In March 1981, John Hinckley shot U.S. President Ronald Reagan in a failed assassination attempt driven by a dangerous obsession with the Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver and actress Jodie Foster. The attack shocked the world and forever changed American history. Found not guilty by reason of insanity, John spent thirty-five years in a psychiatric…
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On the final date of her North American tour for her latest album – the brilliant Cyan Blue – Canadian R&B artist Charlotte Day Wilson sold out one of Toronto, Canada’s most popular new venues, History. “You know it’s a big night, right?”, Wilson said as she stared out into a crowd full of fans,…
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One of those true story tales that is so intricately outrageous it couldn’t possibly be fiction, Operation Mincemeat details a WWII espionage plot that centres itself around a heightened take on the classic Trojan Horse malware that so successfully aided the Greeks in their invasion of Troy. There’s a background story to the titular operation…
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“While the events of this story are fictional…These. People. Existed.” These words hit harder than any bullet or bass snare experienced in The Harder They Fall as they sprawl across the screen in the opening seconds of Jeymes Samuel‘s Black Western fantasy. Perhaps, in a way, an almost spiritual sequel to Mario Van Peebles’ genre-breaking…
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We’re twenty minutes into Hu Guan‘s epic The Eight Hundred before the credits cease on screen. Then the film informs us that we are on Day 1 of what is to be a four-day siege – not to mention a further 2 hours in its running time. The titular Eight Hundred refers to the 400…
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Join The Washington Post’s pop culture editor Hannah Jewell as she plucks (almost) forgotten women from the historical cutting room floor. From artists to investigative reporters, scientists to queens, political firebrands to murderers, there’s no such thing as the delicate fairer sex here. Get in the kitchen and make you sandwich? Puh-lease. I’ve got an…
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In the first half of the twentieth century, the Australian media began spreading tales of a huge, lightning fast species of snake that was seemingly taking lives at a rate of knots. Attaining a near mythical status, the nguman, or taipan, was all too real. The press demonised them, wary farmers hunted them, and desperate…
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It’s astonishing to think about how much music has filled our ears and hearts over the years; and I don’t just mean the years we’ve been alive. I’m talking from day one, when Earth was created. Think about the genre discoveries, the melodies, the development of instruments, idols both past and present. Imagine, what it…
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Australia Day is a fairly contentious date in the calendar. The idea that Australia began with the arrival of the First Fleet on January 26th 1788 has long been offensive to descendants of the Indigenous Australians who already occupied the land. It also dismisses interactions between Europeans and Indigenous people that predated the landing, and…
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2016 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, arguably the most famous name in English literature. Ready to usher in this literary milestone, the University of Queensland has put together an impressive line-up of events. These include public lectures, symposiums, film screenings, and of course, theatrical performances, all aimed at celebrating the incredible oeuvre…
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