Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

A discussion, mainly focusing on the films up for best picture at the 1994 Oscar awards that are based on historical events. Originally broadcast on 21/3/94.

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

What might have been a fun satire about suburbia struggles to find the right tone, despite two strong lead performances, in Robert Luketic's new comedy. Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher are a couple in love, newly wed after a brief summer romance. She doesn't know he was once a secret agent -- until his former life comes crashing in on their suburban tranquillity via a string of assassins out to claim a hefty bounty on his head. Heigl continues to display her sublime sense for physical comedy here, while Kutcher convinces, both as a trained killer and as a down-to-earth hunk. The parents (hers) are played by Tom Selleck and Catherine O'Hara, a duo who seem inspired by the Fockers. He's a stern ex-marine, she's a loose-lipped alcoholic, and there's considerable comic mileage in the fact they live just around the corner and too close for comfort. Unfortunately, the whole never quite delivers on the promise of the parts. The film slides into an action romp, and everyone from delivery boys to work colleagues turns out to be a sleeper agent with homicidal designs. It's a transition that never really convinces. As car chases and shoot-outs become more outlandish, it feels like Luketic has taken a gamble with the audience's trust and lost. The problem lies in the film's straddling of two very different comedic energies. Killers begins, and works best, as a classic screwball comedy, but it makes the mistake of trading in satire for outright parody. If it was a more camp film the shift might have worked, instead it loses its way.

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

This is the kind of cheaply made comedy that's sometimes saved by a sharp script (think The Castle). Unfortunately that's not the case here. Second Hand Wedding is a folksy film from New Zealand about a family gearing up for their daughter's wedding. The central character is Jill (Geraldine Brophy), the mother of the bride-to-be, an obsessive woman with a passion for garage sale bargains. Initially she's the last to know about the big day as her daughter wants to keep any 'vintage' influence to a minimum. But a capacity to sniff out value in other people's discarded possessions becomes a kind of metaphor for lateral thinking, and Jill is soon rising to hero status as the inevitable series of wedding movie crises threatens to derail the couple's plans. Never anything but clichéd, this film tugs at all the emotional levers but struggles to elicit a single tear or giggle.

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Are you sometimes baffled by new technology? Imagine then that you're a 90-year-old woman who's living in a new house, in a new subdivision on the edge of town. Instead of feeling pleased with herself she's actually a bit under siege, held captive to the remote controls that now seem to dominate her life. Gwen in Purgatory is the latest play from the acclaimed Australian playwright Tommy Murphy. He joins actor Melissa Jaffer, who plays Gwen in the play's opening production, to talk about the themes of ageing, family and alienation.

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

The Australian production of Mary Poppins opens in Melbourne tonight after an extensive search to find Australia's very own Mary Poppins. The producers auditioned more than 400 women until they found Adelaide performer Verity Hunt-Ballard to fill the role.

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Bruce Mau is one of the most sought after and inventive designers working globally. You may know from his books, Massive Change and S,M,L,XL, which he did with well known international architect Rem Koolhaas. Bruce Mau Design often works in collaboration with architects such as Rem Koolhaas, whose work includes the Seattle Library and the CCTV building in Beijing, and Frank Gehry, famous for his Bilbao Guggenheim Museum. Bruce Mau Design also works with some of the world's major global companies such as Coca Cola and McDonald's. Bruce Mau Design was started in 1985 and has been instrumental is shaping the new way we approach design, looking at it as a complete process rather than an object for sale. His team works across graphic design, architecture, engineering, art, publishing, filmmaking and marketing and communications. He spoke by video link at a conference held in Sydney by UNSW's National Institute for Experimental Arts.

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Karl Fender, the new National President, Australian Institute of Architects, is Melbourne based and part of the influential firm Fender Katsalidis, who are behind some of Australia's best known buildings, such as the very tall Eureka Tower in Southbank Melbourne. More recently he has been working with his partner Nonda Katsalidis on a very innovative building business Unitised Building, a pre-fab building project that allows office and apartment blocks to go up in days, rather than weeks. As AIA president, Karl Fender wants changes to planning processes and a Federal Government Architect position.

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Lucy Worsley, the chief curator at the Historic Royal Palaces charity in London, has the job of bringing history to life. She's done it by researching all the things people really want to know about monarchs but were too afraid to ask like, how big exactly were Queen Victoria's underpants?

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Crocodiles, old boats and the wild life of the territory are the stuff of art at the Tin Shed.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

In this week's audio adventure, we're talking about group dynamics, crowd behaviour and herding. What makes groups of fish, birds or antelope all manage to turn left at the same time? A secret signal: a prod, an opinion, a convergence - and something groups inevitably respond to as they approach critical massive? Listeners should be warned that this programme contains actual recordings of an ostrich race. Running with the pack in The Night Air. For music details, please click on 'show transcript'.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Milton Moon is one of Australia's most distinguished potters. He's now in his eighty-fourth year, and he's still getting his hands on clay and making beautiful things in his studio in Adelaide -- as he's been doing for the past sixty years. Today he takes Amanda Smith on a tour of his kilns.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Time now to tackle the big question -- the one that haunts the art world like no other, the question to end all questions. Yes today on Artworks we find out how to determine is this art? And how do we find out the answer? An expert? A panel of eminent judges? No, an iPhone app of course. Yes, there's an app to tell you whether or not what you are looking at is art. To see how it works, Suzanne Donisthorpe took Daniel Browning from Awaye! down to visit Ron Robertson Swann's Vault, otherwise known as 'The Yellow Peril', to resolve a debate that has raged for 30 years. You may recall that after the sculpture was set up in Melbourne's city mall in 1980, there was an almighty debate about whether or not the bright yellow, angled iron sculpture was, or was not, art. Today we will finally know the answer.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Do you remember a couple of years ago how people on the Greek island of Lesbos went to court, to try to reclaim for themselves the word Lesbian: to get an injunction against its use as a term to describe female homosexuality? They lost the court case, perhaps unsurprisingly; that horse had long bolted, way back in 7th century BCE with the poet Sappho. Now a play called Sappho...in 9 Fragments recreates the story. Amanda Smith catches up with the writer and performer of this most intriguing piece of theatre, Jane Montgomery Griffiths.

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Bats exist in an extraordinary reality where nothing is quite as we humans know it: whether it's flying, hanging upside down all day, using echo-location to hunt, or roosting deep in a cave... bats are different. In company with Batfink and Bela Lugosi, plus a scientist who believes there's nothing to beat the aroma of bat pheromones for a good aftershave, we're going into caves and spending time on islands to discover the habits of bats and learn why, after 50 million years, some are heading towards extinction.

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Last month, thousands of people were welcomed by the traditional owners onto Jinibara country in the Sunshine Coast hinterland for The Dreaming Festival. Every year, speakers debate some critical issues in Indigenous culture and this year it was no different; panels ranged over everything from intellectual property, copyright and protocol to sexuality, eldership, history and political activism.

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Highlights from the Australian Poetry Centre's 2010 National Poetry Festival, held at Goolwa. Goolwa is near the mouth of the Murray River in South Australia, and was chosen as the location for the 2010 National Poetry Festival, co-ordinated by the Australian Poetry Centre and the Poets' Union. The festival consisted of four days of readings, poetry panels, book launches, workshops, poetry slams and musical performances in the Festival Club. Poetica was there recording the events and brings together the best of the festival in this program. Sound engineer: Steve Fieldhouse Production: Mike Ladd The Australian Poetry Centre's website is at: www.australianpoetrycentre.org.au Poems featured: Amelia Walker 'Reunion' Elizabeth Smither 'A day in bed with Aunt Maud' from The Year of Adverbs, Auckland University Press. Arianna Pozzuoli 'I Used To Work at a Racetrack.' Bronwyn Lea '2 Ways Out' from The Other Way Out, Girimondo. Stephen Edgar: 'Murray Dreaming'. from Best Australian Poems 2009 , Black Inc. Eliza Hull 'Pocketful of You' Kate Llewellyn 'Divorce' from Motherlode, Puncher and Wattmann Rebecca Edwards 'Birth of the Minotaur in a Public Ward' from Motherlode, Puncher and Wattmann Suzanne Edgar 'Birth Control' from Motherlode, Puncher and Wattmann Lauren Williams, 'What Gets Lost'. Joe Dolce 'A Que Ver Sale' Luis Gonzalez-Serrano 'El Paso to Ciudad Juarez' from Cities with Moveable Parts, Poets Union Inc. Steve Evans 'Water Tanks' from Bonetown, Wakefield Press. Robert Minhinnick, 'The Dolphin' from King Driftwood, Carcanet. Grant Caldwell 'Haikus' From Glass Clouds (Five Islands Press), Glenn Colquhoun 'A Spell to be Used when addressing the birth of a child'. From Playing God, Steele Roberts

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

A spiky love story between two misfits is the central peg to this film, but it's really a coming home story about grappling with life's disappointments. Ben Stiller is the titular hero Roger Greenberg, a wry but never comic figure who is just out of mental hospital after suffering a breakdown and back home in LA to house sit for his brother. We soon learn he's a stickler for perfection, not to mention a grump, as every experience seems to inspire him to write a letter of complaint to some authority or other. His path crosses with the much younger Florence (Greta Gerwig), his brother's assistant and an aspiring singer. After an awkward first date that ends at her studio flat with a spontaneous bit of fumbling oral sex, their destinies are entwined in a promising, if precarious, liaison. She is impressed by him, and young enough not to recognise the warning signs. He is attracted by her interest, and perhaps sees something he recognizes in her musical ambition. It turns out he was once a promising songwriter, but youthful idealism meant he turned down a record deal and broke up his band before their shot at success. He escaped to New York, and this is the first time he's returned to LA, hence much of the film is about him trying to mend broken bridges - with his best mate (Rhys Ifans), with his ex girfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh). In reality he just pisses people off, giving in to self indulgent, narcissistic rants about the world, regretting past decisions, and generally pushing everyone away - even Florence. Much of Roger's emotional scarring seems traceable to this unfulfilled artistic promise, making it the third time in two weeks we've seen the depiction of a character wounded by the rock business (The Runaways and The Waiting City providing the other examples). It's a terrain that writer director Noah Baumbach explores to considerable emotional depth. Continually he turns scenes that might have been trite on the page into insightful moments, a notable example being in a party towards the end - one of the finest explorations yet in American cinema of the tension between generations X and Y. This might have been a perfunctory drawing up of battle lines, but it's wonderfully executed as Stiller channels the paranoid self pity of his has-been hipster and, via some snorting and pill popping, clashes with a house full of bemused twenty somethings. In moments like these you glimpse how close this film comes to committing the same self indulgent errors of its main character, but luckily it never displays the same lack of judgement. Baumbach avoids the tedious or the overstated, always finding a way to raise the stakes, whether it's through an unexpected plot development or a performance. It's a tribute to his skill as a storyteller that he can make such grand drama from a study of small moments and minutiae.

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

The story of a love triangle in which Kristin Scott Thomas plays an English woman living in France who falls for an earthy Spanish builder (Sergi López) and Yvan Attal plays the wealthy husband who won't let go. While similar in theme to the Italian melodrama I Am Love, another film about a foreign woman who leaves the security of a well-off husband and an adopted family for true love, it's shot with a more naturalistic style and depicts a grittier fall from grace. Watching Scott Thomas hawking her watch at a petrol station because her husband has frozen her bank account and won't consent to a divorce is a wrenching spectacle. Though the characters might be slightly underdrawn, writer-director Catherine Corsini delivers a bold critique of the marriage contract that's worth the ticket.

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

It was a landmark moment when Julia Gillard became the first woman to be prime minister. It took a long time, but then again a lot has changed in the last 60 years. A new series The Making of Modern Australia charts some of the most significant changes since World War 2. Using personal stories this four part series looks at changing attitudes, parenting styles and gender roles. Themes include childhood, the home, love and relationships and faith.

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

The ABC launches its fourth TV channel tonight at 7.30. ABC News 24 will offer round-the-clock news and the service will kick off with a special broadcast that will also be shown on ABC1.

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Australia's main pay television operator Foxtel began life in 1995 as a cable broadcaster, offering a 20-channel service to Australian households. Today Foxtel -- jointly owned by Telstra, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and James Packer's Consolidated Media -- has more than 150 channels, and 1.6 million Australian households as subscribers. As well as sport and drama, Foxtel offers a range of news channels, including Sky News Australia which has dominated the 24-hour TV news landscape in Australia for the past 15 years. But that dominance is about to be challenged with the launch tonight of ABC News 24, the public broadcaster's own round-the-clock TV news offering.

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

The Waiting City is an Australian feature film, by rising talent Claire McCarthy, which tells the story of a young couple's journey to India to collect their adopted baby -- a journey which exposes the vulnerability of their marriage. What does the film tell us about culture shock and about overseas adoptions -- a process hundreds of Australians go through every year despite the enormous hurdles and expense?

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Today's forum is called The Office and over the next hour we'll be talking about the design of the workplace: past, present and future. What our homes look and feel like is very important to, well, just about everyone. But increasingly most of us seem to spend more of our waking hours at work. And the architectural reality of work for most people is some kind of office space. Yet if we cared as much about our offices as we do about our homes, you'd expect us to be reading publications such as 'Office Beautiful' or watching 'Grand Office Designs'. So why is it that when it comes to the design of their workplace, even the keenest home renovators are prepared to unquestionably accept what the boss dishes up? Is it that we don't know how much better it could be? The forum was staged in the Awaki Auditorium at the ABC's Southbank studios in Melbourne as part of Victoria's State of Design Festival.

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

For more than 75 years, Australians have turned to ABC radio for their news. For more than half a century, they've been watching ABC news on TV. More recently of course, there's the net and mobile platforms. But starting Thursday night at 7:30 on Channel 24 is a major development for Aunty. The first free to air 24 hour non-stop news channel - ABC News 24. If you still can't get your digital set top box to work, the launch will be simulcast on ABC1 replacing The 7:30 Report. But it's not without controversy.

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Before his Hollywood career Orson Welles made his name as an actor and director in the New York theatrical scene. One period of his life in particular is the focus of a new film called Me and Orson Welles, which is about to hit our screens. It tells the story of how a young Orson Welles brought Shakespeare's Julias Ceaser to the Mercury Theatre on Broadway in 1937. It was a production done in the menacing modern dress of the time, fascist uniforms, and one which helped set Welles on the path of fame. The film's story is told through the imagined experiences of a teenage cast member, Richard Samuels, played by Zac Effron. His love-interest is played by Clare Danes. The remarkable portrayal of Orson Welles is from previously unknown actor Christian McKay. The film is directed by the Oscar nominated Richard Linklater of School Of Rock and Before Sunrise fame.

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Once upon a time, in the world of political marketing, it was enough for political parties to come up with the slogan, make the TV ad and hammer home the message. But now with the advent of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, our pollies are expected to have 'conversations' and in the words of one marketing expert 'get real'. While many politicians are aware of and have signed up to these social platforms, many experts say they have no idea how to use them effectively.

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Death be Kind is the intriguing name of an art project being put on in a small gallery space in inner Melbourne. It's being curated by two artists -- Elvis Richardson and Clare Lamb -- and is designed to evolve over the next 12 months. The first installation is called The Memorial and features a collection of objects that tell stories about the people who once owned them and are no longer with us, and the people who have contributed them to the show. So a pot pouri ranging from the very ordinary -- a plastic potato masher for example -- to the weird and wonderful, an artificial hip joint.

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Marcel Proust, the French novelist, was a sickly, asthmatic child of well-to-do parents and he spent the last three years of his life confined to his cork-lined bedroom, sleeping during the day and working on his novel at night - a story which tracks his evolving consciousness, details the disillusionment of love and leads to an epiphany about the enduring power of art. The novel In Search Of Lost Time, also known in English as Remembrance of Things Past, comes in six volumes, spanning almost 3,000 pages. Now, the Stork Theatre is producing part of this novel as a play and to do so they have embedded an academic in the rehearsal process. His name is Professor Colin Nettlebeck and he speaks to Lyn Gallacher about what Proust means to him.

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Australian video artist Lynette Wallworth is working at the cutting edge of immersive art, as many people would have found at the Sydney Festival earlier this year. In fact all across Australia over the past decade, in galleries, festivals and in very public spaces, her installations have invited people to slow down to experience sublime and intimate encounters, through the veil of a video screen. Her work has been featured around the world: New York, London, even a solo show in Paris. One piece, called The Evolution of Fearlessness, was commissioned for the Festival of Mozart in Vienna in 2006 and last year, she was invited to show the work at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. So the announcement this week that Lynette has been awarded the inaugural Australian Film Television & Radio School (AFTRS) Creative Fellowship is a huge acknowledgement of her achievements. But given that her ground-breaking work crosses the boundaries of film, art and technology, this fellowship is also intended to give Lynette some pure space in which to research a very new project. Michael Shirrefs spoke to Lynette Wallworth just after this weeks's announcement. Extra Audio Download audio [45.41 - 20.9MB] Lynette Wallworth describes her previous works to Michael Shirrefs

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

The Johnstone Collection is a jewel in the heart of Melbourne. It was the home of William Johnstone, an antiques dealer, who when he died in 1986, left his house and collection of art, ceramics, mirrors and Georgian, Regency and Louis the 15th furniture to become a public gallery. One of the stipulations, however, is that this collection be in a constant state of change. So each year a couple of people, artists, designers, antiques experts, are invited to come in and re-arrange everything. And the person who's done the latest rearrangement is the fashion designer Akira Isogawa. Amanda Smith visited the Johnstone Collection and spoke with the director and curator, Louis Le Vaillant as well as Akira Isogawa.

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

San Francisco through the eyes of the city's first poet laureate and founder of world famous City Lights Bookstore, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Through casual, almost overheard conversations and recitations of poems from his evocative collection, San Francisco Poems. A personal exploration of a city and its sites from Chinatown to North Beach, from the Growers Market to the Liberty ship moored in the Bay.

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +1000

Victoria Cosford's book Amore and Amaretti: A tale of love and food in Tuscany takes us behind the scenes to the marvellous food and restaurant culture of Tuscany.