The Dish (2000)

Director:

Rob Sitch

Writers:

Santo Cilauro (conceived and written by) &
Tom Gleisner (conceived and written by) ...

Release Date:

27 April 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

Man's first step on the moon nearly stumbled on earth

Plot:

A remote Australian antenna, populated by quirky characters, plays a key role in the first Apollo moon landing.

Plot Keywords:

NASA | Satellite Dish | Australia | Moon Walk | Space

Awards:

3 wins & 11 nominations

Cast

Sam Neill	...	Cliff Buxton
Billy Mitchell	...	Cameron
Roz Hammond	...	Miss Nolan
Christopher-Robin Street	...	Damien
Luke Keltie	...	Graeme
Naomi Wright	...	Melanie
Ben Wright-Smith	...	Nicholas
Beverley Dunn	...	Secretary (voice)
Grant Thompson	...	Mr. Callen
Bille Brown	...	Prime Minister
Bernard Curry	...	Newspaper Reporter
Kevin Harrington	...	Ross 'Mitch' Mitchell
Tom Long	...	Glenn Latham
Patrick Warburton	...	Al Burnett
Roy Billing	...	Mayor Robert 'Bob' McIntyre

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for brief strong language.

Runtime:

101 min | France:97 min (DVD)

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:L | Netherlands:12 | Italy:T | Australia:M | Chile:TE | France:U | Germany:6 | Spain:T | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Crawford Productions, Box Hill, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Company:

Working Dog

Trivia:

Parkes technicians sometimes do take a ride on the moving dish, as Cliff explains in the film. However, the scene depicting the Parkes crew playing cricket on the dish is pure fiction.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Near end of film when high winds hit Parkes, a welcome banner stretching across the main street says "Welcome Prime MinAster", e.g., "Minister" is misspelled as "Minaster" on the banner.

Quotes:

Cliff Buxton: This is science's chance to be daring.

Movie Connections:

References "Hawaii Five-O" (1968)

Soundtrack:

Wings of an Eagle

Aussie humour at its finest, in a gentle, joyful piece of comedy.

At a time when the comedy genre is saturated with the crude, lewd and unsophisticated toilet humour of the U.S ('See Spot Run', 'The Animal', 'Say It Isn't So'), it's encouraging to watch a film that really makes you laugh out loud without wanting to cringe at the same time. Like it's antipodean predecessor 'Priscilla...', 'The Dish' takes the best aspects of Australian culture and the Aussie persona and uses them to create the finest comedy of the year so far. Much of the humour is brutally honest, delivered in the kind of relaxed, conversational style which has become an Aussie trademark. Paired with a homegrown cast (headed by a wonderfully understated Sam Neill) and filmed on location at the satellite receiver station in South Australia, the film feels refreshingly natural and unconstructed.

This sense of cultural identity gives 'The Dish' a surprising depth for such an uncomplicated film. Rather than resorting to the contrived, exaggerated Australian image of Paul Hogan, it revels in its roots without a hint of self-consciousness or compromise. Such an intense warmth towards its small-town location and everyman characters is shown that it is impossible not to share it, and from that grows a wonderful sense of intimacy. Despite the global importance of Apollo 11's mission, a real sense of the importance of it to the community and the individuals therein is present throughout. An American film may have made this subservient to the moon landings - here, the two are intertwined on an equal footing, and you care equally about each.

And in that lies the secret of why 'The Dish' is such a damn good film. It's not the well-paced, extremely funny and well-delivered script, nor the quality of the acting, nor the great location or period soundtrack. It's because the film has a real sense of soul. It makes you want to care about it and it's characters. In mainstream film, that's a rare achievement indeed. Let's hope the Farrelly brothers are watching...

8.5/10