Latest news with #DavidStratton
Courier-Mail
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Courier-Mail
David Stratton's infamous The Castle review goes viral after his death
Don't miss out on the headlines from Movies. Followed categories will be added to My News. One of David Stratton's most infamous film reviews has gone viral in the wake of his death this week. Stratton passed away at the age of 85, and now fans are remembering some of his most memorable moments. He was best known to film fans for appearing alongside Margaret Pomeranz for decades on numerous movie review shows. As movie buffs mourn his death, Stratton's review of 1997 Australian classic The Castle has gone viral on social media as fans remember his infamous dislike of the flick. Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton. Picture: Getty. 'I'm afraid it wasn't for me, Margaret,' he told his co-star on At The Movies. 'I thought it was patronising towards its characters, I didn't find it funny.' He added: 'It's very rough [technically]. I'd give it one and half [stars].' Twenty seven years later, he told The Daily Telegraph he had seen The Castle in years since and said he had 'completely misunderstood' the film. 'It was the first film made by a team that worked in television, and it looked to me like a telemovie, whereas I'm very much into the visual side of cinema,' he explained. 'But I obviously completely misunderstood it, as I have watched it a few times since, and I now think it's very funny,' he added. The writer's family announced his death on Thursday afternoon, saying he died peacefully in hospital near his home in the Blue Mountains. Anthony Simcoe, Stephen Curry, Michael Caton and Anne Tenney in a scene from The Castle . 'David's passion for film, commitment to Australian cinema, and generous spirit touched countless lives,' said his family in a statement. 'He was adored as a husband, father, grand and great grand father and admired friend. 'David's family would like to express their heartfelt gratitude for the overwhelming support from friends, colleagues, and the public recently and across his lifetime.' Stratton's family has asked for privacy in the wake of his death, but they shared a heartwarming request with his fans as a way of paying tribute to the beloved critic. '[We] invite everyone to celebrate David's remarkable life and legacy by watching their favourite movie, or David's favourite movie of all time — Singin' In the Rain.' Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is among those who have paid tribute to Stratton. 'With dry humour and sharp insight, David Stratton shared his love of film with our country,' he wrote on Twitter. 'All of us who tuned in to At the Movies respected him for his deep knowledge and for the gentle and generous way he passed it on. May he rest in peace.' Originally published as David Stratton's infamous The Castle review goes viral after his death
News.com.au
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- News.com.au
David Stratton's infamous The Castle review goes viral after his death
One of David Stratton's most infamous film reviews has gone viral in the wake of his death this week. Stratton passed away at the age of 85, and now fans are remembering some of his most memorable moments. He was best known to film fans for appearing alongside Margaret Pomeranz for decades on numerous movie review shows. As movie buffs mourn his death, Stratton's review of 1997 Australian classic The Castle has gone viral on social media as fans remember his infamous dislike of the flick. 'I'm afraid it wasn't for me, Margaret,' he told his co-star on At The Movies. 'I thought it was patronising towards its characters, I didn't find it funny.' He added: 'It's very rough [technically]. I'd give it one and half [stars].' Twenty seven years later, he told The Daily Telegraph he had seen The Castle in years since and said he had 'completely misunderstood' the film. 'It was the first film made by a team that worked in television, and it looked to me like a telemovie, whereas I'm very much into the visual side of cinema,' he explained. 'But I obviously completely misunderstood it, as I have watched it a few times since, and I now think it's very funny,' he added. The writer's family announced his death on Thursday afternoon, saying he died peacefully in hospital near his home in the Blue Mountains. 'David's passion for film, commitment to Australian cinema, and generous spirit touched countless lives,' said his family in a statement. 'He was adored as a husband, father, grand and great grand father and admired friend. 'David's family would like to express their heartfelt gratitude for the overwhelming support from friends, colleagues, and the public recently and across his lifetime.' Stratton's family has asked for privacy in the wake of his death, but they shared a heartwarming request with his fans as a way of paying tribute to the beloved critic. '[We] invite everyone to celebrate David's remarkable life and legacy by watching their favourite movie, or David's favourite movie of all time — Singin' In the Rain.' Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is among those who have paid tribute to Stratton. 'With dry humour and sharp insight, David Stratton shared his love of film with our country,' he wrote on Twitter. 'All of us who tuned in to At the Movies respected him for his deep knowledge and for the gentle and generous way he passed it on. May he rest in peace.'
AU Financial Review
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- AU Financial Review
Why the Australian film industry owes so much to David Stratton
David Stratton had immense power and influence. He didn't wear it lightly; he didn't wear it at all. There will never be a more powerful advocate for Australian cinema than Stratton. That's a consequence of media fragmentation and our diminishing interest in critical expertise, but also because of his global status.
ABC News
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Tributes flow for David Stratton, 'Gandalf' of Australian cinema
"A giant in his field": they're some of the words being used to describe the legendary film critic, writer and educator David Stratton, who's died aged 85. He formed an indomitable on-air partnership with Margaret Pomeranz which spanned decades across the SBS and ABC, and became a cultural touchstone for many around the country. Guest: George Miller, friend and Oscar-award winning director
ABC News
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Lost Weekend: Remembering David Stratton
I sent my email to David Stratton 10 days ago. I was starting to wonder why I had not received a reply. I sent my note because I was finally making the plan: the plan that David and I had spoken about for years but had never managed to achieve. I can't remember when David first suggested that I come for a weekend at his and his wife Susie's house in the Blue Mountains, and we would watch all the films of the great 1920s and '30s German émigré filmmaker, Ernst Lubitsch — the director of films like The Shop Around the Corner, To Be or Not to Be and The Merry Widow, and the creator of the famed, sophisticated sense of humour and wit that became known as "The Lubitsch Touch". I don't know how David and I shared that we each revered this man's films. We were not close friends; we were not even good friends. I had interviewed David from time to time and over many years had run into him at film events and always enjoyed his company. But somehow, we had each revealed our private adoration of this clever filmmaker and had discovered the immediate ease that comes from a shared cinematic language — a shibboleth understandable only to us in the form of the name of a German director whose wit and style built the bridge between the old cinema of Europe and the post-war Hollywood auteurs who entranced us both. Whenever we met, he would remind me: "Now don't forget about our Lubitsch weekend. You must come soon." It was a wonderful idea — I would bring some good food and wine, we would start with Lubitsch's silent films, move through his elegant conquering of 1930s Hollywood and, I quietly plotted, we would finish with a couple of movies by his protege and heir, the incomparable Billy Wilder. He was unwell when he generously gave of his time and allowed me to interview him about the singular Australian filmmaker Warwick Thornton, for my series Creative Types. His high regard for Thornton's lean, powerful filmmaking help make him globally revered and awarded. As we wrapped our chat, he said again, "Now, we still have to arrange our Lubitsch weekend." I promised I would. I so very much wanted to. I sent my email on August 4, naming the month we could finally watch the films. I heard no reply. On Thursday I heard the news of David's death. I rang the celebrated filmmaker George Miller, another alumnus of Creative Types, to share the sad news together. George told me of his own regret. He visited David three months ago, just as he came home from surgery. David was sharp and on his feet, and he suggested to George that he come back soon, and David would select three films that he thought George should watch. George promised that he would. "I would love to know what three films he picked," George told me. He would probably dislike the term, but David Stratton was a true public intellectual. He unapologetically spoke up to his audience. Film is, by definition, a popular art, and to be successful must remain so: a film projected to a crowded theatre is its own reward. David's mission was to ensure that as many people as possible heard of that director, sat in that theatre, noted that cinematographer, heard that soundtrack and was transported and maybe even changed by the experience, as he was. He was an educator at home and revered throughout the world of cinema as someone who was immune to fashion but excited by the innovation of creativity. He had the catalogued knowledge and the temperament to contextually weigh art against its intent rather than the mood of the day. He knew more than enough about the vagaries of the box office and celebrity to pay them no attention. "He was a true creature of the cinema," George said. "I would see him at Cannes and other festivals, and he would spend every day watching film after film after film. The cinema was his natural habitat … all that time in the dark." I have spent countless hours of my life very happily in that dark, and the regret I have about never spending that time with a film sage as wise and generous as David is keen and sharp. And I want to remember it. I write this to remember David and his incomparable contribution to Australian and world cinema, but also to implore myself and anyone else reading this: don't wait. If there is a conversation to be had, a moment to be shared, a film to be watched with someone you admire and respect, do it now. Don't wait. There are very few experiences as strong, very friendships that are forged as powerfully as those that are made in the cinema, in the dark. Virginia Trioli is presenter of Creative Types and a former co-host of ABC News Breakfast and Mornings on ABC Radio Melbourne.
