Friday, December 08, 2017

THE GODFATHER AT 45: Why It Endures

“The most interesting question about Fox is, ‘What do you do when you realize you’re not going to be the person that you want to be?'”

Hang a shining star upon the highest bough ... Cold River Minus 37 Years ;-)

The Chair of the committee, Luke Howarth MP, stated that ‘Australia’s film and television industry makes very important cultural and economic contributions to the nation. These proposed reforms will greatly enhance the growth and sustainability of this industry into the future.’
‘Technological advances have significantly changed the way Australians now access their screen content and the policy settings need to be updated to reflect this’, added Mr Howarth.
The report can be accessed from the Committee’s website  Recommendations for reforms to the film and television industry announced

TONIGHT WE’RE GONNA PARTY LIKE IT’S 1982: A Band Without a No. 1 Hit Is Outselling Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran

IT’S OFFICIAL — NOW EVERYTHING IS OVER-HOPPED: Scientists turn beer into fuel


You Know How People Start Reading Books And Don’t Finish? They’re No Better About Audiobooks



“New stats revealed this week by audiobooks.com showed how many (or few) of us get to the end of a range of audiobooks. They make tough reading for Craig Oliver, whose No 10 [Downing St] Brexit memoirs, Unleashing Demons, kept only 20% of readers rapt until the end. The oft-unfinished War and Peace retained about the same proportion through its 60-plus hours of narration (stats were not available for Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time).”






Both Kafka (The Trial) and Orwell (1984) wrote novels whose plots were set against the background of an authoritarian state, which exercised its powers via a faceless and non-accountable bureaucracy. In both novels, the main protagonist becomes the helpless victim of the system.

If The Godfather (1972) had come out a decade earlier than it actually did, audiences would have resisted it. You can imagine viewers asking: How are we supposed to get wrapped up in the internal disputes of this band of amoral brigands and murderers? Who is the good guy here? Doesn’t the film celebrate evil, or at least condone it? Why is Michael Corleone’s depravity rewarded instead of punished at the end?
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By 1972, the sense that America was not necessarily being run on the square had serious traction. The Pentagon Papers had been published the year before. Vietnam seemed to be rife with dishonor. At one point, Kay says that, unlike Vito Corleone, “Senators and presidents don’t have men killed.” It’s a view nearly everyone shared in 1962, but by 1972 the audience’s sympathies were with Michael, who responds that Kay is being naïve.


Amazon's data theft means it's a real Big Bother



‘What law change?’ Same-sex couples on registries’ backlog.
NSW alone is letting same-sex couples pre-emptively notify their marriage plans. For the other BDM registries it's bureaucratic tradition: 'computer says no'.