Year: 2014

Band of Skulls returned to Sydney on Friday night, playing the Hi-Fi with Melbourne’s Apes for a night of great rock and roll. Gwendolyn Lee was there and brings us these photos from the night:

“Build it and they will come” or, how two film-obsessed brothers went from nothing to create a full length feature film. “Australia makes such great genre films” says Kiah Roache-Turner “films like Mad Max and Undead did it so well, and after seeing them you’re left waiting, thinking ‘when is someone gonna do another film…

For all the sadness and terrifying places that Ester Martin Bergsmark’s latest film takes us there is so much triumph and disclosure on the journey. After all the suffering we feel for the characters in this film it tears you apart. If Something Must Break doesn’t break you, you are either an incredible, strong soul…

Hossein Amini, writer and director of the new film adaptation The Two Faces of January (in Cinemas now) sits down with The Iris’ Larry Heath to talk about the film’s Sydney Film Festival Premiere, his feature film debut, taking on the adaptation of the much loved book, bringing together the amazing cast and they reflect…

Last week, UK buzz quartet The Bohicas (their name, a surprising acronym for “Bend Over, Here It Comes Again) made their maiden voyage to Australia off the back off their debut, self-titled EP and a couple of fantastic singles that came off its back, namely “Swarm” and “XXX” – which were released as an excellent…

Imagine Dragons performed on the waters of Hong Kong as part of the global Transformers 4: Age of Extinction premiere. We bring you these photos from the epic concert:

An incredibly insightful and deep look into something so very positive and important. This is how I would describe my chat with Alan Hicks, an Australian drummer and surfer who moved to New York at the age of 18 before happening to fall under the wing of one of the most prominent figures in jazz…

The Iris brings you to the World Premiere of the new Transformers film, Age of Extinction, which took place in Hong Kong on Thursday night. The cast and crew hit the red carpet and also attended a press conference for the film’s release. You can see the gallery here: [print_gllr id=3720] Photos courtesy of Getty…

This is massive news. Ever since JJ Abrams was announced as the director of Disney’s Star Wars: Episode VII, most people assumed that Abrams would stick around for Episode VIII and IX, which are scheduled for release in 2017 and 2019 respectively. But according to Deadline, Disney is currently in the process of closing a deal for Rian Johnson to…

Channeling The National’s Matt Berninger, Sydney artist Berlin Bar Hounds – aka Jacob Borg, the drummer from Jinja Safari – has delivered his debut single “Le Rambles”. It’s a beautiful track and we’re excited to bring you the exclusive Australian premiere today. Listen to it now:

Our friends at Sofar Sounds have sent the AU a special live video featuring our favourite Sydney-born, Brooklyn-based duo High Highs. In the video, filmed at Sofar NYC last year, they perform the track “Cascades”. We’re excited to be premiering it for you today.

Making my way from Toronto for a day trip to Niagara Falls, ahead of a long… long flight home to Australia, I knew I had to have a comfortable night’s rest. But I also wanted to make sure I had the best view possible of the falls – and as it happened, at the Hilton…

Director Brendan Muldowney has crafted something both beguiling and disturbing with film Love Eternal; he has done so in a way that adds a layer of beauty on top of something which would unnerve a lot of viewers. Muldowney loosely based this film on the novel Loving the Dead by Japanese author Kei Oishi, who…

As glowing reviews continue to pour in for Locke – and in particular, Tom Hardy’s stunning performance – The Iris caught up with the film’s co-producer Guy Heeley for some more insight into the unique process from which this film was made. The entire thing took a little over a week to shoot, a set…

Publicity for the upcoming sequel The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 is starting to heat up, and the first lot of teaser posters are quite incredible. Lionsgate really don’t need to put this much effort in to promote Mockingjay Part 1. Each Hunger Games movie so far has been a mammoth hit and audiences around…

It’s been five years since we last saw Robert Downey Jr in an entirely dramatic role, when he appeared in the critically panned The Soloist. While he is now best known for the role of Tony Stark in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it is easy to forget that Downey Jr is one of the most…

The Iris meets the Director and Producer of the Sydney Film Festival 2014 premiere Australian Documentary Tender – Lynette Wallworth and Kath Shelper, respectively. We discuss the film, its future screening on ABC TV, the subject matter (the community of Port Kembla coming together to set up a non-profit funeral business) and the music of…

After their 14 track set at The Star for MAX Sessions and performing in the streets of Newtown, tonight Coldplay performed their anticipated concert in front of a capacity 2,400 crowd at the Enmore Theatre not far from where the video was filmed earlier in the week. And just when we thought they couldn’t give…

Before they come out to Australia for Splendour in the Grass, Larry has a chat with Ricky Young from American act The Wild Feathers ahead of a sold out show in NYC, appearances at Bonnaroo and Firefly festivals and more importantly, their Australian appearance at Splendour. Whereabouts are you at the moment [Ricky]? We’re in…

the AU review interviews Vancouver, Canada based group JPNSGRLS (pronounced “Japanese Girls”) while they are in Singapore for Music Matters LIVE. We get to know the band, wish lead singer Charlie Kerr a happy birthday, talk about their music (and their upcoming debut record), their future plans and much more…

It’s been a few weeks since Music Matters Live came to an end in Singapore, and we wanted to take a moment out of our regularly schedule Coldplay madness to look back at the final night of festivities. The mainstage of Music Matters Live in Singapore is the “Fountain Stage”, which takes over the central…

Alex Wall has been living up the hip suburbs of NYC lately. More specifically Brooklyn, and flying under the radar with his latest project Wax Witches over there. There are new weird sounds, and grunt throughout the forthcoming release Centre of the Universe and slight departure from the ‘I just wanna have fun’ feel of…

Peedu Ojamaa once had the world’s greatest job. He was the founder and boss of the only commercial film studio in the Soviet Union at a time when the iron curtain ruled and there was a strictly planned economy. Advertisements were unnecessary as there was a shortage of goods due to government controls, but these…

It’s the penultimate episode of Fargo and there are so many questions remaining unanswered that we could potentially fill up an entire additional season. Yet in Noah Hawley’s script we trust, and somehow he’s going to give us all the answers, if not in this instalment, then at least in the finale. Once again we’re…

Adaptations of the novels of Nicholas Sparks have been a mainstay of romantic cinema ever since A Walk to Remember and The Notebook warmed and broke everyone’s hearts in the early 2000’s. Since then a new Sparks adaptation has hit the big screen every couple of years, including Dear John, Safe Haven and The Lucky One. The…

Members of the media were wowed at Event Cinemas in Sydney today with a twenty-minute screening of the upcoming The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. This was the first time that the reel had been seen outside of the WETA Workshop offices, and was nothing short of incredible. This sneak peak was followed…

2014 has insofar been somewhat of an artistic renaissance for Australian film. So far this year we’ve seen successful cinema releases of 52 Tuesdays, Tracks, The Babadook, and Healing. Sophie Hyde (52 Tuesdays) won Best Director at Sundance; David Gulpilil (Charlie’s Country) won Best Actor at Cannes. Seventeen Australian films are getting a release in…

“How will a little girl, a low-level thug, a business woman become the most dangerous villains around?” Simple answer. They all got their start in this city.” In the new teaser trailer for the upcoming FOX show, Gotham, viewers are given the first glimpses of the villains of the series. Included in the trailer are…

George Takei is a master of social media. His Facebook page has 7.1 million likes. That’s pretty much the population of Switzerland. He has 1.2 million followers on Twitter and uncounted millions of fans from his Star Trek days. How has he achieved such a following? He did it with his charm, his humour, his…

UK superstars Coldplay have returned to Australia for the first time since 2012’s massive Mylo Xyloto stadium tour, this time for a short promotional run following the release of follow-up LP Ghost Stories (out now), the widely acclaimed record that has become known as lead singer Chris Martin’s break-up record. Indeed, it’s a deeply personal…