Before it all began, Poor Toms' Griffin Blumer and Jesse Kennedy knew a few things for sure — they had a shared hatred of fedoras, they didn't want to spend the best years of their lives working for the man and they loved drinking gin. Coming up to three years in the gin-making biz, the duo has created a well-loved, local business that's set to open its own bar by March — which we got the tiniest sneak peek of. We've teamed up with Squarespace to talk to Griffin and Jesse about why they started Poor Toms and how they've gotten to where they are today. TURNING DISILLUSIONMENT INTO INSPIRATION In 2015, the Canberran school friends lived in a sharehouse in Sydney's inner west. Jesse was working as a suit at Macquarie Bank, while Griffin was a budding actor trying to make ends meet. Both found their consumption of gin was proportional to their sense of disillusionment with spending the next 30 years living a predictable life. So, one evening over a few strong drinks, the two made the decision to kick their careers to the curb. "I was disillusioned by the idea of capitalism, and Jesse was disillusioned by the practice of it," says Griffin. Over breakfast in one of those aggressively twee converted warehouse cafes, the duo chatted about what they would do if they could get their mitts on an equally twee warehouse space. Griffin went highbrow saying he would open a performance space and put on plays with his pals, while Jesse just thought it would be pretty cool to have a place to hang out and make gin. Fast forward a few years and (fortunately for us) it was Jesse's idea that stuck. Together the two pooled their dimes and invested in a low-key warehouse space in the backstreets of Marrickville. WHAT'S IN A NAME? Despite not having any real professional chops when it came to the distilling process, Jesse and Griffin definitely had gumption and had sampled enough gins between them to have a clear idea of how they wanted their product to taste and how they wanted people to feel when they drank it. They admit, coming up with a name was a rough process."It's kind of like naming a baby, at first any name sounds bad but eventually people will accept it," says Griffin. They knew they wanted to include 'Tom' in their gin baby's name, as (adorably) it's both of their middle names. Serendipitously, Griffin was doing a reading of King Lear with Bell Shakespeare at the time, and, on the hunt for literally any 'Tom'-themed words, he came across the character Edgar, a kind of clueless aristocrat who — in a very small nutshell — was forced to cast off his riches and disguise himself as the charming philosophical vagrant Poor Tom in order to avoid being falsely accused of plotting to kill his father. The act of throwing off your fakery and pretension to reveal one's trueself became a guiding principle that informed Poor Toms creative direction and brand ethos, "most marketing advice is 'make something with broad appeal or something that is generically interesting to a lot people'" says Griffin, "but we decided to take the opposite approach by making something that appeals to us… and hoped other people would like it." HOW TO BECOME LEGIT Regardless of what you think of Mark Zuckerberg and his social network conglomerate, any business operating in this day and age needs to have some semblance of an internet presence. Before starting Poor Toms, both Jesse and Griffin used social media like any average millennial — "to look at people and not miss parties" — but, despite their shared hatred of photos of drinks on Instagram, they knew if they wanted Poor Toms to be successful they needed to up their online ante. "One of the hard parts was translating the very clear brand identity into an online voice...all of a sudden we had to have a social media presence and a website," says Griffin. "These days, having a website is like having a business card…you need one to be trusted." The two had been binge-listening StartUp, a podcast about starting a business, and as a result, were exposed to a world of audio ads from Squarespace. They elicited the help of a designer friend to whip up a schmick website using a Squarespace template, and started an Instagram account, which, according to Jesse, was "largely to demonstrate that they were normal enough that other people would take photos with them" and with that, Poor Toms became legit. THE MARKER OF SUCCESS IS NEVER FIXED As Poor Toms continues to grow as a business, the definition of success constantly evolves. There wasn't really an exact moment when the pair knew they made it, but they're now producing grade-A gin on a full-time basis, and don't even have to think about returning to those 9–5 jobs that they left behind. Though there's not a lot of time for them to pause and reflect, "you become addicted to the hustle," says Jesse. "There's so much hustle involved in stepping away from a consistent salary." They're busy working on a number of new projects and collaborations including opening a bar in their Marrickville distillery in Sydney, "we weren't ready to open a bar when we first started. We just weren't old enough," says Jesse. "It took six months to figure out how to make gin, and now we're finally ready to have people here." For Jesse and Griffin, starting Poor Toms was never about making bank; the pair is just happy to be working for themselves and producing something they're truly passionate about. "We created something new that people love," says Griffin. "We always wanted our gin to be loved — it's not about revenue or profit. We want to be Australia's most loved gin; we want people to be invested in our story." Discover more of the Poor Toms story here, and stay tuned for more news on the launch of their first bar. Looking to embark on an entirely new venture? You'll need to let people know about it. That's where Squarespace comes in. Kickstart your new biz with a website, and use the code CP for 10% off your first Squarespace purchase. Images: Kitti Smallbone
When M Night Shyamalan earned global attention and two Oscar nominations back in 1999 for The Sixth Sense, it was with a film about a boy who sees dead people. After ten more features that include highs (the trilogy that is Unbreakable, Split and Glass) and lows (Lady in the Water and The Happening), in 2019 he turned his attention to a TV tale of a nanny who revives a dead baby. Or did he? That's how Apple TV+'s Servant commenced its first instantly eerie, anxious and dread-filled season, a storyline it has followed in its second season in 2021, third in 2022, and now fourth and final batch of episodes currently streaming. But as with all Shyamalan works, this meticulously made series bubbles with the clear feeling that all isn't as it seems. The director's Knock at the Cabin, another highlight to his name, isn't his only project worth spending time with in 2023. It isn't the only intriguing use of former Harry Potter star Rupert Grint on his resume, either, in a part that's the actor's best post-Wizarding World role. With Servant's latest go-around, Shyamalan is in producer mode, after popping in and out as a helmer across past ten-episode seasons. He's also still in his adored thriller territory, still paying homage to Alfred Hitchcock and still playing with twists, this time in a show that resembles a dark take on Mary Poppins. What happens if a caregiver sweeps in exactly when needed and changes a family's life, but she's a teenager rather than a woman, disquieting instead of comforting, and accompanied by strange events, forceful cults and unsettlingly conspiracies rather than sweet songs, breezy winds and spoonfuls of sugar? That's Servant's basic premise. Set in Shyamalan's beloved Philadelphia, the puzzle-box series spends most of its time in a lavish brownstone inhabited by TV news reporter Dorothy Turner (Lauren Ambrose, The X-Files) and her celebrity-chef husband Sean (Toby Kebbell, Bloodshot). Living well-to-do lives, the wealthy pair appear the picture of happiness, complete with a newborn son to fulfil their perfect family portrait. But as 18-year-old nanny Leanne Grayson (Nell Tiger Free, Too Old to Die Young) quickly learned in Servant's first season, there's nothing normal about baby Jericho. After the tot tragically passed away, he's been replaced by a lookalike doll to calm the otherwise-catatonic Dorothy's grief. Leanne's job: selling that well-meaning deception. Just as Knock at the Cabin unveils its first big twist early, so did Servant when it began. Before its debut episode was over, writer/producer Tony Basgallop (Berlin Station) revealed that the reborn doll filling Jericho's place has come alive after Leanne's arrival. So arises questions that are still being explored and mysteries that keep deepening in season four, including the young nanny's role in it all and the true meaning of her ties to the Turners. As the increasingly suspicious Dorothy, more-accepting Sean and Dorothy's recovering-alcoholic brother Julian (Grint, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities) start discovering early, Leanne springs from an unconventional background with heavy religious ties — from a disturbing group intent on bringing her back and willing to stop at nothing to do so — and her happiness appears closely linked to the state of affairs in her new household. As Servant's seasons have inched by, Basgallop, Shyamalan and an impressive array of filmmakers — Raw and Titane's Julia Ducournau, Casting JonBenét and The Assistant's Kitty Green, Goodnight Mommy and The Lodge's Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, Holiday's Isabella Eklöf and Predators' Nimród Antal among them, plus Shyamalan's daughter Ishana — have kept the series focused on grief, belief and how they each feed into each other. Whatever the reason behind Jericho's comeback, having faith in him being back has kept Dorothy and the Turners' townhouse functioning. Sean and Julian are willing to accept the unusual turn of events to maintain a facade of normality, but have the family unwittingly made a bargain with severe consequences? Since Leanne crossed their doorstep, decay has also blighted their home. Jericho returned, but Sean's taste and smell disappeared, splinters started showing up everywhere and that gorgeous home began to crumble. Termites, maggots, bed bugs: they've all plagued Servant's covetable abode, which sprawls up and down but also ripples with a claustrophobic air. Cinematographer Mike Gioulakis — a veteran of Shyamalan's Old, Jordan Peele's Us and 2014 horror hit It Follows — winds through its main setting's halls, floors, nooks and crannies like he's creeping through a festering haunted house. His lensing is ghostly in its movements, elegantly but emphatically disrupting the sense of balance visually in every way it can. Sometimes, it pivots suddenly. Sometimes, it peers on from afar when a moment screams for a closeup, and vice versa. Often, it flits from focused to unfocused — and, in telling its off-kilter tale, the show's framing has little use for symmetry. Servant isn't just impeccably shot — see: season four's debut episode, an unease-dripping spin on The Birds that sees Leanne swarmed in the street by cult members — but also unnervingly scored. The childlike plinking of the opening theme, with composer Trevor Gureckis (Voyagers) doing the honours, is unshakeably haunting from the get-go. In its music box-esque notes, bursts of playfulness and innocence echo, and also the feeling of sweetness turned sour. That's the mood lingering in the latest deliberately paced, insidiously atmospheric episodes, as Dorothy returns home after season three's big finale and fall, Sean attempts to balance his TV success with his family commitments, and Leanne and Julian become the de facto parents of the house. Leanne demands domestic bliss, but Dorothy is more certain than ever that the Turners would be far better off without the teen, even hiring nurses Bev (Denny Dillon, The Outsider) and Bobbie (Barbara Kingsley, The Flight Attendant) as a buffer. In Servant's last hurrah, there's still no such thing as a cosy status quo — and doesn't the series have the spellbinding performances to show it. Alongside a never-better Grint at his most gruff, begrudging and scattered, Kebbell is mesmerising as a man pinballing back and forth between work and home, Dorothy and Leanne, and what he knows and believes. That said, as Dorothy and Leanne keep doing battle as rival matriarchs — including with a Misery-style situation thanks to Dorothy's injuries, with the nanny segueing from Mary Poppins to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest's Nurse Ratched as well — Ambrose and Free are nothing short of phenomenal. However Shyamalan and Basgallop wrap up this discomforting tale, and whether or not they stick the landing, Servant has gifted viewers four seasons of spectacular duelling caregivers and gripping domestic tension, and one of streaming's horror greats. Check out the trailer for Servant season four below: Servant streams via Apple TV+.
Located a stone's throw from the new Victoria Cross Metro station, this trendy four-venue hospo hub has added yet another reason for Sydney's foodies to venture north of the harbour. Guests can start their day at Sol Bread + Wine, a bakery and cafe by day and an intimate wine bar by night that channels an Iberian spirit with design cues from Italy and Spain. A palette of earth tones is accented with geometric tiles and warm timber furniture, creating a space that effortlessly transitions from a breakfast bakery to a laidback cicchetteria serving top drops and sophisticated snacks. Ascending a bold red spiral staircase delivers diners to Soluna. Open from lunch through to dinner, this 110-seat restaurant, with a 60-seat bar and 30-seat, armchair-filled lounge, is another flexible concept that is as much a place for intimate catch-ups with friends over a glass of wine as it is a go-to for larger parties celebrating a major occasion. Changing gears, the colourful Japanese diner Genzo boasts a temperature-controlled sake room, a selection of expertly balanced, Japanese-inspired cocktails and a menu focused on raw dishes and kushiyaki prepared over a traditional robata grill. Accessible from the street, swish providore Una stocks gourmet produce, artisanal goods and pantry essentials as well as house-made pastas and other take-home gourmet meals. A considered edit of local and imported ingredients, from cheeses and charcuterie to boutique wines and spirits, makes this luxury grocer a boon for any North Sydney gastronomes hoping to wow at their next dinner party. Images: Steven Woodburn
Usually when we all encounter fog, it's hanging there in the sky, misting things up and reducing visibility. But when London-based, world-renowned food artists and multi-sensory design studio Bompas & Parr head Down Under for their first-ever Australian sensory installation, the fog will be considerably different. This mist will be fruit-flavoured, for starters, and it'll be edible. If you're intrigued by weird, wonderful, creative and inventive experiments with food — and with the senses in general — then Bompas & Parr's name should be familiar. Sam Bompas and Harry Parr first garnered attention with their jellies, and then whipped up a 200-course dinner party, unleashed an edible fireworks display, barbecued using real molten lava and served up anatomical whisky tastings. Also on their resume: bespoke cocktails based on your DNA, a feast where diners had to kill their own meal and non-melting icy poles. Yes, tastebud-friendly mist mist fits right in. [caption id="attachment_851679" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ann Charlott Ommedal[/caption] We've all heard of pea soup fog, of course — but no, that won't be what you're tasting at Bunjil Place in Narre Warren in Melbourne. Rather, the consumable mist will form part of a flavoured fruit weather installation, and will swirl around oversized food sculptures laid out in a garden. And, there'll be three different varieties seeping through the air each and every day. The aim: to unleash some 'fruit weather' upon the Victorian capital, and to highlight the City of Casey's food heritage. When you're not thinking about horror movies like The Fog and The Mist, you're bound to be contemplating food while you're wandering around these giant versions of it, all with mist seeping out of the bottom. Well, we expect so at least, given that the flavoured fog is a world-first. Everyone keen to experience this hopefully delicious haze will find it lurking around Bunjil Place thanks to a free event called Casey Cornucopia, which'll run from June 24–July 17. Over that 24-day period, there'll be tours explaining how the garden installation came about, too — because it is really is the kind of thing that'll leave you with questions — plus parties, dinners and art. You'll also be able to hit up a food hub that brings together local farmers, growers, artisans, sustainability gurus and artists for a series of daily talks, demonstrations, samples and workshops. Casey Cornucopia will pop up at Bunjil Place, 2 Patrick NE Dr, Narre Warren, Victoria, from June 24–July 17. Images: supplied by Bunjil Place and Bompas & Parr.
A scroll through your social media feeds can often leave you feeling like you're the only one not on holidays. While you're doing the same old nine-to-five slog, there are your peers inconsiderately boasting about all of the worldly arts and culture (and food) they're consuming. But, as it happens, you don't need to fork out the big bucks for a plane ticket to see some of the world's most important artworks. Come October, the Art Gallery of NSW will launch its next major exhibition Masters of Modern Art from the Hermitage. It'll see 65 artworks from some of the early 20th century's most revered artists — think Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso and Gauguin, plus their celebrated Russian contemporaries Malevich and Kandinsky — drawn extensively from St Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum. This landmark exhibition focuses on a revolutionary era in art history when these now legendary artists "freed themselves from tradition" and began to imagine art in previously untold vibrant, innovative and abstract ways. The collection acts a self-contained timeline tracking this defining period, with highlights including Monet's Poppy Field (1890), Picasso's Table in a Café (1912) and Kandinsky's Landscape near Dünaberg (1913). The exhibition also delves into the lives of visionary Russian art collectors Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov — more than two-thirds of the exhibition has been drawn from their art collections. Realising the potential of the French modern masters, from the beginning of the 20th century, both Shchukin and Morozov acquired many of today's most acclaimed artworks. The Masters of Modern Art from the Hermitage is half of the 2018/19 Sydney International Art Series, with the Museum of Contemporary Art's David Goldblatt making up the other half. Master of Modern Art from the Hermitage will run from Saturday, October 13, 2018 to Sunday, March 3, 2019. You can purchase tickets now from the Art Gallery of NSW website. We also have double passes to the exhibition to give away. To enter, see below. [competition]687134[/competition] Images: Paul Cézanne 'Fruit' 1879-1880. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Claude Monet France 1840–1926 'Poppy field' 1890/91. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Pavel Demidov and Konstantin Sinyavsky; Henri Matisse 'Game of bowls' 1908. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Vladimir Terebenin and H Matisse/Copyright Agency; Wassily Kandinsky 'Landscape: Dünaberg near Murnau' 1913. Courtesy The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg and Vladimir Terebenin.
Whatever lengths you think you'd go to in order to watch your favourite sporting team, the Wellington residents that inspired big-screen comedy Red, White & Brass have you beat. In 2011, New Zealand hosted the Rugby World Cup. As part of the competition's games in the Aotearoa capital, Tonga was set to play France. Understandably, the local Tongan community was thrilled — and, amid painting the town red and white, also determined to go along. The avid fans at one particular Wellington church hit a snag, however: with tickets to attend the match both expensive and popular, they didn't end up with seats. Then, they lucked into a unique opportunity. If they said they were a brass marching band, exaggerating their experience with instruments — which was largely zero — they could perform on the field before kickoff, and sit down to watch their heroes afterwards. It's the kind of story that sounds like a pure Hollywood concoction, but it genuinely happened to Halaifonua (Nua) Finau and his family. Now, it's exactly the tale at the heart of NZ comedy Red, White & Brass. Not only stepping through this wild IRL twist of fate, but celebrating Tongan pride and māfana in the process, the resulting movie is an instantly heartwarming crowd-pleaser. It has also proven a big hit, both at home where it premiered in March, and now that it's both doing the film festival circuit — complete with a stop at the Sydney Film Festival — and opening in general release in Australian cinemas. Nua co-wrote the script, and also produces, with first-time feature director Damon Fepulea'i and on-screen movie debutant John-Paul Foliaki taking on a daunting task. How do you turn someone's real-life experience into a movie with them right by your side? That was Fepulea'i's job as both Red, White & Brass' helmer and co-scribe. How do you play the person that's there on set with you, including with his parents as your character's parents? That was Foliaki's gig as fictionalised on-screen ringleader Maka, in his first-ever acting credit after coming to fame as a NZ Popstars personality. With Red, White & Brass now screening in Australia, Fepulea'i and Foliaki chatted with Concrete Playground about their Red, White & Brass journey, including discovering the true story at the movie's core, working with Nua and his family, making a love letter to the Tongan community and the response so far. ON WORKING WITH A STORY THAT'S SO WILD THAT IT CAN ONLY BE TRUE Damon: "Writer and producer Halaifonua (Nua) Finau, it's basically his story, his family's experience. So he's an actor and a producer, and he's was just sort of telling people the story — and everyone was like, 'oh man bro, this is a really great story, you've gotta turn this into a film'. And him being like the real-life Maka, he basically just shopped the idea around and then ended up getting the film made. So when I was brought on, he told me the story and I was really connected to it as well, and we worked together and wrote the script." JP: "Honestly, when I got the script, when I got that audition — when I got the audition and when we did that first table read — that was something special. That's the first time I'd heard about it properly, and knew the story as based on a true story, and also got an insight to how special the project was going to be." ON TURNING REAL-LIFE EVENTS INTO A MOVIE WITH THE PERSON WHO LIVED IT Damon: "I think Nua and I had a really good chemistry when we were writing, because I think I had more experience as a screenwriter, but Nua is such a natural, gifted storyteller. So he would come in and yeah, lots of stories. Whether they're true or not, who knows?" JP: "Yeah!" Damon: "But actually, he would just tell stories, and we would talk and I'd ask him questions. I have a documentary background as well, so I'm always genuinely interested — and me being non-Tongan, a lot of it was just like 'what makes Tongans Tongan?'. So we explored that during the writing process — and it was actually, looking back, it was really quite a joy because we I think we complemented each other in terms of me being more kind of structure-focused, having experienced writing feature-length films, but also him bringing the truthfulness and the just the funny stories. He just would talk and he wouldn't even know he's being funny. It would just be like 'oh bro, tell this' — he'd go on these long stories and it'd be like 'oh, that's a scene'." JP: "It's like the real-life Maka and Veni from the movie." ON STEPPING INTO NUA'S IRL SHOES WHILE HE WAS THERE WATCHING JP: "I think at first I had a lot of doubts about myself being able to do good job of the role. But I think also just having him on set, yeah, I did feel like 'oh, man, I need to bring my A game'. But it was also super helpful, and he was really supportive — and he was definitely open to Maka being my own interpretation, and to bringing someone to life that I could relate to as well. And also just asking him questions when I wanted to. And his mum and dad in real life played Maka's parents in the film, so they were there and I could ask them lots of questions. We all have that type of cousin. To be honest, I'm that type of cousin to a lot of my cousins — so that was good. I had multiple sources that I could pull from." ON HAVING NUA'S PARENTS PLAYING MAKA'S REAL PARENTS JP: "For me, I think it was the kind of thing that — priceless may be the wrong word, but I think what I'm trying to say is that's the kind of thing that you almost can't cast or you can't wish for. Or, you wouldn't even think that's possible that they're writing the story about this family and the real parents from that family are going come play the parents. You know, no acting experience, Tongan through and through. They are part of the older generation of Tongan parents where they would think that this kind of thing is a joke, and you just do it when you're mucking around, or you do it for Sunday church productions and things like that — but it's nothing too serious. So to have them support their son and his story, and their family story, but also to be on the set, yeah, it meant a lot. It was sometimes really hard because it reminded me a lot about of my parents and my grandparents, and the journey that we took to get there, and all those themes of migration and having limited resources, and reaching an end goal and not worrying about what people say about you. And, that constant battle between church culture and family. Those themes are able to be brought to life — one, because of the cast, but also because the parents from the real story were there actually on set as well." Damon: "Yeah, they brought that authenticity that you just couldn't get from actors, I think. I don't know if there was actually that much acting going on — it's just them being themselves. Sometimes, in terms of directing, it'd just be like 'oh, what would you say to Nua? And how would you say it?'. And they just do it. It's just how they how they'd say things. It was an amazing blessing to have them." JP: "I was so proud of them, too. Because I'd see them highlighting their lines, learning their lines — and one of them forgets their lines, and the other one is trying to correct them. And they're talking to each other on Tongan on set, and it's so funny. They did such a good job." ON MAKING A LOVE LETTER TO THE TONGAN COMMUNITY Damon: "It was always meant to be a feel-good film right from the start. The game plan was always to capture that Tongan energy and the extraness. And the film explores what it means to be Tongan — and the way that Tongans go to these great lengths in showing the amount of pride that they have for their country and for their family. It's really about capturing that and the energy to go with it." JP: "A love letter to the community — that's such a good way to put it. I think when you think about being Tongan and and all the things that you love about being Tongan, a lot of that is displayed through the film. And not even just the things you love about being Tongan, but also the many challenges that we go through being New Zealand-born Tongans, or Tongans that, obviously, a lot of us have migrated to Australia, New Zealand, America and beyond. So all those challenges that we face, it was so cool to be like 'man, regardless of where we've moved overseas, we all share this and have this shared experience, and we can make a good movie out of it'." ON THE RESPONSIBILITY THAT COMES WITH SUCH A STRONG ODE TO TONGAN CULTURE Damon: "It was really important for us right from the start that we wanted to tell the story as authentically as possible, and also to represent Pacific culture as real as possible, and to not make it feel like it was like we were pandering to an audience, or taking out things just to make it easier to watch for non-Tongans. We always wanted to make sure the Tongan language was in there, and it was realistic, and that all the details from the costumes to the props were also all there. We really wanted to make sure that we got it right — and for me being a non-Tongan, I wanted to make sure that what I was doing represented Tonga in a good way as well." JP: "I think from an artist perspective or performance-wise, Tongans, we support 100-percent over and above — and we let it be known to the whole world that something is Tongan or something's happening that has to do Tonga. But when they don't like something, they also come out in full force as well. So I was very nervous about that. It was my first official acting role and I really just wanted to do the role justice, and make my family and my country proud, because I could see after our first reading and getting the script that it truly was going to be something special. And you don't know until you see the final cut, so I'm really happy that translated well and that we were able to do that." ON THE FILM'S SUCCESS — AND THE RESPONSE FROM TONGAN VIEWERS Damon: "It's been surreal, I have to say. We had the world premiere in Wellington, and that was in the Embassy Theatre, which is Peter Jackson's theatre. It was pretty much just full of Tongans, and they were waving flags— and it was probably the best screening experience I've ever had. It was just so much fun. It feels like we've just been on this whirlwind since then as well — it's been kind of surreal as well. It's sometimes hard to believe like 'oh, we made a film' and 'oh, people are watching it'. So yeah, it's still a lot of 'pinch me' moments." JP: "It's been incredible. I think a lot of people have shown a lot of love, and I think it's the whole idea of being able to see themselves on-screen and carrying out the themes that we know so well as Tongans, and the life that we live in our churches and our communities and our families. And having so many different versions of our cousins on the screen, but then also having universal messages and themes throughout the film. So Tongans have been very supportive — but honestly a lot of people, regardless of their ethnicity, have shown a lot of love." Red, White & Brass is currently screening in Australian cinemas. Read our full review.
You may have noticed, dear readers, that things look a little different here at Concrete Playground today. Indeed, our troop of absurdly brilliant writers, coordinators, editors, designers and developers have been working tirelessly over the last few months, preparing to make Swiss cheese of the stratosphere with the launch of a new and much improved website. We've nipped, tucked and delivered Concrete Playground to you in a shiny new package, re-imagining everything from the ground up. So, what exactly has changed? For starters, we'll be introducing a few of our new favourite toys... We have developed a custom Facebook application that lets you seamlessly integrate your new Concrete Playground user profile with the world's biggest social network, mapping out your social schedule to share with friends in just one click of a button. We have also created a shortlist of the city's best restaurants and bars, reviewed by some of this town's most fervent foodies, which includes a fancy geolocation tool that allows you to choose a place to dine or drink based on your current location or the place's proximity to an event you are planning to attend. And we have created some entirely new types of content, which will appear with daily regularity in our new News & Features, Featured Video and Galleries sections. Of course, you can expect the carefully and lovingly selected event coverage you have come to know — only more of it, and with things like dynamic event calendars and tailored recommendations to help you find what you are looking for. We're opening our doors in Brisbane today, and will be launching editions in Melbourne and Auckland in the next few weeks. We are big believers in design and functionality, and were very fortunate to find world class creative partners in Canvas Group and Etc Etc Awesome who designed and coded, respectively, the bejesus out of this thing. We have also received some very useful feedback from our readers and writers over the 18 months since our launch, and this redesign represents a consolidated viewpoint on exactly how best to publish an entirely online (for the moment, anyhow) cultural publication. This is not the end of our design process, but the beginning. We will be adding new features and optimising existing ones as we go to make the user experience a more dynamic, alive and intuitive one. Your feedback has been and will continue to be of great value, so please let us know what you think via Facebook, Twitter or Email. And last of all, a big thank you to everyone who has contributed - particularly the editorial team led by our wonderful head honcho, Anna Harrison - and to you, our readers, for your loyal and passionate support and advocacy. Please continue to spread the word and help an independent group of writers and editors start something big.
If you're a fictional movie or TV character facing a towering kaiju, any amount of Godzilla is usually too much Godzilla. If you're a creature-feature fan, however, there's no such thing as too much Godzilla. And, with Japanese film Godzilla Minus One and American streaming series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters both on their way, screens big and small are embracing that idea right now. There's no such thing as too many Godzilla-related trailers at the moment, too, with the first Japanese Godzilla feature in seven years dropping its sneak peek and now Monsterverse series following in its giant footsteps. The latter ties in with 2014's Godzilla, 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters and 2021's Godzilla vs Kong, plus 2024's Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, a sequel to the latter. Expect Monarch: Legacy of Monsters to stampede onto Apple TV+ from Friday, November 17. Yes, everything is a pop-culture universe these days. Yes, spreading from cinemas to television is all part of the process (see: Star Wars and Marvel, and also upcoming The Conjuring and Harry Potter shows). In this case, the Monsterverse is going the episodic route via a story set across generations and 50 years, and also with Kurt Russell (Fast and Furious 9) and Wyatt Russell (Under the Banner of Heaven) playing older and younger versions of the same figure. The father-son pair take on the role of army officer Lee Shaw, who is drawn into the series by a couple of siblings attempting to keep up their dad's work after events between Godzilla and the Titans in San Francisco in the aforementioned 2014 film. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters also involves unpacking family links to clandestine outfit Monarch, events back in the 50s and how what Shaw knows threatens the organisation. So, there'll be monsters and rampages, and also secrets, lies and revelations. Giving audiences two Russells in one series is dream casting, as the just-dropped first teaser shows. Also appearing on-screen: Anna Sawai (Pachinko), Kiersey Clemons (The Flash), Ren Watabe (461 Days of Bento), Mari Yamamoto (also Pachinko), Anders Holm (Inventing Anna), Joe Tippett (The Morning Show), Elisa Lasowski (Hill of Vision) and John Goodman (The Righteous Gemstones). Behind the scenes, Chris Black (Severance) and Matt Fraction (Da Vinci's Demons) have co-developed Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, while Matt Shakman (The Consultant, Welcome to Chippendales) helms the opening pair of episodes — and all three are among the series' executive producers. Check out the first trailer for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters below: Monarch: Legacy of Monsters will start streaming via Apple TV+ from Friday, November 17, 2023.
If you listen carefully, you might just hear the sound of a light- to medium-bodied red wine sloshing around a glass. That's because the world's favourite celebration of pinot noir is returning again in 2023, with Pinot Palooza also settling back into its pre-pandemic spring timeslot. In its decade of life to-date, the Melbourne-born wine tasting festival has become a global affair, with an estimated 65,000 tickets sold globally before its 2022 events. But once COVID-19 hit in 2020, the popular event was shelved for two-and-a-half years, before making a comeback last year. This year — in the wine-swilling fest's 11th year — it has October dates locked in for Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, all for a two-day stint. So far, venues are yet to be announced. Also, tickets will go on sale in May. The vino-sipping fun will play out similarly to before, although exactly who'll be doing the pouring is also yet to be revealed. Whoever it is, Pinot Palooza's lineup always spans drops from Australia, New Zealand and further afield. Last year, more than 70 winemakers came to the party. As always, attendees will spend their session swirling and sampling that huge array of pinot noir, and hitting up pop-up bars and food stalls between drinks. And, while Pinot Palooza as a standalone fest only has east coast dates for 2023, in Perth it's part of an already-announced collaboration with cheese festival Mould. PINOT PALOOZA 2023 DATES: Friday, October 6–Saturday, October 7: Sydney, venue TBC Friday, October 13–Saturday, October 14: Brisbane, venue TBC Friday, October 27–Saturday, October 28: Melbourne, venue TBC Pinot Palooza will tour Australia's east coast in October 2023. For more information, and for tickets from May, head to the event's website.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas across the country. After months spent empty, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, Australian picture palaces are back in business — spanning both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, comedies, music documentaries, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7eZEZHRrVg PENGUIN BLOOM Nature is healing in Penguin Bloom, but not in the way that 2020's most famous meme has taught us all to expect. This Australian drama tells the story of Sam Bloom (Naomi Watts, The Loudest Voice), a nurse who becomes paralysed from the waist down due to a tragic accident during a Thailand vacation. Then, while adjusting to being in a wheelchair upon her return home, she finds solace in the company of an also-injured magpie chick. Her three young sons Noah (Griffin Murray-Johnston), Rueben (Felix Cameron) and Oli (Abe Clifford-Bar) name the bird Penguin. They're keen to look after it until it recovers, something they're unable to do with their mother. But the strongest bond between human and magpie forms between Sam and Penguin, albeit reluctantly at first. Traumatised by her experience, pushing her husband Cameron (Andrew Lincoln, The Walking Dead) away, subjected to her mother Jan's (Jacki Weaver, Never Too Late) fussing, and struggling with the changes from her old life — so much so that she's barely able to look at photos from the past — Sam is angry, upset and unhappy. She's hurt, and not just physically. As enjoying the presence of and caring for a pet is known to do, however, she finds hope, purpose and perspective via her new feathered friend. Describing Penguin Bloom's plot is bound to make anyone think that it's a piece of fiction conjured up by a screenwriter, but the Glendyn Ivin (Last Ride)-directed movie is based on real-life events — with scribes Harry Cripps (The Dry) and Shaun Grant (True History of the Kelly Gang) adapting the book by Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive. Still, overcoming that manufactured, formulaic, sentimental feeling is the movie's chief obstacle, and one that it can't completely manage. In her first homegrown role since 2013's Adore, Watts puts in a film-lifting effort. The several exceptionally trained birds by her side all do too, vying with their high-profile co-star for the feature's best performance. And the rapport between human and magpie is as touching as it should be, ensuring that you don't need to have sat in Sam's exact seat or seen the world through the picture's wheelchair-height cinematography to understand the impact that Penguin has on her emotional and mental wellbeing. But, as most Australian films that that focus on a human-animal connection have been (with 2014's Healing a rare exception), Penguin Bloom is firmly a family-friendly affair. Movies that are suitable for all ages should genuinely earn that term, engaging adults as much as children; here, though, chasing that feat involves sticking to a noticeably easy, straightforward and simplistic template even when the film does strike a chord. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Fr1M2fjY0&t=26s ONLY THE ANIMALS Murder-mystery Only the Animals starts with a killer opening image, featuring a live goat being worn like a backpack. The animal is slung over the shoulders of a cyclist as he rides through the streets of the Côte d'Ivoire city of Abidjan, and the unique picture that results instantly grabs attention — for viewers, even if it doesn't appear to interest anyone in the vicinity on-screen. This involving French-language thriller doesn't explain its attention-grabbing sight straight up, though. Instead, it jumps over to the Causse Mejean limestone plateau in southern France, where snow blankets the UNESCO World Heritage-listed site and — unrelated to the weather — a number of locals are icily unhappy. Indeed, farmer Michel (Denis Ménochet, Custody), his insurance agent wife Alice (Laure Calamy, Call My Agent!) and Joseph (Damien Bonnard, Dunkirk), one of her clients, are all far from content before word arrives of a shock death in the area. Doing house calls is part of Alice's job in the small, close-knit community, and it sees her embarking upon an affair with the awkward Joseph, who has shut himself off from everything beyond his property after his mother's passing a year prior. The surly Michel barely seems bothered about his marriage, spending all his time in the office attached to his cattle-feeding shed ostensibly working on the farm's accounts. When the grim news spreads, it has implications for all three. Adapting the novel Seules Les Bêtes by Colin Niel, writer/director Dominik Moll (News from Planet Mars) and his frequent co-screenwriter Gilles Marchand switch between Only the Animals' characters and relay the details from their perspectives. First, Alice's take on the situation graces the screen. Next, it's Joseph's turn. Waitress Marion (Nadia Tereszkiewicz, The Dancer) earns the third chapter, which charts her hot-and-heavy rendezvous with Evelyne (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Let the Sunshine In), the woman who'll turn up dead — while the final and longest segment belongs to Armand (debutant Guy Roger 'Bibisse' N'Drin), without the goat, as he tries to catfish his way to riches, success and the girl of his dreams. A whodunnit, Only the Animals tasks its audience members with sleuthing their way through its fractured tale, all to discover who is responsible for Evelyne's demise and why. Thanks to its multiple parts, it also gets viewers guessing about events that initially appear unrelated, and how they'll end up linking into the broader story. But the suitably cool-hued film is filled with other questions, too, ruminating on the primal nature of love and pondering the ways in which pursuing it — or chasing a mere moment, however fleeting, with someone else — can lead down immensely complicated paths. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5xoxzO9bRQ&feature=youtu.be DAWN RAID When Danny 'Brotha D' Leaosavai'i and Andy Murnane set up their own record label in the late 90s, they took its title from a bleak chapter in New Zealand's history. During the 70s and 80s, early-morning round ups were deployed by the government to locate and detain Pacific Islanders who had overstayed their visas — a racially motivated tactic that left a strong imprint in South Auckland, where Leaosavai'i and Murnane grew up. Accordingly, by using Dawn Raid as moniker for a venture that supported Polynesian artists, the duo were reclaiming and repurposing a problematic term. Their clothing line, also under the same name, was filled with slogan-heavy apparel that did the same thing with other words. And, as their business empire grew quickly to also encompass stores, bars and even a barber shop, the pair employed the same irreverent, enthusiastic, passionate but carefree approach at every turn. The local impact was considerable, launching careers, giving aspiring musicians a pathway and inspiring hope throughout the local community as well. But, as the new documentary that's also called Dawn Raid makes clear, Leaosavai'i and Murnane's entrepreneurial spirit and can-do attitude sent them on a complicated rollercoaster ride. Their rise was meteoric; their struggles, when they came, were just as significant. Filmmaker Oscar Kightley details Dawn Raid's tale, paying tribute to the label's influence and the artists that it brought to the public's attention as well — including hip hop group Deceptikonz; its members Savage, Mareko and Devolo, who have each pursued solo careers; singer Aaradhna; and R&B duo Adeaze. The filmmaker may have already been well-acquainted with Leaosavai'i and Murnane after the pair oversaw the soundtrack to Kightley's big 2006 hit Sione's Wedding, but he still takes a warts-and-all approach to their ups and downs. It'd be impossible to do justice to their story otherwise and, as the movie's main interviewees, Leaosavai'i and Murnane are just as frank and willing to discuss both the good and the bad. They need to be, of course; it's their experiences after meeting in business school, overcoming troubled childhoods, lucking into some of their success and making as many fortunate choices as mistakes that makes the documentary particularly compelling. Indeed, Kightley doesn't need to amass much more than talking heads, archival footage and music videos to unfurl Dawn Raid's history, or to keep viewers interested. Still, he not only skilfully weaves together this engaging and comprehensive chronicle, but also knows when to give particular incidents from the company's past — like Savage's surprise viral hit when his single 'Swing' was used in the movie Knocked Up — the spotlight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_T0F36YEi0&list=PLB5pxwdW-CtP4EVTJe_bHhQ-iBR8mBeBS THE MARKSMAN If film stars are ever able to digitise their likenesses, then let CGI versions of themselves do the acting for them, Liam Neeson could end up with an even longer list of forgettable action flicks on his resume. That idea for that kind of technology stems from the 2013 movie The Congress, which didn't feature Neeson — but, perusing much of his recent output, you can be forgiven for wondering if letting a computer insert him into however many Taken ripoffs that Hollywood seems to need would be any different. For now, Neeson keeps performing the usual way. And, he keeps making movies that call upon his particular set of fist-throwing, villain-dispensing skills more than the talents that saw him receive an Oscar nomination for Schindler's List. The good news with The Marksman is that it's an improvement on 2020's Honest Thief; however, it's also yet another thoroughly by-the-numbers movie that only seems to exist so that it can star Neeson. This time around, he plays a retired marine-turned-Arizona rancher who lives near the Mexico border, has spent his time since his wife died reporting illegal crossings, and earns a drug cartel's bloodthirsty interest after he helps the fleeing Rosa (Teresa Ruiz, Narcos: Mexico) and her 11-year-old son Miguel (feature debutant Jacob Perez). Neeson's character, Jim, isn't the type to let murderous thugs hunt down a boy — or to trust that they won't still get to Miguel in police custody, even with his own stepdaughter Sarah (Katheryn Winnick, Vikings) on the force. So, in an inversion of the role that cemented Neeson as a 21st-century action star, Jim takes the kid on the run in an effort to deliver him safely to relatives in Chicago, all while both assassins and the cops try to hunt them down. Unsurprisingly, The Marksman trades in routine action scenes, but it thankfully does so in an unflashy way. It's far less subtle about its patriotic imagery; when Jim is told that the bank is selling off his house, the cringeworthy scene sees him deliver a speech about serving his country and working hard all of his life while grimacing sternly and wearing an American flag slung over his shoulder. It's the type of dialogue you might expect Clint Eastwood deliver and, in case you weren't thinking about him during the film, writer/director Robert Lorenz even has Jim and Miguel watch a clip from the actor's 1968 western Hang 'Em High. The filmmaker has a history with Eastwood, actually, directing him in 2012's Trouble with the Curve and working on a long list of Eastwood-helmed movies. Lorenz doesn't have ties to John Wick, but that doesn't stop him borrowing a little from that franchise as well — and stranding Neeson in a passable-enough but always derivative movie several times over in the process. 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 July 2, July 9, July 16, July 23 and July 30; August 6, August 13, August 20 and August 27; September 3, September 10, September 17 and September 24; October 1, October 8, October 15, October 22 and October 29; and November 5, November 12, November 19 and November 26; and December 3, December 10, December 17, December 26; and January 1, January 7 and January 14. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as The Craft: Legacy, Radioactive, Brazen Hussies, Freaky, Mank, Monsoon, Ellie and Abbie (and Ellie's Dead Aunt), American Utopia, Possessor, Misbehaviour, Happiest Season, The Prom, Sound of Metal, The Witches, The Midnight Sky, The Furnace, Wonder Woman 1984, Ottolenghi and the Cakes of Versailles, Nomadland, Pieces of a Woman, The Dry, Promising Young Woman, Summerland, Ammonite, The Dig and The White Tiger.
When Chris Sheldrick, Hannah Kim-Sheldrick, Josh Kim and Aileen Zhang started working on Banksia Bakehouse in 2018, they didn't think they'd be launching the CBD bakery in the middle of a pandemic. But, they have — and, despite the current lack of foot-traffic, the Grosvenor Place spot is creating a buzz. Open from 7.30am Monday–Friday, Banksia is located underneath Rosetta in eye-catching surrounds. Named after and inspired by native Australian flora, the bakery and cafe is all brown leather banquettes, white curves and hanging foliage. While the interior design is impressive, it's hard to tear your eyes away from the open kitchen, where pastry chefs are whipping up towering cakes, flaky pastries and fairy tale-like apple desserts. [caption id="attachment_779738" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kitti Gould[/caption] For lunches and brunches, you'll find croissants, cruffins, Oreo meringues, croque monsieurs and savoury pies, currently available in mushroom stroganoff, Mexican chicken and beef brisket. To drink, there's coffee roasted by The Grounds. Cakes, while rotating often, include the likes of a tiramisu tarte, lemon meringue tear drop, piña colada mousse cake and the aforementioned apple delight. You can get those in single-serve portions and, for celebratory occasions, whole towering cakes such as caramel toffee, black forrest, cookies and cream cheesecake and strawberry sponge numbers. Each comes elegantly decorated and are available in a range of sizes. The big'uns can be pre-ordered online and start at a very reasonable $50. Images: Kitti Gould
It's now easy to get your hands on Berkelo's crowd-pleasing breads and baked goods thanks to the beloved bakery's newer sites in Mosman, Mona Vale and Manly. Having clocked up two years in its original Brookvale space, owners Tom Eadie and Matt Durrant have taken an even bigger bite out of Sydney's northern beaches. The Mosman store is on bustling Military Road and is open daily. The space is built around that same passion for simple, healthy fare that's made its sibling such a hit. It's slinging a range of revamped breakfast classics and seasonal lunch dishes, most of them starring Berkelo's legendary, long-fermented sourdough breads. Think, smashed avo with fermented vegetables, and duck served with mushrooms, onion jam and potato focaccia. You'll also find freshly baked croissants, a daily-changing lineup of generous sandwiches, and coffee made using Single Origin beans. And of course, there's plenty of that beloved Berkelo bread available to go, all naturally leavened and crafted with all-Aussie, unbleached stone-ground flours.
This April, the Art Gallery of NSW is unveiling The Essential Duchamp, a landmark exhibition showcasing 125 works and materials from the captivating career of French artist Marcel Duchamp. If you're not too familiar with Duchamp himself, you'll probably still recognise his most controversial works — he's the dude that basically decided a urinal could be considered an artwork if an artist said it was, thus paving the way for manufactured objects to be considered and recognised as art (what Duchamp called 'readymades'). But there's more to his six-decade-long career than controversy. To prime you (art pun intended) for your visit, we spoke to the AGNSW's curator of modern and contemporary international art, Nicholas Chambers, to find out five things you should know about the iconoclastic artist — and obsessive chess player — whose irreverence, agility and refusal to heed the status quo single-handedly changed the course of modern art forever. [caption id="attachment_721134" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Marcel Duchamp: Nude Descending a Staircase (No 2); 1912. Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950-134-59 © Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP. Copyright Agency, 2019.[/caption] DUCHAMP NEVER SETTLED Looking back on his career, Duchamp said: "I didn't want to pin myself down to one little circle, and I tried at least to be as universal as I could." A huge part of his ongoing appeal lies in the way he fought against the idea of the artist as a brand, avoiding being pigeonholed into a particular style or becoming a card-carrying member of a movement — even dadaism, a movement that he was a pioneer of. You'll experience Duchamp's diversity as you move through the exhibition, which Chambers promises "reveals just how agile he was as an artist, able to move so deftly between different art forms and ideas". Duchamp welcomed self-contradiction and embraced a broad array of influences, some of which he'd try on for a while, make his own and then abandon — as you'll see in his early painting, Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2 (1912), where he essentially mic dropped a highly original take on cubism, caused quite le scandale at the 1913 New York Armory Show, then decided to leave painting behind to focus on less traditional ways to operate as an artist. [caption id="attachment_721132" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass); 1915-1923, oil, varnish, lead foil, lead wire, and dust. Philadelphia Museum of Art, bequest of Katherine S. Dreier, 1952 © Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP. Copyright Agency, 2018.[/caption] DUCHAMP PROVOKED CONVERSATION No stranger to controversy, Duchamp believed that art's purpose wasn't to provide visual pleasure, but rather to shake things up and engage people intellectually. Painting, for example, in his words "should not be exclusively retinal or visual; it should have to do with the grey matter, with our urge for understanding." From Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912) to the game-changing readymade Fountain (1917) (that's the urinal) to the "definitively unfinished" glass composition The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–23), Duchamp's work started conversations — sometimes heated ones — and activated discourse. Seriously, can you imagine some of the reactions to 1913's Bicycle Wheel, his first readymade? Just who is this guy who thinks he can plonk a bicycle wheel on a kitchen stool and call it art? His work remains provocative in 2019, says Chambers, prompting and compelling us "to reflect on questions of taste. How is value determined in the art world? What's at stake when artists, viewers, curators or critics make aesthetic judgements? He provokes us to question the most basic conventions of art appreciation". [caption id="attachment_721133" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Marcel Duchamp: The Chess Game; 1910. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950 © Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP. Copyright Agency, 2019.[/caption] DUCHAMP REALLY, REALLY LIKED CHESS Several Duchamp works take chess as a theme, including the early painting The Chess Game (1910), which depicts his two brothers — both of them also artists — hunched over a chessboard in their studio's garden. A lifelong devotee of the game who eventually acquired the title of Master and competed for the French national team in multiple Chess Olympiads, in the early 1920's it was even (falsely) rumoured Duchamp was abandoning the art world entirely to focus on chess full-time. Chambers notes that chess actually "provides an interesting analogy for thinking about Duchamp's project at large: an approach to art and life that's at once playful and strategic". In both art and chess Duchamp believed in taking risks, but could also take a slow and steady approach; he could revel in the endless combination of tactics and moves — or styles and techniques — available, but he could also step outside a trend or movement to see the bigger picture, and triumph. Whether Duchamp ultimately preferred chess over art is a matter of argument; however he is often quoted as saying: "While all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists." Make of that what you will. [caption id="attachment_721136" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Man Ray: Duchamp as Rrose Selavy; 1921–26. Philadelphia Museum of Art, gift of Jacqueline, Paul and Peter Matissein memory of their mother Alexina Duchamp, 13-1972-9(763a,b). © Man Ray Trust/ADAGP. Copyright Agency, 2019.[/caption] DUCHAMP WAS ENIGMATIC "There was always a lot of mystery surrounding Duchamp — both his person and his productions," says Chambers. Duchamp actively perpetuated rumours he had retired from the art world, loved wordplay and language games and often signed his works with false names, such as Fountain (1917) which is signed 'R. Mutt' — a joke of which even Duchamp became slightly murky on the exact origins. During the 1920s he created a female alter ego named Rrose Sélavy (ask a French speaker to point out the aural gag) whose name adorns several of his readymades. Many of his works feel full of clues to meanings just beyond our grasp, and he could be deeply secretive — the last 20 years of his life were spent working on a piece only a few people knew about entitled Étant donnés (1946–66), which you'll see a digital presentation of in the exhibition. Testing the boundaries of his own image as an artist, Duchamp relished a sense of play, mystery and freedom, stating: "I believe that art is the only form of activity in which man as man shows himself to be a true individual." [caption id="attachment_721135" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Marcel Duchamp Hat Rack 1964 (replica of 1917 original) National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Fountain 1950 (replica of 1917 original) Philadelphia Museum of Art; Bicycle Wheel 1964 (replica of 1913 original) Philadelphia Museum of Art; Bottlerack 1961 (replica of 1914 original) Philadelphia Museum of Art, © Association Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP. Copyright Agency, 2018.[/caption] DUCHAMP CHANGED THE WAY WE THINK ABOUT ART Duchamp borrowed the term 'readymade' from the fashion industry to describe the everyday, mass-produced, often utilitarian objects he found, modified and declared to be artworks. Works such as Bicycle Wheel (1913), In Advance of the Broken Arm (1915) and Fountain (1917) were ironic, at times humorous acts of rebellion against what he called "retinal art" — their appeal to Duchamp lying in their very banality and visual indifference. It's impossible to overstate just how revolutionary it was in 1917 for an artist to suggest that a standard urinal should be included in a public exhibition. "The readymades on a fundamental level changed what we mean when we use the words art and artist," says Chambers. An artist now had the power to transform and elevate a humble snow shovel into an artwork. An artist by definition no longer had to be someone who uses their skill to make something original by hand — they could also appropriate something someone else (or even a machine) had made, and give it new meaning in an artistic context. Art could be more about an idea than the object itself. And it definitely didn't have to please the eye — it could please the mind instead. You can catch The Essential Duchamp at Art Gallery of NSW between April 27 and August 11, 2019. Admission is ticketed and can be purchased in person or online. AGNSW is open 10am—5pm daily, with extended hours until 10pm on Wednesday.
This time last year, we'd all spent far too much time in front of our TVs. Sadly, that hasn't changed all that much in 2021. That's life during a pandemic — which means that you've likely rewatched all your favourite television shows, and possibly more than once, while we've all been spending more time indoors of late. There's nothing like getting cosy with a TV series you truly love, whether for the second, fifth, 11th or 20th time. But if you're always eager to add some fresh standouts to your viewing list, 2021 has definitely delivered plenty so far. They're the new series that'll sit atop your rewatch pile in years to come, because they're all just that exceptional. Love powerful dramas that interrogate the past? This year has served up those. Fancy smart new comedies with local ties? Yep, 2021 has thrust those in front of eyeballs, too. Also debuting over the past six months: new gems from the teams behind old favourites, twisty thrillers and more than a couple of series with casts that knock it out of the park. Yes, the list goes on. With the year at its halfway point, here are our picks of 2021's best new TV and streaming series that you owe it to yourself to seek out now. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD Two words: Barry Jenkins. Where the Oscar-nominated Moonlight director goes, viewers should always follow. That proved the case with 2018's If Beale Street Could Talk, and it's definitely accurate regarding The Underground Railroad, the phenomenal new ten-part series that features Jenkins behind the camera of each and every episode. As the name makes plain, the historical drama uses the real-life Underground Railroad — the routes and houses that helped enslaved Black Americans escape to freedom — as its basis. Here, though, drawing on the past isn't as straightforward as it initially sounds. Adapting Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same moniker, the series dives deeply into the experiences of people endeavouring to flee slavery, while also adopting magic-realism when it comes to taking a literal approach to its railroad concept. That combination couldn't work better in Jenkins' hands as he follows Cora (Thuso Mbedu, Shuga), a woman forced into servitude on a plantation overseen by Terrance Randall (Benjamin Walker, Jessica Jones). As always proves the case in the filmmaker's work, every frame is a thing of beauty, every second heaves with emotion, and every glance, stare, word and exchange is loaded with a thorough examination of race relations in America. If something else this affecting reaches streaming queues in 2021, it'll be a phenomenal year for audiences. The Underground Railroad is available to stream via Amazon Prime Video. WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS Named after a meme, and focusing on characters that can hardly be described likeable but are nonetheless instantly recognisable, Australian sitcom Why Are You Like This takes aim at 21st century life. Its three main figures are all twentysomethings endeavouring to navigate a never-ending onslaught of personal and professional problems, such as getting fired, battling with colleagues, money troubles, hiding boyfriends, losing moon cups and trying to spark a workplace revolution but ending up getting other people fired — so, yes, they're just like the rest of us. Penny (series co-creator Naomi Higgins, Utopia) wants to be an ally to everyone. Her bestie Mia (Olivia Junkeer, Neighbours) matches that determination with both self-assurance and a self-serving mindset; if she's sticking up for anyone, it's always herself. Rounding out the trio is Penny's housemate and aspiring drag queen Austin (Wil King), whose glittery outfits and super-sized personality can't always hide his internal crumbling. Across the show's six-episode first season, these three friends keep trying to stand out in their own ways. They also keep demonstrating both their best and worst traits. As satirical as it is candid and relatable, Why Are You Like This knows that everyone and everything is awful, and leans in. And, in terms of the series' style of comedy, the fact that Higgins created the show with lawyer and illustrator Humyara Mahbub and Aunty Donna's Mark Samual Bonanno says plenty. Why Are You Like This was available to stream earlier in 2021 via ABC iView — keep an eye on the platform in case it pops up again. Read our full review. IT'S A SIN More than two decades after creating Queer as Folk, Russell T Davies gives the television landscape another excellent queer drama. The screenwriter and television producer has been busy over the intervening period thanks to everything from Doctor Who to Years and Years — and he also has 2015's Cucumber to his name, too — but It's a Sin is one of the very best things on his lengthy resume. Stepping back to the AIDS crisis of the 80s and early 90s, the five-part miniseries follows a group of friends chasing their dreams in London. Ritchie (Olly Alexander, Penny Dreadful) heads to the city to become an actor, and to avoid telling his stern parents that he's gay. Roscoe (Omari Douglas) flees his parents' home when they keep threatening to take him back to Nigeria. Colin (Callum Scott Howells) arrives for an apprenticeship at a high-end tailor shop, but soon finds himself seeking an escape from his lecherous boss. Given the era, there's no doubting where the story will head. It's a Sin is as joyous and vibrant as it is soulful and heartbreaking, though. Ritchie, Roscoe and Colin not only cross paths, but form a makeshift family in their modest flat, with the former's college friends Jill (Lydia West, Dracula) and Ash (Nathaniel Curtis) rounding out the quintet. Neil Patrick Harris and Stephen Fry also feature, but they're never It's a Sin's stars — because, in series that looks and sounds the period part at every moment, the show's five main players are simply phenomenal. It's a Sin is available to stream via Stan. STARSTRUCK When Rose Matafeo last graced our screens, she took on pregnancy-centric rom-coms in 2020's Baby Done. Now, in Starstruck, she's still pairing the romantic and the comedic. In another thoughtful, plucky and relatable performance, she plays Jessie, a 28-year-old New Zealander in London who splits her time between working in a cinema and nannying, and isn't expecting much when her best friend and roommate Kate (Emma Sidi, Pls Like) drags her out to a bar on New Year's Eve. For most of the evening, her lack of enthusiasm proves astute. Then she meets Tom (Nikesh Patel, Four Weddings and a Funeral). He overhears her rambling drunkenly to herself in the men's bathroom, they chat at the bar and, when sparks fly, she ends up back at his sprawling flat. It isn't until the next morning, however — when she sees a poster adorned with his face leaning against his living room wall — that she realises that he's actually one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Yes, Starstruck takes Notting Hill's premise and gives it a 22-years-later update, and delivers a smart, sidesplittingly funny and all-round charming rom-com sitcom in the process. When a film or TV show is crafted with a deep-seated love for its chosen genre, it shows. When it wants to do more than just nod and wink at greats gone by like a big on-screen super fan — when its creators passionately hope that it might become a classic in its own right, rather than a mere imitation of better titles — that comes through, too. And that's definitely the case with this ridiculously easy-to-binge charmer. Starstruck is available to stream via ABC iView. Read our full review. WAKEFIELD Scroll through the list of Wakefield's cast members, and many a famous Australian name pops up. Ryan Corr (High Ground), Wayne Blair (Rams), Kim Gyngell (Brothers' Nest), Harriet Dyer (The Invisible Man), and comedians Felicity Ward and Sam Simmons are just some of them, but this ABC series belongs to phenomenal British talent Rudi Dharmalingam (The Split). With an Aussie accent so flawless that all other actors attempting the feat should study it in the future, he plays nurse Nik Katira. His workplace: the eponymous Wakefield, a mental health hospital in the Blue Mountains. Nik's days involve caring for his patients, navigating the usual workplace politics and grappling with his personal life, with all three often overlapping. That might sound like the usual medical drama, but Wakefield isn't ever as straightforward as it might appear. From its very first episode — one of five directed by The Dressmaker filmmaker Jocelyn Moorhouse, with the other three helmed by The Rocket's Kim Mordaunt — the series purposefully throws its viewers off-kilter. With roving cinematography and looping stories, it keeps everyone watching guessing, just as the figures within its frames are doing about their daily existence (including and sometimes especially Nik). Already set to be one of Australian TV's most impressive new series of the year — and likely the best of the year, too — Wakefield is gripping, twisty, powerful and almost devastatingly empathetic about a topic that is rarely handled with as much care and understanding. In other words, it's a knockout. Wakefield is available to stream via ABC iView. MARE OF EASTTOWN Kate Winslet doesn't make the leap to the small screen often, but when she does, it's a must-see event. 2011's Mildred Pierce was simply astonishing, a description that both Winslet and her co-star Guy Pearce also earned — alongside an Emmy each, plus three more for the HBO limited series itself. The two actors and the acclaimed US cable network all reteam for Mare of Easttown, and it too is excellent. Set on the outskirts of Philadelphia, it follows detective Mare Sheehan. As the 25th anniversary of her high-school basketball championship arrives, and after a year of trying to solve a missing person's case linked to one of her former teammates, a new murder upends her existence. Mare's life overflows with complications anyway, with her ex-husband (David Denman, Brightburn) getting remarried, and her mother (Jean Smart, Watchmen), teenage daughter (Angourie Rice, Spider-Man: Far From Home) and four-year-old grandson all under her roof. With town newcomer Richard Ryan (Pearce, The Last Vermeer), she snatches what boozy and physical solace she can. As compelling and textured as she always is, including in this year's Ammonite, Winslet turns Mare of Easttown into a commanding character study. That said, it's firmly an engrossing crime drama as well. Although yet again pondering the adult life of an ex-school sports star, The Way Back's Brad Ingelsby isn't just repeating himself by creating and writing this seven-part series, while The Leftovers and The Hunt's Craig Zobel takes to his directing gig with a probing eye. Mare of Easttown is available to stream via Binge. GIRLS5EVA First, a word of warning: the hit song that brought fictional late 90s/early 00s girl group Girls5eva to fame is such an earworm, you'll be singing it to yourself for weeks after you binge through the sitcom that bears their name. That's to be expected given that Jeff Richmond, the composer behind 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's equally catchy and comedic tunes, is one of the talents behind it. Tina Fey and Robert Carlock produce the series, too, so you what type of humour you're in for. Starring Sara Bareilles (Broadway's Waitress), Busy Philipps (I Feel Pretty), Renée Elise Goldsberry (Hamilton) and the great Paula Pell (AP Bio), Girls5eva follows four members of the eponymous band two decades after their heyday. Their initial success didn't last, and life has left the now-fortysomething women at different junctures. Then a rapper samples their hit, they're asked to reunite for a one-night backing spot on The Tonight Show, and they contemplate getting back together to give music another shot. As well as being exceptionally well-cast and immensely funny, the series is also bitingly perceptive about stardom, the entertainment industry and the way that women beyond their twenties are treated. Also, when Fey inevitably pops up, she does so as a dream version of Dolly Parton — and it's as glorious as it sounds. Girls5eva is available to stream via Stan. Read our full review. CALLS Everyone has heard about the response that The War of the Worlds reportedly sparked back in 1938. That's when Orson Welles adapted HG Wells' novel into a radio play, and the result was so convincing that it reportedly incited panic among listeners. Watching Calls, it's easy to understand how. 'Watching' isn't exactly the right term for this mystery series, though. Like all those folks glued to their radios 83 years ago, Calls' audience is forced to listen intently. Indeed, in terms of visuals, the series only provides two types: words transcribing the conversations heard, and abstract visuals that move and shift with each sentence uttered and every suspenseful pause left lingering. Accordingly, focusing on the snippets of phone chats that tell the program's stories is what Calls is all about. Remaking the French show of the same name, and directed by Evil Dead and Don't Breathe's Fede Álvarez, something much more than a small-screen version of a story-fuelled podcast eventuates. A starry cast voices the chats — including everyone from Parks and Recreation duo Aubrey Plaza and Ben Schwartz to Wonder Woman 1984's Pedro Pascal and The Lodge's Riley Keough — but it's the tension and power of their words that leaves an impression. Each of the nine episodes tells a short story that eventually builds an overall picture, and getting caught up in them all is far easier than the underlying concept might initially make you think. Calls is available to stream via Apple TV+. MADE FOR LOVE When author Alissa Nutting penned Made for Love, no one needed to think too hard about her source of inspiration. Now bringing its tale to the small screen courtesy of the series of the same name, her story ponders one of the possible next steps in our technology-saturated lives. Hazel Green-Gogol (Cristin Milioti, Palm Springs) seems to live a lavishly and happily with her tech billionaire husband Byron (Billy Magnussen, Aladdin). They haven't left his company's desert campus in the entire ten years they've been married, in fact. The site is designed to cater for their every desire and whim, so they shouldn't need to go anywhere else — or that's how Byron views things, at least. Then his next big idea looks set to become a reality, and Hazel decides that she can't keep up the charade. She certainly doesn't want to be implanted with a chip that'll allow Byron to see through her eyes, access her feelings and always know where she is, and she's willing to take drastic actions to escape his hold over her life. Bringing the plot to the screen herself, Nutting favours a darkly comedic and sharply satirical vibe as she follows Hazel's quest for freedom, with Made for Love filled with blisteringly accurate insights into the tech-dependence that's become a regular part of 21st century existence. That said, the series wouldn't be the gem it is without Milioti, as well as Ray Romano (The Irishman) in a scene-stealing supporting part as Hazel's father. Made for Love is available to stream via Stan. LOS ESPOOKYS It has taken almost two years for the delight that is Los Espookys to reach Australian screens — and it'll take you less than three hours to binge its six-episode first season. This HBO comedy is both worth the wait and worth devouring as quickly as possible, though. The setup: horror aficionado Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco, Museo) wants to turn his obsession into his profession, so he starts staging eerie scenarios for paying customers, enlisting his best friend Andrés (Julio Torres, Shrill), pal Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti, Ready to Mingle) and the latter's sister Tati (Ana Fabrega, At Home with Amy Sedaris) to help. Torres and Fabrega co-created the show with Portlandia and Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen, who also pops up as Renaldo's parking valet uncle. This mostly Spanish-language series only uses its biggest name sparingly, however, because its key cast members own every moment. Following the titular group's exploits as they attempt to ply their trade, and to weave it into their otherwise chaotic lives, Los Espookys always manages to be both sidesplittingly hilarious and so meticulous in its horror references that it's almost uncanny. There's nothing on-screen quite like it and, thankfully, it has already been renewed for a second season. Los Espookys is available to stream via Binge. RUTHERFORD FALLS He co-wrote and produced The Office. He did the same on Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which he co-created as well. And, he gave the world The Good Place — which makes Michael Schur one of the best in the business when it comes to kind-hearted, smart and savvy small-screen laughs. His new show, Rutherford Falls, continues the streak. Co-created with star Ed Helms and showrunner Sierra Teller Ornelas (Superstore), it also boasts his usual charm and intelligence and, as with all of the above programs, it's exceptionally well-cast. Plus, it's immensely easy to binge in just one sitting, because each one of its ten first-season episodes leave you wanting more. The setup: in the place that gives the sitcom its name, Nathan Rutherford (Helms, Aunty Donna's Big Ol' House of Fun) runs the local history museum. One of his descendants founded the town, and he couldn't be more proud of that fact. He's also very protective of the towering statue of said ancestor, even though it sits in the middle of a road and causes accidents. So, when the mayor (Dana L.Wilson, Perry Mason) decides to move the traffic hazard, Nathan and his overzealous intern Bobbie (Jesse Leigh, Heathers) spring into action. Nathan's best friend Reagan Wells (Jana Schmieding, Blast) helps; however, the Minishonka Nation woman begins to realise just how her pal's family have shaped the fate of her Native American community. Also featuring a scene-stealing Michael Greyeyes (I Know This Much Is True) as the enterprising head of the Minishonka Nation casino, Rutherford Falls pairs witty laughs with warmth and sincerity, especially when it comes to exploring the treatment of First Nations peoples in America today. Rutherford Falls is available to stream via Stan. Read our full review. THE SERPENT One day, Tahar Rahim will likely win an Oscar. He's that phenomenal an actor, as he has shown in everything from A Prophet, The Past and Daguerreotype to The Eddy and The Mauritanian. In The Serpent, however, he's never been more unsettling — but given that he's playing Charles Sobhraj, that comes with the territory. If the real-life French serial killer's name doesn't ring a bell, then this eight-part series will make sure you'll never forget it. The instantly riveting drama tells a grim true tale, and an unnerving one. With his girlfriend Marie-Andrée Leclerc (Jenna Coleman, The Cry) and accomplice Ajay Chowdhury (TV first-timer Amesh Edireweera), Sobhraj targeted young travellers in Bangkok and south Asia in the 70s — usually luring them in with a scam first, or trying to flat-out steal their money, then drugging them, killing them and stealing their passports. Ripper Street writers Richard Warlow and Toby Finlay intertwine Sobhraj, Leclerc and Chowdhury's murderous exploits with the efforts of Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg (Billy Howle, Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker) to find two missing tourists. After being tipped off about two bodies by a loud-mouthed Australian in Thailand (Damon Herriman, Judy & Punch), Knippenberg begins to piece together the broader story. It's easy to feel just as he does while watching The Serpent, actually, because getting swept up in its distressing details is simply inevitable. The Serpent is available to stream via Netflix. Looking for more viewing highlights? Check out our list of film and TV streaming recommendations, which is updated monthly.
Before the pandemic, when a new-release movie started playing in cinemas, audiences couldn't watch it on streaming, video on demand, DVD or blu-ray for a few months. But with the past few years forcing film industry to make quite a few changes — widespread movie theatre closures will do that, and so will plenty of people staying home because they aren't well — that's no longer always the case. Maybe you haven't had time to make it to your local cinema lately. Perhaps you've been under the weather. Given the hefty amount of titles now releasing each week, maybe you simply missed something. Film distributors have been fast-tracking some of their new releases from cinemas to streaming recently — movies that might still be playing in theatres in some parts of the country, too. In preparation for your next couch session, here are 13 that you can watch right now at home. 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. Civil War streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. Monkey Man Dev Patel means business in Monkey Man, both on- and off-screen. Starring in the ferocious vengeance-dripping action-thriller, he plays Kid, a man on a mission to punish the powers that be in Yatana (a fictional Indian city inspired by Mumbai) for their injustices, and specifically for the death of his mother Neela (Adithi Kalkunte, who Patel worked with on Hotel Mumbai) when he was a boy. As the film's director, producer and co-writer, he isn't holding back either, especially in adding something to his resume that no other project has offered in his almost two decades as an actor since Skins marked his on-camera debut. Dev Patel: action star has an excellent ring to it. So does Dev Patel: action filmmaker. Both labels don't merely sound great with Monkey Man; this is a frenetic and thrilling flick, and also a layered one that marries its expertly choreographed carnage with a statement. In the post-John Wick action-movie realm, it might seem as if every actor is doing features about formidable lone forces taking on their enemies. Patel initially began working on Monkey Man over ten years ago, which is when Keanu Reeves (The Matrix Resurrections) first went avenging, but his film still acknowledges what its viewers will almost-inevitably ponder by giving John Wick a shoutout. Thinking about the Charlize Theron (Fast X)-led Atomic Blonde and Bob Odenkirk (The Bear)-starring Nobody is understandable while watching, too — but it's The Raid and Oldboy, plus the decades of Asian action onslaughts and revenge-filled Korean efforts around them, that should stick firmest in everyone's mind. All directors are product of their influences; however, Patel achieves the rare feat of openly adoring his inspirations while filtering them through his exact vision to fashion a picture that's always 100-percent his own (and 100-percent excellent). Monkey Man streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Dev Patel. 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. Love Lies Bleeding streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Rose Glass. Late Night with the Devil If David Dastmalchian ever tires of acting, which will hopefully never happen, he'd make an entrancing late-night television host. He even has the audition tape for it: Late Night with the Devil. Of course, the star who earned his first movie credit on The Dark Knight, and has stood out in Blade Runner 2049, The Suicide Squad, Dune and the third season of Twin Peaks — plus Boston Strangler, The Boogeyman, Oppenheimer and Dracula: Voyage of the Demeter all in 2023 alone, alongside Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania — might be hoping for a less eerie and unsettling gig IRL. Dastmalchian is a fan of horror anchors, writing an article for Fangoria about them. Here, putting in a helluva can't-look-away performance, he plays one. That said, the namesake of Night Owls with Jack Delroy isn't meant to fit the mould so unnervingly, nor is the series that he's on. Delroy is a Johnny Carson rival — and, because Australian filmmakers Cameron and Colin Cairnes (100 Bloody Acres, Scare Campaign) write and direct Late Night with the Devil, he's also a Don Lane-type talent — who isn't afraid of embracing the supernatural on his live talk show. On Halloween in 1977, airing his usual special episode for the occasion, he decides to attempt to arrest the flagging ratings of what was once a smash by booking four attention-grabbing guests. What occurs when Delroy, who is grieving the loss of his actor wife Madeleine Piper (Georgina Haig, NCIS Sydney) a year earlier, shares the stage with not only a famous skeptic and a psychic, but also with a parapsychologist and a girl who is reportedly possessed? That might sound like the setup for a joke, but it's this new Aussie horror gem's captivating premise. Late Night with the Devil streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Colin and Cameron Cairnes. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Godzilla is finally an Oscar-winner. It's about time. But the septuagenarian reptile didn't score Hollywood's top trophy for curling up in the Colosseum for a snooze, rocking electric-pink spikes, thundering into Hollow Earth — the world literally within our world where titans spring from — and teaming up with King Kong to take on a rival giant ape that rides an ice-breathing kaiju and uses a skeletal spine as a rope. Japan's exceptional Godzilla Minus One, which took home 2024's Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, wasn't that kind of monster movie. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which hails from the American-made Monsterverse, definitely is. Arriving shortly after one of its titular figures received such a coveted filmmaking accolade (and also after the US franchise's ace streaming series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters), this sequel to 2021's Godzilla vs Kong is patently from the goofily entertaining rather than deeply meaningful brand of Godzilla flicks. Yes, there's room for both. It might seem a hard job to follow up one of the best-ever takes on the nuclear-powered creature with an action-adventure-fantasy monster mash that also features a Hawaiian shirt-wearing veterinarian (Dan Stevens, Welcome to Chippendale) dropping in via helicopter to do dental work on King Kong, the return of the Monsterverse's resident conspiracy-theorist podcaster (Brian Tyree Henry, Atlanta), a complicated mother-daughter dynamic (via Rebecca Hall, Resurrection, and Kaylee Hottle, Magnum PI) and a mini Kong called Suko — plus, in its very first minutes, several other animals being ripped apart by Godzilla and Kong. When he took on the gig of helming pictures in this franchise, however, You're Next, The Guest, Blair Witch and Death Note filmmaker Adam Wingard chose fun chaos. His two entries so far aren't dreaming of competing for thoughtfulness with the movies coming out of the country that created Godzilla. Rather, they're made with affection for that entire legacy, and also Kong's, which dates back even further to 1933. Getting audiences relishing the spectacle of this saga is the clear aim, then — and Wingard's attempts put exactly that in their sights above all else. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review, and our interview with Rebecca Hall, Dan Stevens, Brian Tyree Henry, Kaylee Hottle and Adam Wingard. Abigail Abigail, aka the tween vampire ballerina film that unveiled that premise in its trailer, is still an entertaining time irrespective of your starting knowledge, thankfully. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett's fifth full-length directorial effort — and their first after bringing back Ghostface in 2022's Scream and 2023's Scream VI — begins as a blend of a heist affair, horror mansion movie and whodunnit. It kicks off with a kidnapping skilfully pulled off by a motley crew (is there any other type?), then with holing up in the mastermind's sprawling and eerie safe house with their 12-year-old captive, then with fingers being pointed and their charge toying with them. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett are slick with their opening, from breaking into a well-secured estate to avoiding surveillance cameras while speeding through the streets afterwards. They're playful, too, when corralling everyone in their next location — a setup that they've turned into an ace horror watch before in 2019's Ready or Not — and letting suspicions run wild. The six abductors here, as given nicknames Reservoir Dogs-style but with a Rat Pack spin, and told not to divulge their true identities or histories to each other: Joey (Melissa Barrera, Carmen), a recovering addict with medical skills; Frank (Dan Stevens, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire), who has a background in law enforcement; Rickles (William Catlett, Constellation), an ex-marine; Sammy (Kathryn Newton, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania), the resident hacker; Peter (Kevin Durand, Pantheon), the dim-witted muscle; and Dean (Angus Cloud, Euphoria), the stoner wheelman. The middleman for their employer: the no-nonsense Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito, The Gentlemen). And the girl: Abigail (Alisha Weir, Wicked Little Letters), of course, who is the daughter of someone obscenely rich and powerful. She's just finished dance rehearsals, is still in her tutu, and proves the picture of scared and unsettled when she's snatched from her bedroom, drugged and blindfolded — until she isn't. Abigail streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. Wicked Little Letters Whether it's via a post or tweet or message, in a comment or status update, thanks to a Notes app screenshot or in an email, mean words aren't hard to share two decades into the 21st century. Click a few buttons, slide your finger across a touchscreen, then vitriol can be directed virtually instantaneously worldwide. Countless people — too many, all sticklers for unpleasantness — do just that. Such behaviour has almost become a reflex. A century ago, however, spewing nastiness by text required far more effort. Someone had to put ink to paper, commit their hatred to physical form in their own handwriting, tuck it into an envelope, pay for postage, then await the mail service to deliver their malice. Wicked Little Letters isn't an ode to that dedication, but there's no avoiding that sending offensive missives in its 1920s setting was a concerted, determined act — and also that no one could claim just seconds later that they were hacked. Times change, and technology with it, but people don't: that's another way of looking at this British dramedy, which is indeed based on a true tale. Director Thea Sharrock (The One and Only Ivan) and screenwriter Jonny Sweet (Gap Year) know that there's a quaintness about the chapter of history that they're bringing to the screen, but not to the attitudes behind the incident. In Sussex by the sea on the English Channel, spiteful dispatches scandalised a town, with the situation dubbed "the Littlehampton libels". In Wicked Little Letters' account, Edith (Olivia Colman, Wonka) keeps receiving notes that overuse vulgar terms, and the God-fearing spinster, who lives with her strict father (Timothy Spall, The Heist Before Christmas) and dutiful mother (Gemma Jones, Emily), is certain that she knows the source. Living next door, Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley, Fingernails) is an Irish single mother to Nancy (Alisha Weir, Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical), has Bill (Malachi Kirby, My Name Is Leon) as her live-in boyfriend, and is fond of a drink at the pub and of sharing her opinion. The two neighbours are as chalk and cheese as women of the time could get, but were once friendly. When Edith blames Rose, the latter's pleas that she's innocent — and that she'd just tell the former her grievances to her face, not send them anonymously — fall on deaf ears among most of the resident police. Wicked Little Letters streams via YouTube Movies. Read our full review. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person What if a vampire didn't want to feed on humans? When it happens in Interview with the Vampire, rats are the solution. In Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, Sasha (Sara Montpetit, White Dog) gets her sustenance from pouches of blood instead, but her family — father (Steve Laplante, The Nature of Love), mother (Sophie Cadieux, Chouchou), aunt (Marie Brassard, Viking) and cousin Denise (Noémie O'Farrell, District 31') — are increasingly concerned once more than half a century passes and she keeps avoiding biting necks. Sasha still looks like a goth teenager, yet she's 68, so her relatives believe that it's well past time for her to embrace an inescapable aspect of being a bloodsucker. What if she didn't have to, though? The potential solution in the delightful first feature by director Ariane Louis-Seize, who co-writes with Christine Doyon (Germain s'éteint), is right there in this 2023 Venice International Film Festival award-winner's title. With What We Do in the Shadows, both on the big and small screens, the idea that vamps are just like the living when it comes to sharing houses has gushed with laughs. Swap out flatmates for adolescence — including pesky parents trying to cramp a teen's style — and that's Louis-Seize's approach in this French-language Canadian effort. As much as Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person brings fellow undead fare to mind, however, and more beyond, the Québécois picture is an entrancing slurp of vampire and other genres on its own merits. There's an Only Lovers Left Alive-style yearning and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night-esque elegance to the film. Beetlejuice and The Hunger bubble up, too, as do Under the Skin, Ginger Snaps and The Craft as well. But comparable to how drinking from someone doesn't transform you into them — at least according to a century-plus of bloodsucking tales on the page, in cinemas and on TV — nodding at influences doesn't turn this coming-of-age horror-comedy into its predecessors. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person streams via iTunes. Read our full review. You'll Never Find Me When The Rocky Horror Picture Show starts with just-engaged couple Brad Majors and Janet Weiss knocking on a stranger's door on a dark and rainy night, with the pair hoping to find both shelter from the elements and assistance, no one could predict what awaits inside. There isn't much that connects the stage-to-screen cult musical-comedy hit from nearly 50 years back with expertly tense and atmospheric Australian horror film You'll Never Find Me, but that basic setup gets a spin — and a wild ride is again the end result. Also, if you're the type to take life tips from pop culture, a familiar piece of advice proves true once more. Even the most casual of filmgoers know that little that's good ever comes from an unexpected thump on someone's house, regardless of whether you're doing the banging or hearing it from the other side. Knock at the Cabin, Knock Knock, The Strangers: they all back this idea up, too, and the list goes on. In You'll Never Find Me — which Indianna Bell and Josiah Allen write, direct and produce as their first feature — the weather is indeed violently stormy and the evening is inescapably black when a young woman (Jordan Cowan, Krystal Klairvoyant) taps on the caravan that Patrick (Brendan Rock, The Stranger) calls home. They're both tentative, anxious and unsettled. She asks for help, he obliges, but suspicion lingers in the air as heavily as the sound of thunder and the wail of wind. The thick blanket of distrust doesn't fray as they talk, either, with the new arrival — named only The Visitor in the feature's credits — claiming that she fell asleep on the beach, hence her presence on her host's doorstep at 2am. But Patrick keeps finding holes in her story. She's also doubtful about his claims that he doesn't have a phone that she could use, public facilities are too far away for her to get to without him driving her to it and they'll need to wait until the rain subsides to depart. You'll Never Find Me streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire There's nothing strange in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, even with the spirits of sewer dragons, Slimer and pre-Sumerian demons all lurking about. There's nothing unusual about the movie's neighbourhood, either, with the supernatural comedy franchise revisiting New York after Ghostbusters: Afterlife's detour to Oklahoma. No surprises are found among the characters, mixing OG faces from 1984's Ghostbusters and its 1989 sequel Ghostbusters II with cast members from the saga's last flick (and still sadly pretending that 2016's excellent female-led Ghostbusters didn't happen). But something unexpected does occur in this fifth film to ask "who ya gonna call?", this time directed by Gil Kenan (A Boy Called Christmas) with Jason Reitman (The Front Runner), Afterlife's helmer and the son of the first two films' Ivan Reitman (Draft Day), scripting: its love of nostalgia is as strong as in Afterlife; however, Frozen Empire is welcomely absent its immediate predecessor's needy force. That said, simply being better than Afterlife is a low hurdle to clear. It's also what Frozen Empire achieves and little more. Kenan ain't afraid of a by-the-numbers script that stitches together references to the franchise's past and as many characters as can be jam-packed in. Frozen Empire begins with Callie (Carrie Coon, The Gilded Age), her teen kids Trevor (Finn Wolfhard, Stranger Things) and Phoebe (McKenna Grace, Crater), and their former science teacher Gary (Paul Rudd, Only Murders in the Building) all in Ecto-1, in hot pursuit of an otherworldly wraith in Manhattan — and the fact that Callie parents, Gary yearns to be seen as a parent and Trevor reminds everyone that he's 18 now sets the scene for their parts moving forward. So does Phoebe taking charge, but Kenan and Reitman only make half an effort to push her to the fore. When Phoebe links up with Dan Aykroyd's (Zombie Town) Ray Stantz, who now runs a store that buys possessed possessions, the Ghostbusters saga gets its best path forward so far with this cast. And yet, possibly scared of the ridiculous backlash to Kate McKinnon (Barbie), Kristen Wiig (Palm Royale), Melissa McCarthy (The Little Mermaid) and Leslie Jones (Our Flag Means Death) in jumpsuits almost a decade back, Frozen Empire largely pads itself out with filler to stop Phoebe always being the main point of focus. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. The Great Escaper Two British acting icons enjoy their last on-screen hurrah in The Great Escaper, which is reason enough to see the based-on-a-true-story drama about a World War II veteran making a run for it. At the age of 90, Michael Caine announced that playing 89-year-old Bernard Jordan would be his last role in a film career that dates back to 1950. Glenda Jackson only returned to acting in 2015, after decades in politics since the 90s, then passed away after lending her talents to Bernard's wife Irene. The film they're in doesn't always match their efforts, with William Ivory's (Isolation Stories) script happy to hit the obvious notes, and forcefully — and director Oliver Parker just as content to do the same, as he also was on Johnny English Reborn, Dad's Army and Swimming with Men. Still, as it tells a spirited tale, it unsurprisingly does so with far more weight beyond its formula — as real as its events are — with Caine (Best Sellers) and Jackson (Mothering Sunday) in the lead parts. Normally when a movie links to the Second World War and involves fleeing, it's a period-set flick, but not this one. Jordan's stint of absconding came in June 2014, when he took his leave from his East Sussex nursing home without informing anyone to travel to Normandy for the 70th-anniversary D-Day commemorations. That makes The Great Escaper a breaking-out adventure of a unique kind — and Caine and Jackson, the latter as the spouse following her absent husband's antics from afar, are an excellent pair who bring gravitas to their roles whether they're sharing the frame or their characters are in different countries. The flashbacks to their younger years (featuring The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power's Will Fletcher and Bad Education's Laura Marcus) are less compelling. There's also little in the way of subtlety to the film's old-fashioned telling. But this story also proves affecting in pondering how war heroes are celebrated, then forgotten as they age, and also the human toll of every conflict long after it has been waged. The Great Escaper streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Baghead Sit in a chair. Embrace the otherworldly. Whether you're ready for it or not — physically and emotionally alike — bear witness to the dead being summoned. Speak to those who are no longer in the land of the living. Perhaps, while you're chatting, get caught in a dialogue with something nefarious as well. Talk to Me used this setup to audience-wowing and award-winning effect. Now comes Baghead, which stems from a short film that pre-dates 2023's big Australian-made horror hit, and was shot before Michael and Danny Philippou's A24-distributed flick played cinemas, but still brings it to mind instantly. Audiences can be haunted by what they've seen before, especially in a busy, ever-growing genre where almost everything is haunted anyway and few pictures feel genuinely new. Here, as first-time feature filmmaker Alberto Corredor adapts his own applauded short (which has nothing to do with the mumblecore effort starring Greta Gerwig before she was directing Lady Bird, Little Women and Barbie), there's no shaking how Talk to Me gnaws at Baghead. The director and screenwriters Christina Pamies (another debutant) and Bryce McGuire (Night Swim) make grief their theme, and with commitment; the pain of loss colours the movie as much as its shadowy imagery. But, despite boasting two dedicated performances, Corredor's Baghead is routine again and again. At The Queen's Head in Berlin, Owen Lark (Peter Mullan, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) oversees a ramshackle four-centuries-old pub where customers aren't there for the drinks. The basement is the big drawcard for those in the know, with the being that resides in it, in a hole in a brick wall, luring punters in the door. Everyone who arrives with cash and a plea for help is in mourning. When Neil (Jeremy Irvine, Benediction) makes an entrance, he knows exactly what he wants. Baghead begins not with Owen letting his latest patron meet the entity that shares the movie's title, though, but with him endeavouring to vanquish it. If he was successful, there'd be no film from there. Because he isn't, his estranged daughter Iris (Freya Allan, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes) is summoned to the German city by a solicitor (Ned Dennehy, The Peripheral), becoming the watering hole's next owner. Baghead streams via YouTube Movies. Read our full review, and our interview with Freya Allan. Kung Fu Panda 4 What happens when you've scored your dream job, especially when getting everything that you've ever wanted has meant navigating a lengthy and challenging quest — and when you've always been an underdog (well, an underpanda to be precise)? So asks Kung Fu Panda 4, posing that question to Po (Jack Black, The Super Mario Bros Movie), the black-and-white mammal whose journey to becoming a martial-arts master has sat at the heart of this franchise since 2008. Po loves being the Dragon Warrior, even when 2011's Kung Fu Panda 2 and 2016's Kung Fu Panda 3 have thrown ups and downs his way. In the movie series' fourth big-screen entry, however, Shifu (Dustin Hoffman, Sam & Kate) advises that it's time to start thinking about his successor in the post, as Po should be moving up the ranks to take on the job of the Valley of Peace's Spiritual Leader. One big problem: the panda isn't thrilled. Another: he doesn't love any of the candidates. There's also The Chameleon (Viola Davis, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), a sorceress, to deal with — potentially with the help of thieving fox Zhen (Awkwafina, IF). Black's voice has always done plenty of heavy lifting in the Kung Fu Panda flicks, alongside the general concept — a panda as a kung fu whiz — and the slapstick silliness that comes to the screen with it. None of that changes in Kung Fu Panda 4, and no one involved appears to want it to. Also still a constant: the reliance upon well-known names lending their vocals to the movie's menagerie (Argylle's Bryan Cranston, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai's James Hong, John Wick: Chapter 4's Ian McShane and Dumb Money's Seth Rogen have been here before; Everything Everywhere All At Once Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan and Unfrosted's Ronny Chieng are among the newcomers). The visuals remain vivid, but the story is in a rush to ping pong to the next sight gag or excuse to get the film's cast bantering. As directed Mike Mitchell (The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part) and Stephanie Stine (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), the film bounces, leaps, kicks and rolls along merrily enough, though — just — for younger audiences. Kung Fu Panda 4 streams via YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Looking for more viewing options? Take a look at our monthly streaming recommendations across new straight-to-digital films and TV shows — and fast-tracked highlights from January, February, March and April 2024 (and also January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December 2023, too). We keep a running list of must-stream TV from across 2024 as well, complete with full reviews. And, we've also rounded up 2023's 15 best films, 15 best straight-to-streaming movies, 15 top flicks hardly anyone saw, 30 other films to catch up with, 15 best new TV series of 2023, another 15 excellent new TV shows that you might've missed and 15 best returning shows.
As it turns out, Luke Powell of LP's Quality Meats had a long-held dream of opening his own pizzeria. Mates Joseph Valore and Elvis Abrahanowicz over at Porteño had similar fancies. It just took a recent trip to the USA to seal the deal, and now Sydney's welcomed the group's first joint venture, Bella Brutta. Taking over a King Street shopfront that's been home to many a former pizza joint, the crew has finally brought its ideas to life: a laidback 50-seater, with bar seating and a pizza oven that's just arrived from Italy. The style of pizza served up here isn't traditional. The bases are a mix between Neapolitan and Roman style — blistered and chewy like the former, but crisp enough that it can be eaten with your hands (like the latter) — and toppings vary widely, taking their inspiration from America and across Italy (and even around the corner in Chippendale). If you've been to LP's in Chippendale you've probably tried its house-made mortadella. And, here, you'll find it atop a a pizza ($25) with garlic and green olives. The Clam ($26) pizza, however, takes its inspiration from a bit further away — New Haven, Connecticut, to be exact. This white-based pizza is heavy on the chilli and garlic and unlike anything else we've tried in Aus. Elsewhere on the menu, there's house-made pickles ($10), braised green beans ($12) and LP's salami ($15) to kick off the meal, and Italian doughnuts ($9) and cannoli ($6 each) to end it. Drinks lean natural and are sourced from across Australia and Italy. Full review to come. Images: Kitti Smallbone. Appears in: Where to Find the Best Pizza in Sydney for 2023
The allure of a Mediterranean beach holiday might seem tempting, but you'll find a bounty of worthy vacation spots located right here in your own backyard. And if sun, sand and surf are on the agenda, there are plenty of idyllic island escapes up and down the coast of Queensland, just waiting to be explored. Indulge in a tropical getaway to Hamilton Island, or embrace the beachside life with a few days spent lounging in The Whitsundays. We've done the hard work for you and pulled together a list of the most idyllic island accommodations you can book in Queensland. Pick a favourite, pack your sunscreen and get ready to feel the sand between your toes. Recommended reads: The Best Hotels in Brisbane The Best Glamping Sites in Queensland The Best Dog-Friendly Accommodations in Queensland The Best Islands in Australia to Visit Any Time of the Year Central Airlie Holiday Home, Airlie Beach This Airlie Beach gem has room for the whole gang, but it's the divine deck and pool overlooking the Whitsunday Islands that'll steal your heart. From $545 a night, sleeps 10. Luxury Private Retreat Villa, Urangan Your own tropical haven, just minutes from the beaches of Hervey Bay. This breezy villa boasts contemporary styling, gorgeous outdoor living and a private pool. From $235 a night, sleeps six. Yacht Club 33, Hamilton Island This newly built island escape is a study in luxury living, complete with high-end features, pool access and sweeping ocean views throughout. From $1715 a night, sleeps nine. The Little Bush Hut, Nelly Bay On a secluded patch of island paradise, this stylishly restored hut is couples' holiday perfection. Fall in love with the private setting and the covered outdoor tub. From $310 a night, sleeps two. Headland House, Picnic Bay This architectural stunner boasts a covetable location on Magnetic Island, with luxurious spaces indoors and out, and epic ocean vistas to match. From $1752 a night, sleeps ten. Point Blue, Hamilton Island With its sleek interiors, picture-perfect views and abundance of outdoor living, this island home is the answer to all types of tropical holiday cravings. From $2164 a night, sleeps eight Point Lookout Townhouse, Point Lookout This stylish townhouse comes complete with panoramic water views, a gorgeous indoor-outdoor set-up and access to the complex's infinity pool. From $580 a night, sleeps seven. Complete Straddie Beach Retreat, Point Lookout Blissful island days await at this vibrant villa, perched just metres from the beach. Enjoy the romantic loft bedroom, sun-drenched deck and shared pool. From $219 a night, sleeps three Ascension, Point Lookout Luxe out in this sprawling holiday mansion, set overlooking the waters off Point Lookout. There's a huge deck, spa room and telescope for whale-watching. From $1000 a night, sleeps 12. Romantic Dog-Friendly Cottage, Macleay Island With leafy surrounds and pristine water views, this high-set cottage makes for a dreamy island hideaway. Split time between the cosy fireplace, luxurious spa and sunny deck. From $295 a night, sleeps four. Elementa House 1, Airlie Beach Unwind in style with a stay at this Whitsundays stunner, complete with private garden, shared infinity pool and master tub with breathtaking views. From $637 a night, sleeps six. 14 The Cove, Airlie Beach This next-level waterfront stay is what holiday dreams are made of. Indulge in show-stopping views from the open-plan living zones, sprawling deck and pool. From $960 a night, sleeps six. La Boheme Studio, Jubliee Pocket Experience your own little slice of Whitsundays magic at this contemporary coastal cottage, flitting between porch hammock and incredible magnesium pool. From $155 a night, sleeps two. Shorelines 23, Hamilton Island You'll feel on top of the world at this soaring Hamilton Island apartment, featuring panoramic ocean views and a stunning shared pool located just metres away. From $495 a night, sleeps six. Hamptons House on the Hill, Airlie Beach Boasting incredible vistas across the Whitsundays, a private pool and lots of luxury features, this award-winning Hamptons-style home is total bliss. From $375 a night, sleeps four. The Moreton Mansion, Tangalooma This generous three-level abode makes for a lavish group getaway, overlooking the waters of Moreton Bay. Plus, enjoy full access to the nearby resort facilities. From $1050 a night, sleeps 16+. Bedarra Island Villa, Bedarra Island A glam island paradise surrounded by leafy palms and lapping blue ocean. This designer villa boasts a stunning deck and delightfully secluded beachside setting. From $1258 a night, sleeps eight. FYI, this story includes some affiliate links. These don't influence any of our recommendations or content, but they may make us a small commission. For more info, see Concrete Playground's editorial policy. Images: Courtesy of Airbnb
If you're not the heiress of a Russian billionaire or a Victoria's Secret model, then it's probably unlikely that you have the spare cash to buy yourself a private island or hold your 21st birthday on one. Despair not. Do what you can to rustle up $1500 and you'll have the option of spending the night on a man-made island: Africa's first underwater hotel room. Opened as the Manta Resort's newest attraction on November 1, 2013, the subaquatic accommodation floats in a circular blue hole in the coral reef near Pemba Island, off the East Coast of Tanzania. The top floor — above sea-level — features an open-air deck where guests can relax, take in the idyllic Indian Ocean surroundings and soak up some sun or gaze at the stars. The bottom floor, submerged to the depth of four metres, is a bedroom, walled entirely in glass and affording dreamy views of passing sea-life. The nocturnal scenes, illuminated by spotlights, have been described as rather surreal. The vacation innovation was designed by Swedish installation artist and sculptor Mikael Genberg. He's the brains behind the Utter Inn, an underwater room built in a lake near Stockholm, and is currently contemplating putting a Swedish-style cottage on the moon. Funding was achieved via a newly formed company registered in Zanzibar, Genberg Art UW Limited, which represents a collaboration between several Swedish and Tanzanian investors, including Genberg Underwater Hotels, Christer and Jacky Abrahamsson, Hans Elis Johansson and Michael Wild. Via PSFK.
Over half a century ago in Sydney, Rob Hirst and Jim Moginie formed a band. Soon, they'd add Peter Garrett and Martin Rotsey, and take Midnight Oil as their name. Back then, none of the group could've predicted the fame they'd have and the millions of records they'd sell worldwide — or the fact that a documentary about them will open the 2024 Sydney Film Festival. Making its world premiere, Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line will kick off this year's SFF when it starts its projectors on Wednesday, June 5. Unsurprisingly, the State Theatre screening will be followed by a celebration in Sydney Town Hall — and we all know what'll be on the soundtrack. "We are thrilled to present Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line as the opening film for this year's Sydney Film Festival," said Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley. "This documentary not only chronicles the formidable journey of one of Australia's most influential bands but also captures the spirit of an era that reshaped our cultural and political landscapes. It's a fitting tribute to their legacy and a profound reflection on their impact that continues to inspire audiences around the world." Written and directed by Paul Clarke (who also co-helmed fellow documentary Between a Frock and a Hard Place, about the making of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line steps through the band's story from those 70s beginnings onwards. There'll be power. There'll be passion. There'll be a chronicle of a group who gave Australia — and the globe — songs such as 'US Forces', 'Beds Are Burning', 'Blue Sky Mine' and 'Redneck Wonderland'. Audiences can expect live and studio footage that's never been seen before, and interviews that haven't been heard until now as well, covering chats with every band member. Clarke's doco also weaves in The Oils' "sorry" suits at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, their outback tour with Warumpi Band and the Exxon protest gig in New York. A major theme: the fact that Midnight Oil stands apart in the country's music history, with the film the product of Clarke following the group for seven years. "With strong management, a tough crew and a sabre-tooth lawyer, bands can often dwell in a kind of mobile Faraday cage — the lightning striking all around, while the musicians remain high and dry in a studio, on a stage or wedged inside a Tarago. Thus it was for Midnight Oil: rarely were we able to focus on the horizon and see the 'big picture', if there was such a thing," said drummer Hirst. "So a film such as The Hardest Line is as much a revelation as a chronicle. Perhaps at last we can frame the last 50 years, make some collective sense of it, wrap it in a box marked 'the luckiest band ever'." SFF 2024 will run until Sunday, June 16, with The Hardest Line joining the lineup alongside the previously announced Bondi Icebergs documentary The Pool, a retrospective paying tribute to Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène, horror classic Hellraiser with a new live score and 15 other already-unveiled flicks. If that's not enough motivation to get you clearing your schedule for 12 days in June, the fest's full program will drop on Wednesday, May 8. [caption id="attachment_938017" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tim Levy[/caption] [caption id="attachment_938016" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tim Levy[/caption] Sydney Film Festival 2024 takes place from Wednesday, June 5–Sunday, June 16 at various cinemas and venues around Sydney. For more information, head to the festival's website — and check back here on Wednesday, May 8 for the full 2024 lineup. Midnight Oil images: Tony Mott, Daniel Boud and Andrzej Liguz.
Fresh from winning an Oscar for getting antagonistic in times gone by as United States Atomic Energy Commission chair Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer, Robert Downey Jr gets antagonistic in times gone by again in The Sympathizer — as a CIA handler, a university professor, a politician and a Francis Ford Coppola-esque filmmaker on an Apocalypse Now-style movie, for starters. In another addition to his post-Marvel resume that emphasises how great it is to see him stepping into the shoes of someone other than Tony Stark again, he swaps a franchise with a multiverse for multiple roles in an espionage-meets-war drama (the Vietnam War for Americans, and the American War for the Vietnamese), with the great Park Chan-wook (Decision to Leave) co-calling the shots. And, in this adaption of Viet Thanh Nguyen's 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, Downey Jr is excellent. He also executive produces. He likely has more awards in his future, starting with a Best Supporting Actor Emmy. Note the category: he could never be mistaken for The Sympathizer's lead or point of focus. Instead, that honour goes to Australian Hoa Xuande, who has fellow series Top Knot Detective, Top of the Lake, Cleverman, Hungry Ghosts, Cowboy Bebop and Last King of the Cross, plus Aussie films OtherLife and A Stitch in Time, on his resume before now. Against a co-star whose hops between characters bring his single 80s season on Saturday Night Live to mind, and also Tropic Thunder when that fake Vietnam War flick pops up, Xuande makes the leap to a high-profile HBO miniseries. As seen via Binge in Australia and Neon in New Zealand, he plays The Captain, who works for South Vietnamese secret police in Saigon before the city's fall, and is also a spy for the North Vietnamese communist forces. It's his memories, as typed out at a reeducation camp, that guide the seven-part show's narrative — jumping back and forth in time, as recollections do, including to his escape to America. As The Captain unveils the details of his mission and double-agent efforts, The Sympathizer isn't flitting between flashbacks as a mere structural tactic. The act of remembering is as much at the centre of the series as the varied contents of The Captain's memories — to the extent that rewinding to add more context to something that's just been shown, as accompanied by the sound of a VHS tape doing just that, is also a feature. So is The Captain noting that he didn't specifically witness everything that he's relaying, but feels as if he can fill in the gaps, talking through such choices to viewers like they're his editor. The Sympathizer interrogates the act and function of storytelling, too, underscoring those musings with the flickering light of a movie being projected as a recurrent symbol, nods to filmmaking everywhere — one episode solely spins around The Hamlet, the picture within the series — and even the grim repurposing of a cinema. Spy thrills, several Downey Jrs, one of the greatest Korean filmmakers there is, a standout protagonist, unpacking how fast and loose recollections can be with the facts, laying bare the motivations behind and complexities of telling tales: The Sympathizer has them all. Perspective and influence are also high among its concerns, alongside duality, deception and assimilation. The Captain's task is to play his part for The People's Army by supporting and also sabotaging the South Vietnamese General (Toan Le, Bigfoot) that he's embedded with — and to stick with the gig both in Vietnam and in the US. His path is also to navigate the sway of many colonial faces, making Downey Jr's array of characters a powerful and revealing touch (that everyone he brings to the series, and therefore every white man with an imprint on The Captain's life, resembles each other makes a potent statement). What toll does an existence divided take, personally, for a community forced to immigrate and start anew abroad, and for the nation they left behind? The Sympathizer explores this query as well. The son of a Vietnamese mother and French father who was teased mercilessly for his heritage as a boy, The Captain has lived in this chasm between two words for as long as he can remember — and now, as an adult who studied in America, embraces its popular culture, and has childhood best friends split between a secret fellow North Vietnamese agent (Ghosts' Duy Nguyen as Man) and a committed South Vietnamese fighter (Tales of Melee Island's Fred Nguyen Khan as Bon), clashing sides has long been his baseline. Fragmentation surrounds The Captain everywhere, including in his romantic life. He's torn between Sofia Mori (Sandra Oh, Quiz Lady), a Californian of Japanese ancestry born in America, and Lana (first-timer Vy Le), The General's daughter. Also omnipresent: the pressure to fit in, especially with the capitalists and colonialists that he's pretending to be in league with. Downey Jr's countenance adorns Caucasian men endeavouring to keep him under the thumb — and when the CIA's Claude, Orientalist academic Hammer, Congressman "napalm" Ned and auteur Nikos all share a scene (in "the natural habitat of the most dangerous creature on earth, the white man in a suit and tie: the steakhouse"), it's in an attempt to ensure that The Captain is using his identity for their aims first and foremost. Thanks to Park, behind The Sympathizer off-screen is a filmmaker with a history of probing the stories that we tell ourselves and get others believing. See: stone-cold revenge-thriller classic Oldboy and the Vengeance Trilogy that it falls into; 2022's best film, the aforementioned Decision to Leave; and, the last time that he made a TV spy thriller, 2018 miniseries The Little Drummer Girl. He co-created this ambitious adaptation for television with Don McKellar (Blindness) and it always bears his touch, whether or not he's directing episodes — he helms three — with his piercing style, or he's getting assistance from Fernando Meirelles (who has been busy with this and Sugar) and Marc Munden (The Third Day). Park and his collaborators have made a tension-dripping psychological thriller, a weighty and moving drama, and a cutting political satire. They've applied a New Hollywood look — and undeniably American motifs aplenty — to a narrative where cultural imperialism is inescapable. They've cast meticulously and, through exceptional performances by Xuande and Downey Jr, stress how the chameleonic demands of a spy are easier to maintain if you're also playing both sides within yourself, and how there's only one face to dominance. Giving 2024's small-screen slate one of its must-sees, they've also scorched a work of page-to-screen brilliance into every viewer's own memory. Check out the trailer for The Sympathizer below: The Sympathizer streams via Binge in Australia and Neon in New Zealand.
Rampant death. A destroyed world. When Cillian Murphy's (Small Things Like These) bicycle courier Jim awoke from a coma in a deserted British hospital 28 days after the rage virus leapt from chimpanzees in a biological weapons laboratory to spreading across the United Kingdom, that is what he found. The scenes of the Oppenheimer Oscar-winner's character wandering through an empty London in 2002's 28 Days Later — images that no one could fathom happening beyond the realm of cinema prior to the COVID-19 pandemic's earliest days — were stunning. So too was Danny Boyle (Yesterday) and Alex Garland's (Warfare) entire film, as Jim and the fellow survivors he stumbled across, including Naomie Harris' (Black Bag) Selena, Brendan Gleeson's (Joker: Folie à Deux) Frank and Megan Burns' (In2ruders) Hannah, tackled perhaps the most-important existential question there is: how does life go on? That query is again on Boyle and Garland's minds 23 years later for audiences, but closer to three decades on inside the narrative of their stellar horror franchise. 28 Days Later initially received a sequel in 2007, but Boyle didn't direct 28 Weeks Later, nor did Garland pen the film's script. For 2025's resurrection of the saga, they're now back in their OG roles — as they once were when Boyle only had Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, A Life Less Ordinary and the big-screen adaptation of Garland's 90s must-read novel The Beach on his resume, and also before Garland became the helmer of Ex Machina, Annihilation, Men, Civil War and Warfare. How life goes on interested this pair again in 2007 themselves, actually, but in a completely different movie. 2057-set sci-fi thriller Sunshine enlisted an impressively stacked ensemble — including Murphy again, another future Academy Award-winner in Michelle Yeoh (Wicked), 28 Weeks Later star Rose Byrne (Physical), plus Chris Evans (Materialists), his Marvel Cinematic Universe colleague Benedict Wong (Bad Genius), Hiroyuki Sanada (Shōgun) and Cliff Curtis (Kaos) — to portray astronauts attempting to save humanity from a dying sun. If Boyle and Garland had had their way, that would've sparked two more films. "Moonshine and Starshine. We never got to make them," Garland tells Concrete Playground. "So Sunshine was originally, there was this idea of it being a trilogy, but it didn't do very well. People like it a lot more now than they did on the day, or that's what it seems like, anyway," adds Boyle. Returning to 28 Days Later's infection-ravaged UK with 28 Years Later is no mere consolation prize in the wake of Sunshine's trilogy never soaring beyond a concept. This visit to a post-apocalyptic Britain is a spectacular event in its own right — and also the beginning of a new trio of movies. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple has already been shot, with Candyman and The Marvels' Nia DaCosta directing a Garland script, Boyle producing, Murphy set to feature and a January 2026 release slated. Everyone that sees 28 Years Later will be counting down the days. A currently untitled third picture, and fifth in the saga, is planned after that, which Boyle will hop back behind the lens on. Existence endures in this franchise partly through human persistence in a Britain quarantined from the rest of the planet — and, for the community on Holy Island, through carving out a new normalcy. This northeast spot, which is only connected to the mainland via a sole causeway, is the only place that 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams, His Dark Materials) has ever known. But its people have a custom, taking its adolescents across the water to face the infected and prepare for an adulthood that requires venturing beyond the isle's walls for wood for fuel. The town has many traditions, in fact; however, this is where the film meets its protagonists, as Alfie sets off for a day trip with his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nosferatu) while his ailing mother Isla (Jodie Comer, The Bikeriders) remains bedridden. Not only how life continues but how people manage to subsist without modern medicine, or don't, is among 28 Years Later's concerns. Boyle and Garland's latest collaboration has brains — and heart, too, as it relays an immensely relatable story about coping with sickness regardless of the zombie-like creatures prowling rewilded landscapes. "I wanted the illness to feel believable," Comer advises. 28 Years Later also ponders what the passing of three decades means for societal attitudes, for young minds that've only existed since the rage outbreak and also for the infected themselves, as nature always evolves. A family drama, a coming-of-age film and, yes, a horror movie: all are alive within its frames, as is Garland's penchant for fraying and fracturing status quos. Firmly remembering death is as much a part of 28 Years Later. Mortality has become utterly unavoidable for England's remaining inhabitants. Musing on it proves the same for the movie. Grief and loss, both everyday and on a mass scale, pulse through it, as does the distress of co-exisiting with uncertainty, and with death always surrounding you. Dr Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes, Conclave) helps give these themes an iodine-covered champion, assisting in the feature's balance of carnage with compassion in the process. "He sees the bigger picture," Fiennes tells us. Unsurprisingly, the actor adds to 28 Years Later's exceptional performances, with Williams and Comer among his clear company. While there's no desolate cities here, then, 28 Years Later's visuals are every bit as memorable, meaningful and masterful as those in the flick that started it all, and possess the same just-can't-escape intensity. Boyle and also-returning cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (My Penguin Friend) — who claimed one of Slumdog Millionaire's eight Oscars, as Boyle did for directing — have conjured up a new array of striking and terrifying imagery, filled with greenery and gore and sky-high monuments made of bones (over 250,000 individual replicas and 5000-plus skulls). Our chat with Boyle, Garland, Comer and Fiennes spanned giving the new film its own look, too, plus whether there was a Sunshine-esque plan for more 28 Days Later entries 23 years ago, contemplating mortality, towers of bones, conceiving of rituals and routines for a post-outbreak way of being, and more. On If There Was an Initial Plan Back in 2002 for Boyle and Garland to Make More 28 Days Later Films — Like There Was with 2007's Sunshine Alex: "Danny and I had a crack at a 28 Years Later film quite soon before this one. We worked on a script and worked something up, but just didn't feel it was right. There were some issues. Basically, it was it was too generic as a story. And I think that, in a strange way, trying and failing was the last part of the puzzle towards coming up with this idea. And when this idea arrived, it just came in the form of a trilogy. And I think stories, you slightly discover stories more than invent them. They just arrive not exactly fully formed, but with the core of them formed. And the core of this was a trilogy — three separate but interrelated narratives that form an overall structure, because some characters will move through the films, basically." On the Importance of 28 Years Later, Regardless of the Rage Virus and the Infected, Telling a Relatable Family Story About Coping with Illness Jodie: "I think it was important to me in a sense. I wanted the illness to feel believable, though it was tricky — because she goes on such a journey, yet is so debilitated by her illness. And she's very fortunate that she has her son to guide her and nurture her through, who often plays the kind of parental role. But I would just say it was always very present within the script, so it was beautiful to explore, and trust and lean into Danny's direction, and hope that it felt believable — and that there were enough ebbs and flows and nuances throughout the time in which we spend with her." On Giving 28 Years Later Its Own Visual Approach, After 28 Days Later Proved Such a Striking-Looking Film Danny: "Rewilding is something that played into our hands, really — that we were able to find areas that looked like they hadn't been [impacted by humans]. There are lots of areas of Britain — as you can imagine, it's quite a small island — that have been agriculturalised, and you can see, either close or in the distance, the mark of man, really. But there's an area in the northeast that does remain untouched. It's not much good for anything, that's the opinion of people anyway, but it's perfect for filming. And so we wanted to take these smaller cameras there, so we keep a light footprint and not disturb it too much. But also the technology has moved on so much now that these smaller cameras do allow you to use a widescreen format. There's enough resolution. And it means that you can have a statement that says quite clearly right from the early on that this is not a deserted empty city — which people might be expecting, because if it was a direct reference to the first film. It's very much outside the cities. They stay — in fact, I think one of them says at one point 'we stay outside the cities and towns', implying that their safety is on this beautiful island, Holy Island. Which is a historic — it's where Christianity first arrived, I think, in the UK. And it supports the perfect-size population for this kind of existence, about 100–150 people — where you don't need a system to run it. They just trust each other. They appoint their own leaders, and everybody knows each other and trusts each other. And Harari [writer Yuval Noah] says it in the homo sapiens book [Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind], that when you get above about 150, you have to have a trust system to make everybody relate to something and trust through a system — which can be religion, or it can be money, or other values, for bartering." On the Room That Fiennes Had to Explore Thanks to the Film's Examination of Post-Apocalyptic Life and Death Without Modern Medicine Ralph: "That was a great angle, because immediately it presents me, as Kelson, with the man who's accepted the reality of death. He's living with death, his mortality. And that makes him rather like a seer or sage or — he's kind of like a bit of a priest, in a way. He sees the bigger picture. He talks about what the skulls had, that they were inhabited by the different souls — 'these eyes saw', 'these jaws spoke'. He's aware of the human soul. He's aware of the vitality of the human soul and the passing, how we pass from our earthly life into another life. I think he's — and this is what I projected onto him — he feels that we must mark the passing. We have been. We have graveyards. We have symbols of those we have lost. And he's created a big symbol in this Bone Temple. So I think he feels the need to acknowledge the lives that have gone. I think he's a bit like an artist or someone who's made this extraordinary installation in recognition of all the suffering that's gone on." On Imagining the Detail of How a Nation Would Start Again After an Apocalypse — and the New Way of Life, Routines, Rituals, Priorities and All, That'd be Carved Out Over Almost Three Decades Alex: "A lot of it just stemmed from the idea '28 years later'. So then, if you know it's 28 years after this strange viral outbreak, there's stuff that just logically flows from that. One of the things that logically flows is if you have communities that have stayed alive, well, they must have been able to defend themselves somehow. There's different ways you could defend yourself. It could be high walls, and it could be patrols and stuff. But there is this island that Danny was just talking about, Holy Island, which is connected to the mainland by a causeway. So in high tide, it's separate, and there's only really one way you can get to the island across this across this road. And so that created a natural barrier where these people could live. But then past that, to be honest, I don't really develop that. I would write some characters and a story about a community where people are using bows and arrows, and there's a mum and a dad and a child, but the fleshing out of that community — like 'what is their relationship to churches? What livestock do they have? How have they divided up their roles?', and even little details like 'what have they made into their own folklore?', like, for example wearing masks that represent infected — that's really Danny, and then the people he's working with, production designers and costume and makeup and so on, everybody just coming together to inhabit those bare bones. I think a script is a blueprint. But then the rooms have to be filled with furniture and curtains are chosen, as it were. You can see the metaphor. And so it's not really my job, I suppose — just the superstructure." Danny: "But one of the pleasures of doing it, though, and I think for audiences watching it, is the world-building — that you have to make all those decisions about how would they have survived, fed themselves. Fuel was the big thing that we talked about. You'd need so much fuel, which is wood for them to burn. So they go over to the mainland and chop down trees. And England would basically slowly return to forest, which it was originally. And they would scavenge, they would bring that fuel back — which is one of the dangers they have, and why they have to train their boys. And it's very much a gender-separated society. They look back like that to an older era, to like the 50s. They train their boys, because they're going to have to go to the mainland to get fuel. And sometimes, maybe food — kill deer or whatever, because Britain would be overrun by deer, apparently. Because there's no natural predators." Alex: "It practically is right now. It is interesting. I think audiences detect logical consistency with these things, and also react against logical inconsistency. So, with world-building, it has to make sense. You have to believe in the interactions. They don't all have to be laid out, but you can make imaginative leaps between all the things. And when they don't make sense, people spot it — like they spot bad visual effects. They just know it somehow and pull back." Danny: "Something's not right, yeah." Alex: "And I do think this film has a lot of unseen consistency in the way of that world that Danny and the team put together." On the Energy That the Bone Temple Set with over 250,000 Individual Replica Bones and 5000-Plus Skulls — and the Film's Shooting Locations in General — Gave the Cast Jodie: "Well, it's funny, because the set felt so alive in many ways, in regards to the location and being right next to the running water. And there were lots of wind chimes made of bones, so there was just constantly this kind of music that was enveloping the space. I also came to that set at the end of the shoot, when we were shooting those moments. So it really felt like we've heard so much about this place and this doctor, and then we were able to do our scenes with Ralph and explore that part of the material. So it was really profound, actually. So much detail." Ralph: "Yes. It was a strong atmosphere. And the location itself, even with just as a location, even before the incredible Bone Temple, the location was beautiful. We shot it in North Yorkshire, and I was going to work every day driving over the moors. It's stunning. It's a stunning place. And I can see the other locations that Jodie and Alfie shot in are beautiful locations in the north of England." 28 Years Later released in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, June 19, 2025.
Update Wednesday, August 23: Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia has added a third nightly sound and light show so that more people can experience Wintjiri Wiru. You can learn about Wintjiri Wiru Twighlight via the Voyages website. A luminous three-dimensional cultural storytelling experience featuring one of the world's largest daily drone shows has been unveiled at Uluru. Across two shows each night, with Uluru setting a showstopping backdrop, Wintjiri Wiru tells the local Aṉangu community's Mala story through the use of verbal storytelling (both in English and the Aṉangu people's local Pitjantjatjara language), light displays, lasers, sound and a massive fleet of more than 1000 drones. Folks heading to the Northern Territory for Wintjiri Wiru's sunset dinner will kick off the experience with canapes curated by Mark Olive showcasing native Australian ingredients. Also on the agenda: taking in the immense beauty of Uluru and Kata Tjuta from the new sustainable viewing deck as the sun disappears below the horizon, and sampling creamy crocodile pies, pepper beef and truffle burgers, and cocktails made with Beachtree Organic Koala Gin. From there, attendees are taken on an immersive journey through a story that's been passed down for thousands of years. Voyages Indigenous Tourism worked directly with a group of ten senior community members from the Kaltukatjara (Docker River) and Uluru Aṉangu groups to create a show that tells the Mala ancestral story accurately and respectfully. "We are Aṉangu and we have one of the oldest continuing cultures on earth. This chapter of the Mala story has been passed to us from generation to generation. Our ancestors walked this Country, carried this story and shared this story through inma, our songs and our ceremonies," says Rene Kulitja, on behalf of the Aṉangu Consultation Group. "We have held hands with Voyages to create Wintjiri Wiru together. From the beginning, Voyages has been working together with the Aṉangu Working Group — talking together, listening together and creating together." The impact upon the environment and the local communities were also closely considered. No concrete was laid in the creation of the viewing platform, allowing it to be removed one day if needed; the movements of local wildlife were carefully monitored, including special consideration given to a local group of endangered desert skinks; everyone involved in the project undertook extensive cultural training lead by Aṉangu; and Indigenous-owned and -run law firm Terri Janke and Company was enlisted to oversee the project. When asked about Voyages' goals, Resort General Manager David Harper responded: "creating opportunities for Indigenous Australians through cultural tourism." Wintjiri Wiru now forms somewhat of a trio of experiences available to visitors surrounding Uluru — joining Bruce Munro's immersive Field of Light and starlight-lit fine dining experience Tali Wiru. The launch also coincides with the debut of Bruce Munro's latest installation Light Towers at Kings Canyon, forming a Red Centre light trail with the aforementioned attractions, as well as the yearly luminous Alice Springs festival Parrtjima — A Festival in Light. Tickets for the Wintjiri Wiru sunset dinner are available for $385, while you can nab a spot at Wintjiri Wiru after dark for $190, or $95 for children. For more information on Wintjiri Wiru, head to the Ayers Rock Resort website. Images: Getty Images for Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia. Aṉangu share the Mala story, from Kaltukatjara to Uluru, through a drone, sound and light show designed and produced by RAMUS. Feeling inspired to book a getaway? You can now book your next dream holiday through Concrete Playground Trips with deals on flights, stays and experiences at destinations all around the world.
When you launch a scheme that's all about getting people out of the house, it obviously isn't going to work as planned when folks are in lockdown. We're talking about the New South Wales Government's Dine & Discover program, of course. It gives the state's residents four $25 vouchers to use at restaurants and entertainment venues — and, in unsurprising news, it has just been extended until Thursday, June 30, 2022. When Dine & Discover was initially rolled out statewide from mid-March, the COVID-19 situation in Greater Sydney was rather different than it is now; however, the NSW Government actually started pushing back its end date before lockdown started. First, at the beginning of June, the State Government announced that it was extending the program for until the end of July to give people even more time to use their vouchers. Then, at the end of June once lockdown had started, it moved that date again until the end of August. The latest change to June 2022, which was just announced on Friday, August 13, means that Dine & Discover has now been extended for a full year past its original finish date. Clearly, the hope is that folks in NSW will have plenty of time to go out and use their vouchers once the current outbreak is under control, lockdown ends and most people are vaccinated. The vouchers still cover takeaways, if you do want to use the two food vouchers now. The NSW Government recommends getting your food delivered direct to your house by whichever restaurant or cafe you're ordering from, but you can also go pick up your meal if you'd prefer — if it's within either five or ten kilometres of your house, depending on the restrictions in your area. Crucially, the vouchers can only be redeemed if you're dealing with the eatery directly, so they can't be used on orders via third-party delivery platforms. [caption id="attachment_779832" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Cassandra Hannagan[/caption] By now, every NSW resident should know how the scheme works, but here's the basic details if you need a refresher. The Dine & Discover program hands out food and entertainment vouchers to NSW residents, in an effort to boost patronage at hospitality businesses and cultural institutions that've suffered during the pandemic. Four vouchers are available to everyone in NSW over the age of 18 — two $25 vouchers to use at restaurants, cafes, clubs and other food venues, and another two $25 vouchers specifically for performing arts, cinemas, amusement parks and the like. The vouchers can be used at a hefty number of participating COVID-safe registered businesses, with the full list available on the Service NSW website. You can't use them on tobacco, alcohol or gambling, and you can only use each voucher once, including if your transaction totals less than $25. Also, you'll need to use all of your vouchers separately. To access the vouchers, you'll need a MyServiceNSW account — and the corresponding Service NSW app, so you can use the vouchers digitally. The NSW Government's Dine & Discover scheme will now run until Thursday, June 30, 2022. For more information, visit the government's website. Top image: Kitti Gould
As a movie, it's a masterpiece. As a stage musical, it's one of the most famous there is. And when it returns to Australia for the first time in almost 20 years with Sarah Brightman starring as Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard is going to be big. Andrew Lloyd Webber's Tony-winner, which first took the leap from the screen to the stage in 1993 — and picked up Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Book of a Musical, and awards for leading actor, leading actress and featured actor for its efforts, among more — is bringing its Hollywood story Down Under again in 2024. The production will kick off its new Aussie run in Melbourne in May, debuting at the Princess Theatre, then move to the Sydney Opera House from August. As Desmond, Brightman will make her global debut in the part, taking on her first theatre role in over three decades. She'll also add to a spectacular career that includes originating the role of Christine in The Phantom of the Opera back in the 80s. Here, she's taking on a part that saw Gloria Swanson nominated for an Oscar in 1951 and Glenn Close win a Tony in 1995. Debra Byrne played the part in Australia back in 1996, while Nicole Scherzinger of the Pussycat Dolls is doing the same in West End right now. "I am so delighted to be returning to Australia after many years, and to be marking my return to the stage in a musical after so long. It is only fitting for it to be with such an exquisite production as Sunset Boulevard," said Brighton. "I have always admired Andrew's work on this musical and I very much look forward to exploring the incredible score and also the iconic character of Norma Desmond. Mr DeMille, I'm ready for my close up!'." As Billy Wilder's 1950 film first covered in a feature that's been influential not just in inspiring stage adaptations, but on every other movie about Tinseltown since, Sunset Boulevard follows silent star Desmond. With her career getting small with the advent of the talkies, she dreams about making a comeback. The movie famously starts with a man's body floating in a swimming pool, then flashes back to Desmond's time with screenwriter Joe Gillis, her latest attempts to reclaim her success and the events that bring about that watery end. On the stage, Sunset Boulevard will echo with tunes such as 'With One Look', 'The Perfect Year' and 'As If We Never Said Goodbye' as it tells the above tale. GWB Entertainment and Opera Australia are behind Sunset Boulevard's latest Aussie stint — and if you're wondering who'll star alongside Brightman, the casting process has just begun. For audiences outside of Melbourne and Sydney, details of possible stops in other cities are yet to be announced. View this post on Instagram A post shared by @sunsetmusicalau SUNSET BOULEVARD 2024 DATES: From May 2024 — Princess Theatre, Melbourne From August 2024 — Sydney Opera House, Sydney Sunset Boulevard will play Melbourne from May 2024 and Sydney from August 2024, with Melbourne pre sales from Tuesday, October 10 and general sales from Friday, October 13. To join the ticket waitlist and for more information, head to the musical's website. Sarah Brightman images: Simon Fowler.
The eighth season of Game of Thrones won't hit our screens until 2019 — and while waiting it out might just be the less-frosty equivalent of facing a White Walker, there's something more painful in store. As you probably already know and have tried to forget, the next run of episodes will be the show's last. That said, HBO isn't letting go of its hugely popular commodity completely While we'll all be saying goodbye to Jon Snow, the scheming Lanisters, and Daenerys and her dragons when the series wraps up, Westeros isn't going anywhere. Last year, the US network announced it was considering five different prequel ideas, and it's now doing more than that, greenlighting a pilot for a spinoff set thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones. Co-created by A Song of Ice and Fire author George RR Martin with British screenwriter Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and the two Kingsman movies), the unnamed series will chronicle "the world's descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour", Variety reports. Although HBO have only agreed to make an initial episode to test the waters, you don't have to be the Three-Eyed Raven to see that it's highly likely the show will get the final go-ahead. If/when that eventuates, expect to start feasting on your new favourite show in 2020 at the earliest. Via Variety.
Having recently returned from a spot of European travel-on-a-shoestring, I think I can hyperbolically decree that the Sleepbox may well be one of the greatest things I have ever seen. Sleepbox, designed by the Arch Group, does essentially what it says on the tin: it's a pod wide enough for a bed and a drop-down desk. This means that the days of sleeping on rows of metal chairs while clutching your belongings for dear life or sitting slumped over coffee-flavoured hot water in an airport food court may well be behind us. The first Sleepbox has recently been installed in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, and can be rented out from half an hour to many hours. Kitted out with an LED reading light, WiFi and electrical outlets for you to charge your phone or get your ironing done or whatever it is you need to do, the pods also come with a mechanism which automatically changes the linen once each guest checks out. Which means there is less chance you will have to come into close contact with the bodily odours of others before you have to sit wedged beside them for fourteen hours in a flying tin can. Arch Group is proposing Sleepbox as a contemporary staple of urban life, with plans to set them up in other airports, railway stations. large shopping spaces, and even on the streets in warm climates. Genius. https://youtube.com/watch?v=3qxnqy37KPc [Via PSFK]
In the heart of Sydney's centre is a haven of enthralling cuisine: Nel, the passion project of owner and Chef Patron Nelly Robinson. Described as a "culinary odyssey" Nel's constantly evolving 11-course degustation menu is crafted to elevate modern Australian fine dining experiences. Nel's exquisitely formed dishes show a delicacy, imagination and precision of technique that quickly sets the place apart. Each course is plated to precision under the watchful eye of Chef Nelly who started his career as a kitchen hand when only a teenager at the Michelin-starred restaurant Northcote (UK). He has built his vast culinary experience working in restaurants across the UK and abroad — including a stint at the Michelin-starred Lancashire chef Nigel Howarth — before earning his spot as one of Australia's top personalities and opening Nel in March 2015. [caption id="attachment_893950" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Gardens By The Bay. Nel. Supplied[/caption] Located in an underground bunker in an otherwise drab stretch of Wentworth Avenue, Nel is a subdued but stylish space with exposed brickwork and an open kitchen. The set menu ($185PP, wine pairing $165PP, non-alc pairing $85PP) is a prix fixe affair that changes periodically. Each menu concept created by Chef Nelly tells a unique story with engaging and thought-provoking elements. The innovative dishes serve as a masterclass on combining different textures into a harmonious whole. There's a touch of Philippa Sibley in the exquisite presentation and maybe even a bit of Heston's playfulness to Robinson's cooking. Every dish brings at least one touch of left-field inspiration, be it an unexpected crunch or a surprising citrus zing. If you are opting for the wine pairing, drops are carefully calibrated to match the food while building on the profile of the partnering wine. As with everything at Nel, it is clear a lot of thought has gone into these pairings. With exemplary, well-informed service to guide you through a heady menu, Nel is exceptional from start to finish. Originally published in 2015. Updated March, 2023.
A person walking into a bar. The words "sent from my iPhone". A comedian pouring their experiences into a one-performer play. A twisty true-crime tale making the leap to the screen. All four either feature in, inspired or describe Baby Reindeer. All four are inescapably familiar, too, but the same can't be said about this seven-part Netflix series. Streaming since Thursday, April 11, written by and starring Scottish comedian Richard Gadd, and also based on his real-life experiences, this is a gripping, bleak, brave, revelatory, devastating and unforgettable psychological thriller. It does indeed begin with someone stepping inside a pub — and while Gadd plays a comedian on-screen as well, don't go waiting for a punchline. When Martha (Jessica Gunning, The Outlaws) enters The Heart in Camden, London in 2015, Donny Dunn (Gadd, Wedding Season) is behind the counter. "I felt sorry for her. That's the first feeling I felt. It's a patronising, arrogant feeling, feeling sorry for someone you've only just laid eyes on, but I did," the latter explains via voiceover. Perched awkwardly on a stool at the bar, her teary eyes downcast, Martha is whimpering to herself. She says that she can't afford to buy a drink, even a cup of tea. Donny takes pity, offering her one for free — and her face instantly lights up. That's the fateful moment, one of sorrow met with kindness, that ignites Baby Reindeer's narrative and changes Donny's life. After that warm beverage, The Heart instantly has a new regular. Sipping Diet Cokes from then on (still on the house), Martha is full of stories about all of the high-profile people that she knows and her high-flying lawyer job. But despite insisting that she's constantly busy, she's also always at the bar when Donny is at work, sticking around for his whole shifts. She chats incessantly about herself, folks that he doesn't know and while directing compliments Donny's way. He's in his twenties, she's in her early forties — and he can see that she's smitten, letting her flirt. He notices her laugh. He likes the attention, not to mention getting his ego stroked. While he doesn't reciprocate her feelings, he's friendly. She isn't just an infatuated fantasist, however; she's chillingly obsessed to an unstable degree. She finds his email address, then starts messaging him non-stop when she's not nattering at his workplace. (IRL, Gadd received more than 40,000 emails.) Two early details in Baby Reindeer speak to the level of revealing specificity that Gadd has layered into the script; names are changed, clearly, but there's no doubting that this is a personal work that's adapted carefully and probingly from reality. Firstly, Donny spies that "sent from my iPhone" text at the bottom of Martha's endless array of emails, which'd be innocuous in almost every other situation — but he also knows that she doesn't have an iPhone. Secondly, he still accepts her Facebook friend request as his inbox overflows with her often-incoherent thoughts sporting that fake iPhone claim (which is sometimes misspelled, too), Martha's behaviour towards him can't be mistaken for anything but that of a stalker and he finally types her name into Google to discover that she has a history. Martha's harassment spans years, expanding to impact Donny's ex-girlfriend Keeley (Shalom Brune-Franklin, Love Me); her mother Liz (Nina Sosanya, Good Omens), who Donny lives with; therapist and trans woman Teri (Nava Mau, Generation), who he's been dating; and his parents (The Way's Mark Lewis Jones and The Sixth Commandment's Amanda Root) in Fife. About six months in, when he initially reports it to the police in an anxious state — the scene that opens the Netflix show — he hardly receives a helpful response, as part of Baby Reindeer's digging into expectations around masculinity. Donny's own actions, his missteps included, are as much under the microscope as Martha's. So is trauma, dating back long before the show's title was constantly uttered and emailed his way as his unwanted admirer's pet name for him. It was in 2019 that Gadd premiered the stage version of Baby Reindeer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a setting that's also pivotal to the TV iteration. Six years prior, Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) did the same with Fleabag, which wrapped up its television run mere months before Baby Reindeer's stage debut. Gleaning that shared path can't prepare audiences for Gadd's tale, though, which reaches further than the mental illness of his indefatigable pursuer, and into abuse, shame and self-loathing. Accordingly, it's worth recalling that I May Destroy You also charted the path from Edinburgh to television, as inspired by a lecture that Michaela Coel (Mr & Mrs Smith) gave at the city's television festival that touched upon her own experiences. Also telling: the fact that Baby Reindeer is shot like it's a horror film (and paced as such). From off-kilter angles and vantages to unnerving closeness, directors Weronika Tofilska (His Dark Materials, and also the co-writer of Love Lies Bleeding) and Josephine Bornebusch (Bad Sisters), plus cinematographers Krzysztof Trojnar (Foresight) and Annika Summerson (Censor), don't let viewers get comfortable for a second. Watching is compelling — compulsive, in fact — but never easy, as befits the story that's being relayed. Unlike most scary movies, this isn't a clearcut tale of an attacker and a victim, at least when it comes to Martha and Donny. Gadd is unsparing in unpacking what motivates Donny's reactions, heart-wrenchingly so, and his regrets. When he asks "why did I freeze?" and "why did I just let it happen?" about a specific incident with Martha, he's also posing questions that beat at the heart of the entire miniseries. As he reckons with himself, doing so with vulnerability and nuance but never holding back, Gadd turns in a remarkably raw performance that feels as emotionally uncomfortable for him, understandably, as it is for the audience to witness. Baby Reindeer's candour extends in all directions, Donny's flailing early comedy shows — anti-humour and props are his thing — and the shattering time spent with an older mentor (Tom Goodman-Hill, Anne) among them, with Gadd brilliant at every turn. Gunning is equally outstanding. The sheer depth of the intricacies to Martha, some sparking terror, others sympathy and more still eliciting everything in-between, are stunningly drawn both in the writing and in Gunning's portrayal. Pressing play on Baby Reindeer means not being able to stop thinking about Gadd, Gunning, Donny and Martha from that second onwards, or about this profoundly and piercingly honest show. Check out the trailer for Baby Reindeer below: Baby Reindeer streams via Netflix.
Perched overlooking Monro Park, Parc Pavilion is the latest addition to Cronulla's burgeoning dining scene. Spanning four upbeat restaurants across two levels, each offers a distinct mood and menu, from laidback family-friendly dining experiences and an upbeat sports bar to Italian-inspired cocktails with a beachside view to match. Guided by the Feros Group — the same crew behind venues like Highfield Caringbah, The Prince Hotel and The Botanical — they've brought on the highly experienced chef Jamie Gannon to lead the cuisine as the Group's new culinary director. For punters, that means fresh, seasonal and inventive dishes served from all four venue kitchens. With two venues now open on the ground floor, Parc Bistro is a casual spot designed for relaxed dining and quick takeaways to enjoy in the park. Think stacked burgers, fresh salads and classic mains, like chicken schnitzel and roast barramundi. Meanwhile, there's a solid selection of low-fuss options perfect for the kids. Up next is Mr Munro's — a front bar overlooking Cronulla Street. Primed for post-work drinks and catching live sports, a rotating entertainment program features live music and drag bingo. Heading upstairs, The Terrace offers an upbeat retreat among the greenery that evokes just a hint of the Mediterranean. Sip on vibrant cocktails and chilled wines while indulging in an Italian-inspired menu, featuring highlights like burrata with beetroot and alto lemon oil, and fried squid with garlic and parsley. There's also an expansive list of pizza, pane and pasta options alongside mains like fritto misto and grilled swordfish. Ideal for long lunches and even longer nights, live DJs help bring this intimate space to life. Launching Thursday, June 5, Call Me Mamma is the last of this dining quartet, offering personality-packed Italian dining. Featuring full table service and an elevated but approachable atmosphere, this might just become Cronulla's go-to spot for birthday celebrations and midweek dinners where the good times flow non-stop. With award-winning interior architecture practice H&E leading the design from top to bottom, expect Parc Pavilion to become a bustling local destination. "Cronulla has been waiting for a venue like Parc! We wanted to create an all-encompassing space that celebrates everything we love about this community — the energy, the lifestyle, the people," said Chris Feros, executive chair of the Feros Group. "Parc Pavilion is designed to be a place locals feel proud of and becomes a highlight for visitors." Parc Pavilion is open daily from 10am–12am at 138 Cronulla Street, Cronulla. Head to the website for more information.
This week Art/Work has a chat with Jai Pyne, frontman of local Sydney band, The Paper Scissors. I won't bother with the talk up because I am sure you already know them, and if you don't - you should! - they have already reached Mecca in guest programming Rage, so there. Come with us as Jai takes us for a wander through his day and round his 'hood. Most days you'll find me in my kitchen. I cook as much as I can, it gets me away from the computer. There are so many virtual things in life that it's nice to get real things and combine them and eat them, for real. When I am not there I am behind my computer doing work on stuff for the band. In my day job I teach people how to make coffee, I'm a Barista trainer. I work for The Golden Cobra, which sounds like a martial arts school, but is actually a coffee roaster. I spent a long time working as a barista, but starting work at 7am very much conflicts with playing music. I'm also working at a restaurant in Surry Hills a few days a week, it's called El Capo. It's all Latin American style street food. At the moment I am working on some new songs with The Paper Scissors. In Loving Memory was made over the course of 18 months, so after purging that we have started working on new music. If money wasn't an issue I'd make more music, I'd have a better kitchen and I'd buy more clothes. Being a musician in Sydney is fun. I was tempted to say it was hard, which it is, but it's also pretty amazing. I've met lots of great people in the last 6 or so years through music, some of them I now count as my best friends, I've seen some of them succeed wildly, I've seen some of them have babies, buy houses, I play basketball with some of them, I have man dates with them, I have played music with them. Plus just being fortunate enough to be a musician is a very amazing thing, I've been able to travel, play to people that are having the time of their life because of your music, I've heard my music being blasted out of speakers, on the radio… all good things. I wish that there were more people with heaps of money that would open venues in Sydney, but hey, money is an issue. My neighbourhood is great. I live of the South end of King Street in Newtown. I've been here for 4 years. I think Newtown has its crap bits, lots of shit Thai restaurants, shit cafes, but I still love this end of town. There are heaps of cool little shops and random oddities, I love the Fiji Market - spices, coconuts, any random ingredient you need, and Pete's Musicians Market is always good for a browse. It's hard to find a good coffee but Addison Road and thus Alchemy is nearby which is some of the best coffee in Sydney. I like the fact that Newtown is at the edge of the inner city, so you can go to Marrickville, or Dulwich Hill or other spots that are a bit more removed from the upwardly-mobile-elite in the inner city and you get to see real people that have lived there for ever and will sell you olives or Portuguese custard tarts, or charcoal chicken or obscure Spanish beers. My favourite spot in Sydney is by the water. I grew up in Sydney and have lived everywhere from here to Bondi to Balmain, my parents and I moved almost yearly when I was a kid. I really like the cliffs at Coogee, the south end, I just like feeling like you are at the end of the earth although you are in a massive city. https://youtube.com/watch?v=H5EqYCBq0E4
Tropical North Queensland is so rich in natural beauty that it's easy to forget that the region also boasts an impressive art scene. Local and international artists flock to the tropics, finding inspiration in the stunning scenery throughout the area. From local theatres and art galleries, to beachside markets and concert venues, there are plenty of ways to get your culture fix while in the tropics.
Usually you don't find good coffee in shopping arcades. But that's not true in The Strand Arcade, where Marrickville's Coffee Alchemy operates its pocket-sized Gumption coffee bar. Like its roastery-cafe, this one delivers quality coffee, sans the fuss (that is to day, any food). So let the coffee speak for itself and order up — try the signature house blend, Hairy Chest. If you like it, you can even buy a bag to take home. It's standing room only inside, with tall counters outside in the arcade providing seats, should you loll about for longer — and with hours to match the arcade's shopping times, it's open till 5pm on weekdays and 6pm on Thursdays.
Vietnam is a traveller's absolute dream. From bustling and sensory-captivating city life to beautiful beaches, rivers and expanses of rice fields. It's a country rich in experiences for every type of traveller – including those on a budget. Knowing that the must-do and "eh, you can skip it" experiences are key to planning any vacay, so to save your precious time, we've collated five must-do experiences to help you make the most of your time in this Southeast Asian gem. It's a special country with a rich culture and warm people — so get out your map and start planning. Or, if you want the plans made for you, check out this amazing eight-day experience that'll give you a taste of some of the best sights of Vietnam as you unlock your love for the country. STARTING FROM THE TOP… THE ANCIENT TEMPLES OF HANOI Let's start with a little geography, shall we? Vietnam is located on the easternmost side of Southeast Asia, which means it has a long and lovely coastline. At the top of this coastline (well, it's a little in from the coastline) sits its capital city, Hanoi. Hanoi is more of a 'river city', sitting in the Red River Delta, and you may recognise its beauty and cityscape from films like The Quiet American. With colonial footprints of China and France, the city's architecture, food and religious sites are influenced by multiple cultures. However, the country's dominant religion is Buddhism, with ancient temples like the One Pillar Pagoda, built in 1049, and Trấn Quốc Pagoda — Hanoi's oldest temple, which is over 1500 years old. Both spiritual attractions represent a rich part of Vietnamese culture. At both temples, you can learn about cultural practices, including the significance of incense and monks. OVERNIGHT CRUISE ON HALONG BAY When it's time to make your way south from Hanoi, there is no better way to travel than cruising along Halong Bay. A drive-thru to the Red River Delta and out to the coastline will take you by the beautiful layered rice paddy fields, where you can see farmers taking part in the ancient farming tradition. Then, hop aboard a Junk Boat, the name anglicised from the Malay adjong, which means ship or vessel. As these boats glide across the water, you can witness Vietnam's exquisite coastline and rock formations, enjoying the mod cons of contemporary holiday luxury alongside the experience of centuries-old aquatic travel. HOI AN, AN ANCIENT TOWN If ancient towns and canals are your thing, look no further than Hoi An. Along the central coast of Vietnam, this beautiful city enjoys the best of coast and canal life. Its architecture is splendid to the eye, with a colourful mix of French colonial style blended with Chinese shophouses and Vietnamese tube houses. Get lost in the history of the place as you explore on foot or by bike, and learn why it's a UNESCO World Heritage-protected site. BẾN THÀNH MARKET IN HO CHI MINH CITY Known as "the soul and symbol of Saigon", Bến Thành Market operates from early morning into the evening. With over 1500 stalls, there are endless selections of artisanal edible goods to take with you, as well as beautiful art and ceramic products. Taste the best of local cuisine at stalls selling traditional Vietnamese meals like pho and banh mi. It's a must to rub shoulders with the locals as they go about their day and to experience an institution that's stood the test of time for over a century. MEKONG DELTA BOAT RIDE In Southern Vietnam, you'll experience part of the Mekong Delta, which is a network of rivers that flow through Cambodia, China, Myanmar, Thailand and the Himalayas. Bến Tre boat rides are a wonderful educational adventure. You can travel down the coconut canal and learn about the many creative ways coconuts are used, as well as experience local hand-made mat weaving and more. Immerse yourself in cultural traditions and beautiful scenery and get to truly understand the unique crafts of the Mekong locals. There are so many incredible experiences you can have in Vietnam, and these five are just the beginning. Find out more in this curated eight-day experience that'll show you the best the country has to offer. Feeling inspired to book a truly unique getaway? Head to Concrete Playground Trips to explore a range of holidays curated by our editorial team. We've teamed up with all the best providers of flights, stays and experiences to bring you a series of unforgettable trips to destinations all over the world.
Among the many ideas that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has conjured up, and the array of casting choices that've been involved as well, tasking Pedro Pascal (Materialists), Vanessa Kirby (Napoleon), Joseph Quinn (Gladiator II) and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear) with suiting up in a Fantastic Four movie sounds particularly, well, fantastic. Audiences have had more than a year to soak in their excitement, but now discovering how this lineup of actors fares in The Fantastic Four: First Steps is almost upon us — and, as the film's July 2025 release date approaches, Marvel has unveiled a new trailer. Here's your latest look at Pascal, Kirby and company's battle against Galactus (Ralph Ineson, Nosferatu) — and at the space god's herald, aka the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner, Wolf Man), bringing ominous tidings. This is your newest sneak peek at Mister Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Thing and The Human Torch's beginnings in the 1960s, too, as alarms keep going off figuratively and literally. In a massive year for Pascal on the big screen — Down Under, first came Materialists, then arrives First Steps, then Ari Aster's (Beau Is Afraid) Eddington, all in a three-month span — The Last of Us star is getting stretchy as Reed Richards. Kirby is bending light as one of the Storm siblings, Sue; Quinn is proving fiery as Johnny, her brother; and Moss-Bachrach is no one's cousin here, but huge, rocky and super strong as Ben Grimm instead. The latter also knows what everyone wants him to say in the new trailer, but isn't eager to oblige. This is the third glimpse at The Fantastic Four: First Steps — and family dinners, big life changes, the worries that come with that, facing stresses together and world-threatening foes all keep popping up. WandaVision, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and Succession's Matt Shakman directs, with Paul Walter Hauser (Cobra Kai), John Malkovich (Ripley), Natasha Lyonne (Poker Face) and Sarah Niles (F1) co-starring. And yes, Pascal, Kirby, Quinn and Moss-Bachrach's characters have hit cinemas before. Before there was a MCU, there were Fantastic Four movies. The first two to earn a big-screen release arrived in 2005 and 2007, with the latter hitting the year before Iron Man kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As Deadpool and Wolverine did 2024's Deadpool and Wolverine, the Stan Lee- and Jack Kirby-created superhero quartet now join the list of characters who are being brought into the MCU fold, as has been on the cards ever since Disney bought 20th Century Fox. Pascal and company are taking over from two batches of past film takes on the superhero team. In the 2005 and 2007 flicks, Ioan Gruffudd (Bad Boys: Ride or Die), Jessica Alba (Trigger Warning), a pre-Captain America Chris Evans (Materialists) and Michael Chiklis (Accused) starred. Then, in 2015, Chronicle filmmaker Josh Trank gave the group a spin — still outside of the MCU — with Miles Teller (Top Gun: Maverick), Kate Mara (Friendship), a pre-Black Panther Michael B Jordan (Sinners) and Jamie Bell (All of Us Strangers). Check out the final trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps below: The Fantastic Four: First Steps releases in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, July 24, 2025. Images: courtesy of 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios / © and 2025 MARVEL.
In 2012, Imogen Heap appeared on a Wired stage wearing what seemed to be magical gloves. Every time she moved, the music responded. One sweeping gesture would incite a dramatic crescendo; one wiggle of the index finger would provoke a shift from major to minor; one flick of the wrist would mute an entire string section. Liberated from laptops and mixing decks, Heap was transformed into a wizard/conductor/interpretive dancer who seemed to have every sound in the universe at her command. She liked it so much that she wants to pass her superpowers onto the world. She and a team of tech-experts have been hard at work creating a set of electronic gloves that anyone can use. Having come up with a prototype, they’re now looking for Kickstarter support to raise the £200,000 necessary to facilitating a first production run. The gloves, dubbed Mi.Mu, allow the user to interact with their computer through gestures. A series of sensors measure the hand’s position, direction and force of movement and this data is transported wirelessly, then transformed into musical elements. Heap has been developing the technology for four years, initially motivated by a desire to inject more expression into her live performances. "In order to free myself up on the stage from my various bits of technology and to bridge the gap between what’s going on on stage and the audience, I wanted to create something where I could manipulate my computer on the move wirelessly so that music becomes more like a dance rather than a robotic act like pressing a button or moving a fader," she told Dezeen. Early versions of the gloves were connected to a pack worn on the upper body and required elaborate set-up procedures. But the latest are much more accessible. The inclusion of an x-IMU board containing an accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer and wifi has rendered the pack unnecessary. "It's really simple," Heap explains. "It just sees this exoskeleton as a device and then it comes up on your computer as a wifi device and you're ready to go. It's super simple and it's great." It’s expected that Mi.Mu’s uses will expand beyond music, to include design, sign language and, um, driving a vehicle. "I suppose as long as you can access your computer inside your car, there's no reason why you couldn't just sit in the back of your car and indicate right or left," Heap muses. "It's a remote control. It feels like an expressive musical instrument sometimes but it's essentially a remote control and anything that you could potentially do with your hands, you could do with your gloves." With Heap at the wheel, that could be one interesting ride. [via Dezeen]
When Robert Pattinson put on pop culture's most famous cape and cowl, it wasn't a once-off, with a sequel to 2022's The Batman on the way. In the same film, when the latest version of Oswald Cobblepot made an appearance, that wasn't the only time that audiences would see the Gotham crime figure otherwise known as The Penguin, either. Come spring 2024 Down Under, the villainous character will feature in a HBO series that dives into his tale — called, yes, The Penguin. The show has been in the works for some time, and been teased in the US network's promotions for its 2024 slate. Now, it has its own initial trailer. If the Batman nemesis met The Sopranos or The Godfather, this series might be the end result, at least based on this early glimpse. Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) reprises the show's titular role. In the new footage, his take on Oz waxes lyrical about the command, fear and respect once demanded by another gangster — and how he'd like to have the same status. "Can you imagine to be remembered like that?" he notes of Rex Calabrese, who mightn't be a household name beyond dedicated comic-book fans, but boasts significant ties on the page to a very well-known Batman character. The Penguin is set to span eight episodes, and is obviously designed to extend the Dark Knight's big-screen crime saga. The show doesn't have an exact release date, other than fall this year in the US — which, again, is spring in Australia and New Zealand. Alongside Farrell, The Penguin stars Cristin Milioti (The Resort), Rhenzy Feliz (Encanto), Michael Kelly (Pantheon), Shohreh Aghdashloo (Damsel), Deirdre O'Connell (The Big Door Prize), Clancy Brown (Gen V) and Michael Zegen (The Marvelous Mrs Maisel). Off-screen, The Batman director Matt Reeves is back as an executive producer, while Craig Zobel (Mare of Easttown) directs the show's first three episodes. 2024 is a big year for Farrell fans keen to see him in streaming series. Before his time following in Danny DeVito's footsteps again, Farrell leads Apple TV+ detective drama Sugar, which premieres in April. Check out the teaser trailer for The Penguin below: The Penguin is set to stream in spring Down Under, including via Binge in Australia — we'll update you when an exact release date is announced. Images: Macall Polay/Max.
Step inside a great hotel and the staff will make you feel welcome. Check in for a stay at QT Melbourne and you'll now be greeted by a very special (and adorable) employee: Russell the wellness dog-cierge. The accommodation chain's Victorian site has announced a partnership with Guide Dogs Victoria to enlist the help of a four-legged friend at the hotel — bringing cuteness, joy and companionship to patrons. If you know where QT Melbourne is located, then you'll know where this cute pooch gets his name. Russell Street's newest resident trained as a guide dog, but it was decided that he's better suited to aid with wellbeing due to his affectionate and friendly nature. While his job at the hotel from Thursday, February 27, 2025 involves being charming, greeting guests and leading walks, he also gives the venue a walking, tail-wagging tribute to the work done by Guide Dogs Victoria, even if he hasn't been dispatched to assist people with blindness or low vision. Consider this your latest reason to book in a staycation if you're a Melburnian — and great motivation to pick where to slumber on your next trip to the Victorian capital if you're located elsewhere. "We're incredibly proud to welcome Russell to QT Melbourne," said the hotel's General Manager Kristen Foat. "His presence represents not just a commitment to our guests' wellbeing, but also a deep appreciation for the important work Guide Dogs Victoria does in the community. Through this partnership, we're able to give back in a meaningful way while creating an environment of joy, connection and compassion." For more pup-centric fun, QT Melbourne is also launching a trio of experiences for or involving pooches, all of which will donate their proceeds Guide Dogs Victoria. Fancy bending and stretching on a rooftop with puppies in training to be guide dogs? Monthly Pups & Poses sessions have you covered. Keen to drop by with your own barking bestie instead? Puppacinos are on offer, as are pup staycations. You'll be heading to Deli QT, the hotel's sandwich bar, for a pup-friendly sip from 8am–3pm Monday–Saturday. And during pet-friendly sleepovers, your pooch will be able to get snacking thanks to the in-room menu for dogs. Russell joins QT Melbourne, 133 Russell Street, Melbourne from Thursday, February 27, 2025 — head to the hotel's website for bookings and more details.
Uber drivers may want to start thinking about a change of career. The ridesharing giant, whose relationship with its drivers has been turbulent in recent times, may soon reach the point where it no longer has any need for them at all. After all, why spend millions settling lawsuits when you can get the cars to operate themselves? That seems to be the thinking as the company rolled out its first fleet of self-driving cars in the U.S. today. After beginning testing back in May, the fleet of modified Ford Fusion Hybrids, complete with roof-mounted cameras, radar and Uber branding, took its first official outing streets of Pittsburgh on Wednesday — beating other tech companies to the punch. At the moment Uber is still sending a safety driver along in the driver's seat, so they can intervene if anything goes awry. The idea is that eventually those safety drivers won't be needed anymore — but, safety, y'know? "This pilot is a big step forward," said the company via a statement on their website. "Real-world testing is critical to the success of this technology. And creating a viable alternative to individual car ownership is important to the future of cities." They hope that driverless technology will, eventually, help to lower the number of traffic accidents, cut congestion and free up parking space in our cities. At the moment the self-driving cars are only available to "loyal" Pittsburgh Uber riders — if one of the cars is available when they request an uberX, that's what they'll get. That's all well and good, but will these self driving cars be offering their passengers complimentary mints? Where are we on that technology, exactly? By Tom Clift and Lauren Vadnjal.
According to one urban myth, Sydney's jacarandas are the work of an unknown hospital matron who sent every new mother home with a seedling. Another states that soldiers brought the trees home as gifts on their return from World War II. The problem is that there's no evidence for either. So, no one really knows how Sydney came to have so many of these. What we do know, though, is that, come late October, the city begins to transform into a vision of purple, as hundreds of jacarandas bloom. But they don't hang around for long — the flowers typically peak in mid-November and usually disappear by early December. So, if you're keen to see them, it's time to start planning a day out. Here are a few spots — both in and near Sydney — where you can get your jacaranda fix this spring. Recommended reads: The Best Walks in and Around Sydney The Best Day Trips from Sydney — for Summer The Best Bike Rides in and Around Sydney CIRCULAR QUAY AND THE ROCKS The Rocks' heritage-listed sandstone provides a particularly striking backdrop to see blooming jacarandas in Sydney. Turn your adventure into a lovely walk by starting at the Royal Botanic Gardens and following the Harbour shore line to The Rocks, taking in the sights as you go. And while you're there, make a proper day of it by grabbing some drinks at The Glenmore Hotel's rooftop, a natural wine at Le Foote or a Nashville-style chicken burger at the Circular Quay outpost of Belles Hot Chicken. PADDINGTON Paddington's most famous jacarandas line is Oxford Street, just outside Victoria Barracks. But you'll find plenty more among the suburb's back streets and parks — especially around Five Ways. Grab a coffee and pastry from Funkis Koket Cafe or Padre, and take your time wandering around the neighbourhood streets on a sunny weekend. HUNTERS HILL While you're on the north shore, head a little west to take a stroll through Hunters Hill. For a local's perspective, jump on board a walking tour with the Hunters Hill Trust. But if you prefer to go at your own pace when checking out Sydney's blooming jacarandas, you can take the self-guided tour around Hunters Hill. LAVENDER BAY To see a purple sea against the brilliant blue of the Harbour, head to Lavender Bay on the lower north shore. Other spots to check out nearby include Wollstonecraft, Waverton and Kirribilli's famous (and always packed with photo-takers) jacaranda 'tunnel' on McDougall Street. Follow it up with a venture to The Greens for food, bevs and barefoot bowls in the sun. GRAFTON Located six hours north of Sydney just above Coffs Harbour, Grafton should be top of any Jacaranda lovers' hit list for Spring. The regional town even hosts its own Jacaranda Festival every year, kicking off on Friday, October 27 in 2023. The festivities celebrate the violet-hued blooms and include a float parade, drag bungo and a long lunch underneath the colourful trees. [caption id="attachment_782750" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Destination NSW[/caption] Images: Destination NSW.
After 20 years on King Street, Newtown's beloved music and cabaret venue The Vanguard is up for sale. Since opening in 2003, the bar has grown to be one of the most accomplished gig spaces in Sydney. But, its future has been thrown into uncertainty, with the current owner set to step away from the longstanding King Street haunt. "This is a genuinely reluctant sale," said property group Manenti Quinlan & Associates' Craig Lennard. "Business is booming, but the current owner is a senior medical practitioner who doesn't have time to take the venue to the next level." Currently listed as for sale via expression of interest on the MQ & Associates' website, The Vanguard has a full program of live music and performance locked in until August. The venue's prime King Street location, late-night license, social media following and mailing list are all being promoted as upsides for a potential buyer. "This is a rare opportunity to acquire a staple of the Sydney music scene and one of the city's most-loved entertainment venues," said Leonard Bongiovanni from MQ & Associates. "The Vanguard is on the market as a freehold going concern, which means the buyer is purchasing the land and building, the business (which is fully managed), equipment and all licences." Over the past two decades, The Vanguard has built a cult following for its intimate and versatile space that can host a variety of performance styles. Just a few of the far-reaching shows coming up at the venue include debut headlining shows by upcoming artists, performances from tribute bands, Dungeons and Dragons comedy nights, burlesque and cabaret shows. In 2009, the venue was listed as one of the world's Ten Great Music Venues by The Independent alongside Madison Square Garden and stages in South Africa, France and New Zealand. It also was one of the first Sydney concert halls to reopen during the pandemic, with its size and ability to transform into a seated space making it an ideal spot for small-scale, restricted shows as live music was slowly being rolled back out. No timeline has been outlined for when the venue may be sold or what the future holds for it, but you can still nab tickets for the gigs scheduled at the Newtown fave between now and August. And, if you have some money lying around to buy an iconic Sydney venue, you can submit an expression of interest via MQ & Associates. The Vanguard is located at 42 King Street, Newtown.
Japan has a knack for turning something simple into an elite experience and its snack game is no exception. Whether you've experienced the joys of a Tokyo konbini (convenience store) for yourself or you've only seen the hauls all over social media, the sheer volume of unique and delicious treats can be mind-boggling. So, in partnership with Suntory -196, we've hand-picked our ultimate favourites — from a satisfying savoury bite to the sweet candies to stash in your desk drawer — and found the top spots around Australia to get your hands on them. Happy snacking. [caption id="attachment_820994" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sandoitchi, Leigh Griffiths[/caption] Sandos Grab-and-go food chains have never really taken off in Australia like they have in other parts of the world so actively seeking out a convenience store sandwich when in Tokyo can be a hard concept to grasp. But one bite of a tamago sando (Japanese egg sandwich) will smash through any preconceptions. Made with fluffy crustless milk bread (shokupan) and a rich, buttery egg filling, these decadent bites are beautiful in their simplicity and can be found in pretty much every one of the 50,000 konbini across Japan. Back in Australia, we'd recommend sticking to the dedicated cafes like Saint Dreux in Melbourne CBD which coats an egg slab with a nori (seaweed) sheet and panko breadcrumbs; Supernova, in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley, truffle-laced version served with a curry dipping sauce; or new-kid-on-the-Darlo-block Punpun in Sydney where the chefs steam the eggs into a custard-like consistency before slathering them with chive mayo. Once you've tried the cult classic, venture out to the other iterations, like the pork katsu sando or the fruit sando, stuffed with seasonal fruit and whipped cream — both are done to perfection by the legends at Sydney favourite Sandoitchi. Suntory -196 Japan may be nicknamed the Land of the Rising Sun but the major cities really come alive at night. From walking down neon-lit streets to chatting with locals at intimate vinyl bars and belting out your best rendition of 'My Heart Will Go On' at a karaoke joint, many of the iconic experiences travellers seek out in Japan happen after dark. And many of them happen with a Strong Zero in hand — the cult Japanese premixed drink, made with a blend of shochu, vodka and soda, available in 7-Elevens, Lawsons and Family Marts across the nation. When you're looking to capture a little of that Japanese spirit (both literally and figuratively) ahead of your next night out, pop to your local bottle-o to grab some Suntory -196s, brought to Australia by Suntory in honour of their number one premix in Japan. There are now three exceptional flavours to try — the zesty yet crisp OG Double Lemon; the sweet 'n' sour Double Grape and the oh-so-juicy Double Peach (Double Peach was released just last year and we can't wait to see what new stuff they've got in store for 2025). All three are made using Suntory's patented Freeze Crush Infusion Technology, which involves the flash freezing of real fruit at -196 degrees Celsius before crushing and infusing the fruits into spirits to intensify the flavour profile for double the fruity hit. Can't decide which one to go for? Opt for a variety ten-pack from all major bottle shops, including Dan Murphy's, and slowly sip your way through to find your favourite. Melonpan What happens when two classic comfort foods — bread and cookies — join forces? It creates the ultimate little snack to satisfy those 3pm sugar cravings. Featuring fluffy sweetbread covered by a crunchy cookie crust, melonpan is a slightly sturdier version of the famous Hong Kong pineapple bun and is named for its resemblance to rockmelon. Sydney's Azuki Bakery (Newtown and Wolli Creek) has gained a following for its melonpan — while you're there, grab the best-selling curry pan, a savoury doughnut filled with beef curry. In Melbourne, head to Japanese-inspired bakery and cafe Fuumi Fuumi in South Yarra for its flavoured versions (think matcha, strawberry or chocolate) straight from the oven. Brisbane's well-loved French patisserie Le Boulangerie Amour Fou, with locations in Sunnybank, Indooroopilly, Woollongabba and more, offers its own take on the treat in mocha and mango flavours. Kororo Gummy Candy File this one under 'there's nothing quite like it'. These colourful little gummies are popular across Japan as much for the affordability and novelty as they are for the actual taste — a pack will usually only set you back the equivalent of about AUD$1 and they somewhat resemble a grape, right down to the wrinkly skin that you can (but don't need to) peel off. Inside, the gummy is soft, chewy and bursting with flavour. The most popular flavours are grape, muscat (green) grape and white peach. Owing to these little gems going viral on TikTok a while ago, most Japanese grocery stores in Australia now stock these so check out Maruyu and Amami Mart in Sydney and Fuji Mart in Brisbane and Melbourne. Mochi This traditional rice cake snack comes in so many forms it could have its own article — you can get them stuffed with sweet fillings like red bean paste, fresh cream and fruit or tiny scoops of ice cream; in soup; toasted into a waffle; or transformed into a chewy doughnut. They're so popular that they're not very hard to find in Australia anymore — even the major supermarkets sell them — but quality can vary wildly. Seek out authentic, freshly made mochi at Torori Warabi Mochi in Haymarket, Sydney, in classic flavours like matcha, hojicha and Hokkaido milk. A Melbourne store is due to open later this year. In Brisbane, Sonder Dessert in Sunnybank has been the go-to for years, serving its version coated in roasted soy bean powder with a brown sugar dipping sauce. [caption id="attachment_988373" align="alignnone" width="1920"] 15cenchi[/caption] Japanese Cheesecake Many nations lay claim to having the best cheesecake. There's the New York-style version (uncooked cream cheese with a crumbled cookie base) and the bittersweet yet creamy burnt Basque-style option. But the Japanese version, a soufflé-esque concoction that is wobbly and oh-so-light, must not be overlooked. Uncle Tetsu takes the (literal) cake for bringing this masterpiece to the Aussie masses with stores in Sydney and Melbourne, and both cities now boast cult-favourite LeTAO, too. Meanwhile, Mountain River Patisserie in Runcorn has a good take on the treat for Brisbanites. If you're a ride-or-die basque cheesecake fan, make tracks to Sydney's lockdown darling, 15 cenchi, for the ultimate hybrid. Named for the '15 centimetres of happiness' it promises customers, 15cenchi offers Japanese-style basque desserts in innovative flavours like salted grapefruit and lychee or yuzu. Kit Kats Japanese Kit Kats have been the hot-ticket Japan souvenir for years. Every colleague that has ever been to Tokyo has returned to work with a stash of them. It's a small win for mandatory office days but the bad news? They almost always opt for the same flavours: matcha and strawberry. They're both delicious but it's a true shame when you learn there are over 300 flavours in the range in Japan — you could be treating your palette to a seasonal chocolate smorgasbord with flavours like wasabi, sakura, salt lychee and sweet potato. The next time you're at your local Japanese grocery store, keep an eye out and see what's available. Onigiri Considering how popular premade sushi rolls are here, it's a little surprising that onigiri hasn't had the same impact on Aussie lunchtime culture — until now. Otherwise known as Japanese rice balls, onigiri features steamed rice formed into a triangle and wrapped in a nori sheet. Just like its Japanese counterpart, 7-Eleven Australia has started stocking these portable snacks in three classic flavours: cooked spicy tuna, sweet chilli salmon and chicken teriyaki. If you want to try more unique takes, opt for one of the many hole-in-the-wall joints that have popped up recently. In Sydney, we're big fans of the one stuffed with an onsen egg at Mogu Mogu, the chashu (braised pork belly) and chilli from Parami (a collab with the iconic Chaco Ramen) and the plum kombu from Domo39. In Melbourne, West Melbourne's 279 offers traditional fillings like takana (mustard greens) or cured cod roe while Tokyo Lamington in Carlton gets a bit more experimental with the likes of miso eggplant, bacon and egg or chicken curry. Finally, Brisbane joined the trend a few months ago with the arrival of Shiro where onigiri comes packed with miso pork or salted seaweed. Babystar Crispy Ramen If Mamee Monster Noodle Snacks were a lunchbox staple for you growing up, it's time to graduate to Baby Star Ramen. This raw noodle snack has been around since the 1950s and is so well-loved it even has its own theme park, Oyatsu Town, in Tsu City, Japan. Available in flavours like tonkotsu, garlic, chicken or yakisoba, these noodle strands are salty, crunchy and incredibly moreish — don't be surprised if you finish the entire bag in just a few minutes. You can find them at most Japanese grocery stores around Australia and via JFC Online. Level up your next summer snack sesh by pairing Suntory -196 with any of these top-tier Japanese snacks. Head to Dan Murphy's to pick up a limited-edition 'Suntory -196 Variety Pack' featuring all three epic flavours: Double Lemon, Double Grape and Double Peach.
In Stay of the Week, we explore some of the world's best and most unique accommodations, giving you inspiration for your next trip. In this instalment, we set the compass to regional Victoria and take a trip to Sorrento for a special stay at the newly renovated Hotel Sorrento. [caption id="attachment_899023" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Image: Rising High Media[/caption] WHAT'S SO SPECIAL? Here, in a buzzy pocket of the Mornington Peninsula, Hotel Sorrento has sat for nearly 150 years boasting enviable bay vistas. Now, the historic sandstone building is welcoming a massive expansion including a soon-to-come 30-metre pool and rooftop yoga studio. At the moment, Hotel Sorrento boasts five separate bars, two restaurants, newly refurbished accommodation rooms as well as private dining areas. It's an all-in-one destination escape just over an hour from Melbourne's CBD. THE ROOMS There are plenty of rooms to choose from at Hotel Sorrento, starting from $325 a night. Contemporary and light-filled, rooms are accented with a variety of deep European oak, natural limestone and marble. Heritage Balcony Rooms are the crowning jewel of this hotel, boasting private balconies with exclusive vistas overlooking the bay. [caption id="attachment_899027" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Image: Threefold Social[/caption] FOOD AND DRINK Hotel Sorrento has recently overhauled its food and drink offering, helmed by George Calombaris. "The goal is to create dishes that not only satisfy the palate but tell a story of the region and the community's rich history," George Calombaris says. Shihuishi is the newest addition to the Hotel Sorrento family, nestled in the original, grand Hotel Sorrento ballroom. Head chef Junlin (Jerry) Yi (ex-Red Spice Road) is unafraid to stray from tradition, from prawn crackers paired with crème fraîche; to spanakopita dumplings that marry whipped feta and dill. Deeper into the menu, patrons will discover Australian-Canto cuisine that nods to the Chinese restaurant that stood onsite back in the 1980s. A prawn, lap cheong and onion stir-fry is a crowd-pleaser, along with duck pancakes and black pepper beef, served on a sizzling plate. Other classics run to the likes of steamed barra with soy, ginger and spring onion, or the ever-popular pork and prawn shumai. Otherwise, if you fancy a short but sweet wander, head across the road to the Conti for a slew of venues including a public bar, beer garden, speakeasy and fine diner. Luxe speakeasy Barlow is our pick for a pre-evening tipple. Sorrento institution Stringers has also recently been revamped by The Darling Group (Higher Ground, Kettle Black, Top Paddock), turning the corner store and cafe into an all-day restaurant, pizzeria, bar and providore. THE LOCAL AREA Sorrento is a much-loved spot for both Mornington Peninsula locals and regular holiday blow-ins, due to its accessibility from Melbourne. In warmer months, swimming, snorkeling and water activities at Sorrento Beach is a must-do. If you're looking to sidestep the crowds, Diamond Bay is a popular spot for both families and couples. A range of short, all-weather walking tracks are stunning year-around, including Coppins Track which finishes at the clifftop of Diamond Bay. The cliffside Millionaires Walk is named as a nod to the lavish private residences that line this path, or try the 7km Sorrento Circuit Walk, which hits all of this town's main attractions. THE EXTRAS Hotel Sorrento is looking to install a new 30-metre pool alongside a pool-friendly bar, rooftop yoga studio and gym by the end of 2023. If you're looking for a staycation special, Hotel Sorrento's winter escape package includes overnight accommodation for two, dinner for two at Shuihuishi and a bottle of local Pinot Noir for your room. Feeling inspired to book a truly unique getaway? Head to Concrete Playground Trips to explore a range of holidays curated by our editorial team. We've teamed up with all the best providers of flights, stays and experiences to bring you a series of unforgettable trips in destinations all over the world. Images: supplied.
Whether you're a big nature nerd or err on the indifferent side to the science of it all, chances are you've seen at least some of Sir David Attenborough's Planet Earth. The BBC nature documentary series — narrated by the man himself and accompanied by an epic score from Hans Zimmer — first aired back in 2006, and its follow-up second season, Planet Earth II, was released just two years ago. But the bits you've seen on TV or YouTube are sure to be belittled when the BBC brings the live show to Australia this April. Like the performances of Harry Potter and Star Wars we've seen in recent months, Planet Earth II Live in Concert will see the documentary screened in all its glory accompanied by a live orchestra. And it's a big sore. The music for Planet Earth II was composed by none other than Hans Zimmer (responsible for epics like The Lion King, Gladiator, The Dark Knight Rises and Inception) alongside Jacob Shea and Jasha Klebe. In Australia, the score will be performed by four of the country's leading orchestras with conductor Vanessa Scammell and, in lieu of Attenborough, Eric Bana will be narrating in real time. The show will travel around Australia from April 27 until May 4, visiting Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney for just four shows all up. Tickets go on sale next week. In the meantime, you can watch ehe first season of Planet Earth on Netflix. PLANET EARTH II LIVE IN CONCERT TOUR DATES April 27 — Perth Arena (with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra) April 29 — Plenary, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (with the Melbourne Pops Orchestra) May 1 — Brisbane Entertainment Centre (with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra) May 4 — International Convention Centre, Sydney (with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra) Planet Earth II Live in Concert will tour Australia from April 27 – May 4, 2018. Presale tickets will go on sale at 10am tomorrow, Friday, February 16. The rest will go on sale at 3pm on Tuesday, February 20. For more info, visit ticketek.com.au.
When Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi invited the world to experience the vampire sharehouse mockumentary genre, one of the best comedies of the decade wasn't the only result. Every film seems to spawn sequels, remakes, spinoffs and the like these days, but no one's complaining about spending more time in the What We Do in the Shadows universe. A follow-up, We're Wolves, is in the works, focusing on the undead bloodsuckers' Rhys Darby-led lycanthrope enemies. So is six-episode television spinoff Wellington Paranormal, following the movie's cops (Mike Minogue and Karen O'Leary) as they keep investigating the supernatural, and expected to air in New Zealand mid this year. Add a US TV remake of the original flick to the pile as well, but withhold any "do we really need a remake?" judgement. First revealed by Waititi last year, given a pilot order earlier in 2018 and now officially moving ahead with a 10-episode first season, the American version will be written by Clement and directed by Waititi, The Hollywood Reporter notes — and will see a documentary crew follow three vampire flatmates living in New York City, according to Variety. The series will star Toast of London's Matt Berry, Four Lions' Kayvan Novak, British stand-up comedian Natasia Demetriou and The Magicians' Harvey Guillen. It's unknown whether Clement and Waititi will reprise their on-screen roles in a guest capacity. With What We Do in the Shadows actually starting its life as a short back in 2005, the concept of flatting members of the undead arguing about bloody dishes has taken quite the journey since those early beginnings. If any idea was going to come back in multiple guises, it's this one. Of course, so have Clement and Waititi. Clement has a new Flight of the Conchords TV special airing on HBO this month, while Waititi two post-Thor: Ragnarok flicks in the works — a stop-motion animated effort called Bubbles, about Michael Jackson's chimp, and another by the name of Jojo Rabbit, set during World War II and starring Scarlett Johansson and Sam Rockwell. As for feasting your eyes into What We Do in the Shadows' new TV version, fans will have to wait until next year. The US remake isn't set to air in America until early-to-mid 2019. Via The Hollywood Reporter / Variety. Image: Kane Skennar.
The martini faithful will insist this cocktail classic never went away — and they'd be right. James Bond's favourite tipple is hardly an obscure concoction, but ubiquitous as it may be, this stalwart sip is nevertheless having a moment in Sydney right now. One of the nation's most revered chefs and restaurateurs, Neil Perry, added Bobbie's, a basement martini lounge, to his Double Bay empire this week, tapping a New York bar legend to bring the project to life. Linden Pride, who alongside Nathalie Hudson launched Big Apple hotspot Dante, is not merely overseeing the cocktail list. Bobbie's is so named in honour of Pride's grandfather, Australian DJ Bob Rogers OAM, the nation's longest-serving radio announcer who is credited with introducing Top 40 radio programming on 2UE in the late 1950s. In a further nod to Pride's illustrious grandfather, Bobbie's will also be a live music venue. Chippendale also scored a new martini bar this week from veteran barkeep Grant Collins. Dry Martini, as the name suggests, is dedicated to celebrating the evolution of its namesake beverage as well as its caffeinated cousin, the espresso martini. Meanwhile, over by Darling Harbour, Barangaroo House is putting on a month-long martini festival, with $10 mini 'tinis and martini-inspired specials on offer across all three levels throughout September. The rising popularity of the martini has not gone unnoticed in Potts Point either. Following the runaway success of its limited-time $5 martini happy hour in August, upmarket brasserie Franca is extending its Five @ 5 offer indefinitely. But why is the martini so damn popular? "Drinks, like fashion, are cyclical," Collins (pictured above) explains to Concrete Playground. "They were big in the 50s and 60s and then made a comeback in 90s." During their last renaissance 30 years ago, innovative mixologists gifted us fruit-laced neo-martinis like the infamous passionfruit-powered Porn Star martini, as well as the now wildly popular espresso martini, creating playful alter-egos for an otherwise rather serious cocktail. By contrast, the most recent uptick in the martini's popularity is getting back to basics, according to Collins. "Consumers are looking for healthier drinking options, sans sugar, and a martini is about as clean as you can get with regards to mixing a cocktail — neat liquor stirred well over ice, no sugar sugar syrups, sweet juices or liqueurs," Collins explains. [caption id="attachment_971268" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Dexter Kim[/caption] While that simplicity is certainly true of the gin and vermouth OG, the martini has been a powerful muse for bartenders, with countless variants now gracing the menus of bars all over the world. "Its a drink with such a rich history and legacy," Collins says of the martini's power to inspire. "It's always had such romance on the silver screen, in movies like Casablanca, All About Eve and Some Like It Hot, where Hollywood stars like Clarke Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jnr all promoted and drank martinis in their movies. And of course, there's also the popularity created by Ian Fleming and his Bond novels in the 50s and 60s, which is also where we get the Vesper martini from. World leaders like Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt also swore by them. I think all of this cemented the martini as a drink that was never going to go away." [caption id="attachment_751374" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Gidley, Dominic Loneragan[/caption] So, where are the Harbour City's best martinis? While you should certainly check out both Bobbie's and Dry Martini, CBD steakhouse The Gidley should also be top of your hit list. It has one of the savviest martini offerings in town, served with a silver platter of accoutrements including pipettes with brine and vermouth as well as olives, citrus skins and pickled onions so guests can pimp their dirty, dry, wet or Gibson martini any way they like. And because a single martini is never enough, every order automatically comes with a second serve, kept in a small bottle on ice so it remains perfectly chilled when you come to pour. At Alfie's, also owned by Liquid and Larder who operate The Gidley, the city's "iciest martini" awaits. Chilled to -10 Celsius, it's poured from a sub-zero thermos and made with Four Pillars olive leaf gin or Mother of Pearl vodka, vermouth, and a splash tarragon vinegar. While you can choose your preferred garnish, the pink onion is our recommendation, for a pop of colour and some extra zing on the palette. [caption id="attachment_937586" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Bar Planet[/caption] The Cantina OK! team perfected the margarita at their tiny laneway outpost in the CBD, so it's little wonder they've done the same for the martini at their Newtown cocktail joint, Bar Planet. Featuring a specially distilled small-batch gin from Marrickville's Poor Toms, the house signature is a great gateway sip for martini newcomers. The Continental Deli trailblazed its innovative canned cocktail line with the mar-tinny. The OG was a silky smooth number with a twist already included in the can, but the recipe has leaned dirty in recent times, including a limited-edition truffled version that, we'll be honest, was something of an acquired taste. Not only can you order these perfectly preprepared cocktails chilled and ready to drink while dining at The Continental, you can also stock up and take a supply home with you. [caption id="attachment_696573" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Continental Deli, Kitti Smallbone[/caption]
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 in April 2019, nearly two years after season seven premiered in July 2017. The US network hasn't announced an exact premiere date as yet, but even knowing which month to look forward to is good news. 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 almost start counting down the days. HBO revealed the month in a fairly generic video on the Game of Thrones Facebook page, and you can probably expect a precise date and even a trailer to follow soon enough. If you're looking for clues from past seasons, seasons one to six all premiered between March 31 and April 24, so really any Sunday in April, US time — so Monday in Australia — is possible. 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://www.facebook.com/GameOfThrones/videos/734669123560089/ Game of Thrones season eight will arrive on HBO in April, 2019.
World Chocolate Day (Wednesday, July 7) is on the horizon, so what better excuse for two of the country's top dessert masters to join forces? Aussie chocolate brand Koko Black and the ever-innovative, Sydney-born cake maestros Black Star Pastry have dreamed up some sweet-toothed magic, available for one day only this July. The Meteor Cake is the brainchild of Koko Black Head Chocolatier Remco Brigou and Black Star's Group Head Pastry Chef Arnaud Vodounou. First up, there are the neat layers of dark chocolate financier, caramel-infused chocolate, muscovado sponge, dense hazelnut cremeux, choccy mousse and praline. Crowning that delicious tower is a flying 'meteor' — a hazelnut truffle coated in black cocoa nibs — trailing a blazing edible flame crafted from luxe Sao Thome chocolate. There's even a pile of meteor 'rubble', made of crumbled cocoa nibs. It's here for a good time, but a very fleeting one, hitting stores for one day only on (you guessed it) Wednesday, July 7. The Meteor Cake comes in at $15 a slice, available to purchase only from select Koko Black stores in Sydney (Strand Arcade). You can also grab the takeaway treat from Black Star's Rosebery and Newtown outposts. Given the current lockdown and restrictions, Sydneysiders will also be able to pre-order here from July 2 to score a $55 four-pack that'll be delivered on World Chocolate Day. After the first half of this year, you bloody well deserve it.
We all know that fast fashion is gross. And yet, with the hectic holiday season just passed, we're all familiar with the need to buy cute stocking stuffers in a time crunch — often overwhelming our need to not pollute the planet beyond repair. We really don't do well by Mother Earth here in Australia. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, every year 500,000 tonnes of fashion ends up in landfill and each Aussie consumes 27 kilograms of textiles. Rhianna Knight believes we can do better, so the 26-year-old started an apparel business that won't leave you feeling shamefaced. The result is Mister Timbuktu, and it's in the early stages of kicking ass. Mister Timbuktu's outdoor apparel is made from recycled plastics. The first round is being crowdfunded now through Indiegogo, reaching more than half of its target with 16 days left to go (at the time of writing). At the moment, the range is all about quality leggings, raincoats and sports bras, but they'll soon branch into all things outdoorsy, including tents, sleeping bags and puffer jackets. The designs are gorgeous and bright because outdoor activities don't have to be completed in drab natural colours (apologies, Kathmandu, you serve a purpose but there's a new queen on the block). According to Knight, eleven plastic bottles are recycled in each pair of leggings they create. How in the name of activewear is that possible? Well, recycled plastics are collected, shredded into chips, washed, melted into liquid form and then spun into thread that goes on to become your new favourite comfy pants. Science, bitches! The company has also pledged to put 20 percent of profits back into helping the planet in other ways: by partnering with both a mental health charity (Waves of Wellness) and the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife. But wait, there's more. Okay, we probably shouldn't get so excited about this part because the rest of the initiative is so phenomenal, but check out the leggings: they have a pocket in the waistband which is the best and most practical thing ever. Thank you for listening to our secret wishes and delivering. For more information, visit Mister Timbuktu's campaign.
Australians looking to travel to New Zealand must consider the current COVID-19 advice. For information on quarantine-free travel between Australia and New Zealand, head over to the NZ Government's COVID-19 hub. You don't need to ski or snowboard to have a great time on New Zealand's powder-topped slopes. Alpine resorts across the country have a huge variety of other snow-based activities to choose from during the magical winter months. All you have to decide is whether you'd rather take a high-performance vehicle around a snow-covered race track, drive your own team of sled dogs, or ride a high-speed gondola through the clouds. FLOOR IT AROUND A SNOW-COVERED RACE TRACK Ice Driving is considered the ultimate winter driving challenge. The tyre-sliding experience invites anyone with a drivers licence and a wad of cash to jump in the hot seat and hoon around more than 40 hectares of snow-capped alps. It happens in the deep south from July to August every year with participants invited to take the wheel of a high-performance vehicle on a snow-covered race track. The experience is held at the iconic Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds on Mount Pisa, which sits 1500 metres above sea level between Queenstown and Wanaka. The snow track is the winter test centre used to test cars around the world. It's suitable for groups of ten and up who are keen to learn what it takes to drift around a snow circle, weave around a slalom course and bury the accelerator on ice. TUBE DOWN A 150-METRE SLOPE IN TEKAPO Tekapo Springs is the nerve centre for alternative winter activities in the South Island's Mackenzie Basin. Open from June until mid-September, the snow tubing park is just one attraction on offer, taking thrill-seekers on a slippery ride down a 150-metre slope. And there's no uphill walking involved once you're ready for another run — simply hop aboard the magic carpet back to the top. Once you've completed your one-hour tubing session, there's plenty to keep you occupied at the resort. Hit the outdoor ice rink, unwind in the on-site sauna and steam room, or soak in stunning lake and mountain views from one of three hot pools. [caption id="attachment_757146" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tourism New Zealand.[/caption] RIDE NEW ZEALAND'S NEWEST, LONGEST AND FASTEST GONDOLA Riding Mt Ruapehu's newly opened Sky Waka will take you on a journey into the clouds. Called New Zealand's largest and most technically advanced gondola, the high-speed Sky Waka travels 1.8 kilometres in just five minutes above the snow-capped terrain of Whakapapa. From the Top of the Bruce base station you'll traverse over icy waterfalls and ancient lava flows and catch a glimpse of Ruapehu and its neighbouring volcanoes, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro, through the floor to ceiling windows. Touch down will bring you to the award-winning Knoll Ridge Chalet where a selection of dining options await. DRIVE YOUR OWN TEAM OF SLED DOGS Cardrona's home of cross-country skiing is also where you can carve trails with a pack of friendly malamutes and huskies. UnderDog New Zealand has been practising the northern tradition of dogsledding in the Southern Alps since 2013, and allows visitors to drive their very own team of dogs or sit back and enjoy the ride. Exhilarating experiences start from $255 and range from one-hour high country journeys to after-dark runs and full-blown overnight stays. SNOWSHOE TO A SECLUDED BACKCOUNTRY HUT Snowshoeing is nearly as easy as putting one foot in front of the other. At Cardrona Valley's Snow Farm you can make a night of your winter adventure by trekking to a backcountry hut in the Pisa Ranges. Overnight snowshoe rental and the trail pass will set you back $29, while a spot in one of the secluded huts starts from $35. There are three to choose from: Meadow, Bob Lee and Daisy Lee. While each features a gas cooker and log burner, the former has room for 20 people. All you need to bring is food, drinks, a sleeping bag and your overnight things. For those who haven't been to a backcountry hut before, don't expect electricity and running water. WHIP AROUND THE MOUNTAIN ON A SNOWMOBILE Queenstown Snowmobiles offers the only heli-snowmobiling experience in New Zealand. The company has access to trails and backcountry riding, only by way of helicopter. The snowmobiles are easy to operate and no previous experience is required. Each wilderness tour is around two and a half hours and includes a 15-minute scenic helicopter flight each way. All of the tours come with an experienced guided and can cater for both individuals and small groups. In no time you'll be cruising across pristine snow at an altitude of up to 6000 feet above sea level. Just don't forget your camera. HAVE LUNCH ON TOP OF A GLACIER An outing with Mount Cook Ski Planes lets you toast the breathtaking beauty of Aoraki National Park with a glass of bubbly. The operator offers a range of experiences through the Southern Alps, including private ski plane flights over snow-capped peaks and chopper excursions to ice caves — which, depending on snow and ice conditions, can be explored with a guide. Once you've taken in all that mountain air, your pilot will land on one of the region's many glaciers for a private picnic on the snow. From there, you'll fly towards Mount Cook to give you a better view of the highest peak in New Zealand.
For the first time since it launched in 2000, World Pride is heading to the Southern Hemisphere. And it's not just heading anywhere — the world's largest LGBTQI+ celebration is coming to Sydney. Taking over the city's streets, bars, clubs, galleries and theatres between February and March 2023, the World Pride event will coincide with the 45th Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. The decision to host the international pride celebration in Sydney was announced overnight with members of InterPride — the organisers of World Pride — voting between Sydney, Montreal (Canada) and Houston (Texas). The Aussie state capital came out on top with a whopping 60 percent of the votes. Of the host city, World Pride Committee Chair Robyn Kennedy said, "InterPride has recognised how far Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras has come since 1978, and now the world will march with us down Oxford Street to celebrate our community and support our region." Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2018 and this year hosted over 100 parties, shows, and late-night shindigs for the annual event. The State Government usually relaxes the lockout laws in the surrounding areas for the local Mardi Gras, but in 2023 they could be gone altogether in the CBD and on Oxford Street. Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced plans to repeal the lockout laws in those areas by the end 2019 — they will, however, remain in place in Kings Cross for now. We'll keep our fingers crossed that they'll be wound back by 2023 there, too. https://www.instagram.com/p/B31TjkcD0qZ/?igshid=x6c9d4q0ay1w As the Sydney World Pride will be also be the first in the Asia Pacific, it's expected that the celebration will also have a focus on communities and cultures from across the region. In Sydney's bid for the event, organisers said: "it's an opportunity to focus the world's attention on LGBTQI rights, communities and culture in our Asia-Pacific Region. Many of our closest neighbouring countries do not have the same level of equality and human rights as we do." While Australia finally passed a marriage equality bill in late 2017, the same rights do not exist in many countries in the surrounding region — in fact, same-sex relations are still illegal in some Asia-Pacific countries. The 2023 World Pride will help raise awareness about these issues and help fight for equality for LGBTQI+ people across the region. For the Sydney event, expect, also, the biggest, most fabulous celebration of pride the city has ever seen, with parades, parties, and more to take over the city. It's expected 25–40 percent more than the usual 1.2 million Mardi Gras visitors will be heading to Sydney for the 2023 event — so it's going to be big, loud and colourful. World Pride 2023 will take place across Sydney in February and March. Top image: Jeffrey Feng
