In the lounge
one is hardly the most essential of an extensive array of Ali docos, it also cannot fail to entertain or enlighten. Such is the boundless charisma and vitality of the man. The set-up is very simple here. The doco sifts through Ali’s 12 appearances on the US TV talk program The Dick Cavett Show, and finds gold just about everywhere. Footage spans the late 1960s through to the 1990s, and while Cavett is not that well known here in Australia, rest assured he is an intelligent and sharp interviewer who got the best out of the bloke they called “The Greatest” time and time again. adventure yarn. Delroy Lindo spearheads a quartet of AfricanAmerican ex-soldiers who return to Vietnam to sort out some unfinished business. While out to honour the memory of a fallen comrade (Chadwick Boseman), the fellas also have a heads-up on some missing treasure that just might make up for the many missed chances in their respective lives. Be patient during a plodding midsection, because the exciting finale is well worth sticking around for. deadpan zom-com looking to have some smart fun at the expense of how dumb a zombie movie thing can be. It doesn’t exactly hurt that director Jim Jarmusch has attracted an A-grade cast to this goofy B-movie, led by Bill Murray and Star Wars regular Adam Driver as Centerville’s best cops on the case. Co-stars set to chow down or be chomped include Steve Buscemi, Iggy Pop, Tilda Swinton, Tom Waits and Selena Gomez. including Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt and various members of The Eagles. The roll call does not end there. The use of previously unseen home movies and photographs is spellbinding. Highly recommended.
What this bargain-basement American indie lacks in polish, it more than compensates for with ideas, intelligence and a determination to deliver. The setting is a small country town in the 1950s, where unexplained electrical interference could be signalling an imminent visit by strangers from parts unknown. If this sounds a little science-fictiony, let’s just say this clever tale passes through that realm on the way to something of its own making. Some virtuoso camera shots and the accomplished work of an unknown cast combine for something truly special: close to exactly what a Steven Spielberg might have done if he was just starting out today.
Aussie actor Kate Atkinson is used to lockdowns, thanks to her role as Deputy Governor Vera Bennett in the globally celebrated Wentworth, which returns to Foxtel on July 28 at 8.30pm. The Western Australia-born actor, now based in Melbourne, says she’s coping with COVID19 restrictions not just with the help of her favourite TV shows, movies and books, but by keeping a smile on her face by dancing to her favourite music. “It’s good for your mind and body without feeling like exercise,” she says. “If you’re alone you can go mental, and if you’re with others it’s a beautiful was to connect without physically ‘connecting’.”
I really love Sex Education on Netflix. It’s naughty and funny and delightful, and surprisingly moving. Country Music on
SBS is a Ken Burns documentary series I really got into. You don’t have to love country music (I do) but it’s a wonderful social history, too. And the ABC’s Stateless is a fantastic Australian drama about a subject close to my heart.
Another impossible task, and Harper
Lee’s To Kill Mockingbird is an unoriginal but true answer. I’ve read it countless times since I was 12 years old. George Eliot’s Middlemarch is a big, fat classic with wonderful insights from another female author ahead of her time. And One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez was my first unforgettable experience of magic realism but, really, I just couldn’t resist the timely title!