Film & TV
My Brilliant Friend (Series 1)
Two young girls stand before the door of the town loan shark, fiercely clasping hands. This image of female solidarity and defiance endures all the way through HBO’s adaptation of the first of Elena Ferrante’s beloved Neapolitan novels, My Brilliant…
Chernobyl
HBO’s mini-series Chernobyl delivers some of the best television the studio has produced in recent years. Starring the brilliant Jared Harris as Valery Legasov (chief scientist of the Chernobyl commission), along with the equally wonderful Stellan Skarsgård as Boris Shcherbina…
Killing Eve (Season 2)
The first season of spy thriller Killing Eve established a tense cat-and-mouse game between two flawed, obsessive women – MI5 agent Eve Polastri (Sandra Oh) and the target she is simultaneously pursuing and desiring, deadly Russian assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer)…
Top End Wedding
A romantic comedy wouldn’t be a romantic comedy without an obstacle or two to overcome on the road to happily ever after. In this respect, Wayne Blair’s Top End Wedding is no different to other rom-coms. Adelaide-based lawyers Lauren (Miranda…
Destroyer (DVD)
Karyn Kusama’s first film, Girlfight, had quite an impact on me back in 2000. Her most recent film, the crime thriller Destroyer, hit me just as hard. I have no doubt that when I sit down at the…
Green Book by Peter Farrelly
We only get a brief glance at the ‘Green Book’ referred to in the title of Peter Farrelly’s Oscar-winning film. Regardless, that book, The Negro Motorist Green Book – a guidebook for African-Americans to safely navigate the segregated South –…
Trapped: The Complete Series 2
On the second day of my trip to Iceland, in the capital city of Reykjavík, a dog was lost on the street where I was staying. The Facebook messages went out: ‘Does anyone know whose dog this is?’ Within the…
Kusama: Infinity by Heather Lenz
Within weeks of the release of this documentary to DVD, Yayoi Kusama will have turned 90. Widely recognised as one of the most important, influential, and commercially successful living artists, she draws audiences like no other: her art has critical…
Killing Eve: Season 1 by Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Some television shows beg to be binged, others are better enjoyed slowly. Killing Eve, painfully for me, is both. As each episode finished, I desperately wanted to hit play on the following one, but restrained myself to better savour…
Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist (DVD) by Lorna Tucker
‘I’m just totally bored talking about this. But you need it, so I’ll tell you.’ So starts Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist, with a discernible friction between camera and subject that ultimately makes this documentary about British fashion designer Vivienne…