Australia (2008)

Director:

Baz Luhrmann

Writers:

Stuart Beattie (screenplay) and
Baz Luhrmann (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

26 November 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | History | Romance | War | Western

Plot:

Set in northern Australia before World War II, an English aristocrat who inherits a sprawling ranch reluctantly pacts with a stock-man in order to protect her new property from a takeover plot. As the pair drive 2,000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape, they experience the bombing of Darwin, Australia, by Japanese forces firsthand.

Plot Keywords:

Cattle | Australia | Baron | Drover | Bombing

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 6 wins & 17 nominations

Cast

Shea Adams	...	Carney Boy #3
Eddie Baroo	...	Bull
Ray Barrett	...	Ramsden
Tony Barry	...	Sergeant Callahan
Jamal Bednarz-Metallah	...	Mission Boy
Damian Bradford	...	Constable #1
Bryan Brown	...	King Carney
Nathin Butler	...	Carney Boy #1
Tara Carpenter	...	Essential Services Woman
Rebecca Chatfield	...	Magarri's Niece
Lillian Crombie	...	Bandy Legs
Max Cullen	...	Old Drunk
Essie Davis	...	Cath Carney
Arthur Dignam	...	Father Benedict
Michelle Dyzla	...	Hairdresser

Also Known As:

Untitled Baz Luhrmann Project (Australia) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some violence, a scene of sensuality, and brief strong language.

Runtime:

165 min

Country:

Australia | USA

Language:

English | Aboriginal

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:M | South Korea:12 | USA:PG-13 (certificate #44939) | Singapore:PG | Ireland:12A | Finland:K-13 | Norway:11 | UK:12A | Czech Republic:U | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Netherlands:12 | Portugal:M/12 (Qualidade) | New Zealand:M | Brazil:12 | Argentina:Atp | Germany:12 | Philippines:PG-13 (MTRCB) | Hong Kong:IIA | Spain:7 | Taiwan:GP | South Africa:13V | Peru:PT | Chile:TE | Sweden:11 | Mexico:B | Iceland:12

Filming Locations:

Bowen, Queensland, Australia

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Filming on the project finally began in spring 2007 and went on for nine hard months. Baz Luhrmann approached the filming with obsessive resolve. He constantly shot and re-shot scenes until he got it just the way he wanted. This obsessive attention to detail caused the project to go over budget and caused several scheduling problems. To further the production's difficulties, Australia itself was not very cooperative. On one occasion, the largest and most expensive of the sets for the film was completely flooded when huge rain showers hit a part of the country that rarely gets any rain at all. On other occasions, filming had to be delayed for days on end because of bad weather or poor lighting. Every delay was especially costly on this project, since Luhrmann employed hundreds of crew members and had a herd of fifteen hundred cattle that needed to be fed and cared for. This completely drained the budget allotted for the movie and production had to be improvised. Director was forced to go begging for more money and certain compromises had to be made. He even had to move the filming of the final scenes of the movie from Darwin, where they were supposed to take place, to Bowen because the local government provided him with 500,000 dollars to film there.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Lady Sarah Ashley's mount - the last before she leaves England - has what appears to be a freeze brand on his shoulder. Freeze branding was invented in the 1960s and used as ID for valuable horses in the 1980s.

Quotes:

Nullah: I sing you to me.

Movie Connections:

Featured in 81st Annual Academy Awards (2009) (TV)

Soundtrack:

The Drover's Ballad

Big and grand, but not the hit they were aiming for

OK, I saw Australia back in December, so I'm a little rusty, forgive the late review. But looking back on this movie and just thinking about it really did help me in looking at the film and it's story. Australia was a movie that really tried to be the next Gone With The Wind for the millennium's audience. While it's a good movie, it definitely wasn't great and went way over the top. It's a little lengthy in the time and the writing was a little over done, BUT nevertheless it was still a good movie. It had terrific sets and was a beautiful setting, it felt like watching one of the old classic movies that made you feel good. Well, it was kinda like Titanic with the emotions, you were up, you were down, you were laughing, you were crying, well you get the idea. The story is a bit much, so I'm going to do the best I can to give you a decent summary.

In 1939, Lady Sarah Ashley travels from England to northern Australia to force her philandering husband to sell his faltering Australian cattle station, Faraway Downs. Her husband sends an independent cattle drover , called simply "Drover", to Darwin to transport her to Faraway Downs. Lady Sarah's husband, who has been working hard to sell 1500 head of cattle to the military, is murdered shortly before she arrives. Meanwhile, treacherous FD cattle station manager Neil Fletcher is trying to gain control of Faraway Downs, so that neighboring Lesley 'King' Carney can have a cattle monopoly in the Northern Territory, which will give him negotiating leverage with the Australian army. The childless Lady Sarah is captivated by the young boy Nullah, who was born to an Aboriginal mother and an unknown white father. When Nullah and his mother hide from the white authorities by entering a water tower, his mother drowns. Drover is friendly with the Aborigines, and therefore shunned by many of the other whites in the territory. Lady Sarah and Drover develop a romance, and she gains a new appreciation for the Australian territory. But Carney's men poison all the water sources along the cattle-drive route, so the group risks driving the cattle through the dangerous Never Never desert, which they accomplish with the help of "King George". Two years later, Drover and Lady Sarah have lived together with Nulla. But Drover, who has been quarreling with Lady Sarah and has gone droving apparently never to return, hears that she has been killed in the bombing of Darwin. Drover finds out about Nullah's abduction to Mission Island, and sets out with Magarri and Ivan to rescue Nullah and the other children from the island using a sailboat.

Whew, OK, I hope that summary is a good description of the movie since I haven't watched in a while, but I did the best I could. So in a quick sum up, the movie is worth the watch, for the background, it was worth watching in the theater. But you get the same effect if you watched it at home if you have a big screen TV and surround sound. Nicole and Hugh were a beautiful couple together, they did the best they could for such a lengthy story. But the chemistry was on and the movie did work, I think they just went a little too over the top on trying to make this movie into a classic or some kind of love fest for the Oscars. It's worth the watch, but I'd recommend just watching it at home, I don't think I can sit through a 3 hour movie again in the theaters, I'm really loosing my touch.

7/10