Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Sunday Rose – A Missed Patriotic Opportunity

Tosser of tossers, Chris Martin, has defended N & K’s unusual choice of name for their thankfully-finally-delivered bundle, opining that “Chewbacca” would have been an equally fine choice. In fact, he declares, Chewbacca’s “no stranger than Sarah“. (Tell that to lil’ Chewbacca when she limps home bawling from primary school slapped around by the other kiddies with her hair pulled every which way in recognition of her singular moniker).

This is not an easy thing to admit, but Chrisso got me thinking…

If anything goes with yer kids’ names, and mindful of Nic’s constant assurances from the shores of America that Oz is her home and always will be even if she stays the fuck away most of her life but that’s really not how she wants things to be cos Oz is the best country in the world and she can’t wait to come back you know because the people are just so down to earth and she misses the unique Aussie humour and Mum and Dad and Sis and the azure skies and the wide brown land girt by sea gleaming with a thousand dyes (or is it a thousand eyes – or even better, since we’re channeling Nic, a thousand I’s?) and she’s so proud to be Aussie and always will be etc…surely she’s missed an outstanding opportunity to display her patriotism in a truly meaningful and indelible way. Sunday Rose? WHY NOT SUNDAY ROAST?

No conviction, Nic.

Please Sir, Can We Have Some More?

Once upon a time I nurtured a furtive dream of playing in a rock and roll band. It was way back in a time when rock music was still the dominant youth art form. I immersed myself in a world of records, rock barns (all the popular pubs were rock barns at that time), guitars, Beat literature, tatty photocopies of Jerry Rubin’s anti-establishment rant, A Yippie Manifesto

I spent all my money – and I was earning better than average bucks at that time, having fast-tracked to a Clerk Class 4 position in the public service office in which I resentfully spent the working week – on records, hifi components, beer to accompany weekend and mid-week attendances at pub gigs, a constant supply of marijuana I do confess, and virtually every big-name rock concert that made it to Perth.

My first – at Beatty Park in 1971 – was incredible value: Chain, Free, Manfred Mann and Deep Purple on the same bill. I was so excited by the finale of the show I passed out in the exit queue and ran head first into a stone pillar, splitting my forehead open to the bone – the scar a souvenir that remains to this day (note: no drugs involved; I was only 15 at the time). Continue reading Please Sir, Can We Have Some More?

Nicole’s Family Delivers

Like most writers, I’m hung up on lexical precision – as I wrack my brain for the perfect word or phrase, you can almost hear the cerebral cogs crunching and grinding (a bit like an under-RAMed computer struggling with heavy multi-tasking). Most of us ain’t David Maloufs or Les Murrays. The right word comes hard… if it comes at all.

Not so when I read about Nicole Kidman’s pregnancy (yeah, ok…don’t claim you never succumb to reading the goss crap) and got to the part about her parents having been midwives to sister Antonia and planning to do the double with Nic.

Daddy might be a doctor and mummy a nurse, but what do you say about the idea of them lodged betwixt the stirrups staring into Nic’s works as she heaves and hos?

I’ll tell ya what ya say –

EEUWW!