While some people seem to want to make it harder to be a cyclist in the city (ahem, NSW Government), others want to make it easier. We could point to many European cities — for example, Amsterdam's solar powered bike path and London's cross-city cycle highway — as well these low-cost recycled cardboard bikes and this beautiful fold-up one from Lucid Design. But this time it's IKEA who are getting on board with urban cycling, creating a chainless bike for commuters. The bike, named SLADDA, is designed to be low maintenance so that anyone (i.e. the general population who don't know anything about chains and gears) can use and ride the bike without worrying about all the technical stuff. Instead of a chain it will have a corrosion-resistant, maintenance-free cogged drive belt that, according to IKEA, will be good for up to 15,000 kilometres. The whole concept of the bike, which was created by global design consultancy Veryday and has already won an award, has been "designed to fit an urban lifestyle". The bike's aluminium frame is lightweight, which makes it easier to carry up and down stairs and manoeuvre in and out of your house, as well as scratch-resistant and adjustable. It will also be integrated into a 'click system', which will allow you to buy accessories — like baskets, racks and even a small trailer — that simply 'click' onto the bike. The SLADDA is set to be available from August in Europe, with a worldwide release potentially following soon after. It will cost €699 (or about $1000 AUD). Via Core77.
A smart, self-effacing send-up of the entertainment industry, Top Five, like most of Rock’s best material, feels at least partly autobiographical. Rock plays Andre Allen, a comedian turned Hollywood superstar and recovering alcoholic, best known for his role in the million-dollar Hammy the Bear franchise. Unfortunately, Allen’s funny bone has been blunted since going sober, and his first attempt at a ‘serious’ film — playing Haitian slave revolutionary Dutty Boukman — is shaping up to be a box-office bomb. Even more out of control is his upcoming televised wedding, to Kardashian-esque reality star Erica Long (Gabrielle Union). Enter Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson), a sardonic, whip-smart writer for the New York Times, who’s been assigned to profile Allen over the course of a single day. Although initially suspicious of Brown and the Times, whose resident film critic has made a career out of tearing his movies to shreds, Allen soon finds himself opening up to the writer, as the pair begin to trade stories while walking around NYC. Top Five (©2015 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.) is in cinemas on March 12, and thanks to Paramount Pictures, we have ten double in-season passes to give away. To be in the running, subscribe to the Concrete Playground newsletter and then email us with your name and address. Read our full review here. Sydney: win.sydney@concreteplayground.com.au Melbourne: win.melbourne@concreteplayground.com.au Brisbane: win.brisbane@concreteplayground.com.au
Having won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at both the Sydney Film Festival and Melbourne International Film Festival in 2010, Bill Cunningham New York is finally landing in Australian cinemas on November 3. Directed by Richard Press, the documentary follows the life and work of 80-year old Bill Cunningham, photographer for The New York Times and candid fashion icon. For decades he has documented the world's fashion trends through his lens, and subsequently become one of the best renowned street photographers of all time, becoming king of his craft while The Sartorialist and Garance Doré were still running around in nappies. Bill Cunningham New York highlights the man's work in one of the world's busiest fashion capitals. Cunningham captures both the elegance of high fashion and the eccentricity of downtown street culture beautifully. What results is a visually stimulating piece of cinema that represents Bill and the Big Apple. His impressive catalogue of work has been treated as a testament to the changing nature of fashion trends throughout the last century. Notable American icons Anna Wintour, Tom Wolfe, Brooke Astor and David Rockefeller all appear in the film. More than just a showcase of fashion, Bill Cunningham New York takes a deep insight into the history behind the man responsible for such stunning images. It reveals his relationship with celebrities and the public, his often secretive personal life and the reasons behind his fascination with clothing and culture. Thanks to Madman Entertainment, Concrete Playground has ten double passes to giveaway. To win tickets to see Bill Cunningham New York, just make sure you are subscribed to Concrete Playground then email your name and postal address through to hello@concreteplayground.com.au https://youtube.com/watch?v=NYqiLJBXbss
With the holidays just coming to an end, we're all now emerging from prime binge-watching season. So, if you feel like you've glued your eyes to every possible TV show and movie there is recently, that's completely understandable — but the great thing about streaming is that there's always something else popping up, demanding your attention and helping you maintain that comfy groove in your sofa. Returning series releasing their latest seasons, brand new shows that haven't been on your radar, recent favourites that you mightn't have seen, retro classics that are always worth a revisit, flicks that'll keep you talking — they're some of the fresh additions to the streaming world recently, and they're all ready to add to your 2021 watch list. If you're wondering where to start, we've teamed up with streaming platform Binge to pick five must-sees that'll help you start the year with some top-notch viewing. You can view them all on the Australian service, including via a 14-day free trial for new customers.
Sarah Silverman looks like a nice, wholesome, and sincere lady — the kind you could introduce to your mum. Well, unless your mum takes well to abortion gags, poo songs, and total disregard for racial and religious sensitivities, that may not be the best idea. But if "oh no, you didn't" laughs are your mum's thing, then you won't want to miss taking her to Silverman's Sydney show. Having started out as an occasional performer in Saturday Night Live nearly 20 years ago, Silverman has climbed the ladder and worked with showbiz giants Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chapelle, Jack Black, David Duchovny, Queens of the Stone Age, and (her former partner) Jimmy Kimmel. From 2007-10 she starred in and co-created the critically acclaimed The Sarah Silverman Program. But fame has never blunted her tongue; at 41 she remains the princess of black comedy. Rest assured, it won't be an evening of simplistic obscenity — as with all the great comics, underneath the jokes lie some pointed and unsettling truths.
Anchoring Sydney Festival 2012 are some international heavyweights from the world of theatre. A text that has survived some four hundred years of stirring outrage and distaste — John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, a tragedy of only-incest-will-do proportions — will be performed by one of the world's most well-known and sprightly theatre companies, Cheek by Jowl, and directed by one of the company's founders, Declan Donnellan. Frantic Assembly and the National Theatre of Scotland have teamed with playwright Bryony Lavery to create Beautiful Burnout, a show that promises to pull you into the intense and masculine world of boxing in much the same way their 2008 Sydney Festival hit Black Watch pulled you into the intense and masculine world of the military. The dance front is particularly well fortified, as choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet join forces with sculptor Antony Gormley for Babel; Chunky Move and Victorian Opera present the wondrously crowded Assembly; Wesley Enoch directs the frantic fusion of new Aboriginal expression that is I Am Eora; and Kate Champion premieres her new work with the Sydney Theatre Company, Never Did Me Any Harm, a journey into parental fears and the unexamined consequences of family life. In the Spiegeltent, they've declared Meow Meow's Little Match Girl the successor to the endlessly popular Smoke and Mirrors, while moving towards the fringes, you'll find the likes of A History of Everything from fearless Belgian explorers Ontroerend Goed (last here for Once and for All We're Gonna Tell You Who We Are so Shut Up and Listen), and the sweetly whimsical journey into one man's basement that is L'Effet de Serge. The circus, meanwhile, is pitching its tent in Parramatta: all-Aussie Briefs in the Spiegeltent offshoot and surreal Czech pub characters La Putyka at Riverside Theatres. One of the festival's biggest drawcards is a lone man with a preternatural storytelling ability that draws in millions of worldwide listeners each week to what is often considered a tired old medium: National Public Radio's This American Lifehost Ira Glass will be mixing stories with a twist at Sydney Town Hall for one night only. Back to Main Page
Every October for the past 23 years, artworks have lined the Bondi–Tamarama coastal walk as part of the annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition. This year's event has been postponed until 2021 — but a new slightly similar event is going ahead on the other side of Sydney Harbour. Modelled on the Salon des Refusés, which exhibits artworks that were not selected for the Archibald, Les Sculptures Refusées is an outdoor exhibition of Sculpture by the Sea rejects. The inaugural exhibition is running from Friday, October 16 to Thursday, November 19 at Manly's Q Station — originally a quarantine station for diseased immigrants back in the 1800s — which, despite its morbid history, has stunning views across Sydney and the harbour. The openair exhibition is free to visit and no timed tickets are required. If you time your visit right, it can coincide with a Saturday afternoon Sunset Session or a High Tea at the G&Tea house, which is open from Friday to Sunday. You can check out the full list of sculptures appearing as part of Les Sculptures Refusées over here. [caption id="attachment_786432" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Orest Keywan[/caption] Top image: Tania McMurty.
Petersham's Oxford Tavern is going full sour this summer — and not just with its beers. The Rise 'N Brine festival will return for a third year, taking over the pub for a jam-packed day of pickle-themed food, booze and even entertainment on Saturday, December 18. To start off, the bar will offer a few pickle-flavoured beers, which have been brewed for the day by local craft breweries. Other booze options include a pickle-y cocktail menu, which features a slushie version of the classic pickleback — aka a shot of Jameson chased with pickle juice. And the pickling doesn't stop there, either. The pub has also created a special menu of pickle-inspired eats to tuck into. In the past, the event has served up jumbo pickle poppers, Cuban sandwiches, reuben spring rolls and pickle pops. There's also a whole heap of pickle-based entertainment throughout the day. The main event is the pickle eating competition, however there'll also be a pickle toss game with prizes on offer, plus live bands and DJs.
They're doing more than just jamming: actors Kingsley Ben-Adir, Lashana Lynch and James Norton, plus writer/director Reinaldo Marcus Green, that is. Teaming up for Bob Marley: One Love, the first major biopic about its namesake — and a film driven by Marley's family, with wife Rita producing with children Ziggy and Cedella, plus their sibling Stephen the music supervisor — this quartet knows that their task is formidable and important. Anyone wondering whether the feature's focal point, a Jamaican icon and the initial person that anyone instantly thinks of when reggae is mentioned, could be loved is pondering a pointless question. Ben-Adir, who stars as Bob fresh from playing one of Barbie's Kens — and steps into another real-life figure's shoes again after giving One Night in Miami its Malcolm X and TV's The Comey Rule its Barack Obama — is among Marley's fans. He has company on the movie; of course, everyone should be. "He was an artist first, and one of the great, great songwriters. I don't know if there's anyone who can write songs [like him]. Like, he's top five, but my number one," he tells Concrete Playground. So for him, his job "was always about trying to understand him as an artist, and as a father, as a man," Ben-Adir explains. "Here's a musician who dedicated his life to writing songs that we now all get to enjoy. Understanding what that meant, to play the guitar and to write that many songs, that many albums, in that ten-year period, it was just incredible." Bob Marley: One Love arrives after documentaries have already had the sun shining on Marley's impact and legacy. A birth-to-death filmic biography isn't its aim or approach, then. The man, the music, the message: that's the movie's trinity as it hones in Bob in the late 70s, specifically around the making and touring of his 1977 album Exodus. The record was named the best album of the 20th century by TIME magazine; however, it's not just its contents but the political context in Jamaica that brought it to fruition that speaks volumes about the man behind it. "That was a period of time of musical genius, musical creation. Bob created Exodus, which was one of the greatest albums of the 20th century — and after the assassination attempt on his life in 1976, [and the] political turmoil in Jamaica, it was just such a rich period of time," says Green. The filmmaker both directs and co-writes, in his first feature since fellow biopic King Richard. "And also, he had made several albums that we can pull from. The backbone of the story is the music. So it felt such like a rich period of time in Bob's life, before he obviously gets sick — it just felt like a really prime time in his life that that captured the essence of who the man was," Green continues. [caption id="attachment_940714" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Antony Jones/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures[/caption] This isn't just a story of one person, either. Turning in the picture's other powerful main performance, Captain Marvel, No Time to Die and The Woman King's Lynch is Rita to Ben-Adir's Bob. It's as much her tale as well. "Frankly, if her voice wasn't as present as it is in the movie, if she wasn't as dynamic a character as she is in the movie, I wouldn't have taken the role," Lynch advises Concrete Playground. "Because I knew from afar before I had the role who she is, what she represents, how respected she is in Jamaica, in Ghana, in different countries over the world — that if it wasn't going to be that, then I don't have any business lending my voice to that." As for Happy Valley, Nowhere Special and Little Women star Norton, another veteran of playing real-life figures after Mr Jones and Rogue Agent, he brings influential record producer and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell to the screen. "It is daunting," he advises. "Especially if they're alive, because you know they're going to watch it — well, they might watch it one day — and there's only one person who's going to give you the full appraisal of your work: it's the person who you just played." With Bob Marley: One Love releasing in cinemas Down Under on Wednesday, February 14, 2024, we also chatted with Ben-Adir, Green, Lynch and Norton about the importance of finding the right person to play Bob, plus making a Bob Marley movie with his family so heavily involved — as well as why a Bob Marley biopic hasn't reached screens before and learning about the singer while working on the film. On Finding the Right Actor to Play Bob Marley — and Being That Actor Reinaldo: "We looked at thousands of tapes from everywhere, everywhere we could find. It's just hard. It's Bob Marley. You're looking for a needle in the haystack — and we're talking really good actors — that it just was really hard to find it. So when I saw Kingsley's tape, it was the first time that I thought it was possible. He had a look. He had an enigma. He had a vulnerability. He had a charisma. And his tape, it was pulling me closer to him. I was leaning in in a way that I hadn't leaned into any of the other tapes, and so I knew that there was a baseline. Obviously I wanted to meet him immediately. I didn't know Kingsley or Kingsley's work — or I didn't remember 'oh, that was the guy that played that'. And so it was interesting to find it and say 'oh, okay, he was a chameleon in those movies, he was able to disappear'. And there was something quite special about that. There was obviously a level of intelligence that I was looking for, somebody that was going to put in the work and be able to make an interpretation of Bob, rather than mimic Bob. So the tape gave me so much excitement that it was possible to even attempt to make a movie about Bob, and from that moment we went on the journey of discovering who the man was." Kingsley: "When the audition came through, I was told that as soon as you get the tape to us, the family will see it within 24 hours. So that's a good motivation to get your shit together and prepare something meaningful or worth sharing. That's what I always do when there's a big audition or interesting audition or something that feels substantial, you just take three to four days — you just need a bit of time to wrap your head around, in this case, Bob. I spent some time really watching him and watching him in concert and listening to some of his interviews. And yeah, I guess when I got the call saying that Ziggy had approved and wanted me to fly over and meet him, it was a pretty special feeling. I didn't have the job, but I was going over to meet Bob's child, which is really surreal." On Making a Movie About Bob Marley with the Help of Bob Marley's Family Kingsley: "Ziggy remembers a lot about him. He was in Zimbabwe with his dad. He was in Jamaica. What was so amazing was that the process of building the character was with Bob's friends and family. So I read all the books, but after a while you just go 'don't need those, I can just call people who knew Bob — I can just call people who were there in London with Bob, I can call people who are on stage with him'. It's really incredible, looking back. It was work, there was a lot to find out and there was a lot of work to do, but I loved working with Ziggy. All throughout the prep, we would message and talk, and then he was there with us every day on set, which was just game-changing. Neville Garrick [Bob Marley's art director] and Ziggy were with us every day from the beginning. And I mean, there wasn't a morning where Ziggy wasn't on set first. He was always there. Any questions? Anytime. And so my process was really our process — it was really a communal thing." Lashana: "You read everything. You read her book — thank god she wrote one. You watch everything. And then you hope that it makes sense. And it did, to a certain extent, until I called for some time with her. Then after I met her, I thought I could just throw away all the information, to be honest. It's really helpful to have facts, but it's more the types of beings that Mrs Marley and that Bob are and were at the time for everybody, is so intricate and so beautiful, that it requires a tapping in of their level of spirituality in order for me to even portray any of her. There needs to be a spiritual connection there. So I ensured that the energy was right, and whenever I didn't feel like I was approaching her well, I had to just take a beat with myself and remember who she is and what she deserves. And thankfully, this production knew that we had the children's support and guidance throughout the shoot. That helped us really get to those sweet spots in the movie." Reinaldo: "It was quite special obviously to meet Ziggy for the first time, and to understand why they were making this movie — and why me, and just try to try to get an understanding of that. Ziggy had seen a short film of mine called Stone Cars. It wasn't even the King Richard Oscar [attention] — he was talking about my short film, which I shot in South Africa, and I thought that was really interesting because I shot that film with no money, with no lights, all natural light. And it was raw, and I think that's what he was after. He was after something raw. He was after something pure. And once I knew that, I knew that he wanted to make something quite special. So that was just a connection. It was an immediate connection, somebody's valuing your short film work as a filmmaker. Since then I had learned a lot, so I was like 'okay, I can take what I learned from my short films and bring that to that'. I can bring that kind of energy. I can bring a City of God energy to this film in a way that maybe we hadn't seen on the screen, or I was hoping that that what we were trying to achieve was something different — not necessarily a musical biopic; a movie like City of God or Black Orpheus, something that felt organic and pure and raw. We were aligned right away when it came to that, to the visuals in the film, and what I wanted to look and feel like. I'm very grateful to him for that, and that was the start to a three-year-long journey." On the Process of Stepping Into Such Influential Figures' Shoes Kingsley: "What was really exciting about it originally, he's an icon and a hero and everyone knows Bob, and there's a huge pressure around that and the family are involved, but really when I started working, it was about understanding the musician — and understanding the meaning of his songs, and understanding what it was that Bob was trying to do. And my mind was just blown. I'd spend a few days on an album, then I'd move on to another one, then I'd get stuck on a song, then I'd be on that song for four weeks. And Cedella, Bob's daughter, sent me some files that only the family have. There were a number of interviews that are not available on YouTube or anywhere. I was listening to them and transcribing them all the way through, even when we were shooting. It was just amazing to get to listen to Bob talk over a 12-year-period so extensively about his religious beliefs, about writing, about life, about everything." Lashana: "I wanted to make sure that she was authentically portrayed, and that she was given the light and the flowers that she deserves — and that her spirit and her energy was in the film. So it was important for me to be able to rest firm in that at the beginning, and then be able to impart, I guess, the wisdom and the information that I gained from meeting her into the script and onto set. I think that the most-daunting thing at the very beginning was the fact that I have a responsibility to Jamaica. I represent Jamaica to the fullest. I'm of Jamaican heritage. My parents were born there. And also this is one of the queens of our country. So I knew that the responsibility was going to be big and that this had to be right. Once I saw how weighty that responsibility was, I just threw it away and decided to just focus on Mrs Marley, because she's who has the voice here and she's who people are going to remember — whether they're learning more about her because they know her already, or they don't know her and they're learning her for the first time. I wanted her portrayal to be balanced." James: "Chris Blackwell was a legend in his own right. In terms of music producers through the ages, there's no one really like him. As people have said, he's more one to introduce reggae to the world than anyone. And if you look at his roster of talent that he's represented and careers that he's launched, his taste is immaculate and he's clearly brilliant at his job. Also, the way that he kind of cross-pollinated, the way that he brought Junior Marvin into The Wailers because he knew the sound it would bring, which is nodded to in the movie — the guy's a genius. I think most music producers would say that there's only been one Chris Blackwell and there only will be one. So it was a responsibility to get him right. It was a pleasure and a privilege to learn about him. It was a privilege to meet him in Jamaica when we premiered the film, and I got to shake his hand — and I think he was approving of my portrayal. He didn't seem too upset, which is which is a relief." On Why a Bob Marley Biopic Hasn't Reached Screens Before Reinaldo: "I think time. Time wasn't right. I know they tried to make it for 30 years. Neville Garrick, who was our consulting producer on the film, told me I think he had tried to make it for 25 years. I had heard names like Oliver Stone and Scorsese, and many, many directors at some point, because everybody loves Bob. I just think time wasn't on their side. Time was on my side. It was the family's time. I think it was hopefully finding the right filmmaker. I think there's a time for everything and for whatever reason, this was our time. And we had to run with it. And also part of it was discovering who was going to play Bob. I think for so long it was trying to find who could carry the weight, who could carry that burden in in a lot of ways. Fortunately for us, it was Kingsley." On Learning More About Bob Marley by Making the Film James: "I was a fan, but like a lot of people, my life as a fan was limited to legend. I think probably when I was a teenager I was given or I brought that compilation, and I gorged on it. It became really, genuinely an important part of my teenage years and my 20s. He provided an apt soundtrack to those periods: the upbeat, celebratory moments; the crashes; the lower, more-pensive moments with 'Redemption Song' or whatever it might be. So I listened to his music and I didn't really know much about the context. And this is why I think this film for me and for hopefully the audience is going to be so important, because you realise that his message is so much bigger than his music. As there's a line in the film, the message and the music can't be separated. But it's been a real journey, a real revelation to me, to understand more about the man and where that message came from — and the fact that it came from struggle. Reinaldo: "I was definitely a fan. Grew up with the music in my household. My dad named me Reinaldo Marcus Green after Marcus Garvey [the Jamaican political activist], who Bob had studied, and so there were all these kismet signs that I was somehow supposed to be the person that helped bring this story to life. And I resisted it like I resist everything. 'Why me? It's too much. It's too hard. This is crazy. This is Bob Marley!'. But it was something about Bob in particular. He's a superhero. He's really unlike any other musician. He's like Peter Parker — he's a common man who then puts on a cape at night and rescues us with his music. It's a fantasy, and it's amazing when you see somebody that has that ability to transform our lives with his music. I mean, it's very rare to get that. You see the face, you see the image on the T-shirts and it's like 'who is that? Who is that man?'. I think we always we always feel that. He's a revolutionary, his spirit, what he was singing for. So going on that discovery was amazing. I only knew the tunes, right? Very rarely do you dissect lyrics. And that was the quest for me in this film, was really trying to understand where the music was coming from. I wasn't so well-versed in Jamaican politics, what was happening at that time, what was really going on — and Jamaica's rich history, and colonialism, and what was happening in politics. And so it was a great way for me to rediscover that period of time and do it through his music. I was hoping that we can weave the film in a way that the music comes out in a very organic way in the film that feels part of the fabric of how we made the movie; it's the DNA, it's the backbone, but it's not a musical." Bob Marley: One Love releases in cinemas Down Under on Wednesday, February 14, 2024. Read our review.
Lean in to winter, forget about being cosy and snug indoors for just one day and head to Australia's highest peak — Mount Kosciuszko. This chilly season, Thredbo's got you sorted for an energetic, sub-zero (but hot on the scale of 'you should be there') adventure with Kosci in Your Cossies. Warning: this is not an event for those who feel the cold easily. The free event starts at the Bullwheel Bar & Bistro (at the top of the Kosciuszko Express Chairlift) and winds up at The Alpine Bar. Brace yourself and strip down to just a pair of Kosciuszko Pale Ale x Budgy Smugglers and whiz on down the mountain. After your snow ride, you'll head inside the bar to warm the cockles of your heart and all the bits of you that went down the mountain uncovered. You'll also receive a beanie for your valiant efforts. Once you've recovered, stick around for the Kosci Apres Party, with drink specials, a DJ set from Joyride and a live performance from Groove City. From 2–7.30pm, you'll be able to watch the sunset over the mountains as you sip a well-deserved cold one. And after the after party, there's the Kosciuszko Pale Ale Banger Party in Keller Bar post-9pm, also featuring Joyride and Groove City — because why stop the kick-ons? Kosci in Your Cossies is free, but registration is required and can be done so here. Registration is only open to persons 18 years or older. For more information visit the Kosci in Your Cossies Facebook event or the Thredbo website. Image: Mount Kosciuszko. Remember to Drinkwise.
The annual floral show Fleurs de Villes is returning to the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney with a vibrant new floral exhibition tailor made for this year's Sydney WorldPride. This follows the success of last year's popular FEMMES exhibition. Running from February 17–26, Fleurs de Villes PRIDE will showcase a series of fresh floral installations made by Sydney's top floral talent, each of which celebrates an inspirational member or ally of Australia's LGBTQIA+ community. This includes the legendary Kylie Minogue and some of Sydney WorldPride's Rainbow Champions like Courtney Act, Keiynan Lonsdale and Deni Todorovic. Visitors to the exhibition can also enjoy colourful flower markets, expert floral talks, demos and workshops and unique Floral Discos — where guests can toast to the start of Sydney WorldPride and party to live DJ tunes alongside the vibrant floral exhibit. In celebration of this kaleidoscopic exhibition, Fleurs de Villes is giving away a one-night stay at the Intercontinental Sydney (valued at $500). This lavish five-star hotel is located right on Circular Quay, boasting views across the famous harbour. The winner will stay in a City View room, getting access to the most luxe facilities — including an indoor pool that looks out over the Sydney Opera House. A decadent breakfast for two is also included. Ready for a luxurious city staycation? Enter your details below. [competition]887514[/competition]
It's almost that time of year, somehow. Christmas is fast approaching, winter is behind us, both New South Wales and Victoria have announced their plans for transitioning out of lockdown, and you're probably thinking about your summer shenanigans. While we don't know exactly when jetting overseas might become an option again for Australians just yet — other than likely at the 80-percent fully vaxxed rate — many Aussies can still make plans to roam around parts of this country we all call home. Border rules remain in place due to NSW and Victoria's COVID-19 outbreaks; however, for plenty of Australians, a trip to the Northern Territory is not only possible but comes with an extra incentive. Last year, the NT Government and its tourism body launched the NT Summer Sale campaign, which offered discounts on trips to Australia's Red Centre and Top End. To all of the Northern Territory, actually. This year, it's doing the same, but with two caveats. Firstly, the special is only open to Aussies who've had both their jabs. So, it joins the growing list of offers, giveaways and discounts that reward people who've rolled up their sleeves — and encourage those who haven't yet. It's also the first vaccine incentive by an Australian tourism body. Secondly, to take advantage of the discount, you'll need to come from a non-hotspot part of the country as deemed by Territory officials. That currently rules out all of NSW and large parts of Victoria — but the 2021–22 NT Summer Sale does run from Friday, October 1, 2021–Thursday, March 31, 2022, so it's possible that Sydney and Melbourne won't be on the NT's hotspot list for that entire period. What's on offer? For each $1000 you spend up to $5000, you'll receive a $200 discount. It maxes out at $1000 off, but that's still 20 percent off the price. The discounts are available for a number of things too, covering plenty of essential elements of every holiday. You can use them on flights, accommodation, tours and attractions, and vehicle hire. You will need to both book and travel between that six-month October–March period, though. The other big stipulation: you'll need to book through one of Tourism NT's campaign partners to score the discount. They include retailers such as Holidays of Australia, Helloworld Travel & Viva Holidays and NT Now. If you've always been meaning to make the trip — and you've had both Uluru and its incredible Field of Light installation on your must-see list for ages — here's a mighty fine excuse to put those dreams into action. Border-wise, it's best to keep an eye on the NT Government's coronavirus hub for the current rules — and any future changes, For further details about the NT Summer Sale campaign — which will be on sale between Friday, October 1, 2021–Thursday, March 31, 2022 for travel within the same period — head to the Tourism NT website. Top image: Tourism NT, Kyle Hunter and Hayley Anderson.
The Killers are taking a shot at the night, Satellite Stories are letting the lights go low and Cruiser want you to kidnap them. So kick off those work-week blues and listen to these five tracks to soundtrack your weekend. 1. 'SHOT AT THE NIGHT' - THE KILLERS This is a new direction for The Killers. It retains the anthem attributes fans love, but it presents a new element to their sound, courtesy of production by Anthony Gonzalez of M83 fame. It is like the two bands had a sonic love child, and this is it. It is a wonderful way to celebrate the Las Vegas quartet's tenth anniversary and is one of two new tracks to be featured on a greatest hits (so far) album, with 'Just Another Girl' also due to drop soon. The album Direct Hits will be released globally on November 11 so let this tide you over in the meantime. 2. 'BED PEACE' - JHENE AIKO FEAT. CHILDISH GAMBINO This is the smoothest song I have ever heard. Jhene Aiko's gentle vocals perfectly compliment Childish Gambino — otherwise known as Donald Glover — and his playful voice. When layered over the top of the simple R&B vibe it creates a song that is both graceful and sexy. You can play it to fall asleep, when you bring someone home or just on a lazy Sunday. This is an angelic song for all occasions. 3. 'LIGHTS GO LOW' - SATELLITE STORIES Satellite Stories have been receiving a lot of deserved hype lately. The Finnish band's sound has drawn a number of comparisons to Two Door Cinema Club, but there is one difference — they sound like they could be even better. Now that is saying something, as Two Door Cinema Club is this writer's favourite band. However, they just have an excellent understanding of the music they are trying to make, resulting in tracks like this that your ears will love you for offering to them. 4. 'KIDNAP ME' - CRUISER Cruiser is Philadelphia native Andy Stykes and he could not have dropped this summer-sounding track at a better time. So as the sun begins to heat things up, soak up this track's resplendent musical rays and please do not kidnap Cruiser. We need him to continue making music and his ransom would be far too high given how good this new track is. 5. 'DAWN' - CLOUD BEHIND Cloud Behind are a band from Thailand that make truly beautiful music. 'Dawn' is an excellent showcasing of their talent and has perfect timing, starting slowly before building momentum into a heartwarming ending. This is the type of music that accompanies life-changing decisions in indie movies so pop it on and see what epiphanies come your way.
Chart-topping UK grime MC Stormzy is finally set to return to Australian and New Zealand before the end of 2022, with a slew of previously postponed tour dates being given new dates. Originally scheduled for 2020 before being pushed back multiple times for obvious reasons, the H.IT.H World Tour will make its long-awaited arrival across Australian and New Zealand from Wednesday, November 23. That's when the tour will begin at Perth's HBF Stadium, before continuing on to Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Wellington — and concluding in Auckland on Sunday, December 11. Folks that purchased tickets to the original tour and held onto them for the past two years need not worry, as their purchase is still valid, while limited extra tickets are on sale now. Stormzy last graced our shores for Splendour in the Grass 2018. In the following half a decade, the rapper has released his second UK #1 album Heavy Is The Head, which was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize; made history by becoming the first black British solo artist to headline Glastonbury; and set up multiple social enterprises including the #Merky Foundation and the Storzmy Scholarship at the University of Cambridge. The tour will mark the first time audiences down under will have the opportunity to catch Heavy Is The Head hits like 'Vossi Bop', 'Own It' and 'Crown', alongside favourites from Stormzy's back catalogue. With many of the tickets already snatched up back in 2020, the remaining spots are sure to fill up fast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ClYy0MxsU0 STORMZY AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND TOUR DATES 2022 Perth — Wednesday, November 23, HBF Stadium Sydney — Sunday, November 27, Hordern Pavilion Sydney — Monday, November 28, Hordern Pavilion Brisbane — Wednesday, November 30, Riverstage Melbourne — Friday, December 2, John Cain Arena Adelaide — Thursday, December 8, AEC Theatre Wellington — Saturday, December 10, TBS Arena Auckland — Sunday, December 11, Trusts Arena Stormzy will tour Australia and New Zealand in November and December 2022. For further information and to buy tickets, head to Handsome Tour's website. Top image: Raph_PH.
When the ancient Greeks dreamt up democracy many moons ago, they surely knew their labour of political love would reap plentiful rewards for humanity — barbecuable rewards. Why else would our society have evolved so deliciously to the point where Election Day is synonymous with hot snags in bread? Yep, here in Australia, voting and sausage sizzles go together like Q&A and provocative tweets. But thanks to a bit of ingenious technology, you don't have to simply cross your fingers and hope your local voting booth is one of the ones firing up the barbie on voting day. There's a nifty online map that'll tell you exactly where to find those glorious democracy snags. The Democracy Sausage website crowdsources data from social media sites, as well as from direct audience submissions, to map out the polling places that feature sausage sizzles and other food and drink offerings. While the site has offered a comprehensive sausage database for various elections since 2016, it's currently getting a run for the upcoming 2022 federal election, which takes place this Saturday, May 21. [caption id="attachment_839440" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Elliott Kramer[/caption] Jump onto the map to easily identify which polling places will be slinging sausage sizzles, cake stalls, bacon and egg rolls, and coffee. You'll even spy separate icons marking those spots that are serving vegetarian food and halal options. According to the website's own stats, there are currently 722 polling places confirmed to feature sausage sizzles for this weekend's voting, with more to come. Of course, since the map is built largely off community intel, it's not entirely exhaustive — if you've got some goss about sausage sizzle locations, you can help by sharing it with the team via a direct message or tweeting #democracysausage. If you're a diehard fan of the humble Election Day snag, you'll also find a selection of snag-related merch available on Democracy Sausage's Redbubble online store. Of course, if you're one of the many Aussies who took advantage of early voting or postal voting for this election, you might have to settle for a Woolies run and a home-cooked homage to that democracy sausage instead. To plot your sausage haul during the federal election on Saturday, May 21, head over on the Democracy Sausage website. Top image: Jonathan Taylor, via Unsplash.
The premiere Australian festival of journalism and storytelling is back in Sydney, and this year Storyology 2017 expands north to Brisbane, too. Brought to you by The Walkley Foundation, you could win a chance to network and mingle with journalists from Australia and abroad as they address today's big questions about the forever-changing industry. What will newsrooms look like as new technologies arise and develop? How does one go about turning their stories into successful podcasts? How has the 'Trump Effect' impacted media outside of the US? Topics like these and many more will be discussed in conversations lead by Buzzfeed and Google executives, Pulitzer Prize-winning critics and journalists flying in from across the world. The Sydney lineup includes founding editor of The Wire, Siddharth Varadarajan, and Boston Globe art critic, Sebastian Smee, and in Brisbane, we'll hear from 2015 Gold Walkley winner at Four Corners, Caro Meldrum-Hanna, and Kerry O'Brien, one of Australia's most notable journalists. The festival first kicks off in Brisbane on Thursday, August 24 with Storyology After Dark for a 'night of great yarns', then makes its way to Sydney on Wednesday, August 30, where it finishes up with the Storyology Social on Thursday, August 31 — a celebration of all the issues, ideas and stories discussed throughout. We have a full festival pass for two to giveaway in both Sydney and Brisbane. For your chance to win, enter your details below. [competition]630459[/competition]
For five years between 2005–2010, David Tennant played one of the most iconic roles there is; however, he'll never just be known for his work on Doctor Who. Since stepping out of the TARDIS, the British actor has been filling his resume with supremely interesting parts. Miniseries Deadwater Fell is the latest — and yes, if you've spotted that Tennant has become very comfortable in crime thrillers, drama and mysteries, you're completely right. Here, he plays Tom Kendrick, a doctor in a Scottish village who is also the only survivor when his home catches ablaze. Over four tense episodes, the twisty series explores the events and aftermath, including its impact upon the local community. It's not all what it seems, of course, which goes with the territory. In terms of actual terrain, the show is set in a fictional town, but expect to feast your eyes on plenty of scenic Scottish sights.
Most filmmakers are considered prolific if they make a movie every two years. Since leaping onto the scene in 2005, Joe Swanberg has made 18. One of the leading figures of the mumblecore movement (an American indie film subgenre characterised by microscopic budgets and heavily improvised dialogue), Swanberg most recently earned plaudits for his charming romantic dramedy Drinking Buddies, starring Olivia Wilde and Anna Kendrick. We now know Drinking Buddies was scarcely in theatres before Swanberg began work on his next project, one that sees him re-team with Kendrick, along with New Zealand actress Melanie Lynskey and Girls creator Lena Dunham. Shot in Swanberg's cosy Chicago home, Happy Christmas chronicles the rocky yuletide holidays of new parents Jeff and Kelly (Swanberg and Lynskey) after Jeff's irresponsible sister Jenny (Kendrick) comes to stay. As with most of Swanberg's movies, the film had almost no scripted dialogue, and relied instead on the improvisational talents of the cast. We chat to Swanberg about the origins of the story, as well as his decidedly laidback approach to feature filmmaking. Is it true that the original script for Happy Christmas was only 15 pages long? Yeah that's right. It was in paragraph form, sort of a breakdown of what I thought would happen in each scene. What is it about that approach to storytelling that you like? Well there's a couple of things. I really love the fact that as a writer, I'm not putting dialogue into character's mouths, and that I'm having the actors own their characters and bring all these different viewpoints to them. I also like showing up to work each day not sure what's going to happen, and having those scenes be a true collaboration between myself and the actors and my cinematographer and my producers ... having ten smart people solving a problem rather than me sitting at a laptop trying to write a screenplay. So where do your films tend to start, if not a full script? Sometimes it's a theme that I'm interested in, and other times it's a character, but either way I tend to cast pretty early in the process. I want to know who I'm going to be working with, and then that collaboration with the actor is there at the beginning of the process, and I can work with them to flesh out that character. By the time we get there to shoot the movie, I have a pretty good sense of the arc of it, but it's really all the nuances and all the personality that we find on set. If you were ever to look at one of my outlines, it would read like the finished movie, but missing everything that makes the movie good (laughs). https://youtube.com/watch?v=A3OhjYvyC0c And in the case of Happy Christmas, what was your creative inspiration? It was two things, actually, both of them autobiographical. It was my younger brother coming to live with my wife and I soon after my son was born, and the experience of starting my own family and having a sibling in the house, which was wonderful and terrible, depending on the day. So I kind of took that feeling and tried to put it in there. And then there were conversations I was having with my wife about motherhood and about her kind of identity crisis she was having as an artist and an independent person, wrapping her head around the idea of being a stay-at-home mum. Just circumstantially we found ourselves in these very conservative, classic gender roles of the bread winner and the stay-at-home mum, which is not something that we really identified with. So it was a weird period of time for us. And I didn't feel like I had seen that in a movie before. So I took these two life events that in reality happened a year apart from each other, and then just crashed them together into a movie. One of the things I really appreciated about the film, and about a lot of your films, is the attention given to female characters. Is that something you're particularly conscious of? Yeah, it's important for me. Just as a person, I feel like I know what it's like to be a man, whereas I have no idea what it's like to be a woman, so it's subject matter that I'm just drawn to through my own curiosity. And also it's just so underrepresented in the movies. It's sadly pretty rare to have interesting, strong female characters. I've always wanted to make movies in territory that's underexplored, and where there's still room for discovering. So I feel like again and again I keep getting drawn back there because there's so much undiscovered country. And it's a chance to work with great actresses who don't get offered leading roles all that often. Given how much improvisation happens in the your films, how much footage do you usually end up with? There have been movies where I've ended up with mountains of footage, and others where we shot almost everything in the movie. It really depends. With Happy Christmas we shot on 16 millimetre [film], so I budgeted a 4:1 shooting ratio, and I think we stuck pretty close to that. Certain scenes we only shot once or twice, other scenes we shot ten times. It ended up being not that much footage. I think when you shoot film you have to be smart about preplanning in a different kind of way. When I shoot video I'm a little more apt to just shoot a lot on set. On my previous film Drinking Buddies, I probably shot about thirty hours of stuff, and with Happy Christmas I probably shot five or six. It really just depends. And why did you shoot on film? I went to film school and my whole education was on 16mm, so I was excited to try that again in a professional context. And also I'll admit I was a little bit worried that film was going to disappear and that I was never going to shoot a full feature on film. So there was a bit of fear and nostalgia going into that decision. But it felt right for the project, and I think I was just waiting for the kind of movie that felt like it wanted that texture and that kind of visual look, so it all lined up. The Christmas season, and the fact that it focused on a family; I think I wanted that warm, grainy, old home movie look that only film can provide. Are you often surprised by what your cast improvises on set? Definitely. It's one of the fun things about working this way. In almost every scene there's some moment that I feel like I never could have written. It's too human and too spontaneous to have been generated in the screenplay process. That's kind of what keeps me going every day. I show up to set each morning hoping that we get something like that and that I'm surprised by what happens. I want to make sure that the movies are flexible enough that if something really exciting happens that wasn't in the outline, there's room to incorporate that, and that the movie can follow what's actually happening, rather than following some predetermined game plan. And in the case of Happy Christmas, what's one example of that kind of moment, something that got you excited to be there? I had this idea that I wanted the women to write this 50 Shades of Grey-style erotic novel, and so those are scenes in the outline where I didn't write anything other than 'the three women sit in the office and write the book', because I really wanted Anna and Melanie and Lena to improvise that stuff. I wanted to be surprised by the story they came up with, and how crude they got with it. So that stuff was really fun; it was all just totally playing around and letting them run wild. I was also really proud of and excited by this central conversation in the middle of the movie where again the three women are sitting down in the basement drinking beers together and talking about motherhood and responsibility. That was a really important scene for me because thematically it's a big shift moment in terms of the story we're telling, and also it was a big impetus for wanting to make the movie in the first place. I think they did such a great job, and I think those three actresses are so smart, and such great writers. You hope it's going to go that well, but it still feels really good when you finish at the end of the day and you feel like you actually got the thing that you were hoping to get. Happy Christmas is available now on DVD and digital download.
Dancing in a crowded room while tunes are piped directly into everyone's ears via wireless headphones? That's yesterday's news. Today, it's all about skating on ice while doing the same. Or, at Sydney's first Silent Disco Ice Skating Festival, it will be from September 23 to 29. Taking place at Central Park Mall's Chippendale Green, the event really shouldn't need much explanation — but here goes. You'll glide around on the ice pretending that you're in Blades of Glory, Ice Princess or the three-strong The Cutting Edge film series, all while two live DJs play everything from old school classics to newly released tracks, and you listen in via your own personal head-set. While ice skating at the pop-up venue is an all-day affair, with the rink opening at 10am daily, the space doesn't turn into a silent disco until 4pm each afternoon. The 45-minute sessions are limited to 45 participants at any one time, and kick off on the hour, every hour. Oh, and they're free, so expect them to be rather busy. Generations in the future, we'll tell our kids about a time when people moved in public to music that even passersby could hear, and they won't believe us. Other than offering a whole lotta fun, the Silent Disco Ice Skating Festival might also answer the question we know you're now pondering: if you fall over at a silent ice skating fest, can anyone hear you scream? The Silent Disco Ice Skating Festival takes place from September 23 to 29 at Chippendale Green, Central Park Mall, 28 Broadway, Chippendale. For more information, visit the event website.
After seeing last year's Little Mercy at the Sydney Theatre Company, I wrote of superlative drag performer and Sisters Grimm co-founder Ash Flanders, "Where other … performers are men in dresses, and instantly comical in the panto way men in dresses are, Flanders has to do comical things to earn laughter, because as a woman — a glamorous, statuesque woman — he's believable. There's a lot of subtleness in what he brings to a show you could otherwise readily call 'over-the-top'." Since then, we've been waiting for the moment he would take the next step and play a woman in a naturalistic role. And what a woman he's landed. Enticed into the part by Green Room Award-winning director Adena Jacobs, Flanders is Hedda Gabler, one of the (let's face it, few) great female characters in 'the classics'. A creation of Norwegian drawing-room dramatist Henrik Ibsen, Hedda is a mass of contradictions: bored and bursting with energy, vindictive and victim, capricious and calculating, desirable and defective, feminine and masculine. The daughter of an esteemed military general, she's admired for her beauty and status, but she bristles against the social expectations of her sex. She's repulsed by the thought of bearing children, obsessed with destroying the thick hair (yes, hair. Obsessed) and gentle nature of family friend Thea (Anna Houston), and hungry for a life that's bigger than the one she's got. In one of this production's great tableaux, she turns to playing a first-person shooter game when her new husband, schlub and middling academic Tesman (Tim Walter), starts talking about his feelings. Hedda has not married for love. "I guess you could say I danced myself off the dancefloor. My time was up," she says matter-of-factly to Judge Brack (Marcus Graham), a sleazy and meddling acquaintance whom she sees as her equal. A spark of life appears in Hedda when she learns her former lover — precariously reformed alcoholic Eijlert Lovborg (Oscar Redding) — is in town. He's shopping around a manuscript so visionary it will make her husband's work look like it was glued together with Clag. Following the destructive path of this spark is what makes Hedda such a magnificent drama. So what point, casting a man? Jacobs refrains from explaining her reasoning in her notes, but it seems part post-gender experiment, part answer to Flanders' unique qualities as a performer, and part foregrounding of the identity crisis within Hedda (easily the play's most interesting theme). It's not a gender swap, since the character is still female, but it's not quite gender-blind casting either. On stage as Hedda, Flanders is both man and woman at once, a dual figure constantly in tension and fascinating to watch hold. We're not able to forget that Hedda is a character wracked with inner conflict. It's the one element of the (possibly sociopathic) character everyone can relate to, but especially any woman who's ever felt less than 100 percent womanly — and probably even more so anyone who's genderqueer. At the heart of it, Flanders is a very good Hedda. His characterisation is lean, mean and languorous, and his interactions a spectrum of disconnection. With her husband, aunt-in-law (Lynette Curran) and maid Berte (Branden Christine), Hedda is barely present. With Brack she's cool. But with Thea and Eijlert, she's briefly vitalised, briefly has something at stake. Boredom is the key mood, but it's not boring; each tete-a-tete sparkles in this adaptation, as in the original script. The cast is fantastic across the board. This is a production that really looks the business. Refreshingly, it's not minimalist — there's a house! A car! A pool! They're all rendered in the scale, style and glow of LA, where this contemporised version is set. Reuniting with her Persona designer Dayna Morrissey, Jacobs has again gone for a set full of interesting spaces that frame the characters as playfully and meaningfully as a camera lens. In fact, the whole aesthetic here calls to mind one of the most stylistically influential films of the last few years, Drive. This Hedda too is dripping in synth, unease, bold hyperreality and neon-coloured violence. With Kelly Ryall's brashly discordant score, Danny Pettingill's expressive lighting and David Fleischer's deceptively simple wardrobe choices, it's hugely impressive. I would go to the theatre just to spend time in a design like this. Hedda has had mainly negative reviews so far, so it looks like mine is the minority opinion here. For me, this was the Hedda I loved on the page (it's really not that radically changed) combined with what I love about Jacobs' growing oeuvre of cool, cerebral, cinematic psychodrama. My main gripe is that too much time was spent in the car, where the sound was pretty terrible. Otherwise, it was a riveting, intense world where one of history's great creations found a powerful new life.
The power of Back to the Future isn't really a curious thing. As viewers have known since 1985, the Michael J Fox-starring sci-fi/comedy is timeless delight. But as well as making film lovers weep with joy for almost four decades, the iconic movie is now making other folks sing — the cast of the newly minted Olivier Award-winning Back to the Future: The Musical, that is. Exclaiming "great Scott!" is obviously the only fitting response to this development — and there's clearly plenty to get excited about. Yes, Back to the Future: The Musical is a real thing that exists, and has been racing towards clocktowers on-stage in the UK since early 2020 (around a pandemic hiatus or two, of course). Yes, it just picked up the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Yes, the show does indeed follow the Marty McFly and Doc Brown-led story we all know and adore, but with songs, including renditions of Chuck Berry's 'Johnny B Goode' and Huey Lewis and the News' 'The Power of Love' and 'Back in Time', naturally. Now, the news that might have you speeding 88 miles per hour towards Britain: for now, Back to the Future: The Musical is solely treading the boards in Britain. But if a trip to London is on your agenda between before Sunday, October 23, the show is playing at the English capital's Adelphi Theatre until then. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Back To The Future: Musical (@bttfmusical) If you won't be making a visit overseas by plane or DeLorean, start crossing your fingers that the production eventually makes its way Down Under — or pop on your own white lab coat, start tinkering around with electronics and whip up your own time machine to try to make it happen. Also featuring music and lyrics by OG Back to the Future composer Alan Silvestri and acclaimed songwriter Glen Ballard (Ghost the Musical), plus a book by Bob Gale — who co-penned all three Back to the Future film scripts with filmmaker Robert Zemeckis — Back to the Future: The Musical was nominated for seven Olivier Awards. It only won the big one, but emerged victorious over heavy-hitters and fellow screen-to-stage shows Moulin Rouge! The Musical and Frozen. Check out the trailer for Back to the Future: The Musical below: For more information about Back to the Future: The Musical, or to buy tickets for its London season, head to the show's website. If an Australian and/or New Zealand season is announced, we'll let you know faster than you can speed towards a clocktower. Top image: Sean Ebsworth Barnes.
Facebook is swiftly becoming the radar of global activity, now obtaining the power to track not only people's social networking patterns but also their travel paths, their ages and even their political inclinations. With over 800 million active users the social networking site is rampant, with immense data processing required for the constant stream of check-ins, status updates and photo uploads. Data scientist at Facebook, Justin Moore, created these global maps as a captivating visual indicator of where and who the world's Facebook users are to make sense of some of the unique data. SEASONED TRAVELLERS WHO WANT TO MAKE IT KNOWN Forget the old maps of showing aeroplane's routes across the globe because we can now follow travel patterns through Facebook users' check-ins. This map uses check-ins at two far off locations as a way of tracing globe-trotting journeys. NYC HUSTLE AND BUSTLE Check-ins over several days in New York City alone reveal the heavier users are situated around more heavily trafficked commercial and tourist areas. Shouldn't you guys be working or studying or something? NEW VS. OLD The colour ranges of this dazzling map represent the ages of users, again through their check-ins on Facebook. The green zones constitute the older and more established Facebookers whilst the blue are the younger rookies. PRETTY POLITICAL Although what may look like some sort of beautiful and rare star constellation, this last image actually maps American users' political affiliation. Democrats are shown as blue and the Republicans are red. Better pick up your game Obama, the social world has spoken.
The cinnamonny college-tastic whisky known as Fireball is under fire (#sorrynotsorry) this week after some pretty unwanted materials were discovered in a European shipment of the good stuff. According to The Daily Beast, it was revealed that Fireball whisky was being recalled in Finland, Norway and Sweden because the batch contains propylene glycol. Yep, that's a casual compound starring prominently in a little ol' thing called antifreeze. ANTIFREEZE. The chemical that helps protects your car's radiator and de-ices aircraft carriers. You won't be so quick to make a GoPro wedding video downing the spicy stuff now huh? European recipients of the batch in question were understandably unimpressed when the delivery rocked up; apparently the Fireball recipe with high levels of propylene glycol is aiiiight for America though. According to Huffington Post the propylene glycol is used to enhance flavour by absorbing water and is "generally recognized as safe" for use in food by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But European (and Australian) regulations for food and drink ingredients are apparently tighter than the US — DB reminded us of the time Subway was all geared up to remove azodicarbonamide from its Australian and European bread (yeah, that's chemical commonly used in yoga mats, no biggie). Not in the States though, thing are more lax in the Yoo Ess of Ay. So, Fireball owners Sazerac are legally allowed to put more propylene glycol in their US/Canada bevvies. But don't grab your torches and pitchforks just yet. Sazerac were quick to make embers of this week's uproar, releasing a statement pointing out that propylene glycol is given the a-OK by the FDA in amounts up to 50 grams per kilogram — apparently that's about eight times the amount Fireball has hidden away in its party-starting belly. "Most people consume PG every day in soft drinks, sweeteners, some foods or alcoholic beverages," said the Fireball team, adding that "all Fireball formulas are absolutely safe to drink." "Unfortunately, Fireball shipped its North American formula to Europe and found that one ingredient is out of compliance with European regulations. Finland, Sweden and Norway have asked to recall those specific batches, which is what the brand is doing." Australian batches seem fine for now. Shots anyone? No? Fireball whiskey has antifreeze chemicals in it? So it tastes great and I won't freeze? Make mine a double! — Maddox (@maddoxrules) October 29, 2014 Via The Daily Beast and Huffington Post.
This Saturday, October 29, what will you be doing? If the answer isn't celebrating the Mexican Day of the Dead holiday, then you might have to re-evaluate your plans because Espolón Tequila is having a party on the last Saturday of October. The traditional Day of the Dead holiday actually runs over two separate days on November 1 and 2, when it's believed that the souls of those who have passed to the underworld can come back to visit. Families in Mexico and Latin America (and around the world) come together to welcome their loved ones back with their favourite food, drinks, candles, flowers and incense to celebrate the meaningful holiday. Espolón tequila is handcrafted and distilled by artisans in the Los Altos region of Mexico, which makes it the perfect drink to celebrate the Day of the Dead with. The celebration at Taylor's kicks off at 8pm — that's when they'll start mixing up a whole menu of margaritas. It's free to attend — and they'll have Day of the Dead face painters on hand to help you out with an authentic costume.
Whether you're a Brisbanite eager to head to another state, or you live elsewhere in Australia but you're keen on holidaying in Queensland, the past two years have been more than a little difficult. They've been hard for a heap of reasons during the pandemic, obviously, but the Sunshine State's border closures have definitely been tricky to navigate. In November and December, however, that'll all start to ease. Today, Monday, October 18, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced that the state will start to reopen to the rest of Australia once the Sunshine State hits the 70-percent double-vaccinated mark among its eligible population. Queensland's domestic borders haven't been closed to the entire country this year, but with New South Wales and Victoria both experiencing lengthy lockdowns, they've definitely been shut to Sydneysiders and Melburnians — so this'll be welcome news to plenty of folks. "If we keep getting our vaccine, we can welcome family and friends from interstate hot spots in a little over a month who are fully vaccinated — and a month after that, in December, they can come without having to quarantine in time for Christmas, but they too will need to be fully vaccinated," said the Premier. "Queenslanders will acknowledge that that is a sensible and cautious approach to ensure that families can be reunited, but the people coming into Queensland will have to be fully vaccinated." Palaszczuk continued: "the faster we are vaccinated, the faster these deadlines will be achieved. It means that some of these dates may come forward if we get the vaccination rates up." BREAKING: Today we're releasing a plan for Queensland borders. Travel restrictions will ease when 70% and 80% of eligible Queenslanders are fully vaccinated.#covid19 pic.twitter.com/4PANA1CBjF — Annastacia Palaszczuk (@AnnastaciaMP) October 18, 2021 So, when Queensland reaches the 70-percent double-jabbed mark — which is expected around Friday, November 19 — travellers who've been in a hotspot area within Australian in the past 14 days can enter the state again. They'll need to be double-vaxxed, to arrive by air and to have received a negative COVID-19 test result in the 72 hours before arriving. Also, anyone in this category will need to go into home quarantine for 14 days. Then, at the 80-percent double-vaccinated threshold — which is expected around Friday, December 17 — travellers from interstate hotspots can arrive by either road or air to enter the Sunshine State. They'll still need to be double-jabbed, and to have received a negative COVID-19 test result in the 72 hours before arriving. But, there won't be any quarantine requirements at that point. The announcement means that Queensland will be welcoming in travellers from elsewhere in Australia just as summer arrives — and that quarantine will be scrapped for double-jabbed Aussies before Christmas. When Queensland hits 70-percent double-vaxxed, international arrivals will still be handled as they currently are. At the 80-percent double-jabbed mark, though, double-jabbed overseas travellers will be able to undertake 14 days of home quarantine — if they've also received a negative COVID-19 test result in the 72 hours before getting to Queensland. Finally, at the 90-percent double-vaccinated threshold across the Sunshine State, all entry rules and quarantine requirements will be ditched for folks who've had both jabs. For the unvaxxed, the 14-day quarantine rule will still be in effect. At the same press conference, Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles revealed that more restrictions within Queensland will start easing at the 70-percent and 80-percent marks — covering things like gatherings, entering venues and the like. And, these relaxed rules will start having vax requirements attached, so both Queenslanders and visitors from interstate will need to be double-jabbed to take advantage of them. Exactly what that'll entail hasn't yet been revealed, so expect further details before mid-November. Queensland will start allowing domestic visitors back into the state from mid-November, when the 70-percent double-vaxxed threshold is met. For more information about Queensland's border policies, head to the Queensland Government website.
Ever since I started watching How to Make it in America I started noticing more and more graffitied vans looking very much like the Rasta Monsta van from the show. Although it's taken watching the television show to notice run-down but artfully graffitied vans about town, illustrated vans make quite an interesting addition to the otherwise boring-coloured vehicles that line the streets of the city. New York artist Kevin Cyr takes this admiration of cars-as-mobile-canvases-for-graffiti to another level. His Van Series of oil and silkscreen paintings capture the finer details of twenty vans and vehicles found in Brooklyn, NY, and take note of the commercial aspect of vehicles otherwise dismissed as well past their used-by date. [via Flavorwire]
This article is sponsored by our partners, Rekorderlig. Cider is having something of a renaissance, one that's not just limited to pub courtyards and picnics. The fruity beverage du jour is gaining a connoisseur-type following in culinary circles, appearing in pairings with food that would put your average sommelier or brewer to shame. Think light apple ciders with pork to conjure up memories of your Nan's Sunday roast with applesauce, or a richer, bolder variety to cut through the spice and cream of a dhal or mutter paneer. Testament to everyone's love of alcohol-fuelled food (and because everyone knows the alcohol content totally evaporates while cooking, right?), it's also being used in recipes. These chicken pistachio meatballs with Rekorderlig cider chutney prove how well cider lends itself to hearty, wintry meals of the kind you might expect to be served on a blizzardy night in a mountain log cabin in front of a crackling fire. In fact, these meatballs are straight out of the Thredbo Alpine Hotel, where Rekorderlig have a poolside lounge. This dish is boozy, fruity, nutty and gamey, and the perfect adieu to these final frosty nights of winter '14. Chicken Pistachio Meatballs with Rekorderlig Cider Chutney Meatballs (makes 50) 1kg chicken mince 500ml Rekorderlig Strawberry-Lime Cider 100g cranberries 100g sour cherries 50g pistachio nuts 10g salt 10g parsley 1 egg pinch of white pepper Soak the cranberries in Rekorderlig Strawberry-Lime Cider for 30 minutes. Place all the ingredients together in a bowl and mix by hand. Work the mixture till all the ingredients are combined. Place in the fridge at least one hour. Roll into desired size balls. Lightly coat balls in flour and saute very quickly. Sauce 1L chicken stock 1L white wine 500ml cream Reduce stock and white wine by half and then stir through 500ml of cream. Place the meatballs in a baking dish and cover them with the sauce. Bake in a medium oven for one hour. Chutney 60ml olive oil 1 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped 200g sultanas 100g raisins 100g sugar 400ml Rekorderlig Pear Cider 100g ginger grated 800g pears, cored and finely diced dash of nutmeg 2 heaped tsp of ground all spice 1 pinch of cinnamon Saute the rosemary, sultanas and raisins. After one minute add the sugar and then fry the fruit until it starts to caramelise. Pour in the vinegar and bring to the boil. Boil for a few minutes and then add the rest of the ingredients. Simmer until the sauce thickens. Continuously stir so the pear doesn't stick to the bottom. Serve with a warm Rekorderlig Winter cider.
Whether you watched along from 2009–15 when it was in production or you discovered its joys via an obsessive binge-watching marathon afterwards, Parks and Recreation is one of the 21st century's TV gifts — and the beloved sitcom cemented its stars, from its lead roles through to its supporting parts, as audience favourites. Plenty of those talents also share something else in common: a fondness for touring Down Under. Nick Offerman has done it, taking to Australia's stages. Amy Poehler has made multiple promotional Aussie trips for Inside Out and Inside Out 2. Henry Winkler even headed this way to chat through his lengthy career. Now, add the latter's on-screen son to the list. Ben Schwartz, aka Parks and Recreation's Jean-Ralphio Saperstein, has a date with Sydney and Melbourne in 2025. [caption id="attachment_968141" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Disney/Image Group LA[/caption] Don't be suspicious: Schwartz will be performing his Ben Schwartz & Friends live improv show, which begins with just a couple of chairs onstage. Where it goes from there, you'll only discover on the night — because that's the joy of improv. He's doing two gigs, one at the Sydney Opera House on Saturday, May 3 and another at Hamer Hall on Sunday, May 4. Schwartz isn't just known for Parks and Recreation, although that's the first thing on his resume that'll always come to mind for Parks fans. Since his time in Pawnee wrapped up — since he stopped being one of the woooooooorst people in the fictional Indiana town, that is — he's also starred in murder-mystery comedy The Afterparty, voiced a certain spiny blue mammal in Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, loaned his vocal tones to Star Wars: The Bad Batch and Invincible, and featured in Space Force and Renfield. You'll find Arrested Development, This Is Where I Leave You, The Interview, The Walk, House of Lies, The Lego Movie 2, BoJack Horseman, Bob's Burgers, DuckTales and Central Park on Schwartz's filmography, too, and a whole heap more. Does his resemblance to Stranger Things' Joe Keery come up in Ben Schwartz & Friends? Again, you'll need to attend to find out. [caption id="attachment_842850" align="alignnone" width="1920"] The Afterparty, Apple TV+.[/caption] Ben Schwartz & Friends Australian Dates 2025: Saturday, May 3 — Sydney Opera House, Sydney Sunday, May 4 — Hamer Hall, Melbourne Ben Schwartz & Friends plays Australia in May 2025, with ticket presales from 10am on Wednesday, July 31 and general sales from 11am on Friday, August 2. Head to the tour website for more details. Top image: The Afterparty, Apple TV+.
Master blender Dr Rachel Barrie has been in the whisky game for over 30 years, but she originally trained as a chemist. This scientific background paved the way for her to become a leader in the delicious field of whisky blending, requiring her to use those stoichiometry skills on the daily. Before she embarked on a professional career that saw her mix drops for several world-renowned whisky brands, she learned her trade from legendary industry figure Dr Jim Swan. In 2017, Dr Barrie became the Master Blender for The GlenDronach, Benriach, and Glenglassaugh distilleries. She was then inducted into Whisky's Hall of Fame in 2018, becoming the first woman in the scotch industry to be awarded that honour, earning her the title of the World's First Lady of Scotch. And nowadays? She continues to run the master blending arm at these three distilleries where she artfully crafts premium single malt whiskies. We could think of no other expert to sit down with and talk about whisky with. Read on to find her thoughts on crafting the perfect dram, gather tips on how to become a true whisky connoisseur (even if you're new to the delicious amber liquid) and learn of the best advice she's ever received. Let's say I'm new to whisky and I'd like to develop my taste for and understanding of it, what advice would you have for me on how to start? "It's best to start with a neat dram, a teaspoon and water — first tasting neat, then adding water to experiment and unlock different tastes. Always remember to smell with your mouth slightly open. If you nose with your mouth closed, you will smell the alcohol instead of the aromas within the glass. Keep your lips open slightly and inhale a few times. Take your time to access the aroma and uncover the different flavours within. A great introductory whisky to try is the Benriach's The Original Ten. The best way to describe it is like having a pastry with fruit, toasted almonds and vanilla custard in it. Tasting with canapés or small nibbles helps showcase each whisky's flavour, giving you the opportunity to discover the richness of complementary or contrasting combinations. The Benriach 10-year-old goes perfectly with heavily roasted nuts such as peanuts, cashews and walnuts." How about if I'm someone who thinks they don't like whisky, what would you advise then? Is there a style of whisky or approach to drinking the spirit for me? "I always encourage people to be adventurous and open to trying new things. When it comes to whisky, I encourage people to enjoy it however they choose — whether that's neat, over ice or mixed in a cocktail. Every person is different. It is important to take your time, nose the whisky and explore the different aromas and flavours with each sip. The first sip is there to get your palate ready, the second sip is when it's time to explore the different flavours in the glass. If you are finding it too strong, just have a teaspoon of water, it will make it more comfortable." What are your golden rules for how to serve whisky? "First, bring your chosen bottle of whisky to room temperature. Next up, glassware: it is important that there is a slight funnelling to the top of the glass, this helps to concentrate the aromas in the right direction. It also allows you to view or nose the whisky. Once you have the right glass, pour it and let it breathe. A good rule to follow is to let it breathe for one minute per year. So for The GlenDronach's Grandeur 28-Year-Old, I like to pour it and leave it out for at least 28 minutes before enjoying. Enjoy your whisky with a friend or loved one and make sure to take your time to appreciate the flavours and aromas coming from the glass. Stop and ask yourself: what fruit does this remind me of? Is it cherry? Raisins, dates, plums? As you dig deeper you will find notes that remind you of other things or trigger memories. Experience the whisky you are drinking with one another." Whisky cocktails — yay or nay? "Yay! Although I am partial to a neat whisky, we're finding consumers are increasingly looking for more experiential, 'fun' serves with a twist that play on flavours, colours, textures, aromas and interactivity. One of our most popular cocktails is the Benriach Penicillin, which perfectly mixes smoke, lemon and ginger." Smoke Season Penicillin Recipe 25ml Benriach The Original Ten 25ml Benriach Smoke Season 20ml ginger and honey syrup 20ml fresh lemon juice Shake all ingredients, then strain over ice in a rocks glass. Garnish with candied ginger and lemon. [caption id="attachment_891265" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Benriach[/caption] People think of single-malt whiskies as being the opposite of blended whiskies, but crafting a single malt still involves blending. What is it that you're trying to achieve when you blend a single malt? "The difference is a blended whisky is a mix of barrel-aged malt and grain whiskies, a single-malt whisky is a blend of whiskies from a single distillery. When I blend a single malt I'm trying to achieve a combination of flavours from one distillery. For example, at Benriach I have artistically crafted a range of single malt whiskies that perfectly marries tradition and innovation. We seek out an eclectic mix of casks from around the world, so chosen for the exceptional character and flavour notes they lend our whisky. Once brought back to Speyside, we fill them with one of our three styles of distilled spirit: classic, peated or triple distilled. And then we wait. Our spirit matures — flavours collide, combine and intertwine. And only when we are satisfied our whisky is ready, can you enjoy a dram that is richly multi-layered and full of character." What makes a good master blender, and what has your job taught you about flavour? "Exploring flavour is a huge part of my job. Whisky making is much more than an art or a science; for me, whisky is looking deep into nature and understanding it much better. The best way to understand it is if you moved a distillery a mile down the road, and used the exact same techniques, it won't be the same. It is all the things we cannot see that go into the whisky-making process. My approach is to 'nurture the best nature' of each distillery, fully understanding how each environment influences them. As the master blender for The GlenDronach, Benriach and Glenglassaugh distilleries in Speyside and the Highlands of Scotland, I often describe them as taking you from the glen to the 'ben' to the sea. I feel uniquely connected to all three distilleries." How did you forge your career in whisky and what has kept you in the field? What do you love most about whisky and your job? "My love for whisky started when I entered the industry through the Scotch Whisky Research Institute. I researched the flavours and the impact different oak wood casks have on spirit flavour development over time and quickly began to think about a future as a master blender. I had a passion for the science and technology of distillery production, maturation, flavour and sensory science. Loving what I do has motivated me and kept me in the field. My biggest challenge is that I can't sample enough whisky! I have sampled in excess of 150,000 casks across dozens of distilleries, and to this day can say each distillery and single cask teaches me something new each day. The opportunity to keep learning and creating excites me." Whisky related or not, what is the best advice you've ever received? Who gave it to you and what was the context? "My parents were my biggest mentors. Growing up in rural Aberdeenshire, my family was grounded and taught me the power of a strong work ethic. I learned early on that never giving up will always create the best future. The three sayings that have remained with me most on my journey and led me to where I am today are: do your best and forget the rest; seek balance in every day; and success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out. My biggest mantra is 'Love what you do and do what you love'. I take this approach with everything I do." To start your whisky journey, or continue it, shop Benriach and The GlenDronach whiskies at Dan Murphy's, Nick's Wine Merchants, Vintage Cellars and BWS.
It's been a tough time for huge music festivals over the past two years, including one of the biggest there is: Coachella. The 2020 event was less than a month out from its April dates when it postponed until October due to COVID-19 — and then, a few months later, it cancelled that year's fest completely. The aim was to return in April 2021 instead; however, unsurprisingly, that didn't happen either. But now the event has announced that it's definitely intending to make a comeback in April this year — and it's dropped its hefty lineup, too.. Mark April 15–17 and April 22–24 in your diaries, whether you're just keen to check out the livestream — remember, Coachella was livestreaming its sets long before the pandemic — or you have US travel plans for this autumn. The full bill is a jaw-dropper, as usual, with Harry Styles headlining the Friday nights, Billie Eilish doing the Saturday nights and Ye (aka the artist formerly known as Kanye West) on Sunday nights. Elsewhere, a bonafide metric fucktonne of squealworthy acts fill out the rest of the bill — Australia's own Flume and The Avalanches, plus Swedish House Mafia, Phoebe Bridgers, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat, Jamie xx, Run the Jewels, Fatboy Slim, Finneas and Joji, just to name a few. Anyway, let's be honest, you haven't truly read any of those words — you'll be wanting this: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Coachella (@coachella) For music lovers planning to watch along from home, Coachella will once again team up with YouTube to livestream the festival. That's no longer such a novelty in these pandemic times but, given the calibre of Coachella's lineup, it's still a mighty fine way to spend a weekend. For those eager to attend, the first weekend is sold out, but you can signup for the waitlist over at the festival's website — and also register for tickets to the second weekend, too, which go on sale on Friday, January 14 US time. Coachella runs from April 15–17 and April 22–24 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. Find out more info and register for tickets or the waitlist at coachella.com.
It's a great time to be a fan of Neve Campbell-starring 90s horror movies. The Scream franchise is coming back again with Campbell onboard, but that isn't the only spooky film from the era that she's known for. Also leaving an imprint was The Craft, with its tale of four high school outcasts who decide to get witchy. And, 24 years later, it's now getting a sequel. Called The Craft: Legacy, this second effort appears to not only follow on from the original, but to also borrow its main storyline. A teenage girl moves to a new town, gets tormented at school and then buddies up with three similarly unpopular classmates, who initiate her into their coven. Soon, they're using their abilities against their peers, and learning that their powers have consequences. As the just-dropped first trailer for the film shows, this description applies as much to the new movie as it does to its predecessor. Also evident in the teaser: plenty of famed moments from the first flick getting a do-over, so prepare to start chanting "light as a feather, stiff as a board". And yes, when an adult tells this new gang of girls to be wary of strangers, they do indeed reply with "we are the weirdos". Devs, Pacific Rim: Uprising and Bad Times at the El Royale's Cailee Spaeny plays Lily, the new girl in town, while Gideon Adlon (Blockers), Lovie Simone (Selah and the Spades) and Zoey Luna (Pose) also feature as her dark magic-loving pals. And, because Lily needs a reason for showing up, that comes in the form of her mother, played by Michelle Monaghan (Saint Judy), who moves their two-person family to a new town to live with her boyfriend, played by The X-Files' David Duchovny. Written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones (Band Aid), and adding to Blumhouse's growing slate of sequels and remakes — think Halloween, Black Christmas, Fantasy Island and The Invisible Man — The Craft: Legacy is headed to cinemas Down Under at the appropriate time of year. It'll hit screens on October 29, aka just before halloween. Check out the trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxZ774gziwU&feature=youtu.be The Craft: Legacy releases in Australian cinemas on Thursday, October 29.
To celebrate National Lamington Day — a very important date to diarise on Saturday, July 21 — Peter Gilmore's stunning fine diner Bennelong will hold a lamington drive for a good cause. Taking inspiration from the school canteen drives of your childhood, Gilmore will show off his take on the humble Australian sweet by serving them up in droves — with all proceeds from lamingtons sold on the day going to suicide prevention charity, R U OK?. And this take on the lammy is anything but humble. It's a proud square of cherry jam, coconut ice-cream and sponge encased in chocolate ganache and sitting in a bed of coconut milk parfait shavings. The dessert is also well-known to Sydneysiders and MasterChef fans alike, as it appeared on the television show and we learnt that it takes 49 steps to make. Available to diners in the main restaurant and at the Cured & Cultured and Bennelong bars, the lammy will be available at lunch from midday and throughout the afternoon (until sold out). Last year, the drive raised over $6000. If you've been wanting an excuse to try the famed lamington — or just dine inside the stunning Opera House restaurant — this is a great one. Bennelong's lamington drive runs from midday until sold out. Image: Nikki To
What's better than watching a heap of top Australian talent sit around and talk about music? Watching them do all of the above while answering questions, competing for points and just generally being funny, too. That's the concept behind ABC TV show Spicks and Specks, which took a few cues from the UK's Never Mind the Buzzcocks, pit Aussie musos and comedians against each other, and has proven a hit several times over. A weekly favourite when it first aired between 2005–2011, it just keeps coming back — including its current series of new specials. When the program was first revived back in 2014, it returned with a new host and team captains. This time, it's back with its original lineup. That means that Adam Hills, Myf Warhurst and Alan Brough have all stepped back into the quiz show realm yet again. When the trio did just that back in 2018, for a one-off reunion special, it became the ABC's most-watched show of the year. Unsurprisingly, that huge response played more than a small part in inspiring this new comeback. If you're already eager to show your own music trivia knowledge and play along — we all know that's as much a part of the Spicks and Specks fun as seeing the on-screen stars unleash their own skills (or lack thereof) — then you probably lapped up the show's Ausmusic Month special last year. And, in the first half of 2020, you probably enjoyed its 90s episode and episode dedicated to 00s tunes as well. Next up, it's tackling past decade, focusing on all the tracks, bangers, one hit wonders and more that released between 2010–2019. When it airs at 7.40pm AEST on Sunday, December 20, viewers can expect questions about the best and the worst songs the last ten years had to offer — and expect not just Adam, Myf and Alan, but musicians Kate Miller Heidke and Vance Joy and comedians Claire Hooper and Luke McGregor as well. The 10s-focused episode marks the fourth of Spicks and Specks' specials, wrapping up its four-show comeback over the past year. And, if you need a refresher in the interim, this comedic chat about a Star Wars Christmas album will do the trick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KNMtDu7TAY Spicks and Specks: 10s Special will air on ABC TV on Sunday, December 20 at 7.40pm. The show's Ausmusic Special, 90s Special and 00s Special are all currently available to stream via ABC iView.
Some workplaces encourage suggestions, speaking up and letting company leadership know if things aren't quite right. As Severance viewers discovered in season one, Lumon Industries hasn't historically been one of them. So what happens when a group of employees attempts to raise issues? In the just-dropped full trailer for the Apple TV+ series' second season, Mark S (Adam Scott, Loot), Helly (Britt Lower, American Horror Stories), Dylan (Zach Cherry, Fallout) and Irving (John Turturro, Mr & Mrs Smith) all find out, as Mr Milchick (Tramell Tillman, Hunters) informs them that they've now become "the face of severance reform" after their actions at the end of season one. The latest sneak peek at season two returns viewers to a world of innies, outies and workplace nightmares — and a sci-fi thriller mindbender with a first run of episodes that deserved all the praise that it received and more. Apple TV+ has released past teasers for the second season, but the latest unveils the most details yet of what's to come. Existence inside and outside Lumon isn't just on a collision course; the two are crashing into each other repeatedly, even if Mark S and co's secretive employer wants otherwise. Audiences will be clocking back in for more Severance come Friday, January 17, 2025, in a case of ideal timing. Thinking about how to best balance your professional and personal spheres, and the time you dedicate to them, is an annual tradition when each new year starts after all. The subject will get a bigger push via this hugely anticipated TV comeback — and so will how work-life balance can weigh on your mind, or not. If you missed the first season, disconnecting from your job come quittin' time — and giving your gig every ounce of your focus during your daily grind — has become literal in Severance in a hellish way. At Lumon, employees agree to undertake the titular procedure, which splits their memories between work and home. But as Macrodata Refinement division employee Mark S begins to learn, nothing about the situation is what it seems. The show dives into the kind of scenario that Black Mirror might've dreamed up, with technology that could've been used if Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was about punching the clock instead of romance. Mark S willingly signed up for severance, all to help process his grief over the death of his wife. And he was happy with the situation until his work BFF Petey (Yul Vazquez, The Outsider) left suddenly without saying goodbye, then new staff member Helly arrived to replace him — and instantly questioned the insidious setup, the rules and restrictions needed to keep it in place, and why on earth her "outie" (as the outside versions of Lumon employees are known) agreed to this in the first place. In season two, Mark and his work pals will attempt to dig deeper into the consequences of the severance procedure, and trying to escape it. They'll also find out the ramifications of messing with the system — and Lumon isn't just filled with the same familiar faces. Severance's return calls for a waffle party, an egg bar or a melon bar — or at least a big bunch of blue balloons with the face of Mark S on them. Jen Tullock (Perry Mason), Michael Chernus (Carol & the End of the World), Dichen Lachman (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes), Christopher Walken (Dune: Part Two) and Patricia Arquette (High Desert) are all back among the cast, alongside new cast members including Gwendoline Christie (Wednesday), Bob Balaban (Asteroid City), Merritt Wever (Memory), Alia Shawkat (The Old Man) and John Noble (Twilight of the Gods). Ben Stiller (Escape at Dannemora) returns as a director on five episodes, too, and executive producer across the whole season, with ten episodes on the way. Apple TV+ will drop instalments through until Friday, March 21, 2025. Check out the full trailer for Severance season two below: Severance returns for season two on Friday, January 17, 2025 via Apple TV+. Read our review of season one.
Societies used to have forums, then markets, then the High street — a main shopping road and gossip factory, where people got together to talk about this and that, and especially each other. Now, as these older places wane, people have the internet to get together and talk about forums, markets, High streets and the future of the Internet, and especially each other. For Philip Brophy's film Northern Void, that meeting place is Preston in Melbourne's north. Set in the lite, consumer haze of its sleeping suburbs, Northern Void imagines the tramless slow transformation of the High street he lived in as a child. Or something like it. Stretched over the near, far and furthest future to a soundtrack by Brophy and Philip Samartzis, the film was originally presented taking advantage of the flash new facilities of Melbourne's national film centre, the ACMI. As part of their Clubhouse series, the Performance Space is putting it on here as well. If the need for a vibrant public space consumes you, or if the yen for good experimental film absorbs you, Brophy offers you a piece to talk about. Photos from Northern Void by Pancho Calladetti.
The last three times that Emily Blunt graced screens, all in 2021, she battled theme park ride-inspired chaos (in Jungle Cruise), monsters that pounce on every sound (in A Quiet Place Part II) and bad Irish accents (in Wild Mountain Thyme). That's quite the trio. The British actor isn't done battling yet, however, as the just-dropped trailer for her new western series The English demonstrates. Her quest here: taking on the old west and getting vengeance. Since first making a splash in 2004's My Summer of Love and then earning attention in a big way in The Devil Wears Prada a couple of years later, Blunt has amassed a killer resume, spanning everything from The Young Victoria, The Muppets and Looper through to Edge of Tomorrow, Sicario and Mary Poppins Returns. So her involvement alone gives The English a hefty push onto must-see lists, although that's not the six-part Prime Video show's only highlight. Also helping ensure The English is worth a look: the fact that it hails from writer/director Hugo Blick (The Honourable Woman, Black Earth Rising, The Shadow Line), boasts Blunt as an executive producer as well, and has Greg Brenman (Peaky Blinders) and Colin Wratten (Killing Eve) similarly in producing roles. And, on-screen, Blunt is joined by Chaske Spencer (Blindspot), Stephen Rea (The Stranger), Valerie Pachner (Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore), Rafe Spall (Trying), Tom Hughes (A Discovery of Witches), Toby Jones (The Electrical Life of Louis Wain), and Ciarán Hinds (Belfast). As for The English's storyline, Blunt plays an aristocratic Englishwoman — hence the title — named Lady Cornelia Locke, who heads to America in the 1890s with revenge on her mind. Her mission requires teaming up with Pawnee ex-cavalry scout Eli Whipp (Spencer), then making their way across a country that's bloody and violent at every turn, with the new town of Hoxem, Wyoming their ultimate destination. Also included along the way: musings on race and power, and a series of unsolved murders. Check out the trailer for The English below: The English will be available to stream via Prime Video from November 11.
In a bid to contain the current COVID-19 outbreak, Sydney's northern beaches have been under stay-at-home orders since Saturday, December 19. Initially flagged to end on Wednesday, December 30, those orders were extended before the end of 2020 until at least Saturday, January 9, specifically for the northern half of the northern beaches. That end date is almost upon us and, when 12.01am hits on Sunday, January 10, the orders will indeed come to an end — as Minister for Health Brad Hazzard confirmed at the NSW daily press conference today, Friday, January 8. From that moment, the northern part of the northern beaches will adopt the same restrictions currently in effect in Greater Sydney and the southern part of the northern beaches. That means folks in the top section of the northern beaches will be allowed to leave the house for any reason; however, other requirements are in effect. You'll need to wear face masks in some indoor settings, such as shopping, public and shared transport, indoor entertainment venues, places of worship, and hair and beauty salons. And, you can only have five visitors (including children) to your house, and gather in groups of 30 people outside your home. For venues in the area — which includes hospitality venues — the one person per four-square-metre rule is in effect. And, a cap of 300 people remains for big venues, even if a large space can hold more than that and still abide by the density requirement. Outdoor performances and protests can have 500 people, controlled outdoor gatherings — that are seated and ticketed — can have 2000 people, and nightclubs aren't allowed to open. Folks are still encouraged to limit non-essential gatherings, and to reduce how much they go out where possible to help minimise the risk of transmission in the community. https://twitter.com/NSWHealth/status/1347334261926359040 The news comes as NSW reported 11 new cases over the past 24 hours, including four new local cases and seven acquired from overseas. In response to the just-announced lockdown in the Greater Brisbane area to try to stop a possible spread linked to one new community COVID-19 case in the Sunshine State, the NSW Government also advised that anyone who has been in Greater Brisbane since January 2 and is now in NSW must isolate until 7pm AEDT on Monday, January 11, too. Sydneysiders are also asked to continue to frequently check NSW Health's long list of locations and venues that positive coronavirus cases have visited over the past week — and, if you've been to anywhere listed on the specific dates and times, get tested immediately and self-isolate. You can also have a look at the venue alerts over at this new interactive map. For more information about the status of COVID-19 in NSW, head to the NSW Health website.
When 2020 ticked over to 2021, Australians were asked to direct their eyeballs towards a brooding mystery set against our dusty, yellow-hued landscape. We did just that, and in big numbers, too, with The Dry quickly becoming a huge box-office hit. A year later, when 2021 becomes 2022, we'll be tempted to do something similar — but this time it's a six-part Stan series that strands Jamie Dornan in the outback that'll be demanding our attention to start the new year. That show is The Tourist, which sees Dornan add another TV role to his resume alongside The Fall, Death and Nightingales, New Worlds and Once Upon a Time. The Irish actor boasts an eclectic filmography — he's highly likely to get nominated for an Oscar next year for his role in nostalgic drama Belfast, in fact, and he hit Aussie screens big and small in the vastly dissimilar Synchronic, Wild Mountain Thyme and Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar this year. For this new part, he plays the titular character, who has no idea why he's in the middle of Australia or even who he is. Written by brothers Harry and Jack Williams (Angela Black), and hailing from the Emmy-winning production company behind The Missing and Fleabag, The Tourist is a mystery-thriller, so its just-dropped first trailer starts out with an uneasy air — as Dornan's character gets pursued by a tank truck trying that's trying to drive him off the road. Things don't get easier after he wakes up in hospital with no memory, unsurprisingly, or when he's chased by plenty of other folks. On-screen, Dornan is joined by a heap of familiar faces, including Aussie actors Danielle Macdonald (French Exit), Alex Dimitriades (Total Control) and Damon Herriman (Mindhunter), English-born Australian talent Shalom Brune-Franklin (Line of Duty) and Icelandic American Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Trapped). You'll be able to binge your way through The Tourist's twists and turns on Sunday, January 2, Check out the trailer below: The Tourist will be available to stream via Stan from Sunday, January 2.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But during these pandemic times while scores of venues are closed, it might also be the only way to get your mitts on your favourite cult dish. Right now, dining out is off the cards and we're all inside racking up plenty of spare hours perfecting those kitchen skills. So, what better time for the minds behind some of the world's greatest cult dishes to share their culinary secrets? From Disneyland's sugar-dusted churro bites, to IKEA's much-loved meatballs, a bunch of famed spots have revealed their secret recipes for you to recreate at home. Add a few of these classics to your iso cooking repertoire. DISNEY'S CHURRO BITES AND MICKEY MOUSE-SHAPED BEIGNETS Disney's renowned collection of theme parks might be temporarily closed in a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19, but your inner child will be chuffed to hear it's simply relocating the magic...to your house. Along with virtual tours and new online offerings, the company's keeping that whimsical spirit alive by sharing some of its best-known recipes through its Disney Magic Moments series. Top of everyone's kitchen hit-list are the classic Disney churro bites, which are on the menu at every single Disney park across the globe. The recipe is fairly straightforward and if you've been lucky enough to wrangle some flour (if not, here's where you'll find some), you should already have most of the ingredients at home. Oh, and we're sure the four-person serving size is just a suggestion… Elsewhere on the site, you'll find recipes for its sugar-dusted Mickey Mouse-shaped beignets. PIZZA EXPRESS'S DOUGH BALLS Internationally loved, UK-born chain Pizza Express has done its many fans a solid, by releasing the recipe for its legendary dough balls into the world. While its restaurants are shut in accordance with public health measures, the group's fluffy, buttery snacks are yours for the making. Nab some yeast and flour, along with a few other pantry basics, and you could be pulling a tray of these beauties out of the oven in no time at all. Fancy something a little heartier? Pizza Express has also dropped the recipe for its classic margherita, so bring on the at-home pizza parties. https://twitter.com/PizzaExpress/status/1250363279945367553 IKEA'S MEATBALLS IKEA's Swedish meatballs have earned almost as much buzz for the furniture giant as its signature flatpack home accessories. And while those blessed balls are off the menu with the chain's in-store restaurants temporarily closed due to COVID-19, there's nothing stopping you recreating the goodness at home. IKEA has released its once-secret meatball recipe to the internet gods, complete with a handy, illustrated step-by-step guide. Each batch makes enough pork and beef meatballs — and matching rich cream sauce — to serve four. And chances are, you can knock it all together in less time than it takes to assemble one of IKEA's flatpack creations. DOUBLETREE BY HILTON'S CHOC CHIP COOKIES If you've ever stayed at a DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, chances are you're a sucker for the complimentary warm chocolate chip cookies the group serves each of its guests on arrival. But you no longer need to book in an overnight stay to sink your teeth into one of these cult baked goods — the recipe's now available online. With most travel plans on hold while the world's in pandemic fighting mode, Hilton has shared the blueprint for its covetable cookies so you can have a crack at baking them yourself. Whip up a batch of these minimal hassle treats and inject a little jet-setting, hotel-living style into your iso situation. [caption id="attachment_768714" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Flickr/Alpha[/caption] MCDONALD'S SAUSAGE & EGG MCMUFFIN Thanks to the magic of drive-through and delivery, there's pretty much no need to forego your Macca's fix here in Australia, even when self-isolating. But if you've jumped on the home cooking bandwagon hard, you can now have a go at perfecting your own version of the humble McDonald's sausage and egg McMuffin. After shutting all of its stores in response to the pandemic, McDonald's UK has gifted the world with the recipe for the brand's globally-loved breakfast treat. With just four ingredients and only a handful of steps, this one sure seems like a pretty easy culinary project and judging from the #McDonaldsAtHome feed on Twitter, has proved successful for plenty of folks. How will your DIY McMuffin stack up to the original? ACME-STYLE PASTA DISHES FROM MITCH ORR It was a sad day when Rushcutters Bay favourite ACME shut its doors for good last year. But the award-winning restaurant is back in spirit — kind of — to help cure those isolation blues and answer all your pasta cravings. Chef and co-owner Mitch Orr has taken to Instagram to share a slew of his own go-to recipes and it's about as close as you'll get to having ACME reincarnated, at your house. Jump over to his page for a step-by-step photo guide to dreamy dishes like pasta arrabbiata, creamy boscaiola, a classic bolognese and a 'turbo schnitty' featuring Lao Gan Ma chilli sauce.
Abode Bistro and Bar may be a hotel restaurant, but it's has an impressive high tea that has none of the stuffy vibes you'd expect from an upscale hotel. Think bottomless sparkling wine accompanied by a seasonal menu, and at a very reasonable $65 per person to boot. On offer from Friday through Saturday, the sparkling high tea gets you two full hours of unlimited pours, plus your choice of tea from their Dilmah selection and an ever-changing menu of savoury and sweet bites. The latest menu includes mushroom and goat's curd quiche, smoked salmon and cream cheese roulade and chicken, radicchio and apple slaw sandwiches. Pastries, of which there are six, feature caramel and passion fruit tarts, rhubarb jam and burnt mandarin macarons, as well as lemon meringue pie. Abode Bistro and Bar's high tea runs every Friday from 2pm to 4pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 11.30am to 1.30pm and 2pm to 4pm.
Get ready for 18 days of around-the-block queues and arguing with people who refuse to put away their phone. That's right, Melbourne movie lovers: the Melbourne International Film Festival is a mere three-and-a-bit weeks away, and the freshly spoiled lineup is as diverse and enticing as ever. Of the more than 300 films and 52 countries represented on this year's MIFF program, the Australian contingent looks particularly impressive. The festival kicks off on July 31 with the world premiere of Predestination, a time travel thriller starring Ethan Hawke and Noah Taylor. Tony Ayres' period crime film Cut Snake has been tapped for the centrepiece gala, while closing night will feature Joel Edgerton and Melissa George in the Melbourne-set police drama Felony. Other local highlights include SXSW's Aussie darling The Infinite Man; Amiel Courtin-Wilson's grim but beautiful new drama Ruin; a destined-to-offend reboot of the classic Ozploitation film Turkey Shoot; and the latest cine-centric documentary from Not Quite Hollywood director Mark Hartley, Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. American indie cinema will also have a strong showing this year, with major titles including Richard Linklater's 12-year passion project Boyhood, Kelly Reichardt's lauded environmental thriller Night Moves and James Gray's fourth consecutive Palme d'Or competitor The Immigrant. Nicholas Cage, meanwhile, proves he still knows how to act as the titular character in David Gordon Green's new character piece Joe, while Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig give rare dramatic performances in The Skeleton Twins, which also won a screenwriting award at Sundance. Speaking of major festival winners, MIFF patrons can look forward to not one but two new films from Quebecois enfant terrible Xavier Dolan, in the form of the breathtaking mother-son drama Mommy and the tense psychological thriller Tom at the Farm. The former film shared the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival with Goodbye to Language, a 3D experimental work from the 83-year-old Jean Luc-Godard. The tense, strikingly shot Czech drama Honeymoon won Jan Hrebejk directing accolades at his native Karlovy Vary last July, while a little closer home, the Dardenne Brothers' Two Days, One Night deservedly took the top prize at this year's Sydney Film Festival. Melbourne's programmers have also continued their impressive run of Asian cinema, with standouts including Wong Kar-wai's long awaited martial arts epic The Grandmaster and the immaculately photographed Chinese neo-noir Black Coal, Thin Ice. More daring MIFFers might also want to check out the latest blood-soaked opus from Japanese provocateur Sion Sono, Why Don't You Play in Hell, described by Film.com critic David Ehrlich as "quite possibly mankind's greatest achievement". From the documentary section, no film buff should skip Jodorowsky's Dune, a fascinating and often hilarious look at what many people consider the single greatest movie never made. Also on tap: master documentarian Errol Morris probes the mind of former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld in The Unknown Known, while Michel Gondry animates a series of interviews with Noam Chomsky, posing the question Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy?. Alternatively, if all that sounds too challenging, maybe try I Am Big Bird, a no-holds-barred expose about Sesame Street's resident yellow pigeon. MIFF 2014 runs from July 31 until August 17. Tickets go on sale to the general public at 11am on Friday, July 11. For more information, visit the MIFF website
Prepare yourself for a serious dose of girl power: Janelle Monáe and Kimbra have announced they're joining forces for an Australasian tour, on sale this Thursday. The two pop heavyweights, who bonded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland last July, are coming to Australia for The Golden Electric Tour at the end of May. Scheduled for four shows throughout Australia, the dynamic duo is also making a stop in Kimbra's native New Zealand before closing out the tour in Melbourne. The award-winning pop powerhouses will co-headline the tour, combining forces for a portion of the show while also playing individual sets. Kimbra and Monáe first made sweet music together at an impromptu bar gig when they met last year. Their taste for eccentric pop music coupled with fierce vocals proved a heavenly match, thus the idea for a joint tour was born. To (successfully) hype us all up for the endeavour, the pair released an unfathomably adorable video singing a mash-up of Aretha Franklin's 'Rock Steady' and Michael Jackson's 'Wanna Be Startin' Something', both of which are sure to be on the set list. https://youtube.com/watch?v=SyqltX5lRhQ Monáe will feature tracks from her 2013 release The Electric Lady, as well as her celebrated 2010 debut album The ArchAndroid. Kimbra is expected to release the follow-up to her 2011 album Vows later this year, so fans should expect some new gems amongst the singalongs. Tour Dates: Friday, May 16 - Challenge Stadium, Perth Monday, May 19 - Hordern Pavilion, Sydney Wednesday, May 21 - Brisbane Convention Centre, Brisbane Saturday, May 24 - Vector Arena, Auckland Monday, May 26 - The Plenary, Melbourne Tickets go on sale 10am on Thursday, April 17 via Live Nation. Pre-sale is available for My Live Nation members at 10am on Monday, April 14.
Brisbane-based Circa is one of the leading circus companies in the world. Under the artistic direction of Yaron Lifschitz, Circa has performed its thrilling, physically demanding shows to more than a million people in over 40 countries. So, we're pretty lucky to have another chance to see its prowess in the upgraded version of a show that premiered at Sydney Festival 2017. Like all good sequels, Humans 2.0 is a love letter to what's come before, and a chance to go even further with its feats of strength, ferocity and boundary-pushing acrobatics. Ten of Circa's finest ensemble members will move to music by composer Ori Lichtik, celebrating what it means to be human. Image 1: Justin Ma
You didn't do any cooking last night, did you? You had plans to meal prep for the week, but instead you went to the pub and ate chips and now you're sitting at your desk, broke and hungry, wondering what you can get for lunch for under $10 today. Well, my unorganised friend, you're in luck. If you work/live near a Roll'd, you can wander in there and get yourself a free rice bowl. Yep, free. And you don't even have to be one of the first people into the shop — you just have to fill out this form. The while-stocks-last giveaway is in celebration of the chain's sixth birthday, and is happening at all NSW Roll'd stores excluding the ones at the airport. There are seven in the CBD (including Gateway Sydney and Chifley Plaza) and six more in Bondi Junction, Parramatta, Castle Towers, Warringah, Campbelltown and the Macquarie Centre. If you can't make it for lunch, some of them are also open for dinner.
We’re only six weeks into a season far too cold for denim cut-offs and more suited to umbrellas than feather headdresses, but if you’re under the age of 50 and you like music then chances are you’re already saving coin for one of our many summer music festivals. Preliminary lineups for Harvest, Stereosonic and Falls Festival and Big Day Out have all recently been announced, with others set to reveal juicy details shortly. But while even the most civilised festival has its fair share of regrettable decisions, warm beers being chugged in the parking lot and liquid deposits being made in plastic water bottles, the truth of the matter is that at most of our own large-scale gatherings it’s easier to mislay a sense of refinement than it is to lose both your friends and your sunglasses. Ergo, Concrete Playground has handpicked a few overseas festivals that manage to combine brazen antics, booze and grannies in souped-up shopping carts with more cultivated offerings. 1. GOOGAMOOGA WHERE: BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, USAWHEN: MAY The inaugural GoogaMooga in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park offered festivalgoers not just sonic goodness from 20 performers ranging from Holy Ghost! to Preservation Hall Jazz Band, but also a little Extra Mooga alongside. With Anthony Bourdain leaving the stage just in time for James Murphy’s DJ set, and grain going head to head with grape at the Beer vs Wine smackdown, Googa Mooga is just a celebration of all things great in life. 2. ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES (UK) WHERE: EAST SUSSEX, ENGLANDWHEN: DECEMBER No one can create an arts and music festival better than an artist or a musician, so this English festival gets a different musical or visual creative to invite their favourite performers to play each year. Past curators have included Portishead, The National and Matt Groening, with B-side festival I’ll Be Your Mirror offering music, film and arts events outside of the holiday resorts. 3. BONNAROO MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL WHERE: MANCHESTER, TENNESSEEWHEN: JUNE Nashville is great for wearing rhinestone cowboy hats and dancing to Johnny Cash cover songs, but Manchester is where country and bluegrass music meets indie rock, world music, folk, gospel, reggae and electronica. The 100-acre entertainment village also features a classic arcade, on-site cinema, silent disco, comedy club and theatre performers, but it’s also the peaceful vibes that had Rolling Stone name Bonnaroo one of the 50 moments that changed the history of rock and roll. 4. BUMBERSHOOT WHERE: SEATTLE, WASHINGTONWHEN: SEPTEMBER The name of this music and arts festival comes from “bumbershoot”, a colloquial term for umbrella, which is a far cooler tag than its original 'Mayor’s Arts Festival'. Now in its 42nd year, music, film, comedy, spoken word, dance, theatre and performance are just some of the genres falling under its canopy. 5. STOCKHOLM MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL WHERE: STOCKHOLM, SWEDENWHEN: AUGUST Here are two things you probably already know about Stockholm: it’s beautiful, and it breeds creativity like Lara Bingle breeds LOLs. The island of Skeppsholmen is where these two things culminate each year, with acts including Patti Smith, Bjork and Antony and the Johnsons playing against a backdrop of intelligent art and glittering water landscapes. 6. OUTSIDE LANDS WHERE: SAN FRANCISCO, USAWHEN: AUGUST San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park holds many rich nuggets of culture, from fascinating buildings and major museums to scenic picnic spots and lakes. In August it also plays host to Outside Lands, a festival geared towards the green movement that celebrates the neutral terrain that became San Francisco’s common ground during the tumult of the 1960s. Food, wine and immersive art are dotted around the park, while the musical lineup — ranging from Metallica to Tame Impala to Norah Jones — really does offer something for everyone. 7. ICELAND AIRWAVES WHERE: REYKJAVIK, ICELANDWHEN: OCTOBER What started as a one-off event in an airplane hangar is now one of the premier annual showcases for new music in the world. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Bravery and The Rapture all played Airwaves in the infancy of their musical careers, and Rolling Stone dubbed it “The hippest long weekend on the annual music festival calendar”. But Airwaves and the exquisite city of Reykjavík don't offer just music — hose the stale beer out of your hair, hop on a bus and alleviate your hangover via geysers, waterfalls, lava fields and the world-famous Blue Lagoon. 8. CACTUS FESTIVAL WHERE: BRUGES, BELGIUMWHEN: JULY Because the only thing better than great music and great beer is Granny Turismo.
Whatever you've been dreaming about getting for Christmas, here's one thing that you don't have to write a letter to Santa for: a festive action-comedy about a Christmas Eve heist where a certain red suit- and white beard-wearing fellow kicks ass and tries to save the day. Making Violent Night an extra present of a film when it hits cinemas in December (when else?) is the man getting jolly, too: Stranger Things favourite David Harbour. The actor behind Hopper will get ho-ho-hoing in the seasonal flick — and dispensing with mercenaries like he's a Father Christmas version of John Wick. Hawaiian shirts are out, clearly, replaced by the expected Santa getup. The same no-nonsense attitude remains, though, as seen in the movie's just-dropped first trailer. Harbour as the merriest figure there is rescuing Christmas when a kid calls for his help? That's the basic plot, but there is slightly more to it. Those aforementioned mercenaries break into a wealth family compound on the night before the big festive day, taking everyone hostage. But Santa also happens to be there — and uttering lines like "time for season's beatings" as he gets to work. Those John Wick comparisons are by design, with 87North, the producers of franchise plus Nobody, Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Bullet Train and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, behind the film. And yes, there's more than a little bit of Die Hard thrown in as well — just in a home rather than Nakatomi Plaza. Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Jake Peralta would approve. On-screen, Harbour is joined by John Wick's John Leguizamo, plus Cam Gigandet (Without Remorse), Alex Hassell (Cowboy Bebop), Alexis Louder (The Terminal List), Edi Patterson (The Righteous Gemstones) and Beverly D'Angelo (Shooter). And behind the lens, Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, the Dead Snow franchise) is in the director's chair — and the script is penned by by Pat Casey and Josh Miller, after writing the terrible Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Check out the trailer below: Violent Night opens in cinemas Down Under on December 1.
When you travel the world, you take your tastebuds on a journey with you, with trying local delicacies all part of the experience. If you find yourself at Sweden's new museum, however, you might not want to get adventurous with your eating — it's completely dedicated to disgusting foods. Of course, what one person considers gross, another entire country might slather on toast for breakfast. Yes, the Malmö-based Disgusting Food Museum will feature Vegemite when it opens on October 29. Other items don't include much-loved but highly polarising Australian spreads, but everything within the site's walls is considered food somewhere. Think Sweden's own surstömming, aka fermented herring; cuy, the Peruvian roasted guinea pigs; casu marzu, a maggot-infested cheese from Sardinia; hákarl, the Icelandic dish comprised of well-aged shark; and Thailand's notoriously pungent durian. In total, 80 foods from around the world will be on display until January 27, with liquorice, jell-o salad, fruit bat and bull's penis among the other exhibits. For an entry fee of 185 Swedish krona (approximately AU$29), visitors will have the opportunity to smell and taste selected items. The museum will also hold 'taste one for the team' sessions for groups of six or more, where you can challenge your friends to the kinds of tastings that you don't get every day. If you're currently asking yourself the obvious question — not 'what's wrong with Vegemite?', but rather 'what would inspire someone to open this kind of place?' — the Disgusting Food Museum is all about challenging accepted ideas of what's edible and tasty. It recognises that what one person finds delicious, another might find revolting and vice-versa. Speaking to Vox, curator and 'chief disgustologist' Samuel West uses Vegemite as an example, explaining that it initially tastes awful, but you can learn to like it. Find the Disgusting Food Museum in Malmö, Sweden from October 29. For more information or to buy tickets, visit the museum's website or Facebook page.
A whole meal, made up of desserts. Best Monday news ever. A whole meal, made up of desserts, absolutely sold out. Worst. Monday. News. Ever. The purveyors of iced confection artistry, Gelato Messina, are running a degustation of just desserts, an entire menu with 20% savoury, 80% sugary goodness (with matching cocktails). Scheduled for Thursday, August 21 at The Stables Sydney, Royal Randwick, the whole 'Mega Dega' ticket thing was over in about 45 minutes after Messina posted their long-teased link this afternoon around 4pm. Entirely sold out by 5pm, many sweet tooths will now have to make their own Messina degustation imitations at home. Perfecting the balance of savoury to sweet with a 20:80 split, Messina have quite the feast in store for lucky ticket buyers. Messina's ratio will be "just enough 'sensible' to clear your conscience and enough dessert to sufficiently whet the palate," according to the team. With two savoury dishes balancing out the stream of Donato Toce's sweet, gastronomic feats, each dish will be paired with a cocktail by Jason Williams and non-alcoholic palette cleansers. While the actual menu is still clouded in mystery, the night is scheduled to run for two and a half hours of sweet feasting (for a cheeky $199 per person). Messina have run a degustation like this before, teaming up with the Shangri-La in June for an eight-course evening run by ex-Bathers Pavilion pastry mastermind Anna Polyviou (who helped Serge Dansereau with those super popular cookbooks The French Kitchen, Summer Cooking and Seasons cookbooks). Adriano Zumbo 'grammed the whole thing, a DJ played tunes paired to each course, while Messina owner and chef Donato Toce teamed up with Polyviou and their combined nine chefs to create eight killer courses. This was the menu last time 'round: Now you're adequately and irreversibly saddened, there's never been a better excuse to drown your missed-out sorrows in Messina scoops. DIY degustation y'all. Image credit: Not Quite Nigella.
Summer is here, which means that it's time to leave the den that we've crafted for ourselves for our winter hibernation. We need to go outside, and there's no better way to get into the 'outside' than by roughing it under a canvas sheet with fire and nature. But camping doesn't have to be all about being at one with nature; it can be about surviving in the coolest way possible. With this level of bad-assery in mind, here are the top ten gadgets you need to make camping an excellent trip to the great outdoors instead of a terrible trip to the hospital with hypothermia. TENTSILE STINGRAY TREEHOUSE TENT First on your pyramid of camping needs is shelter, and this is the coolest shelter around. The Stingray hangs from the trees, keeping you safe from bugs, animals and all those things that go bump in the night. Going for about AU$850, this genius tent is 4.6 metres square and can hold a whopping 400kg. Now all you have to worry about are the Drop Bears. US$749 from tentsile.com MUSUCBAG LITE Despite having a potential gross-out for a name, this is the 'handiest' sleeping bag you'll ever see. Because it has hands. And feet. Ever get sick of having to get up out of your sleeping bag to get some water or a snack? Fear not, the MusucBag has you covered. Now you can sit around drinking with friends without having to leave the comfort of your bedding. It's like the Snuggie of the camping world. The 'classic' is 119 euros from musucbag.com. TRANSPARENT CANOE For the more sporty of us, summer camping trips are all about getting in or on the water, whether it's the beach or a not-at-all scary lake. For these grand occasions, there's Hammacher's Transparent Canoe. Can't decide between snorkelling or kayaking? Fine, because now you can row your heart out and check out the depths beneath you, all at the same time. US$1900 from the Hammacher online store. BIOLITE CAMPSTOVE Possibly the coolest innovation in heat since the discovery of fire, the BioLite CampStove takes the heat from an internal fire to create electricity that charges phones, tablets, lights and anything else with a power cord. One chamber holds a fire made from twigs that's suitable for cooking, which fuels a generator in another chamber. It's about the size of a drink bottle, affordable and eliminates the need for lighting a giant fire every time you want a cup of tea. The BioLite CampStove is simply one of the coolest inventions in town. US$129.95 from the BioLite online store. KANZ FIELD KITCHEN Camping can seem somewhat less appealing when you think about the fact that it means eating a whole load of tinned spaghetti — it's hard to lug around the gear necessary to cook a decent meal. Instead, why not pack up the portable and awesomely nifty Field Kitchen? It houses a two-burner stove top, cabinets and a prep area, all in less than a metre cubed. Get the fully pimped propane version for US$1640 from the Kanz online store. LIFESTRAW Not only is it important to be comfortable and have your phone charged whilst camping, it's also important to have clean water, which is where the life straw comes in. The straw looks like a little water bottle, and can filter 1000L of filthy, stagnant water into the purest elixir you've ever had. Handy for when you just can't boil up some river water and wait for it to cool. US$19.95 from the Lifestraw store. Plus, for every straw you buy, part of the funds go towards distributing LifeStraw Community institutional water purifiers to schools in Africa. BEAR GRYLLS SCOUT ESSENTIALS KIT Whether or not Bear Grylls really does do all the wicked stuff he appears to on television, there's no doubt that he's the ultimate survival guy, and this kit is all the basics he deems necessary to live outside. There's a scout knife, a first aid kit, a compass and an LED light, just for starters, and it's all packaged up polypropylene case. £35.99 at the Bear Grylls website. VICTORINOX TINKER DELUXE SWISS ARMY KNIFE This isn't just a camping essential; this is a life essential. Everyone needs a Swiss Army Knife because they can do just about anything. Victorinox are always coming up with innovations that already improve on the perfect design, and the Tinker Deluxe is one of the best examples. With a knife, a can opener, scissors, pliers, screwdriver and the always handy bottle opener, this camping/life essential is well worth the $80 it costs to have one. YETI TUNDRA 65 WHITE COOLER The Tundra 65 isn't the cheapest cooler in town, but it sure is the best. It holds 60L, which is about 39 cans of beer. Which is a lot. Plus, the walls are super thick, so it keeps these cans of beer cooler for much longer than your regular old cooler. It may cost a pretty penny, but what a price to pay for beer that's still cold until you've finished the case, which is what camping is all about, isn't it? US$399.99 from Yeti, FESTIVE BRAZIL HAMMOCK Finally, it's essential to touch on the more comfortable side of sleeping outdoors — glamping, if you will. For those of us who really don't like getting dirty or sleeping on a thin mat, glamping is an opportunity to enjoy the fresh air and beautiful views outdoors in comfort. And for that, there's the Festive Brazil Artisan Crafted Hammock. Not only is it big enough for two, it's all done up in pretty rainbow colours, and is finished with crocheted draping, hand crafted by Brazilian artisans. At $160, it's the perfect excuse to skip the hike. US$159.99 from Novica.
When Bob Dylan last toured Australia, it was billed as a 'once in a lifetime' experience. And, for all those who went, it was. It's just that now fans will be get the opportunity to have another such experience, because the legendary tambourine man will return to Australia for a national tour this August. This tour will be less exhaustive than his 2014 effort, with Dylan set to do eight shows — one in Sydney on August 18, as well as one in Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Newcastle and Wollongong, and two back-to-back shows in Melbourne. He will draw on his incredible 60-year career — which spans 36 studio albums and countless hits — for the shows, so you better start praying to the music gods that your favourite makes it onto the setlist. Dylan may be 76 years old, but he has certainly showed no signs of slowing down as he approaches 80. In 2016 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature and, just this year, he oddly released his own whisky. But still, it could be the last chance you get to see this living legend perform live. His last tour sold out, so don't wait too long to get your hands on tickets.
