Watch in cinemas
A film: Biosphere
Apocalyptic Duplass comedy
From the indie comedy darling Mark Duplass (who also stars) and first-time feature director Mel Eslyn, Biosphere focuses on a pair of childhood best friends who are hunkered in a bunker, having just survived the end of the world. Given the creators’ track record of spare, empathic films that wring laughter out of the grimmest of circumstances – Eslyn was a frequent Lynn Sheldon collaborator before the director’s death – and the award-winning acting chops of co-star Sterling K. Brown, Biosphere looks set to be funny, twisty and quietly devastating. – Alyx Gorman
Watch at home
Film: Sitting in Bars with Cake
Sweet gal pal tearjerker (Amazon Prime)
Based on Audrey Shulman’s narrative cookbook of the same name, the high-gloss drama Sitting in Bars with Cake does exactly what it says it will on the tin. Two twentysomething roommates go on a nightlife tour of LA, baked goods in hand, because they’ve realised men will want to talk to you if you’re sporting dessert. While the book was a romcom, the film takes a platonic The Fault in Our Tarts (sorry) pivot, when baker Jane (Yara Shahidi)’s roomie Corrine (Odessa A’zion) is diagnosed with cancer midway through. Also features Bette Midler in a supporting role and leather pants. – AG
Rose Matafeo rules (ABC iView)
Starstruck was set up as a Notting Hill-style story about a funny, cool New Zealander living in London, Jessie (Rose Matafeo), who meet-cutes movie star Tom Kapoor (Nikesh Patel) in a bathroom, and falls into a relationship that becomes increasingly tricky to navigate. Season three, however, begins with a breakup and then morphs into an anti-romcom – which means we get to spend less time with the slightly boring man, and more time with her fun friends. Delightful. – Steph Harmon
TV: The Newsreader’s second season
Vintage Aussie newsroom (ABC, at 8pm Sunday)
Anna Torv and Sam Reid return as Helen Norville and Dale Jennings: two journos working in a 1980s Australian newsroom as real historical events unfold around them. This time the 1987 election is looming and gun ownership and Aboriginal rights are in the news in a second season that raises the stakes and ups the ante. And for the real nerds: it comes with a companion podcast on ABC Listen, hosted by Leigh Sales and Lisa Millar. – SH
Listen
An album: Guts by Olivia Rodrigo
Happy Olivia Rodrigo week to all who celebrate! After a meteoric debut that crowned her a gen Z idol basically overnight, the second record is filled with exactly as much adolescent angst as it should be – with lashings of spicy retribution, pop-punk hooks, witty sprechgesang vocals a la Wet Leg, and, as always, a fun guessing game w/r/t who these songs are really about. – SH
An album: Mid Air by Romy
The xx’s music is still so ubiquitous that you may not have realised they haven’t released anything in five years. Now Romy is the latest band member to go solo, putting her instantly recognisable breathy vocals to some pulsing disco tunes made for fans of Robyn or Dua Lipa. The tunes are joyful; the lyrics are morose: “Dancing on my own again / Anxiety, my old friend.” – Sian Cain
A podcast: The Immortals
Is there anything more fun than laughing at Silicon Valley billionaires wasting their money on dumb ideas? I’m not even talking about Burning Man! New BBC podcast The Immortals – a spin-off of the TV doco – spotlights “longevity superstars” trying to live for ever by throwing money at the problem (the problem is death). Take Bryan Johnson, for instance, who is paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to infuse one litre of his teenage son’s plasma into his body. Will it work? No! Does that stop him? Also no! – SH
Cook
On special at under $2 a punnet at the moment, strawberries are the pick of the fruit stand right now, and the star of Ravneet Gill’s bright and creamy bake. She’s included instructions on making the pastry, but you can always pick up a roll of frozen short-crust to save yourself some active prep and a fair bit of clean-up.
Read
Book: Hook, Line and Sinner by Tom Nash
Tom Nash was just 19 years old when he suddenly contracted meningococcal, was given a 2% to 10% chance of survival and, across 18 agonising months in hospital, had all of his limbs amputated. While all this sounds awful, and it is, Nash – best known in Sydney as DJ Hookie of Starfuckers fame – is such a charming and droll narrator that his memoir makes for a very fun time, charting his recovery and ascendance in Sydney’s club scene. “You only benefit from misfortune if you can reframe it and learn from it,” he writes. – SC
Book: Never Look Desperate by Rachel Matthews
The cover of Matthews’ third novel promises “Sedaris meets Fleabag”, which makes it sound like every other book right now – but actually, Never Look Desperate is about more than just misanthropic hot messes. Also: no millennials! Instead we meet the hapless 49-year-old Bernard, recovering from the death of his wife and father in the wake of Melbourne’s lockdowns; his fierce and unforgiving mother, Goldie; and the singular Minh, 54 and isolated, who meets Bernard on a dating app. It’s dark, funny, smart and very full of heart. – SH
Book ahead
Laneway festival
Guys, guys, guys: STORMZY is coming. Here. To Australia. (Am I the only one who cries watching his Glastonbury set when I need to feel something?) The king of British rap will be here for the first time in seven years, joined on February’s Laneway lineup by Steve Lacy, Dominic Fike, Raye, Angie McMahon, Confidence Man, Dope Lemon, Paris Texas, Suki Waterhouse, Teenage Dads, Blondshell and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. Pre-sale starts on Tuesday, general sale opens on Thursday. Merky-ky-ky-ky. – SC
