Bevan Morgan

“Unlike Family Guy and 30 Rock, the writers of Action made it clear they weren’t just joking around about the rampant sexual harassment and abuse in Hollywood. The scene doesn’t even try to be funny. Everyone is genuinely hurt, and Wendy is legitimately traumatized. Peter has his film back, sure, but his vile nature has lost him one of his few true friends. Wendy finally accepts that in Hollywood, powerful men get to do what they want to who they want, because no one is willing to stop them.”

“The story goes that after slavery was abolished in the South, there was another century of segregation in those states until that practice also begrudgingly ended. But throughout, it’s seen as a problem that exists below the Mason-Dixon Line.

The reality? Well, there is an old Civil Rights Movement truism: “In the South, the white man doesn’t care how close you get, as long as you don’t get too high. In the North, he doesn’t care how high you get, as long as you don’t get too close.” Basically, this means that Northern people tend to be fine with an African American dude leading their country, as long as he doesn’t live next door.”

“Goldson is a prolific documentary feature filmmaker, and the three documentaries examined here, all contribute uniquely to the historical debates that have arisen in the countries in which they are set. Other scholars have studied these films, but nobody has looked at them from a purely historical perspective. By tackling the films from this angle then, we not only get a multi-faceted view of the way that historiophoty can address the past, but we also get another perspective to add to the current literature on Goldson’s excellent portfolio of work.”

“There are many reasons why, nearly thirty years after its release, nobody talks about Driving Miss Daisy. Equally, there are many reasons why Do the Right Thing is still studied on university courses and name-dropped by people like Barack Obama. Most glaringly, though, the former speaks to those who believe in a romantic past that never existed, and who do not want to challenge their preconceptions of race. That’s not reality, and that doesn’t resonate today.”

“Because there is such a simple solution to the alleged problems that men have had with this film, it is impossible for logically minded people to take the complaints seriously. There is no rational reason to spew the level of hate that has been thrown up on this movie. The only reasonable conclusion is that people reacting this violently are either scared of losing influence, or actively enjoy dwelling in the hate.If you’re scared, don’t be. Just save your money and watch your old Ghostbusters DVDs, and enjoy the serenity that comes from accepting your life will continue the same tomorrow as it has today, regardless of what happens with Ghostbusters.And if you enjoy it… well, that’s just kind of pathetic.”

“Because wrestlers tend to be such awful movie stars, they don’t exactly get offered the choicest cuts of cinematic meat. When producers can’t find any real actors, and have no money to work with, they’ll turn to a wrestler in the vague hope of boosting their film’s profile a tiny bit.

This means that movies starring wrestlers tend to be utterly atrocious, not to mention obscure. Even the most die-hard wrestling fans miss a lot of films starring their favourite grapplers, but it’s hard to imagine the wrestlers being too upset about that.”

“Amidst the sweaty dancers with their shirts off, Urge provided family, community, exhilaration, and freedom of expression – all the elements that people look for when assessing cosmopolitan legitimacy. Urge also gave back to the Auckland community through ongoing fundraising initiatives for everything from gay sports teams to the SPCA, in ways that were more ingenuitive and imaginative than the Council could even dream of. If the local governments’ never ending quest to squeeze profit out of its own patrons had been less brutal, there is every chance that Urge would still be around today, and that Auckland could be a city full of alternative venues, with options for a diverse and multicultural populace to thrive.”

“In 1948 approximately 32.7 women out of 100,000 in New Zealand were documented as having breast cancer. By 1990 this had risen to 87.1, and by 2011 (the last year that data is available) this number had risen to 92.5. While it may appear that this rise can simply be explained away by the fact that we have an ageing population in New Zealand, that isn’t the case here – these numbers are age adjusted according to World Health Organisation guidelines to overcome this problem. In other words, considerably more women today are being diagnosed with breast cancer than was the case 65 years ago, or even just 25 years ago.”