A surfeit of Cate

Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton have had a third child, another son, this week. Welcome Ignatius. The divine Miss B, who is in the running for some sort of ubiquity award, will go on nonetheless to chair the arts and creativity section at the 2020 summit this weekend. Julieanne Schultz, editor of the Griffith Review, will co-chair.

And following complaints this week in the Sydney Morning Herald about constant Cate news, we are hereby declaring the week in film a Blanchett-free zone till the next movie. Every new mother deserves a bit of a rest. And so do we.

Oz film tensions

Just when Australian filmmakers should be moving constantly into a new era with the advent of Screen Australia, and a new tax system, some major bickering has broken out.

The Australian Writers' Guild has walked away from the industry lobby group the Screen Council of Australia, leaving it to founder after differences with the Australian Directors Guild.

Meanwhile a paper written by director Robert Connelly, with proposals to rethink the way we make films here, is dividing readers. Some of the stuff is pretty technical, some uncontroversial (he suggests too much time and money go to lawyers getting Australian films off the ground) and some run counter to current thinking. Connelly thinks we should be making more films per year with lower average budgets.

And to fan the flames, there is also a microdoc clip circulating on YouTube of various industry people talking in pretty bleak tones about the state of Australian film. It's a trailer for a longer documentary.

NOTES:

surfeit: too much of sth, especially of food and drink

ubiquity: seeming to be everywhere, sometimes used humorously

hereby: as a result of this statement, used in official situations

Oz: BrE AusE, an informal name for Australia

walk away from: to leave a difficult situation or relationship, etc. instead of staying and trying to deal with it

lobby: a group of people who try to persuade the government that a law or situation should be changed

industry lobby group: 行业游说集团

founder: vi. to fail after a period of time because sth has gone wrong

get off the ground: to start to be successful

be/run/go counter to sth: to be the opposite to sth

fan: literary, to make someone feel an emotion more strongly

fan the flames (of sth)

posted on 2008-04-29 17:13 Greeplanet 阅读(33) 评论(0)  编辑  收藏 网摘收藏