Tag Archives: Cultural review

Aspiring to good morals does not win you Survivor, as Tess Lynch from Grantland points out, in this game “integrity and honesty is nothing against manipulation and well-executed lies”. Trust, dignity and respect: This was ex-cricketer Lee Carseldine’s mantra since day dot on the island of Samoa—the unforgiving location for Network Ten’s Australian reboot of Survivor, the wildly successful international reality ...

Blatantly biblical or subtly current—Easter themes of sacrificial love, redemption and resurrection are being told and retold in modern cinema. Ashley Thompson explores. Undertones, analogies and parables—not all Biblical retellings of the Easter story are as obvious as The Passion of the Christ (2004) or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). In fact, if evangelism is the goal, ...

Reminiscent of critically acclaimed classic Remember the Titans (2000), From the Rough joins a long list of self-acclaimed inspirational sports films which see underdog sports teams triumph against racial, economic and gender disadvantage to hope’s end. Based on a true story, Catana Starks (Taraji P Henson) is a former women’s swim coach and the first woman ever to coach an ...

The list of Martin Luther King Jr’s achievements is long, and he looms large in our collective consciousness as a champion of civil rights and nonviolent, direct action. King was president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and played a major role in achieving a great shift in civil rights in America. For his great many achievements he is honoured ...

Filmed with the same cast over a period of 12 years, it’s clear Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is angling to be the greatest coming-of-age movie of all time. At the start of the film Mason (Ellar Coltrane) is a cherub-faced six-year-old. Then, over nearly three hours he grows into an 18-year-old college student. Mason’s path to adulthood is not easy. His ...

The Bachelor Australia continues to thrive and it’s all my fault. Ashley Thompson writes. Whether you like it or not, The Bachelor Australia makes Network Ten piles of money—thanks to well-educated middle-class Australians like me. Raking in 1.4 million viewers per episode, other well-educated middle-class females (who are not me) compete in glitterfied Gladiator-style arena for the “genuine” and definitely-not-fake, ...