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Box Office Mojo posted its weekly MPAA ratings update yesterday. I don’t have much to report. However, there are two items of note.Some of the big news is about Marley and Me. Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson’s romantic drama, which revolves around a troubled marriage and a dog, is rated PG (theme, some suggestive content and language). What’s rarer than a live-action non-children’s movie getting a G is a live-action non-children’s movie getting a PG. Seriously, I can’t even remember the last adult drama/comedy that received a PG rating. The last time I contacted him was in July 1997 (which…
A long, languid, and ultimately funny Ozploitation epic, Baz Luhrmann’s Australia attempts to do justice to a nation storied in every way as it makes an embarrassingly crude apology. The movie ends midway through a fun, spooky Western that’s devastatingly close in tone and structure to Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor. Then, out of nowhere, a war movie laced with preachy anti-racist polemics hits us. This is a movie with even more false stereotypes – and not just for the indigenous Australians it so desperately wants to address. Tender, loving, and even a white Australian with a sweaty, thick accent and…
It’s a collection of every Australian cliché imaginable: dusty outback landscapes, exaggerated accents, black fellas, boomerangs and even Rolf Harris and his idiosyncratic wobble board. Baz Luhrmann’s long-awaited romantic epic Australia, the country’s most expensive film ever made, had its world premiere last night, but many critics said it did not live up to expectations.With a budget of £86 million ($130 million) and an A-list cast including Oscar winner Nicole Kidman, Luhrmann’s new film is the most ambitious and hyped film ever made in Australia. Hopes for reviving the sluggish tourism industry rest on it.The film follows an aristocratic Englishman…
With a budget of $120m (£77m) and a top-notch cast including Oscar winner Nicole Kidman, director Baz Luhrmann’s new Australia is a Titanic-style super-saga of an epic outback adventure. He promised a masterpiece.However, the film’s tragic ending may have been a bit too much for Hollywood studio executives. After “intense” discussions with 20th Century Fox officials, Luhrmann agreed to rewrite the final scene to keep Kidman’s lover, played by Hugh Jackman, alive.This decision was made following negative reactions to the first cut of the film at test screenings.One critic said, “There’s no reason to kill off Wolvie (Jackman played Wolverine…
October 2, 2000 – “From the Land Below…”SYDNEY, Australia – The Olympic torch went out on Sunday night, but the flame will continue to burn in Australia and forever.At the closing ceremony, outgoing International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch declared that Sydney had produced “the greatest Olympics in history”. For once, he was completely right.If only the world were this happy, peaceful, friendly, and well-run.Well done Sydney.For many ex-convicts, that’s not a bad thing.Now, the rest of us understand that Australia is more than kangaroos, crocodiles, koalas and Foster’s beer. Australia was always on the map, but at the…