Sunday, November 2, 2008
Director: George Romero With the exception of “Night Of The Living Dead” each of Romero’s zombie films has had elements of satire and social criticism. In this film, taking a stylistic cue from such films as “The Blair Witch Project” and “Cloverfield”, he is taking shots (physical and metaphysical)... Sign in to see full entry.
Reply To AardigeAfrikaner: Part 13 - Be Afraid
The NZ Constitution is made up of a large number of Acts of Parliament and an even larger number of unwritten conventions.. One convention involved the idea of the small constitutional change - this applied to any changes in conventions oertaining to the financing and management of government... Sign in to see full entry.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Auckland International Film Festival: The Orphanage
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona The one film of the festival I was really looking forward to seeing and so (unsurprisingly) the only one that disappointed. It is a triumph of style over substance - and it could have been so much better. Instead it wears its referants on its sleeve - “Turn Of The... Sign in to see full entry.
Reply To AardigeAfrikaner: Part 12 - Party Like It’s 1999
By 1999 Labour had again refashioned itself as a mainstream Centrist Party and rode to power on a wave of boredom with National Party policies. Once again it had a secret agenda. Almost immediately it set about dismantling our Constitution. In my next blog I will list its more sinister changes and... Sign in to see full entry.
Auckland International Film Festival: Not Quite Hollywood
Director:Mark Hartley A documentary on the Australian film industry of the seventies and early eighties. This was a time when Australia wasn’t making the mistakes of New Zealand (basically a government monopoly on film investments. Politicians wanted to be associated with “worthy” projects rather... Sign in to see full entry.
Reply To AardigeAfrikaner: Part 11 - The Maori Wards
From the 19 th Century and into the early 20 th Maori society began to fragment along a rural/”urban” devide. The drift to the cities became a flood from 1950 onwards. Maori, in the early stage of this drift, tended to be progressives - either they felt Maori, in order to survive, needed to adapt to... Sign in to see full entry.
Gallipoli:”thousands come to see this place after the war”
October, 1915 27 Tuesday: "The Dardanelles expedition wasted a great chance". (T.E. Lawrence - but note T.E. uses the word "great" always in a specialised sense. "Little" was the word he used to show the utmost contempt and "great" was always a word of high praise). 28 Wednesday: Munro arrives at... Sign in to see full entry.
Reply To AardigeAfrikaner: Part 10 - Jim Bolger: Political Genius
New Zealand had suffered the thuggery of Sir Robert Muldoon and the class treachery of the Labour Party. The country was sick and tired of a political system where a party with the minority of votes could still form a government. They were tired of political bickering; of the sound of fiddling... Sign in to see full entry.
Spring Walk
On The trip to Australia my camera died so I ended up buying a new one. Back home I bought another. Meanwhile here's a few pictures of the development going on behind my house. Sign in to see full entry.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Gallipoli: “Hymns not infrequently came to extreme grief “
October, 1915 20 Tuesday: "The experience of Private McRae was far from uncommon. On 7 August, during the desperate fighting for Chunuk Bair, McRae wrote in his small pocket diary: ‘ A lot of prisoners taken. We rushed trenches after they left got hit on thigh. The entire entry for the following day... Sign in to see full entry.