Day: 4 November 2021

Forza Horizon 5 Review: The Fastest Fiesta in Town

The screen is dark. The sound of an engine roaring pierces the air, as the back on a cargo plane opens. Suddenly, your vehicle drops out of the back, parachuting down to a dense, colourful Mexican landscape. As soon as you land, you blast onto the road, on your way to your first Horizon Festival….

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The Beta Test is a twisted, pitch black comedic thriller: Sydney Film Festival Review

On the surface you’d be forgiven for assuming The Beta Test is just another film industry picture, spending its minutes somehow justifying its existence as it hones in on the obnoxious and obnoxiously wealthy Hollywood players who wrongfully assume they’re untouchable in their town.  The film has that air about it, but this satirical-cum-unnerving thriller…

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Pleasure is a cold, calculating film detailing the politics of the sex industry: Sydney Film Festival Review

After introducing itself as a film that promises there’ll be no sugarcoating its subject matter – the first thing we hear are the audible moans and verbal berating from a pornographic film, and the first thing we see is the extremely graphic imagery of a young girl’s privates in the shower – Ninja Thyberg‘s confronting…

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Titane is an auto-erotic body horror oddity focused on the specifics of sexual identity: Sydney Film Festival Review

Similar to how Jordan Peele, Robert Eggers, Jennifer Kent, and Ari Aster all secured their place in the annals of genre cinema with their debut offerings, Julia Docournau‘s bold cannibalistic horror effort Raw cemented the French filmmaker as a name to pay consistent attention to.  And just as those aforementioned auteurs all swung big with…

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Damon Galgut takes home Booker Prize for The Promise

It was a case of third time lucky for author Damon Galgut, winner of the 2021 Booker Prize. Nominated in 2003 for The Good Doctor and again in 2010 for In a Strange Room, it was multi-generational saga The Promise that saw the South African writer finally score one of the most prestigious awards in…

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Film Review: Disappearance at Lake Elrod overcomes genre familiarity with an emotional edge

Though there’s perhaps a few too many “missing kid mystery” tropes adhered to in Disappearance at Lake Elrod – the grieving mother, the potentially corrupt police, the buried secrets coming to life – writer/director Lauren Fash injects enough character development and psychological complexity for it to get away with it. Centred around the disappearance of…

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Album of the Week: Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats – The Future (2021 LP)

There’s something you’ve got to love about wholesome, feel good music. Yes, it’s nice to listen to serious musicians making serious and emotive tracks, but at the end of the day, there’s nothing I’d rather listen to to blow out the cobwebs than a classic party tune filled with horns, soulful vocals and an easily…

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Book Review: Jessica Walton and Aśka’s Stars in Their Eyes – Nerdy easter eggs and queer, disabled representation are just the beginning

A refreshingly fun and hopeful take on the coming of age story, Jessica Walton and Aśka’s Stars in Their Eyes is a graphic novel that celebrates nerdiness and reinforces the value of representation, all while exploring first love, self-care and identity. The story follows Maisie as her Mum takes her to her first Fancon. Maisie…

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Mario Party Superstars Review: Celebrate Good Times

I owe the Mario Party franchise a great deal of credit. It’s responsible for some of the best gaming moments I’ve had on a Nintendo console. While Mario Party 3 will always remain my favourite, it’s safe to say that the franchise faltered in recent years, prompting me to drift away from the iconic mini-games…

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It's Acrylic

Exclusive Single Premiere: It’s Acrylic “We Ate Like Kings” (2021)

Brisbane continues to foster exciting new talent, this time in the form of indie band It’s Acrylic. We are thrilled to be premiering the debut single from the outfit, the emotive “We Ate Like Kings”. The band will be releasing their debut EP, Minutia, Sick Darling, late in 2021. The band began as a writing project…

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Interview: Leslie Odom Jr. on the The Many Saints of Newark super secretive audition process & becoming a better actor

Since his Tony Award-winning role in Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. has had something of a meteoric rise.  Not content with just dominating the music and theatre scene, the New York-born actor is a wanted commodity on the big screen too, working with the likes of Kenneth Branagh, Kate Hudson, Orlando Bloom, and Judi Dench, to…

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