ENTERTAINMENT
Culture Cont. TEMPT ME…
From the Bible to Faust to Shakespeare, temptation has been fundamental to human experience – leading to a trial of inner strength, to calamity or worse. After all, it got Adam and Eve thrown out of paradise! Does giving into temptation always lead to disastrous consequences? When have you given yourself over to or resisted temptation – was it worthwhile? Is temptation a spice in your life? What tempts you now? Share your stories of temptation, and see them brought to life in sound and movement by Cape Byron Playback Theatre on Saturday at the Drill Hall in Mullumbimby at 7.30pm. Entry by donation. Enquiries: 0403 023 693 or cbplayback@gmail.com.
HORSEY ART Horses have shared a close relationship with humans and for a long time have been our trusted companions, capturing our hearts and imaginations. With 2014 being the Chinese Year of the Horse, the Northern Rivers Community Gallery presents Equine Inspired, a group exhibition featuring suites of work from artists around the equine theme. Opening on Thursday at 5.30pm and on show until 5 October.
WHY MISS KITTY! Kitty Flanagan at the Byron Community Centre on Thursday 4 and Friday 5 September. The delightful Ms Flanagan presents a sneak preview of her brand-new show so don’t miss this opportunity to see one of Australia’s most creative minds at work as Kitty gives the inside scoop on gravediggers, cops, Cubans and spaghetti sows. There’s advice on how to speak to doctors, funny music from Sister Penny, plus a serious attempt to quantify one of life’s biggest mysteries: ‘Just how much do old people love salt?’Book online at byroncentre.com.au or phone 6685 6807.
GETTING TOGETHER TO GET FRACKED UP This Saturday at 7.30pm, Down The Gas Hole Productions presents the No Fracking Way Cabaret at the Nimbin Town Hall. The crew honour what has been noted as one of the most pivotal points in the history of the northern rivers with a cabaret celebrating the epic tales and memorable moments with spoken word, song, dance and celebration! Dinner will be available to purchase from 6.30pm; show starts at 7.30pm. Tickets are $12/$15 and are available at the door, or pre-sale from The Nimbin Environment Centre.
ART ON THE SHORES If you really want to know what’s happening in the visual arts in Byron Shire, get along to the Ocean Shores Art Expo this weekend. Every year for the last eleven years artists have painted up a storm for the themed event, which this year is titled Home. Along with paintings, there are dozens of exhibits in sculpture, mixed media, photography, pastels and printmaking. Celebrating at the Opening Launch Party you have a chance to rub shoulders with the artists and creatives who come out of their studios and garages to share their markmaking with the rest of the community. It’s a rare chance for artists to exhibit and sell works as well as be awarded prizes over $5,000. Get to the opening on Friday at 7pm in the auditorium of the Ocean Shores Public School, Shara Blvd, where Laura Targett romances the sound waves with her sensual music, food and wine are abundant, and hundreds of new artworks are yours for the picking!
North Coast news daily: www.echonetdaily.net.au
s w e i v e r Cinema BY JOHN CAMPBELL
CHARLIE’S COUNTRY Director Rolf de Heer and actor David Gulpilil were co-writers of this sometimes confronting, often heartbreaking (in part thanks to Graham Tardif’s haunting score), but mostly dull and essentially negative movie. As such, it is intriguing to guess who was responsible for which pieces of dialogue. After Charlie is shaved of his wiry, tangled locks and incarcerated in Darwin, he is visited by his mate Black Pete (Peter Djigir). The pair sit in silence for a long time before Pete says ‘it’s hard to talk to you when you don’t look like you.’ It is a beautifully simple sentence, loaded with poetry and metaphor. Earlier, with Charlie lying in a hospital bed, being treated for exposure and malnutrition, the duty doctor glibly asks, “do you mind if I call you Charlie? I have difficulty with foreign names.” I could not accept the veracity of the latter utterance and decided that, heavyhanded and tendentious in the extreme, it must have come from de Heer, who is not afraid to press hard on the white guilt button. The former line, I am equally sure, would have been contributed by Gulpilil, whose physical grace and wrecked beauty dominate throughout. Charlie’s community has been subjected to the Federal Government’s policy of intervention. The money that his people can no longer squander on grog is spent on over-priced processed foods and Charlie yearns for the old ways – it is, after all, his ancestral land. But the Law makes it virtually impossible for him to fulfill this longing – the spear that he makes to go hunting with is confiscated by the police as a dangerous weapon. The film is a weary lament from the same school as Samson And Delilah and, wallowing in victimhood, is a million dispiriting miles from the vigorous, uplifting and positive Mad Bastards. Most frustrating, it perpetuates the deep-rooted and for some reason sanctified notion that indigenous Australians are so attached to the area in which they were born that they are incapable of adaptation, of moving on.
THE INBETWEENERS 2 Every now and then the only thing you can do is let your guard down and go with the flow. After the unending, unspeakable ugliness of the nightly news, I have to confess (a little shamefacedly) that I had tears of laughter streaming down my face during this gross-out movie’s fantastic poo scene. It was cathartic, which is the last thing I expected to be writing about what is basically a tsunami of crudity. Will, Jay, Neil and Simon (Simon Bird, James Buckley, Blake Harrison and Joe Thomas) are back and looking rather too old to be continuing on as the teenage prats whom we first encountered on holiday in Crete in in 2011. But the group’s history of collaboration, beginning with the British TV series (2008–10), has made of them an accomplished comedic unit. The story is set in Oz, where Jay has been spending part of his gap year and letting on to his mates that he is shagging himself silly. The others fly out to join him and the truth is exposed – Jay is working in a toilet and living in a tent pitched on the front lawn of his Australian uncle’s suburban quarteracre (David Field, in blokey overdrive). Fired by romantic ambitions,
Will follows the beautiful Katie (Emily Berrington) to Byron Bay and the gang all check into the Arts Factory. Katie, however, is also being courted by the muscular, dreadlocked Ben (Freddie Stroma), and it is Will’s clashes with Ben that introduce at least a modicum of clever and biting satire to proceedings – at one point they are involved in a drumming/healing session inside a tent that takes a delicious bite out of the Bay’s ‘spiritual’ mumbo-jumbo. The narrative tends to fizzle out when they head to Birdsville (the whole is little more than a series of gag set-ups), but the boys are such hopeless nongs that it is impossible not to become swept along in their follies. An offensive film of no redeeming qualities and rarely rising above groin-level – I loved it.
TUESDAY
26 AUG to
WEDNESDAY
4 SEPT
MOVIE CLUB PRICES Adult $12.00 / Senior $8.50
OPENS THURSDAY
OPENS THURSDAY
AICE ISRAELI FILM FEST (no free tix) Tue: 6:30 - ANITA B (15+) CLOSING NIGHT EVENT: Wed: 6:30 - THE GREEN PRINCE (M) AICE PREVIEW: Wed: 9:00pm WISH I WAS HERE (18+) www.aiceisraelifilmfestival.com MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT (PG) (no free tix) Thu 28-Wed 3: 12:10, 4:40, 6:40pm PREDESTINATION (MA15+) (no free tix) Thu 28 , Fri 29, Mon 1-Wed 3: 10:10, 3:00, 7:00pm Sat 30, Sun 31: 10:10, 3:30, 7:30pm LEGENDS OF OZ - DOROTHY RETURNS (PG) (no free tix) Sat 30, Sun 31: 9:30am THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY (PG) (no free tix) Tue 26, Wed 27: 10:20, 1:40, 4:10, 6:40 Thu 18-Wed 3: 11:50, 2:20, 6:50pm THE LUNCHBOX (PG) Tue 26, Wed 27: 9:30am Enjoy our licensed bar
Lavazza Espresso Coffee
SAT AND SUN ONLY
THE INBETWEENERS 2 (MA15+) (no free tix) Tue 26, Wed 27: 11:50, 5:00, 9:10 Thu 28, Fri 29, Mon 1-Wed 4: 9:50, 5:00, 9:15pm Sat 30, Sun 31: 9:50, 5:30, 9:30pm BEGIN AGAIN (M) Tue 26, Wed 27: 11:40, 1:50, 7:00 Thu 28 , Fri 29, Mon 1-Wed 3: 10:40, 12:50, 9:00pm Sat 30, Sun 31: 11:20, 1:25, 9:10 2D THE GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (M) Tue 26: 4:00, 8:30pm Wed 27: 4:00, 9:10pm Thu 28- Wed 3: 2:10, 8:45pm LUCY (MA15+) Tue 26: 3:00, 9:10 Wed 27: 3:00 Thu 28- Wed 3: 5:00 STILL LIFE (M) Tue 26, Wed 27: 1:00 CHARLIE'S COUNTRY (M) Tue, Wed: 9:40am All sessions are correct at the time of publication. Current session times: www.palacecinemas.com.au
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108-110 Jonson Street, Byron Bay 6680 8555 | www.palacecinemas.com.au
The Byron Shire Echo August 26, 2014 27