Down Under Flix

The majority of my film viewing nowadays, whether for Down Under Flix or otherwise, is at home via physical media or streaming. I’m also on a continual pop culture delay of several years, which I appreciate as I can watch most things divorced from hype and any Pavlovian influence. However, the conversation around Barbenheimer is a nice reminder of the value of deliberate and communal moviegoing, as opposed to just movie-watching. Listed below are  all the Australian films I've watched in cinemas during their theatrical releases, as well as a few in revival screenings. I’ve followed AACTA rules, hence the likes of The Great Gatsby and Hacksaw Ridge are included along with earlier Australian/overseas co-productions. Excluded are American films from Australian filmmakers that I saw in theatres [1] along with films like The Matrix sequels and Star Wars prequels — shot in Australia with local crews and cast members—which I saw theatrically. It’s a curious list, with many unfortuna...

  Black and White (2002) , directed by the late Craig Lahiff and scripted by Louis Nowra ( Radiance , Cosi ), is based on the true story of Max Stuart. Stuart, played by David Ngoombujarra, was an Aboriginal man coerced by police to confess to murdering a white girl in Ceduna in the 1950s, and consequently sentenced to hang. The film dramatizes the efforts of his Adelaide defense lawyers David O'Sullivan (Robert Carlyle) and Helen Devaney (Kerry Fox), in the face of steely opposition from prosecutor Roderic Chamberlain (Charles Dance).    Living in Adelaide in the early 2000s, I was aware of Black and White ’s production, as import stars Carlyle and Dance’s presence in town was deemed newsworthy. I was also aware of its theatrical release, but—truthfully—I blinked and missed it. A week in and out of theatres shouldn’t be all that surprising for a low-budget Australian film, but Black and White had some commercial aesthetics that should have extended its screen life: t...

  In my recent review of Russell Crowe’s Poker Face , I neglected to mention Brendan Cowell—the potato-faced star of Beneath Hill 60 , Noise , and I Love You Too —when listing Australian actor-directors. Cowell adapted to screen his own stage play Ruben Guthrie (2015) , in which the titular alcoholic advertising whiz (played by Patrick Brammall) embarks on a year of sobriety to win back his fiancée (Abbey Lee Kershaw) to the chagrin of family, longtime friends, and colleagues. Like Crowe and many other actor-directors, Cowell astutely uses his talented cast, including Jack Thompson (whose role provides a bookend of sorts to his similarly soused part in Wake in Fright 45 years earlier), Robyn Nevin, Jeremy Sims, Harriet Dyer, and Alex Dimitriades. The heavily marinated dialogue betrays the film’s theatrical roots, but cinematically speaking this is brassy and blingy and doesn’t feel stage-bound. The road to recovery beats evoke the likes of Clean and Sober and 28 Days , but the...

  Australian film sequels are rare, due to the sporadic nature of major commercial success stories with franchise potential and the modest infrastructure of the industry. George Miller rules this particular Thunderdome, having delivered five :  The Road Warrior , Beyond Thunderdome , Babe: Pig in the City , Happy Feet 2 , and  Fury Road , each serving a very different dish to its predecessor. The Ozploitation era saw Alvin Purple , Fantasm , and Barry McKenzie sequels , while 80s hits The Man from Snowy River and Crocodile Dundee spawned three sequels — not to mention a television series and tiresome commercial — between them. The last decade produced sequels Wolf Creek 2 , Red Dog: True Blue , Goldstone , A Few Less Men —an atrocious follow-up to a comedic gem — and the upcoming sequel to The Dry . Whilst sequels—even to films perceived as disappointments—are baked into Hollywood economics, and Australian directors have tackled sequels to their own or other directors...

  Pawno (2015) , written by Damian Hill and directed by Paul Ireland, unfolds in the orbit of a pawn store in Footscray, Melbourne. A multi-character network film, its ensemble of characters include straight-shooting pawn store owner Les (John Brumpton); his assistant Danny, a burgeoning artist in recovery (writer Hill); a distraught mother (Kerry Armstrong); Les’s Thai girlfriend (Ngoc Phan); Danny’s object of affection (Maeve Dermody), and others. Pawno brushes shoulders with rather than probes themes like addiction, family, community, friendship, suicide, and mental health, and the majority of characters are thumbnail sketches, some more effectively drawn than others. That’s part and parcel of the genre — and on Pawno the number of characters and brief runtime—but each actor gets a moment or two (or more for major players) to shine. As an example of the genre, it’s perched well below Lantana and Look Both Ways , but I’ll take its amiable and genteel grit over the calculated ov...