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Short and Sweet feels more Sour
Proclaiming to be the biggest little short play festival in the world, Short and Sweet is currently showcasing 90 of the best original short plays chosen for the festival at both the Newtown Theatre and the Seymour Centre. Every night 10 ten-minute plays are performed at each venue and each week one of the plays is voted through to the gala final. I attended the first week of short and sweet to see what was on offer and to hopefully have my faith in Australian Theatre rekindled. But sadly I was disappointed.
The task of putting together a ten-minute play in the time frame of a couple of weeks appeared to be relatively beyond most of the directors and performers of this festival. Poor choices were made, scenes were rushed, and overall, the entire festival appeared to be very poorly organised. It took me half an hour to have someone actually locate my tickets, I was sent up and down stairs, talked to three different people, and by the end of it I felt like I was in an Abbott and Costello film…except nobody was laughing.
The stand out play was without question The Stallion of Death, written by Drew Fairley, directed by Jo Turner and performed flawlessly by Kate Worsley and Gibson Nolte. It was fast, fresh and gut-bustingly funny; a real treat after the first four plays did little more than make me grateful I had brought a large glass of wine into the auditorium with me. And at $23 per ticket, I was expecting a higher calibre of work.
I adore theatre. I think we should be promoting theatre in Australia and desperately encouraging new works. But we should be encouraging the best of the best. There is no place for mediocrity when the industry is already struggling as it is. Having said this, there are definitely some gems in Short and Sweet that are not to be missed, but if you want to enjoy the best of the best, I would recommend saving yourself for the gala final when all the unworthy plays have been weeded out.
Atonement (2007)
Drama/ Romance/ War
It’s official. The Academy Awards are rubbish. If you want to know whether you are the best in your field, it is no longer kosher to rely on the Oscars for an answer because they people behind these little gold guys have clearly all lost their minds. I suspected so when Gwyneth Paltrow won an award for Shakespeare in Love, beating out the brilliant Cate Blanchett in 1998. I was almost convinced when Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won matching Oscars in 2001 – how perfect, I was even further prompted when Nicole Kidman won for her role as Virginia Woolf (The Hours) in 2002, a role which was fervently and most obviously surpassed by the ever-talented Toni Collette, who appeared in a cameo role in the same film. Did they just have no one else to give it to? Is it really that difficult to perform in a prosthetic nose? Who knows?
In any case, my suspicions of a major Academy Award sell out have now been confirmed with the nomination of Atonement at this year’s soiree. This film has been nominated for a mind boggling seven Academy Awards. Seven! Is the academy giving away an award for ‘Most Outrageous Lips in a Supporting Role’ this year? Because that is the only thing I can imagine this film being nominated for. Best Picture? Pfft! Best Screenplay? I say! Has somebody gone absolutely stark raving mad? This film is rubbish! Hell, even Knightley’s lips have managed to surpass her acting abilities!
If this film serves as any form of advertisement for the novel it is based on, then it is an extremely poor one. I mean, this was a bestselling novel for Christ sakes. And everyone knows one of the golden rules of film/ storytelling is never to cheat the audience. Deceive them, yes, tease them, sure…but writing a script that is the equivalent of a seven-year-old’s ‘and then I woke up and it was all a dream’ idea, is just too insulting to bear. Never mind the fact that this film basically has no subplot (oh wait, there is a war in there somewhere but nothing really happens and no one really cares). In fact, the film reaches its pinnacle within the first thirty minutes or so and then plummets from that point onward.
They should have just called it 'Disappointment', considering that the beginning of the film was quite intriguing and definitely well written. But sentiment soon took the place of good old fashioned story telling and although it was moving at times, it was ultimately unfulfilling. Although, I will say that the library scene between McAvoy and Knightley did make it worth my cashola. In fact, I’d probably buy it on DVD for that single piece of cinema alone. That scene is hot, hot, hot! If only the rest of the film could have provided as much heat.
Despite the terrible story, Saoirse Ronan was very convincing as the young catalyst for disaster, and James McAvoy was so brilliantly doe eyed that I am surprised women weren’t throwing their panties at the screen. But Keira….oh Keira. She is an absolute beauty, I’ll give her that. Perfect features, elegant stature, looks like a spoon; she could switch from actress to Supermodel within the blink of an eye. But her acting skills leave much to be desired, in fact, the more experience she gets; the more her acting skills seem to deteriorate. I believe I liked her best in Bend it like Beckham back in the day when she was young and green. But I do wish she’d give those lips a rest.
Overall, Atonement was beautifully shot yet ultimately unsatisfying. It wanted to be a Romeo and Juliet but sadly we weren’t given enough time with the characters to really identify with them at all, and the character of Briony was as dislikeable when she was an atoned old woman as she was when she was a spoiled, bratty child. If the moral of this story is don’t let your mouth write a cheque your conscience can’t cash, then I need to have a word to the makers of this film.
Poor form, old chaps. Poor form.
The 80’s Fashion Revival.
Let me begin by saying that I was born in 1980 and I am thus a proud lover of everything 80’s…well, almost everything. Cyndi Lauper, yes, frizzy bangs, no. Some great music came out of that era, some good flicks too, but to be honest, the fashion left something to be desired. Remember leg warmers, fluoro headbands, oversized T-shirts, stonewash, whitewash, beauty moles ala Madonna, fingerless gloves, cropped jumpers, mesh half-shirts, and scrunchies? You probably do because they are all suddenly back in fashion, well, maybe not the scrunchies, but pretty much everything else.
If you’re adventurous, you’re probably wishing your older sister had held onto her legwarmers, huh? And although stores like Supre do a vast range of 80’s styles and prints, there is a special place in every fashionista’s realm of respect for true vintage pieces. A stonewash cut off denim vest actually worn once by Belinda Carlisle? Swoon. But this can be difficult and expensive. The trick is buying some basic pieces that you can team with vintage pieces to create an original yet neo-80’s look. Nobody is going to break out the Snoopy knee length jumper just yet….give it time. But rainbow coloured shoelaces, fluoro headbands and glitter are all great options as a starting point. You can also break out the sewing machine, puff paints and the rhinestoner because D.I.Y is what 80’s fashion is all about.
However, you don’t want to look like Olivia Newton John circa ‘Let’s Get Physical’, even if the plan is to actually get physical tonight, and you certainly don’t want Mr. T turning up telling you to ‘quit your jibber jabber’. As with any fashion trend, it really is all about confidence and the ability to feel comfortable in what you are wearing. So when you’re standing in front of the mirror, looking yourself up and down in hot pink leggings, lime green push down socks, a Wham T-shirt, and colour coordinated sweatbands, think about how you will feel when you’re standing in the middle of Oxford Street. Are you going to be singing Roxette’s “She’s Got the Look” or Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust”? And remember; nobody wants be wearing their sunglasses at night.
The 80’s was a time of great decadence and extroverted self-expression, see Tim Burton’s Batman – the Joker is a perfect example of the era’s respect for colour and loud, abstract images. The Wheelers of Walter Murch’s Return to Oz are also wonderful homages to 80’s punk rock and who didn’t want to look like Molly Ringwald or Phoebe Cates? In fact, 80’s movies are a great place to start if you don’t have access to any old magazines or your sister’s fashion archives. The internet is also a winner. It was all about bold statements. Logos and trademarks were huge at the time (if anyone finds an original Pepsi T-shirt please call me!) and it was a very commercial era. No wonder then that it has recently come back with a vengeance – like a Die Hard film.
If you’re tentative, I would suggest starting small. A checked headband, some leggings or an oversized T-shirt is a good start. Good fashion is about comfort and expressing who you are. If you are going to get out on the town and be lingering in dark corners like a mouse, that’s no fun at all. However, if quirky is your middle name, book in for a break dancing class, and dust off the stonewash jeans and the crimper because the 80’s are like totally bitchin’.
September 28th 2007 06:13
September 26th 2007 03:36
September 19th 2007 03:44
September 17th 2007 04:55
September 13th 2007 02:47
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Comment by Emma
on As David Bowie once said...