Sydney: Annie Leibovitz at MCA

Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life 1990-2005

Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

until 27 March 2011

Above: Susan Sontag, Vandam Street Studio, New York 1999 © the artist and MCA Sydney


This large show is notable  for its inclusion of many personal family photographs, and little-seen travel and landscape images, as well as many of the iconic images of celebrities for which she is best known.
The exhibition started its world tour at the Brooklyn Museum in 2006 and has since been seen at the San Diego Museum of Art, the Atlanta High Museum of Art, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, the de Young Museum in San Francisco, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the National Portrait Gallery in London, C/O Berlin, Alcala 31 in Madrid, Kunsthaus Wien and Fotografiska museum Stockholm.
Buy the book, Annie needs the cash!

New Zealand: Taika Waititi's 'Boy'

Boy
Dir: Taika Waititi, New Zealand
88 minutes

Sundance Film Festival January 22, 2010
World Cinema – Dramatic

Audience Award Winner at Sydney Film Festival QANTAS BEST FEATURE FILM

The highest grossing NZ film of all time may be the best movie to come out of Australasia this year. Many films attempt to get inside the mind of a child, with mixed success. Here, success is total. James Rolleston (pictured) and his little brother Rocky, played by Te Aho Eketone Whitu, are both superb on screen. Their feckless father Alamein is played by director Taika Waititi, also to good effect.
The narrative maintains a fine balance between deadpan Maori humour, poignant observation and profound insights into the world of a child teetering on the edge of adolescence. Often played for laughs, there are also heartrending moments. Feelgood? Well, maybe, but in a way that is truthful and universally relevant.

More info: http://www.boythemovie.co.nz/