Thinking pop culture
Displaying 171 - 180 of 184 articles
Being a teetotaller, there wasn’t the option to brace myself for reading Laid Bare with something fortifying. So I did my equivalent and downed my Sisterhood Soundtrack: Pat doing We Belong, Kate with…
A few years ago I joined a book club. This ill-conceived lark lasted just the one episode but happily proffered a handful of anecdotes. My favourite was the ice-breaker. Having myself repeatedly assigned…
I don’t like people leaving my life. By ‘don’t like’ I mean hate. This situation is based on a variety of personality quirks, notably rampant sentimentality and a distaste for change. For a normal person…
One of my favourite picture books as a kid was The Jolly Postman (1986). Sparking a manic inquisitiveness that I’d later horn into a career, the book followed the route of - surprise, surprise - one very…
Some of my favourite films – Marnie and Elegy and Secretary and Mammoth and Happiness – each have single-word titles. Pretending however, that I went to see Vulgaria because I had hopes that it would reach…
It’s a pretty safe bet that if a film is going to include my favourite Frank Black song, involve an ill-fated love affair, run for under two hours and completely destroy my mascara, then I’m going to like…
One of the most controversial installations at Hobart’s Museum of New and Old Art is Wim Delvoye’s Cloaca: the excrement machine. When I first stuck my head in during a morning visit, it smelled vaguely…
It was never going to be Wag the Dog. Or Primary Colors. Or Ides of March. Or The Contender. It was never going to be great, hell, I was doubting it would even be good. My suspicions were sadly, confirmed…
Last week in this space I posted a piece about Magic Mike titled Where are the Willies? Originally I’d dubbed it “Where’s the Wang?”: a title exploiting my love of alliteration and my recent work on sexual…
The National’s song About Today (2004), Sarah Polley’s film Take This Waltz (2011) and Mo Hayder’s novel The Devil of Nanking (2005). Three of my favourite examples of pop culture showcasing the rarely…