Peter A Clarke

Shembri’s reviews are a bit on the hit and miss side.  He prefers the quirky to the mainstream.  But he does realise the key essence of a film is to attract an audience and tell them a story using characters with whom they can empathise.  In today’s Age he had a spray against the Australian Film Industry. The article is reproduced in his blog.  Why would the average punter want to go and see an “uplifting story about a family dealing with an autistic child”.  It screams, hard work with little result on offer. It beggers belief. 

That is not to say Americans can’t make duds.  Duds by the bushel load.  The Times on Line site has listed the worst 100 movies of 2008.  For my part I suffered through Four Chrismases last night. Christmas movies are a hit and miss commodity, usually of the miss variety.  But nothing prepared me for the dross that is this glorified superannuation fund for the support cast.  What the main actors thought they would get out of it is beyond me.  Vince Vaughn looked as though he was playing his role with someone pointing  a gun just out of the camera angle.  Reese Witherspoon was up to her annoying Valley Girl best.  But why oh why would Robert Duvall, Jon Voight, Sissy Spacek and Mary Steenburgen waste their valuable talent on the sleep walking roles as eccentric (to varying degrees) parents.  No fruit cup for them in the nursing home! Stay away, stay very far away.  It was so bad that I recommend seeing an Australian Film instead.

The Age’s piece SBS Swift action at Kovcos’ complaint is another disturbing drift to censoring anything that pokes fun at our modern day Sacred Cows.  And the the ADF seems to be the top heifer in that paddock.  Twenty years ago the ADF and Army Reserve were having a hard time getting a recruiting table at a University and thirty years ago the looney left wanted to ban the ANZAC day parade.  And anyone who has seen One day of the Year by Seymour will realise that when the baby boomers were in full throat the army was seen as a national curse not the current blessing. I think the army is a proud institution that deserves respect.  But not subservience.

Swift and Shift Couriers is biting, often crass, but more often witty and slightly scatalogical humour which aims to offend and amuse in equal measure.  SBS knew what it was getting into.  Swift is not much different than Pizza, by the same producers, and that program went down then up a list of ethnic groups to offend and other groups to poke and prod.  Not everyone’s taste but part of the panoply of humour that should be available to all. 

Last Monday’s episode contained a very thinly veiled parody of the farce that was the recovery of Kovko’s (the character being “David Cobbgrove”) body Read the rest of this entry »

If only all legal conferences could finish the way the Council of Trent did on 4 December 1563 with the  final  session delegates announcing “Anathema to all heretics, anathema, anathema, anathema.” Read the rest of this entry »

Peter Van Onselen’s columns are a breath of fresh air Read the rest of this entry »

It is quite common for an appellant to seek a stay of execution of a judgment pending resolution of an appeal.  It is surprising that many litigants ( and, I suspect, their legal representatives) believe that lodging an appeal constitutes a stay of execution and then the presumption is in favour of such a stay.  The contrary is the case. Read the rest of this entry »