It's time you set your sights on the east coast because Aperol is coming to town in style with its Kombi Tour. The vintage, retrofitted 1976 Volkswagen van is back, chasing the sun with a road trip through some of Queensland's idyllic coastal towns — from Cairns to the perpetually stunning Whitsundays. The Kombi has been cruising around the southeastern corner of the state for the last month but is heading north for the rest of its tour, racing the winter chill and bringing the red-hot vibes along, too. There are five more stops on its journey before Aperol has to hang up its spritzes for winter. If you're in the area, chase the summer feeling and grab a delectable spritz while you still can. NORTHERLIES, AIRLIE BEACH The Kombi's next stop is Northerlies Beach Bar & Grill, just outside Airlie Beach. Aperol is stopping in for four weekends at the mellow beachside resort. Enjoy ice-cold Aperol Spritzes and exclusive specials — like the rosemary-infused Rosy Cheeks spritz — while taking in the gorgeous views of the salty waves crashing into the white sandy beaches. June 16–July 11, Northerlies Beach Bar & Grill, Airlie Beach. More information here. SALT HOUSE FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL Get a taste of the tropics at Salt House in Cairns when the Kombi rolls in this winter. The iconic waterfront venue is also hosting a Food & Wine Festival on Saturday, August 5, which will see winemakers, distillers, brewers and producers descend on the locale and share their wares with attendees. Enjoy local produce while sipping on a refreshing Aperol Spritz — direct from the Kombi. Not able to make it on the festival weekend? Well, you're in luck because it will be at Salt House for four weekends. July 28–August 7, Salt House Food & Wine Festival, Cairns. Book tickets here. CAIRNS ITALIAN FESTIVAL The inaugural ten-day Cairns Italian Festival is the next stop for the brightly-hued vehicle — although it won't actually be moving from Salt House. The waterfront spot is one of the many venues taking part in the festival, so the Kombi will sit tight at the venue for the festival's weekend in July. You'll be snacking on traditional Italian plates, woodfired pizzas, gelato and more — all while sipping deliciously bitter Aperol Spritzes. Saturday, July 29, Salt House, Cairns. More information here. TASTE PORT DOUGLAS The next stop on the 2023 Aperol Kombi Tour is the Taste Port Douglas Food and Wine Festival, held at the Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort. Experience (and then taste) the rich food culture of Tropical North Queensland as top chefs arrive to dazzle you with their inspiring creations. You know the drill: wash it all down with a perfectly chilled spritz from the Kombi. August 10–13, Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort, Port Douglas. More information here. SHERATON, PORT DOUGLAS If five-star luxury eco-certified stays are on your to-go-to list in 2023, take yourself to the Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort. This August and September, you'll be on the doorstep of two staggeringly beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites (the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest), plus you'll be perfectly placed for the freshest of spritzes when the Kombi hits the digs from Tuesday, August 8 till Monday, September 11. It'll be the ideal way to toast the end of winter and celebrate the coming of spring. August 14–September 5, Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort, Port Douglas. More information here. For more information on the Aperol Kombi Tour, and to plan your road trip to one of its pit stops, head to the website.
Set amongst the rolling hills of Wahgunyah in the Rutherglen region, family-owned, heritage-listed winery All Saints Estate is now home to this stellar flagship restaurant. It's named KIN in a nod to the relationship tying All Saints co-owners, siblings Eliza, Nick and Angela Brown. Part of the winery's multimillion-dollar redevelopment, the 120-seat restaurant is housed within a 159-year-old heritage-listed castle, its indoor-outdoor space transformed into a light-filled dining oasis courtesy of acclaimed firm Technē. With stints at the likes of Jackalope and Bistro Guillaume under his belt, KIN's Executive Chef Jack Cassidy is plating up a menu that heroes regional produce and the estate's own wines, drawing inspiration from long-held Brown family recipes. It's also brimming with produce grown onsite. You'll experience it all via a two- or three-course set spread ($75/95) of modern Australian flavours. Perhaps you'll tuck into a kangaroo tartare elevated with black garlic and rye, rainbow trout paired with dill and smoked chilli, or an assembly of roast eggplant, bush tomato and kale. Bone marrow might be served alongside a top-quality piece of striploin with a marble score of four, while pumpkin is teamed with caramelised whey and ricotta salata. And dessert fiends can look forward to creations like the compressed strawberry matched with sorbet made on the All Saints Estate Durif. Wines come courtesy of All Saints' renowned catalogue, as well as fellow Brown family winery St Leonards Vineyard. A crop of local beers and booze-free drops rounds out the fun. Images: Kate Shanasy
UPDATE, March 4, 2021: Moonlight is available to stream via Netflix, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Amazon Video. "At some point, you gotta decide for yourself who you're going to be. Can't let nobody make that decision for you," Miami drug dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali) tells nine-year-old Little (Alex Hibbert). They're warm words of wisdom offered by someone who wouldn't be seen as a substitute father figure in most movies — and given to a shy, bullied boy desperately in need of a guiding hand. Their connection, defying expectations and complicated by Little's crack-addicted mother Paula (Naomie Harris), forms much of Moonlight's first chapter, but their interactions will influence the entire film. As the story progresses, Little grows into awkward teenager Chiron (played by Ashton Sanders), a young man who still struggles with who he is and how he feels. Then, finally, he transforms into the hardened, Atlanta-based Black (Trevante Rhodes), styling himself in Juan's image. He'll keep trying to forge his identity, while grappling with the different visions of masculinity around him, as well as his own sexuality. As he comes of age, he'll also be shaped by his mother's troubles, the nurturing presence of Juan's girlfriend Teresa (Janelle Monáe), and his friendship with his classmate Kevin (played by Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome and André Holland over the years). Written and directed by Barry Jenkins from an unstaged play by Tarell Alvin McCraney, Moonlight is a film of moments and mindsets, one that values sensations and textures more than any other storytelling tool. Jenkins constructs the emotions and experiences of his protagonist from the people, places, dreams and encounters that define him at any given point, plus his ongoing quest to find a persona, a companion, and a space that provides comfort and solace. Narrative-wise, it might sound slight. Thematically, visually and in its performances, Moonlight is a powerhouse. Stressing how things left unseen and unsaid are as crucial as sights glimpsed and words uttered, every frame, look and line of dialogue proves a piece of the puzzle that is Chiron in his various guises. Often, Jenkins and his college roommate turned cinematographer James Laxton make the audience stare into the eyes of their leads, conveying a pain and a yearning that borders on contagious. More frequently, the filmmaking team adopts their character's perspective, gazing into a world teeming with uncertainty. Subjectivity reigns, such as when the dialogue and imagery fall out of synch during moments of distress, or when a painful memory is cast in heightened, almost neon hues. Even when the film peers in from the outside, the little things still matter, be it green blades of grass spied up close, a hand grasping at sand during an intimate exchange, or a man removing the armour-like grill from his teeth. Jenkins seamlessly brings all of the above together, creating a cinematic symphony of the patterns and rhythms that come with deciding who you're going to be. However, he also crafts a sensitive stage for his three lead actors to infuse their protagonist with heart and soul, as a poor, black, queer boy becomes a man. Though matched in every scene by exceptional co-stars — including the charismatic, stereotype-defying work of Ali, as well as the quiet tenderness of Holland — the main trio are never anything less than devastating.
You Won't Be Alone isn't just the name of Macedonian Australian writer/director Goran Stolevski's debut feature, which hit cinemas in 2022. It's also a phrase that applies now that his second film is here. Of an Age initially premiered in the same year as well, bowing in Melbourne International Film Festival's opening-night slot — and, while it tells of growing up queer in 90s Melbourne, falling in love for the first time, then sifting through the aftermath a decade later, it's a glorious companion piece to its predecessor. No one is chosen by a sorceress here. The place isn't Macedonia, the period isn't the 19th century and supernatural shapeshifting isn't part of the narrative. But even just a mere duo of movies into his helming career, Stolevski makes pictures that profoundly ruminate upon two of life's purest truths: that absolutely everything changes and, consequently, nothing completely lasts forever. Neither You Won't Be Alone nor Of an Age fly solo in their moods of yearning, either, or in piecing themselves together from familiar elements that still feel fresh — more than that, that feel immediate and hauntingly immersive — in Stolevski's hands. Where his last flick played like a sibling to Robert Eggers' The Witch by way of The Tree of Life and A Hidden Life's Terrence Malick, his latest rich and poetic effort earns the same sensation with 2011's Weekend and 2017's Call Me By Your Name. This too is a tender love story, as both of those recent greats of LGBTQIA+ cinema are. A clock ticks inescapably, this time a single day rather than the respite at the end of the working week or a whole summer. And, in a keenly felt romance that swells and swirls with lingering emotions, two men find their lives eternally altered, while also facing the unshakeable fact that their bliss will be fleeting. 1999 is inching towards becoming Y2K when Of an Age begins, and 17-year-old Nikola aka Kol (Elias Anton, Australia Day) is only hours from taking to the floor at a Melbourne dance championship. That's how his day is meant to pan out, at least, and what he's preparing for when the film meets him practising his smooth ballroom moves in his suburban garage — conjuring up visions of John Travolta in a flick made famous two decades prior, in fact. Kol's ordinary morning fever breaks, however, thanks to friend and dance partner Ebony (Hattie Hook, Savage River) and her bender of an evening. She's awoken on the beach in Altona with no idea where she is, scrounging up change for the payphone call to say she thinks she'll miss the recital unless Kol can pick her up. Stolevski hones in on Ebony early, not because this is primarily her story — it isn't — but to commence his coming-of-age and coming-out tale with compulsive urgency. Anything can happen in the whirlwind from adolescence to maturity when your entire adult future is ahead of you. Anything can occur when you've just finished high school, as Kol and Ebony have, and the days, months and years to come seem endless and brimming with possibility. Any day can be a shock and a surprise as well, as the jittery young woman conveys while scrambling to work out what's going on, where her belongings are, what happened last night and how she'll get home. With cinematographer Matthew Chuang (another You Won't Be Alone alum), and while editing himself, Stolevski's infuses the scene with a freneticism and nerviness that could've barrelled straight out of Good Time or Uncut Gems, adding the Safdies to the picture's influences. That frenzied energy thrums when Kol dons his dance attire, rushes through the streets and looks like a Serbian Elvis all shook up as the Victorian capital wakes up. To attempt to make his big performance, he has to convince Ebony's older brother Adam (Thom Green, Eden) to play taxi — and he's still all aflutter with anxiety, and just the inertia of being so keyed up from endeavouring to sort things out, when he slides into the twentysomething's brown car. They remain in that race against time, although the reality of missing the contest slowly sinks in. Cue the aforementioned other battle with the clock, as what starts as a panicked drive between virtual strangers becomes a leisurely on-the-road chat between kindred spirits warming up. When Ebony hops in the backseat, Adam and Kol only have eyes for each other (plus mentions of music, books and movies traded as tentatively flirtatious currency, all while listening to the soundtrack to Wong Kar-wai's 1997 queer romance Happy Together). An awakening is at the centre of Of an Age, which Stolevski brings to the screen with electrifying specificity and universality in tandem. He achieves an always-sought-after but never-assured feat, making Kol's discovery that he's attracted to Adam and their blossoming bond from there feel so sincere and lived in that it could've only happened for these two characters — as thoughtfully and compellingly performed by the charismatically matched Anton and Green, too — and yet ensuring that it also feels as if it has been ripped from everyone's formative experiences, or near enough. 90s teens of Australia, prepare for a time capsule in the movie's sounds, sights and slang, plus its costuming and vibe, across the feature's first section. This isn't quite a picture of two halves but, after Kol and Adam spend an intense 24 hours in each other's orbit (including at a 21st-birthday party that leads to the moment they've been building towards), it comes with a coda in 2010. Embracing its debt to Weekend and Call Me By Your Name, Of an Age could've stayed in 1999 for its entire duration and still proven a gorgeous, heartfelt and affecting film. It cuts deeper and hits harder courtesy of its final chapter, though — and the dreamy visual sheen of its sequences in 1999, which have the intimacy and glow of fond recollections even when they're at their most fraught (with help from boxed-in Academy framing, and reminiscent of Chuang's work on Blue Bayou), is all the more powerful due to what comes next. When Kol and Adam cross paths again, both returning to Melbourne from abroad, much has shifted and transformed. That spark between them still burns bright, but confronting what it now means and how it too has evolved is another stop in Kol's coming-of-age journey. How moving and entrancing it is to tag along for the ride, and for a Melbourne-set, distinctively Aussie tour through following your heart, trying not to be alone, and understanding that perfect memories and existence-shaping delights quiver and sway just like everything else.
Owning a pair of Habbot shoes has become the dream of many a fashion-forward Melburnian. Designer Annie Abbott launched the brand from her St Kilda backyard and shed in 2010 — and in less than a decade has managed to turn her shoe label into a national sensation. Habbot Shoes' pop-up shops are always a scramble but, luckily for any Melbourne-based shoe lovers, Habbot Shoes' head office in Collingwood also doubles as a studio store. Pop in on a Friday or Saturday — or book an appointment during the week — to try on a pair (or two) in the flesh.
There's toying with horror film tropes, and then there's It Follows. Fans of the genre have undoubtedly seen all the scary movies where the characters get it on, only to be nastily dispensed with not too long after. Even those not so fond of big-screen frights have probably watched the flicks that call attention to and make fun of the cliche, such as Scream. Well, here, that convention isn't just a routine inclusion — it's the film. When hormone-fuelled teens have done the deed, something evil comes calling. That, folks, would be the titular 'it', a presence that can take the guise of a parent, friend or stranger. It follows its victim with a focus and perseverance most movie killers could only dream of. Once it sets its sights on the latest sexually active person to catch its attention, it won't stop walking and stalking until it strikes them down — or until the unlucky soul in question passes it on by sleeping with someone else. After getting intimate with her boyfriend, Hugh (Jake Weary), for the first time, that's the situation 19-year-old Jay (Maika Monroe) finds herself in. It takes some time to convince her sister Kelly (Lili Sepe), friends Yara (Olivia Luccardi) and Paul (Keir Gilchrist), and neighbour Greg (Daniel Zovatto) of such a strange predicament, but they're soon helping her try to outrun her sinister, unceasing, supernatural pursuer. There might be more than a hint of picking off the promiscuous at play here, even if getting physical is a clear substitute for fears of growing up in general, but thankfully that outdated attitude doesn't dampen the film. Instead, It Follows flies by thanks to its genuine chills, using its style to unsettling effect. If ever there was a movie that stacked up familiar horror elements and made them its own in the canniest fashion possible, it's this one. Think you've seen that fondness for symmetry before? And heard something similar to that electro score? Well, if you're familiar with the work of Stanley Kubrick and John Carpenter, that's not at all surprising. This isn't a case of blatant copying of parts of movies like The Shining and Halloween, but of affectionate nods to obvious influences. Writer/director David Robert Mitchell takes his cues from the master filmmakers he loves, his enthusiasm ensuring It Follows is never anything less than hauntingly atmospheric and spine-tinglingly creepy. So, there's sex and death, a gimmick that might get you watching. Plus, there's an unshakeable air of unease, which will probably keep you glued to your seat. It's actually the performances that will get you really engrossed in the film, however, refreshingly showing teens acting their age. Monroe is a certain star in the making, and the rest of the cast are just as great at getting to the heart of what it must be like to be scared out of your wits while still awkward, vulnerable and uncertain. As It Follows follows them coping the best they can, it also follows in the footsteps of horror greats gone by, proving a striking and sincerely scary addition to the genre. Read our feature on the history of sex in horror movies.
Don't buy a ticket to see Hotel Coolgardie if you're feeling emotionally vulnerable. It's a difficult film to stomach, for many reasons, and just as tricky to critique. Directed by Pete Gleeson, the documentary follows the story of Steph and Lina, two young Finnish travellers set down in Perth to make some money after having their bank accounts drained in Bali. It's there that they're groomed by a recruiter to do some country pub work in the little town that gives the movie its name. "It's quite a big mining area, so a lot of the clientele of the pub[s] are going to be gentlemen," the recruiter says, ominously. "You have to be the kind of girls that are okay to have male attention and not really sweat it." Shortly after, when they arrive at the Denver City Hotel pub where they'll live and work for the next three months, the pair are greeted by a welcome sign that reads "New Girls Tonight". Lina and Steph meet the previous barmaids Becky and Clio. They've done their stint and seem almost sad to be leaving, partying with the locals at a final send off. They're bubbly and flirt with the clientele; they lean in and act like perfect barmaids. Steph and Lina do not. They're reluctant to play nice, can sometimes barely understand the thick local accents, and don't win a lot of sympathy from the men who have them trapped. Pouring drinks, they soon learn, is not the only task barmaids are expected to perform at the pub. The message is clear: be complicit in maintaining a structural framework that oppresses you, or GTFO. What follows is a deeply uncomfortable look at toxic masculinity, male domination of public spaces through microaggressions, and the binge drinking culture that rots small mining towns. The ensemble of local blokes bring a playful Aussie cadence to their misogyny, one that strikes a light-hearted note against the darkness. Admittedly, Coolgardie isn't entirely bereft of kind folk. But if this documentary doesn't make you feel physically sick, you may be part of the problem. Director Gleeson has been criticised in some corners for not taking a firmer stance against the mistreatment of Steph and Lina. The doco self-identifies as a "sometimes amusing, sometimes appalling, surprisingly moving portrait of small-town insularity, fragile masculinity and the plight of the outsider forced to adapt or face the consequences". The line between observation and interference can be hard to find, for documentarians and photographers alike. Once found, it can be similarly tough for the audience to stomach. Regardless, prospective viewers should not be deceived: the mild description belies a dark documentary that exposes the reality of life for marginalised folk (in this case, women and tourists) in patriarchal, racist outback Australia. If you've ever felt othered, Hotel Coolgardie will resonate with you like nails on a chalkboard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nop_Jq9M_R8
Embrace the icy weather at Madame Brussels Lane, which, for the sixth year running, will transform itself into a bustling European-style night market from 5–10pm each Friday in July. Inspired by the picturesque Christmas markets in places like Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the UK, the market will feature some of Melbourne's most decadent food vendors, serving tasty European goodies to warm your insides and satisfy your sweet tooth. Kicking off on July 5, there'll be more European eats than ever before as the market expands to encompass the old Oddfellows Hotel for the first time. You can expect everything cheesy — from French raclette scraped on top of potato and charcuterie to Swiss malakoffs (read: fried cheese balls) — as well as Polish pierogi, Puglia-style vegan panzerotti and Bavarian snacks like pretzels and sausages. There will even be gluten-free cannoli for dessert. That's in addition to the live music and entertainment, and, of course, many, many mugs of piping hot mulled wine and hot toddies. Short of actually taking a holiday to Europe, this is a pretty great way to finish a frosty working week.
Almost every Aussie state has its wine region, with the Hunter Valley in NSW and the Barossa in SA being some of the most popular destinations for wine weekenders on this side of the equator. But the star of the show is down in Victoria, with the Yarra Valley being one of Australia's finest options for a quick getaway. It's less than an hour's drive from Melbourne, and these verdant fields couldn't be a better break from the hustle and bustle of the big smoke. That's why we've teamed up with Visit Yarra Valley to show you how to swap the office desk for a midweek vineyard escape, and to recommend some local wineries for you to hit along the way. Chandon The first entry on our list might not be immediately what you're expecting. Chandon might be a global sparkling wine brand spread across four continents and five countries, but it does indeed have a branch in our very own Yarra Valley. It was during the 1980s when then Chandon bosses visited Victoria to inspect it as an area for a potential expansion into Australia; the cool climate and varied terroir of the Yarra led it to become the winner, a moment that really put the region on the global wine stage. Sparkling wine works best in a cool climate, so Victoria was well-suited for sparkling wine specialists like Chandon. Today, visitors to the property can enjoy guided and à la carte tastings, hands-on winemaking experiences, tipples in the lounge bar, multi-course meals in the restaurant, sparkling brunches, outdoor picnics and more. [caption id="attachment_982897" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Anitra Wells[/caption] Oakridge Wines Oakridge set up shop in its current Coldstream property in 1998, but has been growing in the Yarra Valley since the late 70s. Oakridge's attention to detail has taken it to the forefront of Australia's cool-climate wine scene and made it a must-visit location in the Yarra Valley, highlighting everything that makes the area a great destination: city-level luxury with countryside scenery and world class cuisine. The winery looks as good as its wines taste with its panoramic windows and vineyard-to-mountain scenery, and visitors to the cellar door can take part in five tasting experiences, ranging from a tasting of its most awarded wines to luxurious barrel tastings, tours and helicopter flights. Oakridge also boasts two dining experiences: the fine-dining restaurant and, for more casual bites, the Terrace. Both of which use produce sourced from their own kitchen garden or a network of small, ethical producers, all served with a side of vineyard to mountain views. [caption id="attachment_982898" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Lauren Bertaccini Photography[/caption] Punt Road Wines Nestled in Coldstream, Punt Road Wines is all about offering good times and great drops with everyone — from seasoned sippers to wine-curious beginners. With 160 years of growing grapes under its belt, the 58-acre vineyard estate produces crowd-favourites like pinot noir, chardonnay, and cabernet sauvignon alongside rarer finds like gamay and the experimental Airlie Bank range of wines. Visitors to the cellar door can enjoy all of them in tasting flights with or without matching charcuterie and cheeses. Either way, you can browse through a mix of local and international nibbles in the Picnic Pantry before you take a seat to enjoy them in the Marquee Bar or — if the weather is cooperating, pick out a grassy slice of the garden grounds for a proper picnic. [caption id="attachment_983538" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Sharyn Cairns[/caption] Giant Steps What happens when a massive jazz fan trades the Margaret River for the Yarra Valley in search of his perfect winery? Giant Steps, that's what. The jazz fan in question was Phil Sexton, and his bold new venture was fittingly named after his favourite John Coltrane album. From the first plantings in 1997 to being named the Halliday Winery of the Year for 2025, Giant Steps has garnered a reputation for its standout pinot noir and chardonnay, grown across single sites throughout the valley. The use of single sites ensures that the wine never stays the same, aside from the fact that it stays excellent. Fret not; you don't need to hit multiple wineries to try it all; just head to Healesville and the Giant Steps tasting room. There are four tasting experiences on offer, from a seasonal selection to a deep dive into the single-vineyard wines they do best. As always, walk-ins are welcome, but bookings are best. St Huberts St Huberts is another Yarra Valley mainstay, having been established way back in 1862, but a 162-year-old winery has never looked so damn good. Led by acclaimed winemaker Greg Jarratt since 2006, St Huberts specialises in cabernet sauvignon but takes advantage of the Yarra environment that drew winemakers here all those years ago. Beyond cab sav is a whole host of cold-climate wines that find their way to shelves, cellars and glasses across Australia. St Huberts also boasts a gorgeous cellar door, launched with a contemporary makeover in 2022. Think smooth stone, dark wood panels, leather couches and stags aplenty (in keeping with its seventh century namesake, St Hubert: the patron saint of the hunt). All that makes for a luxe and comfortable environment for tastings and charcuterie. Otherwise, a full dining experience can be found at onsite restaurant Quarters, which serves seasonally selected modern Aussie favourites and European-inspired dishes. Chateau Yering All this drinking wine is bound to really take it out of you, it's a hard life sipping chardonnay and eating cheese in the sun, after all. If you're to do the Yarra justice, you need to make it an overnight adventure. Our advice? Go all out. Go to Chateau Yering. This five-star Victorian-style (era, not state) mansion sits on a spacious 250-hectare property. 32 Luxurious and uniquely appointed suites? Check. Yarra Valley views? Heritage garden? Check. Whether you fancy a leisurely stroll by the flowerbeds, a cup of tea as you watch the sunset on your private balcony, or just collapsing into a plush bed, you can do it here. Get dinner at the lavish Eleonore's Restaurant and breakfast at the conservatory-style Sweetwater Cafe before you head out for another day of tastings and adventures among the rolling green hills of the Yarra Valley. Is your interest piqued? Do you fancy wetting your whistle the Yarra Valley way? We've also teamed up with Visit Yarra Valley to give one lucky reader and a guest the chance to score a two-night stay at Chateau Yering with all sorts of extras — including a $400 voucher to spend at any of the above wineries. To find out more and put your name in the running to win, check out the competition here. For more information on the Yarra Valley and to start planning the rest of your adventure, head to the Visit Yarra Valley website.
Casual face-melter Courtney Barnett is finally about to have a debut album under her already trophy-laden belt. So naturally, the Melbourne-based shredder has announced her Australian debut album tour for May 2015. This one's going to sell fast. Marking the release of her first ever LP, Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit (out Friday, March 20 via Barnett's own Milk! Records and Remote Control), this tour follows Barnett's epic performances at Laneway festival around the country over the last few weeks. Having already proved herself one of Australia's brightest sparks over the last few years with her 2013 EP release The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas, Barnett's spins one hell of a live show — having nailed sets at Lollapalooza, South by Southwest and New York City's CMJ. Supported by Teeth & Tongue, Barnett will cruise from Adelaide's The Gov on Friday, May 1 to Perth's Bakery on Saturday, May 2. Then it's over to Sydney's The Metro on Friday, May 8 and Brisbane's Hi-Fi on Saturday, May 9. In classic Australian artist form, Barnett will wrap things up in her hometown of Melbourne on Friday, May 15 at The Forum. COURTNEY BARNETT AUSTRALIAN ALBUM TOUR 2015 SUPPORTED BY TEETH & TONGUE FRIDAY MAY 1 The Gov, Adelaide, SA TICKETS SATURDAY MAY 2 The Bakery, Perth, WA TICKETS FRIDAY MAY 8 The Metro, Sydney, NSW TICKETS SATURDAY MAY 9 The Hifi, Brisbane, QLD TICKETS FRIDAY MAY 15 The Forum, Melbourne, VIC TICKETS
Indie rocker and singer/songwriter Neko Case (of The New Pornographers) has announced a tour of Australia and New Zealand for the release of her newest solo album, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I fight, The More I Love You. Released this past September, this is Case's first album since 2009's extremely popular Middle Cyclone. The Worse Things Get... is full of tracks with the same vigour and bluntness that audiences appreciated in past hits such as 'People Got a Lotta Nerve' and 'I'm an Animal'. Her lyrical candour is particularly riotous in 'Man', where she declares, "And if I'm dipshit drunk on the pink perfume / I am the man in the fucking moon / 'Cause you didn't know what a man was / Until I showed you." Indubitably, Case is a force to be reckoned with. Neko Case will be performing at the Melbourne Zoo Twilights on Saturday March 1 and The Corner Hotel on Sunday March 2.
There is no shortage of beautiful furniture and homeware stores in Melbourne, but not all of them actively champion sustainability in the way that Southwood does. Don't get us wrong, although Southwood is all about natural products, it's also about incredible design. Owners and interior designers Val and Maria have always shared a passion for creating engaging spaces that reflect the personalities that live within them, so it's no surprise that their own showroom is the ultimate representation of their design sensibilities — think, Italian woven-style dining chairs, smooth Australian timber tables and minimal couches with wool covers.
Turn off the main drag of Toorak Road and onto Avoca Street — it's here that you'll find another small offering of designer boutiques and cafes. One local favourite is Home and Abroad, which showcases a specially curated collection ranging from clothing and ceramics to baby goods and basketware. As the name suggests, many of these fashionable creations are imported from overseas, with owner Sara Lees having a particularly good taste in products from Portugal, India and France. Perfect for finding a unique gift or something to add a touch of class to any space, Home and Abroad is a South Yarra gem. Image: Parker Blain.
They first toured Australia in 1982. They've returned plenty of times since, including on the Big Day Out and Vivid lineups. When they were last here in 2020, the pandemic got in the way, causing them to cut short their plans — and now New Order are making their latest visit Down Under five years later. 'Blue Monday', 'Temptation', 'Bizarre Love Triangle' — more than four decades after forming, the group are playing them all on a four-city Australian tour, including at Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne on Saturday, March 8, 2025. Peter Hook, Stephen Morris and Bernard Sumner started New Order out of Joy Division, following the tragic death of the latter's lead singer Ian Curtis, and helped pioneer the synth-pop sound that not only helped define the 80s but has been influential ever since. If you've seen the films Control and 24 Hour Party People, you've seen part of New Order's story on-screen. And if you've caught them live before, you'll know that they're always a must-see. Top images: Erin Mc via Flickr, RL GNZLZ via Flickr.
Following in the footsteps of renowned ramen joint Ippudo and Manila's popular TuanTuan Chinese Brasserie, another big-name Asian restaurant chain has landed in Melbourne. This time, it's Malaysian favourite GO Noodle House tempting local tastebuds, opening its first Australian store in the heart of Melbourne's CBD. With more than 30 outlets across Southeast Asia and the original Malaysian store that pumps out up to 2000 bowls of noodle soup over a weekend, it's safe to say the brand has its fair share of fans. It's made a name for its clear seafood bisque-style 'Superior Soup' and dry mi xian noodles, the bowls are usually finished with a splash of rice wine — a trend apparently started by Emperor Kangxi back in the Qing Dynasty of the 17th century. The Melbourne restaurant's menu will carry through those classic GO Noodle House flavours, though with local ingredients. Head in for customisable bowls of that hearty, seafood-based noodle soup, or a hot and sour variation, loaded with additions like meat balls, stuffed chillies, cooked prawns or mixed mushrooms. Other dishes include the likes of homemade fish dumplings, Hakka-style pan mee noodles, slow-cooked slices of pork belly and a street snack dubbed Nine Dragon Balls. If you're feeling game (and extra hungry), there's the GNH Challenge dish — a $49 mega bowl of noodles, soup, pork and beef that's free if you can polish it all off in 30 minutes.
The duo behind Melbourne's sake brand Toji Sake, Shar and Yuta Kobayashi, brought a new taste of Japan to Richmond in 2019. The 100-seat restaurant on Swan Street is dishing up food inspired by both Australia and Japan, as well as sake cocktails. Kobayashi's Australian-Japanese roots and Chan's experience cooking Japanese fare have both influenced the menu, which focuses on izakaya-style snacks, such as yakitori, and dishes cooked on a hibachi (a Japanese charcoal grill). For yakitori, expect all the chicken parts — thigh, oyster, heart, breast — as well as leek, baby onions covered in miso and okra. Other snacks include the likes of duck gyoza with shiso and salted plum, kingfish sashimi with smoked daikon, smoked beef tartare and short ribs with chimichurri. Bigger items at Eazy Peazy might include okonomiyaki, porterhouse with wasabi, aged dashi eggplant and chicken karaage. Behind the restaurant's long concrete bar, you'll, of course, find a few Toji Sake concoctions. The brand's crisp junmai ginjo and high-grade junmai daiginjo sakes feature in a selection of cocktails, such as Aloe Peaches — with aloe vera juice, peach liqueur and cranberry — and the Shiso Crazy with shiso leaves, rum and soda. A mostly Australian wine list and a lineup of Japanese and local beers in tins, bottles and on tap round out the drinks offering. The Eazy Peazy fit-out, by award-winning Melbourne firm Carr Design, is meant to fuse traditional Japanese elements with modern touches. Think interior walls representing the rice fields of the Niigata Prefecture, a snow-like ceiling reminiscent of the Asahi mountain ranges and doors that look like raked sand in a zen garden. These elements are juxtaposed with projections of Tokyo's famed Shibuya Crossing and Japanese cartoon figurines used as handbag hooks. Images: Carly Ravenhall and Hortenzia.
Metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire are just one week into their second lockdown, after the Victorian Government introduced a new round of Stay at Home Directions for the regions, coming into effect from 11.59pm on Wednesday, July 8. The move came in response to the state's recent spike in COVID-19 cases — it recorded its highest ever new case totals for two consecutive days on July 6 (127) and 7 (191), with daily totals now regularly passing the 200 mark. But, despite the high numbers and the threat of even tougher restrictions if they're not contained, plenty of locals have been flouting the lockdown directives. In a press conference today, Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Rick Nugent revealed Victoria Police has issued a whopping 546 fines since these most recent Stage 3 restrictions were introduced last week. Sixty-three of these were handed out in the past 24 hours, as over 5000 spot checks were conducted across the state. Individuals caught breaking the rules restrictions face on-the-spot fines of $1652, while businesses could be fined $9913. Most of the rule-breakers, according to Nugent, are those ignoring lockdown directives to go see family or hang out with mates. A few choice examples of the infringements being handed out including two friends who where driving around playing Pokemon Go, a house party at a short-term rental property in the CBD where 34 fines were issued, and one man who refused to leave a KFC restaurant. Of course, there's also last week's infamous KFC party incident, where an extra large order of fried chicken tipped off police to a birthday gathering at a home in Dandenong. Sixteen guests were caught and $26,000 worth of fines were dished out. "A particular concern for us is the ongoing parties and gatherings, people playing poker, people holding parties," said Nugent. "We're finding people in cupboards, we're finding people in garages — please stop." Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has urged people to adhere to the restrictions, citing the very real possibility of even tougher lockdown measures. "If, however, people do not do the right thing then we will have to move to additional restrictions being put in place and potentially prolong the period where those restrictions are in place," he warned. "Nobody wants that … because of the choices of a few." Stay-at-home orders are currently in place for all of metropolitan Melbourne and Mitchell Shire. For more information, head to the Department of Health and Human Services website.
Here's something that you oughta know: Alanis Morissette is heading Down Under. The famed 90s singer was actually set to hit our shores back in 2020 as part of her world tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of her chart-topping 95 album Jagged Little Pill. But the pandemic forced those plans to change, so now she'll perform in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney in 2022. Get ready to sing along to 'Ironic', 'You Oughta Know' and 'All I Really Want' at Perth's RAC Arena on November 5, Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena on November 8 and 9, and Sydney's Qudos Bank Arena on November 11. Morissette was also part of the cancelled 2020 Bluesfest bill, but if the festival returns to its usual Easter timeslot next year — after the 2021 fest was scrapped, then moved to October — that obviously won't happen again. At her four stadium shows, the 90s icon will be supported by Australia's own Julia Stone. Stone has released three solo albums and four together with her brother Angus, including Down the Way, which won Album of the Year at the 2010 ARIA Awards. Morissette's own collection of music awards is hefty, and includes seven Grammys and 12 Juno Awards. While her 95 album Jagged Little Pill is the most critically acclaimed, the Canadian singer has released nine albums, including her latest, Such Pretty Forks in the Road, in 2020. It's clearly a great time to be an Australian Morissette fan, with Broadway's Jagged Little Pill musical, which was inspired by her album and features a heap of the musician's songs, also headed our way. It'll reopen the Theatre Royal Sydney this September. In the meantime, though, hype yourself up for the Aussie tour by belting out the following banger: ALANIS MORISSETTE 2022 AUSTRALIAN DATES Saturday, November 5 — RAC Arena, Perth Tuesday, November 8 and Wednesday, November 9 — Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne Friday, November 11 — Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney Tickets for Alanis Morissette's rescheduled tour are on sale now.
Melbourne native Fractures has been pretty busy in the last few months. He debuted at Splendour in the Grass, his October tour schedule was totally sold out, he just announced he's heading overseas next year, and now he's spending this month holed up in Sydney and Melbourne for two very intimate evenings. As part of his Hallowed Ground tour, Fractures will be hitting up the Shadow Electric bandroom in the conspicuous nunnery turned arts space that is the Abbotsford Convent and the Paddington Uniting Church in Sydney. Up until only a few years ago this space was reserved strictly for church and community related events. Now it's a hot spot for those looking to bliss out to ambient electronic pop. Perfect if you're looking to worship at a new kind of altar.
Since launching around the country back in 2013, the British Film Festival keeps standing out for three reasons. Yes, it ranks among Australia's most obvious cultural film fests; however, it's also a star-studded affair, and a popular one. If you're keen not only for a slice of Old Blighty, but to watch well-known talents do what they do best, then prepare to spend a few weeks staring at the big screen. 2018's lineup keeps hitting those same marks. Why mess with a good thing? Running in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra until November 14, this year's program includes Kiera Knightley's latest star turn, a four-film tribute to Michael Caine that'll blow the bloody doors off, and Star Wars' Daisy Ridley in a playful take on Hamlet — plus these, our five must-see picks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfWIfwKJ7vA ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE Anna and the Apocalypse is a zombie movie. It's a high-school comedy. It's a Christmas flick. And, it's also a musical. Just when you thought you'd seen every take on the undead available, this all-singing genre mash-up pops up to prove you wrong. A crowd-pleaser at overseas festivals, it's based on the BAFTA-winning short Zombie Musical — and, story-wise, follows the eponymous Anna (Ella Hunt) as she reacts to the rather inconvenient fact that her Scottish hometown of Little Haven is now filled with the shuffling masses hankering for brains. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItW6evHbE8 YARDIE After coming to fame with to The Wire, Idris Elba is no stranger to sprawling crime dramas that chart the next generation's involvement in the drug trade. With Yardie, however, he's stepping behind the camera rather than appearing in front of it. The actor's feature directorial debut hops between Jamaica and London, and between the 70s and 80s, at it charts the path of Denis. As a boy (Antwayne Eccleston), he watches his brother get gunned down on the streets of Kingston. As a young man (Aml Ameen), he finds himself selling cocaine in the UK and seeking revenge. The result is a film with vibrant style, that knows what it wants to be and knows when it's hitting familiar beats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dj5h1kKjVYc PETERLOO Whenever Mike Leigh has a new film, it's reason enough to rush to the cinema. The great director has seven Oscar nominations to his name for the likes of Secrets & Lies, Vera Drake, Happy-Go-Lucky and Another Year, and tends to alternate between character-based and historical-leaning dramas. With his latest, Peterloo, he's operating in the latter camp, examining a momentous event in Britain's past. The feature is named after and explores a massacre in Manchester in 1819, when 700 working folks were injured — and 15 killed — during a peaceful pro-democracy gathering. Yes, it sounds more than a little relevant today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE5xbDTkzQQ STAN & OLLIE To the world, they were Laurel and Hardy — one lean and English, the other rotund and American, and both funnier and more famous when they were hitting the stage and screen together. Starring Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly, Stan & Ollie delves into the story behind the fame, when the comedians were approaching the end of their career. The film arrives in Australia fresh from premiering at the London Film Festival, and closes out BFF with the promise of laughs, love and excellent performances. Indeed, when it comes to spot-on casting, it's already a winner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8YiltlZGB0 THE HAPPY PRINCE Another blast from the past in the BFF program, another look at a well-known figure past their heyday, and another well-known actor making their filmmaking debut, too. With the dreamily tragic The Happy Prince, Rupert Everett steps into Oscar Wilde's shoes — and it's a role that he was born to bring to the screen. Writing and directing as well, Everett approaches Wilde's dying days in a rundown Parisian hotel room with both passion and sorrow, two traits that the poet and write knew well. It's a hardly a happy portrait, despite the name, which riffs on one of Wilde's works. That said, interweaving flashbacks to fonder times and co-starring Colin Firth, it does Wilde justice. The 2018 British Film Festival tours Australia until November 14, screening at Sydney's Palace Norton Street, Palace Verona, Palace Central and Chauvel Cinemas from October 23 to November 14; Melbourne's Palace Cinema Como, Palace Westgarth, Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay and The Astor Theatre from October 25 to November 14; Brisbane's Palace Barracks and Palace Centro from October 24 to November 14; and Perth's Cinema Paradiso, Raine Square Cinemas, Luna on SX and Windsor Cinema from October 25 to November 14. For more information and to buy tickets, visit the festival website.
Before the pandemic, when a new-release movie started playing in cinemas, audiences couldn't watch it on streaming, video on demand, DVD or blu-ray for a few months. But with the past few years forcing film industry to make quite a few changes — widespread movie theatre closures will do that, and so will plenty of people staying home because they aren't well — that's no longer always the case. Maybe you haven't had time to make it to your local cinema lately. Perhaps you've been under the weather. Given the hefty amount of titles now releasing each week, maybe you simply missed something. Film distributors have been fast-tracking some of their new releases from cinemas to streaming recently — movies that might still be playing in theatres in some parts of the country, too. In preparation for your next couch session, here are 12 that you can watch right now at home. Anatomy of a Fall A calypso instrumental cover of 50 Cent's 'P.I.M.P.' isn't the only thing that Anatomy of a Fall's audience won't be able to dislodge from their heads after watching 2023's deserving Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or-winner. A film that's thorny, knotty and defiantly unwilling to give any easy answers, this legal, psychological and emotional thriller about a woman on trial for her husband's death is unshakeable in as many ways as someone can have doubts about another person: so, a myriad. The scenario conjured up by writer/director Justine Triet (Sibyl) is haunting, asking not only if her protagonist committed murder, as the on-screen investigation and courtroom proceedings interrogate, but digging into what it means to be forced to choose between whether someone did the worst or is innocent — or if either matters. While the Gallic legal system provides the backdrop for much of the movie, the real person doing the real picking isn't there in a professional capacity, or on a jury. Rather, it's the 11-year-old boy who loved his dad, finds him lying in the snow with a head injury outside their French Alps home on an otherwise ordinary day, then becomes the key witness in his mum's case. Also impossible to forget: the performances that are so crucial in telling this tale of marital and parental bonds, especially from one of German's current best actors and the up-and-coming French talent playing her son. With her similarly astonishing portrayal in The Zone of Interest, Toni Erdmann and I'm Your Man's Sandra Hüller is two for two in movies that initially debuted in 2023; here, she steps into the icy and complicated Sandra Voyter's shoes with the same kind of surgical precision that Triet applies to unpacking the character's home life. As Daniel, who couldn't be more conflicted about the nightmare situation he's been thrust into, Milo Machado Graner (Alex Hugo) is a revelation — frequently via his expressive face and posture alone. If Scenes From a Marriage met Kramer vs Kramer, plus 1959's Anatomy of a Murder that patently influences Anatomy of a Fall's name, this would be the gripping end result — as fittingly written by Triet with her IRL partner Arthur Harari (Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle). Anatomy of a Fall streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. Poor Things Richly striking feats of cinema by Yorgos Lanthimos aren't scarce. Sublime performances by Emma Stone are hardly infrequent. Screen takes on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein couldn't be more constant. For Lanthimos, see: Dogtooth and Alps in the Greek Weird Wave filmmaker's native language, plus The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Favourite since he started helming movies in English. With Stone, examples abound in her Best Actress Oscar for La La Land, supporting nominations before and after for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and Lanthimos' aforementioned regal satire, and twin 2024 Golden Globe nods for their latest collaboration as well as TV's The Curse. And as for the best gothic-horror story there is, not to mention one of the most influential sci-fi stories ever, the evidence is everywhere from traditional adaptations to debts owed as widely as The Rocky Horror Show and M3GAN. Combining the three results in a rarity, however: a jewel of a pastel-, jewel- and bodily fluid-toned feminist Frankenstein-esque fairy tale that's a stunning creation, as zapped to life with Lanthimos' inimitable flair, a mischievous air, Stone at her most extraordinary and empowerment blazing like a lightning bolt. With cascading black hair, an inquisitive stare, incessant frankness and jolting physical mannerisms, Poor Things' star is Bella Baxter in this adaptation of Alasdair Grey's award-winning 1992 novel by Australian screenwriter Tony McNamara (The Great). Among the reasons that the movie and its lead portrayal are so singular: as a character with a woman's body revived with a baby's brain, Stone plays someone from infancy to adulthood, all with the astonishingly exact mindset and mannerisms to match, and while making every move, choice and feeling as organic as birth, living and death. In this fantastical steampunk vision of Victorian-era Europe, London-based Scottish doctor Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe, Asteroid City) is Bella's maker. Even if she didn't call him God, he's been playing it. But curiosity, the quest for agency and independence, horniness and a lust for adventure all beckon his creation on a radical, rebellious, gorgeously rendered, gloriously funny and generously insightful odyssey. So, Godwin tries to marry Bella off to medical student Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef, Ramy), only for her to discover masturbation and sex, and run off to the continent with caddish lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law). Poor Things streams via Disney+, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. Priscilla Yearning to be one of the women in Sofia Coppola's films is futile, but for a single reason only: whether she's telling of teenage sisters, a wife left to her own devices in Tokyo, France's most-famous queen, the daughter of a Hollywood actor, Los Angeles high schoolers who want to rob, the staff and students at a girls school in the American Civil War, a Manhattanite worried that her husband is being unfaithful or Priscilla Presley, as the writer/director has across eight movies to-date, no one better plunges viewers into her female characters' hearts and heads. To watch the filmmaker's span of features from The Virgin Suicides to Priscilla is to feel as its figures do, and deeply. The second-generation helmer is an impressionistic great, colouring her flicks as much with emotions and mood as actual hues — not that there's any shortage of lush and dreamy shades, as intricately tied to her on-screen women's inner states, swirling through her meticulous frames. Call it the "can't help falling" effect, then: as a quarter-century of Coppola's films have graced screens, audiences can't help falling into them like they're in the middle of each themselves. That's still accurate with Priscilla, which arrives so soon after Elvis that no one could've forgotten that the lives of the king of rock 'n' roll and his bride have flickered through cinemas recently. Baz Luhrmann made his Presley movie in Australia with an American (Austin Butler, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) as Elvis and an Aussie (Olivia DeJonge, The Staircase) as Priscilla. Coppola crafted hers in North America with a Brisbanite (Jacob Elordi, Saltburn) in blue-suede shoes and a Tennessee-born talent (Cailee Spaeny, Mare of Easttown) adopting the Presley surname. The two features are mirror images in a hunk of burning ways, including their his-and-hers titles; whose viewpoint they align with; and conveying what it was like to adore Elvis among the masses, plus why he sparked that fervour, compared to expressing the experience of being the girl that he fell for, married, sincerely loved but kept in a gilded cage into she strove to fly free. Priscilla streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Cailee Spaeny. All of Us Strangers As Fleabag knew, and also Sherlock as well, Andrew Scott has the type of empathetic face that makes people want to keep talking to him. Playing the hot priest in Phoebe Waller-Bridge's (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) acclaimed comedy, he was the ultimate listener. Even as the Moriarty to Benedict Cumberbatch's (The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar) Holmes, and with a game always afoot, conversation flowed. All of Us Strangers puts this innate air — this sensation that to be in Scott's company is to want to unburden yourself to his welcoming ears — at its tender and feverishly beating heart, this time with Paul Mescal (Foe) as one of his discussion partners. Dreamy and contemplative, haunting and heartfelt, and also delicate and devastating, the fifth film by Weekend and 45 Years writer/director Andrew Haigh, which is his first since 2017's Lean on Pete, is stunningly cast with Scott in seeing-is-feeling mode as its isolated screenwriter protagonist alone. That Scott is joined by Mescal, Claire Foy (Women Talking) and Jamie Bell (Shining Girls) gives All of Us Strangers one of the finest four-hander casts in recent memory. Awards bodies clearly agree, with nods going around for everyone (alongside wins for Best Film and Best Director, the British Independent Film Awards gave all four of the feature's core cast members nominations, with Mescal scoring the Best Supporting Performance trophy, for instance). Haigh isn't merely preternaturally talented at picking the exact right actors to play his on-screen figures, but it's one of his most-crucial skills, as every performance in his latest shattering picture demonstrates. It comes as no surprise that Scott, Mescal, Foy and Bell are all excellent. It's similarly hardly unexpected that Haigh has made another movie that cuts so emotionally deep that viewers will feel as if they've been within its frames. Combine these stars with this filmmaker, though, and a feature that was always likely to combine its exceptional parts into a perfect sum is somehow even more affecting and astonishing. All of Us Strangers streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. Drive-Away Dolls No one might've thought of Joel and Ethan Coen as yin and yang if they hadn't started making movies separately. Since 2018's The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, their latest feature together as sibling filmmakers, the elder of the Coen brothers went with Shakespearean intensity by directing 2021's The Tragedy of Macbeth on his lonesome — while Ethan now opts for goofy, loose and hilariously sidesplitting silliness with Drive-Away Dolls. The pair aren't done collaborating, with a horror flick reportedly in the works next. But their break from being an Oscar-winning team has gifted audiences two treats in completely different fashions. For the younger brother, he's swapped in his wife Tricia Cooke, editor of The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Man Who Wasn't There, on a picture that couldn't slide more smoothly onto his resume alongside the madcap antics that the Coens combined are known for. Indeed, spying shades of the first of those two features that Cooke spliced in Drive-Away Dolls, plus Raising Arizona, Fargo and Burn After Reading as well, is both easy and delightful. As a duo, the Coen brothers haven't ever followed two women through lesbian bars, makeout parties and plenty of horniness between the sheets, though, amid wall dildos and other nods to intimate appendages, even if plenty about the Ethan-directed, Cooke-edited Drive-Away Dolls — which both Ethan and Cooke co-wrote — is classic Coens. There's the road-trip angle, conspiracy mayhem, blundering criminals in hot pursuit of Jamie (Margaret Qualley, Poor Things) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan, Cat Person), dumb men (those crooks again) in cars and just quirky characters all round. There's the anarchic chases, witty yet philosophical banter and highly sought-after briefcase at the centre of the plot, too. And, there's the fact that this is a comedic caper, its love of slapstick and that a wealth of well-known faces pop up as the zany antics snowball. The Joel-and-Ethan team hasn't made a film as sapphic as this, either, however, or one that's a 90s-set nod to, riff on, and parody of 60s- and 70s-era sexploitation raucousness. Drive-Away Dolls streams via Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke. May December A line about not having enough hot dogs might be one of its first, but the Julianne Moore (Sharper)-, Natalie Portman (Thor: Love and Thunder)- and Charles Melton (Riverdale)-starring May December is a movie of mirrors and butterflies. In the literal sense, director Todd Haynes wastes few chances to put either in his frames. The Velvet Goldmine, Carol and Dark Waters filmmaker doesn't shy away from symbolism, knowing two truths that stare back at his audience from his latest masterpiece: that what we see when we peer at ourselves in a looking glass isn't what the rest of the world observes, and that life's journey is always one of transformation. Inspired by the real-life Mary Kay Letourneau scandal, May December probes both of these facts as intently as anyone scrutinising their own reflection. Haynes asks viewers to do the same. Unpacking appearance and perception, and also their construction and performance, gazes from this potently thorny — and downright potent — film. That not all metamorphoses end with a beautiful flutter flickers through just as strongly. May December's basis springs from events that received ample press attention in the 90s: schoolteacher Letourneau's sexual relationship with her sixth-grade student Vili Fualaau. She was 34, he was 12. First-time screenwriter Samy Burch changes names and details in her Oscar-nominated script — for Best Original Screenplay, which is somehow the film's only nod by the Academy — but there's no doubting that it takes its cues from this case of grooming, which saw Letourneau arrested, give birth to the couple's two daughters in prison, then the pair eventually marry. 2000 TV movie All-American Girl: The Mary Kay Letourneau Story used the recreation route; however, that was never going to be a Haynes-helmed feature's approach. The comic mention of hot dogs isn't indicative of May December's overall vibe, either: this a savvily piercing film that sees the agonising impact upon the situation's victim, the story its perpetrator has spun around herself, and the relentless, ravenous way that people's lives and tragedies are consumed by the media and public. May December streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. Mean Girls On years ending in four in even-numbered decades, we watch new Mean Girls films. So goes the 21st century so far, as the hit 2004 teen comedy about high-school hierarchies returns to the big screen in 2024 as a musical, after breaking out the singing and dancing onstage first. Just like donning pink every Wednesday because Regina George (Reneé Rapp, The Sex Lives of College Girls) demands it, there's a dutifulness about the repeat Mean Girls. Tina Fey, writing the script for the third time — basing her first on Rosalind Wiseman's 2002 non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes — seems to fear the consequences for breaking the rules, too. Cue a Mean Girls movie musical that truly plays out as those four words lead viewers to expect: largely the same down to most lines and jokes, just with songs. Anyone looking at the longer running time in advance and chalking up the jump from 97 to 112 minutes to the tunes is 100-percent spot on. The latest Mean Girls also resembles protagonist Cady Heron (Angourie Rice, The Last Thing He Told Me): eager to fit into its new surroundings after being perfectly happy and comfortable elsewhere. That causes some awkwardness, sometimes trying to break the mould, but largely assimilating. Penning her first film script since the OG Mean Girls was her very first, 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Mr Mayor creator Fey revises details and gags that were always going to need revising. Social media, the internet and mobile phones are all worked in, necessarily so, as is sex positivity. Mean Girls 2024 is primarily dedicated to making Mean Girls 2024 happen, though; here as well, it's exactly as those three words have audiences anticipating. Scrap the songs and choreography (other than the Winter Talent Show performances, of course), and directors Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez (Quarter Life Poetry: Poems for the Young, Broke & Hangry) would've just remade the first film two decades later. Mean Girls streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Angourie Rice. Force of Nature: The Dry 2 "Nature holds us all to account" is one of Force of Nature: The Dry 2's trailer-friendly lines. Even for those who didn't see the film's sneak peeks in the months between its arrival and the feature's release — a period stretched by Hollywood's 2023 strikes, pushing the picture's date with cinemas from August to February 2024 — it sounds primed for promo snippets when it's uttered in the movie itself. But this Australian detective franchise has earned the right to occasionally be that blunt and loaded with telling importance in its dialogue. And, it makes it work. In 2021's The Dry and here, in a flick that could've been called The Wet thanks to its drenched forest setting, the Aaron Falk saga uses its surroundings to mirror its emotional landscape. Nature holds its characters to account not just in a narrative sense, but by reflecting what they're feeling with astute specificity — so much so that the parched Victorian wheatbelt in the initial movie and the saturated greenery in Force of Nature are as much extensions of the series' on-screen figures as they are stunning backdrops. Chief among this page-to-film realm's players is Falk, the federal police officer that Eric Bana and his Blueback director Robert Connolly treat like terrain to trek through and traverse. His stare has its own cliffs and gorges. His life upholding the law and beyond has its peaks and valleys as well. In The Dry, it was evident that the yellowed, drought-stricken fields that monopolised the frame said plenty about how much Falk and everyone around him was holding back. In Force of Nature, all the damp of the fictional Giralang mountains — Victoria's Otways, Dandenong Ranges and Yarra Valley IRL — speaks volumes about what's streaming through the movie's characters inside. Cinematography is one of this franchise's strengths, and that Andrew Commis (Nude Tuesday) lenses the second picture's location just as evocatively and meticulously as Stefan Duscio (Shantaram) did the first is crucial: these features make their audience see every detail that envelops Falk and company, and therefore constantly spy the parallels between their environs and their inner turmoil. Force of Nature: The Dry 2 streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Eric Bana and Robert Connolly. Argylle For the past decade, spy films have been Matthew Vaughn's caper, thanks to Kingsman: The Secret Service, Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The King's Man until now. With Argylle, he's still being playful with a genre that he clearly loves but isn't precious about, and he's also approaching espionage antics from another angle. 80s action-adventure comedy Romancing the Stone, which isn't about secret intelligence operatives, is one of this page-to-screen effort's blatant inspirations. Something that both do have at their centres: writers caught up in scenarios that would usually only happen on paper. 2022's The Lost City took the same route — but Argylle throws in a touch of North by Northwest, and also gets meta about its own origins. And no, Taylor Swift didn't write the source material. For his eighth feature, which hits 20 years after he made his directorial debut with the Daniel Craig (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery)-starring Layer Cake, Vaughn adapts the novel that gives Argylle its name; however, the specifics aren't quite that simple. The IRL title was only published as the flick hits cinemas, starting a franchise on the shelf. That said, the film — which is similarly aiming to begin a series — jumps to a later as-yet-unreleased book. Those tomes are credited to Elly Conway, which is the name of the movie version of Argylle's protagonist. In the feature, Elly (Bryce Dallas Howard, Jurassic World Dominion) is also an author who has written a saga about spies. Back in reality, who she really is has sparked a frenzy, hence the theories that she could be one of the world's biggest pop stars amid a massive world tour and a huge concert film. Again, despite Swifties' dreams, that speculation needs to be shaken off. Argylle streams via YouTube Movies and Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Matthew Vaughn. The Color Purple For most, there isn't much in Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel The Color Purple that screams for the musical spin. Broadway still came calling. On the page, this tale always featured a jazz and blues singer as a key character. When it initially reached the screen in 1985 with Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans) directing, it also worked in an anthem that earned an Oscar nomination and has been much-covered since; Quincy Jones composed the film's score and produced the movie. But if the idea of lavish song-and-dance numbers peppered throughout such a bleak account of incest, rape, domestic abuse, racism, injustice, violence and poverty feels like hitting a wrong note, claims otherwise keep springing. First arrived 2005's Tony-winning stage adaptation, then 2015's also-awarded revival. Now, joining the ranks of books that became movies, then musicals, then musical movies just like the new Mean Girls, a second feature brings Walker's story to cinemas — this time with belted-out ballads and toe-tapping tunes. With each take, The Color Purple's narrative has predominantly remained the same as when it first hit bookshelves, crushing woe, infuriating prejudice and rampant inequity included. Musicals don't have to be cheery, but how does so much brutality give rise to anything but mournful songs? The answer here: by leaning into the rural Georgia-set tale's embrace of hope, resilience and self-discovery. Ghanaian director Blitz Bazawule follows up co-helming Beyoncé's Black Is King by heroing empowerment and emancipation in his version of The Color Purple — and while the film that results can't completely avoid an awkward tonal balance, it's easy to see the meaning behind its striving for a brighter outlook. When what its characters go through as Black women in America's south in the early 20th century is so unsparing, welcoming wherever light can pierce the gloom is a human reaction, and how Celie (American Idol-winner Fantasia Barrino in her feature film debut) copes. The Color Purple streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. Madame Web When a spider spins a web, the strands are designed to trap prey for the eight-legged arachnid to consume. Madame Web tries to do something similar. The fourth live-action film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe, it attempts to create a movie meal by capturing bits and pieces from anywhere and everywhere. There's Spidey nods, of course, variations on the "with great power comes great responsibility" line and more than one Spidey-like figure included. Introducing a new superhero to the screen, it's an origin story, complete with a tragic past to unfurl. Set in 2003 but with ample 90s tunes in the soundtrack, it endeavours to get retro as well. In its best touch, Madame Web winks at star Dakota Johnson's (Cha Cha Real Smooth) Hollywood family history, with a pigeon bringing The Birds, as led by her grandmother Tippi Hedren (The Ghost and the Whale), to mind. And, catching inspiration just like flies, the film also strives to be a serial-killer thriller. Look out, though. Here's hoping that spiders have more luck snaring a feast than Sony has in swinging Madame Web into its not-MCU franchise. They're not officially counted as part of the saga, and they're both exceptional unlike this, but the studio's animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse also help explain Madame Web's existence and approach. In trying to carve out a Spidey space around the Peter Parker version of the webslinger, who is now part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sony has been throwing everything it can at the screen. In the Spider-Verse flicks, that means a kaleidoscope of spider-folk, plus dazzling visuals and creative storytelling to match, demonstrating that people in suits isn't the best way to tell caped-crusader tales in cinema. In the SSU, focusing on a heap of peripheral Spidey figures is instead the tactic — and it's as piecemeal as it sounds. Madame Web streams via YouTube Movies and Prime Video. Read our full review. Next Goal Wins American Samoa's 31–0 loss to Australia in 2001 wasn't the biggest-ever defeat in football history, but it set the world record for the largest trouncing in an international match. It's also the scoreline behind an impassioned quest to achieve something that the US territory in the South Pacific Ocean had never done before in soccer: kick a goal. And, it's the starting point for a documentary and a comedy both called Next Goal Wins, with the first arriving in 2014 and the second now Taika Waititi's eighth feature. Each charts the squad's attempt to qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and each tells an underdog tale. One strikes charmingly and winningly, the other keeps deserving red cards — and it's Waititi's long-delayed flick, which was initially filmed before the pandemic, underwent reshoots in 2021, then finally premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, that shouldn't be on the pitch. Since leaping from New Zealand indies Eagle vs Shark, Boy, What We Do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Waititi might've won an Oscar for Jojo Rabbit; however, his best post-Thor: Ragnarok work has been on the small screen. Neither Jojo Rabbit nor Thor: Love and Thunder reached the filmmaker's past heights, but the hilarious US TV spinoff of What We Do in the Shadows, sublime Indigenous American dramedy Reservation Dogs and heartwarming pirate rom-com Our Flag Means Death have all proven gems. The current underwhelming cinema streak continues with the Michael Fassbender (The Killer)-led Next Goal Wins, which is as forceful as his last non-MCU picture in wanting to be a quirky, silly and sweet crowd-pleaser, and as clumsy, awkward and thinly sketched. While new takes on already-covered stories never mean that the originals are binned, sending viewers sprinting towards Mike Brett and Steve Jamison's (On the Morning You Wake (to the End of the World)) iteration of Next Goal Wins can't have been Waititi's intention. Next Goal Wins streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. Looking for more viewing options? Take a look at our monthly streaming recommendations across new straight-to-digital films and TV shows — and fast-tracked highlights from January and February 2024 (and also January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December 2023, too). We keep a running list of must-stream TV from across 2024 as well, complete with full reviews. And, we've also rounded up 2023's 15 best films, 15 best straight-to-streaming movies, 15 top flicks hardly anyone saw, 30 other films to catch up with, 15 best new TV series of 2023, another 15 excellent new TV shows that you might've missed and 15 best returning shows.
If you're looking to blow off some steam post-lockdown, you'll soon have a brand-new outlet for unleashing that pent-up frustration. Popular axe-throwing venue Maniax is opening the doors to its second Melbourne outpost, this time in the CBD. Launching on Friday, November 19, the new site marks the group's sixth Aussie venue, spread across a 700-square-metre subterranean space on Elizabeth Street. Boasting room for 300 punters at full capacity, it's got a series of single and double axe-hurling lanes, as well as extra space for kicking back with a drink in between throws. An on-site kitchen will be serving a menu of pizza and grazing platters, though you'll also be able to order in takeaway from nearby restaurants. And, since launching axes at targets can be thirsty work, the Maniax bar will be pouring a range of Viking-themed cocktails and craft brews to match. [caption id="attachment_830783" align="alignnone" width="1920"] One of Maniax's existing locations.[/caption] As with its siblings, the venue's designed to be enjoyed by axe-throwing junkies and total novices alike, manned by highly trained staff who'll happily coach you in the art of hurling weapons. Throwing is open to anyone over the age of 13. There are various sessions to choose from, depending on your skill level — ranging from the speedy one-hour Quick Chuck through to a date-night package featuring coaching for two. Annual memberships are also available. And once you've got a few throws under your belt, who knows? You might even be tempted to flex your newfound skills by joining the Maniax Axe-Throwing League. Find Maniax at 121 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, from November 19. Bookings are available over at the website.
ACMI is unveiling a spooky new virtual reality experience just in time for Halloween. Premiering on Saturday, October 29 as part of Melbourne International Games Week, Ghosts, Toast and the Things Unsaid forgoes the traditional VR headset in favour of a ghost costume, as viewers peer into the corporeal world from beyond the grave. A partnership between Google's Creative Lab, Sandpit and Grumpy Sailor, the 16-minute piece puts you inside a haunted house…one that you yourself are haunting. There you'll learn the deepest darkest secrets of Steve and Maude, a couple whose relationship is slowly falling apart as a result of the desires they can't bring themselves to share. Deep and spooky stuff. Entry into Ghosts, Toast and the Things Unsaid is free, however bookings are highly recommended.
Whenever a beloved sitcom comes to an end — as Brooklyn Nine-Nine will when it finishes up this year — it leaves a hole in your viewing schedule, and in your TV-loving heart. You can keep binging your favourites all over again, of course, and as many times as you like. But, although one-off specials, starry reunions and movie spinoffs keep happening more and more, you'll always be sad that you can't just look forward to a big batch of new episodes. The one silver lining: when the likes of Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock finished up their runs, the creatives behind them stayed in the sitcom game. Indeed, that's why B99 exists, and how The Good Place and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt came to our screens, too. And, over the past month or so, new shows from the key folks behind all of these series have just reached Stan. When it comes to Girls5eva, a word of warning: the hit song that brought titular fictional late 90s/early 00s girl group to fame is such an earworm, you'll be singing it to yourself for weeks after you binge through the sitcom that bears their name. That's to be expected given that Jeff Richmond, the composer behind 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's equally catchy and comedic tunes, is one of the talents behind it. Tina Fey and Robert Carlock produce the series, too, so you what type of humour you're in for. Starring Sara Bareilles (Broadway's Waitress), Busy Philipps (I Feel Pretty), Renée Elise Goldsberry (Hamilton) and the great Paula Pell (AP Bio), Girls5eva follows four of the band's members two decades after their heyday. Their initial success didn't last, and life has left the now-fortysomething women at different junctures. Then a rapper samples their hit, they're asked to reunite for a one-night backing spot on The Tonight Show — and they then contemplate getting back together to give music another shot. As well as being exceptionally well-cast and immensely funny, the series is also bitingly perceptive about stardom, the entertainment industry and the way that women beyond their twenties are treated. Also, when Fey inevitably pops up, she does so as a dream version of Dolly Parton — and it's as glorious as it sounds. Check out the Girls5eva trailer below: Also now streaming its first season in full on Stan: Rutherford Falls. Michael Schur co-wrote and produced The Office, then did the same on Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, both of which he co-created as well. And, he gave the world The Good Place — which makes him one of the best in the business when it comes to kind-hearted, smart and savvy small-screen laughs. His new show continues the streak. Co-created with star Ed Helms and showrunner Sierra Teller Ornelas (Superstore), it boasts his usual charm and intelligence, too. And, as with every program he's had a hand in, it also boasts a top-notch lineup of on-screen talent. Plus, Rutherford Falls is immensely easy to binge in just one sitting, because each one of its ten first-season episodes leave you wanting more. The setup: in the place that gives the sitcom its name, Nathan Rutherford (Helms, Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun) runs the local history museum. One of his descendants founded the town, and he couldn't be more proud of that fact. He's also very protective of the towering statue of said ancestor, even though it sits in the middle of a road and causes accidents. So, when the mayor (Dana L.Wilson, Perry Mason) decides to move the traffic hazard, Nathan and his overzealous intern Bobbie (Jesse Leigh, Heathers) spring into action. Nathan's best friend Reagan Wells (Jana Schmieding, Blast) helps; however, the Minishonka Nation woman begins to realise just how her pal's family have shaped the fate of her Native American community. Also featuring a scene-stealing Michael Greyeyes (I Know This Much Is True) as the enterprising head of the Minishonka Nation casino, Rutherford Falls pairs witty laughs with warmth and sincerity, especially when it comes to exploring the treatment of First Nations peoples in America today. Check out the Rutherford Falls trailer below: The first seasons of Girls5eva and Rutherford Falls are available to stream via Stan.
When John Safran was making his comedy/doco program John Safran vs God for SBS in 2004, his segment on Catholicism included a guest spot from South Melbourne Catholic Priest Father Bob Maguire. It was one of the show’s standout moments: the sardonic Father Bob playing off Safran’s nebbish persona like they’d just come off a 30-week Neil Simon run on Broadway. The relationship continued in television and radio, and Father Bob’s increasing media profile led to him to become every non-Catholic’s favourite Catholic: an outspoken priest who seemed unafraid of offending the Church with his opinions. Because of Bob's notoriety, it's not unreasonable to approach this documentary with trepidation. Would the film simply be repeating what we already knew about Bob? Would it be more suitable for a crowd who’d never heard of him? The film does play to an audience unfamiliar with Bob’s extraordinary personality, but even those who are fans of the man will find much to learn here. And it’s actually Safran who goes unexplained throughout the film. He appears sporadically — most satisfactorily as 'Death' in a beachside callback to Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal — without much comment. This is not necessarily a bad thing; enigmatic figures are an underrated tool for fostering audience intrigue. But it's Father Bob who is the star of the show. Filmed over the period during which the Catholic Church was trying to forcibly eject him (deeming him "too old" at age 75), In Bob We Trust documents the opinions and work of a man who seems to understand the fundamental message of Christ better than many of his counterparts. Not only that, but he puts it into practice. His well-fostered grumpy persona is the perfect conduit for what seems to be a genuine frustration at the Catholic Church's attitude towards women, gays, refugees, the poor, etc. He nearly explodes at the idea of having to explain to his superiors why he keeps spending money on the less fortunate. Lynn-Maree Milburn again proves herself a masterful director, following her superb documentary Autoluminescent: Rowland S Howard in 2011. She confidently steps back when the scene demands it but isn’t afraid to ramp up the production values (jump cuts, non-diegetic music and anything that dares to threaten the film’s verisimilitude with artifice) when needed. Father Bob continuously insists that he himself should not be the message, and the film’s central thesis largely bears this out: Bob is presenting to us the reason and the ideal of Catholicism, what it should be and what it could be. He does not particularly wish to be venerated, and the film respects that whilst slyly paying tribute to a man of extraordinary grace, intelligence, wit and compassion.
Subscriptions aren't just for magazines, wine, cheese, cars, ramen, booze and streaming platforms. Thanks to Botanic Box, they're also for plants. Created by Brisbanite Rhiannon Campbell, and launching up north last year, the service brings a new bundle of greenery to your door each and every month — and it's now delivering in Sydney and Melbourne as well. It's the type of service that seems tailor-made for folks with green thumbs but lazy feet — that is, anyone who'd love to get a heap of new plants, but can never make it to a market or nursery to buy one themselves. More than that, Botanic Box doesn't just feature the kinds of greenery that you could just pick up on your travels. Rather, your plants — maybe a fiddle leaf fig, a succulent or a eucalyptus — will arrive with handmade pots, art cards, key rings and more accompanying each delivery. As well as teaming up with a range of local growers, Botanic Box highlights a different artist and maker each month, with previous partnerships including Lush Succulents, studio Nikulinsky, Kojo Kokedamas, Lazer Unicorn and McKenzie House. This is all about one-off collaborations that showcase local talent and add a nice dash of nature to your home. If you're eager to start welcoming new green babies on the regular, here's how it works. Customers sign up on ongoing basis, with Botanic Box packages ranging from three to six to twelve months. For the duration of your subscription, you'll receive a different plant and a handmade item around the 15th of each of every month, all for $49.95 per month. You can join Botanic Box yourself, or sign someone else up as a gift — and if you're feeling less than financial, you can drop hints to everyone you know. One to keep in mind when shopping for birthday or Christmas presents. For more details, visit botanicbox.com.au. Top image: Botanic Box / McKenzie House / Alle Grace Photography.
Earlier this year, Scoopy Milk Bar popped up at Melbourne's hawker-style market, HWKR. It left — as is the case with all venues at the always-rotating market — but now the frozen dessert palace is back. It's setting up shop inside Guildford Lane's Brick Lane for two months. While the cafe and bakery will remain business as usual during the day, come 4.30pm, it'll transform into a dessert bar dedicated to bingsu: a colourful Korean shaved ice dessert. To celebrate its return, Scoopy Milk Bar is giving away free bingsu to the first 50 customers through its doors today, Thursday, September 19, at 4.30pm. Knock off work a little early and get ready to dig into one of six shaved ice flavours: Royal Taro, Mai Thai Times, Matcha Bonsai, Milky Brew, Berry Peak and Dusky Dream. They come topped with the likes of fresh fruit, tapioca pearls, biscuits and shaved coconut, too. If you miss out on the giveaway, don't stress too much. The pop-up will be serving up bingsu till 9.30pm — and all the way through till Sunday, November 3, when the it ends. Scoopy Milk Bar giveaway runs from 4.30–9.30pm or until sold out.
If ice cream is a gift from the gods, then free ice cream is pure divinity. And that would make the Ben & Jerry's team martyrs, because this Sunday, July 16 they're giving out tubs of their ice cream, gratis. Think of it as a donation to your enjoyment on Earth. If you want to get in on this higher experience, Ben & Jerry's will be stationed at holy sites in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. This is where they'll be: Sydney: Queen's Victoria Building forecourt (next to the statue) from 11am – 1pm, then Manly Wharf from 3–6pm. Melbourne: The entry to Luna Park, St Kilda from 12–4pm. Brisbane: 168 Grey Street, South Brisbane from 1–3pm. All up, they've got 20,000 tubs to give away, including cult favourites like salted caramel, the caramel core Karamel Sutra and Chubby Hubby, which has fudge-covered pretzels and peanut butter swirls. The giveaway will celebrate International Ice Cream Day and the brand's new partnership with food delivery service Foodora. It's a great week for cheapskates, as Lord of the Fries is also giving out no-charge chips on Thursday in Sydney and Melbourne, and Brisbane's new Lucky Egg West End is doing free fried chicken burgers on Saturday and Sunday. The Ben & Jerry's Big Tub Giveaway will take place on Sunday, July 16 in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. For more info, visit their Facebook page.
With COVID-19 testing ramping up in Victoria over the past few weeks — and 161,000 administered in the last fortnight — the state is preparing to relax some coronavirus-related restrictions. At the moment, Victoria has some of the most stringent rules in Australia, but come 11.59pm tomorrow night, Tuesday, May 12, a number of limitations will be lifted. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews revealed the state's next stage of eased COVID-19 restrictions today, Monday, May 11, following a similar announcement at the federal level on Friday. While Prime Minister Scott Morrison unveiled the nation's three-step plan to lift lockdown limitations between now and July before the weekend, that country-wide framework needs to be implemented at the state level individually by each state. Victoria's announcement coincides with the end of its second four-week state of emergency, which expires at midnight tonight. Victoria's first stage of relaxed restrictions, will be introduced at 11.59pm on Tuesday, May 12, and remain in place with a renewed State of Emergency until 11.59pm on Sunday, May 31. A selection of normal, everyday activities that have been off the cards since March will be permissible once again, with the following allowed: Up to five visitors in your home Outdoor gatherings of up to ten people, including leaving the house for recreational activities such as hiking, jogging, fishing and golf Weddings will be allowed to have a maximum of ten guests Funerals with up to 20 mourners indoors and 30 outdoors Religious gatherings and ceremonies will be permitted with up to 10 people Previously, Victorians were only allowed to leave their homes for one of four reasons — to obtain food and supplies, to receive medical care or provide care yourself, for exercise and to attend work or education if you cannot do so from home — but from 11.59pm tomorrow night, there'll be a fifth reason: to visit friends and family. The Premier has said that there's no limit on how far you can travel to visit friends and family or to exercise, but overnight stays are not allowed and camping, AirBnBs and hotels are still off-limits. He also said that the new rule is not an excuse to have "a rotating roster of acquaintances and associates – or your third best friend from primary school – over for a visit. This is about seeing those you need to – if you need to." The Premier also said that "while the numbers are stable, there is a real need to be cautious", and Melburnians should work at home if they can until the end of May. "If you can stay at home — you must stay at home," the Premier said. Unlike in NSW and Queensland, Victoria's cafes and restaurants are not yet allowed to reopen to dine-in customers, but the Premier is hopeful this will be allowed to in June, when they next step of eased restrictions is likely to be introduced. "As we go through this month, we'll keep reviewing the situation and our case numbers – and hopefully, we'll be able to make further announcements then," the Premier said. For more information about NSW's eased restrictions, read the Premier's press release. To find out more about the status of COVID-19 in Australia and how to protect yourself, head to the Australian Government Department of Health's website.
If there's been a cheap pizza-shaped hole in your heart since that day a fire forced Fitzroy institution Bimbo Deluxe to close its doors in May last year, you can finally breathe easy. The home of $4 pizzas and late-night dance floor sessions is ready and raring for a comeback, with Bimbo 2.0 set to open next Wednesday, May 22. After a year-long hiatus, the reborn Brunswick Street venue is dropping Deluxe from its name and, from here on in, will simply be known as Bimbo. And, before you ask — yes, those wallet-friendly $4 pizza deals will be sticking around, though you'll find the wider menu has been revamped alongside a brand new program of music, drinks and after-hours shenanigans. View this post on Instagram A post shared by BIMBO (@bimbomelbourne) on Apr 6, 2018 at 1:55am PDT A makeover from designer Rabindra Naidoo — including new booth seating — will no doubt make the place feel refreshed, as will a swag of new large-scale artworks featured throughout. Pieces from the likes of Elliot Routledge and L.A's Kristen Liu Wong feature on the walls, as well as a big mural from Celeste Mountjoy (aka Filthy Ratbag), whose work graced the walls of the OG Bimbo. Colonial Leisure Group – which owns the venue along with sister venue Lucky Coq, Brunswick's Penny Black and Half Moon in Brighton — has also hit refresh on the weekly events calendar, with a new offering that includes a bunch of drink specials (details TBC), acoustic sessions each Tuesday, Wednesday night trivia and an all-local gig lineup on Fridays. Legendary queer club Poof Doof is also coming to play, with weekly collaboration Queer Deluxe happening from June onwards. This one will feature a colourful program of DJ sets and performances from some of the city's top queer talent. The new-look Bimbo will open on Wednesday, May 22 at 376 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.
With its first season, Yellowjackets instantly became one of 2021's best new series. Its second season is due in March, which already makes it one of the most-anticipated shows of 2023. Expect that excitement to continue in 2024 or beyond as well, with the hit thriller about the fallout from plane crash just locked in for a third season. While it couldn't be a more perfect theme tune to play over the show's opening credits, Craig Wedren and Anna Waronker's 90s-esque track 'No Return' doesn't apply to Yellowjackets' fate on our screens, clearly. US cable network Showtime has already renewed the series ahead of its season-two premiere — three months ahead, in fact, with the show's second batch of episodes due late March (streaming from Friday, March 24, 2023 via Paramount+ in Australia and Neon in New Zealand). The woods have a way of calling you back. #Yellowjackets is renewed for Season 3. pic.twitter.com/7e3LPzlBle — Yellowjackets on SHOWTIME (@yellowjackets96) December 15, 2022 If you're new to Yellowjackets, it's filled with eeriness, chills, 90s threads and survival skills, as a series about a New Jersey high school's girls soccer team after they crash in the forest and possibly turn to cannibalism should be. The show deepens its mysteries across two timelines: that tragedy and its immediate aftermath, and the ripples still being felt 25 years later. Not everyone seen in the former makes it to the latter, as the first season made plain. In their high-school prime, Shauna (Don't Look Up's Melanie Lynskey as an adult, and also The Kid Detective's Sophie Nélisse as a teenager), Natalie (Welcome to Chippendales' Juliette Lewis, plus The Book of Boba Fett's Sophie Thatcher) and Taissa (Billions' Tawny Cypress, and also Scream's Jasmin Savoy Brown) were key players on the titular high-achieving squad, while Misty (Wednesday's Christina Ricci, as well as Shameless' Samantha Hanratty) was the squad's frequently bullied student manager. Then, en route to a big match in Seattle on a private plane in 1996, they entered Lost territory. That accident saw everyone who walked away from the accident stranded in the wilderness — and those who then made it through that ordeal stuck out there for 19 months, living their worst Alive-meets-Lord of the Flies lives. Season two will pick up after plenty of chaos in both timeframes, and with new faces among the cast. Introducing more of the team in their adult guise is very much on the agenda, including Simone Kessell (Muru) playing the older Lottie and Lauren Ambrose (Servant) as the older Van. In their younger years, both characters are played by Australian actors, with Courtney Eaton (Mad Max: Fury Road) as Lottie and and Liv Hewson (Santa Clarita Diet) as Van. Also joining the show: Elijah Wood, who is no stranger to leafy surroundings thanks to his time in the Lord of the Rings franchise. He'll play Walter, a citizen detective who is set to challenge Misty — the adult version, presumably. It's obviously too early for a sneak peek at season three, but you can check out Yellowjackets' first teaser for season two below: Season three of Yellowjackets doesn't yet have a release date. Season two will start streaming from Friday, March 24, 2023 via Paramount+ in Australia and Neon in New Zealand. Read our review of season one.
If you’re anything like me, confessing your deepest and most private secrets to an audience of over six million people each month is a concept more terrifying than being forced into Delta’s group on The Voice. Thanks to Frank Warren’s anonymous submission based blog The PostSecret Project, I am free to admit I never actually watched the KONY 2012 video. I feel better already! Warren will wax lyrical on the atheist's answer to the confession box at Hamer Hall this Thursday, as part of a national tour. Conceived in 2005 as a community art project, the premise of PostSecret is simple — people send Warren their honest, untold secrets on a decorated postcard, to be displayed each month on the website as a collection of admissions. Eight years later and the project has received over 500,000 postcards, spanning the hysterical, the horrifying and the downright heart breaking. I thought hiding the fact that I’ve been strategically eating my flat mate’s gourmet yoghurt was a cross to bear. Tickets to see honest bloke Warren hold court are just $32 for students and $44 for adults; a small price to pay to see the person Forbes ranked fourth on their list of the most influential people on the whole of the Internet. It’s the biggest bargain in town, but don’t tell anyone lest the secret should get out. Honesty isn’t always the best policy. Image via postsecret.com
"Do you remember the first time you saw a dinosaur?" asks Bryce Dallas Howard in the latest instalment of the Jurassic Park franchise. We do. It was 25 years ago, as John Williams' iconic score built to its majestic climax and the cast of Steven Spielberg's iconic blockbuster rose from the seats of their jeep, tore off their glasses and stared wide-eyed at a beautiful, towering Brachiosaurus. It's been a quarter of a century since the first Jurassic Park captured the imagination of moviegoers the world over and ushered in the brave new world of CGI-enhanced filmmaking. The whole thing was classic Spielberg: a rollicking, family-friendly adventure that pushed the boundaries of innovation whilst remaining grounded in entirely relatable human stories. Its extraordinary success made sequels inevitable, but unfortunately none except perhaps 1997's The Lost World have come even close to recapturing the magic and wonder of the original. In Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom we have a film significantly better than its immediate predecessor, yet one that still falls well short of the bar set back in 1993. Much of the problem with this instalment lies with the franchise's so-called villains. In Jurassic Park the combination was perfect: flawed human antagonists in Dennis Nedry and John Hammond, existential menace in the form of technological hubris, and, of course, those dinosaurs. Between the thuggery of the T-Rex, the cunning of the raptors and the toxic spit of the Dilophosaurus, every step through the failing park held unbearable peril for its characters, instilling a dread that overflowed into the audience. Since then, however, the Jurassic movies have relied largely on a generic recurring villain: InGen, the unscrupulous genetics corporation behind all that Dino-DNA splicing. Even worse, the raptors and T-Rex have become, thanks to their broad popularity, inadvertent heroes, leaving the Dino-threat to come from species that never even existed. Here again in Fallen Kingdom it's that same formula at play: InGen is secretly cooking up some new dinosaurs to sell as weapons (still as ridiculous a concept as it was in Jurassic World), and the big scary dinosaur is a genetically-engineered ultra raptor. Around them are cookie-cutter human bad-guys in the form of mercenaries, big game hunters and money-hungry suits, as well as franchise regular Dr. Henry Wu (B.D. Wong), the original Jurassic Park geneticist who continues to learn precisely zero from all his past mistakes. There is still a lot of fun to be had here, and even a few unexpected feels as director J.A Bayona (A Monster Calls) reminds us that monsters of choice are always worse than monsters of instinct. The film's central conceit, too, is a compelling one: a volcano on the island upon which the dinosaurs currently reside is poised to erupt, meaning they will again become extinct without human intervention. To rescue or not to rescue becomes the burning question for Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), Claire Dearing (Dallas Howard) and returning fan favourite Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). InGen, predictably, wants the animals saved for far less noble reasons than preservation. The scenes set on the island are the strongest in the movie, and include perhaps the most affecting moment in the entire franchise in the form of a heart-wrenching callback to that iconic Brachiosaurus shot from all those years ago. Thereafter, Fallen Kingdom transforms into a semi Gothic horror film as the action shifts to an isolated mansion in which the characters are stalked by Wu's latest creation. Toby Jones and James Cromwell give spirited performances during this phase, but the weaknesses of the script refuse to be covered up. The bad get eaten whilst the good survive, and it honestly never feels like our heroes are in any genuine peril. As part two of a planned trilogy, the end-point of Fallen Kingdom certainly offers some interesting possibilities for the final instalment. That said, absent a more nuanced and, dare we say, sympathetic villain, this franchise, like Dr. Wu, seems destined to repeat the mistakes of its past. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn9mMeWcgoM
Richmond stalwart the Prince Alfred is jazzing up your average bottomless brunch (literally). Each Saturday, it's serving up food and two hours of endless pours — with a side serving of swingin' live jazz. Available from noon till 2pm, the brunch series is offering much more than just free-flowing mimosas — think all-you-can-drink espresso martinis, house wines and beers, too. Food-wise, you can choose one item off the menu, which includes the likes of hotcakes with ricotta, blueberry compote and lemon butter; fried chicken burgers with coleslaw, bacon and chipotle mayo; and smashed avo with feta, charred broccolini and a poached egg. Plus, the smooth sounds of a jazz band will play as you feast and sip away. And, if you want to kick on afterwards, you can nab $15 espresso martinis and Aperol spritzes all afternoon. The brunch will cost you $59 all up. Bookings are essential and can be made here.
Kendrick Lamar kicked off his four-city Australian DAMN. album tour on Tuesday, with a standout show in Perth. On top of the tour, which is also heading to Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, the acclaimed hip hop artist is also headlining a sold-out Splendour in the Grass later this month. If that wasn't enough Lamar-goodness for Aussie punters, the Pulitzer Prize-winning artist has just announced that he's bringing his coveted DAMN. Pop-Up stores down under, too. Damn. The first pop-up is happening in Melbourne right now, running from 11am to 7pm today and tomorrow on Brunswick Street. Sydney will get its chance to nab some of Lamar's limited-edition merch later this month on July 24 and 25. While details of what exactly will be stocked at the stores are extremely vague, the rapper's pop-up has already appeared in Europe and across the US, stocking vinyls, tees, caps and hoodies. You can take a look inside his NYC pop-up here. The rapper has also made surprise appearances at many of the pop-ups, so if you're keen to grab a closer-than-row-z sighting of Lamar we suggest heading along. If you are thinking of heading along, however, take this as a warning: there will be long lines. DAMN. Pop Up is open in Melbourne at Doomsday, 195A Brunswick Street, Fitzroy on Friday, July 13 and Saturday, July 14 from 11am–7pm. Sydney's pop-up will be located at Above The Clouds, 205 Oxford Street, Sydney on Tuesday, July 24 and Wednesday, July 25 from 11am–7pm. Kendrick Lamar is playing in Melbourne on July 13 and 14 and in Sydney on July 24 and 25. via Triple J
Whether you call them parmas, parmis, parmys or parmigianas, there's no debating that Aussies love 'em. The pub classic — breaded and fried chicken topped with tomato sauce and melted cheese — has become a bit of a national icon. You'll find it on the menu at almost every pub across the country, but one Melbourne pub is offering up a version that's a little different: a parma for dogs. St Kilda's Newmarket Hotel believes, like us, that even our four-legged friends deserve a decent pub meal. So, every Tuesday the pub is serving up dog-friendly parmas for just $5 a pop. The mini chicken schnitzel comes topped with shaved ham and bocconcini, and is served with a side of 'chips' and 'salad' (well, dog treats and kibble — but don't tell Fido). Of course, humans will find parmas here, too, with the dish available every Tuesday for just $15 (compared to the usual $21) including a side of beer-battered chips and salad. If you rock up between 4–7pm, you'll also be able to score some happy hour drinks, with $5.50 draught beer, house wine and spirits, and $12 cocktails. Find Newmarket Hotel at 34 Inkerman Street, St Likda. It's serving up $5 puppy parmas and $15 human parmas every Tuesday from 4pm.
When July 2021 came and went, it marked two years since Stranger Things last graced our streaming queues. That's two years of wondering what's become of Hawkins' beloved police chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour, Black Widow) — and where everyone else we've all come to know and love in the hit Netflix series has washed up, too. Sorry fans, you'll have to keep pondering for the rest of this year as well, as the streaming platform has officially announced that its 80s-set sci-fi series won't be returning till 2022. Fancy a sneak peek in the interim? In revealing that Stranger Things will finally make a comeback next year, Netflix has also dropped a new glimpse at what's in store. The platform has done so a few times already since the beginning of 2020, providing an initial clip back at the beginning of last year — which now seems like a lifetime ago — and a couple more teasers in May 2021. But hey, when you're hanging out for anything and everything related to the show's fourth season, each trailer and teaser drop is exciting. From that first 2020 teaser, we already know what happened after season three's big cliffhanger and Russian-set post-script — when Hopper, the mind flayer, the Russian lab below Starcourt Mall and that pesky gate to the Upside Down all had a run-in. And, we know that Hawkins Laboratory is going to feature again moving forward, with the last two clips focusing on Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown, Godzilla vs Kong) and Dr Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine, Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal). The new sneak peek combines both new and old footage, so parts of it will look familiar — and parts of it tease what's to come. There's little narrative detail provided, but that usually comes with the territory anyway. You already know you'd prefer to discover Stranger Things' secrets by binging your way through it as soon as new episodes become available to stream. Of course, it's worth remembering that when Netflix announced the show's renewal for a fourth season back in 2019, it did so with the catchphrase "we're not in Hawkins anymore". Naturally, we'll have to wait to see what that really means for its cast of characters — including not only Hopper and Eleven, the latter of which was last seen leaving town with Joyce (Winona Ryder, The Plot Against America), Will (Noah Schnapp, Hubie Halloween) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton, The New Mutants), but also for Mike (Finn Wolfhard, The Goldfinch), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo, The Angry Birds Movie 2), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin, Concrete Cowboy), Max (Sadie Sink, The Last Castle), Steve (Joe Keery, Spree) and Nancy (Natalia Dyer, Things Seen & Heard). Check out the new Stranger Things season four sneak peek below: Stranger Things season four will be able to stream via Netflix sometime in 2022 — we'll update you with an exact date when one is announced.
It's the beloved series that's been on the air for more than a decade, and finally made the leap Down Under this year. That'd be RuPaul's Drag Race, which first premiered in the US in 2009, wholeheartedly embraced its mission to unearth the next drag superstars, and debuted its Australian and New Zealand version earlier in 2021. And, in spectacularly great news for fans of local drag talent — and of the show's namesake — RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under is coming back for a second Aussie and NZ season in 2022. The original US series aired its thirteenth season this year, so this is a program with proven longevity. It has also spun off international iterations before, including in the UK — where it's also hosted by RuPaul — plus in Thailand, Holland, Chile and Canada. So, revving up the engines for another spin Down Under shouldn't come as a big surprise. And yes, RuPaul will be back on hosting duties again. After Kita Mean took out this year's first season of RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under, exactly who'll be donning eye-catching outfits, navigating dramas and vying for glory next year hasn't been revealed — because casting is now open until Tuesday, October 5. Obviously, exactly when the second season will air on Stan in Australia and TVNZ OnDemand in New Zealand in 2022 hasn't been announced yet either. Neither has the lineup of celebrity guests, after 2021 saw Kylie Minogue, Dannii Minogue and Taika Waititi all pop up. Fans already know the format, which features fashion challenges, workroom dramas and lip sync battles aplenty. If you're still a newcomer to all things Drag Race, you'll watch the next batch of Australian and NZ competitors work through a series of contests to emerge victorious, and join the likes of Mean and US contenders Jinkx Monsoon, Sasha Velour and Sharon Needles in being crowned the series' winner. Check out RuPaul's announcement video for Drag Race Down Under season two below: RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under will return for a second season in 2022 on Stan and TVNZ. Top image: RuPaul's Drag Race.
Why should inner-city folk have all the fun? The beachside destination of Mornington has just scored a rollicking new watering hole, that's both a little bit divey and a whole lot rock 'n' roll. Named after an album by legendary US indie-rockers Pavement, Wowee Zowee has landed on Main Street, led by a team of hospitality veterans and Mornington Peninsula locals in the know. At the helm, you'll find Something For Kate drummer and owner of Windsor's Yellow Bird Clint Hyndman, along with Paringa Estate Head Chef Simon Tarlington, Cam Marshall (Garagiste Wines, Balcombe Gin) and Craig Baum (Bar Barons). As the name suggests, there's a focus here on good times and great tunes, so expect a carefully put together soundtrack pumping from the speakers. To match, the bar's pouring a diverse and approachable lineup of drops, with imported brews like Kona's Big Wave and Pabst, alongside homegrown heroes including Young Henrys and Melbourne Bitter. There's also a crop of interesting wines, a dedicated tinnie fridge and a rotation of light cocktails — currently including the likes of the Regal Begal, blending Campari and pink grapefruit ($19). Chef Tarlington's chicken-heavy food menu heroes local Peninsula produce, while embracing both Southern American flavours and modern Aussie flair. Head in for dishes like the Dirty Bird, starring fried chicken, honey soy butter and a crumpet ($13); buffalo wings tossed in Frank's Hot Sauce and teamed with a blue cheese ranch ($14); the Wowee Dog ($12); and popcorn cauliflower ($12) with cauliflower ranch. The daily happy hour (4–6pm) is also packed with gems, from $8 pints and $5 wines to $2 chicken drumsticks.
Almost three decades since Snoop Dogg released his first single, the rap star's career has evolved in a variety of ways. He's dropped hits like they're hot, collaborated with seemingly everyone in the music industry, and popped up on both the big and small screens. He's also taken on MC duties at wrestling matches, released his own wine and adopted aliases. And, in 2018, he shared his cooking skills with the world. That's when Snoop unveiled his own cookbook, From Crook to Cook: Platinum Recipes from Tha Boss Dogg's Kitchen. Within its pages, fans can find recipes for everything from 'billionaire's bacon' and 'Bow Wow brownies and ice cream' to, of course, gin and juice. Yes, that means that you can listen to Snoop's tunes while whipping up his dishes and sipping the drink he'll always be synonymous with. Or, thanks to Menulog, you can just order in a feast based on the rapper's favourite meals. Until Friday, July 3, the food delivery service is serving up a Dogg's Diner menu, which is exactly what it sounds like. In collaboration with select restaurants around Australia, it's delivering a number of dishes from From Crook to Cook, helping to satisfy your 'mack & cheese', 'OG chicken and waffles', 'DOGGs in a blanket' and 'Rolls Royce PB-chocolate chip cookies' cravings. In total, nine items are available, with American-style eateries such as Down 'N' Out, Milky Lane and Meet Patty doing the cooking. While all of the aforementioned dishes are rather self-explanatory, they also include fried chicken wings sprinkled with potato chips, plus fries loaded with chunky ground beef chilli and cheese. Different items are available from different restaurants — so, depending on where you live, you mightn't have access to the whole range. And, while you're feasting away with 'What's My Name?' stuck in your head, you can start wondering whether the other '90s rap star turned cookbook author will ever get the same treatment — aka Coolio, who, in 2009, released Cookin' with Coolio: 5 Star Meals at a 1 Star Price. For more information about Menulog's Dogg's Diner menu — or to order a dish before Friday, July 3 — head to the Menulog website or app.
If you watched Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi's vampire sharehouse mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows back in 2014, then instantly found yourself yearning for more, that's understandable. Smart, silly and hilarious, the undead flick is one of the decade's best comedies. Thanks to two TV spinoffs, that dream has come true, letting viewers keep spending time in the movie's supernatural world — and that's not going to end any time soon. Last year, the New Zealand-made Wellington Paranormal made it to screens, following the movie's cops (Mike Minogue and Karen O'Leary) as they keep investigating the supernatural. It proved a hit, unsurprisingly, and has a second season in the works. This year, an American television version of What We Do in the Shadows also started airing, following a group of vampire flatmates living in Staten Island. Featuring Toast of London's Matt Berry, Four Lions' Kayvan Novak, British stand-up comedian Natasia Demetriou, The Magicians' Harvey Guillen, The Office's Mark Proksch and Lady Bird's Beanie Feldstein, it follows the same basic concept as the original movie, just with memorable new characters. And now it has been renewed for a second season as well. Created and co-written by Clement, and executive produced by the Flight of the Conchords star with Thor: Ragnarok's Waititi, the US take on What We Do in the Shadows was first hinted at back in 2017, and then confirmed in May 2018. While the duo don't star in the new-look series, Berry, Novak and company have been doing them proud as the next batch of ravenous — and comic — vamps. Novak plays the gang's self-appointed leader, 'Nandor The Relentless', who dates back to the Ottoman Empire days and is somewhat stuck in his ways. As for Berry's mischievous British dandy Laszlo and Demetriou's seductive Nadja, they're like a blood-sucking Bonnie and Clyde (but much funnier). Guillén plays Nandor's familiar, who'd do anything to join the undead, while Proksch's Colin is an 'energy vampire'. And Feldstein's Jenna is a college student with a new craving. If you haven't caught the series yet, here's one of the first season's trailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWUiU3t5udM Can't wait to sink your fangs into more? The first season is still on the air at present, and the second season will continue the story — charting Nandor, Laszlo, Nadja and the group's undead antics in the New York borough. It wasn't easy being a centuries-old bloodsucker in Wellington in the movie, and it's just as tough (and amusing) on the other side of the world. What We Do in the Shadows' first season is currently airing on Foxtel's Showcase channel weekly at 8.30pm on Tuesdays. Expect the second season in 2020. Via Variety.
Surfers of Melbourne — all 300,000 of you — don't go anywhere. Come Easter, the first waves will be rolling through Australia's very first surf park. And, no, you won't have to drive all the way out to Torquay or the Peninsula. Instead, Urbnsurf Melbourne will be located on a huge site in Tullamarine, just near the airport. Plans for the park first surfaced way back in 2016, and Urbnsurf has today announced that the park has installed its wave generator. That means it will be pumping out surf by April, with a view to be open to the public by spring this year. At the moment, the site is still a hole in the ground — but when it opens, the two-hectare lagoon will power up to 1000 waves per hour, day and night. And you'll get a choice of waves. Want to ride nothing but perfectly-formed right-handers for an hour? Or would you prefer a random selection, like what you'd experience in the ocean? You'll be able to take your pick. According to Urbnsurf founder Andrew Ross, "every wave has six different take-off spots", which equates to 3600 surfable positions every hour. The waves are created by Wavegarden technology, which was developed by a Spanish engineering firm of the same name. So how does it work? Basically, the waves come from an 85-metre pier that runs down the centre of the lagoon (which you can see in the image below). A series of pistons located on the pier then push the water to the left, then to the right, to create the waves. Ross likens the movement to "moving your hand back and forward like a shark's tail". [caption id="attachment_707250" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Urbnsurf lagoon under construction.[/caption] If you're worried about the amount of energy needed to drive such an operation, take comfort in the fact that Urbnsurf aims to run on 100 percent renewables within the first 12 months of opening. From the get-go, the rest of the facility's built environment — which includes a beach club, loads of eateries and a retail space — will be partially solar powered (with the rest sourced from renewable sources), and water will be sourced from storm water stores near the airport before being treated and filtered. Once the lagoon is filled, the team will then enter a testing period — if you're a keen surfer, you can sign up to give it a test drive before the park opens to the public in spring this year. The ability to create waves means that the park will be built for both pros who are looking for steep, barrelling waves and novices looking for a safe place to get their start in the surf. "Becoming a great surfer is all about getting waves under your feet," says Ross. "But, in Melbourne, the nearest waves are over an hour away. Unless you set up your life so you can get down there regularly, it's difficult to progress as a surfer, without dedicating decades of your life to it." At Urbnsurf, Ross predicts, most novices will stand on their board within an hour and ride across the green face within two. And not only will you get guaranteed waves — you won't be fighting for them. The park holds 84 riders per hour. And, should you get seriously hooked, you'll be able to enter amateur competitions, maybe with (or against) your mates. When completed, it will be the fourth commercial wave park in the world, and the first in Australia. But not for long. Urbnsurf has already has plans for a Sydney park approved, and it's also lodging a development application for a site in Perth. Another park has also been proposed for regional Queensland. https://vimeo.com/256710737 Urbnsurf is due to open in spring 2019 near Melbourne Airport. You can sign up to test out the surf park before it opens on the website. Top image: Wavegarden San Sebastian, by Ed Sloane. All images courtesy Urbnsurf.
It was always going to be a challenge adapting On the Road, a book which is so intensely loved, has been so integral to the minds of so many people for so many years, and written in a language which burns and pulses and pierces the heart like stone cutting glass. We've been waiting years for it, and now the film version of Jack Kerouac's novel, starring Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund as Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty respectively, criss-crossing the country and trying to live as honestly and as passionately and as freely as they can, is finally upon us. And we can say that it's good. Very good. On the Road is the seminal novel of the Beat Generation, a semi-autobiographical account of Kerouac's time hoofing it across the country in the late 1940s and infamously written over three Benzedrine-fuelled weeks on a 120-foot roll of teletype paper. Francis Ford Coppola bought the rights to the novel in 1979 and has been tinkering about with it to no avail until signing up Walter Salles and Jose Rivera, the pair who directed and scripted The Motorcycle Diaries. The influence of that film haunts On the Road, and just as The Motorcycle Diaries captures the stark beauty of South America, On the Road shows every corner of the United States in its most exquisite detail. The performances from nearly all the actors are outstanding, particularly Riley and Tom Sturridge (as the lovelorn Carlo Marx), with Hedund's turn as Dean Moriarty the big, beating heart of the film. He also, as it happens, is on screen naked on a number of occasions, as are Kristen Stewart's boobs, if you're into that. Viggo Mortensen also provides some of the best lines as Old Bull Lee, a thinly veiled William S. Burroughs — Lorraine is a good name for a bat, don't you know. What will bother some is that the exuberance of the Beats in the novel, "the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk and mad to be saved," dissipates in Salles' slower-paced, golden-toned approach. The best bet, as with all film adaptations, is not to get too caught up in the accuracy of the interpretation, and simply appreciate it for what it is. https://youtube.com/watch?v=etr7upn35E4
If Wes Anderson was to rove his hyper-stylised gaze over everyday British life, the result might look like Sometimes Always Never. If he transplanted his fondness for melancholy family dysfunction to Merseyside, it could resemble this grief-fuelled drama, too. And if the acclaimed auteur ever decided to set his sights on the game of Scrabble, the end product might also share much in common with Carl Hunter's debut stint as a feature filmmaker. To the director's immense credit, this elegant and tender movie always feels like a relative of Anderson's work instead of an imitation — a kindred spirit with evident similarities, but bearing its own sensibilities. Sometimes working with noticeably exaggerated backgrounds, always demonstrating a flair for quirkiness and precision in tandem, and never overplaying his aesthetic approach, Hunter turns Sometimes Always Never into a visual playground. Every stylistic choice reflects the inner states of the film's characters, with the first-timer's images doubling as an imaginative escape. Even when the movie merely watches the fashionable but forlorn Alan (Bill Nighy) wandering along a beachfront, takes him on a country road trip with his silently resentful son Peter (Sam Riley), or spies more than a few folks slinging Scrabble tiles, it does so with a curious and perceptive eye. Hunter understands the creative truth that sits at the heart of whimsy, surrealism and flights of fantasy, and at the heart of this picture as well: that finding a little magic in ordinary surroundings is a simple but effective coping mechanism. A retired tailor who hasn't lost his sense of style, Alan has plenty of worries that he'd happily avoid. His relationship with Peter is cordial but strained, his other son disappeared without a trace years earlier and, thanks to his preferred pastime, he'd rather work his charms on words than people. When a development in the missing person case doesn't turn out as hoped, Alan is caught at a crossroads. He can unofficially move into Peter's house, play nice with his daughter-in-law (Alice Lowe) and teenage grandson (Louis Healy), and keep deploying Scrabble as a distraction, or he can face his woes, stop wallowing on what he's lost and appreciate what he has left. Whether it's played casually between friends and family or competitively with money at stake, Scrabble requires a combination of inventiveness and rigour. A willingness to take risks is just as important as an extensive vocabulary — and although Alan knows this all too well, he's slow to apply the same thinking to his world in general. While Frank Cottrell Boyce's screenplay embraces life's troubles as much as its joys, it's never less than a pleasure to watch Something Always Never run its course. Indeed, there's an entrancing power to the movie's story and mood, with both acknowledging the many ways that grief can leave an imprint. Sometimes the film's sentiments prove a little too neat, but that's the exception rather than the rule. Intricate and vivid even when painted in subdued colours, Hunter's eye-catching imagery helps considerably, immersing viewers in the movie's distinctive tone and narrative realm. But pretty pictures can't pierce the heart quite like a slate of excellent performances, which Something Always Never boasts in spades. It's a testament to Nighy's talents that the veteran actor retains his familiar vibe, yet completely inhabits his character. It's a testament to Riley, Lowe and virtual newcomer Healy that they more than hold their own against their experienced co-star, as do fellow supports Jenny Agutter and Tim McInnerny. Among all of the film's astute elements, the great work of its cast ranks among the most crucial. You can't win at Scrabble without playing multiple hands, and you can't make an eccentric, insightful treatise on mourning and moving on without the handiwork of multiple players. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22R-JQRov_U
What do Gertrude Stein, J.K. Rowling, Jack Kerouac, Rudyard Kipling, Sylvia Plath and Colonel Sanders have in common? On top of collectively penning a notable portion of the most memorable and well-known literature ever (the king of KFC came up with that song about Kentucky fried chicken and a pizza hut, right?) they are all familiar with the harsh sting of rejection, each having had their unpublished manuscripts rejected by people whose names no one remembers now. If only these seminal thinkers had been familiar with premier print-on-demand publishing company Blurb they could have cut out the middleman and saved themselves the heartache. The creative platform allows anyone with a computer (aka anyone with a pulse) to create, promote and flog his or her own seriously schmick looking book, photo book, magazine or e-book. This weekend Blurb hosts a series of free master classes and workshops run by photographers Daniel Milnor and Garry Trinh, who wax lyrical on the bookmaking process, the future of print and advancements in modern storytelling. Book now to avoid the kind of disappointment experienced by Stein, Rowling, Kerouac and co. Image Garry Trinh via Blurb
Cafes are no longer just serving great coffee. They're serving great locally roasted coffee in many forms (from cold drip to batch and single origin espresso), great fare that caters to all dietaries. They also boast interesting decors and are passionate about sustainability and the ethical sourcing of ingredients. And our favourite cafes of the year do an impressive job at covering it all. From vegan croissants and cakes baked by 'Mum', to all-day eateries and a mini eatery pumping out top-notch breakfast banh mi, these six cafes are doing it all. At Concrete Playground we encourage exploration and showcase innovation in our city every day, so we thought it fitting to reward those most talented whippersnappers pushing Melbourne to be a better, braver city. And so, these six new cafes, opened in 2018, were nominated for Best New Cafe in Concrete Playground's Best of 2018 Awards. You can check out all the winners over here.
Two years ago, the site at 300 Smith Street, Collingwood was a thoroughly modern Italian affair, operating as Scott Pickett's new northside diner Lupo. Now, after a COVID-related hiatus, the space is set to be reborn with an unmistakable French accent, as the renowned chef-owner (Estelle, Matilda, Pastore) begins its transformation into Parisian-inspired newcomer Smith St Bistrot. Slated to open this summer, the bistro and bar will celebrate the French chapter of Pickett's own culinary training, as well as that of new right-hand man, Head Chef Daniel Southern (Bar Margaux, Vue Group). It'll open from 11am for those chic lunching, sipping and snacking sessions, with a rotating menu du jour showcased come dinnertime. Expect plenty of classic European flavours, across finely-tuned dishes like tuna tartare matched with pommes gaufrette, a chicken and tarragon fricassee for two, whole flounder with gribiche sauce and the classic creme caramel; here done a la Southern's recipe. You'll be just as happy dropping by for a steak baguette and pommes frites on your lunchbreak, as you will be celebrating with friends over an evening of lobster thermidor and armagnac souffles. [caption id="attachment_828038" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Daniel Southern and Scott Pickett, by Alex Squadrito[/caption] A matching wine offering promises options for all occasions and budgets, favouring local and international winemakers taking a hands-off approach to their art. That means biodynamic, organic, sustainable and natural drops are in strong supply. There'll be boutique beers and a handful of cocktails, too, revamping familiar favourites with a few new-world twists. The space itself has been reworked under the eye of Anthology Studio's Sarah Townson, with rich green velvet and burgundy leather played against exposed brick in a nod to both gothic and art deco stylings. Expect a heady vision of brass chandeliers, antique mirrors and wrought iron balustrades, complete with a spiral staircase leading to a new mezzanine level and second private dining space. Find Smith St Bistrot at 300 Smith Street, Collingwood, from this summer. We'll share more information as it's available. Images: Alex Squadrito
Little has changed since the 2016 leak of the Nauru Files, which detail 2116 incident reports of assault, sexual and child abuse, self-harm and horrible living conditions suffered by asylum seekers on Nauru, one of Australia's offshore refugee detention centres. With the centre continuing to operate regardless, 32 award-winning artists have teamed up to create All We Can't See: Illustrating the Nauru Files, which will show at Fortyfivedownstairs Gallery from Tuesday, July 31 through Saturday, August 10. The exhibition illustrates the suffering of detainees through creative expression, with each artist having chosen a specific Nauru file to interpret. The exhibition's renowned Australian artists include painter Ben Quilty, 2017 Bvlgari Art Award recipient Tomislav Nikolic, Tim Maguire, Sulman Prize winner Aida Tomescu, and multi-discipline artist Belinda Fox. Since the show first debuted in Sydney earlier this year, many more leading artists — including Julian Meagher, Khaled Sabsabi, and Stanislava Pinchuk — have joined. Members of the public, including school children, have also illustrated files, which can be viewed on the All We Can't See website. Three free events will also run alongside the event, including free panel discussion on Thursday, August 2. The first will be moderated by Daniel Webb from Human Rights Law Centre and include discussions with Gillian Triggs, the former President of the Australian Human Rights Commission. On Friday, August 3, there will also be free screening of Watan, a documentary that explores the human cost of the Syrian refugee crisis. Finally, on Tuesday, August 7, there'll be a conversation between artist Hoda Afshar, who visited to Manus Island earlier this year, and poet Behrouz Boochani, a current detainee who will join via Skype. With a complete lack of media access to the island, the artists hopes to raise greater awareness through their art in this sure to be powerful exhibition. Artworks at the exhibition will also be for sale, with all proceeds going to the Human Rights Law Centre. Image: Work by Pia Johnson and Janet Laurence
Romantic comedies work as wish fulfilment, and they're the main way we consume ideas of romance in cinema. So when a movie comes along and steps out of the fantasy bubble to present a relationship that's nuanced, messy, and even time-limited, it's instantly refreshing. Celeste & Jesse Forever then goes beyond mere refreshing idea to become a memorable, honest, sweet, and satisfying film. Starring and co-written by adorable Rashida Jones (Parks and Recreation), the film joins Celeste (Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) six months after their separation. They're still so joined at the hip, however, that we're not aware of this for a good 10 minutes of the movie, until their dinner companions and best friends, Beth (Ari Graynor) and Tucker (Eric Christian Olsen), interrupt the couple's cosy in-joke fest to tell them that their behaviour is not normal, not healthy, and has to stop. They don't listen, but after things eventually come to a head, Jesse moves out of the granny flat — and into a sudden, very committed relationship with a beautiful Belgian (Rebecca Dayan). It's then that Celeste has to deal with the fact that she may have taken her great love for granted. Jones co-wrote this with long-time pal Will McCormack (who also plays drug dealer Skillz), and the buddy banter is the first of many things they've gotten eerily close to reality. They touch on the possibility of there being a difference between a best friend and life partner and the experience of seeing a hopeless ex abruptly scrub up in a new relationship. Celeste has friendships with multiple women and men (!), a level of social complexity we don't often get to see in film but which brings tons of warmth and zest. It's this kind of sweetly personal resonance that explains why a person's 'favourite films' list is often different to a 'best films' list — and Celeste & Jesse Forever might feature on a few of the former. With Celeste's high-powered career as a futurist, the film briefly threatened to go down a Bettina Arndt-paved path to a moral of learning to settle with a mediocre man. Fortunately, that path remains in a whole other universe to Celeste & Jesse Forever. Its world is real, contemporary life with extra funny, making for a break-up movie where no-one stands in the night staring up at the rain. https://youtube.com/watch?v=NQoH1IGRB3w
Off the back of its dazzling debut exhibition dedicated to the works of Van Gogh, digital art gallery The Lume is gearing up to launch its second dynamic art experience, this time deep-diving into the French Impressionist era. Kicking off Wednesday, October 26, Monet & Friends Alive invites visitors back in time to 19th-Century Paris, celebrating the famous works of Impressionist icons from Monet to Renoir, and Cézanne to Manet. As with its predecessor, the multi-sensory exhibition will display its artworks via supersized projections splashed across its sprawling surfaces, and paired with a curation of tastes, aromas and sounds. Here, that means you'll be able to wander over a bridge and right into a recreation of Monet's famed 1899 work, Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies. Other interactive experiences will include a studio space where visitors can have a go at creating their own replicas of Monet's best-known paintings. Further tapping into the French bohemian spirit will be The Lume's own take on a 19th-Century Parisian cafe, Cafe Lumiere, which will be serving up a menu of small bites, share plates and desserts to enjoy after your artistic adventures. 'Monet & Friends Alive' will launch on October 26, with tickets available from August 26. Head to the website for more details.
