MAN ABOUT TOWN

Having recently seen - and been aghast by - the trailer for the new, US movie adaptation of The Dark is Rising , a Young Adult fantasy novel first published in 1973, I decided to go back and re-read the series, which I'd loved as a teenager growing up in the Latrobe Valley. I'm so glad I did. Not only has it been a delight to revist the adventures of Will Stanton, youngest of the Old Ones, a servant of the Light in the ageless battle against the powers of the Dark; it's been wonderful being re-exposed to Cooper's magical ability with language, words and mood. If you're not familiar with the books, you can learn all about them, and their author, over here at her official site, The Lost Land . In brief, the series begins with Over Sea, Under Stone (1965), the most traditionally 'children's adventure' style title of the series, in which Simon, Jane and Barnabas Drew recover a lost Grail, and learn something of the battle between the Light and the Dark. Th...

Should your life be so lacking in stimulii as to wish to see the author of this blog creep out from behind his keyboard and into the real world, then you'll have your chance this week; both physically and audibly. This coming Thursday, I'll be facilitating two panels at the Melbourne Writers' Festival ; in other words introducing two seperate groups of writers who will in theory be discoursing about the precise topics of the panels in question, but who really are engaged in little more than a marketing exercise designed to promote their latest books. Moi , cynical? Heaven forfend! At 3:45pm in the Bagging Room at the Malthouse Theatre, I'll be chairing a panel called Refined Tastes , featuring authors John Lanchester and David Hewson , and discussing the differences and similarities between author and character when it comes to writing about art, architecture, food and wine, and similar subjects. Then, at 6;30pm , in the Merlyn Theatre, I'll be facilitating a disc...

Just received this from the publicity team at the Melbourne International Arts Festival: "Attention Sigur Ros fans - Melbourne International Arts Festival announces a change to Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s Program B: Views on Stage/Split Sid es. Due to international scheduling conflicts, Sigur Ros will now only be performing in Split Sides on Saturday 27 October. The two parts of the score for Split Sides were composed by British alternative rock band Radiohead and Sigur Ros, who will perform their part of the score live."

Although I didn't really need convincing, today's mail has provided the clinching piece of evidence confirming my belief that the world has definitely gone mad. Nothing too dramatic, I should point out: no religious tracts promising eternal life through cloning (hi Rael*) or eternal hellfire (of course I'm going to hell: I'm a godless sodomite - duh!). Not even a severed finger or a gift-wrapped dog turd. No, just a letter. Specifically, an invitation from Who's Who in Australia ("Australia's famous biographical reference title," it burbles, with all the charm of a stagnant brook. " Packed with difficult-to-find biographical details about Australia’s most high profile and inspiring people." ) to submit my details for a listing in their next edition. To quote Groucho Marx, "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members". [Exit stage right, laughing wildly.] * Don't you just love a prophet whose we...

The first part of the line-up for this year's festival has just been announced: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE Once in a while along comes a band that is ahead of the curve in such a way that you cannot work out what on earth inspired them to do what it is that they do. And as for how well they do it at a relatively youthful age, well… forget about it .….presenting the grooviest white R&B group in the world: Little Red. Listen: www.myspace.com/littleredmusic There’s a great Australian tradition of small club / pub rock and roll bands. The very best of these have something wild and mercurial about them, some powerful element that takes them beyond ….beyond standard, beyond their peers, beyond reasoning. When one of those bands form, then plays for a few years, then really starts hitting their straps…well, that’s something to see . Eddy Current Suppression Ring is one of those bands. Four people on the same wavelength, all antennae tuned fine to the fuse as...

Two films in as many nights on Sunday and Monday; who needs a film festival for a satisfyingly cinematic time? Sunday I caught This is England, UK director Shane Meadows' new film about a skinhead gang being infiltrated by the National Front, at Carlton's Cinema Nova. It must be said that I'm not a huge fan of the Nova, having had too many film experiences ruined by poor projection; but on Sunday night, in the company of an Irish ex-bootboy, and a gay Singaporean skinhead, I had no problems whatsover - save for the fuckwit sitting one row in front of me who decided to send someone a text message during the film's climax. Aaarrgh! This is England focuses on 12 year old Shaun (a superb performance by young Thomas Turgoose), whose father has recently died in the Falklands War. Adopted by a local skinhead gang led by the likeable Woody (Joseph Gilgun), Shaun is caught at the crossroads when the much older Combo (Stephen Graham) appears on the scene. Recently released from...

Reading about Robert de Niro playing a gay, cross-dressing pirate captain in the new Neil Gaiman film, Stardust , makes me want to see this film even more!

Good god. What do you know? Kevin Rudd is human after all, not some bland blancmange of a man who's all soundbite and no soul. I can just imagine the Liberal Party rubbing their greasy hands when they heard Rudd had got blind in a US strip club; and the Hun editors salivating in tabloid glee. "This will take the wind out of his sails," they must have tittered to one another over their port and cigars in a backroom at the Melbourne Club, as they warmed their fat arses over a fire of burning peasants. "This will bring the little oik down a peg or two." But you know what? I reckon it might actually help, rather than hinder Rudd's election chances. "Geez, he's just a regular bloke after all," the great unwashed might start to think. "He likes his beers and strippers too, just like the rest of us." What's next in the (increasingly desperate-seeming) arsenal of smear campaign tricks, do you think?

Spring has sprung, The grass is ris, I wonder where the birdies is? The bird is on the wing. But that's absurd; I always thought the wing was on the bird? Forgive me the doggerel, the origins of which are unknown (although in my head, I hear it said with a strong Brooklyn on New Jersey accent, so that 'birds' becomes 'boids'; presumably a clue to its origins). My first signs of Spring are here. The jasmine is flowering in the back laneways of Fitzroy, its masses of blossoms spilling out over cracked and splintered fences and rusty sheets of corrugated iron, sending out tantalising wafts of subtle fragrance; and the magnolia trees in Gertrude Street have begun to flower, transforming that grey thoroughfare, briefly, into something softer, gentler and purple-hued. I love this time of year, even though it means my first bout of hayfever can't be far away.

So far this week: I've been accused of being misogynistic and anti-lesbian, and learned that the fractious and divided GLBT community is even more touchy than I'd previously imagined; I've presented my most stressful radio program of the year, as part of RRR's annual Radiothon - and thank you, thank you, thank you , to the 131 people who subscribed this morning during SmartArts ; I've stressed on more than one occasion about my drug and alcohol consumption; I've started thinking about looking for a new job; one that actually pays superannuation and sick leave; I've told the man I'd like to be in love with, but am not, that I'm neither in love with him nor crying myself to sleep over the fact that we're not romantically involved; and also told him that I'm worried about calling him and hanging out with him too much in case he thinks I'm falling in love with him; And I've wished I didn't over-analyse things quite so much. So how...

Media Release Monday 13 August 2007 Your Shout Arts Forum with Peter Garrett, Shadow Federal Arts Minister Shadow Federal Arts Minister, and ex-Midnight Oil frontman, Peter Garrett will be in Melbourne, this Sunday 19 August at 2.30pm to host Your Shout at the Trades Hall in Carlton – an arts forum where local artists and arts supporters will be given their chance to tell Peter what they think the Government should be doing for the arts and artists in Australia. “As the Shadow Arts Minister it’s vital to hear what grass roots artists working in our community have to say on the issues that affect them,” explained Garrett. “ Your Shout is a chance for those artists to come and talk about what is important to them and to have their opinions heard and considered.” The forum is the first of a number of events that will be held across the country over the next few months as Peter give artists right across Australia a chance to speak out about the issues that affect them. “...

I am, it must be said, a Cure fan. I last saw the band live in 2000, during their tour in support of the Bloodflowers album, at which they focussed on dark, atmospheric album tracks from the likes of Pornography , Faith and Disintegration . This time around, it was very much a greatest hits package they offered over an epic, sometimes self-indulgent three hours at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena on Sunday night (and incidentally the reason why I didn't go to the closing night film and party at MIFF). I really expected to like the concert, but confess that there were actually times when I was bored. Playing as a stripped-back quartet, with only bass, drums and two guitars to create what is usually a richly textured soundscape, meant that several of the songs they played lacked depth and drama. Instead, the band made up for what they lacked in volume, but I wanted more than just loud guitars. There were some standout tracks - 'One Hundred Years' from Pornography and 'Pic...

It's been a relatively quiet festival for me this year, and a quiet week on the blog-front too, I'm sorry. Promise I'll try and get up to speed soon! THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (dir Rupert Julian, USA, 1925) It's not often you get to see a decent print of this silent horror classic starring 'the man of a thousand faces', Lon Chaney; let alone a screening in the suitably-chandeliered Regent Theatre with a live accompaniment on the Wurlitzer organ. It was with glee that I attended this second screening of the film on the second weekend of the festival; and with rapture that I took in the various delights the film had to offer, including some wonderful scene composition (typified by Christine's first descent to the Phantom's underground lair, deep below the opera house), lavish sets, the iconic unveiling of Chaney's skull-faced Phantom, and - a scene that I knew existed but had somehow forgotten - an early and striking sequence in primitive Technicolour ...

Sorry about the delay in blog updates; real life keeps getting in the way: Radiothon launches, newspaper deadlines, the National Day of Action, drunkenness... Anyway, enough excuses; another review: THE BUBBLE (dir Eytan Fox, Israel, 2006) Set in Israel's second city, Tel Aviv, The Bubble is the third feature from US-born director Eytan Fox, who relocated to Israel with his family at the age of three. It tells the story of a trio of friends, Noam (Ohad Knoller, previously seen in Fox's superb Yossi and Jagger ), Yali (Alon Friedman) and Lulu (Daniella Virtzer); their dramas in love; and their lives in a nation which lives under permanent threat of attack. While serving as a guard at a military checkpoint, Noam briefly encounters Ashraf (Yousef "Joe" Sweid); after which he returns to Tel Aviv and his job as a sales assistant in a hip record store on bohemian Sheikin Street - think Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, King St, Newtown, or the equivilent faux-bohemian distric...

EX-DRUMMER (dir Koen Mortier, Belgium/Netherlands/Italy/France, 2007) Oh. My. GOD! What a complete and utter headfuck this film was! The debut feature from director Koen Mortier, and based on the book by Herman Brusselman, Ex-Drummer is an undoubtedly accomplished, deeply disturbing, remarkable, bloody mess of a movie. Dries, a famous writer who lives a life of pleasure, fame and literary acclaim, is asked to play drums in a punk band made up of disabled misfits. The lead singer, Koen, has a speech impediment, and the unpleasant habit of beating women into a bloody pulp when he's not walking around on the ceiling. The bass player, who is incapable of bending his right arm due to a surreal childhood incident, keeps his father tied to the bed, and is gay. Oh, and his bald, obese mother is fucking Koen. Ivan, the guitarist, is a deaf drug addict who lives in complete squalor with his wife and child. Other characters include a donkey-dicked musician, the gay man he rapes in a public ...

OUT OF THE BLUE (dir Robert Sarkies, New Zealand, 2006) This confronting and moving docu-drama details the events of a 1990 massacre in the New Zealan d village of Aramoana , in which thirteen people died at the hands of resident David Gray (Matthew Sunderland), an unemployed farmhand, a loner, and a gun collector. Boasting stunning cinematography and confident direction, the film slowly builds to the fateful events of November 13-14, when Gray stalked the town overnight, shooting at anyone who crossed his path. The lead performance by Sunderland is excellent; providing glimpses of humanity among the madness, so that while one doesn't feel sympathy for the character, there are nonetheless flashes of empathy for him (such as a scene early in the film where a terrified Gray hides from the postie, imagining her knock on the door to be armed police with baying dogs). Conversely, a scene where he sits down impassively to eat after shooting his victims conveys the character's almost...

TEETH (dir Mitchell Lichtenstein, USA, 2006) A cleverly observed horror-comedy that never settles for cliche or the easy way out; a refreshingly unique take on the classic male castration complex; a startling story of female empowerment; and a wild ride: that's Teeth , the debut feature by US writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein. Screening as part of the 'Forbidden Pleasures' package at the festival this year, Teeth could just have easily have been included in the horror package, 'Full Moon Fever', or even in the International Panorama: its accomplished, subversive and satirical take on genre-busting so defies categorisation that it could be at home anywhere. Dawn (a stunning performance by Jess Weixler) is so committed to saving her virginity until marriage, despite the temptations of the pleasures of the flesh that are embodied by Tobey (Hale Appleman), that she's become her high school's spokesperson for a chastity group. However, when Tobey attempts to...

GLUE (dir Alexis Dos Santos, Argentina, 2006) Sex, longing, defining boundaries and getting high: the timeless concerns of teenage life are beautifully captured in this film set in rural Argentina. Instead of a slickly-shot OC faux-reality, director Dos Santos has constructed a version of teen life that is as loose as its gangly teenage protagonist, Lucas (the magnificently-quiffed Nahuel Perez Biscayart, right) yet equally endearing. Lucas is 16, and may or may not be in love with his best friend and band-mate, the handsome, masculine Nacho (Nahuel Viale). His life is complicated by a difficult family situation, with a temptestuous mother and philandering father caught in a yo-yoing pattern of seperation and passion. Into this picture comes Andrea (Ines Efron), a bespectacled young woman seeking her own independence from her family yet constrained by them; and both an object of desire and a facilitator of mutal exploration between Lucas and Nacho. Certain scenes late in the picture d...

BUG (dir William Friedken, USA, 2006) Part of the 'Full Moon Fever' horror program at MIFF this year, the latest film from the director of The Exorcist is an exploration of paranoia and psychological terror. Had it descended into full, infectious body-horror I think I would have liked it a lot more. As it was, Bug just sort of bugged me. Agnes (Ashley Judd) is a waitress in a down-at-hills lesbian bar, and is pretty down on her luck herself. Her estranged husband (Harry Connick Junior) is in jail, and she's dreading him getting out. She lives in a motel room, and it's here, one night, that a chance encounter with a drifter, Peter (Michael Shannon) leads her into a nightmare of bad acid trip proportions. Peter, you see, is infected. There's bugs in his blood, and before long, bugs everywhere - soon, they're in Agnes, too... The second act of this traditionally-plotted three-act drama is high-strung and effective, and certain key scenes - including an ominous nig...