Inspired by Peter Carey’s Man Booker Prize winning novel and starring George Mackay (1917), Essie Davis(The Babadook), Nicholas Hoult (Stan’s upcoming The Great, The Favourite), Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) and Russell Crowe (Stan’s The Loudest Voice), Justin Kurzel’sTrue History of the Kelly Gang shatters the mythology of the notorious icon to reveal the essence behind the life of Ned Kelly and force a country to stare back into its brutal past.
Spanning the younger years of Ned’s life to the time leading up to his death, the film explores the blurred boundaries between what is bad and what is good, and the motivations for the demise of its hero. Youth and tragedy collide in the Kelly Gang, and at the beating heart of this tale is the fractured and powerful love story between a mother and a son.
Stan Original Film True History of the Kelly Gang premieres this Australia Day.
For a strictly limited season, Cameron Mackintosh’s spectacular sell-out staged concert version of Boublil & Schönberg’s legendary musical, Les Misérables – The Staged Concert will be shown in cinemas across Australia from February 27 from the Gielgud Theatre in London.
Seen by over 120 million people worldwide, Les Misérables is undisputedly one of the world’s most popular musicals – and now Les Misérables – The Staged Concert is the must-see event for all fans of musical theatre and live event cinema. Tickets are on sale now.
Leading an outstanding cast and orchestra of over 65 are Michael Ball (Javert),Alfie Boe (Jean Valjean), Carrie Hope Fletcher (Fantine) and Matt Lucas (Thénardier), who perform the songs I Dreamed A Dream, Bring Him Home, One Day More, On My Own and many more. This sensational cinematic live event is not to be missed.
Cameron Mackintosh said: “The extraordinary sell-out success and response to our spectacular new theatrical concert staging of Les Misérables has been phenomenal so we are thrilled to give cinema audiences around Australia the opportunity to experience this stunning production. Starring our entirely brilliant London cast headed by Michael Ball, Alfie Boe, Carrie Hope Fletcher and Matt Lucas, our 16 week limited season at the Gielgud sold out in a few days but now you can storm the barricades to ensure you catch this thrilling live performance direct from the West End in a cinema near you. For the masses of disappointed fans who couldn’t get to see this amazing concert in London this live event will be a unique shared experience of thrilling drama, glorious music and sensational singing performed by an amazing all-star cast and orchestra of over 65 – the like of which you will have never seen before. If you have ever Dreamed a Dream – this is it!”
Cameron Mackintosh presents Boublil & Schönberg’s legendary musical Les Misérables – The Staged Concert. Based on the novel by Victor Hugo Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer Original French Text by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel.
Boston-born pop punk outfit BOYS LIKE GIRLS will be returning to Australia in April 2020 for the first time in nearly a decade to perform in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
At these incredibly special shows, BOYS LIKE GIRLS will be performing their cult classic self-titled debut album in full, along with fan favourites from their stellar discography.
Joining Boys Like Girls as guests are US post hard core legends, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus!
The RJA story goes back to 2003, when brothers Ronnie and Randy Winter formed the band who would end up singing to Virgin Records for the release of their debut LP, Don’t You Fake It in 2006. The album is certified Gold in the US, and features the singles Guardian Angel and their best known song, the anti domestic violence focused, Face Down.
Their second album Lonely Road was released in 2008 and following Virgin’s collapse, RJA became fully independent in early 2010, regaining full creative control of their sound and vision.
Since then it’s being done the Red Jumpsuit way, Am I The Enemy was released in 2011 and album number four, 4 in 2014. All charting and all pushing the bands message further around the world.
Known for their devout Christian beliefs, the bands spirituality flows through their lyrics which cover a lifetime worth of emotions. The darkness and the light, the struggles and the wins. The bands message is ultimately one of hope and a reminder that ‘Even on the worst day that you’re alive you’re still surrounded by so many awesome things that you should be grateful for, if you choose to look at them.’ Ronnie Winter
If you’ve ever seen BOYS LIKE GIRLS or THE RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS live then you’ll know why this tour is so special, and if you haven’t, here’s your chance to see why!
Both bandswill be giving their long-time fans a one-off special experience.
Stan today announced the much-anticipated series The Great from Australian Oscar-nominated screenwriter Tony McNamara (The Favourite) will premiere only on Stan from 16 May – same day as the US.
The comedy series chronicles the genre-bending, anti-historical ride through 18th Century Russia and follows the wildly comedic rise of Catherine the Nothing to Catherine the Great – as depicted by Hollywood heavyweight Elle Fanning (The Neon Demon, Super 8), starring alongside BAFTA Award nominee Nicholas Hoult (Stan Original Film True History of the Kelly Gang, The Favourite) and a sensational supporting cast that includes Phoebe Fox, Adam Godley, Gwilym Lee, Charity Wakefield, Douglas Hodge and Sacha Shawan.
The Great is created, written and executive produced by Tony McNamara and executive produced by Marian Macgowan, Thruline’s Josh Kesselman and Ron West, Echo Lake’s Brittany Kahan Ward, Doug Mankoff and Andrew Spaulding, Elle Fanning, Mark Winemaker and Matt Shakman.
The Great premieres 16 May only on Stan – same day as the US.
Subculture today comes live to you from Brickvention 2020 in Melbourne. Check out Part 1 and we’ll have more live episodes coming through over the next couple of days.
“YYZ” is the new video by Brescia, Italy singer-songwriter Gab De La Vega, who ended 2019 with the release of “Perfect Texture”, the first single to announce the new record “Beyond Space And Time”, his third full-length album, which is coming out on January 24th.
The song comes with a music video directed by Jaden D and edited by Bradley James Allen.
The song lyrics are deep, personal and reveal the ability of De La Vega to read his own as well as other people’s life, the world and the time we live in, evoking images that could appear familiar to many.
De La Vega comments:
“YYZ is about feeling lost and disoriented in life. It’s about the need to find your place in the world. The moments in which you have to make decisions that might change everything, without having a clue of what the outcome might be. It’s about the daily struggle to steer your own life and at the same time accept that you don’t have full control of everything that happens to you.
The song lyrics refer to a summer afternoon two years ago. I was walking in downtown Toronto, chasing my thoughts in the alleys of my mind. At one point I looked around and I realized my feet took me astray. I had to figure out where I was. I was kind of lost, literally… and metaphorically.”
The video was shot in Toronto in the summer of 2019. This is what De La Vega had to say about it:
“I decided to pay tribute to the city in the video. I love Toronto, it feels like a second home. Jaden, who directed the video, is my cousin and he’s from Toronto. We had this idea so we went around the city and I started busking, playing the song at some of the most and some of the least busy corners of the city. There are no actors in the video, only the people of Toronto. They were running late to hop on their train, they were shopping, they were groups of friends or couples chatting, they were regular people caught up in their regular lives on an ordinary summer day. We provided the soundtrack, but they were the protagonists. Some of them stopped to hear me play, even for a few seconds, others liked it and dropped a coin in the case. I tried to go along with the flow and become part of the play for that day, impersonating someone whose life is not different from anybody’s. I guess it’s just what we do, we live our lives, we play our scripts.”
The new album “Beyond Space And Time” was recorded and mixed by Simone Piccinelli at La Buca Recording Club in Montichiari and mastered by Grammy-nominated sound engineer Jack Shirley (Deafheaven, Oathbreaker, Jeff Rosenstock, Sun Valley Gun Club, Gouge Away…) at The Atomic Garden Recording Studios in Oakland, California.
Released by Epidemic Records and the German label Backbite Records.
Preorders for Vinyl and CDs are being taken from now at: https://www.smarturl.com/GabDeLaVegaBSAT
To celebrate the album release, De La Vega is announcing a first round of full band shows across Italy, while other full band and solo shows across Europe are being booked, beginning in March.
Upcoming shows:
7th February – Cremona, Circolo Arcipelago
8th February – Brescia, Lio Bar
9th February – Parma, Splinter Club
21st February – TBA
22nd February – TBA
23rd February – Chiuppano, Osteria Al Castello
European shows are being booked by Flix Agency and they will be shortly announced.
The unstoppable DEVILSKIN unveil “CORRODE,” a monstrous new video, single and details of their long awaited fourth album.
The New Zealand four piece–who have toured with the likes of Slash, Halestorm, Motley Crue, and Disturbed–have announced their new album, titled RED, which will be released worldwide Friday April 3 on all formats across all platforms.
RED is the universal colour of passion, vitality, blood, danger, romance, anger, horror and love. Everything evocative. Of all the colours, RED is a warning and a statement.
“We wanted to reflect the diversity, strength and depth of the songs on the album with an undeniable declaration.” Says Devilskin bassist Paul Martin. “We are so very excited to share these songs, we are extremely proud of how far we have come and what we have achieved with this recording.”
The single “Corrode” encapsulates the red theme perfectly, its angsty lyrics tell of being completely overwhelmed and submerged in grime and stress. Fighting your way through it all and rising to ask for help. Directed by Alex Hargreaves (Alien Weaponry, Beastwars) filmed and edited by DOP Piotr Ziomus (Kwasnik Pictures) the video is powerful, confronting and evolves to show the bigger picture that we don’t always see in our own lives. Martin continues, “Perspective is so important, more-often-than-not, the difference between our happy places and our darkest spaces is just the angle we are looking from. This song is about the journey and the challenges you need to face when you feel lost. It’s saying it’s fine to ask for help.”
“We really took our time with RED, “Martin enthuses, “we had the vision and we knew it had to be done right. The songs each have so much life and we felt a real duty to do them justice. There are some really personal and very real moments on this album. We absolutely did not hold back, there are songs about struggle, depression, suicide and loss and there are songs about strength, hope, victory and love. We demoed almost 30 songs for this album so we had a lot of work to do to narrow the list down. One of last songs we wrote, it almost missed the cut too, but the throat punch we call Do You See Birds opens the album and sets the tone on a real rollercoaster of a ride. We felt it was especially important to give the listener a total immersive experience from start to finish. There’s lots of mood, colour and texture in the songs as well as between them. It’s a trip.”
The amazing response of the first two singles “Endo” and “All Fall Down” show the promise this album holds. Both songs receiving high rotate radio play and amassing serious numbers online.
From the epic moodiness of “Blood & Bone,” the caged rage of “Same Life,” the visceral impact of “The Victor,” to the poignant beauty of “Sweet Release,” the resplendent grandeur of “Bright Lights,” right through to the swagger of “Be Like The River” and the manic fury of “Everybody’s High But Me,” Devilskin have bared their soul with their finest performances yet.
The album will be released digitally on all the usual formats, physically via CD and LP and there will be a limited edition deluxe box set.
If you have been keeping one eye on the Australian music scene over the past two years then there is a good chance that you have heard of Adelaide post-hardcore outfit Glass Tides. During that time the band have released two EPs that certainly caught a lot of people’s attention and have had the chance to open for bands such as Bodyjar and Spiderbait.
Now Glass Tides have released their debut feature album titled In Between and if you love albums that contain raw passion then you are simply going to adore this album. There is a unique rawness to this album, a rawness that shows a band that is willing to explore as they go on but also a band where the vocals reveal the pain of humanity with everything out in the open.
Smooth tracks like ‘Crawling’ are taken to new levels with stunning vocal work from Paul Bakker while the beautiful layers of ‘Somebody Else’ reveal a band that are much more mature than the fact that this is a debut album would allude to.
‘Waste’ is the kind of track that could see Glass Tides make it on the world stage and it is catchy as hell but still boasts are serious side that will draw on serious music fans. ‘Sympathy’ again sees the smoothness of the band return while the sound of the track itself conjures up memories of bands like Angela’s Dish and Kisschasy. Then there is the brilliant ‘Insecure’ that just continues to build in intensity while the vocals clearly portray the pain the song is written about.
Glass Tide’s aggressive side is revealed with ‘The Past is Dead’ while the beautiful ‘Mirrors’ and the haunting ‘Pointless View’ show the exact polar opposite. In Between then reaches the heights again as Bakker declares ‘take me away’ over and over on ‘Happy’ while that late 2000s vibe returns with the heartfelt title track that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on one of the soundtracks for One Tree Hill.
In Between is the kind of album that shows that Glass Tides have a big future ahead of them. This is an album from the heart that is not going to disappoint.
Summary: Two young British soldiers during the First World War are given an impossible mission: deliver a message deep in enemy territory that will stop 1,600 men, and one of the soldiers’ brothers, from walking straight into a deadly trap.
Year: 2020
Australian Cinema Release Date: 9st January 2020
Thailand Cinema Release Date: 30th January 2020
Australian DVD Release Date: TBA
Country: United States, United Kingdom
Director: Sam Mendes
Screenwriter: Sam Mendes, Krysty Wilson-Ciarns
Cast: Benjamin Adams (Sergeant Harrop), Gabriel Akuwudike (Private Buchanan), Andy Apollo (Sergeant Miller), Daniel Attwell (Captain Sandbach), Elliott Baxter (Private Singer), Jacob James Beswick (Lance Corporal Duff), Anson Boon (Private Cooke), Pip Carter (Lieutenant Gordon), Dean Charles-Chapman (Lance Corporal Blake), Bradley Connor (Sergeant Gardner), Samson Cox-Vinell (Orderly Dixon), Benedict Cumberbatch (Colonel McKenzie), Josef Davies (Private Stokes), Claire Duburcq (Lauri), Elliott Edusah (Private Grey), Justin Edwards (Captain Ivins), Colin Firth (General Erinmore), Tommy French (Private Butler), Kenny Fullwood (Private Rossi), John Hollingworth (Sergeant Guthrie), Luke Hornsby (Private Pinewood), Gerran Howell (Private Parry), Adam Hugill (Private Atkins), Michael Jibson (Lieutenant Hutton), Taddeo Kufus (Soldat Baumer), Jonny Lavelle (Orderly Byrne), Spike Leighton (Private Kilgour), Merlin Leonhardt (Soldat Muller), George MacKay (Lance Corporal Schofield), Richard Madden (Lieutenant Joseph Blake), Daniels Mays (Sergeant Sanders), Richard McCabe (Colonel Collins), Joe Mendes (Private Willock), Ryan Nolan (Private Malky), Jamie Parker (Lieutenant Richards), Billy Postlethwaite (NCO Harvey), Nabhaan Rizwan (Sepoy Jondalar), Michael Rouse (Captain Rylands), Jonah Russell (Captain Morahan), Adrian Scarborough (Major Hepburn), Andrew Scott (Lieutenant Leslie), Jack Shalloo (Private Seymour), Mark Strong (Captain Smith), Paul Tinto (NCO Baker), Chris Walley (Private Bullen), Ian Wilson (Sergeant Wright)
Running Time: 119 mins
Classification: MA15+ (Australia) TBC (Thailand)
OUR 1917 REVIEWS & RATINGS:
Dave Griffiths Review:
Over the years the cinematic world has been blessed with some pretty amazing war films. Think of the sheer emotional nature of films like Schindler’s List and Hacksaw Ride or the epic sale of films like Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbor. It feels like it is the war genre when some of the truly great filmmakers of our generation have really had a chance to show us what they are capable of an that legacy certainly continues with 1917.
As a filmmaker Sam Mendes has certainly proved himself to be one of the most ‘intense’ of the modern generation. That intensity has been delivered with powerful drama and dialogue in films like American Beauty and Revolutionary Road while it also returned through the power of stunts and action with his trip into the Bond universe with Skyfall and Spectre. With 1917 Mendes manages to fuse both of his skills in drama and his style of action together in a way that results with a unique film that will go down as one of the finest in 2020.
Plot wise 1917 is quite basic. It is set during World War I in France and General Erinmore (Colin Firth – A Single Man) receives word that an Allied attack is going to be walking right into a trap set by the Germans. In a desperate bid to stop the annihilation of 1600 men he gives Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman – Game Of Thrones) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay – Peter Pan) a near impossible task. He asks them to go through the front-line and go behind the enemy line to deliver a letter that should stop the attack from ever happening.
In a lot of ways the style Mendes uses to tell the story is very similar to what Peter Jackson used with The Lord Of The Rings. The film itself entirely surrounds the impossible journey that the two embark on yet somehow Mendes stops the film from every becoming boring at all. Around every corner he places a new task and obstacle in the way of the pair and his idea of using a one-shot technique means that the audience is right there amongst the action. Whether it be urgently pushing past soldiers in the trenches, battling to swim against a raging river or coming under heavy enemy fire Mendes has the audience right there beside the heroes which only further enhances the suspense and intensity throughout the film.
Surprisingly the screenplay which Mendes co-wrote with Krysty Wilson-Cairns (Penny Dreadful) also keeps the dialogue to the bare minimum. For a lot of the film the pair either use silence or brief but powerful dialogue to get some in-depth points across. At one point Blake and Schofield debate whether war medals really mean anything or not, and while some writers would let it take up five minutes of the film Mendes and Wilson-Cairns let both characters make their point within a minute. Likewise anything we learn about the two men is fitted nicely into some of the most natural dialogue you will ever hear on the screen.
Such is Mendes’ maturity as a filmmaker that he never allows the action sequences to ever take anything away from the drama of the film. Plane crashes and enemy fire occur in real time and while it does have the audience on the edge of their seat Mendes never allows it to over-shadow the film’s major storyline or detract from it.
I have heard some people suggest that the film would have been further enhanced if the two leads had been more recognisable actors, but I fail to see how that would have helped. Chapman and MacKay put in absolutely brilliant performances and there could be very little more asked of them. The two share some very poignant scenes together and in all honestly they carry the film throughout as the camera never leaves them. Very few young actors could pull off such an intense acting performance but these two seem to do it with ease.
1917 is one of those films that leaves you in complete stunned silence as you watch it. Mendes never allows his audience to rest, instead he takes them on the journey with his two heroes using camera angles we haven’t seen since The Children Of Men. Yes at times 1917 feels utterly claustrophobic but it is also a visual delight that will find its audience going through a range of emotions as they view it. This film is a true classic that will be savoured by true movie lovers.
You ever hear the one about the cop, the songbird, the psycho and the mafia princess? “Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)” is a twisted tale told by Harley herself, as only Harley can tell it. When Gotham’s most nefariously narcissistic villain, Roman Sionis, and his zealous right-hand, Zsasz, put a target on a young girl named Cass, the city is turned upside down looking for her. Harley, Huntress, Black Canary and Renee Montoya’s paths collide, and the unlikely foursome have no choice but to team up to take Roman down.
Directed by Cathy Yan, the film stars Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ewan McGregor and Ella Jay Basco.
BIRDS OF PREY releases in Australia in theatres on February 6, 2020.
