Unruly Liberal

Part two of SBS documentary series Liberal Rule will air tonight at 8:30pm.

Last weeks episode "Cycles of Power" was brilliant. It is inevitably being compared to the ABC's documentary The Howard Years, after the ABC withdrew SBS access to its archives (preferring to keep the archival material for its own project).

Creators of Liberal Rule, Nick Torrens and Frank Haines have said that the reneging on the agreement to access archival material has resulted in Liberal Rule being a much tighter, well-packaged piece than it might have been - and it is certainly well worth watching.

Comparatively though, I don't think any political documentary could beat the introduction of The Howard Years - it's quite simply some of the smartest editing you'll see - it encapsulates in less than one minute the relationship between Howard and Costello;

I remember seeing this for the first time and nearly jumping out of my chair at the sheer brilliance of it. It is certainly worthy of a fist-in-the-air and I'm not sure anything I've seen on Liberal Rule has come close to it.

Welcome SBS TWO

SBS TWO was launched today - it's promo's are dreamy (though played too often - something I hope is 'first-week overkill') and the content looks to be enticing. I already sat down to a treat at 6:05pm with the screening of the Academy Award winning Australian short-film, Harvie Krumpet.

The week-long evening international film line-up looks great and the promise of more documentaries and local content has me excited (- mind you, it doesn't take much).

Here's vid of the promo's and idents:


They look amazing in hi-def digital. (SBS certainly have some talented animators on their staff.)

Looking forward to more options ... bring on the 'freeview'.