Tassie’s wave of success
LONG STORY SHORT IS A DRAG BUT SCI-FI OFFERING SYNCHRONIC INTRIGUES
TASMANIAN underwater photographer Danny Lee’s love for albatross has landed him third place in the highly competitive world underwater photography awards.
The St Helens-based photographer took a stunning image of a black browed albatross at the Bay of Fires — winning him third place in the Up and Coming category of the Underwater Photographer of the Year competition.
“Whenever I see an albatross I get excited, “Mr Lee said.
“Their sheer size and beautiful features make them a joy to photograph. I have been working on a series of split shots of the various species of albatross that visit … for a few years now.
“Getting good eye contact as well as good feet symmetry is a challenge as they are generally quite shy birds.”
He said getting close was a patient process and often involved a piece of fish on his camera arm or head.
Mr Lee was elated to be recognised: “I’m absolutely rapt. It’s the best underwater photography competition in the world, so I’m pretty stoked. “Getting the exposure settings right is the important part because the albatross’ feathers are so brilliantly white, and yet it can be … dark underwater.” Judge Martin Edge was impressed: “I really liked this image. A split image of an albatross is one thing but this author has gone on to include great light, superb eye contact and a glint of both feet.”
LONG STORY SHORT (M)
Director: Josh Lawson (The Little Death)
Starring: Rafe Spall, Zahra Newman, Noni Hazlehurst, Ronnie Chieng
Rating:
Skips to the end, but still a slog
Vaguely endearing on occasion – yet more thunderingly dull with each passing minute – Long Story Short has the unhappy knack of making a short story seem way too long.
You know a movie is in trouble when it keeps banging on about making the most of every moment, despite either merely marking time itself, or actively wasting it.
The release of Long Story Short has been synched with the run-up to Valentine’s Day. So it should come as no surprise that it is a romantic comedy of sorts, albeit one where the romance is not always easy to detect, and the comedy is never all that amusing.
If you do come to like Long Story Short in any lasting way, it will come down to how enthused you are by the one idea it will hammering away at incessantly.
So there’s this guy, Teddy (Rafe Spall). Bit of a serial putofferer, by all accounts (a character will remark upon the fellow’s procrastinating ways in every other scene, just in case we forget). Anyway, just before Teddy is about to marry the love of his life, Leanne (Zahra Newman), he encounters a mysterious woman (Noni Hazlehurst) in a Sydney cemetery.
She rambles enigmatically about how Teddy should put more of a premium on personal time management, and then hints a wedding gift will soon be on the way. When it does arrive, the word “gift” becomes something of a stretch. “Curse” would be a more fitting description of what befalls Teddy.
Time accelerates on Teddy to the extent where an entire year passes in one day. For example, Teddy will fall asleep, then wake to discover he and Leanne have had their first child. And he can’t remember the baby’s name.
He’ll blink, and suddenly it’s another year down the track and the couple are in marriage counselling. All of these transitions occur on the day of a wedding anniversary Teddy continually forgets.
Another pole vault across the calendar and a trial separation has taken hold. Later, they start seeing other people.
And so on it goes, for 10 bumnumbing years.
Like a box of chocolates left on a doorstep in direct sunlight, Long Story Short starts out with the best intentions, before slowly losing all shape, and then melting into a gooey mess.
Long Story Short is now showing in general release
SYNCHRONIC (M) Rating:
General release
There is a new designer drug ravaging the streets of New Orleans. Goes by the name of Synchronic. Get the dosage wrong, and this chronologically unstable synthetic substance will literally transport you to another time and place. Possibly never to return. Possibly? No, make that probably.
This is the cleverly creative idea powering what turns out to be a fairly compelling exercise in contemporary science fiction. The mystifying after-effects of the drug will ultimately be examined and then experienced by a pair of veteran paramedics who have seen several killer substances come and go in their time. But nothing like this.
Dennis (Jamie Dornan) is the older of the two, but arguably not the wiser. His teenage daughter has recently vanished after trying her first hit of Synchronic. As for Steve (Anthony Mackie), he has his own reasons for decoding the Synchronic puzzle, which will later involve ingesting controlled doses and documenting the aftermath on video.
This is heady, high-concept stuff for the most part, and the movie can get a little tangled in its complicated scene-setting. Nevertheless, a story which always has you guessing, thinking and theorising amount to a solid positive result here.
THE FOOD CLUB (M) Rating:
Selected cinemas
This Danish light comedy is neither a good movie nor bad movie. It is, quite simply, a nice movie. While it is careful not to get on your bad side, it does go out of its way to put you in a good mood and keep you there.
If you like your mature-age fare along the lines of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel flicks – and don’t mind dealing with subtitles – this feather-light feel-gooder for foodies will more than fit the bill.
The story begins in Denmark at Christmas time, where workaholic Marie (Kirsten Olesen) has just been dumped by an exasperated husband. While he makes off with his new girlfriend, she takes off for Italy with her two best and oldest friends for a fancy, shmancy live-in cooking class.
The Food Club is not going to leave you with any lasting insights into the human condition. But it will lift your spirits and let your mind wander in pleasantly piffling ways while it plays.
SERVES 4. PREP 10 MINS. COOK 6 HRS 20 MINS.
INGREDIENTS
• 1 tbs peanut oil
• 1kg Coles Pork Belly Roast Boneless
• 1 garlic bulb, halved horizontally
• 1.25L (5 cups) Massel Chicken Style Liquid Stock
• 5cm-piece fresh ginger, thickly sliced
• 1 green shallot, halved, plus extra, sliced diagonally, to serve
• 2 tbs mirin
• 2 tbs light soy sauce
• 1 tsp sambal oelek
• 200g dried ramen noodles
• 3 cups baby spinach
• 4 eggs, soft boiled, halved crossways
• sliced fresh red chilli, to serve (optional)
METHOD
1 Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add the pork, rind-side down, and cook for 10 minutes or until golden. Turn over and cook for a further 5 minutes, adding the garlic, cut-side down, in the last 2 minutes of cooking. Transfer the pork and garlic to a slow cooker. Add the stock, ginger and shallot. Cover and cook, covered, on High for 5-6 hours or until the pork is very tender.
2 Use tongs to transfer the pork to a plate. Set aside to cool slightly. Remove and discard the rind and fat. Use forks to coarsely shred the pork and transfer to a baking tray.
3 Stir the mirin, soy sauce and sambal oelek into the slow cooker. Season with more soy sauce, mirin and sambal oelek, if desired.
4 Cook the noodles in a large saucepan of boiling water for 5 minutes or until just tender. Drain and divide among serving bowls.
5 Meanwhile, preheat a grill on high. Place the pork under the grill for 3 minutes or until browned.
6 Divide the pork and spinach among the bowls. Pour in the broth. Serve topped with egg halves, extra shallot and chilli, if using.
READER Graeme Cook (Letters, January 27) suggests Senator Eric Abetz would be a worthy recipient of an Australian of the Year award. Come on now. Pull the other one. Wilfred Knight
Kingston
IN response to the Bob Brown media comment (Mercury, February 6), yes, Tasmania will have a world-class forestry industry, like it or not.
Apart from all the one-sided angles, facts and figures quoted, in reality, does the questionable Bob Brown Foundation actually want a world-class forestry industry action to happen? What then, would activists have to squeal, ridicule and protest about.
Stick to southern Tasmania Bob, you and your persistent interference are not welcome in Tasmania’s West and North-West Coast. The Tarkine Coast does not exist.
Deliberately thumbing Tasmania’s forestry industry laws, crucifying forest workers’ rights and destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of families, these smart asses should not be immune to massive thousands of dollars in fines and months of imprisonment. It might curb their enthusiasm in rubbishing our forests with their presence.
Gaylene Dudman
Burnie
LOSE THE ATTITUDE
WHY is it that when it comes to conservation in our state we are at each others throats? What happened to consensus and good governance? We can have the best of all worlds, but it is going to take all sides to take a deep breath and reassess their attitudes and actions. There is room for forest management, conservation and wildlife. People in the street have had enough of extreme forestry views from both sides. Now is the time for all parties to accept we can work hand-in-hand in caring for our forests and its wildlife inhabitants. The state government must sit down with those who have our forests and wildlife’s welfare as their priority and accept that with foresight and the goal of the best forestry outcomes for all Tasmanians that it is an achievable goal.
Most Tasmanians care about what happens with forestry practices, we believe there is more than enough space for balance between the industry and conservationists. We have had a belly full from both sides who believe that their way is the only way. The state government, instead of using forestry and conservation as a political weapon, must adopt a far better approach to a matter that is dear to Tasmanian hearts. We all love our forests and there is room enough for all of us. I’m off to plant a few more trees myself.
Ray Marsh Primrose Sands
WRONG WAY
READER Frank Nicklason (Letters, February 9) expresses quite a few things about forestry the wrong way.
First, mixed wet native forests are seldom, if ever, replaced with drier even-aged pulpwood plantations. Wet native forests, dominated by high quality eucalypts, are logged for sawlogs primarily and only unsuitable logs are taken for pulpwood. These forests are generally regenerated by sowing seed of the same species. In high quality forests, eucalypts are usually even-aged because they probably originated from a wildfire in the past. Thus a similar treatment is used to regenerate them.
Mr Nicklason should provide evidence as to whether our industry wastes public resources. I think it is an exaggeration. The industry provides jobs and brings wealth to the state.
The statement that when native forests are clear-felled, typically 90 per cent of the timber removed is pulped would apply only to the poorer quality native forests, with few sawlog quality logs.
Yes, there are carbon emissions from logged coupes but he omits to mention that later the regrowth after logging restores much of the lost carbon. It is necessary to compare the use of wood to other uses and realise that cross laminated timber can replace concrete and steel in construction and significantly reduce carbon emissions.
His use of words like razed and burnt, destruction and conversion are emotive and inaccurate.
John Walsh South Hobart
HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE?
WOULD it be possible for those who constantly put greenies down to wake up as to why we are so concerned about the loss of species, the cruelty and insensitivity of the wasteful and futile logging industry? Or will many never understand nature and its workings and continue the mantra “jobs, jobs, jobs”.
All this has been brought up many times, over many years, with the same big corporations, shareholders, investors running the show. The snide remarks continue, the cruelty and insensitivity are never going to stop while ignorance is bliss. Ignorance makes ugly people.
Guy Barnett does a magnificent job being a puppet for the big boys, as many before him. All the years of peaceful discussions around the table leading to good protection of oldgrowth forests, and all their species, won fairly, who is running the farce now? I, like many, know the difference between a good and a bad job and fair industry. What was once selective logging, which even the long-time early loggers, and many today knew as a kinder job, now has the dubious name of “sustainable”, just a name taken from the wise, and used unwisely. It remains a cruel and futile job.
I will support for as long as I can the protection of forests, and the need to go to the High Court. Grow your own high quality timbers. About 60 per cent of species around the world are unsafe thanks to jobs, jobs, jobs, and a highly overpopulated world.
I have huge respect for many in the industry so supportive and caring of all species at risk. I hope in the not too distant future, many of you will come to terms with the tyranny of when man fails to respect nature, only to find no hope left. We are very close to that. Margaret Cashman Bailes Westerway