Two Good Co, the social enterprise dedicated to supporting vulnerable women by providing pathways out of crisis living, has opened its first cafe and convenience store in philanthropic hub Yirranma Place. Two Good Co first launched in 2015 as a soup kitchen at Kings Cross, before expanding into selling soup products, salads and toiletries to raise funds for its good work. Created in partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation, the venue is open 7am–3pm weekdays, serving breakfast and lunch with a strong focus on local artisan and ethically-minded businesses. Brands you'll find within the store include The Bread & Butter Project, Kua Coffee, Mood and T Totaler teas, Blak Cede and Gelato Messina. The cafe will help fund Two Good Co's programs while also employing vulnerable women across the front of house, kitchen and concierge roles. "Training, empowering, and employing vulnerable women is the reason we do what we do," Two Good co-founder Rob Caslick said. "We see our partnership with the Paul Ramsay Foundation as a springboard to showcase this model to other organisations who want their office catering and café service to make a real difference." Alongside the standard breakfast and lunch menus, a special monthly menu curated by culinary friends of Two Good Co is also promised. The organisation has worked with the likes of Kylie Kwong, Maggie Beer, Peter Gilmore and Matt Moran in the past, and is kicking things off with a July menu crafted by Three Blue Ducks chef and co-owner Darren Robertson. Robertson's menu features cauliflower cheese toasties, his renowned chocolate cookies and an Italian sausage, pear, lentil and watercress salad. Expect monthly menus from Belinda Jeffery in August, followed by Matt Moran in September. The organisation has also expanded its catering service for those wanting to host a function while supporting a good cause. The service now offers a variety of options from small breakfasts and grazing boxes to cocktail canapes and large-scale event catering. Two Good Co Cafe is located at 262 Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst. It's open 7am–3pm Monday–Friday.
It has been more than two years since Australian fans of factual flicks were first able to head to streaming platform iWonder to get their documentary fix in a big way. It wasn't the first doco-focused service to hit Australia, and plenty of other other streamers also weave non-fiction throughout their catalogues — but it nonetheless launched with more than 500 hours of on-demand content available to Aussie viewers. Now, with more than 1000 titles in its lineup, the service is adding a new reason for Australians to drop by — for Sydneysiders at present, and for anyone who is placed under isolation orders in the near future. The platform has announced that it's offering 50 percent off its subscriptions for folks in lockdown. So, if you're a Sydney resident in need of something new to watch right now, after a couple of weeks at home and counting, this might be timely news. If you live elsewhere, you might want to bookmark this for later. Documentaries currently available on the platform cover a huge range of topics — from fast food social experiment Super Size Me through to gaming classic The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Other highlights include the exceptional Sherpa, which explores a series of tense incidents on Everest; Oscar-nominee For Sama, which was shot on the ground in Aleppo over five years; and both Whiteley and Basquiat: Rags to Riches, about the two artists. Under the lockdown deal, the $6.99 per month and $69.90 annual subscription fees will be halved to $3.50 and $35.50, respectively. New users will also receive the 14 days free as part of a trial. The service is available on iOS and Android, as well as online via its website, and on Telstra TV, Apple TV and Android TV — and can be cast to the small screen via Apple TV and Chromecast. The discounted price will remain in place for some time, too, because it's tied to Australia's vaccination rates. iWonder will offer the cheap rate until 75 percent of folks have access to the jab — but you'll have to be in an area under stay-at-home restrictions to only pay half-price. For more information about iWonder, or to sign up, head to the streaming platform's website. Top image: Sherpa.
If seasonal change has left you in a dizzy headspin of new colours and fabrics and prints and jackets — or if, y'know, you just like some fancy new clothes now and then — you'll be pretty pleased to know that the Big Fashion Sale is coming back to Paddington Town Hall for four days this September. The name pretty much says it all. This thing is big. You'll find thousands of lush items from past collections, samples and one-offs from over 50 cult Australian and international designers, both well-known and emerging, including Romance Was Born, Isabel Marant, Alexander McQueen, Phillip Lim, Stella McCartney, Dries Van Noten and more. With discounts of up to 80 percent off, this is one way to up your count of designer while leaving your bank balance sitting pretty, too. Prices this low tend to inspire a certain level of ruthlessness in all of us, though, so practise that grabbing reflex in advance. This is every shopper for themselves. The Big Fashion Sale will be open Thursday 9am–7pm, Friday–Saturday 9am–6pm and Sunday 10am–5pm.
You can always count on Jurassic Lounge to produce the goods when it comes to an all-out themed super-fun time. Considering the location at the Australian Museum, it's easy to see why the Lounge is one of Sydney's favourite adult playgrounds. And it really turns things up to 11 for Halloween. This year, Jurassic Lounge is back with a whole mess of DJs, artists, scientists, chefs and dancers to bring your weekend fright-fest to a crescendo. The museum will be crawling with activities, from an eerie silent disco to a 'haunted' gallery tour in the dark (complete with torches). You'll also be able to get a gory makeover from the on-hand make-up artists, perhaps before you partake in some 'after-death' speed dating. There'll also be dance-offs, craft workshops, talks and performances throughout the night. Tickets are $25 in advance or $30 on the door. These events nearly always sell out, so we'd book in advance just in case.
Mockumentaries tend to get a bit of a bad rap in critical circles. 'Lazy filmmaking' is the most common smear, and — to be fair — they are a far gentler form of screenwriting than an out-and-out screenplay. They've also experienced massive growth in recent years, most notably in television, with the likes of Modern Family, The Office and Summer Heights High all achieving both popular and critical success. In film, This Is Spinal Tap set the benchmark way back in 1984 and has reigned supreme ever since — an 11 out of 10, if you will. The newest edition in the genre is What We Do In The Shadows, a collaboration between writer/directors Taika Waititi and Flight of the Conchords' Jemaine Clement. Billed as "a couple of interviews with a couple of vampires", it's a fly on the wall 'documentary' about four vampires sharing a flat in present-day New Zealand and is, quite simply, hilarious. The subjects of the film are: Viago (Waititi), an 18th-century dandy whose anal retentiveness makes him 'that' flatmate; Vlad (Clement), a legendary Lothario and formerly prolific hypnotist; Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), the self-proclaimed 'sexy one'; and Petyr (Ben Fransham) an ancient vampire from the early days. Key to its appeal is the way What We Do In The Shadows presents the needs, problems and activities of vampires as entirely commonplace. It makes them immediately relatable, treating something like the accidental puncturing of a victim's jugular and subsequent living room mess with no more pomp or fanfare than a spilled drink on a beige couch. The flatmates cruise the clubs of Wellington seeking victims like others seek a one night stand, they jeer each other on when a back-alley argument descends into a 'bat fight', and they projectile vomit blood when they absentmindedly eat actual food. Yes, they've their share of 'vampire' problems (sunlight, vampire hunters, etc), but also more normal ones, like having to tell your best friend you're the undead and suppressing the unceasing desire to kill him. What We Do in the Shadows also comes in at the welcome length of just 87 minutes, but its brevity doesn't come at the expense of jokes. It's packed with laughs, both visual and scripted, as well as offering a decent dose of improv (a common trait for mockumentaries). There's also more than a bit of horror and gore (so much so that with minimal tweaking this could easily have been reshaped as a solid B-grade scary film), yet there's no fear of fear thanks to the unbroken procession of gags. If this is lazy filmmaking, then bring on the trackies and couch surfing, because it suits us just fine. Check out Concrete Playground NZ's interview with Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cv568AzZ-i8
Tennis is a game of serves, shots, slices and smashes, and also of approaches, backhands, rallies and volleys. Challengers is a film of each, too, plus a movie about tennis. As it follows a love triangle that charts a path so back and forth that its ins and outs could be carved by a ball being hit around on the court, it's a picture that takes its aesthetic, thematic and emotional approach from the sport that its trio of protagonists are obsessed with as well. Tennis is everything to Tashi Duncan (Zendaya, Dune: Part Two), Art Donaldson (Mike Faist, West Side Story) and Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor, La Chimera), other than the threesome themselves being everything to each other. It's a stroke of genius to fashion the feature about them around the game they adore, then. Metaphors comparing life with a pastime are easy to coin. Movies that build such a juxtaposition into their fabric are far harder to craft. But it's been true of Luca Guadagnino for decades: he's a craftsman. Jumping from one Dune franchise lead to another, after doing Call Me By Your Name and Bones and All with Timothée Chalamet, Guadagnino proves something else accurate that's been his cinematic baseline: he's infatuated with the cinema of yearning. Among his features so far, only in Bones and All was the hunger for connection literal. The Italian director didn't deliver cannibalism in Call Me By Your Name and doesn't in Challengers, but longing is the strongest flavour in all three, and prominent across the filmmaker's Suspiria, A Bigger Splash and I Am Love also. So, combine the idea of styling a movie around a tennis match — one spans its entire duration, in fact — with a lusty love triangle, romantic cravings and three players at the top of their field, then this is the sublime end product. Challengers is so smartly constructed, so well thought-out down to every meticulous detail, so sensual and seductive, and so on point in conveying Tashi plus Art and Patrick's feelings, that it's instantly one of Guadagnino's grand slams. In 2019, the picture's present day — a choice that enables Challengers to avoid everything pandemic-related — Art and Patrick go racquet to racquet in New Rochelle, New York. Pinging in-between their on-the-court confrontation, after they progress through the tournament on opposite sides to clash in the final, are flashes to moments from 2006 onwards. It was in that year, as teen doubles partners known as "Fire and Ice" (and best friends, and childhood tennis academy roommates), that the pair met Tashi. She's as confident when she's not standing on a green surface as she is on it, and on it she's an undoubtable prodigy. They're both immediately attracted to her. They each ask for her number at the same party while all three are together. In Challengers' later timing, however, Art is her husband and Patrick her ex-boyfriend. Art has also enjoyed almost every success that a tennis player can hope for, other than winning the US Open. Completing his career slam is his aim, with the New Rochelle contest about getting him back into form to stop a losing streak. Patrick has to sleep in his car to make the fixture; for him, earning a wildcard to the bigger dance and a chance at the kind of glory his former pal has long been basking in is the mission. The duo hasn't talked in years. The reason: a falling out about matters of the heart. But Challengers doesn't simplistically have its two men battle it out for Tashi as a prize, even when she promises a date to whoever wins their first game against — not with — each other in the mid-00s segments. Tashi is a force to be reckoned with. She'd never let herself become a trophy. Her career is cut short due to injury, sparking a move into coaching Art, and she's as ferocious and strategic there — and in their marriage — as she was when pursuing her own tennis fame. Then there's the inescapable bond between Art and Patrick anyway; Tashi's home-wrecker comments about sliding into the middle of their relationship aren't empty in Guadagnino's hands, whether a three-way kiss or loaded words are being exchanged. The director works with the first feature script by playwright, novelist and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes — and it's no wonder that authenticity beats at the heart of this deeply sultry, raw and evocative (and horny) movie. While this isn't a tale taken from actuality, Kuritzkes is the husband of filmmaker Celine Song, whose Oscar-nominated 2023 debut Past Lives not only leapt into another complicated love triangle but was loosely drawn from her own experiences. The two movies are playing different games, though, yet share the same richness of chemistry, lingering sexual tension, and understanding of how burning love and pining to be seen are life-shaping and -changing sensations. They're each so precisely helmed in their vastly dissimilar ways that they're works of art, and so expertly cast that their stars will always rank the respective flicks as career and performance highlights. Continuing the trend of Spider-Man love interests giving tennis films a whirl (see: Civil War's Kirsten Dunst with Wimbledon, then Poor Things' Emma Stone with Battle of the Sexes), Zendaya doesn't just make Tashi formidable and unforgettable; her portrayal, which is one of her best ever alongside Euphoria, firmly matches. Neither the movie nor its leading lady polish over the character's fierceness and ruthlessness when it comes to her passion, instead exploring what's behind her intensity from the outset: being a Black star who isn't from a comfortable background in a world that's all about whiteness and privilege. She's magnetic to viewers, and to Art and Patrick, who are brought to the screen with romanticism and vulnerability by Faist, and with spirited but comfortable charm by O'Connor. Challengers loiters at the net, where two sides are pushed together — not as any balls bounce through the bouts depicted, but in unpacking every pairing that can be made from its main trio, racial and economic divides that definte their realities, and the thin line that can become a vast chasm regarding genuinely grasping your dreams versus forever chasing them. As it hops and rushes about — including between time periods, characters, games and romances — Challengers zips and zings, and lunges and thrusts. Guadagnino's knack for immersion keeps working up the bracket film by film, to hypnotic effect here. There's no Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives or Memoria dreaminess to cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom's lensing, but the same crispness, as seen in his work on Call Me By Your Name and Suspiria as well, remains. New for Challengers is the dynamism of the sports scenes, and of switching from character to ball vantages, each absorbing visual choices. Marco Costa, who returns from Bones and All, edits just as energetically. And amid songs by Donna Summer, Lily Allen and Nelly, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' second Guadagnino score, also after Bones and All, is an adrenaline-dripping disco and electronica whirlwind that couldn't better set and reflect the propulsive mood. Talk about an all-round ace.
The annual Open Frame festival returns to Carriageworks in June for another excursion into experimental, contemporary sound. Curated by Lawrence English, founder of seminal Brisbane label Room40, Open Frame will feature an eclectic mix of both local and international artists operating right at the fringe of avant-garde. The 2018 edition of the festival splits its focus between senior artists and on emerging voices. It will see the world premiere of Occam Hexa XXIV, a specially-commissioned work by Éliane Radigue, a French composer who draws influence from the minimalist scene in New York in the 1970s, her Tibetan Buddhist beliefs and her native France to create epic, slow-developing works. There'll also be a performance by eclectic US artist Charlemagne Palestine, who has had an amazing career as a musician, composer, visual artist, documentarian and gallerist, to name a few. Palestine recently exhibited an installation of 18,000 stuffed animals (called — wait for it — Ccornuuoorphanossccopiaee Aanorphansshhornoffplentyyy) in Paris, Los Angeles and New York, however it is not yet confirmed whether any of them will be joining him onstage in Sydney. On the emerging-voices side of the equation, Chinese-born, Berlin-based experimental artist Pan Daijing. Her distinctive music doesn't comfortably fit into any category and often combines operatic singing with techo beats and industrial noise. Past iterations of Open Frame have been unusual, unexpected and often flat-out weird, but never less than enthralling. Image: Vitali Gelwich
Hell yes! Get along to the third instalment of the Soul Collective Mixtape series as Australia’s most prominent future-soul, hip hop and electronica groups take over Venue 505 for a night of irresistible groove. Featuring 30/70 (Melbourne), Fortunes (New Zealand), Sydney’s Lana Rita and newly formed electronica/afro-beat supergroup The Cosmodelta, this guaranteed boogie night will have you burning through the soles of your shoes in no time. This event is one of our top ten picks of the Sydney Fringe Festival. See the other nine here.
You can do away with your internet searching and your book reading; borrow a human instead during Sydney Fringe. In this oral history performance, choose a human and hear them tell you a chapter from their life. From Shane Teehan’s story of Afghanistan imprisonment in a real-life mixed-up spy story to Holly Ladmore’s journey from Olympic track and road racing athlete to cosplay character, you can borrow a 'human book' for 20 minutes across libraries within Marrickville Council. This event is one of our top ten picks of the Sydney Fringe Festival. See the other nine here.
Good news, Sydneysiders — for the first time ever, you can enjoy The Happy Mexican's vibrant dishes without having to book a flight to Melbourne. Julian Romero's Melbourne-based restaurant is now taking up residence inside the iconic Lansdowne Hotel, slinging its coveted Mexican cuisine from Harbour City digs. To celebrate its launch, the Sydney restaurant is doing a bunch of exciting giveaways, including slinging 500 free tacos and tequila shots across three huge days until Saturday, April 13, and dishing out $2 tacos for the entire month of April. The eatery's Sydney home fits up to 500 guests and features dark, moody interiors with emerald green splashed across its walls. The historic charm of The Lansdowne, paired with live gigs and now vibrant Mexican fare, creates an inviting spot to hit up for great food and tunes. The Happy Mexican's Head Chef, Jesus Rios, says he will be "serving up a spectrum of unique, authentic flavours straight from the heart of Mexico to Chippendale." If you're wondering what'll be on offer at the first-ever Sydney spot, look no further. Keep an eye out for tacos galore, with the menu starring roasted chicken breast, marinated pork, beer-battered fish and its signature slow-cooked beef birria tacos, as well as excellent Mexican dishes like chilaquiles, calabacitas and nopales. Rounding out the menu — which runs across both lunch and dinner service — is its famed Jalisco Birria-style quesabirrias with Oaxaca cheese. As for drinks, the plethora of cocktails available spans from piña coladas and palomas to variations of margaritas and mezcalitos, as well as beers on tap. You'll find The Happy Mexican Sydney at 2-6 City Road inside The Lansdowne Hotel at Chippendale, open from 12—10pm from Wednesday–Saturday.
For someone so pivotal to the story of Jesus, it's surprising how few films have told the tale of Mary Magdalene. The biblical figure has been played by Barbara Hershey, Debra Messing, Monica Bellucci and even PJ Harvey over the years, but she's usually a mere supporting character. More than that, she's frequently painted as a sinner at the very least, and often as a prostitute. Neither proves the case in Mary Magdalene, a contemplative, humanist drama that casts Mary (Rooney Mara) as a woman of determination, devout faith and devotion. In fact, the film proposes that she was Jesus' 13th apostle. An early line gives a clear indication of the movie's focus: "I can't marry," Mary tells her father; "I'm not made for that life." What follows is an account of someone defying convention, sticking to her own path, and finding strength and solace when Jesus of Nazareth (Joaquin Phoenix) comes to town. With her dad and brothers preferring to exorcise her convictions away rather than respect her choices, it doesn't take long for Mary to warm to Jesus' caring and charismatic presence. But his existing offsiders are far from welcoming, with Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) especially wary. In fact, it's Judas (Tahar Rahim) who's actually more accepting. As such, Mary Magdalene depicts a strong woman breaking free from the shackles of her patriarchal fishing village, and from the expectation that matrimony and motherhood are all she should hope for. The film watches on as she finds a supportive and inspirational companion in Jesus, and as she bears witness to not only his deeds and perspective, but to his worries as well. Still, for all of its ambition — for all of its attempts to recast Mary as a feminist hero while the usual Jesus tale plays out — the movie can't quite decide if it's championing the titular character, or getting lost in her affection for the preacher and religious leader. Of course, you can't tell her story without him, but the balance isn't always right. More often than not, it appears as though Mary Magdalene wants the audience to understand Mary's connection to Jesus more than it seeks to understand Mary herself. Thank whichever deity you please for Mara, then. As she demonstrated so emphatically in Carol, she's one of the best actresses of her generation when it comes to conveying a whole world of emotion without saying a word. Her eyes flicker as Mary reacts to Jesus, her posture shifts, and viewers can grasp not only what the character sees in him but how that makes her feel. Phoenix is also impressive, his mumbling take on Christ in keeping with the film's down-to-earth air. This isn't a movie that looks to the heavens to find spiritual meaning, but to people, their actions and the impact their deeds can have. It's a fitting approach, particularly with Australian filmmaker Garth Davis (Lion) in the director's chair. While a religious tale seems quite the departure from his acclaimed debut, both prove intimate dramas about lost souls searching for fulfilment. Both also share stirring scores and scenic imagery — courtesy of the late, great composer Johann Johannsson (Arrival) and Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, and cinematographer Greig Fraser (Lion), respectively — but movie magic doesn't strike twice. Instead, Mary Magdalene is an intermittently convincing film about belief, rather than a film to believe in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH6A_YDafBw
In terms of products that are equally cruel and stupid, skin-lightening cream would have to be up there. And now, thanks to Anchuli Felicia King's White Pearl, it's now also brutally satirised. Fictional cosmetics company Clearday, based in Singapore, turns a very tidy profit exploiting customers' insecurities about the way they look. When one of its ads for skin-lightening products goes viral, the disapproving eye of the digital world settles on the company's pristine open-plan office. Amidst the buck-passing and fallout containment, a transformation begins to occur — what playwright King has referred to as "the shift from socialised hysteria to primal hysteria". With comedy that's blacker than bitumen and grimier than a skip in the CBD, White Pearl is here to raise conversations regarding casual racism and corporate culture. It's unlikely you needed another reason to hate on late-stage capitalism, but King will make you laugh while you do. The play is a co-production between Riverside's National Theatre of Parramatta and Sydney Theatre Company, directed by Priscilla Jackman and showing at Riverside Theatres, Parramatta. White Pearl will be showing every Tuesday through Saturday, from Saturday October 26 to Saturday November 9.
Pyrmont Festival turns seven this year, and they're marking the occasion with one of their best programs yet. Extending the program, this year the festival will run for a whopping two weeks, from May 13–27. The annually beloved event promises a pretty well jam-packed program of live music, wine dinners, exhibitions and sculpture installations featured all around Pyrmont. Every day of the festival program is different, but each event is a particular ode to the tasty food and wine being produced both in Mudgee region and around Pyrmont. As always, the festival will kick off with a free two-day headliner event in Pirrama Park on Saturday, May 20 and Sunday, May 21, with live music, art and over 100 food and wine stalls. You can chat to local producers and sample delicious local goodies, and you can do a wine tasting for $20. The monthly Pyrmont Growers Market will also run on Saturday, May 27. Various events will be held throughout the festival's two-week duration — the lineup can be accessed here.
Sparked by the pandemic, lockdown films aren't just an exercise in adapting to stay-at-home conditions — or a way to keep actors, directors and other industry professionals busy and working at a challenging time. The genre also provides a window into how the creatives behind its flicks view everyday life and ordinary people. Arising from a global event that's placed many of the planet's inhabitants in similar circumstances, these features tell us which stories filmmakers deem worth telling, which visions of normality they choose to focus on and who they think is living an average life. With Malcolm & Marie, a hotshot young director and an ex-addict were the only options offered. In Language Lessons, which premiered at this year's virtual Berlin Film Festival, a wealthy widower and a Spanish teacher were the movie's two choices. Now Locked Down directs its attention towards a CEO and a courier, the latter of which stresses that he's only in the gig because his criminal record has robbed him of other opportunities. Yes, these movies and their characters speak volumes about how Hollywood perceives its paying customers. That's not the only thing that Locked Down says. Verbose to a farcical degree — awkwardly rather than purposefully — this romantic comedy-meets-heist flick is primarily comprised of monologues, Zoom calls and bickering between its central couple. Well-off Londoners Linda (Anne Hathaway, The Witches) and Paxton (Chiwetel Ejiofor, The Old Guard) are weeks into 2020's first lockdown, and their ten-year relationship has become a casualty. Whether chatting to each other or virtually with others, both commit a torrent of words to the subject. Linda has decided they're done, which Paxton has trouble accepting. She's also unhappy with her high-flying job, especially after she's forced to fire an entire team online, but gets scolded by her boss (Ben Stiller, Brad's Status) for not telling her now-sacked colleagues they're still like family. Tired of driving a van, Paxton is willing to do whatever his employer (Ben Kingsley, Life) needs to climb his way up the ladder. That said, he's still tied to the road, with the ex-rebel's decision to sell his beloved motorbike — a symbol of his wilder youth, and its fun, freedom and risks — hitting hard. As Linda and Paxton argue about their past together and future potentially apart, vent frustrations about their locked-down present, and chat with co-workers (including Late Night's Mindy Kaling, The Father's Mark Gatiss, Jojo Rabbit's Stephen Merchant and The Last Vermeer's Claes Bang) and family members (Ballers co-stars and real-life couple Dulé Hill and Jazmyn Simon), at no point do they resemble real people. Rarely does anything that comes out of their mouths sound like something that someone might actually say, either. And, while the stresses of working remotely, being unable to leave the house and having normality put on hold should be relatable — we've all been through it — every aspect of Locked Down's script feels forced. That includes its relationship insights, which are hardly romantic, comedic or wise, even when showing that the most devoted of couples can find their patience tested when the days never seem to end. When Linda and Paxton's professional worlds collide, tasking her with removing a £3 million diamond from Harrods, him with ferrying it to safety and the pair with possibly stealing it for themselves, the plot development smacks of screenwriting laziness and convenience. Steven Knight does the scripting — and although Locked Down arose in a hurry, this isn't the first time that the screenwriter has penned something dull, grating, contrived and often ridiculous. When he's at his best, TV series Peaky Blinders, the Ejiofor-starring Dirty Pretty Things, David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises and Tom Hardy one-man-show Locke are the end results. At his worst, he pumps out the abysmal Hathaway-starring Serenity — a movie so awful that it almost defies belief — and now this. Locked Down's missteps are many, and plenty stem from the script. It repeatedly mistakes more dialogue for more drama, for instance. When it isn't insulting everyone who isn't a CEO, it's whining about pandemic restrictions, with its complaints outdated a year ago and ancient now. But director Doug Liman can't escape responsibility for Locked Down's many struggles. Fresh off of the long-delayed, also-terrible Chaos Walking, the filmmaker who shot banter so engagingly in Swingers, Go and even Mr and Mrs Smith just seems happy to let the camera keep rolling here. The man who made Edge of Tomorrow also treats his big Harrods heist as if he was Richard Linklater filming a walk-and-talk for a Before Midnight sequel called During Lockdown. Perhaps Liman expected his two leads to shine so brightly that they'd carry the two-hour film. They're asked to, but no one could sparkle with this material. Hathaway yells into pillows, swans around in colourful pyjama pants and dances to Adam and the Ants' 'Stand and Deliver' like she's on a stage trying to emote to people in the street outside the theatre. While Ejiofor fares slightly better — when he's not waxing lyrical about a hedgehog he's named Sonic (of course), licking opium from the couple's townhouse garden or airing stale stay-at-home grievances — the existential angst that's baked into his performance gets swallowed by the movie's overall listlessness. You could generously read Locked Down's tedium and monotony as intentionally reflecting the malaise of the last 15 months, but every choice that Liman and Knight makes refutes that idea. There's smugness and pompousness to this never-funny film instead, and it screams of its key creatives thinking they know what COVID-19-era life is like, and that they can turn the situation into something witty and thrilling. They don't and they can't, at least in this feature. Visually, the movie brightens at Harrods, but its third-act wander through the famed department store really just shows what could've been. A far shorter picture with less repetitive griping and more of absolutely anything else mightn't have made viewers feel as if they too are stuck home with someone they hate, for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TG-Mxzl88Q&feature=youtu.be
It's a problem that everyone can relate to: your thirst needs quenching, but your tastebuds are craving two completely different things. You could make the hard choice and pick between them — or, if you happen to be hankering for a dish made with nori and beer (and getting your fill of dumplings, too), you could make a beeline to Harajuku Gyoza. From Wednesday, July 14, the Australian gyoza chain is serving up a new tap beer that's made with seaweed. Yes, we mean that literally. The Scottish-style ale has a malty taste and an amber hue to match, and, during the brewing process, sheets of nori are added to the boil — which is where it gets its umami flavour. Given that Harajuku Gyoza has already served up raindrop cakes, Nutella gyoza and salted caramel gyoza, mac 'n' cheese, pepperoni pizza and marshmallow dumplings, and charcoal karaage chicken fondue, its latest menu item is hardly surprising. It has a history of pouring inventive brews, too, with black sesame and matcha ice cream-flavoured beers on offer in 2020. Both then and now, the brews come courtesy of Yoyogi Brewing Co, and use Japanese brewing techniques as well as Japanese-inspired ingredients. If you fancy pairing the new beer with two of Harajuku Gyoza's old favourites — cheeseburger gyoza, which is stuffed with burger pieces, aged cheddar, onion, pickles, mustard and tomato sauce; and mozzarella gyoza, which is filled with the obvious, then deep-fried and sprinkled with Twisties salt — that's up to you. Usually the chain's special additions to its menu are only available for a limited time, so you might want to get in quickly. Harajuku Gyoza's Japanese dessert-inspired beers will be available at all Australian stores — at Darling Harbour in Sydney; at South Bank and the CBD in Brisbane; and in Broadbeach on the Gold Coast — from Wednesday, July 14.
Everyone's favourite 'candy man' is hitting Aussie shores next January, with the announcement that Sydney's Capitol Theatre will play host to the smash-hit musical production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Roald Dahl's classic sugar-dusted tale is being brought to life in its Australian debut by a collaboration between theatre producers John Frost, Craig Donnell, Langley Park Productions, Neal Street Productions and Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures. Following the worldwide popularity of both the original book and the 1971 Gene Wilder film of the same name, the musical has been confirmed a sweet success internationally, scoring rave reviews during its stint on Broadway last year. With original songs like The Candy Man and I've Got a Golden Ticket featured alongside new tunes from the songwriters of Hairspray, this confection of a show promises to lure audiences of all ages into, shall we say, a land of pure imagination. It's directed by three-time Tony Award winner Jack O'Brien, with music by Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award winner Marc Shaiman, lyrics courtesy of Grammy and Tony Award winners Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, and choreography by Tony Award nominee and Emmy Award winner Joshua Bergasse. Tickets are currently on sale for performances up until April 14. Top image: Joan Marcus, the original Broadway cast 2017.
Hold onto your butts, film lovers. The 62nd Sydney Film Festival has dropped its full program, and it is seriously impressive. With more than 250 titles from 68 countries, including a number of major grabs from Cannes, Toronto and Sundance, Sydney cinephiles are going to be spoiled for choice when the festival roles around in just four weeks time. The 2015 festival will be bookended by a pair of Australian features, both making their world premieres. Brendan Cowell’s previously announced Ruben Guthrie will open the festivities on June 3, while Neil Armfield’s Holding the Man, starring Ryan Corr, Anthony LaPaglia, Guy Pearce and Sarah Snook, will bring things to a close on June 14. Other Australian films in the lineup include Last Cab to Darwin, starring Michael Caton as a cancer-stricken taxi-driver; The Daughter, theatre director Simon Stone's modern-day take on Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, starring Geoffrey Rush, Ewen Leslie and Miranda Otto; Strangerland, an outback thriller featuring Nicole Kidman, Hugo Weaving and Joseph Fiennes; and Sherpa, a documentary about disaster on Mount Everest that could hardly feel more timely. The latter three films will compete for $62,000 in this year’s Official Competition, along with nine international features including Italian crime epic Black Souls, American indie dramedy Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Iranian anthology film Tales, minimalist French superhero flick Vincent and Swedish existential comedy A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, as well as a sprawling, three-part Portuguese adaptation of Arabian Nights. Rounding out the competition are three films notable for their formal ambition. Raucous American comedy Tangerine, about a pair of transgender sex workers, was shot entirely on an iPhone 5, while German heist film Victoria unfolds Birdman-style in a single elaborate take. But perhaps most exciting is Tehran Taxi, the new effort from Iranian director Jafar Panahi. Once again defying a government-imposed ban on filmmaking, this new work takes place entirely within the confines of a taxi, with the director himself at the wheel. Other exciting titles outside of the competition include Peter Strickland’s lesbian BDSM romance The Duke of Burgundy, harrowing Ukrainian sign-language film The Tribe and South Korean people-smuggling drama Haemoo, as well as the latest work from Abel Ferrara, a biopic about controversial Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. These join previously announced films including German post-war thriller Phoenix and Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy. The festival also announced a number of high-profile documentaries. Director Asif Kapadia follows up his masterful Senna with a look at the life of Amy Winehouse in Amy, while special festival guest Alex Gibney explores the murky world of Scientology with Going Clear. A number of local docos will also compete for the Documentary Australia Foundation Award, including Gayby Baby, about children raised by same-sex parents, and Gillian Armstrong’s Women He’s Undressed, about Oscar-winning Australian costume designer Orry-Kelly. The latter will screen on a cruise ship in Sydney Harbour. For sustenance, immersion and inspiration, drop by the Sydney Film Festival Hub at Lower Town Hall throughout the festival.
The Lansdowne turns 100 this year, and it's celebrating in the only way it knows how: live and loud. The legendary Chippendale pub and band room has unveiled a month-long program of live music, DJ sets and curated takeovers as it enters its second century of loud, sweaty, unpretentious good times. This June, the inner-city institution — whose stage has welcomed Billie Eilish, Fontaines D.C. and Lime Cordiale, among others — will welcome a stacked lineup of local talent across genres ranging from psych to punk and everything in between. [caption id="attachment_903438" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Alana Dimou[/caption] It kicks off on Wednesday, June 4, as Sydney metal troupe Battlesnake takes the stage alongside special guest acts. Throughout the month, you can also catch performances by the likes of EGOISM, Porcelain Boy, FANGZ, Straight Arrows and a heap more. Head in on Friday nights in June for the Motorik Vibe Council's The Late Show with Motorik!, a free-to-enter late-night electronic session that promises to keep things spinning until, well, very late. On the curated front, expect takeovers by Psyched As., Beat Kitchen Records and more still to be announced. Beyond the music, The Lansdowne is dishing up one kilogram of extra-hot peri-peri wings for $10 all month long, while Inner West brewer Young Henrys is also joining the party, offering gifts to early upstairs gig-goers.
When Bad Moms became one of the big hits of last year, it was the film's great cast and refreshing approach to female friendship that really struck a chord. Indeed, it was those two factors that made an otherwise routine comedy about mothers behaving badly both amusing and empowering. Alas, it seems no one explained that to writer-director duo Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Or, perhaps they simply don't care. With their inevitable sequel, the pair proves happy to take the easiest route — upping the raucousness, adding even more mums to the mix, and eschewing nuance, depth or any real comic commentary about the expectations placed upon women. This approach — taking aspects of the original and just ramping them up — is not uncommon in sequels. Unfortunately, Bad Moms 2 picks the wrong elements to highlight, at the expense of the thoughtful core that made its predecessor such a surprise. Stars Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn are as qualified as ever, while franchise newcomers Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines and Susan Sarandon all impress as well. The material, though? To borrow a scenario that occurs in the movie, it's like stealing a cheap department store Christmas tree rather than finding a real one. Also called A Bad Moms Christmas in other parts of the world, the film's first attempt to heighten these overstressed mums' worries arrives via the festive season. If the holidays weren't anxiety-inducing enough, their own mothers decide to drop by out of the blue, each displaying familiar family traits. Prim and proper Ruth (Baranski) is even more of a perfectionist than Amy (Kunis); stalker-like Sandy (Hines) takes the idea adoring motherhood too far even by Kiki's (Bell) standards; and wild-at-heart Isis (Sarandon) has a looser grasp on responsible parenting even than the free-spirited Carla (Hahn). The end result pits mothers against their mothers in the kind of multi-generational hijinks that's becoming a bit too common of late, with the conceptually similar Daddy's Home 2 hitting cinemas in just a few weeks. It also comes with a heap of problematic messages. Sure, Bad Moms 2 nods to the initial flick's championing of women being themselves and refusing to conform to society's demands. But that means next to nothing when the film's female characters are now depicted as little more than caricatures. That they only bond over parenting, fighting with their mums, or chasing men does not go down well. Nor does the suggestion that they are both the cause of their own mothers' craziness and are doomed to follow in their footsteps. Perhaps the film's standout scene demonstrates the fortunes of Bad Moms 2 best, turning a male stripper's intimate waxing session into a romantic meet-cute. In a feature filled with cartoonish depictions of women with children (and women in general), of course the most relatable and resonant moment takes place between Hahn's lusty, lonely beautician and her attractive client. Lucas and Moore, who clearly aren't doing their own mums proud here, don't even think of extending the same blend of genuine humour and earnest emotions to the movie's ladies when they're together. Instead they saddle the gals with making penis gingerbread and twerking on Santa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGDOdlBlV08
Throw those GoPros, bubble bottles and novelty gumboots in your rucksack, Splendour in the Grass is returning to North Byron Parklands for another year of festival merriment. As usual, rumours have run wild in anticipation of the lineup announce, but the details for Splendour 2017 are finally here. And we're happy to report that some of the rumours were true. As announced by triple j, there's no Lorde or Frank Ocean, but LCD bloody Soundsystem will be Splendouring — it will be the reunited band's first return to Australia since they played Big Day Out back in 2011. The lineup also doesn't state that Splendour is their only show, so stay tuned for news of a national tour (hopefully). It also seems that, happily, the predictions for The xx and Queens of the Stone Age were correct too. Joining them is one heck of a lineup that includes HAIM, RL Grime, Banks and Two Door Cinema Club, along with Future Islands and LA hip hip artist Schoolboy Q, who will be doing one-off Australian shows at the festival. Australian artists on the bill include Tash Sultana, King Gizzard, D.D Dumbo, Dune Rats, A.B Original, Big Scary and more. Anyway, we know what you're here for. We'll cut to the chase. SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS 2017 LINEUP The xx Queens of the Stone Age LCD Soundsystem Royal Blood HAIM Sigur Rós ScHoolboy Q (only Aus show) Vance Joy Two Door Cinema Club Peking Duk RL Grime Bonobo Father John Misty Catfish and the Bottlemen Tash Sultana Paul Kelly Stormzy King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard George Ezra Future Islands (only Aus show) Banks Bernard Fanning Dune Rats Cut Copy Ásgeir Allday Meg Mac Rag 'N' Bone Man Thundamentals Lil' Yachty San Cisco Client Liaison Real Estate Dan Sultan Vallis Alps D.D Dumbo Maggie Rogers Tove Lo POND Big Scary The Smith Street Band Oh Wonder A.B. Original Dope Lemon The Kite String Tangle Young Franco Julia Jacklin Kingswood Amy Shark Luca Brasi The Lemon Twigs Vera Blue Slumberjack Bad//Dreems Bag Raiders Topaz Jones Middle Kids Ocean Grove Confidence Man Bishop Briggs Late Nite Tuff Guy Julien Baker Kilter Lany Hockey Dad Kirin J Callinan Airling Cosmo's Midnight Gretta Ray Moonbase The Peep Tempel Tornado Wallace The Murlocs Mallrat Luke Million The Wilson Pickers Romare Jarrow Good Boy Kuren Oneman Winston Surfshirt Set Mo HWLS Harvey Sutherland and Bermuda CC:Disco! Enschway DJHMC Nite Fleit Alice Ivy Willow Beats Willaris. K Mookhi Plus... Swindail Dena Amy Andy Garvey Planète Sam Weston Super Cruel Christopher Port Lewis Cancut Kinder plus triple j Unearthed winners Splendour will return to North Byron Parklands on Friday 21, Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 July. Onsite camping will once again be available from Wednesday, July 19. Tickets go on sale Thursday, April 6 at 9am sharp AEST. More info will soon be available at the official Splendour In The Grass site. Image: Bianca Holderness.
UPDATE, May 1, 2021: I Am Greta is available to stream via Stan, Docplay, Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. If a single image can sum up the current crucial battle against climate change, it's a picture — any picture — of Greta Thunberg. Since deciding to skip school to protest outside Sweden's parliament back in August 2018, the braid-wearing teen has become the face of a movement. She isn't the first person to sound an alarm about the dire state of the planet, to vehemently speak truth to power or to gain widespread attention, but her determined, no-nonsense approach really isn't easily forgotten. Sometimes, it's directed at ordinary Stockholm residents going about their days while she strikes. As she has garnered increasing attention, Thunberg has trained her stare on crowded United Nations' conferences, too, and at attendees with the capacity but not necessarily the inclination to make a difference. She has also met face to face with world leaders, but she knows that politicians usually only share her gaze for a photo opportunity. Demonstrating patiently, speaking passionately, shaking hands for the cameras: all of these moments are captured by documentary I Am Greta, which surveys Thunberg's ascension from everyday Swedish 15-year-old to one of the best-known figures fighting to save the earth. The film acts as a chronicle, starting with her activism on her home soil, following her efforts as she's thrust to fame, and culminating in her trip across the Atlantic Ocean via yacht to present at 2019's UN Climate Action Summit, where she gave her iconic "how dare you" speech. But as the title indicates, this doco is just as concerned with Thunberg's home life as her public impact. Accordingly, while filmmaker Nathan Grossman has an array of recognisable footage at his disposal in this slickly packaged affair — packed protests, widely seen speeches, British parliament addresses, meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron — he interweaves it with quieter, intimate and unguarded moments. Including material preceding her present status as a household name, I Am Greta watches Thunberg prepare for big events, spend time with her beloved dogs and horses, eat meals with her family, and get escorted around the world by bus, train and boat by her father Svante. These snippets help paint a picture of the teenager behind the activism, and much of it is highly relatable. She adores her pets, finding their presence soothing. She obsesses over every detail of every speech, even when her dad is reminding her to rest and eat. She happily calls herself a nerd, explains the helpful side of her Asperger syndrome diagnosis ("it might be good if everyone had a tiny bit of Asperger's, at least about the climate," she shares), talks through details of past episodes of selective mutism and notes that being bullied isn't a new part of her life. Viewers looking for something more revealing in Thunberg's daily existence will be disappointed, as will anyone eager to discover details that haven't been covered in many a profile, or keen for in-depth facts and figures. But by purposefully and repeatedly stressing that its subject is simply a young woman who feels passionate about doing everything she can to raise awareness about climate change, and to motivate the world's powers-that-be to act before it's too late, I Am Greta makes an immensely potent statement. It's one that Thunberg has vocalised on many occasions with words as direct as her glare, and it resonates just as strongly here. It shouldn't take a teen skipping school and inspiring millions more around the world to follow in her footsteps to get people talking, thinking and enacting solutions to counteract the earth's warming. Thunberg shouldn't need to be a leader in this space. At the beginning of the film, during her time spent sitting outside Swedish parliament, she acknowledges that she likely knows far more about climate change than the overwhelming bulk of Sweden's politicians — and that firmly shouldn't be the case. Also cutting through astutely is Thunberg's continued recognition of how, as her fame increases, the global response by naysayers encapsulates so much about the status quo and the lack of government action. She calls out politicians who chat and get snapped in pictures but do nothing to follow through, with Grossman letting viewers see the pageantry alongside Thunberg's perceptive observations. She reads trolling comments, too — and I Am Greta says plenty when it shows figures such as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison either attacking Thunberg, childishly insulting her, discounting her message or saying that the planet's younger generations should stick to studying instead of fighting for their futures. It isn't ever explicitly said, but I Am Greta also makes another pivotal point, and it applies not only to its central figure but to the rousing film itself. In addition to emphasising that the steadfast eco-warrior is a teen tackling a topic that so many of her elders have happily ignored for decades, this documentary understands that its audience already knows how they feel about Thunberg. It also recognises that its viewers are just as aware of which side they fall on when it comes to combating climate change. As a result, this movie isn't going to convert skeptics and Thunberg's critics, or alter her fans' thinking, and it isn't trying to. It'd rather show the work to effect change in action, and let that speak volumes. Indeed, what echoes here is that simply doing the right thing — doing something, in fact — is essential regardless of any obstacles and opposition, whether urged by Al Gore, David Attenborough, Aussie doco 2040, your best mate, your neighbour, a stranger or Thunberg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwk10YGPFiM
Two decades ago, Bill Nighy won two BAFTAs in the same year for vastly dissimilar roles: for playing a rock 'n' roll singer belting out a cheesy Christmas tune in Love Actually, and also for his turn as a journalist investigating a political scandal in gripping miniseries State of Play. The beloved British actor has achieved plenty more across his career, including collecting an eclectic resume that spans an uncredited turn in Black Books, a pivotal part in Shaun of the Dead, and everything from Underworld and Pride to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I (plus stepping into David Bowie's shoes in the TV version of The Man Who Fell to Earth). Somehow, though, Nighy made it all the way into his 70s before receiving a single Oscar nomination. He didn't emerge victorious at 2023's ceremony for Living, but his recognition for this textured drama isn't just a case of the Academy rewarding a stellar career — it's thoroughly earned by one of the veteran talent's best performances yet. Nighy comes to this sensitive portrayal of a dutiful company man facing life-changing news with history; so too does the feature itself. Set in London in 1953, it's an adaptation several times over — of iconic Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's 1952 film Ikiru, and of Leo Tolstoy's 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich, which the former also takes inspiration from. That's quite the lineage for Living to live up to, but Nighy and director Oliver Hermanus (Moffie) are up to the task. The movie's second Oscar-nominee, Nobel Prize-winning screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro, unsurprisingly is as well. Also the author of The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, he's at home penning layered stories with a deep focus on complicated characters not being completely true to themselves. When those two novels were turned into impressive pictures, Ishiguro didn't script their screenplays, but he writes his way through Living's literary and cinematic pedigree like he was born to. A man of no more words than he has to utter — of no more of anything, including life's pleasures, frivolities, distractions and detours, in fact — Williams (Nighy, Emma.) is a born bureaucrat. Or, that's how he has always appeared to his staff in the Public Works Department in London County Hall, where he's been doing the same job day, week, month and year in and out. He's quiet and stoic as he pushes paper daily, overseeing a department that's newly welcoming in Peter Wakeling (Alex Sharp, The Trial of the Chicago 7). It's through this fresh face's eyes that Living's audience first spies its central figure, adopting his and the wider team's perspective of Williams as a compliant and wooden functionary: a view that the film and its sudden diagnosis then challenges, as Williams does of himself. As Ikiru was as well, and as The Death of Ivan Ilyich's name made so apparent, this is a tale of a man dying — and, while confronting that fact, finally living. In Hermanus and Ishiguro's hands, sticking close to Kurosawa and his collaborators before them, this story gets part of its spark from a simple request by local parents for a playground. Before learning that he has terminal cancer, Williams behaves as he always has, with the women making their plea sent from department to department while he does only as much as he must. Afterwards, grappling with how to capitalise upon the time he has left, he wonders how to leave even the smallest mark on the world. Living isn't about a big, impulsive response to one of the worst developments that anyone can ever be saddled with during their time on this mortal coil, except that it is in Williams' own way; when your reaction to hearing that you have mere months left to live is "quite", any break from routine is radical. This isn't a cancer weepie, not for a second. It also isn't an illness-focused film where someone's health struggles come second to the feelings and changes experienced by those around them. Williams' colleagues notice his absence when he stops showing up to the office, of course. One, the young Margaret Harris (Aimee Lou Wood, Sex Education), accompanies him on unexpected away-from-work outings and advises that she'd nicknamed him 'Mr Zombie'. Living is about those instances — the fancy lunches that Williams treats himself to, the nights out drinking with new pals (Tom Burke, The Wonder) he never would've contemplated before, the flouting of his lifelong monotonous routine, and the efforts to go above and beyond that he's now willing to take — rather than about an ailing man's family and acquaintances facing loss. Indeed, given that Williams doesn't want to interrupt his son (Barney Fishwick, Call the Midwife) and daughter-in-law (Patsy Ferran, Mothering Sunday) with his condition, Living is firmly invested in someone navigating their swansong on their own terms. At the heart of this ruminative film, and Williams' post-diagnosis behaviour, sits one of the most fundamental existential questions there is. Knowing that death is looming so soon and so swiftly, what can possibly provide comfort? That's a query we all face daily, most of us just on a longer timeline — context that makes Williams' way of coping both resonant and highly relatable. Life is filling each moment with anything but reminders that our here and now is fleeting, albeit not in such a conscious and concerted manner. Living's boxed-in imagery, constrained within Academy-ratio frames and gifted a handsome, period-appropriate but almost-wistful sheen by Hermanus' Moffie and Beauty cinematographer Jamie Ramsay (also the director of photography on See How They Run), helps visually express a crucial feeling: of being anchored within a set amount of space and discovering how to make the most of it. When Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Yojimbo and Ran great Kurosawa stepped through this terrain, he did so with one of his frequent players: Takashi Shimura. There's a particular sense of potency in telling this tale with a familiar figure, as Nighy also is, hammering home how truly universal this plight is no matter the specifics. Nighy's performance toys with what viewers have come to know and expect from him, however. He's in reserved rather than twinkling and instantly charming mode — still, muted and melancholy, too — a facade for his character that says oh-so-much about the dedicated life that Williams has weathered, the solace he's found in it, his handling of his current situation and also the film's post-World War II setting. Conveying the difference between being and relishing so effortlessly and also so heartbreakingly, Nighy is a marvel, and one that the movie around him lives for.
For movie and theatre buffs alike, there is nothing better than walking into a dark room full of strangers chatting amongst themselves in anticipation of what they are about to see, and a story that moves you, amuses you and shakes you to your core. In 2023 Sydney Theatre Company is offering that and so much more — but should you have any confusion about which production is the best one for you, we've made recommendations based on movies you would've seen. It's time to break down that fourth wall and come face to face with some of Australia's greatest performers. With Sydney Harbour as a backdrop, the Wharf Theatres and Roslyn Packer Theatre are your one-stop shop for a fun night out. Hubris & Humiliation by Lewis Treston | Muriel's Wedding (1994) Does a camp, Australian rom-com make you want to say, 'you're terrible Muriel'? Then Hubris & Humiliation by Lewis Treston is the play for you. Like Muriel's Wedding, this play follows a naive wallflower and a riotous entourage of friends and family members as they embark on a journey to find "their plus one" while unexpectedly finding their true selves in the process. This production also features a few of the hallmarks of Muriel's Wedding: musical numbers, bogans, excellent new best friends and the occasional shirtless man. It's also destined to be a classic piece of Australian pop-culture. Hubris & Humiliation imitates the style of Jane Austen with playwright Lewis Treston admitting "I indulged in fanciful daydreams in which Jane Austen and I were like-minded besties – wryly amused by the romantic travails of others but secretly yearning for love ourselves". This satire explores Sydney's gay scene, family, and commitment and, in true Aussie style, provides humour when you least expect it. Kick off Sydney WorldPride by watching a story about queer love and finding yourself along the way; Hubris & Humiliation is playing now at Wharf 1 Theatre. Book your tickets now. Edward Albee's The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? | Triangle of Sadness (2023) If the movie that received an 8-minute standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival and a recent Best Picture Oscar nomination was your choice for top film, consider this your reminder to buy your ticket for The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? A satirical black comedy that gives us a peek into the lives of those that 'have it all' only to see it fall apart. While the stories are different, Ruben Östlund's film Triangle of Sadness and The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? explore what happens to powerful people when they are stripped of their dignity. The Tony Award-winning play by theatre legend Edward Albee is absurdist, wickedly funny and guaranteed to have you leaving the theatre questioning your morality and your level of tolerance for those you love. Expect the unexpected in this tragic yet comical satire starring Claudia Karvan and Nathan Page and absolutely do not read anything about it before you go see it. The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? is on stage from Thursday, March 2 at Roslyn Packer Theatre and you can book tickets now. August Wilson's Fences | If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) Love, the strength of family and overcoming obstacles made 2018's If Beale Street Could Talk one of the most talked about films of the year. Its raw insight into the lives of African Americans in the 1970s was the perfect example of society tearing a family life apart — and featured some incredible performances. A voyage of emotional performances is what you'll get with Fences, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play written by lauded American playwright August Wilson that explores the obstacles that we place on ourselves. You'll meet Troy, a man who had his dreams crushed when he lost his chance to play Major League Baseball and his committed wife Rose, who supports him even at the hardest of times. This is the Australian premiere of a show that's delighted audiences overseas, so is a must-see for any theatre lover. Fences is on stage from Saturday, March 25 at Wharf 1 Theatre and you can book your tickets now. Julia by Joanna Murray-Smith | The Iron Lady (2011) For a lot of people, Meryl Streep gave the stand out performance of the year in 2011's The Iron Lady. The biographical drama tells the story of Margaret Thatcher, from her humble beginnings to being the first woman to take the office of prime minister in Great Britain, thereby being thrust onto the world stage. Decades later, Australia welcomed its first female prime minister Julia Gillard. Then in 2012, she made a speech that proved that times might have changed but misogyny in politics had not. Though being on opposite sides of politics, they shared the similarity of being judged by gender, not their work. Julia by Joanna Murray-Smith provides an insight into the person behind the public mask. This intimate and compelling play explores the career that compelled Gillard to share the 'misogyny speech' with the world and will be fronted by the excellent Justine Clarke in the title role. To experience it for yourself, Julia is on stage from Thursday, March 30 at Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre. You can book here. Do Not Go Gentle by Patricia Cornelius | Interstellar (2014) If you loved the high stakes, sci-fi film Interstellar, then Do Not Go Gentle is a play you need to see. Interstellar sees an all-star cast saving the world in their search to find a safer home, but the heart of the story is in the depiction of human frailty and a race against the clock. Do Not Go Gentle has one other message: to live life to the fullest. Patricia Cornelius introduces us to seven characters, one of whom starts to tell a story of Robert Scott's historic but failed attempt to reach the South Pole. The characters are taken on a journey that forces them to face their fears and failings and show resilience in the face of adversity. Inspired by the Dylan Thomas poem of the same name, this play encourages its cast and audience to "Rage Rage against the dying of the light". Do Not Go Gentle is on stage from Tuesday, May 23 at Roslyn Packer Theatre and you can book tickets now. For more information on Sydney Theatre Company, their theatres and their 2023 productions, visit the website.
When you see the names Bombshell Betty, Fleetwood Smack, Sexy Slaydue, OMG WTF and Puss 'n Glutes, what comes to mind? If you're thinking of dangerous chicks on skates, then you'd be on the money. Two US teams, New York Gotham and LA Derby Dolls, are heading to Australia for Roller Derby Xtreme (so extreme they don't need an extra 'e') and will be joined by some of our own local roller derby gals. If the only time you've heard of roller derby is from Whip It, picture that, but a little bit more full on. Usually the Aussie teams use a flat track, but this one will be a banked 35 degree dangle track made just for the event (and which tours with them). Pick a team (maybe based on the best costumes) and join in with the cheering and shouting of the true fanatics. There will be giant US sport-style screens to watch instant replays and the US's number-one roller derby commentator, Dump Truck. For those of you who have no idea what the rules are or what exactly is going on, there will be a touch-pad scoring system, designed to simplify the rules for the spectators. With lines like "once you have her, you have to control her and keep her there" coming from Gotham's blocker Fisti Cuffs, you know it'll be far from boring.
Cavalier started as a hole-in-the-wall espresso bar. Now, it's a greenery-filled, 40-seat cafe pairing laid-back vibes with fine-dining flavours that's quickly become a go-to for lower north shore locals and workers alike. Cavalier 2.0 — as the latter has been dubbed — comes four years after husband and wife duo Sara and Harry Kolotas first opened the smaller Cavalier in St Leonards around the corner. Whether or not you're one of the cafe's many regulars, you'll feel like you are when you head in. "My staff and I love to have a chat and to have personal relationships with our customers." says Sara. "That's what people remember the most about a visit to Cavalier." [caption id="attachment_742950" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Trent van der Jagt[/caption] Designed by Sydney's Decor Project, the fit-out evokes a 'modern Australian' theme — as does the food, to an extent — with earthy tones, sunburnt red walls, Tasmanian oak furniture, red gum-coloured benches and a stone counter top. The bigger location has allowed for a bigger kitchen, too, from which Harry is whipping up cafe classics like toasties and salads, as well as some more creative dishes. He's using skills from his fine-dining background and fresh produce to elevate the menu beyond standard cafe fare. The chicken in the salad ($19) is house-brined and sous-vide, comes atop a bed of fresh sprouts (sourced daily), sweet potatoes and house-roasted nuts, and is tossed in Harry's secret french dressing. Another signature dish is the thickly sliced, macadamia-encrusted french toast ($21), which is doused in caramel sauce and topped with whipped mascarpone. As seasonality implies, the menu changes regularly. Recent specials have included sticky glazed short rib ($39) with truffle cauliflower cream; pork neck toasties ($25) topped with a poached egg and bechamel sauce; and a mushroom carbonara ($26) made with orecchiette and XO sauce. This can all be paired with a range of coffees — cold brew, white, batch and even tasting flights — chai and tea. [caption id="attachment_742956" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Trent van der Jagt[/caption] While Cavalier 2.0 is a daytime cafe first and foremost, it's also hosting a series of invite-only dinners. "We opened Cavalier 2.0 not only to accommodate more people, but also to start offering special dinners," says Sara. Those dinners will be held every Friday and Saturday from October 18 through December 20 — the nine-course feast set to cost around $95 a head — and the only way to get an invite is to head into Cavalier 2.0 beforehand and have a chat. "The reason for this isn't for exclusivity," explains Sara. "It's really just reinforcing us wanting to have a personal relationship with all of our customers — it's like you're coming to dinner at my house." For fans of Cavalier 1.0, the neighbouring cafe will continue to serve up its much loved jaffles and takeaway Sample coffees every Sunday and Monday. Cavalier 2.0 is located at 545 Pacific Highway, St Leonards. Opening hours are Monday through Friday from 7am–2.30pm and Saturday from 7am–2pm, with invite-onlydinners happening every Friday and Saturday from October 18 through December 20. Cavalier 1.0 is located at 34 Oxley Street. Images: Trent van der Jagt
Every summer since 1977, Sydney Festival transforms the city into a celebration of arts and culture for one month, bringing new creative experiences to our theatres, parks, historical buildings and streets. And in 2020, Sydney Festival returns from January 8–26 with a program of world premieres and more than 70 new and diverse works created by established and emerging artists from all over the globe. Highlights from this year's program include Joan Didion's The White Album — the seminal essay will be brought to life on stage at Roslyn Packer Theatre from January 8–12, investigating the American counterculture of the 1960s. There's also a reboot of a 70s cabaret that changed Australian theatre, Betty Blokk-Buster Reimagined, which is considered a must-see for fans of drag and cabaret (January 7–26). If comedy's your thing, First Nations theatre companies Ilbijerri and Te Rēhia have joined forces to put on a riotous production, BLACK TIES, at Sydney Town Hall from January 10–18. The play shows what can happen when families from either side of the ditch come face to face at a wedding reception — with hilarious results. Seekers of the avant-garde will want to check out Tennessee's Holly Herndon, who has received universal plaudits over the last decade for her forward-thinking, boundary-pushing take on sound creation. The musician uses code to create unique, custom-made digital instruments, and she'll be in the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent (January 16) off the back of her latest full-length, Proto. On the operatic dance front, Carriageworks has you covered with Nino Laisné and François Chaignaud presenting Romances Inciertos, Un Autre Orlando, a journey through the history of Spain featuring Baroque music, flamenco and cabaret (January 21–26). And award-winning Australian choreographer Stephanie Lake will create a symmetrically satisfying work featuring 50 bodies moving as one in Colossus (January 16–19). As always, one of the big crowd-pleasers at Sydney Festival will be a free art installation at Darling Harbour. Dodecalis Luminarium will be a large-scale, neon-lit maze by the UK's Architects of Air (whose works are also appearing at Mona Foma next year). Though the installation will be free to enter every day of the festival (January 8–26), you can also purchase tickets to skip the inevitably long queue. Of course, this barely scratches the surface of what's on offer — including hip-hop dance acts from western Sydney, a food-focused storytelling feast at Carriageworks and a 30-year revival of Aboriginal stage musical Bran Nue Dae at Riverside Theatre — so be ready to clear your schedule for January and start planning your tickets in advance as many of these events will sell out before the new year. Images: Alan Parkinson, Mark Pokorny, Timothee Lejolivet, Courtney Stewart, Garth Oriander & Mark Gambino.
Tired of table manners? Fed up with forks? You're going to love Drink N Dine's newest project. They're inviting diners to put on a bib, get their hands dirty and tuck into a seafood experience, American crab joint style. Opening on November 1 above The Norfolk, Cleveland Street, the House of Crabs will offer a boil menu. In other words, you choose your seafood (crab, prawn or clam) and your preferred sauce (Cajun, oriental, Mexican or lemon pepper). Both are cooked and served in a bag. You and your friends gather around a communal table and use your fingers to extract whatever fleshy goodness you can. If boiled isn't your style, then you can opt for the snack menu. Smoked ocki tacos, crabs on acid, buffalo cucumber, lobster fries, creole corn and lobster rolls are all on the list. More substantial non-boiled meals include blackened snapper, fried chicken, steak and salsa creola. As far as beverages go, New Orleans is the theme, with hurricanes, peach cobblers and blackberry mint juleps on offer, as well as a handpicked selection of beers and wines. You'll be able to get your finger licking fix Tuesday through to Saturday, from 6pm until late, and Friday between midday and 3pm. Both bookings and walk-ins will be made welcome. The House of Crabs opens on November 1 at Level 1, 305 Cleveland Street, Redfern (above The Norfolk).
Charles Dickens was more familiar with humanity's taste for idle gossip and scandal than most. Nevertheless, he may have been surprised to discover the amount of his private life that's been publicly aired in the 21st century — a carefully concealed extramarital affair, for instance. This new play by Sport for Jove touches on another little-known aspect of Dickens' days — his founding of a home for 'fallen' women — and its residents. In the 1840s a handful of women with pasts they're told they'd rather forget, spend their remaining weeks in London practicing the Victorian arts of being 'ladylike' — needlepoint, cooking and cleaning. They are bound for Australia, destined, so they are told, for a fresh start. But as the departure date nears, they begin to wonder if the opportunity is quite what it seems. Fallen's London may be devoid of Dickens' iconic characters, but it also foregoes the simple morality of many of his tales. Instead, it offers a look at the way 19th century society brought shame on women who were driven to, or chose to take unconventional paths. Image: Sarah Walker.
It's easy to get swept up in generic Christmas hubbub. Department stores are playing 'Jingle Bells', stockings need to be stuffed, and sooner or later you find yourself buying a relative socks. No one needs anymore socks. Just stop. Now's your chance to break that pattern and become one of those oh-so-cool gift givers. The ones who remember the hints dropped over the past few months and give a gift so great it elicits forceful high-fives all through the festive season. Give a friend a box set of Breaking Bad. After five seasons, an impressive array of industry accolades, and an unquantifiable number of gasps from its captive global audience, it's safe to say that everyone loves Breaking Bad. The hysteria eventually got so bad that people were forced to develop anti-spoiler apps during its final season; it's now acceptable to work from a blue-meth themed cookbook for your next dinner party. Now, thanks to our friends at Universal and Sony, you can re-gift a friend all that magic for the super appealing price of free. We have 10 collector's edition DVD or Blu-Ray box sets of the entire Breaking Bad collection to give away. Who needs to wait for the Australian release of Netflix? Start your session of post-finale binge-watching right now. To be in the running, subscribe to the Concrete Playground newsletter (if you haven't already), then email us with your name and address. Sydney: win.sydney@concreteplayground.com.au Melbourne: win.melbourne@concreteplayground.com.au Brisbane: win.brisbane@concreteplayground.com.au
When the weather is frosty in Sydney, the city's annual film festival entices movie buffs indoors. When it's sunny and summery, Westpac Openair Cinema wants you to see a flick under the stars. Catching a film at one of Sydney's favourite outdoor cinema spots is a warm-weather tradition, combining new and recent big-screen flicks with spectacular panoramic views of the city, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge — and it'll be back for yet another stint of harbourside cinema from January 2023. The dates to pop into your diary immediately: Sunday, January 8—Tuesday, February 21, with Openair's next run spanning 40 nights. Checking out a silver-screen highlight with a stunning backdrop will be on the agenda at Mrs Macquaries Point as usual; however, exactly what you'll be seeing hasn't yet been unveiled. Every movie that graces the cinema's big screen has to hold its own against the gorgeous sights glittering away behind it, of course, but Openair usually has the program to match. In an email to subscribers, the team behind the beloved event did drop a few names of movies that've caught their attention, and that "would be pretty awesome experiences on Sydney Harbour", though. On that list: Elvis, Top Gun: Maverick, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Fire of Love, Ticket to Paradise and Moonage Daydream — plus the upcoming Don't Worry Darling, Bros and this year's Palme d'Or-winner Triangle of Sadness. The event's array of dining experiences will also be broader this year — but again, exactly what that entails (and if Kitchen by Mike will be behind the cinema's meals, as it was in 2022) hasn't been announced. As happens every year, tickets are likely to go quickly when they go on sale. Across the summer of 2018–19, more than 40,000 tickets sold within the first two days of pre-sale — so put it in your diary ASAP. Westpac Openair 2023 runs from Sunday, January 8—Tuesday, February 21. Tickets will go on sale on Monday, December 12 — and we'll update you with further details about the lineup when it is revealed. Top images: Fiora Sacco.
Western Sydney's getting a grand $100 million performing arts centre — and it's set to be funded by the profits from Rooty Hill RSL's pokies. Slated to be the largest of its kind in the area, the Western Sydney Performing Arts Centre (WSPAC) has commenced construction across the road from the RSL, which will use part of the huge revenue pulled in from its gaming room floor to cover the entire cost of the theatre project. Which is...conflicting, to say the least. And Rooty Hill RSL chief executive Richard Errington has some lofty plans for the venue, which will feature a state-of-the-art 2000-seat proscenium arch theatre and a pedestrian air bridge linking the existing club. "Our objective was to provide something equal to the Sydney Opera House or the Lyric Theatre or the Capitol Theatre, so we can attract the same kind of shows they do," he told The Sydney Morning Herald. "Anything the major theatres can provide, we can now also accommodate in this amenity." Sounds ambitious, right? But Rooty Hill RSL should have no trouble footing the bill for this one, last year reporting an uncomfortable annual revenue of $89.1 million, two-thirds of which came from pokies profits. The club boasts 726 gaming machines, which is the largest collection of any of its NSW counterparts. This isn't the first time questionable cash has been used to fund arts projects — remember when the Biennale came under scrutiny for its relationship with Transfield? — and the centre will undeniably be a significant addition to Sydney's arts scene. We just can't help but feel icky about it. It's expected to open its doors late 2019, with plans for a five-star hotel next door also on the agenda. Via The Sydney Morning Herald.
Come summertime, the celebratory spirit is taking over the entire state, thanks to massive events like ALWAYS LIVE. For the third year running, this festival celebrates the diversity of music in Victoria, with a mix of international headliners and local musicians taking to stages statewide from Friday, November 22, to Sunday, December 8. Some of the unmissable (and exclusive) events in ALWAYS LIVE are taking place on the final weekend. One of those is Yerambooee, a unique celebration of First Nations culture and community. This free event on Saturday, December 7 at 7pm, is hosted by elders and performers from Wurundjeri, Woi-Wurrung and Yolgnu peoples. The stage will be a nine-metre sand circle laid down in Fed Square — representative of a meeting ground filled with river sand — for a gathering unlike anything else on the festival program. Beginning with a welcome from Aunty Joy Murphy, performers will take to the stage with song, dance and music for a celebration that encourages the audience to join in — with music inspired by Djarimirri (Child of the Rainbow) — the final work of the late Yolgnu musician Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. Yeramboee will take place in Federation Square on Saturday, December 7. For more information, visit the Always Live website.
Jiggle your way into 2017 at LazyBones Lounge in Marrickville, where live reggae band King Tide will be keeping up the positive vibes until after midnight. If you haven't yet experienced the ARIA-nominated Tide, expect a stream of soul-infused rock steady and reggae, influenced by Toots and the Maytals, Delroy Wilson, Dennis Brown, Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh. The band's self-described mission is "making people dance, have a really good time and go home with some lovin' on their minds". They've played loads of festivals over the past few years, from Subsonic and The Great Escape to Womadelaide and Peats Ridge. Supporting King Tide on either of their show will be Lazybones Lounge's resident DJ DJ Nothing, who'll be on the decks from 9–10pm and then from midnight till 3am. Meanwhile, on the venue's first level, you'll find DJs Ted Vassell and The Sunday Dub Club Crew, from 9pm till 3am. Image: King Tide.
If you like celebrating October German-style, a trip to Europe at the right time of year is likely on your must-do list. For those who can't take a boozy overseas holiday this year, Oktoberfest in the Gardens has you covered. There'll be steins. There'll be schnitties. There'll be lederhosen-wearing revellers — and if you're keen to dress the part as well, that's up to you. The Australian Oktoberfest event has been in the Bavarian-themed game for 14 years now, with its 2024 run in seven cities solely taking place in October. Clear a Saturday, whether you live in Perth or Adelaide, where the fest will kick off on Saturday, October 5; on the Gold Coast or in Melbourne, where it's time to say "prost!" on Saturday, October 12; Brisbane or Newcastle, which'll be downing brews on Saturday, October 19; or Sydney, where the tour wraps up on Saturday, October 26. This series of German shindigs isn't small, with 65,000 people expected to attend across the full slate of events this year. At each, the kind of beer- and bratwurst-fuelled shenanigans that Germany has become so famous for at this time of year are on offer. So, if you have a hankering for doppelbock and dancing to polka, it really is the next best thing to heading to Europe. Oktoberfest in the Gardens boasts a crucial attraction, too: as well as serving a variety of pilsners, ciders, wine and non-alcoholic beverages, it constructs huge beer halls to house the boozy merriment. When you're not raising a stein — or several — at the day-long event, you can tuck into pretzels and other traditional snacks at food stalls, or check out the hefty array of entertainment. Live music, roving performers, a silent disco, rides and a sideshow alley are all on the agenda. "We say it every year, but this year's Oktoberfest celebrations will be bigger than ever before. It's amazing how this event has continued to grow across the country," said Ross Drennan, co-founder of Nokturnl Events, which runs Oktoberfest in the Gardens. "Last year, we added additional cities to the tour and introduced even more fun activations. The response was overwhelming, with record-breaking sales." Oktoberfest in the Gardens 2024 Dates and Venues: Saturday, October 5 — Langley Park, Perth Saturday, October 5 — Pinky Flat, Adelaide Saturday, October 12 — Broadwater Parklands, Gold Coast Saturday, October 12 — Catani Gardens, St Kilda, Melbourne Saturday, October 19 — Brisbane Showgrounds, Brisbane Saturday, October 19 — The Station, Newcastle Saturday, October 26 — The Domain, Sydney Oktoberfest in the Gardens tours Australia in October 2024 — head to the event's website for further details, plus tickets from Wednesday, July 31.
Unlike the movie, we'll keep this short and to the point. A Million Ways To Die In The West is not a good film. Not unless, that is, you're a 15-year-old boy, in which case, it's the best goddam movie you've ever goddam seen! Consider the ingredients. This is 116 minutes of hot girls talking about sex and their 'great tits', fart sound effects aplenty, semen finding its way onto faces, characters swearing like it's going out of style and Neil Patrick Harris's character emptying his gastro-afflicted bowels into a stranger's hat for a full 45 seconds, before then farting some more and repeating the deed into another man's hat. Soiler Alert: he then kicks it over so that you get to see the liquid faeces in all its comedic glory. The man behind it all is Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, whose voice is the median strip between Brian and Peter Griffin, and whose last (and first) film Ted was a surprise hit. Here, he's upped his involvement. A lot. MacFarlane wrote, directed, produced and starred in A Million Ways To Die in the West, and to say he's overreaching is beyond generous. This is pure self-indulgence, particularly given the extraordinary amount of screen time he occupies despite having a top-shelf cast around him (Liam Neeson, Charlize Theron, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, Amanda Seyfried and, of course, Doogie). The most frustrating thing is that scattered throughout the film are pockets of oustanding comedy. Early on, MacFarlane and Ribisi 'assume the position' and pretend to fight during a bar brawl so as to discourage anyone else from coming their way in what is a terrific moment, and a recurring gag about nobody smiling in the newly invented 'photo' experience is as amusing as it is astute. The problem is, these moments are so scarce than can be counted on one hand. Like, a leprous hand...with two fingers, and maybe a thumb stub. There's no denying MacFarlane's talents, but here they were stretched beyond their means. The supporting cast does its best to do exactly that, but can do only so much with so little screen time and a script that requires more cursing than acting. Again, this is not a good film. Save your money — even if you're a 15-year-old boy. https://youtube.com/watch?v=2sOa-2EhbTU
What boasts a hefty lineup of First Nations talent, is all about celebrating Blak excellence in music and culture, and will take over Hanging Rock for one spring Sunday? Australia's newest music festival. What features a jam-packed lineup hand-picked by Briggs (with a thank you to Paul Kelly), and includes Baker Boy, Jessica Mauboy, Thelma Plum, Christine Anu and more on the bill? That same must-attend event, aka First & Forever. The day-long, picnic-style fest will make its debut on Sunday, November 27 in the Macedon Ranges spot, and sport a clear focus: showcasing and highlighting First Nations artists and performers. Indeed, the 20-plus acts announced so far spans an impressive range of names, featuring everyone from Budjerah, King Stingray and Sycco through to Alice Skye, Busby Marou, Electric Fields, Ziggy Ramo and Barkaa. [caption id="attachment_872292" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Georgia Wallace[/caption] The specific Hanging Rock venue has been named The Gathering Place for the event, acknowledging the people of the Dja Wurrung, Taungurung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung who have long met there, and also the power of Country. First & Forever is also paying tribute to the late Archie Roach by dubbing its stage the 'Uncle Archie Stage'. If this seems like the kind of festival that Australia should've always had, that's because it is — and it came about via a chance meeting between Briggs and late Mushroom founder Michael Gudinski AM. "For years I'd had an idea for a First Nations-led contemporary music festival, something cool and boutique that was really about the music and culture," said Briggs. "When Gudinski called me about a similar idea he'd had, we found this really collaborative working relationship. We both had a passionate approach to Melbourne, Victorian music, and amplifying Blakfellas' stories. MG got the ball rolling. After he passed, the ball was in my court. I had to take it home." Adds Kelly: "My last conversation with Michael just over a week before he died was backstage at Archie [Roach's] concert. [MG] was bubbling with ideas for a new project, a big concert with headlining First Nations artists... he urged me to get involved. I said no to Michael many times over the years and I said yes lots. I'm glad I said yes this last time." [caption id="attachment_862591" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Morgan Sette[/caption] FIRST & FOREVER 2022 LINEUP: Baker Boy Budjerah Jessica Mauboy King Stingray Sycco Thelma Plum Alice Skye Busby Marou Christine Anu Dan Sultan Electric Fields Emma Donovan Tasman Keith Ziggy Ramo Barkaa Birdz Dameeeela Jess Hitchcock Jk-47 Kardajala Kirridarra Kobie Dee and more First & Forever takes place on Sunday, November 27 at The Gathering Place, Hanging Rock, in Victoria's Macedon Ranges. Ticket pre-sales start at 11am AEDT on Tuesday, October 11, with general sales from 11am AEDT on Friday, October 14. For more information, head to the festival website.
Earlier in 2020, when events worldwide started cancelling, postponing and rescheduling due to COVID-19, the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)'s Dark Mofo was sadly one of many that had to pull the plug. It's also just one of the annual festivals that the venue holds but, thankfully, MONA's summer event will be forging ahead — and, if the first sneak peek at its program is anything to go by, Mona Foma's 2021 festival is returning in a big way. Come January, arts and music fans will be able to soak in the fest's eclectic sights and sounds across two weekends — and in two locations. Although Mona Foma was originally held in Hobart, where MONA is located, the event made the move to Launceston in 2019. In 2021, however, it'll split its program between both Tasmanian cities. Launceston will be up first, from January 15–17, with Hobart getting the nod the next week from January 22–24. After revealing back in September that Mona Foma would definitely return next year, MONA has now announced two parts of its 2021 lineup — one per city — which is great news for everyone who loves arts, culture, festivals, lights, lasers, gorges and warehouses. [caption id="attachment_790928" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Aqua Luma, Robin Fox. Photo Credit: Nick Roux. Image courtesy of the artist and and Mona (Museum of Old and New Art), Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.[/caption] First up, in Launceston, the city's Cataract Gorge will host the latest work by audio-visual artist Robin Fox. Yes, that means the site's landscape will be taken over by an immersive installation, called Aqua Luma — which'll be making its world premiere, will run on a 20-minute cycle from 9.30am–11.30pm, and will be free to attend. Aqua Luma will feature multiple components, too, all adding to one impressive experience. First, it'll include 12 metre-high water jets that'll erupt in time with subharmonic frequencies. Also, there'll be lasers tracing geometrical patterns in the watery mist. Basically, you'll feel like you're standing beneath a canopy of light and sound — and there'll be an electronic composition sent straight to your smartphone as well. [caption id="attachment_790934" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] K&D Warehouse, Hobart, Tasmania. Photo Credit: Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Image courtesy of the artist and Mona (Museum of Old and New Art), Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.[/caption] Over in Hobart, Mona Foma is turning the site of former hardware store K&D Warehouse into a gallery — with exhibition No Place Like Home filling the entire place with video installations, art and sculptures all selected by Mona curator Emma Pike. You'll be able to wander through one of the city's best-known buildings, which dates back 118 years, and see works by artists such as Tony Albert, Zanny Begg, Andy Hutson, Rachel Maclean, Nell, Ryan Presley and Phebe Schmidt. Entry will cost $10 per person. Revealing Aqua Luma and No Place Like Home, Mona Foma curator Brian Ritchie said that the festival was excited about hosting "installations in two of the state's most dramatically different but equally beloved locations". He continued: "Robin Fox has been involved in every festival program since Mona Foma's inception, so it's appropriate that he has created a new work to address a year like no other. While at K&D Warehouse, the art will take you over the rainbow after the storm that was the year 2020." If you're wondering what else the event has in store, Mona Foma's full program will be released on Monday, December 7, with tickets going on sale at 8am the next day. Of course, before you go making big plans for a weekend getaway down south, you'll want to keep an eye on Tasmania's current border restrictions — which, at the time of writing, requires 14 days in quarantine for non-Tasmanian residents entering from a location considered medium-risk, such as Victoria and South Australia. Restrictions on Victorians are due to ease on Friday, November 27, however. Mona Foma will take place from January 15–17, 2021 in Launceston, and from January 22–24, 2021 in Hobart. We'll update you when the full program is announced on Monday, December 7 — but head to the festival website in the interim for further details. Top image: Cataract Gorge, Launceston, Tasmania. Photo Credit: Rob Burnett. Image courtesy of the artist and Visit Northern Tasmania.
If you missed out on the huge Marrickville warehouse plant sale, be sure to clear Saturday, March 3 immediately. Because there's another one on its way. The Jungle Collective is a Melbourne nursery that stocks all kinds of weird and wonderful species. After holding its first wildly successful Sydney market earlier this month, it's gathering the leftover plants, tracking down new ones and throwing a one-day indoor plant party. While we don't know what plants will be available this time, previous sales have had everything from hanging pot plants to palms for the garden to a giant Bird of Paradise. Have a reputation for killing your cacti? Overwatering your ferns? Don't worry — there'll be horticulturalists on site on the night to give you advice and chat through any questions you might have. This one will be held in a different location, which hasn't been announced yet. Due to expected demand, the sale will be held in four sessions over the day (8–10am, 10am–12pm, 12–2pm and 2–4pm), and attendees will need to register for free tickets . Best get in quick for an early session though — the last Sydney market was incredibly popular.
Starting this May, Sorry Thanks I Love You will provide free weekly yoga classes at its Westfield Sydney location, guided by certified instructor Jen Yan. The classes are open to yogis of all skill levels, as part of the store's dedication to creating community and promoting wellness. Situated in the CBD, Sorry Thanks I Love You is a concept store that fuses fashion, community, design and art together in a stylish space with a cafe. "We welcome anyone and everyone to step into our world of retail rebellion and step out refreshed," says Sorry Thanks I Love You's Jasmin Ozolins. "We don't do things by halves, and no matter their level, yogis can expect our classes to be of the same calibre as the world-class designers with whom we work." The classes will be held every Wednesday at 6.15pm from Wednesday, May 8. Mats and water will be provided, along with an herbal tea after class. While classes are free, registration at the website is essential.
UPDATE, December 7, 2020: Game Night is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Amazon Video. Game Night is a comedy of such extreme highs and lows, if you plotted it on a graph it would look like the EKG of a heart attack victim. It's a film with some outstanding moments, as well as some truly awful ones. It's got terrific characters alongside characters so thin and underdeveloped they barely feel like characters at all. It takes a familiar setup, only to dispense with it far sooner than you'd expect. It is, in short, an epic mixed bag, one that some will regard as a disappointing film with redeeming qualities, and others as a great farce let down by its weaker moments. Neither perspective is strictly unfair, but the latter perhaps feels closer to the mark – especially since the film never pretends to be anything more than what it is. Game Night is directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the same duo responsible for both the awful Vacation reboot and the surprisingly funny Horrible Bosses series. It stars Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams as Max and Annie, two competitive trivia nerds who fall in love via their mutual love of games and who, once married, host regular game nights for their friends (Lamorne Morris, Billy Magnussen and Kylie Bunbury). Things go awry, however, when Max's older, more handsome and definitely more successful brother Brooks (Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler) returns home and raises the stakes by hosting a kidnap game in the vein of a murder-mystery night. The twist? Brooks gets kidnapped for real right in front of them and the players have absolutely no idea. The scenes that follow centre almost exclusively on that easy source of dramatic irony, with the characters bumbling around absent any idea of how much danger they're in. But, as we mentioned above, Game Night shows its cards on that front before things get too tired, and instead invents newer, fresher story threads to carry things forward. Performance wise it's all very familiar territory for Bateman, playing the outwardly-polite, inwardly-screaming suburbanite he's inhabited ever since Arrested Development. McAdams is similarly likeable if also largely unchallenged, saving her best stuff for the film's few (relatively) serious moments. We also get some fun cameos from the likes of Danny Huston, Michael C. Hall and Sharon Horgan – although the scene-stealer award goes to Jesse Plemons, whose creepy neighbour character lands a near-perfect laugh-per-line scorecard. At its best, Game Night is laugh out loud funny, subverting some classic comedy tropes and delivering scores of killer one-liners. On the flip-side, its secondary characters are flat and underwritten (Magnussen's in particular), throwing down the kinds of punchlines you can see coming a mile off. Even so, it's probably one of the better Hollywood black comedies we've seen in the last few years, and ultimately entertains enough to justify the price of admission. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNtLIcyjsnI
As NSW prepares to wind back some restrictions later this week, the state has today, Tuesday, May 12, announced that zero new cases were recorded overnight — the first time it has done so since the pandemic was declared. Since COVID-19 was first reported in Australia at the end of January, 6948 cases have been recorded across the country (as at 9pm on Monday, May 11), bringing with it 97 deaths and a drastic change to life as we know it. As the coronavirus has spread, travel has been banned and restrictions on everyday movement have been implemented, good news has been few and far between of late, which makes the past weeks' significant drop in reported cases across NSW — and Australia — a welcome development indeed. At a press conference this morning, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced that zero new cases had been reported overnight "for the first time since we took records", and 6048 people had been tested in the past 24 hours. Huzzah. While the Premier said it's a positive outcome, she also said it was important to maintain a "high level of testing as the restrictions are eased". [caption id="attachment_770066" align="alignnone" width="1920"] NSW Health[/caption] "We want to see the testing numbers get closer to the target of 8000," the Premier said. "And we're asking everyone to come forward especially as the winter months are approaching and people will be developing flu-like symptoms — please assume you have the coronavirus, don't assume it's just a cold or just the flu." From this Friday, May 15, Sydneysiders can have five visitors in their home; outdoor gatherings of ten people are allowed; and cafes, restaurants and outdoor pools and gym equipment can reopen with some restrictions. You can read more about the relaxed restrictions set to come in place over here. As these relaxed rules come in place, though, Sydneysiders are encouraged to practice social distancing measures and good hygiene, and, as the Premier said, get tested. To show the prevalence of COVID-19 cases in your area — or areas you plan to travel to for exercise or to see friends — the NSW Government has released an interactive heat map that shows confirmed cases and number of tests administered by postcode. To find out more about the status of COVID-19 in NSW, head to the NSW Government website. Top image: Julia Sansone
Fervent fans of The Roots, listen up! Don't worry if you don't have the cash for Falls or you can't make Southbound Festival — they’ve just announced they'll be playing two sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne with Australian MC Urthboy as a special guest. So that's two more chances to see The Roots jam out their first Australian gig since 2007. You will no longer have to resort to watching episodes of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to get your fill of Questlove's magic. Expect to hear a lot from their most recent album, Undun (2011), whose reverse narrative arc followed the short life of Redford Stephens and featured play-it-compulsively songs like 'Kool On', 'Make My' and 'The OtherSide'. Even if you don't know much about The Roots, if you’re remotely fond of hip hop or neo-soul then this is a rare opportunity to see one of the most influential, visionary, long-loved groups to ever emerge from Philly (in 1987 and still kicking!) up close and personal. Tickets go on sale soon. Tour dates: Sydney: Friday, December 27 – Hordern Pavilion (tickets on sale Tuesay, 8 October, at 2pm) Melbourne: Saturday, December 28 – Festival Hall (tickets on sale Thursday, 10 October, 9am)
From the CBD to the west, Sydney Festival will take over the city yet again this January, with over 130 art, music, theatre, comedy and cultural events happening across three weeks, between Wednesday, January 6 and Tuesday, January 26. Get your calendar ready, it's going to be a busy 21 days. Things will look a little different from previous years, with all 2021 events adhering to COVID-19 safety guidelines, including capacity limits and social-distancing regulations. The festival, however, is a big step for the city's culture and nightlife, marking a slow return to normality. 2021 will be the festival's last year under the helm of Artistic Director Wesley Enoch, with Olivia Ansell taking over in 2022. Due to border closures, Enoch has had to craft an Australian-only program, calling on the best established and up-and-coming talent the country has to offer. [caption id="attachment_789697" align="alignnone" width="1920"] 'The Rise and Fall of Saint George' by Peter Rubie[/caption] Highlights of the newly announced program include a pop-up stage at Barangaroo; the telling of Evonne Goolagong's life story, which will see Sydney Town Hall transformed into a tennis court; an installation of large floating bees around Vaucluse House called Hive Mind; an homage to musical legend George Michael starring Paul Mac; and the return of the festival's Blak Out program, promoting and uplifting First Nations voices and storytelling throughout the festival. The Barangaroo pop-up titled The Headland, will see a 32-metre-wide stage, larger than both the Capitol and Sydney Lyric, constructed in front of Sydney Harbour. The stage will operate over 16 nights, playing host to performers and musicians such as the Bangarra Dance Company, Sydney Symphony and Paul Mac, all for just $25 a ticket. Taking to smaller stages across the city, including The Lansdowne, Factory Theatre and Tokyo Sing Song, will be a whole bunch of Australian favourites including Christine Anu, Urthboy, E^ST, Alice Ivy and Emily Wurramara. [caption id="attachment_789696" align="alignnone" width="1920"] 'Hive Mind'[/caption] Alongside the giant bees taking residence in Vaucluse, visual art will consume the city, with exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of Contemporary Art and outside Customs House, Circular Quay, where a new large-scale immersive experience from audio-visual artist Matthias Schack-Arnott will be set up for the public to interact with. The festival will also see the return of long-running favourites, such as Parramatta Park's Sydney Symphony Under the Stars and Barangaroo's The Vigil on Australia Day eve. Sydney Festival 2021 runs from January 6–26 at venues across the city. For further details and to buy tickets, visit the Sydney Festival website. Tickets are on sale now. Top image: The Headland stage and 'Sydney Symphony Under the Stars' by Victor Frankowski
Huge news: South by South West (SXSW) is coming to Sydney in October of 2023 for its first festival outside of its longtime home in Austin, Texas. The world-renowned festival has been bringing together big names and rising stars in tech, film, music, gaming, culture and education industries since it first began in 1987. Now, it's heading Down Under for the first time, with its week-long edition in Sydney set to become the official location of SXSW's annual Asia-Pacific installment. Running from Sunday, October 15–Sunday, October 22, 2023, the new iteration of SXSW will fill the city with more than 1000 sessions, screenings, performances, parties, networking events and activations over eight days. The Sydney iteration of the festival will bring a wide variety of events hailing from the US edition, but with a greater emphasis on creatives and thinkers from the Asia-Pacific. "Focusing on the creator industries in the Asia-Pacific region, SXSW Sydney will celebrate what's next in culture, tech and the regions thriving creative economy," SXSW Sydney Managing Director Colin Daniels said. "Put simply, SXSW is the Olympics of events for the creator industries, and we are thrilled to bring this legendary festival of gaming, music, screen, tech and innovation to Sydney in 2023," CEO of SXSW Sydney's event producer TEG said. Alongside the Sydney edition of the festival, SXSW will continue its usual programing in Austin with a 2023 festival locked in for March. The festival returned in-person earlier this year after an online iteration in 2021 due to the pandemic. It was headlined by talks from Mark Zuckerberg, Lizzo and Neal Stephenson; performances from Dolly Parton and Beck; premieres of films such as Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Lost City and upcoming A24 horror movie Bodies, Bodies, Bodies; and a Q&A with the cast and crew of Donald Glover's critically acclaimed TV show Atlanta. [caption id="attachment_854807" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Atlanta Season 3 premiered at SXSW 2022 with a cast and crew Q&A.[/caption] Over the years, SXSW has featured appearances from the likes of Barack Obama, Dave Grohl, Jordan Peele, Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga and Arnold Schwarzenegger to name just a few — as well as large-scale activations. It also acted as an important space for young musicians, filmmakers and creatives to cut their teeth. The festival has had a close relationship with Australia over the past few years, with Sounds Australia running the Australia House showcase at the festival since 2018 featuring up-and-coming Australian musicians. Major Australian musical exports including Flume, Alison Wonderland, Nick Murphy, Tkay Maidza, Gang of Youths, RUFUS DU SOL and Courtney Barnett have all made appearances at SXSW over the years You can head to the SXSW Sydney website to register your interest for the 2023 event and stay up-to-date as new information emerges over at the festival's Instagram. South by South West will host its inaugural Sydney festival Sunday, October 15–Sunday, October 22, 2023.
Daft Punk have never been averse to some commercial collaboration, and now they've teamed up with perhaps the biggest and most recognised soft drink company in the world. It's just been announced that Coke will release two limited edition bottles in silver and gold, entitled 'Club Coke,' as a tribute to the French electro duo's robot helmets. The bottles will begin production in March 2011, and will be coupled with the launch of the Daft Coke website. Naturally, the bottles will almost solely be available in clubs, where shiney things are always the best things, and will no doubt be the source of many a French hipster's pick-up line. They'll also be sold at the very chic, high-end store Colette in Paris as a collector's box set (although how long can you keep Coke for? Or is Coke like baked beans, and strong enough to survive nuclear holocaust?). Daft Punk have previously collaborated with Adidas and The Gap to sell stuff, so the Coke venture doesn't come as much of a surprise. But surely the real question, and one that everyone seems to be ignoring, is: does it taste like Daft Punk? https://youtube.com/watch?v=86vQMkR9raI
What would you do if you were a little less freaked out by consequences? Would you talk to more new people, fear a bit less, dance a little more like FKA Twigs, quit your desk job and put on that festival you've always wanted to give a red hot go? Some sparkling young Australians are already flinging their inhibitions into a ziplock bag and seizing this little ol' life with both hands. Concrete Playground has teamed up with the Jameson crew to give you a sneak peek into the lives of ten bold characters who took a big chance on themselves. They've gone out on a limb and rewritten their path, encapsulating 'Sine Metu', the Jameson family motto which translates to 'without fear' — getting outside your comfort zone and trying something new. After all, we only get one shot at this. Take notes. For Brett Louis, co-founder and curator of Melbourne's ambitious festival Sugar Mountain, a 'Sine Metu' way of life is the only way. Thanks to Brett's meticulous curation over the years, Sugar Mountain has broken new ground with its blend of music, art and food — redefining what a festival can be (without fearing it won't work). We had a chat to Brett about his own business of taking chances. You can read the interview over here. Want to experience a little bit of 'Sine Metu' yourself? Brett's being a total legend and helping us give away a VIP Sugar Mountain Experience for two, so you can see for yourself what happens when bold humans take big creative chances with big payoffs. Enter here to win.
COVID-19 restrictions across New South Wales have been easing over the past few months, including loosened rules for restaurants, bars, cafes and eateries, and on caps for-home gatherings. But if you're the type of person who not only likes hanging out with your mates at bars and pubs, but standing up while you're knocking back cold ones, sipping wine or enjoying a cocktail, you'll be particularly pleased with the latest announcement. Today, Wednesday, March 17, NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro and Treasurer Dominic Perrottet have revealed that the state's residents can now drink while vertical indoors, with the change already in effect. Accordingly, your days of only being seated while you're having a few beverages have finally come to an end. If you feel like saying cheers to that, it's understandable. The news wasn't unexpected. Back in February, Premier Gladys Berejiklian had noted that standing up while you drink inside at a pub or bar would be back on March 17 "if everything goes well". And even though NSW has reported two locally acquired cases in the past few days — including one overnight — the rule about only sipping while you're sitting has still been scrapped. [caption id="attachment_779825" align="aligncenter" width="1920"] Cassandra Hannagan[/caption] Nothing else is changing at present. If you're hanging out to hit the dance floor, that's still off limits — unless you're at a wedding, where 30 people can make shapes at once. But loosening the dancing rules, and letting more people attend weddings funerals, are under consideration for future rule changes. As always, NSW residents are asked to continue to get tested immediately if you experience even the mildest of COVID-19 symptoms — and to keep an eye on the list of locations linked to the current locations linked to cases, and monitor for symptoms, get tested and/or self-isolate if you've visited any of the named spots. For more information about the status of COVID-19 in NSW, head to the NSW Health website. Images: Cassandra Hannagan.
Babe. I have something to tell you. These words strike the fear of God in your heart. It's a phrase that leads to downing a bottle (or two) of wine, running red lights, calling friends to babble, faking a sickie so you can curl up under the doona and cry all day. But you wouldn't expect it to put lives at risk, to end up in hospital, to involve the federal police and the government or other such escalations. In Wish You Were Here, expectant couple Dave (Joel Edgerton) and Alice (Felicity Price) decide to go on holiday to a remote coastal village in southern Cambodia. They intend to suck the last remaining marrow of their youth while they still can, along with another couple, Alice's younger sister Steph (Teresa Palmer) and her new boyfriend, Jeremy (Antony Starr). This quartet of sun-kissed, lithe-limbed and wealthy Sydneysiders spend their first blissful days in a heady exotic montage: racing scooters along the highway, gormandising snakes on skewers, handling harmless tarantulas and lying on the beach musing on life's possibilities before embarking on a drug-fuelled hedonistic frenzy. In the course of this crazy night, one of them goes missing for reasons that will shake their lives to the core. The performances were so real that I was filled with anxiety for the characters and I missed them once the film concluded. This is no surprise since the director, Kieran Darcy-Smith, and his lead actress, co-writer and wife Felicity Price lived and breathed the film for several years — even discussing it in the shower together. Of the film concept, born from a true events within her social circle, Felicity says, "We did this so people walk out thinking, 'My god, this could be you or I.'" So next time you hear that phrase, brace yourself harder than before. https://youtube.com/watch?v=WVw1f43xF2M
What starts with an anthology drama that tells eight tales by Western Sydney writers, then ends with Wes Anderson's latest? That'd be the 2021 Sydney Film Festival. Finally set to return to the city's big screens for a full festival run, the annual cinema showcase will unleash a lineup of 233 titles between Wednesday, November 3–Sunday, November 14 — beginning with Aussie effort Here Out West and ending with The French Dispatch. They're SFF's bookends for the year; however, with a full program that hefty — with 111 feature films, 50 documentaries and 72 short films, in fact — there's obviously much, much more where they came from. And, yes, the fest will be returning the State Theatre, Event Cinemas George Street, Dendy Cinemas Newtown, Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace Cremorne and Ritz Cinema Randwick quite a bit later than usual. The 2021 event will be making its debut at Palace Central Broadway, Palace Chauvel Cinema Paddington and Palace Norton Street Leichhardt a few months after it originally planned, too, after this year's event initially shifted from its usual June dates to the end of August, then moved again to November due to Sydney's lengthy lockdown. And, while the 2020 festival completely moved online, the 2021 event is actually going hybrid. So, Sydneysiders can get their movie fix in-person for 12 days, complete with those quick jogs down George Street to dash between sessions, before checking out SFF On Demand from Friday, November 12–Sunday, November 21. Thanks to the latter, 56 feature-length films and 13 shorts will be available to watch digitally — not just locally, but nationally as well. During the fest's physical run, program highlights include the Timothée Chalamet-starring new version of Dune, 2021 Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner Titane, Pedro Almodóvar and Penelope Cruz's latest collaboration Parallel Mothers, Broadway-to-cinema adaptation Dear Evan Hansen and Iranian director Asghar Farhadi's latest A Hero. Still among the big-name titles, Aussie drama The Drover's Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson sits among SFF's competition lineup, as does Memoria, the Tilda Swinton-starring English-language debut of Cemetery of Splendour filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul; and Petite Maman, the latest film by Portrait of a Lady on Fire's Céline Sciamma. Or, there's Jane Campion's new film The Power of the Dog, which stars Kirsten Dunst and Benedict Cumberbatch; televangelist biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye with Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield; the Will Smith-led King Richard, about Venus and Serena' Williams' father; and Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish in The Card Counter. Two Berlinale Golden Bear winners are on the bill as well, thanks to 2020's There Is No Evil and 2021's Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn. And, SFF has kept a heap of its initially announced titles — from way back in June — such as Undine, Christian Petzold's Berlin-set, fable-inspired romance; and New Zealand's The Justice of Bunny King, which stars Essie Davis (Babyteeth) and Thomasin McKenzie (Old). There's also 2020 Sundance hit Zola, which is based on a lengthy 148-tweet Twitter thread; The Kids, which sees Australian filmmaker Eddie Martin (All This Mayhem) explore Larry Clark's 1995 film Kids; and three-time Sundance 2021 winner Hive, the first film to ever win the fest's Grand Jury Prize, Audience Award and Directing Award. Obviously, the list of standouts just keeps on keeping on. Wash My Soul in the River's Flow hones its focus on Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter, following the couple as they prepare for 2004's Kura Tungar — Songs from the River — a collaboration between the First Nation artists, Paul Grabowsky and the Australian Art Orchestra; River is the latest musing on the planet we all call home by Sherpa director Jennifer Peedom; Cow sees American Honey director Andrea Arnold explore the existence of a dairy cow, and Bergman Island is the Tim Roth and Mia Wasikowska-starring new drama from Mia Hansen-Løve (Things to Come). Also, Fist of Fury Noongar Daa dubs the Bruce Lee-starring Fist of Fury in an Aboriginal Australian language, and becomes the first feature to ever do so; SBS documentary Strong Female Lead, about media coverage of Julia Gillard's stint as Prime Minister, gets a big-screen berth; and SFF's usual lineups of family-friendly fare, wild and wonderful genre flicks, Aussie documentaries and features from talented female European filmmakers all return. Whether you're attending SFF in-person or watching along via SFF On Demand — or both — you'll clearly have plenty to watch in November. The 2021 Sydney Film Festival will now take place between Wednesday, November 3–Sunday, November 14. For further information, head to the festival website.
