As the worlds of wellness and social connectivity continue to intermingle more than ever, Gurner Group has opened the largest and most extravagant private club in its growing stable to date. Spanning three levels and over 2000 square metres, SAINT Black is a high-performance haven that brings together wellness, biohacking, recovery, coworking and hospitality under one seriously stylish roof in South Melbourne. The experience begins with a sensory cube just beyond the threshold that opens up into a soaring lobby area. Here, you'll find a reception, concierge and tea bar replete with vein-cut travertine, Calacatta marble and soft circadian lighting for an instantly calming feel. Further inside, a member's bar and floating DJ booth overlook a coworking lounge built for casual business meetings and creative collaborations, complete with an organic wholefoods menu, adaptogenic drinks and alcohol offerings Thursday through Sunday. Ascending the luminescent staircase to level one leads to a sprawling gym floor framed by skyline views and kitted out with state-of-the-art gear from Watson, Technogym, AlphaFit and PLAE, as well as intimate studios with a full slate of over 200 weekly classes across strength training, pilates, yoga, breathwork, meditation and more. This is complemented by a suite of biohacking treatments in Haven — the venue's dedicated high-tech wellness wing that offers everything from cryotherapy and hyperbaric oxygen chambers to IV infusions and red-light therapy. SAINT Black South Melbourne also offers new membership tiers that unlock access to SANA, the venue's exclusive rooftop wellness experience. This private sanctuary on level seven features wood-barrelled ice baths and a 40-person sauna that hosts SAINT's signature 'fire and ice' classes, along with a six-degree ice bath, 38-degree magnesium pool and a sun-washed lap pool framed by sunloungers, all backed by panoramic skyline views.
Yeah, most people go to the Australian Open to watch the tennis greats fight it out on the court. But plenty more simply love to get a ground pass and enjoy the festival vibes at Melbourne Park. You can nab eats from food stalls run by some of Melbourne's top restaurants, catch live performances by international music acts, and drink the day away at some of the many impressive pop-up bars — from the likes of Aperol, Grey Goose, Piper-Heidsieck, Canadian Club and Peroni. Prefer to spend game day sitting in the sun sipping spritzes? Head on over to Grand Slam Oval to find Terazza Aperol, which has been decked out with a 15-metre-long bar, plush lounges and an elevated cabana experience. Plenty of striped umbrellas are also on hand for those seeking shade during long days watching the tennis. Aperitivo snacks, including meat and cheese boards, are also up for grabs here. Next door, you'll find Canadian Club's own bar space, decked out with umbrellas and a heap of table tennis tables. These tables are free to use — just make sure you get in before they're all shotgunned. In Grand Slam Oval, you'll also find the Peroni bar, featuring more brollies, plus comfy lounges and makeshift showers spraying cool mists of water. And if you're feeling a bit more glam, you can take a short walk up to the Piper-Heidsieck bar right by Rod Laver Arena for glasses of premium champagne paired with desserts from the Madeleine de Proust crew. And while you can watch matches from these spots via the big screen, Grey Goose's pop-up rooftop bar has uninterrupted views of court six — dubbed the party court by many. Here, you can order a slew of vodka-based tipples, including its signature Lemon Ace made with vodka, passionfruit syrup and sparkling lemonade — served over ice and garnished with a lemon ball and fresh mint. We also recommend you get in early to nab seats upstairs on the bar overlooking the court — you'll want to park it here all day while you watch the matches up close. These bars are all open to anyone carrying a ground pass, showing how you don't need to fork out the big bucks on AO Reserve tickets — which give you access to the most premium drinking and dining experiences — to enjoy a day out at the tennis. Leave that for corporate folks entertaining in the boxes.
When 2024 began, it started with a beloved Australian book becoming a just-as-loved hit homegrown TV miniseries. When the year comes to an end, it'll do so with an Aussie film about an international pop star releasing in cinemas. It feels fitting, then, that Brisbane-set page-to-screen favourite Boy Swallows Universe and unconventional Robbie Williams biopic Better Man have both scored big among the just-announced AACTA Award nominations — for 2025's ceremonies, but covering 2024 releases. Boy Swallows Universe topped the TV categories, earning a huge 22 nominations. It's up for Best Miniseries, of course, and made history by collecting eight nominations for its stellar actors, the most that any production has earned ever at the AACTAs. Better Man, which makes its way to Australian cinemas on Boxing Day 2024, received the most nods in the film fields — and by picking up a huge 16 of them, it also broke the record. Among the movies, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga nabbed 15 nominations for George Miller's fifth film in the iconic dystopian franchise, the same number that How to Make Gravy scored for its song-to-film journey. Next came horror delight Late Night with the Devil with 14 nominations, then Oscar-winning animator Adam Elliot's gorgeous and heartfelt Memoir of a Snail with 11. They're all up for Best Film, too, alongside Better Man and family-friendly four-time nominee Runt. The television cohort also saw Thou Shalt Not Steal pick up nine nominations, showing some affection for one of the year's absolute-best TV shows. Colin From Accounts and The Artful Dodger collected eight apiece, while Exposure scored seven, Fake picked up six, and Fisk and Total Control earned five each. Even from just the titles mentioned above, it's been not only an excellent year in Aussie film and TV, but a diverse one in terms of the types of tales that've been reaching screens big and small. Everything from mystery sequel Force of Nature: The Dry 2 to dark comedy Audrey, and from detective series High Country to the latest season of Heartbreak High and the Australian version of The Office, too, is also on the nominees list. As for who'll end up with a shiny trophy, the winners will be revealed on Wednesday, February 5, 2025 and Friday, February 7, 2025 at HOTA, Home of the Arts on the Gold Coast, in tandem with the returning festival with 100-plus that's also celebrating Aussie film and television. Until then, consider the nominations list a great what-to-watch guide for homegrown flicks and shows — Christmess, You'll Never Find Me, Last Days of the Space Age and Territory are just a selection of the other titles in the running. Here's a selection of this year's major AACTA nominations, ahead of the awards' ceremonies on Wednesday, February 5, 2025 and Friday, February 7, 2025 at HOTA, Home of the Arts on the Gold Coast — and you can check out the full list on AACTA's website: 2025 AACTA Award Nominees Film Awards Best Film Better Man Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga How to Make Gravy Late Night with the Devil Memoir of a Snail Runt Best Indie Film Before Dawn Birdeater Christmess Just a Farmer The Emu War You'll Never Find Me Best Direction in Film Better Man, Michael Gracey Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, George Miller How to Make Gravy, Nick Waterman Late Night with the Devil, Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes Memoir of a Snail, Adam Elliot Best Lead Actress in Film Laura Gordon, Late Night with the Devil Sarah Snook, Memoir of a Snail Jackie van Beek, Audrey Anya Taylor-Joy, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Anna Torv, Force of Nature: The Dry 2 Phoebe Tonkin, Kid Snow Best Lead Actor in Film Eric Bana, Force of Nature: The Dry 2 David Dastmalchian, Late Night with the Devil Jonno Davies, Better Man Daniel Henshall, How to Make Gravy Guy Pearce, The Convert Kodi Smit-McPhee, Memoir of a Snail Best Supporting Actress in Film Alyla Browne, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Hannah Diviney, Audrey Kate Mulvany, Better Man Kate Mulvany, How to Make Gravy Ingrid Torelli, Late Night with the Devil Jacki Weaver, Memoir of a Snail Best Supporting Actor in Film Fayssal Bazzi, Late Night with the Devil Chris Hemsworth, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Damon Herriman, Better Man Damon Herriman, How to Make Gravy Richard Roxburgh, Force of Nature: The Dry 2 Hugo Weaving, How to Make Gravy Best Screenplay in Film Better Man, Simon Gleeson, Oliver Cole, Michael Gracey Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, George Miller, Nico Lathouris How to Make Gravy, Meg Washington, Nick Waterman Late Night with the Devil, Colin Cairnes, Cameron Cairnes Memoir of a Snail, Adam Elliot Best Documentary A Horse Named Winx Every Little Thing Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line Otto by Otto Porcelain War The Musical Mind: A Portrait in Process Best Cinematography in Film Better Man, Erik A. Wilson, Matt Toll, Ashley Wallen Force of Nature: The Dry 2, Andrew Commis Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Simon Duggan Late Night with the Devil, Matthew Temple Memoir of a Snail, Gerald Thompson Best Editing in Film Better Man, Martin Connor, Lee Smith, Spencer Susser, Jeff Groth, Patrick Correll Force of Nature: The Dry 2, Alexandre de Franceschi, Maria Papoutsis Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Eliot Knapman, Margaret Sixel Late Night with the Devil, Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes Memoir of a Snail, Bill Murphy Best Original Song 'Dream On' by Meg Washington, Electric Fields and The Prison Choir, How to Make Gravy 'Fine' by Meg Washington, Electric Fields and The Prison Choir, How to Make Gravy 'Forbidden Road' by Robbie Williams, Freddy Wexler and Sacha Skarbek, Better Man 'Side By Side' by Paul Kelly, Runt 'Streetlights' by Jacob Harvey, Under Streetlights Best Short Film And the Ocean Agreed Before We Sleep Die Bully Die Favourites Gorgo Why We Fight Television Awards Best Drama Series Fake Heartbreak High The Artful Dodger The Twelve Thou Shalt Not Steal Total Control Best Narrative Comedy Series Austin Bump Colin From Accounts Fisk Strife The Office Best Miniseries Boy Swallows Universe Exposure Four Years Later House of Gods Human Error Last Days of the Space Age Best Lead Actor in a Drama Zac Burgess, Boy Swallows Universe Felix Cameron, Boy Swallows Universe Rob Collins, Total Control Brendan Cowell, Plum Sam Neill, The Twelve Noah Taylor, Thou Shalt Not Steal Best Lead Actress in a Drama Asher Keddie, Fake Deborah Mailman, Total Control Leah Purcell, High Country Anna Torv, Territory Phoebe Tonkin, Boy Swallows Universe Sherry-Lee Watson, Thou Shalt Not Steal Best Acting in a Comedy Patrick Brammall, Colin From Accounts Aaron Chen, Fisk Harriet Dyer, Colin From Accounts Kitty Flanagan, Fisk Genevieve Hegney, Colin From Accounts Asher Keddie, Strife Michael Theo, Austin Felicity Ward, The Office Best Comedy Performer Wil Anderson, Taskmaster Australia Aaron Chen, Guy Montgomery's Guy-Mont Spelling Bee Anne Edmonds, Taskmaster Australia Tom Gleeson, Hard Quiz Guy Montgomery, Guy Montgomery's Guy-Mont Spelling Bee Charlie Pickering, The Weekly with Charlie Pickering Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Essie Davis, Exposure Rachel Griffiths, Total Control Heather Mitchell, Fake Deborah Mailman, Boy Swallows Universe Sophie Wilde, Boy Swallows Universe Asher Yasbincek, Heartbreak High Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Simon Baker, Boy Swallows Universe Wayne Blair, Total Control Bryan Brown, Boy Swallows Universe Travis Fimmel, Boy Swallows Universe Lee Tiger Halley, Boy Swallows Universe Ewen Leslie, Prosper Best Direction in Drama or Comedy Boy Swallows Universe, Bharat Nalluri Colin From Accounts, Trent O'Donnell Colin From Accounts, Madeline Dyer Fake, Emma Freeman Thou Shalt Not Steal, Dylan River Best Direction in Nonfiction Television Anne Edmonds: Why Is My Bag All Wet?, Simon Francis Better Date Than Never, Mariel Thomas Muster Dogs, Sally Browning Stuff the British Stole, Marc Fennell The Jury: Death on the Staircase, Tosca Looby, Ben Lawrence Best Screenplay in Television Boy Swallows Universe, John Collee Colin From Accounts, Patrick Brammall, Harriet Dyer Fake, Anya Beyersdorf Fisk, Penny Flanagan, Kitty Flanagan Thou Shalt Not Steal, Tanith Glynn-Maloney, Sophie Miller, Dylan River Best Cinematography in Television Boy Swallows Universe, Shelley Farthing-Dawe Boy Swallows Universe, Mark Wareham Exposure, Aaron McLisky Territory, Simon Duggan Thou Shalt Not Steal, Tyson Perkins Best Editing in Television Boy Swallows Universe, Mark Perry Colin From Accounts, Danielle Boesenberg Exposure, Leila Gaabi Fisk, Katie Flaxman The Artful Dodger, Rodrigo Balart Best Entertainment Program Dancing with the Stars LEGO® Masters Australia vs The World Mastermind Spicks and Specks The 1% Club Tipping Point Australia Best Comedy Entertainment Program Guy Montgomery's Guy-Mont Spelling Bee Hard Quiz Have You Been Paying Attention? Thank God You're Here The Cheap Seats The Weekly with Charlie Pickering Best Factual Entertainment Program Alone Australia Gogglebox Australia Muster Dogs Stuff the British Stole Take 5 with Zan Rowe The Assembly Best Documentary or Factual Program Australia's Sleep Revolution with Dr Michael Mosley I Was Actually There Maggie Beer's Big Mission Miriam Margolyes Impossibly Australian Ray Martin: The Last Goodbye Who Do You Think You Are? Best Children's Program Bluey Eddie's Lil Homies Hard Quiz Kids Little J & Big Cuz Play School: Big Ted's Time Machine Spooky Files Best Stand-Up Special Anne Edmonds: Why Is My Bag All Wet? Lloyd Langford: Current Mood Mel Buttle: Let Me Know Either Way? Melbourne International Comedy Festival — The Allstars Supershow Melbourne International Comedy Festival — The Gala Rove McManus: Loosey Goosey Best Lifestyle Program Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly Australia Gardening Australia Grand Designs Australia Grand Designs Transformations Restoration Australia Selling Houses Australia Best Reality Program Australian Idol Australian Survivor: Titans V Rebels MasterChef Australia Shark Tank Australia The Amazing Race The Great Australian Bake Off Best Online Drama or Comedy Bad Ancestors Buried Descent Girl Crush Urvi Went to an All Girls School Videoland
There's never been a better time to sport a healthy interest in true crime, as your streaming and podcast queues can probably attest. The genre is hardly new, but thanks to the likes of Serial and Making a Murderer (and S-Town, Dr Death, Teacher's Pet, Dirty John, The Case Against Adnan Syed and The Bundy Tapes too, to name just a few), exploring real-life tales about untoward acts is positively booming. These days, you can nearly shape your whole media diet around true crime. And, especially in the podcast space, there's almost something new to discover every day. Eager to dive into the latest and greatest grim stories? Looking for something fresh to pipe into your ears, but don't know where to start? Here are six newcomers that you should begin listening to ASAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dZIf8RpN1A MONSTER: THE ZODIAC KILLER When it comes to creepy unsolved mysteries, the Zodiac Killer sits at the top of the heap. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, an unidentified man murdered victims across northern California, then claimed responsibility by writing to local newspapers — and, to this day, the culprit has not been caught. Before he made Mindhunter everyone's favourite Netflix series, David Fincher explored the story in his excellent 2007 drama Zodiac. He's not the only person obsessed with the case, with the team behind 2018 hit podcast Atlanta Monster (aka Tenderfoot TV and HowStuffWorks) delving into the story in its latest season. The two groups are really just taking turns chronicling fascinating terrain (the second season of Mindhunter focuses on the Atlanta Child Murders, too). However, if you can't get enough of these bleak, disturbing real-life tales, then Monster: The Zodiac Killer is a must-listen, with hosts Payne Lindsey and Matt Frederick stepping through the minutiae in intricate detail across 15 episodes. Listen to Monster: The Zodiac Killer here. MAN IN THE WINDOW: THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER If you're looking for even more California crime stories, then add Man in the Window: The Golden State Killer to your list. For more than a decade between 1974–86, the murderer, rapist and burglar wreaked havoc across the state, with at least 13 deaths, more than 50 sexual assaults and over 100 break-and-enters to his name. For those who've been following true crime news over the past couple of years, you'll know that this case picked up again in 2018 in a big way. If you're not aware of the particulars, this riveting podcast, which started back in June, will take you through all of the historical and recent ins and outs. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Paige St John is behind it, as are Wondery and the LA Times (the folks who brought us Dirty John). A word of warning, though: if you're spooked out by hearing actual evidence, including phone calls made to victims, then you'd best steel yourself in advance. Listen to Man in the Window: The Golden State Killer here. GHOSTHUNTER Since the birth of cinema, movies have often taken inspiration from reality, especially at its most twisted. Now, a crime-fuelled mystery can become the subject of a documentary, then get turned into a podcast by its filmmaker. That's exactly what has happened with Ghosthunter. It first brought the story of Sydney's Jason King to the big screen last year, and has now been expanded upon in audio form. Director Ben Lawrence is behind both versions of this far-from-ordinary tale, which is the result of spending seven years delving into King's life. Press play for an account of a security guard who doubles as a ghost hunter — yes, really — and keep listening for police investigations, court dramas, family secrets, difficult traumas, murky mysteries and estranged figures from King's history. It unfurls over five parts, and we can guarantee that you won't guess where it's all going. Listen to Ghosthunter here. SHREDS: MURDER ON THE DOCK True crime podcasts can take a plethora of shapes and forms; however, three kinds tend to stand out. The first unravel the cases of notorious serial killers. The second sift through stories that are just so astonishing, they can only stem from actuality. The third examine not only blood-curdling crimes, but just as horrific miscarriages of justice. Ticking both of the latter two boxes, the BBC's Shreds: Murder on the Dock revisits the Cardiff killing of Lynette White, the subsequent charging of five black and mixed-race men with her death, and what became — at the time — the longest murder trial in British history. The specifics of White's last moments are awful, with the 20-year-old's body found on Valentine's Day back in 1988. The circus that followed is equally chilling, including another record-breaking feat: the largest police corruption trial in British criminal history. Listen to Shreds: Murder on the Dock here. THE BURIAL FILES Whether you're a local who regularly commutes through the spot, or an out-of-towner who has just whizzed through it once or twice on the airport train, you'll never look at Sydney's Central Station the same way once you've listened to The Burial Files. Before it was a busy transport hub, it was the city's first major colonial-era cemetery. Yes, on the spot that a quarter of a million people transit through every single day, the remains of around 30,000 people were interred between 1820–1900. Unsurprisingly, this macabre history is the source of many a story, which the podcast delves into with the help of historians, archaeologists, forensic experts and even railway enthusiasts. The result of years of research, The Burial Files stems from the State Library of NSW, and from curator Elise Edmonds, who reveals details you'd never know otherwise — including about the mass exhumations of most of the site's bodies at the turn of the 20th century. Listen to The Burial Files here. [caption id="attachment_738014" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Pendulum[/caption] PENDULUM A few months back, 7 News jumped into the podcast game, getting listeners whipped into a frenzy with The Lady Vanishes. Pendulum is the network's second foray into the field — and into an Australian case that still deserves plenty of attention decades after it happened. This time around, 21-year-old Queenslander Margaret Ann Kirstenfeldt is in the spotlight. The mother of a seven-month-old, she was found with brutal, fatal injuries in the coastal town of Sarina back in 1978, with theories swirling about the incident ever since. Initially treated as a rape and murder, a pathologist then deemed her injuries self-inflicted; however, one top cop on the case was never able to accept that finding. Diving deep into a shocking death, Pendulum also speaks with Kirstenfeldt's husband and mother, while pondering if the perpetrator is still out there. Listen to Pendulum here. Top image: Ghosthunter
Previously named the Richmond Seafood Restaurant, this Melbourne stalwart (now in Fitzroy) has been pumping out some of the best seafood in Melbourne for decades. Here, you won't find long lists of ingredients or an overuse of spice, because everything at RST Seafood Restaurant is kept quite simple. The team focuses on sourcing only the best produce, and when you have seafood this good, you don't need to do much to it. Start off with a round of bloody mary oysters, some lobster sliders and a couple of whitebait fritters before tucking into bigger dishes like the grilled scallops, Moreton Bay bugs and mixed seafood linguine. And with most of the fish options, you can choose how you want it cooked — grilled, fried, battered, egg-washed or panko crumbed. However you like your seafood prepared, these guys will make sure you get it.
He's going to Newport: Johnny Cash, that is. Twice in A Complete Unknown, the iconic singer-songwriter graces the lineup at the famous folk festival in Rhode Island in the 60s. Twice in the Bob Dylan biopic, he crosses paths with the film's subject at the event. The details depicted are in the service of Dylan's story — while James Mangold is in the director's chair, he's not remaking Walk the Line — but these wouldn't be the moments that they are, and nor would A Complete Unknown be the movie that it is, without Boyd Holbrook (The Bikeriders) as Cash opposite Timothée Chalamet's (Dune: Part Two) Dylan. The term "goes electric" will always be synonymous with Dylan at 1965's Newport Folk Festival, where he dared to play an electric guitar in one of his sets — and the response as much as the act ensured that it went down in history. Cash helped him get there, not only by picking up the same type of instrument at the same place the year before, but through his pen-pal friendship with and encouragement of Dylan. The eight-time Oscar-nominated picture makes clear how much that Cash's words, and the effort of him taking time to commit them to paper, meant to Dylan. It goes electric, too, when Chalamet and Holbrook share scenes. A Complete Unknown is a movie with Chalamet as Dylan, Monica Barbaro (Fubar) as Joan Baez, Edward Norton (Asteroid City) as Pete Seeger and Scoot McNairy (Speak No Evil) as Woody Guthrie. So, it's a flick filled with impressive actors portraying music greats. Given that this a film by Walk the Line director Mangold, however, it's also a picture that gives Holbrook a completely different job to his co-stars, since he's portraying Cash. What happens when the filmmaker behind an Academy Award-winning Man in Black biopic asks you to be the next actor to slip into the legend's shoes? Holbrook had been keen on a different role in the feature, he tells Concrete Playground, at a time when Cash wasn't even in the script — then found himself with a "daunting task". Still, for anyone who has charted Holbrook's career since his 2008 big-screen debut in Milk — a span that's taken him through Behind the Candelabra, The Skeleton Twins, Gone Girl, Jane Got a Gun, The Predator, Narcos and The Sandman, just to name a few projects — it should come as no surprise that he feels like he's been preparing for this part for more than a decade. It helped that he'd made two previous films with Mangold, Logan (which uses a Cash song over its closing credits and in its trailer) and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. In fact, he sees his relationship with the filmmaker as similar to Dylan and Cash's, but with Mangold as the mentor and Holbrook the protégé. And, it equally assists that he'd also perfected swagger on-screen, which can be an elusive trait, including in his two prior roles in The Bikeriders and Justified: City Primeval. Yes, his A Complete Unknown performance meant facing "the Joaquin element", Holbrook explains — with Joaquin Phoenix (Joker: Folie á Deux) Oscar- and BAFTA-nominated, and the winner of a Golden Globe, for playing Cash two decades back for Mangold. But he also knew that the filmmaker, who worked with fellow screenwriter Jay Cocks (Silence) to adapt Elijah Wald's 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties, had a fresh angle into Cash here. As Mangold himself also told us about the pair's relationship as pen pals, "this correspondence suddenly became central to me, because as I was trying to assemble — as much as I was trying to tell Dylan's story, he is a bit inscrutable, and I felt like you could learn more by also telling the story of those that surrounded Dylan, and the way his genius affected each of them differently". "And what was so necessary about bringing Johnny into the story was that he's the devil on that shoulder. If you have Pete and Lomax and Joan Baez all on this shoulder saying 'stick with the team; don't cross over to that dangerous, suspicious popular music', you had Johnny Cash on the other shoulder who was saying 'track mud on someone's carpet'," Mangold continued. "Which was literally one of Johnny's lines in his letters to Bob. And that he made it his business to encourage Dylan to stay bold and to stay on the leading edge, was so wonderful to me." For Holbrook, taking on the part meant exaggerating his music skills to Mangold to begin with; however, the quest to make good on that promise became a key part of his preparation process. We also chatted with Holbrook about his repeat collaborations with Mangold, perfecting swagger on-screen, drunk acting as Cash in one of the movie's standout scenes, and what excites him about working on a new movie or TV show — next he'll pop up in season four of The Morning Show — at this stage of his filmography. On Having a Cash-and-Dylan Relationship with Director James Mangold After Logan, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Now A Complete Unknown "I don't think I would have gone anywhere near the Johnny Cash character unless it was Jim making the movie. And it was odd, because I'd read the script before we did Indiana Jones together, and I was angling at a part that I was probably too young for, but the Johnny Cash role wasn't even in there yet at the time. And so we went off and did Indiana Jones, and then I got a call, like maybe six months before we made it. And he said 'hey, I want you to play Johnny Cash'. And I said 'how's that possible? He's not in the script'. And so he had added him because he didn't know that when he made Walk the Line that him and Bob Dylan were these pen pals. And so by his research into Bob, he found out this because Bob had kept the letters and Johnny hadn't kept the letters. So he really just let me go off and do what I had to do, which is conjure up a character and an impression in the daunting task of playing Johnny Cash. Jim really gives you a lot of space. And the great thing about when you get to work with Jim, on the day, if you come in prepared, he enhances your performance in a very cinematic way." On Exaggerating His Music Skills Going Into the Film — and How Learning to Make Good on That Promise Helped Holbrook Step Into Cash's Shoes "I knew at the end of the day that they could shoot from here up [Holbrook motions to his mid-chest] and we could get by. But it feels like I've been preparing for the last 15 or ten years to play this part. Because I played guitar. I couldn't count music. I couldn't hold a tune. I couldn't play and sing at the same time. But there is this awesome opportunity where if I just eat, breathe and sleep this character, I can pull it off. And I think there's something really exciting about that amount of pressure, being a performer — I want to have a performance and I want to build this thing. So it almost bottlenecks down into the day of this, like 'well, you're going to sink, or you're going to swim'. And I think that's pretty exciting. So yeah, I think the week of it all started like 'okay, I can do it at the tempo' — and it wasn't just hanging on. I was able to control the song and control the voice, control the pacing." On Bringing Swagger to the Screen — as Johnny Cash, and Across Holbrook's Career "Film acting is really different from theatre acting, and there's also the practical of being relaxed enough that, you know, there's this 800-pound gorilla being the camera staring at me at all times. Like, how do I just relax and embody this? And really it's from a bunch of stuff of the art of not giving a fuck — being really adamant that 'this is who I am, take it or leave it'. And having a sense of humour about yourself. And doing all this so many times that it's just become existence. I'm not even thinking about it anymore. I'm sort of lost in what I'm doing. It comes down to that. It comes down to a lot of rehearsals, a lot of preparation. I almost prefer the preparation to making a movie than making the movie." On What Went Into Capturing Not Just the Essence of Cash, But the Essence of Drunk Cash "It was from one line in particular, 'I saw the ocean', that I just knew how. I just knew where he was in a daydream. You catch yourself doing laundry or whatever around the house and you are just in a dream, and you kind of see the performance, or I do — and you just understand it. So now it's a real idea. Then it just takes the physicalisation of staying on a word and just finding it, or whatever it is. The super subtlety of that is difficult to verbalise, but comes down to playing around with it. I definitely wouldn't recommend going method on a long work day like that." On Whether the Unique Task of Playing an IRL Figure for a Filmmaker Who Has Already Made a Separate Movie About Him Helped Holbrook Prepare "I was concerned that I had to portray someone who was an iconic person and so people, so many people, have strong memories of him and who he is. Then there's the Joaquin element, facing his great performance and following that up. But I think that Jim and I made the film, and he really understood the importance of Johnny's role in Bob's life at that time, because Johnny had been so — he's doing 200 shows a year on the road. I mean, you are a road dog. You have so much experience in this. And when you're becoming the most-famous person in the world within a year's time, Johnny was able to meet him at that fork in a road where 'hey, it's going to get weird if you don't keep your voice' or 'it's going to be okay if you just stay true to who you are'. And I think in commerce and industries and stuff like that, when a lot of money is on the table, your voice can be compromised — and I think it's really all about that moment in the film where Bob is choosing what his voice is telling him, what he wants to say, how he wants to express himself. And that's going electric in that particular time, because he's just skyrocketing with creativity. And so I think Johnny was able to nudge him in the right direction, remind him who he is." On What Excites Holbrook About a New Project, Including A Complete Unknown, at This Stage in His Career "The performance element. I never really have never sang in front of a bunch of people before. There is a sensation that goes along with that that's exciting. I just did The Morning Show and I found out that the guy was a stand-up comic. I don't know how funny I am, but I like to be funny. I like to practice being funny. But I'd never been onstage and done a set in of people. So that's exciting. That's like 'wow', that's slightly — not terrifying at all, but I want to know what that feels like and to do that. And I think there's all an art and a craft to how the instrument of our humanness can be used. So I just love seeing which way I can bend and which way I can go — and how different I can sound, how different I can look? 'What is this character? What is this character going to go through? At what level? Is it kind of like he's going through like a number-two heartbreak?' But no, I want a number ten on everything. And so I really look for that highest value of expression." A Complete Unknown released in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, January 23, 2025. Images: courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.
Every year, once gifts have been given, turkey and prawns devoured, drinks sipped and backyard games of cricket played, the festive season delivers another treat. Whatever you spend your Christmas Day doing, Boxing Day is just as exciting if you're a movie buff — or even simply eager to escape the weather, and your house, to relax in air-conditioning and watch the latest big-screen releases. 2020 might've seen cinemas Down Under spend months empty, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading; however, the country's picture palaces are well and truly back in business. And, they're screening a wide array of Boxing Day fare as always — so at least one thing about this chaotic year is proceeding as normal. If you're wondering not only what's screening, but what's worth your time, we've watched and reviewed the day's slate of new titles. It spans superheroes, sublime dramas, documentaries about spectacular desserts, animated sequels, spy films and more, so don't say you don't have anything to see. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSFpK34lfv0 NOMADLAND Frances McDormand is a gift of an actor. Point a camera her way, and a performance so rich that it feels not just believable but tangible floats across the screen. That's true whether she's playing overt or understated characters, or balancing those two extremes. In Fargo, the first film that earned her an Oscar, McDormand is distinctive but grounded, spouting midwestern phrases like "you betcha" but inhabiting her part with texture and sincerity. In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, her next Academy Award-winning role, she's an impassioned mother crusading for justice and vengeance, and she ripples with deep-seated sorrow mixed with anger so fiery that it may as well be burning away her insides. Now, in Nomadland, McDormand feels stripped bare and still a commanding force to be reckoned with. She's tasked with a plucky but struggling part — defiant and determined, too; knocked around by life's ups and downs, noticeably; and, crucially, cognisant that valuing the small pleasures is the hardest but most rewarding feat. It'll earn her another Oscar nomination. It could see her nab a third shiny statuette just three years after her last. Both are highly deserved outcomes because hers is an exceptional performance, and this is 2020's best film. Here, leading a cast that also includes real people experiencing the existence that's fictionalised within the narrative, she plays the widowed, van-dwelling Fern — a woman who takes to the road, and to the nomad life, after the small middle-America spot where she spent her married years turns into a ghost town when the local mine is shuttered due to the global financial crisis. A slab of on-screen text explains her predicament, with the film then jumping into the aftermath. Following her travels over the course of more than a year, this humanist drama serves up an observational portrait of those that society happily overlooks. It's both deeply intimate and almost disarmingly empathetic in the process, as every movie made by Chloe Zhao is. This is only the writer/director's third, slotting in after 2015's Songs My Brothers Taught Me and 2017's The Rider but before 2021's Marvel flick Eternals, but it's a feature of contemplative and authentic insights into the concepts of home, identity and community. Meticulously crafted, shot and performed, it truly sees everyone in its frames, be they fictional or real. Nomandland understands their plights, and ensures its audience understands them as well. It's exquisitely layered, because its protagonist, those around her and their lives earn the same term — and Zhao never forgets that, or lets her viewers either. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dINWTUPkLqs WONDER WOMAN 1984 When it hit cinemas three years ago, the first movie about Princess Diana of Themyscira — also known as Diana Prince — stood out. Even though the DC Extended Universe started five years after the Marvel Cinematic Universe, DC bested its rival by focusing on a female character in its fourth film (for Marvel, it took 21 movies, only achieving the feat with 2019's Captain Marvel). DC didn't waste its opportunity, either. Wonder Woman isn't a mere cookie-cutter superhero flick, just focusing on a character of a different gender. It champions understanding and emotional intelligence, handles its engaging origin story with sincerity and warmth, and unfurls an adventure where both strength and vulnerability exist in tandem. It also relays a fulfilling tale; a sequel was inevitable, but the initial movie didn't just whet the audience's appetite for the next, plus all the other caped crusader films certain to follow. That second effort is now here but, sadly, it doesn't continue its predecessor's best achievements. No matter how much returning director Patty Jenkins and the powers-that-be behind the DCEU hope that Wonder Woman 1984's viewers sport an expression of wonder — and how much they believe that simply making a sequel to their 2017 blockbuster is enough to cause it — the movie doesn't earn much more than a resigned sigh. In Wonder Woman 1984, Diana (Gal Gadot, Justice League) tells everyone again and again that being truthful is far more important than anything else. That, and taking a more-is-more approach, are the feature's main driving forces. Jumping forward almost seven decades within the Wonder Woman films' timeline, Diana has taken up an anthropologist job at the Smithsonian, and turned swinging through malls on her Lasso of Truth to fight crime into her side hustle. But then insecure archaeologist Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig, Where'd You Go, Bernadette) starts working beside her, gets tasked with assessing a mysterious gem, and lets Donald Trump-esque infomercial salesman Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal, The Mandalorian) take the strange object home with him. It's no ordinary rock, however. It grants wishes, so Maxwell wants to take advantage of that power — and, unknowingly, both Diana and Barbara have already uttered their dreams aloud while holding the stone. These fantasies come at a cost, of course, even before Maxwell uses his to try to take over the world. Wonder Woman 1984 doesn't spin the most complicated story, but it's so repetitive and meandering across its 151-minute running time that it's needlessly bulky, muddled and weighed down. It also pushes Gadot to the side far too often; this sequel certainly knows how to trot out well-worn beats packaged as part-upbeat heroism, part-social satire, but it just doesn't realise where its true strengths reside often enough. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uan6MDxf3wU OTTOLENGHI AND THE CAKES OF VERSAILLES Marie Antoinette didn't actually say "let them eat cake", no matter how often the statement is misattributed to the 18th-century royal before her date with the guillotine. But New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art was surely hoping she would've approved of its hedonistic June 2018 food gala, which tied into the venue's Visitors to Versailles exhibition in the same year — and, in line with the place and period under the grill, put decadence on the menu. Overseeing the spread of desserts fit for a queen: renowned Israeli English chef and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi. He didn't make the Feast of Versailles' lavish cakes himself; instead, he trawled Instagram to source and select five pâtissiers known for delicious, innovative and aesthetically appealing wares. He found them, too, enlisting Dominique Ansel, the NYC-based French pastry chef who invented the cronut; Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, the London food artists known for their striking jellies and unique food events; architecturally trained Ukrainian Dinara Kasko, who approaches her desserts with the same design principles; Ghaya Oliveira, an award-winner and veteran at the Michelin-starred Restaurant Daniel; and Singapore's Janice Wong, who aims to turn chocolate into edible art. The exacting theme that views art and history through an untraditional lens, the melding of varying creative arenas, the roll call of significant names in their field, the theatricality on display, the iconic setting — if it all sounds a bit like a culinary version of The Met Gala, that was undoubtedly the intention, too. This was no ordinary serving of sugar. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that, as the venue's fashion-focused event did before it, Feast of Versailles has also earned the documentary treatment. Where The First Monday in May chronicled the preparations for 2015's Met Gala, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles does the same with the quest to recreate the Palace of Versailles' gardens with chocolate and multi-coloured fondant, whip up a tiered mousse cake that resembles the French castle's sculptured detail, and pair them all with swan-topped pastries, wobbling palace-shaped jellies and a cocktail-filled whirlpool fountain. Viewers of cooking-focused reality television will know what's in store. That may not be the comparison one expects with a doco about a Met event, but it fits, with documentarian Laura Gabbert (City of Gold) taking a superficial and straightforward approach. That seems to be what happens in docos about Met events, and it's always noticeable. Accordingly, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles is glossy, gleaming eye candy for those with a sweet tooth. It never feels like a full meal, though. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEUWGWMsMQk HOW TO BE A GOOD WIFE After starring in High Life, Who You Think I Am and The Truth, all in just the past two years, Juliette Binoche adds another eclectic role to a resume that has deserved that term for decades. How to Be a Good Wife takes its radiant star back to 1967, to Alsace in Eastern France, and to a school designed to mould bright-eyed teenage girls into dutiful and subservient future housewives. Binoche's casting is a sign, thankfully. The film starts out following her character, the prim and proper Paulette Van der Beck, as she runs Van der Beck's School of Housekeeping and Good Manners for her husband Robert (François Berléand, Someone, Somewhere). She preaches the seven pillars required to ensure all her pupils fit her ideal vision of womanhood, with her single sister-in-law Gilberte (Yolande Moreau, The Summer House) assisting as the facility's cook, and superstitious nun Marie-Thérèse (Noémie Lvovsky, The End of Love) helping keep the girls in check. Of course, with the school part of Robert's family for decades, it isn't actually Paulette's own picture of feminine perfection that she's espousing. She might not have realised that fact, however, if her current cohort of students — the site's smallest for years, arriving with the 60s in full swing and as protests are beginning to sweep the nation — weren't instantly bristling against the notion that their lives should be spent in service to men. An unexpected tragedy also complicates matters, with an uprising soon threatening not just France in general, but one of the places that has upheld and instilled the patriarchal status quo and the conservative stereotypes that go with it. As directed by Martin Provost (The Midwife), and co-written by the filmmaker with Séverine Werba (Spiral), How to Be a Good Wife flits between playfully satirical and earnestly rousing as it charts Paulette, Gilberte and their students' journey — and yes, the fact that two of the main characters have feminised versions of male names as their own is emblematic of the movie's knowing approach. Binoche is the lynchpin, stepping into Paulette's shoes with sincerity as well as winking, nudging spirit; she's well aware of exactly the kind of woman she's playing, and the attitudes she's parodying as well. But, while the talented actor is posed and poised in a purposeful and often amusing way, the film itself doesn't always strike the same balance. It's easy to smile and internally cheer along with How to Be a Good Wife (and to revel in its period costuming and decor, too), but it's also just as easy to see when and where it overplays its comedic hand. One such example: the film's out-of-left-field climax, which is both glorious and clunky all at once. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A49o54i3OGI END OF THE CENTURY Memories and dreams are our brain's version of time travel; escape into either, and you can relive the past and ponder a possible future without the need for a Delorean or a telephone booth. New York-based Argentinian poet Ocho (Juan Barberini, Penelope) experiences that sensation in End of the Century, a queer romance that takes Weekend's lusty meet-up, combines it with Call Me By Your Name and Monsoon's passion abroad, and turns it into an evocative contemplation of love, sex, connection, choices, and roads both taken and forsaken. After more than ten minutes of dialogue-free, naturalistically lensed footage, watching Ocho rove around Barcelona, check into his holiday rental, sun himself at the beach and notice Javi (Ramon Pujol, Gran Nord), the film jumps into a vacation romance. Ocho and Javi strike a chord quickly, both physically and emotionally, and get deep just as swiftly in their post-coital conversation. To Ocho, there's a familiarity about the situation, as there should be. First-time feature writer/director Lucio Castro then leaps back 20 years earlier — before Ocho was fresh into a break from his partner of two decades, and before Javi had a daughter with his husband of four years — with the two men also crossing paths at the prior time. From the outset, one certainty is apparent: End of the Century favours understatement. That's true in how it unfurls the different parts of its narrative, and how they connect together; in the movie's performances, including from the beguiling Barberini when he's alone and surveying Barcelona; and in the feature's choice to peer on at Ocho and Javi's multi-layered story, and find both intimacy and distance depending on whatever the mood and scene calls for. As a result, it's a film that can seem slight, but also heaves with feeling at every moment. Castro knows the difference between unnecessarily complicating a narrative, and mining a situation's inherent complexities. He puts that awareness to excellent use, and draws viewers further into the movie's tale as a result. And, he benefits from his excellent casting choices — because making a feature that's both stripped bare and has its own authentic twists requires much of the folks within its frames. There's a slipperiness to End of the Century, too, as Ocho's experiences play out in various time periods. As this tender movie moves seamlessly back and forward, the audience is so enraptured with Ocho that they take the emotional journey with him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZgLKjrdnA A CALL TO SPY "I want you in charge of recruiting some ladies," Vera Atkins (Stana Katic, Castle) is told in one of A Call to Spy's early scenes. The film's title makes it plain exactly what her colleague is referring to, and this specific piece of dialogue — and many more like it — demonstrates just how overtly the movie intends to proceed. This isn't a nuanced drama. It's inspired by true stories, but it rarely even flirts with the type of depth and detail that reality serves up. Still, by telling the tales of three women who became British spies in France during World War Two, all as part of Winston Churchill's ongoing effort to use unexpected means within the government's newly created Special Operations Executive to defeat the Nazi regime as it strengthened across Europe, it plunges into an important part of history. This chapter from the not-too-distant past springs from a familiar pile, after all. If you haven't heard of Atkins, Virginia Hall (played by Sarah Megan Thomas, who also penned the screenplay) and Noor Inayat Khan (The Wedding Guest), that's understandable; their lives, like those of many other women who've achieved commendable and crucial feats, haven't received the attention they should. That feeling ripples through A Call to Spy and, while it can't lift this Lydia Dean Pilcher (Radium Girls)-directed movie alone, it definitely leaves an imprint. Initially, Atkins is A Call to Spy's focal point. Charged with enlisting women who are "passionate about stopping Hitler" (another of the movie's needlessly clumsy lines), she finds several. Because she has a Jewish Romanian background, Atkins also receives more scrutiny within her own organisation than she should — an experience shared with Hall, who has a prosthetic leg; and Khan, who is of Indian Muslim heritage; and also heightened because of stereotypical opinions on gender anyway. Pilcher follows her three determined protagonists as they are initiated into their new roles, and into the field, while always viewing the many obstacles in their way. In the process, her film doesn't overcome the usual war-movie tropes that countless others have relied upon over the past 75 years, but it always endeavours to see them through Atkins, Hall and Khan's shared and individual ordeals. Even though it lacks in subtlety, A Call to Spy is nonetheless workmanlike that way, recognising that the stories it's relaying are important and moving enough, and that it can convey plenty by honing in on its characters' professional activities. It helps that Katic, Thomas and Khan all turn in involving performances, although Thomas wrote herself the best role. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V6EXulQHjA THE CROODS: A NEW AGE Cavemen (and women) were people, too, and there was more to their lives than simply dwelling inside rocky crevices. That's an overly simplistic summary of 2013's animated hit The Croods, of course. Intricacy wasn't a big part of this big-screen successor to The Flintstones, though, or its messages of togetherness, seeing past immediate perceptions and rising to face all challenges. The film took a family of neanderthals — including teenage daughter Eep (Emma Stone, Zombieland: Double Tap), her overprotective father Grug (Nicolas Cage, Color Out of Space), far more carefree mother Ugga (Catherine Keener, Kidding), siblings Sandy (debutant Kailey Crawford) and Thunk (Clark Duke, Veronica Mars), and grandmother (Cloris Leachman, Mad About You) — then disrupted their literally sheltered existence. Not only were the titular characters pushed out of their comfort zone, but they were thrust into the orbit of homosapien Guy (Ryan Reynolds, 6 Underground), who Eep quickly fell for with a teen's intensity. Everyone had to adjust, naturally, and an average all-ages friendly comedy ensued. So did big box office numbers, sparking sequel The Croods: A New Age, the return of its predecessor's high-profile voice cast, and a new storyline that stresses the same sentiments. This time around, in a film directed by feature first-timer Joel Crawford, (a storyboard artist on The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, Trolls and The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part), The Croods are well-acquainted with roaming the big, wide, wild and dangerous prehistoric world. But Eep and Guy start thinking about a different kind of life — one that doesn't involve sleeping on the family pile, for starters — so the still controlling Grug tries to find everyone a new permanent home. And he thinks he has done just that in the vast walled-in gardens inhabited by Phil (Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones) and Hope Betterman (Leslie Mann, Blockers) and their daughter Dawn (Kelly Marie Tran, Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker). Alas, this seeming paradise isn't everything that it appears. Once again, this franchise opts for narrative and thematic simplicity and even crudeness, and for a zippy pace and onslaught of colour and movement designed to excite younger viewers. Once more, it's a standard affair all-round, and delivers little other than Cage and Stone's to-type voice work for the adult members of the audience. It's entertaining to hear Cage's voice bellow from Grug, in the same way that it's entertaining to see and/or hear him to anything (like swear in Netflix's upcoming series), but it doesn't help an over-energetic, giddily lively rehash of a past hit exceed its basic template, or do more than merely hit its marks. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in cinemas — or has been throughout the year — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on July 2, July 9, July 16, July 23 and July 30; August 6, August 13, August 20 and August 27; September 3, September 10, September 17 and September 24; October 1, October 8, October 15, October 22 and October 29; and November 5, November 12, November 19 and November 26; and December 3, December 10, and December 17. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as The Personal History of David Copperfield, Waves, The King of Staten Island, Babyteeth, Deerskin, Peninsula, Tenet, Les Misérables, The New Mutants, Bill & Ted Face the Music, The Translators, An American Pickle, The High Note, On the Rocks, The Trial of the Chicago 7, Antebellum, Miss Juneteenth, Savage, I Am Greta, Rebecca, Kajillionaire, Baby Done, Corpus Christi, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, The Craft: Legacy, Radioactive, Brazen Hussies, Freaky, Mank, Monsoon, Ellie and Abbie (and Ellie's Dead Aunt), American Utopia, Possessor, Misbehaviour, Happiest Season, The Prom, Sound of Metal, The Witches, The Midnight Sky and The Furnace.
To the uninitiated, the name Zymurgy might appear a little daunting. But Footscray's newest watering hole is anything but. In fact, if you've got a thing for craft booze, innovative eats cooked over charcoal and sun-drenched beer gardens, you'll want to waste zero time getting acquainted. Quietly opening the doors in late November, Zymurgy — pronounced 'zye-mur-jee', we know you were wondering — is a joint venture between Hop Nation Brewing Co owners Sam Hambour and Duncan Gibson and Julian Hills (chef-founder of Yarraville fine diner Navi). Hidden behind a former Sri Lankan restaurant on Barkly Street, the al fresco site is both kid and dog-friendly, boasting shady umbrellas, an outdoor bar and an offering akin to an elevated backyard barbecue. The name Zymurgy references the chemistry behind fermentation, which is an art that's celebrated right throughout both the food and drink offering. Hills is cooking with wood and charcoal, but turning the familiar barbecue shtick on its head — lending an experimental touch to dishes like grilled pretzel with smoked wagyu butter ($8), asparagus matched with a pepita crumble ($10) and brown butter emulsion and a riff on the reuben sandwich crafted with ox tongue ($17). Elements like miso aioli, sourdough and koji fly the ferment flag too, while the grill is turning out plates like charcoal-crusted pork scotch ($25) teamed with pickled elderflower and salted cherries; plus a warm smoked rainbow trout ($18) matched with potato and horseradish. The liquid side of things leans just as crafty, headlined by a ten-strong tap lineup of Hop Nation brews. Enjoy both familiar drops — think, the J Juice NEIPA and The Heart pale ale — and small-batch creations like the Candyland milkshake hazy IPA, alongside a tight rotation of tap wines and cocktails. If you'd rather crack open a bottle of something to share in the sun, you'll also find a local-leaning range of experimental wines, including releases from Hambour and Gibson's own vinous project Site Wine. Zymurgy will be sticking around in its current format until at least the end of the year, with some evolutions and expansions planned for 2021.
Most people don't imagine themselves making a career out of voicing Disney villains — but, of course, Jemaine Clement isn't most people. So did he see a Disney villain in his destiny? "If I was honest, I'd probably say yes," the comedian, actor and one half of Flight of the Conchords offers. And, lending his distinctive tones to the singing, scurrying character of Tamatoa in Disney's new film Moana, he has well and truly fulfilled that prophecy. Dwelling deep under the sea in the realm of monsters, Tamatoa is a swift-talking 50-foot crab with a fondness for treasure and a David Bowie-esque musical number in which he somewhat joyfully, somewhat menacingly declares: "I'd rather be shiny". He's also one of the formidable forces standing in the way of Moana's titular heroine (newcomer Auli'i Cravalho) as she explores the ocean to save her island-dwelling people, all with a shapeshifting demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) reluctantly by her side. Yes, Clement voicing a cheeky character and singing a glam rock track is the stuff that dreams are made of, and with his frequent collaborator and What We Do in the Shadows co-scribe and co-director Taika Waititi taking a first pass at Moana's screenplay — along with former Flight of the Conchords opening act and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda co-writing the film's original music — it just gets better. With Moana now in Australian cinemas, we spoke with Clement about working on Disney's Polynesian musical, voicing giant characters and channelling his inner Bowie. ON GETTING INVOLVED WITH MOANA Concrete Playground: How did you get involved with Moana? Jemaine Clement: A friend of mine, Taika Waititi, who I work with a lot, was one of the writers. And when he was doing his draft of the film, he told me that Disney, who I've worked with a couple of times before, wanted me to do something in it. It's a Polynesian story and they've gone for a mostly Polynesian cast — and I'm part Maori, so I think it was pretty natural. And I also, I've played a lot of animated villains. So who else would you get? ON PLAYING A LIGHT-FINGERED, SELF-ABSORBED, 50-FOOT CRAB CP: How did you go getting into character for the role of 50-foot crab Tamatoa? JC: Well, I guess I'm not 50 foot — I'm only just approximately six foot, just over. So I had to work on that. It's the second 50-foot character I've played this year. In The BFG, I was also 50-foot. So I guess I must sound pretty big. CP: People are obviously getting that idea from listening to you. JC: "How this big is this guy? He sounds huge." CP: And then they meet you in person, and they realise… JC: "Oh no, he's only about six foot." ON FILLING HIS RESUME WITH ANIMATED VILLAINS CP: You recently played Fleshlumpeater in The BFG — you've got quite the CV when it comes to playing animated villains now. JC: I hope I can get some use out of that. Maybe just telling my son it's bedtime. I'll do the voice. I always was interested in animation, that was the first job I ever wanted to do. When I was five, I remember seeing a thing on The Wonderful World of Disney about the animation process and I wanted to do that as a first job — I aspired to be an animator. And I imagined that I'd do all the parts, you know, like write it, voice it, animate it, — but I haven't gotten to the other two. ON CHANNELLING DAVID BOWIE — AGAIN CP: Between Flight of the Conchords and Moana, your Bowie impression is getting a good workout too. JC: I don't even think my impression's that good. But it stuck with people. In the TV show [Flight of the Conchords]...my comedy partner is having dreams about David Bowie, so I play David Bowie. But I wasn't supposed to play him. It was very last minute that I ended up playing that character, and I've been asked to do it a few times now. CP: You originally tried to get David Bowie to play himself? JC: We did, yeah. But I think that would've been nerve-wracking. I mean, it would've been amazing as well, but, you know. ON REUNITING WITH LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA CP: How was it working with Moana songwriter and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda again? JC: I'd remembered Freestyle Love Supreme [Lin-Manuel Miranda's hip hop comedy troupe], and I'd even seen them again not that long ago — and I hadn't connected him with the guy I had met [previously]. I didn't realise it was the same person until he said, "Oh we met. We met, we were doing that gig in 2004/2005". And yeah, suddenly it came back. Whoa. I've never seen any musical show have the reaction that Hamilton has. He deserves that. He's very clever, bright, and very talented. Moana is in Australian cinemas now. Read our review here.
Sophisticated two-storey cafe Norman has made its home in the heart of South Yarra, decked out in a vision of marble, brushed brass and warm timber joinery. With its breezy blue tones and abundance of greenery, the Toorak Road venue is something of an oasis, with space for 100 diners inside and more within the sunny, white-fenced openair seating area on Cunningham Street. With owners Andrew Simmonds (The Wolf Windsor) and Paul Lange at the helm, and Matt Boylan (Fourth Chapter) heading up the kitchen, it's promising a mix of creative fare and modern cafe classics to tempt all palates. [caption id="attachment_798704" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Simon Shiff[/caption] The all-day breakfast menu might see you feasting on familiar favourites like an acai bowl ($17), the chilli scramble on brioche ($18), and french toast teamed with caramelised banana and a cherry glaze ($22). Or, shake things up with the likes of zucchini and corn waffles ($21), and coyo-topped crumpets finished with hibiscus-poached pear ($16). Lunchtime offers up another mixed bag of treats, starring plates like the char siu bao ($22), popcorn cauliflower tacos served with kimchi mayo ($19), and a loaded vegan buddha bowl ($18). To match, there's coffee by Coburg North roasters Inglewood, and a lineup of smoothies and shakes (all $9) that runs from the virtuous (a green smoothie) to the decadent (we're talking a creamy chocolate thickshake). Otherwise, embrace the summer vibes and hit the bar cart by the front door for something boozy — it's slinging spritzes, seasonal cocktails and ice-cold Peroni cans to suit those balmy afternoons. Images: Simon Shiff
Nothing counteracts Melbourne's icy winter weather like drinking a glass of red or a negroni by a roaring open fire. But most pubs — and the Metropolitan Fire Brigade — don't take too kindly to people lighting up their furniture, so you'll have to stick to drinking dens with built-in fireplaces. And we've rounded up some of Melbourne's toastiest options. These venues will let you fill your belly and defrost your toes by a roaring fire — and help you avoid those pesky arson charges. There are comfy wine bars, craft beer pubs, a speakeasy-style spot and a microbrewery, all of which have at least one fireplace for you to settle in next to. Trust us, cosy up beside one of these beauties and winter won't seem so dreary after all. Recommended reads: The Best Restaurants in Melbourne The Best Cafes in Melbourne The Best Pubs in Melbourne The Best Wine Bars in Melbourne
On your next getaway in southeast Queensland, head up in the world, then stay there. Located 45 minutes out of the Gold Coast in the Scenic Rim region — which Lonely Planet named one of the best places in the world to visit in 2022 — Tamborine Mountain is the area's lofty tree-change go-to. From December 2024, the scenic site will also be home to a new boutique motel. The latest accommodation option from the team behind Cassis Red Hill in Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, The Tamborine boasts 23 rooms in its 80s-style abode, which takes its design cues from haciendas. When you're getting cosy, you'll be doing so in king-sized beds — and with mountain views no matter which room you're in, including from either a private balcony or a terrace. If you're keen for a splash as well, there's a heated mineral pool and spa. The Tamborine will also include a lounge and bar area, where complimentary continental breakfast is served each morning, hosted aperitifs are on the menu each afternoon, and drinks and bar snacks can be ordered to enjoy poolside. The drinks focus: locally sourced sips. But if you're eager to use the motel as a base to explore the rest of the mountain, the crew here understand — and have a curated array of experiences beyond the site's doors to suggest. "Whether it be immersing oneself in nature, enjoying a tipple at one of the many and emerging microbreweries and distilleries, or exploring the artisan wares the mountain is famous for, The Tamborine will be the perfect escape for our guests. We want guests leaving feeling enriched and connected, and eager to return," advised co-owner Nina Aberdeen. "We are beyond excited to open the doors to The Tamborine and share this special place with our guests. The hotel is designed to offer a seamless connection between our guests, our hosts, the natural surrounds and the local community," added co-owner Gina McNamara. "Every detail has been crafted to ensure that when guests arrive, they feel a deep sense of relaxation and belonging. We can't wait to see them experience the stunning views, unwind by the pool and explore everything the Scenic Rim has to offer." Find The Tamborine at 99 Alpine Terrace, Tamborine Mountain, Queensland, from early December 2024. Head to the motel's website for bookings and further details.
Tucked inside the entrance to Port Phillip Bay on the Bellarine Peninsula are the seaside towns of Queenscliff and Point Lonsdale — just a 90-minute drive southwest of Melbourne. Queenscliff is home to grand 19th-century architecture, old-fashioned piers, sandy stretches and sweeping water views, while Point Lonsdale is where the calm waters of Port Phillip Bay meet the wild Bass Strait. In just one weekend, you can tour one of Australia's few remaining lighthouses with a light keeper, stroll along the rocky coast, ride an old steam train (possibly with live blues music), see art in a church and eat local seafood by the water. We've handpicked some of the best spots to eat, stay and play in the area. [caption id="attachment_1024459" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Image credit: Supplied[/caption] Do Start with an art fix at one of many local galleries. For contemporary works, visit Salt and Seaview Gallery. Then, at Queenscliff Gallery, housed in an old church, you'll find paintings, sculptures, wood engravings and linocuts from Australian artists. There are plenty more arts and crafts, plus local produce at Point Lonsdale Market, held every second Sunday of the month. A trip to Queenscliff without a ride on one of Bellarine Railway's steam trains would be remiss. Take a 45-minute trip along Swan Bay or a three-hour return journey to Drysdale, or, on a Saturday night, climb aboard the Blues Train for live music. Another place to step back in time is Point Lonsdale Lighthouse, one of the only lighthouses in Australia that still has a lightkeeper. On a half-hour tour, you'll hear all about the lighthouse's history and climb up the steep, spiral staircase to take in panoramic views. Plus, there's a maritime museum and an escape room. And, for even more history and views, you can swing by Fort Queenscliff. [caption id="attachment_1024461" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Image credit: Visit Victoria [/caption] Once you've immersed yourself in the Bellarine's art and history, you'll be ready to get outdoors. Stretch your legs on a walking trail, be it a 500-metre-long stroll through foreshore reserve on the Ferry to Pier Trail, a 2.3-kilometre-long stride along Point Lonsdale Promenade, or the more adventurous Lovers Walk among coastal woodland. Then, jump on a cycling tour to go food and wine tasting, before jumping into the sea to swim with wild dolphins. Eat and Drink A spectacular brekkie or lunch by the water is on the cards at 360Q. Perched on Queenscliff Harbour in a glass-walled building, this one's big with locals and visitors alike. Give yourself a kick-start first thing with the ricotta hotcakes piled with berries and vanilla ice cream. Then, head back later for a two- or three-course feast, starring coconut-lime kingfish ceviche, lemon pepper calamari, flash-fried baby snapper with herby salad, and more. Just 300 metres away, on the beachfront, you'll find Tarra. Here, the seasonal menu offers share plates and classics, from braised duck leg with quince and mustard, to linguine marinara powered by local seafood. And, 15 minutes' drive north, there's Basil's Farm, a dreamy rural property with a restaurant serving classics like lamb rump, chicken ballotine and pork belly alongside veggies grown in the kitchen garden. [caption id="attachment_1024468" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Image credit: C McConville[/caption] Pre- or post-dinner drinks should start at a friendly local pub, like the newly renovated Esplanade — or, for a fancier tipple, head to the grand, Paris-inspired cocktail lounge at The Royal. Is wine your thing? Drop by Noble Rot Wine Store and Bar, where owner Jordan Berry will talk you through his extensive selection of local and international drops. [caption id="attachment_722223" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Nikola Ramsay[/caption] Stay Ready to dissolve into some cool but cosy bliss? Book in at Lon Retreat and Spa. Your unique, nature-inspired suite comes on 200 acres of land surrounded by magnificent coastal views. At the onsite spa, soak in a hot tub filled with healing mineral waters while gazing at the ocean — then relax into a ritual, be it the 'Body Odyssey' or the 'Detox and Revival'. Alternatively, get snug at The Nest, a series of architect-designed, solar-powered pods by the water, each with a king-sized bed, private deck and an outdoor spa bath. To transport yourself to the 19th century in period drama-worthy guesthouse, try Benambra, Seaview House and Point Lonsdale Guesthouse. Or for a home all to yourself, book the Japanese-influenced Swans' Reach, the magical Lonsdale Palms or this 100-year-old barn. Written in partnership with the Borough of Queenscliffe, Tourism Greater Geelong and The Bellarine. To discover even more, head to the Visit Geelong Bellarine website. Top image: Queenscliff Wharf, courtesy of Visit Victoria.
He was one of the youngest cast members in Saturday Night Live's history. During his eight-season run on the iconic US sketch-comedy series, he riffed on his own life aplenty, then did the same in The King of Staten Island on the big screen, plus in streaming series Bupkis. If you've caught Pete Davidson's comedy specials, you'll know that the same applies when he's onstage, too — which Australian audiences can witness live in September and October 2025. Davidson has just locked in an Aussie leg on his latest stand-up tour, playing three cities: Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. The whirlwind trip will see him perform three gigs three nights in a row, kicking off at Riverside Theatre in the Western Australian capital on Monday, September 29. Next stop: Palais Theatre in Victoria's counterpart on Tuesday, September 30, then Enmore Theatre in the Harbour City on Wednesday, October 1. [caption id="attachment_776175" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The King of Staten Island © 2020 UNIVERSAL STUDIOS. All Rights Reserved.[/caption] Beyond SNL and otherwise fictionalising his own experiences in cinemas and on TV — and beyond his Pete Davidson: SMD, Pete Davidson: Alive From New York and Pete Davidson: Turbo Fonzarelli specials as well — Davidson has rarely been far from screens over the past decade. Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Trainwreck, Big Time Adolescence, The Suicide Squad, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Fast X, Dumb Money: they're all on his resume. Davidson's Aussie dates come just after his latest film, heist comedy The Pickup co-starring Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F), drops on Prime Video in early August. [caption id="attachment_897860" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Bupkis, Heidi Gutman/Peacock[/caption] He also has the Australian-shot Wizards!, which is directed by Animal Kingdom's David Michôd and co-stars Orlando Bloom (Deep Cover) on its way to the screen. Similarly in the works for Davidson: How to Rob a Bank, the latest film from Atomic Blonde, Bullet Train and The Fall Guy director David Leitch, which will release in 2026. Pete Davidson 2025 Australian Tour Dates Monday, September 29 — Riverside Theatre, Perth Tuesday, September 30 — Palais Theatre, Melbourne Wednesday, October 1 — Enmore Theatre, Sydney Pete Davidson is touring Australia in September and October 2025, with presale tickets available from 10am local time on Thursday, July 31 and general tickets from 10am on Friday, August 1. Head to the tour website for more details.
When a major arts festival drops its latest program, as Sydney Festival just has for its massive 2023 event, it's easy to start playing the numbers game. The figures are impressive, with the event's second year under Artistic Director Olivia Ansell boasting 748 performances across 54 venues. The lineup also spans more than 100 unique events, 26 of which won't cost attendees a thing. And, there'll be 18 world premieres and 14 Australian exclusives — aka shows that you'll need to travel to Sydney to see if you don't live there, because they won't pop up elsewhere. All of these stats do indeed tell a story, conveying how widely the festival crew has scoured for top-notch shows; how jam-packed the resulting calendar of performances, gigs and exhibitions is; and how busy the 25 days from Thursday, January 5–Sunday, January 29 are going to prove. And, they help express the most important message there is for audiences: if you're looking for not just a culture fix but to bathe in art, theatre, music and all-round exciting festivities for weeks on end all around Sydney at the start of 2023, then you'd best block out your diary now. There's no shortage of highlights in the program, no matter what kind of cultural experience take your fancy. Here's perhaps the most surprising one: turning Sydney Town Hall into a beach courtesy of 26 tonnes of sand. No, you won't be able to swim there — but you can watch Lithuanian opera Sun & Sea, which won the Venice Biennale's Golden Lion in 2019, stage its sandy work in the round. The end result explores the climate emergency, is certain to make for a memorable show, and is one of Sydney Festival's Australian exclusives. Also unlikely to be forgotten quickly: the Australian premiere of Frida Kahlo: Life of an Icon, a multi-sensory art experience dedicated to the iconic Mexican painter. Think: the immersive Vincent van Gogh showcase that's being doing the rounds, or the new Monet one headed to Melbourne, but all about the one and only Kahlo. Hailing from Spanish digital arts company Layers of Reality, alongside the Frida Kahlo Corporation, it'll take over the Cutaway with holography, 360-degree projections and live performances of traditional Mexican music, as well as a virtual-reality system that'll let you step inside the artist's iconic pieces. [caption id="attachment_874188" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jacquie Manning[/caption] Other standouts include Bonobo hitting the decks at the Masonic Centre, and turning its banquet hall into a unique dance party; performance piece In Chamber, which literally takes place in a safe in the basement of the Margot Kimpton Hotel; ROOM, the latest surreal theatre piece by James Thiérrée; and Tracker, which sees choreographer-director Daniel Riley combine dance, ceremony and text. Or, there's also 16 days of live music inside the 70s-era underground bar beneath Martin Place's Harry Seidler-designed Commercial Travellers' Association building (yes, the mushroom building). That subterranean space remains unrenovated, so expect The Weary Traveller, as the fest-within-the-fest is called, to serve up a huge blast from the past (plus tunes by Alice Skye, Astral People, Automatic, June Jones, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Lil Silva, Party Dozen, Tom Snowdon, Moktar, Two Birds with Bayand, Coloured Stone, HTRK and Potion). In the same structure, the 28-room hotel itself is being taken over by American artist Kelsey Lu. You'll want to check in for this one, and stay the evening — because In The Lucid: A Dream Portal to Awakening is an eight-hour audio journey. [caption id="attachment_874185" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Peter Wallis[/caption] Heartbreak High fans will want to catch Blue, and fans of homegrown theatre as well — it stars and has been written by Thomas Weatherall, and will enjoy its world premiere at Sydney Festival. Or, for something completely different, a Shinjuku-inspired magic bar will pop up at Darling Harbour, transporting you to Tokyo if you haven't already made Japan holiday plans now that the country has reopened its borders. The list goes on, including Bloodlines, an exhibition paying tribute to artists lost to HIV/AIDS; The Party, which'll celebrate Sydney's LGBTQIA+ nightlife and party culture between 1973–2002; and Retrosweat hosting a big 80s pool party that, yes, will involve aqua aerobics. Or, there's flamenco dancer Sara Bara in Alma at the Sydney Opera House; Dead Puppet Society and Legs On The Wall's take on the Trojan war in Holding Achilles; drag brunch show Smashed: The Brunch Party hosted by Victoria Falcone; and Prinnie Stevens singing tunes by superstars like Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Whitney Houston and Beyoncé. Plus, Sydney Symphony Orchestra will celebrate Lunar New Year outdoors at Parramatta Park; Polar Force at Carriageworks explores the extremes of ice and wind by pairing Antarctic field recordings with live industrial percussion; and Restless Dance Theatre's dance piece Guttered is set in a real-life bowling alley. And, Lego lovers can check out a new Brickwrecks exhibition, which recreates shipwrecks with the plastic bricks. Also, ENESS, who was behind the 2022 fest's Airship Orchestra, is back with Cupid's Koi Garden — which'll give Tumbalong Park a six-metre-tall immersive water-play park right in the middle of summer. [caption id="attachment_874184" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sam Roberts Photography[/caption] Sydney Festival 2023 runs from Thursday, January 5–Sunday, January 29 at venues across the city. For further details and to buy tickets, visit the Sydney Festival website. Tickets go on sale at 9am on Wednesday, October 19. Top image: Andrej Vasilenko.
Australia's leading streetball tournament is back again for 2025, taking over St Kilda's Peanut Farm Reserve from Friday, February 7–Sunday, February 9. Now in its 13th year, Summer Jam has grown from humble beginnings into a globally recognised community event, attracting top players from across Australia and international teams from Japan and New Zealand. With the coveted Streetball Champions title and a $20,000 prize on the line once again this year, this high-stakes tournament has firmly established itself as one of the world's marquee streetball events. The day will include five-on-five championships, a wheelchair championship and a slam dunk competition. But it's not only about watching these games. For spectators, there's plenty more in store — think live music and DJ sets, food trucks, streetwear pop-up shops, openair bars, a barbershop and tattoo parlour, and a few NBA 2K gaming stations.
Heading to an outdoor music festival normally means hoping for fine and sunny outdoor weather. At Snow Machine, you'll be praying for one thing: yes, snow. Because spending a day or several dancing to tunes in the open air isn't solely synonymous with summer, this event embraces its wintry setup, combining live music with a ski trip — as Japan first experienced in 2020, and New Zealand has been enjoying since 2022. The Japanese fest takes place for 2025 in March, but you'll want to mark September in your calendar if you're keen on the Aotearoa event. The hottest festival for the colder months is unleashing its avalanche of music and adventure at two mountain-topping NZ ski resorts between Tuesday, September 9–Sunday, September 14 this year. The snow-filled attraction has also just dropped its impressive lineup. On the Thursday night, Claptone and Hot Dub Time Machine will be headlining. On the Friday, Amyl and The Sniffers are playing an exclusive New Zealand show, with Mallrat also on the bill. Come Saturday, Netsky and Luude are doing the honours. Also helping to give Snow Machine's NZ winter wonderland a thumping soundtrack across the fest: Argonaut, Baby J, Ben Silver, Beverly Kills, Body Ocean, Boogs, Brian Fantana and Casey Leaver — plus Dannika Peach, Jimi The Kween, Lenni Vibe, Mell Hall, Montel2099, Odd Mob. And, then there's Bribera, Savage, Spacey Space, T-Rek and What So Not. As the hefty roster of talent demonstrates, attendees are in for a helluva few days, including hitting the slopes and partying at après ski events on both Coronet Peak and The Remarkables. How much dancing, skiing and sipping you want to do is up to you — as is how many other adventurous activities you'd like to add to your itinerary, such as heli-skiing, jet boating, bungy jumping, canyon swinging and skydiving. Snow Machine's official welcome party is also on the agenda again, taking place at AJ Hackett Bungy Kawarau Bridge. So is another annual highlight: the Polar Bare, which endeavours to set a world record for the most amount of people heading down the slopes their swimwear. Alongside the wintry backdrop and the fun that comes with it, one of the things that sets Snow Machine apart from other music fests is being able to book your entire getaway with your ticket. Packages span both five and seven nights of accommodation, and include a four-day festival ticket, plus multi-day ski pass. If you'd rather make your own way or pass on the skiing, there are ticket-only options — and VIP packages if you really want to do it in style. Snow Machine 2025 Lineup Amyl and The Sniffers Argonaut Baby J Ben Silver Beverly Kills Body Ocean Boogs Brian Fantana Casey Leaver Claptone Dannika Peach Hot Dub Time Machine Jimi The Kween Lenni Vibe Luude Mallrat Mell Hall Montel2099 Netsky Odd Mob Bribera Savage Spacey Space T-Rek What So Not Plus stage takeovers from: Poof Doof Ski Club Thicks as Thieves Revolver Sundays Electric Rush Snow Machine 2025 takes place from Tuesday, September 9–Sunday, September 14 in Queenstown, New Zealand. Presale tickets go on sale on from 1pm AEDT / 12pm AEST / 3pm NZDT on Monday, February 24, 2025, with general tickets available from 1pm AEDT / 12pm AEST / 3pm NZDT on Tuesday, February 25, 2025. For more information, visit the festival's website. Images: Han Lowther / Amee Freeman / Luke O'Keefe.
Before the pandemic, when a new-release movie started playing in cinemas, audiences couldn't watch it on streaming, video on demand, DVD or blu-ray for a few months. But with the past few years forcing film industry to make quite a few changes — widespread movie theatre closures will do that, and so will plenty of people staying home because they aren't well — that's no longer always the case. Maybe you haven't had time to make it to your local cinema lately. Perhaps you've been under the weather. Given the hefty amount of titles now releasing each week, maybe you simply missed something. Film distributors have been fast-tracking some of their new releases from cinemas to streaming recently — movies that might still be playing in theatres in some parts of the country, too. In preparation for your next couch session, here are nine that you can watch right now at home. Longlegs Faces carve deep impressions in Longlegs, in both their presence and their absence. As Agent Lee Harker, Maika Monroe (God Is a Bullet) does so with a clenched jaw, permanently on-edge eyes and mere bursts of words, aka the guise of a woman who'll never stop being vigilant in every moment but doesn't always know exactly why. As the movie's namesake, as announced in the opening credits, Nicolas Cage (Dream Scenario) has audiences straining to catch whatever glimpse they can whenever they can — and when a full look comes, it's scorching and haunting in tandem in the stare alone. Blair Underwood (Origin) gives Harker's boss Carter a weary gaze, but with fully rounded life experience beyond his FBI gig evident behind it. Alicia Witt (Switch Up) plays Ruth Harker, mother to Lee, as distance and struggle personified. As she relays a tale as survivor Carrie Anne Camera, Kiernan Shipka (Twisters) demonstrates how disconnected a grim reality can be from a dream. For his fourth feature following 2015's The Blackcoat's Daughter, 2016's I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and 2020's Gretel & Hansel — the first of which also starred Shipka — writer/director Osgood Perkins has clearly assembled an excellent cast for his unease-dripping, get-under-your-skin, torment-your-nightmares serial-killer thriller. Another face leaves an imprint beyond his actors, however. Bill Clinton's portrait assists with setting the scene as it adorns bureau offices, with the majority of the movie taking place in the 90s. Think the FBI and three decades back, and there's no lack of pop-culture touchstones. The Silence of the Lambs is one. Monroe's portrayal as a newly minted operative tracking a murderer is every bit as layered, complex and unforgettable — and awards-worthy — as Jodie Foster's (True Detective: Night Country) Oscar-winning performance was. Longlegs streams via Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Maika Monroe and Osgood Perkins. MaXXXine As played as an unrelenting force by Mia Goth (Infinity Pool), even when slasher killers have other plans, Maxine Minx was always going to go big and never go home. To wrap up the horror trilogy with the ambitious actor at its centre (when Goth hasn't also been playing Pearl, its other protagonist, as both an elderly and a younger woman), MaXXXine shoots for the stars as well, including in shifting to new surroundings. Gone is the New Zealand-standing-in-for-Texas production base of X and its prequel Pearl. Absent is the claustrophobic feel of mainly making one spot the franchise's location, whether it was taking place in the 70s in its first entry or in the 1910s in its second. This Los Angeles-set leap to 1985 sparkles with the same scorching drive and determination as its titular figure — and Minx, Goth, writer/director Ti West (Them) and MaXXXine alike won't accept a life, or a swansong instalment in one of the best sagas in the genre in the 2020s, that they do not deserve. From its debut with 2022's X, which turned a porn shoot in a remote farmhouse into a bloody stalking ground, West's big-screen series has always understood that sex and violence so often intersect in the arena that it's paying tribute to: moving pictures. X, Pearl and now MaXXXine also see how censors and the pearl-clutching equate one with the other. Equally, these pictures glean how a woman with a libidinous appetite — or simply the craving to succeed and the unwillingness to settle — can be deemed a larger threat to morality than a murderer. They also spy what a battle it too frequently is for women to chart their own path free of society's expectations, no matter their aspirations. West not only continues splattering these ideas through the Elizabeth Debicki (The Crown)- and Kevin Bacon (Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F)-co-starring MaXXXine, but layering them, plus stacking his latest unpackings of them with X and Pearl. The true target in his current sights, however: what it just might cost to make it in a realm as ruthless and ravenous as stardom. MaXXXine streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Elizabeth Debicki and Kevin Bacon. The Bikeriders Can a dream ever exist for more than a fleeting moment? That isn't just a question for oneirology, the field of psychology focused on studying the involuntary visions of our slumbers, but also applies whenever tales of motorcycle clubs rev across the screen. Stories of hitting the open road on two wheels, finding camaraderie and community in a group of likeminded outsiders, and perhaps discovering a purpose along the way are stories of chasing dreams — of freedom, of belonging, of mattering, of meaning in a world seemingly so devoid of it if you don't fit in the traditional sense. So it was in TV series Sons of Anarchy and in Australian film 1%, two titles set within the roar and rush of biker gangs in recent years. So it was in The Wild One, 1953's Marlon Brando-starring classic that immortalised the query "what are you rebelling against?" and the reply "whaddaya got?". Now, so it equally proves in The Bikeriders, about a 60s and 70s leather- and denim-wearing, motorbike-riding crew formed after infatuation got motors runnin' when founder Johnny (Tom Hardy, Venom: Let There Be Carnage) saw The Wild One on TV. A family man, Johnny has a dream for the Vandals MC out of America's midwest — and so does Benny (Austin Butler, Dune: Part Two), the closest thing that the club has to a spirit animal. The latter is introduced alone at a bar wearing his colours, refusing to take them off even when violence springs at the hands of unwelcoming patrons. He won't be tamed, the sixth feature from writer/director Jeff Nichols after Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, Mud, Midnight Special and Loving establishes early. He won't be anyone but his smouldering, swaggering, rebel-without-a-cause self, either. Courtesy of the Vandals, he not only has the space to stand firm, but the assurance. He's a lone wolf-type, but knows that he has the devoted backing of the pack anyway. Johnny has fashioned the gang as a tribe and a place to call home for those who can't locate it elsewhere, and is open about how his fellow bikers need Benny — and how he does as well — to look up to. The Bikeriders streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Austin Butler. Twisters A cinema plays a key part in Twisters. Frankenstein flickers across its screen, but mother nature proves not only more of a monster, but also an audience member worse than folks who can't manage to spend two hours in a darkened room without their phones. There's a knowing air to featuring a picture palace in this disaster-flick sequel from Minari director Lee Isaac Chung and The Boys in the Boat screenwriter Mark L Smith, reminding viewers how deeply this genre and this format are linked. Almost three decades ago, as co-penned by Michael Crichton fresh off Jurassic Park's mammoth success, 1996's Twister packed movie theatres worldwide to the tune of nearly half-a-billion dollars, doing so with a spectacle. No matter if its sequel reaches the same heights at the box office globally, it too delivers better-on-the-big-screen sights, chief among them Chung and cinematographer Dan Mindel's (Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker) naturalistic imagery. For those unaware going in that the filmmaker behind six-time Oscar contender Minari — a helmer who received a Best Director Academy Award nomination for his gorgeous and heartfelt work, in fact — is also steering Twisters, it isn't hard to guess from its look, including in its opening moments alone. The movie begins with storm chasers doing what they enthusiastically do. It also kicks off with a horror turn of events thanks to a tornado that exceeds their expectations, and with the crew's survivors afterwards struggling with trauma that'll later drive them forward. In these scenes and beyond, this isn't a picture of visual gloss and sheen, as witnessed right down to its lighting. Twisters remains polished, of course. It also can't tell its tale without CGI. But a choice as pivotal as valuing a genuine aesthetic tone over a gleaming one has a massive impact. Twisters streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, Anthony Ramos and Lee Isaac Chung. Inside Out 2 They're basic: joy, sadness, fear, disgust and anger, that is, the five emotions that swirled inside human heads in Pixar's 2015 hit Inside Out. In nine-years-later follow-up Inside Out 2, that quintet of feelings isn't enough to cope with being a teenager, which is where anxiety, envy, ennui and embarrassment come in. The newcomers arrive with the onset of puberty, literally overnight. They have no time for simple happiness; they've levelled up some of the emotions adjacent to sorrow, fright, dismay and fury, too. Although its now 13-year-old protagonist Riley Andersen (Kensington Tallman, Summer Camp) isn't actively choosing how to manage her feelings because her feelings themselves are doing that for her, Inside Out was always an all-ages ode to mindfulness, as is its sequel — and discovering how to accept and acknowledge apprehension, unease and nerves is here, like in life, a complicated balancing act. In the Inside Out world, feelings are characters, led in Riley's noggin by the radiant Joy — who, with Amy Poehler (Moxie) shining with Leslie Knope-esque positivity in the voice-acting part, is one of Pixar's best-ever cast figures. In an ideal inner world, they all get along. But workplace comedy-style, getting viewers thinking about Parks and Recreation again, that's never the case. Joy, Sadness (Phyllis Smith, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar), Fear (Tony Hale, Quiz Lady), Disgust (Liza Lapira, The Equalizer) and Anger (Lewis Black, The Last Laugh) have their routine down pat when Inside Out 2 kicks off. They can handle everything from high-stakes hockey games, complete with a stint in the sin bin, through to learning that Riley's best friends Grace (Grace Lu, Fight Krewe) and Bree (debutant Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) will be going to a different high school. Then their status quo is upended by the Inside Out equivalent of new colleagues storming in. Inside Out 2 streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. A Quiet Place: Day One There seems little that could be utopian about an alien invasion film where people are picked off by hulking, spider-limbed, lightning-fast, armour-clad creatures who punish every sound with almost-instant death, but prequel A Quiet Place: Day One makes the opening status quo of horror franchise-starter A Quiet Place look positively idyllic. If you're forced to try to survive an extra-terrestrial attack, where better to be than at your well-appointed farmland home with your family, as the John Krasinski (IF)-helmed and -starring 2018 feature depicted? Most folks, including the third movie in the saga's protagonist Samira (Lupita Nyong'o, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), a terminal cancer patient with just a service cat called Frodo left as kin, can only dream of being that lucky — not that there's much time for fantasising about a better way to be conquered by otherworldly monsters when what looks like meteors start crashing down to earth. Samira is in hospice care as the A Quiet Place big-screen series, which also spans 2021 release A Quiet Place Part II, steps back to the moment that its apocalyptic scenario begins in New York. She hugs her black-and-white feline companion like letting go would untether her from life even before existence as the planet knows it changes forever — when she's sharing surly poems among other patients, being convinced to attend a group excursion to see a marionette show and, when the promise of pizza on the way home is nixed, telling kindly nurse Reuben (Alex Wolff, Oppenheimer) that he's not actually her friend. Written and directed by Pig filmmaker Michael Sarnoski, A Quiet Place: Day One explores the ground-zero experience for someone who feels so alone in this world and connected only to her devoted pet, and also answers a question: how do those on more than two feet react when the worst that humans can imagine occurs? A Quiet Place: Day One streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. In a Violent Nature Again and again, fans of slasher films have seen the one about the unhinged murderer butchering teen victims. They've seen more than one, in fact. It's a horror convention: take a bunch of young adults, then dispense with them person by person as a killer works through childhood trauma. Penning and helming his first feature — his short Z Is for Zygote was included in The ABCs of Death 2, and he did special effects work on Psycho Goreman, too — writer/director Chris Nash knows the basics of his chosen genre as much as any other diehard viewer. He's just as aware of the great, and greatly influential, flicks gone by such as Halloween and Friday the 13th. He's well-versed in their tropes in storytelling and in form alike. Making his full-length debut with a picture called In a Violent Nature, he's also clued up on what happens when someone sinister gets a-stalking in scenic surroundings. Plot-wise, Nash isn't trying to break the mould with his account of Johnny (Ry Barrett, Massacre at Femur Creek) and the folks who are unlucky enough to fall across his path. But the filmmaker asks a question: what if a rampaging slaughterer's terrors came not with a score heralding their every menacing move (even when those tunes can become iconic, as John Carpenter's Halloween music has), but with the ordinary silence of everyday life in nature punctuated only by noises just as commonplace, and then by the sounds of a killer at their insidious worst? In its imagery, In a Violent Nature adds another query: what if the audience wasn't biding its time with those likely to perish, tension dripping from not knowing when and where the murderer would strike, but was stuck at the side of the force causing such gruesome mayhem as the inevitable approaches? There's seldom any escape from a slasher; however, Nash finds a new way to take that idea literally. In a Violent Nature streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. The Promised Land The transfixing terrain of Mads Mikkelsen's face has been cast against formidably frosty and inhospitable climes before, weathering mirroring weathering. Sporting a piercing and determined glint in his eye, the Danish acting great has previously surveyed the Scandinavian landscape, too, seeing possibility where others spot peril. It was true in Arctic, in Valhalla Rising and now in The Promised Land: there's no stare as mesmerisingly resolute as his. When Ludvig Kahlen, Mikkelsen's latest character, insists that he can do what no one else has done — to begin with: settling the heath on the heather-covered Jutland moorland and building a colony for the king, a feat considered virtually impossible in the mid-18th century — doubting him isn't a possibility for anyone in the movie's audience. The BAFTA-nominated Another Round star has danced in historical drama territory for his countryman director Nikolaj Arcel in the past as well, with the pair reteaming after 2012's Oscar-nominated A Royal Affair. A different king sits on the throne in this film, Frederick V instead of Christian VII; however, the regal shadow remains inescapable. This time, Mikkelsen and Arcel tell not of a doctor influencing a monarch and a country, but of a soldier aligning his quest for a better future with a sovereign's wish, and learning what it means to chase a dream only to realise that you need something less tangible. Kahlen's attempt to farm land considered barren is equally a battle against entitlement and arrogance thanks to his clash with Frederik de Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg, Borgen), a cruel local magistrate who contends that the king's land is his own — and feels far enough away from Copenhagen for there not to be any consequences for his claim. The Promised Land streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. The Taste of Things Cooking is an act of precision. It's also one of feeling. On the movie that nabbed him the Best Director award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Trần Anh Hùng (Éternité, Norwegian Wood) helms with the same care, spirit and emotion that his characters display in the kitchen. The Taste of Things' audience has a front-row seat to both, as this 1885-set French picture begins with dishes upon dishes being whipped up and the feature's gaze, via cinematographer Jonathan Ricquebourg (Final Cut), lenses their creation intimately and sumptuously. The film's extraordinary opening 30 minutes-plus, as the camera is trained on the stove and counter with slight detours around the room to collect or wash ingredients, is meticulously crafted and at the same time instinctual. Think: the sensations of observing the finest of fine-dining chefs and being a child watching your grandmother make culinary magic, as nearly every kid has, all rolled into one appetising introductory sequence. In the home of gourmand Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel, The King of Algiers), and in its heart, his personal chef Eugénie (Juliette Binoche, The New Look) is so skilled and fastidious that she'd do small-screen hit The Bear proud; she's clearly a conjurer of the culinary arts, too. Hùng and Ricquebourg — the latter a well-deserving Lumiere Award-winner for his efforts here — are methodical with the choreography of setting the scene, while equally deeply immersed in the flow of the kitchen's tasks. As soundtracked by chirping birds, if this was The Taste of Things for 135 minutes and not just half an hour-ish, it'd remain a mesmerising movie. (A word of warning: eat before viewing, lest hunger pangs not just simmer but boil over.) Adapting 1924 novel The Passionate Epicure: La Vie et la Passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet by epicure Marcel Rouff as he scripts and directs, Hùng does more than fashion among the most-handsomely staged and shot imagery of a meal coming to life, but his approach to this entrée establishes the flavour. The Taste of Things streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. Looking for more viewing options? Take a look at our monthly streaming recommendations across new straight-to-digital films and TV shows — and fast-tracked highlights from January, February, March, April, May, June and July 2024 (and also January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December 2023, too). We keep a running list of must-stream TV from across 2024 as well, complete with full reviews. And, we've also rounded up 2024's 15 best films, 15 best new TV shows, 15 best returning TV shows and 15 best straight-to-streaming movies from the first half of the year. Also, here's 2023's 15 best films, 15 best straight-to-streaming movies, 15 top flicks hardly anyone saw, 30 other films to catch up with, 15 best new TV series of 2023, another 15 excellent new TV shows that you might've missed and 15 best returning shows as well.
Located on Bourke Street, Bottega is one of your best Italian options if you're roaming around the CBD. The soft leather seatings and comfortable vibe make it perfect for a romantic dinner or a few lunchtime drinks. Their three course lunch and pre-theatre special is a steal at just $55 per person. Sharing options include freshly shucked oysters and slow cooked pork and ham croquettes, while standout mains include house-made pappardelle with goat ragu; pan-seared snapper with zucchini flowers, roast truss tomato, prawns and aioli; and porcini and ricotta cannelloni with parmigiano reggiano, braised radicchio treviso and smoked mozzarella.
Anything can happen at Dark Mofo. One of two massive arts festivals run by Tasmania's Museum of Old and New Art, the winter event has always prided itself on being a fest where the dark, sinister, confronting and boundary-pushing come together, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. So, for its first program announcement for 2023, a wild dance theatre performance inspired by Dante's The Divine Comedy sounds completely in the event's wheelhouse. That production is A Divine Comedy, hailing from Austrian choreographer and performance artist Florentina Holzinger, and hitting Dark Mofo as both an Australian premiere and an Aussie exclusive. Playing for three days throughout the festival's Thursday, June 8–Thursday, June 22 dates for 2023, it dives into the hell, purgatory and paradise of Dante's classic work, all to explore how humans negotiate life and death. "We are thrilled to present Florentina Holzinger's A Divine Comedy for Dark Mofo 2023. She is a super-talented artist who is brazenly contemporary and culturally relevant," Creative Director Leigh Carmichael said, announcing the news. "This is the most incredibly wild theatre performance that we have presented in the history of Dark Mofo. Its scale is unprecedented and bold, a fitting highlight for our tenth festival. We can safely say the audience will be anything but bored." Holzinger is known for making challenging and provocative theatre, and for exploring gender relations — including how women's bodies are represented in art and media. For A Divine Comedy, she's staging the whole show as a giant autopsy room, in fact, then unleashing choreography that dances with existence, mortality, the end that awaits us all, and our struggle to cope with what that all means. Dark Mofo attendees will watch a cast of all-female-identifying performers spanning all ages, as well as a variety of physical, musical and athletic disciplines, take to the stage for the work. And, they'll see nude performers, slapstick acts, bodily substances and references to slasher movies as well — plus a jam-packed selection of nods to art and dance's respective histories. A Divine Comedy will play Dark Mofo from Friday, June 16–Sunday, June 18, with the rest of the fest's program set to be revealed this autumn. Whatever else joins the bill to help the event officially hit ten years, it'll be part of Carmichael's last at the helm. He'll step down after Dark Mofo 2023, making way for a new Artistic Director from 2024 onwards. [caption id="attachment_846523" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Winter Feast, Dark Mofo 2021, Dark Mofo/Jesse Hunniford, 2021. Image Courtesy Dark Mofo, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.[/caption] Wondering what else might be in store? Previous years' lineups have seen a fantastical combination of musical performances, performance art and large-scale installations come together. In 2019, the program featured the likes of artists Ai Weiwei and Mike Parr, American musician Sharon Van Etten and one of the world's largest glockenspiels, for instance. In 2022, patrons were treated to performances by The Kid LAROI, and the sounds of Chernobyl and Candyman — plus rainbow installations, and signature festivities such as the Nude Solstice Swim, the City of Hobart Winter Feast, Night Mass: Transcendence in the In The Hanging Garden precinct and the Reclamation Walk. Already keen to get booking? Fancy a Tasmania trip in the interim? Our Concrete Playground Trips Hobart getaway might also be of interest. [caption id="attachment_800592" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Lusy Productions[/caption] Dark Mofo 2023 will run from Thursday, June 8–Thursday, June 22 in Hobart, Tasmania. The 2023 program will be announced in autumn — check back here for further details. A Divine Comedy will play Dark Mofo from Friday, June 16–Sunday, June 18. A ticket ballot for the show is open until 12pm AEST on Friday, February 10. A Divine Comedy images: Nicole Marianna Wytyczak. Feeling inspired to book a getaway? You can now book your next dream holiday through Concrete Playground Trips with deals on flights, stays and experiences at destinations all around the world.
Tucked away on a quiet street in Collingwood, Loose Leaf is the dream project of Wona Bae and Charlie Lawler. With a combined portfolio that includes backgrounds in horticulture, permaculture and design, the pair harmonise creativity with a deep-rooted connection to the natural environment in their multi-use space. Loose Leaf operates as a thoughtful retail space for flowers and plants, as well as a studio for Wona to bring to life her organic sculptural practice and teach seasonal workshop classes. “We want people to use the space in a non-retail sense as well," she explains. “If we could make it like an indoor park that people might want to hang out in, that would be pretty cool.” The minimal aesthetic of the white-walled, high-ceilinged warehouse space is balanced by an abundance of natural life. Plants thrive in every corner, hang from the ceiling (almost as though levitating) and climb the walls. An ever-changing offering of seasonal flora fills the front of the space, where Wona creates and sells her masterful bouquets and arrangements. While the botanical haven is certainly an aesthetic delight, Charlie and Wona believe strongly in the greater therapeutic benefits connecting with nature can provide. “There are physical health benefits of having plants in your house," Charlie explains. "They can filter the air by taking out gases and chemicals so it’s healthier to breathe, but there’s also research to show that they can improve mental health”. “I’ve always been interested in horticulture therapy,” Wona adds, “When something is dying and you can bring it back to life, it makes you feel so good. It’s beautiful to watch the life cycle of something.” You need only step off the street into their bright space to feel the benefits; it might even work its magic when you're standing across the road. Despite the location only a hop, skip and a jump away from the hubbub of Smith Street, the air feels cleaner upon entering Loose Leaf. The incredible internal landscape combined with Wona and Charlie’s genuine desire to share their passion for “reconnecting with nature” allows their space to feel warm and welcoming. Sharing a cup of tea with the pair amongst their plants seems to be the perfect antidote to the stress of the daily grind. As well as the physical environment, Loose Leaf will be releasing a publication as a continuation of the voice of the space. “For the first year we plan to do a series of single theme based publications,” Charlie tells me. “We like the idea of connecting creativity and nature together, and letting each one inspire themselves." After making more than one trip to Loose Leaf to hang out with the always helpful and humble couple, Concrete Playground asked Charlie and Wona for a few ideas on how to be the best plant owner you can be ahead of the indoor season. Know Your Ability to Commit As far as picking your perfect plant friends, like any relationship, a lot depends on how much you are willing to give. With both high and low maintenance options for any environment, there’s no need to fear keeping something alive other than yourself. In fact, some plants prefer to be left alone. “One plant we’ve got is called the Zanzibar Gem, and the marketing is that it ‘thrives on neglect’,” Wona assures me. “It can deal with low light conditions and not much water." The Zanzibar Gem is added to my mental greenhouse. “We’ve spent a few years researching what works and doesn’t for us from our perspective," she says. "A lot of our plants we’ve picked because they are easy to care for and have actual signs of when they need to be watered or when they need fertilising." Of the choices in their home, she says, “[the plants] will start to talk you in very obvious ways … for example with Devil’s Ivy, the leaves will start to get droopy when it needs water. They can deal with a little more neglect … although we don’t encourage people to neglect their plants!” Location, Location, Location Equally as important as choosing a level of care you’re willing to commit to is the area and conditions your plants will be living in. “It really depends on what room they’re in”, says Charlie. “If you think about it in an outside sense, you get plants growing in the canopy of a jungle with very low light, or you can get plants growing in the desert with lots of sun and not much water”. He adds, “We have microclimates all around our house … the north of your house might feel a bit like Spain, but on the southern side it might be a bit more like Hobart. You can pick the right plant for each microclimate." Give a Little Lovin' In terms of caring for your greenery, things like fertilising and repotting can help extend the life and size of your plant. It's important that you look after your little guy (or don't, if it's a Zanzibar Gem). “Potted plants need fertilising because they’re not getting the nutrients replenished like they do nature, like when it rains or when trees drop their leaves," Charlie told me. "Inside plants obviously don’t get that so you need to give them some plant food. “By growing the size of the pot you’ll allow the roots to get bigger, and … there’s normally a direct reflection with what’s above the soil from what’s below” I admitted I had never repotted a plant. “Massage at the edge of the pot to help the plant come out more easily," he says. "You can massage the roots a little bit to help loosen them, put the plant in the new pot with the new soil.” Charlie and Wona's excitement for sharing the Loose Leaf love is tangible and inspiring. And while I may not be ready to commit to maintaining the exotic indoor jungle I envision just yet, I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to bring the pot plants in my bedroom back to life.
Freshly shucked from the minds at Pinchy's, comes yet another haven of seafood and wine. Pearl Chablis & Oyster Bar sits in the space next door to its sibling, its focus set firmly on primo Aussie oysters and quality French chablis — a crisp, dry white wine crafted on chardonnay grapes. Just like its hero drop, the bar is a sophisticated affair, with modern, art deco-inspired interiors, plenty of soft green velvet and some striking marble countertops reminiscent of the layered markings of an oyster shell. The bivalve is further celebrated via Pearl's impressive menu of top-quality oysters sourced from around Australia. Atop the bar, a centrepiece cabinet displays the day's selection on ice, before they're shucked theatrically on-demand and delivered to your table. Non-oyster goodies might include the likes of poached Murray Cod with warm horseradish tartare and a lemon pepper crumb ($28); the duck liver parfait ($16); beef tartare with ponzu ($20); and mussels in a vadouvan and white wine sauce ($17). If you're feeling a little fancier, there's a caviar menu. Or, you can go all out and pre-order the signature Pearl Caviar Experience — a feast of butter-poached Southern Rock Lobster, Russian osetra caviar and Siberian caviar, for a cool $1450. Meanwhile, Pearl's eye-popping chablis selection is thought to be the largest in the country. This particular wine varietal is a famously good match to oysters, with an acidity that's primed for cutting through the molluscs' creaminess. What's more, the minerality of the soil throughout the Chablis wine region is attributed to the ancient oyster shells fossilised beneath the earth. Regular tasting events shine the spotlight on various chablis producers. Otherwise, you can quench your thirst with options from the 500-strong collection of Burgundy wine. Images: Jana Langhorst and Pearl Chablis & Oyster Bar
Summer is coming — and it's about damn time we got back to living that rooftop-drinking, riverside-dining life. To celebrate the oncoming good weather, the friendly folks at Aperol are giving away 100,000 spritzes for the next two months. Yes, that's the correct number of zeroes. To help you take full advantage of this huge offer, we've rounded up the top sun-soaked spots in Melbourne where you can get your Aperol Spritz on the house. Whether you're in the CBD or partying it up at Fitzroy, the list below includes a carefully curated selection of bars that serve both great bevs and delectable dishes — guaranteeing you won't go home hungry (or wake up hungover) after spending the day drinking with your mates. PRINCE ALFRED HOTEL, CARLTON Carlton stalwart the Prince Alfred Hotel features a bar, beer garden, restaurant and function rooms where you can enjoy a chill catch-up session with friends. The menu is updated seasonally and sources some of the best local produce. In terms of its beverage offerings, the list boasts a selection of beers, cocktails, spirits and quality wines from Australia and New Zealand. But don't forget to try out some of the specials throughout the week: a classic pub roast on Sundays, half price pizzas on Mondays, $20 local dishes on Tuesdays, $18 parmas on Thursdays and happy hour from Monday to Wednesday. HOPSCOTCH, SOUTHBANK Hopscotch is all about the good vibes. Nestled in Southbank's urban backyard, the bar provides a plethora of beers on tap — 36 kinds to be precise — ranging from pale, stout, dark, lager, kolsch, wheat and more. But if beer isn't your thing, there are four taps dedicated to cocktails — and you can ask the bartender to try some out before you set your mind on one. You can also expect live music on the weekends, as well as sport on the big screens, as you soak up the last of the day's sun. HER ROOFTOP, CBD HER is an experience like no other. Conceptualised by the Arbory Crew — the brains behind Arbory and Arbory Afloat — HER Rooftop presents four floors of fun that will make you feel like you're in a different dimension. Start by dining in the Parisian-inspired restaurant and cocktail bar or the Thai canteen. Afterwards, you can make your way up to the music room for a little boogie. And you can end your evening at the rooftop garden bar, which stuns with spectacular views of the CBD. Aesthetically speaking, this one is an absolute stunner. We could certainly think of worse places to get an Aperol Spritz on the house. JOHNNY'S GREEN ROOM, CARLTON We all love a rooftop moment, especially during the warmer seasons, so be sure to pay Johnny's Green Room a visit for a gorgeous 360-degree view of the Carlton and the inner north. Located on the third floor of King and Godfree, Johnny's serves an impressive line-up of drinks such as classic and house cocktails, beer on tap and local and international wines. Conclude your night by indulging in a range of elevated bar bites, from pizza and burgers to gelato and cheese. This is an easy win. THE PROVINCIAL HOTEL, FITZROY Situated in the heart of Brunswick Street, The Provincial Hotel is a bit of a local institution — and a perfect spot to unwind after a hard day's work. Our tip: head straight for the rooftop, which offers impressive sunset views. If you're feeling peckish, order yourself a parma, burger or pizza to share with your mates while you try out some of the bar's classic cocktails, beers and wines. Other than happy hour, The Provincial Hotel has a $10 pizza and trivia night on Mondays, $15 burgers on Tuesdays, karaoke and $15 parmas on Wednesdays and 50-cent wings on Thursdays. Deals, deals, deals across the board. TETTO DI CAROLINA, SOUTH YARRA Take your tastebuds on a trip to London or Rome at Tetto di Carolina. Sip on an expertly made cocktail on the terrace or savour your glass of white or red wine in the breezy dining area. Commence your dinner plans with freshly shucked oysters, then opt for the 200g O'Connor grass-fed steak with peppercorn sauce. Dessert is also a must. Try the cannoli served with sweet ricotta, milk chocolate or pistachio or tuck into the famous tettomisu. For now, Tetto di Carolina is also extending a few promotions such as $3 Oysters and $18 Taittinger on Wednesdays and a $20 Sando and Americano combo on Fridays — seriously, how can one refuse? For more ways to elevate your summer with Aperol, head to the website.
Classified as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO) earlier this week, COVID-19 is clearly no laughing matter. And with the Australian Government announcing a ban on non-essential events and mass gatherings of more than 500 people from Monday, March 16 in an effort to reduce the coronavirus' spread across Australia, there'll be no giggling or guffawing at this year's now-cancelled Melbourne International Comedy Festival. "With great sadness we must announce that following the Prime Minister's statement about non-essential mass gatherings, the 2020 Melbourne International Comedy Festival will not go ahead," MICF organisers revealed in a statement. "Cancelling the Festival is heartbreaking but the only decision possible to support the community's efforts to slow the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19)." This year's festival was due to kick off on Wednesday, March 25, running through until Sunday, April 19 — with the likes of Mark Watson, Jason Byrne, the Lucas Brothers, Anne Edmonds, Adam Hills, Becky Lucas and Zoe Coombs Marr on the bill. https://www.facebook.com/melbournecomedy/photos/a.169679626410783/3062822803763103/?type=3&theater MICF is considered one of the largest three comedy festivals in the world, alongside Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Montreal's Just for Laughs Festival. First kicking off in 1977, it attracts more than 770,000 comedy-loving punters each year. Ticket holders will receive refunds, and will be notified about the next steps in the coming days. The Melbourne International Comedy Festival joins a growing list of cancelled events and closed venues, with large swathes of cinemas shutting in China, Iran, South Korea, Japan and across Europe, and theme parks doing the same in Asia, Europe and the US. We've also seen the cancellation of Texan music and film festival South by Southwest and postponement of Coachella. More locally, Tasmania's Dark Mofo, the Grand Prix in Melbourne and the Sydney Royal Easter Show have all been cancelled. The 2020 Melbourne International Comedy Festival will no longer take place from Wednesday, March 25–Sunday, April 19. For more information, visit the festival's website. To find out more about the status of COVID-19 in Australia and how to protect yourself, head to the Australian Government Department of Health's website.
Produce-driven menus aren't necessarily a rarity in Melbourne's restaurant scene. What is rare, however, is a venue so visibly devoted to the terroir of the produce it serves — from furniture constructed from recycled materials, to a specials menu displayed on a piece of reclaimed timber. As much as possible, everything in this venue is made either from or for the natural environment that surrounds it. Though one wouldn't necessarily describe From Here by Mike as a fine diner — elevated but grounded is more accurate — that is true of head chef Mike McEnearney's culinary pedigree. Having worked at Michelin-starred venues in London and as executive chef at Sydney's iconic Rockpool, McEnearney is no stranger to a technically complex menu. What makes his perspective unique, however, is his interest in low-waste, sustainable cheffery — his 2017 Real Food By Mike cookbook was explicitly divided into seasons, for instance. [caption id="attachment_1013609" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Chef Mike McEnearney[/caption] Though this ethos means the From Here by Mike menu is subject to seasonal change, there are thematic consistencies; the offering would be best described as fusion, spanning European to Asian culinary influences and always ethically and hyperlocally sourced. There's woodfired flatbread with a surprising almond ricotta and shiitake XO twist, a luxurious twice-baked Meredith Dairy Goat's Cheese souffle with baked shallot, and rosemary cream, and roasted porchetta filled with raisin and hazelnut agrodolce. It's a choose-your-own-adventure of culinary influence kind of experience, designed to be mixed, matched and ultimately, shared. Dessert brings an element of nostalgia. In addition to a French-leaning selection of refined sweets, you'll find a little part of McEnearney's heart in recipe form: his grandmother's vanilla rice cream — a vanilla rice pudding topped with a brulee (to add a flourish). [caption id="attachment_1013611" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Meredith Dairy Goat's Cheese soufflé at From Here by Mike[/caption] The From Here by Mike drinks list is similarly curated. You'll find bottles from over 40 Victorian winemakers, in addition to overseas producers. The specifics of how each is produced are so important to McEnearney that the lineup comes with a detailed glossary — "MS" for minimal sulphites, "SP" for sustainable practices, "RM" for Recoltant-Manipulant. The (impressive) list goes on. Organic, grounded and generous are how you'd describe the overall experience. Most importantly, the legitimacy of McEnearney's (and indeed 1 Hotel's) dedication to sustainability is apparent. It's refreshing and authentic — and delicious.
On a standard visit to Sydney's Central Station, you're likely too busy dodging fellow commuters or rushing for your train to really give much thought to its past. But, in fact, the bustling CBD hub boasts quite the dark and eerie history: it once home to the city's first major colonial-era cemetery. And now you can dig even deeper into the unsavoury stories of that era, thanks to gripping new local podcast The Burial Files. True crime buffs, grab your headphones — this'll be right up your alley. The State Library of NSW curator Elise Edmonds has been busy diving into the colourful history of the Devonshire Street Cemetery, chatting to leading historians, archaeologists, forensic experts and railway enthusiasts to create her six-part audio series. You'll hear tales of mischief, madness and questionable activities, grim accidents and scandalous crimes, glimpsing into the lives of some of the 30,000 residents that were buried here between 1820 and 1900. The one-time burial ground was deemed overcrowded by 1860 and finally abandoned in 1867, with (most of) the remains exhumed in 1901 to make way for the site's next use. In The Burial Files, you'll discover the history behind the exhumations, as well as the building of Central Station, from humble tin shed to the grand stone structure it is today. Along with the podcast, the sketchy stories of the Devonshire Street Cemetery and the surrounding parts of old Sydney have also spawned a new exhibition at the State Library of NSW. Dubbed Dead Central, it's brought to life through a 35-minute audio recording and curation of historic photographs. The first two episodes of The Burial Files are available now to download and stream from your favourite podcast platform. Further episodes will be released in the coming weeks. Dead Central is showing at the State Library of NSW until November 17.
Walk past the serious black brick facade that belongs to Code Black and you'll be guided by a more welcoming, heritage-listed red brick building (previously the Toby's Estate coffee warehouse). Signposted by Brunswick locals milling on the pavement and, of course, a few bikes chained up out the front, Brunswick Foodstore is filled with both locals and bike owners getting their weekend fill of eggs, smashed avocado and single origin coffee. Thanks to the Lebanese backgrounds of owners Rich and Suzy Pavlov, the menu at the Brunswick Foodstore holds a distinctly Middle Eastern vibe, with the likes of sucuk (Turkish sausage), zaatar and labne making multiple appearances. The smashed avocado with grilled pork sausage, poached eggs, feta and rocket ($17.50) is a great way to start the day, the brioche French toast with pear mascarpone, crispy bacon, rosewater syrup and walnuts ($16.90) a pure treat, and the breakfast mezze with fried eggs, labne, grilled sucuk, feta, olives and pita bread ($18.50) is an interesting take on breakfast. Onto lunch and the menu's direction is consistent, with mezze plates, kofta wraps and falafel providing the foundations for a rather solid offering. As you sit in this expansive warehouse space that feels pleasantly warm and welcoming, you'll find plenty of things to look at. In one corner is the food store, with its rows and rows of interesting, colourful produce; from tins of tea and bags of coffee, to jars of spices and chilled deli goods as well as freshly baked bread, there is a strong local focus and everything stocked seems to have been very carefully considered. In another corner lies the kitchen and bar, decorated with geometric drawings and a wall mural of coffee machine mechanics, serving as just one piece of evidence that the coffee here (made with Toby's Estate beans, no less) is taken very seriously. But perhaps the best thing about Brunswick Foodstore is that, due to its sheer size, you're likely to nab a table when all other Brunswick cafes will make you wait. And, if you do face a small wait, perusing the food store can make for a delightful way to pass the time.
Dinner theatres were big in the 70s, but have since become pretty hard to find. And those that you can find in Melbourne often lean very heavily into a kitsch theme, given that they're mostly designed for hen's nights and other big group events. For this purpose, they can be great fun. But newcomer VIVA is seeking to class up the whole dinner-and-a-show concept in North Melbourne. At this 1920s-inspired venue, there's just as much focus on the food as there is the performances. Here, cabaret shows are the entertainment, ranging from fun and semi-PG to downright raunchy — depending on when you go. Choreographer Jason Coleman (Hair, Hairspray and So You Think You Can Dance) has designed and directed VIVA's debut show, Elegant. Played to begin every evening, this show is said to be full of comedy and provocative dances, but it doesn't get too risqué. For that, you'll need to head over later in the evening (usually at 10pm) to see Exotic, a show that's a whole lot more salacious. You can simply pair your cabaret with cocktails and be very happy, but it would be a shame to miss out on Executive Chef Matt Haigh's pan-Asian eats. Start off with popcorn covered in Peking duck fat, chicken karaage served with with kewpie mayo and maple caramel, and three different kinds of Asian-inspired arancini. Then get into bigger bites like sushi sandwiches, grilled wagyu and fried chicken waffles served with a bump of caviar. It's clear to see that the food is no mere afterthought. "At VIVA, our aim is to merge the magic of live performance with exceptional dining, service, and drinks, setting a new benchmark in entertainment for Melbourne. "We're creating an environment where every evening is an event, where the lights, the sounds, and the atmosphere are as much a part of the experience as the performances on stage and the exquisite dishes on your table," says VIVA Director Karlee Kaminski. You'll find VIVA at 64 Sutton Street, North Melbourne, open 5pm–late on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. For more information, head to the venue's website.
Bar Romantica's recent closure after many years serving late-night pizza and pasta was met with more than a few teary goodbyes. However, the good news is that Etta's acclaimed restaurateur, Hannah Green, is moving into the same cherished Brunswick East space. And the wait is finally over, with news just in that Daphne will open on Monday, 10 November. Bringing a similarly communal vibe, Green wants guests to feel like they're stepping into her home. To make everyone feel welcome, expect early-bird sittings, happy meals for the little ones, and weekly events where snacks and drinks flow until the early hours. Green says, "It's a restaurateur's answer to a pub. The mood is fun and easygoing, the food is highly delicious but not too fancy. Our rules are that my dad should be able to read and understand everything on the menu, and it should be as accessible for after-school snacks and casual catch-ups as it is for milestone celebrations and midnight martinis." Stepping inside, guests will encounter a venue divided into two distinct sections, with the front offering a dedicated bar space and casual counter service, primed for a walk-in feed or quick drink. In the back, the mood becomes a little more refined, featuring Green's signature elevated service and tables graced with crisp linen. Meanwhile, a semi-private dining room presents a fancy spot to celebrate a milestone with up to 30 of your closest pals. "This site has meant so much to Brunswick East over the years, and I feel incredibly fortunate to be its next custodian," says Green. "What I hope to create with Daphne is a welcoming space where everyone feels comfortable, and that isn't just for special occasions. Somewhere friends can drop in for an impromptu cocktail a couple of times a week, and parents can take the kids for an early meal before heading home for bathtime." In the kitchen, the main focus is a custom woodfire grill and oven, designed and built by Samuel Frarracio, aka The Brick Chef. This unique bit of kit will help respected Head Chef Diana Desensi — previously behind acclaimed spots like Montalto, Pt Leo Estate and Saint George — make the European-leaning plates shine even brighter, aided further with seasonal produce sourced from a bevy of local farms and friends. "I've admired Diana's food for years," says Green. "There's real heart and generosity in everything she puts on the plate. When I started dreaming up Daphne, she was the first person I thought of. She understands what it means to cook for a community." A concise menu of approachable snacks, such as grilled potato flatbread with mussels, and Bloody Mary tomatoes with pickles and olives, complements one glass after the next. Larger dishes include the likes of ricotta tortellini with artichoke and milk sauce, roast chicken with blistered grapes, pork cotoletta with 'Caesar' leaves, and a fresh Cobb salad. Shaped by childhood memories of family meals centred around what grew in the garden at home, Desensi's ethos is renowned for being nostalgic and highly seasonal. Diners can also expect daily tarts, cakes and crostatas to showcase the best farm-fresh fruit, served simply with a dollop of cream. As for the drinks, Sommelier Ashley Boburka (Etta, Rockpool Bar & Grill) has pulled together on-tap drops from Yarra Valley winemaker Dom Valentine. There's no shortage of choice as you're welcome to delve into Etta's 400-plus bottles — after all, it's just a couple of doors down. Sam Peasnell (Etta, Dom's Social Club) has also developed a curated cocktail program, with light spins on classic drinks. Get down on Monday evenings for Martini Club, complete with Nah-tinis for non-drinkers. Catering to 125 guests across the bar and restaurant, a cosy design led by IF Architecture will mix and match tactile materials, from walnut timber and stainless steel to glass brick and coffee-coloured upholstery. Fans of Bar Romantica will also instantly recognise the terrazzo floors, along with the custom-built sound system. Where Etta was Green's warmly sophisticated original, expect Daphne to bring a little more quirky fun to the local neighbourhood dining scene. [caption id="attachment_695349" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Bar Romantica by Kate Shanasy[/caption] Daphne is slated to open on Monday, 10 November, at 52-54 Lygon Street, Brunswick East. Bookings will be open from Wednesday, 29 October. Head to Instagram for more information. Images: Kristoffer Paulsen.
There's no need to feel the cold this winter. Whether you have a date with skis or you'll be trying to get as cosy as possible going about your usual routine, Aldi's snow gear sale is back to keep you warm. Making a beeline to the middle aisle to rug up has become an Australian tradition, and this year marks the first time that the supermarket chain has held two of the sales in consecutive years since before the pandemic. In budget-friendly news, too, nothing will set you back more than $100. Winter is coming, as the country is just beginning to feel — and this batch of bargains, spanning everything from gloves to thermoboots, is on its way as well. Ski trips, snowboarding sessions, building snowmen: there's attire for all of the above, plus just not shivering at home. Mark Saturday, May 18 in your diary, then make a date with your nearest Aldi supermarket. Also, prepare to have ample company. Every time that this sale happens, it draws quite a crowd — and 2024's run again includes more than 70 products, with prices starting from $4.99. Available at stores across the nation, and made to withstand extreme weather conditions, the latest range of gear includes ski jackets from $59.99, both ski pants and hoodies from $49.99, and fleece jackets from $39.99. Or, there's also balaclavas from $9.99, snowboard and ski gloves from $14.99, touchscreen gloves for $9.99, ski socks for $8.99, and scarves and beanies for $6.99. Ski goggles cost $17.99, ski helmets come in at $29.99 and thermoboots are $34.99. Need a heavy-duty boot, shoe and glove dryer? Decided that you do now that you've just read that sentence? They're also on the list, for $79.99. Because layers are pivotal, Aldi's Merino thermal underwear range is also back, with items such as adult tanks and camisoles for $19.99. Kids clothing is part of the deal, too, if you'll be travelling with younger skiers — including being able to dress a children for the snow from top to toe for under $100. 2024's Aldi Snow Gear Special Buys range is available from Aldi stores nationally from Saturday, May 18.
There's no shortage of ways to celebrate Halloween, whether scary movies, eerie art, a trick-or-treating stint, playing with Lego or themed mini golf is your thing. Here's a particularly tasty one: getting dressed up in costume and scoring a free Krispy Kreme doughnut. The chain is known for giving away its round treats, including handing out 100,000 of them each National Doughnut Day. For Tuesday, October 31, it isn't locking in an exact number of doughnuts that'll be on offer — but it will give one to everyone who turns up to a Krispy Kreme store dressed for the occasion. If that isn't an excuse to don your spookiest outfit, then what is? To snag yourself a signature glazed freebie, head to your closest Krispy Kreme store in Australia or New Zealand on Tuesday, October 31 while wearing a Halloween-appropriate costume. You'll receive one original glazed doughnut per person, and you don't have to buy anything else to nab the treat without paying a cent. That gives everyone a heap of places to flock to: 38 in Australia and six in New Zealand. Sydneysiders able to hit up 17 stores stretching from Penrith to the CBD, Victorians can visit nine locations from Chadstone to Collins Street, and Queenslanders given eight different doughnut shops to pick from (with the most central in Albert Street in the CBD). Residents of Perth can make a date with one of four Krispy Kreme locations. In Aotearoa, all options are in Auckland — including at Newmarket, Chancery Square and the domestic airport terminal. Of course, Krispy Kreme is hoping that you will be possessed by the Halloween vibe while you're in-store — or beforehand — and treat yourself to something from its themed range. On offer until Tuesday, October 31: four different varieties. If you opt for the Spiderweb, you'll get an OG doughnut that's been dipped in chocolate ganache and topped with white truffle. The Jack O'Lantern takes a shell doughnut, packs it with choc crème, then dips it in orange-coloured truffle — what else? — before giving it an eyes and mouth via sugar fondant. The Ghost goes with a white truffle dip, plus white choc flakes and candy for eyes. And the Graveyard fills a shell doughnut with strawberry filling, covers the outside with green truffle, then uses sour gummy worms and ground chocolate crumb as soil. Krispy Kreme's Halloween giveaway takes place in-store on Tuesday, October 31. The chain's Halloween range is available until the same date. To find your closest shop and check its opening hours, head to the Krispy Kreme website.
As Carmy in The Bear, Jeremy Allen White was born to cook up kitchen chaos. In Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, he's born to run, slipping into Bruce Springsteen's shoes in the next big music biopic that's on its way to cinemas. Less than 12 months after Bob Dylan scored the same treatment in the Oscar-nominated A Complete Unknown, another icon is getting their filmic time to shine. Deliver Me From Nowhere has a time-specific focus, too, with the making of the rockstar's 1982 Nebraska record in the spotlight. Does the just-dropped first trailer for the film deliver White singing, including belting out 'Born to Run' onstage? Does it also feature Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice) monologuing in the role of Springsteen's manager Jon Landau? Does it head into the Boss' New Jersey bedroom, where the acoustic album that joined his discography immediately before 1984's smash-hit Born in the USA was recorded? The answer to all three: yes. Also seen, alongside Allen swapping The Bear for another real-life tale after The Iron Claw: glimpses of Stephen Graham (Adolescence) plays as Springsteen's father Dutch Springsteen and Gaby Hoffmann (Poker Face) as his mother Adele. The movie's cast spans Odessa Young (The Narrow Road to the Deep North), Marc Maron (Stick), Paul Walter Hauser (Cobra Kai) and David Krumholtz (The Studio) as well. Audiences will be able to check out their efforts Down Under from Thursday, October 23, 2025. Scott Cooper (The Pale Blue Eye) both directs and penned the script, adapting the latter from Warren Zanes' book Deliver Me From Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. The last time that the filmmaker focused on a musician was in his 2009 debut Crazy Heart, fictionalising the story of Hank Thompson — and Jeff Bridges (The Old Man) won the Best Actor Oscar for his starring role. "Making Springsteen was deeply moving as it allowed me to step inside the soul of an artist I've long admired — and to witness, up close, the vulnerability and strength behind his music. The experience felt like a journey through memory, myth and truth. And more than anything, it was a privilege to translate that raw emotional honesty to the screen, and in doing so, it changed me. I cannot thank Bruce and Jon Landau enough for allowing me to tell their story," said Cooper about Deliver Me From Nowhere. Check out the first trailer for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere below: Deliver Me From Nowhere releases in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, October 23, 2025. Images: © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
When an Australian actor makes it big, it can feel as if there's more than one of them. Joel Edgerton, who has been on local screens for almost three decades and made the leap to Hollywood with the Australian-shot Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones, is such a talent. He's usually everywhere and in almost everything (such as The Stranger, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Thirteen Lives, Master Gardener, I'm a Virgo, The Boys in the Boat and Bluey in just the past two years), and viewers would follow him anywhere. Dark Matter wasn't written to capitalise upon that idea. Rather, it hails from the page of Blake Crouch's 2016 novel, with the author also creating the new nine-part Apple TV+ sci-fi series that it's based on. But, streaming from Wednesday, May 8, 2024, the show's lead casting leans into the notion that you can never have too much Edgerton by multiplying him in the multiverse. For the characters in Dark Matter, however, the fact that there's more than a single Jason Dessen causes considerable issues. The series' protagonist is a former experimental physics genius-turned-professor in Chicago who's teaching disinterested students about Schrödinger's cat. He's married to artist-turned-gallerist Daniela (Jennifer Connelly, Bad Behaviour), a father to teenager Charlie (Oakes Fegley, The Fabelmans) and the best friend of award-winning college pal Ryan Holder (Jimmi Simpson, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). And, he's been happy living the quiet family life, although pangs of envy quietly arise when he's celebrating Ryan's prestigious new accolade. Then, when another Jason pops up to pull off a kidnapping and doppelgänger plot, he's soon navigating a cross between Sliding Doors and Everything Everywhere All At Once. Everything is a multiverse tale of late; a mere few examples span superhero films and television shows Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the Spider-Verse movies, Loki and The Flash; TV gems Fringe and Russian Doll; and the interdimensional animated chaos of Rick and Morty. Dark Matter is also a soul-searching "what if?" drama, exploring the human need to wonder what might've been if just one choice — sometimes big, sometimes small — had veered in a different direction. While a box is pivotal mode of transport like this is Doctor Who, as are all manner of worlds to visit, this is high-concept sci-fi at its most grounded. Neither version of Jason wants to hop through parallel worlds in the name of adventure or exploration — they're simply chasing their idea of everyday perfection. The first Jason chose Daniela and Charlie over devoting his existence to his career, round-the-clock work and only seeing the inside of a lab. Drugging and abducting him to reveal what could've eventuated if he didn't chart that path, the second Jason slides into his life to trade places. The everyman Jason unwillingly gets transported to a plane of reality where he's a famous billionaire — as well as the recipient of prizes and kudos, and also the creator of the technology that's allowing tumbling through the multiverse to happen — while the interloper Jason assumes his spot as a husband and dad. Dark Matter ties into the proverb "the grass is always greener", too, as both Jasons face the ups and downs of the road not taken, mostly for worse not better. For Jason One, if only verdant pastures were all that changed as he urgently attempts to return to his Daniela. With Jason Two's psychiatrist partner and colleague Amanda (Alice Braga, A Murder at the End of the World) for company, anything can await behind the infinite expanse of doors in a dimly light corridor that literalises the quantum state of superposition. Again, though, journeying to dystopias and paradises, and through disasters and futuristic havens while they're at it, isn't the point, even if each of the above makes an appearance. If you've ever felt as if you've been wading through copies of the life that you're meant to have, with nothing completely falling into place as it should, that's Jason One's experience as minor details morph from world to world. Edgerton's job, fittingly, contains multitudes. As the initial iteration of Jason, he plays thoughtful, considerate, dedicated to his loved ones and desperate to find his way back to them — all while tussling with the show's high-tech premise, often while stranded within that endless hallway. As Jason Two, he's a calculating imposter endeavouring not to get caught in the dream reality that he's ruthlessly stolen, but also arrogant in his confidence that he's pulled off his existential heist. A click on the soundtrack signals Dark Matter's jump between Jasons, but it needn't: Edgerton conveys their differences alongside their similarities like an artist painting the same portrait in dissimilar styles, and does so in one of the best performances of his career. Grappling with regrets, possibilities, the haunting knowledge that other futures are always possible and the distress of grasping that you mightn't have appreciated what you had until it was gone, Edgerton isn't the only actor excelling at doing double duty. For Connelly, in a show that spirits someone else off on a quest as another of her on-screen alter egos once was nearly four decades back in Labyrinth — a series where frosty climes and trains also play a part, bringing her last small-screen role on Snowpiercer to mind — shifts in body language say everything. And, they aren't the only cast members serving up layered performances. Braga, Fegley and Simpson are no slouches; in smaller but no less pivotal roles, neither are Dayo Okeniyi (Hypnotic) and Amanda Brugel (Parish). With Wayward Pines and Good Behaviour, Crouch's work has ventured from the page to episodes before — and with his involvement. His latest series has echoes within Apple TV+'s slate, too, because the platform's love of science fiction, twists and mysteries just keeps growing, including with Constellation already in 2024, Silo in 2023 and Severance in 2022. There might only be a lone idyllic realm for Jasons in Dark Matter, but that isn't the case for the streaming service's viewers. An absorbing and addictive trip that's also firmly anchored in relatable yearnings and musings, this Edgerton-led series is one to enthusiastically dive into. Check out the trailer for Dark Matter below: Dark Matter streams via Apple TV+ from Wednesday, May 8, 2024.
The Kid LAROI hasn't locked in exact dates for his rescheduled Down Under shows for 2024 as yet, after his first-ever Down Under stadium tour was postponed from February, and will now take place in October instead. You can still spend time with the Australian singer-songwriter before summer is over, however, thanks to the just-announced Kids Are Growing Up — because The Kid LAROI is getting the feature-length documentary treatment. Directed by Michael D Ratner, the film features interviews with The Kid LAROI, obviously, as well as Justin Bieber, Post Malone and more. Fans will know the general story that the doco follows, exploring how Charlton Kenneth Jeffrey Howard became a teenage star with global fame. But, as it charts not just the successes but also the pressures along the way — especially for someone Howard's age — this is a behind-the-scenes story. Arriving on Prime Video worldwide on Thursday, February 29, Kids Are Growing Up started filming before 'Stay' became a huge hit, and also covers Howard navigating his mentor Juice WRLD's death. The path from being an unknown talent to selling out arenas is also covered, as is mental health, love, and getting ready for The Kid LAROI's first studio album The First Time and corresponding world tour — plus the quest for happiness along the way. "I can't wait for audiences to see this behind-the-scenes portrayal of my journey, which perfectly encapsulates some of the most rewarding and challenging years of my life and career so far," said Howard, announcing the documentary. Director Ratner also helmed 2021's Justin Bieber: Our World, and founded OBB Pictures, the production company behind both Bieber's and now The Kid LAROI's films. There's no word yet when the 'Without You', 'Thousand Miles', 'Love Again' musician's Down Under shows will lock in their new dates, after they were postponed so that Howard could confirm a "really big surprise and special guest" — alongside ONEFOUR, who will also be on the bill — and also due to "a bunch of other logistical stuff". In the interim, he's touring Europe in April. Kids Are Growing Up will be available via Prime Video from Thursday, February 29. Top image: Adam Kargenian.
When it comes to two-wheeling, Victoria's picturesque High Country offers incredible diversity. And with autumn's mild weather and gold-tinted scenery, there's no better time to do it. Whether you're an easy-going peddler who likes to take things slow and rest often for wine tastings, or a hardcore cyclist unwilling to stop for anybody or anything and gearing up to conquer the Tour de France, there's a trail for you. At one end, Milawa Gourmet Ride and the Rutherglen Pedal to Produce Ride give you 10–12.5 kilometres of gentle, bucolic riding, dotted with wineries and farm gates. At the other, the Great Victorian Rail Trail, at 134 kilometres, is the longest continuous rail trail in Australia. MILAWA GOURMET RIDE Length: 10 kilometres return Difficulty: Easy An adventure that's ideal for leisurely two-wheelers who like to graze as they go is the Milawa Gourmet Ride. Get started at the famous Brown Brothers Cellar Door, not only to sample a drop or two, but also to borrow a bike — for free. Your ultimate destination, Sam Miranda Winery, is five blissfully flat kilometres away, but there's an abundance of tasting and snacking to do before then. Indulge in handmade goodness at Milawa Cheese, get your condiment fix at Milawa Mustards and swing by Blue Ox Berries farm gate for a punnet of just-picked fruit. If you're up for a longer ride, extend it by adding a section of the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail. PEDAL TO PRODUCE RUTHERGLEN Length: 12.5 kilometres Difficulty: Easy Cycling through the High Country – or perhaps any country – doesn't get any easier or more decadent than this. The 12.5-kilometre Pedal to Produce Rutherglen trail carries you through wineries, olive groves, gold-rush architecture and idyllic picnic spots. Start at Rutherglen Wine Experience, where you can grab a free map and, if necessary, hire a bike. Stops along the way include Anderson, where ex-Seppelt winemaker Howard Anderson and his daughter Christobelle make a great sparkling shiraz; Wicked Virgin Olives, where you can sample oils and tapenade; and pretty Lake King. BEECHWORTH TOWN RIDE Length: 11–17 kilometres Difficulty: Easy Beechworth packs a lot of punch for a town of just 3000 or so people. Built mostly during the 1850s, when the gold rush was at its height, it's home to some of the best-preserved 19th-century architecture in Australia. There are pubs, wine bars, cafes and restaurants galore, including two-hatted Provenance and craft brewery Bridge Road. So whatever your budget, you can count on being amply rewarded for your pedalling efforts. If you're keen to stay outdoors, fill your basket with local cheeses, olives, breads, wines, craft beers and baked treats, and go picnicking in parks crowded with glorious elms and oaks. Cycling takes place on a mix of rail trail and roads, across ever-so-slightly undulating terrain. BUCKLAND VALLEY Length: 45 kilometres return Difficulty: A few harder bits This stunning, 45-kilometre, there-and-back road ride begins among Bright's colourful autumn scenes. It's recommended for cyclists of intermediate ability, but to make it suitable for beginners, get started at Porepunkah. From there, the traffic drops away quickly, so even though you're on the road, you'll often feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. This sensation is intensified by the jaw-dropping scenery: think apple orchards, nut groves, alpaca farms and vineyards (Ringer Reef Winery makes a great stop on the way), backdropped by rugged Mount Buffalo. It's possible to stay the night in Buckland Valley, either by pitching a tent by the Buckland River or sinking into some luxury at the Buckland Studio Retreat. HIGH COUNTRY RAIL TRAIL Length: 64 kilometres return Difficulty: Intermediate Victoria's many rail trails give you hundreds of kilometres of car-free cycle paths. This one, which stretches for 35 kilometres from Wodonga to Old Tallangatta (with sections around Koetong and Corryong), spends half its time on the shores of shimmering Lake Hume. To add some history to your ride, visit Bonegilla Migrant Experience, a camp where more than 300,000 migrants lived between 1949 and 1971. There are plenty of waterfront picnic spots along the way, and in Tallangatta don't miss the scenic views at the Lookout or Tallangatta Old Lookout. MURRAY TO MOUNTAINS RAIL TRAIL Length: 100 kilometres Difficulty: Intermediate with easy sections Starting in Wangaratta and winding its way to Bright, this spectacular trail is a 100-kilometre escapade through lush farmland, unspoiled bushland and epic mountain ranges. In between, it passes through several of Victoria's prettiest and most interesting towns, including Beechworth (on an old branch-line route), Bright and Myrtleford. Wineries, breweries, farm gates, cafes and restaurants abound. If you have the time and inclination, then conquer the entire distance in one go. Alternatively, choose a section that appeals to you. For example, the 16 kilometres between Bright and Everton are all downhill, making them popular with coasters and locals. GREAT VICTORIAN RAIL TRAIL Length: 134 kilometres Difficulty: Hard to do in a day; otherwise easy. This mighty trail, at 134 kilometres, is the longest continuous rail trail in the whole country, but it's easy to do just a small section. It kicks off in Tallarook, just an hour's drive from Melbourne, but once you're on two wheels, it feels like you're a million miles away from the big smoke. Your final destination is Mansfield, but you'll visit loads of settlements before then, including the gold mining town of Yea and Bonnie Doon, of The Castle fame, on the shores of Lake Eildon. Swing by Howes Creek Farm to eat an ethically created pork pie beneath a 130-year-old oak tree, Killingworth Hill Whisky Bar for a quick side-trip to Scotland and Sedona Estate to sample excellent cool-climate wines. For a short, highlights-filled ride, do the 44-kilometre stretch from Kerrisdale to Molesworth, through the Goulburn Valley. Autumn scenery and produce won't last — plan your full itinerary in the High Country or explore more of regional Victoria at the Wander Victoria website.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas across the country. After months spent empty, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, Australian picture palaces are back in business — spanning both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, comedies, music documentaries, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbE96sCJEjo MINARI Although they can frequently seem straightforward, films about the American dream aren't simply about chasing success. The circumstances and details change, but they're often movies about finding a place to call home as well. Such a quest isn't always as literal as it sounds, of course. While houses can signify achievement, feeling like you truly belong somewhere — and that you're comfortable enough to set your sights on lofty goals and ambitions that require considerable risks and sacrifices — transcends even the flashiest or cosiest combination of bricks and mortar. Partly drawn from writer/director Lee Isaac Chung's (Abigail Harm) own childhood, Minari understands this. It knows that seeking a space to make one's own is crucial, and that it motivates many big moves to and within the US. So, following a Korean American couple who relocate to rural Arkansas in the 80s with hopes of securing a brighter future for their children, this delicately observed and deeply felt feature doesn't separate the Yi family's attempts to set up a farm from their efforts to feel like they're exactly where they should be. The result is a precise, vivid, moving, and beautifully performed and observed film told with honest and tender emotion — so much so that it was always bound to be equally universal and unique. When Jacob Yi (Steven Yeun, Burning) introduces his wife Monica (Yeri Han, My Unfamiliar Family), pre-teen daughter Anne (first-timer Noel Cho) and seven-year-old son David (fellow newcomer Alan S Kim) to their new 50-acre plot, he's beaming with pride. He's bought them "the best dirt in America," he says. It might only span a trailer, a field and a creek, but he's certain that it will revolutionise their lives. Although both Jacob and Monica still spend their days in a chicken sexing factory to pay the bills, Jacob is confident his agrarian dream will reap rewards. The path he's chosen isn't a glossy fantasy, though. From trying to work out where best to build a well to provide water for his crops, to endeavouring to convince stores to buy his wares, Jacob weathers more than his fare share of struggles. Monica's worries about their isolation, and about money, also weigh heavily, as she'd rather live in a larger city as part of the Korean diaspora. Also joining their daily woes in a movie that eschews overt conflicts for everyday dramas: Anne and David's attempts to fit in, the latter's heart murmur and the change that sweeps through the family when Monica's mother Soonja (Youn Yuh-jung, Sense8) comes to live with them. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg7QTqm_i4o THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS Northern Italy's woods are abundant with truffles, especially the tuber magnatum — otherwise known as the white variety. But before these highly sought-after morsels can make their way into kitchens, onto plates, and into many a willing and eager mouth, someone has to spend their time and expend their energy finding the edible fungus. Accordingly, The Truffle Hunters introduces viewers to multiple elderly men and their adorable dogs who all do just that, with their lives revolving around roving the forest and searching out the prized food. It might sound like a relaxed pursuit — as walking through trees with your pet pooch to fill your pockets with a delicacy is bound to — but it's a highly competitive endeavour, and one that the documentary's central figures are intensely passionate about. For Aurelio, the only thing he loves more than foraging for truffles is Birba, his canine partner in the hunt. The cantankerous Angelo has become disillusioned with the way that the industry has evolved over time, so he now attacks his typewriter with gusto instead, using it to chronicle his myriad woes and complaints. Then there's Sergio, who enjoys his task with his dogs Pepe and Fiona by his side. As for Carlo, his beloved pastime is forbidden by his wife. Unperturbed, he routinely sneaks out at night to search with a torch in hand. Cycling between these men's stories, directors Michael Dweck (The Last Race) and Gregory Kershaw (cinematographer on The Last Race, and also on this) chart their individual efforts. The titular subjects try care for their canines, argue with others encroaching on their turf, type missives about how the world has changed and, in Carlo's case, keep absconding by moonlight. Their hounds remain a focus, including their efforts to avoid poison baits. Devoted to capturing the pooch perspective however they can, Dweck and Kershaw aren't above using puppy cam as well. Seeing truffle hunting from a dog's viewpoint may be an easy gimmick, but it's also both a joy and a thrill — and emblematic of the film's fondness for flavour and character above all else. Narration is absent, talking heads don't clog up the screen, and no one is on hand to describe the ins and outs of the business in the spotlight, with Dweck and Kershaw favouring immersion rather than explanation. It's a fitting approach, and a purposeful one, even if the documentary takes on a relaxed air from start to finish. The Truffle Hunters is a leisurely movie that's content to chronicle its subjects' easy-going lives, lean into their eccentricities and survey their lush surroundings — and, even clocking in at just 84 minutes, it's an unhurried gem of a film — however, it's also carefully compiled. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3REMs9I9Tg FIRESTARTER — THE STORY OF BANGARRA More than three decades since it was first formed, Bangarra Dance Theatre is still going strong. In just the last ten years alone, the Sydney-based organisation has unleashed the beauty and potency of works such as Blak, Patyegarang, Lore, OUR land people stories, Bennelong and Dark Emu across Australia's stages, and repeatedly confronted the nation's colonial history head-on in the process. As an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts outfit, it can't avoid it. It similarly can't ignore the impact that the country's past has had upon Indigenous culture, and the trauma that's rippled across generations as a result. And so, as excellent new documentary Firestarter — The Story of Bangarra tells the company's tale, these struggles are firmly part of the narrative. Co-directors Wayne Blair (The Sapphires, Top End Wedding) and Nel Minchin (Matilda & Me, Making Muriel) know their power. Indeed, the two filmmakers are well aware that they can't step through Bangarra's history without placing the acclaimed dance theatre in its rightful social, political and cultural context. What audiences have seen on stage over the years is stunning, astonishing and important, of course, but all of those exceptional performances haven't ever existed in a vacuum. For those unacquainted with the details of Bangarra's origins, evolution, aims and achievements, Firestarter recounts them, starting with its leap out of the National Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Association and the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre. Actually, it jumps back further, not only stepping through Bangarra's predecessors, but also charting how Stephen, David and Russell Page became its most famous names. Just as it's impossible to examine the dance company's accomplishments and influence without also interrogating and chronicling Australia's history, it's simply unthinkable to do so without focusing as heavily on the Page brothers as Blair and Minchin choose to. Stephen would become Bangarra's artistic director, a role he still holds. David was its music director, while Russell was one of its best dancers — and their path from growing up in Brisbane in the 60s, 70s and 80s to helping shape and guide an Aussie arts powerhouse is a pivotal component of Bangarra's overall journey thus far. If it sounds as if Firestarter has been set a hefty task — doing triple duty as a celebration, a record of Australia's past and a portrait of three siblings with dreams as big as their talents — that's because it has. But this dense and yet also deft documentary is up to the immense feat, and dances through its massive array of material, topics and themes as skilfully as any of Bangarra's performers ever have. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HZAnkxdYuA THE LITTLE THINGS Before you've even seen a single frame of a film, much can sometimes be gleaned by merely knowing who's in it — if they've been cast to type. The Little Things features Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto, which means it can brag that it stars three Oscar winners, as its trailer does. This 90s-style serial killer thriller has also happily deployed its trio of main players exactly as you'd expect. So, adding yet another cop to his resume, Washington plays unflinchingly dedicated and determined, as well as a character who's far from perfect. Malek has a much shorter acting history, but once again combines the blend of awkwardness and meticulousness that seeped from his pores over four seasons of Mr Robot. As for Leto, he's asked to mine not just his recent cinematic past, but also his overall status in popular culture. From his overcooked take on the Joker in Suicide Squad to the misplaced swagger that's defined his off-screen persona and his rock stardom with Thirty Seconds to Mars, he's hardly widely beloved. The Little Things wants everyone watching to remember that, and perhaps to even stoke the flames of their existing Leto hatred. It works; he's been nominated for a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his greasy-haired turn, and he's so one-note and over-the-top that it's near-impossible to fathom why. Washington's Joe 'Deke' Deacon was once a well-admired Los Angeles detective; however, when writer/director John Lee Hancock (The Blindside) begins The Little Things, his central character is now a deputy sheriff in Kern County. Deke's current and former colleagues all see that shift as a step down, but he's just as dogged in his new job — and, when he's reluctantly sent back to LA to collect evidence for an important trial, then gets brought in on a new case by Malek's hotshot newcomer Jim Baxter while he's hanging about, he's downright unrelenting. A number of women have been found murdered, and in gruesome circumstances. Baxter doesn't realise it, but the details prove familiar to Deke from years earlier. As the pair's new investigation leads them to repair store employee Albert Sparma (Leto), neither Deke nor Baxter is willing to rest until they solve the case. Off-putting and unpleasant from the moment he's first seen, the creepy, possibly psychotic Sparma likes being seen as a suspect, though, and enjoys toying with the men following him. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e9w0IL2U0c&feature=emb_logo DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER For everyone of schooling age, the onset of warm weather means a lengthy break from classes, teachers, and the child and teenage version of the daily grind. It's a time of freedom, of never needing to worry about what day of the week it is, and of roaming around like there's no tomorrow. For Daniel Bagnold (Earl Cave, True History of the Kelly Gang), he's looking forward to leaving his suburban British existence far behind for a few weeks by visiting his father in Florida. As an added bonus, his librarian mother Sue (Monica Dolan, The Dig) — who he's constantly embarrassed by — isn't coming with him. Then his dad's new life, wife and soon-to-arrive baby daughter get in the way of Daniel's plans, leaving the 15-year-old stranded at home and unhappy about it. He'd be content holing up in his room, listening to metal and fantasising about starting his own band, but Sue is adamant that he tries to find a job. She also complicates Daniel's days by going out on a date with one of schoolteachers (Rob Brydon, The Trip to Greece). That's the leisurely story at the heart of Days of the Bagnold Summer, a coming-of-age comedy driven more by mood than by narrative developments. It has an overall arc, watching on as Daniel and his mother reconnect; however, this adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name is at its best when it sinks into the annual season of teen dreams and disappointments. First-time feature filmmaker Simon Bird is no stranger to the subject, having spent three seasons and two movies starring in The Inbetweeners. Fans of that franchise's irreverent humour will find themselves in far more laidback territory here, though — and watching a film that, visually and tonally, strives to offer a Wes Anderson-esque view of adolescence. Days of the Bagnold Summer's meticulously framed widescreen images don't ever feel like a cheap imitation, thankfully. Rather, they're artful and probing, especially when they manage to peer on at Daniel and Sue doing different things in the same household space. Indeed, this is a movie with a keen sense of how living in the same place and weathering the same struggles doesn't always make two people a family if one of them is determined to resist the concept. It's that insight, always tinged with bittersweet emotion, that helps Bird's feature strike a chord. Working with a script adapted by fellow first-timer Lisa Owens, he also finds the right balance between deadpan quirkiness and lived-in naturalism. Also assisting is Cave, son of Nick, who wears Daniel's malaise like a second skin — and the soundtrack by Belle and Sebastian, which is perfectly pitched. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1aOK-4UmoM ZAPPA Not everyone can brandish the swagger and charisma of a rock star, but that might actually be the easiest part of the job. To truly earn the term is to genuinely stand out from the ever-growing crowd and, often, to become the kind of music icon that can be referred to with just a single word. Frank Zappa was that kind of figure. Almost three decades after his death in 1993 to cancer, he still is. His music isn't for everyone, but his talent is undisputed, and he has more than 100 albums (62 released while he was alive, and 50 that've hit stores since his passing) that showcase his efforts as a singer, songwriter, composer, bandleader and multi-instrumentalist. While he was alive, he also amassed an enormous archive of materials from across his career, spanning his work with his band Mothers of Invention, his collaborations with other artists and, of course, the 1982 hit single 'Valley Girl' that he recorded with his then 14-year-old daughter Moon Zappa. Combine all of the above, and you get Zappa. Lively, detailed and riveting, this documentary attempts the difficult feat of condensing Frank's life and impact into 129 minutes — and, regardless of whether you're already a fan or not, it does an impressive and engaging job. You could say that Alex Winter — yes, the star of the Bill and Ted franchise that's not Keanu Reeves — took on an easy task when he decided to direct Zappa. Thanks to all the footage, songs, clips and photos at his disposal, as well as the participation of Frank's family, friends and colleagues, he definitely wasn't short on material to weave into this wide-ranging chronicle. Candid chats, eye-popping claymation and home videos all feature, and the film zips happily from one to the other with enthusiasm. But great documentaries don't just splice together the obvious bits and pieces, then throw in a few left-field choices. They explore and examine their subjects, even when they're celebratory. And, in Zappa's case, they wholeheartedly interrogate a man seen as a genius by some and considered too out-there and inaccessible by others. There are moments in the film that prove both viewpoints. There are others that appear to veer off on tangents, but firmly showcase the breadth of Frank's musical experimentation along the way. In his sixth stint as a documentarian (with Downloaded, Deep Web and The Panama Papers among the other titles on his resume), Winter circles and leaps through his central figure's existence and enigma, and it's never anything less than fascinating viewing. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on November 5, November 12, November 19 and November 26; and December 3, December 10, December 17, December 26; and January 1, January 7, January 14, January 21 and January 28; February 4 and February 11. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as The Craft: Legacy, Radioactive, Brazen Hussies, Freaky, Mank, Monsoon, Ellie and Abbie (and Ellie's Dead Aunt), American Utopia, Possessor, Misbehaviour, Happiest Season, The Prom, Sound of Metal, The Witches, The Midnight Sky, The Furnace, Wonder Woman 1984, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles, Nomadland, Pieces of a Woman, The Dry, Promising Young Woman, Summerland, Ammonite, The Dig, The White Tiger, Only the Animals, Malcolm & Marie, News of the World, High Ground, Earwig and the Witch, The Nest, Assassins, Synchronic and Another Round.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas across the country. After months spent empty, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, Australian picture palaces are back in business — spanning both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, comedies, music documentaries, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQKaZS9bK5U BLACKBIRD Helming an English-language remake of 2014 Danish film Silent Heart, director Roger Michel realises a crucial fact: if you're going to amass a cast that includes Kate Winslet (Ammonite), Mia Wasikowska (Judy & Punch), Sam Neill (Rams), Lindsay Duncan (Made in Italy), Rainn Wilson (The Meg) and Susan Sarandon (The Jesus Rolls), you need to give every single actor something weighty to do. So, working with a script written by Christian Torpe (TV's The Mist), as the original feature also did, the Notting Hill, Le Week-End and My Cousin Rachel filmmaker ensures that his high-profile cast members all get their time in the spotlight in the dialogue-heavy Blackbird. Their lesser-known co-stars Anson Boon (1917) and Bex Taylor-Klaus (13 Reasons Why) are similarly given their moments. As an ensemble effort, this illness-driven family reunion drama makes the most of its on-screen talent — and that remains the primarily by-the-numbers movie's biggest achievement as it endeavours to balance its weepie premise with its increasingly heated war of words. Playing characters who have been brought together in immensely difficult circumstances, and who each weather a predictable grab-bag of troubles once they're all in the same place for a weekend, Blackbird's lineup does always stress its work (no one here is overly subtle here), but they also help breathe feeling into a feature that'd be a far lesser affair without them. Winslet's high-strung angst, Wasikowska's baked-in melancholy and Neill's calm facade come in particularly handy, with the trio playing Jennifer, Anna and Paul — the chalk-and-cheese daughters and doting husband of the ailing Lily (Sarandon). Along with Jennifer's spouse Michael (Wilson) and son Jonathan (Boon), Anna's girlfriend Chris (Taylor-Klaus) and Lily's lifelong best friend Liz (Duncan), they've all gathered for one last hurrah. Terminally ill with a degenerative condition and unwilling to endure the worsening effects that are still certain to come, Lily wants to spend a few days farewelling her nearest and dearest at the well-appointed family home. Whether relatives come together for Christmas or for teary goodbyes (both of which apply here in their own ways), films about the concept never miss an opportunity to let sparks fly. With such heightened emotions whirring around during Lily's last days, that's forcefully, noticeably the case here. Blackbird makes the astute point that everyone has pain and secrets, even when they're facing the loss of a loved one, but that observation has become well-worn by the movie's many predecessors. Also routine is the movie's magazine-style visual sheen. If it wasn't for the sharp performances, watching this sometimes-moving picture would largely feel like simply looking at famous faces workshop trauma in a scenic letting. The feature's visuals are meant to isolate its characters against their eye-catching setting, but often it just loiters rather than meaningfully lingers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqoyVcrX_lA BOSS LEVEL Being a fan of time loop films can sometimes feel like being stuck in one yourself, especially when the genre's overly derivative entries reach screens. At their best, movies about repeating the same events over and over again call attention to life's small joys, its pervasive chaos or a combination of both. At their worst, such flicks use the concept as an empty gimmick to prop up an otherwise flimsy narrative. Boss Level veers in both directions at times. There's a cannily cathartic bent to the onslaught of destruction that comes its protagonist's way every time he awakens, all thanks to a horde of bloodthirsty assassins intent on ending his existence. Like Groundhog Day's Phil Connors at his most nihilistic, the film embraces the fact that life is carnage, literalising the idea as action movies do. But, as directed by Joe Carnahan (The Grey, The A-Team) and co-written by the filmmaker with Chris and Eddie Borey (Open Grave), Boss Level also attempts to paper over a slight narrative with rhythmically choreographed punches, bullets, swords and stunts, plus greeting card-level life lessons. It's exactly as straightforward as it sounds, and as standard. And, even for viewers unacquainted with Source Code, Edge of Tomorrow, the Happy Death Day franchise and Palm Springs, the film always feels as if it's following in better footsteps, including via sci-fi decor that could've stepped right out of Stargate and fight scenes that've taken inspiration from the John Wick series. Indeed, the movie's titular reference to video games isn't its only overt nod elsewhere. An ex-special forces soldier who now counts drowning his sorrows and bedding women he meets in bars as his main pastimes, Roy Pulver (Frank Grillo, Jiu Jitsu) has endured the same day 139 times when Boss Level begins. Through pithy narration, he explains the ins and outs of his new routine, where a flying blade acts like an alarm clock each and every morning, and the murderous foes just keep coming from there. Although yet to ascertain why he's been forced into this brutal cycle, Roy is beginning to suspect that it's linked to his ex-wife Jemma Wells (Naomi Watts, Penguin Bloom), who oversees a shadowy project for a sinister corporation led by the ominous Colonel Clive Ventor (Mel Gibson, Fatman). Roy and Jemma have a teenage son (debutant Rio Grillo) together, which complicates matters — because the former has hardly been a doting dad, adding to his regrets; and because the video game-loving kid also gives him something to lose. Like the most formulaic of side scrollers, Boss Level's highlights stem from its action scenes, rather than any story that's meant to fill in the gaps around them. That said, all those frenetic fists, kicks and weapons are helped by the elder Grillo, who has long screamed for more big-screen attention. Indeed, in a cast that also includes Michelle Yeoh (Last Christmas) and Ken Jeong (Occupation: Rainfall), he's the only one that isn't just aping what the movie does more often than not and simply going through the motions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=95&v=sf2EzBQiTr8&feature=emb_logo BILLIE EILISH: THE WORLD'S A LITTLE BLURRY When documentaries such as Amy and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck peered into the private lives of their very public central figures, they also gave rise to a clear realisation: without treasure troves of home videos and personal materials, all prophetically recorded and kept by their subjects and their loved ones long before they were stars, these films simply could not be made. That'll remain true of movies that look back at famous faces from times gone by (as seen in the recent Zappa), but Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry definitely doesn't give off the same sensation. For today's top talents, the notion that it's lucky such footage even exists to give rise to a documentary has become out of date. It's now a given that almost anyone with even a sniff of fame — let alone musicians who've won five Grammys, topped Triple J's Hottest 100, notched up a number one album and single, and sung a Bond theme, all while still in their teens — will have recorded every aspect of their existence. And, it's also just a fact of life that such a tendency won't have begun with their ascending popularity. Accordingly, The World's a Little Blurry does indeed have a wealth of material at its disposal, but this latest addition to the ever-growing pop star documentary genre doesn't feel like a revelation, a peek behind the facade, or a rare candid look at someone usually seen through music videos, concerts and formal interviews. That's the other thing about celebrities today: their social media feeds already give fans a window into their worlds, and even helped catapult them to success, so the documentaries that inevitably follow can come across as more of the same. Starting with the recording of When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? — which, yes, happened in her brother Finneas O'Connell's bedroom — The World's a Little Blurry perfectly fits the now-recognisable musician doco mould. From the moment that 'Bad Guy' became the ubiquitous track of 2019, a movie about Eilish was always bound to find its way to audiences, and to play out as this RJ Cutler (The September Issue, Belushi)-directed effort does. Raw, frank, relatable, accessible and even playful, the film adopts the same tone that's become synonymous with pop star Twitter and Instagram feeds. With Eilish's record label among the feature's producers, it's as rubber-stamped and carefully constructed as celebrity social media accounts are as well. That doesn't make The World's a Little Blurry any less engaging, or strip away the power of watching Eilish be herself for 140 minutes, but viewers are always seeing the sanctioned warts-and-all version of the documentary's point of focus (and, when she feels like it, the hamming-it-up-for-the-cameras version as well). Even just spanning a couple of years, the feature nonetheless provides a thorough snapshot of its subject's life, including her dislike of songwriting, the process of finishing the album, multiple tours, her Coachella set and the Grammys, plus her around-the-house behaviour, her rapport with her brother and parents, her romantic ups and downs, and her quest to get her drivers license. What resonates strongest, however, is one of the other influences behind the film's existence. Eilish's well-known love of Justin Bieber provides the movie's most illuminating thread, especially seeing the former start sobbing when she meets the latter. She was a big fan of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, too, as her mother explains — and now, she has a matching movie. Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry is currently screening in select cinemas, and is also available to stream via Apple TV+. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on November 5, November 12, November 19 and November 26; and December 3, December 10, December 17, December 26; and January 1, January 7, January 14, January 21 and January 28; February 4, February 11 and February 18. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as The Craft: Legacy, Radioactive, Brazen Hussies, Freaky, Mank, Monsoon, Ellie and Abbie (and Ellie's Dead Aunt), American Utopia, Possessor, Misbehaviour, Happiest Season, The Prom, Sound of Metal, The Witches, The Midnight Sky, The Furnace, Wonder Woman 1984, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles, Nomadland, Pieces of a Woman, The Dry, Promising Young Woman, Summerland, Ammonite, The Dig, The White Tiger, Only the Animals, Malcolm & Marie, News of the World, High Ground, Earwig and the Witch, The Nest, Assassins, Synchronic, Another Round, Minari, Firestarter — The Story of Bangarra, The Truffle Hunters and The Little Things.
Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come from the smallest inventions. A little over two weeks ago three Sydney-based butter enthusiasts launched a Kickstarter campaign for a butter knife with one slight design modification. Since then, they've raised over $220,000 in funding, attracted a steady flow of global media attention, and made hundreds of thousands of readers drool and slap their keyboards in excitable butter-loving anticipation. So, what's the deal? Humble though it may seem, this little piece of cutlery claims to solves one of humanity's age-old problems — how to evenly spread cold butter onto bread. "Say goodbye to hard clumps of butter ripping apart your morning toast," reads the product's Kickstarter page. The Stupendous Splendiferous ButterUp — yep, that's it's real name — "turns cold, hard butter into sumptuous easy to spread ribbons of dairy goodness." With a grater function incorporated into the knife's blade, the ButterUp slices up your unholy fridge butter and weirdly makes you feel like you're decorating your toast with cheese stringers. In case you can't fathom the enormity of this genius, here's a handy gif: Of course, this is a nice little invention. Anything that aids the consumption of butter generally gets a big fat thumbs up from us. But the response to the product has been truly staggering. Articles about the invention have been published by The Daily Mail, Wired, LostatEMinor, CBS, and Mashable. The project has ten days to go, and they've already surpassed their funding goal by over $180,000. "I have seldom previously had such a visceral reaction to something so simple," reads a comment on their Kickstarter page. "Too-hard butter has been a lifelong irritation and source of idle family chat as long as I can remember," said another supporter of the project. In fact, most responses from their nearly 9,000 backers have sounded a little like the actors from infomercials that seem to struggle with every daily tasks. Nevertheless, if you'd like to be part of the impending butter revolution, you can pledge money to ButterUp's Kickstarter campaign up until Wednesday, September 3. You can snag one for yourself for as little as $12 (or $15 if you want it delivered by Christmas). Either that or you can make like all of Europe and just leave your butter on the kitchen counter. For more information head to ButterUp's Kickstarter page.
Australia is home to tens of thousands of species of wildflowers — many of which are grown exclusively in Australia — making it one of the biggest and most diverse collections in the world. While some bloom in seemingly endless fields of brilliant colour, others grow in hard-to-see spots, among trees and grasses. Most get started in early spring, but, in cool environments, like the Snowy Mountains, the real action doesn't kick off until summer. Here's your guide to some of the best places for wildflowers in Australia — from the alpine meadows of Kosciuszko National Park to the wattle-filled picnic areas of Warrandyte State Park, just outside Melbourne. [caption id="attachment_740494" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Elinor Sheargold[/caption] NSW: KOSCIUSZKO NATIONAL PARK Once the snow has melted, Kosciuszko National Park transforms into a wonderland of wildflowers. Hundreds of species grow here, including 21 that are unique to the area. One of the nicest ways to see them — while conquering Australia's highest mountain — is along the Kosciuszko Walk, which travels for 13 kilometres from Thredbo to the summit of Mount Kosciuszko. If you're looking for an even more epic adventure, go for the Main Range Walk: a 22-kilometre loop that takes in several glacial lakes. Either way, you'll meet bright yellow billy buttons, pink everlasting daisies, yellow and purple eyebrights and alpine mint bush, among other delights. When to visit: December–January. [caption id="attachment_631474" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Pam Goldie[/caption] NSW: MUOGAMARRA NATURE RESERVE Need a wildflower fix, but don't want to travel too far from the city? Make tracks to Muogamarra Nature Reserve, which lies an hour's drive north of Sydney, near the Hawkesbury River. More than 900 native species live here, from brilliant red waratahs and angophoras to pink boronias and native orchids. Plenty of animals enjoy the sights, too, so don't be surprised to come across echidnas, wedge-tailed eagles and lyrebirds. To deepen your knowledge, join a guided walk, be it the Aboriginal Heritage Walk, the Muogamarra Highlights Walk or the six-hour Peats Bight Walk. There's only one catch — Muogamarra is open just six weekends each year in August and September. When to visit: August–September. [caption id="attachment_740505" align="alignnone" width="1920"] John Spencer[/caption] NSW: TOORALE NATIONAL PARK If you're up for a road trip, make Toorale National Park your destination. You'll find it at the back of Bourke, around 11 hours' drive northwest of Sydney. Perched on the banks of Darling River, the park is made up of enormous floodplains and waterways, which create ideal conditions for flowers to bloom. See the most spectacular scenery on the Darling River Drive, a 41-kilometre loop that, in spring, passes through fields of teeny-tiny sunray daisies. After rainfall, you'll be surrounded by bluebells, native peas and pigweed. It's also an excellent route for stargazers and birdwatchers, especially those who like baby emus. You can camp by the water, too, at Yapara Paaka Thuru (Darling River Campground). When to visit: September–October. VIC: GREATER BENDIGO NATIONAL PARK Bendigo isn't only an excellent escape for culture vultures, it's also perfect for wildflower watchers. That's because the city is more or less encircled by national park. Begin your escapades at One Tree Hill Regional Park, with a three-kilometre hike to the summit. It's steep, but worth the visual rewards — expect to be immersed, not only in golden carpets of wattle, delicate wax flowers and an array of native orchids, but also by panoramic regional views. Another flowery spot nearby is Solomon Gully Nature Conservation Reserve, which is a 10-minute drive south of town. When to visit: September–December. [caption id="attachment_740501" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Julian Kingma for Visit Victoria[/caption] VIC: GRAMPIANS NATIONAL PARK A whopping one third of Victoria's wildflowers are in Grampians National Park. In fact, it was once described as the 'garden of Victoria' and, given that Victoria was once known as 'The Garden State', that's saying something. If you're visiting in early spring, head for Heatherlie Quarry, Mount Zero and Mount Stapylton — all in the Grampians' northern section. Also impressive is Wartook Valley, where acacia blooms from late August. Come spring, the best views are around Halls Gap, where the last weekend of September is dedicated to the Grampians Wildflower Show. When to visit: August–December. [caption id="attachment_703439" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Nick Carson via Wikimedia Commons[/caption] VIC: WARRANDYTE STATE PARK Want wildflowers without any driving? You're in luck. Melbourne has its very own stash of blossoms in Warrandyte State Park, on the banks of the Yarra, 45 minutes' drive northeast of the CBD. It's the closest state park to the city. There's a diverse and colourful variety of flora to spot, from chocolate lilies (which are purple, not brown) and milkmaids to blue pincushions and pale sundews. Most bloom between September and December, though some, like ivy-leaf violets and common heath, last longer. In between looking down for flowers, look up for koalas. When to visit: September–December. [caption id="attachment_726968" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ben Nott for Tourism and Events Queensland[/caption] QLD: GIRRAWEEN NATIONAL PARK The name's a giveaway. Girraween means 'place of flowers'. And they look even more dramatic here than in other spots — thanks to the massive granite boulders and outcrops, which create stunning backdrops. The show starts early, in late July, when thousands of wattle trees turn gold. But it's in spring that things really get going, with pea flowers bringing showers of red and purple, followed by native sarsaparilla, native bluebells and stacks of daisies, in a spectrum of colours. The cornucopia of blossoms is a magnet for flower-loving wildlife, including butterflies, crimson rosellas, wedge-tailed eagles and lyrebirds. Girraween National Park is three hours' drive southwest of Brisbane. When to visit: July–January. QLD: GURULMUNDI Not many people live in Gurulmundi, a locality in the Western Downs located five hours' drive northwest of Brisbane. So you won't be bumping elbows while photographing wildflowers. To help you make the most of the many blooms that grow here, there's a dedicated wildflower trail. Made for driving, this 100-kilometre loop officially begins in the nearby town of Miles and takes you off the beaten track, onto unsealed roads and into out-of-the-way places. Along the way, you'll cross the 5000-kilometre-long Dingo Barrier Fence: the longest fence in the world. Follow the wildflower signs for the most beautiful vistas. When to visit: September. QLD: BIRDSVILLE Birdsville might be best known for its legendary pub and spring races, but there are wildflowers, too. Lots and lots and lots of them. That's because the town is in the Diamantina River floodplains, which means fertile soil. The best time to visit is after spring rain, because it drives the seeds to sprout. And, given the terrain is so flat, the results aren't hard to see. Keep your eyes peeled on the road into Birdsville and, if you're exploring further, into Betoota and Bedourie, as well. Just some of the exotic flowers you're likely to see include poached egg daisies, the hairy darling pea, wild stock and desert nightshade. When to visit: After it rains. Top image: Wildflowers in the Grampians by Christine O'Connell; Barrington River by John Spencer; and Muogamarra by John Spencer.
Two decades ago, a new Christmas tradition was born: watching a whole heap of stars revel in romance, comedy and the festive spirit in what's now the quintessential British seasonal rom-com. It was back in 2003 that Love Actually debuted on the big screen, bringing with it familiar faces, songs and eight intertwined tales. Everyone knows how that went, especially given that no one has stopped talking about it since. When the end of the year hits, if you get 'Christmas is All Around' sung by Bill Nighy (Living) stuck in your head, then you're definitely aware of Love Actually's popularity. If you've ever held up a piece of cardboard to tell the object of your affection that to you they're perfect, you do as well. Missed it on the big screen 20 years back, whether you gave it a pass or weren't old enough to be interested in English romantic comedies? It's now returning to cinemas in December to celebrate its anniversary. Getting festive watching Nighy, Hugh Grant (Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre), Liam Neeson (Retribution), Colin Firth (Empire of Light), Laura Linney (Ozark), Alan Rickman (Eye in the Sky), Emma Thompson (Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical), Keira Knightley (Boston Strangler), Martin Freeman (Secret Invasion), Chiwetel Ejiofor (The Man Who Fell to Earth) and Andrew Lincoln (The Walking Dead) in the same movie on the silver screen hasn't been absent from anyone's calendars of late. Outdoor cinemas give Love Actually a spin at this time of year, and an in-concert version does the rounds. But instead of getting one-off sessions here and there, the film is heading back to picture palaces in general release from Thursday, December 7. Accordingly, your December routine — one that's shared by many — can now include hitting up your local like it's 2003 again to revisit the Richard Curtis-written and -directed flick. Love Actually marked Curtis' first effort as a helmer after penning the screenplays for the Grant-starring Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones' Diary, and also writing for Blackadder and French and Saunders. On offer: interweaved Yuletide stories of romance, with Christmas and love all around everyone from rock 'n' roll singers, the Prime Minister of the UK and long-married couples to film stand-ins and school kids with crushes. Love Actually's anniversary season will screen the movie in a new 4K presentation, and feature ten minutes with the feature's cast and crew as they look back on their involvement in the film. Check out the trailer for Love Actually below: Love Actually will return to cinemas from Thursday, December 7, 2023.
First, hobbits tuck into breakfast. Then, they enjoy second breakfast. In fact, in both JRR Tolkien's books and the movie adaptations that've brought them to the screen so far, they like their meals frequently and with the smallest of gaps between them. That seems to be an approach that Prime Video is taking to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, its upcoming Middle-earth series, too — at least when it comes to dropping sneak peeks at the long-awaited show. The Rings of Power seems like it has been in the works forever, because it's now been 21 years since the first of The Lord of the Rings movies had everyone rushing to cinemas, obsessing over hobbits and elves, and saying "precious" too many times — and, it's also been five years since it was initially revealed that a TV series was in the works. The show will drop in September, starting on Friday, September 2, but early glimpses have been as rare as a pacifist orc until this month. Now, in the space of just a fortnight, Prime Video has dropped not just one, not two, but three new trailers. The latest arrived during San Diego Comic-Con, aka the reason that other big fantasy titles such as Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon and game-to-screen adaptation Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves have also released trailers this week — and it's the longest look at The Rings of Power yet. It also provides the most complete overview of the show's storyline, which jumps back into Middle-earth's Second Age, bringing that era from the LOTR realm to the screen for the first time. In past trailers — including the initial sneak peek back in February — gorgeous settings, elves, dwarves, harfoots (aka hobbit ancestors), stormy seas, strange skies, cave trolls, raging fires and orc battles have all popped up. This new trailer pieces together more of the plot around them. The focus: the rise of Sauron, how that gave rise to the rings and the impact across Middle-earth. Also seen in the new sneak peek: more orcs, and even a balrog. The Rings of Power features a young Galadriel (Morfydd Clark, Saint Maud) and a young Elrond (Robert Aramayo, The King's Man), too — and, this time, New Zealand's natural splendours stand in for the Elven realms of Lindon and Eregion, the Dwarven realm Khazad-dûm, the Southlands, the Northernmost Wastes, the Sundering Seas and the island kingdom of Númenór. Amazon first announced the show back in 2017, gave it the official go-ahead in mid-2018 and set its premiere date back in 2021. In-between, it confirmed that it wouldn't just remake Peter Jackson's movies. Rather, as per the show's official synopsis, it follows "the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth's history," with the action set thousands of years before the novels and movies we've all read and watched. If you're a little rusty on your LOTR lore, the Second Age lasted for 3441 years, and saw the initial rise and fall of Sauron, as well as a spate of wars over the coveted rings. Elves feature prominently, and there's plenty to cover, even if Tolkien's works didn't spend that much time on the period — largely outlining the main events in an appendix to the popular trilogy. The series will "take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien's pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness," the synopsis continues. "Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone," it also advises. That's a hefty tale to tell, and The Rings of Power has amassed a hefty cast to tell it — and some impressive talent behind the scenes. Among the other actors traversing Middle-earth are Ismael Cruz Córdova (The Undoing) as Arondir, Nazanin Boniadi (Bombshell) as Bronwyn, Owain Arthur (A Confession) as Prince Durin IV, Charlie Vickers (Palm Beach) as Halbrand and Sophia Nomvete (The Tempest) as Princess Disa. There's also Tom Budge (Judy & Punch), Joseph Mawle (Game of Thrones), Cynthia Addai-Robinson (The Accountant), Maxim Baldry (Years and Years), Peter Mullan (Westworld), Benjamin Walker (The Underground Railroad) and comedian Lenny Henry. And, the series is being overseen by showrunners and executive producers JD Payne and Patrick McKay, while filmmaker JA Bayona (A Monster Calls, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) directs the first two episodes. Check out the latest The Rings of Power trailer below: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will be available to stream via Prime Video from Friday, September 2, 2022. Images: Matt Grace / Ben Rothstein.
Few great things spring from being sent to boarding school, but Warwick Thornton's The New Boy is one of them. Decades have passed since the Kaytetye filmmaker was taught by Spanish monks at a remote missionary-style school after getting into trouble growing up in Alice Springs, but he now reflects upon the experience in the type of film that he's made his own within Australia's cinematic landscape: a deeply felt, stunningly shot, hauntingly acted and searingly impassioned tale of First Nations survival. When Thornton's feature debut Samson & Delilah arrived in 2009, it too pondered the subject. Winning the Cannes Film Festival's coveted Caméra d'Or for Best First Feature, it cemented Thornton as one of the country's best filmmakers working today. Sweet Country similarly wowed and blistered as it tackled the nation's long history of racial prejudice — and, premiering at the Venice International Film Festival, earned more international attention. With The New Boy, Cannes came calling again, then Sydney Film Festival's opening-night slot, and now a countrywide release during NAIDOC Week. "I'm Aboriginal — every day is survival for us," Thornton tells Concrete Playground. "Successions of governments have been trying to get rid of us for a very long time, through the last 200 years… So unpacking survival, and learning, and trying to work out what the fuck just happened, it's me. It's part of my life. It's what I do. And I've got a voice. I get money off the government to tell the government they're terrible. That's bizarre — that happens, and that's what I do." [caption id="attachment_908526" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Belinda Rolland © 2023/SFF.[/caption] The New Boy isn't autobiographical, but it always feels personal. Set in the 1940s as the Second World War rages abroad, it sees the film's namesake (newcomer Aswan Reid) get scooped up by outback law enforcement and delivered to a church-run orphanage, where his Indigenous culture and spirituality comes into conflict with Christianity. It's a story about forced conformity and assimilation, and fighting back however one can. It's history in a microcosm. It also teams Thornton with another Australian cinema icon: Cate Blanchett. "Rock 'n' roll! Aren't I very lucky! Isn't this amazing? Shit, Cate Blanchett's just called me and wants to make a movie — life's too short" — that's how Thornton reacted when two-time Oscar-winner and 2023 nominee (for Tár) gave him a call. "It's good for the ego, obviously. Then you go 'god, I've got to do something. I've got to come up with some brilliant idea right now that we can go and make while I've got her on the phone'. And obviously that doesn't happen. You slow down, and you take your time, and you're thoughtful about it. You don't just pitch any shit to Cate Blanchett, because she might go 'oh no, he's an idiot, that's a terrible idea'. So you've got to think about things, and plan some kind of attack on making yourself seem like you're really cool and you have lots of great ideas." Thornton did have something up his sleeve: an 18-year-old script inspired by those boarding school days, but featuring a priest. In the project's past life, French The Big Blue and The Professional actor Jean Reno had been in talks to star. Swapping the character to a nun gave Blanchett a part — which Thorton tells us about, alongside drawing from his own life, finding the next David Gulpilil in Reid, sharing tales of Indigenous survival with the world, balancing tragedy and hope, Adam Sandler movies and the full cinema experience. ON REWORKING AN OLD SCRIPT FOR CATE BLANCHETT "I hate writing. I think it's incredibly painful, and it takes me years. So if you do want to go down that process, well, we wouldn't be here having this conversation — I'd still be writing something. It takes a long time, and it's horrible. Writing is full of pain and angst — and you would rather go to the pub than actually write any words, because there's so much fear in a blank page, so much danger in it. And, so much you happiness as well, but I'm so scared of the blank page — I write with pen and paper, I don't own a computer, I don't know how to type. So you just stare at a blank page and go 'ohh this it's going to hurt'. Then, three years later, you come out of it and you've got something. Then it takes maybe another year to redraft it and get people's opinions. So remembering that I had that script kind of saved my arse, in a strange way, because I didn't want to go down another three-year process. I've got other scripts, but they just they they wouldn't be right for Cate, that I have been writing. So it was either that script or I write something new — and we wouldn't be here talking, I'd still be writing, if I was actually going to write something." ON SPARKING THE NEW BOY FROM EXPERIENCE "You use your experience in life to to get the foundations of what you think might be a good idea for a movie. I'm 52 years of age. I've lived, I've loved, I've died, I've cried, I've divorced, I've married. So you dwell on your own shit. I don't know if I'd be very good at writing a movie about a gecko because I've never been a gecko or goanna. So you just dwell on your existence, and that's where your foundations come from. I think all writers do that — nothing special to me. The reason why it took so long for it to be made, or to get to this point, was because it was actually a really bad script. [It was] pretty clear it wasn't working. Protagonist, antagonist, the arcs are all arse up — and it took someone like Cate to come along to empower me to fix it. But is there any writer who doesn't dwell on their own existence, and how they felt when someone said 'I don't love you anymore'? All that kind of shit? I'm sure every writer does that — it's kind of part and parcel of writing." ON SWAPPING A PRIEST FOR A NUN, BUT LEAVING THE OTHER CHARACTER DETAILS "That was very clear from Cate, because I thought 'well, we will have to do some some serious drafting to rebuild it to do it with the nun'. And she was very adamant — and, really, she's so bloody smart. I didn't see it. But she's seen it straight away: 'don't change the arc of of the character and what the character actually does'. So it's a nun having to do a priest's job and, obviously in that world, nuns can't do priest jobs. They're not allowed to actually do priest jobs. That created such such a great dynamic for for the character, and she was very clear about that. 'Don't go mucking, don't go fucking it up now Warwick! — because that stuff really, really works well for Sister Eileen'. It's like 'of course it does'. It it easier for me — I didn't have to write as much." ON CASTING DEBORAH MAILMAN AND WAYNE BLAIR "Deb and Wayne are really good friends. I shot The Sapphires for Wayne [which Blair directed] back in the day. And I shot Radiance for Rachel Perkins back in the mid 90s — crikey — one of Deb's first feature roles. So we've always been good friends, and I've always wanted to do something really focused, and I thought they were the best actors to be those characters. I told them that I was writing something and they're in it. And they were like 'bring it on, no worries'. So they knew. When it was the older draft, with the monk, I'd already cast them — I wanted them to play those roles even back then. So they were cast even before Cate." ON FINDING ASWAN REID "I was beguiled and freaked out. He looked perfect. He was exactly what the image in my head was of the New Boy. But with that comes a lot of fear because, first-time actors, children on set — they can do the first week, they do the first day, and then go 'I don't like this, I don't want do this anymore', and then just walk away. And you just can't make them do it. So it created more fear because he looked perfect. But that created a lot more fear about 'is the universe going to look after us, are we going to be okay?'. Because you're not casting just a child — you're casting the family. How's his mum and dad? Are they sensible human beings? Because they're going to be on set with us a lot as well. There's so many things come into play when you cast first-time actors, especially kids from communities where making a film is not necessarily that important to them. I think there's a lot of children in LA whose mothers tell them that this is the most important thing they're ever going to do, but for a kid from Kiwirrkurra — I don't know, is going and making a movie that important? I don't know. He had a great time. And he wants to make more movies now, which is fantastic. I think it was a year that we lost Gulpilil and we found Aswan. I think it's one of the most beautiful, strange worlds we live in." ON SHARING FILMS ABOUT INDIGENOUS SURVIVAL WITH THE WORLD "There's a hunger out there for Indigenous storytelling. We still run on a three-act structure — an arc of three acts, beginning, middle and end, which is, ironically, life: you're born, you live, you die. Everything works that way. So that we could transcend these kind of conversations, but from an Indigenous point of view — I think people are getting interested, because we used to make films, especially in Australia and actually in America as well, we made a lot of movies from the suburbs looking at the the mountains. And the fear and the darkness, and wild west and badlands, in a way. It was always from the veranda, from safety, that we would look out at that — and Australia did it a lot, and so did North America. Now people are interested in a different point of view — and that other point of view is from the mountains, from the forest, looking at the people sitting on the veranda. And from our point of view, which is from the badlands or the wild, but looking at and studying these people who are too afraid to come up to the veranda and meet us. [caption id="attachment_655044" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sweet Country[/caption] That's the way Indigenous people make movies, in a way. That's our point of view. And I think people are interested in that, so that's why I think the films did quite well around the world. There's a duty of care — when we make stories, it's a very big duty of care about what we say and what we portray about who we are as Indigenous people. It's a big point, and there needs to be a lot of honesty from us about that. And I think people enjoy that and they feel that when they see our films." ON BALANCING TRAGEDY AND HOPE — AND MUSING ON FAITH Well, The New Boy does represent who we are and what happened to us being colonised — but, you know what, we're still here. So there's hope. We're still here. So, obviously, he is what happened to us. Christians came in. Colonisation came in. New laws came in, new rules, new regulations. We had to fit in. We lost a lot. But we're still here and we're gaining a lot now because our form of spirituality is evolving. It's not a bunch of commandments banged into a rock. We have to evolve, and we have to move with the times, and that's what we're doing. And so it is hope and it's survival. There's room for all, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I think the religions that actually believe that there's either their way or hell, and anybody who does not become part of conforming to what they think will burn — and there's only two two options, right or wrong — it's a very dangerous place. Actually, that kind of concept will die one day. That will actually kill itself because it won't move and ebb and flow, and it's not evolving properly." [caption id="attachment_861204" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Mark Rogers[/caption] ON WHAT MAKES A WARWICK THORNTON FILM — AND THE FULL CINEMA EXPERIENCE "All my films have Adam Sandler in it, and they go 'oh, it must be a Warwick Thornton film'. I reckon that'd be really good. It'd be really funny, and tragic. I like him. If you see Adam Sandler on the poster, or a film by Happy Madison Productions, you know what you're going to get — you know when you buy that ticket, you know what you're going to get, and so don't expect anything else and just enjoy it for how stupid it is. Life, cinema, has room for pure popcorn and milkshakes. And then it has room for red wine and biscuits. There's so much scope in the arts, and everyone has a right to have the most ridiculously stupid films to the most blinkered, depressing auteur crap — like what I make. There's room for it all. It's such a beautiful medium. You can go to a cinema and have a mindless laugh. Or you can go to the cinema and have, not go into a lecture, but be entertained but actually walk out with a lot more knowledge about humanity, and existence, and points of view from countries and cultures that you'd never have access to in real life — but you do, cinema gives you that access. So it's such a beautiful, special place." [caption id="attachment_861205" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Mark Rogers[/caption] ON JUMPING BETWEEN FICTION AND DOCUMENTARIES "Whatever it is, it's horses for courses — not all stories are documentaries, and not all stories are fiction and features. So you get to a point where you go 'I'm so over a crew of 200 and blowing ridiculous amounts of money, and having that minute frame-by-frame control'. And so I want to go with David Tranter, sound recordist, to just go into the bush and make a beautiful documentary about someone or something — and live around the campfire, and cook rice and curry on a campfire, and just really focus and become this nurturing little unit. Then, after I do that, I'm covered in mosquito bites and rashes, and probably about to lose a a toe because I stubbed it and then it got infected — and I go 'I want to go back to features, I want to go back to catering'. You get bored with one, and then the grass is always greener on the other side. At the moment, I'm obviously doing fiction and features — and the grass, the greener grass at the moment, is in documentary for me. And when I get there, I'll realise that the greener grass is in fiction." The New Boy opened in Australian cinemas on July 6. Read our review. The New Boy images: Ben King.
Like show, like trailers: that's the approach that HBO is taking with getting everyone excited about House of the Dragon's return for season two. Fiery feuds are this show's baseline — this franchise's as well, since Game of Thrones was also full of them — so the Targaryen-focused series has scored not one but two new sneak peeks at what's to come. HBO is calling them "duelling trailers", in fact, in a first for the US network. There's also a trailer for the duelling trailers — because this pair of promos is all about getting audiences to choose a side. Given that the green and black councils are doing battle, one for King Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney, Rogue Heroes) and the other for Queen Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy, Mothering Sunday), the pair of House of the Dragon trailers also split their allegiances. Accordingly, viewers get a glimpse of the tale that's set to unravel from each camp's perspective. Just like winter, which is when House of the Dragon season two will hit Down Under — HBO also announced a Monday, June 17, 2024 premiere date with its new sneak peeks — the Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons is coming, then. In the initial teaser for this season, Rhaenys Targaryen (Eve Best, Nurse Jackie) told her niece Rhaenyra that "there is no war so hateful to the gods as a war between kin — and no war so bloody as a war between dragons". Because this is the Game of Thrones realm, expect the events that unfurl in House of the Dragon to make good on that observation. Also returning in season two as the fight for the Iron Throne continues: Olivia Cooke (Slow Horses) as Alicent Hightower, Matt Smith (Morbius) as Prince Daemon Targaryen, Rhys Ifans (The King's Man) as Ser Otto Hightower and Steve Toussaint (It's a Sin) as Lord Corlys Velaryon, plus Fabien Frankel (The Serpent), Ewan Mitchell (Saltburn) and Sonoya Mizuno (Shortcomings). HBO is also adding new faces to the mix, with Clinton Liberty (This Is Christmas) as Addam of Hull, Jamie Kenna (Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story) as Ser Alfred Broome, Kieran Bew (Warrior) as Hugh, Tom Bennett (Black Ops) as Ulf, Tom Taylor (Love at First Sight) as Lord Cregan Stark and Vincent Regan (One Piece) as Ser Rickard Thorne. They join Abubakar Salim (Napoleon) as Alyn of Hull, Gayle Rankin (Perry Mason) as Alys Rivers, Freddie Fox (The Great) as Ser Gwayne Hightower and Simon Russell Beale (Thor: Love and Thunder) as Ser Simon Strong among the season two newcomers. When it premieres in June, House of the Dragon's second season will arrive two years after the first debuted in 2022. Game of Thrones was always going to spark spinoff shows. Indeed, when HBO started thinking about doing a prequel six years ago, before the huge fantasy hit had even finished its run, it was hardly surprising. And, when the US network kept adding ideas to its list — including a Jon Snow-focused series with Kit Harington (Eternals) reprising his famous role, novella series Tales of Dunk and Egg and an animated GoT show, to name just a few prequels and spinoffs that've been considered, but may or may not actually come to fruition — absolutely no one was astonished. So far, just House of the Dragon has hit screens; however, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, the Dunk and Egg adaptation, is now due in 2025. WithHouse of the Dragon, Game of Thrones' first spinoff jumps back into House Targaryen's history. When it initially roared into streaming queues, it became an instant success. Accordingly, as it delivered more complicated GoT realm relationships, flowing long blonde hair, dragons, stabbings and fights for power — and plenty to fuel a drinking game, as we created — it was quickly renewed for season two. The series kicked off 172 years before the birth of Daenerys and her whole dragon-flying, nephew-dating, power-seeking story, and gave HBO its largest American audience for any new original series in its history when it debuted. If you're thinking that House of the Dragon is basically a case of new show, same squabbles, as it was easy to foresee it would be, you're right. It's pretty much Game of Thrones with different faces bearing now well-known surnames — and more dragons. If you haven't yet caught up with the show so far, it dives into the battle for the Iron Throne before the one we all watched between 2011–19. Paddy Considine (The Third Day) started the series King Viserys — and it's exactly who should be his heir that sparked all the Succession-style fuss. The words "succession" and "successor" (and "heir" as well) got bandied around constantly, naturally. Also, Australian actors Milly Alcock and Ryan Corr were among the stars. This latest adaptation of George RR Martin's popular fantasy books — based on Fire & Blood, specifically — is bound to continue on for more than just two seasons, but that's all that's confirmed for the moment. Check out the duelling trailers (and the trailer for the duelling trailers) for House of the Dragon season two below: House of the Dragon streams Down Under via Foxtel and Binge in Australia, and SoHo, Sky Go and Neon in New Zealand, with season two arriving on Monday, June 17, 2024. Read our full review of season one. Images: HBO.
When the National Gallery of Victoria dedicates its blockbuster summer or winter exhibitions to big fashion names, one word usually applies no matter which designer is in the spotlight: stunning. It was true back in 2022 when the Melbourne venue turned its focus to Alexander McQueen, for instance, and also in 2021 when it did the same with Gabrielle Chanel. Expect the same across the summer of 2025–26 — it's Vivienne Westwood's time to shine, plus Rei Kawakubo from Comme des Garçons' moment as well. Displaying at NGV International across Sunday, December 7, 2025–Sunday, April 19, 2026, Westwood | Kawakubo is both an Australian and a world first, pairing pieces by both the British talent and the Japanese designer in one massive showcase. No matter which of the duo's works you're looking at, you'll be revelling in rule-breaking, status quo-subverting threads. Some helped define the fashion of the punk movement in the 70s. Others have earned the world's attention at the Met Gala. In-between, items donned by supermodels, seen in films and from collections worn by plenty of well-known names feature. [caption id="attachment_1011671" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Rhianna wearing Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house), Rei Kawakubo (designer) at The Met Gala, 2017. Photo © Francois Durand via Getty Images.[/caption] In total, more than 140 designs are gracing the NGV. To assemble such a wide range, the gallery has sourced pieces from New York's Metropolitan Museum, The Victoria & Albert Museum, Palais Galliera and the Vivienne Westwood archive, plus its own collection. Over 40 works are new gifts to the gallery from Comme des Garçons especially for Westwood | Kawakubo, as chosen by Kawakubo. Among the full lineup of items: punk ensembles made famous by The Sex Pistols and Siousie Sioux, the wedding gown that Sarah Jessica Parker (And Just Like That...) wore in Sex and the City: The Movie and the tartan dress that Kate Moss stepped into in Westwood's Anglomania collection in the mid 90s — and also a version of Rihanna's petal-heavy 2017 Met Gala outfit, plus pieces from collections that Lady Gaga and Tracee Ellis Ross (Black Mirror) have sported. Westwood | Kawakubo spans from taffeta to tweed, vinyl and leather to silk, and corsetry to ruffles and knitwear, then — and much beyond. The exhibition is designed to step through Westwood and Kawakubo's careers across five thematic strands, including the former's punk-era work and the influence of the movement on the latter, their shared needs to rebel against the norm, how the two women have looked either forward or back in their pieces, eschewing objectification and using fashion to make a statement. [caption id="attachment_1011673" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Vivienne Westwood, London (fashion house), Vivienne Westwood (designer) Look 49, from the Anglomania collection, autumn–winter 1993–94. Le Cercle Républicain, Paris, March 1993. Photo © firstVIEW. Model: Kate Moss.[/caption] Top image: excerpt of Vivienne Westwood, London (fashion house), Vivienne Westwood (designer) Look 49, from the Anglomania collection, autumn–winter 1993–94. Le Cercle Républicain, Paris, March 1993. Photo © firstVIEW. Model: Kate Moss.
When SBS's new free-to-air 24-hour World Movies channel arrives in July, it'll boast plenty of reasons to get cosy on your couch, ignore the world and settle in for your own stay-at-home film festival. In fact, you might want to cancel your weekend daytime plans for the month — because you'll be spending every Saturday and Sunday watching a non-stop Studio Ghibli marathon. From 6am–7.30pm each weekend during July, the new channel will work its way through a heap of the studio's beloved flicks, including Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Kiki's Delivery Service, Ponyo, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, The Secret World of Arrietty, Tales From Earthsea, The Cat Returns, The Castle of Cagliostro, From Up on Poppy Hill, The Wind Rises and When Marnie Was There. If that's not enough delightful Japanese animation for you, a couple of other films will be thrown into the mix — such as The Red Turtle, a gorgeous Ghibli co-production directed by Dutch animator Michaël Dudok de Wit; the lively Mary and the Witch's Flower, which was made by animators who previously worked at Studio Ghibli; and The Boy and The Beast and Summer Wars, which both hail from rightfully acclaimed filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wf57f5F09c SBS has also revealed what else will be screening on World Movies throughout its first month, and it's a hefty list that includes box office hits, festival favourites and plenty of familiar faces. Get teary over Lion's Oscar-nominated real-life reunion tale, start pondering the afterlife in A Ghost Story (aka the film where Rooney Mara devours a pie and Casey Affleck stands under a sheet), or check out the moving, banned-in-Kenya lesbian romance Rafiki. Elsewhere, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem team up for the second time in as many years in Loving Pablo, which follows a journalist who falls for Pablo Escobar, while applauded Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke unveils a sprawling crime epic in Ash Is the Purest White. If you're looking for something to do on a Tuesday, the channel is devoting the night to French actor Romain Duris (Heartbreaker, The New Girlfriend), while Thursday evenings will be all about women in film. SBS World Movies launches on Monday, July 1 on channel 32. For its full lineup, visit the SBS TV guide.
Golf courses have always tried to mimic the natural: undulating hills, thick forests, deep water and unforgiving sand. It's been a trend of recent years to flip this, instead opting for the unusual: whether that be the lush greens and rolling sand dunes of Dubai's desert golf, the foreboding doom presented by a recently dormant volcano at Lanzarote or the thrill (chill?) of ice golf in Uummannaq in Greenland. So we really shouldn't be surprised to discover a recent venture from Troon Golf and Dutch Docklands to create an 18-hole floating golf course in the Maldives, should we? A series of man-made floating platforms containing a number of holes each will be linked together by underwater tunnels. Although seemingly an exercise in extravagance, it is not without conscience. The project will be entirely carbon neutral, using solar energy, sustainable desalination and water cooling technology. The Maldives approval of the project is more than just a cash grab. With rising sea levels, precipitated by climate change, predicted to submerge a series of the Maldives islands, the government is looking offshore for solutions. President Mahamed Nasheed is even looking to purchase new land in other countries to house his people. The verdict is still out on the project, drawing out such loaded terms as 'obscene' and 'indulgent' but also 'responsible' and 'socially inclusive'.
Plastic shopping bags might seem to last forever, but Australian's reliance upon the pesky, flimsy carriers has an expiration date. In a massive move for the industry — and a huge hug for the environment — the country's supermarkets are ditching single-use plastic bags from 2018. Three grocery chains have announced that they'll be banning the bag: Woolworths, Coles and the New South Wales-based Harris Farm. The big two will phase out plastic bags over the next 12 months, with Woolies' plans also including Big W and BWS, while Harris Farm will remove them from checkouts by January 1, 2018. Rather than offer shoppers free carriers, the supermarkets will sell thicker, reusable options for 15 cents per bag. The move will impact Woolworths and Coles locations around the country — bringing New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia into line with South Australia, ACT, the Northern Territory and Tasmania, where state-wide plastic bans are already in place. Over at Harris Farm, their range will also include single-use paper bags, as well as the free cardboard boxes they've been providing to customers for the past decade. Getting rid the ever-present items everyone has too many of is just the latest example of Aussie businesses putting the planet first, rather than prioritising convenience, money or simply maintaining the environmentally unfriendly status quo. Brisbane's Crowbar banned plastic straws last year, Closed Loop has been trialling ways to recycle takeaway coffee cups, and reusable coffee cups have been gaining popularity all over the place — with some cafes offering discounts, and others banning disposable containers completely. Via the ABC.
We've officially entered one of the busiest times of the year when it comes to buying gifts for the fam. Luckily, Black Friday deals make it a lot more affordable, especially if you have a big family. To help you get prepped, we've narrowed down some of the best bargains from Amazon for mums, dads, kids, sisters, brothers and partners. From coffee machines to cookbooks, skincare essentials and wardrobe staples, these savings are tantalizingly good, so get shopping and make the most of the deals while they last. For Mum Often the most self-sacrificing people when it comes to gifts, mum absolutely deserves a treat. From skincare to some newfound inspiration in the kitchen, these Black Friday deals will have you covered. Philips Espresso Machine for $699.00 – 41% off. VT COSMETICS CICA Reedle Shot 100 Serum for $26.40 – 47% off. RecipeTin Eats: Dinner by Nagi Maehashi for $24.00 – 47% off NIVEA SUN UV Face Shine Control Sunscreen for $8.99 – 50% off. Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker for $138.98 – 54% off. COSRX Snail MucinPower Repairing Essence Hydrating Serum for $12.99 – 66% off. For Dad Grab the dads in your life some gifts they will love, like an air fryer for lazy, healthy dinners or even a new watch if you think his outfits are in need of a little bit of extra flair. The Voice Inside by John Farnham for $29.00 – 42% off. Philips 5000 Series Air Fryer for $229.00 – 49% off. Inkbird Digital Meat Thermometer for $18.99 – 51% off. Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results Book for $17.49 – 53% off. Bonds Men's Underwear Cotton Action for $19.99 – 43% off. Tommy Hilfiger Men's Stainless Steel Watch for $139.00 – 58% off. For Your Sister or Girlfriend You really can't go wrong with some new shoes, hair accessories or nice-smelling stuff for the girls in your life. You can thank us later. d'Alba Italian White Truffle Toner for $19.98 – 50% off. Australian Food by Bill Granger for $29.00 – 42% off. Calvin Klein, Carousel Thong 5 Pack for $35.99 – 56% off. Dr. Martens Unisex Myles Brando Leather Slide Sandal for $139.99 – 46% off. Philips 5000 Series Hair Straightener for $64.99 – 40% off. Philosophy Cinnamon Buns Shampoo, Bath And Shower Gel for $13.55 – 60% off. For Your Brother or Boyfriend Whether they're a tech nerd, Lord of the Rings obsessed or are more of the active type, we've narrowed down some of the best low-price gifts to suit any kind of guy. BUZIO Insulated Water Bottle for $29.58 – 44% off. The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings Box Set for $40.24 – 50% off. Sennheiser Momentum 4 Special Edition Headphones for $335.00 – 46% off. MERRELL Men's Moab 3 GTX Hiking Shoe for $128.99 – 54% off. Calvin Klein One Eau De Toilette for $33.94 – 86% off. UGREEN Magsafe Power Bank for $49.99 – 42% off. For Kids If there's one thing we're certain of, is that it's oh-so-easy to make kids smile with a simple gift that will guarantee endless entertainment, whether it's a book, a board game or a toy you've heard them begging for the past six months. The Adventures of Tintin Complete Boxset for $149.90 – 57% off. Bose SoundLink Flex Bluetooth Portable Speaker for $149.00 – 40% off. PicassoTiles 100 Piece Magnetic Playboards Tiles Set for $45.60 – 49% off. Barbie DreamHouse for $175.00 – 53% off. Blokus for $19.99 – 52% off. Crocs Kids' Bayaband Sandal for $28.04 – 42% off. Images: Supplied. This article contains affiliate links, Concrete Playground may earn a commission when you make a purchase through links on our site.
UPDATE, November 3, 2021: The Harder The Fall is available to stream via Netflix from Wednesday, November 3. Idris Elba. A piercing gaze. One helluva red velvet suit. A film can't coast by on such a combination alone, and The Harder They Fall doesn't try to — but when it splashes that vivid vision across the screen, it's nothing short of magnificent. The moment arrives well into Jeymes Samuel's revisionist western, so plenty of stylishness has already graced its frames before then. Think: Old West saloons in brilliant yellows, greens and blues; the collective strut of a cast that includes Da 5 Bloods' Delroy Lindo and Jonathan Majors, Atlanta's Zazie Beetz and LaKeith Stanfield, and If Beale Street Could Talk Oscar-winner Regina King; and an aesthetic approach that blasts together the cool, the slick and the operatic. Still, Elba and his crimson attire — and the black vest and hat that tops it off — is the exclamation mark capping one flamboyant and vibrant movie. Imaginative is another appropriate word to describe The Harder They Fall, especially its loose and creative take on American history. Where some features based on the past take a faithful but massaged route — fellow recent release The Last Duel, for example — this one happily recognises what's fact and what's fantasy. Its main players all existed centuries ago, but Samuel and co-screenwriter Boaz Yakin (Now You See Me) meld them into the same narrative. That's an act of complete fiction, as is virtually everything except their names. The feature freely admits this on-screen before proceedings begin, though, and wouldn't dream of hiding from it. Team-up movies aren't rare, whether corralling superheroes or movie monsters, but there's a particular thrill and power to bringing together these fictionalised Black figures in such an ambitious and memorable, smart and suave, and all-round swaggering film. After proving such a commanding lead in HBO series Lovecraft Country, Majors takes centre stage here, too, as gunslinger Nat Love. First, however, the character is initially introduced as a child (Anthony Naylor Jr, The Mindy Project), watching his parents get murdered by the infamous Rufus Buck (Elba, The Suicide Squad). A quest for revenge ensues — and yes, Nat shares an origin story with Batman. Samuel definitely isn't afraid to get stylised and cartoonish, or melodramatic, or playful for that matter. One of the keys to The Harder They Fall is that it's so many things all at once, and rarely is it any one thing for too long. This is a brash and bold western from its first vividly shot frame till its last, of course, and yet it's also a film about the tragedies that infect families, the violence that infects societies, and the hate, abuse, prejudice, discrimination and bloodshed that can flow from both. It's a romance, too, and it nails its action scenes like it's part of a big blockbuster franchise. As an adult, Nat still has Rufus in his sights. It'll take a few twists of fate — including a great train robbery to free Rufus en route from one prison to the next — to bring them face to face again. The sequence where the outlaw's righthand woman Trudy (King) and quick-drawing fellow gang member Cherokee Bill (Stanfield) take on the law is sleek heist delight, and the saloon clash with marshal Bass Reeves (Lindo) that gets Nat back on Rufus' trail is just as dextrously handled. Nat also has bar proprietor and his on-again, off-again ex Stagecoach Mary (Beetz) on his side, plus the boastful Beckwourth (RJ Cyler, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl), sharp-shooting Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi, Briarpatch) and diminutive Cuffee (Danielle Deadwyler, P-Valley). Everyone gets their moments, and every one of those moments sashays towards a blood-spattered showdown. It might seem like a pure boilerplate affair on the page, particularly when getting roguish with the western genre — and using it to muse on race — has peppered Quentin Tarantino's resume courtesy of The Hateful Eight and Django Unchained. One of the other keys to The Harder They Fall is how openly and confidently that Samuel knows whose footsteps he's following in, because this is a realm with a past as sprawling as the plains it frequently covets. Seasoned fans can spot the nods in a multitude of directions, including to 60s and 70s spaghetti westerns, and to plenty of other flicks from the same era starring Clint Eastwood. But this is act of reclamation built on the bones of all that's come before, rather than a homage; it slides into a busy field to assert a place for Black cowboys, and does so as beguilingly as Samuel knows how. Perhaps better known as a songwriter and music producer, aka The Bullitts, Samuel brings a thrumming, dynamic, take-charge energy to The Harder They Fall. He writes, directs and composes the movie's soundtrack, too, so that applies across the board. Indeed, the way that he weaves the sounds of hip hop, reggae and afrobeat into a score that also takes cues from the late, great Ennio Morricone — the man behind the music to all of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, as well as an Oscar-winner for The Hateful Eight — perfectly encapsulates his overall approach. Samuel has room for all that's come before, and reverence for it, but he's also committed to challenging and redefining the stories and mythology it represents. The Harder They Fall has purpose, pluck and panache — oh-so-much flair, in fact, that it drips across everything from the cinematography to the production design and dapper costuming. It has pace as well, with its 130-minute running-time whizzing by amid several shootouts filled with rapid-fire bullets and enough strong glares to fuel a franchise of flicks. It also boasts the absolute best posse that Samuel could've hoped for. The Harder They Fall's cast is the kind you build an entire movie around, not that that's the gambit here. It'd be hard to thrust this ensemble together and have something other than a spectacular acting showcase result, but this is a rollicking pleasure with the exact right cast, an abundance of smarts, savvy and style, and an unwavering backbone. Top image: David Lee/Netflix.
