Not much of a story, but interesting visuals, a bright cast, likeable characters. I enjoyed the scenes with the guy and his sick dad (Tony Barry) and it was authenticity. The director likes women.
Opportunities for drama thrown away like Bridie Carter seemingly interested in the guy - why not have her flirt with him? Or Nadine Garner?
Still, hard to dislike.
John Dingwall may have written a great script for Sunday Too Far Away but he wasn't flawness and he's not the best argument for writer-directors. This is an intense, florid, corruption tale with Anthony La Paglia as a cop who decides to dob in mates including Hugo Weaving to journo Kelly Dingwall.
Famel characters consistently bland - Essie Davis' perfect coffee girl who just wants to be there for La Paglia and invites him home and is basically nothing, Naomi Watts also nothing to play as Dingwall's girlfriend, and there's also La Paglia's trashy wife Joy Smithers, and Barry Otto's nothing wife who is murdered (the only kick of this piece), Weaving's got a wife who's just there too. Nothing wrong with actors, just nothing to play.
La Paglia is meant to be a top cop but we don't see him do anything except dob. It's actually not that much of a role. Weaving goes full scenery chewing. Barry Otto is the best in the cast.
I don't think there's been a film with so many female characters that are nothing - you could cut all out of the movie except Otto's wife and she only makes it because she gets murdered.
Just put a dead body in it and have an investigation.
Shot in Adelaide which is a point of difference - there are lots of scenes of Rundle Mall and some nice houses. Robert Mammone nicely underplays the lead who got out of a monastery which is interesting.
The story is about some Italian Australians who want to open a cafe. There's a lot of broad playing - a lot. Some guy who I kept thinking was Sal Coco mugs ruthlessly, gyrating and talking about woman. Vince from Heartbreak High mugs relentlessly, There's lots of mugging. It's exhausting. Maybe this would've worked on stage. I wondered why Mammone kept hanging out with them.
Many of the characters wear black and and have black hair and I had trouble telling them apart. Especially has everyone acted like a maniac.
There was potential here - the story of young people opening up a cafe, colourful characters, a man out of a monastery having his first romantic relationship. That last subplot could have propped up the whole film if just played relatively straight with a bit of colour. (Even if there's some very unconvincing kissing - there's a great final shot of a conga line and everyone partying but
Rolf de Heer was executive producer.
Some people sit around and talk about sex. A film of its time - this sort of raunchiness could not be seen on television.
It's surprising Joy Smithers organised a truth telling session when she's had an abortion and isn't sleeping with her partner (Rhett Walton). Did she not thing that was going to come out?
There's some twists - Walton is sleeping with uptight friend Tessa Humphries. Tony Waltton is bi and on with Miranda Otto and Mark Lee. This part of the story is still fresh because we don't see many bi guys on screen even now.
It might've used being a movie more - ducking off to corner rooms works well.
Structurally the movie has flaws - characters will make revelations and then act as if the revelations haven't been made. Also the "my parents are bad" as get out of gaol is oversued, and Miranda Otto's character (while performed with plenty of energy) is a little Williamson/Bob Ellis (young, dim, horny, has great memories of rooting her music teacher at school).
Still there is a lot of energy, it's well acted, and it's impossible not to have admiratino for Fahey's spirit.
I don't know why the hell the Belgian producers thought they'd have an easy time with Paul Cox, the man was always his own box and had a long tradition of whingeing. I'm sure the producers were annoying too.
David Wenham tries his best but the sing song accent gets on the nerves. Location filming in Moloka helps marvellously. The stuff with the lepers is very effective and it's clear that this probably should've been done a lot cheaper just with Wenham and lepers.
Various names in the cast - Kate Cebrano (very charismatic), Peter O'Toole, Leo McKern. Aden Young plays a doctor probably wishing he had the lead. There's a scene where a doe eyed native girl is hot for Cox that feels old school Oz movie Cox.
I found it boring. None of the reationships Damien had were interesting. I kept waiting for the subplot of the leprosy local who inspired him. I guess there was Peter O'Toole and Chris Haywood.
But it doesn't touch. At least not me. Catholics might like it. They love Damien because he was such an admirable figure.
But personally I couldn't wait until this film was over. It's two hours.
Paul Cox in selfless mode, a tribute to Sheila Florance. This is a litte mean but I could take or leave her acting but it's just so wonderful she's got this starring vehicle and she was dying and is making a film about a woman dying. I can't resist that showmanship!
There's a lot of love - for Florance, for the old, for life, Gosia Dobrowolska as a kind nurse who is using Florance's flat to root her married lover (this plot feels as though it's undercooked - Cox routinely under-services his subplots), Chris Haywood as her daggy but loving son, Norma Kaye as a dementia riddled neighbour (Kaye later had dementia), the shifty landlord.
Occasionally it lacks focus but it holds because of the reality and the ending where the nurse kills Florance in her bed which is so logical and true.
David Stratton loved this movie, possibly in part because Gosia Dobrowolska takes her kit off and hooks up a lot with Chris Haywood. He runs an antiques store, gets a lot of sex according to him, has a deadbeat brother (Robert Menzies) and is having an affair with married Salvo, Dobrowolska. He finds some old golden hair and gets turned on by it.
Dobrowolska is married to Paul Chubb who is so amiable and lonely I didn't really like her for cheating - marriages don't work out, fine, but she's dragging the poor dude along.
Like many Cox films he has characters whisper thoughts on the soundtrack - the recording of Dobrowolska doing it was really irritating the volume was too high or something. He once more has fascinating support characters (Menzies, Jo Kennedy, Chubb) who could have used more screen time instead of the leads. He's also got all these women serving the needs of the male lead.
I just didn't care about the leads.
Looks gorgeous, like the ambition, can't fault the actors. Just disliked it.
I think Paul Cox ran out of personal stories in the 80s so he turned to novels, which was an ideal step. This involves some brothers, led by Chris Haywood, who kidnap the granddaughter of a rich relative (Norman Kaye) but also pick up a nun (Gosia Dobrowolska).
Most of the film is Haywood being horny for Dobrowolska who is clearly not into it - Haywood is pudgy and sweaty basically trying to coerce Dobrowlska into sex. Cox plays the reality of it so we don't get trashy fun of the nun really wanting to be rammed by this hot criminal.
The film tackles interesting themes - class, sex, money. The character of the kidnapped girl isn't much - she's a kidnapped girl (played by Haywood's daughter). Haywood and Dobrowolska really commit.
Cox sets up a galaxy of potentially terrific support characters - black brother, mentally handicapped brother, slimy rich Kaye - but doesn't do anything with them. It's at least 40 minutes of Haywood coercing Dobrowlska into sex, she seems to do it and is clearly traumatised. Then he's shot dead. The end.
What's done is done well I just wished once again Cox had used a co writer because the script is so easily to edit - reduce the core couple, cut away to others.
Still, worth watching. I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying these Cox movies.
Oh and for all his endless complaining about mortgaging his house he spent almost $2 million on this film. The Australian taxpayer gave him a lot of money. I'm sympathetic, truly, but his films didn't have a great rate of return.
Liked this more than I thought I would. Slow, but gorgeously shot, great locations. Aden Young in exile, Beth Champion visits, Claudia Karvan is his ex. Prob needed more of a bang - role of Karvans's guy was mis used and Karvan is missed in the last thirty minutes. But i liked it.
Paul Cox goes back to the Man of Flowers well only instead of Alyson Best posing nude it's Nicholas Hope (which is maybe why he film didn't do as well, sorry Nicholas) and instead of cultured Norman Kaye watching he's a model for a sculptor (Victoria Eagger who was Chris Haywood's lover in Flowers) who is gay. She's working for Claudia Karvan the nepo daughter of pharmaceutical dude Chris Haywood (very funny) who is doing it for a tax deduction. Gosia Dobrowlska is Hope's wife and is into a new age guru Norman Kaye.
Some nice comedy courtesy of John Clarke, with easy yet funny jabs at the art world. Lovely odd touches like Wendy Hughes in drag and John Hargreaves as a sleeze in a gallery. Karvan is very sexy and disrobes as does Dobrowlska. The plot were basically women are made horny by being roofied (Karvan, Dobrowlska, Haywood's secretary) hasn't aged well.
I didn't like this as much as I once did back in the 90s but it has charm and a lovely musical score.
I watched this after seeing some later period Bill Bennett movies - The Nugget, In a Savage Land, Uninhabited - and the difference is remarkable. This has so much energy, certainty. It gets off to a flying start: girl sees mother immolated - bam - girl grown up meets sleazy man, fight, seduction, man assaults her, collapses, drugged, they rob him, he's dead, there's a tape of a footballer and a kid. Bam, bam, bam.
Much is marvellous. Support characters like Max Cullen and Barry Otto and the team of Gilbert and Haywood. The slob black tracker (John Clarke) asking for more money. The locations. The lack of music score.
Lead roles are dynamic. Matt Day is a little "hey I'm playing this as angry and I'm not normally cast like that hey". He's totally fine as is Frances O'Connor.
Bill Bennett tries something a bit different - a 1930s/40s colonial epic about sexy times among anthropologists.
The location work in the islands are impressive though I don't know why it's shot through a yellow filter. Maya Stange was given a great opportunity but simply feels like a NIDA grad plunked in a big film. She never seems real. In her defence, the character has to spout all these clinky platitudes like "they're not savages" and "I'm an anthropologist too" and talking about her thesis. She takes her clothes off and shaves her head and goes all out but she's simply not up to it.
There is no native character with any dimension.There are just chanting natives. At the end when the Japanese come the whites just wave good bye. And when after the war Stange comes back she seems utterly uninterested in what happened to the New Guineans who were there.
Martin Donovan takes Maya Stange to New Guinea and is a sex anthropologist which is pretty progressive. Then he's controlling. But nice. Then he dies. Then Rufus Sewell comes along and he's perfect.
Look, there's two ways you could've gone. Have Stange and Donovan be this kinky couple who explore sex habits of the locals (have some local characters please not just jabbering extras). Sewell comes along and he can't quite "get" it. Make it sexy. Have her seduce Sewell.
Or... play it safe, have Stange and Donovan as siblings and Stange get a sexual awakening.
Either of those would have an arc. This film doesn't know what it wants to be. Or it does but Bennett and Jenneifer Cluff aren't up to it.
I enjoyed Max Cullen's officious officer. Sue Lyons' racist wife is just there to make the leads look less racist. John Howard has an unfortunate accent and Rufus Sewell a worse American one.
Old school Bennett would have sent actors into the jungle and filmed it on 16 mm and got them to ad lib. They couldn't have come up with worse dialogue.
This is a cranky review but they wasted so much money, and wasted a potentially great subject.
A throwback to the mid 90s - decent budget, AFFC, it got a lot of publicity. A road movie with Ruth Cracknell who is wonderful and Simon Cossell who has his moments but is a little too inexperienced. Could have done with another subplot maybe - or simply a better male lead. I don't mean to be mean he just goes a little over the top.
Gorgeously shot.
Gosh this is a period piece now. The talk of the differences between men and women, the self conscious literary quality, all the quirkiness. There's mugging and over playing. Saffron Burrows is beautiful but can't really act (she got better). Aden Young can act, and isn't bad, just feels a little wrong. Simon Bossell is allowed to over act as is Peter O'Brien. Everyone is fine when they tone down and emote, I've got to say. Oh, and Pippa Grandison, Ray Barrett and Juliet Blake have no trouble shifting gears.
The silly hotel has its own charm with its bright colours. It doesn't have lot of logic (would a hotel with such rooms ever appeal).
The marriage between Julia Blake and Ray Barrett is so inherently toxic that their reunion is hopeplessly unconvicing. Likewise Simon Bossell's character is basically unhinged - at the end he goes to the airport every Friday to waiy for Grandison, is that right? Like we see them at the end, a very sweet scene... but he's been going for weeks and weeks unsuccessfully?
This holds up better than I thought it would - time has been kind, in part because it's a time capsule now, we've grown up with the cast, I guess it reminds me of my youth. There's a pang at some things - Tom Long, so handsome, puffing away with cigarettes, and also knowing Emma Kate Croghan wouldn't direct another film despite being so talented with such a clear vision. The dialogue is bright and funny, the visuals have energy, Alice Garner was lovely (I think she gives the best performance in the movie), Claudia Karvan is doing a trial run for Secret Life of Us, the characters are all differentiated.
There is a lack of authenticity about some of it - the law office stuff bumped for me. I was too mean about Karvan's character who in hindsight is a lot more complex than I gave credit for at the time (I guess this means I've evolved!) The bonds of the female friendship especially feels very real.
I do think the film had a central problem - not having the boys and girls meet until the end. I get the concept, but it meant they were working in story satellites, apart from being loosely connected via Hugo Weaving (Long's client and Karvan's lover). Thing is, it didn't have to be that way... they could have met at the first New Years. There were plenty of blocks for characters getting together - Karvan being after Hugo Weaving, Long's character wanting a kid, Watt and Jeffries getting over disastrous breakups could keep them apart for a year, ditto the neuroticism of Felix Williamsons' and Garners' characters.
The acting is good - Aaron Jeffrey feels miscast, but he tries and has a good breakdown. There's a lot of money on display - extras, party scenes. The characters have money too - Jeffries has a house with a pool! I guess he got it from his parents.
Got a lot of time for Sam Neill - he's been around so long, had a fabulous career. In the 80s he always seemed on the verge of being a big star - Omen 3, etc - but never quite happened. I think he was more a very handsome character actor, often overshadowed by big stars but holding his own eg My Brilliant Career (Judy Davis), Jurassic Park (dinosaurs), The Piano (Holly Hunter). He just sort of chugs along.
The book is touchingly written after Neill has been diagnosed with cancer and he's living alone in his flat in Surry Hills. He's very discrete about the end of his relationships (Lisa Harrow was one) and affectionate about his kids. More open about his friendships especially Bryan Brown but also Kiwi mafia members like Tim Finn. Discusses life in Ireland and NZ - Dunedin not selling out to watch the Beatles, boarding school, uni, documentary film unit, low rent theatre, leaping to stardom quite quickly via Sleeping Dogs then My Brilliant Career then a British career (with a few TV detours on the way, one of which, Reilly Ace of Spies really established him there).
An amiable enjoyable chap who found a way to consistently work with great directors, on a whole variety of material. A lot of Aussie directors made their best films with Neill: Gillian Armstrong, Jane Campion, Fred Schepisci, Phil Noyce, John Duigan. There's also John McTiernan, John Carpenter, Martin Campbell, etc.
I would have liked more gossip but that's me. Enjoyed it.
I feel a little guilty for finding those videos he did during COVID really annoying.
Aussie TV movie - seemingly shot on video tape - about a prison guard, Rachel Blakely, who has an affair with a prisoner Peter Phelps. Blakely is very good. So too is Phelps although how much you enjoy the film will depend on how much you enjoy their chemistry Phelps was a little too believable as a hardened crim for me and when he boogied to her along to 'Hold Me in Your Arms' it seemed silly. Casting someone like, say, a young Hugh Jackman would've changed the tone. The scenes between Phelps and Blakely were a little rapey - when he dances with her it's not entirely sexy. Maybe that's just me but their complete lack of sexual chemistry was the biggest flaw in the movie.
I've got to say Phelps completely commits - with his tatts and later shaved head. Blakely goes for it too - it's surprising to see her topless. Chris Haywood offers strong support and there's a bunch of familiar faces.
It's a solid story though curiously lacking in excitement. Richard Franklin's direction is competent rather than outstanding.
Pilot for the adventure series shot on the Gold Coast - there were a bunch of them made there around that time including Beastmaster, Tales of the South Seas and so on. It's silly tongue in cheek fun, played with conviction. The cast is fine - the standouts are the two women: feisty heiress Rachel Blakely (who has urst with the hunky hunter Will Snow) and the fur bikini wearing cavewoman. Variable effects, a sense of fun.
The director was Richard Franklin, who did a number of episodes, and the executive producer was John Landis.
Very expert version of a strong play. Didn't do much at the box office - maybe it was more telemovie material by then. There was Disclosure I know but that had the stars and a best selling novel.
The cast is excellent. Gia Carides is an ideal David Williamson female: sexpot, aggressive, loves middle aged men, lives off men. She's supported well by her sister Zoe and Anthony La Paglia looking trim and terrific. Michael Veitch is superb and touching as the Christian brother, Ray Barrett very good as the dad, and Neil Melville gives typically strong support.
La Paglia possibly plays his part too one note - all angry scowling - when a little more variation might've been more interesting. The wailing that "I'm a middle class straight white man the world is against me" is depressingly still relevant in 2022.
The direction is matter of fact rather than flashy. Lots of talk. Flashback sequences are perfunctory - maybe they should've shown the actual scenes played out. The family scenes are warm and well done (some critics carped the characters were unlikable but I don't think so... they're all funny and Zoe Carides and Michael Veitch are moralistic). The humour is sharp The theme of lying is expertly explored. But still... it's a TV movie.
I always felt they should've tweaked it so Catherine Wilkins was gay and hooked up with Zoe Carides.
Terrific doco. I knew the stories because people talk about this doco a lot but you should still see it because then you get the sense of personalities: Stanley is a fascinating figure, with long hair and hat, seemingly on the spectrum, who made a few impressive indies and did a script of Moreau that attracted Marlon Brando then Bob Wllis, It would up with Val Kilmer who basically ate Stanley alive- but so would have Brando and simply a big budget. The film dips a little when Stanley goes out of it.
David Gregory gets some fantastic names: Bob Shaye, Edward Pressman, Rob Morrow. My faves were the Aussie crew who drew Fairuza Bulk from Port Douglas to Sydney and then later persuaded Stanley to come back on set.
Could the film have been saved? Stanley wasn't up to that budget, at least not then. I don't think Frankenheimer was the right replacement. They needed to look at it and go, right what are people going to watch? Just film lots of Brando-Kilmer stuff, cast a heartthrob in the lead (can be unknown) and do action/horror. Easy to say at a distance.
