Cirrus@Austlit

'They had US$2m and six weeks. Everyone hated the name. Test audiences hated the film. Here’s the oral history of how Jennifer Kent’s debut got made – despite the odds'

'The standup, writer and actor, who co-hosted The Great Australian Bake Off and appeared as a guest on Thank God You’re Here, died after a short illness in Sydney' (Introduction)

'This novel, about an Australian woman’s existential spirals while working in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, is often frustratingly opaque'

'In the photo Dua Lipa is not reading. Dua Lipa is lying, supine, in a tricolour bikini, basking in noonday sun. The kind which inevitably invokes a chill even though it’s 28 degrees and cloudless. The kind which makes you sneeze when you step into its crisp glare, which makes people say to each other with tight-lipped smiles, oh, aren’t we so lucky, finally, blue skies, I can’t believe how bad this weather has been lately. Dua Lipa is practising sun safety, shielding herself from harsh rays with a tome the size of a skull, spine turned towards the camera, eyes turned away as if caught unawares. On its spine, the title: A Little Life / Hanya Yanagihara. I wonder what Dua Lipa is thinking about. It is May, 2020. Lockdown, maybe. International travel. Her bestselling album Future Nostalgia. Albanian-Kosovar reunification.'  (Introduction)

'Of all the terrible fads birthed by the millennial internet – pastel pink, GIF keyboards, the phrase "Netflix and chill" – the Instagram influencer at least makes for a campy archetype on screen. Her presence – and it is unfailingly a her – in film and TV signals the arrival of something unhinged: she is either a stalking victim, or, worse, a Francophile; often conniving and always a liar.'

'Amyl and the Sniffers win group of the year while Tones And I wins song of the year at the first in-person ceremony since 2019'

'A 90s dark comedy and Australian conwoman Belle Gibson inspired directors Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes to create their camp gorefest that has fans around the world screaming for more.' 

'The comedian and showrunner’s new podcast, How To Be Gay, marries interviews with personal stories. But he saved his ‘last secret’ for us' 

'From Friends and Strangers to Hot Mess, there’s a new wave of self-funded films that celebrate the mundane and tap into ‘a national malaise’'

'Appearing at Guardian Australia’s Zoom book club, the author reflected on creativity, the beauty of boredom, and her new essay collection, The Luminous Solution'