If Christmas has snuck up on you as it has us, you're in luck, because Melbourne Quarter has you covered with a lineup of fun events this season to take some of the pressure off. That's right, Season's Eatings is here to add that extra sprinkle of joy to your December days, running from Monday, December 4 to Thursday, December 15. And guess what? It's all free, though some events are ticketed with limited spots — so get your RSVP in quick. Kick off the festivities on Monday, December 4, by popping in to see Melbourne Quarter's festive decorations, crafted by local artist Justine McAllister. Then, on Tuesday, December 5, start your morning the right way by heading to Peddler Espresso and nabbing yourself a free coffee and mini danish. As the week progresses, your tastebuds are in for a treat with Royal Stacks' slider-tasting lunch on Wednesday, December 6, featuring mini versions of its most popular burgers plus fries and live DJ tunes. And if you're craving a bit of Italian flair, Saluministi's pop-up on Thursday, December 7, offers the perfect opportunity to chat with founders Peter Mastro and Frank Bressi while munching on their famous panini and cannoli. There's more. Fishbowl's latest 'Street Food' menu offerings await you on Wednesday, December 13, in the form of a VIP lunch. And to wrap up, Sergy Boy is hosting a pretty damn sweet happy hour deal on Thursday, December 14, from 4.30pm to 6.30pm, with a free drink on arrival, and all drinks half-price thereafter. So, gather your mates, or make some new ones, and enjoy the festivities at one of Melbourne's newest hang-out spots. See you at Melbourne Quarter. To RSVP to events and see the full program, head to the Melbourne Quarter website.
UPDATE, Friday, June 21, 2024: Anatomy of a Fall is available to stream via Stan, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. The calypso instrumental cover of 'P.I.M.P.' isn't the only thing that Anatomy of a Fall's audience can't dislodge from their heads after watching 2023's deserving Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or-winner and 2024's five-time Oscar-nominee. 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. This is a movie about truth that's really a feature about trust and perception. Indeed, delivering a definitive solution and explanation isn't filmmaker Justine Triet's focus. Helming her fourth full-length picture and becoming an Academy Award contender for Best Director in the process, the French talent doesn't serve up neat true crime-style closure, either, but she unflinchingly knows that the world has been conditioned to want every query and mystery — every uncertainty as well — wrapped up conclusively and categorically. The scenario conjured up by Age of Panic, Victoria and Sibyl's Triet is deeply haunting, asking not only if her protagonist Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller, Sisi & I) 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 and its specifics provide the backdrop for much of the Anatomy of a Fall, the real person doing the real picking isn't there in a professional capacity, or on a jury. Rather, it's 11-year-old Daniel (Milo Machado Graner, Alex Hugo), who has a visual impairment, finds his dad Samuel (Samuel Theis, Softie) 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. Returning from a walk with his dog Snoop, the boy didn't see what happened, but he's the closest thing that detectives have to an onlooker. Novelist and translator Sandra is introduced with that clanging version of one of 50 Cent's best-known songs echoing, a graduate student (Camille Rutherford, The Night of the 12th) interviewing her about her work and successful career in the family's remote chalet and, as he undertakes renovations upstairs, teacher Samuel turning up the soundtrack to distracting levels. Within an hour in the film's timeline and mere minutes for viewers, the latter will be dead via a fall from the home's topmost floor. When the inquiries start, Sandra says that she was asleep post-chat. Already, a wealth of details give rise to questions. Was Samuel blasting tunes to sabotage his wife's discussion? Also, why that particular track? Sipping wine as she talked, was the bisexual Sandra flirting? Did that raise her husband's ire? Do his and her actions alike that day scream volumes about the state of their marriage? Did she really not hear the incident? Was it an accident, suicide or was she responsible? Anatomy of a Fall is always a film about questions, too — and the reality that, in life-and-death situations and everyday circumstances, they never stop springing in any relationship. The police can't make a clearcut decision either way based on the available evidence, hence the presumption of murder, Sandra as the prime suspect and the shift to court. Fittingly co-writing the script with her IRL partner Arthur Harari (Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle), Triet's poising of Anatomy of a Fall's opening moments as fuel for scrutinising Sandra and Samuel's union is savvy is another way: it sets up an entire feature where their wedded bliss — or lack thereof, as quickly becomes apparent — is probed, audited and analysed. The stakes are immense, but pondering how any long-term romance can hold up to such a dissection is one of the film's many takeaways. The questions swirl again, sifting through infidelities, guilt over the accident that caused Daniel to lose his sight, the division of household tasks, gender roles, mental health, professional rivalries, at-any-cost moves, past fights and how the couple's son was caught in the middle long before he's now asked to say whether his father, who homeschooled him, was killed by his mother. A picture as intelligent and exacting as this — and as taut, tense and tenacious — isn't short of unforgettable elements. Again, the whole feature earns that description, as does its unpacking of intimate connections. Also high on the list: the performances that are so crucial in telling this tale of marital and parental bonds, especially from one of Germany's current best actors. Although her similarly astonishing portrayal in The Zone of Interest is following Anatomy of a Fall to screens Down Under, arriving in February 2024, Toni Erdmann and I'm Your Man's Hüller is two for two in movies that initially debuted globally in 2023, collected awards at Cannes (The Zone of Interest picked up the Grand Prix, aka second place in the festival's official competition), rightly received Oscar attention and are anchored by her complex portrayals of women who refuse to meet anyone's expectations but their own. Here, she steps into an icy and complicated figure's shoes with the same surgical precision that Triet applies to rifling through the character's home life (that Sandra would rather speak English with her spouse despite him being French and them living in France isn't just a minor tidbit). In flashbacks to disagreements with Samuel and with her freedom on the line, Anatomy of a Fall's accused is unwaveringly unapologetic in her insistence to put herself first — as it's plain that both the prosecutor (Antoine Reinartz, Irma Vep) and defence attorney (Swann Arlaud, About Joan) on the case can see — and Hüller at her steeliest best, always devastatingly naturalistically so, is formidable in the part. She's the one with the Academy Award nod for acting; however, the up-and-coming French talent playing her son is also exceptional. In fact, as Daniel, who couldn't be more conflicted about the nightmare situation that he's been thrust into, Graner 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. Tearing into a relationship — and tearing it apart — feels nothing less than brutal in Triet's hands; every realisation about human nature in love and life that resounds along the way feels decidedly accurate, though. There's an aspect of Gone Girl to her masterful feature, too. While this isn't a film with a "cool girl" monologue, the societal expectations placed upon women, and on mothers, are firmly pushed to the fore. Take note of the fact that cinematographer Simon Beaufils (Antoinette in the Cévennes) is often looking up at Hüller as well: whatever Sandra did or didn't do, whatever Daniel does or doesn't choose to believe, and wherever audiences land — again, there's no simple resolution here — being a victim, or allowing herself to be seen that way, isn't part of the character's anatomy.
Odd Culture Fitzroy is teaming up with yakitori specialists Nama to throw a barbecue party in the beer garden on Sunday, November 12. From 3pm chefs will be slinging a heap of yakitori fresh off the grill and dishes like white anchovy and corn tostadas. These will only be available until sold out so you best get in early. And, because this is Odd Culture we're talking about, the drinks are as much of a drawcard as the food. The bar will change things up a bit for the party with a few specialty cocktails made just for the day. Try some old-school Japanese slippers or opt for whisky highballs and umeshu sours either at the bar or out in the sun-soaked beer garden where Japanese disco tunes will be spinning. Odd Culture's usual happy hour will also run from 3–6pm, with schooners for the price of pots, $12 sour negronis and $8 glasses of orange wine and pét-nat — boozy bargains! Sakes and classic cocktails will also be up for grabs throughout the day and night.
UPDATE, Tuesday, June 18, 2024: Priscilla is available to stream via Stan, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. 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. For the leads playing their titular parts, the two Presley portraits of the 2020s far are also star-making pictures. If Spaeny becomes her director's new muse, it's much-deserved based on her turn as an excited and longing teen, then the isolated high-school senior and stuck-at-home girlfriend who's so controlled that she's instructed to dye her hair the same black that Elvis sports (by him), then the wife and mother virtually living a separate life. In fact, she was recommended by Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog), Coppola's muse since her debut feature, aka Spaeny's co-star in 2024's upcoming Civil War. Although finding someone who could take the role across a decade and a half, and be as genuine as a smitten teen, a fed-up woman deciding to claim her own life and everything in-between wouldn't have been easy, Priscilla's Venice International Film Festival Volpi Cup for Best Actress-winning choice is sublime. Priscilla Beaulieu is just 14 when she's invited to a party at Elvis' home in West Germany, where she's an army brat with a strict dad (Ari Cohen, Fargo) in the service and he's a 24-year-old donning the uniform solely because he's been drafted. Asked if she likes Elvis by one of his pals, her response is: "of course, who doesn't?". She subsequently can't help falling, as is to be expected of a girl being paid attention by one of the biggest stars on the planet. In the giddy aftermath of their first meetings, during their early courtship and when Elvis heads back home, Coppola gets her The Beguiled and On the Rocks cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd roving over fabrics and handwriting, two staple details in her work, to assist in showing the heady passion that pulsates through Priscilla. As her films keep demonstrating, you can glean much about someone by the textures that they surround themselves with, the way they communicate via the written word, and the care they take with each. Here, you can tell how Priscilla's namesake initially feels like she's living in a fantasy come true. As witnessed through Priscilla Presley's eyes — as adapted by Coppola from Priscilla's 1985 memoir Elvis and Me, and boasting an also-brilliant Elordi as the brooding and volatile Elvis — this romance is never a fairy tale, however. She swoons. She pines. She begs her parents (with Succession's Dagmara Dominczyk as her mother) to let her visit Graceland, and then to move there. She does what Elvis says, and shapes herself by his wishes and whims. She acts in the 50s-trained mould, with its firmly defined gender roles, as he also does. Priscilla spies the period, its expectations and demands, but it also spots the imbalance in power that goes beyond social norms. Leaving Elvis' music off the Phoenix-supervised soundtrack wasn't the original plan, after Coppola sought permission from his estate and was denied, yet it has a potent effect: as tunes other than his echo, and not only from the time — a Ramones cover of 'Baby, I Love You' and Dan Deacon's 2007 track 'The Crystal Cat', for instance — the film divorces itself from his perspective, and from what was accepted in the era. From the moment that it starts with red toenails upon shag carpeting, then, until it closes with swinging gates and one of the greatest songs that Dolly Parton has ever written (and a sentiment that never rings false), Priscilla is what many Coppola flicks are: an account of a woman trying to discover herself in restrictive circumstances where her existence is defined by a man. The picture's protagonist is The Virgin Suicides' siblings cooped up in their home, and Lost in Translation's left-behind spouse. She's Marie Antoinette's partner to royalty, complete with an unhappy bedroom life — the Presleys' romance is chaste when Priscilla is younger, then Elvis remains largely uninterested when she's older — and Somewhere's adoring youth in a star's shadow as well. Coppola sees the limits placed upon the women before her camera, the abodes they're trapped in and how they pass the time. In a revelatory fashion, she's well-aware that so much of Priscilla's life with Elvis was filled with just that as he went on tour, made movies in Los Angeles, and had gossip all aflutter about affairs with Speedway's Nancy Sinatra and Viva Las Vegas' Ann-Margret: Priscilla on her lonesome passing the time. While Coppola has never made a feature that's less than excellent, Priscilla is among her most-accomplished. Every inch always means something in the director's oeuvre, and proves immaculate and intimate. Such truths from her filmography resound again here to perfection, with exquisitely ravishing aesthetics — also thanks to costume designer Stacey Battat, who has worked on every one of the helmer's pictures since Somewhere, as well as Nightmare Alley production designer Tamara Deverell — helping to amplify the picture's emotional intensity. Coppola's little-less-conversation approach finds its action in glances and stares, and in being all shook up by what's not uttered. It's absorbing and mesmerising, heartbreaks, hardships and all. Priscilla herself wouldn't want anyone aching for her experience, but she'd surely hope for the crucial feat that Priscilla overwhelmingly achieves: ensuring that viewers feel as if they've lived it.
When you're a film festival that's all about the best cinema from Spain and Latin America, and you've been showcasing flicks from the two regions for a quarter century, how do you mark the occasion? If you're Australia's annual Spanish Film Festival, you put together a hefty 25th-birthday festival filled with 32 movies. That's the just-announced plan for 2023's event, which will take over the screens at The Astor Theatre, Palace Cinema Como, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Westgarth, The Kino, Palace Balwyn and Pentridge Cinema in Melbourne from Thursday, June 15–Wednesday, July 5 — complete with Spanish box-office hits, stars from beloved series, a focus on female directors and plenty more. Kicking off the fest is the Australian premiere of culinary comedy Two Many Chefs, which follows a father-and-son pair reuniting in the high-cuisine scene in Bilbao. Also a high-profile must-see is the festival's centrepiece selection Alcarràs, the winner of the Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear in 2022. It popped up at a few local fests last year, and is now finally being made available to a wider Aussie audience. Other highlights include five-time Goya Award-winner Prison 77, a smash in its homeland starring Miguel Herrán from Netflix's Money Heist; The Kings of the World, which focuses on five Medellín teenagers; and Four's a Crowd, the latest from The Bar, Witching and Bitching and As Luck Would Have It filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia. Plus, there's thriller A Singular Crime, about a wealthy businessman's disappearance in Argentina in the 80s — and Staring at Strangers, where The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent's Paco León spies on a family from inside a closet (and yes, sounds like it takes its cues from Parasite). Film lovers can also look forward to rom-com My Father's Mexican Wedding, about two Spanish siblings travelling abroad for the titular nuptials; Mighty Victoria, which sees residents of a small town try to build their own steam train in 1930s Mexico; black-and-white horror film History of the Occult; and feminist Argentinian western The Broken Land. The 2022 fest boasts an Australian link as well via Greg Mortimer, about the passengers and crew on the Australian cruise ship that left for Antarctica just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic being declared. And, the Spanish Film Festival's survey of prominent Spanish and Latin American women directors includes seven movies, while its five-title 2023 retrospective is dedicated to iconic Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura, who passed away earlier in 2023.
When Good Beer Week returns to send Melbourne craft beer fiends into a frothy tailspin each May, it also coincides with the globe-trotting flavour fest that is Pint of Origin. Every year, this fan-favourite event sees bars and pubs across the city turn over their taps to spotlight top-notch beers from different corners of the world. 2023's instalment runs from Friday, May 12–Sunday, May 21, to shake up taplists at much-loved venues like Carwyn Cellars, the Local Taphouse, Beermash and Westside Ale Works. Each one will spend the ten days heroing brews from a different regional, interstate or international destination, giving punters the chance to broaden their horizons while scoping out some stellar new sips. [caption id="attachment_900291" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Mr West[/caption] Each tap takeover will span a range of beer styles from a stack of different breweries — many of which aren't readily found in Melbourne. You can hit The Catfish for a taste of New Zealand's beer scene, explore a rotation of UK brews at Whitehart and raise a few pints to the beers of South Australia with a visit to the Palace Hotel. Also in the 20-strong lineup, Mr West is showcasing Canadian brews, The Lincoln is spotlighting Tassie drops, and Fitzroy's Near & Far is diving into some full-blown appreciation for Brisbane-born beers. Many of the venues are also doing guided tastings and meet-the-brewer sessions throughout the duration. Plus, if you keep track of your wanderings with a Pint of Origin digital passport, you'll be in with a shot at some great prizes. [caption id="attachment_761608" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Carwyn Cellars[/caption] Top images: The Lincoln, Beermash
You could celebrate International Tea Day (Sunday, May 21) the obvious way, by downing a nice hot cuppa. Or, you could sate your sweet tooth instead and mark the occasion with a tea-inspired treat. Or hey, why not double down and do both at once? This year, the innovative dessert masters at Tokyo Lamington are teaming up with iconic tea brand Lipton to deliver a limited-edition collaboration that's sweet as can be. From Friday, May 19–Friday, May 26, it's serving up a specialty (or special-TEA) lamington creation inspired by the go-to hot drink that is Lipton's Quality Black Tea. The new dessert features a base of black tea sponge, with boba-spiked tea custard and a biscuit crumb to finish. If that sounds like something you'd like to get your mitts on, simply head into Tokyo Lamington's Carlton store and nab a limited-edition pack for $15. Each one contains one of the Lipton-inspired treats, as well as an OG signature lamington and 15 Lipton tea bags — so you can really make a great afternoon of it.
Screenlife films such as Missing should be the last thing that moviegoers want. When we're hitting a cinema or escaping into our streaming queues, we're seeking a reprieve from the texts, chats, pics, reels, searches, and work- and study-related tasks that we all stare at on our phones and computers seemingly 24/7. (Well, we should be, unless we're monsters who can't turn off our devices while we watch.) There's a nifty dose of empathy behind thrillers like this, its excellent predecessor Searching, and the similar likes of Unfriended and Profile, however, that relies upon the very fact that everyone spends far too much time living through technology. When an on-screen character such as Missing's June (Storm Reid, The Last of Us) is glued to the gadget on their desk or lap, or in their hand — when they're using the devices that've virtually become our new limbs non-stop to try to solve their problems and fix their messy existence, too — it couldn't be more relatable. As Missing fills its frames with window upon window of June's digital activities, cycling and cascading through FaceTime calls, Gmail messages, WhatsApp downloads, Google Maps tracking, TikTok videos, TaskRabbit bookings, plain-old websites and more, it witnesses its protagonist do plenty that we've all done. And, everything she's undertaking feels exactly that familiar — like the film could be staring back at each member of its audience rather than at an 18-year-old who starts the movie unhappy that her mother Grace (Nia Long, You People) is jetting off to Colombia with her new boyfriend Kevin (Ken Leung, Old). That sensation remains true even though Missing's viewers have likely never had their mum disappear in another country, and their life forever turned upside down as a result. We've all experienced the mechanics behind what writer/directors Will Merrick and Nick Johnson (who make their feature debut in both roles after editing Searching) are depicting in our own ways, with only the vast power of the internet able to help. As an opening video set 12 years earlier explains, plus folders of medical info and farewells over a move from Texas to California, June is far from thrilled about Grace and Kevin's getaway due to its timing. She isn't fussed about her mum's rules for while they're away and repetitive reminders to empty her voice messages, either, but they'll be gone over the weekend of Father's Day, a difficult occasion given that June's father James (Tim Griffin, True Detective) passed away when she was a kid. To fill her time home alone, she makes sure that she's not really home alone, throwing parties she's not supposed to, avoiding tipping off her mum's lawyer pal Heather (Amy Landecker, Your Honor) — who's on check-up duties — and hanging out with her bestie Veena (Megan Suri, Never Have I Ever). But when June heads to Los Angeles airport to collect Grace and Kevin upon their return, her situation gets worse. She waits. She holds up a playful sign. She films the whole thing as well. But no one shows. Five years have passed since Searching became one of the best screenlife movies yet while making stellar use of John Cho (Cowboy Bebop) as a dad desperate to find his absent daughter. With that flick's writer/director Aneesh Chaganty and co-scribe Sev Ohanian getting a story credit, Missing flips the setup, having a kid looking as far and wide as technology currently allows for a parent instead. With some assistance from FBI Agent Park (Daniel Henney, Criminal Minds), but not enough — plus on-the-ground sleuthing by Cartagena local Javi (Joaquim de Almeida, Warrior Nun), thanks to an outsourcing service — June gets investigating, and also increasingly frantic about what's happened, why, where Grace might be and how to get her home. The film also gets pacier than Searching, reflecting not just half a decade's worth of tech advancements, but a teenager's innate, always-on comfort with the online landscape as a digital native. June doesn't just hop from app to app, program to program, chat to chat and call to call quickly — and, conveniently for the film, keep her webcam running in-between so viewers see the stress expand across her face as she does so. As she scours and worries, worries and sours, she's as creative as she is determined with her detective skills. Indeed, Missing doubles as both stalker 101 and a cybersecurity warning. If you're already concerned about the surveillance-heavy times that we live in, expect your Black Mirror-style anxieties to only expand while watching. Missing is so relatable in what it's showing, rather than the tale it's using all those computer windows to show, that it's also a double-edged sword: we've all been June, inseparable from our MacBooks and the like; can our online lives be so easily picked through, as Grace does to Kevin as her suspicions heighten, as well? As Searching did, Missing has its audience playing gumshoe along with its characters. As Unfriended and Profile did — all four movies share Russian Kazakh filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov as a producer, and he also directed Profile — it keeps everyone on high alert via a tense, propulsive and immersive affair. Viewing screenlife flicks, which also includes the unconnected Host and We're All Going to the World's Fair (and the less-convincing Spree, and downright grating Dash Cam), means constantly seeking clues as to where the next twist, revelation or crucial detail will spring from. They're an involving experience, especially when there are people to find and crimes to solve, and Missing is as on-edge, nail-biting and as attention-demanding as they come. Amid the sea of clips, conversations and text on-screen — and some wild leaps in logic — the nerves and vigilance here aren't June's alone. Missing knows how folks watching will engage, even if it obviously isn't interactive in the way that film-meets-game Isklander — screenlife IRL, basically — is. It knows that it exists in a world obsessed with true-crime, smartly commenting on the pervasive and persistent fascination with other's misdeeds — and overtly linking back to Searching in the process — while asking how much anyone can ever truly know their nearest and dearest. That's another relatable source of the thriller's distress. It's where Reid proves devastatingly effective, compellingly shifting from a teen annoyed at her mum's overprotectiveness to the point of virtually ignoring her, to a concerned daughter willing to do whatever it takes, to questioning everything that she's ever been told. Long also plays her panicky matriarch part with potency, but the riveting Missing is right on target at grounding its nerves and thrills alike in all that can be uncovered, endured and experienced with your fingers on a keyboard and your eyes staring at your chosen rectangle.
Easter in Sydney doesn't just mean chocolate, hot cross buns and whatever other sweet treats the city's eateries happen to come up with at this time of year — it also means the Sydney Royal Easter Show. And, while you won't find the latter at El Camino Cantina's Tex-Mex joint in Melbourne, of course, the chain is getting into the spirit of the event nationwide with its returning limited-edition margarita menu, which it has dubbed 'the Royal Rita Show'. For its latest batch of creative flavours, El Camino Cantina is serving up Jelly Belly, Warhead, Chupa Chup and Rainbow Nerd margs. There are Trolli Lolli and fairy floss versions, too. Basically, it's the candy and booze combination you obviously didn't know you'd someday want when you were a kid. These lolly-flavoured ritas are on offer from Monday, April 3–Sunday, April 30, in both 15-oz and 24-oz glasses. And if you'd like to pair them with tacos, you'll find a Royal Rita Show food menu on offer as well; think tacos with popcorn chicken, chorizo and potato hash, slow-cooked barbecue brisket, and prawns with bacon. In Melbourne, you'll find both the margs and tacos tempting your tastebuds at El Camino in Fitzroy.
When that sweet tooth of yours starts hankering for treats this weekend, we know just where to take it. Sate those sugar cravings by heading down to Tarts Anon's Collingwood digs for an irresistibly sweet food pop-up. From Saturday, April 1–Sunday, April 2, the legendary dessert pit-stop is teaming up with your mates at ice cream brand Connoisseur to serve up some limited edition goodies — and to give away a stack of freebies. Head along from 11am each day to try two new creations made using the new line of Connoisseur Laneway Sweets ice cream tubs. The two new flavours, Crunchy Peanut Butter and Baked Choc Chip Cookie, are being scooped into bespoke Tarts Anon bases then sprinkled with a house-made dessert crumb to finish. You'll get to try the collaboration treats for free, though there's only a limited number up for grabs each day. There'll also be a range of chocolate-coated ice cream sticks to sample and live tunes keeping the festive vibes flowing all day long.
It's usually where you head to for a culture fix, but this autumn the Immigration Museum is doubling as a wellness destination, too. It's launching a new series of Wednesday offerings aimed at rejuvenating your body and mind. Running from Wednesday, April 5–May 31, Wellbeing Within is set to serve up a weekly program of wellness activities, spanning everything from mindfulness to movement. You might fancy a hump day reset in the form of a guided morning meditation led by experts in areas like First Peoples wellness practices and forest therapy. You can train in tai chi under the renowned Professor Lily Sun, who's got more than four decades of teaching experience under her belt, or experience the anxiety-releasing wonders of a meditative sound bath, guided by an expert lineup of practitioners. There's also a series of 45-minute lunchtime yoga sessions, plus movement workshops hosted by Wala Connections, drawing on Indigenous culture and traditions. The best part? All classes and sessions come in at either $10 or $15, with museum members able to book for free. Online bookings are required. Images: Eugene Hyland
Westsiders really hit the jackpot with the arrival of Grazeland, a culinary hub crammed full of permanent food stalls slinging a smorgasbord of international eats. And now they're hitting it again, as the precinct serves up a huge weekend of specials, discounts and entertainment for its second-birthday celebrations. Head along from Friday, March 24–Sunday, March 26 to join in the feasting and festivities. Each of the 50-plus food vendors will be cooking up a storm and showcasing their best-loved dishes — whether you're craving wood-fired slices from 48h Pizza Bar, Claw & Tail's loaded lobster rolls, barbecue fare by Smokeworks, Lebanese street eats courtesy of Mr Toum, or something else from the hefty lineup. Keep an eye out for some exclusive specials, too. Taking care of the all important birthday drinks will be Cloud Cuckoo Cocktails, with $12 classics pouring right across the weekend, including mojitos, margs and espresso martinis. As you sip and graze your way through the lineup, you'll also enjoy a stack of roving entertainment, while acts like Cassidy La Crème, Tanya George and James Franklin will be serving up live tunes from not one but two stages. [caption id="attachment_845962" align="alignnone" width="1920"] I in the Sky Productions[/caption]
With photographer Nan Goldin at its centre, the latest documentary by Citizenfour Oscar-winner Laura Poitras is a film about many things, to deeply stunning and moving effect. In this movie's compilation of Goldin's acclaimed snaps, archival footage, current interviews, and past and present activism, a world of stories flicker — all linked to Goldin, but all also linking universally. The artist's bold work, especially chronicling LGBTQIA+ subcultures and the 80s HIV/AIDS crisis, frequently and naturally gets the spotlight. Her complicated family history, which spans heartbreaking loss, haunts the doco as it haunts its subject. The rollercoaster ride that Goldin's life has taken, including in forging her career, supporting her photos, understanding who she is and navigating an array of personal relationships, cascades through, too. And, so do her efforts to counter the opioid epidemic by bringing one of the forces behind it to public justice. Revealing state secrets doesn't sit at the core of the tale here, unlike Citizenfour and Poitras' 2016 film Risk — one about Edward Snowden, the other Julian Assange — but everything leads to the documentary's titular six words: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. They gain meaning in a report spied late about the mental health of Goldin's older sister Barbara, who committed suicide at the age of 18 when Goldin was 11, and who Goldin contends was just an "angry and sexual" young woman in the 60s with repressed parents. A psychiatrist uses the eponymous phrase to describe what Barbara sees and, tellingly, it could be used to do the same with anyone. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is, in part, a rebuke of the idea that a teenager with desires and emotions is a problem, and also a statement that that's who we all are, just to varying levels of societal acceptance. The film is also a testament that, for better and for worse, all the beauty and the bloodshed we all witness and endure is what shapes us. Life is all the beauty and the bloodshed, inescapably — and in the film's most recent footage, Goldin fights against the latter. In an essay penned in 2017, published in 2018 in Artforum and given voice now, she reveals her addiction. "I survived the opioid crisis. I narrowly escaped," she says of her time taking OxyContin, which was originally prescribed to her as it is for many: for surgery. "Though I took it as directed, I got addicted overnight. It was the cleanest drug I'd ever met," Goldin continues. The damage that this prescription substance has caused is well-documented, in docos and dramas such as The Crime of the Century and Dopesick alike. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed isn't just another popped from the packet, but a feature that inserts Goldin's battle against the wealthy Sackler family, founders and owners of OxyContin-making pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, into a bigger slideshow. This is a personal fray, again for many reasons; All the Beauty and the Bloodshed's nesting layers exceed any set of matryoshka dolls. The conflict between autonomy and dependence has long been one of Goldin's sources of fascination — given how her sister was treated, how could it not? — and her seminal work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency filters through the film, as well as acts as inspiration. Goldin crusades against the reliance that so-called "miracle drug" OxyContin has sparked, and the rising death toll the opioid epidemic keeps notching up. Co-founding advocacy group PAIN (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), she literally rallies against the Sacklers, whose fortune is enormous off the back of the OxyContin's carnage. She directs particular focus to the Sacklers' artwashing, thanks to their hefty donations to galleries and museums, which is where PAIN stages its protests. Many of the cultural institutions accepting the Sacklers' money — many of them bearing the family's name on their buildings, in fact, because that's how much funds such spaces have received— are also intertwined with Goldin's career. An artist's work has to display somewhere, and hers has garnered berths in prestigious spots. PAIN targets them all and more, at considerable risk to Goldin's professional standing, and in a case of an artist firmly putting her principles first. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed begins with action at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and with a "die-in" in its largest gallery space, which is named for the Sacklers. It's a powerful sight, not just filled with prone protestors on the ground but with orange prescription pill bottles scattered around, and bobbing in the room's moat. More such scenes appear throughout the movie, travelling to the Guggenheim Museum and the Louvre — their famous spiral ramp and pyramid, respectively, taken over to make a statement. Poitras could've simply filled a documentary with Goldin's photography or her efforts with PAIN; either way, a gripping film would've eventuated. If she'd just gone with the second option, it could've been another like fellow 2023 Oscar-nominee Navalny that ripples with the tension of a spy thriller, as such scenes do within All the Beauty and the Bloodshed anyway — complete with actual espionage. PAIN's protests are potent to visually behold, Goldin ensuring that they stand out aesthetically and, as the doco sees, photograph well. The passion and piercing emotion of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed wouldn't be what it is without everything around its OxyContin-combating quest, however, because no one action, decision, movement or person is just one thing. This chronicle of the political must also be personal, detailing how Goldin's childhood brought her to life on the fringes, then to photographing it to preserve it, and then to fighting for it. It has to examine how her work is a response to society's marginalisation of women and the queer community, and also crucially a portrait of her own ups and downs, too, showing where her empathy and activism bloomed and why. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed isn't dutifully connecting dots, though, but observing all that makes someone who they are — and makes their deeds, such as Goldin's crusade against the Sacklers, what they are at the same time. It flits backwards and forwards in an act of structural mastery, recreating the feeling of slipping and sliding through memories. Along the way, it gives its marvellous cavalcade of its subject's imagery room to resonate, as it does with her commentary on it, her recollections of her fallen friends like Pink Flamingos star Cookie Mueller and artist/activist David Wojnarowicz, and her constant unpacking of her childhood. It lets court-ordered victim statements to the Sacklers in Purdue's bankruptcy deal echo and linger. Winning the Golden Lion at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival as well, this is a remarkable doco about an individual, and the others who've cast their shadows upon her, as well as a stirring account of the clash between individuals and power — Poitras' frequent topic of interest, after all.
The inner north's biggest annual celebration of live tunes, Brunswick Music Festival returns to dish up its next suburb-wide instalment from Sunday, March 5–Monday, March 13. Kicking things off at the Sydney Road Street Party on March 5, you'll catch a roll call of local favourites across eight stages. Punk rockers Cable Ties, Ethio-jazz nine-piece Black Jesus Experience, pop darling Kira Puru and indie artists Pinch Points will be launching things with a bang, alongside June Jones, Ajak Kwai, Mindy Weng Wang and more. [caption id="attachment_844168" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Gilpin Park, by Simon Fazio[/caption] From March 8–12, Melville Road's Estonian House is set to be re-energised as a thumping live music venue, with a five-night program featuring acts like alt-rock legends Camp Cope, US psych-pop outfit Crumb, Niger-based guitarist Mdou Moctar (Niger), Melbourne five-piece CIVIC and UK producer Leon Vynehall. Deeper in, you'll catch a whole swag of events celebrating International Women's Day on Wednesday, March 8, while Monday, March 13 sees a stellar lineup of first nations artists take over Gilpin Park for a free concert named Music For The Mob. And as always, the rest of the festival program will feature scores of gigs taking place in all sorts of iconic local venues, including Howler, The Retreat, Stay Gold, Brunswick Ballroom and even Sydney Road kebab joint Alasya. [caption id="attachment_802255" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Brunswick Ballroom, by Nicole Cleary[/caption]
Only one female filmmaker has ever been nominated for the Best Director Oscar twice. That woman: Jane Campion. The New Zealand talent won the coveted prize in 2022, for the phenomenal The Power of the Dog — and, while her exquisite revisionist western was the absolute best movie of 2021, it's not the only highlight on her resume. Campion's filmography is packed with must-sees, and see them you must — on the big screen at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. In partnership with the 2023 Sydney Film Festival, the venue is showing Jane Campion: Her Way, a lineup that will step through the New Zealand director and screenwriter's career. [caption id="attachment_847709" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kirsty Griffin/Netflix[/caption] On the bill: The Power of the Dog, because watching it via streaming is nowhere near the best way to revel in its wonders; The Piano, the 1993 Oscar-winner that nabbed Campion her first Best Director nomination; In the Cut, a tremendous erotic thriller starring Meg Ryan; and Holy Smoke, with Kate Winslet starring opposite Harvey Keitel. There's also everything from 1986's Two Friends, 1989's Sweetie and 1990's An Angel at My Table through to 1996's Nicole Kidman-starring The Portrait of a Lady and 2009's Bright Star about poet John Keats and his romance with Fanny Brawne. The program runs from Thursday, June 15–Sunday, July 2, and also features a showing of the new documentary Jane Campion, The Cinema Woman. Top image: Kirsty Griffin/Netflix.
If you're sticking around the city for Easter and are keen to hunt down some treats, you'll find a treasure-trove of goodies awaiting you at QT Melbourne. It's teamed up with local artisan chocolate brand CACAO to deliver a hotel-wide takeover your sweet tooth's gonna love. The chocolate-based festivities are happening from Friday, April 7–Sunday, April 9, kicking off each morning with fresh choc-chip hot cross buns served at Pascale Bar & Grill. You can get your fix during breakfast, from 6.30am–12pm each day. Meanwhile, up on the 11th floor, the Rooftop at QT is shaking up limited-edition Boozy Bunny Espresso Martinis right through the weekend. This exclusive Easter concoction features a rich blend of coffee, Diplomatico rum, Chambord and CACAO dark chocolate, coming in at $25 a pop. What's more, visitors and guests will be able to live out their Willy Wonka dreams, when the hotel hosts a huge golden ticket hunt throughout the building on Sunday, April 9. Prizes up for grabs include loaded CACAO chocolate hampers and QT gift cards.
Punters heading down the Bellarine Peninsula for a wintery weekender now have another cosy stop to add to their itinerary. Award-winning winery Bellarine Estate is kicking off a new regular series of Saturday sessions that'll team barbecue eats and blues tunes with their beloved signature vino. Launching on May 20, with further dates locked in for June 10 and 24, July 15, August 5, September 9 and October 14, is BBQ & Blues. Each session invites you to get acquainted with this family-run winery's standout cool-climate wines, while soaking up the sounds of a different local artist. The launch event will feature tunes from Alister Turrill, while Phil Para Duo takes the mic on June 10 and Don Fisher pops in to host musical trivia on June 24. The estate's new Texan barbecue eatery will also be showing off the goods, serving up its signature menu of smoked meats and classic American sides — a hearty nod to co-owner Lizette Kenny's Texan roots.
We've got Christmas markets galore, an abundance of Santa photo ops and even a couple of festive-themed hotel rooms. But Footscray's craft bottle shop and bar Mr West is getting into the Christmas spirit in a much more fitting way — it's rounding up some of its all-time favourite drops to showcase at a huge four-hour festive tasting party. On Sunday, December 4, A Very Merry Tasting Extravaganza will take over the upstairs bar, inviting punters — and Christmas shoppers — to sip their way through a hefty lineup of boutique brews, craft spirits, cider and low-intervention vino. There'll be over 100 products to sample on the day, including pours from the likes of The Gospel Whiskey, Four Pillars, Marionette, Ester and Mezcal Union, and wines from labels including Good Juice, Gentlefolk, Lucy M, Babass, Commune of Buttons and Bobinet. Flying the flag for the beer scene, you'll find favourites like Hop Nation, Burnley Brewing, Two Metre Tall, Dollar Bill, Mountain Culture and more. A $25 ticket will get you entry and all your tastings, with a selection of Pie Thief's famed pastry creations also on offer for when you're feeling snacky. And if anything takes your fancy, booze-wise, you'll find every drink product available to buy from the downstairs bottle shop. Images: Mr West
Sweat, skin, sex, schisms, secrets and survival: a great film by French auteur Claire Denis typically has them all. Stars at Noon is one of them, even if her adaptation of the 1986 novel of nearly the same name — her picture drops the 'the', as a certain social network did — doesn't quite soar to the same astonishing heights as High Life, her last English-language release. Evocative, enveloping, atmospheric, dripping with unease: they're also traits that the two flicks share, like much of the Beau Travail, 35 Shots of Rum and White Material filmmaker's work. Here, all the sultriness and stress swells around two gleamingly attractive strangers, Trish (Margaret Qualley, Maid) and Daniel (Joe Alwyn, Conversations with Friends), who meet in a Central American hotel bar, slip between the sheets and find themselves tangled up in plenty beyond lips and limbs. Shining at each other when so much else obscures their glow, Stars at Noon's central duo are jumbled up in enough individually anyway. For the first half hour-ish, the erotic thriller slinks along with Trish's routine, which sees perspiration plastered across her face from the Nicaraguan heat, the lack of air-conditioning in her motel and the struggle to enjoy a cold drink. The rum she's often swilling, recalling that aforementioned Denis-directed feature's moniker, hardly helps. Neither does the transactional use of her body with a local law enforcement officer (Nick Romano, Shadows) and a government official (Stephan Proaño, Crónica de un amor). Imbibing is clearly a coping and confidence-giving mechanism, while those amorous tumbles afford her protection in a precarious political situation, with her passport confiscated, her actions being scrutinised and funds for a plane ticket home wholly absent. Trish is a freelance journalist, albeit without much in the way of gigs, as the snarky response she gets from an editor (John C Reilly, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty) on a video chat shows. Cue trading coitus for cash; when she's first flirting with the white-suited Daniel at Managua's Intercontinental Hotel, however, she's as interested in the free drinks, comfort and cool surroundings as the $50 price she puts on a night together. They click, then go their separate ways in the morning. But after she spies him talking with a Costa-Rican cop (Danny Ramirez, Top Gun: Maverick), she offers words of warning. Daniel says he works in oil, and his situation in the region is as tenuous and thorny as hers — details of which are largely talked around in both cases, in a picture concerned with characters, emotions and sensations over plot mechanics. In a script penned by Denis with Andrew Litvack (High Life) and Léa Mysius (Farewell to the Night) from Denis Johnson's text — which drew upon his time in Nicaragua and Costa Rica in the early 80s, trying to become an international political reporter — there still remains ample story to go around. Car chases, police threats, assassinations, border runs, collateral damage and CIA offers flesh out the narrative, as does the late arrival of a sharp-talking American (Benny Safdie, Licorice Pizza). Creating a tinderbox environment to ignite around Trish, Daniel, and their dance of lust, loyalty and love is all that politics-fuelled intrigue's main aim, though. Stars at Noon updates the book's time period to now, with masks, vaccinations and testing anchoring it firmly in the COVID-19 age, but there's a timelessness in the way that specifics about controversial articles, election troubles, spying and foreign meddling come second to feelings and flesh. Some things stay the same no matter the period or players, Denis contends, and means it in multiple manners. Fans of the filmmaker's past work — even just viewers of it — will know that she loves dwelling in this fraught, fragile and fiery space, where things can change in an instant in a personal and existential fashion alike. Denis sees life that way in general; we aren't all writers who've fallen afoul of foreign regimes and are now getting by via sex work, or businessmen patently not doing what we say we are, but being plunged into messes of both our own and others' making is a universal fact of being alive. By focusing on white characters in a location where they instantly stand out, the West Africa-raised Denis also continues the contemplation of colonialism and privilege she's placed on-screen since her 1988 debut Chocolat ("having sex with you is like having sex with a cloud," Trish notes to Daniel here, on account of the Brit's pale complexion). Chaos swelters as thick as the humidity wherever the westerners go, but these outsiders create far more for everyone they meet, especially everyday locals. Just like in a 90s-era erotic thriller, which this often resembles, the calmest place to be in Stars at Noon is loitering in Trish and Daniel's shared embrace in bed or swirling around an empty dance floor; whichever Denis is focusing on, and cinematographer Eric Gautier (The Truth) as well, the experience is lingering as well as rhythmic and woozy. Sometimes rain clatters down around the film's core duo, sometimes the lighting beaming above couldn't be more seductive — and frequently Tindersticks, who've scored Denis' work for two-plus decades now, add a dazed but urgent mood. The tension, the uncertainty, the desperate solace that having even a tenuous and tricky physical connection with someone else can bring: they all become almost tangible and definitely palpable. Playing their parts with the requisite spark, Qualley and Alwyn melt stickily into each other, and viewers watching take their lead with the movie. That deeply intimate focus pushes the Cannes Grand Prix-winning Stars at Noon out of Graham Greene-esque, The Quiet American-style territory. Also, with her screaming in the streets as she struts and saunters barefoot in sundresses and singlets, Trish is anything but hushed. In one of the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and My Salinger Year actor's best performances yet, Qualley exudes tenacity and flightiness — two traits that keep somersaulting the more Trish is with Alwyn's suave and enigmatic Daniel. Cannily, Qualley and Alwyn feel thrust together rather than destined, a truth on-screen and off- (High Life's Robert Pattinson was initially cast, then Black Bird's Taron Egerton). Indeed, there's a volatility to Stars at Noon, and to the romance at its centre, that's equally apt. When you're surveying life's instability — one of its basic and unavoidable truths — getting the film itself in the same kind of lather is no small feat.
UPDATE, January 27, 2023: Sissy is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Scroll, swipe, like, subscribe: this is the rhythm of social media. We look, watch and trawl; we try to find a sense of self in the online world; and when something strikes a chord, we smudge our fingers onto our phones to show our appreciation. If wellness influencers are to be believed, we should feel seen by this now-everyday process. We should feel better, too. We're meant to glean helpful tips about how to live our best lives, aspire to be like the immaculately styled folks dispensing the advice and be struck by how relatable it all is. "You saved my life!", we're supposed to comment, and we're meant to be genuine about it. The one catch, and one that we shouldn't think about, though: when it comes to seeking validation via social media, this setup really does go both ways. As savvy new Australian horror film Sissy shows, the beaming faces spruiking easy wisdom and products alike to hundreds, thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of followers — 200,000-plus for this flick's namesake — are also basking in the glory of all that digital attention, and getting a self-esteem boost back in the process. Sissy starts with @SincerelyCecilia, an Instagram hit, doing what she does best. As played by Gold Coast-born Australian actor Aisha Dee of The Bold Type in an astute and knowing stroke of casting, she's a natural in front of the camera. Indeed, thanks to everything from The Saddle Club and I Hate My Teenage Daughter to Sweet/Vicious and The Nowhere Inn as well, the film's star knows what it's like to live life through screens out of character. She's been acting since she was a teenager, and she's charted the highs of her chosen profession, all in front of a lens. So, it's no wonder that Dee conveys Cecilia's comfort recording her videos with ease. The actor hops into the spotlight not only once but twice here, but she's just as perceptive at showing how the world crumbles, shakes and shrinks whenever there's no ring light glowing, smile stretched a mile wide and Pinterest-board background framing her guru-like guidance. "I am loved. I am special. I am enough," is Cecilia's kind of mantra. Through her carefully poised and curated videos, such words have sparked a soaring follower count, a non-stop flow of likes and adoring comments. But she's so tied to all that virtual worship that her off-camera existence — when she's not plugging an 'Elon mask', for instance — is perhaps even more mundane than everyone else's. It's also isolated, so when she reconnects with her childhood best friend Emma (co-director/co-writer Hannah Barlow) during a chance run-in at a pharmacy, it's a rare IRL link to the tangible world. Cecilia is awkward about it, though, including when Emma invites her to her out-of-town bachelorette party that very weekend. Buoyed by memories of pledging to be BFFs forever, singing Aussie pop track 'Sister' by Sister2Sister and obsessing over movie stars, she still agrees to go. Sissy's first act is a Rorschach test: if you're already cynical about the wellness industry and social media, unsurprisingly so, then you'll know that nothing dreamy is bound to follow; if you're not, perhaps the blood and guts to come will feel like a twist. Either way, there will be blood thanks to Barlow and fellow co-helmer/co-scribe Kane Senes' game efforts, reteaming for their second feature after 2017's For Now. There will be chaos as well, and bad signs aplenty, and a rousing body count. Hitting a kangaroo en route to their remote destination clearly doesn't bode well, and also kicks off casualty tally. Then the old schoolyard dynamics bubble up, especially when Cecilia's playground tormentor Alex (Emily De Margheriti, Ladies in Black) is among the fellow guests. Pre-teen taunts resurface — "Sissy's a sissy" was the juvenile and obvious jeer spat her way back in the day, and repeated now — and the @SincerelyCecilia facade starts to shatter. If Mean Girls was a slasher film set in an off-the-beaten-track home in Australia, it might look something like Sissy, which is a compliment multiple times over. Every horror movie wants to be smart and savage on an array of levels, but Barlow and Senes manage it again and again, and with grisly fun. Their latest feature weaponises everything from influencer culture and pastel, rainbow and glitter colour palettes to toxic friendships and troubling childhood dynamics, all while spinning a clever, cutting and comedic take on the impact of bullying. Their targets are blatant — well, if you only see terrible things in the picture's version of inkblots, as per above, they are — but that doesn't dull or dampen any point that Sissy makes. That it premiered at SXSW 2022 at the same time as Bodies Bodies Bodies feels oh-so-fitting; they both involve remote houses plagued with twentysomething mess, mayhem and mania, share many of the same points, are delightfully entertaining to watch and would be a stellar double. Would Sissy work quite so well with someone other than Dee playing its eponymous figure, though? Thankfully, that's a question we'll never know the answer to. Her portrayal is as shrewd, amusing and engaging as the movie she's in, and as wonderfully layered — which couldn't be more pivotal in a flick that's also about the vast chasm between our Insta selves and our off-social reality, and how any group of people is mere hours from tearing each other to pieces verbally, emotionally and physically in the right/wrong circumstances. She's in fine company, however, including Barlow's on-screen efforts and De Margheriti relishing her antagonistic part. As Emma's fiancée Fran and friends Tracey and Jamie, Lucy Barrett (Halifax: Retribution), Yerin Ha (Halo) and Daniel Monks (Pulse) each also steal more than a few standout moments. One helluva lead performance, as gloriously diverse a cast as Australian cinema has boasted, grim fates awaiting half the coat of arms, schlock and viscera galore, scathing social commentary: that's Sissy. A knowing-but-never-too-winking vibe, neon hues paired with unsettling images, canny framing, needling sound design: that's Sissy, too. If Carrie was set in today's always-online world, amid cancel culture and plentiful praise at the press of a button, it'd look like this as well. That said, this new instant Aussie horror classic takes its own bold stab at plenty of things, and genres — plus tropes and people — and always remains its own film. Cecilia and her followers could learn from it, because appreciating your faves, incorporating them into your existence but never losing yourself in them is a lesson far removed from their Insta-curated world.
Sometimes, a horror movie forever brands a certain day of the week with scares forever. Sometimes, it lets the one and only Nicolas Cage do his unhinged best. And sometimes, a scary flick is smart, scary, and a thoughtful musing on both grief and motherhood. Those films? Friday the 13th, Mandy and The Babadook, aka prime October viewing — and Halloween viewing, too. And yes, they're three of the features on Cinema Nova's impressive Halloweek lineup between Thursday, October 27–Wednesday, November 2. How does this Carlton cinema celebrate the spookiest day of the year? With a big-screen scary-movie takeover for an entire week. The seven-day fright fest spans flicks old and recent — and eerie, creepy, fun and silly. Different movies show on different days, but it's a stacked list. Start with Winona Ryder, Gary Oldman and Keanu Reeves in Bram Stoker's Dracula, or by revisiting the OG Paranormal Activity. Then, check out Melbourne-set cult-favourite Body Melt, or get entranced by The Nightmare Before Christmas. Alongside all of the above, there's also the black-and-white version of Nightmare Alley, the Lovecraft-based Re-Animator, 90s fave Hocus Pocus (no, not the sequel) and the original Suspiria (no, not the remake). Or sink into Park Chan-wook's Stoker, get evil with The Omen (again, not the remake) and see Jeff Goldblum in one of his most glorious roles courtesy of David Cronenberg's The Fly.
If you're a fan of movies, television, games and every other facet of screen culture, and you live in Melbourne, then you're also a fan of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. It's the nation's very own film, TV and game museum, right here in Federation Square — yes Melburnians, it's something special. Can't remember the city without ACMI? That's because it's been part of the CBD for two decades now. Naturally, the venue is celebrating that fact by welcoming folks in — and slinging half-price movie and exhibition tickets for two days to help. [caption id="attachment_799587" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Shannon McGrath[/caption] Drop by the ACMI Turns 20 festivities on Saturday, October 29–Sunday, October 30 for discounted entry, which spans the dazzling Light: Works From Tate's Collection and all movie sessions. With the former, you can peer at a Melbourne-exclusive showcase from the UK's Tate galleries featuring more than 70 works, including pieces by Claude Monet and Yayoi Kusama. With the latter, you can feast your eyes on the Tilda Swinton-starring The Souvenir Part II, the end of ACMI's Goodbye to Godard tribute season, or opt for the Halloween-appropriate Blood and Black Lace and In Fabric. And, ACMI is doing free cookies and choc tops for the two days, too — while stocks last. [caption id="attachment_858887" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Raemar, Blue, 1969, James Turrell. Tate: Presented by the Tate Americas Foundation, partial purchase and partial gift of Doris J. Lockhart 2013. © James Turrell. Photo: Phoebe Powell.[/caption]
UPDATE, October 26, 2022: The Good Nurse released in select cinemas Down Under on October 20, and streams via Netflix from October 26. It isn't called CULLEN — Monster: The Charles Cullen Story. It doesn't chart the murders of a serial killer who's already a household name. And, it doesn't unfurl over multiple episodes. Still, Netflix-distributed true-crime film The Good Nurse covers homicides, and the person behind them, that are every bit as grim and horrendous as the events dramatised in DAHMER — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Such based-on-reality tales that face such evil are always nightmare fodder, but this Eddie Redmayne (Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore)- and Jessica Chastain (The Forgiven)-starring one, as brought to the screen by Danish filmmaker Tobias Lindholm (A War, A Hijacking), taps into a particularly terrifying realm. The culprit clearly isn't the good nurse of the movie's moniker, but he is a nurse, working in intensive care units no less — and for anyone who has needed to put their trust in the health system or may in the future (aka all of us), his acts are gut-wrenchingly chilling. Hospitals are meant to be places that heal, even in America's cash-driven setup where free medical care for all isn't considered a basic right and a societal must. Hospitals are meant to care for the unwell and injured, as are the doctors, nurses and other staff who race through their halls. There is one such person in The Good Nurse, Amy Loughren, who Chastain plays based on a real person. In 2003, in New Jersey, she's weathering her own struggles: she's a single mother to two young girls, she suffers from cardiomyopathy to the point of needing a heart transplant, and she can't tell her job about her health condition because she needs to remain employed for four more months to qualify for insurance to treat it. Then enters Cullen (Redmayne), the newcomer on Loughren's night shifts, a veteran of nine past hospitals, an instant friend who offers to help her cope with her potentially lethal ailment and also the reason that their patients start dying suddenly. There's no spoiler alert needed about The Good Nurse's grisly deeds or the person responsible. Cullen's name hasn't been changed in Krysty Wilson-Cairns' (Last Night in Soho, 1917) script, which adapts Charles Graeber's 2013 non-fiction book The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder, and Loughren's similarly remains the same. The Good Nurse also opens with the quietly disquieting Cullen retreating as someone in a different hospital years earlier goes into convulsions — standing back motionless, he tries to appear anxious but instead looks like a creepy blank canvas. Accordingly, that he's the cause of much of the movie's horrors is a given from the outset, but that's only one of Lindholm and Wilson-Cairns' angles. As aided by centring Loughren's plight, The Good Nurse is also a film about institutional failings and coverups with very real consequences. Indeed, as set to an eerie score by Biosphere (Burma Storybook), there's a procedural feel to Lindholm's first feature in America; that he helmed episodes of Mindhunter beforehand doesn't come as a surprise. There are cops, too, in the form of detectives Baldwin (Nnamdi Asomugha, Sylvie's Love) and Braun (Noah Emmerich, Dark Winds), who are brought in seven weeks after a patient's passing just after Cullen arrives. But nurse-turned-administrator Linda Garran (Fear the Walking Dead), who summons the police, is hardly forthcoming — about the almost-two-month delay or with information overall. It isn't in the hospital's interests to be upfront, which is why and how Cullen has kept moving from healthcare facility to healthcare facility, and notching up a body count at each by spiking IV bags with fatal doses of insulin and other medications. No hospital wants to be seen to be at fault, and won't warn fellow institutions, either. Long before figures are splashed across the screen — the significant number of victims admitted to, and the far more vast tally authorities suspect Cullen has killed — The Good Nurse is distressing. Cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes (A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood) lights the movie like a horror flick, using darkness and shadows for a story filled with them, but there's more than just an icy tone and mood at play in that choice. Crucially absent is the vision of slick, gleaming medical setups seen in hospital-focused TV dramas and comedies, and in illness weepies, because nothing is softened or soothed here. Even if Cullen hadn't crossed her path, Loughren's own relationship with the health industry is disturbing enough. Doting on her patients with a dream of a nurturing disposition, she truly fits the film's title — and yet her own life depends upon her grinning and bearing her own sickness so that she doesn't lose her job, otherwise she won't be able to afford the treatment necessary for her own survival. Fresh from winning an Oscar for The Eyes of Tammy Faye after two prior nominations, and having a busy year with The 355, The Forgiven and Armageddon Time already in or bound for cinemas — and with TV show George & Tammy also soon to drop — Chastain is restrained but commanding as a woman in an excruciating situation several times over. Frequently, and with Lipes peering close to her face, she conveys The Good Nurse's engrained dismay and shock purely in her gaze. That expression is loaded with commitment and concern as well, in a performance that's always the movie's weathervane. Fellow past Academy Award recipient Redmayne is nowhere near as subtle, proving both forceful in Cullen's ordinary mannerisms and later histrionics; a frequent trait of his work in general, it mostly fits given his current part is needling from the get-go. In far different territory than the last feature boasting his involvement — that'd be Danish day-drinking dramedy Another Round, which he co-wrote — Lindholm lets unease drip from Redmayne as Cullen, rather than have it astonish. He isn't interested in endeavouring to explain the why of it all, either, accepting that something this awful can happen because it has, and serving up no attempt at finding motivations for Cullen's actions. Instead, he lays bare the human toll, including moments with two men whose existences are ripped apart thanks to trips with loved ones to the wrong hospital at the wrong time. Taking cues from the likes of Spotlight, Lindholm also exposes the system that enables such atrocities. Of course, swap nurses for doctors and viewers of Dr Death will feel like they're in familiar terrain, although that also helps make The Good Nurse more upsetting — knowing there are other true tales like this can only heighten the discomfort.
UPDATE, December 17, 2022: Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical screens in Australian cinemas from Thursday, December 8, and streams via Netflix from Sunday, December 25. Mischievous and magical in equal measure (and spirited, and gleefully snarky and spiky), Roald Dahl's Matilda has been a balm for souls since 1988. If you were a voracious reader as a kid, happiest escaping into the page — or if you felt out of place at home, cast aside for favoured siblings, bullied at school or unappreciated in general — then it wasn't just a novel. Rather, it was a diary capturing your bubbling feelings in perfect detail, just penned by one of the great children's authors. When Matilda first reached the screen in 1996, Americanised and starring Mara Wilson as the pint-sized bookworm who finds solace in imagined worlds (and puts bleach in her dad's hair tonic, and glue on his hat band), the film captured the same sensation. So has the song-and-dance stage version since 2010, too, because this heartfelt yet irreverent tale was always primed for the musical treatment. Over a decade later, after nabbing seven Olivier Awards for its West End run, five Tony Awards on Broadway and 13 of Australia's own Helpmann Awards as well, that theatre show's movie adaptation arrives with its revolting children and its little bit of naughtiness. Tim Minchin's music and lyrics still provide the soundtrack to Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical, boasting the Aussie entertainer's usual blend of clever wordplay and comedy. Both the stage iteration's original director Matthew Warchus and playwright Dennis Kelly return, the former hopping back behind the camera after 2014's Pride and the latter adding a new screen project to his resume after The Third Day. The library full of charm remains, as does a story that's always relatable for all ages. Horrors and hilarity, a heroine for the ages, a hulking villain of a headmistress, the beloved Miss Honey, telekinetic powers: they're all also accounted for. Matilda devotees since their younger years will spot changes, as there were on the stage. Some minor players have been ditched, and turning the tale's genius namesake into a storyteller herself adds thematic and narrative layers. Fans from the theatre will hear fewer songs, a choice made to fit Matilda the Musical's new format — making it shorter, snappier but no less entertaining and resonant. Indeed, adapting a stage sensation for the screen with everything that filmmaking entails in mind hasn't always been a given, as seen when fellow hits like Cats have made the leap. One of the joys of Matilda the Musical, then, is how kinetic, fluid and visual it proves — how cinematic, really — instead of just pointing a camera at a set like it's a stage. From the moment that Busby Berkeley-esque opening number 'Miracle' begins, there's no doubting that this is a film rather than a filmed stage musical, and that Warchus, Kelly, cinematographer Tat Radcliffe (Queen & Slim) and editor Melanie Oliver (Judy) know it. Twirling, swirling, and peering on from above as new parents and their babies bond, it's a delight of a kickoff. Of course, the sequence also shows how Matilda's birth was hardly welcomed by the selfish and vain Mr and Mrs Wormwood (Venom: Let There Be Carnage's Stephen Graham and Amsterdam's Andrea Riseborough), who don't want a bundle of joy at all. It's no wonder that as a girl (Alisha Weir, Darklands), she escapes into books from mobile librarian Mrs Phelps (Sindhu Vee, Starstruck), and jumps at the chance to finally go to school — where the warm Miss Honey (Lashana Lynch, The Woman King) awaits, but also the strict, cruel and kid-hating Miss Trunchbull (Emma Thompson, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande). For almost four decades, this setup — give or take a few details — has seen Matilda work to be seen, accepted and loved in the world. It's fuelled a message about kindness, patience and respect winning out; a satire about uncaring schools and parents, and the disdain shown by the worst of both towards kids who deserve far, far better; and a pigs' blood-free, child-friendly spin on Carrie in its own way as well. That's all still essential in Matilda the Musical's on-screen guise (including streaming, given it's funded by Netflix), as told in a highly stylised, often surreal fashion. This version of Matilda isn't as rascally and impish as the 1996 flick, or the book, but it is playful; think Paddington and Paddington 2, the epitome of all-ages British cinema of late. Paddington 2's wonderful antagonist might spring to mind, too, aka one of Hugh Grant's very best performances. Love Actually stars make stellar enemies in fun for all the family, it seems — not that there was every any doubt about the always-great Thompson as Trunchbull. Her resume already attests that she can do anything, and should, with her prosthetics-wearing, teeth-gnashing, kid-throwing, comically masterful turn here slotting in alongside recent highlights like the aforementioned Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Late Night, Years and Years and The Children Act. Among the movie's purposefully cartoonish portrayals, Graham and Riseborough also nail the task at hand. And as Ms Honey, Lynch is as skilled at playing soft, thoughtful and loving as she is in no-nonsense No Time to Die and Captain Marvel mode. You can't have Matilda without a winning Matilda, though, with Weir energetic even when her character is being derided by her nasty mum and dad, traumatised by Trunchbull, or initially trying to fit in at Crunchem Hall. Her take on the tyke is both vulnerable and enterprising — so just what everyone that's ever buried their nose in the book already pictures in their head, and has long connected to. While anyone who read the novel before the past decade won't have instantly imagined songs and dancing as well, Matilda the Musical similarly plays out exactly as you'd expect there, whether or not you've seen the stage production. Recent decades haven't always been great for new flicks based on Dahl's works, with Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox spectacular, Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory definitely not, Steven Spielberg's The BFG too calculating, and the Anne Hathaway-starring The Witches tame and bland, but Matilda the Musical is more than a little bit lovely. Top image: Dan Smith/Netflix © 2022.
As the name suggests, the crew behind Blue Mountains Stargazing is best known for the starlit tours it hosts in New South Wales' stunning Blue Mountains. But luckily for local star aficionados, it's heading our way this week, hosting a twinkling one-off event at Cactus Country on Friday, December 2. Thought to be Australia's largest cactus garden, this 12-acre plant-filled oasis in Strathmerton will now play backdrop to an evening of astrophysicist-led stargazing. Guests can wander the grounds at sunset and grab some suitably-themed dinner from the burrito bar, before an astrophysicist guides the group on an award-winning journey across the night sky. Learn the ins and outs of naked-eye astronomy, take a peek at those glittering gas balls through professional telescopes and astronomy binoculars, and discover the art of constellation storytelling. You'll also have the chance to ask the expert all your burning questions about stars and astronomy. [caption id="attachment_845479" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Cactus Country[/caption]
There's no opera quite like Wagner's Ring Cycle. Totalling 15 hours of brilliance, the lengthy production is being split into four nights of powerful, operatic wonder at QPAC later this year — all ticket packages include tickets to all four parts. Even if you've seen it before, we're sure you've not seen anything like this upcoming rendition, which is brought to Brisbane by Opera Australia. From Friday, December 1– Thursday, December 21, the production from Chinese director Chen Shi-Zheng will bring together performers from here and abroad. The version places Wagner's classic interpretation of Germanic mythology into a futuristic, parallel-universe setting, using digital art to create virtual landscapes. Breathtakingly original, the music is led by French conductor Philippe Auguin, who has headed up The Ring Cycle on numerous occasions. If you're an opera buff or just a fan of fantasy, futurism, timeless tales and truly epic theatre, this is an unmissable cultural event.
Mention the name Weird Al Yankovic and a pop parody song likely slips into your head. Maybe you're now humming 'Eat It' to yourself, or 'My Bologna' — or perhaps 'Like a Surgeon', 'Another One Rides the Bus', 'Smells Like Nirvana' and 'Amish Paradise' are echoing in your brain. They're some of the musical-comedy tunes the singer is famous for, but they won't be getting a workout on his 2023 Australian tour. First, the exciting news: Weird Al is heading our way in March, including hitting up the Victorian capital as part of a comical whirl around the country. Next, the possibly surprising news: The Unfortunate Return of the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour, as it's called, isn't about playing Yankovic's satires of other well-known songs. AUSTRALIA, here I come!!! #TheUnfortunateReturnOfTheRidiculouslySelfIndulgentIllAdvisedVanityTour comes to Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane in March 2023! https://t.co/o0riivPZ37 — Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) November 27, 2022 Instead, the musician is swapping his usual parodies for his other musical-comedy standouts across his 14-album catalogue. Clearly, he has plenty of tracks to choose from — and they'll all be played with his original band of four decades in an intimate, stripped-down show. Don't go expecting costumes, props or video screens, either. This deep cut-focused tour follows Yankovic's successful 2018 and 2022 North American Vanity Tours, which featured sold-out performances at The Kennedy Centre and Carnegie Hall. In Melbourne, he'll be joined by comedian Emo Philips, his The Vidiot From UHF co-star, for two gigs at the Palais Theatre on Friday, March 10 and Saturday, March 11.
Britain's two Queen Elizabeths have enjoyed their fair share of film and TV depictions, aided by Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, Margot Robbie, Helen Mirren, Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, Imelda Staunton and more — to name just a few — but they're not the only royals of that first name to grace the screen. While the spelling differs slightly and she's played as more of a Diana-style people's princess in her latest stint in cinemas, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (also Queen of Hungary) has received several celluloid and pixel resurrections of her own. Corsage ranks among the best of them, as famed as Austria's Sissi films from the 50s are and as recently as Netflix's The Empress hit streaming, in no small part due to two other outstanding women. One is Luxembourgish actor Vicky Krieps (Bergman Island), who is shrewd, wry and wily as the Bavarian-born wife to Emperor Franz Joseph I. The other is Austrian writer/director Marie Kreutzer (The Ground Beneath My Feet), whose handsomely staged and smartly anachronistic feature is no mere dutiful biopic. Corsage's lead casting is the dream it instantly seems on paper; if you're wondering why, see: Krieps' scene-stealing work opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in 2017's Phantom Thread. Here, she's been earning deserved awards — the Best Performance prize in the 2022 Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard section among them — for a portrayal that never feels like she's stepping into someone else's shoes or jumping back to the past for a part. Krieps is, naturally. Also, given that Sissi lived between 1837–1898, viewers have no way of knowing how close this characterisation is. But Krieps' fierce, dynamic and layered performance goes far further than easy impersonation, or providing a period-appropriate rendering of the Empress based on how history dictates that women of the era behaved (or what flicks set then or focusing on regal women back then have served up before). Corsage is a portrait of a lady, after all, and not of a time. There's nothing old-fashioned about Sissi in Krieps and Kreutzer's hands, although the predicament she's in when Corsage kicks off wouldn't have been new in her day: approaching a big midlife milestone birthday and feeling agitated about it. "At the age of 40, a person begins to disperse and fade," the Empress herself offers. It's 1877, her then 23-year marriage to Franz Josef (Florian Teichtmeister, Vienna Blood) is no longer lit by sparks, her young daughter Valerie (first-timer Rosa Hajjaj) disapproves of her every move, and much attention — her own and beyond — is upon her appearance. So, she flits restlessly. She can travel, circling around Europe. She can ride, exercise, pal around with friends and reconnect with old lovers. She can enjoy the company of men such as Louis Le Prince (Finnegan Oldfield, Final Cut), who directs his motion-picture camera her way, and horseman Bay Middleton (Colin Morgan, Belfast). She can play the starlet part, but also seethe with frustration about the largely decorative nature of her position. Some of the above genuinely happened. Some of it didn't. The same applies to other aspects of Kreutzer's narrative from start to finish. Fidelity to facts isn't Corsage's primary or even secondary concern, refreshingly so. Also, the film doesn't bother itself with the notorious end to her son's story, with Crown Prince Rudolf taking his own life in a suicide pact. He's still in the movie (as portrayed by Aaron Friesz, Freud), but his tale isn't his mother's. Endeavouring to set a historical figure free from their corset — which is what corsage means in French, not flowers for a formal occasion as the term refers to in English — this flick isn't bound by accuracy or the lives of others. Sissi was bound enough anyway and not just by bodices cinching in her waist down to 19.5-inches and less, as Corsage finds ample ways to make plain. In too many situations and for far too long, to be a woman is to be the subject of scrutiny — and doesn't Corsage know it. Sissi's roles as a wife, mother, Empress and representative of her countries are the source of constant fixation from all and sundry, with nothing ever pleasing everyone or even anyone much. Her exterior earns the same public obsession. The fact that she shares it is both an indictment of the ridiculous pressure she's subjected to and, in the complicated way of disordered eating, a bid for control. Corsage isn't here to simply spin woe, however. It's too playful and subversive for that. What it recognises again and again is how little agency Sissi had, how she was constantly defined by how she looked, and how one might process, cope with and rally against that truth. A haircut isn't just a haircut here, for instance, but an act of release and rebellion that also inspires tears among her attendants. Against restrained period fare and reverent on-screen biographies, Corsage is an act of rebellion, too. It isn't quite Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette nor Pablo Larraín's Spencer, but belongs in the middle of the pair. Accordingly, cue the flouting of 19th-century-only sights and sounds, plus a firm focus on conveying Sissi's inner state with every tool at the picture's disposal. Visually, Kreutzer and cinematographer Judith Kaufmann (The Audition) let modern details remain among the movie's settings — doors, lights, powerpoints, mops and more. On the soundtrack, French singer Camille of 'Ta Douleur' fame gets poppy, and covers of Kris Kristofferson's 'Help Me Make It Through the Night' and The Rolling Stones' 'As Tears Go By' get a workout. This tale is timeless, Kreutzer emphasises. The Empress' stresses, sadness, struggles and spirit are as well, her film continues. Corsage's point of interest is Kreutzer's familiar point of interest: women just wanting to be who they are but constrained by society's rules and expectations. 2019's The Ground Beneath My Feet and 2016's Krieps-starring We Used to Be Cool before that don't toy with real-life figures, but they unpack the same idea. That's an age-old reality, Corsage also reinforces, whether it's sticking close to its star's face, sometimes beneath striking face veils; surveying the punishing act of dressing as an Empress again and again; or stepping back to take in her lavish attire and surroundings, seeing what the world around her sees. Then, when this perceptive treasure comes to its inventive end, it's with an utterly unforgettable reimagining — which, yes, is this feature from the get-go.
If Emily had been made two or three decades earlier, it might've starred Frances O'Connor, rather than boast the Australian actor-turned-filmmaker as its writer and director. Back in the 90s and 00s, O'Connor played with literary classics in movies such as Mansfield Park and The Importance of Being Earnest, plus a TV version of Madame Bovary. Now, making an accomplished and emotive debut behind the lens, she explores how Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights might've come to be. Is a Kate Bush-inspiring piece of gothic romantic fiction of such passion and yearning — the only one from a writer lost to tuberculosis at the age of just 30 in 1848 — the result of a life touched by both? That's a question that this fictionalised biopic ponders. Emily begins with another query, however, although it's also basically the same question. "How did you write it?" Emily's (Emma Mackey, Death on the Nile) older sister Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling, The Musketeers) demands. "How did you write Wuthering Heights?" As one Brontë grills another, "I took my pen and put it to paper" is Emily's literal answer, offered as she reclines, pale and not long for this world, alongside printed versions of her now-iconic story. The response provided by the gorgeously shot, impressively acted and deeply moving Emily is far more complicated, but O'Connor's choice to open her movie with this scene and question is both clever and telling. One perspective on great artists, including of words, is to view their work as intertwined with their lives — aka this feature's preferred vantage. A key perspective of Emily, too, is not letting the small amount of detail known about the middle of literature's three Brontë sisters dictate how this story is told. That copy of Wuthering Heights by Emily's side? It bears her name, as does every iteration printed today, but her book wasn't first published under her real moniker — her pen name was Ellis Bell — until two years after her death. With Emily, O'Connor doesn't just pluck everything from her own imagination, but conceives of context for a novel that still haunts and entrances today. Before she's close to saying farewell, the film's namesake is a shy, sensitive but strong-minded young woman seen as the family black sheep — in her minister father Patrick's (Adrian Dunbar, Line of Duty) eyes, visibly, given that she always comes second to Charlotte and the younger Anne (Amelia Gething, The Spanish Princess), and also further afield. "They call you the strange one," Charlotte advises with exasperation at Emily's demeanour, her penchant for staying home and for fondness for roaming, rolling and falling in green among the wily, windy moors. There's no absence of kindness among the sisters, but Emily's keenest affinity springs with her scampish brother Branwell (Fionn Whitehead, Voyagers), an aspiring creative whose attachment to alcohol and opium impacts his dreams. Into this Yorkshire maelstrom arrives handsome curate William Weightman (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, The Lost Daughter), instantly winning over Charlotte and Anne with his lyrical sermons and his Valentine's wishes, and the village of Haworth as well, but initially leaving the guarded Emily sceptical. So, when Patrick decrees that William will help with Emily's French lessons, she's reluctant in general — including about their burgeoning connection. In a movie filled with standout scenes so potent that many other flicks would long to possess them, a debate in the Gallic tongue about blind faith proves one of Emily's most electrifying. That said, sparks don't merely fly in verbal discussions, as the frantic but careful attention given to the era's complicated disrobing demonstrates once Emily and William submit to their smouldering attraction. Teaming up with cinematographer Nanu Segal (A Spy Among Friends) and editor Sam Sneade (The Suspect) — and with strings-fuelled assistance from composer Abel Korzeniowski (The Courier) — O'Connor finds heat and solace against the picture's bucolic backdrop. At its lustiest, Emily never threatens Lady Chatterley's Lover, but it too is earthy, full-hearted and focused on a tactile romance. The impressionistic filmmaking itself evokes the whirlwind of sensations swirling and stirring inside its central figure, whether the movie is cutting to black, deploying handheld camerawork or energetically setting the pace through quick edits. Throw in that often-urgent score, as well as elemental sound design that whirrs with the wind but also knows how to punctuate its emotions with silence, and to watch Emily is to feel as feverish as O'Connor contends that Emily did, or might've, or could've. It isn't just a compliment to O'Connor to note that she pens and helms a feature she would've once fronted. Such is the now-director's standing as an actor — in a career that's also spanned Love and Other Catastrophes, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, The Hunter, The Conjuring 2, Cleverman and The End — that they're words of praise to Mackey as well. The Sex Education star ripples with intensity even in the stillest and quietest of moments, constantly conveying Emily's ever-churning thoughts and feelings in something as simple but loaded as a pensive gaze. Emily adores peering intently at her face and Mackey is up to the scrutiny, but one of her powerhouse scenes involves Emily donning a mask. Playing a storytelling game, and bringing to mind the origins of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in the process, she spooks Charlotte, Anne, Branwell and William by claiming to be the spirit of the Brontës' dead mother. How symbolic this exchange is, too, laying bare the influence of grief upon the family and displaying what Emily is capable of when she doesn't have to worry about the face she's showing the world. How wonderful it'd be to see Mackey cast as Catherine in a future adaptation of Wuthering Heights as well, if another soon joins the many past takes — 1939's Oscar-nominee, 1992's Juliette Binoche-led flick and 2011's Andrea Arnold (Cow)-directed one, to name a few — on-screen. For now, though, if there's a misstep in Emily, it's the nods given to the Brontës' speculated sibling rivalry. All three sisters made their mark on the page, and on history — Charlotte is responsible for Jane Eyre, of course, and Anne for Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall — and having them in competition with each other feels reductive. Still, it never undoes the movie, and it does help answer the big early question slung Emily's way. How did she write Wuthering Heights? In a family of sharp, intelligent, talented women, by being utterly and unflinchingly herself.
For caffeine drinkers, a good cup of coffee is a surefire way to put a smile on that dial and a bounce in that step. And this month, renowned local coffee roaster Axil is tapping into those happy feels, spreading good cheer and free coffee for Random Acts of Kindness Week. A whole lotta free coffee, in fact. From Monday, February 13–Friday, February 17, Axil — also home of the 2022 World Barista Champion — will be handing out a hefty 25,000 free coffee cards. Each one entitles the recipient to a complimentary cuppa, redeemable at any of Axil's many outposts. [caption id="attachment_888448" align="alignnone" width="1920"] James Butler[/caption] The team will be popping up at various landmarks across the CBD to hand out the cards throughout the week, dropping daily clues on Axil's social channels to give you a chance at scouting them out. The roaster is unleashing the freebies with the support of dairy company Riverina Fresh and the crew behind I Am Not Paper plant-based coffee cups. Keep an eye out to nab yourself a free cuppa — or you could always keep the kindness rolling and give your card to a mate. Images: James Butler
Victoria's major LGBTQIA+ celebration Midsumma is back for 2023 and currently shining its light on just about every corner of the city. And on Friday, February 10, that'll include the Melbourne Museum, which is joining forces with the fest to host a special edition of its famed after-hours soirées. The high-energy, adults-only Nocturnal x Midsumma party will descend on the precinct from 7pm. And you're probably going to want to bring your dancing shoes, with Mardi Gras veteran DJ Kitty Glitter and ARIA Award-winning neo-soul star Kaiit heading the evening's musical bill. For an after-dark cultural fix, you can explore some of the museum's current exhibitions — including tri-nations showcase Naadohbii: To Draw Water and Triceratops: Fate of the Dinosaurs — and check out a series of expert-led talks and tours. Or, unleash your creative side at a badge-making station, plus a friendship bracelet workshop inspired by the flags used by LGBTQIA+ communities and their allies. What's more, the Summer of Play pop-up is still delivering the goods out in the museum's Plaza — head out for a ride on a luminous swing installation, to challenge your mates to a game of ping pong and to sample some playful concoctions from the pop-up bar. Tickets are $39, or $35 for Melbourne Museum members. [caption id="attachment_888093" align="alignnone" width="1920"] J Not Jay[/caption] Top images: Cesur Sanli
Boxing Day sales are all kinds of hectic, but a few thirst-quenching Boxing Day ales? Well, that's something we can definitely get around. The good folk at Welcome to Thornbury are on the same page — in fact, they're dedicating two whole days to serving you well-deserved post-Christmas brews with chill vibes to match. From 1–8pm on Monday, December 26 and Tuesday, December 27, Boxing Day Ales will transform the food truck park into a welcome, beer-filled respite from all things shopping. There'll be both live acts and DJ sets to soundtrack each day's festivities, as well as arcade games, a jumping castle and a boxing ring tournament to keep you entertained. Meanwhile, the good times will be rolling thanks to a lineup of food trucks, and multiple bars stocked with just about anything your thirsty self could desire. That includes a huge range of tap beers from a bunch of local legends. And what's more, if you simply can't resist a bargain, you can get your sales fix right here with hourly specials running from 1–5pm. Oh, and don't forget to throw your hat in the ring for the meat tray raffle — it'll be a cracker.
Great news, fans of LGBTQIA+ cinema: Mardi Gras Film Festival organiser Queer Screen is back with its second cinema celebration of 2023. That happens every year, but it's only been recently that the Sydney-based outfit's two fests both stream online — and nationally. So, getting cosy on the couch while watching your way through this year's Queer Screen Film Fest is 100-percent on the agenda between Wednesday, August 23–Sunday, September 3. Whether you're a Sydneysider with too heaving a social calendar to hit the picture palace in-person or you live outside of the Harbour City, a feast of new queer highlights and retrospective standouts awaits. Must-sees include the Berlin-set Drifter; the AIDS in Hollywood-focused Commitment to Life; and Equal the Contest, which follows regional women's Australian rules football team Mount Alexander Falcons in an exploration of the barriers still faced for women and gender-diverse people on the field. Gay, sapphic, and trans and gender-diverse shorts sessions are also streaming. And those retro titles? They span Anchor & Hope, about a trio's complicated relationship; German coming-of-age romance Centre of My World; rom-com Nina's Heavenly Delights, focusing on a woman reuniting with her Indian family in Scotland; and the southern Chile-set The Strong Ones.
Many of us may remember hating mushrooms as a kid. Maturing is realising that mushrooms are, in fact, incredibly delicious. The versatility of mushrooms and their many varieties has earned them a spot on the podium of 'world's tastiest things'. From the simple crimini mushroom to the decadent chanterelle, they never fail to bring a warmth and earthy flavour to food of all kinds. So, brace yourself for the news that a dedicated food itinerary — A Fungi Affair — is coming to South Melbourne Market from Friday, June 16 to Sunday, June 25. Your ticket gives you access to ten experiences at ten venues throughout the market, nine of which have fungi-centric food for you, and the other will be an education in fungi species, growing, storage, cooking and more. The edible stops include award-winning Fritz Gelato and the Australian truffle-infused gelato (don't knock it until you try it), Claypots Evening Star and the mushroom chowder, Simply Spanish and its beer-battered mushroom and many more. There's no particular order you'll need to visit them in, nor a time limit, so you can be as quick or slow as you'd like. Plus, you can opt-in to buy an exclusive bag of mushroom-themed food and produce to take home. A Fungi Affair will be available from Friday, June 16 to Friday, June 25 starting from 11am or 2pm every day, tickets are $80 per person. For more information, visit the website.
It's a bloody glorious setup: Nicolas Cage, actor of a million unmissable facial expressions, star of almost every movie he's asked to be in (or so it can seem) and wannabe bloodsucker in 1988's must-be-seen-to-be-believed Vampire's Kiss, playing the dark one, the lord of death, the one and only Dracula. In Renfield, that stellar idea makes for frequently bloody viewing — cartoonishly, befitting an OTT horror-comedy with Nicolas Cage as Dracula. And the pièce de résistance that is Cage getting his fangs out as the Bram Stoker-created character, who was inspired by the IRL 15th-century Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler? It is indeed glorious. The Transylvanian is the latest part he was born for, after stepping into his own shoes in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, getting revenge over a pet pig in Pig, milking alpacas in Color Out of Space and screaming while dousing himself in vodka in Mandy (and, well, most things on his four-decade resume). Some movies have learned a simple truth, however: that putting Nicolas Cage in front of a camera and letting him unleash whatever version of Cage the film needs isn't always enough. That disappointment is usually on everything but Cage (see: his entrancing work in the otherwise average-if-lucky Willy's Wonderland, where he wordlessly battled demonic animatronics and made viewers wish he was around in the silent era), but Renfield has pre-emptively staked that lesson through its own heart. As the title makes plain, Cage's Dracula isn't the lead character. Instead, the long-suffering, insect-eating servant played by the feature's other welcome Nic, The Great's Nicholas Hoult, is in the sunlight. Accordingly, The Lego Batman Movie and Robot Chicken director Chris McKay doesn't even try to get his feature by on the Cageness of it all alone. That's a miscalculation. In fact, it's up there with the flick's Robert Montague Renfield pledging allegiance to the vampire that started all vampire obsessions. Renfield is at full power when Cage is front and centre, and feels like its blood is slowly being drained when he's out of the frame. Rocking lush red velvet threads and a devilish stare, Cage couldn't be better as Dracula, proving both Renfield's instant drawcard and its reason to keep watching. He gives the script's ultimate toxic boss angle hilarious bite, too, because that's the storyline. After several lifetimes of doing the undead master's bidding, Renfield realises that finding people for the Count to sink his chompers into, cleaning up the mess afterwards — there's always a mess — and generally dealing with his chaos isn't fun, fulfilling or healthy. Getting invincibility and immortality by eating bugs doesn't bother him, but the demands that go with it do. The script from Ryan Ridley (Rick and Morty, Community) based on a story by Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Invincible) has Renfield come to that epiphany by attending a New Orleans support group for codependent relationships, then deciding to be his own person again. If only escaping Dracula was that easy, as over a century of movies — and Stoker's OG text — have established. There's a coming-of-age slant to Renfield's quest to work out who he is if he leaves the darkness behind, chooses life and matures into a post-offsider existence (while coming-alive-again isn't a term, that's what it is as well). There's also a hefty shadow cast by What We Do in the Shadows given that unhappy vampire familiars are a part of both Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement's side-splitting movie and the also-ace American TV spinoff. But McKay and company don't trust that there's enough legs in the Nic-and-Nic double act, either, or that putting them in Shadows-meets-Dracula territory gets the blood pumping. Their solution: also making Renfield about NOPD traffic cop Rebecca (Awkwafina, The Little Mermaid) and the mob family she's trying to take down. Her vengeance-fuelled feud hones in on the obnoxious Tedward Lobo (Ben Schwartz, in Parks and Recreation's Jean-Ralphio mode if he was a gangster) — and, of course, Renfield and Drac get in the middle. He may be fresh off a big-screen stint in The Menu, but Hoult was in somewhat similar territory a decade ago in zom-rom-com Warm Bodies. Even when he's tasked with delivering explanatory narration like this is Zombieland, being the likeably dreamy lead in a light-hearted twist on a horror-genre staple suits him, although not as much as irreverent takes on royal history as in The Great and The Favourite. Still, in Renfield he's at his best when he's bouncing off Cage. The entire cast is, including Schwartz, Shohreh Aghdashloo (Mrs Davis) as Teddy's all-controlling crime matriarch mum and Brandon Scott Jones (The Other Two) as Renfield's 12-step-group's leader. Cage is just having that much of a blast. While he knows he's in a comedy, he also blends camp and menace in an iteration of Drac that's gleefully happy being fiendish. As the old cliche goes, he could read the phone book in the cape and prove mesmerising. No one recites from 20th-century lists of landline numbers. Renfield spouts wisdom from a self-help book for a scene instead, and it's a nice gag. That moment stands out because it's a rare — Renfield doesn't ever suck, but it's nowhere near as funny as a Cage-starring Dracula comedy should easily be. Slickly shot and content with being amiable, it isn't anything as much as it should be, whether that's an odd-couple flick, a viscera-splashing horror parody, a crime caper, a superhero affair (cue Renfield's supernatural fighting skills) or, in a plot thread flirted with but never committed to, a romance. In not wanting to tie its fortunes to the entire reason that anyone is buying a ticket, this addition to Dracula's lengthy on-screen resume doesn't want to be any one thing, and it shows glaringly. Count Dracula is the Guinness World Records-confirmed most-portrayed literary character, giving Cage plenty of past competition — Max Schrek (Nosferatu), Christopher Lee (the Hammer flicks), Udo Kier (Blood for Dracula), Klaus Kinski (Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre), Gary Oldman (Bram Stoker's Dracula), Richard Roxburgh (Van Helsing), Adam Sandler (the Hotel Transylvania movies), Luke Evans (Dracula Untold) and Claes Bang (TV miniseries Dracula) all included. It might be daunted about its own focus, but Renfield surprisingly isn't daunted by that cinema and television history, in one of its other marvellous but oh-so-brief touches. Early on, McKay inserts Cage and Hoult into Tod Browning's 1931 Dracula. Their faces replace Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye's, and it's a wonder. Leaning into Cage as Dracula far heartier than Renfield does would be glorious, and what Renfield leaves viewers wanting — but it's teasing a Universal Classic Monsters-style effort with Cage baring his teeth that sparks all the yearning.
UPDATE, September 14, 2023: The Little Mermaid is available to stream via Disney+, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. For anyone without a scaly tail, communing with the ocean can be a routine dip, a refreshing splash or a sail into choppy waters. In Disney's latest dance with merpeople and the humans that its main mythical sea creature yearns for (and desperately wants to learn more about), all three prove true. The next in the Mouse House's long line of live-action remakes — albeit with ample CGI helping to bring its sea-dwelling characters to life, but no hand-drawn animation — the new The Little Mermaid is often content to wade where its beloved 1989 predecessor went before. That's the Disney do-over standard. Sometimes, though, this new effort is its own delightful paddle; when 'Under the Sea' echoes against a literal sea of colour, movement, creatures and energy, it's a dazzling Golden Age Hollywood-esque spectacular. There's no escaping the movie's bloat when it's not merrily floating, however, due in no small part to inflating the storyline from the original's 83 minutes to a hefty 135 minutes. This day at the cinematic beach — glowing highs and waterlogged lows included — keeps the same basic narrative that viewers loved 34 years ago, as loosely inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's 19th-century fairy tale of the same name. A quote from that text opens the film as Alan Menken's revisited Oscar-winning score starts to swell, advising "but a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more". The curious and adventurous Princess Ariel (Halle Bailey, Grown-ish) cries through her siren's song instead, lamenting the strict no-humans rule enforced by her father King Triton (Javier Bardem, Lyle, Lyle Crocodile). And, in rebellious teen-style, she acts out by sneaking off to scour the ocean floor's shipwrecks with her fish best friend Flounder (voiced by Jacob Tremblay, Luca), even when Sebastian the crab (Daveed Diggs, Snowpiercer) is tracking her every move, and stashing trinkets from the world on land in a secret cave. When it's underwater, The Little Mermaid isn't served well by arriving so soon after Avatar: The Way of Water and its stunning beneath-the-waves imagery, or releasing just as Prehistoric Planet 2 is streaming its dive into ancient waters. In director Rob Marshall (Mary Poppins Returns) and cinematographer Dion Beebe's (Gemini Man) hands, plunging into the deep largely appears dark and murky. Indeed, if Bailey and Bardem's hair wasn't shimmering and flowing, it'd just look like a dimly lit set (mostly, it still does). The kaleidoscopic extravaganza that is 'Under the Sea' doesn't only stand out because that's precisely what its bright hues are doing, of course. It's a gloriously choreographed and performed piece amid a coral reef, set to Menken and late, great lyricist Howard Ashman's best (and also Oscar-winning) song, and it's an absolute showstopper. But, as made clear both before and after it drops its calypso-inspired beats, the number sets a standard that the film rarely cares to match elsewhere. When it comes to concern, Ariel has plenty. Her cup runneth over about the boats cruising above, with their sailors shooting fire into the sky, dogs and just humans doing human things — such having feet. As the story still goes, her wistful watching is fortuitous for Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King, The Flatshare). If the mermaid wasn't there to save him when he's knocked overboard, there'd be no romance. Cue a two-way obsession, plus tentacled sea witch Ursula (Melissa McCarthy, Nine Perfect Strangers) offering Ariel a bargain to follow her feelings and taste life out of water. She's given 72 hours in human form to experience true love's kiss, after which she'll be able to stay breathing air. If that went smoothly, and if Ariel's banished aunt wasn't cackling maniacally about taking over from her brother and stealing her niece's gifts, this wouldn't even be a 90-minute flick. Like an unruly sea as a storm blows in, there's turbulence at the heart of The Little Mermaid. While it's easy to see why David McGee's (A Man Called Otto) screenplay has been padded out, it makes for an overextended voyage. Bailey is perfectly cast, and not only when Ariel is singing her heart out. Wanting to spend more time with her is as instinctive as kicking your feet in water. She's an enchanting, luminous, plucky and rousing heroine. She makes the need to know something more than just the pool she's born into feel achingly real. An added sequence where Ariel roams around Eric's library, spying his sea treasures — his equivalent of her own trove — is charming, gives both Bailey and Logan Lerman lookalike Hauer-King standout moments, and is the kind of new material that slips in easily. But the same can't be said for all the feature's new songs (this time with Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda penning lyrics) and even some of its closest recreations. Swooping somewhere new doesn't always pay off, and neither does treading water. Adored in animated form, Sebastian, Flounder and seabird Scuttle (Awkwafina, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) couldn't demonstrate The Little Mermaid's crests and drops more heartily. Diggs' voice acting and singing is unsurprisingly scene-stealing, and Awkwafina is entertainingly lively — but their new tune 'The Scuttlebutt' is instantly forgettable (other than immediately being able to tell that Miranda wrote it). Photorealism doesn't suit their characters, either, bringing The Lion King's eerie uncanny animal valley to mind. That's especially the case for poor Flounder, whose name is more apt here than it's meant to be. Loving the talent but not the execution becomes a familiar sensation throughout this version of The Little Mermaid. So does remembering that Marshall wasn't just behind Chicago and Mary Poppins Returns, but also Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Into the Woods. Back as the 80s came to a close, the first The Little Mermaid was a lifeboat, buoying Disney's animation studio when its fortunes were sinking. In its wash, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King all followed, becoming House of Mouse classics. The new The Little Mermaid marks the last of that quartet to be remade — the tale as old as time, whole new world and circle of life otherwise reappearing in that order — and, towing the company line with these cartoon-to-flesh second efforts, it smacks of playing it safe. When Ariel's latest outing surrenders to the moment and the emotion, whether showing why it's better down where it's wetter with a joyous dash of vibrance, letting Bailey's divine voice convey a lifetime of longing to be part of a different world, or having its swooning lovers dance, discover and deepen their bond, it goes swimmingly. Often, though, it's just like Ursula: biding its time calculatingly and protractedly (that said, McCarthy is having a ball, more so than much of the movie).
Truffle season is back in Victoria, so expect to see your favourite expensive fungi on menus all over town. One place that does it better than most is Baby Pizza in Richmond, and they've just launched their much-loved annual Truffle Month. Baby Pizza tends to go ham on truffles at this time of year, so if pungent, earthy shavings are your thing, head on down. There are parmesan-crusted fries (with black truffle), pork sausage pizza (with black truffle), cacio e pepe (with black truffle) and roasted scallops (smother in, you guessed it, black truffle butter). Even better, for an extra $14.50, you can add black truffle shavings to literally anything on the menu. Duck ragu with truffle? Why not? Seared sashimi-grade tuna with truffle? Sounds kind of weird, but knock yourself out. Truffle Month runs basically until the fungi run out, so get your skates on and head down to 631 Church Street in Richmond. Images: Supplied
Speeding onto screens with instant brand awareness is 2023's big trend. Air, Tetris, The Super Mario Bros Movie, Flamin' Hot and Barbie: they've all been there and done that already. Now it's Gran Turismo's turn, albeit with a film that isn't quite based on the video game of the same name. Directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium, Chappie), and penned by Jason Hall (American Sniper) and Zach Baylin (King Richard), it also doesn't tell the racing simulator's origin story. Rather, this pedal-to-the-metal flick focuses on the real-life Nissan PlayStation GT Academy initiative from 2008–16, and the tale of British racer Jann Mardenborough specifically. The overall program endeavoured to turn the world's top Gran Turismo players into IRL motorsports drivers — and the Cardiff-raised Mardenborough is one of its big success stories. The ins and outs of GT Academy receives hefty attention in Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story, plus Mardenborough's life-changing experience along with it; however, much is also made of a massive marketing push. Air, Tetris, Flamin' Hot: yes, they should all come to mind again. Here, Nissan executive Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom, Carnival Row) wants to attract new customers, ideally those leaping from mashing buttons to hitting the road. Accordingly, he conjures up the console-to-racetrack idea to help make that sales boost happen. You don't see it in Gran Turismo the feature, but surely taking the whole situation into cinemas if the underlying concept proved a hit was part of that initial plan as well. Amid the ample product placement anywhere and everywhere that the film can slide it in, that certainty thrums constantly. Kicking into gear based on Mardenborough's tale, the big-screen Gran Turismo has an unsurprisingly engineered air from the outset, then. If filmmaking at its most formulaic sticks to a track, and it does, then this example doesn't dare deviate for a single second. Hall and Baylin gleefully take Hollywood license with the facts, too, and early. For starters, Mardenborough is positioned as the first champion at GT Academy, and part of a make-or-break gambit when he scores his chance to turn professional. In actuality, the program had anointed two previous winners. That's the thing about keeping on your line: it's meant to be the optimal route. So, if you're adhering to the usual rousing underdog sports-film script, which Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story always is, then that kind of tweaking is standard — and, at best, feels like it. The movie's Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe, Beau Is Afraid) has only ever wanted one thing for his future: to race. While his ex-footballer dad Steve (Djimon Hounsou, Shazam! Fury of the Gods) thinks it's unrealistic, he's always dreamed of getting behind the wheel IRL, but he'll take Gran Turismo's lifelike approximation if that's all that's on offer. Enter Moore's gimmick, with Mardenborough's skills in the game earning him a near-fantastical opportunity, and seeing him hop from Wales to Japan, Dubai, Germany, France and more. Although his mother Lesley (Geri Horner, aka Spice Girl Geri Halliwell) is more supportive, trainer Jack Salter (David Harbour, Violent Night), a former driver himself and the man that'll become the GT Academy's mentor, is as sceptical as anyone can be about the entire notion. That's accurate even after Salter agrees to the gig, a choice made purely because he's working for an arrogant and entitled rich kid (Josha Stradowski, The Wheel of Time) otherwise. Someone segueing from excelling behind a gamer's racing wheel at home and in arcades to competing in motorsports — Mardenborough has gotten zipping in formula racing as well, and hit the track at 24 Hours of Le Mans — is genuinely remarkable. As a result, plenty about Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story's subject's reality already fits the against-the-odds template that's reached screens over and over across a plethora of different activities, and that this picture is so slavishly devoted to. Darren Cox, Moore's off-screen equivalent, truly couldn't have hoped for a better story if he was thinking about the silver screen back when he came up with GT Academy. That tinkering when the details don't immediately suit the feature's easy blueprint, however? Again, it's to be thoroughly expected, but it's overtly calculating. Changing the timeline around a fatality solely for dramatic purposes, to give Mardenborough something else to overcome on the road to greatness? That's also deeply shameless and unnecessary. Thankfully, as by the numbers as Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story always proves — and as questionable and needless as some of its plotting choices are — the tension revving through the movie's on-the-track scenes is also genuine. There's little that's out of the ordinary about Blomkamp's approach, nor about cinematographer Jacques Jouffret's (Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan) penchant for swooping sky-high shots (their film doesn't threaten Rush or Ford v Ferrari in the hypnotic stakes, either), but the racing scenes still thrill in the moment. That said, using graphics to construct a car around Mardenborough when he's driving in his bedroom, and to take him back there when he's on the asphalt, isn't the savviest move. Instead of being immersive, it too smacks of needing to shoehorn in as many references to the game, PlayStation and Sony as possible, a motivation that's already evident everywhere that viewers look. There's no mistaking the money-driven motives behind Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story's casting and the characters that it heartily swerves into, too. As Mardenborough, Madekwe is energetic and likeable — convincingly sweet and awkward as required as well — but the fact that the film hinges upon its most bankable name is as glaring as the sun bouncing off a windshield. Since Stranger Things became such a smash, no one enlists Harbour as a cantankerous figure without wanting his irascible best. Blomkamp and company get it, and often, while always making it plain that the feature is built as much around his performance as it is GT Academy, Mardenborough's true tale and selling games. Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story had to get its personality somewhere, of course, because it doesn't spring from its director. Joining the list of acclaimed names doing a workmanlike job on formulaic fare that almost anyone could've handled of late — although doing better than Meg 2: The Trench's Ben Wheatley — he's happy steering a highly watchable but always-routine affair.
When Pixar is at its best and brightest, the animation house's gorgeous and heartfelt films flow across the silver screen. They glow with colour, creativity, sincerity and emotion. In movies such as WALL-E, Inside Out, Soul, Toy Story 4, Up and Ratatouille, the Disney-owned company's work floats beyond the ordinary as it flickers — and yet, it's also grounded in genuine feelings and insights, even while embracing the now Pixar-standard "what if robots, playthings, rats and the like had feelings?" setup over and over. Accordingly, it makes sense that the studio's Elemental draws upon the sensations that its features usually inspire. It seems like something that was always destined to happen, in fact. And, it's hardly surprising that its latest picture anthropomorphises fire, water, air and earth, and ponders these aspects of nature having emotions. What's less expected is how routine this just-likeable and sweet-enough film is, with the Pixar template lukewarm instead of an inferno and hovering rather than soaring. Elemental also treads water, despite vivid animation, plus the noblest of aims to survey the immigrant experience, opposites attracting, breaking down cultural stereotypes and borders, and complicated parent-child relationships. The Captain Planet-meets-Romeo and Juliet vibe that glinted through the movie's trailers proves accurate, and also something that the feature is happy sticking with exactly as that formula sounds. Although filmmaker Pete Sohn (The Good Dinosaur) draws upon his own upbringing as the son of Korean expats growing up in New York City and its distinctive neighbourhoods — that his family ran a grocery store is worked in as well — and his own marriage, his second stint as a director is too by-the-numbers, easy and timid. Elemental looks like a Pixar film, albeit taking a few visual cues from Studio Ghibli in some character-design details (its bulbous grassy creatures noticeably resemble Totoro), but it largely comes across like a copy or a wannabe. Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis, Nancy Drew), the feisty fire sprite at the picture's centre, has footsteps to follow in herself: not just William Shakespeare's most famous couple without the tragedy given that this is an all-ages-friendly Pixar release, but also her father Bernie's (Ronnie del Carmen, Soul). With her mother Cinder (Shila Ommi, Tehran), he left their homeland behind for better opportunities, worked hard to overcome prejudice and discrimination, and started The Fireplace, which sparked Element City's whole Firetown district — and, since she first started simmering, he has always told his daughter that it was all for her. But Ember's temper is heated. It's prone to boiling over with frustrating customers, which doesn't bode well for a convenience-store proprietor. So, while she's spent her whole life preparing to take over the terracotta- and iron-filled shop when her dad retires, he's never been convinced that she's ready. Bernie adores Ember, has put his entire flame into the family business and is as passionate about only one other thing, apart from Cinder. Due to the xenophobia and unkindness that greeted him when he first arrived in Element City, he's scorchingly certain that fire and other elements don't and shouldn't mix. Sohn and screenwriters John Hoberg (American Housewife), Kat Likkel (also American Housewife) and Brenda Hsueh (Disjointed) set out to extinguish that belief, which is where Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie, Archive 81) comes in. When H2O streams into The Fireplace via a busted pipe, it brings in the water element, who is also a municipal inspector. To save the store, the explosive Ember teams up with the go-with-the-flow, freely emotional Wade to work out what's caused the leak — and, although she's initially reluctant about him and leaving Firetown, romance gushes, as does an appreciation of burning beyond her comfort zone. As it lays its scene, Elemental also brings Pixar's 2022 highlight Turning Red to mind, which doesn't do the studio's new film many favours. That exuberant straight-to-streaming effort focused on a boyband-worshiping teen rather than a dutiful young woman who's a whiz at blowing glass (an advantage of being constantly and literally fiery). It honed in on its protagonist's relationship with her mother, rather than father-daughter bonds. But both movies are about struggling with balancing cultural traditions passed down through generations, and the strict expectations that can come with them, as kids try to become their own people and remain true to their own, heroes, dreams, desires and personalities. Sohn's film just combines those notions with an element-crossed lovers rom-com — Pixar's take on Moonstruck, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Big Sick and other multicultural romances. With everything that Elemental endeavours to ape — which is clearly a lengthy list — this 27th Pixar feature trickles from a lesser stream. That the flick's four different types of elements are thinly sketched out and lean on simplistic cliches dampens its impact, too, all uncharacteristic moves for the usually deeply thoughtful Mouse House outfit, and never more glaring than with the Lumens. With the director also receiving a story credit, there's again no faulting Sohn and his scribes' intentions in exploring societal inequality, decrying racism, and conveying a statement about inclusion and diversity at viewers young and old. Still, the film is at its most shimmering emotionally and narratively when it gets specific rather than broad. The more kindling that it adds to Ember, the stronger it beams. The more that it relies upon its familiar tropes and plot components, the more it recedes. Two parts of Elemental are perennially buoyant, however: the imagery and voice cast. Fire isn't easy to animate, let alone fire beings, but Ember is especially dazzling. She's always blazing, but those flames can grow and fade based on mood, be doused completely by water, get radiant in the dark and change hues depending on her surroundings — and, as a result, she's an expressive marvel. Also stunning: the world of Element City that's conjured up around her, as tinted with a dreamy palette and watercolour look, which its leads walk and talk through like they're in one of the Before movies. As they chat and swoon, and in general, Lewis matches her character's fire. Athie makes a suitably cruisy Wade, while Catherine O'Hara (Schitt's Creek) is an unsurprising delight as his mum Brook. And yet, Elemental also feels like Pixar is taking its titular term to heart in the worst way, making for rudimentary rather than particularly ravishing or resonant viewing.
When they were making All the Real Girls, Pineapple Express and Your Highness together, plus Eastbound & Down, Vice Principals and The Righteous Gemstones as well, did conversations between filmmaker David Gordon Green and actor Danny McBride go as follows? "Do you like all-time horror masterpieces?" one may've asked. "Is creating your own version of some of the genre-defining greats your ultimate dream?" the other could've responded. "What if we revived the best of the best from the 70s decades later?" might've been the enthusiastic next line. Then, as two of the driving forces behind 2018's Halloween and its follow-ups Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends kept chatting, "shall we keep their biggest stars, but in flicks that act as direct sequels to the OG films and ignore all of the past sequels, and also work as reboots sparking a new trilogy?" could've been the latest reply. Thanks to the recent Halloween films, a natter like the above seems likely. Now that Green and McBride are also giving The Exorcist a spin, this kind of talk appears a certainty. So, writer/director Green was possessed with a new demonic screen story with McBride and Halloween Kills' Scott Teems, then penned a devil-made-me-do-it script with Camp X-Ray's Peter Sattler. The result is The Exorcist: Believer, a 50-years-later return to head-twisting dances with evil — this time with a prologue in Haiti rather than Iraq, the bulk of the action set in Georgia instead of Washington, DC's Georgetown, and two girls not one in need of faith's help to cast out malevolent fiends. Green and McBride's swap from Michael Myers to Pazuzu also already has its own trinity in the works, with first sequel The Exorcist: Deceiver due in 2025. As it apes the original movie's structure, there's a touch of trickery in starting The Exorcist: Believer in Port-au-Prince: the city's 2010 earthquake is used to get the plot in motion, a move that lands queasily, clunkily and exploitatively. Perhaps Green and company thought that slipping into a real-life tragedy's skin then wreaking havoc was a fitting piece of mirroring; instead, that choice should've been exorcised. Photographer Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery) is holidaying with his heavily pregnant wife Sorenne (Tracey Graves, On Ten) when the earth rumbles, leading to him becoming a single father — but not before the baby is blessed in utero by a local healer. Cut to 13 years later, where teenager Angela (Lidya Jewett, Ivy + Bean) is introduced rifling through her mother's belongings, then convincing her grief-stricken dad to let her have an after-school date with her classmate Katherine (debutant Olivia O'Neill). She doesn't tell him that they'll be trying to contact Sorenne via a seance in the woods, though. Christianity reaches The Exorcist: Believer via Katherine, plus her devout parents Miranda (Jennifer Nettles, The Righteous Gemstones) and Tony (Norbert Leo Butz, Justified: City Primeval). Two bedevilled kids means more concerned adults, with the latter's nightmares beginning when Angela and Katherine don't return home from their forest frolic for three days. Once the girls re-emerge, they're withdrawn and erratic. The medical diagnosis is trauma; however, that doesn't explain the spooky happenings. Miranda and Tony contend that something unholy is afoot from the instant that the teens go missing, but Victor takes convincing. There's no lack of folks endeavouring to sway his thinking, as led by believing neighbour and nurse Ann (Ann Dowd, The Handmaid's Tale), who points him in the direction of someone who has been there, seen that and dealt with all the terrors of having a daughter taken over by Pazuzu: Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn, Law & Order: Organised Crime). Shorter than its inspiration but feeling longer, The Exorcist: Believer largely operates in two modes post-preamble: slowly setting the scene, building up to the thrashing, voices and good-versus-evil battle that everyone knows is coming (the film is called The Exorcist, after all); and letting the expected play out. Both are overextended, which doesn't up what little suspense, scares or tension that the feature has — but does benefit the movie's actors and their performances. More time spent with Tony-winners Odom Jr (for Hamilton) and Butz (for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Catch Me If You Can) gives The Exorcist: Believer more emotional depth, as much needed. Jewett and O'Neill are visibly enjoying themselves in the picture's darkest turns. Oscar-winner Burstyn (for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore) plays a smaller part, but her presence has weight to it. Alas, that's all that the film sadly wants of her, as it sets up one possible path, takes it away and then leans on easy nostalgia. As 2018's Halloween did with that saga's 40th anniversary, The Exorcist: Believer has timed its arrival carefully; 2023 marks half a century since William Friedkin adapted William Peter Blatty's bestselling novel that started it all. Green again considers the source material sacred, and it is: earning the now-late but always-great Friedkin his second Best Director Oscar nomination two years after he won for The French Connection, The Exorcist is a horror titan. It made history as the first-ever horror film nominated for Best Picture, too. Not just its own sequels (1977's Exorcist II: The Heretic and 1990's The Exorcist III) and prequels (2004's Exorcist: The Beginning and 2005's Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist) took its lead, but everything about demonic hauntings since 1973. Still, while The Exorcist: Believer is certainly better than the unrelated The Pope's Exorcist, also from 2023, it's as dispiritingly by the numbers as it can be in attempting to emptily copy Friedkin, resurrect lines, get notes of the same score echoing and keep to the franchise playbook. When controversy surrounded the OG The Exorcist all those years back, the ideas and sights that helped cause it had meaning. A crisis of faith lingered throughout the film as heavy as dread, unease and alarm. When the Pazuzu-possessed Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair, Landfill) stabbed violently downwards with a crucifix, the movie's musing on religion's love of the patriarchy and the latter's struggle with girls when they reach puberty were searing. The list goes on, as Green knows but can't match. The Exorcist: Believer amasses a multi-faith group to do the exorcising this time, deploying inclusivity to comment on the changing role that worship plays in modern American life, yet only weakly says the obvious. The patriarchy is addressed again, overtly in monologues, but mostly The Exorcist: Believer plays like its big church-set moment: wandering in to make a big bloody scene while just splashing around some standard shocks.
If you've ever dreamed of munching on fresh Mornington Peninsula produce prepared by world-class chefs while sipping on a nice glass of Pt Leo Estate wine, but without leaving the CBD, then you might want to keep 6.30pm on Thursday, October 5 free. Pt Leo Estate's Culinary Director Josep Espuga is teaming up with Alejandro Saravia, the Executive Chef at Victoria by Farmer's Daughters, to host a one-night-only dinner that fuses the rich heritages of Spain and Peru. The dynamic duo will take guests on a journey via a seasonal menu influenced by their Spanish and Peruvian roots, showcasing the best of Victoria's produce in the process. The five-course evening promises treats like the Port Phillip Bay Sea urchin mousse, the aromatic Red Hill truffle and salmon roe from the Yarra Valley. On the wine front, Pt Leo Estate has got you covered. Each dish will be paired with wines that'll whisk your palate through the vineyards of the Mornington Peninsula with each sip. And, of course, each drop has all been chosen to complement the robust flavours of Espuga and Saravia's dishes. So, maybe it's time to call that mate you've been meaning to catch up with and reserve a spot. Or, maybe take that special someone. Hell, maybe go on your own and make a new friend who shares your passion for the good things in life. Maybe we'll see you there.
One of 2023's most-anticipated films is hitting Palace Cinemas' big screens on Saturday, October 28. That flick: Strange Way of Life, the latest work by inimitable Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar (Parallel Mothers). It's a 30-minute short, hence the fact that it won't get the usual silver-screen release — and it's also a sublime queer western starring Ethan Hawke (Moon Knight) and Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us). Almodóvar? Hawke? Pascal? Queer western? Yes, that's Strange Way of Life, which is why it's such a must-see. It made its Australian debut at this year's Sydney Film Festival, then also played the Melbourne International Film Festival, heading to our shores straight from premiering at Cannes — and now it's showing in the Victorian capital again at Palace's Fashion Focus Premiere sessions at The Astor Theatre, Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Westgarth, Palace Cinema Como, The Kino and Pentridge Cinema. In this bite-sized film, Sheriff Jake (Hawke) and rancher Silva (Pascal) share a history, working together as hired gunmen a quarter-century ago. Then, circumstances bring them back together; however, a reunion isn't the only reason they've crossed paths again. "The strange way of life referred in the title alludes to the famous fado by Amalia Rodrigues, whose lyrics suggest that there is no stranger existence than the one that is lived by turning your back on your own desires," explains Almodóvar. Tickets cost $25 for Palace Movie Club members and $30 otherwise, for sessions that include a glass of prosecco or wine upon arrival — and are all about celebrating not only the short, but also the costumes designed by Anthony Vaccarello, with fashion house Saint Laurent producing the film. Also on offer: an interview with the one and only Almodóvar before the short plays. The Astor is doing drinks at 6.15pm and the screening at 6.30pm, while the times are 6.45pm for a 7pm start at Palace Balwyn, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Westgarth and Palace Cinema Como. Pentridge Cinema's session will kick off at 7.15pm for 7.30pm, and The Kino's at 7.45pm for 8pm.
Poirot goes horror in A Haunting in Venice. As unsettling as it was in its pointlessness and indulgence, Death on the Nile's moustache origin story doesn't quite count as doing the same. With Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) back directing, producing and starring as the hirsute Belgian sleuth for the third time — 2017's Murder on the Orient Express came first — Agatha Christie's famous detective now gets steeped in gothic touches and also scores the best outing yet under his guidance. The source material: the acclaimed mystery writer's 1969 novel Hallowe'en Party. Returning screenwriter Michael Green (Jungle Cruise) has given the book more than a few twists, the canal-lined Italian setting being one. Venice makes an atmospheric locale, especially on October 31, in the post-World War II era and amid a dark storm. But perhaps the most important move that A Haunting in Venice makes is Branagh reining in the showboating that became so grating in his first two Poirot movies. Even if you've never read Christie's work or seen Poirot on the screen before, three details have become as widely known as the figure's existence: he's a detective, he's eccentric and, to the benefit of solving cases upon cases, he's obsessive. Thankfully, three also seems to be the magic number in letting the investigator's quirks feel lived in during his current cinema run, rather than constantly overemphasising every idiosyncrasy. Both A Haunting in Venice and Branagh's performance are all the better for that choice. When not just puzzling but also spooking is on offer, such a shift is essential, allowing bumps, jumps and eeriness to set the mood and style over an overdone central portrayal. Branagh is helming a haunted-house story this time around, after all — and while ghost tales need people to torment, overblown identities shouldn't be the most disquieting thing about them. He's also made a picture about grief and trauma, two experiences that change personalities. In relocating to the sinking island city and withdrawing from the whodunnit game, his new status quo when the film begins, A Haunting in Venice's Poirot has already done his own toning down. It's 1947, a decade after the events seen in A Death on the Nile, and bodyguard Vitale Portfoglio (Riccardo Scamarcio, The Translators) helps keep life quiet by sending away everyone who seeks the sleuth's help. The exception: Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey, Only Murders in the Building), a Christie surrogate who is not only also a celebrated author, but writes crime fiction based on Poirot (with Fey slipping into her shoes, she's a playful source of humour, too). When the scribe comes a-knocking, it's with an invite to a séance, where she's hoping that her pal will help her to discredit the medium, Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once), who has the town talking. The supernatural isn't Poirot's thing, unsurprisingly. Usually, that applies to the stories that he's in and his perspective. But Ariadne herself is starting to be convinced that Joyce might be the real deal, as she explains while persuading her friend into assisting. In A Haunting in Venice, belief isn't much Poirot's thing either — although unnerving visions do begin lingering in his view. As much as Branagh, cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos (another veteran of the first two pictures), composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (an Oscar-winner for Joker) and editor Lucy Donaldson (The Midnight Club) have fun diving into horror, and they do, embracing the occult was never going to be on the cards for movie's main character. Instead, getting his mystery-solving mojo back is part of the predictable plot; more than in Branagh's past two Poirot flicks, A Haunting in Venice feels comfortable rather than inert in its formula. From that setup, the film unfurls over one night and in a sole spot: a grand yet crumbling palazzo. The building was previously an orphanage where many kids met their death and has seen other folks follow them since, with local legend chalking up the abode's misfortunes to "the children's vendetta". Ex-opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly, Yellowstone) now owns the structure — and it's her daughter Alicia's (feature debutant Rowan Robinson) passing that's inspired her to enlist Reynolds' services. Count her among the suspects when a body shows up, alongside Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan, The Tourist), Drake's family doctor; Leopold (Jude Hill, Branagh's Belfast breakout), his precocious son; Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin, Call My Agent!), the mansion's housemaid; Desdemona and Nicholas Holland (The Crowded Room's Emma Laird and Everyone Else Burns' Ali Khan), brother-and-sister war refugees; and Maxime Gerard (Kyle Allen, West Side Story), Alicia's American former fiancé. The expected Poirot template still dictates A Haunting in Venice's basics; few deductive skills are needed to see why Hallowe'en Party's name and city were changed to fit the franchise's mould, for instance. So, murders occur, fingers are pointed, everyone has a motive and the movie's main man gives his brain a workout. Also, getting the pool of accused jostling — and the actors playing them, of course — remains as baked into the feature as in its predecessors. This rogues' gallery makes a finer job of it than the past talents in the same position with Branagh. They're more cohesive as a group, and even as well. Fey sparkles with acerbic wit, Yeoh is confidently serene, Cottin frays nervily, Laird is a picture of unease, and having Dornan and Hill play father and son again after Belfast is a nice touch. With Branagh bringing more nuance to his role than ever, his co-stars never feel like they're being thrust into the shadows by their director and lead. There's zero subtlety in the filmmaking, though, nor should there be in a gleeful gothic-horror spin on Poirot. Cue a wealth of visual flourishes that convey a murder-mystery with purposefully disorientating excess — and shine. Thanks to Venice, the horror genre's fans will already be thinking about 70s great Don't Look Now, which arrived in cinemas before that decade's Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. Spotting odes to Italian giallo master Dario Argento are easy to find, too. Close ups, tilted angles, wide-angle shots, leaping from high to low perspectives, tight focus, making the utmost of the Venetian architecture: they all add to the macabre-and-loving-it air. They also boost a much-needed point of difference in these whodunnit-heavy times. Branagh's flicks have been outshone comically by everything from Knives Out and its sequel to the small screen's Only Murders in the Building and The Afterparty, so getting creepy proves a successful way of fending off their spirits; fittingly, it's a canny trick and enough of a treat.
Before Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Seth Rogen and his regular behind-the-camera collaborator Evan Goldberg had more than a few hands in Sausage Party. Lewd and crude isn't their approach with pop culture's pizza-eating, sewer-dwelling, bandana-wearing heroes in a half shell, however. Instead, the pair is in adoring throwback mode. They co-write and co-produce. Platonic's Rogen also lends his vocals — but to warthog Bebop, not to any of TMNT: MM's fab four. That casting move is telling; this isn't a raunched-up, star voice-driven take on family-friendly fare like Strays and Ted, even when it's gleefully irreverent. Rather, it's a loving reboot spearheaded by a couple of patent fans who were the exact right age when turtle power was the schoolyard's biggest late-80s and early-90s force, and want to do Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo justice. Affection seeps through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem as pivotally as ooze, the reason that there's even any adolescent marine reptiles that aren't at all like most of their species, and are also skilled in Japanese martial arts, within the franchise's narrative. Slime might visibly glow in this new animated TMNT movie, but the love with which the film has been made is equally as luminous. Indeed, the Spider-Verse-esque artwork makes that plain, openly following in the big-screen cartoon Spidey saga's footsteps. As it visually resembles lively high school notebook sketches under director Jeff Rowe (The Mitchells vs the Machines) and Kyler Spears' (Amphibia) guidance, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem feels exactly like the result of Rogen and Goldberg seeing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, wondering how Leo and company would fare in a picture that aimed for the same visual flair, then making it happen. Computers did the animating, of course, but Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem's appearance may as well have smudgy fingerprints where someone has coloured in heavily with a texta, then accidentally slid a digit over the page before the ink was dry. While the TMNT realm has delivered good entries and bad, plus memorable and bland renderings of its core quartet — fittingly, these turtles have kept mutating — their current iteration is warm, retro and nostalgic while veering in its own aesthetic direction. So, the turtles aren't 80s-era slick like the OG cartoon series splashed across the small screen. They're not costume-wearing men (costumes by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, no less) as seen in the 90s live-action flicks, either. It's for the best that this Leonardo (voiced by Nicolas Cantu, The Fabelmans), Donatello (Micah Abbey, Cousins for Life), Raphael (Brady Noon, The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers) and Michelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr, The Chi) haven't been spawned in the likeness of 2007 picture TMNT, either, or the motion-capture efforts of 2014's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its 2016 sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. Fun: that's how TMNT: MM looks with its scribbled-on, graffiti-leaning style, and it's also what Rogen, Goldberg, Rowe (also a co-scribe), Spears, Koala Man's Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit (the last of the flick's five screenwriters), and the Bad Neighbours movies' Brendan O'Brien (who gets a story credit) are overtly after. So were comic book artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird when they created the anthropomorphic crew four decades back to parody superhero tales — as are the adopted turtle children of mutant rat Splinter (Jackie Chan, Hidden Strike), too. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem's key group just wants to be teens, and the movie wants to hang out with them as they try. In addition to an updated take on their origin story, TMNT: MM sketches Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo into a coming-of-age story. They practice ninjutsu. They bust out their fearsome fighting skills. They sneak out to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the ultimate teens-just-wanna-have-fun film. They also just want to be accepted for who they are, because this is a Frankenstein story as well. Here, living below New York City's neon streets has become a drag for Leonardo who leads, Donatello who does machines, Raphael with the attitude and Michelangelo the party dude. Emotionally scarred from humanity's worst impulses, the protective Splinter forbids the turtles from venturing above ground for anything but supplies — which is where the stealth outdoor cinema trips come in. The ageing rat is certain that the world isn't safe for four slime-transformed humanoid critters. Unlike Ferris, though, his 15-year-olds would like to spend their days in classrooms and hallways, and with teachers and fellow pupils, a wish that they can only dream about. Then they meet April O'Neil (Ayo Edebiri, The Bear) as a high schooler who aspires to be a journalist and is investigating Big Apple crime for the school paper. She becomes a friend when the katana-, sai-, bo- and nunchuck-wielding brothers help her with the thugs who steal her scooter. Like slipping into toxic sludge when they were babies, crossing paths with April is just the beginning of the turtles' latest journey. All of those robberies link back to Superfly (Ice Cube, The High Note) — and soon there's a menagerie of mutants, including Bebop and his rhino pal Rocksteady (John Cena, Barbie), bat Wingnut (Natasia Demetriou, What We Do in the Shadows), alligator Leatherhead (Rose Byrne, Physical), manta ray Ray Fillet (Post Malone, Wrath of Man), and also Mondo Gecko (Paul Rudd, Only Murders in the Building) and Genghis Frog (Hannibal Buress, Spider-Man: No Way Home). Being a teenager is about yearning to fit in, and so is standing out because you're seen as a monster by everyone around you. Those Frankenstein nods are well-deployed, but then so is most of this turtle tale: cowabungas, Beyoncé love, jokes about both Ratatouille and Shrek, and a soundtrack that's catnip to 80s and 90s kids (think: Blackstreet's 'No Diggity', 4 Non Blondes' 'What's Up?' and A Tribe Called Quest's 'Can I Kick It?'). Getting Trent Reznor, the rock-god patron saint of angsty alternative teens of three decades ago, on score duties with his usual composing partner Atticus Ross (Bones and All) is a genius move, and always sounds that way. Who else can craft tunes to fight frenetically in sewers and slink through the street by? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem caters expertly to millennial adults, clearly, but it doesn't forget that it's for today's young viewers as well. Although that mix of audiences requires a balancing act, Rogen and co know how to amuse themselves and still serve up TMNT for the next generations. All those famous names among the voice cast? Crucially, they always come second to Cantu, Abbey, Noon and Brown Jr in a lively, energetic treat of a flick — the franchise's equivalent of fresh-out-of-the-oven pizza and, yes a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles renaissance.
Poodle Bar & Bistro's famed Patio Party is returning for its sixth instalment on Sunday, September 24, and this one's set to be one of its best. Lilac Wine Bar — Cremorne's cool kid on the block-turned-neighbourhood icon — will be joining in on the fun this time around, bringing some of its talented team to Poodle's Gertrude Street venue to facilitate the festivities. This is truly a match made in heaven. Guest chef Kyle Nicol from Lilac will be grilling up some of his trademark snacks on the patio's charcoal barbecue, while Lilac's Richard Buck will be championing an array of Foreign Fruits' nicest European vino. Just above at Poodle Upstairs, guest chef Brother John will be manning the Raw Seafood Bar — a perfect complement to the array of cocktails on offer throughout the affair. The star of the show will no doubt be the tunes. Expect names like Darcy Justice, Turbo Thot, Dawn Again B2B Toni Yotzi and Mo among the disco DJs. Tickets cost $11.90 — and whether you're keen to kick back with a cocktail in hand and soak up the glorious spring sun, or you're looking to dance the day and night away on the patio, this might be the perfect Sunday for you.
Can't enjoy a trip to Japan anytime soon? You can pretend you're hanging out in Shinjuku right now just by heading to Lonsdale Street. Meet Maho Magic Bar, which is a bar, a performance space and a show all in one — all thanks to Broad Encounters, aka the folks behind that eerie Edgar Allen Poe-inspired warehouse experience A Midnight Visit that creeped out Melbourne a few years back. Here, neon lighting sets the mood, cherry blossoms hover above, and sake cocktails and shōchū lead the drinks menu. Also, magic shows happen at your table. An immersive event from the moment that you approach its glowing exterior — which is blazing away until Sunday, December 17 — it's designed to replicate a night out in Tokyo, and conjure up an 'anything can happen' feeling. The ace thing about the setup: whether you adore magic or don't think it's your thing, you'll still be entertained given that the atmosphere (and the drinks and those lights) are a massive part of the allure. Still, magic is nonetheless a big part of it. Busting out illusions: Shirayuri, Kaori Kitazawa, Rika, Sarito and Ryota. Drinks-wise, beer, wine and booze-free options are also on offer — and umeshu and soda, too. Maho Magic Bar is open Tuesday–Sunday evenings, and puts on family-friendly performances on weekend afternoons. Images: Kate Prendergast, Trentino Priori and Nathanial Mason. Updated Monday, November 6.
Mexican Independence Day is coming up and to celebrate, Fitzroy's Hecho en Mexico has teamed up with 400 Conejos Mezcal to host a one-night-only Mezcal Fiesta on Thursday, September 14. The night will feature roving entertainment and a five-course dinner curated by Masterchef's Theo Loizou, who will be putting his own spin on classic Mexican dishes. A few of the dishes guests can look forward to include grilled octopus tacos with spicy onion salsa, lamb with mezcal glaze and a bread-and-butter pudding taco with mezcal caramel. Not to worry if meat isn't your thing as there'll be vego options too. Each dish will be paired with a bespoke mezcalita made with 400 Conejos, with flavours including, chilli mango, summer passion and an oaxaca old fashioned. Oh, and everyone will also be treated to a neat serve of 400 Conejos Espadín Mezcal on arrival, to really kick the party off. "I love that street food brings you on a journey. It's the heartbeat of any city," says Loizou. "One thing I love as much as street food is mezcal. I love the smokiness mezcal has and the smoothness that you don't get with tequila. The dishes I've chosen play well with mezcal and the unique cocktails, while also staying true to my cooking style, mixed with the flavours and methods of Mexican cuisine."
When Song Kang-ho hasn't been starring in Bong Joon-ho's films, he's been featuring Park Chan-wook's and Kim Jee-woon's, plus Lee Chang-dong's and Hong Sang-soo's as well. One of Korea's acting greats boasts a resume filled with the country's directing greats — so getting the Memories of Murder, The Host, Thirst, Snowpiercer and Parasite star, plus Joint Security Area, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Lady Vengeance and Secret Sunshine talent, to play a filmmaker for his The Good the Bad the Weird and The Age of Shadows filmmaker feels like perfect casting even before Cobweb starts spinning its reels. Song's career highlights are already many, complete with a Cannes Best Actor Award for working with Japan's Hirokazu Kore-eda in Broker. Here, he's reliably and rakishly charming in a movie-making ode and on-set farce. For his own director Kim, Song plays a director Kim — but on-screen version Kim Ki-yeol is living in the 70s, and also in a rut. Once an assistant to a famed and acclaimed helmer who has passed away, now he's openly mocked by critics for his trashy fare in one of Cobweb's first scenes. He's made most of a masterpiece, however, or so he believes. The only thing that's required to ensure it's a complete classic is two more days to undertake re-shoots. His film is meant to be finished, but he's adamant that the cast and crew reteam (and his producer foot the bill) to ensure that the creative visions that keep haunting his dreams can become a feted triumph. Convincing everyone that he needs to isn't the only tricky feat, with challenges upon challenges unspooling the longer that the fictional Kim and his colleagues spend bustling. Also involved amid the lights, cameras and action: Shinseong Film Studio's Chairwoman Baek (Jang Young-nam, Project Wolf Hunting), who's hardly enamoured with Kim's new plan; Mido (Jeon Yeo-been, Glitch), the heir to his mentor's company; and actors Min-ja (Lim Soo-jung, Melancholia), Ho-se (Oh Jung-se, Revenant), Yu-rim (Jung Soo-jung, Crazy Love) and Madam Oh (Park Jung-soo). Cue doubts, shaky promises, unexpected alliances, philandering, secret pregnancies, squabbles about prominence, allergies to fake blood, fires, stars trying to juggle shooting the movie and a TV drama, and a supporting actor so wedded to stepping into a detective's shoes that he's deducing on the side between takes. It's an anything-that-can-go-wrong-will situation, and equal in careening chaos to two other recent behind-the-scenes filmmaking comedies: One Cut of the Dead and remake Final Cut, just without the zombies and single-shot gimmick. In both that 2017 Japanese hit and its 2022 French do-over, a commitment to keep filming and making art regardless of the cost thrashed around the picture as heartily as the flesh-eating undead. Courtesy of a script co-written with Shin Yeon-shick (1seung), Kim Jee-woon's characters share that determination without such pronounced life-or-death stakes. Bringing a cinematic reverie to fruition is a leap of faith, as Cobweb understands. When it works, it's not just magic but alchemy. "Here's to the ones who dream" might've been crooned by Emma Stone in La La Land rather than in this fellow tribute to that dream, but the sentiment fits. While Cobweb finds plenty of amusement in the on-screen Kim's madcap last-dash scramble to make the motion picture he'll always be known for, it also respects the passion, yearning, gumption and quest. There may be no shuffling masses to contend with, but there are movie-chomping censors who must approve every element that's destined to grace celluloid. For Song's Kim, zombies might've been nicer to deal with. The all-business Baek is all about toeing the line. Without the censors' tick, not a frame will reach audiences — and careers can crumble via blacklisting, too. Kim won't compromise on his tour de force, except that the whole whirlwind reshoot is a constant exercise in compromise. As various solutions spring up to stop the authorities' interference, including persuading them that the new ending will give them an "anti-communist film", setting Cobweb five decades back is a choice with meaning. Harking back to the days when South Korean cinema IRL was at the mercy of the state under the Yusin system rather than truly driven by artists, the film applauds the dedication and the hustle that sees any picture exist, and especially one under such circumstances. Cobweb's cast also deserve praise, with Song unsurprisingly chief among them, as he tends to be in whatever he's in. His selling task is twofold: swaying the production-within-a-production's on- and off-screen players to give their all to crafting his movie the way that it dances through his head, and whether or not it seems to make even a bit of sense; and getting Cobweb's audience invested not just in the madcap mania that Kim Jee-woon can't stop embracing, but emotionally. His co-stars are also up to going along for the ride, particularly Jeon as Kim's co-conspirator in pulling the whole gambit off. Both Song and Jeon get moments as actors playing actors, when Kim and Mido's respective fervour sees them resolved to step in front of the camera to guarantee the performances they want. He's best known for A Tale of Two Sisters, A Bittersweet Life and I Saw the Devil, but Kim Jee-woon is no stranger to dark comedy, as he eagerly plies here. His regular cinematographer Kim Ji-yong, who has been working with the director on and off since A Bittersweet Life, is equally acquainted with lavish lensing — and while Cobweb isn't as ravishing as his efforts on Park Chan-wook's 2022 stunner Decision to Leave (because almost nothing is), it remains an arresting sight as it flits from the black-and-white of Kim Ki-yeol's noir-esque Hitchcock-meets-soap opera flick to the retro period sheen of his existence. Don't go expecting to know exactly what the on-screen Kim is so feverish about, though. His counterpart splashes around the OTT movie inside the movie in fits and bursts, but it suits. Believing that Song's Kim believes in it is easy in a film this savvy, entertaining and adept at weaving its many strands.
Aussie beer lovers tend to have their tried-and-true favourites, whether it's VB, Carlton Draught or Great Northern. If you love a beer with your mates, then this Hazy Lager from Matilda Bay Brewing is set to be your second favourite beer by offering you a chance to win some merch from your best-loved brews. To be in with a chance of winning, all you have to do is order a Hazy Lager at The Hightail Bar from Monday, October 16, until Thursday, October 26. Once you make your purchase, you'll get an entry card with a QR code. Scan the code and enter your details to be in the draw. What's the big prize, I hear you ask? None other than a one-of-a-kind VB massage chair. But it doesn't stop there — there are a bunch of other prizes to be snagged. VB lovers could go home with a surfboard, snowboard or barbecue. There are also Great Northern fishing kits, Carlton Draught bar fridges and Carlton Dry coolers up for grabs. Hazy Lager is Matilda Bay Brewing's latest release and promises a hazy body that's full of flavour with stone fruits, hints of spice and herbal hop notes on the palate. The smooth and easy brew from Australia's oldest craft brewery is ideal for when you feel like a break from your favourites. Founded in 1983, Matilda Bay is Australia's original craft brewery. Love your favourite beer even more by drinking Hazy Lager. For competition terms and conditions and to find out which pubs and bottle shops are participating, visit the Second Favourite Beer website. The competition is only open to those aged 18 and older and ends at 11.59pm on Thursday, October 26.
When a music festival takes place in a winery, it already has two of the three fest essentials taken care of before it even announces its lineup: an ace location and booze. But, that doesn't mean that Grapevine Gathering slouches on talent. The acts hitting its stages around the country are always chosen to impress, and 2023's fests are no different. Leading the charge: Spacey Jane, King Stingray and Vanessa Amorosi, with the latter meaning that 'Absolutely Everybody' will be stuck in your head for weeks afterwards. The Wombats and Hayden James are also on the bill, both doing Australian-exclusive shows at the wine-fuelled festival. Rounding out the list: Cannons, The Rions, Teenage Joans and Bella Amor, plus podcast duo Lucy and Nikki on hosting duties. [caption id="attachment_905845" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sam Hendel[/caption] Grapevine Gathering's 2023 tour will hit Victoria on Saturday, October 7, taking place at Rochford Estate in the Yarra Valley. Naturally, sipping wine is a huge part of the attraction. As always, attendees will have access to a heap of vino given the fest's locations, as well as an array of food options. GRAPEVINE GATHERING 2023 LINEUP: Spacey Jane The Wombats Hayden James King Stingray Vanessa Amorosi Cannons The Rions Teenage Joans Bella Amor Hosted by Lucy and Nikki Top image: Jordan Munns.
