Cirrus@Austlit

'In a hit-driven commercial climate, creating film franchises makes economic sense. Consumers who enjoyed the first The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel are likely to purchase a ticket to the sequel. Those who have committed more than eleven hours’ viewing to the first six films in The Fast and the Furious series will probably invest in the seventh. Film series encourage a devoted audience. With their extended film-worlds, continuing narratives, and attendant mythologies, film franchises generate enthusiastic followings. Australian director George Miller created Mad Max in 1979. After a three-decade hiatus, the excitement surrounding the latest chapter, Fury Road is palpable.' (Introduction)

'The first time that I really took notice of Orry-Kelly’s name was when I began researching the 1933 pre-code film Baby Face a number of years ago. I became obsessed with Barbara Stanwyck’s sharp Manhattan business attire, her intricate gloves, and the fur-draped costumes she later wore as a kept woman. That the costumes were, at heart, Australian made them seem only more glamorous. For me, then, Orry-Kelly became a name as synonymous with Golden Age Hollywood fashion as Edith Head had always been.'  (Introduction)

'Timothy Conigrave would surely have been delighted that Neil Armfield’s film of his much-loved book Holding the Man (1995) is being released at exactly the moment that Tony Abbott is conducting his farcical elephant waltz around the issue of same-sex marriage. Tommy Murphy’s play of the book in 2006 resolved Conigrave’s matter-of-fact but poignant text into its essential elements: love, humour, pain, religion, and acting. His screenplay for this film, with Neil Armfield’s direction, takes a further step and adds the cinematic dimension of simply being.'  (Introduction)

'All happy families are alike, but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.' The famous opening line of Anna Karenina is thematically relevant to arts and culture the world over. Audiences are endlessly fascinated by the vicissitudes of the family unit. As an inherently domestic medium, television has a particularly lively relationship with the family. So it is no surprise that yet another television adaptation of Anna Karenina has appeared. What is curious is that this version (which airs on ABC over the next six weeks) is set in contemporary Melbourne.' (Introduction)

'As with many fine Australian films, Looking For Grace opens with arid, spectacular landscape. Aerial shots of remote two-lane highways highlight expanses of blonde dirt, granite, and shrubbery across the Western Australian wheat belt, where the film was shot on location. These colours are rare in Australian cinema, which often favours vibrant red desert sand. But there is nothing unusual about the fact that Brooks focuses on long stretches of road leading nowhere. They are flanked by barren expanses whose immensity becomes a motif for discovery and loss.' (Introduction)