If anyone had read the popular film websites’ scathing reviews of the Princess Di biopic Diana they might have been anticipating the film’s arrival on our shores about as eagerly as Australians awaiting the radiation cloud in On the Beach. Diana is undoubtedly a disappointing film with a thin script that covers only a small portion of Diana’s life, bland
Read moreThe 1980’s saw the flourishing of four extreme and highly influential musical subcultures: American Hardcore punk which was faster and more corrosive than its British cousin; Goth which we can blame for emo; hip hop which added Bronx street culture a new form of social and political commentary to popular music; and speed metal which replaced the blues riffing and
Read moreIn February 2012, at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, various members of the balaclava-wearing Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot attempted to perform a song protesting the close relationship between the Russian Orthodox church and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The three main members of the group were quickly bundled out of the church and charged with “hooliganism motivated by
Read moreThere are a handful of science fiction films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris and Alien that have such visual beauty and intelligence that they traverse the science fiction genre to become zeitgeist-defining events and major cinematic works of art. Alfonso Cuaron’s latest film Gravity is almost one of those movies. It is undoubtedly a technical triumph but just
Read moreBecoming Traviata documents the exhaustive rehearsals prior to the performance of Verdi’s opera La Traviata at the International Festival of Lyric Art in France’s Aix-en-Provence in 2011. La Traviata, which was composed in 1853, tells the story of the doomed romance between the terminally ill courtesan Violetta and the young bourgeois lad Alfredo. Traditionally, the opera is set in the
Read moreThe challenge for a sports movie is to keep those who fundamentally dislike that sport glued to the screen. As a non-fan of motor-racing I can say that Ron Howard’s latest film, motor racing drama Rush, does just that. The film dramatises the fierce and often vicious rivalry between the titans of 1970’s formula one motor-racing, James Hunt and Niki
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