Culture

  • Making it a little easier

    Ready or Not: Stories of Young Adult SexualityEdited by Mark McLeodRandom House, 1996308pp., $14.95Reviewed by Jen Crothers Being a young adult is never easy. There are the inevitable conflicts with "old adults" about school, work, drugs and

  • The vicious clown

    As It Happened: The Last God-KingProduced by Jim Gerrand SBS, Thursday, July 11, 8.30pm (8 in SA)Reviewed by Eva Cheng Being remnants of a social system that has no place at all in today's globally operated capitalism, monarchs — notwithstanding

  • A bad time for satire

    Age and Guile (beat youth, innocence and a bad haircut): 25 Years of P.J. O'RourkeBy P.J.O'RourkePicador (pb), $14.95Reviewed by Dave Riley All you classical scholars out there will know that satire has been around for quite some time. What with

  • Raging better than ever

    Evil EmpireRage Against the MachineSony MusicReviewed by Michael Bramwell "Che Guevara's Guerrilla Warfare", "The Marx-Engels Reader", "Women in the Transition to Socialism", "The Indian Uprising in Chiapas". Not titles one would expect to be

  • An eloquent novel of war and human values

    Novel Without a NameBy Duong Thu HuongTranslated by Phan Huy Duong and Nina McPhersonPicador, 1995. 289 pp., $16.95Reviewed by Brendan Doyle Author Duong Thu Huong was 21 when she led a Communist Youth Brigade to the most heavily bombarded front of

  • A history of defiance

    Pink TriangleBy Miranda MorrisUniversity of NSW Press, $26.95Reviewed by Fiona Carnes "Damned in the eyes of the world" was the headline on the front page of the Hobart Mercury following the decision of the United Nations Human Rights Committee that

  • Women's work on air

    Women's Work, a six-part documentary series produced by Victorian women community radio workers, will go to air this month on radio 3CR in Melbourne and nationally through the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia satellite (COMRADSAT). The

  • Intriguing essays on political commitment

    The Responsibility of Intellectuals: Selected Essays on Marxist Traditions in Cultural CommitmentBy Alan M. WaldHumanities Press, 1995. 250 pp., $29.00 (pb)Reviewed by Phil Shannon In these times of post-modernist malaise, the notion of the

  • Murder for fun and politics

    The Last SupperStars Cameron Diaz, Ron Eldard, Annabeth GishDirected by Stacy TitleReviewed by Natasha Simons The Last Supper is an engaging black comedy and political satire targeting aspects of contemporary US society — the extreme right wing and

  • christ's wandering vagina

    christ's wandering vagina is now on his right lower under-rib, it breathes waterish blood, bloody water, christ is ashamed of his vagina and his head hangs down, why me? why me? the thorns have sprung the seizures of his skull and gaps

  • Small on dialogue, big on emotion

    HeavyDirected by James MangoldOpens June 27, George St Cinemas, St Kilda, Melbourne;July 4, Verona Cinema, Paddington, SydneyReviewed by Margaret Allan If you're a fan of the action flick, with the obligatory car chase, you may find this film

  • Srebrenica

    A short story by Craig Cormick "Shit! Shit! Shit!" I'd tried to videotape Star Trek last night for my weekly fix of fantasy, and I'd accidentally taped some documentary off SBS. I was running it back and forward with the remote control, hoping that