culture
culture
theatre November 17, 2018
STC’s production of Patrick White’s darkly comic A Cheery Soul shows that the story of ‘monstrous’ nursing home resident Miss Docker is a still-relevant examination of the loss of agency in old age.
film November 17, 2018
Joel Edgerton’s Boy Erased may lack depth in its examination of LGBTQIA torment, but its handling of family dynamics and the performances of Luke Hedges and Nicole Kidman are cause for redemption.
culture November 17, 2018
Gillian Flynn’s dark inquiries
Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn developed a taste for the macabre at an early age, but she’s keen to dispel the myth that she is who she writes. She talks about her depictions of deeply disturbed and disturbing women and the release of her latest film project, Widows. “There’s a reason we’re fascinated with domestic-based murders. It allows us to talk about marriage and family and what goes on behind closed doors. It gives us a strange vocabulary and permission to talk about those things we wouldn’t otherwise.”
books November 17, 2018
The novelist, essayist and poet Barbara Kingsolver has been a giant of American literature since her fifth work of fiction, The Poisonwood Bible (1998). It’s an astonishing novel, and astonishingly good – especially in the subtle, engrossing way...
books November 17, 2018
The Sydney Cove has the mixed distinction of being among the first ships wrecked on Australia’s east coast; it was on its way from Calcutta to Port Jackson in 1797 when it wrecked on an island – now called Preservation Island – in Bass Strait...
music November 10, 2018
Bleeding Knees Club’s Fade the Hammer
Bleeding Knees Club’s second album, Fade the Hammer, sees songwriter Alex Wall weave some far-flung influences into his bratty pop punk, from Lightnin’ Hopkins to doo-wop.
culture November 10, 2018
Building on her earlier works essaying colonialism and her experience as an Iranian migrant to Australia, photographer Hoda Afshar turned to presenting the humanity of the men detained on Manus Island. “Photography has turned into this whole trend of empty landscapes – no sign of human presence whatsoever, just traces of human beings. Traces of a tyre on asphalt, rubbish, leftover food, signs that say there were people here, but no human presence. It shocks me. I think, yes, it’s important to acknowledge the history of photography, how image-making has abused and manipulated narratives. We have to acknowledge the relationship between image-making and power. But to dismantle it is not to completely avoid that dialogue.”
portrait November 10, 2018
A drink in a Glebe pub with ex-President of Kiribati and Nobel Peace prize nominee, Anote Tong.
books November 10, 2018
Les Murray has always been a sort of enigmatic double-headed eagle: one profiled eye looking into the past, the other staring into the future. Of course, we know, or think we know, about the backward-looking Murray, the so-called bard of Bunyah with...
