Art Reviews
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EVAN WILLIAMS. Chasing Asylum. Film Review.
I rate it among the best Australian documentaries ever made If you want to see Chasing Asylum, Eva Orner’s brilliant new Australian documentary, my advice is to hurry along. At last count it was showing on just two screens in Sydney, and when I went along to the Dendy in Newtown on a recent Sunday Continue reading »
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Julianne Schultz. Australia must act now to preserve its culture in the face of global tech giants. Brian Johns Annual Lecture
At the first Brian Johns Annual Lecture, Julianne Schultz spoke of the challenge to Australian culture by the global tech giants. In the summary of ‘what can be done’ she said: So what can be done to join the dots in the Age of Fang? We need to become better advocates of the value Continue reading »
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Kim Williams. Fair use does not mean free: Copyright recommendations would crush Australian content
As someone who has spent my life running organisations that take risks, invest billions and innovate to provide the best of local and international content to Australian consumers, reading the Productivity Commission’s draft report into our intellectual property arrangements was profoundly dispiriting. I cannot think of another recent report that so seriously misses the main Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. ‘A Month of Sundays’. Film Review
I went to see A Month of Sundays, Mathew Saville’s new Australian film, expecting a comedy about real-estate agents. It was the impression I’d gained from a careless reading of publicity handouts and other usually unreliable sources. And sure enough, the film has some witty lines and one or two moments of gentle satire at Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. Rams. Film Review
Rams is a strange and beautiful film from Iceland. And we don’t hear much about Iceland these days. As a child, I pictured a place of endless glaciers and permanently frozen lakes, and was surprised to discover that it was also a place of gentle hills and verdant summer grasslands, with streets and houses Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. ‘The Daughter’ film review
The ads for the new Australian film The Daughter are proudly informing us that the film comes from the same producer who gave us The Piano and Lantana. And that’s some pedigree. Lantana and The Piano were both distinguished Australian films (though the Kiwis shared some credit for The Piano), but what’s this about the Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. The Lady in the Van. Film Review
Alec Guinness is remembered for playing seven different roles in the classic English comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets. In Nicholas Hytner’s film, The Lady in the Van, Maggie Smith goes one better. At different times she’s a crazy old woman, a street beggar, a nun, a belligerent suburban mischief-maker, a well-to-do motorist, an incarcerated Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. Oscars and other frivolities
My vote for best performance by an actor in this year’s Oscars goes to Leonardo DiCaprio – not for his much-touted appearance in The Revenant, but for his rousing speech at the presentation ceremony. I don’t know if he scripted it himself – if he did he deserved a screenplay Oscar as well – but Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. Film review ‘Spotlight’
Evan Williams recently reviewed Spotlight. This film has now won the Best Film at the recent Oscars. This review is reposted below. Evan Williams will soon also write on the Oscar awards in general. John Menadue. The other night I watched a DVD of Foreign Correspondent, Alfred Hitchcock’s wonderful thriller about a newspaperman on the Continue reading »
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Laurie Patton. Pirates of Perchance: How “site-blocking” could force up Internet fees but do little else
Last week both Village Roadshow and Foxtel finally launched court actions under the eight months old Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Act designed to deal with Internet “piracy”. The first thing that needs pointing out is that downloading video and audio content over the Internet is a not a crime as such. It is, however, in breach Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. Film review. ‘Trumbo’ (M)
Everyone remembers Psycho, in which Anthony Perkins played a knife-wielding weirdo obsessed with his dead mother, and most of us remember Rambo, in which Sylvester Stallone played a super-patriot action-hero fighting for truth, justice and the American way. We all know about Romeo, and some of us will remember Dumbo, Disney’s animated baby elephant with Continue reading »
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Ravi. Poems from detention.
My pen and paper I walk a deep sadness path with my loneliness. This emptiness makes me slow. I fall to my knees and cry out loudly. Tears knock silently at my eyes. I can’t find anyone to share my pain with so I make friends with my pen and paper. I share with Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. Film review: ‘The Big Short’
An opening title informs us that The Big Short is “based on a true story.” That usually means that the film we are about to see has only a tenuous connection with reality, that most of it is invented and the events depicted may not have happened at all. Is anyone suggesting that the Global Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. Film Review: Carol.
I’m not alone in rating her the best actress in the world. Or as some would prefer to say, the best female actor in the world. Or more precisely, the best female English-speaking screen actor working in mainstream cinema. And yes, I’m talking about our Cate – up there with Garbo, Hepburn, Streep, destined for Continue reading »
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Evan Williams. Film Review: Paolo Sorrentino’s ‘Youth’
Written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, Youth is a film for the young at heart – or at least for those aspiring to that happy condition. The main characters are a couple of blokes on the wrong side of 70, and it was noticeable at my screening that most of the audience weren’t too Continue reading »
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John Menadue. ‘The Big Short’
Paul Krugman reviews ‘The Big Short’, a film that the enemies of financial regulation hope you won’t see or believe. See link below. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/opinion/the-big-short-housing-bubbles-and-retold-lies.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share Continue reading »
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Ranald Macdonald. The ABC and SBS are under attack.
Now is the time to support the ABC and SBS and the reasons are clear for all to see. Our new Prime Minister has the chance of reversing decisions made during the Abbott leadership – but with him as the Communications Minister. Public broadcasting is under attack in many countries. The BBC has been particularly Continue reading »
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Richard Letts. Mitch Fifield should dump it while he can.
In a Senate Estimates hearing this week, the new Arts Minister Mitch Fifield was gently questioned for ten minutes by Senator Scott Ludlam about his intentions with regard to the future of arts support: in particular, did he intend to implement the plan of his displaced predecessor, Senator George Brandis, to use funds taken from Continue reading »
