It’s been twenty years since American filmmaker Sofia Coppola’s second full length feature, Lost in Translation, was released. Pretty much all anyone could talk about at the time was the whisper scene at the end of the film, when Bill Murray’s character, Bob, uttered a comment in … | Continue reading
Kagi Search is a pay-to-use subscription search engine founded in 2022, that promises to deliver relevant search results free of extraneous clutter and adverts. Another plus is Kagi’s undertaking not to track users, or collect their data. But Kagi isn’t only about locating pertin … | Continue reading
Still from Foe, a film by Garth Davis. Foe, trailer, a science fiction psychological thriller, is the third feature of Australian filmmaker Garth Davis. Based on the 2018 novel of the same name, by Canadian author Iain Reid, and set in 2065, Foe tells the story of a married coupl … | Continue reading
The ten-day weather forecast for some parts of NSW are currently predicting several days with maximum temperatures in the vicinity of thirty degrees centigrade. This, at the moment, for Saturday and Sunday, 16 and 17 September, and Tuesday 19 September. These temperature ranges c … | Continue reading
When it comes to quickly gauging whether a movie is worth watching (since life is too short for bad films), I glance at its Metascore, a rating of a film which is calculated by Metacritic. This score is based on, as their FAQ page explains, a weighted average of reviews from top … | Continue reading
Book cover of Looking After Country With Fire, by Victor Steffensen. Looking After Country With Fire, published by Hardie Grant in 2022, written by Indigenous Australian writer and filmmaker Victor Steffensen, and illustrated by Far North Queensland based visual arts teacher Sand … | Continue reading
The Boy and the Heron, trailer, is the latest animated feature by Japanese filmmaker and manga artist, Hayao Miyazaki. Released in Japan under the name Kimitachi wa Do Ikiruka, Miyazaki’s latest film is said to be partly autobiographical: Through encounters with his friends and u … | Continue reading
Dictionary.com has unveiled a new series of updates to its lexicon. Five hundred and sixty six new words have been added (seems a lot) along with three hundred and forty eight new definitions. The words don’t stop coming, so we’re updating the dictionary more frequently than ever … | Continue reading
The shortlist for the 2023 Banjo Prize, for unpublished Australian fiction, was announced on Tuesday 5 September 2023, and includes the manuscripts of five writers: Lou and I, by Anna Fursland Islands of Secrets, by Stefanie Koens The Shores Between, by A’Mhara McKey The Sister T … | Continue reading
Book cover of The Conversion, by Amanda Lohrey. Tasmanian based Australian author, and winner of the 2021 Miles Franklin Literary Award, Amanda Lohrey, has written a new novel, The Conversion, which will be published by Text Publishing, in October 2023. The story follows a couple … | Continue reading
The French capital, Paris, has become the first European city to ban the use of electric share scooters. The move follows a referendum earlier this year, where Parisians were asked to decide whether the e-scooters should remain or be removed. Paris will this week become one of th … | Continue reading
Shayda, trailer, the debut feature of Iranian born, Melbourne based, Australian writer and filmmaker Noora Niasari, has been selected by Screen Australia as Australia’s entry in the Best International Feature category of the 2024 Oscars. Based in part on Niasari’s own experiences … | Continue reading
Ways are being sought to reduce the harmful environmental impact of air conditioning (AC) systems, which remain essential for health and well-being, starting with how buildings are designed and constructed in the first place: “We need to design our buildings in a way that consume … | Continue reading
The 2023 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award shortlist was announced yesterday, Monday 4 September 2023, and consists of the following six titles: An Intimate History of Evolution: The Story of the Huxley Family, by Alison Bashford Anam, by André Dao Emperors in Lilliput, by … | Continue reading
The winners of the annual Davitt Awards for crime and mystery writing were announced in Melbourne on Saturday 2 September 2023. All That’s Left Unsaid, the debut novel of Sydney based author Tracey Lien, won the Best Adult Novel award. Seven Days by Fleur Ferris won the Best Youn … | Continue reading
Canadian author Tajja Isen, writing for The Walrus: Gradually, things started to go off the rails. My to-read list ballooned alarmingly, not from titles I felt drawn to out of genuine desire but ones the algorithm pushed on me. The thrill of discovery, too, felt compromised: ever … | Continue reading
Book cover of Exiles, written by Jane Harper. Exiles by Melbourne based Australian author Jane Harper, published by Pan Macmillan Australia, has been named winner in the best crime fiction category of the 2023 Ned Kelly Awards for Australian crime writing. Written in 2022, Exiles … | Continue reading
Australian libraries are no longer quiet places to study or borrow books, writes Bec Zhuang for The Guardian. Today they are community hubs offering working spaces, meeting rooms, film screenings, art shows, and study courses, among other things. And in some places, libraries loa … | Continue reading
WordPress, creator of the CMS I publish disassociated with, has unveiled a one hundred yearlong website hosting and domain name registration package. If you have a lazy US$38,000, then there’s nothing stopping you from signing up. But I like the idea. It makes sense. When … | Continue reading
It’s alarming how close the world has come to nuclear conflict in the past, and on several occasions leaders with nuclear arsenals at their disposal have had their finger poised on the proverbial button. In just about every instance though, the threat of a nuclear exchange has be … | Continue reading
It seems like only last week the winner of the 2023 Stella Prize — Sarah Holland-Batt with her poetry collection The Jaquar — was announced, when in fact that happened four months ago. The year is marching on. Entries are now open for the 2024 prize, but only for about the next m … | Continue reading
We all know the drill. We send — unsolicited — the novel manuscript we’ve spent years toiling over, to a couple of publishing houses who accept them. From there they go into a kind of purgatory called a slush pile. How long manuscripts might spend in this limbo is unknown, but pr … | Continue reading
Newly published Australian authors Nina Wan and Tracey Lien, discuss their debut novels, The Albatross and All That’s Left Unsaid, respectively, with Sarah L’Estrange of The Bookshow, in a podcast, recorded during the 2023 Melbourne Writers Festival. The hour long conversation co … | Continue reading
The 2023 Readings Young Adult Prize shortlist was announced earlier today. Six titles are in contention for this year’s award: Dancing Barefoot, by Alice Boyle If You Could See the Sun, by Ann Liang Completely Normal (and Other Lies), by Biffy James Spice Road, by Maiya Ibrahim T … | Continue reading
Many members of the Australian women’s football team saw their social media followings jump exponentially as a result of the recent 2023 Women’s World Cup, according to data compiled by Australian football news and information portal Keepup. Mary Fowler’s Instagram (IG) follower … | Continue reading
Four hundred Australian authors have thrown their support behind the campaign that seeks to amend the Australian constitution to include an Indigenous Voice to parliament. Katherine Brabon, Shankari Chandran (winner of the 2023 Miles Franklin literary award), Mick Cummins, Sophie … | Continue reading
Image courtesy of Squirrel photos. Just seven percent of Australians are “high cash” users according to Australia’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia. Tap-to-pay contactless payment methods, which are simple and convenient to use, have dispensed with the need to carry w … | Continue reading
Threads users have been waiting for a bevy of features to be added to the micro-blogging platform, and it looks like a web version — something I’ve certainly been looking forward to — may arrive in a few days. Last week Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram (and I guess Threads), said … | Continue reading
Sydney based Australian writer and artist Leslie K. Lau recently self-published a book, Pulling Weeds, Folding Laundry. These are tasks many people probably don’t care to think much about, let alone carry out, but Lau saw them in a new light — as moments between moments — while u … | Continue reading
John Gruber, writing at Daring Fireball last week: At this moment, Threads is #2 on the App Store’s top free downloads list, and X is #51. On the Play Store, Threads is #6 and X is (scroll, scroll, scroll…) #66. This rebranding would be a firing offense if the mastermind behind i … | Continue reading
Entries for the 2024 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (VPLA) are open until Sunday 10 September 2023. The VPLA is one of Australia’s most valuable literary awards, and the shortlists — which will likely be announced sometime in December — are always filled packed with quality … | Continue reading
The Matildas two nil loss to Sweden in the third-place playoff match in the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, played at Brisbane Stadium, on Saturday 19 August, came not only as a disappointment, but also a surprise, to supporters of the Australian women’s football team. Although the … | Continue reading
Book cover of Venomous Lumpsucker, written by Ned Beauman. British novelist and screenwriter Ned Beauman has been named winner of the 2023 Arthur C. Clarke Award science fiction book of the year, with his fifth novel, Venomous Lumpsucker, which was published by Penguin Random Hou … | Continue reading
Melbourne based Australian author Rowan Heath was named winner of the 2023 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize at an online ceremony held last night, with a fiction work titled The Mannequin. The prize was created in 2010 to honour the memory of late British born Australian wr … | Continue reading
While Barbie, Greta Gerwig’s latest feature, has some way to go to become the highest grossing movie of all time — it’s currently ranked twenty-six — it is now the highest grossing movie of all time at Australian film-house chain, Palace Cinemas. Previously, The King’s Speech, ma … | Continue reading
After reading Move fast and beat Musk: The inside story of how Meta built Threads, by Naomi Nix and Will Oremus of The Washington Post, I’m certain the story behind the launch of Meta’s rival to Twitter, Threads is ripe for adaptation to the big screen. In exactly the same way Th … | Continue reading
Last week, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reduced the number of active pages it has on Twitter/X to just four. The Triple J page, which I follow, was among accounts to be archived. David Anderson, managing director of the ABC, says the move follows a trial in Febru … | Continue reading
Book cover of Critic Swallows Book, published by the Sydney Review of Books. Australian literary criticism journal, the Sydney Review of Books (SRB), has been online for ten years. To mark the occasion, SRB has published a book, Critic Swallows Book, containing twenty-two essays, … | Continue reading
A stage adaptation of Australian author Charlotte Wood’s 2019 novel, The Weekend, opened in Sydney on Saturday 5 August 2023. I read a few months ago that a production company had bought the film rights, but I didn’t know about the stage adaptation. Much of the dark humour permea … | Continue reading
Book cover of The Tetris Effect, written by Dan Ackerman. Dan Ackerman, editor-in-chief of design and technology publication Gizmodo, claims in a recent court filing that Apple TV+, producers of the 2023 film Tetris, directed by Jon S. Baird, copied the storyline from his 2016 bo … | Continue reading
Jacoténe, the Melbourne based Australian soul and pop singer, whose vocals reminds more than a few people of Amy Winehouse, has released a new single, You Already Know. This a year after she won Triple J’s Unearthed High with her song I Need Therapy. | Continue reading
Image courtesy of Startup Stock Photos. Blockbusters such as Barbie and Oppenheimer have been a windfall for cinemas struggling as a consequence of the Covid lockdowns of recent years, and stories of packed auditoriums are surely good news. But the news hasn’t been all good. In s … | Continue reading
One for fans of erstwhile New York City hip hop act, the Beastie Boys, a write up from 2015 by Don Condon, music editor at Double J. As well as being one of the world’s great hip hop groups, the Beastie Boys’ evolution also happens to be one of the scene’s most fascinating. As we … | Continue reading
Australian authors Jess Scully, Kate Larsen, and Nardi Simpson, are among speakers at VOLUME, a one day symposium, taking place online, on Thursday 21 September 2023. Amidst concerns Australians do not read enough, VOLUME will explore strategies to encourage more people to read. … | Continue reading
With Barbie, American filmmaker Greta Gerwig has become the first woman director to make a billion dollar earning movie. In addition, Barbie is, so far, just one of nine films to reach the milestone featuring a woman as the main protagonist: Nine, that is, if you count female fis … | Continue reading
What’s with the doom and gloom emanating from Kurzgesagt recently? In the last few months their videos have covered a range of grim topics including biological weapons of mass destruction, the difficulty in beating cancer, black holes that destroy galaxies, and tales of woe about … | Continue reading
The book publisher is said to have been bought for US$1.62 billion, reports The Guardian. This in the wake of the failed 2020 takeover attempt by Penguin Random House, which was blocked in late 2022, by a US court. Late in 2020, Paramount had announced the sale of Simon & … | Continue reading
A scene from The Rooster, a film by Mark Leonard Winter. The Rooster, trailer, is the debut feature of Australian actor turned filmmaker Mark Leonard Winter, starring veteran actor Hugo Weaving, and Phoenix Raei. The Rooster had its world premiere on Saturday 5 August 2023, at th … | Continue reading