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Review: Lovelace, Sydney Film Festival

Review: Lovelace, Sydney Film Festival

In all the arts – music and film especially – many sins can be forgiven if a work has heart. The Beatles’ chirpier songs, The Sound Of Music, most Country music, Sly Stallone’s original Rocky – all beloved by millions, and who …
Review: The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology

Review: The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology

Imagine falling asleep right there in the cinema, at a film festival with films screening back to back. Suddenly, a strange man who doesn’t belong in these movies breaks the fourth wall and begins addressing you about how the films are affecting …
Gurrumul lights up Vivid

Gurrumul lights up Vivid

Gurrumul doesn’t speak during his shows but he doesn’t need to. His quietly majestic music says more than words could ever hope to. Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was born on Elcho Island off the coast of Arnhem Land, about 580 kilometres outside Darwin. …
Review: The Great Gatsby

Review: The Great Gatsby

“I don’t get it,”  my 14-year-old whispered half way through The Great Gatsby. “It’s a love triangle between Gatsby, Daisy and Daisy’s husband,” I explained. Having read F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel in anticipation of Baz Luhrmann’s new film, I had a …
Review: Ernie Watts, VJ’s, Chatswood

Review: Ernie Watts, VJ’s, Chatswood

Walking in late, two minutes into the first number of US tenor icon Ernie Watts’ gig at VJ’s, I was blasted by four cats utterly grooving high. No warm-up for these men – it was straight into the blistering bop of ‘To …
Dendy Shorts: Sydney Film Festival

Dendy Shorts: Sydney Film Festival

Gone are the days when short films seemed to be arcane academic exercises you wished you had the requisite university degree to understand – or even worse, the kind of one-joke chucklers I used to yawn through at Tropfest. These days short …
Antarctica Dreaming: Sydney Writers’ Festival 2013

Antarctica Dreaming: Sydney Writers’ Festival 2013

Bring your imagination to the windiest, harshest place on the planet, a place of ferocious hurricanes and spectacular scenery. Antarctica. During this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival two authors discussed their passion for the Big White Desert: Jesse Blackadder, author of three novels …