Search
This area does not yet contain any content.
Justinian News

Reynolds can't get over it ... Former senator drops off news to her favourite hacks at The Australian ... Linda Reynolds is suing the Commonwealth and lawyers HWL Ebsworth over the Brittany Higgins settlement ... Claim that $2.4 million payment to former staffer affirmed Higgins' allegation ... Read more >> 

Politics Media Law Society


Rupert World ... Lord Moloch’s pal Doug the Diva – driving Washington spare … News UK’s model for unionism … What next for the Washington Post? … Concealed coal lobbyists running an anti-Teal campaign … More corruption busting for Stinging Nettle … The litigation industry spawned by Lehrmann ... Read on >> 

The eagle cracked

Free Newsletter
Justinian Columnists

Party time for Dicey ... Heydon's book - a pathway to rehabilitation ... The predatory man and the clever intellect - all wrapped up in the one person ... Academic tome and cancel agenda ... Despite the plaudits the record of abuse doesn't vanish ... Book launch with young associates at a safe distance ... Procrustes thinks out loud ... Read more >> 

Blow the whistle

 

News snips ...


The Lubyanka ... Bullying investigation into former Federal Court judge goes nowhere ... "Complaint unsubstantiated" ... Phew! ... Recommendations about staff education ... Nothing recommended for judicial induction ... More >> 

 

Justinian's Bloggers

Governance turmoil at Tiny Town Law Society ... Night of the long knives ... Lakeside in Canberra ... ACT Law Society upheaval over governance changes ... Bodies carted out of the council room ... Blood on the carpet ... Fraught litigation another distraction ... From Gang Gang ... Read more >> 

"We're in unchartered territory here. A Pope hasn't died before during an Australian election campaign."  

Jane Norman, National Affairs Correspondent, ABC News ... April 21, 2025 ... Read more flatulence ... 


Justinian Featurettes

Letter from Rome ... Judges on strike ... Too much "reform" ... Berlusconi legacy ... Referendum on the way ... Constitutional court inflames the Meloni regime with decision on boat people ... Insults galore ... Silvana Olivetti reports ... Read more >> 


Justinian's archive

Tea is for Tippy ... Life of a tiffstaff ... Bright, ambitious and, when it comes to the crucial things, hopeless ... Milking the glory of the gig ...  Introducing Tippy, our new blogger filing from within the concrete cage at Queens Square ... From Justinian's Archive, March 15, 2010 ...  Read more >> 


 

 

« Noisy statues | Main | Tributes to David Levine »
Friday
May292020

What and what not to watch

Miss Lumière's guide to eight of the best and two of the worst on a screen near you ... The not-so idiot box ... Documentaries, drama, politics, sex ... From Lee Miller to Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein ... The human experience in its many shades  

Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich (Netflix)

Good title. And that's just the beginning of the pleasures/horrors presented in this measured examination of just how known paedophile (and all-round sleaze) Jeffrey Epstein got away with it for so long. This well-composed four part series (directed by Lisa Bryant) gives voice to many of Epstein's legion of teenage victims (a "sexual pyramid scheme") and covers police investigations going back to 1996, journalists and employees intimidated or bought off, and lawyers perverting the course of justice. While some questions remain unanswered, Filthy Rich lives up to its name - morally repugnant and rich in detail.  

The Plot Against America (Foxtel)

1940's America, from a Philip Roth novel, with fascism rampant, Charles Lindbergh as president, John Turturro as an unctuous, apologist rabbi and Winona Ryder surprisingly brittle and brilliant as his social-climbing wife. What's not to like? Very little it turns out. This six-part series skewers both an imagined past and the frightening present. Political insanity runs riot, carrying with it Roth's divided New Jersey Jewish family. A chilling satire on all things American. 

Normal People (Stan)

There's nothing normal here, from the sensitively written script to the radiant performances of the two young leads - Daisy Edgar-Jones as poor-little-rich-girl Marianne and Paul Mescal as hunky working class Connell. Normal People, based on the book by Ireland's latest literary sensation Sally Rooney, traces Connell and Marianne's love affair (passionate, tortured, pure and ultimately kind) from high school to the end of university. It's a sometimes-painful rite of passage, full of raw sex, yet utterly romantic. Perfect fare for those who remember what it was like to be young and un-free.

Capturing Lee Miller (YouTube) 

Model, bohemian, surrealist, adventuress, war photographer, victim; the fantastical story of Lee Miller is brought to life in this elegant, probing documentary full of insights from the various worlds she inhabited. Miller moved (not quite seamlessly) from Man Ray's Paris studio to Hitler's Munich bathtub. Along the way she lived a louche life in Cairo and London and documented the horrors of Dachau (for Vogue magazine), which more or less ended her love affair with the still image. Particularly moving is her son, the photographer Antony Penrose, who uncovered his mother's extraordinary life and stunning body of work only after she died. 

Mrs America (Foxtel)

Cate Blanchett has never been more creepily coiffed or coldly determined than as Phyllis Schlafly, the self-appointed moral guardian of American housewives' right to remain stagnant. Set in the sexy seventies, Mrs America centres on the battle to get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified by at least three-quarters of the 50 US states. Mrs Schlafly and her pearl-jammed band of Republican housewives are up against the times - in the shape of glamourpuss feminist Gloria Steinem (a groovy turn by Rose Byrne), Bella Abzug (an hilarious Margot Martindale) and godmother of the "libbers" Betty Friedan (a very angry Tracey Ullman) among others. It's a romp, with enough great music, bad hair, flared trousers and crass politicking to last nine episodes.  

The Capture (ABC iView)

A clever examination of the power of digital surveillance and its employment for vile political ends. Made by the BBC, this contemporary and all too plausible thriller tells the story of a British soldier charged with a war crime. The footage has been manipulated, but by whom, and why? Written and directed by Ben Chanan, The Capture is a rollicking, tense drama that kept Miss Lumière guessing (almost) until the end. With steely cinematography and uniformly fine performances from Callum Turner as the soldier, Holliday Grainger as the detective and Laura Haddock as the barrister.

The Clinton Affair (SBS On Demand)

Six episodes is a long haul for any affair, but this documentary shows that the good 'ole boy from Arkansas had sufficient smarm and grit to make it last. Crisply directed by Blair Foster, The Clinton Affair traverses a landscape littered with sex scandals, financial malfeasance, political skulduggery and insider gossip. The producers have done a fine job trawling through the archival footage and getting so many protagonists (significantly, not the Clintons) to talk. Twenty years after Monica Lewinsky, Whitewater and the Starr investigation, the whole affair seems half-as-grubby and twice as fascinating. 

I Am Not Your Negro (SBS On Demand) 

Featuring the incomparably eloquent black writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin, Raoul Peck's mesmerising 2016 documentary looks at the story of race in America. Baldwin's words (powerfully rendered by Samuel L. Jackson) may be finely honed, but his critique of the mechanics of institutionalised racism is both fierce and lethal. Based on Baldwin's unfinished novel Remember This House, and with stirring archival appearances by Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jnr and Medgar Evers, this is an intelligently crafted look at America's blighted racial politics. 

The Great  (Foxtel) 

Despite its promising credentials (created by The Favourite's co-writer, Tony McNamara) The Great just isn't. It's tedious. And puerile. And unforgivably unfunny for a satire. Russian empress Catherine the Great (a misdirected Elle Fanning) and her spoilt emperor husband Peter (a pantomime Nicolas Hoult) have little more than adolescent slapstick to play with, so overwrought and underwritten is this series. Watch it for the costumes, with the sound off and a big, stiff vodka.

The Eddy   (Netflix)

If it weren't for the occasional thrilling piece of jazz (a special mention to singer Joanna Kulig from Cold War), The Eddy might easily disappear down the streaming gurgler. If only. This inexcusable waste of digitised soap has all the excitement of a late-night visit to McDonald's (in Paris) - with lighting just as bad. A confused French-American co-production that fails narratively and fakes most things, except the music. Not even La La Land's Damien Chazelle can save this chien's breakfast.

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.
Editor Permission Required
You must have editing permission for this entry in order to post comments.