As a storyteller Mark can keep an audience enthralled as he peppers them with punchline after punchline littered throughout real-life true stories from his own experiences. He is joined by Australian standup comedian Desh – otherwise known as the mind behind some of the funniest television programs never made. Since his introduction as a national finalist in the Triple J Raw competition, Desh has squeezed his rotund frame into just about every TV and radio show in the land, featuring as a comic guest, opinion maker and racial stereotype for casting directors from Surry Hills to Mumbai. Saturday from 8pm at Club Lennox, and it is free. Come early for dinner at the restaurant. The food is awesome.
(He can download stuff onto his hand-held thingy while driving at breathtaking speed. What a man!) The villains are ugly Russians (the flavour of the month among copycat casting agents).
ART AT THE AIRPORT Northern Rivers Community Gallery (NRCG) presents a new series of works for the exciting Art at the Airport program in January and February 2015. The program features two major works by leading contemporary Australian artist Robyn Sweaney. Robyn Sweaney is an artist based in Mullumbimby and since 1992 she has held 12 solo exhibitions and been involved in more than 90 selected group exhibitions. The subject matter for Sweaney’s artwork is generally sourced from her immediate environment, the home, garden and the suburban landscape. Her work explores notions of Australian identity and place. So next time you are flying out of Ballina, have a poke around the airport and check out the work of one of this area’s finest painters.
INTO THE WOODS Rob Marshall was responsible for one of the most crushingly tedious movies of all time when he made Chicago (2002). Stephen Sondheim is considered by those in the know to be a songwriter of pure genius, but to my unsophisticated ear his compositions are entirely without melody and, except for the occasional change in tempo, lacking in variation. Which is to say, his songs all sound the same and they all involve a lot of what can only be described as glass-shattering wailing (shoot me, but I’m an unreconstructed Gilbert and Sullivan man). Marshall’s screen adaptation, therefore, of a Sondheim ‘classic’ was never likely to send me into paroxysms of delight – and it didn’t. The idea of intertwining a handful of the Grimm brothers’ fairytales is interesting enough and James Lapine’s script manages the task without undue stress, while Dion Beebe’s colouring-book cinematography is quite enchanting, but what we have here is a musical that would have been infinitely better without the music.
ROBYN SWEANEY’S WORK ON SHOW AT THE BALLINA AIRPORT AS PART OF THE ART AT THE AIRPORT THIS MONTH
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED… Kick off the new year with comedy at the Byron Brewery – the regular open mic hosted by Mandy Nolan and featuring some serious upcoming comedy talent. Brisbane’s Ting Ling put in some blistering sets at Falls Fest and is returning for a Brewery guestie and one of the open mic circuit’s favourites, Dave Watson, aka Dave, aka the dude with a roadkill bat strapped to his chest and nothing but a CSG triangle to hide his modesty, takes the stage after a year-long hiatus. Forget that idiot Raymond, everyone LOVES Dave. Thursday 8pm. Free.
ROBERT RYAN’S PLACE Just the other day I was asking someone where is Robert Ryan? Fifteen years ago his paintings were everywhere, their simple playful lines capturing the imagination of art buyers around the country. Ryan is back with his latest exhibition Place of Dreams, a body of work that references the idea of Byron Bay, those moving here to search for a better, less complicated life. Check out what is on offer at the Lone Goat Gallery Friday until 4 February.
North Coast news daily: www.echonetdaily.net.au
They have bad skin, bad clothes (in the case of their horrible leader, bad underpants, too) and a bad attitude towards everybody and everything – you can bet your bottom dollar that they strangle kittens. As sure as God made righteous vigilantes with Italian leather jackets, you know that they are all doomed to meet their fate in a deservedly unpleasant manner when they stir Neeson’s vengeful wrath. Hang-dog Neeson is minding his own business, but ever alert for skulls to crack, when his ex-wife is murdered. The crime is set up to make him appear to be the only suspect. Rather than let justice run its course, Neeson bashes up the cops that try to arrest him and, though on foot, is too quick for a pursuing LAPD car. Henceforth he is the lone wolf, on the scent of evil and hell bent on retribution. The plot jigs and jags, but the direction in which the story is headed is obvious even for the most dim-witted lover of the genre. Forest Whitaker is fine as the detective who admires Neeson’s guile … but seriously? Have you heard of any good massacres lately?
WEDNESDAY
14 JAN to
WEDNESDAY
21 JAN
MOVIE CLUB PRICES Adult $12.00 / Golden Club $8.50
Narrated by the childless Baker (James Corden), the story is a shambolic take on the often dark little morality plays that featured Jack and the beanstalk, Cinderella, Rapunzel and an extremely irritating Red Riding Hood (check out Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs on YouTube for a tune that leaves Sondheim for dead). Of course, at the centre of it all is a nasty witch, played with tiresome affectation by Meryl Streep. To be fair, it’s okay in parts – a highlight was the Agony duet performed by the two princes, and the technique applied to the filming of the widowed giant was unsettling and, perhaps to a child, frightening – but overall it’s monotonous. A star-studded cast pull out all the stops, with Johnny Depp as the Wolf making it a double with his equally tone-deaf Sweeney Todd. Marshall’s film falls in no-man’s land insofar as it seems too grown-up for kids and too silly for adults, and, though already dripping with awards and citations, for mine it’s a grind.
TAKEN 3 Waiting to go into the cinema, I heard a woman say to her friend, ‘I can’t remember Taken 2 [nor can I], but it doesn’t matter, I suppose’. She was right. And Taken 3 doesn’t matter either. It’s tripe. More car chases, more violence as porn, more semi-automatic rifles killing people for our entertainment – a particularly sickening sight to put up with the day after the slaughterhouse of Charlie Hebdo. Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson), the former government agent/homicidal maniac, is back. At 62, Neeson looks his age, but we are meant to believe that he is tougher, smarter, faster, stronger and, in keeping with the times, more tech savvy than anybody who foolishly crosses him.
OPENS THU 15 JAN
OPENS THU 15 JAN
SAT 17/WED 21 ONLY
PAPER PLANES (G) (No Free Tix) Thu 15-Tue 20: 9:00am, 12:30pm Wed 21: 9:00am, 12:05pm
THE IMITATION GAME (M) (No Free Tix) Wed 14: 2:00, 4:20, 6:40pm Thu 15, Fri 16, Sun 18-Tue 20: 2:00, 7:00 Sat 17: 10:50am, 6:50pm Wed 21: 2:55, 6:50pm PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR (G) Wed 14: 9:30, 11:05am Thu 15, Fri 16, Sun 18-Wed 21: 10:50am Sat 17: 11:45am
UNBROKEN (M) (No Free Tix) Thu 15, Fri 16, Sun 18-Tue 20: 9:50am, 4:15, 6:50pm Sat 17: 9:50am, 3:55, 6:30pm Wed 21: 9:30am, 4:15, 6:35pm
2D THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES (M) Wed 14: 1:30, 8:50pm Thu 15, Fri 16, Sun 18-Tue 20: 9:15pm Sat 17, Wed 21: 9:00pm
INTO THE WOODS (PG) (No Free Tix) Wed 14: 11:30am, 2:55, 6:20pm Thu 15, Fri 16, Sun 18-Tue 20: 9:30am, 2:20, 9:30pm Sat 17: 9:25am, 2:20, 9:05pm Wed 21: 10:10am, 12:35, 9:30pm TAKEN 3 (M) (No Free Tix) Wed 14: 12:55, 4:10, 7:25pm Thu 15, Fri 16, Sun 18-Tue 20: 3:00, 5:10, 9:20pm Sat 17: 2:50, 4:45, 9:30pm Wed 21: 2:25, 4:30, 9:10pm
BIG HERO 6 (PG) Wed 14: 9:00, 11:20am Thu 15, Fri 16, Sun 18-Tue 20: 11:50am
NT LIVE: JOHN (16+) (No Free Tix) Sat 17: 1:00pm Wed 21: 12:30pm BIRDMAN (MA15+) (No Free Tix) Thu 15, Fri 16, Sun 18-Tue 20: 12:40, 4:45, 7:15pm Sat 17: 1:35, 4:55, 7:10pm Wed 21: 2:00, 5:05, 7:20pm
Enjoy our licensed bar
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THE WATER DIVINER (M) Wed 14: 5:15, 9:00pm ST VINCENT (M) Wed 14: 9:30pm NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB (PG) Wed 14: 9:35am All sessions are correct at the time of publication. Current session times at: www.palacecinemas.com.au Gift cards are the perfect gift
Group Bookings available
108-110 Jonson Street, Byron Bay 6680 8555 | www.palacecinemas.com.au
The Byron Shire Echo January 14, 2015 25