Strike me pink it’s the crap OZ cinema drinking game

Bill says:

08:16am | 18/01/10

You needed to mention the same tired bunch of Australian actors, same faces, same roles just diffferent clothes.

Ben Mendelsen says:

10:04am | 18/01/10

Same boring actors. Same boring script. Same harking back to a bush that no-one lives in but Orstayans indentify with. Same storyline about a bunch of knock-abouts lads not doing much. Same nude scenes with very ordinary looking sheilas (at least find a glamour if you’re going to get her naked).

Maybe if the Australian “entertainment” industry wasn’t besotted with falling over itself attempting to claim how “artistic” it is and “avante-garde” it might be able to think of something original or at least watchable.

It would also help if it wasn’t populated but a small band of fops that just don’t want to get a day job and want to pick up in Newtown by telling everyone they’re an “artist” while sponging off the taxpayer

Jimbo Jones says:

11:05am | 18/01/10

Thankyou Chris (and prior posters) for giving me a hearty LOL this morning. Aussie cinema is largely terrible stuff!  It’s like cod liver oil - you’re told it’s good for (and maybe it is) but it tastes like a fishes bum (smells worse) and why would you swallow it anyway when you can have chocolate ice cream or candy (that’d be American cinema in this analogy).  I’m constantly ‘told’ how good the ‘local industry’ is and how I should ‘learn to appreciate’ the qualities of Australian films.  Australian filmmakers seem not to have caught on to the notion that the proof is in the pudding and that if the film sucks it’s not because ‘we’ (us ‘dumb’ Aussies who fund the ‘industry’ through our taxes) didn’t ‘understand/appreciate’ it.  There’s always a whinge about how ‘we don’t have as much money as the Americans’ but that didn’t stop Danny Boyle from making Trainspotting a fun flick now did it.

Aussie Atrocities to Avoid
1. Cactus - (critically lauded Aussie film, blokes in car, no plot – utterly boring, goes nowhere, leaves bitter taste at end)
2. Lillians Story - (Toni Collette naked – bring sick bags or better yet, seriously avoid)
3. 48 Shades of Brown - (saw on TV recently), actors in film actually looked as bored as I felt. This was funded?

Films that can’t have cost millions that are better than the rubbish produced locally.
1. High Fidelity - (blokes in rooms), a true ‘Aussie’ film (just made by Americans from an English novel but if you’re Australian you’ll love it)
2. Diving Bell and the Butterfly – bloke in bed (in room – in France, in French language, with subtitles), very inventive and moving (tough first 20 mins, after that all is gold)
3. Whale Rider – I’m serious, film about a girlie in NZ – better than most rubbish made in Australia on any given day.  Well worth seeing (bring hankies).

John says:

11:18am | 18/01/10

Well, sure.  But what about the movie “Can’t Stop the Murders”.  Now there is a good old Aussie film.

Chris says:

11:29am | 18/01/10

Chopper is in my Ton Ten movies of all time. Genius movie.

Chris Deal says:

11:31am | 18/01/10

Mendo, is that really you? You spelt your name wrong. Have you started playing already? I loved you in Idiot Box.

Louise says:

01:07pm | 18/01/10

Go and see Bran Nue Dae on Janaury 26 and have a laugh!  This Aussie film does not take itself seriously and is just a good fun film.  Aussies can make good films - Lantana and Alexandra’s Project were up there with anything America can provide.  Also, don’t forget that lots of American movies are really really awful - they just make a lot more than we do so the strike rate for good ones seems higher.

Beno says:

01:12pm | 18/01/10

Sadly, we lost one of our greatest Australian actors last year when ‘Mr Percival’ went to the great actors studio in the sky.

Ken says:

01:19pm | 18/01/10

Three of us watched Puberty Blues last week at an outdoor cinema in Sydney. We played a drinking game where we had to swig every time one of the characters said the word “moll”. I reckon we were drunk by a half-hour into the film.

S.L says:

01:35pm | 18/01/10

Great article Chris but I disagree with your view on “Kenny”.
As soon as I heard a movie was being made called “Australia” and was to be directed by Baz Luhrman and had Nicole Kidman in it I knew it would be a write off!
For a start I can’t recall a movie Nic’s acted in that’s made a profit in the last 10 years.
Every movie of Baz’s I’ve had the misfortune to watch has come across as over acted/trendoid/innercity art house crap!
Unfortunately much of the intelegencia in our local film industry wouldn’t know Australia outside of said Newtown or St Kilda and it’s spot on that their view is that there’s something wrong with us poor unsophisticated nobodys who won’t go to see their masterpieces!
With the view we the paying public are the problem and not them. 
What a shame these the brilliant and articulate story tellers generally must put up with their instant classics going straight to DVD.
What gets me is it’s us the dumb tax payers who funds these idiots!!!
A quick study into our local film industry is look at the films up for nonination at the AFI awards each year and see how many you’ve heard of let alone watched…...

Aitch says:

01:47pm | 18/01/10

The Boys was a good Australian movie, I thought - quite remarkable given that it featured three large pieces of Oz cinema furniture in the form of David Wenham, Toni Collette and John Polson.

6clegs says:

01:55pm | 18/01/10

I’d like to know why We can’t make fillims unless they include every single Orstralian stereotype, magnified, too? (when the Yanks do it, at least the characters look like they’ve had a recent bath & have clean-ish clothes on!)

It’s insulting.
It’s tedious.
It’s unoriginal.
It is NOT ‘quirky’.

I had an acquaintance years back who didn’t have many opinions on current affairs. One she did have was her hatred and unwillingness to watch/support the Oz film “industry” in any shape or form. (this same person will probably be wearing an Ozzie flag on the 26th though…) I was slightly surprised by her reaction -but I hadn’t seen that many films of any kind back then…
A few years and many hours of my life that will never return, later and I totally see her point!

“Kenny”, just to name one, IMHO was a complete embarrassment!
Perhaps the good writers/directors are working in TV drama?
how come they’re not writing/directing Our fillims?
but people one never hears of again, are? (I read the credits)
However, “Samson & Delila” should IMO, be required viewing for every.single.Orstralian. But, 1 out of thousands is pathetic odds. Hollyood wouldn’t put up with those odds - the American viewer certainly wouldn’t!  At least the ones I know wouldn’t. Hollywood is in the business of making money, perhaps our people could learn something about Comerciality [sp?] from them???? Let the viewer decide if they want to watch “quirky”, don’t ram it down my throat just because YOU think I need/want it! Of course I’d like to watch Orstralian fillims, hear Orstralian voices,and see our fabulous country, but stop making a mockery of it!

*opens-fridge-door—-gets-out-Boags*

Mike says:

03:13pm | 18/01/10

Hear, hear

Another good article on the same subject
http://www.themonthly.com.au/monthly-essays-louis-nowra-nowhere-near-hollywood-australian-film-2177

Film makers just grow up and make a good movie. Get past this obsession about making it ‘the voice of Australia ... recording the story of what it means to be an Australian”.

liz says:

03:18pm | 18/01/10

Margaret Gray - you forgot Jack Thomson…

Jimbo Jones says:

03:36pm | 18/01/10

@Aitch - The Boys – not a bad film, just a pity it’s yet another depressing Aussie film (bunch of brothers who become gang rapists).  That criticism alone doesn’t condemn the film but when you have films about incest, the abuse of traditional landowners and the ever present ‘bogan criminal films’ it all becomes a bit too much (an okay film like the boys can get lost in the ‘depression and misery quagmire’).

Bovell’s play on which Lantana is based is probably pretty good and the film is decent but once again, it’s about mining the darker side of life and it has a fairly weak resolution methinks.  The less said about Rolf DeHeer the better, his intentions are well placed but man are his films a bore (haven’t seen 10 canoes which I hear is the best thing he’s done other than Bad Boy Bubby).

The ‘our good films are on par with the same number of good films american’s make’ argument is (to my mind) no different than the ‘they’ve got more money than us’ excuse.  In the Lantana/Alexandra’s Project category I’d submit American Beauty and Revolutionary Road – I will watch both of those films again (and again) but once is enough for Lantana and AP for me thankyou very much.  I guess I’m saying that our good is not often ‘good enough’ (not as polished, intelligent, well written etc).

American filmmakers also compete in a marketplace where if they don’t perform they get ever decreasing budget allocations (it is a proper industry after all, based on market earnings not ‘cultural relevance’). Michael Bay’s movies make lots of money, hence, he gets lots of money to make ‘em (not saying they’re great but some are at least entertaining and many Aussie movies can’t even muster that much).  As long as Australians have the funding ‘teat’ to rely on they’ll never have to ‘compete’ equally with Americans anyway and so can continue to make films Aussies typically avoid and will never be the wiser about (remember ‘we’ don’t understand cinema after all, we need the ‘industry’ to be our nursemaid in this regard).

@John – did you work on ‘Can’t stop the murders’?  I know a girl who did.  We don’t really talk about that one too much…  You should check out the Mick Malloy movies - Bad Eggs for example (they often start so well and go downhill thereafter - pity, a better script and he could do well).

Chopper - yeah, one of the better/best of Australian films in the last decade.

John says:

09:57pm | 18/01/10

Jimbo.  Not likely.  I just liked the total um, satire,sarcasm, or irony or whatever it was.  Perhaps I was just in a good mood.

Matt says:

12:20pm | 19/01/10

Yes!

I REFUSE to even watch the trailer of Kenny and I gave my mother a deathstare when she laughed at the mention of the movie.

It must end!

tom_h says:

06:23am | 19/03/10

Disclosure: as a Brit I step onto this Australian virtual soil with the expectation of being flamed, blamed and shamed for having the temerity to comment on my experience of Australian film, but with fortitude I’ll continue:

I like the Castle and Kenny.

There I’ve said it. I’ll stop short of adding Crocodile Dundee as, well, that franchise is truly gash, but for me the Castle and Kenny work because you can relate to them; the tale of the everyday guy battling adversity may be a cinema cliche, but ultimately, what’s wrong with that? It reflects the experience of millions of everyday people and telling that story with a little humility and humour is for me, infinitely preferable to the usual American jingoistic sledgehammer approach. That just gets you Daredevil.

Living abroad, my exposure to Aussie cinema is obviously limited and we’re only ever going to get to see the more mainstream titles. Maybe I’d feel differently if I’d been exposed to a stream of similar films, but generally I just get to see the stuff that’s popular, and sometimes the reasons for a film being popular have merit.

Great post Crispo

Other great Australasian films the record:
-Romper Stomper
-Once Were Warriors
-Chopper
-Muriel’s Wedding