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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Entertainment
Alyx Gorman, Michael Sun and Steph Harmon

Top of the List: the best things to watch, read and cook in Australia this weekend

Top of the List composite: Earl Sweatshirt, Amy Winehouse's book 'In her Words', a still from the film It Follows, and a still from a tv show 'Then You Run'
An Earl Sweatshirt album, an Amy Winehouse book, It Follows (now streaming), and a moreish new series Then You Run are among our picks for the weekend. Composite: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy/Stephanie Kulbach/Sky UK Ltd/HarperCollins/Ryosuke Tanzawa

Watch in cinemas

Film: BlackBerry

Farcical phone biopic

They’ll make a movie about anything, apparently. This past year alone has dished up biographies of Pop Tarts, Cheetos, Air Jordans, and Beanie Babies – and joining the fray is BlackBerry, a film about the phone everybody wanted to use until they didn’t. It’s a little sourer than some of its peers, infused with director Matt Johnson’s sardonic wit and shot with a nervy, Succession-style camera that captures the farce and melodrama of corporate life. – Michael Sun

Film: Past Lives

Buzzy tender romance

Orbiting – when an old flame lingers on the peripheries of your digital life – is a near-universal feature of 21st century romance. Celine Song’s debut – about a pair of childhood sweethearts separated by geography and decades, who never really came apart – explores this tenuous connection with great tenderness. Called “the year’s first great film” at its Sundance debut, and later “miraculous” (by Vox) and “remarkable” (by us), Past Lives’ slow-burn critical hype feels perfectly fitting for the subject matter. Alyx Gorman

Film: Ego: The Michael Gudinski Story

One for music lovers

Ed Sheeran and Michael Gudinski in 2015.
Ed Sheeran and Michael Gudinski in 2015. Photograph: Brian Purnell

Bruce Springsteen, Kylie Minogue, Ed Sheeran, Billy Joel, Jimmy Barnes, Paul Kelly and “the obligatory Dave Grohl” are among the galaxy of music stars who line up to pay tribute to Australian music promoter Michael Gudinski: tireless business man, passionate music fan and “one of the good ones” in an industry filled with the opposite. Produced by his son and presented by his company, this biopic isn’t particularly objective – but the payoff is a killer soundtrack. – Steph Harmon

Watch at home

TV: Then You Run

Derry Girls with heroin (SBS On Demand)

Four uproarious teen girls head from London to the Netherlands on what is supposed to be a brief trip, until they get caught up in a game of cat and mouse with ruthless Irish gangsters involving lots of guns, a massive amount of heroin, and a very high body count. According to Guardian critic Rebecca Nicholson, this highly stylised and funny thriller “is gruesome and gory, and obviously total nonsense from start to finish, but it is a riot, and very moreish”. – SH

TV: Painkiller

OxyContin takes over (Netflix)

Starring Matthew Broderick, Uzo Aduba and Taylor Kitsch (Riggins forever), Painkiller is a strange proposition: at once an enraging, powerful docudrama about the rise of OxyContin, and the family of Sacklers who made it happen; but also occasionally weirdly camp, with surprisingly surreal moments and cartoonish villains. I’m not sure I’d give it all four of Lucy Mangan’s stars, but I absolutely binged it in two days. – SH

Watch at home

Film: It Follows

Bawdy and bone-chilling (Stan)

One of the great genre pieces. David Robert Mitchell’s cult horror film is about a murderous demon that trails its targets, haunting their days and nights. But thankfully this demon walks at a zombie’s pace and – more importantly – one victim can palm off the curse to another by having consensual sex. We gave it five stars when it came out in 2015, calling it a “modern classic” with a “weird, alien, almost evil” camera that pulls off “sensational setpieces of fear and suspense”. – MS

Listen

Album: Voir Dire by Earl Sweatshirt

Hip-hop stars collide

You will have to give your personal data to a streaming service called Gala Music in order to listen to Voir Dire, and then they will try to sell you songs as NFTs. Yet somehow the new collaboration between rap’s one-time enfant terrible Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist (once Eminem’s official DJ, now one of hip-hop’s most successful producers) is good enough to jump through these hoops for. It’s an intimate listen, like a dark, deep and meaningful chat behind a closed bedroom door at a rowdy house party. – AG

Read

Book: God Forgets About the Poor by Peter Polites

Transportive, striking story

Composite image featuring (L-R) Australian author Peter Polites alongside the cover for God Forgets About The Poor, out via Ultimo Press.
God Forgets About The Poor by Peter Polites is out now. Composite: Supplied / Ultimo Press

The first chapter of Polites’ third book is a monologue delivered by a migrant mother to her son. Unforgiving, scolding and bitterly funny, she wants him to write her story: “Try and write something good this time.” The sketch she delivers is filled out in Technicolor across this transportive novel, which takes us from her birthplace of Lefkada to her young life in Athens, and then to Sydney, where she would build her own family. Our critic Jack Callil agrees with me: “The author’s most striking work yet.” – SH

Book: In Her Words by Amy Winehouse

Fledgling star’s scrapbook

Featuring photographs, childhood sketches, school report cards and diary entries, this scrapbook turned coffee-table book was compiled by the late singer’s parents. Released to commemorate what would have been Amy Winehouse’s 40th birthday, proceeds go to the charities established in her name. Not surprisingly given the source, most of the material is drawn from Winehouse’s early life. For fans of her work it offers an endearing, funny and aesthetically appealing glimpse into both the talent and the torment that would define her adult life. – AG

Cook

Pasta primavera

Finished dish on a plate: pasta primavera
Frozen broad beans are fine for pasta primavera if you can’t find fresh, but everything else you need will be abundantly available as spring specials appear. Photograph: Robert Billington/The Guardian. Food styling: Lucy Ruth Hathaway.

Spring has arrived, and so have greengrocer specials on peas, asparagus – even basil. This means it is suddenly affordable to try your hand at Felicity Cloake’s perfected pasta primavera. Broad beans aren’t that easy to come by fresh in Australia, but frozen is fine. Note that basil costs about the same dead or alive, so buy a plant and keep it indoors, close to light, and you’ll have garnishes for weeks or months. Or days, if you suck at plants. – AG

Book ahead

The War on Drugs

Ambient rock alfresco

After their first gig on the Opera House forecourt sold out, the War on Drugs have added a second – and there are still tickets available in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, too. Every venue is outdoors, so if you’re concerned about Covid or just like your ambient rock served alfresco, this is your tour. – AG

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