Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy
(By Henry A. Kissinger, 1957) Kissinger spent most of his adult life dealing with a revelation and a revolution; the discovery of nuclear fission. He recognised that nuclear weapons changed how nations would conduct foreign policy. Ever the realist, Kissinger knew that nuclear weapons would slow but not stop war, and he grappled with the two-sides of the coin thereby tossed: that possession of nuclear weapons, no longer held in monopoly, would either prevent all war, or lead to global catastrophe. He also thought, presciently, that neither arms limitations agreements, exchanges of information such as sharing of flight plans or…
Continue Reading →Bodies
Nobody (directed by Ilya Naishuller, 2021); Nobody 2 (directed by Timothy Tjahjanto, 2025) Bodies. Many, many bodies, and virtually none of them in a ‘good way’. This brace of actioners is great fun, and whilst made with obvious care and love, take themselves not at all seriously. Much of the entertainment comes, of course from Bob Odenkirk (as Hutch, aka ‘Nobody’), a humble bookkeeper stuck in a rut, whose inner demons (previously he was an “auditor”, i.e., the very last person you wish to ever see) are unleashed by a semi-violent home invasion, which leads to numerous fights (where the…
Continue Reading →Wagner at the Movies
[Richard Wagner Society of SA, Adelaide University, 17 August 2025] Although Wagner, in his essay, foresaw “The Artwork of the Future,” as a communal matter, a ‘fellowship of all artists,’ it is hard to contest Stephen Whittington’s surmise that had Wagner lived in the time of film, he would have been something of an intractable auteur. What one would give to see a discussion between Wagner and Jack Warner, or for that matter, with Errol Flynn. Yet as Stephen pointed out in his entertaining and informative Brian Coghlan Memorial Lecture, the Maestro looms large in the Hollywood firmament (to borrow…
Continue Reading →No Swiss Bliss
(Eurovision Song Contest, Basal, 2025) “in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” Thus Harry Lime to Holly Martins in The Third Man, and whilst Orson Welles, who apparently wrote the line, failed to mention the creation of toblerone, there is still a harsh truth about this beautiful, woke, sterile country. So it is a pity that it played…
Continue Reading →The Watsons
[Directed by Matthew Chapman, written by Laura Wade, from the unfinished novel by Jane Austen – University of Adelaide Theatre Guild, 1 August 2025] Claire Tomalin, in her excellent Jane Austen: A Life (1997) wrote: “She…started on a new novel, which she called The Watsons. The first thing that strikes you about it is that it is the story of a group of youngish women – four sisters – who are all unmarried, have very little money, and are casting about more or less desperately to remedy their situation before their invalid father dies, when they know they will be…
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