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The Mad Max trilogy has had a tremendous influence on action cinema – and next week, the series resumes. © Warner Bros.

How Mad Max wrote the script for the action blockbuster

George Miller’s Mad Max films have aged remarkably well – perhaps because they have had such a profound influence on the films that followed them.
A still from the film Los Hongos, by Oscar Ruiz Navia, 2014. Images courtesy of the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival.

Film festivals have impact, sure, but we need to measure that

Showing the “impact” of arts and cultural events is ever more important. But defining and measuring that impact requires long-term tracking and customised tools.
Struggle Street was no more voyeuristic than any reality TV show of the last two decades. SBS TV

Review: Struggle Street proves to be powerful, often poignant TV

The producers of this series are doing what public service media are tasked to do – making the marginal visible, including the excluded, putting poverty on the public agenda.
Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart star in Olivier Assayas’ latest film, The Clouds at Sils Maria. © Carole Bethuel. Pinnacle Films

The Clouds of Sils Maria: a star-studded film about stardom

Juliette Binoche and Kristen Stewart star in French director Olivier Assayas’ latest film, an elliptical address to the cruelties of the star system.
There is not a female figure on Game of Thrones who does not have a medieval counterpart. © Home Box Office, Inc.

Game of Thrones and the fluid world of medieval gender

Game of Thrones never even approaches the slippery and surprising world of gender manipulation and redefinition that existed in medieval spirituality.
Black Widow, in Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, released this week. Jay Maidment ©Marvel 2015

Up, up and away? The future of the comic book movie

Avengers: Age of Ultron, released this week, is one of many superhero films destined for the multiplex in the coming months and years. What’s behind this trend? And what kind of villain would be powerful enough to stop it in its tracks?
Director Greg McLean and John Jarratt on-set shooting Wolf Creek 2. AAP Image/Cameron Oliver

Making films is never easy but we can fix the local industry

We know the transformation of global media technologies pose particular challenges to local filmmakers – and that the rewards are still slim. But there are good reasons to be optimistic about the future of the industry.
David Lynch: Between Two Worlds is a major event for Brisbane. David Lynch's Emily Screaming. 2008. GOMA

Meeting a god: the diverse career of David Lynch on show at GOMA

Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art is hosting the exhibition, David Lynch: Between Two Worlds, until June 7. It’s an opportunity to explore the connections between all the elements of Lynch’s artistic output.
‘A dramatised event is no replacement for the horrors of what is really going on.’ AAP Image/NewZulu/Nicolas Koutsokostas

The ‘refugee telemovie’ shows our government is lost at sea

The government has announced its latest method to stop the boats: a telemovie with storylines about asylum seekers dying at sea. Is it really the role of government to fund propaganda pieces like this?
Are new video-on-demand services really ‘breathing new life’ into Australian content? LoKan Sardari

What do Netflix, Stan and Presto mean for Australian TV?

The arrival of subscription video on demand services Netflix, Stan and Presto have implications for what we call “television” in Australia – and much of the policy detail remains to be hammered out.
Writer Vince Gilligan has much to teach us about the human animal and about life. Photo Credit:Ben Leuner/AMC

Three reasons Better Call Saul works: a scriptwriter’s perspective

Many successful shows spawn sequels. In Better Call Saul, writer Vince Gilligan has created a prequel to his phenomenally successful series Breaking Bad. And it works. So how has he done it?
An emphasis on the ruins of the recent past places Zvyagintsev’s film within a very interesting genre of post-Soviet films. Palace Films

Leviathan: political thriller meets melodrama in Putin’s Russia

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s film Leviathan explores the ‘symphonia’ of church and state in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. In doing so it taps into a tradition in Soviet and post-Soviet cinema.
‘It is difficult to convey the exhilaration that can be received from recognising elements of your own intimate life magnified on a cinema screen.’ Anatomy of a Love Seen screens at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival. MQFF

Give us better lesbians, please, and screens to watch them on

The curators of queer film festivals undertake a challenging task, assembling as best as possible a cinematic selection that reflects what is a very diverse community. Too often, lesbians are left out.
Empire, currently screening on Channel Ten, is throwing stereotypes to the wind and presenting strong drama that is black, queer, and diverse. Channel Ten

In your face: Empire is proving diversity isn’t a dirty word

Empire, a TV drama about a black hip-hop star turned music mogul, is breaking new ground by foregrounding ‘risky’ issues around race, sexuality and class.
For 30 years the families of Ramsay Street have been working out their problems before a devoted international audience. AAP Image/Ten

After 30 years, can Neighbours and Australians become good friends?

Why don’t we Australians love our Neighbours? Perhaps the long-running soap is a local victim of tall poppy syndrome – but the sunny vision of Australian suburban life remains wildly popular internationally.

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