It’s not like someone running into a burning house to save a child — a super hero is relatively invulnerable, so it’s no skin off her nose to do it. And if there is no chancing personal pain, how to be heroic? Wait up! Let’s rewind that. We ignored Luke Buckmaster‘s warning about The Avengers [...]
March 15, 2012 – 10:08 am
The 2012 Oscar for the vast territory of Best Foreign Film went to A Separation. I’m happy to claim that it is a perfect story. Is it it a perfect film? Well, its art aims for transparency; there are no moments of Look At Me filmmaking; it’s always look at them, look at this; acting, [...]
November 21, 2011 – 11:19 am
A brief list of stuff in the air and on the web I like, and you might too. The Best Live Albums, at Slate, by Bill Wyman (no, not that one). Just right, light and summery with useful reminders and suggestions. On Joni Mitchell’s Miles of Aisles: “Probably the best live album title ever, and [...]
August 24, 2011 – 11:10 am
From a New Yorker cartoon. Picture two straw-chewing, cockeyed hobos perched on a wall. Hobo 1 to hobo 2:“Crazy busy. You?” How does a witness on oath in court give a sensible answer as to her location on a date say a year ago? It’s hard to remember last week, impossible to recall a day [...]
By W H Chong
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Also posted in art, books, drawings, music, photography, wheeler centre
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Tagged aboriginal art, Ballarat, Beethove, Foto Biennale, Jason Greig, Jessica Au, Juan Davila, Konrad Winkler, Mapplethorpe, MUMA, MWF, Namatjira, Randy Newman, Sophie Cunningham
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It’s random, the reasons one finds to leave the house to see a film. I had heard Lambert Wilson on the preparation for his role as head of a Cistercian monastery in Algeria. He talked about learning Gregorian chanting with the other seven actors playing the monks: ‘It has absolutely nothing to do with theatrical [...]
Way behind everyone else, in the air a few days before the Oscars, I caught up with a pair of unlikely winners: both featuring a fiercely antisocial protagonist who is surrounded by loathsome characters, and replete with computer hacking hijinks. Män Som Hatar Kvinnor Unexpectedly enjoyable was the subtitled The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [...]
December 23, 2010 – 10:34 am
Looking is tiring, isn’t it — I just want to shut the door and my eyes, and lie back into a soft, deep couch. What did you see this year? Without notes I wouldn’t recall past back last week. Here are my personal highlights for the year gone by: + + + Winter’s Bone For [...]
By W H Chong
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Also posted in art, books
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Tagged Alice Neel, Animal Kingdom, Christmas, David Malouf, Doanld Friend, James Ensor, Mad Men, Modern Family, Philip Guston, Robin Boyd, T.J. Clark, The Thick of It, Toy Story 3, Winter's Bone
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September 7, 2010 – 11:13 am
Don’t you hate critics? Especially the ones who never agree with you. They’re obviously wrong. Or stupid. Worse, they don’t even write criticism, they write “reviews.” (Kidding,*sigh*) . The latest provocation from the Wheeler Centre’s wicked head of programming, Michael Williams, is a week-long series titled “Critical Failure” with panels on Film, Books, Theatre and [...]
Or, what we — that’s you, me and film reviewers — see in the movies. . I Am Love. (Io Sono L’amore.) What’s it about? “Bored cougar finds young root. Or, Lady Chatterley’s Lover in Italian.” Take your pick, offered my partner. I happen to think it’s all about the Power of Love (surprise!). As [...]
What happens? This: An animated Barbie doll says: “Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force!” It’s unexpected (two toys look at each other, startled), it’s witty, and it’s perfectly in context.* And, most remarkably, it’s entirely credible that Barbie says it.** Here’s another thing — somewhere in [...]
