In 1988, 'I Should Be So Lucky' by Kylie Minogue was the No. 1 Australian song. According to Australia's official music chart, ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Charts, 'I Should Be So Lucky' finished the year ranked No. 5 behind '(I've Had) The Time Of My Life'; 'Simply Irresistible'; 'The Flame' and 'Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car'.
Nick Evershed of 'The Guardian' reported in 2015, "An analysis of the top singles charts for Australia since 1988 suggests rock and conventional band music generally are declining in popularity and that pop songs are getting shorter. I have analyzed the ARIA singles charts from 1988 to 2014 to get a sense of how our popular music is changing. Dance music genres such as house and trance (as well as the generic 'dance' genre) are enjoying a resurgence in recent years after peaks in the '90s and early 2000s."
In August 1980, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain found their 9-week-old child, Azaria, being taken by a dingo, the Australian coyote-like wild dog, on the campsite not far from the famous Uluru landmark. In 1988, Fred Schepisi directed the picture 'A Cry In The Dark' starring Meryl Streep as Lindy Chamberlain. 'The Guardian' observed, "Lindy and Michael are just ordinary people trapped in horrible circumstances."
'The UK Telegraph' noted in 2011, "Lindy Chamberlain's plight, depicted by Meryl Streep in the 1988 film, divided the nation." 'The New York Times' added, "The death of Azaria and the arrest and conviction of her mother became an international saga with the making of the 1988 movie 'A Cry In The Dark', in which Meryl Streep played Ms. Chamberlain."
In his review of the movie in 1988, Vincent Canby remarked, "'A Cry In The Dark' has much of the manner of a television docudrama, ultimately being a rather comforting celebration of personal triumph over travails so dread and so particular that they have no truly disturbing, larger application. Yet 'A Cry In The Dark' is better than that, mostly because of another stunning performance by Meryl Streep, who plays Lindy Chamberlain with the kind of virtuosity that seems to redefine the possibilities of screen acting.
"If there have been times when Miss Streep's extraordinary work has looked to be too technical, as in the screen version of 'Plenty', also directed by Mr. Schepisi, it is because the material (windy and impossibly pretentious in 'Plenty') has left her apparently performing in a vacuum. The screenplay for 'A Cry In The Dark', adapted by Robert Caswell and Mr. Schepisi from a book by John Bryson, isn't perfect, but it provides Miss Streep with the kind of raw material that allows her to create a character who, while being perfectly ordinary, is always unexpectedly special.
"Wearing what appears to be a not-great black wig, which fits her head like a shower cap, and speaking with a New Zealand accent overlaid with a strong layer of Australian, Miss Streep's Lindy Chamberlain is just reticent and stubborn enough to deflect easy sentimentality. There also seems to be something a little arrogant about her, which is the way most of us react to people with strongly held beliefs we don't share.
"There is wit, which is not to be confused with humor, in everything she does, from the remarkable accent to the physical mannerisms. Unlike most screen actresses, Miss Streep works on two levels at once. There is, on the surface, the character she is creating within the context of the script. Underneath that, there is the sometimes breathtaking pleasure in watching an actress exercise her talent as she reaches for, and achieves, the high notes.
"This is not an especially popular form of screen acting. It has the effect of calling attention to itself, which goes against the grain of realist cinema in which verisimilitude is all. Being able to see and to enjoy an actress act, much as one attends to a diva such as Joan Sutherland, is not something moviegoers take to - unless, like Bette Davis, the actress more or less announces what she's doing with gestures that have become familiar with time. Miss Streep is an original for our own era."
In 1988, after defeating Chris Evert at the Australian Open to win the women's singles championship, Steffi Graf, nicknamed "Fraulein Forehand" for her trademark shot, became the 5th tennis player to win the Grand Slam also known as "The Big 4" (comprised the Australian, French and U.S. Opens and Wimbledon) in a calendar year. Pavel Slozil pointed out, "To win a Grand Slam is a major achievement. There have been so many players with plenty of ability who failed to do it. Bjorn Borg came so close to winning a Grand Slam but never made it. He was probably the best player of all time and yet there were so many hurdles in his way."
Jana Novotna conceded, "In my generation, I don't think there's anybody except Steffi who can play under no matter what circumstances. The worse the score is, the better she can get. I guess that's what champions are all about." In describing Steffi, her coach recognized, "I guess it's a combination of athletic ability she was born with and amazing willpower. She seems to be able to dig deep, when she has to."
In Australia in 1988, as Australians joined Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales to celebrate Australia Day by watching coverage of the Australian Bicentennial including witnessing the arrival of the re-enacted First Fleet voyage to Botany Bay, Sydney, channel Nine launched a revival of 'A Current Affair' (some 10 years after the program last went on air) with '60 Minutes' reporter Jana Wendt as host.
Speaking to the Australian 'Daily Telegraph' in 2015, former '60 Minutes' reporter Ray Martin told Cassandra Briedis, "In the golden days, if you didn’t work at channel Nine you worked in the bush and everyone knew it. It was a place that worked hard and played hard. The reason there's been two books on channel Nine written by Gerald Stone is because you wouldn’t sell books about (channel) Seven or Ten.
"It was a real cultural heartland of Australia and that's beyond the stars - there were legends like Frank and Kerry Packer, David Leckie and on-camera, where do you start ... Mike Walsh, Brian Henderson, Paul Hogan. In 1988, Jana Wendt, Clive James and I hosted a four-hour bicentenary special live. We crossed to all these correspondents and Americans couldn’t believe we did this live. The potential for disasters is enormous - you can make mistakes and defamation costs a lot of money but it was just what channel Nine did."
Of the network's Willoughby studios in Sydney, "Everybody from Frank Sinatra to Bob Dylan went through the doors. Orchestras, dance troupes, elephants and circuses would come in and do a performance - you name it."
In promoting its leading hour of news and current affairs in 1988, radio host John Laws told viewers, "Your competitors desperately seek the perfection you've insisted on all your life. Three decades (since 1956) of dedication set you apart from all the others. Style that is unique; colored; depth; flair; bold; compassionate; you're one of a kind."
Jana Wendt spoke to 'Fairfax Media' in 2010, "Many trees have been felled on the topic of what's going on in television, but even a part-time observer can see that (current affairs) television has shifted in style. It's certainly true that when I started, it was something I fitted into well, and that later I fitted into it less well. Times change, things evolve."
Stephen Rice who was a producer with 'A Current Affair' at the time made known in 1998, "The most traumatic time of the day for any executive producer isn't that frantic 'where-are-the-bloody-scripts?' period just before the show goes on air. It comes at about 10 past 9 the next morning, in front of your computer, when A.C. Nielsen squirts the ratings figures down the line … These are the figures by which a television producer lives and dies and you can start to respond to them as if they’re some sort of Holy Grail."
As reported in September 1989, "Once again, underpinning channel Nine’s domination were 'National Nine News', peaking at a remarkable 38, and 'A Current Affair', peaking at an equally remarkable 35. They are figures that networks once hoped to attract only with major mini-series, and now rarely do." Jana made the observation at the time, "There could have been a total viewer revolt. They could have said, you know, blow this for a joke. We don't like this chick. Or we don't like components of the program any more, good night. But they don't appear to have said that, thus far."
Nick Evershed of 'The Guardian' reported in 2015, "An analysis of the top singles charts for Australia since 1988 suggests rock and conventional band music generally are declining in popularity and that pop songs are getting shorter. I have analyzed the ARIA singles charts from 1988 to 2014 to get a sense of how our popular music is changing. Dance music genres such as house and trance (as well as the generic 'dance' genre) are enjoying a resurgence in recent years after peaks in the '90s and early 2000s."
In August 1980, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain found their 9-week-old child, Azaria, being taken by a dingo, the Australian coyote-like wild dog, on the campsite not far from the famous Uluru landmark. In 1988, Fred Schepisi directed the picture 'A Cry In The Dark' starring Meryl Streep as Lindy Chamberlain. 'The Guardian' observed, "Lindy and Michael are just ordinary people trapped in horrible circumstances."
'The UK Telegraph' noted in 2011, "Lindy Chamberlain's plight, depicted by Meryl Streep in the 1988 film, divided the nation." 'The New York Times' added, "The death of Azaria and the arrest and conviction of her mother became an international saga with the making of the 1988 movie 'A Cry In The Dark', in which Meryl Streep played Ms. Chamberlain."
In his review of the movie in 1988, Vincent Canby remarked, "'A Cry In The Dark' has much of the manner of a television docudrama, ultimately being a rather comforting celebration of personal triumph over travails so dread and so particular that they have no truly disturbing, larger application. Yet 'A Cry In The Dark' is better than that, mostly because of another stunning performance by Meryl Streep, who plays Lindy Chamberlain with the kind of virtuosity that seems to redefine the possibilities of screen acting.
"If there have been times when Miss Streep's extraordinary work has looked to be too technical, as in the screen version of 'Plenty', also directed by Mr. Schepisi, it is because the material (windy and impossibly pretentious in 'Plenty') has left her apparently performing in a vacuum. The screenplay for 'A Cry In The Dark', adapted by Robert Caswell and Mr. Schepisi from a book by John Bryson, isn't perfect, but it provides Miss Streep with the kind of raw material that allows her to create a character who, while being perfectly ordinary, is always unexpectedly special.
"Wearing what appears to be a not-great black wig, which fits her head like a shower cap, and speaking with a New Zealand accent overlaid with a strong layer of Australian, Miss Streep's Lindy Chamberlain is just reticent and stubborn enough to deflect easy sentimentality. There also seems to be something a little arrogant about her, which is the way most of us react to people with strongly held beliefs we don't share.
"There is wit, which is not to be confused with humor, in everything she does, from the remarkable accent to the physical mannerisms. Unlike most screen actresses, Miss Streep works on two levels at once. There is, on the surface, the character she is creating within the context of the script. Underneath that, there is the sometimes breathtaking pleasure in watching an actress exercise her talent as she reaches for, and achieves, the high notes.
"This is not an especially popular form of screen acting. It has the effect of calling attention to itself, which goes against the grain of realist cinema in which verisimilitude is all. Being able to see and to enjoy an actress act, much as one attends to a diva such as Joan Sutherland, is not something moviegoers take to - unless, like Bette Davis, the actress more or less announces what she's doing with gestures that have become familiar with time. Miss Streep is an original for our own era."
In 1988, after defeating Chris Evert at the Australian Open to win the women's singles championship, Steffi Graf, nicknamed "Fraulein Forehand" for her trademark shot, became the 5th tennis player to win the Grand Slam also known as "The Big 4" (comprised the Australian, French and U.S. Opens and Wimbledon) in a calendar year. Pavel Slozil pointed out, "To win a Grand Slam is a major achievement. There have been so many players with plenty of ability who failed to do it. Bjorn Borg came so close to winning a Grand Slam but never made it. He was probably the best player of all time and yet there were so many hurdles in his way."
Jana Novotna conceded, "In my generation, I don't think there's anybody except Steffi who can play under no matter what circumstances. The worse the score is, the better she can get. I guess that's what champions are all about." In describing Steffi, her coach recognized, "I guess it's a combination of athletic ability she was born with and amazing willpower. She seems to be able to dig deep, when she has to."
In Australia in 1988, as Australians joined Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales to celebrate Australia Day by watching coverage of the Australian Bicentennial including witnessing the arrival of the re-enacted First Fleet voyage to Botany Bay, Sydney, channel Nine launched a revival of 'A Current Affair' (some 10 years after the program last went on air) with '60 Minutes' reporter Jana Wendt as host.
Speaking to the Australian 'Daily Telegraph' in 2015, former '60 Minutes' reporter Ray Martin told Cassandra Briedis, "In the golden days, if you didn’t work at channel Nine you worked in the bush and everyone knew it. It was a place that worked hard and played hard. The reason there's been two books on channel Nine written by Gerald Stone is because you wouldn’t sell books about (channel) Seven or Ten.
"It was a real cultural heartland of Australia and that's beyond the stars - there were legends like Frank and Kerry Packer, David Leckie and on-camera, where do you start ... Mike Walsh, Brian Henderson, Paul Hogan. In 1988, Jana Wendt, Clive James and I hosted a four-hour bicentenary special live. We crossed to all these correspondents and Americans couldn’t believe we did this live. The potential for disasters is enormous - you can make mistakes and defamation costs a lot of money but it was just what channel Nine did."
Of the network's Willoughby studios in Sydney, "Everybody from Frank Sinatra to Bob Dylan went through the doors. Orchestras, dance troupes, elephants and circuses would come in and do a performance - you name it."
In promoting its leading hour of news and current affairs in 1988, radio host John Laws told viewers, "Your competitors desperately seek the perfection you've insisted on all your life. Three decades (since 1956) of dedication set you apart from all the others. Style that is unique; colored; depth; flair; bold; compassionate; you're one of a kind."
Jana Wendt spoke to 'Fairfax Media' in 2010, "Many trees have been felled on the topic of what's going on in television, but even a part-time observer can see that (current affairs) television has shifted in style. It's certainly true that when I started, it was something I fitted into well, and that later I fitted into it less well. Times change, things evolve."
Stephen Rice who was a producer with 'A Current Affair' at the time made known in 1998, "The most traumatic time of the day for any executive producer isn't that frantic 'where-are-the-bloody-scripts?' period just before the show goes on air. It comes at about 10 past 9 the next morning, in front of your computer, when A.C. Nielsen squirts the ratings figures down the line … These are the figures by which a television producer lives and dies and you can start to respond to them as if they’re some sort of Holy Grail."
As reported in September 1989, "Once again, underpinning channel Nine’s domination were 'National Nine News', peaking at a remarkable 38, and 'A Current Affair', peaking at an equally remarkable 35. They are figures that networks once hoped to attract only with major mini-series, and now rarely do." Jana made the observation at the time, "There could have been a total viewer revolt. They could have said, you know, blow this for a joke. We don't like this chick. Or we don't like components of the program any more, good night. But they don't appear to have said that, thus far."
