Down Under Flix

    Stardust Memories is not an Australian film, the usual subject matter of this website, though its director has worked with Australian talent (Judy Davis, Cate Blanchett, Anthony LaPaglia etc.). I originally wrote this piece for another site in early 2021, but sat on it following the release of the documentary series Allen v. Farrow. Not sure there will ever be "good timing" for a piece commemorating a Woody Allen film, and my feelings about Allen grow increasingly complicated with time, but for what it's worth here's the piece ...  ‘My stupid little films’: Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories at 40 Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories shares a number of qualities with Richard Fleischer’s The Jazz Singer , the last 40-year-old film I spotlighted here on The Curb . Both films centre on the professional and existential crises of a popular Jewish entertainer, played onscreen by a popular Jewish entertainer of the same profession. Both are remakes of sorts, of films which i...

  Director: Steve Jodrell Starring: Ernie Dingo, Frank Wilson, Bud Tingwell Singin’ in the Rain. Sunset Boulevard. The Bad and the Beautiful. All about Eve. A Star is Born (x 2). The Day of the Locust. The Stunt Man. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The Player. Living in Oblivion. Barton Fink. Ed Wood. Gods and Monsters. Bowfinger. State and Main. Mulholland Drive. Adaptation. Tropic Thunder. The Artist. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The Disaster Artist. Mank. Dolemite is My Name . And many, many more. The catalogue of Hollywood films about Hollywood - some wholesale fiction, others based on true events - is a robust one, peppered with many classics, much sardonic satire, and equal parts self-congratulation and self-loathing. In contrast, the Australian film industry, with its government subsidised output and oft-transient star system, has 1987’s Tudawali , a pair of Errol Flynn biopics, and, for genre fans, Cut . A cynic would say there’s not much to commemorate. I’d disagree: ther...

  The Aviator and Hotel Mumbai are survival narratives headlined by global stars (of different generations) stretching the parameters of their screen personas. The former is a fictional two-hander set in 1928 about a mismatched duo whose aeroplane crash lands in rugged American wilderness; the latter is an ensemble drama-thriller set 80 years later based on real events – the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks – and depicts guests and staff fighting to survive at a luxury hotel under siege. Both features are directed by Australian filmmakers; the latter, though set in Mumbai, was filmed partly in Adelaide and is an Australian co-production involving Screen Australia, Screen West, and the South Australian Film Corporation. The Aviator (1985) Director: George T. Miller Starring: Christopher Reeve, Rosanna Arquette, Jack Warden, Sam Wanamaker The Aviator (not to be confused with the Martin Scorsese Howard Hughes biopic of the same name) stars Christopher Reeve as pilot Edgar Anscombe, withd...