B Sharp: Fool for Love (Sam Shepard 1983)

I'm writing this one up in Me Fail? I Fly!

Hothouse (Brian Aldiss 1962)

This is one of the titles on my very long list of science fiction books I've missed out on.

DVD: An Education (Lone Scherfig 2009)

A wonderful sense of danger in this story of adolescence, though everything may be tidied away a little too neatly at the end. Was he really just a cad?

Griffin Theatre: Quack (Ian Wilding 2010)

The nice young man who asked us to turn our phones off before the show also warned that we might be splashed by bodily fluids if we sat near the front, but reassured us that the fluids were all water soluble. That, plus the red velvet curtains on the tiny Stables stage, and the word Zombies gives you a fair idea of what is on offer. Without a word of irony, an excellent night out.

The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski 2010)

A fairly ordinary thriller except for the creepiness that feels like echoes from early Polanski, especially The Tenant.

Father of My Children (Mia Hansen-Løve 2009)

The king died and then the queen died. If you add 'of grief' you've told a story. If not, you may have a film script.All the same, the characters were all believable, the non-explanations, non-solutions,non-climaxes all very like life.

Sydney Fringe: Pearls Before Swine (Blake Erickson)

This started out promisingly and I'm glad to have given money toward Blake Erickson's career, but I did sleep through quite a lot of it. A quarter to ten at night must be too far past my bedtime. There was a nice ambience at the Factory Theatre, home of the Sydney Fringe Festival.

Heat 23 (ed Ivor Indyk 2010)

This arrived in the mail today. I read Michael Mohammed Ahmad's story to my partner as she cooked dinner.

Oranges & Peanuts for Sale (Eliot Weinberger 2009)

A Christmas present that I've been meaning to get to.

The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko 2010)

The film had been through the Hollywood equivalent of an ethics committee, but still managed to be funny. The exiting audience was full of loud discussion of the characters' motivations.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company: August: Osage County (Tracy Letts 2007)

Australian matriarch Gwen is in purgatory at Belvoir Street; on Hickson Road, US matriarch Violet is in hell. Does this say something about our respective theatres' ability (or desire) to go the whole hog in dramatic familial dysfunction? Also, What Alison Croggon said, only with a different, also fabulous cast.

Power Shift (Quarterly Essay 39, Hugh White 2010)

Subtitle: 'Australia’s Future between Washington and Beijing'. It's nice to move away from electoral politics for a while.

Saga of the Swamp Thing, Book 1 (Alan Moore and others 2009)

A Father's Day gift from a thoughtful but not entirely disinterested son.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World (Edgar Wright 2010)

Response to this was sharply divided in my movie going party, possibly along gender lines. Though it was a bit long, I found the computer game conventions and other daggy-hip elements charming. Someone will probably do a PhD on the relationship of this film to Kill Bill.

DVD: Temple Grandin (Mick Jackson 2010)

Made for TV, with a wonderful, charming performance by Claire Danes, this biopic about the animal husbandry genius with autism is completely riveting. I hope it's coming to our screens soon. Julia Ormond at the Emmys described it as a chick flick with bull's balls.

Trouble (Kate Jennings 2010)

Subtitled 'Evolution of a radical: selected writings 1970-2010', this is a collection in lieu of memoir. The intro to Pam Brown's elected Poems is not included, but this book seemed a good segue to that one.

Cairo Time (Ruba Nadda 2009)

My companion was irritated by Patricia Clarkson's teflon quality, but I loved the dreamlike pace, the travelogue elements worked for me, and it seemed just right that (spoiler alert!) Nothing Happened.