Red Handed made it into: 17th Shriekfest Horror Film Festival – Official Selection 13th Halloween Horror Picture Show – Official Laurels Melbourne Underground Film Festival – Officia…

Terminator 2 Judgement Day has a rare status of immunity to sequelitis. There aren’t many sequels that are as good as the original – T2 surpasses T1 on every front – narrative, chara…

This is the shortlist.I have seen all of these movies, some several times over and I love each of them for various reasons. THE LION KING          …

This page is updated with links to some of my articles.Ocean Media – Sails and Offshore Magazine: ‘Home & Away’ 7 Star Luxury Catamarans With Ever-Changing Stunning ViewsI was happy to write the…

A client of BlackBox Voice Productions had audio-visual segments with non-professional narration and wanted to refresh the content with a professionally produced, polished voiceover. I was rapt my voi…

It’s the 50 year ‘anniversary’ of The Battle Of Long Tan that happened in August 1966 during The Vietnam War aka The 2nd Indochina War aka The Resistance War Against America aka The …

Suicide Squad has some great lines, production design, costumes and 2 engrossing characters – Harley Quinn & The Joker. Their Bonnie-&-Clyde relationship is the heart and soul …

Tarzan is still portrayed as an oxy moronic ‘sophisticated Neanderthal’.He’s an educated, urbane aristocrat who can get all physically Philistine in a loincloth and speak another lan…

I was an innocent bystander to Ghostbusters.Now I am an eye witness to a crime against cinema. Who is the audience for this?Kids under 10 who love the sliming of stars at the Nickelodeon Awards? …

Here is a snapshot of the Australian stats for spinal cord injury (SCI).Mostly young people, mostly car accidents and the fiscal cost is $4b but on a personal level, the true cost is too immense to me…

Festival director Nashen Moodley continues to evolve the SFF into the most intriguing and beguiling international cinematic experience. The 2016 slate of screenings is astounding with too many highlig…

I chatted with director Jon Favreau in Sydney about his CGI 3D masterpiece The Jungle Book for Disney with the only live action from Neel Sethi – the actor playing Mowgli.Here are the trailers s…

On April Fool’s Day, private health cover premiums rose again – this time 5-6%. BUPA shafted me with my annual price gouge – this time 7.2% – with a healthy dose of ‘put up and …

A Belgian, a Persian, a Maori, an American, a Samoan and I walk into a bar… It’s called The Ugly Mermaid (yep)… At Le Vasa on Upolu Island, Samoa, the chairs, roof and all fittings…

Big thanks to the creative people and agencies I worked with in 2015.It’s been a great year full of inspiring and fun productions and I’m available for more work from Feb 1st 2016.I a…

The Revenant is a beautiful, brutal revenge masterpiece that will attract awards attention for many of the cast and crew, particularly the talented trio who gave us the awards-magnet, Birdman: I&ntild…

Declaring a herd of cows as a national threat sounds like an absurdist notion from Stanley Kubrick’s classic Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb (1964) but i…

You know what to expect. It’ll be served up the way you like. And after you’ve consumed it, there’ll be some satisfaction. Then you’ll forget about it until the next time a pro…

I’ve seen both these real life stories dramatized for the big screen. Both have hard-working lead actors: Tom Hardy plays twins Ronnie and Reggie and uses bad English false teeth as an essential…

Some Australian business names are so beloved by the public, they become part of our everyday language.  Boldness in a person is described as ‘more front than Myer’.  ‘Gone…

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”         Kenneth Grahame, The Wind…

Mad Max Fury Road is the most-anticipated movie of the year so far – more than Avengers Age Of Ultron – because it has a deeper, richer cinematic ancestry dating back to 1979 – …

The people calling for Abbott to ‘bring our boys home’ from the firing squad in Indonesia remind me of the rabble calling for the freeing of Barabbas from the death penalty over some compa…

Who will win? Adaline VS Avengers – scientific guff Vibranium?  I thought they were calling it Fibranium which weirdly made sense to me because I ass-umed it was a nuclear-strength version …

There’s plenty written, said, recorded and read about all of Tolkien’s work as seen through the eyes of Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson.   So I’ll cut to the chase.  I went to the …

The Bliss Series – The Long Tail Of The Zoe Effect After five days at Bliss Sanctuary for women in Canggu, Bali, I felt the long tail of benefits in all areas of my life.I had new meditative tools fo…

The Bliss Series – Daily Treatments Instantly Change Everything After having Balinese Customs officers go through all my belongings, ask me about the three boxes in my luggage (which did not exist) t…

The Bliss Series – Stepping Outside Your Comfort ZoneBliss Sanctuary for women creates a wonderful comfort zone for guests and also offers opportunities to step outside that comfort zone too. I opted…

The Bliss Series – Stepping Into A Comfort Zone.   Just days before heading to Bliss, my life was turned inside out with a monumental legal battle that involved a sudden expensive lawyer, an 11t…

Russell Crowe has knocked it out of the ballpark with his directorial feature debut The Water Diviner.  The film deserves the 8 AATCA nominations it earned and I predict Oscar buzz too.  Ye…

Pop Art was a frivolous flash in cultural pan – until it wasn’t.   Not ahead of its time but it did predict that the mundane and lightweight would be revered.  It was summed up b…

What an enormous cock up. And I don’t mean the good kind 😉 I’m talking about the latest Myer TVC. My brother Chris and I were chatting about weak ads today.  The Myer ‘Wonderland&r…

Run by volunteers, supported by some precious sponsors, the Palestinian Film Festival launched in in Sydney last night with passion and a powerfully moving augmented reality app.   Download it th…

Every now and again I like to take a risk and subject myself to a piece of art about which I know nothing.   It’s hit and miss.  But that’s the spirit of adventure.  Don&rsq…

Without Boardwalk Empire, TV just became a bored walk.  This is how I feel about it coming to an end.      A favourite way to unwind is to time travel IE immerse myself in period d…

Very excited to be selected as a Short+Sweet director for the 2015 theatre season!   Short+Sweet is the world’s largest short play festival – home grown here in Australia and now in countries a…

It’s not often a film gets a Tomatometer rating of 95%.  Finding Vivian Maier is a documentary that feels like a quirky portrait of a humorless Mary Poppins-type character then it evolves into a…

This Is Where I Leave You is a comedy about adullt kids who join their mum for a week of enforced family time after the death of their father.  It has a considerable Hollywood pedigree starring: …

So Jennifer Lawrence’s bits are displayed on small screens instead of her talents on the big screen.  The media goes into a Fukushima-sized meltdown.   Can everyone just cut the dispr…

Lots of people and film critics bag Woody Allen movies.    Sure, some of his 40+ features are better than others.  The ones I enjoy most are his fantasy films because they bridge a gap …

Mad Max was made in 1979 (my favourite year of the 20th century as it was the end of a global innocence) – now he’s getting the 21st century franchise makeover.  The internationally recogni…

A Most Wanted Man, the film adaptation of a John Le Carre spy thriller might be the finest of Hoffman’s final films.   Complex human emotions and dramas are played out at an A grade level -…

Will the MH17 disaster put powerful fingers on big triggers?       Events around the MH17 disaster are starting to resemble the triggers of war we’ve seen before. Look at the hist…

The #BFFs squeezed into Cho Cho San about as hungry as we could bare so we could sample as much as we could of their re-imagined Japanese cuisine.       It’s the new hip and happe…

I laugh at TV commercials trying to sell ‘oatmeal’ with a hero shot of a bowl of gruel the colour of a sick baby’s poo.    Not even Oliver Twist would ask for more.   …

Lots of eateries invite you to have a drink at the bar while you wait for a table.   At Riley St Garage, the place to be is at the bar.   The BFFs [Best Foodie Friends photographer Bel…

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes sounds better than Revenge Of The Chimps.  Glad they ditched the latter title.   Ever since I snuck into an R rated screening of George A Romero’s Dawn O…

500 people in 250 cars worth less than $1000 each drove Perth to Darwin via the Kimberlies to raise money for Cancer Council in June 2014.  $1.4m was the target – $1.5m was reached.    …

I make a Soup that tastes like it’s not from now but another time long ago.  It’s a hearty broth verging on a casserole.   People come to my home, consume it then struggle t…

#juxnews  #storiestheywontpublish  #BudgieThugglers The 2014 Australian Budget and a fictional monster movie were both released in the same week on a public who was fully expecting them. The…

I took myself along to see and hear Alice Walker at the Sydney Opera House as part of the Sydney Writers’ Festival.  Only single seats were left and I got one of the last tickets.   Th…

There was a wildly successful TV show last century called Cheers – the bar where everyone knew your name.   The bar in the show was a hit because of the intimacy.  Customers got w…

DISCLAIMER If you need a spoiler alert for Godzilla, don’t read on and don’t blame me if you do.  I love seeing films with my movie-literate brother Chris aka Boonta.  He’s a monster movi…

Radio station Double J is back. I have missed you so much.  What’s Rangoon To You Is Grafton To Me is still one of the greatest examples of creative radio ever made.    Rangoon V …

** WARNING ** explicit language | sexual references | poor singing | improper use of a nursery rhyme | violent threats | repeated sexism | vile racism    At the end of this blog are the ravi…

I went to Cambodia to visit my favourite charity – Free The Bears – and wrote a story about it for Get Up And Go Magazine.   Free The Bears is an Australian organisation that resc…

I’ve seen some footage of the new Tom Cruise big budget blockbuster Edge Of Tomorrow (EOT) and yes – there is a Groundhog Day element.  But EOT is not a comedy.  Neither does it star a grou…

I’ve seen some preview footage of the 2014 Godzilla movie and it is great!  It hasn’t been turned into something stupid that Michael Bay would make with a title like Revenge Of The Atomic Dinos…

This week, I went along to the AFI AACTA Members screening of Tracks starring Mia Wasikowska directed by John Curran who kicked off his career with the screen adaptation of a book I liked called Prais…

The Other Woman looks great – kinda like The First Wives Club but more like The First, Second & Third Mistresses Club.          Cameron Diaz is right at home in this …

George Clooney can act and can direct and The Monuments Men is probably his most competent work to date.  This is tricky because he’s bagged a couple of Oscars so I guess I expected more than a …

I think I may have seen a perfect film.  The Grand Budapest Hotel is the latest from Wes Anderson who seems to have hit a career high with this period caper comedy.  I now regard him as my g…

If Free-To-Air (F2A) tv channels want to at least pretend they are having a serious go at moving with the times and if they value shareholders’ investment, they need to ban ads during narrative TV co…

“if you make a funny show about the making of a crappy show, you might just have a hit show.  Plonk is the latest in that proud pedigree of pisstake.”  renée brack Josh Tyler |…

When I saw Philip Seymour Hoffman in Boogie Nights, I was astonished at his ability to perfectly realise an unpopular, tortured character on screen.  I loved his work in The Talented Mr Ripley. &…

Family Guy and Ted creator Seth MacFarlane has a comedy western coming out called A Million Ways To Die In The West.  Good title.  When you think about it, it’s a wonder anyone survived the…

My love of bears is finding its natural direction.This is a short bit of vision of a recently rescued cub.  She was taken away too soon from her mum and will stay with another two cubs so they ca…

Nha Trang is overloaded with overweight, joyless Russians.  They look like extras from the movie Wall-E.  Despite communism teaching generations to queue for food, they don’t want to d…

Riding pushbikes around Hoi An is the best.  It’s 100% fun and only unsafe if you’re a bit of an idiot.  They don’t legislate against stupidity in Vietnam so common sense i…

On the way from Hanoi to Halong Bay, I stopped at a stoneworks.  They turn rough boulders into artful statues all on the same premises.     Once on the waters of Halong Bay, I saw some …

GETTING TRAFFICKEDGetting around Hanoi has all the fun of any big city but without all the regulations and rules.  People are polite but assertive.  All kinds of vehicles share the entire ro…

You”re damned if you see Salo and damned if you don”t.  In 2010 I was given a collector”s dvd edition legally, after decades of a worldwide ban.  But first, let”s set the scene of censor…

‘Bring out the chimp.”The chimp’s sleepin’.”Well, I guess you better go wake him up then.’  Being an animal lover, I enjoy seeing other primates get armed and put the wind up the domina…

Every now and again, you get a partner in life for a period of time who gives you gifts that echo into your future and shape who you are.  Already an avid movie buff since childhood, at age 25 I …

Everyone else can unplug their blinking fairy lights and pack ’em up for next year.  This guy synced a xmas light show to his daughter’s favourite song and nailed it.  The song is mildly a…

A different education for a different way to view the world.  Not a holiday but an adventure.  Voiceover to text is below.  Enjoy 🙂  Excerpt from the audiobook version of:Vagabond…

Every time Katniss cried on screen, two girls behind us began to cry.  And Katniss cries a lot in this movie.  She cries about people she doesn’t really know getting killed then kills peopl…

When I first heard of The Lego Movie, I thought – meh.  Another toy cashing in on the big screen.  But the story idea rumoured in 2012 had legs.  It sounded kinda good.  I’m …

Have you ever been so in love with a person’s art that you almost cannot stand it?  Have a look below at the preview of Wes Anderson’s new film The Grand Budapest Hotel.  I love this filmm…

There is bittersweet poignancy in this Gen X romantic comedy called Enough Said starring James Gandolfini in one of his final big screen performances.  There wasn’t enough said by this man on sc…

Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Colin Farrell in a lavish love story that really does transcend time.  …

Stunning, provocative piece that gets an appropriate reaction at the end.  From one of the most influential living artists today.  …

I was asked by SBS News to comment about Chopper when he died recently.  This is what I wrote. And here’s the original interview.…

This makes my blood boil.  Humans put animals in zoos [prison] and charge money for us to view them and be amused.  We are a repulsive species at times.  And I have little sympathy when…

The same branding?I love election graffiti and posters.  Insightful opinions of the people.  Fingers crossed we get more of this kind of provocative stuff to think about before voting Septem…

Twice nommed for an Oscar, Naomi Watts might get a third in 2014 if the Academy keeps awarding actors and actresses who portray real life people.  Helen Mirren won an Oscar for playing the queen.…

Red Obsession sounds like a cryptic crossword clue for which the answer might be Kim Jong-un.  It’s the name of a superbly engrossing documentary about red wine – in particular, Bordeaux.  …

Every now and again – maybe a few times in any era or generation – a movie comes along that uses the technology of the day in a way that is insightful, human and prophetic.  The trailer for Ben S…

Wear your favourite famous face – just like Buffalo Bill wanted to do with his victims’ skin in Silence Of The Lambs.  Hyperflesh Masks are ultra-realistic masks of celebrities who look lik…

Okay while I’m here, I may as well include this classic: …

Seen at Comic Con talking up future films – Tyrian of Game of Thrones aka Peter Dinklage.  The actor who looks a lot like Clive Owen’s brother if you put a photo of each of them side by side and…

We can’t see it [legally] in Australia as it’s a Netflix property but love will find a way – and I would love to see Orange Is The New Black.  Black humour, pathos, guts and insights without ch…

Over a year ago, I was reporting on radio that an Oscar winning team of Michael Douglas, Matt Damon and director Steven Soderbergh couldn’t use their combined weight to get an incredible movie releas…

Lucky me.  Four of my favouite actors happen to be cast in the same movie – Out Of The Furnace.   Christian Bale  Woody Harrelson  Casey Affleck  Willem Dafoe  Woody…

Beauty Brains Bodies and (am)Bition.  30 finalists in the DMK Miss Universe Australia Pageant need all four elements in just the right amounts in the hope to snatch the sash and land the crown.La…

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If you think Tony Soprano was a vicious mafia figure – check out the role Gandolfini plays in True Romance.  I have a strong stomach for scripted screen violence because it isn’t real.  But…

Formula 1 racing’s Golden Age – Brit playboy James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) competed with Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) for the #1 crown.Check out this behind-the-scenes featurette of Rush the movie due in…

Martin Scorsese looks to have upadated his cinematic look with his new film The Wolf Of Wall Street.  Leonardo di Caprio, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey and assorted others look like they are ha…

This is a compelling view of the ascent of lofty idealism proving the law of gravity.  What goes up must come down.  And it’s a tragic reality that entities inevitably face the problem of e…

Penguins were the darlings of the screen a few years back – March Of The Penguins won an Oscar for combining chilly, white antarctic life with the warm choccy caramel voice of Morgan Freeman. &nb…

I love art.  I love nature.  I love art more.  I love nature more.  It’s like cheese-in-spray-a-can OR the ozone layer…Don’t make me choose!Check these out – and especially the…

The first thing that makes a TV show great is the writing.  The script is the only original creative part of the process – every other step in the process is an interpretation of the script.&nbsp…

When Beyonce stood up for her own butt being her own private property [despite exploiting it regularly as a marketing tool] and got a bumslapping fan ejected far away from her, I cheered and understoo…

Every now and again, my eyes wander and I see… stuff.  I try to figure out the story behind it.  I know one thing – it’s a nice tub.Better to sit in that – than in a barrel of toxic waste…

I saw on the www a re-working of the word ‘rape’ into ‘struggle snuggle’.[…]    Quite a euphemism, huh.  Fingers crossed it doesn’t translate into legislated language:  ‘On…

You don’t need a university degree to know that banning something makes it popular.  It puts it on the public radar.  It puts it into the consciousness of the people who are not supposed to…

Well, kind of.  There is the colloquial word ‘geniuses’ or the proper word ‘genii’ which just looks like an autcorrect fail.  I wanted to find out because my next question is:  How …

If Angelina goes ahead with the removal of her ovaries, she will become the most famous organ donor on the planet –  if she donates them.  After all, that gorgeous DNA is worth a motza.&nbsp…

It’s about time.  If there’s was one ‘incentive’ that made my blood boil, it was this bloated piece of draining, sucky legislation that rewarded people for putting a bigge…

Angelina Jolie has written an eloquent op-ed piece for the New York Times.  It’s about losing her own mother to cancer and how she did not want her children to be at the same risk of losing thei…

‘Quirky Comedy’ gets bandied around a fair bit – then along comes a movie that fits that description but not in equal measures.  There’s more quirk than comedy.  Small Apartments celebrat…

Last night I saw Olympus Has Fallen then this morning I woke up to see Boston bombed.  (PIC – Boston bombing)It’s not that the events are in any way connected – it’s the timing of them for me h…

This makes her less of The Iron Lady and more like The Ironic Lady.  Ex-PM John Howard  was heard to say on radio today that Margaret Thatcher was the greatest Brit PM since Winston Churchil…

Liberace was a legendary entertainer – a piano-playing performer whose dress sense and flair for the extravagant costume was bigger and better than almost anyone else – ever.  He literally wore h…

The Great Gatsby – 3rd Trailer – makes this look like The Greatest Gatsby.  I loved the 1974 version with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow and the lessons about life and seeing the truth in human be…

Headlines read ‘The World Mocks Beiber & His Pet Monkey’ and commentators crack jokes.  How soon we forget.  Can anyone else see any parallels between a [terminally] young Michael Jack…

Airline tickets sold by the kilo.  I have been wishing for this day.  When my 58 kilogram body and my luggage are added together to determine my true and accurate ticket price, then sanity w…

To save himself from Guantanamo Bay and a hell life in the hands of the US, Julian Assange might need a lot of people willing to stand up and claim ‘I’m Julian!’  We know John Inman who played…

Sydney has a bunch of ‘stop’ signs dotted among a bunch of ‘no stopping’ signs.  I was a passenger in a car with a recently arrived international visitor who was faced with contradictory sign…

‘We are not an easy-going nation anymore.  There are laws for everything – over-ruling common sense.’  When I posted this on social media a little while ago – it sparked spirited commentar…

Money + Fear = Hilarious Stupidity If you have enough cash and are terrified of a global catastrophe, you can invest in: A Floating Disaster Shelter An Emergency Disaster Pod Take a road trip aroun…

How does Bruce Willis do it? The 4th in a film franchise usually stinks.  So one would expect the 5th installment would have a tatty red carpet rolled out at Blockbuster [assuming there’s …

Seeing the latest trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby I can say – all is forgiven [for Australia!].While I didn’t enjoy Australia! starring Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and Jack Thompson (who…

As an adult in the US it’s legal to carry guns, a gun license, buy toy guns for kids, have kids play-act murder with guns in the playground and video games – but it is not okay to point a Danish at a…

Art is in the eye of the beholder.  And I despise censorship.  But it must have been very funny sitting in on the committee meetings ticking off the go-ahead for this sculpture to be install…

If you don’t have access to a loaded gun as a way to solve a problem, you won’t use a loaded gun as a way to solve a problem.Make some of these fatal conflict resolution options unavailable, then pe…

The 2013 Oscar presenters came and went in a pretty ho-hum way – until Ted appeared onstage with Mark Wahlberg.  What was so fascinatiing was how the CGI had him interacting seamlessly with every…

Some great compliments from some great talents.Seth did an ok job.But will they have him back for another year?Not a Billy Crystal hope in hell.But he did pull in the younger viewers.And that is a plu…

The ad for these sex TVs was cleverly disguised as Latin.  I knew the 2 weeks at high school studying that pretty much dead language would serve me some day.Also seen at the Vatican – a sign that…

He’s one of those rare performers who owns and nails every role – even in a spoof.  Now you can see Cristoph Waltz as Djesus.If the biggest story of the bible got the Tarantino treatment – it mi…

For every stroke of genius, there is some monumental idiocy.The Art Gallery in Sydney is host to a heap of tourists every year.They advertise great artist’s names all around the impressive building:Y…

When Nicholas Hope appeared on the big screen with a demonic smile that would rival Jack Nicholson in The Shining, the cinema audience went nuts. It brought back memories of a lovable disturbed man-bo…

How could the 2013 Academy Award Nominations ignore James Gandolfini in Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly?  He was stunning as Mickey – the washed-up hitman with a chip on each sho…

Every now and again, a movie comes along that comes as close to movie perfection as you can get. Killing Them Softly is about the GFC hitting the US criminal underworld.  Funds for hits are trick…

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Would these work on you?Would these work on anyone?The best line that worked on me was from a guy in a music shop who said, ‘what pick line would work on you?’I told him.He said it back to me.But it…

I have loved Danny Trejo for a very long time.He’s not a headliner – but he’s a great actor.And his presence scares the pants off me.If I thought I was excited about The Expendables (and I still am)…

If there is a God – he gave us The Runaways.  I was 8 years old singing ‘Cherry Bomb’ into a hairbrush and my parents thought it was cute.  The Runaways is one of the best movies so far th…

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