Entertainment

Quick News: Fat, Men, Rookie, Paradise

Universal Pictures My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 Actress/filmmaker Nia Vardalos has confirmed that filming has begun in Athens on a third “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” film which she is directing for Playtone, Gold Circle, HBO and Focus. Michael Constantine, who played Toula’s father Gus in the previous films, passed away last year and…

Published

4 days ago

June 22, 2022

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My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3

Actress/filmmaker Nia Vardalos has confirmed that filming has begun in Athens on a third “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” film which she is directing for Playtone, Gold Circle, HBO and Focus. Michael Constantine, who played Toula’s father Gus in the previous films, passed away last year and so won’t appear. [Source: Instagram]

Fat Leonard

“Crazy Rich Asians” co-writer Peter Chiarelli has teamed with SK Global and Project Brazen to write a TV adaptation of Project Brazen’s popular podcast about the decades-long “Fat Leonard” U.S. Navy scandal.

The series featured Leonard Glenn Francis, a corrupt military contractor, who spoke exclusively for the first time about stealing tens of millions of dollars through deals with the U.S. Navy in exchange for cash bribes, escorts and luxury items. [Source: Deadline]

White Men Can’t Jump

Comedian and social media star Tamera ‘Tee’ Kissen has been cast in the new role of ‘Sheila’ opposite Jack Harlow in the “White Men Can’t Jump” remake. Charles Kidd II directs while Sinqua Walls also stars. “Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris and Doug Hall are penning the redux. [Source: Variety]

The Rookie: Feds

Kevin Zegers has been set as a series regular on ABC’s spin-off “The Rookie: Feds” headlined by Niecy Nash-Betts as the oldest rookie in the FBI Academy. Zegers will play Brendon Acres who is just out of Quantico. He joins a cast that also includes Britt Robertson, Frankie Faison and Felix Solis. [Source: TV Line]

Paradise

Jamie Lee Curtis and Blumhouse are developing Lizzie Johnson’s book “Paradise” as a feature film. The book is the definitive firsthand account of California’s Camp Fire, the nation’s deadliest wildfire in a century, and examines what went wrong

Blumhouse will also take stories of bus driver Kevin McKay and school teacher Mary Ludwig, who helped navigate a bus full of children through the deadly fire, to fully develop the story. [Source: Deadline]

Entertainment

Giant illuminated ring planned for city square

Dazzling design: Giant illuminated ring planned for Light SquareAn internationally-acclaimed visual arts studio is designing a giant illuminated steel ring for the final resting place of Adelaide’s original designer. There is more to this story But it’s a member-only story. Subscribe today to unlock it and more… Dazzling design: Giant illuminated ring planned for Light…

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1 hour ago

June 26, 2022

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Giant illuminated ring planned for city square

Dazzling design: Giant illuminated ring planned for Light Square

An internationally-acclaimed visual arts studio is designing a giant illuminated steel ring for the final resting place of Adelaide’s original designer.

There is more to this story

But it’s a member-only story. Subscribe today to unlock it and more…

Dazzling design: Giant illuminated ring planned for Light Square

An internationally-acclaimed visual arts studio is designing a giant illuminated steel ring for the final resting place of Adelaide’s original designer.

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Entertainment

‘Beautiful soul’: $20k raised for Gold Coast drowning victim

Tributes have poured in for a ‘gorgeous girl’ following her tragic death on the Gold Coast. Find out how family and friends plan to honour her memory.CentralDon’t miss out on the headlines from Central. Followed categories will be added to My News.Family and friends have paid tribute to a “beautiful soul” and “gorgeous girl” following…

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June 26, 2022

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‘Beautiful soul’: $20k raised for Gold Coast drowning victim

Tributes have poured in for a ‘gorgeous girl’ following her tragic death on the Gold Coast. Find out how family and friends plan to honour her memory.

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Family and friends have paid tribute to a “beautiful soul” and “gorgeous girl” following her tragic death on the Gold Coast.

Lizzie Kerry drowned near the Esplanade at Elkhorn Ave, Surfers Paradise, about 4am on May 21.

Emergency services performed CPR on Ms Kerry after she was pulled from the water, but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said the 32-year-old was visiting from NSW and her death was not deemed suspicious.

Ms Kerry had community ties on the Gold Coast, NSW, Melbourne and New Zealand.

Her close friend Kristopher Vincent started an online fundraising page to pay for funeral costs, which has since raised a whopping $20,000.

He described the 32-year-old as a “gorgeous girl”.

“A sister, a daughter, a friend, a kind voice – whatever Lizzie meant to you, she was the brightest light, a ball of energy and the definition of ‘lights up a room’,” Mr Vincent said.

“Her family and friends want to send her off in style and re-live the memories in all of the cities she called home, across Australia and New Zealand.

“Any remaining funds will be donated to Lizzie’s favourite charities.”

Tributes for Ms Kerry flooded her social media accounts, with Jess Petersen describing her as a “beautiful soul”.

“Sending my love to you darling and fly high Lizzie you absolute angel.”

Mel Sharpin said the world would not be the same without her bubbly spirit.

“You will be missed Lizzie Kerry. May you fly even higher in your new life,” she wrote.

“The world won’t be the same without you.”

Mazza McGuirk remembered the outgoing young woman for her “fearless, fun, passionate and generous” soul.

Another urged other people to “live life like Lizzie”.

Just weeks before Ms Kerry’s death, lifeguards pleaded with swimmers to follow safety warnings in the wake of the drowning of a Gold Coast man in his 30s.

There had been five beach rescues on the Gold Coast that week.

Queensland Ambulance Service supervisor Adam Flori said swimmers who ignored safety messages were putting themselves and rescuers at risk.

“It’s frustrating because it doesn’t appear the messages are being heard,” Mr Flori said at the time.

To view the fundraising page for Ms Kerry, visit here.

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Entertainment

You beauty! Brissie booze start-up selling 3 million cocktails a year

A Brisbane start-up has added an Aussie twist to a classic Italian cocktail which its owner describes as a `kind of Sophia Loren meets Bondi Beach’ and they are set to take off overseas.Tom Maclean’s quest to add a unique Aussie twist to an Italian aperitivo started over a decade ago and while not without…

Published

1 hour ago

June 26, 2022

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You beauty! Brissie booze start-up selling 3 million cocktails a year

A Brisbane start-up has added an Aussie twist to a classic Italian cocktail which its owner describes as a `kind of Sophia Loren meets Bondi Beach’ and they are set to take off overseas.

Tom Maclean’s quest to add a unique Aussie twist to an Italian aperitivo started over a decade ago and while not without trials his venture is now flying high.

After building up SOFI, which makes Australia’s very own aperitivos and serves more than three million wine-based cocktails annually, he is forging ahead with global plans to take his startup to even greater heights.

This year Brisbane-based SOFI plans to take on the global export market through the launch of a new 16 per cent Alcohol-by-Volume (ABV) SOFI aperitivo format, as well as a collaboration with Australia’s national carrier, Qantas.

Mr Maclean said he was at a barbecue in Sydney when he first thought of what he described as a “kind of Sophia Loren meets Bondi Beach”.

“I love Aussie wines and we have an amazing wine industry. I was living in Bondi and having a lot of backyard barbecues and the wine didn’t really fit with the backyard barbies we were having so I wanted a product that reflected that kind of more casual occasion,” he said.

That germ of an idea complemented Mr Maclean’s travels to Italy, which introduced him to Italian wine-based aperitivo and spritz.

The twist was that he wanted to “Aussie-fy” the classic spritz by using all natural ingredients and no added sugar to appeal to health-focused consumers and Mr Maclean – who at the time was in the finance industry – joined forces with fifth generation winemaker Simon Gilbert, to blend grapes from across the country’s premium wine regions.

They also worked with the late Bill Torrey, who brought decades of experience pioneering botanical distillation.

Increasingly SOFI has been harnessing local extracts of Native Lemon, Tasmanian Pepperberry, Finger Lime and Davidson Plum to ramp up the uniqueness of their concoctions.

Mr Maclean said SOFI’s spritz debuted at the Bondi Farmers Markets in 2013 and three years later the startup was given a shot in the arm with an appearance in The Shark Tank.

They received offers from four of the sharks and accepted a joint offer at the asking price, $130,000 for a 10 per cent split of the business from Glen Richards and Steve Baxter who remain close advisers.

They also raised more than $41,000 from three campaigns through rewards-based crowdfunding platform Pozible and in 2019 SOFI completed a crowd sourced funding offer through Equitise and raised about $550,000.

Mr Maclean, who has returned home to live in Brisbane, said the Qantas deal was kickstarted through Mr Baxter’s team which helped them land an initial introduction to Qantas, five years ago.

“In the middle of Covid Qantas’s head of beverages called me out of the blue saying they wanted to do a special bespoke cocktail to launch international travel,” he said.

“He said they wanted it to be wine-based and have Australian ingredients. We worked for a year developing two recipes and they chose one of those, Sky Spritz, which launched on international flights in December.

“The Qantas deal is a massive one and off the back of that we are getting really strong interest out of international markets.”

The Sky Spritz is an ode to Australian native botanicals, featuring Davidson Plum and Finger

Lime, both of which hail from the subtropical rainforests of Queensland.

While SOFI is flying high with growth of around 20 per cent in 2020-21 and revenue hitting around $2.5m, Mr Maclean said Covid hit them hard, disrupting expansion overseas and keg sales to Australian pubs.

However, Covid also produced opportunities.

“Before Covid hit we were doing a lot of cocktails in kegs with cocktails on tap and we were in some of the biggest high volume venues in the country,” he said.

“But we got smashed by Covid and it was very tough. It was a massive readjustment and we had to stop doing kegs and developed our full strength aperitivo which is in the spirit category.”

SOFI aperitivo has won a silver award at the Melbourne International Spirits Competition 2021 and the company also inked a national deal with one of Australia’s leading distributors, Joval Wine Group.

Mr Maclean said the aperitivo format was not only to keep up with consumer behaviour but to help pave the way with plans for international expansion.

“We had great interest from international chains, yet we couldn’t make the premix canned

cocktail format stack up for export,” he said.

“Australia is pretty unique in that we massively over-index on premixed/RTD/RTS (Ready-to-Drink/Ready-to-Serve) consumption. So in that case, the higher ABV SOFI aperitivo gives us an opportunity to take SOFI to the world. Perhaps, we will sell aperitivo back to Italy?

“Covid lockdowns and consumer behaviour also added to this shift as we saw people creating cocktails. We were super excited about giving our consumers the freedom to mix SOFI to their taste and letting their creativity run wild.”

Originally published as SOFI plans to expand globally after Qantas orders Sky Spritz on international flights