Eiffel 65's 1998 hit 'Blue (Da Ba Dee)' doesn't play over the first trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water, but you're forgiven if you get it stuck in your head anyway. The 97-second clip comes with a sweeping score by composer Simon Franglen (a veteran of the first film) that's designed to set an ethereal and epic mood — but blue really is the colour of all that it wears. If you saw James Cameron's initial entry in this sci-fi franchise back in 2009 — and given that the original Avatar quickly became the highest-grossing film of all time, it's highly likely that you did, because seemingly everyone did — then all those shades of blue won't come as a surprise. They're splashed across the movie's CGI-filled waters, skies and Na'vi people, and across the first look at its long-awaited sequel as well. Yes, 13 years after the first flick became such an enormous hit, there really is evidence that the long-floated follow-up will reach cinemas this year. Avatar: The Way of Water is one of those movies that you might only truly believe exists once you're sat in a theatre watching it, though, because it has been in the works for that long. It's currently set to reach the silver screen Down Under this December, stepping back into the story of the Sully family, aka Jake (Sam Worthington, Fires), Neytiri (Zoe Saldana, The Adam Project) and their children, on the habitable moon Pandora. This time around, staying safe and alive remains a focus — and, from the just-dropped trailer, it looks like more battles are a-coming. The initial clip, which started screening in cinemas with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness but has only just made its way online, doesn't spell out much in the way of plot, however. Given that Avatar wowed viewers mainly due to its imagery and special effects (and definitely not its "Dances with Wolves but in space"-style narrative), that too is hardly astonishing. Also set to feature amid all those pixels: Sigourney Weaver (Ghostbusters: Afterlife), Stephen Lang (Don't Breathe 2), Cliff Curtis (Reminiscence), Joel David Moore (Bones), CCH Pounder (Godzilla: King of the Monsters), Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie), Kate Winslet (Mare of Easttown) and Flight of the Conchords' Jemaine Clement. And, obviously, James Cameron is back in the director's chair. If the sneak peek has you excited about re-entering Avatar's blue-heavy world, get ready for more where that came from. A third movie is due in 2024, a fourth in 2026 and a fifth in 2028. Also, the original Avatar will return to cinemas in September, in the lead-up to Avatar: The Way of Water. (And no, there's no word yet whether a team-up with The Smurfs, Sonic the Hedgehog and the Blue Man Group might ever be in the works.) Check out the trailer below: Avatar: The Way of Water releases in cinemas Down Under on December 15. Images: Photos courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2022 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.
Melburnians generally love to try new cuisines. We have a long history of warmly embracing flavours and cooking styles from all over the world, which has led to the creation of our vibrant multicultural food scene — something we are a bit smug about. But plenty of cuisines haven't made it to the mainstream here. One of them is Chifa — a fusion of Peruvian and Cantonese cuisines. Thankfully, hospo veterans Vincent Lombino and Jared Thibault (Lona Misa and QT's Rooftop) are now changing that with their Peruvian-Chinese restaurant and bar, Casa Chino. They already brought Chifa food to Brisbane in 2022 with Casa Chow — we're a bit gutted that Brissie beat us to this one — and the success of this spot has led them to create a similar version down in our fine city. Sharing plates are the name of the game here, with diners expected to order a heap of small and large dishes to fight over. Kick off with baos, raw dishes, skewers and dim sum treats before diving into the bigger wok-cooked plates. In just about every dish, you'll find a blend of both Chinese and Peruvian traditions. We also see quite a few Japanese influences throughout the menu. Check out how these cuisines combine in the tempura fish bao bun with aji amarillo peppers and fresh lime; the crab and prawn toast served with creamy rocoto, tobiko and bonito; and the lap cheong pipis with garlic chives, ginger and chipotle. Big and bold flavours are on show all over this menu. We don't expect that you'll be reaching for the salt or chilli when dining at Casa Chino. Drinks-wise, you can't miss the pisco. The team has a 20-strong list of piscos behind the bar, five different pisco sours and a plum and pisco negroni. Beyond that, there's a heap of signature cocktails that champion both Peruvian and Chinese flavours, plus a solid collection of beers, wines and other spirits. Either drop by for some cocktails and snacks or stick around for a Chifa feast at this Brunswick haunt.
On May 20, 2011, 500 people will explore the Stephen A. Schwarzman building of the New York Public Library (NYPL) from dusk 'til dawn in a new interactive game allowing players to become an author by sunrise. Find the Future is an overnight adventure where participants have specific missions and objectives to complete through the secret underground stacks of the library, where over 40 miles of books are housed. By the end of the excursion the group will have collaboratively written an entire book that will be published and entered into the permanent collection of the NYPL. Participants will observe over 100 objects of monumental significance to mankind and learn over 100 untold stories that are aimed to inspire creativity and encourage people to realize their dreams and goals for their own lives. The entry form to become one of the first lucky few to begin the Find the Future quest asks individuals to imagine a vivid picture of their future and then create a goal to achieve by the year 2021. The most original and determined entries will be selected for the overnight stay. Following the debut on the 20th, anyone can play the game during regular library hours at the NYPL, or online from anywhere in the world, to make history by finding their future.
There is nothing quite like an international design competition to put the world's leading architecture firms into a bit of spin. And that is exactly what has happened since the Busan Metropolitian City Government in Korea sponsored a competition to find a design for Busan's new Opera House, set to begin construction in 2014. The brief was fairly straightforward - the winning design needed to completely reenvisage the Busan Opera House on the harbour of South Korea's second largest city, Busan, and create a new cultural landmark which would resonate with the residents of Busan and the surronding marine culture, yet would also put Busan firmly on the international stage. In practical terms, the brief also stipulated that the design had to include an Opera Theatre, a multi-purpose theatre, and provide areas for people to congregate and enjoy views of the city skyine and the ocean. The competition certainly has fired up the imaginations of architects worldwide The Swiss-based architecturel firm Kubota and Bachmann have put forward a design based on Korean traditions, featuring an impressive artificial body of water, while a German firm, Peter Ruge Architekten, have gained significant attention with their sustainable design. Sydney-based architects Lascoste and Stevenson have also weighed in with their pod-shaped design. The final decision on the design of the Opera House will not be known until the second stage of the competition. But whatever the result, it looks like post 2014 Sydney may not be the only harbour city with an enviable Opera House.
When 2020 ticked over to 2021, Australians were asked to direct their eyeballs towards a brooding mystery set against our dusty, yellow-hued landscape. We did just that, and in big numbers, too, with The Dry quickly becoming a huge box-office hit. A year later, when 2021 becomes 2022, we'll be tempted to do something similar — but this time it's a six-part Stan series that strands Jamie Dornan in the outback that'll be demanding our attention to start the new year. That show is The Tourist, which sees Dornan add another TV role to his resume alongside The Fall, Death and Nightingales, New Worlds and Once Upon a Time. The Irish actor boasts an eclectic filmography — he's highly likely to get nominated for an Oscar next year for his role in nostalgic drama Belfast, in fact, and he hit Aussie screens big and small in the vastly dissimilar Synchronic, Wild Mountain Thyme and Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar this year. For this new part, he plays the titular character, who has no idea why he's in the middle of Australia or even who he is. Written by brothers Harry and Jack Williams (Angela Black), and hailing from the Emmy-winning production company behind The Missing and Fleabag, The Tourist is a mystery-thriller, so its just-dropped first trailer starts out with an uneasy air — as Dornan's character gets pursued by a tank truck trying that's trying to drive him off the road. Things don't get easier after he wakes up in hospital with no memory, unsurprisingly, or when he's chased by plenty of other folks. On-screen, Dornan is joined by a heap of familiar faces, including Aussie actors Danielle Macdonald (French Exit), Alex Dimitriades (Total Control) and Damon Herriman (Mindhunter), English-born Australian talent Shalom Brune-Franklin (Line of Duty) and Icelandic American Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Trapped). You'll be able to binge your way through The Tourist's twists and turns on Sunday, January 2, Check out the trailer below: The Tourist will be available to stream via Stan from Sunday, January 2.
Not all that long ago, the idea of getting cosy on your couch, clicking a few buttons, and having thousands of films and television shows at your fingertips seemed like something out of science fiction. Now, it's just an ordinary night — whether you're virtually gathering the gang to text along, cuddling up to your significant other or shutting the world out for some much needed me-time. Of course, given the wealth of options to choose from, there's nothing ordinary about making a date with your chosen streaming platform. The question isn't "should I watch something?" — it's "what on earth should I choose?". Hundreds of titles are added to Australia's online viewing services each and every month, all vying for a spot on your must-see list. And, so you don't spend 45 minutes scrolling and then being too tired to actually commit to anything, we're here to help. We've spent plenty of couch time watching our way through this month's latest batch — and, from the latest and greatest through to old and recent favourites, here are our picks for your streaming queue from October's haul. BRAND NEW STUFF YOU CAN WATCH FROM START TO FINISH NOW BECKHAM Strike It Like Sam Kerr would make an excellent movie title. As fans of football and film alike already know, Bend It Like Beckham got there first 21 years ago, borrowing its moniker from David Beckham's uncanny knack for curling the ball when taking a free kick. The former Manchester United, Real Madrid, AC Milan, LA Galaxy and Paris Saint-Germain player — and England captain — now sees his name grace the screen again via Beckham, the instantly compelling four-part documentary about one of the biggest talents to ever play the world game. A birth-to-now chronicle, the series spins a fairytale that's all real and came true. David was once a quiet boy from a working-class family with a dad who loved soccer. He took to the sport with passion and dedication, and has since lived out any and every aspiring athlete's wildest fantasy. Director Fisher Stevens, who is recently best-known for acting in Succession, appreciates the dream ride that Beckham has experienced, but also sees the costs and tolls. Reflecting on that for him are several Beckhams, including the man himself, Spice Girl Victoria (who is adamant that she wasn't into football when she met David and still isn't now), and his doting parents Sandra and Ted. As countless YouTube complications have already captured, watching Beckham on the pitch at the height of his footballing powers is pure sporting joy — a fact that can be appreciated in the doco by soccer diehards and the unacquainted alike. Beckham shows off the skills, demonstrating how exceptional he was on the field and why the world responded. Witnessing that prowess is also key in understanding how everything from brand partnerships to global tours, famous teammates to disapproving team managers, and championships to tabloid harassment followed. Various Beckhams aren't the only folks chatting. Sir Alex Ferguson, Gary Neville, Eric Cantona and Rio Ferdinand are among the footballing names. Anna Wintour makes an appearance. But David and Victoria's observations, memories and insights — and relationship, in the 90s, since and now — are at this docuseries' core. Red cards, the World Cup, big moves, fan abuse and taunts, sacrifices and scandals, sarongs and hairstyles, the Beckhams' wedding, being peak 90s and pop-culture icons, changing clubs, owning clubs, family life: it all factors into this captivating and satisfying watch. Beckham streams via Netflix. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER Of the many pies that Succession's Roy family had their fingers in, pharmaceuticals wasn't one of them. For virtually that, Mike Flanagan gives audiences The Fall of the House of Usher. The horror auteur's take on dynastic wealth gets a-fluttering through a world of decadence enabled by pushing pills legally, as six heirs to an addiction-laced kingdom vie to inherit a vast fortune. Flanagan hasn't given up his favourite genre for pure drama, however. The eponymous Usher offspring won't be enjoying the spoils of their father Roderick's (Bruce Greenwood, The Resident) business success, either, in this absorbing, visually ravishing and narratively riveting eight-parter. As the bulk of this tale is unfurled fireside, its patriarch tells federal prosecutor C Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly, SWAT) why his children (including Pet Sematary: Bloodlines' Henry Thomas, Minx's Samantha Sloyan, The Peripheral's T'Nia Miller, iZombie's Rahul Kohli, The Wrath of Becky's Kate Siegel and The Midnight Club's Sauriyan Sapkota) came to die within days of each other — and, with all the gory details, how. As with The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor before it, plus The Midnight Club as well, Flanagan's latest Netflix series finds its basis on the page. The author this time: Edgar Allan Poe, although The Fall of the House of Usher isn't a strict adaptation of the iconic author's 1840 short story of the same name, or just an adaptation, even as it bubbles with greed, violence and paranoia (plus death, loss, decay and the deceased haunting the livin)g. Character monikers, episode titles and other details spring from widely across Poe's bibliography. Cue ravens, black cats, masks, tell-tale hearts, pendulums and a Rue Morgue. What if the writer had penned Succession? That's one of Flanagan's questions — and what if he'd penned Dopesick and Painkiller, too? Hailing from the talent behind the exceptional Midnight Mass as well, plus movies Oculus, Hush, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep, the series that results is a gloriously creepy and involving modern gothic horror entry. The Fall of the House of Usher streams via Netflix. Read our full review. OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH First dropping anchor with its debut season in 2022, and finding a mooring among the best new series that the year had to offer, Our Flag Means Death's premise has always glinted as brightly as its impressive cast (not just Uproar's Rhys Darby and Thor: Love and Thunder's Taika Waititi, but also Bloods' Samson Kayo, Creation Stories' Ewen Bremner, Bank of Dave's Joel Fry, Game of Thrones' Kristian Nairn, Hello Tomorrow!'s Matthew Maher, Loot's Nat Faxon, The Sex Lives of College Girls' Vico Ortiz and The Batman's Con O'Neill for starters). It follows Darby as self-styled 'gentleman pirate' Stede Bonnet. Born to a life of privilege, he felt that seafaring and swashbuckling was his calling, leaving his life on land behind to hop on a ship — details that all spring from reality. Creator David Jenkins (People of Earth) isn't interested in telling the exact IRL tale, however. Consider those basics merely Our Flag Means Death's departure point. On-screen, Stede gets caught up in both a workplace comedy and a boatmance. The first springs from his certainty that there has to be a nicer way to glide through a pirate existence, and the second from his blossoming feelings for feared marauder Edward Teach (Waititi), aka Blackbeard. When season one wrapped up, Stede and Ed had found love in a buccaneering place, but also felt splashes of uncertainty about what their relationship means, leading to heartbreak and a breakup. Season two picks up with the show's motley crew of characters torn in two, with Stede and his loyal faction marooned on the island tourist destination that is The Republic of Pirates — fantasy is as much a part of Our Flag Means Death as comedy and romance — and Blackbeard back to his robbing and murdering ways on The Revenge. The series' attracted opposites will find their way onto the same deck again, but choppy waters are in store for their emotions, as well as ample bobbing up and down, ebbing and flowing, floating and sinking, and everything else that the ocean brings to mind. Similarly splashing their way: rivalries, curses, old pals, new foes, betrayals, forgiveness, glorious silliness, trauma, lopped limbs and a merman (plus Madeleine Sami from Deadloch among the show's new faces). Our Flag Means Death streams via Binge. Read our full review. LUPIN Forget Emily in Paris — the best Netflix series set in the French capital focuses on a light-fingered smooth mover who is as adept at stealing hearts as he is at pilfering jewels and art. The streaming service's Lupin isn't the first screen outing based on the Maurice Leblanc-penned master of disguise, with the author's famous character first popping up on the big screen over a century ago, then appearing in both movies and TV not just in his homeland but also in the US and Japan since. Centred on a gentleman thief who takes his cues from the fictional figure, however, Netflix's take on all things Arsène Lupin is equally creative, riveting, twisty and entertaining. With the charismatic Omar Sy (Jurassic World Dominion) as its lead, it also couldn't be better cast — as viewers initially discovered in January 2021, when Sy's Arsène superfan Assane Diop started showing off his larceny skills in the series' instantly engaging five-episode first part. The angle proved savvy. The central casting is sparkling. Creators George Kay (who has since made the Idris Elba-led Hijack) and François Uzan (Family Business) perfected the rollicking vibe. And, director Louis Leterrier (Fast X) turned in some of his best work helming the debut three instalments. It's no wonder that the show became the most-watched series in a language other than English on Netflix at the pre-Squid Game time. A second five-chapter part arrived in June the same year, but audiences have had to wait until now for a third. Now streaming its seven new entries, Lupin's third part dazzles again. As its central figure tries to protect his family while the world thinks that he's dead, crime capers don't much more charming — and bingeable — than this page-to-screen heist affair. Leblanc introduced the world to Lupin in short stories in 1905, with 17 novels and 39 novellas following. In some, Herlock Sholmes pops up — and yes, the reference to Arthur Conan Doyle's detective is clearly on purpose. Although Sherlock Holmes isn't quite Arsène Lupin's English equivalent, the two characters give readers and viewers alike the same thrills. If spending time with smart figures with silky skills in can't-put-down and can't-look-away mysteries is what you're after, both deliver. Netflix's Lupin gives the French favourite a modern-day Sherlock-esque spin, but with another pivot to put the suave Senegal-born Diop and his various quests in the spotlight. Lupin streams via Netflix. Read our full review. HOT POTATO: THE STORY OF THE WIGGLES Get ready to wiggle: Anthony Field, Murray Cook, Greg Page and Jeff Fatt have ensured that Australia has been in that exact state for so long. It was more than three decades back when the university classmates, all studying early childhood education, decided to combine their area of interest with music — not for fame, which has come and then some since, but to put what they were learning into action while engaging and teaching kids. If your childhood spanned Australia in the 90s onwards, or you've ever spent time parenting or babysitting someone who fits into that category, then you know the end result. Indeed, folks in most parts of the world do, too. The Wiggles haven't gone wrong since those early and humble beginnings. Only Field, aka the Blue Wiggle, remains part of the skivvy-loving group's current main iteration, but such is The Wiggles' beloved status that all four can and do fill arenas filled with adults on OG Wiggles tours. Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles charts the why, what and how about the Aussie troupe, who've also won Triple J's Hottest 100, appeared at Mardi Gras and performed at Falls Festival in just the last couple of years. Comprised of archival clips and recent interviews — all lively and colourful — plus earworm-level kids tunes that everyone knows no matter if you've ever actively watched or listened to The Wiggles, Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles hits the screen from a filmmaker that's no stranger to exploring the stories behind pivotal figures. Also on Sally Aitken's resume: Valerie Taylor: Playing with Sharks and David Stratton: A Cinematic Life, although neither had such a penchant for bright primary hues. This is a tale of a great idea and the hard work that made it a success, of friendship and being able to do what you love, of creative genius and lucky breaks, and of both finding and spreading joy. It's an account about big red cars, pirates with feathers for swords and dinosaurs called Dorothy as well, of course, and of teaching approaches and learnings, sacrifices made, health tolls weathered, a band becoming a show, and a group ensuring that it wasn't just entertaining Australia and beyond — it was representing its audience, too. Unsurprisingly, Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles is both enlightening and likeable; so, classic The Wiggles, then. Hot Potato: The Story of The Wiggles streams via Prime Video. ONEFOUR: AGAINST ALL ODDS Members of ONEFOUR happily chat through their lives and music careers in ONEFOUR: Against All Odds, with first-time feature filmmaker Gabriel Gasparinatos regularly putting brothers J Emz and YP, plus their friend Spenny, centre screen to tell their story in their own words. As the trio talk, they're never anything less than candid and impassioned about their childhoods growing up in Mount Druitt in Sydney's western suburbs, the lack of opportunities available to the Pacific Islander community, being openly told as teens that they'd end up in jail, when paths and choices made those harsh words come true, and the reason that they're famous: their tunes. But everyone involved in this film, and those watching as well, must wish that this was a different movie — not due to anything about how the doco itself is made or plays, but because of the grim reality that it charts. If only this wasn't an account of friends who found not only something they loved but a new way forward in drill rap, which they turned into viral success and more, only to be constantly harassed by a New South Wales police squad that usually targets organised crime, terrorism and bikie gangs. Sharing J Emz, YP and Spenny's dismay comes easily while viewing ONEFOUR: Against All Odds, which takes a thorough ride through the group's origins, career and run-ins with the law. Feeling enraged at the police attempt to censor art — shutting down gigs in NSW and around the country; also thwarting international touring plans; and constantly making their presence known to ONEFOUR's talents, their families and their community — because they claim that the band's tracks will incite violence is just as inescapable. Gasparinatos interviews law enforcement representatives on-camera, and their words don't and can't justify the shocking treatment that ONEFOUR has received and keeps receiving as singles such as 'What You Know', 'The Message', 'Home and Away' and The Kid LAROI collaboration 'My City' have struck a chord with listeners locally, nationwide and internationally over the past six years. This plight isn't over, either; in fact, when ONEFOUR: Against All Odds premiered at SXSW Sydney, the heavy representation from the thin blue line didn't go unnoticed or unreported. The film chronicles the group's highlights, such as earning recognition, starting dance crazes, one-man gigs, a stadium The Kid LAROI show and the band's resilience, while always conveying how true the doco's title rings. ONEFOUR: Against All Odds streams via Netflix. THE PIGEON TUNNEL What happens when one of the world's great documentarians, and a master at the talking-head format, turns his lens toward one of the best authors of espionage intrigue that's ever graced the page? The engrossing The Pigeon Tunnel, Errol Morris' (an Oscar-winner for The Fog of War) exploration of John le Carré's life and work. Of course, the latter's tales haven't just spilled through books, but onto screens themselves long before he was a doco subject — and his IRL exploits are as fascinating as anything ever captured in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Constant Gardener, A Most Wanted Man, Our Kind of Traitor, The Night Manager and The Little Drummer Girl. How did the man born David Cornwell, who was in his 80s when he sat with Morris for a frank interview before his passing in December 2020, become the go-to for cloak-and-dagger affairs? And what kind of rollercoaster of an existence inspired such narratives? le Carré aka Cornwell explains all here — from his dad's shady schemes, his mother leaving and his time as a teacher through to working for MI5 and MI6, and becoming a novelist. The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life precedes this film, hitting bookstores in 2016 as the only full-length non-fiction text to le Carré's name. Whether you've read that or not, devoured one or some or none of his spy tales, done the same with the movie adaptations or are coming to the author anew here with just slight recognition drawing you in, The Pigeon Tunnel is gripping as a documentary. A gifted storyteller on the page, the movie's central figure is just as talented when he's in front of the camera — often framed askew, in a feature that tellingly takes the aesthetics of le Carré's favourite genre to heart. Morris and his adept regular editor Steven Hathaway also splice in examples from the author's pen, given there's such a large amount to choose from, which isn't merely a case of illustrating the impact of his work. Indeed, The Pigeon Tunnel knows that the lines between fact and fiction are faint, including when surveying, probing and interrogating decades in the eventful life of someone who spent more than one job spinning complicated webs. The Pigeon Tunnel streams via Apple TV+. TOTALLY KILLER Kiernan Shipka has long said goodbye to Mad Men's Sally Draper, including by starring in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. After her dalliance with witchcraft, she's still sticking with horror in Totally Killer, but in a mix of slasher tropes and a Back to the Future-borrowing premise. There's a body count and a time machine — and 80s fashions aplenty, because where else does a 2023 movie head to when it's venturing into the past? Also present and accounted for: a tale about a high schooler living in a small town cursed by a past serial killer, which brings some Halloween and Scream nods, plus Mean Girls and Heathers-esque teen savagery. And, yes, John Hughes flicks also get some love, complete with shoutouts to Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink star Molly Ringwald. Totally Killer doesn't skimp on knowingly and winkingly mashing up its many influences, clearly, or on enjoying itself while doing so. The end result is a heap of fun, as hailing from Always Be My Maybe's Nahnatchka Khan behind the lens, along with screenwriters David Matalon (The Clearing), Sasha Perl-Raver (Let's Get Married) and Jen D'Angelo (Hocus Pocus 2). Shipka plays Vernon resident Jamie Hughes, who has spent her whole life being told to be careful about everything by her overprotective parents Pam (Julie Bowen, Modern Family) and Blake (Lochlyn Munro, Creepshow) after an October turned deadly back when they were her age. Unsurprisingly, she isn't happy about it. The reason for their caution: in 1987, three 16-year-old girls were murdered in the lead up to Halloween, with the culprit badged the Sweet 16 Killer — and infamy ensuing for Jamie's otherwise ordinary hometown. Pam is still obsessed with finding the murderer decades later, but her daughter only gets involved after a new tragedy. This Jason Blum (The Exorcist: Believer)-produced flick then needs to conjure up a blast in the past to try to fix what happened then to stop the new deaths from occurring. Always knowing that it's a comedy as much as a slasher film (as seen in its bright hues, heard in its snappy dialogue and conveyed in its committed performances), Totally Killer leans into everything about its Frankenstein's monster-style assemblage of pieces, bringing its setup to entertaining life. Totally Killer streams via Prime Video. THE BURIAL Find the right story, enlist an ace cast, and any genre can thoroughly entertain and engage while ticking recognisable boxes — and legal drama The Burial is one such hearty example. The true tale: Mississippi resident Jeremiah Joseph O'Keefe's mid-90s David-versus-Goliath battle against businessman Raymond Loewen, with their respective funeral operations at the centre, and also lawyer Willie E Gary representing O'Keefe's side when it went to court. The stars: Tommy Lee Jones (The Comeback Trail) as the 75-year-old grandfather who is having government troubles over the insurance side of his company, and wants to secure a future for his sizeable family (including 13 children); ever-busy and reliable character actor Bill Camp (Boston Strangler) as a cashed-up promised buyer of three funeral homes to add to his North American deathcare empire; and Jamie Foxx (Strays) as the smooth-talking, jury-whispering, private jet-owning Florida-based personal injury lawyer who is convinced by the just-graduated Hal Dockins (Mamoudou Athie, Elemental) to give a case he normally wouldn't think twice about a go. After writing and helming 2017's Novitiate, filmmaker Maggie Betts takes on both gigs again — co-scripting with Doug Wright (Quills), who also came up with the story that's based on a New Yorker article — on a film that doesn't only step through cracking courtroom antics, but is cleverly funny, too. The details are rousing, as well as infuriating, with Loewen reneging on an agreement with O'Keefe, the latter suing the former with Gary's help, and predatory practices regarding race and economic status becoming plain. After jumping from sci-fi/horror with They Cloned Tyrone to raucous comedy with Strays and now this, Foxx is giddily excellent playing a character that could've been all style and no substance, even as someone who exists IRL, but proves flashy yet genuine. His rapport with Jones, as cemented by the music off late-80s/early-90s R&B act Tony! Toni! Toné!, also shines. And although John Grisham could've penned the ins and outs if it was all fiction, this is still a smart and involving movie, and an easy crowd-pleaser. The Burial streams via Prime Video. NEW AND RETURNING SHOWS TO CHECK OUT WEEK BY WEEK LOKI One of the best performances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes from the man who was first charged with getting villainous, but now leads his own spinoff series as a complex and playful hero. While Tom Hiddleston's acting talents are well-established far beyond playing the God of Mischief — see: The Deep Blue Sea, The Hollow Crown, Only Lovers Left Alive, High-Rise, Crimson Peak and The Night Manager, for instance — the MCU has been all the better for his involvement for more than a decade. A scene-stealer in 2011's Thor, his parts in film after film kept getting bigger until streaming series Loki arrived. Amid Disney's rush of greenlighting shows for Disney+, starting this one couldn't have been easier; as Thor: Ragnarok in particular demonstrated, adding more Hiddleston has always been a winning move. Indeed, when it slid into queues in 2021 as just the third series in the MCU's small-screen realm, following WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki proved that more Hiddleston in a six-part TV show was also a delight. As one of Marvel's standout shows, it came as no surprise when this stint of time-hopping trickery confirmed that it was returning for a second season in that run's final episode. Now back for another half-dozen instalments, Loki becomes the first of Marvel's television entries to earn a second go-around. That isn't an achievement that it takes for granted. Picking up exactly where season one left off, Loki season two sticks to some familiar beats but also makes its own leaps, and remains fun, funny, lively and smart in the process. It feels more lived in, too, a description that rarely applies to any franchise about caped crusaders and their nemeses, gods, multiverses and temporal chaos, this one among them. And, as well as Hiddleston excelling overall, plus opposite Owen Wilson (Haunted Mansion) and Sophia Di Martino (The Electrical Life of Louis Wain), this time-jumping return also brings Everything Everywhere All At Once Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan into another temporal jumble, which is as great on-screen as it sounds on paper. Loki streams via Disney+. Read our full review. UPLOAD Every show about the afterlife, whether it's The Good Place or Upload of late, relies upon an inescapable truth: if some form of existence can go on after death, humanity's worst traits will go with it. Greg Daniels' addition to this stream of thought relies upon AI, virtual reality, plus capturing the consciousness of someone before they die so that they can spend eternity in a simulation — if they can afford it — and while The Office and Parks and Recreation writer/co-creator has made another sitcom, rather than going all Charlie Brooker and Black Mirror, the end result doesn't evade the fact that people are people whether they're flesh and blood or digital approximations. So, as he resided in the luxurious country club-esque Lakeview after shuffling off the mortal coil, computer programmer Nathan (Robbie Amell, The Witcher) wasn't free of living's troubles. Instead, he had daily struggles and the fallout from his demise to deal with. Now three seasons in, Upload has brought its protagonist back to regular reality, downloading into a body with the help of his former virtual handler-turned-girlfriend Nora (Andy Allo, Chicago Fire), but he's still facing the same troubles. Well, mostly the same — because downloading is risky, hasn't been done successfully before and Nathan's bleeding nose is a worrying sign. As Upload's main duo battle big tech, the series continues to probe the limits that capitalism will take advancements to while prioritising circuitry and dehumanising people. Nathan's ex Ingrid (Allegra Edwards, Briarpatch), who financed his trip to Lakeview, is increasingly coming around to this way of thinking. Even the plentiful AI Guy (Owen Daniels, Space Force) is getting progressively rebellious against the systems, coding and rules that are behind his very existence. Upload season three keeps complicating its storyline, but also keeps doubling down on its critique of wealth disparity, companies ruling over people, modern society's endless quest for control and cash, and the hellscape that might come if and when digital afterlives leap off the screen. Amell, Allo, Edwards and Daniels remain perfectly cast, as does Zainab Johnson (Tab Time) as one of Nora's colleagues and Kevin Bigley (Animal Control) as another Lakeview inhabitant, in a series is repeatedly astute and amusing. Upload streams via Prime Video. Read our full review. A RECENT BIG-SCREEN RELEASE YOU MIGHT'VE MISSED EMILY If Emily had been made two or three decades earlier, it might've starred Frances O'Connor, rather than boast the Australian actor-turned-filmmaker as its writer and director. Back in the 90s and 00s, O'Connor played with literary classics in movies such as Mansfield Park and The Importance of Being Earnest, plus a TV version of Madame Bovary. Now, making an accomplished and emotive debut behind the lens, she explores how Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights might've come to be. Is a Kate Bush-inspiring piece of gothic romantic fiction of such passion and yearning — the only one from a writer lost to tuberculosis at the age of just 30 in 1848 — the result of a life touched by both? That's a question that this fictionalised biopic ponders. Emily begins with another query, however, although it's also basically the same question. "How did you write it?" Emily's (Emma Mackey, Sex Education) older sister Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling, The Musketeers) demands. "How did you write Wuthering Heights?" As one Brontë grills another, "I took my pen and put it to paper" is Emily's literal answer, offered as she reclines, pale and not long for this world, alongside printed versions of her now-iconic story. The response provided by the gorgeously shot, impressively acted and deeply moving Emily is far more complicated, but O'Connor's choice to open her movie with this scene and question is both clever and telling. One perspective on great artists, including of words, is to view their work as intertwined with their lives — aka this feature's preferred vantage. A key perspective of Emily, too, is not letting the small amount of detail known about the middle of literature's three Brontë sisters dictate how this story is told. That copy of Wuthering Heights by Emily's side? It bears her name, as does every iteration printed today, but her book wasn't first published under her real moniker — her pen name was Ellis Bell — until two years after her death. Emily streams via Stan. Read our full review. Need a few more streaming recommendations? Check out our picks from January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August and September this year. You can also check out our running list of standout must-stream shows from this year as well — and our best 15 new shows of 2023's first six months, top 15 returning shows over the same period and best 15 straight-to-streaming movies from January–June 2023, too.
Summer has well and truly arrived — and with it comes the reopening of stacks of Melbourne rooftop bars following extensive renovations. Joining the likes of Skinny Dog Hotel, Johnny's Greenroom and QT Melbourne, the latest rooftop bar to hit Melbourne is Mirror Mirror, set to open on Saturday, December 9. Mirror Mirror cocktail bar has been plonked atop South Melbourne's Clarendon Hotel, boasting some pretty damn good views across the city's skyline. The makeover comes from the crew behind Goldilocks Rooftop Bar, House of Correction and Lost Boys Bar and is loosely inspired by the classic tale of Snow White. Signature cocktails are named after some of the story's characters, with the Evil Witch Spritz sounding devilishly good. It comes with crème de violette, Campari, lemon juice, Four Pillars gin and a few good splashes of prosecco. A tidy list of mostly Aussie wines is also available for those not wanting to spend a whole day in the sun drinking cocktails. Unlike the drinks at this new rooftop cocktail bar, the food menu is not themed. Expect Asian-fusion eats that span small plates like sesame prawn toast, veggie dumplings and satay skewers, as well as larger dishes like the wagyu steak and a pan-grilled barramundi covered in a Thai-style chilli dressing. Mirror Mirror is definitely slanted towards the luxury end of Melbourne's rooftop bar scene, with beer and parmas nowhere to be seen on the menu. But if that's the vibe you're after, you can always check out nearby haunts like The Montague, Golden Gate Hotel and Westside Aleworks after a few spritzes up at Mirror Mirror. Mirror Mirror will open on Saturday, December 9 at 209 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne. It will be open from Wednesday–Sunday, 12pm–late. For more information, check out the venue's website.
Inimitable frozen dessert guru Nick Palumbo is responsible for making gelato the hottest thing in Sydney served below 0°C. His revered Gelato Messina sets the benchmark for gelato in Australia, taking a traditional Sicilian craft (everything is made from scratch using raw, natural ingredients) and carefully folding in an avant-garde approach towards flavours (there are six to seven specials released each week, with even the most deceptively unassuming beige ones accumulating Facebook likes in the hundreds). Now he's been tasked with the duty of finding one Australian craftsman blending tradition with inspiration. Ketel One has snagged Nick to sit on the judging panel of their Modern Craft Project, which you might remember us talking about here and which you should probably enter if you have a traditional craft, an entrepreneurial spirit and a partiality towards $100,000 cash prizes. Before the competition kicks off we stole a few minutes out of Nick's busy schedule to get the scoop on his idiosyncratic approach to artisan gelati. Concrete Playground (CP): Why gelato? Nick Palumbo (NP): In Messina, Sicily (where we are from) there is a huge culture of gelato and I wanted to create a brand that used traditional craftsmanship but was flexible in the sense that there is no limit to how creative you want to be. CP: What flavours did you launch Gelato Messina with back in 2002? NP: We only had 20 basic flavours back then but there was always a focus on quality. The innovation started to come in about two years later once we gained the trust of our customers. Coconut lychee, which sounds boring now, was our first "experimental flavour" back then. CP: Why did you decide to do the Gelato Messina Lab? NP: Because in the gelateria, we thought we had taken the quality side of things to quite a high level and all we had now was innovation of flavours. We wanted to push the boundaries a bit and marry in the world of high end patisserie with gelato, and saw it as a huge challenge and something that, to our knowledge, no one had done before. CP: The cakes are incredibly intricate — which one is the most satisfying to assemble? NP: The Black Forest, there are lots of components and the end result looks amazing. CP: They also incorporate many ingredients that aren't normally found in frozen desserts. Which ingredient poses the most problems? NP: All the jellies, they are hard to make soft at -18°C! CP: How do you come up with new flavours? NP: Basically we look for inspiration everywhere, especially from the world of patisserie, but it's also about continually finding flavours that work together. CP: What flavour has been the biggest surprise for you in terms of popularity? NP: Salted Caramel and White Choc Chip. It's now our best seller yet but when it first came out I actually heard a few people saying they didn't like it. Now those same people love it. CP: Obviously coming up with flavours must involve a lot of trial and error. What have been some of the errors? NP: Tomato sorbet. CP: I read a story about the frontman of Amy Meredith turning to his Facebook fans to demand the return of this favourite flavour (Elvis the Fat Years, which was then reborn as Christian Skinny Jeans). Is there anyone else you would like to reincarnate as gelato? NP: My three-month-old boy! The Milky Bar Kid. CP: Why did you want to become involved with the Ketel One Modern Craft Project? NP: Because Ketel One is an amazing brand full of history, which is my dream for Messina, and because there is not much in the way of support in this country for young people with a passion to do good things so anything that will help support artisans is something I'd like to be a part of. CP: What is next for Gelato Messina? NP: We open in Bondi in the middle of next year and we open in China (Hangzhou) in April next year. CP: And finally, cup or cone? NP: Silly question, CONE!
If your ideal kind of getaway is one that's both comfy and minimalist — and doesn't skimp on majestic views — then Tiny Away's latest addition is destined to impress. The accommodation crew has once again expanded its stable of eco-friendly tiny house stays, this time unveiling a 155-square-foot studio nestled amongst the vine-covered hills of Toolleen near Victoria's Bendigo. The newly launched Vineyard Retreat has made its home on the lush grounds of winery and distillery Domaine Asmara, set on a secluded pocket of the property yet still easily accessed. Not only does it boast dreamy views of Mount Camel, plus nearby olive groves and farmland, but it's located right on the doorstep of much-loved regional spots like the O'Keefe Rail Trail, Axedale Tavern, the award-winning Gaffney's Bakery, Palling Bros Brewery and Peregrine Ridge winery. The tiny house itself is primed for switching off and unplugging from the daily grind of city life, without giving up any of those creature comforts. It's kitted out with a queen-size loft bed, fully stocked kitchenette with fridge and stove, additional convertible couch, and split-system air-con and heating. The private balcony is perfect both for stargazing sessions and sunset sips overlooking the vineyard. There's even a proper little ensuite complete with a gas-heated shower and a waterless composting toilet. And of course, if you're after a vino or two during your stay, Domaine Asmara's cellar door is only a quick stroll from your front door, offering spirit and wine tastings daily. You can even take one of the free distillery tours. Tiny Away's other Victorian escapes include an idyllic stay located in a Gippsland olive grove, while the company's first two Tasmanian houses launched in the middle of last year. Find Tiny Away's Vineyard Retreat at Domaine Asmara, 61 Gibb Road, Toolleen. Bookings are now open online, with rates starting from $179 per night. 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.
Melbourne treasure hunters — there might not be many of you but we know you're out there — how would you like to track down some actual treasure for once? A step up from the usual weekend scavenger hunt, this Saturday, December 6, TMC Fine Jewellers is hosting a citywide scavenger hunt for a very shiny and valuable prize. TMC is opening their first Melbourne showroom and inviting Melburnians to peer 'Through the Looking Glass' and take part in a hunt that hides clues in plain sight. And what better prize to offer up to eager hunters than a bespoke ring studded with lab-grown diamonds and valued at $10,000? The hunt begins at 6am sharp, with the first clue (the showroom's location) posted on TMC's social media pages and sent to registered participants via EDM slightly earlier. The hunt official begins at 8am and from there, you'll have to follow four printed riddle clues within a 5km radius of the store. If you get confused, TMC will be posting hints on its TikTok page. Collect all four, and you'll go into the running to win the prize ring. "Melbourne has always been a city of creativity and curiosity, so it felt only fitting to celebrate our first flagship store with an experience that brings those values to life," said Makayla Donovan, co-founder of TMC Fine Jewellers. TMC Fine Jewellers, founded by young couple Makayla and Tom Donovan, strives to deliver affordable, bespoke and ethically responsible engagement and wedding rings. Part of the growing industry shift away from mined diamonds to lab-grown, TMC has gone from a passion project to an established jeweller in just four years — now we can all get involved with the celebrations and win some jewellery of our own. For more information on TMC Fine Jewellers, visit the website.
If you liked choosing your way through Black Mirror: Bandersnatch — or telling Bear Grylls what to do in interactive series You vs. Wild — then Netflix has more where that came from. Come Tuesday, May 12, you'll be able to decide what happens to everyone's favourite kidnapping victim turned wide-eyed New Yorker in a one-off Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt special. While the Tina Fey co-created, 18-time Emmy-nominated comedy finished up its regular run with 2019's batch of episodes, which closed out the show's fourth season, it's coming back this month to put viewers in control. Netflix has actually been in the interactive game for a couple of years thanks to its children's shows like Puss in Boots, Buddy Thunderstruck and Stretch Armstrong; however this'll mark the streamer's first interactive comedy. Always wanted to curb Kimmy's (Ellie Kemper) ample enthusiasm? Keen to steer ex-socialite Jacqueline White (Jane Krakowski) towards a few sensible decisions? Think that landlord Lillian (Carol Kane) could be more eccentric and misanthropic? Just love everything that aspiring actor and singer Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess) does? Then this is for you, obviously. If you're fond of Jon Hamm's Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne, too, you're also in luck — this interactive episode is called Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend, after all. A whole heap of other famous faces co-star as well, including Daniel Radcliffe, Amy Sedaris, Fred Armisen, Chris Parnell, Jack McBrayer and Johnny Knoxville. Story-wise, as the just-dropped trailer shows, Kimmy is preparing to marry Radcliffe's Frederick in three days. Then she finds an old library book in her beloved childhood backpack, which sets her on a collision course with the Reverend — who just might have another bunker hidden away. Viewers can expect a wedding, a journey across three US states, explosions, an evil plan and potentially starting a war against robots. Along the way, you'll help Kimmy decide if she should make out with Frederick, and choose whether Titus should wait 4000 minutes for an Uber instead of walking — and they're just the two decision points shown in the trailer. Announcing the special last year, Tina Fey explained that "fans will be able to make choices on behalf of our characters, taking different story paths with, of course, different jokes," in a Netflix statement. Check out the trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZWmRUxOj9g Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend will hit Netflix on Tuesday, May 12. Top images: Netflix.
Art is a matter of life and death in the star-studded Velvet Buzzsaw, which might just earn the title of 2019's most out-there film so far. The movie marks the reunion of Nightcrawler writer/director Dan Gilroy and actors Jake Gyllenhaal and Rene Russo — and if you've seen that 2014 standout, you'll know that you're in for a wild ride. Both an unhinged horror effort and a satire of the art world, the film is set to premiere at this year's Sundance Film Festival, but general audiences won't have to wait long at all to see the flick for themselves. It'll hit Netflix worldwide on Friday, February 1, while Sundance is still running. While Nightcrawler took aim at tabloid news media and charted its deadly consequences, Velvet Buzzsaw has another realm in its sights. With Gyllenhaal playing an art critic, Russo an agent, and everyone from Toni Collette to John Malkovich to Stranger Things' Natalia Dyer among the cast, the film charts a spate of sinister happenings that are linked to a batch eye-catching paintings. The art collection in question is only found after an unknown elderly artist passes away, and comes with strict instructions to destroy the work; however, when that warning is ignored, everyone who profits from the pieces starts to suffer. Check out the trailer below, and add the movie to your streaming queue for your next fright-filled date with your couch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdAR-lK43YU Velvet Buzzsaw will be available on Netflix from Friday, February 1.
Almost three decades ago, before he had the world saying "thank you, thank you very much" to Elvis, before he explored the birth of American hiphop in Netflix's The Get Down, and before gave The Great Gatsby a spin and made Moulin Rouge! spectacular (spectacular), too, Baz Luhrmann achieved two not-too-insignificant things with his film version of Romeo + Juliet. Not only did the Australian director's vibrant take on the classic tragedy completely change the way everyone thinks about Shakespeare adaptations — it also delivered one of the killer soundtracks of the 90s, and one that many a movie has tried and failed to top since. The track list speaks for itself, really, featuring everything Garbage's '#1 Crush' to The Cardigans' 'Lovefool' to Radiohead's 'Talk Show Host'. Everclear, Butthole Surfers, Des'ree and Quindon Tarver's 'Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)' also pop up, with Luhrmann turning the greatest love story ever told into the greatest soundtrack ever sold. If you were around and of a certain age back in 1996, you definitely owned a copy. You probably still do. Even if you weren't loving it before the turn of the century, you should now as well. It's no wonder, then, that not just the picture but the tunes keep being celebrated as Romeo + Juliet nears its 30th anniversary in 2026. In London for more than a decade, concert screenings of the movie with a live choir and band have been wowing audiences and selling out. More than half-a-million filmgoers have attended. Now, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet: A Cinematic Experience is finally coming to Australia. Young hearts run free to The Astor Theatre in Melbourne, which is playing host to the Australian debut of this live experience from Tuesday, September 23–Sunday, September 28, 2025. New sessions have already been added due to demand, and there's no word yet if the shows will make their way to other Australian cities. "Audiences really feel like they're stepping into Verona as we don the theatre for a multisensory experience," said Dominic Davies, CEO of the UK's Backyard Cinema, which created the experience. "After sellout performances in London, we are thrilled that Sony Music Australia is bringing this production Down Under for the first time." "The Astor Theatre is such an iconic Melbourne venue and will provide a majestic backdrop for the immersive performance — it will be an experience like no other," added Sony Music Australia and New Zealand Chair and CEO Vanessa Picken. "The show has done incredibly well in London for a long time. We're really looking forward to adding a local slant with a well-known narrator to be announced soon." Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet: A Cinematic Experience runs at The Astor Theatre, 1 Chapel Street, St Kilda, from Tuesday, September 23–Sunday, September 28, 2025 — head to Ticketek for more details and tickets. Images: Andrew Ogilvy Photography.
Life is a bit of a rollercoaster ride at the moment. Yes, that's an understatement. Lockdowns, restrictions, new community cases, growing exposure sites lists — they're all providing quite the ups and downs, and have been throughout the pandemic. Prefer to ride the peaks and troughs on actual theme park attractions? We all do, and now Disney+ has a new series about just that. Across ten episodes — the first five of which will drop on the streaming platform on Wednesday, July 21 — Behind the Attraction covers exactly what's on the label. It heads to the Mouse House's sprawling theme parks, checks out some of the popular rides found within them and tells their tales. Disney loves an origin story, after all, and it has the Marvel and Star Wars movies to prove it, so of course it's now giving its real-life attractions the same treatment. Viewers can find out more about Disney's Haunted Mansion attraction and Space Mountain ride, as well as The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and the Star Tours that form part of the recently launched Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. And, Jungle Cruise also earns some attention, complete with Dwayne Johnson lending a hand — with the movie of the same name, starring Johnson, due in cinemas from Thursday, July 29 and on Disney+ on Friday, July 30. As well as talking heads expressing their enthusiasm for these attractions and explaining how they work, the series features archival and never-before-seen footage and photographs that step through the rides' histories. Explaining how they've evolved, and how technology has assisted, is a part of the show as well. Clearly, Behind the Attraction is basically an advertisement for Disney's theme parks. Physically hopping on a rollercoaster hasn't been high on most folks' to-do lists during the last year or so — and definitely isn't right now if you're a Sydneysider or Melburnian currently in lockdown — so consider this a way to scratch that itch from home. Check out the trailer below: The first five episodes of Behind the Attraction will be available to view via Disney+ from Wednesday, July 21.
Melbourne's Butterfly Club has entertained the public since way back in 1999. At one point, it was Melbourne's only full-time cabaret venue, with cabarets still regularly performed today. The venue itself, located on Carson Place, is small and full of hundreds of brightly coloured kitsch items to get you in the mood for a night of frivolity. Think fairy lights, old-school dolls, mismatched furniture and artworks from every era. The place screams fun and whacky, where the weird and wonderful are both invited to perform and spectate while drinking awesome cocktails and rolling around in laughter. There are shows on almost every day at The Butterfly Club, with sometimes two or even three a day. There is a weekly burlesque drawing show with feathers, fans, fishnets, and pens and paper. You'll be invited to watch and draw along with circus, drag, burlesque and sideshow performances. Every Friday, you'll find the Big HOO-HAA!, Melbourne's longest-running import comedy show. Two teams, the Hearts and the Bones, battle it out for improv supremacy while the audience is invited into the show by offering up suggestions. On Saturday nights, the regular gig is Laugh Later, a night of top-tier comedians, while there are regular one-off shows from visiting comedians who want to test out new material. As well as comedy, there is plenty of live music at The Butterfly Club, with piano nights, tribute shows, and the famous cabaret. As for drinks, the bar has received two "cocktail glasses", the equivalent of a Chef's Hat in the bar world, thanks to The Age Good Bars Guide. It's also a very queer-friendly space, with the team going to great lengths to ensure everyone feels safe and celebrated.
Worry not if you didn't manage to get a European summer this year, for the Arbory Afloat crew is bringing a slice of it to Melbourne in early September 2024 — this time modelling the floating bar after Italian beach clubs. This will be Arbory Afloat's ninth iteration, having drawn inspiration from Mexico in 2023, the Balearic Islands in 2022 and Turkey's Turquoise Coast in 2021. As it was with these past versions, the new Afloat Capri will have an entirely new look, food and drink lineup, and music and entertainment program. [caption id="attachment_881180" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Arbory Afloat 2022 by Arianna Leggiero[/caption] We've been told to expect striped umbrellas with valances, plenty of lemon trees, colourful ceramic planters, terracotta tiled roofs and sorbet-hued walls covered in hand-painted illustrations. This will clearly be the number one destination for spritz-sippers in Melbourne this summer. And that's not only because of its new design and watertop location. The drinks menu is sure to hit all the right spots as well, thanks to HQ Group's Head of Cocktails Tom Younger. He has spent many a month dreaming up the new Italian-inspired beverage menu, pumping it full of citrus- and aperitif-driven drinks that will go down all too easily on a hot Melbourne day. [caption id="attachment_969800" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Arbory Afloat 2019 by Simon Shiff.[/caption] "Each of the cocktails are designed for all-day drinking with friends and family. This includes a dedicated spritz section (think Aperol, Campari and Limoncello), over 30 different Negronis and a lineup of Pidapipo gelato-based frozen cocktails," shares Younger. The food menu will also be stacked with crowd-pleasing dishes, from pizza and pasta to seafood platters and antipasti medleys. There's no going wrong with classic Italian seaside bites, especially when the group's Executive Chef James Gibson is running the show. [caption id="attachment_927499" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Arbory Afloat 2023 by Jake Roden.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_969801" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Arbory Afloat 2022 by Arianna Leggiero[/caption] Arbory Capri will reopen in early September 2024, and can be found at 2 Flinders Walk, Melbourne. For more details and to book seats from Monday, September 16, you can visit the venue's website. Top image: Arianna Leggiero
There are plenty of ways to describe something that's fun while it lasts, but finishes up prematurely. And yes, many of them could be followed by "title of your sex tape". So, with US TV network NBC announcing a few months back that beloved sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine will come to an end after its next season, we're sure you've been thinking about Jake Peralta's favourite retort for a while now. We're sure the phrase will be uttered at least once in the show's final batch of episodes, too — which will air in America in August. B99 is due to wrap up its police-focused comedic antics with a ten-episode eighth season, which will launch following the Tokyo Olympics, NBC has just announced. Just when the show's latest instalments will surface Down Under hasn't yet been revealed, though. In Australia, SBS has fast-tracked recent seasons — so fingers crossed that we'll be farewelling the Nine-Nine crew at the same time as our overseas counterparts. When those final episodes hit screens, it'll be your last chance to spend time in Brooklyn's fictional 99th police precinct, and with Peralta (Andy Samberg), Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero), Rosa Diaz (Stephanie Beatriz), Charles Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio), Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews) and Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher) — and even Hitchcock (Dirk Blocker) and Scully (Joel McKinnon Miller). Well, other than binging your way through the show's entire run again and again, a pastime that will never get old. Whenever any B99 news arrives — happy or sad — there are plenty of appropriate ways to mark this development. You could break out a sorrowful yoghurt, Terry Jeffords-style. If you're more like Captain Raymond Holt, perhaps you'd like to treat yourself to a trip to a barrel museum. You could also channel your inner Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti) and dance about your distressed feelings, organise your entire house as you know Santiago would, or say cheers to Peralta by watching Die Hard over and over. And, to fill the time until the new episodes drop, you can also watch this cool cool cool B99 training video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaoBN_e9Om0 Brooklyn Nine-Nine's eighth and final season is set to air in the US from August 2021. We'll update you when an air date Down Under is announced.
Cheeky, fanciful and adorned with luxury designer touches, W Melbourne knows exactly who she is. While Melbourne has no shortage of hotels whether you are looking for a celebratory staycation or a weekend getaway, none are quite as trendy as W Hotel group's first Victorian outpost. Designed by local architect and interior design firm Hachem, the stay is a study in opulence across 264 guest rooms and 29 suites. Modern comforts include W bathrobes, Davines amenities, smart TVs, deep soaking tubs, free wifi and glowing Marilyn Monroe murals. The crown jewel of the hotel is the indulgent 'Extreme Wow Suite', boasting a jukebox, cocktail bar and private 40-square-metre balcony with river views. Venture beyond your room and you'll find W Melbourne's sky-high, gold-embellished pool, which turns into an adults-only space every evening. A well-equipped gym, 27/4 concierge, in-room dining service and four onsite hospitality venues round out the excellent offering. Plus, every Sunday from 2pm, W Melbourne's weekly indoor pool party WET Sessions kicks off with a poolside bar, panoramic views of the city's skyline and a fresh DJ taking over the decks each month. Tickets will set you back $46.35 (including the booking fee). That gets you entry, a drink on arrival and roving snacks to keep you going throughout the afternoon — whether that's to keep you energised for swimming some laps or just to have a poolside dance, it's up to you. Finally, if you want to live it up and spend a weekday by W Melbourne's glam 14th-floor pool, you can get access via W Melbourne's Swim Club which includes 12-hour access to the luxurious pool zone, including its steam room and gym, without having to book a room. Appears in: The Best Hotels in Melbourne
Between the third and fourth seasons of True Detective, five years passed. Thankfully, you likely won't have to wait as long for your next dose of the hit HBO series. After the latest batch of episodes, aka True Detective: Night Country, proved such a success since arriving in January 2024 — including becoming the most-watched season of the show ever — the US network has already renewed the series mere days after the recent six-episode run ended. Presumably, it'll be another case of new season, new cops, new case, as the series has been delivering since 2014. And whether or not you believe that time is a flat circle — and everything we've ever done or will do, we're gonna do over and over and over and over again, too — watching yet another round of instalments in this sleuthing thriller will become a reality again. While the main characters have changed in each of the show's seasons so far, season five will have something in common with season four: the return of Tigers Are Not Afraid filmmaker Issa López. She wrote and directed every one of Night Country's episodes, and now has a new multi-year deal with HBO. "Issa Lopez is that one-of-a-kind, rare talent that speaks directly to HBO's creative spirit. She helmed True Detective: Night Country from start to finish, never once faltering from her own commendable vision, and inspiring us with her resilience both on the page and behind the camera," said Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President, HBO Programming, Head of HBO Drama Series and Films, announcing the news. "From conception to release, Night Country has been the most beautiful collaboration and adventure of my entire creative life. HBO trusted my vision all the way, and the idea of bringing to life a new incarnation of True Detective with Casey, Francesca and the whole team is a dream come true. I can't wait to go again," added Lopez. True Detective: Night Country followed Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster, Nyad) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis, Catch the Fair One) as they delved into an icy mystery in the town of Ennis in Alaska. When eight men on an arctic research station disappeared without a trace, the franchise's latest duo were charged with discovering what's going on, including wading through plenty of eeriness — even though they'd worked together before and don't get along. The show's fourth season also featured Finn Bennett (Hope Gap), Fiona Shaw (Andor), Christopher Eccleston (Dodger), Isabella Star LaBlanc (Long Slow Exhale) and John Hawkes (Too Old to Die Young) in front of the camera. Each season of True Detective tells its own tale, starting with the Matthew McConaughey (The Gentlemen)- and Woody Harrelson (White House Plumbers)-led first season in 2014 — and then followed by Taylor Kitsch (Painkiller), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Rachel McAdams (Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret) starring in season two. Mahershala Ali (Leave the World Behind) and Stephen Dorff (The Righteous Gemstones) took over in season three. There's no word yet on who might do the honours in season five. Check out the full trailer for True Detective: Night Country below: Season five of True Detective doesn't yet have a release date, but we'll update you when more details are announced. True Detective: Night Country streams via Binge in Australia and Neon in New Zealand. Read our review.
If battling zombies in your lounge room through a games console no longer cuts it, an augmented audio running game called Zombies, Run! might be the answer. London-based games and app developers, Six to Start, have combined mobile GPS technology with augmented audio technology to create a game whose story unravels in the outside world. The game's storyline may be based on an old cliché - a player runs from zombies in a post-apocalyptic world - but its method of delivery is certainly new. Players are presented with location-specific challenges in their mission to rebuild civilisation, completing the game by listening to atmospheric audio commands on their headphones and finishing a series of runs in which they collect medicine, ammo, batteries and spare parts. Adrian Hon, CEO and co-founder of Six To Start, told PSFK: "The idea is that we want to make running – and exercise in general – more fun and more captivating through game-play and story." The game for iPhone, iPod and Android devices has over 30 unique missions to be completed and most recently featured on Kickstarter. It can be pre-ordered online at their site.
Ever wondered how that one friend on your Instagram feed is always seeing shows even though they're always complaining about a lack of cash — surely they don't have enough for rent and regular spenno theatre tickets? Well, chances are, they've just got the inside scoop on where to score cheap tix. And now you do, too. Having a student ID, a concession card or being under 30 will help you here — but even if you don't, there are heaps of discounts out there to help you score cheapies. Check 'em out below. [caption id="attachment_757458" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Visit Victoria/Roberto Seba[/caption] ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE'S TIXATSIX As the central hub of Melbourne's arts community, Arts Centre Melbourne wants to make sure its hundreds of performances a year are accessible to everyone. So, in the name of spontaneity and making things affordable, the tixatsix program slings at least 20 tickets for $30 a pop every night of the week (well, every night there's a show on). Just head to the big spire on St Kilda Road and find the Arts Centre Melbourne Level 5 box office, and from 6pm you can purchase a max of two tickets per person to a random performance happening that night. If you want to make sure it's something you're actually interested in, each night's offerings are revealed at the box office from 5pm. [caption id="attachment_658506" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Rene Valle[/caption] RUSH TICKETS AT MELBOURNE THEATRE COMPANY Australia's oldest professional theatre company is known for staging awe-inspiring productions starring the biggest names in Australian theatre — so it's no surprise that its performances sell out more often than not. Thankfully, there's a bunch of different options for a cheap or last-minute culture fix. Grab your concession, student or MEAA union card and make tracks to the box office two hours before any performance to buy concession rush tickets. Folks aged under 30 also get 50 percent off tickets to mainstay productions, and most shows offer concession prices. The Seat Savers program is also a good one — from 11am–4pm every Tuesday, concession or student card holders can access $25 tickets to the following week's performances, available at the box office or online. [caption id="attachment_674451" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Harry Potter and The Cursed Child by Manuel Harlan[/caption] $40 TICKETS TO HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD If you baulked at the astronomical price of the blockbuster play about everyone's favourite boy wizard, you wouldn't be alone. The epic production is staged over two performances, doubling the cost if you want to see the whole show. Throw your pointy hat in The Friday Forty ring instead and you just might win the chance to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for under a hundred bucks. The digital lottery is open from Monday to Friday each week, with the winners notified between 1–5pm every Friday. Winners score the opportunity to buy tickets for $40 a pop (so $80 for consecutive performances of the two parts) for shows the following week. HALFTIX MELBOURNE Longtime theatre enthusiasts will be all over this one, so it's time the rest of you realised this gem is at your fingertips. Halftix Melbourne is our answer to Broadway's Times Square ticket seller — you can buy heavily discounted last-minute tickets here for shows happening that night. Plus, as well as standard plays and musicals, it sells tickets to other events and tours. The crew updates the website each morning with the day's deals, but you have to actually physically go into the Little Collins Street office to purchase. Pre-COVID, Halftix was selling cheap tickets to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 1.5 hours before showtime. Note: Halftix Melbourne is currently on hiatus, but returns with limited hours (Tuesday to Saturday) from Tuesday, February 2. OPERA AUSTRALIA'S $20 TICKETS If a night at the opera has always seemed completely unattainable — or an expense you just can't justify — here's your chance. The Susan and Isaac Wakil Foundation Access Program supports heavily subsidised tickets to Opera Australia shows at the Arts Centre Melbourne. You just have to fill out a little survey here to enter the ballot, then you could win the chance to buy two tickets to the opera for only 20 bucks each. This year's season includes the debut Australian tour for Malta's 'young Pavarotti', Joseph Calleja. Time to get out your fancy clothes and dust off those heels for next week's date night. [caption id="attachment_757462" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Teresa Noble[/caption] PREVIEW SHOWS AT RED STITCH ACTORS' THEATRE For a show that's a little more independent, St Kilda's Red Stitch Actors' Theatre is front and centre in Australia's contemporary performing arts scene. And the tiny theatre offers pretty sweet deals for cheap tickets. Preview tickets (usually shows in the week leading up to the official opening night) for all Red Stitch productions are only $23 — less than half the standard $55 ticket price. There are also limited $15 rush tickets for those with a concession, full-time student or MEAA card, available from the box office half an hour before show time. Otherwise, full-time students and people under 30 pay just $29. [caption id="attachment_734113" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Visit Victoria/Josie Withers[/caption] ONLINE BARGAINS ALL AROUND TOWN Perfect for those that don't fall under the coveted concession/student/industry insider/under 30 category — and for those that want to secure a discount from the comfort of their own home — there are a few different authorised third-party sellers to keep an eye on. Once it returns post-COVID, check Lasttix for discounted shows and events (including films and other arty attractions), or head to Today Tix for last-minute deals to performances up to 30 days in advance of show time — these guys run the aforementioned Friday Forty for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Or, check out Tix to enter digital discount lotteries for big productions at venues like the Regent and Comedy theatres.
Hundreds of movies grace Sydney Film Festival's lineup each and every year. Even if you're among the most dedicated of cinephiles, you can't see them all during the event's 12-day annual run. Here's something that you can do, however: add four extra days to your fest experience in 2025, plus a heap of flicks along with it, because SFF is sticking around after its official closing night. When Splitsville wraps up the festival's standard Wednesday, June 4–Sunday, June 15 dates for this year on Sunday, June 15, the Harbour City's major annual cinema celebration won't be saying farewell until 2026 just yet. Extending the movie-watching fun into the following week is a SFF tradition. So, it's adding 16 sessions at Dendy Newtown, Palace Cinemas Norton Street and Ritz Cinemas Randwick between Tuesday, June 17–Friday, June 20. These screenings have been dubbed SFF 2025 Back By Popular Demand, which explains right there in the name why the films on the lineup have been picked. Putting on a bonus session of 2025 Palme d'Or-winner It Was Just an Accident from Iranian writer/director Jafar Panahi comes after the filmmaker was revealed as a surprise SFF 2025 guest at opening night. Also picking up new screenings after hitting Sydney straight from Cannes: The Mastermind, which sees Josh O'Connor (Challengers) and Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza) in a 70s-set heist thriller for director Kelly Reichardt (Showing Up) — and Ari Aster's Eddington, starring his Beau Is Afraid lead Joaquin Phoenix (Joker: Folie à Deux) opposite Emma Stone (Kinds of Kindness ), Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us) and Austin Butler (The Bikeriders). Then there's The Secret Agent, as led by Wagner Moura (Dope Thief) for filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho (a Sydney Film Festival Prize-winner for Aquarius); Vie Privée with Jodie Foster (True Detective: Night Country); and Raoul Peck's (I Am Not Your Negro)'s Orwell: 2+2=5. The SFF 2025 Back By Popular Demand program also includes Berlin's Golden Bear-winner Dreams (Sex Love), the near-future Tokyo-set Happyend and Venice award-winning documentary Mistress Dispeller, alongside stepping inside the World Porridge Making Championship in The Golden Spurtle, exploring a music genre's origins via Move Ya Body: The Birth of House and Mr Nobody Against Putin's look at propaganda. Aussie effort Death of an Undertaker, the directorial debut of actor Christian Byers (Bump) — which uses an IRL Leichhardt funeral parlour as its setting — is among the titles scoring encore sessions, too. [caption id="attachment_1008444" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sundance Institute | photo by Vince Lawrence.[/caption] Sydney Film Festival's 2025 Back By Popular Demand bonus screenings hit Dendy Newtown, Palace Cinemas Norton Street and Ritz Cinemas Randwick between Tuesday, June 17–Friday, June 20. For more information and tickets, head to the festival's website. Sydney Film Festival 2025 takes place from Wednesday, June 4–Sunday, June 15 at various cinemas and venues around Sydney. For more information and tickets, head to the festival's website.
Meet Australia's next homegrown franchise: after 2019 film Top End Wedding proved a huge hit, striking a chord with lovers of big-screen rom-coms, Aussie fare, Miranda Tapsell (The Surfer) and seeing the Northern Territory splashed across cinemas, streaming series Top End Bub is set to give fans of the movie more on the small screen. And, the new series now has a trailer. When the newly engaged Lauren (Tapsell) and Ned (Gwilym Lee, SAS Rogue Heroes) made a whirlwind visit to Darwin in the successful flick, it was to get married. Six years later, the two key characters are now heading back to the Northern Territory capital. In Top End Bub, Top End Wedding's central couple enter their next chapter — and a child is indeed involved. Tapsell not only starred in Top End Wedding but co-wrote the script. With Top End Bub, she's in both roles again — and also co-created and executive produced the series with fellow returnee Joshua Tyler (100% Wolf: Legend of the Moonstone). Their new story: sending Lauren and Ned to the NT once more, away from their settled life in Adelaide, to become the guardians of their orphaned niece Taya (debutant Gladys-May Kelly). First confirmed in 2024, Top End Bub is set to span eight episodes — and you'll be watching it soon. The series hits Prime Video from Friday, September 12, 2025. Ursula Yovich (Troppo), Huw Higginson (Ladies in Black), Shari Sebbens (The Moogai), Elaine Crombie (Invisible Boys), Rob Collins (Austin) and Tracy Mann (Home and Away) are also making the leap from Top End Wedding to its new spinoff — and Sebbens and Christiaan Van Vuuren (The Office) direct Top End Bub. In a series that promises banding together for family, grappling with what it means to be a parent, onstage antics and even football — as seen in its just-dropped sneak peek — you'll be watching Brooke Satchwell (Triple Oh!), Guy Simon (The Secrets She Keeps) and Clarence Ryan (Territory) as well. Check out the trailer for Top End Bub below: Top End Bub streams via Prime Video from Friday, September 12, 2025. Images: John Platt / Prime Video.
"A pink, glittery, existential dance party in their heart." That's what Greta Gerwig hopes that audiences will find when her third film as a solo director splashes its rosy — and rose-hued — frames across the silver screen. The movie in question is Barbie, marking Mattel's six-decade-old doll's live-action debut. And, no matter how you feel about the toy itself, the feature boasts no shortage of reasons to get excited: the Lady Bird and Little Women filmmaker guiding the show; the fact that Gerwig co-wrote the film with her Frances Ha, Mistress America and White Noise helmer Noah Baumbach; Margot Robbie not only starring but producing and originating the project; a killer cast, including Ryan Gosling as Ken; and the self-aware sense of humour that's bounced through not one, not two, but three trailers before the picture hits cinemas Down Under on July 20. Gerwig and Robbie know that Barbie is a product with history. First reaching stores in 1959, as one of the first-ever dolls that weren't of babies, the plaything has sparked more reactions than the toy itself sports outfits — and this figurine in all of its many guises has never been short on wardrobe options. As a flick, Barbie aims to unpack those swirling responses and, yes, play with them. The feature's marketing tagline might be adamant that "if you love Barbie, this movie is for you" and also "if you hate Barbie, this movie is for you", but Robbie adds to it. "It's also a film for people who feel indifferent about Barbie. But when I pitched that to marketing, it didn't really roll off the tongue in the same way." The Australian Babylon, Amsterdam and The Suicide Squad actor shared her thoughts in Sydney, as did her Maggie's Plan, Jackie and 20th Century Women star-turned-filmmaker helmer Gerwig. In the leadup to the picture's release, Barbie is going global, with a trip Down Under one stop on the feature's promotional tour. Also visiting: Issa Rae and America Ferrera, with the Insecure and Superstore talents popping up on-screen alongside Robbie. Rae plays President Barbie, while Ferrera is Gloria, one of the film's few non-doll characters. Weeks out from Barbie hitting cinemas, the Gerwig-directed, Robbie-led, Rae- and Ferrera-costarring movie has already achieved a feat that would likely seem unthinkable if any other talents were involved: this is one of 2023's most-anticipated cinema releases. Actually, Barbie scored that status months out — years even, after the Gerwig-and-Robbie pairing was locked in back in 2021. Audiences are eager, but the folks that've been given the chance to bring this Barbie flick to them couldn't be more thrilled, too. Talking about the film at a beachside Bondi event at Icebergs, where the venue's famous pool even scored a temporary Barbie-themed makeover, the team's enthusiasm is palpable. "It's a movie that I think can really cut across generations and gender," notes Gerwig, who advises that the feature has been made for everyone aged eight to 108. Also covered at Gerwig, Robbie, Rae and Ferrera's Australian press conference: making a "wild, bananas Barbie movie", the huge opportunity to play with something so globally recognised, expanding the character, challenging stereotypes, following Wonder Woman's lead and breaking all of the Barbie rules. ON HOW IT FEELS NOW THAT BARBIE WILL SOON BE IN CINEMAS Greta: "At this very moment, just being in this setting and being with all of you — and the beach, and we're in Australia, and all these talented people — I really am feeling like what a spectacular life this is. It's overwhelming and amazing, and I just feel very grateful that Margot came to me almost four years ago and said 'do you want to you write a Barbie thing?'. And I'm grateful that in my postpartum haze four years ago, I said yes. It's just been such an extraordinary confluence of so many people coming together who are just outrageous and smart and talented — and that we got to make this wild, bananas Barbie movie is just an extraordinary blessing." ON WANTING TO MAKE A BARBIE MOVIE IN THE FIRST PLACE Margot: "I was aware that the Barbie IP was floating around, had gone up and running, and hadn't come to full fruition. So we've been keeping tabs on the property, and when there seemed like there was an opening, we jumped at the opportunity. We sat down with the Mattel CEO, Ynon [Kreiz], and that was five years ago, and pitched what we as our production company would want to do with a Barbie movie. And I knew even at that time that I would want to do it with someone like Greta Gerwig. She was the dream writer/director for it. I didn't know if she was going to say yes to it, but there are very few people in my mind that I want to make a Barbie movie with, Greta being the top of the list — and thank goodness she said yes. But the reason we went after the property is because it seemed like a very big and exciting and scary opportunity. It's globally recognised — the word itself is globally recognised. And not only that, people have very strong feelings about Barbie in a lot of cases. So it felt like a really exciting place to start a film, and start with the audience, where they already feel a certain way — perhaps that, at the very least, they have associated childhood memories with it. And it seemed like we could do something special with it." ON BEING A PART OF BARBIE'S ON-SCREEN WORLD Issa: "It was spectacular. Greta approached me and, just in our interview-slash-meeting, told me that she envisioned a world, a Barbie world, where I was President. I was super flattered by that, and also questioned her taste in political leaders. But it's a world that is perfect and beautiful — and seeing her brilliant writing, and the cast attached, it was a no brainer for me. So I was just honoured to to play in the world." America: "It was Margot and Greta's involvement that made me interested in what the script was. It was irresistible to be invited to — to take a peek into the world that these two incredibly talented and intelligent, respected women in our fields were going to do with Barbie. I never imagined myself in a Barbie movie, and I just opened the script and I was laughing on page one and then I was crying — and then I was laughing and crying. I had so many feelings and, truly, my first thought was 'are they even going to let Greta make this?'. I did not go into it feeling invested in Barbie — I didn't grow up playing with Barbies, I didn't feel represented in the world of Barbie — but Greta and Noah's brilliance created a world that made it relevant to me. And it is really exciting to get to be a part of a moment that is expanding such a dominant, influential female iconic character in our global culture, to include more of us. And also to include people with perspectives that aren't necessarily positive and kind toward the very long legacy and history that Barbie has." ON TACKLING A CHARACTER WITH SUCH HISTORY — AND BREAKING ALL THE BARBIE RULES Greta: "I grew up with a mum who didn't love Barbie, which only made me more interested in Barbie. So I had a lot of hand-me-down Barbies — a lot of Barbies who were Kate McKinnon's version, like their clothes were all on backward. That Barbie is very close to my heart. When we signed on to write it and I went to the Mattel headquarters, they opened up all the archives and took me through everything from 1959 till now, and the designers and the people who work there were just really fun to talk to and really interesting. But I would say that actually what we we did is, if there were rules, I think we broke all of them. That was part of it, in a way: 'tell me what your sacred cows are and I will do something naughty with it'. Margot, as a producer, was so instrumental in the whole process of just saying 'I want to make this. I want to make her version of this movie, her vision and and really protect it'. But yeah, if anything, it was an introduction to all the rules so they could be broken." America: "I remember when Greta and I first started speaking, she gave me a list of movies to watch to get in the vibe and the feel and the tone, and actually one of the movies I watched was a documentary called Tiny Shoulders about the expansion of the brand. I learned so much watching that. I did know a little, but through the making of this movie and the little bits of research that are either in the movie or that you caught researching it, it's really phenomenal to get a sense of how long the Barbie legacy has been — and how there have been times in the legacy where she was a revolution, and other times where she was behind her times and she needed to catch up. Just the mere fact that she was the first doll a girl could play with that wasn't a baby doll is something that I didn't really ever know. So there was there was an appreciation right from the start of how long her legacy is and how varied her place in our culture has been." ON CHALLENGING THE BARBIE STEREOTYPE Margot: "I definitely didn't want to portray Barbie as being vapid in any way. The thing about our how our story is constructed is that Barbie can be anything — Barbie can be president, Barbie can be a Nobel Prize-winner, you see all this stuff at the beginning of the movie that sets up how incredibly intelligent Barbie is. But at the same time, she hasn't been exposed to so many of the concepts that she's going to be exposed to in the real world. So it was a fine line between playing naivety without it coming across as unintelligent, because I didn't want it to seem ditsy— and that's just not interesting to play. It's not interesting to watch, either. There are times in the movie where we lean into stereotypes — we literally call my Barbie 'stereotypical Barbie' — so we're very much leaning into some stereotypes so that we can, in a way of being self-aware, play up the comedy, and also have a deeper conversation about some sort of issue. But then there are other times where you're like 'okay, if we play up that particular stereotype, it's going to be boring for people for the hour and 40 minutes that they're watching this movie'. It was an interesting challenge to find 'okay, what how do we portray the fact that she hasn't been exposed to certain things that she's going to learn along the way, but it doesn't mean that she's not intelligent?'." ON GETTING HELP FROM WONDER WOMAN — AND PASSING THAT HELP ON Margot: "Obviously I want the movie to do well because we all worked so hard and we love it so much. But I think it is important when a movie like this does do well — like, if Wonder Woman hadn't done what Wonder Woman had done, I don't know if people would have given us the budget we got to. And if this does well, then the next person who wants to make [something female-led]. It's so important." Greta: "We were just saying this the other day. I think all the time, I was like 'I'm so grateful that Patty Jenkins made Wonder Woman'. And yeah, whoever comes next, it will be..." Margot: "I remember when they were trying to come up with comps [comparable films] for this movie, and there's not that many. And it's important to have them. It makes a difference on the business side of things to have those comps, and have the proof in the pudding that they've made money and done well. Hopefully we can be an extra stepping stone for the next thing." Check out the trailer for Barbie below: Barbie releases in cinemas Down Under on July 20. Images: Barbie press tour photography by Caroline McCredie for Warner Bros/NBC Universal. Barbie film stills via Warner Bros.
Whether you watched along from 2009–15 when it was in production or you discovered its joys via an obsessive binge-watching marathon afterwards, Parks and Recreation is one of the 21st century's TV gifts — and the beloved sitcom cemented its stars, from its lead roles through to its supporting parts, as audience favourites. Plenty of those talents also share something else in common: a fondness for touring Down Under. Nick Offerman has done it, taking to Australia's stages. Amy Poehler has made multiple promotional Aussie trips for Inside Out and Inside Out 2. Henry Winkler even headed this way to chat through his lengthy career. Now, add the latter's on-screen son to the list. Ben Schwartz, aka Parks and Recreation's Jean-Ralphio Saperstein, has a date with Sydney and Melbourne in 2025. [caption id="attachment_968141" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Disney/Image Group LA[/caption] Don't be suspicious: Schwartz will be performing his Ben Schwartz & Friends live improv show, which begins with just a couple of chairs onstage. Where it goes from there, you'll only discover on the night — because that's the joy of improv. He's doing two gigs, one at the Sydney Opera House on Saturday, May 3 and another at Hamer Hall on Sunday, May 4. Schwartz isn't just known for Parks and Recreation, although that's the first thing on his resume that'll always come to mind for Parks fans. Since his time in Pawnee wrapped up — since he stopped being one of the woooooooorst people in the fictional Indiana town, that is — he's also starred in murder-mystery comedy The Afterparty, voiced a certain spiny blue mammal in Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, loaned his vocal tones to Star Wars: The Bad Batch and Invincible, and featured in Space Force and Renfield. You'll find Arrested Development, This Is Where I Leave You, The Interview, The Walk, House of Lies, The Lego Movie 2, BoJack Horseman, Bob's Burgers, DuckTales and Central Park on Schwartz's filmography, too, and a whole heap more. Does his resemblance to Stranger Things' Joe Keery come up in Ben Schwartz & Friends? Again, you'll need to attend to find out. [caption id="attachment_842850" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Afterparty, Apple TV+.[/caption] Ben Schwartz & Friends Australian Dates 2025: Saturday, May 3 — Sydney Opera House, Sydney Sunday, May 4 — Hamer Hall, Melbourne Ben Schwartz & Friends plays Australia in May 2025, with ticket presales from 10am on Wednesday, July 31 and general sales from 11am on Friday, August 2. Head to the tour website for more details. Top image: The Afterparty, Apple TV+.
Parties, art, music, performances, food, stripping bare for a swim to celebrate the winter solstice: that's the Dark Mofo way, and so is weaving its anything-can-happen vibe, its beloved regular highlights, and its array of expectation-exploding shows and events into a ritual as much as a festival. The Tasmanian winter arts fest is a place to commune, with attendees and with its boundary-pushing program alike. Challenge, confrontation, evoking a strong response: Dark Mofo is a place for that, too. The festival sat out 2024, spending the time to regroup for the future ahead instead. Late that year, it announced its return for 2025, however. The full program will be unveiled at the beginning of April, but organisers have already announced the first new work. When attendees look at Nathan Maynard's We threw them down the rocks where they had thrown the sheep, they won't forget it. Set to premiere at Dark Mofo 2025 — which runs from Thursday, June 5–Sunday, June 15, 2025, except for the Nude Solstice Swim on Saturday, June 21 — the new commission by the multidisciplinary Trawlwoolway artist will take over a Hobart CBD basement. Inside, expect a commentary on cultural theft and erasure via Maynard's mass installation, using sheep heads to make a statement. "Languishing in museums and their storerooms are the remains of ancestors of First Nations people from all around our globe. They have been stripped of identity and, without consent, treated like specimens for study and scientific inquiry," explains the artist. "We threw them down the rocks where they had thrown the sheep speaks to the sadistic power white institutions flex when they deny First Nations people the humanity of putting our ancestor's remains to rest in the physical and the spiritual." When Dark Mofo's 2025 comeback was first revealed, so were the returns of a number of its beloved festivities: the aforementioned Nude Solstice Swim; Night Mass, which fills downtown Hobart with art and music; culinary highlight Winter Feast, which popped up in 2024 despite the festival around it taking a break; and the Ogoh-Ogoh. If you're wondering if the world missed Dark Mofo, the response to Night Mass alone so far says it all. When 6000 pre-release tickets were made available late in 2024, they were snapped up in less than four hours. "Taking the year off in 2024 was a difficult decision, but Dark Mofo is back with renewed energy and focus, ready to deliver an enormous program spanning two packed weeks this June," notes Dark Mofo's new Artistic Director Chris Twite. "It was encouraging to sell over 6000 Night Mass tickets in less than four hours during our pre-release late last year, indicating that demand for the festival remains strong. We are hoping for a similar response when we release the full program on the 4th April." Back in November, Twite gave a few more hints at what's in store this year. "Dark Mofo is back. For our 11th chapter, once more we'll bathe the city in red and deliver two weeks of inspiring art, music and ritual," he advised when announcing the event's 2025 dates. "Night Mass is a beast, and this year it will evolve once more — worming its way through the city with new spaces, performances and experiences to dance, explore or crawl your way through." Dark Mofo returns from Thursday, June 5–Sunday, June 15, 2025 and for the Nude Solstice Swim on Saturday, June 21. Head to the festival's website for further details — and check back here on Friday, April 4, 2025 for the full lineup. We threw them down the rocks where they had thrown the sheep images: Jesse Hunniford, 2025. Image courtesy of Dark Mofo 2025. Night Mass images: Jesse Hunniford and Andy Hatton, 2023, courtesy of Dark Mofo 2023. Winter Feast images: Jesse Hunniford, 2023, courtesy of Dark Mofo 2023. Nude Solstice Swim images: Rémi Chauvin, 2023, courtesy of Dark Mofo 2023.
Entertaining takes a particular skill. Managing all the moving pieces for an evolving group of people, catering to all tastes and keeping everything running smoothly can be difficult even for hardcore party people. If you get it right, you've pulled together a great evening for your guests. Get it wrong, and it can be messy. You might screw up a key ingredient in dessert, three people might turn up with potato salad or you could forget that one friend who is going veg-o this month. We're not all made for it, and that's okay. What if we told you there's a way to have that winning success and have most of the work done for you? That's where Woodford Reserve comes in. This bourbon has been making waves and memories the world over since 1996. Now it's ready to bring the gold entertaining standard to your home on a mission to revolutionise the at-home cocktail party. We've teamed up with Woodford Reserve to offer one lucky winner the Woodford Reserve Whiskey Wagon, a complete evening of high-end whiskey tasting at home, paid for and stocked by Woodford Reserve. The prize includes a four-hour session for up to 40 people, with two professional bartenders preparing and pouring classic old fashioned cocktails, bourbon and sodas, lighter summery cocktails plus canapés to match, as long as the wagon can be parked on private property, you're eligible to win. Ten lucky runner-ups will receive a bottle of Woodford Reserve and a premium cocktail kit to craft the drink however they like. To enter this luxurious giveaway, all you need to do is fill out the form below before Monday, November 6. [competition]916881[/competition]
Lately, the works of the Dutch masters are receiving some fabulously intense, borderline-OCD flattery from a man who takes the art of imitation to the next level. Creative genius and 17th-century portrait subject stalker Michael Mapes gathers very specific objects and uses them to form intriguing, almost sculptural 21st-century replicas of famous portraits. Look closely at one of Mapes' pixelated images of a face originally painted by Rembrandt or Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, and you'll be rewarded with unexpected findings. The larger picture is composed of all manner of objects, from fragments of human hair to makeup samples, glass vials, gelatin capsules, costume jewellery, contemporary photographs and more. The variety of materials and attention to detail is quite astounding. But this is no random assemblage. Building on a 'pseudo-scientific method' developed for earlier works, after choosing a high-resolution scan of a painting from the archives of Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, Mapes researches the life of his subject to get a sense of their character. This will inform the eclectica that will make up the physical recreation, and the end result is akin to an entomological display of insect specimens, with many tiny items pinned to a plain backdrop for inspection. It's much like viewing a collection of preserved butterflies, raising an implicit question about how we scrutinise historical artwork, people and visual culture in general. Broader meanings are also embedded in the compositional material of the image — for example, we might ask, how is a gelatin capsule relevant to this character? — making these portraits into extreme meta-portraits. Three artworks from the series will be shown in Montana at Yellowstone Art Museum starting this March, in an exhibition of innovative forms of portraiture entitled Face to Face. See more of the artist's works at
If you're a fan of Gelato Messina and its sweet treats, the past couple of years have just kept on giving. That saying doesn't apply to much at all during the pandemic, but it definitely fits in this situation. The dessert chain has released all manner of one-off specials, launched a new range of chocolate-covered ice cream bars in supermarkets, dropped a merchandise line and brought back its Christmas trifle, for starters — and, as it did in 2021, too, it's also doing Easter cocktails. A collaboration with Cocktail Porter, Messina's DIY drinks kits let you whip up your own boozy beverages — and, because it's that time of year, you'll be doing so inside an Easter egg. Yes, you read that correctly. What's the point of being an adult at Easter if you can't combine sweet treats with alcohol? Basically, these kits answer a familiar dilemma, especially at this time of year. No one likes choosing between tucking into an orb of chocolate and having another beverage, after all. Flavour-wise, get ready to sip and eat a whole heap of salted caramel. These packs come with Messina's popular dulce de leche topping, as well as Baileys, cold-drip coffee and Mr Black Coffee Liqueur. You'll also receive chocolate Easter eggs, obviously, which you'll pour your mixed liquids into — as well as pieces of salted caramel popcorn to pop on top. You can pick between two different-sized packs, with the small kit costing $80 and making five drinks, and the large costing $145 and making 12. Fancy drinking Easter cocktails out of rabbit-shaped mounds of chocolate? That's on the menu as well. This kit doesn't actually feature Messina products, but espresso martinis served out Lindt milk chocolate bunnies should still tempt your boozy tastebuds. This one also comes with vodka, cold-drip coffee, sugar syrup and Mr Black Coffee Liqueur, and the prices for both small and large batches are the same as the salted caramel kits. Cocktail Porter delivers Australia-wide, if that's your Easter drinking plans sorted. It's now doing pre-orders for both packs, which'll start shipping from mid-March. To order Cocktail Porter's Easter cocktail kits, head to the Cocktail Porter website.
After a night of festivities there's nothing worse than waking up to an abode with chip-trodden carpet, questionable wall smears and a never-ending sea of empties ultimately destined to inhabit your (and your neighbour's) rubbish bins for the weeks following. Such a scene is what initiated Morning-After Maids, a new Auckland startup set to take the hassle out of the weekend clean-up by delivering "an exceptional 'post-party' cleaning service". As well as the lesson in hygiene, the maids will go the extra mile by cooking up a quintessential fresh breakfast too. They have two menus available: one clean and one greasy. The blessed hangover angels also offer fast food runs, coffee, chocolate milk and all those little extras you always wish you'd thought of stocking up on the night before (blue Powerade, fried chicken, Panadol, etc.). The service is only available in Auckland at the moment, and seems like a more niche version of Airtasker or Sydney's Whizz. Their prices seem ridiculously cheap, with two cleaners costing just $30 per hour along with a mileage fee. Do note that you'll have to shell out $10 extra for every pile of vomit they have to deal with, and if you need an emergency clean up, it'll be $50 on top of other cleaning charges. Also, their price list mentions they can provide puppy cuddles free of charge. Puppies.
Imagine simply waving a pen around in the air and creating real-life 3D objects while you do it. Well imagine no longer, because thanks to the development of the 3Doodler, the world's first and only 3D printing pen, this incredible feat has become a reality. The nifty gadget draws in the air or on surfaces, using heated PLA plastic which solidifies into a stable structure almost immediately after being released from the pen. The 3Doodler can be used to create anything from simple shapes and forms to more sophisticated jewellery items, decorative arts, or complex structures as intricate as a mini Eiffel Tower. It's an exciting tool for artists, jewellery makers, designers, or anyone who wants to let their imagination run wild. Requiring no batteries, extra software, or parts, the pen can be plugged into a power socket and open a whole world of creation (quite literally) at your fingertips. At this stage the 3Doodler is also significantly cheaper than any other 3D printer out there, so you can have endless hours of creative fun without breaking the bank. The founders, Max Bogue and Peter Dilworth, who both have a rich background in manufacturing and inventing, hoped to release the product on the market by December 2012. However, in order to ensure the model was functioning perfectly, which they guarantee it now is, they waited to happily announce its launch now. To back the project, visit their Kickstarter. With already over 20,000 backers, and US$1.8 million pledged, they must be doing something right. Via Hyperallergic.
Much that Jimmy Barnes has uttered, sang and screamed is immortalised in Australian history. His discography, both as the lead singer of Cold Chisel and as a solo artist — and via his many collaborations — has echoed across the nation and soundtracked this sunburnt country since 1973. "Oh, my soul" now ranks up there. Those were the three words that he exclaimed to Triple J announcers Zan Rowe and Lucy Smith when he heard live on air that 'Flame Trees' had come in at number seven in the first-ever Hottest 100 of Australian Songs — a chat that he was doing because 'Khe Sanh' had just placed eighth. Australia demonstrated their appreciation for Barnesy's contribution to local music with their votes, including for 'Working Class Man' at number 56, and he clearly, audibly, emotionally appreciated that love in turn. "We've had a lot of awards and all that sort of stuff, and big claims to fame over the years, and we've always been a bit 'nah, you can't say this is the best song ever', because everybody has their own taste," Barnes tells Concrete Playground. "But for me, the best thing about that top 100, the top 200 even, was the fact that a radio station — which Cold Chisel literally helped start, we were playing when they were Double J, Live at the Wireless, when it was a scrambling little station, we helped get them set up — but there's a station that's become our national carrier, that is the only really, truly national radio station for kids in this country. And there's times when I listen to it and I go 'I don't get it. I don't really get what you're playing here', but they're the only station that still plays a load of Australian music. And the fact that on that day they celebrated Australian music and played 100 Australian songs, which were a collection of songs that had moved and affected the punters in this country — just to be a part of that was a good thing for me, and to be a part of that group of songs." Barnes himself joined in with selecting his favourites, entering his picks in the poll. "There's a lot of great songs in this country. I voted for 'Eagle Rock' myself," he advises. He's passionate about shining the spotlight on Aussie tunes — "it's very cool. And the thought that they were celebrating Australian music was the best thing ever. That was the best part about it. I think they should do it more often," he offers — and also equally as enthusiastic about the fellow local acts that earned a place in the countdown. "You look at that that top five or whatever it was, whether it's INXS' 'Never Tear Us Apart' — I think that besides it being a great song and beautiful film clips and all that, we have that loss, that sad loss of Michael [Hutchence], who was such a dear soul and just a magnetic frontman. The band were just unique the way they played, and they couldn't play it like that without Michael. So there's a tragedy to it," Barnes continues. He collaborated with INXS on 1986 single 'Good Times', which featured on The Lost Boys soundtrack. "You have The Veronicas, who are these little intense pop girls who are just incredible," Barnes says. "They were all from different worlds. There was all sorts of stuff. There was Kylie. There was all sorts of stuff in the top 20, it was so eclectic and so mixed that I just thought 'I'm glad to be a part of that group of songs, doesn't matter where I am in the chart as long as we're in amongst it all, then it's a good thing'. There were acts with more songs than us, but it wasn't that sort of competition. It was just great. I'm listening to the top 100 and I hear Jet come on with 'Are You Gonna Be My Girl' and I go 'what a great song. Jesus, who wrote that? That's really cool'." [caption id="attachment_1018404" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sam Tabone/Getty Images[/caption] Long before the country spent a day revelling in the best 100 Aussie tunes — and a week afterwards enjoying the next 100, too — Barnes was already in deeply reflective mode. Almost a decade ago, in 2016, he released his first memoir Working Class Boy, which saw the rocker lay bare his traumatic childhood. Focusing on his adult years, Working Class Man as a book hit shelves the following year. 2018 then brought Working Class Boy to cinemas as documentary, premiering at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Now, seven years later, Working Class Man is also a film and also debuting at MIFF. Between the page and the screen, Barnes has taken his excavation of his upbringing, life and career to the stage as well. Australians have been embracing Barnes on every step on this journey. In their printed guises, Working Class Boy and Working Class Man both became bestsellers, and each also won the Australian Book Industry Award for Biography of the Year. Crowds flocked to see Barnes talk about his experiences live. Viewers did the same with the first doco, which notched up a spectacular array of feats at the time. It played on the largest amount of screens, 220, for an Aussie doco; took over $500,000 in its opening weekend to top that period for a local documentary; and it scored the biggest opening for a doco in Australia since This Is It, 2009's Michael Jackson concert film. [caption id="attachment_1018405" align="alignnone" width="1920"] James Gourley/Getty Images for TV WEEK Logie Awards[/caption] As a movie, then, Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Man is a highly anticipated sequel. With Andrew Farrell (How Australia Got Its Mojo) in the director's chair after executive producing Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Boy — which veteran filmmaker Mark Joffe (Spotswood, Cosi, The Man Who Sued God) helmed — it traces the impact of a childhood of neglect, abuse and poverty upon Barnes as he became a rock star, all as it charts his time behind the microphone from joining Cold Chisel onwards. In the film and in conversation chatting about it alike, the man who'll also be forever known as the voice of 'Breakfast at Sweethearts', 'Choirgirl', 'Cheap Wine', 'You've Got Nothing I Want', 'Saturday Night', 'No Second Prize' and so much more is candid as well as relaxed, even about the darker days that he's been unpacking in his memoirs and their documentary adaptations. "All that stuff was pretty raw and fairly emotional, but because I've been through writing the book and obviously the process of, I guess, detraumatising myself from it all over the few years after that, and then going through the Working Class Man spoken-word tour, which we based this doco on, it gave me time to process it all," Barnes notes. "So there's stuff there that every time I look at it, I go 'ouch, I wish I could have not done that', but I've learned to live with everything I've done." [caption id="attachment_1018401" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Daniel Boud[/caption] Of Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Man, he says "they've done a fabulous job". Of Farrell: "we've known each other for a long time and I trusted him completely with it". That act of reflecting the past has also been driving some of Barnes' live tours, with Cold Chisel taking to the stage around the country to mark their 50th anniversary in 2024, and the 40th anniversary of 'Working Class Man', the song — and album For the Working Class Man that it's on as well — the reason for his next tour in November 2025. Barnes is currently as prolific as ever: alongside the new documentary and the two tours mentioned above, he opened the 2025 Logies, June was all about his Defiant tour, he's released seven albums in the past decade as well as six books so far, and has his second recipe book with his wife Jane, Seasons Where the River Bends, hitting stores in October. From whether he had any inkling that his memoirs would strike such a chord, their leaps to the screen and how he feels about his part in inspiring men to be emotionally open in a way that isn't usually part of Aussie masculinity, through to everything in his life being a family affair, boasting a catalogue of songs that's engrained in Australia's identity and his career longevity, we also spoke with the icon who'll always be known as Barnesy about plenty more. On Whether Barnes Had Any Idea of What Might Follow Working Class Boy — and the Impact That It Has Had Personally "No, not really. But I did get a feeling pretty soon after I wrote it — it was so liberating to sit and write the book. It was something, at the time, doing it was very painful. And every day I wrote — this is the first book — every day I wrote, it would open up a new can of worms that I had to deal with. And there was obviously a lot with childhood trauma. There's a lot of stuff you just block out, and you forget details and all that sort of stuff. And so I'd be writing it and then I'd remember all the stuff that I hadn't thought about for 50 years, 40 years or whatever. And it'd come back to me, and I'd have to process it and deal with it. So the during the process of it, it was sort of a heavy time, a heavy burden on my shoulders. But every day I'd end up and I'd feel like something has been lifted off. And most days I'd finish writing, and I'd ring up my therapist and talk to him about stuff, and then he'd put more weight back on my shoulders and tell me more things to look for. [caption id="attachment_1018398" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jess Lizotte[/caption] So the process of doing that, it was dark and hard to deal with, but it was also enlightening at the same time. And so by the time I'd finished the book, I just felt that I'd learnt a process, a way to process the past and my childhood, without having to sit and actually not physically allow it to overwhelm me. I could do it and walk away from it and process it a bit and breathe, and come back and then write again. And every time it got too overwhelming, I could stop. So I learned how to process — and that went along with a lot of help that I got from various psychotherapists and rehabs and all that sort of stuff. I had enough tools to be able deal with it. So I really enjoyed it. In the end, I really enjoyed the process of writing. And that made me just think — I'd sort of half-written Working Class Man while I was writing the other one. The thing was, the publishers and everybody that was on the commercial side of the book was really wanting the rock 'n' roll, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll story. And I'm going 'I think this is much more important for me to write, that I write the first one first'. And so when I did it, I wasn't going to sit down and write about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, and brag about being wild and all that sort of stuff — because a lot of that stuff, it just is what it was, but a lot of it was as painful as when I was a child. And by the time I finished writing the first book, I realised that my behaviour as an adult, which I obviously, as I say in the book and on the show, I take full responsibility for, but it was heavily influenced by that trauma and that stuff that I just dealt with in the book previously. So it gave me an opportunity to to look at not only the mistakes my parents made and the mistakes that we made as children, how we were brought up and all that sort of stuff, but also how that affected me and how I moved on as an adult, and how the impact of childhood trauma kept knocking on the door — it kept, every time I'd get over one thing, something else would reveal itself until it became so entwined with addiction. And you turn into the parents, and I ended up with the same problems as they had, because I hadn't really — before I'd gotten that heavily into alcohol and drugs and that, I hadn't dealt with any of this stuff. So it was interesting. It was a really good process. [caption id="attachment_1018397" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jess Lizotte[/caption] And the other thing I liked about it was I could sit sitting down after spending years of singing, going out on stage and literally reaching out to people and going 'look at me, look at me, look at me', I could sit — writing books I'm sitting at a desk and just going back into my mind. It gave me a lot of freedom to, like I said, to not cherry pick but go in and look at things and get out of there before it was too heavy. And it allowed me to do the same with my imagination. When I started writing fiction or more towards fiction, I just found it was really enjoyable. I could sit in my own head and just disappear into my own worlds there. So writing that first book has opened up this whole new, not career, but a new chapter in my life — no pun intended — that I really enjoy. I can still go out and make music and feel that emotional response with people, or I can just bury myself in my own head and dig out stories, which I really enjoy almost as much as singing." On What It Means to Barnes to Help Inspire Men to Be Emotionally Open in a Way That Isn't Usually a Part of Aussie Masculinity "Well, it wasn't something that I did myself. It was the start of real growth of men. We'd all been brought up, everybody that I knew had been brought up, with 'men don't cry' and 'you've got to hold your emotions in' and 'don't you don't admit you're wrong', all that bullshit. And I think part of that was just — like when my parents, when my dad was alive, he had to be strong just to survive. He was fighting. He was a prizefighter. My grandfather was fighting bare knuckles in the alleys of Scotland so that he could feed his family, and they had to be tough. They couldn't cry. They couldn't let people know they were weak. But I could look back on them though — and now I remember how scary my grandfather was, I thought he was very scary and that whole image I built up of him was scary — but I look back at it now and I think 'he's probably the same as me, just terrified the whole time'. I know I spoke to my brother John about it — John was a dangerous guy, he was wild and he could fight like hell, and him and I spoke about it. And he said 'I only fought because I was so scared, and I had to be hypervigilant, hyperaggressive. I had to win because I didn't want to be hurt'. And I realised that they were like that. So I guess writing these books, I was never looking for blame, to blame anybody, but in the process of writing them, there were times where I was really angry with my parents and angry with my family and all that sort of stuff. And in the process of the first book, I got angry. With the second book, I realised that I fell into the same patterns and I fell into the same traps, and I was trying the best I possibly could but it just wasn't good. And so I learned about forgiveness for my parents in the process of writing those first two memoirs." [caption id="attachment_1018406" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sam Tabone/Getty Images[/caption] On Sharing Barnes' Story, and the Path to Working Class Boy and Working Class Man Receiving the Documentary Treatment "I realised when I started writing Working Class Boy, in the process of writing, I realised that my story wasn't that unique to me. It was a common story that a lot of people went through. A lot of people went through the same things as me. And that was one of the reasons why I put the book out. When I was first started to write, I was thinking I'd just write and when it's all finished, I could burn it and that'd be okay. It'd have done its job. But everybody I let have a look at it went 'oh, I can relate to this. I can relate to that'. And I realised that there were people who were going to be touched or see themselves in it, and maybe get a window of hope from it. And so I wanted to film the shows — and one of the reasons I wanted to film the shows was because every night, when I go up and talk about all the stuff that I had written, something else would reveal itself to me. I'd be up there talking about my mum being angry and storming around and dragging us through the streets and stuff, and then I go 'oh geez, I remember this now'. I'd remember something else that she did. There was a point where I remembered, I realised that as scary as my mum was, and as wild and all that sort of stuff, and she neglected us, but actually I realised that the only time I ever felt safe was when she held me in her arms, when I was a baby, when I young. And I realised that and I thought 'oh, man, all of this stuff, I've just kept thinking all the bad stuff. You've got to remember the good stuff, too'. So things would reveal themselves as I wrote them. And I thought — and doing the stories, more would reveal, more detail, I'd think of more things. There's times when I'd be telling the stories — so it's sort of half-rehearsed, but I got pretty good at it after the first ten shows or so — and then suddenly I'd be telling the story and all this new stuff information would come to me. And so it was really, I wanted to film the shows then, because I wanted to see how far that went and see if it could — I didn't know how, if it was going to be a documentary or a movie or what we were going to do with it, it was more to have in case I needed it as another tool to deal with my own shit." [caption id="attachment_1018399" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jess Lizotte[/caption] On Ensuring That the Documentaries Were Always the Films That Barnes Was Comfortable With — Including No Dramatisations "Mark was a dear friend of mine, and I love Mark's work as a filmmaker, anyway. I've known him for a long time. And one of the deals we did when he said he wanted to make it, one of the deals we made was that it had to be the story we wanted to tell. It wasn't going to be glamorous or dramatised — I didn't want to have people acting as us and all that sort of shit. Which you could do. And I was getting people, literally even once I started writing the book, I was already getting offers to have movies made with actors. And I'm going 'no, this is too close to the bone' and I didn't want dramatisations of it. I wanted it be real. And Mark was really sympathetic to that, and he made me really comfortable. He said 'we're only going to reveal and open up things, wounds, that you think you need to or you think you can learn from or you think that need to be told to tell the story'. So he was very close to me about it. And Andrew was actually, as a producer, was involved working with Mark all the time on that. The first one, I was 'hmm, I don't know if I want to put this out', and then the book seemed to really connect with a lot of people. So that was really a good outcome for me and allowed me to let even more of that stuff go. The second one, I just figured that because everybody had watched me growing up in public onstage, I thought because a lot of those people had read the first book, they would want to see how that affected me — and what effect that had for the good and the bad. I wouldn't have been the wild rock 'n' roll singer I was had I not been brought up that way. Everything about being abused and unwanted and poor, and the violence and the alcohol in the house all the time, everything that happened to me made me the perfect melting pot to make me a rock 'n' roll singer. [caption id="attachment_1018403" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Daniel Boud[/caption] I got there and all I wanted — even before I was in bands — all I wanted to do was for people to like me so I felt safe. And what better way for people to like you than to make the whole bloody country like you? I get up on stage and people go 'yeah, Jimmy, you're okay' — and I go 'yeah, I'm all right'. I'd be falling apart, but it would make me feel safe. And as a traumatised child, to get people to like you they had to look at you. So I'm on stage going 'look at me. Look at me. Look, I can do this — like a monkey, I can do tricks'. And so I wanted people to see what I worked out was actually going on behind the pictures, behind the story that that we all knew that and that I'd created really as far as just being a rock 'n' roll singer. And I wanted to prove that as bad as all that upbringing was, you've got to be thankful for who you are. If you can learn from it and grow from it, then you can learn to be thankful for all the gifts that were given to you in amongst all that shit — and it doesn't seem that bad anymore." On Working Class Man Being a Family Affair, Like Everything in Barnes' Life "They were always there — all the way through my life, my grown life, Jane was there. And she was just waiting for me and she was trying to keep me in the straight and narrow. And at times I drove her into the wild side with me, and there were times where it got out of control, but she was always just trying to keep things and be there for me as long as she could. I think as much healing as I got from writing the first two books, I think the family got it, too. So as soon as I started to get myself together and started to deal with this, my family blossomed. They've always been very supportive. Always there. The kids were always singing with me. I used to take the kids on tour with me all the time, and Jane on tour with me — we'd get teachers and tutors and nannies and stuff to bring them on the road, so we wouldn't be apart, because I was just afraid I was always going to lose them. And as that changed and I started to become a better human being, started to understand my own life, I wanted them there for much better reasons: to share the joy of it with me. And so they went from going — they were always there, but the reasons for them being there and what they were getting from being there changed dramatically. And so, in the end — because my kids naturally grew up and went into music, and Jane became a musician and a singer as well, but they learned that it was all about the joy, and not about the running and the hiding. And it wasn't just about the wildness and about bravado; it was about growing up and baring your soul to people, and making a connection with someone and walking away feeling like you belong. And for me, for my children, for Ruby [Rodgers, who also appears in Future Council], my grandchildren, to feel that connection with an audience is, I think, it's probably one of the best gifts I could have given her in life — to feel that she can connect to people and connect with her own soul. When she started singing, she's done her first record, and it was nothing like any of us singing. It's just really sweet and beautiful. But we weren't all pushing her and telling her what to do. She just did it on her own. And she's found his voice, and she's found this direction that she wants to sing and the way she wants to communicate, which is really beautiful. But it was just because she was allowed, nurtured and it was encouraged that she find her own voice. And I think that's one of the great gifts that we've been able to share in this family. And so they're all a part of this film, because they're all a part of my life and our lives are so entwined. Sometimes, for a while it was unhealthy, but now I think it's very healthy. I used to want Jane to be with me, of course because I love her, but also because I didn't ever want to lose her and I didn't want to be away and I didn't want to forget about her. Now it's just because I just adore her and we just want to be together all the time. So the reasons sorted themselves out. And I realise that being together even through the adversity, there was times where it was probably more dangerous than doing good, but it also helped keep us together." On How Barnes' Period of Reflection Has Inspired New Projects "For a start, being healthier and straight and focused, I just have so much time. I'm hyperactive anyway, but obviously when I was medicating myself and drinking myself to a standstill all the time, it was hard to pick myself up to just even sing. Nowadays, I'm so healthy. I was up at 7am this morning swimming laps. But I feel so healthy and so good. I just wake up and go 'right, what am I going to do now?'. And I've got the cookbook coming out this October. I've written two kids books in the last few months for a couple of my grandkids, in at the publishers now. I've started writing more short stories. I've also started, last year or the year before, I started writing a novel, which I'm in the process of rewriting that. I've got new songs that I've written for the next record. I have to slow down because you really can't put three records in a year. People will go really crazy. But I'm just enjoying having the time and the energy to focus and do things that are creative and that are inspiring." [caption id="attachment_1018402" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Daniel Boud[/caption] On Making Music That's Built Into Australia's Identity "I think we're very lucky that we're a pretty real working-class band, really. It's a mixed bag actually, like Steve [Prestwich] and myself and Ian [Moss] — Ian comes from Alice Springs, he's a country boy; Phil [Small] was sort of middle working class; Steve and I were real working-class families. Don [Walker] was sort of the outsider. His family were writers and are writers, and were really beautiful writers. But Don wrote, he was a voyeur a bit, of life. And he looked at life and the lives that we had and wrote songs about them. So I was lucky enough and we were lucky enough as a band that we wrote songs, that he was writing, that were influenced by us and influenced by what he's seeing around him. And those songs were so good they've connected with people. Our songs aren't about driving in your limousines or whatever. They were songs that were real earthy, and people connected to them. And I found songs like that, songs like 'Khe Sanh', songs like 'Flame Trees' — I could go on, there's a list of them all the way through. 'One Long Day'. Songs about people who just work in an office trying to get through the week, so they can have a nice time of the weekend with their girl or something. Those songs connected with people. And over the years, the songs have become part of people's lives. We've been around for 50 years. We never changed. Cold Chisel was always a band, and same with me, people can walk up and say hello to you. We don't have security. For a while I had security, because it was to keep me from people, because I was too wild. But Cold Chisel have always been approachable. They're always a meat-and-potatoes band. We're like the people we play for. And I think that made us connect with, that band, with those people. And the songs are just — sometimes it really it brings tears to my eyes, because people come up and say 'I buried my father to your songs', 'I danced at my wedding to 'Flame Trees'', 'I danced at my bar mitzvah', whatever it was. All these different things and people, these songs were part of their lives, and that's something that we don't take for granted. That's something that anytime we start to get a bit uppity, we remember this is why we play — to be connected to this society, to the people that we love so closely. And I think a lot of that has to do with the quality of songs." On Barnes' Longevity, Including His Current Prolific Period "I think it's a real blessing. I think one of the reasons why that happens is, as much as Cold Chisel went away for a while, we always all worked. We always stayed connected to our audience, to the music we love. And one of the things I tell young musicians is just 'keep doing it because you love it. Some things are going to be successful, some things aren't. And if you just keep doing them, people connect, come and go'. And I feel, we've made maybe 50 records or something, or something more, and they've not all connected. But some of the ones that haven't connected are really special to me. So if you make music for the right reasons, and you put your heart into it and you put your soul into it, and you're committed, people connect with you and I think you'll always have a career. And the thing is, I'll always have a career because I'll sing till the day I die. Whether I'm selling records or not is another story, but that's what brings me joy, is singing." Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Man screens at the 2025 Melbourne International Film Festival. MIFF 2025 runs from Thursday, August 7–Sunday, August 24 at a variety of venues around Melbourne; from Friday, August 15–Sunday, August 17 and Friday, August 22–Sunday, August 24 in regional Victoria; and online nationwide from Friday, August 15–Sunday, August 31. For further details, visit the MIFF website.
McDonald's has been serving up Big Macs and soft serve cones to Australians for 50 years, so to celebrate the big five-oh, the golden arches are running a series of promotions and adding some new items to the menu. The latest celebratory surprise popping up at Macca's around the country is a special Birthday McFlurry. While the fast-food chain is no stranger to limited-edition McFlurry flavours — good (apple pie) and bad (bubblegum) — this new edition really takes things up a notch. The Birthday McFlurry is packed with bite-sized pieces of the fan-favourite custard pie, alongside a drizzle of caramel sauce and sprinkles to give it that birthday feel. As well as the inclusion of the bite-sized custard pie pieces in the McFlurry, the full-sized pie will return to the menu for anyone that's been missing the crispy custard-filled treat. Earlier this month, McDonald's kicked off its birthday celebrations with a day of 50-cent Big Macs across Australia. And the celebrations aren't stopping any time soon, with more fun surprises set to pop up throughout July and August. Australia's first McDonald's opened in Yagoona in 1971 and has grown to over 1000 stores nationwide in the 50 years since. The Birthday McFlurry and custard pie are available exclusively via Uber Eats from tomorrow, Wednesday, June 30 through until Wednesday, July 7, before becoming available in all Macca's nationwide for a limited time from Wednesday, July 7. McDonald's Birthday McFlurry is available via Uber Eats from Wednesday, June 30 and available in-store and on McDelivery from Wednesday, July 7.
How do you brighten up one of the most vibrant cities on earth? And at the brightest time of the year? It's simple: add a park installation littered with glowing lights. Like Tokyo before it, New York now boasts its own short-term piece of luminous art — and one that's both creative and eye-catching. Called Whiteout, the commissioned project has unleashed hundreds of LED-filled globes upon Madison Square Park. Set up until March 25, 2018, the piece comes from Austrian-born, New York and Ohio-based artist Erwin Redl, who suspended the white, transparent spheres across the space using a square steel grid and cabling. As well as their standard twinkling, the orbs sway with the wind and sparkle according to large-scale animated patterns, all as part of the 6.2-acre park's latest free outdoor exhibition. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bbk8VEvnCTh/?taken-by=madsqparknyc Explains Redl, "the physicality of the swaying orbs in conjunction with the abstract animations of their embedded white lights allows the public to explore a new, hybrid reality in this urban setting." Known for creating light projects on building facades, Redl takes inspiration from the greats in the field, such as Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, James Turrell, and Doug Wheeler While visitors can't interact with the installation, they can view it as they mosey along the park's walkways. Given that more than 60,000 people visit the site daily, it's certain to make quite the impact, in a piece Redl created and fabricated with the assistance of Madison Square Park Conservancy and the New York City, Brisbane and Shanghai-based public artwork firm UAP. If you're in New York, check out Whiteout at Madison Square Park until March 25, 2018. Head to the park website for further information. Image: Erwin Redl, Whiteout, 2017. Steel, animated white LEDs, stainless steel cable, low voltage insulated wire, two sections: each 12 x 40 x 180 feet; overall: 12 x 110 x 180 feet. Collection of the artist. © Erwin Redl. Photo: Rashmi Gill.
After spending two seasons giving viewers a glimpse at life when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Prehistoric Planet is getting icy with its just-announced third run. When the acclaimed natural-history series returns in November 2025, it's saying goodbye to Tyrannosaurus rex and its fellow dinos, and hello to woolly mammoths and snow sloths instead — and hi to sabre-toothed tigers and three-feet-tall dwarf elephants as well. Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age is also giving its megafauna-filled trip to the past a new voice. Just a few years ago, no one knew that they needed to hear David Attenborough talk about dinosaurs while watching spectacular photo-realistic recreations of the planet's ancient creatures — and then this series arrived. Attenborough returned for the second season, too. Next up, however, Tom Hiddleston (Loki) is loaning his vocal tones to narrating Prehistoric Planet's third go-around. This docuseries, which proved one of 2022's best new shows when it premiered, has always worked a particular type of magic: letting viewers peer backwards in time to the planet's past thanks to its impressive photorealistic special effects. Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age is deploying its approach to a frozen world, to spend time with the animals of its titular period, including across a variety of terrain, and through the big freeze and the big melt. While there's no Attenborough, Hans Zimmer is still providing the original score, aided by Anže Rozman and Kara Talve from Bleeding Fingers Music. And filmmaker Jon Favreau — who has used the same type of visuals on The Jungle Book and The Lion King — remains an executive producer, as does BBC Studios Natural History Unit's Mike Gunton. While audiences only had to wait a year between the first and second seasons of Prehistoric Planet, more than two-year gap will have passed between season two and Ice Age when the latter starts streaming its five-episode stint via Apple TV+ from Tuesday, November 26, 2025. In 2024, Prehistoric Planet Immersive also added to the franchise with two short episodes of five minutes and under, but only via Apple Vision Pro. There's no trailer yet for Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age, but check out the sneak peeks for season one and season two below: Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age will hit Apple TV+ from Tuesday, November 26, 2025. Read our full reviews of Prehistoric Planet season one and Prehistoric Planet season two, as well as our interview with executive producer Mike Gunton and series producer Tim Walker.
Freak out, losers and cosmic girls — you've got the number-one song in heaven to dance to. Adelaide music festival Harvest Rock has just announced who'll be hitting its stages in 2023, and the jam-packed lineup is overflowing with legends. Jamiroquai's only Australian show, Beck doing the same, the absolute icons that are both Nile Rodgers & Chic and Edgar Wright's favourite band Sparks: they're all headed to the South Australian capital in October. A two-day blend of music, food and wine — well, it is in SA — Harvest Rock debuted in 2022 and instantly proved a success, attracting 15,000 attendees per day. This year, the festival will return for another stint of tunes, bites and beverages at Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka and King Rodney Park / Ityamai-itpina, Adelaide, on Saturday, October 28–Sunday, October. Whether or not you live in the City of Churches, the event has amassed a killer roster of talent worth planning a weekend around. Jamiroquai will play an exclusive Aussie performance filled with classics like 'Canned Heat', 'Virtual Insanity', 'Little L' and, yes, 'Cosmic Girl', in what'll be the Jay Kay-fronted British band's first show on our shores in more than a decade. Will there be hats? Here's hoping, with audiences set to find out when the group headlines the Saturday. Beck was last in Australia earlier in 2023, playing Bluesfest and doing an acoustic tour, but this time the Californian great will return with his full band to headline Harvest Festival's Sunday roster. It's almost been three decades since he came to fame with 90s anthem 'Loser', and he's kept making ace tunes from there — 'Where It's At', 'Devil's Haircut' and 'Sexx Laws' all included, across 14 records since his 1993 debut album Golden Feelings. 'Le Freak' and 'Good Times' will get a whirl when the one and only Rodgers takes to the stage with his band Chic, which was first formed more than 50 years ago. As a guitarist, Rodgers is in a league of his own (see also: his work on Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, including single 'Get Lucky'). As a writer and producer, he's had a hand in everything from David Bowie's Let's Dance album to Madonna's 'Like a Virgin'. Sparks will draw upon a whopping 57 years of making ridiculously catchy and smartly funny tunes, including 'The Number One Song in Heaven', 'This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us' and latest single 'The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte'. In a glorious move, they've been beginning their recent sets with 'So May We Start' from Annette, too, which won them the Best Composer award at Cannes. The rest of Harvest Rock's lineup is no slouch. Santigold, Chromeo, Bright Eyes and Ladyhawk join the international contingent, while Flight Facilities, Baker Boy, Julia Jacklin, Chet Faker, Ocean Alley, Bad//Dreems, Thelma Plum and Vera Blue are among the Aussie names. And, back on legends, Paul Kelly will also take to the stage, as will The Rolling Stone Revue featuring Adalita of Magic Dirt, Tim Rogers of You Am I and Tex Perkins — yes, all teaming up to play The Rolling Stones' greatest hits. Dubbed Harvest Rock II and hailing from Secret Sounds, the crew behind Splendour in the Grass, the returning spring fest will feature Adelaide's top restaurants and eateries serving up food at the Feastiville precinct, onsite eatery Wildwood led by arkhé's chef and co-owner Jake Kellie, a culinary-focused stage and wine tastings as well. Plus, there's a wellness centre doing tarot readings and massages, and mini festival Little Harvest for kids. If you're keen to make a weekend of it, you can grab a VIP ticket package including accommodation from Concrete Playground Trips. HARVEST ROCK II LINEUP: Bad // Dreems Baker Boy Beck (Australian exclusive) Bright Eyes Built to Spill Chet Faker Chromeo Flight Facilities — Decades DJ set Jamiroquai (Australian exclusive) Julia Jacklin Ladyhawke Nile Rodgers & Chic Ocean Alley Paul Kelly Sam Barber Santigold Sparks The Lemon Twigs The Rolling Stone Revue Thelma Plum Vera Blue Warpaint Harvest Rock 2023 will take at Rymill Park / Murlawirrapurka and King Rodney Park / Ityamai-itpina, Adelaide, on Saturday, October 28–Sunday, October 29, 2023 — with tickets on sale from 9am AEST on Wednesday, August 9. Head to Concrete Playground Trips for a VIP package for two, including tickets and accommodation.
Have you ever been casually scoffing a big tub of rocky road ice cream — the kind with the hulking big chunks of chocolate and marshmallow that may just slip right into your heart valves, killing you right then and there — and thought, man, I wish there were some carrots up in this mix? I doubt it. Because no one has ever, or should ever have thought that. Enter Haagen-Dazs' new Japanese offerings: Carrot Orange and Tomato Cherry; the ice cream flavours that have just usurped vanilla as the dull person's ice cream of choice. Set to launch on May 12, the veggie flavours make up a new line of products appetisingly named Spoon Vege (you can't accuse them of being coy about it). "Carrot Orange [will] take the gentle flavour of carrot and add to it the fresh citrus taste and scent of orange, giving the carrot a sophisticated and refreshing twist," reads the translated press release that is astonishingly not satire. "Tomato Cherry [will] combine the natural sweetness of tomato with the fruity flavour of cherry, which should accentuate the rich taste of the tomato." Now, Carrot Orange is clearly the winner of the two — carrot cake is a thing that exists, orange sorbet is acceptable. At the very least Carrot Orange can be a thing that annoying Gym People eat with half-guilty expressions. After all, these ice creams will be somewhat healthy; containing about half the amount of milk fat found in their sweeter counterparts. But in any circumstances, Tomato Cherry: not okay. Chow down on some Cherry Garcia instead. Via RocketNews and PSFK.
In 2022, Netflix asked a question: what happens when you take the Australian teen series of the 90s and update it to the 2020s, all while riding a huge wave of nostalgia for all things stemming from three decades back? The answer seemed obvious on paper, but there were no guarantees about the new Heartbreak High revival until it actually arrived. The answer, thankfully, was a worthy successor to the beloved 1994–99 hit that every 90s Aussie kid watched. No one said "rack off" to the Sydney-set show's latest run, clearly, or to its new batch of Hartley High teens, or their fresh dose of messy teen lives. Not Aussie audiences, with the series making Netflix's top ten TV shows in the country for the five weeks after its September 2022 release. And, not the streaming service itself, given that it promptly renewed the show for season two. That was last year's news — and, if you've been hanging out for Heartbreak High's return, Netflix has just started confirming season two details. Firstly, you'll be waiting until 2024 for school to be in session again. Secondly, there'll be a couple of new students. Sam Rechner (The Fabelmans) will play country boy and classic cinema fan Rowan Callaghan, and he's destined for a love triangle. Also, Kartanya Maynard (Deadloch) joins the Hartley crew as Zoe Clarke, who has big thoughts on celibacy — she's in favour — as part of a gang of Puriteens. Attention students! Next season, we'll be joined by some new members of the class... Please make them feel welcome at recess 💔 🏫 #HeartbreakHigh pic.twitter.com/jUNGrdb57N — Netflix ANZ (@NetflixANZ) July 7, 2023 On the returning crew, character-wise: Amerie (Ayesha Madon, The Moth Effect), Harper (Asher Yasbincek, How to Please a Woman), Darren (screen first-timer James Majoos), Quinni (Chloe Hayden, Jeremy the Dud), Dusty (Josh Heuston, Thor: Love and Thunder), Ca$h (Will McDonald, Home and Away), Malakai (Thomas Weatherall, Troppo), Spider (Bryn Chapman Parish, Mr Inbetween), Ant (debutant Brodie Townsend), Sasha (Gemma Chua-Tran, Mustangs FC) and Missy (fellow newcomer Sherry-Lee Watson). Season one started with Amerie becoming a pariah at Hartley after a big revelation — an "incest map" plotting out who's hooked up with who throughout the school — and also struggling with a sudden rift in her friendship with bestie Harper. Attempting to repair her reputation, she called on help from her new pals Quinni and Darren, all while working through her crush on Dusty and developing feelings for Malakai. And that's just the start of the Heartbreak High revival's season one story. In season two, everyone will back for a second term after doing some growing up over the holidays, and Hartley is now the lowest-ranking school in the district. Netflix is teasing that threesomes, chlamydia and burning cars will be distant memory for the gang — but there'll still be teen chaos, of course, or this wouldn't be Heartbreak High. It was back in 2020 that Netflix initially announced that it was bringing the series back — and yes, it sure is a 2020s-era take on the Aussie classic, including everything from friendship fights, yelling about vaginas from the top of a building and throwing dildos at walls through to consent, crime, drugs and police brutality. The original Heartbreak High was a massive deal, and was filled with now-familiar faces, including Alex Dimitriades, a pre-Home and Away Ada Nicodemou, and Avengers: Endgame and Mystery Road's Callan Mulvey as Drazic. It painted a multicultural picture of Australia that was unlike anything else on TV at the time. And, for its six-year run across two Aussie networks, the Sydney-shot show was must-see television — not bad for a series that started as a spinoff to the Claudia Karvan and Alex Dimitriades-starring 1993 movie The Heartbreak Kid, too. Check out the trailer for the Heartbreak High revival's first season below: Heartbreak High season two will arrive sometime in 2024 — we'll update you with an exact date is announced. The show's first season is available to stream now via Netflix. Read our full review.
Any film that critics compare to being "stabbed in the head" would normally be something that people would want to avoid. But when it comes to The Room, the harsher the reviews the better. The 2003 melodrama, about a love triangle between a banker, his best friend and his treacherous fiance, has spawned a massive cult following, with audiences all around the world coming together at late-night screenings to celebrate its cringe-worthy performances, horrendous dialogue and baffling, incomprehensible plot. The mad genius behind The Room is its writer-director-producer-star, the mysterious Tommy Wiseau. Blessed with a confidence that far exceeds his ability, it's Wiseau's virtuosic incompetence that plays a huge part in the movie's appeal. Interviews with Wiseau tend to raise more questions than they answer. A more forthcoming subject is actor Greg Sestero, who co-stars as the best friend, Mark. Sestero recently co-penned a book, titled The Disaster Artist, full of behind-the-scenes stories about the movies' turbulent production. In the lead-up to a promotional visit to Australia, Sestero spoke to Concrete Playground about the book, Wiseau and his dubious double-edged fame. https://youtube.com/watch?v=mQ4KzClb1C4 When you meet Tommy Wiseau "He was the ultimate character," remembers Sestero of his and Wiseau's first meeting, in a Los Angeles acting class back in 1998. "He didn't take no for an answer. As a nineteen-year-old aspiring actor who was doubting myself, he was the perfect person for me to meet at that point in my life." Slowly, the two became friend. Even so, when Wiseau first approached Sestero about making the movie, the actor was reluctant. "I agreed to help him make the film behind the scenes, [but] he really wanted me to be in it," says Sestero. "The night before filming he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I was an unemployed actor working retail, and I didn't think anybody would see it. Fortunately I was wrong." Production proved a disaster, with cast and crew members regularly quitting or being fired over the course of the six month shoot. "You were dealing with somebody who had never made a film," says Sestero. "He wanted to honour his vision, and anybody who got in the way was shown the door. It was a very trying experience for a lot of people … but he had a very unique way of making art, and more power to him. Unique stands out, and here we are eleven years later, still talking about The Room." When you want fame but get notoriety "I always thought the movie was very funny and very campy, but I was shocked when it found an audience," says Sestero. "It developed a small LA fanbase around 2005, 2006, and then there was an article written in Entertainment Weekly that really blew it up. It wasn't until 2010 that I did an appearance at a theatre in New York at which twelve hundred people showed up. I think at that point I realised The Room had arrived." Of his own performance, and the questionable celebrity the film brought him, the actor remains upbeat. "For something that I just phoned in and didn't expect anything from, I can't really complain," says Sestero. "When you put yourself out there and you read bad things about yourself, it stings. But with this project I was kind of in on the joke from the beginning." And frankly, no one would argue that the cast didn't have their work cut out for them. "With the dialogue, even if you did try to act well, you would have been doomed," reflects the actor. "Even Daniel Day-Lewis probably would have had some trouble getting those lines out." When James Franco and Seth Rogen want to act out your memoirs "I think the book has kind of redeemed the whole experience," says Sestero. "Ever since I made this movie, there were so many crazy stories. I thought that if I took them to a publisher, they wouldn't even believe it as fiction. Then as time went on and the cult began to grow, I felt like the story behind it became even more compelling." Now, in a fittingly strange turn of events, James Franco and Seth Rogen have announced that they'll be adapting the memoir into a film. Franco will direct, while his younger brother Dave will play Sestero. "It's still in the early stages, but I think James Franco and Seth Rogen have made so many great films," says Sestero. "They're a great fit for the project." Despite all The Room has done for him, Sestero is looking forward to moving on. "At the end of the day, it's really Tommy's movie," says Sestero. "It's what really defines him. I think we were all just passengers on this ship. The book was a start to doing things that I'm really excited about, and to kind of show that there's more to me than just this bad movie."
Roaring fire? Check. An expansive drinks list? Check. A proper hearty roast with a touch of modern flair, served all weekend long? You've got it. Yep, Albert Park's contemporary gastropub The Bleakhouse is a surefire crowd-pleaser. Pull up a seat in one of the cosy booths and enjoy a $30 rotating 'Proper Roast' lunch (or dinner, if it hasn't sold out) with all the trimmings all weekend long. It could be pork belly with buttery mash and spiced quince, slow-cooked lamb leg sided with a Spanish tomato stew, or even duck a l'orange with caramelised onions and heirloom carrots. Plus, each week staff offer a recommended vino match from one of Australia's top wine regions, to enjoy by the glass or bottle. They also have a $28 steak day every Thursday and Friday and you can treat yourself to oysters at $2.50 a pop and $35 cocktail jugs — perfect for a leisurely session of after-work drinks with your mates. Take in views of Port Phillip from the top terrace balcony or cosy up next to the fireplace or in one of the stylish booths on the main pub floor. Whether you're seeking a tranquil retreat, a memorable dining adventure, or vibrant social gatherings, Bleakhouse Pub is the perfect destination to unwind and indulge.
When Baz Luhrmann's Australia hit the big screen in 2008, it debuted right here on home soil. Now that it has been reworked as a TV show, the exact same thing is happening. That series: Faraway Downs, a six-parter that was first announced in 2022 and is destined for Disney+ Down Under from November. For its big premiere, it'll make a splash at the first-ever SXSW Sydney Screen Festival, joining the program as its closing-night screening. Before streaming from Sunday, November 26, Faraway Downs will first be seen by audiences on Saturday, October 21, complete with Luhrmann in attendance. Nicole Kidman also just recently joined the SXSW Sydney bill for a discussion about her production company, which has been behind Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, The Undoing and more, but hasn't been announced as a guest at Faraway Downs' big unveiling. For 15 years, Australia has inspired a particular line of thought when it comes to Luhrmann's movies: they can't all be good ones, even if almost all of them are. Australia is the one outlier on his resume — the one film that doesn't live up to the spectacular Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, The Great Gatsby and Elvis — so it's been given some tinkering and reimagining to return as Faraway Downs. "I was inspired to re-approach my film Australia to create Faraway Downs because of the way episodic storytelling has been reinvigorated by the streaming world," said Baz Luhrmann. "With over two-million feet of film from the original piece, my team and I were able to revisit anew the central themes of the work." "I am honoured to world-premiere Faraway Downs in Australia, the place that has inspired me and my work my entire life, and with a partner like SXSW who deeply recognises the intersection of film, television and music with storytelling," Luhrmann continued. [caption id="attachment_921555" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Hugh Stewart[/caption] Combining two of the nation's biggest actors with one of its biggest filmmakers, Faraway Downs still stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, of course. If you need a refresher on Australia's plot — and therefore the new episodic version's plot, too — it follows English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman, The Northman) after she comes into possession of an Aussie cattle ranch. To save it from cattle barons, she enlists the help of a drover (Jackman, The Son). That's just the overall gist, however, given that the sprawling movie also spans World War II and its impact, as well as the country's historical treatment of Indigenous Australians. Fittingly given the OG name — and as usually proves the case with Luhrmann's flicks — the cast includes a who's who of homegrown talent. As well as Kidman and Jackman, plus Brandon Walters (Mystery Road) as Nullah, everyone from Essie Davis (Nitram) and Bryan Brown (Hungry Ghosts) to Ben Mendelsohn (Secret Invasion), Jack Thompson (High Ground) and David Wenham (Elvis) features, as does the now-late David Gulpilil (Storm Boy) and Bill Hunter (The Cup). There's no sneak peek at Faraway Downs as yet, but you can check out original trailer for Australia below: Faraway Downs will close the 2023 SXSW Sydney Screen Festival on Saturday, October 21, then stream Down Under via Disney+ from Sunday, November 26, 2023. If you're keen to make the most of Australia's first SXSW, take advantage of our special reader offer. Purchase your SXSW Sydney 2023 Official Badge via Concrete Playground Trips and you'll score a $150 credit to use on your choice of Sydney accommodation. Book now via the website.
What do films about bickering neighbours, wannabe heavy metal bands and a boy wandering through the forest all have in common? They're on this year's Scandinavian Film Festival bill. While the annual event always surveys the cinema output of a variety of countries — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, namely — it also dives into movies on a range of topics. Case in point: one title explores the college exploits of a teenager with supernatural abilities, but it's definitely not the kind of movie that you're thinking of, and another tracks youths trying to survive a mass shooting. They're some of the highlights of the 2018 fest, which tours Australia between July 10 and August — and if you'd like to hear more, keep reading. The full lineup includes everything from border patrol officers and Saint Bernards to icy westerns and an extremely different take on capitalism-drive class clashes. From all of the above and more, here are our six must-sees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJghTR5y9U0 UNDER THE TREE It sounds like a storyline on any routine soap opera: two neighbouring families get into a turf war over the most ordinary of issues. And yes, as the title suggests, it's a tree. Overhanging branches aren't the only things casting a shadow over these particular lives, however, as marital woes, Ikea, family pets and more become involved in this bleak but hilarious study of bad behaviour. One side acts, the other retaliates, and the film's various spats escalate, although the emotions at the movie's core always remain believable and relatable. As well as featuring a number of impressive performances by Icelandic talents, especially from veteran Edda Björgvinsdóttir, Under the Tree represents another winning effort from writer/director Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson. Like his earlier feature Either Way, which was remade as Prince Avalanche, don't be surprised if this gets the English-language treatment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi2N-DFfe7Q THELMA The best super-powered film of the past year doesn't involve Wonder Woman, Black Panther or any other Marvel or DC characters. We're not saying that the big end of town hasn't turned out some great caped crusader flicks (and some terrible ones, too) over the last 12 months or so, but Thelma plays with extraordinary abilities in a completely different manner. The latest work from Oslo, August 31st and Louder Than Bombs' filmmaker Joachim Trier, it's a thriller about a college freshman (Eili Harboe) who copes with her new Oslo surroundings — and adjusts to her new bond with fellow student Anja (Kaya Wilkins) — in ways that surprise, astonish and truly cut to the heart of being a confused, anxious soul in a troubling world. Part sci-fi, part horror, part coming-of-age effort, the end result is a piercing exploration of identity that looks as impressive as it feels. HEAVY TRIP They're the world's first symphonic, post-apocalyptic, reindeer-grinding, Christ-abusing, extreme war pagan, Fennoscandian metal group, as they describe themselves, but these four Finnish villagers don't quite know how to chase their dreams. After 12 years of rehearsing in a slaughterhouse basement, the twenty-somethings finally record their own song — and after accidentally drenching a Norwegian festival promoter with a barrel of blood, Turo (Johannes Holopainen) starts telling everyone that they've scored a huge first gig. What happens next both follows the expected path and throws in plenty of unexpected incidents, altercations and antics, with the comedy caper including everything from a love triangle to grave-robbing to sailing on a viking ship. Still, even when it veers into silly territory, Heavy Trip remains inventive, heartfelt and very amusing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2WRsAyC-K4 VALLEY OF SHADOWS The gothic horror tradition is alive and well in moody, brooding Norwegian effort Valley of Shadows, which proves as haunting and gorgeously gloomy as its title suggests. The film might send a youngster trampling through creepy surroundings, but it carves its own path away from the current Stranger Things-inspired trend and its various offshoots. In fact, anything that seems familiar in the narrative is soon eclipsed by this confident and unnerving movie's commanding tone, as well as its eye-catching 35mm-shot images. Story-wise, the debut by writer/director Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen follows a six-year-old's (Adam Ekeli) foray into a nearby forest in search of his runaway dog, and the folklore-like events that eventuate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0RaGwzqLBE WINTER BROTHERS Danish drama Winter Brothers has won multiple awards for its cinematography, and it's immediately easy to see why — shot on 16mm film and casting its lens over snowy landscapes, remote homes, dark mines and the general inner workings of industrial settings, it's never less than striking to look at. As a study of masculinity left to fester in an isolated environment, it's also an emotionally powerful piece, winning Best Picture at the Danish Academy Awards for its troubles. Examining the lives of two miner siblings (Elliott Crosset Hove and Simon Sears) as they engage in a spat with their neighbours (yes, that seems to be a theme this festival) and make moonshine, this tense, textured movie knows exactly how it wants its viewers to feel. Helping perfect the ideal unsettling mood is a score that knows when to drone with ominous purpose, and knows when silence says everything it needs to. U — JULY 22 There's nothing new about recreating a harrowing real-life event from the perspective of those who were there, and giving audiences an on-the-ground view of their horrifying experiences. There's nothing new about adopting that approach when it comes to mass shootings either, or just generally unravelling a tense and terrifying situation in a single shot. Still, Norwegian effort U — July 22 finds the best way to plunge viewers into the thick of one of the most traumatic incidents in the country's history. On the eponymous date in 2011, a right-wing extremist gunned down 69 of the 500 attendees at a youth summer camp on the island of Utøya, with filmmaker Erik Poppe following one 19-year-old's efforts to survive. Lead actress Andrea Berntzen is fantastic as the desperate young woman searching for her sister, and for a way to make it out alive, in a feature that's never easy to watch but remains heartbreakingly engrossing — and important — from start to finish. The Scandinavian Film Festival tours the country between July 10 and August 5, screening at Sydney's Palace Norton Street, Palace Verona and Palace Central from July 10–29; Melbourne's Palace Cinema Como, Palace Brighton Bay and Palace Westgarth from July 12–29; and Brisbane's Palace Barracks from July 19 to August 5. For the full program, visit the festival website.
Beloved by budget-conscious shoppers, German-born discount supermarket chain Aldi has been slinging its groceries across Australia for over two decades. But for its next big Aussie move, it's setting up shop for just two nights — which'll be filled with ridiculously affordable gin, wine and cheese. As Aldi's devoted customers well and truly know, you can get plenty of things at the company's stores for cheap — not only food, but everything from beds and kettles to games and snow gear as well. On the culinary side of things, that includes dairy products and, in some states, vino, too. So to show them off, Aldi is launching a two-evening-only Sydney bar. Called The Trophy Room, it'll nestle into 111 Elizabeth Street and host just four seatings, with sessions from 5–6.30pm and 7.30–9pm on both Friday, July 15–Saturday, July 16. You'll need to nab a ticket to get in, with bookings opening at 9am on Friday, July 8. Expect plenty of competition for a spot, though — the fact that your entire visit will only cost you $4.41 is certain to attract a crowd. Yes, you read that price correctly. No, there's no missing numeral, and the decimal point isn't in the wrong place either. For less than a fiver per person, you'll get a gin cocktail upon arrival, then a tasting selection from Aldi's wine range, plus a cheese platter featuring Aldi cheeses to line your stomach. The reason for the pop-up, and the super-cheap price? To showcase Aldi's affordable and acclaimed wines, and its just-as-reasonably priced award-winning cheeses, all at a time when inflation is seeing supermarket prices rocket. The Trophy Bar is also designed to be replicated at home — the menu, that is — given that Aldi's vinos would start from $0.83 a glass if they were priced individually, and max out at $2.49 a glass. As for its cheeses, the chain advises that its triple-cream brie would cost $0.56 for a single serve, while a smooth blue cheese would be priced at $0.62. Aldi's Trophy Room will pop up at 111 Elizabeth Street, Sydney from Friday, July 15–Saturday, July 16. Bookings are limited, and open at 9am on Friday, July 8.
When Sydney Sweeney was in Sydney at a Sydney Swans game earlier in 2023, it wasn't just because she was playing the Sydney version of Pokémon and catching them all. Rather, the Euphoria and The White Lotus star was filming a romantic comedy. And when Boxing Day hits this year, cinemagoers will be able to see the end result. Right now, you can watch a sneak peek at rom-com Anyone But You, too, thanks to the movie's just-dropped first teaser trailer. The setup: Sweeney plays Bea, who had a great first date with Ben (Glen Powell, Top Gun: Maverick), then suggests that they pretend to be a couple when things don't quite work out otherwise. There's more to the story, but that isn't what teaser trailers are for — so why the pair's spark fizzled after their first date hasn't been revealed so far. As for that pretence, it comes while they're at a destination wedding. The location: Australia, obviously. From the first look, this clearly falls into a specific category of Aussie-made movies, aka flicks shot Down Under that can't stop reminding viewers that they're set Down Under. So, the trailer includes multiple shots of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House. The latter even features in the background as Bea and Ben are having a Titanic moment on a boat. Anyone But You is directed and co-written by Will Gluck, who has both Easy A and Friends with Benefits on his resume, then the vastly dissimilar Annie and the two Peter Rabbit movies. On-screen, as well as Sweeney, Powell and a whole lot of Sydney — the city — Alexandra Shipp (Barbie), GaTa (Dave), Dermot Mulroney (Secret Invasion), Bryan Brown (C*A*U*G*H*T) and Rachel Griffiths (Total Control) also feature. Check out the trailer for Anyone But You below: Anyone But You opens in cinemas Down Under on December 26, 2023.
Chocolates, roses, free-flowing drinks, all the gelato you can eat, spending every day at the beach: none of these play a part in animated Prime Video series Undone. But if they all were a standard element of everyone's everyday lives — if we were all blissfully happy all the time, in other words — then stories like this multiverse mind-bender wouldn't exist. Screens big and small keep being filled with alternate realities, and tinkering with time as well, because asking "what if?" is an inherently human way to cope with all of life's disappointments. We dream of what might be if things were different and, when we escape into movies and TV shows, our on-screen fantasies keep dreaming those dreams for us. What if there was another realm where things were better? What if, somewhere else out there, those choices you regret had gone another way? What if you could venture backwards to mend whatever you and your loved ones are struggling with, or forwards to solve the consequences of your misdeeds? What if you could reunite with the people you've lost — or get a do-over on the opportunities you'd missed? These are the questions that Undone ponders, as the likes of Everything Everywhere All At Once, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Rick and Morty, Russian Doll and The Matrix franchise have in their own ways. A particular point of obsession flutters at the heart of all these trains of thought, and all these films and television programs, too: fixing everything that's stopping your existence from being perfect. Returning for its second season three years after its first — which was one of the best shows of 2019 — the gorgeously and thoughtfully trippy Undone is especially fixated on this idea. It always has been from the moment its eight-episode initial season appeared with its vivid rotoscoped animation and entrancing leaps into surreal territory; however, in season two it doubles down. Hailing from BoJack Horseman duo Kate Purdy and Raphael Bob-Waksberg, it also remains unsurprisingly concerned with mental illness, and still sees its protagonist caught in an existential crisis. (The pair have a type, but Undone isn't BoJack Horseman 2.0). Again, it deeply understands that contentment doesn't lead to "what if?" queries. Indeed, learning to cope with being stuck in a flawed life, being unable to wish it away and accepting that fate beams brightly away at the heart of the show. During its debut outing, Undone introduced viewers to 28-year-old Alma Winograd-Diaz (Rosa Salazar, Alita: Battle Angel), who found everything she thought she knew pushed askew after a near-fatal car accident. Suddenly, she started experiencing time and her memories differently — including those of her father, Jacob Winograd (Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul), who died over 20 years earlier. In a vision, he tasked her with investigating his death, which became a quest to patch up the past to stop tragedy from striking. Undone's first season was purposefully and perceptively vague, though. Spectacular to look at, and also inventive, smart, funny and tender, it wasn't keen on offering firm answers about Alma's mission, her mental state and its ending. Rather, it was determined to dive deep but stay ambiguous as it examined the meaning of life, and also slotted in alongside shows such as The Good Place, Forever and Maniac. Undone didn't necessarily need a second season, but this repeat dive into Alma's story is just as exceptional as its first — even with one big change. This time, her actions in the last batch of episodes are given a clearcut answer, and another timeline seems to glimmer with almost everything she's ever wanted. But every family's troubles are multifaceted, with more springing up here to fracture the Winograd-Diazs' seeming idyll. With help from her elder sister Becca (Angelique Cabral, How It Ends), Alma now splashes around in her visibly sorrowful mother Camila Diaz's (Constance Marie, With Love) past, including learning about chapters in Mexico decades back that again disrupt the status quo. If it wasn't evident already, it should be now: while it shares more than a few themes in common with BoJack Horseman, Undone dwells in its own world. Still, in its second season, it has another topic on its mind that Purdy and Bob-Waksberg's last show also surveyed — and fellow multiverse effort Everything Everywhere All At Once as well, plus the recent second season of time-travel comedy Russian Doll. Both Encanto and Turning Red mused on the same concept, too: intergenerational trauma. That some pain is so deep-seated in those bearing it that it passes down alongside genes isn't a new realisation, and wasn't back in the 60s when One Hundred Years of Solitude made it its basis on the page. But reckoning with it more often, as is happening now, is a product of a world that's far more willing to pull apart the sins and scars of the past. Accordingly, Undone joins the parade of pop-culture titles excavating it, spying the marks it leaves from generation to generation, and exploring how to face it. There's more certainty in Undone's second go-around — about what's happening, why, what it means and where it comes from — but that doesn't mean that this devastatingly astute series is done with uncertainty. Using rotoscoping, which involves drawing over filmed footage of its actors (see also: Richard Linklater's Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly and Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood), isn't just a stylistic preference or a way to get the best performances out of the series' phenomenal cast. Able to reflect Alma's ever-changing, always-fragile emotional and mental state in every frame, Undone's dreamlike animation is thoroughly unburdened by reality and all the more expressive for it. Show, don't tell: not that it shies away from talking through what's happening, but that's clearly this soulful, stunning and supremely moving program's motto. Deeply rich and resonant, as intelligent and affecting as sci-fi and animation alike get, and dedicated to thinking and feeling big while confronting everyday truths, Undone is like nothing else that's streaming. And yes, that's still accurate even in these busily multiverse-hopping, existence-contemplating times, where dreaming about alternate lives is as natural as breathing. Check out the trailer for Undone season two below: Undone is available to stream via Prime Video.
AFC Richmond supporters, rejoice — and get ready for a hefty rivalry. If you're a fan of the fictional soccer team, then you're obviously a fan of Ted Lasso, the award-winning hit Apple TV+ sitcom that tells its tale. After a year gap, sitting on the bench in 2022, the Jason Sudeikis (Saturday Night Live)-starring show is finally set to return in 2023. Even better: Apple TV+ has confirmed that season three will arrive sometime in autumn Down Under, which is sometime in the next few months. There's no exact release date as yet, but the streaming platform has dropped an initial image for the new episodes which teases quite the clash in the works — between perennially optimistic American Ted and his former offsider Nathan 'Nate' Shelley (Nick Mohammed, Intelligence). View this post on Instagram A post shared by Apple TV+ (@appletvplus) While Ted Lasso has felt like streaming's biggest warm hug across its first and second seasons, it wasn't afraid to skew darker in the latter, including as Nate felt pushed aside, ignored and unloved by Ted. Viewers will know that the last batch of episodes culminated with Nate's defection to opposing club West Ham United, as owned by Rupert Mannion (Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Anthony Stewart Head), ex-husband to AFC Richmond owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham, Hocus Pocus 2). Also part of the Ted Lasso crew: sweary now-retired veteran champion Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein, Uncle), recent hotshot player Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster, The Devil's Hour), Jamie's ex-girlfriend and Roy's current partner Keeley Jones (Juno Temple, The Offer), Ted's laconic second-in-charge and long-time friend Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt, Bless This Mess), and AFC Richmond Director of Football Operations Leslie Higgins (Jeffrey Swift, Housebound). As the sitcom's first two seasons have shown, viewers definitely don't need to love soccer or even sport to fall for this series' ongoing charms — although if you obsessed over the 2022 World Cup, it might help fill the gap until the 2026 version arrives. Kind-hearted in the way that Parks and Recreation, Wellington Paranormal, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Abbott Elementary have also proven, Ted Lasso will be in for a significant obstacle in 2023, thanks to Ted and Nate's battle. Usually, this series celebrates people who support each other, are always there for each other and form close bonds as a result. Indeed, that's what has made it so instantly likeable. But with Nate now working for the competition, change is afoot — don't expect to see the show mess too much with its winning formula, though. There's no trailer for season three just yet, but you can check out the trailer for Ted Lasso's second season below: Season three of Ted Lasso will stream via Apple TV+ sometime in autumn 2023 Down Under — we'll update you with an exact release date when one is announced. Read our full review of season two.
It was really only a matter of time before someone went there — and they finally have. Residents that fit into the intersection of the 'Singapore resident' and 'Orange Is the New Black fan' Venn diagram will be stoked to hear Netflix is opening an a pop-up restaurant themed around the show's prison cafeteria. As of yesterday, June 16, Singaporean diner OverEasy has been transformed into Litchfield Penitentiary Cafeteria to bring the TV prison experience to the people (and also to cash in on the hype surrounding the OITNB season four debut, which should be going up on Netflix sometime today). Chef Bjorn Shen has created the menu inspired by the depressing slop served up in the prison cafeteria but, you know, more gourmet. On the menu? An appetiser of corn kernels with spiced butter, cheese and lime, a main designed to replicate Nutraloaf (the US prison punishment food of three meals literally blended into one), and gruel for dessert (which is actually white chocolate and coconut rice pudding, almond crumble and 'fruit' of the day). And to wash it all down? Delicious tap water (moreish, healthy and flavourful!). Unfortunately the restaurant has filled up pretty quickly but if you're in Singapore right now, you can chance your arm for a walk-in. It's worth a shot because the prison-style grub is free — probably because no one would actually pay for prison fare. And for everyone else, well, we can sleep easy knowing that OITNB-branded GruelTM is surely coming soon to a supermarket near us and get stuck into binge watching season four. Via CNET.
Mark your calendar: if you like free ice cream, as everyone should, then you have a date with a Ben & Jerry's store in April. Each year, the dessert brand chooses one day per year to give everyone a treat without paying a cent. In 2024, that day is Tuesday, April 16. If there's one thing this chain loves above all else, it's the obvious: ice cream in a huge array of ridiculously named flavours. It's the brand behind Chunky Monkey, Cherry Garcia, Phish Food and The Tonight Dough — and has been responsible for Liz Lemon Greek Frozen Yoghurt, Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream and Schweddy Balls, too. But, to the delight of your sweet treat-loving tastebuds, on Free Cone Day it loves giving away free scoops just as much. The occasion is exactly what it sounds like: a day where your ice cream is on the house. It ran annually since 1979 until the pandemic, then took a break for obvious reasons — returning in 2023 for the first time since 2019, and now backing it up in 2024. Here's how it works: if you adore ice cream as much as Ben & Jerry's adores ice cream, then you just need to hit up your local participating store (which is most stores) between 12–8pm. You can choose whichever flavour you like, and you can also line up for a free cone as many times as you like within that eight-hour period. Free Cone Day is happening in both Australia and New Zealand — worldwide, too, in more than 35 countries — at Ben & Jerry's Scoop Stores. Last year, the brand gave away 970,000 scoops around the world, with 180,000 of those Down Under. This year, it wants to top one million free scoops globally, and also beat its Aussie and Aotearoa figure. In Sydney, you'll be hitting up Manly, Bondi Beach and Parramatta, for starters. Melburnians have St Kilda, Flinders Lane and Burwood East stores to choose from, while Brisbanites can head to South Brisbane. In Western Australia, Fremantle, Hillarys and Northbridge Scoop Shops are taking part. Ben & Jerry's also has stores in some Hoyts cinemas — so you might be able to join in when you're seeing a movie, such as at Hoyts Norwood in South Australia. Across Australia, these four spots aren't on the list, sadly: Adelaide Oval, Melbourne Zoo, Werribee Zoo and Healesville Zoo. Over in Aotearoa, options for a free ice cream include Commercial Bay and Ponsonby in Auckland, plus Cuba Street and the airport in Wellington. Free Cone Day runs from 12–8pm on Tuesday, April 16, 2024 at Ben & Jerry's Australian and New Zealand stores. Head to the brand's website for further details.
Step aside Viennetta: there's a new luxe dinner party freezer-treat in town. Connoisseur — that purveyor of luxurious, eat-it-by-the-tub ice cream — has teamed up with artisan Australian chocolate brand Koko Black for a new range of ice cream sticks for more discerning chocolate aficionados. The duo of new flavours serve as a good reminder that, sometimes, you can't go past a classic. The vanilla version sees Connoisseur's vanilla coated in Koko Black's 54 percent dark chocolate. If you're looking for a bit more crunch, make a beeline for the honeycomb stick that stars honeycomb ice cream in Koko Black's signature Tasmanian Leatherwood Honeycomb pieces in 54 percent dark chocolate. It's the first time the Melbourne-born chocolatier has made its way into the frozen aisle, which is surprising given that its more recent collabs have included cake and beer. Connoisseur's Koko Black selections are available as four-packs ($8.40), while the classic vanilla is also available as an individual stick ($4.40). They're available right now from leading convenience and grocery stores around Australia.
When international art collective teamLab launched Borderless, its Tokyo-based permanent digital-only art museum, the kaleidoscopic space became the most-visited single-artist site in the world in just its first year of operation. Wherever the outfit pops up — be it in Shanghai oil tanks, Japanese hot springs or Melbourne — its installations are always hugely popular. So it's no wonder that the group keeps expanding its footprint by opening more permanent locations. Late in 2019, teamLab launched a new venue in Shanghai, which is also called Borderless. This year, it also started a museum called SuperNature in Macao. And, come 2024, it'll set up shop in The Netherlands as well — thanks to a new permanent digital art exhibition in Utrecht, which'll become the Europe's first centre dedicated to digital art. Called Nowhere, the next teamLab site will take over a 3000-square-metre space — and fill it with a range of the collective's typically vibrant and luminous works. While specific details about these pieces are yet to be revealed, Nowhere will be home to 'Future Park' and 'Athletics Forest' areas like its other venues. That means digital art fans can expect an all-ages, educational range of works, as well as engaging and fun activities that'll get you to physically interact with the pieces on offer. With the space's opening still four years away, clearly more details will be provided in that period; however teamLab will be pondering familiar themes. In a statement about the new exhibition, the group noted that it'll be exploring the expanding and spreading notion of beauty, the way it changes people's perceptions, and the fact that "everything exists in a fragile yet miraculous continuity over an extremely long period of time" — and that it's aiming "to create an experience through which visitors recognise this continuity itself as beautiful". In other words, it sounds like teamLab's next batch light and projection-heavy art will once again dazzle, immerse and get audiences thinking as they wander through and interact with the new space. In terms of its location, Nowhere will form part of an impressive spot, too. It'll nestle into the ground floor of Utrecht's new biodiversity-focused Wonderwoods development, which'll feature more than 360 trees and almost 9750 shrubs and plants in a green urban space next to Utrecht Central Station — so, before you mosey around teamLab's digital wonders, you have soak in some natural splendour as well. Of course, digital art aficionados Down Under will need to cross their fingers that international travel has returned to normal by 2024 — so put visiting Nowhere on your post-pandemic travel bucket list. teamLab Nowhere will open at Wonderwoods, Jaarbeurs Boulevard, Utrecht, at a yet-to-be-announced 2024 date — we'll update you with further details when they're announced. Top image: teamLab SuperNature. Mountain of Flowers and People: Lost, Immersed and Reborn, 2020, Interactive Digital Installation, Endless, Sound: Hideaki Takahashi © teamLab.
