Larry Heath talks to Sara Paxton, one of the stars of the SXSW Buzz Film Cheap Thrills - a 'black comedy thriller' - about seeing the film for the first time at the festival, reuniting with Pat Healy, playing the reasonably deranged character Violet and working with the hilarious David Koechner and more...

‘All brawn and no brains’ is exactly what springs to mind once the credits roll for this straight-action flick. There is little in the way of plot for this cliché blockbuster. However, for what it’s worth, the action sequences won’t let the audience down, and while you won’t be on the edge of your seat, you will at least be drawn back into the film every time you start to lose interest.

Larry Heath talks to the lead actor of the breakout hit of SXSW, Cheap Thrills, Pat Healy, not long after the film premiered at the festival. We talk about what it was like seeing the film for the first time in a full cinema, making the film on a small budget in just 14 days, working with Director E.L. Katz and Sara Paxton again and much more!

Dave Bloustien's Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, Grand Guignol, is an original and engaging performance that explores the mummification of Tutankhamen's genitals and the secrets of the Labor Party in the 1990s, among other things.

The genre of the Grindhouse film usually involves a short narrative, one set and some cheap prothetics thanks to a low budget. The narrative is generally put together by posing a simple question: what would happen if a bunch of rich kids went camping and a guy with a chainsaw showed up? What would happen if a man with a sharkhead came out of your swimming pool? How would you survive - and more importantly, how would you die?

Larry Heath chats to Douglas Tirola, the director of Hey Bartender, a documentary that premiered at SXSW earlier this month to great acclaim. He talked to Douglas about the film, which looks at the current cocktail/bar culture in the USA, his "signature cocktail" and much more...

Turning the 1930's cartoon strip and 60's sitcom The Addams Family into a musical was never going to be an easy sell. They are, after all, a family who enjoy the darker side of life; finding general pleasure in pain, death and misery. They're not exactly the type to sing and dance. Nor is the macabre character Wednesday one to embrace the concept of love. But in the first ten minutes of the show, the writers take a stab in the dark and hope that by taking a leap of faith with the cast, the audience will accept that it's perfectly reasonable for this morbidly morose family to express themselves in song, and to embrace the concept of young love. Somehow, against all odds, this works remarkably well, and the musical that follows is likely to be one of the most entertaining nights out you'll have at the theatre this year.

They came for the horses, its no secret. The opening night of Nick Stafford’s production of War Horse at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre saw a sea of patrons pouring into the venue excitedly talking about the life sized equine puppets created by Handspring Company’s Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler out of skeletal wicker frames, translucent fabric, and internal hinges. Would the performance match the hype that’s been gathering around the show, which has repeatedly sold out venues across the UK and America? In a word, yes. Not only did it match the hype but it exceeded it incredibly.

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and oft performed plays. It is a play that has become deeply engrained in popular culture and most can quote a line from the play. The main character is an iconic role, one which many actors strive towards. Though it is a tough act to follow, with the likes of Kenneth Brannagh, Jude Law, Mel Gibson and Laurence Oliver being just some of the actors to have played the eponymous anti hero. The play is also Shakespeare’s longest, nearly 30,000 words in total, and something like a four hour run time when performed in full.

There aren't many straightforward, non-Romantic Comedies these days. At least not ones that get a big advertising budget. And generally, when they do, they suffer from juvenile humour, a disappointing, predictable script and scenarios that illicit little more than the occasional giggle. The sorts of movies that cause geniune, belly aching laughter - at least to yours truly - seem rarer than ever these days. So when one experiences such a sensation, you're somewhat taken by surprise. Especially when it hasn't been made by the British.

Disclaimer: I’ve been watching The Sound of Music since I was five years old, for many years I believed I actually was Liesl, so the chance that I would not enjoy the Sing-a-long-a Sound of Music was always going to be slim.

Duncan Graham's Dreams In White marks the beginning of Griffin’s 2013 season and opens the year with heavy drama. Michael Devine is a wealthy businessman with a beautiful wife and child, but he has some very dark secrets. When he goes missing, the pieces of his double live are put together, with very little left behind to know which is the real man. Sexual perversion, secondary identities, deceit and malice all unravel, leaving his family to deal with the consequences.