National Gallery of Victoria

December 12, 2014 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | ART, Ulalume |

December 2014 TVC wandered mainly in the European wing this trip but the floating wooden Japanese village by Takahiro Iwasaki was a highlight, as were hardy perennials ‘The Garden of Love’ by Vivarini (1465-70), with its formal marble fountain bordered by trellised fruits (tomatoes? pomegranates? Triffids?); Jan Brueghel’s ‘Calvary’ (c. 1610) with its blue oils on copper and a harsh landscape with dogs and prurient audience watching the faith-man suffer; a little ‘St Jerome’ (c. 1540) peering into the blue distance in which birds wheel like bomber-planes; Poussin’s ‘The Crossing of the Red Sea’ (1632-4) and its choppy sea and…

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Begin Again

December 12, 2014 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Drama Film, FILM, THUMBNAIL REVIEWS |

(dir. John Carney) (2013) A slight, Star-is-Born vignette features thick slices of schmaltz, yet manages to say something genuine about the contemporary creative process. Gal with wafer-crisp lungs is taken on by down-at-heel Svengali – sweetness prevails but not necessarily as predicted. Keira Knightley shows considerably more charm than she did through the entire ‘Pirates’ franchise; Mark Ruffalo underacts to shaggy advantage; James Corden is everyone’s kind older brother. TVC’s favourite bits: I) Keira’s lover returns from L.A. and plays her his new song, whereupon she instantly apprehends he has fallen for another; II) Ruffalo drops his still respected business…

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Calvary

December 11, 2014 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | Drama Film, FILM, RELIGION, THUMBNAIL REVIEWS |

(dir. J M McDonagh) (2014) This is Craggy Island without the laughs, a richly human ‘who-will-do-it’ as Brendan Gleeson, the village catholic priest, struggles with his faith in the wake of a confessional death threat. Paul Byrnes in the Sydney Morning Herald well described Gleeson’s role as “the one good man in a town of jackals” – the relentless vitriol and mockery spat at him by various village types is matched by their own astonishing, preternatural candour – no feelings are spared in this story. The whole tone reflects an Irish ambivalence vis-à-vis organized religion, its utility and its scars….

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Falstaff

December 11, 2014 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | MUSIC, Opera, THUMBNAIL REVIEWS |

Opera Australia, Melbourne December 2014 To the claustrophobic scarlet pit that is Melbourne’s Arts Centre for Verdi’s take on Sir John, a rather broad and heavy handed work drawing mostly from the plonking Merry Wives of Windsor with only salted bits from the history plays. First done at La Scala in 1893, this is a radically economical opera in structure: no overture, no recitative, almost no arias; melodies that rattle along, into each other and most formalities discarded as it cuts to the Garter Inn without ado. Shakespeare’s Falstaff is big in every sense but here he is merely fat,…

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Jamie’s Italian – Adelaide (with a Minority Report)

December 9, 2014 | Posted by Lesley Jakobsen | LIFE, Restaurants, THUMBNAIL REVIEWS |

TVC ventured with friends L and M to Jamie Oliver’s eponymous restaurant in a restyled bank – an immense vault – on King William Street.  Having valiantly resited the Jamieabilia for sale in the lobby shop the diner is then assaulted by a tsumani of sound and the unappetising sight of a sea of cafe-like booths. However, the further end of the restaurant is slightly more impressive, with individual tables and banquettes, low lighting and  tall, bare windows.  The “marble” bar, hung with red peppers and sausage lights, is an imaginative (if not authentic) rendering of an Italian lunch counter.  People who…

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