Eureka Street

Author: Peter Craven

ARTS AND CULTURE

Disclaimer in a streamer world
- Peter Craven
- 15 November 2024
Starring Cate Blanchett at the height of her powers, Disclaimer, the new streamer by Alfonso Cuarón, has already been dubbed the finest thing ever made for the new television, with the director claiming not to have made a serial, but a continuous film.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Sonny Boy: A Memoir by Al Pacino review
- Peter Craven
- 08 November 2024
Al Pacino is an actor we’re inclined to take for granted, given his presence in some of the greatest popular films of the last half century, not least his Michael Corleone in Coppola’s Godfather trilogy, which revealed an actor of extraordinary stature. Sonny Boy is a consistently diverting and illuminating book by a man who has little pomp and circumstance about him.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

In Juice, Tim Winton turns to mad dystopian climate fiction
- Peter Craven
- 25 October 2024
In Juice, Tim Winton crafts a haunting world where climate apocalypse and moral ambiguity collide. This monolithic novel depicts a dystopian future scarred by climate change, with Winton’s intricate prose showcasing his mastery and leaving readers to grapple with its fierce ethical landscape.
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INTERNATIONAL

Songs of Cretan liars and the rambling voice of truth
- Peter Craven
- 09 October 2024
With moments of shared perspective and common ground, the weird thing about the CBS debate the debate between the two putative vice-presidents, J.D. Vance and Tim Walz, was how civil and considerate it was and (in its way) how impressive.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Remembering Maggie Smith’s enduring magic
- Peter Craven
- 02 October 2024
If you care about theatre and film and television you should be grateful to have lived at the same time as Maggie Smith. She was an artist of incomparable power and nuance, of tremendous wit and complementary poignancy. The Harry Potter kids are lucky to have experienced such style and know-how and grace.
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INTERNATIONAL

Only in America
- Peter Craven
- 25 July 2024
It’s easy, isn’t it – much too easy – to invoke the standard response that only in the so-called Land of the Free could these things transpire. A vulgar, mendacious man who has refused to believe that he lost the last election is now the improbable victim of an assassination attempt. And the incumbent president, who has not done badly at his impossible job, surrenders his chance at re-election.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

John Grisham and the Camino literary caper
- Peter Craven
- 05 July 2024
For a long time now, John Grisham has been part of the air we breathe. He's one of those writers who’s all things to all people. His latest Camino books are books about books; a form of meta crime writing and you have to admire the move on the chessboard they represent. Can John Grisham be self-reflexive?
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AUSTRALIA

Requiem in a dawn light
- Peter Craven
- 24 April 2024
For those born in the wake of World War II, war stories seemed the greatest fun on earth. But the pity of it is monumental and we come to take it – if not for granted – then at least as part of the fabric of minds that had met with all that was terrible in human experience and all that called out for reverence.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Nam Le's 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem
- Peter Craven
- 05 April 2024
1 Comment
Nam Le is one of the strangest writers in the history of Australian literature and is also one of the most incandescently brilliant — which is very weird if you bear in mind that his primary claim to legendary status is a book of short fiction published in 2008. With 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem, Le returns with a new work that encapsulates the brilliance and complexity that fans and critics have come to expect.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

The Crown: As Diana, Elizabeth Debicki is 'a thing of wonder'
- Peter Craven
- 15 December 2023
The Crown, that extraordinary TV series about the British Royal Family, is drawing to a close, with the final six episodes released in the prelude to Christmas. In the meantime, the producers have shrewdly done a quartet of episodes about Diana, with Australia's Elizabeth Debicki giving a dazzling performance as ‘the People's Princess’.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

David Marr's penance by storytelling
- Peter Craven
- 20 October 2023
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In Killing for Country, David Marr confronts Australia's dark colonial past, revealing unsettling truths about the Australian Native Police's brutal acts. Published during the Voice referendum, Marr intertwines personal ancestry with national guilt, urging Australians towards truth-telling and reconciliation. This isn't just history; it's a call for atonement.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

The disquieting lessons of Ian McEwan
- Peter Craven
- 14 June 2023
Ian McEwan's Lessons marked a sharp twist in a five-decade literary career, and presents an opportunity to reflect on his expansive body of work. The one-time literary rogue and Booker laureate now stands as the unquestioned doyen of modern English fiction, his audacious work perpetually navigating undercurrents of unease.
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