Sting in the tale

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raw, personal and emotionally taxing, Stories We Tell is a documentary that stirs a lingering sentimentality. Director Sarah Polley uses humour and intermittent light touches to ease the blows dealt by the deeply moving accounts of the love story at the head ...

Considering both sides of the fence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Gatekeepers (M)
Review by Helen Fallaw

To sit in the cinema agreeing with the hard men, six former heads of Israeli security, is surprising. But that’s what a powerful documentary can do; it can inform and shift your thinking.

Director of ...

Picture of shattered peace

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5 Broken Cameras
Review by Dr Mark Zirnsak

5 Broken Cameras is a powerful and very moving documentary capturing the complexity of the conflict in Israel-Palestine. The story is told from the viewpoint of Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat. The Separation Barrier is being built ...

Discovering Spong

The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic, by John Shelby Spong
Review by Carlynne Nunn

As soon as you mention Spong in any Christian circle, it seems you meet with an opinion. Mostly everyone talks about how much everyone else talks about him. John Shelby Spong is apparently quite notorious.

The minister at my church told me ...

The future is too close to home

Elysium (MA)

“All fiction is metaphor. Science fiction is metaphor. What sets it apart from older forms of fiction seems to be its use of new metaphors” – Ursula K. Le Guin

Neill Blomkamp’s second film is that rare thing, a thinking person’s blockbuster. Balanced somewhere between a special effects romp with the requisite amount ...

Times of our lives

Before Midnight is a funny, intelligent, raw story of living together, and what it means to compromise and change as the years take their toll.

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Directed by Richard Linklater, it is the third movie in a trilogy, which first featured the two protagonists, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) ...

Leaders of faith

In God They Trust? By Roy Williams
Review by Emmet O’Cuana

The cover design for the hardback edition of this collection of historical profiles carries an ominous hint for what lies within.

Overlaid on top of an image of Parliament House in Canberra at night is the book’s title, with the preposition sitting within the circle of ‘GOD’. ...

Son of Hollywood

Man of Steel (PG13)

In a 1997 episode of The Simpsons, Reverand Lovejoy announces to his congregation: “I remember another gentle visitor from the heavens. Who came to earth… and then died… only to be brought back to life again. And his name was: E.T., the extra-terrestrial. I love that little guy.”

It’s a ...

An unlikely friendship

Mary Meets Mohammad
Review by Nigel Tapp

Mary Meets Mohammad is not simply another documentary demanding an end to indefinite mandatory detention for asylum seekers in Australia. What it shows is that, with time and access to the true facts, prejudices can be beaten and opponents turned into supporters. Armed with the truth, many people are willing to question ...

Hope in darkness

Solomon and Marion
By Lara Foot, Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio, 7 June to 20 July
Review by Penny Mulvey

South African playwright Lara Foot says we have to engage in the dark to live in the light. It is that desire that sits behind the latest MTC offering by Foot, Solomon and Marion. This beautiful, gentle ...

Let them be seen

Hidden People
Review by Andrew Juma

OF THE major pandemics afflicting the world, leprosy is probably the one forgotten by mainstream society. Akin to polio, it seems an anachronism, a disease long thought cured and consigned to history.

However, the existence of The Leprosy Mission (TLM) and other organisations working to combat the disease reflects its resurgent nature.

Far ...

Slapstick genius

 

One Man, Two Guvnors By Richard Bean, Arts Centre Melbourne Playhouse until 22 June Review by Penny Mulvey

 

ONE Man, Two Guvnors is pure old fashioned, slapstick comedy exquisitely performed.

The latest Melbourne Theatre Company offering is another production from the National Theatre of Great Britain, following the impressive season of War Horse over the Christmas period.

Based ...