Author: Larry Heath

There’s a Game of Thrones conference coming to Australia, and the dates have just been revealed. Called ThronesCon, and promising to bring us actresses and actors from the celebrated series, the event will premiere in Melbourne next May. Presented by Australian Fandom Conventions, who have delivered fan-orientated events around the country over the last decade,…

There is a sense of comfort to the Langham Hotel in Auckland that hits you from the moment you walk into their lobby. It’s spacious, with plenty of sitting areas and a long check in counter. Those behind it couldn’t be more helpful and the process to get yourself to your room is a painless…

New Zealand artist Aldous Harding is set to tour the US for the first time, accompanying Deerhunter on a run of dates around the country. The tour coincides with the North American release of her eponymous debut, which will be released on September 30th through Flying Nun Records. Highlights of the tour include NYC’s Webster…

One of America’s hotspots for live music is Austin, Texas, bouyed by events and festival like SXSW and Austin City Limits, but offering live music experiences every day of the week. Another popular festival over the last decade has been Fun Fun Fun Festival, America’s only genre based festival and a favourite on the annual…

Twice the size of Manhattan and filled with thirty-four resorts and hotels, four theme parks, a shopping and dining destination (the newly expanded and renamed Disney Springs) – not to mention two water parks – there’s a reason that Walt Disney called his second Disney destination in Orlando a “World”. With its own laws, its…

In 2005, the creator of Buffy and Angel, Joss Whedon, brought us the feature film Serenity (a follow on from the short lived series Firefly) and now it’s returning to the big screen as part of Sydney’s In The House season next Friday, August 19th! In this continuation of the television series “Firefly,” a group…

Following a successful inaugural event in 2015, the Great Waikiki Beer Festival is set to return to the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort’s Great Lawn later this month, and legendary musician Kenny Loggins has just been announced to perform. The event, which will be held on Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016, benefits Hawai’i’s Wounded Warriors…

From the moment Steven King’s novel 11/22/63 was announced, there were efforts to turn it into a film, even before it had been released. However, its length and detail made it a difficult adaptation. Enter J.J. Abrams and streaming platform Hulu a few years later, and the book found its way into a eight part…

Sydney rockers The Lazys have found a lot of success in Canada in recent years, and they’re going to continue capitalizing on that by returning to the great North in a few weeks for a massive run of shows that will take them through September. The tour is in support of their latest single “Howling…

Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated World War II epic Dunkirk – his first film since Interstellar – isn’t out until July next year, but today we’ve been treated to our first look at the film. In typical Nolan fashion, the Director is bringing his own screenplay to the screen, which will be shot in a mixture…

Though critics haven’t been overly kind to the latest comic book blockbuster Suicide Squad (though our own writer had nicer things to say about it), fans of the DC franchise wasted no time in packing cinemas to see the film, breaking a pile of Australian box office records in the process. Roadshow, who distribute the…

Over the past few weeks, Sydney has seen dozens upon dozens of big name concerts, with guests from around the world in town thanks to Splendour in the Grass. On any given night, there have been half a dozen SOLD OUT signs around the city for any of these acts. Amidst all the negative talk…

Sydney group Tenderfoot recently signed to international music company Audio Network, and today the first release of that new relationship has seen the light of day. The band’s debut EP Beginnings (an apt title if there ever was one) is now available, a record that features the single “The Balcony Tale”; the video of which…

The AU Review recently captured Australian artist Jack Carty performing his new track “I’m Not Sure I’m Here At All” in a park out the front of the famed Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The track is taken from Jack’s brand new record Home State, which is released tomorrow, on 5th August 2016. This…

Today we conclude our culinary adventure through the Summer festival of North America in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, for the annual Edmonton Folk Festival, which kicks off again this Thursday. But before the event starts once again, we wanted to look back to our time at the event last year and deliver you some of our…

File this one under “bucket list festivals”. The Jasper Dark Sky Festival is an annual event in Jasper, Alberta, Canada, which starts just as the “dark months” of Canada start coming into focus, but before the freezing weather starts. It thus sits the event – which runs this year from October 14th to 23th –…

Continuing an amazing run of celebrity visits over the last couple of months, the stars of Bridget Jones’s Baby are coming to Australia. Bridget Jones herself, Academy Award winner Renee Zellweger and McDreamy (Grey’s Anatomy) himself, Patrick Dempsey – who joins the franchise for the first time – will both be in Australia to promote…

Californian based artist Colette Miller was recently in Australia as part of an event to promote travel to Los Angeles, showing off her iconic “Angel Wings” artworks – one of which she painted at a special event in Sydney. While she was there, I spoke to her about the origins of the piece, which she’s now painted…

Though long rumoured and assumed based on interviews with the creatives behind the hit TV series Game of Thrones, today HBO made it official. According to Variety, HBO’s programming chief Casey Bloys has confirmed that the 8th season of the show will be its final bow. The confirmation came during the Television Critics Association press…

For fans of the cult comedy series Mr. Show, and the IFC series Comedy Bang! Bang!, the name Scott Aukerman is already a household name – even if they might not be able to spell it (Mott Skokerman? Hot Saucerman?). But what many may not realise is that Comedy Bang! Bang! started its life not…

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to spend a couple of nights in the “industrial-chic” accommodation of NYLO in New York City. The NYLO chain offer “innovative urban boutique hotels” in five locations around the country, including in Dallas, which we were lucky enough to review earlier this year. And like their Dallas counterpart,…

Two of Australia’s finest rock bands, DZ Deathrays and Dune Rats, are going to hit the road through Europe and the UK this October for a tour dubbed the “International Disaster Tour”. The 15 date tour will start in Switzerland and end in Manchester, taking in Germany, the Netherlands, France and a run of UK…

This December, Adelaide in South Australia will receive its first direct service to mainland China courtesy of China Southern Airlines, while Hong Kong’s carrier Cathay Pacific is set to increase their weekly direct services to Hong Kong, which they introduced in 2015. December 8th will see Cathay add a fifth weekly direct service between Adelaide…

Now in its fifth year, Feast Portland has set itself up as one of the most anticipated food and drink festivals on the American calendar. Though they don’t describe themselves as “just” a festival. They class it as “a movement that showcases the energy, creativity and enthusiasm that’s driving America’s food revolution while celebrating the…

One of the biggest surprises at Comic-Con International in San Diego earlier this month was the release of a trailer for a sequel to the 1996 hit film The Blair Witch Project. The movie, simply titled Blair Witch, was filmed in secret and will be released in September of this year. Announcing the thriller this…

It had been a long five years between drinks for Australian fans of The Kills, last here for the 2011 Splendour in the Grass festival. Returning for the same event five years and one album later, the duo (performing as a quartet) sounded in top form as they ran through their latest release Ash &…

Already a cult classic by any definition, Donnie Darko this year celebrates its 15th anniversary, and it will return to the big screen as part of Sydney’s In The House season next Friday, August 5th! The film is a wildly imaginative realm of time travel, alternative universes and the manipulation of one’s fate! What would…

As we continue our culinary tour around North America, we come to Chicago, Illinois in the USA for their annual Lollapalooza, an iconic festival that, this year, celebrates its 25th anniversary over a mammoth four day event. As they are about to kick off the event for 2016, we’ll take you back to the event…

More than just sharing a noun, The Rocky Horror Show and Little Shop of Horrors have been born from a similar desire to subvert the norms of the genres they exist in, balancing out the camp absurdity of the very concept of a musical with likeable-yet-exaggerated characters, hilarious dialogue, and a whole bunch of ridiculous…

There are few cities in North America who celebrate their history as flagrantly as Quebec City in Canada. But you can’t blame them – how many fortified cities remain in the region? Well, with the exception of some remnants in Charleston, North Carolina and Montreal just a few hours away, the fortified walls of Quebec…