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tmcastandcrew · 7 years ago

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Simon Baker reveals his coast connection ahead Breathe premiere on the Gold Coast

Ann Wason Moore, Gold Coast Bulletin April 13, 2018 10:00am X

Thank you @SBaker_Ney !!

STARS, they’re just like us. Simon Baker, the guy they call Smiley, the Mentalist, calls my house on a Saturday morning from his mobile, no PR, no minders … but also no time.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “Something’s just come up. If you’re not busy in a couple of hours, can I call you then for our interview?”

Of course, I concur. I have been stood up by far lesser than Mr Baker. When we talk again, he admits the reason he had to run was actually because he had to surf … with his son.

“I could see that look in his eye, the conditions were good and he wanted to get out.

“The alternative was he’d pick up a device and start playing games,” says the 48-year-old father of three. “I had to intervene and get him away from technology.”

Stars’ kids … they’re just like mine.

A lot more down the line > keep reading>>

We’re used to seeing Simon on screen — from E Street in the early 90s to his first American film, the acclaimed LA Confidential, to starring roles in The Guardian and The Mentalist — all trademark golden curls and crinkly eyes.

But as much as he’s every bit the leading man, there’s something so familiar about him. Deep inside there’s still that Aussie boy next door.

In fact, there’s every chance that if you grew up on the Gold Coast, he was the boy next door.

Born and bred in Northern New South Wales, he attended Ballina High and still owns a property in nearby Nashua.

In fact, he and wife actor Rebecca Rigg donated to the Rise Above the Flood appeal just last year to help their neighbours hit by the natural disaster.

But in between Ballina and Hollywood, Simon did a solid stint in Surfers Paradise.

“When I left home I did a year in Sydney, but then I came up to the Goldie,” he says.

“A bunch of mates and I moved in to this old fibro shack on Garfield Terrace. It was just after the bend in the road. It had a huge pine tree in the back and then just beach.

“It was the last house left in that stretch. We were evicted because they sold the land to build another high-rise. I’ll have to drive past it one day. They were some fun times. We all worked in hospitality and just surfed. I worked at the Hyatt Sanctuary Cove at that big beach pool.”

Yep, for those of us of a certain age, Simon Baker was our pool boy. In fact, he may well take that trip down memory lane this weekend. He’s on the Coast not just to attend the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, but to launch a project that’s not just dear to his heart but his surfer’s soul.

Breath is Baker’s feature film directorial debut, adapted from the 2008 novel by celebrated Australian author Tim Winton, and will have its Queensland premiere at the Gold Coast Film Festival this Thursday.

The classic coming of age tale follows Pikelet and Loonie, two teenage boys growing up in a small coastal town in Western Australia in the 1970s.

Their love of surfing and adventure sees their paths cross with older, local surfer Bill “Sando” Sanderson, played by Baker, who describes the character as “a mentor, but pathetic in his own way”.

Having grown up surfing in Ballina, and with teenage sons of his own, Harry, 16, and Claude, 19, plus 24-year-old daughter Stella, Baker says he felt instantly connected to the characters and themes in Winton’s novel before adapting the storyline for screen.

“To me it’s all about identity. It’s about the boys, Pikelet and Loonie, trying to figure out who they are in this coming-of-age time of their lives,” he says.

“It’s about Sando and his sort of stunted identity. As much as he’s this mentor to them, he’s not a Yoda character. He’s more pathetic than wise. He’s stuck in the past and never learned to take responsibility. But it’s also about the identity of Australia.

“Our identity is tied to the sea, to the coastline, but our identity is also constantly shifting. We drift with the tide between our UK heritage, our ties with America and our indigenous history.”

Baker says the film helped shift his own definition of identity, from actor to director and filmmaker. Sando may be a father-figure of sorts to the boys, but the film was Baker’s own lovechild.

“We got the book option about eight years ago and the past three or four years have been really intense,” he says.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, getting a film made is a long, hard process. It’s a labour of love.

“I’d like to direct again though. I feel at home directing. I feel like I can contribute more when I’m in that role. It’s not easy but it’s immensely satisfying.”

The fact that the subject matter dealt with one of Baker’s other great loves, surfing, is obvious when watching the film. The poetry of motion writes a love letter to a time and place that, while changed, is not entirely gone. The boys who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, like Pikelet, Loonie and Baker himself, are the fathers of today, guiding their own children through ever-choppy conditions.

“That era of the 70s is still so familiar to us — I loved putting up the pictures from Copperart in the houses. Who didn’t have that in their home?” he says.

“I think I was a boy who was somewhere between those two adolescent characters, the sort of dreamy individual that is Pikelet and the wild, lost boy that is Loonie. But ultimately, I’m more Pikelet. Otherwise I never would have got this movie made.

“But the thing we all have in common is this love for surfing. I can’t really say what it is to me. It’s all different sorts of things and it changes every time I go to the water. These days it’s a great way to commune with nature and to catch up with old friends.

“It’s a break and a relief to be somewhere that no one can contact you, your phone doesn’t ring. Physically, it’s still exhilarating and meditative.”

For Baker, it’s an exercise that is still uniquely Australian. With his children having grown up both here and in the US, he says the surfing community in their Sydney suburb is an extended family of sorts.

“When we walked through the park on the way back from surfing today, I said to my son, ‘Do you see all the different groups hanging out? Do you see the different generations passing through?’ He thought it was so cool to see those little groms coming of age and hanging out with friends at the next level. It’s a rite of passage in some ways.

“Bec and I have always had such close ties to our country, to Australia, no matter where we have been living, and the kids feel that.

“There is something to say for being here and having a different perspective — or just having perspective — on what’s happening in the world.”

Baker’s not the only international star who still calls Australia home, with northern NSW neighbour Chris Hemsworth regularly spotted on our own shores — including at the Commonwealth Games.

“Is he there?” Baker asks. “I really don’t keep up.

“I’m not just saying that, I’m tragic in knowing who’s where and doing what. I am interested in the Games though. I’m really looking forward to seeing the closing ceremony. In fact, the kids are all quiet right now. I might just turn on the TV and watch a bit of the action. Maybe have a little nap.”

Dads … they’re all the same.

THE SHOW GOES ON

The Games may almost be over, but it’s time for the show to begin.

The Gold Coast Film Festival comes hot on the heels of our greatest sporting spectacle — and it’s not about to play a minor role.

The city’s flagship film event will screen 40 feature films including one world premiere, seven Australian premieres and seven Queensland premieres, plus a host of short films, events, filmmaker Q&As, and an incredible Virtual Reality film experience.

The 16th annual GCFF will run for 13 days from Tuesday to April 29.

A highlight of the program is the Queensland premiere of Simon Baker’s Breath this Thursday. Baker and fellow actors Samson Coulter (Pikelet) and Ben Spence (Loonie) will be attending the screening at Pacific Fair, followed by a Q&A.

“I’m thrilled to have our Queensland premiere at the Gold Coast Film Festival. The Gold Coast has long been a mecca for those that share a deep fascination and respect for the ocean, and the magnificent impact it can have in shaping who you are,” Baker says.

Gold Coast Film Festival director Lucy Fisher says the festival has also secured the Australian premiere of black comedy Brothers’ Nest to screen at the closing night on April 29, with brothers Shane Jacobson and Clayton Jacobson (Kenny), attending the event and Q&A.

“At its core, the Gold Coast Film Festival celebrates film and filmmaking,” Lucy says.

“The Film Festival will be the Gold Coast’s first major event following the Commonwealth Games and will continue to enrich the city through the dozens of special film events being held at 11 venues across the Gold Coast.”

#simon baker #simon2018 #breath film

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Lake Mungo: the Lingering Mystery Behind One of Australia’s Scariest Horror Films

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Contains spoilers for the movie Lake Mungo.

“We were thinking it’d be nice if we could make a film that was kind of a curiosity, but if you saw it years from now you wouldn’t know anything about where it came from.”

This quote from a 2009 interview with Lake Mungo director Joel Anderson proved to be strangely prescient. Anderson was speaking ahead of the film’s screening at the Brisbane Film Festival – the movie had already premiered at the Sydney Film Festival, played South by Southwest in the US, and would go on to tour several more festivals before eventually finding its way onto DVD.

Anderson conducted a few interviews. He talked about how the film had in part come about because he wanted to make something cheap and manageable that could be shot in sections because he’d had trouble getting financing for a different, bigger, more expensive movie he’d written a script for. And then he effectively disappeared from the film world altogether, with the only credit listed on his IMDb page after Lake Mungo (his feature debut) being a short called Gravity (with Paperclip) from 2013. It’s a mildly amusing riff on Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, imagining Sandra Bullock talking to ‘Clippy’ the paperclip, Microsoft’s notoriously irritating animated Office Assistant. It’s a wilfully outdated reference point even in 2013 – the short refers specifically to Windows 98 and the Clippy feature was completely removed by 2008.

IMDb says Anderson co-wrote the short with eight other people. The short itself credits “Mr Worm.” Is this Anderson’s work? Impossible to know, and if it is, it’s just another weird punchline in the story of a haunting movie shrouded in mystery.

Before we continue we should point out that we can’t offer any answers as to why Anderson is off the grid. The latest we know – via another journalist friend – is that Anderson just doesn’t want to be interviewed, and while we reached out to Martin Sharpe who plays Matthew in Lake Mungo, we haven’t heard back. It somehow adds to the mythology of a film that’s had ripple effects well beyond its own sphere.

Lake Mungo plays like a documentary – talking heads relate the story of what happened to the Palmer family after the death of 16-year-old Alice Palmer (Talia Zucker), who drowned in a dam while swimming with her brother. Her father identifies the body but strange sightings suggest that perhaps Alice’s ghost is haunting the family – or perhaps Alice isn’t dead at all? The movie contains several set ups and reveals – you think you’re watching one kind of story but soon discover you’re watching another.

First and foremost, Lake Mungo is a movie about grief. “The idea of someone in your family or someone you care for dying, and being in a tragedy, is the one thing I think everyone fears most,” said Anderson and it’s the senselessness and lack of control the family feels immediately after the tragedy that starts the story.

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What’s incredibly striking about Lake Mungo is how naturalistic it is. The movie was unscripted, relying on the cast to improvise much of the dialogue which is told through to-camera interviews, while Anderson himself played the off screen interviewer. Some cast members found it easier than others, according to Anderson, though in the finished film it doesn’t show. Performances across the board are entirely believable, and while the family members – Alice’s father Russell (David Pledger), mother June (Rosie Traynor) and brother Matthew (Martin Sharpe) do the heavy lifting, along with Ray (Steve Jodrell), the psychic whom Alice, we discover, was also seeing before she died, there are multiple other characters including friends of Alice, neighbors, police and people from the area who may have caught glimpses of Alice after her death. It’s an effective way to build up a picture of the town of Ararat, including its darker side.

It’s surely no coincidence that the family are named the Palmers – Lake Mungo has more than a few things in common with David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Not only does the troubling image of Alice’s body once it’s been fished out of the dam, days after she went missing, recall that of the iconic shot of Laura Palmer’s corpse wrapped in plastic, but the acceptable face of Ararat has a seamy side, just like Twin Peaks.

In Lake Mungo we discover that the sightings of Alice aren’t real, and the images from the house that Matthew had recorded on the cameras he set up to watch for her were faked – by him – in order to convince his mother to exhume Alice’s corpse and prove to her once and for all that Alice is really dead – or at least so he says. But Matthew captures something else – footage of the Palmers’ neighbor Brett in Alice’s bedroom, apparently searching for something.

Alice used to babysit for Brett’s children and what he’s searching for in Alice’s room is a VHS tape of a sex act between Alice, Brett, and his wife. Alice, just like Laura, had secrets. There’s more than a shade of Peaks’ Doctor Jacoby about psychic Ray too, a man to whom Alice revealed her deepest fears and her sense of impending doom.

“I feel like something bad is going to happen to me. I feel like something bad has happened to me, it hasn’t reached me yet but it’s on its way. And it’s getting closer.” These are the ominous words that open the film, spoken by Alice to Ray and this is the path that plays out in Lake Mungo, the terrible, awful inevitable tragedy at the heart of the story.

While it is a story about grief, Lake Mungo is also deeply terrifying. Alice is troubled by visions of drowning, of feeling cold and wet and alone, of wandering the corridors of her own home with her mother unable to see her, and eventually she’s haunted by an apparition.

Mungo’s money shot occurs on a trip Alice takes with her friends to dry lake and national heritage site Lake Mungo. Footage taken on her boyfriend’s phone one night shows Alice separating from the group and burying something under a tree. When the family take a trip to Lake Mungo to try to find whatever it was Alice buried they discover a package of her belongings – her watch, a favorite bracelet and her phone. And when they watch the final footage on that phone…

An image you can’t unsee. You’re welcome.

So much of Lake Mungo is about foreshadowing, but also wrong footing – we think we know what’s going on, but we don’t – until this moment, when we really do. By the time we get the horrifying reveal of a shambling figure approaching Alice in the dark, getting closer and closer, we know exactly what we are going to see, and it’s unbearable. Alice is haunted by herself, by her own future, the face of her own drowned body coming towards her inexorably.

Yes, Lake Mungo is about grief, the grief experienced by the family and how they eventually come to terms with it, believing Alice only wanted the family to know her true self and has now moved on, but for Alice it’s about something much darker.

The Palmer women are secretive, we learn. June’s mother could never truly connect with June, and she, in turn, was never fully able to give herself to Alice. So Alice kept her secrets and suffered with her premonitions alone, talking only to Ray who ultimately couldn’t – or didn’t – help her.

Alice’s story is incredibly sad. It’s the story of a troubled 16-year-old, with friends who didn’t really know her, in a dubious sexual relationship with an older couple that she hadn’t told anyone about. A girl having horrifying visions of her own death who couldn’t really talk to her family about any of it. And a girl who’s visions came true.

Worse still, after her family finds closure they pack up the house and move on, believing Alice has done the same. But mid credits images show us that, no, Alice’s ghost remains, it’s just that her family can’t see her. Just like the parallel visions that she and her mother had while talking to Ray – June in the house believing that Alice isn’t there, Alice in the house knowing that her mother can’t see her – both see their version of the future, a psychic vision shared between mother and daughter, but ultimately they fail to connect.

Premonitions of one’s own death are not a new thing in fiction. In A Christmas Carol Scrooge is presented with a vision of his own depressing funeral and neglected tombstone, but Scrooge has the chance to change his ways. In Alice’s case there’s a terrible inevitability. Something bad is going to happen. Something bad has happened. It’s getting closer.

The location of Lake Mungo has significance too. It’s a place of archeological importance, where the oldest human remains found in Australia were discovered. It is a place of clear connection between past, present, and future – tangible evidence of deaths that occurred thousands of years ago resonating far into the future.

Lake Mungo might be a low budget Australian curio from over a decade ago but its legacy in the world stretches wide. The movie retains a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94%. In recent study The Book of Horror: The Anatomy of Fear in Film by Matt Glasby, published this year, Lake Mungo was picked out as one of the scariest movies ever.

The film has some high profile fans too – American horror author Paul Tremblay, who wrote A Head Full Of Ghosts, The Cabin At The End Of The World and this year’s Survivor Song says his 2016 novel Disappearance At Devil’s Rock was partly inspired by the movie.

“In addition to being truly, bone-deep terrifying, it’s a movie about the awe and vastness of grief,” he told us. “One that honestly confronts horror’s ultimate question: what happens to us when we die.”

And more horror fans all over the world discover Lake Mungo every day.

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Anderson might have walked away from the movie world (for now at least?) but his beautiful, chilling movie has a life of its own. That he got his wish and no one really knows much about where it came from or where he went is all part of the enigma.

The post Lake Mungo: the Lingering Mystery Behind One of Australia’s Scariest Horror Films appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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getseriouser · 7 years ago

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20 THOUGHTS: And then there were Eight

WELCOME to September.

Any by that, I do hope you enjoy the Legends game tomorrow evening, and the AFLW State of Origin Saturday, because the Crows-Giants Qualifying Final is still seven days away sadly.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, we find ourselves in the pre-finals bye, the chasm of over-self-consciousness, a space in your year where time slows down, it doesn’t’ feel right nor feels comfortable.

The end to a rather exciting year was even more exciting, the fact Melbourne was out of the eight, in the eight and then ultimately out of the eight, all in during time on in the very last quarter of the very final game of the season was mesmerising.

But now, yep, we’ve got a bit of mickey mouse filler really until this time next week.

Talk amongst yourselves...

1. Ten teams have gone by the wayside, so who’s who in the Finals Zoo? Always easier from the top four as history teaches us but gee, the 2017 Sydney are probably a better team than the 2016 Bulldogs, and the Swans finish in sixth, with a home final, the Dogs were seventh and had a trip to Perth in Week One. From there, the Dogs had to go via the cape last year and to their eternal credit did it with aplomb, taking out all the key players. This year, three of the top four are either untrustworthy, grossly overrated or properly unproven. Sydney, these finals are on your terms gentlemen.

2. Here’s the theory I can’t believe this column has ended up with after all the thousands of words dedicated to these two teams – the winner of Geelong vs. Richmond will be incredibly hard to stop hoisting the cup. Here’s why. If Geelong wins, it hosts a prelim final, probably against the GWS, down at Simmonds, and if the Cats can overcome the Tigers juggernaut up the highway next Friday, whose to stop them getting through the Giants on their own turf. Then, as a Victorian side at the MCG on the last Saturday in September, two finals wins under their belt, their skipper back, good luck stopping them.

3. On the other hand, and here’s the one that gets the hair on the back of your neck standing up – imagine, bloody imagine would you, that Friday next week, about 10:30pm, Richmond is in front when the final siren goes. First finals win in forever. Not just a finals win, but it’s a qualifying final win, which earns them a home preliminary final. The monkey is off the back, they will be the darling of Melbourne come a fortnight’s time, the utter momentum this city would generate for them alone will be almost impossible to stop. For those under 40 really, watch what happens when Richmond is top of the tree, it’s incredible. It’ll almost win them the cup almost in itself.

4. Adelaide and the GWS are the other fancies, get the double chance and damn, one was minor premier, the other has the best team on paper, so plenty of credentials between them. For the Crows, get the first win out of the way, prepare well to take care of whoever they confront in the Prelim, take their chances and back their form in come Grand Final Day. Super plausible. For the Giants, if they don’t win Thursday, they need to take out Geelong or Richmond in Victoria at some point, and not beyond them, but their form line doesn’t arouse enough to make you feel confident. Maybe 2018?

5. How about those bloody Demons hey? On one hand, they were bloody stiff. Had a great record against top eight sides, finished with 12 wins and a percentage over 105, most years that gets you in comfortably. But when the finals spot was on their racquet, and they chose to double fault big time against the Pies, especially in that first quarter when by the time they had racked up their sixth tackle, they were six goals down, it’s all on them. Really super list, but no pressure on them making the finals next year is there?...

6. West Coast, how lucky? They are an average side at best (watch them do well now I’ve chucked the jinx on). Look, the actual player roster is fine and it’s why I scoff at suggestions they were staring down some serious list management decisions at years’ end because I don’t fault the on-field capabilities at their disposal. Sure, their best player was out all year with a knee, but with him they should be top four minimum. So they’ll bundle out, avoid too much heat, and Adam Simpson can feel a bit better next year should they not start so well, than otherwise we suppose.

7. Essendon, now there’s a good news story. Shame they end up facing the best team in the comp first week otherwise we’d actually back them to sneak a finals win way ahead of schedule. Sure, they flirted with danger letting Freo get far too close last weekend but say what you like about their crime and their time, this is a footy side that can do some things in the years to come. Thoroughly deserving of a finals spot and will disgrace no-one no matter how they go against the Swans.

8. And can we point out, further to the success story of the Bombers, that to have Paddy Ryder for Port in the finals after the year out too, that’s a great news story in itself. Traded out because of the drugs saga, sitting out the 2016 season at his new club and then to do so well this year, earning AA honours to boot, awesome result for the Western Australian ruckman.

9. Onto the All-Australian team, not too bad a year for the selectors other than missing Clayton Oliver. The only other real note is an extension of the previous thought, that for Ryder but also Michael Hurley and Michael Hibberd, to miss all of last year and then to come back and earn a spot in the AA team is such a magnificent achievement, cop that to WADA et. al.

10. We must at this point offer an apology. This column found excellent value in Josh Kennedy for the Coleman, and then at worst suggested the hedge bet on Joe Daniher late was excellent logic. We didn’t allow, sadly, for the ten-goal Buddy Franklin show to come in over the top. What is it they always say – the house always wins?

11. Alright, alright, let’s address it. Nathan Buckley. Three things here clearly. One, they did in fact look around at who was gettable, poachable, and must have gotten donuts. Two, if there’s no-one out there who they think would be that ‘ significant upgrade’ over what’s already waiting at home, then they’ve chosen to stay faithful. Three, Eddie McGuire, even though he say he would have if he had to, is really glad he didn’t have to sack his great mate, immensely glad.

12. So now Collingwood is all in on the Damien Hardwick precedent. We will see assistant coaches turned over, and Scott Burns, Anthony Rocca are two already to move on, we will see further changes in the football department, the fitness guy has already gone, the list management team will reshuffle big time too. We will see who comes in, if it can make any sort of difference, the jury remains unconvinced.

13. Last one on the Pies – they are hard to read. Overall, and rightly so, a disappointing year, no question. Technically though this is the first season for Buckley to perform better than previous, yes, the ladder position is lower, but the points tally is higher. Collingwood were the only side to not lose by more than 40 points, they were largely one of the unluckier sides in close games, and had a harder draw than Richmond or Essendon. They get the soft draw next year the Pies which helps - they played the bottom 8 teams 8 times in 2017, Richmond and Essendon 12 times, Geelong 11.

14. Just some numbers on those close games, for matches decided by three goals or less, St Kilda won four of five, yet North Melbourne won four of ten. Yes the Saints missed the finals, just, but we don’t really see these two teams together, but the Kangaroos left plenty of wins out on the park, inexperience, a bit of bad luck, either way there’s some optimism for the North fans next year. Further, games a goal or under, Giants 1 loss from 6, North 1 win from 6, Geelong unbeaten from 5, Dogs 3 wins from 4, Pies one win from 4.

15. So apparently Dusty will make a decision soon. He might end up staying after all that, but can we make a case for North? Yes, it’s about a million dollars extra after tax to move to Arden Street, but if we flesh out the previous thought a bit more, they had three close losses by Easter. Win all those, they are 5-2 after Round Seven and the season looks way different. They played like a 10, 11 win team this year, and with Dusty on board, with further games into their kids, they are not far off top four. It’s a stretch, but the comp is so even you can’t rule anything out these days.

16. The Crouch brothers have become a column favourite and we will continue to push their cause, and this week particularly Matt’s. The second youngest named on Wednesday night (Zach Merrett is only five months younger). But whilst the Bomber winger is heralded as one of the very best young players in the game, and someone who had a huge 2017, he ranked 4th for disposals per game yet Crouch was ranked 2nd. Crouch too was 7th in the league for effective disposals per game and 9th for score involvements. He was as instrumental to Adelaide taking home the minor premiership as any Crow and whilst most outlets have awarded their player of the year to a Dangerfield or a Martin, The Age actually had Matt Crouch on top. He is only 22, that’s all, but a megastar in the making.

17. As this will be the last column for the footy season, let’s finish off with some predictions of the weeks to come. Firstly the Brownlow, and well, theory has it the ineligible Patrick Dangerfield, who wins the count, hangs the medal over the second place getter in Dustin Martin. Oh, what theatre! But we think one of two things will happen – either Martin smashes it in anyway on his own merit, well over 30 votes, well ahead of Dangerfield. Or, someone pops up from nowhere and goes super close to winning it. Watch out for Tom Mitchell, Josh Kennedy or even my man Crouch. Matt Priddis won his Brownlow as a $41 chance, for what it’s worth that’s Marcus Bontempelli’s odds this year.

18. Then we have the Grand Final. I tell you, I am beyond compelled by the winner of this Geelong-Richmond game. The path that opens up for the winner is so advantageous and as the Dogs proved last year, getting on a roll is beyond powerful. I have massive respect for the Crows’ season, I think Sydney is the best team in the competition and its shattering they missed top four, but right now, I am tipping the Tigers to win next Friday, and I don’t know who beats them after if they do.

19. We have the free agency/trade period next month and we expect a bit to happen. We wonder if someone pays the price to get Tom Lynch down from Gold Coast a year early (Collingwood or Carlton), we wonder if Jake Lever does indeed up a Demon and too whether Gary Ablett plays on but down at Geelong. It appears Josh Kelly will stay or become a Saint, that North Melbourne despite all their cash may fail to land a big fish, and that it will be the pursuit of Jacob Hopper, Devon Smith and Steven Motlop that may cause the biggest news. We do expect that Bryce Gibbs does get home this year though, write that one down.

20. And we sign off the year with another retirement during the week, although if we’re honest we knew a little earlier but kept it in camera – Leigh Montagna finishes up after 287 games with St. Kilda. A terribly underrated midfielder, a key component of the more successful periods for the Saints in the early part of last decade and then again in those Grand Final years. He played 21 games or more ten of the last 12 years, so he was incredibly durable and reliable yet a hamstring on its last legs went at the SCG and that was that. He will end up in the media, a proper talent in front of the camera or equally behind the mic, and deserves all the success he has upcoming. A terrific competitor, a highly-skilled midfielder turned backman and an even better bloke. Well done to him.

(originally published August 31)

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careerjugglr · 6 years ago

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The tasks boom is genuine, and for when, federal government can take the credit

The Bureau of Statistics has produced some shockers – wildly inaccurate employment statistics it has had to disown. But not this time.

An apparent employment surge in one month might be a statistical fluke, the result of a dodgy sample or flawed bad seasonal adjustment. But not a near-record surge that goes on for month after month, 14 of them in a row.

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