Month: April 2015

DVD Review: Halo: Nightfall (M) (USA, 2014)

Another installment in the Halo franchise has once again satisfied revelers of the Halo story. Much like a piece of the Halo ring floating in space, this feature is also an element that can be part of the Halo universe or a story all of its own. Considered the “origin story” of the one of…

Read more

MICF Review: Chimp Cop – The Imperial Hotel (Until April 18th)

Chimp Cop – the love child of Melbourne comedians Timothy Clark, Ben Vernel, Adam Knox and Rosie Vernel, is a hard-hitting and hilarious tale of corruption, friendship, and bananas. A well-constructed hour of silliness that parodies just about every cop drama truism in the book, Chimp Cop moves through its influences, picking them apart and…

Read more

Flight Review: Southwest Airlines – Los Angeles to San Antonio (WN3124)

We continue our Flight Review series, this time back in the USA on our way to Texas for SXSW. Instead of flying directly to Austin, I flew in via San Antonio – about 90 minutes drive from Austin – to bring you a run of coverage that you’ll be seeing online soon. Flying Southwest to…

Read more

Stumbled Upon #037 – Why We Run (Sydney)

In our 37th installment of “Stumbled Upon”, we meet Sydney’s pop rockers Why We Run and chat about their debut single ‘Comfortable Lie’. We get o know the artists that inspire them, learn how the band got started and find out more about what they’ve got coming up – including a show in Wollongong tonight!…

Read more

Alison Wonderland and SAFIA top the first announcement for Australia's electronic cruise ship festival: Seas and Beats

Australia is getting its first ever “electronic music festival at sea” next year, with Alison Wonderland, Hot Dub Time Machine, SAFIA, The Kite String Tangle, Touch Sensitive and more ready to play the massive event that will see 2000 revellers transported from Brisbane to a mystery island for what is destined to be a four…

Read more

the AU sessions at SXSW: Hamish Anderson (Melbourne) performs "Little Lies" off his EP "Restless"

While in Austin for the annual SXSW music festival and conference, Melbourne based singer/songwriter Hamish Anderson stopped by our pop up venue to perform a solo and acoustic version of the track “Little Lies”, taken from his sophomore EP Restless, which is out now. Since popping into our studio he’s been announced for Ottawa Bluesfest…

Read more

the AU sessions at SXSW: Lucette (Canada) performs "Able May" off her debut record "Black Is the Color"

As part of our live sessions series at SXSW, Canadian artist Lucette joined us at our pop up venue to perform a special acoustic version of her track “Able May”. The track, which pours out a beautiful flavour of Americana, comes off her debut record Black Is the Color, which came out last year. Watch…

Read more

the AU sessions: Microwave Jenny (Central Coast) perform "Shine Like New" in a park in Sydney

Central Coast duo Microwave Jenny perform their track “Shine Like New”, taken from their latest EP, Microwave Jenny and the Six Song EP, available now! The track was performed in a park in Sydney – kazoo and all – as part of the AU sessions – a series of intimate, exclusive acoustic performances in locations…

Read more

Theatre Review: Endgame – Sydney Theatre Company (Performances through May 9th)

Following the success of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot in 2013, it made sense for the Sydney Theatre Company (STC) to take on one of the great playwright’s better known plays as a follow up – Endgame – with one of Godot’s leads, Hugo Weaving, in the production’s lead role. In what must be Weaving’s…

Read more

My SXSW 2015 Diaries: A glimpse into *some* of the madness of the Interactive and Film portion of the event…

It’s hard to capture really what SXSW is like without you actually attending yourself. There really is nothing else like it. Just the pure variety of people you meet and things you get to do… there’s no equal. I took my camera along to the festival – which ended a couple of weeks ago now…

Read more

Hat Fitz and Cara, John Butler Trio, Sticky Fingers, Mama Kin and more Australians to join Kanye West at Ottawa Bluesfest 2015

We’re excited to be heading over to Ottawa Bluesfest for the first time this July, and in the last couple of weeks the festival has announced its massive lineup, with Kanye West among the many, many major names to grace the event’s stages from July 8th to the 19th. The festival, as you can tell…

Read more

Win a copy of 4 Minute Mile on DVD!

4 Minute Mile is the inspirational story of Drew (Kelly Blatz), a high school student struggling to overcome the inner-city surroundings that threaten to imprison him. After getting manipulated into running drug payments to a local dealer (Rhys Coiro), Drew has nowhere to turn in a family with a deadbeat older brother (Cam Gigandet) and…

Read more

Our first look at True Detective Season 2 with teaser trailer

Up until now little information for the highly anticipated second series of True Detective has been available aside from a few cast names. But HBO have released a synopsis and the first teaser trailer has dropped and in true TD style it’s left us with lots of questions and very few answers. “A bizarre murder…

Read more

Game Of Thrones: What’s happened, and what we think is going to happen next…

Power is a fickle thing in Westeros. As we’ve seen time and time again, the strongest families fall the hardest, or, in the case of a certain Stark, get their heads chopped off. We’ve seen the fall of the Targaryens, Baratheons and Starks, and season four demonstrated that even the golden Lannisters can find themselves…

Read more

Film Review: The Longest Ride (M) (USA, 2015)

Before we start, there are three things you need to know about this film: 1. This is based on a Nicholas Sparks book 2. There are three stars here, Britt Robertson as goody-two-shoes Sophia, Scott Eastwood as Hunky Cowboy Luke and Scott Eastwood’s blue blue eyes 3. The two lead characters look really good together…

Read more

Sydney Opera House will play home to a giant dragon for Game of Thrones premiere

With Foxtel securing the rights to air Game of Thrones at exactly the same time as it airs in the U.S, it’s only fitting that a big celebration is in order. Following the premiere, which will land 11am AEST on Foxtel Monday 13th April, Foxtel will host a premiere party at Sydney Opera House in…

Read more

5 shows you should watch on Netflix

OK so it’s finally here, the streaming service Netflix landed a couple of weeks ago in Australia, and we’ve taken a look at what’s on offer. When you initially register for Netflix, you have to go through this slightly tedious (but worthwhile) process of selecting a variety of films or TV shows that you’ve watched…

Read more

the AU interview: Craig Schuftan (Berlin/Sydney) talks The Philosophy of Disco

Ahead of his appearance at the Melbourne branch of The School of Life to give a talk on the history and philosophy of disco we caught up with ARIA award winning author, broadcaster and radio producer Craig Schuftan to get a crash course on all things Disco; and to find out why the much mocked…

Read more

Games Review: War for the Overworld (PC, 2015)

Let’s make no bones about this: EA’s reboot of Dungeon Keeper on mobile devices was a straight up sham. After the furore that that freemium title created, a lot of players were left with the realisation that they’d really like a new, actual, proper game in the series (that obviously didn’t nickel and dime them…

Read more

Games Review: Dark Souls 2 – Scholar of the First Sin (Xbox One, 2015)

In an extremely bizarre twist of fate, two of From Software’s latest titles have found themselves up against one another in the same release window. The current-gen remaster Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin arrived on shelves a mere week after From’s PS4 exclusive Bloodborne exploded onto the market with a lot of…

Read more

The Iris Interview: Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan and Emma Thomas talk about working on Interstellar

Out today on Blu-Ray and DVD in Australia, Director/Writer/Producer Christopher Nolan, Writer Jonathan Nolan and Producer Emma Thomas sat down to talk about their epic space film Interstellar, following our chat last week with the cast. Interstellar is a big space adventure, but a substantive portion of the film is a very intimate family drama,…

Read more

Win a double pass to see Blade Runner: Final Cut back on the Big Screen in Sydney VMAX!

Some of the most celebrated films are returning to the big screen at Event Cinemas George St, with their In The HouseProgram! Hosted by Channel 7’s Jason ‘Jabba’ Davis, and Quinny from Supanova Pop Culture Expo, the program features a line up that includes Mad Max 2 and The Fifth Element. A host of activities…

Read more

Trailer released for artsy Arnold Schwarzenegger zombie flick, and it looks very promising

Gone are the days when zombie flicks are easily digested as brainless (lame pun intended) gore-fests; the now established horror trope has been adapted to provide actors with some really meaty content; there’s something about the threat of slowly transforming into a walking flesh-eater that makes room for some really great, intimate character-focused storylines (as…

Read more

Stumbled Upon #036 – Likewolf (Paris, France)

In our 36th installment of “Stumbled Upon”, we meet Parisians Likewolf and chat about their upcoming EP Classic Ideals, learn how the band got started and find out how we can get our hands on their music… Band Name: Likewolf Website / Social Media: www.likewolf.com Facebook / Soundcloud / Twitter Genre: Rock Blues Electronica Soundtrack…

Read more

the AU sessions: Ruby Boots (Perth) performs her latest single "Wrap Me in a Fever" in a park in Sydney

Perth based artist Ruby Boots performs her single “Wrap Me in a Fever” in a park in Sydney as part of the AU sessions series: Live, exclusive and acoustic. The track comes from her new record Solitude, which comes out on April 24th.

Read more

Guess who’s coming to dinner. Jon Snow.

Poor Kit Harrington; Game of Thrones has put him and his Jon Snow through so much over the show’s past four seasons that he seems to be forever doomed to a life of social inappropriateness and awkward New York dinner conversations. When funny man Seth Meyers invites Snow over for dinner in the below sketch,…

Read more

Box Office Report: Furious 7 drives away competition

  Predictably, Furious 7  has run rough-shot on the box office, drawing in over $14 million this week. The James Wan helmed action flick has done what the previous 6 effortlessly did and attracted audiences nation wide. Whether its a promising new director,  the inclusion of Jason Statham or the intrigue of seeing Paul Walker’s departure following…

Read more

Aussie web series Altruman wins big at International awards

  Altruman, the warm-hearted tale of an everyday superhero who begins to question his entire life after learning that he has cancer, has left an indelible mark at various web festivals this year. The brain-child of Robin Geradts-Gill, Hannah Moon and Stephen Sholl was featured at the Miami, Seattle, Rome and Buenes Aries Web Fests as well as the…

Read more

ABC’s satirical consumers affairs show The Checkout returns

Not content with the amount of advertisers, retailers and manufactures it has enraged on a weekly basis, The Checkout will make its comeback on April 9th on ABC. Serving as somewhat of a spiritual successor to the networks Chaser (even starring a couple of its members), The Checkout light heartedly mocks corporate Australia with investigative…

Read more

Get to know the films playing the 2015 Indonesian Film Festival at ACMI in Melbourne

The 10th Indonesian Film Festival (IFF) will be held from 9th to 18th April at ACMI in Melbourne. The team from Hello Asia showcases the ten (plus one educational) Indonesian films that will be showing at IFF 2015. Opening Night Film – 3 Nafas Likas (Likas’ 3 Breaths) 7pm – Thursday 9th April, 2015 Set…

Read more