Category: Cinema, television and theatre

Blog posts on Restitution – featuring Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo!

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| Cinema, television and theatre, Restitution

Steve Hedley has added a very useful page on blog posts relating to restitution to his wonderful site of legal resources on Restitution and Unjust Enrichment. From it, I learn of an entertaining post Hand over the money, Skippy by Legal Eagle on skepticlawyer.

On television, before Barney, long before Barney, there was Skippy, Skippy, Skippy, the bush kangaroo we all love to hate, or at least to parody. Now, Legal Eagle directs us to a fabulous story in which Actor Tony Bonner wants residuals from Skippy:

AFTER 40 years it seems there’s one last adventure left for Skippy, Australia’s iconic television kangaroo – Skippy Goes To Court.

…

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Isn’t it funny, how a bear likes honey?

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| Cinema, television and theatre, General

Winnie the Pooh, via flickr

As every fan of a certain bear knows:

Isn’t it funny
How a bear likes honey?
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
I wonder why he does?

AA Milne, Winnie The Pooh (1926)

As if to prove this, the BBC is reporting that the taste of honey was just too tempting for a bear in Macedonia, which repeatedly raided a beekeeper’s hives, and has now been found guilty of theft and criminal damage (see also Daily Mail | Hearld Sun | News.com.au | NPR | NYT | Reuters | RTÉ | The Telegraph | UPI). My favourite headline from the coverage is the Syndey Morning Hearld‘s Guilty as a bear can bee.

Athough most of the commentary focuses upon the obvious comic elements of the tale, there is actually a rather serious point. …

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The House always wins

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| Cinema, television and theatre, Law

Images from 'Boston Legal' series 3, episode, via fan siteIt’s amazing how things come together sometimes. On the same day that I see an episode of Boston Legal in which an important sub-plot has a chronic gambler sue a Las Vegas casino for her losses, I read about two examples of life imitiating … well, if not art exactly, then at least entertaining television.

First, there was a story about a real-life US case in which a chronic gambler (a lawyer who should know better) is suing a Las Vegas casino for her losses. Perhaps she was influenced by this episode of Boston Legal? There, the gambling plaintiff won an excellent settlement (and the image above is of her really rather odd lawyers celebrating their unlikely victory, click on it – if you date – for more images from that episode).

Second, not too long after reading about the US lawsuit, I read a message from Prof Charles Mitchell on the Obligations Discussion Group that

in Calvert v William Hill Credit Ltd [2008] EWHC 454 (Ch) (12 March 2008) … Briggs J has declined to make a bookmaker liable for the economic loss suffered by a compulsive gambler who placed bets with them. On the facts a duty of care was owed (some interesting discussion of similar Australian cases) and the duty breached, but the claim failed on causation: the defendant only owed a duty to take care to ensure that the claimant implemented a self-exclusion arrangement, and even if this had been done, the claimant would have gone to another bookmaker and lost all his money there instead.

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Charity Premiere: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

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| Cinema, television and theatre, Irish Society

aois2.pngOn Thursday 7 February 2008, Aois agus Eolais – the Centre for Ageing, Neuroscience and the Humanities will host a charity premiere of the extraordinary movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in aid of Stroke Research in the Adelaide and Meath Hospital Dublin, incorporating the National Children’s Hospital, Tallaght (AMNCH). It will begin with a reception at 6.30pm in the Atrium (map), Trinity College Dublin, followed by the screening at 8.00pm, Irish Film Institute (map), Eustace Street, Dublin 2. Subscription is €50, and further information and inviations are available from Catherine Talbot at 01 414 2432 or Marian Hughes at 087 286 4527.

Movie poster, via About.com.The movie The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (official site | imdb | wikipedia) is based on the book Le scaphandre et le papillon by Jean-Dominique Bauby (amazon | NYT review | wikipedia), in which Bauby recounts the effects of a catastrophic stroke and weeks of deep coma from which he surfaced into “locked-in syndrome“, mentally alert but deprived of movement and speech, leaving the blinking of his left eyelid as his only means of communication. Directed by Julian Schnabel, the movie based on the book is shot from Bauby’s perspective, offering us views of his memories and imagination and his struggle to communicate and come to terms with his condition.…

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Seeing Green on Blaphemy

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| Blasphemy, Cinema, television and theatre, Defamation Bill 2006, Freedom of Expression

Jerry Springer - The Opera, with a red line through it; from BBC website.On the day when the teacher convicted of blasphemy in the Sudan for allowing a class of young children to name a teddy bear Mohammed is pardoned and allowed to return home (BBC | Irish Times (sub req’d)) comes news of another relevant case. It has one of those very-legal looking, but uninformative, English case-name titles: R (on the application of Green) v The City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court [2007] EWHC 2785 (Admin) (05 December 2007), but for all that the title is uninformative, the judgment itself is significant. For the Green who made the application is Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice (their website sees A Nation in Pain and A Government in Rebellion, and therefore perceives A Need For Jesus, and A Need For Prayer); and the reason he was seeking judicial review of the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court was that a judge in that court refused to allow Green to commence a private prosecution for blasphemy arising out of the BBC’s broadcast of Jerry Springer – The Opera. The Daily Telegraph said of it at the time:

It’s filthy, it’s funny, it’s brilliantly original and, taken all in all, about as much fun as you are likely to have with your clothes on.

…

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To do a great right

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| Blasphemy, Cinema, television and theatre, Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications

Merchant of Venice Poster, via about.com

And I beseech you,
Wrest once the law to your authority:
To do a great right, do a little wrong,
And curb this cruel devil of his will.

The Merchant of Venice: Act 4, Scene I

I think it is rather as though Jack Straw has been seduced by Bassanio’s arguments. For, to do a great right by the gay community, he has this week chosen to do what he must regard as no more than a little wrong to the right to freedom of expression.

The UK already has legislation on incitement to racial hatred (as does Ireland, also here), it has recently extended that legislation to cover incitement to religious hatred, and just this week Straw announced the UK government’s intention to extend it further to cover incitement to hatred based on sexual orientation. …

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Simpsons’ Law

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| Cinema, television and theatre, Copyright, Privacy

Having had the pleasure of seeing The Simpsons Movie (imdb | wikipedia | and see here for a legal dispute about the domain name), I’m going to leave the reviews to the movie professionals (not perfect, but … the funniest animated film in years, writes Donald Clarke in The Ticket supplement to today’s Irish Times), and make only three quick comments from the perspectives of legal issues often raised on this blog. Warning, there are mild movie plot spoilers here.

First, copyright. When the movie reaches the tv series credit sequence, this remade sequence has Bart write on the chalkboard “I will not illegally download this movie”.

Second, privacy. There is a wonderful sequence where Marge and Lisa chat on a train and the scene cuts to an ominously huge government listening operation, where the operative listening in on their conversation celebrates wildly on having found the only useful piece of information (ever?).

Third, legal research. Last week’s “Friday Fillip” on Slaw meditated on the linkages between The Simpsons and Legal Research; and there’s more in the same vein here.

As I have often seen online: share and enjoy.…

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