Minimalist Aussie clothing designer Assembly Label is currently hosting a massive online charity sale so you can upgrade your wardrobe with linen pants and a comfy woollen knit tee— and help Aussies doing it tough. With both men's and women's wear on offer, you'll find both cosy outfits for those chilly La Niña days such as denim, jumpers and jackets, plus swimwear, dresses and shorts ready for when the next summer heat wave hits. Best of all, you can nab it all at up to 50 percent off. There's a whole range of summer essentials available for cheap on the site. You could be sporting this cord drawn black dress, for example, at your next beachside brunch or sunny summer picnic for $60 down from $100. As part of the sale, Assembly Label has a choose-what-you-pay initiative raising money for the Curing Homesickness, an organisation that helps kids get home from hospital sooner. When you buy a sale item, you can choose to pay an extra $5, $10 or $15, with that amount then matched by Assembly Label and donated to Curing Homesickness. So, you can grab some new threads and feel good about it too.
Melbourne's revered croissant experts at Lune are at it again, this time with an exclusive cruffin (that's a cross between a muffin and a croissant for you uncultured beasts). For two days only on the Saturday and Sunday of January 20-21, head into any Lune location in Melbourne or Brisbane to grab yourself "The Magic", a cruffin created in partnership with Visit Victoria to pay tribute to Melbourne's iconic coffee scene. To create The Magic, the flaky, buttery pastry is injected with a rich, aromatic Square One coffee cream. It's then adorned with a delicate dusting of Mörk chocolate, a swirl of coffee and vanilla buttercream, and a sprinkle of toasted cocoa nibs. Lune is no stranger to crafting the perfect pastry, so you'll want to get in quick if you're keen on tasting one for yourself. All Lune locations are open from 8am–3pm, but these gems might be snapped up well before closing, so it's a race against time and other pastry fiends if you want to nab one (or a half dozen). Remember, early bird gets the magic cruffin. Good luck! Lune has locations in Melbourne (Armadale, Fitzroy, Melbourne CBD) and Brisbane (Brisbane CBD, South Brisbane). All Lune stores are open 8am–3pm.
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 to old favourites, here are our picks for your streaming queue from November's haul of newbies. BRAND NEW STUFF YOU CAN WATCH IN FULL CAUSEWAY Trauma is a screenwriter's best friend. If on-screen characters didn't have past stresses to overcome or new hardships to cope with — usually both — then dramatic scripts would barely last a few pages. Neither would horror flicks, or thrillers, or plenty of comedies; however, few films are happy to sit with trauma in the way that (and as well as) Causeway does. Starring Jennifer Lawrence (Don't Look Up) as a military veteran sent home from Afghanistan after being blown up, working her way through rehab and determined to re-enlist as soon as she has medical sign-off, this subtle, thoughtful and powerful movie grapples with several stark truths. It knows that some woes do genuinely change lives, and not for the better. It's well aware that many miseries can't be overcome, and completely alter the person experiencing them. It's keenly cognisant that that simply existing can be a series of heartbreaks, and escaping that cycle can be the most powerful motivator in the world. And, when Atlanta and Bullet Train's Brian Tyree Henry enters the picture as a New Orleans mechanic with his own history, it sees the solace that can be found between people willing to face their tough realities together. When Causeway begins, Lawrence's Lynsey is freshly out of hospital, and learning how to walk, dress, shower, drive and do all other everyday tasks again. Even then, she still wants to redeploy. Directed by feature first-timer Lila Neugebauer (The Sex Lives of College Girls), and penned by fellow debutants Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel and Elizabeth Sanders, the film spies the determination in its protagonist's eyes — and the pain she's trying to bury after she goes home to stay with her mother (Linda Emond, The Patient), gets drawn into old unhealthy dynamics, but finds a friend in Henry's kind, eager but haunted James. There's no cross-country drive with a canine, if the similarly themed Dog comes to mind, but rather a willingness to steep in Lynsey and James' complicated emotions. Neugebauer has the perfect central duo for the movie's key parts, too; neither Lawrence nor Henry's resumes are short on highlights, acclaim or award nominations, but their respective textured, naturalistic and deeply felt performances in Causeway ranks among each's best work. Causeway streams via Apple TV+. CALL JANE Whenever Call Jane peers Elizabeth Banks' way, the look on her face doesn't just speak a thousand words — it screams a million of them, even while she's silent. That said, although first-timer filmmaker Phyllis Nagy (who last penned Carol's screenplay) directs the lens towards her star often, there's nothing quite like Banks' expression in an early pivotal scene. The Charlie's Angels and Brightburn star plays Joy, a happy Chicago housewife with a 15-year-old daughter (Grace Edwards, American Crime Story) and a baby on the way, until she learns that her pregnancy is causing a heart condition. If she remains in the family way, there's a 50-percent chance that she mightn't survive; however, this is 1968 in America, before the Roe v Wade decision that legalised abortion. In the scene in question, Joy is the only woman in the room, and yet the men around her talk about her life and potential death like she isn't even present. Worse: most of those male doctors are only concerned about whether the baby might make it to term. Joy seethes with pain, anger and heartbreak, then secretly takes a path that'll be familiar to viewers of 2022 documentary The Janes, contacting a clandestine service that helps women in such circumstances. As played with charm, warmth, depth and potency by Banks, Joy does more than merely pick up the phone. Soon, she's helping other women cope, alongside a team of ladies led by Sigourney Weaver (Ghostbusters: Afterlife) as Virginia. The latter is also canny casting, bringing both gravitas and understanding to the role — and the rapport between Call Jane's two central figures helps convey not only the urgency driving and importance behind the hotline's existence, but the crucial camaraderie. Still at home venturing decades into the past on-screen, Nagy and cinematographer Greta Zozula ensure that every second looks the rich, authentic period part, and a well-chosen soundtrack adds to the time-capsule feel. Of course, Call Jane isn't merely a look back. It'd be moving, sensitive and inspiring if the situation in the US hadn't changed this year via a Supreme Court ruling, once again putting women in Joy's situation, but now it acts as a cautionary tale as well, not to mention a reminder about banding together to fight back. Call Jane streams via Prime Video. WEDNESDAY It's a truth that Morticia, Gomez, Wednesday and Pugsley would treasure: nearly a century might've passed since The Addams Family first graced the pages of The New Yorker in the 1930s, but this creepy, kooky, mysterious and ooky brood will never die. America's first macabre family keeps entrancing and enchanting audiences, luring them in with their unflinching embrace of the eerie, the gothic, and the all-round dark and twisted. Forget bumps, jumps, screams and shrieks, however; this off-kilter crew might pal around with a severed limb and adore graveyards, but they also delight in a gloriously eclectic, eccentric, embrace-your-inner-outcast fashion, as the 1960s TV show, 1991's live-action film The Addams Family and its 1993 sequel Addams Family Values, and now new Netflix series Wednesday understands and adores. The Addams Family's latest go-around arrives stitched-together as so much is of late. Netflix's algorithm has accurately gleaned that viewers love cartoonist Charles Addams' horror-influenced creations. It knows that people like mysteries and teen coming-of-age tales, two of the platform's favourite genres. And, the service is well-aware that already-beloved big names are a drawcard. Throw in Tim Burton directing like it's his 80s and 90s heyday, current scream queen Jenna Ortega sporting the trademark plaits, 90s Wednesday Christina Ricci returning in a new part, and a supernatural school for unusual children complete with Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children-meets-Hogwarts vibes, and Wednesday's various pieces are as evident as the sewn-on limbs on Frankenstein's monster. And yet, while seeing why and how Netflix has crafted this series, and which levers it's pulling to electrify its experiment, is as easy as getting a killer glare from Wednesday's teenage protagonist, enjoying every second because it's astutely, knowingly and lovingly spliced together is just as straightforward — especially with Scream, Studio 666 and X star Ortega leading the show so commandingly and convincingly. Wednesday streams via Netflix. Read our full review. 1899 Before the Titanic collided with an iceberg, became one of modern history's most famous tragedies and inspired one of cinema's biggest box-office hits, a different cross-Atlantic liner sailed into chaos. So says Dark's Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, with the German pair's new — and wholly fictional — Netflix series 1899 taking place onboard the steamship Kerberos 13 years before the sinking that everyone knows about. This vessel is travelling from England to America with 1400 crew and passengers, filling everywhere from stately rooms to jam-packed halls. Among its number: Maura Franklin (Emily Beecham, The Pursuit of Love), a rare female doctor at the time; Kerberos' captain Eyk Larsen (Dark alum Andreas Pietschmann); and everyone from French newlyweds hardly in the throes of married bliss to a devoutly religious Danish family. Then the ship receives word of a missing craft. Owned by the same company, the Prometheus took the same route four months prior, and was thought to have disappeared without a trace until that distress signal beckons. Friese and bo Odar love a mystery, and 1899 has a hefty one right from the outset. Friese and bo Odar also love making labyrinthine puzzle-box shows that keep dropping clues, twists, and philosophical ideas about the meaning and point of existence in aid of the bigger picture — aka an approach that made 2017–20 German-language effort Dark such a massive and deserving success. Here, they ensure that sparks ignite twice by diving even deeper into their favourite themes, tactics and flourishes, and delivering a boatload of thrills, suspense and intrigue. With Friese and bo Odar pulling the strings, Dark and now 1899 instantly grab attention with their riddles, nightmarishly brooding mood and — as one series put right there in its name — their willingness to get and stay dark. Throw in the pair's penchant for existential musings, trippy setups and premise-shattering revelations, and both shows are catnip for mystery lovers. 1899 streams via Netflix. Read our full review. THE ENGLISH It tells of gold rushes, of brave and dusty new worlds, and of yellow frontiers stretching out beneath shimmering and inky blue skies; however, the true colour of the western is and always will be red. This isn't a genre for the faint-hearted, because it's a genre that spins stories about power and its brutal costs — power over the land and its Indigenous inhabitants; power-fuelled in-fighting among competing colonialists; and power exercised with zero regard for life, or typically for anyone who isn't white and male. It's a rich and resonant touch, then, to repeatedly dress Emily Blunt (Jungle Cruise) in crimson, pink and shades in-between in The English, 2022's best new TV western. She plays one instance of the show's namesakes, because the impact of the British spans far beyond just one person in this series — and the quest for revenge she's on in America's Old West is deeply tinted by bloodshed. In her first ongoing television role since 2005, in a stunning and powerful series from its performances and story through to its spirit and cinematography, Blunt dons such eye-catching hues as Lady Cornelia Locke. With a mountain of baggage and cash in tow, she has just reached Kansas when The English begins, seeking vengeance against the man responsible for her son's death. But word of her aims precedes her to this remote outpost's racist hotelier (Ciarán Hinds, Belfast) and, with stagecoach driver (Toby Jones, The Wonder), he has own mission. That the aristocratic Englishwoman arrives to find her host torturing Pawnee cavalry scout Eli Whipp (Chaske Spencer, Blindspot) is telling: the plan is to blame her end on him. Before the first of this miniseries' episodes ends, however, Cornelia and Eli have rescued each other, notched up a body count and started a journey together that sees them each endeavouring to find peace in a hostile place in their own ways — and started their way through one helluva show. The English streams via Prime Video. Read our full review. DEAD TO ME When Dead to Me's ten-episode first season came to an end back in 2019, it was with secrets being exposed, plus a growing list of both woes and deaths. In season two, which dropped another ten episodes in 2020, Jen Harding (Christina Applegate, Bad Moms 2) and Judy Hale (Linda Cardellini, Hawkeye), the chalk-and-cheese pair at the show's centre, had worked through the fallout. There's been plenty to deal with, including the hit and run that left Laguna Beach real-estate agent Jen widowed, Judy's tale about the loss of her fiancé Steve Wood (James Marsden, Sonic the Hedgehog 2) and the truth behind both — as well as the reality of having Steve's kinder, cornier twin brother Ben (also Marsden) around. This is a show about cycles and circles, so when its second outing finished, it was with another accident, this time with Jen and Judy as its victims. That's where season three's ten episodes pick up, with the two women in hospital weathering yet another aftermath to a significant event with yet another round of life-changing consequences. Finding solace in complicated bonds, the strength to confront life's challenges, and the savviness to know when to appreciate the small wins and big delights: that's Dead to Me season three's arc. It's the series' in general, and was long before it was announced that it would finish after a third and final run. Of course, now that it's coming to an end — a fitting one, that keeps recognising the gifts, shocks, joys and sorrows that greet everyone — farewells and heightened feelings frequently go hand in hand. Cue unexpected diagnoses, meddling cops (returnees Diana Maria Riva, Kajillionaire, and Brandon Scott, Goliath), sleuthing federal agents (series newcomer Garrett Dillahunt, Where the Crawdads Sing), old flames (Natalie Morales, The Little Things) and frustrating neighbours (Suzy Nakamura, Avenue 5). And, cue creepy rooms filled with twin dolls, plus outlaw names: Bitch Cassidy and Judy Five Fingers (who chooses which is obvious) as well. Yes, Dead to Me goes all in on as many more plot swings as it can fit in as it rides off into the sunset. In the process, the show's swansong evokes as many emotions as it can, too. Dead to Me streams via Netflix. Read our full review. THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY HOLIDAY SPECIAL Two words: Kevin Bacon. That's the festive gift that The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special gives audiences, aka the gift that always keeps on giving. Viewers of this ragtag crew's big-screen adventures so far — including 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy and 2017's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 — know that Peter Quill aka Star-Lord (Chris Pratt, Jurassic World Dominion) loves the Bacon. Rightly so, too. Accordingly, in what's an obvious but also delightful move, the gang's first small-screen special celebrates the holiday season by trying to give the iconic Footloose, Friday the 13th, Apollo 13 and Wild Things star as a present. New to Christmas and its significance to humans, and knowing that Quill is struggling after a big loss, Mantis (Pom Klementieff, Westworld) and Drax (Dave Bautista, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery) think that their plan is perfectly acceptable, but chaos ensues, including when the two discover Christmas decorations. The second of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's straight-to-streaming specials in 2022, and the second that's occasion-themed as well — following the Halloween-targeted Werewolf by Night — The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special is Marvel at its silliest and fluffiest. Getting gleefully goofy, and retro, has always been Quill and company's vibe, but this 44-minute affair takes that tone to another level. There's no missing how slight it all is, how much heavy lifting Bacon does just by being Bacon in an on-screen realm that worships Bacon, and the fact that it's a piece of marketing timed just when merchandise sales could double as gifts. Nonetheless, the gang's usual writer/director James Gunn (The Suicide Squad) still heartily embraces his brief. A big highlight, other than the vibe, the fun and poignancy that spring, and teenage Groot (Vin Diesel, Fast & Furious 9), is the range of alternative Christmas songs on the soundtrack — starting with The Pogues' 'Fairytale of New York' and including Julian Casablancas and The Smashing Pumpkins' merry contributions. The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special streams via Disney+. NEW AND RETURNING SHOWS TO CHECK OUT WEEK BY WEEK WELCOME TO CHIPPENDALES Scandals are to the true-crime genre like loose bills are to erotic dancers: virtually essential. On-screen stories about real life can exist without getting into ripped-from-the-headlines territory, of course, and performers who disrobe onstage can do their job without crumpled notes being thrust their way. Still, some synergies just work. In 2022, TV writer and producer Robert Siegel has happily mined sordid chapters of the past for two new streaming series, and how — first with the instantly watchable and engrossing Pam & Tommy, and now with the just-as-easy-to- Welcome to Chippendales. The second sees him survey the eponymous male stripping business, of course, showers of dollar notes and all. And for viewers who don't already know the details behind the world-famous touring dance troupe and its West Los Angeles bar origins, as started by Somen 'Steve' Banerjee back in the 70s and earning ample attention in the 80s, the full rundown has far more than scantily clad guys aplenty, lusty women, and bumping and grinding to an era-appropriate soundtrack. Kumail Nanjiani (Eternals) plays Steve, who rustles up the cash to start his own backgammon club by working in a service station for years. His dream place: cool, suave and sophisticated, and somewhere that Hugh Hefner might want to hang out. When a rush of patrons doesn't eventuate, the male dancer idea springs after a night at a gay bar with club promoter Paul Snider (Dan Stevens, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities) and his playboy model wife Dorothy Stratten (Nicola Peltz Beckham, Holidate). But as business partners change, choreographer and Emmy-winning producer Nick De Noia (Murray Bartlett, Physical) gives the troupe its crowd-pleasing moves, Steve kinds a kindred spirit in accountant Irene (Annaleigh Ashford, American Crime Story) and costume designer Denise (Juliette Lewis, Yellowjackets) comes on board, this twists into a tale of money, envy, squabbles over power and ultimately murder. And yes, both Nanjiani and Bartlett are riveting to watch — as are the dance routines De Noia conjures up. Welcome to Chippendales streams via Disney+. MYTHIC QUEST Starring in short-form ABC iView and YouTube series Content back in 2019, Charlotte Nicdao played a wannabe influencer who hoped that her online antics would bring her fame. Nicdao's career dates back almost two decades now, including past roles on The Slap, Please Like Me and Get Krack!n, but the Australian actor has certainly catapulted to stardom after her #Flipgirl days. In Mythic Quest, her character Poppy Li has also been seeking the spotlight. A gifted coder, as well as the technical force behind the hit video game that gives the series its name, she wants recognition and respect more than celebrity status, however. Three seasons in, she also wants her own hit title, rather than just always being stuck in creative director Ian Grimm's (Rob McElhenney, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) shadow. So, they've branched out on their own, away from their big success, in what's supposed to be a true 50/50 partnership — if they can get it together. On-screen, this season is about breaking out of one's comfort zones and embracing new challenges, even if Ian and Poppy are just on a different floor of the same building as Mythic Quest's regular crew — such as neurotic executive producer David Brittlesbee (David Hornsby, Good Girls), his brusk assistant Jo (Jessie Ennis, The Flight Attendant) and disgraced ex-finance head (Danny Pudi, Community). The series itself isn't quite in the same situation, though, because it's still finding new depths to explore by focusing on its characters' relationships with each other. Throwing a motley crew together, watching them bounce around, seeing how they change and grow — if the characters in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia were capable of significant change and growth, McElhenney's two shows would have plenty in common. They still do, including an incisive ability to satirise and reshape the genre they're each in, aka the workplace sitcom. As Mythic Quest keeps going, it also keeps getting sharper and funnier. Mythic Quest streams via Apple TV+. FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE The title doesn't lie: when Fleishman Is in Trouble begins, its namesake is indeed struggling. He's also perfectly cast. If you're going to get an actor to play an anxious, unravelling, recently divorced man in his forties who's trying to navigate the new status quo of sharing custody of his kids, having a high-powered ex, and being initiated into the world of dating apps and casual hookups, it's Jesse Eisenberg. If his Zombieland character lived happily ever after until he didn't, or his Vivarium character was trapped into a different type of domestic maze, this book-to-screen series would be the end result. Fleishman Is in Trouble has Eisenberg play Toby, a well-regarded hepatologist who is passionate about being able to help people through medicine, but has spent more than a decade being made to feel inferior by Upper East Siders because his job hasn't made him rich enough. His theatre talent agent wife — now former — Rachel (Claire Danes, The Essex Serpent) had the exact same attitude, too, until she dropped their kids off at his place in the middle of the night, said she was going to a yoga retreat and stopped answering his calls. Written to sound like a profile — something that journalist, author and screenwriter Taffy Brodesser-Akner knows well, and has the awards to prove it — Fleishman Is in Trouble chronicles Toby's present woes while reflecting upon his past. It's a messy and relatable story, regardless of whether you've ever suddenly become a full-time single dad working a high-stakes job you're devoted to in a cashed-up world you resent. As narrated by the ever-shrewd Lizzy Caplan (Truth Be Told) as Toby's old college pal-turned-writer and now stay-at-home-mum Libby, Fleishman Is in Trouble dives into the minutiae that makes Toby's new existence such a swirling sea of uncertainty. At the same time, while being so specific about his situation and troubles, it also ensures that all that detail paints a universal portrait of discovering that more of your time is gone, your hopes faded and your future receded, than you'd realised. Everything from class inequality and constant social hustling to the roles women are forced to play around men earns the show's attention in the process, as layered through a show that's both meticulously cast and evocatively shot. Fleishman is indeed in trouble, but this miniseries isn't. Fleishman Is in Trouble streams via Disney+. THE SEX LIVES OF COLLEGE GIRLS That Chalamet family is everywhere. In cinemas, Timothée is currently taking a bite out of another yearning-filled romance — his specialty — in Bones and All. On streaming, The Sex Lives of College Girls starring his sister Pauline (The King of Staten Island) has just returned. After ranking among 2021's new highlights, this university-set comedy gets its second season off to just as charming and energetic a start, and with just as healthy a lashing of the kind of comedy that series co-creator Mindy Kaling is known for. If you watched The Office, The Mindy Project, Never Have I Ever and the TV Four Weddings and a Funeral remake, you know the vibe — but focused on four 18-year-olds navigating their freshman year at a prestigious Vermont college. And, while each one of that key quartet fits a type to begin with, including studious, sporty, posh and funny (yes, they're one short of the full Spice Girls), unpacking those first impressions sits firmly at the heart of the series. This time around, scholarship student Kimberly Finkle (Chalamet), aspiring comedy writer Bela Malhotra (Amrit Kaur, The D Cut), star soccer player Whitney Chase (Alyah Chanelle Scott, Reboot) and the wealthy Leighton Murray (theatre star Reneé Rapp) know what to expect on campus. When season two starts, however, they're persona non grata among the fraternities after season one's events. As well as humorously observing the antics of teenage girls discovering who they are, The Sex Lives of College Girls loves unfurling and interrogating obvious but loaded contrasts, like why its four smart protagonists feel drawn to the frat party scene to begin with. Also earning the show's focus in its latest batch of episodes, as examined with the same warmth, insight and hilarity as its first go-around: income inequality, busting preconceptions, coming out, relationship double standards and starting a comedy magazine. The Sex Lives of College Girls streams via Binge. 2022 CINEMA HIGHLIGHTS WORTH CATCHING UP WITH AT HOME PETITE MAMAN Forget the "find someone who looks at you like…" meme. That's great advice in general, and absolutely mandatory if you've ever seen a Céline Sciamma film. No one peers at on-screen characters with as much affection, attention, emotion and empathy as the French director. Few filmmakers even come close, and most don't ever even try. That's been bewitchingly on display in her past features Water Lillies, Tomboy, Girlhood and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, any of which another helmer would kill to have on their resume. It's just as apparent in Petite Maman, her entrancing latest release, as well. Now 15 years into her directorial career, Sciamma's talent for truly seeing into hearts and minds is unshakeable, unparalleled and such a lovely wonder to watch — especially when it shines as sublimely and touchingly as it does here. In Sciamma's new delicate and exquisite masterpiece, the filmmaker follows eight-year-old Nelly (debutant Joséphine Sanz) on a trip to her mother's (Nina Meurisse, Camille) childhood home. The girl's maternal grandmother (Margot Abascal, The Sower) has died, the house needs packing up, and the trip is loaded with feelings on all sides. Her mum wades between sorrow and attending to the task. With melancholy, she pushes back against her daughter's attempts to help, too. Nelly's laidback father (Stéphane Varupenne, Monsieur Chocolat) assists as well, but with a sense of distance; going through the lifelong belongings of someone else's mother, even your spouse's, isn't the same as sifting through your own mum's items for the last time. While her parents work, the curious Nelly roves around the surrounding woods — picture-perfect and oh-so-enticing as they are — and discovers Marion (fellow newcomer Gabrielle Sanz), a girl who could be her twin. Petite Maman 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, September and October this year. You can also check out our running list of standout must-stream 2022 shows so far as well — and our best 15 new shows from the first half of this year, top 15 returning shows over the same period and best 15 straight-to-streaming movies up until June.
Sometimes, you just have to take advice from a pop-culture phenomenon — and if you're wondering whether to see Lin-Manuel Miranda's game-changing musical Hamilton, you need to listen to the show itself. Melburnians, you don't want to throw away your shot to see the biggest show of the past seven years and the most talked-about musical of the decade right here at home while you can. After premiering in Sydney in early 2021, Hamilton has been dazzling Melbourne since March this year; however, its time at Her Majesty's Theatre is limited. The show will officially close on Sunday, January 15, 2023, ready to make the move to Brisbane, letting the Sunshine State be in the room where it happens. That's the sad news — and news that means that you'll need to get as passionate about getting a ticket as Alexander Hamilton was about America if you haven't caught Hamilton's Melbourne run yet. Here's some great news to go with it, though: you can still nab yourself a cheap ticket to see this musical take on US politics in the 18th century. As happened with The Book of Mormon, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Moulin Rouge! The Musical, a ticket lottery is being held for Hamilton's Melbourne season — and, while it started when the show did, it's still going strong. Plus, this one is cheap. Very cheap, in fact. Via TodayTix, you can sign up for your chance to score a ticket for just $10. Yes, that figure is accurate. To take part in the lottery, you will need to download the TodayTix app — which is available for iOS and Android — and submit your entry each Friday. The lottery goes live at 12.01am every Friday morning and closes at 1pm the next Thursday, with winners drawn between 1–6pm on that Thursday. If your name is selected, you'll have an hour to claim your tickets from when you receive the good news. And, if you need a reminder, you'll also be able to sign up for lottery alerts via Today Tix, too. Hamilton isn't the kind of musical you miss while it's in town. After hitting Broadway in 2015, it has won 11 Tony Awards and become one of the Obamas' favourite musicals, too. The critically acclaimed hip hop show, for which Miranda wrote the music, lyrics and the book, is about the life of its eponymous Founding Father, as well as inclusion and politics in current-day America — and in addition to its those Tonys, which include Best Musical, it has nabbed a Grammy Award and even a Pulitzer Prize. While you wait for your lottery shot, you can still watch the filmed version of Hamilton with the original Broadway cast on Disney+ — yes, it's as phenomenal as you've heard. Hamilton's Melbourne season runs until Sunday, January 15, 2023 at Her Majesty's Theatre. Visit the musical's website for further details. To enter the Today Tix $10 lottery, download the company's iOS or Android app, and head to the company's website for more information — and to set up an alert. Images: Daniel Boud, Destination NSW.
Melbourne's eastern suburbs aren't short of ramen joints, so you shouldn't take this recommendation lightly. The recipes at Ichi Ramen come courtesy of Rikisai Miyajima, who runs the Osaka Ramen School in Japan. These warming dishes come from a family recipe and have been perfected over 25 years of experimentation. You can't go past the signature tonkotsu or chicken broth ramen, or there's a bunch of specialty ramens that are customisable, including a heap of seafood options like blue swimmer crab, king prawns, clams and oysters. Not in the mood for soup? The menu is complete with dry sauce ramen, Japanese curry rice and udon dishes, massive servings of katsu, sharing plates and bento boxes. Images: Tracey Ah-kee.
If you're one of those people who love working out heavy emotions in a strenuous yoga class but feel super uncomfortable with all the spiritual accoutrements, we have just the thing for you: Fury Yoga. It's a new monthly yoga concept that encourages you to lean in to your rage — all in the process of releasing it, of course. Hosted at Bar Open, Fury Yoga lets you give chakras the finger, say FU instead of namaste, and rage against the whatever machine is pissing you off (all while listening to a badass soundtrack and practising some powerful vinyasa). The class will tap into your fury, let you scream and stretch it out, and finish up with a bev or two at the bar. The ticket price is a tad more expensive than those of its calm counterparts at $25, but it includes a post-workout pot (and use of a yoga mat). Plus, it's run by the instructors who brought you Bey Yoga, so you're in safe hands.
First, the glorious news: since Thursday, August 5, all has been right in Melbourne's cinema scene again. For the first time 2019, the Melbourne International Film Festival has been taking over the city's picture palaces, filling them with the best movies it can find and letting film lovers live their most joyous lives. Yes, it's as wonderful as it sounds. Now, the sad news for Melburnians: come Sunday, August 21, this year's in-person MIFF comes to an end. Thankfully, MIFF Play, the festival's online platform, is sticking around for another week. That's a wonderful development for cinephiles located well beyond Melbourne, too, with the digital program showing nationally. Finding something to stream is never difficult these days, but until Sunday, August 28, your usual queue can wait. It'll still be there when you're doing MIFFing on your couch — after popping your own popcorn, pouring a glass of wine, and politely asking your partner or housemate to turn their phone off, to complete the cinema-at-home experience. But when that date rolls by, MIFF Play's impressive lineup won't still be there at the touch of a button. It's the MIFF you can hit up when you can't be at MIFF, and these are our ten must-see picks. Happy watching. HIT THE ROAD How fitting it is that a film about family — about the ties that bind, and when those links are threatened not by choice but via unwanted circumstances — hails from an impressive lineage itself. How apt it is that Hit the Road explores the extent that ordinary Iranians find themselves going to escape the nation's oppressive authorities, too, given that the filmmaker behind it is Panah Panahi, son of acclaimed auteur Jafar Panahi. The latter's run-ins with the country's regime have been well-documented. The elder Panahi, director of Closed Curtain, Tehran Taxi and more, has been both imprisoned and banned from making movies over the past two decades, and was detained again in July 2022 for enquiring about the legal situation surrounding There Is No Evil helmer Mohammad Rasoulof. None of that directly comes through in Hit the Road's story, not for a moment, but the younger Panahi's directorial debut is firmly made with a clear shadow lingering over it. As penned by the fledgling filmmaker as well, Hit the Road's narrative is simple and also devastatingly layered; in its frames, two starkly different views of life in Iran are apparent. What frames they are, as lensed by Ballad of a White Cow cinematographer Amin Jafari — with every sequence a stunner, but three in particular, late in the piece and involving fraught exchanges, nighttime stories and heartbreaking goodbyes, among the most mesmerising images committed to celluloid in recent years. Those pictures tell of a mother (Pantea Panahiha, Rhino), a father (Mohammad Hassan Madjooni, Pig), their adult son (first-timer Amin Simiar) and their six-year-old boy (scene-stealer Rayan Sarlak, Gol be khodi), all unnamed, who say they're en route to take their eldest to get married. But the journey is a tense one, even as the youngest among them chatters, sings, does ordinary childhood things and finds magic in his cross-country road trip, all with zero knowledge of what eats at the rest of his family. WE WERE ONCE KIDS A wide array of movies first hit silver screens in 1995, as they have every year since the advent of the medium. It was the year of Clueless, Before Sunrise, Billy Madison, Empire Records and Casper — and of Casino, Apollo 13, Babe, Showgirls and Seven, too. But only one is the subject of excellent documentary We Were Once Kids, which sees Australian filmmaker Eddie Martin (All This Mayhem, Have You Seen the Listers?) peer back at perhaps the most controversial movie of the 90s. That's the era's judgement, as archival news clips make plain from the outset. When Larry Clark's Kids reached cinemas, the mainstream press was scandalised at its portrait of New York City, the teens who live in it, and the drugs, sex, parties and violence that's shown to be an everyday part of their lives. Even if any of that was actually shocking, it'd have nothing on the tale around the tale — one about a tight-knit group of friends growing up in poverty, meeting Clark and a then 19-year-old Harmony Korine, finding their existence turned into a movie, and getting little more than some screentime and $1000 to show for it. Hamilton Chango Harris is one such Kids alum, aka a skater who temporarily became a movie star. He and his pals enjoyed Clark and screenwriter Korine's attention, and the break from their routines — with skating and partying already a break from their troubles, including parents struggling with addiction, at home. Harris is We Were Once Kids' key subject, but Martin understandably focuses on Justin Pierce and Harold Hunter, who had the biggest hopes for post-Kids fame but tragically aren't here now to tell their own stories. This is a gripping and damning doco about filmmakers who catapulted to success on the back of exploiting the working class, and about the complete lack of care they had for the lives they co-opted and the fallout. One story, from Harris, Pierce and Hunter's friend Highlyann Krasnow, says oh-so-much. She opted out of featuring in Kids when she saw how Clark and Spring Breakers' Korine had sexualised their group. That didn't change the film at all; instead, Chloë Sevigny (Russian Doll) and Rosario Dawson (DMZ) were cast, and are now household names. YUNI Again and again in Yuni, a heartbreaking clash echoes. Its sounds stem from schoolyard gossip, superstitious tut-tutting, ultra-conservative demands and reminders that its titular character shouldn't steal anything purple that she sees. In the third feature from Indonesian filmmaker Kamila Andini (The Seen and Unseen), Yuni (Arawinda Kirana, Angkringan) is a 16-year-old in a Muslim society where agreeing to an arranged marriage is the only thing truly expected of her. When the movie begins, a proposal from construction worker Iman (Muhammad Khan, Memories of My Body) already lingers. After she declines, her classmates chatter. Then another offer comes from the much-older Mang Dodi (first-timer Toto ST Radik), who is looking for a second wife. Yuni knows the accepted myth that any woman who refuses more than two proposals will never wed, but she's also keen to make her own choices. She has a crush on teacher Mr Damar (Dimas Aditya, Satan's Slaves), and spends time with the younger and infatuated Yoga (Kevin Ardilova, Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash). She's also the smartest student at her school, with dreams of attending university. Andini's film is full of specifics, diving into the minutiae of Yuni's life — surveying Indonesian society and its customs, the roles thrust upon women from their teenage years, and enormous gap between the path that she's supposed to follow and the yearnings of her heart. This is a movie where scenes of its protagonist hanging out with her friends, whether kicking back on the grass talking about boys or dressing up with her beautician pal Suci (Asmara Abigail, Satan's Slaves 2: Communion), could be scenes from almost any teenage girl's life. Of course, then the reality sinks in, whether in discussions about husbands, babies and virginity tests, or in the teary worries about horrific power imbalances. The ability of poetry to capture everything that can't be easily uttered otherwise also floats through Andini's deeply moving picture, so it should come as no surprise that Yuni is both naturalistic and lyrical. It's precise and universal, follows an easily foreseeable path and yet proves full of surprises, and is astutely directed as well — and Kirana is a star. MASS Two couples, one church, six years of baggage and two absent children. That's one of the equations at the heart of Mass. Here's another: four phenomenal performances, one smart and affecting script that tackles a difficult subject in a candid and thoughtful way, and one powerful directorial debut by actor-turned-filmmaker Fran Kranz. Best known for on-screen roles in Dollhouse, The Cabin in the Woods, Homecoming and Julia, the latter guides gripping portrayals out of Reed Birney (Home Before Dark), Ann Dowd (The Handmaid's Tale), Jason Isaacs (Operation Mincemeat) and Martha Plimpton (Generation) — and crafts a harrowing yet cathartic drama out of the aftermath of a far-too-familiar tragedy, too. The reason that Richard (Birney), Linda (Dowd), Jay (Isaacs) and Gail (Plimpton) are in the back room at a place of worship, discussing their kids with heartbreak etched across their faces? Richard and Linda's son Hayden was a school shooter, killing Jay and Gail's son Evan in his spree, then turning the gun on himself. What can anyone say in that situation? Kranz, who both writes and directs, keeps his screenplay simple — but as loaded with emotion as the scenario obviously requires. He keeps his filmmaking flourishes just as restrained as well; that's a craft in itself, but the cast rather than the technique is the focus here. At first, they utter loaded lines with weighty awkwardness, aka the kind that fills and silences a room. Then, each in their own way, they unleash the hurt, anger, regret, sorrow, misery and more that's festering inside their characters, and that no amount of talking can ever completely capture. Mass is a musing on that very fact, too: that even the most spirited of dialogues, slinging about both carefully chosen and heatedly spur-of-the-money words, can't fix, explain or do justice to the pain that Richard, Linda, Jay and Gail are going through. The end result would make an exceptional, albeit unshakeably distressing, double with We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Fallout or Vox Lux, or even Elephant or Polytechnique as well. LEONOR WILL NEVER DIE To create is to become immortal. Write something that's hopefully committed to print or pixels forever, or direct a film that'll ideally keep reaching eyeballs in some format year after year, and a part of you — the part you've invested in time, sweat, tears and creativity — lives on eternally. That notion haunts playful and perceptive Filipino genre-bender Leonor Will Never Die, which understands the power that making a movie has both for the talents involved and the audiences watching. The eponymous Leonor Reyes (Sheila Francisco, Gulong) is an action-film director, albeit one whose heyday is behind her. She stopped stepping behind the camera after a tragedy, and her family has suffered in the aftermath. With her husband Valentin (Alan Bautista) gone and her favourite son Ronwaldo (Rocky Salumbides and Anthony Falcon) dead, only her other offspring, the concerned, discontent and constantly critical Rudie (Bong Cabrera), remains at her side. But Leonor still types away her ideas, and fantasises about how they'd turn out — including when she's knocked unconscious in an accident, only to wake up inside one of her scripts. To create something, such as a film, its screenplay or both, is also to become a deity in a way. That concept also lingers over Leonor Will Never Die, too, because we're all gods over our own existences. When first-timer feature writer/director Martika Ramirez Escobar has her protagonist thrust into a space that should only dwell in the character's head and pages, this constantly twisting feature ponders agency, control and the power of our choices — and, often, the lack thereof. It explores escapism and wish fulfilment as well, all while proving an inventive and pulpy action flick itself, a thoughtful family melodrama, a rumination on life and regrets, a musing about grief and, frequently, an absurd comedy. Case in point re the latter: Leonor, the cinema-obsessed filmmaker, is knocked into her coma by a falling TV. Once you've seen the film, you'll realise that that sounds like something she'd dream up herself. THE HUMANS If you're the kind of cinephile who likes to theme their viewing around the relevant time of year — holiday-related, primarily — then you're clearly always spoiled for choice. Christmas movies, horror flicks at Halloween, Easter-relevant films: you can build a binge session out of all of them (several in fact, depending on the occasion). The same applies to Thanksgiving, all courtesy of the US, and The Humans is the latest addition to the November-appropriate list. But while it ticks a few easy boxes, including bringing a family together to celebrate the date, steeping their get-together in awkwardness, and having big revelations spill out over the course of the gathering, this A24-distributed release is far creepier and more haunting than your usual movie about America's turkey-eating time of year. Based on Stephen Karam's Tony-winning play, and adapted and directed for the screen by Karam himself, it's downright unsettling, in fact, and for a few reasons. There's the tension zipping back and forth between everyone in attendance, of course; the bleak, claustrophobic, rundown setting, in a New York apartment close to ground zero; and the strange sounds emanating from other units. As a result, seasonal cheer is few and far between in this corner of Manhattan, where the Blake family congregates in Brigid (Beanie Feldstein, Booksmart) and her boyfriend Richard's (Steven Yeun, Nope) new abode. Also making an appearance: parents Deirdre (Jayne Houdyshell, Only Murders in the Building) and Erik (Richard Jenkins, Nightmare Alley), Brigid's older sister Aimee (Amy Schumer, Life & Beth), and their grandmother Momo (June Squibb, Palmer), who has dementia. No one is happy, and everyone seems to have something that needs airing — but there's always the feeling that, in any other location, this might've truly been a joyful affair. Discussions about dreams and nightmares prove revealing, but The Humans points out the thin line between both, whether we're slumbering or waking, several times over in its talky frames. MILLIE LIES LOW A scene-stealer in 2018's The Breaker Upperers, Ana Scotney now leads the show in Millie Lies Low. She's just as magnetic. The New Zealand actor plays the film's eponymous Wellington university student, who has a panic attack aboard a plane bound for New York — where a prestigious architecture internship awaits — and has to disembark before her flight leaves. A new ticket costs $2000, which she doesn't have. And, trying to rustle up cash from her best friend and classmate (Jillian Nguyen, Hungry Ghosts), mother (Rachel House, Cousins) and even a quick-loan business (run by Cohen Holloway, The Power of the Dog) still leaves her empty-handed. Millie's solution: faking it till she makes it, searching for ways to stump up the funds while hiding out in her hometown, telling everyone she's actually already in the Big Apple and posting faux Instagram snaps MacGyvered out of whatever she can find (big sacks of flour standing in for snow, for instance) to sell the ruse. There's a caper vibe to Millie's efforts skulking around Wellington while endeavouring to finance her ticket to her dreams — and to the picture of her supposedly perfect existence that she's trying to push upon herself as much as her loved ones. Making her feature debut, director and co-writer Michelle Savill has imposter syndrome and the shame spiral it sparks firmly in her sights, and finds much to mine in both an insightful and darkly comedic manner. As she follows her protagonist between episodic efforts to print the legend — or post it one Insta picture at a time — her keenly observed film also treads in Frances Ha's footsteps. Both movies examine the self-destructive life choices of a twentysomething with a clear idea of what she wants everyone to think of her, but far less of a grasp on who she really is and what she genuinely needs. While some framing and music choices make that connection obvious, the astute delight that is Millie Lies Low is never a Wellington-set copy. WE ARE STILL HERE It begins with stunning animation, shimmering with the rich blue hues of the sea. From there, everything from lush greenery to dusty outback appears in its frames. The past returns to the screen, and a vision of the present finds a place as well — and crossing the ditch between Australia and New Zealand, and venturing further into the South Pacific, is baked into the movie's very concept. That film is We Are Still Here, which makes an enormous statement with its title, responding to 250 years of colonialism. Of course, filmmakers in the region have been surveying this history since the birth of the medium, because the topic is inescapable. Combining eight different takes from ten Indigenous filmmakers instantly makes We Are Still Here stand out, however — and this Pacific First Nations collaboration, which opened Sydney Film Festival before coming to MIFF, isn't short on talent, or impact. Australian filmmakers Beck Cole (Here I Am), Danielle MacLean (Carry the Flag), Tracey Rigney (A Chance Affair) and Dena Curtis (Back to Nature) add their parts, as do New Zealand directors Tim Worrall (Head High), Richard Curtis (Nanakia), Renae Maihi (Waru), Miki Magasiva (The Panthers), Chantelle Burgoyn (short Tatau) and Mario Gaoa (Teine Sa). Some of their chapters explore heated discussions about whether to fight back, others find understanding in unlikely places, and another heads into the First World War. The same passion — the same determined survey of what it means to live in countries forever changed by James Cook's landing — beats within each, whether peering at the animated stars, trying to survive in the trenches or pondering what might come is earning attention. Understandably, it makes for not just potent but sincere, weighty and moving viewing. PIGGY Hell is other people in Spanish horror film Piggy, an observation that's been made countless times on-screen. Hell is also today's always-online world, another familiar statement. Still, a movie doesn't need to trade in completely new observations to stand out — which this bullying-revenge film definitely does in a plethora of ways. Sadly, its title stems from the taunt slung in its protagonist's direction much too often. A resident of a small, sleepy Spanish village close to the Portuguese border, Sara (Laura Galán, Unknown Origins) is called other names, too, none of them kind. She's also almost drowned by her tormentors during a trip to the local pool, where they're as cruel as anyone can be about her body. That experience comes with consequences, however, when a kidnapper strikes. Sara is a witness, the three mean girls that've made her life miserable go missing, and the right next step isn't straightforward. Galán is astonishing in Piggy, reteaming with writer/director Carlota Pereda after also starring in her 2018 Goya Award-winning short of the same. This full-length expansion is a vicious marvel, too — and it isn't afraid to get brutal either thematically or physically, or to plaster gory sights across its imagery. Indeed here, seeing a murdered corpse weighted down at the bottom of a public pool isn't a pretty vision, unsurprisingly. That said, it also pales in comparison to the nastiness continually thrust Sara's way, and to everything the film sinks a knife into about being a woman today in the process. Piggy is also astonishingly stylish, using its Academy-ratio frames to ramp up the sense of claustrophobia to an immersive degree. Pereda has enjoyed stints behind the lens since 2008, spanning television, shorts and features, but this immediate must-see deserves to put her on the path to a great genre career. LOVE AND OTHER CATASTROPHES There's no doubting that MIFF loves Melbourne. In the festival's 70th year, it's celebrating that fact in a huge way, too, courtesy of a Melbourne on Film program strand. That's the part of this year's overall festival lineup that surveys the way that the Victorian capital has been seen on the big screen over the years, complete with 25 examples — spanning everything from The Story of the Kelly Gang, aka the world's first full-length film, through to the original Mad Max. One absolute must-see, in general and as part of this MIFF showcase, hails from the 90s. The tale it tells couldn't be more relatable, even if you weren't a uni student navigating all of life's chaos three decades back. Indeed, if you only watch one movie from MIFF's Melbourne love-in, Love and Other Catastrophes is that pick — as well as a stellar 1996 debut by writer/director Emma-Kate Croghan, who was only 23 when she made this micro-budget gem. The focus: two film students, Mia (Frances O'Connor, The End) and Alice (Alice Garner, Jindabyne), who've just moved into a new place. They're in need of another housemate, and — as the title makes plain — they do indeed have love and other catastrophes to weather. For starters, while Mia's girlfriend Danni (Radha Mitchell, Girl at the Window) is keen to join them, that'd take their relationship to another level. Then there's Alice's romantic woes, involving both the resident university ladies' man Ari (Matthew Dyktynski, Offspring) and the quiet, besotted Michael (Matt Day, The Unusual Suspects). Yes, as well as being an astute and amusing rom-com, Love and Other Catastrophes is also a who's who of Aussie talent — and the picture that helped put O'Connor and Mitchell on the road to everything from AI: Artificial Intelligence and The Conjuring 2 to Pitch Black and Man on Fire. MIFF Play, the 2022 Melbourne International Film Festival's digital fest, runs from Thursday, August 11–Sunday, August 29. For further details, visit the MIFF Play website.
The art form of graffiti, one of the four sacred pillars of hip hop culture, has suffered a blow this week after Long Island City's epic aerosol art landmark, 5Pointz, the cathedral of cool, was whitewashed overnight. Who are the culprits that would destroy such a monument? Who would dare to deface creative defacement? None other than the building owners themselves, Jerry and David Wolkoff (which I choose to misread as Walkoff, as in, "It's a walk-off"). Also known as the Institute of Higher Burning, 5Pointz has for years drawn graffiti artists and appreciative crowds to Long Island City, and it's in good company, MoMA's PS1 being the other creative landmark in the area. 5Pointz curator Meres One had plans to turn the site into a museum and educational space, which certainly would have been both fitting and awesome, but those plans were dashed by the owners' envisioned residential redevelopment. The Wolkoffs have big plans for the site, hoping to erect a double high-rise apartment complex serving young New Yorkers and empty nesters. Is it another case of irreplaceable cultural riches sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed? Probably, although the Wolkoffs do pledge (via Twitter, anyway) large walls available for future graffiti art. In an ironic twist, the graffiti artists who painted 5Pointz did so with permits, but the whitewashing ninja attack was carried out completely sans permit. Thus, traditionally legal and illegal forms of public mark-making appear to have swapped places in this particular case. After months of local 5Pointz loyalists striving to get the building complex listed as a landmark in a last-ditch attempt to save it from being demolished, its fate now seems sealed. What is perplexing to everyone is why the Wolkoffs had to go and stealthily paint over the artwork, using police protection, in the small hours of the morning, rather than allow it to meet its end with dignity. It takes a sufficiently large and unguarded canvas, and a big creative community, to make something like 5Pointz. Hopefully its ilk can exist again. Check out the full report and all the devastating photographs at Hyperallergic. Below: 5Pointz in happier days.
Australia keeps going dotty for Yayoi Kusama — and this time, one of the Japanese artist's dot-filled installations is sticking around on a permanent basis. Acquired by the National Gallery of Australia earlier this year, Kusama's pumpkin-focused infinity room The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens is now on display at the Canberra gallery, opening today, Saturday, December 1. The piece was first exhibited in 2015 and last seen in Australia earlier this year, in Brisbane as part of the Gallery of Modern Art's Yayoi Kusama: Life Is the Heart of a Rainbow exhibition between October 2017 and February 2018. Comprised of a mirrored cube filled with yellow, dot-covered pumpkins, it's a quintessential Kusama work. Whether you're a devoted fan who considers visiting the artist's own Tokyo museum a bucket-list moment, or someone who has simply placed stickers around one of her obliteration rooms, you would've noticed that dots and the concept of infinity are crucial to her art — "our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos," she says. Inside the cube, the bulbous vegetables appear to create an endless field thanks to the shiny surface. On the outside of the cube, the structure's mirrored exterior reflects the yellow-and-black walls in the surrounding installation room — again, making it appear as though the pattern stretches on forever. The acquisition was made possible via a gift to the NGA from Andrew and Hiroko Gwinnett. "It has long-been my ambition to see a major contemporary Japanese artwork housed in Australia's national collection," said Andrew in a statement. "Kusama's playful installation is a legacy that will keep giving for generations to come." Find The Spirits of the Pumpkins Descended into the Heavens at the National Gallery of Australia, Parkes Place, Parkes, Canberra. Images: Yayoi Kusama, THE SPIRITS OF THE PUMPKINS DESCENDED INTO HEAVENS 2015 — Installation view at The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nusantara (Museum MACAN). © Yayoi Kusama. Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/ Singapore/ Shanghai. / Courtesy of National Gallery of Australia, installation view.
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.
Pour yourself a white russian, pop on your favourite bathrobe and prepare to spend two hours with one of the best big-screen creations there is. No one else in the history of celluloid is quite like Jeffrey 'The Dude' Lebowski, played with such relaxed slacker charm by Jeff Bridges that it genuinely seems as if he isn't acting. And no other filmmakers could've brought his zany (and immensely fictional) story to life like the Coen brothers, either. There's a reason that this flick has been a cult classic for more than two decades now. Actually, there are plenty — including a bowling joke that you've probably either quoted or heard multiple times, because it never gets old. If you're a newcomer to the 1998 movie, prepare for a mistaken-identity tale, with The Dude mixed up with a millionaire with the same name. Oh-so-many hijinks ensue, with the Coens firmly in offbeat crime-comedy mode, as aided by a cast that includes everyone from John Goodman and Julianne Moore to John Turturro and Steve Buscemi.
Every hotel tries to offer visitors a home away from home. At Melbourne's new luxe spot, however, that's the entire concept. Opening in June, United Places endeavours to blend the best of both — a hotel and a home — across its 12 roomy suites. And, like everyone's dream house, it also features plenty of greenery. The rampant plant life comes courtesy of United Places' location, situated opposite the Royal Botanic Gardens in South Yarra. As well as views over the parklands, the hotel's three two-bedroom suites boast city vantages from their sunken bathtubs. Nine one-bedroom suites will also be available. Further ramping up the comfort, United Places will provide personalised butler service 24 hours a day, plus curated in-room breakfasts by chef Scott Pickett (Estrelle, Saint Crispin). Daily hampers will stem from onsite restaurant Matilda, Pickett's latest venture, which'll focus on open fire and hot coals. While it'll be open to the public for lunch and dinner seven days a week, and for weekend brunch as well, the eatery will also give hotel guests priority seating. Design-wise, architects and interior designers Carr Design Group have opted for velvet drapes, hardwood floors and charcoal bathroom pods, with each suite also featuring a kitchen and terrace. And as a striking focal point upon entry, artist Laura Woodward has created a specially commissioned piece for United Places' foyer, playing with water, light and movement and interacts against the hotel's monochromatic hallways. If all of the above sounds particularly luxurious, that's the entire point. Unsurprisingly, it also comes with a hefty price tag, with rooms starting at $650 per night. Find United Places Botanic Gardens at 157-159 Domain Road, South Yarra from June. Keep an eye on the hotel's website and Instagram feed for further details. Image: Moritz Marquardt via Flickr.
Before donning a face covering became a regular part of life for everyone during the pandemic, one of the most famous mask-wearing figures in popular culture was doing it first. And, the fictional character will be doing so again in Australia — in Sydney from August next year, and then in Melbourne from October. The Phantom of the Opera was actually set to head to Sydney from September this year, and then to Melbourne from November; however, the famed musical's 2021 dates were postponed due to lockdowns in both cities. Now, the production's schedule for next year has been confirmed, so get ready for the music of the night to croon its way into both cities. Kicking off at the Sydney Opera House from Friday, August 19 and then heading to the State Theatre at Arts Centre Melbourne from Sunday, October 30, 2022, these new seasons of the acclaimed Tony-winner will arrive in Down Under after breaking records in the UK — and touring the US for seven years. Australia will become just the third country to witness this take on the tale, in fact. Obviously, all of the familiar songs are part of it, such as 'All I Ask of You', 'Masquerade' and the titular number. You'll also be lapping up Maria Björnson's original costumes, too. But, if you've seen the show before, expect the chandelier to look a little different. Australian musical theatre performer Josh Piterman is set to play the Phantom, after first wearing the character's mask in London pre-pandemic. He'll be joined by Amy Manford and Blake Bowden as Christine and Raoul, as part of a cast and orchestra of 65 people — which'll make The Phantom of the Opera one of the largest musical productions in Australia. If you need a refresher on the musical's story, it follows soprano Christine Daaé and the masked musical genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera House — and the latter's obsession with the former. Although first turned into a stage musical in the 80s, it's based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel. And yes, you might've seen the 2004 movie, which starred Gerard Butler as the Phantom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jpaw9dft2Y Opera Australia is also putting on a run of The Phantom of the Opera earlier in 2022, in March in Sydney, as part of its annual Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour event. The Phantom of the Opera will tour Australia in 2022, starting at the Sydney Opera House from Friday, August 19 and then heading to the State Theatre at Arts Centre Melbourne from Sunday, October 30, 2022. For further information and to buy tickets, head to the musical's website. Images: Michael Le Poer Trench.
With multiple lockdowns and ongoing venue restrictions, 2021 has proved to be one big, fat dry spell when it comes to live music and gigs. But if you're itching to get back into the swing of things, 2022 is set to be your year. The country's top tastemakers and touring companies have been hard at work planning a stack of incoming music festivals; promising to help make up for lost time and get you reacquainted with that joyful pastime of cutting shapes in a crowd while great live acts do their thing. From New Year's Day celebrations packed full of electronic sounds to a brand-new touring pride festival that's set to knock Australia's socks off, we've rounded up all the most exciting major music festivals coming to your gig calendar in 2022. Dust off those dancing shoes and get ready to make the most of the state's live music comeback.
It's a lifesaver when it comes to transporting oversized items, it comes in especially handy when moving house and it even makes a pretty mean bucket hat. Now, there's another nifty new use for the ubiquitous blue IKEA Frakta bag — edgy doggy fashion for the oh-so-stylish canine. Yes folks, the Swedish furniture giant is taking a dip into the world of haute couture for dogs. The chain isn't selling the extremely blue outfits, though. Instead, it has released a series of instructional patterns to help you upcycle those signature bags into some very dapper looks for your pooch. In the spirit of its renewed focus on sustainability for 2021, IKEA has dropped DIY guides for three Hund Couture dog outfits, complete with the same sort of step-by-step instructions that accompany its flat-pack furniture pieces. With these designs, though, there's no Allen key required — and you won't have any pesky stray screws left over at the end of the build. The Hund Couture line features a ruffled raincoat, an eye-catching frilled-necked lizard-inspired get-up and even an AM-to-PM look centred around a dashing detachable collar. To recreate them, you'll need a sewing machine, some velcro, and — depending on which garment you're going for, and the size of your pooch — between three and seven Frakta bags. After first announcing the new pet-focused release on April 1, the brand had many people writing it off as an April Fools' Day joke, which is how it started out. But IKEA has come through and given canine lovers the step-by-step details on how they can turn the DIY pieces into legit dog outfits. You'll find all three designs and their accompanying manuals available to download for free on the company's website. All that's left to do is let your four-legged fur-shionista choose which glam statement piece they want you to whip up first. Check out IKEA's Hund Couture range over at the company's website.
When all else fails, escape into cinema: that's the movie-lover's mantra. There's nothing quite like staring at the silver screen in a cavernous theatre, soaking in its shimmering sights with nothing else but darkness around you and communing with the artform as it flickers by at 24 frames per second. And, that's a truth that remained intact in 2021, even with temporary pandemic-induced cinema closures once again part of our reality for another year. As anyone who yearned to watch a film somewhere other than their own couch knows — to revel in the escape that only these celluloid dreams bring, too — absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder. Whether picture palaces near you were up and running or affected by lockdowns, they still screened a wealth of fantastic movies in 2021. They showed terrible ones as well, but that always comes with the territory. We watched and reviewed them all each week no matter what, exceptional and terrible alike, and somehow managed to whittle all the standout flicks down to this: our picks for the year's 12 absolute best movies. 2021 might've been another swirl of chaos in general, but movie magic always delivers. THE POWER OF THE DOG Don't call it a comeback: Jane Campion's films have been absent from cinemas for 12 years but, due to miniseries Top of the Lake, she hasn't been biding her time in that gap. And don't call it simply returning to familiar territory, even if the New Zealand director's new movie features an ivory-tinkling woman caught between cruel and sensitive men, as her Cannes Palme d'Or-winner The Piano did three decades ago. Campion isn't rallying after a dip, just as she isn't repeating herself. She's never helmed anything less than stellar, and she's immensely capable of unearthing rich new pastures in well-ploughed terrain. With The Power of the Dog, Campion is at the height of her skills trotting into her latest mesmerising musing on strength, desire and isolation — this time via a venomous western that's as perilously bewitching as its mountainous backdrop. That setting is Montana, circa 1925. Campion's homeland stands in for America nearly a century ago, making a magnificent sight — with cinematographer Ari Wegner (Zola, True History of the Kelly Gang) perceptively spying danger in its craggy peaks and dusty plains even before the film introduces Rose and Peter Gordon (On Becoming a God in Central Florida's Kirsten Dunst and 2067's Kodi Smit-McPhee). When the widowed innkeeper and her teenage son serve rancher brothers Phil and George Burbank (Spider-Man: No Way Home's Benedict Cumberbatch a career-best, awards-worthy, downright phenomenal turn, plus Antlers' Jesse Plemons) during a cattle-run stop, the encounter seesaws from callousness to kindness, a dynamic that continues after Rose marries George and decamps to the Burbank mansion against that stunning backdrop. Brutal to the lanky, lisping Peter from the outset, Phil responds to the nuptials with malice. He isn't fond of change, and won't accommodate anything that fails his bristling definition of masculinity and power, either. Read our full review. FIRST COW Gone are the days when every image that flickered across the screen did so within an almost square-shaped frame. So, when a director today fits their visuals into a much tighter space than the now-expansive norm, it's an intentional choice. They're not just nodding to the past, even if their film takes place in times gone by. With First Cow, for instance, Kelly Reichardt unfurls a story set in 19th-century America, but she's also honing her audience's focus. The Certain Women filmmaker wants those guiding their eyeballs towards this exquisite movie to truly survey everything that it peers at, to see its central characters — chef Otis 'Cookie' Figowitz (John Magaro, Overlord) and Chinese entrepreneur King-Lu (Orion Lee, Zack Snyder's Justice League) — and to realise that neither are ever afforded such attention by the others in their fictional midst. There's much to take in throughout this magnificently told tale, which heads to Oregon as most of Reichardt's movies have. In its own quiet, closely observed, deeply affectionate and warm-hearted fashion, First Cow is a heist movie, although the filmmaker's gentle and insightful spin on the usually slick and twist-filled genre bucks every convention there is. It first meets Cookie as he's searching for food, and meets King-Lu when Cookie helps him evade a group of Russians. The seeds of friendship are sown and, when the duo next crosses paths, they spend an alcohol-addled night sharing their respective ideas for the future. Those ambitious visions get a helping hand after the Chief Factor (Toby Jones, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom) ships in the region's highly coveted first cow, with Cookie and King-Lu secretly milking the animal in the dark of night, then using the stolen liquid to make highly sought-after — and highly profitable — oily cakes. Read our full review. LICORICE PIZZA A Star Is Born has already graced the titles of four different films, and Licorice Pizza isn't one of them. Paul Thomas Anderson's ninth feature, and his loosest since Boogie Nights — his lightest since ever, too — does boast a memorable Bradley Cooper performance, though. That said, this 70s- and San Fernando Valley-set delight isn't quite about seeking fame, then navigating its joys and pitfalls, although child actors and Hollywood's ups and downs all figure into the narrative. Licorice Pizza definitely births two new on-screen talents, however, both putting in two of 2021's best performances and two of the finest-ever movie debuts. That's evident from the film's very first sublimely grainy 35-millimetre-shot moments, as Alana Haim of Haim (who PTA has directed several music videos for) and Cooper Hoffman (son of the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman, a PTA regular) do little more than chat, stroll and charm. The radiant Haim plays Alana Kane, a Valley dweller of 25 or 28 (her story changes) working as a photographer's assistant, which brings her to a Tarzana high school on yearbook picture day. Enter the smoothly assured Hoffman as 15-year-old Gary Valentine, who is instantly smitten and tries to wrangle a date. From there, Licorice Pizza charts the pair's friendship as it circles and swirls, and as they often sprint towards each other — chronicling everything else going on in the San Fernando Valley, where PTA himself grew up, too. The result is a shaggy slice-of-life film that Anderson has penned partly based on stories shared by Gary Goetzman, an ex-child talent turned frequent producer of Tom Hanks movies. Spanning everything from waterbed sales to high-tension truck drives — and child-acting stardom, gasoline shortages and mayoral campaigns as well — Anderson lets Licorice Pizza saunter along leisurely like it's just stepped out of the 70s itself, and coats it in that anything-can-happen vibe that only comes with youth. Read our full review. PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN Promising Young Woman would've made an excellent episode or season of Veronica Mars. That's meant as the highest compliment to both the bubblegum-hued take on the rape-revenge genre and the cult-status private detective series. Writer/director Emerald Fennell clearly isn't blind to the parallels between the two, even casting Veronica Mars stars Max Greenfield (New Girl) and Chris Lowell (GLOW) in her feature debut. Don't go thinking the Killing Eve season two showrunner and The Crown actor is simply following in other footsteps, though. At every moment, the brilliant and blistering Promising Young Woman vibrates with too much anger, energy and insight to merely be a copycat of something else. It's a film made with the savviest of choices, and provocative and downright fearless ones as well, in everything from its soundtrack to its weaponised pastel, peppy and popping Instagram-friendly imagery. Played by Carey Mulligan, and drawing upon her near-peerless ability to express complex internalised turmoil, Cassie Thomas is inebriated and alone at a nightclub when she's introduced. Three men discuss women over beverages by the bar, and notice Cassie while talking, with one commenting, "they put themselves in danger, girls like that". No woman brings sexual assault upon themselves, with this whole intelligent and astute revenge-thriller rebuffing the bro-ish bar guy's early observation in every way possible, and meting out punishment to those who think similarly. Cassie won't stand for such attitudes and, as she embarks upon a vigilante quest, the movie takes her to bold places. Boasting a relentlessness that mirrors the persistence of grief and pain after trauma, Promising Young Woman never lets its protagonist's rage subside, proving furious from start to finish — and sharing that feeling even in the film's most overt setups and obvious scenes (which are also some of its most entertaining) is a foregone conclusion. Read our full review. ANNETTE Dreamy and dazzling from its first moments, rock opera Annette bursts onto the screen with a question: "so may we start?". "Please do", fans of Holy Motors director Leos Carax should think to themselves, and devotees of Ron and Russell Mael as well — and yes the later, aka art-pop duo Sparks, are clearly having a moment in 2021 (see: The Sparks Brothers below). All three appear on-screen in Annette's opening, joined by Adam Driver (Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker), Marion Cotillard (We'll End Up Together) and Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory). In a glorious, song-fuelled, sing-and-walk scene, no one is playing a character yet, but they're all still playing a part. They're setting the vibe in a sensational way, and the tune is pure Sparks, with the pair both composing the movie's music and writing the feature itself with Carax. The tone bubbles with the duo's avant-garde sensibilities, too, and the whole song echoes with the promise of remarkable things to come. Nine years ago, Carax gave the world a once-in-a-lifetime gem. Annette is a different film to Holy Motors, obviously, but it gleams just as brightly and with the same beguiling, inimitable, all-encompassing allure. There's an ethereal, otherworldly quality to Carax's work — of heightening reality to truly understand how people feel and act, and of experimenting with artforms to interrogate them — and that sensation seeps through every second of his gleefully melodramatic musical, which deservedly won him the Cannes Film Festival's Best Director award. Everything about Annette has been turned up several notches on every setting, from its lush and lavish imagery to its cascade of toe-tapping, sung-through tunes that keep propelling the narrative forward. Every detail of that story has been amplified, too, as this tragic fairy tale follows standup comedian Henry McHenry (Driver), opera star Ann Defrasnoux's (Cotillard), their mismatched but passionate and all-consuming love, and their titular daughter — with the latter played by a marionette. Read our full review. NITRAM It's terrifying to contemplate something so gut-wrenchingly abominable as the bodies-in-barrels murders, which director Justin Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant depicted in 2011's Snowtown, and to face the fact that people rather than evil were behind them. Nitram courts and provokes the same response. Exploring the events preceding the Port Arthur massacre, where 35 people were murdered and 23 others wounded in Tasmania in 1996, it focuses on something equally as ghastly, and similarly refuses to see the perpetrator as just a monster or a Hollywood horror movie-style foe. It too is difficult, distressing, disquieting and disturbing, understandably. In their third collaboration — with 2019's blazing True History of the Kelly Gang in the middle — Kurzel and Grant create another tricky masterpiece, in fact. That Nitram is about a person is one key reason for its brilliance. The film's core off-screen duo don't excuse their protagonist. They don't justify the unjustifiable, explain it, exploit it or provide neat answers to a near-unfathomable crime. Rather, they're careful in depicting the lone gunman responsible for Australia's worst single-shooter mass killing, right down to refusing to name him. In an exacting movie in every way possible, they also benefit from exceptional performances by Caleb Landry Jones (Finch) as the film's namesake, Judy Davis (Mystery Road) as his wearied mother, Anthony LaPaglia (Below) as his father and Essie Davis (The Justice of Bunny King) as his lottery heiress friend. Read our full review. THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD Sometimes, a performance just flat-out shakes and startles you — in a good way, that is. In her 2021 Cannes Film Festival Best Actress-winning role, Norwegian actor Renate Reinsve (Phoenix) turns in that type of complex, layered, no-holds-barred and relatable portrayal. She's magnificent, and thoroughly deserves all of the shiny trophies sent her way. She plays Julie, a young Oslo resident who doesn't ever earn The Worst Person in the World's title, but nonetheless pinballs through the mess of her millennial life. Across 12 chapters, plus a prologue and epilogue, almost everything about the character's existence changes within the mere four years that the movie focuses on: dreams, goals, studies, careers, loved ones, boyfriends (including Bergman Island's Anders Danielsen Lie), apartments, friends and her perception of herself. That aforementioned moniker stems from a comment that Julie spits her own way, actually, because she's often aware of her own chaos. Writer/director Joachim Trier (Thelma) is just as cognisant of how romantic dramedies like this tend to turn out, which both feeds and enables Reinsve's astonishing performance — because this isn't the usual cliche-riddled affair. Every rise and fall that comes Julie's way transcends tropes to contemplate what growing up, being an adult and forging a life is really like, including at both the sunniest and the most heartbreaking extremes. As a character study, The Worst Person in the World is a masterpiece. As a snapshot of an age and life stage, it's just as canny, insightful and excellent. Read our full review. TITANE Eye roll-inducingly terrible bumper stickers be damned; no one honks if they're horny in Titane. Revving when aroused is more this petrol-doused body-horror film's style, spanning characters both flesh and chrome. When she's seen writhing in fishnets atop a flame-adorned vintage Cadillac, the stony-gazed Alexia (debutant Agathe Rousselle) is working. She's titillating a Fast and Furious-style car crowd with her sexed-up display, but the car model still seems to hum with every gyration. After wrapping up, murdering a grab-happy fan with the metal chopstick keeping her hair up and then showering off the gooey, gory evidence, she's soon purring rhythmically inside that gleaming vehicle. Yes, in a plot detail that spilled the instant Titane premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival, where it won the prestigious Palme d'Or, this is the French car sex flick. How does someone fornicate with an automobile? In her sophomore effort after the also-phenomenal teen cannibal film Raw, writer/director Julia Ducournau isn't too interested in those specifics. Instead, she's more concerned with shrewdly linking mechanophilia with agency and control, particularly over one's feelings and body. Her narrative starts its drive in Alexia's childhood, then speeds forward to her time as a fugitive posing as a fire chief's (Vincent Lindon, At War) long-missing son — and proves not just the French car sex film, nor merely a car sex movie about a woman partly forged from titanium (and with a penchant for piercing her way through those who block her road), but a ferocious and unflinching thriller that's also beautiful, tender and compassionate. If Ducournau had made her script out of metal, she'd be moulding it in its molten form. If her feature was a car instead, it'd be that libidinous, fire-emblazoned Cadillac, which arrives with a bang, lures Alexia in and then lets loose. Read our full review. THE SPARKS BROTHERS "All I do now is dick around" is an exquisite song lyric and, in Sparks' 2006 single 'Dick Around', it's sung with the operatic enthusiasm it demands. It's also a line that resounds with both humour and truth when uttered by Russell Mael, who, with elder brother Ron, has been crafting art-pop ditties as irreverent and melodic as this wonderful track since 1969. Sparks haven't been dicking around over that lengthy period. They currently have 25 albums to their name, and they've taken on almost every genre of music there is in their highly acerbic fashion. That said, their tunes are clearly the biggest labour of love possible, especially as the enigmatic duo has always lingered outside the mainstream. They're the band that all your favourite bands, actors and comedians can't get enough of, but they're hardly a household name — and yet, decade after decade, the Maels have kept playing around to make the smart, hilarious and offbeat songs they obviously personally adore. Everyone else should love Sparks' idiosyncratic earworms as well — and, even for those who've never heard of the band before, that's the outcome after watching The Sparks Brothers. Edgar Wright, one of the group's unabashed super fans, has turned his overflowing affection into an exceptional documentary. It's the Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho director's first factual effort, and it's even more charming and delightful than the films he's best known for. That said, it'd be hard to mess up a movie about Sparks, purely given how much material there is to work with. Russell and Ron, the former sporting shaggier hair and the latter donning a pencil-thin moustache rather than the Charlie Chaplin-style top lip he's brandished for much of his career, are also heavenly interviewees. That's the thing about these now-septuagenarian siblings, every Sparks tune they've ever blasted out into the world, and this comprehensive yet always accessible film that's instantly one of 2021's best: they're all joyously, fabulously, eccentrically fun to an infectious and buoyant degree. Read our full review. THE LOST DAUGHTER Watching Olivia Colman play a complicated woman is like staring at the ocean: it's never the same twice, it couldn't be more unpredictable, and all that surface texture bobs, floats, swells, gleams and glides atop leagues of unseen complexity. It's fitting, then, that The Lost Daughter tasks The Favourite Oscar-winner with glaring at the sea, and doing so both intently and often. A necessity of the narrative, as penned on the page by My Brilliant Friend's Elena Ferrante and adapted for the screen by actor-turned-filmmaker Maggie Gyllenhaal, it's a touch that washes through the movie with extra force due to its star. Colman plays literature professor Leda, who fills much of her time peering at the water as she summers on a Greek island — and getting caught up in the lives of Nina (Dakota Johnson, The Nowhere Inn) and her frequently screaming toddler. While both gazing at the waves and taking in the onshore domestic dramas, Leda sees her own ebbs, flows, thorns and flaws reflected back. The idea that bringing life into the world isn't the existence-defining triumph of femininity it's sugar-coated as doesn't simply sit at the heart of Ferrante's novel and Gyllenhaal's debut stint behind the lens; from the instant that Colman is seen collapsing on the pebble-strewn shoreline in the picture's opening, it laps over The Lost Daughter's every moment. As seen in its present-day storyline and its flashbacks to the past (with I'm Thinking of Ending Things' Jessie Buckley as Leda), its protagonist is a woman haunted by everything having kids has brought, as well as guilt-stricken by all that's followed — and this bold and affecting movie confronts that rocky truth. For any director, this is audacious and intricate terrain, but Gyllenhaal proves as exceptional and daring a filmmaker as she is a performer. Read our full review. BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN Banging is the certainly word for it; when Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn begins, it's with high school teacher Emi (Katia Pascariu, Beyond the Hills) and her camera-wielding husband Eugen (first-timer Stefan Steel) having loud, enthusiastic, pink wig-wearing sex — and filming it. Romanian writer/ director Radu Jude (I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians) shows the explicit three-minute snippet of footage as others will see it, because others will indeed see it: the students at Emi's school, their parents and her fellow teachers among them. All genitalia and thrusting and lustful talk (and shouted queries through the door from whoever is looking after the couple's child), this graphic opening also makes a firm statement. So many people within the film's frames will take issue with it as vocally as Emi and her partner are enjoying themselves — and they're unmistakably enjoying themselves — but Jude definitely isn't one of them. What follows is a razor-sharp satire of a world that's so indifferent to so much, but so unaccepting of carnality. The film wields that notion as a weapon, all as Emi and Bucharest's other residents also navigate the pandemic. In the cinema verite-style first section, Emi rushes around the city on foot, learning of the sex tape backlash while surrounded by everyday hostilities and vulgarities. Next, Jude unleashes scathing and playful cine-essay snippets about Romania's past, the planet's present, human behaviour, and how porn is used as both a scapegoat and anaesthetic. Then, Emi is interrogated by parents and teachers, their judgement and hypocrisy on full display — in the climax to an already brilliant, biting and bleakly hilarious achievement. Read our full review. DUNE A spice-war space opera about feuding houses on far-flung planets, Dune has long been a pop-culture building block. Before Frank Herbert's 1965 novel was adapted into a wrongly reviled David Lynch-directed film — a gloriously 80s epic led by Kyle MacLachlan and laced with surreal touches — it unmistakably inspired Star Wars, and also cast a shadow over Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Game of Thrones has since taken cues from it. The Riddick franchise owes it a debt, too. The list goes on and, thanks to the new version bringing its sandy deserts to cinemas, will only keep growing. As he did with Blade Runner 2049, writer/director Denis Villeneuve has once again grasped something already enormously influential, peered at it with astute eyes and built it anew — and created an instant sci-fi classic. This time, Villeneuve isn't asking viewers to ponder whether androids dream of electric sheep, but if humanity can ever overcome one of our worst urges and all that it brings. With an exceptional cast that spans Timothée Chalamet (The French Dispatch), Oscar Isaac (The Card Counter), Rebecca Ferguson (Reminiscence), Jason Momoa (Aquaman), Josh Brolin (Avengers: Endgame), Javier Bardem (Everybody Knows), Zendaya (Spider-Man: No Way Home) and more, Dune tells of birthrights, prophesied messiahs, secret sisterhood sects that underpin the galaxy and phallic-looking giant sandworms, and of the primal lust for power that's as old as time — and, in Herbert's story, echoes well into the future's future. Its unpacking of dominance and command piles on colonial oppression, authoritarianism, greed, ecological calamity and religious fervour, like it is building a sandcastle out of power's nastiest ramifications. And, amid that weightiness — plus those spectacularly shot visuals and Hans Zimmer's throbbing score — it's also a tale of a moody teen with mind-control abilities struggling with what's expected versus what's right. Read our full review. These are our 12 favourite films of 2021 — but the year was filled with plenty of other excellent movies. We've also put together lists of the best films hardly anyone saw this year, the best straight-to-streaming movies and the other standouts from 2021 that you should catch up on over summer. Don't say you don't have anything to watch.
In celebration of the XX Commonwealth Games currently being held in Glasgow, one Scotland bar has created a marathon cocktail. Like many of the athletes competing this year, this cocktail is also a record breaker, with 71 ingredients used to represent each country participating in the Games. Mal Spence, of Kelvingrove Cafe in Glasgow worked with Glasgow City Marketing Bureau to create this extravagant concoction. "Most classic cocktails have three or four ingredients.” Spence explained to the Evening Times. “To find a recipe that could combine all these different flavours and also taste good was a challenge I couldn't resist.” Spence experimented with 300 different ingredients before finally achieving the right blend of flavours. While most alcohol aficionados would squash up their face at the thought of such a busy cocktail, in this case we’re satisfied that the research has been done and we will happily be the judge of this debate if someone would like to make us one. While the cocktail uses some familiar flavours of English red Apple and Scottish wild strawberry, the Commonwealth Cocktail includes a few things we’ve barely heard of, let alone tried in a cocktail. Really, when else would you get to sample The Cook Islands’s custard apple seeds, Swaziland’s sycamore fig, or Malaysian galangal? Australia’s contribution to the mix is an aniseed myrtle (syzygium anisatum), in case you were wondering. Spence is doing a limited run of 71 of these cocktails (of course) until August 3. If you’re unable to get to Glasgow Spence has made a simpler version, which you can make at home as you watch Australia dominate the Games. Here's the full list of ingredients: Africa Botswana: devils claw (genus clerodendrum) Cameroon: bitter leaf (piper umbellatum) Ghana: taro (psidium guajava) Kenya: chives Lesotho: rosehip Malawi: cacao (pycreuscyperaceae) Mauritius: wild raspberry (rubus rosifolius) Mozambique: cassava Namibia: prickly pear Nigeria: utazi leaves Rwanda: papaya Seychelles: citronella Sierra Leone: cashew nut (piassava) South Africa: roobus Swaziland: sycamore fig Tanzania: cloves Uganda: nakati eggplant Zambia: sorrel Americas Belize: dragonfruit Bermuda: arabica coffee beans Canada: logan berry Falkland Islands: bitter cress Guyana: sugar cane St. Helena: St. Helena tea plant Asia Bangladesh: jujubi Brunei Darussalam: durian fruit India: mangosteen Malaysia: galangal Maldives: pomegranate (annaaru) Pakistan: saffron Singapore: rambutan Sri Lanka: ripe jakfruit Caribbean Anguilla: mango Antigua & Barbuda: tamarind Bahamas: egg fruit Barbados: sour cherry British Virgin Islands: noni Cayman Islands: sage (salvia caymanensis) Dominica: guava leaf Grenada: lemon grass Jamaica: okra Montserrat: devil’s horse whip St. Kitts & Nevis: tamon St. Lucia: sweet basil St. Vincent & The Grenadines: arrowroot Trinidad & Tobago: tonka bean Turks & Caicos Islands: sapodilla Europe Cyprus: basil-thyme (???????) England: red apple Gibraltar: maqui berry Guernsey: blueberries Isle of Man: new potatoes Jersey: lavender Malta: star anise Northern Ireland: bog rosemary Scotland: wild Scottish strawberry Wales: wild cotoneaster Oceania Australia: aniseed myrtle (syzygium anisatum) (gundabluie) (bardi bush) Cook Islands: custard apple seeds (annona reticulata) Kiribati: dried coconut meat (copra) Nauru: pumpkin seeds New Zealand: manuka honey Niue: paw paw Norfolk Island: yam Papua New Guinea: taro (colocasia esculenta) Samoa: ladies finger (small, sweet banana) Solomon Islands: taro leaves Tonga: avocado (avoka) Tuvalu: breadfruit Vanuatu: plantain Fiji: kava root Via The Evening Times and Grub Street.
It's been winning over fans since opening its OG pasta and wine bar in Highett in mid 2020. But Abbiocco is about to earn itself a whole swag of new loyal followers, as it adds to the family with a second outpost, this time in the heart of St Kilda. Abbiocco 2.0 has set up shop on Barkly Street, its light-filled space paying homage to its sibling with a mix of olive green tones, terrazzo flooring and timber slatting throughout. The name references an Italian phrase that loosely translates to 'food coma', hinting at the kind of generous feasting situation that awaits you here. Familiar Italian flavours are given a creative, contemporary refresh and, while the menu shares a similar feel to that of its Highett counterpart, it's also a treasure trove of new additions, too. Pasta is the hero, made fresh in-house each day. You might be in for prawn tortelli starring fennel and lemon thyme butter, pumpkin gnocchi with gorgonzola and wattleseed, or a pork sausage campanelle finished with chestnuts. A strong antipasti lineup includes the likes of preserved lemon and baccala arancini, veal carpaccio matched to a rocket gremolata and black garlic, and even Abbiocco's own mortadella, served with veneti peppers and pistachios. There's a hefty t-bone for those looking beyond a pasta fix, and revamped classics like mandarin bomboloni and lemon myrtle cannoli beckon from the dessert list. Meanwhile, the wine offering celebrates Aussie drops alongside plenty from the homeland, with an impressive range pouring by the glass — you can just as easily match your after-work snacks with a Yarra Valley savarro by Soumah, as with the Caprili Rosso Di Montalcino sangiovese out of Tuscany. A collaboration lager made with Bad Shepherd headlines a solid craft beer lineup, while cocktails sport a distinctly Euro lean; from the blood orange negroni, to a limoncello and grapefruit spritz. Find Abbiocco's new outpost at 173 Barkly Street, St Kilda. It's open from 5.30–11pm Wednesday to Friday, 12–2.30pm and 5.30–11pm Saturday, and from 12–2.30pm and 5.30–10pm Sunday.
With pubs, restaurants and cafes closing around the country forced to close comes the loss of many hospitality jobs — and it's all happened very, very quickly. According to website I Lost My Hospo Shift, at last count, 2294 Aussie hospo workers had lost their jobs and 11,709 shifts had been cut, which equates to around $2 million in lost wages this week alone. To help those impacted by the sudden changes, Pernod Ricard is offering $100,00 worth of free meals via Deliveroo to out-of-work hospo workers, including bar staff, waiters, managers, suppliers, cleaners, owners and chefs. From 12pm today, the new initiative called Meals for Mates will see thousands of free meals delivered across New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. There'll be a total of 4000 $25 meal voucher codes available via Deliveroo for hospo workers now out of a job or just getting by on reduced hours. As an added benefit, when the hospo workers use the vouchers, they'll also be helping those venues still open for takeaway and delivery. Basically, it's a small win-win situation in what is an incredibly tough time for the industry. While there's a whole host of eateries where workers can spend their vouchers, some of them include cult-favourite burger joint Mary's (Sydney), Italian restaurant Salt Meats Cheese (Sydney, Brisbane), Sydney's retro-Aussie pub The Unicorn and St Kilda's PB's Bar & Eatery. Out-of-work hospitality workers can snag their voucher by emailing a copy of their RSA and the venue they last worked at to MealsForMates@pernod-ricard.com. Then, you'll receive a Deliveroo code, which can be redeemed anytime over the next three months. [caption id="attachment_766230" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Mary's Newtown by Maclay Heriot[/caption]
Part of the revamped Hotel Continental, speakeasy and entertainment venue Barlow pulls inspiration from the grand sandstone building's original founder, George Coppin. Coppin also started a local theatre company, acting in many of its productions under the stage name of Billy Barlow. "The name 'Barlow', represents it as a space where you can be whoever you want to be," co-owner Craig Shearer tells Concrete Playground. A luxe nightclub, cocktail bar and live music venue in one, Barlow is a collaborative affair — just like its Continental siblings. It leans on Shearer's (The Terminus Fitzroy North, Brisbane's The Plough) own extensive experience in the pub game, with food by chef Scott Pickett (Estelle, Matilda) and sips from the Speakeasy Group (Eau de Vie, Nick & Nora's, Mjolner). [caption id="attachment_848432" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Gareth Sobey[/caption] Moody, luxurious Woods Bagot interiors lend an old-world feel to the 140-seat space, all plush burgundy banquettes and emerald-hued walls. An impressive booze offering translates to a cocktail aficionado's dream menu, filled with beautifully-executed classics and standout signatures. Seasonal sips might include the likes of the Mornington Margarita made with a salt and pepper pineapple syrup ($25), or the Something for Rosie infused with raspberry- and rose-smoked earl grey tea ($22). That's backed by a global list of vino, offering plenty of options by the glass and including a crop of half bottles to match music- or comedy-filled evenings by the stage. [caption id="attachment_848439" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kristoffer Paulsen[/caption] On that note, Barlow's broad-ranging, ever-evolving live entertainment program is out to wow locals and visitors alike, with help from a custom state-of-the-art sound system. You'll be able to dip into everything from live rock gigs, to jazz, to comedy, to DJ sets, up to five nights a week throughout the year. As for the food, expect a selection of snacks, share plates and dedicated late-night eats, all infused with Pickett's signature flair. Ortiz anchovies ride atop house-made tomato toasts with capers and egg yolk, and spring rolls are stuffed with spanner crab and king prawn, then finished with a peanut lime nam jim. What's more, night owls can keep the groove going until 2am with fried chicken — here, matched with caviar and creme fraiche — and hefty New York-style pizzas by the slice. [caption id="attachment_848435" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kristoffer Paulsen[/caption] Images: Interiors by Gareth Sobey; Food by Kristoffer Paulsen
The past 18 months or so haven't been a golden time for much, but the pandemic has been great for watching animal live-streams. Are your pets asleep? Don't have any furry four-legged companions of your own? Just like watching adorable critters all day, everyday, because who doesn't? Thanks to zoos and aquariums around Australia and beyond, there's always something to peer at. And, that applies whether you have minutes, hours or days to lose to cute creatures, or you'd just like to check in on them every now and then. You can even keep them on your screen all day long if that's what'll brighten your mood. Melburnians — or anyone interested in the city's bird life — currently have something special to watch, too. This live-stream isn't actually new, but it's particularly relevant at this time of year. Thanks to a camera on 367 Collins Street in the CBD, you can train your peepers on two peregrine falcons nesting outside the building. You can give them a squiz any time you like, but if you do so from August onwards each year (aka now), you'll see them lay and hatch their chicks. At the moment, the eggs are already there, so you'll spy a whole lot of sitting atop them as the feathered couple waits for them to hatch. To give them, head to the Mirvac building's website. For those visiting the structure itself, the CCTV footage of the falcons is also on display in the foyer. This nest comes with quite the history, too, as peregrine falcons have been making nests at 367 Collins Street since 1991. This is actually the only known peregrine falcon nesting site within the Melbourne CBD, which obviously makes it extra special. Check out the live-stream below: For more information about 367 Collins Street's peregrine falcons and their nest, head to the 367 Collins website and the 367 Collins Falcon Watchers Facebook page.
UPDATE, April 12, 2021: Knives Out is available to stream via Amazon Prime Video, Binge, Foxtel Now, Google Play, YouTube Movies and iTunes. Sharp, shiny and unafraid to leave a mark, Knives Out sticks a blade into the murder-mystery genre, gives it a good twist and has plenty of fun. The first post-Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi flick from writer/director Rian Johnson, who returns to the pulpier terrain of Brick and Looper, this movie knows how to slice through the familiar, toy with trusty tropes, and create a gloriously smart, subversive and entertaining whodunit. The setup: a death in a wealthy family. The deceased: a crime author who wrote books about this kind of scenario. Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) expires after his 85th birthday party, when all of his relatives happen to be in his remote mansion. And yes, as a cop (Lakeith Stanfield), trooper (Noah Segan) and private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) discover, everyone has a motive — even if the old man's passing looks like a suicide. Initially framed via interviews with the Thrombeys, Knives Out interrogates the possible culprits. Daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis) became a real estate mogul without her dad's help, keeps her Trump-sympathising husband Richard (Don Johnson) in check and has an arrogant son, Ransom (Chris Evans), who's the picture of privilege and entitlement. Her brother Walt (Michael Shannon) is Harlan's publisher and has his own right-wing problem child (Jaeden Martell), while sister-in-law Joni (Toni Collette) is a lifestyle guru with a college-aged kid (Katherine Langford) hanging on grandpa's purse strings. As his closest confidante, Harlan's nurse Marta (Ana de Armas) also fields the detectives' enquiries. She tries not to vomit, too — a reflex whenever she tells a lie. As he makes clear in his slow southern drawl, Blanc is very intrigued by that physical reaction. It's a narrative that Agatha Christie could've penned a century ago, when she started writing Hercule Poirot stories. And yet, unlike the current revivals of the author's work — 2017's Murder on the Orient Express and next year's Death on the Nile — Johnson isn't peering backwards. Knives Out is steeped in America's present socio-political climate, and directs its most cutting commentary at folks filled with bluster but possessing little in the way of good ol'-fashioned human decency. It's not by accident that Marta, a Latin immigrant from a South American country that none of the Thrombeys bothers to remember, sits at the centre of this expertly executed film. Or, that she's the only one who isn't frothing over Harlan's money. Sometimes Johnson's scathing statements fall on the obvious side, but hey, a blunt knife can still cause considerable damage. Mostly, Knives Out is sleek, slinky and fascinated with its many secrets, which have been pieced together with precision. For viewers eager to sleuth themselves, it isn't overly difficult to start sniffing in the right direction — but the joys of seeing the plot spill open go far beyond simply discovering who did what among the rogue's gallery of shifty suspects. And anyway, another game is afoot, as Blanc keeps telling his offsiders (in a nod to Sherlock Holmes, of course). The private eye doesn't know who hired him, or why, and he's as obsessed with that question as he is with the Thrombey clan's petty yet incessant sniping. Oh, the sniping. One of the keys to Knives Out's genre is how quickly it always strips its players down to their base instincts and motives, which this nifty picture does extremely well. Not every character gains quite enough flesh over the top, but the entire cast is gleefully happy going along for the ride. That Craig, de Armas and Evans fare best is really just a matter of screen time, although all three earn the added attention. As loose as he often is whenever he ditches Bond's grim seriousness (as seen in heist caper Logan Lucky), Craig is having a ball — while de Armas proves sensitive but savvy, and Evans leaves Captain America's wholesomeness far, far behind. Johnson hasn't overlooked two other crucial elements of ace whodunits, thankfully. All those double-crosses, puzzles and arguments are great, but truly excellent murder-mysteries also engage the eyes and serve up a rollicking good time. With his now five-time cinematographer Steve Yedlin, the filmmaker easily takes care of the first aspect while his movie roves around Harlan's labyrinthine home (kudos to the production design team, too). As for the second part of the equation, that stems from the director's light but biting handling of his own material — and his knack for a hearty laugh. Some murder-mysteries try but fail, as Netflix's weak Adam Sandler vehicle Murder Mystery demonstrated earlier this year. Some find their nutty niche and prosper, as 80s cult classic Clue has over the years. It's a testament to Knives Out that it achieves everything it should, hits every target and firmly feels like its own highly enjoyable film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw6L1mu-Nss
The fine fictional detectives of Brooklyn's 99th precinct have long held a soft spot in sitcom viewers' hearts, but that hasn't always proven the case for TV's powers that be. After airing on America's Fox network for five seasons between 2013–2018, the show was cancelled in May last year — only to be picked up for a sixth season by rival US channel NBC just 31 hours later. That 18-episode sixth season is currently on the air, screening on SBS Viceland in Australia. Yes, fans of comedic cops, Die Hard gags and 'title of your sex tape' jokes can't utter "noice" fast or often enough. But in even better news, NBC has just renewed Brooklyn Nine-Nine for a seventh season, which'll likely run across late 2019 and early 2020. That means there's no need to worry about the show's fate for a whole year. As Jake Peralta would say: cool cool cool. Breaking out a celebratory yoghurt, Terry Jeffords-style, is definitely in order. If you're more like Captain Raymond Holt, perhaps you'd like to treat yourself to a trip to a barrel museum. Or you could channel your inner Gina Linetti and dance about your happy feelings. However you choose to mark the news, it's worth it — while the series has a devoted following, its future has rarely been secure, with the possibility of cancellation usually hanging over its previous seasons. The Brooklyn Nine-Nine cast — including Andy Samberg, Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Melissa Fumero, Joe Lo Truglio, Andre Braugher, Dirk Blocker and Joel McKinnon Miller — were all suitably thrilled, as the video below shows. In fact, the renewal even prompted Braugher to tweet for only the second time, which sounds like a classic Captain Holt move. https://twitter.com/nbcbrooklyn99/status/1100902305858117637 And if you're particularly fond of sitcoms created by Mike Schur, who also gave the world Parks & Recreation, then prepare to go to your good place. Fellow NBC show The Good Place, which screens on Netflix in Australia, was already renewed at the end of 2018. Its fourth season is due later this year. Via Variety.
They nailed the contemporary wine bar brief with their Collingwood corner gem, Congress, then delivered design-driven mod-Japanese at Richmond's Future Future. Now, the siblings behind Milieu Hospitality have their shifted focus to Italy, for their all-day Northside haunt Lagotto. In the space below the group's residential development Nth Fitzroy by Milieu, Katie and Michael McCormack have created a destination for all occasions, with an influence that's undeniably Italian — a contemporary restaurant, wine bar and food store. [caption id="attachment_860811" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Anson Smart[/caption] Inside, design work by Flack Studio nods to those European sensibilities, boasting a charming assembly of glossy burgundy accents, sweeping curves, marble-topped benches and blush-hued terrazzo flooring. With Matteo Fulchiati (Osteria Ilaria) now at the helm, the kitchen's paying homage to timeless Italian flavours while showcasing plenty of creative spirit. That means you're in for small plates like wholemeal focaccia paired with smoked malted butter ($8), kingfish with saffron water and finger lime ($24), and a tartare finished with rhubarb and horseradish ($24). [caption id="attachment_860813" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jana Langhorst[/caption] Handmade pasta is a must-try; maybe in the form of lemon spaghettoni with Queensland scampi and bottarga ($42) or campanelle teamed with an oxtail ragu and confit chilli ($38). And feast-worthy mains might include the likes of swordfish cotoletta matched with wild garlic and charred lemon ($43), and a wagyu scotch fillet with chicory and egg yolk ($48). Team it all with a drop from the tidy wine list heroing plenty of minimal intervention pours, the growing selection of amaro, or Euro-centric cocktails like the signature winter negroni ($25). And, if you'd like to take home more than just memories, check out the provedore and wine store — a retail corner filled with pantry essentials, take-home feasts and reasonably priced vino. [caption id="attachment_860812" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jana Langhorst[/caption] [caption id="attachment_860854" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jana Langhorst[/caption] Top Images: Parker Blain and Anson Smart
Following in Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement's footsteps isn't easy, but someone had to do it when What We Do in the Shadows made the leap from the big screen to the small. New format, new location, new vampires, same setup: that's the formula behind this film-to-TV series, which is now streaming its fifth season via Binge in Australia and Neon in New Zealand. Thankfully for audiences, Matt Berry (Toast of London and Toast of Tinseltown), Natasia Demetriou (Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga) and Kayvan Novak (Cruella) were enlisted as the show's three key bloodsuckers in this US spinoff from the New Zealand mockumentary, all in roles that they each seem born for. The trio play three-century-old British aristocrat Laszlo, his 500-year-old creator and partner Nadja, and early Ottoman Empire warrior Nandor, respectively, who all share an abode and the afterlife in Staten Island. In cinemas, the film version of What We Do in the Shadows already proved that the concept works to sidesplitting effect. Vampire housemates, they're just like us — except when they're busting out their fangs, flying, avoiding daylight, sleeping in coffins, feuding with other supernatural creatures and leaving a body count, that is. On TV, What We Do in the Shadows has been showing that there's not only ample life left in palling around with the undead, but that there's no limit to the gloriously ridiculous hijinks that these no-longer-living creatures can get up to. Based on every season so far, including season five, here's hoping that this vampire comedy continues forever. It was true as a movie and it's still true as a television show: What We Do in the Shadows sparkles not just due to its premise, but when its characters and cast are both as right as a luminous full moon on a cloudless night. This lineup of actors couldn't be more perfect or comedically gifted, as season five constantly demonstrates. Berry's over-enunciation alone is the best in the business, as is his ability to play confident and cocky. His line readings are exquisite, and also piercingly funny. While that was all a given thanks to his Toast franchise, Year of the Rabbit, The IT Crowd, Snuff Box, The Mighty Boosh and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace history, What We Do in the Shadows is a group effort. Demetriou and Novak keep finding new ways to twist Nadja and Nandor's eccentricities in fresh directions; their characters have felt lived-in since season one, but they're still capable of growth and change. Some ensemble comedies only shine when their talents combine. Some let one or two stars do all of the heavy lifting. As stellar as Berry, Demetriou and Novak each are, What We Do in the Shadows is the sharehouse ideal of a TV comedy: everyone contributes no matter if they're together or alone. That includes Harvey Guillén (Werewolves Within) as Nandor's long-suffering and ever-dutiful familiar Guillermo, and Mark Proksch (The Office) as energy vampire housemate Colin Robinson. At the series' outset, Guillermo could've just been a tagalong offsider and Colin that exhausting friend everyone has, but with vampire-centric spins. Guillén and Proksch are now not only scene-stealers — especially the former's looks to-camera and the latter's deadpanning — but the source of some of the show's savviest jokes and the subjects of a few of its best episodes. With its game cast making everything they touch a comic gem, TV's iteration of What We Do in the Shadows has never been afraid to take risks as its episodes have soared by. In season four, that meant watching Colin grow up again from a baby — and it was hilarious. Over its run, the show has also seen Guillermo discover that he descends from the undead-hunting Van Helsings, a precarious history given his usual companions. He still desperately wants to be a bloodsucker himself, however. Indeed, that continuing conflict is season five's starting point, with a bitten Guillermo not quite sinking his teeth into anyone yet, worrying about why and also struggling with keeping his possible transformation a secret from Nandor. If Nandor finds out that Guillermo has been turned by his convenience-store cashier pal Derek (Chris Sandiford, Moonfall), wounded pride and a fractured friendship won't just be the end result. As the familiar discovers, being given the chomp by anyone other than the vamp he serves is a faux pas punishable by death — his own, and his master's out of deep shame — in otherworldly circles. This plot strand is season five's new direction for Laszlo, too, as he commits to helping understand why Guillermo isn't feasting on necks like a typical bloodsucker. As he experiments and assists, Nadja endeavours to battle a hex. She also learns that a Little Antipaxos neighbourhood exists right there in Staten Island, gaining a tonic for her frequent homesickness. Season five's storylines get Colin draining souls on the local campaign trail, running for the borough's comptroller purely to feed during debates and other political events. Plus, The Guide (Kristen Schaal, The Bob's Burgers Movie) makes her presence known — more than that, she'd like to be seen as one of the gang — after her time as an envoy to the Vampiric Council, then aiding Nadja with running her vampire nightclub. Visits to the mall and to space, staging a pride parade with perennially clueless neighbour Sean (Anthony Atamanuik, Little Demon), trying to get Nadja's ghost laid: that all happens in early episodes across this latest season. So does What We Do in the Shadows' best staple, aka this supernatural crew bickering, bantering and roasting each other. Case in point: season five finds occasion for Laszlo and Nandor to squabble over whether wit and charm or hypnotism is the best way to bend humans to a bloodsucker's will. What We Do in the Shadows' characters are so well fleshed-out now, and so delightfully performed, that having two of them argue and attempt to one-up each other remains gleaming comedy. The show's writers aren't slumbering. Sharpness and silliness still combine in gags everywhere — about Laszlo learning that he's Kim Cattrall in a Sex in the City quiz, just for starters, and in having Nadja's spirit ask speed-daring partners "how do you feel about taking the virginity of a dead ghost?" as well. Spending eternity with someone, or a quintet of seasons to-date, means loving hanging out with them, though, and this show is understandably mesmerised. Check out the trailer for What We Do in the Shadows season five below: What We Do in the Shadows' fifth season streams via Binge in Australia and Neon in New Zealand.
Thanks to COVID-19, the wait was a lengthy one. But finally, seven months after its planned launch date, Moonee Ponds' long-anticipated new mess hall and beer garden has opened its doors. The latest venture from The Ascot Lot's Jacob Bettio, Lachlan Taylor and David Bartl, Holmes Hall debuted in November 2020, taking over the sprawling 500-square-metre space once home to Russo's Supermarket. Adjacent to the boys' existing craft bottle shop Fizz & Hop, the historic building has been stripped back to its bones, now featuring plush velvet booths, warm timber accents, terrazzo tabletops, lots of greenery and a touch of neon to complement the original brickwork and concrete flooring. [caption id="attachment_797546" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Parker Blain[/caption] The newcomer boasts space to seat 400 punters, while its expansive bar offering ensures none of them will be going thirsty in a hurry. Beer-lovers will find a huge 20-strong tap lineup pouring a diverse rotation of brews, most recently including the likes of Mountain Goat's Botanical IPA and the Petal Head summer ale from Preston's Tallboy & Moose. There's a tight list of wines from both near and far — perhaps the Gilbert skin contact sauv blanc out of Orange — and crafty cocktails ranging from a Nutella-infused espresso martini, to the vegan-friendly Crumbly Cob, which features apple pie moonshine, spiced syrup and Dewar's scotch. Inside, choose from an array of nooks, booths and spaces to settle in and enjoy your sips, or make the most of the summer rays with a table in the sun-drenched beer garden. In the kitchen, chef James Curby is turning out a share-friendly menu of gastropub eats, for both lunch and dinner. Graze your way through plates like the spicy Szechuan-style squid, patatas bravas served with olive aioli, loaded vegan boards and the Meat Lover's Beer Platter: a hefty assembly of barbecued meats, homemade pretzel and beer jam, with extras like sauerkraut and pickled chilli cauliflower. There's a trio of burgers, a verdant summer risotto and a daily-changing pasta special, while Thai-style chicken comes tossed in a lemongrass and lime caramel, matched with herby slaw. [caption id="attachment_797551" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Parker Blain[/caption] No one's about to go bored outside of the eating and drinking, either. You can unleash some competitive spirit on the shuffleboard table or rotating pinball machines, and kick back to tunes from resident DJs every Friday and Saturday. Plus, just like its sibling The Ascot Lot, Holmes Hall is set to deliver a jam-packed calendar of weekly happenings and one-off events, promising a different experience every time you step through the doors. Find Holmes Hall at 15 Holmes Road, Moonee Ponds. It's open from 5–11pm Wednesday–Thursday and 12pm–1am Friday–Saturday ad 12–11pm on Sunday. Images: Parker Blain
Get in the spirit of things this autumn with a feast for the eyes at the Tesselaar KaBloom Festival of Flowers. Held in Silvan – just beyond Melbourne's fringe in the Dandenong Ranges – five acres of colourful sunflowers, salvias, marigolds, dahlias and much more have been arranged in captivating patterns for your wandering pleasure. Running from Saturday, March 29 to Sunday, April 27, the festival has a new element for the first time in 2025, with the KaBloom Ferris Wheel offering the ideal vantage point to admire the vibrant designs below. Whether you're keen for a laidback stroll with nan or somewhere that inspires the kids to get in touch with nature, this verdant event is just what you need. Besides the blooms, there's also a stacked entertainment lineup for all ages. Daring performers from Circus Oz Now for Wow bring acrobatics, juggling and hoop diving to the party, while the whimsical Becky Bubble Show delights onlookers with dreamy rainbow-coloured bubbles. Meanwhile, fairy storytellers weave enchanting tales for little ones in the magical Fairy Garden. You can also score handcrafted goods at the Market Faire, dine on tantalising flavours from local food trucks, or take part in garden games, obstacle courses, scenic tractor rides and even drumming workshops. Plus, with easter on the horizon, KaBloom will get in the mood with a fun-loving hunt where finding mischievous rabbits equals more sweet treats.
As far as summer food/drink combos go, beer with guac and chips is definitely up there. But one brewery's just found a way to combine the two in one unusual but very intriguing beverage. The LA-based Angel City Brewery recently introduced Avocado Ale as part of their inaugural Avocado Festival on August 24, which celebrated the beginning of avocado season in California. The beer contains avocados harvested straight from brewmaster Dieter Foerstner's grandmother's farm, as well as other ingredients you'd normally find in guacamole, like crushed red pepper, garlic, lime and coriander. Angel City is no stranger to experimental brews — their previous creations include the Pickle Weiss and the less weird-sounding White Nite, a golden, chocolate- and espresso-flavoured ale. It looks like Avocado Ale's just a one-off local thing, but they're not the first brewers to take the 'Why can't we have both?' approach to beer and food. Sydney's own 4 Pines Brewery recently held a series of Beer Mimics Food events, featuring beer infused with HP sauce, apple and blackcurrant crumble and, even more bizarrely, a bento box lager. Foerstner, the man behind Avocado Ale, described it to LAist as a "love or hate kind of thing. It's not what traditionalists would expect a beer to taste like. It does have a well-pronounced avocado flavour, so people who don't care for the fruit to begin with might not enjoy it. But being an avocado lover, I love it." Via PSFK.
No matter how much we might want to, we can't all attend every music festival ever. And when one of those events is the huge behemoth that is Coachella, we definitely can't all nab highly sought-after, quickly selling-out tickets each and every year — or, indeed, even any year — either. But, thanks to Indio, California's huge annual drawcard, we can stay home and live our best Coachella lives by livestreaming along. The fest has been teaming up with YouTube to beam its tunes to the world for 11 years now — and it has just locked in plans to keep doing so until 2026. YouTube and Goldenvoice, the company behind Coachella, have announced the multi-year renewal of their partnership, which includes behind-the-scenes content on YouTube Shorts, playlist integrations within YouTube and YouTube Music, YouTube Shopping exclusive merchandise drops, exclusive content for YouTube Premium subscribers, live chats, and onsite activations with YouTube creators and artists — and, of course, that crucial and supremely popular livestream. Make a standing couch date each April, then, if trips to the US to head along in-person aren't in your future. "Our partnership with YouTube brings Coachella to everyone around the world," said Paul Tollett, Goldenvoice's President, in a statement announcing the news. "The 2023 lineup sees performers from Brazil, France, Iceland, India, Jamaica, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Spain, and beyond, and bringing international fans closer to their hometown artists is important to our team." 2023's fest announced its lineup earlier in January, and will be headlined by Bad Bunny, BLACKPINK and Frank Ocean. Also on the bill: everyone from Calvin Harris, Gorillaz, The Chemical Brothers, ROSALÍA and Blondie through to The Kid LAROI, Björk, Fisher, Charlie XCX, Porter Robinson and Idris Elba. Coachella will unleash that impressive collection of talent over the weekends of April 14–16 and April 21–23, which is Saturday, April 15–Monday, April 17 and Saturday, April 22–Monday, April 24 Down Under. While livestreaming is no longer a novelty in these pandemic times, given the calibre of the fest's lineup, it's still a mighty fine way to join in. Wondering who else is on the bill? Here you go: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Coachella (@coachella) Coachella 2023 runs from April 14–16 and April 21–23 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. It'll stream via YouTube from Saturday, April 15–Monday, April 17 and Saturday, April 22–Monday, April 24 Down Under.
Christmas can often be a crazy time, and we can't think of anything worse than running around a shopping centre trying to sort out gifts. We all know the drill, and it's carnage, to say the least. Amazon is our go-to for simple gift ideas that you can pre-order from the comfort of your home, which means avoiding the carnage and taking your time to choose the right gifts. To get you started, we have ten gift ideas you can buy from Amazon right now. Whether you're buying for your impossible-to-buy-for teenage cousin, skin-care-obsessed auntie or for the kids in your life, we've got you covered. 1. Ottolenghi SIMPLE Perfect for any aspiring chef or summer entertainer — it's nearly guaranteed that everyone will love Ottolenghi SIMPLE, a cookbook and a great gift idea for someone you don't know too well or someone hard to buy for. The book features 130 of chef Yotam Ottolenghi's award-winning recipes that are easy enough to cook at home but turn out restaurant-quality (if cooked correctly). Better, if you're invited to a dinner party by whoever you gift the book to, you know you'll be in for a treat. 2. Ultimate Ears Boom 3 Portable Bluetooth Speaker Another easy gift idea that most people would be stoked to receive, the Ultimate Ears Boom 3 Portable Bluetooth Speaker is a great summer gift item, since it's completely waterproof that also floats. Who knows? Maybe you'll get to reap the benefits of this gift at some stage. It also comes in seven different colours, so you can find a good match for whoever you're buying for. You can thank us later. 3. Cocktail Set The silly season is the perfect time to drink cocktails at home or to host parties (obviously with a cocktail bar), hands down. And gifting this sleek, stainless steel cocktail set for Christmas may be the perfect timing. The set includes pourers, a strainer, a muddling stick, two Boston shakers and two bartender spoons. A great gift idea for any aspiring mixologists out there, whether they're a beginner or pro. 4. Crocs Jibbitz Shoe Charms If you haven't heard of Jibbitz, you've clearly managed to steer clear of the front page of social media. A trend that no one saw coming, having a few extra charms on your Crocs is now actually, well, elite. Great for kids or adults who love rocking their Crocs, Jibbitz is an easy way to personalise the classic shoes, with a variety of charms that pop into your shoes' holes, instantly making Crocs even cooler. 5. The Ordinary Skincare It seems that everyone is in their self-care era at the moment, which means skincare is a top priority. Gifting a friend or loved one with The Ordinary The Daily Set is bound to be a practical gift that actually gets used. The set includes three gentle and hydrating formulas suitable for all skin types across all seasons for daily use, including The Ordinary Squalane Cleanser, The Ordinary Hyaluronic Acid with B5 and The Ordinary Natural Moisturizing Factors + HA. 6. LEGO® One of Amazon's top picks when it comes to gift ideas, the LEGO® Creator flatbed truck with a helicopter, fuel vehicle, hot rod SUV and car toys is one of the best simple gift ideas for kids, as well as big kids. LEGO® Creator 3 in 1 sets give the giftee a choice as well, since the pieces can be used to assemble three different sets. Timeless, ageless, genderless and always entertaining, you really can't go wrong with LEGO® as a gift. 7. Noise Cancelling Earbuds If you ask us, noise-cancelling earbuds are no longer a luxury but an essential. If you're trying to find a Christmas gift for your friend who is always travelling or listening to tunes, or you noticed a mate with ancient corded headphones, then the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Wireless Noise Cancelling Earbuds may be the way to go. They feature technology that analyses each ear and adapts sound so that the active noise-cancelling earbuds are custom-tailored, plus they come with nine soft ear tips and stability bands for ultimate comfort. 8. Mortar and Pestle Sometimes, the best gift is a simple one. Enter the granite Mortar and Pestle. There's no kitchen tool simpler than this. Made from solid granite, this kitchen staple is great for crushing herbs, spices, garlic, basil and whatever else you so desire. It's a great gift for those in your life who love cooking. And, if it turns out they don't like cooking, then it also makes for an aesthetic piece of decor on the kitchen bench, So it's a win-win. 9. Minecraft Board Game If we could place a bet on whether the kids in your life play Minecraft, we would confidently put money on it being a yes. They can't get enough, and gifting them with anything Minecraft-related is sure to be a hit. This Minecraft Board Game from Ravensburger is an easy-to-learn strategy board game where players explore the Overworld, mine resources, build structures, collect weapons and fight mobs. Perfect for Minecraft lovers, it's also fun even if you have never played Minecraft. 10. Fitness Tracker Do you have any fitness freaks in your friendship circle? Or maybe your old man is looking to get back in shape? Look no further than the Xiaomi Smart Band 9 Health & Fitness Tracker. This sleek little thing helps you track workouts and health metrics with over 150 sports modes, continuous heart rate monitoring, SpO2 measurement, and sleep analysis. It also looks cool and comes in a range of different colours. Images: Supplied by Amazon. 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Just a few short weeks ago, when we were craving comedies to watch, we noted an important fact: that Parks and Recreation's Leslie Knope knows how to handle herself in a pandemic. She's already done so once, in a fifth-season episode of the beloved sitcom — and, while the show came to an end in 2015, viewers are about to see how the Pawnee, Indiana resident copes with the coronavirus. In a one-off special to raise money for US charity Feeding America, the cast of Parks and Recreation are reuniting to tackle COVID-19. And, more importantly, they'll be showing the world how their adored characters are managing at the moment. Adding another scripted instalment to the series, the show's stars will be resuming their on-screen alter egos, courtesy of a brand new episode that follows Leslie's (Amy Poehler) efforts to keep in touch with her friends while everyone is social distancing. The whole gang will be back, including not only Poehler as Leslie and her Making It co-host Nick Offerman as Ron Swanson, but Aubrey Plaza as April Ludgate-Dwyer, Chris Pratt as Andy Dwyer, Aziz Ansari as Tom Haverford, Adam Scott as Ben Wyatt, Jim O'Heir as Jerry/Garry/Larry/Terry Gergich and Retta as Donna Meagle. Although Rashida Jones' Ann Perkins and Rob Lowe's Chris Traeger left the series halfway through its sixth season, they'll be back as well, Variety reports — and you can also expect a few other yet-to-be-revealed guest stars from the show's original run, too. https://twitter.com/parksandrecnbc/status/1253461556102197251 As Poehler reveals in the above video announcing the news, it was all filmed individually from each cast member's home. That means that when this Parks and Rec special hits US screens on Thursday, April 30 (with an airdate Down Under yet to be announced), it'll look a little different to the show's usual episodes. Of course, no Parks fan will mind. Indeed, if you fall into that category, a new episode is literally the best news you could receive right now — so start making waffles, gather all the bacon and eggs you have, and make sure you've got plenty of whisky on hand. A Parks and Recreation Special airs on Thursday, April 30 in the US. There's no word yet about screening details Down Under, but we'll update you when they come to hand. Via Variety.
Just in time for the season of balmy temperatures and frozen treats, comes Pidapipo's new Fitzroy flagship and gelato destination. Launched this month on Brunswick Street, Pidapipo Laboratorio marks the gelateria's fourth outpost — a huge site where the brand will be both crafting and selling its much-loved dessert creations. Known for its equal commitment to tradition and innovation, Pidapipo has blossomed exponentially since first launching as a Carlton pop-up in 2013. But this next phase of life marks its biggest leap yet. An onsite production lab is the crown jewel of the new site, nodding to the classic Italian concept of the kitchen being the heart of the home, while also spotlighting the brand's penchant for experimentation. It's here that you'll be able to see co-founder and chef Lisa Valmorbida developing and honing all those new, limited-release concoctions. Out front, Laboratorio's rotating gelato menu will run to just eight exclusive flavours, but with a vast array of add-ons available. The space itself is the work of renowned designer Dion Hall (Music Room, Supernormal, Rare Hare) — a light-filled vision of stainless steel and crisp white with a futuristic industrial edge, where there are minimal barriers between the kitchen's theatrics and the diners or passersby. The brand's first artisanal chocolate range will also make its debut here in Fitzroy, crafted onsite in a special state-of-the-art, temperature-controlled room. You'll find everything from single-origin bars, to truffles and pralines; most of which will feature on the gelato menu, incorporated into current and future flavours. And don't forget about the house-made chocolate sauces, served on tap to drizzle over your scoops or line your gelato cone. Also on offer is a lineup of pasticceria-style goodies — think, bomboloni stuffed with that famed signature gianduja filling and brioche cooked to order — as well as the brand's newly expanded line of gelato cakes. There are grand plans for the site's rooftop, too, including beehives set to produce hyper-local honey for the menu, a micro-garden growing native ingredients, and an alfresco space to host cooking demos and masterclasses. Find Pidapipo Laboratorio at 429–431 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. It's open daily from 12–11pm. Images: Pete Dillon
The day has finally arrived: MECCA's new headline-grabbing Bourke Street location — one of the world's largest standalone beauty destinations — has opened. Following weeks and months of fanfare, guests are welcome to explore the 4000-square-metre flagship, spread across three massive levels and home to over 200 beauty brands, 80 services and a host of exciting in-store concepts that help redefine experiential beauty retail. To celebrate, the team is hosting a weekend-long celebration jam-packed with beauty experiences and community encounters. While getting lost in this sprawling multi-level store is a genuine possibility, the MECCA Guidebook is here to help. Featuring a custom illustration of the Bourke Street store's floor plan, this convenient companion will make sure you don't miss the express beauty services or the MECCAversity education sessions as you wander. This beauty booklet also includes fascinating brand spotlights, helping guests discover more about this statement location's immense artwork, installations and brand partners that bring the space to life. Plus, there are stamps to collect as you move from one space to the next, with three stamps in your guidebook gathered during opening month earning guests a full-size MECCA product. Plus, if you return for a service in September or October, you'll depart with a second gift. Speaking of services, attending a booking is how you can get your hands on a MECCA gold medallion. Inspired by the gold coins handed out in E.W. Cole's famous Book Arcade — the original occupant of the Bourke Street site — everyone with a medallion is a winner, with prizes from gift cards to a year's worth of manicures at the Trophy Wife nail salon up for grabs. Just head to the concierge crew on Level 1 to claim your prize. Designed by acclaimed architecture practice Studio McQualter, MECCA Bourke Street is more than three times the size of MECCA George Street and over 60 times the original MECCA Toorak Road store. Intended as a full-day destination, it's easy to imagine spending hours roaming concepts like MECCA Perfumeria — guided by expert scent sommeliers — or sitting down for an advanced clinical skin treatment at MECCA Aesthetica. "MECCA Bourke Street is the physical embodiment of our purpose — to embolden through beauty by helping people look, feel, and be their best. It reimagines what experiential retail can be, fusing creativity, culture, and collaboration to create something so much more than a store — it's the MECCA of all MECCAs," says MECCA Founder and Co-CEO, Jo Horgan. MECCA Bourke Street is now open at 299 Bourke Street, Melbourne. Head to the website for more information. Images: Sean Fennessy.
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 watching anything, we're here to help. From the latest and greatest to old favourites, here are our picks for your streaming queue for September. NEW STUFF TO WATCH NOW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTjlurdbNnw I MAY DESTROY YOU Newly returned from a working trip to Italy, struggling to write her second novel after her first struck a sizeable chord and pushing up against a draft deadline just hours away, Arabella (Michaela Coel) takes some time out from an all-nighter to procrastinate with friends over a few drinks in a couple of London bars. The next morning, the Twitter-famous scribe is shaky, hazy and feels far from her normal self — and across the next 11 episodes of this instantly blistering 12-part series, I May Destroy You delves into the aftermath, as Arabella realises that she was raped that evening. Not only created and written by the unflinching and captivating Coel, but inspired by her own real-life experience with sexual assault, the result is as bold, raw and frank as it is sensitive and affecting. It also feels personal at every single moment. An immensely powerful series that intimately interrogates power on multiple levels and features an unsurprisingly potent performance by Coel, I May Destroy You is easily this year's number-one must-see show — and its absolute best. I May Destroy You's first season is available to stream via Binge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDTg62vsV4U I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS For much of I'm Thinking of Ending Things two-hour-plus running time, the film's characters sit and talk as discomfort fills the space around them. The movie's protagonist (Wild Rose's Jessie Buckley) and her boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemons) awkwardly chat as they drive through the snow to the Oklahoma farm where the latter grew up. They both endure several seesawing conversations with Jake's erratic and eccentric mother (Toni Collette) and father (David Thewlis) once they arrive. And, steam-of-consciousness narration also provides a soundtrack. But given this feature is written and directed by Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, it was never going to be a straightforward flick about meeting the parents. Instead, it's a purposely ambiguous and complex exploration of identity, choice and the very nature of human existence — complete with sudden ballet dances, strange overnight stops at deserted dessert stands and flashes to an unhappy janitor (Guy Boyd) — and it's a fascinating, challenging, visually stunning trip the entire way. I'm Thinking of Ending Things is available to stream via Netflix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN8fFM1ZdWo THE BOYS Suffers of superhero fatigue understandably rejoiced when The Boys first hit screens in 2019. Yes, it focuses on a group of caped crusaders just like seemingly every second blockbuster movie — but, in a world where viewers have been conditioned to lap up narratives about powerful folks who are supposedly better than most, this series both satirises and questions that very idea. Here, superheroes work for a corporation called Vought International. The top talent is known as The Seven; however when the public isn't looking, most — especially leader Homelander (Antony Starr) — are hardly role models. The show's second season picks up where its first left off, with determined, no-nonsense Brit Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) intent on bringing Vought and The Seven down with his own ragtag team, aka The Boys of the title. As well as once again following the complicated bond between The Boys' newcomer Hugh (Jack Quaid) and The Seven's Starlight (Erin Moriarty), the new season also throws Better Call Saul's Giancarlo Esposito into the mix as Vought's CEO, plus Aya Cash as social media star and new The Seven member Liberty. The first five episodes of The Boys' second season are available to stream via Amazon Prime Video, with new episodes added every Friday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFAHiU0g0xQ PEN15 When Maya Erskine (Wet Hot American Summer: 10 Years Later) and Anna Konkle (Rosewood) decided that they were going to make a series about their 13-year-old selves — and, although they're now definitely and obviously adults, also play their younger selves — it was a decidedly risky move. It pays off, though. In fact, it's one of the savviest parts of PEN15, which is one of the most distinctive comedies on TV. There's nothing quite like reflecting upon that awkward adolescent phase by physically and literally revisiting it, as the two writers and actors do, all while their on-screen characters navigate the ups and downs of middle school at the turn of the 21st century. Returning for the first half of its second season, this comedy series steps back into the lives of Maya Ishii-Peters (Erskine) and Anna Kone (Konkle), deepens its exploration of being a teenage girl (and a teenager in general), and will have you cringing in recognition, laughing and recognising its insights simultaneously. The first seven episodes of PEN15's second season are available to stream via Stan, with another seven episodes set to drop at a yet-to-be revealed date. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJvKDp54YjM SPIRAL Not to be confused with the upcoming new Saw franchise film of the same name, Spiral gives a familiar premise a smart, topical and resonant twist. In the mid-90s, Malik (Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, UnREAL) and Aaron (Ari Cohen, IT: Chapter Two) move to a small town with the latter's teenage daughter Kayla (Jennifer Laporte, iZombie), seeking a quieter, happier life away from the city. They're initially greeted warmly by neighbours Marshall (Lochlyn Munro, Riverdale) and Tiffany (Chandra West, Played); however, in general territory traversed by many a horror film before this, things aren't quite what they seem. Indeed, when Malik comes home one day to find a homophobic slur graffitied on their living room wall, he starts to get suspicious about the cliquey community they're now calling home — fears that Aaron doesn't share. There is clearly much about Spiral that fits a template, but director Kurtis David Harder and writers Colin Minihan and John Poliquin do an astute job of moulding this unsettling movie into a timely statement. The result: an unnerving feature that's as much about spooky terrors as societal ones, and that possesses a considerable bite. Spiral is available to stream via Shudder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ8CCg1tOqc #ALIVE Train to Busan and Peninsula aren't the only films to wonder how South Korea might cope with a sudden zombie outbreak. The unrelated #Alive also explores the concept, focusing on a video game streamer as an unexplained disease turns most of Seoul's residents into the guts-munching undead. Even holed up in the seeming safety of his family's apartment, Oh Jun-u (Burning's Yoo Ah-in) doesn't initially take the situation well. As shuffling hordes lurk outside, his dismal food supply rapidly declines and he worries about the safety of his parents and sister, he attempts to survive — and to fight off the gnawing feeling that perhaps his struggle is futile. A box office hit when it released in South Korean cinemas, #Alive never feels as formulaic as its premise might suggest. In fact, this horror-thriller proves constantly tense, and not just because pandemic films have that effect at the moment. Making his first feature, writer/director Il Cho handles the zombie scenes with urgency and makes ample room for quiet moments; however his best decision is casting the ever-watchable Yoo. #Alive is available to stream via Netflix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31rSR0w0z30 THE VOW Another month, another compelling true-crime documentary series. When it comes to delving into the minutiae of tales so wild that they can only be true, HBO has long been known for leading the charge — and, after McMillions and I'll Be Gone in the Dark already this year, The Vow is its latest addition to the fold. Its focus: self-improvement group NXIVM. If that name sounds familiar, that's probably because you remember the 2018 news headlines, when its founder Keith Raniere and member and actor Allison Mack (Smallville) were arrested and charged with a range of crimes that included sex trafficking. Featuring former NXIVM members sharing stories about their time in the cult-like group, The Vow details a rollercoaster ride of a story, not only unpacking the sinister and sordid aspects of the tale, but attempting to understand what appealed to people about the organisation in the first place. Filmmakers Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer picked up an Oscar nomination for 2013's The Square, as well as Emmy awards and nods, and don't be surprised if they feature in the TV awards conversation in 2020. The first episode of The Vow is available to stream via Binge, with new episodes available every Sunday. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSzZxsX0_yE AP BIO In It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Glenn Howerton excels at playing arrogant, narcissistic, abrasive, selfish and misanthropic. He's been doing just that since 2005, and long may that continue. But, while before 2018, no one would've ever wondered what might happen if Howerton demonstrated the same traits in a high-school set sitcom, AP Bio answers that question in a consistently amusing way. Here, Howerton plays an ex-Harvard philosophy professor forced to return to his home town of Toledo after losing his dream job and reacting badly. He takes a gig as a biology teacher even though he has absolutely no interest in it, and he enlists his motley crew of students to help him enact his elaborate revenge plan. Three seasons in, this comedy happily veers in its own direction and keeps serving up offbeat laughs — including from Patton Oswalt as the school principal and the great Paula Pell (a Saturday Night Live writer for almost two decades) as his secretary. Also, the latest season dedicates an episode to an occasion known as 'Katie Holmes Day', which is as silly and yet still inspired as it sounds. All of AP Bio's third season is available to stream via Stan (and its first and second seasons as well). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaaC57tcci0 THE SOCIAL DILEMMA The idea that social media isn't all that great for humanity isn't new news. More than a decade after services such as Facebook and Twitter started taking over our daily lives, inundating us with notifications, fighting for our time, collecting our data and trying to monetise our attention to sell to advertisers, that fact shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. But just because The Social Dilemma stresses something that everyone should already know, that doesn't mean that it doesn't still pack a punch. This Sundance-premiering documentary proves more than a little clunky when it features dramatised segments showing both how social media can affect us all and visualising how algorithms work (the latter featuring multiple versions of Mad Men's Vincent Kartheiser). And, in its interview segments, it is hardly astonishing that an array of ex-tech company employees have unpleasant things to say about the industry. Still, this doco is both comprehensive and important — and, if you haven't spent much time thinking about the topic, accessible as well. The Social Dilemma is available to stream via Netflix. CULT CLASSICS TO REVISIT AND REDISCOVER https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azjw0hTkOIs FARGO More than two decades since it first hit the big screen, Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo still ranks among their best work. Given the other movies to the sibling filmmakers' names — Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men and Inside Llewyn Davis, to name just a few — that's quite the feat. So, when the Fargo TV series arrived in 2014, it followed in some considerable footsteps. Telling a different crime tale each season, with a different high-profile cast, it instantly became one of television's must-watch dramas. Featuring everyone from Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman (in season one), to Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons (season two) and Ewan McGregor playing brothers (in season three), every episode to-date has served up an entertaining treat — and those first three seasons have just hit SBS On Demand in the lead up to the Chris Rock and Jason Schwartzman-starring fourth season, which starts dropping in October. The first three seasons of Fargo are available to stream via SBS On Demand. Top images: I May Destroy You, Natalie Seery/HBO; The Vow, HBO; I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Mary Cybulski/Neflix.
We usually associate the word 'diner' with some kind of hokey themed establishment, probably with singing wait staff, linoleum floors and greasy oversized portions. And though this brand new Windsor eatery may take its name from those other dubious incarnations of the word, Parlour Diner is thankfully nothing like them. This surely stems from the guiding hand of its owner, former Milky Joe's proprietor Adrian Van Lieshout. Choosing the tiny space next to Windsor station as his new outpost, Van Lieshout and business partner Dorian Padgham wanted to create a 'comfortable little space', and those words are crucial to the experience of Parlour Diner. Though the place is almost full to the brim once its few tables are occupied, there's a sense of camaraderie between the patrons, mostly a local crowd. Whilst cafes on Chapel Street have a tendency to be overpriced and overcrowded, Parlour Diner's tiny size keeps it grounded with a sense of community rather than commodity. The menu takes its cues from a 1920s rather than 1950s diner sensibility, which makes for heartier, healthier dining options, even on a meat-drenched menu. Carnivores will find their mecca here with options like buttermilk fried chicken chops (4 for $15) or BBQ ribs drenched in a smoky hickory sauce (six for $22.5). And then there's the burgers. There's a colourful list to choose from, ranging from classic to culturally inspired choices. You could play it safe and choose the simple but excellent Parlour Burger; a rich 8oz beef patty with the usual additions like fresh tomato, lettuce and pickles ($12) or take the road less travelled with options such as the Miss Saigon – which pairs a crunchy handmade fish patty with lemongrass and ginger to pack a spicy punch ($15) – or the Asian Pork Slider, a new take on the former incarnation at Milky Joe's ($12). There's even a tofu Earth Burger ($13) for the vegetarians out there, who could also go for the perfectly indulgent Mascarpone macaroni and cheese ($9). The generous breakfast options (as many eggs as you like, for $9.50) or the flat top hot dogs that feature adventurous toppings like chipotle and celery salt ($10) are worth a visit too. And then there's the onion rings ($5), lightly battered in Pale Ale and thick enough to satisfy as a snacking option. By elegantly tying together the popularity of American style dining with a Melbourne café mentality, Van Lieshout and Padgham have managed to combine the best of both worlds, creating an atmosphere that takes the humble diner restaurant well into the contemporary dining experience.
Australian Venue Co — one of the country's largest hospitality groups which operates 94 venues in Queensland, 70 in Victoria, 26 in Western Australia, 18 in South Australia, 10 in New South Wales and 2 in the Northern Territory — announced on Monday, December 2, that it will no longer host Australia Day celebrations on January 26 at any of its more than 200 outposts. January 26 is a contentious date for many. Commemorating the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the beginning of European settlement on the Australian continent, it is a day of enduring collective trauma for First Nations communities and their allies who know it as Invasion Day or Survival Day rather than its traditional name. [caption id="attachment_908540" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Morris House, Melbourne[/caption] In a statement supplied to The Herald Sun, an Australian Venue Co spokesperson said of the decision to bar events on January 26: "Australia Day is a day that causes sadness for some members of our community, so we have decided not to specifically celebrate a day that causes hurt for some of our patrons and our team," Since 1994, all Australian states and territories have enjoyed a public holiday on January 26, but calls to move the country's national day to another less controversial date have gained momentum in recent years. In 2017, radio station Triple J made the decision to move its annual Hottest 100 rankings to January 25 and earlier this year, major supermarket brands Woolworths and Aldi both pledged to no longer stock Australia Day merchandise in its stores. Across Australia, January 26 has also created opportunities to show solidarity with First Nations communities. More than 80 councils around the country no longer hold citizenship ceremonies on January 26 and Invasion Day rallies attract thousands of peaceful protesters every year. For a full list of the Australian Venue Co venues effected by the January 26 event ban, visit the Australian Venue Co website.
Opening its doors way back in 2008, Silk Road has made a name for its self as an opulent, indulgent club of the rich and famous. Beyoncé, Jason Statham and Jay-Z are just some of the celebrities that have hung out here while in Melbourne. But after five years, Silk Road's doors are now closing, possibly to become something new entirely. If you are a fan of the venue or have just always wanted to try it out, NYE will be your final chance to sit in a booth once occupied by Queen Bey herself. This is a big operation. All eight themed bars will be running over the venue's three levels while roaming dancers and performers entertain the crowds. As you would expect from Silk Road, opulence and glam is the name of the game. Entry tickets include drinks and substantial canapés and you should dress to impress.
The team from Pierogi Pierogi are taking over The Gasometer Hotel's kitchen to ring in International Workers' Day the only way they know how. As purveyors of Melbourne's finest handmade Polish dumplings, the market regulars will embrace the revolutionary spirit with traditional pierogi, hearty soups, pickled fish, and lots and lots and lots of vodka. Pierogi Pierogi promise to "put a tasty dumpling-shaped spanner into the machinations of an oppressive flavourless state". Plus, in addition to the Polish cuisine, the night will feature music from gypsy jazz band Hello Tut Tut. It all goes down from 5pm until late on Sunday, April 30.
When one year ends and another begins, looking back is always on the agenda. When summer holidays arrive with lazy days and cruisy itineraries, streaming binges await. Combine the two and you've got a date with 2023's small-screen highlights — but don't just stick to the shows that you saw and loved over the past 12 months. Because no one can watch everything that drops when it drops, you no doubt missed plenty of gems when you weren't glued to your couch. A nun battling AI, Pete Davidson's latest riff on his own life, a new series from Drive filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn and a twist on Sweeney Todd are just some of the fresh 2023 streaming shows that you mightn't have had a chance to catch up with yet, but can now. There's more where they came from. As we did in 2021 and 2022, we've highlighted 15 ace new arrivals over the past year that deserve a place in your streaming queue. Don't spend your break endlessly scrolling through the ever-growing array of streaming platforms — we've done the hard work for you. MRS DAVIS It was back in March 2022 that the world first learned of Mrs Davis, who would star in it and which creatives were behind it. Apart from its central faith-versus-technology battle, the show's concept was kept under wraps, but the series itself was announced to the world. The key involvement of three-time GLOW Emmy-nominee Betty Gilpin, Lost and The Leftovers creator Damon Lindelof, and The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon writer and executive producer Tara Hernandez was championed, plus the fact that Black Mirror: San Junipero director Owen Harris would helm multiple episodes. Accordingly, although no one knew exactly what it was about, Mrs Davis existed months before ChatGPT was released — but this puzzle-box drama, which is equally a sci-fi thriller, zany comedy and action-adventure odyssey, now follows the artificial intelligence-driven chatbot in reaching audiences. Indeed, don't even bother trying not to think about the similarities as you're viewing this delightfully wild and gleefully ridiculous series. There's also no point dismissing any musings that slip into your head about social media, ever-present tech, digital surveillance and the many ways that algorithms dictate our lives, either. Mrs Davis accepts that such innovations are a mere fact of life in 2023, then imagines what might happen if AI promised to solve the worlds ills and make everyone's existence better and happier. It explores how users could go a-flocking, eager to obey every instruction and even sacrifice themselves to the cause. In other words, it's about ChatGPT-like technology starting a religion in everything but name. To tell that tale, it's also about nun Simone (Gilpin, Gaslit), who was raised by magicians (Love & Death's Elizabeth Marvel and Scream's David Arquette), and enjoys sabbaticals from her convent to do whatever is necessary to bring down folks who practise her parents' vocation and the show's titular technology. She also undertakes quite the literal nuptials to Jesus Christ, is divinely bestowed names to chase in her quest and has an ex-boyfriend, Wiley (Jake McDorman, Dopesick), who's a former bullrider-turned-Fight Club-style resistance leader. And, she's tasked with a mission by the algorithm itself: hunting down the Holy Grail. Mrs Davis streams via Binge. Read our full review. A MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD Whichever miniatures are stuffed inside a snow globe, a simple shake surrenders them all to the same fate: flakes falling in their tiny dome. Pop culture's enduring murder-mystery obsession can feel much the same way. When the pieces start raining down in seven-part miniseries A Murder at the End of the World, there's much that instantly feels familiar from a heavily populated field of recent and classics whodunnits. That checklist includes a confined single setting, potential victims cooped up with an unknown killer, rampant secrets and lies, fingers pointed everywhere, Nordic noir's frosty climes, an eerie butler, a wealthy host who might just have the most to lose and, of course, a gifted gumshoe sleuthing through the group. A Murder at the End of the World radiates its own Gen Z Sherlock Holmes vibe, though. That's even how its sharp protagonist is described, and early. In the role of 24-year-old hacker-turned-author Darby Hart, who is invited by billionaire recluse Andy Ronson (Clive Owen, American Crime Story) to an intimate Iceland symposium of bright minds, Emma Corrin (Lady Chatterley's Lover) also turns Agatha Christie. The OA creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij have put their own intriguing, involving, can't-stop-watching spin on their addition to the genre, as they make clear early. As the duo share writing duties and split time in the director's chair — with Marling also co-starring — they take cues from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Stieg Larsson's sequels as well, all while also sliding their series in alongside Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery; however, the mood, ambition, pursuit of weighty themes, shadowy conspiracies, earnestness and love of telling puzzle-box tales match perfectly with their last show, plus their film collaborations Sound of My Voice and The East. Two timelines unspool: the present-day storyline at the ideas salon, where bodies are soon falling; and the the road trip that Darby took with fellow Reddit-aided citizen detective Bill Farrah (Harris Dickinson, Scrapper) to solve the case that fuels her debut novel. Both are compelling; shake this snow globe for more and you won't want to stop. A Murder at the End of the World streams via Disney+. Read our full review. THE CHANGELING It isn't by accident that watching The Changeling feels like being read to, rather than simply viewing streaming's latest book-to-TV adaptation. Landing from the pages of Victor LaValle's novel of the same name, this horror-fantasy series is obsessed with stories, telling tales and unpacking what humanity's favourite narratives say about our nature, including myths and yarns that date back centuries and longer. Printed tomes are crucial in its characters lives, fittingly. Libraries, bookstores, dusty boxes stacked with old volumes, beloved childhood texts, a rare signed version of To Kill a Mockingbird with a note from Harper Lee to lifelong friend Truman Capote: they all feature within the show's frames. Its protagonists Apollo Kagwa (LaKeith Stanfield, Haunted Mansion) and Emma Valentine (Clark Backo, Letterkenny), who fall in love and make a life together before its first episode is out, even work as a book dealer and a librarian. And, The Changeling also literally reads to its audience, because LaValle himself relays this adult fairytale, his dulcet tones speaking lyrical prose to provide a frequent guide In a show created and scripted by Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Fifty Shades of Grey and Saving Mr Banks screenwriter Kelly Marcel, there's nothing more potent and revealing than a story, after all — and The Changeling believes in the power of tales to capture, explain, transport, engage, caution and advise, too. Aptly, New Yorkers Apollo and Emma meet amid books, in the library where she works and he frequents. It takes convincing to get her to agree to go out with him, but that leads to marriage and a child. The Changeling's astute thematic layering includes Apollo's repeated attempts to wrangle that first yes out of Emma, however, setting up a train of thought that has many future stations. In-between early dates and domesticity, Emma also takes the trip of a lifetime to Brazil, where an old woman awaits by Lagoa do Abaeté. The locals warn the visitor to stay away but she's mesmerised. What happens between the two strangers sends the narrative hurtling, with the lakeside figure tying a red string around Emma's wrist, granting her three wishes, but advising that they'll only come true when the bracelet falls off by itself. The Changeling streams via Apple TV+. Read our full review. BUPKIS In its opening moments, Bupkis unloads — twice, in completely different ways, while ensuring there's zero doubt that this is a series about Pete Davidson starring Pete Davidson as Pete Davidson. First, the former Saturday Night Live comedian gets Googling while alone in the basement of the Staten Island home he shares with his mother Amy (Edie Falco, Avatar: The Way of Water). The results about Ariana Grande, Kate Beckinsale and Kim Kardashian's ex aren't positive; so, to shake off the unpleasantness of reading '12 Things Horribly Wrong with Pete Davidson', he switches from "scumbro" with "butthole eyes" comments to porn. He's wearing a VR headset, and he's soon deep in self-love. Then his mum walks in. Bupkis clearly isn't wary about getting crude. It isn't concerned about satirising its central figure, either. Instead, this semi-autobiographical dramedy relishes the parody. At the age of 29, Davidson has reached the "you may as well laugh" point in his career, which is hardly surprising given he's spent the past decade swinging his big chaotic energy around. Partway through the eight-episode series, while keen to claim some perks for being Davidson's mother — other than doting on her son, that is — Amy shouts at wait staff that "Marisa Tomei played me!". Add that to Bupkis' gleeful, playful nods to reality. An opening statement before each instalment stresses the difference between fact and fiction, and why the show has the moniker it has, but art keeps imitating life everywhere. There's no switching names, however. Davidson is indeed Davidson, his IRL mum is called Amy and his sister is Casey (Oona Roche, The Morning Show). As in The King of Staten Island, they've been a trio since 9/11, and dealing with losing his New York City firefighter dad still isn't easy. Off-screen, however, Davidson must be a fan of My Cousin Vinny, plus the gangster genre. Hailing from the former as Tomei does, and famed for his performances in the latter like The Sopranos star Falco, Goodfellas, Casino and The Irishman alum Joe Pesci is a pivotal part of Bupkis as Davidson's grandfather Joe — a hilarious and delightful part, unsurprisingly. Bupkis streams via Binge. Read our full review. MATILDAS: THE WORLD AT OUR FEET Passion flows as feverishly through the Australia's women's national football team as talent, and Matildas: The World at Our Feet boasts plenty of examples to show it. Covering the lead up to the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, this six-part documentary series sees enthusiasm and emotion everywhere, regardless of who the squad is playing, why or where, and the end score. Kicking goals? Joyous. Winning games? Euphoric. Taking every step needed to do their best at soccer's ultimate contest, especially because it's being held on home soil for the first time ever? A positively peppy and determined task. Inspiring girls across Australia to follow in their footsteps? For Sam Kerr and company, that's what their hard work is all about. To start this doco's sixth episode, Kerr and several teammates chat about how much it means to them to be galvanising tomorrow's female athletes, a topic that pops up more than once across the entire series. In this particular instalment, they also discuss the equivalent influence in their own lives: Cathy Freeman's 400-metre gold-medal run at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. "We didn't have a role model in women's football, or any sport," shares goalkeeper Lydia Williams. "Watching Cathy Freeman at 2000, that just kind of ignited my dreams," she continues. "At the time, I was just amazed — blown away that every single person in the country could be talking about one person, and she was a female athlete," adds Kerr. "As I sat in my lounge room as a nine-year-old girl and watched her, that inspired me to one, be proud of who I am, but to also follow my sporting dreams to play football for Australia," says fellow striker Kyah Simon. The force of their feelings radiates from the screen, and Matildas: The World at Our Feet's audience beams the same emotions right back at them. Matildas: The World at Our Feet streams via Disney+. Read our full review. LUCKY HANK When Better Call Saul finished its six-season run in 2022, it was the end of an era. Not only did one of the absolute best TV shows of the past decade and the whole 21st century so far wrap up, but the Breaking Bad universe with it for now. And, it meant that the wonderful Bob Odenkirk was no longer on our screens regularly. Thankfully, with the arrival of Lucky Hank, the latter was only a short-lived state of affairs. This dramedy — because everything is a dramedy at the moment — hails from The Office actor/co-writer Paul Lieberstein, adapts Richard Russo's 1997 novel Straight Man, and casts its Undone and Nobody star as a Pennsylvanian college professor. The eponymous Hank Devereaux Jr inhabits a whirlwind of chaos, including underfunding at his university in general, unhappy colleagues in the English department he chairs, students challenging him, a wife that's tiring of academic life and the fact that he's only penned one book thanks to a hefty bout of writers' block. If some of the above sounds familiar, that's because The Chair flicked through similar territory in 2021 — also engagingly, and with Sandra Oh at its centre. Like that series, Lucky Hank thrives through its excellent lead casting, with watching Odenkirk still one of the easiest things in the world no matter what he's in. He has excellent company, including Lieberstein's The Office co-star Oscar Nuñez as Railton College dean, Mireille Enos (Hanna) as his wife, and Diedrich Bader (Shazam! Fury of the Gods) as a friend and co-worker. As a guest star, one and only Twin Peaks legend Kyle MacLachlan is also among the cast. Odenkirk wears middle-aged malaise so devastatingly well, though, which made Better Call Saul one of the best tragedies there is, and helps Lucky Hank prove as thoughtful as it is charming. There's depth to Hank's experiences, too, with Russo's tome based on his own time teaching at several colleges. Lucky Hank streams via Stan. THE BIG DOOR PRIZE Sometimes Apple TV+ dives into real-life crimes, as miniseries Black Bird did. Sometimes it mines the whodunnit setup for laughs, which The Afterparty winningly achieved. The family feuds of Bad Sisters, Servant's domestic horrors, Hello Tomorrow!'s retrofuturistic dream, the titular take on work-life balance in Severance — they've all presented streaming audiences with puzzles, too, because this platform's original programming loves a mystery. So, of course dramedy The Big Door Prize is all about asking questions from the outset. Here, no one is wondering who killed who, why a baby has been resurrected or if a situation that sounds too good to be true unsurprisingly is. Rather, in a premise isn't merely a metaphor for existential musings, they're pondering a magical machine and what it tells them about themselves. Everyone in The Big Door Prize does go down the "what does it all mean?" rabbit hole, naturally, but trying to work out why the Morpho has popped up in the small town of Deerfield, where it came from, whether it can be trusted, and if it's just a bit of fun or a modern-day clairvoyant game are pressing concerns. When the machine arrives, it literally informs residents of their true potential. Crowds flock, but not everyone is initially fascinated with the mysterious gadget. Turning 40, and marking the occasion with that many gifts from his wife Cass (Gabrielle Dennis, A Black Lady Sketch Show) and teenage daughter Trina (Djouliet Amara, Devil in Ohio), high-school history teacher Dusty Hubbard (Chris O'Dowd, Slumberland) is nonplussed. Amid riding his new scooter and wondering why he's been given a theremin, he's baffled by all the talk about the Morpho, the new reason to head to Mr Johnson's (Patrick Kerr, Search Party) store. As school principal Pat (Cocoa Brown, Never Have I Ever) embraces her inner biker because the machine said so, and charisma-dripping restaurateur Giorgio (Josh Segarra, The Other Two) revels in being told he's a superstar, Dusty claims he's happy not joining in — until he does. The Big Door Prize streams via Apple TV+. Read our full review. COPENHAGEN COWBOY Ten years ago, Nicolas Winding Refn released his second Ryan Gosling-starring film in succession, won his second Sydney Film Festival Prize, and was a reliable source of dazzling and blisteringly atmospheric crime fare thanks to Drive and Only God Forgives — and also the Pusher trilogy and Bronson before that pair. In the past decade, however, he's only brought one more movie to cinemas. The Neon Demon was a gem, too, and about as Refn as Refn gets, but that was back in 2016. Smaller screens have been beckoning the Danish director, thankfully. He launched his own free streaming service, and also co-created, co-wrote and directed the ten-part, Miles Teller (Top Gun: Maverick)-starring Too Old to Die Young. Refn's latest effort gets episodic as well, and sees him return to his homeland for the first time since Valhalla Rising — and, while it feels filtered through David Lynch's sensibilities alongside his own, Copenhagen Cowboy remains Refn through and through. The visuals have it, as they always do when this filmmaker is behind the lens. Neon aplenty, how he composes a room, how his characters peer on at the world around them, the use of 360-degree pans, the chilly mood, his overall aesthetic flair: they're all here. So, too, is another of the director's essentials, courtesy of a synth-heavy score by Cliff Martinez. That combination makes an entrancing mix, as it has over and over before, but Copenhagen Cowboy is never simply a case of empty style, sound and vision. Also present is an enigmatic tale, this time about the magnetic and mysterious Miu (Angela Bundalovic, Limboland). Considered a "living lucky charm" and highly sought after for her talents, she's the show's entry point to Copenhagen's criminal underworld. Can she help Rosella (Dragana Milutinovic, also Limboland) get pregnant? What kind of eerie situation has she found herself in? Are her gifts genuine? It wouldn't be a Refn project if questions didn't linger in the pulsating sense of stillness. Copenhagen Cowboy streams via Netflix. IN LIMBO Not to be confused with 2023 Australian film Limbo, six-part Aussie dramedy In Limbo not only takes its title to heart, but also uses the idea as fuel for a supernatural buddy comedy. Indeed, before the first episode is out, Nate (Bob Morley, Love Me) is palling around with his lifelong best friend Charlie (Ryan Corr, House of the Dragon) from the afterlife. The former doesn't know why he's still a presence. The latter is understandably reeling from the tragedy, and initially thinks that spying Nate is just a drunken hallucination. No one else, not Nate's wife Freya (Emma Harvie, Colin From Accounts), eight-year-old daughter Annabel (Kamillia Rihani, The Twelve), supremely very Catholic mother Maria (Lena Cruz, Wellmania) and affable father Frank (Russell Dykstra, Irreverent), can see their dearly-departed loved one as a ghost. It's Christmas, too, in this Brisbane-shot and -set series, and facing the festivities after such a shock is far from easy. While heartily deploying Brisbane Powerhouse and New Farm Park as settings, that's a lot for one show to delve into — and delve it thoughtfully does. Tackling grief, mental health and suicide is never simple, even in a show about someone haunting their best mate, and including when such topics have been increasingly popping up in Australian fare of late (see also: Totally Completely Fine). In Limbo is clearly made with care, empathy and understanding — and, crucially, doesn't attempt to offer any firm answers, instead acting as a conversation starter. At its core, the always-excellent Corr plays a complicated role with charm. That's no surprise given his resume, and he couldn't be better cast. Corr's likeable performance always dives deep into the about-to-get-divorced Charlie's struggle without Nate physically by his side, with Nate now his ghostly offsider and with his own problems, and never brushes past the character's flaws. And, just as importantly as the show's focus on 21st-century masculinity and friendship, Corr makes such a great double act with Morley that filmmakers should be clamouring to pair them up again ASAP. In Limbo streams via ABC iView. Read our full review, and our interview with Ryan Corr. HELLO TOMORROW! In 2022, scam culture was here to stay, as drawn-from-reality hits such as Inventing Anna and The Dropout repeatedly promised. In 2023, playing fast and loose with the truth sits at the heart of Hello Tomorrow!, too, which tells a fictional tale about the deceptions people spin to chase their dreams. The show's beaming face: travelling salesman Jack Billings (Billy Crudup, The Morning Show), the regional manager for BrightSide Lunar Residences, and a passionate pusher of timeshares on the moon. He's this intriguing dramedy's version of Don Draper, but with Mad Men's 60s surroundings swapped for The Jetsons-style robot help and hovering vehicles. There's a The Twilight Zone-meets-Leave It to Beaver feel to Hello Tomorrow!, too, as its characters seek the same thing we all do: a better life. Creators Amit Bhalla and Lucas Jansen (both Bloodline alumni), also co-writers and showrunners with You're the Worst's Stephen Falk, zoom in further, focusing on the reasons anyone holds onto to hope their lot will improve. Befitting any blend of all of the above series, the look of Hello Tomorrow! is retro-futuristic, steeped in 50s-era visions of what might come. The time and place is an alternative version of that decade, in a suburban enclave called Vistaville, where one of Jack's biggest fibs has its origins. He's summoned back with his crew of hawkers — the gambling-addicted Eddie (Hank Azaria, The Simpsons), promotion-coveting Herb (Dewshane Williams, In the Dark) and resident righthand-woman Shirley (Haneefah Wood, Truth Be Told) — by his mother Barbara (Jacki Weaver, Penguin Bloom) after his wife Marie (Annie McNamara, Severance) is injured by a self-driving delivery van. His son Joey (Nicholas Podany, Archive 81) is struggling to cope, a task made all the more difficult by Jack's absence from his family's lives for decades. He's skilled at sharing stories about his domestic bliss on the moon to customers, but being a happy head of a lunar household is merely one of his go-to falsehoods. Hello Tomorrow! streams via Apple TV+. Read our full review, and our interview with Hank Azaria. THE CONSULTANT If there's a question that no employee wants to hear from the person setting company agendas, pulling strings and signing paycheques, it's "what do we do?". In moody and mysterious workplace nightmare The Consultant — which adapts horror author Bentley Little's 2016 novel of the same name, but plays like Severance filtered through Servant — Regus Patoff (Christoph Waltz, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio) asks a variation of it early. "What do we make?" he queries at CompWare after he arrives amid grim circumstances. The mobile gaming outfit came to fame under wunderkind Sang (TV first-timer Brian Yoon), so much so that school groups tour the firm's office. Then, during the visit that opens this eight-part, excellently cast and supremely easy-to-binge thriller, a kid shoots and kills the company's founder. That doesn't stop Regus from showing up afterwards clutching a signed contract from Sang and spouting a mandate to do whatever it takes to maximise his legacy. Regus is as stern yet eccentric as Waltz has become known for — a suit- and tie-wearing kindred spirit to Inglourious Basterds' Hans Landa, plus Spectre and No Time to Die's Ernst Stavro Blofield. He first darkens CompWare's door in the thick of night, when only ambitious assistant Elaine Hayman (Brittany O'Grady, The White Lotus) and stoner coder Craig Horne (Nat Wolff, Joe vs Carole) are onsite, and he won't take no for an answer. There's no consultant job for him to have, Elaine tells him. There's no business to whip into shape, she stresses. By the next morning, he's corralling employees for an all-hands meeting and telling remote workers they'll be fired if they don't show up in-person within an hour, even if he proudly doesn't know what CompWare does — or care. From there, The Consultant gets creator Tony Basgallop, who is also behind Servant, doing what he loves: kicking off with a blow-in, unsettling a group already coping with tragedy and reordering their status quo with severe methods. Both of his current shows lace the chaos that follows with nods towards the supernatural, too, and both ask what bargains we're willing to make to live the lives we're striving for. The Consultant streams via Prime Video. Read our full review. THE HORROR OF DOLORES ROACH It takes place in New York, not London. The era: modern times, not centuries back. Fleet Street gives way to Washington Heights, the demon barber to a masseuse nicknamed "Magic Hands", and pies to empanadas. There's still a body count, however, and people end up in pastries as well. Yes, The Horror of Dolores Roach namedrops Sweeney Todd early, as it needs to; there's no denying where this eight-part series takes inspiration, as did the one-woman off-Broadway play that it's based on, plus the podcast that followed before the TV version. On the stage, the airwaves and now via streaming, creator Aaron Mark asks a question: what if the fictional cannibalism-inciting character who first graced penny dreadfuls almost two centuries back, then leapt to theatres, films and, most famously, musicals, had a successor today? Viewers can watch the answer via a dramedy that also belongs on the same menu as Santa Clarita Diet, Yellowjackets and Bones and All. Amid this recent feast of on-screen dishes about humans munching on humans, The Horror of Dolores Roach is light yet grisly, but it's also a survivalist thriller in its own way — and laced with twisted attempts at romance, too. That knowing callout to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street comes amid an early banquet of knowing callouts, as The Horror of Dolores Roach begins with a play based on a podcast that's wrapping up its opening night. Newspaper clippings in actor Flora Frias' (Jessica Pimentel, Orange is the New Black) dressing room establish that the show takes its cues from a woman who got murderous in the Big Apple four years prior, and helped get unwitting NYC residents taking a bite out of each other. Meet the series' framing device; before the stage production's star can head to the afterparty, she's face to face with a furious Dolores (Justina Machado, One Day at a Time) herself. The latter isn't there to slay, but to haunt the woman spilling her tale by sharing the real details. Two decades earlier, Dolores was a happy resident of Lin-Manuel Miranda's favourite slice of New York, a drug-dealer's girlfriend, and a fan of the local empanada shop. Then the cops busted in, The Horror of Dolores Roach's namesake refused to snitch and lost 16 years of her life. When she's released, gentrification has changed the neighbourhood and her other half is nowhere to be found. Only Luis Batista (Alejandro Hernandez, New Amsterdam) remains that remembers her, still in the empanada joint, and he couldn't be keener on letting her stay with him in his basement apartment below the store. The Horror of Dolores Roach streams via Prime Video. Read our full review. HIGH DESERT In High Desert, the always-excellent Patricia Arquette (Severance) leads a private investigator comedy that dapples its jam-packed chaos under California's golden sun, against the parched Yucca Valley landscape and with an anything-goes philosophy — not to mention a more-mayhem-the-merrier tone. She plays Peggy Newman, who isn't letting her age get in the way of perennially struggling to pull her life together. That said, when the eight-part series starts, it's Thanksgiving 2013 and she's living an upscale existence in Palm Springs, with gleaming surfaces abounding in her expansive (and visibly expensive) home. Then, as her husband Denny (Matt Dillon, Proxima) jokes around with her mother Roslyn (Bernadette Peters, Mozart in the Jungle), and her younger siblings Dianne (Christine Taylor, Search Party) and Stewart (Keir O'Donnell, The Dry) lap up the lavish festivities, DEA agents swarm outside. Cue weed, hash and cash stashes being flushed and trashed, but not quickly enough to avoid splashing around serious repercussions. A decade later, High Desert's protagonist has been sharing Roslyn's house and trying to kick her addictions while working at Pioneertown, a historical attraction that gives tourists a dusty, gun-toting taste of frontier life. Peggy would love to step back in time herself when she's not pretending to be a saloon barmaid — to when her recently deceased mother was still alive, however, rather than to her glitzy post-arrest shindigs. Still angry about being caught up in a drug bust, Dianne and Stewart have zero time for her nostalgia and a lack of patience left for her troubles. Their plan: to sell Roslyn's abode with no worries about where Peggy might end up. Her counter: doing everything she can to stop that from happening. High Desert doesn't just embrace the fact that living and breathing is merely weathering whatever weird, wild and sometimes-wonderful shambles fate throws your way; in a show created and written by Nurse Jackie and Damages alumni Jennifer Hoppe and Nancy Fichman, plus Miss Congeniality and Desperate Housewives' Katie Ford, that idea dictates the busy plot, too. High Desert streams via Apple TV+. Read our full review. TOTALLY COMPLETELY FINE In Thomasin McKenzie's breakout role in 2018's deeply thoughtful and moving Leave No Trace, she played a teen being the responsible one while living off the grid with her PTSD-afflicted father. She turned in a magnificent performance in a film that also earns the same description — one of that year's best — and a portrayal that rightly ensured that more work came her way. In Totally Completely Fine, the New Zealand actor is again excellent, as she's been in Jojo Rabbit, The Justice of Bunny King, Old and Last Night in Soho in-between; however, this six-part Australian series, which makes ample use of its Sydney setting, casts McKenzie as the least responsible among her siblings. Vivian Cunningham's elder brothers John (Rowan Witt, Spreadsheet) and Hendrix (Brandon McClelland, Significant Others) are conscientious and family-focused, respectively, while she has internalised her bad decisions to the point of thinking that she ruins everything. But then her grandfather passes away when she's at a particularly low moment, wills only her his cliffside house and also leaves a note saying that she'll learn what to do with it. When Totally Completely Fine begins, Vivian is close to saying goodbye. Soon, she discovers that her inherited home is a destination for others feeling the same way. Creator Gretel Vella (a staff writer on The Great, and also a scribe on Christmas Ransom and Class of '07) doesn't shy away from a a tricky topic, as her definitely-not-totally-completely-fine protagonist becomes an unofficial counsellor to strangers — like runaway bride Amy (Contessa Treffone, Wellmania) — who step into her yard planning to commit suicide. This character-driven series doesn't ever reductively posit that only struggling people can help struggling people. Instead, it sees life's difficulties everywhere, the many ways that folks attempt to cope and don't, and the parts that others can have in that journey. McKenzie's performance is pivotal, selling the deep-seated grief that has defined Vivian's life, the chaos she's embraced as an escape, and how telling others that they have something to live for is both complicated and crucial. Totally Completely Fine streams via Stan. BAD BEHAVIOUR When high school is hellish on television, sometimes that happens literally; Buffy the Vampire Slayer's teens did their studies above a hellmouth and Stranger Things' crew is constantly trying to avoid the Upside Down. In Bad Behaviour, hell is the girls of Silver Creek, the wilderness campus of an exclusive all-female boarding school where young women decamp to spend a year learning resilience away from the wider (and supposedly wilder) world. It's where Joanna Mackenzie (Jana McKinnon, We Children From Bahnhof Zoo) attended on a scholarship, sharing a cabin with Alice Kang (Yerin Ha, Sissy) before they cross paths again ten years later — Jo striving to become a writer, but paying the bills in hospitality; Alice a musical prodigy-turned-global classical star. While Jo doesn't have fond memories of her year away, she's shocked at Alice's frosty reception. Indeed, she'd always thought that the domineering Portia (Markella Kavenagh, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) was the bully of their dormitory, making her own experience a nightmare. But this blast from the past gets Jo rethinking her own behaviour. Adapted from Rebecca Starford's book of the same name by Pip Karmel (Total Control) and Magda Wozniak (Neighbours), with Corrie Chen (New Gold Mountain) directing, Bad Behaviour is spot-on about the Mean Girls-meets-The Lord of the Flies realm it navigates. Starford's tome is a memoir, after all. For anyone who has ever been or known a teenage girl — so, everyone — this four-part series feels deeply lived-in, even if you've never attended a private school, let alone such an education institution's remote campus. With McKinnon, Ha and Kavenagh all delivering potent performances, and the latter making a memorable antagonist, the mood is equal parts tense and reflective. As Bad Behaviour flits between Jo's time at Silver Creek, including the thrall that Portia held over her, and her adult awakening to who she really was while she was there, it's unafraid to face stark truths about our teenage demons as well. Bad Behaviour streams via Stan. Check out the trailer.
When a beloved TV show ends, it doesn't always say goodbye forever. We live in a golden age of revivals, spinoffs, sequels and remakes on both the big and small screens, after all — and when a television series is a big hit, it rarely goes away quietly. Take Game of Thrones, for instance. Before it even came to an end back in 2019, HBO was looking at spending more time in Westeros. According to George RR Martin, however, the US cable network might be scaling down the future of the GoT franchise. In an end-of-year update posted to his blog to farewell 2022, the author who gave the world Game of Thrones to begin with — and who has been working on the sixth novel in the A Song of Fire and Ice series for more than a decade — announced that HBO has currently scrapped some of the floated GoT spinoffs. Mentioning "several of the other successor shows that we're developing with HBO" as part of a list of things he's working on in 2023, Martin said that "some of those are moving faster than others, as is always the case with development. None have been greenlit yet, though we are hoping… maybe soon". He continued: "a couple have been shelved, but I would not agree that they are dead. You can take something off the shelf as easily as you can put it on the shelf. All the changes at HBO Max have impacted us, certainly." That's all very vague, but plenty has been happening at HBO and its US streaming platform HBO Max since parent company WarnerMedia merged with Discovery in 2022. Previously renewed shows have been cancelled, such as Minx. Films already shot and nearing release have been axed, like Batgirl. And, HBO Max's online catalogue has also been getting smaller, even removing HBO series. Martin didn't reveal which potential Game of Thrones spinoffs aren't presently going ahead, although one is clearly safe: House of the Dragon. One of 2022's must-see and most-talked-about shows, it's been renewed for a second season, and that episode order looks likely to stick. Given that chatter about expanding Game of Thrones' on-screen world has been going for more than half a decade, and how many different new shows have been put forward over that time, needing a refresher on what could be in the works anyway with is understandable. That list includes a Jon Snow-focused spinoff with Kit Harington (Eternals) reprising his famous role, novella series Tales of Dunk and Egg and an animated GoT show. Beyond that, it's also been reported that another three prequels have been under consideration. Whichever of the above don't end up coming to fruition, our days of watching fiery fights between famous Westerosi names — and games over who gets tot sit on the Iron Throne — are still far from over. Game of Thrones was that much of a hit, and House of the Dragon has proven the same so far. Until House of the Dragon season two hits, or any other on-screen dances with dragons are confirmed, check out the season one trailer below: House of the Dragon streams Down Under via Foxtel and Binge in Australia, and SoHo, Sky Go and Neon in New Zealand. Images: HBO.
When cash is running low (or when payday is far off in the horizon), first survival instinct tells us to curl up at home, eat rice and watch a movie. Every day. But this tactic gets old quickly, and after a while you start craving some budget excitement. They say the best things in life are free. Sometimes that's true. In collaboration with Bank of Melbourne, we've come up with three handy guides that will help you save some money while living in the world's most liveable (but expensive) city, Melbourne. Here's your guide to the best free activities and events. Hopefully it will tide you over until payday. MONDAY Monday is definitely the worst day of the week. Don't let it consume your hard-earned dollars. Maintain that sombre mood with a trip to the Shrine of Remembrance – tours kick off each day from 11am and 2pm (they last around 55 minutes), and will walk you through every section of the Shrine. After the tour, take a lush walk back towards the river and Federation Square, you can lighten the mood with some people watching and some free wifi. TUESDAY Tuesdays are the universal "Help me, I'm poor" day. Jump on the City Circle Tram and make a day of cruising the city and people watching. The rickety old tram does a loop of the CBD and will usually deliver a mix of bizarre and cool folk to keep you entertained for hours. From around 7pm on a Tuesday, trivia nights kick off around the city. Most venues offer free team entry and, if you're so inclined, cheap eats and drinks. You might even make money on the night by winning prizes or bar tabs. Some of the funniest trivia nights are hosted by Quizmeisters at locations around the city, you can check them out here). [caption id="attachment_585958" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Photo by Rexness[/caption] WEDNESDAY It's mid-week and it's time to get out of the house. Head down to Fitzroy Gardens for a morning stroll and stop by the Conservatory, a quaint Spanish-colonial building with free horticultural displays that rotate throughout the year. The miniature Tudor village is also worth a look, if only so you can imagine what it's like to be giant. While you're on a park roll, head over to Carlton Gardens. There's always free entertainment in the form of buskers, street performers, skateboarders and rollerblade clubs and hordes of Pokemon Go players. If dog spotting is what you're after, Edinburgh Gardens in Fitzroy North is always overrun with puppies during summer. THURSDAY One of the best free activities unique to Melbourne is the swathe of art galleries on offer, with no entry fee and internationally renowned exhibitions. The National Gallery of Victoria is an obvious one, and should be on your to-do list anyway. It's the perfect place to spend a morning strolling through a free exhibition (their permanent collection is always free). Only a hop, skip and a jump away is ACCA (the Australian Centre for Contemporary Arts) with their unbelievable (and unbelievably free) public talks program. It's worth a visit even just to experience the bizarre, brutalist architecture of the site, but pre-plan and stop by for a talk if you want to get schooled in the nuances of contemporary art. ACMI is another must-do. They are regular, free exhibitions and film screenings throughout the month. FRIDAY Fridays are best spent in the CBD, where everyone is fizzling with excitement about the week's end and party-goers swarm the streets. On Friday afternoon, street performers come out in force on Bourke Street Mall and put on prime-time shows. Many of them are professional musicians, some are performers who busk for the hell of it. Park yourself on the steps outside GPO and take it all in. For a little more free entertainment, make your way over to Jankara Karaoke Bar on Russell Street. They host public karaoke every night of the week so it's always weird, entertaining and (as the night progresses) awful. If you want to participate, grab a drink from the bar – each drink gets a song ticket which, frankly, is a flawless system. SATURDAY Saturday is the perfect day to take it slow and rejuvenate after a big week. Take a walk or a cycle along the Merri Creek trail and on the way, stop in at Ceres Community Environment Park. Ceres is a magical place to wander through, with their community gardens, free range chickens (all outrageously plump) and beautiful grounds. There's always something going on at the community hub, including workshops and classes. From Friday to Sunday you'll find a group of cycling enthusiasts fixing and rebuilding bikes at the Bike Shed. You could also head over to the Abbotsford Convent. The beautiful gardens give way to a children's farm full of bossy animals who love to play. Melbourne establishment Lentil as Anything is housed in the convent itself. They serve food on a pay-what-you-can basis which is great for leaner weeks but make sure you head back when you can and pay it forward (or risk being haunted by a ghostly lentil forever). SUNDAY Sunday is traditionally a market day which is great for everyone on a budget because markets are traditionally free. The Queen Victoria market in the CBD is the best place to start as the markets themselves are large and chock full of interesting weirdos. Wander the permanent market stalls and you might just come across some free cheese samples. In the CBD, check out the Docklands Sunday Market, a flea market where you'll come across anything and everything – it's fun to browse. Bank of Melbourne has collaborated with the National Gallery of Victoria to bring ancient art to life via interactive water projections. Watch the Wishing Well experience here.
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 June's haul. Brand-New Stuff You Can Watch From Start to Finish Now The Bear Serving up another sitting with acclaimed chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White, The Iron Claw), his second-in-charge Sydney (Ayo Edebiri, Inside Out 2) and their team after dishing up one of the best new shows of 2022 and best returning shows of 2023, the third season of The Bear is a season haunted. Creator and writer Christopher Storer (Dickinson, Ramy) — often the culinary dramedy's director as well — wouldn't have it any other way. Every series that proves as swift a success as this, after delivering as exceptional a first and second season as any show could wish for, has the tang of its prior glory left on its lips, so this one tackles the idea head on. How can anyone shake the past at all, good or bad, the latest ten episodes ruminate on as Carmy faces a dream that's come true but hasn't and can't eradicate the lifetime of internalised uncertainty that arises from having an erratic mother, absent father, elder brother he idolised but had his own demons, and a career spent striving to be the best and put his talents to the test in an industry that's so merciless and unforgiving even before you factor in dealing with cruel mentors. Haunting is talked about often in this third The Bear course, but not actually in the sense flavouring every bite that the show's return plates up. In the season's heartiest reminder that it's comic as well as tense and dramatic — its nine Emmy wins for season one, plus four Golden Globes across season one and two, are all in comedy categories — the Faks get to Fak aplenty. While charming Neil (IRL chef Matty Matheson) is loving his role as a besuited server beneath Richie aka Cousin (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, No Hard Feelings), onboard with the latter's commitment to upholding a Michelin star-chasing fine-diner's front-of-house standards and as devoted to being Carmy's best friend as ever, he's also always palling around with his handyman brother Theodore (Ricky Staffieri, Read the Room). They're not the season's only Faks, and so emerges a family game. When one Fak wrongs another, they get haunted, which is largely being taunted and unsettled by someone from basically The Bear equivalent of Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Boyles. For it to stop, you need to agree to give in. In Storer's hands, in a series this expertly layered as it picks up in the aftermath of sandwich diner The Original Beef of Chicagoland relaunching as fine-diner The Bear, this isn't just an amusing character-building aside. The Bear streams via Disney+. Read our full review. Hit Man The feeling that Glen Powell should star in everything didn't start with Top Gun: Maverick and Anyone But You. Writer/director Richard Linklater (Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood) has helped the notion bubble up before as early back as 2006's Fast Food Nation, then with 2016's Everybody Wants Some!! — and now he riffs on it with Hit Man. When viewers want an actor to feature everywhere, they want to see them step into all sorts of shoes but bring their innate talents and charm each time. So, Linklater enlists Powell as Gary Johnson, a real-life University of New Orleans professor who wouldn't be earning the movie treatment if he didn't also moonlight as a undercover police operative with a specific remit: playing hitmen with folks looking to pay someone to commit murder, sting-style. Johnson doesn't just give the gig the one-size-fits-all approach, though. Once he gets confidence in the job, he's dedicated to affording every target their own personal vision of their dream assassin. So, Powell gets to be a polo shirt-wearing nice guy, a long-haired master criminal, a besuited all-business type and more, including the suave smooth-talker Ron, the persona he adopts when Madison Figueroa Masters (Adria Arjona, Andor) thinks about offing her odious husband. Hit Man is as a screwball rom-com-meets-sunlit film noir, and an excellent one, as well as a feature based on a situation so wild that it can only stem from fact. Alongside charting Gary's exploits in the position and the murkiness of falling for Madison as Ron, it's also an acceptance that the kind of darkness and desperation needed for a person to want to hire a stranger to kill to make their life better isn't a rarity — if it was, Gary's services wouldn't have been needed. Linklater has been in comparably blackly comic but also clear-eyed territory before with Bernie, the past entry on his resume that Hit Man best resembles. The also-ace 2011 Jack Black (Kung Fu Panda 4)-led picture similarly told a true tale, and also sprang from an article by journalist Skip Hollandsworth. This time, Linklater penned the script with Powell instead of Hollandsworth, but the result is another black-comedy delight brimming with insight. Hit Man is a movie about finding one's identity, too, and Powell keeps showing that he's found his: a charismatic lead who anchors one of the most-entertaining flicks of the year. Hit Man streams via Netflix. Fancy Dance Lily Gladstone might've won the Golden Globe but not the Oscar for Killers of the Flower Moon, but her exceptional resume shows every sign of more awards coming her way. Fancy Dance, the other movie to join her filmography in 2023 — it premiered at Sundance that year, but only makes its way to streaming worldwide now — is yet another example of how the Certain Women and First Cow star is one of the very-best actors working right now. Where Gladstone's time in front of Martin Scorsese's lens showcased her mastery of restraint, playing an aunt trying to do what's best for her niece and a sister searching for her absent sibling benefits from her equal command of looseness. Jax, her character, is a pinball. When she bounces in any direction, it's with force and purpose as well as liveliness and determination, but the choice of where she's heading is rarely her own. All she wants is to find Tawi (debutant Hauli Sioux Gray) and protect 13-year-old Roki (Isabel Deroy-Olson, Three Pines), but set against the reality that law enforcement mightn't look as enthusiastically for a missing Indigenous woman — or treat one with a record attempting to do right be her family with consideration — that's far from an easy task. Writer/director Erica Tremblay hails from the Seneca–Cayuga Nation, where much of Fancy Dance is set. As Gladstone is, she's also an alum of Reservation Dogs — including helming two episodes — and so is experienced at depicting everyday reservation life with authenticity. Accordingly, her first fictional feature after documentaries Heartland: A Portrait of Survival and In the Turn takes a social-realistic approach in its details, especially when it's simply surveying the space and empathy that First Nations versus white Americans aren't given. Because Jax has a criminal history, child services deems her unfit to look after Roki, or even to take the teen to the powwow where the girl is certain her mum will attend to again steal the show in the mother-daughter dance competition; instead, Jax's white father (Shea Whigham, Lawmen: Bass Reeves) and stepmother (Audrey Wasilewski, Ted) are their choice of guardians. Fancy Dance's protagonist isn't one to simply acquiesce to that decision, and Gladstone makes both her fire and her pain palpable — and her tenderness for Roki, who is weightily portrayed by her Under the Bridge co-star Deroy-Olson, as well. Fancy Dance streams via Apple TV+. Exposure When the words "DO NOT MESSAGE" greet someone that's looking through their friend's phone, curiosity kicks in. When that mysterious contact is spied, plus a list of deleted texts and apologies for unintended hurt, immediately after your best mate has taken her own life and left you to find their body, uncovering the person on the other end of the thread becomes an obsession. Twenty-seven-year-old photographer Jacs (Alice Englert, Bad Behaviour) is all impulse and immediate gratification when Exposure begins, when she's at a rave hooking up with a stranger and dancing with her lifelong BFF Kel (Mia Artemis, Anyone But You). The next morning, everything changes forever, except a haunting truth that no one likes realising when tragedy strikes: our worst moments alter us forever, but they can't fix our worst traits or paper over our other traumas. So Jacs keeps being Jacs as she heads home from Sydney to Port Kembla, where she'll barely let her mother Kathy (Essie Davis, One Day) and Kel's ex Angus (Thomas Weatherall, Heartbreak High) lend their support, and where her self-sabotaging spiral only gains momentum as she attempts to turn amateur, fixated, dogged detective. Pain ran in the family in the aforementioned Bad Behaviour, the 2023 New Zealand film — not to be confused with the 2023 Australian miniseries that streamed via Stan, as Exposure also does — that Englert made her feature directorial debut with, plus penned and co-starred in. The movie told of a former child actor (Jennifer Connolly, Dark Matter) and her stunt-performer daughter working through their baggage around the former's attendance at a new-age retreat. Filmmaking talent also ran in the family, given that Englert is the offspring of Oscar-winner Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog). While she's solely on-screen this time, with Lucy Coleman (Hot Mess) scripting and Bonnie Moir (Love Me) helming, Englert is superb again, including at excavating life's agonies once more. Exposure's moniker applies in multiple ways, spanning the controversial contents of an award-winning snap, facing past distresses, playing sleuth and confronting your own chaos — and it equally fits the raw and rich performance at the centre of this six-parter, which also showcases Davis and Weatherall's typically excellent work. Exposure streams via Stan. Under Paris Creature features are often humanity-did-wrong features. Under Paris doesn't have Godzilla stomping around as a scaly, fire-breathing, Tokyo-destroying embodiment of nuclear devastation's reach and impact, but it does set a giant shark on the loose beneath the French capital due to pollution, specifically the Great Pacific garbage patch, making its natural saltwater terrain uninhabitable. This genre of film doesn't restrict its badly behaving people to merely causing the source of their misery, either, often surveying a range of terrible reactions that exacerbate the issue as well. Underestimating the situation is one such response, which has a well-known history in flicks about killer sharp-toothed fish. The mayor of New England's Amity Island in Jaws wasn't great, and now the the City of Light's equivalent (Anne Marivin, Rebecca) is just as uncaring when she refuses to shut down the city's waterways — despite the pleas of marine researcher Sophia Assalas (Bérénice Bejo, The Movie Teller), police chief Angèle (Aurélia Petit, Saint Omer) and law-enforcement diver Adil (Nassim Lyes, All-Time High) — because it'll disrupt a billion-dollar triathlon with its swimming leg in the River Seine. The chomping shadow of Steven Spielberg's (The Fabelmans) summer blockbuster lingers over Under Paris heavily, as it has over all shark movies for almost five decades now. Rare is the film that lives up to the Hollywood great as well as this, however, even though oh-so-much of the story plays out as expected. As Sophia first witnesses calamity when her research crew falls victim to Lilith, the shark they've been tracking, and then is forced to help save Paris three years later when environmental activist Mika (Léa Léviant, Mortel) advises that the creature has made its way to the city, it helps immensely that this shark-in-the-Seine picture isn't a Snakes on a Plane-esque comedy. Fresh from directing episodes of Lupin, Farang and Budapest director Xavier Gens is firmly making a thriller, not playing the scenario for laughs. The setpieces, many in the Parisian catacombs, are both efficient and effective. The film's visuals overall earn the same description. And while nodding to Free Willy as well is a touch clunky, The Artist Oscar-nominee Bejo is never anything less than committed. Under Paris streams via Netflix. Am I OK? The question in Am I OK?'s title is indeed existential: is Lucy (Dakota Johnson, Madame Web) coping with being a thirtysomething in Los Angeles treading water emotionally, romantically and professionally? From there, more queries spring. Can she — or, more accurately, will she — shoot for more than not quite dating the smitten Ben (Whitmer Thomas, Big Mouth), right down to shaking his hand at the end of their evenings out together, and also for something beyond working as a day-spa receptionist while putting her passion and talent for art on the back burner? Is she capable of breaking free of a comfort zone padded out with spending all of her spare time with her best friend Jane (Sonoya Mizuno, House of the Dragon), including being so predictable that she always orders the same thing at their brunches at their favourite diner? Regarding the latter, she gets a push when Jane agrees to a lucrative transfer to London, splitting the pair for the first time since they were teenagers. Am I OK? is an arrested-development coming-of-age movie, then, and a film about being honest about who you are and want to be. Change comes for us all, even when we've built a cocoon to protect our happy status quo — and, at the heart of this romantic drama, change clearly comes for Lucy. She's forced to consider a path forward that doesn't involve solely being defined as half of a platonic duo. She also confronts the feelings for her coworker Brittany (Kiersey Clemons, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters) and the truth about her sexuality that she's never previously admitted. Am I OK? is a coming-out tale, too, but it treats Lucy's stuck-in-a-rut existence and at-first-tentative attempts to embrace how she truly feels holistically, seeing how life's passage inevitably shifts how we see ourselves. If the movie feels more honest than it might've been, that's because screenwriter Lauren Pomerantz (Strange Planet) spins a semi-autobiographical story. Also, the directing team of real-life couple Tig Notaro (2 Dope Queens) and Stephanie Allynne (who helmed Notaro's 2024 special Hello Again) — who met making 2015's In a World… — demonstrate the ideal light-but-delicate touch. Plus, Johnson and Mizuno exude genuine BFF chemistry, with the former again showing why fare such as this, Cha Cha Real Smooth, How to Be Single, The Peanut Butter Falcon, A Bigger Splash, Suspiria and The Lost Daughter, a diverse group of pictures, is a better fit than the Fifty Shades trilogy or a Spider-Man spinoff. Am I OK? streams via Binge. Lumberjack the Monster Spanning big-screen releases, TV and straight-to-video fare, Takashi Miike has notched up 115 directorial credits in the 33 years since making his helming debut. Lumberjack the Monster isn't even the latest — it premiered at film festivals in 2023, which means that miniseries Onimusha and short Midnight have popped up since — but it is Miike back in horror mode, where 1999's Audition and 2001's Ichi the Killer famously dwelled. Here, the inimitable Japanese filmmaker and screenwriter Hiroyoshi Koiwai (Way to Find the Best Life) adapt the eponymous 2019 Mayusuke Kurai novel. Its namesake character also exists on the page in the movie itself, in a picture book. This is a serial-killer picture, though, and with more than one person taking multiple lives. A mass murderer wearing a bag over their head and swinging an axe is on a rampage, and lawyer Akira (Kazuya Kamenashi, Destiny) and surgeon Sugitani (Shôta Sometani, Sanctuary) aren't averse to dispensing death themselves. A clash is inevitable, not that the slick Akira expects it, or that his costumed attacker anticipates that their current target will survive his blade, sparking a cat-and-mouse game. Lumberjack the Monster doesn't just weave in fantasy boogeyman stories, offings upon offings, and characters with dark impulses going head to head. The police are on the case, giving the film a procedural layer, as well as Akira motivation to hunt down his assailant first. Science fiction also washes through, with brain-implanted chips and modifying human behaviour both for worse and for better part of the narrative. There's also a moral-redemption element weaved in. Consequently, it's no wonder that this tale is Miike joint. As well as being prolific, Miike loves making his resume the ultimate mashup. To name just a few examples, see: the yakuza action of Dead or Alive, superhero comedy Zebraman, titular genre of Sukiyaki Western Django, samurai efforts 13 Assassins and Blade of the Immortal, period drama Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, video-game adaptation Ace Attorney, romance For Love's Sake, thriller Lesson of the Evil, vampire movie Yakuza Apocalypse and the crime-driven First Love. Unsurprisingly, Lumberjack the Monster is specifically the engrossing — and bloodily violent — Frankenstein's monster of a flick that Miike was always going to relish making when splicing together such an array of elements came his way. Lumberjack the Monster streams via Netflix. New and Returning Shows to Check Out Week by Week Fantasmas With Fantasmas, creator, writer, director and star Julio Torres welcomes viewers into a world that couldn't have been conjured up by anyone else but the former Saturday Night Live scribe, who then became the co-guiding force behind Los Espookys and filmmaker responsible for Problemista. Torres also leaves his audience grateful that they exist in this particular world, where HBO has given him the means and support to make a comedy series so singular, so clearly the work of a visionary and so gloriously surreal. Fantasmas has no peers beyond Torres' work, other than the patron saint of spilling the contents of your mind and heart onto the screen with zero willingness to compromise or hold back: David Lynch. That said, even that comparison — and the utmost of praise that comes with it — can't prepare viewers for a show where clear crayons are one idea whipped up by the on-screen Julio, another sees Steve Buscemi (Curb Your Enthusiasm) playing the letter Q as an avant-garde outsider, Santa Claus is taken to court by elves (including SNL's Bowen Yang), and series-within-a-series MELF riffs on 80s and 90s hit sitcom ALF but starring Paul Dano (Spaceman) and featuring quite the twist on its alien-adopting premise. As the sets appear like exactly sets but with a DIY spin, star-studded cameos stack up, and absurdist vignettes pop in and out to flesh out Julio's mindscape as much as the futuristic realm imagined by the IRL Torres, there is an overarching narrative at the core of Fantasmas. The series' take on Julio trades in concepts, plus in being unflinchingly himself, but doing anything is impossible without a Proof of Existence ID card in this dystopia. He's on a quest to secure one, which isn't straightforward. In the process, he's also searching for a tiny gold oyster earring, and pondering whether to upload his consciousness and jettison his body. By his side: robot companion Bibo (Joe Rumrill, The Calling) and agent Vanesja (Martine Gutierrez, returning from Los Espookys and Problemista), who is really just a performance artist playing an agent. As phantasmagorical as everything that the show flings at the screen can get, which is very, it also tears into relatable issues such as societal status, class clashes, housing, capitalism's many woes and inequities, and the treatment of immigrants. As purposefully eager as it is to show its crafting and creativity, too, it does so to stress the fact that it's being made by people chasing a dream rather than corporations bowing to an algorithm. Fantasmas streams via Binge. Presumed Innocent When Presumed Innocent begins, Rusty Sabich (Jake Gyllenhaal, Road House) has devoted his career to putting away Chicago's criminals. He isn't expecting to be soon treated the same way. Audiences with an awareness of both film and literary history know what's coming, though, with the eight-part Apple TV+ series the latest page-to-screen show from David E Kelley — and also another program with a story that already made the leap from bookshelves to the big screen before getting the television treatment. In recent years, Kelley has ushered A Man in Full, Anatomy of a Scandal, Nine Perfect Strangers, The Undoing and Big Little Lies down the first route. He's taken The Lincoln Lawyer down the second as well. His pedigree spinning legal narratives dates back to LA Law, The Practice, Ally McBeal and Boston Legal, too. Now, he's adapting author Scott Turow's debut 1987 novel, which initially became a hit 1990 Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny)-starring feature. Turning the tale into a series and the passage of more than three decades are a gift to Presumed Innocent's complexity; there's more time, obviously, to fill out the intricacies of a scenario where a hotshot prosecutor is now a suspected murderer, and to ensure that the misogyny of the 80s and 90s doesn't still shine through. At a time when being chief deputy under District Attorney Raymond Horgan (Bill Camp, who also appeared in A Man in Full) is already a fraught scenario — aka an election year — Sabich's life is turned upside down when his colleague Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve, 2021's Cannes Best Actress-winner for The Worst Person in the World) is found dead. The circumstances closely resemble a case that the two had previously worked on, so Rusty takes the lead. What only his supportive wife Barbara (Ruth Negga, Good Grief) knows is that the pair had an affair, which almost tore apart the Sabichs' marriage. A secret like that doesn't stay quiet for long, though, especially with Horgan's adversary Nico Della Guardia (O-T Fagbenle, Loot) and Rusty's ambitious counterpart Tommy Molto (Peter Sarsgaard, Memory) looking to appease the electorate, and quickly. Presumed Innocent hasn't skimped on casting, to its benefit — in a show that isn't painting its protagonist as a hero or anything as clearcut, Gyllenhaal is at his slippery best, while both Reinsve and Negga flesh out the women caught up in his mess, and Sarsgaard eats up the screen, especially when Rusty and Molto face off in court. Presumed Innocent streams via Apple TV+. The Boys "Superheroes, they're just like us" has been an unspoken refrain humming beneath on-screen caped-crusader tales in recent decades. Possessing great powers doesn't mean knowing how to wield power, or greatness, or how to navigate the daily elements of life that don't revolve around possessing great powers, as movies and TV shows in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the DC Extended Universe and beyond have kept stressing. Even as it dispenses a much-needed antidote to superhero worship's saturation of big- and small-screen entertainment — even as it has made distrusting the spandex-clad and preternaturally gifted its baseline — The Boys has also told this story. Across the entire extent of human history, what's more recognisable than power and dominance bringing out the worst in people? As adapted from Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comics series of the same name by showrunner Eric Kripke (Supernatural) since 2019, this series has stared at the grimmest vision of a world with tights-adorned supposed saviours. It's a show where murder at the hands of supes, which is then covered up by the company profiting from elevating them above the masses, is an everyday reality. It's a dark satire. It's gleeful in its onslaught of OTT violence and sightings of genitals. What it means to grapple with the struggle to hold onto humanity has firmly been at The Boys' core since its first episode, however, making it a mirror. It has never been hard to see where art imitates life in this account of its namesake rag-tag crew (Thor: Ragnarok,'s Karl Urban, Oppenheimer's Jack Quaid, Wrath of Man's Laz Alonso, One on One's Tomer Capone and Bullet Train's Karen Fukuhara) saying "enough is enough" to the US' downward spiral. With flying, laser-eyed, super-strong, supernaturally speedy and otherwise-enhanced beings commercialised by a behemoth of a company called Vought International, The Boys has never been subtle at pointing its fingers at the many ways in which pop culture and the corporations behind it hold sway. The show's parallels with American politics in its portrait of a factionalised nation torn apart over a polarising leader who considers himself above the law are equally overt. Of course, the series is just as blatant in unpacking the consequences of letting the pursuit of power run riot. In its narrative, in chasing supremacy above all else, humans and supes really are just like each other — a truth season four doesn't ever let slip from view. The Boys streams via Prime Video. Read our full review. House of the Dragon It's a chair made out of swords. So notes Daemon Targaryen's (Matt Smith, Morbius) description of the Iron Throne. Not one but two hit HBO shows have put squabbles about the sought-after seat at their centre so far, and the second keeps proving a chip off the old block in a fantasy franchise where almost everyone meets that description. If the family trees sprawling throughout Game of Thrones for eight seasons across 2011–19 and now House of the Dragon for two since 2022 (with a third on the way) weren't so closely intertwined in all of their limbs, would feuding over everything, especially the line of succession, be such a birthright? Set within the Targaryens 172 years before Daenerys is born, House of the Dragon keeps the black-versus-green factionalism going in season two, to civil war-esque extremes over which two offspring of the late King Viserys the Peaceful (Paddy Considine, The Third Day) should wear the crown and plonk themselves in the blade-lined chair. The monarch long ago named Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy, Mothering Sunday) as his heir. But with his last breaths, his wife Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke, Slow Horses) claims that he picked their eldest son Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney, Rogue Heroes) instead. In King's Landing, the response was speedy, with Rhaenyra supplanted before she'd even heard over at Dragonstone that her father had passed away. Based on George RR Martin's Fire & Blood, House of the Dragon has also long painted Rhaenyra as the preferred type of chip off the old block. She too wants peace, not war. She also seeks stability for the realm over personal glory. If Viserys spotted that in her as a girl (Milly Alcock, Upright) when he chose her over Daemon, his brother who is now Rhaenyra's husband, he might've also predicted the dedication that she sports towards doing his legacy, and those before him, proud. Conversely, Aegon, also the grandson of Viserys' hand Ser Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans, The King's Man), sees only entitlement above all else. Martin's tales of dynasties trade in the cycles that course through the bonds of blood, especially in House of the Dragon. Everyone watching knows what's to come for the Targaryens in Daenerys' time, right down to an aunt-nephew romance as the counterpart to Daemon and Rhaenyra's uncle-niece relationship. (No one watching has started this prequel series, the first spinoff of likely many to Game of Thrones, without being familiar with its predecessor). Ice-blonde hair, ambition that soars as high as the dragons they raise and fly, said flame-roaring beasts of the sky, the inability to host happy reunions: these are traits passed down through generations. Some are a matter of genes. Martin continues to explore why the others persist. House of the Dragon streams via Binge. Read our full review. The Acolyte When you've just made two seasons of a time-loop TV show about reckoning with the past, what comes next? For Russian Doll co-creator Leslye Headland, another jump backwards beckons. The Star Wars franchise has been telling tales set not just in a galaxy far, far away but also a long time ago for almost five decades; however, across its 11 movies and five live-action Disney+ TV shows until now, it hasn't ever explored the events of as long a time ago as Headland's The Acolyte brings to the screen. Welcome to the High Republic era a century before Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace — and into a thrilling new angle into one of pop culture's behemoths. Stepping through the events before the events that it has already relayed to audiences isn't new for Star Wars, as went the prequels, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Andor, but so now goes The Acolyte as well. The key aspect of the latter isn't just that this eight-instalment series gains the space to jettison familiar faces and spin its narrative anew — it's also that it's traversing more of the world that George Lucas first envisaged in the 70s, and what the force means to more than the usual faces and those tied to them. And, it isn't afraid to question the heroes-versus-villains divide that's as engrained in all things Star Wars as lightsabers, having a bad feeling and droids. Taking place in a period of peace and prosperity — well, for some — The Acolyte is still home to heroes. Villains are part of the tale, too. But the idea that the Jedi always fall into the first camp and their enemies can only sit in the second is probed. Similarly queried is the notion that anything in the Star Wars realm, let alone everything, is that binary. The premise: Jedi are being eliminated by a mysterious warrior, a setup that is pushed to the fore immediately and initially aligns its emotional response as audiences since 1977 know to expect. But as gets uttered three episodes in, "this is not about good or bad — it's about power and who gets to wield it". The Acolyte's opening showdown unfolds in the type of cantina that's hardly new to the saga, but the battle itself is. From beneath a mask, a warrior (Amandla Stenberg, Bodies Bodies Bodies) isn't afraid to throw down, throw knives and throw around her ability to use the force, with a Jedi her target. In the aftermath, the robe-adorned head honchos have ex-padawan Osha in their sights. Now working as a meknik, which entails undertaking dangerous spaceship maintenance tasks that robots are legally only supposed to do, she fits the description. Her old Jedi mentor Sol (Lee Jung-jae, Squid Game) isn't so sure, though, especially knowing her past. The Acolyte streams via Disney+. Read our full review. Need a few more streaming recommendations? Check out our picks from January, February, March, April and May this year, and also from January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December 2023. You can also check out our running list of standout must-stream shows from last year as well — and our best 15 new shows of 2023, 15 newcomers you might've missed, top 15 returning shows of the year, 15 best films, 15 top movies you likely didn't see, 15 best straight-to-streaming flicks and 30 movies worth catching up on over the summer. Top images: FX, Brian Roedel/Netflix, Apple TV+, HBO and Stan.
It felt like half of Melbourne was basking in Southern Italy's sun during our chilly winter months. But for those of us not so lucky, there's still a chance to get a taste of Sicily from the sun-drenched surrounds of Johnny Green Room's Carlton rooftop. Following a recent refresh and just in time for summer, the team behind this Euro-inspired hotspot is ready to reveal 'Sicilia,' a brand-new cocktail menu hitting the bar from Monday, December 1. And for those keen to sample these tempting concoctions straight away, you might just get one for free. To celebrate the launch, Johnny's is giving away cocktails from 5pm on Thursday, December 4, with the first 150 guests in line receiving a complimentary drink card. With six new cocktails added to the menu for the season, you'll be living la bella vita before you know it. For instance, the Quello Tropicale offers a Sicilian twist on a piña colada, while the Sgroppino Del Mese, featuring a scoop of seasonal Pidapipo sorbet, is made for keeping cool on the terazza. Alongside a refreshing spiked iced tea, a fig leaf negroni, a peach wine cooler and the much-requested return of Johnny's Hugo spritz, the new menu also includes a babychino shot, with the bar remaining deviously tight-lipped about what guests can expect. Reflecting the changing seasons, a selection of Sicilian-inspired dishes will heighten your next aperitivo session even further. Guided by culinary director Karen Martini, guests will encounter piccoli piatti like tuna crudo and zucchini fritte alongside a pair of pizzas: marinara with mini burrata, and pear with gorgonzola. Plus, cherry panna cotta and pistachio cannoli deliver a sweet finish that might just soothe your sorrow about a missed Italian adventure.
This just in — legendary restaurateur and chef Andrew McConnell, and partner Jo McGann, have announced plans for the opening of their next restaurant, set to arrive in Melbourne mid-next year. Côte Basque, located on Crossley Street, will offer a European grill that channels the flavours and vibes of the Basque coast. "The name references our love of Basque culture and the coastline that bridges the northern Basque region of Spain and the southwest of France. The raw beauty of the region and a bounty of benchmark produce have long been an inspiration for us," says McConnell. Côte Basque will find its home in the former Becco site in the CBD. The restaurant, with a capacity for approximately 100 patrons, will retain certain original architectural features, including the green terrazzo floor, large street-level windows, and the stepped dining room and intimate bar. In collaboration with Vince Alafaci and Caroline Choker of ACME, McConnell has designed the interiors to pay respect to the legacy of the Becco venue (which was previously home to Pellegrini's) and reflect the mid-century features of the building. New additions will include outdoor dining and a private room on the first floor, designed for leisurely lunches, lively dinners, and intimate gatherings. Côte Basque is the first new restaurant from McConnell and McGann's Trader House group since the inimitable Gimlet at Cavendish House made its grand entrance into Melbourne's dining scene in 2020. [caption id="attachment_1048921" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Gimlet at Cavendish House[/caption] McConnell says, "The tradition of woodfired cooking that defines this region will be central to the menu and influence not only what we cook, but how we cook…It has been both a joy and a challenge reimagining this iconic space to both retain its legacy and evolve it for the future. We don't have many heritage restaurant spaces in Melbourne, and to have the opportunity to restore the original features in this room is a dream. To continue its lineage as a restaurant will contribute to the wonderful energy on Crossley Street, re-emerging as one of the great walk-through laneways in Melbourne's top end." [caption id="attachment_1048927" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Gimlet at Cavendish House[/caption] Feature image: James Geer. Côte Basque is slated to open in winter 2026. In the meantime, check out the best restaurants in Melbourne.
The humble roast chook has plenty of fans across the country, but if you consider yourself a die-hard chicken aficionado, you'll feel like a winner (winner) when ordering your chicken dinner at this St Kilda eatery. Korr Jee Chicken is a casual dining venture from Will Tang (Vue de Monde, Bar Lourinha), a chef formerly specialising in fine dining fare. But at his lively and brightly coloured spot, Tang has set out to transform the picture conjured with the words "chicken shop" — instead showing that casual, quick dining doesn't have to compromise on freshness or care. Actually, the chickens whipped up here may have undergone as much prep than some of the world's finest steaks. According to the restaurant, every roast chicken goes through a 26-hour preparation process where it's brined in a selection of species, before being dry-aged and finally slow-roasted. The end result is a juicy, succulent chook — a far cry from the supermarket bagged chickens mum used to serve at home (which still have their place, of course). You can get your chicken in half ($18) or quarter ($11) servings, or share a whole one ($30) among a group. Or, sure, tackle it yourself. We're not here to judge. Alongside this crowning jewel of the table, diners can order a number of elevated sides, including a coleslaw constructed from freshly sliced cabbage, sauerkraut and charred corn in a house-made dressing ($11), oven-baked crusty garlic loaf ($8) or triple cooked hand-cut chips with house-made aioli ($9). They've even got their own peri peri sauce — a delicious twist on a well-known classic. The eatery may be casual but there's still an extensive beer and wine list, or you can opt for one of their speciality cocktails ($20) like their suze negroni, peach margarita, or a hot toddy to protect from winter's chill. Wednesdays see them slinging $1 wings, and on Fridays, $25 cocktail jugs see in the weekend in style.
In 2013, three women escaped from a home in Cleveland, Ohio, then shocked the world by revealing they'd been kidnapped and kept prisoner by one man for over a decade. It's hard not think that their harrowing tale may have played a part in the conception of writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's latest thriller, Split, which begins in a very similar fashion. Three young girls, all in their teens, are drugged and abducted in broad daylight outside of a shopping mall, only to wake up imprisoned in a bunker with no idea where they are, who took them, or why. That is, until they meet Dennis. Played by James McAvoy, Dennis is a cold, meticulous and physically brutal force. He's nothing like Patricia, the matronly British lady (also played by James McAvoy), who assures the girls they'll not be touched or harmed in any way. Then there's Hedwig (played by...James McAvoy) who's just a small boy who loves to dance to Kanye, and Barry (James McAvoy) a fashion designer constantly reassuring his shrink that everything's under control and…well…you get the idea. Rest assured though, this isn't some sort of Eddie Murphy costume romp where he's playing every character. Rather, McAvoy plays a collective of 23 distinct personalities competing for 'the light' within the body of one man named Kevin. Within this extraordinary case of DID (dissociative identity disorder), some personalities want the girls freed, whilst others appear to be preparing them for the arrival of the yet unseen 24th identity which they refer to only as 'the beast'. The burden of carrying the film, unsurprisingly, sits almost exclusively with McAvoy, whose performance more than rises to the challenge. Shyamalan actually filmed each of Kevin's identities as though they were portrayed by a different actor and the technique absolutely pays off. Each one feels different, and you soon think of them accordingly. Some you fear, others you warm to and none feel at all like the man playing them. The other performance of note comes from Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch). Introduced as a loner from the opening scene, Casey resists the others' suggestions of attempting an escape in favour of befriending the more approachable identities within Kevin, sparking additional conflict within an environment already dripping with tension. Taylor-Joy's a terrific actress with a long future ahead of her, and it's her scenes with McAvoy where Split is at its best. Filmed almost entirely in extreme closeups – a device that leaves audiences wondering what unseen menace might be lurking just off screen – McAvoy's unpredictability keeps the levels of menace high, while Taylor-Joy's enormous, soulful eyes speak volumes when words aren't (or can't) be spoken. Ever since The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan has been plagued by the expectation that his films will feature an unpredictable twist, a promise on which he's been mostly unable to deliver. Depending on your perspective, the finale of Split either sheds itself of that expectation entirely or doubles down and hits you with something even larger. Maybe it's both. Either way, the end result is almost certainly Shyamalan's best film since his breakout; a welcome return to form and an exciting precursor to whatever comes next. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84TouqfIsiI
There are many activities you can do in a two-hour time slot. You could watch all six episodes of the ABC's satirical beauty blog Sarah's Channel, cook 60 packets of 2 Minute Noodles or listen to Pink Floyd's 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' 4.6 times. But we think the tastiest way to pass 120 minutes is to spend it eating endless plates of tacos. And that's exactly what you can do each Sunday in January, when El Camino Cantina dishes out two hours of unlimited tacos for just $19 a pop. Rock up to the Fitzroy venue between 3pm and 6pm, and you'll be able to dig into a bottomless feast of everyone's favourite Mexican dish. To redeem the offer, you will need to purchase a drink of sorts. Watermelon margs will be $7.50 — but you can get a glass of sangria, a Dos Equis or, really, anything else on the extensive drinks menus. If you're getting a crew together, you might want to book in advance. You can lock down a table here.
It told you it was freakier. Giving 2003's mother-daughter body-swapping comedy a 22-years-later sequel means upping the ante, then. When the Freaky Friday franchise returns to cinemas, it'll again subject Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis, The Last Showgirl) and Anna (Lindsay Lohan, Our Little Secret) to a switch; however, they're not the only characters waking up to an unexpected change. Anna's daughter Harper (Julia Butters. The Fabelmans) and future stepdaughter Lily (Sophia Hammons, The Absence of Eden) will also learn what it's like to literally walk in another person's shoes to understand how they feel. As the just-dropped full trailer for the film shows, that's how sequel Freakier Friday is living up to its name: by getting four characters, not two, in on its identity crisis. This time, it's Harper and Lily who are squabbling, just as Tess and Anna were in the first flick — but the entire quartet experience the consequences. The new Freakier Friday sneak peek follows a first glimpse at the movie earlier in 2025, which already promised more chaos, plenty of nods to its predecessor — a nostalgic favourite — and taking the body-swap scenario up a few notches. The storyline: Anna is about to get married to Eric (Manny Jacinto, The Acolyte), hence gaining a stepdaughter, with the process of merging families happening just as a familiar situation pops up. It was back in 2023 that word arrived about a follow-up to the 00s version of Freaky Friday. Audiences will see the results on the big screen Down Under on Thursday, August 7, 2025. There's no fortune cookie involved, it seems, but there is a fortune teller (Vanessa Bayer, No Good Deed) who tells Anna and Tess that they've "walked in each other's paths" and "learned a lesson — a lesson that may serve you again". She also advises Harper and Lily that they're "called to be family". Similarly returning alongside Curtis and Lohan from Freaky Friday: Mark Harmon (NCIS: Origins), Chad Michael Murray (Sullivan's Crossing), Christina Vidal Mitchell (The Terminal List), Haley Hudson (Queen Gorya), Lucille Soong (Raya and the Last Dragon), Stephen Tobolowsky (The Madness) and Rosalind Chao (3 Body Problem). For more company, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (Never Have I Ever) also joins the cast. Behind the lens, Nisha Ganatra (The High Note, Late Night) is directing, with Curtis and Lohan among the executive producers, all on a movie that keeps building on the Freaky Friday name. The initial Curtis and Lohan team-up didn't start the franchise, of course. Instead, it began with the 1972 book by Mary Rodgers, then the 1976 Jodie Foster (True Detective: Night Country)-starring first movie adaptation, and also a 1995 remake with Gaby Hoffmann (Zero Day). After 2003's beloved Curtis- and Lohan-led take, horror flick Freaky also gave the idea a spin in 2020. Check out the full trailer for Freakier Friday below: Freakier Friday releases in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, August 7, 2025. Images: Glen Wilson © 2024/2025 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas across the country. After months spent empty, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, Australian picture palaces are back in business — spanning both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, comedies, music documentaries, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5kkZAKjkiw COLLECTIVE We can only hope that one day, likely in a far distant future, documentaries will stop doubling as horror films. That time hasn't arrived yet — and as Collective demonstrates, cinema's factual genre can chill viewers to the bone more effectively than most jump- and bump-based fare. Nominated for Best Documentary Feature and Best International Feature at the 2021 Academy Awards (only the second time that's ever happened, after last year's Honeyland), this gripping and gut-wrenching Romanian doco starts with a terrible tragedy. On October 30, 2015, a fire broke out at a metal gig in Bucharest, at a club called Colectiv. Twenty-seven people died in the blaze, and 180 people were injured as they tried to escape via the site's lone exit; however, that's just the beginning of the movie's tale. In the four months afterwards, as burn victims were treated in the country's public hospitals, 37 more passed away. When journalist Cătălin Tolontan and his team at The Sports Gazette started investigating the fire's aftermath and the mounting casualty list, they uncovered not only widespread failures throughout Romania's health system, but also engrained corruption as well. This truly is nightmare fuel; if people can't trust hospitals to act in their patients' best interest after such a sizeable disaster, one of the fundamental tenets of modern society completely collapses. Early in Collective, director, writer, cinematographer and editor Alexander Nanau (Toto and His Sisters) shows the flames, as seen from inside the club. When the blaze sparks from the show's pyrotechnics, hardcore band Goodbye to Gravity has just finished singing about corruption. "Fuck all your wicked corruption! It's been there since our inception but we couldn't see," the group's singer growls — and no, you can't make this up. It's a difficult moment to watch, but this is a film filled with unflinching sights, and with a viscerally unsettling story that demands attention. Nanau occasionally spends time with the bereaved and angry parents of victims of the fire, even bookending the documentary with one man's distress over the "communication error" that contributed to his son's death. The filmmaker charts a photo shoot with Tedy Ursuleanu, a survivor visibly scarred by her ordeal, too. And yet, taking an observational approach free from narration and interviews, and with only the scantest use of text on-screen, Collective's filmmaker lets much of what's said rustle up the majority of the movie's ghastliest inclusions. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zadWJ8tPmnU VOYAGERS He's an Australian treasure, he's one of Hollywood's recent villainous go-tos and he definitely isn't in Voyagers. That'd be Ben Mendelsohn, who comes to mind anyway while watching this sci-fi thriller. In a softer mode, the Rogue One and Ready Player One star could've played Colin Farrell's part here. That's not why Voyagers makes him pop into viewers' heads, though. Rather, it's because his brand of slippery menace still slinks through this space-set flick, all thanks to its most vivid performance. Should an upcoming movie ever need a fresher-faced version of Mendelsohn's latest bad guy or next morally complicated figure, Dunkirk, The Children Act and Black Mirror: Bandersnatch's Fionn Whitehead needs to be on speed dial. He channels Mendo perfectly as Zac, one of 30 test tube-bred teenagers who are rocketed into the heavens as humanity's last hope for survival. In the latter half of the 21st century, Earth is near-uninhabitable, so he's on an 86-year mission to a newly located planet. The young Humanitas crew's main purpose is to beget the next generations who'll colonise their new home — but, after learning that he's being drugged into obedience, Zac decides not to play nice. Ten years in, when the quieter Christopher (Tye Sheridan, X-Men: Dark Phoenix) realises that the drink they all call 'blue' contains an unidentified compound, the decision is easy. First Christopher, then Zac, then the rest of their shipmates all stop sipping it and start letting their hormones pump unfettered for the first time in their intricately designed and highly controlled lives. Richard (Farrell, The Gentlemen), the lone adult and the closest thing any of the crew have ever had to a father, is suddenly treated with suspicion. Christopher and Zac begin testing boundaries, indulging desires and flouting rules, too — and realising that they're both attracted to dutiful Chief Medical Officer Sela (Lily-Rose Depp, Crisis). Then an accident changes the dynamic, with the two pals challenging each other while fighting to lead. Factions are formed, chaos ensues and the very folks entrusted with saving the species are now simply trying to outlast each other. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE5-hkHIZF4 WILLY'S WONDERLAND If you've ever wondered how Nicolas Cage might've fared during cinema's silent era, Willy's Wonderland has the answer. A horror film about killer animatronic restaurant mascots, it's firmly a 2021 feature. It wasn't made a century ago, before synchronised sound forever changed the movie business, so it's definitely a talkie as well. Cage doesn't do any chattering, however. He groans and growls, and often, but doesn't utter a single word. The actor's many devotees already know that he's a talent with presence; whether he's cavorting in the streets under the delusion that he's a bloodsucker in Vampire's Kiss, grinning with his locks flowing in the wind in Con Air, dousing himself with vodka and grunting in Mandy or staring at a vibrant light in Color Out of Space, he repeatedly makes an imprint without dialogue. So, the inimitable star needn't speak to command attention — which is exactly the notion that Willy's Wonderland filmmaker Kevin Lewis (The Third Nail) put to the test. First, the great and obvious news: Cage doesn't seem to put in much effort, but he's a joy to watch. Playing a man simply known as The Janitor, he glowers like he couldn't care less that furry robots are trying to kill him. He swaggers around while cleaning the titular long-abandoned Chuck E Cheese-esque establishment, dances while hitting the pinball machine on his breaks, swigs soft drink as if it's the only beverage in the world and proves mighty handy with a mop handle when it comes to dispensing with his supernaturally demonic foes. Somehow, though, he's never as OTT as he could be. Cage plays a character who doesn't deem it necessary to convey his emotions, and that results in more restraint on his part than the film demonstrates with its undeniably silly premise. Accordingly, cue the bad news: as entertaining as Cage's wordless performance is — even without completely going for broke as only he can — Willy's Wonderland is often a ridiculous yet routine slog. Read our full review. Willy's Wonderland opens in Sydney and Brisbane on April 8, and hits home entertainment on April 21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZmgl4TkFBc ANTOINETTE IN THE CÉVENNES In some other parts of the world, Antoinette in the Cévennes is known as My Donkey, My Lover & I. Both titles summarise the French comedy in a literal sense, but only one taps into the unexpected survivalist thread weaved through its woman-and-animal antics. Parisian primary school teacher Antoinette (Laure Calamy, Only the Animals) does indeed travel to the Cévennes, the mountain range in France's south. The lovestruck fortysomething makes the trip to follow her married lover Vladimir (C'est la vie!), who has cancelled their plans for the school holidays to hike with his wife Eléonore (Olivia Côte, No Filter) and daughter Alice (first-timer Louise Vidal), the latter of which is one of Antoinette's students. And, setting off on a six-day trek, she walks with a donkey, just like Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde author Robert Louis Stevenson did in the 1870s — as he chronicled in his book Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes. Chaos and convenient plotting ensues, with the film's eponymous figure unprepared for her journey, inexperienced at both hiking and walking with a donkey, quickly becoming the talk of the trail and greeted with awkward horror by Vladimir when they eventually cross paths. But as a tale of a woman finding herself — and finding out how to truly survive and thrive in her own skin — Antoinette in the Cévennes is both thoughtful and charming. Luminous star Calamy is so essential to Antoinette in the Cévennes, it's hard to see the feature working without her. She plays her titular part with the commitment rather than recklessness or naive confidence; Antoinette knows that her decisions are guided by her heart rather than by any amount of consideration, but she's determined to see them through. In the movie's opening sequence, when Antoinette dons a sparkly dress and overshadows her class during a performance, Calamy conveys both yearning and spirit. In the many moments that her character finds herself alone on the trail unburdening her romantic woes to Patrick, the stubborn donkey who becomes her unlikely confidante and much-needed animal companion, she's unguarded and without a drop of self-consciousness. Just as crucially, writer/director Caroline Vignal (Girlfriends) has penned a character who smacks of typical rom-com traits at first glance, yet continually proves anything but. Her script gives its central figure time and space not just to grow, but to realise who she really is. That time can pass more patiently than the film's 97-minute running time should, and that gorgeously lensed space — by Knife + Heart cinematographer Simon Beaufils — is as much the star of Antoinette in the Cévennes as Calamy and her four-legged co-star; however, the end result is never anything less than a winsome and perceptive jaunt. Antoinette in the Cévennes opens in Sydney and Melbourne on April 8, and in Brisbane on April 15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6vOhD_fI2I&feature=emb_logo ASCENDANT More than halfway into Australian sci-fi thriller Ascendant, Aria Wolf (Charlotte Best, Tidelands) finds herself facing one of the modern world's worst nightmares: a dying phone battery. She's trapped in a 120-storey Shanghai building, and in an elevator that plunges downward and jerks back up seemingly at random. She awoke bound, gagged and blindfolded, and with no recollection of how she came to be in such a predicament. She's at the mercy of sinister Russians (led by The Mule's Alex Menglet), who are holding her father (Jonny Pasvolsky, The Front Runner) hostage and live-streaming his torture into her suspended cage. But if her phone was to stop working, it'd be the movie's most monumental development. She'd no longer be drip-fed Ascendant's exposition, and first-time feature writer/director Antaine Furlong (co-scripting with fellow debutant Kieron Holland) would also lose his main way to relay those details to his audience. The low battery hardly comes as a surprise, given that Aria has spent the bulk of the film to that point using the device. Because logic is absent here, Aria's mobile keeps working long after she starts stressing about its demise, too. But the importance placed on her phone — both in relaying much of the feature's story, Buried- and Locke-style, and in providing an easy source of drama — speaks volumes about this muddled struggle of a film. The Russians want information, but Aria doesn't know what they're talking about. Enter flashes of memories from her childhood, which help fill in the gaps. Throw in flimsy supernatural elements as well, and that's the crux of Furlong and Holland's screenplay, which primarily feels like a series of one-upping "what if?" questions — "what if she isn't merely stuck, but she's being tormented?", "what if one wall of the elevator is a big TV screen?", "what if her name makes everyone think of Game of Thrones?", "what if it's all taking place in China?", "what if the CIA is involved?" and "what if there's an ecological aspect?", for instance. Living up to her surname as the feature's standout actor, Best turns in a convincing and layered performance as the perplexed Aria. Stunt double Marlee Barber (The Invisible Man) deserves ample credit given the amount of time that the film's protagonist spends being thrown around, and production designer Fiona Donovan (Back to the Rafters) makes the movie's eerie setting look both unsettling and striking. Their efforts can't lift a picture that's big on ideas but light on cohesion, though. Furlong has a keen eye and doesn't lack in ambition — but Ascendant sinks rather than rises. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on January 1, January 7, January 14, January 21 and January 28; February 4, February 11, February 18 and February 25; and March 4, March 11, March 18 and March 25; and April 1. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as Nomadland, Pieces of a Woman, The Dry, Promising Young Woman, Summerland, Ammonite, The Dig, The White Tiger, Only the Animals, Malcolm & Marie, News of the World, High Ground, Earwig and the Witch, The Nest, Assassins, Synchronic, Another Round, Minari, Firestarter — The Story of Bangarra, The Truffle Hunters, The Little Things, Chaos Walking, Raya and the Last Dragon, Max Richter's Sleep, Judas and the Black Messiah, Girls Can't Surf, French Exit, Saint Maud, Godzilla vs Kong, The Painter and the Thief, Nobody and The Father.
The southern end of Chapel Street often gets a little overlooked in all the flashy hustle and bustle of Prahran, South Yarra and Windsor — but there's a lot to see south of the border of Dandenong Road. And by a lot to see, we mean a lot of cheese to eat for free courtesy of charcuterie, cheese and wine bar XM4. The St Kilda venue knows how to please the people, and it's already doing it with its range of seasonal produce, good wine, cheese and a bagel menu to back things up. But it's stepping up things to "why aren't you here already?" level by slinging free cheese boards your way on Friday nights. 'Mates rates and cheese plates' is the name of the– game, so you're not going to want to go alone. Head along for a complimentary cheese grazing table and cheap drinks from 5–7pm every Friday, before heading north up Chapel Street for wherever your night might take you. Cheese counts as a proper dinner, right?
