Film
Spare me harsh realities, slay that dragon and let the movies cast a spell
Clem Bastow When economic times are tough, fantasy and cinema come to the rescue, again.
No easy answer for the genre-confused film
Danny Katz The Death of Ossie Phillums: a new, fictional, movie.
The film festival doesn't have to unspool before our eyes
Tom Ryan There's a crisis looming for the Melbourne International Film Festival and it's been a long time coming.
Love it or hate it, but Sex and the City is an accidental feminist film
Lisa Pryor In the weeks since the release of Sex and the City 2, the story has become not the film itself, but how widely it is hated. The reviews are extravagantly bad.
Investment in film is about the market – but what about the talent?
Margaret Pomeranz I look with awe at our 177-medal total at the recent Commonwealth Games. We trumped England, with a population in excess of 60 million. We trumped India with a billion.
Harrowing film opens our eyes to child abuse
Nina Funnell The promotional blurb for Polly and Me reads: ''Behind closed doors unfolds a story of neglect. An eight-year-old girl lives alone with her mother and dreams of a better life beyond the walls of...
Beware the invasion of the film crew
Heckler IT ALL started with a hint of excitement. A letter from a production company, explaining that an ad was going to be filmed in our street was dropped in our letterbox.
Average Hollywood film on par with construction of the pyramids
Marcus Westbury The dominant cultural form of the 20th century is starting to unravel.
Film viscera transcends imagination
Stephanie Bunbury Anyone who read the stories coming out of the Cannes Film Festival this year will know this, but never mind: it bears retelling.
Fighting an outbreak of complacency
Tony Adams Australia is ill-prepared for a fast-moving public health emergency.
It's a snacky scam: turns out tapas translates to something quite rude
Danny Katz Tapas is a type of meal where you get tiny portions of food that come on tiny little plates and you pay a tiny percentage of an average-sized home-loan for each of them.
Geniuses work best in teams
Michael Duffy Forget Newton, Darwin and Einstein: these days, most top scientific ideas come from groups, not individuals.
Joke's worn off as films cue the stock Arab
Amal Awad I look forward to seeing The Dictator, Sacha Baron Cohen's latest attempt at lampooning other cultures, which is released today.
Introducing the ethical massage
Charles Waterstreet I abhor gossip but crave detail. In 2006, the Oscar for best original song was won by It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp from the film Hustle & Flow.
Grotesque cases show failure of regulation
Richard Ackland Clive James, 73, was ambushed in a Cambridge street by a film crew from A Current Affair last week.
The snorer's defence: just be grateful I don't ...
Richard Glover I've been researching the 10 Most Horrific Sounds Experienced During a Relationship. Which have you heard?
Our patently forgetful inventors
Annabel Crabb I am ashamed to say that I did not know, until the reporting of this month's international patent settlement, that the CSIRO had actually invented wireless technology - known as wi-fi - in 1992.
Bard of all time finds the globe is his theatre
Jonathan Bate "After God,'' said the 19th-century novelist Alexandre Dumas, ''Shakespeare has created most.'' Certainly no other writer has exercised such a universal appeal.
Ethics? Somewhere in east England, according to the Murdoch compass
Bruce Guthrie The News chief can't have been serious with his evidence.
Reprehensible portrayal of a murderer as a victim
Paul Sheehan Progressives' views on the Toulouse killer have set new lows in rationalising bigotry.
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