It's pretty good.
I was surprised because the trailer didn't do it for me.

Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman co-star in Baz Luhrmann’s epic love story set in the Northern Territory during WW2.

There's been a lot of hype already so I'm not going to go over basic info etc - I'll just cut to the chase in terms of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.

THE GOOD
At 2 hours 40 minutes I didn't feel the need to check the time or wonder when it was going to end. I was drawn into the story. Though I was a bit miffed I didn't have a drink with me. But I couldn't risk needing a bathroom break during the film and missing something.

It's a great Australian western that pays terrific homage to the genre.

It's gives excellent and artful insight into the history of The Stolen Generations without being 'educational' or preachy.

13 year old Brandon Walters is wonderful onscreen. For a kid who hasn't left his home area, didn't act much and had never heard of Nicole Kidman, he outshines his award-winning co-stars. Oscar nom predicted.

Ben Mendehlson gets it totally right with the most believable accent in the movie.

This movie will have people all over the world fall in love with our country. It could be the single biggest entity to put us on the world stage since Crocodile Dundee tossed a few more shrimps on the barbie.

The costuming, the broad sweeping shots, the attention to every detail – even down to the most background extra – is breath-taking. We haven’t make movies like this here and hopefully, now the bar has been set, we can aim higher. (This is not a back-hander to other genres that don’t require as much as Australia to be good. It’s just great to prove we can do a film of this calibre this right here. New Zealand proved it with Lord Of The Rings. It was about time we proved too.)

Nice to hear the film ‘Jedda’ referenced.

THE BAD
You have to see it on the big screen to appreciate it. I don’t think it'll travel well on dvd or on TV.

A little too PG for my taste – but then, that’s Baz’s strength is to take difficult and complicated adult subject matter and create a film that can be understood by many different people of all ages and walks of life.

Sarah has a name – but she calls him ‘The Drover’ the whole time. (Must have been weird in the bedroom.)

When The Drover turns up at the ball, he looks like Roger Moore as 007 walking into a casino. I was tempted to dub him Cinderfella.)

Imagine trying to pitch this movie in a Hollywood studio. It’d go something like this:
‘It’s like The Last Of The Mohicans meets City Slickers!’
‘It’s The African Queen but we’ll replace the river with a big ol’ desert!’

THE UGLY
Too many ‘Crikeys’. And the line ‘Shut yer damper-hole’ was – odd.

Bryan Brown looked strangely like Colonel Sanders (he was good though as a dastardly villain – though not the baddest apple in the barrel, if you get my drift.)

A while back, Baz shot the Chanel TVC. By making Australia, has he shot another one, this time 2 hours and 40 minutes – for Tourism Australia?

Australians will and won’t like it – but it’s not made for us. That’s not ugly in itself. (What’s ugly is our ex-Prime Minister John Howard sucking up to George W Bush with his smarmy, desperate ‘let’s be friends’ lap dog banter.) What Baz has done with Australia, is show the US that we can be friends because we have some major historical moments in common. Pearl Harbour was bombed by the Japanese – this was the first time WW2 came to US soil. Darwin was bombed by the Japanese – this was the first time WW2 came to Australian soil.

THE BEAUTIFUL
Thought I’d throw this one in at the end. From a vanity point of view, Australians come up looking pretty damn good. Okay, Nicole is already a supermodel of fashion and style. Hugh has just been named sexiest man alive by People magazine and in the movie Australia, we come off looking like hard-working, fun, fairly honest great-looking honourable people. Now I know that’s not true of all of us but hey – it’s nice to have that image out there in the international community.


Baz Luhrmann has given the world a gift and done us a favour. While Australia may not be to everyone’s taste, there’s no arguing the achievement it is and I predict it’ll garner him, his cast and crew as well as our country a lot of positives in the future.

Many months ago, I found it easy to criticize this movie based on the trailer.
And now I’ve seen the whole movie, I’m impressed.
It’s a big movie with big stars and made to be seen on the big screen.

RENEE OUTBRACK

I enjoy being the devil’s advocate.

If popular opinion says something is bad – I’ll find the good in it.

And vice versa.

Despite box office and dvd success, the films of Rob Schneider get pretty much slammed by a lot of critics. Check these comments out:

“I do know that Mr. Schneider’s ‘Deuce Bigalow’ series of films were fairly awful just as his movie ‘The Animal’ was fairly awful but I did get some enjoyment out of watching ‘The Hot Chick’ even I have to admit.”
Film Critics United – Christopher Armsted

“Hollywood has so downgraded its respect for the audience that "The Hot Chick" is now considered acceptable.
The movie resolutely avoids all the comic possibilities of its situation, and becomes one more dumb high school comedy about sex gags and prom dates.”
Roger Ebert

Other comments include: ‘you’re likely to be bored’, ‘all smut jokes’, ‘a series of cliches’, [characters are] ‘stereotyped into playing stereotypes’.

Perhaps some critics who do indeed provide in-depth reviews of movies are missing the depth that can be found in Schneider’s films.

As a female of our species, I find a few insights in them. For example: The Hot Chick puts the stiletto heel on the hetero male foot and some women do get a laugh out of this. For all the men who believe that the life of a gigolo is all free-and-eager sex with women who pay for the privilege, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo uses broad spectrum humour to show that kind of hetero hooking isn’t all wine, roses and nubile hot bodies wanting to be serviced.

Now we have Big Stan. Schneider directs and plays the lead role of a shifty real estate agent who will be doing hard time in jail. He fears rape more than anything and enlists the help of a martial arts master to teach him how to fight. He goes into jail and becomes the top dog in the big house.

In the screening I attended, there were a couple of walk-outs. I stayed. Then I had a stunning interview with Schneider. (You can see it in Movie Juice on Movie Extra and check out extra footage on You Tube – moviejuiceonextra.)

He came into the room doing a stand up routine. Our cameraman giggled the whole time. Everyone in the room was trying to laugh quietly so it didn’t bleed into the audio.

We talked about the massive fear that hetero guys have of being raped in jail – this is the fear that’s explored in Big Stan.

I pointed out there are far worse things that can happen in jail – this led to a very spirited discussion and what ultimately turned into an amazing interview.

Schneider uses a variety of comedy to execute his ideas and sometimes, he even takes the story to the negation of the negation – a very desirable script device. (I won’t bore non-writers with an explanation of it. If you’re interested you can seek it out yourself.)

His mashing of comedy genres produces an accessible formula that most people get – but it would be too simplistic to describe it as basic. There are some original and unique jokes in every one of his films.

And I get them. I understand them.

So it was a peculiar moment when Schneider and I didn’t understand each other. Our chat got onto Munich and the slaughter of 16 Jewish hostages who were Olympic athletes at the time.

I said those 16 were no more important than the 6 million who were murdered during the Holocaust. (Can you see how easy it is to misinterpret this? Of course I meant they were just as important but not more important simply because they were athletes. )

Schneider has Philippino and Jewish heritage and looked at me like I was some kind of neo-Nazi.

I live in Australia where we hold up athletes to be demigods and expect them to be moral examples to children. But being able to run fast or hit a ball a long way doesn’t automatically make you a better person or of good character.

The life of an athlete is not more important or more valuable than any other human being.

We clarified the point and moved on.


To be misunderstood is a horrible thing. It’s like that feeling you get when you’ve been accused of something you didn’t do.

And Schneider would know how that feels. He doesn’t get the full credit that his talent is due. The ideas in his films are deeper than they appear. The delivery system for them is broad comedy with vignettes in all the sub-genres - slapstick, innuendo, double entendre, satire, gross-out and farce.

Monty Python did it.

So did Peter Sellers.

Rob Schneider gets awards (that includes Razzies) and they sell popcorn.

Lots and lots and lots of popcorn.

He has an audience all right – maybe not too many critics in it, that’s all.

RENEE WHAT-THA-DEUCE? BRACKALOW

Don Draper of Mad Men gets around and is very successful at securing whatever woman takes his fancy. He doesn't appear to be a predator - there's something about him that makes him irresistable to most women he comes across.

So what's Don's secret?

It'll take you 2 minutes to find out. Click here:

The Pieman is the 'bad guy' in the new horror movie called Dying Breed.
It stars Nathan Phillips & Leigh Wannell.
Directed by Jody Dwyer.
Set and shot In Tasmania.

The Pieman though really isn't a bad guy as such.
He's more like a Jason Voorhees (Friday The 13th) or a Michael Myers (Halloween) in that he's a lonely misunderstood creature who - along with his descendents) has - been left to his own devices long enough to develop quite an individual and unique code of ethics and practice.

So are these characters true villains? Or just infantile men who no longer know the difference between right and wrong?

A true villain is a person gone bad - someone who consciously chooses the evil path with rigorous determination to achieve a personal goal.

A sick person is one who can't help what has become an impulse and can't control what has become a behaviour.

So to me, The Pieman is not bad - he's sick.

Nevertheless, Dying Breed is still a good, solid horror flick - it obeys the conventions that are necessary for it to be a true example of the genre and I just liked him.

I also liked that we got a good look at him 3/4 of the way through (not like that Danny Boyle flop Sunshine - his villain didn't get enough screen time at all.)

When we finally get that good look at The Pieman, I thought for a minute that they'd simply edited in some candid shots of Bill Hunter coming home from a big night at the pub.

Let me know what you think when you see Dying Breed.

Ron Perlman is set to play Elvis in Bubba Nosferatu.
He's replacing Bruce Campbell.

Replacing?

That's an about-face totally different direction casting announcement!

If you want to know the first film made that starred Bruce C, it's called Bubba Ho Tep.

It's a complete trip.

Once you know of and see this movie, you feel like you're part of a secret society - like the Freemasons.

I can't say too much.
You'll have to seek and find for yourself.