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Behind the lines

I stumble upon an unusual show in the State Library on my way to the bus and what a surprise. It’s strangely relevant without any reference to the dreaded COVID. But Behind the Lines is a political cartoon show based around the year 2019 so there is no pandemic, no stock market crash or storming of the Capitol.. It’s like stepping back in time without the final act. How refreshing to see everything lampooned so. Nothing is off the table. You are taken on a journey that is hilarious and informative and you are reminded of the loony politicians and their destiny of obscurity. Curator and writer, Jennifer Forest had to choose eighty odd pictures from over one thousand exhibits for the show and managed a fabulous selection. The Museum of Australian Democracy of Old Parliament House has a repository of images that defies its somewhat archaic title. Where cartoonists reign, political correctness is certainly absent. Nothing escapes the cutting satire of such traditional means as pen and paper regardless of updated communications such as messaging or YouTube. I guess everything is brought down to size. As I wander around perusing the pictures I can’t help feeling strangely uplifted. Is it because of the lifting of contagion restrictions or because of the lampooning? Who cares this is a gas.

Behind the Lines 2019 is a travelling exhibition developed by Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House

Just a few of the cartoons on display for Behind the Lines 2019

Unhinged

I found myself watching Unhinged at the local cinema and wondered why I was there. Its the first time I could actually visit the cinema after the covid lockdown but it felt anticlimactic. A lawyer friend recommended the flick but it wasn’t until a critical scene that it ‘clicked’. Here is a lawyer on celluloid who is subject to the wrath of a road raging psychopath. The ‘unhinged’ Tom Cooper (Russell Crowe) manages to track them down on his victim’s phone. The grizzly scene is set in a suburban diner and ends quickly enough when Cooper reveals his intent. Continue reading Unhinged

Match Point

In the absence of social media and in the time of flip phones and cigarettes, Match Point still feels strangely modern. Woody Allen’s film is a high stakes drama that stands the test of time. Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) has dropped out of professional tennis and is in search of a new life. A chance encounter with femme fatale Nola (Scarlett Johansson) at his fiancée’s upper class gathering seals his fate. “Are you my next victim?” she says perhaps sensing something beyond their mutual attraction and a shared future. But nothing will prepare her for this liaison.

Continue reading Match Point

Contagion

It’s amazing how quickly things change. In the space of a week we are somewhere else, what we care about, what we act upon. A fortnight ago seems the distant past, another world considering the maelstrom of events. We lived with endless opportunity and unlimited possibilities. You could go anywhere, get anything or even be anything you wanted.

Continue reading Contagion