Latest news with #Vivarium
Scottish Sun
29-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
Legendary Scots rock band announces gig at iconic Glasgow venue
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) AN ICONIC Scottish rock band has announced an exciting new show in honour of one of their most successful albums' 10th anniversary. Twin Atlantic will be performing in front of a packed crowd at the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow later this year. 3 Twin Atlantic are set to perform in Glasgow this year Credit: Getty 3 The rockers announced their show on social media Credit: Getty 3 The band will take to the stage of the Barrowland Ballroom Credit: Getty The alternative rockers will take to the stage in the east end of the city on Thursday, December 4. The show comes as the band honours their third studio album, Great Divide, which was released in 2014. It went on to become one of the Glasgow-based band's highest charting albums, reaching number one on the Scottish Album Charts and number six on the UK charts. To celebrate its success, Twin Atlantic revealed they are releasing a special edition vinyl of the original album on its "tenth birthday". Not only will it have artwork inspired by the original, but it will also have a live track from Glastonbury. And the rockers are playing the whole record at their upcoming show, bringing the celebrations full circle. There's no better way to celebrate the reissue than to play the whole record live for you in our favourite venue in the world, back at home in Glasgow Twin Atlantic Twin Atlantic said they chose to perform at the Barrowland Ballroom in their hometown as it's their "favourite venue in the world". But they are also taking the show to London, as this is where "so much of the record came to life". The band went on to reveal that fans who come to the show will also hear them perform their debut record, Vivarium, in full. Announcing the news on Instagram, Twin Atlantic said: "To celebrate Great Divide's 10th birthday, we're releasing a special edition vinyl with new artwork inspired by the original, a demo from the writing sessions and a live track from Glastonbury festival. Secret Gig: Fans React to Screwfish Mystery Show in Glasgow "There's no better way to celebrate the reissue than to play the whole record live for you in both our favourite venue in the world, back at home in Glasgow, and in the city that so much of the record came to life, London. "While we're at it, you asked, so let's do it. Here is a first pressing of our debut record Vivarium on vinyl. "It felt natural to celebrate that with you too, so to make the shows extra special, we're supporting ourselves and playing that in full." Tickets for the show go on sale this Friday at 10am. Excited fans flocked to social media after being delighted by the news of the show. One person said: "Yay!! You dreamy band, thanks for making wishes come true!!" Another added: "We're gonna have to go to Glasgow!" Someone else wrote: "You know what? HELL YEAH." And a fourth posted: "So excited for this!" While a fifth chimed in: "Holy s*** this is the best thing to ever happen".
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Review: Nicolas Cage Goes Full 'Groundhog Day' Thriller in 'The Surfer'
A surprisingly low-key Nicolas Cage performance anchors The Surfer, a throwback revenge thriller with a jet-black comedic edge from Vivarium director Lorcan Finnegan. For about 40 minutes, this film is an intriguing and even propulsive B-movie programmer. The first act is an efficient revenge setup, infused with some lush photography (the picture was shot on location in Melbourne) and an authentic grittiness which recalls '70s Antipodean grindhouse classics. But unfortunately, like all exploitation riffs which make the mistake of taking themselves too seriously, The Surfer goes on far too long and eventually exhausts its audience. Cage plays the titlular character, an unnamed office drone who whisks his son (Finn Little) to an idyllic coastal spot in the community where he was raised. The Surfer wants to buy a home overlooking the beach, the very same one in which he lived until age 15, when his father died and his mother moved the family to California. Hoping to take his son out to catch a few waves and an enviable glimpse of their new abode, he's instead met with some hostile 'localism' from the beach's resident muscle heads who are engaged in a bizarre salt-water cult overseen by Scally (Julian McMahon). At this point, The Surfer takes a detour into the sort of nightmare comedy about which you can ask no questions. Why, after being violently rebuffed and humiliated in front of his son, does Cage begin living on the beach in his car? Why does he keep returning to receive fresh injuries from the cult members? Why not just grab an Airbnb near his new home? What's up with the old man, also living out of his car, who's passing around flyers advertising his missing son? And why, after stealing his surfboard, do the cult members claim they've had it for seven years? There's a lot going on in The Surfer — the broken relationships of fathers and sons; the seeping wounds of male ego; mid-life malaise; the unexplained possibility of time loops — but none of it develops into anything. It's long been the safe haven of marginally talented filmmakers to produce a hallucinatory, vaguely existential film of dubious quality and pass it off as the vision of an auteur; but when the quality isn't there, it's all terribly transparent. Instead of interrogating or developing any of the ideas to which the film gestures, Finnegan visits a succession of increasingly outlandish humiliations onto his title character, all of which seem tailor-made for Cage's particular acting style. Watch him drink dirty water from a puddle (and later a public toilet)! Wince as he jumps onto broken glass! Shudder when he pawns his late father's watch for a flat white!The screenplay, by Thomas Martin, doubtless sent its cast and crew into fits of giggles. None of that mirth translates to the screen. By the time Cage swings a live rat by the tail (which he later beats to death and pockets for a snack) and attempts to shoot a dog in the head, you'll likely wish the whole thing would end so you can go home. Sequences which seem designed to provoke a strong emotional reaction pass without impression, boring instead of outraging. The climax is so foregone and uninspiring that your mind may wander to your shopping list in the film's final moments. It's worth mentioning that there's an admirable nastiness to this movie, and one gets the sense that Finnegan would do nicely with a straight, no-frills suspense piece. There's a queasy quality to the beach bullies that wouldn't be out of place in a home invasion movie, and before it goes off the rails, the film chugs along with a nicely suspenseful rhythm. There are even fleeting moments where you see in Finnegan's approach something of the efficient, genre-literate subversion Steven Soderbergh accomplishes so effortlessly. But what's the point of it all? Considering most of its business will presumably be done on streaming, it's odd that The Surfer so frequently tempts its audience to tune out. Unfortunately, the temptation stems not from the visceral impact of the travesties visited upon Cage (none of which truly land) but rather from the intense feeling of déjà vu. For all of its excesses, we've seen this done many times before and frequently better. The Surfer is currently in cinemas.
West Australian
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- West Australian
Reel Talk: The Surfer sees Nicolas Cage in his Ozploitation era
3 stars Starring: Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Finn Little, Alex Bertrand Rated: MA15+ In Cinemas: Now Some actors transform for a role. Others transform the role itself, bending it in their image. Nicolas Cage has always been in the latter category, and this is certainly the case in The Surfer, the Hollywood superstar's psychological thriller that was shot in Yallingup. Cage calls it 'Nouveau shamanism', illustrated hilariously when he played a version of himself in the excellent 2022 comedy, The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent. But, whatever you call it, no one does it better than him. And by 'it' we're talking about playing characters that oscillate effortlessly between unnatural calm and mania, earnestness and frivolity. If you need an actor who can believably seem unhinged, yet, by the closing credits, salvage sanity from the brink of madness, Cage is your guy. Which is precisely why Irish director Lorcan Finnegan (who previously gave us the trippy 2019 film, Vivarium) had to have the Oscar-winner for The Surfer. Wearing its influences like a blistering sunburn, the movie channels the Ozploitation era of Australian filmmaking, which produced seminal works such as Ted Kotcheff's 1971 classic, Wake In Fright. Think blazing sun, austere cinematography and a nagging sense of unease that permeates everything. The plot follows Cage's unnamed character, who returns to his coastal home town after years working in the US, with a dream of surfing the beloved break of his childhood and purchasing the house he grew up in. There's just one problem — a gang of surfers, known as the Bay Boys, are viciously protective of said break. Led by Scally, a charismatic bloke who doubles as a masculinity guru (played to perfection by Julian McMahon), the Bay Boys' locals-only policy sees them view Cage as an interloper. Stubbornly refusing to leave the car park overlooking the beach until the finance on the house comes through, Cage is inexorably pulled into a conflict with the locals. Baked in the sun, his grip on reality loosens as his desire to build a new life starts to become a desperate and unhealthy obsession. Scally, meanwhile, is indoctrinating young surfers in a storyline that examines modern masculinity, with McMahon finely balancing the menace to ensure the audience is never really convinced he's an outright villain. Similarly, Cage's perspective often feels untrustworthy, and you're left with a sense this could all be in his head, which adds to the surreal nature of the film. In the end, this oddness occasionally overwhelms the drama, and, though Cage's commitment to the role is commendable, going Full Cage is an acquired taste. Finnegan leans into the weird in a way we don't often see anymore, but it's hard to escape the feeling a more straightforward approach might have yielded a stronger result.
Extra.ie
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
FILM REVIEW OF THE WEEK: The Surfer starring Nicolas Cage
Lorcan Finnegan's The Surfer is a sun-scorched psychological trip masquerading as a B-movie beach thriller. Brutal and hypnotic, the film traps its protagonist – and its audience – in a dreamlike purgatory of sweat, sand and simmering male rage. With lurid colours, looping structure, and deliberately disorienting atmosphere, The Surfer channels the existential entrapment of Luis Buuel and the surreal logic of Finnegan's own Vivarium . But where Vivarium boxed its characters inside suburbia, here the trap is wide open: a beach that might as well be hell. Nicolas Cage plays the titular Surfer, a nameless, middle-aged man who claims to have roots in the area, yet is treated like a trespasser the moment he sets foot on the golden sands of Lunar Bay. Bullied by a cabal of locals led by Julian McMahons smirking Scally (parts beach bro and corporate sociopath who smiles like a shark all teeth, no warmth), the Surfer is repeatedly humiliated, gaslit, and physically assaulted. But he stays. Because beneath the farce and cruelty is something quietly desperate: a man clinging to a dream he cant let go of. Nostalgia is the true villain here. The Surfer isn't just longing for a return to place, but to a time when his family was still intact. His fixation on reclaiming his childhood home is a symbol of that delusion. He believes that if he could buy the house and ride the waves again, everything will fall back into place. But these obsessions with the house, beach and his own romanticised past are what drove his wife and son away. His relentless pursuit of success, ownership and legacy, has left him alone and untethered. The tragedy is not that the Surfer has lost those close to him, but that he continues to chase an idealised version of their relationship, instead of accepting what its become – and showing up for them as he is, not as he was. What makes The Surfer stick isn't its visceral tone or Cages red-faced performance (though both are noteworthy). Its the feeling that youre watching someone be erased, inch by inch. There's a looped sense of stasis – like Buuel's The Exterminating Angel – where time stretches and bends but nothing truly changes, except perhaps the level of psychological damage. Time warps. Days blur. Dehydration and exhaustion distort reality. The protagonist is haunted – by a mysterious older man, by glimpses of a lost son, and by visions that flicker and vanish before we can get a grip on them. What follows is a sunburnt descent into madness. Cages character loses everything – his dignity, his car, even access to clean water. He lingers around the beach like a ghost of his own past, baking in his own desperation. Visually, The Surfer is rich with texture and menace. Finnegan and cinematographer Radzek Ladczuk render the Australian coastline as eerily hostile. Heatwaves ripple through every frame; colours are oversaturated, borders blur, daylight is punishing. The air feels thick with menace. Cage is, unsurprisingly, electric. He pitches the performance somewhere between tragic and deranged, veering from wide-eyed optimism to pathetic rage, often within the same scene. As ever, he finds the operatic in the absurd. Hes both delusional and heartbreakingly sincere. He wants his home, his wave, his version of the past – but the film quietly questions whether any of that ever really existed. The idea of poisonous nostalgia also permeates through the toxic, anti-outsider bravado of Scallys surf gang. Their obsession with violence and purity, expressed via threats, intimidation, rituals and faux-philosophies, is both cartoonish and credible in its Make This Beach Great Again vibes, and McMahon plays Scally with a charming menace that holds the film together. The fact that the gang are so irredeemable and violent, yet still don't puncture the Surfers idealised image of the beach, shows how myopic he has become, as well as the weakness of those who choose to align with oppressive forces to feel comfortable. If The Surfer falls short, its in its hesitance to fully explore the emotional depth of its central character. Though the film hints at themes of grief, legacy, and the crushing weight of unfulfilled dreams, it often prioritises tension and confrontation over delving into these complexities. Yet, this very ambiguity reflects the Surfers internal struggle torn between the person he was, the person he believes himself to be, and how the world perceives him. Finnegan crafts a lean, eerie, darkly funny film that lingers long after it ends. If Vivarium boxed us in, The Surfer lets us wander – sun-struck and sand-blasted – until we realise we've been trapped all along. In cinemas now. Watch the trailer below:
Irish Examiner
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Film review: Nicolas Cage is brilliantly cast in The Surfer
The Surfer ★★★★☆ A sport, a way of life, a philosophy for living: surfing lends itself to extravagant myth-making, which The Surfer (15A) is happy to lean into as the movie opens, with our eponymous hero (played by Nicolas Cage) informing his estranged son (Finn Little) that life's crucial moments are a lot like encountering a massive wave: 'You either surf it,' he says, 'or you get wiped out.' But when the Surfer returns home to surf the remote beach at Luna Bay, he discovers that the shore has been colonised by the Bay Boys, led by the guru-like Scally (Julian McMahon), and that a culture of 'localism', which refuses entry to non-natives, is tacitly encouraged. Outraged at being denied the right to surf, the Surfer refuses to leave, setting him on a collision course with Scally and his thugs. Nicolas Cage is brilliantly cast here, playing an ostensible tough nut who privately mythologises a gilded past in which surfing equalled freedom and endless possibility; now, separated from his wife, and desperate to put his old life back together, the Surfer is trying to reinsert himself into the exclusive world of Luna Bay by buying his childhood home. But our hero, we fear, is doomed before the story even begins: a dreamer given to exotic fantasies of the perfect life, he is prone to delusion even before dehydration, heatstroke and the Bay Boys' escalating aggressions cause his grip on reality to loosen. Irish director Lorcan Finnegan ( Vivarium) blends the Surfer's fever-dream into a stunningly beautiful landscape, heightening the effect of the increasingly surreal episodes as the disorientated Surfer plunges deeper into paranoia; meanwhile, the cultivated Scally, who likens his followers to Shaolin monks, is gradually revealed to be an erudite exemplar of toxic masculinity. A vivid account of a fragile man's attempt to regain his paradise lost, The Surfer is a powerfully poetic drama. theatrical release Ocean with David Attenborough ★★★★☆ Ocean with David Attenborough Ocean with David Attenborough (G) sets out to explore 'the last great wilderness of open ocean,' a realm, Attenborough tells us at the outset, that is 'almost entirely a mystery.' Who better to guide us through the murky depths than Attenborough himself, who, at 98 years young, is one of the planet's greatest living treasures. He may be considerably frailer now than he appeared in his very first outing (the film employs old footage of the young naturalist frolicking in the sea), but his passion for the natural world remains undimmed. Almost inevitably, Attenborough isn't simply revealing the ocean's hidden wonders; this film also serves as a warning about climate change, and about the existential crisis being caused by the industrialised fishing of an increasingly scarce resource; but it also sounds a hopeful note, demonstrating how quickly the ocean can bounce back if afforded the opportunity. If Ocean does prove to be, as Attenborough suggests, his final film, it is a fitting testament to his life's work. theatrical release The Wedding Banquet ★★★☆☆ Lily Gladstone and Kelly Marie Tran in The Wedding Banquet Set in Seattle's Asian-American LGTBQ community, The Wedding Banquet (15A) is a droll farce about doing whatever it takes to survive. Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and Lee (Lily Gladstone) are trying to conceive; their best friends Chris (Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-Chan) are desperate to prevent Min being dragged back to Korea by his wealthy, conservative family. And so Min proposes – literally – that he should marry Angela, with her 'dowry' being the cost of the latest round of Lee's fertility treatment. Andrew Ahn's film revels in subverting expectations – Angela's 'Tiger Mom' May (Joan Chen), for example, is outraged that her darling lesbian daughter would even consider marrying a man – and the script is littered with dry one-liners ('Queer theory takes all the joy out of being gay.'). For a film that satirises conservative attitudes, however, The Wedding Banquet is itself excessively polite and restrained; it's fun, but it might have benefited from a little more irreverence. theatrical release
