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Australia (2008)
For Kiwis, the joy of schadenfreude
Here in New Zealand, Australia has just had its first screening on free-to-air TV, giving me the opportunity to sample this epic piece of Aussie codswallop. And a grisly pleasure it was; the best part is how starkly it demonstrates why the Australian film industry isn't much competition for ours in New Zealand, currently about to set to making The Hobbit which we can reasonably predict will be competently constructed with engrossing well-paced action, plausible special effects, well-cast characters, well-pitched acting, careful attention to its source material and it will not be very laughable (as opposed to funny -- it might be that) at all. Unlike Australia.
I confess I watched this fitfully -- the tone-setting campy first half hour, then a phone call from a friend, a little more movie, then some internet, the cattle stampede, some snack food, Japs attack!, some Tweeting, kids get rescued, some spoiler stuff I won't mention, happy ever after, the end. Enough to get the general idea. And also to note the choppy, arrhythmic pace of the movie, which might be due to the need to shorten the self-indulgently huge mass of footage Luhrman shot, or perhaps a reversion to the TV commercial style of his early days.
I couldn't bring myself to watch the whole thing because it was so obviously a profoundly shallow (hee hee) movie. I'm sorry to say that I also found the camp sensibilities of the film were hugely annoying. I don't think I'm anti-gay, and I genuinely enjoyed Baz Luhrmann's first film, Strictly Ballroom, which was as camp as the proverbial boy scout jamboree. But that was about competitive ballroom dancing, for Pete's sake, an inherently preposterous activity, not a would-be epic of national identity.
Indeed, this movie is by inference an insult to decent, normally intelligent gay people. I didn't see a single actor with a speaking part who wasn't a hopeless stereotype, or sometimes several stereotypes. Especially that silly fish Nicole Kidman, initially a stuck-up Pom (but with divine frocks, darling. And did you see those spectacles? Somebody spent weeks in antique shops finding those.) then later, a staunch heroine (just like my dear mother should have been.) And there's that gorgeous butch Hugh Jackman, seen early in a saloon bar fight where the boys are swinging their handbags at each other like mad (almost). And that lovely little creamy boy Nullah, who... Well, that's enough of that. Would it have been so hard to cast a girl in that role? Let's just say the sensibilities of the Sydney Mardi Gras lack sufficient gravitas to cope with this particular slice of history.
Conclusions: 1) Har har (thank you Nelson). 2) I never want to see another Baz Luhrman movie again. 3) In fact, I'd be quite happy if he never makes another movie again. This one was just awful.
State of Mind (2003)
Smug, middle class, utterly implausible -- the worst of Brit telly drama
Whatever happened to British TV drama? From John Major through Tony Blair, the focus of the genre appears to have shifted from social realism to smugly normative women-focused tales about the piddling domestic problems of nice middle class professionals.
(Or perhaps TVNZ doesn't buy the good stuff? Please let that be what it is...)
The writer's long career in soaps probably explains why the dialogue is made up mostly of stale clichés. Niamh Cusack's performance is strong on meaningful looks, each held by the director for at least half a dozen beats longer than they deserve. Baleful looks, however, are a poor substitute for depth of character, if the writer has failed to provide such material for actors to work with.
Of course this is theoretically a thriller, about a murder investigation; but that's not as important as the central character's failing marriage and its attendant problems. Is Cusack's character's husband a complete bastard? Will her son be utterly traumatized by the marriage break up? Making these the central issues isn't a sign of insight -- it indicates a profoundly narcissistic identification by the writer and director with a character who should be getting on with her job.
Lynda La Plante knows how to write this stuff so that it feels as if it matters and involves viewers other than housebound neurotics ; evidently Paula Milne isn't up to the task.