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Alex First

Alex First is a Melbourne based journalist and communications specialist. He 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…

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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…

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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…

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