Starring Ewan MacGregor and Naomi Watts!

Super cool news - shouldn't that be the headline piece rather than review no 16 of TS????

The synopsis read like a dark satire on what a typical awful Australian film is - somewhat like the "Gay Cowboys Eating Pudding" idea... in this case, typical appalling Australian art film is made up of drug abuse, slow pace, cheap filming, shocking acting by non-actors, downbeat story, downbeat ending, crap dialogue and pandering concept.

Until Australia gets over this terrible idea that the only valid "art" to come out of here has to be po-faced drivel of the worst, Amateur nature; until we break the cycle of thinking that we have to express the most pathetic and unpleasantly boring side of the darkest corners of the land; until we basically *get over ourselves*... we will continue to be a joke - one that only the kind of self-deluding fuckwits who review movies at Cannes will laugh at.

We have made good films before - and it's shocking to me that a country that is so good at laughing at itself is so scared of calling the bluff of industry and saying "no more - no more rubbish, no more crap, no more self indulgent art-wank stinkpiles that are either (a) designed to be loved by the self-appointed "elite" (and I've met a few of those - Jesus wept), or (b) just the product of someone who should never have been given the chance to make a film of any kind, because they have nothing worth expressing...

It's even more tragic when there has been a message sent to the Australian box-office by the film going public that for the most part, they aren't buying the tickets to the crappy films we churn out.... except when they win awards overseas, or pander to the gay / gay appreciating crowd (see Australia and Strictly Ballroom etc)... or are actually great (see... umm... see... well, Undead, Mad Max 1 & 2, Gallipoli, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Chopper, - see that again, it's good - and some of the excellent television, like Blue Murder, the Late Show with Bud Tingwell, etc etc).

I hope that Australia's film history is not overshadowed by Angel Baby, The Wog Boy, One Perfect Day, Australia, Strictly Ballroom, Take Away, Pizza, BMX Bandits, Houseboat Horror, The Time Guardian, Mr Accident, Young Einstein, Reckless Kelly, Cut, Puberty Blues (it's shit, it's just been nicked by the cultural historians as "important"), Storm Boy, The Delinquents, Fortress (not the Lambert one, the Rachel thingy one with the busload of kids), Strange Planet, The Coollangata Gold, Billie's Holiday, Strange Bedfellows (ripped off and remade by Sandler), Cosi, Australian Rules, Spotswood, The Well, Spider and Rose (don't even start me), Dead Letter Office, and....

You And Your Stupid Mate. A film that was basically self-genocide.

Feel free to disagree. It's what makes this country great in everything except the arts :-)

With that synopsis, and the particular way in which the film is being praised, and the interviews I've heard and read with the director...well, it's like battered wife syndrome; I believe I have broken the cycle of violence against good film in my house - at least Antipodean good film.

He won't hit me anymore, because I won't let him. It took the movie "Praise" to start me on that track, and You And Your Stupid Mate finished it.

I will, however, break my own resolution if someone makes a great genre picture, and/or if most of the people involved in film funding in Oz suddenly quit for good - and don't hand over to another bunch of backhanding palmgreasing politicos masquerading as producers and funding specialists :-) he he he.

As to there being a lack of good genre films in Australia, first of all what the fuck are you talking about? What would you call "The Square", "Rogue", "Black Water", "Acolytes" or Wolf Creek"? There's been a real upsurge in good genre films lately after the dirge of "The Castle"-esque cinema which the 90s brought us. Moreover, look at the stuff that's in production, like "Wasted". Battle-Royale crossed with Chopper? That's gotta at least be interesting.

There's a score of really talented guys out there right now making some really bare-bones genre stuff, check out "No Through Road" if you want to see a great straight-forward home invasion horror flick. It obviously wasn't made for a lot of money but it's got a tight story and some truly gripping/horrific stuff in it. Look outside the proper channels of funding and you'll find a world of great/challenging cinema being produced right under your nose.

By the way I thought Samnson and Delilah was great. The cinematography was incredible and I was fascinated by how Warwick Thornton was blending Aboriginal storytelling patterns of repetition and temporal divergence with the more western 3-act idea.

Just because not everyone in Australia is making Mad Max is not a reason to shit on the industry as a whole. Though I agree that funding bodies are largely run by incompetent boobs.