Television
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SBS promotes New Gold Mountain as showing the plight of Chinese on the gold fields from their perspective. However, according to those I spoke with from Ballarat’s Chinese Library, that view is not shared by descendants of Chinese gold seekers. They are disconcerted by SBS’s depiction of their historyAugust 25, 2024
21 mins
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In the world of competitive chess, the rising strength of computerised programs with almost infinite memory capacity is changing the perception of the game. As detailed in a number of fine and fascinating films, documentaries and series, the hard-won title of Sommelier isn't likely to be snatched away, not now or ever, by some silicon-crusted cyber tasting tongueNovember 4, 2023
22 mins
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Widespread love for 'Lord of the Rings' meant 'Rings of Power' drew a vast global audience to its first two episodes. What they saw is terrible acting, a script loaded with asinine gaffes and goofs, rampant wokeism and characters seemingly crafted to repel viewers' affection. This billion-dollar travesty of a series is worse than bad, it's excruciatingSeptember 12, 2022
8 mins
The latest
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'Cornwall is different to anywhere else in the world and it’s that difference that I want to try to explain and tell you what Cornwall means to me,' declares TV chef Rick Stein, whose SBS series makes as fine a meal of the county's often curious history and characters as of langoustines, mussels and prime cuts of wooly pigsJune 18, 2022
15 mins
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'The Saboteurs' is a beautifully filmed period piece that focuses on one of the most crucial, but little known, missions of the Second World War, the destruction of the Norsk Hydro heavy water plant. To the Allies and resistance fighters who scuttled Hitler's bid for an atomic bomb, the physics were as mysterious as the danger and difficulty of the raid were obviousFebruary 26, 2022
13 mins
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Many slaves who made the dangerous journey to Canada would return, at great risk, to help others find their precarious ways out of bondage. These heroic souls became known as 'conductors' and their stories are inspirational. Amazon's 'The Underground Railroad' is a work of fiction. Remember this and it will help keep your balance when the train goes off the tracksOctober 23, 2021
24 mins
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When Walter Tevis’s novel came out in 1983, it slipped past the mainstream media, but everyone I knew in the Melbourne chess world was familiar with it. Little did anyone at the time suspect that his fantasy of a female chess prodigy would be incarnated in the true story of the three Hungarian-Jewish Polgár sistersFebruary 6, 2021
32 mins
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Long before COVID-19, pandemics of a far more virulent nature stalked the imaginations of novelists and screenwriters, from 'The Andromeda Strain' to Hollywood's more recent fascination with zombie hordes. In Wiltshire, with the help of Russian assassins and the Novichuk nerve agent, those fancies took fleshNovember 29, 2020
14 mins
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Where, oh where, would talentless luvvies go if not for the benevolence of the national broadcaster? Fortunately for the cast, crew and scores -- yes, scores -- of writers who produced 'At Home Alone Together' that's a rhetorical question, as the dispensers of taxpayer cash have concluded gags about dicks, defecation and despicable conservatives are so funny a fresh new series is neededOctober 13, 2020
21 mins
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I saw my self this morning a little way from […]August 28, 2020
30 mins
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The Netflix series is only four episodes, but that's enough for a revealing peek at New York's insular, secretive and ultra-ultra-orthodox Satmar sect, which opposes the very existence of Israel. 'The only real Jews are Hasids,' they preach, 'even a drop of assimilation instantly disqualifies them from being a real Jew'August 9, 2020
20 mins
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My first thought was that the queen of crime could not have ended her novel as the BBC has its adaption -- 'adaption' in this instance being very broadly defined indeed. Yet the mini-series still makes for rewarding viewing right up until the re-written final chapter. That's when the wheels fall off with a thudJuly 4, 2020
17 mins
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Michael Portillo's 'Great Australian Railway Journeys', which sees him retrace George Bradshaw’s nineteenth-century journey through an emerging nation, is a delight, even for those who don't share the peculiar passion in this age of jetliners for getting there by trainJune 6, 2020
16 mins
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Courage is being scared to death … and saddling up […]
March 30, 2020
16 mins
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'History seen through a half-open door' is the way writer Stephen Poliakoff describes his account of the little known and less remembered Prince John, autistic son of George V, who died in 1919. It's also a label that might well be applied to 'Summer of Rockets', a six-part BBC mini-series of twists and intrigue set in the UK of the Cold WarFebruary 16, 2020
23 mins
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The people behind 'Downton Abbey' have turned back the clock even further, illustrating the big story of America's birth in 1606 via the lives of the little people who brought it about. 'Jamestown' is more fun than high culture or history lessons -- a lush, sumptuous and expensive soap, in other wordsDecember 14, 2019
16 mins
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Belief and conviction are what matters in our post-rational world, where people are conditioned by social media and fake news, when daily life is based on wanting and wishing, on assuming identity and taking offence. In postmodern heads, as evidenced by red-cloaked protesters, Margaret Atwood's misandrist dystopia is what is “real”November 6, 2019
11 mins
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There has been great public fascination with the story of […]
October 30, 2019
15 mins
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I'm glad friends encouraged me to persevere with the five-part HBO dramatisation. Indeed, I now consider it one of the most important works I have seen this year, despite facts being bent and characters presented as other than their real-life selves. Those quibbles aside, it remains a drama much greater than the sum of its partsOctober 5, 2019
16 mins
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We were homeward bound one night on the deep, Swinging […]
August 29, 2019
19 mins
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The mini-series charting to path to war in 1914 isn't without its faults, but they are minor. As one reviewer noted, “this three-parter is little short of a triumph—gripping, complex, superbly performed and as clear as clear could be. On this rare occasion, history is better served by drama than documentary'August 22, 2019
16 mins
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I do not think it at all likely that we […]
May 31, 2019
20 mins
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I prefer to think of myself as being […]
April 29, 2019
16 mins
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British writer Jed Mercurio builds television shows the way […]
April 1, 2019
14 mins
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For a dead and apparently lifeless planet, Mars certainly gets more that its share of attention. From HG Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs to Ron Howard and, most recently, Sean Penn, the distant red orb has proven irresistible to any and all with more than an ounce of imaginationFebruary 24, 2019
18 mins
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The Netflix series Victoria earns top marks for costumes and art direction, and the acting isn't bad either. But as an accurate representation of history, let's just say the dresses are fetching the sets very easy on the eyeJanuary 13, 2019
16 mins
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[An] assassin, dressed as a mailman, murdered a former Iranian […]
October 30, 2018
16 mins
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Gore, vengeance, pillage and politics, all packaged by Netflix in a multi-season series depicting Alfred the Great's campaign to create what we now call England. How accurate, historically, is 'The Last Kingdom'? Accurate enough to make it more valuable than a mere entertainment
October 21, 2018
16 mins
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There is indeed life after politics, as Margaret Thatcher's transport minister demonstrates with his series Great British Railway Journeys. As even a Guardian writer concedes, Portillo is 'a weirdly compelling host' whose passion for trains and history cannot help but take viewers along for the rideSeptember 15, 2018
18 mins
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The adaptation of 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' into a 1979 BBC series left le Carré with a good opinion of what long episodic versions of his work could be. 'The Night Manager', starring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie, more than confirms the author's faith was not misplaced
September 8, 2018
17 mins
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One might quibble about some of the historical details or the scriptwriters' habit of weaving new storylines into the novels that inspired it, but 'The Last Kingdom' on Netflix is well worth a binge session. Homer would have thought so tooJuly 1, 2018
7 mins
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The in-depth, long-play serials of episodic television bring us back to those now practically obsolete, brick-like Victorian novels—the kind you could get lost in for weeks. True, there are minor quibbles about the series' rendering of history, but overall it is an enthralling delightJune 10, 2018
14 mins
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In 1966, Arthur Augustus Calwell, leader of the federal Labor […]
May 1, 2014
18 mins
