If you're one to picnic on Australia Day, this one's for you. Load up your basket with Tim Tams, Caramello Koalas and a possibly-homemade-probably-not pavlova and head for Sydney's sandstone waterfront park for roving performers, floating concerts and one heck of a sunset. See the demolition of Sydney Festival's Ephemeral City in the Cutaway, catch the end of the Ferrython under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, then ooh and aah at the Tall Ships. There'll be floating concert barges cruising past all day, then you'll be front and centre to see one of Sydney’s most spectacular sunsets at Nawi Cove.
In 2006’s Night at the Museum, the exhibits and dioramas of New York City's Museum of Natural History sprang to life, surprising freshly hired evening security guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller). In 2009’s Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Larry returned to save enlivened treasures being shipped off to storage in Washington, D.C., stumbling upon a power battle between magically resurrected pharaohs in the process. The films, mixing an everyman protagonist with an exaggerated situation, established an easy formula of heroics and humour, history and fantasy, and quests and chaos, as suitable for all ages. Now, once more adhering to the blueprint but transporting the action to London, the trilogy crawls towards its conclusion with Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. Here, the perpetually bumbling Larry is thrust into trouble once more when an important event goes awry as a result of his animated mannequin friends. The tablet that endows the appearance of life into the museum’s trinkets is starting to corrode, courtesy of an Egyptian curse. Only specimens housed in Britain hold the answers to stopping the rot, reinstating the spell and rescuing the likenesses of famous figures from reverting to a permanent state of wax. Adding to the antics are Larry’s English counterpart, nightwatchwoman Tilly (Rebel Wilson), and an arrogant Sir Lancelot (Dan Stevens), both endeavouring to thwart the visitors’ efforts for their own reasons. Returning director Shawn Levy (This Is Where I Leave You) and new scribes David Guion and Michael Handelman (Dinner for Schmucks) aren’t concerned with offering any unexpected detours in the events that follow, repeating the beats of the earlier films with a heightened emphasis on outdated pop culture jokes. Indeed, that the feature’s biggest source of laughs — and its best surprise cameo – stems from an internet meme gives an indication of the level of comedy cultivated, as does the prominence of online cat videos to the plot. Even the usual reliance upon slapstick wavers, for worse, not for better. The odd-couple banter of Owen Wilson as an old west cowboy and Steve Coogan as a Roman soldier is similarly toned down. Elaborate staging aside (best manifested in Secret of the Tomb in an uncharacteristically excellent M.C. Escher-inspired sequence), the biggest lure of the Night of the Museum series has always been its extensive cast. Performers express enough energy to keep the movie bubbling along; however, for reasons inconsequential to the content itself, it is Robin Williams’ return as Teddy Roosevelt that stands out. His last on-screen appearance evokes both sweetness and sorrow that far exceeds the average franchise swansong he is saddled with.
Ever had a cocktail so good it deserved a permanent place on your skin? Now is your chance to get inked, as Bar Planet celebrates three years of slinging martinis with a one-off tattoo pop-up on Saturday, May 17. Whether you're already decorated from head to toe or a first-timer, it all kicks off at 2pm on a first-come, first-served basis. Headed up by the supremely talented Sydney-based tattoo artist Onnie O'Leary, guests can choose from a flash sheet of original Bar Planet designs inspired by the venue's iconic drinks and details. Starting from $100, the lasting memory might just be priceless. These creations are instantly recognisable to Bar Planet fans, with options including David Humphries' kaleidoscopic terrazzo bar top, bags of MSG-laced popcorn, wax-drenched candles, and the off-menu Skyscraper martini topped with a string of seven Kalamata olives. "Over the years, we've received lots of martini tattoos in our Instagram DMs," says Daisy Tulley, Group General Manager at MUCHO. "We can't believe Bar Planet has made its way onto our guests' skin! It's such a privilege and a joy to see." Images: Nikki To / Dexter Kim.
Delayed from its usual January dates, the most important event in the Australian country music calendar is back this April. Over 100 venues will be hosting performances from some of the genre's biggest names, such as Amber Lawrence, Kasey Chambers and Troy Cassar-Daley, for the Tamworth Country Music Festival. It's a great all-ages event, too, with things to see and do throughout the whole town, including rides at Family Zone and shows at Toyota Park, both of which are free to enter. The festival is also the home of the Golden Guitar Awards, the biggest prize in Australian country music, which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary of handing out the eponymous statuettes to the best artists of the previous 12 months. Check out the lineup to start planning your trip. Top image: Tourism Australia
Riveting dissections of realistic situations: that's where siblings Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have made their careers. Continuing in the same finessed, naturalistic vein, Two Days, One Night compels by rendering relatable circumstances without sentiment but with surprises. It follows the attempts of Sandra (Academy Award-winner Marion Cotillard) to convince her co-workers to save her job. To do so, they would need to forgo a cash bonus they've been offered and in many cases need. The precision with which the filmmakers present a feature almost solely comprised of conversations cannot be underestimated, nor can Cotillard's expert efforts in illustrating the fragility of her striving but uncertain protagonist. Small in stature yet striking in its statement, Two Days, One Night took out the Sydney Film Prize at this year's Sydney Film Festival. Two Days, One Night is in cinemas on November 6. Thanks to Madman Entertainment, we have two Dardenne Brothers DVD prize packs to give away, each including a double in-season pass to see the new film. Eight runners up will also get double in-season passes. 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 https://youtube.com/watch?v=qxLqaEGZiDY
Three years in the making, SPON is a new kind of bottle shop for NSW. For several years, the Odd Culture Group has been pushing to open a venue where you could sample the wines before buying after seeing the success of similar venues in Melbourne and overseas — but Liquor and Gambling NSW is a tough negotiator. "Being able to finally open the doors to SPON is due to the landmark decision to allow these cohabitating licenses and a sign that the regulatory environment is shifting and red tape is finally starting to be lifted," says Odd Culture Group CEO James Thorpe. "The two-license model is convoluted and contrived — so, very NSW — but it works, and we're excited to finally get a cab off the rank, and be able to operate a business of this type in Sydney." The decision has seen a couple of these exciting new hybrid venues pop up in recent weeks — namely Famelia down Enmore Road and Frankie & Mo's in the Blue Mountains. And, it's allowed Odd Culture to finally transform its King Street bottle shop into the venue the team always imagined in the space. The result is SPON, a small 20-seat bar and bottle shop named after the process of spontaneous fermentation. As with the previous Odd Culture bottle shop, SPON is all about the weird and the funky in the drinks world. Rare wines and eccentric ales are available here, either for takeaway or to be drunk in the venue with the addition of a touch of corkage. If you love to bring a natural wine over when you're catching up with friends but your mind goes blank when presented with a wall of exotic pét-nats and skin contacts, this is the spot for you. Each day, 12 wines and ales are added to the open-bottle list — two chosen by the house and ten by customers as they venture in and want a try of something. This means you can sample your way through a couple of different vinos before deciding what to purchase — and if you're in early, you can even add a bottle to the open list for you and any other visitors that day to taste. "The concept lends itself to being able to open some really cool, rare and exciting stuff that wouldn't normally make it on by-the-glass lists in your standard bars or restaurants," says Group Beverage Manager Jordan Blackman. For those who are dining in (or rather drinking in), there's an ever-changing and affordable by-the-glass list featuring a mix of wine varieties and price points. To celebrate the opening, SPON is even offering $6 glasses of pét-nat, orange and chilled red wines, alongside half-priced corkage, throughout the rest of August and September. "The spirit of SPON is to make the inaccessible or esoteric into the easily consumed and understood and increase the level of interaction and knowledge sharing with our guests which is our favourite part," says Thorpe. Snacks like yellowfin tuna, LP's charcuterie and Odd Culture's beer bread will also be brought down from the group's beloved King Street restaurant. Plus, the space will be used to host local and interstate winemakers so they can share their craft with Sydney's wine lovers. It really is your one-stop wine shop. SPON is now open at 256 King Street, Newtown. Both the bottle shop and bar are open 12pm–10pm Monday–Thursday, 12pm–12am Friday and 11am–12am Saturday.
Travelling sure has its perks — sightseeing, cultural experiences and new landscapes among them — but we'd argue that the best part is sampling all the local food. And while we'd all like to get on a plane every time we started craving some specific food, that's not very affordable or at all convenient. To combat that, we have food precincts — so you can eat your way around the world without walking more than a few footsteps. Sydney's newest is Eat Street at Western Sydney's West HQ. On top of a new gym, pool, hotel and bowling alley, this dining spot has pulled some top chefs so you can hop across the pond to New Zealand with a Kiwi-inspired burger or go further afield to Naples with a slice of pizza without leaving — or going further than — Sydney's west. Keep this on-hand for the next time you're craving French pastries or a hot Thai curry. USA: STEAK & CO If you're a meat lover, Steak & Co is the spot for you. Under the reign of renowned English Australian chef Sean Connelly (The Morrison Bar & Oyster Room), the restaurant is one of the sleeker options in the dining precinct. So, it's perfect for anything — from a first date, casual catch-ups and dinner with the in-laws. The steakhouse boasts six different steaks, so you can have your cut of beef exactly to your liking. There are also lamb, pork chops and a selection of seafood, including everyone's favourite: the prawn cocktail. ITALY: PIZZAPERTA MANFREDI Those that were fans of Stefano Manfredi's PizzAperta Manfredi in Pyrmont will be happy to know that the restaurant has been resurrected at West HQ. Think traditional Napoli-style woodfired pizza — and plenty of it. These aren't just any slices of pie, either. Here, the dough is leavened for a minimum 24 hours for a slow fermentation process, then topped with simple, fresh ingredients. While the menu changes seasonally, you can expect fresh options like prosciutto with buffalo mozzarella, and prawn with zucchini and mint, or richer slices topped with fennel sausage and lamb belly. Plus, salads, salumi and classic Italian desserts. THAILAND: NEW TOWN THAI STREET FOOD Sure, Thailand has stunning islands, misty mountains and bustling city streets. But most people will agree when we say it's the street food that makes Aussies flock there. If you're craving authentic East Asian eats, then head to New Town Thai Street Food. The food is designed to be shared, so you can order a plethora of dishes and taste a bit of everything. Think rich flavours, aromatic scents and plenty of zest and freshness in dishes like satay chicken, noodles and duck salad. Your gluten-free and vego mates will be taken care of, too. And, just like the streets of Bangkok, this spot is vibrant, loud and fun. NEW ZEALAND: CHUR BURGER Chur Burger took Surry Hills by storm years ago. Then it opened more stores in Sydney and Melbourne — and now Rooty Hill. So it's safe to say these burgers are good. Chur combines the softest buns, the juiciest meats, relishes and pickles to create some downright tasty burgers. The grilled beef and cheese is at the top of the menu for a reason. But the signature lamb burger is worth a look-in, too. If you're vegetarian, grab the meat-free option with a spiced chickpea fritter, grated beetroot and honey labne. Then, add a side of chips and an alcoholic milkshake. CHINA: CHU RESTAURANT Woolloomooloo's award-winning China Doll has been serving Sydneysiders fine Chinese fare for a while now. And, after opening China Lane in the CBD, the team will soon be bringing delectable dumplings to a 200-seat 1940s Shanghai-inspired restaurant in late-2019. Although heavily influenced by Chinese cuisine, Chu Restaurant is a modern take on traditional dishes from China, Hong Kong, Japan and, more widely, Southeast Asia. The menu features dishes from our pan-Asian neighbours that are jam-packed with flavour, including dumplings, locally sourced seafood and roast Chinese meats. The wine list is pretty impressive, too. West HQ's new dining precinct, Eat Street, is located in Western Sydney. To celebrate the launch, West HQ is giving you the chance to win one of five holidays worth $15,000 to a destination inspired by West HQ cuisine — Thailand, Italy, New Zealand, China or New York. For more information and to enter, visit the West HQ website. Image: New Town Thai Street Food.
Darling Square's popular izakaya Nakano Darling is going big this month with a series of five one-off meals curated by local Japanese chefs. If you're after a memorable Japanese meal, take your pick from one of these inventive displays of Japanese cooking ranging from yakitori omakase through to ox-tongue curry. Billed as Nakano Invites, the event will run from Sunday, April 17 through to Thursday, April 21, bringing together Sydney's Japanese hospitality community after a tough two years for the industry. Participating chefs include Ken Takenaka (Jicca Dining), Kenta Hatamoto (Yakitori Yurippi), Jun Okamatsu (Kurumac), Yuki Ishikawa (Jazushi) and Iwao Yamanishi (Spanish Sakaba) serving up his Spanish-Japanese fusion. Other highlights from the menus include Yamanishi's renowned ox-tail ramen, two set menus from Takenaka and an eight course dinner with accompanying jazz from Ishikawa. Topping the whole thing off, Musubiya's founders Hiro and Ritusko Kawabata will be serving up Japanese breakfast sets featuring omusubi (or onigiri as it's also known) every day of the activation from 8am through to 2pm. "When you eat our Omusubi, we want you to feel 'at home' and to bring you back to Japan. When you eat our Omusubi we want you to come back for more. That's the kind of Omusubi we serve and want you to try," Kawabata said. Dive into the full program of Nakano Darling Invites events via the restaurant's website. [caption id="attachment_850150" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Oxtail ramen[/caption]
Every Easter long weekend for 29 years, Bluesfest has descended on Byron Bay for five days of blues and roots. But this year, the acclaimed festival's 30th anniversary, may be its last in the Northern Rivers location. In a scathing letter addressed to the NSW Government, Festival Director Peter Noble has revealed that Bluesfest might leave the state because of the government's strict new policies on music festivals. "I am saying now, Bluesfest will leave NSW. We have no choice it's a matter of survival," the letter, originally published on The Industry Observer, said. "Will the last festival to leave NSW please turn out the light of culture in this soon to be barren state?" You can read the full open letter, which was shared with Concrete Playground, below. Noble described the new policies — which include a strict new licensing regime — as "poorly thought-out", "unbalanced" and "the Lockout Laws Version Two for festivals", highlighting that the State Government had neglected to fully consult those in the industry. He also revealed that the 30-year-old festival is having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to comply with recently implemented policies. Bluesfest, if relocated, will be just the latest casualty of the NSW Government's new policies, with both the Mountain Sounds and Psyfari teams cancelling their 2019 festivals in the last seven days, stating "the government's war on festivals", particularly "newly imposed safety, licensing and security costs", as reasons. Both said they were also required to spend thousands of dollars to comply with the new policies, but were unable to do so at such short notice. The new music festival licensing regime follows advice from the government's expert panel on music festival safety, which was assembled in September after two young people died of suspected drug overdoses at Defqon 1. Since then, three more young people have died from suspected drug overdoses at NSW festivals. The NSW Government is continuing to ignore increased calls for pill-testing as a harm-minimisation technique at festivals. Read Peter Noble's full letter below. Letter from Peter Noble OAM, Bluesfest Festival Director re NSW Government's policy changes to festivals in the State: Bluesfest may well be celebrating our last festival in NSW, should the sitting NSW Government proceed with its plans for its policies. Even though we are Australia's most highly-awarded festival both nationally and internationally – having won Best Major Event at the NSW Tourism Awards three years in a row; and in representing NSW we came in second in the Australian Tourism Awards (beating Victoria's F1 Grand Prix) – we have been designated a 'high risk event'. This will cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars to comply with a policy where we and every other event in this State have had zero opportunity to have any consultation or input into a policy where we will need to spend significantly more money to put on the event this year with zero notice. The policy will see our full-strength liquor approval denied, while a myriad of other costs may be levied costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars. The NSW police regularly state that our policies are those of an industry leader in the supply of alcohol, field hospital, and crowd security and care. But, due to headlines in the media, our 30-year-old professional business is to be seriously damaged in a new policy imposed regarding festival presentation by a government who has rushed the judgement of our industry without full consultation of stake holders, or meetings with entertainment industry professionals. I charge the Government with a systemic failure in fairness here and implore all politicians from all parties to quickly become involved with what is a serious injustice. We, like most events in this State, supply a significant level of culture – we don't receive a cent from government even though we cause thousands of people to be employed – and bring tens of millions of dollars into NSW through Tourism. In the recent study done by the NSW government into the arts, it was found NSW is significantly behind Victoria and Queensland. I ask the Premier, the Minister for the Arts, Tourism and Major Events and EVERY sitting politician: WHY? Why do you seem to be hell-bent on destroying our industry? We provide culture to the people of this state, and Australia, through our good works. Most festivals haven't had drug deaths and contribute greatly to our society through presenting well-run, professional, world-class events. Why have we been given zero recognition in this government's actions? It seems the new policies are poorly thought-out and through their implementation will decimate our industry, should our government not see good sense. Will the last festival to leave NSW please turn out the light of culture in this soon to be barren state? I have in my 50 years in presenting music NEVER EXPERIENCED such poorly thought out, unbalanced legislation. Surely a professional governing body could do better. It's the Lockout Laws Version two for festivals. This is NOT a vote winner in the upcoming election. Thank you, Peter Noble OAM Presenter, Bluesfest and the Boomerang Indigenous Festival Bluesfest 2019 is scheduled to run from April 18 to April 22 at Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, Byron Bay. More details and ticket info here. Image: Joseph Mayers.
With Wunderlich Lane opening its doors in mid-2024, the time has come for this bustling hospitality precinct to host its debut winter event — NightShift. Presented for one week only from Monday, June 16–Sunday, June 22, guests will have to chance to celebrate the winter solstice through immersive installations, surprising culinary collaborations, roving performances and even a noodle-fuelled rave. Kicking off the week, Olympus hosts the NightShift Greek Feast Launch Party, serving an inventive feast inspired by ancient Hellenic banquets. With bookings available for groups of ten, this lavish sit-down extravaganza is complemented with table flowers designed by Doctor Cooper, mind-blowing art performances between courses, and hypnotic instrumental grooves performed by GODTET. The following night, music brainiacs Myf Warhurst and Zan Rowe take over Baptist Street Rec Club for 'The Best Music Quiz Ever' on Tuesday, June 17. Then, S'WICH and Regina La Pizzeria will get together for the 'After-Work Pizzetta Party' from Wednesday, June 18–Thursday, June 19. Dine on limited-release pizzetta sandwiches, as Barney Kato and Adi Toohey soundtrack an evening of vinyl deep cuts. On Saturday, June 21, Island Radio hosts a 'Noodle Rave with JNETT' featuring six hours of feasting and booming beats. For something at a slower pace, R by Raita Noda presents 'The Whole Fish' on the same night, breaking down an entire tuna as part of an atmospheric sushi demonstration, while immersed in a Toshiki Ohta soundscape. With several more dining, drinking and relaxation events to explore — both ticketed and walk-ins — let NightShift guide your winter solstice to untold heights.
Cooler nights are just around the corner, and while it's mighty tempting to use the weather as an excuse to stay in, there's only so much reality TV you can watch and takeaway food you can eat before you start to crave a little slice of luxury. Luckily, you don't need to book an overseas flight to find it. The Star in Pyrmont is your one-stop shop for autumn indulgence with top-notch food, relaxing spa treatments and luxe accommodation. And to help you ease into the cooler months, we're giving away a staycation package here (for you and a loved one) that's worth leaving your blanket fort for. The package includes a spa treatment of your choice — up to the value of $215 — at The Darling Spa. Rejuvenate with a Moroccan Mud body wrap or a facial, or wind down with one of the spa's four signature massages: aromatherapy, hot stone, deep muscle or bamboo. Each massage begins with an essential oil smell test, which enhances relaxation and improves complexion — so you can both feel and look less stressed. Next up, you'll dine at one of three restaurants in The Star (and spend up to $250 on food and drinks). Head to BLACK Bar & Grill for hearty Australian fare — think braised saltbush lamb and garlic prawns. If you're feeling more sashimi than saltbush, make your way to Sokyo Lounge, where its new autumn hot pot stew and smoky cocktail combo will really warm your belly. Finally, if the cooler weather is calling for a big bowl of pasta, Balla has an exciting lineup of hearty Italian dishes that will comfort and soothe. When you're done relaxing, eating and drinking, head back to your room at The Darling. The luxury package includes one night's stay in the King Room, which has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lights of Pyrmont. To enter, see details below: [competition]667085[/competition]
Tropfest is entering its 21st year with a lot to brag about. The grassroots short film festival that started in a Darlinghurst cafe now has thousands of loyal fans in Sydney alone, a reputation that knows few geographical boundaries, and famous friends including Toni Collette, Baz Luhrmann, and Geoffrey Rush. But it's still at heart a generous wee thing, its main two goals being (a) launch the careers of our most talented budding filmmakers, and (b) give around 150,000 Sydneysiders a big old free night of live entertainment, good company, sophisticated boozing, and really great short cinema. This year the 16 finalists have been selected from 700 entries. Each film must in some way include 2013's signature theme 'balloon', but that and the running times are about where the similarities end. This year filmmakers are really reciprocating the love to Tropfest, venturing to far-flung and dangerous locations (settings include a mental asylum and cartel territory in the Mexican desert) and tackling the most vexed of issues. Matt Bird takes on tasers, while Tim Blackburn and Lyndal Moody join forces to chew on a more long-standing bone of contention — the monobrow. Other entries include Katie Wall's soap-within-a-movie short Scene 16, Daniel Reisinger's CA$H COW — A 63% True Story (with guest appearances from Mel and Kochie) and Tropfest third-timer Topher Field's The Hustler. You can also expect to see animation and documentary sitting alongside the omnipresent comedies and dramas. Proper cinephiles will recognise more than a few names from the full list of finalists, but there are plenty of rookies going up for the big prizes too. An interesting fact to note is that five of the 16 finalists shot their films on DSLRs, hence the Nikon DSLR Film category introduced this year. It's amazing what standard technology can do when it's taken beyond the 'auto' button. This year's winner will drive away in a 2012 Toyota Corolla Levin ZR (provided they can see over the $10,000 cash money it's stuffed with), take home the latest Nikon D800 plus $2000 of lenses and accessories, and rub shoulders with cinematic royalty during a week of meetings in LA. Gates open at 11am on screening day, so get in early to secure a spot. From 3 to 6pm there'll be live music from Round the Corner, Meg Mac, Clubfeet, and the winner of Tropscore, with red carpet arrivals rolling in straight after. And if you don't like live entertainment, a communal atmosphere, or 4 Pines brews, SBS will be screening the festival on free-to-air TV at 8.30pm. https://youtube.com/watch?v=FiOWbemZuoU
Phil Wood, an ex-Executive Chef of Rockpool for eight years and previous Culinary Director of Mornington Peninsula's much-loved Pt. Leo Estate, has opened a new venture in Paddington. Initially announced back in May, Wood's first independent restaurant is named after one of his family members who lived in Paddington. Ursula's is a bistro that showcases Wood's exciting approach to dining while centring staples of modern Australian cuisine. Highlights from the bistro include snapper, dressed with a Keen's Curry vinaigrette; margra lamb rump with brussel sprouts and mint sauce; a strawberry and coconut flummery; and golden syrup dumplings, served alongside a rum, raisin and malt cream. You'll also find beef carpaccio on the menu. The dish, served with makrut lime and parmesan, is a tribute to a beloved menu item from Darcy's, the famed Italian restaurant that occupied the site of Ursula's for nearly 40 years. The venue looks to pay homage to Australian dining and the storied history of the building it occupies. 92 Hargrave Street has housed several other chefs throughout its lifetime. The building was originally built in the late 19th century as a house and shop, and in its first half-century, it was run as a pub and a grocer. D'Arcy Glover was the first restaurateur to take up residency with a Swiss eatery in 1968 before Attilio Marinangeli and Aldo Zuzza took over in 1975 with the opening of Darcy's Restaurant. The most recent restaurant to occupy the corner building was Guillaume Brahimi's flagship Sydney restaurant Guillaume. Brahimi made the dramatic move to Paddington in 2013 after running Guillaume out of the Sydney Opera House for over a decade. While the restaurant didn't last on Hargrave Street, Brahimi went on to take over fellow Paddington venue Four in the Hand and opened a Guillaume in the CBD. "It is an honour to be opening in a building with such a strong dining history that goes back over 50 years. These corner sites dotted throughout Paddington are so special and part of what makes the suburb a vibrant part of Sydney's story," Wood said when the venue was first announced. The restaurant is the work of Wood and his wife Lis Davies who will be joined by John Laureti (Pt. Leo Estate, Rockpool) and Luke Cawsey (Saint Peter, Rockpool) in the kitchen, and Restaurant Manager Emily Towson (Fred's, Kepos & Co, Sixpenny). Inside the building, you'll find a classically fitted and welcoming dining space created in collaboration with Melbourne-based designer Brahman Perera. "Lis and I are absolutely thrilled to finally share our little restaurant with our neighbours and Sydney," said Wood. "We can't wait to see people enjoying long lunches in the beautiful dining room, and families and friends celebrating birthdays, anniversaries and just the joy of once again being together." Ursula's Paddington is open at 92 Hargrave Street, Paddington. It's open for lunch and dinner, Tuesday–Saturday. Images: Nikki To
Our city is constantly changing and evolving, with taller skyscrapers being erected, new 'Opera Houses' being built and construction on the light rail seemingly never ending. And amongst all these big infrastructure changes, small, carefully designed spaces popping up. The backstreets of Zetland has a shiny new six-storey library — complete with underground garden and piano room; Paddington is now home to Australia's first fish butchery; and in the CBD, a laneway filled with top eateries and stores has arrived. These are the spaces that are really catching our attention, the ones that are quietly evolving the community — through innovation and sustainability — and are accessible to you. At Concrete Playground we encourage exploration and showcase innovation in our city every day, so we thought it fitting to reward those most talented whippersnappers pushing Sydney to be a better, braver city. And so, these six new spaces were nominated for Best New Space in Concrete Playground's Best of 2018 Awards.
Want to ring in New Year with Young Henrys, picnic rugs, smoked meats, massages and an entire dessert garden by Anna Polyviou? Your NYE dream date might just be the new harbourside NYE party New Year's Eve Above the Harbour. Taking place at the south-eastern side of Circular Quay in the Tarpeian Precinct, NYEATH will take over a spacious site adjacent to the Royal Botanical Gardens, complete with green, rolling lawn perfectly positioned for those multimillion-dollar Sydney fireworks. It's a more laidback NYE party than others in the area, with picnic rugs and a lavish outdoor dining experience from the culinary team behind the five-star Shangri-La Hotel, Sydney. Ticketholders can feast all evening, with four pop-up food stands planned for the night. There'll be Asian-inspired street food, American-style smokehouse meats, fresh seafood and salads, and (the clincher) an entire dessert carnival by the hotel’s celebrated executive pastry chef Anna Polyviou. Of course, you'll be after a bev or two to ring in the new year, and everyone's favourite Newtonian brewers Young Henrys are on board with their beloved craft beers. The YH crew will be serving a special batch of session beer, a fruity pale ale exclusively available on the night. The event's meant to take the stress out of hectic Sydney NYE parties, so you don't have to get there early, fight crowds, pack picnics or smuggle booze. There'll be a hair and makeup station for both ladies and gents, alongside masseuses available all the way until midnight. You'll probably see midnight more invigorated than when you arrived — instead of drunkenly, tiredly missing the whole bloody thing. Tickets to NYE on the Harbour are $395 including the unlimited five-star food & beverage package, but we're giving one reader and a friend the chance to go along for free — and to name Young Henrys' special NYE Above the Harbour beer. To be in the running, subscribe to the Concrete Playground newsletter (if you haven't already), then email win.sydney@concreteplayground.com.au with the name you'd give to the beer and why. In addition to naming rights and your 2x GA tickets, you'll also get to take home a case of Young Henrys tinnies. Entries close November 22, and the winner will be drawn on November 23.
Set in 1980, Everbody Wants Some!! follows a university baseball team as they prepare to commence the next semester, and feels in a lot of ways like the movie Richard Linklater was destined to make. As the film ambles through the antics of teens and twenty-somethings embarking upon the next chapter of their lives (read: drinking and chasing girls), it shouldn't come as a surprise that it's a spiritual sequel to the writer-director's 1993 effort Dazed and Confused. In painting a portrait of young men becoming adults in the most routine of ways, it also acts as a very apt follow-up to the filmmaker's last effort, Boyhood. Rather than charting the final day of high school, or capturing the process of growing up over the course of 12 years, Linklater's latest chronicles the weekend before the start of college classes. When Jake (Blake Jenner) parks his car outside of the team lodgings he's about to call home, he's clearly excited, and just as obviously trying to make sure he appears cool, calm and collected. That careful attitude colours his interactions with his new housemates, whether they're welcoming him with open arms or pronouncing their strong dislike of pitchers. By day, they mostly sit or drive around. By night, they try their luck with the opposite sex at bars and parties. Cue a film with plenty of talk and testosterone, not as much action as any of the characters would like, but plenty of the kind of carefree moments that everyone has experienced at some point in their lives. As Jake's fellow baseballers flit through the narrative, some make a bigger impression than others – including ladies man McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin), bearded stoner Willoughby (Wyatt Russell), and confident veteran Finnegan (Glen Powell). However, as they sling insults at each other, trade in exaggerated stories and natter on about whatever comes into their heads, they all play their part in this freewheeling slice of life. Accordingly, Everybody Wants Some!! is the ultimate hangout flick, about a bunch of guys just shooting the shit when they're not expected to do anything else. There's no missing the nostalgia driving Linklater's warmly amusing movie, with his images tinted with the glow of happy memories, his camera placed to make the viewer think they're part of the gang, and his soundtrack overflowing with '80s hits like 'My Sharona' and 'Rapper's Delight'. That said, there's also no mistaking the way that the filmmaker simply presents rather than probes, such as when it comes to Jake's romance with fellow freshman Beverly (Zoey Deutch). He's not making a statement — he's just happy to linger in the group's company. Don't confuse the film's laidback vibe with a lack of smarts or precision though. As Linklater proved with his charming romantic trio Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight, it takes careful planning and pitch-perfect performances to make something look and feel so easy and effortless. Like their director, the ensemble cast rarely hit a bad note, with Jenner and Russell certain stars in the making. The film's title might stem from a Van Halen song, but as this group whiles away several days, Everybody Wants Some!! earns its exclamation marks.
Bondi Road welcomed a small but exciting newcomer to its ranks when tiny restaurant Peppe's opened its doors last week. The 40-square-metre Italian joint is slinging a simple pasta menu and natural wines by the glass. Oh, and it's all vegan. Owners Joe Pagliaro and Grace Watson (of Waterloo's vegan fine diner Paperbark) are looking to make their latest venture a go-to for the Bondi community. "Joe and I always wanted to open a really local Italian place and so far it's working out — we've only been open 1.5 weeks and we've already seen a few regulars three or four times," says Watson. Diners can expect pared-back, rustic interiors of timber and exposed brick. The fit-out is "nothing crazy" — Watson describes it as "a relaxed place where people can feel at home — and the only seating is around the two communal tables or at the long bar. In the kitchen is Joel Bennetts, who trained under renowned chef Grant King at Pier Rose Bay and later helped King open the two-hatted Gastro Park. Bennetts resumé also boasts Three Blue Ducks and mostly recently a stint at Japan boutique hotel AIR Myoko, where he spent the nights slinging vegan degustations to the masses. It's a succinct blackboard menu of around 12 dishes and eight wines by the glass at a time, both of which will change regularly. Produce is locally sourced and — as with all good traditional Italian food — ingredients are treated in a straightforward way. The pasta is made in-house daily, with a special focus on the gnocchi. Recent sauce varieties include pesto with green pea, Peppe's pomodoro and the gnocchi bianchi. The latter is sauced in cauliflower puree and three-hour porcini stock reduction, then topped with oyster mushrooms, crisped sage and toasted pangrattato-style breadcrumbs made with Iggy's bread. [caption id="attachment_717561" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The gnocchi with pesto and green pea.[/caption] To complement the pasta, there are rotating salads and sides on offer — currently the arancini is doing the rounds, made with Sicilian green olive and oregano and served with tomato aioli. The house tiramisu is, thankfully, a permanent fixture on the menu, and will be joined by regular dessert specials like the coconut and vanilla panna cotta with torched fig, orange and Campari syrup. On the drinks side, the wine menu focuses on local and sustainable drops, as well as Italian labels courtesy of Fun Wines — an Aussie wine importer run by the highly lauded Giorgio de Maria (of the now-closed 121BC and Vini). As far as Italian restaurants go, Peppe's is trying to keep the price point down, too, with a pasta dish, side and glass of wine adding up to around $40. Peppe's is in good company on Bondi Road, with natural wine bar Ode and mainstay The Corner House just next door, plus the recently renovated Sefa Kitchen across the street and Merivale's revamped The Royal just down the block. Coming up, there'll be soul, jazz and blues acts on every Monday from 5.30pm — so you can chase away those Monday blues with a steaming bowl of pasta, a glass of wine and some heartwarming live music, too. Find Peppe's at 261 Bondi Road, Bondi. It's open for dinner Wednesday through to Monday from 5–9.30pm. Images: Kitti Gould.
"This is not about getting back at dad. But, if it hurts him, it doesn't bother me." So announces Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook, Pieces of a Woman) in the just-dropped new teaser trailer for Succession season four, although it could've been any one of the Roy family's adult children uttering such words. If there's one thing that viewers of this award-winning HBO drama know, it's that this brood is big on insults and scheming against their father, and each other — and on grudges and feuding over who'll run the family company as well. Expect this soon-to-drop fourth season to be no do different, clearly; the more things change for the Roys, which also includes patriarch and business titan Logan Roy (Brian Cox, Remember Me), plus Shiv's siblings Kendall (Jeremy Strong, Armageddon Time), Connor (Alan Ruck, The Dropout) and Roman (Kieran Culkin, No Sudden Move), the more that volatile underlying dynamic stays the same. And, expect to start seeing the results this autumn Down Under. That timeframe had already been announced, but HBO has now revealed an exact release date — Monday, March 27 in Australia and New Zealand — along with another sneak peek at the upcoming episodes. This is the third glimpse at what's in store in Succession season four, following on from an initial sneak peek in a broader HBO trailer in mid-October last year, plus another in late 2022 when that autumn timing was confirmed. In the entire trio of teasers, Shiv, Kendall, Roman and Connor have banded together to form a rebel alliance against their dad. In the new trailer, they're asked to call him to try to start mending their rift. No, that isn't a simple request. All of the current the chaos stems from the season-three move to sell the Roy's company Waystar Royco to a tech visionary played by Alexander Skarsgård (The Northman), who also returns in season four. Unsurprisingly, not everyone is thrilled. When an entire series is about who'll take over the lucrative and powerful family business, removing that option for everyone is going to cause some hefty fallout. Also included in this sneak peek: Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen, Operation Mincemeat) trying to stay on Logan's good side following his own actions at the end of season three, and his betrayal of his Shiv. And, also Tom inappropriately comparing the Roys' battle to world politics — talking to cousin Greg (Nicholas Braun, Zola), naturally. It was back in 2021 when HBO announced that Succession would return for a fourth run, after its Emmy-winning third season proved that exceptional — and popular. Viewers are clearly in for more power struggles and more savaging of the one percent, aka more of what Succession has always done best. Indeed, if you're a fan of twisty TV shows about wealth, privilege, influence, the vast chasm between the rich and everyday folks, and the societal problems that fester due to such rampant inequality, there have been plenty of ace examples of late, including The White Lotus and Squid Game. No series slings insults as savagely as this tremendous series, however. No show channels feuding and backstabbing into such an insightful and gripping satire, either. Check out the latest teaser for Succession season four below: Succession season four will start streaming from Monday, March 27 Down Under, including via Foxtel, Binge and Foxtel On Demand in Australia and Neon in New Zealand. Check out our review of season three. Images: Claudette Barius/Macall B Polay, HBO.
It's that time of the year again. Time to dig out your old witch hat or join the vampires and grow some fangs. Perhaps the only thing scarier than your fake blood and broomstick are these vintage Halloween get-ups. Nothing says Halloween in the '70s like a shiny plastic devil mask, after all. Halloween garb in the '60s, '70s and '80s was dominated by two costume companies, Ben Cooper Inc. and Collegeville. Ben Cooper had relationships with multiple media companies often leaving Collegeville to create their own version of Frankenstein and Batman, resulting in hilariously similar characters with pathetic names such as 'The Monster' and 'The Bat.' Despite the name of the costume, both companies survived off excitable youth desperate to avoid their mother's home-made sheet-ghost costume for the third year in a row. For better or for worse, the companies have retired their Halloween costume services and the awkward one-piece jumpsuits and thick plastic masks have graduated and become classic vintage collector's items.
The end of a long weekend always gets us looking toward our next getaway. This time around, it's Braidwood that has caught our attention. Located a three-hour drive south of Sydney, the town is now home to the renovated Mona Farm — a 124-acre country estate and your new excuse for an out-of-town holiday. The property is part luxury farm stay, part nature retreat and part art gallery, all wrapped into one. Mona Farm spans six farmhouses for accommodation of up to 44 guests. Two have just been renovated and the remaining four are a work in progress. The completed buildings are The Homestead and The Coach House, which were built in 1853 and 1903, respectively. Each maintains its existing historic exterior, while the interior has been modernised with bespoke furnishings and an art collection — including work by Brisbane artist Sally Anderson and German kinetic sculptor Frank Bauer. The other four cottages, which include a repurposed shearer's quarters and a lakeside cottage, will be designed by Surry Hills' architect Louise Nettleton and will be completed in the next 12 months. Expect interiors by MCM House, Anibou and Cosh Living, among others. [caption id="attachment_717994" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kimberley Low[/caption] Beyond the accommodation, the expansive property includes eight-acres of award-winning gardens — featuring a hidden rose garden and veggie patch — a croquet lawn, a large central lake with an old stone bridge and an elm forest that was planted by the original Mona Farm owner back in the 1800s. Artworks from over 20 Australian and international sculptors have been installed throughout the grounds, giving the natural surrounds a modern appeal. Some of the artists and sculptures include Janet Laurence, Adam Cullen, Fiona Hall, James Angus, Guy Maestri and Marion Borgelt. The farm also houses a significant collection of works by American sculpture Peter Lundberg, including a few specifically commissioned for the space. [caption id="attachment_717990" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kimberley Low[/caption] It really is a working farm, too, with Scottish Highland cattle, English Wiltshire Horn sheep, Wessex saddleback pigs and Clydesdale horses all sharing the land — plus platypus, long-necked turtles and rainbow trout sharing the lake. The vegetable garden is also home to bee hives and chickens out for a stroll. If you'd like to spend a night here, you'll need to round up the crew. The Homestead sleeps ten guests and starts at $2500 a night ($250 each), while The Cottage sleeps nine and starts at $1050 a night ($105 each). If you have heaps of friends — or are, say, holding a wedding — you can book out the whole estate, which sleeps 44. For those not staying overnight, regular artist exhibitions, concerts and tours of the grounds will be on the docket as well. Mona Farm is located at 140 Little River Road, Braidwood. For more information and for future bookings, head here. Images: Kimberley Low.
After launching Merivale at Home last month, offering 'almost-ready' meals from Mr Wong, Fred's and Bert's, Merivale is giving Sydneysiders what they really want: food that is piping hot and ready to eat straight away. So, you can now bite into a expertly folded dim sum, crispy porchetta and giant chicken pie as soon as you walk through the door. The Merivale restaurants offering the meals — wine, beer and cocktails — to-go are Mr Wong, The Paddington and its adjoining The Chicken Shop, and Coogee Pavilion and its in-house pizza joint Vinnie's. They join Bondi's Totti's, which launched its own ready-to-eat takeaway meals back in late March. You can either pick up the meals or have them dropped (gently) on your doorstep, with Merivale offering delivery to homes within a ten-kilometre radius of the restaurants. As the delivery service is operated entirely by Merivale employees, it's a win-win — you don't have to leave the couch and people are getting some work in these tough times. What exactly can you get to eat from these popular spots? Let us tell you. Mr Wong has platters of its famed dumplings, peking duck pancakes and typhoon shelter-style crab fried rice, while The Paddington is packing up containers of giant chicken pies, roast porchetta, rotisserie chickens and family meals. Coogee Pav has its usual selection of pizza, pasta, burgers, polenta chips, Nutella calzone and much more. For both pick up and delivery, preorders are available from 12pm every day. Delivery is from 5–9pm every night, plus from 12–3pm on weekends. The news comes with the NSW Government's relaxing of restrictions, too, so you can now have two people over for a dinner party — and you don't have to cook. Merivale's new takeaway menus are now available for pick up and delivery from Mr Wong, The Paddington, Coogee Pavilion and Totti's. To check out the menus and to preorder, head here. Home delivery will be available from Wednesday, May 6.
UPDATE: MARCH 25, 2020 — While DOC Surry Hills is not currently open for dine-in customers, it is open for takeaway Monday–Saturday. Call (02) 9211 1507 to order. The name might not mean much to a lot of Sydney folk, but we promise it's one you'll soon come to love. For our neighbours to the south, DOC is known for its crisp pizzas, commitment to timeless Italian simplicity and collection of delicatessens, espresso bars and pizza and mozzarella bars spread across Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula. Now, the group has expanded to Sydney, opening the doors to a DOC Pizza and Mozzarella Bar on Campbell Street in Surry Hills. Long-standing DOC Restaurant Manager Andrea Colosimo has made the move from Melbourne, too, to ensure the eatery retains the same fun vibes and quality food as its siblings. On the menu, you'll spy plenty of top-notch imported Italian ingredients, which are all displayed on a map — so you know exactly where each tasty morsel has come from. Many of these you'll find atop crisp and springy bases in the 14-strong pizza offering. Chianti truffle oil is splashed on the pizza ai porcini — with wild mushrooms, mozzarella and pecorino — san daniele prosciutto from Friuli-Venezia Giulia is paired with buffalo mozzarella on the pizza san daniele and the napoletana stars San Marzano tomatoes from Campania, Ligurian olives and anchovies. Once you've eaten your way through all of these, you still won't get bored — two new specials are set to grace the menu each week. DOC's Italian-made buffalo mozzarella is the star of its extensive antipasto offering, though pasta fiends will likely be tempted by the group's much-loved lasagne, available here in both classic and gluten-free vegetarian format. The menu also features a few salads and sides for breaking up the meat, cheese and dough feast. There's a rocket, pear, honey and pecorino number that you can add buffalo mozzarella to, and the riso nero: golden beetroot, Italian kale, pomegranate, shaved almonds and dill, drizzled with a maple syrup citronette. It's all backed by a considered mix of local and Italian vino, including some natural wines and a prosecco made by third-generation winery Cester Camillo in Treviso, Italy. Or you can BYO wine for $10 per bottle. Like its siblings, you'll also enjoy an abundance of spritz, aperitivi and hearty 'ciao' greetings, followed by a classic Italian dessert of sweet goat's cheese tiramisu and a shot of grappa. The Campbell Street outpost reflects a similar aesthetic to its Melbourne counterparts, with the group using the same architect, Studio Ström Design, to create a space designed to welcome hungry diners and make them feel right at home. There are plenty of natural stones, warm-toned timber, steel and brass, as well as commissioned artworks by Kate Florence, which have become a bit of a signature for DOC. Not only is DOC's new Sydney home just a stone's throw away from that of fellow Melbourne import Chin Chin, it'll soon be around the corner from the first Aussie outpost of the USA's Ace Hotel, which is slated to open next year. DOC Sydney is now open at 78 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. It's open 5pm till late Monday–Wednesday, and midday till late Thursday–Sunday.
To the dismay and disbelief of some (and to the giggles and chuckles of others), the recent Anthony Weiner sex scandal in American politics is producing some very interesting coverage. For instance, today's New York Post headline has created plenty of controversy as it brazenly proclaims 'Obama Beats Weiner'. The headline relates to President Obama's comments about Weiner's resignation, and while many are growing tired of the constant double entendres others are enjoying watching how far the joke can be pushed. The House Majority Leader, John Boehner, made comments earlier today calling for Weiner's resignation. Potential suggestions from Twitter for tomorrow's headline include 'Boehner Hard On Weiner'. While some suggest that this kind of childish joke-making is degrading American politics, it is hard not to laugh when you consider other recent political news. Fox Business host Eric Boilling yesterday remarked "What's with all the hoods in the hizzy?" after President Obama hosted rapper Common and Gabon President Ali Bongo at the White House recently. Boilling later apologised for "getting a little fast and loose with the language" but not for his comments about Obama "chugging 40s". And of course who could forget Sarah Palin, who continues travel around the United States on her One Nation tour, obviously inspired by her Australian political counterpart Pauline Hanson's One Nation party. Let's just hope the entire presidential campaign continues to be this much fun. https://youtube.com/watch?v=0XnLjDaREXs
Films about humanity's affinity with animals are films about our ties to the natural world — and doesn't Blueback splash that truth around. Plunging from The Dry into the wet, writer/director Robert Connolly reteams with Eric Bana for another page-to-screen adaptation of a homegrown book; this is another movie inseparable from its landscape, too, again exploring the impact people have upon it. This time, however, Bana isn't the star. He's memorable as larrikin abalone diver and fisherman 'Mad' Macka, and this Tim Winton-based feature would've benefited from more of his presence, but the Dirty John actor is firmly in supporting mode. Set against the enticing Western Australian coast as the author's work tends to be, this is a picture about the sea's thrall, existential importance and inherent sense of connection — as filtered through the bond between a girl and a wild blue groper, plus the evolving relationship between that same child and her eco-warrior mother. Mia Wasikowska (Bergman Island) plays Blueback's fish-befriending protagonist as an adult, with the text's Abel becoming Abby here. Radha Mitchell (Girl at the Window) shares the screen as Dora, her widowed mother, early in the film's year-hopping timeline. Still, in their second of three movies in succession — arriving before upcoming The Dry sequel Force of Nature — Connolly and Bana dip back into familiar territory. Obvious swaps are evident, including a beachside rather than a farming community, and atrocities against the planet and its wildlife instead of crimes against people, but it's easy to see Blueback's appeal as a reunion project. Among the key differences as Abby and Dora fight to save their town and its aquatic treasures, still battling wrongs to strive for what's right: this is an overtly and eagerly family-friendly affair. When Blueback introduces Abby, she's a marine biologist trying to stop the earth's coral reefs from being destroyed. Then comes a call from home about her mum. In Longboat Bay, Dora (played in her elder years by Liz Alexander, Clickbait) has suffered a stroke — and, in a too-neat move, that medical situation is used to inspire Abby's memories of why she chose her line of work in the first place. While Winton's novella initially hit shelves in 1997, justifying someone caring for the environment is a very 2020s touch. Being concerned about the planet doesn't require an origin story for a second, but they're the tales that flicker across screens in droves of late. Not all heroes wear capes, yet movies about valiant deeds and worthy attitudes keep feeling obliged to couch them in such terms. Wasikowska is sincere and affecting as the older Abby, her performance bathed in equal parts melancholy and determination, but Blueback's best sequences don't always involve the Judy & Punch and Crimson Peak talent. Connolly has cast his three versions of Abby well; taking on the character as a pre-teen and then a high schooler, and conveying resolve buoyed by curiosity and youthful hope in the process, Wolf Like Me's Ariel Donoghue and screen debutant Ilsa Fogg are each commanding and compelling. The biggest scene-stealers? The intricate mechanised puppetry by Creature Technology Company, which brings the movie's namesake to life, plus Rick Rifici's (Facing Monsters) wondrous underwater cinematography. Indeed, Blueback's lack of subtlety about Dora's health is so unnecessary because the film's strikingly shot and staged moments between a kid and a mesmerising fish communicate everything that needs saying anyway, and genuinely make the audience feel as Abby feels. Having read Winton's book over the past quarter-century isn't a prerequisite for knowing how Abby and Blueback's connection flows. Although this is just the latest movie sparked by the writer's prose — see also: Dirt Music, Breath and anthology The Turning in the past decade alone, the latter of which Connolly produced and Wasikowska directed a segment of — spying Winton's usual love of water, the WA coast, the environment and coming-of-age tales isn't, either. The author's regular hallmarks float through Blueback, but a child forging a sense of fellowship with another critter, loving their domain and discovering themselves along the way is its trusty anchor. Cinema in general, and Australian cinema specifically, is so fond of this storyline that the resulting flicks are practically their own genre. Where the two versions of Storm Boy, the Red Dog pictures and Oddball have all paddled before, this feature now swims (with ripples of overseas efforts Free Willy and Pete's Dragon as well). On a varied resume that spans The Bank, Balibo, and TV shows The Slap and Barracuda, too, Connolly also helmed Paper Planes. Consequently, as that film illustrated with its underdog chronicle about mastering a new skill in the pursuit of childhood glory, he knows a thing or two about working with well-worn all-ages formulas that've been sweeping over screens for generations. As glaringly as the sun bouncing off a glistening expanse of blue as far as the eye can see, oh-so-much about Blueback fits an easy template. Chief among them: the conflict between the younger Dora and shady developer Costello (Erik Thomson, How to Please a Woman), who wants to snap up the land that Abby's family's shack stands on, reshape the shoreline to the detriment of its marine life and make a bundle, all with help from nefarious spearfishers. Thankfully, there's also an ocean's worth of heart beating within Connolly's current release, especially whenever the titular creature makes an enchanting appearance. An unflinchingly earnest movie about valuing the natural world and stopping its decimation, as told with visual splendour that helps make its point through spectacular below-the-sea imagery, yet struggling with nuance: yes, add Avatar: The Way of Water to the lengthy list of films that Blueback recalls. This Aussie feature premiered on the festival circuit before James Cameron's 13-years-in-the-making blockbuster, though. It's also a quieter and more tender experience. Nonetheless, while scenic lensing by Nude Tuesday's Andrew Commis catches the eye on dry land as well, Blueback similarly gets caught adrift above the tide. Blunt eco-focused flicks aren't going anywhere, however, and nor should they. As Dora and Abby do for their patch of sand, friendly groper and the blue rock we all call home, this movie is campaigning — broadly, simplistically yet still engagingly, and as a fable for viewers young and old alike.
The most famous building in Australia is about to hit a huge milestone, with the Sydney Opera House turning 50 when October 2023 rolls around. Over those five decades, the iconic arts venue has hosted a dream lineup of shows, productions and gigs on its stages — and it has another in store to help mark its massive anniversary. An occasion this huge was never going to pass without plenty of celebrations, so the Opera House is planning a hefty lineup that'll serve up just that. Kicking off in October this year, the 50th-anniversary season will run for an entire 12 months. And while the bulk of it won't be announced until later in 2022, the venue has just revealed its first show: Amadeus starring Michael Sheen. The Welsh actor boasts a resume spanning everything from Masters of Sex and Tron: Legacy to The Queen and Twilight — Frost/Nixon, the Underworld flicks, Alice in Wonderland and Good Omens, too — and, from 1998–99 in London and also on Broadway, this very play. Back then, he took on the role of Mozart; however, this time he'll step into Antonio Salieri's shoes, aka the Italian composer posited to be the titular figure's bitter adversary. [caption id="attachment_860816" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Amadeus by Peter Shaffer. Directed by Peter Hall, with David Suchet as Antonio Salieri and Michael Sheen as Motzart. Performed at The Old Vic in London in 1998. Credit: Geraint Lewis / ArenaPAL.[/caption] Sheen's stint at the Opera House comes as part of Amadeus' Australian-exclusive season, which'll take over the site's newly revamped Concert Hall from Tuesday, December 27, 2022–Saturday, January 21, 2023. He'll play opposite Rahel Romahn (Here Out West) as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, plus Lily Balatincz (Constellations) as Constanze Mozart, all bringing a fierce — and fictitious — classical music rivalry to life. If you're new to Amadeus, which first hit the stage in 1979 in London — six years after the Opera House opened its doors — it reimagines Mozart and Salieri's lives as the latter struggles to come to terms with the former's talent. In 1981, for its first Broadway run, it nabbed the 1981 Tony Award for Best Play. In 1984, after being turned into a movie, it also won eight Academy Awards including Best Picture. And, Baz Luhrmann also mentioned it to Concrete Playground as one of the influences that helped him on the path to making Elvis. Including Sheen, Romahn and Mozart, the Sydney cast will feature 40 performers, spanning actors, opera singers and musicians from The Metropolitan Orchestra who'll be worked into the onstage drama. Director Craig Ilott (Smoke & Mirrors, American Idiot, Betty Blokk Buster Reimagined) will be on helming duties, while Australian fashion house Romance Was Born is directing the costumes. [caption id="attachment_860821" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Daniel Boud[/caption] And, for theatregoers keen to turn a night watching Amadeus into quite the special occasion, the Opera House is also doing impressive — albeit expensive — dinner-and-show option called Amadeus: Primo Atto. Starting at $440 per person, it includes a three-course dinner with paired wines in one of the venue's most intimate spaces, plus a private tour beforehand, and then tickets to the production. As for what else will be on the 50th-anniversary lineup, watch this space. Based on this first announcement — and the fact that the full program of events and performances is supported by the NSW Government's Blockbuster Funding initiative — the Opera House's year-long festivities looks set to be big. [caption id="attachment_681696" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Hamilton Lund[/caption] Amadeus will play Sydney Opera House's Concert Hall from Tuesday, December 27, 2022–Saturday, January 21, 2023. Pre-sales start at 9am on Wednesday, July 13, with general ticket sales from 9am on Monday, July 18. For more information, head to the Sydney Opera House website. For more information about Amadeus: Primo Atto, also head to the Sydney Opera House website. Top image: Faith Healer by Brian Friel, rehearsals, Michael Sheen as Frank Hardy. Directed by Warchus, set designed by Howell, lighting designed by Lutkin and Brown. Old Vic Theatre, London, UK; 21 September 2020. Credit: Manuel Harlan / ArenaPAL.
The CBD's leafy oasis Taylor's Rooftop now has your Thursdays sorted with its new Tacos, Tequila & Throwbacks night. So, if you were looking for your next fun date spot or searching for a new after-work watering hole, head on up the stairs to bust a move at this margarita-fuelled party. Kicking off on Thursday, March 5, this party will be celebrating with free tacos and margaritas — the venue is giving away 100 of each from 6pm, with the party raging on till late. If you want in, be sure to RSVP for free here. The sky-high fiesta will happen every Thursday, with $5 tacos, $10 margs and $25 Corona buckets available all night long. It'll all be backed with 90s and early 2000s bangers. Think the likes of Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue and Armand Van Helden — and, yes, singing along at the top of your lungs is encouraged. And, thanks to the rooftop's retractable roof, this party will happen come rain or shine every week. Tacos, Tequila & Throwbacks kicks off with a launch party on Thursday, March 5 and will occur every Thursday from 6pm–late.
It may no longer be a functioning substation but the vibe here is electric. Gone are Alexandria's dining days of takeaway joints and vending machines, the industrial 'burb is now enjoying sprightly new spots for food and flat whites. But with workers and residents aplenty and an espresso-lacking strip in McEvoy Street, Sub-Station Cafe is a welcome and indeed wanted addition. Housed in an old electric substation, the cleverly designed space is abuzz with happy people, and for good reason: here is a lovely, light-filled spot for recharging one's batteries. A big pumpkin at the front door signifies Sub-Station out of the grey lines of warehouses and smash repairs, and is a cute indication of the sense of humour inside. Lightbulbs hang from bedsprings in makeshift chandeliers and vintage advertisements of Coles and David Jones are framed resplendently. The narrow coffee bar – clad with old-world tiles and laden with freshly baked bread – opens up to an outside courtyard. It's green, private, quiet: a rarity in this truck-heavy part of town. Single-origin coffee (from $3) is rich and respectably creamy, and would go down a treat with one of Sub-Station's freshly baked goodies: think homemade brownies and lemon tarts. The breakfast offerings hit the mark with a balance of savoury, sweet and simple. The highlight has to be the Morning Dream breakfast roll ($16): a house-baked bread roll with egg, bacon, avocado, spinach, tomato and a chutney-like homemade sauce. The bacon is crackly crisp, American-style, which bacon-enthusiasts will attest can be hard to source. The just-baked station granola ($12) is a delight and baked at the spot itself. Grassroots fare is clearly a Sub-Station priority; with free-range eggs and organic honey in the kitchen and potted spinach growing outside. There are homespun touches throughout, like the wooden spoon–fashioned table numbers and wall-hung chopping boards. A hidey-hole haven in Alexandria, this substation is deliciously delivering energy and good vibes to Sydneysiders.
The latest exhibition at Paddington's Stills gallery features images that take you inside iconic Australian artists' studio spaces — not to mention inside the mechanism of early photography. Robyn Stacey creates her art by turning entire rooms into camera obscura, which, for those who didn't study photography at school, is a dark box with a lens that projects the outside world onto a screen inside, except upside down and back-to-front (much like how our eyes project images onto the retina). Stacey boards up the windows of the spaces she photographs, leaving only a ray of light. Then, for a few hours in the day, an image of the outside world is projected onto the opposing wall, and Stacey photographs this at the perfect moment of light and clarity. This exhibition features photographs of a number of artists' spaces she used this technique on, including Wendy and Brett Whiteley's library, the National Art School and the Rose Seidler House (which was designed by Harry Seidler for his parents, Rose and Max Seidler). You can also step inside rooms that Stacey has turned into camera obscura — one in the gallery and another (for two weeks only on 8-9 and 14-15 October) at the Courthouse Hotel in Darlinghurst's Taylor Square. The exhibition opens at 3pm on Saturday, October 8 with a talk from Wendy Whiteley, or head to the gallery on Saturday, October 15 at 3pm for the artist talk. Image: Robyn Stacey, Inside Wendy & Brett Whiteley Library, Lavender Bay, 2016.
According to one urban myth, Sydney's jacarandas are the work of an unknown hospital matron who sent every new mother home with a seedling. Another states that soldiers brought the trees home as gifts on their return from World War II. The problem is that there's no evidence for either. So no one really knows how Sydney came to have so many. What we do know, though, is that, come late October, the city transforms into a vision of purple, as hundreds of jacarandas bloom. But they don't hang around for long — so, if you're keen to see them, it's time to start planning a day out. Here are a few spots — both in and near Sydney — where you can get your jacaranda fix this spring. CIRCULAR QUAY AND THE ROCKS The Rocks' heritage-listed sandstone provides another striking backdrop. Turn your adventure into a lovely walk by starting at the Royal Botanic Gardens and following the Harbour shore line to The Rocks. PADDINGTON Paddington's most famous jacarandas line Oxford Street, just outside Victoria Barracks. But you'll find plenty more among the suburb's back streets and parks — especially around Five Ways. LAVENDER BAY To see a purple sea against the brilliant blue of the Harbour, head to Lavender Bay on the lower north shore. Other spots to check out nearby include Wollstonecraft, Waverton and Kirribilli's famous (and always packed with photo-takers) jacaranda 'tunnel'. HUNTERS HILL While you're on the North Shore, head a little west to take a stroll through Hunters Hill. For a local's perspective, jump on board a walking tour with the Hunters Hill Trust. CAMDEN Found an hour's drive southwest of the Sydney CBD, Camden's town centre transforms into a blaze of purple, thanks to 39 trees planted way back in the 1920s. GRAFTON Grafton's a six-hour road trip from Sydney, but rewards you with more than 6500 trees and its famous Jacaranda Festival, set to take place between October 27 and November 4 this year. Images: Destination NSW.
How many spider-men is the optimal amount of spider-men? Asking for the best Spider-franchise there is: the Spider-Verse series. Sure, 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home messed with multiverse madness, complete with Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland's versions of the titular character — but the stunning 2018 Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse not only got there first, but topped that first. Now, the animated flick's upcoming sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is going one better yet again. Initially set to release in 2022 — and even dropping a first trailer in 2021 — but now arriving in June 2023, Across the Spider-Verse is the first of two follow-ups to the Miles Morales (Shameik Moore, Wu-Tang: An American Saga)-focused franchise. And, it isn't holding pack on its spider-people. Where the initial film gave us a spider-woman, spider-robot and spider-pig, as well as Nicolas Cage as a 30s-era spider-vigilante, this one has another whole onslaught of Spideys heading Miles' way. This time around, the movie's Brooklyn-based friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man is slightly older, and also faced with a spider-team, who are keen to protect the multiverse's existence. When there's that many Spideys, agreeing on how to handle things — including a new threat — isn't easy. That's how the clash between Miles and his fellow spider-folk comes about, as animated in the series' usual dazzling onslaught of colour and movement in the just-released sneak peek. Also included amid all the spider-alternatives in the trailer: Miles reuniting with Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld, Hawkeye). And, there's Spider-Woman (Issa Rae, Insecure), the Spider-Verse version of The Vulture (Jorma Taccone, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story) and the return of Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac, Moon Knight). (If you're wondering about Isaac's character, he first turned up in the post-credits section of Into the Spider-Verse, and he's an alternate version of Spidey from a specific Marvel Comics imprint.) The voice cast spans Daniel Kaluuya (Nope) as Spider-Punk and Jason Schwartzman (I Love That for You) as The Spot as well, and Jake Johnson (Minx) is also back as Peter B Parker — alongside Brian Tyree Henry (Bullet Train) as Miles' dad and Luna Lauren Velez (Power Book II: Ghost). Expect to see Miles head into other Spidey realms, too, in a franchise that made every single live-action Spidey film pale in comparison to its initial instalment. Once again produced by The Afterparty's Phil Lord and Christopher Miller — and this time co-written — Across the Spider-Verse will be followed by third film Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse in 2024. There's also a female-focused spinoff in the works as well. Check out the new Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse trailer below: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will release in cinemas Down Under on June 1, 2023.
Woolloomooloo icon, The Tilbury, has been revamped just in time for summer. Designers Luchetti Krelle (the same people behind the design of ACME and Barrio Cellar) have used their magic to turn it into a bright and breezy space with plenty of wood tones, gold and a splash of pastel blue. In fact, the whole colour palette screams modern maritime. This major overhaul of the interior, courtyard and upstairs area is the pub's first in twelve years. The restaurant has plenty of natural light and the chairs look like they're wearing snuggly jumpers. Hooray for extra comfort during your dinner! For those who prefer a warm breeze, balmy summer afternoons are just around the corner and the revamped courtyard is the perfect spot for some after-work drinks or a lazy meal. Owner Scott Whitehouse wants to "give people a more relaxed experience when visiting the hotel... without jeopardising the already simple classic style." Interior renovations usually go hand in hand with menu changes and this is no different. With head chef James Wallis behind the pass, The Tilbury has a new produce-driven grill menu for you to enjoy with your mates. It's fine gastropub fare-focused with dishes like Moroccan spiced lamb rump and a Black Angus rump (with a marbling score of three). We've got our eye on the 64 percent Valhrona chocolate mousse with vanilla ice cream though — washed down with a Riesling or a pint of pale ale. This is one local that's keeping things up to date. Find The Tilbury at 12-18 Nicholson St, Woolloomooloo.
If, this January 26, you're looking for a thoughtful way to reflect on the impact of the arrival of the First Fleet and Australia's colonisation on its First Nations people, you should join the folks from Sydney Festival the evening prior. For the third year running, the festival will be running a vigil at Barangaroo Reserve from dusk on Monday, January 25 through to dawn on Tuesday, January 26. There will be performances and talks from First Nations artists happening throughout the night, as well as reflections from members of the Indigenous Australian community. You can drop by at any time or stay all night — if you're in it for the long haul, make sure you bring warm clothes. Feel free to take some mates with you, but the event is also a good opportunity to meet new people and have conversations around the anniversary and what it means for all Australians. The Vigil is free, but you must register your interest before attending as well as wear a mask. You can register over here. Images: Victor Frankowski
Ever wanted an extra few minutes in bed on Monday morning? A new Sydney-based startup is offering you this opportunity with a new app that lets you customise, order and pay for your coffee and breakfast before you even arrive at the cafe door. Beat The Q, as the name suggests, allows customers to beat those dreary queues for your morning latte and vegemite toast. After you set up an account, Beat The Q searches for nearby cafes. Select a venue, and then you can order your coffee and food through a simple online menu. Follow the steps to finalise the order, and it will be ready for pick up without any of the awkward standing around in never-ending lines. With the ability to order while you're still in bed or riding on the bus, this is sure to shave a couple of minutes off your hectic morning schedule. Beat The Q is now being offered by over 30 cafes in Sydney, including Toby's Estate, Sonoma Baking Company, Pablo and Rusty's and Little Marionette cafes. The company's founder, Adam Theobald, states that the app was "born out of a love for coffee, and dislike of queues", something we are all too familiar with. Furthermore, it was created to address "current trends, including longer work hours and a shift towards a cashless society." Indeed, this is another way that technology is making our lives just a little cushier. Watch for more of your favourite cafes to be offering this quick and convenient method of ordering. With Beat The Q, it's certain that your coffee is going to taste just that little bit sweeter. You can grab the app from the iTunes store now.
Jimmy Chin is no stranger to peering at the world from angles that most folks don't see. He's also familiar with hitting peaks. As a mountain athlete, scaling great heights has been his job; however, the above descriptions also apply to his work as a filmmaker. With his partner Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, he won the Best Documentary Feature Oscar for Free Solo. Before that, the pair took home an audience award at Sundance for the also climbing-focused Meru. The Rescue, their doco about the efforts to free 12 Thai schoolboys and their soccer coach from the Tham Luang Nang Non cave system, earned them more acclaim — and both Annette Bening (Apples Never Fall) and Jodie Foster (True Detective: Night Country) scored Academy Award noms for starring in the duo's feature debut Nyad. Get Chin talking, then, and he'll clearly have much to discuss — about his work as a director and a mountaineer alike. On his first appearance in Australia, he'll be doing just that at Sydney Film Festival and Vivid Sydney. The two events are co-hosting Beyond the Summit with Jimmy Chin, where the Oscar-winner, National Geographic photographer and author will be behind the microphone for one night only. [caption id="attachment_706085" align="alignnone" width="1920"] National Geographic/Jimmy Chin[/caption] How does someone who clambers up mountains then become a celebrated documentarian? How did skills in the former help with the latter — not just when climbing is the focus on-screen, as was clearly the case with Meru, and also with Free Solo's chronicle of Alex Honnold's El Capitan ascent sans ropes, but in general? Why do extraordinary feats, including Diana Nyad's 110-mile ocean swim, appeal to Chin as a filmmaker? They're just some of the threads that this in-conversation session, which is taking place on Friday, June 13, 2025 at Sydney Town Hall, might cover. Chin will dig into shooting in extreme conditions, too, alongside how being a professional adventurer influences the way he sees the natural world on film. [caption id="attachment_833518" align="alignnone" width="1920"] National Geographic[/caption] "I'm excited to be a part of Vivid Sydney and the Sydney Film Festival this year. It's a great way to celebrate storytelling and creative risk-taking, which have both shaped my life in the mountains and behind the camera. To share my experiences in one of the world's most iconic cities is an incredible opportunity," said Chin about his upcoming trip Down Under. "Vivid Sydney's collaboration with Sydney Film Festival this year helps bolster the calibre of both festivals and this event is testament to that. Jimmy Chin is a captivating creative with an equally impressive resume, and this conversation promises to be one to remember," added Vivid Sydney Festival Director Gill Minervini. "Jimmy Chin's work sits at the intersection of art, athleticism and ambition. His films are as exhilarating as they are emotionally resonant, and we're honoured to welcome him to Sydney for this one-of-a-kind conversation," noted SFF Festival Director Nashen Moodley. [caption id="attachment_945212" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Kimberley French/Netflix ©2023[/caption] Sydney Film Festival and Vivid Sydney have a number of collaborations on their 2025 slates, including a screening of Justin Kurzel (The Narrow Road to the Deep North)-directed documentary Ellis Park, about iconic musician Warren Ellis establishing an animal sanctuary to protect endangered species in Sumatra, plus An Evening with Warren Ellis at City Recital Hall. At the first, at the State Theatre, audiences will obviously see the film. Afterwards, its subject — a Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds collaborator and Dirty Three founder, as well as a pivotal force in movie scores, including on The Proposition, The Road, Far From Men, Mustang, Hell or High Water, The Velvet Queen, The New Boy, Back to Black, Kid Snow and newly minted Oscar-winner I'm Still Here — will chat about the doco, and also put on a short musical performance. Then there's Planet City: Live. Courtesy of designer and director Liam Young, the speculative fiction experience takes attendees to a different future — one where humanity has responded to the environmental destruction of the planet in a decisive fashion. Young's film is set at a time where there's just one city, which is where everyone on earth resides, with the rest of the globe left to rewild. At SFF, Young will provide live narration for the film, while Forest Swords will play its score live as Planet City screens. All of the above are just a taste of Sydney Film Festival's program, which has unveiled a few other sneak peeks so far — a batch of other initial titles, a Jafar Panahi retrospective and Together as the opening-night flick, for starters — in advance of the full lineup releasing on Wednesday, May 7. Check out the trailers for Meru, Free Solo, The Rescue and Nyad below: Beyond the Summit with Jimmy Chin takes place on Friday, June 13, 2025 at Sydney Town Hall — head to the Sydney Film Festival website for tickets. Sydney Film Festival 2025 runs from Wednesday, June 4–Sunday, June 15 at cinemas across Sydney. Hit up the festival website for further information and tickets — and check back in with Concrete Playground on Wednesday, May 7 for the full lineup. Vivid Sydney 2025 runs from Friday, May 23–Saturday, June 14 across Sydney. Head to the festival website for further information.
It seems like every small town has a slightly hazardous rite of passage that provides endless stories — both good and bad. In Brunswick Heads, this initiation involves making the leap from the South Beach Road Bridge into Simpson's Creek about four metres below. With the creek providing a wonderful swimming spot at high tide, dozens of people — young and old — test their mettle on a hot summer's day. There's every reason to get involved, but do take caution if you decide to take the leap from this 85-year-old wooden bridge. Image: Christy Gallois, Flickr
Every year since 2007, millions of people throughout the world collectively shut off the lights for one hour to support environmental sustainability. Known as Earth Hour, this 60 minutes of darkness has reached over 125 countries and major landmarks such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Rome's Colosseum and Toronto's CN Tower. This year, Earth Hour will take place on March 26 from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. local time, creating an hourly wave of support as the blackout hits each time zone. But how much change can a single hour make? Although Earth Hour serves its purpose by creating a universal initiative to save the planet, for the past four years the effort never seemed go beyond that one hour. 2011 has the potential to be different. In 2011, we hope to extend environment-friendly living beyond a single hour of darkness. Beyond the Hour is a platform that encourages individuals, governments and organisations to post pledges using various social networks about how they will decrease their carbon footprint in their everyday lives. Pledges can be as simple as recycling, carpooling, using reusable bags or shutting off the water when brushing your teeth.The Beyond the Hour platform has already been released as an iPhone application called 60+, where users can click "do this" next to others' pledges that they like and agree to do the same. It's hard to believe that cutting a few showers shorter will make a big difference in sustaining a positive future for Earth. But when small changes are made by a large group of people, that little bit of effort can go a long way. https://youtube.com/watch?v=MyTe66KY7SY
A tale of love and hidden identities, Twelfth Night has arrived at the Sydney Opera House with beloved theatre group Bell Shakespeare returning to the iconic Sydney venue's Playhouse. If you're out of the loop, Twelfth Night sees protagonist Viola arrive in a new city following a shipwreck and disguise herself as a man in order to find work. Things get tricky when she falls in love with her boss and her twin brother Sebastian arrives. If this all sounds familiar, it could be because the story is the basis for the 2006 teen classic She's the Man. Bell Shakespeare's new iteration of the stage show comes from director Heather Fairbairn and places the characters in a more nature-driven outdoor setting. Fairbairn's version pulls on threads of gender and sexuality in the original, diving deeper into these themes through a fresh retelling of the story. Twelfth Night is also one of Shakespeare's most music-heavy plays, and Bell Shakespeare has gone all out with the soundtrack, enlisting the help of ARIA Award-winning songwriter Sarah Blasko to create original pieces for the show. Blasko has crafted six new songs, all of which are performed by the cast live on stage throughout the two-and-a-half-hour performance. "My approach to everything, including theatre, is just to go with a vibe! But, my initial inspiration for the music came from conversations with Heather who wanted to convey a sense of melancholy with the music but for it not to be depressing," said Blasko. "I felt the blues was the obvious place to start as most popular music has its roots there, and the blues has that sadness but is ultimately uplifting." You can catch the show in Sydney until Sunday, November 19. Head to the Sydney Opera House website to secure your tickets. Images: Brett Boardman.
Being a kid and loving spooky movies was glorious in 1993. That year three decades back gave the world two beloved all-ages-friendly flicks that have become October staples ever since — and, in one case, suitable festive viewing as well. One came with Tim Burton's name attached. The other told everyone to run amok, amok, amok. Now, to celebrate their 30th anniversaries, both The Nightmare Before Christmas and Hocus Pocus are returning to cinemas. Moviegovers can see Jack Skellington's antics on the big screen Down Under again from Thursday, October 12, and the Sanderson sisters wreaking havoc from Thursday, October 19. As for which actual picture palaces are playing the films, and at what times, you'll need to check your local — but nostalgia and family-friendly scares will be whirring through the projectors once more. With The Nightmare Before Christmas, filmmakers Tim Burton and Henry Selick (Wendell & Wild) served up one of the most enchanting holiday films to hit the big screen — and one that doubles as both Halloween and Christmas viewing. It's Burton's name that everyone remembers; however, a pre-Coraline Selick is actually in the director's chair on The Nightmare Before Christmas, which charms with both its offbeat story and its gorgeous stop-motion animation. Burton came up with the narrative though, because Jack Skellington only could've originated from the Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands filmmaker's brain. Imaginative, original and engaging (even as it nods to Dr Seuss a few times), it still remains a treat for all ages. [caption id="attachment_921880" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Disney.[/caption] The Hocus Pocus franchise is no stranger to comebacks, given that it dropped a 29-years-later sequel on streaming in 2022, with a third film also on the way. Helmed by Kenny Ortega before the director gave the world the High School Musical movies, the OG flick was the first to enlist Bette Midler (The Addams Family 2), Sarah Jessica Parker (And Just Like That...) and Kathy Najimy (Music) as Winnie, Sarah and Mary Sanderson — and to unleash them in modern-day Salem. Back then, someone lit the black flame candle, which resurrected the 17th-century sisters in the movie's world — and had viewers warned about locking up their children. If you have "twist the bones and bend the back" stuck in your head just thinking about it, you're obviously a fan. Check out the trailers for The Nightmare Before Christmas and Hocus Pocus below: The Nightmare Before Christmas is returning to cinemas Down Under from Thursday, October 12, and Hocus Pocus from Thursday, October 19 — head to your local cinema for details. Images: Matt Kennedy. © 2022 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your weekend off to a strong start with Boogie Brunch at Manly's Little Pearl. Set right across from the beach, you can take a mid-morning dip beneath the waves and still have plenty of time to make your way to this upbeat two-hour session. Featuring a tantalising, Asian-inspired 6-course feast and bottomless spritz package, this brunch does things a little differently. Powerhouse pop collective Sexy Sunday Jam has put together a revolving lineup of musical talent performing lung-busting soul and R&B tunes. Whether you and your pals are fresh as a daisy or recovering from Friday night's festivities, dishes like karaage chicken betel leaves, wok-tossed king prawns and chilli-glazed cauliflower slides will have you feeling better than ever. Then, the spritz selection is bursting with fruity flavours, like wild hibiscus and limoncello. Alongside a huge range of house wines, beers and tasty non-alcoholic options, this free-flowing beverage offering hits the spot. Bookings are $95pp and run across 12pm and 2.30pm sessions every Saturday.
It's been a long time between drinks for music festivals in NSW. Across the ditch, New Zealand has been hosting major music events for months and even up north in Brisbane smaller-scale music festivals have been back on the cards. But, if you're a Sydneysider, footage from NZ's Rhythm and Vines festival may seem like a parallel universe at this point. These scenes may not be so alien to NSW for much longer, however, with Wollongong's annual two-day music festival Yours and Owls becoming the state's second major festival to be granted the go-ahead from the NSW Government. Yours and Owls announced on Thursday, March 4 that its COVID-19 safety plan had been approved by the NSW Government and Health Minister, which would allow the event to take place across Saturday, April 17 and Sunday, April 18. The news comes three weeks after Byron Bay's Bluesfest was given a provisional green light to go ahead over the Easter long weekend. While the Bluesfest announcement came with an outline of the COVID-safe plan, Yours and Owls is keeping things more vague, announcing: "to ensure we have every angle covered and our eggs spread across multiple baskets, we have developed plans for a number of different format options, to ensure we are in the best possible position to run the event within whatever parameters are in place come our event date." The event is currently scheduled for its usual home at Stuart Park, located just behind the North Wollongong foreshore; however, this is subject to change depending on what format the festival takes. The festival will be headlined by a collection of beloved locals including PNAU, DMA's, Tones and I and What So Not, as well as TikTok sensation Benee who will be making the trip over from New Zealand. Benee, DMA's and Tones and I's performances will serve as somewhat of bookends to the state's festival drought, after all three performed at one of NSW's last pre-pandemic festivals, Laneway 2020. A range of rising stars, industry mainstays and local Wollongong talent fill out the 50-plus artists performing across the two days. Alongside the announcement, Yours and Owls has released a handful of tickets to the previously sold out event. You can find them via Moshtix, but be fast as they're unlikely to last long. [caption id="attachment_789706" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Benee[/caption] Yours and Owls has been given a provisional green light to host its 2021 festival on Saturday, April 17 and Sunday, April 18.
Fists fly in Polite Society. Feet as well. When the latter aren't suspended in mid-air attempting to execute stunning kung-fu stunts, they just might be busting out their best Bollywood dance moves. Words are screamed and shouted, often between sisters Ria (Priya Kansara, Bridgerton) and Lena Khan (Ritu Arya, The Umbrella Academy), who are thick as thieves until they suddenly aren't. Schoolyard fights rumble like they've spilled straight out an action movie, which budding stuntperson Ria dreams of being in. Showdowns with Lena's future mother-in-law Raheela Shah (Nimra Bucha, Ms Marvel) could've burst from a Quentin Tarantino film. Espionage missions are undertaken by high schoolers, as are heists at a spectacular Muslim wedding in a lavish London mansion. Lena scoffs down a whole roast chicken on a public footpath like it's the only thing she's ever eaten. Ria and Lena free themselves from their angst by letting loose in their living room to The Chemical Brothers' dance-floor filler 'Free Yourself'. And being a dutiful member of her community is the absolute worst fate that could await an ass-kicking British Pakistani teenage girl. In other words, a little bit of everything happens in Polite Society, the anarchic and eye-popping debut feature from We Are Lady Parts creator Nida Manzoor. That includes nods to Jackie Chan movies and The Matrix, plus Bond-style antics and Ennio Morricone-esque music drops. Add in riffs on Get Out, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-inspired wuxia, video-game flourishes, musical dance numbers, and nudges in Jane Austen and Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan's directions. Scott Pilgrim vs the World and Kill Bill leave imprints. When it examines intergenerational pressure, so do Everything Everywhere All At Once and Turning Red. Whatever this high-energy charmer throws at the screen, it always serves the narrative. It also showcases Manzoor's lively and bold filmmaking eye. But more importantly, Polite Society is the spin-kicking whirlwind it is because that's what it feels like to be a schoolgirl training in martial arts, yearning to pack a literal punch, desperate to become anything but what society demands and tired of being dictated to — and saddled with cultural expectations but determined to propel along one's own path in general, too. At school, Ria is told that she should go into medicine. Other than her best friends Clara (Seraphina Beh, Top Boy) and Alba (Ella Bruccoleri, Call the Midwife), her classmates mock her stunt-performer ambitions. Bully Kovacs (movie debutant Shona Babayemi) even gets brawling over them. Ria's parents Fatima and Rafe (We Are Lady Parts alumni Shobu Kapoor and Jeff Mirza) advocate for a more practical life goal, not just for her but for aspiring artist Lena. And yet, Ria is certain that she's going to make stunts her career, so much so that there's only two other things she believes in as passionately. She has zero doubts that Lena is meant to be a great painter, ignoring the fact that she's just dropped out of art school. Then, when a surprise invite to the Shahs' Eid soirée sees Lena start dating Raheela's doctor son Salim (Akshay Khanna, Chloe), the most lusted-after bachelor in their family's social circle, and get engaged amid plans to move to Singapore, Ria couldn't be more convinced that the whole situation is 100-percent shady. When We Are Lady Parts hit TV screens in 2021, it did so with a clear understanding of complicated sisterly relationships. Focused on all-female, all-Muslim punk rockers, the gem introduced the titular Lady Parts with quite the track: 'Ain't No One Gonna Honour Kill My Sister But Me'. In Polite Society, the film's central sibling feud gets physical — when Ria and Lena throw down in one frenetic fray, "Khan vs Khan" is emblazoned across the frame like this is Street Fighter — and, whether they're flinging limbs or hugging it out, their clash is complex. Battling sisters is a nice shorthand for one of writer/director Manzoor's key messages, stressing that there's no such thing as just one type of Muslim woman. Ria and Lena couldn't be closer before Salim's charisma splinters their bond, but even they don't know everything that each other is, wants, hopes for or fantasies about. There's no one straightforward description for Polite Society either, with its kaleidoscope of genres, bouncing between capers, coming-of-age journey, comic tone, sibling celebration and arranged-marriage satire — and its Bend It Like Beckham-influenced narrative, swapping soccer for stunts. As it bounds through Ria's world, as well as her fears about not realising her only dream and losing Lena to a conventional existence, it manages to sprinkle in horror and science fiction. Manzoor also pays loving tribute to Ria's passion not only by staging dazzling stunts, but by having her protagonist idolise real-life stunt professional Eunice Huthart. The British ex-Gladiators star sports a resume that boasts GoldenEye, The Fifth Element, Titanic, 28 Days Later, Children of Men, Maleficent, Justice League and Eternals, as well as Star Wars, Harry Potter, Fast and Furious, Terminator, Pirates of the Caribbean and Tomb Raider titles, and Polite Society finds room to wink at many of them. Ensuring that the style of a film so utterly suits its story isn't easy, and nor is having every aspect of a movie's look and feel epitomise the statement it's making — then also doing both in a way that makes it plain that no other approach could've done the flick justice. That's a feat that Manzoor smashes, and repeatedly, with equally dynamic help from cinematographer Ashley Connor (Night Sky), editor Robbie Morrison (Starstruck), inspired sound effects and a thumping global soundtrack. The camerawork has as much of a spring in its step as Ria, as does Polite Society's happily hectic pace, vibrant use of colour and everything that echoes from the cinema speakers. All movies should be acts of immersion, but rare are the films that so deeply plunge their audience into their lead character's head and heart with everything it can, let alone so committedly, creatively, convincingly and compellingly. Rare are the on-screen finds like Kansara, too, who is as expressive and exuberant as the picture she's in. Polite Society doesn't idealise Ria at any moment — a film so devoted to shattering stereotypes and destroying any possibility of Muslim women being seen as a monoculture was never going to avoid her impulsiveness and hot-headedness — instead giving Kansara ample room to have a helluva lot of fun in her fleshed-out main part. She's playful, enterprising and heartfelt while operating at a mile-a-minute speed. She isn't afraid to make big leaps and stay spirited from the get-go, and to both unpack and lean into Ria's main-character syndrome. She's also a winning blend of pluck and spark in a roundhouse kick of a joyously entertaining flick that makes every single jab and strike matter.
Florist Sarah Cowley of Haven and Sarah loves putting together beautiful bouquets of seasonal flowers. And with a selection of homewares and related products for sale in her shop as well, all your Mother's Day, engagement, and birthday gift needs are well looked after under Cowley's artistic eye. Since opening in 2014, Haven and Sarah's bright, cheerful displays have been decorating the street and calling in passersby. Whether you are lucky enough to live locally or are just passing through, it's worth picking up a bunch and taking a moment to browse the shelves stocked with gorgeous ceramics, candles and cushions.
Before the pandemic, when a new-release movie started playing in cinemas, audiences couldn't watch it on streaming, video on demand, DVD or blu-ray for a few months. But with the past few years forcing film industry to make quite a few changes — widespread movie theatre closures and plenty of people staying home in iso will do that — that's no longer always the case. Maybe you've had a close-contact run-in. Perhaps you haven't had time to make it to your local cinema lately. Given the hefty amount of films now releasing each week, maybe you simply missed something. Film distributors have been fast-tracking some of their new releases from cinemas to streaming recently — movies that might still be playing in theatres in some parts of the country, too. In preparation for your next couch session, here are 18 that you can watch right now at home. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE Imagine living in a universe where Michelle Yeoh isn't the wuxia superstar she is. No, no one should want to dwell in that reality. Now, envisage a world where everyone has hot dogs for fingers, including the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon icon. Next, picture another where Ratatouille is real, but with raccoons. Then, conjure up a sparse realm where life only exists in sentient rocks. An alternative to this onslaught of pondering: watching Everything Everywhere All At Once, which throws all of the above at the screen and a helluva lot more. Yes, its title is marvellously appropriate. Written and directed by the Daniels, aka Swiss Army Man's Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, this multiverse-hopping wonder is a funhouse of a film that just keeps spinning through wild and wacky ideas. Instead of asking "what if Daniel Radcliffe was a farting corpse that could be used as a jet ski?" as their also-surreal debut flick did, the pair now muses on Yeoh, her place in the universe, and everyone else's along with her. Although Yeoh doesn't play herself in Everything Everywhere All At Once, she is seen as herself; keep an eye out for red-carpet footage from her Crazy Rich Asians days. Such glitz and glamour isn't the norm for middle-aged Chinese American woman Evelyn Wang, her laundromat-owning character in the movie's main timeline, but it might've been if life had turned out differently. That's such a familiar train of thought — a resigned sigh we've all emitted, even if only when alone — and the Daniels use it as their foundation. Their film starts with Evelyn, her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom's Short Round and The Goonies' Data) and a hectic time. Evelyn's dad (James Hong, Turning Red) is visiting from China, the Wangs' daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) brings her girlfriend Becky (Tallie Medel, The Carnivores) home, and IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdra (Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween Kills) is conducting a punishing audit. Then Evelyn learns she's the only one who can save, well, everything, everywhere and everyone. Everything Everywhere All At Once is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. THE LOST CITY Sometimes, they do still make 'em like they used to: action-adventure rom-coms in this case. Drive a DeLorean back to 1984, to the year before Robert Zemeckis made DeLoreans one of the most famous types of movie cars ever, and the director's Romancing the Stone did huge box-office business — and it's that hit that The Lost City keenly tries to emulate. This new Sandra Bullock- and Channing Tatum-starring romp doesn't hide that aim for a second, and even uses the same broad overall setup. Once again, a lonely romance novelist is swept up in a chaotic adventure involving treasure, a jungle-hopping jaunt and a stint of kidnapping, aka exactly what she writes about in her best-selling books. The one big change: the writer is held hostage, rather than her sister. But if you've seen Romancing the Stone, you know what you're in for. As penned by writer/director duo directors Aaron and Adam Nee (Band of Robbers) with Oren Uziel (Mortal Kombat) and Dana Fox (Cruella) — based on a story by Baywatch director Seth Gordon — The Lost City's plot is ridiculously easy to spot. Also, it's often flat-out ridiculous. Anyone who has ever seen any kind of flick along the same lines, such as Jungle Cruise most recently, will quickly see that Loretta Sage (Bullock, The Unforgivable), this movie's protagonist, could've written it herself. Once she finds herself living this type of narrative, that truth isn't lost on her, either. First, though, she's five years into a grief-stricken reclusive spell, and is only out in the world promoting her new release because her publisher Beth (Da'Vine Joy Randolph, The United States vs Billie Holiday) forces her to. She's also far from happy at being stuck once again with the man who has been sharing her limelight over the years, Fabio-style model Alan (Tatum, Dog), who has graced her book's covers and had women falling over themselves to lust-read their pages. And Loretta is hardly thrilled about the whole spectacle that becomes her latest Q&A as a result, and that makes her a distracted easy mark for billionaire Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe, Guns Akimbo) afterwards. The Lost City is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. MEMORIA When Memoria begins, it echoes with a thud that's not only booming and instantly arresting — a clamour that'd make anyone stop and listen — but is also deeply haunting. It arrives with a noise that, if the movie's opening scene was a viral clip rather than part of Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul's spectacular Cannes Jury Prize-winning feature, it'd be tweeted around with a familiar message: sound on. The racket wakes up Jessica Holland (Tilda Swinton, The Souvenir: Part II) in the night, and it's soon all that she can think about; like character, like film. It's a din that she later describes as "a big ball of concrete that falls into a metal well which is surrounded by seawater"; however, that doesn't help her work out what it is, where it's coming from or why it's reverberating. The other question that starts to brood: is she the only one who can hear it? So springs a feature that's all about listening, and truly understands that while movies are innately visual — they're moving pictures, hence the term — no one should forget the audio that's gone with it for nearly a century now. Watching Weerasethakul's work has always engaged the ears intently, with the writer/director behind the Palme d'Or-winning Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives and just-as-lyrical Cemetery of Splendour crafting cinema that genuinely values all that the filmic format can offer. Enjoying Memoria intuitively serves up a reminder of how crucial sound can be to that experience, emphasising the cavernous chasm between pictures that live and breathe such a truth and those that could simply be pictures. Of course, feasting on Weerasethakul's films has also always been about appreciating not only cinema in all its wonders, but as an inimitable art form. Like the noise that lingers in his protagonist's brain here, his movies aren't easily forgotten. Memoria is available to stream via SBS On Demand. Read our full review. AFTER YANG What flickers in a robot's circuitry in its idle moments has fascinated the world for decades, famously so in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049. In writer/director/editor Kogonada's (TV series Pachinko) After Yang, one machine appears to long for everything humans do. The titular Yang (Justin H Min, The Umbrella Academy) was bought to give Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith, Queen & Slim) and Jake's (Colin Farrell, The Batman) adopted Chinese daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, iCarly) a technosapien brother, babysitter, companion and purveyor of "fun facts" about her heritage. He dotes amid his duties, perennially calm and loving, and clearly an essential part of the family. What concerns his wiring beyond his assigned tasks doesn't interest anyone, though, until he stops operating. Mika is distressed, and Kyra and Jake are merely inconvenienced initially, but the latter pledges to figure out how to fix Yang — which is where his desires factor in. Yang is unresponsive and unable to play his usual part as the household's robotic fourth member. If Jake can't get him up and running quickly, he'll also experience the "cultural techno" version of dying, his humanoid skin even decomposing. That puts a deadline on a solution, which isn't straightforward, particularly given that Yang was bought from a now-shuttered reseller secondhand, rather than from the manufacturer anew. Tinkering with the android's black box is also illegal, although Jake is convinced to anyway by a repairman (Ritchie Coster, The Flight Attendant). He acquiesces not only because it's what Mika desperately wants, but because he's told that Yang might possess spyware — aka recordings of the family — that'd otherwise become corporate property. After Yang is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. AMBULANCE Following a high-stakes Los Angeles bank robbery that goes south swiftly, forcing two perpetrators to hijack an EMT vehicle — while a paramedic tries to save a shot cop's life as the van flees the LAPD and the FBI, too — Ambulance is characteristically ridiculous. Although based on the 2005 Danish film Ambulancen, it's a Michael Bay from go to whoa; screenwriter and feature newcomer Chris Fedak (TV's Chuck, Prodigal Son) even references his director's past movies in the dialogue. The first time, when The Rock is mentioned, it's done in a matter-of-fact way that's as brazen as anything Bay has ever achieved when his flicks defy the laws of physics. In the second instance mere minutes later, it's perhaps the most hilarious thing he's put in his movies. It's worth remembering that Divinyls' 'I Touch Myself' was one of his music-clip jobs; Bay sure does love what only he can thrust onto screens, and he wants audiences to know it while adoring it as well. Ambulance's key duo, brothers Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, The Matrix Resurrections) and Danny Sharp (Jake Gyllenhaal, The Guilty), are a former Marine and ostensible luxury-car dealer/actual career criminal with hugely different reasons for attempting to pilfer a $32-million payday. For the unemployed Will, it's about the cash needed to pay for his wife Amy's (Moses Ingram, The Tragedy of Macbeth) experimental surgery, which his veteran's health insurance won't cover — but his sibling just wants money. Will is reluctant but desperate, Danny couldn't be more eager, and both race through a mess of a day. Naturally, it gets more hectic when they're hurtling along as the hotshot Cam (Eiza González, Godzilla vs Kong) works on wounded rookie police officer Zach (Jackson White, The Space Between), arm-deep in his guts at one point, while Captain Monroe (Garrett Dillahunt, Army of the Dead), Agent Anson Clark (Keir O'Donnell, The Dry) and their forces are in hot pursuit. Ambulance is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT "Nic fuckiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing Cage." That's how the man himself utters his name in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and he knows what he's about. Now four decades into his acting career to the year — after making his film debut in Fast Times at Ridgemont High under his actual name Nicolas Coppola, playing a bit-part character who didn't even get a moniker — Cage is keenly aware of exactly what he's done on-screen over that time, and in what, and why and how. He also knows how the world has responded, with that recognition baked into every second of his his latest movie. He plays himself, dubbed Nick Cage. He cycles through action-hero Cage, comically OTT Cage, floppy-haired 80s- and 90s-era Cage, besuited Cage, neurotic Cage and more in the process. And, as he winks, nods, and bobs and weaves through a lifetime of all things Cage, he's a Cage-tastic delight to watch. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent does have a narrative around all that Cage as Cage, as penned by writer/director Tom Gormican (Are We Officially Dating?) and co-scribe Kevin Etten (Kevin Can F**K Himself). Here, the man who could eat a peach for days in Face/Off would do anything for as long as he needed to if he could lock in a weighty new part. The fictionalised Cage isn't happy with his roles of late, as he complains to his agent (Neil Patrick Harris, The Matrix Resurrections), but directors aren't buying what he's enthusiastically selling. He has debts and other art-parodies-life problems, though, plus an ex-wife (Sharon Horgan, This Way Up) and a teen daughter (Lily Sheen, IRL daughter of Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen). So, he reluctantly takes a $1-million gig he wishes he didn't have to: flying to southern Spain to hang out with billionaire Javi Gutierrez (Pedro Pascal, The Bubble), who is such a Cage diehard that he even has his own mini museum filled with Cage memorabilia, and has also written a screenplay he wants Cage to star in. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. THE SOUVENIR: PART II In showbusiness, nepotism is as inescapable as movies about movies. Both are accounted for in The Souvenir: Part II. But when talents as transcendent as Honor Swinton Byrne, her mother Tilda Swinton and writer/director Joanna Hogg are involved — with the latter working with the elder Swinton since her first short, her graduation piece Caprice, back in 1986 before Honor was even born — neither family ties nor filmmaking navel-gazing feel like something routine. Why this isn't a surprise with this trio is right there in the movie's name, after the initial The Souvenir proved such a devastatingly astute gem in 2019. It was also simply devastating, following an aspiring director's romance with a charismatic older man through to its traumatic end. Both in its masterful narrative and its profound impact, Part II firmly picks up where its predecessor left off. In just her third film role — first working with her mum in 2009's I Am Love before The Souvenir and now this — Swinton Byrne again plays 80s-era filmmaking student Julie Harte. But there's now a numbness to the wannabe helmer after her boyfriend Anthony's (Tom Burke, Mank) death, plus soul-wearying shock after discovering the double life he'd been living that her comfortable and cosy worldview hadn't conditioned her to ever expect. Decamping to the Norfolk countryside, to her family home and to the warm but entirely upper-middle-class, stiff-upper-lip embrace of her well-to-do parents Rosalind (Swinton, The French Dispatch) and William (James Spencer Ashworth) is only a short-term solution, however. Julie's thesis film still needs to be made — yearns to pour onto celluloid, in fact — but that's hardly a straightforward task. The Souvenir: Part II is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. RRR The letters in RRR's title are short for Rise Roar Revolt. They could also stand for riveting, rollicking and relentless. They link in with the Indian action movie's three main forces, too — writer/director SS Rajamouli (Baahubali: The Beginning), plus stars NT Rama Rao Jr (Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava) and Ram Charan (Vinaya Vidheya Rama) — and could describe the sound of some of its standout moments. What noise echoes when a motorcycle is used in a bridge-jumping rescue plot, as aided by a horse and the Indian flag, amid a crashing train? Or when a truck full of wild animals is driven into a decadent British colonialist shindig and its caged menagerie unleashed? What racket resounds when a motorbike figures again, this time tossed around by hand (yes, really) to knock out those imperialists, and then an arrow is kicked through a tree into someone's head? Or, when the movie's two leads fight, shoot, leap over walls and get acrobatic, all while one is sat on the other's shoulders? RRR isn't subtle. Instead, it's big, bright, boisterous, boldly energetic, and brazenly unapologetic about how OTT and hyperactive it is. The 187-minute Tollywood action epic — complete with huge musical numbers, of course — is also a vastly captivating pleasure to watch. Narrative-wise, it follows the impact of the British Raj (aka England's rule over the subcontinent between 1858–1947), especially upon two men. In the 1920s, Bheem (Jr NTR, as Rao is known) is determined to rescue young fellow villager Malli (first-timer Twinkle Sharma), after she's forcibly taken by Governor Scott Buxton (Ray Stevenson, Vikings) and his wife Catherine (Alison Doody, Beaver Falls) for no reason but they're powerful and they can. Officer Raju (Charan) is tasked by the crown with making sure Bheem doesn't succeed in rescuing the girl, and also keeping India's population in their place because their oppressors couldn't be more prejudiced. RRR is available to stream via Netflix. Read our full review. THE DUKE Back in 1962, in the first-ever Bond film Dr No, the suave, Scottish-accented, Sean Connery-starring version of 007 admires a painting in the eponymous evil villain's underwater lair. That picture: Francisco Goya's Portrait of the Duke of Wellington. The artwork itself is very much real, too, although the genuine article doesn't appear in the feature. Even if the filmmakers had wanted to use the actual piece, it was missing at the time. In fact, making a joke about that exact situation is why the portrait is even referenced in Dr No. That's quite the situation: the debut big-screen instalment in one of cinema's most famous and longest-running franchises, and a saga about super spies and formidable villains at that, including a gag about a real-life art heist. The truth behind the painting's disappearance is even more fantastical, however, as The Duke captures. The year prior to Bond's first martini, a mere 19 days after the early 19th-century Goya piece was put on display in the National Gallery in London, the portrait was stolen. Unsurprisingly, the pilfering earned plenty of attention — especially given that the government-owned institution had bought the picture for the hefty sum of £140,000, which'd likely be almost £3 million today. International master criminals were suspected. Years passed, two more 007 movies hit cinemas, and there was zero sign of the artwork or the culprit. And, that might've remained the case if eccentric Newcastle sexagenarian Kempton Bunton (played here by Six Minutes to Midnight's Jim Broadbent) hadn't turned himself in in 1965. As seen in this wild caper from filmmaker Roger Michell (My Cousin Rachel, Blackbird), Bunton advised that he'd gotten light-fingered in protest at the obscene amount spent on Portrait of the Duke of Wellington using taxpayer funds — money that could've been better deployed to provide pensioners with TV licenses, a cause he had openly campaigned for (and even been imprisoned over after refusing to pay his own television fee). The Duke is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. WASH MY SOUL IN THE RIVER'S FLOW A silent hero and a rowdy troublemaker. That's what Ruby Hunter calls Archie Roach, her partner in life and sometimes music, then characterises herself. She offers those words casually, as if she's merely breathing, with an accompanying smile and a glint in her eyes as she talks. They aren't the only thoughts uttered in Wash My Soul in the River's Flow, which intersperses concert and rehearsal clips with chats with Hunter and Roach, plus snippets of biographical details from and recollections about their lives as intertitles, and then majestic footage of the winding Murray River in Ngarrindjeri Country, where Hunter was born, too. Still, even before those two-word descriptions are mentioned, the film shows how they resonate within couple's relationship. Watching their dynamic, which had ebbed and flowed over three-plus decades when the movie's footage was shot in 2004, it's plain to see how these two icons of Australian music are dissimilar in personality and yet intertwine harmoniously. Every relationship is perched upon interlocking personalities: how well they complement each other, where their differences blend seamlessly and how their opposing traits spark challenges in the best possible ways. Every song, too, is a balance of disparate but coordinated pieces. And, every ecosystem on the planet also fits the bill. With Hunter and Roach as its focus, Wash My Soul in the River's Flow contemplates all three — love, music and Country — all through 2004 concert Kura Tungar — Songs from the River. Recorded for the documentary at Melbourne's Hamer Hall, that gig series interlaced additional parts, thanks to a collaboration with Paul Grabowsky's 22-piece Australian Art Orchestra — and the movie that producer-turned-writer/director Philippa Bateman makes of it, and about two Indigenous stars, their experience as members of Australia's Stolen Generations, their ties to Country and their love, is equally, gloriously and mesmerisingly multifaceted. Wash My Soul in the River's Flow is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. BLIND AMBITION From fleeing Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe to taking their nation's first-ever team to the World Wine Blind Testing Championships in Burgundy, Joseph, Tinashe, Marlvin and Pardon have quite the story to tell. The quartet met in South Africa, where they each individually made their home long before they crossed paths. They all also found themselves working with wine, despite not drinking it as Pentecostal Christians — and, in the process, they discovered a knack for an industry they mightn't have even contemplated otherwise. That's the tale that Blind Ambition relays, and it's a rousing and moving one. Indeed, it won't come as a surprise that the movie won Australian filmmakers Warwick Ross and Rob Coe (Red Obsession) the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award for Best Feature Documentary. Blind wine testing is a serious business; the first word isn't slang for inebriation, but describes how teams sample an array of wines without knowing what they're drinking. Then, they must pick everything from the country to the vintage to the varietal within two minutes of sipping. As stressed both verbally and visually throughout the doco, there's a specific — and very white — crowd for this endeavour. Accordingly, Team Zimbabwe instantly stands out. Heralding diversity is one of their achievements; their infectious joy, pride and enthusiasm for the field, for competing at the Olympics of the wine world, for the fact that their plight has taken them from refugees to finding a new calling, and for opening up the world to African vino, is just as resonant. Blind Ambition is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE What a difference Mads Mikkelsen can make. What a difference the stellar Danish actor can't, too. The Another Round and Riders of Justice star enjoys his Wizarding World debut in Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, taking over the part of evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald from Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald's Johnny Depp — who did the same from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them's Colin Farrell first, albeit in a scripted change — and he's impressively sinister and engagingly insidious in the role. He needs to be: his fascist character, aka the 1930s-set movie's magical version of Hitler, wants to eradicate muggles. He's also keen to grab power however he must to do so. But a compelling casting switch can't conjure up the winning wonder needed to power an almost two-and-a-half-hour film in a flailing franchise, even one that's really just accioing already-devoted Harry Potter fans into cinemas. Nearly four years have passed since The Crimes of Grindelwald hit cinemas, but its successor picks up its wand where that dull sequel left off. That means reuniting with young Albus Dumbledore, who was the best thing about the last feature thanks to Jude Law (The Third Day) following smoothly in Michael Gambon and Richard Harris' footsteps. And, it means explaining that Dumbledore and Grindelwald pledged not to harm each other years earlier, which precludes any fray between them now. Enter magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne, The Trial of the Chicago 7) and his pals. Well, most of them. Newt's assistant Bunty (Victoria Yeates, Call the Midwife), brother Theseus (Callum Turner, Emma), No-Maj mate Jacob (Dan Fogler, The Walking Dead), Hogwarts professor Lally (Jessica Williams, Love Life) and Leta Lestrange's brother Yusuf Kama (William Nadylam, Stillwater) are accounted for, while former friend Queenie (Alison Sudol, The Last Full Measure) has defected to Grindelwald. As for the latter's sister Tina (Katherine Waterston, The World to Come), she's spirited aside, conspicuously sitting Operation Avoid Muggle Genocide out. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. NOBODY HAS TO KNOW Before Belgian actor and filmmaker Bouli Lanners started gracing screens big and small — writing and directing projects for the former as well — he trained as a painter. If you didn't know that fact, it'd be easy to guess while watching Nobody Has to Know. He helms and scripts, as he did 2011 Cannes award-winner The Giant, plus 2016's The First, the Last. He acts, as he has in everything from A Very Long Engagement and Rust and Bone to Raw and Bye Bye Morons. But it's the careful eye he brings to all that fills Nobody Has to Know's frames that immediately leaves an impression, starting with simply staring at the windswept Scottish scenery that provides the movie's backdrop. It's picturesque but also ordinary, finding visual poetry in the scenic and sweeping and yet also everyday. That's what the feature does with its slow-burning romantic narrative, too. On a remote island, Philippe Haubin (Lanners) has made a humble home. Working as a farmhand, he stands out with his arms covered in tattoos and his accent, but he's also been welcomed into the close-knit community. And, when he's found on the beach after suffering a stroke, his friends swiftly rally around — his younger colleague Brian (Andrew Still, Waterloo Road), who spreads the word; the latter's aunt Millie (Michelle Fairley, Game of Thrones), who ferries him around town; and her stern father Angus (Julian Glover, The Toll), who welcomes him back to work once he's out of hospital. But Phil returns with amnesia, which unsurprisingly complicates his daily interactions. He doesn't know what Brian means when he jokes about Phil now being the island's Jason Bourne, he has no idea if the dog in his house is his own, and he has no knowledge of any past, or not, with Millie. Nobody Has to Know is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. MORBIUS Jumping into the Sony Shared Universe from the DCEU — that'd be the DC Extended Universe, the pictures based around Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad and the like (but not including Joker or The Batman) — Jared Leto plays Morbius' eponymous figure. A renowned scientist, Dr Michael Morbius has a keen interest in the red liquid pumping through humans' veins stemming from his own health issues. As seen in early scenes set during his childhood, young Michael (Charlie Shotwell, The Nest) was a sickly kid in a medical facility thanks to a rare disease that stops him from producing new blood. There, under the care of Dr Emil Nikols (Jared Harris, Foundation), he befriended another unwell boy (debutant Joseph Esson), showed his smarts and earned a prestigious scholarship. As an adult, he now refuses the Nobel Prize for creating artificial plasma, then tries to cure himself using genes from vampire bats. Morbius sports an awkward tone that filmmaker Daniel Espinosa (Life) can't overcome; its namesake may be a future big-screen baddie, but he's also meant to be this sympathetic flick's hero — and buying either is a stretch. In the overacting Leto's hands, he's too tedious to convince as a threat or someone to root for. He's too gleefully eccentric to resemble anything more than a skit at Leto's expense, too. Indeed, evoking any interest in Morbius' inner wrestling (because saving his own life with his experimental procedure comes at a bloodsucking cost) proves plodding. It does take a special set of skills to make such OTT displays so pedestrian at best, though, and that's a talent that Leto keeps showing to the misfortune of movie-goers. He offers more restraint here than in Suicide Squad (not to be confused with The Suicide Squad), The Little Things, House of Gucci or streaming series WeCrashed, but his post-Dallas Buyers Club Oscar-win resume remains dire — Blade Runner 2049 being the sole exception. Morbius is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 It was true in the 90s, and it remains that way now: when Jim Carrey lets loose, thrusting the entire might of his OTT comedic powers onto the silver screen, it's an unparalleled sight to behold. It doesn't always work, and he's a spectacular actor when putting in a toned-down or even serious performance — see: The Truman Show, The Majestic, I Love You Phillip Morris and his best work ever, the sublime Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — but there's a reason that the Ace Venture flicks, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber were some of the biggest movies made three decades back. Carrey is now a rarity in cinemas, but one franchise has been reminding viewers what his full-throttle comic efforts look like. Sadly, he's also the best thing about the resulting films, even if they're hardly his finest work. That was accurate in 2020's Sonic the Hedgehog, and it's the same of sequel Sonic the Hedgehog 2 — which once again focuses on the speedy video game character but couldn't feel like more of a drag. The first Sonic movie established its namesake's life on earth, as well as his reason for being here. Accordingly, the blue-hued planet-hopping hedgehog (voiced by The Afterparty's Ben Schwartz) already made friends with small-town sheriff Tom Wachowski (James Marsden, The Stand). He already upended the Montana resident's life, too, including Tom's plans to move to San Francisco with his wife Maddie (Tika Sumpter, Mixed-ish). And, as well as eventually becoming a loveable member of the Wachowski family, Sonic also wreaked havoc with his rapid pace, and earned the wrath of the evil Dr Robotnik (Carrey, Kidding) in the process. More of the same occurs this time around, with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 taking a more-is-more approach. There's a wedding to ruin, magic gems to find and revenge on the part of Robotnik. He's teamed up with super-strong echidna Knuckles (voiced by The Harder They Fall's Idris Elba), in fact, while Sonic gets help from smart-but-shy fox Tails (voice-acting veteran Colleen O'Shaughnessey). Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. DEADLY CUTS The Full Monty wasn't the first to do it, and it definitely hasn't been the last. But for the quarter century since that crowd-pleasing comedy became an enormous worldwide hit, British movies about underdogs banding together to save their livelihoods and communities have no longer been scrappy battlers themselves. Irish film Deadly Cuts is the latest, joining an ever-growing pile that also includes everything from Calendar Girls to Swimming with Men — and first-time feature writer/director Rachel Carey knows the formula she's playing with. Each such picture needs to be set in a distinctive world, follow a close-knit group, see them face an apparently insurmountable task and serve up a big public spectacle that promises redemption, and every step in that recipe is covered here. But a movie can stick to a clear template and still boast enough spirit to make even the creakiest of plot inclusions feel likely and entertaining enough, and that's this low-budget affair from start to finish. It does raise a smile that AhhHair, the glamorous hairdressing contest that Deadly Cuts' main characters want to enter and win, is all about innovation in its chosen form. The movie itself would never emerge victorious at such a competition, but it's filled with broad, blackly comic fun along the way, even if it boasts about as much subtlety as a mohawk. The setting: Piglington, Dublin, an as-yet-ungentrified corner of the Irish capital, where the titular salon is a mainstay. The aim: saving the shop from being torn down and replaced with shiny new apartments. The wholly predictable complications: the determination of corrupt local politician Darryl Flynn (Aidan McArdle, The Fall) to forge ahead with the development, which'll boost his bank account; and the suburb-scaring thugs led by the overbearing Deano (Ian Lloyd Anderson, Herself), who throw their weight around at every chance they get. Deadly Cuts is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. IT SNOWS IN BENIDORM Forty-four years have passed since Timothy Spall first graced the silver screen — and what a gift he's given both cinema and television since. He won Cannes Best Actor prize for Mr Turner, earned five BAFTA nominations in five years between 1997–2002, popped up in lively Aussie crime flick Gettin' Square, stole every scene he was in in The Party and recently proved formidable in Spencer. He has everything from multiple Harry Potter movies to playing Winston Churchill in The King's Speech on his resume, too, and also routinely improves whatever he's in with his presence alone. In fact, he does exactly that with It Snows in Benidorm, which'd be a mere wisp of a film otherwise. Following a just-made-redundant bank employee to Spain, this meandering drama by Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet (Elisa & Marcela) frequently mistakes mood for depth — and while Spall can't polish away its struggles, he's always the key reason to keep watching. A fan of the weather and little else, Spall's Peter Riordan has given decades of his life to his employer, and is so settled into the routine he's fashioned around his job that it's as natural and automatic to him as breathing. Accordingly, when he's unceremoniously let go, he finds it difficult to adjust. He's told that being freed from the monotony of his work is a gift, allowing him to retire early — so in that spirit, he heads off to the Mediterranean coast's tourist mecca to spend time with the brother he otherwise rarely talks to. But upon his arrival, Peter finds his sibling conspicuously absent. He still stays in his high-rise apartment, but what was meant to be a family reunion-style holiday now becomes a detective quest. Helping him is Alex (Sarita Choudhury, And Just Like That...), who worked with Peter's shady club-owning brother, might know more than she's letting on about his whereabouts, and also welcomes her new pal's tender companionship the more that they spend time together. It Snows in Benidorm is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies, iTunes and Prime Video. Read our full review. OFF THE RAILS In need of a bland and derivative friends-on-holidays flick that's painted with the broadest of strokes? Keen to dive once more into the pool of movies about pals heading abroad to scatter ashes and simultaneously reflect upon their current lot in life? Fancy yet another supposedly feel-good film that endeavours to wring humour out of culture clashes between English-speaking protagonists and the places they visit? Yearning for more glimpses of thinly written women getting their grooves back and realising what's important on a wild Eurotrip? Call Off the Rails, not that anyone should. Coloured with every cliche that all of the above scenarios always throw up, and also covered from start to finish in schmaltz, the debut feature from director Jules Williamson is a travel-themed slog that no one could want to remember. A grab bag of overdone tropes and treacly sentiment, it also doubles as an ode to the songs of Blondie, which fill its soundtrack — but even the vocal stylings of the great Debbie Harry can't breathe vibrancy into this trainwreck. Once close, Kate (Jenny Seagrove, Peripheral), Liz (Sally Phillips, Blinded by the Light) and Cassie (Preston, Gotti) now just call on big occasions — and even then, they're barely there for each other. But when fellow pal Anna dies, they reunite at her funeral, and are asked to carry out her final wish by her mother (Belfast's Judi Dench, in a thankless cameo). The task: catching a train across Europe, through Paris to Girona, Barcelona and Palma in Spain, to recreate a backpacking jaunt the four took decades earlier. Specifically, they're headed to La Seu, a cathedral with stained-glass windows that look particularly spectacular when the sun hits at the right time (the film calls it "god's disco ball"). Anna already bought their Interrail passes, and her 18-year-old daughter Maddie (Elizabeth Dormer-Phillips, Fortitude) decides she'll join the voyage, too. Off the Rails is available to stream via Google Play, YouTube Movies and Prime Video. Read our full review. Looking for more at-home viewing options? Take a look at our monthly streaming recommendations across new straight-to-digital films and TV shows, or check out the movies that were fast-tracked to digital in January, February, March, April and May.
In 1977, Robyn Davidson decided she would walk west from Alice Springs until she hit the Indian Ocean, taking with her only her beloved dog and four camels. She was determined to do this alone, but, finding herself in need of money, was forced to allow National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan to document her journey. Davidson was told the trek would be suicide, but, undeterred, she set out anyway on her perilous, eventful journey. Filmmakers have been trying to adapt Tracks, the book she wrote about her experience, since the early 1980s, with even Julia Roberts attached in 1993. This is the sixth (and, clearly, the only successful) attempt to bring Davidson's story to the screen. Mia Wasikowska stars and is impressive as Davidson, imbuing her with a determination required to sell the character. Adam Driver, best known from Lena Dunham's Girls, is equally superb as Smolan. Driver is a compelling presence, and though his character is an irritant to Davidson, he is a welcome presence to us whenever he appears. Read our full review of Tracks here. Tracks is in cinemas on Thursday, March 6, and thanks to Transmission Films, we have five double in-season passes to give away. 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 https://youtube.com/watch?v=RyDCfuYTX_U
Last week, horticulturalists at the Royal Botanic Gardens announced that one of its rarest plants was preparing to flower for the first time in 15 years. The appropriately named corpse flower, due to its famously rancid odour, has the largest flower of any plant in the world, but it only blooms for 24-hours once every several years. The last time this spectacle was seen in the Harbour City was back in 2010. While it's impossible to predict exactly when the plant — nicknamed Putricia — will bloom, experts at the Gardens suggested last week that the day could be imminent. However, more than seven days on, Putricia has yet to open, leaving Sydneysiders on tenterhooks. Since the window of time to behold this floral wonder is so fleeting, a live stream via YouTube has been keeping Sydneysiders in their thousands up to date with the latest developments. A dramatic backdrop featuring tropical foliage, theatrical smoke and a velvet curtain has been added to a public viewing area, where the corpse flower, also known as the Bunga Bangkai in the plant's native Indonesia, is currently on display. Other than its extraordinary size, the Corpse Flower is most famous of its repulsive stench, which it uses to attract insect pollinators. Describing the plant's extraordinary stench, the Royal Botanic Gardens Manager of Volunteer Programs, Paul Nicholson, said: "If you've got some wet teenage socks, throw that into a blender, then you get some cat food you've left out in the sun, whack that in your blender, and then get some day old vomit. Put that in the blender, blend it all up, rip the lid off. That's the kind of smell you're getting." Putricia the Corpse Flower is on display to the public at the Royal Botanic Gardens now. Head to the Royal Botanic Gardens website for more details.
The Sydney Fringe Festival will be transforming its own headquarters as part of the 2014 program, turning it into a three-level bar, theatre, info point and communal crafternoon gathering space. 'The Campground' at 5 Eliza Street, Newtown will serve as one of the hubs for a full month of comedy, cabaret, circus, theatre, music, art and out-of-the-ordinary events. The other hub? Well, for that you'll have to go exploring. "[Last year's hub] Emerald City was great but this year we moved to a new creative vision for the festival that we feel suits the geography and energy of Sydney better," festival director Kerri Glasscock tells us. "Instead of creating the traditional static festival garden [or] hub we wanted to create a roaming hub that moved throughout the festival, highlighting a number of different precincts and encouraging festival-goers to explore more of the city and keep it fresh." To that end, laneway hubs will take over a different part of town each weekend. We're particularly looking forward to seeing Darlinghurst's Foley Lane come over all Montemartre, with jazz and swing music, street performers and crepes, but Newtown's King Street and Sydenham's Faversham Street are also scheduled to throw multi-day bashes. Back at the more stationary Campground, each of the three levels has been given a mission and a name — 'the Tent', 'the Campfire' and 'the Annex'. Downstairs in the Tent is where to hide away to drink, view the exhibition on the walls and gather Fringe-related information, while upstairs at the Campfire is the place to tell stories, with artist talks, performances and sketching and snow globe-making workshops the order of the day. On the top floor is the Emerging Artist Annex, a 60-seat pop-up theatre for some of the festival's newcomers. "We wanted a space where the general public could come and experience art making, no matter what your skill level, be it hobby or master," says Glasscock. "So we have created mini spaces within the Campground where you can come and draw, knit or participate in a crafternoon." The four weeks of the program revolve around loose themes — Inner City in week one; Community, Ideas and Laughs in week two; family in week three; and something juicily titled 'The Final Frontier' in week four. "We wanted to engage as many practising local artists as possible and encourage as many partnerships and collaborations as possible," says Glasscock. "The festival offers a unique opportunity to try out an idea that has been brewing or work with a fellow artist you have wanted to collaborate with." Unlike some of the big fringe festivals of the world, the Sydney Fringe has always been open to anyone who wants to put on a work, which has sometimes resulted in a mixed bag of experiences for people. But Glasscock thinks they may have a solution to that, while still keeping the festival's open-access ethos. "We like to say that we don't curate the art but we curate where it goes," she says. "This is a new approach to the festival this year and has so far worked really well. It means that care has been taken to place the right content in the right venue so hopefully it is a better experience for the artists, the venues and the punters." Venues this year range from the perennial Factory Theatre to Freda's, Giant Dwarf, the Glebe Justice Centre, Rookwood Cemetery, the Record Crate and Venue 505. Opening the festival is the Ignite Launch Party on August 31, curated by Potbelleez Ilan Kidron and winding its way down Crown Street. The Fringe continues until September 30, and its full program is now available on the festival website.
When it comes to Mother's Day, Sydney is spoilt for choice this year. If bubbles are high on the agenda, check out our list of champagne-fuelled adventures (one of which includes a photo booth). Plus, over here, you'll find a slew of standout restaurants, bars and cafes. But are you looking for something a bit different? Funlab has come to your rescue. It's the name behind some of Sydney's most entertaining venues — and, this Mother's Day, it wants to treat your mum to the free adventure she deserves. That might be a round of mini golf at Holey Moley while sipping on colourful cocktails, a game of ten-pin bowling at Strike or Archie Brothers Cirque Electriq, or a session in a challenge room at Hijinx Hotel. All you have to do is book an activity for a minimum of two people on Sunday, May 11, and make your reservation online with the code MUMFREE.
The inner west suburb of Newtown may be hipster heaven, but underneath those skinny jeans and almond milk lattes lies a grungy urban core. No need for a walking tour — simply make your way down King Street. You'll pass an eclectic mix of boutiques, colourful local characters and vibrant street art, which turn the grand Victorian facades into a living, breathing gallery. Combine that with trend-setting eateries, good times pubs and funky small bars and it's no wonder that this is the suburb where everyone wants to be.
Forget about deckchairs and picnic blankets – you won't need either at Mov'In Bed. Instead, movie lovers are invited to snuggle up in a bed under the stars, in what is surely the most comfortable outdoor cinema experience in Sydney. Located at Moore Park's Entertainment Quarter, this year's lineup is bursting with great titles across a wide variety of genres. Whether you're an action fan, feel like a laugh or need a heartwarming romance to cuddle up close to, the team at Mov'In Bed have got you covered. Below, we've picked out five of our favourites from the jam-packed program. Happy viewing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kSuas6mRpk ACTION: KILL BILL VOLUME 1 & 2 Two movies means twice the action in this blood-spattered double bill from legendary director Quentin Tarantino. Join Uma Thurman's deadly assassin, a ruthless killer known as The Bride, on what the movie advertisements referred to as "a roaring rampage of revenge". Over the course of more than four hours, our sword-swinging protagonist cuts down dozens of enemies on her way to her final target. The dialogue is stellar, the choreography intense, the music as cool as in any film of the past 20 years. Oh, and the cast? Phenomenal. Put simply, Kill Bill is the work of a master at his brilliant best. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntxS1bBg5o0 HORROR: HAPPY DEATH DAY Think Groundhog Day, except Bill Murray keeps getting brutally murdered. That's the basic premise of Happy Death Day, an ingenious new horror flick from the producer of Get Out, Insidious and Paranormal Activity. Jessica Rothe plays an unfortunate college student forced to relive the same day again and again — a day that ends with her being killed by a masked assailant. Find the killer, break the cycle — or at least, that's the plan. Mixing scares with a healthy dose of black comedy, Happy Death Day is perfect if you like movies like Scream or Drag Me to Hell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJmpSMRQhhs ROMCOM: THE BIG SICK One of the surprise hits of the year, The Big Sick is an utter delight and one of our absolutely favourite films on the Mov'In Bed program. Based on the experiences of its writer and star, the film follows aspiring Chicago comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his fledgling relationship with Emily (Zoe Kazan). There are two complications. Firstly, Kumail's family want him to marry a nice Pakistani girl. Secondly, Emily is soon struck down by a mysterious illness that leaves her in a coma. A romcom unlike any other, The Big Sick is funny, heartfelt and never ceases to surprise. See it with someone you love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQFIu9InG7Q COMEDY: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 It has been quite the fun year for Marvel movies — and before Thor: Ragnarok showered cinema-goers with offbeat antics, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 got there first. A sequel to 2014's superhero space effort, it's a case of keeping the intergalactic adventure going as Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) try to save the universe, again. This time, they've got some daddy issues to deal with in the form of Kurt Russell, but the series' inability to take itself too seriously and ace '70s soundtrack remain. It's the perfect cure for comic book movie fatigue, so gather the gang. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgVo96JaqeM DRAMA: EYES WIDE SHUT An iconic filmmaker's last-ever movie. A real-life Hollywood duo diving into a tale of marital disharmony. A film that holds the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous shoot. There's much that intrigues about Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut; the film took a whopping 400 days to make, had been on the director's slate since the late '60s and stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman back when they were the biggest couple in the world. And, that's all before even contemplating the film's story. Cruise and Kidman play a married couple rocked by infidelity and one particularly wild night, in an erotic drama that's provocative, probing and has to be seen to be believed. Snag tickets to these flicks and check out the full program for Mov-In Bed here.
