Album: Robert Forster - Strawberries

The former Go-Betweens linchpin celebrates life’s quirks and temptations

“Tell me what you see” invites Robert Forster during Strawberries' “Tell it Back to me.” The album’s eight songs do not, however, necessarily say what Forster actually sees. These vignettes about encounters between characters come across as imaginary scenarios.

This contrasts with the former Go-Betweens lynchpin’s last album, The Candle and the Flame, which was a direct – albeit allusive – reaction to the diagnosis and treatment of his wife Karin Bäumler’s cancer.

The Surfer review - Nicolas Cage is relentlessly down and out in western Australia

★★★ THE SURFER Irish director Lorcan Finnegan's manic take on macho surfer culture

Irish director Lorcan Finnegan's manic take on macho surfer culture

“Don’t live here, don’t surf here,” is the menacing motto (sounds more scary with an Australian accent) of the tanned, muscular denizens of Luna Bay beach. But the unnamed hero known as The Surfer, played by Nicolas Cage, isn’t listening.

Music Reissues Weekly: The Twilights - Twilights Time The Complete 60s Recordings

Australian pop group which recorded at Abbey Road but remained a local sensation

On 26 September 1966, The Twilights set-off from Australia to Britain. The journey, on the liner the Castel Felice, took six weeks. A day after boarding they learned their sixth single, “Needle in a Haystack,” was an Australian number one. There was nothing they could do to promote the hit, so after disembarking at Southampton they looked for work.

Amyl and the Sniffers, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - rowdy Aussies let loose

Melbourne pub rockers set Sunday evening alight

Amy Taylor and the rest of the Sniffers ambled onto the stage of Birmingham’s O2 Academy to a huge roar of approval from a packed and diverse audience on Sunday evening. With her Farrah Fawcett hairstyle, toothy smile, sparkly bikini, knee length boots and shorts she didn’t look the firebrand that her image suggests – but looks are frequently deceptive, as Birmingham was to find out.

London Film Festival 2024 - a shaman and sham

Warren Ellis saves wildlife and himself, Pavement go post-modern in two music docs

Justin Kurzel’s Australian film subjects are out on the malign edge, from Snowtown’s suburban serial killer and Nitram’s mass shooter to Ned Kelly. His debut documentary’s protagonist Warren Ellis is a contrastingly loving renegade, an escapee from suburban Ballarat who became Nick Cave’s wild-maned right-hand man and The Dirty Three’s frenzied violinist, and journeys here to the Sumatran wildlife sanctuary he helps fund, where he plays to animals like a shaman Dolittle.

Album: Amyl and the Sniffers - Cartoon Darkness

★★★★★ AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS - CARTOON DARKNESS Australian pub rockers are a riot

Australian pub rockers are a riot

Amy Taylor’s lyrics on Amyl and the Sniffers’ previous discs could hardly be described as demure – especially with song titles like “Don’t Need a Cunt (Like You to Love Me)”. So, it’s encouraging to hear that the band hasn’t decided to censor themselves in any way as they hurtle towards what promises to be their big breakout with Cartoon Darkness.

London Film Festival 2024 - the Vatican, the Blitz, a trip to Poland and a surfin' nightmare

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2024 the Vatican, the Blitz, a trip to Poland and a surfin' nightmare

Another cinematic feast as LFF '24 gets underway

Conclave

Director Edward Berger won an Oscar for his last feature, All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), but here he concerns himself with the more intimate and claustrophobic battlefield of the Vatican. The Pope (Bruno Novelli) has died, and under the watchful eye of the Dean, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the cardinals gather to appoint his successor. No-one said it would be easy.