Day: 2 September 2021

Gesticulations

Threadbare: Gesticulations walk us through their second album of the year

Gesticulations, fronted by Graham Ashton of The Shambolics and Way Cool Jnr., is seemingly in the midst of a purple patch of productivity. They have just released Threadbare, which is their second long-play album of the year, following from Sense of Purgency which dropped in April. Ashton has collaborated again with multi-instrumentalist and producer Benny…

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Interview: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson on uncovering the lost footage for his documentary Summer of Soul

Best known as the drummer and joint frontman of Grammy Award winning hip-hop band The Roots, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson is adding to his already overflowing resume with the credit of director as his acclaimed documentary Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) releases across Australian cinemas.  Uncovering decades-lost footage of the…

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Film Review: You Cannot Kill David Arquette is an alarmingly bleak and emotional documentary about a fascinatingly off-kilter actor

At one point in his career David Arquette was poised to be a potential acting force among the other stars of his generation.  He worked the indie cinema circuit, he was profiled alongside such talent as Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith, and Matthew McConaughey, his work in the Scream films earned him box office clout, and…

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Hawkins

Book Review: Murder, secrets and a thriller within a thriller on Paula Hawkins’ return

Acclaimed author Paula Hawkins (The Girl on the Train, Into the Water) returns with yet another nail-biting thriller. A Slow Fire Burning follows a cast of characters living along the Regent’s Canal in Shoreditch; each of them inextricably linked through events of the last few decades. The murder of Daniel Sutherland inside his canal boat…

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Film Review: Summer of Soul is a musical and political celebration that speaks to cultural re-evaluation

Somehow, a festival situated in the heart of Harlem, one that featured such performers as Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, and Nina Simone, had been written out of the history books.  In 1969, a year on from the assassination of Martin Luther King, over six weekends in Mount Morris Park, overseen by the liberal New York…

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Film Review: Streamline underlays a tragic narrative with commentary on the toxic masculinity within the sporting field

As easy as it would be to accuse a film like Streamline of adhering to the stereotypical tragic narrative that seems to be at the undercurrent of the majority of Australian dramas, Tyson Wade Johnston manages to include subtle commentary on the notion of toxic masculinity within the sporting field – here, specifically swimming –…

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Brigitte Bardini

Track by Track: Brigitte Bardini takes us through her debut album Stellar Lights

Singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Brigitte Bardini has just released her gorgeous debut album, Stellar Lights. It’s a collection of fourteen tracks, wonderfully diverse, showing a maturity way beyond what you would expect for a debut album. It perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise that Bardini produced eight of the tracks herself, and the other six were…

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Film Review: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is an extravagant tale strengthened by the star-making turn from Simu Liu

Familiar with a little father-son friction thanks to his role on TV’s Kim’s Convenience, Simu Liu experiences similar, though considerably higher emotional stakes, but no less dramatic, as the titular warrior-to-be Shang-Chi in Marvel’s latest extravagant offering, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.  There’s the typical end-of-the-world dilemma to contend with, but Destin…

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