Two Movie Reviews

Australia.

I love Baz Lurhman. I love Baz Luhrman when he has a tight story to work with. If he had decided to make this as two movies they would have been awesome, however, they were slammed together into a three hour collage of gorgeous shooting, wonderful acting and some earnest humanity. Really, I think there was just some over exuberance in the story boarding room. I think Luhrman kept having ideas for ways to show off his home country (yes, they were great, yes, I was reduced to tears with the beauty and nostalgia) and forgot that just because it's an epic does not mean it's allowed to leave half its plot lines open--where did those japanese planes go?-- and dwell endlessly on a few key melodramatic moments stolen from Michael Mann films.

The first fifteen minutes were brilliant. Then a loose hour, fifteen minutes of brilliance, another loose hour, and so on, until 3 and half are up and you realize you have to work at 6am.

Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are great of course, their predictable romantic rolls are both played with equal doses of heartfelt seriousness and terse comic timing. Makes for some fantastic scenes, and some that should have gone the way of the editing floor. However great our Hollywood heroes are, however, the supporting cast definitely steals the show.
Brandon Walters (Nullah) is one of the most natural child actors I've ever seen. I'm sure this is because he is allowed to just run around like a normal kid, but his reactions to all situations are perfect. Encounters with death: tragic. Encounters with freedom restriction: indignant. Acceptance of new circumstances: immediate. He's great!
King George, David Gulpilil, haunts every background exactly as his character metaphor (The Aboriginal) is supposed to. He's graceful and creepy, but endearing.
Together, these two characters illustrate the political situation in Australia towards Aboriginies. Just last year the Prime Minister gave an official apology to the Aborigines for what's called The Stolen Generation -- aboriginal children taken from families, relocated into catholic boarding schools to "breed the black out of them." One of the plots of the movies is the fight of Mrs. Boss/Mrs. Ashley (Kidman) to keep Nullah (Walters) from being taken to one such school. From this front, the movie is successful, lots of sympathy and lots of info = a win for Luhrman -- if people absorb it through the slew of the rest of the plots and remember it after all the over exposed studio shots with vaguely realistic horses (Yes, it looks like Mr. Jackman has never sat on a horse before shooting and there are many a stunt man and many mechanical horse).

Anyway, I know I just thrashed it, but, other than the pacing, it was pretty good. Definitely watch the first 20 minutes then fast forward to the bits where the cute kid is on screen, if nothing else, it's worth watching for these things!

I'm tired and gotta work early, thus, feel the suspense until I follow the promise of two movies up tomorrow with "Penelope."