Two major shows are finishing up shortly, at their only venues in Australia. William Kentridge, ACMI, Melbourne Why, why did I wait so long to see Kentridge at ACMI? Partly it seemed to be on for ages; partly I wasn’t sure I liked his work, d’oh. The show is gobsmackingly tremendous; K and I spent [...]
Paul Krugman in the NYT warns us of Eurodämmerung within months, but like the girl in Don’t Dream It’s Over, we turn past to the TV page. To the balm and cocoon of song, of a life’s drama passing by, Live!, in 2.5 minutes of limelight. ‘You owned it! You were hungry! Well done, well [...]
April 30, 2012 – 11:11 am
You can lose yourself in one of the great, late Rembrandt self-portraits for an hour, and wake as if from a dream. But it is curious, to me, how a voice can feather you with goosebumps or lay you low within a bar or two, bring you to near to, or, to tears. Short arc [...]
March 26, 2012 – 10:46 am
Surfing across My Kitchen Rules I’m often transfixed. Unreality TV This is Unreality TV delivered with frank efficiency. The post-event filmed asides from teammates — It all depended on the pigeon breast; and it wasn’t cooked! — then anachronistically slotted back into the cooking sequence; the cliffhangers — ad break before verdict — are handled [...]
December 20, 2011 – 11:00 am
Last week I went for a ride with Peter Temple’s publisher, Michael Heyward, to a warehouse in Footscray. Temple, of course, wrote the celebrated The Broken Shore, and its Miles Franklin award-winning follow-up, Truth. He’s also written four novels featuring Jack Irish, a lawyer turned sometime detective, though it’s hard to quite pin down what [...]
I made this card for a friend, and it seems to suit the times . . . – . . . keeping in mind the rancorous political bandinage on Tony Jones’ Q&A, and especially the spiky and pungent confessions and exchanges on Go Back to Where You Came From, that excellent offering from SBS. I [...]
March 15, 2011 – 11:08 am
The footage of the tsunami in Japan is wrenching and horrifying; coming so soon after the Christchurch quake, and the Australian floods, television has become the opposite of its usual dumbly reassuring self. Last night, TV exercised at full tilt another of its metiers — live intercourse with an important public figure, our PM. On [...]
The softer judging style won points and a vastish audience, swerving MasterChef from the reality show delights of humiliation drama. But you just know the director did well in his wizard classes – he kept flinging ‘Crucio!’ at the two contestants. That’s the “unforgivable” torture curse, as in, you know, excruciation, or crucifixion, or something. [...]
So I’ve finally caught up with season one of the series du jour, Mad Men. (On DVD; yes, could have saved the money and streamed it but one has to keep struggling with the fun/work balance on the computer.) Watched with eyebrows racheted up to max and mouth in generic O-shape, as in OMG. Patriarchal [...]
