Red Sparrow: the Book.

I thought I’d read the novel before seeing the film. (Red Sparrow is just the first novel in a trilogy)

This novel is by an ex CIA agent, so we would presume the spycraft is accurately described. There’s an interesting touch: whenever some dish is mentioned in the text, there’s a recipe at the end of the chapter, should the reader wish to try and replicate the dish.… Read the rest

Will the Sparrow fall?

Red Sparrow (2017)
Director Francis Lawrence
Starring Jennifer Lawrence

This may well be the best Hollywood propaganda film made since Hitchcock’s North By North-West during the First Cold War. It comes as no surprise then that it’s based on a 2013 novel by former CIA operative Jason Mathews. Spies never retire so they say, and as a writer Mathews would appear to vindicate this saying.… Read the rest

Salvation

Salvation, a US science fiction thriller TV series filmed in Canada, is a surprisingly enjoyable yet odd show. It starts with Liam Cole (played by Charlie Rowe), an MIT student who discovers an asteroid that is due to collide with the earth, creating an extinction-level event that will destroy all of humanity.… Read the rest

The Craft Sequence, II

Roman continues his look at Max Gladstone’s Craft sequence, looking at books four to six.

Forty years after the God Wars, Dresediel Lex bears the scars of liberation—especially in the Skittersill, a poor district still bound by the fallen gods’ decaying edicts. As long as the gods’ wards last, they strangle development; when they fail, demons will be loosed upon the city.… Read the rest

Going Solo

Set before Episode 4, this is a story of a young Han Solo: how he escaped poverty in a kid gang, deserted from the Navy, met Chewy and joined in a train heist. New actors play characters we’ve met later in their  lives, and they do an excellent job.


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Taha

Written & Performed by Amer Hlehel

Adelaide Festival 2018

David Faber reviews the performance

TAHA is the triumphant but not triumphalist story of the Palestinian poet Taha Muhammad Ali, refracted through the experience and artistry of Haifa based actor and dramatist Amer Hlehel. The performance we saw deservedly commanded several standing ovations and not a few tears of empathy and joy.Read the rest

Memorial By Alice Oswald

Starring Helen Morse ◼︎ Direction by Chris Drummond

A review by David Faber

Director Chris Drummond has dramatically realized upon the stage poet Alice Oswald’s compelling elegy to the fallen of the Iliad. The author has succeeded in interpreting the atmosphere of the epic, by stripping it of narrative detail.Read the rest

If You Can’t Be Good Be Careful

David Faber reviews an exhibition at a collective art space 

Kate Kurucz  If You Can’t Be Good Be Careful

9th March – 1st April 2018

Floating Goose Studios Gallery 271 Morphett St., Adelaide SA 5000

The Floating Goose Studios Inc is a cooperative enterprise of a number of emerging Adelaide artists. Works displayed are for sale at reasonable prices, if you have the necessary; visiting for a look is free.Read the rest

Brett Dean’s Hamlet

A review from the Adelaide Festival performance by Jennifer Bryce

Australian composer Brett Dean has written an opera, Hamlet, which is being performed at the Adelaide Festival, following acclamation at Glyndebourne, UK.

It is a brilliant collaboration between composer, librettist (Matthew Jocelyn) and director (Neil Armfield). I didn’t come away with the music running through my head; I came away thinking about the play, particularly Shakespeare’s language, which is used faithfully.… Read the rest

A Black Utopia?

This long-awaited film about a powerful black superhero is drawing huge crowds in the US. T’Challa, prince of Wakanda (played by Chadwick Boseman), returns home to claim his throne and battle with an old enemy, Ulysses Klaue (wonderfully portrayed by Andy Serkis). The real threat, however, lies in a returning cousin Erik Killmonger, who lays claim to the throne, claiming he was the victim of actions by by T’Challa’s father.… Read the rest

The Craft Sequence

Max Gladstone’s Craft sequence is set in a world where, until recently, Gods ruled. Due to arcane knowledge known as The Craft, some people learnt how to control/create god-like powers. After the God Wars, Gods have either been killed, hounded from their territories, or controlled by people.… Read the rest

The Dressmaker

The Dressmaker is a fine Australian movie, a black-comedy-fashion-western-revenge-drama murder mystery, set in the fifties.

Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, from the book by Rosalie Ham. It stars Liam Hemsworth, Kate Winslet, Hugo Weaving, Sarah Snook and Judy Davis. You’ll also undoubtably recognise a fine ensemble of Australian actors throughout the film.

It opens as Tilly (Kate Winslet) arrives in an outback town on the evening stage bus, to be met by the Town Sergeant, who gives her a lift to her parental home.… Read the rest