connected to the ultra-expensive school attended by their teenage son Henry (Noah Jupe) turns up dead, the Frasers' existence begins to unravel. Or, as Big Little Lies writer David E Kelley and The Night Manager director Susanne Bier make clear, perhaps it was already unfurling but Grace and Jonathan just didn't realise. Also starring Donald Sutherland as Grace's father and Edgar Ramirez as the police detective with many a suspicion about the Frasers, The Undoing serves up twist after twist as it investigates not only a crime and a marriage, but the lives of the wealthy and privileged.
Melbourne is consistently voted the world's most liveable city, and it's not just because of the obvious tourist destinations, award-winning restaurants and laneway coffee culture. Melbourne is an onion city — it has layers. One of the best parts of living here is the culinary gems you find hidden away across all corners of the city. And our reputation as a foodie city is by no means concentrated to the CBD. In fact, out in the 'burbs, where the rent is cheap and the people are hungry, you'll find some of the most experimental, underground and downright weird cafes. And with Melbourne's extensive bus network on hand, nowhere is off-limits to the enterprising foodie. Think of your myki as a passport to gastronomic delight in the quieter corners of our fair city. We've been exploring Melbourne's east to bring you a list of easy and amazing cafes, all accessible via the bus network. CHURCH OF SECULAR COFFEE Monash Uni is worth a bus trip on the 742 to check out the leafy campus and its glorious space-aged architecture. But the campus itself is also chock-full of cafes (gotta keep students caffeinated to get through those all-nighters) and the Church of Secular Coffee is undoubtedly the best one. (It's no wonder — it being part of the popular coffee-roasting St Ali family and all.) As well as serving up their house-roasted coffee, it also has a weird and wonderful menu of what we like to call 'high-art concept breakfast' ideas. There's brioche french toast served with a mulled wine glaze and vanilla mascarpone ($16.50) and 'sweet potato toast' made up of a slice of roasted sweet potato, smothered in smashed peas and almond feta, and sprinkled with sunflower and pumpkin seeds, quinoa flakes and pomegranate ($14.50). Trust us — you'll want to be spending your Sundays in prayer at the Church of Secular Coffee. 38 Exhibition Walk, Clayton. REUNION CAFE Both the Box Hill Bus (284) and the 612 bus will drop you just down the road from this sweet cafe — just make sure you come with a monster appetite to defeat its portions. The menu is two parts traditional to one part experimental, with jazzed-up cafe mainstays using local and regional produce and unlikely flavour combinations. We recommend the zucchini, cauliflower and amaranth fritters with eggplant kasundi and greens ($18.50). Or, for the sweetest of teeth, try the simple apple and chia muesli with lemon curd labna, strawberry coulis and fresh apple ($15). Pair it all with a freshly squeezed juice or smoothie, and you'll be laughing all the way back to the CBD. 160 Union Road, Surrey Hills. MR HENDRICKS It may be bold to say, but it's cafes like Mr Hendricks that make the home-ownership dream a reality for our food-obsessed generation. Why rent forever in the inner city when the outer suburbs have cafes like this? Mr Hendricks is a trendy and exciting cafe-coffeehouse on Whitehorse Road in Balwyn, and it's well-serviced by a number of popular bus lines with stops on Union Road just a short walk away. The menu doesn't play by the rules, so don't expect a traditional cafe experience. (It also may help lure you out to the 'burbs, but its prices won't necessarily help you save up for that home ownership.) We recommend the indulgent crispy eggs dish, a reimagining of your traditional brekkie, with sweet potato puree, smoked ham hock, baby cos, bacon crumb and ranch dressing of sourdough ($20). The soft shell crab roll is excellent too, served with cabbage, cucumber and Thai dressing on a charcoal bun ($23). And the best part? The cafe fully licensed. Breakfast bloody mary, anyone? 468 Whitehorse Road, Balwyn. AURA CAFE Hidden out in Lower Templestowe on the 907/908 bus line is Aura Cafe, an unassuming little eatery that cooks up meals that look more like art. The broad menu is what you'd expect from a friendly neighbourhood cafe (think various smashes, bowls and brekkies of varying bigness) but damn, they know how to plate up. Do not forget your phone when you head out to Aura because you're going to want to document this. We recommend the corn fritters with smashed avo, feta, bacon and egg ($18.90) or the French toast for maximum aesthetic (and flavoursome) delight. 401/200 High Street, Lower Templestowe. 929 CAFE 929 Cafe, conveniently located directly on the 766 bus line, is an experimental newcomer on the scene but has been getting rave reviews for both food and service. The menu here puts an Asian twist on Mediterranean food (a unique combo). And while it does serve up some more demure breakfast dishes, why would you bother with those when you can get carrot kataifi pastry with whipped feta and black garlic dressing ($17.50) or the cream cheese pancake garnished with pistachio and fresh fig ($13.50)? When we say experimental, we mean experimental. It's a testament to Melbourne's diverse cafe scene that boldness, weirdness and culinary innovation crop up all over the city — all you need to know is how to get there. 929 Riversdale Road, Surrey Hills. Jump on a bus headed toward Melbourne's eastern suburbs to explore more of the area. Find your best route here.
If you're missing the long-lost days of restaurant dining and you've maxed out your home-cooking repertoire three times over, you're not alone. Victoria feels like it's crawling ever-so-slowly through stage four lockdowns and that kitchen fatigue is real. But, if it's time for a little culinary reboot, there's a new subscription meal kit company in town that might just help level-up your dinner game with some real chef expertise. Launching Monday, August 31, Melbourne-born Make-Out Meals delivers easy-to-assemble dinners featuring recipes by some of the city's best-loved eateries and chefs. Tackle La Tortilleria's fish tacos, try recreating the charred broccoli dish from Carlton North's Babajan, or even have a crack at making Tipico's rich pumpkin, gorgonzola and walnut risotto. Each kit comes packed with all the pre-portioned ingredients required to whip up your two, three or four weekly meals, in two- or four-person serves, as ordered. There might be some special house-prepared sauces or spice blends in there as well, plus you'll find instructional recipe cards to help bring those feasts to life. You'll also score access to exclusive video tips and tricks, a weekly virtual cook-along session, an online chat platform to guide you through any sticky kitchen issues, and for select recipes, a chef-guided video tutorial. [caption id="attachment_781628" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tipico risotto by Sammy Green[/caption] Make-Out Meals gives locals another way to support Melbourne's restaurant industry during lockdown, without dropping too much on nightly takeaway dinners. Every time a venue's recipe is selected for a meal kit, the venue gets a cut of the revenue. The group's already rallied favourites like Bomba Tapas Bar & Rooftop, Fancy Hank's, Simply Spanish and Fitzroy's ISH to share their recipes, and there are more to come. Depending on the number of serves and dishes you sign up for, Make-Out Meals starts from a reasonable $10.56 per serve. Deliveries are made each Wednesday via cold freight, with a $10 flat-rate delivery fee for addresses in metropolitan Melbourne, and $15 for those in Geelong and the Mornington Peninsula. Make-Out Meals launches from August 31, with orders made online. One-off kits are available for a limited time, or you can stick with a tailored subscription. See the website for more details. Top image: Happy Lion Films
Melbourne's own little pocket of New York City-style cool is firing up for another rollicking block party featuring beers, art and tunes aplenty. On Saturday, February 18, Section 8 and Ferdydurke and their famed laneway surrounds will come alive for a free shindig co-hosted by the USA's legendary Brooklyn Brewery. Drop by from 3pm to catch a genre-swapping lineup of live music from acts like NYC's own Nitty Scott, Sydney's Queen P, Cris Gamble, IJALE and more. There'll be visuals courtesy of the talented Lava Brain, while the likes of Walla C, Colette, MzRizk, Smilez, Julia Towers and Honeydew will be gracing the decks. [caption id="attachment_888915" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Nitty Scott[/caption] The folks from tiny Fitzroy taqueria and mezcal joint Little Hop are set to make an appearance with a taco pop-up slinging all the good stuff. And of course, Brooklyn Brewery will be cracking open plenty of liquid treats throughout the day and night to keep you lubricated on the dance floor. [caption id="attachment_883873" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ferdydurke, by Leilani Bale[/caption]
Some music festivals introduce you to your future favourites and today's biggest names. Others are all about enjoying yesterday's greats. Australia has no shortage of both kinds of events, but it's adding one more nostalgic-driven fest: the brand-new Pandemonium Rocks, which will debut on the country's east coast in April. Placebo, Blondie, Alice Cooper and Deep Purple lead the lineup, offering decades worth of tunes spanning everything from the Cruel Intentions soundtrack's 'Every You Every Me' to 70s hits 'Heart of Glass', 'School's Out' and 'Smoke on the Water'. The familiar tunes won't stop there, either, with Wheatus sure to bust out 'Teenage Dirtbag', and Wolfmother certain to give 'Woman' and 'Joker and the Thief' a whirl. The Psychedelic Furs, Dead Kennedys, Gang of Four, Palaye Royale, Cosmic Psychos, Gyroscope and Fetch round out the bill, as headed to Melbourne's Caribbean Gardens, The Domain in Sydney, Doug Jennings Park on the Gold Coast and Bribie Island's Sandstone Point Hotel. For Brisbanites, this means either heading north or south, with no local gig. One important note for folks in Queensland: if you want to see Debbie Harry sing 'Hanging on the Telephone', 'Rapture' and 'Call Me', you'll need to make a trip to the Goldie as Blondie aren't playing Pandemonium Rocks' last stop. The band's latest visit to Australia comes after playing Coachella 2023, which you might've caught on the fest's livestream. [caption id="attachment_938061" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Biha via Wikimedia Commons[/caption] TLC's Aussie trip with Busta Rhymes and En Vogue might've been cancelled, but there's always a new event with a retro-skewed lineup on the way. Another that's hitting the country in March, the month before Pandemonium Rocks: Aqua, 2 Unlimited and East 17. A point of difference with Pandemonium Rocks, however, is the fact that you can bring low-rise beach-style chairs that are smaller than 70 centimetres tall to the outdoor gigs. [caption id="attachment_938062" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Arek Olek from Kraków, Poland via Wikimedia Commons[/caption] Pandemonium Rocks 2024 Dates: Saturday, April 20 — Caribbean Gardens, Melbourne Thursday, April 25 — The Domain, Sydney Saturday, April 27 — Doug Jennings Park, Gold Coast Sunday, April 28 — Sandstone Point Hotel, Bribie Island Pandemonium Rocks will tour Australia's east coast in April 2024, with tickets on sale from 9am on Tuesday, January 30 and pre-sales prior — head to the festival website for further details. Top image: Raph_PH via Wikimedia Commons.
From Thursday, March 11–Sunday, March 14, Melbourne will once again host a huge celebration of Indigenous and First Nations filmmaking. First hitting the city back in 2019, the Birrarangga Film Festival is returning to the newly revamped ACMI for four days jam-packed with features and shorts, with more than 70 titles from Canada, New Zealand, the US, Chile, Greenland, Peru, Russia, Finland, Norway, the Solomon Islands and Australia on the lineup. It all starts with exceptional documentary Firestarter — The Story of Bangarra, which steps through the dance theatre's history and impact, and gives the fest a very memorable opening night flick. From there, Melburnian cinephiles can check out everything from Canadian horror film Blood Quantum, which charts a zombie plague that affects everyone on the Mi'kmaq reserve of Red Crow except its Indigenous inhabitants, to Eating Up Easter, about the struggle to balance cultural tradition and modernity on Rapa Nui. Fans of shorts can watch a number of different packages, including one dedicated to New Zealand shorts and a US-centric lineup curated by curated by Adam Piron, the associate director of the Sundance Institute's Indigenous Program. Talks and panels are also on the bill, which is how you can hear Leah Purcell and Bain Stewart discuss their new feature The Drover's Wife — which isn't playing at the fest, but will hit Australian cinemas later in 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxWrPr3XQjc&feature=emb_logo
Whether it's the start of a brand new year or time for a mid-year rest, a bit of re-centring and rejuvenation is always in order. And there's almost no better way to do that then with a few days at a yoga retreat. Not sure where to go for your R&R? We've rounded up eight stellar retreats across the country — ranging from the budget-friendly to the all-out luxurious — that are guaranteed to leave you feeling calm, contented, and ready to take on the world. BILLABONG RETREAT, MARAYLYA, NSW Set in 12 acres of natural bushland, this 30-bed eco yoga retreat offers relatively affordable escapes that include beginner-friendly yoga, meditation workshops and accommodation in gorgeous treetop cabins. Extra perks include a magnesium-infused swimming pool and delectable vegetarian food. Don't have time for a weekend retreat? Drop in for a cheeky day visit and you'll be back in Sydney by dinner time, all relaxed and centred. When? Retreats vary between one and seven nights, and run all year round excluding over New Year. How much? Around $250 for one night to $1260 for a week, which includes all meals, twice daily yoga and meditation. Day retreats cost $200. EDEN HEALTH RETREAT, CURRUMBIN VALLEY, QLD Located in the lush rainforest on the Gold Coast hinterland, Eden Health — one of Australia's first retreats — offers guests an individually tailored experience. Want to improve your general health? Manage your stress? Or just chill the hell out? Eden Health will design a program to meet your specific goals over the course of your stay. The centre's extensive facilities (a spa, a natural mud bath, tennis courts, and a heated pool are just a few of the offerings) also mean you'll have plenty to keep you occupied during your downtime. When? Retreats run each week from Sunday to Saturday all year round. How much? Prices start from $3350 for the week, which includes all meals, classes, use of facilities and $300–400 of therapies. YOGA CUCINA, NSW If you thought yoga retreats were all silence and brown rice, Yoga Cucina invites you to reconsider. Initiated by a trio of yoga instructors — and wine drinkers — it's a new kind of yoga-inspired getaway. The retreats — which run a few times a year — let you spend a weekend practising your salutes to the sun and downward dogs, in between sampling several drops, feasting on Italian fare, playing darts and swimming beneath waterfalls. On the first night you'll meet for a pre-dinner wine tasting, then sit down to a big Italian feast. The rest of the weekend will see you waking up to yoga sessions, honing your practice in workshops, trundling off to national parks for swimming under waterfalls, learning how to make pasta, eating, drinking and playing games. When? The next retreat will run over the weekend of September 6–9, 2018. How much? The weekend costs $1050–1200 per person, which includes all activities, food, wine and accommodation. RADIANCE RETREATS, BYRON BAY, NSW As Australia's yoga capital, Byron offers wellness retreats aplenty. While many are geared towards yoga buffs (and can, therefore, be rather intimidating to the beginner), Radiance Retreats focuses on deep, slow vinyasa, making it a great choice for newbies. Run by renowned yogi and author Jessie Chapman, the retreats supplement top-notch yoga classes with meditation, hikes, beach walks, and spa therapies. When? Five- and six-night retreats run about six times a year, with the next two happening on on November 9–14, 2018 and over NYE 2018. How much? Around $2000–2800, which includes all meals, classes, activities and a massage. GLAMPING YOGA RETREAT, WARRANDYTE, VIC Not all retreats have to cost you your yearly yoga member ship. Melbourne-based yoga teacher Maud Léger has just launched a new retreat in Warrandyte, and instead of fancy lodgings, the accommodation is a glamping village. While the camping vibe helps keep costs down, you will in no way rough it — all tents include mattresses, nice linen and rugs, and you'll practice in the estate's studio and deck. When? The next retreat will run from November 3–6, 2018. How much? Prices start from $767 for a shared tent. TRANQUIL POINT BIKRAM YOGA SCHOOL, CYGNET, TAS Searching for a Bikram (that is, hot yoga) retreat? Tranquil Point Bikram Yoga School in Cynget, Tasmania, specialises in this variety. Located 45 minutes from Hobart, the school boasts gorgeous ocean views, an orchard, and an organic vegetable garden. Anyone can drop in for a class, but you can sign up for one of the many retreats on offer — these vary from beginner retreats to weekend getaways to 30- and 60-day challenges. It's a good option for those who are interested in a more active retreat as you can fill your hours off the mat with bushwalks, kayaking and leisurely swims. When? Classes and retreats run throughout the year. How much? Rooms start at $250 a night and retreats can go all the way up to $7500. GWINGANNA LIFESTYLE RETREAT, TALLEBUDGERA, QLD A firm favourite among the yogi crowd, Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat last year won Luxury Travel Magazine's Best Australian Health and Wellness Property award. The all-encompassing wellness experience pairs yoga and meditation classes with naturopathy, nutritional advice, an award-winning spa and stunning accommodation. While a few days at this luxurious retreat will put a serious dent in your wallet, if you can afford it, the experience is well worth it. When? Retreats vary between one and seven nights, and run all year round. How much? Around $1000 for the weekend to $3485 for the week, which includes all meals, classes, use of facilities and airport transfers and some therapies. PREMA SHANTI YOGA AND MEDITATION RETREAT, DAINTREE RAINFOREST, QLD It doesn't get much better than working on your downward dog in a world heritage rainforest. Two hours north of Cairns, Prema Shanti is a secluded, intimate, and eco-friendly retreat that offers a yoga temple, meditation room, and boutique accommodation. Rather than booking in a set retreat, you just book in how many nights you want to stay, from two days up to two weeks. Greet the day with a meditation session, wind down with an evening yoga class, and spend the hours in-between relaxing with a massage or another spa treatment. Best part? Rooms start at $90 a night. When? Classes run throughout the year. How much? Rooms cost $90–120 a night.
It may get passed over for some of its more glamorous neighbouring towns on the Mornington Peninsula, but Cape Schanck is a great spot to check out for your next road trip. The charming seaside region is located at the southernmost point of the Peninsula and is home to great food, excellent wine, idyllic coastal scenery and even a cool old-timey lighthouse, making it a perfect base from which to access all the wonders of the region. We've teamed up with our Victorian road trip partner RACV to bring you a selection of incredible ways to experience Cape Schanck and its surrounds. And don't forget: if you're planning on having a drink, make sure there's a designated driver to keep you safe on your travels. [caption id="attachment_845440" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Peter Tarasiuk, Visit Victoria[/caption] VISIT THE CAPE SCHANCK LIGHTHOUSE RESERVE That old-timey lighthouse we mentioned? Well, it's one of the main landmarks of this part of the Peninsula, so if you're visiting make it an essential stop. While you might not find RPatz and Willem Dafoe in a brain-bending psychological thriller inside, there's plenty of rich history to be discovered. The dressed limestone and sandstone structure that was built in 1859 still has its original mechanisms in place so it's a bone fide architectural relic. Learn more about its significance and history at the on-site museum, then stick around for a stroll of the grounds — the lighthouse is situated at the edge of a stunning national park full of walking tracks, breathtaking coastal views and endemic plants. [caption id="attachment_845442" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Visit Victoria[/caption] WALK THE BUSHRANGERS BAY TRACK Bushrangers Bay is a quiet, secluded beach that offers a contrasting beauty to the brooding, craggy headlands, thick banksia groves that envelope it and the wild crashing waves that break on the shores. Due to the latter, swimming is strongly discouraged here, but the stunning walk and bewitching scenery more than make up for that. There are two walking tracks that you can take to access the wild beauty of the bay, either from the Cape Schanck car park, or the Boneo car park along Main Creek, both of which are less than three kilometres long. [caption id="attachment_845455" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Visit Victoria[/caption] RECHARGE AT THE PENINSULA HOT SPRINGS All that walking got you feeling the need to relax? Then make a beeline to the award-winning, naturally forming Peninsula Hot Springs. With its series of pools and private baths filled with natural geothermal mineral waters, this renowned wellness centre has everything you need to relax and recharge, right down to the idyllic background of gently rolling green gardens. Dining and accommodation options are also available if you find yourself wanting to extend your stay — and you might just want to, thanks to the retreat's excellent range of spa and wellness treatments. [caption id="attachment_760242" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Fred Laures[/caption] SAMPLE LOCAL PINOT AT NAZAARAY ESTATE The Mornington Peninsula happens to be home to one of Victoria's best wine regions, with the cooler climate offering and especially perfect conditions to nurture pinot noir varietals. The picturesque Nazaaray Estate, owned and operated by husband-and-wife team Param and Nirmal Ghumman since 1991, is the place for cracking drop of pinot, with a number of vintages and varieties to sample (with lovingly prepared Indian tasting plates to match) at the charming cellar door. Honourable mention must also be given to the estate's chardonnay which blends bright fruit notes with subtle but complex oakiness. [caption id="attachment_845444" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Derek Ross, Visit Victoria[/caption] PLAY A PICTURESQUE ROUND OF GOLF AT THE NATIONAL GOLF CLUB Golfer? Be sure to check out The National Golf Club, with scenery so heavenly you might just forget how bad your short game is. The grounds here encompass four world-class courses (including one designed by Greg Norman), with the sprawling greens and fairways punctuated with thickets of local foliage which give way to awe-inspiring coastal views. There's only one catch: unless you're a member, Victorian visitors need to be invited by a current member if they wish to play (interstate and overseas members of other clubs can book via the website). After a turn around the course, though, you'll more than likely be looking to apply for your own membership. EXPLORE THE PENINSULA'S STELLAR DINING SCENE It's not just wine that the Peninsula does well — the food in this part of Victoria is some of the best in the state. Start your day at bona fide McCrae institution Merchant & Maker, an award-winning cafe that features an in-house roaster to prepare ethically sourced, sustainable beans from sibling store Commonfolk Coffee. Pair your brew with a selection from the stellar brunch menu, which includes dishes like the Porky Pork Benny with bacon coffee jam, seeded mustard hollandaise, green apple and pickled fennel, a vegetarian okonomiyaki or a dark chocolate and coconut panna cotta. The Peninsula is also home to a number of terrific fine diners. In Flinders, Moke is all about super-fresh, local and seasonal produce creatively served up in a relaxed setting. The menu changes weekly, sometimes even daily, depending on the spark of inspiration that might seize head chef Michael Cole when scouting for the freshest produce. You can pair your tasting menu with a drop from the impressive wine program curated by Redhill Wine Collective, or a sturdy selection of local beers and spirits. The nearby Donna Maria, as the name might suggest, serves up cleverly contemporary Italian in a stylishly laidback setting. Dishes here — which include beef carpaccio with black garlic aioli and charred eggplant with a raisin and oregano braise, pine nuts and ricotta — are complemented by a foolproof wine list, divided into sections with names like 'chardonnay would go well with what we're eating' and 'I love medium bodied reds like valpolicella'. [caption id="attachment_845445" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Peter Tarasiuk, Visit Victoria[/caption] CHECK OUT SOME LESSER-KNOWN BEACHES As the annual summer influx of city-dwellers attests to vividly, the Mornington Peninsula is home to some of the best (and most easily accessible) beaches in Victoria. Our tip: make a pitstop at one of the more expansive (and far less crowded) beaches in the region. With its nearly four-kilometre stretch of idyllic white sand and calm, crystal-clear waters, Capel Sound, set between Rosebud and Rye, is perfect for a relaxing dip against the backdrop of colourful beach boxes. Ocean beach Gunnamatta, meanwhile, is far more exposed and boasts deep blue cascading waves (with an average height of nearly two metres) perfect for surfing. Still ocean-side, Rye Ocean Beach is another favourite for experienced wave riders, and features natural sand dunes, walking tracks and opportunities to encounter native wildlife. [caption id="attachment_845448" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Mattyv.au (Flickr)[/caption] SEE THE NATURAL WORLD AT ITS FINEST AT THE DRAGON'S HEAD AND FLINDERS BLOWHOLE While The Dragon's Head sounds like a brilliant name for a pub, the natural phenomenon is arguably more impressive. The seaside formation is named for what it resembles: a jagged pile of rocks rearing out of the sea atop a shelf that has been mostly worn away, in the shape of, you guessed it, a dragon's head. Completely naturally formed, this spot is just one of many fascinating formations that call Number 16 Beach home — though this one looks particularly impressive as the white waves crash around it. So if you're after a great photo op — or if you've always fancied yourself a Daenerys Targaryen type — then this is a must-visit. Similarly impressive is Flinders Blowhole (which, we admit, would also make quite a good pub name). This geyser, located at the end of a winding wooden boardwalk, puts on a show when the sea shoots up through it as the waves strike the headland. The area also home to some amazing birdlife — on certain days, you may be able to catch glimpses of mighty sea eagles soaring majestically through the skies. UNWIND IN STYLE AT RACV CAPE SCHANCK RESORT With its easy access to and from the city, the Mornington Peninsula is a day-trip favourite for many a Melburnian. But with so much to do, it's well worth a full weekend. Rest up in style at RACV Cape Schanck Resort, a luxurious retreat that's home to a spa, golf course and a number of top quality restaurants and bars championing regional produce. It's right in the heart of Cape Schanck, too, making it the ideal location from which to set off on your adventures. Planning a road trip? Get RACV Emergency Roadside Assistance before you head off. Top images: Visit Victoria
Looks like Australians aren't the aggressive booze-hounds we've all been told we are. New research from government report Australia’s Changing Drinking Habits, shows we're actually drinking less alcohol than we did 40 years ago — a whopping 25 percent less. Plus, alcohol related violence has decreased by 30 percent in New South Wales over the last six years. Thirty percent. Hmmm, so we're apparently drinking less, and drunkenly hitting people less. #lockouts If you're rolling your eyes and searching for our credible sources right now, take a little gander at the ACDH report, generated by the Australian Liquor Stores Association (ALSA) —an advocacy organisation affiliated with Drinkwise, representing all off-licence retail liquor stores across Australia (so yes, they've got a pretty vested interest in changing certain legislation). In results published by FoodProcessing.com.au this week, the report uses existing Australian Government data to disprove leg-to-stand-on beliefs that alcohol consumption and alcohol-related violence are on the rise. Between 1974-75, Australians consumed an average of 13.1 litres of alcohol per person. This has severely declined since the early '80s, to 9.9 litres in 2012-13. If you think this is just down to adults drinking less and those pesky good-for-nothing teenagers drinking more, you're way off. According to the report, almost three-quarters of all Australian minors drink no alcohol at all. The amount of young people abstaining from drinking has increased from 56 percent in 2007 to a huge 72 percent in 2013. Smirnoff Blacks and UDLs, you're almost out of a job. So we're all apparently drinking less in Australia, young and older. But now to the biggie: alcohol-related violence. The ACDH report shows that alcohol-related violence has decreased 30 percent in NSW over the last six years. Decreased. The report also shows that "consumption is falling at a time of significantly greater footprint of liquor store outlets in Australia," — the number of liquor licences has gone up by 16 percent, even though Australians are apparently drinking less. Looks like we're going to have to look elsewhere to entirely blame alcohol for violence — more licences and less assaults means there is a lack of evidence to connect violence to alcohol availability, according to Terry Mott, CEO of ALSA (the representative body who generated the report). Mott's positive about Australians and their drinking behaviour, telling FP he thinks we're making better choices than ever when it comes to the drink. "Australia's drinking habits have changed significantly over the course of the four decades; we are more educated about alcohol and we are making much better choices than we ever have before," he said. "The majority of Australians consume alcohol responsibly and enjoy the social benefits it brings. It is important to distinguish between the moderate consumption of alcohol by the overwhelming majority of Australians and the misuse of it by a small minority." With this in mind, most Australians are all for cleaning up the mess that comes with alcohol-related problems. While the report shows 85 percent of people polled could get behind greater enforcement of penalties for drunk drivers and 82 percent support enforcement for violation of the ol' RSA (bartenders serving intoxicated customers), only 28 percent support raising the price of alcohol. Big things to think about, for you and the government alike. Check out the report Australia’s Changing Drinking Habits, available from the Australian Liquor Stores Association's website. Via FoodProcessing.com.au.
Picture this: you're eating something delicious and your adorable doggo wants some, but it's just not good for them. Everyone who shares their life with a barking four-legged best friend has experienced this scenario — sadly, while cute pooches love the sight and smell of plenty of human treats, they just can't stomach some foodstuffs. Chocolate is a culprit, as everyone remembers come Easter. Thanks to its milk and sugar content, ice cream is another. If your pet pooch goes yapping mad over heaped ice cream cones, here's the good news: Gelatissimo is releasing a new limited-edition flavour that's both human and dog-friendly. We're not saying that you and your fluffball should share the same cone of the frosty dessert, but you definitely could. Made fresh in-store, the new scoop is called Pawesome Peanut Butter. As the name suggests, it's a peanut butter gelato — and to make it suitable for dogs, it's made from soy, so it's also vegan. Obviously, if you're a human or canine that's allergic to nuts or soy, this isn't for you. Puppers with a history of pancreatitis also need to steer clear. Those who can tuck into a tub will find it at Gelatissimo outlets around the country from Friday, May 3. And if you're in Sydney on Saturday, May 18, you can also to Cook & Philip Park between 9.30–11.30am. The gelato chain is hosting a dog brunch with vegan yum cha, vegan dog treats and Pawesome Peanut Butter gelato to finish, with tickets costing $60 (which includes food for one human and one dog). Pawesome Peanut Butter gelato is available at all 46 Australian Gelatissimo stores for a limited time from Friday, May 3. For more information and to find your nearest store, visit Gelatissimo's website.
A year-long program of design events could be headed Sydney's way, and a two years' worth of bragging rights as well. The New South Wales capital is currently in the running to be crowned the World Design Capital, making the shortlist for the 2020 title alongside Lille in Northern France. If successful, Sydney will play host to six signature events between January and October, with an opening ceremony at the Sydney Opera House, a World Design Street Festival throughout the CBD, an array of exhibitions and conferences in the lead up to Vivid, and a forum coinciding with Sydney Fringe Festival all currently outlined in the city's bid. Masterclasses, a new Festival of the Front Yard that focuses on post-war design and a design camp on Cockatoo Island are also mooted, in a proposal that seeks to "engage, collaborate and design a new model of social impact for an increasingly urbanised world." Beyond the showcase events, much of the suggested program focuses on Parramatta and its surrounding suburbs — and if you're wondering why, there's a good reason. The bid hasn't been put together by the City of Sydney, with the Parramatta council helping to lead the charge as part of a not-for-profit organisation backed by 40 other outfits, institutions and agencies. Still, "Sydney, World Design Capital" has quite the nice ring to it. As for that moniker and how it comes about, the World Design Capital is designated by the World Design Organisation, highlighting cities that use of design to drive economic, social, cultural and environmental development. The 2020 choice will be announced in October, with Sydney potentially joining previous picks Torino (2008), Seoul (2010), Helsinki (2012), Cape Town (2014), Taipei (2016) and Mexico City (2018). Via Sydney Morning Herald / ArchitectureAU. Image: Vivid / Ash Bollard
Like a stack of Melbourne's large cultural institutions, the National Gallery of Victoria has temporarily shut its doors to the public in an effort to help slow the spread of COVID-19. But, you can now feast on some of the NGV's art offerings from afar, thanks to its newly-launched virtual programming. A series of online galleries, virtual exhibition tours and eBooks are now free to access via the NGV's website and social media channels. And if you're having a crack at the whole social distancing thing, or stuck in self-isolation, that's a serious boredom-busting win. Over on the new NGV Channel, punters will find a growing haul of virtual content to explore. Right now, you can join a free, curator-led tour of Collecting Comme and the NGV's Indigenous art collection Marking Time. From Saturday, March 21, you'll be able to digitally explore around KAWS: Companionship In The Age Of Loneliness and then, from Saturday, March 28, Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines. [caption id="attachment_742493" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kaws, What Party (2019) photo by Tom Ross[/caption] On the NGV app, there are also guided tours of NGV International and NGV Australia artworks, narrated by curators, artists and special guests. Thanks to a lengthy digitisation project, much of the 75,000-strong NGV Collection is also online for your viewing pleasure, so you can take a peek at the likes of the Spirit of Herbarium couture dress by Maria Grazia Chiuri for Christian Dior, or Katsushika Hokusai's 1830 piece The great wave off Kanagawa. It's easy to search by artist or artwork name, and even boasts a few pieces that aren't usually accessible. Those craving some new reading material can dig even deeper with a bunch of new eBooks and curatorial essays available free online, exploring exhibitions like Collecting Comme and Japanese Modernism. In a first, the almost 60-year-long back catalogue of Art Journal of the National Gallery of Victoria is also yours to browse at your own pace online. And don't forget, there's a whole lot more going on over on the NGV's socials and under the hashtag #NGVEveryDay, with regular insight videos and mini talks from the curators. Top image: Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines, NGV. Photo by Tom Ross.
UPDATE: June 5, 2020: Judy & Punch is available to stream via Stan, Google Play, YouTube and iTunes. Sometimes, a film lives and thrives thanks to its casting, benefiting from stellar actors who melt into their roles. That's the case with Judy & Punch, with Mia Wasikowska and Damon Herriman breathing life, depth and a roguish attitude into characters best known as wood, string and fabric. As the title makes plain, they're playing Punch and Judy, the puppet-show figures that date back more than three centuries. Still, while writer/director Mirrah Foulkes tasks her stars with fleshing out the marionettes' wholly fictional origin story, she doesn't rely on the duo to do all of the movie's heavy lifting. Her interpretation of the tale — the bold, subversive directions she takes it in, and the feisty, cheeky vibe the film adopts in the process — makes as much of an impact. Jumping behind the camera after acting in Animal Kingdom, Top of the Lake, The Crown and Harrow, Foulkes ensures that her filmmaking debut isn't the kind of feature that lights up screens often. The movie starts with two versions of Punch and his other half: one cavorting on stage, the other pulling the strings behind the curtain. The crowd roars as the perpetually drunken Punch (Herriman) and the long-suffering Judy (Wasikowska) manoeuvre and manipulate their inanimate counterparts, with the pair packing in shows in Judy's insular (and curiously inland) hometown of Seaside. Judy is actually the more dexterous and talented of the two, but Punch gets all the fame and acclaim — partly, reflecting his brutish personality, by making their puppet show literally "punchier". He makes their daily life punchier as well, and thinks nothing of treating Judy and their infant daughter with contempt, whether he's seeing another woman, complaining whenever Judy says a word or showing that he's the world's worst father. With the real-life Punch and Judy famously based on the former's slapstick violence towards the latter, you can be forgiven for feeling cautious about how a live-action version will play out. It sounds strange and inappropriate, but Foulkes is keenly aware of the material she's working with. In her hands, Judy & Punch takes puppet-show savagery and lets it loose in live-action, then rightfully questions why it's considered entertainment. And to really hammer home her point, she needs to unleash a flurry of physical and metaphorical blows. The filmmaker isn't subtle, but neither is a guy bashing his wife and child, which has happened in P&J since the 1600s. So, when Judy is the only person in the town to speak out against the communal stoning of women deemed witches — and, later, when a tragic turn of fate sees her seek solace among the local female outcasts, then plot her revenge — it's thoroughly designed to make a statement. Kudos to Foulkes for not only reclaiming P&J's problematic narrative for Judy, calling out Punch's boorishness and asking why women have so often been treated so poorly — by their partners, by complicit communities and by mobbish societies as a whole — but for clearly having fun while she's doing so. Where this year's thematically comparable and similarly excellent fellow Australian film, The Nightingale, leaned into bleakness and pain, Judy & Punch veers the other way. The movie is styled like a gothic fairytale, with its crumbling castle, sprawling woods and Elizabethan-era costuming, and it takes that look and feel to heart. Dark, fanciful, perceptive, often comic — this mix of elements mightn't sound like a natural fit on paper, but it works. Judy & Punch's tone definitely wavers, although that's on purpose too. And when François Tétaz's percussion-heavy score keeps echoing, it constantly reminds viewers of the thuds, shoves and worse that have long been baked into Judy and Punch's abusive romance, while also proving audibly playful. Given all of the above, you can excuse Judy & Punch for including a big speech at its climax; again, Foulkes isn't doing anything by halves. Nor is her cast, including the likes of Benedict Hardie (Upgrade), Tom Budge (Bloom) and Gillian Jones (Mad Max: Fury Road), who all help populate Seaside's chaotic masses. Wasikowska and Herriman are dream leads, though. She draws upon an ever-growing resume filled with fascinating and formidable women (Jane Eyre, Stoker, Tracks, Madame Bovary, Piercing… the list goes on), while he's having quite the malevolence-dripping year after stepping into Charles Manson's shoes in both Mindhunter and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Judy & Punch firmly tells Judy's story, so this is Wasikowska's film, but it highlights both of its main characters for a good reason. This thoroughly feminist hero doesn't just give a historic narrative a much-needed update and champion a timely cause — with their dynamic back-and-forth, she endeavours to cut Herriman's misogynistic weasel down to size, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63NAagrKOcc
This month, Youth Food Movement Melbourne is out to help locals cut the crap from their lives, with a market and masterclass dedicated to minimising plastic waste. Head to the Community Hub at The Dock, on Saturday, August 25, to join fellow waste warriors honing those planet-friendly lifestyles. To fuel your day, there'll be savoury eats from Brunswick non-profit Home One, along with cosy serves of mulled wine from Melbourne's own sustainable wine slingers, Rewine. You'll spy YFM's thought-provoking art installation Plastic Extinction, and have the chance to chat with a swag of experts, picking up tips and tricks to slash your own plastic consumption. Plus, zero-waste specialist and author of Waste Not, Erin Rhoads will host the day's information-packed masterclass, sharing everything you need to know about reducing food plastic waste in your everyday life. Images: Cody Gordan and Marta Mandryto
The residents of Box Hill should be very pleased with themselves. Not only do they have some of Melbourne's best Cantonese food (among other cuisines) on their doorstop, but they've also just landed a brand new, insanely cute café — and we're already planning a pilgrimage to try it out. After operating as a takeaway coffee pop-up in the area, The Penny Drop has opened a permanent 100-seat cafe-restaurant in the newly refurbished ATO building on Whitehorse Road. And hot damn is it good looking. We can't decide which part we like more — the experimental menu or the Pinterest-worthy interior, which has been seriously decked out by interior designers We Are Huntly. It manages to find a balance between minimalism and warmth (with the help of some pastel pink tones) and has a large circle feature that reminds us of The Kettle Black. But let's talk about the menu. At first glance it may look like your standard offering, but that's the charm — the menu puts an Asian-inspired take on your favourite staples. Breakfast dishes like plain old pancakes sound like heaven (buttermilk pancakes with coconut foam, black sesame and pistachio dukkah, raspberry compote and palm sugar caramel), and don't even get us started on the potato and garlic chive waffle with poached eggs, ham, hollandaise and wakame. Some dishes don't fit any breakfast stereotype but still make our mouths water, like the tea-smoked salmon with spring onion pancake, bean shoot salad, avocado and son-in-law eggs. The lunch menu (available from 11.30am till 3pm) is sparser, but burgers are prominent — the soft shell crab burger with Kewpie tartare, coriander, cucumber and lime takes our fancy — but the dinner menu (available after 5.30pm) really sparkles. Try the fried chicken wings with mandarin sauce and sesame ($13) or the coconut beef short rib with sweet fish sauce, pomelo and soft herbs ($39) and drift away to dream land. The Penny Drop is open for brekkie, lunch and dinner all week as well as servicing all your takeaway coffee needs. Another cute, tasty reason to spend more time in the 'burbs.
Big things come in small packages. It’s a familiar adage, but one that feels perfectly suited to an innovative new housing movement gathering momentum around the world. Built no larger than caravans, with wheels to circumvent construction codes, tiny houses emphasise clever design and efficient use of space, minimising the structure’s environmental impact while saving homeowners house-loads of cash. Inspired by the growing real estate phenomenon, Tiny: A Story About Living Small follows the attempts of director Christopher Smith to build a miniature residence of his own. Originally envisioned as a two or three month project, the enormity of building even a tiny house soon becomes apparent, as the year blows by rapidly. But Smith and his girlfriend (and co-director) Merete Mueller remain committed, soldiering on through financial constraints, the weather and the scepticism of family and friends. In addition to chronicling their own journey, Smith and Mueller also reach out to other tiny house owners, exploring the various reasons — both practical and philosophical — that inspired them to start thinking smaller. Certainly, in the wake of the global recession, the movement makes a certain amount of sense. Not only are tiny houses cheaper to purchase, they also cost less to heat, power and maintain. Moreover, in a society where we’re conditioned to define ourselves based on our possessions, there’s something rather liberating about the idea of living with less. Truthfully, the conversations with the tiny townsfolk are more engaging than Smith’s building project, which, despite being an intriguing starting point, lacks the weight to really anchor an entire documentary. The amateur builder reflects on his motivations in voiceover — born into a military family, Smith lived in more than a dozen different houses as a child, never in one place long enough for it to really feel like home. Yet as the movie stretches on, the narration grows rather repetitive. At just over an hour in length, Tiny exists in a weird middle ground between full length feature and short film. Given that the movement it documents is all about the efficient use of resources, one wonders if it couldn’t have been condensed. Ultimately though, while Smith and Mueller’s vision has a few more rooms than are necessary, the tiny house movement itself ensures the film is still an interesting watch. Who knows: it may it even inspire you to draw up some floor plans of your own.
If it's ethereal indie folk you're after, Dustin Tebbutt is your man. The New England native's music is described by his record label as "the music for your autumns and winters" which, in our opinion, couldn't be more accurate. The haunting isolation that comes through his high echoey vocals and crisp acoustic guitar certainly create feelings of isolation and introspection. Well, it's a good thing he's coming to town as the temperature is starting to drop. Tebbutt's latest national tour is for his latest EP, Bones, and it's gorgeous. First single 'Bones' is much like what we saw on debut EP The Breach; incredibly entrancing music that has the ability to transport its listeners far away from anyone or anything. If you enjoy the thoughtful sounds of Bon Iver or Sigur Rós, then Dustin Tebbutt is a local boy you definitely shouldn't miss. The Armidale local had a good ol' chat to Concrete Playground about roasting coffee, living in Sweden and working with Oliver Tank, right smack in the midst of his national tour. So you're on tour at the moment, and all of your shows are pretty much sold out. How has it all gone so far? It's been really great. We've got a really good crew and they're all people I know really well, so it's just like hanging out with friends really! The shows have been really nice, it's a big difference selling out shows and knowing there'll be a lot of people there to see you, as opposed to driving halfway across the county and ending up with 20 people in a room. It's been amazing and everyone has been really receptive so far, so it's good. Is this your first time performing with a band? What has that been like for you? We did Falls Festival with the band and a festival in March in Sydney with the guys, but they were really just warm up shows to get it all up and running. This is the first tour that we have headlined and the first time we've been on the road together. We've got a chance to do a few shows back to back, which has been really good. It has allowed us to have a closer look at the songs and workshop stuff a bit too. You have also done some international touring earlier this year, how was the reception to your music overseas? I was really surprised actually! I've been really lucky here to have the support of triple j and FBi that have allowed me to get in front of a lot of people quite quickly. Overseas that hasn't really been happening, it's just been word of mouth over the internet. The London show sold out and the New York show sold out, and the one in Amsterdam was packed, so it was really surprising to see that. It's kind of weird because it's very passive, going to these far away places and people happen to know about you! It's strange but it's nice. This tour is showcasing your recently released second EP Bones. Did the songs come together in a different way to your debut EP The Breach? It was a similar process in a way. Quite a few of the songs on Bones started out in the same place as The Breach, and they were kind of the ones I started writing a bit closer to the end of that period overseas. I wasn't quite finished with them when I got back but they all came from a very similar place — a lot of the themes are pretty similar as well. I think I learned a lot with The Breach EP production-wise and my own writing process, and I think Bones was more of a way to experiment with that and refine it a bit more. In a way I think they are both from the same chapter of my life, we'll have to see what the next one is. https://youtube.com/watch?v=FzdxNjwsoAI There is a wonderful remix of The Breach by Oliver Tank on the Bones EP. You two seem like a match made in heaven, how did that collaboration come about? I had seen him when he was supporting James Blake at the Opera House in Sydney, and when he first put out his EP years ago was when I just got back to Australia and I was listening to it a lot up in Armidale. It just kind of captured me straight away, I just sent him an e-mail just to see if he was interested and we just took it from there. I gave him a lot of creative control and said, "There's no agenda here, I just want you to make something that you're happy with." He took his time with it and when I heard it back for the first time it blew my mind, it was so stunning. I'm really happy that we got the chance to work together. So let's go back a bit, you moved to Sweden for two years and that is where song from The Breach EP were conceived. What drew you to Sweden and how did living their influence your music? Originally I was living in Melbourne just before that and I was playing in a few bands and roasting coffee, and my life was very sorted and on a trajectory. I just felt the need to shake it up a little bit. I had a friend who had grown up in Sweden and he was out here as well making music at the time. He told me about the scene over there and how the music is a bit different and I started to get intrigued by that, to the point where I had to go and check it out for myself. When I got there I didn't have any preconceived notions of what it would be like, so I was a bit of a sponge. Spending a lot of time with a small group of people writing music in winter, we stayed in this little country town an hour south of Stockholm for three months and it was insane. It was like the images you see on the Sigur Rós covers. It was such a beautiful place and to be so far away in a different environment was pretty inspiring. You came home to produce and record The Breach in your home studio that you built in Armidale. Do you prefer this set up to a fully-equipped professional sound studio? I really do. I actually did a lot of the drum tracking within a bigger space, which was really good because it's efficient and easy and there's not really anything logistically getting in your way. But the studio that I built was tiny; I could only just fit an office chair in there. But it made you solve problems differently, maybe instead of setting up a new microphone or getting a new guitar, because that would take you eight minutes to change everything over, you didn't. Or you couldn't fit the instrument in the room properly, so you'd play it upside down. The whole set up made me make all of these interesting choices that contributed to the overall sound of the record. If you go to a big studio where a lot of bands have tracked you risk sounding like every other record that has been made in that room. I didn't want to do that, I wanted to do my own thing and it might not have been the easiest way to do it! But I'm really happy with how it worked out. https://youtube.com/watch?v=OysNiYXWga0 Your music is very distinctive; ethereal and complex. Who would you say are your musical influences? Laura Veirs, a Canadian-born singer-songwriter, she and her husband have made six albums together now and he is one of my favourite producers. She was a geologist and she has this amazing vocabulary for songwriting and she tells the most beautiful stories through geographical metaphors. It's just stunning; she's one of my all time favourites. I guess I listened to a fair bit of Bon Iver when that first record came out, and Jeff Buckley when I was growing up, that's probably where the falsetto comes from. You've produced two wonderful EP's, any plans on releasing a debut LP album this year? I'm working really hard to make that happen. At the moment there's not a deadline, I don't want to put anything out that I'm not completely happy with. I'm just writing as many songs as I can and trying to finish them off when they feel ready. It would be really nice to get something out this year, but I'm not making any promises (laughs). What else has this year got in store for you once you've finished the Bones tour? We're heading up to Splendour in July, which will be awesome. Going to drop in to Armidale on the way back — I haven't been there for a few months so that will be good to catch up with some people there. In August there will be a festival in Port Hedland so we'll head up there for a few days. Missy Higgins is playing and the Kite String Tangle, and a few other people I'm looking forward to sharing the stage with so that will be nice. A lot of song writing this year I think, it should be a lot of fun. TOUR DATES: WED 14 MAY - Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (SOLD OUT) THU 15 MAY - Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (SOLD OUT) FRI 16 MAY - Northcote Social Club, Melbourne (SOLD OUT) TUE 20 MAY - Newtown Social Club, Sydney (SOLD OUT) WED 21 MAY - Newtown Social Club, Sydney (SOLD OUT) THUR 22 MAY - Newtown Social Club, Sydney (SOLD OUT) FRI 23 MAY - Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane SAT 26 JULY - Splendour in the Grass, Byron Bay
The team behind the famed Wax Museum Records shop that once sat in Campbell Arcade below Flinders Street Station has opened a hidden live music venue right down the road from their old spot. Head beneath Selina Hotel, just one door down from Degraves Street, to find a crew of Melbourne music lovers curating a set of live gigs every night of the week. Like the old record store, Wax Music Lounge aims to champion Melbourne's diverse underground music scene — this time through hosting gigs rather than selling vinyl. Drop by on a whim and you might come across big acts, DJs or virtuosos who come from all kinds of musical backgrounds. Sometimes, the vibe will be slow and moody. Other nights, you'll be up on the dance floor till early the next morning. It's a mixed bag in all the best ways. But, as founded by Wax Museum Records' Guy Roseby and Tim Bartold, Wax Lounge Bar isn't just a live music venue. It also holds up as an excellent drinking den in its own right. Behind the bar, the team is pouring Australian lo-fi natural wines, craft beers and signature cocktails dreamt up by bartender Pita Dixon (Joe Taylor, ex-Toff in Town). It even has a small kitchen pumping out pizzas and empanadas, so you don't have to venture up to Flinders Street for eats. Either grab a seat by the stage or head to the pool table at the back of the bar to have a chill night out with great tunes simply being your background music. Every part of Wax Music Lounge is lit up with a low red glow of light, courtesy of lighting designers James Hebbs and Grace Darling, while the rest of the 175-person space falls into that industrial vintage aesthetic. The basement's concrete walls and floor remain, paired with a few old rugs, some wooden tables and long leather benches. It's not all glam and luxurious like so many other Melbourne CBD bars. It's a live gig space at its core. And it's primed to host a heap of late-night parties with underground musicians and music lovers.
Getting comfy on the couch is nothing new for avid readers. Staying in to attend Brisbane Writers Festival is, though. Like many other events in 2020, the annual celebration of all things literary is going virtual this year, serving up a week-long celebration of the written word that's being delivered digitally. Called Brisbane Writers Festival 2020: Room to Dream, the fest runs from Monday, August 31–Sunday, September 6, with seven events on the agenda. Each day, two artists will respond to the theme as part of a call and response-style presentation that's available to watch via the BWF website. Also, checking out their readings, poetry, art and dance is completely free. First up is poet Alison Whittaker and dancer and choreographer Katina Olsen, offering up a piece that's being described as "a fusion of feelings". Also on the bill: Vietnamese Australian author Vivian Pham's words brought to life with artworks by Vietnamese illustrator Camelia Pham; a collaboration between award-winning novelist James Bradley and writer and video game enthusiast Shastra Deo; and real-life partners Chris Flynn (author of Mammoth) and Eirian Chapman (an illustrator). The list goes on, which is reason enough to tune in each day — and to get your BWF fix before it returns as a physical event from May 7–9, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLEw15OmF0M&feature=emb_logo Brisbane Writers Festival 2020: Room to Dream runs from Monday, August 31–Sunday, September 6 via the BWF website.
After weeks of protest and a snowballing boycott by artists, the Biennale of Sydney has cut ties with its longtime sponsor Transfield. Philanthropist and Transfield Holdings director Luca Belgiorno-Nettis stepped down from his position as chair of the Biennale board, which went on to end the partnership agreement, effective immediately. Until it happened just now, this was a moment that seemed pretty unlikely. However, a point was reached where the negative publicity was doing neither brand Biennale nor Transfield any favours, with nine artists having withdrawn from the event and many art fans considering staying away. These artists have 'imagined what they desired', in keeping with the theme of the festival. "I hope that blue sky may now open up over this 19th Biennale of Sydney," said the departing Belgiorno-Nettis. This does nothing to fix Australia's repulsive treatment of refugees in detention, of course, but it means the focus of protest can shift, and Sydneysiders can enjoy and engage with the Biennale in full. Here's the statement from the Biennale: Today the Board of the Biennale of Sydney received the resignation of its Chairman, Luca Belgiorno-Nettis. With deep regret, the Board reluctantly accepted the decision of the Chair to resign. We gratefully acknowledge the personal contribution of Luca as Chair over the past 14 years. We also acknowledge the enormous contribution of the Belgiorno-Nettis family over 41 years. The Board also discussed its relationship with its founding partner Transfield. We have listened to the artists who are the heart of the Biennale and have decided to end our partnership with Transfield effective immediately. The Board and the extended Biennale community owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Luca and his family. Luca Belgiorno-Nettis said: ‘I wear two hats: one as Chair of the Biennale of Sydney and the other as a Director of Transfield Holdings; both organisations conceived by my father and nurtured by my family over many decades. I am deeply thankful to the many friends of the Biennale, and my personal friends who have supported me and the teams throughout my tenure, especially in recent weeks. I also express my gratitude to my Directors and Marah Braye and her beautiful team, and Juliana Engberg for their unequivocal allegiance to the Biennale. ‘I hope that blue sky may now open up over this 19th Biennale of Sydney: You Imagine What You Desire and its future incarnations.’ Deputy Chair Andrew Cameron will be interim Chair until the Biennale appoints a new Chair following the close of the 19th Biennale of Sydney. The Board look forward to working with Juliana Engberg and the Biennale team to realise an enormously successful 19th Biennale of Sydney.
When the weather starts to cool down, curling up with a book is a tried-and-tested way to get cosy and make the most of the indoors. Perhaps that's why autumn has also become writers' festival season in some Australian cities. Both Sydney and Melbourne's fests are returning in 2025, each in May. Melburnians can livestream along with the Harbour City's event, which announced its program earlier in March — but there's nothing like heading along in-person at home. Melbourne Writers Festival's 2025 lineup has just been unveiled, revealing the first roster of talks, panels and more under Festival Director Veronica Sullivan. In her initial year at the helm, she has curated a four-day program that'll run from Thursday, May 8—Sunday, May 11. Irish authors Marian Keyes and Colm Tóibín, Booker Prize-winner Samantha Harvey and The Ministry of Time scribe Kaliane Bradley: they're among the big names on the bill. Given their close timing, Melbourne and Sydney's festivals do share some guests. All of the above talents are doing double duty, hitting both cities, for instance. In the Victorian capital, Keyes will look back at her career, Tóibín has Brooklyn sequel Long Island to discuss, Harvey will dig into the International Space Station-set Orbital and Bradley has one of the texts of 2024 to talk about. Also on MWF's bill like SWF's, to name just a few more: Entitlement's Rumaan Alam, Discriminations' AC Grayling, The Safekeep's Yael van der Wouden and Detransition, Baby's Torrey Peters, with the latter the first openly trans woman nominated for the Women's Prize for Fiction. The theme uniting Sullivan's debut Melbourne Writers Festival lineup: magical thinking. Expect that notion to shine through whether France-based Australian Sarah Wilson is pondering living meaningfully, Argentine writer Mariana Enríque is exploring her latest collection of short stories, Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama is tasked with examining the state of his preferred literary medium, Butter's Asako Yuzuki or Twist's Colum McCann are behind the microphone, or fantasy is in the spotlight with Lady's Knight's Meagan Spooner and Amie Kaufman. Hannah Kent on her non-fiction debut Always Home, Always Homesick, Unsettled's Kate Grenville, The Belburd's Nardi Simpson, music icon Jimmy Barnes, a feminist walking tour, live recordings of podcasts Culture Club and The Psychology of Your 20s, a MWF session of Queerstories: you'll find them all at this years' festival, too. Then there's a panel on the Voice referendum, overseen by the fest's First Nations Curator Daniel Browning, with Ben Abbatangelo, Thomas Mayo and Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts getting chatting. The usual approach to the program applies: if you're a word nerd, no matter your preferred genre or topic, there's likely something on offer for you across the full slate. "I'm thrilled to share our 2025 program. Across four packed days this May, some of Australia and the world's most-brilliant and -incisive writers and thinkers will gather in our City of Literature to celebrate the alchemy of storytelling, and the power of imagination to open doors we never thought possible," said Sullivan, announcing the program. "At this year's Festival, audiences will encounter Booker Prize winners, inspiring memoirists, genre-defying storytellers, acute political analysts, vibrant podcasters, transcendent musicians, shimmering poets and emerging voices whose work will shape Australian literature in years to come." [caption id="attachment_994843" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Reynaldo Rivera[/caption] Melbourne Writers Festival 2025 runs from Thursday, May 8—Sunday, May 11 at a variety of venues around Melbourne. For more information and to buy tickets, head to the festival's website.
The only thing cooler than stepping out in a pair of Habbot shoes this spring would be stepping out in a pair that you designed yourself. It's not a pipe dream either, now that the Aussie-designed, Italian-made footwear company has relaunched #myhabbot – an online platform where customers can mix and match their favourite materials to customise a pair of the label's must-have shoes. You might have heard about Habbot's "customise a classic" concept when they trialled it last October, with shoe-lovers jumping at the chance to play designer during a series of weekly events at Habbot's Strand Melbourne store. This time around #myhabbot is here to stay, with a new online customisation platform allowing customers across Australia and the world to create footwear magic with just a few clicks of the mouse. Pick from one of four Habbot favourites – the classic derby, the point pump, the mid-heel sandal or a micro sole derby – and a whopping 24 different materials running from suedes and soft nappa leathers to party-ready glitters. After you select your shoe lace colour and decide on the addition of brogueing (that hole-punch detailing), the design is sent off to Habbot's craftsmen in Italy. All in all, the final product should be on your feet within a month. There's also the option of heading into the store for a consultation, if you prefer a face-t0-face approach to your shoe design. Jump over to Habbot's website to create your own one-off pair.
Beloved Swanston Street nightclub Lounge might have abruptly called last drinks earlier this year, but you can rest easy knowing that some of the minds behind its long-running greatness have a shiny new 24-hour music venue up their sleeves. Liam Alexander and Benny Rausa — who also have hands in music collective 6am at the Garage, one-day festival Something Unlimited and popular Lounge club night Lucid — are just weeks away from gifting Melbourne with their latest venture, Colours. Making its home in the two-storey, 300-capacity Queensberry Street space once home to Yours & Mine, the nightclub and music venue is set to open its doors on Thursday, October 3. The guys are out to unearth some of the vibrancy of Melbourne's glory days, at a time when live music spots and late-night haunts are dwindling. And, from the looks of it, they've got all the right tools to make good on those promises. The space will have a state-of-the-art sound system, downstairs and upstairs, while a first-floor band room boasts space for up to six-piece acts. The venue has also been jazzed up with new furniture, fresh lighting and a healthy splash of colour. [caption id="attachment_701736" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The now-closed Lounge[/caption] It's all being put to good use right from the get-go, too, with events from the likes of natural wine launches, club nights and parties by the name of Neurotiq Erotiq and Club D'erange just some of what's been locked in for the starting lineup. It's an offering that's only set to blossom when teamed with Colour's 24-hour licence, which it can tap weeklong — except for between 7 and 10am Sundays. The venue's set to operate as a bar and band room from 5pm Tuesday to Thursday, kicking into club mode on Fridays and Saturdays from 9pm. A fittingly grand launch party on October 3 will feature sounds from András, Noise In My Head, Sui Zhen, Interstellar Fugitives and Lori. Find Colour at 229 Queensberry Street, Carlton, from October 3.
International hotel giant Mantra Group has entered into an agreement to purchase the Art Series Hotels for a cool $52.5 million. The agreement will see the seven Art Series Hotels join the Mantra's ever-expanding family, which currently holds 128 properties and more than 21,500 rooms across Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Hawaii. Each of the seven boutique Art Series Hotels is dedicated to and inspired by iconic Australian artists, meaning each location has a distinct personality and aesthetic — some of them even made it into our best boutique hotels feature. There's The Cullen in Prahran, The Larwill Studio in North Melbourne, The Olsen in South Yarra, The Blackman on St Kilda Road, Melbourne, The Chen in Box Hill (currently in the final stages of construction and set to open in November 2017), as well as The Johnson in Spring Hill, Brisbane and The Watson in Walkerville, Adelaide. "This is a rare opportunity to acquire a collection of exceptional hotels and one which is expected to make a significant contribution to Mantra Group's business," says Mantra group chief executive officer Bob East. "These hotels have been operated to the highest standards by a passionate and dedicated team, and we are delighted to welcome such iconic and favoured properties to our growing network of hotels and resorts." The acquisition is expected to be settled later this year.
When you roll into any country town, a good pub meal is often one of the first things to seek out. Lexton's Pyrenees Family Hotel isn't afraid to put its reputation on the line, with the self-appointed nickname of the 'Parma Palace'. There are 12 plate-sized varieties of the pub classic to choose from here, with each one bound to leave you very satisfied. The pub also features the hallmarks of any classic country pub: there's a top-notch beer garden where you can enjoy a crisp lager beneath the shade of a mulberry tree, a pool room and jukebox. Plus, if you stop by on a Friday night you can even try your luck at winning a meat tray. Image: Matt, Flickr
This year's Vivid Sydney theme 'Naturally' has been totally embraced by Barangaroo House — as it transforms into the House of Naturalia from Friday, May 26 to Saturday, June 17. Each part of the building is embracing sustainability through its specially curated selection of cocktails, dishes and light installations. At Rekodo Restaurant and Vinyl Bar, visitors can tuck into a unique Vivid Sydney food menu that champions local ingredients and zero-waste practices. And every Thursday night, diners will be served a side of A-grade beats with Frank Booker, DJ Jnett and Queen Bee DJs taking over the decks. Head up to the Smoke Rooftop Bar to sip on custom cocktails made from the kitchen's trimmings and off-cuts. It takes zero-waste to a whole new, delicious level — especially as you'll enjoy these ever-changing creations while looking out over the Barangaroo light shows. The House of Naturalia makes for an excellent refuel pit-stop when tackling the Vivid Sydney Light Walk. The illuminated trail will take you through the natural surrounds of Barangaroo Reserve, along the picturesque Wulugul Walk and into the nature-filled foodie paradise that is House of Naturalia. For more info on House of Naturalia and to book a table at any of the venues, head to the Barangaroo House website.
As first announced back in 2018, Melbourne's Australian Centre for the Moving Image will soon look rather different, with the screen culture-focused Federation Square site currently undergoing extensive $40 million renovations. When it reopens in 2021, visitors can expect revamped exhibition spaces, new immersive experiences and added interactive activations, including a permanent ode to Mad Max. Also part of the huge makeover: increasing the ways that everyone can engage with ACMI digitally, both when heading by in-person and from home. Yes, that sounds like a very 2020 move; however, the decision to implement a new experience operating system, or XOS, pre-dates the pandemic. The idea is to give visitors an integrated, multiplatform visitor experience, including before they arrive, as they're wandering around onsite and after they've left. And while some of ACMI's new additions will be familiar — an online exhibition space and its own video-on-demand service, for example — it has one particularly creative initiative up its sleeves. That'd be The Lens, a handheld device made out of compressed cardboard and featuring an NFC tag. Visitors will use it while they're physically moseying through ACMI's galleries, and can take it home with them as a keepsake. As you walk around and view the museum's exhibitions, you'll tap the device at around 200 different touchpoints to collect objects of interest — which'll then be available for you to explore on any device afterwards, no matter where you are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=ez82jLMVpmM&feature=emb_logo Explaining ACMI's new push to combine the physical and the digital, Director and CEO Katrina Sedgwick notes that "we often consume the same stories via different platforms; we might read the comic book then watch the film adaptation and later play the videogame. Each platform brings out something new in the story. We have taken this concept of multiplatform storytelling and applied it to our museum. Thanks to our XOS, what we can now offer is a deeply integrated journey that extends, expands and enriches your visit, be that in person, or online". While no one will be able to get their hands on The Lens until next year, with ACMI's exact relaunch date yet to be revealed, the museum is unveiling some of its new digital additions before it opens. Online right now is The Story of the Moving Image, a multimedia exhibition currently focused on three main topics — Australian television, video games, Australian film — with additional sections on digital art, social video and Black women on-screen to come. It expands one of the site's forthcoming permanent physical exhibitions. Also, in November this year, ACMI will unveil its aforementioned online exhibition space and online viewing platform. Arriving first is Gallery 5, which will stream artwork and performances from November 11, launching with the premiere of Delusional World by Shanghai-based video, installation and performance artist Lu Yang. Then, on November 19, Cinema 3 will start rolling, with the VOD service streaming a curated range of classics and new movies. It'll kick off with a digital restoration of Claire Denis' 1999 standout Beau Travail, plus Toshio Matsumoto's 1969 Japanese drama Funeral Parade of Roses and 2019's acclaimed Romanian flick The Whistlers. The Australian Centre for the Moving Image will reopen its doors sometime in 2021, with an exact date yet to be revealed. Its The Story of the Moving Image exhibition is currently available to view online, while its Gallery 5 digital exhibition space will launch on November 11, 2020 — with its Cinema 3 video-on-demand service following on November 19, 2020. Top image: Field Carr.
Being The Drums means being one of the most hardworking bands around at the moment – since they skyrocketed in hype in 2009, The Drums haven't slowed down, incessantly touring and releasing two LPs in that time. They've visited antipodean shores before, working the festival circuit and are about to do it for the third time – this time around for St. Jerome's Laneway Festival in Australia. Singer Jonny Pierce took some time out to talk to Kirstie Sequitin about the rise and rise of the band, recording Portamento in their kitchen and getting lost in translation in Poland. Hi Jonny, how are you? Hey there, how you doin'? I'm good thank you, how's your day going? It's going pretty good, I'm down in Puerto Rico right now, just wrapping up my first real holiday since we started the band and heading back to wintery New York City tomorrow morning. It's a little fast to be leaving but I'm also ready for it – I'm having a really hard time actually relaxing. My mind is constantly reeling so I think it'll actually feel better to sort of, do something creative again. This is the first time, actually, that we've had time for a break… we've had just under a month off. That's the longest time that we've had off since we started three years ago. Because we've just been going going going, even a month feels like a very long time. I feel like we all feel somewhat refreshed and excited to come to Australia, which is a change from sort of the, the, how we were feeling a few months ago when we were wrapping up a very long three-year tour. So Australia will kind of be the first stop after your holidays then? It will, absolutely, yeah. It'll be nice to continue this warm weather, actually. I really didn't like warm weather as a child - I was always drawn towards the cold winters but uh, getting older, so, things change I suppose. You've been coming to Australia every year basically since you started – doing the festival circuit and your sideshows and tours and whatever – how do you feel about coming here so often? Do you like it here? Well, we've always had a really warm reception in Australia so it is a place that we look forward to going… and you know there are some places that we've gone a few times and every time it feels the same but there's always this… it feels like every time we've been to Australia there's been this mounting electricity in the air. It's that sort of thing that keeps you on the road. It seems that the fans there are a bit more rowdy than most of the places which really gets us through the show and makes us excited and makes us sort of play the best show possible. And it's nice to go somewhere where people speak English, to be quite honest (laughs). We spend a lot of time sort of, pointing at venues, and… a lot of sign language. So it's sort of nice to just be able to talk to people. Yeah. "We… like… being… here…" Yeah, exactly. Or like, memorising the words Thank You in every language. It seems that I think I know it and I walk up on stage confidently and it completely slips my mind. I end up asking my guitar player how to say thank you in Polish and he tells me – he gives me an answer that's almost right but just wrong enough to make me look foolish and for the entire set I'm saying thank you wrong… (laughs) Oh, that's awesome. Literally happens non-stop. You were saying before that you being in Puerto Rico is the first holiday that you've had since you guys have started – so how does it feel to be on the road for three years? Do you feel like you've enjoyed those three years or do you feel like it's a bit of a burden? Well, when we first started writing songs for this band and recording, we were living in the middle of nowhere in Florida and it was just Jacob and I – we wrote the Summertime EP and then we recorded most of the first album and that whole time we thought we'd be the only two people who would ever hear it. And out of nowhere, we were asked to play a show in New York City – you know, we had a MySpace page and that was it – so we went off to New York and played the show and the next day we were getting calls from record labels and managers and booking agents. Right from the very first show that we played it was a non-stop whirlwind up until a month ago. At the beginning everything is exotic and exciting and surreal and there's nowhere to really feel like you can put your feet down because the whole time it just felt like we were floating and being hyped up as we were. You don't even really feel anything: we didn't have time to feel excited, we didn't have time to feel angry, we didn't have time to feel anything which is just so, so wild. And then about a year into it, the dust starts to settle a little bit and our feet started touching the ground and you sort of have a clearer vision of what you are as a band and we realised where we had landed. It was really exciting, we felt really grateful for everything – and we still do – but, you know, the reality was… none of us were home, ever, and we were always all together and you don't think about those things when you start a band. You think, 'Oh, we'll play a couple of shows here and there, and I'll keep my bartending job and you'll keep your retail job and that will be enough…' you just jump into it because it's exciting. It's very simple - we just spent too much time together and things started to get a little bit ugly. To me, when things get dramatic and ugly, to me it's a really exciting time to be creative, because I think the best art comes through hardship, and that sort of anger and bitterness really gave Portamento a darker texture that I think we were hoping for. So I think, without really saying it, we were all welcoming the drama. Since then, when we finished Portamento and released it, I think we all felt something break… it was just a unifying experience and I think what we all really learned from the whole thing was to give each other space and to respect each other's opinions. Jacob, Connor and I are all really stubborn, bull-headed people and I don't think this band would exist or be able to survive if we weren't that way. I think it's those three dynamic, clashing heads all the time that… that's where the ideas come from. I'm grateful for all of that and I wouldn't want this to be easy and comfortable because I think that's the number one way to lose your creative spark. Yeah, definitely. (And then the line gets cut and Kirstie's heart breaks a little bit. But he calls her back!) Hello! I don't know what happened there. Alright, so I always read the fact that you guys produced Portamento in your kitchen – is that true? Mmhmm. Do you think that for your next efforts you'll go into the studio? Or do you think you'll continue this kind of, very DIY sensibility. Um, I don't know. We didn't do things DIY because we thought we should – we did things DIY because it was the only option when we started. We were completely broke – we didn't have cars, we didn't really have friends, we were living in this small apartment complex in Kissimmee, Florida, riding my bike to work, a 36-mile round trip every day, that sort of thing. We were really broke. So we just downloaded recording software illegally (laughs) and borrowed our friend's guitar and used an old synthesizer that Jacob's mum gave him and bought a $25 microphone from RadioShack and just recorded things that way. With Portamento we just decided that we were really happy with how the first album turned out. We were trying to record things as professionally as we possibly could but because we didn't have the right gear and the right know-how to do it, we sort of landed on a certain sound by accident but we really learned to love it and call it our own. For Portamento we didn't want to stray from that. We kept it the same way and didn't buy any new equipment or any new recording gear, we just decided to make another record how we made the first. And The Drums, I think so far our heart has been into doing it on our own, but that's just because that's sort of how it happened and I think however we go about the next album – whether we get a producer or we do it ourselves again, or we co-produce, I'm not really sure – whatever it is, you can bet that it's because that's what we want to do. That's the number one thing for us, to never look back and feel like we've made a long list of compromises. So if we work with a producer it's because we feel like we should for the next album and not because someone tells us we should. It's about feeling really natural about everything. Alright, I think that's all I've got for today – thank you so much for your time Jonny and thanks for calling me back after I dropped out there. No problem at all, thank you. Have a great time in Australia, et cetera et cetera. Oh, and have fun in Puerto Rico! Oh, thank you, I will - we have had a really nice time. I lied to this man and told him I had a boating license so I've been taking his boat out every day. So, so far you know that I've been downloading illegal software and lying to people in Puerto Rico – it's not all bad, I swear. The Drums will be playing at St. Jerome's Laneway Festival in Australia. This interview was originally conducted for Scene Magazine.
The State Library of Victoria is a pretty magical place. There are huge regal reading rooms with towers of books as old and intricate as anything seen in Harry Potter, and at any one moment you can find hundreds of people feverishly studying, pouring themselves over heavy hardbacks. Now, making it even more interesting, you might also find the work of Nicholas Jones — a man who hacks into books instead of reading them. At first glance Jones' work seems like the most amazing procrastination ever. I'm sure everyone has experienced so much frustration with a book that they've wanted to crumple all its pages up into an unintelligible mess. This is basically what Jones does, but with much more finesse and skill than most could ever fathom. A self-proclaimed 'book sculptor', Melbourne artist Nicholas Jones has been creating these unique and intricate works for a number of years now. This latest exhibition follows on from both a creative fellowship with the SLV and a natural interest in the "topographical contours and line-work present in maps". Each book he touches takes on a new form and with it a new meaning — a transformation of the ordinary to the extraordinary. Definitely worth checking out while on a study break.
The team behind Peter Gunn’s new restaurant IDES must be really organised. Or really lucky. Or both. The ambitious new venue has slated its opening to coincide with the Ides of March — and while it was a disastrous time for Caesar, we suspect it’ll be rather fortuitous for the ex-Attica chef. Gunn, who's spent the last five years as a sous chef under the legendary Ben Shewry at Attica, is striking out on his own with his new Collingwood restaurant with seating for just 36 lucky guests. But it’s not exactly a big risk for him, as Melburnians have been keen on what he’s got since 2013. Gunn’s already put in the leg work for IDES via his monthly pop-up dinners at Persillade that he organised while working in the kitchen at Attica (kind makes you feel guilty about lazily ordering takeaway, doesn’t it?). They were booked out months in advance, and we get the feeling the permanent restaurant will be just as busy. Interestingly, the menu will retain the spontaneity of the pop-ups with dishes going unplanned until the last moment, which Gunn believes injects energy into the menu. The package clocks in at six dishes for $110 (wine pairing will be available for a little more moolah), which is extraordinary good value for a degustation menu designed and made by one of Melbourne's — and. perhaps, the world’s — best young chefs. Get on it now before it books up until the year 3000, because you know it will. IDES will open on Wednesday, March 16 at 92 Smith Street, Collingwood. They will be open for dinner from Wednesday to Sunday, and you can make a reservation here.
Thanks to Keith Courtney, Melburnians have already been able to walk through a huge house of mirrors in the past few years. And, with his help, moseying through an eerie and endless labyrinth of doors became a reality, too. The homegrown installation artist isn't done setting up massive mazes just yet, however — and his latest is designed to resemble a huge, human-sized kaleidoscope. Fittingly called Kaleidoscope — and open daily from 12–10pm, with tickets costing $15 — this installation isn't small. It's a 700-square-metre expanse of glass, steel, mirrors and moving prisms that features a labyrinth of corridors decked out in a revolving showcase of lights and colours. Set up for this year's Rising Festival, but sticking around until Sunday, July 24, it's currently shimmering and luring Melburnians in the Art Centre Melbourne forecourt. Both House of Mirrors and 1000 Doors have also graced the same space — and, like them both, this one has been crafted to be immersive as possible. Expect to have your senses disoriented while you're strolling through, including both motion and gravity. Expect to see plenty of shifting illusions among the ever-changing array of light and colour as well, and to be drawn in by the installation's soundscape in the process. "No one will have the same experience in Kaleidoscope – this is a multi-sensory and at times physical experience where the visitor is completely submerged in sound and light – a vortex of serenity to somewhere or nowhere," explains Courtney. In bringing the massive piece to life, the artist has teamed up with visual artist Ash Keating, composer Tamil Rogeon and artist Samantha Slicer, plus a team of highly skilled technicians.
When you chat with your friends, family and co-workers about your latest streaming obsession, do you tell them where you've been watching? Not which platform, but where you're sat while your eyes are glued to the screen? If you're one of the approximately 2.8-million Australians who've apparently watched Netflix on the toilet, you likely haven't mentioned that — but you might if you hit up loos based on Squid Game, Heartbreak High and Emily in Paris. Rarely one to miss the opportunity to take its shows off the screen and into real life, especially in Sydney — see: its Stranger Things rift on Bondi Beach, the Squid Game Red Light, Green Light doll by Sydney Harbour and a pop-up Heartbreak High uniform shop in Newtown, all in the past few years — Netflix has taken the research about dunny viewing and run with it. For one day only, aka today, Thursday, February 22, the streamer has set up pop-up toilets that take their theming from some of its hit series. The toilets — or the "tudunnies", as Netflix likes to call them — are indeed functional. That said, the main aim of this installation at Hickson Road Reserve in The Rocks in Sydney is to get everyone snapping while they're on the sets. So, if your social media feeds are filled with toilet pics today, this is why. If you're in the Harbour City, you can drop by between 9am–5pm for the ultimate pop culture-inspired bathroom break. If you're making a detour from work, you might need more than a bathroom break's worth of time if the installation proves popular. And that research? It hails from YouGov, as commissioned by Netflix, and found that 21-percent of folks who responded to the survey about their viewing habits had watched the platform's shows while on the throne. As for the choice of shows for the service's pop-up tudunnies, all three of Squid Game, Heartbreak High and Emily in Paris will drop their latest seasons in 2024. Find the Netflix toilets pop-up at Hickson Road Reserve, The Rocks, Sydney from 9am–5pm on Thursday, February 22. Squid Game, Heartbreak High and Emily in Paris are available to stream via Netflix — read our review of Squid Game season one and review of Heartbreak high season one.
Nestled in the leafy heart of Camberwell, The Old Garage takes the concept of dog-friendly cafe to new heights. Sure, its streetside dining area heaves with adorable doggy visitors and its Instagram page is flooded with snaps of cute, wet-nosed clientele. But it also has a dedicated dog menu, hosts regular fundraisers supporting local animal shelters and offers vegan options for every single dish it serves. This former garage and petrol station has been transformed into a much-loved local haunt, fitted out with recycled materials and custom copper lighting, with yellow striped umbrellas adorning the frontage. The food offering features Aussie brunch classics, alongside modern dishes starring flavours that trip from South America to the Mediterranean. You'll be in good hands, with ex-400 Gradi head chef Harley Salanitri whipping up chipotle scrambles with provolone cheese ($21/26), Lebanese baked eggs ($18), breakfast tacos ($18/23), and a brioche french toast finished with candied bacon and mascarpone ($21.5/26.5). Southern fried chicken comes teamed with peri peri fries ($19.5/25), the signature toastie stars four types of cheese ($17/25), and the house-made bircher is topped with a butter biscuit crumble ($17/19). And yes, there are plant-based alternatives for everything on the menu, with the kitchen championing quality vegan products like those from Beyond Meat. Throw in that daily-changing lineup of doggy dishes and a few hard-earned puppychinos ($2), and The Old Garage is ensuring absolutely no one misses out.
Well, we don't know what kind of high-flying career goals you're reaching for this year, but here's one you might want to pop on your list. Domino's is offering one hard-working food-lover the chance to come on board as its new Chief Garlic Bread Taste Tester. Now there's a gem for the ol' resume, if ever we saw one. While the thought of being paid to scoff hot, buttery, garlic-infused carbs sounds like some sort of fantasy, Domino's ain't joking. The company has posted a real-deal job listing for the role on Linked In and is already taking applications. So what's involved in this dream gig, you ask? Unfortunately, it's just a one-day role, but the lucky employee will spend a tasty 7.5-hour work day at Domino's Brisbane HQ, sampling the company's various garlic breads and other products, scoring a sneak peek at future menu items and offering feedback to the team. Here's one of the garlicky dishes you could be getting paid to eat: https://www.facebook.com/DominosAustralia/photos/a.220268216411/10157998133836412/?type=3&theater You'll earn a tidy $30 an hour for your efforts, too. And return domestic flights will be provided if you live outside of Brisbane, as will one night's accommodation if a same day return flight isn't available. A lunchtime pizza feast is also included, so leave the packed lunch at home. Domino's has thrown down a few key qualifications you'll want to have if you're applying for the job, including "a detailed understanding of the pizza and garlic bread relationship", "a history of reviewing other people's food choices" and "working tastebuds". It's also after someone with at least five years' experience in garlic bread consumption — which is peanuts compared to what most of you seasoned garlic bread fiends would have under your belts. If you're ticking all of Domino's boxes for the gig, you'll probably want to have some degree of carb obsession and a solid grasp of the perfect 'crunch to softness' ratio. Oh, and vampire-identifying folk need not apply. To apply for the Chief Garlic Bread Taste Taster role, you'll need to complete the Domino's survey and apply via a 30-second video or 200-word essay, before Monday, October 7.
There can't be many tasks more challenging for a performer than making an unlikeable character likeable, yet when done right, that character's humanity and compassion can often burst though — amplified and disarming — with a powerfully cathartic release. Such is the case in John Lee Hancock's tender-hearted tale Saving Mr Banks, which chronicles Walt Disney's 20-year effort to bring Mary Poppins to the big screen. Disney, however, is not the focus of the film. The man was far from saintly, definitely, but — when played by Tom Hanks — his likability was assured. Instead, Saving Mr Banks focuses on the author of that beloved children's story, PL Travers (Emma Thompson), who was every bit the unlikeable character: stubborn, terse and paradoxically impolite in her constant castigations of anyone who failed to observe common etiquette. Common British etiquette, mind you. Beginning in 1961, Travers had found herself in financial trouble when the royalties from Mary Poppins had all but dried up. Faced with the possibility of losing her London home, she finally acquiesced to the pleas of her exasperated agent and travelled to Hollywood to discuss selling the film rights. Her unease, one she'd staunchly maintained for two decades, was that the story and characters would be 'Disneyfied' by way of frivolous cartoons, childish singing and dancing animals. An author seeking creative control was nothing new to Hollywood, but nobody could quite understand why Travers guarded her story with such unyielding ferocity. That mystery is what lies at the heart of Saving Mr Banks. Presented as a dual narrative, the movie flicks back and forth between Travers' present-day obstinacy in the Disney Studios and her difficult childhood in the Australian outback, with the latter periodically informing and recasting our understanding of the former. It's no secret the true subject of Mary Poppins was not the children, but rather their father — Mr Banks — and the quiet crusade by Poppins to reconnect him with his family. Accordingly, Saving Mr Banks's early scenes focus on the relationship between the young Travers (whose real name was Helen Goff) and her alcoholic yet devoted father, played by Colin Farrell. The parallels are all a little too neat, psychologically, but very much contribute to both the story's greater meaning and the audience's eventual appreciation of Travers' hidden benignity. In the lead, Thompson is unsurprisingly sensational. What initially feels like an exaggerated and caricaturesque performance proves remarkably spot-on courtesy of some unmissable credits, and her ability to transform both mood and meaning with the tiniest change of facial expression demonstrates why she remains top of her game. Hanks is reserved in his turn as Disney, though still proves capable of stealing a scene — most notably during an exquisite description of his own father's strict approach to parenting. In supporting roles, Paul Giamatti offers a lovely turn as Travers' driver, while Bradley Whitford, Jason Schwartzman and BJ Novak are excellent as the bewildered creatives charged with appeasing Travers and adapting her book to the screen. There's a good chance you'll cry in this film, both in moments of tragedy and sentimentality — but really, that's always been the Disney formula. Sweet, heartwarming and consistently funny, Saving Mr Banks is every bit the opposite of its main character, but — just like her — ultimately surprises with some unexpected tenderness. https://youtube.com/watch?v=FvKcwNyOnWo
A broad national network of mental health treatment centres, including up to 57 additional clinics for adults, is part of the Federal Government's landmark $2.3 billion investment in the mental health sector. It represents the single largest Commonwealth commitment to mental health and suicide prevention in history, according to the Coalition. Announced as part of the 2021–22 Federal Budget on Tuesday night, the new National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan brings the government's total estimated mental health spending to $6.3 billion in 2021–2022. The lion's share of spending ($1.4 billion) will go towards improving the accessibility of mental health services for vulnerable Australians. This includes improving access to community-based mental health services ($487.2 million) with an initial 32 new centres for adults, and expanding the existing Headspace network for youth aged 12–25 through the establishment of ten new dedicated clinics ($278.6 million). "The past twelve months have no doubt been some of the most difficult for many young people. It's not surprising that we've seen an increase in need across all parts of the mental health system," Headspace CEO Jason Trethowan said in a statement. "We know increased investment in early intervention is key to supporting young people's mental health." [caption id="attachment_811701" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Pexels stock image: Anastasia-Shuraeva[/caption] Almost $249 million of the spend is allocated to prevention and early intervention, including investments into broadening the digital services available in Australia through a new, world-class digital platform. The system will be home to online professional counselling as well as offering peer and clinical support under Head to Health. A further $298 million is promised for suicide prevention, with the government committing more than half of this spend ($158.6 million) to ensuring Australians who attempt suicide receive continued care and support once they leave hospital. Another $107 million is dedicated to supporting vulnerable groups in the community, which includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-specific services such as a 24/7 crisis line run by Indigenous Australians. $202 million is also committed to training and growing the mental health workforce. "We have a monumental task ahead of us to ensure that our system levels up to our expectations, and treats people with the care and compassion they deserve," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a statement. "[This] is an investment for all Australians." Currently, one in five Australians experience mental health issues every year. 3,000 Australians lose their lives to suicide each year and it remains the leading cause of death for Australians aged 15–44 years old. You can read the Federal Government's National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan online. A media release is also available to the public, or head to the government's website to view a range of available fact sheets.
We all need some time off with a poolside cocktail every now and then. Or just to hold on to the dream of getting it one day. But in reality, do we want to pass our whole holidays like that, while our children are off making a completely different set of memories? Not so much. A lot of family holidays aim for segregation: massages and mud baths for the big people; predictable 'kids clubs' for their offspring. But for those who are in the mood to get imaginative and adventurous, we've teamed up with Holden Equinox, the SUV for parents with nothing to prove, to round up five getaways to gratify you. If you want to share memorable — and, quite possibly, educational — experiences with your kids, then read on to find five of the best contemporary regional holiday ideas for families wanting to clear out of the city and have fun. Together. PHILLIP ISLAND Phillip Island isn't all about the penguins – although, of Phillip Island's many delights, these sand-dune waddlers will light up your kids' eyes most. It's a place of natural beauty that's made to be explored on foot. The tribe can witness koalas and fur seals in their natural habitat, and run barefoot on untouched white-sand beaches. If all that sounds a bit tranquil, you can unleash your inner rev-head at the go-kart track – a replica of the famous Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit. 2 hours' drive south of Melbourne via the Monash Freeway YARRAWONGA AND LAKE MULWALA Water sports, live music and country charm: it's hard not to enjoy yourself at Yarrawonga. Lake Mulwala pulls waterskiing enthusiasts from across the country and is a great spot to introduce your kids to the sport. Afterwards, the Ski Club is one of country Victoria's best sports venues in terms of space, views, food and drink, and live music for the whole family to get down to. Bushwalkers can take their pick of forest tracks, many of which end with the reward of a river swim, while the Bundalong Tavern, 10 minutes east of Yarrawonga, makes for a memorable country pub experience. 3 hours' drive north of Melbourne via the Hume Highway KYNETON BUSHLAND RESORT The phrase "going bush" often conjures up images of long and lonely northward drives to lands of silos, scrub and Kingswood utes. Not so in the case of Kyneton Bushland Resort, which brings the full outback experience to Melbourne's doorstep. After checking into your self-contained villa (the resort has 55 individual villas spread across 50 hectares of bushland), you can mingle with the abundant wildlife before a spot of canoeing, fishing or swimming in the lake. Unwind or go wild: it's your choice. 1 hour's drive northeast of Melbourne via the Calder Freeway BALLARAT AND SOVEREIGN HILL On the surface, it's just another city, but Ballarat comes with a rich history – literally, given it's the centre of the Victorian goldfields. A trip to Sovereign Hill, a stunningly recreated 1850s Gold Rush town, will cost the average family $140, but it's an unforgettable experience. The sound and light show, which tells the story of the Eureka Stockade, runs nightly, while Winter Wonderlights' Christmas in July is an immersive treat. Lake Wendouree, meanwhile, is very pleasant for a picnic. 1.5 hours' drive east of Melbourne via the Western Highway INVERLOCH AND BUNURONG MARINE PARK One beach tends to meld into another unless you're prepared to go off the beaten track. Cue Bunurong Marine Park: many of its suite of breathtaking beaches are only accessible via long sets of steps. Not great for prams, then — but therein lies the adventure! The area is also great for fishing, observing marine life, snorkelling, rockpooling and fishing. Inverloch, meanwhile, is your base, with its vibrant centre and seasonal produce-laden cafes — the Black Sheep Tapas and Wine Bar is a good starting point. 2 hours' drive southwest of Melbourne via the Monash Freeway Drive your family on adventures in and outside of town in the Holden Equinox, the SUV for parents with nothing to prove. Find out more on the Holden website.
Since they first won our hearts and tickled our senses of humour on Saturday Night Live, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have inspired two reactions. Audiences either want to be them or be best friends with them, though the former is impossible and the latter highly unlikely. 30 Rock, Parks and Rec and their Golden Globes co-hosting gigs didn't lessen this desire, so their latest collaboration offers the next best thing. For two hours, Sisters re-teams the charismatic comedic twosome, throws an outlandish party and invites everyone to witness the mayhem. Fun is high on the agenda, and laughs are too — aka everything anyone could want when two of their favourite stars join forces once again. But even with such a pedigree, there's a difference between an enjoyable film and an excellent one, just as there's a difference between meeting expectations and exceeding them. Sisters' director Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) and writer Paula Pell (another SNL alum) know their leads will put a smile on most people's faces simply by sharing screen time. They're also aware that the movie doesn't need to do much else. Accordingly, Sisters takes a well-worn scenario, adds a few just-as-recognisable issues, and hopes that the charm and hilarity of Fey and Poehler wins out. Unsurprisingly, it does. The two play mismatched siblings forced to finally say goodbye to their childhood and face everything maturity entails. Fey's free-spirited hairdresser and single mother Kate can't hold down a job or find a permanent place to live, while Poehler's responsible nurse Maura has dedicated her post-divorce life to her job. They're summoned to their family home in Florida when their parents (James Brolin and Dianne Wiest) decide to sell. But before the sale goes through, the girls decide to throw one last party. Adults behaving like teenagers may have worn somewhat thin, now that every second film is obsessed with states of arrested development. Still, you can trust Fey and Poehler to make the most of the concept. They're game for whatever comes their way — and plenty does. Sure, the script reverses their roles from Baby Mama, their last big-screen pairing, and then relies upon the usual march of escalating big-screen silliness. Yet even when the parade of outrageous antics seems familiar, nothing ever feels stretched or tiresome thanks to the central duo's winning chemistry and all-round energetic performances. Moreover, while the leads are never anything less than a delight to watch, in a feature that's as much a reunion movie as it is a party movie, they're certainly not the only humorous highlights. Maya Rudolph threatens to steal every scene she's in as Kate and Maura's high school nemesis; Ike Barinholtz affably plays against type as Maura's love interest; and John Cena continues to amuse outside of the WWE arena. The movie's attempts to traverse darker territory aren't quite as successful as its jokes, though it's nice that there's something more to the film than Fey and Poehler acting wild and cracking wise. Though it's execution is slight and clumsy, the movie's initial nostalgia for times gone by blossoms into the bittersweet epiphany we all eventually have: that youthful dreams don't always come to pass. Sisters is the type of film best consumed with an eager crowd. There's little that's unexpected here, with the film largely content with letting two of the funniest people on the planet do their thing. And you know what? That's okay. When it comes to laughs, Sisters well and truly delivers — and throws in a great dance routine set to Snow's 'Informer' as well.
