Thursday, October 27, 2011

A great celebration of good taste

Last nights ABCTV tribute to David and Margaret was a celebration of much that is very good about our engagement with good writing and good movies. Thank you all.
The tough stuff was well symbolised by David's choice of LANTANA because indeed, everybody has something to hide. That Aussie icon is a foreign weed ; a plant with good looks , poisonous leaves and hiding of vermin . It is a very apt choice of a name - esp in our dry country places ( like LOVE SERENADE) where you have to seek to find shelter and refreshment, and where what looks bad can hide a purposeful place. As we were reminded this week by Dr Phil -- if you can't see it in yourself ( or in movie? ) you can't really see it at all.

In a great tribute , Cate and Geoffrey celebrated the real people we meet through the Movie Show : like mums and dads of the screen, D&M sit through so much rubbish , so we don't have to.

The best part of the night for me was the concrete artistic assertion that the search for "truth and beauty " is often stalled because the truth is not always beautiful (ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER) .
Some Maturity in our appreciation of life is great to see because everywhere you look there is, as Ronald Conway says, a sense of stupor here in the sunshine states .Thankfully though , there is ALSO often, some truth and beauty in the pile of ........ if we are prepared to look and listen for it .
On that note , I do believe our while our young people have to test ,tear down to build up something worth while , they ALSO desperately need inspiration and respect shown to what is good in all the rubbish. Time the ABC kicked out the worm eating nest birds for whom " noone can do anything right and who know nothing but how to make wars on everything " .It is no coincidence that the role of women and the growth of a more mature mindset is on our minds in modern film because there are a lot of children not growing up in our culture .
The review reminded us that beauty is often anything but  (SWEETIE )and the place for love strange, lonely and rare ( LOVE SERENADE ).
Celebrating their good taste, I thought the best thing was that , in my choice of the best in a long while-GRAND TURISMO, truth and beauty had to be sought for and found with body mind and spirit all engaged in order to prove these things can really work in some dark places !

Monday, October 10, 2011

Charles Darwin wouldn't believe anyone in this Age could be so dumb

Charles Darwin did the initial research on atolls over 150 years ago . His research and conclusions in this area of science was thorough  and those conclusions  still stands today with subsequent verification from plate tectonics , volcanism and weathering  . I have to say it is not at all clear the same can be said about science in practice,  and "Questions without Answers" at ABCTV.
ABC TV on Sunday night , did a report on the Kiribati islands, suggesting the sea level is rising on them .( after 9pm 9th October 2011) The reporters  collected all  the information that suited their theory in a way which reminded me of Margaret Meads mistaken efforts some decades earlier on an island nearby - Conveniently in both cases , these real situation is some distance away from the audience.

The clever reporters  have ignored Darwin's discovery - the atolls are formed by subsidence
The ABC  presumably dug up this report in preparation for this week in parliament( with its grand ambition of changing the world with yet another tax)  ,
The greatest environmental risk on Tuesday morning in Parliament was the risk from Carbon Dioxide.
By  Tuesday evening " the greatest environmental risk ever " has been changed to oil leaks from a ship near New Zealand .
 Does anyone believe the reporters at the ABC? More quickfizzers here