Year: 2015

Sky Zone came to our backyard, took one look at that lone, depressingly rusty trampoline drowning in overgrown lawn and decided Australia needed more awesomeness in its life. In the spirit of one upmanship they took a stadium, lined it with trampolines (and padding you know, for safety’s sake) and said ‘hey kids, have at it!’…

In our 57th instalment of “Stumbled Upon”, we meet Brisbane’s The Francis Wolves, and chat about going from a house band to signing a management deal, recording in 38 degrees and get a sneak peak at their latest track ‘Valley Heat’. Band Name: The Francis Wolves Website / Social Media: Facebook / Soundcloud Genre: Garage…

When I heard I was getting to review the new game from Intelligent Systems, I got pretty excited. I’m a fan of Intelligent’s previous work, the <i>Advance Wars</i> and <i>Fire Emblem</i> games and I imagined that <i>Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.</i> would continue the developer’s history of smart design. Sadly, <i>Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.</i> has some serious problems…

Dreamworks is making good on its promise to bring us a third film in the hugely successful Kung Fu Panda series, with the first trailer for the film starring Jack Black seeing the light of day earlier today – though the film itself won’t be released until late March 2016. But, as is typical of…

You had us at Bill Murray. But the synopsis for the film makes it all the better: “A washed-up music producer finds one last shot at redemption with a golden-voiced young girl in Afghanistan.” Not bad, eh? And with Kate Hudson amongst the cast, there’s a bit of a bizarro Almost Famous vibe about it…

One of the hottest names in comedy right now, Amy Schumer (Inside Amy Schumer), is set to come to Australia introduce her first feature film, Trainwreck, alongside co-star and fellow comedian Bill Hader (Saturday Night Live). The film, which has so far been received positively at screenings – including at SXSW in Austin, Texas – is Produced…

With just over a week until doors open at Oz Comic-Con Melbourne, Keisha Castle-Hughes, best known for her role in Whale Rider and recently introduced into the epic TV series Game of Thrones is one of three late additions to the event. Paul Blackthorne and Rila Fukushima from the hit TV show Arrow have also been added to the event. The…

With tickets flying out the door for the 2015 installment of the iconic Lollapalooza festival in Chicago next month, organisers have announced a run of late night “Aftershows” that will take place in the leadup to the festival, and each night of the event. Many of these shows have already sold out, but these shows…

Today, over 25 locations internationally are showcasing the “3-Finger Salute” from The Hunger Games series. Promoting the upcoming release of Mockingjay: Part Two, the posters can be seen at Times Square in New York, Westfield Centre in London, Colonne di San Lorenzo in Milan, Novy Arbat Avenue in Moscow as well as at locations around…

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step and so too does a journey of 1770 kilometres and one through a path of self-discovery. The latter is also known as Wild or a film that has been adapted from Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir from 2012. One things for certain, this journey is…

  When we were first introduced to the inmates of Litchfield Penitentiary in the 2013 debut season of Orange is the New Black, it was quite clear that we were supposed to be introduced to this new environment through the show’s protagonist, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling). The upper-class NYC dweller’s transportation to a world completely different to…

Gravity defying tea cup cake, cake decorating championship finalist Sydney Olympic Park Stadium braced itself over the weekend when it opened its doors to thousands of sugar-crazed patrons for the annual Cake Bake and Sweets Show. Three glorious days of sweet treats and basically anything that goes in, on or around a cake is hardly…

Arcadia are releasing the enchanting French film PERFUMES on July 1. Emmanuelle Devos and Gregory Montel shine in this sweet French drama described by VARIETY as “a feel-good tale of friendship with a fragrant and very French backdrop”. Anne Walberg (Emmanuelle Devos) was once the star of her industry – a perfumer whose ability to…

Youth, released next week, is the first album released by Nashville’s Chase Coy under his own name since 2011. He hasn’t been sitting idle however, since then he has released music under two different pseudonyms Sun Culture and as Third and Union. He has also spent plenty of time garnering co-writing credits, and working behind…

Karise Eden first entered the music scene when she won The Voice back in 2012. After a break from the industry, Karise is back with her album Things I’ve Done, and is on the road again bringing her music and new baby with her.

After releasing their EP, Anchor, a couple of weeks ago, Birds of Tokyo have been busy, busy, busy. Last week the band wrapped up a national tour around the country to promote their new release and it was clear that vocalist, Ian Kenny and guitarist, Adam Spark were still buzzing from the shows, as they revealed to the AU review’s Jana Angeles….

UK-based alternative rock band, Young Guns are in my opinion, underrated in the scene of music they are already in. To see them go at great lengths with their last two studio records while maintaining a loyal fanbase is an achievement itself. The last time I saw the band live was back in 2012 when they were…

Photo: Jess playing Clockenflap festival in Hong Kong. Photo by Johnny Au. What a wonderfully dark track Jess Ribiero has brought us with her new single “Kill It Yourself”. The song comes off the new Remote Control Records signee’s debut record, which she produced with Mick Harvey, due out in August. The song itself –…

Fur Coat and the Peace Boat is the newly released EP from Sydney five piece Burn Antares. The rockers have been schooled on the blues rock of The Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane, to the soul and funk of Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye, while the album was produced by Tony Buchen (The Preatures, Andy…

From one of the most creative minds working in cinema today, Pete Docter, comes his third feature length film for Disney/Pixar. First, there were the monsters living in our closets in 2001’s Monsters Inc.. Then, in 2009 he brought us the tale of a man, a house, some balloons and a Boy Scout in Up; a…

No-one was expecting to see gameplay from Kingdom Hearts 3 during the Square Enix E3 presentation this morning, but that’s exactly what we were given. 2 minutes and forty five seconds of glorious gameplay. As in the past games from the series, Kingdom Hearts 3 will feature characters from across the worlds of Disney, with…

What a year! The constant shuffle at the top continues but hey, this one was always bound to happen. It was 22 years ago when Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park became a financial and critical success.  And now with new director Colin Trevorrow and star Chris Pratt, the franchise has done it again with Jurassic World. Earning…

I’m ending my Sydney Film Festival coverage looking at a short film that was a perfect end to the run of incredible cinema at the 62nd annual event. Sari Braithwaite’s Smut Hounds was a nine minute film, screening before the French film Metamorphoses, detailing the festival’s role in bringing the conversation of censorship to the…

When Ryan Gosling premiered his Directorial debut Lost River to a packed house at Cannes last year, it’s fair to say the odds were stacked against him. He couldn’t have picked harsher critics to premiere his film to. This is a crowd who have rarely been fans of Actors turned Directors. Do you remember The Brave – Johnny…

Over the last two weeks, our Sydney Film Festival review team have covered some 40 films at the festival, the reviews of which you can look back at HERE. After much debate and discussion, we’re now counting down our favourite films of the festival: FICTION FEATURE FILMS: 6. Love & Mercy is a powerful and tragic…

New York pop-punk band, State Champs have had a busy two years since releasing their debut album, The Finer Things. It’s hard to imagine how far they have come since 2013 and it’s clear that they pretty much gave it their all to be where they are now. After several international tours and countless opportunities, they managed to…

Ghost Games have released a fresh trailer for the reboot of the Need for Speed video game series and confirmed a release date for the game, November 3, during EA’s E3 press event. The trailer features a mix of live action and in-game footage, along with “Go”, the new Chemical Brothers track. It’s a massive open world…

EA closed out their E3 2015 media conference with an extended, five minute gameplay trailer of DICE’s forthcoming shooter Star Wars: Battlefront. The trailer follows the Battle of Hoth from Empire Strikes Back through various points of view, those of the rebel soldiers on the ground and in the air flying A-Wings, from the Imperials…

Rainbow Six Siege has had a solid showing at Ubisoft’s E3 presser this morning, showing the game’s terrorist hunting co-op mode and getting everyone ready for the beta starting September 24. The beta starts less than a month before the game actually releases on October 13, which is interesting. The live demo showed five players…

Fallout 4‘s power amour just looks so damned cool. Bethesda showed off a little more footage from the game at Microsoft’s E3 press event, focused squarely on combat and weapons. Also, big news, mods are coming to the Xbox One version of the game! The trailer shows off a ton of weapons in greater detail…