For more than a decade, Call the Midwife has made a virtue of quiet heroism – finding revolution not just in the streets, but in delivery rooms, kitchens, and moments of unspoken care. As the multi-award-winning drama returns with its Christmas special and the forthcoming Series 15, Poplar enters 1971: a year of upheaval and…
There’s something uniquely disorienting about realising a movie like Anaconda is old enough to be rebooted. The 1997 original – equal parts jungle pulp, star-studded curiosity, and cable TV staple – belongs to a very specific era of studio excess. So when this new Anaconda announces itself not just as a reboot but as a…
Thanks to Sony Pictures Australia, we have 5 double in-season passes (Admit 2) to see Ralph Fiennes in the The Choral, in Australian theatres from New Years Day, January 1st, 2026. 1916. As war rages on the Western Front, the Choral Society in Ramsden, Yorkshire has lost most of its men to the army. The…
It’s hard to believe it’s that time of the year again. Christmas is here, Summer has come for us Down Under, and another year of content has wrapped at The AU Review. But we couldn’t leave without giving props to our favourite games of the year, and boy, were we spoilt for choice. It was…
We had the pleasure of reviewing the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless Gaming Headset when it was released back in 2022, and had crowned it the undisputed champion of gaming headsets. I still use it to this very day on my Xbox Series X. It’s incredibly comfortable, provides great audio quality, and has a range…
With the list of stick and robot vacuums seemingly growing by the day, there’s no doubt that there are a multitude of ways to keep your floors clean at home. While the robot vacuum is always a solid option for the sake of convenience, there are some benefits to having a decent stick vacuum at…
Clip-on earbuds have become one of the most interesting alternatives to traditional in-ear designs, especially for workouts, and the Shokz OpenDots One are among the most refined examples of the category to date. While their sound quality won’t rival premium in-ear models, their comfort, stability and battery life make them an easy recommendation for gym-goers…
I’ll be honest: cleaning the floors is a chore I put off for as long as humanly possible. It’s repetitive, time-consuming, and somehow never-ending. So, when a cleaning gadget promises to make that process easier, I’m all ears. The Roborock F25 RT is one of those appliances. It sells itself as a straightforward, affordable wet-dry…
Lenovo have released the Legion Tower 7i, a radical new tower that combines form and function with an impressive lighting rig and easy to upgrade inside, making this the ultimate PC gaming tower. The Lenovo Legion Tower 7i (Gen 10) doesn’t radically reinvent Lenovo’s flagship desktop formula, but it doesn’t need to. Instead, it refines,…
If Hotline Miami was a synthed up fever dream, Anger Foot is that same dream dosed with five espresso shots and a white Monster chaser. Developed by Free Lives (Broforce, Genital Jousting), this first-person kicker makes supercharged, choreographed chaos into an artform. Less about survival and more about weaponising momentum, it’s dumb, brilliant, infuriating, and…
The Last Dinner Party have spent the past year accelerating from London newcomers to one of the most talked-about bands in contemporary guitar music. Their debut album, Prelude To Ecstasy, announced the all-female five-piece with grandeur, pairing sharp songwriting and theatrical vocals with a baroque-inspired visual identity that felt fully formed from the outset. Their breakout…
Inspired by the films of the same name, Now You See Me Live at the Sydney Opera House is a fantastical night of illusions, sleight of hand and death-defying stunts. Performing together in Australia for the first time, Adam Trent (USA), Enzo Weyne (France), Andrew Basso (Italy), and Gabriella Lester (Canada) are the four Horsemen…
Like all twist-laced thrillers based on successful (if trashy) novels, to some there’ll be a level of expectation walking into a feature like The Housemaid. Thankfully, even if you are initiated with the turns and curveballs that author Freida McFadden laid out in her novel of the same name, screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine (The Boys, The…
As outlandish as it sounds, in the early 1990s in Japan a rental family service (レンタル家族), or professional stand-in service, was founded to provide clients with actors who portray friends, family members, or coworkers for social events such as weddings, or to provide platonic companionship. In a city as big as Tokyo the idea of loneliness is…
In Rental Family, connection is never simple – it’s negotiated, performed, and deeply felt in the spaces between what’s said and what’s withheld. Takehiro Hira and Mari Yamamoto bring quiet precision and emotional intelligence to a film that lives in those in-between moments, portraying characters shaped as much by restraint as by longing. As Brendan…
In an age defined by curated selves and digital distance, Rental Family asks a quietly radical question: what if connection – even borrowed connection – could still save us? Directed with tender restraint by Hikari and anchored by a deeply humane performance from Brendan Fraser, the film follows a drifting American actor who finds work…
Just steps from the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, and next door to the Anaheim Convention Centre, the Hilton Anaheim has long been a popular hotel destination for travellers to the region. It opened back in 1984 just in time for the last Los Angeles Olympics. So it’s fitting that they just completed a multi-million…
There’s a point every December when the sleigh bells start to feel a little too loud and the familiar holiday classics blur together. You’ve seen the same heartwarming arcs, the same snowy kisses, the same miraculous last-minute transformations. Sometimes you want a Christmas movie that doesn’t insist on comfort. You want something stranger, sharper, or…
There’s no shortage of controllers on the market these days, but for the most part, I find myself looking for another controller when I need something more. Sure, an extra controller is great for gaming with others, but the recent rise of pro-centric controllers has made not only competitive gaming but casual gaming more accessible…
iRobot’s Roomba range has long been synonymous with robot vacuums, and the new Roomba Max 705 positions itself as the company’s most powerful vacuum and mop robot to date. Aimed squarely at busy households and pet owners, it pairs dramatically increased suction with intelligent navigation and a self-emptying dock designed to deliver weeks of hands-free…
Close to the first anniversary of its initial release on PC and the Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 came out on the PS5 earlier this December. I must admit, my experience with the game is quite limited. Friends have let me play around with the game, including the complete home setup (joystick and…
Every great Batman era begins the same way: with skepticism. Michael Keaton was dismissed for his comedic inclinations. Ben Affleck was written off as a miscast action star. Robert Pattinson was mocked for his Twilight past. Even Heath Ledger’s casting within the Batman franchise was met with intense trepidation before he ultimately redefined The Joker….
A little over a year ago, Disneyland’s iconic 1989 attraction Splash Mountain received a long overdue makeover when Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opened at the Anaheim, California theme park. The ride is the first to incorporate characters from Disney’s 2009 film The Princess and the Frog. Tiana – the film’s titular Princess – has also spread…
Amazon MGM Studios have unveiled a series of first-look stills for The Wrecking Crew, their action-comedy starring Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa, which is set to premiere on Prime Video on January 28th, 2026. Born from one of Bautista’s own tweets – he posted on X in 2021 “Just going to throw this out into the atmosphere and…
I can’t lie, I’m a sucker for Mortal Kombat. Call it nostalgia, brought on by the 1995 movie (insert MORTAL KOMBAAAATTT scream here), or the long list of arcade and console classics that inspired it. Now I get it, that movie doesn’t hold a candle to the games released before and since, but that was…
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself wanting to live more of a minimalist lifestyle. I want to be on my phone less. I don’t feel the need to have the latest and hottest new tech in the market, nor do I really want it. So this drive for minimalism makes the Sprout Maverick Hybrid…
Quiet, searching, and deeply felt, The History of Sound unfolds like a folk song passed carefully from hand to hand. Set in the aftermath of the First World War, Oliver Hermanus’ adaptation of Ben Shattuck’s short story traces the intimate bond between two young music students, Lionel and David, as their shared devotion to folk…
A love of music – or, more specifically, folk music – is the driving force behind the tender, heartbreaking romance at the core of The History of Sound, an ironically quiet tale of song collecting and enduring connection between two men in the early 1900s. The story is experienced predominantly through the life of Lionel…
Just as thrilling to look at as its two predecessors, but perhaps the most narratively frustrating of them all, James Cameron‘s Avatar: Fire and Ash continues to make a good case for theatrical 3D technology and IMAX screen formats, but, as with both 2009’s Avatar and 2022’s The Way of Water, if you take away…
It’s just over a week until Christmas and the AU Books Team have been busy making their lists, rating their books, and agonising over their choices for their favourite books of 2025. It’s never an easy task and it’s practically impossible to pick just one, so we let them pick a few. Of course this…
