Author: Natalie Salvo

Shelley Davidow is an author and academic who grew up in South Africa during the apartheid era. Davidow is white, and looking back she knows that during her formative years she experienced privilege and certain allowances due to her skin colour. This theme of race relations and how one family negotiated this oppressive arrangement is…

In the nineties, The Go-Betweens’ Lindy Morrison made the documentary, Australian Women In Rock & Pop Music- Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves. Fast forward to 2018 and the film Her Sound, Her Story documents many of the same issues that are still relevant. Gender disparity in the music industry is a pervasive issue with…

When you stop and think about pronunciation it’s very easy to break into a verse of “You sing potato and I sing potahto.” The academic, linguist, author and broadcaster, David Crystal certainly appreciates this. He has after all released the informative and scholarly guide: Sounds Appealing: The Passionate Story of English Pronunciation. Over the years Crystal…

We so often read about history but what about her-story? At school many of us learned about the contributions of John Macarthur to Australia’s agricultural industry. But little has been said about his wife, Elizabeth Macarthur, another integral player in this story. Michelle Scott Tucker rectifies this  with her debut, the engaging biography: Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life…

It may be cliché to say, but it takes two to tango. That is certainly the environment that the film, A Horrible Woman (En frygtelig kvinde) operates in. This Danish dramedy is a provocative observation of a dysfunctional relationship. It is also one that will prompt some serious discussion by audiences in its wake. The…

When you think of words like “The Second” it’s easy to be dismissive and consider it something sub-par. In the context of the new Australian film, it’s all about a writer grappling with penning her sophomore novel. But this plodding, psychological drama ultimately comes off as second-best due to some issues with its pacing and…

The creator and writer of Everybody Loves Raymond, Philip Rosenthal is a man after our hearts because he loves to eat and travel. He enjoys this so much that he has his own Netflix series, Somebody Feed Phil where he visits different countries and samples their wares. Rosenthal resembles Homer Simpson in that episode where…

The show Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee has found its home on Netflix. The program sees comedian, Jerry Seinfeld driving around with a guest in a cool car where they chat and stop to consume coffee together. The tenth season is about to premiere and we have put together the top five things you need…

Kitty Flanagan is an accomplished stand-up and regular on TV shows like Utopia and The Weekly With Charlie Pickering. She is a chronic over-thinker in the best possible way, and this is evident in her first book: Bridge Burning & Other Hobbies. A collection of funny anecdotes and personal stories, readers will find this book as relatable…

In a world where everyone wants to be a MasterChef it’s so refreshing to see a show like Nailed It! This is a program where three amateurs try to make complex cakes and confectionaries. No surprises that individual results may vary. The show’s second season is coming to Netflix so we have put together the…

The New York Public Library is one large institution. So it should come as no surprise that the documentary about it is also quite big and sprawling in nature. Ex Libris: The New York Public Library is like reading hundreds of chapters from various books; you might learn something but that doesn’t change the fact…

If you like your music and are looking for a book that celebrates LGBTQI legends then 50 Queer Music Icons is the one for you. This is the first book from former Presets manager, Will Larnach-Jones. It was recently launched at APRA’s headquarters in Sydney. The AU’s Natalie Salvo brings you the five things you…

Colours have different meanings. In Imperial China, yellow was reserved for the emperor. It was believed to be the centre of everything because it generated yin and yang. For fashion designer, Guo Pei it is a colour that has become a signature part of her colour palate. If you don’t believe us, you need look…

Fashion designer (Lee) Alexander McQueen was a true artist. He would say, “If you want to know me, look at my work.” The documentary, McQueen captures some of his enigma by looking behind-the-scenes at his extraordinary talent and story. While you get some sense of what this artistic genius was like you also get the…

Joan Jett’s documentary, Bad Reputation had me from the moment she was told girls can’t play rock and roll music and she went ahead and did it anyway. The leather clad rocker has had a brilliant career, which this film celebrates. Bad Reputation is ultimately a fun and rollicking watch about a strong woman who…

The Staircase is a new true crime series streaming on Netflix. It will appeal to fans of Making A Murderer and The Jinx. A total of 13 episodes were released at different times and span the 16 years covering the trial of Michael Peterson, a man accused of killing his wife Kathleen on 9 December…

The best kind of comedy is the one that makes you laugh and cry. It’s the stuff that’s funny but also makes you stop and think. This is precisely the environment that Tasmanian-born comic, Hannah Gadsby’s final swansong, Nanette occupies. This award-winning show was filmed at the Sydney Opera House in 2018 and will premiere…

The Children Act is a drama that is wrapped around a moral quandary. It asks the question, “How old should someone be before they can refuse medical treatment?” This adaptation of an Ian McEwan novel is an emotive legal and moral drama that will give audiences pause to think. This film is directed by Richard…

The title of the film, The Wife, gives away about as much as the titular character. Is she a good one? A bad lady? The answer is a mystery for a large portion of this slow-burning character study. One thing’s for certain, this wifey is brimming with conflicting emotions in this bittersweet, character-driven drama. Glenn…

Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist shares some things in common with David Bowie’s song, “Fashion” and not just for the obvious fact that Vivienne Westwood is a fashion designer. Consider Bowie’s “Listen to me- don’t listen to me/Talk to me- don’t talk to me/Dance with me- don’t dance with me, no” lyrics. It’s a curious dance…

A bio-pic can be a tricky beast. When a person has achieved so much in their lifetime what part of the story do you focus on? If you’re Italian director, Susanna Nicchiarelli you eschew the obvious and omit the lauded days. Nicchiarelli instead focuses on later life and this is precisely the scene we are…

It’s fair to say that most of us home cooks are more like Nailed It! contestants than MasterChefs. So imagine how surprising it is to see a young child cooking up fine dining dishes with aplomb. Chef Flynn is a documentary about Flynn McGarry, this particular child prodigy. While it’s an entertaining story you can’t…

In a small town in Kansas the residents kept their doors locked until the day a brutal, quadruple murder rocked the neighbourhood. The scene is a tragic and hard one to fathom but in a complicated turn of events these also became famous thanks to the writer, Truman Capote and his seminal book. Cold Blooded:…

The Priscilla bus is coming. And everybody’s jumping. Sydney to Alice Springs. An intercity disco. Okay, enough Vengaboys! But dear reader, you may not know that the great, big silver bus that is Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert has rolled into old Sydney town to party and celebrate her 10th on-stage birthday. The AU Review’s…

The Priscilla Queen Of The Desert film is on the verge of celebrating its silver anniversary and the stage show has also been entertaining audience for ten years. The iconic silver bus recently returned to old Sydney town with star Tony Sheldon, who has been entertaining audiences as Bernadette in various productions of the live…

British comedian Romesh Ranganathan has entertained audiences as the Asian Provocateur with his travels to Sri Lanka and America. His latest series, Just Another Immigrant, will premiere exclusively on Stan and takes a leaf out of these previous books. It sees Ranganathan coming to America to crack the U.S. comedy scene with his quirky family members…

There are some viewers who might dismiss Tea With The Dames as “Anecdotage by those in their dotage.” But they’d be wrong. This documentary starring four great dames of the British stage and screen is a fascinating look at some brilliant careers and a revealing look into their respective personalities. There’s also lots of gossip…

The idea of a modern-day Atlantis, or large coastal cities flooded by rising sea-levels sounds like the stuff of horror or science fiction films. Instead, The Water Will Come is a frightening, non-fiction book written by Rolling Stone contributing editor, Jeff Goodell. Goodell has written about climate change for over 15 years and is able to distill…

It is hard for some of us to even fathom being an airplane crash victim. But for former Sydney Morning Herald journalist, Cynthia Banham it was reality. In A Certain Light Banham pens a family memoir that describes this irrevocable tragedy, and the fateful day that left her a double amputee with burns to over…

Beloved Australian author, Zoë Foster Blake has become an authority on dating and relationships. The former Cosmopolitan columnist wrote Textbook Romance with Hamish Blake, the man who would one day become her husband. Now she delivers us Break-up Boss, a rather joyous but realistic pocket guide to break-ups and its companion piece, an eponymous app….