Down Under Flix

  Director: Bill Bennett   Starring: Maya Strange, Rufus Sewell, Martin Donovan, Andrew S. Gilbert, John Howard, Max Cullen In a Savage Land is a film I’ve wanted to see for over two decades. It did not screen in my region on its theatrical release in 1999, evaded me on VHS and DVD, but is now streaming on Stan . While it’s entirely possible I’ve been looking for it in all the wrong places, the fact that a $10 million investment — chump change by Hollywood standards, but a fortune locally — can fall out of general circulation is a sorry indictment of both industry and audiences. That it found its way back into circulation where other films of the era remain in limbo — see Angst , A Little Bit of Soul , Dead Letter Office , to name a handful — is no small feat.    Anthropology student Evelyn (Maya Strange) marries her lecturer Phillip (Martin Donovan) and accompanies him on a field trip to the Trobriand Islands of Papa New Guinea. Phillip ingratiates himself with t...

Bad posters are a dime a dozen, but bad comedy posters are legion. They’re not hard to spot, typically featuring actors engaged in decontextualised mugging against bland, often plain white backgrounds, desperate to please and spread joy. And the red text … so much red text …   But a poorly-postered comedy can rise above the station of its ropey advertising. Though spared the red text and white backdrops, here are two Australian comedies with unflattering posters that rise above their middling promotions. Now Add Honey (2015) Director: Wayne Hope Starring: Robyn Butler, Portia De Rossi, Lucy Fry, Lucy Durack, Hamish Blake Now Add Honey is a film I knew next to nought about, besides it featuring a handful of familiar faces (Angus Sampson, Portia De Rossi, Hamish Blake, David Field) and being an Australian comedy with a bad poster promising young vs old, spunk vs frump, and other forms of comedic culture clash. Caroline (Robyn Butler, also responsible for the script) is a frustrat...

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...

    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...

  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...

  Director:  Mirrah Foulkes Starring:  Mia Wasikowska, Damon Herriman, Tom Budge, Gillian Jones, Terry Norris  The case of Mia Wasikowska and  Alice in Wonderland  is an object lesson in not throwing out the baby with the dirty bathwater. Tim Burton’s alternately bland and ghastly 2010 film remains one of my least favourite moviegoing experiences, its astronomical success baffling and its diminishing popularity vindicating. The film was my first exposure to Wasikowska as an actress, and I wrongly dismissed her as the nondescript centre of a garish designer black hole.  The ensuing years have proven me wrong about Wasikowska, and I’ve been consistently impressed with her performances and choice of collaborators (including Chan-Wook Park, Jim Jarmusch, David Cronenberg, and Guillermo del Toro) across films like  Jane Eyre ,  Lawless ,  Stoker ,  Tracks ,  Only Lovers Left Alive ,  Madame Bovary ,  Maps to the Stars ,...

Of all the directorial careers to emerge from the Australian film industry, Bruce Beresford’s pre-Hollywood run of films from 1972 to 1981 may be the most fascinating. Beresford’s first two films,  The Adventures of Barry McKenzie  and  Barry McKenzie Holds His Own , were crude and rowdy comedies that saw him almost ostracized from an industry aspiring to loftier pursuits (though the latter still managed to wrangle a cameo from then-Prime Minister Gough Whitlam). His film of David Williamson’s play  Don’s Party  signalled his knack for adapting material unobtrusively to the screen, and he was awarded a Best Director gong at that year’s Australian Film Institute Awards for his efforts. His next production,  The Getting of Wisdom , marked a shift from muscular contemporary storytelling towards a more feminine milieu and the dominant aesthetics of the Australian New Wave—period setting (check!), girls boarding school (check!), literary origins (check!...