Nitram, the new feature from Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel
1 October 2021
Nitram, is acclaimed Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel’s (Snowtown, Macbeth, True History of the Kelly Gang) controversial portrayal of events leading up to the Port Arthur massacre in the Australian state of Tasmania in 1996.
With a cast that includes Caleb Landry Jones, Essie Davis, Judy Davis, and Anthony LaPaglia, Nitram tells the story of an isolated, troubled young man (Caleb Landry Jones). When an unlikely friendship with Helen (Essie Davis), a reclusive heiress, comes to a tragic end, his anger and frustration spirals out of control.
Nitram opened in selected cinemas across Australia yesterday, in areas not subject to COVID lockdown restrictions.
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All your emoji are belong to us
1 October 2021
Soon another thirty-seven new emojis will be available for use on your favourite oblong shaped device, says the Unicode Consortium. One, the melting face emoji, a representation of climate change, has quickly become a crowd favourite.
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Laura Jean McKay wins the 2021 Arthur C Clarke award
1 October 2021
New Zealand based Australian author Laura Jean McKay has been named the winner of the 2021 Arthur C Clarke award for science fiction writing, with her 2020 novel The Animals in That Country. Very much a novel for our times.
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Arthur C Clarke, Laura Jean McKay, science fiction
Ghosts, by Dolly Alderton
1 October 2021
When I first heard the term ghosting, almost ten years ago, it referred to leaving social gatherings without saying goodbye to anyone present, even the host. A person might mutter they were going outside to make a “quick phone call” as a pretext for leaving the room, and bang, they were gone. While ghosting’s context is wider today, it is most commonly applied to situations where someone abruptly ends an intimate relationship, without warning or explanation.
It is a phenomenon that strikes thirty-something Nina, a successful food writer, with everything going for her, in Ghosts (published by Penguin Books Australia, July 2021), the second book by London based journalist and author Dolly Alderton. While her friends are marrying and settling down with families, single Nina feels left behind until she meets Max, the man who seemingly has it all, and wants – so he says – to make a life with her.
But minutes after declaring their love for each other, Max vanishes without a trace. He doesn’t offer a goodbye, nor any reason for breaking off the relationship. But when Nina goes looking for support from her friends and family, no-one’s there. Her friends are distracted by their children, her mother is busy making a new life for herself, while her father is tragically slipping into the mist of dementia.
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The Midnight Watch, by David Dyer
30 September 2021
The tragic 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic has intrigued and fascinated me for as long as I can remember. At age ten or eleven I found a battered copy of the late Clive Cussler’s 1976 novel Raise the Titanic!, in a box of books left out on the street, and then a short time later saw the 1953 film of the vessel’s sinking, although all I recall of that now is its haunting ending.
While it’s been sometime since I watched or read anything Titanic related, The Midnight Watch (published by Penguin Books Australia, February 2017), by Sydney based Australian former ship’s officer, and lawyer, turned teacher and writer David Dyer, recently caught my eye. The story is a fictionalised recounting of events on board the SS Californian, one of the ships in the vicinity of the ill-fated Titanic as it was sinking.
While the captain and senior officers of the Californian were aware the Titanic was in distress – it fired numerous distress flares into the night – they chose to keep their distance, even though they were close enough to see the stricken vessel. Why the Californian stayed put is a question The Midnight Watch attempts to resolve, and it is difficult not to wonder how many lives might have been saved had it rendered assistance.
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Titane by Julia Ducournau, buckle in for a wild ride
29 September 2021
Titane, the latest feature from French filmmaker Julia Ducournau, has been described by the BBC as the most shocking film of 2021. Yes, that make me look too.
As a child, Alexia is badly injured in a car accident, and needs a titanium plate fitted in her head. On her release from hospital she snubs her parents and instead hugs their car. From there Alexia develops what could only be called an obsession with cars, one eventually resulting in her becoming pregnant to… a car.
It’s a violent, gory, blood-soaked, utterly implausible ride, but that didn’t stop Titane from taking out the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
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The Ghostlights, by Gráinne Murphy
29 September 2021
Life can become routine and monotonous. The day-in and the day-out. Often it happens gradually, creeps up from behind, you’re simply too busy to notice. You settle into a pattern, kid yourself you’re content, and believe it. It’s called getting into the zone; the comfort zone. And there you might stay, until something comes along and shakes you out of your self-induced stupor.
Ethel owns a guesthouse in rural Ireland, but leaves its management to Liv, one of her daughters, in The Ghostlights (published by Legend Press, September 2021), the second novel by Cork based Irish writer Gráinne Murphy. Meanwhile her other daughter, Marianne, who is disillusioned with life, returns from Dublin, for some time out. Her homecoming coincides with the arrival of a guest, a man named Fred.
A few days later, Fred is found drowned in a nearby pond, his death a suicide. The tragedy brings the local community together, but the demise of the elderly guest takes a toll on Ethel, Liv, and Marianne. While their neighbours mourn Fred’s passing, the three women find themselves pondering their relationships, their place in the scheme of things, some poor life decisions, and just where it is that they are going.
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How many banned books have you read? More than you think
28 September 2021
Lock the doors, lower the blinds, switch off your phone, we’re flying below the radar now. All because it’s Banned Books Week, and, well, who wants to be caught in possession of literary contraband? Not that I thought for a second I might be violating statutes by reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, or The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood.
Attempts to keep To Kill a Mockingbird out of circulation didn’t surprise me. I expect in 1960, when first published, it may have offended some sensibilities, but efforts to prohibit the title are far more recent. The Handmaid’s Tale, meanwhile, has likewise been challenged or banned since its release in 1985, for content deemed to be vulgar, violent, and sexually explicit.
Other books to receive similar treatment include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger, The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, and, yes, even Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson. Yet I read each blissfully ignorant of the controversy they once stirred up, or still are. For that, I’m eternally thankful to live in the time and place I do.
Update: for the daring: banned book bingo by Keeping Up With The Penguins.
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She Drives Me Crazy, by Kelly Quindlen
28 September 2021
American young adult author Kelly Quindlen knew she wanted to write from the age of six. In comparison, I was a late bloomer. My English teacher in my final year of high school told me he thought my essays were a notch or two above the rest of the class, and suggested I consider a career involving writing. Maybe you could call the Oblong Obsession project another step towards that aspiration.
Maybe then it’s apt I’m writing today about She Drives Me Crazy (published by Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan, April 2021). Quindlen’s third novel is framed around two high-schoolers, Scottie and Irene, who begin fake dating despite barely liking each other. But Scottie is desperate to get back at her toxic ex-girlfriend, Tally, and being seen at the beautiful Irene’s side is the perfect way to bring this about.
Meanwhile, the cash-strapped Irene is happy to take money from Scottie to go along with the charade. But as can happen when apparent polar opposites, with a disdain for each other, are pushed together, the pair begin to develop feelings for each other. But will that be enough? Can Scottie get over Tally? The road is never smooth though, as was the case for the rom-com stories of the 1980s and 90s, which She Drives Me Crazy pays homage to.
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Float, a short film by Aundre Larrow
27 September 2021
This is what having an oblong obsession is all about. Float is short film by Brooklyn, New York, based American photographer Aundre Larrow, filmed entirely on the new iPhone 13, using its much lauded Cinematic mode. For better or worse, I think a whole new age of filmmaking is upon us.
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