When Violent Night arrived in 2022, it felt like the cinematic equivalent of finding a lump of coal that somehow turned out to be the perfect Christmas gift. Tommy Wirkola’s gleefully blood-soaked action-comedy paired David Harbour’s weary Santa Claus with outrageous festive carnage, but beneath the shattered ornaments and sharpened candy canes was an unexpectedly…
After proving that Santa Claus could dispatch mercenaries with the same ease he delivered presents, director Tommy Wirkola‘s Violent Night earned an unlikely place alongside the festive classics many audiences return to every December. Beneath the gloriously excessive violence and gleefully inventive action was a surprisingly sincere Christmas story, one that found David Harbour’s weary…
For an artist as culturally omnipresent as Charli XCX, Erupcja is a fascinating first major acting vehicle; yes, depending on when you’re seeing this, she has been seen across such features as The Moment (which shouldn’t really count as she was essentially playing herself), Faces of Death and I Want Your Sex, but Erupcja was…
Dash cams have quietly shifted from nice-to-have gadgets to essential vehicle insurance policies on Australian roads. Uniden’s latest offering, the iGO Cam 63R, sets out to solve the biggest dilemma in the market: how to get legitimate 4K front coverage and crisp rear recording without shelling out top-dollar cash. With an RRP of $300, the…
When Ted Lasso concluded its third season, it felt less like a television finale than a heartfelt farewell. It was the kind of ending that seemed content to leave AFC Richmond exactly where audiences hoped it would: bruised, wiser and full of possibility. So the announcement of a fourth season inevitably raised the question every…
New York City’s famous Top of the Rock represents its limitless ambitions in many ways that Manhattan’s other observation decks cannot. And I can qualify that by looking at how warm and energising the feeling of nostalgia is. Whether it’s your first time up to the iconic deck, or your fifth, you’ll know that feeling….
Twenty-five years after Super Troopers transformed a group of sketch comedians into unlikely cult icons, Broken Lizard still hasn’t grown up. Thankfully. If anything, Super Troopers 3 proves they’ve become even more comfortable embracing the wonderfully bizarre universe they’ve built. What began as a relatively grounded story about Vermont state troopers amusing themselves on lonely…
Gothic 1 Remake is a full ground-up remake of an action-RPG that originally debuted back in 2001. That era was defined by hardcore, uncompromising RPG design; games rarely offered quest markers or hand-holding to assist with progression, actively demanding players struggle through early hours to earn a sense of growth. Twenty-five years later, times have…
When you think of cosy fantasy, you think of Travis Baldree – or more precisely, his novel Legends and Lattes, which introduced so many readers to the genre. His latest work Brigands and Breadknives continues this sweet trend, but with a little twist. It keeps the comforting vibes going, but with an added dash of…
Some films confront difficult subject matter. Blue Film traps you in a room with it and refuses to let you look away. Writer-director Elliot Tuttle‘s feature debut begins with deliberate provocation. Aaron Eagle (Kieron Moore), a successful Los Angeles camboy, performs dominance for an online audience, weaponising confidence, humiliation and carefully cultivated bravado as part…
Few actors have built a career as fascinatingly varied as Rebecca De Mornay. For many, she’ll forever be synonymous with Risky Business or the unforgettable menace of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, but her filmography reveals an artist who’s consistently gravitated toward women of intelligence, mystery and quiet strength, whether in prestige dramas, thrillers…
Bourbon is more than simply a drink in Kentucky. It’s a way of life. More than 95% of the world’s bourbon is produced in the Bluegrass State, with distilleries located everywhere from the rolling hills around Bardstown to the banks of the Ohio River. But for much of the last century, the state’s biggest city…
In Natalie Conyer’s latest crime novel, Finding the Bones, a cold case is thrust back into the spotlight when the remains of Belle Fitzgerald, a young heiress and housing activist, are discovered buried above another grave. Told between the past and present, the story follows Belle’s final months in 1980s Kings Cross, which she spends…
I feel like it’s been awhile since we’ve really seen a dining series of this size and scale. Given the popularity of annual events like Good Food Month, it’s a surprise we’ve had to wait this long for a new program of food and drink events to dance around Australia’s capital cities and elevate the…
On one of Sydney’s coldest nights of the year, a crowd wrapped in flannel shirts, heavy boots and teeny, weeny beanies packed into the Enmore Theatre for the final Australian show of Silversun Pickups‘ long-awaited return tour. It may have been freezing outside, but inside the theatre there was plenty to keep fans warm. Opening…
Jane Schoenbrun has always understood that the things we watch can become part of us. In We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, the internet offered both escape and danger. In I Saw the TV Glow, television became a portal into a life its characters could barely admit they wanted. Their latest film, Teenage Sex…
The Toniebox might have been around since 2016, but it only really made its way to Autralian shoes in 2024. Since then, it’s been a wildly popular device for not only entertaining younger kids, but also helping them learn while getting them away from screens. The Toniebox 2 is a fantastic upgrade, and while it…
With Australian NBN plans now scaling up to 2 Gbps and New Zealand homes already leveraging ultra-fast UFB Hyperfibre speeds of up to 8 Gbps, networking giant D-Link has unveiled its latest hardware solution designed to remove household bandwidth chokepoints: the DPN-BE7212GR BE7200 10G Wi-Fi 7 Mesh Router. The router aims to deliver ultra-high-speed connectivity…
Inexplicably it’s August tomorrow, and we’re hurtling ever closer to the end of the year. But, we’ve got ten new tracks to help us see out the month, including two we had premieres for earlier in the week. Perth-based producer and songwriter Josh Ellis takes our Track of the Week with “Rest My Tires” –…
Silversun Pickups returned to Australia for the first time in 14 years and played Sydney’s Enmore Theatre showcasing their brand new album Tenterhook plus their classic rock gems “Lazy Eye” and “Panic Switch”. Although Brian Aubert was suffering from a cold (vocals were fine) his guitar surged with waves of distortion and Nikki Monninger’s fluid…
I’m going to make a bold statement here and say that typewriters started my love for writing. The feel of the metal keys under your fingers, the sound of the keys when it hits the paper, and the bell that rings to let you know when you’re running out of room on the paper to…
Corsair is no stranger to a range of both entry-level and premium gaming accessories, the most recent being the HS35 v3 Wireless, a more affordable yet feature-packed gaming headset for a variety of gamers and platforms. It’s certainly one of the cheaper wireless headsets on the market, and offers not only multiple ways to connect…
Emma Donoghue‘s latest historical novel The Paris Express was inspired by an unusual photo. In an age of AI-manipulated images, the photograph of a train hanging out of the second-storey of the Gare Montparnasse train station could easily be dismissed as a fake. But this photograph captures the chaos of the Montparnasse derailment, a real…
Adelaide has always punched above its weight when it comes to culinary prowess, with unmatched access to exceptional fresh produce, an enviable wine culture and a brigade of young chefs unafraid to show off their creativity. And with South Australia’s inaugural Michelin Guide set to be released in October, the rest of the world is…
There was a point where every Marvel film seemed determined to convince audiences that the only way to raise the stakes was to threaten the entire universe. Planets collided. Multiverses fractured. Every adventure had to be bigger than the last. Spider-Man: Brand New Day wisely goes in the opposite direction, and in doing so delivers…
After weeks of speculation and some hardcore manifesting / fan-ifesting, after a decade away System Of A Down with special guests, Faith No More are headed to Australia in January 2027! While this means they won’t be headlining December’s Good Things Festival, stadiums full of fans across this glorious country have only six short months…
Some summer romances promise forever. The Last Sunrise asks what happens when time itself becomes the greatest obstacle. The first trailer for director Carlson Young‘s upcoming romantic drama has arrived, teasing an emotional story that blends sun-drenched escapism with the realities of chronic illness, first love and long-buried family truths. Set against the breathtaking backdrop…
Some fantasy worlds are built on dragons or kingdoms. Children of Blood and Bone is built on something far more powerful: a story of identity, oppression and the fight to reclaim what was stolen. The first trailer for Gina Prince-Bythewood‘s adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi‘s bestselling novel has arrived, and it’s every bit as ambitious as…
We reviewed the recent PlayStation 5 port of Call of Duty: Black Ops right before this, and I’m honestly still scratching my head. As a fan of both these games, I headed over to Call of Duty: Black Ops II in the hopes that there would be some sort of redemption. After all, this should…
Boorloo/Perth artist ALEIA turns betrayal into a chilling roadside ghost story in the accompanying video for her gripping new single, “Willpower”. Ahead of the song’s release tomorrow, the AU review is thrilled to premiere the haunting new clip today. Produced by Dylan Ollivierre (The Money War, EDIE, Joan & The Giants, Siobhan Cotchin), “Willpower” captures the…
