Freo.

Screenshot of an excerpt from an article published by Amnesty International (https://www.amnesty.org.au/israel-opt-newly-adopted-death-penalty-law-must-be-repealed/). Excerpt reads as follows: The new law explicitly creates two legal frameworks for the use of the death penalty in the occupied West Bank, excluding the illegally annexed East Jerusalem, and in Israel. Military courts in the occupied West Bank will be authorised to impose the death penalty against Palestinians convicted of deliberate killings in actions that are defined as terrorist acts under Israel’s discriminatory counter-terrorism law. Only under special circumstances that the bill fails to specify will courts be allowed to order a life sentence – and life sentence only – instead.

Simply horrific:

Israel/OPT: Newly adopted death penalty law must be repealed Israeli authorities must urgently repeal legislative amendments expanding Israel’s use of the death penalty, adopted today with a majority of 62 Knesset

Very fucked that this is seeing almost no coverage by the media: Israel has amended their penal laws to empower military courts in the West Bank to impose the death penalty against Palestinians. This is supremely fucked. www.amnesty.org.au/israel-opt-n...

Christian Porter defending the WA terrorist is yet another example of how low that horrid human will go.

When they say 'what do Australian audiences want to see?', a musical about the Opera house is not it.

‘Elvis’ Producer Schuyler Weiss To Reunite With ‘How To Make Gravy’ Filmmakers Nick Waterman & Meg Washington On Musical Feature ‘Rosaleen’ Schuyler Weiss (Elvis) will produce Rosaleen, from Nick Waterman and Meg Washington.

Nobody wants this.

Everybody hates this.

Might as well just eat worms.

deadline.com/2026/04/elvi...

Well, nice to know I'm not alone.

Just don't turn it into jewellery and you'll be fine.

Charts showing share price change since the Iran War began: BHP: -14.6% ASX200: -7.8% FMG: -4.4% CSL: -3.1% CBA: -2.8% Woolworths: - 0.6% Santos: +17.2% Woodside: +24.0%

Just checking in again on how Woodside and Santos are going

They did what?

Well, I'm never eating Branston pickles again.

a series of pictures of agent scully from the hit television series "the x-files" wearing glasses. each picture gradually has a slightly more serious expression and more dramatic lighting

formal proposal of a replacement for the vince mcmahon meme format

Desperation by Stephen King.

Maybe not too young, but younger than it's intended. So many paragraphs about the villains dick.

(Maybe one other aspect is that many writers confuse writing about revolutionary cinema with modern activism, and the two simply aren't related. Because someone did something decades ago it does not mean that that overlaps or provides a template for the now.)

Anyhow, French cinema. I'm grumpy about it for no real good reason other than other filmic movements exist.

I don't know what's brought on this long thread, but I'm sure it's something I'll expand upon down the line. I'm fully aware it reads like a grumpy old man being grumpy for no reason, so in articulating it comes across as petty or childish.

One final observation or issue is the romanticisation of French new wave cinema, as if it's the standing beacon for all cinema. It isn't, even if there are plenty of great films in it.

It's also a frustration when focused consumption of film media comes from the same well, it then means that everything can only be viewed through that prism. Would it pain these writers to look at Russian cinema? To maybe glimpse at Wakaliwood for a change? Or Canadian cinema for that matter.

This long thread of rambling nonsense isn't overtly directed at any one person or group. It's just a growing trend I'm witnessing where exclusionary $20 words are thrown in the mix when the author has no clear understanding what it actually means. It just sounds smart.

Dialogues about non-French films, or even non-French inspired films, inevitably get brought back to French cinema. My frustration then stems from the lens that all other cinema is viewed through. Asian cinema should not be viewed through the lens of 'how did French cinema inform this?'

That may sound like sour grapes, like I'm frustrated by not being included. I'm not. It's more that I've noticed a trend where the conversations about these films then inform conversations about non-French films, as if there's an expectation that they need to be more, well, French.

This is a mostly Melbournian movement, one that is clearly informed by the education or the accessibility to retrospective screenings of these films. The conversations that flow out of those screenings feel equally insular, inclusive to those in the room and them alone.

Conversations about French cinema never feel like an invitation to explore the works that make it up. It often feels, well, like an education point, a lesson, something to learn from rather than emotionally engage with. 'This filmmaker is doing this because of that.'

The other aspect is how tied to academia French cinema is. It's the cinema of the 'intellectual', and because of that it feels so distinctly exclusionary to me. 'You may only engage with this if you have immersed yourself in the entire filmography of Rohmer.'

You can't just make a film that's like the French 'masters' and expect a revolution to occur or a new movement of filmmaking. That's not how movements or changes in film culture comes about.

I know why it is - the connection between film criticism and filmmaking is maybe the most keenly felt in the French new wave movement, one brought about by filmmakers who felt a need to revolutionise their cinema. But simply replicating the style of that in Australia won't have the same result here.

Because of... things... I'm growing to have an unreasonable hate towards French cinema. Used to enjoy it, find it ok, but lately just the basic mention of some of the major filmmakers in the new wave era is making me get irrationally grumpy.

And for the record: the film looks and sounds awful. But it's also not like they're aiming for high quality having beacons of society like Kyle Sandilands and Chuck Norris involved.