Happy 11th Birthday to and from FILM ALERT 101

Vale David Stratton 1939-2025

Happy Birthday to Film Alert 101. This blog started up in November 2014. Since that time there have been 3177 posts and, allegedly according to the stats kept by the blog itself 2,321,193 page views. Over the last twelve months the page views have exceeded 708,000. The highest viewed post over the last 12 months may perhaps be a surprise to many, myself included, but it was signposted as an Open Letter to Bill Mousoulis about Angie Black’s THE FIVE PROVOCATIONS. It was posted way back on 13 September 2018 and I cant really explain why it would continue to be so favoured. If you want to read it  click here  

The highest page views of all time have been recorded for a fiery piece from the late David Stratton who, back in August 2020 took serious exception to MIFF caving in and withdrawing the film THE TROUBLE WITH BEING BORN from its line-up. David’s piece click here  followed an earlier one by Tom Ryan, also in the top ten of all time click here and both of them led to a strong response from critic Karl Quinn which is also in the Top Ten. click here Nothing like a bit of film festival controversy, as I discovered when, way back in 2016, I published what was for a long time the most read post, a piece by Tony Rayns about the state of the Busan Film Festival and the sacking of its then director click here 

Here’s Tony’s final paragraph of that one.

“I had very little first-hand knowledge of the “dark days” under military governments in Korea (my first visit to the country was in 1988, when the worst was over), but I know from Russia, China and Singapore amongst other countries how authoritarian governments work. They don’t believe in debate and don’t tolerate opposing points of view. Their first instinct is not to meet opposition with counter-arguments but to silence it. When Busan Metropolitan City Council tells BIFF not to screen a documentary that’s critical of the government, it’s a textbook example of an attack on free speech and an impulse to silence opposing voices. Apparently Korea’s right-wing politicians haven’t noticed or understood the changes since 1993. Apparently they are nostalgic for the “dark days” of censorship, of silencing dissenting voices and of strict social control. I’ve always thought that Korea has a very bright future, and I’ve said so in public many times, but the pig-headed political tactics of Busan’s city council mark a step back into the past. It makes no sense to me.”

 

Sentiments that are still relevant all over…

 

Over the last twelve months the following people were contributors and I thank them all: Janice Tong, Rod Bishop, Bruce Hodsdon, Barrie Pattison, Tom Ryan, David Hare, John Baxter, Joel Archer, Frank Shields, Pat Fiske, Adrian Danks, Michael Organ, Ray Edmondson, James Vaughan, Bruce Beresford, Alena Lodkina, Peter Tammer, John Timlin, Barrett Hodsdon and Zac Tomé.

If you click on any of the names above it will take you through to one of their contributions.

The Current Cinema ...and the dearth of people being paid to write about it...

The Art Critic by Raoul Hausmann

A now dead old friend once said to me that really is there any need to make any new movies. There are still tens of thousands of films that you still haven't seen and you can hunt those down and look at lots of others over again. Such a turn of events would probably put film critics, at least those diminishing few who still get paid to write or talk about new movies, right out of business. The newspapers may even breathe a sigh of relief.

This little line of thought was prompted early this morning when I checked to see whom and what the Australian Financial Review had published today following its unceremonious, unwarranted and probably quite vindictive sacking of John McDonald a couple of weeks ago. Last week the AFR replaced John's film column with something from  the New York Times by Beatrice Loayza, who, her website tells, is a regular contributor to the New York Times, Artforum, the Criterion Collection, the Nation, 4Columns, Film Comment, Sight & Sound, Guardian, and other publications.

It seems the AFR is not moving at all to replace John, no doubt a modest cost-saving but one which does the paper's reputation no credit at all. Today it has a scathingly unfavourable review of a new film called Venom:The Last Dance reprinted from London's Daily Telegraph.

I'm pretty sure that the overlapping interest between AFR readers and this Marvel franchise effort is likely minimal, especially if they read down to the second half of paragraph two and get an opinion of the film as 'a yammeringly moronic, teenage-boy-pandering eyesore of the old school, with little to offer any viewer whose age or counting ability exceeds the low 20s." Take that AFR reader...go no further. Those Brits know how to hurl an insult. Bob Ellis would have been impressed.

But, and you would never know it from our newspapers, there are still eight or ten or more new releases each week. So if we are going to have new films then it's time for new critics and indeed some more critics. There are plenty around. They do online publications, blogs, podcasts, broadcasts on community radio and probably much more. Their enthusiasm levels are quite overwhelming. The AFR, The Australian (which never replaced David Stratton, just reduced the number of film reviews from four to two) and any of the ailing Nine (ex-Fairfax) papers should be on the case.

It's time to get serious about film reviewing again and pay some more reviewers.

Or else people are going to be more and more like me...and only want to see old movies anyway. This week's treasures, (though as well as watching Dylan River and Tanith-Glynn Maloney's ripper eight parter Thou Shalt Not Steal  streaming on SBS), included the umpteenth viewing of Adieu Philippine and another reminder of just how good is Peter Yates adaptation of George V. Higgins great novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle.