Sunday M

7/25/2010: Contents: EDITOR’S LETTER

We all have people in our lives who are difficult to buy presents for: the ones who have everything; the ones who say they don’t want anything; men over the age of about 13. So as we here at M like to be problem solvers, we went on the hunt for...

7/25/2010: What’s On: PERFORMANCE

Wilde Women journeys through the plays, poetry and letters of Oscar Wilde in a celebration of his literary ladies (below). Adapted and devised by Rosalind Mackay, Dion Mills stars as Wilde, recalling his fictional females and reflecting on the themes...

7/25/2010: What’s On: KIDS/FAMILY
Sounds Like Burton is a sound-effects workshop in which participants screech and scream their own soundtrack to clips from the wonderful world of filmmaker Tim Burton. Noon-4pm, drop in any time. ACMI, Studio 1, Fed Square, city. Free. Tel: 8663 2583,...

7/25/2010: What’s On: FILM
Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould (2009) is a fascinating look at the pianist Gould, a legend in the classical music scene, renowned for his interpretations of Bach. The doco delves into the man behind the carefully cultivated public persona...

7/25/2010: What’s On: THEATRE
Red Stitch Actors Theatre presents the world premiere of Stop. Rewind from Australian playwright/ filmmaker Melissa Bubnic, directed by Anne Browning. It’s a deft comedy that asks this question: is it too late to live the life you’ve always wanted? As...

7/25/2010: What’s On: THEATRE
The Stork Theatre presents Marcel & Albertine: Proust on Love, from In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. This famous 20th century work about memory asks, is it possible to bring the intensity of past emotions back to life? It’s brought to the stage...

7/25/2010: What’s On: MUSIC
After sell-out January shows Brooklyn indie rock-pop quartet Grizzly Bear return to play us more of their multilayered harmonies. Support from Here We Go Magic (US) and local lads Kid Sam. Triple the treats. 8pm. The Palais, St Kilda. $67-$74. Tel: 136...

7/25/2010: What’s On: TOUR
Head to Heide Museum of Modern Art for a guided tour of the heritage buildings and gardens. 2pm. 7 Templestowe Rd, Bulleen; assemble in the sculpture plaza. $10 (includes exhibition admission). Tel: 9850 1500, bookings essential; heide.com.au

7/25/2010: What’s On: ART

See the NGV’s latest blockbuster European Masters: Staedel Museum, 19th–20th Century after hours and enjoy some European bohemia of yesteryear with performances by Flirting Mazurkas and Puppentheater. Plus, of course, there are 100 or so modern art...

7/25/2010: What’s On: BOOK CAFE
The Brotherhood of St Laurence launches its newest venture, Second Edition, a cafe and recycled book store that is a retail front for Brotherhood Books — an online secondhand bookstore. Come along today and judge Matt Preston’s coffee skills when he...

7/25/2010: What’s On: PERFORMANCE

The Escalators are an ensemble of Melbourne musicians led by Kynan Robinson. Their project, The Escalators inspired by David Lynch, takes its inspiration from some of the artistic concepts of the filmmaker Lynch, to develop unique approaches to...

7/25/2010: What’s On: YOUNG READERS PROGRAM

The State Government’s Young Readers program is offering five children’s book packs including titles by Alison Lester and Jeannette Rowe (worth $500 all up). Visit the Young Readers Program page on the State Library website (slv.vic.gov....

7/25/2010: What’s On: THE CAT EMPIRE’S CINEMA

Melbourne’s own The Cat Empire will perform at The Palace Theatre on Thursday, August 19 as part of their 2010 World Tour (over 18s only). To mark their return we have 10 copies of their recently released album Cinema up for grabs. Send your name and...

7/25/2010: What’s On: MUSICAL
Rain is a new musical starring fictional characterisations of Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd and Therese Rein. Inspired by Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, this satirical comedy offers a Grecian take on Australian politics, and asks what would happen...

7/25/2010: What’s On: TREE PLANTING
Get your hands dirty on National Tree Day, Australia’s largest community treeplanting event. Visit the website or call to locate your closest site, then just turn up on the day. No registration required and everything is provided. Aug 1, times vary...

7/25/2010: What’s On: MUSIC
South Australian deep funk and soul outfit The Transatlantics launch their self-titled, debut album, mixed and tracked entirely from analogue tape. With local guests Electric Empire (live), plus DJs Kano, Chris Gill and Pierre Baroni. July 31, 8.30pm....

7/25/2010: What’s On: TANGO
The Tango Fire Company of Buenos Aires returns with its new show Tango Inferno — The Fire Within (right). The show features 10 dancers, including

7/25/2010: Relationships: MATTHEWS

Satirical newspaper The Onion BOOKS REALLY ARE ON THE NOSE A For thousands of years people have believed that certain foods will enhance sexual desire and prowess. Some have been chosen because of the sexual connotations of their taste, smell or...

7/25/2010: Fashion: WHO IT SUITS
There is a shade of bronze or gold to suit most skin tones, though it’s worth spending the time to work out which shade works best. The wrong hue will make you look pallid.

7/25/2010: Fashion: WHO IT DOESN’T SUIT
Long, statuette-shape gowns are often tight-fitting. Pull on some Shapewear to neatly sculpt your curves.

7/25/2010: Fashion: WATCH OUT FOR
Metallic bronze and copper-coloured accessories also look set to be popular, from footwear to cuffs and bangles.

7/25/2010: Homestyle: UPRIGHT VACUUM CLEANERS

MIELE S7580 rrp $999 (available August) Australians have never had much time for upright vacuums — it’s all about barrels. While the latter might offer greater access to tight spots and take up less cupboard space, when it comes to prancing around the...

7/25/2010: Travel: To the Xtreme

fishing, canoeing — the list goes on and on — and all set against what are arguably Victoria’s most picturesque mountain ranges. In the Wartook Valley, just outside the national park, is Grampians Quad Bike Adventures, which offers guided tours of a...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: Guy Blackman

At first, Recovery seemed too hopeful an album title after the parade of anger and anguish evident on Eminem’s 2009 comeback record, Relapse. But with Recovery sitting pretty atop the ARIA singles and albums charts this week and already outstripping...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: ORPHEUS

By Four Larks Theatre. At The Little Bakery, Northcote, until August 1. Tel: 0423 863 336. fourlarkstheatre.com This ragtag coterie of talented new theatre folk are proving themselves a remarkable team worth following: part musical outfit, part...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: MAYA

M.I.A., XL Recordings M.I.A. is no longer some weird outsider with a bag of (scary) politics. Thanks to the crossover success of Paper Planes, she’s been appropriated by the mainstream and now finds herself competing for media space with Lady Gaga and...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: DAN KELLY’S DREAM

Dan Kelly, Shock Our anti-establishment hero dumps his Hawaiian cocktail-bar shirts, his backing band and Fender Stratocaster for fatigues, a solo life and a Japanese Jaguar, and in the process sharpens his tongue while aiming caustic salvos at all...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: COUNTRY MUSIC

Willie Nelson, Rounder You’d reckon there was a certain redundancy in the ol’ Red-Headed Stranger calling an album Country Music, and that’s clearly the intended gag here. But Willie is silver-haired these days and the recordings he’s been churning...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: VICTORIAN OPERA: JULIUS CAESAR

Melbourne Recital Centre, until July 30 Perhaps the greatest opera seria, Handel’s Julius Caesar is a serious challenge, tackled here mostly intelligently, entertainingly and successfully. The recital centre’s drawback is limited staging (the benefit...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: STICK IT! COLLAGE IN AUSTRALIAN ART

The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Fed Square, Melbourne. Tel: 8620 2222. ngv.vic.gov.au. Until August 29. Sally Smart artist talk Friday July 30. Upstaged by the razzle of European Masters, this survey of collage in Australian art is a quiet...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: DEATH IN THE LATIN QUARTER THE WELL AT THE WORLD’S END

Raphael Cardetti Abacus, $32.99 Detective fiction about books is a select but interesting market niche. This first novel is by a historian at the Sorbonne, which provides the setting. A quiet, eccentric professor of medieval literature kills himself....

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: KUMIKO AND THE DRAGON’S SECRET

Briony Stewart UQP, $14.95 Kumiko’s life is pretty fantastic. She has her very own dragon, Tomoda, who is brave and scaly and watches over her when she sleeps. In Briony Stewart’s first book, Kumiko and the Dragon, a fantastical world was revealed, a...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: CAN WE LICK THE SPOON NOW?

Carol Goess, illus Tamsin Ainslie Working Title Press, $24.95 Uncomplicated and delightfully direct, this is a story built around an activity just about everyone has experienced. An ordinary day, three kids, a dog, a sunny morning: ‘‘What can we do...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: CREATION
(PG, 109 minutes). On general release Adapted from a 2002 biography of Charles Darwin written by his great-great-grandson, Randal Keynes, Jon Amiel’s respectful but uninspired film is essentially a family drama about the traumas that beset the British...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: THE RUNAWAYS
(MA, 106 minutes). On general release The story of the all-girl rock band that became international sensations in the 1970s, the feature debut of Canadian video clip director Floria Sigismondi invariably focuses on cliched outcomes: success divides,...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: THE HEDGEHOG
(M, 98 minutes). On limited release Adapted from Muriel Barbery’s engaging 2006 novel, The Elegance of the and set in a Paris apartment building, writer-director Mona Achache’s feature debut is a sentimental comedy about class, friendship and death,...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: SKIN
(M, 106 minutes). At the Nova Based on real-life events that took place in South Africa between 1965 and 1994, the feature debut for Anthony Fabian tells the extraordinary story of Sandra Laing, a black-skinned woman born of white parents and caught in...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: THE HORSEMAN
(R18+, 97 minutes). At the Nova The low-budget feature debut for young Queensland writer-director Steven Kastrissios is a gruelling revenge thriller in which a grieving father sets out to punish those he deems responsible for the death of his daughter....

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE
(M, 124 minutes). On general release Remarkably little occurs in the third instalment of the franchise aside from the ongoing love triangle between human Bella (Kristen Stewart), vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) and werewolf Jacob (Taylor Lautner);...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: KNIGHT AND DAY
(M, 109 minutes). On general release Director James Mangold’s Knight and Day is a light-hearted combination of a techno thriller and a romantic comedy: Tom Cruise’s secret agent is in the former, Cameron Diaz’s girl-next-door is in the latter. The...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: THE WAITING CITY
(M, 103 minutes). On general release A carefully mapped out drama about a couple struggling to stay together even as they look to adopt a child, Claire McCarthy’s The Waiting City is attuned to the emotional fissures that mark a troubled relationship....

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: I AM LOVE
(MA15+, 120 minutes). On limited release Starring a superb Tilda Swinton, Luca Guadagnino’s gloriously stirring film is a powerful drama about a woman’s awakening, a family in crisis and a business empire under threat. A visual feast that plunges us...

7/25/2010: Arts / Culture: PREDATORS
(MA15+, 106 minutes). On general release Switch The A-Team into science-fiction mode and you’ll have a fair idea of what

7/25/2010: Television: THE GOODIES: KITTEN KONG SPECIAL
Monday, 8pm, ABC2 It might be 40 years old (with some jokes even older) but there’s still a certain genius to the Goodies that shines today. Fortunately the ABC has recognised that and decided to showcase a few of the best episodes, starting here with...

7/25/2010: Television: UNDERCOVER BOSS USA

‘The boss? What would she (or he) know? Give them one day with the real workers and they’d collapse in a crumpled heap!’’ How many times a week do you hear something along those lines? If there’s one group more maligned than politicians, real estate...

7/25/2010: Television: CHUCK
Thursday, 7.30pm, Fox8 It seems to be just me and my nerdy mates watching this series, but that’s all the more reason to keep spruiking it. Last season, Mr Charles Bartowski — aka Chuck — discovered he had more than a particularly retentive memory. He...

7/25/2010: Television: THE FARMER WANTS A WIFE
Wednesday, 8.30pm, Nine The rural spouse drought doesn’t appear to be letting up, with another crop of farmers lining up to find true love through that most romantic of mediums, the reality television show. This time we have five blokes — including...

7/25/2010: Television: MODERN FAMILY
Today, 6.30pm, Ten There are many great mysteries of television: who shot Tony Soprano? What on earth are the rules of Deal Or No Deal? And why do we always get the Christmas episodes of American series in the middle of the year? Surely by now someone...

7/25/2010: Television: DRY SPELL GARDENING REVISITED
Wednesday, 7.30pm, Lifestyle Unlike the Grand Designs version — enjoyable as it is — this isn’t 90 per cent recap. We get enough of the original story to give the present context, but the focus is on the gardens now, how they’ve progressed and how...

7/25/2010: Television: TODDLERS AND TIARAS
Monday, 8.30pm, Lifestyle You Having watched season one of Toddlers and Tiaras, I knew what to expect. So why — why! — did I feel compelled to check out season two? Because this is the very definition of car-crash telly, the kind of spectacle from...

7/25/2010: Television: MY FAMILY FEAST

7.30pm, SBS One This series lacks the zing of Food Safari but it’s lovely viewing all the same. Tonight Chef Sean hangs out with an Afghani family as they prepare a feast to celebrate Eid al-Adha.

7/25/2010: Television: RECRUITS
8pm, Channel Ten As Recruits returns for a second season, it remains the gold standard for such shows. Great personalities and great editing combine to create classic reality feel-good viewing.

7/25/2010: Television: HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
8pm, Channel Seven Has this improved? Or have I just warmed to it? Another LOL episode, with the subject under discussion the difference between a great story and a big fat lie.