PeterM27 Reviews

I Can't Get Started (1985)

Mildly interesting film with a great cast

[5/10 · 6 March 2024]

This is a mildly interesting gentle drama about a mildly interesting middle class Sydney couple, who are struggling to find personal and professional satisfaction. Robert, the central character is fed up with his indolent life, with his conspicuously successful wife, and most of all with himself, and his inability to produce a followup novel in over ten years.

He's a bit of a pain, to tell the truth, but he is given endless support by his wife, his friends, his father-in-law and eventually by the young woman Jill, who takes him in after he leaves his wife.

It's a great cast, and the film probably should have been better, but like many Australian films of the 1980s, it's all a bit predictable and the characters remain a bit incomplete. Overall, it is most interesting as a snapshot of middle class Australia in the 1980s.

Jones Family Christmas (2023 TV Movie)

Christmas fun in the bush

[6/10 · 5 December 2023]

This is a very enjoyable portrait of an Australian family, along with various hanger-oners, coming together to enjoy Christmas together, where everyone tries to put on a good face, but where resentments and other issues force their way to the surface.

The film has a lot of good characters, led by Heather Mitchell as Heather Jones, the mother who has put more effort into this Christmas than is really healthy, but who manages to roll with the punches. Dad (Neil Melville) is not so much into it, and the children: Alex (Max McKenna), Christina (Ella Scott Lynch) and Danny (Nicholas Denton) are mainly here to please their mother. Add in a bisexual girlfriend, a UK-Indian husband and a strange grandchild, and the stage is set for fun and adventures.

And the film is mainly fun, even if it drifts into more serious territory occasionally, and is a great Christmas day film, to be watched with a bellyful of turkey and a bucketful of prawns.

A Sting in the Tale (1989)

Telemovie stuff

[5/10 · 13 September 2023]

I have to agree with the other review here (from 10 years ago).

This is quite a passable political comedy-drama, but unfortunately looks more like a television show of the era, done on a limited budget, with limited amounts available for costumes, sets, outdoor scenes etc.

That said, the story of an honest young woman who outwits all the scheming, sexist, patronising men around her, is reasonably well told and makes sense.

Diane Craig is convincing as Diane Lane who runs rings around all the male bastards she encounters. The men around her are mostly self-serving, ambitious and dishonest, from her cheating boyfriend (Gary Day), to the media baron (called Roger Monroe but obviously meant to represent Rupert Murdoch) (Ted Hodgeman), to the almost comically incompetent Prime Minister (Don Barker).

It's entertaining enough, and quite interesting from a historical point of view to consider the issues that were important back in the 1980s.

Short Changed (1986)

A rare look at Aboriginal issues in the 1980s

[6/10 · 25 August 2023]

This is one of very few films which looked at Australian Aboriginal issues in the 80s, and it gives an effective and affecting portrait of Aboriginal struggle and resilience in 80s Australia.

The film is very naturalistic, and Stuart, played by David Kennedy, is a quiet achiever, who persists despite the overwhelming odds stacked against him, and the racism, both overt and covert, he faces with the legal system, employment, housing and social situations.

Jamie Agius is also very good as the young boy Tommy, who at first resists the idea that he has an 'abo' father, but eventually comes around.

Though it's not as well known as Bruce Beresford's The Fringe Dwellers, which also came out in 1986, it goes much deeper into contemporary Australian race relations than that film.

Of the other actors, Susan Leith plays Alison, the ex-wife who married an Aboriginal man but tired of the struggle, Ray Meagher plays Alison's racist father who is determined that Tommy should be kept away from his Aboriginal roots, and Mark Little plays Curly, Stuart's cheery white mate.

It's a well-rounded story, written by Aboriginal playwright Bob Merritt.

Deadloch (2023– )

The best Aussie TV show since Rake

[10/10 · 8 July 2023]

This show was such a surprise revelation.

Such funny situations, such funny dialogue ("stop being such an emotional truffle-pig", "your paddock-to-pussy chef mate should have thought about that before she started cutting blokes' tongues out"), such a great range of characters satirising all layers of society, but particularly the pretentious amongst us.

I understand that detective Eddie Redcliffe was a polarising figure who turned a lot of people off (and she was SO mouth-droppingly offensive in the early episodes), but she also had a lot of the funniest lines. It was a bit of a relief when the wind was taken from her sails mid-series.

Congratulations to all the Kates (I'm including Kate Box here) for this wonderful show.

I note Amazon have dubbed it into a dozen other languages so it might garner a worldwide audience. It sounds amazing in Japanese, though I wonder how well the humour translates.

Traps (1985)

Is it a political drama or a documentary?

[4/10 · 15 May 2023]

This film is a mix of documentary and fiction. Jude Campbell's job as a journalist allows her to interview a large number of actual journalists, politicians and union leaders to examine the extent of influence that US intelligence forces have been exerting over the Bob Hawke faction of the union movement and the Labor Party. Most of the interviewees are from the left and very critical of US influence on Australian policies during the conservative Cold War Reagan years. Although the film presents many interesting and perhaps controversial viewpoints (if you have any interest in reliving the local political issues of 1983-84), it tends to neglect the dramatic elements of the story somewhat. Although Jude does manage to assimilate the many ideas she is presented with, and lodge an interesting radio story, it feels as if the dramatic elements were just a framework to present the ideas raised. On the other hand the film is well-made and, as someone who lived through those years in Australia, I found it interesting, though I can imagine many would not.

The Still Point (1986)

Garner is good, but other elements are lacking

[4/10 · 4 February 2023]

Nadine Garner made her debut in this film as a 14-year-old, and is very good as Sarah, a serious young adolescent who likes school and painting, but whose hearing problem and seriousness make her a target for teasing by other girls.

The story of her relationship with her working mother, and her trip to her grandfather's the seaside is not particularly well handled, with a slow pace, stilted dialogue and a series of slow unresolved scenes. Nevertheless Garner's performance as a thoughtful, hopeful, but frustrated teenager helps sustain interest to the end.

Apart from Garner, Ben Mendelsohn also made his debut in this film as a young-looking 16-year-old and Steve Bastoni also appears in only his second film with a good performance as Sarah's new boyfriend.

The Place at the Coast (1987)

Good story, but a little slow .

[5/10 · 2 February 2023]

This is a slow-paced but touching portrait of a teenage girl's life on the verge of womanhood in the early 60s.

Tushka Bergen gives a very engaging performance as Ellie, a girl who is very attached to her father following the trauma of the accidental death of Ellie's mother a few years ago. The beach house is an escape to the past they used to share with Ellie's mother on happy holidays when Ellie was a young girl.

Heather Mitchell is also very good as the sophisticated Margot, whose friendship with the younger Ellie is affected when Ellie's father begins to show an interest in her.

John Hargreaves, usually such a good actor, puts in a weaker performance as Ellie's dad, perhaps due to the directing.

Ellie feels her father becoming more interested in Margot than her, and they also clash over a plan by local businessmen to redevelop the coast which would destroy a large part of the wilderness and wetlands that Ellie loves so much. She is disappointed when him and Margot when they do not actively support her opposition to the redevelopment, but the couple are too busy falling in love to help protect the environment with her.

Overall, it's a good story, but a little slow .

Waiting (1991)

Enjoyable

[6/10 · 10 December 2022]

This is an enjoyable film about a noisy bunch of friends, sometimes supportive and sometimes at odds with each other. It is particularly about the one woman, Clare, played by Noni Hazlehurst, in their midst who is facing her own unique challenges and decisions, which the friends may or may not assist her with.

This film catches the sensibilities and sexual politics of a section of the Australian leftist middle-class of the 1980s nicely. Fiona Press won the AFI Best Supporting Actress Award for this film and McKimmie was nominated for the best director award.

(These extra words were required by IMDb to make up 600 characters - I'm obviously too taciturn)

Cappuccino (1989)

Amiable but not particularly interesting

[4/10 · 14 July 2022]

This is a series of interlocking stories about each of the actors and their associates, held together by a series of humorous narratives about each of the characters told by Max, the taxi-driver (John Clayton). It's an amiable film, and most of the actors do their best with the material.

But unfortunately, it's not very dramatic, and only mildly funny at times. The actors are fairly normal people, and spend their time worrying about getting good roles in films, or TV programs or on stage. It's only mildly interesting unfortunately.

The most dramatic subplot is the story about the missing video and the corrupt police trying to recover it from the taxi-driver whose girlfriend stole it when she left him. But this subplot appears contrived and not very convincing, and doesn't really fit with the rest of the film.

The fault is probably with Bowman's script, but surprisingly he remade the film in the US nearly 30 years later. The remake was also unsuccessful.

One bright point about Cappuccino is the appearance of Ernie Dingo as a standup comedian.

One Night Stand (1984)

Strange mix of teen-flick and nuclear holocaust film.

[5/10 · 28 June 2022]

There are strong and weak elements in this somewhat strange mix of teen-flick and nuclear holocaust film.

The setup is strong, with three non-political young Australians who are mainly interested in hooking up with someone likeable, plus an American sailor (who has deserted his ship to somehow escape the war he knows is coming, and who wants only to get back to his sweetheart in the US), being thrown together by chance and finding themselves facing the question about what to do with what could be their last moments on earth. Their answers to this question are a mixture of poignancy and silliness, as the four spend their time flirting and drinking and dressing up from the Opera House costume department.

Sometimes it gets a bit puerile, but both Cassandra Delaney and Saskia Post are charming and easy to watch, while the two men are less engaging. There are some quite effective flashbacks as the characters reminisce on their short lives. But, after seeming to lose its way at times, there is an effective finale.

Also in the film's favour are the interesting insertions of some of the 1980s anti-nuclear marches in Sydney, reminding us of a time when the main danger to humanity was the possibility of the Cold War spinning out of control and a nuclear war wiping out life as we know it. Footage of a Midnight Oil concert also help bring back this era.

Number 96 (1974)

Just like the TV show - dated but a window back into the 70s

[4/10 · 27 June 2022]

This film was a spinoff of a popular TV show, Number 96, that ran for five nights a week from 1972 to 1977. The show was a late-night adult soap opera, and broke new ground for Australian television by showing regular nudity, by its frank inclusion of regular unmarried sex and promiscuity, and by its inclusion of a sympathetic non-effeminate gay man as one of the main characters.

The show consisted of the interlocking stories of the various inhabitants of the apartment building: the gossiping Dorrie Evans (Pat McDonald), her hen-pecked husband Herbert (Ron Shand) and their flatmate Flo Patterson (Bunney Brooke), English battlers Alf and Lucy Sutcliffe (James Elliott and Elisabeth Kirkby), bumbling shop assistant Arnold Feather (Jeff Kevin), gay lawyer Don Finlayson (Joe Hasham), elegant fashion designer Vera Collins (Elaine Lee), shopkeepers Aldo and Vera Godolfus (Johnny Lockwood and Philippa Baker), the bitchy Maggie Cameron (Bettina Welch), wine-bar operators Les and Norma Whittaker (Gordon McDougall and Sheila Kennelly), the very camp Dudley (Chard Hayward) and many others.

The film is like a big-screen extended TV episode, and was popular on release with the show's many fans. The film did not include the show's most famous character, the sex-symbol Bev Houghton (Abigail) who had recently left the show, but Rebecca Gilling fills in as the 'bad girl' flight attendant Diana Moore, and she has the main nude scenes in the movie. Nowadays it's hard to see what all the fuss is about, with the corny humour and unbelievable plot twists, though some people like it because 'it's so bad it's good!'

None Like Us (2018)

Love conquers common sense - unconvincing

[3/10 · 26 June 2022]

Annoying and unconvincing Italian romantic drama where two seemingly clever independent women fall for rich selfish lying bastards. Nothing is convincing in this story of women taking a strong moral position and abandoning it at the first kiss to give up their independence for the love of an a-hole. Disappointing on so many levels.

Nirvana Street Murder (1990)

Some good points but too black

[5/10 · 18 June 2022]

This is a gritty black comedy about life at the low end of town. Boady (Mark Little) is the crazy brother - he also has a broken arm, a heavily pregnant girlfriend, a problem with sleepwalking, and a bigger problem with anger, which gets the brothers into more and more trouble.

Luke (Ben Mendelsohn) is the sensible brother, who tries to do the right thing, but whose loyalty to his brother gets him into all sorts of trouble. Luke love a Greek girl Helen (Mary Coustas), who is not game to tell her family she loves an Aussie.

When they get forced out of their run-down rental house (due to Boady's attempt to manufacture speed) they go to live with in a mansion belonging to Molly, an old Irish lady who Luke takes for walks in her wheelchair. But soon the Greek gang whom Boady provoked catch up with them, with fatal consequences.

This film has its moments of positivity and truth, but Boady's craziness leads to tragedy which is a bit too awful to be funny. Some people love this film, but I don't like seeing all the nice people suffer because the stupid people are bastards.

Around the World in Eighty Ways (1987)

Wonderful low-budget farce!

[6/10 · 27 May 2022]

This is a very funny madcap farce, with dozens of great jokes as brothers Wally (Philip Quast) and Eddy (Kelly Dingwall) go to extreme lengths to save money by dressing-up as countless foreign characters, and creating foreign worlds in their absent neighbour's loungeroom, in order to make their aged father Roly (Allan Penney) think he is travelling around the world to catch up with his wife (who is actually having an awful time overseas).

Amazingly the joke is successfully maintained until the film's surprising and satisfying climax. Providing good support are Gosia Dobrowolska as the scrumptious Nurse Ophelia Cox, Diana Davidson as the missing wife and mother, and Rob Steele as the despicable neighbour.

This film is the spiritual godfather to Stephan Elliot's The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Welcome to Woop Woop.

This Won't Hurt a Bit (1993)

Hurt a bit at first, but got better towards the end

[5/10 · 16 April 2022]

There are a lot of laughs in this film about a man who uses the few skills he learnt in his unfinished dental degree to exact a kind of revenge on the English for their legacy of colonialism in Australia.

Greg Pickhaver plays the dentist Gordon Fairweather, but the bulk of the film consists of accounts of his practices and deeds told by other characters who encountered him - his patients, his teachers, and his girlfriend's family.

Jacqueline McKenzie plays a naïve young Portsmouth girl with a pronounced lisp, who becomes first his dental nurse and later his fiancé.

The film slumps at various times in the first half, but it picks up in the second half when Fairweather's peculiar psychology and motives are revealed by his teachers, as well as by the UK government officials who launch a belated investigation into his malpractice, causing him to flee to Hong Kong, where the film begins.

No Worries (1993)

Not just for families, this is a great film about droughts and resiliance

[7/10 · 11 April 2022]

Drought, unlike fire and flood, is a slow disaster, and one that must be endured with hope and patience. This film is partly about rural life and rural communities, where people struggle individually and collectively to survive the vagaries of the weather.

The film is seen through the eyes of 11-year-old Matilda, well played by Amy Terelinck, who is a happy, resourceful kid who loves her parents, her friends at the tiny bush school, and the animals on their farm, especially her dog, Dingo. She knows all the 13 other kids at the school and all of the adults in the neighbourhood.

When a dust storm proves the final straw that drives their farm to ruin, Matilda is suddenly uprooted from her rural paradise and taken to live with an uncle and aunt in Sydney, where she is thrown into a new class of mainly migrant and Asian kids and where she doesn't know anybody.

No Worries is both moving and entertaining, and the best film I know of that captures the tragedy and trauma of drought in rural communities.

But the film is also about the resilience of the human spirit in the face of tragedy, and people's ability to get back up and try something new. Geoff Morrell and Susan Lyons are wonderful as Matilda's parents, and the supporting cast includes John Hargreaves, Steven Vidler, Ray Barrett, Harold Hopkins and many more.

Despite the difficult subject, the film, like most of the characters, somehow manages to stay upbeat and hopeful.

Dags (1998)

A bit too daggy

[4/10 · 7 April 2022]

This low-budget film aims to comically portray a variety of styleless, clueless young people who represent the stereotypical 'dag' type. The film has some funny moments, but also a lot of silly ones. Some of the acting is adequate, but both the script and direction are a bit unsophisticated to appeal to a wide audience.

The film meanders through these people's lives for a while before eventually finding some narrative momentum with Cheryl's kidnapping. The mockumentary section, which consists numerous short intrusions by an anthropologist providing observations about the dag subculture, is the weakest feature of the film.

The film draws on a tradition making fun of Australian stereotypes such as the ocker or bogan, which began with Stork and Dimboola in the 70s, and carried on to The Wog Boy and Fat Pizza in the 2000s. Though both The Castle and Muriel's Wedding provided successful and affectionate satires of Australian dags in the 90s, Dags, like Welcome To Woop Woop, falls short by not being funny enough.

Comedy is hard to get right, and this film only gets it half right.

Griff the Invisible (2010)

I wanted to like it more

[5/10 · 22 February 2022]

This could be an enjoyable rom-com about two oddballs who don't fit into regular society, but are odd enough to appreciate each other. The actors are good, and the film has some good moments, but in the end, it's not enough.

The two main characters whose awkwardness and vulnerability help you like them, are a bit too weird and deluded to totally sympathise with. I wanted to like it, but I've watched it twice and it leaves me flat and uninvolved at the end.

The fact that the two get together again at the end, and recommit to maintaining their collective delusion is more a cause for pity than celebration.

Love and Other Catastrophes (1996)

An influential, low-budget, fun Aussie rom-com

[7/10 · 1 February 2022]

Love and Other Catastrophes falls into the category of 'ensemble rom-com' since it looks at the love lives of five students over the course of a day at Melbourne University.

Mia (Frances O'Connor) breaks up with her girlfriend Danni (Radha Mitchell) out of boredom and distraction with her problems at University, but will they get back together? Her room-mate Alice (Alice Garner) moans about not meeting the right man, but have her criteria - that he must be left-handed, like the same films as her, and be honest - set the bar too high? She has her eye on fellow student Ari (Matthew Dyktinski) but he's feeling too detached by his obsession with philosophy and depressed about his job as a gigolo to think about a girlfriend, so do they have a chance? Lastly Ari's friend Michael (Matt Day) is a serious med student who is desperate to move from his chaotic share house, and worried about his lack of a girlfriend, but will the spare room available at Mia and Alice's house change his luck?

This hip, joyful, smart, low-budget rom-com captured the hearts of both the young and the young at heart in the mid-90s and spawned a spate of other low-budget inner-city rom-coms in the following years. Frances O'Connor is wonderful as the mercurial, self-centred but ultimately loving Mia, and she is given great support by the other four actors.

This is a reminder of our University years, or the Uni years we wished we had had. It's a joyful romp, capturing the heady confusing life of young people at Uni, with likeable characters making poor choices, but things working out eventually. The writing is smart and nimble, the dialogue quick and believable, the style hand-held and immediate and the acting top notch.

All About E (2015)

A flawed but still interesting rom-action-drama

[5/10 · 25 January 2022]

This film covers a lot of ground, as E sorts out her old and new problems while on the run from her ex-boss whose drug cash she ends up with. She moves from the promiscuity of the Sydney club scene, to a confrontation with her Lebanese parents, who still don't know that she's gay, and are angry she didn't finish her music degree, to a road trip across NSW as they flee the gangsters on their tail.

On the whole, it's pretty well done: it has some strong likeable characters, particularly Mandahla Rose as E, Brett Rogers as her gay Irish flatmate Matt, and Julia Billington as E's ex-lover Trish; and writer-director Wadley maintains the tension until the final climax quite well.

But like many Hollywood romances, the film has a bunch of annoying details that jar with the audience: the main characters make silly decisions in order to drive the plot in the desired direction; the villain is not consistent and swings from homicidal to forgiving and back again; the love story is too easily resolved without appropriate dialogue; and some of the dialogue overall is a bit formulaic.

But the film looks great, and the main characters are sufficiently likeable for many people to forgive these details.

The Clinic (1982)

VD can be a laughing matter

[5/10 · 29 December 2021]

This film shows doctors and patients dealing with their problems over the course of a day in a busy Melbourne VD clinic, and a trainee doctor learning to overcome his prejudices and stereotypes. The film is well made and generally interesting and amusing, but suffers from the lack of a central character or narrative.

Instead the film offers dozens of stories of the individual doctors, nurses and patients, who all deal with a variety of male and female genital problems acquired during a wide variety of sexual encounters. The patients deal with guilt, anxiety and anger in different combinations as a variety of male and female clinicians try to help them medically and psychologically.

The result is an interesting overview of Australia's sexual scene in the 1980s, with a wide array of different characters, some of whom are regulars but most of whom are making their first embarrassed visit.

Chris Haywood and Gerda Nicolson are very good as two of the principal doctors, and Simon Burke plays an interesting role as the student doctor who is initially repulsed by some of the patients, but who eventually realises the good work being done in the clinic.

Lovers (2018)

Ambitious but not entirely successful

[5/10 · 26 December 2021]

This ambitious film uses five actors to portray different characters in four different stories about the nature of love and fidelity. The actors have the same names in each story, but their characters are actually different.

It's an interesting concept, but not entirely successful. As with most portmanteau films the shift from one story to the next leaves each feeling somehow unresolved.

Using the same actors in different roles is confusing rather than clever. If the four stories looked at the same characters in different time periods, it might have been meaningful, but instead we get 20 different characters having love affairs that do not always add up.

Another problem is that most of the stories are meant to illustrate the writer's points about good vs bad people, trust vs deceit, fidelity vs infidelity, and justice vs injustice (as in many stories the bad prosper and the good suffer). It's a good idea, but some of the characters lack depth, especially the women characters, who fall too easily for bad guys and suffer from jealousy constantly.

The film has no other user reviews yet. I suspect that many people stopped watching before the end due to the shortage of likeable characters.

Some Italian reviewers have liked it, but somehow there are no reviews in English.

Here is my plot summary if you want to know what happens.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

A. In the first story Frederico is a heartless man who fires his normal friend Andrea, causing Andrea's girlfriend of five years Dafne to dump him and probably transfer her affections to the heartless guy. Andrea asks his father Ludovico to help (perhaps he owns the business?), but the father dies of a heart attack, and Andrea in desperation tries to shoot the heartless Frederico, but accidentally kills himself. Meanwhile Frederico pretends to fall in love with a woman Guilia in order to persuade him to sell her bookshop to him, and then he callously dumps her after he has sealed the deal, leaving her desolate.

B. In the second story Frederico and Guilia both work at a clothing store, where Ludovico is the boss. They begin a relationship, then meet Andrea who is a friend of Frederico and his fiancé Dafne for dinner. Andrea is making a movie and invites Giulia to try out for a role. Giulia comes for a photoshoot and Andrea flirts with her in front of Dafne. Frederico is also jealous when he follows Guilia and finds her having coffee with Andrea. When Ludovico promotes Guilia ahead of Frederico, he sulks. Frederico argues with Guilia about the promotion, then with Ludovico and loses his job when he is rude to Ludovico. Giulia tells Frederico that she loves him but he must trust her. To test him she goes to a bar alone and gets drunk. Staggering home, she meets Andrea who drives her home to where Frederico is playing a computer game and patiently waiting. But when Andrea gets home, Dafne is suspicious and drives off in their car leaving him alone. The story suddenly ends, unresolved.

C. In the third story, Andrea meets Dafne, who is a visiting foreigner, for a first date (maybe met on an app) and they go to a shop where Giulia works. Dafne has shoulder pain, and Giulia suggests she visit her husband (Frederico) who is a physical therapist. Frederico treats her, with a bit of flirting and bare skin on her part. Later Giulia is jealous as she doesn't trust Frederico, but she suggests they go on picnic with Andrea and Dafne. On the picnic, Dafne tells Giulia she wants to be her friend, and Giulia says she doesn't trust Frederico and wants to test him. Meanwhile Andrea and Frederico argue, Andrea saying he wants to sleep with many women, and Frederico saying he believes in fidelity. Giulia asks Dafne to test Frederico by inviting him for a drink and then back to her hotel room. Frederico passes the test and tells his wife that he believes in marital fidelity, and at last she believes him.

D. In the fourth story, Frederico is an academic and fiction writer. He runs into Andrea an old friend at one of his talks. Andrea is still a deejay, and Frederico mocks him and tells him to get a real job. But he then finds out that Andrea is popular and famous. His publisher, Ludovico, calls him, and offers him a contract to ghost-write a novel for Andrea. He writes a second-rate book out of anger and jealousy, but it sells well because Andrea is a celebrity, and somehow wins a literature prize. Andrea has dinner with a woman in a restaurant and is taken by Giulia who is a waitress. He waits for Giulia who is reluctant to go out with him, but she eventually relents and after a time moves in with him. Andrea now treats Frederico with scorn and demands an apology for Frederico's treatment when they first met. Andrea also treats Dafne, Ludovico's assistant (or daughter?) like a servant, making her serve him. Giulia senses Dafne's hostility towards her, and starts to give Dafne orders. Dafne responds by sleeping with Andrea, something he is still willing to do. When Giulia catches her with Andrea, she leaves him. As she leaves, Frederico asks Andrea for more money, since the book was a hit. Andrea mocks him some more, then strikes him on the head with a pot, knocking him into Andrea's pool and apparently killing him. Andrea acts as if nothing important has happened and takes a business call on his phone.

E. In the end Giulia wanders into the bookshop from the first story, and Frederico enters. It's a full circle.

Island (1989)

Captures the atmosphere, but the story is underdeveloped

[6/10 · 20 December 2021]

This is a film of mood and enigma, that will please some and infuriate others.

The main character, Eva, played by Czech actress Eva Sitta, seems lost, having run away from the dullness of Australia and her marriage there, but unwilling to return to the Communist repression of her home country. She accepts the warm enthusiasm of the Greek artist, played by veteran Greek actress Irene Papas, while remaining a closed book, full of shy smiles and secrets. It's intriguing at first but a little tiresome by the end.

The other characters also remain somewhat underdeveloped, and we don't know much apart from their surface by the end. Although the film captures the beauty of the island, and the warmth of the villagers who care for these women, in the end the drama is slow, and sometimes confusing.

Chris Haywood, who plays a helpful Greek mute with convincing gusto, is the only major Australian presence in the film, as Norman Kaye, who plays either an Australian or an Englishman, only appears for a minute or so to mumble some inconsequential dialogue.

A major frustration with this film, as with many Paul Cox films, is the sound, as the dialogue is often muffled, too soft or drowned out by background noise.

The film leaves you with a strong impression of a rugged but beautiful island, where foreigners come for short stays to resolve their personal problems. It was a good idea, to have the three women from different cultures in an isolated place, but the characters seemed distant.

Criminal Ways (2003)

The Worst Australian Film Ever.

[1/10 · 19 December 2021]

I can't think of any reason to see this puerile film, unless you are of the 'so bad, it's good!' school of masochism.

The original idea of forming an entertainment group for kids (obviously based on The Wiggles) in order to gain entry to the houses of the rich and gormless was fine, but the script is so lame and full of toilet humour and swearing that I found it unwatchable.

Nevertheless, this film is distinguished by its becoming My Worst Australian Film Ever.