well done all, and happy holidays!

Final grades will be posted before midnight tonight.

I thought you all might enjoy reading the blog that Kerry and Lauren created for the creative project, at http://aussiegabba.blogspot.com/.

I have finally caught up on these blog posts and wanted to say I appreciate the effort and interest displayed in them. This blog will stay online indefinitely and is open to the public, so feel free to come visit again.

Hope you all have a safe and enjoyable winter break!

Peg A.

Let Us Go Then You and I...

Before the semester ends and we go off for the holidays, I wanted to put up one more post. It's pretty much just a recommendation for a movie you might enjoy: Till Human Voices Wake Us.
It's a drama, but I would also consider it a bit of a romantic mystery.
In this film, Sam and Dr. Sam Franks (Guy Pierce) is a stable, emotionally guarded man who returns Victoria, Australia. This is where he grew up, found his first love, and lost her through a tragic accident.
Stay with me -- this is not your typical love story.

When Sam comes back as an adult, he must face these ghosts of the past, quite literally. Enter Ruby, a woman he encounters whom he suspects is more than she claims to be...


I'd hate to put the "..." on you but I don't want to give too much away. If you haven't seen Til Human Voices Wake Us, I'd highly recommend it. It has stunning scenery, characters with depth, and a unique storyline.

If nothing else, read some of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the poem by T.S Elliot on which the title (and some elements of the poem) are based.
It's quite long, but very beautiful. Here is the beginning:

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats	5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …	10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

Anyways, have a lovely break everyone!

PS - Tonight I'm bringing pie. It's no Sweetie Pie, but it's got some quality fruit in it.

Over the Rainbow

Growing up with an older sister who adored The Wizard of Oz and a family that eventually became centered around performing in and auditioning for musicals, "Over the Rainbow," while I never hated it, was a song that came to be overdone and performed on way too many occasions, by people who were just not talented enough to do it any justice. Harsh, I know, but true. As a result, it was a song that I came to like less and less.
Then, I was introduced to Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’s version of “Over the Rainbow” through movies like Finding Forrester and You’ve Got Mail, among others. Not to forget this precious Rice Krispies commercial. Thanks to Mr. Kamakawiwo’ole my love for the song was renewed. The first few films I saw the song used in used it quite well and I was always pleased to hear it. Happy to hear the version of a great song that made me love it as though it was new. That is, until his version too became overplayed and didn’t quite pack the same punch as it had the first time I had heard the song.
And yet again, my love for “Over the Rainbow” has been reborn. Thank you Mr. Luhrmann for showing me the song in a new light. Hearing the song played on the harmonica, especially toward the end when Nullah was playing it on the front of the boat as he, The Drover, and the other mission children returned from the island, nearly gave me chills. It was haunting, beautiful, and romantic. It was wistful, but hopeful and, for me, enhanced the moments of the film when it was heard in ways I cannot eloquently describe.

Despite my best efforts I couldn’t find any online version of the harmonica rendition of “Over The Rainbow,” but a small bit of information about the soundtrack can be found here.

Check out some interesting facts about the song here.

Writing Australia in Tasmania

Not sure if another Australia review is what this blog needed so… Adventure Magazine included an article this month about Richard Flanagan, the Tasmanian novelist and leading conservationist, who spent two years working and writing Australia with Baz Luhrmann. Tasmania (according to this map below) is an Australian island located south of eastern half of the rest of the continent. From the pictures I’ve seen of the island, it is absolutely breathtaking. However, I think its landscape has more of a New Zealand resemblance than an Australian one.

Anyways, in the article, here, Flanagan describes his initial work and creative experiences with Luhrmann. Flanagan explains, “I had no idea how to work with Baz, and I don’t think he had any idea how to work with me. He first came to see me in Tasmania, at my shack on Burnby Island, where it’s so quiet I can identify the birds by the sound of their wings. My home’s surrounded by kangaroos and penguins. We drank, told stories, made up new stories, and eventually a third creative force arose that was neither me nor him but that we both liked. And we discovered, rather improbably, that we liked each other too.” I thought this explanation of Flanagan’s work environment was intriguing and so ideal. What a perfect place to write such a film.

I also did some research about film production in Tasmania. After see the grandeur and scale of the landscape, I was surprised that I hadn’t heard of any large productions being based within Tasmania. I found Screen Tasmania, which is the “State Government agency responsible for supporting and developing the state’s film, television and multimedia industries by increasing the amount of independent screen production occurring in Tasmania. “ – Screen Tasmania. I couldn’t find any current production information, but found information about specific productions the agency had support in the past. The financial support and funding provided though this agency is very similar of that of The Australian Film Commission, which as of May 2007 has been replaced by an agency called Screen Australia!!!

A Cinematic Extravaganza

I've given myself several days to process Australia, but I'm still a bit befuddled. I don't know what specific facet or aspect of the film to write about with focused concentration. It has been interesting to read my classmates' reviews and Australia-related blog posts before and after watching the film. I think I would be best suited at the moment to just share my general impressions of the cinematic extravaganza.

First, I'll try to focus on the positives that I took away from the film. As has been noted in another blog post, the film is visually captivating. I can't deny that the color schemes and special effects are awe-inspiring. Knowing that Baz Luhrman is responsible for Moulin Rouge, I was worried that Australia would be too over-stylized to enjoy on any level. I was pleasantly surprised (although I had lowered my expectations after reading some of the early feedback posted by my classmates). Now that I think about it, I think that having a forewarning of sorts helped me to enjoy the film more than I otherwise would have. I was expecting a campy, over-done, overly ambitious film... and I got exactly what I was expecting, more or less. The only other positives that I can recall are watching Wolverine return to his Australian roots, getting to see David Gulpilil's familiar (although drastically aged) visage, and being introduced to the young actor that played Nullah.

I don't know whether I'm in the minority or not, but I feel like I was not exposed to a lot of advertisements for Australia before its release or before I went to see it. Even now, after having seen it, I still don't feel like I'm exposed to a lot of advertisements for the film. My girlfriend has, apparently, and she mentioned something interesting after Australia finally ended. The young actor who plays Nullah recieves virtually no attention in the majority of the advertisements that she has seen. I find it curious that the young actor recieves such little attention, especially considering that he puts forth (what I thought was) the best performance in the film... and the film, as the text that bookends it suggests, is narratively strung together by the plight of the stolen generation.

In terms of the negatives that I took away from the film...

While I can identify all of the Australian trademarks in Australia (except for mateship), and the Australian landscape dominated so many hours of screen time, I still don't feel like the film was that Australian in terms of tone or genre. The first half felt like an American Western, and the second half felt like Pearl Habor only set in Darwin. I think that the running time of Australia hurts it or will hurt its success in America. I know I have ADD as an audience member, and I found that I felt lost or confused at multiple points throughout Australia because there was so much to keep tabs on. Luhrman needed to trim the fat a bit more and decide which story he wanted to tell and which movie he wanted to make. Other things that didn't sit well with me were instances of contrived timing (e.g: Drover arriving just as Kidman's character wonders aloud where she will find a driver, the Japanese arriving at Mission Island at the same time as Drover and the rescue crew, etc. etc.) and music that counteracted the mood (e.g: all of the uplifting music during the various and many deaths... The music that plays during the drunk bookkeeper's death scene feels quite uplifting to me).

All in all, it wasn't a movie I would have ever seen had I not been assigned to see it. It's also not a movie I would ever watch again, or at least not in the near future. However, having had a forewarning of sorts from my classmates and consequently altering my expectations, I was able to enjoy Australia more than it seems that some others have. I'll update this blog post with a picture and links to make it "legitimate" in the next couple of days.

Vastly Inferior to Australia, the Country

What else can you say about the film? It was what I like to call "a bit much" with a pace, running time, and excess to make Michael Bay look like Werner Herzog this was definitely not my kind of thing. Granted, I was not expecting it to be.

First, what did not work for me: The fact that everything was so big and flashy - could anything have been shot, or at least remained at twenty four fps in the beginning? I felt all of this was just to mask the thin plot line. Speaking of which, the opening was just too long, with everything needing to be so significant throughout the whole thing I can understand the need for development, but really wasn't everything just significant for the purpose of significance? Then there was the end... I cannot even remember what it was but at one point it was grossly apparent that the film was ending, or at least the "end" was beginning, something did not feel right so I looked at my watch and saw that I had only been sitting in the theater for about an hour and forty minutes. Okay, so bottom line: didn't like it.

Anyway, as far as how this relates to class: I felt that this film could have been tailor-made to by analyzed from the perspective of this course. Of course there was the obvious allusion to Walkabout in the opening, but at a slightly deeper level, it was clear that Luhrman's intent was to capture nothing more than the country itself. I just don't feel that should take three hours. We've got the landscape, everything that makes "Oz" (that was a bit much too, right?) so otherworldly was there, and in my opinion this was by far the best part of the film. One example being the thought that crossed my mind of the stampeding cattle reminiscent of America's great planes. These animals are not indigenous and could a continet so unfertile support such life? Just a thought. Then of course, there's the aborigines. We've got the stolen generation - the presentation of which was practically stolen out of Rabbit Proof Fence. Oh and the British - what is there to even say about the way the British are interpreted? The same stuck up pricks they are always portrayed as in every Australian film, though understandably.

Then of course, there's the big buzz word we have been discussing since the beginning that was pounding us over the head constantly in this film - "Man's Country". In future classes a 30 second clip of this film would be enough for everyone to get that trademark.

So yeah, not my kind of thing, but very, very, Australian.

Just Another Australia Review

Well, here it is. With almost every aspect of this film having been dissected and scrutinized, I feel the only contribution worth giving is my own review of the film as a whole. Baz Luhrman, though obviously a successful director, is not usually my cup of tea. Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge were both heavily stylized, with a unique set design and camera work that has become Luhrman's calling card.
I was hoping, however, that this film would be different. When one names a movie after an entire continent, it's kind of implied that the nature of the film itself will be pretty epic. In some ways, this film was. Luhrman certainly hit just about every topic we've talked about in class, from wide open land to the Aussie battler, and managed to scrape together a story that included members of every culture and race on Australia, which widened the umbrella even more. He also threw some obvious shout-outs to the canon of Aussie film, with a lot of Walkabout references scattered all over the place.
And this might be my biggest problem with the film, for by trying to hit every little marker, the story and conflict were cheapened. Every character was essentially brought to their cliche base. The half caste kid can stop a herd of stampeding cattle through his understanding of nature, Nicole Kidman's British character is stuffy and originally is seen as unfit to survive the harshness of the Outback, and Hugh Jackman is a class A Australian badass who doesn't take shit from anyone, except maybe Kidman. These are just a couple, but really the whole film tries to do too much because it scatter bombs, attempting to hit every cultural point in a film that's three hours long. Had they picked a few points to hit, instead of so many, they would have been able to concentrate more on creating real characters and not archetypal placeholders. Of course, this film was made to be marketable, like most films, which in this case was a problem only because it so clearly dominated every aspect of it. The story had to be relatively simple, and they probably felt like they had to hit every point to increase the amount of people who would want to view it.
But I digress, since I started by talking about the style. I was happy to see that he had at least toned it down, enough so that I didn't immediately pass the movie off as utterly ridiculous. Still pretty stylized, with a lot of unecessary camera movement and a set design that was also fairly characteristic of Luhrman. This didn't do too much to hamper the movie to me however, and was to be expected in the end.
All in all, I can see why we were assigned to view this movie, as in some ways it is a culmination of everything we've spoken of in class. I just wish it could have been culminated a bit better.