Steve McQueen
12 Years a Slave's Steve McQueen says: 'The past is absolutely about the present for me'
STEPHANIE BUNBURY His teachers told him he would never amount to anything. Now artist-turned filmmaker Steve McQueen is a serious Oscar contender.
Bone of contention
Paula Goodyer Fish oil's healthy reputation is under scrutiny as questions are raised about its links to cancer.
Calming the cacophony
Corinna Da Fonseca-Wollheim resolves to stay silent at concerts for the sake of harmony.
The Long Way Home: Defence mechanisms
ELISSA BLAKE Soldiers keep emotions on guard in a rare collaboration.
The Great Beauty review: Dusk in the Eternal City
SANDRA HALL A director's allusive style highlights his flair for the sumptuous.
I Am Pilgrim review: Gripping mix of terrorist cliches
Review By Anne Susskind The US President is set to tell the population, on TV, to be on high alert for a nuclear attack. But that's only the cover story for something much worse, which he doesn't tell them about. A nuclear attack, unlike the chemical warfare that is only hours away, can be contained and localised, and won't panic them as much.
Album of the week: Dirty Jeans featuring various artists
BERNARD ZUEL In an excellent essay on Crikey last week addressing the overblown claims of Triple J bias and/or narrow-mindedness, Helen Razer made a very good point about exactly what so many of those critics really want to hear.
For Today I am A Boy: Author Kim Fu on her debut novel
Psychology studies shaped a debut novel about gender identity, writes Marc McEvoy.
The Wolf of Wall Street review: Lies and avarice
PAUL BYRNES Martin Scorsese explores the heart of American darkness in a tale of excess.
Measured but vexing tangent
Review By Gerard Windsor A biographer turns his hand to the geometry of the Iron Age.
National treasures: True blue Aussie ingenuity
Matt Holden celebrates some of Australia's brightest ideas.
No phones please, we're Savages
Barry Divola meets an all-female post-punk band who'd prefer gig-goers switched off their gadgets.
Old Joe's in Cronulla: Nod to nostalgia
CANDICE CHUNG A beachside bar draws inspiration from the old-fashioned milk bar.
Veronica Roth: Out of the dark
She is young, talented and her star is on the rise, but Veronica Roth has battled demons on her road to literary success, writes James Kidd.
Red alert: Frank Camorra's tomato recipes
FRANK CAMORRA Ripe tomatoes plucked from the vine are one of life's great pleasures.
Save the song and dance mate, we're Australians
RICHARD GLOVER Before you attend that Australia Day event, it's important that you know how to speak Australian. Whether you are local or a visitor, please study the following cut-out-and-keep guide.
Silence of the movie machine
Louise Adler The moral cost of doing business with Nazi film interests was high.
Report From The Interior review: The good, the bad and the execrable end in torpor
Catherine Ford Reading Paul Auster's fiction has never been satisfying, in my experience, but I put my dislike of the acclaimed New Jersey author's novels - when his post-modern parlour games failed to enthral, say, or his cheesy tough-guy dialogue made me smirk - down to inexplicable blind spots in my discernment.
The Everything Store: The infinite emporium
Jeff Sparrow 'Get big fast' was the slogan plugged by the online bookstore's founder. It worked.
Christian Boltanski's Chance: The lottery of life
John McDonald Memories of childhood play a part in several over-sized installations.
Well-read: fiction's big sensations
Louise Schwartzkoff Literary crazes were driving fans into frenzies for centuries before J.K.Rowling dreamed of a boy wizard, or teenagers went batty over The Hunger Games. Here are some of literature's big hits.
The Coen brothers in perfect harmony
STEPHANIE BUNBURY Shooting the marmalade tabby cat for their new film proved a challenge for the director duo.
Grudge Match
And the winner is: the box office
Darryn King They have the whiff of the B-movie about them, but there's a reason crossover films endure.
Barefoot snakes and ladders
Angie Schiavone Six months between release dates isn't the only thing that separates Nikki Gemmell's latest two books. The first, the Bride trilogy's final erotic instalment, was - as the author puts it - the most ''out-there'' adult book she'd written. The second, a Christmas-time mystery-adventure for children, is credited to N. J. Gemmell; a safeguard perhaps, against any young new fans mistaking Gemmell's The Bride Stripped Bare as another The Kensington Reptilarium.
Burnt-out world where all but the horror disappears
Anne Susskind That Anthony Marra composed this book - and I say composed deliberately, because it is so full of lyrical imagery - in his 20s is astonishing. That's not the reason I admire it, because it stands alone but, for the record, it was started when he was 22, finished when he was 28 and, bar a few small irritations, a more polished book would be hard to find. It was named among the best books of 2013 by The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Contemplation on the run
Paula Goodyer Exercise is as beneficial for the mind as it is for the body, according to a fit philosopher.
2 stars
47 Ronin review: Dying by the sword
PAUL BYRNES An ancient Japanese tale gets the Hollywood treatment.
3.5 stars
Spike Jonze's Her review: Electric ladyland
Sandra Hall Romance meets artificial intelligence in a topical and surreal story.
Album reviews
On a purely pop culture amusement level, it's disappointing Cate Le Bon is not second-generation Duran Duran. On musical and vocal quality grounds however, we can be so very grateful. Rather than the Birmingham honk of Simon Le Bon, the Welsh singer Cate Timothy, who renamed herself Le Bon, is more likely to have you think of a cross between a late '60s English folk singer and the non-folk tones of Nico (if she were a tad less scary and good deal less clipped).
Food for the soul
Cheryl Maddocks Lotus blooms please the eye, calm the mind and feed the stomach - all parts of the plant are edible.
Girls
Girls' generation: Lena Dunham's Hannah is stunningly courageous
Ruth Ritchie A long line of gal pals have tried to make sense of their place in their world.
My shirts will hang off me, not off my bicycle
RICHARD GLOVER If Michael Mosley told me to jump off a tall building I'd probably do it. The BBC journalist and health guru last year popularised the 5:2 diet, or intermittent fasting, in which you endure two days of minor misery, then eat normally for the other five. I was an early convert and am still on the thing. It works: it hasn't quite turned me into a male model, but my friends no longer need to ignore the elephant in the room: the one named Richard.
Film
The Redux Project: Play it again
LENNY ANN LOW A project that replicates excerpts from popular films includes an Aussie classic.
Spirit of Akasha review: Morning of the Earth soundtrack reinvigorated for a new generation
BERNARD ZUEL Morning of the Earth was a touchstone Australian album, the soundtrack to many a mull-up and a beacon of real age-of-Aquarius dreaming even as the age of Aquarius hit a brick wall. It was consumed by at least two generations of musicians and surfers who lived nowhere near our beaches, including the extremely unlikely figures of hairy man of alt.country Will Oldham, aka Bonnie ''Prince'' Billy, and Oxford's Radiohead boy, Thom Yorke.
Interview: Simon Singh
NICK GALVIN It takes a scientific mind to decipher the link between maths and the world's most famous cartoon series.
Sounds that keep the soul young
Warwick McFadyen The landscape has changed irrevocably from Elvis to Gaga, but in that evolution an exuberant beat still matters.
Sugar and spice: Frank Camorra's Szechuan pepper recipes
FRANK CAMORRA The distinctive taste of Szechuan pepper adds a buzz to different dishes.
The art of persuasion
Katrina Lobley Wartime posters use graphics and slogans to get their message out.
The country gentleman
Ali Gripper Artist Tim Storrier's new home in Bowral is a bustling rural retreat full of family, friends, animals and paintings.
Travel shapes a revolutionary
Christopher Kremmer South Africa turned a shy Indian lawyer into a freedom fighter.
Mindful exercise
Exercise is as good for the mind as it is for the body
Paula Goodyer Australian philosopher and writer Damon Young argues that exercise isn't just a workout for heart, muscle and bone, but also a way to help the mind and the spirit thrive.
CIA insider advocates sharing secrets in a world of spies and lies
Simon Caterson Does secrecy have a future? As a senior in-house lawyer with the CIA, John Rizzo spent several decades of his professional life protecting the secret work of the US's peak foreign intelligence organisation during tumultuous times. Now retired, he believes managing disclosure is preferable to simply trying to hide things.
