The Archibald prize and all that - 2013 winner

The Archibald portrait prize has come around again in 2013 with this year's winner being Del Kathryn Martin's painting of actor, Hugo Weaving. The work is typical of her style, merging contemporary design and style with a more traditional painting technique used in portraiture. Her style is described as vibrant, figurative imagery.

This is the second time that Del Kathryn Martin has won the prize having also been successful in 2008 with a portrait of herself and her two children. It is also the fourth time she has been chosen to be included in the exhibition. The prize is awarded annually to the best portrait, 'preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics, painted by any artist resident in Australasia’. This year the prize money is worth a cool $75,000 which is more than enough together with the prestige and promotional value to garner much interest in the arts community.

Film Review - Zero Dark Thirty

Jessica Chastain - Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty by film director Katherine Bigelow is a fictional account of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, leading eventually to his location and assassination. Parts of the film are based on events as far as known with the rest being scripted-in. The story is centred on the lead character, Maya (Jessica Chastain), a young CIA intelligence analyst who has spent her entire career hunting for bin Laden and not much else. The film follows a chronological sequence of events incorporating actual historical incidents into the fictional narrative (such as the bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad) weaving fact and fiction into the suspense of the hunt. Internal political divisions in the CIA portray effectively the often contrary nature of opinions and information which influence intelligence work and the ease in which critical information can be overlooked. The baseline in intelligence is often merely a matter of gut instinct when reaching a conclusion, a point which Maya forcefully pursues in her quest to find her target. The film garnered controversy for its portrayal of torture of al Qaeda prisoners in the early scenes however in reality, there are far more confronting images in many other films. Zero Dark Thirty was also criticised for the unattributed use of actual recordings of 9/11 victims from the hijacked flights which hit the World Trade Centre Towers. The film has high production values overall, a reasonable pace and effective acting but remains trapped with an unlikely story line relaying on a single character to carry the plot.