fbpx

Alex First

Alex First is the editor of The Blurb. Alex is a Melbourne based journalist and communications specialist. He also contributes to The Blurb on film and theatre.

Joker – movie review

In 2009, Heath Ledger won a posthumous Oscar for his remarkable performance as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. Now, Joaquin Phoenix is destined for the 2020 Academy Awards in a similar guise, as the lead in Todd Phillips’ crime-thriller Joker. This is an unusual origin story set in the early 1980s. Joker…

Read More

The Goldfinch – movie review

The Goldfinch spends a great deal of time working out how the puzzle fits together. Theodore “Theo” Decker was 13 years old when his mother was killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not surprisingly, it changed the course of his life. Moments before Theo’s attention was taken by a pretty, young…

Read More

Downton Abbey – movie review

Scheming and gossip abound in the lavish big-screen version of Downton Abbey, where opulence is the byword. First an admission, I only heard wonderful things about the TV series but I haven’t seen one episode. As a result, it took me some time to work out who was who in the zoo, namely who the…

Read More

Animals – movie review

How long can you party for? When is it time to stop the music and take greater care and responsibility for the rest of your life? Laura (Holliday Grainger) and Tyler (Alia Shawkat) have been flatmates and besties for 10 years. They maraud around the streets of Dublin, rejecting the expectations that bombard modern women…

Read More