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Showing posts from September, 2021

Crocodile Dundee II (1988)

Director: John Cornell Starring: Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, John Meillon, Ernie Dingo, Charles S. Dutton, Luiz Guzman, Gus Mercurio Crocodile Dundee needs no introduction. Its worldwide popularity and equally beloved and derided status locally are well-documented. It’s a film that does not, by most yardsticks, belong on Down Under Flix , a site dedicated to spotlighting "obscure, forgotten, neglected, and under-appreciated Australian films".  Crocodile Dundee II though … that’s a conversation worth having. Released two years later, it was a hit domestically, albeit not as big as its predecessor , and a huge deal overseas , albeit not as huge as the original . Given their close proximity, one would think that scenes and lines and moments from both instalments would blur together in the haze of nostalgia, as is often the case with popular 80s franchises. But truth be told, I think the moments that stick with audiences are entirely from the first film.  Crocodile Dundee II...

The Delinquents (1989)

    Director: Chris Thomson    Starring: Kylie Minogue, Charlie Schlatter, Bruno Lawrence, Angela Punch McGregor    As a young boy who was awfully fond of Kylie Minogue, I implored my parents to purchase a copy of The Delinquents when it hit VHS in 1990. As a young boy seeking the colourful, fizzy instant gratification of the music videos for ‘The Loco-motion’ and ‘I should be so lucky’ , I never made it past the first 15 minutes of said VHS, thus squandering my parents’ hard-earned funds. As an adult who’s willingly sat through the stately Barry Lyndon on multiple occasions, I’ve no current gripes with the pacing of The Delinquents , which positively rollicks along in comparison.    Lola (Minogue) and Brownie (Charlie Schlatter) are teenagers living in Bundaberg, Queensland in 1957. They meet cute outside a cinema after being turned away from a packed screening of The Wild One —which both have seen multiple times already—and bond over...

Where the Green Ants Dream (1984)

  Director: Werner Herzog Starring: Bruce Spence,  Wandjuk Marika, Roy Marika,  Norman Kaye, Ray Barrett Director Werner Herzog’s offscreen antics—some highlights are conveniently curated here —are as striking as the images and scenes he wrestles onto screens. In many cases, the former enable the latter, such as the feat of transporting a ship over mountainous terrain in  Fitzcarraldo , or eliciting career-best work from the legitimately bestial Klaus Kinski on five occasions. As a younger cinephile I imbibed on the Herzog Kool-Aid, marvelling at the German auteur’s derring-do even if occasionally bored by the films themselves. As I creak towards middle age, I find myself warier of both the exploitation underpinning said derring-do—whether of an unhealthy specimen like Kinski, or the South American extras who performed the actual manual labour of transporting that ship—and of directorial braggadocio more generally. This piece by Jonathan Rosenbaum nicely articulates...