Rebel Wilson clearly has an enormous amount of affection for the girl groups that soundtracked her formative years. Spice Girls, All Saints, Destiny’s Child and The Pussycat Dolls all hover over Girl Group, a bright, loud and relentlessly enthusiastic musical comedy that wants to bottle the particular euphoria of watching a group of women harmonise,…
Hayley Williams is bringing The Hayley Williams Show to Australia for the first time, with two special headline performances confirmed for Sydney and Melbourne in February 2027. The Paramore frontwoman will take over Sydney’s Enmore Theatre on Wednesday, 10 February, before heading to Melbourne’s Forum on Wednesday, 17 February. An incredible opportunity for fans to…
Technology may have finally achieved what decades of law enforcement couldn’t: put expert pickpocket Harry Lehman out of business. Nobody carries cash anymore. Phones can be tracked. Credit cards can be cancelled before you’ve even made it to the next subway stop. For the wonderfully weathered criminal at the centre of Noah Segan’s The Only…
I reviewed Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 when it launched in 2023, and thought that while those games could have used a nicer 1080p polish, they still hold up incredibly well on modern platforms. Not to mention the clean menus, loads of bonus content and even some older original NES titles, it’s a no-brainer…
They’ve spent more than two decades touring the world, but Simple Plan still have a pretty special relationship with Australia. It’s a relationship that goes back to the very beginning. Before the Canadian pop-punk favourites had cemented themselves as one of the genre’s most enduring acts, Australia was one of the places where things started…
PAX Aus 202 is right around the corner, taking place over the weekend from October 9-12 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. This year feels crazier than ever, with new games to try, esports to watch, creators to chat to, interactive experiences to join and goodies to buy. SEGA will have four playable titles…
We have given our Discovery playlist another refresh with ten more of the best new tracks from across Australia and the world, including two we premiered on our pages earlier this week. Boorloo-based artist Clare Perrott is our Track of the Week, with her gorgeous ode to friendship “How Can I Tell You?”. “How Can…
History has a funny way of remembering partnerships as individual achievements. Ask who first reached the summit of Mount Everest and Edmund Hillary’s name will likely arrive before Tenzing Norgay’s, despite the two men standing together atop the world’s highest mountain on May 29th, 1953. Jennifer Peedom’s Tenzing seeks to redress that imbalance, shifting the…
Triptych at the Sydney Opera House is a celebration of movement and light, told through three short works: Prologue, Unfolding and Epilogue. Artistic Director and choreographer Lewis Major comments that the three pieces are “built from the simple wish to keep making.” But there is nothing simple about Triptych. Prologue sets the tone of the…
For Darcie Haven, music has always been about finding connection in places where it is not always easy to find. Growing up in Esperance, Western Australia, there was not exactly a thriving live music scene on her doorstep. Now, just a few years into her career, Haven has built a dedicated fanbase of listeners, shared…
The most inspired decision Zach Cregger makes with Resident Evil is also, on paper, one of the strangest: he doesn’t particularly seem interested in making a Resident Evil movie. At least not in the traditional adaptation sense. There’s no slavish recreation of a beloved game narrative, no parade of familiar characters waiting for applause, and…
It was almost inevitable that Frances Neagley would earn her own series. From the moment Maria Sten first appeared opposite Alan Ritchson’s human brick wall in Reacher, she proved one of the few characters capable of matching his intimidating competence without feeling like she had been engineered purely to keep up with him. She was…
Frances Neagley has never needed much introduction. Across Reacher, Maria Sten’s fiercely self-sufficient private investigator proved such a commanding presence that giving the character her own spotlight felt less like a gamble and more like an inevitability. But Neagley isn’t interested in simply replicating the formula of its parent series. Instead, it takes a character…
There’s an inherent challenge in spinning a supporting character off from a series as successful as Reacher. Frances Neagley (Maria Sten) has already proven herself a fan favourite, but the qualities that make a character compelling in concentrated doses don’t necessarily translate to carrying an entire series. For creator and showrunner Nick Wootton, the answer…
Frances Neagley may be the name above the door, but Neagley quickly expands its world beyond the formidable private investigator audiences came to know through Reacher. As a suspicious death from her past pulls Neagley (Maria Sten) into an increasingly dangerous investigation, she crosses paths with Keno (Jasper Jones) and Renee Birdwhistle (Adeline Rudolph), two…
Meanjin/Brisbane indie-rock artist Harley is preparing to release his debut EP, You’re The One I’ll See At Home, this Friday, 18 September, and today we’re stoked to be giving you an exclusive first listen. Harley is no stranger to the AU review. Back in June, we premiered “Tell Me You Love Me”, one of the…
In her song, “Hindsight”, Ruby Mae looks back on her life, reflecting on the uncertainty of young adulthood, pursuing a music career, and feeling “lost” in her 20s. However, in the chorus, she reminds herself that at the end of the day she’s “moving on”, singing, “I’ve caught flights and I’ve been gone… I know…
For several seasons of Slow Horses, Sid Baker has existed almost like a ghost. Shot in the head during the first season and subsequently presumed dead, the capable MI5 agent disappeared from Slough House, leaving River Cartwright – and audiences – without any real sense of closure. But Sid wasn’t dead. She was simply living…
Martin McDonagh has long been fascinated by men who would sooner insult, maim or murder one another than admit they actually care. Friendship in his films is rarely expressed through anything resembling conventional affection; it arrives through arguments, threats, profanities and, occasionally, the reluctant acknowledgement that losing someone might hurt considerably more than expected. It…
If the modern media landscape increasingly feels like a race to see who can shout the loudest, frighten the most people, or manufacture the most irresistible headline, Ink is an electrifying reminder that none of this happened overnight. In adapting James Graham’s acclaimed stage play, director Danny Boyle traces such sensationalism back to the smoke-filled…
Good Things Festival is once again bringing us a massive celebration of alternative music this December, with the 2026 edition landing at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne on Friday December4, Sydney Showgrounds on Saturday December 5 and Brisbane Showgrounds on Sunday December 6. Headlined by Limp Bizkit, the lineup also features Simple Plan, Spiritbox, Bad Religion,…
It’s always special to reconnect with an artist whose journey we’ve been following from the beginning. Back in 2019, the AU review premiered BB Sabina’s debut single, “Feast”, so it’s a genuine thrill, seven years later, to be premiering their new album, Dissolve. A lot has changed in those intervening years. Singer and songwriter Beth…
Universal Studio Hollywood’s highly anticipated new roller coaster Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift officially opens tomorrow, 16th September, and I was lucky enough to ride it last week amidst a summer of technical rehearsals. It’s the first outdoor thrill-coaster the Los Angeles park has ever seen, with the park’s rides typically leaning into the more…
Once upon a time, circa 2019, four young musicians, Ned, Ethan, Bec, and Van, headed out to a Twin Peaks concert in Melbourne. They met unexpectedly and decided to start a band, right there and then. Thus, Stimpies was born. “We were very refreshed to see and meet other people that were interested in the…
Thirty years after the release of If You’re Feeling Sinister, Belle and Sebastian proved that some albums become woven into the fabric of your life. You might not have listened to it for 20 years, but somehow you still know every word, the tracklisting and, as frontperson Stuart Murdoch delighted in testing the audience, exactly…
Charm can be its own form of menace in God Bless You, Mr Kopu, the feature debut of Tongan Kiwi writer-director Alex Liu, a darkly funny, increasingly sinister thriller that uses the seductive promise of success to explore power, race and belonging. Mafu (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is a struggling Tongan immigrant whose fortunes seemingly change when…
Eora/Sydney indie-rock outfit The Tambourine Girls have returned with their fourth album, Hold Your Horses, a beautifully melodic record shaped by loss, friendship and the process of finding a way forward. At its emotional core is the death of much-loved band member and close friend Nick Weaver, but Hold Your Horses never feels weighed down…
Community theatre is an inherently strange little ecosystem. It’s a place where people with wildly different levels of talent, ambition and self-awareness come together and, for a few fleeting nights, treat a modest suburban stage as if they’re opening on Broadway. For some it’s a hobby. For others it’s a calling. And for the particularly…
I first saw Empire of the Sun at the Sydney Opera House in 2013. On the way out, I turned to my partner and said, “If you didn’t love that show, there’s something wrong with you.” I’ve caught them every time I’ve had the opportunity since, and the sentiment remains. Empire of the Sun transport you…
Friendships don’t necessarily end with an argument or betrayal. Sometimes life simply starts pulling two people in different directions, and the fear of what might be lost along the way can prove just as painful. That anxiety sits at the emotional centre of DreamWorks Animation’s Forgotten Island, a vibrant fantasy adventure that sends lifelong best…
