Movie review - "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" (1985) ***

 I'm never quite sure where this film stands with fans. It remains well known but doesn't seem to be as beloved.

It is a lot more Hollywood, with more gags, a lighter feel. Angry Anderson's bodyguard is cartoony. Tina Turner rock plays on the opening soundtrack, not booming Brian May. There's lots more saxophone - mind you Mad max's wife played that in the first film.

It reprises stuff from the earlier films: Bruce Spence in a plane (different character, has a kid, but still in a plane), some of the outfits, feral kids, man with Down Syndrome.

But it also does try to deepen the mythology: there's Bartertown (fabulous), run by Tina Turner (great) in conjunction with Master-Blaster. The Thunderdome sequence is electric. (Though are we went to have that much sympathy for Blaster who has been killing people and tried to smash Max's head off like ten seconds earlier?)

There's some marvellous hams on display, notably Frank Thring, little person Angelo Rossitto and Ted Hodgeman as the MC of Thunderdome. Hodgemen is heaps of fun - he should've been used more in Oz cinema.

A lot of familiar TV faces like Mark Kounnas, Mark Spain, Justine Clarke, Adam Wilits, Rod Zuanic, Rebekah Elmaloglou, Tom Jennings. The kids make it seem like a Steven Spielberg film - there's more wacky gags, Angry Anderson as Will-e-Coyote, Max is kinder and less selfish. And there's actually not much wrong with that. At least it's different.

The big flaw is structural. After Max is sent to gulag he just sort of stumbles along, finds these kids, some kids run away and Max goes to get them. Then they sort of stumble into Bartertown and decide to capture Master and it leads to a chase, but they have no idea of where they're going, they just head on the train tracks til it runs out and they're only saved via luck (running into Bruce Spence).

I think this could've easily been fixed. After seeing Max free Auntie could have chased after him to kill him, so when the kids find Max she finds them and goes "great a new slave population" so now Max has to lead all the kids to safety and he figures "the only way to do that is grab Master" so he heads back to Bartertown... which actually isn't that different to Mad Max Fury Road. Anyway, that's my two cents.

Movie review - "Maslin Beach" (1997) **1/2

 The spirit of the 70s lives in this plotless comedy about a day at a nudist beach - because it's matter of fact presentation of nudity feels 70s. And yet there are also 90s elements because that was the decade of films about people hanging out.

There's a lot of talk about love and stuff. Some philosophy, a lot of flirting, arguing. It's a shame Wayne Groom, who wrote and directed didn't have a co writer on board.

Michael Allen and especially Bonnie-Jaye Lawrence and are sweet as the leads. Lawrnce was a find, I wish we'd seen more of her. I don't think many of the cast were professional except for Gary Waddell who plays a (clothed) ice cream seller.

It's raw. Not that funny. But it has a charm. It has a soul. And integrity. 

It kind of feels very Adelaide with its nudity, high brown cultural references,  combination of high and low humour, long beaches that aren't that budy. I could be wrong.

It rated well enough to give rise to a sequel!

Movie review - "Fragments of War: The Damien Parer Story" (1988) **1/2

 Damien Parer story sounds interesting - young good looking photographer who shot some of the most famous images of the war, killed by the Japanese in 1944. But is it dramatic...?  Do films about photographers work? If they have sex with models and take a photo of a murderer, yes (Blow Up)... but if they are nice people who take photos... I'm not so sure. They've tried to make the Robert Capa story for ages but never been able to do it.

That's what this is. Parer films things. Some recreation is cut in with his amazing photography. Parer dies.

The film is full of female characters commenting on how good looking Parer is, and one woman asks Parer to photograph her nude.  There's actually a few one-off scenes with Parer and female characters - a nurse whose brother has died, a woman in Europe. Look, maybe that happened, and it's good to have female representation I just can't wonder if Duigan did it in part to gives roles to actresses who he tried to seduce. The screen time would've been better spent on Parer's relationships with more important people in his life, not random women - his mates, his family, his wife. Anne Tenney seems too old as the wife, btw - she's a good actor, she just seems wrong. Nicholas Eadie is good.

Film buffs will enjoy the appearance of Maslyn Williams (Huw Williams), Chester Wilmott (Steve Jodrell), Osmar White (Jeff Truman), and Ken G Hall (Bob Haines). Maybe there's a more interesting version of this story to be told. Or maybe there isn't.

Movie review - "Nightmares" (1980) ** (warning: spoilers)

 John D. Lamond tried his hand at soft sore sex and here changed gears, going for the slasher market. The script was written by Colin Eggleston.

They imported a "star" Jenny Neumann, whose main credit was in Larry Buchanan's Mistress of the Apes. This has decent photography and a Brian May score. It's also got a young Gary Sweet (lots of hair and a high pitched voice), Max Phipps doing good work as the mean director, John Michael Howson in a hilariously OTT cameo as a critic, Gary Day as a cop, the people in the theatre show also include Maureen Edwards, Briony Behets, Sue Jones and Nina Landis.

 We know Neumann's the killer all along so there's not a lot of suspense. There's some okay kills - I'm not the best judge, slashers aren't my thing. The theatre atmosphere is ideal.

I wish Nina Landus has played the lead, Neumann doesn't bring a lot to the party -would she have even been vaguely known?

A film that you want to like because it was Ozsploitation and Lamond comes across as such a cheerful rogue, and Colin Eggleston made The Long Weekend but it's really not that good.

Movie review - "The Clean Machine" (1988) **1/2

 Kennedy Miller's TV series of the 1980s gripped the nation - they were all watercooler shows. They made four TV movies in 1988 as well for $7.2 million... none seemed to have the same impact except for The Year My Voice Broke which was released as a feature. They also did Sports Crazy a TV series which no one seems to remember.

This is a look at corruption in the NSW police force, which has provided some of our best dramas - Scales of Justice, Blue Murder. This suffers in comparison to that. It's got this sort of TV sting music and some on the nose dialogue (Terry Hayes, normally so good, wrote it with Richard Mortlock and director Ken Cameron).

The plot has a new state government appoint traffic cop Steve Bisley to form an anti corruption task force. Ed Devereaux is his boss. The team also includes Sandy Gore, Peter Kowitz, Marshall Napier, Mervyn Drake, and Tony Poli. Problems emerge when Bisley gets close to some really bad cops including Grigor Taylor as a Roger Rogerson type and they wonder if Devereaux is corrupt.

There are some effective moments particularly when the heat turns up on the corruption team but it didn't quite work for me. It didn't feel tonally consistent - part ep of a typical cop show, part realism (eg a stake out interrupted by the noise of a lawn mower), part of it based on cases I recognised (eg taking a shot at Bisley at home was like the shooting of Michael Drury in Blue Murder). I also got confused at times as to what was going on.

It lacked focus. It was about Bisley... then it was also about Kowitz, as a sort of dodgy undercover cop, and Napier.

Bisley is an odd-ish choice for a nerdy cop - but the moustache helps. (Also... his house has a pool... I didn't realise cops could afford them). Tim Robertson plays a character called "Milius".

There's a Down Syndrome character - Deveraux's son. Kennedy Miller used that in Mad Max 1 and 2.

Female roles aren't great. Bisley's wife is concerned (she's a good actor), a girl gives Devereaux massages, Robertson has some hot girl, Sandy Gore ia part of the team but doesn't really do anything. 

This was fine. Not terrible. Just not up to the standard of their other stuff. Hayes was writing Dead Calm and Bangkok Hilton around this time, his attention span was probably not great.

The Age 1 July 1988

The Age 21 May 1988

Movie review - "Breakfast in Paris" (1981) **

Change of pace from John D. Lamond... a romance (not really a rom com) about an American woman Barbara Parkins whose boyfriend (Chris Milne from Felicity) cheats so she heads to Paris and falls in love with Rod Mullinar.

These films are harder to do than they appear, and Lamond can't pull it off. It's clearly being shot in Melbourne with Paris second unit and the budget doesn't stretch to truly nice looking clothes and settings.  The blocking, shot selection and camerawork doesn't help.

Mullinar was something of the George Brent of Australian cinema so it's fun to see him as the leading man in this venture. 

This film is a hard slog. There's not enough story or fashion or glamour. The false love interest is false. (Why not bring back Milne as a threat). The dialogue is poor. There's a lot of swearing. No chemistry between the heads. Mullinar's character is controlling.

I love that Lamond made it but his film really is inept. He wasn't much of a filmmaker. I'm giving it two for sentimentality.

Top Ten Imitation James Deans

 1. Michael Parks - played broody enigmatic loner in Bus Riley's Back in Town

2.Paul Newman - took Dean's part in Somebody Up There Likes Me

3. Christopher Jones - very Dean style in films like Wild in the Streets

4. Tab Hunter - under contract to Warners... more a nice young man that Dean's moody people

5. Troy Donahue - soulful man in a series of 60s films at Warners

6. Warren Beatty - discovered by Elia Kazan in a Dean style role

7. Robert Wagner - don't laugh - played Dean role in True Story of Jess James

8. Elvis Presley - occasionally went into Dean territory eg King Creole

9. Nick Adams (not Dennis Hopper) - copied Dean

10. Dean Stockwell - Dean style actor in Compulsion

Movie review - "Stone" (1974) ***

 Beloved Australian film has tremendous integrity... Sandy Harbutt clearly has great admiration and affinity for bikers and this comes across in the film's best bits... the funeral sequence, the stuns of bikes falling off cliffs, the scenes of bikes on the highway, the camaraderie of the gang, the ethos. 

Harbutt is very effective as the head biker; Hugh Keays Byrne and Vincent Gil are superb as fellow bikers, Roger Ward and Bindi Williams are a lot of fun. Rebecca Gilling was one of the best looking women on the planet at the time - especially in denim. Helen Morse is amazing too, as Shorter's uptown gal (who still goes off and seemingly roots Patrick Ward).

The plot about Ken Shorter joining the gang to help find out who's trying to kill them feels more haphazard. It's serviceable... I just wish it had been done with a little more polish. The baddies are basically forgotten until the end. And it is contrived that Hugh Keays Bryne witnesses an assassination, a whole bunch of people die as a result, and it's not until the end he goes "oh that's right I witnessed the assassination".

I remember guys from my school re-enacting the funeral scene. That's how much it penetrated.

The support cast is full of delight - Drew Forsyth as a nerdy businessman, Gary McDonald as a mechanic, Bill Hunter as a publican.

Articles on Drums of Myrrh

 

Variety 24 May 1978 p 58

 

SMH 14 Aug 1977

SMH 16 June 1999

Movie review - "Mad Max" (1979) ****

 A marvellous movie. There's not much fresh I can eye. It saw the feature debut of a magnificent director who swept people up in his operatic vision.

It's wonderfully cast - the high pitched operatic work of Hugh Keays Byrne and Vincent Gil, the likeability of Mel Gibson and Joanne Samuel, the blonde friend Geoff Parry, the muscly camp of Roger Ward, the ockerism of Steve Bisley, the cop who gets a "saucepan in the throat", Tim Burns' psycho Johnny the Boy

As in Mad Max 2 the action sequences are superb  and less famously it's also marvelously suspenseful. There's a lot of fake outs eg Goose getting up the next day, falling over, then getting killed... ditto with the attack on Jesse.

There's a lot of humour and heart too. Would it have worked with James Healey in the lead and not Gibson? Yes but not as well because Gibson bought vulnerability.

I'm struck how low the death toll is in this. The night rider dies in the original chase and his girl but not pursuing cops. Goose still lives. So does Max's wife. (It's grim for both but not death.) The couple that are attacked at the beginning still live - he seems to have been raped and she was but they are still alive. And the initial bikies just come off the bridge. The kid is killed. And the later bikies.

Great movie.

Movie review - "Sidecar Racers" (1975) **1/2

 For whatever reason Universal decided to make a young-skewing film in Australia. They got Jon Cleary to do the script and he does an okay job - the script has a structure, conflict all that. Earl Bellamy does a competent job. There's plenty of racing action, quite well done - stunts and all. It's politely made, though - it could've done with more trash maybe, nudity and broad comedy. This sort of movie is more fun done by AIP than majors.

Ben Murphy was imported to play the lead... actually co lead really, it's more of a buddy film with John Clayton, who doesn't seem easily cast in leads. Sorry, John.  Clayton's part is actually better - he's like Maverick in Top Gun, a risk taker, he's the one who has the romance with Wendy Hughes, his character has an arc. Murphy is this gold medal winning champ just hanging out in Australia surfing when he strikes up a friendship with Hughes.

The ending is a downer. There's an accident. Murphy quits. Hughes stayed with Clayton.

I think this might be why Murphy played up. His part wasn't good.

Decent action. Competent cast. John Meillion is in it. And Peter Graves (as Hughes' father!), John Derum,, Serge Lazareff, Patrick Ward... people like that.

Movie review - "A Slice of Life" (1983) *

10BA comedy that reunites the team from Pacific Banana, director John D. Lamond and writer Alan Hopgood. The star is Robin Nedwell, an English actor who had appeared in the Doctor sitcoms.

It's a low concept piece - well, low high concept. Nedwell goes into surgery, is given a vasectomy, becomes irresitible to women, then discovers the vasectomy isn't effective and impregnates the women.

That's a terrible idea for a movie. It's blandly directed, made without wit.

The women include Julie Nihill, Amanda Muggleton, and Jane Clifton so that's some novelty. Other roles are played by John Ewart and Derryn Hinch cameos as himself. Alyce Platt plays a 'giggling girl".

This film is awful. It's unfunny and slow and pointless. Lamonds 70s sex fil;ms had more point and heart - they were positive about sex. This is dumb.

Brian May did the music and Michael Hirsch was associate producer. David Parker did stills.

 

Movie review - "Deadline" (1981) ***

 In the late 1970s Hal McElroy temaed with Hanna Barbera to make a few things out here, including Return to Eden, Ratbags and this telemovie, a pilot for a proposed series. It was known during production as Shadow Effect.

The hero is journo Barry Newman, who spends a lot of time shirtless, as a stud journo (his conquests include a young Julie McGregor) investigating a supposed earthquake. It's actually an atomic bomb set off by a group of crims (including Hey Dad's Robert Hughes) who are holding the government (including Bill Kerr and Vincent Ball) to ransom. Newman figures out what's going on with the help of science reporter Trish Noble.

This is a pretty fair thriller. It's high concept and written by an American but has been adjusted to be set in Australia - it feels real, or real-ish, doesn't feel silly. The narrative focus is split in half, one being led by Newman the other concerning the government and baddies. There's a decent second act twist when the baddies are paid off but die in a plane crash caused by some birds... meaning the bomb is still ticking and the antagonists become the government, determined to cover up everything.

Lots of familiar actors in small roles such as Alwyn Kurts, Sean Scully (army dude), Ken Wayne (some guard), Bruce Spence (computer geek who does a lot of heroic stuff), John Ewart, Willia Fiennell (crusty old dude), Melbourne news reader Sir Eric Pearce (as a newreader), Kevin Miles, Brian Blain (doctor), Norman Kaye (ASIO agent), Brian Wenzel (anothe ASIO agent), playrwight Katherine Thompson (answering the telephone).

It was directed by Arch Nicholson who does a solid job. Maybe his work seems better on TV.

Movie review - "The Perfectionist" (1985) **

 Could an adaptation of this play have worked? Maybe. I mean, it was a personal work which Williamson wrote in response to the poor reaction to a farce, Celluloid Heroes. The material was there - it dealt with universal themes. It didn't have a particularly strong story or bright lines but had good characters. And there was a central concept: married couple hires male nanny and the mum is hot for her.

Jackie Weaver and Steve Vidler seem uninterested in each other. When she propositions him it has been set up in story but seems out of the blue and they have no chemistry,

John Waters has an unlikeable character who he can't make likeable, he's very glum, no humour. Maybe Graeme Blundell or someone would be better casting. Weaver seems too sensible and asexual. Maybe Kate Fitzpatrick, who plays Weaver's horny friend, would've been better as the female lead.

It's not very well directed - the blocking is poor and there's no visual help to accentuate the character interactions. There's no warmth between Weaver and Waters - some humour and attraction would've helped. It's understandable why she leaves, not why she does off with Vidler or returns.

It ambles along. The play isn't a masterpiece but this simply isn't very good.

The kids are good.

Book review - "Ernie" by Ernest Borgnine

 The sort of book you'd imagine Ernest Borgnine to write - it has an "aw gee I can't believe I did it" quality. He was lucky he came along when he did. But you also make your own luck - he worked hard, took all sorts of roles, could act, could play leads and support parts. He was lucky to get Marty which put him in a new league but he never really became a star. On TV it was different. Spent something like ten years in the navy but never saw active service.

This book is hazy is some stuff, notably his love life. He had a number of divorces (including with Katy Juarando and Ethel Merman) before getting lucky with number five... a woman who became a make up tycoon.

Sam Peckinpah told him to fuck off several times, Gene Wilder was meant to play Red Buttons' role in Poseidon Adventure, he was briefly sacked on The Adventurers for giving direction to an actor, he doesn't mention Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, he said Lee Marvin referred to Jim Brown as a n*gger and had to be pulled into line by Bob Aldrich, he wanted to play the warden in Escape from New York, he calls Chuka undistinguished.

Not a great memoir, too chipper, but not bad.

Movie review - "Mad Max 2" (1981) ***** (rewatching)

 Gosh this film is so good. Music, direction, mood, everything.

Part of the strength is the depth of the support characters. There's the Gyro Captain of course, and Mike Preston's charismatic leader, and Vernon Wells' Wez with his boyfriend, and Humungous (who has clearly suffered major trauma)... but also Arkie Whitley's sweet girl (you need that character with this bleakness), the wry smart mechanic who figures out Max's car is booby trapped (Steven Spears) and his dopey assistant, the Warrior Woman (Virginia Hey), the fairweather friend Syd Heylen, the grey haired woman whose boyfriend/family member is killed early on, the wide eyed guy whose girlfriend is killed early on, the dog, the PR guy Max Phipps who is sort of like a News Ltd columnist.

It's scary. Tense. A great action movie yes but it's also the terror of the threat outside the base. The harsh landscape.

The humour is beautifully mixed too. Spence, Heylen, Phipps.

Such a good movie.

Movie review - "Harvest of Hate" (1978) *

 I was keen to see this because of its reputation as one of the worst Australian TV movies of all time. It's a bizzare concoction where a couple, Kris McQuade and Dennis Grosvenor, and sent by Richard Meikle to check out a farmhouse... and are captured by Arabs who are using it as... a military training facility.

Grosvenor, who was in shows like Homicide and Chopper Squad, struts around with a moustache acting overweight macho while McQuade is a trooper. Actors wear headdresses to play Arabs. There's a British double agent. A lot of hanging around in rooms but also some decent production value - just silly production value (tanks, etc).

It was directed by Michael Thornhill. What did script consultant Harold Lander do?

Some interesting names on the credits: John Orsick in the cast, Scott Hicks was 2nd AD, Penny Chapman unit manager, David Copping art direction (good job).

You can't believe it exists.

Movie review - "The Nostradamus Kid" (1993) ***1/2

 I'm a soft marker. It's two hours long and they could have lost that last ten minute sequence of seeing the characters as middle aged, which looks silly (I think he wanted to keep the admittedly funny recreation of the sort of shows he did in the 70s which feature his mates like Phil Scott and Kate Fitzpatrick) and maybe a bit elsewhere, but it needed time for that melancholic sweep Ellis was going for. 

I don't think people went because even in 1993 the Ellis character was a sex pest, stalking Miranda Otto and cajoling Alice Garner into sex which she clearly wasn't in to (maybe it was better to not see her character again just to hear about her having a breakdown), and planting kisses on women and the jokes about rape. It is true to character, and men at the time, it can just be a drag.

I enjoyed a lot of this. The recreation of life at Sydney Uni in the 1960s, and the flashbacks to Adventist camp. It's cast beautifully on the whole - Noah Taylor's geekiness makes Ellis more appealing and he's very good; Miranda Otto is lovely (I did feel bad for her doing nude scenes with Bob over in the corner drooling... I'm sure he drooled at all other young women); Jack Campbell is raw but has handsomeness and swagger; the little turns from people like Arthur Dignam, Colin Friels and Tony Llewellyn Jones are first rate; Alice  Garner and Lucy Bell are perfect; the smaller roles are well cast like Janette Cronin. Ellis is comfortable in the 50s and 60s and the decent budget gives it a polished sheen.

Look it's flawed, Ellis is a sleaze, but some of it is warm and funny and it does have a soul and point of view.

Movie review - "Wills and Burke" (1985) **

 Famously released the same year as Burke and Wills this actually has a lot of good stuff in it - a very strong cast headlined by Gary MacDonald and Kym Gyngell, Peter Collingwood hilarious as a governor convinced that everyone loves him, Nicole Kidman making an early appearance as Julia Matthews.

It doesn't quite work though. Actually it just doesn't work. Mainly because I think the basic story isn't that compelling on screen - it consists of bad decision-bad decision-bad decision, as opposed to twists and turns. The best spoofs have a solid story eg Blazing Saddles, Flying High, Young Frankenstein. A colonial era spoof probably needed more of a stronger story basis - like For the Term of His Natural Life might've been funnier. Or even Robbery Under Arms.

I'm not sure there's a way of doing this story properly. Maybe from the point of view of King? Maybe Burke, like Ned Kelly, is a character best left to being a support character. Maybe it would've worked better from the point of view of Edwin Welch, who led the rescue expedition and found King. (I actually think that's the way to tell this story... from the point of view of Welch investigating what happened.)

Maybe the characterisations needed to be broader and more distinct. (Like they could've turned one of the exploring team into a woman in disguise, say, to get some females in there.) Collingwood's governor is very distinct and unique. The others less so - Gyngell's Wills is stiff upper lip, Wyn Roberts is a bushman and... that's about it, Roy Baldwin (Charles Gray) is a bit horny for Matthews and is argumentatitive and... that's it, Mark Little's King never says anything and... that's about it, Roderick Williams (as Landell) wears an Arab headdress and... that's about it, Nicole Kidman's Julia Matthews is bright and sparky but not into Burke. 

Maybe if these parts had been broader. Maybe if it had songs and/or been on stage (there's a show biz subplot with Jonathan Hardy wanting to organise a stage show with Kidman).

Maybe if it had just been funnier. A lot of the gags feel like jokes that would sound funny if pitched eg Wills always wears evening dress, King never talks, the Aboriginal plays tunes and the others try to guess it. And the big subplot of Kidman putting on a show to celebrate Burke gets annoying after the while because it doesn't really tie in with the rest ... you could cut it out of the film.

Historically it's not super inaccurate. It follows the basic facts.

There's cameo-ish appearances from Colin Hay, Los Trios Ringbarkus, Chris Haywood.

Movie review - "...Maybe This Time" (1980) **

 From a script by Bob Ellis and Ann Brooksbank, who had worked on the script for Newsfront. I'll give it points for some ambition - it's about the travails of a woman, played by Judy Morris, pushing 30. It's a small target film though - everything needed to work for it to pan out. 

The script is wonky - Ellis complained that the references to Whitlam were cut out and without having read his original version I think it would've helped for the film to be fixed more specifically in a time and space (apparently it's 1975-76 but it's hard to tell).

And occasionally the waffly Ellis dialogue is effective - but it also clunks. Such as an awful sequence where lecturer Mike Preston talks with his students about the bombing of Coventry in World War Two (they include a young Hugo Weaving and Tim Burns) or Leonard Teale having to gnaw his way through awkward dialogue with Morris.

The cast is full of the Ellis gang - Jack Clayton as a real estate agent, Bill Hunter (very good) as a ministerial adviser, Chris Haywood, Michelle Fawdon and Lorna Lesley. I did feel a little queasy to think that every female actor had probably been propositioned by Ellis.

There's Ellis concerns and prejudices - Morris is a mistress, Morris takes part in a threesome with Hunter and his wife, there's singalongs of old songs around the piano. It's full of lecherous men - people are always pawing at Morris, whether it's Hunter, family friend Rod Mullinar, Hunter's wife, Morris' childhood ex Ken Shorter, her boss Mike Preston, travelling salesman Chris Haywood.

Ken Shorter's character votes County Party and is impotent. The Labor voters Hunter and Preston are polyamorous super studs. Everyone is subsidised by the taxpayer (well, the leads anyway) - Morris' research assistant, Preston's lecturer, Hunter's adviser, Shorter's teacher, Teale's minister. And the living is good too - Hunter jets around the world, Morris decides to go to Greece. Chris Haywood is a commercial traveller like Ellis' father was. Preston is sleeping with his students.

The direction is leading - the blocking, art design and photography are particularly poor. Some of it is surprisingly well done - like Morris forming a friendship with Hunter's wife, the impotence scene. But as a whole it doesn't work. Morris doesn't really have any choice at the end except to leave... Shorter is sexually and politically incompatible, Hunter is unreliable and Preston unkeen. I think it was a mistake to have the characters of Hunter and Preston they were too similar. Needed to be a different type of man. Like maybe one of Preston's students or something.

This needed to be a play if anything.  But it does have some interest if you enjoy Ellis.

Movie review - "Death Cheaters" (1976) **

 Brian Trenchard Smith's follow up to The Man from Hong Kong has a nice light tone and decent cast plus some fun stunts. The basic idea is strong - two stuntmen are recruited to do a special mission - but the script is dodgy. It takes 30 minutes for Noel Ferrier to ask them to go on the mission, a lot of the stunt sequences are just sort of gags/sequences for the sake of it, instead of being tied in with the story, the mission doesn't star until something like 45 minutes in.

I think they missed a trick by having Hargreaves in a relationship with Margaret Gerard (Mrs Trenchard Smith) instead of having them fall in love during it - or at the least have her go on the mission. They definitely made a mistake starting the mission so late - that could've been the second act, with Gerard kidnapped for the third act.

Movie review - "Airhawk: Star of the North" (1982) * (warning: spoilers)

 The famous (ish) comic strip gets a TV movie treatment. Eric Oldfield from The Young Doctors was logical enough casting as Airhawk. 

The script was written by Ron McLean of Spyforce fame who also produced (Colin Eggleston co produced, David Stevens directed). The "plot" involves some crooks from Hong Kong (cue some stock shots) who are after Hawk's brother.

Some of this is incredibly dopey. Michael Aitkens in sunglasses hamming it up as someone called Cowboy. An assassination attempt on Hawk, his brother (David Robson) and two ladies (Louise Howitt, Eli McClure) on top of a Gold Coast high rise... via a man with a machine gun in a bi plane. Two baddies talking in European accents.

There's a weird plot where Hawk is being chased after for money owed by the tax office and he goes on a rant about how the government don't deserve it. Was this McLean having a whinge?

They don't get out to the outback until 43 minutes in when the piece picks up. We aren't told the brother is into diamonds until over an hour in. The two villains, male and female, talk in broad accents and ham it up. Presumably director David Stevens allowed that.Maybe he could have also done something about uninspiring blocking and slack handling.

Some good things: I didn't mind the twist at the end that the old lady was involved. And there's a well-shot chase at the end where a jeep is driving after a trio on horseback. The actual plane. (But it's hardly ever flown.)

But generally this is shoddy work an those associated with it should be ashamed of themselves.

A couple of old pros don't disgrace themselves: Margaret Christensen, Lois Ramsay, Myra de Groot. The Queensland Film Corporation invested in this!.

Movie review - "Duet for Four" (1981) **

 The collaborations of Tim Burstall and David Williamson were so crucial to putting the Oz film industry of the 70s on a firm footing that it's odd in a way this reunion slipped under the radar. Or maybe not... it was an original script, not based on a play, and it had sat in a draw for over half a decade, after it was written in the wake of Petersen's success.

That had starred Jack Thompson and this one features the actor they used when you couldn't get Thompson, Mike Preston - another muscly blonde, but far less good an actor. He plays a more macho Williamson type - he's broken up for from his wife (Diane Cilento) and has a new partner (Wendy Hughes) with little kids. He seems to have plenty of money, running a toy factory, supporting Hughes and some kids and also his ex Cilento who has a new lover.

The key roles never seem quite right. Cilento is very glamorous, it's good to see her in an Aussie film, but I never quite believed her, or Preston. Or come to think of it Michael Pate though it's nice to see him.

Gary Day plays another in a long line of his alpha sleezes but he seems more at home. There's some typically poorly drawn Williamson females, like the two girls at a party who stand around sizing up the attractiveness of Rod Mullinar and Preston. Hughes plays a woman complaining about looking after the kids and doing her PhD. There's other Williamson worries - the cost of divorce, concern about environment, the difficulty of remaining faithful, the hassles of dealing with an ex-wife, dealing with struggling teenage kids (he didn't have any then but he would soon and they'd be a constant of his plays from the late 80s onwards).

I wish it had been set in some industry other than toys. I mean, that is an interesting metaphor but it's really standing in for the Australian film industry, with its domination from America... and Williamson, who can and has done a lot of research on different fields, wrote this too quickly to do the research to really know it. If they'd done it on the film industry he simply would've known more. Maybe he was worried about being sued.

There's some 70s style nudity with some throwaway shots of Wendy Hughes topless in bed and Clare Binney topless in the shower.  sort of comes out of nowhere and winds up having a big part when pate tries to seduce her... I felt this role could've been combined with Thornton's or Hughes or at least the girl who plays Day's girlfriend, Vanessa Leigh. And maybe Comber and Cilento should have gone off to Queensliffe with the others. There's too many characters.

There's 70s style Williamson "shock value" with Day, Leigh, Binney and Preston sitting around watching a porno and Preston kissing Day's girl while Day is in the room. That is pure Don's Party (Binney was in that movie). So too is talk of middle class people subsiding others (lovers, kids), Warwick Comber being upset Cilento talked to an art critic from The Age,

The script needed another draft. There's no real reason why Preston's daughter Sigrid Thornton couldn't be Cilento's daughter as well (or was she? i'm not sure). There's another character too Arthur Dignam, who is Preston's lawyer, giving advice about the business and the partnership. Oh and there's Sigrid Thornton's boyfriend.

But you know something? I enjoyed it. I mean, it's not very good - too unfocused, too many characters, Preston isn't up to it, doesn't have many or even any really funny lines, the toy industry background feels underused. But there's interesting actors, it tells a story, I like the Aussies teaming up to take on the Yanks at the end. The domestic violence faced by Cilento feels all too real. It was an easy watch.

Book review - "The things we did last summer : an election journal" by Bob Ellis (1983)

 Some excellent lively writing. It's padded out with interviews, not from Ellis, but say one Fraser did on the ABC. There's also extracts from Ellis' plays like The James Dossier and A Very Good Year. This would be better off at half the length because there is some marvelous writing on Hawke, Hayden, etc. Some good stuff and a lot of padding.

Movie review - "Unfinished Business" (1985) ***

 Bob Ellis isn't exactly the first person you think of when you hear the words "film director" but his enthusiasm for the medium, combined with his successful script for Newsfront enabled him to direct this low budget effort that he wrote. Response was enough for him to then get a big budget for Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train and later he directed The Nostradamus Kid which is kind of remarkable.

Anyway this is probably as pure an Ellis experience as you could hope (?) for. He was the sole writer as well as director, it's a clearly autobiographical tale about a tubby, eloquent columnist with kids (only it adds here he's divorced and the ex and kids are back in ); there are scenes at Palm Beach and also a flat in the city, which I understand was Ellis'; there's home movie footage of kids and a wife, who are Ellis' kids and wife; Ellis has a small role as Clayton's flatmate; the plot feels like Ellis... John Clayton runs into his ex, Michelle Fawdon, who is with Norman Kaye (briefly seen) but can't have a kid and asks Clayton to impregnate her.

Fawdon is very good, believable - she flashes her boobs in one scene. Clayton seems less comfortable - a bit awkward with how he moves.

Ellis' direction seems to mostly consist of long shots of two handers. Andrew Lesnie was the DOP so some of those shots are quite nice.

The film is mysteriously hard to see. I mean, look, it's unadulterated Bob Ellis, completely with eloquence and really unerotic sex scenes of tubby Clayton thrusting away with Fawdon, but at least it's a romance with different leads. Ellis said the film wouldn't have worked the same way with John Hargreaves and Wendy hughes - it would've been a lot more fun to watch them have sex but it is a point of difference.

There's not a lot of story, which again is very Ellis. The set up is dealt with admirably quickly but then there's not much else happening. They have sex and talk and have sex and talk. They didn't have a great love, I mean it was six weeks, he's not that good a father because the kids are in the US, she sticks to her position. The piece really needed a third character to come in - Norman Kaye is away but maybe an old friend or her ex wife. But then that maybe wouldn't work, either. 

The device of John Clayton talking in a Donald Duck voice is overused.

I wonder if Ellis did this up as a play?

Movie review - "A Perfect Couple" (1979) **1/2

 Robert Altman keeps throwing up curveballs - this is a pretty much straight up romance between an odd couple. Paul Dooley is a middle aged Greek due with a strict family. Marta Heflin is in a rock band with a strict head guy Ted Neeley. Heflin is good in a role envisioned for Shelley Duvall; I think if Duvall had played it the film would be a lot better remembered because she had X factor that Heflin doesn't. Or maybe if Dooley's part had been played by more of a star but he's fine too. 

The film throws in some songs. It's actually quite straight forward - the songs pad out the running time.

I never quite believed any of it - Dooley doesn't look Greek, he didn't seem like a guy who would get with that girl and vice versa. But I enjoyed it.

Movie review - "Quintet" (1979) *1/2

 This begins with a stunning shot of two figures in a snowy landscape but then goes inside to some very unconvincing sets that kept reminding me of Guns on Ice Planet Zero the two part ep of 1978's Battlestar Galactica.

Paul Newman lookis for revenge on the person who killed his pregnant girlfriend - a scene we actually see 30 minutes on. Maybe it would've been better had that been all of screen. 

Ah, that's not the issue. The issue it's confusing. There's this game. Someone is killing the others. Newman is the hero. People get knocked off one by one. Vittorio Gassman is in it. And Fernando Rey. And Bibi Andersson.

No one looks comfortable.

Maybe if this had been contemporary it might've worked?

Movie review - "Brewster McCloud" (1970) ****

 Robert Altman goes nuts off the back of the success of MASH and produces a legendary flop. I can totally see why the public didn't like it but I found it a lot of fun. It's insane - you've got Rene Aberjonis giving lecutres about birds, Sally Kellerman following Bud Cort around, a lot of Houton people spouting racist/homophobic slurs, bird shit constantly falling out of the sky, Michael Murphy as a cop sending up Steve McQueen (but called Shaft), the cop investigating a murder, Stacy Keach in old age make up, Burt Cort wanting to fly.

It's consistently inventive and weird with an emotionally powerful climax. And becuase only racists are killed the death toll isn't disturbing. Kellerman, Duvall and Cort all have X factor.

Movie review - "3 Women" (1977) ***1/2

 A film that Altman famously came up with after a dream. It's a very interesting movie, a little slow and confusing in places but it feels like a cohesive whole even if that whole is odd. He was fortunate with two superb leads in Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duval who inhabit the world perfectly. It's really more about these two women than the third.

Beautifully shot and an ideal small town setting. Quite emotional at the end. Strong support performances.

Book review - "Paul by Mazursky" by Sam Wasson

 I never had a particularly strong opinion about Paul Mazursky. He always seemed very good within a limited range. An amiable person. This is an excellent interview book in the style of On Cukor. Wasson's questions are very good and he has insights to the work. Maybe there should be an updated edition to cover Mazursky's death.

Movie review - "Exit Wounds" (2001) ***

 Steven Seagal's last theatrical hit. It's a confident movie: looks good, nicely shot, very strong support cast including Jill Hennessy, DMX, Eva Mendes, Isaiah Washington, Tom Arnold, Anthony Andersen, Bill Duke, Michael Jai White... I mean, that's one of the strongest Seagal casts ever. 

The plot is stock - investigating crime in Detroit, with some bent cops - but it has that cast and the action sequences are well done. I wish later Seagal films had protected him more the way he's protected here.

Book review - "A Time to Stand" by Walter Lord (1961)

 History of the Alamo. Readable, seems to be well researched for the time, a bit racist (Texan enthusiasm for slavery is dealt with in one sentence). It would've been gutsy then to suggest Crockett was shot after surrendering. The ending is exciting.

Movie review - "OC and Stiggs" (1987) **

 Famed as Robert Altman's worst movie though there are a few contenders to that throne. It's his attempt at a teen film, and he definitely did an Altman version - there's the overlapping dialogue, improvised feel, ramshackle nature and so on.

The plot focuses on the antics of two troublesome friends, a little like Trapper and Hawkeye in MASH only it's hard to differentiate these two. The actors are fine just lacking a little in individuality. They spend a lot of time pulling pranks including tormenting a young Jon Cryer. Cynthia Nixon is in this too. And Dennis Hopper, Paul Dooley and Jane Curtin. Once you get in its rhythm it's fine, it's just weird that it exists.

This was shot in 1983 but not released until 1987 or something. I get why but why did they hire Altman to make it?

Book review - "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov

 Famous. Influential. Hard to get through even though lots of short chapters. A lot of intelligence going on. Just not great story telling or characters.

Movie review - "Get Carter" (1971) **** (warning: spoilers)

 It's entirely appropriate this was remade as a blaxplotiation film because it feels like white blaxploitation - there's a funky soundtrack, Michael Caine's Carter is a bad ass out for revenge, he comes in to town and within something like two days manages to solve the crime, kill a lot of baddies, have sex with two women and phone sex with a third, kills two women.

It's new lad cinema par excellance, with its ruthless hero. Carter is a superstud. He's also not softened - a young kid who helps him is bashed up and he barely cares though offers some cash, he kills two women like I said, throws a tubby businessman off a staircase. So it makes sense morally that he dies.

It is unpleasant at times but also very well done. Location filming helps as does the superb cast - Caine was never better, nor was Britt Ekland, or John Osborne or Ian Hendry.

I'm always suspicious of people who really, really love this movie but it is extremely well made.

Movie review - "Wonder Woman 1984" (2020) **

 Why didn't this work? The trailer was great. Cast great. Story pretty good. Bring back Chris Pine. Set it in 1984, have Cheetah...

It follows the template of Batman sequels, the early ones, in that it is an origin story for two villains. Only both are very sympathetic (Max Lord just loves his kid and was bullied by his dad, Cheetah just needed love) maybe too sympathetic. What's wrong with just a baddy?

The finale felt false with people renouncing wishes. It's alright for Diana, she's hot and immortal with superpowers... the rest of us maybe don't return to something so great.

It lacks energy. They could have used the 1984 thing more. Why flash back to the Amazon Island? The romance between Chris Pine and Gal Gadot feels so, so perfunctory - like both are phoning it in.

Movie review - "Secret Honor" (1984) ***1/2

 After a string of flops Robert Altman battened down the hatches and filmed a bunch of cheapie play adaptations. This is Philip Baker Hall's one man show about Nixon going nuts. It's great fun and Altman does an unobtrusive piece of direction. This would be better on stage but it's entertaining.

Script review - "Trainwreck" by Amy Schumer

 Gave this a read just because. It's so good. Smart, funny, warm. A lot of these Apatow produced scripts are from the heart and consist of two handers, giving them great warmth as well as humour. Really well done.

Book review - "Nora Ephron: Everything's Copy" by Liz Dance (2015)

 I was hoping for an indepth bio - this is more of an academic work, an analysis of text which is always dangerous with filmmakers because texts change so often due to external factors. I guess in Ephron's case she was a director with power (most of the film) so her films can be taken more as texts and of course she wrote. There's a lot of analysis of Ephron's essays, scripts and prose... not so much unfilmed scripts which I think would have been interesting. It also looks at the work of her parents and sister. Not bad, I think I was just looking for something more.

Movie review - "HealtH" (1980) **

 Robert Altman does a Nashville on a health food convention - apparently there are such things - only I think ti's a metaphor for a political convention. The various candidates include Glenda Jackson and Laura Bacall, with people like James Garner, Paul Dooley Alfre Woodard and Carole Burnett helping and/or running interference. Dick Cavett has quite a large role as himself.

It is bright and lively but I couldn't get into it. It's like watching some stage play where the jokes fly across my head. I didn't mind it - it's colourful, the actors are good, I enjoyed the Florida locations (the budget was $6 million which isn't bad) - but it was meh. I don't think it's held in high regard amongst Altman fans but I could be wrong. As Patrick McGilligan said in his Altman bio, it feels like a first draft.

This was the last of five films Altman made for 20th Century Fox. After this he did Popeye then it was off to independence land.

Movie review - "Fuzz" (1972) **

 One of the its-hard-to-run-a-police-station-in-the-grimy-inner-city sub genre, later familiar on TV shows like Hill Street Blues. It's an ensemble piece although it features three icons, Burt Reynolds, Yul Brynner (a small role) and Raquel Welch. There's a variety of subplots, various crooks, sleaze, and lots of politically incorrect humour like Tom Skerritt molesting Welch on stake out, Reynolds and Jack Weston dressed as nuns.

I didn't like it. The tone is bleak and smart arse. I know exactly the sort of people who would like this movie. I felt really sorry for Welch who was trying to do a good job.

Book review - "Captain Blood" by Rafael Sabatini

 A cracker of a book. Once I got used to Sabatini's slightly old time-y prose (his dialogue was first rate) it was a great yarn - establishing Blood, getting him falsely convicted quickly, shoving him out to the West Indies and turning pirate etc etc.

I thought the 1935 Warner Bros adaptation was first rate - keeping the early structure and lots of dialogue, but wrapping it up early. In this one Blood finds a guy who has come out to offer him a commission... but this new bloke likes Arabella and there's all this extra section where Blood goes to serve the King of France and fights with a dodgy Frenchman (it repeats the section with the pirate) and serves the kind of Spain.

A very good pirate book.

Book review - "Songs of Spiderman" by Glen Berger

 The story of this famous Broadway fiasco is an interesting one because of the talent involved - US, Julie Taymor, Spiderman... Berger co wrote the book with the director so was ringside for the action. 

The book is very easy to read, I finished it quite quickly, while listening to the soundtrack. The songs weren't great - some are but not all. Bono and the Edge come out of the book fantastically - talented, collaborative, enthusiastic, kind. Taymor is more erratic but sympathetic. Berger tries to be fair, but I think he's a little unfair - she wouldn't compromise, but is that good or bad. I was empathetic to Berger - I've been in situations like this not knowing when to bend and when to break.

My own two cents on what went wrong: Taymor was really jazzed by a villain she thought up herself, Arachne, who isn't in the comics. I think they needed to go with that (and a smaller budget) or a new director, from inception. But I guess that's in hindsight.

Neil Jordan wrote the original treatment! Berger hates Michael Riedel, gossip columnist for New York Post.

Movie review - "Fool for Love" (1985) **

 Sam Shepherd plays aren't really for me but this might've worked really well on stage, with the actors right there, going for it. As adapted for film it's just a long slog - there's not much story and it's 100 minutes, taking 10 minutes for Shepherd (who plays the male lead) knocking on Kim Basinger's door.

The actors try. Robert Altman puts some scenes outside in a car park and in an empty diner to open it up but it's still slow moving and dull. So dull. Randy Quaid is in it, and Harry Dean Stanton. The actors are fine. The motel burns at the end. Great. Whoopee. Sorry this film put me in a bad move. Good on Cannon for trying to be arty but what about something more cinematic?

Movie review - "The Day of the Jackal" (1973) ****

 You see this is how you adapt Fred Forsyth - respect the research, do it as a quasi documentary, film on location, respect the source material if it's good. This is a procedural thriller, where the joy is in the detail, benefiting from Forsyth's decade plus experience as a journalist.

Edward Fox's relative anonymity works for him. The support cast features vaguely recogniseable faces like Michael Lonsdale (I like how he's not introduced until later it feels more real), Delphine Seyrig (as the woman who can't resist the Jackal's bod... a trashier element of the novel), and Derek Nimmo. 

I will admit at 140 minutes director Fred Zinnemann maybe pushes it a little but the climax is terrifically entertaining and it's a very good movie.

Movie review - "Dogs of War" (1980) **

 This was in development for a few years - Don Siegel was going to do it, then Michael Cimino, then Norman Jewison. So it went through a lot of permutations.

Some of this is fine. It's stylishly shot by Jack Cardiff. The Belize locations impress. I don't buy American mercenaries in Africa but quite liked Tom Berenger's work as a slightly unhinged one.It is a decent cast.

Christopher Walken is all wrong as Cat Shannon, who was so vivid in the book. The character really should have been European and if they wanted to make American they should've gone with someone who was a believable soldier.

The piece has been distorted into a star vehicle. So we don't have anything about Sir James Marsden coming across the platinum and getting him secret, or using henchmen to organise the coup. I mean I know that could've been minimised but it would've been a great support star-ry role for an elder actor

Zangaro is different here - in the book it had hardly any Europeans here it's full of them, the officials speak English, there's a documentary crew. There's Colin Blakely as a world weary documentary filmmaker and a black woman who shows him around and offers up all this information about the country.

For whatever reasons the writers cut out exciting subplots - like a mercenary trying to kill Shannon, or Marsden having henchmen, or Shannon sleeping with Marsden's daughter, or the Russians finding out about the platinum deposit, or there being a KGB agent at the base, or the Russians sending a tanker to the country. Shannon is made dumber - instead of the book where he's super smart, tracking the mystery person who hires him to do a job, seducing the head man's daughter, arranging a massive double cross, doing a lot of research - here he's dumb, whining about being asked to go to Africa, not knowing anything, having to ask a lot of questions in Africa (I know exposition has to be conveyed but couldn't there be a cleverer way of showing him doing it?)

Instead there's dumb subplot about Walken wanting to get back with Jobeth Williams who's got an alcoholic dad or something (this feels like an impro'd Actors Studio exercise) and another dumb one about an African who shows Walken around and he likes her then gasp he finds out she's sleeping with the dictator. I mean, my golly.

This film was produced by smart people who made dumb decisions.

Movie review - "Bridesmaids" (2011) ****1/2

 Still holds up. Hilarious. Some of it side splitting. Heartfelt. Occasionally the tone veers into OTT territory - the Rebel Wilson/Matt Lucas flatmates for instance, some of the things the characters say. But it's made up for by the gold: Kristen Wiig and John Hamm, Wiig and Chris O'Dowd (a great rom com lead), Wiig and Melissa McCarthy (especially that final confrontation wit them), Ellie Kamper and Wendy McLendon-Covey (I wish their characters were given more of a final arc though), Jill Clayburgh getting a decent final role, Rose Byrne shocking everyone in Australia with how incredible she was. A wonderful film.

Book review - "Dogs of War" by Frederick Forsyth

 Terrific novel from Forsyth, full of details and research that are totally convincing. I mean his depiction of female not so much - the horny 19 year old finishing school who just wants to be slapped on the arse, and the majority of Africans who are dumb savage simpletons - but all the stuff about setting up dummy companies, contacting people pre mobile phones, fake passports, buying arms and uniforms and boats... I was totally convinced and it was terrific. There's lots of mention of

It's a suspenseful tale and with a point - Cat Shannon is a three dimensional character who loves fighting but hates politics, has a secret cause... it's nihilistic and bleak and absolutely not flat "right wing".

There's terrific suspense stuff which from memory was foolishly cut from the film. A very good book.