Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Search Results:

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Titanic sets human tragedy apart from Hollywood gloss

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 05 April 2012
    4 Comments

    Legend has it that upon its original release, Titanic was listed as running for two hours and 74 minutes, to placate 'dumb' Americans averse to films over three hours. Titanic's strength is not its trite central 'lust story' but its accumulation of small human tragedies against the disaster of the ship's final hours.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Geriatric sex and dignity

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 29 March 2012
    4 Comments

    The characters' move to India is not merely about stepping outside of comfort zones, but also stepping beyond the familiar in order to examine life in, literally, a new light. Graham has unfinished business there that dates back to his youth. Ageing tomcat Norman simply wants to get laid.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Investment bankers and other monsters

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 22 March 2012
    1 Comment

    The action takes place in 2008 on the eve of the GFC, at an investment bank loosely modelled on Lehman Bros. The CEO is monstrous; a kind of sinewy bishop to capitalism, gaunt and vicious. Yet even the most principled characters are shown to compromise to varying degrees in the name of self-interest.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Showing love to child offenders

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 15 March 2012
    3 Comments

    One of the boys had been charged with murder. The details of his alleged deed revealed a process of systematic humiliation and cruelty towards the victim. It was extremely difficult to reconcile this when looking into the face of a 14-year-old boy.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    When cancer is funny

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 07 March 2012
    2 Comments

    We follow 27-year-old Adam from his diagnosis through the hazards of chemo to still more hazardous surgery. He is aided along the way by the world's worst doctor and a therapist too inexperienced to be of any help. Some cancer stories are as funny as they are tragic.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Polite parents of violent children

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 01 March 2012

    As with Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap, an act of violence involving children acts as a catalyst to exacerbate the adult characters' prejudices, insecurities and resentments. Aided by alcohol, civility is gradually stripped away as a polite gathering degenerates into bullying and abuse.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Islamic women's sex and power

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 23 February 2012
    1 Comment

    The women begin withholding sex from their husbands in order to pressure them into bringing running water to their remote North African village. This act of self-empowerment brings hardships to both the men and the women of this patriarchal Islamic community.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Melbourne's Gen Y hollowman

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 16 February 2012
    1 Comment

    The 'quarter life crisis' is perhaps a Gen Y phenomenon where, despite a dedication to 'experience' and 'connection', one feels life is hollow. The greatest weakness of Any Questions For Ben? is that it offers pat answers to existential questions, where perhaps it should offer none. 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Art after shock

    • Sasha Shtargot
    • 15 February 2012
    8 Comments

    Walk in one direction and you meet a photograph of a dog humping a naked man. Turn a corner and there is a long row of plaster-cast vaginas. In one place a mummified cat's head. Shock is not new in art, but it loses its transgressive power when pursued for its own sake.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Sex addiction shame and sympathy

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 09 February 2012
    5 Comments

    Brandon's addiction finds several expressions, from excessive pornography use (including on his work computer), to one-night stands, to more deviant behaviours. Shame explores the addict's humanity both frankly and artfully.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Humanising Hoover and Thatcher

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 02 February 2012
    4 Comments

    The problems do not begin and end with badly applied fake jowls. J. Edgar introduces its subject in his later years, reflecting back on his life. This manipulative tactic errs on the side of sentimentality, when Hoover, like Margaret Thatcher, is not a figure to whom sentimentality can be easily attached.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Religious icons tweaked by Renaissance masters

    • Alex McPhee-Browne
    • 19 January 2012
    1 Comment

    The Renaissance embodied a revolution not only in form, but in content. Bellini's Madonna and Child is enlivened by a zesty piece of human theatre: the baby Jesus, anxious to be on his way, raises one leg in a gesture of defiance, a perfect half-scowl etched onto his tiny features.

    READ MORE