The Boomtown Rap

Here they are again. Random, disorganised, informed by personal prejudice…just how you like it. Yes you do. YES, you DO!

Right, now that that’s established, are you all sitting comftybold two square on your botties? Then I’ll begin…

2009 Boomtown Rap Free-to-air TV Awards: The BR Bogeys

Pet Semetary Award: Hey Hey It’s Saturday. Whose idea was it to dig this rotting cadaver up, give it mouth-to-mouth and send it lurching back to TV land? I never could understand the popularity of Hey Hey even back in its halcyon days, but what do I know – exhuming it was a ratings winner. Daryl Somers proved there is plenty to eat in the afterlife. Other than that, what to say except thank God for the blackface ‘Red Faces’ skit – anything that riles Harry Connick Jnr gets my tick of approval.

Family Show of the Year: John Safran’s Race Relations. This is confessional comedy taken to its limits (until the next Safran outing). Read the rest…

Background
(Limited concentration span? Skip the background and go straight to the review under picture – see below)

Any cinematic recreation of 1969’s Woodstock music festival is destined to divide its audience – especially the baby boomers who might be expected to make up the main target demographic.

For those boomers who hold the event dear – and often possessively close – as the spectacular generation-defining culmination of all that was good and groovy about the 60s (and their youth), anything less than a reverent portrayal will be pelted with charges of blaspheme. Read the rest…

During the early elimination rounds of MasterChef Australia, I suggested in my post entitled ‘MasterChef Australia’ – Egos in Aprons, Seeking Celebrity that this was just another ‘reality TV’ show, and therefore all about entertainment and ratings, rather than determining which of the contestants was the best cook. A fake, in other words. I predicted that the final 20 would be selected not solely on cooking prowess, but on other criteria to do with maximising the appeal of the show. My punt, ignoring the cooking ability factor altogether, was that the finalists would fit into the following categories: Read the rest…

As a species I don’t think we’ve evolved much. The Beast and the Angel live in all of us, as they ever have, as they ever will. There will always be selfishness, greed, dishonesty, jealousy, betrayal, violence, hatred. But at the opposite end of humanity’s scales are beauty and wonder, both of which I encountered, contrary to all expectations, at the Luna Cinema, Leederville, last Sunday afternoon. Read the rest…

Oh, but it’s been a while since I started off the week with a good guffaw. And the source of all this belly-wobblin’? This report from good ol’ PerthNow of none other than Bono labelling Coldplay’s Chris Martin a wanker!

That would qualify for obvious remark of the week coming from anyone but Bono. But BONO calling anyone else a wanker? HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!!! …cough splutter conniption…HAW HAW HAW HAW HAWWWWWRRRGGHHH! Read the rest…

As you get older, you are less and less affected by news of the deaths of people known to you. It’s always a bit of a jolt, but having been around for well over half the average human life expectancy, I’ve reached a point of choice – get philosophical or get spooked. Not relishing the prospect of an existence even more haunted and death-obsessed than mine already is, I do my best to choose the former, but every so often a SIGNIFICANT death sits you back on your arse and you find yourself immersed in the dark stuff, almost as if any other choice is not yours to make.

Thus it was for me when news came through of the death of Ron Asheton, incendiary guitarist for legendary Detroit proto-punk band, The Stooges (second from left in this 1969 pic).

Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

I was at the computer on the morning of January 7th. I routinely brought up the Sydney Morning Herald site (my default home page) for maybe the tenth time that day and there it was. I didn’t click on the headline at first. Not sure why. Didn’t want to acknowledge it, perhaps. Shock? Some sort of wilful disengagement? Doesn’t matter. Ron Asheton was dead. That mattered. Read the rest…

The Boomtown Rap Awards for 2008 are as disorganised, ill-conceived and random as the inaugural Awards last year – more so, since it has taken me a few days into the New Year to get this post up. The nominations arrive by way of an increasingly deficient cerebral RAM delivery service and, like the final listings, are merely a reflection of my own prejudices and tastes.

While I may be justly accused of narcissm here, I reject such charges. Why? As with last year’s Awards, I invite reader nominations and suggestions for additional awards not covered below (just post ‘em in the Comments). This is a democratic interactive bitch-fest waiting to happen. Is it MY fault that no bastard took me up last year?

Awright, let’s get down and doity and kick off with the 2008 Boomtown Rap free-to-air TV Awards: The BR Bogeys. Read the rest…

In my previous post, Beyond Hollywood -Tuning In To International Cinema, I referred to the contrast between the pacing of Hollywood-style movies (fast fast fast) and those of non-Anglo cultures (slow… s-l-o-w…… s–l–o–w………). As always in these sorts of comparison discussions, such observations are – at best – general. I think it is true, though, that only in non-Anglo cinema are filmmakers free to crawl along in first gear without changing up if they decide that is in their artistic interests. Which is when?

When the main game is not action, spectacle and entertaining the masses with a rattling narrative, but subtle exploration of character and/or culture – as was the case with most of the movies featured in the recent Russian Resurrection Film Festival.

I had the good fortune to win a Gold Pass from Cinema Paradiso, which granted my partner and I free entry to the entire festival. We determined to make the most of it, and saw 13 movies over 6 days. I’ve been to plenty of festival films over the years, but have never immersed myself like this. It was a unique experience, rewarding and illuminating. Read the rest…

My Melbourne mate Matt has strong opinions. His hates are many, his loves few, and both are fierce and uncompromising. There is nothing much in between these extremes.

I’m quite similar, except there is plenty in between for me. Way too much. Mediocrity is the signature of this time. It gets me down and tones me down, and absorbs me into its amorphous enervating mass. I should fight harder. But I struggle for courage and am too easily seduced by comfort.

Matt reminds me of Gully Jimson, the anti-hero artist in Joyce Cary’s The Horse’s Mouth. Subversive by nature and stubbornly self-destructive, yet humorous in his angst. And highly principled. Always at war with “them” – the bastards who would neuter him if they could, who perpetuate a maddening status quo that is always, inevitably, a pinata for any artist worth their salt. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, elaboration is futile – you’ll never get it. Read the rest…

So seven big Hollywood studios and the Seven Network are taking Federal Court action against internet service provider iiNet for allegedly failing to stop its clientele from pirating 68 movies. Jeez – only 68?

Ferfuxake! The notion that iiNet’s role as a service provider should include policing the web use of its clients is ridiculous…Then again, McDonalds was famously sued by a woman who spilt a cup of coffee on herself, successfully claiming that it was served excessively hot. It was Macca’s fault, decided the courts, that she chose to balance the full cup on her lap while driving after buying it at a drive-through. Read the rest…