Australia (2008)

Movie quotes:
Drover (Hugh Jackman): We're not really used to -
Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman): A woman? I suppose you think I should be back in Darwin, at the church fete or a lady's whatever you call it. Well I will have you know, I am as capable as any man.
Drover: Guests. We're not used to guests is what I was about to say but now that you mention it I happen to quite like the women of the outback.

At a glance:
Baz Luhrmann’s epic portrayal of outback Australia during World War II is a combination western, romance, and war movie, with indigenous mysticism, too, and Luhrmann fans – and fans of pure spectacle and entertainment – will love it

Our review:
There are certain ambitious directors who bring and stamp their own mood, agenda, and personality onto every film they make. Baz Luhrmann is one of those directors. If you don’t relate to his point of view, watching one of his films could be a long, confusing slog (hence the mixed reviews for this film). If you do relate to his personality and are like-minded in the way you view the world, then he can pretty much throw any scene and/or visual imagery at you, and you will understand what he is trying to do.

I connect with Baz Luhrmann. Consequentially, I loved Australia.

The story: during World War II, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels from England to her Australian outback cattle property to find out why her husband has not returned. She believes he is there to have dalliances, but he was actually trying to run cattle and compete with cattle baron King Carney (Bryan Brown), the man who has a regional beef monopoly. Her cattle have been stolen by Carney’s evil employee, Neil Fletcher (David Wenham). Thoroughly out of her element, Lady Sarah must deal with the outback hardships while getting a crash course in aboriginal culture. For help, she turns to an honest, free spirited larrikin called The Drover (Hugh Jackman).

Australia crams almost everything into its long running time of 165 minutes. It’s a western war romance, with a dose of indigenous spirituality. It tries to be as big a film as Australia the country, and, for the most part, it succeeds. For all its length and spectacle, its main point of view is refreshingly simple: Australia can be a beautiful place if we treat people and the land with respect and tolerance. Reviews have been mixed, but I believe that as time goes on, the opinion of this film will slowly improve.

Australia is populated with a who’s who of Australian actors: Barry Otto, Jack Thompson, Bryan Brown, David Gulpilil, Ben Mendelsohn, and striking newcomer Brandon Walters as Nullah. In the same way, it covers a large and important period in Australian history, taking dead-serious issues and presenting them in a way that makes them entertaining.

Baz Luhrmann is brave as always, but he was misguided if he believed that he could make a wildly successful epic film that at the same time personalized and documented in lyrical imagery the atrocities of white Australians to indigenous people. While the majority of present-day white Australians acknowledge and are sorry that these atrocities did happen, many of them would still be squirming uncomfortably when presented with such blatant dramatization of representative tragic incidents.

Whether Luhrmann knew this problem or not, one thing is certain, for he has proven this over and over; he must always make the film that he must make, with no compromises. His films may be flawed, but they are always ambitious, flamboyant, original, passionate, and aware of their own self as film.

Rating: 3.5 of 4

Other reviewers said:
"This is a movie for those who say they don't make 'em like they used to."
-Robert Roten (Laramie Movie Scope)

"Australia is an epic love story, and a quite extraordinary piece of kitsch. Everything about the film is wildly over the top."
-James Christopher (Times [UK])

"Though the plot is similar to a Barbara Stanwyck '50s Western by way of Out of Africa, Luhrmann goes one further, infusing the film with a mystical quality that seems wholly authentic to this aboriginal land."
-Kimberly Gadette (Indie Movies Online)

Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

Sean (Josh Hutcherson) What, you’ve never seen a dinosaur before?
Trevor (Brendan Fraser): Not with skin on it!

"I just remembered…I hate fieldwork!"
- Trevor

At a glance: Brendan Fraser is his career-defining persona as a likable adventurer in this lower-budget but entertaining re-telling of the classic Jules Verne story

Professor Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) has more problems than his students yawning during his lectures; he is also about to be kicked out of his lab. It probably isn’t the best time for him to have to ‘babysit’ Sean, the disgruntled teenage son of his deceased brother (and fellow scientist), Max. A little exploration of Max’s copy of the book Journey to the Center of the Earth reveals notes about seismic activity that seems to be occurring again. Excited, Trevor grabs Sean and they head for Iceland to investigate. There, they hook up with Hannah (Anita Briem), the daughter of another deceased scientist. Hannah agrees to be their guide. A simple trip to investigate a seismic sensor leads the trio into a descent toward the center of the earth, where they find unique beauty and danger. Rollicking, light, and good fun, this well-paced adventure yarn is unabashedly targeted toward tweens. It might be a little scary for some kids under 7. Brendan Fraser has made a career from playing these kinds of roles: the funny, lovable adventurer who wisecracks his way to success. Lovely Icelandic actress Anita Briem adds a natural beauty and exotic charm to what could have been nothing more than a sidekick part. The special effects are low-budget, but most kids (and adults) won’t care; you just have to augment them with your imagination, rather than relying on Spielberg. It will awaken the inner Vernian lurking in all of us! Rating: 2.75 of 4

"Fraser salvages his reputation as a solid, matinee-style action hero in this family-oriented fantasy."
- Vicki Roach (Daily Telegraph [Australia])

"Most of the movie, directed by Eric Brevig, is as daft, outlandish, and speedy as it needs to be, and, for all its newfangled effects, touchingly old-fashioned in its reverence for the Jules Verne novel that inspired it."
- Anthony Lane (New Yorker)

"Brendan Fraser's playful force of personality rules, 3D or no 3D, one of the few funny guys who could grab attention away from a dinosaur in assault mode, in the center of the earth or anywhere else on the planet."
- Prairie Miller (NewsBlaze)

Nim’s Island (2008)

Jack (Gerard Butler): Be the hero of your own life story.
Alex Rover (Jodie Foster): Don't hand me that line - I wrote that line!

At a glance: This light and enjoyable island/ocean adventure focusing on an 11 year old girl, her lost-at-sea dad, and a timid adventure writer, will appeal to a variety of ages

A scientist/writer is lost at sea, leaving his 11 year old daughter, Nim (Abigail Breslin) to fend for herself. Through emails, she enlists the help of rugged adventure writer Alex Rover, unaware that Rover is actually a fictional character written by a timid apartment-bound agoraphobic (Jodie Foster). Foster is appropriately nervous and silly; Breslin is a natural actress, if at times a tad soft-spoken; Gerard Butler chews the scenery in dual roles; one as an adventurer dad who has to fight against the elements to get his small boat back to the island, and another as the brogue-sporting figment of Alex Rover’s imagination. Just to keep things interesting, there are a number of clever visual sequeways between scenes. I had hoped my five year old daughter and I might watch this movie together, and we did. We both enjoyed it. There’s a strong Australian/Queensland slant to this movie; Australian actors and locations added to my personal enjoyment. Rating: 2.5 of 4

"If you have a child, Nim's Island is the kind of film you won't be sorry you shared with him or especially her, and if you don't have a youngster, you'll wish you did."
- Bruce Bennett (Spectrum [St. George, Utah])

"Plenty of things happen that adults will have to overlook and forget any reasoning because this is a movie aimed at kids, and on that point it delivers."
- Diana Saenger (ReviewExpress.com)

10,000 BC (2008)

"A good man draws a circle around himself and cares for those within. His woman, his children. Other men draw a larger circle and bring within their brothers and sisters. But some men have a great destiny. They must draw around themselves a circle that includes many, many more. Your father was one of those men. You must decide for yourself whether you are, as well."
- Tic'Tic (Cliff Curtis) to D’Leh (Steven Strait)

At a glance: Despite the condemnation of most critics, and some problems with an excruciating opening segment and some distracting special effects scenes, 10,000 BC is at times a beautiful and appealing epic, with a solid story at its core.

Every once in a while, I have the desire to watch a really bad movie. I relish picking its faults apart and finding humor in the mistakes of judgement. So I reached for a film I was sure would be bad: 10,000 BC. It sported a rating of just 9% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. But I have to admit I was severely disappointed. Sure, the film is not totally successful by any means, but it was still entertaining and had a lot to offer. (It’s important to remember that the Tomatometer percent is not an overall rating of the movie by critics, but, rather, the percent of critics that gave the movie a favorable review. That may seem like semantics, but it means that 9 out of 100 critics actually thought the film was good).

10,000 BC starts with a long voiceover segment where the narrator, Omar Shariff, describes past mammoth hunts. As I sat there, unable to generate any interest in the film, I couldn’t help but think: what is this, a book on tape? No, it’s a film! And might it not be a teensy bit more exciting to SHOW us those past mammoth hunts, rather than talk about them? Eventually, the narration ends, the mammoths appear, the hunt is on, and the movie improves. The epic story is of a young warrior whose true love is abducted; he follows her across every conceivable terrain and climate on earth (often, some of these are within yards of each other). It’s at best an uneven film: the first mammoth hunt is an exciting relief from the long setup, but other action scenes seem to derail the momentum of the storytelling. Nonetheless, I had seen the consensus of reviews before viewing the film, most of which were negative, so I expected something terrible, and instead I was pleasantly surprised and entertained. Camilla Belle makes a fetching femme fatale, all made up to look like a young Liz Taylor. And Steven Strait does a commendable job as the hero. Anyone with a passing knowledge of ancient history may be appalled by the many anachronisms in the film (for example: sailing ships, paper, corn, and horseriding all had not happened yet at this time). Director Roland Emmerich ventured into somewhat similar (ancient Egypian pyramid civilization) territory in his 1994 film, Stargate. The breathtaking scenery and cinematography helps (filmed in New Zealand, South Africa, and Namibia) Rating: 2.5 of 4

"Roland Emmerich's prehistoric odyssey 10,000 BC is his silliest, most preposterous blockbuster to date. But it's lots of fun, too."
- Sukhdev Sandhu (Daily Telegraph)

"…strictly a popcorn flick version of Joseph Campell's hero's journey that looks great even as it plays fast and very loose with geography, biology, and anything else that gets in its way…"
- Andrea Chase (Killer Movie Reviews)

"It's just a wrong movie altogether, an elaborately nonsensical stew of crazy costumes, bizarre accessories, and funny voices."
- Eric D. Snider (EricDSnider.com)

The Librarian: Quest for the Spear (2004)

Nicole (Sonya Walger): Focus on something else. You must have a girlfriend, right? Big glasses, dendel skirt, makes you watch a lot of subtitled documentaries.

Flynn (Noah Wyle): It was just Portuguese! I was over-thinking it!

Flynn: Shouldn't I be the one dipping you?
Nicole: Technically.

Flynn: At least you didn't fail at your job. He's still alive.
Nicole: No, he just faked his own death and became the head of the very evil organization we've been fighting. That's much better.

Nicole: The Deadly Scorpion League has found H. G. Wells' time machine. We're the only ones who can get it back.
Flynn: The Deadly Scorpion League? What is it with these bad guys and their insect names for their cults?

A 30-ish professional student (Noah Wyle) is kicked out of class and told to experience the real world. He applies for a job as a librarian, but he is no ordinary man – he has an encyclopedic knowledge of facts, and an almost magical ability to observe and read miniscule clues about people and things. This is no ordinary librarian’s job, either. He is nominated to protect some of the world’s greatest treasures, and when the powerful Sword of Destiny is stolen, he must go around the world to find it. He is helped in his quest by the Lara Croft-like Nicole (Sonya Walger). After a slow, painful start, the film successfully combines pleasant CGI, adventure movie cliches, and some above-average scripting full of information factoids to create a pleasant made-for-TV time-filler. It’s all helped by a talented supporting cast of Bob Newhart, Jane Curtin, Olympia Dukakis, Kyle MacLachlan, and Kelly Hu. Rating: 2.75 of 4 reviewed 18 Dec 2007

"It’s a fun cheesy cable TV flick, a slice of winking B movie giddiness that charms us into smiling through all the nonsense."
- David Cornelius (eFilmCritic.com)

"It's all totally lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek and never dares to be serious about anything, which is refreshing."
- MaryAnn Johanson (Flick Filosopher)