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Keywords: Movies

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Birdman or (The Totally Expected Sin of Hollywood Narcissism)

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 01 March 2015

    With Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) winning the Best Picture Oscar, a lot of people are pointing out the fact that three of the last four Best Picture winners are about movies, or the act of making them. That's not including 2011 winner The King's Speech, which was about the art of performance. That Hollywood loves itself a little too much is an obvious, and probably valid, conclusion to draw. But the deeper question to ask is why films like Birdman resonate so strongly. Read more

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Films a blind man loves

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 04 December 2014
    1 Comment

    Try watching slasher parody Scream 4 with your eyes closed and see how much sense it makes. On the other hand, Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas and Kevin Smith's Clerks, with stories driven by strong characters and dialogue, offer up cinematic pleasures even a blind person can appreciate. Welcome to the world of America's Blind Film Critic, Tommy Edison.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Self-absorption dressed up as romanticism

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 02 October 2014
    2 Comments

    It is almost impossible to sympathise with Aidan and his flailing ‘dream’. He decides to take the kids’ education into his own hands. He calls this ‘home schooling’, but it pretty much consists of taking them for trips into the desert or conning the salesman at a luxury car dealership into letting them take a car for a spin, while spouting trite platitudes about life, death and the getting of wisdom.

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  • MEDIA

    Golf mag's slice of sexist misery

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 10 April 2014
    7 Comments

    I got into an argument on Twitter yesterday about Golf Digest's use of a model on its cover rather than a female professional golfer. My opponent assured me that a 'gorgeous girl who modelled for a magazine is no harm' and that it must be 'miserable' to be opposed to every magazine that presented women this way. It is miserable. For most women, objectification is so commonplace that they have learned to live with it as one would a disability.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Senior citizen's road trip to dignity

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 27 February 2014
    2 Comments

    Woody surely has dementia, which would explain his certainty that a sweepstakes flyer stating that he has won $1 million is authentic. While one son would prefer to put Woody in a home, the other, David, agrees to honour his wish to cross state lines to claim his fictitious winnings. Woody is aware of his own dwindling physical and mental agency, and understands that the small gifts of dignity afforded to him by David are not small at all.

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  • MEDIA

    Journalistic ethics in transgender tragedy

    • Ellena Savage
    • 24 January 2014
    4 Comments

    Last week a troubling story broke on sports journalism site Grantland. While investigating the background of Dr V., an avowed physicist who had invented a revolutionary golf putter, journalist Caleb Hannan discovered that Dr V. was a trans-woman. In the course of the investigation, Dr V. committed suicide. This tragic case raises questions about journalistic ethics, not least of which is if journalism is, by its very nature, unethical.

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  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    Best of 2013: Slow down, you're just in time

    • Megan Graham
    • 08 January 2014
    1 Comment

    At a certain point, emotional and mental overstimulation leads to a sort of emotional numbness, as the brain and central nervous system can only respond to so much. With enough dopamine hits from 'likes' on Facebook, and adrenalin spikes from sensationalised news stories, one's emotions can become blunted. That is, with the notable exception of general irritability borne of expecting one's real life to be as fast-paced as one's online one.

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  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    Slow down, you're just in time

    • Megan Graham
    • 11 September 2013
    6 Comments

    At a certain point, emotional and mental overstimulation leads to a sort of emotional numbness, as the brain and central nervous system can only respond to so much. With enough dopamine hits from 'likes' on Facebook, and adrenalin spikes from sensationalised news stories, one's emotions can become blunted. That is, with the notable exception of general irritability borne of expecting one's real life to be as fast-paced as one's online one.

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  • RELIGION

    Community fear feeds Fox News Muslim bashing

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 02 August 2013
    10 Comments

    The now notorious Fox News interview in which host Lauren Green quizzes academic Reza Aslan as to why he, a Muslim, 'would be interested in the founder of Christianity', is mind-boggling in its casual persecution. A similar mistrust of Muslims is evident in Australia, as the Ed Husic debacle demonstrated. Even I, a non-practising Muslim at best, encounter hostility when I write on certain issues.

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  • MEDIA

    Catholic communicators navigating new media

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 07 May 2013
    1 Comment

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Australian wars that Anzac Day neglects

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 22 April 2013
    24 Comments

    Around 20,000 people died in a series of violent conflicts between peoples extending across the entire continent and more than half of our history. We have yet to find a way to remember the loss of those people with anything like the scale and intensity of our other commemorations, such as Anzac Day.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Australian teacher's refugee wake-up call

    • Jessica Brown
    • 27 March 2013
    7 Comments

    A large, harrowing eye is marked on the clay outside the door of one refugee family, tears splashing down. Depression hangs in the air, mingling with the overwhelming odour from the inadequate sewage system. Still, the family unity remains strong, and the seed of hope is evident among the young people.

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