Doping games blur 'morality and entertainment'
Aussie Paralympian Ellie Cole has fired up at James Magnussen and the Enhanced Games, saying the controversial event 'blurs the lines between morality and entertainment'.
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The Advertiser
15 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Baby Shark just won't sound the same after this excellent Aussie thriller
Dangerous Animals (MA, 98 minutes) 4 stars The "final girl" is almost an essential in any horror film, the last of the film's female characters left alive to either triumph over the bad or evil figure, or the last and most spectacular of the film's killings. Hassie Harrison, a young and blonde Texan actress with a season on the horsey drama Yellowstone on her CV, is the lead and final girl in this spectacularly gruesome new Aussie horror film. She's an actor to keep an eye on because she is memorable in a film of memorable characters and moments, and particularly holds her own against Jai Courtney playing a character as iconic as John Jarratt's Wolf Creek antihero Mick Taylor. In a fictional surf-swept town close to the Gold Coast, Captain Tucker (Jai Courtney) runs a charter boat business offering tourists the once-in-a-lifetime experience of diving with sharks. It's a strange business for Tucker to have built for himself, considering a miracle childhood escape from a shark encounter that left his body scarred with the bite marks, but Tucker sees it as a marketing opportunity his tourists love hearing about. A thing they probably don't love, as we discover in the film's opening scene, is that when Tucker discovers a tourist hasn't told anyone where they're going, he enjoys throwing them to the sharks and filming the blood churning in the water as the sharks tear them apart. So, probably not the diving experience you're looking for. A Yankie surfer touring Australia in a beat-up camper van, Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is in the wrong place at the wrong time when she asks Tucker for help with her surfboard, and finds herself kidnapped and awakens on his shark vessel, destined to be chum. But fortunately for Zephyr, she's made a real impression on local surfer Moses (Josh Hueston), who manages to track her down and just might have the fearlessness to take on Tucker. Australia makes great low-budget horror, and this film is certainly great, a prince among the many budget slasher films Australia churns out, but with the exception of one or two moments, this film does not look cheap at all. This is probably thanks to the assured direction of Sean Byrne, whose two previous turns in the director's chair, The Loved Ones and The Devil's Candy, were also very memorable. A lot of the film is cleverly set on a rusted-out trawler just infused with atmosphere. Harrison and Hueston, one of the cast of the recent Heartbreak High reboot, are very strong, and it's a weirdly enjoyable element of the screenplay that these two smoke shows continue to chat each other up and flirt outrageously even when they're being tied down and tortured by Courtney's serial killer. Nick Lepard's screenplay isn't the most original genre mash-up, and yet it all just comes together as an original and enjoyable scare-fest, in the way that first Wolf Creek felt new and memorable. And the most enjoyable and original element is Jai Courtney's performance, a force of nature that you almost want to root for as the anti-hero, and I feel this is a career second-act for Courtney, who has played villains before, but not like this. You will, honestly, never listen to Baby Shark the same way again. I had a brown underpants moment in my teens with a shark alarm at a surf carnival, so I am equal parts drawn to and terrified by shark films, and one of the interesting things in Dangerous Animals is that the sharks are probably the safer bet for the characters. Dangerous Animals (MA, 98 minutes) 4 stars The "final girl" is almost an essential in any horror film, the last of the film's female characters left alive to either triumph over the bad or evil figure, or the last and most spectacular of the film's killings. Hassie Harrison, a young and blonde Texan actress with a season on the horsey drama Yellowstone on her CV, is the lead and final girl in this spectacularly gruesome new Aussie horror film. She's an actor to keep an eye on because she is memorable in a film of memorable characters and moments, and particularly holds her own against Jai Courtney playing a character as iconic as John Jarratt's Wolf Creek antihero Mick Taylor. In a fictional surf-swept town close to the Gold Coast, Captain Tucker (Jai Courtney) runs a charter boat business offering tourists the once-in-a-lifetime experience of diving with sharks. It's a strange business for Tucker to have built for himself, considering a miracle childhood escape from a shark encounter that left his body scarred with the bite marks, but Tucker sees it as a marketing opportunity his tourists love hearing about. A thing they probably don't love, as we discover in the film's opening scene, is that when Tucker discovers a tourist hasn't told anyone where they're going, he enjoys throwing them to the sharks and filming the blood churning in the water as the sharks tear them apart. So, probably not the diving experience you're looking for. A Yankie surfer touring Australia in a beat-up camper van, Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is in the wrong place at the wrong time when she asks Tucker for help with her surfboard, and finds herself kidnapped and awakens on his shark vessel, destined to be chum. But fortunately for Zephyr, she's made a real impression on local surfer Moses (Josh Hueston), who manages to track her down and just might have the fearlessness to take on Tucker. Australia makes great low-budget horror, and this film is certainly great, a prince among the many budget slasher films Australia churns out, but with the exception of one or two moments, this film does not look cheap at all. This is probably thanks to the assured direction of Sean Byrne, whose two previous turns in the director's chair, The Loved Ones and The Devil's Candy, were also very memorable. A lot of the film is cleverly set on a rusted-out trawler just infused with atmosphere. Harrison and Hueston, one of the cast of the recent Heartbreak High reboot, are very strong, and it's a weirdly enjoyable element of the screenplay that these two smoke shows continue to chat each other up and flirt outrageously even when they're being tied down and tortured by Courtney's serial killer. Nick Lepard's screenplay isn't the most original genre mash-up, and yet it all just comes together as an original and enjoyable scare-fest, in the way that first Wolf Creek felt new and memorable. And the most enjoyable and original element is Jai Courtney's performance, a force of nature that you almost want to root for as the anti-hero, and I feel this is a career second-act for Courtney, who has played villains before, but not like this. You will, honestly, never listen to Baby Shark the same way again. I had a brown underpants moment in my teens with a shark alarm at a surf carnival, so I am equal parts drawn to and terrified by shark films, and one of the interesting things in Dangerous Animals is that the sharks are probably the safer bet for the characters. Dangerous Animals (MA, 98 minutes) 4 stars The "final girl" is almost an essential in any horror film, the last of the film's female characters left alive to either triumph over the bad or evil figure, or the last and most spectacular of the film's killings. Hassie Harrison, a young and blonde Texan actress with a season on the horsey drama Yellowstone on her CV, is the lead and final girl in this spectacularly gruesome new Aussie horror film. She's an actor to keep an eye on because she is memorable in a film of memorable characters and moments, and particularly holds her own against Jai Courtney playing a character as iconic as John Jarratt's Wolf Creek antihero Mick Taylor. In a fictional surf-swept town close to the Gold Coast, Captain Tucker (Jai Courtney) runs a charter boat business offering tourists the once-in-a-lifetime experience of diving with sharks. It's a strange business for Tucker to have built for himself, considering a miracle childhood escape from a shark encounter that left his body scarred with the bite marks, but Tucker sees it as a marketing opportunity his tourists love hearing about. A thing they probably don't love, as we discover in the film's opening scene, is that when Tucker discovers a tourist hasn't told anyone where they're going, he enjoys throwing them to the sharks and filming the blood churning in the water as the sharks tear them apart. So, probably not the diving experience you're looking for. A Yankie surfer touring Australia in a beat-up camper van, Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is in the wrong place at the wrong time when she asks Tucker for help with her surfboard, and finds herself kidnapped and awakens on his shark vessel, destined to be chum. But fortunately for Zephyr, she's made a real impression on local surfer Moses (Josh Hueston), who manages to track her down and just might have the fearlessness to take on Tucker. Australia makes great low-budget horror, and this film is certainly great, a prince among the many budget slasher films Australia churns out, but with the exception of one or two moments, this film does not look cheap at all. This is probably thanks to the assured direction of Sean Byrne, whose two previous turns in the director's chair, The Loved Ones and The Devil's Candy, were also very memorable. A lot of the film is cleverly set on a rusted-out trawler just infused with atmosphere. Harrison and Hueston, one of the cast of the recent Heartbreak High reboot, are very strong, and it's a weirdly enjoyable element of the screenplay that these two smoke shows continue to chat each other up and flirt outrageously even when they're being tied down and tortured by Courtney's serial killer. Nick Lepard's screenplay isn't the most original genre mash-up, and yet it all just comes together as an original and enjoyable scare-fest, in the way that first Wolf Creek felt new and memorable. And the most enjoyable and original element is Jai Courtney's performance, a force of nature that you almost want to root for as the anti-hero, and I feel this is a career second-act for Courtney, who has played villains before, but not like this. You will, honestly, never listen to Baby Shark the same way again. I had a brown underpants moment in my teens with a shark alarm at a surf carnival, so I am equal parts drawn to and terrified by shark films, and one of the interesting things in Dangerous Animals is that the sharks are probably the safer bet for the characters. Dangerous Animals (MA, 98 minutes) 4 stars The "final girl" is almost an essential in any horror film, the last of the film's female characters left alive to either triumph over the bad or evil figure, or the last and most spectacular of the film's killings. Hassie Harrison, a young and blonde Texan actress with a season on the horsey drama Yellowstone on her CV, is the lead and final girl in this spectacularly gruesome new Aussie horror film. She's an actor to keep an eye on because she is memorable in a film of memorable characters and moments, and particularly holds her own against Jai Courtney playing a character as iconic as John Jarratt's Wolf Creek antihero Mick Taylor. In a fictional surf-swept town close to the Gold Coast, Captain Tucker (Jai Courtney) runs a charter boat business offering tourists the once-in-a-lifetime experience of diving with sharks. It's a strange business for Tucker to have built for himself, considering a miracle childhood escape from a shark encounter that left his body scarred with the bite marks, but Tucker sees it as a marketing opportunity his tourists love hearing about. A thing they probably don't love, as we discover in the film's opening scene, is that when Tucker discovers a tourist hasn't told anyone where they're going, he enjoys throwing them to the sharks and filming the blood churning in the water as the sharks tear them apart. So, probably not the diving experience you're looking for. A Yankie surfer touring Australia in a beat-up camper van, Zephyr (Hassie Harrison) is in the wrong place at the wrong time when she asks Tucker for help with her surfboard, and finds herself kidnapped and awakens on his shark vessel, destined to be chum. But fortunately for Zephyr, she's made a real impression on local surfer Moses (Josh Hueston), who manages to track her down and just might have the fearlessness to take on Tucker. Australia makes great low-budget horror, and this film is certainly great, a prince among the many budget slasher films Australia churns out, but with the exception of one or two moments, this film does not look cheap at all. This is probably thanks to the assured direction of Sean Byrne, whose two previous turns in the director's chair, The Loved Ones and The Devil's Candy, were also very memorable. A lot of the film is cleverly set on a rusted-out trawler just infused with atmosphere. Harrison and Hueston, one of the cast of the recent Heartbreak High reboot, are very strong, and it's a weirdly enjoyable element of the screenplay that these two smoke shows continue to chat each other up and flirt outrageously even when they're being tied down and tortured by Courtney's serial killer. Nick Lepard's screenplay isn't the most original genre mash-up, and yet it all just comes together as an original and enjoyable scare-fest, in the way that first Wolf Creek felt new and memorable. And the most enjoyable and original element is Jai Courtney's performance, a force of nature that you almost want to root for as the anti-hero, and I feel this is a career second-act for Courtney, who has played villains before, but not like this. You will, honestly, never listen to Baby Shark the same way again. I had a brown underpants moment in my teens with a shark alarm at a surf carnival, so I am equal parts drawn to and terrified by shark films, and one of the interesting things in Dangerous Animals is that the sharks are probably the safer bet for the characters.
The Advertiser
16 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Red Hot Summer a perfect warm-up for Mark Seymour's Antarctic odyssey
Veteran Aussie songwriter Mark Seymour will be feeling the heat this summer, but come December next year, he will be preparing for a cool change. From October to December, Seymour will join some of Australian music's biggest names for the Red Hot Summer festival. Just 12 months after the tour wraps up, he will embark on a voyage to the coldest continent on earth. Seymour, 68, said he couldn't resist the offer to join an 11-day cruise to the Antarctic, which will see him performing intimate acoustic sets for those onboard. Read more from The Senior "I'd never do it otherwise. I'd never get down there. So it's an incredible opportunity to see, you know, this really, magnificent part of the earth," he said. Seymour is particularly excited about travelling the infamous Drake Passage. The notorious stretch of water between South America's Cape Horn and Antarctica's South Shetland Islands has historically been considered the most dangerous body of water in the world for seafarers. "It's got hundreds and hundreds of old wooden shipwrecks somewhere down on the bottom, you know, and so the history of the area is incredible." Before heading off on the adventure of a lifetime, Seymour will join the likes of Crowded House, The Church, The Waifs, and Angus and Julia Stone on the lineup for this year's Red Hot Summer touring festival. He can't wait to perform at the festival. He enjoys the opportunity to hang out with fellow performers at festivals and said Red Hot Summer offers a different vibe to most music festivals. "It just sort of becomes its own little kind of like a community backstage, but it's definitely got that vibe in the audience as well, I think. "What sets it apart from other tours or other festivals, it's very much about communities in towns, and it's sort of multi-generational. It's not focused on one particular age group." Joining Seymour on stage will be Vika and Linda. Seymour has had a long association with the popular vocal duo, having written When Will You Fall For Me, the first single from their self-titled 1994 debut album. The show will combine hits from both Seymour and Vika and Linda's catalogues. Seymour will take on lead vocals for some of Vika and Linda's hits, and they will take the lead on some of his, giving audiences the chance to experience the songs in a new light. Outside of touring life, Seymour, who co-penned Australian classics like Throw Your Arms Around Me, Holy Grail, and When The River Runs Dry, continues to write and produce music. The former Hunters and Collectors frontman released his latest album The Boxer with his current band, The Undertow last year. Its eponymous first single tells the story of a young woman who leaves a country town to pursue a boxing career and was inspired by his personal trainer. "I'm at my best (as a songwriter) when I inhabit a character. So there's a person engaged in something, and then they've got an attitude or they're in a particular emotional state." Having written and recorded music for more than 45 years, you might think the occasional bout of writer's block would be inevitable, but it has never been an issue for Seymour. "I look out at the world, and there's never a lack of material, ever. And I just basically experiment with my guitar, you know, it's a very simple process." "Why I chose songwriting as a pathway in life was pretty intuitive, really. Whatever that trigger is, it has always been there." Tickets for the Red Hot Summer are on sale now and selling fast. Red Hot Summer; touring regional venues in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia from October 11 to December 6. For tickets visit Share your thoughts in the comments below, or send a Letter to the Editor by CLICKING HERE. . Veteran Aussie songwriter Mark Seymour will be feeling the heat this summer, but come December next year, he will be preparing for a cool change. From October to December, Seymour will join some of Australian music's biggest names for the Red Hot Summer festival. Just 12 months after the tour wraps up, he will embark on a voyage to the coldest continent on earth. Seymour, 68, said he couldn't resist the offer to join an 11-day cruise to the Antarctic, which will see him performing intimate acoustic sets for those onboard. Read more from The Senior "I'd never do it otherwise. I'd never get down there. So it's an incredible opportunity to see, you know, this really, magnificent part of the earth," he said. Seymour is particularly excited about travelling the infamous Drake Passage. The notorious stretch of water between South America's Cape Horn and Antarctica's South Shetland Islands has historically been considered the most dangerous body of water in the world for seafarers. "It's got hundreds and hundreds of old wooden shipwrecks somewhere down on the bottom, you know, and so the history of the area is incredible." Before heading off on the adventure of a lifetime, Seymour will join the likes of Crowded House, The Church, The Waifs, and Angus and Julia Stone on the lineup for this year's Red Hot Summer touring festival. He can't wait to perform at the festival. He enjoys the opportunity to hang out with fellow performers at festivals and said Red Hot Summer offers a different vibe to most music festivals. "It just sort of becomes its own little kind of like a community backstage, but it's definitely got that vibe in the audience as well, I think. "What sets it apart from other tours or other festivals, it's very much about communities in towns, and it's sort of multi-generational. It's not focused on one particular age group." Joining Seymour on stage will be Vika and Linda. Seymour has had a long association with the popular vocal duo, having written When Will You Fall For Me, the first single from their self-titled 1994 debut album. The show will combine hits from both Seymour and Vika and Linda's catalogues. Seymour will take on lead vocals for some of Vika and Linda's hits, and they will take the lead on some of his, giving audiences the chance to experience the songs in a new light. Outside of touring life, Seymour, who co-penned Australian classics like Throw Your Arms Around Me, Holy Grail, and When The River Runs Dry, continues to write and produce music. The former Hunters and Collectors frontman released his latest album The Boxer with his current band, The Undertow last year. Its eponymous first single tells the story of a young woman who leaves a country town to pursue a boxing career and was inspired by his personal trainer. "I'm at my best (as a songwriter) when I inhabit a character. So there's a person engaged in something, and then they've got an attitude or they're in a particular emotional state." Having written and recorded music for more than 45 years, you might think the occasional bout of writer's block would be inevitable, but it has never been an issue for Seymour. "I look out at the world, and there's never a lack of material, ever. And I just basically experiment with my guitar, you know, it's a very simple process." "Why I chose songwriting as a pathway in life was pretty intuitive, really. Whatever that trigger is, it has always been there." Tickets for the Red Hot Summer are on sale now and selling fast. Red Hot Summer; touring regional venues in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia from October 11 to December 6. For tickets visit Share your thoughts in the comments below, or send a Letter to the Editor by CLICKING HERE. . Veteran Aussie songwriter Mark Seymour will be feeling the heat this summer, but come December next year, he will be preparing for a cool change. From October to December, Seymour will join some of Australian music's biggest names for the Red Hot Summer festival. Just 12 months after the tour wraps up, he will embark on a voyage to the coldest continent on earth. Seymour, 68, said he couldn't resist the offer to join an 11-day cruise to the Antarctic, which will see him performing intimate acoustic sets for those onboard. Read more from The Senior "I'd never do it otherwise. I'd never get down there. So it's an incredible opportunity to see, you know, this really, magnificent part of the earth," he said. Seymour is particularly excited about travelling the infamous Drake Passage. The notorious stretch of water between South America's Cape Horn and Antarctica's South Shetland Islands has historically been considered the most dangerous body of water in the world for seafarers. "It's got hundreds and hundreds of old wooden shipwrecks somewhere down on the bottom, you know, and so the history of the area is incredible." Before heading off on the adventure of a lifetime, Seymour will join the likes of Crowded House, The Church, The Waifs, and Angus and Julia Stone on the lineup for this year's Red Hot Summer touring festival. He can't wait to perform at the festival. He enjoys the opportunity to hang out with fellow performers at festivals and said Red Hot Summer offers a different vibe to most music festivals. "It just sort of becomes its own little kind of like a community backstage, but it's definitely got that vibe in the audience as well, I think. "What sets it apart from other tours or other festivals, it's very much about communities in towns, and it's sort of multi-generational. It's not focused on one particular age group." Joining Seymour on stage will be Vika and Linda. Seymour has had a long association with the popular vocal duo, having written When Will You Fall For Me, the first single from their self-titled 1994 debut album. The show will combine hits from both Seymour and Vika and Linda's catalogues. Seymour will take on lead vocals for some of Vika and Linda's hits, and they will take the lead on some of his, giving audiences the chance to experience the songs in a new light. Outside of touring life, Seymour, who co-penned Australian classics like Throw Your Arms Around Me, Holy Grail, and When The River Runs Dry, continues to write and produce music. The former Hunters and Collectors frontman released his latest album The Boxer with his current band, The Undertow last year. Its eponymous first single tells the story of a young woman who leaves a country town to pursue a boxing career and was inspired by his personal trainer. "I'm at my best (as a songwriter) when I inhabit a character. So there's a person engaged in something, and then they've got an attitude or they're in a particular emotional state." Having written and recorded music for more than 45 years, you might think the occasional bout of writer's block would be inevitable, but it has never been an issue for Seymour. "I look out at the world, and there's never a lack of material, ever. And I just basically experiment with my guitar, you know, it's a very simple process." "Why I chose songwriting as a pathway in life was pretty intuitive, really. Whatever that trigger is, it has always been there." Tickets for the Red Hot Summer are on sale now and selling fast. Red Hot Summer; touring regional venues in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia from October 11 to December 6. For tickets visit Share your thoughts in the comments below, or send a Letter to the Editor by CLICKING HERE. .
9 News
a day ago
- 9 News
For Mick Fanning, the shark attack 'was just something that happened'
Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here When live broadcasters on the eastern cape of South Africa captured the terrifying moment a shark trailed Australian surf icon Mick Fanning just minutes into the 2015 J-Bay Open Final, viewers across the world gripped their couches and braced for the worst. But as the 10th anniversary of the champion wave rider's brush with death looms, Fanning is remarkably relaxed about his miraculous escape from harm. "It was just something that happened," he told . The infamous shark incident during the 2015 J-Bay Open Final was broadcast around the world. (World Surf League via Getty Imag) "To be honest, it wasn't like a flick of the switch moment where I was gonna change my whole life. "I just had to do work on myself to get myself back to, you know, surfing and stuff like that." After the near-attack in July 2015, Fanning returned to Jeffreys Bay the following year where he took out the competition, before retiring from WSL competition in 2018 as a three-time world champion. Since then, the Ballina-bred surfer has turned his focus - and perhaps his broader legacy - to charity. In March 2022, TV cameras were again fixed on Fanning, who again donned his signature wetsuit as he traversed deadly flood waters on his jet ski , carrying essential supplies and helping dozens of locals in the Northern Rivers to safe ground. Mick Fanning has used his jet ski to help flood impacted victims in Murwillumbah. (9News) "I know that area really well," Fanning said. The 43-year-old learned to surf in Ballina before honing his skills after moving to the Gold Coast as a teenager. "It's a place that I love and I got plenty of friends down there so I had a lot of friends that were affected by it all." From there, Mick Fanning's Charity Golf Day was born. The inaugural event raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the flood recovery. Three years on, that figure is approaching $2 million, but the circumstances across the region are devastatingly similar. "It seems like it's just happening every other year now," Fanning said. "I guess on the ground and in doing all the rescue work and helping people get back on their feet, you build relationships and ... we've just found that a lot of people are still really struggling. "It's been three years on now and ... people are just finding out that the grants they thought they were going to get are not coming through. "Some people are just, you know, losing that hope." Fanning will be joined by celebrity mates and supporters today for his fourth annual Charity Golf Day. (Supplied) The golf day has helped raise almost $2 million for charities supporting the flood recovery effort. (Supplied) Fanning hopes some of the community's faith can be restored when a star-studded lineup of Aussie sporting legends and celebrities converge on the green at Coolangatta and Tweed Heads Golf Club today for the fourth annual Charity Golf Day. "We're just here to let them know that we're still here we're still thinking of them and still trying to help where we can," he said. "There's some incredible people that are all coming out to support and yeah, we're very thankful for all their support and donating their time." Famous faces such as Dylan Alcott, Ellyse Perry, Hamish Blake, Sally Pearson, Karl Stefanovic and Shannon Noll will be swinging their drivers alongside generous supporters to raise vital funds for on-the-ground charities including Givit, Human Nature, and Hands On Hearts. This year, $1 million and a Mercedes-Benz are on the line if players can snag a hole-in-one. "It keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and you know we try and add something new and exciting each and every year," Fanning said. "It's pretty massive that we can do things like that and just keep making the day bigger and better and hopefully raise more money for those in need, and actually raise more awareness." Fans who want a chance to win a year's supply of Balter beer, or would like to make a donation or purchase merch designed by street artist Sid Tapia, can visit the Mick Fanning Charity Golf Day website . floods national Australia Mick Fanning charity celebrities CONTACT US Property News: The last inner Sydney suburbs where houses cost under $2m.
