By John Butler The recent experience of watching Springboks and All Blacks do battle in a Hollywood film has prompted some general reflections on how differing cinematic cultures approach sport. More particularly, it has  given me cause to consider how sport has (or hasn’t) been treated in Australian cinema. Hollywood has long been the world’s [Read more]

By Paul Daffey Ivanka Buczma, a landscape architecture student at Melbourne University, had a piquant first experience of a country footy rivalry. The 20-year-old and a dozen fellow students were on a field trip in Cohuna in northern Victoria as part of their landscape heritage subject. The students, as well as two lecturers, had entered [Read more]

Film: Invictus. Release: 2010. Director: Clint Eastwood. Starring: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon. Review: John Butler. Many movie fans out there would have long recognised that Clint Eastwood has been on an extended later life roll. Long past his prime as a leading man, he’s prolifically directed (and often starred in) a string of films which [Read more]

By Paul Daffey Rocky (1976): While the later Rocky sequels are rightly regarded as cinematic featherweights, the original Rocky outstrips all contenders in the battle for the heavyweight sporting film of the world. One of only two sports films to win the Oscar Award for Best Picture, it features a storyline that happens to feature [Read more]