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For someone who makes quite as big a deal about The Simpsons as me, I have to admit.. I still haven’t seen the movie, although not through lack of trying.
Watch David and Margaret’s review above (and David’s virginity admission), or check out what Triple J’s resident critic thought about it here.
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Sydney isn’t the capital of Australia?! No, its actually my home town Canberra. And feeling good about where you live is a nice thing. That is probably part of the motivation behind this “Melbourne Lives” campaign running on the ABC in Victoria.
Melbourne, always playing second fiddle to Sydney must get tiring, but the ABC isn’t having a bar of it, instead promoting all the great stuff that Melbourne does for the national broadcaster.
The song is “Light My Way” by Al Harding, which you can read all about here.
– Thanks for the video Tim.
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The ABC has you covered when it comes to new music. With Rage, JTV, and Triple J coming at you online, over the airwaves, and in your downloads.
Music joins the rest of the zspace created “Cross Platform” idents here.
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Enough Rope with Andrew Denton has been on the ABC since 2003, and with every new season comes a new opening sequence. Produced by Hackett Films the newspaper-cartoon-bobble-head titles distill down a year of pop culture, news and politics into 45 seconds. Check out the 2005 and 2006 openers here.
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The Great Global Warming Swindle, a controversial documentary that disputes the popular belief over climate change is being aired on the ABC tonight, as well as being simulcast on ABC2 and NewsRadio.
For whatever reason the ABC is playing this documentary, at least they aren’t presenting it in isolation. It will be introduced by Lateline presenter Tony Jones, followed by interview by Jones with the films director, Martin Durkin and then a panel discussion.
I’m looking forward to the Tony Jones interview, which will hopefully question Durkin’s own motives throughly enough to compensate for the film being played in the first place.
Back in January I was sent a screenshot of the new abc.net.au/news, and while it was very much still a draft, it gave us some idea of what was coming.
The relaunched site is due to go live tomorrow, and from what I’ve seen its damn good. As you can see from the before and afters above, it is a much needed leap forward and has the most elegant and useful integration of video and audio I have seen on a news site. With simple audio and video flash players that appear and disappear thanks to the magic of ajax, it has Google Maps built right into the articles, which I immediately thought would be useless, until I realised how geographically challeneged I was and actually had no idea where Caloundra was (turns out its in Queensland).
The weather page is a brilliant, and even in fullscreen all the videos are more then enough, they load without any of the buffering that comes with the inconvenient WindowsMedia and RealPlayer formats that most news sites still use.
There is tons more to explore of the new site, but the incredibly simple and useful execution of audio/video and maps really are the top story of this news relaunch.
More screenshots below.. or visit abc.net.au/news sometime Monday.
Update: Check out the Chaser’s lastest run in with Today Tonight here.
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This weeks lesson: Stories about The Chaser
Today Tonight had their say earlier this evening about their encounter with The Chaser. Now, of course, its The Chaser’s turn with the latest ‘What have we learnt from current affairs this week?’.
They take a look at the humour current affairs show use, Anna’s snide at those “who think their funny” and of course “double crossing” TT reporter James Thomas (who is apparently quite a good guy, just in the wrong job). With the inclusion of a lot more Peter Meakin references than made it into the Today Tonight piece.
If you missed tonights show, its repeated on ABC2 a few times, or you can just download it here.
The folks behind ABC Online have been busy. A new ABC News site is due to go live any day now, and as of this morning there is a new ABC television portal.
With an emphasis on video (in user friendly full screen flash), and more full episode downloads including The Einstein Factor and The New Inventors, the ABC is taking some positive steps towards the promise of TV 2.0. The site encourages you to watch previews of upcoming shows and participate in a newly opened forum.
Check it all out for yourself right here.
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Jennifer Byrne talking porn with Richard E Grant and the gang from The First Tuesday Book Club. I’m all for the analysis of popular culture, and mainstream texts, I guess I just thought television would be ahead in line to pornography.
This is the kind of Chaser stuff I love, and while I doubt we’ll be seeing this show on the ABC anytime soon, I think any accessible critical discussion about media or culture, be it literature, television or porn, is a good thing.
Download the whole episode from the official vodcast or just get it off me.
Update: Check out the Chaser’s lastest run in with Today Tonight here.
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The lesson in this weeks ‘What have we learnt from current affairs’ may have been the “desperate angles” journalists go to to make a story out of nothing, but the real lesson was; How to not act like Naomi Robson… by Anna Coren.
Coren welcomed Chas and Andrew into the Today Tonight studio, made fun of cheque book journalism, and took with good humor the jabs they made about the show. And while this doesn’t make Today Tonight any less a waste of prime time television, it makes Anna Coren look a little more human. Download the whole episode here.
Update: Chas clarifies some stuff in the comments.