Take every horror movie staple, every expected line and all the usual eerie settings, then throw in a beloved childhood character that's stopped being friendly and turned savage instead. That's a recipe for one of the most intriguing movies of the year, Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey. Yes, it's a slasher film starring Winnie-the-Pooh. Yes, really. And yes, it looks set to forever change the way you see the childhood favourite. The flick itself isn't new news, but it now has a trailer — and it's as creepy as the whole concept sounds. "Oh bother!" is definitely the mood, after Christopher Robin returns to the Hundred Acre Wood as an adult, years after leaving his pals Winnie, Piglet, Eeyore, Tigger, Kanga and Roo behind. All that time alone hasn't turned out well, and there's about to be a body count to prove it. No, the idea that Pooh might turn murderous hasn't ever crossed anyone's minds before. Gracing pages for almost a century — plus screens big and small for decades — Winnie-the-Pooh has done many things in his time, but getting grisly hasn't been one of them. Ever since AA Milne first conjured up the honey-loving, walking-and-talking teddy bear back in the 1920s, Pooh has enjoyed plenty of adventures involving his human and animal friends, and tried to eat as much of his favourite foodstuff as possible. We've all seen the cartoons and toys, and also watched films such Goodbye Christopher Robin and Christopher Robin in recent years. To director Rhys Waterfield, however, Pooh is no longer cute and cuddly, even if he's a honey-fiending teddy bear who normally doesn't wear pants (although he appears to here). And if you're wondering about the tone of Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, other than horror, the filmmaker's other upcoming titles include Firenado, Sky Monster and Rise of the Loch Ness. Clearly, Pooh breaking bad all falls into B-movie territory, which the premise makes plain as well. The setup: after seeing their food supplies dwindle as Christopher grew up, Pooh and Piglet have spent years feeling hungry. They've turned feral, in fact, even eating Eeyore to survive. So when Christopher returns, it sets the pair on a rampage, which leads to them a rural cabin where a group of university students are holidaying. From that summary, it's obvious what'll happen from there. The trailer cements that fact, and throws in more horror tropes than you could fit in a pot of honey in the process. Exactly when Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey will reach screens Down Under, and where, also hasn't yet been announced — and the film's release date in the US and UK is also yet to be set at this point — but it's heading to DVD and VOD rather than cinemas. Wondering why something that's usually so sweet and innocent is being given the creepy, bloody, eerie horror treatment — turning Winnie-the-Pooh into a killer, no less? It's because the character has just entered the public domain in America. Disney no longer holds the copyright, and no one can now hold the exclusive intellectual property rights over the character, opening the door for wild interpretations like this slasher flick. Check out the Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey trailer below: Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey doesn't yet have a release date Down Under — we'll update you when further details are released. Images: Jagged Edge Productions.
Josh and Julie Niland are proud pioneers. The pair's low-waste, often experimental approach to seafood — most notably the innovation of dry-aging fish — once raised eyebrows, but today, not only are these techniques a hit with Sydney diners, they've also earned the Nilands international acclaim and an impressive haul of awards, including three coveted Good Food Hats. Now, the pair are trailblazing once again, launching a boutique stay attached to a restaurant. The Grand National Hotel by Saint Peter will feature 14 luxury suites located above the dining space of the Niland's flagship fine diner, which moved last August from its original digs on Paddington's Oxford Street to Underwood Street, just around the corner. The former pub, which dates back to 1890, is entering its latest era as a multi-faceted hospitality destination following six years of renovations. During that time, an invitation to the Nilands from the pub's owner, George Penklis, to launch a new fine diner evolved into a bold plan to create a hotel-restaurant hybrid where top-of-class cuisine and plush accommodations go hand in glove. With input at every level from the Nilands, Studio Aquilo has designed the interiors to blend existing heritage features like marble fireplaces with vibrant, modern textures and luxe details. The rooms, featuring custom velvet headboards and Australian-made artworks including black and white sketches by Ken Done, also underline the Niland's low-impact, eco-minded philosophy with fish-fat candles, down duvets ethically sourced by Melbourne-based company Bonny and ceramics created using fish bones. The Nilands aim to offer a complete hospitality experience, with breakfast by the Saint Peter team, handmade chocolates, and a non-alcoholic minibar included with every booking. "When approaching the hotel, we paid as much attention to detail to the design and furnishing as we did with the restaurant. This is our first venture into being hoteliers, and we knew that we wanted to apply the same level of care to the rooms so that they weren't just an addition to Saint Peter but a destination in their own right," says Julie Niland. "We want the restaurant and the rooms to complement each other as much as possible.," comments Josh Niland. "Opening the hotel allows us the opportunity to fulfil our vision of hospitality beyond dining into a thoughtful 360-degree hotel experience, from handmade chocolates on your pillow to the breakfast cooked by our team." The Grand National Hotel by Saint Peter, located at 161 Underwood Street, Paddington, is set to open on January 31. Reservations are now open — go to the Grand National Hotel by Saint Peter website for more details. Images: Christopher Pearce
If you've seen Hannah Gadsby's two Netflix comedy specials so far — smash-hit Nanette and follow-up Douglas — then you'll know that the acclaimed Australian comedian's sets and "feel-good romantic comedy" don't usually go hand in hand. But comedy, like life, changes. Indeed, Gadsby has been embracing exactly that on- and off-stage. And after getting married to their producer Jenney Shamash, new special Something Special is all about warm vibes. Well, mostly. "Just for the next hour, we're going to feel good together, and then we can head back out there and be the mass-extinction event that we are," Gadsby tells the audience in Something Special's just-dropped trailer. "I didn't say who it's a feel-good show for," the comedian continues, as they also noted when the special's streaming date was revealed by Netflix. Come Tuesday, May 9, Gadsby has a wedding to talk about, plus the politics around nuptials, homophobic bakers, queer domesticity and bunnies. Announced in 2022 and filmed at the Sydney Opera House that same year, Something Special is based on their recent stand-up show Body of Work. Even with the feel-good rom-com tone, expect Gadsby's usual wit, insights and sense of humour. It's been a huge few years for the Tasmanian-born talent, and they keep going from strength to strength onstage — and on-screen. In fact, when the time came for Gadsby to initially follow up international smash-hit show Nanette, that seemed a rather difficult task. After all, the one-performer stand-up set copped serious praise on its 18-month travels across Australia and the UK, even scooping the top honours at both the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe — and, of course, spawning its very own Netflix special. But, then Douglas was born, with Gadsby returning to the stage with a performance named after a pet pooch. While Nanette pulled apart the concept of comedy itself, dishing up an insight into Gadsby's past, Douglas took comedy fans on a "tour from the dog park to the renaissance and back". It made its way across stages around Australia and New Zealand in late 2019 and early 2020, and then hit Netflix in 2020 as well. After that came Body of Work — first as a live show again, and now as Netflix special Something Special, too. It's the first release in Gadsby's new a multi-title deal with the streaming platform that is also set to span a new multi-comic special featuring gender-diverse performers. Check out the trailer for Something Special below: Hannah Gadsby's Something Special Netflix special will be available to stream from Tuesday, May 9, 2023. Images: Jess Gleeson/Netflix © 2023.
Following the announcement of this year's theme for the Sydney Writers' Festival, Concrete Playground caught up with the festival's artistic director, Chip Rolley. Texan-born Rolley, 47, reveals his personal take on the 2012 theme: the fine line between what is public and private. Read what Rolley as to say about the question of privacy - "the question of our time" - and start getting amped for the festival, which kicks off May 14. Concrete Playground (CP): This year's SWF focuses on the line between public and private matters. Why do you think that this topic is relevant to modern readers and writers? Chip Rolley (CR): I'll never forget when the ex-News of the World journo Paul McMullan told the UK Leveson Inquiry into the media, "Privacy is for paedos." The audacity of it: if you're concerned about privacy, you must have something to hide. That crystallised for me the question of where we draw the line between public and private. The sense that that line is vanishing has been building for years. Not just because of UK scandal rags, or even the increased state security apparatus. But with social media we post things about ourselves that in previous times we might not have even told our loved ones. It seems to me it's the question of our time. CP: How does this issue affect the artistic community? CR: It turns out the question we are all asking ourselves now is one that writers have been asking themselves for years. Any person who writes a biography or a memoir asks themselves this question. How much do I reveal – about myself or family members? How far do I go into the personal life of the public figure I'm writing about? Fiction writers, who often rework the stuff of life into their novels wrestle with this as well. Sydney Writers' Festival seemed to me a natural opportunity to explore this issue and to look at Australia's and the world's writing through this prism. CP: Can the breaking down of the public/private barrier be beneficial to readers? Does this create a more authentic author-to-reader experience? CR: I don't know about "more authentic". There will always be an art to writing – to rendering life and experience through words. But those memoirs that take a really liberal approach to the question (have a look at Joshua Cody's [sic]) can often be invigorating as a result – but only if done well… CP: How has this affected the accessibility of literature? CR: In one sense the Internet and social media have made all of us writers. We are all exploring these issues – deciding what to reveal and what to keep to ourselves. Perhaps that will lead to a wider understanding of writing or a greater appreciation of art in doing it well. CP: Some forms of writing (autobiography, memoir, etc.) are distinctly personal. How do you expect works and authors who work in these genres to contribute to the festival? CR: We explore myriad genres every year and this year is no different. There are some events that directly address the theme, such as "You Must Have Something To Hide" (which looks like it will sell out). Two other big events – "The Feminist Supremacy?" and "Why Get Married When You Could Be Happy?" – take the temperature of the two great social movements of the past 40 years (the women's movement and the gay liberation movement) – both of which relied on the transformative idea that the personal is political. But the beauty of the theme is that it will pulse through all the events, whether they directly address this issue or not. It will percolate through conversations as people spill in and out of the venues and it will emerge in ways we don't even yet see. CP: Do you think it is possible to be a writer, yet maintain your privacy? CR: I do think it's possible, if only to save your material for a rainy day…
Sometimes, dreams do come true. More often than not, they don't. The bulk of life is what dwells in-between, as we all cope with the inescapable truth that we won't get everything that we've ever fantasised about, and we mightn't even score more than just a few things we want. This is the space that Party Down has always made its own, asking "are we having fun yet?" about life's disappointments while focusing on Los Angeles-based hopefuls played by Adam Scott (Severance), Ken Marino (The Other Two), Ryan Hansen (A Million Little Things), Martin Starr (Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities) and more. They'd all rather be doing something other than being cater waiters at an array of California functions, and most have stars in their eyes. In the cult comedy's first two seasons back in 2009–10, the majority of its characters have their sights set on show business, slinging hors d'oeuvres while trying to make acting, screenwriting or comedy happen. By even existing, Party Down itself is the product of dreams that aren't fulfilled and the twists of fate that follow. If Veronica Mars hadn't initially been cancelled after three seasons, its creator Rob Thomas mightn't have moved onto a new collaboration with two of the show's fellow former staff — writer/producer John Enbom and producer Dan Etheridge — plus one-time guest star Paul Rudd (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania). And, if that hadn't have occurred, Party Down wouldn't have ever graced screens with its spectacular dark farce at all. It too was cancelled too soon but has found a way to make a comeback. In its 13-years-later revival, it smartly and hilariously grapples with what it means when dreams don't pan out, and when they seem like they will only to crash. Bringing most of the original gang back together — Lizzy Caplan had scheduling issues making the also-excellent Fleishman Is in Trouble, but Jane Lynch (Only Murders in the Building) and Megan Mullally (Reservation Dogs) return — Party Down keeps its shindig-by-shindig setup. Across its first 20 instalments as well as its new six, which drop weekly on Stan from Friday, February 24, each episode sends the titular crew to a different soirée. The opening get-together is thrown by one of their own, Kyle Bradway (Hansen), who has just scored the lead part in a massive superhero franchise. Ex-actor Henry Pollard (Scott) is among the attendees, as are now-heiress Constance Carmell (Lynch) and perennial stage mum Lydia Dunfree (Mullally), but comedian Casey Klein (Caplan) is too busy being Saturday Night Live-level famous. Hard sci-fi obsessive Roman DeBeers (Starr) and the eager-to-please Ron Donald (Marino) are present as well, in a catering capacity. Having some of the team still sporting their black pants, crisp white shirts and pastel pink bow ties after such time has passed could've played as lazy or unbelievable. Party Down has always been as unflinchingly honest as it is sidesplittingly funny, however. It finds its main figures literally in reunion mode, and uses that entry point to explore everything that could've changed — and what mightn't have — for anyone getting their start working in hospitality in LA. Some achieved exactly what they said they would. Some are still just talking about it, and bitterly. As for Henry, he advises Kyle that he's a high-school English teacher. When his pal asks "on what show?" in response, Party Down remains as incisive as ever at tearing down the Hollywood mindset, its posturing and its centre-of-the-universe delusion. Henry genuinely is a high-school English teacher IRL, a fact that Kyle hasn't even entertained. More of the Party Down OGs end up back in uniform, in turns of events that couldn't be more organic, believable and steeped in the series' constant confrontation with dreams failing, flailing and fading. Still, season three has fresh faces; hospitality is a turnover-heavy industry. Content creator Sackson (Tyrel Jackson Williams, Brockmire) would rather be filling his socials, and flouts the Ron Donald dos and Ron Donald don'ts as Henry, Kyle, Roman and the group always have. The Gen-Z influencer wannabe also acts as visible reminder of how the notion of stardom has changed. Chef Lucy Dang (Zoë Chao, The Afterparty) seeks fame through her cooking, which isn't your standard catering spread. Baking ripened camembert into birthday cake, for instance, she wants food to be art rather than mere fuel. Also among the newcomers, but not holding trays for minimum wage, are Jennifer Garner (The Adam Project) as film executive Evie Adler and James Marsden (Dead to Me) as hotshot actor Jack Botty. The former hits it off with Henry — because with Caplan's Casey absent, Party Down still needs its emotional core and will-they-won't-they rom-com spark amid the Hollywood takedowns, ridiculous celebration ideas and slapstick absurdity it throws together skilfully, cleverly and hysterically. Unsurprisingly, season three is usually at its best when the show's old favourites bounce off each other, but Thomas and company have done well with their newcomers. That's another returning talent; before she was winning awards for The White Lotus, Jennifer Coolidge made a killer two-episode addition to the crew, and Mullally joined the cast when Lynch moved onto Glee. Are we having fun yet? Yes, always. While the catchphrase that's long haunted Henry — uttered in a beer commercial, and his biggest acting claim to fame — is rolled out again, Party Down season three is also supremely skilled at working in nods and callbacks without ever feeling like the person at the party that won't move on from the past. With Enbom showrunning, the writing is again intelligent and amusing, and the tone hasn't wavered a decade-plus on. And, once getting the gang back together has been established, Party Down's latest stint still ranks it among the all-time great workplace comedies. Scott does love pondering the daily grind, starring in Parks and Recreation and Severance before making his way back to pouring drinks. There's exactly one issue with season three: it only runs for six episodes. Since 2009, the world has always needed more Party Down, and that remains the case now that it's finally back. No one needs Party Down, the company, like Ron still does, though. None of the show's characters have ever embodied the desperate extremes that someone can go to to make their dreams come true as he still does, either — or what happens when someone has pitched their whole identity on one thing and won't accept any alternatives no matter the humiliations that arise. Marino, like Hansen and Scott, made the jump over to Party Down from Veronica Mars to play the catering outfit's oh-so-keen (but always-bumbling) manager, and his performance continues to be a masterclass in bleak and physical comedy in a series that's outstanding at (and has fun with) both. Check out the trailer for Party Down season three below: Party Down's third season streams via Stan from Friday, February 24 — and via TVNZ+ as well.
Bar Topa has been awarded Overall Winner for Best New Bar in our Best of 2018 Awards. You can check out all the other winners over here. Spanish tapas culture is reimagined with flavours from all over the Mediterranean for Merivale's vibrant new culinary offering, Bar Topa. Opening in late July on Palings Lane, in the Ivy's dining precinct, the pint-sized tapas bar has just a handful of seats, with standing room for around 40 diners. Perching with a wine in hand and snacks to share is the way to go here, just like in Spain's tapas bars. In the kitchen, Head Chef Lauren Murdoch is heading up a two-part, snack-heavy food offering. Displayed at the counter, you'll find small bites like whipped salted cod, or sliced jamón on crisp bread, while the tapas menu features a heftier selection of dishes hot off la plancha — the Spanish-style grill. Expect plates of sautéed chicken livers, cuttlefish cooked with parsley, garlic and olive oil, whole sardines, and of course, that classic patatas bravas. A modern rustic fitout of terracotta and green terrazzo is authentic yet modern, and a collaboration between stylist Amanda Talbot and designer George Livissianis. There's an innovative approach to drinks, mirroring the food menu of bite-sized snacks, with most cocktails, beer and wine served as half-pours. Meaning punters have the chance to sample more of the menu. A range of $8 half-size cocktails includes sips like the Marques — made with Pali Cortado sherry, Campari and sweet vermouth — and the La Perla, blending Altos Reposado tequila and pear liqueur. Otherwise, match those tapas with sangria from the tap, mini $4 beer or a 100-millilitre serve from the short, snappy wine list.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas in some parts of the country. After numerous periods spent empty during the pandemic, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, picture palaces in many Australian regions are back in business — including both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. FIRE OF LOVE Spewing fire is so hot right now, and literally always — and dragons aren't the only ones doing it. House of the Dragon and Blaze can have their flame-breathing creatures, and Fire of Love can have something that also seems fantastical but is one of the earth's raging wonders. The mix of awe, astonishment, adoration, fear, fascination and unflinching existential terror that volcanoes inspire is this documentary's playground. It was Katia and Maurice Krafft's daily mood, including before they met, became red beanie-wearing volcanologists, built a life chasing eruptions — The Life Volcanic, you could dub it — and devoted themselves to studying lava-spurting ruptures in the planet's crust. Any great doco on a topic such as this, and with subjects like these, should make viewers experience the same thrills, spills, joys and worries, and that's a radiant feat this Sundance award-winner easily achieves. What a delight it would be to trawl through the Kraffts' archives, sift through every video featuring the French duo and their work, and witness them doing their highly risky jobs against spectacular surroundings for hours, days and more. That's the task filmmaker Sara Dosa (The Seer and the Unseen) took up to make this superb film. This isn't the only such doco — legendary German director Werner Herzog has made his own, called The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft, after featuring the couple in 2016's Into the Inferno — but Fire of Love is a glorious, sensitive, entrancing and affecting ode to two remarkable people and their love, passion and impact. While history already dictates how the pair's tale ends, together and exactly as it seemed fated to, retracing their steps and celebrating their importance will never stop sparking new pleasures. For newcomers to the Kraffts, their lives comprised quite the adventure — one with two volcano-obsessed souls who instantly felt like they were destined to meet, bonded over a mutual love of Mount Etna, then dedicated their days afterwards to understanding the natural geological formations that filled their dreams. Early in their time together, the couple gravitated to what they called 'red volcanoes', with their enticing scarlet-hued lava flows. What a phenomenon to explore when romance beats in the air, and when geochemist Katia and geologist Maurice are beginning their life together. From there, however, they moved to analysing what they named 'grey volcanoes'. Those don't visually encapsulate the pair's relationship; they're the craggy peaks that produce masses of ash when they erupt — Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull, for instance — and often a body count. As narrated by actor and Kajillionaire filmmaker Miranda July, Fire of Love starts with blazing infatuation and devotion — between the Kraffts for each other, and for their field of interest — then establishes their legacy. Both aspects could fuel their own movies, and both linger and haunt in their own ways. And, as magnificent as this incredibly thoughtful, informative and stirring documentary is, it makes you wonder what a sci-fi flick made from the same footage would look like. The 16-millimetre imagery captured during the Kraffts' research trips around the globe, whittled down here from 200 hours to fill just 98 minutes, puts even the most state-of-the-art special effects in a different realm. Pixels can be used to paint gorgeous sights, and cinema has no shortage of movies that shimmer with that exact truth, but there really is no substitute for reality. Read our full review. BEAST Idris Elba fights a lion. That's it, that's Beast, as far as film pitches go at least. This South Africa-set thriller's one-sentence summary is up there with 'Jason Statham battles a giant shark' and 'Liam Neeson stares down wolves' — straightforward and irresistible, obviously, in enticing audiences into cinemas. That said, the latest addition to the animals-attack genre isn't as ridiculous as The Meg, and isn't a resonant existential musing like The Grey. What this creature feature wants to be, and is, is a lean, edge-of-your-seat, humanity-versus-nature nerve-shredder. Director Baltasar Kormákur (Adrift) knows that a famous face, a relentless critter as a foe, and life-or-death terror aplenty can be the stuff that cinema dreams and hits are made of. His movie isn't completely the former, but it does do exactly what it promises. If it proves a box office success, it'll be because it dangles an easy drawcard and delivers it. There is slightly more to Beast than Idris Elba brawling with the king of the jungle, of course — or running from it, trying to hide from it in a jeep, attempting to outsmart it and praying it'll tire of seeing him as prey. But this tussle with an apex predator is firmly at its best when it really is that simple, that primal and, with no qualms about gore and jump scares, that visceral. Elba (The Harder They Fall) plays recently widowed American doctor Nate Samuels, who is meant to be relaxing, reconnecting with his teenage daughters Mare (Iyana Halley, Licorice Pizza) and Norah (Leah Jeffries, Rel), and finding solace in a pilgrimage to his wife's homeland. But Beast wouldn't be called Beast if the Samuels crew's time with old family friend Martin (Sharlto Copley, Russian Doll), a wildlife biologist who oversees the nature reserve, was all placid safaris and sunsets. Kormákur doesn't even pretend that bliss is an option, or that the stalking, scares and big man/big cat showdown aren't coming. Ramping up the tension from the outset, his feature begins with the reason that its main maned (and unnamed) creature wants to slash his way through Nate and company: poachers hunting, with the culprits sneaking in at night to elude human eyes and snuff the light out of every feline in a targeted pride, which leaves one particularly large animal, the patriarch, angry and vengeful. Arriving unknowingly in the aftermath, the Samuels family have just chosen the wrong time to visit. Their first encounter with another pride, which Martin helped raise, leaves them awestruck instead of frightened; then they spy Beast's killer beast's handiwork at a nearby village, and surviving becomes their only aim. Swap out Elba from the 'Idris Elba fights a lion' equation and Kormákur would've had a far lesser film on his hands. His premise, wonderfully concise as it is, wouldn't work with any old actor. His entire movie wouldn't, and Beast works on the level it's prowling on — mostly. Screenwriter Ryan Engle (Rampage), using a story by Jaime Primak Sullivan (Breaking In), gives Nate grief and guilt over his past mistakes to grapple with as well as that persistent lion. Yes, the script is that cliched, because action heroes almost always seem to be wooing, worrying about or mourning a woman while they're endeavouring to save something, be it the world, their families or themselves. Elba dances the bereaved absent father dance well, though, with the Beast's depths springing from him rather than the material and its deceased spouse/regretful dad/seize-the-day tropes. Read our full review. BLAZE In the name of its protagonist, and the pain and fury that threatens to parch her 12-year-old existence, Del Kathryn Barton's first feature scorches and sears. It burns in its own moniker, too, and in the blistering alarm it sounds against an appalling status quo: that experiencing, witnessing and living with the aftermath of violence against women is all too common, heartbreakingly so, including in Australia where one woman a week on average is killed by her current or former partner. Blaze has a perfect title, with the two-time Archibald Prize-winning artist behind it crafting a movie that's alight with anger, that flares with sorrow, and that's so astutely and empathetically observed, styled and acted that it chars. Indeed, it's frequently hard to pick which aspect of the film singes more: the story about surviving what should be unknown horrors for a girl who isn't even yet a teen, the wondrously tactile and immersive way in which Blaze brings its namesake's inner world to the screen, or the stunning performance by young actor Julia Savage (Mr Inbetween) in its central part. Savage also has a fitting moniker, impeccably capturing how ferociously she takes on her starring role. Blaze, the Sydney schoolgirl that she plays, isn't always fierce. She's curious and imaginative, happy dwelling in her own dreamy universe long before she flees there after witnessing a rape and murder, and then frightened and fraying while also fuming. In how she's portrayed by Savage, and penned by Barton with co-screenwriter Huna Amweero (also a feature first-timer), she's intricately fleshed out, too, with every reaction she has to the assault proving instantly relatable — especially to anyone whose life has been touched by trauma. We don't all see dragons made out of fabric, felt, feathers, papier-mâché and glitter, helping us through times good and bad, but everyone can understand the feelings behind that dragon, which swelter like the creature's fiery breath. Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, Blaze isn't — although Jake (Josh Lawson, Mortal Kombat), who Blaze spots in an alleyway with Hannah (Yael Stone, Blacklight), has his lawyer (Heather Mitchell, Bosch & Rockit) claim that his accuser knows nothing. With the attack occurring mere minutes into the movie, Barton dedicates the feature's bulk to how her lead character copes, or doesn't. Being questioned about what she saw in court is just one way that the world tries to reduce her to ashes, but the embers of her hurt and determination don't and won't die. Blaze's father Luke (Simon Baker, High Ground), a single parent, understandably worries about the impact of everything blasting his daughter's way. As she retreats then acts out, cycling between both and bobbing in-between, those fears are well-founded. Blaze is a coming-age-film — a robbing-of-innocence movie as well — but it's also a firm message that there's no easy or ideal response to something as awful as its titular figure observes. The pivotal sequence, lensed by cinematographer Jeremy Rouse (The Turning) and spliced together by editor Dany Cooper (The Drover's Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson) to be as jarring and unflinching for Blaze's audience as it is for Blaze, is nightmarish. Avoiding agony and anguish isn't Barton's way — and it can't be with this subject matter. While never as harrowing in the same manner again, Blaze is styled by its artist-turned-writer/director in the same expressive, impressionistic way from start to finish, so that watching its frames flicker feels like diving inside its lead character's heart and mind. That internal realm is a place where a pre-trial proceeding erupts into flames spat from Blaze herself, via a tiny white dragon figurine she places between her teeth. Unsurprisingly, that's a spectacular and gloriously cathartic sight. Barton isn't afraid of symbolism, but she's also allergic to emptiness; not a single image in her kaleidoscopic trip through her protagonist's imaginings is ever wasted. Read our full review. HIT THE ROAD How fitting it is that a film about family — about the ties that bind, and when those links are threatened not by choice but via unwanted circumstances — hails from an impressive lineage itself. How apt it is that Hit the Road explores the extent that ordinary Iranians find themselves going to escape the nation's oppressive authorities, too, and doesn't shy away from its political subtext. The reason that both feel ideal stems from the feature's filmmaker Panah Panahi. This isn't a wonderful movie solely due to its many echoes, resonating through the bonds of blood, and also via what's conveyed on-screen and reality around it, though. It's a gorgeously shot, superbly acted, astutely written and deeply felt feature all in its own right, and it cements its director — who debuts as both a helmer and a screenwriter — as an emerging talent to watch. But it's also a film that's inseparable from its context, because it simply wouldn't exist without the man behind it and his well-known background. Panah's surname will be familiar because he's the son of acclaimed auteur Jafar Panahi, one of Iranian cinema's best-known figures for more than two decades now. And Jafar's run-ins with the country's regime will be familiar as well, because the heat he's felt at home for his social commentary-laden work has been well-documented for just as long. The elder Panahi, director of This Is Not a Film, Closed Curtain and more, has been both imprisoned and banned from making movies over the years. In July 2022, he was detained again merely for enquiring about the legal situation surrounding There Is No Evil helmer Mohammad Rasoulof and Poosteh director Mostafa Aleahmad. None of the above directly comes through in Hit the Road's story, not for a moment, but the younger Panahi's characteristically defiant movie is firmly made with a clear shadow lingering over it. When filmmaking becomes a family business, the spectre of the parent can loom over the child, of course — by choice sometimes, and also purely thanks to their shared name. In the first category, Jason Reitman picked up his father Ivan's franchise with Ghostbusters: Afterlife, for instance; Gorō Miyazaki has helmed animated movies for his dad Hayao's Studio Ghibli, such as Tales From Earthsea, From Up on Poppy Hill and Earwig and the Witch; and Brandon Cronenberg's Antiviral and Possessor are chips off The Fly and Videodrome great David Cronenberg's body-horror block. Panahi's Hit the Road also feels like it has been handed down, including in the way it spends the bulk of its time in a car as Jafar's Tehran Taxi and 3 Faces did. That said, it feels as much like the intuitive Panah is taking up the same mission as Jafar as someone purely taking after his dad. Hit the Road's narrative is simple and also devastatingly layered; in its frames, two starkly different views of life in Iran are apparent. A mother (Pantea Panahiha, Rhino), a father (Mohammad Hassan Madjooni, Pig), their adult son (first-timer Amin Simiar) and their six-year-old boy (scene-stealer Rayan Sarlak, Gol be khodi), all unnamed, have indeed done as the movie's moniker suggests — and in a borrowed car. When the film opens, there's no doubting that the kid among them sees the world, and everything in general, as only a kid can. The mood with the child's mum, dad and sibling is far more grim, however, even though they say they're en route to take the brood's eldest to get married. Their time on the road is tense and uncertain, and also tinged with the tenor of not-so-fond farewells — and with nary a glimmer of a celebratory vibe about impending nuptials. Read our full review. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in Australian cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on May 5, May 12, May 19 and May 26; June 2, June 9, June 16, June 23 and June 30; and July 7, July 14, July 21 and July 28; and August 4, August 11 and August 18. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as Petite Maman, The Drover's Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Firestarter, Operation Mincemeat, To Chiara, This Much I Know to Be True, The Innocents, Top Gun: Maverick, The Bob's Burgers Movie, Ablaze, Hatching, Mothering Sunday, Jurassic World Dominion, A Hero, Benediction, Lightyear, Men, Elvis, Lost Illusions, Nude Tuesday, Ali & Ava, Thor: Love and Thunder, Compartment No. 6, Sundown, The Gray Man, The Phantom of the Open, The Black Phone, Where the Crawdads Sing, Official Competition, The Forgiven, Full Time, Murder Party, Bullet Train, Nope, The Princess, 6 Festivals, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Crimes of the Future and Bosch & Rockit.
It's likely safe to say that no one IRL has met their significant other via the unique combination of a flashed nipple, a dog on the street, then strangers coming together not only to ensure that an injured pooch gets the medical treatment that it needs, but to care for the cute pup together from that instant forwards. It's the type of situation that screenwriters conjure up. In this case, writers and actors Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall have done just that. But one of the charms of Colin From Accounts from its first scenes back when its initial season arrived at the end of 2022 is the fact that it takes an only-on-TV (or in the movies) kind of meet-cute and makes everything about it, and also all that's followed between its protagonists, feel authentic. The charisma between Dyer and Brammall was always going to radiate a genuine vibe. They're married. They're also no strangers to working together on an Aussie comedy series where sparks fly between their characters. The now-American Auto and Evil stars, respectively, also teamed up on the two homegrown seasons of No Activity across 2015–16 (they each appeared in the show's US remake as well, which ran for four seasons across 2017–21, and preceded both versions of the show with A Moody Christmas and Ruben Guthrie). To watch, even playing folks who wouldn't have any awareness of each other if it wasn't for an impossible-to-predict series of events as in Colin From Accounts, their shared presence couldn't be more comfortable. [caption id="attachment_881020" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Lisa Tomasetti[/caption] There's an ease to Colin From Accounts that spans far beyond its on- and off-screen driving forces, though, and a relatability. Even the sequence that gets Ashley and Gordon, aka Dyer's medical student and Brammall's microbrewery owner, crossing paths unfurls with a sense that each step along the way isn't out of the question. In fact, it all begins as everyone watching has experienced themselves: with two people not knowing what to do when they literally cross each other's path in the street. Kicking off as you mean to go on — with amusing and insightful comedy that manages not to seem too far from reality when it's at its most heightened, with a new couple and their adorable pet, and with a winning sense of humour — is firmly Dyer and Brammall's approach with Colin From Accounts.facc Accordingly, it's been no wonder that the Binge series has proved a viewer favourite at home and overseas, and earned renewal for a second season. It wasn't a surprise, either, when it started collecting a swag of awards — AACTAs and Logies in Australia, also gongs from the nation's writers' and casting guilds, plus the Breakthrough Comedy Series accolade alongside the Outstanding Performance in a Comedy Series prize for Dyer at the first-ever Gotham TV Awards in the US. Speaking with Concrete Playground about season two, which is streaming for Aussie audiences via Binge, Dyer and Brammall give the series the sheen of a miracle, however, thanks to sharing a simple fact: that Colin From Accounts began as a fun thing for the pair to write for themselves, including to act in, but without thinking that anything more would come of it. [caption id="attachment_881024" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tony Mott[/caption] For most, that'll be the least-relatable thing about the hit series: that something this delightful can spring from merely "bouncing an idea around", as Brammall describes it, without having confidence that it'd find its way to the screen. With the pair's resumes — Dyer's also includes Down Under, Killing Ground, Love Child, The Other Guy, The Invisible Man and Wakefield, while Brammall's sports Home and Away, Griff the Invisible, The Moodys, Offspring, Upper Middle Bogan, Glitch, Overlord and Lodge 49, to name just a few other credits for both — the least-believable aspect might be that there was ever any question that the project would, could and should make it to fruition. Season two of Colin From Accounts doesn't dare feel like an easy repeat of the first. Ashley and Gordon are past the will-they-won't-they stage, but now they have the next question to ponder: should've they? The season picks up with them still regretting giving Colin away, so much so that they're desperate to get him back to the point of popping up in the park where he's playing with his new owners, becoming a big part of Colin's new humans' lives — much to the latter's chagrin — and doing whatever it takes to bring their dog back home. But that's just the opening storyline, and something to distract a no-longer-new duo from whether they really are right for each other. From there, the season digs into their romantic histories, approaches to self-pleasure and miscommunication, then what happens when meeting the parents doesn't quite gel and how they might want different things for the future. In addition to the show's original idea and sliding-door moment, we also chatted with Dyer and Brammall about their starting point for the second season, plans for Ashley and Gordon across the series' latest eight instalments, and veering down a new route in its fifth episode. If you've ever wondered how difficult it is to come up with a name that'll work for both a dog and a TV show, we plunged into that as well, then explored the naturalism of Colin From Accounts' dialogue — another factor that makes it feel so authentic — including both when it's scripted and improvised. [caption id="attachment_881023" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tony Mott[/caption] On the Original Idea for Colin From Accounts Springing From a Nipple Flash, a Dog and Strangers Committing to Take Care of a Cute Injured Pooch Together Harriet: "We just made it up." Patrick: "We were just bouncing an idea around, really. I mean, we didn't think it would get made. It was just like 'hey, this would be fun to write something for us to act in because we're actors'." Harriet: "We wanted two people that only had chemistry. They didn't know each other, they didn't have ..." Patrick: "Anything in common." [caption id="attachment_881021" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Lisa Tomasetti[/caption] Harriet: "They were not expecting to see each other beyond that moment. It could have been a sliding-door situation where the postman didn't let the dog out, and she just flashes her nipple and he keeps driving and goes 'who was that woman?', and tells his friends at work and that's it." Patrick: "Yeah, that's right." Harriet: "But because the man didn't close the gate properly, then you've got a dog. And that's the kind of magical bit." [caption id="attachment_881022" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Lisa Tomasetti[/caption] On the Deliberation That Went Giving a Dog That Name That Also Doubled as the Moniker for a TV Series Harriet: "It's interesting. I never actually loved the name Colin From Accounts as a TV show. I didn't know what else to call it, but I thought it sounded a bit broad, but it's working. It's worked. I can't note it now." Patrick: "Are you kidding? I loved it always." Harriet: "You did." Patrick: "Yes." Harriet: "Yes." Patrick: "We did talk — Binge at one point were like 'hey, do we love the title? Do we think it should be something else?'. And we had a think and the best we could come up with was Dog with Wheels." [caption id="attachment_952631" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Lisa Tomasetti[/caption] Harriet: "Dog with Wheels is a different kind of broad." Patrick: "Yeah, yeah. No, not good." Harriet: "It's neither better nor worse, though." Patrick: "Colin From Accounts, I love it cause it's a good misdirect." Harriet: "People think it's about Patty." [caption id="attachment_964082" align="alignnone" width="1917"] Joel Pratley[/caption] Patrick: "Yeah, and that my name's Colin. But it comes from real life because we, a few years ago, fostered a dog for a short time, and he had a name we didn't like. It was Minshu. Like, well done, but we just didn't he looked like a Minshu. And so we literally that conversation we have in episode one season one, pretty much verbatim ..." Harriet: "Airlifted, yeah." Patrick: "... a conversation that we had in life. 'What does he look like? He looks like a Colin. He looks like Colin from accounts'. And we did that, and it amused us to call a dog Colin From Accounts. And so because these two characters, they meet on the same frequency. That's what turns each other on about the other. So that made sense to make that the name of the show, because that's a weird thing when they meet." [caption id="attachment_952629" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Lisa Tomasetti[/caption] On the Starting Point for Season Two as Writers, and Diving Further Into Ashley and Gordon's Lives and Relationship Harriet: "We knew that we had to get the dog back, otherwise no one would forgive us. But we knew that it couldn't be that simple —we had to give them obstacles. They couldn't just be like 'oh, here you go'. And so it did feel a little hijinks-y trying to give them — they try, it's blocked, they try, it's blocked, but ultimately, they got him. We just had to get him back. And then once we solved that — we wanted to solve that nicely by the end of the first episode, because we didn't want to spend a lot of time on what felt pretty obvious — but then it was like 'okay, so we got him'. We also talked about do we work without him? We opened the curtain of that, and then we got him back. So that kind of curtain is still a little open, because well, now we've got him, but should we still stay together?" [caption id="attachment_964083" align="alignnone" width="1917"] Joel Pratley[/caption] Patrick: "That's right, because just before that moment happens in episode one, Gordon's like 'you know, let's just see what we're like without him, just us'." Harriet: "And then: knock, knock, knock." Patrick: "And then: knock, knock, knock — and things take over. But really, what we knew we wanted to explore in this season was the baggage that people bring to a relationship. And it's a little bit more Gordon's baggage because he's been a single pants man for so many years. He's in his 40s, and he's just never had a long, meaningful relationship." Harriet: "And he's less front-footed about his stuff. I think Ashley wears her heart and all her BS on her sleeve, whereas he's kind of tucking it away into weird corners. And trying to present this clean guy. And then she finds that box of beers and is like 'what? Just be open about whatever you are'." [caption id="attachment_952630" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Lisa Tomasetti[/caption] Patrick: "That's right. So we knew we wanted to open doors in each of them. Now that they're together, what does that mean? So that's what we did. And then we just thought about what do we want the other characters to do?. And we thought of some setpieces in episode four — at the start of episode four, there's a funny kind of moment in our new relationship, which we thought was funny, a bit sexy, and also a bit cringy and real. And we thought that's not only funny, it could be a great conversation-starter for people in relationships to talk about their sexuality." Harriet: "And what their sexuality means to them, and what does it look like when they're by themselves, and habits and all that kind of stuff." [caption id="attachment_964084" align="alignnone" width="1917"] Joel Pratley[/caption] Patrick: "And in episode five, we changed the format of the show a little bit, just to play with something, a particular idea. And the idea we had for that is something that happens to Ashley, and that dictated the form of that show. It's quite different to the other episodes." Harriet: "Yeah, five is a bit different." Patrick: "And then we wanted to meet Gordon's family. And so these things kind of presented themselves, and we placed them around the season where we felt it was appropriate for them to come up." Harriet: "Yep." Patrick: "And then before you know it, you've got a season, you've got eight shows." On Ensuring That the Show's Dialogue Sounds Authentic — Both as Writers and as Actors Harriet: "Because we wrote it, we have a healthy disrespect for it. Learning lines is very easy when you or he wrote it. And also, it's funny, our script supervisor, they're the ones that come over and go 'it's actually and not but' — and we had to pretty quickly go 'we're probably not going to say what we wrote'. But sometimes we have to because we're hitting points. And also sometimes the joke is written so well that you do have to learn exactly the rhythm of it." Patrick: "Yeah." Harriet: "But there's definitely moments that ad-lib happened, and we just always left space for that. And our director Trent O'Donnell [who also directed No Activity] was so good at that. He'd give you a bit to riff on — like that whole bit with the unicycle that was so kind of iconic in season one, 'was this yours? How long have you been single?', that was a bit that he just called out from behind the camera because the props and art department put a unicycle there. That wasn't in the script, but then it ended up in the trailer. So the show is just the sum of its parts like that. Because Patty said ' hey, I want Gordy's house to be filled with half-completed hobbies'. So they had there like herbs, a punching bag ..." Patrick: "A drum kit." Harriet: "Drums, the unicycle. And it was just like this man has so many hobbies and he's not seeing any of them through." Patrick: "That's right, because it speaks to character." [caption id="attachment_964086" align="alignnone" width="1917"] Lisa Tomesetti[/caption] Harriet: "And so that realism that you're talking about, every department delivers on that, and then we just play with all the world." Patrick: "And we always, we're never too strict about the script. As Harry just said, we leave about ten percent for play, because you might find some magic there." Harriet: "And if you've got time, we go 'let's do a fun run', and that's all the characters. Just say your favourite bits of the script, but if there's something else that's popping into your head, say that." Patrick: "Or if the line isn't working for an actor, we'll just go 'don't worry about that. What do you want to say instead?'." Harriet: "But sometimes if the pitch doesn't feel right — especially some day players, they'll have an idea of what Colin From Account is, and so they'll pitch a joke that's just not it. And we'll be like 'oh my god, it's so good, but not that'. But also 'have a go, let's do that, and then we'll just do one as a script because we need it for the big guys upstairs, they're asking for it'." Patrick: "But equally, some people are great at improvising in that way. But the thing to make it feel like 'oh, this does not feel like this is the scripted bit and this is the improvised bit'. It's all got to feel real." Harriet: "Yes, yes." Patrick: "And when we're writing, that's very much one of our primary things is to make it feel like something that humans would actually say, rather than a bit of exposition." Harriet: "That's right. So some of the stuff that is definitely scripted feels improv because it's just a bit throwaway — it's not overly worked." Colin From Accounts streams via Binge, with both season one and season two available now. Read our reviews of season one and season two. Top image: Joel Pratley.
It was true when Seinfeld made a series about a real-life standup comedian playing a fictionalised version of himself one of the world's biggest sitcoms in the 90s. It remained accurate when Larry David started riffing on his own existence in Curb Your Enthusiasm, which will end in 2024 after 12 seasons over a quarter-century — and also when Pete Davidson leapt from making his life movie fodder in The King of Staten Island to turning it into TV in Bupkis. Donald Glover wasn't directly referencing his own career in Atlanta, and neither The Other Two nor Girls5eva bring exact replicas of real-life figures to the screen, but the same idea pumps through them as well: fame or proximity to it doesn't stop anyone from grappling with life's frustrating minutiae. Add The Vince Staples Show to the list, too, with the five-part Netflix limited series arriving on Thursday, February 15 and featuring its namesake as a take on himself. Whether or not you know who he is is part of the show's joke. On- and off- screen, he's a rapper and actor. Staples' very real single 'Norf Norf' gets quoted to him in the TV comedy. The fact that he's been in Abbott Elementary is referenced in the debut episode. But just attempting to have an ordinary day doing everyday things in an average way — driving home, heading to the bank, attending a family reunion, visiting an amusement park and returning to his old school — is as impossible for him as it is for us all. Sometimes, Staples' celebrity complicates matters in The Vince Staples Show. It also never helps. Usually, he's stuck navigating Murphy's law, so asking for a loan ends up with him caught up in a robbery, while endeavouring to source something decent to eat at a theme park takes him on an absurdist odyssey that winks at David Lynch and the Coen brothers. Having an entertainment career doesn't stop him from being confused for someone else by the police (Killing It's Scott MacArthur, You People's Bryan Greenberg and The Menu's Arturo Castro) — the same cops who ask for free tickets to his shows while they're locking him up — or ensure that cashiers treat him politely. If it assists with anything, it's with giving Staples a deadpan acceptance that anything and everything might come his way. Twice asked if something interesting happened during his day by his girlfriend Deja (Andrea Ellsworth, Truth Be Told), his reply is "not really", even though viewers have just witnessed the exact opposite in both instances. Detailing his real resume isn't the series' style, but the IRL Staples has one. Hailing from Long Beach, California, where The Vince Staples Show is also set — well, in a dreamlike version of it — his association with hip hop collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All helped bring him to attention. (Frank Ocean, Tyler, the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt have also been members.) 'Big Fish' and 'Magic' are among his singles. He's enjoyed support slots on Childish Gambino's This Is America tour, several times for Tyler, the Creator and even for Flume in Australia in 2016. Dope and the 2023 White Men Can't Jump remake are on Staples' filmography, plus Insecure and voicing Lazor Wulf's eponymous animated wolf on the small screen. Knowing this isn't crucial to watching The Vince Staples Show, however. That said, it does demonstrate how keenly he's tearing down the idea that pop-culture success means a life of ease in this sharp satire. Each of the series' quintet of instalments largely takes place in one setting. Each shares a naming convention: 'Pink House', 'Black Business', 'Brown Family', 'Red Door' and 'White Boy'. And, each charts events that both are and aren't the norm, all while questioning what's really ordinary anyway. As every episode gets pondering, it does so in layers, skewing surreal but also dissecting race and class in the process (Atlanta comes to mind frequently). In the opening chapter, where Staples spends a night in jail after being arrested on an outstanding warrant, the rapper-with-a-criminal-record stereotype is unpacked and mass incarceration becoming its own industry is called out, for instance. Also, a cellmate keeps singing, hoping to score a collaboration. Someone in a neighbouring cell threatens violence against Staples on sight. Then, when he's given something to eat, his sandwich comes with a draw-two Uno card inside. There's no weak episodes in The Vince Staples Show's five-part run (and no weak performances, either). In the second chapter, which nods to 1995 film Dead Presidents, holding up a bank has rarely been this bizarre. Staples is only onsite to get funding for his dream of starting a healthy cereal brand, which the manager scoffs at. Then, it turns out that one of the robbers (Myles Bullock, Black Mafia Family) is a childhood pal. When the series sends Vince, Deja and his mother Anita (Vanessa Bell Calloway, This Is Us) to a family barbecue next, mac 'n' cheese proves a source of pride and the reason to hold a grudge. Hell hath no fury like someone instructed to bring a prize dish, only to discover that a cousin (Staci Lynn Fletcher, The Neighbourhood) got there first. Staples also navigates his relatives' reactions to his success — wanting to be involved, but thinking that his celebrity represents more than it does. As Staples and Deja take her younger brother and his friends to a beach-themed attraction, the artificiality of all amusement parks and the concept of packaged happiness is thrust into view. Announcements over the loudspeaker are particularly biting, and falling afoul of the costumed mascots sparks repercussions. In the final episode, the show's protagonist is asked back to his childhood school to chat to the students. The kids don't care but a classmate (Patrick Walker, Lessons in Chemistry) he knew back in the day does. Cue a showdown with nods to Quentin Tarantino — both Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction — alongside Barry, another Californian-set comedy that's as perceptive as it is hilarious, as well as exceptionally well-shot. Staples writes, stars and executive produces The Vince Staples Show, with help: Ian Edelman (How to Make It in America) and Maurice Williams (Entergalactic) co-created it with him, while Kenya Barris (Black-ish) also executive produces. As the series gets gleefully but pointedly offbeat — proving uncanny while making more than a few statements — he also leaves viewers wanting more. Its five episodes are so easy to binge in one sitting (and timed accordingly, with each chapter between 19–26 minutes in length) that initially pressing play means settling in for the full experience. Anything interesting happen? Yes, immensely, unpredictably, hilariously and brilliantly. Check out the trailer for The Vince Staples Show below: The Vince Staples Show streams via Netflix from Thursday, February 15, 2024.
If you're the type of spirits aficionado who likes their tipples to taste exactly how they always have, then you probably aren't all that fond of creative booze flavours. You mightn't be a fan of bloody shiraz gin, for instance. You likely didn't even give lamington vodka a try. And, well, peanut butter whiskey isn't going to be your thing either. For anyone that's now wondering how to make a peanut butter and jelly cocktail, this latest flavour from Sheep Dog Whiskey is probably already having the exact opposite effect. Yes, peanut butter whiskey is now a real thing that exists, and can be sipped by fans of both peanut butter and caramel-hued spirits. And, after launching in the US, where it's made, it is now available in Australian bottle shops. Taste-wise, you can expect the obvious — so, peanut butter and whiskey — however, this tipple also apparently comes with notes of vanilla and caramel popcorn as well. And if you're wondering how to drink it, the brand suggests going neat — or adding it to your next espresso martini. Other options include combining it with grape liqueur so that you really can have a PB&J-flavoured tipple, or whipping up a peanut butter old fashioned. Naturally, if you're not fond of peanuts, this definitely isn't for you. Sheep Dog Peanut Butter Whiskey is now available in Australia for $55 RRP a bottle — from BWS, Dan Murphy's and First Choice.
Among the many gifts that 80s cinema gave the world, Glenn Close's (Tehran) turn as a bunny-boiling jilted lover in Fatal Attraction is one of them. There's committed performances and then there's her Oscar-nominated effort as Alex Forrest, the book editor who embarks upon an affair with Michael Douglas' (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) married Manhattan lawyer Dan Gallagher, then doesn't appreciate being seen as a mere fling. How does another version of Fatal Attraction follow that up? Why would one bother? How can the film's erotic-thriller storyline leap to TV, find a way forward decades beyond the genre's heyday, and update its plot and long-outdated sexual politics to today? Streaming from Monday, May 1, Paramount+'s eight-part series endeavours to answer those questions — engagingly and intriguingly, and with an excellent cast. There's an air of inevitability to the new Fatal Attraction before its first episode even begins; in this peak time for turning movie classics into television shows, of course the rabbit-stewing hit is getting that treatment. From A League of Their Own and Interview with the Vampire to Dead Ringers and American Gigolo, streaming platforms can't stop remaking the past, a trend that also sees a Cruel Intentions show in the works, plus Harry Potter and Twilight series. Fatal Attraction circa 2023 doesn't just jump on that bandwagon. In finding a way to flesh out the OG film's 119-minute narrative to almost eight hours and give itself a point of difference, it's also a murder-mystery. That's a calculating but involving move, steeping the show in another current favourite approach — see: fellow recent whodunnits Poker Face, Bad Sisters, The Afterparty, The Undoing and The Flight Attendant — and putting far more than a scorned woman in focus. Brought to the small screen by Alexandra Cunningham (Physical) and Kevin J Hynes (The Offer), with the feature's screenwriter James Dearden (Christmas Survival) co-penning several episodes — the 1987 script adapted his own 1979 short Diversion, too — the latest Fatal Attraction starts with its adulterous lawyer in prison. Formerly an assistant Los Angeles district attorney and head of major crimes on the way to a judgeship, this Dan (Joshua Jackson, Dr Death) has spent 15 years in incarceration. Petitioning for his freedom, he tells the parole board that he's thought about Alex Forrest's (Lizzy Caplan, Fleishman Is in Trouble) death every day across that decade and a half. But there's another side to his words — because, once out, he's back to protesting his innocence. More than that, he's determined to track down the killer, with help from his ex-colleague and ex-detective Mike Gerard (Toby Huss, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story). Listening in on that hearing is college student Ellen (Alyssa Jirrels, Saved by the Bell), Dan's now-grown daughter, who hasn't had any contact with her father at his request during his time inside. In Fatal Attraction's present-day thread, she's handily a psychology student specialising in Carl Jung and his collaborator Toni Wolff, and calls her mother Beth's (Amanda Peet, Brockmire) second husband Arthur (Brian Goodman, I Know This Much Is True) dad. Dan wants to reconnect, a quest that unfurls in parallel to his search for the truth, as well as the show's flashbacks to the late 00s. In the latter, he's reaching 40 and flying high until his move behind the bench doesn't pan out, which coincides with new LA arrival Alex crossing his professional path as a victim's advocate. It's telling that Cunningham also has Dirty John on her resume, while Hynes has the new TV version of Perry Mason; combine the first's romance-gone-murderous stories with the second's legal dramas and that's where their spin on Fatal Attraction largely lands. In the process, there's noticeably little eroticism beyond a tumble or two in Alex's window-filled loft, but there is a vital look at the narrative from more than just Dan's viewpoint. His privilege is called out — he's the son of a judge, even making him a nepo baby — as the show also steps through his liaison with Alex from her perspective, and then from Beth's. There's no doubting that revisiting the same events through multiple characters' eyes helps fill the series' running time; however, it also helps reinforce that all tales are shaped by whoever is telling them. Indeed, when Fatal Attraction dives into Alex's history, including the lifetime of terrible treatment from her always-philandering dad and lack of affection from her mum, it puts her mental health in the spotlight, plus her thoughts, feelings and motivations. This iteration is never just about a man who strays from his nuptials and ends up with unwanted attention, prison time and his life upended, but equally about how Alex's time with Dan appears to her, and why. Playing out across both of the series' periods, Fatal Attraction is similarly concerned with how the past forever shapes our futures, a notion it unpacks in layers. That said, it also throws in a ridiculous and questionable late development to underscore that line of thinking, which blatantly and needlessly tries to set up a second season. When the show isn't making wild swerves and delivering cliffhanger twists, it benefits from having Caplan and Jackson at its centre. Sliding into Close and Douglas' shoes is no simple task, so neither attempts to imitate their predecessors, instead capitalising upon their own patent chemistry and respective strengths as performers. Caplan has always excelled at exuding intelligence and vulnerability in tandem — amid acerbic quips, it's what helped make her part in Party Down such a gem — and Jackson has been making charming but flawed his niche since Dawson's Creek, then Fringe, then The Affair. He can't sell being 55 in Fatal Attraction's later timeline, though, and visibly isn't treated well in the hair department. The series' smart casting extends to perennial scene-stealer Huss, who could turn Mike into another show's slippery lead; the ever-reliable Peet, who is never asked to play Beth as just the betrayed spouse; and Jirrels, including while saddled with talking through much of Fatal Attraction's psychological musings. With perspective such a key part of this retelling, strong supporting performances couldn't be more essential. In fact, that too is a crucial reason that returning to this tale proves impossible to ignore, like Alex: it's still a portrait of obsession, but it spies more than just one type of fixation and one basis for it. Check out the trailer for Fatal Attraction below: Fatal Attraction streams via Paramount+ from Monday, May 1. Images: Monty Brinton / Michael Moriati, Paramount+.
Something delightful is 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 starting to reopen — spanning both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney and Brisbane (and, until the newly reinstated stay-at-home orders, Melbourne as well). 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 over the past three months, 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=MlBWyDf0r2M THE BROKEN HEARTS GALLERY Romantic comedies routinely trade in cliches, and The Broken Hearts Gallery is no different. Here, aspiring gallery curator Lucy (Geraldine Viswanathan, Miracle Workers) endures a traumatic breakup, indulges in a niche hobby that might just change her life, and oozes chemistry with the handsome and brooding Nick (Dacre Montgomery, Stranger Things) after the obligatory meet-cute. Her obsession: turning her hoarded mementos from past relationships, and similar junk collected by other lovelorn New Yorkers, into a cathartic, heartwarming exhibition. Long taunted by her best pals and roommates (Hamilton's Phillipa Soo and Good Boys' Molly Gordon) about her need to hold onto trinkets for sentimental purposes, she's actually motivated to make something of her bric-a-brac after drunkenly mistaking Nick's car for an Uber, unburdening her woes to him as he kindly drives her home, and later visiting the rundown old hotel that he's pouring his heart, soul and cash into as a passion project. From the above description, it should be apparent exactly where this film goes — but, in another rom-com trope, The Broken Hearts Gallery's likeable leads make a big imprint. Seen at home in Emo the Musical and Janet King, as well as Better Watch Out and A Few Less Men, Australian duo Viswanathan and Montgomery have already made a splash via high-profile US-made TV shows in the past few years — and, in Viswanathan's case, in the film Blockers as well. They're both destined for bigger things, especially the grounded, relatable and very funny Viswanathan, but they make the most of their roles here. Well, they do as much as they can given they're in an immensely standard movie otherwise. Indeed, while there are few weak links among The Broken Hearts Gallery's cast (which also includes Brittany Runs a Marathon's Utkarsh Ambudkar and Mozart in the Jungle's Bernadette Peters), the film's central duo easily make viewers wish that everything around them had more spark, served up more surprises and took more chances. Even when it's upbeat, spirited and delivered with charming talent, a happily by-the-numbers affair is still going to feel formulaic, after all, a sensation that this feature debut from writer/director (and ex-Gossip Girl scribe and story editor) Natalie Krinsky never quite shakes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC2dsAGvGy0 AN AMERICAN PICKLE If an early 20th-century Jewish immigrant found himself walking around in 2019, what would he think of the world? That question comes with a flipside, of course, because it's equally valid to wonder how today's folks would react in response. With Seth Rogen starring as a ditch-digging, rat-catching new arrival from Eastern Europe to Brooklyn, these are a couple of the queries pondered by An American Pickle. It's the latest in a long line of comedies that trifle with time while doubling as time capsules, and it falls firmly from a familiar mould. Indeed, seeing, examining and giggling at the contrast between century-old ways and contemporary ideas is a considerable part of the film. Not only that, but this Simon Rich-penned adaptation of his own short story Sell Out does all of the above broadly and blatantly — pointing out that big, bushy beards have become hipster beacons, for example, and that much has progressed since the 1900s. Consequently, there's no avoiding just how slight An American Pickle is. Its protagonist might fall into a vat of brine, get sealed in, then emerge in a new millennium, but this movie isn't diving deep. Thankfully, mixed up with all the obvious jokes are two thoughtful performances, both by Rogen, that help the film interrogate the push and pull between the past and the present in a moving fashion. He plays Herschel Greenbaum, a new arrival to US with his wife Sarah (Succession's Sarah Snook), after the pair leave their home of Schlupsk to escape Russian Cossacks and chase a better life — and he also steps into the shoes of app developer Ben Greenbaum, Herschel's great-grandson and only living descendant when he awakens in his preserved (and presumably extra salty) state. The two men are the same age, and look alike, but they sport differences beyond Herschel's facial hair and Ben's technological know-how. It's the usual generational divide, as instantly recognisable to everyone watching. But when An American Pickle lets its star shine, rather than gets weighed down with over-the-top clashes in the service of clearcut gags and satirical observations, this affable but also mostly forgettable film boasts heart and sweetness. It's oh-so predictable, but it also shows an understanding of how the past always leaves an imprint, the future needn't fastidiously be chained to tradition, and that everything old and all things new have a symbiotic relationship. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THXebxAFCzY THE TRANSLATORS Like Agatha Christie and Knives Out before them, the makers of The Translators know that a good whodunnit serves up two major joys. That'd be the puzzle and the journey — because whichever intriguing narrative is being thrust their way, audiences want to sleuth along with the characters, piecing clues together in their heads; and, they want to enjoy each and every one of the story's many ins, outs, twists and turns as all the details unravel, too. In fact, this French film embraces those truths heartily. Writer/director Régis Roinsard (Populaire) and his co-scribes Romain Compingt and Daniel Presley even go a little heavy on convoluted minutiae and attempts to keep everyone guessing. Still, they mostly deliver an entertaining thriller — and, as always proves the case in this genre, if you enjoy the game and the ride enough once, it doesn't really matter if you won't be clamouring for a second helping The Translators' premise is killer — in a film that doesn't shy away from a body count, but is actually more concerned with stolen pages from the yet-to-be-released last book in the bestselling The Man Who Did Not Want to Die series. The latest novel has only been seen by its secretive author, arrogant French publisher Eric Angstrom (Lambert Wilson, The Odyssey) and the nine translators the latter has assembled to prepare the text in multiple languages for a simultaneous worldwide debut. The enlisted team of experts are working in a bunker under stringent conditions, however, so when Angstrom receives an email threatening to leak the new book unless a huge ransom is paid, he's both perplexed and angry. Also starring Olga Kurylenko (The Man Who Killed Don Quixote) as a Russian translator who purposely dresses to resemble the fated heroine in the novel the group is working on, as well as Alex Lawther (The End of the F***ing World) as a noticeably young Brit, The Translators isn't big on depth but still keeps viewers engaged. Hurtling forward like someone furiously thumbing through an airport novel, and offering a slick, swift-moving affair that ticks all the whodunnit basics (even as it gets a little too carried away with the exaggerated drip-fed clues, surprise reveals and reversals) will do that. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jv6f59Z4Y8 THE SECRETS WE KEEP First bursting onto cinema screens as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's Lisbeth Salander — before Rooney Mara and Claire Foy both played the role in US versions — Noomi Rapace instantly became a star. Since her great performance in that thriller series and the underrated Prometheus, however, she's struggled to secure meaty roles that do her talents justice. And, unfortunately, The Secrets We Keep doesn't redress that situation. In a film that takes a premise already explored in 1990 play and 1994 film Death and the Maiden, but shifts the details to post-Second World War America, she's saddled with a stock-standard revenge narrative that couldn't feel more routine. In fact, Rapace's casting is actually one of the movie's overtly obvious elements. She's famed for her work a woman determined to right past wrongs and unafraid to take drastic actions to do so, and that's what she's asked to do here. Her last big part, as a mother who might be getting gaslit in Angel of Mine, also proves relevant as well. Rapace plays Romani immigrant Maja, who has set up a life with her physician husband Lewis (Chris Messina, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)) and their young son (Jackson Dean Vincent) in a small American town. Then, in passing, she spies newcomer Thomas (Joel Kinnaman, Suicide Squad). Still haunted by horrors from the war 15 years prior, she's certain that he once brutally attacked her — then changed his identity and moved to her neighbourhood. So, Maja takes matters into her own hands. Quickly, even though he has plenty of doubts, Lewis is enlisted to help. Writer/director Yuval Adler's last film, The Operative, also attempted to wade through a murky plot and similarly had little success. Rapace hits the familiar notes she's asked to with visible gusto, Kinnaman endeavours to play more than just a cookie-cutter possible Nazi, and She Dies Tomorrow filmmaker Amy Seimetz turns in a nuanced supporting performance, but The Secrets We Keep constantly mistakes its solemn tone for substance. A thoughtful, captivating or even just intriguing reckoning with vengeance, trauma and trying to reconcile past struggles, this sadly isn't. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy32-KCnexo THE SECRET GARDEN When The Secret Garden first reached the page as a serialised story in 1910, author Frances Hodgson Burnett couldn't have known how relevant her tale would feel 110 years later. Obviously she'll never know, as she passed away in 1924 — but if there was ever a time for a new big-screen version of this beloved children's favourite about escaping life's woes by banding together, making the most of things and enjoying the pockets of nature at hand, it's 2020. Indeed, while this new cinematic iteration was actually due to hit screens earlier this year, which means that it was made pre-pandemic, it firmly strikes a chord in these strange times. Whether you loved the book when you were much smaller, you can barely remember it, or you're more familiar with the narrative from the 1993 movie, a lavishly shot fantasy about a unhappy girl plagued by tragedy yet finding solace in the titular space couldn't be more fitting right now. The narrative, for those who need a refresher, focuses on the pre-teen Mary (Dixie Egerickx, The Little Stranger) — who swiftly segues from from living in India under British rule to being sent to the Yorkshire moors to stay with her reclusive uncle (Colin Firth) when her parents are killed. She's bratty, spoiled and far from content about the new arrangement, but wandering the estate's sizeable grounds soon brings her to a hidden patch of greenery. Under the direction of TV veteran Marc Munden (Black Sails, National Treasure), this version of the tale takes place after the Second World War, but that's not the only change. It relays the same overall details, but it also leans into the darkness and gothic drama of the material in a firm and noticeable way. Perhaps that's another reason why it also feels apt for viewers young and young-at-heart — because overcoming loss, misery and struggle always comes with a sense of weight and, amidst its expected leafy sights and general childhood wonder, this take on The Secret Garden never forgets that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvXgXQ6iro4 TROLLS WORLD TOUR Fuzzy-haired playthings turned into animated heroes, glitter fart clouds and cupcakes poop, and a lengthy list of earworm-style songs: that's what 2016's Trolls served up. It was loud, shiny and sickly sweet, but it also featured lively voicework from Anna Kendrick and standout handmade-looking visuals, which made the film's CGI look as if it had been made from felt and other crafting products. Naturally, the all-ages movie was a hit, like most flicks based on toys and simultaneously designed to sell more toys. So, it's to the surprise of absolutely no one that sequel Trolls World Tour now exists, and that it's once again using bright and bouncy visuals and a jukebox-musical style format to appeal to viewers young and old, and to spread a positive message — again, as efforts like this are known to. With Kendrick back as the perky Queen Poppy and Justin Timberlake once again voicing her best friend Branch, this follow-up returns to the first film's trolls as they learn that other creatures like them exist. They're not exactly the same, though, with different troll groups favouring varying styles of music — making Poppy's community the 'pop trolls'. Clearly, as the villainous Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) of the hard rock trolls tries to make the separate tribes assimilate under her preferred style of music, there's an overt message about acceptance on offer. It isn't subtle, and it's actually undercut by the fact that the different troll crews (including techno trolls, funk trolls, classical trolls and country trolls) are all given such blatantly stereotypical traits. But, once more, the film is lifted by its cast (complete with Sam Rockwell and Ozzy Osbourne), it's textile appearance and the fact that it actually works its ongoing medley of well-known songs into the story, rather than merely uses them as an easy distraction technique as many fellow Hollywood-made animated movies do. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in cinemas, check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on July 2, July 9, July 16, July 23, July 30, August 6, August 13, August 20, August 27, September 3 and September 10 — and our full reviews of The Personal History of David Copperfield, Waves, The King of Staten Island, Babyteeth, Deerskin, Peninsula, Tenet, Les Misérables and The New Mutants.
On the corner of Oxford and Crown Street sits an unassuming cafe. At first glance, it looks like the kind of place serving up second-rate coffees to undiscerning commuters. But, look closer and you'll find not all is what it seems. Single O batch filter. Katsu sandos on fluffy white bread. Scrambled eggs topped with edamame and yuzu mayo. Sydney, meet Sandoitchi. Located in a section of Darlinghurst noticeably lacking good coffee, especially since the closure of Edition, Sandoitchi is pairing quality cups of joe with Japanese-inflected fare worth trekking up Oxford Street on your lunch break for. If you do make said trek, let us make a suggestion: order one of the many katsu sandos on offer. Sydney isn't short on good versions of this humble Japanese sandwich, but this one's a particularly good, and slightly untraditional, take. Served with all the standards — crustless white bread, a hunk of panko-crusted patty of your choice — spanning from classic chicken to premium wagyu and bone marrow with cabbage and sweet and sour miso mayo — the classic pork katsu sando also arrives piled high with pickled carrot, American cheese and nori. Those looking to bypass the bread can order their katsu as a poké bowl, with brown rice, miso corn and shiitake topped with either pork or chicken katsu. Or, if you're searching for something meat-free, order the eggplant katsu salad bowl. For dessert options — or if you're feeling fruity — the strawberry sando is an absolute classic. Chefs Sam Lawrie and Pureephat "Bhass" Kraikangwan, and Saowanit "Ying" Boonrod originally opened the cafe while spreading their time out between the Oxford Stree favourite and CBD Thai restaurant Long Chim, keeping themselves awake during their double shifts with a steady supply of Single O Paradox (Sandoitchi's house-blend for milk coffee) and cold brews spaced out between shots of fresh ginger, carrot and orange juice. Or, possibly fuelled by Sandoitchi's hot chocolates made with 70-percent dark chocolate from Melbourne's Mörk. Either way, the trio has drummed up enough energy, skill and charm to create a cafe that's a far cry from the humdrum corner store it first appears. Images: Trent van der Jagt. Appears in: The Best Cafes in Sydney The Best Japanese Restaurants in Sydney
Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio has won three Grammys and 11 Latin Grammys, starred in Bullet Train and hosted Saturday Night Live, among plenty of other achievements, but he hasn't hit the stage in Australia — yet. By the time that summer 2025–26 is out, Bad Bunny will tick a trip Down Under off of his list, after announcing that his new DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS world tour includes a visit to Sydney. Locking in dates in the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Poland, Italy and Belgium, too, Bad Bunny has confirmed 23 shows between November 2025–July 2026 so far. Named for his latest album, which released in January this year and spent three weeks in a row atop the Billboard 200 chart, the tour will see him become the first Latin act to headline stadiums globally. Only one stop on Bad Bunny's jaunt around the planet is Australia, however: at ENGIE Stadium in the Harbour City on Saturday, February 28. He's playing the New South Wales capital in-between dates in Brazil and Japan, two other countries where the 'Mia', 'Callaíta', 'Qué Pretendes' and 'Vete' singer will perform live for the first time ever. The Puerto Rican superstar's global jaunt will follow his upcoming No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí gigs, a 30-date residency at José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in his homeland. Before that, he toured North America in 2024, and both North and Latin America in 2022. His DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS shows will take him to Europe for the first time since his 2019 X 100pre tour. On the charts, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, his sixth album, has kept garnering love — also sitting in the Billboard 200 top ten for 13 weeks, taking the number-one slot on Billboard's Latin Albums chart for 16 consecutive weeks and helping him become the first-ever Latin artist with 100 Billboard Hot 100 entries. Before both his No Me Quiero Ir de Aquí residency and DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS world tour, Bad Bunny also has another date with SNL, this time as the musical guest on the season 50 finale that's being hosted by Scarlett Johansson (Fly Me to the Moon). Bad Bunny DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS World Tour 2026 Australian Date Saturday, February 28 — ENGIE Stadium, Sydney Bad Bunny is playing ENGIE Stadium in Sydney on Saturday, February 28, 2026, with presales from 10am on Thursday, May 8, 2025 and general sales from 11am on Friday, May 9. Head to the tour website for more details.
Not all that long ago, the idea of getting cosy on your couch, clicking a few buttons, and having thousands of films and television shows at your fingertips seemed like something out of science fiction. Now, it's just an ordinary night — whether you're virtually gathering the gang to text along, cuddling up to your significant other or shutting the world out for some much needed me-time. Of course, given the wealth of options to choose from, there's nothing ordinary about making a date with your chosen streaming platform. The question isn't "should I watch something?" — it's "what on earth should I choose?". Hundreds of titles are added to Australia's online viewing services each and every month, all vying for a spot on your must-see list. And, so you don't spend 45 minutes scrolling and then being too tired to actually commit to watching anything, we're here to help. We've spent plenty of couch time watching our way through this month's latest batch — and, from the latest and greatest to old favourites, here are our picks for your streaming queue from February's haul of newbies. BRAND NEW STUFF YOU CAN WATCH IN FULL RIGHT NOW KIMI For the second year in a row, Steven Soderbergh has made one of the year's standout movies — even if 2022 is still a mere two months in — and it has completely bypassed Australian cinemas. Unlike last year's No Sudden Move, however, Kimi was always destined for streaming. The latest in his series of paranoid thrillers that also includes Contagion, and once again female-fronted as Haywire, Side Effects and Unsane were too, this Zoë Kravitz-starring standout takes its cues from smart devices, humanity's increasing dependence upon technology, and the kinds of events that a virtual assistant like Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant might eavesdrop on. As a result, Soderbergh has crafted another movie that riffs on a growing area of real-life interest, then turns it into a tense, potent and devilishly smart feature. A bonus: focusing on a protagonist who doesn't feel safe leaving her house, Kimi couldn't better capture how the pandemic has felt without overtly needing to be a COVID-19 film. Kravitz (Big Little Lies) plays Angela Childs, who works for Seattle-based tech corporation Amygdala from the comfort of her own sprawling loft — and from her own audiophile's dream of a computer setup — listening to snippets of conversation captured by smart speaker Kimi for quality assurance. In one clip, she hears what she believes to be a horrible crime and is compelled to follow up; however, her bosses aren't thrilled about her probing. Complicating matters: after being the victim of an assault a couple of years earlier, Angela suffers from anxiety and agoraphobia, making leaving the house to investigate a fraught task. As he did to particularly stellar effect in Unsane as well, Soderbergh styles his latest psychological thriller after its protagonist's mindset, making unease and suspense drop from every aesthetic choice — camera angles and placement, jittery frames and a voyeuristic perspective all included. Kimi is available to stream via Binge. STARSTRUCK It's official: after a dream of a first season, Rose Matafeo's rom-com sitcom Starstruck is back to make you fall head over heels for its 21st-century take on dating a famous actor all over again. It's also official for Matafeo's (Baby Done) Jessie, who is now dating Tom (Nikesh Patel, Four Weddings and a Funeral), the celebrity she had a one-night stand with on New Year's Eve, then navigated an awkward will-they-won't-they dance around every time they ran into each other in London. But this next batch of six episodes poses a key question: once you've enjoyed the wild meet-cute, ridden the courtship rollercoaster and been bowled over by a grand romantic gesture (see: Starstruck's The Graduate-style season-one finale), what comes next? It's the stuff that rom-com movie sequels might cover, except that for all of Hollywood's eagerness to rinse and repeat its most popular fare, this genre is sparse in the follow-up department. Season two picks up exactly where its predecessor left off, with Jessie and Tom's bus ride segueing into a WTF realisation — as in "WTF do we do now?". That's a query that Jessie isn't ready to answer, even though she's made the big leap and missed her flight home. So, she avoids even tackling the situation at first, and then eschews fully committing even when she's meant to be in the throes of romantic bliss. Basically, it's messy, and the kind of chaos that rom-coms don't show when they end with a happily-ever-after moment. Like everyone, Jessie and Tom endure plenty. In the process, this gem of a show's second season is light but also deep, a screwball delight while also sharp and relatable, and still filled with fellow romantic-comedy references. And, as well as continuing to showcase Matafeo at her best, it remains a rom-com that's as aware of what relationships in 2022 are really alike as it is about how romance is typically portrayed in its genre. Starstruck's second season is available to stream via ABC iView. Read our full review. HELLBENDER Meet the Adams family — no, not the creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky characters that've featured on pages and screens for decades (including in two terrible recent animated flicks), but the filmmaking collective comprised of couple Toby Poser and John Adams, plus their daughters Zelda and Lulu Adams. The quartet might be missing a letter from their well-known counterparts' names, but they're just as fond of all things horror. Case in point: their second feature Hellbender, a self-financed gem that's both a spellbinding tale of witchcraft and a clever coming-of-age story. It starts in a house in the woods, and also spends most of its time there. It includes the arrival of an unexpected stranger, shattering the status quo. But formulaic and by-the-numbers, this must-see isn't. In making exceptional use of its setting, and of a cast that's primarily comprised of Adams family members, it's also a masterclass in lockdown filmmaking. In the most expected aspect of Hellbender, the film's name does indeed refer to a punk-metal band, with 16-year-old Izzy (Zelda Adams, The Deeper You Dig) and her mother (Toby Poser) its sole members. No one else has ever heard them play, either, given that Izzy is both homeschooled and confined to the family's sprawling mountainside property, as she has been since she was five. Her mum tells her that she can't venture into town or around other people due to a contagious autoimmune disease; however, when a lost man (John Adams) wanders their way and mentions that his teenage niece Amber (Lulu Adams) lives nearby, Izzy gets the confidence to go exploring. As both written and directed by three out of four Adams family members — all except Lulu — Hellbender proves an impressive supernatural affair from its opening occult-heavy prologue through to its astute take on teen rebellion. Here's hoping this Adams family spirits up more DIY horror delights soon, too. Hellbender is available to stream via Shudder. EUPHORIA From the very first frames of its debut episode back in June 2019, when just-out-of-rehab 17-year-old Rue Bennett (Zendaya, Spider-Man: No Way Home) gave viewers the lowdown on her life, mindset, baggage, friends, family and everyday chaos, Euphoria has courted attention — or, mirroring the tumultuous teens at the centre of its dramas, the Emmy-winning HBO series just knew that eyeballs would come its way no matter what it did. The brainchild of filmmaker Sam Levinson (Malcolm & Marie), adapted from an Israeli series by the same name, and featuring phenomenal work by its entire cast, it's flashy, gritty, tense, raw, stark and wild, and manages to be both hyper-stylised to visually striking degree and deeply empathetic. In other words, if teen dramas reflect the times they're made — and from Degrassi, Press Gang and Beverly Hills 90210 through to The OC, Friday Night Lights and Skins, they repeatedly have — Euphoria has always been a glittery eyeshadow-strewn sign of today's times. That hasn't changed in the show's second season. Almost two and a half years might've elapsed between Euphoria's first and second batch of episodes — a pair of out-of-season instalments in late 2020 and early 2021 aside — but it's still as potent, intense and addictive as ever. And, as dark, as Rue's life and those of her pals (with the cast including Hunter Schafer, The King of Staten Island's Maude Apatow, The Kissing Booth franchise's Jacob Elordi, The White Lotus' Sydney Sweeney, The Afterparty's Barbie Ferreira, North Hollywood's Angus Cloud and Waves' Alexa Demie) bobs and weaves through everything from suicidal despair, Russian Roulette, bloody genitals, unforgettable school plays, raucous parties and just garden-variety 2022-era teen angst. The list always goes on; in fact, as once again relayed in Levinson's non-stop, hyper-pop style, the relentlessness that is being a teenager today, trying to work out who you are and navigating all that the world throws at you is Euphoria's point. Euphoria is available to stream via Binge. ALL OF US ARE DEAD The zombie apocalypse has arrived in South Korea — again. Fans of the Train to Busan, Seoul Station and Peninsula film franchise, and of 2020 movie #Alive, will be well-accustomed to seeing the ravenous undead wreak havoc on the Asian nation, of course, which puts Netflix series All of Us Are Dead in particularly great company. The premise here: after a school science experiment gone wrong, Hyosan High School swiftly becomes the site of a zombie outbreak, as students and staff alike start munching on flesh and tearing their classmates and colleagues to shreds. Pick whichever high school-set teen movie or TV show you like, add brain-chewing, face-gnawing fiends, and that's the basic idea. Naturally, all that adolescent angst, teen bullying and unrequited love — and all those class clashes and schoolmate secrets, too — take on extra urgency and intensity when the stakes are literally life and death. It might sound like The Walking Dead-meets-Squid Game but with teens, but All of Us Are Dead is never that formulaic — even though picking where the narrative is going, especially in its first few episodes, proves rather easy. Indeed, as the kids in Class 2-5 and their teachers deal with the zombie chaos, the 12-part series is as interested in what it means to fight and survive as it is in the blood-splattered action. That doesn't mean that it skimps on the latter, though. Hyperkinetic displays of thrashed limbs, gnashing teeth and strewn-about gore pop up often, and put plenty of the zombie genre's big-screen equivalents to shame. That said, exploring the complicated relationship between childhood pals Man On-jo and Lee Cheong-san (House of Hummingbird's Park Ji-hu and Nobody Knows' Yoon Chan-young), and also unpacking rich girl Lee Na-yeon's privilege (Squid Game's Lee Yoo-mi) — to pick just a few of the equally gruesome, entertaining and thoughtful show's lengthy list of characters — couldn't be more crucial. All of Us Are Dead is available to stream via Netflix. I WANT YOU BACK If a rom-com isn't well cast, it might as well not even exist. If viewers can't buy the chemistry between whichever couple has just stumbled into each other's orbit, developed feelings for one another and started wading through all the messy matters of the heart that always follow in the on-screen path to true love, then nothing in the movie will ever make sense. Thankfully, that isn't a problem that the supremely likeable I Want You Back has, all thanks to its ace central duo: the always-welcome Jenny Slate (Parks and Recreation) and Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). The pair play Emma and Peter, who work in the same building and first run into each other hiding out in the stairwell. They've both just been dumped, Emma by gym trainer Noah (Scott Eastwood, Wrath of Man) and Peter by school teacher Anne (Gina Rodriguez, Kajillionaire), and they're each distraught. As they become friends, stalk their exes via social media, and stumble further into sorrow when they see that Noah and Anne have moved on, they hatch a plan — and yes, getting their past loves back is the number-one aim, as the movie's moniker makes plain. A romantic comedy needn't be surprising to be enjoyable, and I Want You Back was always going to nudge Emma and Peter together. When a rom-com does indeed manage to have two great stars at its centre, that's simply what the genre does best (and should do often). Falling in love while trying to woo back your ex? That's screenwriters Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger's (also co-scribes on Love, Simon) setup, and one that's both goofily and sweetly handled by director Jason Orley — who also showed his skill at tinkering with a seemingly standard formula with 2019's Big Time Adolescence, too. Of course, even with The Good Place's Manny Jacinto also among the cast, I Want You Back wouldn't be a fraction of the warmly enjoyable film it is without Slate and Day anchoring its leisurely stroll through heartbreak and new beginnings. I Want You Back is available to stream via Prime Video. THE TINDER SWINDLER It must be scam month over at Netflix. Example one: The Tinder Swindler. The true-crime documentary tells the tale of Simon Leviev, an Israeli con man who posed as the jet-setting heir to a diamond fortune — among other gambits — on the titular dating app, romanced a series of women and fleeced them of sizeable sums of money. If that all sounds familiar, that's because his fraudulent scheme was exposed in a 2019 article by Norwegian publication Verdens Gang, but stepping through the details on-screen still makes for harrowing, yell-at-the-TV viewing. If your path to love has involved swiping right, the doco-thriller just might be nightmare fuel, too. It treats its interviews, all women who fell for Leviev's scam, with respect and without judgement, but the film also relays a compelling cautionary tale about our always-online lives and the internet as a tool for seduction. When Cecilie Fjellhøy first saw Leviev's Tinder profile, she happily moved her finger in the appropriate direction. That very same day, she was meeting him in a hotel bar, then accompanying him overseas on a private jet. Their whirlwind courtship continued, including talk about starting a family and moving in together — largely via WhatsApp as he was frequently overseas — and then, after his bodyguard was supposedly attacked by one of his enemies, the requests for cash started rolling in. Pernilla Sjöholm has a similar story, although she only ever kept things platonic with Simon. Her time in his inner circle overlaps with Cecille's, in fact. Simon's list of victims doesn't end there, but the trio of Scandinavian women who share the details with first-time director Felicity Morris are candid, earnest and understandably angry as they lay out the facts. A dramatised version of this tale will undoubtedly follow, because of course it will. The Tinder Swindler is available to stream via Netflix. INVENTING ANNA Inventing Anna, aka Netflix scam-month offering number two, doesn't just detail the kind of story that's so chaotic that it can only be true. And, as The Tinder Swindler also achieves (see above), it doesn't simply chronicle another wild case of scheming, conning, pretending, lying and gleefully splashing around fat stacks of cash, either. It's also home to an accent, courtesy of Ozark and The Assistant's Julia Garner as the eponymous Anna Delvey, that's a force of nature all by itself — one that speaks volumes, not just literally, about the woman at its centre as well. When fictionalised writer Vivian Kent (Anna Chlumsky, Veep) starts interviewing the imprisoned socialite's pals for a story, they all provide different descriptions. Little in their thoughts and observations about her gels from person to person, which Kent obviously notices. Evading being easily pinned down — whether in her personality traits, attitudes, clothes, friends, backstory and tastes, or in her voice — is a crucial part to her whole charade. Fiercely spitting out those distinctive tones, which sound more than a touch like The Room's Tommy Wiseau, Garner is nothing less than riveting as Delvey — who, when Inventing Anna begins, has just been arrested for deceiving financial institutions, banks, hotels and acquaintances, charges she vehemently denies. Instead, Delvey claims she's a rich heiress who wouldn't need to do the things she's accused of, but also sports a ferocious lust for fame or even infamy. Kent has to fight to even look into the story thanks to her own complicated history, and the more time that she spends both with Delvey herself and furiously interrogating every aspect of her life, the more fascinated that she becomes. Viewers are swept along the same path in this slick, savvy, super-polished miniseries, which hails from Grey's Anatomy and Scandal's Shonda Rhimes, shares those two shows' loves of glossily packaged twists, and is compulsively watchable. Inventing Anna is available to stream via Netflix. NEW SHOWS TO CHECK OUT WEEK BY WEEK SEVERANCE It's the ultimate in work-life balance, an antidote to non-stop after-hours emails and Slack messages, and a guaranteed way to ensure what happens at work stays at work. In mind-bending thriller series Severance — which plays like Black Mirror meets the Charlie Kaufman-penned Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, with Wes Anderson's aesthetic if he designed soulless office complexes, plus sprinklings of everything from George Orwell to also-excellent 2020 TV effort Devs — switching off when clocking off at Lumon Industries is easy. There's a brain implant for exactly that, and it's a condition of employment on "severed" floors. Accordingly, when quittin' time comes for Macrodata Refinement division employee Mark (Adam Scott, Big Little Lies), he physically steps into a tiny, shiny elevator to descend back into his after-hours life; however, the version of him that works for Lumon won't recall anything beyond the company's walls. The instant that the lift plummets, it goes back up for Mark's "innie", as his office-bound consciousness is dubbed. Voila, it's clocking-on time once more. Severance's attention-grabbing premise springs from creator Dan Erickson, a TV first-timer, and understands how most folks feel about office life. The show is knowing in its lead casting, too, given that Scott is best recognised for two workplace comedies: the joyous hug that is Parks and Recreation, as well as the acerbic, astute and soon-to-return Party Down. But as savvily and evocatively directed by Ben Stiller in its first three season-one episodes (and again in its last three, with Kissing Candice filmmaker Aoife McArdle helming three in the middle), Scott's new series dwells in 'be careful what you wish for' territory. For the part of Mark's brain that blanks out work, Severance initially seems like heaven. For the half that only knows the office, it's hell. For everyone watching, soaking in its twisty mysteries — and enjoying Patricia Arquette (The Act), Christopher Walken (Percy vs Goliath) and John Turturro (The Plot Against America) as fellow Lumon employees, it's a surreal and gripping must-see. The first three episodes of Severance's first season are available to stream via Apple TV+, with new episodes dropping weekly. Read our full review. PAM & TOMMY When the first images of Lily James playing Pamela Anderson in Pam & Tommy dropped, they captured an astonishing transformation. The Pursuit of Love star didn't just look like herself dressed up as the famed Baywatch actor; thanks to the miniseries' hair, makeup and costuming teams, she appeared as if she'd leapt into Anderson's body Being John Malkovich-style. That feeling only grew as several trailers arrived and, in the finished product, her performance borders on uncanny. It needs to, and not merely to ensure that James never just seems like she's simply slipping into a red swimsuit for an easy impersonation. To genuinely lay bare the fact that Anderson's well-known tale with her now ex-husband Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan, The 355) isn't quite the narrative it's been immortalised as for the past quarter-century, the series keeps returning to the fallout for Anderson — and, in the process, it peers well beyond the way she's historically been seen by the world. Focusing on Anderson's marriage to the Mötley Crüe drummer in the 90s, Pam & Tommy is all about the pair's sex tape, because that intimate recording was the pop-culture scandal of that decade. Also, it's impossible to step into Anderson and Lee's romance without it. Indeed, the show knows that it's spinning an out-there story, even by celebrity terms, and that everyone watching will has their own ideas already formed about the incident. Pam & Tommy leans into that exact certainty to begin with — talking penis and all — but, as James' performance demonstrates, it never sees the tale it's telling as a joke. Co-starring Seth Rogen (An American Pickle) as the carpenter who stole the footage after being treated unfairly by Lee, this rollicking ride of a show is also a thoughtful retelling and interrogation of a tabloid-fodder incident that changed multiple lives and wrongly cemented Anderson's reputation. The first six episodes of Pam & Tommy are available to stream via Star on Disney+, with new episodes dropping weekly. Read our full review. Need a few more streaming recommendations? Check out our picks from January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December 2021, and January 2022 — and our top new TV shows of 2021, best new television series from this year that you might've missed and top straight-to-streaming films and specials as well.
Now that Sydney has reopened and Christmas almost here, you're probably keen to make a splash. Yes, watching fish, turtles and plenty of other marine creatures literally splash about definitely counts. And that's exactly what's on offer at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium, all thanks to its luxe underwater festive dining experience. Available up until Wednesday, December 22, Sea Life's private dining packages will serve you up a three-course meal — and two hours of drinks — while you escape into an underwater world. You can choose from one of two locations, too, so prepare to pick between the Heart of the Reef, the venue's 360° glass tunnel that's filled with hundreds of fish, sharks and turtles; or Turtle Beach, which comes with a floor-to-ceiling viewing window into the Oceanarium. You'll tuck into grazing platters stacked with smoked salmon, marinated olives, bread and dips to start with, then move onto mains that include marmalade and nut-crusted glazed double-smoked ham, plus turkey breast with pancetta and sage stuffing — as served with steamed green beans, roast potatoes, and pumpkin. Desserts span steamed Christmas pudding with brandy custard and Christmas pavlova with mango, strawberries, passionfruit and shaved chocolate. And, beverage wise, there's sparkling, red and white wines, and beer. You'll also get after-hours access to the aquarium but, unsurprisingly, the whole experience doesn't come cheap. You'll be paying $225 per person, with a minimum of ten people required — so this is a treat yo'self kind of Christmas under the sea experience.
Hamilton may have wrapped up its debut Australian season after stints in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane — including a trip by Lin-Manuel Miranda himself to the latter — and its New Zealand run as well, but musical-theatre fans can stream the smash-hit show's Broadway production whenever they like. Even better: you can now croon the stage sensation's tunes with Miranda, Daveed Diggs (Snowpiercer) and the OG cast, in a way, thanks to Disney+'s just-arrived sing-along version. This is your chance to make your very own home the room where it happens, and to take a shot at the Miranda-penned lyrics that every Hamilton fan has stuck in their head on repeat. Whether you're keen to give 'The Room Where It Happens', 'My Shot', 'Burn', 'History Has Its Eyes on You' or 'Helpless' a spin, you can, all while watching the acclaimed performance. In the words of another of the show's big tunes, we expect that you'll be back, too, singing along to Hamilton more than once. Since premiering on Broadway in 2015, winning 11 Tony Awards and nabbing the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Miranda's musical has become a pop culture phenomenon. As a result, it was always going to make the leap to the screen in some shape or form, which it did in 2020 — albeit via a filmed version of the stage production rather than a traditional theatre-to-film adaptation. Now, three years later, that recording comes with lyrics, ready for everyone that's young, scrappy and hungry to give it a go. Indeed, the vibrant, whip-smart and immediately dazzling tale of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton first hit Disney+ on Friday, July 3, 2020 — and now the sing-along version has followed at around the same time, dropping back on Friday, June 30, 2023. If you haven't been lucky enough to catch the popular all-singing, all-dancing production onstage, this "live capture" version is the next best thing. Shot at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway in 2016, the recording features the show's original Broadway performers, including Miranda (His Dark Materials) in the eponymous role. Also seen on-screen: Daveed Diggs (The Little Mermaid) as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson, Leslie Odom Jr (Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery) as Aaron Burr, Christopher Jackson (And Just Like That...) as George Washington, Jonathan Groff (Knock at the Cabin) as King George III, Anthony Ramos (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) as John Laurens and Philip Hamilton, Renee Elise Goldsberry (Girls5eva) as Angelica Schuyler and Phillipa Soo (Shining Girls) as Eliza Hamilton. The story, for those who aren't intimately acquainted with US revolutionary history, chronicles the Caribbean-born "bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman" from his arrival in New York in the early 1770s. As the musical's informative opening number explains, Alexander Hamilton will go on to become "the ten-dollar Founding Father without a father", with the production charting how he "got a lot farther by working a lot harder, by being a lot smarter and by being a self-starter". It's a tale that, unlike those of US Presidents Washington and Jefferson, you mightn't have heard before — which is one of the themes that the musical addresses. Just who is charged with recalling and immortalising the past, and who is remembered in the process, is a significant factor in shaping a nation's vision of itself. Check out a trailer for Disney+'s Hamilton sing-along below: Hamilton Sing-Along is available to stream via Disney+. Images: Hamilton filmed version courtesy of Disney+.
Perhaps you've always wanted to spend summer enjoying an island getaway, but haven't yet had the chance. Maybe spring to you means checking out Queensland's beaches. Or, you might like to start each new year with a holiday to wherever takes your fancy. Stop dreaming and start planning, because Virgin is doing another big flight sale. This time there's 500,000 cheap fares on offer to both Australian and international locations. Prices start low, at the usual $49, which once again gets you from Sydney to Byron Bay — the normal cheapest fare in any flight sale — and vice versa. From there, the domestic side of the sale spans everywhere from the Gold Coast, Launceston and Darwin through to Hamilton Island and Newcastle. Virgin's Get Set, Jet sale runs until 11.59pm AEST on Wednesday, August 2 — unless sold out earlier, with fares to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide also covered. That means paying $69 one-way from Sydney to the Sunshine Coast, $79 from Melbourne to Hobart, and $99 for a trip from Brisbane to Cairns or Canberra to the Gold Coast. Or, still on local deals, the specials also cover $69 from Melbourne to Launceston, $109 from Adelaide to Sydney, $169 from Brisbane to Darwin and $209 from Melbourne to Perth. Internationally, trips to Fiji cost $519 from Sydney and $569 from Melbourne. Bali fares come in at $539 from Adelaide, $549 from Brisbane, $559 from the Gold Coast or Sydney, and $599 from Melbourne. And, you can head to Queenstown from Sydney for $269 and from Melbourne from $265. If you're wondering when you'll need to travel, the fares cover between October 11, 2023–March 14, 2024, all varying per route. Inclusions also differ depending on your ticket and, as usual when it comes to flight sales, you'll need to get in quick if you're keen to stack the rest of 2023 and the start of 2024 with holidays. Virgin's Get Set, Jet sale runs until 11.59pm AEST on Wednesday, August 2 — unless sold out earlier. 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.
Like beer and sunshine, cheese and crackers and Peter Kavinsky and Lara Jean Covey, wine and cycling are made for one another. And if there's one undoubtedly dreamy way to spend an afternoon, it's meandering through idyllic vineyards on two wheels. Fortunately, Australia's expansive, uncrowded wine regions are made for such adventures. So, we've scoured every vineyard in the country to find cycling trails filled with cellar doors and ocean vistas — just for you, our dedicated wine lovers. Here are nine of the prettiest and tastiest. While these trails are made for cycling between wineries, don't forget it's still a crime to ride a bike while intoxicated in all states. So drink and ride responsibly, and be safe on the road. If you plan on drinking at every winery, consider booking a mini bus instead. [caption id="attachment_685954" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tourism Australia[/caption] BAROSSA TRAIL, SOUTH AUSTRALIA This 40-kilometre sealed rail trail, shared by cyclists and walkers, travels through the heart of the Barossa Valley, a world-famous wine region located 80 minutes' drive northeast of Adelaide. Your journey begins in the north in Angaston, one of South Australia's oldest settlements, before passing through the villages of Nuriootpa, Tanunda and Lyndoch, to reach Gawler's heritage-listed buildings. Look out for Mengler Hill Sculpture Park, the Barossa Museum, epic views of the Barossa Range and kangaroos, among countless cellar doors and eateries. [caption id="attachment_680367" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Adam Bruzzone[/caption] CLARE VALLEY RIESLING TRAIL, SOUTH AUSTRALIA If too much riesling is never enough, this car-free cycling trail is made for you. Find it in idyllic Clare Valley, around two hours' drive north of Adelaide. Your adventure starts on the Valley's southern edge in the gateway town of Auburn, before rolling 35 kilometres north to Barinia. Among the cellar doors you shouldn't miss are O'Leary Walker Wines, surrounded by rural panoramas; Skillogalee, whose rieslings are renowned; and Sevenhill, the Valley's oldest winery, founded in 1851 by a bunch of Jesuits who fled Poland due to persecution. [caption id="attachment_685953" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jacqui Way[/caption] SHIRAZ TRAIL, MCLAREN VALE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA Forty-five minutes' drive beyond Adelaide's southern border lies McLaren Vale, known for its Mediterranean climate, excellent reds and proximity to the Fleurieu Peninsula's spectacular coastline. On the Shiraz Trail, you'll cycle 14 kilometres, kicking off in the McLaren Vale township and heading south to the cute village of Willunga. Make slight diversions to visit experimental winemakers Alpha Box & Dice, who are currently working on an entire alphabet of wines, and Hamilton Winery, home to Australia's longest-serving wine making family, who's been stomping on grapes for over 180 years. The Shiraz Trail is one section of the 37-kilometre Coast to Vines Trail. [caption id="attachment_685960" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Swan Valley[/caption] SWAN VALLEY CYCLE TRAIL, WESTERN AUSTRALIA This picturesque trail in Swan Valley — around 90 minutes' drive northwest of Perth — gives you not one, but four routes to choose from. For maximum reward for your efforts, conquer the three-kilometre loop starting at Baskerville Oval, which takes in five wineries. Or, if you're keen to spend more time in the saddle, opt for the 18-kilometre loop beginning at Maali Footbridge, Swan River. You'll pass several cellar doors, as well as artists' studios, local produce and a sculpture park. You'll find maps and more info here. [caption id="attachment_685785" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Visit Victoria[/caption] RUTHERGLEN TO WAHGUNYAH RIDE, VICTORIA Here, your boozy escapades occur in the majestic company of the Murray River. Climb aboard at Rutherglen, a town three hours' drive northeast of Melbourne that's home to more than 20 wineries, and pedal nine kilometres north to riverside Wahgunyah. Along the way, you'll come across Jones Winery, where you can taste shiraz made from 113-year-old vines; Rutherglen Estates, whose home dates to 1886; and Valhalla Wines, which specialises in Rhone Valley varietals. The Rutherglen to Wahgunyah Ride is one section of the mighty 100-kilometre Murray to Mountains Rail Trail. MILAWA GOURMET RIDE, VICTORIA For easy-peasy pedalling along super-flat terrain, make tracks to Milawa, a foodie's mecca found three hours' drive northeast of Melbourne. The Milawa Gourmet Ride stretches for five kilometres, from Brown Brothers Cellar Door, where you can borrow a bike for free, to Sam Miranda Winery. In between swirling and sipping, tuck into an array of gourmet deliciousness, including handmade dairy at Milawa Cheese, condiments at Milawa Mustards and fresh fruit at Blue Ox Berries farm gate. Like the Rutherglen to Wahgunyah Ride, this journey is part of the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail. If you want to continue exploring the Victorian High Country by bike, you'll find more great rides here. [caption id="attachment_686034" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tourism and Events Queensland[/caption] STANTHORPE TO BALLANDEAN BIKE TRAIL, GRANITE BELT, QUEENSLAND Three-and-a-half hours' drive inland from Byron Bay is Queensland's Granite Belt. Elevated 1000 metres above sea level, this dramatic landscape is a wonderland of rugged granite formations and dense woodlands. See it all from two wheels on the Stanthorpe to Ballandean bike trail. For 30 kilometres, you'll wind along tranquil country roads, pausing at wineries, picnic spots and maybe a brewery or two. The way is dotted with signposts, to keep you on track. The Granite Belt's claim to fame is producing varietals seldom grown in Australia. Among the whites, you'll find roussane, alvarinho and petit manseng, and, among the reds, sagrantino and montepulciano. HUNTER VALLEY CYCLEWAY, NEW SOUTH WALES Opened in 2017, this 10.6-kilometre cycleway runs alongside Hermitage Road – through one of the most winery-dense spots in the Hunter Valley, which lies around 90 kilometres' drive northwest of Sydney. Be sure to visit De Iuliis' stunning cellar door for a cheese and wine flight, as well as Peter Drayton Wines, and its onsite brewery Iron Bark Hill Brewhouse, for excellent wines and craft beers. Meanwhile, at Mistletoe Wines, you'll be sipping sparkling rosé in a sculpture garden, and at Tintilla, sangiovese in an olive grove. You'll find more great wine-filled Hunter Valley bike rides here, too. [caption id="attachment_685963" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Lowe Wines, Destination NSW[/caption] MUDGEE WINERY RIDE, NEW SOUTH WALES Three hours' drive northwest of Sydney, the friendly country town of Mudgee has been cultivating grapes since the mid-1800s. There are now more than 35 cellar doors and you can visit 22 of them along a ten-kilometre loop that starts in town, at the Clock Tower. At Lowe Wines, you'll be sampling organic drops and taking a self-guided tour of the vineyards, while at Vinifera, Di Lusso and Mansfield, you'll be working your way through Mediterranean varietals, from Spanish tempranillo to Italian barbera. The map's over here.
Whale watching season is upon us, and the New South Wales coast is one of the best spots in the world to catch these majestic creatures in action. From May to November, the Pacific Coast migration goes from south to north and back again as the whales seek warmer water for the winter months. While humpbacks are the most documented, you might be lucky enough to catch orcas, bryde's whales and southern right whales as well — and all without having to step foot from dry land. From Sydney to Byron, we've put together a list of all the best NSW whale watching spots to stake out and catch a glimpse of the majestic sea creatures. Binoculars, hiking shoes, snacks and picnic blankets recommended. Recommended reads: The Best Spots for Whale Watching in Australia The Best Beaches in Sydney The Best Coastal Walks in Sydney The Best Ocean Pools in Sydney [caption id="attachment_771534" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Destination NSW[/caption] CAVES BEACH COASTAL WALK, LAKE MACQUARIE Along the coast, just before Newcastle, lies the whale watcher's haven that is Caves Beach. The coastal bushland trek is an easy trail that ends in the clifftops above the beach. It's best for watching the northern migration from May till July as there are plenty of lookouts along the track to watch the whales as they pass by on the way to their destination. The southern end of the beach is also home to a group of sea caves that are accessible at low tide and should not be missed. [caption id="attachment_571753" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Peter Boer via Flickr[/caption] PAT MORTON LOOKOUT, LENNOX HEAD Lennox Head is an ideal location for hang gliding, watching surfers and spotting the odd dolphin. If it is whales you're after though, head to the top of Lennox Point at Pat Morton Lookout. The expansive views over the Pacific and Seven Mile Beach are where you'll spot the migration — and it's also the best point from which to see surfers catch the famous right-hand break down on the beach. Pack a picnic for this grassy knoll as you'll want to stay a while. [caption id="attachment_771540" align="alignnone" width="1920"] James Cridland via Flickr[/caption] NAMBUCCA HEADS Park yourself on the various headlands of popular holiday town Nambucca Heads if you're looking to catch a glimpse of our giant passing friends. The Captain Cook Lookout, Lions Lookout and Headland Lookout are located on the eastern side of town and have epic ocean views to the south and north. Turn at the 'beaches' sign at the Post Office in town, then keep following the signs to the lookouts for some great whale spotting and picnic spots. [caption id="attachment_771537" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Destination NSW[/caption] SAWTELL HEADLANDS, COFFS HARBOUR To the north of Bongil Bongil National Park is Sawtell Beach and headlands, where the coastal views are worth a visit any time of the year but are most popular during whale watching season. You can view the humpback migration from a grassy picnic spot as the headlands allow both northern and southern views. Just ten kilometres from Coffs Harbour, the beachside town is also a popular spot for a swim or surf. While you're here, check out Sailors Bay at low tide, when you'll be able to reach the tidal rock pools. [caption id="attachment_571750" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Andrea Schaffer via Flickr[/caption] MUTTONBIRD ISLAND, COFFS HARBOUR Muttonbird Island is a spectacular spot for whale watching and a must-visit if you're in the Coffs Harbour area. Known as Giidany Miirlarl (or 'moon sacred place') by local Gumbaynggirr people, the site is very significant and should be treated with great respect. Protected as a nature reserve and home to thousands of muttonbirds, you can reach the island via a breakwater that connects to the International Marina. Follow the 500-metre pathway to the far end of the island where you'll catch the best whale watching spots. [caption id="attachment_771530" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Destination NSW[/caption] GERRIN POINT LOOKOUT, BOUDDI NATIONAL PARK Located on the Bouddi Coastal Walk within the Bouddi National Park, Gerrin Point Lookout is an ideal location for whale watching. Humpback whales are often spotted between May and July and then September through October when they make their return trip along the coast, while southern right whales migrate during late July. The 8.5-kilometre walk allows for a swim in Maitland Bay — where you can view the PS Maitland shipwreck — and includes shady rainforest foliage for wildlife viewing. The 300-hectare national park is one of Australia's earliest marine protected areas, which is part of why the whale migration is so prevalent here. While you're there, check out our guide to Bouddi and Copacabana. [caption id="attachment_571759" align="alignnone" width="1280"] NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service[/caption] BROKEN HEAD NATURE RESERVE, NORTH COAST The beaches at Broken Head Nature Reserve are uncharacteristically bordered by rainforest, and this unusual Australian terrain allows for views of both sea and forest-dwelling birdlife on the reserve. The Three Sisters walking track is the best for whale watching, where the rainforest slopes into secluded beaches. The headland tends to burst with wildflowers at this time of year as well, so natural beauty will be all around you. The history of the trail is worth a read along the way, starting with the Aboriginal story behind the three sisters' namesake. [caption id="attachment_771532" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Destination NSW[/caption] CAPE BYRON LIGHTHOUSE, BYRON BAY The Cape Byron Lighthouse is the most easterly point of Australia and a necessary part of any trip to Byron. The site booms during whale season, when the migration is caught in action from this great vantage point. Apart from whales, dolphins and turtles also migrate through this way and are regularly spotted from the cape. For history around the site and the migration, the Maritime Museum is open 10am to 4pm daily and is well worth a visit. [caption id="attachment_564188" align="alignnone" width="1280"] NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service[/caption] BARRENJOEY LIGHTHOUSE HEADLAND, PALM BEACH Located 91 metres above sea level within the breathtaking Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, Barrenjoey Lighthouse boasts unbroken views over (the ironically named) Broken Bay, the park and the Central Coast. Thanks to its height, the site is one of the most popular whale watching spots in NSW, which you can reach via a leisurely one-kilometre hike. If you're looking for a tougher trek, the short Smugglers Track will have you heavily breathing in the panoramic views when you reach the top. The lighthouse is a sight to behold in itself and retains its original sandstone finish from the 1800s — and if you like that, check out these ten lighthouses near Sydney. [caption id="attachment_771536" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Destination NSW[/caption] NOBBYS HEADLAND, NEWCASTLE The iconic Whibayganba (Nobbys Headland) boasts 360-degree views of Newcastle and the surrounding coast, offering the area's furthest views over the Pacific. The lighthouse grounds are only open weekends and public holidays from 8am till 4pm, but it's the perfect place not only for whale watching but also to catch a view of dolphins and seals. Watching so many majestic sea creatures migrate at once is truly a sight to behold. The simultaneous city and sea lookouts also allow for a unique viewing experience — so be sure to remember your binoculars for this one. Top image: Cape Byron via Destination NSW
First, New South Wales celebrated picnic day. Now, pool day is coming. With the weather heating up and NSW's vaccination rates increasing as well, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced that outdoor pools across the state will be able to open again from 12.01am on Monday, September 27. So, if your usual spring routine involves taking a dip, doing a few laps or just otherwise enjoying your closest pool, that'll finally be back on the cards in just over a week. Natural pools are already allowed to open, but this change applies to all of NSW's other outdoor pools, which'll be permitted to get splashing again — and yes, in all parts of the state. The councils behind each outdoor pool will need to have a stringent COVID-19 safety plan in place, however, and those plans will need to have been approved by NSW Health. But, as long as that is the case, outdoor pools across the state can start welcoming in swimmers again before the end of the month. If you're wondering how that'll apply to your local outdoor pool, you'll want to keep an eye on their website over the next week or so regarding reopening dates, hours and rules. Revealing the news at NSW's COVID-19 press conference today, Sunday, September 19 — alongside the announcement that Sydney's LGAs of concern will revert to the same rules in place across the rest of the city from Monday, September 20 — the Premier said the change comes after positive developments, including the state's vaccination rates hitting 81.9 percent first doses and 51.9 percent second doses based on NSW residents over the age of 16. "As a result of these positive signs, the New South Wales Government is pleased to announce that from next Monday, all public pools will be open in a COVID-safe way," said Berejiklian. "And those COVID-safe plans will be formalised and made public, making sure that we keep community safe as much as possible and prevent seeding, and that all of us appreciate the importance of enjoying the warmer weather and the positive mental health and recreation and exercise." Yes, if you're thinking ahead to NSW's next public holiday, Labour Day, on Monday, October 4, this does now mean that going for a swim in a public outdoor pool can be on your agenda — alongside picnicking with up to four other pals if you're all fully vaxxed, of course. New South Wales' public outdoor pools are allowed to reopen from 12.01am on Monday, September 27. For more information about the status of COVID-19 in NSW, head to the NSW Health website.
Head into any Woolworths store from today — Tuesday, February 19 — and you'll find its $1 a litre milk is a thing of the past. In an effort to do right by Australia's struggling dairy industry, the supermarket giant is boosting the price of its home-branded two- and three-litre fresh milk varieties by ten cents a litre, with the difference eventually heading back into our farmers' pockets. Two-litre milk products will now be priced at $2.20, with the three-litre version upped to $3.30, at Woolworths stores nationwide. Since 2000, Australian dairy farmers have operated in a deregulated industry. This means that they are able to export their products much more easily as they can compete with international milk prices, but it also means they are often at the mercy of the international market price, which is, on average, quite low at around 42 US cents per litre. This, along with cheap domestic milk prices and high feed prices because of the drought, might explain why farmers are doing it tough of late. The cheaper the milk on your supermarket shelf, generally, the worse off the farms that made it. So, while this latest Woolworths price change might sound minor, it has scope to be a significant win in the fight against discount dairy — especially as the supermarket has promised to pay the extra ten cents it's collecting per litre back to the suppliers. https://twitter.com/Dairy_Australia/status/1097305276556800001 "Removing $1 milk is not just intended to restore farmers' financial confidence, but it will also boost confidence in regional communities and small businesses that rely on the industry," Australian Dairy Farmers CEO David Inall said in a statement yesterday. While Woolworths, as well as Coles, don't have a great reputation for supporting Aussie farmers, they're making steps (albeit small) to change this. Both supermarket giants introduced Drought Relief Milk in late 2018, with ten cents from each litre sold going to drought-affected dairy farmers. There's no word yet on whether Coles and Aldi will also increase the price of their home-branded $1-a-litre milks, but we'll let you know if they do.
As one big HBO series came to an end, another signalled its return, with the US cable network dropping the first trailer for Westworld's third season during the Game of Thrones finale. Say goodbye to dragons, fighting over a fancy chair and living in a medieval-looking fantasy realm, and hello to robots, flying cars and stepping outside of everyone's favourite futuristic amusement park. Say hello to Aaron Paul, too, with the Breaking Bad actor not only joining Westworld for the next batch of episodes, but also starring in the initial trailer. His new character was promised a better world, but this dream hasn't come true, so he's now searching for something real. Given how Blade Runner-esque everything is around him, he's probably channelling Jesse Pinkman and exclaiming "yeah, science!" more than once, too (at least internally). As the teaser makes plain, this season steps beyond the confines of the titular amusement park and into the world around it. That's as far as it goes, plot-wise, for the moment, but it's still revealing. While the show has always been futuristic, with its Old West-themed attraction featuring robots who are virtually indistinguishable from normal people, the third season appears to be dialling the sci-fi — and accompanying technology — up a few notches. Here, robots actually look like robots, except when Evan Rachel Wood's Dolores pops up. Now, the bad news: although Westworld's second season aired in 2018, the third season won't hit until 2020. HBO hasn't announced an exact airdate as yet, so watch this space. If a year seems like a long time between android dramas, remember that the first season of the show arrived 43 years after the Michael Crichton-directed movie that it's based on, and 40 years after the film's sequel Futureworld. If you haven't done so already, both are worth viewing while you're waiting for the TV series to return. Check out the first trailer for Westworld's third season below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deSUQ7mZfWk Westworld's third season will air in 2020. We'll keep you updated with an exact airdate when it comes to hand.
Whether capturing a concert in full or piecing together a career overview, a great music documentary ticks two boxes. If it doesn't leave you with a new appreciation for and understanding of its subject — even if you already adored the band or musician in the spotlight, and thought you knew everything there possibly is to know — then it isn't doing its job. And if it doesn't take care of your music playlist for the hours, days and even weeks afterwards, well, there's something missing as well. We know this because music docos are a stacked genre. Name a group or performer, and odds are they've earned the documentary treatment. They're a popular genre, too — because who doesn't want to watch a movie about bands and musos they like? Alas, while plenty of cameras have been pointed at plenty of talent over the years, not every great music doco is available to stream. Some big hitters, like the Rolling Stones-focused Gimme Shelter, David Bowie concert flick Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Beastie Boys' crowd-filmed Awesome, I Fuckin' Shot That and the Chemical Brothers' Don't Think aren't currently accessible, for example. But others are — so we've rounded up ten ace documentaries and concert films that are presently on offer at the click of a button. And yes, dancing in your lounge room is perfectly acceptable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4IZBJrNXrY STOP MAKING SENSE When David Byrne walks out onto a Hollywood stage circa 1983 in Stop Making Sense, he brings a tape deck with him. With no one else around him, he presses play, takes hold of the microphone and begins to sing one of Talking Heads' best-known songs: 'Psycho Killer'. That's not how concerts usually kick off — but it's instantly memorable. Everything about this energetic and precisely executed documentary, which records the show from start to finish, earns the same description. Directed by future The Silence of the Lambs Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme, each element of the film is fine-tuned, and every element of the band's performance, too. Expect a lineup of hits, a playful approach, Byrne's famous big suit and even bigger stage presence, and the feeling that you're virtually in the room. Stop Making Sense is available to stream via DocPlay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB8qvx0HOlI HOMECOMING: A FILM BY BEYONCE April 14, 2018, will forever go down in history as the day Beyoncé took to the Coachella stage and made it her own. If you were lucky enough to be there, you'll no doubt remember it forever. If you watched the live stream — and it became the most-watched live-streamed performance of all time, so you probably did — then you'll never forget it either. Whichever category you fell into, you likely wished you were closer to the action — to the stage for the 137-minute performance, to the 100-plus dancers, to its powerful homage to America's historically black colleges and universities, and to the backstage antics as well. That's where Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé comes in, with the engaging and intimate concert documentary not only capturing the huge festival performance (and that Destiny's Child reunion), but weaving in behind-the-scenes footage and candid chats that delve into the preparation process and explain Bey's stunning vision. Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé is available to stream via Netflix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCyqR2RXoQU BEASTIE BOYS STORY The idea behind Beastie Boys Story is simple. After Adam 'Ad-Rock' Horovitz and Michael 'Mike D' Diamond wrote a book about their career, called Beastie Boys Book, they then talked audiences through it in a series of Spike Jonze-helmed live shows, called Beastie Boys Show — and the Adaptation and Her director filmed them. As a result, this doco tells the Beasties' tale direct from the source; however the hip hop group's surviving two members are candid, heartfelt and definitely not interested in sugarcoating their ups and downs. Along the way, Jonze weaves in an array of excellent archival footage, as well as plenty of the Beasties' tracks and music videos. Yes, that includes the iconic 'Sabotage' clip, aka one of the best music videos of all time. That's all great, fun, and both smartly and entertainingly structured, but just watching Ad-Rock and Mike D chat is the clear highlight. And when Ad-Rock sits down on stage to talk about the person missing — Adam 'MCA' Yauch, who died in 2012 from cancer — your eyes won't stay dry. Beastie Boys Story is available to stream via Apple TV+. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N7WthSspQ4&feature=emb_logo AMAZING GRACE Told on screen via text, the story behind concert documentary Amazing Grace is worth its own movie. Over two nights in January 1972, Aretha Franklin recorded her best-selling gospel album of the same name at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, with the Southern California Community Choir as backing singers, and with filmmaker Sydney Pollack on hand to capture the whole thing. But, due to both technical and legal issues — and Franklin suing to stop the movie's belated release before her death — the end result didn't make it to the big screen until just last year. Nearly half a century is a long time to wait; however, this doco is worth it. Amazing Grace is joyous for many reasons, including witnessing the Queen of Soul's talent, paying tribute in an intimate fashion, and seeing the effect of faith and artistry on the on-screen audience. And when Franklin sings the title track for 11 minutes, it's a moment no one will forget in a hurry. Amazing Grace is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube and iTunes. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5Pf3MlUo7c A BAND CALLED DEATH In the introduction to this article, we noted that a music doco should do two things. A few achieve something else as well: they open your eyes to a story, and to a musical talent, that you likely wouldn't have known about otherwise. A Band Called Death is one of those documentaries. You mightn't have heard of 70s hard rock outfit Death, the Detroit group widely considered to be the first punk band, otherwise — but once you've made their acquaintance, you'll want to discover more. Directors Mark Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlett are rightfully certain of this, because that's what record collectors started doing when Death's 1975 album ...For the Whole World to See was finally released in 2009. And yes, A Band Called Death covers that part of the story, too. A Band Called Death is available to stream via DocPlay, Google Play, YouTube and iTunes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeElITdTLE8 SIGN O' THE TIMES As Purple Rain wholeheartedly proved, there are few things as entrancing as watching the late, great Prince on-screen across a hefty chunk of time. If you'd rather see him do what he did best in a whole concert film — or you loved Purple Rain's live performance scenes so much that you want more, which is completely understandable — then Sign o' the Times has you covered. The purple one sings, obviously, largely sticking to tracks from the 1987 album that shares the film's name. He dances like no one other than Prince can. And, he also wears oh-so-many skimpy jumpsuits. Between songs such as 'Little Red Corvette' and 'If I Was Your Girlfriend', the concert doco also weaves in a narrative, should you be keen on a bit of a story with your sultry, slinky, toe-tapping Prince tunes. Sign o' the Times is available to stream via Amazon Prime Video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SluDNQTRDPQ THE PUNK SINGER She helped start the riot grrrl movement, became the voice of 90s punk feminism and, when she spray-painted "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit" across her pal Mr Cobain's wall, inspired the name of a certain grunge anthem. We're talking about Bikini Kill lead singer Kathleen Hanna — who also went on to release her own solo work and front late 90s/early 00s electro-rock group Le Tigre. From crafting art-school fashion shows that comment on sexual assault, to forcing gig crowds let girls to the front so they could mosh without being accosted, Hanna's story is as lengthy as it is fascinating, as The Punk Singer chronicles. This fantastic doco not only steps through its subject's career, explains her impact, explores her quest to share her feminist principles and exposes the many obstacles in her way, but also gets frank and intimate when it comes to her step back from performing due to health reasons in 2005. It also features insights from Hanna's husband, if you didn't get enough of Ad-Rock in Beastie Boys Story. The Punk Singer is available to stream via iTunes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXa3gw3g4C4 GURRUMUL As the insightful film Gurrumul conveys, the late Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was a musician and a man utterly unlike anyone else. Making his first feature, director Paul Damien Williams charts Yunupingu's days from childhood to his passing, painting a captivating portrait of one of Australia's undisputed icons. Sometimes, the documentary is happy to simply sit and watch as Yunupingu does what he does so sublimely: sing and play, his voice ringing out over the top of his own guitar or even paired with an orchestra. Sometimes, the movie delves deep into Yunupingu's clearly reclusive nature, whether he's keeping mum in interviews, preferring to stay at home, or failing to show up at the airport for what would've been a career-defining trip to America. The end result is a dense, rare and haunting documentary modelled in its subject's image, proving as beautiful, intimate, layered and revelatory as the artist's remarkable songs. Gurrumul is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube and iTunes. Read our full review. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlT7UQm5pfY JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE + THE TENNESSEE KIDS Filmmaker Jonathan Demme strikes again with Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids, giving JT the same lively, entertaining and immaculately choreographed concert doco treatment that he did Talking Heads in the aforementioned Stop Making Sense. Even if you're not much of a fan of the former *NSYNC member when you start watching Demme's documentary, you're unlikely to find your attention levels dropping even for a second, as the movie constantly finds something dazzling to thrust in front of the lens. Usually, that's Timberlake. He's a top-notch live performer, and his efforts and talents are firmly on display here. Also on offer: a set list filled with familiar tracks. And, as the film's name makes plain, JT's band The Tennessee Kids also earns — and deserves — the camera's focus. Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids is available to stream via Netflix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEaCDxjmPNg SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN Before A Band Called Death stepped through the kind of music story that's so filled with twists and turns that it could only be true, Searching for Sugar Man did the same. The Oscar-winning doco's subject: Sixto Rodriguez, an American musician who was hugely popular in the 70s in South Africa, other African countries, and also Australia and New Zealand. After hearing rumours of Rodriguez's death in the late 90s, two fans tried to work out if it was true — with Swedish documentarian Malik Bendjelloul charting their efforts and revelations. Rodriguez is no stranger to Australia's shores, so part of the movie's discoveries won't come as a surprise to many viewers Down Under; however this film still proves informative and enthralling at every turn. Also, it'll get Rodriguez's track 'Sugar Man' stuck in your head. Searching for Sugar Man is available to stream via Stan and DocPlay.
If your tipple of choice is a tasty local beer or homegrown spirit, the 2021–22 Federal Budget has served up some good news for your future drinking endeavours. In a push to support jobs and boost Australia's alcohol manufacturing sector, the government is set to offer around $225 million in tax relief for local small breweries and distilleries. Announced earlier this month and reiterated during this week's federal budget announcement, this move will allow eligible brewers and distillers to get back any excise tax they pay on the alcohol they produce, up to a cap of $350,000 each year. Previously, they were only entitled to a maximum refund of 60 percent, capped annually at $100,000. The Excise Refund Scheme changes will kick off from July 1, 2021, pulling the benefits for Australia's beer and spirits industries more into line with what the wine industry currently enjoys. It's expected that around 600 brewers and 400 distillers will benefit from the move. The tax relief should offer our local beer and spirits scenes a huge boost, according to Independent Brewers Association Chairman and founder of Sydney's Wayward Brewing Co, Peter Philip. In an interview with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg earlier this month, Mr Philip explained that small brewers and distilleries would be pushing this extra money into technology, capability, capacity and their people. "Consumers really want to support small, locally-owned independent beer in Australia. And this is just going to make that happen," he said. In the same interview, Bentspoke Brewing founder Richard Watkins called the excise change "one of the biggest things that's ever happened in the brewing industry", saying his Canberra-based brewery would be investing in new equipment and technology to make the beer even better and meet increased demand. [caption id="attachment_811815" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Wayward Brewing's Camperdown taproom[/caption] The budget move will also prove a timely helping hand for two industries especially hard hit by last year's hospitality lockdowns. In a statement made last month calling for a drop in excise tax rates, the Brewers Association of Australia revealed its 2020 data showing draught beer sales had plunged by a third, compared to the previous year. According to the organisation, that translates to a drop of over $1 billion in beer sold by pubs and clubs in 2020 alone. For more information about the 2021–22 Federal Budget, head to the government's website.
One of 2018's most interesting Australian documentaries told a unique and intriguing tale, stepping into the life of Sydney's Jason King. When the real-life figure isn't working as a security guard, he's out hunting ghosts, although he's not always doing the latter quite as literally as it might seem. King does indeed have a penchant for the paranormal, as well as a side business busting spirits out of people's houses. But, given that the first ghost he says he ever saw belonged to his own brother, who told him that he needed to find their estranged father, he's also haunted by his past. After hitting the big screen last year at film festivals and in general release, Ghosthunter is now taking on a second life — a fitting development, given its subject matter. As hosted by documentarian and filmmaker Ben Lawrence (who helmed the doco about King, plus this year's Hugo Weaving-starring Hearts and Bones), the film has now inspired a five-part podcast, delving further into this strange and compelling story. Released by Audible, it's available to listen to from today, Tuesday, July 23. It's great news for anyone who saw the movie and wanted to know more, and for folks who didn't get around to watching it just yet as well. And, it's obviously a stellar development for true-crime buffs, with Ghosthunter's five 30-minute episodes featuring police investigations, court dramas, family secrets, difficult traumas, murky mysteries, estranged figures from King's history and — naturally — hunting ghosts. Lawrence spent seven years turning King's tale into a documentary, so he has plenty of extra details to share. He starts with King's first ghostly memory, unpacking the rollercoaster ride of a story from that point onwards. In a podcast that doesn't just dabble with true crime, but with family memoir, it helps that King himself makes for an equally charismatic and eccentric character. As Lawrence explains: "you never know how deep the rabbit hole will take you. There were so many personal twists and turns over the seven years creating Ghosthunter that I found myself deeply immersed in Jason's life — I was even the best man at his wedding." Ghosthunter joins Audible's growing slate of Australian content, following in the footsteps of Marc Fennell's It Burns podcast, about the competitive world of breeding super hot chillies. Ghosthunter is available now on Audible — as part of existing member subscriptions, or free with a 30-day trial. The documentary can be rented on YouTube, Google Play and the iTunes Store.
As the world stops to watch the World Cup, which kicked off a long haul of criminally early mornings today, it seems even those hundreds of miles beyond the Earth will be tuning in. NASA has released a video of astronauts based at the International Space Station bidding all World Cup competitors good luck, promising they will be watching the matches from space and throwing down some mad football skills. American astronauts Reid Wiseman, Steve Swanson and German astronaut Alexander Gerst filmed a short message for "all the teams and fans on the ground in Brazil." On tape, Gerst implores everyone participating in or attending the World Cup to have "peaceful games". All this, while laptops and their microphone float in zero gravity. After Wiseman wraps up the speech with, "Have fun, play hard, and we'll be watching on the International Space Station," Swanson executes a slow-motion flip and kicks a hovering ball midair. No biggie. What follows is perhaps the most spectacular video sequence ever taped in celebration of a World Cup: the three astronauts are shown playing soccer in their gravity-defying lodgings. They kick, dive and float in mid-air. The footage inspires the starry-eyed possibility of a what a World Cup in space could look like. Though the three astronauts — posted to work on Expedition 40 together — won't have the opportunity to watch the games live, NASA has promised to upload the matches for their viewing as soon as they are broadcast. Let's just hope there are no spoilers in space. Check out the video below: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sLwW3pdXkFo Via Fast Company and BBC.
Nature lovers, listen up. Australian Geographic has brought an immersive exploration of Australia's rich flora and fauna to the ICC Sydney Exhibition Centre. Running until Sunday, February 5, the impressive installation features large-screen projections of works by 25 accomplished cinematographers including Peter Nearhos, a frequent collaborator of David Attenborough. Nearhos has worked on documentaries such as One Life and David Attenborough's Tasmania, and it's this type of close-up look at Australia's wildlife that you can expect from the multi-sensory exhibition. As visitors wander through the 40-plus screens, they'll encounter mist, starry night skies and a 360-degree soundtrack, adding to the immersion of Our Country. Each screen will be presenting previously unseen footage collected from over 100,000 hours in the field from the 25 cinematographers. Emmy Award winner Karina Holden was tasked with the challenge of whittling down this footage, curating an intimate look at ecosystems across the country. Bustling bushland, expansive desserts and vibrant rainforests all make an appearance. Tickets are available for $34 for adults, $24 for kids under 16 and $94 for families. Images: Ben Broady.
When you've just won one of the international film world's most-prestigious prizes, where do you head next? For Iranian writer/director Jafar Panahi, who took home the Palme d'Or at 2025's Cannes Film Festival for his new feature It Was Just an Accident, this is the answer: a trip to Australia to attend Sydney Film Festival. His latest picture was already on the Harbour City event's program. The fest is also celebrating his entire body of work with its featured retrospective Jafar Panahi: Cinema in Rebellion. What better special guest, then, than the man himself? "From Cannes to Australia" has been an ongoing theme of Sydney Film Festival's 2025 program announcements. See: its main lineup drop, adding Eddington to the bill, closing-night pick Splitsville, and a late round of newcomers primarily comprised of Cannes award-winners and hits that was revealed just two days in advance of the event raising its curtains. Panahi's surprise trip to Australia is the stuff of Festival Director and cinephile dreams, however. The filmmaker is already in Sydney, as SFF's Nashen Moodley announced to the opening-night crowd at the State Theatre on Wednesday, June 4. There's launching with a bang, as every major film festival aims to — and then there's kicking things off with not just a highly anticipated opening-night pick (body-horror flick Together) but with this kind of news. Panahi attending fests around the world or even having any freedom at all has not been assured across his time as a filmmaker. Throughout his career, Iran's ruling regime has banned him from making movies, forbidden him from leaving his homeland, and placed him both under arrest and imprisonment. Accordingly, the significance of Panahi being present at Sydney Film Festival cannot be understated. As he's made the reality of life in Iran today under censorship and oppression the focus of his pictures, persevering with his acts of resistance through cinema regardless of the repercussions that've come his way, the importance of Panahi's work has been clear to moviegoing audiences for decades. His films have a long association with SFF, including across the fest's program whenever his new pictures drop and in a 2011 retrospective that also highlighted his compatriot Mohammad Rasoulof (The Seed of the Sacred Fig). That said, every single one of Panahi's features is playing at Sydney Film Festival in 2025, with the filmmaker set to introduce a number of retrospective sessions and also get chatting at a free talk at the event's Festival Hub. It Was Just an Accident is part of SFF's official competition, and therefore in the running to collect another huge film festival prize. Indeed, Panahi's filmography is filled with award-winners, a term that applies to every feature that he's ever crafted. The White Balloon gave Panahi his first Cannes accolade, for best first film. Then 1997's The Mirror took home the Locarno International Film Festival's Golden Leopard, 2000's The Circle nabbed Venice's Golden Lion, 2003's Crimson Gold earned an Un Certain Regard prize back at Cannes and 2006's Offside collected a Silver Bear in Berlin. More Cannes love came for 2011's This Is Not a Film (the Carrosse d'Or at the Director's Fortnight) and 2018's Three Faces (for best screenplay), plus more Berlin recognition for 2013's Closed Curtain (another Silver Bear) and 2015's Tehran Taxi (the Golden Bear), and more again from Venice for No Bears (a Special Jury Prize). Sydney Film Festival 2025 takes place from Wednesday, June 4–Sunday, June 15 at various cinemas and venues around Sydney. For more information and tickets, head to the festival's website.
Musicians around Australia are taking to the streets in an unusual form of protest. In response to the recent decision by ABC Radio National to decommission music programs The Daily Planet, The Inside Sleeve, The Live Set and The Rhythm Divine, buskers will gather en masse outside ABC offices in capital cities to voice their concerns and belt out a few tunes. Set to take place in Sydney today, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart tomorrow, and Brisbane next Thursday, the RN or Busk protests are being coordinated by the Save RN Music campaign. "We need these shows for our careers, our community, our families and Australian Culture, because these shows play and support independent adult contemporary music," reads the Facebook event page for the Melbourne protest. "They are the lifeline from the musicians to the audience." Meanwhile, a number of prominent musicians including Paul Kelly, Missy Higgins, Archie Roach, Sarah Blasko, Tim Freedman, Megan Washington and Dan Sultan have co-signed an open letter addressed to ABC board members saying they were "appalled" by the ABC's decision to scrap the programs "without proper industry and public consultation". "The cuts deliver a fundamental blow to diverse, vibrant and independent sectors of the Australian music industry, which receive minimal national radio coverage elsewhere," the letter reads. It also directs the board to an online petition, signed by more than 15,000 people, that calls on the ABC to reverse its decision. To find a busk in your city, go here, and to learn more about the Save RN Music campaign, go here.
If you've ever dreamed of being a muse or walking artwork, the 19th Biennale of Sydney might just be your chance. Artist Deborah Kelly is on the hunt for 19 life-sized nude portraits to come from the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane public. As part of an exhibition series entitled In All Our Glory, the portraits will be fashioned through a series of collage workshops through mid-October. The Aussie artist is known for politically motivated works that explore notions of power, and In All Our Glory should be no different. So, thankfully, you needn't be Miranda Kerr to fit the bill; Kelly is scouting portrait subjects of varying ages (18+), colours, sizes, genders and abilities. But there's still room for the camera shy to contribute: Kelly's also seeking donations of unwanted picture and reference books in any condition, in colour or black-and-white. So let the wind through your pubes and make the world take you in all your glory for the 19th Biennale of Sydney, themed You Imagine What You Desire for 2014. You'll be scoring the chance to catch yourself — an artwork — in the series from March 21 until June 9. To be the next Mona Lisa all you need to do is volunteer yourself as a portrait subject by shooting a pic of your face (just face) over to kellyproject@biennaleofsydney.com.au by Friday, 11 October 2013. Drop a line to the same email if you’d like to donate books, or join in on the collage workshops by contacting frances@biennaleofsydney.com.au.
Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck trying to save the world from an asteroid? That's so 1998. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence attempting to stop a comet from wiping out life as we know it? That's the premise of Netflix's new disaster comedy Don't Look Up, which thankfully isn't a sequel to the aforementioned Armageddon. Instead, it's the latest film from The Big Short and Vice director Adam McKay — and it's set to hit the streaming platform in December. If it sounds familiar, that's because Don't Look Up was one of the big-name movies on Netflix's lengthy list of new flicks heading its way in 2021, as it start teasing back in January. And yes, while plenty of the films named back then have already hit the platform given the year is now nine months in — movies such as Malcolm & Marie, The White Tiger, The Dig, The Woman in the Window, Army of the Dead and Moxie — the streamer really is making us all wait for its starriest picture of 2021. DiCaprio (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and Lawrence (X-Men: Dark Phoenix) play astronomy professor Dr Randall Mindy and his grad student Kate Dibiasky, who discover that a Mount Everest-sized comet is orbiting our solar system — and that it's on a direct collision course with earth. So, with just six months left until impact, they endeavour to tell everyone they can about the planet's impending demise, all by embarking upon a media tour. But the President (Meryl Streep, The Prom) and her son and Chief of Staff (Jonah Hill, The Beach Bum) barely seem to care, and neither does the public. Also featuring on-screen as the former "king of the world" and Katniss Everdeen try to save the world: Timothée Chalamet (Little Women), Cate Blanchett (Where'd You Go, Bernadette), Mark Rylance (The Trial of the Chicago 7), Tyler Perry (Those Who Wish Me Dead), Ron Perlman (Monster Hunter), Himesh Patel (Tenet), Melanie Lynskey (Mrs America), Kid Cudi (Bill & Ted Face the Music) and Ariana Grande. Yes, as seen in the just-dropped teaser trailer, this film does have quite the cast. Don't Look Up will hit Netflix just in time for your Christmas break, dropping on Friday, December 24. It'll also screen in some cinemas before that, if you'd like to see it on the big screen. And if you're wondering how the film will fare tonally, McKay looks like he's in The Big Short and Succession mode, rather than harking back to his Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers days. That said, Blanchett does play a TV host, so maybe the filmmaker will have audiences thinking about Anchorman as well. Check out the teaser trailer for Don't Look Up below: Don't Look Up will be available to stream via Netflix on Friday, December 24, and in selected cinemas earlier in December. Image: Nico Tavernise/Netflix.
Throughout cinematic history, it's been pretty common for filmmakers to take a normal situation and hype it up to the extreme. It's why the phrase 'based on a true story' exists — realistic experiences often aren't dramatic enough for the big screen. But, when it comes to tackling complex topics — like that of psychological manipulation — overdramatising isn't the most effective or the most responsible way to portray them on-screen. Modern filmmakers seem to be more aware of this than ever before, taking more care to represent victims (and perpetrators) of psychological abuse, manipulation and gaslighting accurately, rather than relying on stereotyped characters and the assumptions society often makes about these fraught situations. More and more, filmmakers are taking on the responsibility to do away with these problematic stereotypes, and talk about themes and nuances of manipulation in a way that doesn't place blame or loathing on the victim. Berlin Syndrome, the new feature from Somersault director Cate Shortland, is the latest film to do just that. It follows Australian photographer Clare (Teresa Palmer) as she explores the streets of Germany, which is where she meets a handsome, charming local teacher Andi (Max Riemelt). But this is not your run-of-the-mill holiday romance — things escalate quickly, and it soon becomes clear that Clare is not able to leave Andi's apartment at her will. She is being kept captive. To say this is a complicated situation would be an understatement. While being kept prisoner by Andi over an extended period of time, Clare finds herself grappling between her desire to escape and her emotions towards Andi. As the name of the film and her behaviour would suggest, Clare starts to experience Stockholm syndrome, a condition where a hostage feels empathy or affection towards their captor. But, unlike many archetypal female characters, Clare is never portrayed as weak — even when she appears to succumb to Andi. This type of psychological manipulation, to a lesser extent, is unfortunately pretty common in real-life abusive relationships. According to a 2012 Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Safety Survey, one in four women and one in seven men have experienced emotional abuse by a partner. Emotional abuse is rarely portrayed in an accurate way on-screen. Historically, cinema's hostage and kidnap thrillers have painted the perpetrator as overtly villainous — think the Brie Larson-starring 2016 Oscar-winner Room, as a recent example — or as a literal beast, as is the case in Beauty and the Beast (although that's another problem altogether). Often characters that are being manipulated, or stuck in abusive relationships, are portrayed as weak and blamed for not recognising what's happening around them. Berlin Syndrome may be the latest film to portray the victim of abuse as strong, but it seems to be following a pattern of films being more thoughtful in their approach. Last year's Girl on the Train highlighted gaslighting, and how Rachel's husband used her drinking habits to continually manipulate and confuse her, and Netflix's Jessica Jones threw the model on its head, portraying the victim of abuse not only as strong, but with super-human strength. Manipulative situations are never clear-cut. It's possible to still have feelings for someone who treats you badly — to go back and forth between feelings of love, hate and protectiveness. Cinema has shown us that time and time again. In Berlin Syndrome, Shortland makes the situation relatable and, like the examples above, shows that even the 'strong' and 'normal' can be affected by psychological manipulation. But it's easy to see why filmmakers exaggerate these themes — manipulation in its most dramatic form (guns, suicide, violence) can form a compelling narrative. But it's important for us to realise that often it appears in real life in a much more subtle form. In the past, it seemed like filmmakers thought that we wouldn't understand psychological manipulation unless it was shoved in our face. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Berlin Syndrome is now showing in cinemas across the country — read our review and watch the trailer here. Words: Kelly Pigram and Sarah Ward.
Internationally and at home, borders have been opening up to tourists. Finally, we can get back to crossing destinations and experiences off our ever-growing travel bucket lists. We can run away to remote beaches. We can get lost in bustling cities full of culture. And, at last, we can go to a place which isn't full of your neighbours – don't be mad, sometimes it's good to be around different people. All in all, it's time to go exploring (or escaping). To get out of our local towns and cities and experience something new. There are endless possibilities when it comes to choosing where to go next, so let us help you. We've created this list of incredible locations and paired them up with some exclusive holiday deals. All you've got to do is pack your bags and put your out-of-office on. [caption id="attachment_872774" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Taweeroj Eawpanich (Unsplash)[/caption] Where: Japan Why: Thank the travel gods for Japan's reopening to tourists. This country is on so many people's travel bucket lists for so many reasons. Nature lovers, foodies, thrill seekers and culture kids are all offered something entirely unique in a place that's unlike anywhere else on earth. Who could say no to sake-fuelled karaoke nights, whacky themed restaurants and remote onsen baths? How: Get through your Japan bucket list using the country's famously elite rail system and staying in a mix of traditional ryokan accommodation and modern hotels. Experience the can't-miss places by starting in Kyoto — where you'll get the best of 'old' Japan (including the iconic Golden Pavilion and historic geisha district of Gion), making your way to Hiroshima to visit the Peace Memorial Park and Museum, before experiencing the sensory overload and diverse culture of one of the world's most dynamic cities, Tokyo. You'll need at least 10 days to do it properly. Go if you want to... experience a collision of cultures, both ancient and ultra-modern, in one of the most tourist-friendly places on earth. Book it now: Book the ultimate first-timer's cultural tour of Japan here. [caption id="attachment_872751" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sorasak (Unsplash)[/caption] Where: Auckland Why: Based around two stunning harbours and surrounded by picturesque islands, Auckland is a city like no other. Yes, nature is on your doorstep. Wineries are just a short drive away. As are remote beaches and Lord Of The Rings-esque mountain ranges. But this city is worthy of visiting in and of itself. You've got world renowned galleries, exciting restaurants and bars opening up all the time, theatres packed with long line-ups of comedians and musicians and a heap of other cultural happenings. How: First things first, we will do you the service of directing you to the Auckland section of Concrete Playground but here's a few of our personal selections. You can explore world-class exhibitions at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, find all the best local wares and fresh produce at the Farmers Market in Matakana, visit the island of wine (Waiheke Island), do some whale watching in the Hauraki Gulf or go on a road trip up on the west coast to find some of New Zealand's best beaches. Go if you want to… see what all the New Zealand hype is about — exploring endless natural landscapes as well as experiencing the city's thriving arts and food scene. Book it now: Book the ultimate VIP Spring City Music Festival trip with access to all of Auckland's best offerings here. [caption id="attachment_872969" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sulthan Auliya (Unsplash)[/caption] Where: Cook Islands Why: Each of the 15 islands that make up the Cook Islands is a tropical paradise. We could gawk at photos of the palm-lined beaches, vast turquoise lagoons and coral reefs full of your Finding Nemo favourites for days on days. But that's just pure masochism. Get on a plane and visit the Pacific paradise instead. The Cook Islands are on the bucket list of so many beach-loving travellers — be they snorkelling and scuba diving enthusiasts, or lovers of luxury resorts and beachside glamping experiences. How: Located a six-hour (ish) flight from the east coast of Australia, your first port of call will be Rarotonga. Within an hour of landing, you can find yourself at a beach bar sipping cocktails or floating around in your own private plunge pool — forgetting that the rest of the world exists. You can then go further afield on a series of island cruise tours, hikes up into the rainforests, or go snorkelling around coral reefs. Alternatively, hire a bike and find your own private patch of Rarotonga to call home for the day. Go if you want to…. escape to a tropical island paradise. Book it now: Book a peaceful getaway at a Rarotonga retreat with luxury glamping here. [caption id="attachment_872741" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Christoph Burgdorfer (Unsplash)[/caption] Where: Cambodia Why: You can live out your best Lara Croft fantasies in Cambodia's jungles (with less stealing of local artefacts and blowing up of beautiful ancient sites). The underrated Southeast Asian bucket list location is a land of spectacular ancient temples that nature is slowly claiming as its own. The villages and cities each have their own bustling markets full of local wares and tasty street food. And the welcoming locals will help you better understand their own captivating culture. How: When in Cambodia, you must visit the ancient temples of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap (or lesser-known Ta Prohm nearby) and learn the secrets behind Khmer cuisine in bustling food markets and at some of the countless street food stalls dotted about the country. Phnom Penh is, of course, a city that also deserves your time and attention. Reflect on Cambodia's tragic history at sobering sites such as the S21 school and the Killing Fields before taking in their spectacularly colourful palaces and pagodas. And, while you're in the area, try to fit in a visit to one of Cambodia's hot ticket neighbouring countries like Vietnam and Laos. Go if you want to… explore ancient temples surrounded by nature and wildlife as well as get a culture overload within seemingly chaotic cities full of incredibly welcoming locals who will feed you all the best local grub. Book it now: Book the complete Cambodia adventure tour here. [caption id="attachment_872744" align="alignnone" width="1920"] James Wheeler (Unsplash)[/caption] Where: Byron Bay Why: let's just say this from the get-go — Byron Bay is so much more than just the home of soulless influencers and the brothers' Hemsworth. Byron Bay and its surrounding regions are an embarrassment of riches when it comes to incredible beaches, one of Australia's most exciting food and produce scenes, and is the ultimate wellness playground with resorts, retreats and experiences that are dedicated to losing yourself or finding yourself. How: Set yourself up in accommodation that is social. It's a great place to meet likeminded people — do some group yoga classes, find your zen during a guided meditation, or set out on a sea kayaking adventure to spot turtles and dolphins. Spend your nights out at great restaurants, hit up some local bars and stroll through the town and beyond. You don't need to go full luxury here. You can enjoy Byron's vibe on a decent budget too. Go if you want to… live without shoes for an entire week by the coast, treating yourself to all the best self-care experiences. Book it now: Book a restorative Byron Bay wellness escape here. [caption id="attachment_872743" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Jake Charles (Unsplash)[/caption] Where: Morocco Why: This North African country is bursting with natural wonders, from the beaches lining The Med all the way through to the red sandy dunes of the Sahara Desert. And the cities are just as special. Get lost in maze-like markets where you'll find locals selling just about anything (from extraordinary spices to beautiful textiles), before exploring a range of cities and villages steeped in history and eclectic architecture. How: Casablanca and Marrakech are the spots to set up your base. Within Casablanca, you can visit the famous Villa des Arts Gallery & Museum for world-class exhibitions and visit the mind-blowing Hassan II Mosque located right on the water. And, from here, you can get a taste of Morocco's rural culture in colourful towns such as Rabat and Meknes. Marrakech, an ancient city wrapped in European modernity is where you'll find bustling bazaars and hammams for all the best pampering. It's also close to the Sahara Desert, where you can find the quintessential camel ride experiences and luxury camps. To get the most out of Morocco, you'll want to spend a couple weeks jumping from city to city. Go if you want to... mix remote desert glamping with bustling cities steeped in culture — expressed through food, art and architecture. Book it now: Book an exclusive Morocco getaway with all the trimmings here. [caption id="attachment_872748" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Danny Lau (Unsplash)[/caption] Where: Bali Why: Bali is beautiful. That's undeniable. And it's been on the top of the travel list for many Australians for decades. But some of the best parts of Bali exist in the remote areas where nature is mostly untamed. Walk along empty beaches and through dense jungles or simply swim in your pool overlooking all that natural beauty. How: Zip around the winding roads of Bali on a quad bike (or just get a taxi if you dare not undertake this feat) to explore the temples, holistic centres, yoga studios, rice fields and stacks of local markets of the Ubud region. You won't see quite as many Bintag singlets in these parts. You can also visit Canggu and Uluwatu to find the best surf or Kuta and Seminyak for those famous Bali party vibes. Choose your own Bali adventure. Go if you want to... run away to a remote jungle paradise and live that luxury lifestyle without breaking the bank. Book it now: Book an indulgent bail holiday away from all the crowds here. [caption id="attachment_872752" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Niklas Weiss (Unsplash)[/caption] Where: Mexico Why: Why the hell not?! Mexico has it all. Urban cities full of modern art and culture — and let's not forget the legendary and world class cuisine. Then you've got long white sand beaches that stretch on for miles as well as dense forests with hidden waterfalls for the adventurers. Small villages are also full of vibrant indigenous cultures where residents still live the traditional way of life. There are boundless ways to fall in love with Mexico. How: Mexico City is a mighty fine starting off point. The Leon Trotsky and Frida Kahlo (La Casa Azul) Museums are must-see. As are the colourful Diego Rivera Murals in the Mural Museum. Make sure you carve out some time to get lost in the Juarez neighbourhood too. This area, full of young creatives, has evolved in recent years. Once gritty, it is now teeming with great boutiques, bars, parks, and restaurants. Smaller cities such as Izamal and Merida are also great for a less crowded cultural experiences. You've then got Teotihuacan, Mitla and Oaxaca, where you'll find countless ancient archaeological sites steeped in history. And lastly, there is the one and only Playa del Carmen. Sit by the pool (finishing that book you've been working on for far too long) or get a little more active with snorkelling excursions. We could go on and on about the abundance of joy to be found on a journey to Mexico. Just make sure you give yourselves two weeks to see as much of this country as you can. Go if you want to… experience an intoxicatingly joyful culture — expressed through warm hospitality, flavour-packed food and all manners of modern and ancient art. The famous beaches and coastal towns aren't so bad for pure relaxation either. Book it now: Book an epic journey from Mexico City to Playa del Carmen here. [caption id="attachment_872767" align="alignnone" width="1920"] David Vives (Unsplash)[/caption] Where: Phuket Why: There are over 1400 islands in Thailand. And they range in reasons to visit. Visitors choose where to go depending on whether they're after party vibes, quiet escapes, family-friendly fun or adventure activities. But the beauty of Phuket is that it offers up a little bit of everything. You can do it all here — all while being surrounded by 50 kilometres of dazzling shoreline. How: First off, Mai Khao Beach is a big bucket list destination. This seemingly infinite stretch of sand lined with trees is what postcards are made for. It's stupid beautiful. Plus, it's also a national park and sea turtle zone. That means it's the perfect place to get your snorkel on. Patong is the nightlife epicentre of Phuket — for better or for worse. Here you'll find a booming party scene, busy beaches and neon-lit streets full of people having a ball. But if this one island isn't enough, you can easily jump on a ferry to nearby islands or take a day-long cruise around a bunch of the best. Go if you want to... get all the best bits of staying on an island without emptying your entire savings account. Book it now: Book a surprisingly affordable luxury resort in Phuket here. [caption id="attachment_872775" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ratul Ghosh (Unsplash)[/caption] 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. Top Image: Danny Lau (Unsplash)
UPDATE, December 20, 2021: Happiest Season is available to stream via Amazon Prime Video, Foxtel Now, Google Play, YouTube Movies and iTunes. Heading home for the holidays and stepping into a sea of interpersonal dramas is a familiar on-screen set-up, as a new movie every Christmas or so reminds us. By now, then, we all know the formula. Adult children make the pilgrimage to their parents' place, rivalries and animosities flare up, secrets are spilled, chaos ensues and, by the end of the film's running time, everyone has learned something. Happiest Season fits the template perfectly. With the merriest time of the year in full swing, the Caldwells converge on the Pennsylvanian family home, with their celebrations given an extra edge due to patriarch Ted's (Victor Garber, Dark Waters) mayoral campaign. His fastidious wife Tipper (Mary Steenburgen, The Book Club) insists on snapping every moment for his Instagram feed, all as stern eldest daughter Sloane (Alison Brie, GLOW) arrives with her husband (Burl Moseley, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), two children (Asiyih and Anis N'Dobe) and plenty of unspoken tension in tow; zany middle sister and aspiring fantasy writer Jane (Mary Holland, Between Two Ferns: The Movie) is largely ignored; and Pittsburgh-based political journalist Harper (Mackenzie Davis, Irresistible) returns with the girlfriend, Abby (Kristen Stewart, Charlie's Angels), that none of her relatives know about because she hasn't come out to them yet. If someone other than The Faculty, Girl, Interrupted, Veep and The Handmaid's Tale actor-turned-filmmaker Clea DuVall had made Happiest Season, the above paragraph would accurately reflect the feature's character hierarchy — because Sloane would take centre stage, and Harper and Abby would hover around the narrative's edges. But DuVall did make Happiest Season and, with co-writer Holland, she flips the movie's focus, even while still sticking with a well-worn general premise. Accordingly, this festive flick resembles a comfy sweater that often gets a wear, but seems welcomely different on this particular occasion. As Aussie queer teen rom-com Ellie and Abbie (and Ellie's Dead Aunt) also demonstrated this year, it shouldn't be so subversive to take an overused genre that's heavy on recognisable tropes, then strip away the engrained heteronormativity. But it is, in both high school-set romances and movies about meeting your partner's parents over eggnog. After filling the credits with details of the formative stages of Harper and Abby's relationship, the feature introduces them properly as they're touring local Christmas lights. The towering Harper is giddier than one might expect of someone of her age, but the calmer Abby isn't fussed about the season after losing her parents when she was a teenager. When the former asks the latter to come home with her for Christmas, though, Abby gets excited. She wants to pop the question anyway, and figures there's no time or place better to make the festive-loving Harper her fiancée — although her best friend John (Dan Levy, Schitt's Creek) points out that asking Harper's dad's permission beforehand is hardly a progressive step. It isn't until Happiest Season's central couple has almost reached the Caldwells' that Abby discovers Harper's subterfuge. Not only do Ted, Tipper and company not know that Harper is gay and in a relationship, but Abby is asked to pretend she's straight as well (yes, one gag literally places her in a closet, because of course that happens). In the broad strokes, the movie doesn't serve up any surprises. But like moving its focus to Harper and Abby, this Christmas rom-com is all about the details. Amid the sibling struggles, the re-emergence of old flames both male (Jake McDorman, What We Do in the Shadows) and female (Aubrey Plaza, Parks and Recreation), and the always-hectic whirlwind that surrounds every seasonal family affair — and every attempt to run for political office, too — Happiest Season explores two crucial themes in a meaningful way. First, it unpacks the performative nature of human existence, where too often we're all trying to match other people's perceptions and expectations without consistently remaining true to ourselves. And, it also interrogates how coming out isn't a simple or straightforward act, even in seemingly loving circumstances. These are weighty ideas and, while Happiest Season is light and jovial overall, it doesn't sugarcoat its heavier moments. It doesn't devote all of its running time to them either, but DuVall and Holland's script finds a delicate balance — with the part played by Holland herself at first seeming to be the movie's most overtly exaggerated role for comedic effect, but eventually proving more thoughtful, for instance. It's easy to see how the screenwriting pair could've turned this into a different picture, with the initially tentative friendship that springs up between Abby and Plaza's Riley, and the commonalities they feel as women who've been pushed aside so Harper could maintain a lie, 100-percent begging for an entire movie of its own. But DuVall never forgets the task that she has clearly set herself: to make a queer meet-the-parents Christmas comedy. The film's warm-hued, Hallmark-style imagery never lets the audience overlook the fact that Happiest Season willingly sticks to a formula in order to update it, either. Also apparent is just how well Stewart and Davis anchor the movie's generic and more soulful elements alike. This shouldn't come as a surprise, with Stewart picking most of her post-Twilight roles astutely (see: Clouds of Sils Maria, Certain Women, Personal Shopper and Seberg), and Davis always a memorable addition to any cast. In their hands, their characters feel lived-in. So does Happiest Season's central relationship, especially as it navigates considerable ups and downs, including an ongoing series of questionable decisions by Harper. Steenburgen, Plaza, Levy, Brie, Garber — they're all reliably great, too, but it's likely this LGBTQIA+-friendly dose of merriment wouldn't have found the right mix of festive familiarity and emotional substance with other leads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_jjELPpKkk
A pillar of Sydney's hospitality scene for two decades now, Maurice Terzini's beachfront Italian fine-diner and breezy bar Icebergs closed in May of this year to undergo refurbishments during the colder months. The iconic Bondi venue is now reopening exactly 20 years to the day that it first swung open its doors. Icebergs was originally slated to reopen in late October; however, 2022's persistent extreme weather — particularly its unprecedented rainfall — has caused interruptions to the work being done on the venue. As a result, the reopening has been pushed back to December, with the first service now coinciding with the restaurant's 20th birthday on Wednesday, December 14. Anyone who previously had a reservation for November or early December should have been contacted by the Icebergs team. "For anyone who has received a phone call or email from our reservations team, please understand this has deeply affected us all and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this has caused. We are doing our very best to find an alternative location or a future date with us," a statement from Maurice Terzini and the Icebergs crew reads. When the Bondi venue closed earlier this year, it was revealed Terzini and co had enlisted the help of Rome-based architect Lazzarini Pickering to put his spin on the upgraded venue. Pickering has worked on incredible buildings across the globe, including now-closed local hospitality spots Neild Avenue and Giuseppe Arnaldo & Sons, and Icebergs once-idealised Bali beach club. The reopening night on December 14 is already booked out, but if you want to reserve a spot for dinner or drinks at Icebergs once it's back in business, you can head to the restaurant's website. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Icebergs Dining Room and Bar (@icebergsdiningroomandbar) Icebergs Dining Room and Bar is located at 1 Notts Avenue, Bondi Beach. It will reopen on Wednesday, December 14.
Low-fi. Wild ferment. Skin contact. Sounds like different incarnations of your mate's high school band, but actually this is just the lingo of the world of minimal intervention winemaking. It's a movement that's been gaining popularity in Australia and New Zealand for a while now, and the wines produced as a result of it have been floating around restaurants and bars for the better part of a decade. For some, seeing 'skin contact' on a wine list is like a guiding light — but, often, it can be confusing as to what that actually means. So what is minimal intervention winemaking exactly? In its purest form, minimal intervention means winemaking that doesn't add or remove anything at the cellar — it's about turning grapes into wine with as little interference from the winemaker as possible. Unlike your typical drop made with more traditional methods, there are less sulfites and commercial yeast added throughout the process. Instead, yeast that was already on the grapes when they were picked is left to ferment and make it into wine. So, how can you tell when you're sipping one? What flavours should you expect in the glass? And how long can you keep a bottle in your fridge before it ends up down the sink? To help you wade through the winemaker speak, we've teamed up with Stoneleigh to deliver the ultimate untraditional wine cheat-sheet. With this, you won't have to fumble your way through weighty wine lists (and, after that, chicken out and order the house red anyway). We'll have you picking the most interesting wine on the menu in no time. HOW IT'S MADE Let's start at the vineyard. In the case of minimal intervention wine this is, arguably, the genesis of every great bottle. The process begins with fruit picked at optimum ripeness, which is then harvested and crushed. From here, juices are drained and pressed from the skins, then poured into a fermentation vessel and left at room temperature. This is where things really kick into gear. The fermentation of the natural yeast usually begins within a few days and continues for up to a month. It's similar to the style of fermentation that happens in kombucha, kimchi and sourdough. In the case of Stoneleigh's Wild Valley Sauvignon Blanc, 70 percent of the wine is aged in French barrels, while the other 30 percent goes into stainless steel tanks. Once fermentation is complete, the two are blended to produce a balanced and ripe wine that has more texture and depth. The key difference here from conventional winemaking is there's no chemicals, herbicides, and pesticides, added yeast, sugar or machinery in sight. The result? Keep reading to find out. [caption id="attachment_644048" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Brook James[/caption] HOW IT TASTES As minimal intervention winemaking adopts a hands-off approach, it's often said these wines are the ultimate representation of the land from which the grapes are sourced. Each vineyard will have its own unique environment that produces naturally occurring micro-flora (the stuff that makes wild fermentation happen) and, as such, its own distinct taste. Without the typical stabilisers and filtering process of conventional wines, the flavour profiles of this wine vary wildly from cellar to cellar. It's a spectrum that shifts from wild and crisp to cloudy and funky. Oh, and expect there to be plenty of sediment in the bottom of your glass. Unlike conventional wines, there are no agents (typically egg white or gelatin) added or filtering prior to bottling — so there will be floaties. But don't worry, these are completely harmless and 100 percent fine for ingestion. Think of it like the pulp in a freshly squeezed OJ. Grown in New Zealand's Rapaura valley, Stoneleigh's Wild Valley Sauvignon Blanc is a wine as very distinct. If you track down a glass, you'll smell stone fruit and lemon curd, and maybe even taste some paw paw. HOW TO STORE IT These wines, unlike their conventional counterparts, are best enjoyed young. Without stabilisers and additives, they prove more unstable and harder to age than a traditional drop. So Stoneleigh recommends consuming its Wild Valley Sauvignon Blanc within two years of purchasing to drink it at its peak. The same rules around typical wine storage still apply for low-intervention wines. Store horizontally away from sunlight in a cool, dry place and keep sealed and corked until you're ready to drink. Once open, the wine's flavour will be at its for the next two or three days — don't leave it any longer. [caption id="attachment_644050" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Brook James[/caption] HOW TO PAIR IT Being region-specific wines, many wild fermented wines are a perfect match for vegetable dishes. Look for savoury low-fi drops that play on the earthiness of root vegetables like carrots, parsnips and beetroot. Next time you're hosting a barbecue, skip the six-pack and nab a chilled glass of natural vino instead. Grab bottles with light, bright acidity that work well alongside charred seafood dishes like prawns and scallops or grilled barramundi. Stoneleigh's Wild Valley Sauvignon Blanc is suited to a range of dishes. The winemakers recommend pairing it with an oily fish such as salmon, topped with parmesan herb crust drizzled with fresh lemon or perfect with a range of cow's and goat's milk cheeses. Start your journey through minimal intervention wine with Stoneleigh Wild Valley, whose 2017 sauvignon blanc recently won gold at the New York International Wine Competition 2019. Top image: Brook James.
Danny and Michael Philippou know how to haunt. When the Adelaide-born twins unveiled their debut feature Talk to Me in 2023, a new Aussie horror sensation took the genre, and the world, by the hand to share its entertainingly eerie energy. The filmmakers behind it also became one of the hottest new things in scary movies. Two years later, the Philippous are returning with their sophomore effort — and, based on its just-dropped first teaser trailer, more must-see chills are on the way. After Talk to Me's huge success, including for cult-favourite distributor A24, sequel Talk 2 Me was quickly greenlit. But the filmmakers who started out their careers behind the camera as YouTubers RackaRacka will have Bring Her Back in cinemas first. Horror? Tick. A24 onboard? Tick again. Dancing with the dead once more? That seems to be the case as well. The non-Talk to Me flick that's combining all of the above, and also the Philippous (of course), stars The Shape of Water Oscar-nominee — and Wonka, Spencer, Paddington and Godzilla: King of the Monsters actor — Sally Hawkins. As the initial trailer shows, she plays a foster mother. The brother and sister newly in her care find more than just a new parent in her home, however. In the first sneak peek, this is a picture of grief, death and blood, plus strange circles and petrifying rituals. Alongside Hawkins, the Australian-made Bring Her Back also stars Billy Barratt (Kraven the Hunter), Jonah Wren Phillips (How to Make Gravy) and film first-timer Sora Wong. A24 went all-in on the Philippous after picking up Talk to Me in a Sundance Film Festival bidding war, when global attention started being showered upon the Aussie flick about shaking hands with an embalmed palm, feeling the rush while being haunted, having your mates watch and film it, and dealing with the spooky consequences. Danny and Michael made their feature directorial debut after racking up a huge following with RackaRacka's viral videos, and via behind-the-scenes work on Australian films such as The Babadook. Their first flick feature proved a big box-office success, taking in US$10 million on its opening weekend in America alone, which placed it second among A24's films after Hereditary. Across its big-screen run, it clawed its way up to second on the company's all-time worldwide list, after Everything Everywhere All At Once and Civil War. And, at the 2024 AACTA Awards, Talk to Me took home eight accolades, including Best Film of 2023, plus Best Director. Check out the trailer for Bring Her Back below: Bring Her Back releases in the US on Friday, May 30, 2025, but doesn't yet have a release date Down Under — we'll update you when more details are announced. Read our review of Talk to Me, and our interview with Danny Philippou.
Before the pandemic, when a new-release movie started playing in cinemas, audiences couldn't watch it on streaming, video on demand, DVD or blu-ray for a few months. But with the past few years forcing film industry to make quite a few changes — widespread movie theatre closures and plenty of people staying home in iso will do that — that's no longer always the case. Maybe you've been under the weather. Perhaps you haven't had time to make it to your local cinema lately. Given the hefty amount of films now releasing each week, maybe you simply missed something. Film distributors have been fast-tracking some of their new releases from cinemas to streaming recently — movies that might still be playing in theatres in some parts of the country, too. In preparation for your next couch session, here are 19 that you can watch right now at home. WHITE NOISE We're all dying. We're all shopping. We're all prattling relentlessly about our days and routines, and about big ideas and tiny specifics as well. As we cycle through this list over and over, again and again, rinsing and repeating, we're also all clinging to whatever distracts us from our ever-looming demise, our mortality hovering like a black billowing cloud. In White Noise, all of the above is a constant. For the film's second of three chapters, a dark swarm in the sky is literal, too. Adapted from Don DeLillo's 1985 novel of the same name — a book thought unfilmable for the best part of four decades — by Marriage Story writer/director Noah Baumbach, this bold, playful survey of existential malaise via middle-class suburbia and academia overflows with life, death, consumerism and the cacophony of chaos echoing through our every living moment. Oh, and there's a glorious supermarket dance number as one helluva finale, because why not? "All plots move deathward" protagonist Jack Gladney (Adam Driver, House of Gucci) contends, one of his words of wisdom in the 'Hitler studies' course he's taught for 16 years at College-on-the-Hill. Yes, that early declaration signals the feature's biggest point of fascination — knowing that eternal rest awaits us all, that is — as does White Noise's car crash-filled very first frames. In the latter, Jack's colleague Murray Siskind (Don Cheadle, No Sudden Move) holds court, addressing students about the meaning of and catharsis found in on-screen accidents, plunging into their use of violence and catastrophe as entertainment, and showing clips. In the aforementioned mid-section of the movie, when White Noise turns into a disaster flick thanks to a tanker truck colliding with a train and a wild road trip with Jack's fourth wife Babette (Greta Gerwig, 20th Century Women) and their kids Heinrich (Sam Nivola, With/In), Steffie (May Nivola, The Pursuit of Love), Denise (Raffey Cassidy, Vox Lux) and Wilder (debutants Henry and Dean Moore), you can bet that Murray's insights and concepts bubble up again. White Noise is available to stream via Netflix. Read our full review. BARBARIAN "Safe as houses" isn't a term that applies much in horror. It isn't difficult to glean why. Even if scary movies routinely followed folks worrying about their investments — one meaning of the phrase — it's always going to be tricky for the sentiment to stick when such flicks love plaguing homes, lodges and other dwellings with bumps, jumps and bone-chilling terror. Barbarian, however, could break out the expression and mean it, in a way. At its centre sits a spruced-up Detroit cottage listed on Airbnb and earning its owner a trusty income. In the film's setup, the house in question is actually doing double duty, with two guests booked for clashing stays over the same dates. It's hardly a spoiler to say that their time in the spot, the nicest-looking residence in a rundown neighbourhood, leaves them feeling anything but safe. Late on a gloomy, rainy, horror-movie-101 kind of night — an eerie and tense evening from the moment that writer/director Zach Cregger's first feature as a solo director begins — Tess Marshall (Georgina Campbell, Suspicion) arrives at Barbarian's pivotal Michigan property. She's in town for a job interview, but discovers the lockbox empty, keys nowhere to be found. Also, the home already has an occupant in Keith Toshko (Bill Skarsgård, Eternals), who made his reservation via a different website. With a medical convention filling the city's hotels, sharing the cottage seems the only option, even if Tess is understandably cautious about cohabitating with a man she's literally just met. Ambiguity is part of Barbarian from the get-go, spanning whether Keith can be trusted, what's behind their double booking and, when things start moving overnight, what's going on in the abode. That's only the start of Barbarian's hellish story. Barbarian is available to stream via Disney+, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. SHE SAID Questions flow freely in She Said, the powerful and methodical All the President's Men and Spotlight-style newspaper drama from director Maria Schrader (I'm Your Man) and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Small Axe) that tells the story behind the past decade's biggest entertainment story. On-screen, Zoe Kazan (Clickbait) and Carey Mulligan (The Dig) tend to be doing the asking, playing now Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey. They query Harvey Weinstein's actions, including his treatment of women. They gently and respectfully press actors and Miramax employees about their traumatic dealings with the Hollywood honcho, and they politely see if some — if any — will go on the record about their experiences. And, they question Weinstein and others at his studio about accusations that'll lead to this famous headline: "Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades". As the entire world read at the time, those nine words were published on October 5, 2017, along with the distressing article that detailed some — but definitely not all — of Weinstein's behaviour. Everyone has witnessed the fallout, too, with Kantor and Twohey's story helping spark the #MeToo movement, electrifying the ongoing fight against sexual assault and gender inequality in the entertainment industry, and shining a spotlight on the gross misuses of authority that have long plagued Tinseltown. The piece also brought about Weinstein's swift downfall. As well as being sentenced to 23 years in prison in New York in 2020, he's currently standing trial for further charges in Los Angeles. Watching She Said, however, more questions spring for the audience. Here's the biggest heartbreaker: how easily could Kantor and Twohey's article never have come to fruition at all, leaving Weinstein free to continue his predatory harassment? She Said is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery opens with a puzzle box inside a puzzle box. The former is a wooden cube delivered out of the blue, the latter the followup to 2019 murder-mystery hit Knives Out, and both are as tightly, meticulously, cleverly and cannily orchestrated as each other. The physical version has siblings, all sent to summon a motley crew of characters to the same place, as these types of flicks need to boast. The film clearly has its own brethren, and slots in beside its predecessor as one of the genre's gleaming standouts. More Knives Out movies will follow as well, which the two so far deserve to keep spawning as long as writer/director Rian Johnson (Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi) and Benoit Blanc-playing star Daniel Craig (No Time to Die) will make them. Long may they keep the franchise's key detective and audience alike sleuthing. Long may they have everyone revelling in every twist, trick and revelation, as the breezy blast that is Glass Onion itself starts with. What do Connecticut Governor and US Senate candidate Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn, WandaVision), model-slash-designer-slash-entrepreneur Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon), scientist Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jr, The Many Saints of Newark) and gun-toting, YouTube-posting men's rights activist Duke Cody (Dave Bautista, Thor: Love and Thunder) all have in common when this smart and savvy sequel kicks off? They each receive those literal puzzle boxes, of course, and they visibly enjoy their time working out what they're about. The cartons are the key to their getaway to Greece — their invites from tech mogul Miles Bron (Edward Norton, The French Dispatch), in fact — and also perfectly emblematic of this entire feature. It's noteworthy that this quartet carefully but playfully piece together clues to unveil the contents inside, aka Glass Onion's exact modus operandi. That said, it's also significant that a fifth recipient of these elaborate squares, Andi Brand (Janelle Monáe, Antebellum), simply decides to smash their way inside with a hammer. As Brick and Looper also showed, Johnson knows when to attentively dole out exactly what he needs to, including when the body count starts. He also knows when to let everything spill out, and when to put the cravat-wearing Blanc on the case. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is available to stream via Netflix. Read our full review. ROALD DAHL'S MATILDA THE MUSICAL Mischievous and magical in equal measure (and spirited, and gleefully snarky and spiky), Roald Dahl's Matilda has been a balm for souls since 1988. If you were a voracious reader as a kid, happiest escaping into the page — or if you felt out of place at home, cast aside for favoured siblings, bullied at school or unappreciated in general — then it wasn't just a novel. Rather, it was a diary capturing your bubbling feelings in perfect detail, just penned by one of the great children's authors. When Matilda first reached the screen in 1996, Americanised and starring Mara Wilson as the pint-sized bookworm who finds solace in imagined worlds (and puts bleach in her dad's hair tonic, and glue on his hat band), the film captured the same sensation. So has the song-and-dance stage version since 2010, too, because this heartfelt yet irreverent tale was always primed for the musical treatment. Over a decade later, after nabbing seven Olivier Awards for its West End run, five Tony Awards on Broadway and 13 of Australia's own Helpmann Awards as well, that theatre show's movie adaptation arrives with its revolting children and its little bit of naughtiness. Tim Minchin's music and lyrics still provide the soundtrack to Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical, boasting the Aussie entertainer's usual blend of clever wordplay and comedy. Both the stage iteration's original director Matthew Warchus and playwright Dennis Kelly return, the former hopping back behind the camera after 2014's Pride and the latter adding a new screen project to his resume after The Third Day. The library full of charm remains, as does a story that's always relatable for all ages. Horrors and hilarity, a heroine (Alisha Weir, Darklands) for the ages, a hulking villain of a headmistress (Emma Thompson, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande), the beloved Miss Honey (Lashana Lynch, The Woman King), telekinetic powers: they're all also accounted for. Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical is available to stream via Netflix. Read our full review. STARS AT NOON Sweat, skin, sex, schisms, secrets and survival: a great film by French auteur Claire Denis typically has them all. Stars at Noon is one of them, even if her adaptation of the 1986 novel of nearly the same name — her picture drops the 'the', as a certain social network did — doesn't quite soar to the same astonishing heights as High Life, her last English-language release. Evocative, enveloping, atmospheric, dripping with unease: they're also traits that the two flicks share, like much of the Beau Travail, 35 Shots of Rum and White Material filmmaker's work. Here, all the sultriness and stress swells around two gleamingly attractive strangers, Trish (Margaret Qualley, Maid) and Daniel (Joe Alwyn, Conversations with Friends), who meet in a Central American hotel bar, slip between the sheets and find themselves tangled up in plenty beyond lips and limbs. Shining at each other when so much else obscures their glow, Stars at Noon's central duo are jumbled up in enough individually anyway. For the first half hour-ish, the erotic thriller slinks along with Trish's routine, which sees perspiration plastered across her face from the Nicaraguan heat, the lack of air-conditioning in her motel and the struggle to enjoy a cold drink. The rum she's often swilling, recalling that aforementioned Denis-directed feature's moniker, hardly helps. Neither does the transactional use of her body with a local law enforcement officer (Nick Romano, Shadows) and a government official (Stephan Proaño, Crónica de un amor). Imbibing is clearly a coping and confidence-giving mechanism, while those amorous tumbles afford her protection in a precarious political situation, with her passport confiscated, her actions being scrutinised and funds for a plane ticket home wholly absent. Stars at Noon is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. SERIOUSLY RED When working nine to five isn't panning out for Raylene 'Red 'Delaney (Krew Boylan, A Place to Call Home), she does what all folks should: takes Dolly Parton's advice. Pouring yourself a cup of ambition is never simple, but when you're a Parton-obsessed Australian eager to make all things Dolly your living, it's a dream that no one should be allowed to shatter. That's the delightful idea behind Seriously Red, which pushes Parton worship to the next level — and idolising celebrities in general — while tracking Red's quest to make it, cascading blonde wigs atop her natural flame-hued tresses and all, as a Dolly impersonator. That's a wonderfully flamboyant concept, too, as brought to the screen with a surreal 'Copy World' filled with other faux superstars; enlisting Rose Byrne (Physical) as an Elvis mimic is particularly inspired. Seriously Red doesn't just get its namesake adhering to Parton's wisdom, whether sung or spoken over the icon's 55-year career. It also splashes the country music queen's adages like "find out who you are and do it on purpose" across its frames as well. They help give the film structure and assist in setting the tone, as this rhinestone-studded movie comedically but earnestly explores two universal struggles. Everyone wants to be true to themselves, and to work out what that means. We all yearn to spend our days chasing our heart's real desires, too. As penned by Boylan in her debut script, and directed by fellow feature first-timer Gracie Otto (after documentaries The Last Impresario and Under the Volcano, plus episodes of The Other Guy, Bump, Heartbreak High and more), Seriously Red spots a big question lurking in these missions for Red, however — because what does it mean when being yourself and scoring your dream gig means being someone else? Seriously Red is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS Everyone wants to be the person at the party that the dance floor revolves around, and life in general as well, or so Alejandro González Iñárritu contends in Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths. In one of the film's many spectacularly shot scenes — with the dual Best Director Oscar-winning Birdman and The Revenant helmer benefiting from astonishing lensing by Armageddon Time cinematographer Darius Khondji — the camera swirls and twirls around Silverio Gama (Daniel Giménez Cacho, Memoria), the movie's protagonist, making him the only person that matters in a heaving crowd. Isolated vocals from David Bowie's 'Let's Dance' boom, and with all the more power without music behind them, echoing as if they're only singing to Silverio. Iñárritu is right: everyone does want a moment like this. Amid the intoxicating visuals and vibe, he's also right that such instances are fleeting. And, across his sprawling and surreal 159-minute flick, he's right that such basking glory and lose-yourself-to-dance bliss can never be as fulfilling as anyone wants. That sequence comes partway through Bardo, one of several that stun through sheer beauty and atmosphere, and that Iñárritu layers with the disappointment of being himself. Everyone wants to be the filmmaker with all the fame and success, breaking records, winning prestigious awards and conquering Hollywood, he also contends. Alas, when you're this Mexican director, that isn't as joyous or uncomplicated an experience as it sounds. On-screen, his blatant alter ego is a feted documentarian rather than a helmer of prized fiction. He's a rare Latino recipient of a coveted accolade, one of Bardo's anchoring events. He's known to make ambitious works with hefty titles — False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths is both the IRL movie's subtitle and the name of Silverio's last project — and he's been largely based in the US for decades. Yes, parallels abound. Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths is available to stream via Netflix. Read our full review. THE WOMAN KING Since 2016's Suicide Squad, the DC Extended Universe has tasked Viola Davis with corralling super-powered folks, including villains forced to do the state's bidding (as also seen in The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker) and regular world-saving superheroes (the just-released Black Adam). In The Woman King, however, she's more formidable, powerful and magnificent than any spandex-wearing character she's ever shared a frame with — or ever will in that comic-to-screen realm. Here, she plays the dedicated and determined General Nanisca, leader of the Agojie circa 1823. This is an "inspired by true events" tale, and the all-female warrior troupe was very much real, protecting the now-defunct west African kingdom of Dahomey during its existence in what's now modern-day Benin. Suddenly thinking about a different superhero domain and its own redoubtable women-only army, aka the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Dora Milaje in Wakanda? Yes, Black Panther took inspiration from the Agojie. If you're thinking about Wonder Woman's Amazons, too, the Agojie obviously pre-dates them as well. Links to two huge franchises in various fashions aren't anywhere near The Woman King's main attraction, of course. Davis and her fellow exceptional cast members, such as Lashana Lynch (No Time to Die), Thuso Mbedu and Sheila Atim (both co-stars in The Underground Railroad); The Old Guard filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood and her grand and kinetic direction, especially in fight scenes; stunningly detailed costumes and production design that's both vibrant and textured; a story that still boasts humour and heart: they all rank far higher among this feature's drawcards. So does the fact that this is a lavish historical epic in the Braveheart and Gladiator mould, but about ass-kicking Black women badged "the bloodiest bitches in Africa". Also, while serving up an empowering vision, The Woman King also openly grapples with many difficulties inherent in Dahomey's IRL history (albeit in a mass consumption-friendly, picking-and-choosing manner). The Woman King is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. BROS Buy this for a dollar: a history-making gay rom-com that's smart, sweet, self-aware and funny, and also deep knows the genre it slips into, including the heteronormative tropes and cliches that viewers have seen ad nauseam. Actually, Billy Eichner would clearly prefer that audiences purchase tickets for Bros for more that that sum of money, even if he spent five seasons offering it to New Yorkers in Billy on the Street while sprinting along the sidewalk and yelling about pop culture. Thinking about that comedy series comes with the territory here, however, and not just because Eichner brought it back to promote this very movie. Starring and co-written by the Parks and Recreation and The Lion King actor — with Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the Bad Neighbours franchise's Nicholas Stoller directing and co-scripting — Bros both presents and unpacks the public persona that helped make Billy on the Street such a hit: opinionated, forceful and wry, as well as acidic and cranky. No one person, be it the version of himself that Eichner plays in the series that helped push him to fame or the fictional character he brings to the screen in Bros — or, in-between, his struggling comedian and actor part in three-season sitcom Difficult People, too — is just those five traits, of course. One of Bros' strengths is how it examines why it's easy to lean into that personality, where the sheen of caustic irritability comes from, the neuroses it's covering up and what all that means when it comes to relationships. The movie does so knowingly as well. It's well aware that Eichner's fans are familiar with his on-screen type, and that even newcomers likely are also. Accordingly, when Bros begins, Eichner's in-film alter ego is shouting about pop culture and being adamant, grumpy and cutting about it. In fact, he's on a podcast, where he's relaying his failed attempt to pen a script for exactly the kind of flick he's in. Bros is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. BLACK ADAM "I kneel before no one," says Teth-Adam, aka Black Adam, aka the DC Comics character that dates back to 1945, and that Dwayne Johnson (Red Notice) has long wanted to play. That proclamation is made early in the film that bears the burly, flying, impervious-to-everything figure's name, echoing as a statement of might as well as mood: he doesn't need to bow down to anyone or anything, and if he did he wouldn't anyway. Yet the DC Extended Universe flick that Black Adam is in — the 11th in a saga that's rarely great — kneels frequently to almost everything. It bends the knee to the dispiritingly by-the-numbers template that keeps lurking behind this comic book-inspired series' most forgettable entries, and the whole franchise's efforts to emulate the rival (and more successful) Marvel Cinematic Universe, for starters. It also shows deference to the lack of spark and personality that makes the lesser DC-based features so routine at best, too. Even worse, Black Adam kneels to the idea that slipping Johnson into a sprawling superhero franchise means robbing the wrestler-turned-actor himself of any on-screen personality. Glowering and gloomy is a personality, for sure, but it's not what's made The Rock such a box office drawcard — and, rather than branching out, breaking the mould or suiting the character, he just appears to be pouting and coasting. He looks the physical part, of course, as he needs to playing a slave-turned-champion who now can't be killed or hurt. It's hard not to wish that the Fast and Furious franchise's humour seeped into his performance, however, or even the goofy corniness of Jungle Cruise, Johnson's last collaboration with filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra. The latter has template-esque action flicks Unknown, Non-Stop, Run All Night and The Commuter on his resume before that, and helms his current star here like he'd rather still directing Liam Neeson. Black Adam is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. MILLIE LIES LOW A scene-stealer in 2018's The Breaker Upperers, Ana Scotney now leads the show in Millie Lies Low. She's just as magnetic. The New Zealand actor plays the film's eponymous Wellington university student, who has a panic attack aboard a plane bound for New York — where a prestigious architecture internship awaits — and has to disembark before her flight leaves. A new ticket costs $2000, which she doesn't have. And, trying to rustle up cash from her best friend and classmate (Jillian Nguyen, Hungry Ghosts), mother (Rachel House, Cousins) and even a quick-loan business (run by Cohen Holloway, The Power of the Dog) still leaves her empty-handed. Millie's solution: faking it till she makes it, searching for ways to stump up the funds while hiding out in her hometown, telling everyone she's actually already in the Big Apple and posting faux Instagram snaps MacGyvered out of whatever she can find (big sacks of flour standing in for snow, for instance) to sell the ruse. There's a caper vibe to Millie's efforts skulking around Wellington while endeavouring to finance her ticket to her dreams — and to the picture of her supposedly perfect existence that she's trying to push upon herself as much as her loved ones. Making her feature debut, director and co-writer Michelle Savill has imposter syndrome and the shame spiral it sparks firmly in her sights, and finds much to mine in both an insightful and darkly comedic manner. As she follows her protagonist between episodic efforts to print the legend — or post it one Insta picture at a time — her keenly observed film also treads in Frances Ha's footsteps. Both movies examine the self-destructive life choices of a twentysomething with a clear idea of what she wants everyone to think of her, but far less of a grasp on who she really is and what she genuinely needs. While some framing and music choices make that connection obvious, the astute delight that is Millie Lies Low is never a Wellington-set copy. Millie Lies Low is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. STRANGE WORLD Strange World needs to be a visual knockout; when a title nods to an extraordinary and otherworldly place, it makes a promise. Director Don Hall and co-helmer/screenwriter Qui Nguyen, who last worked together as filmmaker and scribe on the also-resplendent Raya and the Last Dragon, meet that pledge with force — aka the movie's trademark approach. Strange World goes all-in on hallucinogenic scenery, glowing creatures and luminous pops of colour (pink hues especially) that simply astound. Indeed, calling it trippy is also an understatement. The picture is equally as zealous about its various layers of messaging, spanning humanity's treatment of the planet, learning to coexist with rather than command and conquer our surroundings, and navigating multigenerational family dynamics. A feature can be assertive, arresting and entertaining, however, because this is. Clade patriarch Jaeger (Dennis Quaid, Midway) can also be described as strong-willed and unsubtle, much to his son Searcher's (Jake Gyllenhaal, Ambulance) frustration. In the mountainous land of Avalonia, the former is a heroic explorer intent on seeing what's on the other side of those peaks — a feat that's never been achieved before — but the latter pleas for staying put, spotting a curious plant on their latest expedition and wanting to investigate its possibilities. Doing anything but bounding forth isn't the Clade way, Jaeger contends, sparking an icy father-son rift. Jaeger storms off, Searcher goes home, and Avalonia is revolutionised by pando, the energy-giving fruit from that just-discovered plant, over the next quarter-century. Then, in a locale that now enjoys electricity, hovering vehicles and other mod cons, the natural resource suddenly seems to start rotting from the root. Strange World is available to stream via Disney+, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO Guillermo del Toro hasn't yet directed a version of Frankenstein, except that he now has in a way. Officially, he's chosen another much-adapted, widely beloved story — one usually considered less dark — but there's no missing the similarities between the Nightmare Alley and The Shape of Water filmmaker's stop-motion Pinocchio and Mary Shelley's ever-influential horror masterpiece. Both carve out tales about creations made by grief-stricken men consumed by loss. Both see those tinkerers help give life to things that don't usually have it, gifting existence to the inanimate because they can't cope with mortality's reality. Both notch up the fallout when those central humans struggles with the results of their handiwork, even though all that the beings that spring from their efforts want is pure and simple love and acceptance. Del Toro's take on Pinocchio still has a talking cricket, a blue-hued source of magic and songs, too, but it clearly and definitely isn't a Disney movie. Instead, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is an enchanting iteration of a story that everyone knows, and that's graced screens so many times that this is the third flick in 2022 alone. Yes, the director's name is officially in the film's title. Yes, it's likely there to stop the movie getting confused with that array of other page-to-screen adaptations, all springing from Carlo Collodi's 19th-century Italian children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio. That said, even if the list of features about the timber puppet wasn't longer than said critter's nose when he's lying, del Toro would earn the possessory credit anyway. No matter which narrative he's unfurling — including this one about a boy fashioned out of pine (voiced by Gregory Mann, Victoria) by master woodcarver Geppetto (David Bradley, Catherine Called Birdy) after the death of his son — the Mexican Oscar-winner's distinctive fingerprints are always as welcomely apparent as his gothic-loving sensibilities. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is available to stream via Netflix. Read our full review. MURU Defiant, powerful and passionate at every turn, Muru depicts a relentless police raid on New Zealand's Rūātoki community. Equally alive with anger, the Aotearoan action-thriller and drama shows law enforcement storming into the district to apprehend what's incorrectly deemed a terrorist cell, but is actually activist and artist Tāme Iti — playing himself — and his fellow Tūhoe people. If October 2007 springs to mind while watching, it's meant to. Written and directed by Poi E: The Story of Our Song and Mt Zion filmmaker Tearepa Kahi, this isn't a mere dramatisation of well-known events, however. There's a reason that Muru begins by stamping its purpose on the screen, and its whole rationale for existing: "this film is not a recreation… it is a response". That the feature's name is also taken from a Māori process of redressing transgressions is both telling and fitting as well. Kahi's film is indeed a reaction, a reply, a counter — and a way of processing past wrongs. In a fashion, it's Sir Isaac Newton's third law of motion turned into cinema, because a spate of instances across New Zealand over a century-plus has sparked this on-screen answer. Muru's script draws from 15 years back; also from the police shooting of Steven Wallace in Waitara in 2000 before that; and from the arrest of Rua Kēnana in Maungapōhatu even further ago, in 1916. While the movie finds inspiration in the screenplay Toa by Jason Nathan beyond those real-life events, it's always in dialogue with things that truly happened, and not just once, and not only recently. If every action causes an opposite reaction, Muru is Kahi's way of sifting through, rallying against and fighting back after too many occasions where the long arm of the NZ law, and of colonialism, has overreached. Muru is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT War makes meat, disposable labour and easy sacrifices of us all. In battles for power, as they always are, bodies are used to take territory, threaten enemies and shed blood to legitimise a cause. On the ground, whether in muddy trenches or streaming across mine-strewn fields, war sees the masses rather than the individuals, too — but All Quiet on the Western Front has always been a heartbreaking retort to and clear-eyed reality check for that horrific truth. Penned in 1928 by German World War I veteran Erich Maria Remarque, initially adapted for the screen by Hollywood in 1930 and then turned into a US TV movie in 1979, the staunchly anti-war story now gets its first adaptation in its native tongue. Combat's agonies echo no matter the language giving them voice, but Edward Berger's new film is a stunning, gripping and moving piece of cinema. Helming and scripting — the latter with feature first-timers Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell — All My Loving director Berger starts All Quiet on the Western Front with a remarkable sequence. The film will come to settle on 17-year-old Paul Bäumer (astonishing debutant Felix Kammerer) and his ordeal after naively enlisting in 1917, thinking with his mates that they'd be marching on Paris within weeks, but it begins with a different young soldier, Heinrich Gerber (Jakob Schmidt, Babylon Berlin), in the eponymous region. He's thrust into the action in no man's land and the inevitable happens. Then, stained with blood and pierced by bullets, his uniform is stripped from his body, sent to a military laundry, mended and passed on. The recipient: the eager Paul, who notices the past wearer's name on the label and buys the excuse that it just didn't fit him. No one dares waste a scrap of clothing — only the flesh that dons it, and the existences its owners don't want to lose. All Quiet on the Western Front is available to stream via Netflix. Read our full review. HALLOWEEN ENDS Whenever a kitchen knife gleams, a warped mask slips over a killer's face or a piano score tinkles in a horror movie — whenever a jack-o'-lantern burns bright, a babysitter is alone in someone else's home with only kids for company or October 31 hits, too — one film comes to mind. It has for four-plus decades now and always will, because Halloween's influence over an entire genre, slasher flicks within it and final girls filling such frames is that immense. That seminal first altercation between then 17-year-old Laurie Strode and psychiatric institution escapee Michael Myers, as brought to the screen so unnervingly by now-legendary director John Carpenter, also valued a concept that couldn't be more pivotal, however. Halloween was never just a movie about an unhinged murderer in stolen mechanic's overalls stalking Haddonfield, Illinois when most of the town was trick-or-treating. In Laurie's determination to survive Michael's relentless stabbing, it was a film about trauma and fighting back. As played by Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All At Once) for 44 years — her big-screen debut made her an OG scream queen, and she's returned six times since, including now in Halloween Ends — Laurie has never been anyone's mere victim. In the choose-your-own-adventure antics that've filled the franchise's ever-branching narrative over 13 entries, her tale has twisted and turned. The saga's has in general, including chapters sans Laurie and Michael, films that've killed one or both off, and remakes. But mustering up the strength to persist, refusing to let Michael win and attacking back has remained a constant of Laurie's story. That's all kept pushing to the fore in the current trilogy within the series, which started with 2018's Halloween, continued with 2021's Halloween Kills and now wraps up with an instalment that flashes its finality in its moniker. Laurie keeps fighting, no matter the odds, because that's coping with trauma. This time, though, is a weary Haddonfield ready to battle with her? Halloween Ends is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. VIOLENT NIGHT When it comes to originality, place Violent Night on cinema's naughty list: Die Hard meets Home Alone meets Bad Santa meets The Christmas Chronicles in this grab-bag action-comedy, meets Stranger Things favourite David Harbour donning the red suit (leather here, still fur-trimmed) and doing a John Wick impression. The film's beer-swigging, sledgehammer-swinging version of Saint Nick has a magic sack that contains the right presents for the right person each time he reaches into it, and screenwriters Pat Casey and Josh Miller must've felt that way themselves while piecing together their script. Pilfering from the festive canon, and from celluloid history in general, happens heartily and often in this Yuletide effort. Co-scribes on Sonic the Hedgehog and its sequel, the pair are clearly experienced in the movie version of regifting. And while they haven't solely wrapped up lumps of coal in their latest effort, Violent Night's true presents are few and far between. The main gift, in the gruff-but-charming mode that's worked such a treat on Stranger Things and in Black Widow, is Harbour. It's easy to see how Violent Night's formula — not to mention its raiding of the Christmas and action genres for parts — got the tick of approval with his casting. He's visibly having a blast, too, from the moment his version of Santa is introduced downing drinks in a British bar, bellyaching about the lack of festive spirit in kids today, thinking about packing it all in and then spewing actual vomit to go with his apathy (and urine) from the side of his midair sleigh. Whenever Harbour isn't in the frame, which occurs more often than it should, Violent Night is a far worse picture. When you're shopping for the season, you have to commit to your present purchases, but this film can't always decide if it wants to be salty or sweet. Violent Night is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. MONA LISA AND THE BLOOD MOON When Ana Lily Amirpour made her spectacular feature filmmaking debut in 2014, and made one of the best movies of that year in the process, she did so with a flick with a killer title: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. That moniker also summed up the picture's plot perfectly, even if the Persian-language horror western vampire film couldn't be easily categorised. Take note of that seven-word name, and that genre-bending approach. When Amirpour next made wrote and directed The Bad Batch, the 2016 dystopian cannibal romance started with a woman meandering solo, albeit in the Texan desert in daylight, and also heartily embraced a throw-it-all-in philosophy. Now arrives her third stint behind the lens, the hyper-saturated, gleefully sleazy, New Orleans-set blend of superheroes, scams and strippers that is Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon — which, yes, features a female protagonist (Jeon Jong-seo, Burning) strolling unescorted again, back under the cover of darkness this time. Mona initially walks out of a home instead of towards one, however. And Amirpour isn't really repeating herself; rather, she has a penchant for stories about the exploited fighting back. Here, Mona has been stuck in an institution for "mentally insane adolescents" for at least a decade — longer than its receptionist (Rosha Washington, Interview with the Vampire) can remember — and breaks out during the titular lunar event after gruesomely tussling with an uncaring nurse (Lauren Bowles, How to Get Away with Murder). The Big Easy's nocturnal chaos then awaits, and Bourbon Street's specifically, as does instantly intrigued drug dealer Fuzz (Ed Skrein, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) and a determined but decent cop (Craig Robinson, Killing It). With opportunistic pole-dancer Bonnie Belle (Kate Hudson, Music), Mona thinks she finds an ally. With her new pal's kind-hearted latchkey kid Charlie (Evan Whitten, Words on Bathroom Walls), she finds a genuine friend as well. Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. Looking for more at-home viewing options? Take a look at our monthly streaming recommendations across new straight-to-digital films and TV shows — and our best new films, new TV shows, returning TV shows and straight-to-streaming movies, plus movies you might've missed and television standouts of 2022 you mightn't have gotten to.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas in some parts of the country. After numerous periods spent empty during the pandemic, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, picture palaces in many Australian regions are back in business — including both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. HOUSE OF GUCCI For the second time in as many movies, Lady Gaga is caught in a bad romance in House of Gucci. Yes, she's already sung the song to match. The pop diva doesn't belt out ballads or croon upbeat tunes in this true-crime drama, unlike in her Oscar-nominated role in A Star Is Born, but she does shimmy into a tale about love and revenge, horror and design, and wanting someone's everything as long as it's free. Eschewing the earthy naturalism of her last film performance and tapping into her famed on-stage theatricality instead, she's perfect for the part of Patrizia Reggiani, aka Lady Gucci, aka the daughter of a trucking entrepreneur who wed into one of the world's most prestigious fashion families, helped unstitch its hold on its couture empire, then went to prison for murder. She's exceptional because she goes big and lavish, and because she knows that's the type of feature she's meant to be in: a soapy spectacle about money and power that uses its depiction of excess as an interrogation technique. Complimenting Gaga for nailing the brief — for acing it so dazzlingly that she's sauntering down her own catwalk as most of her co-stars virtually watch from the floor — gives House of Gucci a tad too much credit, though. Ridley Scott's second film in mere months following The Last Duel, and his third in a row to examine wealth and influence after 2017's All the Money in the World, this fashion-world saga skews large, lush and luxe with each choice, too, but doesn't land every sashay with quite the outsized lustre of its crown jewel. If House of Gucci's veteran director was picking an outfit instead, he would've chosen a killer gown, then wavered on the accessories. Some of his other decisions gleam, as seen in the movie's knowingly maximalist and melodramatic air. Others prove fine, like its jukebox-style soundtrack of 70s and 80s bangers. A few moves are so cartoonish — Jared Leto's ridiculousness, and the Super Mario-style accents sported by almost everyone on-screen — that they play like cheap knockoffs. The story itself is a standout, however, as adapted from Sara Gay Forden's 2001 book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed. When Patrizia meets law student Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver, Annette) at a 70s-era party, mistakes him for a bartender, then realises who he is, it sparks a rollercoaster of a relationship — starting with Maurizio being disinherited by his father Rodolfo (Jeremy Irons, Love, Weddings and Other Disasters) for their marriage. Still, the newest Gucci knows what she wants: a place in the family's dynasty. She isn't the lone cause of the Guccis' unfolding, thanks to Rodolfo's brother Aldo (Al Pacino, Hunters), his penchant for watering down the brand and tax evasion, and his wannabe-designer son Paolo (Leto, The Little Things), but she's the Lady Macbeth pushing Maurizio to seize the company by any means. And, because the reason that House of Gucci even exists was written in news headlines over a quarter-century ago, she's behind Maurizio's killing in 1995. "I don't consider myself a particularly ethical person, but I'm fair," Patrizia offers partway into the movie, a moral code that still sees her order his hit after their divorce — helped by a TV psychic-turned-pal (Salma Hayek, Eternals), because that's the kind of tale this is. Interviewed in 2016, Patrizia called herself "the most Gucci of them all", an idea that Scott and his screenwriters Becky Johnston (Arthur Newman) and Roberto Bentivegna (short El otro lado) don't ever give Italian-lilted voice to, but still use as their basic pattern. In the sartorial realm, Gucci might stand for high-end indulgence, but House of Gucci sees both the allure and the cost of the brand reflected in Patrizia's status-hungry actions. Read our full review. GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE Spraying reboots, remakes, sequels and prequels across cinema screens like a spirit supposedly sprays ectoplasm — gushing reimaginings, spinoffs and seemingly never-ending franchises, too — Hollywood ain't afraid of no ghosts. It loves them in horror movies, obviously, but it adores the spectre of popular intellectual property even more. These phantoms of hits gone by can be resurrected again and again, all to make a profit. They haunt both cinemas and box-office blockbuster lists, making film-goers and the industry itself constantly feel like they're being spooked by the past. With 14 of Australia's 15 top cash-earning flicks of 2021 all falling into the been-there-done-that category in one way or another, looking backwards in the name of apparently going forwards is now mainstream filmmaking 101, and the big end of town rarely likes bustin' a money-making formula. After more than a few pandemic delays, that's the world that Ghostbusters: Afterlife floats into — a world that's made worshipping previous glories one of the biggest cash-spinners show business could've ever dreamed up. The fourth feature to bear the Ghostbusters name, but a new legacy sequel to the original 1984 film, this reanimated franchise entry certainly sports a fitting subtitle; treating its source material like it's nirvana is firmly filmmaker Jason Reitman's approach. To him, it might've been. Although he established his career with indie comedies such as Thank You for Smoking and Juno, he's the son of director Ivan Reitman, who helmed the OG Ghostbusters and its 1989 follow-up Ghostbusters II. To plenty of fans, those two initial comedy-horror flicks were something special as well; however, acknowledging that fact — and trying to recreate the feeling of being a kid or teen watching the first Ghostbusters nearly four decades ago — isn't enough to fuel a new film. To be fair, the younger Reitman isn't particularly interested in making a new movie; Be Kind Rewind's "sweded" Ghostbusters clips are more original than Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Instead, he directs a homage that sprinkles in links to its predecessor so heartily that it's probably easier to name the scenes and details that don't scream "hey, this is Ghostbusters!" as loudly as possible. And, even when Reitman and co-screenwriter Gil Kenan (Poltergeist) appear to shake things up ever so slightly, it all still ties back to that kid-in-the-80s sensation. Sure, Ghostbusters: Afterlife's protagonists aren't adult New Yorkers, but they're small-town adolescents who might as well have ambled out of one of the era's other hot properties: Steven Spielberg-helmed or -produced coming-of-age adventure-comedies about life-changing, Americana-dripping, personality-shaping escapades. Phoebe (Mckenna Grace, Malignant) is one such child, and a new inhabitant of the cringingly titled Summerville, Oklahoma at that. With her mother Callie (Carrie Coon, The Nest) and brother Trevor (Finn Wolfhard, The Goldfinch), she's made the move because the granddad she never knew just passed away, leaving a dilapidated rural property to his estranged family. The townsfolk speak his nickname, "dirt farmer", with mocking and intrigue, but his actual moniker — and all that equipment he's left behind — brings big changes Phoebe's way. While being Dr Egon Spengler's granddaughter doesn't initially mean too much to her, other than giving her love for science a genetic basis, she's soon segueing from testing out ghost traps with local teacher Mr Grooberson (Paul Rudd, The Shrink Next Door) to cracking Egon's secret efforts to stop a world-shattering supernatural event. Read our full review. NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN Start how you mean to go on is common-sense filmmaking advice. It's the medium's obvious first step, but it's also an elusive achievement. And, it's a feat that's usually only evident in hindsight — when a viewer can see if a stellar introduction really did signal just as sublime things to come, or vice versa. Never Gonna Snow Again perfects the concept, however. In its arresting opening moments, a man walks out of a forest and into a gated community in eastern Poland, and everything about the scene ripples with moody intrigue. The grey fog infusing the film's setting, the enigmatic look on the mysterious protagonist's face, the feeling that anything and everything could happen: filmmakers Malgorzata Szumowska (Mug) and Michal Englert (also the movie's cinematographer) deliver it all at the outset, and then back it up over their feature's 116 minutes. In Never Gonna Snow Again's initial images, that inscrutable man is Ukrainian masseur Zhenia (Alec Utgoff, Stranger Things), who walks out of a forest and into a gated community in eastern Poland. His destination is lined with lavish identical houses — the kind that the song 'Little Boxes' has satirised for almost six decades now — but he's about to be its most extraordinary visitor. His hands can help knead away physical troubles, a must for everyone with his profession. But as he works his physical magic, his touch can soothe minds as well. Trundling his massage table from well-appointed home to well-appointed home, he quickly builds up a devoted client list of well-to-do residents desperate for his help. He steps into their worlds, spying their outward gloss — the similar wreaths on each door, the doorbells chiming with snippets of classic music — and palpating away their inner pain. As that glorious opening scene establishes almost-unnervingly well, there's a surreal, seductive and otherworldly atmosphere to Never Gonna Snow Again, which Szumowska and Englert let float through their frames like a lingering breeze. There's also a devastatingly savvy interrogation of the type of rich lives that pine for Zhenia's involvement, including their complete obliviousness to him as anything more than a salve for their ennui. Much festers in the feature's McMansions. As it contemplates the everyday malaise that dulls wealth's superficial glow, as well as the vast chasm between gleaming exteriors and empty insides, much haunts Never Gonna Snow Again, in fact. Thematically, it wades into familiar territory — at a time when Succession and The White Lotus are the best shows on TV, and Parasite won the Best Picture Oscar just a year ago, it's probably easier to name movies and TV shows that don't shred the rich to pieces — but it stands out like a pink-hued home in an estate plastered with white and grey. Plenty dazzles in Never Gonna Snow Again, too, including Szumowska and Englert's confident handling, which knits together magical realism and razor-sharp observations about class — and about modern life's rubbish in general as well — with canny precision. Indeed, the movie could've easily crumbled in other hands, and likely will if anyone ever erroneously decides it needs an English-language remake. Perhaps the filmmaking duo's smartest decision is also their most visible, however, because Utgoff's performance is just that magnetic. He's the presence that all those well-to-do clients warm to, lean on and rely upon, and the source of comfort so reliable and cosy that they aren't ever challenged to shatter their bubbles to think about him as a person rather than a set of helping hands — but he has Never Gonna Snow Again's audience constantly pondering and questioning. CLIFFORD THE BIG RED DOG Nostalgia might be one of pop culture's most-called-upon forces — see also: Ghostbusters: Afterlife — but it can't turn every childhood favourite that reaches cinemas into a winner. Leaping from the pages of Norman Bridwell's illustrated books, the new live-action Clifford the Big Red Dog film is a huge generic slog, shoehorning its oversized, crimson-hued hound into a jumble of routine scenarios that are about as rare as wayward dog faeces in a public park. The giant scarlet woofer gallops into a by-the-numbers, family-friendly action-adventure flick that's a missive against judging things by their appearances, a cautionary tale about bullying and a takedown of nefarious corporate interests. Ron's Gone Wrong barked up all the same trees recently and, while it was hardly an instant classic, it runs circles around this. The point of Clifford the Big Red Dog, no matter what the narrative spins, is right there in the title: it's a story about an abnormally large, unusually ruby-coloured canine, and that's what people want to see. Despite 80 books to the character's name, it's a one-note idea that screenwriters Blaise Hemingway (Vampires vs the Bronx), Jay Scherick and David Ronn (Baywatch) — working with a screen story by Justin Malen (Yes Day) and Ellen Rapoport (Desperados) — unsurprisingly set about fleshing out, but also often sideline their eponymous mutt in the process. Clifford's hijinks couldn't sustain an entire feature, but he's really just a big red sidekick for the bulk of the film. He's an enormous cherry-toned sign for accepting things that are different, too, a well-intentioned message that couldn't be more glaring given that a big red dog yaps the very concept. Clifford isn't originally a giant pet when Emily Elizabeth Howard (Darby Camp, Dreamland) first makes his acquaintance in a Central Park animal-rescue tent run by the mysterious Bridwell (John Cleese, The Very Excellent Mr Dundee). He's definitely the same shade as a tomato, though, and his bond with Emily is instant — even if her mess of an uncle, Casey (Jack Whitehall, Jungle Cruise), says she can't take him home. And yet, this little critter still finds his way into his new pal's backpack. The next morning, he's also no longer a tiny pup. Plus, when he starts attracting attention around New York, he's targeted by a tech billionaire (Tony Hale, Being the Ricardos) who wants him for scientific purposes — but the already-teased Emily, who is taunted at her private school for being there on a scholarship, won't let anyone either take or victimise Clifford for standing out. The look and mood in Clifford the Big Red Dog is sunny with a side of saccharine, and it has John Debney's (Home Sweet Home Alone) relentlessly cheery score to match. With the movie's namesake blazing away in every frame he's in — not due to his hue or size, but via the terrible CGI bringing him to digital life — director Walt Becker (Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip) was never going to helm a subtle film, but everything here is exactly as nuanced as a towering vermillion puppy. The result isn't quite as doggone awful as pooch-driven buddy cop flick Show Dogs, although that's an extremely low bar. It's never as goofy as it should be, however, and it really should sport all the goofiness it can dig up (smatterings of toilet humour don't count). Clifford the Big Red Dog can also only wish it was as visually creative and emotionally endearing as the recent page-to-screen all-ages movie standard: the Paddington films, which keep being pushed into a menagerie of their own by every pale imitation. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in Australian cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on September 2, September 9, September 16, September 23 and September 30; October 7, October 14, October 21 and October 28; November 4, November 11, November 18 and November 25; and December 2, December 9, December 16 and December 26. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Streamline, Coming Home in the Dark, Pig, Big Deal, The Killing of Two Lovers, Nitram, Riders of Justice, The Alpinist, A Fire Inside, Lamb, The Last Duel, Malignant, The Harder They Fall, Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, Halloween Kills, Passing, Eternals, The Many Saints of Newark, Julia, No Time to Die, The Power of the Dog, Tick, Tick... Boom!, Zola, Last Night in Soho, Blue Bayou, The Rescue, Titane, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, Dune, Encanto, The Card Counter, The Lost Leonardo, The French Dispatch, Don't Look Up, Dear Evan Hansen, Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Lost Daughter, The Scary of Sixty-First, West Side Story, Licorice Pizza, The Matrix Resurrections, The Tragedy of Macbeth and The Worst Person in the World.
It's a scenario that many Australians can relate to: it's summer, the temperature has reached scorching levels and you can hear the sounds of someone splashing around in a cool, refreshing pool. Sadly, those noises aren't emanating from your own swimming spot — because you don't have one — and you don't know your neighbours well enough to just pop by for a dip. And, maybe your local waterhole is too far away, you don't live near the beach or the nearest public pool is closed for the day. Combine all of the above, and you're stuck trying to chill out in the bath or under the fan in the sweltering heat. Enter Swimply, a service that's like Airbnb, but for pools. Already operational in the US and Canada, and finally launching in Australia on Tuesday, November 26 — in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane so far — it's a fairly typical sharing economy-style platform. One person rents out something they have and don't use all the time, while another person with a short-term need reaps the benefits. In this case, Swimply lets folks with pools lease out their backyard swimming spots when they're not in use, and helps people without pools find a place for a splash, all via an iOS and Android app. If you fall into the latter category, you can hire a spot by the hour. You can also look for pools with specific facilities and inclusions — such as chairs, lounges, towels, wifi, a changing area, access to a bathroom, a barbecue, a shady spot to sit under, night lighting, pool toys and heated waters. Some allow pets, while others are fine with parties and alcohol. Before booking, you can also scope out just how many guests you can bring (and whether kids are allowed), as well as how private the pool is from the neighbours. That said, prices aren't particularly cheap. Splashing around for 60 minutes hovers around the $40 mark, with some pools as low as $20 and others topping out at $50 per hour — all depending on the cost set by the owner. Of course, if you're planning a dip with your pals and can split the price, it's much more affordable. So far, just a small range of pools are available in Australia, with three in Sydney, five in Melbourne and five in Brisbane. Still, if you're keen to hop in one of them, Swimply is offering first-time users a 20 percent discount until December 31, 2019 — just use the code 'SWIMDOWNUNDER'. And if you're wondering about safety, pools are vetted before being added to the platform, in conjunction with pool and spa maintenance company Poolwerx — and checked to ensure compliance with Australian health and safety standards. Swimply is now available to download on iOS and Android.
Long before getting cosy on the couch meant living the streaming dream, not all movies made it to cinemas, just as happens now. Back then, though, that's where the term 'straight to video' came in. Then, it was 'straight to DVD'. At the moment, if a film doesn't flicker in a picture palace, it's a straight-to-streaming release. Some such movies do receive a big-screen run, but only at a film festival. Others were only ever bound for watching at home. Either way, just because they didn't light up your local multiplex or arthouse go-to for weeks on end, that doesn't mean these flicks aren't worth a look. Indeed, some of 2023's viewing highlights are straight-to-streaming films — whether you're fond of Oscar-nominated documentaries, Aubrey Plaza-led heist flicks, walk-and-talk rom-coms, unsettling horror gems or intimate portraits of famous faces. With 2023 now into its second half, we've made our picks of the year's best straight-to-streaming gems from January–June. Obviously, you can watch them all now. ALL THAT BREATHES Pictures can't tell all of All That Breathes' story, with Delhi-based brothers Nadeem Shehzad and Mohammad Saud's chats saying plenty that's essential. In the documentary's observational style, their conversation flits in and out of the film — sometimes, there's narration, too — giving it many meaningful words. Still, the images that Shaunak Sen (Cities of Sleep) lets flow across the screen in this Sundance- and Cannes-winner, and also 2023 Oscar-nominee, are astonishing. And, befitting this poetic meditative and ruminative doco's pace and mood, they do flow. All That Breathes' main pair adore the black kites that take to India's skies and suffer from its toxic air quality, tending to the creatures' injuries. As Sen watches, he adores them as well. Viewers will, too. Indeed, if there wasn't a single syllable uttered, with the movie just leaning on cinematographers Ben Bernhard (Talking About the Weather), Riju Das (14 Phere) and Saumyananda Sahi's (Trial by Fire) sights, plus Niladri Shekhar Roy ('83) and Moinak Bose's (Against the Tide) sound recording, the end result still would've been revelatory. This film trills about urban development, its costs and consequences, and caring for others both animal and human — and it says oh-so-much. It notes how everything that the earth's predominant inhabitants do has environmental impacts for the creatures that we share the planet with, including quests for economic dominance and political control. All That Breathes peers on as its subjects' tasks get harder even as they earn global attention, receive more funding and build their dream hospital. It sees how they put the majestic kites' wellbeing above their own, even as the numbers of birds needing their help just keeps growing. This is a documentary about animals falling from the skies due to pollution, two siblings trying to help them soar again, why that's so vital and what the whole situation says about life on earth — and it's vital and spectacular viewing. All That Breathes streams via Binge. EMILY THE CRIMINAL Enterprising, astute, intelligent and accepting zero garbage from anyone: these are traits that Aubrey Plaza can convey in her sleep. But she definitely isn't slumbering in Emily the Criminal, which sees her turn in a performance as weighty and layered as her deservedly Golden Globe- and Emmy-nominated portrayal in the second season of The White Lotus — something that she's been doing since her Parks and Recreation days anyway. Indeed, there's more than a touch of April Ludgate-Dwyer's resourcefulness to this crime-thriller's eponymous figure. Los Angeles resident Emily Benetto isn't sporting much apathy, however; she can't afford to. With $70,000 in student loans to her name for a college art degree she isn't using working as a food delivery driver, and a felony conviction that's getting in the way of securing any gig she's better qualified for for, Jersey girl Emily breaks bad to make bank when she's given a tip about a credit card fraud ring run by Youcef (Theo Rossi, Sons of Anarchy). Her simple task: purchasing everything from electronics to cars with the stolen numbers. Writer/director John Patton Ford makes his feature debut with this lean, sharp, keenly observed and tightly paced film, which works swimmingly and grippingly as a heist thriller with plenty to say about the state of America today — particularly about a society that saddles folks starting their working lives with enormous debts, turning careers in the arts into the domain of the wealthy, and makes even the slightest wrongdoing a life sentence. Emily the Criminal is angry about that state of affairs, and that ire colours every frame. But it's as a character study that this impressive film soars highest, stepping through the struggles, troubles and desperate moves of a woman trapped not by her choices but her lack of options, all while seeing her better-off classmates breeze through life. As she usually is, Plaza is mesmerising, and adds another complicated movie role to a resume that also boasts the phenomenal Ingrid Goes West and Black Bear as well. Emily the Criminal streams via Binge and Netflix. HUESERA: THE BONE WOMAN The sound of cracking knuckles is one of humanity's most anxiety-inducing. The noise of clicking bones elsewhere? That's even worse. Both help provide Huesera: The Bone Woman's soundtrack — and set the mood for a deeply tense slow-burner that plunges into maternal paranoia like a Mexican riff on Rosemary's Baby, the horror subgenre's perennial all-timer, while also interrogating the reality that bringing children into the world isn't a dream for every woman no matter how much society expects otherwise. Valeria (Natalia Solián, Red Shoes) is thrilled to be pregnant, a state that hasn't come easily. After resorting to praying at a shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in desperation, neither she nor partner Raúl (Alfonso Dosal, Narcos: Mexico) could be happier, even if her sister Vero (Sonia Couoh, 40 Years Young) caustically comments that she's never seemed that interested in motherhood before. Then, two things shake up her hard-fought situation: a surprise run-in with Octavia (Mayra Batalla, Everything Will Be Fine), the ex-girlfriend she once planned to live a completely different life with; and constant glimpses of a slithering woman whose unnatural body movements echo and unsettle. Filmmaker Michelle Garza Cervera (TV series Marea alta) makes her fictional narrative debut with Huesera: The Bone Woman, directing and also writing with first-timer Abia Castillo — and she makes a powerfully chilling and haunting body-horror effort about hopes, dreams, regrets and the torment of being forced into a future that you don't truly foresee as your own. Every aspect of the film, especially Nur Rubio Sherwell's (Don't Blame Karma!) exacting cinematography, reinforces how trapped that Valeria feels even if she can't admit it to herself, and how much that attempting to be the woman Raúl and her family want is eating away at her soul. Solián is fantastic at navigating this journey, including whether the movie is leaning into drama or terror at any given moment. You don't need expressive eyes to be a horror heroine, but she boasts them; she possesses a scream queen's lungs, too. Unsurprisingly, Cervera won the Nora Ephron Award for best female filmmaker at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival for this instantly memorable nightmare. Huesera: The Bone Woman streams via Shudder. ROBE OF GEMS In the very first moments of her very first feature as a director — after working as an editor on films such as 2012's Post Tenebras Lux and 2014's Jauja — Natalia López demands her audience's attention. She earns it and ensures it as well, and looking away while Robe of Gems unfurls its story is impossible afterwards. To kick things off, a patient and painterly glimpse at the rural Mexican landscape comes into sight, fading up and bringing more and more dusty grey details with it with each second. Then, without the frame moving, a frenetic man is seen bashing and slashing through the plants. Next, it becomes apparent that there's a reflection as part of the image. And, it's also quickly evident that viewers are seeing someone else's vantage as they look on at the landscape. In fact, a couple peers out, in the middle of getting intimate (and immediately before flinging wooden furniture around, strewn pieces flying everywhere). With the 'start as you mean to go on' maxim in mind, it's a helluva opening. López does indeed begin as she goes on, in a film that scored her 2022's Berlinale's Silver Bear Jury Prize. The pivotal villa belongs to Isabel's (Nailea Norvind, Julia vs Julia) family, and offers somewhat of a respite from a marriage that's splintering like that thrown-about furniture, with the clearly well-to-do woman settling in with her children Benja (first-timer Balam Toledo) and Vale (fellow debutant Sherlyn Zavala Diaz). But tension inescapably lingers, given that the onsite caretaker María (newcomer Antonia Olivares) is unsettled by the disappearance of her sister, a plot point that makes a purposeful statement. The police are investigating, the cartel has a local presence, corruption is an ever-present force, and the gap between the wealthy and not-so is glaring. Progressing carefully from that powerhouse opening, Robe of Gems quickly seeps under your skin — and as its first visuals make abundantly clearly, every second is a marvel to look at. Robe of Gems streams via Prime Video and Madman on Demand. RYE LANE When Dom (David Jonsson, Industry) and Yas (Vivian Oparah, Then You Run) are asked how they met, they tell a tale about a karaoke performance getting an entire bar cheering. Gia (Karene Peter, Emmerdale Farm), Dom's ex, is both shocked and envious, even though she cheated on him with his primary-school best friend Eric (Benjamin Sarpong-Broni, The Secret). It's the kind of story a movie couple would love to spin — the type that tends to only happen in the movies, too. But even for Rye Lane's fictional characters, it's a piece of pure imagination. Instead, the pair meet in South London, in the toilet at an art show. He's crying in a stall, they chat awkwardly through the gender-neutral space's wall, then get introduced properly outside. It's clumsy, but they keep the conversation going even when they leave the exhibition, then find themselves doing the good ol' fashioned rom-com walk and talk, then slide in for that dinner rendezvous with the flabbergasted Gia. It's easy to think of on-screen romances gone by during British filmmaker Raine Allen-Miller's feature debut — working with a script from Bloods duo Nathan Bryon and Tom Melia — which this charming Sundance-premiering flick overtly wants viewers to. There's a helluva sight gag about Love Actually, as well as a cameo to match, and the whole meandering-and-nattering setup helped make Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight an iconic trilogy. That said, as Rye Lane spends time with shy accountant Dom, who has barely left his parents' house since the breakup, and the outgoing costume designer Yas, who has her own recent relationship troubles casting a shadow, it isn't propelled by nods and winks. Rather, it's smart and savvy in a Starstruck way about paying tribute to what's come before while wandering down its own path. The lead casting is dynamic, with Jonsson and Oparah making a duo that audiences could spend hours with, and Allen-Miller's eye as a director is playful, lively, loving and probing. Rom-coms are always about watching people fall for each other, but this one plunges viewers into its swooning couple's mindset with every visual and sensory touch it can. Rye Lane streams via Disney+. DUAL New movie, familiar query: what would you do if you physically came face to face with yourself, and not just by looking in a mirror? Films about clones, including all-timer Moon and the recent Mahershala Ali (Alita: Battle Angel)-starring Swan Song, have long pondered this topic — and so has the Paul Rudd-led series Living with Yourself. In Dual, there's only one legal option. This sci-fi satire shares Swan Song's idea, allowing replicating oneself when fate deals out a bad hand. So, that's what Sarah (Karen Gillan, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3) does when she's told that she has a rare but terminal disease, and that her death is certain. Cloning is meant to spare her boyfriend Peter (Beulah Koale, Shadow in the Cloud) and her mother (Maija Paunio, Next of Kin) from losing her, making a difficult situation better for Sarah's loved ones. But when she doesn't die after all, the law states that, just like in Highlander, there can be only one. To decide who lives, Sarah and her doppelgänger must fight to the death in a public dual — with Trent (Aaron Paul, Better Call Saul) helping train the OG version. Even with its twist, on paper Dual sounds like a feature that any filmmaker could've made — one that any actor could've starred in, too. But this is the meaty, meaningful and memorable movie it is thanks to writer/director Riley Stearns and his excellent lead Gillan. With his penchant for deadpan, the former pondered working out who you truly are through an unlikely battle in 2019's very funny The Art of Self-Defense, and does so again here. He's also fond of exploring the struggle to embrace one's personality, and confronting the notion we all have in our minds that a better version of ourselves exists. That said, Dual plays like a sibling to The Art of Self-Defense, rather than a clone itself. It'd certainly be a lesser flick without Gillan, who sheds her Nebula makeup, wades out of the Jumanji franchise's jungles, and turns in two powerful and nuanced performances as Sarah and Sarah 2.0. And while Paul is in supporting mode, he's a scene-stealer. Dual streams via Netflix. TETRIS The greatest game in the world can't make the leap to screens like most of its counterparts, whether they involve mashing buttons, playing campaigns or attempting to sink ships. A literal adaptation of Tetris would just involve four-piece bricks falling and falling — and while that's a tense and riveting sight when you're in charge of deciding where they land, and endeavouring to fill lines to make them disappear, it's hardly riveting movie viewing. As a film, Tetris is still gripping, however, all while telling the tale behind the puzzle video game that's been a phenomenon since the 80s. Did you have your first Tetris experience on an early Game Boy? This is the story of how that happened. Starring Taron Egerton (Black Bird) as Henk Rogers, the man who secured the rights to the Russian-born title for distribution on video game consoles worldwide, it's largely a dramatised account of the fraught negotiations when the west started to realise what a hit Tetris was, Nintendo got involved, but Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov had no power over what happened to his creation because that was life in the USSR. Egerton is perfectly cast as the resourceful, charming and determined Rogers, a Dutch-born, American-raised, Japan-residing game designer who stumbles across Tetris at a tech conference while trying to sell a version of Chinese strategy game Go. First, his assistant can't stop playing it. Soon, he's seeing blocks in his dreams, as everyone does after playing (and then forever). Director Jon S Baird (Stan & Ollie) and screenwriter Noah Pink (Genius) have a games licensing battle to unpack from there, something that mightn't have been as thrilling as it proves — and certainly is no certainty on paper — in other hands. Stacking up this real-life situation's pieces involves becoming a savvy takedown of shady business deals, a compelling Russia-set spy flick and an exploration of daily existence in Soviet times, plus an upstart underdog story. And, Tetris does all that while gleefully and playfully bringing in the game's aesthetic, and blasting an appropriately synth-heavy soundtrack. Tetris streams via Apple TV+. GUY RITCHIE'S THE COVENANT Announcing his cinematic arrival with a pair of slick, witty, twisty and fast-paced British heist flicks, Guy Ritchie achieved at the beginning of his career something that many filmmakers strive for their whole lives: he cemented exactly what his features are in the minds of audiences. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch made "Guy Ritchie movie" an instantly understood term, in fact, as the writer/director has attempted to capitalise on since with differing results (see: Revolver, RocknRolla, The Gentlemen and Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre). Ritchie's third film, the Madonna-starring Swept Away, has also proven just as emblematic of his career, however. He loves pumping out stereotypical Guy Ritchie movies — he even adores making them Sherlock Holmes and King Arthur flicks, with mixed fortunes — but he also likes leaving his own conventions behind in The Man From UNCLE, Aladdin, Wrath of Man and now Guy Ritchie's The Covenant. Perhaps Ritchie's name is in the title of this Afghanistan-set action-thriller to remind viewers that the film does indeed boast him behind the lens, and as a cowriter; unlike with fellow 2023 release Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, they wouldn't guess otherwise. Clunky moniker aside, Guy Ritchie's The Covenant is pared down, gripping and intense, and home to two excellent performances by Jake Gyllenhaal (Strange World) as Master Sergeant John Kinley and Dar Salim (Tatort) as his interpreter Ahmed. As the former leads a team that's looking for IED factories, the pair's collaboration is tentative at first. Then a raid goes wrong, Ahmed saves Kinley's life, but the recognition and support that'd be afforded an American solider in the same situation doesn't go the local's way. Where Afghan interpreters who aid US troops are left after their task is complete is a weighty subject, and treated as such in this grounded and moving film. Guy Ritchie's The Covenant streams via Prime Video. STILL: A MICHAEL J FOX MOVIE Anyone who lived through the 80s and/or 90s spent a large portion of both decades watching Michael J Fox. Thanks to Family Ties on TV and the Back to the Future movies in cinemas, he was everywhere — and courtesy of Teen Wolf, Doc Hollywood, The Frighteners and Spin City as well. The list of the beloved star's work from the era goes on. Forgotten one or some? Watch Still: A Michael J Fox Movie and you'll be reminded. This intimate documentary steps through the star's life, career and Parkinson's Disease diagnosis using three main modes: splicing together clips from his resume to help illustrate his narration, chatting with Fox now in candid to-camera segments, and hanging out with him and his family as he goes about his days. Each aspect of the film adds something not just important but engaging; however, all that footage from his time as Alex P Keaton, Marty McFly and more offers firm proof, if any more was needed, that Fox was an on-screen presence like no other three and four decades back. Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth documentarian Davis Guggenheim both shows and tells, always letting Fox's own words do the talking. Still: A Michael J Fox Movie takes the birth-to-now route, observing that its titular figure was always a kid on the go, then a teen who found himself in acting — a place where he could be anyone, regardless of his short stature — and then an aspiring actor slogging it out in Hollywood until he scored not one but two big breaks. The film also examines the fame and success, Fox's thinking that this'd now be his status quo, the moment his life changed and everything that's followed since. Yes, it notes that this story would've been completely different if Eric Stoltz had kept his Back to the Future job. Also, as Fox's memoirs are on the page, it's supremely self-deprecating. Still: A Michael J Fox Movie is unflinchingly honest, too, especially about his relationship with his wife Tracy Pollan — who, when asked how she is, Fox replies "married to me, still". Still: A Michael J Fox Movie streams via Apple TV+. NIMONA Bounding from the page to the screen — well, from pixels first, initially leaping from the web to print — graphic novel-to-film adaptation Nimona goes all in on belonging. Ballister Boldheart (Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal) wants to fit in desperately, and is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve it. In this animated movie's medieval-yet-futuristic world, there's nothing more important and acclaimed than being part of the Institute for Elite Knights, so that's his aim. Slipping into armour usually isn't possible for someone who grew up on the wrong side of this realm's tracks, as he did, but Ballister has been given a chance by Queen Valerin (Lorraine Toussaint, The Equalizer), who says that anyone can now be a hero. Alas, just as he's about to have his sword placed upon his shoulder with all the world watching, tragedy strikes, then prejudice sets in. Even his fellow knight-in-training and boyfriend Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang, Star Wars: Visions), who boasts family ties to legendary monster-slaying heroine Gloreth (Karen Ryan, Under the Banner of Heaven), believes that Ballister is responsible. His only ally? Nimona's namesake (Chloë Grace Moretz, The Peripheral), a shapeshifter who offers to be his sidekick regardless of his innocence or guilt. Nimona usually appears as a human girl, but can change into anything. The shapeshifter also wants to belong — but only by being accepted as she is. Unlike Ballister's feelings of inferiority about being a commoner, Nimona is happy with morphing from a kid to a rhinoceros, a whale to a shark, then between anything else that she can think of, and wouldn't give it up for anyone. Indeed, when Ballister keeps pestering her for reasons to explain why she is like she is, and asking her to remain as a girl, she's adamant. She already is normal, and she rightly won't budge from that belief. Animated with lively and colour animation that sometimes resembles Cartoon Saloon's Song of the Sea and Wolfwalkers, Nimona is a family-friendly adventure and, as penned as a comic by ND Stevenson (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power), also a clear, impassioned and sincere allegory for being true to yourself. As a film, directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane (who also teamed up on Spies in Disguise) and screenwriters Robert L Baird (Big Hero 6) and Lloyd Taylor (another Spies in Disguise alum) ensure that it remains a thoughtful delight. Nimona streams via Netflix. PAMELA, A LOVE STORY If you weren't aware of Pamela Anderson's recent Broadway stint, bringing the razzle dazzle to a production of Chicago in 2022, Ryan White (Good Night Oppy)-directed documentary Pamela, A Love Story will still feature surprises. Otherwise, from Playboy to Playbill — including Baywatch, sex tapes and multiple marriages in-between — the actor's story is well-known around the globe. Much of it played out in the tabloids, especially when she married Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee in a white bikini after four days together. She also graced what can easily stake a claim as the internet's first viral video, after intimate footage of Anderson and Lee was stolen, then sold. And that very experience was dramatised in 2022 limited series Pam & Tommy, including the misogynistic way she was treated compared to her spouse, how her rights to her image and privacy were considered trashed due to her nude modelling days, and the unsurprising fallout within her relationship. No matter how familiar the details are, Pamela, A Love Story does something that little else on-screen has, however: it lets Anderson tell her story herself. Much of the doco focuses on the Barb Wire and Scary Movie 3 star in her childhood home in Ladysmith on Canada's Vancouver Island, watching old videos, reading past diaries and chatting through the contents. She's recorded and written about everything in her life. Sitting in front of the camera without a trace of makeup, with her sons Brandon and Dylan sometimes talking with her, she gives her account of how she's been treated during the highs and lows of her career. The film coincides with a memoir, Love, Pamela, so this is a tale that Anderson is currently on the page and in streaming queues — but it's still a powerful portrait of a woman made famous for her appearance, turned into a sex symbol to the point that male interviewers in the 90s could barely talk about anything else, then cruelly judged and discarded. She's frank and sincere, as is the movie amid its treasure trove of archival footage. Pamela, A Love Story streams via Netflix. WEIRD: THE AL YANKOVIC STORY If you've seen one music biopic, or some of the flicks that've earned actors Oscars or nominations in recent years for playing well-known rock stars — think: Bohemian Rhapsody and Elvis — then you know how this genre usually plays out. So does Weird Al Yankovic, who is strongly involved in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, co-writing, producing and even popping up on-screen. He doesn't give himself a solemn screen tribute, though. For decades, he's found pop music rife for satirising, and now his career spent spoofing hit songs gets sent up as well. The soundtrack is already hilarious, filled as it is with everything from 'My Bologna', 'I Love Rocky Road' and 'Another One Rides the Bus' to 'Eat It', 'Like a Surgeon' and 'Amish Paradise'. The casting is brilliantly hilarious as it is hilariously brilliant, too, with Daniel Radcliffe (The Lost City) sporting a mop of curls, grasping an accordion and wearing Yankovic's Hawaiian shirts like he was born to. Silly, happily self-mocking, not serious for a second: that's this joke-packed flick, which isn't quite as stuffed with gags as a typical Weird Al song, but is still filled with laughs — and still immensely funny. Unsurprisingly, much of Weird: The Al Yankovic Story plays like a collection of skits and sketches, whether visiting his childhood, showing how he scored his big break or charting his fame (which is Westworld's Evan Rachel Wood as a comical Madonna comes in), but it works. Yankovic co-writes with director Eric Appel, a parody veteran thanks to NTSF:SD:SUV, and they're joyfully on the same goofy, go-for-broke wavelength. So is Radcliffe, who keeps demonstrating that he's at his best when a certain Boy Who Lived is relegated to the past, and when he's getting as ridiculous as he possibly can. Forget the wizarding franchise — he's magical when he's at his most comic, as Miracle Workers keeps proving, and now this as well. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story streams via Paramount+. CONFESS, FLETCH Since Mad Men had Don Draper want to buy the world a Coke to end its seven-season run back in 2015, comedy has been Jon Hamm's friend. He's the ultimate TV guest star, building upon stints in 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation while Mad Men was still airing with Toast of London, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Curb Your Enthusiasm, on a resume that also includes The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, Childrens Hospital, Medical Police, Angie Tribeca, The Last Man on Earth and Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp as well. So, casting him as the new Irwin Maurice 'Fletch' Fletcher couldn't be an easier move. Having fellow Mad Men standout John Slattery (The Good Fight) also appear in the latest flick about the investigative reporter, and the first since the Chevy Chase-led movies in the 80s, is another winning touch. Even if that reunion wasn't part of the film, Hamm is so entertaining that he makes a killer case for a whole new Fletch franchise — on whatever screen the powers-that-be like — with him at its centre. Hamm clearly understands how well he suits this type of character, and the genre; he's a comic delight, and he's also one of Confess, Fletch's producers. Superbad and Adventureland's Greg Mottola directs and co-writes, scripting with Outer Range's Zev Borow — and ensuring that Hamm and Slattery aren't the only acting highlights. Working through a plot that sees Fletch chasing a stolen artwork, discovering a dead body, and both looking into the crime and considered a suspect himself, the film also features engaging turns by always-welcome Twin Peaks great Kyle MacLachlan and Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar gem Annie Mumolo. There have been several attempts to revive Fletch over the past three decades, including separate projects with Ted Lasso duo Bill Lawrence and Jason Sudeikis — on the page, the character spans nine novels — but viewers should be thankful that this is the action-comedy that came to fruition, even if it skipped cinemas everywhere but the US. Confess, Fletch streams via Paramount+ and Binge. HUNGER Let's call it the reality TV effect: after years of culinary contests carving up prime-time television, the savage on-screen steps into the food world just keep bubbling. The Bear turned the hospitality industry into not just a tension-dripping dramedy, but one of 2022's best new shows. In cinemas, British pressure-cooker Boiling Point and the sleek and sublimely cast The Menu have tasted from the same intense plate. Now Hunger sits down at the table, giving viewers another thriller of a meal — this time focusing on a Thai noodle cook who wants to be special. When Aoy's (Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, One for the Road) street-food dishes based on her Nanna's recipes get the attention of fellow chef Tone (Gunn Svasti Na Ayudhya, Tootsies & the Fake), he tells her that she needs to be plying her talents elsewhere. In fact, he works for Chef Paul (Nopachai Jayanama, Hurts Like Hell), who specialises in the type of fine-dining dishes that only the wealthiest of the wealthy can afford, and is as exacting and demanding as the most monstrous kitchen genius that fiction has ever dreamed up. There's more to making it in the restaurant trade than money, acclaim and status, just like there's more to life as well. As told with slickness and pace, even while clocking in at almost two-and-a-half hours, that's the lesson that director Sitisiri Mongkolsiri (Folklore) and screenwriter Kongdej Jaturanrasamee (Faces of Anne) serve Aoy. She's tempted by the glitz and recognition, and being steeped in a world far different from her own; however, all that gleams isn't always palatable. Plot-wise, Hunger uses familiar ingredients, but always ensures that they taste like their own dish — in no small part thanks to the excellent casting of Chuengcharoensukying as the film's conflicted but determined lead. A model also known as Aokbab, she proved a revelation in 2017's cheating heist thriller Bad Genius, and she's just as compelling here. The two movies would make a high-stakes pair for more than just their shared star, both sinking their teeth into class commentary as well. Yes, like The Menu before it, Hunger is also an eat-the-rich flick, and loves biting into social inequity as hard as it can. Hunger streams via Netflix. VENGEANCE When Vengeance begins with a New Yorker journalist who's desperate to start his own podcast, Soho House hangouts and relationship advice from John Mayer as himself, it begins with rich and savvy character details. Writing, starring and making his feature directorial debut after helming episodes of The Office and The Mindy Project, BJ Novak instantly establishes the kind of person that Ben Manalowitz is. He shows the East Coast world that his protagonist inhabits, too — and, by focusing on the only guy in NYC without their own audio outlet, or so it seems, plus that romantic guidance, it splashes around its sense of humour. This is a sharply amusing mystery-comedy, and a highlight on Novak's resume in all three of his guises. It's also about subverting expectations, and lampooning the first impressions and broad stereotypes that are too often — and too easily — clung to. Indeed, Vengeance bakes in that idea as many ways as it can as Ben (Novak) does the most obvious thing he can to convince his producer (Issa Rae, Insecure) that his voice is worth hearing: bursts his Big Apple bubble. The Mayer bit isn't just a gag; it helps set up Ben as the kind of person who is dating so many women that he doesn't know which one has died after he gets a bereaved phone call from Texas in the middle of the night. On the other end is Ty Shaw (Boyd Holbrook, The Sandman), brother to Abilene (Lio Tipton, Why Women Kill), who insists that Ben head southwest immediately to attend her funeral — she claimed that they were serious enough that she's his girlfriend, after all. Upon arrival, the out-of-towner initially regards his hosts as jokes, and their lives and Abilene's death as content. Ty thinks she was murdered, and Ben couldn't be giddier about getting it all on tape and calling the series Dead White Girl. The journo's self-interest is up there with his obliviousness about anything that doesn't fit into his NYC orbit; however, this isn't a culture-clash comedy — thankfully — but a clever, self-aware and ambitious satire. It's also strikingly shot and features a standout performance by Ashton Kutcher (That '90s Show) as a suave record producer. Vengeance streams via Netflix and Binge. Looking for more viewing highlights? Check out our list of film and TV streaming recommendations, which is updated monthly. We've also picked our top 15 movies that hit cinemas in the first half of 2023, as well as the 15 best new TV shows and 15 best returning TV shows of the year so far.
French photographer Léo Caillard is here to remind us that today's classical was once just plain old contemporary with Hipster in Stone. The new photographic series presents some of Western art's most iconic sculptures dressed to impress in a wardrobe more traditionally found tempting us into American Apparel. His show is currently on display at the Art Basel Fair, Switzerland, but the 27-year-old's images have made a (near-viral) impact on the net. One small suggestion, why not call it Kawa à la Musee du Louvre? Art-lovers, relax; you will not be spending that dreaded six hours lined up with the hordes at the Louvre to find this guy anytime soon. As Caillard told the Daily Mail, "The museum wouldn't let me touch the statues", so he went with the trusty ol' Photoshop switcheroo. All he needed was collaborator and digital touch-up man Alexis Persani, some crafty lighting work and his patience during the model castings. Personally, I am pretty keen to see some of the pre-sculpture-imposed versions of these photos. I know we are meant to be pondering questions of fashion identity, the status divide in art and how outward appearances impact on the lived experience — but this man must be built like a wall. Oh, and bearded boys, look away, or prepare for some serious beard envy courtesy of my friend Aristaeus, God of the Gardens: If you're super keen you can pick up your own 30 x 45 inch print of one of these bad-boys (or girls), mounted with plexiglass for a lazy £1500 each ($2480), or just stalk Caillard's website. Via Daily Mail.
Lightyear wasn't the best Pixar movie, but when it flickered across the big screen halfway through 2022, it did something that the Disney-owned animation studio's films hadn't for a couple of years. Due to the pandemic's early days, the Mouse House skipped cinema releases for Soul, Luca and Turning Red between late 2020 and early 2022. It was the time of lockdowns, restrictions, and picture palaces either temporarily closing or having capacity limits, so all three features went straight to streaming platform Disney+. Wish you'd gotten a silver-screen experience while viewing this trio — or any one of them? Enter the new Pixar Film Fest to give you that chance. From Thursday, February 22–Wednesday, March 13, for a week apiece at various locations around Australia and New Zealand, it's debuting Soul, Luca and Turning Red in cinemas for the first time Down Under. Soul sports a premise that resembles Inside Out, which has a sequel arriving on the big screen in 2024. Instead of emotions having emotions, souls do. Rather than Amy Poehler (Moxie) doing voice work, Tina Fey (Mean Girls) does. And director Peter Docter (Up) helmed them both. But Soul is definitely its own feature — and takes quite the existential trip as it follows aspiring jazz musician-turned-music teacher Joe (Jamie Foxx, The Burial) after an accident where his soul leaves his body. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Killer), plus Jon Batiste (The First Wave), won an Oscar. The movie nabbed the Best Animated Feature accolade as well. It's releasing in cinemas from Thursday, February 22–Wednesday, February 28. Next up is Turning Red, which'll get projectors whirring from Thursday, February 29–Wednesday, March 6. The setup: what'd happen if the Hulk was a teenage girl, but became a super-cute red panda? Or, finding a different riff on the ol' werewolf situation, what if emotions rather than full moons inspired a case of not-quite-lycanthropy? Writer/director Domee Shi puts these queries at the centre of Turning Red, her debut feature after winning an Oscar for gorgeous 2018 short Bao. Set in 2002, the film focuses on 13-year-old Chinese Canadian high-schooler Meilin Lee (Rosalie Chiang, American Born Chinese), who has strict but caring mum Ming (Sandra Oh, Quiz Lady), loves boy band 4*Town and soon discovers that she's also a red panda in a puberty metaphor. Rounding out the lineup is Luca, which is similarly about transformation. This one takes place in Italy over a gorgeous summer, also spins a coming-of-age tale and nods to Frankenstein as well. Here, teenage sea monsters Luca (Jacob Tremblay, Orion and the Dark) and Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer, Shazam! Fury of the Gods) just want to fit in, but know that the village they decide to call home wouldn't accept them if they don't take on human form. When they befriend ordinary girl Giulia (Emma Berman, Superkitties) in a quest to win a race to nab a moped, their secret becomes harder to keep — as cinemagoers can see from Thursday, March 7–Wednesday, March 13. Check out the trailers for Soul, Luca and Turning Red below: Pixar Film Fest 2024 Lineup: Thursday, February 22–Wednesday, February 28 — Soul Thursday, February 29–Wednesday, March 6 — Turning Red Thursday, March 7–Wednesday, March 13 — Luca Disney's Pixar Film Fest runs from Thursday, February 22–Wednesday, March 13 at cinemas around Australia and New Zealand, including in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Auckland and Wellington — check out your local picture palace for details. Read our reviews of Soul, Luca and Turning Red.
Talking to an audience, or one-to-one, former-billionaire Chris Anderson still comes across as pretty approachable. Anderson is curator — and owner — of the smart, global talk-fest, TED, where talks are notes-free and never more than 18 minutes long. Anderson was in Australia last weekend for TEDxSydney's 2012 collection of talks about robots, quantum computing, imaginary friends and the durability of dirty words. After all but one of the other speakers had taken to the stage, Anderson spoke briefly about TED-Ed, which combines videos and mash-ups into a kind of "magic blackboard", and the Worldwide Talent Search for TED2013. After he left the stage, Concrete Playground was lucky enough to sit down with Chris Anderson for almost exactly a TED Talk's worth of time. You come across, from a distance, as very gentle. Do you find that helps you run a big conference like TED? I don't think anyone's ever asked me that before. Interesting. I think I probably am gentle. Maybe I'm gentle. There's lots of ways to run a business. And I do many of them really badly: but I do have a great team. And TED has a life of its own. So, it's amazing to see it take off around the world. Every day is a surprise. Teenagers get ignored a lot in public. Why did you pick teenagers as your target for TED-Ed? Well, our existing talks are aimed at adults and are certainly devoured by a lot of university-age students. And a little bit in schools. But they're not optimised for school use. They're too long. They displace too much class time. They're aimed at adults. And so, given that ideas matter most for people whose world views are still being formed, and given how important education is to everyone's future, we kind of have no choice, but to do something for that age group. And we spent a lot of time thinking about it. And talking to teachers, and listening. And this is where we've ended up. We've got a lot of interest among 18 and up. And we just wanted to move down. And maybe, if this is successful, we'll continue the trip down. Towards, you know, birth. [laughs] What was school life like for you? You talk a lot about better ways of education. Is that informed from a bad experience or a good experience when you were younger? I was brought up in an international school in the Himalayas in India. And it was a fabulous experience, actually. In fact, if I had a wish … if every kid could spend a few years in an international school, a lot of issues would go away. Because, without even trying, you end up a global soul. And, you know, all the big problems in the world are essentially global problems. So, it would be nice if the people who were trying to solve them were taking a global perspective instead of a tribal perspective, which is why we can't solve a lot of what's out there. So, no — it was a wonderful experience. It was lots of time outdoors. Lots of time in nature. And an incredible cast of characters in the school. So, it was great. I watched the TED-Ed talk 'Questions no one knows the answers to'. I really enjoyed that one. When do you think we might know the answers to some of those questions? You're in a good position to have an idea. There was a bunch of different questions thrown into there. I mean, one of the questions — about 'Why aren't we seeing alien life?' — I think there really is chance that in the next fifteen years that we learn a lot on the question. There's a lot of technologies coming online that will allow real spectroscopic information from nearby planets. We might be able to detect vegetation. There's a lot of things that might show up. And we're involved in this project right now to open up, crowd-source, the search as well. To get millions of people looking for signals, not just a few scientists. I would die happy, if we found real contact with another intelligent species out there. It would be totally thrilling. What do you think might be some of the new questions, once we get rid of the old ones? I certainly think it's right that the more we know, the more questions we have. Reality is infinitely complex. And you have to just view it as: each step of the journey is interesting, exciting and useful. I think I've said before that learning something is a different psychological process to consuming something. That most things we do have a law of diminishing returns. You eat ice-cream, and the fourth and fifth taste aren't quite as nice as the first taste. Knowledge — it actually works the other way. The more you know about the world, the more your sense of wonder explodes. And that's actually really cool. That gives me a lot of hope for the future of TED for one thing. You've said before that there's always one talk that really surprises you. What really surprised you today? I thought the talk on quantum computing was mind-blowing. And if quantum computers come along, all bets are off as to what that means for technology. Charles C Mann wrote a great book called 1491 updating America's pre-Colombian history with things he thought every kid should know. What do you think that grown-ups, kids, should know at the moment, much more generally? I think one of the things is how flawed and quirky human nature is. We don't yet have that mental model. A lot of kids are brought up to believe that they're special snowflakes, or [that] their only job in life is to find their passion and it'll all be okay. And the truth is we're really complex biological machines. And we do a lot of things amazingly, and we do a lot of things really badly, actually. Because we evolved for a different era, and a different set of environmental requirements. And so, knowing that, and learning to navigate around that is a really important part of education. What are you reading right now? Do you have time to read? Less time. I think that's probably true of everyone. We're launching this TED Books initiative, based on shorter books. On the idea that most ideas don't have to be expressed at 80,000 or 100,000 words. They can actually be expressed in maybe 20,000 words. So, TED Talk: 2,500 words. TED book: 20,000 words. Then, non-fiction book: 80,000 words. So, there's a sort of niche there. And it means that you can sit down and read in an hour and a half. I think that's actually a great length. So that's what I'm reading right now: we're going to be publishing these new TED books, one every two weeks. And I'm reading a lot of those. And they're pretty cool. Are you happy? I am happy. Most of my life I've been happy. They say it's seventy percent hard-wired, and the rest is magic. I'm unbelievably lucky —I've got one of the world's most enjoyable jobs, surely. And you know I get to see this thing growing in a way I couldn't have imagined. I'm married to an amazing woman who's a much better impacter of the world than I am. [laughs] So, yeah. I'm a lucky person. Photo by the amazing Enzo Amato, and additional assistance by Tully Rosen.
It's a risky and even cheeky move, packaging a film with a song that could be used to describe it. Thankfully, in the case of 2014's The Lego Movie and its instant earworm track, everything was indeed awesome. The animated flick's long-awaited sequel offers another self-assessment in closing credits tune 'Super Cool', however the description doesn't fit this time around. Nor do the words unbelievable, outrageous, amazing, phenomenal, fantastic and incredible, further praise sung by Beck, the Lonely Island and Robyn in the catchy and amusing song. Instead, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is fine, standard, okay and average. Of course, those words don't have the same ring to them, even if they were set to a thumping beat. The Lego Movie left its successors with big shoes to fill — or big bricks to emulate, to be more accurate — and this direct follow-up does so in an entertaining enough but never especially inventive or enthralling fashion. Call it a case of trying to build the same thing with different pieces. Call it constructing a masterpiece and then falling short with the next attempt. Call it a case of sticking too closely to the instructions again and again. Whichever one you choose, they all fit like rectangular plastic pieces stacked neatly on top of each other. You could also call it a case of following Emmet Brickowski's (Chris Pratt) lead, with the mini-figure's fondness for routine already well established in the first movie. He's so comfortable doing the same thing day in, day out that he's even happy to keep doing so in the new dystopian version of his hometown, Bricksburg. He knows that much has changed since alien invaders made from bigger blocks descended from the heavens. His brooding best friend Lucy (Elizabeth Banks) also reminds him all the time. But it isn't until General Sweet Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) arrives, bearing an invite from the Systar system's Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) and sweeping Lucy, Batman (Will Arnett), Benny (Charlie Day), MetalBeard (Nick Offerman) and Unikitty (Alison Brie) away, that Emmet abandons his blissful monotony and springs into action. Viewers of the initial flick, The Lego Batman Movie and The Lego Ninjago Movie will remember two important aspects of the Lego Movie Universe. Firstly, mile-a-minute jokes and pop culture references are as much a part of the franchise as multicoloured bricks. Secondly, more often than not, the series' animated tales tie into a real-world scenario. While original directors Chris Lord and Phil Miller have handed over the reigns to Trolls filmmaker Mike Mitchell, their humour still bounces through in the movie's fast-paced script. And while The Lego Movie's big twist — that the whole story stemmed from kids simply playing with the titular toys — is old news now, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part builds upon this idea. Once again, the film spends time with now-teenager Finn (Jadon Sand), who's still far from pleased that his younger sister Bianca (Brooklynn Prince) likes Lego as well. Cue The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part's troubles. Lightning rarely strikes twice, after all. The film serves up enough funny gags to keep audiences chuckling, throws in more than a few ace cameos and has the same infectious, anarchic vibe, but it was never going to feel as fresh. It also benefits from a fantastic overall message, but doesn't give it enough emphasis until late in the show. After pondering the divide between rules and creativity in the first picture, the franchise now contemplates collaboration, sharing and the gendering applied to playthings, roles and fandom. That's both smart and relevant, yet here feels underdone. Basically, anything new comes second to everything that's been done before, resulting in the most superfluous kind of sequel. This follow-up is happier rehashing its predecessor's glory days than channelling the ingenuity that made the original so charming. Of course, if The Lego Movie hadn't been such a vibrant, witty delight, then The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part wouldn't feel so familiar. An adequate addition to the series, it still contains plenty to distinguish it from other all-ages animated fare — including an eye-catching and distinctive animation style, enjoyable skewering of Pratt's many non-Lego characters, and Noel Fielding as a sparkly Twilight-esque vampire. But, five years on, viewers are now in the same situation as Lucy: ready to embrace a challenge, rather than falling back on comfortable old habits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvHSlHhh1gk
The idyllic Blue Gum loop trail runs alongside a pristine river and showcases some of the region's finest plant life — the trail is named for the towering blue gum trees that dominate the landscape here and bestow this place with an ethereal beauty. Immerse yourself in their majesty on a leisurely 3.5-kilometre looped trail, which will give you a bird's-eye view of the cascades of the stunning Williamson River from a high steel span bridge, easily accessible from the walk. There's a great spot to stop for a picnic at Fern Creek cascades, and, if you're feeling a bit hot after all that walking, wander down one of the many short detours to find a secluded spot by the riverbank to cool off with a refreshing dip. Image: Elliot Kramer
Glamping has been having a renaissance in recent times. For too long, your fussy friend was always the one to kill the vibe on every camping trip. You know the kind — the one fumbling with expensive battery packs and car adaptors for their hair straightener while the rest of the group settle into full Bear Grylls-style wildling life. But now, the tables have turned. Now, the glamper has an awesome arsenal of James Bond-level gadgets at their disposal and, if you laugh at them, they won't let you into their amazing impromptu hot tub. The latest invention to set glampers' hearts aflutter, the Nomad Collapsible Hot Tub is exactly what it sounds like. Delivered to you in what must seem like the most infuriating IKEA-style flat pack ever, the tub is easily transportable within a regular-sized duffle bag. When fully assembled, this vinyl-coated slice of heaven transforms to a structure 1.5m wide and 60cm tall. It holds 850 litres of water and approximately four or five super-chilled adults. As idyllic as this concept sounds, it obviously hinges on a few important things. For instance, unless you carry 850 litres of water with you wherever you go, you really need to be camping somewhere with easy water access. The tub needs to be filled with the help of a pretty hardcore water pump, and it has to be heated with a nifty little water heater coil. This means two things: you really have to be prepared — this isn't the $2 shop blow-up pool you fill up with the hose on Australia Day — and you have to willing to pay for it. In a special sale offer, Nomad are selling both the tub itself and the water heater coil for US$990. But that's not taking into account the water pump you'll need to fill it or the inevitable postage you'll rack up in shipping both to Australia. All in all, you'd surely be looking at around $1500 for a dip in the spa. Plus whatever exorbitant costs you and your glamping buddies are already paying for a tent with a king size bed in it. All things considered, it still has a crazy amount of pulling power. Even if you can't assemble an IKEA flat pack to save your life, even if you consider a ticket to the hot springs a splurge in the budget, even if you get pruny fingers immediately after jumping into any form of hot water, you really can't deny how much better your camping trip will be with a gadget like this.
