Year in Review

The ABC News tonight played an amazing mash-up in the last few minutes of the program - it's a fantastic piece of smart editing and can be seen here.

There's also some great stuff on the Year in Review page on the website.

Of course the best wrap-up of the year in review for Australian media is the Walkley Awards, which can be found here.

Safran from the Archives

John Safran: The Lost Pilot was aired last night on ABC1.

After more than a decade in the ABC vaults, the dust was blown off the old reel to reel (alright, maybe it's not that old) and was shown to the masses - except that it was aired at 10:05pm - which isn't exactly prime-time. I don't know what the programmers were thinking putting it on that late, let alone keeping this little treasure under wraps for so long. It is grade-A Safran in all his biting-sarcasm-glory.

It also has the now infamous "Paxton V's Martin" scene where Safran and Shane Paxton confront Ray Martin outside his home in a current-affairs-style ambush. When Ray Martin released his autobiography earlier this year he was still banging on about the incident (and still showed some decided ill-will toward Safran), but to be honest I don't know why he's holding a grudge - the only thing that made him look like an arse was him acting like an arse.

Not to mention the fact that the segment with Martin is probably the least interesting on the pilot. The show is altogether hilarious - particularly John's maniacal monologue berating documentary film makers and his Dalai Llama short-film dancing.

Safran (and co-writer Michelle Bennett) did a brilliant job of the pilot, it's hard to believe it didn't get to air. As Jules Morrow (The Chaser) pointed out on Twitter last night, the ABC's 1998 Annual Report states that comedy for that year was "stretching the boundaries" - Jules thinks, and I agree; not enough. 

You can still catch it on ABC's iView - it's well worth a watch. The DVD will be on sale from January 7 next year.

Women's Weekly Sauce (and not the cranberry kind)

Have you seen the Christmas edition of the Australian Women's Weekly? It's hard to miss. There's a saucy picture of everyone's favourite reality tv loser; Julie Goodwin, from channel 10's Masterchef, adorning the cover in all her red-satin splendour. I was so taken aback by the image, spotted whilst standing in line at my supermarket, that I thought I might do a semiotic analysis.

Here's the cover;

First of all, It's a little bit contradictory to the "homely" image of Jules that is used in every other promo shot for every other kitchen/home product being flogged by every other company. Didn't she win over the Australian public by being the podgy housewife type with a warm cuddle and a suspended halo? It seems AWW decided to shake that image and turn her into a demonic vixen. Too much? Stay with me on this one.

Let's start with the colour red. The colour red in many cultures is synonymous with sexuality and/or danger. It's the colour of blood, linked to menstruation, linked to a girl becoming fertile, linked to a girl becoming a woman, blah blah blah, you get the idea. So link sexuality with danger and you've got one dangerously sexy lady, am I right?

So - the red satin dress. Even without the plunging neck-line (or should that be rib-line?) red satin oozes vamp. That dress is hot - and the ample bosom spilling forth from it is even hotter. One wonders if her nipples have been airbrushed out of the picture on the grounds of common decency! If you need further evidence of the red-dress hotness appeal just flick to pages 37 and 39 of the mag to see the steaming shots of everyone's favourite man-eater Penelope Cruz. Red. Satin. Sex.

Let's move on to her stance. It's a very "come hither" pose really. The open chest area, though on a slight angle, suggests attentiveness to the viewer and the downward angle of the camera makes the viewer dominant. Basically, Julie is interested in you. You might as well be holding a glistening roast turkey, oozing cranberry sauce, pierced with thyme sprigs, surrounded by baked ... alright, alright - obviously I flicked through the food section.

Now let's get to my favourite part of the picture. The balls. So, so many balls. Julie is coveting the balls. She holds the balls, is the master of the balls ... have I said "balls" enough times already? No? There's a whole lot of balls in this picture, yes? One more time; balls. Alright, I think I got that out of me.

Obviously her face has been airbrushed. It seems thinner and sharper than the pictures inside the mag. The cocked eyebrow = sexy. The smoky eye makeup = sexy. The dominance of the long nose by the slight downward angle on the shot = sexy. But why does Julie not have red lipstick on? It's thoroughly dissapointing. And her cheeks could be a bit more flushed for my liking which would suit the 'windswept' look of her hair - like she's just been romping around amongst the decorative baubles with the copy-boy before being snapped by the camera.

Let's see, what else is there? Well, she's dripping in diamonds - and who do you think of when you think diamonds? That's right, in a similar cut dress Marilyn Monroe vamped her way to immortality in the 1953 film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She sang the song Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend - which has since been copied by other sexually-charged artists such as Madonna, Eartha Kitt, Beyonce, Kylie Minogue and Anna Nicole Smith (though I'm not sure that last one can technically be categorised as an 'artist' as such). What the hell was my point? Oh yeah, Jules dripping in diamonds = sexy.

You think I'd be about done, right? Well there's a few little things, like the fact that she has "joy" written across her breast. If you look inside the mag you can even get a taste of Julie's "sweet treats" (alright, that one was a bit wrong - even worse if you imagine Homer Simpson saying it with his head reclined and drool dripping from his mouth). Add to all this that, as Andrew Bolt advised us yesterday; large-breasted women are going to steal your husband, this is one sexually charged, hot-tamale of a picture.

Clearly it has had a profound effect on me - causing me to question all that I thought was true and good in this world. Have the bright-lights of stardom and cling-wrap promotion turned our once wholesome Julie into the man-eating hussy we see before us? Or has the Australian Women's Weekly gone a tad overboard on the "glam" factor for this years x-mas special? I'll let you decide - but don't be surprised if you find a well-worn copy of this edition of AWW stuffed in your partners gym bag.

Oh yeah, and BALLS.

Hey Hey, Welcome Back to the Future

Well, well, well. Hey Hey it's Saturday has been green-lighted for 20 "special" episodes (otherwise known as a series) on channel 9 next year. Besides the fact that it's to air on a Wednesday, making the title a little beyond a joke, it looks like Molly Meldrum won't be involved due to his contractual obligations to channel 7 and Foxtel. Molly was the clear, and almost only, highlight of the two specials aired this year. Otherwise it was a series of awkward 'dad jokes' and ditzy girls in too-short-skirts giggling maniacally at Darryl's idiotic jests.

Seriously though, why are we moving backward when there is so much young talent fighting for a head-shot on Australian tv? Rove hung up his gloves recently (in some circles to much applause) but at least Rove Live gave a leg-up to talented people like Ryan Shelton and, love them or hate them, Hamish and Andy.

The Hamish and Andy current affairs spoof "Real Stories" (aired on channel 10 in 2006) was really very funny and didn't get nearly as much kudos as it should have.  Meanwhile we have dinosaurs like Darryl Somers making fart-jokes and vomit-in-your-mouth sexual innuendos rating through the roof.

I don't want to see Somers and Co (who, for the record, were rarely funny the first time round) return with more of the same old crap. The specials were an interesting lesson in nostalgia - with the realisation that (a) you can't go back and (b) what you thought was funny when you were twelve is really, really not very funny.

Want mature people on tv? How about people like Brian Nankervis, Andrew Denton, George Negus, Shaun Micallef? I want to see more of them (- yes, I want to see more of Shaun Micallef and yes, I understand that he currently hosts a show on channel 10 and yes, I have seen him recently feature in every other variety/game-show program on channel 10, and yes, I did spend most of Saturday watching The Micallef P(r)ogramme on DVD). And for a fresh young spin on entertainment, we have plenty of talent in John Safran, Julia Zemiro, the Chaser Boys, Ryan Shelton and Lawrence Leung - creating quality entertainment and fresh ideas.

Hungry Beast on the ABC might have been hit and miss but at least it was something a bit different. The Chaser's War on Everything was controversial - but isn't that a good thing? - don't we want our television to challenge us? To force us to take sides and think about things of importance - rather than to sit drooling with a packet of CC's in front of the plasma laughing at yet another dick-joke from a head on a stick?

I'm dissapointed that after the "black-face incident" channel 9 were still willing to give Hey Hey another go, yet new projects with actual potential don't get a second look. Good luck to Australia circa 2020 as Somers and the gang continue their misogynist, racist, archaic crap and assist in teaching another generation of kids that 'different' is bad and that women are decorative fashion accessories. Maybe they'll have Tony Abbott as a special guest.

Devine Intervention for Abbott

The Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine today has a piece about Tony Abbott's female supporters. She suggests that he is, in fact, beloved by the 'normal' female population, it's just a small proportion of women who find him to be a misogynist bible-bashing ignoramus - she describes these women as;

... the aggressively secular, paleo-feminist, emasculating Australian broad, for whom unabashed red-blooded blokeishness is an affront of biblical proportions.

Really? Biblical proportions? Well she would know about that - being the staunch conservative that she is. But it's the next paragraph that I particularly like;

They are unrepresentative of women, and disproportionately influential, because they either work in the media or politics or have high-profile, heavily networked careers which mean they are quoted in the media, and their opinions sought after.

Why do I like it? Because she's clearly picking a fight with loud and proud feminist and atheist, writer for The Age, Catherine Deveny. I would really like to see these two women have a war of words (or fisticuffs, whichever's easier).

Tony Abbott is a dinosaur. His archaic Christian ideas about women, abortion, divorce and climate change are so far removed from the mainstream mindset that he makes Andrew Bolt look like a reasonable fellow.

I'm waiting patiently for Ms Deveny to put Lady Devine in her place ... please? 

The Wild Things

I was lucky enough to attend the premiere of the much anticipated Spike Jonze film Where the Wild Things Are last night at Melbourne Central. Co-produced by Warner Bros Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures, the film is an adaptation of Maurice Sendak's children's book of the same name and was filmed in Victoria, Australia after a worldwide location scouting process spanning 18 months.

Max is a mischievous young boy. Frustrated with his family and feeling alone, he escapes to an island of his own creation. The inhabitants of the island are giant, wild creatures who crown Max as their King. It's a story of childhood, but not necessarily for children. It's a fantastical tale, but not necessarily with a happy ending.

To be honest, I have never read the children's book - it was the soundtrack by Karen O. (from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) that drew me to the film. I sat down in the theatre with no expectations, no pre-conceived ideas and no knowledge of how the story might end.

Where the Wild Things Are is dark and it's sorrowful and it's full of rage and confusion. Young actor Max Records plays the main character perfectly. He barely needs dialogue to express the painful disappointment of youth and the realisation that growing up brings no relief. His interactions with the monster Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini) are raw and wonderfully animalistic.

There are some great insights into the psychology of aggression and the development of personality in this story. Max's "island escape" gives him only fleeting relief while he deals with the facets of his own personality (represented by the monsters). Eventually his dark side catches up with him there too and he has to understand and challenge his own feelings before he can move on.

The film is sad. It's really, very sad. It's beautifully, heart-breakingly sad. I sat on the tram afterward enveloped in that numbing sadness ... but surprisingly - it's not a downer. There is something really uplifting about embracing that dark-side and playing with it and taking chances and Max is, after all, a hero and we watch and wait for him to conquer all.

Somehow though, even his smile tugs at your heart-strings. 

Please go see this on the big screen, I simply adored it. The cinematography is amazing and the locations truly look like they're from another world. There's a great little video about the Victorian locations here.

The official website for the film is here.

Where the Wild Things Are is in cinemas this Thursday the 3rd of December.