‘What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine…’ So wrote the late Susan Sontag, in her classic 1964 essay ‘Notes on Camp’. It’s a great, persuasive line, but of course entirely and deliciously subjective. I tend to agree… Read More »On Feeling Totally Masculine
My Columbo odyssey continues – I’m now on the sixth season, made in 1976. Season five was a very bumpy ride – and the show was nearly cancelled – but season six starts with the most exquisitely delightful Columbo episode yet. I didn’t know that William Shatner appeared in Columbo. Google tells me he appeared in… Read More »When Columbo Met Captain Kirk (& Fell in Love)
So, I got around to reading Kenneth Cook’s 1961 novel Wake in Fright (recommended by S.J. Watson) which the film of the same name was based on, and which I wrote about here. It is a remarkable, vivid, and wry piece of writing, still fresh after over half a century, and I thoroughly recommend… Read More »Oh God, That Light!
Columbo meets an early pro-sporno Having given up on Netflix and the 21st Century, I’ve been watching Columbo – Amazon Prime Video have the first seven seasons (1971-8), gloriously restored, and digitally remastered in HD. Always a high-production value show, it can now be appreciated as never before – in detail. I love Columbo because there’s… Read More »The Curious Case of the Killer Buttocks
My pal Graham recently drew my attention to the 1971 Australian film Wake in Fright, which is now available to watch in full, in a gloriously restored, uncensored HD on YouTube. I have no idea why he thought I would be interested in a film about homosociality, repressed homosexuality, and drunken depravity.… Read More »‘First Time in the Yabba, Mate?’