Tag: biography
The House of Gucci
Friday, January 14th, 2022 Film Reviews,Shakespeare allegedly set tragedies and comedies in Italy because the stereotype of the excitable Italian was engraven on the Elizabethan mind. One finds the same view at the end of the 18th century in the memoirs of playwright, Vittorio Alfieri, who, caught in an adulterous affair with an English woman, was astonished by the calm, […]
The Beatles: Get Back
Friday, December 17th, 2021 Film Reviews,After an hour of this lengthy three-part documentary about the Beatles, I was wondering if it was going to be nothing more than an extended jam session – gripping stuff for diehard fans, but a long haul for the rest of us. When Peter Jackson got his hands on this never-before-seen footage, he must have […]
Nitram
Friday, October 8th, 2021 Film Reviews,Justin Kurzel may have a taste for dark, unhappy subjects, but he is a cut above most contemporary Australian directors. His first feature, Snowtown (2011), told the true story of serial killer, John Bunting, and those he drew into his orbit. It was a brutal but amazingly sophisticated debut. Ten years on, Kurzel and scriptwriter, […]
Schumacher
Thursday, September 23rd, 2021 Film Reviews,Formula One must be the most dangerous of spectator sports. Cars reach speeds in excess of 300 kph, requiring drivers with lightning fast reflexes, steely nerves, an intuitive feel for the track – and luck. If something goes wrong with your steering column when rounding a bend at 180 kph, no amount of skill will […]
Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali
Friday, September 17th, 2021 Film Reviews,“Destiny can take your best friend as an instrument to cause you harm and your worst enemy to do you good,” says Muhammad Ali a few minutes into this absorbing Netflix documentary. He is referring to black activist, Malcolm X, who had fallen out with Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, a […]
Naomi Osaka
Thursday, August 5th, 2021 Film Reviews,We’re all familiar with newspaper stories about torn hamstrings, stress fractures, busted knees and shoulders. The Age can devote an entire page to a champion footballer’s groin strain. But until recently nobody ever mentioned an athlete’s mental health unless it was to lament some lapse in concentration at a vital stage. “A brain explosion!” is […]
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021 Sydney Morning Herald Column,Art is long but lockdowns are short – even if they seem interminable. With museums and galleries closed, or open by appointment only, this presents a rare opportunity to trawl back over the history of art looking for subjects that illuminate the present. We often hear that a great work of art is “timeless”, meaning […]
Elvis Presley: The Searcher
Friday, July 2nd, 2021 Film Reviews,There are many different Elvises, from the young hillbilly who set the music world alight with his very first recording to the bloated, drug-addled superstar, squeezed into a white jumpsuit with cape, playing to packed houses in Las Vegas casinos. In a week in which it’s impossible to get to the movies in many parts […]
Whiteley: the Opera
Friday, June 18th, 2021 Journals,Ever since John Adams gave us Nixon in China in 1987, the possibilities for opera have been limitless. Unlike the Greek tragedians who were obliged to set every play in a mythical age of Gods and heroes, contemporary composers have drawn subjects from the news cycle, and from the tawdry lives of latter-day celebrities. Elena […]
Acute misfortune (for the viewer)
Friday, June 18th, 2021 Journals,When viewers of Acute Misfortune first catch sight of Daniel Henshall playing artist maudit, Adam Cullen, they may experience a flash of déjà vu. The quiet, menacing tones of John Bunting, mastermind of the Snowtown serial murders, are back on air. Justin Kurzel’s Snowtown (2011) is a movie I have no desire to watch again, […]