In the last weekend of June, Sydney's northern beaches gained a multi-million dollar dining and entertainment precinct. The jewel in its crown (apart from its stunning views) is acclaimed chef Giovanni Pilu's new restaurant AcquaFresca. A local take on the coastal trattorias of Italy, the sister restaurant to Pilu at Freshwater is complete with al fresco dining, a share-friendly food offering and some primo views across Freshwater and Curl Curl Beach. It also has significantly cheaper prices than its upmarket sister, so is a way to experience Giovanni's renowned fare with burning a hole through your pocket. The precinct is home to a slew of other bars and restaurants, too, including Teddy Larkin's Seafood and Steakhouse with racks of ribs, burgers and many, many steaks; pan-asian eatery WaterDragon, which is serving up everything from peking duck pancakes, to Vietnamese rolls and matcha smoothies; and DD Collective, a new cafe from the chef behind Sydney's much-loved Buffalo Dining Club. If you're just looking to sip on a pint — or an espresso martini — while soaking up the sweeping ocean views, you can head to the new Harbord Diggers Bar. The team from the bar's previous incarnation has teamed up with the folk from Manly Wharf Hotel to reinvent and breath a new lift into the former club. Harbord Diggers doesn't stop at food, either. The $160 million dining and entertainment, run by the Mounties Group, is also home to childcare facilities and a new senior living residences called Watermark Freshwater. When the precinct's second stage opens in late 2019, it will include a new fitness and aquatic centre. In the meantime, you can head along to one of it's free morning yoga session — to head along you just need to sign up for a Mounties membership (which'll only set you back $6 for the year). Find Harbord Diggers at 88 Evans St, Freshwater.
For every boarded-up venue there’s a group of musically shrewd Sydneysiders doing great things to nurture our city’s really-very-thriving live music scene. One of the most game-changing is The NOW now, a community-run organisation responsible for two regular gigs a month throughout the year and one massive festival in January. Now in its 12th year, the festival is a five-day unpicking of that intriguing musical category marked ‘other’. A huge array of Australian acts and overseas imports will be flying the flag for sound sculpture, improv, composed music, new collaborations, trash rock, shitcore and other exploratory genres. Sydney producer Jon Hunter commands time the way other artists wield guitars, Peter Blamey’s ‘open electronics’ explore the neglected material potential of e-waste, and Berlin-based NOW co-founder Clare Cooper demos her rhythmic chops on something called a guzheng. Also unconventional are the ticket prices, which range from $15 for one night to $65 for a five-day pass.
Even when you put your mind to it, cutting down your kitchen waste can be a challenging undertaking. But with the help of Cornersmith — ethical food producer, cafe and professional pickler — you won't have a problem turning the sad looking vegetables at the bottom of your fridge into something hearty and delicious. Head along to this hands-on workshop hosted at the MCA on Saturday, June 1 and you'll quickly find out the best way to make a rich stock made entirely from kitchen castaways. You'll also learn how to make versatile apple cider vinegar that's great for pickling or turning basic salads into something a little fancier. Once you've completed this 90-minute class, take home your hard work and find a new appreciation for your downtrodden produce. Cornersmith's workshop will take place on Saturday, June 1 across three sessions: 11am–12.30pm, 1.30–3pm and 4–5.30pm. Tickets cost $80 per person ($64 for members) and booking is required. This event forms part of the Museum of Contemporary Art's Conversation Starters 2019: Temperature Rising program. To see the full program, head this way. Image. Steve Woodburn.
The first rule of making a movie about a high-school lesbian fight club is that there are no rules, other than embracing the concept and giving it your all. So punches Bottoms, a film where the gleefully cartoonish energy is always as important as the plot, and a feature that knows it's entering a big-screen ring that wouldn't even exist if Heathers, Clueless, Bring It On, Mean Girls, But I'm a Cheerleader, Easy A and Booksmart hadn't hopped over the ropes first. Three years after Shiva Baby, writer/director Emma Seligman and actor Rachel Sennott (Bodies Bodies Bodies) reunite, with the pair collaborating on the script this time around. Also crucial: bringing in The Bear's Ayo Edebiri, a friend from the duo's student days, to co-star. In a picture that values being stronger together, Seligman, Sennott and Edebiri make a knockout team. Bottoms' vibe could only spring from IRL pals, too, playing it loose and ridiculous like this crew is simply hanging out. The setup: Sennott and Edebiri are PJ and Josie, who return to Rockbridge Falls High School after summer break keen to finally turn their love for popular cheerleaders Isabel (Havana Rose Liu, No Exit) and Brittany (Kaia Gerber, Babylon) into sex and romance. The best friends know that their social standing is anything but high — "gay, untalented and ugly" is how they describe themselves — but two queer girls can dream that this is their moment, then do their utmost to make their fantasies a reality. So, when the semester starts with PJ and Josie still stuck as outcasts, they conjure up a plan. Their gymnasium-based group is officially known as a women's self-defense class and is sold to their teachers as an act of female solidarity; however, no matter what they tell the principal (Wayne Pére, Your Honor), as well as the history teacher (Marshawn Lynch, Westworld) that they convince to be their advisor, there's really only one aim: not feminism and support, but getting laid. The initial mission of PJ and Josie's new extra-curricular obsession is scoring Isabel and Brittany's attention, then. The second: keeping up its founders' new tough rep. In that desperate-to-impress way that every awkward, anxious teen has, Bottoms' protagonists aren't above saying whatever they think will make them look cooler to the objects of their affection. So, PJ and Josie have a rumour that they went to juvie to uphold as long as they think that Isabel and Brittany care. Thanks to an accidental carpark altercation with star quarterback Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine, Red, White & Royal Blue), they also have form throwing around their might — or so they're happy to let their classmates think. Two things neither counts on, though: their gambit proving a hit with other campus outsiders such as Hazel (Ruby Cruz, Mare of Easttown) and, blow by blow, the group actually bringing its members together. Bottoms' premise is pure inspiration, switching out the usual Can't Hardly Wait-, American Pie- and Superbad-esque pining boys lovesick over long-term crushes or just yearning losing their virginity in general, taking Fight Club to high school, and getting sillier and more surreal than teen comedies normally dare. Bottoms as a movie also demonstrates Seligman's knack for her chosen genre at opposite ends of the spectrum — because the filmmaker's sharp and layered cringe-inducing debut feature is in a whole other comic clique to her sophomore effort. Cue subversion with plenty to say and off-kilter absurdity combined, especially in interrogating allyship. Cue a willingness to go for broke with weird, warped and wild swings as well. And, cue a film that's always doing what PJ and Josie themselves are to score their dream dates: relentlessly trying. The characters go with throwdowns in an endeavour to aid their horny hopes, while the flick itself opts for an everything-it-can-throw-in audacity. Tonal ducks, bobs and weaves are part of the Bottoms experience, unsurprisingly — and not every gag, line, goof, throwaway, swerve and drop of Wet Hot American Summer-style energy works. Accordingly, rivalries within Rockbridge Falls High and with another school, plus attempts to get serious, aren't always a bullseye. But Seligman and Sennott's devotion to their first rule means that a flat joke, piece of dialogue, idea or moment doesn't last long, then something else enters the comedic fray with gusto. The ping-ponging from Avril Lavigne's 'Complicated' to Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' amid a score co-composed by Charli XCX illustrates much about that bouncing-around relish. So does the script's contentedness to keep most of its on-screen figures as stock types not out of laziness, but to heighten the idiosyncrasies splashed around, insecurities examined and impact of the chaos around them. There's nothing standard about Sennott and Edebiri, not that Bottoms tells viewers anything that they don't already know from each actor's past work. The respective The Idol and Theater Camp talents previously collaborated on 2020's three-episode Comedy Central miniseries Ayo and Rachel Are Single, also pondering affairs of the heart — modern dating, to be specific, and also hilariously. The lived-in air that they bring to PJ and Josie's friendship isn't just an act, then. In fact, it's what every bit, jab, OTT jump and heartfelt emotion relies on. Sennott does charmingly forceful and unconstrained like she's breathing for it, while Edebiri has already shown how stellar she is at reacting on The Bear. Together, whether taking turns monologuing or diving into a bloodbath, they're unhinged magic. Also excellent: the supporting cast, from Gerber and Galitzine to Cruz and Lynch. The first makes good on casting a supermodel — and daughter of a supermodel, thanks to mum Cindy Crawford, who she couldn't more resemble — as the epitome of hotness, and makes her part shrewdly amusing. The second does the vain and overly dramatic himbo role to perfection. Cruz screams to be cast alongside Aubrey Plaza (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off) in a future project, and Lynch is progressing well on the Carl Weathers (The Mandalorian)- and Terry Crews (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)-led path of NFL players who've become actors. If one of the key tenets of any association, fists flying or not, is to have the best members, then Bottoms rises to the top while having a helluva raucously entertaining time.
There are many things that are great about The Great, and the fact that it tells you what to exclaim whenever you're enjoying it, just received good news about it or simply can't stop thinking about it is one of them. For two seasons so far, this historical satire has bandied about "huzzah!" like it's the only word worth saying. And, come May, it'll do so again when its third season finally drops. The Great was renewed after its second batch of episodes arrived late in 2021, and now season three finally has a release date. Mark Saturday, May 13 in your diary for your next binge — following the rise and reign of Catherine the Great, including her marriage to and overthrowing of Emperor Peter III, with only the slightest regard for the actual facts, this show has a concept that's all killer, no filler, after all. [caption id="attachment_771188" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ollie Upton /Hulu[/caption] Season three will once again feature Elle Fanning (The Girl From Plainville) as Catherine and Nicholas Hoult (The Menu) as Peter, and again step into their chaotic life together. Their nuptials have always been tumultuous, but season two threw everything from attempted murders to mass imprisonments at the couple — and kept disrupting their dynamic as Catherine continued to work towards the name that's a part of history, and also inspires the show's title. So, this time around, expect more of Peter figuring out what it means to play First Husband, and Catherine expanding her influence and reputation beyond just Russia. That, and visions of Peter's late father (Jason Isaacs, Mrs Harris Goes to Paris), life lessons, attempts to build a new country and the usual scheming. While the series has always been supremely confident in its blend of handsome period staging, the loosest of historical realities and that savage sense of humour (it does spring from Oscar-nominated The Favourite screenwriter Tony McNamara, after all), it felt even more comfortable in its skin during its second season. And smoother, too, yet just as biting. So, hopefully that will remain the case in season three as well, all while it keeps seesawing tonally and proving as sharp as a shot of vodka — or several. Fanning and Hoult will be joined by returning co-stars Phoebe Fox (The Aeronauts), Adam Godley (Lodge 49), Gwilym Lee (Top End Wedding), Charity Wakefield (Bounty Hunters), Douglas Hodge (I Hate Suzie Too), Sacha Dhawan (The Prince), Bayo Gbadamosi (War of the Worlds) and Belinda Bromilow (Doctor Doctor), too, because this is a show with a phenomenally great cast. There's no trailer for The Great season three as yet, but you can check out the trailer for season two below: The Great season three will be available to stream in Australia via Stan from Saturday, May 13.
Sunday sessions should be simple, especially if your head feels a little weary from the previous night's antics. Busby's at Oxford House abides, with the launch of its new Sunday Snacks weekly event taking care of the share-style eats, easygoing drinks and relaxed vibes for you. Served every Sunday from 12–10pm until Sunday, September 28, it's all about easing into the day, one chilled-out bite at a time. With a tasty selection of small plates, recovering after a big night out or kicking back with friends at a long overdue catch-up feels just right. The menu is a sumptuous affair, with highlights including seared octopus gilda, potato hash with crème fraîche, and king prawns with Calabrian chilli butter. Priced at $40 per person, you can ramp up the feast even further by adding a pasta to share for $20 and delving into the drink specials. Plus, there's weekly live entertainment, adding to Busby's intimate atmosphere. For those unfamiliar, the place is adorned with a soft, lamp-lit ambience and velvety red carpets, making for the most laidback of Sunday hangs. Walk-ins are welcome, but bookings are encouraged.
It's the film that first made the world fall in love with Hugh Grant, screenwriter Richard Curtis and their brand of British rom-coms — and, just like everything else with a well-known name in the entertainment game, Four Weddings and a Funeral is coming back. This time around, the hit flick has been remade as an American TV miniseries. If you're unsurprisingly a little skeptical, the news that Mindy Kaling is one of the show's creators and writers should change that. Kaling's six-season sitcom The Mindy Project was basically a long-running ode to the romantic comedy genre, complete with plenty of references to plenty of classic flicks. As a result, reworking one of the huge rom-com successes of the past 25 years really does feel like the logical next step. Across a ten-episode series made for US streaming service Hulu, the new Four Weddings and a Funeral will follow four American friends who meet up in London for a wedding. Clearly, given the title, three more ceremonies are in their future, as is a tearful farewell to someone they know. The show tracks a year in their lives, their romantic escapades and even political scandals — all with a cast that includes Game of Thrones' Nathalie Emmanuel as Maya, plus Rebecca Rittenhouse (The Mindy Project), Brandon Mychal Smith (You're the Worst) and John Reynolds (Search Party) as her best buddies. Nikesh Patel (Doctor Who) also features as Maya's potential love interest, who she first encounters in an airport meet cute, naturally. And while Hugh Grant doesn't show up in the trailer — sorry, 90s obsessives — original Four Weddings star Andie MacDowell does. Because Kaling isn't averse to nodding to other rom-com favourites of the era, My Best Friend's Wedding's Dermot Mulroney also makes an appearance. Watch the charming first trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=604JeF9RNu8 While Four Weddings and a Funeral drops on Hulu in the US on July 31, it doesn't yet have an Australian platform or airdate — we'll update you if and when that changes.
Before the pandemic, when a new-release movie started playing in cinemas, audiences couldn't watch it on streaming, video on demand, DVD or blu-ray for a few months. But with the past few years forcing film industry to make quite a few changes — widespread movie theatre closures and plenty of people staying home in iso will do that — that's no longer always the case. Maybe you've been under the weather. Perhaps you haven't had time to make it to your local cinema lately. Given the hefty amount of films now releasing each week, maybe you simply missed something. Film distributors have been fast-tracking some of their new releases from cinemas to streaming recently — movies that might still be playing in theatres in some parts of the country, too. In preparation for your next couch session, here are 13 that you can watch right now at home. BONES AND ALL To be a character in a Luca Guadagnino film is to be ravenous. The Italian director does have a self-described Desire trilogy — I Am Love, A Bigger Splash and Call Me By Your Name — on his resume, after all. In those movies and more, he spins sensual stories about hungry hearts, minds and eyes, all while feeding his audience's very same body parts. He tells tales of protagonists bubbling with lust and yearning, craving love and acceptance, and trying to devour this fleeting thing called life while they're living it. Guadagnino hones in on the willingness to surrender to that rumbling and pining, whether pursuing a swooning, sweeping, summery romance in the first feature that put Timothée Chalamet in front of his camera, or losing oneself to twitchy, witchy dance in his Suspiria remake. Never before has he taken having an insatiable appetite to its most literal and unnerving extreme, however, but aching cannibal love story Bones and All is pure Guadagnino. Peaches filled with longing's sticky remnants are so 2017 for Guadagnino, and for now-Little Women, Don't Look Up and Dune star Chalamet. Biting into voracious romances will never get old, though. Five years after Call Me By Your Name earned them both Oscar nominations — the filmmaker for Best Picture, his lead for Best Actor — they reteam for a movie that traverses the American midwest rather than northern Italy, swaps erotic fruit for human flesh and comes loaded with an eerie undercurrent, but also dwells in similar territory. It's still the 80s, and both hope and melancholy still drift in the air. The phenomenal Taylor Russell (Lost in Space) drives the feature as Maren, an 18-year-old with an urge to snack on people that makes her an unpopular slumber-party guest. When she meets Chalamet's Lee, a fellow 'eater', Bones and All becomes another sublime exploration of love's all-consuming feelings — and every bit as exquisite as Guadagnino and Chalamet's last stunning collaboration. Bones and All is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. THE MENU Getting "yes chef" bellowed his way as Julian Slowik, the head chef at exclusive fictional restaurant Hawthorne, Ralph Fiennes (The Forgiven) is a sinister delight in the vicious and delicious The Menu. With his character terrorising staff and customers alike, but similarly trapped with his employees in the hospo grind, Fiennes is also visibly having a ball in an entertainingly slippery role. He plays the part with the instant presence to make a room of well-paying patrons snap to attention just because he's there, and his facial expressions — his eyes in particular — are a masterclass in passive malevolence. There's a cruel streak in Slowik, as there is in the movie, but The Menu is a black, bleak, vengeful comedy as well. Director Mark Mylod (What's Your Number?) and writers Seth Reiss and Will Tracy (The Onion) know the best thing to eat, aka the rich, and turn their fine-dining factory into a savage, savvy and scathingly amusing satire about coveting $1250-a-head meals but letting the workers behind them slice, steam, stir and sweat through upscale kitchen drudgery. Babbling snootily about mouth-feel before even getting to Hawthorne by boat, Tyler (Nicholas Hoult, The Great) doesn't spare a passing thought for the restaurant's workers. A self-confessed foodie who can't abide by the eatery's no-photography rule for a single course, he's in fanboy heaven after finally scoring a booking — and doesn't his companion Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy, Amsterdam) know it. She's less enthused, and her lack of fawning over her surroundings, Slowik, each plate and the theatre of it all rankles her date. She's the least-excited diner of the evening's entire list, in fact, which also spans status-chasing finance bros (The Terminal List's Arturo Castro, High School Musical: The Musical: The Series' Mark St Cyr and The Now's Rob Yang), a cashed-up couple (Mass' Reed Birney and Julia's Judith Light) who attend regularly, an arrogant food critic (Janet McTeer, Ozark) and her editor (Paul Adelstein, The Greatest Beer Run Ever), and a movie star (John Leguizamo, Encanto) with his assistant (Aimee Carrero, Spirited). The Menu is available to stream via Disney+, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. MISTER ORGAN A single tweet has sparked many things for many people; however, the chaos started by a social-media missive from New Zealand journalist and filmmaker David Farrier has few parallels. In 2013, he commented on Twitter about a friend parking their car at Auckland's now-closed Bashford Antiques, then weathering an unpleasant experience: the threat of towing, instant abuse, and an immediate demand for $250 in order to be allowed to leave. Farrier next began writing articles about it all, and what seemed like a clamping racket, in 2016. In his first piece, he covered being asked by his employer three years prior to delete his tweet, too. But his own ordeal was only just beginning, because his ordeal involves Michael Organ. "You pay a soul tax for every minute you spend with him," Farrier notes in the documentary he's made about all of the above, complete with far more twists than anyone can imagine going in — and watching Mister Organ, the feeling behind that observation is starkly apparent. As well as helping impose onerous conditions on folks parking outside an antiques store, and becoming the owner's constant companion in the process, claiming to be royalty is also part of this tale. Organ has defended himself in serious court cases, and assisted with bringing legal proceedings against others, including Farrier. His web of interpersonal dealings, as fleshed out through discussions with ex-housemates and acquaintances, brings bewildered and infuriated interviewees into the doco. Finding someone to say a kind word about him is almost impossible, other than the endlessly talkative Organ himself. For newcomers to this situation, it's best to get the ins and outs by watching, stolen boats and all, because no description does them justice — but Farrier's time with Organ, as he tries to get to the bottom of his story, never fails to surprise. Viewers of filmmaker's Tickled and Dark Tourist will easily glean why he was drawn to tell this tale, though; for starters, it's another disturbing, perplexing, so-messy-it-can-only-be-true slice of life. Mister Organ is available to stream via DocPlay, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. SKINAMARINK Age may instil nocturnal bravery in most of us, stopping the flinching and wincing at things that routinely go bump, thump and jump in the night in our ordinary homes, but the childhood feeling of lying awake in the dark with shadows, shapes and strange sounds haunting an eerie void never seeps from memory. Close your eyes, cast your mind back, and the unsettling and uncertain sensation can easily spring again — that's how engrained it is. Or, with your peepers wide open, you could just watch new micro-budget Canadian horror movie Skinamarink. First-time feature filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball has even made this breakout hit, which cost just $15,000 to produce, in the house he grew up in. His characters: two kids, four-year-old Kevin (debutant Lucas Paul) and six-year-old Kaylee (fellow newcomer Dali Rose Tetreault), who wake up deep into the evening. The emotion he's trading in: pure primal dread, because to view this digitally shot but immensely grainy-looking flick is to be plunged back to a time when nightmares lingered the instant that the light switched off. Skinamarink does indeed jump backwards, meeting Kevin and Kaylee in 1995 when they can't find their dad (Ross Paul, Moby Dick) or mum (Jaime Hill, Give and Take) after waking. But, befitting a movie that's an immersive collage of distressing and disquieting images and noises from the get-go, it also pulsates with an air of being trapped in time. It takes its name from a nonsense nursery-rhyme song from 1910, then includes cartoons from the 1930s on Kevin and Kaylee's television to brighten up the night's relentless darkness. In its exacting, hissing sound design especially, it brings David Lynch's 1977 debut Eraserhead to mind. And the influence of 1999's The Blair Witch Project and the 2007-born Paranormal Activity franchise is just as evident, although Skinamarink is far more ambient, experimental and experiential. Ball has evolved from crafting YouTube shorts inspired by online commenters' worst dreams to this: his own creepypasta. Skinamarink is available to stream via Shudder and AMC+. Read our full review. BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER Black Panther: Wakanda Forever isn't the movie it was initially going to be, the sequel to 2018's electrifying and dynamic Black Panther that anyone behind it originally wanted it to be, or the chapter in the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe that it first aimed to be — this, the world already knows. The reason why is equally familiar, after Chadwick Boseman died from colon cancer in 2020 aged 43. At its best, this direct followup to the MCU's debut trip to its powerful African nation doesn't just know this, too, but scorches that awareness deep into its frames. King T'Challa's death starts the feature, a loss that filmmaking trickery doesn't reverse, no matter how meaningless mortality frequently proves when on-screen resurrections are usually a matter of mere plot twists. Wakanda Forever begins with heartbreak and pain, in fact, and with facing the hard truth that life ends and, in ways both big and small, that nothing is ever the same. Your typical franchise entry about quick-quipping costumed crusaders courageously protecting the planet, this clearly isn't. Directed and co-written by Ryan Coogler (Creed) like its predecessor — co-scripting again with Joe Robert Cole (All Day and a Night) — Wakanda Forever is about grief, expected futures that can no longer be and having to move forward anyway. That applies in front of and behind the lens; as ruminating so heavily on loss underscores, the movie has a built-in justification for not matching the initial flick. The Boseman-sized hole at Wakanda Forever's centre is gaping, unsurprisingly, even in a feature that's a loving homage to him, and his charm and gravitas-filled take on the titular character. Also, that vast void isn't one this film can fill. Amid overtly reckoning with absence, Coogler still has a top-notch cast — returnees Letitia Wright (Death on the Nile), Angela Bassett (Gunpowder Milkshake), Danai Gurira (The Walking Dead), Lupita Nyong'o (The 355) and Winston Duke (Nine Days), plus new addition Tenoch Huerta (Narcos: Mexico), most notably — drawing eyeballs towards his vibrant imagery, but his picture is also burdened with MCU bloat and mechanics, and infuriating bet-hedging. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is available to stream via Disney+, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. BLUEBACK Films about humanity's affinity with animals are films about our ties to the natural world — and doesn't Blueback splash that truth around. Plunging from The Dry into the wet, writer/director Robert Connolly reteams with Eric Bana for another page-to-screen adaptation of a homegrown book; this is another movie inseparable from its landscape, too, again exploring the impact people have upon it. This time, however, Bana isn't the star. He's memorable as larrikin abalone diver and fisherman 'Mad' Macka, and this Tim Winton-based feature would've benefited from more of his presence, but the Dirty John actor is firmly in supporting mode. Set against the enticing Western Australian coast as the author's work tends to be, this is a picture about the sea's thrall, existential importance and inherent sense of connection — as filtered through the bond between a girl and a wild blue groper, plus the evolving relationship between that same child and her eco-warrior mother. Mia Wasikowska (Bergman Island) plays Blueback's fish-befriending protagonist as an adult, with the text's Abel becoming Abby here. Radha Mitchell (Girl at the Window) shares the screen as Dora, her widowed mother, early in the film's year-hopping timeline. Still, in their second of three movies in succession — arriving before upcoming The Dry sequel Force of Nature — Connolly and Bana dip back into familiar territory. Obvious swaps are evident, including a beachside rather than a farming community, and atrocities against the planet and its wildlife instead of crimes against people, but it's easy to see Blueback's appeal as a reunion project. Among the key differences as Abby and Dora fight to save their town and its aquatic treasures, still battling wrongs to strive for what's right: this is an overtly and eagerly family-friendly affair. Blueback is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. SISSY Thanks to everything from The Saddle Club and I Hate My Teenage Daughter to Sweet/Vicious and The Bold Type, Gold Coast-born Australian actor Aisha Dee knows what it's like to live life through screens. She's been acting since she was a teenager, and she's charted the highs of her chosen profession — all in front of a lens. In Sissy, she hops in front of a camera again, naturally, and not only once but twice. In this delightfully savvy and funny Aussie horror film, Dee turns in a wonderfully layered performance as the titular Instagram influencer, whose soaring follower count, non-stop flow of likes and adoring comments, and online fame all stems from her carefully poised and curated wellness videos. Also known as @SincerelyCecilia, the character's sense of self springs from that virtual attention too; however, when she reconnects with her childhood best friend Emma (co-director/co-writer Hannah Barlow), gets invited to her bachelorette weekend and finds old schoolyard dynamics bubbling up, that facade starts to shatter. If Mean Girls was a slasher film set in a remote cabin in rural Australia, it might look something like Sissy — and that's a compliment multiple times over. Every horror movie wants to be smart and savage on multiple levels, but Barlow and fellow co-helmer/co-scribe Kane Senes (reteaming after 2017's For Now) weaponise everything from influencer culture and pastel, rainbow and glitter colour palettes to toxic friendships, all while spinning a clever, cutting and comedic take on the impact of bullying. They also fill their feature with as gloriously diverse a cast as Australian cinema has boasted, and with one helluva lead performance. If Carrie was set in today's always-online world, amid cancel culture and plentiful praise at the press of a button, it'd look like this, too, but this instant Aussie horror classic takes its own bold stab at plenty of genres. Sissy is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. ARMAGEDDON TIME What's more difficult a feat: to ponder everything that the universe might hold, as James Gray did in 2019's sublime Ad Astra, or to peer back at your own childhood, as the writer/director now does with Armageddon Time? In both cases, the bonds and echoes between parents and children earn the filmmaker's attention. In both cases, thoughtful, complex and affecting movies result. And, as shared with everything he's made over the past three decades — The Yards, The Immigrant and The Lost City of Z among them — fantastic performances glide across the screen, too. Here, in a portrait of a pre-teen's growing awareness of his privilege, the world's prejudices, the devastating history of his ancestors, and how tentative a place people can hold due to race, religion, money, politics and more, young stars Banks Repeta (The Black Phone) and Jaylin Webb (The Wonder Years) manage something remarkable, in fact, more than holding their own against a reliably excellent Anthony Hopkins (The Father), Anne Hathaway (Locked Down) and Jeremy Strong (Succession). Repeta plays sixth-grader Paul Graff, Gray's on-screen surrogate, and Armageddon Time's curious and confident protagonist. At his new public school circa 1980, he's happy standing out alongside his new friend Johnny (Webb), dreaming of being an artist despite his dad's (Strong) stern disapproval and disrupting class whenever he can to his mum's (Hathaway) dismay — and outside of it, he's happiest spending time with his doting grandfather (Hopkins). But Paul will start to understand the luck he has in the world, hailing from a middle-class Jewish family, compared to his black, bused-in friend, even if that comfort is tenuous, too. And, he'll keep seeing the way the world has Johnny at a disadvantage in every way possible, from their instantly scornful teacher to Paul's own parents' quick judgement. As lensed with the look and feel of a memory, Armageddon Time is clear about the small moments that leave an imprint, and the small deeds left undone that cause craters. It's a powerful work from a filmmaker surveying happy and sorrowful slices of the past, and doing so with unflinching eyes. Armageddon Time is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. THE VELVET QUEEN "If nothing came, we just hadn't looked properly." Partway through The Velvet Queen, writer Sylvain Tesson utters these lyrical words about a specific and patient quest; however, they echo far further than the task at hand. This absorbing documentary tracks his efforts with wildlife photographer Vincent Munier to see a snow leopard — one of the most rare and elusive big cats there is — but much in the entrancing film relates to life in general. Indeed, while the animals that roam the Tibetan plateau earns this flick's focus, as does the sweeping landscape itself, Munier and his fellow co-director and feature first-timer Marie Amiguet have made a movie about existence first and foremost. When you peer at nature, you should see the world, as well as humanity's place in it. You should feel the planet's history, and the impact that's being made on its future, too. Sensing exactly that with this engrossing picture comes easily — and so does playing a ravishing big-screen game of Where's Wally?. No one wears red-and-white striped jumpers within The Velvet Queen's frames, of course. The Consolations of the Forest author Tesson and world-renowned shutterbug Munier dress to blend in, trying to camouflage into their sometimes-dusty, sometimes-snowy, always-rocky surroundings, but they aren't the ones that the film endeavours to spy. The creatures that inhabit Tibet's craggy peaks have evolved to blend in, so attempting to see many of them is an act of persistence and deep observation — and locking eyes on the snow leopard takes that experience to another level. Sometimes, pure movement gives away a critter's presence. On one occasion, looking back through images of a perched falcon offers unexpected rewards. As lensed by Amiguet (La vallée des loups), Munier and assistant director Léo-Pol Jacquot, The Velvet Queen draws upon hidden cameras, too, but so much of Tesson and Munier's mission is about sitting, watching and accepting that everything happens in its own time. The Velvet Queen is available to stream via Docplay, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. GLORIAVALE Exploring the story of the religious community that shares its name, New Zealand documentary Gloriavale makes for stunning, gut-wrenching and infuriating viewing. It's been a booming time for NZ films that earn that description over the past few months — see also: Mister Organ above — but this true tale was always going to stand out and leave an imprint. Given that it involves chatting to survivors of the cult-like organisation, particularly excommunicated members relaying their heartbreaking experiences, being aghast at their ordeals is a natural reaction. Feeling angry that this can happen is, too, including as the film charts legal proceedings to bring Gloriavale's horrors to light. What has gone on behind closed doors, in a closed community, in the West Coast-based sect heartily requires this type of exposé — and with brother and sister John and Virginia as their key interviewees, filmmakers Fergus Grady and Noel Smyth (reteaming after 2019's Camino Skies) are up to the task. The specifics date back to the late 1960s, when the organisation was founded and started drawing in members, who were soon living under the sect's strict beliefs. Here, for instance, women are expected to work all through their waking hours to keep Gloriavale running — not even sitting down for meals — and cramming the group's many families all under one big roof is the norm. Also, when sexual abuse claims arise, including with children as victims, blame is directed everywhere but the accused perpetrators. As Gloriavale steps through details like these again and again, it's unsurprisingly harrowing from the outset. Archival footage from within the community only adds to the distressing mood, and charting the legal cases ups the drama, but the accounts of what's gone on at the titular place would be damning and gripping as is even if Grady and Smyth only had talking-head interviews at their disposal. Gloriavale is available to stream via SBS On Demand, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. WHITNEY HOUSTON: I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY In the decade since her death in 2012, Whitney Houston has proven one of filmmaking's greatest loves of all. No fewer than five movies have told her tale, including documentaries Whitney: Can I Be Me and Whitney — and that's without including a feature about her daughter Bobbi Kristina, a miniseries focused on her ex-husband Bobby Brown and dramas clearly based on her story. All of that attention echoes for obvious reasons. Houston's mezzo-soprano voice, which earned her the nickname "The Voice", soared to stratospheric and literally breathtaking levels. Still holding the record for the most consecutive number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, which she took from The Beatles and the Bee Gees, her career zoomed skyward as well. That swift rise from New Jersey church choir member to one of the biggest bestselling music artists ever was matched by tabloid-fodder lows, however, and that tragic, gone-too-soon passing — and Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody charts it all. Taking its name from one of Houston's most exuberant singles isn't just music biopic 101 (see also: Bohemian Rhapsody, also penned by this film's screenwriter Anthony McCarten). Kasi Lemmons' (Harriet) feature follows the standard Wikipedia entry-like genre template, but the filmmaker wants those titular words to reflect how Whitney (Naomi Ackie, Master of None) just wanted to be herself, to be loved as such, and openly be with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams, Black Lightning), the girlfriend-turned-creative director that her gospel singer mother Cissy Houston (Tamara Tunie, Cowboy Bebop) and stern father John (Clarke Peters, The Man Who Fell to Earth) disapprove of. Instead, after being signed to Arista Records at 19 by producer and executive Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci, The King's Man), Whitney becomes America's princess next door. Ackie turns in a commanding, multi-layered performance as the conflicted singer — even while lip-synching, with the movie smartly using Houston's own vocals — in a film that's impassioned, wisely filled with electrifying performance recreations, yet is happy to just hit every expected note. Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. LYLE, LYLE CROCODILE The Paddington movies did it better. That's a general catch-all statement that can apply to almost anything, zero context required, and it's also the prevailing feeling while watching Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. Instead of a marmalade-coveting bear, a singing crocodile is trying to win hearts — and the similarities don't stop there. The page-to-screen leap from a children's favourite? Tick. An adorable animal winding up in a family of humans who need its unique presence to make their lives complete, bring them together and show them what truly matters? Tick again. The strait-laced dad, creative mum, nasty neighbour and kindly kid? Keep ticking. Also present in both: the titular critter donning human clothing and craving fruity foods, warm colours aplenty, a vintage look and feel to interior spaces, a tense and traumatic capture, and an accomplished star having a whole lot of fun going big, broad and cartoonish (Javier Bardem here, and worlds away from The Good Boss, Dune or Everybody Knows). Bardem's playful turn as magician Hector P Valenti is the best thing about Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, which is breezily watchable but so indebted to Paddington and its sequel — so desperate to be an American version of the charming English franchise — that orange conserve might as well be smeared across the lens. As directed by Office Christmas Party's Josh Gordon and Will Speck, and scripted by Johnny English Strikes Again's Will Davies (adapting from Bernard Waber's books), the film is also a musical, with the eponymous croc (voiced by Shawn Mendes) able to sing but not speak. Those forgettable songs pad out a slight story, after Valenti discovers Lyle, hopes to get famous as a double act and loses his New York City brownstone when his gambit fails. Then the new residents, the Primm family, find the reptile in the attic, son Josh (Winslow Fegley, Come Play) finds a friend and his parents (Hustlers' Constance Wu and Blonde's Scoot McNairy) find their own reasons to get snapped up in the critter's singing-and-dancing vibe — although Mr Grumps (Brett Gelman, Stranger Things) downstairs obviously lives up to his moniker. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH Since arriving in cinemas in 2001, Shrek has inspired three more ogre-centric flicks, a heap of shorts and TV specials, and a stage musical for the whole family. It's also the reason that green-hued burlesque shows exist, plus all manner of parties and raves — none of the last three of which are appropriate for kids, obviously. But beyond the Mike Myers (The Pentaverate)-voiced titular figure himself, only Puss in Boots has become solo big-screen fodder from among the franchise's array of characters. Like much in this series, the shoe-wearing feline hails from fairy tales, but the reason for its ongoing on-screen popularity is as simple as casting. Who doesn't want to see a kitty swashbuckler voiced by Antonio Banderas (Official Competition), basically making this a moggie Zorro? Based on the 2011 Puss in Boots' $555 million at the box office, that concept is irresistible to plenty of folks — hence, albeit 11 years later, sequel Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Pairing the right talent to the right animated character doesn't instantly make movie magic, of course; however, The Last Wish, which literally has Puss seeking magic, is among the best films that the broader Shrek saga has conjured up so far. The eponymous cat begins the picture being his usual swaggering self and caring little for the consequences, including his own dwindling lives. One raucous incident sees him realise that he's died eight times already, though, and knowing this ninth go-around is his last according to feline lore suddenly fills him with existential woe. That's a thoughtful premise for an all-ages-friendly flick, and one that's never dampened by the film's plethora of fairy tale nods, high-energy vibe and usually amusing gags. So, Puss, Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek, House of Gucci) and their new canine companion Perro (Harvey Guillén, What We Do in the Shadows) attempt to find a famed wishing star that can make avoiding death a reality — but Goldilocks (Florence Pugh, The Wonder) and the three bears (Black Widow's Ray Winstone, Mothering Sunday's Olivia Colman and Our Flag Means Death's Samson Kayo) are also after it, as is a no longer 'little' Jack Horner (John Mulaney, Big Mouth). Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Looking for more at-home viewing options? Take a look at our monthly streaming recommendations across new straight-to-digital films and TV shows — and fast-tracked highlights from January, too. You can also peruse our best new films, new TV shows, returning TV shows and straight-to-streaming movies, plus movies you might've missed and television standouts of 2022 you mightn't have gotten to.
Freda's has been ever-present on Sydney's hospo scene for well over a decade in one form or another, whether as a laidback cafe and wine spot or an upbeat bar and performance space. Following Cafe Freda's closure, the venue is back – this time as Bar Freda's – with a design-led space as part of The Abercrombie. Moving into this new era as an inviting neighbourhood bar, it takes over two levels across multiple heritage terraces, with founders David Abram and Carla Uriarte delivering a welcoming space where people come together over good food, drinks and music. Launching on Thursday, April 24, the venue's ground floor is an eclectic affair, featuring vintage light fittings, reupholstered bar stools from the original Freda's and bay windows that link its architectural interior with the outside world. Heading upstairs, a giant disco ball signals the vibe shift, as you enter a dedicated DJ room powered by Freda's beloved Danley Sound System. Mosey into neighbouring rooms to find comfy booths and a stainless steel bar serving drinks into the early hours. As for the menu, those familiar with Cafe Freda's and the OG venue will know what awaits — bar snacks, nostalgic pastas and stacked sandwiches, including Sydney rock oysters, house-made pickles, lasagne croquettes paired with hot sugo, and rigatoni with eggplant ragu and stracciatella. Rotating deli-style sangies play on old favourites, like a Reuben with Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Freda's house dressing, and a fried king prawn roll with Thousand Island dressing, pickled cucumber and iceberg lettuce. "Bar Freda's draws inspiration from late-night bars in Berlin and other great after-hours cities, and American dive bars that have maintained their character and warmth over many decades of servicing a city's social needs," says Abram. "[Bar Freda's] is meant to be fun and easy, but filled with quality and comfort." The drinks list won't disappoint either, with a hand-picked selection keeping the "focus on fun and nothing too heavy," as Uriarte puts it. Expect Freda's classic Mega Mate, featuring a powerful mix of vodka and Club-Mate designed to give your night a boost. Plus, there are elevated slushies like a frozen espresso martini and a matcha-infused pina colada, alongside in-house spins on martinis, negronis, margaritas and more. Bringing 15 years of hospitality experience to Bar Freda's, this space might be the duo's most ambitious yet. Serving as something of a throwback to the original Chippendale bar and nightclub, the crew is also launching Club Freda's next door. Here, they'll program regular events designed to give local DJs, artists and promoters a community-driven space that offers a solid platform to express themselves and fill a gap in Sydney's nightlife. Bar Freda's is open Tuesday–Thursday from 5pm–12am and Friday–Saturday from 5pm–3am at Abercrombie Terraces, 100 Broadway, Chippendale. Head to the website for more information. Images: Steven Woodburn / Daniella Braude.
Another beloved film is heading to the theatre — this time, iconic Australian effort Starstruck. It follows in the footsteps of a growing number of Aussie flicks-turned-musicals; think Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Muriel's Wedding and Moulin Rouge!. Like its predecessors, it's easy to see why the film is getting the stage musical treatment. In fact, given the movie's storyline, it's a wonder that a large-scale production of hasn't been made before. Directed by Gillian Armstrong and first released in 1982, the comedy-drama tells the tale of Sydney teenager Jackie Mullens, who works in her mum's pub by the harbour but wants to become a rock star — and her cousin Angus, an aspiring manager, plans to get Jackie on a national TV talent series to help her dreams become a reality. An all-singing, all-dancing affair that'll be filled with 80s pop just like the movie, Starstruck — The Stage Musical will see RGM Productions, the folks behind the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert musical, team up with the National Institute of Dramatic Art. For the show's initial run at Sydney's Parade Theatre in 2019, it'll showcase NIDA's graduating class; however the production will also act as pilot for future commercial seasons. Dates haven't yet been announced, but it's expected to take to the stage towards the end of next year. As well as Priscilla Queen of The Desert, The Musical producer Garry McQuinn and his partner Rina Gill, the behind-the-scenes talent includes director Simon Phillips (Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Ladies in Black, Muriel's Wedding) and choreographer Andrew Hallsworth (Anything Goes, Sweet Charity), with the book by actor, singer, writer and director Mitchell Butel (Two Hands, Gettin' Square, Holding the Man). "It'll be an exciting adventure to see this warm-hearted little Australian film take shape on the stage," says Phillips. "The story about a couple of self-invented Ozzie kids trying to save their family pub is full of joy and adolescent energy, and NIDA feels like the perfect place to road-test its charms." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucf3bzv-e9M
First in Sydney, then in Melbourne and now in Brisbane, the biggest show in musical theatre this century has finally been sharing its Tony-winning take on 18th-century American politics with Australian audiences. Since 2021, being in the room where it happens hasn't required a trip to the US — but you will need to be in Brisbane in March to be in the room where Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda himself will be in attendance in-person for a Hamilton fan event. For the first time during the blockbuster musical's Australian time — and likely the only time, given that the show will leave the country for a New Zealand run when it finishes its Sunshine State season at QPAC's Lyric Theatre on Sunday, April 23 — Miranda is heading Down Under. The exact date hasn't been revealed, but he'll hit the River City to meet the local company of the production, and also to take part in that event for Hamilton obsessives. [caption id="attachment_773737" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Hamilton filmed version courtesy Disney+.[/caption] "I have been waiting such a long time to come to Australia and I can't wait to be with the company down under in-person for the first time," Miranda said, announcing his visit. "I have heard such great things from friends and fans in Australia, it is going to be fantastic to be able to meet them and watch them perform." Just like exactly when in March Miranda will be in Brisbane, where the fan event will happen and what it will entail — and how folks will be able to attend — is yet to be revealed, with further details to come. Still, Brisbanites and Australians keen on a trip to the Queensland capital won't want to throw away the shot to see the man who made the game-changing, award-winning, rightly raved-about Hamilton what it is "Australian fans have been so patient waiting for Lin-Manuel Miranda's visit to Australia and we have something very special in store for them when he gets here," added Australian Hamilton producer Michael Cassel AM. [caption id="attachment_774807" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Hamilton filmed version courtesy Disney+.[/caption] The Broadway hit's Aussie production features a cast that currently includes Jason Arrow as Alexander Hamilton, Martha Berhane as Eliza Hamilton, Callan Purcell as Aaron Burr, Akina Edmonds as Angelica Schuyler, Matu Ngaropo as George Washington, and Victory Ndukwe as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson. Sami Afuni plays Hercules Mulligan and James Madison, Wern Mak does double duty as John Laurens and Philip Hamilton, Elandrah Eramiha plays Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds, and Brent Hill steps into King George III's robes. Haven't become a Hamilton obsessive yet? Not quite sure why it has been the most-talked about theatre show of the past six years? The critically acclaimed hip hop musical, for which Miranda wrote the music, lyrics and the book, is about the life of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, as well as inclusion and politics in current-day America. In addition to its swag of Tony Awards — 11 in fact, which includes Best Musical — it has nabbed a Grammy Award and even a Pulitzer Prize. Until now, Brisbanites eager to see the show had to be content with trips south or watching the filmed version of its Broadway production, which started streaming via Disney+ in 2020 (and yes, it's as phenomenal as you've heard). And yes, the $10 ticket lottery has also hit the River City, offering Hamilton tickets for less than the cost of lunch. [caption id="attachment_870525" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Australian production of Hamilton by Daniel Boud[/caption] Hamilton's Brisbane season runs until Sunday, April 23 at QPAC's Lyric Theatre, South Bank, with tickets available via the musical's website. Details of Lin-Manuel Miranda's fan event are yet to be announced — we'll update you when more information comes to hand. Top image: Hamilton filmed version courtesy Disney+.
If you're a fan of mystery and delicious food, we have the juicy deets of an exclusive dinner that'll be right up your alley. This year, classy chip purveyor Red Rock Deli is hosting a series of exclusive secret suppers in mystery locations across Sydney — and you're invited. Across the next few months, some of Australia's most talented chefs will whip up mouth-watering feasts inspired by Red Rock Deli's new flavour range. And when we say exclusive, we mean it — only twenty lucky guests will be tucking into each lavish dinner. Despite everything being very hush-hush, we can reveal that the first Secret Supper will be hosted by Australian-Malaysian chef and 2010 MasterChef Australia winner Adam Liaw on Wednesday, May 15. Most of the details are still under wraps, but here's what we can tell you: after arriving at the collection point at Central Station's Grand Concourse entrance at 8pm, you'll be whisked away to a mystery location for the dining experience. During the evening, Liaw will recreate the flavours from the Thai red chilli and creamy coconut flavour from Red Rock Deli's new limited-edition Fusion range over a three-course meal. The menu will remain a secret until you arrive, but if grilled seafood, hearty curries and tropical flavours tickle your tastebuds, you're sure to be satisfied. Tickets to Fusion Adventure are priced at $110 per person and can be purchased here. Please note the Secret Supper menu will not cater to ANY dietary requirements or allergies. There are strictly no changes to the menu. Image: Kitti Gould.
A lush beer garden has arrived in The Hills just in time for summer. Located out the back of the Bella Vista Hotel, Bella Garden is scattered with booths, lounges, greenery and a repurposed bath and a piano bursting with plants, which make it a great spot to laze about in the sunshine. To fit with the garden vibe is a menu of flower-inspired cocktails. Starting at $14, the vivid drinks on offer include a rose and gin concoction made with house-made raspberry syrup and the Marigold, which combines Aperol, pink grapefruit juice, lychee and rose syrup. On the food menu, you'll find Neapolitan-style pizzas, pastas, salads and a huge lineup of sharing dishes, which feature everything from lamb kofta to clams in 'nduja-spiked tomato sauce and buttermilk-fried chicken wings. While it's suitably summery, the beer garden is appropriate for all seasons, as it has a retractable roof. And Sundays are when it's liveliest, with live acoustic musicians, DJs, $9 cocktails and $20 carafes from 2pm. The bar in the beer garden is only open on Friday nights and from 11am on Saturdays and Sundays, but the space is open all week — you'll just need to order food from inside the hotel.
It's a war that's been waged for decades among regional bakeries the country over: who's dishing up Australia's best pie? Whose pastry comes closest to perfection? Which filling reigns supreme? Well, this year's top dog has officially been named, with Kyneton's Country Cob Bakery taking out top honours at the 2019 edition of Australia's Best Pie and Pastie Competition. While you might have your own thoughts about which pie makes the best road trip accompaniment, this nationally recognised contest is run by the experts at the Baking Association of Australia. The 2019 competition saw 12 professional judges sample a whopping 1760 pies from 345 bakeries, across three days. And for the third year in a row, Country Cob claimed the top title, this time winning over tastebuds with a caramelised pork and pepper pie creation loaded with local ingredients. It's an impressive run for baker brothers Ryan and Chan Khun, who've owned and operated the bakery for the past three years. [caption id="attachment_726906" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The award-winning pie.[/caption] The two backed up their big win with 11 other gold medals, including taking out the title of Best Seafood Pie for their curry scallop number, and scoring Best Gourmet Pie with that same champion pork round. Other winners included Gusto Bakery's curried pumpkin, feta and spinach number for Best Vegetarian Pie (which you can find in Fairfield and Moonee Ponds), and Whittlesea Bakehouse claimed the title of Best Plain Chunky Beef Pie. Further afield, JoJo's Gluten Free in the Bass Coast Shire took out Best Gluten-Free Pie as well as Best Pastie overall. Coeliacs might want to lock in a road trip ASAP. And if you fancy sampling Country Cob's primo pie for yourself, Kyneton sits about an hour north of Melbourne just off the Calder, making the perfect pit-stop on a trip to Bendigo. The champion pastry will be sticking on the menu for the foreseeable future. Find Country Cob Bakery at 130-132 Mollison Street, Kyneton, Victoria — it's open from 6am–4.30pm on weekdays and 6am–3pm on weekends.
When Super Mario Kart first rolled onto Super Nintendo consoles back in 1992, it came with 20 inventive courses and endless hours of fun. Nearly three decades later, the game has become a beloved phenomenon — not just speeding through desert tracks and rainbow roads, but onto Google Maps and mobile phones, and also into reality. The hugely popular game's next stop? Theme parks. In the works since 2019, delayed due to the pandemic (like everything else), but finally opening its doors on March 18, Super Nintendo World is now a place that genuinely exists. And yes, you can enjoy a real-life Mario Kart experience as part of the first-ever Nintendo-themed theme park zone, which has joined Universal Studios in Osaka. There's no mistaking this space for anywhere else. Given that it features life-sized recreations of both Bowser's Castle — complete with spiked fences and heavy iron doors — and Peach's Castle, fans of the gaming brand will know exactly where they are. You also enter via a warp pipe, because of course you do. No other entryway would've done the park justice. For those keen to hop on Mario Kart: Koopa's Challenge, you'll be racing through familiar Mario Kart courses that've been brought to life. And yes, as you steer your way along the track, you're surrounded by characters such as Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach. You can also throw shells to take out your opponents — because it wouldn't be Mario Kart without them. If you're wondering how it all works, it's a blend of physical sets, augmented reality, projection mapping and screen projection, all designed to make you feel like you're really in the game. As for Yoshi's Adventure, that lets you climb on Yoshi's back — and, as it sounds, it's very family-friendly. So, you hop on, then set off on an adventure. Specifically, you follow Captain Toad to find three coloured eggs, plus a golden egg as well. View this post on Instagram A post shared by ユニバーサル・スタジオ・ジャパン USJ (@universal_studios_japan) Across its multiple levels — fitting for a gaming-themed space — Osaka's Super Nintendo World also includes restaurants and shops. A certain highlight: the world's first Mario cafe, which launched ahead of the rest of the site. Here, patrons are surrounded by oversized Mario and Luigi hat sculptures, the whole space is kitted out with a red and green colour scheme, and Mario Kart-style checkered floors are a feature. As for snacks, there are Mario pancake sandwiches and cream sodas, plus other drinks available in 'super mushroom' souvenir bottles. The theme park also has wearable wrist bands, called Power Up Bands — which connect to a special app and allow patrons to interact with the site using their arms, hands and bodies. That mightn't sound all that exciting, but the bands enable you to collect coins just like Mario does in the Super Mario games. Like the red-capped plumber, you can also hit question blocks to reveal more coins. There are collectible items to gather, too, such as keys and character stamps, which you can only find after achieving various goals. The stamps also earn you even more coins, so you really will be basically playing Super Mario in real life. You do have to buy a Power Up Band separate to your entry ticket to enjoy that element of the park, though. While no one is venturing far at present — and Japan has just shut out international travellers from the Tokyo Olympics, so you're unlikely to be able to head to the country anytime soon — you can add Osaka's Super Nintendo World to your must-visit list once overseas travel does start returning to normal. You might also want to add ziplining into a life-sized version of Godzilla to the same list while you're dreaming about Japanese holidays. Universal Studios is also planning Super Nintendo Worlds for its other parks in Hollywood, Orlando and in Singapore, if you need to add more places to look forward to visiting sometime in the future. The latter was just announced last year, and is set to open by 2025. Super Nintendo World is now open at Universal Studios Osaka, 2 Chome-1-33 Sakurajima, Konohana Ward, Osaka, 554-0031, Japan. Top image: Nintendo and Universal Studios.
Music lovers of Australia, and festival fans as well, we foresee trips to the Gold Coast, Cairns, Canberra or Geelong in your future. That's where The Grass Is Greener is heading this year, with the music, food and arts fest expanding beyond Queensland for the first time — and the event has just dropped its impressive lineup. Leading the bill: Ty Dolla $ign, YG, Zhu and Pnau, all hitting up the festival's four regional locations. The event is particularly pumped to have not one but two of the biggest names in hip hop gracing its stages, as well as one of EDM's global stars and some homegrown heroes. And, it's betting that you'll be just as thrilled to check them out live. Of course you will. One Four, Boo Seeka, Side Piece, Alok and Mashd N Kutcher also have spots on the lineup — and yes, the list goes on. As for when you'll be seeing all of the above, The Grass Is Greener is doing the rounds across the last two weekends in October, starting on the Goldie, hopping down to the ACT, zipping back up to its Tropical North Queensland birthplace, then wrapping up its 2022 run in Victoria. Clearly, it's a big year for the fest, which made its debut in Cairns back in 2016. Expanding to two new cities, covering three states and locking in huge headliners for this year's tour is quite the flex. The Grass Is Greener is also jumping into the NFT space in 2022, integrating NFTs into its ticketing with a limited edition 1,111 NFT Collection. As well as nabbing access to the fest, the NFTs also feature special art that you can use onsite to unlock unique and exclusive experiences that won't be available with physical tickets. THE GRASS IS GREENER 2022 LINEUP: Alok Aluna Boo Seeka Brux Crush3ed Little Fritter Wongo Jordan Burns (live) Market Memories Mashd N Kutcher Maya Jane Coles Mikalah Watego Mood Swing & Chevy Bass Onefour Piero Pirupa Pnau Sidepiece Sticky Fingers TDJ Ty Dolla $Ign Vnssa YG Zero Zhu (DJ set) THE GRASS IS GREENER 2022 DATES: Saturday, October 22 — Doug Jennings Park, Gold Coast Sunday, October 23 — Patrick White Lawns, Canberra Saturday, October 29 — Cairns Showgrounds, Cairns Sunday, October 30 — Geelong Racecourse, Geelong The Grass Is Greener will hit the Gold Coast, Canberra, Cairns and Geelong in October 2022. Ticket pre-sales start at 8am on Wednesday, July 13, ahead of general sales from 8am on Thursday, July 14. Head to the festival website for more information. Images: Curdin Photo and Mitch Lowe.
Just because you're back in the office doesn't mean you have to go straight home after work. If you're spending more time in the city this year, why not combine your in-office days with a trip to one of the city's galleries and museums? Many of the cultural venues you'd usually visit on the weekends — like the Art Gallery of NSW, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Powerhouse Museum — are keeping their doors open till 8–9pm during the week. And in most cases, they're free to visit, too. So, to make sure you're across which cultural venues are staying open late and when, we've created a handy guide to those venues with extended opening times or special events. And, as we know you like making the most of a midweek catch-up, we've dropped in a couple of suggestions for where to go for a cheeky nightcap or late-night feed while you're there.
If more good music and more delicious food are among your New Year's resolutions, then the CBD's Restaurant Hubert is ready to give you a helping hand. Nightly throughout January, the French eatery will be serving up a three-course dinner, soundtracked by live jazz. But, if you're not that hungry, you can go a la carte. Put together by Hubert's resident jazz man Stefan, the program will bring you jazz of all kinds — from vocalists and duos to hard-swinging bands. If you're into singers, be sure to catch jazz-soul powerhouse Virna Sanzone on January 16, singer-songwriter Emma May (who you might've seen on Love Child) on January 22 and Nic Jeffries (who you might've seen on The Voice in 2016) on February 1. Among the offerings on the three-course menu are stracciatella with stretched cow's curd, tomato and dill; chicken fricassée (a deeply comforting French-style stew); and the Floating Island: meringue with creme anglaise and seasonal fruit. Reservations are required, and Le Jazz January runs from 7–11pm each evening. Image: Daniel Boud.
It's not often that you're holding out hope that the temperature drops even further in winter. But a bunch of Sydney pubs are encouraging you to do just that this chilly season. As the temperature drops, beer lovers turn to their go-to winter stout, Guinness, and the iconic brewery has enlisted the help of a group of beloved Sydney stalwarts to give away free pints as the mercury falls. The concept is simple. If the temperature drops below nine degrees during the month of June, there are free pints of Guinness on offer. To claim your complimentary beer, head to one of the participating venues and show the bartender Guinness' Brewery of Meteorology site which will display the temperature. Some of the pubs taking part in the promotion include The Carrington and Keg & Brew in Surry Hills; The Dog Hotel, Jimmy's Bar and Horses Hotel in Randwick; The Village Inn in Paddington; Woollahra Hotel and Lord Dudley Hotel in Woollhara; Grand Hotel, Tea Gardens Hoel and Beach Road Hotel in Bondi; Charing Cross Hotel in Waverley; Clovelly Hotel; Coogee Beach Club; and Woolloomoolloo's East Sydney Hotel. [caption id="attachment_681981" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Beach Road Hotel[/caption] Adding to this celebration of the colder months, Guinness has also created a set of merino-wool thermals covered in the iconic Guinness harp. If your passion for the historic beer extends far enough that you want to represent it on your body, you can win a pair of the limited-edition thermals via the Brewery of Meteorology website. "As the weather gets cooler, there's nothing better than rugging up and enjoying a Guinness," said Guinness' appointed meteorologist, beloved celebrity chef Colin Fassnidge. "I'll be keeping an eye on the temperature this winter, and when it drops I hope to see plenty of Guinness fans donning their Guinness thermals and heading to a cosy pub to enjoy a pint." For more information on the Guinness giveaway and to enter to win the Guinness-branded thermals, head to the Brewery of Meteorology website. Top image: Cassandra Hannagan
Imagine that someone from the year 2007 or earlier — anyone who existed before May 2008, for that matter — suddenly reappeared today, happily oblivious about everything that's happened since, and immediately asked what was doing big business on the big and small screens. To answer that question, you'd need to explain the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which kicked off 14 years back with Iron Man and has shown zero signs of stopping from then onwards. The MCU hasn't just kept on keeping on over ever since Robert Downey Jr introduced the world to Tony Stark. It has grown and sprawled and taken over not only cinemas, but streaming queues as well. And if you're wondering what's coming next — after a busy 2022 already, which has seen Moon Knight, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, Ms Marvel and Thor: Love and Thunder arrive so far — Marvel just unveiled its plans for the next couple of years at San Diego Comic-Con. 2022 still has two MCU titles to come: She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, which stars Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) as a lawyer who learns that it isn't easy being green, and the eagerly awaited Black Panther sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The first starts streaming from August 17, the second hits cinemas on November 10, and both dropped either new or initial trailers, too. And, they'll round out the Marvel Cinematic Universe's phase four, because this non-stop saga is broken into chapters that split its enormous story up into smaller parts. [caption id="attachment_862313" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.[/caption] Obviously, this means that phase five is on its way. Marvel has also dubbed the story from the phase four through to the end of phase six 'the multiverse saga'. Given that everything from Spider-Man: No Way Home to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has been dropping that m-word, that's hardly surprising. The MCU's fifth phase has 12 titles in store — some already announced, some newly confirmed. Come February 16, 2023 Down Under, the third Ant-Man flick — Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania — will continue the pint-sized superhero's story (and bring more Paul Rudd to the MCU). Alongside that, hitting Disney+ sometime during autumn 2023 in Australia and New Zealand, is Secret Invasion. It focuses on Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury, and will also feature the return of Ben Mendelsohn (Cyrano) as Talos, as well as Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother), Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night in Miami), Emilia Clarke (Last Christmas) and Olivia Colman (Mothering Sunday). On May 4, 2023, Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3 will reach the big screen, while The Marvels — which teams up Captain Marvel (Brie Larson, Just Mercy), Ms Marvel (Iman Vellani) and WandaVision's Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris, Candyman) — arrives in cinemas on July 27. In-between, newcomer Echo, a spinoff from Hawkeye focusing on Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), will make its way to streaming in winter 2023, as will season two of Loki. [caption id="attachment_862338" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2022. All Rights Reserved.[/caption] November 2, 2023 heralds the return of Blade, with the half-vampire vamp hunter played by Moonlight and Green Book Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali this time around — and sometime that spring, Disney+ series Ironheart will drop, too. First, that character (played by Dominique Thorne, Judas and the Black Messiah) will feature in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. During the summer of 2023–24, Agatha: Coven of Chaos will magic itself into streaming queues as well — giving the delightful Kathryn Hahn her own witchy WandaVision spinoff series, as first revealed in 2021. And, in 2024, phase five will also see a new 18-episode Daredevil series starring Charlie Cox (King of Thieves) and Vincent D'Onofrio (The Unforgivable) hit in autumn. They return to the roles of Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk following the 2015–18 Netflix series, and this go-around is called Daredevil: Born Again. [caption id="attachment_799400" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2020. All Rights Reserved.[/caption] Similarly arriving the same year: a new Captain America movie, called Captain America: New World Order, focusing on Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) with the cape and shield — on May 2, 2024. And, fellow flick Thunderbolts will release on July 25, 2024, wrapping up phase five, and focusing on a new team of characters. As for phase six, it currently has three titles in the works, with more to come. They're all massive, though, given that they start with yet another Fantastic Four film on November 7, 2024 (with no cast yet announced) and end with Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars on May 1 and November 6, 2025, respectively. Just announced in Hall H: Marvel Studios' Fantastic Four, in theaters November 8, 2024. #SDCC2022 pic.twitter.com/z4j7tsfKl9 — Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) July 24, 2022 For more information about Marvel's upcoming slate of films and TV shows, head to the company's website. Top image: Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Having cemented its status as one of Melbourne's most celebrated coffee roasters and cafes, Industry Beans has taken on Sydney's caffeine scene, opening its first interstate location in the CBD last week. It's made its new home on York Street, complete with a heritage façade, state-of-the-art equipment and its trademark Industry Beans offering of creatively charged food and next-level specialty coffee. The new venue features the same customised La Marzocco Modbar that put Industry Beans' Little Collins Street store on the map, allowing customers to be front and centre to the coffee-making experience. You can watch the magic unfold as the baristas brew its signature Fitzroy Street blend and whip up treats like the bubble tea-like the specialty Bubble Coffee, featuring coffee-soaked tapioca pearls, cold brew and normal or vegan condensed milk. [caption id="attachment_706984" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Specialty Bubble Coffee.[/caption] As for the food, you can expect a seasonal lineup of cleverly executed dishes that are far from boring. The York Street cafe's southern counterpart has won many a fan for dishes like its coffee-rubbed wagyu burger, fruit sashimi topped with coffee 'caviar', and avocado smash starring beetroot dust and green tea salt — all of which have made their way onto the new menu. That's alongside a few new additions that specifically cater to the work lunch crowd, like the selection of baguettes and avo, broccoli and broad bean green bowl that can be eaten in or taken away. Expect a finely honed customer experience, too, with a dedicated grab-and-go area and an Industry Beans app, which allows you to skip the queues and order your office coffees ahead of time. Plus, when you sign up, you'll get five bucks credit so you can get your next coffee for nada. Find Industry Beans at 38–40 York Street, Sydney. It's open seven days a week, from 7am–4.30pm on weekdays and 8am–4pm on weekends.
It is instinctive for human beings to question what the future could hold and and will look like. But just like most aspects of our lives, buildings of the future are incredibly difficult to predict. Here are some of the most mind-boggling futuristic building designs which are in the planning stage or already under construction. New Orleans Arcology Habitat In an attempt to revamp both the aesthetics and economy of New Orleans in the face of the terrible destruction of 2005's Hurricane Katrina, an incredibly modernistic Arcology Habitat has been proposed. The design includes hotels, condos, commercial property and casinos all floating on the surface of a water basin between the Mississippi River and the CBD. Spaceport America Spaceport America is now in its initial stages of development in New Mexico and has already seen a series of flights launched from its lunar pads last year. This sleek construction is set to be the first commercial spaceport the world has ever seen and would unlock the potential to allow anyone to enjoy the wonders of space. Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid This enormous construction proposed for Tokyo would be 14 times higher than the ancient Great Pyramid of Giza, and would house an incredible 750,000 people. Designed as a solution to the over-population issue in Japan, this design is on hold until super-strong lightweight materials appear in the future. Kingdom Tower This enormous skyscraper has been approved for construction in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah at the preliminary cost of $4.6 billion as part of the proposed Kingdom City to be located along the Red Sea. If completed according to plan, the tower will not only become the tallest building in the world, but also the only on the planet to exceed a height of 1 kilometre. Kuwait Airport A new terminal is undergoing construction at Kuwait International Airport this year, set to be completed by 2016. The reconstruction, designed as a three point star, should increase the passenger handling capacity from 7 million to 13 million in the first phase. Trio Vertical Garden French designer and botanist, Patrick Blanc, is starting a revolution with his amazing designs of vertical gardens. His projects started in Sydney in 2009 by embedding 4,500 seedlings into a recycled felt surface, creating a contemporary artwork that is both environmentally friendly and aesthetically pleasing. Taiwan Tower Sou Fujimoto was the winner of the Taiwan Tower International Competition with his interpretation of 'Primitive Future'. The 300 metre tower is inspired by the Taiwanese banyan tree and is designed to be a model of green architecture for future generations. Keret House Instead of just discounting the space of an 133 centimetre alleyway between two houses in Warsaw, architect Jakub Szczesny saw the possibility for an ingenious house. Designed as a creative workspace for Israeli writer, Etgar Keret, the hermitage would range from 72-122cm in width with remote control stairs and boat-inspired water and sewage systems. Project Utopia Floating Island After numerous references to floating civilisations in literature comes finally an inventive floating island design more like an oil rig than a yacht. The volume of the Project Utopia would be equivalent to a present-day cruise liner, measuring more than 100 metres across and including more than 11 decks.
The cure to decades of SXSW FOMO arrived in Australia in 2023. Sydney played host to the first-ever iteration of the festival Down Under — the first outside of the US, in fact — and put on a massive party. It was a hit. Cue SXSW Sydney 2024, then, to ideally repeat the feat. There's still almost three months to go, but the second Aussie SXSW just keeps getting bigger. So far, organisers of the tech, innovation, screen, music, games and culture festival — which will run from Monday, October 14–Sunday, October 20 this year — have dropped three past rounds of lineup details, starting in May, adding to it in June, then expanding it some more at the beginning of July. Now comes the next batch, growing the music bill, throwing in parties and naming a few extra speakers. More than 40 talents have joined the onstage roster, starting with the UK's Jorja Smith on the 'Be Honest' musician's Australian tour. Also from overseas, Canada's Aysanabee, Thailand's PYRA, New Zealand's Brandn Shiraz and XUZZ, and the UK's Submerse feature. Among the homegrown names, Aussies Brazen Barbie, Jamahl Yami, Kitschen Boy and Special Feelings have scored a spot, plus a heap of other locals. When SXSW Sydney's 25 stages turn on their microphones, then, it's going to be mighty busy. For those keen on networking and shindigs, the lineup there now features parties and mixers hosted by ADA, APRA-AMCOS, Blak Label, Canada House, Concord Music Group, Future Classic, Inertia & [PIAS], Meta, Rolling Stone, The Orchard, UNIFIED Music Group, Virgin Music and Warner Music. Among the events, there's an Indies Please session, one dedicated to Women in Music and a meetup that's all about agents versus promoters. Plus, get ready to dive into international music tours and the streaming landscape, the first talk with WME UK's Global Head of Touring Lucy Dickins and Frontier Touring's Susan Heymann, and the second with Will Page. The latest additions extend a 2024 program that already boasts human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, author Johann Hari, Australian race car driver Molly Taylor, pianist Chad Lawson, Westworld's Luke Hemsworth hosting a session about the Tasmanian tiger, Aussie astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg, TikTok marketing head Sofia Hernandez, Heartbreak High star Ayesha Madon, cricketer David Warner, Mortal Kombat director Simon McQuoid and documentary Slice of Life: The American Dream. In Former Pizza Huts, about the new uses of former Pizza Hut buildings across America — and that's barely scratching the surface of the lineup specifics announced so far. If you missed it, 2023's inaugural SXSW Sydney welcomed everyone from Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker and Chance The Rapper to Future Today Institute founder and CEO Amy Webb and Nicole Kidman to its stages. In the process, and via not just its talks but also its concerts, films, TV shows and games as, it notched up 287,014 attendances from 97,462 unique attendees. Those figures came from 34,975 total tickets, with folks from 41 countries heading along to 1178 sessions. SXSW Sydney 2024 will run from Monday, October 14–Sunday, October 20 at various Sydney venues. Head to the SXSW Sydney website for further details. Images: Jess Gleeson, Ian Laidlaw, Jami Joy, Brendon Thorne/Getty Images for SXSW Sydney.
There are many reasons to thank Mike White, creator and writer of The White Lotus, for bringing the hit HBO series to our screens. He's responsible for one of the best TV shows of both 2021 and 2022 — a program that has weaponised luxurious settings, helped set travel itineraries, thoroughly eaten the rich, spun twisty murder-mysteries, and kept viewers guessing throughout each and every episode of both season one and season two. He's also helped shower affection and attention upon the one and only Jennifer Coolidge, a screen icon who always deserves such love. Indeed, if it wasn't for White and The White Lotus, the world wouldn't have had the joy that is Coolidge's various awards speeches for playing Tanya McQuoid. For folks in Sydney on Saturday, June 10, worshipping the White-and-Coolidge pairing — hearing Coolidge talk about her time on The White Lotus, too — won't just involve checking out Emmy and Golden Globe clips. In huge news in general, and for the Vivid Sydney lineup, the duo is coming to the Harbour City for what's set to be the biggest in-conversation session of the 23-day, 300-plus-event festival. [caption id="attachment_891047" align="alignnone" width="1920"] HBO[/caption] While Vivid dropped its program back in March, it has been making additions since, including literally underground light and laser show Dark Spectrum and now this. Unsurprisingly, the Vivid team has dubbed its latest addition one of the biggest announcements in the festival's 13-year history — which is no small feat for an event that's seen everyone from The Cure to Robert Pattinson and Spike Lee grace its bill in past years. Coolidge and White won't just chat about The White Lotus, McQuoid's utter lack of luck in love and a certain fateful boat ride — and, on White's part, likely skirt around answering where the third season will be set (the word so far: Thailand). They'll also discuss their full careers, and both have plenty to dive into. Coolidge has been a screen presence for years, thanks to parts in everything from American Pie, Best in Show and the Legally Blonde franchise through to Party Down's original run, Joey and Promising Young Woman. As for White, he's written the screenplay for School of Rock, and acted in it — and given the TV-watching world the Laura Dern-starring Enlightened, which he also appeared on. He has Year of the Dog and Brad's Status on his directing resume as well, and penned and produced episodes of Dawson's Creek and Freaks and Geeks. Also, he was famously an Amazing Race and Survivor contestant. Benjamin Law will be asking the questions at this in-conversation event, which takes place at Aware Super Theatre, ICC Sydney. Tickets are on sale now — and they'll get snapped up quicker than McQuoid falls in love. "We're thrilled to share that The White Lotus creator Mike White and star of the series Jennifer Coolidge will join this year's Vivid Sydney lineup. Securing these huge megastars cements Vivid Sydney 2023 as the biggest and most culturally relevant program yet," said Vivid Sydney Festival Director Gill Minervini, announcing the addition to the fest's program. "This exclusive event will allow audiences to see behind the curtain on what has become a massive cultural zeitgeist and hear from two of the hottest figures in the creative industries right now." Vivid Sydney 2023 will run from Friday, May 26–Saturday, June 17, with Mike White and Jennifer Coolidge in Conversation taking place on Saturday, June 10 at Aware Super Theatre, ICC Sydney. For further information and tickets, head to the event's website. Top image: HBO.
Succession isn't the only Emmy-winning HBO show dropping its fourth and final season in 2023. Bill Hader's just-as-excellent hitman comedy Barry is also finishing its run when season four wraps up, and it's just-as-certain to be deeply missed. The reason is all there in the killer concept, and the phenomenal performances, writing and direction that goes with them. When you've got Hader (Lightyear) playing a military sniper-turned-hitman-turned actor, something special was always bound to result. If you've watched season three, which was characteristically spectacular, you'll know why things seem to be coming to an end for Barry in more ways than one. A show about an assassin trying to be an on-screen star in Hollywood can't keep its main figure away from the law forever. So, in the just-dropped full trailer for Barry season four — which follows an earlier sneak peek from HBO — the series' namesake is in reflective mode. "I'm really sorry. I didn't think it would end up like this. I am a good person — that is who I am," Barry tells himself in the new trailer. Everyone he knows seems to be taking stock, too, whether they still have their freedom or not. In this season, Barry is incarcerated, his mentor and veteran thespian Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler, Black Adam) is being hailed as a hero, but this turn of events is clearly going to have consequences. That includes for his former handler Monroe (Stephen Root, Succession), as well as his ex-girlfriend Sally (Sarah Goldberg, The Night House). Is this where the killer-for-hire will be when the eight-episode season concludes? Will Chechen gangster Noho Hank (Anthony Carrigan, Bill & Ted Face the Music) somehow intervene? What's happening with Sally's career after season three? These are all natural questions to have about the show's return. Answers will start coming soon, with Barry season four set to start streaming via Binge in Australia and Neon in New Zealand from Monday, April 17. If you're new to all things Barry, Hader not only stars but created the show, has directed a heap of episodes, and also co-wrote others. The initial setup: when Hader's Barry Berkman heads from Cleveland to Los Angeles for his job, he discovers a previously unknown passion for acting after he stumbles into a class held by veteran thespian Cousineau. The catch? Barry kills people for money, and that isn't a line of work that you can leave easily, especially when you become caught in the Chechen mafia's violent and deadly dramas. Check out the full trailer for Barry season four below: Barry's fourth season will start streaming via Binge in Australia and Neon in New Zealand from Monday, April 17. Images: Merrick Morton/HBO.
In its entire concept, Sydney Opera House's All About Women has always pushed girls, ladies and women to the front. So, when the venue announced that the next version of its key feminist festival would feature riot grrrl pioneers Bikini Kill, it couldn't have been a more perfect way to start its lineup. That in-conversation event is just the beginning of the event's 2023 program, however, with the just-announced complete bill also going big on high-profile guests — such as child actor-turned-I'm Glad My Mom Died author Jennette McCurdy and human rights barrister Jennifer Robinson. Former iCarly star McCurdy will chat through her experiences, including growing up in the spotlight, finding her independence and the events that led to her New York Times best-selling memoir, in an Australian-exclusive conversation. After successfully representing Amber Heard in Johnny Depp's UK libel case, Robinson will feature in a panel called 'The War on Women', about fighting for both rights and lives, alongside Egyptian American journalist Mona Eltahawy, Pakistani author and journalist Fatima Bhutto, and Mununjali Yugambeh and South Sea Islander Professor Chelsea Watego. [caption id="attachment_885156" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jennifer Robinson by Kate Peters[/caption] Running from Saturday, March 11—Monday, March 13, All About Women's 2023 festival marks its 11th, and sees the event held across three days for the first time ever — growing again after it only just expanded to two days in 2022, in fact. And, in another significant change for this year, the event's lineup is guided by four festival co-curators. Doing the honours: author, podcast presenter and gender equality advocate Jamila Rizvi; Gamilaroi academic and Tell Me Again author Dr Amy Thunig; feminist social commentator, novelist and writer Jane Caro AM; and Sydney Opera House's Head of Talks and Ideas Chip Rolley. Their full program includes 25 events featuring 60-plus international and Australian artists, thinkers, and storytellers, starting with an evening of storytelling, poetry, dance and music for the fest's Opening Night Gala, hosted by Clare Bowditch and featuring actor Eryn Jean Norvill (The Picture of Dorian Gray), "mother of African contemporary dance" Germaine Acogny, Iranian Australian singer and instrumentalist Gelareh Pour, and Fatima Bhutto. And, it also spans Cult Classic author Sloane Crosley chatting about modern dating with journalist Maddison Connaughton — and a romance and reality TV-focused discussion between Bachelorette Brooke Blurton, Just The Gist podcaster Rosie Waterland, and Gamilaroi and Torres Strait Islander writer and actor Nakkiah Lui. [caption id="attachment_885157" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Brooke Blurton by Jarrad Seng[/caption] In a session about neurodivergence in women and gender-diverse people, 2021 Australian of the Year Grace Tame, Heartbreak High's Chloe Hayden, and research psychologist and activist Dr Jac den Houting will talk with Thunig — and a panel examining trying to achieve justice in sexual abuse claims, and the trauma the process can bring, will feature sexual assault law reform advocate Saxon Mullins, criminal lawyer Katrina Marson, Yorta Yorta woman and survivor advocate Amanda Morgan, and lawyer and author Bri Lee. Or, attendees can look forward to Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies scholar Kylie Moore-Gilbert hosting a session on the women-led revolution in Iran, as joined by Pour, scholar and poet Dr Saba Vasefi, and author and journalist Shokoofeh Azar; plus a panel about the body positivity movement's struggles to be genuinely inclusive, featuring Wadjanbarra Yidinji, Jirrbal and African-American former model Sasha Kutabah Sarago, body love activist and podcaster April Hélène-Horton aka The Bodzilla, fashion editor and queer rights activist Deni Todorovič, disability rights campaigner Elly Desmarchelier, and comedian and broadcaster Tanya Hennessy. [caption id="attachment_844646" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jacquie Manning[/caption] The list goes on, covering Clementine Ford exploring the history of demonising single women, a session on women's activism through a First Nations lens, diving into starting a family in a modern world, unpacking gendered emotions, and turning Eltahawy's FEMINIST GIANT newsletter into a panel. The Girlboss movement, making tough decisions, the shame often imposed on women and girls, leading movements, a Bikini Kill gig: they all get their time in focus, too. Just like in 2022, the festival will host its sessions in-person for Sydneysiders, and will also live-stream to viewers both around Australia and worldwide — which is ace news if you live outside of the Harbour City. [caption id="attachment_874299" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Debi Del Grande[/caption] All About Women 2023 will take place from Saturday, March 11—Monday, March 13 at the Sydney Opera House, with tickets on sale from 12pm AEDT on Thursday, January 19. Head to the festival's website for further details. Top image: Jennette McCurdy by Brian Kimskey.
With a debut album described as a “modern classic” by the NME and "a giant cohesive dance party with songs crafted for hand-clapping and feet-stomping" by others behind them, East-London psychedelic quartet Django Django are coming to Australia for the first time. The three-date, two-venue tour will see the quirky foursome joined by Dublin math-rockers the Cast of Cheers as they pump out their left-field sound with plenty of synthy goodness and twee pop, all wrapped up in positive vibes and low-budget, artistic visual effects. Django Django's sound is startlingly electric — a stripped-down, spaced-out myriad of muses and stellar experimentation. With an album released on the 23rd of this month entitled Family, support the Cast of Cheers from Ireland have become a favourite among fans and critics since their formation and look set to rise at a blistering pace.
Acclaimed internationally by the likes of the Rolling Stone, Billboard and Nylon, Los Angeles darlings Electric Guest will be stopping off at Oxford Art Factory during the peak of their world tour. Released earlier this year in April, Electric Guest's debut album Mondo has been described as a seamless fusion of Motown, '70s daytime radio funk lite, indie rock and '60s French pop, with comparisons made to the likes of Hall & Oates, Gnarls Barkley, Danger Mouse and Scissor Sisters. Separate from the feel of the album, the duo's live show has an enormity to it, easily contradicting the "shoegaze" label that has, in the past, been put upon them. Electric Guest's soulfully electric hooks are bound to make the girls swoon, and their R&B inspired grooves will get even the stiffest of guys moving. Electric Guest will be supported by YesYou, a dance-pop two-piece from Brisbane. https://youtube.com/watch?v=nVSiwMVaKe4
UPDATE, May 21, 2021: Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles is available to stream via Docplay, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Amazon Video. Marie Antoinette didn't actually say "let them eat cake", no matter how often the statement is misattributed to the 18th-century royal before her date with the guillotine. But New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art was surely hoping she would've approved of its hedonistic June 2018 food gala, which tied into the venue's Visitors to Versailles exhibition in the same year — and, in line with the place and period under the grill, put decadence on the menu. Overseeing the spread of desserts fit for a queen: renowned Israeli English chef and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi. He didn't make the Feast of Versailles' lavish cakes himself; instead, he trawled Instagram to source and select five pâtissiers known for delicious, innovative and aesthetically appealing wares. He found them, too, enlisting Dominique Ansel, the NYC-based French pastry chef who invented the cronut; Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, the London food artists known for their striking jellies and unique food events; architecturally trained Ukrainian Dinara Kasko, who approaches her desserts with the same design principles; Ghaya Oliveira, an award-winner and veteran at the Michelin-starred Restaurant Daniel; and Singapore's Janice Wong, who aims to turn chocolate into edible art. The exacting theme that approaches art and history through an untraditional lens, the melding of varying creative arenas, the roll call of significant names in their field, the theatricality on display, the iconic setting — if it all sounds a bit like a culinary version of The Met Gala, that was undoubtedly the intention, too. Celebrities didn't attend, paparazzi weren't on hand to snap photos, fundraising wasn't the name of the game and no one broke the internet, but this was no ordinary serving of sugar. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that, as the venue's fashion-focused event did before it, Feast of Versailles has also earned the documentary treatment. Where The First Monday in May chronicled the preparations for 2015's Met Gala, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles does the same with the quest to recreate the Palace of Versailles' gardens with chocolate and multi-coloured fondant, whip up a tiered mousse cake that resembles the French castle's sculptured detail, and pair them all with swan-topped pastries, wobbling palace-shaped jellies and a cocktail-filled whirlpool fountain. Viewers of cooking-focused reality television will know what's in store. That may not be the comparison one expects with a doco about a Met event, but it fits. Documentarian Laura Gabbert (City of Gold) deploys the personable Ottolenghi as her guide, and gets him to chat through the task at opportune moments. Her film also spends time first introducing Ansel, Bombas and Parr, Kasko, Oliveira and Wong, then watching them work towards the big gala evenings. Periodically, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles has Ottolenghi chat with Met staff about logistics as well, and to historical experts. The former reveal their horror at having liquid anywhere near the gallery's exhibits, and the awareness that events with a live component are so much trickier to control than inanimate displays; the latter discusses 18th-century Versailles in general, the culinary excesses of the royal courts, the fact that chocolate was used for drinking long before it was eaten and, only briefly, the fate that befell Versailles' most famous figures in the French Revolution. Combine all of the above ingredients in a 75-minute documentary, and it's as formulaic as it sounds — even if the gala itself, the chefs behind it and their dazzling desserts could never earn that description. The First Monday in May was helmed by a different director to Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles; however, both films struggle to bring their concepts to life. As a mere record of occasions that happened, they do a fine job of showing what goes into staging these types of extravagant events. They also capture the tension and drama beforehand, and the indulgence and luxury when everything comes to fruition. But it seems that docos about Met galas are fated to take a superficial and straightforward approach, despite striving for more, and attempting to mimic the layers and textures of the venue's exhibitions and festivities. In Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles' case, the NYC institution clearly didn't hold a lavish Versailles-themed feast without intending to get everyone involved and in attendance thinking about the vast disparities between the haves and have nots — aka the whole reason that the "let them eat cake" misquote exists. Alas, Gabbert's film is mostly content to depict rather than interrogate this idea. A few very late shots, including of Trump Tower's garish gold interior, endeavour to stress modern-day parallels between Versailles and today's one-percent, but hardly delve deep. Accordingly, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles is glossy, gleaming eye candy for those with a sweet tooth. It never feels like a full meal, though. That may be apt given that it's about dessert, but there's more substance in the tables piled high with cake and confection seen within the movie's frames than in the documentary's examination of its subject — and of the topic driving Feast of Versailles, and therefore sparking the film in the first place. While interesting tidbits pop up frequently, relating to food and history alike, they're akin to an entree. Viewers keep expecting something heartier, only to be left intellectually hungry. The audience is left physically ravenous, of course, because roving over all those spectacular dishes is a sure-fire way to whip up an appetite for a treat. This pleasant, palatable but slight movie obviously can't leave stomachs satisfied either, but it will make mouths water. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uan6MDxf3wU
After a long, hard day, the last thing you want to do is cook. So many ingredients and so many measurements to contend with. Then comes the boiling pot, the whirring of the extractor fan, the mess — it's all too much. There is something super comforting about Indian and Pakistani cuisine — between the nourishing ingredients, creaminess and tantalising spice, it's the perfect remedy to a bad day. Thankfully, you can get heart- and stomach-warming South Asian dishes delivered straight to your sofa. The only effort required on your part is to decide what to order, get some cutlery ready and put some pants on before you answer the door. Here, we'll get you started on the first part by suggesting some top-notch dishes from reliable, family-run restaurants all across Sydney. You're on your own with the pants though.
Sydney's love affair with escape rooms has reached an all time high. These interactive experiences will transport you through films, history, space and time — and it's up to your team to solve the puzzles and make it back to reality within 60 minutes. Become a post-war spy, a Mexican cartel leader, Sherlock Holmes, a pirate or an CIA agent, or enter someone's dreams Inception-style, get locked in an asylum and embrace the world of the paranormal. With so many options to choose from, we've made it a bit easier by narrowing it down to our favourite. Here are Sydney's best escape rooms — how many can you solve? THE CIPHER ROOM, NEWTOWN This post-war, spy-themed escape room has been a staple in Newtown since back in 2016. The Cipher Room is the brainchild of husband and wife duo David Vella and Marise Watson, who channeled their love of puzzles into one of Sydney's most-loved immersive experiences. All of the props and materials have been sourced from local vintage shops, which gives the space a real old-school feel. At the moment, The Cipher Room offers three different experiences, each suitable for groups of two-to-eight. The first is called Espionage: it's set in 1945 and the mission is to track down the mysterious Agent M. The second is set in a 1950s New York hotel, where players are the private investigators in their own black and white film noir. In the third, you're a team of detectives investigating a serial killer in an abandoned cabin. How much? $40–47 per person. EXPEDITION ESCAPE ROOMS, REDFERN The Expedition brand expanded from Canberra to Sydney in 2018, snatching up Cope Street digs and launching with The Forgotten Son. One of Sydney's more unique escape room experiences, the journey lead players on a dangerous trek through the Australian outback. The room's historic theme follows a distinguished character from Australian folklore. It promises to transport your group from the inner city straight back in time to the door of an old tin shack — through which the eerie sound of a sobbing child can be heard. As with most escape rooms, players will have up to one hour to follow clues and complete the course, with a maximum of six players allowed in at once. Two more rooms — dubbed The Nuclear Decision and Return of the King (it'll be medieval themed) — will open in Expedition soon, too, so keep an eye on this space. Expedition Escape Rooms Redfern (reopening soon) and Gladesville (reopening October 1) are currently closed for renovation, with brand new rooms coming soon. Head to the website for updates. How much? $42–48. SOCIAL ESCAPE, ALEXANDRIA Social Escape's four different rooms are filled with the usual riddles, puzzles, mind games and mysteries. Start with the Paris Escape in which you have one hour to find your passport and plane tickets within the confines of a gorgeous Parisian hotel. Then there's a Sherlock Holmes murder-mystery room (set in Victorian-era London, of course), a bank heist with a diamond-filled vault and one called Ransom, where you'll need to decipher a ransom note in order to save a kidnapped loved one. How much? $45 a person. [caption id="attachment_778497" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Temporal Tangle Online[/caption] ENIGMA ROOM, CBD Pitt Street's Enigma Room offers two immersive experiences that promise to transport you into the middle of films like Looper and Inception. The former is titled Temporal Tangle, in which players are employed by the Future Directions Bureau to track down agent Fox and preserve the 21st-century timeline. The latter, In Memorandum, sees your team try to save a woman in a coma by travelling into her consciousness — while trying to avoid being permanently stuck in her memories. How much? $35–45. NEXT LEVEL ESCAPE, CBD This CBD favourite doesn't just offer an escape room experience along O'Connell Street. It also designs and build custom escape rooms for pop-up experiences — including for movies, week-long activities and school outings. Those include Enigma Room's Temporal Tangle, which Next Level Escape designed and now also offers as an online experience through its own website. Not surprisingly, its in-house experiences are impressive in their own right, too. At the moment, you can investigate an alien artefact with the CIA, join a TV game show and go head-to-head with other players, or immerse yourself in the world of literature — with this room duplicated into two, allowing 16 players at once. How much? $45–55. PANIQ ROOM, THE ROCKS Paniq Room puts participants in some seriously precarious situations. There's even one that splits your group up from the start, called Supercell 117, in which you'll begin in two separate (and very smoky) prison cells, all hand-cuffed and blindfolded. It's one eerie experience — especially if there are just two of you playing. You can also navigate the secrets of a famous magician's mansion, trying not to fall for the many tricks around the corner. There's one inspired by The Godfather and another similar to Jumanji, too. The rooms are designed for all ages, but not for those who get spooked easily. How much? $40–47. PARRAPARK, MACQUARIE PARK For those who are into the spooky side of immersive theatre, it's time for a group trip to northern Sydney. ParraPark's namesake escape room, Paranormal, sends players to rescue possessed captives from a very creepy abandoned building. Yep, this one will renew your belief in ghosts. If you're looking for a less nightmarish option, the mysterious Crime Scene room will have you acting as police detectives who are taking on an epic cold case. Parrapark hails from Budapest and has become a favourite among Sydneysiders since opening, so is a must visit for escape room fanatics. How much? $37–50. LABYRINTH, PARRAMATTA Obsessed with Narcos and love to imagine what the dangerous lifestyle of a cartel leader is really like? Parramatta's Labyrinth escape room has capitalised on the popularity of the Netflix mega-series by creating its own 'real-life' version of the show — where you can immerse yourself in the show's themes without actually being in harm's way. If this is a little too real for you, other options include a cursed circus with a well-kept (and ghoulish) secret. Or you can get locked inside the confines of an asylum with a convicted murdered on the loose. These are all quite intense, but will definitely get that adrenaline going. How much? $40. BREAK THE CODE, HAYMARKET Movie-lovers will want to opt for Break the Code in Haymarket, where all of the escape rooms are loosely based on film and television. There's the Da Vinci Code room, where you explore the secrets within a cryptic mansion; an Indiana Jones-themed room, in which your group will search the Guatemalan jungle for a lost relic within a Mayan temple; an Avatar room that'll transport you to 2090, in the midst of a deadly Ebola-X virus; and a Lost room, which will see you as passengers needing to escape from the plane wreckage. Each room allows two-to-eight players and ranges from easy to difficult, so choose your team wisely. How much? $40. Top image: Expedition Escape Room
Investigated in this show is the 'perfect woman' as a construct, both psychically and as an assemblage. Out of dissected dolls, furnishings, often-strange appliances and household products from the '40s, '50s and '60s, O'Doherty makes mordant visual puns: a set of scales as torso in The Perfect Weight, a light-bulb as a head in Bright Spark and the fairly self-evident Baby Machine. Such caustic obviousness is applied not so much to ideas of femininity generally, but to self-evaluation in relation to other women; in Roses and The Male Gaze bouquets of skewered Barbie heads represent a sense of rivalry and interchangeability as a basis for social relationships. Medical home remedies in the open cabinet-torso of Mother's Little Helper and cosmetics filling the equivalent shelves in Glory Box suggest that family life trains girls to view maturing as a sickness. Wear and tear on the figures, and flaking peach, teal and cream in the roughened but well-fitted wood-panel backdrops speak of exposure, but this critique is an 'inside job', domestic and anatomical. There is sympathetic irony as well as cruel absurdity to its literalisations.
Ever since the world initially watched Squid Game in 2021, Netflix has been obsessed with bringing everyone's favourite South Korean streaming series into real life. First came pop-up stunts. Then arrived reality competition show Squid Game: The Challenge, obviously without a body count. Experiences that let everyone play the show's games without appearing on TV are also part of the IRL fun. As the show's second season approaches, dropping on Boxing Day 2024, Australia keeps welcoming Squid Game activations — starting in St Kilda, where 200 pink guards relaxed on the Melbourne suburb's beach to kick things off. Three years back, however, Young-hee made its eerie presence known in Sydney. The Red Light, Green Light doll has now returned to the Harbour City, crossing the famous waterway by ferry with 300 pink guards as an escort to get to Luna Park Sydney for Squid Game: The Experience. On Thursday, December 12, 2024, a towering sight joined the harbour alongside the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House — and, as the pictures show, it was quite an image to behold. From Saturday, December 14, you can head to Luna Park to be in the doll's company. Just in time for the Christmas holidays and Squid Game season two's release, Squid Game: The Experience will get everyone playing with Young-hee. Call it Red Light, Green Light. Call it Statues. Call it Grandmother's Footsteps. Whichever name you prefer, how good are you at the game that involves folks a-sneaking, ideally without being caught? Now, how would you fare trying to creep forward while avoiding being spotted when Young-hee is lurking? Squid Game: The Experience lets you find out. Get your green tracksuit ready. Front Man will be there to dare you to take the Squid Game challenges IRL. Busting out your marbles skills and walking over the glass bridge are also on the agenda. Some games are inspired by the Netflix program. Others are brand new. You'll only know if Squid Game: The Experience takes any cues from the thriller's second season, though, if you drop by after Thursday, December 26. Players can take part individually, or in groups of up to 25. As you work through the challenges, which get harder as you go along, you'll earn points. Another difference from the series: if you get eliminated from a game, you'll still be able to take part in the challenges that follow. Squid Game: The Experience arrives at Luna Park Sydney, 1 Olympic Drive, Milsons Point, from Saturday, December 14, 2024. Head to the venue's website for more information and to buy tickets. Squid Game season two streams via Netflix from Thursday, December 26, 2024. Season three will arrive in 2025 — we'll update you when an exact release date for it is announced.
Take a journey into the past at the InterContinental Sydney, with the launch of the unique Oldest Lift Bar Experience. Making the most of one of the hotel's most fascinating features – the Southern Hemisphere's oldest working lift – this particular spot is found hidden in The Treasury bar, which itself has a few remarkable stories to tell since being built in 1851. With the lift carefully protected ever since, it's now hosting a special cocktail hour to celebrate the building's enduring heritage. Flooded with natural light from the hotel's original cortile – an impressive atrium and gathering space – this precise spot was once home to the first colonial vineyard. Now, guests can step inside the lift to indulge in micrococktails made by resident mixologists as they ascend and descend through the hotel. Serving as an elegant nod to the InterContinental Sydney's immense past, this experience evokes an intimate ambience and centuries-old charm. As for the tipples, there are four creations to explore. The Georgian Gimlet celebrates The Treasury's impressive architecture and features Four Pillars Yuzu Gin, citrus, sugar and sencha tea. The Treasury's subterranean coffer inspires the Vault Martini, with Beluga Noble Vodka mixed with dry curacao, hibiscus and citrus, while the Atrium Negroni reflects the light-filled dome through Four Pillars Dry Gin, Campari, vermouth and lemon myrtle. Finally, the 1851 Old Fashioned nods to the building's origins with Dalmore Double Oak, sugar, bitters, and macadamia. "The Treasury Bar is a vault of Sydney's best-kept secrets and we're thrilled to unveil the southern hemisphere's oldest lift bar," says Mattia Arnaboldi, director of bars at InterContinental Sydney. "It will allow guests to immerse themselves in a part of Sydney's rich history, journeying through time and taste, as they sip on cocktails that reflect the heritage and charm of The Treasury." Once you've enjoyed your inventive drink in the lift, the experience continues at The Treasury bar. Here, a second cocktail selected from a curated menu is served alongside two delicious small plates, including betel leaves with caramelised pork and crisp vegetable herbs, and beef skewers with tonnato sauce and fried baby capers. Running until March 29, the Old Lift Bar Experience operates on Fridays and Saturdays from 4–6pm, and costs $69 per person. The Oldest Lift Bar Experience is happening at InterContinental Sydney, 117 Macquarie Street, Sydney. Head to the website for more information. Images: Steven Woodburn.
Spring has officially sprung, which means it's time to pack away your slow cooker, unpack your picnic hamper and get ready for entertaining and dinner parties galore. Darlinghurst's Studio Enti wants to help you prepare for all this hosting — or just lots of fancy al fresco dinners for one — with its annuals seconds sale. The semi-hidden ceramics studio is offering up to 80 percent off a huge range of its tableware, lighting and accessories on Saturday, October 19 and Sunday, October 20. Pop by and score yourself one-off, sample and seconds plates, cups, vases and fancy lighting without burning a hole in your wallet — saving a few coins here and there is always a good thing in the lead-up to the busy summer holiday season. Studio Enti's ceramics are all made to last from Australian porcelain, which means they have more chance of surviving an accidental knock after a couple of spritzes. As it goes with all sales, the good stuff often goes first, so make sure you head in early. The Studio Enti annual seconds sale runs from 10am–4pm. Image two: Steven Woodburn
Give Netflix the night off and invest generously in your local art scene by rolling down to The Old Fitz Theatre for dinner and a show. With a number of fearless and dynamic performances, Red Line Productions programmes some of the most challenging theatre in Sydney, and in light of recent art funding cuts, these young writers, actors and producers could use all the spare dimes they can get. So why not throw them a money bone and catch them on a Tuesday? You'll score cheap tickets and a hearty bowl of pasta for less than $50, which we think is a pretty sweet deal.
Isn't it lovely to see big companies doing their bit for the social good. In Google's case, it's not just about donating huge sums of money. Rather, they make essential communications technology accessible to those who promote positive change. Google's recent launch of Google for nonprofits brings together an extensive toolkit for non-profit organisations, including AdWords, special YouTube privileges, Apps and more. Currently, the tools are only available to Google Grant recipients who receive thousands in in-kind advertising from Google. The company realised that gifting the use of AdWords and the like wasn't enough: Goolge also needed to teach non-profits how to maximise the potential of such tools. Instructional videos and the Make-A-Change section will show users how to make the most of the tools to communicate their message; while the Marketplace will connect non-profits with service providers offering free or discounted rates. Google offers grants to approved non-profits in the US only, but the marketing manager of Google for nonprofits Kirsten Olsen Cahill hopes to expand to other nations soon. [Via Mashable]
A new soft serve joint from Korea and Taiwan has just landed in Sydney. It's called Honey Creme and it's serving ice cream smothered in bacon and chocolate. Need we say more? Well, there's more. The specially formulated recipes hail from South Korea and the savoury base for each scoop is made from locally sourced fresh milk and cream. If bacon and chocolate doesn't float your boat, there's also organic cotton candy, popcorn and macarons, along with churros and cereal milk toppings. Or go for their signature 'Comb Honey', which is garnished with an entire organic honey comb, sourced from local bee farms. The 'premium' ingredients are said to be chosen with a concerted effort toward the healthy and organic — obviously calling cotton candy healthy, in organic form or otherwise, is absurd. We doubt they're fooling anyone, but the attempt to stay on trend is noted. Though we will keep dreaming of the day when ice cream becomes the next superfood, as impossible a dream it may be. Sydney is far from Honey Creme's only international stop and is the second Australian location, with the first shop opening in Perth mid-last year. Since opening in Taipei City in 2014, the shop has sold more than five million ice creams in nine nations around the world, including China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and the States. That's a pretty strong global endorsement — guess it's time to judge it for ourselves. Honey Creme is now open at at 20 Goulburn St, Sydney. Open Sunday through Wednesday from noon to 10.30pm and Thursday through Saturday from noon to 11pm.
Nothing says weekend quite like a market, so why wait till Saturday morning? Get in on the game early — in other words, Friday lunchtime — at The Rocks Friday Foodie Market. Take your time wandering through Jack Mundey Place and the adjacent laneways, where you can sample handmade, dried, baked, whipped and roasted products from all over the city and further afield. You name it, you'll get your hands on it – from BBQ skewers to some of the best gozleme in Sydney, okonomiyaki, roast pork roll, plus cupcakes and handmade chocolates for dessert.
A restaurant that takes bookings basically has unicorn status these days. Not that we're fully against this walk-ins only business — it's been known to work in our favour — but sometimes you just want to be confident you'll be able to take your Dad to dinner without a grumpy one-hour wait. For those times, you'll need to find a restaurant you can book. Helping out with that conundrum will soon be San Fransisco-based restaurant booking service OpenTable, which will be launching in Australia later this month. OpenTable has been around since 1998, and while it's an international service — they're present in Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Mexico and the UK — they take up the most space in the North American market, where it supposedly facilitates 52% of restaurant reservations through its mobile app. The app is something of a cross between restaurant finder Zomato and reservation site Dimmi, which was bought out by TripAdvisor earlier this year. The OpenTable desktop site and mobile app lets you search restaurants with available tables, view the restaurant's menu, user reviews, and any other restaurants nearby you might be interested in. And while it isn't all too different to Dimmi in terms of functionality, it certainly looks a lot nicer and has some handy integrations for the hospitality industry, such as the Guest Centre booking management app for front-of-house staff. "Whether it’s at a cafe, neighbourhood bistro or hatted restaurant, Aussies love to dine out and we're committed to empowering what that experience means for people," says APAC VP and Managing Director Adam Clarke. "OpenTable's growth has been driven by our ability to develop products that cater for the changing needs of restaurants and diners. Here in Australia, we will continue to innovate by providing insight into dining trends and behaviours, and building on all we have learned over the past two decades." The OpenTable app is set to go live mid-December, and will allow you to make bookings at restaurants including Rockpool and MoVida. Of course, this service only works if your restaurant of choice doesn't work on a no-bookings system — no one can help you there, I'm afraid.
This article is sponsored by our partners the City of Sydney. This summer, the City of Sydney's City Art program will light up the William Street side of the Australian Museum with projections of larger-than-life Aboriginal women draped in cloth. These sepia-drenched, architectural bodies speak of the need to reconnect with, and revitalise, Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity. born in darkness before dawn (2013), by Sydney-based Wiradjuri artist Nicole Foreshew, will be launched as part of the City of Sydney's Eora Journey: Recognition in the Public Domain, which recognises and celebrates the ‘living culture of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community in Sydney’ under the guidance of curatorial advisor Hetti Perkins. The work is also part of the inaugural Corroboree Sydney, a new festival celebrating Indigenous culture. Cast upon the William Street facade of the building opposite Cook and Phillip Park, the projections will be approximately three hours in duration, combining slow movement and still imagery. In elaborating on the significance of the cloth, which is imbued with traces of mineral and plant specimens, Foreshew explains this is to "emphasise the transition of space, as it is always moving between social relationships which are generated within the logic of place: revolving around people, occupying, owning, seizing, losing or transforming a space". Hence, the translucence and fluidity of cloth can be perceived as evoking the fluctuating historical moments of possession, dispossession and repossession, and their deeply felt social repercussions. Foreshew also states that, "the body is used to perform the absence of place". In this way, she is addressing the subjugated women of colonial Australia and reinscribing them into history. There is a sense of architectural power and stateliness evoked by the textured folds of the women's cloth-garments, as if rivalling the aesthetics of ancient civilisations. The siting of the work is significant as the Australian Museum houses a rich collection of Aboriginal artefacts that complements Corroboree's central theme of 'place' and 'living culture'. The work will engage with personal histories and negotiate a sense of community and belonging. The work responds to Indigenous usurpation, bespeaking the robbery of their status as the original inhabitants of the land. By etching a contemporary and bodily Aboriginal presence into the facade of one of Sydney's iconic landmarks, Foreshew challenges Australia's colonial narrative and promotes the historical and cultural significance of the site for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. For more information, visit the City Art website.
For fans of Adam Driver, 2019 was a movie-watching delight. When he wasn't tackling zombies in Jim Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die, he was investigating CIA-sanctioned torture in The Report. He scored an Oscar nomination for his relationship struggles with Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story, and fought the force in Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker, too. Alas, after that welcome onslaught of Driver-starring flicks in such short succession — The Man Who Killed Don Quixote also released Down Under the same year, in fact — he didn't appear on our screens in 2020. But this year, he'll be back in cinemas in one of his most-anticipated films yet. In the works for half a decade — and reportedly initially delayed in part due to Driver's busy schedule — Annette tells the tale of stand-up comedian Henry (Driver) and his soprano opera singer wife Ann (Marion Cotillard). He's funny, she's famous, and their lives are happy and glamorous; however, when their daughter Annette is born, they're changed forever. Few other narrative details have been revealed, but their story plays out in a musical — and if the just-dropped first trailer gives any indication, viewers can expect a brooding, dreamy, sweeping and immensely gorgeous film to dance across the screen. Actually, movie buffs can expect all of the above simply based on Annette's director. It has now been nine years since Leos Carax's Holy Motors hit cinema screens, becoming one of the most memorable films of both the decade and the 21st century in the process, so his next project has been eagerly awaited for quite some time. Annette will also mark the French filmmaker's English-language debut. And, after being shot late in 2019 and initially expected in 2020, it'll open this year's Cannes Film Festival in July. Exactly when viewers elsewhere will get to see the film hasn't been announced, but whenever it surfaces locally, it'll be a certain big-screen event. Every director wishes that they made movies that no one else could even dream of, but Carax is genuinely one of those filmmakers. Here's hoping that we soon get to see what Carax's inventive mind has put together next. Check out the trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=068aFF8fOIA&feature=emb_logo Annette will open the Cannes Film Festival on July 6. Details for the film's release Down Under are yet to be revealed — we'll update you with further details when they're announced.
Whether you're an early riser or perpetually out late with mates, Brisbane is a vibrant city with a jam-packed schedule of exciting to-dos — all year round. Sunlight or city lights, kid-friendly or up-past-bedtime, in 2023 you'll be more than set to explore the city your way. Early bird? Rejoice! You've come to the right place — it is the Sunshine State, after all. Sate your appetite for science with an intellectual festival feed. Be enraptured by song with a stellar calendar of music events. Take to the skies via artistic explorations of our earth's atmosphere in a world-class exhibition. Flock together for storytelling and cultural conversations. See your city habitat transformed by immersive installations that query the lines between art, science, human, nature and AI. There are tours and workshops, parties and playtime — all before the sun sets. Though, they don't call her Bris Vegas for nothing. Bright lights and late nights, baby. It's not the city that never sleeps — but there's more than enough to keep you occupied well into the night. In 2023, expect festivals and innovative cultural events, immersive experiences and guided night tours, groundbreaking theatre and augmented reality landscapes. Explore art, science and the space in between via pop-up installations; catch rare films in an art-gallery cinema; watch an epic opera al fresco; witness light shows and fireworks along the river; and feed your musical appetite at a huge urban festival dedicated to the most exciting, fresh talent in the Australian music scene. Whether you prefer to stay indoors or venture into the darkness, Brisbane will keep the lights on for you. Here, we've compiled a bunch of arty things to do and see in 2023, so that no matter what time you're heading out in Brisbane you're guaranteed to have a ripper time. Read on for all the daytime fun, then flick the switch above and we'll turn down the lights and show you the best events happening at night.
Big pop-culture titles, big stunts: from a Stranger Things rift and Squid Game's creepy Red Light, Green Light doll to an Everything Everywhere All At Once-style multidimensional laundromat and a massive Timothée Chalamet mural for Dune, new TV shows and movies sure do love launching with a pop-up in Australia. The latest doing just that: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the sequel to 2018's Aquaman. For four days, the film is making its presence known in Sydney with a huge seven-metre gold trident. To see the towering, gleaming object, you'll need to head to Watermans Cove in Barangaroo from Thursday, December 14–Sunday, December 17. On display: the Trident of Neptune that gives Aquaman's namesake the power to rule the sea. It's being used to break ground of the boardwalk, and will be paired with a giant wall of water measuring nine metres high and 12 metres wide on the Friday night only. Seeing the trident is free, and you can just head along whenever suits you across the four days. If you want to catch a glimpse of the wall of water as well — which will have footage from the film projected onto it — you'll need to drop by from 7.45–10pm on Friday, December 15. As for the movie itself, it features Jason Momoa swapping the Fast and Furious franchise's roads for the ocean in that other big-budget saga he's been known to glisten through: DC's flicks. It's been five years since the first solo cinema swim for Arthur Curry arrived, with Aquaman marking just the sixth entry in the DC Extended Universe. Now the series hits 15 instalments with sequel Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, bringing back DC's wettest superhero — plus Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Ambulance) as Black Manta as well. Hitting cinemas on Boxing Day as the fourth DC feature of 2023 after Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash and Blue Beetle, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom also hails from Australian director James Wan (Malignant), as the first film did — and sees Patrick Wilson (Insidious: The Red Door), Amber Heard (The Stand), Nicole Kidman (Special Ops: Lioness) and Temuera Morrison (The Book of Boba Fett) return alongside Momoa and Abdul-Mateen II. Dolph Lundgren (Minions: The Rise of Gru) and Randall Park (Strays) are back as well, all in another movie that dives into the sea, heads down to Atlantis and paddles about trying to save the world. The story this time: Black Manta is still after vengeance, but now has the Black Trident and its powers to help. So, as well as being a father and the new King of Atlantis, Aquaman has to seek his own assistance. That's how Wilson's Orm, Curry's half brother, ends up fighting by his side instead of being his imprisoned enemy. Check out the trailer for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom below: The Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom trident will be on display at Watermans Cove, Barangaroo, Sydney from Thursday, December 14–Sunday, December 17. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom opens in Australian cinemas on Tuesday, December 26.
Since 2011, DJ Tom Loud's travelling dance party Hot Dub Time Machine has ripped up stages the world over, offering a rolling crossfade of the last six decades of pop-music. And back in 2017, he launched Wine Machine, a series of al fresco get-togethers on some of the country's most-loved wine regions. The Wine Machine events have kept returning — when the pandemic hasn't been interrupting plans — and they're making a comeback in 2022 and 2023. This time around, these single-stage parties in the vines are split into two batches, hitting up Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania from November 2022–January 2023 with one lineup, then heading to New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria from March–April 2023 with another. The western and southern leg of the fest is already on sale, with Flight Facilities, Lime Cordiale, Cut Copy, San Cisco, Client Liaison, Masked Wolf and Art vs Science on the bill — although some acts will only play some locations. Their destinations: Oakover Grounds in the Swan Valley, McLaren Vale's Serafino Wines and Home Hill Winery in Huon Valley. For east coasters, leading the music will be one of Hot Dub's Rave Machine sets. He'll be joined on stage by Lime Cordiale (except in Victoria), Bliss N Esso, Vera Blue (except in NSW), Northeast Party House, KLP and more — at Dalwood Estate in the Hunter Valley, Canberra's Commonwealth Park and Rochford Wines in Victoria. Backing up the tunes, there'll be a tasty lineup of eats, craft beer and, of course, some sensational vino from these Australian wine regions. Safe to say, it's probably the rowdiest event these wineries will host all year. WINE MACHINE 2023 DATES: Saturday, November 26, 2022 — Oakover Grounds, Swan Valley, Whadjuk Country, Western Australia Saturday, December 17, 2022 — Serafino Wines, McLaren Vale, Kaurna Country, South Australia Saturday, January 14, 2023 — Home Hill Winery, Huon Valley, Nuenonne Country, Tasmania Saturday, March 18, 2023 — Dalwood Estate, Hunter Valley, Wonnarua Country, New South Wales Saturday, March 25, 2023 — Commonwealth Park, Canberra, Ngunnawal Country, Australian Capital Territory Saturday, April 1, 2023 — Rochford Wines, Wurundjeri Country, Victoria WINE MACHINE 2022–23 LINEUP — WA, SA AND TASMANIA: Flight Facilities (DJ set only in Tasmania) Lime Cordiale Cut Copy San Cisco Client Liaison (excluding SA) Masked Wolf (SA only) Art vs Science (SA only) Stace Cadet (DJ set, Tasmania only) Sumner (SA only) Mell Hall Happiness Is Wealth Jimi the Kween The Poof Doof Jamboree WINE MACHINE 2023 LINEUP — NSW, ACT AND VICTORIA: Hot Dub Time Machine Lime Cordiale (excluding Victoria) Bliss N Esso Vera Blue (excluding NSW) Northeast Party House KLP Grantperez The Poof Doof Jamboree Wine Machine tours Australia from November 2022–April 2023. Tickets for Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania are on sale now. Ticket pre-sales for NSW, ACT and Victoria start from 6pm AEDT on Wednesday, November 2, with general sales from 12pm AEDY on Thursday, November 3. Head to the festival website for further details.
Following a rebrand, Orazio D'Elia's Alexandria pasticceria Mia Dolci has now officially become Da Orazio Pasticceria. And to celebrate its new chapter, Da Orazio Pasticceria has set up a six-week pop-up right next door to Da Orazio Pizza + Porchetta in Bondi Beach. Inspired by a recent trip to Italy, D'Elia's menu includes a range of classic Italian cakes and pastries with a modern twist. And every day from 8am, Vittoria coffee will be served to pair with your chosen goods. If you're looking for something savoury, you can take your pick from the daily selection of focaccia paninis with fillings including house pastrami, cheddar, pickle, and rocket; smoked chicken, scarmorza, roasted tomatoes, and dijon mayonnaise; and mortadella, pistachio pesto, artichoke and provolone. The porchetta focaccia from Pizza + Porchetta's menu will also be on regular rotation. More details can be found via the official website.
Good news has been in short supply in 2020, so when something positive comes along, it's worth celebrating. In Victoria, after two tough periods of lockdown this year, the state has just hit an impressive milestone — with no active COVID-19 cases present. That figure comes as the state also hits 25 consecutive days without any new COVID-19 cases or deaths, which is obviously also fantastic news. To put those achievements in context, when Victoria announced on October 26 that it had zero new cases or deaths that day, it was the first time it had celebrated that feat since early June — and that mid-year news was the first time since the start of the pandemic. By mid-August, the states cases had climbed to 687. That was the peak of the second wave, thankfully, and since then, the numbers have slowly been decreasing. The Victorian Government Department of Health and Human Services has sent out its daily Tweet with yesterday's numbers and it's what we all want to see: a big fat zero in all four crucial fields. So there are no new cases, no deaths, no active cases and no cases from an unknown source across the past fortnight, either. https://twitter.com/VicGovDHHS/status/1330996503817703430 Of course, this doesn't mean the war is over, but it is great to hear as Victoria continues to open back up. It's also the first time that cases have hit zero in the state since February. Today's zero new cases places Victoria's total at 20,345, which includes 19,525 people who have recovered from the coronavirus, as per the state's last reported numbers on Monday, November 23. So far, Victoria has conducted more than 3.5 million tests for COVID-19. While restrictions have been easing across the state, the Victorian Government has continued to encourage the state's residents to get tested and respect the rules. The last round of eased restrictions came into effect on midnight this past Sunday, with Victorians no longer required to wear masks outside (as long as you can maintain social distancing) and venue and gathering limits increasing. At-home gathering sizes are set to increase again on Sunday, December 13 — just in time for Christmas. The state has been slowly progressing through a five-step roadmap to COVID-normal since mid-September. For more information about the status of COVID-19 and the current restrictions, head over to the Department of Health and Human Services website — and for further details about Victoria's steps for reopening, head to the roadmap itself.
If you've inched along Parramatta Road at 8am midweek quietly wishing doom on reams of red blinking car butts, hoping the breakfast studio shenanigans of triple j's Matt and Alex will distract you from pummelling your own steering wheel in the face; we've got a spot of bad news for you. It ain't getting better anytime soon. Making the biggest argument for riding your bike to work in recent times, new data published in the Sydney Morning Herald shows Sydney traffic is the worst in the country, particularly on Wednesdays. We've also got some of the worst congestion in the world. GPS company TomTom used their own technology to find out what the blazes was up with our global tendency for jammin'. Tracking 92 million vehicle kilometres worth of GPS information from mobile devices (alongside live traffic streams) over 2012-2013, TomTom deduced that your average Sydney driver sat in their four-wheeler for 34 per cent longer than the trip would take without any other cars on the road. That's 38 minutes longer an hour than you should be — almost 90 hours a year. That's a whole bunch of podcasts. Wednesday mornings took out the horribly-earned title of worst time to be driving in Sydney during the week, with Friday night coming in a close second. Weirdly enough, if you're running late on a Friday morning the roads will be the clearest. Melbourne and Perth aren't rolling in glory either, recording average congestion levels of 27 per cent. Brisbane breathes a little easier with drivers spending 23 per cent longer than they'd need to on the road to work. So who are the biggest offenders in Sydney? SMH reported that Newtown's snail trail Princes Highway to King Street made the cut, with its CBD sisters City Road and Broadway confirming their Tetris-like squalor. Military Road between Neutral Bay and Manly (including the hideously congested Spit Bridge), Old South Head Road in the Eastern Suburbs, the Eastern distributor south of Moore Park Road, just the tip of the M4, the south part of Lady Game Drive and the monarch of jams, Parramatta Road. With recent developments in new Sydney bike lanes, hubs and technology, there's never been a better time to start cycling. Via SMH. Image by by Alborz Fallah.
Port Macquarie's Festival of the Sun has been running for 16 years, and the boutique summer music festival is still bringing the goods. The lineup for this December has just been released and it looks like it'll be another doozy. Methyl Ethel and Briggs will headline the three-day fest, with Julia Jacklin, Trophy Eyes, Lime Cordiale and Baker Boy lending their voices too. Amyl and the Sniffers, Tired Lion, I Know Leopard, Nathan Ball and Good Doogs — among others — round out what looks like it'll be a big couple of days of music, with more acts still to be announced. The camping festival is also — excitingly — BYO, so you don't need to spend your hard-earned cash on overpriced UDLs. Alongside the lineup of live music, there will also be a heap of food trucks (serving everything from burgers to vegan fare), silent discos and silent comedy. The festival is themed each year, and this year it's the "ghouls and unicorns" edition — looks like it's time to whip out your Halloween costumes and anything you own that's rainbow-coloured. Festival of the Sun runs from Friday, December 13 to Sunday, December 15. Tickets go on sale at 10am on Thursday, August 8. FESTIVAL OF THE SUN 2018 LINEUP Methyl Ethel Briggs Julia Jacklin Trophy Eyes Lime Cordiale Baker Boy Amyl and the Sniffers Tired Lion I Know Leopard Nathan Ball (UK) Good Doogs Genesis Owusu Milan Ring Arno Faraji JEFFE Tasman Keith Stevie Jean FRITZ Bakers Eddy VOIID Surf Trash Georgia June Johnny Hunter The Buoys Garage Sale
