Author: Jules LeFevre

Carnival Cruises Launches New WiFi and Social Media Plans

Let us not beat around the bush: in 2016, the only reason anyone actually travels anywhere is to Instagram the hell out of it. Of course, this is sometimes met with debilitating challenges involving poor/no (!!) Wifi connection, and ludicrously expensive data plans that can mean your casual ‘grams rack up hundreds of dollars in fees….

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Live Review: Twenty One Pilots – Twitter HQ, Sydney (20.04.16)

The elevator is sardine tin crammed. Excited teens are clutching photographs, t-shirts, and – in a couple of cases – a ukulele. At the 39th floor, the doors open and we spill out at the Twitter Australia HQ. It’s floor to ceiling glass on nearly all sides, the view over the CBD and the glittering…

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Live Review: Purity Ring – Sydney Opera House (09.02.16)

A large part of Purity Ring’s appeal has been their ability to create an atmosphere that is, on the whole, wildly different to any other pop act on the planet. In 2011, when their tracks “Ungirthed” and “Belispeak” first made the rounds on music blogs before piquing the interest of tastemaker Pitchfork, they wisely dubbed…

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Live Review: JOY. – Goodgod Small Club, Sydney (20.11.15)

A little while ago, with the release of single “About Us” and the subsequent ODE EP, it became clear that JOY. – the project of 18 year old Brisbane native Olivia McCarthy – was an outrageous talent. Crisp, spacious production with deeply embedded pop hooks, surrounding McCarthy’s lilting vocals – toeing the line between being…

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Live Review: Tame Impala – Sydney Opera House Forecourt (10.11.15)

There’s no place quite like Sydney Harbour. The Harbour Bridge standing silent, illuminated and majestic; the Opera House elegantly lit up in white; the dark expanse of water that’s only disturbed by the puttering of ferries and sail boats. It’s not a rare sight for anybody, but it makes a spectacular scene when it’s turned…

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Live Review: The Waifs + Mia Dyson – Enmore Theatre, Sydney (05.11.15)

It seems a curiously long time ago that “London Still” peaked at number 3 in the 2002 triple j Hottest 100. Not least because it’s so hard to imagine a song of similar sound getting anywhere near the top 10 these days, but also because The Waifs still feel so familiar – an integral part…

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Blu-Ray Review: Ex Machina (USA, 2015)

It’s not a new concept by any means, but films about artificial intelligence can still cut deep into the human psyche. Ex Machina is no different – following the narrative of Caleb, a computer programmer who wins a mysterious competition at his work, and is rewarded with a week long stay in the secluded and…

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SXSW Film Review: All Things Must Pass (USA, 2015)

  For nearly 40 years, Tower Records stood as the largest and most successful record store chain in the world, regularly raking in the millions of dollars in profit per year. In 1999, they managed to pull in a staggering $1 billion dollars. Five years later, they went suddenly bankrupt. It was an astonishing rise…

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SXSW Red Carpet Interview: Colin Hanks talks about directing the film All Things Must Pass

“No one else had done it, so I figured…well I’ll do it!” Colin Hanks laughs, then adds: “he said naively.” Standing on the red carpet moments before the premiere of his documentary on fallen powerhouse record chain Tower records, All Things Must Pass, Hanks is characteristically calm, dressed down in a bright red checked shirt…

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Exclusive SXSW Interview: Ian Hultquist on composing The Diabolical, departing Passion Pit and more

Ian Hultquist is at SXSW promoting the horror film The Diabolical, for which he composed the musical score. He is also a founding member of synth pop band Passion Pit, although in October 2014 he announced his departure from the band. In this interview, Hultquist chats about the nature of composing for film, his inspirations,…

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Exclusive SXSW Interview: Henry Rollins on He Never Died and preparing to play a villain

“I wrote pages and pages of notes,” Rollins laughs, “the director told me to chuck it all out.” We’re on the red carpet, and Henry Rollins is deep into explaining how he prepared for the role of Jack, a cannibalistic immortal that’s the antihero of Jason Krawczyk’s new film, He Never Died. “I read the…

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SXSW Film Review: Deep Web (USA, 2015)

Underneath what we see in our daily browsing – our emails, Facebook, people’s banal commentary on Twitter – is something called the dark web. It’s like looking under the hood of a car – a mind bogglingly immense and completely unseen part of the Internet that is mostly made up of lines of HTML code….

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Five things the Deep Web Panel at SXSW 2015 made us think about

The day after the premiere screening of the Silk Road documentary Deep Web, director Alex Winter, Lyn Ulbricht, consulting producer Andy Greenberg and producer Marc Schiller answered questions about the trial of Ross Ulbricht, the longtime legal implications of the ruling, and the notions of online anonymity. Below are five key points that were discussed….

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SXSW Film Review: Ex Machina (USA, 2015)

It’s not a new concept by any means, but films about artificial intelligence can still cut deep into the human psyche. Ex Machina is no different – following the narrative of Caleb, a computer programmer who wins a mysterious competition at his work, and is rewarded with a week long stay in the secluded and…

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