LADY MACBETH

Thanks CJ, another to look forward to…

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***1/2 (out of five)

First time feature film director William Oldroyd’s vivid, vibrant Lady Macbeth is not based on the Shakespeare play but on the Russian novella Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov, from a screenplay by fellow debutante Alice Birch. It’s about a woman who refuses to play by the rules, and the film electrifyingly does the same.

Oldroyd had a terribly small budget but has delivered a full-throated period melodrama; the way his limited resources have informed his artistic choices should put Lady Macbeth on film schools’ syllabi the world over. He couldn’t afford a score, so has made a virtue of barely using any music at all; his production design budget being minuscule, he’s imprisoned his characters in a world of…

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Meet the Illustrator: Ella Mae

Well done, Ella Mae.

In Their Own Write

Your art, the things you love, make up your life. Your life is your art, because life is how you make it, life is your blank canvas, or your empty stage, or whatever you want it to be. Self-expression is a very important part of a fulfilling existence.- Ella Mae

This week I’m celebrating the release of my newest children’s book, The Seven Day Dragon, a quirky, warm-hearted story for eight to 11-year-olds about family, relationships and accepting what is, while still seeing that life is full of possibilities when minds are open.

The book features illustrations by debut illustrator Ella Mae and today it’s my pleasure to introduce her with a behind the scenes look at the way she works and an insight into her thoughts on art and life…

You were only 14 when you were offered the opportunity to illustrate The Seven Day Dragon for Serenity…

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Some thoughts on ‘The Casual Vacancy’

That’s it – now I have to read it too, Liz!

Liz Byrski

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

Last week, on a flight from Perth to Melbourne, I began reading The Casual Vacancy, a novel that has been sitting unopened on my bookshelves since I bought it a several years ago. I’d opened it a few times but then closed it and put it back on the shelf, so now I hoped that the three-and-a-half-hour flight might force me to get to grips with it. I’ll admit that as the seat-belt sign went off I wished I’d chosen something else for the journey, but ten minutes later I was wishing I’d started it sooner. The novel is set in the first decade of the 21st century but I was captivated by the recognition of so much that was familiar to me from living in a village near a small town in England from the 1950s to the eighties.   Initially the petty…

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The High Window: Issue 6 Summer 2017

Source: The High Window: Issue 6 Summer 2017 

Includes three poems by one of my favourite poets: Adam Wyeth.

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‘After Hours’

Just ordered my copy of ‘After Hours’ by David Cooke, a poet I discovered on WriteOutLoud.  I enjoyed his poem ‘Your Chair’ on his profile page on WOL, it reminded me of my own father and his Irish-ness.  David said his latest book includes more poems about his father so I know I am bound to enjoy them too.

He also operates an interesting on-line poetry magazine ‘The High Window’ which I mentioned in an earlier post about the WA Writers Festival.

If you live in the UK, order your book directly from the Cultured Lama website, but if you live anywhere else, contact the publisher who replied very quickly to offer an alternative opportunity to buy.

Can’t wait to read more of David’s words.

 

#DavidCooke  #AfterHoursBook  #Poetry  #WriteOutLoud

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Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer

An excellent review for what seems an intriguing and original film. Another must-see!

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*** (out of five)

Richard Gere continues his post-leading man career investigating the lives of New Yorkers and their relationships to money, power and ethics in the ludicrously over-titled Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (let’s call it Norman for short), an intriguing and undeniably original little oddity from New York-born, Jerusalem-based director Joseph Cedar (Footnote, Beaufort).

Norman Oppenheimer (Gere) is a self-described “consultant”, President of “Oppenheimer Strategies”. While he has a high-falutin’ sense of purpose, his actual professional existence consists of desperately trying to connect people in order to curry their favour. He literally works the streets, loitering near places of power, worming his way into the rooms that may lead to the rooms adjacent to the rooms where it’s happening. The title describes him as a “fixer”; the Roman and Greek comedy theatre had a…

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Here’s your first look at Kriv Stenders’ Australia Day

Looks like another home-grown thriller, from Kriv Stenders.

Cinema Australia

A brand new trailer has dropped for Kriv Stenders’ Australia Day ahead of its world premiere at the Sydney Film Festival.

The trailer shows an edgier side to Stenders, who’s best known for his family friendly Red Dog film’s, and marks the third collaboration between Stenders and Bryan Brown who starred  in Kill Me Three Times and Red Dog: True Blue.

Sean Keenan’s career is going from strength-to-strength and he looks to be at the top of his game here – making us even more excited to see him star as John Grant in the upcoming Wake In Fright telemovie.

On Australia Day three young people from diverse cultural backgrounds are running scared.

April is a 14-year-old Indigenous teen fleeing from a car crash.

17-year-old Iranian boy Sami is running from a crime he didn’t commit.

Lan, from China, is escaping sexual slavery.

Elsewhere there’s Sonya (Shari Sebbens)…

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Editorial: Summer 2017

Certainly worth a read…

The High Window

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the Summer issue of The High Window. We are delighted by the growing international interest in our online journal and printing press. This issue sees work from across the age spectrum, from Sophie Reisbord, aged 15, to Maurice Rutherford who is 95 this year, with a range of ages in between!

In previous issues detectable themes have appeared in the submissions accepted, but the poems in issue 6 are incredibly diverse. What strikes us is the language that crackles at sometimes subtle and sometimes loud decibels, and that the poems are profoundly confident in themselves, as if the poets had chiselled their thoughts to the point of no return: this is what I have to say. As Peter Daniel’s writes in ‘Down and Up’:

On the upper side of the cloud cover, God sits deciding
what’s on the cards, sharpening the moon like a sickle.

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Tom Harding

I found Tom Harding on Write Out Loud and feel compelled to share my reactions to some of his poems, in the hope that you too, will read and enjoy…

© Tom Harding

‘A Day Such As This’ :  Visual language called to me ~ I was literally standing in his garden looking at his Saintly Alliums!

‘Late Summer’ :  Playing with perception, another visually intriguing poem.

‘The Secret’:  It can absolutely BE the shoes!  Beautifully, regretfully, poignantly expressed. 

‘Your Shoes’ :  His authentic voice and gentle approach are memorable. 

Tom Harding‘s gently poetic approach and lyrical touch have me swooning with the need to share this new voice…

Now Tom has launched an online magazine:  the Northampton Poetry Review.

#NorthamptonPoetryReview  #TomHarding  #NewPoems  #LyricalPoems  #VisualPoems  #WriteOutLLoud

 

 

 

 

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