SXSW has never left Austin until this year. For the first time ever, a second iteration of the world-renowned music, screen, gaming, tech and ideas festival is popping up — and it's landed all the way over in Sydney. Running between Sunday, October 15–Sunday, October 22, the first SXSW Sydney has produced a huge lineup with hundreds of musicians performing across Surry Hills, Ultimo, Chippendale, Darling Harbour and Haymarket. The American iteration is known for breaking the next big thing and, following that trend, a who's who of Australian and international up and comers make up a bulk of the lineup — with the intention that you'll wander through the festival precinct each day and stumble upon a healthy mix of acts you know and love, as well as your next great music discovery. There are soon-to-be superstars with co-signs from the biggest names in music, free dance parties in Tumbalong Park, a huge takeover of Powerhouse Museum, hidden parties in abandoned cinemas and Chinatown restaurants, and an 11-year-old Australian rap prodigy. If this all seems like a lot, don't worry — we've got you. Here are ten gigs you should have at the top of your list if you're heading to the festival. HARVEY SUTHERLAND If you're around on Sunday, October 15, then head down to Tumbalong Park as SXSW Sydney kicks off the entire festival with a series of free events. Local funk and house producer Harvey Sutherland will be making an appearance at 8pm for a special one-off festival set that's free for everyone to attend. The Tumbalong Park program will stretch on through the whole week, so don't make a visit here a one-and-done affair. Also on offer: an outdoor cinema featuring classic films that have premiered at SXSW Austin over the years, an onstage discussion between Adam Spencer and Dr Karl, and a massive Suntory -196 vending machine which will function as a rooftop bar. REDVEIL He's already collaborated with Denzel Curry and JPEGMafia, and he's been shouted out by Tyler, the Creator and Pusha T — and he's only 19. Maryland rapper Redveil is heading to Australia for two sets at SXSW Sydney. You can catch his unique alternate hip hop stylings at the House of Vans, located at UTS Underground on Wednesday, October 18, and then at Phoenix Central Park at 8pm on Friday, October 20. Get in line early for his Friday set — it's sure to be a special one at the extremely intimate Chippendale venue. [caption id="attachment_848402" align="alignnone" width="1916"] Barkaa, Luke Currie Richardson[/caption] FBI RADIO SXSW SYDNEY PARTY The abandoned Chinatown cinema that hosted the beloved summer arts and music venue Pleasures Playhouse is being revived for SXSW Sydney — and the equally beloved community radio station FBi Radio is taking it over for a one-night party. The Haymarket space will host a stacked lineup of Australian talent spanning a heap of different genres on Thursday, October 19 from 7–11.50pm. Iconic Malyangapa and Barkindji rapper Barkaa leads the lineup alongside the psych-pop of Skeleten, future reggaeton superstar Lamira, the self-proclaimed 'Blak Britney' Miss Kaninna and the punk-hip hop hybrid duo Bract and Bayang (the Bushranger). It's an eclectic mix (as is customary with FBi Radio), and it's coming to one of the city's most interesting arts spaces. FLYANA BOSS If you've been hearing the words "hello christ, I'm 'bout to sin again" all over your TikTok feeds, these are artists responsible. Flyana Boss is a US hip hop duo who have seen a wave of success from that viral moment, including a remix of that song 'You Wish' featuring none other than Missy Elliot. The pair of multi-instrumentalists and rappers will be kicking off the whole music festival alongside Ekkstacy on Tuesday, October 17 at the opening night celebrations — hosted at The Starship on the Convention Jetty. If you miss out on this set, you can also find them performing at the House of Vans at UTS Underground at 11.20pm on Wednesday, October 18. POWERHOUSE LATE Powerhouse Late is being given the SXSW Sydney treatment with a showcase of some of the program's most exciting artists — and best of all, this one's open to everyone no whether you've got a pass to the festival or not. From 5–9pm on Thursday, October 19, you can catch sets from hugely popular Indonesian singer-songwriter Isyana Sarasvati, South Korean synth-pop group ADOY and Aussie rockers Dust on Stage One. Stage two will welcome rising local musos Tiffi, POOKIE, Big Skeez and SUPEREGO, while stage three will host electronic artists Nuum, Moss and Sonic Mutations in their debut live performance. FRIDAY* If one of your goals for the festival is to catch a local Sydney artist before they blow up, make sure you attend one of FRIDAY*'s sets. Alongside fellow SXSW artists Dylan Atlantis and Zion Garcia, as well as Sollyy and Breakfast Road, FRIDAY* is part of the bustling Western Sydney music collective recently spotlighted in the SBS short film We Just Live Here. The melodic singer-songwriter effortlessly blends pop with genres like R&B, UKG and folk. You can catch these sonic melting pots on stage at the Hollywood Hotel on Thursday, October 19; UTS Underground on Friday, October 19; and Mulan Music Restaurant on Saturday, October 20. [caption id="attachment_888440" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Otoboke Beaver by Mayumi Hirata[/caption] OTOBOKE BEAVER Japanese punk quartet Otoboke Beaver is hitting Australia for three SXSW Sydney sets, bringing their ferocious guitars to stages across Sydney. This one's not to be missed for any fans of rock music or anyone looking to experience something you won't see anywhere else in Australia this year. On Thursday, October 19 the band is playing a late-night set at The Soda Factory in Surry Hills, followed by a set at UTS Underground the next day. Then, rounding out their trio of shows for the week, you can catch them at The Factory Theatre's outdoor stage on Saturday afternoon. LANEWAY FESTIVAL SXSW SYDNEY PARTY Before it returns for its stacked 2024 festival with Stormzy, Dominic Fike and Steve Lacy, Laneway is throwing a SXSW party in a Chinatown restaurant. Mulan Music Restaurant and Bar on the corner of Dixon Street is known for its neon-lit stage and spicy seafood, but during the eight-day festival it'll be hosting a heap of gigs. Laneway's takeover is happening from 6pm on Wednesday, October 18 with a lineup of up and comers from Australia and abroad. If you were around for the height of the indie-dance era circa 2004, you'll want to check out Fcukers, who are bringing back the sound of bands like The Rapture and Hot Chip. Pop singer Cody Jon and Melbourne art-punk group Gut Health are also on the lineup, alongside Miss Kaninna, Will Swinton and RAVVE TAPES. INKABEE Another one for those looking to catch the next big thing: Western Australia's Inkabee is already killing it at the age of 11. All you have to do is watch his freestyle on Triple J's Bars of Steel with his dad, aka rapper and activist Flewnt, to see the huge potential this kid has. You can catch Inkabee on the mic at APRA AMCOS on Friday, October 20, and then downstairs at The Lord Gladstone on Saturday, October 21. [caption id="attachment_922018" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Michael Cole[/caption] SOMEDAY SOON SXSW Sydney has teamed up with The University of Sydney's Someday Soon to give attendees the chance to attend this festival popping up in the event precinct. Head to Manning Bar on Saturday, October 21 and you'll be treated to a lineup featuring What So Not, Peach PRC, 1300, Sly Withers, Northeast Party House, Royal Otis and Sweden's Kornél Kovács. The festival will feature three stages stretched across the two levels and outdoor areas of Manning Bar. A reserved number of tickets for Someday Soon are available exclusively for SXSW Sydney Platinum Badge holders, Music Badge holders and Music Festival Wristband holders on a first-come-first-serve basis — so head down early to guarantee your spot. SXSW Sydney runs from Sunday, October 15–Sunday, October 22 at various Sydney venues. Head to the SXSW Sydney website for further details. Top image: Brittany Hallberg.
Hurricane Bianca is coming to town — to nine cities Down Under to liven up our winter and spring, in fact. The fabulously quick-witted RuPaul's Drag Race season-six winner heads our way on her fifth global comedy tour, fittingly called Unsanitized!. The also supremely apt tagline: "she's vaxxed, she's waxed and she has more attitude than ever". If anyone can help us all make sense of the past couple of years — and look devastating and sling cutting barbs while doing so, naturally — it's the drag queen that became a worldwide favourite back in 2013. She had fierce competition during her season of RuPaul's Drag Race, including from Australia's own Courtney Act; however, Del Rio's devilish snark and timing are clearly impossible to beat. First hitting Brisbane's QPAC Concert Hall on Wednesday, August 31, Del Rio will sling her cutting insults — and her larger-than-life persona in general — across big theatre gigs in both Australia and New Zealand. Her next stops: Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Canberra, Perth, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland, which'll take the Down Under leg of Unsanitized! through to mid-September. It's been a massive few years for the dimple-cheeked performer also known as Roy Haylock, with Unsanitized! following her last tour It's Jester Joke — which saw her become the first drag queen to headline Carnegie Hall and Wembley Arena. (Yes, she sold out both venues.) And, she hit the West End stage in the musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie, and also pops up in the film version as well. Watching that stage-to-screen flick, old Drag Race episodes, or 2016 comedy Hurricane Bianca and its 2018 sequel Hurricane Bianca: From Russia with Hate is obviously fantastic preparation for Unsanitized! — but, as you'll know if you've seen her live before, there's nothing like seeing Del Rio in the flesh. BIANCA DEL RIO'S UNSANITIZED! TOUR 2022 DATES: Wednesday, August 31 — QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane Saturday, September 3 — State Theatre, Sydney Monday, September 5 — Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide Wednesday, September 7 — Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne Friday, September 9 — Canberra Theatre Centre, Canberra Saturday, September 10 — Astor Theatre, Perth Tuesday, September 13 — James Hay Theatre, Christchurch Wednesday, September 14 — The Opera House, Wellington Friday, September 16 — Auckland Town Hall, Auckland Bianca Del Rio's Unsanitized! tour heads around Australia and New Zealand in August and September 2022. For more information or to buy tickets from Friday, May 6, head to the tour website.
When The Favourite took a chapter of 18th-century history, filtered it through a witty and twisted sense of humour, and brought it all to life with lavish sets, luxurious costuming and a high-profile cast, it instantly attracted attention — and became one of the best films of 2018. Now, The Great is here to roll out the same format on the small screen, this time swapping English royalty for a famed Russian empress. And, sporting savage, satirical humour in spades, it works just as well. The moniker 'the Great' has popped up plenty of times in Russian history; however there's no doubting who it refers to in this instance: Catherine, formerly Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg of Prussia. As played by Elle Fanning (The Neon Demon, Mary Shelley, Galveston), she hasn't yet ascended to greatness when The Great begins. But, by the time the show's first episode finishes, she's firmly plotting her path. Sent to Russia to marry reigning emperor Peter III (The Favourite and True History of the Kelly Gang's Nicholas Hoult) and solve her family's money troubles, the educated and idealistic Catherine arrives in her new homeland with a romantic vision of life, her nuptials, her place in the kingdom and her adopted country in general — especially its treatment of women. Alas, instead of marital bliss and being regarded as an equal, she's soon betrothed to a vain, arrogant, brattish ruler who'd rather binge-drink vodka, shoot bears, throw parties and start wars to prove his manliness than spend any real time with his new wife. He's also the kind of guy who describes himself as possessing "a gentle heart and massive cock", then pauses to make sure his ever-present entourage of ass-kissing noblemen furnish him with praise and laughs. It's no wonder, then, that when Catherine describes her hopes and dreams for a tender and ecstatic wedding night, her caustic but loyal maid Marial (The Aeronauts' Phoebe Fox) only barely manages not to roll her eyes. The reality of the royal couple's first evening together is definitely no one's fantasy, with Peter thrusting away while he chats to his best friend Grigor (Bohemian Rhapsody and Top End Wedding's Gwilym Lee) about shooting ducks. Created and written by The Favourite's Oscar-nominated, BAFTA-winning co-scribe Tony McNamara — and based on the Australian playwright, screenwriter and director's 2008 Sydney Theatre Company stage production of the same name — The Great serves up acerbic laughs from the outset, and doesn't let the mood drop. That means sharp, sly and thoroughly self-aware dialogue, an irreverent and cheeky tone, and having ample fun with real-life details. Indeed, The Great's title card notes upfront that the show tells "an occasionally true story". The broad strokes of Catherine's life remain in place, including her progressive plans for Russia and her quest to topple her husband in a coup; however slavish devotion to history is far, far less important than dark comedy, laugh-out-loud lines, a willingness to get silly and viewing Imperial Russia as a farce. Entertaining, engaging and very easy to binge, The Great also benefits from pitch-perfect casting. In her first comedic role, Fanning is equally luminous, intelligent and calculating, especially when she's scheming her way to the top. But, while the series isn't called Peter III (or "no Peter the Great", as he's dubbed in one episode), Hoult constantly steals the show as the demanding and impetuous frat boy emperor. Also deserving attention: the delightfully sarcastic Fox, Lodge 49's Adam Godley as the manic Archbishop, Hoult's fellow Skins alum Sebastian de Souza as Catherine's approved lover, Iron Fist's Sacha Dhawan as her chief co-conspirator and Australian actress Belinda Bromilow as Peter's offbeat aunt. Check out the trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5vLgpdXz0g All ten episodes of The Great's first season are available to stream via Stan in Australia and NeonTV in New Zealand. Top image: Ollie Upton, Hulu
In this very galaxy, probably just a few short months away, lasers will fire up, wars will be waged, and Sydney and Melbourne's biggest Star Wars buffs will show up in force. They'll also try to use the force, obviously, at the latest pop culture-themed party heading our way. A series of wizarding brunches have been making their way around the country, and a Game of Thrones-style medieval banquet is already on Sydney's agenda — and now comes Battle Wars. If getting a new Star Wars movie every year isn't delivering enough intergalactic space opera fun for your liking, then prepare to get a very good feeling about gathering for a real-life lightsaber tournament. Or lightsaber-like weapon, more likely — but arguing about semantics would be a real C-3PO move. At yet-to-be-revealed dates and venues, groups of up to 12 people at a time will unleash their inner jedi (or rebel, or sith), with 32 groups in total competing in a knockout-style contest in each city. While everyone yells lines about being Luke Skywalker's father (we're guessing) and vies for an undisclosed grand prize, Star Wars-inspired music will play, and there'll also be 'immersive entertainment'. That sounds an awful lot like folks dressing up as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Kylo Ren, Princess Leia, Rey, Darth Maul and more to us, but let's face it — if you're going along, you'll be doing that anyway. Unsurprisingly, it's a completely unofficial event, so don't expect any actual stars, tie-ins or merchandise. You can probably expect some ironic Star Wars Kid-esque moves, though — or George Michael Bluth-style antics, if you prefer. For more information — and to sign up to hear about Melbourne and Sydney dates and venues — visit thebattlewars.com.
UPDATE: May 18, 2020: Good Boys is available to stream via Amazon Prime Video, Foxtel Now, Google Play, YouTube and iTunes. Before the high-schoolers who populate every teen movie start worrying about heading off to college and having sex for the first time, they're tweens with not-too-dissimilar problems. That's the premise behind the familiar but very funny Good Boys, which leans so far into its Superbad-lite status that it has even enlisted Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg as producers. Instead of two horny 17-year-olds, this scaled-down coming-of-age comedy focuses on a trio of sixth graders. Instead of finding its characters on the cusp of graduation, it meets them as they start middle school. And instead of turning up to a lively shindig on a quest to lose their virginity, Good Boys' pre-teen protagonists navigate the age-appropriate equivalent: their first kissing party. The comparisons keep coming, although writer/director Gene Stupnitsky and his co-scribe Lee Eisenberg (the screenwriting duo behind Bad Teacher and Year One) don't just tread in Superbad's footsteps. Good Boys' predecessor boasted more than a little in common with Can't Hardly Wait, which in turn took Dazed and Confused's lead — and they all nodded to American Graffiti before that. Just a couple of months back, Booksmart did something similar too, using a firmly female-focused viewpoint to its advantage. There's not as obvious a point of difference here, with tween and teen boys getting mixed up in almost the same types of situations. But what Good Boys lacks in originality or perspective, it makes up for in charm, sincerity and a stellar cast of young talent. In a few years, Max (Jacob Tremblay), Thor (Brady Noon) and Lucas (Keith L. Williams) could relive these kinds of hijinks at the end of their high-school days — a thought that's probably crossed Stupnitsky, Eisenberg, Rogen and Goldberg's minds — but for now, they just want to be liked by the cool kids in their grade. And that seems possible after the lifelong buddies score a coveted invite to Soren's (Izaac Wang) pashing party. Alas, while Max is driven by his all-consuming crush on classmate Brixlee (Millie Davis), his friends have their own troubles. Thor is desperate to nab a role in the school production of Rock of Ages, but also desperate to seem like he doesn't care, while the gleefully dorky Lucas is struggling with news of his parents' (Retta and Lil Rel Howery) impending divorce. Plus, when the pals aren't trying to brush up on puckering up, they're unwittingly getting involved in drug deals with Max's older neighbour Hannah (Molly Gordon) and her bestie Lily (Midori Francis). Much of Good Boys' humour hits instantly and flows easily, as kids say the darnedest things in highly inappropriate circumstances — searching for "porb" and mistaking sex toys for weapons, for example. As the film's marketing campaign made a point of stressing, this may be a picture about children, but it definitely isn't for them in any shape or form. There's a more resonant layer to the gags, too — which, in a movie that spends plenty of time giggling as its central tweens swear, might not immediately seem the case. To see Max, Thor and Lucas not just face the reality that they're growing up, but explore an adult world that feels so strange and different to their pre-teen grasp on reality, is to remember the confusing ups and downs of going through the same process yourself. That said, this isn't a mere exercise in raucousness and nostalgia shaped around episodic antics, such as skipping school, sipping beers and running away from cops. Like Booksmart before it, Good Boys grounds its jokes, narrative and outlook in today's cultural and societal standards. In other words: goodbye lazy stereotypes and outdated views, and hello inclusiveness, emotional intelligence, and seeing these boys learn to respect women, themselves and each other. Stupnitsky and Eisenberg are still guilty of padding out the picture with a few too many recognisable scenarios, even with its brief 90-minute running time. But their film glows with authenticity nonetheless — because, for all the outlandishness they encounter, these kids always react in realistic ways. As much as Good Boys has an affable, genuine vibe on its side, it wouldn't work quite as well without its three child stars. Room's Tremblay, Boardwalk Empire's Noon and The Last Man on Earth's Williams not only sell their rapport, but play their parts with honesty and earnestness — and without a hint of precociousness. The bike-riding trio also shrugs off a Stranger Things insult, in a line that speaks beyond pop culture's current obsession with plucky children (see also: IT and IT: Chapter Two). Swap Good Boys' crudeness for a dash of the supernatural, after all, and this sweet, breezy and amusing film would fit nicely among all those classic 80s adventures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeeyM8cRinI
UPDATE, October 18, 2020: Bombshell is available to stream via Amazon Prime Video, Foxtel Now, Google Play, YouTube and iTunes. Playing two women caught in the climate of sexual harassment that engulfed Fox News under former CEO Roger Ailes, Charlize Theron and Margot Robbie both turn in stellar — and now Oscar-nominated — performances in Bombshell. Aided by noticeable facial prosthetics, Theron steps into the shoes of real-life TV personality Megyn Kelly, serving up a pulsating vein of steeliness in every scene. As a fictional producer who calls herself an "influencer in the Jesus space" and an "evangelical millennial", Robbie's Kayla Pospisil possesses softer edges but still sports plenty of inner grit — especially when she summons up the guts to put her self-respect first, rather than her desire to feature on-camera on the right-wing network. But much like the unease that plagues both women until they decide to speak out, something definitely isn't right in the film that tells their tales. Bombshell is the slick, shiny version of this ripped-from-the-headlines story, which earned global attention when it broke back in 2016. Airbrushed to buffer away blemishes and avoid tricky spots, it's watered down to deliver an easy, glossy, simplified narrative. It doesn't help that 2019's Russell Crowe-starring The Loudest Voice already brought the same minutiae to the small screen — and in far greater detail, as you'd expect in a seven-part mini-series compared to a 109-minute movie. That said, Bombshell really isn't interested in diving as deep as its predecessor. Instead, wants to make a feisty flick about kick-ass women fighting back in a male-dominated realm. Fight back, Kelly did — although not at first. As the film unpacks, fellow anchor Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) leads the charge and initially suffers the consequences, going public about her inappropriate dealings with Ailes (a cartoonish John Lithgow) by suing him personally. Despite the head honcho's protests of innocence to Rupert Murdoch (Malcolm McDowell) and sons Lachlan and James (Ben and Josh Lawson), more women share their stories. Director Jay Roach (Trumbo) and screenwriter Charles Randolph (The Big Short) explore this, as well as Kelly's apprehension to join the chorus and Pospisil's experiences as a young, ambitious woman eager to score her big on-screen break. And yet, by championing these efforts but barely delving into Fox News' status as a conservative propaganda machine, Bombshell proves an empty shell of a #MeToo movie. The treatment that Kelly and Carlson (and the real-life women that Pospisil represents) received at the hands of Ailes — yes, literally — is infuriating and unacceptable, as all accounts of men exerting power over women for their own gratification are. Their ordeal doesn't just hark back to one man, though; it's inescapably intertwined with Fox News and the agenda it serves — notions that are scarcely considered here. Roach and Randolph hint at the network's public standing, illustrating the wider world's reaction to its political leanings via a woman who insults Carlson in a supermarket. The film paints Ailes as feverish about pushing the Republican party's perspective and currying favour with Donald Trump during the lead up to the 2016 election, even when the future president tweets sexist comments about Kelly. And, it lays bare the TV station's misogynistic internal culture, where women are forced to wear short skirts and sit behind clear desks. Still, it all feels like lip service in a movie that merely depicts, rather than dissects. If one was feeling generous, you could assume the film's powers-that-be just expect that everyone already knows Fox News' reputation, and the perspectives it pedals. Being realistic, however, Bombshell seems happy to brush past the network's toxic on-air views — because contemplating them in-depth means adding shades of grey that this visually bright feature is keen to avoid. Ailes is a clearcut villain, and deserves the scorn he's served, of course. But ignoring the fact that Kelly, Carlson and their fellow female Fox News employees all buy into a conservative agenda where behaviour like Ailes' continually festers, and do so because they share the same political views, means that Bombshell ignores the broader context that helped lecherous acts prosper at the network. Yes, it's an immensely complicated situation — but Bombshell rarely treats it as such, or recognises much in the way of texture. While Kate McKinnon is memorable as a Hillary Clinton-supporting lesbian who remains closeted about both preferences at Fox News, that's another case of the movie barely dipping its toes into more complex territory. Perhaps the film's skin-deep approach shouldn't come as a surprise, seeing that Roach also directed all three Austin Powers flicks and the first two Meet the Parents movies. Bombshell certainly tries to keep its tone light and sometimes even farcical, even though it deals with such heavy matters. Alas, what results is the kind of movie you'd expect given this tellingly glib piece of closing voice-over — one where its unambiguously heroic protagonists "got the Murdochs to put the rights of women above profits, however temporarily". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjOdDd4NEeg
When the time came for Hannah Gadsby to follow up international smash-hit show Nanette, that seemed a rather difficult task. After all, the one-performer stand-up show copped serious praise on its 18-month travels across Australia and the UK, even scooping the top honours at both the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe — and spawning its very own Netflix special. But, then Douglas was born, with the beloved Aussie comedian returning to the stand-up stage with a performance named after a pet pooch. While Nanette pulled apart the concept of comedy itself, dishing up an insight into Gadsby's past, Douglas took comedy fans on a "tour from the dog park to the renaissance and back". It toured stages across Australia and New Zealand in late 2019 and early 2020, and then hit Netflix in 2020 as well. After that came Body of Work — first as a live show again, and now as a Netflix special, too. Gadsby and the streaming platform have announced that they're reteaming for a multi-title deal that includes bringing that last comedy set to the service, and also producing a new multi-comic special featuring gender-diverse performers. I am pretty excited to be filming my new 'feel-good show', Body of Work, at the Sydney Opera House...yep…I'm back at the scene of the Nanette 'crime'. The shebang of it all will premiere on @netflix....at some point… in the future, I suppose. pic.twitter.com/P53tDfqoqC — Hannah Gadsby (@Hannahgadsby) September 26, 2022 With Body of Work, it'll be filmed live at the Sydney Opera House — this week, in fact, ready for a 2023 release. Exactly when it'll drop next year hasn't yet been revealed, however, but add it to your future must-stream list. As for the special, Gadsby offered a few thoughts with the announcement. "In an effort to further open a door that I had to fight to get through myself, I will curate and host a line-up show on Netflix featuring six new, gender-diverse comedians," Gadsby advised in a statement. "In a notoriously transphobic industry, I am looking to broaden the scope of opportunities for genderqueer performers from around the globe, as well as expand the diversity of offerings to audiences on one of comedy's biggest platforms. Coupled with a mentorship initiative for these up-and-coming comics, the program aims to foster the professional development of a demographic that is still struggling to have their voices heard," the Aussie comic continued. "Recorded in a single run in the UK in 2023, this will be a chance for the world to hear these voices for the first, but definitely not the last, time." It's clearly too early for sneak peeks at all of the above — Body of Work hasn't been filmed for Netflix yet at the time of writing, and the multi-comic special won't be recorded until 2023 — but you can check out trailers for Nanette and Douglas in the interim below: Hannah Gadsby's 'Body of Work' Netflix special will drop sometime in 2023 — we'll update you with an exact release date when one is announced.
Is Black Mirror a sci-fi flight of fancy or a realistic window into the future? Does it take humanity's increasing reliance upon technology to the fictional extreme, or predict what's about to happen? Whichever train of thought you subscribe to, if you're a fan of the Charlie Brooker-created series, you've probably jumped at every possible chance to immerse yourself in the television series. First, there was the interactive Black Mirror exhibition that popped up in London. Then came a super bleak board game. Now there's a retro-style video game as well. Hot on the heels of the program's just-released choose-your-own-adventure movie, Bandersnatch, comes your chance to mash buttons while diving into Black Mirror's twisted realm. The video game is called Nohzdyve, and it's seen in the series' new flick. It's one of the hit titles created by Colin Ritman (Will Poulter), the programmer that Bandersnatch's 19-year-old protagonist Stefan (Fionn Whitehead) first idolises, then buddies up to. The two become colleagues at games development company Tuckersoft when Stefan tries to turn his own dream game into a reality. Avid Black Mirror fans will have spotted that Nohzdyve is a reference to the first episode of the show's third season, Nosedive, aka the Bryce Dallas Howard-starring tale about a world where social media controls life's ups and downs. It's also the episode that was turned into the aforementioned board game — and, clearly, it's one of the series' instalments with the most glaring real-world parallels. In Bandersnatch, the Nohzdyve video game was made in the 80s, which means that social media obviously doesn't rate a mention. Instead, the game involves falling through the sky while collecting eyeballs and avoiding buildings. If you're keen to play it, Nohzdyve can be downloaded from the Tuckersoft website; however there is a catch. It will only run on a downloadable emulator that recreates the ZX Spectrum home computer system from 1982 (aka a British equivalent to the Commodore 64). Still, if you've already worked your way through Bandersnatch's interactive story — deciding what path Stefan's tale takes, picking between branching narrative arcs, and looping back again and again to find all of the endings — you can trade one type of Black Mirror game for another.
Winter is coming, as Game of Thrones has been telling us for years — but the show's final season is coming first. Before the weather turns cold again in the southern hemisphere, fans of the epic HBO series will be able to discover how the popular series wraps up, so mark your calendars accordingly. After leaving everyone hanging for the entirety of 2018, HBO has announced that Game of Thrones' eighth and final season will hit the small screen on April 14, 2019, US time — so Monday, April 15 in Australia — nearly two years after season seven premiered in July 2017. If you're eager to get your fix of the series' staples — that is, battles, bloodshed, betrayal, bare chests, family bickering, Jon Snow knowing nothing (including about his long-lost aunt) and plenty of dragons — then you can start counting down the days: there are 90 to go. HBO revealed the launch date this morning at the end of slightly creepy new teaser, featuring Jon Snow and Sansa and Arya Stark in the crypts of Winterfell. They're faced with the talking statues of Lyanna, Catelyn and Ned Stark, and look set to battle White Walkers, but you can watch it all below. You can check out the other season eight teasers here. Of course, we all know that this isn't really the end of the world created by author George RR Martin — and no, we're not talking about the now seven-year wait for his next book in the literary franchise, The Winds of Winter. A prequel TV series to Game of Thrones is in the works, set thousands of years before the events we've all be watching since 2011, with Naomi Watts set to star. Come next year, you'll also be able to tour original GoT filming locations in Northern Ireland. https://youtu.be/wA38GCX4Tb0
Tenth Muse has made a name for itself as the go-to specialty food store on Percival Rd, Stanmore. It dedicates itself to supplying quality ingredients and harder-to-find foods that inspire home cooking and entertaining. Just like any good specialty food shop, Tenth Muse offers an extensive range of pantry staples along with international cheeses, locals meats and other gourmet refrigerated provisions. On its website, Tenth Muse also has a large array of recipes and articles, as well as an online shop with a section of products stocked in its brick-and-mortar shop.
North Sydney's latest cafe is already becoming the suburb's new go-to for great coffee and quality lunchtime meals. Glory Days is the first hospitality opening within the towering, glass-walled Dexus development and it's run by hospo guru Aaron Crinis — who is also responsible for two much-loved Wollongong venues, Diggies Cafe and Dagwood Bar + Kitchen. The fit-out is pretty typical of what you'd expect from a lobby cafe — similar to the CBD's Cross Eatery and South by Dukes — with hotel lounge-like seating, timber accents, polished floors and (incredibly) high ceilings. But the menu is a far cry from most basic lobby-side eateries (bar the above, of course). Alexandria's Mecca has even roasted a special coffee blend just for the cafe. Similarly to his previous venues, Crinis saw a gap in the market that he could fill — in the case of Glory Days, he saw that North Sydney's working masses needed fresher, more wholesome eats. To this end, the cafe's menu consists of coffee, snacks and quick brekkie options for takeaway, with a focus on health-conscious bites and sustainably minded local suppliers. Apart from the coffees and cold-pressed juices, there are Tea Craft teas, Prana chai, Kombu kombucha (in ginger and lemon myrtle or raspberry and thyme flavours) and hot chocolates by Melbourne's Mörk — including one made with cacao, cayenne pepper and almond milk. For food, there's Brickfields sourdough toast (with both gluten-free and charcoal options), topped with your usual selection of spreads, along with smashed avo and fresh tomato. Then there are Brooklyn Boy Bagels with schmear — at the moment, choose between cream cheese, chilli flakes and chives or smoked salmon with tomato and capers. And, because everyone deserves to live a little, Brickfields is also providing a tasty selection of pastries. Come September, upstairs sister restaurant and bar Glorietta will open and the cafe's menu will be expanded, too. Images: Trent Van Der Jagt for Buffet Digital.
Disney is getting into the streaming game, and it's unleashing its new platform upon Australian and New Zealand audiences this year. Called Disney+, the service was first revealed in 2018, but just when it'd hit local screens had remained a mystery. Now, anyone eager to watch new Star Wars and Marvel TV shows — plus all of Disney's animated movies — should mark November 19 in their diaries. It's great news for folks Down Under. The Mouse House announced the service's US launch date a few months back, but had left things vague otherwise, explaining that it "plans to be in nearly all major regions of the world within the next two years". While Disney+ was expected to be operational in Australia and New Zealand sometime in 2020, locals will only be left waiting a week after the service's American debut. With Disney recently merging with competitor Fox, Disney+'s range is hefty, spanning Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and National Geographic. During its first year of operation, it's due to release more than 25 original series and ten original films, documentaries and specials — including five Marvel series (Loki, WandaVision, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, Hawkeye and Marvel's What If), and two Star Wars shows (The Mandalorian from The Lion King director Jon Favreau, plus a spinoff from Rogue One about Diego Luna's Rebel spy Cassian Andor). Two new Toy Story projects, as well as science series The World According to Jeff Goldblum, are also on Disney+'s lineup. Going big when it comes to bringing the company's well-known properties to the new streaming platform, a High School Musical TV series, another show based on Monsters, Inc. and a live-action Lady and the Tramp movie will be on the bill, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrXNtj84owc Price-wise, subscriptions will cost AU$8.99 and NZ$9.99 per month (or AU$89.99 and NZ$99.99 per year). Disney has also unveiled the devices that'll feature Disney+, which will be available both HD and 4K. Viewers will be able to access the service via Apple products (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple TV), Google devices (Android phones, Android TV devices, Google Chromecast and Chromecast built-in devices), Roku, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and all Android-based Sony TVs. Disney+ will launch in Australia New Zealand on November 19. To sign up for further updates, visit the streaming platform's website. Top image: The Mandalorian.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas in some parts of the country. After numerous periods spent empty during the pandemic, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, picture palaces in many Australian regions are back in business — including both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. DON'T WORRY DARLING Conformity rarely bodes well in cinema. Whenever everyone's dressing the same, little boxes litter the landscape or identical white-picket fences stretch as far as the eye can see, that perception of perfection tends to possess a dark underbelly. The Stepford Wives demonstrated that. Pleasantville, Blue Velvet and Vivarium all did as well. Yes, there's a touch of conformity in movies about the evils of and heralded by conformity; of course there is. That remains true when Florence Pugh (Black Widow) and Harry Styles (Eternals) navigate an ostensibly idyllic vision of retro suburbia in a desert-encased enclave — one that was always going to unravel when the movie they're in is called Don't Worry Darling. Don't go thinking that this handsome and intriguing film doesn't know all of this, though. Don't go thinking that it's worried about the similarities with other flicks, including after its secrets are spilled, either. It'd be revealing too much to mention a couple of other movies that Don't Worry Darling blatantly recalls, so here's a spoiler-free version: this is a fascinating female-focused take on a pair of highlights from two decades-plus back that are still loved, watched and discussed now. That's never all that Olivia Wilde's second feature as a filmmaker after 2019's Booksmart is, but it feels fitting that when it conforms in a new direction, it finds a way to make that space its own. That's actually what Pugh's Alice thinks she wants when Don't Worry Darling begins. The film's idealised 1950s-style setting comes with old-fashioned gender roles firmly in place, cocktails in hand as soon Styles' Jack walks in the door come quittin' time and elaborate multi-course dinners cooked up each night, with its protagonist going along with it all. But she's also far from keen on having a baby, the done thing in the company town that is Victory. It'd curtail the noisy sex that gets the neighbours talking, for starters. Immaculately clothed and coiffed women happily playing dutiful housewives in a cosy sitcom-esque dream of America generations ago: that's Wilde and screenwriter Katie Silberman's (also Booksmart) entry point; however, they waste zero time in showing how rebelling in her own child-free way isn't enough to quell Alice's nagging and growing doubts about utopia. There's much to get her querying, such as the earth-shaking sounds that rumble when Victory's men are at work, doing top-secret business on "progressive materials" out in the sandy expanse. There's the reflections in the mirror that briefly take on a life of their own, too — starting in a ballet class that's about retaining control, coveting symmetry and never upsetting the status quo far more than dancing. And, there's the pushed-aside Margaret (KiKi Layne, The Old Guard) after she disrupts a company barbecue. All the rules enforced to keep Victory's women in their places, and the cult-like wisdom that town and company founder Frank (Chris Pine, All the Old Knives) constantly spouts, are also inescapable. So is the force with which asking questions or daring to be different is publicly nixed, as Alice quickly discovers. And, it's impossible to avoid how the men band together when anything or anyone causes a bump, even their own other halves. Swiftly, Alice's days scrubbing and vacuuming her Palm Springs-inspired bungalow, then sipping cocktails poolside or while window shopping with fellow Victory spouses like Bunny (Wilde, Ghostbusters: Afterlife) and Peg (Kate Berlant, A League of Their Own), fall under a shadow — not literally in such sunnily postcard-perfect surroundings, but with shade still lingering over every part of her routine. Speaking up just gets dismissed, and Frank and his underlings (including a doctor played by Timothy Simmons, aka Veep's Jonah Ryan, who is instantly unnerving thanks to that stroke of casting) have too-precise answers to her concerns. Read our full review. THE STRANGER No emotion or sensation ripples through two or more people in the exact same way, and never will. The Stranger has much to convey, but it expresses that truth with piercing precision. The crime-thriller is the sophomore feature from actor-turned-filmmaker Thomas M Wright — following 2018's stunning Adam Cullen biopic Acute Misfortune, another movie that shook everyone who watched it and proved hard to shake — and it's as deep, disquieting and resonant a dance with intensity as its genre can deliver. To look into Joel Edgerton's (Thirteen Lives) eyes as Mark, an undercover cop with a traumatic but pivotal assignment, is to spy torment and duty colliding. To peer at Sean Harris (Spencer) as the slippery Henry Teague is to see a cold, chilling and complex brand of shiftiness. Sitting behind these two performances in screentime but not impact is Jada Alberts' (Mystery Road) efforts as dedicated, determined and drained detective Kate Rylett — and it may be the portrayal that sums up The Stranger best. Writing as well as directing, Wright has made a film that is indeed dedicated, determined and draining. At every moment, including in sweeping yet shadowy imagery and an on-edge score, those feelings radiate from the screen as they do from Alberts. Sharing the latter's emotional exhaustion comes with the territory; sharing their sense of purpose does as well. In the quest to capture a man who abducted and murdered a child, Rylett can't escape the case's horrors — and, although the specific details aren't used, there's been no evading the reality driving this feature. The Stranger doesn't depict the crime that sparked Kate Kyriacou's non-fiction book The Sting: The Undercover Operation That Caught Daniel Morcombe's Killer, or any violence. It doesn't use the Queensland schoolboy's name, or have actors portray him or his family. This was always going to be an inherently discomforting and distressing movie, though, but it's also an unwaveringly intelligent and impressive examination of trauma. There's no other word to describe what Mark and Rylett experience — and, especially as it delves into Mark's psychological state as he juggles his job with being a single father, The Stranger is a film about tolls. What echoes do investigating and seeking justice for an atrocious act leave? Here, the portrait is understandably bleak and anguished. What imprint do such incidences have upon society more broadly? That also falls into the movie's examination. Mark, along with a sizeable group of fellow officers, is trying to get a confession and make an arrest. Back east, Rylett is one of the police who won't and can't let the situation go. Doling out its narrative in a structurally ambitious way, The Stranger doesn't directly address the human need for resolution, or to restore a semblance of order and security after something so heinously shocking, but that's always baked into its frames anyway. Travelling across the country, Henry first meets a stranger on a bus, getting chatting to Paul (Steve Mouzakis, Clickbait) en route. It's the possibility of work that hooks the ex-con and drifter — perhaps more so knowing that his potential new gig will be highly illicit, and that evading the authorities is implicit. Soon he meets Mark, then seizes the opportunity to reinvent himself in a criminal organisation, not knowing that he's actually palling around with the cops. It's an immense sting, fictionalised but drawn from actuality, with The Stranger also playing as a procedural. The connecting the dots-style moves remain with Rylett, but Wright's decision to hone in on the police operation still means detailing how to catch a killer, astutely laying out the minutiae via action rather than chatting through the bulk of the ins and outs. Read our full review. AMSTERDAM There's only one Wes Anderson, but there's a litany of wannabes. Why can't David O Russell be among them? Take the first filmmaker's The Grand Budapest Hotel, mix in the second's American Hustle and that's as good a way as any to start describing Amsterdam, Russell's return to the big screen after a seven-year gap following 2015's Joy — and a starry period comedy, crime caper and history lesson all in one. Swap pastels for earthier hues, still with a love of detail, and there's the unmistakably Anderson-esque look of the film. Amsterdam is a murder-mystery, too, set largely in the 1930s against a backdrop of increasing fascism, and filled with more famous faces than most movies can dream of. The American Hustle of it all springs from the "a lot of this actually happened" plot, this time drawing upon a political conspiracy called the White House/Wall Street Putsch, and again unfurling a wild true tale. A Russell returnee sits at the centre, too: Christian Bale (Thor: Love and Thunder) in his third film for the writer/director. The former did help guide the latter to an Oscar for The Fighter, then a nomination for American Hustle — but while Bale is welcomely and entertainingly loose and freewheeling, and given ample opportunity to show his comic chops in his expressive face and physicality alone, Amsterdam is unlikely to complete the trifecta of Academy Awards recognition. The lively movie's cast is its strongest asset, though, including the convincing camaraderie between Bale, John David Washington (Malcolm & Marie) and Margot Robbie (The Suicide Squad). They play pals forged in friendship during World War I, then thanks to a stint in the titular Dutch city. A doctor, a lawyer and a nurse — at least at some point in the narrative — they revel in love and art during their uninhabited stay, then get caught in chaos 15 years later. Amsterdam begins in the later period, with Burt Berendsen (Bale) tending to veterans — helping those with war injuries and lingering pain, as he himself has — without a medical license. He once had a Park Avenue practice, but his military enlistment and his fall from the well-heeled set afterwards all stems from his snobbish wife Beatrice (Andrea Riseborough, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain) and her social-climbing (and prejudiced) parents. As he did in the war, however, Burt aids who he can where he can, including with fellow ex-soldier Harold Woodman (Washington). That's how he ends up lending a hand (well, a scalpel) to the well-to-do Liz Meekins (Taylor Swift, Cats) after the unexpected death of her father and their old Army general (Ed Begley Jr, Better Call Saul). The bereaved daughter suspects foul play and Burt and Harold find it, but with fingers pointing their way when there's suddenly another body. Two police detectives (The Old Guard's Matthias Schoenaerts and The Many Saints of Newark's Alessandro Nivola), both veterans themselves, come a-snooping — and Burt and Harold now have two tasks. Clearing their names and figuring out what's going on are intertwined, of course, and also just the start of a story that isn't short on developments and twists (plus early flashes back to 1918 to set up the core trio, their bond, their heady bliss and a pact that they'll keep looking out for each other). There's a shagginess to both the tale and the telling, because busy and rambling is the vibe, especially with so much stuffed into the plot. One of Amsterdam's worst traits is its overloaded and convoluted feel, seeing that there's the IRL past to explore, a message about history repeating itself to deliver along with it, and enough mayhem to fuel several romps to spill out around it. The pacing doesn't help, flitting between zipping and dragging — and usually busting out the wrong one for each scene. Read our full review. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in Australian cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on July 7, July 14, July 21 and July 28; August 4, August 11, August 18 and August 25; and September 1, September 8, September 15, September 22 and September 29. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as Thor: Love and Thunder, Compartment No. 6, Sundown, The Gray Man, The Phantom of the Open, The Black Phone, Where the Crawdads Sing, Official Competition, The Forgiven, Full Time, Murder Party, Bullet Train, Nope, The Princess, 6 Festivals, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Crimes of the Future, Bosch & Rockit, Fire of Love, Beast, Blaze, Hit the Road, Three Thousand Years of Longing, Orphan: First Kill, The Quiet Girl, Flux Gourmet, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Moonage Daydream, Ticket to Paradise, Clean, You Won't Be Alone, See How They Run, Smile, On the Count of Three and The Humans.
In 1955, J.R.R. Tolkien claimed that 'cellar door' was one of the most phonically beautiful phrases in the English language. We really have to agree, but it's mostly because of what's behind the cellar door: wine and cheese. And hidden away in Chippendale is a cellar that we're really keen to explore. Handpicked Cellar Door sits on the corner of Kensington and Outram Streets, much to the delight of Sydney wine enthusiasts. It's the project of Handpicked Wines, a young but celebrated winery, with vineyards operating across Australia, Italy, Chile and New Zealand. Their cellar door project aims to bring wines from across their vineyards together in one place — along with charcuterie, of course. Handpicked Cellar Door is pushing the whole 'cellar' vibe, decorating with exposed brick and littering the venue with fermenting wine tanks. Guests can also be educated by interactive iPad experience or go deep with 30-minute tutorials and tastings. Even better (if possible) is the fact that HCD will also operate as your new off-license and booze delivery service. Take away wine by the bottle or order online and have it delivered straight to you. Oh, and the cheese! The selection's being curated (along with other charcuterie staples) by Formaggi Ocello, cheese specialists from Surry Hills.
Sometimes Apple TV+ dives into real-life crimes, as miniseries Black Bird did. Sometimes it mines the whodunnit setup for laughs, which The Afterparty winningly achieved. The family feuds of Bad Sisters, Servant's domestic horrors, Hello Tomorrow!'s retrofuturistic dream, the titular take on work-life balance in Severance — they've all presented streaming audiences with puzzles, too, because this platform's original programming loves a mystery. So, of course The Big Door Prize, the service's new dramedy, is all about asking questions from the outset. Here, no one is wondering who killed who, why a baby has been resurrected or if a situation that sounds too good to be true unsurprisingly is. Rather, they're pondering a magical machine and what it tells them about themselves. That premise isn't merely a metaphor for existential musings, although everyone in The Big Door Prize does go down the "what does it all mean?" rabbit hole. When the Morpho pops up in the small town of Deerfield, it literally informs residents of their true potential — for $2, their palm prints and social security number. Adorned with a butterfly symbol and glowing with blue light, the contraption looks like an arcade game. There's nothing to play, though, unless it is playing everyone who sits in its booth. Participants receive an also-blue business card for their troubles, proclaiming what they're supposed to be doing with their life in bold white lettering. Is it a bit of fun? A modern-day clairvoyant game? A gag? Somehow spot-on? Also, where did the machine come from? Who brought it to the local grocery store? Can it be trusted? The longer that folks share their existence with the Morpho, the more queries arise. As seen in the first three episodes that dropped on Wednesday, March 29, with the story then continuing weekly for the show's ten-episode first season — a second has just been greenlit as well — not everyone in Deerfield is initially fascinated with the locale's new gadget. The series opens as high-school history teacher Dusty Hubbard (Chris O'Dowd, Slumberland) turns 40, marking the occasion with that many gifts from his wife Cass (Gabrielle Dennis, A Black Lady Sketch Show) and teenage daughter Trina (Djouliet Amara, Devil in Ohio). Some presents he likes, such as the scooter and helmet. Others he's perplexed by, including the theremin. He's also baffled by all the talk about the Morpho, the new reason to head to Mr Johnson's (Patrick Kerr, Search Party) store. As school principal Pat (Cocoa Brown, Never Have I Ever) embraces her inner biker because the machine said so, and charisma-dripping restaurateur Giorgio (Josh Segarra, Scream VI) revels in being told he's a superstar, Dusty claims he's happy not joining in. Lines sprawl down the street in a town that only really has a main street, and a high school, as Deerfield's inhabitants are drawn in by the Morpho's promise: "Discover Your Life Potential". For someone who keeps saying he's sitting it out, Dusty sure does love obsessing over why everyone else is upending their routines because 80s-esque technology spat out their destiny. His parents announce that they're splitting, for instance, with his dad (Jim Meskimen, American Auto) pursuing male modelling and his mother (Deirdre O'Connell, Outer Range) heading to Europe after the machine advised that she's a healer. When Dusty points that his mum is already a doctor, it falls on deaf ears. So goes the entire town, making snap decisions and grabbing the opportunity to reinvent themselves, mix up lives that didn't ever seem like they'd change and reassess what they truly want. The Big Door Prize itself hasn't appeared out of nowhere, adapting MO Walsh's book of the same name. On-screen, it boasts David West Read as its creator — a writer and producer who knows a thing or two about pursuing alternate storylines thanks to penning stage musical & Juliet, which gives Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet a revisionist twist and continuation, and is also well-versed in small-town hijinks after winning an Emmy for Schitt's Creek. He's in far less overtly comic territory than the latter here; The Big Door Prize is still amusing, but rarely laugh-a-minute, although The Other Two delight Segarra could walk straight out of this and into Read's past hit. Still, this is also about a family disrupted while navigating small-town life, the assorted people who populate such spots, the rituals and gathering points that communities congregate around, and the quest to find significance in the cards you've been dealt. Making the most of its strong ensemble cast, each of the show's first eight episodes focuses on a particular Deerfield citizen and their potential, while keeping Dusty, Cass and their marriage in view, plus Trina's grief over her boyfriend's recent death and his identical twin Jacob's (debutant Sammy Fourlas) efforts to cope. All four earn their own chapter, as does Cass' mother and town mayor Izzy (Crystal Fox, Big Little Lies), Jacob's western-loving dad Beau (Aaron Roman Weiner, Suspicion), aforementioned NHL star-turned-Italian eatery owner Giorgio and school chaplain Father Rueben (Damon Gupton, Your Honor). This approach helps The Big Door Prize get not just philosophical but universal, because the Morpho's fortune-telling means different things to different people, yet sparks ripples that flow over everyone. While only bartender Hana (Ally Maki, Hacks) genuinely opts out, there's a tale around that as well. From the get-go, the Morpho nabs viewers' intrigue — and so do the strange cobalt dots, matching the machine's chosen palette, that appear early on Dusty's rear. There's no shortage of small mysteries in Deerfield, just as there's no lack of quirks (see: the town's staycation spot, aka "the number one nautical-based hotel in Deerfield", plus the canal and gondola inside Giorgio's eponymous restaurant). But like The Twilight Zone-meets-The Box but lighter, with nods to Schitt's Creek and sharing Wes Anderson's love of visually magnifying the everyday, The Big Door Prize gets its audience ruminating over two main questions. The first, in classic Apple TV+ mystery-style: what's really going on? The second: if a machine could advise how to best spend your days, possibly shattering your long-held dreams but maybe confirming your deepest desires, what would you do? In lieu of physically slipping into Dusty and co's shoes, then facing The Big Door Prize's scenario themselves, viewers should watch. Wanting to solve the show's key mystery makes this addictive viewing — and if you start thinking about Lost, or even the theory that Schitt's Creek was happening in purgatory, that's understandable. As written so convincingly across O'Dowd's expressive face, though, The Big Door Prize isn't about delivering instant answers. The likeable The IT Crowd, Bridesmaids and Moone Boy star plays a man who has never actively sought any himself, but just complied with the done thing, a path that's beginning to unravel. Easy proclamations now surround him; however, alongside his fellow townsfolk, he's learning that life's mundanities and enigmas alike don't fit neatly and nicely into any one box — and nor does this engaging series. Check out the trailer for The Big Door Prize below: The Big Door Prize streams via Apple TV+.
Barbenheimer, aka the simultaneous release of Barbie and Oppenheimer on the silver screen on the same day, is the biggest thing in cinemas worldwide right now. Thanks to the current situation in Hollywood, it might just prove the biggest thing in picture palaces for the rest of 2023. With Tinseltown's actors and writers currently striking for better conditions, film studios are reportedly rethinking their release plans, which means likely pushing back some of the year's other big blockbusters until 2024. Already Down Under, Australian crime-thriller Force of Nature: The Dry 2 has ditched its planned August release, with star Eric Bana a member of the striking SAG-AFTRA. Unsurprisingly, it seems that more movies will follow — and globally. Variety reports that Dune: Part Two, Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom and The Colour Purple are among the titles being considered for a 2024 rendezvous with cinemagoers instead. Also possibly getting a release-date rethink, Variety predicts: The Marvels, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and Napoleon. Yes, it's happening again, maybe: just like when the pandemic sparked stay-at-home orders, restrictions and closed cinemas, a heap of big-name flicks might shift back their debuts in cinemas. The list of titles that Hollywood's studios are considering pushing is undoubtedly even longer — spanning more than sandworms, underwater superheroes, Oprah Winfrey-produced musicals, Marvel teamups, volunteering as tribute and French emperors. For cinema's spiciest sci-fi saga, this is a particularly familiar situation. Dune: Part One was delayed considerably due to COVID-19, jumping from Boxing Day 2020 to early December 2021. Wondering exactly why dates could be pushed back this time if the films are already finished, or the actors and writers have already done their parts? Neither stars nor scribes are permitted to promote films during the strike. That means no Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya talking about getting sandy, Jason Momoa chatting about life underwater and the like. Splashing famous faces around via interviews is usually a big part of a movie's promotional strategy — aka something that the studios value from actors, a fact that shouldn't escape notice given the current situation. Hollywood talents are fighting against diminishing residual payments for performers, and to establish firm rules about the future use of artificial intelligence in the industry, among other improvements to working conditions. When they took action in mid-July, SAG-AFTRA's members joined their counterparts in the Writers Guild of America, who've been striking since May. We'll update you if and when any of this year's big upcoming movies change their release date. Via Variety.
Popularity and greatness aren't the same thing, especially in art, but it's always nice when one — or some — of the movies that are getting audiences flocking to cinemas are among the year's best. 2023 managed that feat with Barbie and Oppenheimer. Across 2024's first six months, Dune: Part Two is leading the charge, and spicily. So, if you did see the latest trip to Arrakis at your local picture palace, you saw one of the highlights of the year so far. The newest exploits of House Atreides and the Fremen fuel just one of 2024's standouts starring Zendaya. Tennis love-triangle drama Challengers, the other, is also merely one of the new flicks this year to feature Josh O'Connor, too — as folks who caught Italian gem La Chimera know. As with every year, this turn of the calendar has been filled with filmic variety, including among the movies that we should all be talking about well into the future. Some won Oscars. Others would've in different years. Some unpack icons. Others demonstrate why particular actors are icons. Some whisk audiences back to the past. Others feel like reliving a memory. Even at 2024's midpoint, whittling down the top silver-screen releases so far isn't an easy task. It's true now as it always is no matter the year: more than 15 excellent features have debuted on screens Down Under between January–June, whether they were brand-new around the world or just new to us after premiering elsewhere in 2023. The absolute best of the best demand an immediate rewatch. They delight, surprise, challenge and engage. Give them another spin — or, if you missed them to-date, a first look — and you're in for a helluva ace viewing experience. Perfect Days When Lou Reed's 'Perfect Day' enjoyed its initial sublime movie moment in Trainspotting, it soundtracked a descent into heroin's depths, including literally via the film's visual choices. For three decades since, that's been the tune's definitive on-screen use. Now drifts in Perfect Days, the Oscar-nominated Japan-set drama from German filmmaker Wim Wenders (Submergence). This slice-of-life movie takes its name from the song. It also places the iconic David Bowie-produced classic among the tracks listened to by toilet cleaner Hirayama (Kôji Yakusho, Vivant) as he goes about his daily routine. Fond of 60s- and 70s-era music, the Tokyo native's picks say everything about his mindset, both day by day and in his zen approach to his modest existence. 'Perfect Day' and Nina Simone's 'Feeling Good' each also sum up the feeling of watching this gorgeous ode to making the most of what you have, seeing beauty in the everyday and being in the moment. Not every tune that Hirayama pops into his van's tape deck — cassettes are still his format of choice — has the same type of title. Patti Smith's 'Redondo Beach', The Animals' 'The House of the Rising Sun', Otis Redding's '(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay' and The Rolling Stones' '(Walkin' Thru the) Sleepy City' also rank among his go-tos, all reflecting his mood in their own ways. If there's a wistfulness to Hirayama's music selections, it's in the manner that comes over all of us when we hark back to something that we first loved when we were younger. Perfect Days' protagonist is at peace with his life, however. Subtly layered into the film is the idea that things were once far different and more-conventionally successful, but Hirayama wasn't as content as he now is doing the rounds of the Japanese capital's public bathrooms, blasting his favourite songs between stops, eating lunch in a leafy park and photographing trees with an analogue camera. Read our full review. Love Lies Bleeding In Love Lies Bleeding, a craggy ravine just outside a dusty New Mexico town beckons, ready to swallow sordid secrets in the dark of the desert's starry night. Tumbling into it, a car explodes in flames partway through the movie, exactly as the person pushing it in wants it to. There's the experience of watching Rose Glass' sophomore film emblazoned across the feature's very frames. After the expertly unsettling Saint Maud, the British writer/director returns with a second psychological horror, this time starring Kristen Stewart in the latest of her exceptionally chosen post-Twilight roles (see: Crimes of the Future, Spencer, Happiest Season, Lizzie, Personal Shopper, Certain Women and Clouds of Sils Maria). An 80s-set queer and sensual tale of love, lust, blood and violence, Love Lies Bleeding is as inkily alluring as the gorge that's pivotal to its plot, and as fiery as the inferno that swells from the canyon's depths. This neon-lit, synth-scored neo-noir thriller scorches, too — and burns so brightly that there's no escaping its glow. When the words "you have to see it to believe it" also grace Love Lies Bleeding — diving into gyms and in the bodybuilding world, it's no stranger to motivational statements such as "no pain no gain", "destiny is a decision" and "the body achieves what the mind believes" — they help sum up this wild cinematic ride as well. Glass co-scripts here with Weronika Tofilska (they each previously penned and helmed segments of 2015's A Moment in Horror), but her features feel like the result of specific, singular and searing visions that aren't afraid to swerve and veer boldly and committedly to weave their stories and leave an imprint. Accordingly, Love Lies Bleeding is indeed a romance, a crime flick and a revenge quest. It's about lovers on the run (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania's Katy O'Brian pairs with Stewart) and intergenerational griminess. It rages against the machine. It's erotic, a road trip and unashamedly pulpy. It also takes the concept of strong female leads to a place that nothing else has, and you do need to witness it to fathom it. Read our full review, and our interview with Rose Glass. The Zone of Interest Quotes and observations about evil being mundane, as well as the result when people look the other way, will never stop being relevant. A gripping, unsettling masterpiece, The Zone of Interest is a window into why. The first film by Sexy Beast, Birth and Under the Skin director Jonathan Glazer in more than a decade, the Holocaust-set feature peers on as the unthinkable happens literally just over the fence, but a family goes about its ordinary life. If it seems abhorrent that anything can occur in the shadow of any concentration camp or site of World War II atrocities, that's part of the movie's point. It dwells in the Interessengebiet, the 40-square-kilometre-plus titular area that comprised and surrounded the Auschwitz complex, to interrogate how banal genocide was to those in power; commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel, Babylon Berlin), even gloats that his name will be remembered and celebrated for its connection to mass extermination. Höss was a real person, and the real Nazi SS officer overseeing Auschwitz from 1940–43. His wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall) and five children are similarly drawn from truth. But The Zone of Interest finds its way to the screen via Martin Amis' fiction novel of the same name, then hones its interest down from the book's three narrators to the Höss family; a biopic, it isn't, even as it switches its character monikers back to reflect actuality. This is a work of deep probing and contemplation — a piece that demands that its viewers confront the daily reality witnessed and face how the lives of those in power, and benefiting from it, thrived with death not only as a neighbour but an enabler. Camp prisoners tend the Höss' garden. Ashes are strewn over the soil for horticultural effect. Being turned into the same is a threat used to keep the household's staff in line. All three of these details, as with almost everything in the feature, are presented with as matter-of-fact an air as cinema is capable of. Read our full review. Anatomy of a Fall A calypso instrumental cover of 50 Cent's 'P.I.M.P.' isn't the only thing that Anatomy of a Fall's audience won't be able to dislodge from their heads after watching 2023's deserving Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or-winner. A film that's thorny, knotty and defiantly unwilling to give any easy answers, this legal, psychological and emotional thriller about a woman on trial for her husband's death is unshakeable in as many ways as someone can have doubts about another person: so, a myriad. The scenario conjured up by writer/director Justine Triet (Sibyl) is haunting, asking not only if her protagonist committed murder, as the on-screen investigation and courtroom proceedings interrogate, but digging into what it means to be forced to choose between whether someone did the worst or is innocent — or if either matters. While the Gallic legal system provides the backdrop for much of the movie, the real person doing the real picking isn't there in a professional capacity, or on a jury. Rather, it's the 11-year-old boy who loved his dad, finds him lying in the snow with a head injury outside their French Alps home on an otherwise ordinary day, then becomes the key witness in his mum's case. Also impossible to forget: the performances that are so crucial in telling this tale of marital and parental bonds, especially from one of German's current best actors and the up-and-coming French talent playing her son. With her similarly astonishing portrayal in The Zone of Interest, Toni Erdmann and I'm Your Man's Sandra Hüller is two for two in movies that initially debuted in 2023; here, she steps into the icy and complicated Sandra Voyter's shoes with the same kind of surgical precision that Triet applies to unpacking the character's home life. As Daniel, who couldn't be more conflicted about the nightmare situation he's been thrust into, Milo Machado Graner (Alex Hugo) is a revelation — frequently via his expressive face and posture alone. If Scenes From a Marriage met Kramer vs Kramer, plus 1959's Anatomy of a Murder that patently influences Anatomy of a Fall's name, this would be the gripping end result — as fittingly written by Triet with her IRL partner Arthur Harari (Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle). Read our full review. Priscilla Yearning to be one of the women in Sofia Coppola's films is futile, but for a single reason only: whether she's telling of teenage sisters, a wife left to her own devices in Tokyo, France's most-famous queen, the daughter of a Hollywood actor, Los Angeles high schoolers who want to rob, the staff and students at a girls school in the American Civil War, a Manhattanite worried that her husband is being unfaithful or Priscilla Presley, as the writer/director has across eight movies to-date, no one better plunges viewers into her female characters' hearts and heads. To watch the filmmaker's span of features from The Virgin Suicides to Priscilla is to feel as its figures do, and deeply. The second-generation helmer is an impressionistic great, colouring her flicks as much with emotions and mood as actual hues — not that there's any shortage of lush and dreamy shades, as intricately tied to her on-screen women's inner states, swirling through her meticulous frames. Call it the "can't help falling" effect, then: as a quarter-century of Coppola's films have graced screens, audiences can't help falling into them like they're in the middle of each themselves. That's still accurate with Priscilla, which arrives so soon after Elvis that no one could've forgotten that the lives of the king of rock 'n' roll and his bride have flickered through cinemas recently. Baz Luhrmann made his Presley movie in Australia with an American (Austin Butler, The Bikeriders) as Elvis and an Aussie (Olivia DeJonge, The Staircase) as Priscilla. Coppola crafted hers in North America with a Brisbanite (Jacob Elordi, Saltburn) in blue-suede shoes and a Tennessee-born talent (Cailee Spaeny, Mare of Easttown) adopting the Presley surname. The two features are mirror images in a hunk of burning ways, including their his-and-hers titles; whose viewpoint they align with; and conveying what it was like to adore Elvis among the masses, plus why he sparked that fervour, compared to expressing the experience of being the girl that he fell for, married, sincerely loved but kept in a gilded cage into she strove to fly free. Read our full review, and our interview with Cailee Spaeny. Robot Dreams Heartbreak is two souls wanting nothing more than each other, but life having other plans. So goes Robot Dreams, another dialogue-free marvel from Spanish filmmaker Pablo Berger, who had audiences feeling without words uttered with 2012's Blancanieves — and showed then with black and white imagery, as he does now with animation, that he's a master at deeply expressive visual storytelling. His fourth picture as a director was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2024 Academy Awards. In most years, if it wasn't up against Studio Ghibli's The Boy and the Heron, it would've taken home the Oscar. It earns not just affection instead, but the awe deserved of a movie that perfects the sensation of longing for someone to navigate life with, finding them, adoring them, then having fate doing what fate does by throwing up complications. Usually this would be a boy-meets-girl, boy-meets-boy or girl-meets-girl story. Here, it's a dog-meets-robot tale. The time: the 80s, with nods to Tab and Pong to prove it. The place: a version of Manhattan where anthropomorphised animals are the only inhabitants — plus mechanised offsiders that, just by placing an order and putting together the contents of the package that arrives, can be built as instant friends. Eating macaroni meals for one and watching TV solo in his small East Village apartment each evening, Dog is achingly lonely when he orders his Amica 2000 after seeing an infomercial. As he tinkers to construct Robot, pigeons watch on from the window, but they've never been his company. Soon exuberantly strutting the streets hand in hand with his maker, the android is a dream pal, however, this kismet pairing isn't what gives Robot Dreams its name. Read our full review. Civil War Civil War is not a relaxing film, either for its characters or viewers, but writer/director Alex Garland (Men) does give Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog) a moment to lie down among the flowers. She isn't alone among this stunning movie's stars on her stomach on a property filled with Christmas decorations en route from New York to Washington DC. Also, with shots being fired back and forth, no one is in de-stressing mode. For viewers of Dunst's collaborations with Sofia Coppola, however — a filmmaker that her Civil War co-star Cailee Spaeny just played Priscilla Presley for in Priscilla — the sight of her face beside grass and blooms was always going to recall The Virgin Suicides. Twenty-five years have now passed since that feature, which Garland nods to as a handy piece of intertextual shorthand. As the camera's focus shifts between nature and people, there's not even a tiny instant of bliss among this sorrow, nor will there ever be, as there was the last time that Dunst was framed in a comparable fashion. Instead, Civil War tasks its lead with stepping into the shoes of a seasoned war photographer in the middle of the violent US schism that gives the movie its name (and, with January 6, 2021 so fresh in everyone's memories, into events that could very well be happening in a version of right now). The US President (Nick Offerman, Origin) is into his third term after refusing to leave office, and the fallout is both polarising and immense. Think: bombed cities, suicide attackers, death squads, torture, lynchings, ambushes, snipers, shuttering the FBI, California and Texas inexplicably forming an alliance to fight back, Florida making its own faction, journalists killed on sight, refugee camps, deserted highways, checkpoints, resistance fighters, mass graves and, amid the rampant anarchy, existence as America currently knows it clearly obliterated. (Asking "what kind of American are you?" barely seems a stretch, though.) The front line is in Charlottesville, but Dunst's Lee Smith is destined for the White House with Reuters reporter Joel (Wagner Moura, Mr & Mrs Smith), where they're hoping to evade the lethal anti-media sentiment to secure an interview with the leader who has torn the country apart. Read our full review. La Chimera It's a film about searching for treasure, and it is indeed a treasure. La Chimera is also dreamy in its look and, while watching, makes its viewers feel as if they've been whisked into one. There's much that fantasies are made of in writer/director Alice Rohrwacher's fourth feature, which follows Corpo Celeste, The Wonders and Happy as Lazzaro — God's Own Country breakout and The Crown star Josh O'Connor leading the picture as a British archaeologist raiding tombs in 80s-era Italy chief among them. Thinking about Lara Croft, be it the game, or the Angelina Jolie (in 2001 and 2003 flicks)- or Alicia Vikander (2018's Tomb Raider)-led movies, is poking into the wrong patch of soil. Thinking instead about the way that life is built upon the dead again and again, and upon unearthed secrets as well, is part of what makes La Chimera gleam. Rohrwacher's latest, which also boasts her Happy as Lazzaro collaborator Carmela Covino as a collaborating writer — plus Marco Pettenello (Io vivo altrove!) — resembles an illusion not just because it's a rare mix of both magical-realist and neorealist in one, too (well, rare for most who aren't this director). In addition, this blend of romance and drama alongside tragedy and comedy sports its mirage-esque vibe thanks to being so welcomely easy to get lost in. As a snapshot of a tombaroli gang in Tuscany that pilfers from Etruscan crypts to try to get by, it's a feature to dig into. As an example of how poetic a film can be, it's one to soar with. The loose red thread that weaves throughout La Chimera's frames, intriguing folks within the movie, also embodies how viewers should react: we want to chase it and hold on forever, even as we know that, as the feature's 130 minutes tick by, the picture is destined to slip through our fingers. Read our full review. The Taste of Things Cooking is an act of precision. It's also one of feeling. On the movie that nabbed him the Best Director award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Trần Anh Hùng (Éternité, Norwegian Wood) helms with the same care, spirit and emotion that his characters display in the kitchen. The Taste of Things' audience has a front-row seat to both, as this 1885-set French picture begins with dishes upon dishes being whipped up and the feature's gaze, via cinematographer Jonathan Ricquebourg (Final Cut), lenses their creation intimately and sumptuously. The film's extraordinary opening 30 minutes-plus, as the camera is trained on the stove and counter with slight detours around the room to collect or wash ingredients, is meticulously crafted and at the same time instinctual. Think: the sensations of observing the finest of fine-dining chefs and being a child watching your grandmother make culinary magic, as nearly every kid has, all rolled into one appetising introductory sequence. In the home of gourmand Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel, The King of Algiers), and in its heart, his personal chef Eugénie (Juliette Binoche, The New Look) is so skilled and fastidious that she'd do small-screen hit The Bear proud; she's clearly a conjurer of the culinary arts, too. Hùng and Ricquebourg — the latter a well-deserving Lumiere Award-winner for his efforts here — are methodical with the choreography of setting the scene, while equally deeply immersed in the flow of the kitchen's tasks. As soundtracked by chirping birds, if this was The Taste of Things for 135 minutes and not just half an hour-ish, it'd remain a mesmerising movie. (A word of warning: eat before viewing, lest hunger pangs not just simmer but boil over.) Adapting 1924 novel The Passionate Epicure: La Vie et la Passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet by epicure Marcel Rouff as he scripts and directs, Hùng does more than fashion among the most-handsomely staged and shot imagery of a meal coming to life, but his approach to this entrée establishes the flavour. Read our full review. Dune: Part Two Revenge is a dish best served sandy in Dune: Part Two. On the desert planet of Arrakis, where golden hills as far as the eye can see are shaped from the most-coveted and -psychedelic substance in author Frank Herbert's estimation, there's no other way. Vengeance is just one course on Paul Atreides' (Timothée Chalamet, Wonka) menu, however. Pop culture's supreme spice boy, heir to the stewardship of his adopted realm, has a prophecy to fulfil whether he likes it or not; propaganda to navigate, especially about him being the messiah; and an Indigenous population, the Fremen, to prove himself to. So mines Denis Villeneuve's soaring sequel to 2021's Dune, which continues exploring the costs and consequences of relentless quests for power — plus the justifications, compromises, tragedies and narratives that are inescapable in such pursuits. The filmmaker crafts his fourth contemplative and breathtaking sci-fi movie in a row, then, after Arrival and Blade Runner 2049 as well. The vast arid expanse that constantly pervades the frames in Dune: Part Two isn't solely a stunning sight. It looks spectacular, as the entire feature does, with Australian cinematographer Greig Fraser (The Creator) back after winning an Oscar for the first Dune; but as Paul, his widowed mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson, Silo), and Fremen Stilgar (Javier Bardem, The Little Mermaid) and Chani (Zendaya, Euphoria) traverse it, it helps carve in some of this page-to-screen saga's fundamental ideas. So does the stark monochrome when the film jumps to Giedi Prime, home world to House Harkonnen, House Atreides' enemy, plus Arrakis' ruler both before and after Paul's dad Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) got the gig in Villeneuve's initial Dune. People here are dwarfed not only by their mammoth surroundings, but by the bigger, broader, non-stop push for supremacy. While there's no shortage of detail in both Part One and Part Two — emotional, thematic and visual alike — there's also no avoiding that battling against being mere pawns in an intergalactic game of chess is another of its characters' complicated fights. Read our full review, and our interview with Greig Fraser. The Promised Land The transfixing terrain of Mads Mikkelsen's face has been cast against formidably frosty and inhospitable climes before, weathering mirroring weathering. Sporting a piercing and determined glint in his eye, the Danish acting great has previously surveyed the Scandinavian landscape, too, seeing possibility where others spot peril. It was true in Arctic, in Valhalla Rising and now in The Promised Land: there's no stare as mesmerisingly resolute as his. When Ludvig Kahlen, Mikkelsen's latest character, insists that he can do what no one else has done — to begin with: settling the heath on the heather-covered Jutland moorland and building a colony for the king, a feat considered virtually impossible in the mid-18th century — doubting him isn't a possibility for anyone in the movie's audience. The BAFTA-nominated Another Round star has danced in historical drama territory for his countryman director Nikolaj Arcel in the past as well, with the pair reteaming after 2012's Oscar-nominated A Royal Affair. A different king sits on the throne in this film, Frederick V instead of Christian VII; however, the regal shadow remains inescapable. This time, Mikkelsen and Arcel tell not of a doctor influencing a monarch and a country, but of a soldier aligning his quest for a better future with a sovereign's wish, and learning what it means to chase a dream only to realise that you need something less tangible. Kahlen's attempt to farm land considered barren is equally a battle against entitlement and arrogance thanks to his clash with Frederik de Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg, Borgen), a cruel local magistrate who contends that the king's land is his own — and feels far enough away from Copenhagen for there not to be any consequences for his claim. Read our full review. Challengers Tennis is a game of serves, shots, slices and smashes, and also of approaches, backhands, rallies and volleys. Challengers is a film of each, too, plus a movie about tennis. As it follows a love triangle that charts a path so back and forth that its ins and outs could be carved by a ball being hit around on the court, it's a picture that takes its aesthetic, thematic and emotional approach from the sport that its trio of protagonists are obsessed with as well. Tennis is everything to Tashi Duncan (Zendaya, Dune: Part Two), Art Donaldson (Mike Faist, West Side Story) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor, La Chimera), other than the threesome themselves being everything to each other. It's a stroke of genius to fashion the feature about them around the game they adore, then. Metaphors comparing life with a pastime are easy to coin. Movies that build such a juxtaposition into their fabric are far harder to craft. But it's been true of Luca Guadagnino for decades: he's a craftsman. Jumping from one Dune franchise lead to another, after doing Call Me By Your Name and Bones and All with Timothée Chalamet, Guadagnino proves something else accurate that's been his cinematic baseline: he's infatuated with the cinema of yearning. Among his features so far, only in Bones and All was the hunger for connection literal. The Italian director didn't deliver cannibalism in Call Me By Your Name and doesn't in Challengers, but longing is the strongest flavour in all three, and prominent across the filmmaker's Suspiria, A Bigger Splash and I Am Love also. So, combine the idea of styling a movie around a tennis match — one spans its entire duration, in fact — with a lusty love triangle, romantic cravings and three players at the top of their field, then this is the sublime end product. Challengers is so smartly constructed, so well thought-out down to every meticulous detail, so sensual and seductive, and so on point in conveying Tashi plus Art and Patrick's feelings, that it's instantly one of Guadagnino's grand slams. Read our full review, as well as what Zendaya, Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist had to say about the film when they were in Australia. All of Us Strangers As Fleabag knew, and also Sherlock as well, Andrew Scott has the type of empathetic face that makes people want to keep talking to him. Playing the hot priest in Phoebe Waller-Bridge's (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) acclaimed comedy, he was the ultimate listener. Even as the Moriarty to Benedict Cumberbatch's (The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar) Holmes, and with a game always afoot, conversation flowed. All of Us Strangers puts this innate air — this sensation that to be in Scott's company is to want to unburden yourself to his welcoming ears — at its tender and feverishly beating heart, this time with Paul Mescal (Foe) as one of his discussion partners. Dreamy and contemplative, haunting and heartfelt, and also delicate and devastating, the fifth film by Weekend and 45 Years writer/director Andrew Haigh, which is his first since 2017's Lean on Pete, is stunningly cast with Scott in seeing-is-feeling mode as its isolated screenwriter protagonist alone. That Scott is joined by Mescal, Claire Foy (Women Talking) and Jamie Bell (Shining Girls) gives All of Us Strangers one of the finest four-hander casts in recent memory. Awards bodies clearly agree, with nods going around for everyone (alongside wins for Best Film and Best Director, the British Independent Film Awards gave all four of the feature's core cast members nominations, with Mescal scoring the Best Supporting Performance trophy, for instance). Haigh isn't merely preternaturally talented at picking the exact right actors to play his on-screen figures, but it's one of his most-crucial skills, as every performance in his latest shattering picture demonstrates. It comes as no surprise that Scott, Mescal, Foy and Bell are all excellent. It's similarly hardly unexpected that Haigh has made another movie that cuts so emotionally deep that viewers will feel as if they've been within its frames. Combine these stars with this filmmaker, though, and a feature that was always likely to combine its exceptional parts into a perfect sum is somehow even more affecting and astonishing. Read our full review. How to Have Sex Movies don't have pores, but How to Have Sex might as well. Following a trip to Greece with three 16-year-old best friends who want nothing more than to party their way into womanhood — and to get laid, too — this unforgettable British drama is frequently slick with sweat. Perspiration can dampen someone when they're giddily excited about a wild getaway, finishing school and leaving adolescence behind. It can get a person glistening when they're rushing and drinking, and flitting from pools and beaches to balconies and clubs. Being flushed from being sozzled, the stickiness that comes with expending energy, the cold chill of stress and horror, the fluster of a fluttering heart upon making a connection: they're all sources of wet skin as well. Filmmaker Molly Manning Walker catalogues them all. Viewers can see the sweat in How to Have Sex, with its intimate, spirited, like-you're-there cinematography. More importantly, audiences can feel why protagonist Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce, Vampire Academy) is perspiring, and the differences scene to scene, even when she's not quite sure herself. How to Have Sex also gets those watching sweating — because spying how you've been Tara, or her pals Em (debutant Enva Lewis) and Skye (Lara Peake, Halo), or lads Badger (Shaun Thomas, Ali & Ava) and Paddy (Samuel Bottomley, The Last Rifleman) in the neighbouring resort unit, is inescapable. Walker has been there herself, with parts of her debut feature as a writer and director drawn from her own time as a Tara, Em or Skye while also making the spring break and Schoolies-like pilgrimage from England to the Mediterranean. When the movie doesn't lift details directly from her own experience, it shares them with comparable moments that are virtually ripped from western teendom. One of the feature's strokes of genius is how lived-in it proves, whether Tara and her mates are as loud and exuberant as girls are when their whole lives are ahead of them, its main character is attempting to skip her troubles in a sea of strobing lights and dancing bodies, or slipping between the sheets — but not talking about it — is changing who Tara is forever. Read our full review, and our interview with Molly Manning Walker. Drive-Away Dolls No one might've thought of Joel and Ethan Coen as yin and yang if they hadn't started making movies separately. Since 2018's The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, their latest feature together as sibling filmmakers, the elder of the Coen brothers went with Shakespearean intensity by directing 2021's The Tragedy of Macbeth on his lonesome — while Ethan now opts for goofy, loose and hilariously sidesplitting silliness with Drive-Away Dolls. The pair aren't done collaborating, with a horror flick reportedly in the works next. But their break from being an Oscar-winning team has gifted audiences two treats in completely different fashions. For the younger brother, he's swapped in his wife Tricia Cooke, editor of The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Man Who Wasn't There, on a picture that couldn't slide more smoothly onto his resume alongside the madcap antics that the Coens combined are known for. Indeed, spying shades of the first of those two features that Cooke spliced in Drive-Away Dolls, plus Raising Arizona, Fargo and Burn After Reading as well, is both easy and delightful. As a duo, the Coen brothers haven't ever followed two women through lesbian bars, makeout parties and plenty of horniness between the sheets, though, amid wall dildos and other nods to intimate appendages, even if plenty about the Ethan-directed, Cooke-edited Drive-Away Dolls — which both Ethan and Cooke co-wrote — is classic Coens. There's the road-trip angle, conspiracy mayhem, blundering criminals in hot pursuit of Jamie (Margaret Qualley, Poor Things) and Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan, Cat Person), dumb men (those crooks again) in cars and just quirky characters all round. There's the anarchic chases, witty yet philosophical banter and highly sought-after briefcase at the centre of the plot, too. And, there's the fact that this is a comedic caper, its love of slapstick and that a wealth of well-known faces pop up as the zany antics snowball. The Joel-and-Ethan team hasn't made a film as sapphic as this, either, however, or one that's a 90s-set nod to, riff on, and parody of 60s- and 70s-era sexploitation raucousness. Read our full review, and our interview with Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke.
When the COVID-19 pandemic first started making its impact known, we all began to feel like we were living in a disaster movie. Contagion flicks, outbreak films, sci-fi fare about infectious diseases — they all echoed with eerie prescience. The next types of movies that might start cutting a little too close to home? Dystopian flicks about climate change's impact. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released its sixth assessment report about the state of the planet, global warming's impact and humanity's influence upon increasing temperatures — and it doesn't paint a calming picture. The big news: if no big moves are made in current efforts to combat climate change, the planet will warm by 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures by as early as 2030. That figure has been mentioned for some time as an unwanted milestone, as it's when climate scientists predict that higher temperatures, rising sea levels, heavier rains, longer fire seasons and worse droughts will kick in. Given the increasing frequency of extreme weather events around the world already, including Australia's devastating 2019–20 bushfire season, seeing these conditions worsen is obviously alarming news. Also flagged by the IPCC, which is the United Nations' body for assessing the science related to climate change, has been around since 1988 and has 195 members from around the world: that the planet has already warmed by 1.1 degree since industrialisation, and that Australia has warmed by 1.4 degrees. And, it has dubbed humanity's part in these increases as "unprecedented", with working group co-chair Dr Valérie Masson-Delmotte saying that "the role of human influence on the climate system is undisputed." The #IPCC released its latest #ClimateReport today, #ClimateChange 2021: the Physical Science Basis. "The role of human influence on the climate system is undisputed." – Working Group I Co-Chair @valmasdel Report ➡️ https://t.co/uU8bb4inBB Watch the video, 🎥 ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/hZOSU1xWQR — IPCC (@IPCC_CH) August 9, 2021 Also, even if the IPCC's most ambitious targets to arrest the impact of climate change were put in place, global warming would still likely hit 1.5 degrees by 2035. The body's scientists expect that the planet will warm by at least 1.6 degrees above pre-industrial temps regardless of whichever measures are put in place, before ideally beginning to drop again once those drastic mitigation tactics — things like large-scale reforestation projects, or being able to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — started to have an effect. It's no wonder that United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called the IPCC report "a "code red for humanity" in a statement. "The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk. Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible," he continued. "The internationally agreed threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius is perilously close. We are at imminent risk of hitting 1.5 degrees in the near term. The only way to prevent exceeding this threshold is by urgently stepping up our efforts, and pursuing the most ambitious path," the Secretary-General said. "This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet... If we combine forces now, we can avert climate catastrophe. But, as the report makes clear, there is no time for delay and no room for excuses." World leaders will meet at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow from October 31 this year to discuss the planet's plans to stop warming at 1.5 degrees. To read the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's sixth assessment report, head to the IPCC's website.
It isn't every year that the Cannes Film Festival awards its coveted top prize to a movie about having sex with — yes, with — a car. That year was 2021, and that winner was French thriller Titane. Topping such a pick might seem difficult but, when it came time to hand out the 2022 Palme d'Or, the prestigious fest gave the gong to a brutal social satire with a queasy, hilarious, cringe-inducing and utterly impossible-to-look-away-from 15-minute-long projectile vomiting scene. Bodies don't just expel substances from their mouths in Triangle of Sadness' unforgettable and easily most talked-about sequence. Seasickness strikes, what's inside has to come out however it must (and ASAP) and, because that's a situation that strips away all class and power dynamics, there's no longer any hierarchy on the film's ultra-luxurious yacht setting. The scene just might be Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund's most awkward and stunning of his career — and that's saying something for a writer/director who actually topped himself by nabbing the Palme d'Or for Triangle of Sadness, given that he also won the same accolade for his art world-skewering previous film The Square. Getting the one-percent heaving up their dinner for a quarter-hour is only one part of Östlund's smart, scathing and supremely entertaining latest feature. Following two models and influencers, couple Carl (Harris Dickinson, See How They Run) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean, Black Lightning), Triangle of Sadness explores the world of fashion, the lavishness of extreme wealth and being stranded on a deserted island. In the process, it ponders beauty as a form of currency and actively tears down the rich — but it's equally savage towards everyone, bank balance be damned. Östlund is fascinated by human behaviour, after all, and the social contracts by which we all live. Indeed, his current sail through such loaded, complicated and comically ripe terrain not only follows 2018's The Square but 2014's exceptional marriage-in-crisis black comedy Force Majeure. [caption id="attachment_884231" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Olivier Vigerie[/caption] Östlund loves scratching away at how people react in heightened situations, and examining what that says about everyday life. He adores unpacking societal expectations, too. Indeed, for his next movie, he's heading to a long-haul 17-hour-plus flight, then taking away the passengers' main source of entertainment. The in-the-works flick is called The Entertainment System Is Down, in fact, and Östlund describes it as "once again a behaviouristic study, comical and tragic, about being a human being — and about contemporary times when we have become so addicted to these screens, and taking that away from us". Talking with Concrete Playground via Zoom, he's visibly excited about putting a new batch of characters through the wringer. That glee is palpable in Triangle of Sadness as well — including when everyone is vomiting. With the film now in Australian cinemas, Östlund also chatted through his fascination with alluring worlds, pop culture's present obsession with eating the rich, all that blowing chunks and shooting for a history-making third Palme d'Or. ON TEARING INTO SOCIETAL CONVENTIONS WITHIN ALLURING WORLDS "I think if I go back to my upbringing, my mother was a primary school teacher and she was talking a lot about sociology with me when I was a kid. And sociology is, if you are looking at what it actually is, it's very often with human beings trying to deal with social contracts that are broken in some way — or there's an expectation on you as an individual to fit into the herd or things like that, but there's always a broken social contract. For Triangle of Sadness, the reason that I got interested in the topic was I met my wife eight years ago and she worked as a fashion photographer. And I got very interested in the fashion industry and her profession, and I got interested in beauty as a currency and beauty as a possibility to climb higher in society. So, that was the starting point of the idea. Then I came up with looking at these hierarchies first in the fashion world, then in the luxury world, but then also on a deserted island — when you take away the old hierarchies, looking at our behaviour in that context. One thing that I decided when I made Force Majeure was that I wanted to let my films play out in an environment that we like to look upon. So I thought when I made Force Majeure: 'yeah I can spend one-and-a-half hours at a ski resort'. With The Square, I thought: 'yeah, I can watch and make a movie that takes place in the art world'. With Triangle of Sadness, then, it was one plus one plus one: 'yeah, I definitely wanted to watch a movie that takes in the fashion world, on a luxury yacht and on a deserted island." ON GIVING AUDIENCES A DILEMMA — AND DRAWING FROM EXPERIENCE "I always look for a dilemma, so I have a situation that the character is dealing with that has two or more options, but none of them are easy and all of them have consequences — that is basically what a dilemma is. And if you have a dilemma, it's very often easy for the audience to identify with the situation rather than with the character, so they put themselves in the situation. To go back to sociology, we have classical dilemmas that have been used in sociology, for example the Milgram experiment where they had a test person giving electrical shocks to another test person. We can identify with the dilemma, so we also get an understanding of what failure there means morally and ethically. I always look for that. I very often also look for things that I have been dealing with in my own life, because I think that these everyday life dilemmas — where you're maybe not risking anything physically, but were it comes down to the social contract — they tell us so much about ourselves. When it came to Triangle of Sadness, I was trying to find something that I have experienced that I felt was dealing with beauty as a currency, men, women, gender expectations and so on. Then I was reminded of this horrible fight that I had in the beginning of my relationship with my wife, where I could feel it was a minefield — you can step on a landmine any second — and I thought 'I have to include this, this is very, very painful, it has to be in the film'." ON EATING THE RICH — AND POP CULTURE'S FASCINATION WITH THE TOPIC "I have always been a socialist, so I think all of a sudden I'm trendy again — and that's fantastic! But I didn't have a plan of attacking that more now. When I was doing my first feature films, I was more of an arthouse director, I was a little subtle with my concepts, and I was not going straight for what I wanted to tell. But the more free I have become as a director, I have also dared to be more direct. And the setup in Triangle of Sadness lets me do that. But I think that one thing it is important for me to point out is that I have nothing against rich people. Rich people are nice — they just don't like to pay taxes! When I hear 'eat the rich', I see it as meaning attacking the rich. I don't consider myself attacking the rich. I wanted to make a very sympathetic image of rich people — or at least as sympathetic of the rich as everyone else. I want to be equally harsh on all of the different class groups." ON ALL THAT VOMIT — AND GIVING HIS CREW MOTION SICKNESS "I wanted to do a scene where we had a drunk Marxist captain reading from The Communist Manifesto to passengers on a luxury yacht that was dealing with seasickness. I was just fond of the idea — that they are playing around with the microphone system and through the speakers in the cabins, the guests are trying to deal with the vomiting but at the same time they have to listen to this political message. The scene actually started with that idea. When I was shooting it, I also decided that I wanted it to go ten steps further than the audience could expect. I wanted it to get to a point where they felt 'please save them, they have had enough!'. But you know, because I'm so interested in broken social contracts, I thought it was interesting if the captain's dinner on a luxury yacht where everyone knows how to behave, and the etiquette of how they should behave, was in conflict with the seasickness that becomes stronger and stronger. I just love setups like that. It took a long time to edit it. I was editing it for half a year almost before we found the right structure. When we shot it, we shot it in fragments — it was not 100-percent decided when I shot it which place the fragments should have in the whole scene, so that was something that I had to find out when I was editing, and that took a long time. The shooting took place on a gimbal that we could rock, so we could rock the set 20 degrees, which made it very chaotic to shoot. I'm used to being in full control and being able to shoot without having the slightest little sound or anything — being very concentrated — so for me that was a challenge. And actually also, parts of the crew got seasick from the shooting. They had seasickness pills because we were spending 13 days, eight hours every day, on this rocking set. As you can imagine, it was chaos." [caption id="attachment_884238" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Cannes, France. 28th May, 2022. CANNES, FRANCE. May 17, 2022: Ruben Ostlund at the photocall for Palme d'Or Awards at the 75th Festival de Cannes. Picture Credit: Paul Smith/Alamy Live News[/caption] ON WINNING TWO PALME D'ORS — AND DREAMING OF A THIRD "I was definitely not thinking about [winning a second Palme d'Or] when we made the film. I felt pressure because I knew that everybody that put in money into the film expected the film to be in competition in Cannes. When we were accepted in competition in Cannes, I said 'okay, mission accomplished, I have given them what I have promised', so to speak. Then we had a fantastic screening in Cannes. And what happens then is you slowly start to hope for a prize. And when you're invited to the awards ceremony, and the prizes go to other films, and you realise 'wow there's only one prize left'. And then you realise we're going to win the Golden Palm again. The great thing with the second Golden Palm is that it takes away pressure from your shoulders, because then you have shown that the first Golden Palm was actually the right decision from that jury. And what happens after you win two Golden Palms is that slowly a dream is starting — maybe we can win a third one! — because then you would be the only one in the world. I'm sorry, this is what happens. I'm trying to be humble but this is what happens! So the first one, I never dreamt about the second one. When I received the second one, I started to dream about the third." Triangle of Sadness is now screening in Australian cinemas. Read our full review. Triangle of Sadness images: Fredrik Wenzel. © Plattform Produktion.
Chocolate gelato works deliciously when you can't choose between chocolate and ice cream. When Easter hits, however, that won't do the trick. Hankering for a chocolate egg, because it's the time of year for it, but also want something creamy and frosty? That's where Gelato Messina's gelato-filled chocolate eggs usually come in. In 2023, the dessert chain whipped up packs with three eggs inside. This year, it's giving everyone the treat that we all coveted when we were kids: a hefty-sized egg. This one is even better than the foil-wrapped supermarket versions, of course, because it comes filled with Messina's gelato. The chain's 2024 Easter offering weighs a kilogram and is designed to serve six (but if you're keen to keep it to yourself, we understand). The shell is made of milk chocolate, which is then painted in bright Messina brand colours. Inside, as made at Messina HQ in Marrickville, is a wealth of flavours and textures. Milo gelato is one of the chain's tastiest varieties, and you'll find it inside this Easter egg. You'll also find Milo mousse as well. Among the other layers, the treat includes Oreo crumble and Oreo cookie chunks, plus malted vanilla chantilly. Finally, there's both hazelnut praline and a hazelnut caramel centre, too. Messina's 2024 Easter eggs can only be ordered online on Monday, March 11 for collection over Easter — of course — between Thursday, March 28–Sunday, March 31. Messina now opens its orders at various times for various places, so you'll want to hop online at 12pm AEDT for Queensland, South Australian, Western Australian and Australian Capital Territory stores; 12.15pm AEDT for Victorian shops; and at either 12.30pm, 12.45pm or 1pm AEDT depending on where you are in New South Wales. Gelato Messina's 2024 gelato Easter eggs are available to order from Monday, March 11 for pick up between Thursday, March 28–Sunday, March 31 — head to the Messina website for further details.
A brunch that's fit for your friends, your partner, your family and even your dog. This cosy cafe serves up just the right blend of wholesome for your recovery from a long week, or just a long Friday night. Come for elevated breakfast classics such as orange and honey french toast with mascarpone and a mushroom bruschetta croissant with prosciutto, tomato and goat's cheese. After brunch, take a stroll around the heritage-listed building formerly known as the Female Factory, where female convicts were housed in the 1800s.
"I've had an incredible life," says David Bowie in Moonage Daydream. "I'd love to do it again." Alas, even for a music icon who always seemed beamed in from the future, another world or both — his casting in 1976 sci-fi masterpiece The Man Who Fell to Earth was perfection, as was the movie's title — that isn't possible. For viewers, however, reliving that spellbinding, shapeshifting, stratosphere-blasting existence is as easy as watching Brett Morgen's documentary. The Cobain: Montage of Heck filmmaker calls it "an experience", and that's exactly what the mind-blowingly immersive and spectacular blend of sound and vision delivers. It doesn't sound difficult, making a movie about someone as visionary as Bowie. There's so much to his life, so many decades of music and live performances to draw upon, and such a wealth of other touchstones — his acting, art, reinventions, alter egos ("I collect personalities," Bowie notes in the film) — to layer in. But Moonage Daydream isn't a Bowie biopic and was never going to be. That simply isn't Morgen's style; instead, he's all about digging into what makes his subjects tick, delight and surprise, then conveying that in a manner that so deeply captures their essence it feels like no other picture about them could've existed. In Moonage Daydream, that means using Bowie himself as the kaleidoscopic feature's narrator via soundbites and interviews from across his entire career. It means not only weaving archival materials spanning half a century-plus into an ever-twisting and spinning collage, but recutting famous footage, such as revered concert film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, from the original camera reels to unveil something new. It also means being driven by a playlist that covers Bowie's whole discography, and speaks to doco's exploration of chaos, fragmentation and transience, plus their constant relevance to his work. It truly does mean a big-screen spectacular, as the man recently voted the most influential British artist of the last 50 years deserves. "I don't know why they stopped at 50 years. Who's topping him, and why not century?" says Morgen, in Australia for this year's Melbourne International Film Festival back in August, chatting to Concrete Playground the morning after Bowie topped that British arts industry poll. "I would go a little further and say perhaps the greatest artist globally of the past 50 years," Morgen advises, before stepping through why Bowie remains such an enduring cultural presence, how Moonage Daydream came together, getting approval to make the first authorised film after Bowie's death and what he learned from living the Bowie dream. ON BOWIE'S EVERLASTING INFLUENCE "I think to reframe that question is: why does he continue to have so much influence and resonance? Because David meant something in 72 when Ziggy [Stardust, the seminal album] came out that was specific to that moment in time — and until the internet came about in the early 90s, as there were less sources for media and to find subcultures and tribes, Bowie united a lot of likeminded individuals and nurtured them. Moving forward, what's amazing is that each generation seems to discover and embrace Bowie, and they seem to discover him on their own. Sometimes you hear 'oh my dad played him' or whatever, but most of the time, talking to fans, they all arrive at Bowie on their own around the time they're sort of entering puberty. He becomes a kind of rite of passage — this sounds a bit cliched and we have other sources now to reference, but perhaps musically he captured that sense of alienation and confusion, and some of those feelings that we all experience at 12, 13 or 14 as we're all trying to feel our way throughout this world. Bowie, one of the reasons that he is one of the few artists of that era to continue to resonate with young audiences has to do with the fact that Bowie was so far ahead of his time that we might now just be entering the age of Bowie. David used to say in 1971 that he was writing for the 21st century in the 1970s. David's stock and trade was chaos and fragmentation — those were, as he would say, the throughline for his art. If we think of it, the world has only become more fragmented and more chaotic, and Bowie was writing the soundtrack for that world. Great artists have an ability to hear and see what is happening all around us but most of us can't see or hear yet, and Bowie had that gift for several decades. I had shown the film to Bono, who sent me an email the day after he saw it saying that he saw a lot of similarity in my style with Moonage and [U2's] Zoo TV. I went back and looked at Zoo TV, their 91 tour, and at the time the Zoo TV tour was presented as something futuristic and sci-fi — the internet, I don't even think it had started yet, but when you look at Zoo TV, it looks like something you would do when you were doing a tour today. And what I said to Bono was that 'I think like David, you weren't a futurist; you weren't writing about the future, you were writing about the present, just none of the rest of us were able to access it yet'. I think that has a lot to do with why certain artists are able to resonate across time, and David had that gift." ON HOW THE FIRST AUTHORISED BOWIE FILM AFTER HIS DEATH CAME TOGETHER "I had been doing theatrical documentaries for 23 years, and so the way I was able to get approval was most likely my previous endeavours, Cobain: Montage of Heck and The Kid Stays in the Picture, resonated with the estate. Where do you start a film or how do you construct a film that's designed to be an experience? It wasn't easy. It was slightly torturous. I made a decision from the get-go that I had no interest in producing a biography — that my interest was purely in sound and vision, and that I had no interest in trying to define or explain Bowie. That, I thought would be a fool's interest. So I just kind of embraced that, and it was a bit like trying to find your way out of a maze in the dark. I stumbled, I ran into walls, I cried, I felt Jack Torrence in The Shining: all work and no play make Jack a dull boy. [caption id="attachment_869789" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Liam Arthur[/caption] There was a point — I didn't have a producer, I didn't have a staff, I was making a David Bowie film for IMAX by myself, it was like an arts and crafts project. And it was weird, it was not a traditional approach. I don't mean in terms of the methodology — I just mean the actual genre that I was trying to explore is not a genre that exists. So about six months into the cutting, no one had seen a frame, I didn't even have an assistant editor in the building, and I needed a change of scenery. I was going to take my media to a place I had rented out of town, and before I left I called my wife who's my executive producer, partner and brilliant filmmaker Debra Eisenstadt, and said, 'listen I need you to come and look at what I have'. She said, 'do you want me to take notes?'. And I go, 'no no, I don't want notes, I just want you to tell me if it's a film'. She goes, 'what do you mean, if it's going to work?'. And I go, 'no no, I mean like does it actually make sense shot to shot? Am I insane, you know? Like, literally is it in English or have I lost my fucking mind?'. She came into my office. I pressed play, and I was sitting behind her. She couldn't see me — I was shaking, I was so uncomfortable because I thought I was about to get exposed, and I thought when she would turn to me and with deep concern in her eyes going 'what have you done?'. And she looked at the film and turned back and said 'it's a diamond in the raw — a diamond in the raw'. She goes, 'keep going', and that was wildly important in the genesis of the film. So it really wasn't until the film was at rough cut stage that anybody including the financiers saw a frame it. ON STARTING MOONAGE DAYDREAM AS A CASUAL FAN, BUT ENDING IT A DEVOTEE "I was a casual fan at best. I think that when I was 12 or 13, Hunky Dory was one of my favourite albums. I probably stopped listening on an active basis when I got to college. I liked Bowie, but I never read a book about him, never did any sort of deep dive, but had obvious tremendous respect and admiration. Rediscovering him at 47 was as illuminating and inspiring as discovering him at 12 or 13. Most people gravitate towards Bowie's 70s catalogue — and for those who are well-versed in the 70s catalogue, I am thrilled to report that his later period work beginning with Outside, to me, is as revelatory and inspiring as any of his earlier endeavours. He's just one of a kind. Oh my god, if I ended the project a casual fan — I am, I believe, as hardcore as it gets right now. After spending years living and breathing David Bowie, you would think I'd had enough. But yesterday I was driving around Melbourne with my 14-year-old son, and he's like, 'dad, really, we're going to listen to Bowie? You haven't had enough?'. And I was like, 'no, I haven't.' I'm very blessed that I didn't enter the film from this vantage point because it would've, I think, felt too much of a burden given my reverence and appreciation I currently hold for David." [caption id="attachment_869788" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Olivier Borde[/caption] ON LEARNING FROM BOWIE TO APPRECIATE EVERY MOMENT "Everything that's embedded into the film was revelatory for me, and it has to do with his philosophy and approach to his day-to-day living. His appreciation for life and for challenging oneself to make the most out of each and every moment — that was something that I did not anticipate unearthing in my journey with David Bowie." Moonage Daydream screens in cinemas Down Under from September 15. Read our full review.
This vibrant beer garden has provided an inner city oasis for over one hundred years. Tucked between the busy stretches of City Road and Cleveland Street, the intimate beer garden gets just as crowded as its bustling surroundings after 5pm, minus the noise and smog. Meanwhile, the low-lit lamps scattered across the garden make for a much more pleasant ambience than the glaring traffic lights beyond. Just down the road from Sydney Uni, The Rose Hotel is the watering hole of choice for students, testament to its affordable prices and lively atmosphere. The Rose boasts an extensive bistro menu, just a little pricier and a little more pretentious than its $10 lunch dishes. Exotic pizza choices provide the menu's crowning glory, with the option of tomato, garlic and chili bases plus experimental toppings, such as roasted pumpkin, blue cheese, spinach and hazelnuts. With prolonged happy hours more akin to happy days, The Rose is a great option for a few drinks amongst a vibrant crowd. Images: Destination NSW
For the past six years, Porteno owners Ben Milgate and Elvis Abrahanowicz have been grilling up a storm in their iconic home on Cleveland Street, Surry Hills. It's been over half a decade of succulent Argentine-style grilled meats, great tunes and Brussels sprouts, all wrapped up in the stunning décor that feels like the dining room of a mildly hedonistic aristocrat. However, the doors have now closed to a la carte diners at the Cleveland Street restaurant as Porteno starts it new chapter in a new home: 50 Holt Street, Surry Hills. The team that brought us Bodega, Gardel's Bar and a million and one incredible pop-ups have shifted their lauded dining skills to the space that used to house the Sydney branch of Melbourne's tapas king, MoVida. After acquiring the space in June, Milgate and Abrahanowicz, along with co-owner and sommelier Joe Valore, finally opened their doors to diners this week. The new joint looks to continue along the same theme of good food and great vibes that punters have come to love from Porteno. The overall theme of white walls, checkered tiling and exposed timber have made the jump over to the new shop, and there's no reason to assume that the faultless playlists showing off the greatest rock and roll acts you've never heard of will change at all. "On the whole, at Holt Street, it is the same Porteño, in a new space and a few exciting additions," the crew told Concrete Playground. Porteño's menu will see a slight change, opting towards full dishes and a tweaked flavour. It will still be largely fuelled by Argentinian cooking, but with a slightly more of a Mediterranean flavour than the last menu. The new restaurant is a touch smaller, seating about 30 fewer people than the Cleveland Street location. To combat this, bookings for smaller groups are available at Porteño — for the first time. It's not goodbye to the traditional home of Porteño, as the beautiful building on Cleveland Street will stay in the family. Milgate, Abrahanowicz and Valore intend to use the space for weddings and events, now offering the main dining floor, which can handle you and 129 of your mates for a dinner, or 200 people for a cocktail deal. Gardel's Bar, including the Evita Room, can cater for 50 people dining, or a whopping 160 people for a party. These parties will even include the odd live music gig. "We've been fortunate enough in the past to have several opportunities to host some great live music in Gardel's Bar, and will certainly hope to continue to do so," say the lads. So, while it's sad to say goodbye to Porteno at Cleveland Street, it's akin to when your best mate moves from Newtown to Erskineville — your favourite people are still just around the corner. Find Porteño at 50 Holt Street, Surry Hills. Images: Steven Woodburn.
Sydney is set for a new dose of traditional Cantonese cooking next week when Canton! Canton! opens in the CBD. The restaurant is by The Jewel Pantry Group, a dining group focusing on cuisines from the Asia-Pacific, which has taken over the old Tim Ho Wan Sydney outposts (and nabbed its chef) on George Street and Pitt Street Mall. Tim Ho Wan — the world's cheapest Michelin-starred restaurant — launched in Sydney in late-2015, before suddenly closing last year. While the Jewel Pantry Group has taken over the chain's former CBD outposts, there's no word yet on what will happen to Tim Ho Wan's Chatswood's store, which is also closed. The first of the dining group's venues to launch is Canton! Canton!, which has taken over the George Street site. The 68-seater has Executive Chef Jacky Chan at the helm, who used to run the kitchen at Sydney's Tim Ho Wans. He boasts 28 years' experience cooking Chinese fare, with a focus on dim sum — he's trained with top Hong Kong chefs and held the title of head dim sum chef at Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore, too. [caption id="attachment_708286" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Nikki To.[/caption] Expect yum cha, barbecue pork buns and the restaurant's signature Phoenix Claws (bean curd skin topped with braised chicken feet and abalone sauce) from 11am, followed by eight different congees (one topped with a preserved century egg), roast duck, pork belly and char siu all roasted in-house daily on the Hong Kong-style barbecue. For dinner, there are mains like braised pork belly with preserved veggies, alongside a compact wine list and a signature caramelised Malay cake for dessert. Three banquet menus ($33/45/58) are also on offer. The fit-out is courtesy of interior designer Dorian McCartney (Hydra Design) and architect Raymond Teo. The design is inspired by the street markets of Canton, with opium bed-inspired booths and antique tea crates previously used by Chinese shipping merchants. The hospitality group's second venue, Mr. Fatt, will open in the Pitt Street Mall site later this year as a 12-seat takeaway joint. While Canton! Canton! leans towards tradition, Mr. Fatt will instead offer a modern fusion of Singaporean and Malaysian fare. And you can expect more restaurants to join The Jewel Pantry Group's portfolio in coming months, with a Hainan rice specialty on the menu. Find Canton! Canton! at Shop GD04, 580 George Street, Sydney, from Monday, February 18. It's open from 11am–10pm daily. Images: Nikki To.
Sydney's blazing summers aren't just a blessing for beachgoers. If you're fond of cooling down on dry land with a spritz in your hand and the sun's rays on your face, this is your time to shine. Our gorgeous climate, tastebud-tempting cocktails, and that carefree vibe that floats across the harbour as soon as the season hits are certain to bring Sydneysiders together. If you're wondering where to head, we've teamed up with Aperol to pick nine must-visit spots that'll take care of this year's holy trifecta: spritzes, all that glorious sunshine, and ample space for you and your pals.
Grab your plant-based pals for a final send-off. Sydney's long-running vegan institution Bodhi has announced its closing its doors after 34 years. Known for creating delicious yum cha creating dishes out of organic, locally-sourced ingredients, Bodhi paved much of the way for fresh, seasonal vegan dining — as well as promoting the first female head chef in the yum cha industry. Notable diners through its doors include Keanu Reeves, Hugo Weaving, Toby McGuire and Novak Djokovic. Its last day of service will be Sunday, August 7. Bodhi owner Heaven Leigh said in a statement the decision was "bittersweet", but she wanted to end on a high. She thanked all the ardent fans of the eatery who had supported her family's business over the years. "My family opened the first Bodhi Vegetarian Restaurant at a time when no-one really knew much about vegetarianism or veganism. No one thought - including ourselves - that we would make it past three years in this industry, let alone survive and thrive three generations and 34 years later," said Leigh. View this post on Instagram A post shared by BODHI RESTAURANT BAR (@bodhirestaurantbar) But she hinted at exciting future endeavours, iterating it was "not the end". "I am incredibly passionate about the plant-based space and the community we have built. Thank you to everyone who has visited us, supported us and made our Bodhi dream a reality for more than three decades." To enjoy Bodhi's famous vegan yum cha one last time, we'd recommend booking a table now. If the reaction on the restaurant's social media is anything to go by, spaces will be tight right up until that final service. Bodhi's last day of service will be Sunday, August 7. To find out more about the closure, head to the eatery's Instagram.
Across his two-decade filmmaking career, Bong Joon-ho has explored Korea's first serial murders, grappled with a creature feature, sunk his teeth into a twisted maternal tale, stranded the last remnants of humanity on a train, and followed the exploits of a young girl and her superpig. Now, the applauded South Korean director can add a prestigious and historic accolade to his resume — not only taking out this year's Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for his latest movie, Parasite, but becoming the first Korean filmmaker to win the coveted gong in the fest's 72-year run. Bong's seventh feature after Barking Dogs Never Bite, Memories of Murder, The Host, Mother, Snowpiercer and Okja, Parasite follows a family of four that is struggling through rough times. Led by his regular star Song Kang-ho (The Host, Snowpiercer), they're all unemployed; however, that situation might just be about to change. Son Ki-woo has been offered a lucrative tutoring gig and, although he doesn't have the required university degree for it, his sister Ki-jung is quite the forger. Once he has his foot in the door, he discovers that his wealthy new employers might be the solution to his family's money woes in more ways than one. As well as widespread acclaim, the film has been earning comparisons to last year's Palme d'Or winner, Shoplifters — but darker, more mysterious and twisty and with a tense and satirical edge. In other words, it sounds like classic Bong. That said, if his diverse resume has proven anything — other than his supreme talents behind the lens — it's that he never makes the same movie twice. Parasite's win comes after his previous movie, Okja, was part of Cannes' Netflix controversy — after Okja screened in competition in 2017 just over a month before landing on the streaming platform (and alongside other Netflix titles), the famous French film festival announced that it would no longer screen the company's movies from 2018 onwards. Other Cannes 2019 award winners include Mati Diop's Atlantics, which took out the Grand Prix and also made history as the first feature by a black female filmmaker in the festival's competition; Young Ahmed, which nabbed Two Days, One Night filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne the best director prize; and Celine Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which took out the best screenplay gong. Antonio Banderas won best actor for Pedro Almodovar's Pain and Glory, British talent Emily Beecham won best actress for Little Joe, and the movie that everyone was talking about — Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — went home empty-handed. If you're wondering when you can see Parasite, it'll have its Australian premiere at the Sydney Film Festival on Saturday, June 15 and Sunday, June 16. Expect it to pop up at other local festivals as well, with a general Australian release planned for a yet-to-be-confirmed date later this year. Check out the trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_0KJAzyUJc Parasite screens at the Sydney Film Festival on Saturday, June 15 and Sunday, June 16, with a general Australian release slated for a yet-to-be-confirmed date later this year.
What happens when a sandwich diner levels up in a big way, becoming a fine-diner that's angling for a spot among Chicago's very best restaurants? Fans of The Bear will soon find out. The show's third season is about to be served, arriving at the end of June — and in the latest trailer, culinary chaos remains on the menu. "This is a dysfunctional kitchen," says Sydney (Ayo Edebiri, Bottoms) in the new sneak peek. "Show me a functional one," pipes back Carmy (Jeremy Allen White, The Iron Claw) and Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach, No Hard Feelings) in unison. The rest of the trailer is teeming with the hustle and bustle of the trio, and their colleagues, friends and family, working through the reality of having made their hospitality dreams come true. [caption id="attachment_954671" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Chuck Hodes/FX[/caption] As the first glimpse at season three also showed, The Bear's namesake restaurant is now open, after Carmy, Sydney, Richie and the team transformed their beef-slinging eatery (where season one's action took place) into an upscale restaurant (with that process fuelling season two). But staying operational is still a struggle, with the new batch of episodes set to chart Carmy's quest for culinary perfection, plus the stresses that both it and being in the restaurant trade in general bring. How that pans out will be revealed on Thursday, June 27 both in the US and Down Under. In the past, there's always been a wait for Aussie and NZ viewers — season one hit in June in America, then in August in Australia; with season two, US viewers still had a June date, while Aussies and New Zealanders had to wait till July — but thankfully that isn't the case this time. Comfort food and winter do go hand in hand, after all — and since 2022, so have chaotic culinary dramedies and the frostiest time of the year Down Under. It was two years back that The Bear debuted to become one of the best new shows on television. In 2023, it then became one of the best returning shows on TV that year. The Bear was renewed for season three in November 2023 to the surprise of no one, but to the joyous shouts of "yes chef!" from everyone. Also, even though that third season hasn't yet dropped, it looks as if the show has been renewed for its fourth season already as well. If you've missed The Bear so far, its first season jumped into the mayhem when Carmy took over the diner after his brother's (Jon Bernthal, Origin) death. Before returning home, the chef's resume featured Noma and The French Laundry, as well as awards and acclaim. Then, in season two, Carmy worked towards turning the space into an upscale addition to his hometown's dining scene, with help from the restaurant's trusty team — including a roster of talent also spans Abby Elliott (Indebted) as Carmy's sister Natalie, aka Sugar, plus Lionel Boyce (Hap and Leonard), Liza Colón-Zayas (In Treatment), Edwin Lee Gibson (Fargo) and IRL chef Matty Matheson among the other staff. Check out the latest trailer for The Bear season three below: The Bear streams via Disney+ in Australia and New Zealand, with season three arriving on Thursday, June 27. Read our review of season one and review of season two.
As well as offering up alternative places to stay and opening up the holiday accommodation market, Airbnb has proven a gift to anyone interested in architecture and interior design. While you're sleeping in someone else's house, you're getting a glimpse of different styles and trends. Sure, you can also flick through house and garden-focused magazines, but looking at pics isn't the same as actually seeing design in action. At PlansMatter, bunking down in a space that demonstrates ace architecture isn't just an added bonus — it's the entire point of the Airbnb-like house-sharing service. Started in 2016 by architects Connie Lindor and Scott Muellner, it only offers up "places that have architectural intention and a story to tell," according to their statement on the service's website. Each listing provides a thorough description, runs through the usual features and also includes a rundown of why it's included on the site. In fact, as well as simply browsing through a sizeable list of eye-catching architectural beauties — which not only include spaces in the US, where PlansMatter is based, but in Canada, Austria, the UK, Portugal, Sri Lanka, Denmark, Japan, Germany and Australia as well — users can also search for somewhere to stay based on the amazing designers behind the houses. If you've ever dreamed of kipping in a home designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, or in artist James Turrell's Japanese House of Light, here's your chance. Of course, getting to live out your architecture nerd dreams doesn't come cheap, but if you're going to fork out a hefty stack of cash for a few nights away, there are much, much worse ways to spend it. For those keen on checking out the service close to home, a night in Magney House on the New South Wales south coast — and in a structure that was once featured on an Aussie stamp — will set you back $250 per night. Fairhaven Beach's landmark Pole House, which really is a house on a pole, starts at $434 per evening. Via Fast Co Design. Image: PlansMatter/Tsutomu Yamada.
Among the many thoughts that Only Murders in the Building has caused viewers to ponder across 2021's season one, 2022's season two and 2023's season three, the misfortune that comes with living in its eponymous spot is right up there. Exactly why is in the show's name, too. Each season, a new murder has taken place in the Arconia, the New York apartment complex that its main sleuthing trio call home. Here's another takeaway from this hit mystery-comedy series so far: famous faces are rarely far from its halls. Only Murders in the Building stars Selena Gomez (The Dead Don't Die), Steve Martin (It's Complicated) and Martin Short (Schmigadoon!) as neighbours and podcasters Mabel Mora, Charles-Haden Savage and Oliver Putnam, and has enlisted a heap of other well-known talents. Sometimes they play themselves, as Sting (The Book of Solutions) and Amy Schumer (IF) have. Sometimes the show gets Meryl Streep (Don't Look Up), Paul Rudd (Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire), Tina Fey (Mean Girls) and more into character. In season four, which starts streaming via Disney+ Down Under from Tuesday, August 27, 2024, all of the above notes still prove true. There's another murder to investigate. There's more big-name cast members as well. Some of the latter appear as versions of themselves, while some play fictional parts. Being aware that there has again been a killing in the Arconia doesn't mean knowing what's in store in the show's return, though. Indeed, something different is afoot this time around, taking Only Murders in the Building to Hollywood. But as the just-dropped full trailer for the new season demonstrates, no one is completely saying goodbye to the series' main setting. Also, Los Angeles isn't the only fresh surroundings that beckon for Mabel, Charles and Oliver. The crew's latest investigation and the cinema business both beckon in Tinseltown. A studio wants to turn their podcast — which is also called Only Murders in the Building — into a film. Cue the arrival of Molly Shannon (The Other Two), Eugene Levy (Schitt's Creek), Eva Longoria (Tell It Like a Woman) and Zach Galifianakis (The Beanie Bubble), with season four's new cast members also including Melissa McCarthy (Unfrosted), Kumail Nanjiani (Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire) and Richard Kind (Girls5eva). Alongside Short, Gomez and Martin, fellow long-running Only Murders in the Building regulars Michael Cyril Creighton (American Fiction), Da'Vine Joy Randolph (a newly minted Oscar-winner for The Holdovers) and Jane Lynch (Velma) are also back. Check out the full trailer for Only Murders in the Building season four below: Only Murders in the Building streams Down Under via Star on Disney+, and will return for season four on Tuesday, August 27, 2024. Read our reviews of season one, season two and season three.
Blending the work of a modern-day superstar and some of Japan's most renowned historical artists, Japan Supernatural is the Art Gallery of New South Wales' latest blockbuster exhibition. The exhibition features 180 works drawn from collections around the world — an eclectic mix of paintings, traditional woodblock prints, animation work and sculptures — which each delve into the Japanese folktales that continue to influence pop-culture today. The exhibition's headline act is contemporary artist Takashi Murakami, a dazzling spectacle of an artist that shines almost as bright as his massive works of art. Famous for his paintings and sculptures that incorporate motifs from both traditional and popular Japanese culture, at Japan Supernatural, Murakami debuts an enormous ten-metre-wide mural that depicts folk stories, anime characters and a litter of other cultural references. Running until March 8, 2020, the exhibition features work by other modern-day legends, such as the late manga artist Mizuki Shigeru and contemporary artist Taro Yamamoto. Meanwhile, there are also works by seminal artists from a bygone age, including Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Kawanabe Kyosai. Presented as part of the 2019–20 Sydney International Art Series, Japan Supernatural also includes an array of public events. Just some of the special happenings on offer include a rare lecture by Murakami, a retrospective of global horror cinema, a festival showcasing beloved Studio Ghibli films and a Japanese summer art school. With so many ways to explore the AGNSW's newest exhibition, don't miss your chance to discover the stories and magical creatures behind Japan Supernatural. [caption id="attachment_749854" align="alignnone" width="1920"] An installation view of the exhibition Japan Supernatural at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photo: AGNSW/Jenni Carter.[/caption] TAKASHI MURAKAMI: JAPAN SUPERNATURAL The full title of Murakami's mural, Japan Supernatural: Vertiginous After Staring at the Empty World Too Intensely, I Found Myself Trapped in the Realm of Lurking Ghosts and Monsters, is quite the mouthful. But you'll likely find your mouth agape once you set your eyes upon this huge undertaking. Stretching ten-metres wide and three high, the colourful mural features an arrangement of various images drawn from ukiyo-e prints, which were reproduced by Murakami's 350 employees back at his bustling studio in Tokyo. Made from 502 silkscreens, Japan Supernatural is the largest single work to enter the gallery's international collection, which depicts demons from Japanese folklore battling it out with samurai beneath the spirit of a massive cat. KENTARO YOSHIDA: NIGHT PROCESSION OF THE HUNDRED DEMONS The first work you'll encounter as you arrive at Japan Supernatural is that of Sydney-based artist and illustrator, Kentaro Yoshida. Born in a small fishing village in Japan, Yoshida heard many of Japan's popular folk stories as a child, learning about a world of ghosts, spirits and demons. His mural takes inspiration from these tales, specifically the centuries-old legend Night procession of the hundred demons (Hyakki Yagyō). It was created in four sections and positioned at the gallery's entrance court — if you download the Artivive app (via Apple or Google Play), you can experience the stunning creation with an augmented reality twist. [caption id="attachment_749467" align="alignnone" width="1920"] 'Mitsukuni defies the skeleton spectre conjured up by Princess Takiyasha' 1845–46 by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, British Museum, donated by American Friends of the British Museum fromthe collection of Prof Arthur R Miller. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum[/caption] UTAGAWA KUNIYOSHI: MITSUKUNI DEFIES THE SKELETON SPECTRE CONJURED UP BY PRINCESS TAKIYASHA Considered one of the last masters of ukiyo-e printing and painting, Utagawa Kuniyoshi was also known for being incredibly prolific. Throughout his expansive career during the 19th-century, Kuniyoshi created some of the style's most popular prints featuring everything from warriors and ghosts to satire and erotica. Loaned from the British Museum, one of Kuniyoshi's celebrated works, Mitsukuni defies the skeleton spectre conjured up by Princess Takiyasha, is a striking triptych woodblock print telling a well-known tale about revenge. Kuniyoshi's art fell from relevance for many years until it was rediscovered in the 1920s, with his work going on to become some of the best known from the Edo period. TSUKIOKA YOSHITOSHI: NEW FORMS OF THIRTY-SIX GHOSTS Published between 1889 and 1892, New forms of thirty-six ghosts is perhaps Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's most acclaimed series. Highlighting numerous characters from ancient Japanese and Chinese folktales, it was also the final major woodblock collection he would ever produce. Having lived through many years of Japanese societal uncertainty, Yoshitoshi's work often focused on violence and conflict. But later in his career, his prints became much more reflective, capturing some of his own personal struggles. With this series drawn from the AGNSW's own collection of Japanese art, Yoshitoshi is often credited as the godfather of contemporary manga and anime. UTAGAWA YOSHITSUYA: SHUTEN-DOJI AT OEYAMA Utagawa Kuniyoshi was responsible for tutoring many of Japan's greatest woodblock artists, but few were as special as Utagawa Yoshitsuya. Emerging in the late Edo period, the political instability of the time led to artists being banned from illustrating performers in their work. Instead, Kuniyoshi focused on creating images of powerful warriors, as well as tattoo designs that he became famous for during the 1840s and 50s. This colour print highlights a well-known story where the popular hero Minamoto Yorimitsu slays the ogre Shuten-doji in his mountain lair at Oeyama, a part of modern-day Kyoto. Japan Supernatural is on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales until March 8, 2020. Head to the website to grab your tickets. Top images: An installation view of the exhibition Japan Supernatural at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photo: AGNSW/Jenni Carter.
Don't sweat it. Just don't. That's a great sentiment, but putting it into action isn't always so easy. Humanity has long wanted to care less about all of the things that really don't matter, including since before self-help was a book genre — and since before there were books. Nothing else has quite summed up that concept quite like The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, though, even just in its title. It sits among a seemingly endless array of texts about living your best life and forgetting pointless strife, but Mark Manson's 2016 hit perfectly captured the idea that we should all devote less attention to matters that simply aren't worth it. First came the book. Then came the film version of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Since Manson's famous tome hit shelves, he's also popped up to chat about it and offer his brutally honest self-help advice — and he's returning Down Under in November 2024 to do exactly that again. Consider heading along to this The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck live tour as the next step in pursuing the ultimate goal: giving less fucks. More than 20-million copies of the book have been sold, so you're probably familiar with Manson's take on living more contented and grounded lives already, but there's something to be said about hearing about it in person. Couldn't be arsed reading the text? Then this is another way to soak in its contents. Of course, Manson's spin isn't about never giving a fuck. Rather, he knows that it's wise to choose where to direct our fucks, what to give a crap about and what genuinely bloody matters. The book's chapter titles are as telling as its overall moniker, boasting names such as 'Don't Try', 'Happiness is a problem', 'You are not special', 'You are wrong about everything (But so am I)', 'The importance of saying no' and 'And then you die'. Also the author of Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope, Manson will be onstage exploring this train of thought on a seven-stop trip around Australia and New Zealand, including in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth and Auckland. Attendees can expect a deeper dive into the principles stepped through in his book, plus practical tips and stories from real life. This is an event to give a fuck about, clearly. Here's the trailer for the film, too, if you haven't yet seen it: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Live with Mark Manson Dates: Monday, November 4 — Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, Sydney Wednesday, November 6 — Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne, Melbourne Thursday, November 7 — QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane Saturday, November 9 — Canberra Theatre Centre, Canberra Sunday, November 10 — Festival Theatre, Adelaide Monday, November 11 — Perth Concert Hall, Perth Friday, November 15 — Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Auckland Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Live tour hits Australia and New Zealand in November 2024, with ticket presales from 10am local time on Wednesday, July 17 — except in Melbourne, where ticket sales start at 11am local time on Monday, July 22. Head to the tour website for more details.
"For me, photography is the foundation of human freedom," says Rina Vukobratovic, the Serbian photographer and visual artist behind the series A Girl Who Sees the Lyrics. It may sound grandiose at first, but take a look at her work and you will see what she is getting at — it's a free fall through association, imagination and thought; photography of permission. There is a gentle poetic sensibility steering this series, as though adult and child artist are whispering stories to each other, or perhaps, comparing recollections. The artist has constructed each image with explicit reference to verses from her own haiku poetry written as a girl. In 1991, the idea for this series took root after she read an article published about her childhood poems, and to prove it she used the article's name. Although she has switched the pen for the camera, Vukobratovic has sustained a through line of imagery from her initial artistic impulse to her current one, resulting in a gentle poetic dialogue between a child's imagination and an adult's understanding. Or maybe it is the other way round. "I try to give answers [about] who I am, and why I am," she explains. This lyricism endows her images with a dynamic energy that is simply captivating — music manuscripts burst into spontaneous bloom about a mini-grand. Battle-scarred sailing ships charge towards the windswept freedom of the household window, all on the high seas of the living room. It is easy to see why someone creating these images would say that they "will never get tired of photography, because it contains a secret." These are images of awe, nonsense and wonder captured by a filter of love — first the child's love of the world and then the adult's love of the child. A Girl Who Sees the Lyrics is on show at the MiCK Gallery until June 23 as part of this year's Head On Photo Festival. See more of Rina's photography at her website.
It's no secret that most new year's resolutions fall by the wayside by mid-January. But there's one goal that's worthy of a year-round effort — and that's to cut back on meat. It's well documented that eating less meat is good for the environment, so that should probably be reason enough for most of us to introduce more plant-based meals into our lives. But the truth is that most of us need a couple of selfish incentives to really get the ball rolling — thankfully, vegetarian options have plenty of those, too. Firstly, plant-based meals are just as tasty as their meat-laden siblings (we promise), but they're also often a bit cheaper and, anecdotally speaking, fill you up without giving you that too-full bloat we know all too well. To get the creative juices flowing, we've teamed up with Yumi's to put together a list of cracking plant-based dinner ideas that you can easily whip up mid-week, or as a weekend feast with friends. [caption id="attachment_817040" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Melanie Dompierre (Pexels)[/caption] EGGPLANT PARM Heading to the pub for a parmi or parma (depending on where you are, of course) is one of life's little joys, but did you know you can make an eggplant version at home that pretty well involves the same ingredients you know and love in the pub staple (minus the chicken) but stays true to its Italian roots? Essentially a layered Italian bake (picture a lasagne without the heavy lifting), an eggplant parm sees slices of grilled eggplant sandwich a fresh tomato pasta sauce and finely-grated parmesan, and is topped with mozzarella and pangrattato to add some crispiness. Alternatively, you could even try this fun mushroom-based parm for something a little different. Of course, if you want to go vegan then you simply need to switch to a dairy-free cheese alternative — vegan parmesan definitely stacks up against the real deal. [caption id="attachment_817045" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Alesia Kozik (Pexels)[/caption] SOUTHERN-STYLE CAULIFLOWER Cauliflower is a perfect gateway for any person considering a plant-based lifestyle. Its ability to soak up flavours and maintain its structural integrity during the cooking process makes it a no-brainer when making vegetarian versions of fan favourites, including Southern-style wings. You have a couple of options when making cauliflower 'wings' and your decision will largely depend on how much effort you're willing to put in. If you've got some time or are cooking up a feast for your mates, then whipping up a sweet and smoky marinade to mimic a buffalo wing is a great shout. For a simpler take, these sriracha-spiced spiced cauliflower bites are ideal, and can be eaten for lunch the next day on a sandwich, salad or even as a taco. [caption id="attachment_817052" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ketut Subiyanto (Pexels)[/caption] MUSHROOM BOLOGNESE Did you grow up with a weekly spag bol night? We all love mum's (mom's?) spaghetti, but just because you're going meat-free you don't need to miss out. Adapting your bolognese to be vegetarian every once in a while is perhaps one of the easiest and most satisfying meat-to-vegetable swaps you could make. The combination of the meaty mushrooms and fragrant herbs sitting pretty on a pile of comforting spaghetti will always be a thing of pure joy. Of course, it's going to taste a little bit different when you swap meat for lentils and mushrooms (so you can't trick your mates into thinking they're eating meat) but at its heart, this version is just as delicious and warming a dinner. FALAFEL BOWL Gone are the days of having to hunt down falafels from a specialty store (or even making your own) — Yumi's are serving up a great range of ready-to-eat falafels, which you can find in all major supermarkets. Falafel bowls are the probably simplest plant-based meal to prepare, and a great jumping-off point if you're new to the meat-free world. Simply fill a bowl with all of your favourite salad ingredients (fresh herbs, tomato, cucumber and olives, for example) and top with falafels, which are best enjoyed after a 30-second zap in the microwave. We also highly suggest you mix through a generous dollop of Yumi's Classic Hommus or flavoured dip to amp up your dressing. After something a little more indulgent? Trade the HSP for an FSP — a smashed falafel snack pack that will satisfy at any time of the day. [caption id="attachment_817058" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Alesia Kozik (Pexels)[/caption] CHICKPEA AND TEMPEH CURRY A curry is perhaps the quintessential winter dinner. Not only are they often nice and spicy, but they're also loaded with flavour and warm you from the inside out. Choosing a curry that combines filling vegetarian ingredients like protein-rich chickpeas and tempeh with a flavoursome sauce is the key to creating a satisfying dinner you'll want to make again and again. For the uninitiated, tempeh is similar to tofu in the sense that it's made from soybeans, but unlike tofu, it's much firmer and is made from fermented soybeans. The firmness and nuttier flavour are what makes tempeh ideal for curries because it won't disintegrate into mush when you cook it in the sauce, and. You can grab it at your local supermarket and simply cut it into cubes before adding it to your favourite curry recipe. JACKFRUIT TACOS The best gotcha in the vegan world is making jackfruit tacos for a friend who vehemently believes a meal isn't a meal unless there's a truck-tonne of meat. From the same family as the fig tree, jackfruit is native to the Western Ghats of southern India, Sri Lanka and the rainforests of Malaysia, so it's fairly common in these nations' cuisines. Arguably the best way to trick your friends into thinking they're eating pulled pork, though, is to whip up a batch of jackfruit tacos. You'll struggle to come by a jackfruit in the produce section of your supermarket, but you'll definitely find canned unripe, green or young jackfruit in the canned vegetable section, and it works best for this recipe anyway. The main difference between preparing jackfruit (versus pork) is that you drain the can and shred it prior to cooking it in your sauce. If you find any large, woody chunks, simply chop these up before cooking. For more meat-free dinner inspiration, check out the full range of Yumi's falafels, veggie bites and dips.
It's hard to imagine Sydney without small bars. Today, they're entrenched in the city's nightlife, but barely over a decade ago, a night out revolved around mega clubs and mega pubs. That all changed when NSW's liquor laws were reformed in 2007. Slowly, small bars accommodating no more than 60 people began to pop up, organically concentrating in pockets around Darlinghurst and in the under-utilised industrial spaces dotting the streets behind Town Hall. [caption id="attachment_805685" align="alignnone" width="1920"] SILY[/caption] Many of the pioneers of the Sydney small bar scene started in these backstreets and continue to operate the very venues that kickstarted this era of transformation. As Sydney's nightlife changed, so too did the area where the city's small bar vanguard set up shop. More small bars, independent eateries and hotels were established in the nooks and crannies tucked between York, Clarence and Kent Streets, culminating in the formal establishment of a new nightlife and entertainment district known as YCK Laneways. In partnership with YCK Laneways, we sat down with three trailblazers who've been at the coalface of Sydney's small bar renaissance and still run venues in the area all these years later: Karl Schlothauer, owner of Stitch Bar and Kasippu, VP of YCK Laneways and CEO of House of Pocket; Nick White, owner of Since I Left You (SILY) and President of YCK Laneways; and Mikey Enright, owner of The Duke of Clarence and The Barber Shop and CEO of Barrelhouse Group. Between them, the owners have a combined thirty or so years of experience in the Sydney bar scene. [caption id="attachment_976968" align="alignnone" width="1920"] SILY owner, Nick White[/caption] "There were only pubs, nightclubs and RSLs at the time. They were the three places you could go to have a drink," says White. "You know what you're getting in for when you go to a pub, or any of those places. So, small bars provided an alternative, which was much needed in Sydney." Almost as soon as they emerged, Sydney's small bars have been quiet overachievers, creating options in the liminal space between a night in and a huge night out. Not that the bars have necessarily been quiet by choice. On Fridays and Saturdays especially, the YCK Laneways district is reliably soundtracked by the buzz of people chatting and having a good time, with music escaping from doorways that welcome in and release customers from basements and obscured spaces. But making noise once proved to be one of the precinct's more pressing challenges to overcome. "When [SILY] first opened, we didn't have use of our courtyard," says White. That might come as a surprise to anyone with even a passing familiarity of SILY. The small bar's heritage-listed courtyard is, as White acknowledges, "one of [its] big drawcards." Nowadays, SILY is known in part for its live music program, as well as one-off events that welcome local artists like Milan Ring and Becca Hatch, an offering SILY has cultivated since its inception. "Live music has always been something we've done. We've always been a supporter of the local arts scene and that's taken various forms over the years. We've got a regular Thursday music night, which has always been in place. We've now got a Tuesday jazz night [and] DJs on Friday nights." [caption id="attachment_987818" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Barber Shop and The Duke of Clarence owner, Mikey Enright[/caption] Enright and Schlothauer's venues also all have regular live music nights and both call out music as essential to cultivating memorable spaces. At The Barber Shop, hip hop tunes accompany the bar's spirits, while the Duke of Clarence stays on theme by playing predominantly English tunes by the likes of The Beatles as it serves up one of Sydney's best Sunday roasts. Meanwhile, Stitch is also home to live music one night each week. Each venue's custom music offering reflects the secret sauce that makes small bars such a draw for customers: unique experiences that feel innately human. "I think Sydney's small bars have just made nightlife more approachable and more appealing to a wider range of people," says Schlothauer. [caption id="attachment_991187" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kasippu and Stitch owner, Karl Schlothauer, Image: Tim Pascoe[/caption] The smaller scale of these venues translates to an entirely different experience for customers. It's a feature of small bars that all three owners call out. Independence lets the owners follow their own natural curiosities and interests, as well as experiment with menus and concepts more freely. This autonomy is what creates memorable experiences for patrons too, allowing customers to give direct feedback to owner-operators. "There's a lot more personal interaction between the staff and customers," says White. "A lot of small bars out there are trying to create different experiences for guests to appreciate," agrees Schlothauer. "Behind every small bar is an individual, an independent operator in the small business space." In particular in YCK Laneways, where there are so many bars in a relatively compact area, venues are increasingly focused on doing one or a few things well. "Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, the small bars — because of their size and the passion behind them — [are] becoming a lot more niche in terms of their product offering," says Schlothauer. [caption id="attachment_958206" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Barber Shop[/caption] "They have their own character [and] personality. A lot of them are run by former bartenders, so there's a lot of passion in it as well. I think that's what makes the small bar category more diverse and different," says Enright, a former bartender himself. Enright shares that his venue The Barber Shop, a gin bar with over 700 gins and has been operating in YCK since 2013, was born out of his personal interest in gin at a time when the spirit was still relatively niche and not the mainstay it is today. Not only has the bar stood the test of time, Enright has established his own distillery. The gins it produces are, of course, stocked in The Barber Shop. "I really love the subject of gin, as well as what it tastes like. We wanted to go all in on the gin side of it. Not many places — I think there weren't any — were doing it back then." The concentration of distinctive venues in close proximity to one another has another advantage that adds to the precinct's allure. "You can bounce between [YCK's venues]. You can have a drink here, a bite to eat there, a nightcap there, you can make it a night out. You can make it quite different, so I think that's one of the appealing things for people who visit here," says Enright. [caption id="attachment_981453" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kasippu[/caption] Kasippu, Schlothauer's latest venture, is a day-to-night venue that's part-cocktail bar and part-authentic Sri Lankan eatery, and perfectly embodies what Enright describes. Anyone heading out in YCK could stop by Kasippu at any point in their travels. The venue focuses on plating up authentic curries during the day, before transforming into a cocktail bar come nightfall. And once the night is well underway? There's self-service karaoke, curry kebabs and free Hydralyte slushies. And as much as the food, drink and feel of YCK Laneways' small bars invite people in, White makes the broader point that small bars are safer too. "In thirteen and a half years, we've never had a violent incident. And most small bars would say the same thing. [There have been] none or very, very low incidences of alcohol related violence or anything like that." It's little wonder that, in the face of Sydney's ever-evolving nightlife, small bars are here to stay. Explore the stories, sights and sounds of Sydney's bustling laneway nightlife. Between the lanes of York, Clarence and King Streets you'll find YCK Laneways, offering a plethora of hidden laneway and basement bars and restaurants waiting to be discovered. Check them out here.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas across the country. After months spent empty, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, Australian picture palaces are back in business — spanning both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, comedies, music documentaries, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. IN THE HEIGHTS Lin-Manuel Miranda isn't the first lyricist to pen tunes so catchy that they get stuck in your head for years (yes, years), but his rhythmic tracks and thoughtful lines always stand out. Miranda's songs are melodic and snappy, as anyone who has seen Hamilton onstage or via streaming definitely knows. The multi-talented songwriter's lyrics also pinball around your brain because they resonate with such feeling — and because they're usually about something substantial. The musical that made his name before his date with US history, In the Heights echoes with affection for its eponymous Latinx New York neighbourhood. Now that it's reverberating through cinemas, its sentiments about community, culture, facing change and fighting prejudice all seem stronger, too. To watch the film's characters sing about their daily lives and deepest dreams in Washington Heights is to understand what it's like to feel as if you truly belong in your patch of the city, to navigate your everyday routine with high hopes shining in your heart, and to weather every blow that tries to take that turf and those wishes away. That's what great show tunes do, whisking the audience off on both a narrative and an emotional journey. Miranda sets his words to hip hop beats, but make no mistake: he writes barnstorming songs that are just as rousing and moving, and that've earned their place among the very best stage and screen ditties as a result. Watching In the Heights, it's hard not to think about all those stirring tracks that've graced previous musicals. That isn't a sign of derivation here, though. Directing with dazzling flair and a joyous mood, Crazy Rich Asians filmmaker Jon M Chu nods to cinema's lengthy love affair with musicals in all the right ways. His song-and-dance numbers are clearly influenced by fellow filmic fare, and yet they recall their predecessors only because they slide in so seamlessly alongside them. Take his staging of the tune '96000', for instance. It's about winning the lottery, after word filters around that bodega owner Usnavi (Anthony Ramos, a Hamilton alum) has sold a lucky ticket. Due to the sweltering summer heat, the whole neighbourhood is at the public pool, which is where Chu captures a colourful sea of performers expressing their feelings through exuberantly shot, staged and choreographed music and movement — and it's as touching and glorious as anything that's ever graced celluloid. Of course, $96,000 won't set anyone up for life, but it'd make an enormous difference to Usnavi, In the Heights' protagonist and narrator. It'd also help absolutely everyone he loves. As he explains long before anyone even hears about the winning ticket, or buys it, every Heights local has their own sueñitos — little dreams they're chasing, such as his determination to relocate to the Dominican Republic. And that's what this intoxicating, invigorating, impassioned and infectious captures with vibrant aplomb. Read our full review. TALL POPPY — A SKATER'S STORY When skateboarding makes its debut as an Olympic sport in Tokyo this winter, it'll do so with Poppy Starr Olsen flying the flag for Australia. A world champion since her teens, she first hit the Bondi Skate Park at the age of eight, and proclaimed at the time that she'd like to spend her adult life carving, ollieing, flipping and grinding — one of those childhood wishes that, in this case, has proven more than just a kid's outlandish fantasy. Audiences know about this youthful exclamation because it was caught on camera. Yes, Tall Poppy — A Skater's Story belongs in the camp of documentaries that are inescapably blessed by the constant lens through which many of our lives have been captured since video cameras became a household gadget and then a standard mobile phone feature. Accordingly, making her first feature-length doco, filmmaker Justine Moyle has ample material to draw upon as she weaves together a portrait of Olsen's life from pint-sized bowl-rider to Australia's best female skater, the fourth best woman on a board in the world and an Olympian, all by the age of 21. This isn't just a film compiled from home videos, though, although the feature. In front of Dane Howell's (Without a Tracey) lens as she has grown up, Olsen is candid, open and relaxed as she literally comes of age before the camera, and her skateboarding skills are just as riveting to watch. You can tell much about Olsen by just seeing her in the bowl or on the park, no matter her age, wherever she happens to be at the time, or if she's competing, practicing or just skating for fun. It hardly comes as a surprise that she takes to the pastime because it feels so freeing; as she rolls up and down in Bondi after first giving skateboarding a try, she may as well be flying. Tall Poppy — A Skater's Story captures the rollercoaster ride from there, as she's eager and enthusiastic at both local and international competitions, visibly nervous at her first X Games, and also a little disillusioned once she's put on an Olympic path. She's a teenager, in other words, and her emotional ups and downs mirror those on the board. This is a film about resilience, perseverance and taking on the world on your own terms, however, as Olsen works out who she wants to be and how that ripples through in her skateboarding. She's already a role model, whether or not you want to follow in her footsteps. Here, she's doubly so for her personal ebbs and flows, including through COVID-19, as much as her professional achievements. Tall Poppy — A Skater's Story is an affectionate movie, of course. Its release is also impeccably timed, it's as deservedly loving towards female skaters as the fictional Skate Kitchen and its TV spinoff Betty, and it shows the beauty in every commonplace and exceptional skateboarding trick. But Olsen's presence, passion and prowess drive this rousing documentary above all else. THREE SUMMERS Not to be confused with the 2017 Ben Elton-directed Australian rom-com of the same name, Brazilian drama Three Summers takes its title literally: in writer/director Sandra Kogut's (Campo Grande) film, the action takes place across a trio of consecutive Decembers. In the first chapter, set in 2015, the lively Madá (Regina Casé, The Second Mother) flits around the opulent condominium that she oversees on behalf of the wealthy Edgar (Otávio Müller, Silence of the Rain) and his wife Marta (Gisele Fróes, Edge of Desire) — a space that's soon a hive of activity due to the family's Christmas party. She keeps her staff bustling as her employers, their relatives and their friends relax, all so that she can work towards her own dream of opening a roadside kiosk. For the latter, she needs Edgar, who agrees to buy her the land she needs. He's also more interested than anyone should be in her out-of-date pre-paid mobile phone, which ties into the changed state of play come summer 2016. By then, the family has fallen from grace. Only Edgar's elderly and kindly father Lira (Rogério Fróes, Magnífica 70) remains alongside Madá, her staff, and the police who show up to search the house in the wake of a corruption scandal. Next, in 2017, the housekeeper has adapted to the new normality, teaming up with Lira to rent out the condo on Airbnb. Largely confining the action to her chosen setting, Kogut hasn't quite made a savage eat the rich-style indictment of Brazil's class disparities — but she does have a probing eye for what the country's chasms between the haves and the have nots means for the latter. Madá goes from being reminded that she couldn't pay for the condo's decor in a lifetime to hustling to turn the space to her advantage; in a world where everyone is either striving to make more money or just enough, trying to make the most of every opportunity is as much the domain of the working class as the well-to-do. For those just attempting to get by, it's a necessity, though. For their bosses, it's all about greed, power and status. Three Summers saves its sympathies for Madá and her colleagues, and never for Edgar and his family, although it doesn't always have the bite the story, subject matter and real-life situations it parallels call for. Still, this is an involving character study of a woman continually placed at the mercy of others, and just as constantly battling to retain what control she can over her own destiny. And, as she was in The Second Mother, Casé is superb, this time playing a talkative, determined but haunted everywoman who is always trying to make the best of whatever she's saddled with. THE HITMAN'S WIFE'S BODYGUARD Someone involved with The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard must really love paperwork; that's the only reason anyone could've given its script the go-ahead. Perhaps Australian filmmaker Patrick Hughes, who also directed 2017's The Hitman's Bodyguard, likes nothing more than keeping his documents in order. Maybe returning screenwriter Tom O'Connor (The Courier) falls into that category, or his debuting co-scribes Phillip and Brandon Murphy — they all made the subject the focus of their screenplay, after all. Whoever fits the bill, their attempt to force audiences to care about bodyguard licensing falls flat. So does the misguided idea that the certification someone might need to unleash their inner Kevin Costner would ever fuel an entire movie. Instead, what was already a needless sequel to a terrible action-comedy becomes even more of a dull and pointless slog, with this by-the-numbers follow-up showing zero signs that anyone spent more than a few seconds contemplating the story. A significant plot point here: that Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds, The Croods: A New Age) has lost his official tick of approval. He's no longer triple A-rated after a mishap in the line of duty, and he isn't coping well. To be fair, no one watching The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard will handle that news swimmingly either, but only because they're made to hear about it over and over, all as Bryce rekindles his begrudging association with assassin Darius Kincaid (Samuel L Jackson, Spiral: From the Book of Saw) and the latter's con artist wife Sonia (Salma Hayek, Bliss). When Darius gets snatched up by nefarious folks during his belated honeymoon with Sonia, only Bryce can help — or so says the angry Mrs Kincaid. She interrupts the latter's vacation with swearing, shouting and shootouts, because that's the kind of feisty Mexican wife that Hayek plays. From there, Reynolds primarily complains, Hayek sticks with stereotypes and Jackson attempts to exude his usual brand of couldn't-care-less cool; however, even more than in Spiral: From the Book of Saw, he's on autopilot. As also seen in Jackson's last big-screen appearance, The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard insists on reminding its audience about its stars' better movies. You don't cast both Hayek and Antonio Banderas (who plays a European tycoon plotting the world's demise) if you don't want to bring Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico to mind (and Frida and even Spy Kids 3, too). Thinking about the pair's shared past highlights is far more enjoyable than enduring their current collaboration, unsurprisingly. Making fun of accents is considered the height of comedy here, women can only be hot-headed nags and manchild daddy issues get almost as much love as paperwork. The jokes aren't just scattershot; they're non-existent. The messy, incoherent and over-edited action scenes fare just as badly. None of the above is likely to save us from a third movie, though, which'll probably be called The Hitman's Wife's Baby's Bodyguard's Lost Birth Certificate. BUCKLEY'S CHANCE When a film saddles Bill Nighy with an Aussie twang and has him threaten to throw someone into a billabong, it isn't a great sign. When the same movie makes a big deal about a kangaroo less than three minutes in and stresses the dangers of dingoes just as quickly, it's clear that it has only been made with overseas viewers in mind. The dingoes don't eat anyone's babies, but it must've taken quite the self-restraint on Canadian writer/ director Tim Brown (Treasure Hounds) and screenwriter Willem Wennekers' (From the Vine) parts to leave that plot development out. They definitely haven't held back on the hackneyed and banal inclusions otherwise, though. The pair seems to have seen the Crocodile Dundee movies, The Simpsons' much-mocked Australian episode and the Red Dog films, then decided that they had all the tools they needed to make a outback adventure-thriller in the mould of Wake in Fright, Razorback and every other flick about overseas arrivals confronting the Great Southern Land's vast expanse — but in family-friendly packaging. From that dubious starting point, Brown and Wennekers are only interested in trading in Aussie cliches. In other words, they're only making a Down Under-set flick for audiences anywhere but here. That's why Nighy is stuck struggling with an unconvincing accent and roaming around in the dust: he's a recognisable, big-name star known the world over who'll help entice eyeballs, and he's also an outsider who wouldn't instantly grimace at every overdone stereotype. Here, the title has it — because there really is Buckley's chance that local viewers, even children, will find much to enjoy. Relocating to the titular property with his recently widowed mother Gloria (Victoria Hill, The Secrets We Keep), 13-year-old New Yorker Ridley (feature first-timer Milan Burch) doesn't think he'll discover much to his liking either. He certainly doesn't warm to his grandfather Spencer (Nighy, Minamata), even before he's forced to accompany the no-nonsense station owner on an overnight wander through the surrounding outback. That camping trip does see the boy save and befriend a dingo, at least. And, when he's later lost in the desert after spying a couple of dimwitted locals (Top of the Lake's Ben Wood and Packed to the Rafters' Anthony Gooley) trying to burn down his grandpa's property over a land feud — and then hides in the back of their ute, gets caught and is forced to escape their bumbling clutches — said canine becomes Ridley's trusty offsider. Every turn that Buckley's Chance takes steers it into been-there, done-that territory. Every film this stale retread resembles did it better, too, including last year's crims-and-kids comedy A Sunburnt Christmas. The one shining light, in a movie with few high points and largely monotonous performances: Kelton Pell (The Heights). Playing Spencer's righthand man, he's the only actor who plays anything approximating an engaging character, even in his brief screentime. RHAPSODY OF LOVE Her best friend Ben (Benjamin Hanly, Janet King) is getting married, she's the best man, and she's running late — so much so that she's doing her hair and makeup while chatting on the phone with her sister Jade (Joy Hopwood, also the film's writer and director). She also finishes getting dressed in the car to the ceremony, too, while asking her driver to get her there as speedily as possible. That's how Rhapsody of Love introduces Sydneysider Jess Flowers (Kathy Luu, The Script of Life), in one of those pure rom-com scenes that aims to make all the chaos seem charming and whimsical rather than disorganised and messy. Indulging in romantic comedy tropes is this film's glue, and it pastes those well-worn cliches around everywhere it can. At the wedding, the stereotypically bubbly Jess meets photographer Justin (Damien Sato, At First Hello), and of course sparks fly over awkward then flirty banter. The PR whiz also finds a new friend and client in baker Victoria (Lily Stewart, Ascendant), who has whipped up the cake for Ben and his bride Natasha (Jessica Niven, Dirt Music), and is also instantly attracted to waiter Hugh (Tom Jackson, Bloom). Unbeknownst to Jess, though, Victoria happens to be Justin's long-term girlfriend — resulting in several waves of personal and professional pandemonium. In a tongue-in-cheek scene partway through the film, the Flowers sisters try to pick a rom-com to watch one evening. They're both fans, obviously. Among the DVDs scattered across Jade's floor: the wholly fictional Sleepless in Sydney and Crazy Middle Class Asians. Even from just their monikers, those two faux flicks say plenty about Rhapsody of Love — that's exactly how it pitches itself, after all, and with more enthusiasm than the over-the-top zeal oozing from Luu's performance. Adding an Asian Australian focus to the nation's small and hardly diverse collection of romantic comedies is a welcome and important feat. Leaning on all the genre's hallmarks, especially when sporting a tone that oscillates between winking and earnest, tempers the film's impact, though. Even when a formulaic new entry in an overpopulated genre splashes much-needed diversity across the screen, coats on its eagerness just as thick and is visibly warm to look at, there's no escaping the by-the-numbers air. Rhapsody of Love's wooden performances don't do it any favours, either, and neither does the rote dialogue, or the predictable complications that blight not only Jess and Justin's path to true love, but Ben and Natasha's, Victoria and Hugh's, and Jade and her new trainer Phil's (Khan Chittenden, Book Week) as well. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on January 1, January 7, January 14, January 21 and January 28; February 4, February 11, February 18 and February 25; March 4, March 11, March 18 and March 25; and April 1, April 8, April 15, April 22 and April 29; May 6, May 13, May 20 and May 27; and June 3, June 10 and June 17. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as Nomadland, Pieces of a Woman, The Dry, Promising Young Woman, Summerland, Ammonite, The Dig, The White Tiger, Only the Animals, Malcolm & Marie, News of the World, High Ground, Earwig and the Witch, The Nest, Assassins, Synchronic, Another Round, Minari, Firestarter — The Story of Bangarra, The Truffle Hunters, The Little Things, Chaos Walking, Raya and the Last Dragon, Max Richter's Sleep, Judas and the Black Messiah, Girls Can't Surf, French Exit, Saint Maud, Godzilla vs Kong, The Painter and the Thief, Nobody, The Father, Willy's Wonderland, Collective, Voyagers, Gunda, Supernova, The Dissident, The United States vs Billie Holiday, First Cow, Wrath of Man, Locked Down, The Perfect Candidate, Those Who Wish Me Dead, Spiral: From the Book of Saw, Ema, A Quiet Place Part II, Cruella, My Name Is Gulpilil, Lapsis, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Fast and Furious 9 and Valerie Taylor: Playing with Sharks.
Australia's most prestigious portrait award is almost upon us for another year, with the paintings vying for the 2021 Archibald Prize just announced. Ahead of anointing the winner on Friday, June 4, 52 portraits have just been shortlisted for the coveted gong — and, for the first time in its now 100-year history, an equal number of male and female artists have made the cut. More of this year's portraits depict women than men, too, although that isn't a first. Among the highlights: Kirsty Neilson's Making Noise, a portrait of Grace Tame — and Oliver Watts' Dorian Gray (Eryn Jean Norville). Other finalists include Matthew Clarke's Del Kathryn Barton is a good listener; Rachel by Thea Anamara Perkins, which depicts the latter's aunt and Jasper Jones filmmaker Rachel Perkins; and Natasha Bieniek's image of actor Rachel Griffiths. Mirra Whale's Repose, which features fellow artist Ben Quilty, has been shortlisted as well — as has Jonathan Dalton's portrait of artist Ramesh Nithiyendran. Kathrin Longhurst's Kate is in the running, and has also taken out the coveted 2021 Archibald Packing Room Prize, which is chosen by the packing room team. The portrait depicts singer and songwriter Kate Ceberano. [caption id="attachment_813770" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Archibald Prize 2021 finalist. Kathrin Longhurst, 'Kate'. Oil on linen, 122 x 122 cm. © the artist. Photo: AGNSW, Jenni Carte.[/caption] Also spanning Sally M Nangala Mulda's Two town camp stories, Eunice Djerrkŋu Yunupiŋu's Me and my sisters, Peter Berner's Stop pouting, you've had your turn and Kim by Kim Leutwyler — all self-portraits — the 52 shortlisted works are all in contention for the Archibald's $100,000 prize. Speculation about who will be awarded the coveted prize — and, more often than not, the Archibald winner itself — usually causes much-heated debate. From 2018's five-time Archibald finalist Yvette Coppersmith's first win to Tony Costa's win with his painting of fellow artist Lindy Lee — the first portrait of an Asian Australian to pick up the prize — it's hard a win to pick. All that's really assured is that it'll be a portrait of a person by an Australian. In 2020, Vincent Namatjira's portrait of Adam Goodes did the honours, and also marked the first the award has gone to an Indigenous artist. [caption id="attachment_813771" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Archibald Prize 2021 finalist. Oliver Watts, 'Dorian Gray (Eryn Jean Norvill)'. Acrylic on canvas, 213.5 x 137.5 cm. © the artist. Photo: AGNSW, Jenni Carte[/caption] Held at Sydney's Art Gallery of NSW every year, the Archibald runs in conjunction with the Wynne and Sulman Prizes — recognising the best landscape painting of Australian scenery or figure sculpture, and the best subject painting, genre painting or mural project, respectively. This year, 2021's winning works and finalists will be on display from Saturday, June 4–Sunday, September 26. And if it feels like all of this just happened recently, that's because 2020's Archibald Prize happened later in the year due to the pandemic. If you don't agree with the judges, you can cast your own vote for People's Choice, which will be announced on Wednesday, September 1. ARCHIBALD PRIZE 2021 DATES Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney, NSW — June 4–September 26, 2021 Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, Victoria — October 8–November 21, 2021 Hazelhurst Regional Gallery & Art Centre, Gymea, NSW — December 3–January 16, 2022 Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Maitland, NSW — January 23–March 6, 2022 Cowra Regional Art Gallery, Cowra, NSW — March 18–June 22, 2022 Manning Regional Art Gallery, Taree, NSW — July 8–August 21, 2022 If you can't make it to any of the above dates, you can check out the award winners and finalists of the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes on the Art Gallery of NSW website. Top image: Archibald Prize 2021 finalist. Kirsty Neilson, 'Making noise'. Oil on linen, 50.1 x 60.1 cm, © the artist. Photo: AGNSW, Felicity Jenkins
There's so, so much more to the Snowy Mountains than skiing and snowboarding. When the ice and snow melt away, a whole wonderland of adventures emerges. If you're into the outdoors, get ready to walk and ride (by bike or horse) some of the most spectacular terrain in Australia. If you're a mad foodie, then gear up to taste a bunch of excellent cool climate wines, linger over schnapps made with local produce and sink into some fine French cooking while overlooking a shimmering lake. Meanwhile, for arty types, there are galleries galore. Here are five jam-packed itineraries that'll keep you busy in the Snowies for days — if not weeks — whatever your inclination. [caption id="attachment_659667" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Destination NSW.[/caption] FOR FOOD LOVERS The Snowies' pristine mountain streams and unspoilt farming land mean there's an abundance of fresh, local produce to sample — from wild-caught trout to freshly picked berries. For a hearty brekkie, grab a table at Central Road 2625 in Thredbo. If you're still in town by dinner time, there's irresistible Italian fare at Segreto within the Thredbo Alpine Hotel. Alternatively, make tracks east to Lake Crackenback Resort for local, seasonal dishes at Cuisine or a woodfired pizza at the laidback Alpine Larder. And a hop, skip and jump down the road is idyllic Crackenback Farm, where farmhouse-style dishes are served up on a sun-dappled terrace. Most conveniently, it's just around the corner from the Wildbrumby distillery, whose delicious European schnapps are made from local fruit. Another option is to head northwest from Thredbo to Tumbarumba, a cool climate wine region known for its stellar chardonnay and pinot noir. Among the outstanding cellar doors are Courabyra and Tuscany-inspired Tumbarumba Wine Escape. If you're after a coffee, head to Nest Cafe or for a meal, there's Elms Restaurant within the Tumbarumba Motel. [caption id="attachment_659672" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Snowy Mountains.[/caption] FOR ADVENTURE SEEKERS How long have you got? Even a total adrenaline junkie could spend months in the Snowies without running out of things to do. A hike is a good place to start, and the classic is the Main Range Walk, a 22-kilometre loop that swings by several glacial lakes before climbing to the summit of Mount Kosciuszko. Looking for a shorter stroll? There are loads of options, including Nichols Gorge in the northern section of Kosciuszko National Park. If mountain biking's your thing, you have hundreds of kilometres to conquer, covering all standards. Novices can get started on the easy Lake Jindabyne Foreshore Trail, then have a crack at the Thredbo Valley Trail, which offers a mix of beginner and more challenging sections. For experienced riders, the 50-kilometre Cascade to Pinch Trail is an extraordinary adventure, taking in stunning alpine terrain and epic panoramas. Then, of course, there's horse riding, for which the Snowies are legendary, thanks to The Man From Snowy River. Take a brief ride with Thredbo Valley Horse Riding or consider a multi-day escapade with Cochran Horse Treks, which involves staying at homesteads along the way. [caption id="attachment_659657" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Lake Crackenback Resort Sculpture Trail.[/caption] FOR ART AFICIONADOS From Banjo Paterson to Prue Acton, numerous writers, artists and musicians have sought refuge and inspiration in the Snowies' dramatic, unpredictable landscapes. Begin your explorations at Raglan Gallery and Cultural Centre in Cooma, set inside a 150-year-old former inn. Next, head to Jindabyne to visit Kunama Gallery, where there's a permanent exhibition of works by Alan Grovesnor, who spent decades painting nearby landscapes before passing away in 2012. Also in Jindabyne is the Snowy Region Visitor Centre; its tiny gallery hosts temporary shows by local artists. Should you happen to be passing through in early autumn, make your visit coincide with Lake Light Sculpture, an outdoor event that fills the shores of Lake Jindabyne with illuminated sculptures and the town with artists from far and wide. Visiting at another time? Despair not. Instead, make your way to Lake Crackenback Resort Sculpture Trail or to Wildbrumby distillery, where co-owner Brad Spalding displays his sustainability-themed works made of recycled materials. Then, continue north to Tumbarumba to check out Artists on Parade. [caption id="attachment_659668" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Paul Sinclair / Destination NSW.[/caption] FOR HISTORY BUFFS The Snowy Mountains are famous all over the world for being home to the Snowy Hydro Scheme. Built between 1949 and 1974, this engineering feat channelled the energy of the Snowy River and transformed it into hydroelectricity, which today provides 4500 gigawatt-hours per year to the ACT, NSW and Victoria. To find out all about it, drop into the Snowy Hydro Centre in Cooma. While you're at it, pop into the visitors' centre, grab a map and take the Lambie Town Walk, a five-kilometre stroll that passes through three heritage-listed areas. To stay in the 19th-century, visit the Early Settlers Hut built in the 1840s at Delegate and Burnima Homestead, a 32-room mansion in Bombala with a six-acre garden that dates back to 1896. Half-way up Mount Kosciuszko will transport you into the early 20th-century should you visit the Seaman's Hut, a shelter built in 1929 following the deaths of skiers W. Laurie Seaman and Evan Hayes. [caption id="attachment_659675" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Destination NSW.[/caption] FOR SIGHTSEERS If your trip to the Snowies is all about seeing classic sights at a leisurely pace, then make your first stop Yarrangobilly Caves, a series of limestone marvels in the northern part of Kosciuszko National Park. Here you'll also find a thermal pool, which is a warming 27 degrees celsius all year-round, and a relaxing river walk. Continuing south, stop by Lake Eucumbene, the biggest lake to have been created by the Snowy Hydro scheme, where you can try your hand at trout fishing, and Lake Jindabyne, which appeared in Australian films Somersault (2004) and Jindabyne (2006). Then, it's on to Thredbo where you can get instant mountain views without having to strain a muscle on the two-kilometre-long, 560-metre-high Kosciuszko Express Lift. While you're in town, take a stroll along pretty Thredbo River. Or, to get an even higher perspective on mighty Mount Kosciuszko, book a scenic flight with Heli Fun. Discover all that the Snowy Mountains has to offer outside of winter months, from picturesque hikes to culinary excursions and so much more.
The eco-friendly craze has spread like wildfire in the past several years, and now the movement is even targeting the minds of young kids. Designer Leo Corrales and Precidio Design Inc. have developed Juice in a Box, a reusable juice box for children as an alternative to drinking the typical one-time-use juice boxes. The Juice in a Box containers are made of reusable plastic and come equipped with both a lid and straw, and are the perfect size to fit in packed lunches to bring to school. The outside of the containers cater to young children, featuring cartoon characters and colourful designs. Recently proposed at the International Home and Housewares Show, the design is aimed at making kids conscious of their impact on the environment from a young age so they continue eco-friendly practices throughout their entire lives. Getting the 'go green' initiative instilled in young minds may be what it takes to make a significant impact in long-term sustainable living.
First, the bad news for Marvel Cinematic Universe fans: the reports about the big- and small-screen franchise starting to space out its output are coming to fruition with its next big streaming series Echo. Now, the good news: the five-part miniseries just released its first trailer, and promises rage, darkness, focusing on a superhero who is deaf, bringing back Kingpin and also dropping its entire season at once come January. Echo was previously locked in for a November release, as one of two MCU shows due to stream this spring. While the first series on that list, the second season of Loki, did indeed arrive as planned, Echo has now been pushed to 2024. Hopefully good things will come to those who wait, with this Hawkeye spinoff slated for Wednesday, January 10. While Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) is at Echo's centre — as first seen in Hawkeye, she's the gang leader who is deaf that had Clint Barton in her sights for a stint of revenge — the show's debut trailer gives narrating duties to Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio, Dumb Money) to set a brooding tone. "You have so much pain in you, so much rage, that you can't contain it," says the character also seen in Hawkeye, and before that in Daredevil as well. "You and I are the same," Kingpin continues amid sound design that lives up to the show's moniker. When all five instalments of Echo hit at once, the series will enjoy a first for the MCU on streaming. As viewers who've been watching along since WandaVision's small-screen arrival know, Disney+ usually drops a few episodes at once for each MCU entry, then unfurls the rest weekly afterwards ‚ but this one will arrive all at once on the same day. Story-wise, Echo follows Maya as Kingpin's criminal empire chases her down — and as the initial sneak peek illustrates, that ties in with her past. So, yes, this is an origin story. Also featuring alongside Cox and D'Onofrio: Chaske Spencer (The English), Tantoo Cardinal (Killers of the Flower Moon), Devery Jacobs (Reservation Dogs), Cody Lightning (Run Woman Run), Graham Greene (The Last of Us) and Zahn McClarnon (Dark Winds). Check out the trailer for Echo below: Echo will stream via Disney+ from Wednesday, January 10, 2024. Images: Chuck Zlotnick. ©Marvel Studios 2023. All Rights Reserved.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas in some parts of the country. After numerous periods spent empty during the pandemic, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, picture palaces in many Australian regions are back in business — including both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. NO TIME TO DIE James Bond might famously prefer his martinis shaken, not stirred, but No Time to Die doesn't quite take that advice. While the enterprising spy hasn't changed his drink order, the latest film he's in — the 25th official feature in the franchise across six decades, and the fifth and last that'll star Daniel Craig — gives its regular ingredients both a mix and a jiggle. The action is dazzlingly choreographed, a menacing criminal has an evil scheme and the world is in peril, naturally. Still, there's more weight in Craig's performance, more emotion all round, and a greater willingness to contemplate the stakes and repercussions that come with Bond's globe-trotting, bed-hopping, villain-dispensing existence. There's also an eagerness to shake up parts of the character and Bond template that rarely get a nudge. Together, even following a 19-month pandemic delay, it all makes for a satisfying blockbuster cocktail. For Craig, the actor who first gave Bond a 21st-century flavour back in 2006's Casino Royale (something Pierce Brosnan couldn't manage in 2002's Die Another Day), No Time to Die also provides a fulfilling swansong. That wasn't assured; as much as he's made the tuxedo, gadgets and espionage intrigue his own, the Knives Out and Logan Lucky actor's tenure has charted a seesawing trajectory. His first stint in the role was stellar and franchise-redefining, but 2008's Quantum of Solace made it look like a one-off. Then Skyfall triumphed spectacularly in 2012, before Spectre proved all too standard in 2015. Ups and downs have long been part of this franchise, depending on who's in the suit, who's behind the lens, the era and how far the tone skews towards comedy — but at its best, Craig's run has felt like it's building new levels rather than traipsing through the same old framework. In No Time to Die, Bond does need to look backwards, though — to loves lost, choices made and lingering enemies. Before Billie Eilish's theme song echoes over eye-catching opening credits, the film fills its first scenes with the past, starting with returning psychiatrist Madeleine Swan's (Léa Seydoux, Kursk) links to new mask-wearing villain Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek, The Little Things). There's patience and visual poetry to these early minutes amid Norway's snowy climes, even while littered with violence. No Time to Die is a lengthy yet never slow feature, and Bond first-timer Cary Joji Fukunaga doesn't begin with the pace he means to continue; however, the director behind True Detective's stunning first season establishes a sense of meticulousness, an eye for detail and an inclination to let moments last — and a striking look — that serves him exceptionally moving forward. Back in post-Spectre times, Bond and Swan enjoy an Italian holiday that's cut short by bomb blasts, bridge shootouts and other attempts on 007's life — and Fukunaga is quickly two for two in the action camp. No Time to Die segues commandingly from slow-building and foreboding to fast, frenetic and breathtaking in its two big opening sequences, setting itself a high bar. At this point, the narrative hasn't even properly kicked into gear yet. That happens five years later, when Bond is alone and retired in Jamaica (in a nice nod to where author Ian Fleming wrote his Bond stories). His old CIA pal Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright, Westworld) comes knocking, new politically appointed offsider Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen, The Many Saints of Newark) in tow, asking for the now ex-MI6 agent's help to foil the latest nefarious plan — involving a DNA-targeting virus fuelled by nanobots, of course — that's been hatched by terrorist organisation Spectre. Read our full review. THE POWER OF THE DOG Don't call it a comeback: Jane Campion's films have been absent from cinemas for 12 years but, due to miniseries Top of the Lake, she hasn't been biding her time in that gap. And don't call it simply returning to familiar territory, even if the New Zealand director's new movie features an ivory-tinkling woman caught between cruel and sensitive men, as her Cannes Palme d'Or-winner The Piano did three decades ago. Campion isn't rallying after a dip, just as she isn't repeating herself. She's never helmed anything less than stellar, and she's immensely capable of unearthing rich new pastures in well-ploughed terrain. With The Power of the Dog, Campion is at the height of her skills trotting into her latest mesmerising musing on strength, desire and isolation — this time via a venomous western that's as perilously bewitching as its mountainous backdrop. That setting is Montana, circa 1925. Campion's homeland stands in for America nearly a century ago, making a magnificent sight — with cinematographer Ari Wegner (Zola, True History of the Kelly Gang) perceptively spying danger in its craggy peaks and dusty plains even before the film introduces Rose and Peter Gordon (On Becoming a God in Central Florida's Kirsten Dunst and 2067's Kodi Smit-McPhee). When the widowed innkeeper and her teenage son serve rancher brothers Phil and George Burbank (The Courier's Benedict Cumberbatch and Antlers' Jesse Plemons) during a cattle-run stop, the encounter seesaws from callousness to kindness, a dynamic that continues after Rose marries George and decamps to the Burbank mansion against that stunning backdrop. Brutal to the lanky, lisping Peter from the outset, Phil responds to the nuptials with malice. He isn't fond of change, and won't accommodate anything that fails his bristling definition of masculinity and power, either. In a career-best, awards-worthy, downright phenomenal turn by Cumberbatch, Phil is all hawkish menace and bravado; he viciously calls his brother 'Fatso', his initial taunting of Peter over paper flowers and effete mannerisms is all the more ferocious for its dinner-table audience, and he's effusive in his admiration for Bronco Henry, the man's man who taught him everything he knows. Indeed, Phil's hyper-masculine air, complete with threatening and mocking banjo-plucking, soon drives Rose to drink. He'd rather still be bunking in with George, as they have for the quarter-century they've run their inherited ranch. He'd rather scare everyone away by failing to bathe, unless he's stealing off to a secret water hole — and by mixing his Yale classics degree into his sneering, too. The key to Cumberbatch's commanding performance isn't softening Phil or playing up his charisma, but conveying the battle of repression and self-resentment raging within; the cattleman has long tanned his own public persona, but he's as complex as rawhide. Adapting Thomas Savage's 1967 novel of the same name, Campion gives Phil's chomping misery ample company: in the sauced Rose, in the intimidating attitude that rolls around the ranch like a stubborn tumbleweed, and in Peter when he returns from his medical studies for the summer. The Power of the Dog lets this unhappy stew fester, adding grit to its brew with each passing scene and deepening its rich character studies in the process. The film's only misstep is pushing George aside, although the fact that his passivity — his main trait alongside tenderness — earns him less attention is an incisive touch. Rose becomes a supporting player as Phil and Peter's initially antagonistic relationship finds deeper dimensions but, in Dunst's hands, this is still an intense portrait of a woman heartbreakingly accustomed to being at others' whims. As a raw-boned young man who proves exacting and steely inside, Smit-McPhee isn't just similarly exceptional — he's revelatory. Read our full review. TICK, TICK... BOOM! "Try writing what you know." That's age-old advice, dispensed to many a scribe who hasn't earned the success or even the reaction they'd hoped, and it's given to aspiring theatre composer Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield, Under the Silver Lake) in Tick, Tick… Boom!. The real-life figure would go on to write Rent but here, in New York City in January 1990, he's working on his debut musical Superbia. It's a futuristic satire inspired by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and it's making him anxious about three things. Firstly, he hasn't yet come up with a pivotal second-act song that he keeps being told he needs. Next, he's staging a workshop for his debut production to gauge interest before the week is out — and this just has to be his big break. Finally, he's also turning 30 in days, and his idol Stephen Sondheim made his Broadway debut in his 20s. Tick, Tick… Boom! charts the path to those well-worn words of wisdom about drawing from the familiar, including Larson's path to the autobiographical one-man-show of the same name before Rent. And, it manages to achieve that feat while showing why such a sentiment isn't merely a cliche in this situation. That said, the key statement about mining your own experience also echoes throughout this affectionate movie musical in another unmissable way. Lin-Manuel Miranda didn't write Tick, Tick… Boom!'s screenplay; however, he does turn it into his filmmaking directorial debut — and what could be more fitting for that task from the acclaimed In the Heights and Hamilton talent than a loving ode (albeit an inescapably overexcited one) to the hard work put in by a game-changing theatre wunderkind? If this was a case of telling viewers that this is Miranda's movie without telling them, the concept would obviously do the trick. So would a few notable cameos in a standout song-and-dance number that's best discovered by watching. There's plenty in Tick, Tick… Boom! that was already layered with musical theatre history before it became a film, too; in the source material, Larson even wrote in a homage to Sondheim's own musical Sunday in the Park with George. That's the level of insider knowledge that's a foundation here, and the film frequently reverberates in an insular, theatre-obsessive, spot-the-references register. As great as it is if you stan the same productions and people, it also makes Tick, Tick… Boom! less accessible and resonant. It's as if Miranda can't choose between indulging his own adoration or truly sharing that love with his audience. (Tick, Tick… Boom! also became a three-person stage musical in 2001, and Miranda played its lead in a 2014 revival opposite Hamilton's Leslie Odom Jr and In the Heights' Karen Olivo.) Garfield's sing-to-the-rafters version of Larson is first seen in faux home-video footage, performing the rock monologue iteration of Tick, Tick… Boom!, his bouncy hair waving about as he croons and plays piano. Miranda and screenwriter Steven Levenson (Dear Evan Hansen) then segue between the lively presentation and the tale it also tells about Superbia, the looming workshop and the impending birthday. In the latter scenes, Larson can't come up with the missing song, earn enough as a composer to keep the power on, or juggle his pursuit of his dream with the complexities of his personal life. The alternative: opting for a safe career, which his ex-actor ex-roommate Michael (Robin de Jesus, The Boys in the Band) has done in advertising, and his dancer girlfriend Susan (Alexandra Shipp, X-Men: Dark Phoenix) is contemplating with teaching. Read our full review. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in Australian cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on July 1, July 8, July 15, July 22 and July 29; August 5, August 12, August 19 and August 26; September 2, September 9, September 16, September 23 and September 30; October 7, October 14, October 21 and October 28; and November 4. For Sydney specifically, you can take a look at out our rundown of new films that released in Sydney cinemas when they reopened on October 11, and what opened on October 14, October 21 and October 28 as well. And for Melbourne, you can check out our top picks from when outdoor cinemas reopened on October 22 — and from when indoor cinemas did the same on October 29. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as Herself, Little Joe, Black Widow, The Sparks Brothers, Nine Days, Gunpowder Milkshake, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Old, Jungle Cruise, The Suicide Squad, Free Guy, Respect, The Night House, Candyman, Annette, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Streamline, Coming Home in the Dark, Pig, Big Deal, The Killing of Two Lovers, Nitram, Riders of Justice, The Alpinist, A Fire Inside, Lamb, The Last Duel, Malignant, The Harder They Fall, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, Halloween Kills, Passing, Eternals, The Many Saints of Newark and Julia.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, life as we once knew it changed suddenly, and everything started to feel like something out of a horror or sci-fi movie set in a post-apocalyptic future, films about contagions, outbreaks and infections all became go-to comfort viewing. We flocked to visions of situations similar to our own, even if only slightly, to help us cope with the existence-shattering shift we were all going through. Accordingly, Contagion proved eerily prescient, while I Am Legend and 28 Days Later mirrored the empty streets — and, yes, everyone was watching them. Next came the spate of flicks that were shot during the pandemic and responded to it. Think: opportunistic fare such as Locked Down and Songbird, neither of which proved memorable. Movies and TV shows will be ruminating upon life in the time of COVID-19 for years and decades to come, obviously; however, the highlights so far have rare. Add Station Eleven to the certain-to-keep-growing pile, but thankfully as one of the very best examples. Indeed, it's unfair to clump this haunting end-of-the-world miniseries in the same group as almost anything else that's emerged since the pandemic began, other than Bo Burnham's exceptional comedy special Inside. As also proved the case with Y: The Last Man when it reached streaming queues in 2021, Station Eleven's narrative actually predates our current predicament. Its nine-episode run now sits on Stan in Australia and Neon in New Zealand, available to watch in full, after its story first garnered a devoted following on the page. And, it taps into something far deeper than obvious observations about being stuck at home with your significant other for longer than either of you had ever considered, and having to scramble to buy toilet paper when the supermarket shelves are bare. The focus of this excellent show, and of Emily St. John Mandel's 2014 book before it: how art and community all play immeasurable parts in helping humanity process and navigate existence-shattering traumas, and to find a path out the other side. That's a sentiment that might sound mawkish and self-evident when described in a mere sentence, but nothing about Station Eleven ever earns such terms. [caption id="attachment_841063" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Parrish Lewis/HBO Max[/caption] Here, it all starts with a flu that swiftly proves more than just the usual sniffles, coughs, aches and pains. This one spreads lightning fast, too, and strikes down its unlucky victims heartbreakingly quickly. For eight-year-old Shakespearean actor Kirsten (Matilda Lawler, Evil), the chaos descends during a tumultuous opening-night performance of King Lear led by Arthur Leander (Gael García Bernal, Old). In the aftermath, she's stuck traipsing around snowy Chicago with Jeevan (Himesh Patel, Don't Look Up), who she has just met — and then sheltering in his brother Frank's (Nabhaan Rizwa, Mogul Mowgli) high-rise apartment. That's really just the beginning of this multi-layered narrative, which also jumps forward 20 years to survey Kirsten's (Mackenzie Davis, Happiest Season) adult life. There, she's a key part of a travelling theatre troupe who performs Shakespeare to the outposts of survivors it passes on its annual route — and she's spent almost her entire existence adjusting, like the rest of the planet, to this new normality. Still, while two decades might've passed and little may now resemble all that passed for routine before the flu, the earth remains an anxious and fraught place. So when a mysterious man, known as The Prophet (Daniel Zovatto, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels) to his army of child followers, shows up at one of the Travelling Symphony's stops, Kirsten is immediately and understandably suspicious. [caption id="attachment_841060" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ian Watson/HBO Max[/caption] Station Eleven's narrative isn't just about one woman, the men who help her as a child and the other that threatens her status quo as an adult. As well as continually fluttering backwards and forwards between Kirsten's younger and older exploits, it dives into the experiences of others connected to her story in various ways. Before the flu, Miranda Carroll (Danielle Deadwyler, The Harder They Fall) devoted her spare time to writing and illustrating a graphic novel about feeling lost and adrift in space, for instance — and that text, which shares the show's name, is part of the series' broader contemplation of art, tragedy, trauma and dealing with our feelings in general. Premiering late in 2021, just as Omicron started sweeping the world, Station Eleven might've seemed blighted by unfortunate timing. Nonetheless, it's the ideal show for right now. Shot with a soft grey-blue sheen like it's unearthing watery memories, it cuts close to home but always plays like a beacon of hope — and an ode to endeavouring to make it through, come together and make a difference however one can. It's impeccably acted, with the broader cast also spanning Orange Is the New Black's Lori Petty, Veronica Mars' Enrico Colantoni, Arrested Development's David Cross, Veep's Timothy Simons, Succession's Caitlin FitzGerald and Little Joe's David Wilmot. It's meticulous and expressive with every shot, and perfects the feeling of simultaneously trying to get by and daring to dream about something other than weathering a pandemic. Rich and layered and cathartic, this is a dystopian disaster tale not just about merely surviving, but about truly enduring. In a sea of pandemic tales — those made before COVID-19 and since — Station Eleven is a lyrical, heartfelt and character-driven apocalyptic musing with an immediate difference. Check out the trailer below: Station Eleven is available to stream via Stan in Australia and Neon in New Zealand. Top images: Ian Watson/HBO Max.
Take a must-visit Paris art museum, an acclaimed Victorian gallery, an iconic French painter and one of the world's most influential architects, mix them all together, and Australia's latest huge exhibition is the end result. So is something unsurprisingly stunning: the world premiere of Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi at the NGV International in Melbourne. The National Gallery of Victoria's revolving door of blockbuster exhibitions shows no sign of slowing, with this exceptional meeting of creative minds announced earlier in 2023, and now gracing its halls from Friday, June 9–Sunday, October 8. When the temperature dips each year, the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series kicks in — and, as created in collaboration with the Musée d'Orsay, home to the world's largest collection of Bonnard works, this ode to Bonnard and Mahdavi is the current centrepiece. On display: more than 100 pieces by the famed French artist, but seen through a fresh lens. Helping provide that new perspective is scenography by internationally renowned architect and designer Mahdavi, in a major showcase that was originally slated to debut in 2020 before the pandemic did its thing. An icon of late 19th- and early 20th-century art, and a good mate of Henri Matisse, Bonnard is known for his colourful, textural depictions of French life, offering stylised yet subtle glimpses of intimate domestic scenes, urban backdrops and natural landscapes. Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi includes a hefty collection of the artist's own paintings, drawings, photographs, prints and other decorative objects, alongside works from his contemporaries — including Édouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Félix Vallotton and cinematic pioneers the Lumière brothers. Attendees can expect to step through Bonnard's early artistic days in the 1890s, highlighting his focus on Parisian street life; his evolution from there, including when he started focusing on more domestic scenes as inspired by his relationship with his companion Marthe Bonnard; and his love of landscape, especially from 1910 onwards, and as influenced by his fellow pal Claude Monet. Numerous pieces are on loan from the Musée d'Orsay, as well as other museums and private collections in Europe, Australia and the USA. The NGV's own collection also includes significant works, however, including Bonnard's 1900 painting La Sieste (Siesta). Considered one of the world's most influential architects, multi-award-winning Mahdavi has been commissioned to help bring the historic pieces to life via her scenography, tasked with creating a setting that complements Bonnard's signature use of colour and light. The results aren't just spectacular — they're dreamy. "Monsieur Bonnard and I share the same passion: colour," Mahdavi explains of the exhibition. "I love his subjective perception of colour — the way he transforms the intimacy of everyday life into something sublime." "Pierre Bonnard is one of the most captivating artists of the post-impressionist movement. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to experience his work within a vivid scenography designed by India Mahdavi, one of the world's leading designers working today. Both the artist and the designer are celebrated for their ingenious use of colour, which made them a natural and authentic pairing for this NGV-exclusive exhibition," adds Tony Ellwood AM, the NGV's director. Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi runs at the NGV International, St Kilda Road, Melbourne from Friday, June 9–Sunday, October 8. For more information, see the venue's website. Images: Installation view of Pierre Bonnard: Designed by India Mahdavi, on display from June 9–October 8, 2023 at NGV International, Melbourne. Photos: Lillie Thompson.
How does it feel to watch Timothée Chalamet play Bob Dylan belting out 'Like a Rolling Stone'? The second trailer for A Complete Unknown — a title that also stems from the same song featured in the new sneak peek — is here to help you find out. Set to hit cinemas Down Under in January 2025, the new biopic steps through the early days of the music icon's career, focusing on how Dylan became a sensation. A Complete Unknown's subject has been no stranger to the screen for decades. Martin Scorsese has made not one but two documentaries about him. I'm Not There had six actors, including Cate Blanchett (The New Boy), play him. The Coen brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis couldn't take a fictional tour of the 60s folk scene without getting its protagonist watching him onstage. And docos about him date back to 1967's Don't Look Back and Festival. Only A Complete Unknown has Chalamet (Dune: Part Two) picking up a guitar, however, now that Dylan is getting the music biopic treatment again. With the curls and the gaze — and the early 60s-era wardrobe, too — the film's star looks the part in both the initial trailer (which dropped 59 years to the day that the 1965 Newport Folk Festival took place, where Dylan performed acoustic songs one day and went electric the next) and the just-released latest sneak peek. Chalamet also sings the part as the Wonka and Bones and All star transforms into the music icon at the start of his career, another reason for the movie's title. In a picture directed by Walk the Line helmer James Mangold — swapping Johnny Cash for another legend, clearly — A Complete Unknown charts Dylan's rise to stardom. The folk singer's early gigs, filling concert halls, going electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival: they're all set to be covered, including his famous performance at the latter. "They just want me to be singing 'Blowin' in the Wind' for the rest of my goddamn life," notes Chalamet in the new look at the flick, as it digs into the impact of his fame and the expectations that it brings. As well as Chalamet as Dylan, Mangold (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) has enlisted Edward Norton (Asteroid City) as Pete Seegar, Monica Barbaro (Fubar) as Joan Baez and Scoot McNairy (Speak No Evil) as Woody Guthrie — and, because he isn't done with Cash yet, Boyd Holbrook (The Bikeriders) to step into Johnny's shoes. Elle Fanning (The Great), Dan Fogler (Eric) and Norbert Leo Butz (The Exorcist: Believer) also feature. Check out the full trailer for A Complete Unknown below: A Complete Unknown releases in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, January 23, 2025. Images: courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2024 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.
When podcasting grasped onto IRL mysteries and the world listened, it started a 21st-century circle of true crime obsessions. First, the audio format dived into the genre. Next, screens big and small gave it renewed attention, not that either ever shirked reality's bleakest details. Now, movies and TV shows are known to spin stories around folks investigating such cases to make podcasts, turning detective as they press record. And, as Only Murders in the Building did, sometimes there's also a podcast venturing behind the scenes of a fictional affair about podcasters sleuthing a case. While Bodkin, which arrived via Netflix on Thursday, May 9, mightn't come with an accompanying digital audio series stepping into its minutiae, it does take murder-mystery comedy Only Murders in the Building's lead otherwise. Swaps are made — West Cork is in, New York is out; deaths pile up in an Irish village, not an apartment building; three chalk-and-cheese neighbours give way to a trio of mismatched journalists — but the shared format is as plain to see as blood splatter. Call that part of the 21st-century circle of true crime obsessions, too, as one hit inspires more. Bodkin is easy to get hooked on as Only Murders in the Building as well, even if it's not as guaranteed to return for additional seasons. Siobhán Cullen (The Dry), Will Forte (Strays) and Robyn Cara (Mixtape) give this seven-part series its investigating threesome: Irishwoman-in-London Dove Maloney, a hard-nosed reporter who just lost a source on a big story; American Gilbert Power, who capitalised upon his wife's cancer for his first podcast hit; and enthusiastic researcher Emmy Sizergh, who wants to be Dove and, much to her idol's dismay, is fine with following Gilbert's lead to get there. They're thrown together in the show's titular town not by Dove's choice, but because she's bundled off by her editor when the whistleblower behind an article about England's National Health Service is found dead. Gilbert and Emmy are well-aware that she's not there willingly — Dove isn't the type to hide her disdain for anything, especially her latest assignment, Gilbert's medium of choice and his approach, and Emmy's eagerness. Bodkin beckons courtesy of a cold case from a quarter-century back when the village gathered for its then-annual Samhain festival (an influence upon Halloween). The last time that the event was held in the scenic coastal spot, three people disappeared, which Gilbert is certain is a killer hook for the next big hit he desperately needs for the sake of both his reputation and his finances. He also has Irish heritage, another angle that he's sure will add audience-courting flavour to the podcast. But the trio have barely arrived, with local twentysomething Seán (Chris Walley, The Young Offenders) as their driver and the eccentric Mrs O'Shea (Pom Boyd, also The Dry) their B&B host, when Dove is adamant that there's much more going on in Bodkin than the narrative that Gilbert has already decided to tell. Through the acerbic and cynical Dove — someone who responds to being considered a role model by telling Emmy to fuck off repeatedly — Bodkin gets its licks in about podcasting's tropes, formula and current oversaturation. Through Gilbert, too, including via his stock-standard and cliche-riddled opening voiceovers that could've been lifted from real-life audio, it also satirises the format that the show puts at its centre. Making his first series after penning four shorts between 2011–2018, creator Jez Scharf largely keeps the show in darkly humorous mode, though, and lets the whodunnit angle play out like a comic-leaning thriller (season two of The Tourist also comes to mind). Although that might seem a tricky tonal balance, it works not just in his hands, but with Nash Edgerton (brother of Joel, and director of Mr Inbetween, Gringo and The Square), Bronwen Hughes (Shantaram), Johnny Allan (The Devil's Hour) and Paddy Breathnach (another The Dry alum) helming. At one point, whether Gilbert, Dove and Emmy's project will be "a podcast that pretends to be about one thing but is really about something else" is raised — a fair comment in general, as regular listeners know. That's also an observation that applies to Bodkin itself, but knowingly. This is indeed a series about podcasters investigating a case, a parody of exactly that and an unpacking of the voyeurism behind the form in its true-crime guise. In addition, it's an exploration of the truth that little neatly boils down to the formula podcasts are chasing. It's a portrait of being caught between tradition and the future as well, which applies in a range of ways — and, especially of Dove, it's a character study. Bodkin is populated by everyone from singing blacksmiths (Ger Kelly, King Frankie) to entrepreneurs trying to set up a server farm (Charlie Kelly, Dublin Murders), and also an island of nuns and a camp of hippies. As becomes apparent early, at the core of much that's occurring usually sits fisherman Seamus Gallagher (David Wilmot, The Wonder). Scharf and his fellow writers have fleshed out their setting Parks and Recreation- and The Simpsons-style with an array of colourful characters that comprise any community, and have let comedy guide some of their choices. When it examines what drives Dove, Gilbert and Emmy as they get immersed deeper and deeper into a mystery that sees them witnessing yoga in a convent one day and hearing about the Good Friday agreement another, however, it is at its strongest. As Dove, Cullen turns in a multifaceted performance to build a series around. Given her raw, thoughtful and caustically amusing work, it's no surprise that that's where Bodkin heads. Forte starts off the show like he's wandered in from The Last Man of Earth, complete with goofy charm and bumbling certainty that Gilbert is on the right path, but is given room to lay bare the character's layers. Cara, too, gets the space to make Emmy much more than a sidekick. Among the supporting players, both Walley and Wilmot leave a considerable imprint. So does the show overall, despite taking its time to settle into a groove — and as a jump into scripted TV by Higher Ground, the production company founded by Barack and Michelle Obama (which also had a hand in 2023 movies Rustin and Leave the World Behind), it's an effective and quick-to-binge first leap. Check out the trailer for Bodkin below: Bodkin streams via Netflix. Images: Enda Bowe/Netflix © 2024.
As a dancer, he joined the New York Ballet while still a teenager. As a choreographer working in film, he's given Denis Villeneuve's versions of Dune their sandwalk. Making a dance film in the desert seems like the logical next step for Benjamin Millepied, then. The French talent's resume isn't short on other highlights — including the LA Dance Project, which he initiated; Black Swan, which he both choreographed and starred in; and the Paris Opera Ballet, where he was Director of Dance from 2014–16 — but a reimagining of Carmen not only shot in Australia, but backdropped by the outback town of Broken Hill, is quite the unique way to make his feature directorial debut. This is Carmen in name and spirit first and foremost, though. This is Carmen broken down and built back up again, too. Despite the contents of its frames, this is Carmen set not Down Under, but across the US-Mexico border amid fleeing to Los Angeles. This is Carmen following strangers who become lovers on the run, its namesake escaping cartel brutality and then racist prejudices when she migrates north, and the ex-marine that she crosses paths with post-smuggling dashing away from his own dalliances with violence. This is also Carmen led by Melissa Barrera and Paul Mescal, the former more in In the Heights mode than Scream, and the latter as entrancing as he's proven in Normal People and his Oscar-nominated performance in Aftersun. It was the pandemic that took filming in Mexico out of the equation, and brought Millepied to Australia. His visit, like Mescal's when he was cast, didn't slink under the radar — that Millepied is married to Black Swan Oscar-winner Natalie Portman, who shot Thor: Love and Thunder in Sydney, meant ample media attention. Carmen was made when much of Hollywood seemed to relocate this way; however, as spectacular as its dance sequences are, and as impressive as it leads prove as well (plus iconic Spanish actor and Pedro Almodóvar favourite Rossy de Palma, Parallel Mothers), it's as intimate as an opera-inspired drama that dances against sweeping plains of ochre Aussie soil can be. "I personally enjoyed it so much out there," Millepied tells Concrete Playground. "I love the desert. I love the light in the desert. I really loved being out there. I'm going back to Australia in a few weeks, and I'm tempted to go back out there." With Carmen now in Aussie cinemas and also screening at the New Zealand International Film Festival, the acclaimed dancer-turned-filmmaker chatted about swapping North America for Broken Hill, giving Prosper Mérimée's novella and Georges Bizet's opera his own spin, his leads, being driven by Succession composer Nicholas Britell's new score, and what he learned in making the leap from performing — or didn't. ON REIMAGINING CARMEN "I wanted to lean on a classical tragedy. I was instinctively attracted to it culturally, for its relationship to the Roma culture — and this idea of someone expressing her freedom through dance. Those were those were the key components. And really thinking that this would be a musical that was a drama with music and dance — that fantasy, that the dancing, would come through dreams, and that it was a drama. I think people forget that there's actually very few musicals that have a more realistic [approach] — here, of course, we're not fully in in realism, but I think that it's still a dark film. That's quite unusual for musicals, because you can make very light musicals, fluffy musicals, where people sing and dance. I probably will make something lighter like that. Hopefully, maybe someday, I get the opportunity. But that's not Carmen — Carmen took a different sort of sense." ON MAKING A DRAMA WITH DANCE, RATHER THAN A CLASSICAL MUSICAL, TO SUIT THE STORY "I don't think you can tackle a political subject like that and just have migrants dancing, for example. I think the subject matter implied that we had to bring a certain depth to the approach of how dance and music existed in the film. When I started to look at the history of the Roma culture in South America, and I started to think about the border — I don't know how it came up — I found out there's an important Roma community that migrated to Mexico in the early 20th century. And that story was quite fascinating, and the way they live, and the way that Mexican culture influenced their own, as they did in everywhere they went, and took on traditions and cultures. So it just made a lot of sense, this idea of the Roma culture being free and moving through the world, and with deep traditions. It made sense to set it on the Mexico-US border." ON AUSTRALIA STANDING IN FOR NORTH AMERICA "When I when I realised that I couldn't shoot in Mexico because of COVID and everything, and I had scouted and I'd done all this work, I looked at Australia because we were supposed to go there. It just made sense. I felt like I could pull it off, and I actually thought that the heightened reality that I was thinking of could really work there — I would just push that element, make it real. So that's how I thought of it, and it worked great. It was really incredible to shoot in in Australia. Just creatively, the team that I had was was really amazing. I loved it out there. We were really so lucky, and it actually looked a lot like the desert in the north of Mexico where I say it is early in the film. It was just this proximity in landscape that was really, really incredible." ON CASTING MELISSA BARRERA AND PAUL MESCAL, AND CAPITALISING UPON THEIR CHEMISTRY It's not easy to find someone who could really be a triple threat — dance and sing and act, and have that kind of magnetism, and [is] Mexican. She was really right. She was really perfect. I needed someone who was believable as a marine. I needed someone who was a real man — someone who was physical, who wasn't a dancer. He was perfect. I mean, how amazing is he in the film! She prepared a lot in terms of movement, in terms of flamenco. She prepared quite a bit, and so did he. You just hope that [the chemistry] is something that happens. You don't know. I mean, you get them together, but you just hope for the best, honestly." ON THE IMPORTANCE OF NICHOLAS BRITELL'S SCORE "The score implied so much of the film. We started with the music — so essentially the whole visual language came from the music, I would say. That was really wonderful. I even had score written that I could play on set. I think what I'm so proud of for this score is just it's so unique — so unique a sound for film, and it's filled with different influences, which is what we were going for. It's been a really beautiful journey with the music. When you hear the last hip hop track, it has West African rhythm influences. When you hear the choir, it's Eastern Europe voices — and then you have the French in the lyrics. And yet you have synths and strings, and so it's really rich in terms of its influences. That's what makes the score so unique. People wouldn't necessarily know it, but it is that way very specifically unique, I think. And I'm really proud of that for Nick, and for the film, that it doesn't sound like any other score that you've heard." ON MAKING HIS FEATURE DIRECTORIAL DEBUT WITH CARMEN "[It springs] from years of wanting to, of playing with film and the camera, and having a desire to actually make a film. It didn't come from one single thing. I think it's my love for photography, for film, for being interested in it — curious to, essentially, explore my own expression in something that has a bit more of an intellectual approach, in a way, and less instinctive like dance. Dance, I can just walk in the studio and just create something out of my dream — but a movie, you're interested in a theme, then you understand why, then you have to dig into it. I learned a lot through the process — of what to do, what not to do. And particularly the screenwriting stuff for me. I'm excited to to do it again, frankly." ON LEARNING FROM DANCING, CHOREOGRAPHY, BLACK SWAN AND DUNE FOR HIS FIRST FEATURE — OR NOT "I think nothing prepares you for really directing a film. I mean, there's little elements, but the magnitude of directing a film is so big that, no, it doesn't prepare you. But that's okay. I think there's a lot you can prepare yourself for, and yet there's so much to learn once you do it — and I love that. I love being thrown in the fire and and having to figure out everything on the go. I will make hopefully at some point a second film with so much more understanding of how do it." Carmen opened in Australian cinemas on July 13, and plays the 2023 New Zealand International Film Festival. Read our review. Images: Lisa Tomasetti / Goalpost Pictures.
Based in Blacktown, Gursha has been offering authentic Ethiopian cuisine favourites to patrons since 2017. The wot (curry) delivers on your spicy cravings. It's a complex curry simmered with traditional spices and herbs, usually served with chicken drumsticks, tender lean beef or red lentils. You'll devour it with moreish injera, a spongy, sour fermented flatbread that is a staple with all Ethiopian meals. You can also try the injera in ferfere, where it's chopped up and tossed through a fried beef stew. If you're after something spicier, be sure to order the special kitfo. It consists of raw lean beef, tossed in a spiced butter that's laden with cardamom, fenugreek, berbere spice mix and kalonji (nigella seeds), and mitmita (spicy chillies). It's served with sides of kale and cottage cheese to take the edge off. In Ethiopia, kitfo is often enjoyed for special occasions. Here, you can order it any night of the week. Images: Cassandra Hannagan
