Palace Electric Canberra from 4 February 2021
99 minutes, rated M
Danish with English subtitles
Falling comfortably in the currently popular genre of stories centred on female friendships and self-discovery in mature years, The Food Club has been compared with Eat, Pray, Love, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Continue Reading“The Food Club – Film review”
Atlas Production, Australia, 2020
Readers have looked on in 2020 as the publishing industry has come to grips with COVID-19 and writers have worked hard to get their stories not just published but then publicised.
Who would have anticipated that a novella set on a cruise ship would be one of the stories to emerge in that year, its author finalising her edits at the close of 2019 before so many things changed.
Gallery 3, M16 Artspace until 31 January
Wednesday to Sunday 12 noon to 5pm
https://www.m16artspace.com.au/
The works in this exhibition clearly and beautifully demonstrate the artist’s architecture background. Phil Page is interested in the way cities develop in layers, built one upon another. His works are created in the same way, documenting his memory of place and change.
Palace Electric and Hoyts cinemas from 14 January 2021
Family CG-animated feature, 78 min
Parental guidance recommended for younger children
The legendary HEINZELMÄNNCHEN of Cologne were gnomes secretly finishing craftmen’s work at night until they were ousted by a tailor’s malevolent wife 200 years ago.
Ever since then, the Heinzels have been hiding in a secret underground habitation where any contact with the upper world – and, most of all, with humans – is strictly forbidden. But one day, lively Heinzel girl Helvi decides that she cannot stand the restriction of this little world any longer.
Continue Reading“The Elfkins – Baking a Difference – Film Review”
Atlas Productions, Australia, 2020
This debut novel set in Brisbane in the 1890s provides the perfect vehicle for an author with the twin passions of history and social justice.
Joanna Beresford chooses for her heroine Lilian, a young working class woman from an immigrant background, who is forced to fend for herself in the quest for education and improved social standing – and often merely to survive.
At Palace Electric, Dendy and Hoyts in Canberra from 7 January 2021
81 minutes, rated PG – Family
The premise of this originally Danish film (with American voicing) is that our dreams are a kind of sound stage managed by a group of benevolent creatures ensuring we wake in time to avert disaster.
The now rather common story line of a family blending with unlike children having to cope with a sudden unannounced coming together in a home setting, unprepared by previous meetings or outing, feels rather too derivative for my liking.
Continue Reading“Dreambuilders – Film Review”
Hachette, Australia, 2020
Set in Baghdad, Iraq, in the time of Saddam Hussein, this novel explores questions of trust, of truth and honour, of the love of family and of grief.
Palace Electric Canberra
Preview 20 December 2020 at 4.10pm
Nationally from 26 December
Running Time: 123 minutes, rated M
This fictionalised historical drama from the 2020 British Film Festival is inspired by real events, though it takes the liberty of throwing together characters whose paths did not actually cross.
It is the story of three little-known female heroes of WWII, engaged in Churchill’s ring of female spies, who came under the umbrella of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) Their mission was to conduct sabotage and build a resistance.
Continue Reading“A Call to Spy – Film Review”
Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2020
Known to television audiences as one of the founders of The Chaser, Dominic Knight is also the author of The Strayan Dictionary, Strayapedia and Trumpedia.
The 2020 Dictionary continues his satirical analysis of Australian culture, this time through a set of wry definitions of and observations upon aspects of this extraordinary year.
Window Gallery, Belconnen Arts Centre
Until 18 December 2020
Thea Katauskas’ installation of bird sculptures draws on the artist’s interest in and observation of the changing environment in both North America and Australia.
Directed by Leonard Weiss
Natalie Nicolas & Lachner
Saturday 5 December at 2pm
Wesley Uniting Church, Forrest ACT
Tickets: $35 at canberrasinfonia.com
We are delighted to see Artistic Director Leonard Weiss conducting the Canberra Sinfonia again, having recently returned from studying conducting with Marin Alsop in the USA.
Prime goals for the Sinfonia are to give exceptional performances of chamber music, and to promote new music, primarily by Australian composers, as a core feature of their concerts.
Allen & Unwin, Australia, 2020
Described as a memoir, Son of the Brush does indeed introduce us to some of the key figures of the art world in Australia in the 20th and 21st century, in the context of the life of the author, son of painter John Olsen.
Tim Olsen grew up surrounded by people we now consider luminaries, but it is the personal, the candid appraisal of self and family that touched me most deeply in this book.
(A Chic Lady’s Guide to Woman’s Best Friend)
Murdoch Books, Australia, 2020
This is a book that has enjoyed sumptuous production treatment with its striking fashion illustration style hard cover and velvety velour spine with cursive gold font. It is indeed an object of desire and worthy of its subject, the mystique of the cat.
Ventura Press, Australia, 2020
This is the fifth of Blanche d’Alpuget’s Birth of the Plantagenets series and I confess that I come to it as a stand alone novel, not having yet read the four previous books. However, while reading the entire series is ideal and recommended, it is perfectly possible to enjoy this one alone.
Hachette, Australia, 2020
This is the third of Joanna Nell’s novels, each of which explores aspects of ageing and particularly ageing for women. Jo writes with gentle humour, with compassion and respect, but never shirks from addressing the tough matter of this subject.
