UPDATE: OCTOBER 6, 2020 — Due to worldwide cinema closures and other concerns around COVID-19, Dune will no longer release in December 2020. Instead, it will now release on Thursday, September 30, 2021. This article has been updated to reflect that change. 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. A beloved science fiction title. A star-studded cast. A Hans Zimmer score. Combining all three worked rather spectacularly in Blade Runner 2049, and now filmmaker Denis Villeneuve is hoping that it'll just turn out just as swimmingly with his Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac and Zendaya-led version of Dune. In the latest adaptation of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel, Chalamet plays Paul Atreides — son of Duke Leto Atreides (Isaac), who has just been given stewardship of the planet Arrakis. In this futuristic tale, Arrakis is the source of 'the spice', the most valuable substance in the universe. It's also home to a population of people known as the Fremen, as well as to giant sandworms, and it's known for being dangerous partly due to the latter. And, once Paul, Leto and Paul's mother Lady Jessica (Doctor Sleep's Rebecca Ferguson) move to the planet, it's the subject of a bitter battle with malicious forces over the spice trade. If all of the above sounds more than a bit familiar, that's because David Lynch brought Dune to the screen back in 1984, with his Kyle MacLachlan-starring movie becoming one one of the most unfairly maligned sci-fi films ever made. Fellow director Alejandro Jodorowsky also tried to make his own version — a feat that wasn't successful, sadly, but was explored in the excellent documentary Jodorowsky's Dune. Just how Villeneuve's take will fare is still yet to be seen, obviously, with the film initially due to hit cinemas Down Under on Boxing Day 2020, but now slated to release on September 30, 2021. But the French Canadian director has an impressive resume — see: Arrival, Sicario, Enemy, Prisoners and Incendies, just to name a few titles on his resume — and with Dune, he's clearly reaching for epic territory. The long-awaited, just-dropped first trailer makes that case quite heartily. As well as serving up plenty of Call Me By Your Name and Little Women's Chalamet as the film's brooding hero, the sneak peek features sandy expanses aplenty, a scream-inducing box of pain, and many a confrontation. And, a stellar cast that also includes Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa and Javier Bardem, all getting caught up in a spice war. Check out the trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9xhJrPXop4 Dune was originally scheduled to release in Australian cinemas on December 26, 2020, but will now hit screens on September 30, 2021. Top image: Chiabella James. Copyright: © 2020 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.
For some, The Jungle Book inspires fond memories of pouring over Rudyard Kipling's stories. For many others, the 1967 animated film springs to mind. But whichever one you think of first, they're both covered in the new live-action take on the tale. Directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man), consider this latest version a best-of package fans of each might have hoped for. It's no easy feat, balancing the darker material seen on the page while still embracing the fun and amusement experienced in the cartoon. But Favreau and company certainly don't shy away from a challenge. Indeed, from the moment the introductory Disney logo gives way to a zoom back through intricately rendered wildlife, The Jungle Book's ambitions are clear. The first frames of the film look so authentic that audiences might just have to resist the urge to reach out and touch them. Of course, viewers aren't the only ones steeped in such a striking environment. On screen, man-cub Mowgli (Neel Sethi) has spent his entire childhood in the jungle. Found as a baby by wise panther Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley), and raised by wolves Raksha (Lupita Nyong'o) and Akela (Giancarlo Esposito), he's happy and at home in the animal kingdom. But tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) has murder on his mind. To keep Mowgli safe, Bagheera endeavours to escort the boy to the nearest human settlement, a trek that intersects with seductive snake Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), laid-back bear Baloo (Bill Murray) and giant primate King Louie (Christopher Walken). As Mowgli's story deepens, so does The Jungle Book's aesthetic wizardry. The film's hordes of special effects experts haven't just made every swinging vine, stream of water and glimmering ray of sunshine look just like the real thing; they've made the talking animals seem believable as well. Using 3D to add depth within the frame further enhances the sense of photo-realism, as does the seamless blend of Sethi's performance with his motion-captured creature counterparts. In fact, believing that the entire feature was filmed on a sound stage in Los Angeles, and not on location, is practically impossible. Appearing the part isn't just crucial as far as the entire concept is concerned. It also helps the narrative, episodic as it may be, glide along. It also ensures that when a bear starts singing with the voice of Murray, or a snake's hissing sounds like Johansson, it feels fitting. Favreau understands the need to use everything at his disposal to immerse audiences in another world, be it a rousing score sprinkled with a few familiar tunes, or a fresh face who embodies a winning sense of adventure. Accordingly, when it comes to turning The Jungle Book into a live-action spectacular, his engaging attempt more than covers the bare necessities. And of course, it'll get that catchy track stuck in your head too.
Whether you're staycationing, vacationing or travelling for work, there are many reasons to pick a particular hotel over others — and how your temporary home away from home looks is right up there. Do you covet open, airy and minimalistic spaces? Sleek lines aplenty? The kind of modern elegance that catches your eye, but still looks functional? That's the remit of design-driven Marriott brand AC Hotels, which has just made its way to Australia. Despite launching in 1999 — first in Spain under hotelier Antonio Catalan, then teaming up with Marriott in 2011 — the chain hadn't yet set up shop Down Under. Now, its sleek-looking first Aussie site is open for business at Southbank in Melbourne. Featuring 205 rooms within a sculptural tower that's marked by its geometric glass façade (and, by night, its shining LED lights), the new spot joins the brand's 195-plus hotels in more than 27 countries and territories worldwide. Popping up against the Fishermans Bend skyline, the towering exterior hails from DKO Architecture in collaboration with Capital Alliance — and views, both over the Melbourne CBD and the Yarra, are a big drawcard for guests. As for where patrons will be slumbering, accommodation options span both rooms and suites, all decked out in neutral tones and boasting streamlined (but not restrained) design. Think: greys, whites and natural hues, stone tiling, textured timber floors, metal detailing, open closets and integrated bathrooms. The inspiration: the brand's Spanish heritage, and also South Melbourne's industrial warehousing. Also, some rooms are pet-friendly — as long as your pooch is under 20 kilograms. Part of the just-launched spot as well: co-working space AC Lounge, which'll also serve tapas at night; restaurant Sorolla, with an open kitchen for chef-watching while you eat; and Triana Bar, which goes heavy on soaking in the scenery. Drinks-wise, there's also a gin and tonic experience — a speciality cocktail that is served in a custom glass by sculptural glass artist Adam Walmon, and has "been scientifically developed to heighten the taste, aroma and palate experience for the drinker" — which is available in all of the hotel's dining and bar spaces. For sips by the infinity pool — which runs the width of the building — head to Bar de Buceo. As well as drinks, it does al fresco dining. And, the usual range of hotel amenities are covered, too, including a 24-hour fitness centre, plus a meeting and event space. Find AC Hotel Melbourne Southbank at 201 Normanby Road, Southbank. For more information, or to make a booking, head to the hotel's website.
It's been two years since Gelato Messina first introduced its cookie pies to the world, much to the delight of tastebuds across Australia. Over that time, the dessert chain has kept bringing the OTT dish back, too, especially when we all needed an extra dose of sweetness during lockdowns. It has whipped up different flavours as well, including choc hazelnut, fairy bread and red velvet. And, in addition to its one-off specials that are designed to share — whether or not you do is completely up to you, of course — Messina started serving up one-person versions last winter. That's all well and tasty, and it's about to be again — because those single-serve cookies pies are back. But, there's a caveat this time around: as well as only being available in stores on Mondays and Tuesdays, this round of pies is popping up at different Messina joints each week. No wonder the gelato fiends are calling it Le Tour De Cookie. Hang on, a cookie pie? Yes, it's a pie, but a pie made of cookie dough. If you're new to the concept, that's all you really need to know. And, yes, this cookie pie really is just for one person — and not just because you're not willing to share. The smaller-sized desserts come ready to eat as well. They're also topped with a scoop of gelato, because of course they are. To pick up one of these single-serve desserts, you'll need to keep an eye on the Messina website, which will list the stores dishing them up each week. To start things off, the Rosebery outpost in Sydney will be doing the honours on Monday, June 20–Tuesday, June 21 — and the Fitzroy shop in Melbourne will get the nod on Monday, June 27–Tuesday, June 28. Don't worry about pre-ordering, as that isn't required. With these small desserts, you just need to show up. Expect to pay $12 with a scoop, or $10 if somehow you don't want gelato on top. Gelato Messina's single-serve choc chip cookie pies are available on Monday and Tuesday nights at select stores during winter. Keep an eye on the Messina website for further details.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas in some parts of the country. After numerous periods spent empty during the pandemic, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, picture palaces in many Australian regions are back in business — including both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. THE FRENCH DISPATCH Editors fictional and real may disagree — The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun's Arthur Howitzer Jr (Bill Murray, On the Rocks) among them — but it's easy to use Wes Anderson's name as both an adjective and a verb. In a sentence that'd never get printed in his latest film's titular tome (and mightn't in The New Yorker, its inspiration, either), The French Dispatch is the most Wes Anderson movie Wes Anderson has ever Wes Andersoned. The immaculate symmetry that makes each frame a piece of art is present, naturally, as are gloriously offbeat performances. The equally dreamy and precise pastel- and jewel-hued colour palette, the who's who of a familiar cast list, the miniatures and animated interludes and split screens, the knack for physical comedy, and the mix of high artifice, heartfelt nostalgia and dripping whimsy, too. The writer/director knows what he loves, and also what he loves to splash across his films, and it's all accounted for in his tenth release. In The French Dispatch, he also adores stories that say as much about their authors as the world, the places that gift them to the masses, and the space needed to let creativity and insight breathe. He loves celebrating all of this, and heartily, using his usual bag of tricks. It's disingenuous to say that Anderson just wheels out the same flourishes in any movie he helms, though, despite each one — from The Royal Tenenbaums onwards, especially — looking like part of a set. As he's spent his career showing but conveys with extra gusto here, Anderson adores the craftsmanship of filmmaking. He likes pictures that look as if someone has doted on them and fashioned them with their hands, and is just as infatuated with the emotional possibilities that spring from such loving and meticulous work. Indeed, each of his features expresses that pivotal personality detail so clearly that it may as well be cross-stitched into the centre of the frame using Anderson's hair. It's still accurate to call The French Dispatch an ode to magazines, their heyday and their rockstar writers; the film draws four of its five chapters from its eponymous publication, even badging them with page numbers. But this is also a tribute to everything Anderson holds The New Yorker to stand for, and holds dear — to everything he's obsessed over, internalised and absorbed into the signature filmmaking style that's given such an exuberant workout once again. One scene, in the first of its three longer segments, crystallises this so magnificently that it's among the best things Anderson has ever put on-screen. It involves two versions of murderer-turned-artist Moses Rosenthaler, both sharing the boxed-in frame. The young (Tony Revolori, The Grand Budapest Hotel) greets the old (Benicio Del Toro, No Sudden Move), the pair swapping places and handing over lanyards, and it feels as if Anderson is doing the same with his long-held passions. Before Moses' instalment, entitled The Concrete Masterpiece, the picture's bookending story steps into Howitzer's offices in the fictional French town of Ennui-sur-Blasé. Since 1925, he's called it home, as well as the base for a sophisticated literary periodical that started as a travel insert in his father's paper back in Kansas. Because Anderson loves melancholy, too, news of Howitzer's death begins the film courtesy of an obituary. What follows via travelogue The Cycling Reporter, the aforementioned incarcerated art lark, student revolution report Revisions to a Manifesto and police cuisine-turned-kidnapping story The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner is The French Dispatch's final issue turned into a movie — and an outlet for both Howitzer's and the director's abundant Francophilia. Read our full review. DON'T LOOK UP Timing may be everything in comedy, but it's no longer working for Adam McKay. Back when the ex-Saturday Night Live writer was making Will Ferrell flicks (see: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Step Brothers), his films hinged upon comic timing. Ensuring jokes hit their marks was pivotal to his scripts, crucial during editing, and paramount to Ferrell and his co-stars. Since 2015, McKay has been equally obsessed with timeliness. More so, actually, in his latest film Don't Look Up. As started with The Big Short, which nabbed him a screenwriting Oscar, his current breed of politically focused satires trade not just in laughs but in topicality. Skewering the present or recent state of America has become the filmmaker's main aim — but, as 2018's Vice so firmly illustrated, smugly stating the obvious isn't particularly funny. On paper, Don't Look Up sounds like a dream. Using a comet hurtling towards earth as a stand-in, McKay parodies climate change inaction and the circus that tackling COVID-19 has turned into in the US, and spoofs self-serious disaster blockbusters — 1998's double whammy of Deep Impact and Armageddon among them — too. And, he enlists a fantasy cast, which spans five Oscar-winners, plus almost every other famous person he could seemingly think of. But he's still simply making the most blatant gags, all while assuming viewers wouldn't care about saving the planet, or their own lives, without such star-studded and glossily shot packaging. Although the pandemic has certainly exposed stupidity on a vast scale among politicians, the media and the everyday masses alike, mining that alone is hardly smart, savvy or amusing. Again, it's merely stating what everyone has already observed for the past two years, and delivering it with a shit-eating grin. That smirk is Don't Look Up's go-to expression among its broad caricatures — in the name of comedy, of course. Trump-esque President Orlean (Meryl Streep, The Prom) has one, as does her sycophantic dude-bro son/Chief of Staff Jason (Jonah Hill, The Beach Bum). Flinging trivial banter with fake smiles, "keep it light and fun" morning show hosts Brie Evantee (Cate Blanchett, Where'd You Go, Bernadette) and Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry, Those Who Wish Me Dead) sport them as well. But PhD student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence, X-Men: Dark Phoenix) and her astronomy professor Dr Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) aren't smiling when she discovers a Mount Everest-sized comet, then he realises it's on a collision course with earth and will wipe out everything in six months and 14 days. And they aren't beaming when, with NASA's head of planetary defence Dr Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan, The Unforgivable), they try to spread the word. The world is literally ending, but no one cares. Conjuring up the premise with journalist/political commentator David Sirota, McKay turns Don't Look Up into a greatest-hits tour of predictable situations bound to occur if a celestial body was rocketing our way — and that've largely happened during the fights against climate change and COVID-19. The President's reactions stem from her clear-cut inspiration, including the decision to "sit tight and assess" until it's politically convenient or just unavoidable, and the later flat-out denial that anything is a problem. The character in general apes the same source, and bluntly, given Orlean is initially busy with a scandal surrounding her next Supreme Court nominee, and that her love life and the porn industry also spark headlines. The insipid media and social media response, favouring a rocky celebrity relationship (which is where Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi come in), is also all too real. The list goes on, including the memes when Dibiasky gets outraged on TV and the worshipping of Mindy as an AILF (Astronomer I'd Like to Fuck). Read our full review. DEAR EVAN HANSEN Dear Dear Evan Hansen: don't. If a movie could write itself a letter like the eponymous figure in this stage-to-screen musical does, that's all any missive would need to communicate. It could elaborate, of course. It could caution against emoting to the back row, given that cinema is a subtler medium than theatre. It could advise against its firmly not-a-teenager lead Ben Platt, who won one of the Broadway hit's six Tony Awards, but may as well be uttering "how do you do, fellow kids?" on the big screen. It could warn against shooting the bulk of the feature like it's still on a stage, just with more close-ups. Mostly, though, any dispatch from any version of Dear Evan Hansen — treading the boards or flickering through a projector — should counsel against the coming-of-age tale's horrendously misguided milk-the-dead-guy narrative. When the most interesting thing about a character is their proximity to someone that's died, that's rarely a great sign. It's the realm of heartstring-tugging illness weepies and romances where partners or parents are bereaved, sweeping love stories are shattered and families are forever altered, and it uses the sickness or death of another person purely as a prop to make someone that's alive and healthy seem more tragic. That's worlds away from engaging sincerely with confronting mortality, loss, grief or all three, as so few movies manage — although Babyteeth did superbly in 2020 — and it's mawkish, manipulative storytelling at its worst. Dear Evan Hansen gives the formula a twist, however, and not for the better. Here, after a classmate's suicide, the titular high schooler pretends he was his closest friend, including to the dead kid's family. A anxious, isolated and bullied teen who returns from summer break with a fractured arm, Evan (Platt, The Politician) might be the last person to talk to Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan, one of the Broadway production's understudies). It isn't a pleasant chat, even if Connor signs Evan's cast — which no one else has or wants to. In the school library, Evan prints out a letter to himself as a therapy exercise, but Connor grabs it first, reads it, then gets furious because it mentions his sister Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever, Dopesick). Cue days spent fretting on Evan's part, wondering if he'll see the text splashed across social media. Instead, he's soon sitting with Cynthia Murphy (Amy Adams, The Woman in the Window) and her husband Larry (Danny Pino, Fatale), who inform him of Connor's suicide — and that they found Evan's 'Dear Evan Hansen' note on him, and they're sure it's their son's last words. With his high school misery amply established through catchy songs, and his yearning to connect as well, Evan opts to go along with the Murphys' mistaken belief, including the idea that he and Connor were secretly the best of pals. As penned for both theatre and film by Steven Levenson (Tick, Tick... Boom!) — with music and lyrics by Benji Pasek and Justin Paul (The Greatest Showman) — this plot point is meant to play with awkwardness and longing, but it's simply monstrous. Indeed, the longer it goes on, with Evan spending more time with Connor's wealthy family than with his own mum Heidi (Julianne Moore, Lisey's Story), a nurse always working double shifts, the more ghastly it proves. It's lazy writing, too, because this isn't just a tale that defines its lead by their connection to a deceased person; it's about someone who intentionally makes that move themselves, then remains the recipient of all the movie's sympathies. Read our full review. RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY It's the franchise about zombies that just won't die. The series with a disdain for big corporations and the chaos they wreak that keeps pumping out more instalments, too. After six movies between 2002–16 that consistently proved a case of diminishing returns — and the original horror flick was hardly a masterpiece to begin with — welcoming viewers back to the Resident Evil realm smacks of simply trying to keep the whole saga going at any cost. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City does indeed extract a price from its audience, stretching their fondness for the video game-to-film franchise, their appetite for John Carpenter-inspired riffs and their penchant for overemphasised 90s nostalgia. Primarily set in 1998, and endeavouring to reboot the series without its previous star Milla Jovovich, it strenuously tests patience as well. After an orphanage stint filled with familiar Resident Evil figures — siblings Claire and Chris Redfield as kids, plus nefarious Umbrella Corporation scientist Dr William Birkin (Neal McDonough, Sonic the Hedgehog) — Welcome to Raccoon City first gets gory en route back to its titular town. The now-adult Claire (Kaya Scodelario, Crawl) hitches a ride with a trucker, who then hits a woman standing in the road. The victim still gets up afterwards, because unnaturally shuffling along after you've been killed comes with the territory. The walking dead are a new phenomenon in the desolate locale, however, following Umbrella's decision to shut up shop and leave the place a crumbling shell. Of course, the night that Claire arrives back to reunite with Chris (Robbie Amell, Upload), who's now a local cop, is the night that a virus zombifies Raccoon City's residents. Any movie that features besieged police officers trying to fend off attackers will always tread where Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 has already stomped, and Welcome to Raccoon City writer/director Johannes Roberts knows it — just as he splashed his awareness of shark horror flicks gone by across both 47 Metres Down and 47 Metres Down: Uncaged. Restarting a well-known series by blatantly taking cues from another filmmaker, and from 80s and 90s horror overall, isn't the path to success, though. As this dispiritingly generic feature keeps proving, it's about as smart as constantly splitting up while fending off the undead and navigating labyrinthine spaces, which Claire, Chris, and the latter's fellow cops Jill Valentine (Hannah John-Kamen, Ant-Man and the Wasp), Albert Wesker (Tom Hopper, Terminator: Dark Fate) and Leon Kennedy (Avan Jogia, Zombieland: Double Tap) unsurprisingly keep doing. Welcome to Raccoon City fares better with action over logic and originality, although nodding so forcefully to the filmmaker behind Halloween and The Thing stands out within the Resident Evil franchise. When it comes to Raccoon City's infected inhabitants, plus foes more frightening — their onslaughts, and Claire and company's attempts to evade them — Roberts finds a balance between stripping things back to ramp up the suspense and trying to imitate the video games that started it all. In the film's midsection, it all gets monotonous nonetheless, even while switching between first- and third-person perspectives and going big on monstrous creature design. Callouts to technology gone by, such as Nokia phones with Snake and VHS tapes (and, the flipside, marvelling over whiz-bang new tech by 90s standards like Palm Pilots and chat rooms), get repetitive and old fast, too. All things Resident Evil have as well, something this movie can't change despite its overt angling for a certain-to-eventuate sequel. NEW ORDER If only one word could be used to describe New Order, that word would be relentless. If just two words could be deployed to sum up the purposefully provocative film by writer/director Michel Franco (April's Daughter), savage would get thrown in as well. Sharing zero in common with the band of the same name, this 2020 Venice Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-winner dreams up a dystopian future that's barely even one step removed from current reality. And, in dissecting class clashes, and also examining the growing discontent unsurprisingly swelling worldwide at the lavish lives indulged by the wealthy while so much of the world struggles, the mood and narrative are nothing less than brutal. Screens big and small have been filled with eat-the-rich stories of late — Parasite, Us, Candyman, Ready or Not, The White Lotus, Nine Perfect Strangers and Squid Game among them — but New Order is its own ravenous meal. The place: Mexico City. The setup: a wedding that goes undeniably wrong. As the ceremony gets underway at a compound-style residence that's jam-packed with the ultra-wealthy and ultra-corrupt, the chasm between the guests and the staff is glaring. Case in point: bride-to-be Marianne (Naian González Norvind, South Mountain) couldn't be more stressed when she's asked for money to help ex-employee Rolando's (Eligio Meléndez, La Civil) ailing wife, who also worked at the house, and plenty of her family members are dismissive, arrogant and flat-out rude about their former servant's plight. Then activists start making their presence known outside, as well as further afield in the city's streets — and interrupting the nuptials by storming the mansion, too. The military respond swiftly and brutally, sparing no one in their efforts to implement the movie's telling moniker. Franco doesn't want any second of New Order to be easy to watch. The film's opening foreshadows the bloodshed and body count to come, but even when it then gets immersed in a ridiculously lavish but characteristically chaotic upper-class wedding — as such events stereotypically are — all the slick excess so rampantly on display remains positively ghastly. There's a sense of insidiousness in the air that the filmmaker lets fester amid all the gated home's glass and steel, then pushes into overdrive as the violent uprising gathers steam. There's an utter lack of hope as well, because nothing can or will turn out well in this situation. It can't end nicely for the bourgeoisie previously oblivious to or cruelly uncaring about the 99 percent and, as authoritarianism kicks in to a savage degree, the ideals of fairness and equality being championed by protestors aren't shared by their government. One word that can't be used to describe New Order: subtle, or any synonym denoting a delicate approach. Franco wants the parallels between his fictional situation and reality, and the unsparing critique of the latter he's making with the former, to be noticed — and to be not only unavoidable, but searingly, blisteringly haunting. He's brash and bold with the film's style as a result, as well as blunt. He's forceful, but also masterful, and makes every image and sound resound with palpable anger. Franco's also trading in obvious concepts as he tears down the rich, greedy, powerful and unscrupulous, lays bare the ease with which a fascist nightmare can take hold and posits that the fight against both is never easy, but he's still moulded all those notions into an emotionally dynamic whirlwind. New Order is screening in Melbourne only. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in Australian cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on August 5, August 12, August 19 and August 26; September 2, September 9, September 16, September 23 and September 30; October 7, October 14, October 21 and October 28; November 4, November 11, November 18 and November 25; and December 2. For Sydney specifically, you can take a look at out our rundown of new films that released in Sydney cinemas when they reopened on October 11, and what opened on October 14, October 21 and October 28 as well. And for Melbourne, you can check out our top picks from when outdoor cinemas reopened on October 22 — and from when indoor cinemas did the same on October 29. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as The Suicide Squad, Free Guy, Respect, The Night House, Candyman, Annette, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Streamline, Coming Home in the Dark, Pig, Big Deal, The Killing of Two Lovers, Nitram, Riders of Justice, The Alpinist, A Fire Inside, Lamb, The Last Duel, Malignant, The Harder They Fall, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, Halloween Kills, Passing, Eternals, The Many Saints of Newark, Julia, No Time to Die, The Power of the Dog, Tick, Tick... Boom!, Zola, Last Night in Soho, Blue Bayou, The Rescue, Titane, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, Dune, Encanto, The Card Counter and The Lost Leonardo.
This article is part of our series on the diverse highlights of NZ's Canterbury region, from city to snow. To book your Christchurch trip, visit the 100% Pure New Zealand website. Bars on buses, pop-up public buildings and shipping container shopping centres — it's what you expect to see in some of the most cutting-edge cities in the world, but is it what you expect to see on the South Island of New Zealand? This is the land of the long white cloud's inventive, industrious and inspiring city of Christchurch today. Excitement and opportunity are stirring everywhere in a city with a fresh slate. It's in the small bars that have appeared in deserted streets, the designers who have started working a disused tannery and the locals who just want to contribute to the new incarnation of their city. For most, it's an inspiring time to be in New Zealand's second largest city, and there's no better time to visit. Here are four areas in which the city is thinking laterally and pulling off big things. Hospitality: C1 Espresso Christchurch is catching up to Auckland and Wellington in the cool stakes and forging its own rep for great coffee, small bars and a focus on local produce.. "We're all starting again and we've got an opportunity to redefine ourselves," says Sam Crofskey, owner of High Street's C1 Espresso. Pioneering the second wave coffee movement through to the third in Christchurch since 1996, C1 is famous for its pneumatic tube system that delivers burgers and fries to you at 100 km/hr. While there is something very Fifth Element about it, but this system is actually more in tune with the past than the future, as the tubes are part of the building's former life as a bank. "There is so much opportunity in the city," Sam says. "You can open a bar in an alleyway or upstairs above a shop or whatever." And people are. Bars specialising in whiskey, craft beer and local wine have popped up in unlikely places and are almost always buzzing with crowds. Retail: Re:START A temporary structural solution is driving the retail industry: shipping container shopping. Re:START encouraged retailers to establish temporary spaces in shipping containers to grow their businesses. Located in Cashel Square, Re:START has been one of Christchurch's biggest successes. (It's also home to Dimitri's, possibly the best souvlaki in the South Island.) In addition to what's happening in the city centre, retail has found an unlikely home-away-from-home in the industrial side of town. Ten minutes drive from the CBD in Woolston, an old tannery has become the new home of Christchurch's boutique designers and retailers. After owning the site for near on 20 years, Alasdair Cassels was able to redevelop the space into an arcade-like shopping mall, aptly dubbed The Tannery. Giving designers a place to create and sell their wares, The Tannery became a meeting place as well as a shopping destination — at a time when the city had nothing else like it. Art: Gap Filler Colour flows through Christchurch in the form of street art. From almost any vantage point you're bound to be in viewing distance of at least two pieces of work, with murals painted on the sides of buildings both abandoned and inhabited and outdoor installations littered over disused blocks. What's happened in Christchurch has shown that adversity exemplifies creativity. Seeing a way to breathe new life into the city, artists have used bare walls to redefine the mood and vision of the urban area. A mural painted We got the sunshine lights up Madras Street, a super-size Rhone portrait sits on one side of Cathedral Junction and local artist Wongi 'Freak' Wilson has left his mark all over town. As well as this, 'Gap Filler' projects are placed all over the city, activating vacant spaces with interactive installations. Walking around, it's likely that you'll hear someone playing the drums (in the Sound Garden), see someone having a boogie in front of a washing machine (at the Dance-O-Mat) or sitting on a giant Astroturf couch. Once a super conservative city, Christchurch now thrives on new work that will continue to shape and develop with it. If you're an artist with a crazy idea, Christchurch is the one city that might just let you do it. Infrastructure: Cardboard Cathedral As well as Re:START, which can be moved at any time, the Cardboard Cathedral is an incredible example of how great transitional architecture can be. Erected as a place of worship by emergency architect Shigeru Ban, the structure is made largely from cardboard tubes and looks like a picture of perfect symmetry from the inside. It's temporary, but it's meant to last around 50 years. But permanency is the ultimate goal, and plans for infrastructure and urban living are well underway. New Christchurch looks like it's going to be one hell of a city. Feature image and Rhone mural image courtesty of Jocey K, Cardboard Cathedral courtesy of Forgemind ArchiMedia via photopin.
It goes without saying, Melbourne's characteristically buzzing cultural ecosystem has thrived this year, with the city's most innovative, forward-thinking residents taking bold risks in their field. More inventive, forward-thinking and experimental than ever, Melbourne's newest restaurants have defied traditional fine dining, turning small dinner clubs into full-blown establishments, reexamining degustation formats and prolifically pedestalling barbecue. At Concrete Playground we encourage exploration and showcase innovation in our city every day, so we thought it fitting to reward those most talented whippersnappers pushing Melbourne to be a better, braver city. And so, these six new restaurants, opened in 2016, have been nominated for Best New Restaurant in Concrete Playground's Best of 2016 Awards. Vote for your favourite.
If you're a fan of twisty TV shows about wealth, privilege, power, influence, the vast chasm between the rich and everyday folks, and the societal problems that fester due to such rampant inequality, then 2021 has been a fantastic year. The White Lotus fit the bill, and proved such a hit that it's coming back for a second season. Squid Game, the high-stakes Korean horror-thriller absolutely everyone binged over the last month, ticks the box as well. And, so does Succession, with the much-acclaimed HBO drama finally returning for a third season. No series slings insults as savagely as this Emmy, Golden Globe, BAFTA, Critics' Choice, Writers Guild and Directors Guild Award-winner. No show channels feuding and backstabbing into such an insightful and gripping satire of the one percent, either. Succession isn't just whip-smart, darkly piercing and frequently laugh-out-loud funny about its chosen milieu; it's the best drama on TV, one of the best-written shows on television, and among the best series all-round in general as well. So, here's two pieces of good news: firstly, Succession's third season is as biting, scathing and entertaining as viewers have come to expect, and might just be its finest yet; and, secondly, HBO has just renewed the show for a fourth season. Neither of these revelations is particularly surprising, but they're still excellent. Announcing the renewal, HBO noted that in the US, the series' third-season premiere was its most-watched episode to-date. It did herald Succession's return after a two-year wait — a gap that left viewers with quite the cliffhanger, as well as a huge hankering for more of its witty words. Indeed, before the series first graced TV screens back in 2018, you mightn't have realised exactly how engaging it is to watch people squabbling. Not just everyday characters, either, but the constantly arguing — and ridiculously well-off and entitled — family of a global media baron. Those power plays and the verbal argy-bargy make Succession compulsively watchable, and so do the pitch-perfect performances that deliver every verbal blow. Of course, as created by Peep Show's Jesse Armstrong — someone who knows more than a thing or two about black comedy — the idea that depiction doesn't equal endorsement is as rich in Succession and its brand of satire as its always-disagreeing characters. [caption id="attachment_830169" align="alignnone" width="1920"] David Russell/HBO[/caption] In season three, all those Roy family antics and the bitter words they inspire are in full swing yet again. Succession has always riffed on a scenario that also sits at the heart of fellow hits Arrested Development and Game of Thrones — families clashing over their empire — but this version doesn't need dragons to be ruthless. That feeling only heightened at the end of season two, when Kendall (Jeremy Strong, The Trial of the Chicago 7), the son always seen as the natural successor to patriarch Logan (Brian Cox, Super Troopers 2), decided to publicly expose the family's dark business secrets. Now, the series is wading through the fallout, with Logan's other children — Connor (Alan Ruck, Gringo), Shiv (Sarah Snook, Pieces of a Woman) and Roman (Kieran Culkin, Infinity Baby) — caught in the middle agin. This brood's tenuous and tempestuous relationship only gets thornier the more the show goes on, and its examination of their privileged lives — and what that bubble has done to them emotionally, psychologically and ideologically — only deepens in season three. All four Roy children are still trying to position themselves as next in line at Logan's company, of course, with the future of the business in jeopardy not only due to his advancing years, or the takeover bids and government interest that've been a big part of its two seasons so far, but thanks to all the in-fighting. When they pop up in the third season, Alexander Skarsgård (Godzilla vs Kong) and Adrien Brody (The Grand Budapest Hotel) complicate the Roys' precarious situation even further. That's this show's bread and butter, and it's glorious — and it just keeps finding the ideal cast members. With season three only two episodes in at the time of writing, exactly when season four will hit screens hasn't been revealed. For now, you can check out the full Succession season three trailer below: The first two episodes of Succession's third season are available to view via Foxtel, Binge and Foxtel On Demand, with new episodes dropping weekly. Exactly when the series' fourth season will drop hasn't yet been revealed. Top image: Macall B Polay/HBO.
These days we have access to unprecedented amounts of information in a multitude of mediums. Gone are the days when organisations could just rely on a good story or startling statistics to get their message across. In our increasingly visual culture, a story just ain't a story and information just isn't newsworthy unless it's accompanied by some darn good imagery. The 2020 VISION project takes all of this into account. The multi-media conservation project, the most ambitious of its kind to date, has gotten together 20 of the UK's best professional wildlife photographers and assigned them an area of conservation to document using visual media. The photographers have been assigned areas all over the isles — sustainable fishing on the border between England and Scotland, restoring the wetlands at Somerset Levels and even an attempt to 'rewild' the River Thames. The work of these photographs will be assembled into a outdoor audio-visual multi roadshow at the end of this year. The project hopes to capture the visual imagination of the British public, making an emotional rather than a scientific argument for conservation, and to get the message across that the health of the natural environment has a significant impact on the health of the individual. Information worth remembering.
Wave your hand, see a massive roster of musicians behind the microphone across the Harbour City: that's the SXSW Sydney Music Festival setup. The live tunes part of the event lets you wander between more than 200 performances on 25 stages over seven days if you have a wristband, and the 2024 lineup just keeps expanding. After a successful Australian debut in 2023, SXSW Sydney is back for a second year from Monday, October 14–Sunday, October 20 — and the program announcements continue to drop. This time, the festival's music strand has added over 25 acts, plus a heap of speakers. When you're not dancing to China's Berlin Psycho Nurses, Indonesia's KATHMANDU and mindfreakk, YONLAPA from Thailand and Sydney's own 2touch making their live debut — and also the likes of Touch Sensitive, Heno., dogworld, GIMMY and Kurilpa Reach — you'll be hearing from Academy Award-winning composer AR Rahman as the man behind the Slumdog Millionaire score gets chatting. SXSW Sydney 2024 started revealing its lineup details back in May, and has kept growing it since. A further announcement arrived in June, then not one, not two, but three more in July — and also another, focusing on the free hub at Tumbalong Park, at the beginning of August. Accordingly, no one can say that they don't have anything to see when the fest makes its comeback this year, especially if the music bill gets your toes tapping. Other fresh additions span Arky Waters, Bakers Eddy, Big Sand, Charm of Finches, Dave Kent, Elizabeth M Drummond, Holiday Sidewinder, Hydra Fashion Week, Ivoris, Kinder Bloomen, Majak Door, Nao Yoshioka, overpass, Rub Of Rub, Tim Hicks, YAHYAH and Yawdoesitall among the folks taking to the stage. Joining the speakers: Priyanka Khimani, who was named one of the top music lawyers by Billboard; veteran bookers Marty Diamond and Larry Webman; A&R Island Records head Marihuzka Cornelius; and plenty more. In one of those aforementioned July drops, 2024's SXSW Sydney Music Festival also added 40-plus talents, such as the UK's Jorja Smith on the 'Be Honest' musician's Australian tour — and also Canada's Aysanabee, Thailand's PYRA, New Zealand's Brandn Shiraz and XUZZ, and the UK's Submerse. Aussies Brazen Barbie, Jamahl Yami, Kitschen Boy and Special Feelings scored a spot as well. And prior to that, the 2024 program already confirmed human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, author Johann Hari, Australian race car driver Molly Taylor, pianist Chad Lawson, Westworld's Luke Hemsworth hosting a session about the Tasmanian tiger, Aussie astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg, TikTok marketing head Sofia Hernandez, Heartbreak High star Ayesha Madon, cricketer David Warner, Mortal Kombat director Simon McQuoid and documentary Slice of Life: The American Dream. In Former Pizza Huts, about the new uses of former Pizza Hut buildings across America — and that's barely scratching the surface of the lineup specifics announced so far. SXSW Sydney 2024 will run from Monday, October 14–Sunday, October 20 at various Sydney venues. Head to the SXSW Sydney website for further details. Images: Peter McMillan, Jordan Kirk, Jess Gleeson and Ian Laidlaw.
Conventional maps of political results seen in the media, in stats and in reports often demonstrate a skewed and non-inclusive representation of the outcomes of US Presidential Elections. This then creates a politics of maps. However, Mark Newman, a renowned complexity researcher, has attempted to abate the confusion behind these inaccurate portrayals by creating his own highly inclusive and bona fide images. Newman believed the representations of states coloured by the majority votes was insufficient. Not only do these maps fail to take population into consideration, but they also demonstrate democratic or republican voters in each state as black and white, or in this case blue and red, rather than showing the many shades in between. After billions of dollars and years of incessant campaigning, surely an authentic portrayal of the election results is not too much to ask. Newman has answered this call by creating more realistic and more complex illustrations of the election results. First, view the varying processes Newman went through in accurately depicting the 2008 presidential elections, followed by his political map of the most recent 2012 election. 2008 Election Results By State With red depicting republicans and blue democrats, this widespread map of the 2008 Presidential Election is obviously a vast illusion, as one would not be wrong in mistaking the winner as McCain rather than Obama. 2008 Election Results Population Cartogram This more precise depiction instead shows the election results compared to the population sizes of each state. The fact is that the red states often have a lower population than the blue, thus increasing the proportion of blue in this image and eradicating the sea of red in the previous one. 2008 Election Results by County Rather than assuming an entire state is a homogenized mass holding a single political view, this map shows the electoral votes in each county of the US. Again, however, this image is incredible deceptive and misleading. 2008 Election Results by County Population Cartogram Using the same technology as before, this map demonstrates the results of the election by county, according to population. Once again this makes the balance between red and blue more accurate, however, this is much more specific and localized to certain areas. 2008 Election Results by County in Shades Forget 50 shades of grey, what we want to see is 50 shades of purple. To closer resemble the balance that exists within states and the nuances in voting patterns, Newman used varying shades of purple rather than simply two block colours. This eliminates the vast mass of red or blue spreading over particular areas and demonstrates that the country is not actually starkly divided. 2008 Election Results by County in Shades Population Cartogram Combining all the complex techniques above produces this truthful and reliable depiction of the election results compared to population per county. Much more accurate than the first map given! 2012 Election Results And now for the long awaited images of the recent 2012 US Presidential Election. Here is the image of the standard and simple map of the election results of Romney VS Obama. Not too distant from the image we saw from the 2008 Election. 2012 Election Results by County in Shades Population Cartogram Here is the more authentic portrayal of outcomes from the 2012 election using population per county and shades: an up-to-date representation of America's voting patterns that couldn't be much more accurate.
UPDATE, October 17, 2022: Ticket pre-sales for Beauty and the Beast: The Musical's Australian-premiere season at Sydney's Capitol Theatre will start at 9am AEDT on Monday, October 31, for folks who sign up to the production's waitlist by 12pm AEDT on Thursday, October 27. General ticket sales will start at 9am AEDT on Thursday, November 3. When June 2023 arrives at Sydney's Capitol Theatre, expect three words to echo with enthusiasm: "be our guest". The Harbour City venue will be home to quite the coup, courtesy of the Australian premiere season of Disney's Beauty and the Beast musical, which is heading Down Under as a newly reimagined and redesigned production. Exact dates haven't yet been announced, but the huge show will bring a tale as old as time to Australia to liven up winter — and marks the latest in a growing line of Disney hits to come our way. Frozen the Musical has done the rounds over the past few years, while the musical version of Mary Poppins has also started floating around the nation. This new Beauty and the Beast first made its way to the stage in the UK in 2021, and reworks the original show that premiered in the US in the 90s — adapting Disney's hit 1991 animated movie musical, of course. Fans can expect the same Oscar-winning and Tony-nominated score courtesy of composer Alan Menken and lyricist Tim Rice, including all the beloved tunes such as 'Be Our Guest' and 'Beauty and the Beast'. It also comes with new dance arrangements by David Chase, and with original choreographer Matt West revisiting his work. When the British return was announced, Menken said that "Beauty and the Beast is a testament to the genius of my late friend and collaborator Howard Ashman, but the show's richness comes from the combination of Howard's style and that of the brilliant Tim Rice, with whom I expanded the score to give voice to the Beast." "It's clear that audiences the world over want to return to the world of Beauty, which continues to amaze and humble those of us who created it." Who'll star in the local version and whether it'll tour to other Aussie cities hasn't yet been revealed either — but if you're now planning a trip to Sydney's Capitol Theatre next June, whether or not you live in the city, that's understandable. So is crossing your fingers for Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide seasons afterwards. Another completely relatable reaction: rewatching the OG animated movie, including via a new sing-along version that'll drop via Disney+ on Friday, August 19, and/or revisiting the 2017 live-action movie, which is also getting the at-home karaoke treatment. Disney's Beauty and the Beast musical will enjoy its Australian premiere at Sydney's Capitol Theatre in June 2023. We'll update you with exact dates when they're announced. For more information, or to sign up for the ticket waitlist — with pre-sales from 9am AEDT on Monday, October 31 and general sales from 9am AEDT on Thursday, November 3 — head to the musical's website. Images: Johan Persson.
Every film festival has its highlights, and its events that make each specific fest special. For the Melbourne International Film Festival, its Hear My Eyes gigs are one such standout. With movies such as Drive, Girlhood, Suspiria and Two Hands, MIFF has brought beloved and classic flicks back to the big screen, accompanied by a live — and all-new, completely original — score that's played while film lovers sit, watch and listen. It's as unique a movie-going experience as you can get, even if you've seen the feature in the spotlight countless times before — and for MIFF 2022, another exceptional film is getting the Hear My Eyes treatment. Get ready to revisit the role that made Eric Bana an international movie star, and to dive back into one of the most infamous crime tales in Australian history. In other words, get ready for Chopper. Twenty-two years after it first hit cinemas, the exceptional Andrew Dominik (This Much I Know to Be True)-directed flick will grace The Astor Theatre's big screen for one night only, on Wednesday, August 17, with sessions at 6.15pm and 9pm. It'll also pair its visuals with a brand-new original live score, as spearheaded by Mick Harvey, member of the Bad Seeds, and the musician who originally gave Chopper its soundtrack. As well as composing the new score, Harvey will be joined by supergroup Springtime — featuring Gareth Liddiard from Tropical Fuck Storm and The Drones, Jim White from Dirty Three and Chris Abrahams from The Necks — to play it live. Tickets to this big-screen date with Uncle Chop Chop go on sale from 10am on Thursday, June 16.
How does life go on after not just a global Cordyceps infection, but the chaos that the first season of The Last of Us brought? In 2025, viewers will find out. While the hit HBO series isn't returning until next year, the US network has given fans a glimpse in the interim via the initial two images from the new season. Yes, Joel and Ellie are back — and, in their shoes, so are Pedro Pascal (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent) and Bella Ramsey (Catherine Called Birdy). The pair of first pictures doesn't give away much; however, Ellie has a rifle in hand and Joel is looking as serious as ever, but with longer hair. The Last of Us made the leap from video games to TV in 2023, and was swiftly renewed after proving a massive smash instantly. The series gave HBO its most-watched debut season of a show ever — and its first episode was also the network's second-largest debut of all time. Locking in a second season was also hardly surprising because the 2013 game inspired a 2014 expansion pack and 2020 sequel. For newcomers to the franchise on consoles and as a TV series, it's set 20 years after modern civilisation as we know it has been toppled by a parasitic fungal infection that turns the afflicted into shuffling hordes. Pascal plays Joel, who gets saddled with smuggling 14-year-old Ellie (his Game of Thrones co-star Ramsey) out of a strict quarantine zone to help possibly save humanity's last remnants. There wouldn't be a game, let alone a television version, if that was an easy task, of course — and if the pair didn't need to weather quite the brutal journey. [caption id="attachment_932860" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Last of Us season one[/caption] As a television series, The Last of Us hails from co-creator, executive producer, writer and director Craig Mazin, who already brought a hellscape to HBO (and to everyone's must-watch list) thanks to the haunting and horrifying Chernobyl. He teams up here with Neil Druckmann from Naughty Dog, who also penned and directed The Last of Us games. In season two, Rutina Wesley (Queen Sugar) will also return to the cast alongside Pascal and Ramsey. Kaitlyn Dever (Good Grief), Isabela Merced (Madame Web), Young Mazino (Beef), Ariela Barer (How to Blow Up a Pipeline), Tati Gabrielle (Kaleidoscope), Spencer Lord (Family Law) and Danny Ramirez (Black Mirror) are the season's newcomers, as is Catherine O'Hara (Argylle) as a guest star. There's no clips from The Last of Us season two yet, but check out the trailer for season one below: The Last of Us season two doesn't yet have a release date, other than sometime in 2025. When it returns, it'll stream via Binge in Australia and on Neon in New Zealand. Read our review of the first season. Images: HBO.
'Based on real events'. It's been an incredibly popular theme of late, with an almost unceasing run of biopics and historical dramas coming our way every year for the past decade or so. Those four simple words imbue a movie with an immediate sheen of credibility, commanding the audience's attention and respect in equal measure. The thing is, it's also particularly sneaky. 'Based on real events' doesn't mean 'happened'. Instead, it provides filmmakers with a sizeable caveat upon which almost almost any fact can be supplanted by something far more exciting, or more moving or…whatever the movie needs, really. Hacksaw Ridge, Mel Gibson's first directorial offering in over a decade, stands apart on this front for two distinct reasons. Firstly, it opts for the far more concrete 'A True Story' at its opening. Secondly, it takes the almost unprecedented step of underselling the feats of its protagonist, American war hero Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield). In real life, as in the film, the famous WWII conscientious objector refused to carry a weapon because of his religious beliefs as a Seventh Day Adventist, yet still earned himself the Congressional Medal of Honour when he single-handedly carried 75 wounded men on his back during the battle for Hacksaw Ridge, lowering them one-by-one down a cliff face to safety while under constant fire from the enemy. Doss' real world battlefield valour, however, extended far beyond this feat, with his citation referencing numerous other instances of extraordinary heroism that fail to even rate a mention in the film. Perhaps it was cut for time, or perhaps Gibson and his team concluded that Doss' actions were already so unbelievable, to detail all of them would challenge even the most faithful historian. Either way, it's refreshing to see an already humble hero presented without the need to over-emphasise, over-sell and over-indulge. Filmed in Australia with a predominantly local supporting cast, Hacksaw Ridge offers a surprisingly conventional first half for a director of Gibson's talent. The flashbacks to Doss' childhood and his troubled parents (Rachel Griffiths and Hugo Weaving), the romance with his sweetheart (Teresa Palmer) and his initiation into the military (under the supervision of Vince Vaughn and Sam Worthington) all play dangerously close to melodrama, saved only by the quality of the actors' performances. The sole purpose of this first phase is to establish with none too subtle a touch Doss' fervent religious conviction, cataloguing each and every instance of persecution, bullying and even the court martial that threatened to see him imprisoned for the duration of the war. But Gibson has made a career out of terrifyingly visceral combat scenes (see also: Braveheart and Apocalypto), and from the moment the first bullet tears through the air and into the flesh of the soldier it finds, Hacksaw Ridge sheds its corniness and transforms into a brutal, confronting and violent recreation of one of WWII's bloodiest battles. Neither as involved as Saving Private Ryan, nor as haunting as The Thin Red Line, Hacksaw Ridge nonetheless delivers a truly frenetic sense of warfare, at times seeming closer to the clashing armies of the middle ages than the modern combat of the last century. The film is unashamedly unilateral in purpose, and the closing shot of Doss essentially ascending to Heaven is rather on the nose. Still, as a tribute to a genuinely extraordinary man and a return to form by Gibson, both are as welcome as they are overdue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2-1hz1juBI
If the only thing that's been holding you back from packing up and making a home in the middle of nowhere has been the lack of electricity (and the desire to not live out of a tent), you might want to start plotting your escape. Architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) have designed a 3D-printed pod home that not only looks 100 percent epic, but can function entirely off the grid. The sustainable structure works in conjunction with a companion vehicle, which is also printed using 3D technology. Solar panels built into the pod's curved pavilion-stye roof powers it by night, and the vehicle generates its own power too through a hybrid electric system. The two share their power — get this — wirelessly through a closed-loop battery system to ensure you're not left in the dark when the sun doesn't peek out behind those clouds. The pod has been developed with the geniuses at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory as part of the Additive Manufacturing Integrated Energy (AMIE) project. The pod, which is largest of its kind at 11.6m long, 3.7m high and 3.7m wide, has been developed with the aim to illustrate "the potential of a clean energy future for a rapidly urbanising world by demonstrating the use of bidirectional wireless energy technology and high performance materials to achieve independence from the power grid at peak-demand times". 3D printing has given us everything from a chewable toothbrush, 60-second cupcakes, and titanium sculptures, but this has to be the most dream-worthy 3D printed possibility yet. Via Dezeen. Image: SOM.
For decades, if you wanted to eat a burger patty topped with cheese, there was only one way to do it. Then a number of hybrid culinary creations started popping up — like cheeseburger spring rolls, that now-popular pub menu inclusion, as well as cheeseburger dumplings and even cheeseburger soup. Or, at Banjo's Bakery Cafe, you can opt for a double cheeseburger pie. Part of the Aussie chain's signature range, it's back on offer to help simultaneously satisfy your cheeseburger and your pie cravings. Yes, the double cheeseburger pie is exactly what it sounds like. Encased in pastry, you'll find layers of burger patty, cheese, onion, tomato sauce and mustard. And, if you're wondering about that most controversial of cheeseburger fillings — yep, that'd be pickles — they're sandwiched inside as well. This isn't the first time that Banjo's, which has stores in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania, has served up this foodie mashup. But when it does offer up items from its signature range — such Tasmanian scallop, bangers and mash, and chicken parmigiana pies — they're only available for a limited time. That's the case here, too, so you'll want to get in quick if you're suddenly, unsurprisingly feeling hungry. In NSW, you'll need to head north to Glendale to get your fix. In Victoria, stores are located in Mornington, Traralgon and Mildura. Queenslanders can pick from ten spots, including Darra, Cleveland, Park Ridge and Redcliffe, while pie-loving SA residents can hit up Glenelg — and there's 29 stores in Tasmania. Banjo's Bakery Cafe's double cheeseburger pie is currently on the menu for a limited time at the chain's store's nationally. To find your nearest location, visit the company's website.
This post is sponsored by our partners, lastminute.com.au. It's hard to fathom how to tackle our nation's biggest state. Flights to Perth are easy enough, but what to do from there? The seemingly uncharted wilderness is huge and menacing, and you don't even remember how to apply mosquito repellant, let alone set up a tent. Don't worry, we've got you covered. Whether you're going for just the weekend or the better part of a month, here's the low-down on everything from swimming with whale sharks to kicking back in a brewery. If you're spending the weekend If you're only around for a couple of days it's going be hard to get too far out of Perth. This is by no means a bad thing though! For great cafes and kindred spirits, check out Leederville, Subiaco or Northbridge, and if ever in doubt, make a beeline straight to Fremantle. While there, you can catch the Fremantle Dockers play a game on home soil, and follow it up with a trip to the Little Creatures Brewery. After you've eased your way into the local custom, your next stop is the beaches. Just a short drive west of the CBD, Cottesloe is one of the best beaches in the entire country — why not take advantage with some swimming or paddle boarding? Once you've lounged around there for awhile, it'll be time to stretch your legs out to Rottnest Island. Bikes are your best bet for getting around, and if you've still got some energy by the end of it all, take advantage of that clear water with some snorkelling. Extending it to a week If you've seen all Perth has to offer and you're curious about the rest, the first pitstop is Exmouth. This place is so surreal you will think the two-hour flight from the city has transported you to an alternate dimension. Fittingly, your first task is to swim with some whale sharks at Ningaloo Reef. This World Heritage Listed marine park stretches over 300 kilometres and is home to more than 500 species of fish, as well as turtles, dugongs, dolphins and humpback whales — most of which you are welcome to swim with. Who knew the sea could be so much better than Seaworld? After Exmouth, we recommend hiring a car and driving to Monkey Mia. It'll take ten hours and there is the option to fly, but again, the coasts of WA are a destination in themselves. The coast at Monkey Mia is particularly excellent because it has the added benefit of being populated by dolphins. Each morning, hundreds of bottlenose dolphins come right up to the shoreline and say hi, and you'll definitely want to be there when they do. Alternatively, if sealife just ain't your thing, head to the Pinnacles — one of the many geographical wonders WA is naturally blessed with. In for the long haul All this is only brushing the surface. If you really want to have the full WA experience, jump in for more than a week. When a state is the size of Queensland and New South Wales combined, you need a bit of time to get your head around it. You'll also need some extra time to venture up to Broome. Here, you'll find a beautiful little community and an endless summer, but more importantly, camel rides on the beach. If that's not dramatic enough, check out the Kimberley — Baz Luhrmann's inspiration for Australia. Get grubby in the outback with a day trip to Karijini National Park, Koolpin Gorge or the Bungle Bungle Range, then balance it out the next day with a sojourn to Margaret River. Known best for its wineries, this south-west gem will have you eating and drinking all day with some of Australia's premier winemakers, and expending your leftover energy with leisurely bike rides. Last, but certainly not least, make time for the sightseeing. Whether it be an amazing natural sediment formation such as Wave Rock, or a city that's a spectacle in itself. The town of Esperance will take you straight along WA’s South Coast Highway — the perfect position for spotting whales and wildflowers, and an opportune place to pop off to the beach and rest your muscles in the sparkling water. This is a holiday after all. Book your next WA escape now at lastminute.com.au.
Hey boy, hey girl — we've got some news. Pioneering electronic music duo The Chemical Brothers is heading Down Under — for its first Aussie tour in six years. Off the back of dropping its ninth studio album No Geography just last month, the pair has just announced it'll be taking a new live show (also called No Geography) around the world this year. Stops include the UK, US and Mexico — and, luckily, also Australia. If you've been lucky enough to catch The Chemical Brothers live before, you'll know its shows aren't your average stand-behind-the-decks-and-play performances. They feature strobe lights, lasers and mind-bending images projected onto huge screens. It's sort of like a trip, without the LSD. If you haven't seen one before, take a peek at one of the psychedelic shows below. As well as new hits off the new No Geography album, including 'Free Yourself' and 'MAH', we're hoping the duo will add some throwbacks to its live performances — the late-90s and early-2000s hits 'Hey Boy, Hey Girl' and 'Galvanize' would be particularly welcome. As an added bonus, the duo will be touring the country with a big-name local: The Avalanches. The Melbourne-born electro group will be playing a live DJ set at all The Chemical Brothers' shows. If you don't know them, you'll definitely know their song 'Since I Left You'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tri7gjlmfdk THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS NO GEOGRAPHY LIVE 2019 DATES Brisbane — Thursday, October 31, Brisbane Riverstage Sydney — Saturday, November 2, The Dome, Sydney Showground Melbourne — Tuesday, November 5, Melbourne Arena The Chemical Brothers No Geography Live pre-sale tickets start at 10am on Tuesday, May 7 with general tickets going on sale at 10am on Thursday, May 9. For more information, and to sign up for pre-sale access, head to the Frontier Touring website.
Editors fictional and real may disagree — The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun's Arthur Howitzer Jr (Bill Murray, On the Rocks) among them — but it's easy to use Wes Anderson's name as both an adjective and a verb. In a sentence that'd never get printed in his latest film's titular tome (and mightn't in The New Yorker, its inspiration, either), The French Dispatch is the most Wes Anderson movie Wes Anderson has ever Wes Andersoned. The immaculate symmetry that makes each frame a piece of art is present, naturally, as are gloriously offbeat performances. The equally dreamy and precise pastel- and jewel-hued colour palette, the who's who of a familiar cast list, the miniatures and animated interludes and split screens, the knack for physical comedy, and the mix of high artifice, heartfelt nostalgia and dripping whimsy, too. The writer/director knows what he loves, and also what he loves to splash across his films, and it's all accounted for in his tenth release. In The French Dispatch, he also adores stories that say as much about their authors as the world, the places that gift them to the masses, and the space needed to let creativity and insight breathe. He loves celebrating all of this, and heartily, using his usual bag of tricks. It's disingenuous to say that Anderson just wheels out the same flourishes in any movie he helms, though, despite each one — from The Royal Tenenbaums onwards, especially — looking like part of a set. As he's spent his career showing but conveys with extra gusto here, Anderson adores the craftsmanship of filmmaking. He likes pictures that look as if someone has doted on them and fashioned them with their hands, and is just as infatuated with the emotional possibilities that spring from such loving and meticulous work. Indeed, each of his features expresses that pivotal personality detail so clearly that it may as well be cross-stitched into the centre of the frame using Anderson's hair. It's still accurate to call The French Dispatch an ode to magazines, their heyday and their rockstar writers; the film draws four of its five chapters from its eponymous publication, even badging them with page numbers. But this is also a tribute to everything Anderson holds The New Yorker to stand for, and holds dear — to everything he's obsessed over, internalised and absorbed into the signature filmmaking style that's given such an exuberant workout once again. One scene, in the first of its three longer segments, crystallises this so magnificently that it's among the best things Anderson has ever put on-screen. It involves two versions of murderer-turned-artist Moses Rosenthaler, both sharing the boxed-in frame. The young (Tony Revolori, The Grand Budapest Hotel) greets the old (Benicio Del Toro, No Sudden Move), the pair swapping places and handing over lanyards, and it feels as if Anderson is doing the same with his long-held passions. Before Moses' instalment, entitled The Concrete Masterpiece, the picture's bookending story steps into Howitzer's offices in the fictional French town of Ennui-sur-Blasé. Since 1925, he's called it home, as well as the base for a sophisticated literary periodical that started as a travel insert in his father's paper back in Kansas. Because Anderson loves melancholy, too, news of Howitzer's death begins the film courtesy of an obituary. What follows via travelogue The Cycling Reporter, the aforementioned incarcerated art lark, student revolution report Revisions to a Manifesto and police cuisine-turned-kidnapping story The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner is The French Dispatch's final issue turned into a movie — and an outlet for both Howitzer's and the director's abundant Francophilia. Watching travel correspondent Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson, Loki) wheel around Ennui — a place that isn't quite Paris, just as The French Dispatch isn't quite The New Yorker — comes complete with choirboy gangs rumbling seniors, rat-filled tunnels and bodies fished out of rivers. Anderson's love of quaint and quirky details initially shimmers before that, in Howitzer's workspace beneath his comical "no crying" sign, but doesn't stop gleaming for a second. It's there in Moses' success, as aided by his muse/prison guard Simone (Léa Seydoux, No Time to Die), fellow inmate/art dealer Cadazio (Adrien Brody, Succession), and journalist JKL Berensen (Tilda Swinton, Memoria), who relays the specifics. And, it's clear in the chronicle by political writer Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand, Nomadland) about a student uprising led by the suitably moody Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet, Dune) over accessing girls' dormitory rooms. Regardless of their amusingly monikered setting, there's nary a trace of boredom or indifference in any of these chapters, all of which ape real New Yorker stories and scribes. So too does Howitzer, as well as Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright, No Time to Die), author of the film's third major segment. The French Dispatch layers in themes and ideas as potently and deeply as its visual gems, tortured genius myths and "the touching narcissism of the young" (as the movie itself describes it) all included; however, its Roebuck-focused thread is exquisitely intelligent and affecting. On a TV set, the journalist relays his attempt to write about Nescaffier (Steve Park, Warrior), chef to the local police commissaire (Mathieu Amalric, Sound of Metal), which was derailed by a hostage situation involving the latter's son — and his piece also becomes an outsider's lament. Whether going monochrome in homage to the French New Wave, pulling off a bravura late-film long shot, or finding roles for Elisabeth Moss (The Invisible Man), Saoirse Ronan (Ammonite), Edward Norton (Motherless Brooklyn) and Willem Dafoe (The Card Counter) — plus Jason Schwartzman (Fargo), who also nabs a story credit with the director, Roman Coppola (Isle of Dogs) and Hugo Guinness (The Grand Budapest Hotel) — Anderson does his utmost at every turn. While aided by sublime work by his eight-time cinematographer Robert D Yeoman, regular production designer Adam Stockhausen and frequent composer Alexandre Desplat, the result feels like slipping not only into Anderson's head but his heart, and more so than any other feature he's made. The French Dispatch is a treasure chest for Anderson, his devotees, and lovers of words, France and inventive cinema alike, although it holds zero chance of converting his naysayers. "Just try to make it sound like you wrote it that way on purpose," is Howitzer's wise advice to his writers, but there's no doubting that every minuscule choice made in this remarkable delight is utterly and marvellously intentional.
The team that in May transformed Howler into The Black Lodge from Twin Peaks is heading back to the Brunswick venue with another immersive screen experience. This time, it's paying tribute to the one and only Bill Murray with a beanbag cinema program showcasing some of the actor's most iconic films. Presented by Howler and Tastemakers along with Hawkers Beer, the marathon – sorry, Murraython – begins on Wednesday, January 3 with Groundhog Day. The fun continues the following night with Wes Anderson's Rushmore, before Ghostbusters on Saturday, January 6 and Lost in Translation on Sunday, January 7. You can buy tickets individually, or grab a Murray Maniac four film pass.
Following up on his contribution to the Venice Biennale earlier this year, internationally renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has crafted a visually immersive structure made entirely of bicycles. The unveiling of the impressive centrepiece, titled Forever Bicycles for this year's Scotiabank Nuit Blanche has been met with widespread enthusiasm, quickly becoming a crowd favourite. The Toronto initiative, otherwise known as the 'Sleepless Night' festival, is a celebration of contemporary art in public places. Installed at Nathan Phillip Square, the spectacular installation consists of 3144 interconnected stainless steel bicycles. The visual effect of the artwork is mesmerising — it's as if it were designed for slow exposure photography, especially when bathed in pink and blue lights during the evening. The multitude of different viewing positions also means that the work is constantly changing. In this way, it evokes a sense of the fast-paced social transformation that China is currently undergoing. Viewers will be able to walk through the colossal labyrinth-like structure until it is dismantled in late October. Ai Weiwei has been known for his innovative and architectural use of everyday objects. His practice also frequently blurs the boundaries between art and politics, notably speaking out against China's social policies, human rights record and strict censorship laws. Via My Modern Met.
Cool. Cool cool cool. If you were to ask Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi, Mythic Quest) his thoughts on the latest Community news, that might be his response. It should certainly be yours — because the six-seasons-and-a-movie prophecy is officially coming true, with American streaming service Peacock just announcing that a Community film is in the works. Abed shouted that "six seasons and a movie" line in the community college-set comedy, in fact, and the character will indeed return for the new flick. Variety reports that Joel McHale (The Bear), Alison Brie (Happiest Season), Gillian Jacobs (Minx), Jim Rash (Home Sweet Home Alone) and Ken Jeong (The Pentaverate) will also star, meaning that Jeff Winger, Annie Edison, Britta Perry, Dean Pelton and Ben Chang will all grace your screen again. There's no word yet on whether Donald Glover (Atlanta) will be singing "Troy and Abed in the morning once more, though — or if Yvette Nicole Brown (Big Shot) will also make a comeback. Ordered 🤝 #sixseasonsandamovieOnPeacock pic.twitter.com/IrxVYSHT9n — Peacock (@peacock) September 30, 2022 this hits a little different today...doesn't it? https://t.co/QUbbDXX3oS — IT'S HAPPENING! SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE! (@CommunityTV) September 30, 2022 Exactly when the Community movie will drop — and where it'll be able to be seen Down Under — hasn't yet been revealed either, but perhaps this isn't the darkest timeline after all. When the series wrapped up after 110 episodes in 2015, it only achieved the first part of its six-seasons-and-a-movie goal; however, fans have held out hope of seeing the Greendale gang again ever since. In 2020, that did happen in another way — during an early-pandemic virtual table read of season-five episode 'Cooperative Polygraphy'. .@alisonbrie @kenjeong @dannypudi @YNB @donaldglover @GillianA @peacock @SonyTV @CommunityTV pic.twitter.com/ynVqgaPuQD — Joel McHale (@joelmchale) September 30, 2022 Community creator (and Rick and Morty co-creator) Dan Harmon will be back for the movie, too, as a writer and executive producer, but exactly what it'll cover hasn't yet been announced. If you're now in the mood to binge your way through the beloved show's past antics in excitement (and anticipation), all six seasons of the series are available to stream via Netflix Down Under — and on Stan in Australia. Check out the Community season one trailer below: Exactly when the Community movie will arrive, and how it'll be available Down Under, are yet to be reavaled — we'll update you when further details are announced. Via Variety. Image: Netflix.
Getting married just after meeting, grappling for power, bloody coups, assassination plots: welcome to supposed wedded bliss The Great-style. For two seasons now, the nuptials between Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning, The Girl From Plainville) as Catherine and Peter III (Nicholas Hoult, The Menu) have been anything but ordinary in this historical satire, and rarely worth exclaiming "huzzah!" about (although viewers know how much the series loves saying that very word). So, it should come as no surprise that the royal couple have enlisted professional help in the just-dropped trailer for the show's upcoming third season. The Great was renewed for season three after its second batch of episodes streamed late in 2021, and will arrive Down Under on Saturday, May 13. This time around, after season two threw everything from attempted murders to mass imprisonments at the pair — and kept disrupting their dynamic as Catherine continued to work towards the name that's a part of history, and also inspires the show's title — its main duo is trying to make things work. Hence the couples therapy, but obviously resolving all of their issues won't be quite that simple. So, expect more of Peter figuring out what it means to play First Husband, and Catherine expanding her influence and reputation beyond just Russia. That, and visions of Peter's late father (Jason Isaacs, Mrs Harris Goes to Paris), life lessons, attempts to build a new country and the usual scheming. The show's all killer, no filler concept since season one: following Catherine's rise and reign, with a heavy focus on what that means for her marriage to Peter. It does so with only the slightest regard for the actual facts and with a big reliance upon hilarious wit, which is one of the reasons that it's such a delicious watch. While The Great has always been supremely confident in its blend of handsome period staging, the loosest of historical realities and that savage sense of humour (it does spring from Oscar-nominated The Favourite screenwriter Tony McNamara, after all), it felt even more comfortable in its skin during its second season. And smoother, too, yet just as biting. So, hopefully that will remain the case in season three as well, all while it keeps seesawing tonally and proving as sharp as a shot of vodka — or several. Fanning and Hoult will be joined by returning co-stars Phoebe Fox (The Aeronauts), Adam Godley (Lodge 49), Gwilym Lee (Top End Wedding), Charity Wakefield (Bounty Hunters), Douglas Hodge (I Hate Suzie Too), Sacha Dhawan (The Prince), Bayo Gbadamosi (War of the Worlds) and Belinda Bromilow (Doctor Doctor), too, because this is a show with a phenomenally great cast. Check out the trailer for The Great season three below: The Great season three will be available to stream in Australia via Stan and in New Zealand via Neon from Saturday, May 13.
Every year, Japan comes to Australia — or, as far as movies are concerned, it does the next best thing. Since starting with three free film screenings back in 1997, the Japanese Film Festival has kept bringing the nation's many cinematic delights down under. And of course they're going to do so again for their 20th birthday. Travelling around the country with a hefty lineup of movies so new, many are coming straight from the Tokyo International Film Festival this month, JFF embraces the vast array of big screen treats its filmmakers have to offer. Sometimes, that means a poignant drama about a family banding together as a typhoon bears down. Sometimes, live-action adaptations of popular manga series are part of the equation. In fact, the 2016 lineup has both — check them out when they screen at ACMI and Hoyts Melbourne Central From November 24 to December 4.
Melbourne loves a dessert trend, be it shaved ice bingsu bowls, decadent doughnuts, mochi balls or cronuts. But what's next? The new Glenferrie Road dessert shop Joli is hoping it's coconut jelly desserts. Inspired by Southeast Asian desserts, these sweet treats are even said to be healthy — well, a whole lot better for you than your usual dessert options. The team uses plant-based konjac, a vegan alternative to gelatin (that's said to possess its own set of health benefits), to which the team adds Thai coconut. The classic jelly is all about coconut, but other options include Milo, coffee, Biscoff, fresh mango and ube. The Joli Kyoto is a really fun one, too, combining coconut jelly with red bean paste, mochi and matcha. Like most frozen yoghurt bars, you can also add stacks of different toppings when visiting. The Joli team is trying to be environmentally conscious as well, serving all its desserts in recyclable glass jars or coconut shells. If you drop by enough, and return ten of these glass jars, you'll even get a free tub of original Joli. Let's just wait and see if these coconut jellies can compete with all the desserts Melbourne sweet tooths are already stanning. You'll find Joli at 645 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn, open every day of the week. For more information, you can visit the venue's website.
First, it teamed up with Belles Hot Chicken to bring you this indulgent Malaysian twist on a fried chicken sando. Now, PappaRich has its eyes set on burgers. After a sneaky trial in Sydney stores last year, the Malaysian hawker chain has rolled out a nasi lamek burger across Australia — at all of its 29 stores. The burger takes the typical accompaniments in this Malaysian rice dish and sandwiches them all between two pillowy brioche buns. There are layers of crispy Malay fried chicken, spicy sambal, peanuts and anchovies, all topped with cucumber and a fried egg. As a side? Expect PappaRich's deep-fried chicken skin instead of fries, of course. On offer for lunch and dinner throughout July and August, it'll cost you $14.90 all up, which we reckon will be worth every penny. If you're in Sydney, you can grab one in Bankstown or on your lunch break at the express outlet inside Westfield in the city; in Melbourne, pop by Chadstone, Southern Cross or QV; and PappaRich in Wintergarden and Coorparoo Square will be selling them in Brisbane. There are a heap more locations though, so check the website if you're looking for one closer to you. The nasi lamek burger will be available for lunch and dinner from July 1 until the end of August at PappaRich locations across the country. Updated: July 26, 2019.
After a horror run over the last three years, another major cancellation has hit the Australian festival scene. This time, The Grass Is Greener has been forced to cancel its new Canberra and Geelong gigs, and four of its acts won't be appearing at the remaining Gold Coast and Cairns dates. 2023 was slated to be a big year for the fest, which made its debut in Cairns back in 2016. This year, it was due to expand outside the Sunshine State, including heading to Canberra and Geelong as part of its planned four-date run — and, it had locked in multiple international headliners. The festival has sadly had to scale back last-minute, citing a range of reasons including weather forecasts, rising costs and the event industry post-COVID. "The reason for cancellation doesn't rest upon a single factor. Rather, it's related to the culmination of multiple elements that have affected not only us but our industry partners and siblings across the entire event industry in the COVID/post-lockdown period," a statement from The Grass Is Greener team reads. [caption id="attachment_856350" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Curdin Photo[/caption] The statement continues: "From an event standpoint, especially heading into these new markets, a festival team relies on certain milestones to enable us to run events successfully. What's more, the weather warnings we're receiving from Canberra and Geelong have also played a large role in this decision. While the shows were selling slower than predicted, we still had full intention of seeing them through — loss or otherwise. However, when coupled with the chance that sites might not even be built due to the impending weather, we knew we had to make a call as soon as possible." While this is sad news for those in the ACT and Victoria, it's not all doom and gloom. The festival will still be going ahead in the Gold Coast on Saturday, October 22 and Cairns on Saturday, October 29 with the likes of YG, PNAU, Alok, Wafia, Boo Seeka and Wongo. ONEFOUR, Ty Dollar $ign, Zhu and Maya Jane Coles have dropped off the bill, however, and won't be playing the Gold Coast or Cairns. [caption id="attachment_856349" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Mitch Lowe[/caption] Refund information for folks with tickets for the two cancelled dates will be made available in the next 7–14 days, or Canberra and Geelong ticketholders can use their tickets to gain access to the Gold Coast and Cairns festivals. The festival's statement also mentions that tickets will be valid for YG's Melbourne sideshow on Monday, October 31. YG was billed to appear with Ty Dolla $ign at his Margaret Court Arena show on that date. Be sure to check the festival and YG's Instagram pages for up-to-date info on this sideshow. [caption id="attachment_812356" align="alignnone" width="1920"] PNAU. Image: Pat Stevenson[/caption] THE GRASS IS GREENER 2022 LINEUP: Alok Aluna Boo Seeka Brux Crush3ed Little Fritter Wongo Market Memories Mood Swing & Chevy Bass Pnau Sidepiece Sticky Fingers TDJ YG + more THE GRASS IS GREENER 2022 DATES: Saturday, October 22 — Doug Jennings Park, Gold Coast Saturday, October 29 — Cairns Showgrounds, Cairns The Grass Is Greener has cancelled its Geelong and Canberra dates. It will now hit the Gold Coast and Cairns with reduced lineups this month. Head to the festival website for more information. Top image: Mitch Lowe.
For years, you've probably sat at pubs or parties, listened to your pals tell boozy stories and found yourself laughing heartily. In fact, you've likely spun a few tales in a liquored-up state yourself — because we've all been there. And, since 2008, you've might've chuckled along to the US TV show based on that very idea, too. Indeed, it's easy to understand exactly how Drunk History came about, because the entire concept is just so relatable. While, in America, the show's run has just come to an end, Australian television is now hopping on the Drunk History bandwagon. It shouldn't escape anyone's attention that, at a time when we're all spending less time hanging out in bars talking with our mates for hours and hours over several rounds of drinks, Aussie TV has decided to deliver the next best thing. Called Drunk History Australia, the local version spans a six-episode first season, with each instalment tackling a couple of chapters of Aussie history. If you've ever wanted to watch James Mathison and Osher Günsberg reenact Burke and Wills' expedition, listen to Matt Okine explore the history of 'Waltzing Matilda', or hear Becky Lucas tell the tale of the country's first female detective — all with beverages involved — well, here's your chance. Also getting the Drunk History Australia treatment are Don Bradman, Dame Nellie Melba, Dawn Fraser and Gough Whitlam, in case you want to relive your primary school history lessons in a far boozier manner. And, the show also touches upon cannibal convicts, a war with emus and the first female bushranger, among other topics. The cast is similarly lengthy, featuring everyone from Anne Edmonds, Nikki Osborne, Em Rusciano and Tex Perkins to Stephen Curry, Joel Creasey, Steph Tisdell and Brendan Fevola. Drunk History Australia will start screening on Network 10 at 9.30pm on Monday, September 14; however, if you're keen to stream the whole thing right now, it's also already available via 10Play. Check out the trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4iMnOEGI7c Drunk History Australia is now available to stream via 10Play, and will start airing on Network 10 at 9.30pm on Monday, September 14.
Winter is great for getting cosy, wearing every piece of warm clothing you own and enjoying hearty foods. It's also an ace time to plan your next getaway for when spring and summer hit. Dreaming of a sunny vacation somewhere in Australia? Just keen to explore this continent we call home? To help with that, and any other domestic trip that's on your agenda in the near future, Virgin has dropped an Aussie flights sale with 500,000 discounted fares up for grabs. Prices are starting low, at $49, which will get you from Sydney to Byron Bay — the usual cheapest fare in any Aussie flight sale — and vice versa. From there, the sale spans everywhere from the Sunshine Coast, Hobart and Broome through to Cairns, Canberra and Proserpine. The 72hr See Australia sale runs until 11.59pm on Wednesday, July 19 — unless sold out earlier, with fares to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide also covered. That means paying $69 one-way from Sydney to the Sunshine Coast, $79 from Melbourne to Hobart, $99 for a trip from Brisbane to Cairns and $109 to get from Canberra to the Gold Coast. Or, still on local deals, the specials also cover $69 from Melbourne to Launceston, $119 from Adelaide to Sydney, $149 from Brisbane to Darwin and $209 from Melbourne to Perth. If you're wondering when you'll need to travel, the fares cover between August 16, 2023–March 26, 2024, all varying per route. Inclusions also differ depending on your ticket and, as usual when it comes to flight sales, you'll need to get in quick if you're keen to stack the rest of 2023 and the start of 2024 with holidays. Virgin's 72hr See Australia sale runs until 11.50pm AEST on Wednesday, July 19 — unless sold out earlier. 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.
Everyone has one: a hangover story that's burned into your brain so strongly, it has become your own personal legend. Simply thinking about it brings back all the vivid memories — including the sights, smells, sounds and tastes; just how rotten you were feeling; and the shenanigans that ensured this wasn't just a normal morning after. Hangovers are humbling experiences, but celebrating them — or willingly reliving your hangover stories — isn't done all that often. Until now, that is, with Croatia's new Museum of Hangovers showing the love for the bleary, blurry, head-pounding results of a big, boozy night out. Now open seven days a week, the site is designed to recreate a drunken stumble home after a bender. You'll walk through different rooms just as if you were walking back from a bar or pub. Along the way, you'll peruse a collection of objects from real hangover tales, all on display alongside the stories behind them. https://www.instagram.com/p/B5lFw56nt96/ Created by Rino Dubokovic and co-founder Roberta Mikelic — based on real-life experience, naturally — the Zagreb museum features everything from a big board where visitors can detail their own tales while they're there to a mini-exhibition that shows what different forms of alcohol look like under a microscope. Portraits of seedy looking folks line the walls, and bottles of 'hangover wine' are also on sale. Plus, you can win free admission if you don some 'beer goggles', play darts at score a bullseye. And, because chronicling actual hangover experiences is what the museum is all about, it wants everyone to contribute — whether you're visiting Croatia anytime soon or not. Just head to the venue's website, type out your tale (anonymously, of course) and it could end up in the museum's collection. Find The Museum of Hangovers at Preradovićeva 8, Zagreb, Croatia, or visit its website for further details.
Throughout October, Greece is the word in Australian cinemas. That's right, Hellenic-loving cinephiles — it's Greek Film Festival time. Now in its 24th year, the annual showcase of the European country's film output is set to do the rounds once again, highlighting the best contemporary efforts being made across the Aegean Sea. Accordingly, prepare for the kind of backdrops that'll make you want to book your next holiday, probing insights into the nation's migration situation, and for a few strange and wonderful confusions — they don't call their current spate of movies "the Greek Weird Wave" for nothing, after all. If you're after more, prepare for a snapshot of not only features and documentaries being made in Greece, but a showcase of talent and tales that have spread around the world. To help you whittle down your viewing list, we've picked five must-sees from this year's lineup. https://vimeo.com/192731022#at=0 DOGS OF DEMOCRACY Anything cats can do, dogs can do too, right? If you've ever had both feline and canine four-legged BFFs, you'll know that the latter frequently wants to follow in the former's footsteps. In Dogs of Democracy, that's just what's happening — as anyone who saw and fell in love with Turkish cat doco Kedi will recognise. This time around, it's playful pooches on the streets of Athens that are in the spotlight, in an effort by Greek-Australian philosopher and filmmaker Mary Zournazi. What can the city's strays teach us about tumultuous everyday life? You'd be barking mad not to watch and find out. Dogs of Democracy screens in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=6&v=CQFdGfwChtw THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER Ever the master of exposing humanity's true nature in unexpected, unnerving and bleakly amusing ways, and of serving up clinical visuals and a commanding tone in the process, Yorgos Lanthimos is up to his usual tricks in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Of course, where the Dogtooth, Alps and The Lobster writer/director is concerned, there's no such thing as usual. Here, in his second successive feature to star a career-best Colin Farrell, he steps inside the struggles of a doctor whose family is forced to cross paths with the son of one of his patients. Nicole Kidman, Alicia Silverstone and Dunkirk's Barry Keoghan round out the cast — the latter in an astonishing performance — as Lanthimos serves up a savagely accurate exploration of self-interest, sacrifice and the horrors of everyday life. The Killing of a Sacred Deer screens in Sydney and Melbourne. https://vimeo.com/211444789 ROZA OF SMYRNA There's a reason that filmmakers keep coming back to Romeo and Juliet, or R+J-like stories. Conflict, love, tragedy, heartbreak — even if real life often has a happier ending, the Bard's story of a star-crossed but ill-fated romance captures its ups and downs. Add Roza of Smyrna to the pile following in its footsteps, in a Greco-Turkish tale that blends its amorous affairs with a portrait of relations between the two country. Greek veteran Leda Protopsalti stars as the titular character, a formidable family matriarch whose youthful exploits drive the movie. Roza of Smyrna screens in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=goJzKqpAdEk AMERIKA SQUARE After making a splash in Chevalier, Greek actor Makis Papadimitriou stars in Amerika Square — and gets immersed in a different kind of battle. Here, he's playing a Greek nationalist in a country still tussling with immigration and refugees, and his character has strong feelings about it. An African singer looking to escape with her tattoo artist boyfriend and a Syrian doctor trying to leave with his daughter also form part of the film's narrative. Exploring the current state of the nation, the powerful drama is Greece's submission for the best foreign-language film category at the 2018 Oscars. Amerika Square screens in Sydney and Melbourne. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L98Lc1F7UtA KISSING? Mumblecore, the American low-budget indie movement that gave us Greta Gerwig, Joe Swanberg, Mark Duplass and more, is going Greek. You won't find any of them in Kissing?, sorry, but you will find a raw, candid effort about the ordinary existence of almost thirtysomethings trying to get by. Yes, Danny (Thanassis Petropoulos) and Stella (Iro Bezou) are navigating the maze of life and love tahat you'd expect; however filmmaker Yannis Korres' feature is made all the more resonant due to his country's economic turmoil. Kissing? screens in Brisbane. The Greek Film Festival runs from October 10 to 22 at Palace Norton Street in Sydney, October 11 to 22 at Palace Como and The Astor Theatre in Melbourne, and October 12 to 15 at Palace Barracks in Brisbane. Head to the festival website for further details.
Paris — it's the city of love, and also the favoured stomping ground of artistic icons like Monet and his contemporaries back during its bohemian era. And what better setting for a romantic Valentine's Day date? Melbourne's huge digital gallery The Lume is currently home to an immersive showcase of works by Monet and his fellow French impressionist-era contemporaries. And on Tuesday, February 14, it's inviting lovers to experience a Parisian love affair of their own. While tickets to The Lume's pop-up Valentine's Day French restaurant have all been snapped up, you can still head along to treat your boo to a romantic, art-filled date before or after dinner elsewhere. You'll kick things off with a glass of champagne, to enjoy as you roam through the exhibition and the supersized projections floating across its every surface. There'll be a parade of masterpieces to admire, with more than 800 French impressionist artworks from the likes of Monet, Renoir, Cézanne and more on show. What's more, the visuals will be backed by the musical stylings of Claude Debussy, Tchaikovsky and their contemporaries, as well as aromas evoking the French countryside air — just like those famed artists would have enjoyed whilst painting outdoors. You'll find some excellent photo ops, too, including the mirrored room inspired by Monet's Water Lilies, and the life-sized replica of Monet's Bridge that you can stroll over hand-in-hand with your lover. General admission tickets to the Valentine's Day experience clock in at $44, or $64 including a glass of champagne. Sessions run every 30 minutes from 6pm until 8.30pm.
Have you ever wondered if there was a way to salvage the flavour of burnt rice, how to test if an egg is still fresh, how to prevent cheese from going off, or bread from going stale? Unorthodox but incredibly helpful kitchen and cooking tips are a great way to make the cooking experience much quicker and easier, and can be employed in your everyday cooking routine. Here are ten of the most helpful cooking tips that you may not know, but should. 1. Make Garlic Easier to Peel How? By microwaving it for 20 seconds. Zapping garlic in the microwave for a short amount of time is believed to heat the water in the garlic and cause the cells to rupture thus breaking the bond between skin and flesh and causing the skin to slip straight off. It is thought to make the garlic slightly less pungent but apparently doesn't alter it's flavour or texture. 2. Keep Delicate Dishes Warm How? By placing the saucepan on top of a fry pan. Whilst placing a saucepan over a stove on low may suffice for some dishes, delicate sauces or mashed potatoes can easily be burnt and ruin a perfectly good meal. A great trick is to put a cast-iron skillet over a low flame and then place the saucepan on top of this to ensure the heat is evenly spread throughout the meal. 3. Absorb Excess Fat from Soup How? By placing a lettuce leaf on top of it. Placing a lettuce leaf on the surface of a soup is an organic and effective way to defat the liquid, and it is a much easier and cheaper alternative than using gravy separators. The leaf can then easily be thrown away it has absorbed the unwanted fat. 4. Test the Freshness of an Egg How? By placing it in cold water. You can determine the age of an egg (while still encased in it's shell) through the amount of air in it's air pocket simply by placing it inside glass or bowl of cold water and seeing if it floats. If the egg sinks it is fresh, if it tilts slightly up or moves to a semi-horizontal position it is about a week old, but if it moves to a vertical position or floats to the surface of the water it is stale. It's that easy! 5. Avoid Curdled Cream How? By adding baking soda. Have you ever wondered how the age old quandary of cream curdling when you place it over fruit can be avoided? Well wonder no longer, because the solution is as easy as adding a pinch of baking soda to the cream before serving. 6. Keep Cheese Longer How? By wrapping it in a paper towel that's been moistened with vinegar. To avoid losing your cheese to mould, all you have to do is place a paper towel that's been soaked in white wine vinegar at the bottom of an air-tight container and put the cheese on top then keep the container in the fridge. 7. Eradicate Bacon Curling How? By soaking it in cold water before frying. In order to avoid the dreaded bacon curling that occurs when frying it, soak it in cold water for two minutes before frying it and dry well with paper towel. If that doesn't work simply sprinkle some flour over it, and if you still have no luck then try poking some holes in it. 8. Remove the Bitter Taste of Burnt Rice How? By placing a piece of white bread over it. Burnt your rice? Never fear, because all you need to do is place a slice of white bread on top of the rice, close the lid and let it sit for 15 minutes, then vualah, take the bread out and enjoy your non-bitter tasting rice. The bread will apparently absorb the bitter flavour of the rice you burned and restored it's taste back to normal. 9. Tenderize Meat and Speed up Defrosting How? By pouring vinegar over frozen meat. If defrosting meat has always been one of those processes that has baffled you, make life easier for yourself just by adding some vinegar. Pouring a cup of vinegar over the frozen meat lowers it's freezing temperature, making it thaw more quickly, and the acid in the vinegar breaks down connective tissue to increase it's tenderness. 10. Prevent Bread from Going Stale How? By adding a celery stick to the bread bag. By simply adding a piece of celery to a sealed bread bag overnight, you can refresh your bread and make it taste as good as when you first bought it. The bread is supposed to absorb the humidity of the celery, but it's flavour shouldn't change due to the bland taste of the celery.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s a pretty weird and wonderful story. Puck was the best. Right? Anyway, not the point. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra also think it’s pretty wonderful and are performing it at the Melbourne Town Hall. Nicholas Carter will conduct as the MSO present this orchestral favourite that has been described as ‘Blue sky in A major’. That sounds pretty good to us. Diana Doherty will also solo in Richard Strauss’ autumnal oboe concerto. Brought to us by the musical wonder, Mendelssohn – who composed the overture when he was just 16 – this is one for the classical music lovers (and those who still believe in fairies).
This Is Spinal Tap set the benchmark for mockumentaries way back in 1984 and has reigned supreme ever since. Now it may finally have an equal with What We Do In The Shadows, a collaboration between writer/directors Taika Waititi and Flight of the Conchords' Jemaine Clement. Billed as "a couple of interviews with a couple of vampires", it's a fly on the wall 'documentary' about four vampires sharing a flat in present-day New Zealand and is, quite simply, hilarious. Key to its appeal is the way What We Do In The Shadows presents the needs, problems and activities of vampires as entirely commonplace. The flatmates cruise the clubs of Wellington seeking victims like others seek a one night stand, they jeer each other on when a back-alley argument descends into a 'bat fight', and they projectile vomit blood when they absentmindedly eat actual food. Yes, they've their share of 'vampire' problems (sunlight, vampire hunters, etc), but also more normal ones, like having to tell your best friend you're the undead and suppressing the unceasing desire to kill him. What We Do in the Shadows is in cinemas on September 4. Thanks to Madman Entertainment, we have a What We Do in the Shadows prize pack to give away, with a double in-season pass and DVDs of Submarine, Bernie and Prince Avalanche. Eight runners up will also get double in-season passes to see the film. To be in the running, subscribe to the Concrete Playground newsletter (if you haven't already), then email us with your name and address. Read our full review of the movie here. Sydney: win.sydney@concreteplayground.com.au Melbourne: win.melbourne@concreteplayground.com.au Brisbane: win.brisbane@concreteplayground.com.au https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cv568AzZ-i8
A good Cuban sandwich is something dreams are made of. With layers of meats, cheeses and sauces, it's divinity between two slices of bread. And the Cuban sandwich made by the guys from El Paladar Melbourne — the food truck that services Los Barbudos on Smith Street — sure makes for one hell of a dream. These amazing sandwiches will be at Mr Wow's Emporium on September 15 along with a killer line up of bartenders making their version of the classic Mojito. Grab a sandwich — or two — and watch as Andy Strachan from The Rum Diary, Albert Chan from The Alchemist, Tasha Lu from Eau de Vie and Tom Ambroz from Los Barbudos mix lime and mint like nobody's business. A Sunday session has never looked so good.
You know it’s summer when the Shadow Electric run their open air cinema in the Abbotsford Convent. Cult movies, ice cream and starry nights have never looked so good. Like us, the Shadow Electric crew are a bit overexcited about the prospect of warm nights and good times. But what shall we do until then? The Shadow Electric has come up with a killer plan. They are going to open the doors to the Shadow Electric Band Room. Running for 10 days and nights it will showcase 12 live acts in the lead up to the cinema kicking into gear. What can we expect from the acts? This weekend will bring with it Courtney Barnett on Friday, Palms & Bored Nothing on Saturday, and The Hello Morning on Sunday to round it all off. We love what they are putting down. Meet you at the Convent.
The music video is a wonderful place. Used well it can transform a song into a story. They have the ability to fall over the line into short films and are known to use insane sets and props as a backdrop. ACMI is celebrating everything about the music video in its exhibition Spectacle: The Music Video Exhibition where local and international acts will feature alongside a collection of installations, projections, sets and original props and costumes. Spectacle is set to feature 350 works from some of the most innovative players in the genre, including Michel Gondry, who has made films for The Chemical Brothers and Daft Punk, Spike Jonze who worked with Bjork and Fatboy Slim and Mark Romanek who has worked with the likes of Lenny Kravitz and Jay Z. Australian artists also get a run including Temper Trap, Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue. At the end of the day, the exhibition highlights that innovation, originality and genuine love of the game goes a long way when bringing sound and screen together.
Filmed like a play but choreographed like a dance, Birdman is cinematic ballet where the way the story is presented is just as critical to its telling as the story itself. That's because the film features one remarkable, continuous shot that goes for 119 minutes and is called Birdman. Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton) is a washed-up movie star whose career faded into obscurity after turning down the lead in ‘Birdman 3’ (allusions to Keaton’s career post Batmans 1 and 2 are clearly — and gleefully — embraced by all). Thomson has gambled everything on one final shot at restoring his credibility: a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver story that he has singlehandedly adapted, directed and is starring in. There's a matryoshka doll feeling to it all: the movie, filmed like a play, about the movie star putting on a play. The effect is at once mesmerising and unbalanced, neatly reflecting Thomson’s own tortured subconscious. With a supporting cast including Zach Galifianakis, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts and Edward Norton, Birdman is a tantalisingly original black comedy that belongs on everyone’s must-see list for 2015. Birdman is in cinemas nationally on January 15. Thanks to Twentieth Century Fox, we're giving away one collectable, money-can’t-buy talking Birdman figurine (only 50 in Australia), along with a Birdman double in-season pass. Ten runners up will also get double in-season passes. To be in the running, subscribe to the Concrete Playground newsletter (if you haven't already), then email us with your name and address. Read our full review here. Sydney: win.sydney@concreteplayground.com.au Melbourne: win.melbourne@concreteplayground.com.au Brisbane: win.brisbane@concreteplayground.com.au
Music, bicycles, and good coffee. Sounds like a Melbourne dream, right? But wait, it gets better. Add to that the fact that this event is carbon neutral and that the speakers the music will be played on will be powered by guests peddling bikes and you have Muscyle. Set up outside St Ali North, this gathering of earth conscious minds will include performances from Vika and Linda Bull, Brian Ritchie (Violent Femmes/curator MONA FOMA), The Alan Ladds, The Black Jesus Experience and Wang Zheng Ting. If you lend a hand in keeping the music a-pumping, you could also win yourself a bike. It’s a free event, there will be great food and music, they're doing the planet a favour, and you might just get some exercise out of it as well. Not bad. There will also be valet bike parking and tune-ups from Velo Cycles next door.
Dance is commonly viewed in two ways. An inclusive, informal gathering of friends, usually drunk, to whatever the DJ decides to spin, or a beautifully skilled choreographed performance that is limited to the stage — it's something untouchable. Private Dances is breaking down some of those boundaries, when they take over Northcote Town Hall in an immersive group of happenings curated by Nat Cursio Co and produced by Insite Arts. The audience will be confronted with intimate encounters. As they wander around the space there will be small dances, films about dance and most importantly some really high-quality performances. The acts take place in 10 tent-like spaces, making it a one-on-one environment. The styles will be varied, the dancers will be diverse and the audience's reactions will no doubt be different to what dance usually excites. And we hear there is full-frontal nudity. It's all there, folks.
"Nature holds us all to account" is one of Force of Nature: The Dry 2's trailer-friendly lines. Even for those who didn't see the film's sneak peeks in the months between its arrival and the feature's release — a period stretched by Hollywood's 2023 strikes, pushing the picture's date with cinemas from August to February 2024 — it sounds primed for promo snippets when it's uttered in the movie itself. But this Australian detective franchise has earned the right to occasionally be that blunt and loaded with telling importance in its dialogue. And, it makes it work. In 2021's The Dry and here, in a flick that could've been called The Wet thanks to its drenched forest setting, the Aaron Falk saga uses its surroundings to mirror its emotional landscape. Nature holds its characters to account not just in a narrative sense, but by reflecting what they're feeling with astute specificity — so much so that the parched Victorian wheatbelt in the initial movie and the saturated greenery in Force of Nature are as much extensions of the series' on-screen figures as they are stunning backdrops. Chief among this page-to-film realm's players is Falk, the federal police officer that Eric Bana and his Blueback director Robert Connolly treat like terrain to trek through and traverse. His stare has its own cliffs and gorges. His life upholding the law and beyond has its peaks and valleys as well. In The Dry, it was evident that the yellowed, drought-stricken fields that monopolised the frame said plenty about how much Falk and everyone around him was holding back. In Force of Nature, all the damp of the fictional Giralang mountains — Victoria's Otways, Dandenong Ranges and Yarra Valley IRL — speaks volumes about what's streaming through the movie's characters inside. Cinematography is one of this franchise's strengths, and that Andrew Commis (Nude Tuesday) lenses the second picture's location just as evocatively and meticulously as Stefan Duscio (Shantaram) did the first is crucial: these features make their audience see every detail that envelops Falk and company, and therefore constantly spy the parallels between their environs and their inner turmoil. As adapted from author Jane Harper's bestselling books, the two Falk films so far understand one of the basic aspects of being human that's also rarely grasped so convincingly: that there's no escaping the fact that who we are and what we've experienced colours how we see what's in front of us. As Connolly keeps exploring both as a director and a screenwriter — he penned Force of Nature's script solo — this truth rings accurate whether a person has spent decades trying to ignore something or if they're drawn into territory linked to a matter that's always cascading in their heart and mind. The latter is the second flick's scenario, with Falk on a missing-person investigation in a place that connects to his history. The Dry used a similar setup, but it only comes across as neat and repetitive if you can't see how closely art is aping life and how everyone inherently views the world. New locale, scenery, weather conditions, colour palette, case, involved parties and reasons that Falk is pondering his past: they're among Force of Nature's departures from its predecessor. Same protagonist, flashback-heavy structure, emotional approach, revealing use of topography, star, filmmaker: so goes the returning elements. This is a movie that combines new shoots with old foliage, then, and compellingly. The Dry was a solid twisty Aussie mystery aided by Bana at his best in the lead and thematically meaningful imagery, as Force of Nature is now. Its most-unsuccessful part is its title, blatantly stressing the relationship between the features as if viewers wouldn't pick it anyway. (If Harper's third and final Falk book gets the cinematic treatment as well, which likely depends on how well Force of Nature backs up The Dry's $20-million-plus in Aussie box-office takings, presumably that picture will be clunkily dubbed Exiles: The Dry 3.) Sodden ranges beckon one of Australia's rare whodunnit sagas due to a corporate hiking retreat for the Melbourne-based Bailey Tenants, where Alice Russell (Anna Torv, The Last of Us) works. After setting off with just her boss Jill (Deborra-Lee Furness, Blessed) and three colleagues — Lauren (Robin McLeavy, Homeland), who has a daughter (debutant Matilda May Pawsey) the same age as her own (Ingrid Torelli, Five Bedrooms); and sisters Beth (Sisi Stringer, Mortal Kombat) and Bree (Lucy Ansell, Strife) — for company, plus one map between them and only basic supplies, she isn't with the group when they re-emerge. None of the remaining women have answers about Alice's whereabouts. They've all visibly been through an ordeal. And Alice's absence isn't deeply mourned, as Falk and his partner Carmen Cooper (Jacqueline McKenzie, Ruby's Choice) are soon diving into with the returnees, plus Jill's husband Daniel (Richard Roxburgh, Prosper). This isn't the detective duo's introduction to Alice. This isn't Falk's first time at this spot, either. So spreads Force of Nature's branches (and so gives the editing a workout, with Alexandre de Franceschi back from The Dry and and Penguin Bloom's Maria Papoutsis joining). The film tracks the search for Alice in the present, what happened leading up to her disappearance, Falk and Cooper's attempts to get her to be a whistleblower against her employer before that, and Falk's childhood (with The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart's Jeremy Lindsay Taylor returning as Erik Falk, his father, and Preacher's Archie Thomson playing the younger Aaron). Force of Nature isn't short on plot — and thankfully it also isn't lacking in weight and texture in Connolly's hands, just as atmosphere, tension and intrigue aren't an issue. It was a masterstroke to enlist Bana as Falk — a choice that, aided by his fine-tuned mixed of charisma and intensity, continues paying off in his second spin in the part. This is a contemplative performance with gravitas again, including in probing the ethics of his on-screen alter ego's actions. As the headstrong Alice, Torv is equally exceptional, especially as someone who is far from the dutiful informant or likeable potential victim. Indeed, the casting all round is spot on, with Furness dynamite in her first feature beyond voicework in a decade and a half, McLeavy putting in another complicated portrayal in an Aussie movie 15 years after making a helluva debut in The Loved Ones, Roxburgh as excellent at playing cunning as he was in Prosper, and Stringer and Ansell commandingly digging into their sibling characters' layers. Their efforts match the rain in the forest, the unease among the traipsing women and the thrall of this franchise as it grows — because all three keep soaking in.
It has been over three years since Australia's most ambitious outdoor cinema held its first pop-up, letting movie lovers catch a flick under the stars while getting cosy in one of its beds (yes, beds). After four fast-selling seasons in Sydney, Mov'In Bed has announced its first national tour, bringing its comfy setup to three other capital cities. Cinephiles in Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria, it's your time to hop into one of 150 beds and stare up at the silver screen. Mov'In Bed will make its way around the nation this year, going to Perth and Brisbane before making its Melbourne debut at St Kilda Beach in January and February 2020. It'll return to Sydney for a summer season at the Entertainment Quarter, too, from January till March. While the film program hasn't been announced yet, audiences in each city can expect the same experience — the same number of beds, around 30–50 screenings, and just generally grabbing a buddy you're comfortable to share a blankie with (or make a bold first date move) for a unique night at the movies. In Sydney across previous seasons, Mov'In Bed has hosted themed and party nights too, so here's hoping that's also on the agenda. The outdoor cinema also features the usual range of movie snacks — beer, lollies and popcorn, of course — and has seen Burger Project and Fratelli Fresh bring food directly to Sydneysiders' beds. If you don't want to shell out for a bed (which have ranged from $40 for a single person to $74 for a couple in the past), it also lets patrons bring a picnic blanket and chill out on the grass. MOV'IN BED 2019–20 SEASON Perth, Ozone Reserve — October 18 – December 8, 2019 Melbourne, St Kilda Beach — January 3 – February 23, 2020 Sydney, Entertainment Quarter — January 17 – March 8, 2020 Mov'In Bed will pop up from October 2019, and tickets will go on sale later this year. For more information, keep an eye on movinbed.com.au. Updated: September 3, 2019.
We can't yet zipline around the entire world, though it does sound like something Elon Musk might dream up. We can, however, come up with an increasingly impressive holiday itinerary by touring the globe's scenic zipline spots. From this week, the Grand Canyon joins the list. Zooming along tightly stretched cables is already a reality at the world's longest zipline opening at Jebel Jais in the United Arab Emirates and across Dubai's skyline. London recently had one, currently letting locals and visitors fly across the city, as did Sydney did, stretching between two skyscrapers 75 metres above Circular Quay. Seeing the Grand Canyon from such lofty heights is now on offer at Grand Canyon West, at the Hualapai Ranch in Arizona, reaching 300 metres above the floor of the rock formation. Capable of accommodating 350,000 visitors each year, two ziplines have been strung across the natural wonder, one measuring 335 metres and the other spanning 640 metres while traversing a steeper run. Each consists of four steel cables running side-by-side, which means that groups can enjoy the experience together. Riders will reach speeds of up to 80 kilometres per hour. For those planning a high-adrenaline sight-seeing stint as part of their next US trip, tickets cost AU$115, with the zipline operating from Tuesday to Friday from 9am to 4pm. The ziplines join the resort's helicopter tours and 1.2-kilometre-high skywalk among its sky-high attractions. Via PR Newswire.
Following on from the success of his Collingwood debut, acclaimed French boulanger Gontran Cherrier has opened a second Melbourne bakery in Hawthorn. Focusing on take-away bites — with a small sit-down space for those eager to eat in-store — it's the latest addition to the fourth-generation baker's growing pastry empire. For those new to Cherrier's tasty wares, he was sent to the prestigious Ferrandi Culinary School when he was 16, and then went on to study in Paris at the Les Grandis Moulin de Paris bakery and patisserie school. It's no surprise then that, after opening his first boulangerie in Paris in 2010, he has since swiftly expanded into Singapore, Japan, Korea and now two spots in Australia. Filled with light and featuring a stripped-back look, the new Glenferrie Road store boasts a hefty array of flaky, buttery deliciousness — including his classic offerings, as well as three new savoury danishes of the chorizo, tomato, smoked paprika and fetta; zuccini and fetta; and, egg, ham and gruyere varieties. With everything else staying the same, this means that the flour is still Gontran's favourite Label Rouge, which he sources from the french region of Auvergne, and the croissants are still small, dense and chewy. Maintaining the quality of the traditional product, Cherrier is known to then add unique and unexpected flavours into the mix, so if you want to try something a little out of the norm, the miso rye bread or lemon yuzu tart are good places to start. In Cherrier's mind, "freshly baked bread, made from French flour is one of life's greatest pleasures." This is something you're probably already well aware. What you mightn't know is that French flour is much more digestible than other alternatives, which means that it won't leave you bloated or uncomfortable. Recognising Glenferrie Road's community feel, the new boulangerie also hopes to collaborate with local businesses further down the line. Find Gontran Cherrier at 696 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn. Head to their website for further details.
Put on your thinking cap and start sleuthing through all of the internet. Converse are hosting a series of amazing A-list gigs in Melbourne, Sydney and New Zealand, and they're hiding tickets where you'll least expect them. So far we know that The Vines — who are all about the freebies lately — and Bloods are playing a free show somewhere in Melbourne on Wednesday, October 22; Remi and Collarbones are hitting up Sydney the following night; and a fresh lineup is heading over to New Zealand soon after. Oh, and we have your first clue. Converse sneakily posted an ad on Seek this morning for a casual "fist pumper". "This temporary, one night only, position is open for a front row fist pumper at a free gig," the ad read. "The successful applicant will show a willingness to party in the front row of the mosh pit ... [They also must] appreciate the epic sounds of bands, The Vines and Bloods". In case you haven't worked it out already, this is your ticket. If you're from Melbourne and maintain any of the above characteristics, we highly recommend applying for this job. They're currently taking "applications" for the position at hey@converse.com.au, but maybe trade in a full cover letter for a few photos of you in the mosh. This is possibly the only time making a resume link to your Facebook photos is a good thing. If you're hanging out for news about Sydney and New Zealand, we can't help you quite yet. When the campaign was launched last month in Europe and the UK there was a big focus placed on spontaneity, so you'll have to be pretty alert. Make your plans soft and let your friends think you're flaky; it'll be worth dropping everything when you're front and centre of a free show rubbing it in their faces.
It's that time of year again. The sprawling Fringe program is winding up and the stages are getting a little bigger. The 2014 Melbourne Festival kicks off on Friday, October 10, and our local favourites are teaming up with big name international acts. Over the next month you can ride a golden carrousel inside the NGV, be serenaded by a choir of 40 young European girls, and hear The Avalanche's 'Frontier Psychiatrist' like never before. Seamlessly blending the worlds of 'high' and 'low' culture, this year's program is jam-packed with circus, dance, and giant fighting manga people. Get ahead of the hype and book your tickets now. MPavilion While not technically an event at Melbourne Festival, this is definitely a thing to see. Inspired by the pop up spaces at London's Serpentine Gallery, arts patron and philanthropist Naomi Pilgrim has commissioned something amazing to pop up on St Kilda Road. Designed by Australian architect Sean Godsell, MPavilion will be an innovative pavilion space in the Queen Victoria Gardens that will play host to 118 free events. The structure, open to the public from October 7 until February 2015, will also host a large component of events from the Melbourne Festival. Though we're yet to see the space, we imagine it'll be the perfect place to kick back and relax between shows; a flowery refuge from the buzz of the city. October 7 - February 2015, Queen Victoria Gardens (opposite NGV International), Free. Golden Mirror Carrousel Recreating the amusement and festivities of the fairground with an important touch of luxe, Belgian artist Carsten Höller is bringing his golden mirror carrousel down under to the NGV. Höller has been exhibiting fully-functional carrousels in galleries in the US and Europe for some time now, but his attractions always have a crucial difference from what you might find at the Royal Melbourne Show. In the past, he has altered the speed or rotation of the carousel to slightly disorient or confuse visitors, but recently he's been focussed on surface material. A plain mirror carrousel was exhibited in New York a few years ago, now we get the upgraded version. I It's sure to bring a few smiles and selfies along the way, but don't expect any showbags or dagwood dogs after the ride. October 10 - March 2015, National Gallery of Victoria (NGV International), Free. Complexity of Belonging Enjoying its world premiere at this year's Melbourne Festival, there are quite a few reasons why Complexity of Belonging is piquing our interest. First, it kills two birds with one stone. Both theatre and dance are looking like strong elements of the program this year and with this outstanding new work you'll get a taste of both. And, the same could be said of its creators — in a festival packed full of exciting Asian and European works, Complexity of Belonging is one of the few international co-productions with Australia. Our beloved MTC and Chunky Move have joined forces with German playwright and director Falk Richter. Exploring the age of social media with the help of five dancers and four actors, the show is shaping up to be an unique and dynamic experience on stage. October 6 - 25, Southbank Theatre, The Sumner, $40-79. When the Mountain Changed its Clothing The Melbourne Festival is certainly living up to its big reputation with this one. Flying in 40 young singers from the Vocal Theatre Carmina Slovenica, When the Mountain Changed its Clothing is an epic international show which defies categorisation. Under the direction of legendary director and composer Heiner Goebbels, the show combines storytelling, dance, and song as it examines the transition from childhood to adulthood. Utilising texts from intellectual greats like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Gertrude Stein and Marina Abramovic, the work is incredibly far from conventional theatre. With just four performances scheduled in this first Australian run, we suggest you jump on tickets now. This is a curious piece people will be keen to figure out. October 23 - 26, Arts Centre, State Theatre, $49-129. Opus If you like your circus bright, gawdy and replete with peanuts and fairy floss, this is not the show for you. Off the back of five-star reviews in the UK, Opus comes to us from the local legends at Circa as they team up with France's Debussy Quartet. Combining world-class classical music and spellbinding acts of grace and endurance, the show presents a fusion of styles that hasn't really been seen on Australian stages. Intensifying this dynamic, the musicians will in fact be seated on stage while playing the work of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. High energy and high concept, it might be best to leave the kids at home. October 17 - 19, Arts Centre, State Theatre, $25-79. Pop Crimes Rowland S. Howard never quite got the notoriety he deserved. Known for his work in The Birthday Party and his iconic song 'Shivers' that was later famously covered by Nick Cave, Howard was an incredibly influential and inventive musician for well over three decades but his sound was always on the fringes. Now, five years after his death, his seminal 2009 album Pop Crimes is being treated to some serious fanfare on the big stage. These two shows at the Festival Hub will see Howard's old bandmates and key collaborators pay tribute to the fallen great. This will include old faithful like Mick Harvey and Harry Howard as well as newbies like Adalita among others. Get ready for some shivers. October 23-24, Foxtel Festival Hub, $45. Since I Suppose Arguably the most innovative show of the festival, Since I Suppose takes you on a journey through the city with an interactive and intimate show that teeters on the edge of theatre and live art. Experienced by just two people at a time, the work reinterprets Shakespeare's Measure for Measure through filmed action on a handheld device. Site-specific moments will blur the distinctions between film and reality, and audio elements will create a wholly unique experience. Co-created by Richard Jordan Productions and the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, the show's US run was sold-out before the season even opened. It finished sporting 5-star reviews. As each experience is so unique, there's not much more we can tell you. But watch this space: we'll definitely be trying it out for ourselves. October 15-26, CBD to North Melbourne, $45-65. Since I Left You 'You're a nut! You're crazy in the coconut!' Throw your head back to 2000, you're going to need all the lyrics to 'Frontier Psychiatrist' for this one. In tribute to The Avalanches' legendary album Since I Left You, Sydney's Astral People and Jonti are performing the entire thing live on stage. That might not sound like the most amazing of accomplishments, but it really needs to be put in perspective. This genius patchwork of an album was made from more than 3,500 samples. It's game-changing electronic music that was never meant to be performed live. But that won't stop these guys. Astral People and Jonti will be joined by a 17-piece orchestra. We've never been so pumped to hear some violins. October 10-11, Foxtel Festival Hub, $45. Marzo With costumes like these, this dance work from Dewey Dell is sure to be anything but dull. Well known for their bizarre antics on stage, this Italian company has teamed up with Japanese artists Kuro Tanino and Yuichi Yukoyama to utilise a manga aesthetic. In neon power suits and Daft Punk helmets these dancers are going to war, exploring love and hate in a surreal futuristic plane of existence. This is the closest thing you're ever going to see to Yoshimi battling the pink robots in real life. Do not pass it up. October 10-14, Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall, $15-40. Art as a Verb The days of art being pristine and untouched are long gone. Art these days wants to get all up in your face. It's cheeky and inappropriate. Sometimes it involves dancing naked in a gallery. Taking these ideas to the extreme, MUMA is presenting Art as a Verb: a group retrospective of interactive, performance based works. Exhibiting pieces from Marina Abramovic, Vito Acconci, Francis Alyss, Mike Parr, Yoko Ono and many more, this show asks you to get your hands dirty. With people masturbating under floorboards and sewing their lips shut, it's pretty clear — art is no longer just about pretty oil paintings. October 3-16, Monash University Museum of Art, Free. To see the full program, head over to the Melbourne Festival website.
On November 1 every year, plant-based people the world over celebrate 'World Vegan Day'. The day of animal product-free eating is just around the corner once again — and it's safe to say Preston Market has your day's feasting well and truly sorted. The northside precinct is transforming into a treasure trove of vegan delights for the occasion, as a stack of its traders get into the spirit with a range of special offers, free tastings and one-off vegan dishes. Swing by Rhubarb Rhubarb Organics to sample an array of vegan cheeses (10am–1pm), or road-test some animal product-free pastries and baked goods over at Dragisha & Nikola Bakery. Meanwhile, Cornutopia will be rolling $10 loaded vegan burritos, health cafe Super Raw will be offering 20 percent off its entire menu, and you'll be able to nab a trio of vegan boreks for a tenner from the crew at Ishtar Borek & Falafel. Visitors can even unleash some creativity with a few DIY gozleme at Fresh Daily Gozleme. And, of course, sweet-toothed vegans will also be in excellent hands. You'll be able to sink your teeth into ten of I Love Churros' signature pastries for just $5, or roll down to Hot Jam Donuts and pick up a dozen of its freshly baked jammy delights for $12.
Apple might be praised for clever design when it comes to its phones, but that sure hasn't been the case for its proposed Federation Square flagship store. In fact, the design for the controversial concept store has been pretty much ripped to shreds, with the ABC reporting that Melbourne City Council has received around 800 community submissions rejecting the proposal. Contention surrounding Apple's plans fired up in December, when the Victorian Government approved the demolition of Federation Square's Yarra Building to make way for the new flagship store. This plan to sell off the public space to a commercial retailer was not widely well met, especially as it would displace the Koorie Heritage Trust. Now, at a city council meeting last night, Greens Councillor Rohan Leppert has moved to lobby the Government to scrap Apple's design and start again, this time in close consultation with the public. The motion was unanimously backed by all of his fellow Melbourne City councillors, with one confirming what we were all thinking and likening the building to something along the lines of "a Pizza Hut" store. And they're not backing down, with plans to take the matter further if the Victorian Government rejects the calls for a redesign. "This is one of the strongest positions we have taken," Councillor Leppert said. "I'm quite sure that if the Government doesn't deal with this that there will be a motion in the Upper House." The proposed two-level flagship store will be much bigger than Apple's other Melbourne stores like Chadstone and Highpoint. The Victorian Government is no doubt keen to secure a space for the store as Apple has been extremely selective about the locations of its global flagships and there are only four others in the world, including Fifth Avenue in NYC and Regent Street in London. The Government will now respond to the Council's proposal — we'll update you when they do. Via ABC.
