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Gloria Marie Steinem was born on 25 March 1934, in Toledo, Ohio. She grew up in a trailer home, and her mother, Ruth, spent long periods in and out of sanatoriums for the mentally ill. Her parents eventually divorced under…
Shady museum curator Rico Sarno (Stephen Lee) steals five ancient, sacred dinosaur eggs from a forbidden temple in South America. Meanwhile, widowed raisin farmer and amateur archaeologist Frank Taylor (Brett Cullen) is trying to make a living selling fossils Due…
1 9 8 1 – 1 9 8 6 (New Zealand) 36 x 30 minute episodes 1 9 9 0 (New Zealand) 26 x 30 minute episodes Born William Taitoko, Māori comedian Billy T James first captured New Zealand television audiences…
Now aged 14 and starting his fourth year at Hogwarts, young wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) faces a daunting challenge after being mysteriously entered into the Triwizard Tournament – a magic tournament between three well-known rival schools of magic: Hogwarts,…
The film opens with a 16-minute wordless sequence as we are introduced to Arthur Bishop (Charles Bronson) – a meticulous, high-level assassin – or “mechanic” – for “the syndicate”, who specialises in staging his hits to look like natural causes…
Following in the footsteps of the first film – and magnificently ignoring the second – Howling III integrates werewolves into social life and acknowledges their distinct nature as an evolved Australian marsupial/wolf subspecies. Here, we follow the journey of a…
1 9 7 7 (USA) 13 x 30 minute episodes Pudgy Stuart Hibbard (Oliver Clark) worked at home as a copywriter for the ‘Herman Gutman Mail Order Catalogue’ (which was full of useless gadgets and knickknacks) and did the cooking and…
1 9 7 7 – 1 9 8 4 (USA) 45 x 25 minute episodes “Smiles, everyone, smiles!” Fantasy Island consisted of several different stories each week played out against a common background. The backdrop of the show was a remote tropical…
1 9 7 9 (New Zealand) 13 x 25 minute episodes Tom (Paul Airey) and his friends – Davie (Ian Narev), Hema (Ross Duzevich) and Kiri (Melissa-Aroha Baker) – befriend English millionaire Sir Charles Pemberton (Terence Cooper) and his granddaughter Sarah…
1 9 9 0 – 1 9 9 8 (USA) 172 x 30 minute episodes Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) – a nerdy young stand-up comic – lived in Apartment 5A, 129 West 81st Street, New York City, across the hall from the…
1 9 7 1 – 1 9 9 1 (USA) 196 x 30 minute episodes 5 x 60 minute episodes 1 x 90 minute episode Though nearly cancelled after its first few months on air, All In The Family went on to…
1 9 7 2 – 1 9 7 8 (USA) 142 x 30 minute episodes The Bob Newhart Show debuted on 16 September 1972 and ended its original run on 26 August 1978. The show was part of a highly rated…
Five New York school friends led by 15-year-old Arlene Smith made the Top 20 in 1958 with Maybe, produced by disc jockey Alan Freed for George Goldner’s Rama group of labels. Their first release, He’s Gone, failed to make an…
This Irish trio formed in Dublin in 1958 as a folk harmonica band called The Harmonichords (also known as The Harmony Chords) before singer Patrick O’Hagan persuaded them to add singing to their act and they became the very first…
Formed in Hagerstown, Maryland, in 1976, Kix originally performed as The Shooze and The Generators. They built a massive local following on the Mid-Atlantic club and bar circuit by playing blistering, high-energy covers of AC/DC, Aerosmith, and Led Zeppelin songs.…
Formed in 1993 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Ben Folds Five (who were actually a trio, despite the name) achieved success in the alternative, indie and pop music scenes during the late 90s. Featuring a piano-driven sound that excluded guitars…
Formed in Brisbane, Queensland, in 1993, Australian band Regurgitator (affectionately known by their fans as “The ‘Gurge”) became famous for their witty, genre-mashing collision of alt-rock, punk, hip-hop, techno, and electro-pop, all wrapped in a thick layer of absurdist humour…
Bogdan Charis Kominowski was born in 1945 inside a Nazi concentration camp near Düsseldorf in Germany. His French father was killed in the war, but he and his Polish mother survived. In 1949, they emigrated to New Zealand as displaced…
“It isn’t Jesus. It’s just a fella”. A group of scruffy, adorable children, led by gumdrop-eyed Hayley Mills, discover injured escaped convict Arthur Blakey (Alan Bates) sleeping in their barn in Lancashire and think he’s Jesus Christ. They hide him…
Splendid performances highlight this sharp, satirical adaptation of John Irving’s dark best-seller about the adventures of an illegitimate, eccentric young man hell-bent on being a writer. T.S. Garp, magnificently played by Robin Williams in an amalgam of emotions tinged with…
This musical fantasy update on the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet is set on Earth at some point in the future. The globe is divided into two rival factions: Beatland, populated by teenage beat musicians and singers, and Balladisle,…
In this adaptation of Raymond Briggs’s bleak and chilling graphic novel of 1982, elderly British couple Jim and Hilda Bloggs build a shelter and prepare for an impending nuclear attack – with the help of government-issued Protect and Survive booklets…
The Day After, a dramatisation of the effects of a hypothetical nuclear attack on the United States (after a Soviet attack on Germany sparks World War III) was one of the biggest media events of the 1980s. Screened by ABC…
A chilling and intense 115-minute documentary-style drama that harrowingly depicted the unimaginably grim events in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on Britain. Based on a novel by Barry Hines and concentrating on a single city (Sheffield in South Yorkshire)…
While the first-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on women’s legal rights, especially the right to vote, the second-wave feminism of the Women’s Liberation movement, which became popular in the 1960s and 1970s, focused on equality…
Ms. magazine first appeared in 1972. Edited by noted feminist Gloria Steinem, it was radically different from publications such as Good Housekeeping. Steinem said Ms. would not tell you “how to make jelly, but how to seize control of your life”. The burgeoning strength…
The unlikely and satirical adventures of this small and furry creature with the short trunk first appeared in the Daily Mail in 1949. Created and drawn by Canadian artist and jazz musician Wally Fawkes, Flook ran for 35 years before its sudden…
1 9 0 8 – 1 9 7 3 Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in Stonewall, Texas, and trained as a teacher and lawyer. While working as secretary to a Texan congressman, he attracted the attention of Franklin Roosevelt, who…
On 6 June 1933, the world’s first drive-in movie theatre was opened in Camden, New Jersey, USA, by Richard Hollingshead Jr. Hollingshead patented a ramp system that slightly elevated the front of the vehicle, allowing viewers to sit back in…
Until the early 1960s, the artefacts of our so-called mass culture were never taken seriously by social and cultural critics. More often than not, these artefacts were either routinely ignored or simply dismissed as an example of the mindless fluff…
January 01 – The ‘Uniform Monday Act’ moves Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day and Columbus Day holidays in the US to Mondays. 02 – 66 Football fans are killed when a barrier collapses at Ibrox Park in Glasgow following a match between…
January 01 – Fidel Castro completes 30 years in power in Cuba. 02 – The US and Canada sign a comprehensive free trade agreement, which eliminates tariffs and other barriers to trade and investment. 04 – Two US Navy jets…
January 01 – Britain, Denmark and Ireland join the European Economic Community (the “Common Market”) bringing the total number of member states to nine. 01 – Baseball star Roberto Clemente is killed in a light plane crash off Puerto Rico.…
January 01 – In Britain, the Farthing (¼ of a penny) is withdrawn from circulation and ceases to be legal tender. 02 – Oral contraceptives for women go on sale in Australia. 03 – US severs diplomatic relations with Cuba.…
January 01 – French Cameroon becomes the Republic of Cameroon with Ahmadun Ahidjo as its first president. 01 – Johnny Cash performs a New Year Concert for the prisoners at San Quentin penitentiary in California. One particularly impressed inmate is…
January 01 – The dictator of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista, is overthrown by Fidel Castro’s guerrillas and flees to the Dominican Republic. 02 – Fidel Castro proclaims a new government in Cuba. 02 – The USSR launches lunar rocket Luna 1…
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Enjoy your trip in the time machine!
It’s really quite simple: This is Moonbase (pictured above) – These are the folk who are supposed to stop the UFOs entering the Earth’s atmosphere in the first place This…
The image that endures is of a platinum-blonde picture of innocence silhouetted against a picture tube of pure evil. “They’re heeeere!” called out 5-year-old Heather O’Rourke as Poltergeist’s Carol Anne…
The term “Ozploitation” refers to low-budget Australian-produced exploitation genre filmmaking of the 1970s and 80s. From bawdy sex comedies like Alvin Purple (1973) to horror films like Patrick (1978) and…
To outsiders, it seemed that Pete Duel had everything to live for – a loving girlfriend, a nice home, money and a hit TV series. Yet shortly after 1:25 am…
The first time I appeared on Juke Box Jury, I wasn’t on the panel. I was in the “Hot Seat” – that famous chair hidden from the panel behind the…
The Silver Beetles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Stuart Sutcliffe) failed an audition as Billy Fury’s backing group but drew a consolation prize in playing behind Johnny Gentle…
Sydneysider Harry Joy (Barry Otto) is a successful advertising man, with a nice house, a wife he loves (Lynette Curran) and two children, David (Miles Buchanan) and Lucy (Gia Carides).…
It is St. Valentine’s Day in Australia, the year is 1900, and a party of schoolgirls from an exclusive finishing school are giddily embarking on a picnic excursion to a strange,…
Jackie Mullens (Jo Kennedy) is a rambunctious 17-year-old determined to become a singing star. Angus (Ross O’Donovan), her cousin, is a twerp of 14 who fancies himself as her promoter…
Australian import My Brilliant Career is a movie produced, directed, scripted, and designed by women, based on a novel written by a 16-year-old girl in the Australian bush country before the turn…
An intelligent, downbeat coming-of-age film set in a small country town in Australia in 1962. The 15-year-old protagonist Danny (Noah Taylor) suffers heartbreak when the girl he loves – his…
Canadian band The Pursuit of Happiness was formed in 1985 by frontman Moe Berg and drummer Dave Gilby, who were soon joined by bassist Johnny Sinclair and Winnipeg sisters Tam…
1 9 5 2 – 1 9 6 1 (Canada) 303 x 60 minute episodes Produced in Toronto for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), this weekly anthology presented standalone one-hour dramas…
1 9 6 4 – 1 9 6 9 (Canada) 33 x 60 minute episodes This television anthology series from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ran from 1964 to 1969, offering…
1 9 5 8 – 1 9 8 5 (Canada) 3,000+ x 15 minute episodes “Look up! Waaaaay up!” The character of the Friendly Giant debuted on radio in Madison, Wisconsin,…
1 9 7 6 (Canada) 1 x 60 minute special 1 9 7 8 – 1 9 7 9 (Canada) 21 x 60 minute episodes The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC)…
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Nostalgia Central covers the period 1950 to 2009 and is presented as a historical artefact. Some words and references which reflect the prevailing attitudes of those times may be considered culturally insensitive, discriminatory, offensive or inappropriate today..