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Moral judgment should not be based on knowledge that comes only from hindsight. Wolfgang Wildner

Killing Hitler: when is assassination justified?

The film 13 Minutes dramatises an attempt by Georg Elser to assassinate Hitler in 1939, to prevent the war the Führer was preparing for. How clear-cut was the moral justification for that act?
Périot neither condemns nor romanticises extreme ‘resistance’ and ‘revolutionary’ actions, nor the state’s response. Images courtesy of MIFF

A German Youth brings the Red Army Faction to the Melbourne International Film Festival: review

Germany’s Red Army Faction evolved from student protest to bombings, kidnappings and shootouts with police. The group transformed dissent into spectacular media event. This documentary picks up the story.
Men at Work were found liable for copying two bars from Kookaburra Sits on the Old Gum Tree – a ‘fair use’ exception would have prevented this. Jolene Bertoldi

The Down Under book and film remind us our copyright law’s still unfair for artists

A new book and documentary tell us more about the story behind Men at Work’s song Down Under – and the court case it eventually led to. They also prompt questions about current Australian copyright law.
Brian Wilson’s music – the subject of Love & Mercy – is like a lesson we relearn each time we listen. Francois Duhamel/image.net

Love & Mercy: what Brian Wilson’s story tells us about genius and music

Much like the music of the man it’s based on, Love & Mercy is beautiful, complex, somewhat melancholy, and thought-provoking. It also teaches us some things about creative genius, innovation, and art.
Where does ‘I’m old, not obsolete’ fit into the Arnold Schwarzenegger pantheon of well-delivered cheese? AAP Image/Yonhap News Agency

Why do fans love Schwarzenegger? His terrible one-liners, of course

While his bodybuilder’s physique was important for embodying larger than life, “All-American” action heroes, what makes Schwarzenegger distinctive is his peculiar vocal performances in these roles.
What’s the point of watching TV when you have to wait an age to talk about it? Patrik Theander

Spoiler-alert culture is taking all of the fun out of television

What is the statute of limitations on spoilers? When can you comment on what you’ve watched? And at what point is our fear of ruining other people’s television experience hindering our own?
Lee was one of the greatest character actors to have ever appeared on screen. AAP/Richard Goldschmidt

Goodbye Christopher Lee, the aristocrat of Satanic darkness

Christopher Lee, who died on June 7, was one of the greatest character actors to have ever appeared on screen, even after fleeing Castle Dracula for the hills of Hollywood.
Willem Dafoe brings a magnanimity to the role of the late poet Pier Paolo Pasolini. © Capricci Films

Pasolini, with Willem Dafoe, offers an unconventional biopic – review

Rather than attempting to retell the life story of its subject, Pier Paolo Pasolini, this film simply presents a day in his life – his last day, leading up to his murder at Ostia.
Like the myths that confounded the Greeks, the latest twist in Game of Thrones has challenged its audience. HBO. Game of Thrones airs on Foxtel's showcase channel

Game of Thrones has reignited the Greek tale of Iphigeneia

In recreating a perennial mythic tale in the latest episode, the creative taskforce behind Game of Thrones has cast us, the audience, as modern ancients. Warning: spoilers!
Fury Road revisits the originality of Australian New Wave film-making by representing absurd, new and null cultural signs. @Warner Bros

Stanza and deliver – the filmic poetry of Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max: Fury Road has generated heated coverage since its release last month. But focussing on the film’s terse script may be missing the point: it should be read as a poem, and a provocative one at that.
The Lemmings cast. Left to right: Garry Goodrow, Peter Elbling, Chevy Chase, Chris Guest, John Belushi, Mary-Jennifer Mitchell, Alice Peyton. © National Lampoon

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon – review

Most of us are familiar with the National Lampoon films of the 70s and 80s. But this documentary offers insight into the magazine of the same name and the questionable dynamics of modern satire.
Peter Greenaway brings Eisenstein to ferocious life in Mexico. Submarine

Eisenstein in Guanajuato half pulsates with sexual vitality

Peter Greenaway’s new biopic of the famed Soviet director depicts a period spent in Mexico and an affair that – in Greenaway’s telling – had a transformative effect on Eisenstein’s output.
Critics have been preoccupied with the gender politics of Fury Road. Enter the Doof Warrior … © Warner Bros. Pictures and © Roadshow Films

The Doof Warrior rocks the gender divide in Mad Max: Fury Road

The Doof Warrior in Mad Max: Fury Road is a red-jumpsuited, masked guitarist, bungee-strapped to the front of the Doof Wagon, a massive, mobile speaker stack, replete with on-board drummers. What’s not to love?
Should the offset for screen producers apply to all films made in Australia? Yes, even the ones that ruffle a few feathers. mark sebastian/Flickr

Australian film funding shouldn’t be a beauty contest – here’s why

The producers of a creationist doc took advantage of Screen Australia’s tax offsets. Were they exploiting a loophole? Hardly – and there’s good reason why producers of all films should enjoy such benefits.
The current climate is inviting us to conceive of Baltimore as an example of Italian legal philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s ‘state of exception’. EPA/John Taggart

Reviewing Baltimore through Serial, The Wire and race riots

The current climate is inviting us to conceive of Baltimore not as a place where the law doesn’t work but, more radically, as an example of Italian legal philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s “state of exception”.
After recent lacklustre ratings MasterChef is back with a bang – so what’s the secret? MasterChef/Network Ten

What MasterChef teaches us about food and the food industry

While MasterChef might teach us a lot about food and food trends, it also glosses over some of the harsher realities of the industry that produces this food. What’s the secret to its sudden ratings boost?
Films such as Avatar idealise indigenous people as Noble Savages, enjoying simple and uncorrupted lifestyles until contact with colonisers. Nicole Hanusek

Anthropologists do well in movies, indigenous peoples not so much

In a recent study, of the 53 films watched that had at least one anthropologist as a character, just under half belonged to the horror genre. Why should that be the case? And how were indigenous peoples in those films portrayed?
How does Fury Road fit into the continuum of George Miller’s earlier films? © Warner Bros. Pictures and © Roadshow Films

Frenzy on Fury Road: Mad Max faces a post-digital apocalypse

There are metal spikes, sadistic implements of torture galore, massive machine guns mounted on the top of buggies, jeeps, motorcycles, and more leather than a Judas Priest concert. But does it work?

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