Barbecuing in Australia no longer dabbles in the carefree realms of cheap snags and piddly steaks. It's 2016 and American-style barbecue reigns in this tender, tender age of pulled pork, slow-cooked brisket and ribs, ribs, ribs. Barbecuing is now serious business, so serious that entire dedicated festivals are popping up, like the wonderfully-named Meatstock. But there is one that comes approved from the folks of Kansas, given the tick of approval by the beating heart of American barbecue itself: The Yaks is coming. Following the success of The Yaks Melbourne Barbecue Festival at the Queen Victoria Market last year, the crew are bringing the festival back for another round — and this time they're doing a Sydney instalment at The Domain on January 30. Barbecue lovers will find themselves panicked for choice at this juicy festival, with food stalls from some of Australia’s finest pitmasters, barbecue cooking demonstrations by local and international barbecue experts, equipment exhibitors, live entertainment and DJs. Plus, venues around the city will host barbecue dinners and classes. But while you're ploughing into a pork rib, there's serious competition afoot. Competitive barbecuing isn't for rookies, this is serious shit. Watch amateur barbecue teams from around Australia battle it out in in the Southern Hemisphere’s first American-style cook-off sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbeque Society — the real deal. The best performing Australian team at each of The Yaks Barbecue Festival cook-offs will be invited to represent Australia at internationally renowned barbecue contests in the United States. We're talking the American Royal World Series of Barbecue Invitational. Plus, they'll be in the draw for the prestigious KCBS-run Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational Barbecue. That's no average lamb chop. If you reckon you're a pretty damn good barbecuer, check out the website and think about entering a team. Otherwise, bib up and get your tickets here.
In Sydney, you can roast any way you like — be it a massive Yorkshire pudding packed with meat, potatoes, stacks of veggies and buckets of gravy, or Dewsbury pork belly with sides of leek fondue, apple purée and mustard jus. But sometimes, there's nothing better on a Sunday afternoon than keeping it simple at a neighbourhood pub. If that sounds like you, factor the Red Lion Hotel in Rozelle into your weekend plans. Every Sunday, you can kick back with a traditional roast for just $27. Chilly day? Grab a seat by the fire, where you'll warm up in no time. After all, there's nothing quite like feasting in front of roaring flames when the wind's howling outside. Alternatively, rug up and head out to the balcony, where you'll catch lovely sunset views. People have been doing it since 1828, when the Red Lion opened. It's since had a $1.5-million reno, which has given the pub a good tidy-up — while still keeping its charming feel. Middle and bottom images: Kitty Gould
In Woody Allen's latest film, Cate Blanchett plays Jasmine, an unpleasant socialite who's fallen on hard times. Jasmine finds herself at odds with her adopted sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins), whom she plans to stay with until she is back on her feet. Jasmine had little time for Ginger when she was living high on the hog in Manhattan and finds herself appalled at Ginger's working-class lifestyle and new boyfriend, Chili (Bobby Cannavale), a mechanic. The story flashes back and forth between Jasmine's glamorous New York life of polo matches and Hamptons holidays and her later comeuppance in California. Along the way, Ginger and ex-boyfriend Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) make a rare visit to New York, where Jasmine suggests husband Hal (Alec Baldwin) can invest money for Ginger and Augie. The flashbacks find Jasmine in wilfully ignorant bliss, raising the question of whether she should have taken more of an interest in his staggering accumulation of wealth. The prickly figure of Jasmine, a character who is by turns contemptible and pitiful, washing Xanax down with vodka as she endlessly recounts stories from better times, is perfectly realised, and Blanchett's compelling work lights up one of Woody Allen's darkest films. Blue Jasmine is in cinemas on September 12, and thanks to Hopscotch Films, we have ten double in-season passes to give away. To be in the running, subscribe to the Concrete Playground newsletter (if you haven't already), then email hello@concreteplayground.com.au with your name and address. https://youtube.com/watch?v=BXnktqEWvGM
It’s time to crawl out from under your winter clutter and embrace the sunshine with bare limbs and sparse shelves; spring has arrived and we couldn’t be more relieved. More sunlight and (slightly) warmer weather makes now a great time to ditch any excess your home/wardrobe/office space may have accumulated and add some fresh pieces. We’ve got a few tips on cleaning out your home or office space as well as expert advice from Joshua Speechley, one half of the couple behind HIM&I online store, on how to make your place pop. HIM&I focus on simple, minimal, top-quality pieces. “Everything we sell on HIM&I we personally love, so our home is really a reflection of the store,” says Speechley. Garage Sale, Yard Sale, Bake Sale Step one is to declutter, and a great way to get rid of your goods is through a garage sale. It’s extremely tempting to go out and buy heaps of sparkly new things to spruce up your place, but without this essential first step you run the risk of being a contestant on an Australian version of Hoarders. Any clothes that are still in good nick that you don’t wear anymore, wash them, give them an iron (or boots a polish), and price them kindly. Bring out old books, magazines, knick-knacks, anything you’re not using; you’d be surprised what people will take off your hands for a reasonable price. Anything left over at the end of the day can go to The Salvos, Brotherhood of St Laurence, or hard rubbish. Sorted. Here how to bring all the boys (and girls) to the yard, no milkshakes required. A kickass flyer: Pop culture references and puns go down a treat. Baked goods/lemonade stand: It’s cute, the smell will lure passers-by in, and you know you need a cupcake at 10am on a Saturday. Dress the part: Look fabulous, and others will want your steez. We recommend a splashy bum bag. No really — it’s a great conversation starter, and so handy when keeping track of the cash being exchanged. Image: Mark Nye, ClubofHumanBeings.com via photopin cc. Do Your Homework, in a Fun Way A little bit of research can go a long way, and it’s a great way to justify poking around on social media. “We do find a lot of inspiration on Instagram," says Speechley. "It’s a great platform for finding other people's amazing creativity, there are so many creative DIY people out there! Magazines are always great too, [like] Inside Out, Frankie and Smith." Research doesn’t have to be restricted to the page, you’re just as likely to be inspired by getting out and about. As Speechley advises, “Markets and, of course, friend's houses are always great too, seeing what our friends are coming up with or finding here and there is always a big inspiration.” Get Crafty If you’re looking to deck out your digs with some new pieces, why not flex those craft skills that have been idling since primary school and make something yourself? Record boxes, planter walls, bookshelves, beds, you name it, Speechley and partner Kara Allen have attempted to make it. “Not all to great success,” Speechley points out, “but that ones that have worked out we’re completely stoked with ... Head down to your local hardware store and give it a crack.” Another bonus to having something you actually made decorating your place? You can guarantee no one else will have the same item adorning their walls or shelves. If you’re a bit of a novice, there's no need to fret, as many places offering affordable, fun, one-off classes for those looking to get their hands dirty. Our favourite places running classes include Work-Shop (Sydney and Melbourne), Laneway Learning (Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane), Colourbox Studio (Melbourne) and Koskela (Sydney). Avoid IKEA Rule number one: think outside the box. “It’s a trap!" says Speechley. "Sure, you can find some great items at IKEA, you get them home and you love them. Until you see them at eight of your friends houses ... We’ve found spending the little bit extra, to get something a bit more unique, or with more of a personal touch, means you’ll love the item more, and for longer!” Flower Bomb It’s spring. Everything is in bloom. They smell amazing. They’re colourful. They cheer you up. Why the heck wouldn’t you fill your house with floral goodness? If flowers aren’t your thing, succulents never die, or any other indoor plant/fern is actually good for your health. Lauren from Fowlers Flowers in Melbourne recommends blushing bride, hellebores, geraldton wax, tulips, magnolia buds, and king proteas for this season, but just about everything is in bloom at the moment, so pick whatever takes your fancy. Image by Lucy Djevdet.
Jacob Elordi returning to Australia. Snowtown, True History of the Kelly Gang and Nitram director Justin Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant reteaming. Richard Flanagan's Booker Prize-winning novel making the leap to the screen. A cast that also includes Belfast's Ciarán Hinds, Olivia DeJonge (Elvis) and her The Staircase co-star Odessa Young (My First Film), Limbo and Boy Swallows Universe's Simon Baker, Heartbreak High's Thomas Weatherall, Love Me's Heather Mitchell and Tokyo Vice's Show Kasamatsu. Combine all of the above and Prime Video's five-part miniseries The Narrow Road to the Deep North is the end result — and if you hadn't already scheduled it in for a couch date in April, you will after watching its just-dropped trailer. "Are you a gambling man?" Elordi's Dorrigo Evans is asked at the beginning of the series' sneak peek. "Occasionally, yeah" is his response — before wagering on the chances of making it through the year alive. Set to hit your streaming queue on Friday, April 18, 2025, The Narrow Road to the Deep North tells a tale of love and war, and of Evans' journey from a prisoner of war as a Lieutenant in World War II, working on the Thailand-Burma Railway, to becoming an acclaimed surgeon. Elordi shares the show's lead role with Hinds, playing the younger version of the character in a tale that jumps between different time periods — and includes a life-changing stint of falling in love with Amy Mulvaney (Young). DeJonge and Baker feature with Elordi and Young, plus Weatherall and Kasamatsu, in the show's 40s-era timeline, while Hinds hops in when the series gets to the 80s, which is where Mitchell pops up as well. Initially announced a couple of years back, then premiering at this year's Berlinale, The Narrow Road to the Deep North brings its star back to the small screen three years after the second season of Euphoria in 2022 — and a likely a year before the HBO favourite's third season arrives. He's been busy on the big screen since, though, courtesy of Saltburn, Priscilla, Deep Water, The Sweet East, Oh, Canada and On Swift Horses, before what's set to be prime Easter long-weekend viewing drops. Prior to all of the above projects, and also before the three Kissing Booth films helped boost his career first, Elordi scored his first on-screen acting credit beyond short films in Aussie movie Swinging Safari. Since then, however, the Brisbane-born talent has largely focused on working overseas. So The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a rarity of late on his filmography, with the actor heading home to make the drama. Charles An (Last King of the Cross), Essie Davis (One Day), William Lodder (Love Me), Eduard Geyl (Born to Spy) and Christian Byers (Bump) are also among the cast. Check out the trailer for The Narrow Road to the Deep North below: The Narrow Road to the Deep North will stream via Prime Video from Friday, April 18, 2025. Images: Prime Video.
If you're looking to treat yourself to a meal you'll be thinking about long after it's over, head to Nour in Surry Hills on Wednesday, May 25, and let two of Sydney's most renowned chefs combine their expertise on a historic trip through Arabic and Sicilian cuisines in A Taste of Siqilliya. Due to the Arabic rule over Sicily in the late 1st century, there are many ties between Arabic culture and Sicilian food. Nour's Head Chef, Luca Lonati, will be exploring these ties with the help of Lino Sauro of Olio Kensington Street through a one-off collaborative set menu. Diners will begin with a Pomegranate Americano, created using Amaro Averna, Campari, pomegranate shrub and soda. From there, the feast will open with black rice arancini, sea urchin, swordfish pastrami and chickpea panelle. Course two will feature lamb stigghiola and yellowfish tuna tartare, before the centrepieces of the set menu are brought out. These decadent mains will feature Trapani-style pesto ravioli with a butter emulsion, stuffed wagyu beef and a cheesy eggplant parmigiana made with halloumi and bandurah harrah. Concluding the affair is dessert combining almond milk couscous, saffron meringue and raisin gelato, paired with Pallini limoncello. Reservations are available for $150 per person via Nour's booking page. [caption id="attachment_839202" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Lino Sauro[/caption]
The world is in chaos. Violent confrontations, atrocities, nations teetering both politically and economically: that's the situation. On a luxe snowy getaway, four presidents of tech watch on. What could the US President have to say when he calls, then? "That your platform's inflamed a volatile situation, circulating unfalsifiable deepfakes, massive fraud, market instability," is one prediction in the just-dropped first teaser trailer for Mountainhead. The new movie is the latest project from Jesse Armstrong, who both writes and directs — and is making his return to the screen after Succession wrapped up in 2023. Based on the scenario seen in the sneak peek, aka a group of billionaires showing little care for the state of the globe while they live it up on holiday, Armstrong is still in eat-the-rich mode. Steve Carell (Despicable Me 4), Jason Schwartzman (The Last Showgirl), Cory Michael Smith (Saturday Night) and Ramy Youssef (Poor Things) play cashed-up group, aka Randall, Souper, Venis and Jeff — and when Venis arrives, the fact that he's the richest guy in the world earns a callout. Cue ribbing and riffing between the four, including about platforms that are "racist and shitty", as well as poker and catering seeming to be more of a concern than an international crisis. Mountainhead might be Armstrong's first feature as a director, but it's a straight-to-streaming flick, hitting Max in Australia on Sunday, 1 June, 2025. Co-starring alongside Carell, Schwartzman, Smith and Youssef: Hadley Robinson (Anyone But You), Andy Daly (Night Court), Ali Kinkade (Lessons in Chemistry), Daniel Oreskes (A Real Pain), David Thompson (It's What's Inside), Ami MacKenzie (Pulse) and Ava Kostia (Love Across Time). Although Armstrong is best-known for Succession — understandably so given that it has earned him seven Emmys — he's an Oscar-nominee for In the Loop's screenplay, also co-created Peep Show, was a writer on The Thick of It and Veep, co-penned Four Lions and wrote a season-one episode of Black Mirror, among other credits. Check out the trailer for Mountainhead below: Mountainhead streams via Max from Sunday, June 1, 2025. Images: Macall Polay/HBO.
One of Sydney's most memorable desserts is making a comeback — but only temporarily. The coveted Snow Egg, the brainchild of Quay Restaurant's Executive Chef Peter Gilmore, is set to star on the venue's temporary experience menu with the help of American Express. The acclaimed Snow Egg has not appeared on the menu since 2018 and was previously a crowd favourite. Its ten-year-long residence on Quay's dessert selection solidified the dish as a restaurant staple, and the dessert even starred on an episode of Masterchef back in 2010. "I am honoured to be bringing back the Snow Egg for a very limited time," said Gilmore. "It has had a cult following since the early days of it being on the menu at Quay and holds such a special place in my heart." The iconic dish will be available to diners for ten exclusive nights, from Saturday, May 25, to Saturday, June 15, in the form of four experience packages. All include the dessert, either paired with a glass of bubbles for $98, a glass of rosé for $136, a glass of 2007 Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Millénaires for $175, or a non-alcoholic feijoa fizz infused with cardamom and vanilla for $98. This luxe dining package will be served in the venue's private Green Room for the ultimate experience. Bookings open to the public on Friday, April 19, on Quay Restaurant's website, with slots from 6pm through to final service at 9.45pm throughout the ten-day stint. Secure your spot at Quay's nostalgia-driven Snow Egg dining experience at the restaurant's reservation page — tickets are available from Saturday, May 25, til Saturday, June 15, and are selling fast.
If you're looking to up your wine game and try some top-notch tipples in the process, Surry Hills' beloved eatery Nomad is helping you hone your sommelier skills with a series of wine dinners. Following a two-year hiatus, the series is returning this month and kicks off with a night led by McLaren Vale's Yangarra Estate on Tuesday, May 3. Patrons will be treated to a 2021 Yangarra Rosé on arrival. The night will then take you through a series of Roussanne, Grenache and Shiraz wines with guidance from Yangarra's Peter Fraser accompanied by a Nomad feast. Highlights from the menu include smoked mussels, burrata with fennel jam, date-glaze wagyu tongue and lamb neck pie. To conclude the night, a selection of cheeses will be brought out alongside a 2018 Yangarra Small Pot L'essai Straw wine. Tickets to the night don't come cheap, but for $195 you'll be treated to ten of Yangarra Estate's best wines and a four-course meal. Following the first edition of this wine dinner series, Nomad will be hosting Yarra Valley's Giant Steps and Adelaide Hill's Shaw + Smith wineries in the coming month. Top image: Nikki To
These are the stories that we have read and adored — but what happens when they take a turn in a different direction? Over the years, we've seen books turned into television shows, movies and musicals, and which iteration is better is always a hotly contended topic. So now, with reboots being one of the biggest cultural moments, many of us are enjoying the experience of meeting different sides of our favoured characters and potentially finding out who they really are. There are more than a few classic texts we could delve into, but these seven are spectacular. By being shown an alternative angle, we uncover the events that have shaped who certain characters are and discover the reasons why we have learned to love them or love to hate them. Some may say our theatrical creatives are running out of ideas, but musicals like & Juliet prove otherwise. The production is based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (obviously), and while we've seen the story reimagined countless times, it's always played out the same way. So, what happens when the characters break the mould and they ditch the script that was written for them? Let's dive into the history of modern takes on classic texts. & JULIET A war between families, a story of love and a tragedy. These are the themes you automatically think of with Romeo and Juliet. The fate of two star-crossed lovers can only end one devastating way... or so we think. With music by pop genius Max Martin and dialogue and story by Schitt's Creek writer David West Read, & Juliet tells what could have happened had Juliet had another chance at life. The production takes remixing to a new level by expanding and giving more agency to its romantic lead, enabling her to embrace her own identity while introducing new characters and elements along the way. The superstar team has successfully — with proof in the awards — turned a classic tragedy into an exceptionally moving and joyful new legacy. This particular piece of theatre is showing until Sunday, June 2, at the Sydney Lyric Theatre (so nab your tickets, stat, if you want to experience the twisted take). [caption id="attachment_846530" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Daniel Boud[/caption] HAMILTON As a founding father of the United States, Alexander Hamilton has firmly cemented his place in American history. And the global sensation Hamilton — based on the founding father's life — has done the same. Impressively, Lin-Manuel Miranda both wrote and starred in the electric historical reproduction — a musical that infused hip hop, rap, R&B and soul to create a reimagined history. With a diverse, multicultural cast, this musical explores love, loss, forgiveness and ambition, delivering threads of a story we can all relate to. Miranda stayed true to what was written in the history books about Hamilton, but in a spark of creative genius, turned the moment that ended his life into a beginning. [caption id="attachment_904236" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Matt Murphy[/caption] LES MISÉRABLES Written by Victor Hugo and published in French in 1862, Les Misérables is the the story of Jean Valjean, a man imprisoned for 19 years who was then able to turn his life around, all the while being scapegoated by an obsessed police inspector, Javert. In 1980, a musical with the same name was created, adored and subsequently inspired multiple cinematic renditions. In the modern makings, some characters differ from who they are in the book and some are forgotten completely. Using songs and stage, the message of the story comes to life vividly, although the strength of some characters doesn't hit the same way they do in the (enormously long) book. [caption id="attachment_904338" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Matt Murphy[/caption] SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE This one's a fun one: Sunday in the Park with George is based on a brightly hued painting by post-Impressionist artist Georges Seurat — "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte" — completed between 1884 and 1886. Written by James Lapine and with music by late theatre legend Stephen Sondheim, the musical tells a fictional tale exploring the artist's journey. It's a truly original piece, with most of the painted characters appearing on stage. Inspired by the brush strokes, costumes come to life, and characters flow over the stage in homage to the artwork. This musical only enhances the interest in this painting by offering each person a story that is truly their own. MATILDA Written by Roald Dahl and first published in 1988, Matilda began as a charming yet terrifying novel telling of Matilda's childhood. We had the sugar sweetness of Miss Honey, Matilda's kindergarten teacher, the cold dismissiveness of her parents and the terror of Miss Trunchbull, the headmistress. It was brought to the screen in 1996, delightfully following the hero's journey of the precocious child as she discovers her magical powers. In 2010, the musical co-written by Tim Minchin was born. Going almost full circle, and based on the success of this stage adaptation, another movie was released by Netflix in 2022 — one that stayed true to Minchin's clever text. [caption id="attachment_904337" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Joan Marcus[/caption] OLIVER! A true classic text, Oliver Twist was written by Charles Dickens in 1838. Originally published in monthly instalments, the book depicts the gruelling (and gruel-filled) life led by orphans living in 1830s London. Specifically, an antics-filled life with exposure to criminal masterminds, forced into child labour and without education. Since its release, the story has been retold in various forms as silent movies and films and, of course, musically on stage. Most have kept the story as it was originally intended, but there are versions that tell the story from different points of view, too. As we know, Disney likes to make its mark on great cultural works and it did the job on Dickens with the release of Oliver & Company in 1988, an animated feature about a homeless kitten. [caption id="attachment_803460" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Matthew Murphy, Disney[/caption] THE LION KING Shakespeare's works have been adapted countless times. Here, it happens yet again in Disney's film The Lion King. Taking narrative cues from Hamlet, The Lion King introduces us to Simba, a lion cub grappling with the loss of his dad. Running away from his broken heart and malevolent uncle Scar, we follow Simba on his journey of self-discovery, which ultimately leads him back to *spoiler alert* save the day for his pride. A movie with music written by Elton John and Tim Rice, the masterpiece was turned into a Broadway spectacle in 1997 — and has stayed on stage pretty much ever since. There have been musical changes and whole new songs, Rafiki now being played by a female lead and a special dedication to highlighting the richness of African culture. In 2019, a photorealistic computer-animated remake was created, bridging the gap between the Disney movie and the musical by focusing on African culture in both its casting and music choices. If you're after a musical theatre experience that fantastically reimagines a classic text, look no further than '& Juliet'—now playing at the Sydney Lyric Theatre. To nab your tickets, head to the website.
Winter isn't just the frosty season, or woolly clothes season, or igloos-popping-up-at-every-bar season. It isn't simply soup season, roast season or mulled wine season, either. It's also prime hot chocolate season, not that there's ever a bad time to sip warm cups of cocoa. Only winter brings Australia's dedicated Hot Chocolate Festival, however. An annual favourite running for the entire month of August, this festival is held across three locations: the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie, the Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie and the Mornington Peninsula Chocolaterie. While that's excellent news for Victorians, the fest also does an at-home component, sending out its flavours nationwide. And there are flavours — 31 of them, in fact, all ranging far beyond just swapping milk chocolate for dark or white chocolate. The festival's concept is 31 hot chocolate flavours over 31 days, with different varieties on offer each week in-person. The trio of chocolate havens only tease parts of the full list in advance, but this year's includes a nod to Barbie via a pink-infused hot chocolate, as well as an Iced Vovo hot chocolate that features chocolate iced doughnuts for dunking. Or, you can sip on a poached pear and hazelnut version, a dulce de leche churros hot chocolate and a Biscoff hedgehog variety. The Happy Vegemite hot chocolate includes handcrafted caramel koalas to dip, then enjoy the melty goodness. And the Harry Potter-inspired hot choc has a chocolate wand for doing the same. Other flavours come topped with waffles or pretzels, and there's even a puppachino carob iteration so that your dog can join in. This fest gets boozy, too. In 2023, that's happening via the salted caramel espresso martini hot chocolate, plus a dark chocolate variety called French Connection that features red, white and blue balls filled with cognac. And yes, the demand for these limited-edition hot chocs is hefty, with more than 6000 usually created across the three chocolateries per year. Each hot chocolate is made with hot couverture chocolate in dark, milk, white, ruby or caramel, then served with a giant handcrafted marshmallow. For those heading along physically, each site also does tasting sessions for $24, which lets you not only sample eight hot chocolates, but pick from 50-plus ingredients to create three hot chocolate spoons to take home. And for folks who can't make the visit, single-flavour at-home packs will survey a variety of this year's flavours. The 2023 Hot Chocolate Festival runs daily between Tuesday, August 1–Thursday, August 31 at the Great Ocean Road Chocolaterie, 1200 Great Ocean Road, Bellbrae; the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie, 35 Old Healesville Road, Yarra Glen; and the Mornington Peninsula Chocolaterie, 45 Cook Street, Flinders. You can also order at-home packs online via each store. Images: A Myszka.
Just seven months in, 2021 has already been a big year for Marvel. Not one, not two, but three streaming series have hit Disney+, and Black Widow is currently both streaming and in cinemas. More silver-screen releases are coming before the year is out, too, courtesy of both Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Eternals. Also big news right now, although it won't actually come to fruition in 2021: a second season of Loki. The third of Marvel's Disney+ series for this year to focus on characters from the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe, this show about the franchise's favourite trickster instantly stood out from its sibling programs. Having Tom Hiddleston (Avengers: Endgame) step back into the God of Mischief's shoes will do that, of course. With WandaVision, Marvel gave the world a nodding, winking sitcom that morphed into an engaging but still quite standard entry in its ever-growing on-screen realm. With The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it opted for an odd couple action-thriller that hit every mark it needed to, but rarely more. But, across its six-episode first season — which just wrapped up yesterday, Wednesday, July 14 — Loki has proven far more willing to toy with its premise and have fun with its central character. It's now going to do exactly that during a second season as well. News of Loki's second batch of episodes was dropped in the credits for its latest episode, thanks to a stamp that says "Loki will return in season two". That's all the information that's been revealed so far — but if you're a fan of the figure, Hiddleston or both, it's a welcome development. Across its first season, Loki's charms didn't solely radiate from its leading man. He's as charismatically wily as ever (as he's always been in his scene-stealing big-screen appearances in the Thor and Avengers films), but this series has also been helped immensely by its aforementioned playfulness, and also by the great cast surrounding its star. Teaming up duos is obviously currently Marvel's thing, but Loki pairs its eponymous trickster with a time cop played by Owen Wilson (Bliss), gets them palling around in buddy cop-meets-science fiction territory, and also throws in Sophia Di Martino (Yesterday) as a character that's best discovered by watching. The setup: thanks to his previous actions with the Tesseract, Loki finds himself in a bit of trouble. The TVA — that'd be the Time Variance Authority — is on his case, which is where Wilson's Mobius M Mobius comes in. But, that's just where the show starts. Here, viewers came for the usual Hiddleston mischievousness, and stayed for everything this quickly involving series built around him — all while charting what happens when Loki is forced to face the consequences of his past actions. The new season of Loki, whenever it arrives, will join the long list of other upcoming shows that are in the works at Disney+. That includes Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Moon Knight, Secret Invasion (about Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury), Iron Heart, Armour Wars, I Am Groot, a Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special and a series set in Wakanda. Check out the full trailer for Loki's first season below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUwwdj6AlBA The first season of Loki is available to stream via Disney+ now. Exactly when the second season will arrive is yet to be announced — we'll update you with more details when they come to hand. Top image: ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
When it comes to forming habits, three weeks is often bandied about as the right amount of time to cement a new part of your routine. With annual massive music, technology, screen and gaming festivals, perhaps three years is a better fit. After initially making its debut in 2023, then returning in 2024, SXSW Sydney will be back again in 2025. Mark your calendar accordingly. You can now call the huge event a fixture of not just the Harbour City's cultural calendar, but also Australia's. The dates for its third iteration: Monday, October 13–Sunday, October 19. Although there's no lineup details as yet, attendees can expect big things again after 2024's fest built upon 2023's successes. The second-ever SXSW Down Under featured 1400 conference sessions, 95 screenings, 315 performances and 150 games. It also hosted more than 92,000 unique visitors, with folks attending from 56 countries. In terms of total visits, the seven-day festival notched up 300,000 — including 190,000-plus people heading along to the 163 events as part of the free programming in Tumbalong Park. Darling Harbour, Chippendale and Broadway will be among the places playing host to SXSW Sydney in 2025, but more details there are still also yet to be revealed. "SXSW Sydney 2024 was a great success on all fronts, and was bigger than its debut year in attendance numbers and sessions throughout the week," said SXSW Sydney Chair Geoff Jones, announcing the 2025 dates. "We look forward to paving the way for more innovators across the tech and innovation, music, screen, games and creative industries by providing these creators with an opportunity on a global stage." Whatever graces the bill in 2025, it'll follow on from Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker, Chance The Rapper, Future Today Institute founder and CEO Amy Webb and Nicole Kidman in 2023, plus The Kid LAROI, human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, author Johann Hari, The New Boy filmmaker Warwick Thornton, The Babadook composer Jed Kurzel, Grace Tame and Tim Minchin in 2024 — and heaps more. SXSW Sydney 2025 will run from Monday, October 13–Sunday, October 19 at various Sydney venues. Head to the SXSW Sydney website for further details. Images: Paul McMillan, Jess Gleeson, Brendon Thorne/Getty Images for SXSW and Nina Franova/Getty Images for SXSW Sydney.
The Succulent Corner is Dulwich Hill's much loved nursery that is about to become even more beloved. It's throwing a massive plant sale this weekend, during which the shop's already reasonably priced greenery is being discounted to bargain basement prices. The three-day event will take place from January 11–13, starting at 9.30am each day. The sale will show off the shop's rare and unusual offerings at seriously low prices — succulents will start at just one buck and larger indoor plants at $8. There will be rare succulents and cacti up for grabs, along with fiddle leaf, rubber plants, zanzibar, calathea white fusion and monstera. A range of ferns, palms and ivys will be there, too. Brand new arrivals include the satin pothos, philodendron pink princess and variegated sedum sieboldii. Now, unless you're a horticulturist, these scientific names probably don't mean much. But Google can tell you that they are one good looking bunch that you'll want to get your hands on. Entry is free, just make sure to RSVP on the Facebook page here.
Beloved Sydney-based pastry chef Andy Bowdy is no stranger to big and bold flavours, with his imaginative cakes and desserts earning him a stellar reputation both in the culinary world and with online onlookers. With a host of standout collaborations under his belt, his latest arrives just in time for Easter, as he's teamed up with local whisky distillery Starward on a boozy holiday treat. For four days only, the boutique surrounds of Ace Hotel Sydney will play host to an adults-only experience that sees Andy's exclusive hot cross buns elevated with a citrus and whisky twist. Available only at Good Chemistry – Ace Hotel Sydney's laneway cafe – getting your hands on one is bound to make your Easter celebration even better. Bowdy has cooked up these limited-edition hot cross buns by soaking top-quality fruit in Starward Two-Fold Wheat and Single Malt Whisky. Baked to perfection, they make an outstanding pairing with another Starward tipple – the (New) Old Fashioned – a thoughtfully infused blend of whisky, orange bitters, and wattleseed and demerara syrup. "At Starward, we have always hung our hats on creating an accessible and versatile whisky for everyone, and this collaboration does exactly that. When fluffy hot cross buns meet our fruit-forward, Australian-made whisky, it's an unexpected match made in heaven. But this is what gets us out of bed every morning, pushing the boundaries of flavour to create something truly magical," says Dave Vitale, founder of Starward Whisky. The luxe location for this special event is no coincidence, with Bowdy serving as the current pastry chef at the Ace Hotel's rooftop restaurant, Kiln. While he famously never intended to become a pastry chef, it's safe to say he's made a good go of it. Available from Wednesday, April 16–Saturday, April 19, Bowdy's limited-run hot cross buns will be served at Good Chemistry from 7am until sold out. Take home a pack, eat in with a coffee, or enjoy with something stronger. If you're keen to sample Starward's wares, purchasing two or more buns comes with a voucher for a complimentary (New) Old Fashioned cocktail at Ace Hotel's Lobby Bar. Level up to six buns to redeem a complimentary 500ml bottle of the (New) Old Fashioned from Starward's website. Starward Whisky and Andy Bowdy's hot cross buns are available from Wednesday, April 16–Saturday, April 19 at Ace Hotel Sydney, 47-53 Wentworth Avenue, Sydney. Head to the website for more information. Images: Jiwon Kim.
Adding to the rejuvenation of the Northbank Precinct — stretching from Spencer Street to the Charles Grime Bridge — 1 Hotel Melbourne will serve as a headline destination, featuring a meeting of luxury and sustainability. Ahead of its opening on Thursday, June 19, this eco-conscious hotel now has a flagship culinary partnership to match, with Australian chef Mike McEnearney brought on board to present From Here with Mike. Renowned for his ingredient-first, low-waste approach and Sydney-based eatery Kitchen by Mike, McEnearney offers his signature seasonal, ethical and sustainable cuisine at this latest venue. "From Here by Mike will be a true reflection of what's possible when like-minded people come together with a common purpose. I'm proud to bring this vision to life in a space that truly honours nature, community, and above all, good food," says McEnearney. Launching for breakfast, lunch and dinner, guests can look forward to simple, thoughtful cuisine informed by Victoria's abundant pantry. Raising up low-impact farming, hyper-local sourcing and minimal intervention through its menu, nourishing dishes are designed to bring diners closer to their food, with direct parallels drawn between each ingredient and how it arrived on the plate. While the full menu is still to be revealed, think freshly shucked oysters with pickled daikon and finger lime vinaigrette; twice-baked goat's cheese soufflé with rosemary cream; and wood-roasted cockerel with vadouvan sauce. Honest and rooted in nature, each dish is intended for sharing with loved ones, where you can connect over cuisine and experience a joint sense of wellbeing. From Here by Mike's wine program strikes a similar beat, with 40 percent of the selection centred on Victorian wines created with minimal intervention, using biodynamic, organic and sustainable methods. Meanwhile, the cocktail menu will emphasise sustainability, as the culinary team repurposes diverse ingredients and sources local, seasonal products. Designed to complement the cuisine menu, expect outstanding food and drink pairings. Years in the making, 1 Hotel Melbourne is almost ready for launch, with its 220 metres of uninterrupted river frontage bringing an attention-grabbing element to North Wharf. Joining the brand's properties in London, Copenhagen, New York City and beyond, guests will discover a sophisticated blend of luxury and sustainability, with top-notch dining and wellness amenities supported by a design brimming with reclaimed materials and eco-driven practices. From Here by Mike opens Thursday, June 19, at 1 Hotel Melbourne, 9 Maritime Place, Docklands. Head to the website for more information.
Among the many great filmmaker-actor pairings that cinema has gifted the world, Ryan Coogler and Michael B Jordan have spent more than a decade cementing their spot on the list. It was back in 2013 that the two first joined forces, one for his feature directorial debut and the other for his first lead film role, on Fruitvale Station. Each time that a new Coogler movie has arrived since, including 2015's Creed, then 2018's Black Panther and its 2022 sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Jordan (Creed III) has been a key part — and after playing Oscar Grant, Adonis Johnson and Killmonger for his go-to helmer, Jordan is at the heart of 2025's Sinners, too. Five pictures into their collaboration now, how does Coogler manage to double down on working with Jordan? Literally, actually. This time, in the director's first horror film, he has cast his favourite actor in two roles. Sinners focuses on brothers — twins, in fact, called Elijah and Elias — who find more than familiar faces awaiting when they try to start afresh upon returning to their home town. They also find much greater troubles than have been haunting them in their lives elsewhere. This is a movie set in America's south in the Jim Crow-era, as well as a film where being able to enjoy blues music at their local bar is a welcome escape for Sinners' Black characters. But as the just-released second trailer for the feature makes clear, there's more than a touch of the supernatural to Coogler's new flick. Yes, things get bloody. Cast-wise, the movie also gets stacked, with Hailee Steinfeld (The Marvels), Wunmi Mosaku (Loki), Delroy Lindo (Unprisoned), Jack O'Connell (Back to Black), Jayme Lawson (The Penguin) and Omar Benson Miller (True Lies) co-starring. Sinners marks the first time that Coogler hasn't either explored a true story, jumped into an existing franchise or brought an already-known character to the screen — and alongside him working with an original tale, he's also telling a personal one. Inspiration came from members of his family, including for the film's setting and pivotal use of music. But Coogler also considers every feature that he's made to be personal. Asked at a press Q&A about the movie and its new trailer if this tops the list in that regard, he advises that "it's interesting because at each point in my life, that statement has been correct — but never like this one". [caption id="attachment_988567" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons[/caption] "I don't want to give all of this away, but each time I make something — and none of the films that I worked on have had the horror or the thriller element like this one has — but each time I'm conquering a fear, a personal fear of mine, and this one is no different," Coogler also shared. For Sinners, Jordan isn't the writer/director's only returning collaborator. For a picture that's partly shot on IMAX — "I got to get some advice from Chris and Emma, who are masters of the form," Coogler offered, speaking about Christopher Nolan and his producer and wife Emma Thomas — he also reteamed with pivotal talents behind the lens. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw (The Last Showgirl), production designer Hannah Beachler (Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé), editor Michael P Shawver (Abigail), composer Ludwig Göransson (Oppenheimer) and costume designer Ruth E Carter (Coming 2 America) each return from either Black Panther, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever or both — some, such as Göransson and Carter, with Oscars for their past efforts working with Coogler. The filmmaker also chatted about his clearly rewarding creative partnership with Jordan, Sinners' origins, its mix of genres and supernatural elements, and his aim with using large-format visuals — plus how Stephen King's Salem's Lot proved pivotal, the eeriness of twins, why making movies is a form of catharsis for him and more. On Making Five Films Now with Michael B Jordan — and How Their Collaboration Pushes Coogler Creatively "It's incredible. With Mike, he was a working actor when I met him. He had been on some incredible television shows, basically been a professional actor since he was a school-aged kid, but he hadn't had a feature-length role where he was the lead just yet. So when we worked together on Fruitvale, that was his first time in a lead role in a movie, and it was my first time making a movie — so in many ways, we've grown up together in the industry, in these situations. I've definitely found a kindred spirit in him. He's somebody who's incredibly gifted. In some ways, it's god-given: his charisma, his ability to channel empathy without even trying. But the other facets are the things under his control: his work ethic, his dedication to the craft. And the other thing is his constant desire to want to push himself, to increase his capacity, to continue to stretch. Having both those things rolled up into one, and being somebody who's around the same age, we became work friends and eventually have become like family since. It's an incredible gift to have somebody like that, who you can call up and say 'hey, I've got a new one for you, what do you think?'. And I know he is always trying to look for new challenges constantly. He doesn't want to rest on his on his laurels. And I thought that this role would be something where we could challenge each other." On Injecting Personal Elements Into Coogler's First Horror Film "Each time I've made a film, it's become more and more personal. With this one, I was really digging into two relationships. One with my maternal grandfather, who I never met, he died about a year before I was born — but he was from Merrill, Mississippi, and eventually moved to Oakland, married my grandmother, and actually built the house that our whole family was based out of in Oakland. And I had an uncle named Uncle James who I came up with my whole life, he actually passed away while I was in post-production on Creed, and he was from another town in Mississippi — and he wouldn't really talk about Mississippi unless he was listening to the blues, unless he had a little sip of old Italian whisky, then he would reminisce. And I miss him profoundly. With this film, I got a chance to dig into my own ancestral history here in the States — not dissimilar to what I was doing with the Panther films, like that generational ancestral history, this is right there for me. And I had a chance to really go to the south and scout and think. And the film is about the music that was so special to my to my uncle — and I couldn't be happier with the film that we'll be able to show you guys in a few months." On the Movie's Supernatural Aspects "The film is very genre-fluid. It switches in and out of a lot of different genres. Yes, vampires are an element of the movie. But that's not the only element. It's not the only supernatural element. The film is about more than just that, and I think it's going to surprise folks in a good way. My favourite films in the in the genre, you could take the supernatural element out and the films would still work — but the supernatural element actually helps to heighten it, helps to elevate it. So I was aspiring to make something in that in that tradition. And the film has elements of all of the things that I that I love. It's really a personal love letter for me to cinema, to the art form, specifically the theatrical experience. It's interesting working in a post-COVID time, when everybody was sequestered — and I know I found myself missing that experience of experiencing things in a room with folks I didn't know, but still reacting in the same way, or maybe reacting in different ways and getting to enjoy that. The film is meant to be seen in that capacity." On Using Large-Format Visuals, Such as Shooting in IMAX, to Draw Audiences In "The whole effort was for the experience to be immersive. We wanted to let folks experience this world. And for me, it's the world that my grandparents were a part of. It's the world that they came up in. And it's a time that's often overlooked in American history, specifically for Black folks, because it was a time associated with a lot of things that maybe we're ashamed to talk about — but I got to talk to my have conversation with my grandmother, who's nearly 100 years old, and do some really heavy research, and it was exciting. To bring that time period to life with the celluloid format that was around then, but with the technological advancements that IMAX can provide, it's really exciting — really exciting." On How a Stephen King-Penned Vampire Novel Proved an Influence "A big inspiration for the film is a novel called Salem's Lot, and in the novel — it's been adapted quite a few times and in some really cool ways, but what's great about that novel is when Stephen King talks about it, for him it was Peyton Place, which is another novel, meets Dracula. What happens when a town that's got a lot of its own issues, a lot of interesting characters, meets up with a mythological force of nature and it starts to influence the town? So that idea for me was a great way to explore some of the real things in this place that my grandparents and uncles who influenced my life came from — but also that a lot of American pop culture came from, right there. One of the things we explore in the film is blues music and blues culture, and that became so many other things that affect what we do today. So it was great to be able to explore that. And that music has a has a very close relationship with the macabre, so to speak, with the supernatural. You hear stories about Tommy Johnson and Robert Johnson selling that souls to be able to play the guitar the way they do — the deals being struck. It was called the devil's music — and the dichotomy of these incredible singers, even still to this day, they learned how to make music in the church, but yet they chose to make music that maybe was frowned upon." On the Catharsis of Making Movies for Coogler "I'm blessed to have been able to have found this medium. I found it out by accident. But where I can work out deep, philosophical, existential questions that I may be struggling with, I get to work them out while contributing to an artform that that means so much to me and my family. Watching movies for us was a pastime, and it was a way to connect, it was how we travelled. So I feel like the luckiest person on the planet — but yeah, it is a form of therapy. Each film brings me closer to understanding myself and the world around me, I think." On Jordan Portraying Twins — and Why Twins Feel Supernatural "These are guys who there's nothing supernatural about them outside of them being identical twins. Now, when you dig into the research on twins, it is pretty strange. We still don't totally understand how we have specific identical twins, because it's not something that can be inherited. It's an anomaly. What we did on this was I hired a couple friends of mine who are filmmakers, Noah and Logan Miller — we hired them as twin consultants. They're about the same age as me and Mike, and they were able to talk to Mike and myself while we were working on the script, and he was working on prepping the characters, on what it is like to have an identical twin. Some of that work was just fascinating — like this idea of ever since you achieved consciousness, there was another version of you, right there, right there in front of you, sharing space. And how they see the world — how they see the world as 'us versus everybody else'. The other aspect of it is the fact that they're not totally different. They're actually are quite alike. They're different in subtle ways that Mike found. But it's an absolutely brilliant performance — both performances. I can't wait for folks to see him. It's Mike unlike I've ever seen him before, and I know him pretty well." On Why the Time Was Right for Coogler to Tell an Original Story "I think in terms of timing — and timing is everything, it can really make or break a project, now more than ever. But for me, in being a writer/director, the timing first has to start with me. And it felt like I was at a point in my life where I did want to try to do something original. And I realised I had been working on things that were based on pre-existing things, maybe a real-life situation, maybe a pre-existing franchise and cinema, a pre-existing comic-book franchise, and so I felt the itch to want to try. I could kind of feel like the kids are growing up, I'm getting older, I can feel time on my on my backside. So it turned out to be the perfect timing for me, personally. And at terms of looking around at the world and where we are, those two things seem to be lining up. But at the same time, you don't have any control over that one. You've got to kind of start with yourself. Even then, I did want to still play with archetypes. I guess it's original, but I'm dealing with a lot of archetypes — not just a vampire, but the supernaturally gifted musician, the twins. When I was coming up, every neighbourhood would have those twins who were well-known, sometimes notorious, just had a reputation as local celebrities. That idea is something that we're exploring in this, and a lot of other ideas. So I'm still digging into pre-existing things and culture as best I can, but synthesising them through my own personal lens." Sinners releases in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, April 17, 2025.
When January 2022 arrives, it won't just mark the welcome start of a brand new year after the past couple have been so chaotic. Also rolling around when 2021 slinks off into the past forever: the return of Sydney's beloved Westpac Openair Cinema. Come Thursday, January 6, Mrs Macquaries Point will once again play host to the most spectacular big screen in the city — and to quite the impressive list of flicks that'll play with panoramic views of the city, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge as their stunning backdrop. At the beginning of November, Westpac Openair confirmed its 2022 summer dates — and now the event has locked in all the movies that'll be showing across its 48-night season until Tuesday, February 22. Big names, big potential award-winners and big recent favourites are all set to flicker across the outdoor cinema's 350-square-metre screen, kicking off with a preview screening of the Will Smith-starring biopic King Richard, where he plays the father of tennis champions Venus and Serena Williams. Other brand-new highlights include advanced screenings of Spencer, with Kristen Stewart stepping into Princess Diana's shoes; Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley, his first film after making such an award-winning splash with The Shape of Water; and Pedro Almodovar's Parallel Mothers, aka the movie that won Penelope Cruz the Best Actress prize at the 2021 Venice Film Festival. There's also the Australian premiere of Death on the Nile, which sees Agatha Christie's famed detective Hercule Poirot return to the big screen in the follow-up to Murder on the Orient Express — and, as well as playing the sleuth, Kenneth Branagh also has his latest directorial effort Belfast, as based on his own childhood, hitting Westpac Openair as well. On Valentine's Day, the latest film adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac — this time just called Cyrano, and starring Peter Dinklage — will screen, while other sneak-peek sessions include the Javier Bardem-starring The Good Boss, C'Mon C'Mon with Joaquin Phoenix, and stellar Australian revenge drama The Drover's Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson. Or, if you haven't yet caught new Bond flick No Time to Die, it's showing multiple times. Plus, other films that'll play Westpac Openair after hitting regular cinemas include Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence-starring comet comedy Don't Look Up, sci-fi spectacle Dune, Jane Campion's exquisite western The Power of the Dog, fashion drama House of Gucci, Steven Spielberg's new version of West Side Story, Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza and the fourth Matrix flick The Matrix Resurrections. Because the films and the location are only part of the fun here, Westpac Openair will also be slinging cocktails, serving up food by Kitchen by Mike and its chef Mike McEnearney — this time with a Mexican barbecue twist — and enlisting FBi radio's DJs to spin pre-film tunes. Tickets always go fast for the outdoor cinema's season, so getting in quick when they go on sale in early December is recommended. Across the summer of 2018–19, more than 40,000 tickets sold within the first two days of pre-sale — so put it in your diary ASAP. Westpac Openair 2022 runs from Thursday, January 6 –Tuesday, February 22. Tickets go on sale from 9am AEDT on Wednesday, December 8, with pre-sales from 9am AEDT on Monday, December 6–5pm AEDT Tuesday, December 7. For more details, head to the event's website. Images: Fiora Sacco
Everyone loves Jamie's Italian. Or at least that's what we discovered when, back in November 2016, we reported that the Jamie Oliver had officially bought back his Australian restaurant chain after its parent company, the Keystone Group, went into receivership. People were excited — and the man himself even came to town to relaunch the venues. But now, a year on, things have taken a bit of a turn. The Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group will cease to manage its Australian restaurants, effective immediately. Last night, The Australian Financial Review reported that the group had gone into administration, and this morning it released an official statement announcing "a new operating partner for its Australian business". This partner is the Brisbane-based Hallmark Group, and it will take over the management of Australia's Jamie's Italian restaurants. What does that mean for your dinner plans? Well, the Sydney, Brisbane, Parramatta, Perth and Adelaide venues will continue to operate as usual, but, sadly, the Canberra outpost has already closed. "We'll be working closely with Jamie and the UK team, staff and local suppliers to keep driving the business forward and delivering exceptional experiences across the country," said a Hallmark representative. "Hallmark are actively seeking new suitable locations for the next Jamie's Italian." The news isn't that surprising considering the group has been in a spot of trouble in the UK — The Sun has reported that Oliver's group is in £71.5 million of debt, and will soon close 12 of his 27 restaurants. It'll be interesting to see if this changes much for Jamie's Italian. Will it bring back its $10 pasta deals? Will it finally expand to Melbourne? We'll keep you posted.
Sports-mad Macarthur residents have a new spot to take in a game over beers with mates. It's called The Sherwood and it's a pub-meets-sports bar right next door to Campbelltown Stadium, the current home of the Wests Tigers. Formerly a tennis club, the space has been completely transformed and is now a huge, open plan tavern designed to cater to the full swathe of community locals. That includes an expansive courtyard with ample al fresco dining options (and plenty of space for bigger groups), designated family friendly areas, and an enormous four-metre screen for broadcasting live matches for everything from the NRL (of course) to live NBA games and UFC bouts. If you're dining in as well as drinking, The Sherwood's food offering is very much in the realm of something-for-everyone pub fare. A classic schnitty, beef nachos and steak and chips are in the lineup alongside more elevated options like prawn orecchiette, gin-cured kingfish and a fresh poached salmon salad. The menu also has an entire section dedicated to smash burgers, so it's safe to assume that's a kitchen special. There's a lot of members specials including a daily happy hour from 3-5pm where house beers are $5 and 'Wing Night Wednesday' where you get a kilo of wings for $20. Ah, the perks of being a local. Learn more at the full offering at the venue's website.
You've seen many a fresh, edgy theatre troupe present group-devised reflections on the insights wrangled from their recently shed adolescence. What you see less of are fresh, edgy theatre troupes reflecting on old age. We rarely get the chance to report back and make art about it once we're on the other side, and in the meantime, we prefer not to have to think about it. But given — as the clinical announcer reminds us at the start of the show — "our life is a gradual death", it may bear thinking about where we're headed, what gives meaning and dignity to the twilight years and what kind of treatment we want when we, or the people we love, get there, and Theatre Kantanka are the ones with whom you want to visit these ponderings' hotbed, the nursing home. Director Carlos Gomes and the ensemble have built Missing the Bus to David Jones out of extensive observation at aged care facilities and interviews with the residents, visitors and staff. The resulting vignettes unfold in bursts of achingly real dialogue and internal monologue, precisely executed physicality (from immobility to dancing to Parkinson's), evocative video projections, sound and symbols. On sparsely furnished lino leading to swinging doors and a wavering projection of what can only be the great beyond, the elderly characters play bingo, make a ballet of their walkers and dress in hats and hound's-tooth for a bus to David Jones and an excursion to the high life that isn't coming. "Where is my beautiful mother?" a man pleads at an incognisant woman. The things they do with nanna blankets will stir your soul. There's no narrative, but this is a remarkably thoughtful and cohesive patchwork. It's unavoidably sad, but empathetic humour; the traces of rich, past lives in fated elderly mannerisms; and the unexpected emergence of new motivations and, sometimes, pleasures is enough to offer respite to the young and honour to the ageing. It's a moving journey worth taking.
Float on, festival fans: come April, Australia's newest excuse to see a heap of bands in one spot will make its way along the country's east coast. That touring event: the just-announced Daydream. It's hitting Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane with quite the roster of indie-rock talent — headlined by Modest Mouse three decades after the Washington-born group first got together. Don't listen to the title of the band's acclaimed 2004 album, though — this is good news for people who love good news, not bad. Joining Modest Mouse on the bill are Britain's Slowdive, who initially formed in 1989, the reformed in 2017, as well as Australian favourites Tropical F*ck Storm. Daydream will hit up Melbourne's Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Saturday, April 22 to kick things off, then head north. The fest plays the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney on Saturday, April 29, followed up Brisbane's Riverstage on Sunday, April 30. The lineup varies slightly per city, with Beach Fossils and Cloud Nothings taking to the stage at all stops, but Majak Door missing Brisbane. And no, it isn't too early into 2023 to start packing your calendar with music festivals. New year, new diary to fill, after all — and Daydream, the also just-announced Lazy Mountain and more are firmly here to help. DAYDREAM 2023 LINEUP: Modest Mouse Slowdive Tropical F*ck Storm Beach Fossils Cloud Nothings Majak Door DAYDREAM 2023 DATES: Saturday, April 22 — Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne Saturday, April 29 — Hordern Pavilion, Sydney Sunday, April 30 — Riverstage, Brisbane [caption id="attachment_886745" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Dylan Jardine[/caption] Daydream will hit Australia's east coast capitals in April. Early-bird pre-sales start at 9am local time on Thursday, February 2, with general sales from 9am local time on Friday, February 3 — head to the tour website to sign up for the pre-sale, or for more information. Top images: Modest Mouse by Matthewvetter via Wikimedia Commons; Tropical F*ck Storm by Somefx.
Not all that long ago, the idea of getting cosy on your couch, clicking a few buttons, and having thousands of films and television shows at your fingertips seemed like something out of science fiction. Now, it's just an ordinary night — whether you're virtually gathering the gang to text along, cuddling up to your significant other or shutting the world out for some much needed me-time. Of course, given the wealth of options to choose from, there's nothing ordinary about making a date with your chosen streaming platform. The question isn't "should I watch something?" — it's "what on earth should I choose?". Hundreds of titles are added to Australia's online viewing services each and every month, all vying for a spot on your must-see list. And, so you don't spend 45 minutes scrolling and then being too tired to actually commit to watching anything, we're here to help. We've spent plenty of couch time watching our way through this month's latest batch — and, from the latest and greatest to old favourites, here are our picks for your streaming queue from May's haul of newbies. NEW SHOWS TO CHECK OUT WEEK BY WEEK OBI-WAN KENOBI More Ewan McGregor in anything is always a good thing, including in returning to a galaxy far, far away (and long ago). But before Disney+'s new Star Wars series Obi-Wan Kenobi gives the space opera franchise's fans that gift as part of the platform's third live-action spinoff from the blockbuster movie saga (following The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett), it has another present to bestow. Across a few minutes in the show's "previously on" prelude prior to its opening episode, it recaps what viewers need to know about the Jedi and his time with Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen, The Last Man) before now. That means that viewing the terrible prequel trilogy is no longer ever necessary, because the main point of the entire three films has been condensed down into this quick montage. Elated, you should be — and may the force be with the time you'll never waste rewatching them again. There's obviously more to Obi-Wan Kenobi than that. Set ten years after Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, it finds Obi-Wan (McGregor, Halston) living as Ben Kenobi on Tatooine, all to keep an eye on a young Luke (Grant Feely, Creepshow) from afar. But the Empire is after the former Jedi master, and all Jedis — with a particularly determined Inquisitor, Third Sister (Moses Ingram, Ambulance), especially vicious in her efforts to hunt him down. That's all as expected; however, the storyline involving the kidnapping of young Leia (Vivien Lyra Blair, Waco), who is growing up with the Organas (In the Heights' Jimmy Smits and 11%'s Simon Kessell) as her adoptive parents, is far more of a surprise. Also boasting everyone from Joel Edgerton (The Green Knight) and Kumail Nanjiani (Eternals) to Sung Kang (Fast and Furious 9) and Benny Safdie (Licorice Pizza) among its cast, this six-part limited series slots easily into the ongoing sci-fi franchise at its big-screen best — including both looking and feeling the part. Obi-Wan Kenobi streams via Disney+. THE STAIRCASE On December 9, 2021, novelist and aspiring politician Michael Peterson called the North Carolina police to report that his second wife Kathleen had fallen down the stairs. It was late, and he was distraught. She was unconscious but still breathing, he said, and he pleaded for medical help ASAP. While waiting for the ambulance, he rang back to say that Kathleen was no longer breathing. When the paramedics arrived, she was dead. But the scene they found was shockingly bloody, and questions about Michael's story were asked immediately. Protesting his innocence, and originally supported by all five of his biological, adopted and step children, he was arrested and charged with his wife's murder. And yes, if this all sounds familiar — and not just from news headlines two decades back — it's because it was originally chronicled by 2004 French-made true-crime documentary miniseries The Staircase. Now, HBO's eight-part dramatised version — also called The Staircase — is relaying the same story. Whether or not you already know the full tale, the result is still gripping, tensely shot and edited, and also masterfully acted. Colin Firth (Operation Mincemeat) plays Michael, albeit with a far-from-convincing American accent. Aussie actors abound, too, with Toni Collette (Nightmare Alley) as Kathleen, plus Olivia DeJonge (Better Watch Out) and Odessa Young (Shirley) as two of the family's daughters. With Juliette Binoche (How to Be a Good Wife), Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me By Your Name), Parker Posey (Lost in Space), Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones), Dane Dehaan (Lisey's Story) and Patrick Schwarzenegger (Moxie) all also popping up — and Rosemarie DeWitt as well, playing Collette's sister again after United States of Tara — getting absorbed in this retelling comes quickly and swiftly. The Staircase streams via Binge. BRAND NEW STUFF YOU CAN WATCH IN FULL RIGHT NOW CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS Peeking into intimate connections and making audiences feeling as though they've been lifted from their own lives, or from emotions they've navigated and weathered, is one of Sally Rooney's key skills as an author. It's true of both Conversations with Friends and Normal People in print, and it's a knack that the same creative team — Rooney as an executive producer, co-screenwriter Alice Birch (Lady Macbeth) and co-director Lenny Abrahamson (Room, Frank) — have brought to TV adaptations of both. In text and flickering across the screen, the two tales step into complicated romances that simmer with intensity. They confront class clashes and the difficulties that spring from them as well. And, they force contemplative women to confront what they want, who they are, how they'll grow as people and the others they might give their hearts to. In the instantly addictive Conversations with Friends, 21-year-old Frances (quietly magnetic newcomer Alison Oliver) is first poised as the other half in a couple that's not a couple, at least anymore; she went to school with and used to date the outspoken and outgoing Bobbi (Sasha Lane, American Honey), but now the two university students are best friends and spoken-word poetry partners. It's during one of their performances that successful writer Melissa (Jemima Kirke, Sex Education) spots the duo's act, compliments them afterwards and invites them over for a swim, then back to her well-appointed house for a drink. Enter Nick (Joe Alwyn, The Souvenir: Part II), Melissa's actor husband, who holds himself like he'd rather be anywhere but there but is too polite to upset the status quo. He's as reserved and introverted as Frances — and they catch each other's eyes, while Bobbi and Melissa gravitate towards each other. Conversations with Friends streams via Prime Video. Read our full review. PREHISTORIC PLANET Five episodes, one comforting voice, and a time-travelling trip back 66 million years: that's the setup behind Prehistoric Planet, an utterly remarkable feels-like-you're-there dive into natural history. Having none other than David Attenborough narrate the daily activities of dinosaurs seems like it should've happened already, of course; however, now that it finally is occurring, it's always both wonderful and stunning. Filled with astonishing footage on par with the visuals that usually accompany Attenborough's nature docos, all thanks to the special effects team behind The Jungle Book and The Lion King, it truly is a wonder to look at. It needs to be: if the Cretaceous-era dinosaurs rampaging across the screen didn't appear like they genuinely could be walking and stalking — and fighting, foraging for food, hunting, flying, swimming and running as well — the magic that typically comes with watching an Attenborough-narrated doco would instantly and disappointingly vanish. Welcome to... your new insight into Tyrannosaurus rex foreplay, your latest reminder that velociraptors really don't look like they do in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World flicks, an entertaining time spent with al kinds of animals, and your next favourite dinosaur project with an Attenborough attached. Each of Prehistoric Planet's five instalments focuses on a different type of terrain — coasts, deserts, freshwater, ice and forests — and chats through the creatures that call it home. Set to a spirited original score by Hans Zimmer, fresh from winning his latest Oscar for Dune, there's a formula at work. That said, it's no more blatant than in any David Attenborough-hosted show. Viewers watch as some dinos look after their young, others try to find a mate, plenty search for something to eat and others attempt not to be eaten. The same kinds of activities are covered in each episode, but the locations and dinosaurs involved all change. Prehistoric Planet streams via Apple TV+. Read our full review. STRANGER THINGS Finally back for its fourth season after a three-year wait (yes, finally), Stranger Things ventures beyond its trusty small-town setting of Hawkins, Indiana, and in several directions. It keeps its nods and winks to flicks and shows gone by streaming steadily of course — but expanding is firmly on its mind. Once again overseen by series creators The Duffer Brothers, its latest batch of episodes is bigger and longer, with no instalment clocking in at less than an hour, one in the first drop running for a feature-length 98 minutes, and the final two not set to release until Friday, July 1. Its teenage stars are bigger and taller as well, ageing further and faster than their characters. The show has matured past riffing on early-80s action-adventure movies, too, such as The Goonies; now, it's onto slashers and other horror films, complete with new characters called Fred and Jason. And with that, Stranger Things also gets bloodier and eerier. That said, it's still the show that viewers have loved since 2016, when not even Netflix likely realised what it had unleashed — and no, that doesn't just include the demogorgon escaping from the Upside Down. But everything is growing, as Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown, Godzilla vs Kong), her boyfriend Mike (Finn Wolfhard, Ghostbusters: Afterlife), and their pals Will (Noah Schnapp, Waiting for Anya), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo, The Angry Birds Movie 2), Max (Sadie Sink, Fear Street) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin, Concrete Cowboy) all visibly have. Eleven, Will, Jonathan (Charlie Heaton, The Souvenir Part II) and Joyce (Winona Ryder, The Plot Against America) have branched out to California, and Mike comes to visit. Back in Hawkins, Dustin, Lucas, Max, Steve (Joe Keery, Free Guy), Robin (Maya Hawke, Fear Street) and Nancy (Natalia Dyer, Things Seen & Heard) have a new evil to face. And, as for Hopper (David Harbour, Black Widow), he's stuck in a Russian gulag. The first seven episodes of Stranger Things season four are streaming via Netflix. Read our full review. EMERGENCY The 'one wild night' genre isn't solely comprised of films about high school or college parties — Martin Scorsese's ace After Hours isn't, for example — but it's still filled with them. Emergency is the latest, but it's also a movie with something to say beyond the usual life lessons about valuing your real friends and working out who you genuinely are when you're at that awkward time learning about what being an adult means. It also takes a huge cue from a fairy tale that everyone knows, and adapts it to reflect an inescapable part of America today. How does being a person of colour change your options during a supposedly carefree night of partying? How does it influence your choices when something unexpected happens to someone else and you want to help? And what would happen if Goldilocks and the Three Bears was about a drunk white high schooler who passes out inside a house shared by one Latino and two Black college seniors? These are Emergency's questions. The answers to the above queries come courtesy of filmmaker Carey Williams (R#J) and screenwriter KD Dávila (Salvation), who adapt their short film of the same name. Their focus: pals Sean (RJ Cyler, The Harder They Fall), Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins, The Underground Railroad) and Carlos (Sebastian Chacon, Penny Dreadful: City of Angels), on what's supposed to be a huge night hopping between seven different campus shindigs. Then, they find Emma (Maddie Nichols, The Outsider) passed out on their lounge room floor. The Princeton-bound Kunle wants to call 911, but Sean knows how it'll look to the authorities — even though they're trying to do the right thing, have never met the girl before and don't know how she ended up in their house. Savvier than it is funny, Emergency is an oh-so-topical satire first and foremost, and doesn't hold back for a second. Emergency streams via Prime Video. UNDONE Returning for its second season three years after its first — which was one of the best shows of 2019 — the gorgeously and thoughtfully trippy multiverse series Undone is fixated on one idea: that life's flaws can be fixed. It always has been from the moment its eight-episode initial season appeared with its vivid rotoscoped animation and entrancing leaps into surreal territory; however, in season two it doubles down. Hailing from BoJack Horseman duo Kate Purdy and Raphael Bob-Waksberg, it also remains unsurprisingly concerned with mental illness, and still sees its protagonist caught in an existential crisis. (The pair have a type, but Undone isn't BoJack Horseman 2.0). And, it deeply understands that it's spinning a "what if?" story, and also one about deep-seated unhappiness. Indeed, learning to cope with being stuck in an imperfect life, being unable to wish it away and accepting that fate beams brightly away at the heart of the show. During its debut outing, Undone introduced viewers to 28-year-old Alma Winograd-Diaz (Rosa Salazar, Alita: Battle Angel), who found everything she thought she knew pushed askew after a near-fatal car accident. Suddenly, she started experiencing time and her memories differently — including those of her father, Jacob Winograd (Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul), who died over 20 years earlier. In a vision, he tasked her with investigating his death, which became a quest to patch up the past to stop tragedy from striking. Undone didn't necessarily need a second season, but this repeat dive into Alma's story ponders what happens in a timeline where everything seems to glimmer with all that its protagonist has ever wanted, and yet sorrow still lingers. Once again, the end result is deeply rich and resonant, as intelligent and affecting as sci-fi and animation alike get, and dedicated to thinking and feeling big while confronting everyday truths. Undone streams via Prime Video. Read our full review. RETURNING FAVES DROPPING EAGERLY AWAITED NEW EPISODES WEEKLY BARRY Three seasons into the sitcom that bears his name, all that Barry Berkman (Bill Hader, Noelle) wants is to be an actor — and to also no longer kill people for a living. That's what he's yearned for across the bulk of this HBO gem, which has given Saturday Night Live alum Hader his best-ever role; however, segueing from being an assassin to treading the boards or standing in front of the camera is unsurprisingly complicated. One of the smartest elements of the always-fantastic Barry is how determined it is to weather all the chaos, darkness, rough edges and heart-wrenching consequences of its central figure's choices, though. That's true of his actions not only in the past, but in the show's present. Hader and series co-creator Alec Berg (Silicon Valley) know that viewers like Barry. You're meant to. But that doesn't mean ignoring that he's a hitman, or that his time murdering people — and his military career before that — has repercussions, including for those around him. One of the most layered and complex comedies currently airing, Barry's third season is as intricate, thorny, textured and hilarious as the first two. Indeed, it's ridiculously easy to see how cartoonish its premise would be in lesser hands, or how it might've leaned on a simple odd-couple setup given that Anthony Carrigan (Bill & Ted Face the Music) plays Chechen gangster Noho Hank with such delightful flair. But Barry keeps digging into what makes its namesake tick, why, and the ripples he causes. It does the same with his beloved acting teacher Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler, The French Dispatch) as well. With visual precision on par with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, it's also as phenomenal at staging action scenes as it is at diving deep into its characters — and, as every smartly penned episode just keeps proving, it's downright stellar at that. Barry streams via Binge. HACKS In 2021, Hacks' first season quickly cemented itself as one of 2021's best new TV shows — one of two knockout newbies starring Jean Smart last year, thanks to Mare of Easttown as well — and it's just as ace the second time around. It's still searingly funny, nailing that often-elusive blend of insight, intelligence and hilarity. It retains its observational, wry tone, and remains devastatingly relatable even if you've never been a woman trying to make it in comedy. And it's happy to linger where it needs to to truly understand its characters, but never simply dwells in the same place as its last batch of episodes. Season two is literally about hitting the road, so covering fresh territory is baked into the story; however, Hacks' trio of key behind-the-scenes creatives — writer Jen Statsky (The Good Place), writer/director Lucia Aniello (Rough Night) and writer/director/co-star Paul W Downs (The Other Two) — aren't content to merely repeat themselves with a different backdrop. Those guiding hands started Hacks after helping to make Broad City a hit. Clearly, they all know a thing or two about moving on from the past. That's the decision both veteran comedian Deborah Vance (Smart) and her twentysomething writer-turned-assistant Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder, North Hollywood) had to make themselves in season one, with the show's second season now charting the fallout. So, Deborah has farewelled her residency and the dependable gags that kept pulling in crowds, opting to test out new and far-more-personal material on a cross-country tour instead. Ava has accepted her role by Deborah's side, and is willing to see it as a valid career move rather than an embarrassing stopgap. But that journey comes a few narrative bumps. Of course, Hacks has always been willing to see that actions have consequences, not only for an industry that repeatedly marginalises women, but for its imperfect leading ladies. Hacks streams via Stan. Read our full review. GIRLS5EVA When it first hit streaming in 2021 with an avalanche of quickfire jokes — as all Tina Fey-executive produced sitcoms do, such as 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Great News and Mr Mayor — Girls5eva introduced viewers to its eponymous band. One-hit wonders in the late 90s and early 00s, their fame had fizzled. Indeed, reclaiming their stardom wasn't even a blip on their radars — until, unexpectedly, it was. Dawn Solano (Sara Bareilles, Broadway's Waitress), Wickie Roy (Renée Elise Goldsberry, Hamilton), Summer Dutkowsky (Busy Philipps, I Feel Pretty) and Gloria McManus (Paula Pell, AP Bio) had left their days as America's answer to the Spice Girls behind, barely staying in contact since the group split and their fifth member, Ashley Gold (Ashley Park, Emily in Paris), later died in an infinity pool accident. But then rapper Lil Stinker (Jeremiah Craft, Bill & Ted Face the Music) sampled their single 'Famous 5eva', and they were asked to perform backing vocals during his Tonight Show gig. Jumping back into the spotlight reignited dreams that the surviving Girls5eva members thought they'd extinguished long ago — well, other than walking attention-magnet Wickie, who crashed and burned in her attempts to go solo, and was happy to fake it till she made it again. That's the tale the show charts again in its second season, which is back with more rapid-fire pop-culture references and digs; the same knowing, light but still sincere tone; and a new parade of delightful tunes composed by Jeff Richmond, Fey's husband and source of music across every sitcom she's produced. One of the joys of Girls5eva — one of many — is how gleefully absurd it skews, all while fleshing out its central quartet, their hopes and desires, and their experiences navigating an industry that treats them as commodities at best. The show's sophomore run finds much to satirise, of course, but also dives deeper and pushing Wickie, Dawn, Summer and Gloria to grow. Obviously, it's another gem. Girls5eva streams via Stan. Read our full review. RECENT AND CLASSIC FLICKS TO CATCH UP ON — OR REVISIT NO SUDDEN MOVE Any film by prolific director Steven Soderbergh (Unsane, Kimi) is a must-see event, even if it bypasses cinemas — as No Sudden Move sadly did. This crime thriller would've looked dazzling on a big screen, and for a plethora of reasons, but it's as excellent as ever even while watching on your TV. Soderbergh is no stranger to helming capers — he has Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen on his jam-packed resume, plus both Out of Sight and Logan Lucky — and No Sudden Move is as energetic as the rest of his heist fare. Here, he also revels in period details, with this Ed Solomon (Bill & Ted Face the Music)-scripted tale unfurling in the 1950s. As he's known to do, Soderbergh both shot and edited the movie himself, too, and that exceptional craftsmanship is another of this playful neo-noir's many delights. Spinning an engaging story steeped in Detroit's crime scene, No Sudden Move has something to say as well. Don Cheadle (Space Jam: A New Legacy) in is career-best form as Curt Goynes, who gets out of prison, then gets enlisted for a job by a middleman known as Jones (Brendan Fraser, Trust). That gig? With two colleagues (The French Dispatch's Benicio Del Toro and Succession's Kieran Culkin), he's tasked with babysitting the Wertz family (Archenemy's Amy Seimetz, A Quiet Place Part II's Noah Jupe and debutant Lucy Holt), all so the Wertz patriarch (David Harbour, Stranger Things) can steal a document from his work. There's no shortage of plot — No Sudden Move keeps twisting from there — but capitalism's worst consequences also bubble prominently underneath. Soderbergh and Solomon savvily tease out the details, though, keeping their audience guessing as much as their characters. No Sudden Move is available to stream via Netflix and Binge. EVERY JAMES BOND MOVIE Break out the martinis and prepare for a shaken but not stirred couch session: Bond, James Bond, is coming to your lounge room. Just in time for wintry binge-viewing marathons, the famed espionage franchise has hit Prime Video, spanning every flick in the series from the now 60-year-old Dr No through to 2021's No Time to Die. Sean Connery smouldering his way through everything from that first-ever Bond instalment through to Diamonds Are Forever, Roger Moore stepping into 007's shoes between Live and Let Die and A View to A Kill, Timothy Dalton's two-film run in The Living Daylights and Licence To Kill — they're all included. So is Pierce Brosnan's stint as the secret agent between GoldenEye and Die Another Day, and Daniel Craig's five contributions from Casino Royale onwards, wrapping up with what might be the best Bond film yet. Aussie actor George Lazenby's one-movie appearance as Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service is also on the bill. That's all 25 official movies in total covered, but there is also a 26th movie, Never Say Never Again, that you might want to watch. Made in 1983, it stars Connery as the suave spy. But, because it was made by a different company from the rest of the Bond movies, it's not considered part of the franchise itself — however, it is also on Prime Video now. Exceptional Bond flicks, terrible ones, everything in-between: if 007 is involved, it's now in this one spot. For everything other than No Time to Die, this isn't the first time the franchise has all sat on one streaming platform, and we've all seen various flicks hop between different services over the years. That said, the Bond movies aren't likely to move from Prime Video moving forward given that Amazon recently purchased MGM, the nearly century-old film studio that's behind all things 007. The entire Bond franchise streams via Prime Video. Need a few more streaming recommendations? Check out our picks from January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December 2021, and January, February, March and April 2022 — and our top new TV shows of 2021, best new television series from last year that you might've missed, top 2021 straight-to-streaming films and specials and must-stream 2022 shows so far as well.
If you didn't see The Fall Guy, Twisters, Deadpool & Wolverine, Challengers, Inside Out 2, The Substance, Kneecap or It Ends with Us on the big screen already in 2024, here's the perfect way to catch up with them: under the stars, while sprawled out on a picnic blanket or sat on a bean bed, at the latest season of Moonlight Cinema. And if watching Christmas films is one of your festive traditions, here's a scenic way to do that, too, with this annual opportunity to enjoy a movie outside packing its just-dropped first lineup for this year with seasonal flicks. As it does every summer, Moonlight Cinema is returning for another run of films in the open air, including at Sydney's Centennial Parklands from Friday, November 22, 2024–Sunday, March 30, 2025. Among the brand-new titles, Gladiator II and Wicked are also on the bill, as are an advanced screening of the Hugh Grant (Unfrosted)-starring horror film Heretic. When Paddington in Peru gets the same treatment, you'll want marmalade sandwiches in your picnic basket. The OG version of Mean Girls will grace Moonlight Cinema's screens, too, as will 2023's smash-hit Barbie. For a merry time at the movies — a jolly one as well — the roster of Christmas fare spans the new Red One, as well as classics Elf, Love Actually, The Holiday, The Muppet Christmas Carol, Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Come January, A Complete Unknown has your Timothée Chalamet (Dune: Part Two) fix covered and the OG Freaky Friday will give you a blast from the past before the sequel arrives later in 2025. Plus, We Live in Time, Heretic and Mufasa: The Lion King will also play under the stars. Other highlights include Gladiator II, Moana 2, Paddington in Peru and Sonic the Hedgehog 3, giving franchises plenty of love; Better Man joining the music-fuelled picks; the Jesse Eisenberg (Sasquatch Sunset)-starring, -written and -directed A Real Pain; and Conclave's tension in the Vatican. Among the retro fare, Bridget Jones's Diary, Shrek and The Princess Diaries will get you looking backwards. As always, the films and the setting are just two parts of the cinema's experience. Also on offer: the returning Aperol spritz bar. Nosh-wise, the event will again let you BYO movie snacks and drinks, but the unorganised can enjoy a plethora of bites to eat onsite while reclining on bean beds. There'll also be two VIP sections for an extra-luxe openair movie experience, a platinum package with waiter service and a beauty cart handing out samples. Plus, dogs are welcome — there's even special doggo bean beds. Updated: December 12, 2024.
In 1994, when Daniel Johns was just 15 years old, he became one of the biggest music stars in the country. Silverchair's 'Tomorrow' hasn't just a hit — it was a song that turned a group of Aussie teenagers into instant legends, soundtracked the mid-90s and helped define growing up in Australia at the time. Saying it was huge really isn't quite saying enough. But what if things hadn't turned out that way? That feels almost unthinkable, but Daniel Johns himself has been thinking it. And, he's made it the premise of a new featurette — not a full-length movie, not exactly a short either, and not really a music video — called What If The Future Never Happened?. In the film, it's 1994 again. Daniel isn't a teenage rockstar yet, but that's only months off. Then, on a normal day in regional Australia — whether or not it'll actually be Newcastle, that's what we'll all be thinking — Daniel's future changes while he's trying to escape three local bullies, all thanks to a mysterious figure. You wait till tomorrow indeed. What If The Future Never Happened? has just dropped a trailer, and it looks as moody, as stepped in all things 90s, and as eager to play around with sci-fi and fantasy as as you'd expect — and the casting of surfer, actor and musician Rasmus King (Barons, Bosch & Rockit) as Johns is downright uncanny. He could've stepped right out of the 'Tomorrow' music video and into the featurette. Perhaps that'll be the concept behind a future movie? Hailed as "from the mind of Daniel Johns" — and clearly based on his life — What If The Future Never Happened? is written and directed by James Medlam (who boasts helming Dune Rats' 'No Plans' music video on his resume). It's also co-penned by producer Heath George and based on a story by Heath Johns, aka Daniel's brother. While exactly when and where it'll drop hasn't been revealed, Daniel Johns' latest solo studio album FutureNever released back in April — and yes, he has a theme at the moment. Check out the trailer for What If The Future Never Happened? below: What If The Future Never Happened? doesn't yet have a release date — we'll update you when it does.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas in some parts of the country. After numerous periods spent empty during the pandemic, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, picture palaces in many Australian regions are back in business — including both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. SISSY Scroll, swipe, like, subscribe: this is the rhythm of social media. We look, watch and trawl; we try to find a sense of self in the online world; and when something strikes a chord, we smudge our fingers onto our phones to show our appreciation. If wellness influencers are to be believed, we should feel seen by this now-everyday process. We should feel better, too. We're meant to glean helpful tips about how to live our best lives, aspire to be like the immaculately styled folks dispensing the advice and be struck by how relatable it all is. "You saved my life!", we're supposed to comment, and we're meant to be genuine about it. The one catch, and one that we shouldn't think about, though: when it comes to seeking validation via social media, this setup really does go both ways. As savvy new Australian horror film Sissy shows, the beaming faces spruiking easy wisdom and products alike to hundreds, thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of followers — 200,000-plus for this flick's namesake — are also basking in the glory of all that digital attention, and getting a self-esteem boost back in the process. Sissy starts with @SincerelyCecilia, an Instagram hit, doing what she does best. As played by Gold Coast-born Australian actor Aisha Dee of The Bold Type in an astute and knowing stroke of casting, she's a natural in front of the camera. Indeed, thanks to everything from The Saddle Club and I Hate My Teenage Daughter to Sweet/Vicious and The Nowhere Inn as well, the film's star knows what it's like to live life through screens out of character. She's been acting since she was a teenager, and she's charted the highs of her chosen profession, all in front of a lens. So, it's no wonder that Dee conveys Cecilia's comfort recording her videos with ease. The actor hops into the spotlight not only once but twice here, but she's just as perceptive at showing how the world crumbles, shakes and shrinks whenever there's no ring light glowing, smile stretched a mile wide and Pinterest-board background framing her guru-like guidance. "I am loved. I am special. I am enough," is Cecilia's kind of mantra. Through her carefully poised and curated videos, such words have sparked a soaring follower count, a non-stop flow of likes and adoring comments. But she's so tied to all that virtual worship that her off-camera existence — when she's not plugging an 'Elon mask', for instance — is perhaps even more mundane than everyone else's. It's also isolated, so when she reconnects with her childhood best friend Emma (co-director/co-writer Hannah Barlow) during a chance run-in at a pharmacy, it's a rare IRL link to the tangible world. Cecilia is awkward about it, though, including when Emma invites her to her out-of-town bachelorette party that very weekend. Buoyed by memories of pledging to be BFFs forever, singing Aussie pop track 'Sister' by Sister2Sister and obsessing over movie stars, she still agrees to go. Sissy's first act is a Rorschach test: if you're already cynical about the wellness industry and social media, unsurprisingly so, then you'll know that nothing dreamy is bound to follow; if you're not, perhaps the blood and guts to come will feel like a twist. Either way, there will be blood thanks to Barlow and fellow co-helmer/co-scribe Kane Senes' game efforts, reteaming for their second feature after 2017's For Now. There will be chaos as well, and bad signs aplenty, and a rousing body count. Hitting a kangaroo en route to their remote destination clearly doesn't bode well, and also kicks off casualty tally. Then the old schoolyard dynamics bubble up, especially when Cecilia's playground tormentor Alex (Emily De Margheriti, Ladies in Black) is among the fellow guests. Pre-teen taunts resurface — "Sissy's a sissy" was the juvenile and obvious jeer spat her way back in the day, and repeated now — and the @SincerelyCecilia facade starts to shatter. Read our full review. ARMAGEDDON TIME What's more difficult a feat: to ponder everything that the universe might hold, as writer/director James Gray did in 2019's sublime Ad Astra, or to peer back at your own childhood, as he now does with Armageddon Time? Both films focus on their own worlds, just of different sizes and scales. Both feature realms that loom over everyone, but we all experience in their own ways. In the two movies, the bonds and echoes between parents and children also earn the filmmaker's attention. Soaring into the sky and reaching beyond your assigned patch is a focus in one fashion or another, too. In both cases, thoughtful, complex and affecting movies result. And, as shared with everything he's made over the past three decades — such as The Yards, The Immigrant and The Lost City of Z as well — fantastic performances glide across the screen in unwaveringly emotionally honest pictures. In Armageddon Time, Gray returns to a favourite subject: the experience of immigrants to New York. With a surname barely removed from his own, the Graff family share his own Jewish American heritage — and anchor a portrait of a pre-teen's growing awareness of his privilege, the world's prejudices, the devastating history of his ancestors, and how tentative a place people can hold due to race, religion, money, politics and more. The year is 1980, and the end of times isn't genuinely upon anyone. Even the sixth-grader at its centre knows that. Still, that doesn't stop former Californian governor-turned-US presidential candidate Ronald Reagan from talking up existential threats using inflammatory language, as the Graffs spot on TV. Armageddon Time also takes its moniker from a 1977 The Clash B-side and cover; despite the film's stately approach, the punk feeling of wanting to tear apart the status quo — Gray's own adolescent status quo — dwells in its frames. Banks Repeta (The Black Phone) plays Paul Graff, Gray's on-screen surrogate, and Armageddon Time's curious and confident protagonist. At his public school in Queens, he's happy standing out alongside his new friend Johnny (Jaylin Webb, The Wonder Years), and disrupting class however and whenever he can — much to the dismay of his mother Esther (Anne Hathaway, Locked Down), a home economics teacher and school board member. He dreams of being an artist, despite his plumber dad Irving's (Jeremy Strong, Succession) stern disapproval, because the elder Graff would prefer the boy use computing as a path to a life better than his own. In his spare time, Paul is happiest with his doting, advice-dispensing, gift-bearing grandfather Aaron (Anthony Hopkins, The Father), who's considered the only person on the pre-teen's wavelength. Gray fleshes out Paul's personality and the Graffs' dynamic with candour as well as affection, as seen at an early home dinner. There, Paul criticises Esther's cooking, orders dumplings even after expressly being forbidden and incites Irving's explosive anger — and the establishing scene also starts laying bare attitudes that keep being probed and unpacked throughout Armageddon Time. Indeed, Paul will begin to glean the place he navigates in the world. Even while hearing about the past atrocities that brought his grandfather's mother to America, and the discrimination that still lingers, he'll learn that he's fortunate to hail from a middle-class Jewish family. Even if his own comfort is tenuous, Paul will see how different his life is to his black, bused-in friend, with Johnny living with his ailing grandmother, always skirting social services and constantly having condemning fingers waggling his way. And, Paul will keep spying how Johnny is at a disadvantage in every manner possible, including from their instantly scornful teacher and via Paul's own parents' quick judgement. Read our full review. THE WONDER "We are nothing without stories, so we invite you to believe in this one." So goes The Wonder's opening narration, as voiced by Niamh Algar (Wrath of Man) and aimed by filmmaker Sebastián Lelio in two directions. For the Chilean writer/director's latest rich and resonant feature about his favourite topic, aka formidable women — see also: Gloria, its English-language remake Gloria Bell, Oscar-winner A Fantastic Woman and Disobedience — he asks his audience to buy into a tale that genuinely is a tale. In bringing Emma Donoghue's (Room) book to the screen, he even shows the thoroughly modern-day studio and its sets where the movie was shot. But trusting in a story is also a task that's given The Wonder's protagonist, Florence Pugh's nurse Lib Wright, who is en route via ship to an Irish Midlands village when this magnetic, haunting and captivating 19th century-set picture initially sees her. For the second time in as many movies — and in as many months Down Under as well — Pugh's gotta have faith. Playing George Michael would be anachronistic in The Wonder, just as it would've been in Don't Worry Darling's gleaming 1950s-esque supposed suburban dream, but that sentiment is what keeps being asked of the British actor, including in what's also her second fearless performance in consecutive flicks. Here, it's 1862, and 11-year-old Anna O'Donnell (Kíla Lord Cassidy, Viewpoint) has seemingly subsisted for four months now without eating. Ireland's 1840s famine still casts shadows across the land and its survivors, but this beatific child says she's simply feeding on manna from heaven. Lib's well-paid job is to watch the healthy-seeming girl in her family home, where her mother (A Discovery of Witches' Elaine Cassidy, Kila's actual mum) and father (Caolan Byrne, Nowhere Special) dote, to confirm that she isn't secretly sneaking bites to eat. Lib is to keep look on in shifts, sharing the gig with a nun (Josie Walker, This Is Going to Hurt). She's also expected to verify a perspective that's already beaming around town, including among the men who hired her, such as the village doctor (Toby Jones, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain) and resident priest (Ciarán Hinds, Belfast). The prevailing notion: that Anna is a miracle, with religious tourism already starting to swell around that idea, and anyone doubting the claim — or pointing out that it could threaten the girl's life and end in tragedy — deemed blasphemous. But arriving with experience with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War behind her, the level-leaded, no-nonsense and also in-mourning Lib isn't one for automatic piety. A local-turned-London journalist (Tom Burke, The Souvenir) keeps asking her for inside information, sharing her determination to eschew unthinking devotion and discover the truth, but the nurse's duty is to Anna's wellbeing no matter the personal cost. Lelio's opening gambit, the filmmaking version of showing how the sausage is made, isn't merely a piece of gimmickry. It stresses the power of storytelling and the bargain anyone strikes, The Wonder's viewers alike, when we agree to let tales sweep us away — and it couldn't better set the mood for a movie that ruminates thoughtfully and with complexity on the subject. Is life cheapened, threatened or diminished by losing yourself to fiction over fact? In an age of fake news, as Lelio's movie screens in, clearly it can be. Is there far too much at stake when faith and opinion is allowed to trump science, as the world has seen in these pandemic-affected, climate change-ravaged times? The answer there is yes again. Can spinning a narrative be a coping mechanism, a mask for dark woes, and a way to make trauma more bearable and existence itself more hopeful, though? That's another query at the heart of Alice Birch's (Mothering Sunday) script. And, is there a place for genuine make-believe to entertain, sooth and make our days brighter, as literature and cinema endeavours? Naturally, there is. Read our full review. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in Australian cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on August 4, August 11, August 18 and August 25; September 1, September 8, September 15, September 22 and September 29; and October 6, October 13, October 20 and October 27. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as Bullet Train, Nope, The Princess, 6 Festivals, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Crimes of the Future, Bosch & Rockit, Fire of Love, Beast, Blaze, Hit the Road, Three Thousand Years of Longing, Orphan: First Kill, The Quiet Girl, Flux Gourmet, Bodies Bodies Bodies, Moonage Daydream, Ticket to Paradise, Clean, You Won't Be Alone, See How They Run, Smile, On the Count of Three, The Humans, Don't Worry Darling, Amsterdam, The Stranger, Halloween Ends, The Night of the 12th, Muru, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, Black Adam, Barbarian, Decision to Leave, The Good Nurse, Bros and The Woman King.
A not-so-sleepy mining town known as the ‘capital of the outback’, Broken Hill has many stories waiting to be uncovered.Nice Dreams centres around one true story known as The Battle of Broken Hill: a tragic and bizzare event involving a persecuted halal butcher, his neighbour, a marijuana-peddling ice-cream vendor, and their attack on the entire British Empire, embodied in an unfortunate train carriage full of picnickers.Sumugan Sivanesan and Gustavo Böke’s reimagining of this event draws on both contemporary dialogues about terrorism and Broken Hill’s history of Australian genre film to transform this series of accidents into an absurdist comedy of hallucinations and confused dreams. If you happen to visit this exhibition at the right moment, you may even experience Sivanesan’s hilarious yet historically accurate narration or Böke handing out ice-creams in costume.
For four decades, The Shining has been responsible for many a nightmare — not only due to Stephen King's 1977 bestseller, which helped cement him as a horror maestro, but courtesy of Stanley Kubrick's unnerving and acclaimed 1980 film. If you've ever been spooked by twins, garish hexagonal hotel carpet designs, sprawling hedge mazes, elevators filled with blood, someone shouting "here's Johnny!" or just Jack Nicholson in general, you have this macabre masterpiece to thank. From parodies to homages to overt recreations, The Shining is also the unsettling gift that keeps giving. Everything from The Simpsons to Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Ready Player One has nodded the movie's way — as has documentary Room 237, which attempted to delve into its many secrets, meanings, theories and interpretations, too. But they've got nothing on the actual sequel to the eerie story. It picks up decades later, following the now-adult Danny Torrance as he tries to cope with the fallout from his supernatural gift. (Oh, and the memory of being terrorised by his axe-wielding dad as well.) In the first trailer for Doctor Sleep — which is based on Stephen King's 2013 novel of the same name — all work and no play made Danny (Ewan McGregor) something something. Perturbed, mainly, as he grappled with the trauma he experienced in The Shining. Then he met a mysterious teenager (Kyliegh Curran) who also has the gift, and things got creepier than a ghastly woman peering out of a bath or the word 'redrum' written on a mirror. The teaser was filled with references to the film's predecessor, naturally; however the just-dropped new sneak peak ramps up the nods even further. This time, Danny heads back to the Overlook Hotel to confront his past, and things get even more ominous. Rebecca Ferguson, Bruce Greenwood and Room's Jacob Tremblay also star, with The Haunting of Hill House's Mike Flanagan in the director's chair. While King was famously unhappy with Kubrick's take on The Shining — even writing the script for a three-part TV mini-series version in the 90s — here's hoping that he approves of Flanagan's vision. This is actually the filmmaker's second King adaptation, after Netflix flick Gerald's Game. Check out the latest Doctor Sleep trailer below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oCTK2U5lpc Doctor Sleep releases in Australian cinemas on November 7, 2019.
Tao Lin is one of those writers who has been described — occasionally with a weary rolling of the eyes — as a "voice of his generation". He is a writer whose style is Facebook-honed, irony-rich and heavy with pop culture references, a kind of writing in constant flux between a Ritalin-fuelled mania and an OxyContin slur. He is the product of an internet-shaped psyche. And he is also very, very good. Sometimes I buy books because of their titles alone. That's how I first came across Tao Lin. A young American writer born to Taiwanese parents, Lin is the author of the novella Shoplifting from American Apparel, the short story collection Bed, poetry collections cognitive-behavioural therapy and you are a little bit happier than i am, and the novels Richard Yates and Eeeee Eee Eeee. He is maddeningly prolific, having also founded the literary press Muumuu House and co-founded the film company MDMAfilms, and his writing gets published in all the right places — Vice, The Believer, Thought Catalog, The New York Observer, Gawker. As a lead-in event to the National Young Writers' Festival (held in Newcastle from 3-6 October), Lin will be speaking to Wilfred Brandt at Alaska Projects about his novel Taipei, with a slideshow of his photos from Taiwan. Taipei was published earlier this year and represents, by all accounts, a great leap forward for Lin. Not simply a catalogue of the various existential crises of Brooklyn's hipster class, Taipei is Lin at his peak. Earlier this year in an interview with Lin on KCRW's Bookworm, Michael Silverblatt called Taipei, "The most moving depiction of the way we live now," describing the book as "unbearably moving". And if that doesn't inspire you to head out to King's Cross on a late-winter evening, then I'm not sure we're going to be friends.
The art form of graffiti, one of the four sacred pillars of hip hop culture, has suffered a blow this week after Long Island City's epic aerosol art landmark, 5Pointz, the cathedral of cool, was whitewashed overnight. Who are the culprits that would destroy such a monument? Who would dare to deface creative defacement? None other than the building owners themselves, Jerry and David Wolkoff (which I choose to misread as Walkoff, as in, "It's a walk-off"). Also known as the Institute of Higher Burning, 5Pointz has for years drawn graffiti artists and appreciative crowds to Long Island City, and it's in good company, MoMA's PS1 being the other creative landmark in the area. 5Pointz curator Meres One had plans to turn the site into a museum and educational space, which certainly would have been both fitting and awesome, but those plans were dashed by the owners' envisioned residential redevelopment. The Wolkoffs have big plans for the site, hoping to erect a double high-rise apartment complex serving young New Yorkers and empty nesters. Is it another case of irreplaceable cultural riches sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed? Probably, although the Wolkoffs do pledge (via Twitter, anyway) large walls available for future graffiti art. In an ironic twist, the graffiti artists who painted 5Pointz did so with permits, but the whitewashing ninja attack was carried out completely sans permit. Thus, traditionally legal and illegal forms of public mark-making appear to have swapped places in this particular case. After months of local 5Pointz loyalists striving to get the building complex listed as a landmark in a last-ditch attempt to save it from being demolished, its fate now seems sealed. What is perplexing to everyone is why the Wolkoffs had to go and stealthily paint over the artwork, using police protection, in the small hours of the morning, rather than allow it to meet its end with dignity. It takes a sufficiently large and unguarded canvas, and a big creative community, to make something like 5Pointz. Hopefully its ilk can exist again. Check out the full report and all the devastating photographs at Hyperallergic. Below: 5Pointz in happier days.
One of the most popular events in Sydney for both the Islamic community and the city at large, Ramadan Nights is making its return to Haldon Street in Lakemba this month. Running for 31 nights between Tuesday, March 21–Thursday, April 20, the food and cultural festival will bring together more than 75 local businesses for a nightly feast between dusk and 3am each day, celebrating the most sacred month on the Islamic calendar. More than a million people are expected to visit the month-long festival, with many attendees travelling to southwest Sydney from interstate or overseas each year. "Last year, we saw more than 1.2-million visitors flock to the streets of Lakemba throughout the holy month of Ramadan. That's more than the Sydney Royal Easter Show!" said City of Canterbury Bankstown Mayor Khal Asfour. Asfour also praised the event for helping to facilitate Ramadan celebrations between families and friends, and for providing non-Muslim patrons with a culturally rich experience. "We're thrilled that the State Government have acknowledged the significance of this event, which means so much to not only our community, but to the abundance of tourists who are drawn from all over Australia." Visitors can expect food stalls serving up traditional dishes from Indonesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and many more international communities. Walk through and you'll find everything from shawarma and kaak to Syrian ice cream, knafeh and Lebanese coffee. The event is free, and there will be free shuttle buses running from 6.30pm–12.30am between Lakemba and both Campsie and Roselands to help accommodate the limited parking available. You can also catch the train via the T3 Bankstown Line to Lakemba Station if you're travelling from outside of southwest Sydney. If you're trying to beat the crowds, it's recommended that you head along on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, arriving early around dusk. Ramadan Nights Lakemba will run from dusk till 3am from Tuesday, March 21–Thursday, April 20. For more information, head to the Canterbury Bankstown City Council website.
There's something rather cool about being ahead of the curve when it comes to cinema, watching the latest and greatest flicks unfold on the silver screen well before anyone else. And at Australia's biggest short film festival, you can do just that. The internationally acclaimed Flickerfest is celebrating its 30th year come January 2021, too, so you can expect an A-class lineup of cinematic delights. The annual short film festival is Australia's leading Academy Award-qualifying short film fest, backed with BAFTA recognition, too. In January, you can catch screenings under the stars at the festival's new beachside home in the northern end of Bondi Beach Park. The outdoor deckchair cinema will be in a glam garden, supported by Waverley Council. And, this year, there'll also be an indoor cinema in the circus-style, mirrored tent The Famous Spiegeltent, which will be a spectacle to behold in itself. You can choose from a program of over 100 short flicks from Australia and around the world, handpicked as the most inspiring, provocative and entertaining among the whopping 2,700 submissions this year. The program is divided into categories, so you can catch all the flicks in the genres that interest you most — like comedy, romance, LGBTQIA+ and documentary films. Want to make a night of it? Drop by the festival's new pop-up garden bar for a pre- or post-show drink and pizza. Plus, there'll be an ultra-swish opening night gala and a wrap party which, for a few extra bucks, you can attend to be part of the action. After wrapping its ten-day stint in Sydney, Flickerfest will share the short film love, popping up at over 40 venues across the country between February and October. We've teamed up with Flickerfest to give away ten double passes. If you're keen to catch a flick for free, enter your details below. [competition]794395[/competition] To see the full Flickerfest 2021 program and grab tickets, head to the website. Flickerfest will run in Sydney from January 22–31, before touring nationally from February–October 2021.
Cook & Archies have survived the Surry Hills cafe scene for almost ten years. They're no spring chickens, but they've managed to lock down a tried and true brunch-happy formula that's made them a cornerstone of the area's culinary scene — if you know where to find 'em. If you're one to photograph your food, Cook & Archies is a flatlay-ers dream — rustic pans, wooden tables and pretty, hearty food (occasionally topped with fresh black truffle slices). Like many other cafes in Surry Hills, their coffee is blended by Single Origin Roasters. But unlike the rest, this may be one of the few cafes in the area with a designated brunch menu. Nice. Ruebens and porcini mushroom risotto make for the ultimate comfort food, or for something lighter you could opt for a breakfast wrap or a superfood smoothie. Can't really decide what you want? Bring a few friends and steal from their plates. Sharing is caring at C&A.
The former location of the urban myth-famous Murder Mall has undergone quite a transformation over the past four years. The mammoth Surry Hills Village development has added hundreds of stylish apartments, a retail and dining hub — Wunderlich Lane — and a luxury boutique hotel to the site, located on the border of Waterloo, Surry Hills and Redfern on Cleveland Street. Operated by TFE, the same hotel group who operate the multi-award-winning The Calile in Brisbane, The Eve will be tropical resort-style stay with 102 guestrooms and suites, and a sun-dappled rooftop swimming pool framed by palms and cabanas. The team behind popular Sydney restaurants The Gidley, Bistecca and The Rover has been tapped to deliver the hotel's hospitality offering, which will eventually include a rooftop bar and diner. The first of The Eve's venues to be revealed by Liquid & Larder, however, is an all-day diner and cocktail lounge, Bar Julius, located in the hotel's lobby. While Liquid & Larder's other ventures have typically leaned on a more traditional aesthetic, Bar Julius will be a departure, sporting a vibrant, airy look — including a mural-covered ceiling by Dinosaur Designs co-founder Louise Olsen — that chimes with the rest of the hotel's bright and breezy design language. Bar Julius will be a versatile space where hotel guests can start their day with a spot of breakfast or end their evening with a nightcap. The menu will stick to crowd-pleasing classics — think filled bagels and omelettes to order in the morning, and hearty dressed salads and gourmet burgers later in the day — and given that the burger at Liquid & Larder's CBD steakhouse The Gidley was recently ranked as Australia's best (and the 9th best in the world), it's likely to be a highlight of Bar Julius' food offering. The drinks offering is also broadly appealing yet underpinned by some creative flare. Notable riffs include the All Day Mary — a mingle of horseradish vodka, Melbourne Sake Co. sake, a house-made gazpacho blend combining tomato, cucumber and parsley oil and a blend of spices for a fiery reviver that can be enjoyed morning, noon or night. There's also the Crystal Mimosa – a clarified cocktail with all the flavours of the popular brunch tipple, poured tableside from a champagne bottle. "Bar Julius is inspired by European-style bistros of New York city where all day dining is prominent amongst a melting pot of guests from local residents, nearby workers and travellers," Liquid & Larder co-founder and director, James Bradey says. We are creating a space for people to gather, an atmosphere that is lively and warm, that channels European nostalgia with modern sophistication." The Eve and Bar Julius will welcome their first guests in January 2025. For more details visit The Eve's website.
Update Tuesday, June 7: Due to COVID-related concerns, this event has been rescheduled to Saturday, June 25 and Sunday, June 26. Long weekends are a real treat — an entire extra day to spoil yourself with relaxing activities, good food and even better company. Here to make your long weekend even better, I Should Be Souvlaki is celebrating its first birthday by giving away free signature wraps at their Newtown location to the first 50 food-loving customers across Queen's Birthday long weekend. I Should Be Souvlaki prides itself on an entirely plant-based menu that adheres to traditional Greek flavours. Think dairy-free tzatziki, warm pita, fresh salads and a Mediterranean herb mixture developed by co-owner Adam Papastathopoulos's yiayia (grandmother). "We're incredibly excited to be celebrating our first birthday here at I Should Be Souvlaki, Newtown. Opening a new venue just days before Sydney went into widespread COVID lockdowns last year was not part of our initial plan, but we've received overwhelming community support over the last twelve months, and this is an important shared milestone for our customers and our team alike," co-owner Emma Langley said. Available from midday on Saturday, June 25 and Sunday, June 26, the first 50 customers each day will be able to choose from marinated cauliflower, soy-based lamb, mushroom-based lamb or chick'n in their pita. If you miss out on the free goodies, you'll get a chance to spin a wheel for freebies like vegan cheesecake, upgraded meals and gift vouchers. "When people first try our menu, they can't believe that plant-based food can be so mouth-wateringly delicious yet still taste authentically Greek. We do not cut corners on flavour," co-owner Adam Papastathopoulos says.
It seems we cannot get enough of the world's most famous inflatable yellow duck. After wowing Sydney Festival-goers at the turn of the year, the 16.5 metre giant then sailed into Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour. When it suffered from a minor deflation, the internet went into overdrive. Now Florentijn Hofman's colossus has become the victim of Chinese censorship after an edited image of the notorious 1989 'tank man' picture emerged this week, mocking Chinese censorship of the June 4 Tiananmen Square massacre. We are electing to call this controversy 'Duckgate'. Whilst the photoshopping may seem like a joke and draws a laugh worldwide, it is actually representative of the primary form of protest that internet activists can take against Chinese censorship of that day. The events of that tragic day are unsearchable in China on Weibo, the nation's most popular microblog, with the Chinese Communist party (CCP) having banned searchable number combinations associated with the events. They also blocked any other words even remotely associated with the Tiananmen Square massacre, including simple adverbs such as 'tomorrow' if one searched on June 3 and 'today' on June 4, the 24th anniversary of the tragedy. 'Big yellow duck' swiftly joined the censored list on Tuesday afternoon as Weibo became aware of the new 'duck man' image, joining 'lego tank', which was banned after this artwork surfaced. The censorship is all due to the CCP fearing a threat to their legitimacy, because apparently pretending that something never happened does not threaten your legitimacy at all. Protests like Duckgate are thus important stances taken by online users to circumnavigate censorship and commemorate that day and those who stood up for what they believed in, even if China would have you believe that nothing happened. Images: Twitter/weibo.com/weibolg
Not all that long ago, the idea of getting cosy on your couch, clicking a few buttons, and having thousands of films and television shows at your fingertips seemed like something out of science fiction. Now, it's just an ordinary night — whether you're virtually gathering the gang to text along, cuddling up to your significant other or shutting the world out for some much needed me-time. Of course, given the wealth of options to choose from, there's nothing ordinary about making a date with your chosen streaming platform. The question isn't "should I watch something?" — it's "what on earth should I choose?". Hundreds of titles are added to Australia's online viewing services each and every month, all vying for a spot on your must-see list. And, so you don't spend 45 minutes scrolling and then being too tired to actually commit to anything, we're here to help. We've spent plenty of couch time watching our way through this month's latest batch — and, from the latest and greatest through to old and recent favourites, here are our picks for your streaming queue from June's haul. BRAND NEW STUFF YOU CAN WATCH IN FULL NOW I'M A VIRGO No one makes social satires like Boots Riley. Late in I'm a Virgo, when a character proclaims that "all art is propaganda", these words may as well be coming from The Coup frontman-turned-filmmaker's very own lips. In only his second screen project after the equally impassioned, intelligent, energetic, anarchic and exceptional 2018 film Sorry to Bother You, Riley doesn't have his latest struggling and striving hero utter this sentiment, however. Rather, it springs from the billionaire technology mogul also known as The Hero (Walton Goggins, George & Tammy), who's gleefully made himself the nemesis of 13-foot-tall series protagonist Cootie (Jharrel Jerome, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse). Knowing that all stories make a statement isn't just the domain of activists fighting for better futures for the masses, as Riley is, and he wants to ensure that his audience knows it. Indeed, I'm a Virgo is a show with something to say, and forcefully. Its creator is angry again, too, and wants everyone giving him their time to be bothered — and he still isn't sorry for a second. With Jerome as well-cast a lead as Atlanta's Lakeith Stanfield was, I'm a Virgo also hinges upon a surreal central detail: instead of a Black telemarketer discovering the impact of his "white voice", it hones in on the oversized Cootie. When it comes to assimilation, consider this series Sorry to Bother You's flipside, because there's no way that a young Black man that's more than double the tallest average height is passing for anyone but himself. Riley knows that Black men are too often seen as threats and targets regardless of their stature anyway. He's read the research showing that white folks can perceive Black boys as older and less innocent. As Cootie wades through these experiences himself, there isn't a single aspect of I'm a Virgo that doesn't convey Riley's ire at the state of the world — that doesn't virtually scream about it, actually — with this series going big and bold over and over. I'm a Virgo streams via Prime Video. Read our full review. BLACK MIRROR When Ron Swanson discovered digital music, the tech-phobic Parks and Recreation favourite was uncharacteristically full of praise. Played by Nick Offerman (The Last of Us) at his most giddily exuberant, he badged the iPod filled with his favourite records an "excellent rectangle". In Black Mirror, the same shape is everywhere. The Netflix series' moniker even stems from the screens and gadgets that we all now filter life through daily and unthinkingly. In Charlie Brooker's (Cunk on Earth) eyes since 2011, however, those ever-present boxes and the technology behind them are far from ace. Instead, befitting a dystopian anthology show that has dripped with existential dread from episode one, and continues to do so in its long-awaited sixth season, those rectangles keep reflecting humanity at its bleakest. Black Mirror as a title has always been devastatingly astute: when we stare at a TV, smartphone, computer or tablet, we access the world yet also reveal ourselves. It might've taken four years to return after 2019's season five, but Brooker's hit still smartly and sharply focuses on the same concern. Indeed, this new must-binge batch of nightmares begins with exactly the satirical hellscape that today's times were bound to inspire. Opening chapter Joan Is Awful, with its AI- and deepfake-fuelled mining of everyday existence for content, almost feels too prescient — a charge a show that's dived into digital resurrections, social scoring systems, killer VR and constant surveillance knows well. Brooker isn't afraid to think bigger and probe deeper in season six, though; to eschew obvious targets like ChatGPT and the pandemic; and to see clearly and unflinchingly that our worst impulses aren't tied to the latest widgets. Black Mirror streams via Netflix. Read our full review. GUY RITCHIE'S THE COVENANT Announcing his cinematic arrival with a pair of slick, witty, twisty and fast-paced British heist flicks, Guy Ritchie achieved at the beginning of his career something that many filmmakers strive for their whole lives: he cemented exactly what his features are in the minds of audiences. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch made "Guy Ritchie movie" an instantly understood term, in fact, as the writer/director has attempted to capitalise on since with differing results (see: Revolver, RocknRolla, The Gentlemen and Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre). Ritchie's third film, the Madonna-starring Swept Away, has also proven just as emblematic of his career, however. He loves pumping out stereotypical Guy Ritchie movies — he even adores making them Sherlock Holmes and King Arthur flicks, with mixed fortunes — but he also likes leaving his own conventions behind in The Man From UNCLE, Aladdin, Wrath of Man and now Guy Ritchie's The Covenant. Perhaps Ritchie's name is in the title of this Afghanistan-set action-thriller to remind viewers that the film does indeed boast him behind the lens, and as a cowriter; unlike with fellow 2023 release Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, they wouldn't guess otherwise. Clunky moniker aside, Guy Ritchie's The Covenant is pared down, gripping and intense, and home to two excellent performances by Jake Gyllenhaal (Strange World) as Master Sergeant John Kinley and Dar Salim (Tatort) as his interpreter Ahmed. As the former leads a team that's looking for IED factories, the pair's collaboration is tentative at first. Then a raid goes wrong, Ahmed saves Kinley's life, but the recognition and support that'd be afforded an American solider in the same situation doesn't go the local's way. Where Afghan interpreters who aid US troops are left after their task is complete is a weighty subject, and treated as such in this grounded and moving film. Guy Ritchie's The Covenant streams via Prime Video. FLAMIN' HOT How? In pop culture's current true-crime and murder-mystery trends, that's a key question, with audiences keen to discover how killers are caught — or sometimes aren't. It's also the query at the heart of another on-screen obsession of late: product films. These aren't the movies that turn every favourite character and premise possible into never-ending franchises, as seen in the many various caped-crusader universes. Rather, they're origin stories behind everything from games (Tetris) to shoes (Air) and mobile phones (BlackBerry), and they just keep arriving in 2023. Marking the feature directorial debut of Desperate Housewives actor Eva Longoria, Flamin' Hot is firmly a product film, as Cheetos fans will instantly know. If you've ever wondered how the Frito-Lay-owned brand's spiciest variety came about in the 90s — and became so popular — this likeable, energetically made movie provides the answer while itself rolling out a crowd-pleasing formula. Eating the titular snack while you watch is optional, but expect the hankering to arise either way. This story belongs to Richard Montañez — and it's also an underdog tale, and an account of chasing the American dream, especially when it seems out of reach. Flamin' Hot's pivotal figure (Jesse Garcia, Ambulance) started working at Frito-Lay to support his family, after living the gang life since high school to rebel against his dad, but he wants to be more than a janitor. His attempts to work his way up the company ladder falter not through his lack of trying or willingness to learn everything there is about making junk food, but due to a stratified hierarchy that doesn't reward his efforts. But, as he takes cues about the factory's operation from engineer Clarence (Dennis Haysbert, Lucifer), who also struggles to get promoted, he realises that chilli-flavoured Cheetos would be a smash within the Latino community. His ever-supportive wife Judy (Annie Gonzalez, Vida) is committed to helping, as are his family and friends in general — but if getting Frito-Lay CEO Roger Enrico (Tony Shalhoub, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel) onboard was easy or straightforward, there wouldn't be a film. Flamin' Hot streams via Disney+. BASED ON A TRUE STORY Murder-mystery comedies: everyone's making them, and on screens big (Knives Out and its sequel, See How They Run) and small (Only Murders in the Building, The Afterparty, Dead to Me). In fact, Based on a True Story star Kaley Cuoco has been in one lately thanks to two seasons of dark comedy-slash-whodunnit thriller The Flight Attendant. But the difference with the genre's latest streaming example is befriending a serial killer, which is the choice that Cuoco's pregnant real-estate agent Ava Bartlett and her just-fired tennis-coach husband Nathan (Chris Messina, The Boogeyman) make to chase a lucrative payday. How does palling around with the Westside Ripper, who has been terrorising Los Angeles, benefit the financially struggling couple? By making a podcast with them, as Australian-born creator and writer Craig Rosenberg (The Boys) finds his own way to riff on the Serial-sparked true-crime audio obsession. Ava is a devotee of folks talking about grisly deeds; if Only Murders in the Building existed in the Based on a True Story universe, she'd be its number-one fan. And, after working out that she and Nathan know the killer, it's her idea to hustle that information into what she hopes will be the next big podcast, all by enlisting said criminal to natter on with them. Based on a True Story clearly skews more darkly satirical than the fellow streaming series it most closely resembles — well, that and The Flight Attendant and also country-club comedy Red Oaks. It's messier as well, sometimes feeling like it's throwing in everything it can, and Cuoco could've easily walked out of her last series and straight into this. Still, with its love of twists, willingness to call out how the world's murder fixation is so rarely about the victims, and a well-cast lineup of talent that also includes Tom Bateman (Death on the Nile) and Liana Liberato (Scream VI), it's quickly addictive — yes, like the podcasts it's parodying. Based on a True Story streams via Binge. NEW SHOWS TO CHECK OUT WEEK BY WEEK DEADLOCH Trust Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan, Australia's favourite Kates and funniest double act, to make a killer TV show about chasing a killer that's the perfect sum of two excellent halves. Given their individual and shared backgrounds, including creating and starring in cooking show sendup The Katering Show and morning television spoof Get Krack!n, the pair unsurprisingly add another reason to get chuckling to their resumes; however, with Deadloch, they also turn their attention to crime procedurals. The Kates already know how to make viewers laugh. They've established their talents as brilliant satirists and lovers of the absurd in the process. Now, splashing around those skills in Deadloch's exceptional eight-episode first season lead by Kate Box (Stateless) and Madeleine Sami (The Breaker Upperers), they've also crafted a dead-set stellar murder-mystery series. Taking place in a sleepy small town, commencing with a body on a beach, and following both the local cop trying to solve the case and the gung-ho blow-in from a big city leading the enquiries, Deadloch has all the crime genre basics covered from the get-go. The spot scandalised by the death is a sitcom-esque quirky community, another television staple that McCartney and McLennan nail. Parody requires deep knowledge and understanding; you can't comically rip into and riff on something if you aren't familiar with its every in and out. That said, Deadloch isn't in the business of simply mining well-worn TV setups and their myriad of conventions for giggles, although it does that expertly. With whip-smart writing, the Australian series is intelligent, hilarious, and all-round cracking as a whodunnit-style noir drama and as a comedy alike — and one of the streaming highlights of the year. Deadloch streams via Prime Video. Read our full review. HIJACK Whether Idris Elba will ever get to play James Bond is still yet to be seen, but he resourcefully endeavours to save lives and bring down nefarious folks in Hijack, and adds another prime example of why he'd be excellent as 007 to his resume. This new series is also basically Idris Elba on a Plane, sans slithering snakes — or Idris Elba Cancels the London-Bound Apocalypse. Die Hard with Idris Elba, 24: Idris Elba: they fit as well. Fresh from battling lions in Beast, the Luther star plays Sam Nelson, a seasoned negotiator on his way home to the UK from Dubai, and a man who just wants to try to patch things up with his estranged wife Marsha (Christine Adams, The Mandalorian) and spend time with his teenage son Kai (Jude Cudjoe, Halo). Then fellow Brit Stuart (Neil Maskell, Small Axe) and his gun-toting team take over the aircraft before the first of the journey's seven hours is out, forcing Sam to play hero to try to keep himself and his fellow passengers alive. Unfurling in seven episodes, Hijack gets its audience experiencing the tension, chaos and life-or-death stakes in tandem with Sam, the rest of the flight's hostages, and the people on the ground across several countries that are attempting to work out what's going on. Creators George Kay (Lupin) and Jim Field Smith (Litvinenko) prove masterful with suspense, and at keeping viewers hooked — and, pivotally, at knowing exactly the kind of series this wants to be, the conventions and cliches it's leaning into, what's soared there before, and how to do it well. It can't be underestimated how crucial Elba is, though. Cast the wrong person as Sam, and the ability to get everyone from pilots and crew to agitated flyers, wannabe saviours and air traffic control on his side would seem ludicrous — and, at times, the hijackers as well. Hijack streams via Apple TV+. SECRET INVASION "I've had it with these Marvel tales without Nick Fury as the lead" isn't something that Samuel L Jackson has publicly uttered, with or without expletives — yes, more than a few things have Snakes on a Plane vibes this month (see also: Hijack above) — but viewers might've thought it over the past 15 years. The character that masterminded the Avengers Initiative initially appeared in 2008's very-first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. When Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 reached cinemas earlier in 2023, the franchise hit 32 cinema outings to-date, many with Fury playing a part. And yet, none have had his name in their moniker. That remains the case now, and on the small screen as well, where the MCU has also been spreading its exploits. Secret Invasion is still exactly what Marvel has needed for over a decade, however: a Fury-centric story. Perhaps Disney realises that, too; as well as bringing back Talos (Ben Mendelsohn, Cyrano), and introducing MI6's Sonya Falsworth (Olivia Colman, Empire of Light), insurrectionist leader Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir, One Night in Miami) and fellow revolutionary G'iah (Emilia Clarke, Last Christmas), Secret Invasion's first two episodes feature laments aplenty about Fury's absence. Within the ever-sprawling MCU's interconnected narrative, he's been AWOL lately for two reasons: The Blip, aka Avengers: Infinity War's consequential finger-snapping; and a stint since working in space, which'll get more attention when The Marvels drops on the silver screen in November 2023. Extraterrestrial race the Skrulls has noticed Fury's departure keenly, after he promised to help them find their own planet in Captain Marvel but hasn't followed through so far. Cue two factions of the shapeshifting refugees in Secret Invasion: those still waiting and others now willing to fight to take earth as their own instead. Cue far more Skrulls on Marvel's main base than humans, including Fury, know about as well. Secret Invasion streams via Disney+. Read our full review. THE CROWDED ROOM Since 2016, Tom Holland has been so busy doing whatever a spider can that stints away from his Marvel Cinematic Universe web-slinging have been few and far between. And varied, including the long-delayed (and terrible) Chaos Walking and the entertaining-enough Uncharted movie adaptation, plus straight-to-streaming flicks The Devil All the Time and Cherry. The Crowded Room boasts his best performance yet in his Spider-Man era, and provides a reminder that the star of The Impossible and The Lost City of Z, plus lover of dancing to Rihanna's 'Umbrella', will be absolutely fine when he stops pondering how great power begets great responsibility. His new ten-part series doesn't always meet its hefty ambitions, but it's always thoughtful in its attempts as it heads back to the 70s, spends time with a young man being interrogated about his past, explores mental health and, like most things of late, revels in being a mystery. Holland plays Danny Sullivan, who starts the serious jittering with nerves at New York City's Rockefeller Center. He's with Ariana (Sasha Lane, Conversations with Friends), they have a gun, and opening fire is their aim — but, although Danny doesn't want to shoot, he's swiftly in police custody. Lead cop Matty (Thomas Sadoski, Devotion) thinks that the public incident might just be the latest in a series of incidents. Enter Rya (Amanda Seyfried, The Dropout), who spends lengthy sessions interrogating Danny about his past as he awaits trial. The Crowded Room always remains a crime drama but, as it pieces together its protagonist's complicated story complete with glimpses of his doting mother Candy (Emmy Rossum, Angelyne) and abusive stepfather Marlin (Will Chase, Dopesick), it has much more on its mind. The twist in the premise is teased out, hardly difficult to guess, yet gives Holland ample room to turn in a compellingly pliable performance — in a series the brings 1981 non-fiction novel The Minds of Billy Milligan to the screen, albeit using it as inspiration rather than straight-out adapting it, a task that's been attempted since the 90s. The Crowded Room streams via AppleTV+. RECENT CINEMA RELEASES YOU NEED TO CATCH UP WITH ASAP ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED With photographer Nan Goldin at its centre, the latest documentary by Citizenfour Oscar-winner Laura Poitras is a film about many things, to deeply stunning and moving effect. In this Oscar-nominated movie's compilation of Goldin's acclaimed snaps, archival footage, current interviews, and past and present activism, a world of stories flicker — all linked to Goldin, but all also linking universally. The artist's bold work, especially chronicling LGBTQIA+ subcultures and the 80s HIV/AIDS crisis, frequently and naturally gets the spotlight. Her complicated family history, which spans heartbreaking loss, haunts the doco as it haunts its subject. The rollercoaster ride that Goldin's life has taken, including in forging her career, supporting her photos, understanding who she is and navigating an array of personal relationships, cascades through, too. And, so do her efforts to counter the opioid epidemic by bringing one of the forces behind it to public justice. Revealing state secrets doesn't sit at the core of the tale here, unlike Citizenfour and Poitras' 2016 film Risk — one about Edward Snowden, the other Julian Assange — but everything leads to the documentary's titular six words: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. They gain meaning in a report spied late about the mental health of Goldin's older sister Barbara, who committed suicide at the age of 18 when Goldin was 11, and who Goldin contends was just an "angry and sexual" young woman in the 60s with repressed parents. A psychiatrist uses the eponymous phrase to describe what Barbara sees and, tellingly, it could be used to do the same with anyone. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is, in part, a rebuke of the idea that a teenager with desires and emotions is a problem, and also a statement that that's who we all are, just to varying levels of societal acceptance. The film is also a testament that, for better and for worse, all the beauty and the bloodshed we all witness and endure is what shapes us. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed streams via Docplay. Read our full review. BLAZE In the name of its protagonist, and the pain and fury that threatens to parch her 12-year-old existence, Del Kathryn Barton's first feature scorches and sears. It burns in its own moniker, too, and in the blistering alarm it sounds against an appalling status quo: that experiencing, witnessing and living with the aftermath of violence against women is all too common, heartbreakingly so, including in Australia where one woman a week on average is killed by her current or former partner. Blaze has a perfect title, with the two-time Archibald Prize-winning artist behind it crafting a movie that's alight with anger, that flares with sorrow, and that's so astutely and empathetically observed, styled and acted that it chars. Indeed, it's frequently hard to pick which aspect of the film singes more: the story about surviving what should be unknown horrors for a girl who isn't even yet a teen, the wondrously tactile and immersive way in which Blaze brings its namesake's inner world to the screen, or the stunning performance by young actor Julia Savage (Mr Inbetween) in its central part. There are imagined dragons in Blaze, but Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, this isn't — although Jake (Josh Lawson, Mortal Kombat), who Blaze spots in an alleyway with Hannah (Yael Stone, Blacklight), has his lawyer (Heather Mitchell, Bosch & Rockit) claim that his accuser knows nothing. With the attack occurring mere minutes into the movie, Barton dedicates the feature's bulk to how her lead character copes, or doesn't. Being questioned about what she saw in court is just one way that the world tries to reduce her to ashes, but the embers of her hurt and determination don't and won't die. Blaze's father Luke (Simon Baker, Limbo), a single parent, understandably worries about the impact of everything blasting his daughter's way. As she retreats then acts out, cycling between both and bobbing in-between, those fears are well-founded. Blaze is a coming-age-film — a robbing-of-innocence movie as well — but it's also a firm message that there's no easy or ideal response to something as awful as its titular figure observes. Blaze streams via Stan and Binge. Read our full review. SHE SAID Questions flow freely in She Said, the powerful and methodical All the President's Men and Spotlight-style newspaper drama from director Maria Schrader (I'm Your Man) and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Small Axe) that tells the story behind the past decade's biggest entertainment story. On-screen, Zoe Kazan (Clickbait) and Carey Mulligan (The Dig) tend to be doing the asking, playing now Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey. They query Harvey Weinstein's actions, including his treatment of women. They gently and respectfully press actors and Miramax employees about their traumatic dealings with the Hollywood honcho, and they politely see if some — if any — will go on the record about their experiences. And, they question Weinstein and others at his studio about accusations that'll lead to this famous headline: "Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades". As the entire world read at the time, those nine words were published on October 5, 2017, along with the distressing article that detailed some — but definitely not all — of Weinstein's behaviour. Everyone has witnessed the fallout, too, with Kantor and Twohey's story helping spark the #MeToo movement, electrifying the ongoing fight against sexual assault and gender inequality in the entertainment industry, and shining a spotlight on the gross misuses of authority that have long plagued Tinseltown. The piece also brought about Weinstein's swift downfall. As well as being sentenced to 23 years in prison in New York in 2020, he's currently standing trial for further charges in Los Angeles. Watching She Said, however, more questions spring for the audience. Here's the biggest heartbreaker: how easily could Kantor and Twohey's article never have come to fruition at all, leaving Weinstein free to continue his predatory harassment? She Said streams via Netflix and Binge. Read our full review. Need a few more streaming recommendations? Check out our picks from January, February, March, April and May this year. You can also check out our list of standout must-stream 2022 shows as well — and our best 15 new shows of last year, top 15 returning shows over the same period, 15 shows you might've missed and best 15 straight-to-streaming movies of 2022.
In 1840 the Duchess of Bedford grew tired of that hunger-inducing interval between lunch and dinner, and to the benefit of humankind she invented the elaborate ritual of afternoon tea. Who doesn't like to while away an afternoon sipping tea and sampling a dazzling array of bite-sized treats extravagantly served on those three-tiered stands? But despite its traditional roots, the face of high tea is changing. No longer restricted to the retired and the rich, some of Sydney's best cafes, restaurants and dessert bars are plating up creative (both traditional and not-so) afternoon teas for every tea-swilling sweet lover to enjoy. From the cake-laden to the New Orleans-inspired, here are the best high teas in town.
Something delightful has been happening in cinemas in some parts of the country. After numerous periods spent empty during the pandemic, with projectors silent, theatres bare and the smell of popcorn fading, picture palaces in many Australian regions are back in business — including both big chains and smaller independent sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. During COVID-19 lockdowns, no one was short on things to watch, of course. In fact, you probably feel like you've streamed every movie ever made, including new releases, Studio Ghibli's animated fare and Nicolas Cage-starring flicks. But, even if you've spent all your time of late glued to your small screen, we're betting you just can't wait to sit in a darkened room and soak up the splendour of the bigger version. Thankfully, plenty of new films are hitting cinemas so that you can do just that — and we've rounded up, watched and reviewed everything on offer this week. THE FORGIVEN Patience is somewhat of a virtue with The Forgiven. It would be in it, too, if any of its wealthy white characters hedonistically holidaying in Morocco were willing to display the trait for even a second. Another addition to the getaways-gone-wrong genre, this thorny satirical drama gleefully savages the well-to-do, proving as eager to eat the rich as can be, and also lays bare the despicable coveting of exoticism that the moneyed think is an acceptable way to splash plentiful wads of cash. There's patently plenty going on in this latest release from writer/director John Michael McDonagh, as there typically is in features by the filmmaker behind The Guard, Calvary and War on Everyone. Here, he adapts Lawrence Osborne's 2012 novel, but the movie that results takes time to build and cohere, and even then seems only partially interested in both. Still, that patience is rewarded by The Forgiven's stellar lead performance by Ralph Fiennes, playing one of his most entitled and repugnant characters yet. Sympathies aren't meant to flow David Henninger's (Fiennes, The King's Man) way, or towards his wife Jo (Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye). Together, the spiky Londoners abroad bicker like it's a sport — and the only thing fuelling their marriage. Cruelty taints their words: "why am I thinking harpy?", "why am I thinking shrill?" are among his, while she counters "why am I thinking high-functioning alcoholic?". He's a drunken surgeon, she's a bored children's author, and they're venturing past the Atlas Mountains to frolic in debauchery at the village their decadent pal Richard (Matt Smith, Morbius) and his own barbed American spouse Dally (Caleb Landry Jones, Nitram) have turned into a holiday home. Sympathy isn't designed to head that pair's way, either; "we couldn't have done it without our little Moroccan friends," Richard announces to kick off their weekend-long housewarming party. But when the Hennigers arrive late after tragically hitting a local boy, Driss (Omar Ghazaoui, American Odyssey), en route, the mood shifts — but also doesn't. The wicked turns of phrase that David slings at Jo have nothing on his disdain for the place and people around him, and he doesn't care who hears it. His assessment of the desert vista: "it's very picturesque, I suppose, in a banal sort of way". He drips with the prejudice of privilege, whether offensively spouting Islamophobic remarks or making homophobic comments about his hosts — and he doesn't, nay won't, rein himself in when Richard calls the police, reports the boy's death, pays the appropriate bribes and proclaims that their bacchanal won't otherwise be disturbed. The arrival of Driss' father Abdellah (Ismael Kanater, Queen of the Desert), and his request that David accompanies him home to bury his son, complicates matters, however. While David begrudgingly agrees, insultingly contending that it's a shakedown, Jo helps keep the party going, enjoying time alone to flirt with hedge fund manager Tom (Christopher Abbott, Possessor). John Michael McDonagh hasn't ever co-helmed a feature with his filmmaker brother Martin, but actors have jumped between the duo's respective works, with Fiennes — who starred in Martin's memorable In Bruges — among the latest. The siblings share something else, too, and not just a knack for assembling impressive casts; they're equally ace at fleshing out the characters inhabited by their dazzling on-screen cohorts via witty and telling dialogue. The Forgiven plays like it's in autopilot, though, but having Fiennes, Chastain, Smith and Jones (who appeared in Martin's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) utter its lines is a gift. Indeed, here it's the attitudes captured while they're speaking, and the behaviours and mannerisms made plain in how they're speaking, that add layer upon layer to this murky affair. That'd ring true even if Driss, Abdellah and the tense journey with the latter to inter the former weren't even in the narrative. Read our full review. FULL TIME Perhaps the greatest trick the devil ever pulled — the devil that is time, the fact that we all have to get out of bed each and every morning, and the sleep-killing noise signalling that a new day is here — was to create alarm clocks in a variety of sounds. Some are quiet, soft, calming and even welcoming, rather than emitting a juddering screech, but the effect always remains the same. Whatever echoes from which device, if your daily routine is a treadmill of relentless havoc, that din isn't going to herald smiles or spark a spring in anyone's step. The alarm that kickstarts each morning in Full Time isn't unusual or soothing. It isn't overly obnoxious or horrifying either. But the look on Laure Calamy's face each time that it goes off, in the split second when her character is remembering everything that her day will bring, is one of pure exhaustion and exasperation — and it'd love to murder that unwanted wake-up siren. That expression couldn't be more relatable, as much in Full Time is, even if you've never been a single mother living on the outskirts of Paris, navigating a train strike, endeavouring to trade up one job for another for a better future, and juggling kids, bills, and just getting to and from work. At the 2021 Venice International Film Festival, Antoinette in the Cévennes and Call My Agent! star Calamy won the Best Actress award in the event's Horizons strand for her efforts here — and while the accolade didn't come her way for a single gaze, albeit repeated throughout the movie, it easily could've. Mere minutes into Full Time, it's plain to see why she earned herself such a prize beyond that withering gape, however. Calamy is that phenomenal in this portrait of a weary market researcher-turned-hotel chambermaid's hectic life, playing the part like she's living it. In our own ways, most of us are. The first time the alarm sounds, Julie Roy (Calamy) is already lethargic and frustrated; indeed, writer/director Eric Gravel (Crash Test Aglaé), who won the Venice Horizons Best Director gong himself, charts the ups and downs of his protagonist's professional and personal situation like he's making an unflagging thriller. In fact, he is. Julie is stretched to breaking point from the get-go, and every moment of every day seems to bring a new source of stress. For starters, her job overseeing the cleaning at a five-star hotel in the city is both chaotic and constantly throwing up challenges, and the hints dropped by her boss (Anne Suarez, Black Spot) about the punishment for not living up to her demands — aka being fired — don't help. Julie has put all her hopes on returning to market research anyway, but getting time off for the interview is easier said than done, especially when the French capital is in the middle of a transport strike that makes commuting in and out from the countryside close to impossible. Also adding to Julie's troubles is well, everything. The childcare arrangement she has in place with a neighbour (Geneviève Mnich, Change of Heart) is also precarious, thanks to threats of quitting and calling social services. Having any energy to spend meaningful time with her children at the end of her busy days is nothing but a fantasy, too. Trying to get financial support out of her absent ex is a constant battle, especially given he won't answer the phone — and the bank won't stop calling about her overdue mortgage payments. It's also her son Nolan's (J'ai tué mon mari) birthday, so there are gifts to buy, plus a party to organise and throw. Julie is so frazzled that having a drink with her best friend is a luxury she doesn't have time for, because some other task always beckons. And when a father from her village, the kindly Vincent (Cyril Gueï, The Perfect Mother), helps her out not once but twice, she's so starved of affection that she instantly misreads his intentions. Read our full review. MURDER PARTY With apologies to William Shakespeare, all the world isn't just a stage in French farce Murder Party. Instead, it's a game, then another one, then yet another after that. This candy-coloured murder-mystery takes perhaps the ultimate high-concept setup and hones in on a crucial fact: that audiences love whodunnits, whether they're watching them on the screen or reading them on the page, because charting the unravelling details entails sleuthing along. In other words, when we're wondering who killed who in which room and why (and with what weapon), we're playing. The board game Cluedo also nailed this truth, as have murder-mystery parties, plus the increasing array of other interactive shows and events that thrust paying participants into the middle of such puzzle-laden predicaments. And while Murder Party acknowledges this idea in a variety of manners, here's the first and simplest: it's set among a family famed for making best-selling board games themselves. First-time feature writer/director Nicolas Pleskof and his co-scribe Elsa Marpeau (Prof T) kickstart the film with a killer setup: that eccentric crew of relatives, their brightly hued home on a sprawling country estate, an usual task given to a newcomer and, naturally, a sudden passing. Architect Jeanne Chardon-Spitzer (Alice Pol, Labor Day) is asked to pitch a big renovation project to the Daguerre family, transforming their impressive abode so that living there always feels like playing a game (or several). Patriarch César (Eddy Mitchell, The Middleman) already encourages his brood to enjoy their daily existence with that in mind anyway, including dedicating entire days to letting loose and walking, talking and breathing gameplay. But he's looking for a particularly bold next step. He's unimpressed by Jeanne's routine proposal, in fact. Then he drops dead, the property's doors slam shut and a voice over the intercom tells the architect, plus everyone else onsite, to undertake a series of challenges to ascertain the culprit among them — or be murdered themselves. Also thrust into the high-stakes game, which'll dispense with anyone who refuses to take part or guesses incorrectly: César's son Théo (Pablo Pauly, The French Dispatch), daughter Léna (Sarah Stern, Into the World) and nudgingly named youngest boy Hercule (Adrien Guionnet, Le Bazar de la Charité). Yes, sibling rivalry complicates the hypothesising, as well as the attempts to stay alive. Théo is particularly friendly towards workaholic Jeanne, adding another complexity to the already-chaotic situation. Similarly at hand is the dead man's younger wife Salomé (Pascale Arbillot, Haute Couture) — a mystery writer herself — and his no-nonsense offsider sister Joséphine (Miou-Miou, The Last Mercenary). And, because a home this immense was always going to have some help hovering around, butler Armand (Gustave Kervern, Love Song for Tough Guys) gets drawn in, too. If Amelie and Knives Out combined, the end result would look like Murder Party. If Wes Anderson and Agatha Christie joined forces, the outcome would be the same. It's highly unlikely that Pleskof was ever going to call his feature Murder in the Game-Filled Mansion or Death While Rolling the Dice, but that's the overwhelming vibe. There's an escape room element, too — thankfully, though, nodding towards the Escape Room franchise isn't on the agenda. Murder Party's characters get stuck in intricately designed locked spaces and forced to piece together clues to secure their freedom, and are only permitted to remain breathing by keeping their wits about them, but no one's in a horror movie here. Read our full review. THE REEF: STALKED In the crowded waters of cinema's shark-attack genre, which first took a hefty bite out of the box office with mega hit Jaws and then spawned plenty of imitators since, a low-budget Australian effort held its own back in 2010. The second movie from writer/director Andrew Traucki after his crocodile-attack flick Black Water, The Reef wasn't ever going to rake in enough takings to threaten the larger fish, but the stripped-back survival-thriller was grippingly effective. As Black Water did with 2020's Black Water: Abyss, the creature-feature helmer's shark film has now be given a sequel — and like Traucki's other franchise, this followup is a routine splash. The filmmaker keeps most of the basics the same, casting out a remakequel, aka a movie about basically the same scenario but with different faces. No, Traucki isn't seeking a bigger boat, or even to rock the one he has. The Reef: Stalked does make one curious new choice, however, stemming from its nine-months-earlier prologue. The film's opening sequences set up quite the harrowing source of trauma for protagonist Nic (Teressa Liane, The Vampire Diaries), and also clumsily equate domestic violence with the ocean's predators in the process. The aim is to show how Nic and her youngest sister Annie (debutant Saskia Archer) refuse to become victims after their other sibling Cathy (Bridget Burt, Camp-Off) is stalked and savaged in a different way, devastatingly and fatally so, at the hands of her partner Greg (Tim Ross, Dive Club). Drawing attention to assaults against women and femicide is a worthy mission, but it lacks bite here. Traucki's metaphor is as clear as the sky on a cloud-free day, and yet the domestic abuse plot point primarily plays as a way to complicate Nic as a character — PTSD flashes and all — rather than make a meaningful statement about violence within intimate relationships. After finding Cathy herself, Nic is so understandably distressed that she heads as far away as she can, but returns from overseas for a big diving and kayaking trip that was important to her sister. With friends Jodie (Ann Truong, Cowboy Bebop) and Lisa (Kate Lister, Clickbait), as well as Annie — who isn't known for enjoying the water, let alone for handling herself on it — they embark on a multi-day paddle. It isn't long until a different sinister force terrorises their getaway, though; even if you don't already know what "the man in the grey suit" refers to in surfer slang, this is a shark-attack sequel, after all. Aside from the haunting shots taking Nic back to Cathy's last moments, everything about The Reef: Stalked plays out as expected from the moment the quartet set off from north Queensland. Cue the obligatory waves of jump scares, many efficiently staged but their impact lessening as they just keep coming in increasingly predictable ways (when shark flicks are happy to swim by the numbers, if you've seen one movie like The Reef, 47 Metres Down, The Shallows, Bait, The Meg and the like, it feels like you've seen them all). Cue the tension that springs from the film's characters rarely being close enough to the shore to escape — but, when it's convenient, being close enough for kids playing on the beach to become potential fodder. Cue a score by Mark Smythe (Love You Like That) that tells viewers exactly how to react at every moment, too, and dampens the thrills and frights as a result. Still, Traucki has cast The Reef: Stalked well, enough that buying Nic and company's life-or-death stress comes easily. Trusting them, rather than clunkily overcomplicating the setup — no matter how well-intentioned — might've resulted in a better return to The Reef. If you're wondering what else is currently screening in Australian cinemas — or has been lately — check out our rundown of new films released in Australia on April 7, April 14, April 21 and April 28; and May 5, May 12, May 19 and May 26; June 2, June 9, June 16, June 23 and June 30; and July 7, July 14 and July 21. You can also read our full reviews of a heap of recent movies, such as Fantastic Beasts and the Secrets of Dumbledore, Ambulance, Memoria, The Lost City, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Happening, The Good Boss, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, The Northman, Ithaka, After Yang, Downton Abbey: A New Era, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, Petite Maman, The Drover's Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Firestarter, Operation Mincemeat, To Chiara, This Much I Know to Be True, The Innocents, Top Gun: Maverick, The Bob's Burgers Movie, Ablaze, Hatching, Mothering Sunday, Jurassic World Dominion, A Hero, Benediction, Lightyear, Men, Elvis, Lost Illusions, Nude Tuesday, Ali & Ava, Thor: Love and Thunder, Compartment No. 6, Sundown, The Gray Man, The Phantom of the Open, The Black Phone, Where the Crawdads Sing and Official Competition.
For Beyond Cinema's latest immersive experience, it's letting you unleash your inner sleuth, explore a historic Sydney spot and follow in Leonardo DiCaprio's footsteps, when it recreates Martin Scorsese's mind-bending 2010 thriller Shutter Island. Your experience starts at Circular Quay, where you'll board a ferry headed to Manly's old Quarantine Station — which, for the purposes of the movie-themed fun, will be rebadged as Ashecliff Hospital circa 1954. That's where you'll find US Marshall Teddy Daniels. With his partner Chuck Aule, he's trying to find missing patient Rachel Solando. Actors will play the parts and, as you explore creepy sites and even a lighthouse, you'll help solve the mystery, too. If you've seen the flick, you'll know that everything won't be quite as it seems — so keep your wits about you. Once the interactive part of the event is over, you'll settle in to watch the end of the movie. If you're feeling thirsty or peckish, there'll be a bar onsite, plus food to buy. The Shutter Island Experience takes place on Sunday, November 17 across three four-hour-long sessions starting at 3pm, 4.30pm and 6pm, with tickets costing $85 per person.
Let's call it 'under the Sicilian sun': the plan that Airbnb has to send one lucky person to Italy for an entire year, that is. If that sounds like how you'd love to spend 12 months from June 30, 2022, the house-share platform is calling for applications. And yes, you'll get to bunker down in one of its rentals without paying a cent to stay there. Whoever wins Airbnb's latest promotion won't just be living in any old property, either. The townhouse up for grabs for a year has been dubbed '1 Euro House' — and it's been given a huge makeover by Airbnb and Italian architectural firm Studio Didea. Located in the rural village of Sambuca in Sicily, population around 6000, it's a three-storey, two-bedroom home that you'll get to both live and work remotely in. You will also need to play host, however, with the second bedroom set to be listed on the platform. You'll get your pick of your sleeping space, though — so you can opt for either the ground floor, which has a master bedroom with king-size bed and en-suite bathroom, plus a small living room; or the first floor, where the bedroom also boasts a king-size bed, and where the living room, kitchen, working space, bathroom and mezzanine also sit. The upper floor will remain accessible to both the competition winner and their Airbnb guests, and features an extra living space with a queen-size sofa bed. The whole promo is rather similar to its giveaway in 2021, when it offered 12 people and their pals free accommodation to hop between Airbnb properties for 12 months — and to work remotely while you're there, too. Unsurprisingly, more than 300,000 people applied. And yes, being able to do your job from this sweet Sicilian spot is still a focus of the new deal, as long as you can still meet your hosting duties and Airbnb's other requirements. The setup is open to applicants in a number of countries, including Australia and New Zealand — and having "a passion for the rural Italian culture and lifestyle" has been listed by Airbnb as a big plus. Also, this isn't just a win for you alone. You can bring a friend, your partner or family, up to a maximum of two adults and two kids. Your accommodation will be rent-free, and you have to commit to staying for at least three months. You'll also take an Italian language course for a month, plus four cooking classes hosted by a local mentor as part of your stay. Airbnb will pay for your flight to Sambuca as well, although you will have to cover the costs of both living at 1 Euro House and renting it on Airbnb — such as personnel, consumables, cleaning services and utility contracts, plus property maintenance. Keen? There's also the possibility that the arrangement could be extended until 2024, if you're looking for a heftier stint away from home. To apply, you'll need to head to the Airbnb website before Friday, February 18. For more information about Airbnb's 1 Euro House promotion — and to apply — head to the Airbnb website. Images: Claudia Zalla. FYI, this story includes some affiliate links. These don't influence any of our recommendations or content, but they may make us a small commission. For more info, see Concrete Playground's editorial policy.
Home to raindrop cakes, Nutella gyoza and salted caramel gyoza, Harajuku Gyoza clearly likes getting creative with its sweet treats. The chain is fond of trying out new things with its savouring dumpling range, too, as its experiment with mac 'n' cheese and pepperoni pizza versions showed — but it obviously has a soft spot for the kind of desserts you won't find on any old menu. Right now, the Australian gyoza brand is serving up a new menu item that turns lemon meringue into gyoza. You'll find lemon curd stuffed inside each dumpling, and mini meringues perched on top. And, if your stomach isn't already rumbling, they come crispy fried and dusted with icing sugar. Just like the chain's marshmallow gyoza from earlier this year, the lemon meringue dumplings are joining the chain's dessert lineup in plates of five, which'll cost you $10. And if you fancy tucking into the new gyoza after devouring two old favourites — cheeseburger gyoza, which is stuffed with burger pieces, aged cheddar, onion, pickles, mustard and tomato sauce; and mozzarella gyoza, which is filled with the obvious, then deep-fried and sprinkled with Twisties salt — that's up to you. Harajuku Gyoza's lemon meringue gyoza are now available at all Australian stores — at Darling Harbour in Sydney; at South Bank and the CBD in Brisbane; and in Broadbeach on the Gold Coast.
To lovers of bread everywhere: you've all gotten around the dipping breads, focaccia and naans of the world, giving them their fair share of time in the limelight. Now, it's time to shine a spotlight on roti in all of its glorious forms. An innovative roti-centric eatery has set up shop on the edge of the Sydney CBD. Tucked away in a cosy corner of Ultimo is Kafe Kooks, an out-of-the-ordinary casual spot that celebrates the flaky flatbread. Kookiness and rebellion is at the heart of this joint's purpose, with the venue paying homage to David Bowie by name, aiming to build an environment where the eccentrics, creatives and wild childs feel right at home. But whether you're headed in to join the roti revolution or are visiting for a lunch date, you are guaranteed to leave with a newfound appreciation of the previously untapped versatility of roti. Conceived by Andrew Ray, Kafe Kooks has brought his alliterative roti vision to Australian shores. Ray's menu pulls inspiration from a range of Asian influences, featuring food items from Indian, Indonesian, Singaporean and Chinese cuisines, to name a few. If you are trying out roti dishes for breakfast, keep your eyes peeled for the dippy eggs which comes with roti soldiers, the classic Sarang burung — a roti and egg take on a bird's nest with a side of sambal, and the eggs Florentine — served in a roti 'coin'. Take a look at the rest of the menu and you'll find you are spoilt for choice. The dishes range from curries and roti paratha wraps to Asian salads like gado gado, and grilled lamb souvlaki or wasabi prawns. For something different, opt for the madtarbak which is similar to a toasted sandwich. The beef and the curbano madtarbaks are highly recommended. You'll spot fusion dishes on the snacks menu, too, like the signature mooncake — roti paratha paired with luxe chicken liver parfait encased in whipped butter. And for something sweet to round out your meal, try the banana roti or the apple crumble. Pair your selection with a fresh coffee courtesy of Genovese coffee, a milkshake, the dairy-free coconut iced coffee, or a selection from the excellent Simon Says Juice range.
Everyone loves heading overseas for a holiday, but no one likes spending more time actually getting from point A to point B than they absolutely have to. So, before the pandemic grounded international getaways from Australia for the better part of two years, Qantas had been working to make stopovers a thing of the past — introducing direct flights from Perth to London, and exploring the possibility of doing the same from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. While those non-stop east coast legs are currently on hold, the Aussie airline has just announced a new direct trip — and the only flight that'll connect Australia to continental Europe. Between June and October 2022, the carrier will fly return from Perth to Rome three times a week. And yes, that timing is 100-percent aimed at letting Australians take full advantage of European summer holidays. The new flights will technically end and begin in Sydney, with a stopover in Perth — and they'll be more than three hours faster than the current quickest travel time from Australia to Rome. That means fewer hours spent in transit, and more to actually soak in Italy. It also means spending a big unbroken block of time in the air, which still sounds a bit like science fiction after so long without international travel. If that's your 2022 plans sorted — why just have an Australian summer when you can enjoy Europe's warmest season as well? — tickets for the new route have gone on sale, starting from $1785 return. The Sydney–Perth–Rome flights will debut on Wednesday, June 22, and are currently scheduled to run until Thursday, October 6. And, if you're keen to head elsewhere on the continent, you'll be able to use Rome as a connection point to fly to 16 other European destinations, including Athens, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Nice, Madrid and Paris — and 15 spots in Italy, Milan and Venice among them. Also, if you fancy flying into Rome but coming home from London, or vice versa, Qantas will let you combine the two direct routes on the one return ticket. Qantas' new Australia–Rome direct flights will fly from Wednesday, June 22–Thursday, October 6. For more information, or to book tickets, head to the airline's website.
The Colonel's finest chook pieces have helped line many a stomach before a big night out. They've proven tasty in the boozy early hours of the morning, too, and also when a hangover strike the next day. KFC isn't usually eaten at a nightclub, however, but the fast-food chain itself is changing that for one night only in Sydney. From the brand that's done 11-course fine-dining degustations, Peking Duk-led festivals, weddings, cocktails, ugly Christmas sweaters for humans and pets alike, and a soothing playlist of chicken frying and gravy simmering — which is genuinely relaxing — of course a place to hit the dance floor with KFC in hand is next on the list. Dubbed The Fried Side Club, it's popping up from 8pm–3am on Saturday, October 21 at a secret venue in central Sydney. And yes, it comes with free chicken. There'll be tunes, too, courtesy of Luude — which means hearing 'TMO (Turn Me On)' as well as his 'Down Under' remix — plus Kinder and Foura. So, you'll make shapes and eat chicken. If someone decides to give the 'Chicken Dance' a spin, it'd be mighty fitting. The Fried Side Club will also be selling KFC x Luude t-shirts and KFC footwear (yes, sliders will come in there, too) both at the club and online, with proceeds going to the Black Dog Institute, ReachOut Australia and Whitelion. The reason for KFC setting up a temporary nightclub is to launch Luude's Zinger sliders, a new menu item that's served in pairs featuring two varieties. One uses chilli relish, the other KFC's Supercharged sauce — and both include half a Zinger fillet. They'll be given out free all night at The Fried Side Club, so no need to grab dinner before showing up. "KFC has been a staple on the diet forever — so when they reached out to partner on a project, I was 100-percent keen," said Luude. "We're setting up a secret club that is a replica KFC store, you've even got to go through the fridge to get in — it's sounding wicked. They've also let me create a secret menu item too, so you'll be able to ask for Luude Zinger sliders all over Australia. A childhood dream collab." If you're eager to head along, you'll need to grab a ticket, which are available from 9am AEDT on Wednesday, October 4. Everyone who nabs a spot will be told the secret location 48 hours out. And if you just want to try Luude's Zinger sliders without experiencing a KFC nightclub, they're available from now until Monday, October 30 via the secret menu on the KFC app. The Fried Side Club will pop up from 8pm–3am on Saturday, October 21 at a secret venue in central Sydney — get tickets from 9am AEDT on Wednesday, October 4.
As a teenager, a frozen coke or a slushie from the local fast food joint or convenience store was an essential part of any trip to the beach. Waterside spot Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel is introducing the adult version of the beach slushie to the eastern suburbs. Partnering with Don Julio Tequila, the hotel bar is offering up margarita and paloma slushies for the remainder of the year. For $14, you can pick up a frozen margarita, made with tequila, orange liqueur and lime; a frozen paloma, made with tequila, grapefruit soda and lime; or mix the two together to create what has been branded the margaloma. The pop-up slushie bar has been running out of the hotel's beach club since Saturday, November 7 and will run until Friday, January 1. The beach club offers ocean views as well as a breakfast, lunch and dinner menu that includes seafood, pasta, burgers and salads you can enjoy alongside the frozen cocktails. To ensure you get your hands on a margaloma this summer, book a table at the Beach Club.
Add another huge festival to your calendar, and thank Norwegian DJ Kygo in the process. Not only is the 'Stole the Show', 'Here for You', 'Stay' and 'It Ain't Me' talent one of the headliners at Palm Tree Music Festival when it makes its Australian debut in 2023 — the former bedroom producer is also behind the whole shindig, creating it with his manager Myles Shear. Until now, the fest has played The Hamptons, New York, Cabo, Mexico and Croatia, and proven a hit in the process. Next year, it'll add a trip Down Under to its itinerary for the first time ever, rolling into Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne in mid-March. While Kygo brings the fest some sizeable star power, he's not its only high-profile DJ doing the honours for the event's maiden Aussie run. Also hitting the decks is Tiësto, aka one of the biggest names in electronic music in the world for the past couple of decades. From initially getting mainstream attention back in 2000 with his remix of Delerium's 'Silence' through to his 2020 hit 'The Business' and 2022's Charlie XCX collaboration 'Hot In It' — and plenty in-between — the Dutch DJ will have quite the back catalogue of tracks to mix into his set. With its holiday-friendly name, it should come as no surprise that Palm Tree Music Festival takes inspiration from Kygo's stints touring the world. Expect a cruisy vibe set to EDM's greatest and latest, too. Also joining the bill so far, heading to Showgrounds Dome in Sydney, Brisbane's Riverstage and Melbourne Showgrounds: Lost Frequencies, Sam Feldt and Frank Walker. A lineup of local talent will be announced at a later date. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Palm Tree Music Festival (@palmtreefestival) PALM TREE MUSIC FESTIVAL 2023 AUSTRALIAN LINEUP: Tiësto Kygo Lost Frequencies Sam Feldt Frank Walker PALM TREE MUSIC FESTIVAL 2023 AUSTRALIAN DATES: Friday, March 10 — Showgrounds Dome, Sydney Saturday, March 11 — Riverstage, Brisbane Sunday, March 12 — Melbourne Showgrounds Palm Tree Music Festival heads to Australia in March 2023. Tickets presales start at 11am AEDT on Friday, October 14, with general sales from 10am AEDT on Thursday, October 20. For more information, head to the festival promoter's website. Top image: Ss279 via Wikimedia Commons.
Whether you're a groover and shaker yourself or your favourite posi is in a comfortable seat in a dark theatre, witnessing beautifully controlled bodies seamlessly transition through shape after shape is a sight to behold. We've teamed up with LG SIGNATURE and Sydney Dance Company to gift two lucky Sydneysiders a prize that will see them moving that body with beats in their ears, stat. Down in Walsh Bay, Sydney Dance Company's large airy studios await students of all levels. The lineup of studio classes includes beginner hip hop, ballet and contemporary, pilates and conditioning classes — plus heels, tap and Latin funk. And taking the company's art a step further? Technology. With the support of LG SIGNATURE premium technology, 16 in-studio classes are livestreamed from the harbourside studios each week. Dining chairs become ballet barres, pilates mats rolled out in living rooms, as famed and favourite teachers instruct from afar. It's a happy marriage of technology and art that delivers the chance to express yourself — no matter where you are. A pass to one of these innovative at-home dance classes will set you back $18 (or score a saving with a 10-class pack). Though, if you're red-hot keen to bop your way to greater strength, flexibility and sky-high moods, the Livestream Plus+ membership is for you (providing unlimited access to both livestream and pre-recorded classes — many headed up by Sydney Dance Company's leading talents). At CP, we're keen appreciators of the creative excellence born from fusing art and technology, so it's exciting to partner up with LG SIGNATURE and Sydney Dance Company to gift two prize packs that celebrate that very same fusion (with the tech courtesy of the LG F9P wireless earbuds). Looking to get groovy? Enter below. LG SIGNATURE is a proud partner of Sydney Dance Company and a supporter of the wider arts community. Head to the website to learn more. [competition]864614[/competition]
Sydney dining institutions reign supreme, as Sepia, Momofuko Seiobo, Quay and Rockpool stubbornly held onto their three-hatted status at the SMH Good Food Guide Awards, announced last night. Upon accepting their hat-trifecta, the team behind Momofuko Seiobo suggested that they’ve done pretty well "despite being at the arse end of a casino". It’s been an exceptionally good year for Martin Benn’s Sepia, not only retaining the much-coveted three hats but also claiming the prestigious Vittoria Coffee Restaurant of the Year for the third time. The Sussex Street establishment set the benchmark, with Vicki Wild also snapping up the Service Excellence Award. As of last night, Rockpool’s Neil Perry has reached an impressive total of 100 notches (hats) on his apron belt (strings). As the ‘most hatted man in Australia’, Perry has more torques than he can possibly put atop his head. Meanwhile, maverick restaurants Ester and Bentley Restaurant & Bar leapfrogged into the limelight, taking out two torques despite it being their debut into the Guide’s awards category. Chippendale’s Ester, with its lauded woodfire oven and chief Guide reviewer Terry Durack’s love affair with the cauliflower, was given the additional honour of New Restaurant of the Year. Ester better be ready, as the phones are going to be ringing non-stop from today. Another big prize, Chef of the Year, was presented to chef and restaurateur Brent Savage. Savage has taken dining to new heights across his medley of restaurants: Bentley Restaurant & Bar, Monopole and Yellow. The fast-paced growth of the industry is clear, with 80 new places added to the Guide for 2015. The efforts of several Sydney newbies were rewarded with a new, shiny badge, including CBD’s Alpha, Redfern’s Moon Park, Surry Hills' Nomad and Potts Point's Cho Cho San. The Innovation Award went to Finnish-born chef Paci Petanen who’s behind the chic pop-up restaurant Cafe Paci in Darlinghurst, which was also promoted to one-hat status. Notable elevations of Sydney restaurants to the enviable two-hat category include the consistently impressive Porteno and sixpenny. However, it wasn’t all smiles and handsomely hatted high fives. High-end restaurants Buon Ricardo, Four in Hand Dining Room, Longrain and MoVida were demoted — a move down from the prestigious two hats to a single marker. Ananas Bar and Brasserie and Popolo were completely stripped of their one-hat position. This year’s up-and-coming star is the dapper and unassuming Julian Cincotta (sous chef at Nomad). At 28 years old Cincotta has secured the Young Chef of the Year, which has a strong history of picking new talent who have then gone on to make big changes in Sydney’s dining scene. “I’m so ecstatic”, says Cincotta. “I’ve got a lot of friends who have won it and I look up to them so dearly, and they’ve gone on to do such great things. Just to be a part of that tradition is just amazing”. As part of the award Cincotta receives an airfare to Europe and some serious spending money. “It's an opportunity to go overseas, to work and to eat out," he says. "I haven’t been to Europe yet, I just want to see the old-world cooking — the pickling, the smoking and the curing. I just want to go see little grandmas making cheese on the side of the road, and get her to make me gnocchi for dinner." Each year the Guide highlights the latest of what’s happening in Sydney’s restaurant scene, for 2015 there have been some notable trends. In terms of cooking techniques this year has brought us woodfiring, chargrilling, pickling, smoking, fermenting and baking. Popular ingredients on the scene include pork cheek, ancient grains and garnishings of seaweed or succulents. Then there’s the unquestionable catch phrase du jour: “these dishes are designed to share”. A breakfast trend that Tom Gleeson (the MC of the evening, comedian and top-notch Aussie bloke) raised as an issue was the ubiquitous ‘smashed avo on toast’. He queried with grave concern, “When did we start abusing avocados?”. Here's the full list of hats for 2015: THREE HATS Momofuko Seiobo, Quay, Rockpool, Sepia TWO HATS ARIA Restaurant, Bentley Restaurant & Bar, Berowra Waters Inn, The Bridge Room, est., Ester, Gastro Park, Icebergs Dining Room & Bar, Lucio’s Italian Restaurant, Marque, Mr. Wong, Ormeggio at the Spit, Pilu at Freshwater, Porteno, Rockpool Bar & Grill, sixpenny, Spice Temple, Tetsuya’s ONE HAT 4Fourteen, Aki’s Indian Restaurant, Alpha, The Apollo, Arras, Bar H Dining, The Bathers’ Pavilion, Billy Kwong, Bistro Moncur, Bistrode CBD, BLACK by Ezard, The Boathouse on Blackwattle Bay, Bodega, Buon Ricordo, Cafe Paci, Cafe Sopra, Catalina, China Doll, Cho Cho San, Clareville Kiosk, Cottage Point Inn, the devonshire, Farmhouse, Felix, Fish Face, Flying Fish Restaurant & Bar, Four in Hand Dining Room, glass brasserie, Hartsyard, Jonah’s Restaurant, Kepos Street Kitchen, Longrain, Lox Stock & Barrel, Monopole, Moon Park, MoVida, Ms.G’s, Nomad, Oscillate Wildly, Osteria Balla, Osteria di Russo & Russo, Otto Ristorante, The Restaurant Pendolino, Sake Restaurant & Bar, Sean’s Panaroma, Sokyo, sushi e, Three Blue Ducks, Uccello, Ume Restaurant, Vincent, Vini, Yellow
