Wolf Creek - be sure
from Reviews category

I went to see a new Australian film called Wolf Creek on Tuesday night and I highly recommend that if you intend to see it that you make sure you prepare yourself and take a bucket.

I thought I'd seen violent and nasty films by watching Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter - this left them for dead. Maybe it was just the wrong night for me, maybe it was the fact I grew up in Alice Springs, so the landscapes were really familiar, but I've never experienced what I did while watching it: I've never felt physically ill during a film and I was through at least half of it (I haven't watched The Passion of the Christ, so that might be another to avoid for me so I've heard), I've never considered walking out of a theatre before (and I should have, in retrospect), and I've never looked away from the screen to avoid seeing something.

Anyway, I feel rather strongly about it, so I thought I might pass on this warning.

I should probably give you a review of the film as well though:

It's a truly excellent film: very realistic, plausible (only a couple of technicalities), very scary, very gruesome, superb acting, music, landscapes/settings, even the ending worked for me (others had been disappointed), plus an excellent story.

I just wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Just my two cents.

For more info read Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton's review on the ABC At The Movies website.

Howard's response to the National Day of Action
from Politics category

I really wish I had a link for this but I'm afraid I don't, I can only refer you to tonight's ABC news coverage of the Honourable John Howard's comments regarding todays National Day of Action protests. His comment (paraphrased) was to dismiss the protests as an unreliable way to judge the public's attitude to anything.

My question is "How else can the public tell the Government its attitude to anything en masse?"

Doesn't the fact that possibly the greatest number of people in an industrial rally in Melbourne alone turned up for the protest indicate that there might be some widespread public concern over the proposed IR changes? What would take for the PM to publicly say that he's actually considering the complaints? I'd really prefer a chance to vote on this, frankly.

PS These are my opinions alone.

Boy mauled by Leopard
from News category

Today a 9 year old boy was mauled by a Persian leopard when he jumped the protective barrier and put his arm through the bars of the leopard's cage, I read on the ABC's news site. He was on a school trip to the zoo. Melbourne Zoo director John Gibbons said "We will investigate and look at other alternative methods of display."

Of course, it's awful that a child has been hurt by a zoo animal but my question is why the zoo needs to look at alternative methods of display. When will we start to force a little responsibility for common sense on the public? The kid jumped a barrier and stuck his arm into a cage with a wild animal in it. Come on! How much cotton wool do you really need? I think it's unfair on the zoo to expect them to be responsible for complete idiots.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

Adelaide gets Flooded
from News category

The other night (Tuesday night, was it? the night of the 7th) Adelaide got twice its monthly rainfall and so there was some significant damage from flooding. News the following day had the Government blaming Councils for not doing enough about it. I just liked the water everywhere (except when I got saturated riding my bike!). Check out these ppt slides of photos of the West End Brewery's Christmas Display getting washed away (including the whale, and a kangaroo was found up a tree), some slides of Athelstone, and some from Gawler.

Documentaries for ADD sufferers
from Reviews category

Admittedly I haven't actually written to SBS yet, but I will, mark my words!

On Sunday 6th of November SBS showed the first part of a rather fascinating UK (not US) documentary called "The Real Family of Jesus", which follows the trail of a genealogist researching the family lines of Jesus, as researched from historical texts, including the four Gospels of the Bible, the Gospel of James (the Nativity Gospel), as well as the writers of contemporary historians.

I don't know if anyone else saw it, but the content was fantastic. The presentation, however, was appalling. Every three minutes, the narrator repeated what had been explained already. If it were made for commercial television it would have had a ridiculous number of ads! If it is a three-part series (as I suspect it will be), if they had removed all the repetition all three episodes could be presented in a single show.

My question is why we in Australia can't make documentaries of this quality and at least make them so that we don't treat the viewers like they have the attention span of a goldfish (which can, incidentally, remember things over days, as demonstrated by the Mythbusters)? Is it too much to ask? Or at least they could due some creative editing with the documentaries they get from overseas and snip it down from a 50 minute episode to a 30 minute episode.

Okay, I'm glad I could get that out of my system. It just really irritates me that documentary viewers are treated like they can't keep track of what's going on for longer than five minutes, yet I'm meant to figure out what happens in a three hour-long Scottish detective story!

Thank you for listening/reading and I really hope that I'm not the only one who has these harsh thoughts about some SBS content. As I said, the content of the documentary was excellent - really, suprisingly, interesting - but presented poorly.

I recommend looking at the subsequent episodes.