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Keywords: Oscar

  • RELIGION

    Easter manifesto

    • John Falzon
    • 06 April 2012
    10 Comments

    The Easter motif of suffering and resurrection comes alive in movements of social change, when people who have been treated as nothing proclaim by their collective dreaming we are everything. For those who hunger for justice it is a sin to be disorganised, when the misery we confront is well organised.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2011: Australian politics could use a dash of vitriol

    • Edwina Byrne
    • 09 January 2012
    3 Comments

    The speeches of the Tea Party movement, for all their faults, are notable for their vivid symbolism and appeal to values. When was the last time you heard an Australian politician invent their own intelligible metaphor? Published 20 January 2011

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Savaging sex and religion

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 15 December 2011
    4 Comments

    Three teenagers are lured into the midst of a demented cult waging a brutal crusade against society's sexual profligacy; the Westboro Baptists re-imagined as violent extremists. This is not the first time questioning Catholic filmmaker Kevin Smith has had a go at religion.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Bereaved father's cancer dreaming

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 10 November 2011

    There's nothing to say a father who had hoped for a miracle, but instead watched his child wilt and die. His sleep is filled either with dreams where she's alive, or nightmares where he watches her die all over again. I'm not sure which would be worse: to fear going to sleep, or to regret waking up.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Unemployment angels and demons

    • John Falzon
    • 19 October 2011
    8 Comments

    Recently I received an email from a young man in Queensland. He was writing to thank the St Vincent de Paul Society for the stance it takes on the side of people who are demonised for being unemployed. He told me his story. Here are some bits of it.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Testing nature vs nurture

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 29 September 2011
    5 Comments

    During the 1970s, a chimpanzee named Nim was placed with and raised by a human family, with the aim of seeing whether he could learn language. On a larger canvas the experiment asked the question, 'how much can we make Nim human?'

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Cate Blanchett and carbon tax plunder

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 31 May 2011
    25 Comments

    Actors specialise in image making, an imitation of life rather than life itself. While the carbon tax being spruiked by Cate Blanchett and other celebrities is ostensibly designed to target polluters, in truth the Gillard Government is simply finding another avenue for raising revenue.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Christian and Muslim bullets and blood

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 21 April 2011
    3 Comments

    Nawal, disgraced and exiled from her Christian village for an affair with a Muslim man, conceals her crucifix and hitches a ride on a bus laden with Muslims. Shortly, the bus is halted by a squadron of bloodthirsty Christian militants.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Kids learning violence

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 31 March 2011
    1 Comment

    Christian defeats a bully using violence more severe than that which he suffered. He learns a frightening lesson about the capacity of violence to still conflicts. Casey Heynes, whose videoed retaliation against a school bully became a hit on YouTube, can probably relate.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Australian politics could use a dash of vitriol

    • Edwina Byrne
    • 20 January 2011
    16 Comments

    The speeches of the Tea Party movement, for all their faults, are notable for their vivid symbolism and appeal to values. When was the last time you heard an Australian politician invent their own intelligible metaphor?

    READ MORE