Category: CULTURE

  • The Darjeeling Limited – Film Review Friday

    The Darjeeling Limited – Film Review Friday

    The Darjeeling Limited (2007) dir. Wes Anderson “I wonder if the three of us would’ve been friends in real life. Not as brothers, but as people.”   If I had to choose a film from Wes Anderson’s rapidly growing filmography that has aged the finest, it would have to be 2009’s Fantastic Mr Fox, a film…

  • The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) – Film Review Friday

    The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) – Film Review Friday

    10:30 PM. Chicago Institute of Art. Under the cover of darkness, Daniel flies me in a helicopter over the rooftop, I strap myself to the rope and rappel down. I jog over to the skylight and examine each frame. At the very end of the room it hangs: ‘Nighthawks’. I take my glass cutter and…

  • Where’s My Special Features?

    Where’s My Special Features?

    In 2006, we were introduced to two new formats: Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Media was evolving, 720 pixels weren’t enough for us anymore. We wanted more realistic video, more engaging sound, we wanted to physically feel the movie. The heat as John McClane jumped from an exploding helicopter, the shrill hiss of the Xenomorph right…

  • The Firm – Film Review Fridays

    The Firm – Film Review Fridays

    The Firm (1993) dir. Sydney Pollack “It’s not sexy, but it’s got teeth!” While the 21st century has seen its share of legal thrillers with 2023’s Academy Award winning Anatomy of a Fall, 2007’s Michael Clayton, and 2019’s criminally underseen Dark Waters it was in the 1990’s where legal thrillers made their mark on the…

  • Requiem For A Dream – Film Review Fridays

    Requiem For A Dream – Film Review Fridays

    You gaze down at your last hit. It could be a syringe, a tablet, some powder, it could be a beer or a shot of vodka. You try desperately not to grab at it, you’re in cold sweats just thinking about how calm it’ll be when you take it. It’s not about feeling good anymore,…

  • Hit Man – Film Review Fridays

    Hit Man – Film Review Fridays

    “If the ‘self’ is a construct, and it’s all just role play, do you think people can change?” Richard Linklater’s latest foray leads audiences to a road less travelled in the mainstream cinema of today. A road full of rough edges, diminished morality and a leading man who, had this movie been made in the…

  • UOW’s Theatre and Performance’s ‘Fractured’: Four Part Play

    UOW’s Theatre and Performance’s ‘Fractured’: Four Part Play

    Over the weekend I had the pleasure of attending a play put on by students at UOW called Fractured. It was a collection of four plays in which the first three were written by the celebrated socialist-feminist playwright Caryl Churchill: Kill, Glass and Bluebeard’s Friends. These plays delve into harsher themes such as love and…

  • The Zone Of Interest – Film Review Fridays

    The Zone Of Interest – Film Review Fridays

    The Zone of Interest was the area surrounding Auschwitz concentration camp created in 1941 to house SS officers. Right on the other side of the fence, Rudolf Höss and his family lived a privileged life inside a two-storey home with servants, a garden, a pool, access to a stream for fishing and the respect and…

  • Life Cycle

    Life Cycle

    I remember the first time I held you.  So tiny, so fragile. Your eyes were wide with unshakable curiosity as you explored your new home for the very first time.  You were everything I could’ve ever asked for. I could deal with all the gross things to come, but if that was the price of…