tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-212770692009-12-15T17:33:57.595+10:00Happy Antipodeansome may find these forays a tad self-indulgentMatt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.comBlogger1100125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-1831423946711877382009-12-15T17:24:00.002+10:002009-12-15T17:33:57.609+10:00Review: Brokeback Mountain, dir Ang Lee (2005)Cleanly inverting the classical stereotype of the tough cowboy, the movie presents a series of anguished moments as two gay cowboys negotiate the hostility of a narrow-minded world. When the final tragedy strikes, it's so unexpected it must have been inevitable.So much has been written about this movie over the years, and so many other productions Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-82802441577035879662009-12-14T18:14:00.004+10:002009-12-14T18:38:45.163+10:00Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, dir Julian Schnabel (2007)A successful journalist is suddenly afflicted by a severe stroke one day while driving his son in his new car. When he wakes up in the hospital, he finds the only part of his body he can move is his left eyelid, which he proceeds to use to write a memoir.This seems like an opportunity for some heavy sentimentalising, but Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-77002100350022353142009-12-13T12:40:00.000+10:002009-12-13T12:41:45.044+10:00The day after you left: A sonnetI peg the washing out and rememberWhat you said, while I muse a mite sadly:Yes, it is the thirteenth of December.This shirt looks better, you said, and gladlyI put it on. These shorts are tight, you said.So I changed them, wore the ones mother bought,And threw the others on the unmade bed.These, you said, made me look as though I oughtTo be retired. So we went to Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-74136192475201315732009-12-11T07:31:00.005+10:002009-12-11T08:03:06.607+10:00Review: Lust, Caution, Ang Lee (2007)Small details matter in this adaptation of Eileen Chang's brilliant short story. It's not just the perfectly-rendered Hong Kong and Shanghai of the 1930s that impress us. Lee takes pains with small gestures - like the look of sudden fear that sweeps across Mr Yee's face as he sits in the jeweller's with Mak Taitai - so that we are completely engrossed in this Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-34982056678957447682009-12-10T08:46:00.004+10:002009-12-10T09:14:23.116+10:00Review: City of God, dir Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund (2002)If you've ever been sick of watching Pulp Fiction and wondered what influence it has had on cinema, this film is a good place to look for the jaded movie buff. In fact, it improves on its predecessor by a long mile. At three hours it should have been a stretch on my patience, but the pace never lets up; the story is interesting; andMatt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-76012106833168036602009-12-08T12:14:00.003+10:002009-12-08T21:25:12.312+10:00As talk hots up in Copenhagen for the UN's COP-15 gabfest, a number of interesting animations are appearing that illustrate the way climate change has altered our perception of human industrial activity. A month ago, Canadian artists Dale Hayward adn Silvie Trouve posted a video dubbed 'H2Oil' on Vimeo showing how the Alberta tar sands project is likely to play out as reserves of oil dwindle Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-44002920099821679202009-12-07T17:41:00.004+10:002009-12-07T17:55:41.453+10:00It's difficult to blame the media when things like this happen. Here's a story about an Indonesian soldier admitting that the journalists from Channel Nine and Channel Seven who were killed at Balibo in 1979 were killed on purpose. It had three readers when I read it. Then there's a story about Keira Knightley, the British movie star, and how women are jealous of her. The story, by glamorous UK Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-79297654197377028892009-12-06T14:15:00.005+10:002009-12-06T17:23:19.193+10:00Putting the fox among the chickens? Will Barnaby Joyce - slated to join the shadow cabinet - be given the energy portfolio?The announcement begs the question, just as it begs the question whether Joyce is being bought off by patronage. A silent Joyce is a harmless National Party, as the saying goes.Ironically, on the same page of The Australian where this announcement appeared, there's a Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-57905015439962167532009-12-05T01:32:00.002+10:002009-12-05T01:54:01.568+10:00Review: Quarry Vision, Quarterly Essay issue 33 2009, Guy Pearse This no-nonsense appraisal of the state of government carbon trading at the beginning of 2009 is not only timely, it is a good read. Pearse's experience as a Liberal Party speach-writer, industry lobbyist and PR consultant places him at the nexus of right-wing government, commercial companies, and NGOs. In the era of Rudd and the Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-24877344592523563332009-12-04T10:12:00.004+10:002009-12-04T10:37:34.786+10:00Things change. What can seem an advantage one day turns out, the next, to be a liability. This is certainly the case in terms of high-speed rail technology, an area being targeted by the US government. But with the country so long enjoying cheap oil, it seems that underlying technologies required to build a HSR network can be sourced from overseas only.Even China, usually seen as the recipient ofMatt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-84737152303654722962009-12-03T09:12:00.005+10:002009-12-03T12:16:45.685+10:00Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch stated in a very positive manner that all of News Corp's websites would charge for access, as announced in The Australian.A couple of weeks ago, it was announced that News Corp - Murdoch's flagship company - was in talks with Microsoft about switching all of its content to Bing, Microsoft's new search engine. Giving Bing exclusive access to News Corp content would Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-81917947940554172542009-12-02T07:14:00.004+10:002009-12-02T07:47:38.507+10:00Review: The Secret War, Jonathan Richards (2008) This "true history of Queensland's Native Police" chillingly reminds us of the cost of progress in the colonial era. Operating alongside the regular police force in Australia's north-east state, the Native Police were a paramilitary arm of government policy tasked with facilitating - at all costs to the despised Aboriginal population of the Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-49253347761211014792009-12-01T07:27:00.006+10:002009-12-01T11:30:07.086+10:00Review: Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age, Kurt W Beyer (2009) As one of the inventors of computer programming, Grace Hopper stood with her feet firmly placed on the surfboard of futurity that was riding the new wave of information processing. The book opens in 1944 when, immediately after Pearl Harbor, Hopper volunteered to join the military. A trained mathematician, she Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-20439589478809221502009-11-29T11:22:00.003+10:002009-11-29T20:19:15.489+10:00I wonder if I feel sorry for newspapers. Here we have online editors busting a gut to push out stories that people will want to click on, and all the while those same people are clicking on a hundred - or a dozen - different websites as they negotiate their way around the web. The agony of chasing clicks, while browsing readers simply follow their interests. It's a sad tale.But I have little Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-86032944814382900912009-11-28T08:18:00.003+10:002009-11-28T08:38:31.809+10:00A new poet! Emma Jones is a poet to watch, we're advised by Peter Wilson writing in The Australian. A few things stack up to make the claim credible, the most important of which is that she's had a book published by the legendary British press for poets, Faber.It's called The Striped World, and it's available now if you can tear your eyes away from the wide-screen in the lounge room and its Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-3447908033113998292009-11-27T07:34:00.001+10:002009-11-27T07:39:37.997+10:00Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull was confronted yesterday by the mass defection of frontbenchers protesting his soft line on carbon trading. He presented a strong persona during an ad-hoc press conference held at 7pm.Journalists are sceptical he can survive.In the heat of the moment, a string of frontbenchers resigned their portfolios. Barnaby Joyce, seasoned climate denier, appeared on Sky Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-63458998526362318932009-11-26T10:54:00.002+10:002009-11-26T11:11:09.328+10:00I wonder how Bill Hauritz, executive director of Queensland Folk Festivals, is taking to the news that the Splendour in the Grass music festival is moving from Byron Bay to Woodford, in the Sunshine Coast hinterlands.Woodford is home to the annual Woodford Folk Festival, which this time runs from 27 December to 1 January. 'Splendour' runs for three days from July 30. So although there's no Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-517430195675026652009-11-25T05:59:00.002+10:002009-11-25T06:16:33.671+10:00Gavin Larkin, an advertising executive with Sydney-based marketing agency The Brand Shop, has turned to promotion to raise awareness about suicide - the great taboo. On opinion website The Punch, Larkin states that he wants to "directly address the 'taboo' and get people to confront and talk about suicide".Elsewhere, on the website of digital marketing company Alpha Salmon, Larkin reiterates his Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-66076553846542252392009-11-24T07:25:00.002+10:002009-11-24T07:50:46.232+10:00An ambitious astroturf campaign by the American Petroleum Institute (API) was uncovered by Greenpeace in August during a Congressional recess. A front group called 'Energy Citizens', which has the same street address as the API, was manufactured by API using a widely-circulated memo to its membership.The Energy Citizens website lists 285 organisations, including companies and peak bodies, that Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-49704930269613527782009-11-23T06:27:00.006+10:002009-11-23T07:10:37.827+10:00Review: Samson & Delilah, dir Warwick Thornton (2009) The film builds pace slowly and there is little dialogue to alleviate our puzzlement as Samson (Rowan MacNamara) and Delilah (Marissa Gibson) negotiate to secure a private space in a hostile world. Samson, especially, seems almost pre-verbal in his capacity to communicate with those around him.People are poor not just because of how little Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-4859472945541265652009-11-22T08:48:00.005+10:002009-11-22T09:33:02.031+10:00Review: Scoop, dir Woody Allen (2006) Set in a privileged version of London, the film successfully marries a crime thriller with classic Allen stand-up comedy, this time with the added boost of Scarlett Johansson doing excellent stand-up against Hugh Jackman's straight guy. The romantic drama between Sondra Pransky (Johansson) and Peter Lyman (Jackman) is a necessary device to propel the crime Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-41388376999119245662009-11-21T08:59:00.003+10:002009-11-21T19:17:00.816+10:00Bringing attention to an unpleasant fact can make you unpopular. In this case, the unpleasant fact is discrimination faced daily by Egyptian Nubians, as we discover by reading a story from The Guardian published on the website of The Sydney Morning Herald.Lebanese singer Haifa Wehbe has included racist lyrics in a song, Where Is Daddy?, we are told by the Egyptian Nubian Association for Law, Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-22208641650221907152009-11-20T07:34:00.001+10:002009-11-20T07:36:29.751+10:00While federal Labor takes credit for Australia’s stellar economic performance compared to other OECD countries, the government continues to rubber-stamp development of the coal mines that are responsible for the country’s economic strength. A week ago, Environment Minister Peter Garrett said ‘No’ to the Traveston Dam, due to be constructed in SE Queensland against solid opposition from locals. Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-69939972189431207572009-11-19T07:20:00.003+10:002009-11-19T15:23:05.554+10:00The good news about news and the bad news about news continue to emerge. While media academic Dan Gillmor ponders a new Hawaii news startup backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, we hear that New York has lost nearly 60,000 communication jobs since 2000.In that year, communications employment peaked. Then the Internet dragon started to bite. Elsewhere, we learn that newspaper ad spend dropped by Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21277069.post-72856789887587189332009-11-18T19:09:00.005+10:002009-11-18T19:35:40.506+10:00My mother has given me a set of cutlery that she doesn't want any more. The design is heavy in the handle. I noticed the difference when I had lunch at her place today, during which we used a new, slim style set of knives and forks.Mum is 80 this year and has severe scoliosis (curvature of the spine). It's pushing her organs out of alignment and in the past week or so has started to cause her Matt da Silvahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07158988637117138260journo@matthewdasilva.com2