The Teachers Lounge, a film by Ilker Catak, with Leonie Benesch
3 February 2025
The Teachers Lounge (AKA Das Lehrerzimmer), trailer, made in 2023, and directed by Ilker Çatak, is a cross between a (kind of) psychological thriller, and a (kind of) whodunit, set in a German elementary/primary school. I kid you not; the tension is palpable.
A person unknown has been stealing small quantities of money from bags and wallets left in the school’s staff room, and idealistic young teacher Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch), controversially attempts to uncover the identity of the thief.
Carla’s efforts to solve the mystery may be well intentioned, the presence of a would-be burglar in their midst both irritates and unsettles her colleagues, but you know what they say: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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Anne-Kathrin Gummich, Eva Lobau, film, Ilker Catak, Leonard Stettnisch, Leonie Benesch
That’s not a knife: iconic Australian film Crocodile Dundee gets recut
3 February 2025
The knife, the editing room knife, has recently been taken to ocker Australian film Crocodile Dundee.
Producers deemed the slapstick comedy — that swept the once Sydney Harbour Bridge rigger, and television personalty Paul Hogan, to big screen fame in 1986 — to be out of touch with the expectations of contemporary movie audiences. This necessitated a number of “considered edits”, says Garry Maddox, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald:
Updating classic films can sometimes upset fans — there was a ruckus when George Lucas had Han Solo defending himself from bounty hunter Greedo rather than firing the first shot in a 1997 special edition of Star Wars — but the long tradition of creating new versions includes Francis Ford Coppola with both Apocalypse Now and The Godfather Part III and Ridley Scott with Blade Runner.
Scenes from the film — set between the Australian outback and New York City — where Mick Dundee, AKA Crocodile Dundee, gropes a cross-dresser in a bar, and later a woman at a party, have been removed, while others have been extended. The re-edited version of the film is to be called Crocodile Dundee: The Encore Cut, and will henceforth become the standard edition of the story.
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Australia, Australian film, film, Paul Hogan, trends
Summer sports and the heightened risk of skin cancer
3 February 2025
As someone with an extremely fair complexion, any amount of exposure to the sun can be risky, even over the winter months, when ultraviolet (UV) levels are generally lower. Trying though to explain this anyone who does not also have fair skin, is almost an uphill battle.
In fact, I’m alarmed at just how blasé some people are to the dangers of sun exposure, especially prolonged exposure. The sad reality is, that everyone, regardless of skin type, is at risk. Despite this, being out in the sun is an innate part of the Australian psyche. It’s no surprise then that rates of skin cancer in Australia are among the highest in the world.
But the message seems to getting through, albeit at a glacial pace. The Australian Institute of Sport has twigged onto the danger of sports events taking place in the blazing summer sun, and in 2023 said sporting organisations had a duty of care to provide safe environments for participants and spectators. It’s a start, but many sporting groups have been slow to take action.
But there are a number of options for creating sun safe sporting environments. These include providing adequate shade, and scheduling events at times of the day when UV levels are lower, and considering day/night fixtures where possible.
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Australia, current affairs, health, sport
The chances of aliens coming to Earth are a trillion to one, but still they come
30 January 2025
Has Earth, and the solar system, been the subject of visits from extraterrestrials from elsewhere in the cosmos? How else to account for the numerous flying saucer, AKA unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) sightings, of, in particular, the past eighty years? I guess it’s possible visitors from deep space have been our way, at least once in the last several thousand years, drawn here in the knowledge that Earth is capable of hosting intelligent life.
But, any long distance travellers would have to be “very, very lucky”, says Anders Sandberg, of the Future of Humanity Institute, at the University of Oxford, speaking to Peter Brannen, a writer for The Atlantic, in 2018. Very, very lucky to have survived as a species, in an unsafe universe, rather than having somehow circumvented the laws of physics to reach us, that is:
“Maybe the universe is super dangerous and Earth-like planets are destroyed at a very high rate,” Sandberg says. “But if the universe is big enough, then when observers do show up on some very, very rare planets, they’ll look at the record of meteor impacts and disasters and say, ‘The universe looks pretty safe!’ But the problem is, of course, that their existence depends on them being very, very lucky. They’re actually living in an unsafe universe and next Tuesday they might get a very nasty surprise.” If this is true, it might explain why our radio telescopes have reported only a stark silence from our cosmic neighborhood.
The Age of Disclosure, a documentary made by Dan Farah, posits however that extraterrestrials have indeed visited. At least one person whom Farah interviewed claimed to have seen alien beings. There’s the suggestion of a massive cover up. I won’t dwell on that point, but will say this story sounds like the scoop of the century, maybe the whole of recorded history.
Why then not take it the media? Why make us pay to see a film to learn the truth? Can’t someone who’s in the know just call a news conference and spill the beans instead?
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Megalopolis, Reagan, among Nominations for 2024 Razzie Awards
29 January 2025
Borderlands, Joker: Folie a Deux, Madame Web, Megalopolis, and Reagan, a biopic about the late United States President Ronald Reagan, are vying for the coveted $4.97 gold spray-painted statuette, in the worst picture category of this year’s Golden Raspberry, AKA, Razzie awards.
Recipients in all Razzie’s categories, including worst picture, will be announced on Saturday 1 March 2025, the day before the Oscars, on what is surely the film industry’s night of slights.
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Text publishing bought by Penguin Random House. Exciting, right?
29 January 2025
Independent Melbourne based Australian book publisher Text Publishing was recently acquired by Penguin Random House Australia, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House (PRH), one of the world’s largest publishers. While the move has been hailed as “exciting” by Text and PRH, some literary commentators do not feel the same way.
Both parties say they are committed to retaining Text’s independence as a PRH imprint, but this isn’t always the long term outcome, says Misha Ketchell, writing for The Conversation:
But history shows that mergers often result in the dissolution of the smaller imprint. To take just one example, Penguin no longer publishes books under the McPhee Gribble imprint. It is precisely the question of which readerships the merged version of Text will cater to that will worry Australian readers and supporters of independent publishing.
Text obviously have their reasons for making the deal, and their independence as a PRH imprint appears to be hard wired into the acquisition agreement. Those concerned about the future of independent book publishing in Australia have reason to be fearful though. Text joins other previously standalone local publishing houses, Affirm Press, and Pantera Press, in being bought out by larger book publishers in 2024. Australia is running low on indie publishers.
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Jump scares will keep you away from websites you want to avoid
29 January 2025
TabBoo is, I think, a Chrome only extension that helps deter you from visiting websites you don’t want to see, but can’t help looking at nonetheless.
Load the desired (or undesired, as the case may be) URLs into TabBoo, and each time you go to one of the included sites, a horror movie like jump scare image will appear at random.
I don’t know about anyone, else but after looking at the demo, it struck me TabBoo might actually make seeing some websites more fun, with a jump scare image appearing unexpectedly.
Something like this is also needed for social media, to help those trying to wean themselves off doomscrolling the socials day in and day out.
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Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan tops 2025 Hottest 100
29 January 2025
American pop singer and songwriter Chappell Roan’s 2024 track Good Luck, Babe! was voted the favourite song of 2024 by Triple J listeners in this year’s Hottest 100 music poll.
In taking out the top spot, Roan collected the most number of votes ever for a number one song:
The number of votes clocked isn’t the only landmark fact about Chappell’s win. ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ was her only eligible track for voting and her only song in the countdown, which makes her the first solo female artist to win a Hottest 100 with her sole entry.
There’s also good news for Swifties in the 2024 countdown, Taylor Swift notched her first ever entry into the Hottest 100.
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Australia, entertainment, music, radio
For the best health outcomes, drink coffee only in the morning
28 January 2025
Research recently published in the European Heart Journal seems to make sense:
Drinking coffee in the morning may be more strongly associated with a lower risk of mortality than drinking coffee later in the day.
A shot or two of caffeine earlier in the day must be better than consuming coffee through out. No one needs to be dealing with the prospect of caffeine shakes come evening time.
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RSS as a W3C standard? Now there’s an idea
28 January 2025
If the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) can adopt ActivityPub as a recommendation, something they did eight years ago, you have to wonder why they didn’t do the same for RSS.
The W3C should’ve gotten behind RSS long before they endorsed ActivityPub. They’re controlled by big companies who are truly scared of interop, explains why most of their proposed standards go nowhere.
One of the functions of web standards, published by the W3C, is interoperability:
W3C web standards are optimized for interoperability, security, privacy, web accessibility, and internationalization.
Interoperability, however, is also a tenet of the ActivityPub recommendation:
W3C’s role in making the Recommendation is to draw attention to the specification and to promote its widespread deployment. This enhances the functionality and interoperability of the Web.
We can have the ActivtyPub protocol, which has interoperability at it’s core, but not RSS, which is the same.
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