★★★★★ 1990s experimental Australian short films
Recently, your editors did something we usually prefer to avoid at all costs: we watched some experimental short films. No, not IG reels. Rather, a half-dozen, 1990s, Australian women-directed flicks, which screened at ACMI as part of their Melbourne Women in Film Festival in late March. Full credit to the programmers—we enjoyed them so much we’ve scoured the web to bring them to you here. Marie Craven’s Maidenhead features the swan-like beauty Alice Garner, who you may remember from the 1996 UniMelb rom-com Love and Other Catastrophes, or from even earlier, when she played the precocious kid in the film adaptation of her mother’s novel, Monkey Grip (heard of it?). Maidenhead is gorgeously shot and reminded us of the power of pounding the streets in clip-clopping shiny leather shoes. Cate Shortland’s Strap On Olympia (we can’t find an online version, but you can at least log it here?) is an outback QLD sex work romp. Cheap Blonde by Janet Merewether is a trippy linguistic experiment worthy of Derrida. Lip by Tracey Moffatt is a witty and sobering mash-up of archival clips showing classic Hollywood racism—black maids and babyish white mistresses. Amelia Rose Towers by Jackie Wolf is a dreamy fairytale. And we especially loved Kim Miles’ The World Really Is W; she captures exactly what working in an office really feels like. Miles has an active YouTube presence and a new film in the works. As per an announcement on her channel, we are very glad to hear that “QUEER, Mild AIS Intersex/ gender diverse Filmmaker Kim Miles [is] returning to filmmaking after Burning Out!”
★★★★ Cafe Excello
The coffee, while under $5, is nearly always bitter. The table service is nearly always begrudging. The flickering sign is reminiscent of the retrograde graphics of Friends’ Central Perk cafe. The mid-morning sun, which streams through the capacious windows overlooking Parliament House, can be excruciating for tender eyeballs. Yet Cafe Excello, at the premium location of 99 Spring St, is our absolute favourite haunt at the moment. It’s the perfect place to spread out on a comfy leather banquette, peruse a laminated menu, and pick up on what fellow citizens—the lanyard set, the country visitors wearing Australian flag caps, the hotel cleaners in crisp, neat uniforms—are into. The answer is a saucy breakfast, a mug of hot java, and communal copies of New Idea and The Herald Sun. This Wednesday’s edition of Murdoch’s toilet rag featured typically whiplash-inducing front-page stories. “Margot [Robbie] swaps pink for double denim” was right next to “Child-sex sickener” (an “exclusive” about horrifying child abuse porn being distributed on Snapchat). Jesus Christ. Anyway, forget the papers. The Paris End (the geographic location, not this publication) is lucky to have a trusty joint where you can still get plain yoghurt with fruit salad and a hash brown for under $13. We don’t want to blow the spot up, but it’s too excello to keep to ourselves.
★★★ When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter
Reading legendary Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter’s memoir is like pressing a bruise.
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