Surry Hills is getting a ramen pop-up with limited-edition streetwear on the side. Each Saturday in November between 11am and 4pm, Toko will embrace an izakaya-style menu featuring two types of ramen: one truffle-based and one for vegetarians. It won't just be noodles either — there will be braised wagyu cheek tacos, poke bowls and the obligatory fried chicken with caviar and sour cream. Drinks-wise, Asahi and Belvedere Vodka are bringing the goods, including a collaboration with Toko bartenders to prepare specially mixed Ramen Club cocktails for the pop-up. N2 Extreme Gelato is joining in too, unveiling their vanilla, yuzu and orange blossom dessert, garnished with freeze-dried pineapple. In the midst of all this, labels Song For The Mute and Nothing will re-release products from their recent streetwear crossover, which was first released back in August and quickly sold out worldwide.
The good guys behind Astral People have teamed up with Strawberry Fields to do what they do best, which is amassing some of the freshest electronic artists around to invigorate Sydney's underground electronic scene and make us realise what we've been missing while dancing to bastardised remixes of Gotye. This time they're bringing four of the most exciting acts around right now for Land of the Giants. The inaugural event will see Tycho (USA), Baths (USA), Prefuse 73 (USA) and Synkro (UK) go head to head at The Metro Theatre in November, prefacing the myriad of major summer music festivals with a boundary-pushing four-headed audio experience said to span continents, planets and timeframes. Swirly San Franciscian Tycho will have a full band in tow to assist with generating the dreamy transcendental vibes as his makes his Australian debut. Intricate L.A. producer Baths will also be testing the waters here after knocking our socks off with his first album Cerulan, which he released two years ago at the tender age of 21. Synkro and Prefuse 73 will be bringing, respectively, the obligatory yet atypical dubstep and the lush glitchy beats. Land of the Giants will take place at The Metro Theatre on Saturday, November 24. Tickets are less than $50 and are on sale now through The Metro website. Concrete Playground has two double passes to Land of the Giants up for grabs. For a chance to win, make sure you're subscribed to Concrete Playground then email your name and postal address to hello@concreteplayground.com.au by 5pm Thursday 8 November. https://youtube.com/watch?v=tVTrZjY2K5I
Taqiza offers traditional Mexican food in a comfortable, relaxed setting. While we are totally stoked on the tuna ceviche bowl, it's the tacos that make this place truly shine. Twelve different tacos are on offer, with a range of meat, plant and seafood options keeping both carnivores and herbivores satisfied. Standouts include the pork crackling with green tomato sauce and watercress, and the vegan chorizo with confit potatoes, guacamole and pico di gallo. Tuesday is the best day to stop by if you're pinching your pennies — there are $5 tacos, $5 Tecates and $12 margaritas available from 5pm till close.
Pharrell's putting that giant-hatted brain to good use; the multi-Grammy award-winning artist has co-designed and curated the first ever denim collection made with recycled plastic yarn. Fronting the G-Star crew as creative director of Bionic Yarn, Pharrell is spearheading G-Star's eco-friendly collections for men and women, dubbed RAW for Ocean. Sounding like something Iron Man knits mittens with, Bionic Yarn is an eco-thread of fibres made from recycled plastic bottles found littering the ocean. Having already recycled a whopping ten tonnes of plastic waste from the seas, RAW for Ocean is the first ever collection to use Bionic Yarn to create a denim collection. And when three times as much rubbish is dumped into the ocean as the weight of fish caught every year, this is a sustainable initiative we can truly get behind. At the forefront of sustainable fashion, G-Star and Pharrell have teamed up with some pretty kickass initiatives to see the collection come to fruition. The Vortex Project works to retrieve and recycle the millions of kilos of plastic floating in our global oceans, hoping to reduce it and come up with smart awareness campaigns to disrupt the vicious cycle. Parley for the Oceans is another top notch platform which brings together artists, musicians, fashion designers, scientists, engineers and other environmentally-conscious legends to talk about the ocean's massive problem in high-profile events and activations. They've also got Sea Shepherd giving them the thumbs up. So what's in store for the collection? Raw for Ocean will see jeans, t-shirts, sweaters, caps and more created from Bionic Yarn — all featuring different shades of mazarine indigo blue and black. One of the cornerstone pieces for men is a modern trench cut from the Bionic Yarn raw denim, the A-Crotch Trench, while ladies can look forward to a printed denim Fallden Bomber. The RAW for Ocean collection even has a dorky little mascot, Otto the Octopus, whose presence in the collection becomes a quirky take on the classic houndstooth print. Sea Shepherd's Paul Watson said, "Creativity is the key to saving creation from our darker side and the key to a future of ecological harmony between humanity and the diversity of wondrous species we share this planet with." Big ups to G-Star and Pharrell for getting on board. The RAW for Ocean collection drops September 10 in stores and online.
Each and every year, Sydney Film Festival spends its June run doing exactly what it loves, and letting the Harbour City's movie buffs enjoy the same thing. But even the Harbour City's major annual celebration of cinema only turns 70 once, which means putting together a massive 200-plus-movie program to mark the occasion — starting with these 12 just-announced flicks. SFF's full lineup will arrive in May, ready to treat film fans of Sydney — and Australia — to Festival Director Nashen Moodley's latest selections from Wednesday, June 7–Sunday, June 18. If the first round of titles is anything to go by, and it usually is, there'll be no shortage of highlights. Penélope Cruz, Haruki Murakami, a documentary about documentaries and their impact upon the folks featured in their frames: they're all covered so far. Parallel Mothers star Cruz joins the lineup courtesy of L'immensità, playing a mum again. This time, she's in 70s-era Rome and navigating struggles in her marriage, while also supporting her 12-year-old when they begin to identify as a boy — with director Emanuele Crialese drawing upon his own experiences. Murakami fans, the animated Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman adapts the Japanese author's short story collection of the same name, complete with a quest to save Tokyo. And lovers of docos The Staircase, Capturing the Friedmans, The Wolfpack, Hoop Dreams and The Square should instantly add Subject to their must-see list — it spends time with subjects from all five works, diving into what it means to be the focus of a film, plus the duty of care that documentarians owe the people in their frames. SFF will also screen the latest features by acclaimed filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Christian Petzold, with the former winning a Venice Special Jury Prize for No Bears and the latter nabbing a Berlinale Silver Bear for Afire. Iranian great Panahi directs and stars, playing a fictionalised version of himself as he's fond of doing (see also: Tehran Taxi), and blending truth and fiction to examine how artists can too easily become scapegoats. Undine and Transit's Petzold once again puts actor Paula Beer in front of his lens, with the German director this time helming a tragicomedy about a seaside holiday surrounded by forest fires. On the local front, actor and director Rachel Ward returns to SFF after 2019 opening-night pick Palm Beach, this time with Rachel's Farm, a doco about bringing sustainable farming practices to her northern NSW beef farm. And, in The Last Daughter, Wiradjuri woman Brenda Matthews charts her experience being taken from her family as a toddler, growing up with a white foster family, then being returned to her parents. Taika Waititi graces the SFF lineup as an executive producer, with New Zealand comedy Red, White & Brass telling the true tale of Tongan rugby fans who volunteered to become a marching band for the Rugby World Cup — with no relevant background — just to attend the event. And, still with impressive cinema names, documentarian Frederick Wiseman's A Couple steps into the relationship between Leo and Sophia Tolstoy, while Filipino filmmaker Lav Diaz ruminates upon power in When the Waves Are Gone, which is about two policemen. Rounding of the initial dozen flicks: Bobi Wine: The People's President, about the Ugandan musician getting political and battling his homeland's dictatorship; and While We Watched, focusing on Indian journalist Ravish Kumar's quest to champion independent reporting. As for what else is in store, Moodley advises that 2023's full lineup will "continue a 70-year strong tradition of presenting exceptional cinema from across Australia and around the world to Sydney audiences". "Since 1954, Sydney Film Festival has brought more than 10,000 films to Australian audiences. Year after year, the Festival continues to be a pioneer in the world of cinema, screening bold and inspiring works that provoke thought and push boundaries." "The 2023 program will expand on this legacy, promising to ignite stimulating dialogues and present powerful ideas that will broaden audience perspectives." Sydney Film Festival 2023 runs from Wednesday, June 7–Sunday, June 18, with the full lineup announced on Wednesday, May 10 — check back here then for all the details, and hit up the festival website for further information in the interim.
So you might remember that the Keystone Group — the sprawling empire behind Australia's Jamie's Italian restaurants, Sydney's The Winery, Gazebo, Manly Wine, Cargo Bar, Bungalow 8, alongside multi-city venues Kingsley's and Chophouse — got into a real jam recently after being unable to settle on their financial structure with lenders of their multi (multiiii) million dollar hospitality empire and went into receivership. Then, earlier this week, Melbourne-based Dixon Hospitality swooped in and bought up a bunch of their properties. Well, even if you don't (it can be hard to keep up with the wheelings and dealings of hospo hotshots), that's about where we were all up to. But in the latest twist in the story, Jamie's Italian (which was one of the venues not saved by Dixon), has been bought by the man himself: Jamie Oliver. Yep, he has bought back his own restaurant chain, which includes six restaurants across Australia, including Sydney, Perth, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide and Parramatta. He'll manage the Australian venues under his Jamie Oliver Group, which are, despite the receivership, reportedly going quite well. So, it's okay everyone: Jamie's back to set it all right and cook us a nice, creamy pasta. Via The Sydney Morning Herald.
Whether you're a dedicated poké fan, an occasional dabbler or you haven't yet tried the Hawaiian food trend, you're going to want to head to North Sydney's Nudefish on April 11. From 11.30am, free bowls are on the menu for the first 100 customers. While usually there's no such thing as a free lunch, that advice doesn't apply here. Hungry patrons can choose from miso sesame eggplant, marinated mushroom, spicy kale chicken and more, as drizzled with house-made sauces and pickles. It's also all gluten- and dairy-free, which means this Poké Party is for everyone. And, if you don't find yourself at the front of the queue before midday, don't worry — Nudefish is also serving up $5 bowls once their freebies have run out. Keep an eye on their Facebook page too, as they're promising other giveaways in the lead up to the main event.
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 20 that you can watch right now at home. MOONAGE DAYDREAM Ground control to major masterpiece: Moonage Daydream, Brett Morgen's kaleidoscopic collage-style documentary about the one and only David Bowie, really makes the grade. Its protein pills? A dazzling dream of archival materials, each piece as essential and energising as the next, woven into an electrifying experience that eclipses the standard music doco format. Its helmet? The soothing-yet-mischievous tones of Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane/The Thin White Duke/Jareth the Goblin King himself, the only protective presence a film about Bowie could and should ever need and want. The songs that bop through viewers heads? An immense playlist covering the obvious — early hit 'Space Oddity', the hooky glam-rock titular track, Berlin-penned anthem 'Heroes', the seductive 80s sounds of 'Let's Dance' and the Pet Shop Boys-remixed 90s industrial gem 'Hallo Spaceboy', to name a few — as well as deeper cuts. The end result? Floating through a cinematic reverie in a most spectacular way. When Bowie came to fame in the 60s, then kept reinventing himself from the 70s until his gone-too-soon death in 2016, the stars did look very different — he did, constantly. How do you capture that persistent shapeshifting, gender-bending, personal and creative experimentation, and all-round boundary-pushing in a single feature? How do you distill a chameleonic icon and musical pioneer into any one piece of art, even a movie that cherishes each of its 135 minutes? In the first film officially sanctioned by Bowie's family and estate, Morgen knows what everyone that's fallen under the legend's spell knows: that the man born David Jones, who'd be 75 as this doco hits screens if he was still alive, can, must and always has spoken for himself. The task, then, is the same as the director had with the also-excellent Cobain: Montage of Heck and Jane Goodall-focused Jane: getting to the essence of his subject and conveying what made him such a wonder by using the figure himself as a template. Moonage Daydream is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies and Prime Video. Read our full review. BODIES BODIES BODIES The internet couldn't have stacked Bodies Bodies Bodies better if it tried, not that that's how the slasher-whodunnit-comedy came about. Pete Davidson (The Suicide Squad) waves a machete around, and his big dick energy, while literally boasting about how he looks like he fucks. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan Oscar-nominee Maria Bakalova plays the cautious outsider among rich-kid college grads, who plan to ride out a big storm with drinks and drugs (and drama) in one of their parents' mansions. The Hunger Games and The Hate U Give alum Amandla Stenberg leads the show as the gang's black sheep, turning up unannounced to zero fanfare from her supposed besties, while the rest of the cast spans Shiva Baby's Rachel Sennott, Generation's Chase Sui Wonders and Industry's Myha'la Herrold, plus Pushing Daisies and The Hobbit favourite Lee Pace as a two-decades-older interloper. And the Agatha Christie-but-Gen Z screenplay? It's drawn from a spec script by Kristen Roupenian, the writer of 2017 viral New Yorker short story Cat Person. All of the above is a lot. Bodies Bodies Bodies is a lot — 100-percent on purpose. It's a puzzle about a party game, as savage a hangout film as they come, and a satire about Gen Z, for starters. It carves into toxic friendships, ignored class clashes, self-obsessed obliviousness, passive aggression and playing the victim. It skewers today's always-online world and the fact that everyone has a podcast — and lets psychological warfare and paranoia simmer, fester and explode. Want more? It serves up another reminder after The Resort, Palm Springs and co that kicking back isn't always cocktails and carefree days. It's an eat-the-rich affair alongside Squid Game and The White Lotus. Swirling that all together like its characters' self-medicating diets, this wildly entertaining horror flick is a phenomenal calling card for debut screenwriter Sarah DeLappe and Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn (Instinct), too — and it's hilarious, ridiculous, brutal and satisfying. Forgetting how it ends is also utterly impossible. Bodies Bodies Bodies is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. FIRE OF LOVE What a delight it would be to trawl through Katia and Maurice Krafft's archives, sift through every video that features the French volcanologists and their work, and witness them doing their highly risky jobs against spectacular surroundings. That's the task that filmmaker Sara Dosa (The Seer and the Unseen) took up to make this superb documentary about the couple's lives — although, as magnificent as this incredibly thoughtful, informative and moving film is, it makes you wonder what a sci-fi flick made from the same footage would look like. There's a particular sequence that cements that idea, set to the also-otherworldly sounds of Air, and featuring the Kraffts walking around against red lava in their futuristic-looking protective silver suits. The entire enchanting score springs from Air's Nicolas Godin, and it couldn't better set the mood; that said, these visuals and this story would prove entrancing if nary a sound was heard, let alone a note or a word. For newcomers to the Kraffts, their lives make quite the tale — one of two volcano-obsessed souls who instantly felt like they were destined to meet, then dedicated their days afterwards to understanding the natural geological formations. More than that, they were passionate about analysing what they dubbed 'grey volcanos', which produce masses of ash when they erupt, and often a body count. Attempting to educate towns and cities in the vicinity of volcanoes, so that they could react appropriately and in a timely way to avoid casualties, became a key part of their mission. This isn't the only doco about them — in fact, German director Werner Herzog is making his own, called The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft — but Fire of Love is a gorgeous, sensitive, fascinating and affecting ode to two remarkable people, their love, their passion and their impact. It also benefits from pitch-perfect narration, too, courtesy of actor and Kajillionaire filmmaker Miranda July. Fire of Love is available to stream via Disney+. Read our full review. THE STRANGER No emotion or sensation ripples through two or more people in the exact same way, and never will. The Stranger has much to convey, but it expresses that truth with piercing precision. The crime-thriller is the sophomore feature from actor-turned-filmmaker Thomas M Wright — following 2018's stunning Adam Cullen biopic Acute Misfortune, another movie that shook everyone who watched it and proved hard to shake — and it's as deep, disquieting and resonant a dance with intensity as its genre can deliver. To look into Joel Edgerton's (Thirteen Lives) eyes as Mark, an undercover cop with a traumatic but pivotal assignment, is to spy torment and duty colliding. To peer at Sean Harris (Spencer) as the slippery Henry Teague is to see a cold, chilling and complex brand of shiftiness. Sitting behind these two performances in screentime but not impact is Jada Alberts' (Mystery Road) efforts as dedicated, determined and drained detective Kate Rylett — and it may be the portrayal that sums up The Stranger best. Writing as well as directing, Wright has made a film that is indeed dedicated, determined and draining. At every moment, including in sweeping yet shadowy imagery and an on-edge score, those feelings radiate from the screen as they do from Alberts. Sharing the latter's emotional exhaustion comes with the territory; sharing their sense of purpose does as well. In the quest to capture a man who abducted and murdered a child, Rylett can't escape the case's horrors — and, although the specific details aren't used, there's been no evading the reality driving this feature. The Stranger doesn't depict the crime that sparked Kate Kyriacou's non-fiction book The Sting: The Undercover Operation That Caught Daniel Morcombe's Killer, or any violence. It doesn't use the Queensland schoolboy's name, or have actors portray him or his family. This was always going to be an inherently discomforting and distressing movie, though, but it's also an unwaveringly intelligent and impressive examination of trauma. The Stranger is available to stream via Netflix. Read our full review. THE QUIET GIRL When Normal People became the streaming sensation of the pandemic's early days, it made stars out of leads Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones, and swiftly sparked another Sally Rooney adaptation from much of the same behind-the-scenes team. It wouldn't have been the hit it was if it hadn't proven an exercise in peering deeply, thoughtfully, lovingly and carefully, though, with that sensation stemming as much from its look as its emotion-swelling story. It should come as no surprise, then, that cinematographer Kate McCullough works the same magic on The Quiet Girl, a Gaelic-language coming-of-age film that sees the world as only a lonely, innocent, often-ignored child can. This devastatingly moving and beautiful movie also spies the pain and hardship that shapes its titular figure's world — and yes, it does so softly and with restraint, just like its titular figure, but that doesn't make the feelings it swirls up any less immense. McCullough is just one of The Quiet Girl's key names; filmmaker Colm Bairéad, a feature first-timer who directs and adapts Claire Keegan's novella Foster, is another. His movie wouldn't be the deeply affecting affair it is without its vivid and painterly imagery — but it also wouldn't be the same without the helmer and scribe's delicate touch, which the 1981-set tale he's telling not only needs but demands. His focus: that soft-spoken nine-year-old, Cáit (newcomer Catherine Clinch), who has spent her life so far as no one's priority. With her mother (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh, Shadow Dancer) pregnant again, her father (Michael Patric, Smother) happiest drinking, gambling and womanising, and her siblings boisterously bouncing around their rural Irish home, she's accustomed to blending in and even hiding out. Then, for the summer, she's sent to her mum's older cousin Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley, Extra Ordinary) and her dairy farmer husband Seán (Andrew Bennett, Dating Amber). Now the only child among doting guardians, she's no less hushed, but she's also loved and cared for as she's never been before. The Quiet Girl is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. DON'T WORRY DARLING Conformity rarely bodes well in cinema. Whenever everyone's dressing the same, little boxes litter the landscape or identical white-picket fences stretch as far as the eye can see, that perception of perfection tends to possess a dark underbelly. The Stepford Wives demonstrated that. Pleasantville, Blue Velvet and Vivarium all did as well. Yes, there's a touch of conformity in movies about the evils of and heralded by conformity; of course there is. That remains true when Florence Pugh (Black Widow) and Harry Styles (Eternals) navigate an ostensibly idyllic vision of retro suburbia in a desert-encased enclave — one that was always going to unravel when the movie they're in is called Don't Worry Darling. Don't go thinking that this handsome and intriguing film doesn't know all of this, though. Don't go thinking that it's worried about the similarities with other flicks, including after its secrets are spilled, either. It'd be revealing too much to mention a couple of other movies that Don't Worry Darling blatantly recalls, so here's a spoiler-free version: this is a fascinating female-focused take on a pair of highlights from two decades-plus back that are still loved, watched and discussed now. That's never all that Olivia Wilde's second feature as a filmmaker after 2019's Booksmart is, but it feels fitting that when it conforms in a new direction, it finds a way to make that space its own. That's actually what Pugh's Alice thinks she wants when Don't Worry Darling begins. The film's idealised 1950s-style setting comes with old-fashioned gender roles firmly in place, cocktails in hand as soon Styles' Jack walks in the door come quittin' time and elaborate multi-course dinners cooked up each night, with its protagonist going along with it all. But she's also far from keen on having a baby, the done thing in the company town that is Victory. It'd curtail the noisy sex that gets the neighbours talking, for starters. Don't Worry Darling is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video . Read our full review. AMSTERDAM There's only one Wes Anderson, but there's a litany of wannabes. Why can't David O Russell be among them? Take the first filmmaker's The Grand Budapest Hotel, mix in the second's American Hustle and that's as good a way as any to start describing Amsterdam, Russell's return to the big screen after a seven-year gap following 2015's Joy — and a starry period comedy, crime caper and history lesson all in one. Swap pastels for earthier hues, still with a love of detail, and there's the unmistakably Anderson-esque look of the film. Amsterdam is a murder-mystery, too, set largely in the 1930s against a backdrop of increasing fascism, and filled with more famous faces than most movies can dream of. The American Hustle of it all springs from the "a lot of this actually happened" plot, this time drawing upon a political conspiracy called the White House/Wall Street Putsch, and again unfurling a wild true tale. A Russell returnee sits at the centre, too: Christian Bale (Thor: Love and Thunder) in his third film for the writer/director. The former did help guide the latter to an Oscar for The Fighter, then a nomination for American Hustle — but while Bale is welcomely and entertainingly loose and freewheeling, and given ample opportunity to show his comic chops in his expressive face and physicality alone, Amsterdam is unlikely to complete the trifecta of Academy Awards recognition. The lively movie's cast is its strongest asset, though, including the convincing camaraderie between Bale, John David Washington (Malcolm & Marie) and Margot Robbie (The Suicide Squad). They play pals forged in friendship during World War I, then thanks to a stint in the titular Dutch city. A doctor, a lawyer and a nurse — at least at some point in the narrative — they revel in love and art during their uninhabited stay, then get caught in chaos 15 years later. Amsterdam is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies and Prime Video. Read our full review. THE WONDER "We are nothing without stories, so we invite you to believe in this one." So goes The Wonder's opening narration, as voiced by Niamh Algar (Wrath of Man) and aimed by filmmaker Sebastián Lelio in two directions. For the Chilean writer/director's latest rich and resonant feature about his favourite topic, aka formidable women — see also: Gloria, its English-language remake Gloria Bell, Oscar-winner A Fantastic Woman and Disobedience — he asks his audience to buy into a tale that genuinely is a tale. In bringing Emma Donoghue's (Room) book to the screen, he even shows the thoroughly modern-day studio and its sets where the movie was shot. But trusting in a story is also a task that's given The Wonder's protagonist, Florence Pugh's nurse Lib Wright, who is en route via ship to an Irish Midlands village when this magnetic, haunting and captivating 19th century-set picture initially sees her. For the second time in as many movies — and in as many months Down Under as well — Pugh's gotta have faith. Playing George Michael would be anachronistic in The Wonder, just as it would've been in Don't Worry Darling's gleaming 1950s-esque supposed suburban dream, but that sentiment is what keeps being asked of the British actor, including in what's also her second fearless performance in consecutive flicks. Here, it's 1862, and 11-year-old Anna O'Donnell (Kíla Lord Cassidy, Viewpoint) has seemingly subsisted for four months now without eating. Ireland's 1840s famine still casts shadows across the land and its survivors, but this beatific child says she's simply feeding on manna from heaven. Lib's well-paid job is to watch the healthy-seeming girl in her family home, where her mother (A Discovery of Witches' Elaine Cassidy, Kila's actual mum) and father (Caolan Byrne, Nowhere Special) dote, to confirm that she isn't secretly sneaking bites to eat. The Wonder is available to stream via Netflix. Read our full review. YOU WON'T BE ALONE Sometimes, a comparison is so obvious that it simply has to be uttered and acknowledged. That's the case with You Won't Be Alone, the first feature from Macedonian Australian writer/director Goran Stolevski, who also helmed MIFF's 2022 opening-night pick Of an Age. His debut film's lyrical visuals, especially of nature, instantly bringing the famously poetic aesthetics favoured by Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life, A Hidden Life) to mind. Its musings on the nature of life, and human nature as well, easily do the same. Set centuries back, lingering in villages wracked by superstition and exploring a myth about a witch, You Won't Be Alone conjures up thoughts of Robert Eggers' The Witch as well. Indeed, if Malick had directed that recent favourite, the end product might've come close to this entrancing effort. Consider Stolevski's feature the result of dreams conjured up with those two touchstones in his head, though, rather than an imitator. The place: Macedonia. The time: the 19th century. The focus: a baby chosen by the Wolf-Eateress (Anamaria Marinca, The Old Guard) to be her offsider. The feared figure has the ability to select and transform one protege, but she agrees to let her pick reach the age of 16 first. Nevena (Sara Klimoska, Black Sun) lives those formative years in a cave, in an attempt to stave off her fate. When the Wolf-Eateress comes calling, her initiation into the world — the world of humans, and of her physically and emotionally scarred mentor — is jarring. With Noomi Rapace (Lamb), Alice Englert (The Power of the Dog) and Carloto Cotta (The Tsugua Diaries) also among the cast, You Won't Be Alone turns Nevena's experiences of life, love, loss, desire, pain, envy and power into a haunting and thoughtful gothic horror fable. To say that it's bewitching is obvious, too, but also accurate. You Won't Be Alone is available to stream via Google Play and YouTube Movies. Read our full review. SEE HOW THEY RUN As every murder-mystery does, See How They Run asks a specific question: whodunnit? This 1950s-set flick also solves another query, one that's lingered over Hollywood for seven decades now thanks to Agatha Christie. If this movie's moniker has you thinking about mouse-focused nursery rhymes, that's by design — and characters do scurry around chaotically — however, it could also have you pondering the famed author's play The Mousetrap. The latter first hit theatres in London's West End in 1952 and has stayed there ever since, other than an enforced pandemic-era shutdown in COVID-19's early days. The show operates under a set stipulation regarding the big-screen rights, too, meaning that it can't be turned into a film until the original production has stopped treading the boards for at least six months. As that's never happened, how do you get it into cinemas anyway? Make a movie about trying to make The Mousetrap into a movie, aka See How They Run. Was it actor Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson, Where the Crawdads Sing), his fellow-thespian wife Sheila Sim (Pearl Chanda, War of the Worlds), big-time movie producer John Woolf (Reece Shearsmith, Venom: Let There Be Carnage) or his spouse Edana Romney (Sian Clifford, The Duke) getting murderous in the costume shop at the backstage party celebrating The Mousetrap's 100th show? (And yes, they're all real-life figures.) Or, was it the play's producer Petula Spencer (Ruth Wilson, His Dark Materials), the proposed feature adaptation's screenwriter Mervyn Cocker-Norris (David Oyelowo, Chaos Walking) or his Italian lover Gio (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, The Queen's Gambit)? They're among See How They Run's other enquiries, which Scotland Yard's Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell, Richard Jewell) and Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan, The French Dispatch) try to answer. After the death that kicks off filmmaker Tom George (This Country) and screenwriter Mark Chappell's (Flaked) mostly entertaining game of on-screen Cluedo, the two cops are on the case, working through their odd-couple vibe as they sleuth. See How They Run is available to stream via Disney+, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. THE GOOD NURSE It isn't called CULLEN — Monster: The Charles Cullen Story. It doesn't chart the murders of a serial killer who's already a household name. And, it doesn't unfurl over multiple episodes. Still, Netflix-distributed true-crime film The Good Nurse covers homicides, and the person behind them, that are every bit as grim and horrendous as the events dramatised in DAHMER — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Such based-on-reality tales that face such evil are always nightmare fodder, but this Eddie Redmayne (Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore)- and Jessica Chastain (The Forgiven)-starring one, as brought to the screen by Danish filmmaker Tobias Lindholm (A War, A Hijacking), taps into a particularly terrifying realm. The culprit clearly isn't the good nurse of the movie's moniker, but he is a nurse, working in intensive care units no less — and for anyone who has needed to put their trust in the health system or may in the future (aka all of us), his acts are gut-wrenchingly chilling. Hospitals are meant to be places that heal, even in America's cash-driven setup where free medical care for all isn't considered a basic right and a societal must. Hospitals are meant to care for the unwell and injured, as are the doctors, nurses and other staff who race through their halls. There is one such person in The Good Nurse, Amy Loughren, who Chastain plays based on a real person. In 2003, in New Jersey, she's weathering her own struggles: she's a single mother to two young girls, she suffers from cardiomyopathy to the point of needing a heart transplant, and she can't tell her job about her health condition because she needs to remain employed for four more months to qualify for insurance to treat it. Then enters Cullen (Redmayne), the newcomer on Loughren's night shifts, a veteran of nine past hospitals, an instant friend who offers to help her cope with her potentially lethal ailment and also the reason that their patients start dying suddenly. The Good Nurse is available to stream via Netflix. Read our full review. GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE People have orgasms every day, but for decades spent closing her eyes and thinking of England in a sexually perfunctory marriage, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande's lead character wasn't among them. Forget la petite mort, the French term for climaxing; Nancy Stokes' (Emma Thompson, Cruella) big wrestling match with mortality, the one we all undertake, has long been devoid of erotic pleasure. Moments that feel like a little death? Unheard of. That's where this wonderfully candid, intimate, generous and joyous sex comedy starts, although not literally. Flashbacks to Nancy enduring getting it over with beneath her now-deceased spouse, missionary style, aren't Australian filmmaker Sophie Hyde (Animals) or British comedian-turned-screenwriter Katy Brand's (Glued) concern. Instead, their film begins with the religious education teacher waiting in a hotel room, about to take the biggest gamble of her life: meeting the eponymous sex worker (Daryl McCormack, Peaky Blinders). For anyone well-versed in Thompson's prolific on-screen history, and of Brand's work before the camera as well, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande inspires an easy wish: if only Nancy had a different job. Back in 2010, the pair co-starred in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, a title that'd also fit their latest collaboration if its protagonist cared for kids rather than taught them. Jokes aside, the instantly charming Leo is used to hearing that sentiment about his own professional choices. Indeed, Nancy expresses it during their pre- and post-coital discussions, enquiring about the events that might've led him to his career. "Maybe you're an orphan!" she says. "Perhaps you grew up in care, and you've got very low self-esteem," she offers. "You could have been trafficked against your will — you can't tell just by looking at somebody!" she continues. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. 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. There are imagined dragons in Blaze, but Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, this 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. Blaze is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. 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, given that the filmmaker behind it is Panah Panahi, son of acclaimed auteur Jafar Panahi. The latter's run-ins with the country's regime have been well-documented. The elder Panahi, director of Closed Curtain, Tehran Taxi and more, has been both imprisoned and banned from making movies over the past two decades, and was detained again in July 2022 for enquiring about the legal situation surrounding There Is No Evil helmer Mohammad Rasoulof. None of that directly comes through in Hit the Road's story, not for a moment, but the younger Panahi's directorial debut is firmly made with a clear shadow lingering over it. As penned by the fledgling filmmaker as well, Hit the Road's narrative is simple and also devastatingly layered; in its frames, two starkly different views of life in Iran are apparent. What frames they are, as lensed by Ballad of a White Cow cinematographer Amin Jafari — with every sequence a stunner, but three in particular, late in the piece and involving fraught exchanges, nighttime stories and heartbreaking goodbyes, among the most mesmerising images committed to celluloid in recent years. Those pictures tell of a mother (Pantea Panahiha, Rhino), a father (Mohammad Hassan Madjooni, Pig), their adult son (first-timer Amin Simiar) and their six-year-old boy (scene-stealer Rayan Sarlak, Gol be khodi), all unnamed, who say they're en route to take their eldest to get married. But the journey is a tense one, even as the youngest among them chatters, sings, does ordinary childhood things and finds magic in his cross-country road trip, all with zero knowledge of what eats at the rest of his family. Hit the Road is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. FLUX GOURMET Flickering across a cinema screen, even the greatest of movies only engage two senses: sight and hearing. We can't touch, taste or smell films, even if adding scratch-and-sniff aromas to the experience has become a cult-favourite gimmick. British director Peter Strickland hasn't attempted that — but his features make you feel like you're running your fingers over an alluring dress (In Fabric), feeling the flutter of insect wings (The Duke of Burgundy) or, in his latest, enjoying the smells and tastes whipped up by a culinary collective that turns cooking and eating into performance art. Yes, if you've seen any of his movies before, Flux Gourmet instantly sounds like something only Strickland could make. While it's spinning that tale, it literally sounds like only something he could come up with as well, given that his audioscapes are always a thing of wonder (see also: the sound-focused Berberian Sound Studio). And, unsurprisingly due to his strong and distinctive sense of style and mood, everything about Flux Gourmet looks and feels like pure Strickland, too. The setting: a culinary institute overseen by Jan Stevens (Gwendoline Christie, Game of Thrones), that regularly welcomes in different creative groups to undertake residencies. Her guests collaborate, percolate and come up with eye-catching blends of food, bodies and art — hosting OTT dinners, role-playing a trip to the supermarket, getting scatalogical and turning a live colonoscopy into a show, for instance. Watching and chronicling the latest stint by a 'sonic catering' troupe is journalist Stones (Makis Papadimitriou, Beckett), who also has gastrointestinal struggles, is constantly trying not to fart and somehow manages to keep a straight face as everything gets farcical around him. Asa Butterfield (Sex Education), Ariane Labed (The Souvenir: Part II) and Strickland regular Fatma Mohamed play the three bickering artists, and their time at the institute get messy and heated, fast — but this is a film that's as warm as it is wild, and stands out even among Strickland's inimitable work. Also crucial: riffing on This Is Spinal Tap. Flux Gourmet is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. TICKET TO PARADISE Here we go again indeed: with the George Clooney- and Julia Roberts-starring Ticket to Paradise, a heavy been-there-done-that air sweeps through, thick with the Queensland-standing-in-for-Bali breeze. The film's big-name stars have bounced off each other in Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve and Money Monster before now. Director Ol Parker has already sent multiple groups of famous faces to far-flung places — far-flung from the UK or the US, that is — as the writer of the Best Exotic Marigold flicks and helmer of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Enough destination wedding rom-coms exist that one of the undersung better ones, with Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, is even called Destination Wedding. And, there's plenty of romantic comedies about trying to foil nuptials, too, with My Best Friend's Wedding and Runaway Bride on Roberts' resume since the 90s. Hurriedly throw all of the above into a suitcase — because your twentysomething daughter Kaitlyn Dever, Dopesick) has suddenly announced she's marrying a seaweed farmer (Maxime Bouttier, Unknown) she just met in Indonesia, if you're Clooney (The Midnight Sky) and Roberts' (Gaslit) long-divorced couple here — and that's firmly Ticket to Paradise. As The Lost City already was earlier in 2022, it too is a star-driven throwback, endeavouring to make the kind of easy, glossy, screwball banter-filled popcorn fare that doesn't reach screens with frequency lately. It isn't as entertaining as that flick, and it certainly isn't winking, nodding and having fun with its formula; sticking dispiritingly to the basics is all that's on Parker's itinerary with his first-timer co-scribe Daniel Pipski. But alongside picturesque vistas, Ticket to Paradise shares something crucial with The Lost City: it gets a whole lot of mileage out of its stars' charisma. Ticket to Paradise is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. CLEAN "It's a shock to the system. It's a change to the everyday, regular routine. It's where the unhappy gene comes out — and it's a sign of the times today." That's the gloriously candid and empathetic Sandra Pankhurst on trauma, a topic she has literally made her business. Later in Clean, the documentary that tells her tale, she describes herself as a "busy nose and a voyeur"; however, that's not what saw her set up Melbourne's Specialised Trauma Cleaning. For three decades now, her company has assisted with "all the shitty jobs that no one really wants to do," as she characterises it: crime-scene cleanups, including after homicides, suicides and overdoses; deceased estates, such as bodies found some time after their passing; and homes in squalor, to name a few examples. As she explains in the film, Pankhurst is eager to provide such cleaning services because everyone deserves that help — and because we're all just a couple of unfortunate turns away from needing it. The 2008 movie Sunshine Cleaning starring Amy Adams (Dear Evan Hansen) and Emily Blunt (Jungle Cruise) fictionalised the trauma-cleaning realm; if that's your touchstone at the outset of Clean, prepare for far less gloss, for starters. Prepare for much more than a look at a fascinating but largely ignored industry, too, because filmmaker Lachlan Mcleod (Big in Japan) is as rightly interested in Pankhurst as he is in her line of work. Everything she says hangs in the air with meaning, even as it all bounces lightly from her lips ("life can be very fragile", "every dog has its day, and a mongrel has two" and "life dishes you out a good story and then life dishes you out a shit one" are some such utterances). Everything feels matter of fact and yet also immensely caring through her eyes, regardless of the situation that her Frankston-headquartered employees are attending to. Clean is available to stream via SBS On Demand. Read our full review. SMILE If high-concept horror nasties get you grinning even when you're squirming, recoiling or peeking through your fingers, then expect Smile to live up to its name — in its first half, at least. A The Ring-meets-It Follows type of scarefest with nods to the Joker thrown in — even though it springs from debut feature writer/director Parker Finn's own 2020 short film Laura Hasn't Slept — it takes its titular term seriously, sporting one helluva creepy smirk again and again. The actual face doing the ghoulish beaming can change, and does, but the evil Cheshire Cat-esque look on each dial doesn't. Where 2011's not-at-all spooky The Muppets had a maniacal laugh, Smile does indeed possess a maniacal, skin-crawling, nightmare-inducing leer. In the film, the first character to chat about it, PhD student Laura Weaver (Caitlin Stasey, Bridge and Tunnel), explains it as "the worst smile I have ever seen in my life". She's in a hospital, telling psychiatrist Rose Cotter (Mare of Easttown's Sosie Bacon, daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick), who clearly thinks she's hallucinating. But when the doctor sees that grin herself, she immediately knows that Laura's description couldn't be more accurate. Toothy, deranged, preternaturally stretched and also frozen in place, the smile at the heart of Smile isn't easily forgotten — not that Rose need worry about that. Soon, it's haunting her days and nights by interrupting her work, and seeing her act erratically with patients to the concern of her boss (Kal Penn, Clarice). Rose upsets a whole party at her nephew's birthday, too, and makes her fiancé Trevor (Jessie T Usher, The Boys) have doubts about their future. There's a backstory: Rose's mother experienced mental illness, which is why she's so passionate about her work and her sister Holly (Gillian Zinser, The Guilty) is so dismissive. There's a backstory to the diabolical frown turned upside down also, which she's quickly trying to unravel with the help of her cop ex Joel (Kyle Gallner, Scream). She has to; Laura came to the hospital for assistance after her professor saw the smile first, then started beaming it, then took his own life in front of her — and now Rose is in the same situation Smile is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. ON THE COUNT OF THREE What happens outside an upstate New York strip club at 10am on an ordinary weekday? Nothing — nothing good, or that anyone pays attention to, at least — deduces the unhappy Val (Jerrod Carmichael, Rothaniel) in On the Count of Three. So, he's hatched a plan: with his lifelong best friend Kevin (Christopher Abbott, The Forgiven), they'll carry out a suicide pact, with that empty car park as their final earthly destination. Under the harsh morning light and against a drably grey sky, Carmichael's feature directorial debut initially meets its central duo standing in that exact spot, guns pointed at each other's heads and pulling the trigger mere moments away. Yes, they start counting. Yes, exhaustion and desperation beam from their eyes. No, this thorny yet soulful film isn't over and done with then and there. There are many ways to experience weariness, frustration, malaise and despair, and to convey them — and On the Count of Three surveys plenty, as an unflinchingly black comedy about two lifelong best friends deciding to end it all should. Those dispiriting feelings can weigh you down, making every second of every day an effort. They can fester, agitate, linger and percolate, simmering behind every word and deed before spewing out as fury. They can spark drastic actions, including the type that Val and Kevin have picked as their only option after the latter breaks the former out of a mental health hospital mere days after his last self-harming incident. Or, they can inspire a wholesale rejection of the milestones, such as the promotion that Val is offered hours earlier, that everyone is told they're supposed to covet, embrace and celebrate. On the Count of Three is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies and Prime Video. Read our full review. THE HUMANS If you're the kind of cinephile who likes to theme their viewing around the relevant time of year — holiday-related, primarily — then you're clearly always spoiled for choice. Christmas movies, horror flicks at Halloween, Easter-relevant films: you can build a binge session out of all of them (several in fact, depending on the occasion). The same applies to Thanksgiving, all courtesy of the US, and The Humans is the latest addition to the November-appropriate list. But while it ticks a few easy boxes, including bringing a family together to celebrate the date, steeping their get-together in awkwardness, and having big revelations spill out over the course of the gathering, this A24-distributed release is far creepier and more haunting than your usual movie about America's turkey-eating time of year. Based on Stephen Karam's Tony-winning play, and adapted and directed for the screen by Karam himself, it's downright unsettling, in fact, and for a few reasons. There's the tension zipping back and forth between everyone in attendance, of course; the bleak, claustrophobic, rundown setting, in a New York apartment close to ground zero; and the strange sounds emanating from other units. As a result, seasonal cheer is few and far between in this corner of Manhattan, where the Blake family congregates in Brigid (Beanie Feldstein, Booksmart) and her boyfriend Richard's (Steven Yeun, Nope) new abode. Also making an appearance: parents Deirdre (Jayne Houdyshell, Only Murders in the Building) and Erik (Richard Jenkins, Nightmare Alley), Brigid's older sister Aimee (Amy Schumer, Life & Beth), and their grandmother Momo (June Squibb, Palmer), who has dementia. No one is happy, and everyone seems to have something that needs airing — but there's always the feeling that, in any other location, this might've truly been a joyful affair. Discussions about dreams and nightmares prove revealing, but The Humans points out the thin line between both, whether we're slumbering or waking, several times over in its talky frames. The Humans is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies 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 TV shows, returning TV shows and straight-to-streaming movies from the first half of 2022.
Sometimes the weeks just fly by (is it almost April already?). But sometimes the work week can be a real slog. So, having a way to celebrate hitting the halfway mark is just what you need. And we've found just the thing. Woolloomooloo's longstanding waterside destination Otto Ristorante is teaming up with Tanqueray for a one-off fine dining experience celebrating all things botanical. The dinner will take place in the luxe Italian restaurant on Wednesday, March 27 from 6.30pm. Guests can enjoy four courses, each paired with a specially crafted gin cocktail. The degustation menu has been designed by Otto's bar manager Lukas Hardy and head chef Richard Ptacnik. Gin, and many other ingredients, will be used liberally in both the eats and the libations in order to provide a seamless culinary experience. You can expect to sip the likes of grapefruit-infused Tanqueray No. 10, the four-botanical London Dry Gin, the zesty Flor de Sevilla and the lime-based Rangpur. To start, there's a canapé of gnocco fritto (deep-fried Italian bread) served with salumi and a green olive sgroppino — an Italian-style cocktail featuring Flor de Sevilla Tanqueray, prosecco, green olive sorbet and charcoal salt. Next up, expect gin-cured salmon with caperberries and green olives served with a wet martini made with London Dry Gin, dry vermouth, fino sherry, orange bitters and more caperberries. For the main, you'll dig into herbed salt-crusted kingfish with two salads, paired with the Herbaceous Gimlet: olive oil-washed Tanqueray No. 10 with edible flowers, verjus (unripe grape juice), herbs and botanicals. And dessert is a passionfruit curd served with gin jelly and topped with coconut and gin ice cream. Finish off your meal with a specialty Tom Collins, which combines toasted coconut-washed Tanqueray Rangpur, lime leaf, passionfruit and sparkling coconut water. This lavish dinner will cost $175 all up, and bookings are essential. To book, head here. Image: Kitti Gould.
Just like a picture is worth a thousand words, a good gift can speak volumes. And when it comes to your nearest and dearest, it's worth forking out the big bucks to make them feel suitably special. Socks and undies simply will not do, you need to up the ante and pick out a present that is nuanced, thoughtful and unequivocally them. We know it can be tough; you may feel as though you've exhausted all your options. There's only so many times you can buy their favourite necklace, after all. To give you some fresh gift ideas, we've partnered with Australia Post and pulled together some real humdingers for the super important people in your life. From retro turntables to limited edition RMs, these pressies keep your key peeps smiling. Moreover, they can all be ordered online and conveniently delivered to your nearby Parcel Locker so you don't even have to go to the shops. Let your fingers do the walking, forgo the crazy Christmas crowds and rest easy knowing your parcel is stored securely till you're ready to collect. Happy shopping, Santas. PORD WINE BARREL If you've got a legit wine lover on your list, go beyond a bottle of primo vino or even a stylish decanter, and blow their socks off with one of these mini wine barrel masterpieces. The three-litre barrels are covered in art by three eclectic artists — Filippa Edghill, Hannah Nowlan and Evi O. — and filled with top-notch Mitchelton drops from the 2017 and 2018 vintages. Choose the design and the wine — pinot grigio, shiraz or rose — and get ready to be praised for your awesome gift. Each barrel holds a neat four bottles' worth of wine and will keep it fresh for up to six weeks. They can also be repurposed once empty. Cheers to that. How much? $160 CUSTOM HABBOT SHOES There's nothing better than a pair of comfy shoes. Wait, we take that back, there's nothing better than a pair of comfy and stylish shoes. Treat your special someone to a pair of custom Habbot shoes — they're super chic but have Hush Puppies-level comfort. The Aussie-designed and Italian-made footwear company has a great online customisation tool that lets you pick and choose everything, from the shoe type — classic derby, micro-sole derby, point pump or mid-heel sandal — to the material, colour and laces. So, you can design one-of-a-kind kicks for your numero uno that'll stand out from the crowd. How much? From $405 EVERY EDITION OF TRUTH, LOVE & CLEAN CUTLERY If your nearest and dearest is both an eco-warrior and a food lover — congrats, they sound awesome — surprise them with every edition of Truth, Love & Clean Cutlery. Basically the A to Z of sustainable eating, these guidebooks feature more than 1300 organic, ethical and sustainable restaurants from around the world. To take the gift up a notch, let your loved one pick out a few of their favourite restaurants and treat them to a night of ethical fare. Hey, it's a present for you, too. How much? $145 for all four books RM WILLIAMS EXCLUSIVE BOOTS These boots were made for walking and showing off, the limited edition metallic RMs are the shoe of the season and the perfect gift for any Carrie Bradshaw-status shoe fiends. At $545 a pop, they're not cheap — but the RM brand is renowned for its rock-solid craftsmanship and the kicks will last a lifetime. Luckily, silver is seldom out of style and goes perfectly with tinsel. But if silver is a bit too flash for your giftee, there's also the more subdued limited edition high-shine black boot. No matter your choice, each pair is crafted out of a single piece of leather and is made to order, so expect a two-week delivery timeframe. They're worth the wait, trust us. How much? $545 GOOGLE HOME HUB Hey, Google. Tell us how many hugs we're going to get for this kick-ass gift? Forget it, we already know it's going to be a heap. Yep, anyone who receives a Google Home Hub for Christmas is going to be over the moon. They're basically getting their very own assistant to set alarms, turn off lights, read out cooking instructions, organise daily routines, play music, take photos... the list goes on. They might even get a new lover if they're anything like Joaquin Phoenix's character in Her. Now that's a gift. How much? $219 FUJIFILM INSTAX SQUARE SQ6 INSTANT CAMERA Remember when Polaroid cameras were so big and bulky they basically required their own carry bag? While the promise of pretty photos (in an instant) was enticing, nobody wanted to lug around a brick. Thankfully, those days are long gone and you can now gift a nice, compact FujiFilm Instant Camera to your number one. The clever square format means your pal won't waste time choosing between portrait or landscape, they can just pick up the camera and take the snap. It's kind of like Instagram in real life. Plus, its small size means it can be carried around with ease. How much? $199 RETRO-LOOKING TURNTABLE If you've got a bigtime muso in your inner circle, there's a good chance you've heard them rabbiting on about the beauty of vinyl before — how records sound so much better than CDs or MP3. Something about audio data and lossy formats? Anyway, treat them to this Thomson 3 Speed Retro Look Turntable with built-in speakers and get them spinning their favourite tracks. The turntable's sleek, vintage design makes it a nice addition to any home — even a muso's dark and dingy lair. If you want to add a personalised touch, pick out a vinyl to gift with the turntable — it's a combo that's guaranteed to make their head spin like, well, a record. How much? $99 NOKIA STEEL HR WATCH This one's for the fitness fanatics in your life who also appreciate a bit of style. The Nokia Steel HR Watch is a watch-activity tracker hybrid that's both aesthetically pleasing and hella practical. The watch monitors your heart rate during workouts and can assess your overall performance, then deliver a personalised in-app report directly to your smartphone. The intuitive gadget makes your fitness goals that little bit easier to achieve, which means it's also a thoughtful gift for somebody you know is keen to get fit in the new year. How much? From $299 MODERNIST BREAD BOOK SET Bread, glorious bread. You'd be hard pressed to find a person who doesn't love it. But if you've got a special person who's particularly fond of baked goods, this is the book set for them. Modernist Bread: The Art and Science is a deep-dive into one of the most important staples of the human diet; it's the most in-depth look at bread to date. The five-volume set, housed in a sleek stainless steel case, contains more than 1500 recipes and breadmaking techniques. The best part? You can sample all their tasty dough-based creations. Forget cake, let them eat bread. How much? $700 HP SPROCKET PHOTO PRINTER A gift for the selfie enthusiasts, the HP Sprocket Photo Printer allows you to instantly print photos straight from your smartphone quicker than you can say 'duck face'. The printer has an ultracompact design — it's small enough to carry on the go — so it's also a great gift for budding photographers or designers as they can quickly print their snaps. The printer uses Bluetooth technology, which means there are no annoying cords and each photograph can be edited (hello, filters) before printing via the HP Sprocket app. Also, the special adhesive photo paper means you can easily stick your photos into albums or journals. How much? $159 Christmas shopping has never been so simple — order online, ship to a Parcel Locker and avoid the hectic shops with Australia Post.
The City of Sydney is ushering in the Year of the Tiger with the unveiling of 12 lanterns in its annual Lunar Lanterns exhibition, which runs from Saturday, January 28 until Sunday, February 13. Each larger-than-life illuminated artwork symbolises one of the signs of the Chinese zodiac, with the free exhibition spanning from Circular Quay all the way to Haymarket. The installations are a long-running part of the Lunar New Year celebrations in Sydney and a mix of returning designs and new interpretations on the zodiac signs make up this year's set of creatures. Most notably, eight tigers have been set up in four different locations around the CBD this year to mark the feline's place at the centre of this Lunar New Year. To help you navigate the animals, you can take a virtual walk and examine the map through the Sydney Culture Walks app. [caption id="attachment_760097" align="alignnone" width="1920"] 2020 Lunar New Year tiger, Katherine Griffiths[/caption] Images: Katherine Griffiths
The latest big-screen gems aren't the only movies on offer at a heap of Australian film festivals in 2024. When Europa! Europa returned in February and March, it also featured a retrospective dedicated to Poor Things director Yorgos Lanthimos. On this year's German Film Festival lineup: a spotlight on The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft's Werner Herzog. And, when the Spanish Film Festival hits picture palaces around the country in June and July, it'll pay tribute to the one and only Salvador Dalí. 2024 marks 120 years since the Spanish artist's birth, so this annual showcase of films from Spain and Latin America is including an ode to the surrealist great through cinema. Documentary Salvador Dalí: In Search of Immortality is filled with archival footage, 1929 short film Un Chien Andalou is a collaboration between Dalí and filmmaker Luis Buñuel, and 1930's L'Age d'Or is penned by the pair. Also featured: Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, in which Dalí was responsible for the dream sequence. When you're not celebrating Dalí at this year's Spanish Film Festival, there's plenty more to see — including opening night's Chile-set The Movie Teller from director Lone Scherfig (The Kindness of Strangers) and co-writer Walter Salles (Central Station), as starring the Buenos Aires-born Bérénice Bejo (Final Cut) and Barcelona-born Daniel Brühl (All Quiet on the Western Front). It'll kick off the fest in each of its stops in Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Byron Bay and Ballina, with the event's full tour running from Tuesday, June 11 (when it launches in the Australian Capital Territory) to Wednesday, July 10 (when every leg around the nation wraps up). When Un Amor, the latest from Elisa & Marcela director Isabel Coixet, pops up on the lineup, it's part of a focus on the filmmaker. Elegy, which stars Ben Kingsley (The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar) and Penélope Cruz (Ferrari), is also on the spotlight bill — as is 2013's Yesterday Never Ends and the Monica Bellucci (Mafia Mamma)-led Those Who Love from 1998. Other highlights span drama The Girls at the Station, a coming-of-age tale about three girls who grow up at a juvenile detention centre; Something Is About to Happen, focusing on a woman who loses her job, which won Malena Alterio (Strangers) a Goya; Jokes & Cigarettes, a biopic of comedian Eugenio; and vino-focused documentary Rioja: The Land of a Thousand Wines. Or, there's Checkmates, which rocketed up the Spanish box office with an underdog story about kids trying to win the Spanish Chess Championship — and Saturn Return, which takes inspiration from Spanish band Los Planetas. The timely Artificial Justice follows a judge assessing if AI can be used in the justice system, and Vera and the Pleasures of Others focuses on a 17-year-old girl who likes listening to exactly what the title spells out. Then there's the roster of titles from Latin America, such as Totem, which takes place across one day in a Mexican household; Bad Actor, which tells a post-#MeToo era tale; sci-fi thriller Aire: Just Breathe; and wellness dark comedy The Practice. There's more where they came from, including one helluva closing-night pick: Alejandro Jodorowsky's iconic The Holy Mountain, adding more surrealism beyond Dalí to the program. Spanish Film Festival 2024 Dates: Tuesday, June 11–Wednesday, July 10: Palace Electric Cinema, Canberra Wednesday, June 12–Wednesday, July 10: Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas, Adelaide Thursday, June 13–Wednesday, July 10: Palace James Street and Palace Barracks, Brisbane Thursday, June 13–Wednesday, July 10: Palace Raine Square Cinemas, Luna Leederville and Luna on SX, Perth Friday, June 14–Wednesday, July 10: The Astor Theatre, Palace Cinema Como, Palace Brighton Bay, Palace Penny Lane, Palace Westgarth, The Kino, Palace Balwyn and Pentridge Cinema, Melbourne Wednesday, June 19–Wednesday, July 10: Palace Norton Street, Palace Moore Park, Palace Central and Chauvel Cinema, Sydney Friday, June 21–Wednesday, July 10: Palace Byron Bay, Byron Bay Friday, June 21–Wednesday, July 10: Ballina Fair Cinemas, Ballina The 2024 Spanish Film Festival tours Australia in June and July. For more information or to buy tickets, visit the festival's website.
Thirteen years ago, Korea's cinema standouts scored their own showcase Down Under, with the inaugural Korean Film Festival in Australia debuting in 2010. Since then, the festival has kept returning to celebrate both the latest and greatest flicks that South Korea has to offer. It was playing Bong Joon-ho films before Parasite swept the Oscars. It was revelling in Korean thrillers prior to Squid Game becoming an international success, too. It loved Korean genre fare before Train to Busan as well. And, KOFFIA will keep the nation's must-see titles in Sydney this winter. 2023's festival has a date with Event Cinemas George Street from Thursday, August 24–Tuesday, August 29. Across six days, it'll endeavour to give audiences a new Korean favourite, or several, from a selection that spans everything from murder-mysteries and detective dramas to revenge thrillers and musicals. There's no such thing as a standard Korean film, which is true of every country's movie output; however, this national cinema is mighty fond of twisty tales. Accordingly, it should come as no surprise that Confession and Gentleman are both on the 2023 bill. The first is a locked-room mystery with an IT company CEO suddenly finding himself the prime suspect, while the second involves a private detective agency's head honcho being falsely accused of a crime. Also on the lineup: The Devil's Deal, which sees a political candidate disqualified, then out for revenge; and The Night Owl, about an acupuncturist who is blind in daylight, can see clearly at night, and witnesses a tragic event one evening. The latter opens the festival, and the directors of both films — The Devil's Deal's Lee Won-tae and The Night Owl's An Tae-jin — are coming to Australia for KOFFIA. Elsewhere, comedy 6/45 hits the Korean Film Festival after proving a box-office smash at home, focusing on soldiers from both North and South Korea finding a windfall; Hero heads back to 1900s Korea to hone in on independence activist Ahn Jung-geun's plight battling Japanese colonial rule; musical drama Life Is Beautiful sees a husband trying to locate his wife's childhood sweetheart; and Next Sohee, which played Cannes 2022, is all about an exploitative work situation. Or, the standouts also include Switch, where a celebrity wakes up one morning to discover that he's living a completely different life — and romance Nothing Serious, about an aspiring novelist who writes a sex column.
As the name suggests, if you're looking for a scarf, go to Skarfe. This isn't the place for just any scarves, though. Skarfe specialises in neckwear from around the world, crafted from materials such as silk, cashmere and, in some cases, leather. The small boutique also collaborates with local artists, meaning that there are plenty of diverse, unique patterns to turn heads. And if you still can't find something you like, Skarfe offers a custom digital printing service, so you can bring any design to life with the material and finish of your choice — the only limit is your own imagination.
Celebrating all things LGBTQIA+ in Australia is easy this summer. In fact, it's historic. For the first time ever both Down Under and the southern hemisphere, WorldPride is heading our way, joining Sydney's already jam-packed lineup of queer events. That's the cultural landscape the returning Mardi Gras Film Festival slides into in 2023 — and it's marking the occasion with a massive lineup of movies to celebrate its own 30th-anniversary milestone. Fans of queer cinema, rejoice: this annual Sydney film fest is screening 166 films at eight venues around the city, running from Wednesday, February 15–Thursday, March 2 at locations such as Event Cinemas on George Street and in Hurstville, Dendy Cinema Newtown, the Hayden Orpheum, Ritz Cinemas, Casula Powerhouse, the Westpac Open Air Cinema and the Alumni Green at the University of Technology. The festival kicks off with coming-of-age film Of an Age, which heads to Sydney after also opening 2022 Melbourne International Film Festival, and marks the latest from Australian You Won't Be Alone director Goran Stolevski. Joining it as a MGFF bookend is closing night's The Venus Effect, with the Danish movie about two young women in love enjoying its Aussie premiere. And, just as huge is All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, 2022's Venice Film Festival Golden Lion-winning documentary about queer artist Nan Goldin, her life and career, and her battle against the billionaire Sackler family. With the full fest program including 100-plus sessions in cinema, outdoors and on-demand — as well as panel discussions, workshops, networking events and parties — other highlights include two world-premiere screenings, glimpses back to the past and free sessions. Documentary Trans Glamore and camp comedy The Winner Takes It All will make their bows at MGFF; Vegas in Space and an episode of Aussie soap Number 96 will hit the big screen; retro sessions of Pride and Raya and the Last Dragon also get a spin; and new queer comedy specials by Joel Creasy and Rhys Nicholson will nab a run, without attendees needing to pay a cent. Or, there's a special Westpac Openair session of the Cate Blanchett-starring Tár, which looks set to score the homegrown talent another Oscar; doco The Giants, about Dr Bob Brown becoming Australia's first openly gay member of parliament; Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize-winner Joyland, a Pakistani effort about a romance between a trans woman and a married man; and moving Moroccan drama The Blue Caftan. Plus, other standouts include The Longest Weekend, about three siblings in Sydney's Inner West; inner-city cowboy love story Lonesome; Uýra: The Rising Forest, focusing on trans-indigenous artist Uýra; In From the Side, about an affair between two members of a fictional South London gay rugby club; and My Emptiness and I, honing in on a young trans call-centre worker. And, that online component? It's showing 21 movies nationwide — including, obviously, to Sydneysiders at home.
UPDATE, February 10, 2021: News of the World is currently screening in Australian cinemas, and is also available to stream via Netflix from Wednesday, February 10. The first time that Tom Hanks was nominated for an Oscar, it was for munching on baby corn spears like they were full-sized cobs. His nod for Big stemmed from more than just that scene, but the way he handled the tiny vegetables perfectly illustrates how, at his best, he can make anything look and feel convincing. He didn't win for the 1989 comedy, and he hasn't taken home an Academy Award since he went two for two with 1994's Philadelphia and 1995's Forrest Gump; however that skill has remained a vital reason for his prolonged success. And, it applies equally to the silliest roles on his resume — early movies Splash, Turner & Hooch and The 'Burbs, for instance — and to the far more serious and subtle parts. Last year's Oscar-nominated performance in A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood typifies the latter, and featured Hanks in such exceptional form that it couldn't have been easier to see him as children's presenter Mr Rogers. His latest great film, western News of the World, also belongs in the same category. This time around, Hanks plays a Civil War veteran-turned-travelling newsman who becomes saddled with escorting a child back to her family, and he's as gripping and compelling to watch as he's ever been. Hanks' character, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, is a travelling newsman in the very literal and era-appropriate sense. He journeys from town to town to read newspapers to amassed crowds for ten cents a person, all so folks across America can discover what's going on — not just locally, but around the country and the world. Then, on one otherwise routine trip in 1870, he passes an overturned wagon. Only a blonde-haired ten-year-old girl, Johanna (Helena Zengel, System Crasher), remains alive. Kidd soon discovers that she had been abducted by the Kiowa people years earlier during a raid that saw her entire family slaughtered, and was then raised as one of their own, but she has now been left homeless after more violence. The wagon was transporting Johanna to her last remaining relatives and, in the absence of any officials willing to take over — or ensure her safety until they get around to setting off — Kidd reluctantly agrees to the task. Reading the news is still part of their trek, but so is avoiding the many dangers that plague their ride across Texas' golden-hued landscape. If the sight of a wearied Hanks donning a wide-brimmed hat, sitting atop a trusty horse and galloping across scrubby plains feels unfamiliar, that's because it hasn't happened before — with News of the World marking his first-ever western more than four decades after he made his acting debut. (No, his time voicing cowboy plaything Woody in the Toy Story movies doesn't count.) Hanks is a natural fit, unsurprisingly. The grounded presence he has brought to everything from Apollo 13 to The Post couldn't pair better with a genre that trots so openly across the earth, and ties its characters' fortunes so tightly to the desolate and wild conditions that surround them, after all. As a result, the fact that News of the World eagerly recalls previous western standouts such as The Searchers and True Grit doesn't ever become a drawback. Instead, this adaptation of Paulette Jiles' 2016 novel makes a purposeful effort to put its star in the same company as the many on-screen talents who've shone in — and strutted and scowled through — the genre. Hanks takes to the saddle like he's been perched upon one his entire career, of course, and takes to Kidd's lone-rider status with the same naturalistic air as well. Indeed, Hanks plays Kidd as an everyman, another key trait that's served him excellently for years — but the ex-soldier is also a wanderer for a reason. A handful of poignant scenes help shade in the character's painful past, and make it plain why his eventual connection with Johanna is perhaps a bigger deal for him than it is for her. They're an ideal match, actually, even if it doesn't instantly seem like it. He's quiet and stoic, she's unafraid to voice her displeasure, and a father-daughter rapport slowly springs. But Hanks isn't the only actor who ensures that this pairing works so disarmingly well, with his young co-star just as phenomenal. For anyone who saw Zengel's performance in 2019's System Crasher, which won the pre-teen the German Film Prize for Best Actress, that won't come as even the slightest surprise. Also pivotal to News of the World is filmmaker Paul Greengrass, who directs Hanks for the second time following Captain Phillips. Working with a script co-written with Australian screenwriter Luke Davies (Lion, Beautiful Boy, Angel of Mine), the United 93, 22 July and three-time Bourne franchise helmer opts for a more polished visual approach than he's known for — less frenetic and jittery, and noticeably so, but with imagery that still pulsates with emotion. When Kidd and Johanna find trouble along their trek, including from a shady trio with despicable intentions, Greengrass expertly ramps up the pace without ever letting the film's classic feel subside. With stellar assistance from cinematographer Dariusz Wolski (Sicario: Day of the Soldado) and editor William Goldenberg (an Oscar-winner for Argo), he ensures that the wagon chase and cliffside shootout that ensue are as tense and thrilling as they are exacting and meticulous. And, when his central duo arrive in a town where the local heavy (Thomas Francis Murphy, The Secrets We Keep) isn't keen on any news he doesn't approve of, he never overemphases the contemporary parallels with today's political cries against the media. Greengrass also fills News of the World with a top-notch supporting lineup, including Deadwood's Ray McKinnon, True Grit's Elizabeth Marvel, Hanks' Turner & Hooch love interest Mare Winningham and The Queen's Gambit's Bill Camp — a touch indicative of the film's finesse on every level. In fact, as perfectly cast and reliably great as Hanks is here, in the latest role that's likely to see awards nominations come his way, the empathetic and absorbing movie he's in meets him at every turn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG_EVA58P-g Image: Bruce W Talamon/Universal Pictures/Netflix.
Eye. Aperture. Descender. Spine. A weird collection of words, but for a typographer (or a publication nerd like me) they make perfect sense together. Every letter of the alphabet can be split into components which can be moulded and shaped, cut and stretched to create unique typefaces. Having been exposed to so many for so long, we don't actually realise how much of an impact fonts have on our perception of the world around us. For those of us too busy to enrol in a graphic design course but still passionate about learning more there is Typography Insight. The iPad application allows you to get up close and personal, and thereby understand the amazing cratsmanship that goes into making ordinary letters into extraordinary fonts. The resource is encyclopedic in depth, You can be guided through font terminology, compare fonts, or just admire the intricacies that only a super close-up can offer. The designer Dong Yoon Park ask: "How can the cold and rigid design approach of many top-notch technologies be turned into warmer and friendlier interfaces?" https://youtube.com/watch?v=wkoX0pEwSCw [via Gizmodo]
Kicking off the summer festival season at 128 BPM, Stereosonic will take over the Sydney Olympic Park again this November for a heated, fist-pumping day of electro, techno and house music. Maybe 'getting shredded' isn’t your cup of tea, but good techno, dance and house music is — you don't have to be a big ol' douche to enjoy a solid drop. This year's lineup should please unquestioning Stereo devotees and curious newcomers alike, with the likes of Armin Van Buuren, Major Lazer, Diplo and Duke Dumont heading up quite the 2015 lineup. Alongside international big guns like Sweden's Axwell & Ingrosso, French house producer Tchami, Swedish bro Miike Snow's new electro duo Galantis, British electronic foursome Clean Bandit and San Franciscan legend Claude Von Stroke, Stereo has placed an emphasis on local artists this year — and there’s no shortage of genuine talent. Canberran festival favourites Peking Duk will be playing live (they covered 'Sandstorm' at Field Day so expect anything), alongside former Flume duo What So Not (now Emoh Instead's flying solo), Sydney house producer Timmy Trumpet, up-and-coming Sydney lads Carmada, and Perth beatsmiths Slumberjack are all locked in. Sydney's immortal Hot Dub Time Machine is bringing his perpetually popular decade-hopping set to the table (one that overwhelmingly crushed it closing this year's Secret Garden Festival). Stereosonic kicks off at the Sydney Olympic Park on November 28 before heading over to Perth’s Claremont Showgrounds on November 29. Then it's on to both Melbourne Showground and Adelaide’s Bonython Park on December 5 as well, and Brisbane Showgrounds on December 6. Keen to get amongst it? Get a 24-hour headstart on buying Stereosonic thanks to MasterCard — making sure you don't have to watch the festival happen on social media. Pre-register here to get access to the exclusive MasterCard 24-hour presale, starting Monday, July 27. STEREOSONIC 2015 LINEUP: STEREO STAGE Armin Van Buuren Axwell & Ingrosso Major lazer (Live) Showtek Peking Duk (Live) Generik Galantis SONIC STAGE Diplo DJ Snake Duke Dumont (Live) Tchami What So Not Clean Bandit (Live) Carmada Shockone Jauz Slumberjack ATLANTIS STAGE Gareth Emery Andrew Rayel MaRlo Andrew Bayer Emma Hewitt (Live) Mark Sherry Jason Ross Headhunterz THE WOODS STAGE MK Claptone Claude Von Stroke Hannah Wants Patrick Topping Shiba San Cut Snake BEATPORT STAGE Carnage Will Sparks Hot Dub Time Machine Timmy Trumpet Snails Jessie Andrews Tigerlily Image: Stereosonic.
Sydney's northwest just got an injection of Italian glamour with the opening of Sarino's inside Mullane's Hotel in Baulkham Hills — right opposite the new billion-dollar metro Metro Northwest railway. Run by Momento Hospitality (Bella Vista Hotel, The Governor), the second-floor restaurant is sleek and minimalist, with expansive skylights catering to the theatricality of an open kitchen, where guests can watch the chefs at work around a central charcoal oven or, if they prefer, retreat to one of three hidden private dining rooms. The lofty space also has an attached craft distillery, which will begin pumping out almond liqueur for the restaurant's affogatos and limoncello using fresh lemon's from the Colosimo family (founders of Momento) orchards in early 2020. The food leaving the kitchen is sophisticated and refined, and honours the family's Calabrian heritage. It's all made using produce from regional NSW, too, where possible. Executive Chef Joe Cavallo is plating up dishes such as the buffalo ricotta, buffalo mozzarella and parmigiano regiano ravioli — we count three cheeses — with burnt sage butter and pistachio, the porchetta with roasted apple and leek ash, and a 1.2-kilogram bistecca alla Fiorentina. We're also pretty keen to try the antipasto and cheese menus, which covers cheeses from Italy and Victoria, house-roasted capsicum, marinated olives, artichokes, and salumi from Italy and Byron Bay, including a 24-month San Daniele prosciutto. Pair your meal with one of more than 200 wines and finish it off with a tipple in the adjoining cocktail bar and intimate lounge space. Try the Sunday Roast negroni, which adds notes of rosemary and butter-washed gin to the classic Italian aperitif. Guests can expect to sip rare single malt whiskies (with a hefty price tag) and store the spirit in their own private liquor cabinet for safekeeping. Two dozen top-shelf whiskies from around the world are available, and your drop will be served in crystal glassware with specialty ice and complimentary mixers and snacks. Then just lock it away for when you next come back (you know, if you have the cash).
In the spirit of celebrating inspirational ladies — and because it was such a massive hit in Melbourne — the Emerging Writers' Festival are bringing their storytelling event Amazing Babes to Sydney for a one-night celebration of women who inspire, either in a wordy way, or in a general good-human-being kind of way. Amazing Babes was originally inspired by the Amazing Babes book — Eliza Sarlos' "picture book for kids and adults". It's a compilation of stories about the lives of impressive, intelligent, game-changing women, from Audre Lorde to Tavi Gevinson. The Sydney event will feature a swoon-worthy lineup of super cool and talented Australian writers. The list includes poet and Penguin Plays Rough storyteller, Pip Smith; founder of Canberra literary collective Scissors Paper Pen and author of this (pretty incredible) essay about menstruation, Rosanna Stevens; and novelist and founding member of SWEATSHOP collective, Tamar Chnorhokian. On the night, they'll all be reading about an equally swoon-worthy batch of babes they admire. Can I get a hell yeah for sisterhood and solidarity? This event is running as part of the Emerging Writers' Festival Roadshow. Read more about that over here.
Just over an hour outside Sydney, this sunshine-soaked venue sits on the gorgeous shores of Terrigal Beach. Meribella is a lavish restaurant boasting a produce-driven menu with Mediterranean influences and a Head Chef with Michelin star cred. Situated on the first floor of the Crowne Plaza Terrigal Pacific, Meribella revamps the classics by drawing inspiration from two key concepts: old-world European architecture and its primetime seaside surroundings. The sunlight-filled space is adorned with breezy, coastal tones, restored marble and luxuriously high ceilings to really show off those views. Head Chef Joshua Mason heads the kitchen, using Michelin star cred gained at his time at acclaimed international restaurants like San Francisco's Atelier Crenn to craft a seasonally-inspired offering. When dining in, you'll want to ensure you've got the barbecued scallops topped with crispy chicken skin, aged duck with beetroot and blackberry and caviar and gold leaf tart on your must-try list. Other menu highlights include the creamy Balmain Bug linguine and the decadent chocolate crémeux cake accompanied by hazelnut and cherries, which pair beautifully with the restaurant's extensive wine list. The venue is open for dinner throughout the week, with an additional lunch option on Fridays and Sundays. If you're looking for upscale dining for a special occasion or are simply ready to splash your cash on a memorable dining experience, this sophisticated Central Coast gem is worth the trip.
When it comes to luxury hotels in Australia, Sydney rules the roost. From the enclave of five-star stays around Darling Harbour and Barangaroo including Crown Towers and The W Sydney, to the inner-city suites of Capella, The Kimpton Margot and the soon-to-be-finished multimillion-dollar renovation of the Sofitel Sydney Wentworth, not to mention the stalwarts like The Four Season, Shangri-La and The InterContinental, the Harbour City's collection of luxury accommodations has no equal. But it's not just the guest rooms that impress. Sydney boasts some of the best hotel restaurants in the country, such as Mitch Orr's Kiln at The Ace Hotel in Surry Hills, Nick Hildebrandt and Brent Savage's Bentley Restaurant + Bar at the Radisson Blu Plaza in the CBD, and quite possibly the best restaurant in the city right now, Sydney Common at the Sheraton Grand overlooking Hyde Park. The Eve, a new 102-key boutique hotel at the imminently completed Surry Hills Village development, hopes to join these lauded ranks as one of Sydney's top hotel dining destinations. To achieve this, Hoteliers TFE have tapped Liquid & Larder, the hospitality group behind top steakhouses The Gidley and Bistecca. [caption id="attachment_751377" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Gidley, Dominic Loneragan[/caption] While details on what Sydneysiders can expect at The Eve are scant, Liquid & Larder have confirmed they will be overseeing multiple venues within the hotel, including a poolside diner, a rooftop restaurant and bar, and a classic lobby cocktail lounge. "We are known across our portfolio of restaurants and bars for providing our guests with extraordinary sensory experiences and challenging the status quo. Having the opportunity to playfully curate multiple spaces and experiences is what excites us most about entering the world of hotels," Liquid & Larder co-founder and Director James Bradey said. When it opens in November, The Eve's restaurants and bars will join a broader hospitality offering at Surry Hills Village, which will include a new Greek garden restaurant by the team from The Apollo in Potts Point and three new venues from House Made Hospitality. Find the Eve Hotel at 8 Baptist St, on the border of Surry Hills and Redfern. For more details, visit the Surry Hills Village website.
Things just got a whole lot easier for cyclists. At long last, you can now carry your two-wheelers on peak hour trains and long-haul flights without enraging fellow commuters, paying excess baggage fees and (most importantly) compromising on dimensions. A 30-year-old Italian designer by the name of Gianluca Sada has come up with a bicycle that folds down to the size of an umbrella yet boasts full-size 26-inch hubless, spokeless wheels. So, not only does it go faster than your average foldable, it’s also more stable. And it looks significantly sexier. Sada has been cooking up the eponymous bike for six years. He registered the patent on March 5, 2010 and by December 2011 had developed an aluminum alloy prototype with the help of precision engineering company Palmec SNC. Right now, he’s looking for investors. "The project may pave the way for a new system of mobility outside the classical schemes, widely accessible and easily transportable," he says. "Personal style and extreme versatility give dynamism to the traditional bicycle... increasingly required in this environmentally friendly age." Sada studied at the Politecnico di Torino, completing a degree in Automotive Engineering in 2010. His thesis, which focused on the development of the foldable bicycle, was awarded First Prize in IDEA-TO’s “most innovative thesis of 2010”, conducted by the Order of Engineers of Turin. In November 2010, Italian Minister for Youth, Giorgia Meloni, listed Sada among the "200 Top Talents of Italy". Via Gizmag.
As the surfers at Bondi begin to turn blue, festival directors Rachel Chant and Phil Spencer are getting ready to light the fuse on the seventh year of Bondi Feast. Like all good fringe festivals, the equation it presents is a stark one — 40-plus theatre, comedy, cabaret and circus shows, and only ten nights to catch them. Having surveyed the territory, we've pulled together our top picks of the bunch. There's plenty of gold to be found in this year's stellar lineup, but here are six that you shouldn't miss.
Established in 1992 on the site of a historic Maccabean Hall, the Sydney Jewish Museum was established by a generation of Holocaust survivors who made Australia their home post-World War II. The vision was to create a space to share the history and customs of the Jewish faith, as well as documenting stories of the Holocaust and broader human rights issues. Alongside the permanent exhibitions, it also regularly hosts film screenings, Holocaust survivor talks, book launches and discussions. The space also has a cafe and a resource centre and library, which houses an extensive collection of books, journals, videotapes and audiotapes for use in educational programs.
If you're an inner west fan of God's gift to vegetables — that is, chips — boy, do we have some news for you. Melbourne-born ethical fast food institution, and promoter of some of the best chips in the universe, Lord of the Fries is opening a store in Newtown. The much-loved Aussie chippery first hit the streets in 2004 as a food truck in Melbourne and opened its first Sydney store back in 2013. The Lord's offerings sit atop a 100 percent vegetarian menu, using oil free of chemicals, preservatives and animal products. In addition to the addictive fries, menu items include plant-based patties, hot dogs, nuggets and shakes, as well as its recently launched all-day breakfast and vegan ice cream sandwiches. To celebrate the opening of the King Street street store, it'll be giving away free burgers and fries on Thursday, March 21. The first 50 customers that stop by at 11am will receive a free burger, and the first 200 who pop past at 3pm will snag free fries.
As Pedro Almodóvar sees it, every aspect of life is filled with emotion and mystery. Sentiment and suspense ooze through his movies – although it's not just his narratives that inspire intrigue, or speak volumes about desire, loss, longing and guilt. With a command of style that matches his storytelling abilities, each shade of colour, each textured surface, each intimate close-up and each patient pause reveals and teases, too. The writer-director asks audiences to do more than watch; he wants viewers of his films to probe, to question and — above all else — to feel. It's little wonder, then, that Almodóvar's career has been built upon affairs of the heart and matters weighing on the mind, with his twentieth feature sticking to familiar territory. After sky-high camp comedy misfire I'm So Excited, Julieta unpacks the life of its eponymous figure with hints of the darkness that made the horror-tinged The Skin I Live In so thrilling, and with ample doses of the contemplation and inner drama that have served the Spanish filmmaker so well. First glimpsed in middle age, Julieta (Emma Suárez) is preparing to leave Madrid with her boyfriend (Darío Grandinetti) when she crosses paths with an old friend of her now-estranged daughter. Memories of other times swirl up, derailing her plans and motivating a move into a building the two inhabited years earlier. There, as she comes as close as she can to living in the past, she puts pen to paper to recount her tale. The film brings her recollections to the screen, as a younger Julieta (Adriana Ugarte) meets fisherman Xoan (Daniel Grao) on a train, settles in a seaside village, and forges a happy but short-lived existence. Complex relationships, contentment stolen away by a painful fate, and previous tragedies colouring future decisions – yes, Julieta proves a classic Almodóvar effort through and through, as it fuses three separate short stories from Alice Munro's 2004 book Runaway into one vivid and involving whole. Of course, from the moment the movie opens with the sight of the red fabric of one of Julieta's dresses, its visuals fall into the same category. And while there's little about Julieta that challenges its director or will surprise his fans, it still offers an evocative example of a craftsman doing what he does well. That Julieta largely unravels as expected in both its narrative and in Almodóvar's approach doesn't dampen its vibrancy. Indeed, appearing to so closely follow his own formula might just be by design. That increasingly seems the case whenever the film's performances capture attention, with both Suárez and Ugarte demonstrating devastating nuance. Not only do they provide two different takes on the titular character, but, in the process, they also represent the present and past of Almodóvar's long line of on-screen women. He's long been recognised for exploring female-centric stories and drawing potent performances out of his actresses. As he lets his two leads energise and complicate the film as necessary, he showcases their talent as well as the quiet evolution of his various heroines.
Here's something unusual to try out after dark: a walking tour of Parramatta's lost disco days. Disco Dome is your chance to travel back in time with friends in tow. Enjoy cocktails and supper before taking to the streets, grooving through the music and history of the mirror-ball era. Multimedia artworks will be on display throughout the suburb's streets and laneways, featuring mind-bending installations by the likes of Justene Williams, Khaled Sabsabi and Liam Benson. The project is led by ICE (Information and Cultural Exchange), heroes of the west. Disco Dome is on at 8pm on January 9-10, 16-17 and 23-24.
In a city as culturally and geographically rich as Sydney, the word 'iconic' is bandied about quite a bit. While it's often an exaggeration, there's no denying the impact the precinct at 25 Martin Place has had on the city's skyline. The precinct — formerly known as the MLC Centre — has been an instantly recognisable icon of Sydney's built landscape for over 40 years. A gift to the harbourside locale by legendary architect Harry Seidler, the building was the tallest skyscraper in the southern hemisphere when it opened in 1978, and became the benchmark for visionary design throughout Australia as it drove the Sydney skyline into the future. More recently, the landmark structure has undergone an extensive renovation and revamp that will position it as a new CBD hub for fashion, dining, business and culture. It's also been renamed 25 Martin Place, celebrating its location in the heart of the city. We've teamed up with 25 Martin Place to take a closer look at the new dining and drinking venues bringing fresh life to this Sydney icon.
Saturday September 24 sees the closure of William Street to cars and the spilling of fun and frivolity onto the tar for the annual William Street Laneway Festival. All of the shops along this strip have events, special prices, drinks, food and deals galore to lure you away from the mega-complexes and back to the simple joy of wandering and shopping in Paddington's home of unique boutiques. Not just a day for the girls (although you could bring your fella and dump him at The London when he starts to stare blankly at your 'What do you think?') there will be a ping-pong tournament at Nudie Jeans, live music at Di Nuovo, a sausage sizzle at bams & ted and plenty of lounge areas scattered up and down the street for sitting and drinking and soaking up the atmosphere. The whole day has a decidedly carnivale feel with a circus extravanganza at Poepke (with an incredible 70% off sale), tarot readings at Tigerlily, fairy floss at Lucette and free evil eye charms for those who spend over $300 at Pierre Winter Fine Jewels. And if you are lucky you might catch a glimpse of Mr. Darcy, the resident Russian Blue at Pierre Winter. And you will know him by the pearls he wears.
The balmy season is here, and we're ready to prance about in sparkling waters with an enthusiastic doggo by our side. If you're lucky enough to have (or have mates with) a fur baby, it's that time of year to plan outdoor adventures aplenty. And, with the scorching Sydney days upon us, you'll need to seek out swimming spots for you and your best mate. Luckily, we've got you covered. Here are five dog-friendly beaches where you can swim with your pooch. Think shallow and sheltered bays, seaside reserves and gorgeous coves — all of which permit your pup to frolic about unleashed. Grab your four-legged friend, smother some sunscreen on your schnoz and head for these Sydney gems. ROWLAND RESERVE, BAYVIEW Go for a frolic at Rowland Reserve, where water access is legally permitted to your off-leash pooch at all times. There's a big sandy spit, and the water's pretty shallow, so your pup won't find itself (literally) in the deep end. But make sure you pay attention to the designated dog-friendly areas at this reserve, which surround the dog park zone — otherwise you could be up for a hefty fine. We suggest making this dip the start or finish of a walk between Rowland Reserve and Church Point, which spans about five kilometres and offers scenic views aplenty. HORDERNS BEACH, BUNDEENA Horderns Beach is a stunning little spot, nestled within a sheltered bay in the sleepy suburb of Bundeena. Sitting at the edge of the Royal National Park, we suggest taking the lovely ferry ride across from Cronulla to reach these shores — yep, the ferry is also dog-friendly. In summer, Horderns is ideal for a twilight dip with your puppo; from September to April, dogs are allowed off-leash Monday to Friday before 8.30am and after 4.30pm. If you're into winter dips, off-leash rules apply at all times May to August too. But be sure not to venture into the national park while you're here, as dogs are prohibited there. [caption id="attachment_792875" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Matt Jones via Unsplash[/caption] SPIT RESERVE, MOSMAN Set at the start of the Spit to Manly walk, Spit Reserve is a picturesque bayside park where doggos are welcomed with open arms. Let your pup roam leash-free while you lounge in the grass, go for little coastal bushwalk or wade into the water to cool down. You and your fur baby can explore both Spit West and East Reserves — with off-leash permitted all day Monday through Friday and before 9am or after 4pm on weekends and public holidays. If you're feeling like a bigger walk is in order, make your way from the reserve over Spit Bridge and on towards Manly. Along the way, you'll hit a few more dog-friendly beaches where you and your doggie can cool off. For the full low-down of where you can take your dog in Mosman, head here. CLONTARF RESERVE, SANDY BAY If you do plan to conquer the Spit to Manly walk with your pooch, stop by Clontarf Reserve for a dip during your hike. Be sure to head straight for the designated off-leash dog beach, as you'll need to keep your pup on a lead until you get there. The beach is just 150-metres long and the bay is rather sheltered and shallow — let's call this one more of a wading opportunity than a full-blown swim — so it's perfect for dogs (and people) who aren't regular Dwayne Johnsons in the waves. When you're not swimming with your doggo, enjoy a BYO picnic under one of the reserve's many trees. [caption id="attachment_769592" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Danny Butler Photography via Flickr[/caption] SIRIUS COVE, MOSMAN At this well-frequented dog beach, you'll spot battalions of boisterous pooches retrieving tennis balls from the waves. Dogs are allowed at Sirius Cove off-leash on weekdays at all times and on weekends/public holidays before 9am and after 4pm. At high tide, it's a great chance for both of you to take a dip, and you can make a whole afternoon of it here. Paddle around the yachts with your sea pup, then enjoy use of the barbecues and picnic tables in the shade. Your dog can also be exercised off-leash in the adjoining park, so you can enjoy your picnic while your puppo explores or lounges comfortably at your feet. For the full low-down of where you can take your dog in Mosman, head here. Not feeling a dip, but still want to soak up some balmy hang time with your pup? Try one of Sydney's best dog parks. Top Image: Joseph Pearson
When the French city of Toulouse gets its first skyscraper in 2022, it won't just see 40 floors of of shining glass, concrete and steel join its skyline. It'll also gain its tallest garden — and one of the world's as well. A "continuous vertical landscape" will spiral around the outside of the building like a ribbon of greenery, lined with trees and reaching all of the way up to the top level. Called the Occitanie Tower after the administrative region of France that Toulouse falls within, the structure will measure 150 metres in height and boast 11,000 square metres of offices, as well as a Hilton hotel, up to 120 apartments, plus space for retail and hospitality outlets. The latter will feature a restaurant with panoramic views, including towards the Pyrenees mountain range less than 100 kilometres away; however there's no mistaking it's eye-catching vertical garden that'll be the centre of attention. Designed by the New York and Zurich-based Studio Liebskind — aka the folks behind everything from Berlin's zigzag-shaped Jewish Museum to the World Trade Centre Master Plan development to a Swarovski chess set modelled after iconic buildings — the Occitanie Tower is slated to start construction in 2018. While it'll certainly give the area a new landmark, and weave in nicely with the vertical garden trend that just keeps growing, it won't be quite as tall as Australia's addition to the lofty fold. That'd be 166-metre-high, 250-species-filled One Central Park in Sydney's Chippendale. Via dezeen. Images via Morph / Luxigon.
Jonathan Larson's hit Broadway musical Rent returned in 2024, touring major centres from Melbourne to Newcastle — yet Sydney was conspicuously overlooked on the schedule at the time. Fortunately, there's no day but today to fix that, as theatre-lovers now have five weeks to experience the beloved production at the Sydney Opera House's Joan Sutherland Theatre. First performed in 1996, Rent is more than just a global success. Winning four Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, audiences were so enamoured that it became one of Broadway's longest-running shows, with a staggering 12-year run coming to an end after 5123 performances. But don't expect the Sydney production to last quite so long — it's on now until Saturday, November 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxFC7GqCtQo For those new to Larson's work — he was also behind another classic, Tick, Tick... Boom! — the rock musical takes audiences on a journey to New York City's East Village in the early 90s. Here, a group of young artists struggle to create a life for themselves against gentrification and the dark shadow of the HIV/AIDS epidemic hanging over the community. Rent's cast is suitably captivating, with Henry Rollo (The Rocky Horror Show) playing Mark, a struggling filmmaker and best friend of Roger, an HIV-positive musician recovering from heroin addiction, played by Harry Targett (Dear Evan Hansen). Meanwhile, Kristin Paulse (Tina The Tina Turner Musical) plays Mimi, a passionate exotic dancer, while The Voice finalist Calista Nelmes (Jesus Christ Superstar) takes on the spirited role of Maureen. [caption id="attachment_939831" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Rent: The Musical, 2024.[/caption] Images: Pia Johnson Photography.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was hardly a shortage of streaming platforms and online viewing services, all offering up plenty of movies for avid cinephiles to watch from the comfort of their couches. Since cinemas closed a few months back to help stop the spread of to the coronavirus, even more digital options have hit the market, including FanForce TV, Quibi and the Amazon Prime Video Store — as well as the latest newcomer, At Home. A video-on-demand service, At Home has a major point of difference: it's run by the team behind four Australian cinemas. Offering up recent and retro pay-per-view films for online rental, it's the new venture from the folks at Sydney's Ritz and Melbourne's Lido, Classic and Cameo cinemas. Launching today, Thursday, May 14, At Home's range spans movies from well-known distributors like Madman, Umbrella, Roadshow and StudioCanal — as well films that mightn't have received much attention in Australia otherwise, such as classic genre movies from sources like the American Genre Film Archive. New titles are added weekly, with the lineup curated by the teams from the four cinemas. Prices start at $4.99, with movies available for viewing over a 48-hour window. That means that film buffs can currently check out the straight-to-streaming movies like Hugo Weaving-starring Aussie drama Hearts and Bones and sci-fi mind-bender Vivarium; see recent cinema releases such as Parasite, For Sama, Color Out of Space and Portrait of a Lady on Fire; and look back at flicks from the past few years, including God's Own Country, Aquarius and Shoplifters. Themed strands focus on female filmmakers, LGBTQI+ cinema, and Jewish and Israeli films, as well as Australian flicks, music and fashion documentaries, and weird and wonderful genre fare. If the idea of cinemas jumping into the streaming game sounds a little out of character, that's understandable. As the battle between the big-screen experience and streaming at home has heated up in recent few years, cinemas and online platforms haven't always gotten along. Case in point: the number of Australian picture palaces that have been reluctant to screen films such as Roma, The Irishman, Marriage Story, Brittany Runs a Marathon and True History of the Kelly Gang, which all released in theatres just a few weeks before they made their way to streaming services such as Netflix, Stan and Amazon Prime Video. That makes At Home an interesting move, with Ritz, Lido, Classic and Cameo owner Eddie Tamir seeing the VOD service as complementing watching a movie in cinemas — when they reopen. "We are thrilled that our new At Home platform allows us to present great films of the recent and distant past alongside our cinema experience," he said in a statement. "Our At Home platform allows us to place the new releases in our cinemas in context of what came before them." For more information about At Home, visit the Ritz, Lido, Classic and Cameo At Home sites.
Even the most seasoned traveller can get a little homesick from time to time, particularly if you're bunking down in the great outdoors without the usual creature comforts. Enter the Bank luggage range by Marc Sadler, as designed for Fabbrica Pelletterie Milano. As well as spanning the usual array of suitcases, it also features three trunks that turn into your own office, bed and kitchen away from home. Encased in shiny aluminium exteriors, jet-setters will find fold-out mini rooms that take care of our basic needs: sleeping, cooking and, sadly, working. The 'bedstation' includes a wooden base with a thin folding mattress, while the 'workstation' contains a table, chair, storage draws and charging ports. As for the 'cookstation', which isn't yet available, it'll boast a hot plate, chopping table, storage for kitchenware, its own power and even a mini fridge. Unsurprisingly, nothing in the range comes cheap — expect to pay nearly AU$11,000 for the bed, around AU$7500 for the office and an estimated AU$10,000 for the kitchen. Still, if you're keen on taking a piece of home with you on your next trip, or close enough to it, it's an option. For more information, visit Marc Sadler's website or the Fabbrica Pelletterie Milano website. Via Travel + Leisure.
The City of Sydney is expanding its outdoor dining program by closing down a set of inner-city streets to make room for al fresco dining throughout summer. Several streets in suburbs such as Redfern, Glebe and Darlinghurst will be shut across a number of summer weekends, all to encourage people to visit local restaurants and bars. The Summer Streets program will make its way around the city throughout January and February, popping up in different spots from 11am until late. The first weekend of the program will kick off on Darlinghurst Road and Macleay Street on Saturday, January 22, before moving over to Redfern Street on Sunday, January 23. Following this, Crown Street in Surry Hills, Glebe Point Road and Pyrmont's Harris Street will all host their own Summer Streets events. "Being able to shop, dine or drink on our footpaths and roadways make it easier for us to enjoy those things and support local businesses in a COVID-safe way," City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said. "Expanding outdoor dining remains an essential part of what we're doing to support business through these challenging times. People want to get out of the house and enjoy what Sydney has to offer, safely. We're now closing off entire streets and hope the extra space will give people a safe way to support local businesses and re-engage with their community." Green Square Plaza will also be getting in on the fun, hosting a nighttime-only extension of Summer Streets from 6pm on Saturday, February 19. Venues on the participating streets are being encouraged to spice things up during their suburbs' applicable day by adding special deals to the menu or holding one-off events. You can view a program of pop-ups and events happening on each street's specific day at the City of Sydney website. [caption id="attachment_784797" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Sunshine Inn, Redfern Street, Casandra Hannagan[/caption] SUMMER STREETS DATES Saturday, January 22 — Darlinghurst Road and Macleay Street, Darlinghurst Sunday, January 23 — Redfern Street, Redfern Sunday, February 6 — Crown Street, Surry Hills Saturday, February 12 — Glebe Point Road, Glebe Saturday, February 19 — Harris Street, Pyrmont and Green Square Plaza, Green Square
Once, heading to Nambour was all about gawking at over-sized tropical fruit. Actually, that's still the case. Back in 2013, however, the giant pineapple-owning powers that be added another reason to head to the Sunshine Coast's biggest tourist attraction: an annual music festival with an ace lineup. Well, it's usually annual. The 2020 event has understandably changed its dates a few time in this COVID-19-afflicted year, and now it's moving the whole shebang to 2021. So, you can once again expect some top-notch entertainment across four stages, plus a ferris wheel, food stalls aplenty, arts, crafts and other activities, and camping, all when The Big Pineapple Music Festival returns on Saturday, May 22, 2021. It's enough to make you block out a weekend and start planning a few days spent in the shadow of one of the country's favourite big things. The 2021 lineup hasn't been announced yet, because it isn't as logistically simple as just sticking with 2020's bill — so watch this space regarding who you'll be dancing to. And, ticket-wise, all 2020 purchases are still valid. If you can't attend the new date, you can request a refund between September 9–October 12. If you don't have a ticket yet, fingers crossed that you'll be able to pick one up once the event has processed any returned tickets. [caption id="attachment_760926" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Charlie Hardy[/caption] The Big Pineapple Music Festival will take place on Saturday, May 22, 2021. For further details about the date change, ticketing and refunds, visit the event's website. Images: Charlie Hardie / Claudia Ciapocaa.
Two Spanish couples on holiday, the tale of a real-life Barcelona bus driver and a crime thriller set in the Basque Country: if you're looking to swap Australia's winter for Euro vibes from your cinema seat, they're some of the highlights in store. When the middle of the year hits Down Under each year, the Spanish Film Festival brightens up Aussie picture palaces with a lineup of movies from its namesake country. Exploring the breadth of Spanish-language cinema, it also showcases flicks from Latin America. Thirty films are on the fest's program for 2025, including across Thursday, June 19–Wednesday, July 9 at Palace Norton Street, Palace Moore Park, Palace Central and Chauvel Cinema in Sydney. Audiences can enjoy a roster of picks that features a Sliding Doors-style opener, this year's two Goya Best Film winners and a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Nine Queens. Among the films mentioned above, Samana Sunrise is kicking of the festival with 20-year pals on a beachside getaway to the Dominican Republic when what might've been becomes the focus. Then, both El 47 and Undercover have prime slots fresh from their shared victory at Spain's version of the Oscars. The first heads back to the 70s to tell of bus driver Eduard Fernández's peaceful act of dissidence, while the second also unfurls a true tale, this time about the only police officer in Spain's history that has worked their way into terrorist organisation ETA. If you've been watching Ricardo Darín in recent Netflix hit The Eternaut, then you'll want to head back a quarter-century to see the Argentinian star's stellar work in heist flick Nine Queens — or revisit it if you're already a fan. It's closing out this year's Spanish Film Festival, screening in 4K. Other highlights across the program include The Quiet Maid, which was completely funded by NFTs, boasts Steven Soderbergh (Presence, Black Bag) as an executive producer, and follows a Colombian maid who discovers how to enjoy her summer while working on the Costa Brava; Ocho, charting a relationship over 90 years; the page-to-screen The Goldsmith's Secret; and Spanish box-office hit Wolfgang, a comedy a nine-year-old boy being set to live with his father. Or, there's Argentinian crime-thriller A Silent Death, which heads Patagonia in the 80s; El Jockey, with Money Heist and The Day of the Jackal's Úrsula Corberó among the Buenos Aires-set film's cast; and Peru's Through Rocks and Clouds, where an eight-year-old alpaca herder gets excited about the World Cup. With Marco, The Invented Truth, another slice of reality graces the lineup, this time honing in on the man who acted as the speaker of the Spanish association of Holocaust victims. The same is the case with I Am Nevenka, Nevenka Fernández's report of harassment by her employer in the 90s. Two documentaries also demonstrate how fact is frequently more fascinating than fiction, with Mugaritz. No Bread, No Dessert all about its eponymous Michelin-starred restaurant and The Flamenco Guitar of Yerai Cortés celebrating a rising star of its titular genre.
Penfolds is taking over Carriageworks for three nights, introducing its new 2022 collection with an immersive event series headlined by one of Australia's favourite pop acts. Between Thursday, August 4 and Saturday, August 6, Venture Beyond by Penfolds will see Carriageworks turn into a hub of food, wine, music and art. Visually, the space will be transformed with local art collective and gallery Babekühl creating a multi-disciplinary short film depicting Penfolds' winemaking process. And accompanying the film? A space-themed set menu crafted by Sydney's renowned degustation king Nelly Robinson, from Surry Hills fine-diner nel. Robinson and the nel team created the viral KFC degustation earlier this year, and have conjured up a range of boundary-pushing set menus centred around the likes of Moulin Rouge!, Disney flicks and Christmas. This time around, he's created a series of intergalactic dishes designed to pair with Penfolds wines. Topping off the lineup is electro-pop duo Client Liaison, who will be performing across all three nights. The band will be bringing their catalogue of hits to the events with the help of producer and DJ Dan Lywood, who will be keeping the tunes rolling before and after their sets. Tickets include entry to the event as well as a stand-out meal from nel, a glass of three of the new wines from The Penfolds Collection 2022 and vinos from the Penfolds Max Collection throughout the night. Plus, for an additional $30, you can add a guided tasting of seven wines from the latest collection. Venture Beyond by Penfolds is on from Thursday, August 4 till Saturday, August 6. Head to the website to grab your ticket.
If you're keen for some fashion finds that are both thrifty and charitable, head to the Paddington Town Hall this winter. The Red Cross will be hosting a huge pop-up shop — on Saturday, June 1 and Sunday, June 2 — and all proceeds will going to the Australian charity. Expect thousands of vintage, pre-loved and new fashion items on offer, including designer clothing, shoes and accessories. Dig through winter-appropriate coats and boots, or get ready for next summer (it'll be here before you know it) and stock up on denim and dresses. Need new bowls? A new rug? Lost all your spoons? A heap of homewares will be up for grabs, too. And if just acting as a consumer doesn't hit your do-good quota, the Red Cross is also calling for volunteers to join the pop-up staff. The shop will be open from 9am–5pm on Saturday and 9am–2pm on Sunday and entry is free. Save your wardrobe shopping until then and do some good with your spending money — give back one designer dress at a time.
It hasn't served up meals for more than a decade, but El Bulli will always be a famous culinary name. Until 2011, when the spot in the town of Roses in Catalonia, Spain was operating as a restaurant, it was the pinnacle of fine-dining. It boasted three Michelin stars to prove it. Documentary El Bulli: Cooking in Progress also told its story. Head Chef Ferran Adrià didn't just oversee one of the world's best eateries, either — he's one of the world's best chefs, too. Didn't get the chance to enjoy a dish there, for all manner of reasons? How about sleeping at El Bulli for a night instead. That's the latest money-can't-buy experience on offer via Airbnb, and for one evening only. Slumbering at elBulli1846, the museum that's now onsite, is also free — for two people, but you are responsible of getting yourself to Roses, including paying your own way from Down Under if you score the booking. Airbnb loves opening up places that you wouldn't normally be able to kip in, as seen in the past with Shrek's swamp, Barbie's Malibu DreamHouse, the Ted Lasso pub, the Moulin Rouge! windmill and Hobbiton, for starters. It has also listed the Bluey house, the Paris theatre that inspired The Phantom of the Opera, the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine, The Godfather mansion, the South Korean estate where BTS filmed In the Soop, the Sanderson sisters' Hocus Pocus cottage and Santa's festive cabin in Finland. Earlier in 2024, Christina Aguilera hosted a two-night Las Vegas stay. Adrià does the honours at elBulli1846 — which, as you'd expect, goes all in on El Bulli's history. As you spend the night in the venue at Cala Montjoi, within the Cap de Creus Natural Park, he's hoping that you'll get inspired by its gastronomic innovation while soaking in the Mediterranean sea views. The museum is named after the 1846 dishes that El Bulli created in its restaurant days, after all. "The mission of elBullirestaurante was about pushing limits. We had reached what we felt was the limits of what can be done in a gastronomic experience at the maximum level," said Adrià. "Now I'm excited to push new creative boundaries, to share this way of seeing the world with the guests who stay here and to introduce them to our latest chapter as elBulli1846." This is the first time that El Bulli has allowed anything like this within its famed culinary halls. Whoever nabs the reservation will meet Adrià, and hear all about the restaurant from him; eat at one of his favourite restaurants in Roses; and get overnight access to El Bulli, including its private rooms. You'll also have dinner the next day at Enigma in Barcelona, where Adrià's brother Albert is the chef. And, in-between all of that, you'll be sleeping in a bed designed to look like a plate, which takes its cues from El Bulli's spherical olive. To enjoy all of the above, you'll need to be free to stay across Wednesday, October 16–Thursday, October 17 — and you'll be getting booking at 2am AEST / 4am NZST on Thursday, April 18. Again, while you won't pay a cent for accommodation or the two dinners while you're at elBulli1846, you will need to fork out to get there and back. For more information about the elBulli1846 Airbnb stay, or to book at 2am AEST / 4am NZST on Thursday, April 18 for a stay across Wednesday, October 16–Thursday, October 17, 2024, head to the Airbnb website. Images: Marc Ensenyat. Feeling inspired to book a getaway? You can now book your next dream holiday through Concrete Playground Trips with deals on flights, stays and experiences at destinations all around the world.
When an Australian actor makes it big, it can feel as if there's more than one of them. Joel Edgerton, who has been on local screens for almost three decades and made the leap to Hollywood with the Australian-shot Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones, is such a talent. He's usually everywhere and in almost everything (such as The Stranger, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Thirteen Lives, Master Gardener, I'm a Virgo, The Boys in the Boat and Bluey in just the past two years), and viewers would follow him anywhere. Dark Matter wasn't written to capitalise upon that idea. Rather, it hails from the page of Blake Crouch's 2016 novel, with the author also creating the new nine-part Apple TV+ sci-fi series that it's based on. But, streaming from Wednesday, May 8, 2024, the show's lead casting leans into the notion that you can never have too much Edgerton by multiplying him in the multiverse. For the characters in Dark Matter, however, the fact that there's more than a single Jason Dessen causes considerable issues. The series' protagonist is a former experimental physics genius-turned-professor in Chicago who's teaching disinterested students about Schrödinger's cat. He's married to artist-turned-gallerist Daniela (Jennifer Connelly, Bad Behaviour), a father to teenager Charlie (Oakes Fegley, The Fabelmans) and the best friend of award-winning college pal Ryan Holder (Jimmi Simpson, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). And, he's been happy living the quiet family life, although pangs of envy quietly arise when he's celebrating Ryan's prestigious new accolade. Then, when another Jason pops up to pull off a kidnapping and doppelgänger plot, he's soon navigating a cross between Sliding Doors and Everything Everywhere All At Once. Everything is a multiverse tale of late; a mere few examples span superhero films and television shows Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the Spider-Verse movies, Loki and The Flash; TV gems Fringe and Russian Doll; and the interdimensional animated chaos of Rick and Morty. Dark Matter is also a soul-searching "what if?" drama, exploring the human need to wonder what might've been if just one choice — sometimes big, sometimes small — had veered in a different direction. While a box is pivotal mode of transport like this is Doctor Who, as are all manner of worlds to visit, this is high-concept sci-fi at its most grounded. Neither version of Jason wants to hop through parallel worlds in the name of adventure or exploration — they're simply chasing their idea of everyday perfection. The first Jason chose Daniela and Charlie over devoting his existence to his career, round-the-clock work and only seeing the inside of a lab. Drugging and abducting him to reveal what could've eventuated if he didn't chart that path, the second Jason slides into his life to trade places. The everyman Jason unwillingly gets transported to a plane of reality where he's a famous billionaire — as well as the recipient of prizes and kudos, and also the creator of the technology that's allowing tumbling through the multiverse to happen — while the interloper Jason assumes his spot as a husband and dad. Dark Matter ties into the proverb "the grass is always greener", too, as both Jasons face the ups and downs of the road not taken, mostly for worse not better. For Jason One, if only verdant pastures were all that changed as he urgently attempts to return to his Daniela. With Jason Two's psychiatrist partner and colleague Amanda (Alice Braga, A Murder at the End of the World) for company, anything can await behind the infinite expanse of doors in a dimly light corridor that literalises the quantum state of superposition. Again, though, journeying to dystopias and paradises, and through disasters and futuristic havens while they're at it, isn't the point, even if each of the above makes an appearance. If you've ever felt as if you've been wading through copies of the life that you're meant to have, with nothing completely falling into place as it should, that's Jason One's experience as minor details morph from world to world. Edgerton's job, fittingly, contains multitudes. As the initial iteration of Jason, he plays thoughtful, considerate, dedicated to his loved ones and desperate to find his way back to them — all while tussling with the show's high-tech premise, often while stranded within that endless hallway. As Jason Two, he's a calculating imposter endeavouring not to get caught in the dream reality that he's ruthlessly stolen, but also arrogant in his confidence that he's pulled off his existential heist. A click on the soundtrack signals Dark Matter's jump between Jasons, but it needn't: Edgerton conveys their differences alongside their similarities like an artist painting the same portrait in dissimilar styles, and does so in one of the best performances of his career. Grappling with regrets, possibilities, the haunting knowledge that other futures are always possible and the distress of grasping that you mightn't have appreciated what you had until it was gone, Edgerton isn't the only actor excelling at doing double duty. For Connelly, in a show that spirits someone else off on a quest as another of her on-screen alter egos once was nearly four decades back in Labyrinth — a series where frosty climes and trains also play a part, bringing her last small-screen role on Snowpiercer to mind — shifts in body language say everything. And, they aren't the only cast members serving up layered performances. Braga, Fegley and Simpson are no slouches; in smaller but no less pivotal roles, neither are Dayo Okeniyi (Hypnotic) and Amanda Brugel (Parish). With Wayward Pines and Good Behaviour, Crouch's work has ventured from the page to episodes before — and with his involvement. His latest series has echoes within Apple TV+'s slate, too, because the platform's love of science fiction, twists and mysteries just keeps growing, including with Constellation already in 2024, Silo in 2023 and Severance in 2022. There might only be a lone idyllic realm for Jasons in Dark Matter, but that isn't the case for the streaming service's viewers. An absorbing and addictive trip that's also firmly anchored in relatable yearnings and musings, this Edgerton-led series is one to enthusiastically dive into. Check out the trailer for Dark Matter below: Dark Matter streams via Apple TV+ from Wednesday, May 8, 2024.
Beyond the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the attacks of September 11 set in motion a third, different kind of battle. One fought on the home front; a quiet, uncomfortable and unspoken war of words and sidelong glances directed towards anyone who suddenly came to look 'different', 'foreign', 'un-American'. The inadequacies of American security were undeniable; however, the indignity of the racial profiling that became rampant in their wake remains — to this day — an irredeemable blight on the United States' history. It's within this framework that author Mohsin Hamid set his bestselling 2007 novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, now a film by director Mira Nair. It tells the story of Changez (Riz Ahmed), a prodigious Pakistani-born Princeton graduate who's headhunted by Jim (Kiefer Sutherland) to work in New York's top consultancy firm. With the company placing him on the fast-track to partnership and the chairman's daughter (Kate Hudson) quickly besotted, Changez's pursuit of the American dream seems assured. But then the Twin Towers come crashing down, and so too his perceived security. Colleagues view him differently, arrests and random searches become commonplace and despicable bigotry bubbles to the surface. At first Changez ignores, then endures, the prejudice, but eventually the feeling of victimisation and the loss of his identity become untenable and he returns to Pakistan. The film flicks back and forth between Changez's time in America and his present-day life as a 'radical academic' suspected of kidnapping an American colleague, and it's those latter scenes that engage most directly. Played out as an interview with US journalist Bobby (Liev Schreiber), they've a distinctly Cold War-era feel to them in the vein of the recent Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Schreiber puts in a great performance as the journo with his own secrets, and Sutherland shines as a Gordon Gecko-esque corporate cutthroat; however, it's Ahmed who steals the show. At times the rhetoric is handled a touch clumsily and the 'fundamentals of business'/'fundamentals of Islam' motif is, like the book, not especially subtle, but The Reluctant Fundamentalist remains a compelling and confronting examination of one of the war on terror's less publicised dimensions.
There's no one right way to experience SXSW, whether you're attending the Austin or Sydney version, but one of the event's huge highlights is its high-profile list of folks who get talking. This is the kind of event where you could be listening to Chance The Rapper one moment, then Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker the next, as everyone learned in the Harbour City in 2023. In 2024, it's also the type of festival where Lucy Lawless, Grace Tame and Tim Minchin will be chatting — plus Nick Kyrgios, Noémie Fox, Suzie Miller and Stephen Page as well. Another week, another lineup drop for 2024's SXSW Sydney as it moves closer and closer to its Monday, October 14–Sunday, October 20 dates. The event began revealing its program back in May, which was just the beginning. Another announcement arrived in June, then not one, not two, but three more in July — and also another, focusing on the free hub at Tumbalong Park, at the beginning of August. Then came more music acts and speakers, still in August, and now arrives even more talents that'll be part of SXSW Sydney's conference. [caption id="attachment_971189" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Paul McMillan[/caption] From just the people mentioned above, SXSW Sydney 2024 has warrior princesses, activists, comedians, sports stars, playwrights and the former Bangarra Dance Theatre Artistic Director on its bill. Among the highlights, Lawless has moved behind the camera for the first time on documentary Never Look Away about CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth, and will chat about her directorial debut — while Stephen Page and actor Hunter Page-Lochard (Critical Incident), his son, will explore whether there's a global market for First Nations content and artists. With fellow guests such as Ogilvy Global CEO Devika Bulchandani, Google Analytics and Google Voice founder Wesley Chan, Intel Corporation's first futurist Brian David Johnson, and MIT Technology Review CEO and publisher Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau, everything from artificial intelligence in marketing and entrepreneurs keen to make the leap to America through to thinking about the future and new tech innovations will be covered as well. Also among the new additions: Fox joining Clare Stephens for But Are You Happy? live, Welcome to the Future! with Charles Firth and Dom Knight similarly taking to the stage, and sessions digging into neurotechnology and how to change habits. [caption id="attachment_971190" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Ian Laidlaw[/caption] SXSW Sydney's latest 2024 wave expands a program that already features Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton (The New Boy), Aussie composer Jed Kurzel (Monkey Man), Barbie executive producer Josey McNamara, Brave co-director Mark Andrews, Mortal Kombat helmer Simon McQuoid, human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, author Johann Hari, Australian race car driver Molly Taylor, pianist Chad Lawson, Aussie astronaut Katherine Bennell-Pegg, TikTok marketing head Sofia Hernandez and Academy Award-winning Slumdog Millionaire composer AR Rahman — among a hefty list of others. More lineup details will keep being revealed over the coming month and a half, with the full event set to span more than 1000 speakers, 60-plus tech exhibitors, over 200 artists, 120-plus games and more than 75 screenings. [caption id="attachment_971191" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jaimi Joy[/caption] [caption id="attachment_971192" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Paul McMillan[/caption] [caption id="attachment_967878" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jaimi Joy[/caption] [caption id="attachment_953724" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jaimi Joy[/caption] [caption id="attachment_923286" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Brendon Thorne/Getty Images for SXSW Sydney[/caption] SXSW Sydney 2024 will run from Monday, October 14–Sunday, October 20 at various Sydney venues. Head to the SXSW Sydney website for further details.
March isn't the only time to celebrate Ireland in Australia. If you're a movie lover who adores the country's talents, landscapes and cinema output, the Irish Film Festival is just as exciting. In 2023 in Sydney, the fest returns for four days across Thursday, October 5–Sunday, October 8 with its reliably impressive program — this time taking over Dendy Newtown. Every film festival is made better when Olivia Colman is involved — and at IFF, the Empire of Light and Heartstopper star is popping up in Joyride, which is penned by Bad Sisters' scribe Ailbhe Keogan. The movie tells of a 12-year-old who flees a difficult home situation in a stolen taxi, only to find a woman passed out in the backseat with a baby. Another massive highlight from the 16-title national program: the Oscar- and BAFTA-winning short An Irish Goodbye, which follows a a young man with Down's Syndrome and his brother when they discover their recently deceased mother's bucket list. Also among the fest's must-sees is opening film Lakelands, which dives into rural sport, masculinity and isolation. Or, there's It Is in Us All, which earned Special Jury Recognition for Extraordinary Cinematic Vision at SXSW; Róise & Frank, about a widow who believes that her late husband's spirit has returned via a stray dog; and North Circular, a music documentary that celebrates Dublin's North Circular Road. Documentary Lyra pays tribute journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot during rioting in Derry, with the film arriving four years since her death and 25 years since of Northern Ireland's Good Friday peace agreement. IFF will also include an online component to this year's fest, as it has been doing since the pandemic hit. If you're keen to watch Lakelands, It Is in Us All and Róise & Frank from home — and more — get streaming from Thursday, October 5–Sunday, November 5.
Not all travel has to include wild adventuring. Sometimes, we want to go an easy holiday that doesn't include hours behind the wheel of a car or pushing our bodies to their limits. Instead, we can explore a new city (or our own) at whatever speed we like — staying in a luxurious hotel, taking things at a stroll and taking in the best of local culture. This is what a city break is all about. To help you find the perfect one, our team of editors has curated these travel packages. Whether you're on the lookout for a city staycation or vacation, find your favourite option and book it through Concrete Playground Trips now. [caption id="attachment_683983" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Tourism Western Australia[/caption] STAYCATION IN PERTH AND ITS SURROUNDS Perth, glorious Perth. It's hard not to fall in love with this city when visiting. In fact, the whole state is a treasure trove of bewitching riches. Head to Western Australia's capital to find a thriving city full of great food and culture, surrounded by gorgeous natural landscapes that every Australian must see. And our Perth travel deal will take you to the best bits. We'll put you up in the Adina Apartment Hotel at Perth Barrack Plaza — in the heart of the city — and let you explore the local area at your own pace. We've also organised a day trip to Rottnest Island (friendly quokkas, pristine white sand beaches and clear blue water await) and a tour around The Pinnacles. BOOK IT NOW. [caption id="attachment_890077" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Devang Sahani (Unsplash)[/caption] A LUXE BEACHSIDE BREAK IN ADELAIDE Adelaide's beachside burb of Glenelg is seriously underrated. Found just a 20-minute drive from the city centre, this area is home to long beaches lined with great restaurants and boutique stores. It's so close to the city but boasts the laid-back culture and energy of the best Aussie coastal towns. Our Adelaide city break takes you to this part of South Australia, with the Stamford Grand Adelaide hosting you for three nights. During this time, guests can explore Glenelg at their own leisure — potentially catching a tram into the CBD, too. The highlight of this trip that takes it from great getaway to something seriously special is the four-hour wild dolphin swimming tour run by a team of marine biologists. Jump in the waters — they'll have wetsuits for you — and get right up and close with these ultra-curious ocean mammals. It's an unforgettable experience. BOOK IT NOW. THE ULTIMATE HOBART FOOD, WINE AND ADVENTURE HOLIDAY There is so much to see and do when visiting Hobart, but we have somehow managed to pack a heap of its top experiences into one exclusive five-day holiday. Our trip will have you gliding over Wineglass Bay in a scenic flight that drops you off on Maria Island where you'll go on a guided wildlife tour, then feast on a gourmet lunch. On another day, you'll visit the one and only MONA. Slowly explore the museum, get a private tour (with tastings) at the onsite winery and have a lazy long lunch with even more vino included. It's a truly epic way to see the iconic museum and its grounds. You'll also get a couple days to wander around Hobart, checking out galleries, boutique stores and a heap of the city's brilliant restaurants and bars. BOOK IT NOW. A LUXURIOUS SYDNEY STAY You can easily do Sydney on a budget and have a wicked time. But sometimes you really want to treat yourself. That's when you book our opulent Sydney getaway. For two nights, two guests will stay at the five-star Crown Towers Sydney. Enjoy unbeatable views across the bay, taking in all the sites from day to night — either from your room, the rooftop pool or one of the seriously impressive on-site restaurants. With this deal, you'll also get $100 credit to spend however you like within the Crown Towers Sydney. Did someone say, 'massage time'? BOOK IT NOW. Feeling inspired to book a truly unique getaway? Head to Concrete Playground Trips to explore a range of holidays curated by our editorial team. We've teamed up with all the best providers of flights, stays and experiences to bring you a series of unforgettable trips in destinations all over the world. Top image: Steven Groeneveld (Unsplash)
By their very nature, festivals are a choose-your-own-adventure experience. Event organisers carefully curate their top picks, audiences head along to whatever suits them best and few folks follow the exact same fest path. South by Southwest embraces the concept a little heartier than most, however. When you're putting on not just one festival, but several within that broader festival, audiences can hop between them, mix and match here and there, or choose the one that aligns with their favourite interests. Making its debut in October, SXSW Sydney is keeping the format that's served the event so well in its OG Austin home, where it has always been held — and only been held — until now. That's been clear from the lineup announcements so far, including in its first batch of speakers and musicians back in February, more music highlights and must-attend parties in May, details of its gaming strand in June, then two more rounds of speakers in July. Up now: the first nine movies that'll be playing at SXSW Sydney's Screen Festival. [caption id="attachment_911084" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Jane Greer[/caption] Among its recent news, SXSW's Down Under premiere revealed that Queer Eye star Tan France would be among its speakers, plus Indigenous filmmakers Leah Purcell (The Drover's Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson), Kodie Bedford (Mystery Road: Origin) and Jub Clerc (Sweet As). They fall into under Screen Festival, too. Also included: Osher Günsberg, who'll be on the SXSW Sydney bill recording an episode of his podcast Better Than Yesterday with a yet-to-be-announced special guest; Gone Girl, The Nightingale, The Dry, Big Little Lies and Nine Perfect Strangers producer Bruna Papandrea; and Binge's Executive Director Alison Hurbert-Burns. Film lovers love watching films, though. The SXSW Sydney Screen Festival isn't just about big-screen fare, covering both movies and TV — but its first round of titles are all features. In a varied bunch, one stars an Indonesian rapper, another is about Tokyo Uber Eats rider and yet another features viral Chinese dance crazes. American film Jamojaya is the flick led by Indonesian rap star Brian Imanuel, aka Rich Brian, enlisting him as an up-and-coming musician — and with Blue Bayou's Justin Chon directing. It's obvious what Tokyo Uber Blues is about, with the Japanese documentary's riding being done by a graduate film student with debts to pay. And Gagaland is responsible for that dancing in the street, and on social media feeds, which backdrops a boy-meets-girl tale. Also on the list: doco Anita, focusing on German Italian actor Anita Pallenberg, who was also a muse to The Rolling Stones; Cypher, a pseudo-documentary about rapper Tierra Whack; and The Last Year of Darkness, which dives into China's underground party scene with ample bass and neon. Rounding out the list so far: Japan's Plastic, which sees two teens go in search of psychedelic rock band Exne Kedy; France's Knit's Island, which is shot entirely in the DayZ video game (and from 963 hours spent in it); and Australia's You'll Never Find Me, about a caravan resident, a surprise visitor and a thunderstorm. Most of SXSW Sydney Screen Festival's announced titles have the tick of approval from other fests around the world, whether by screening at Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca, Sheffield DocFest in the UK, International Film Festival Rotterdam in The Netherlands, CPH:DOX in Denmark, Visions du Réel in Switzerland or elsewhere. As well as getting viewers watching movies and TV shows, with more titles to come — including First Nations Screen Festival programming by Winda Film Festival founder Pauline Clague — the SXSW Sydney Screen Festival will feature red-carpet premieres; digital and social content; an XR showcase; Q&As and panel discussions; parties and mentoring; and a screen market for industry deals. Free outdoor screenings are also slated, alongside indoor sessions at The ICC's Darling Theatre, Palace Cinemas Central and other yet-to-be-revealed venues. SXSW Sydney will run from Sunday, October 15–Sunday, October 22 at various Sydney venues, with the SXSW Sydney Screen Festival running from Sunday, October 15–Saturday, October 21 at The ICC's Darling Theatre, Palace Cinemas Central and more venues to be announced. Head to the SXSW Sydney website for further details. If you're keen to make the most of Australia's first SXSW, take advantage of our special reader offer. Purchase your SXSW Sydney 2023 Official Badge via Concrete Playground Trips and you'll score a $150 credit to use on your choice of Sydney accommodation. Book now via the website.
Your favourite Byronian beer brewers are kicking off spring with a garden party, bringing their backyard to yours by serving their Beers From Our Backyard range. The good people at Stone & Wood have paired up with The Oaks Hotel to throw a craft beer smorgasbord with generous meat elements from 2-5pm on Sunday, October 23 in their indoor-outdoor Garden Pavilion. You can pair Stone & Wood classics with The Oaks' beef brisket and pulled pork burgers or Salumi's famous 'meat cones' (which is what all meat should come in, really). And when you're good and full of craft beer and various meat bits, take a crack at the Giant Jenga set. It's the perfect opportunity to check out The Oaks' recent upstairs renovation. The upper levels of the pub have been transformed into a 1930s art deco haven by design queen Sibella Court, compete with fabulous gaudy wall paper, dramatic mirrored surfaces and a serious amount of drapery. Tickets to the afternoon event are $33 but include five tokens redeemable for beers and food — but you can pay with cash too. And best of all? The money you spend on their Pacific Ale will all go to local charities. Get in quick — tickets are almost sold out.
Horror isn't just for one month of the year. Celebrating Halloween for 31 days is all well and good — and fun and eerie — but there's no bad time to embrace the most terrifying genre there is. That includes at the cinema, because getting your frights from flicks is firmly an all-year-round affair. Sydney's A Night of Horror International Film Festival understands this. Because no film fest can run all day every day 365 days a year, this one pops up for a dedicated stint annually, but it isn't beholden to an October timeslot. So, in 2023, it's bringing ten features and 31 shorts to Dendy Newtown to lead into the scariest month of them all, kicking off on Thursday, September 28 and running till Sunday, October 1. Get ready for horror movies, then more horror movies, and then even more horror movies across four big days. Some of ANOH's features are homegrown scarefests, others arrive from the other side of the world and a few come to Sydney with the stamp of approval from fellow horror film festivals elsewhere. For instance, Puzzle Box hails from the Harbour City's own Jack Dignan, and marks the director's second effort on the lineup in as many years; The Moor goes all folk-horror, but UK-style; and Saving Grace nabbed awards at this year's Washington DC International Cinema Festival and Liverpool Indie Awards. Or, catch the witchy Mother Superior from Austria, which wowed 2022's Brooklyn Horror Film Festival — then get some thrills with What You Wish For, which tells a morality tale (with the name to match, clearly) starring Nick Stahl (Fear the Walking Dead). Prefer a Lithuanian slasher (aka Pensive)? A debut that takes its cues from giallo (DID I?)? A dose of horror-comedy (The Coffee Table)? Aussie-made, small-town musings on grief (Violett)? They're all on the lineup, too, from a full bill that hops to the US, New Zealand, Spain, Brazil, Switzerland, France, Denmark and India as well.
