BoyTown

I waited a long time to watch this film. I did sit though it in one go without losing interest, but it wasn't nearly as enjoyable as I had hoped. Here in the UK I've have been hearing Molloy, Robbins & co on streamed radio for years. They are grossly funny, but this film didn't match up to that level. The funniest part was Molloy's real-life banter with his young 'double' in the extras. And what a waste of Tony Martin. On the other hand, the songs were clever and memorable, Sally Phillips is always super, and I was impressed with Mick's penduluming.

This movie is probably too subtle for its own good. Firstly it satirises boy-band/pop music, which is a fairly easy target, but it also satirises the very genre of 'getting the band back together' type films. Because it plays the cliches it satirises completely straight, at times it appears exactly like the bad movies it parodies. The performances are generally good and, given so earnestly in the face of deliberately cringeworthy dialogue and songs, are a subtle highlight. The predictable and extremely fantastic course the film takes sat somewhere between brilliant satire and mediocre plot development. Still, an enjoyable film with a little more going on than first appears.

I'm not going to say anything much about plot and content - You should see it and I don't want to spoil a minute of it for you.

It's not often you see a movie you can't fault, but "Boytown" is one of them. Great premise, top writing and directing, well acted with the perfect comedy timing you'd expect from this group of Australian (OK, and British ex-pat) veterans. The songs for women of "their generation" had my wife and I rolling in the aisles.

It's a masterpiece of stereotype satire, and an interesting comment on what happens to rockers when they're closer to the rocking chair than the rocking cradle.

The ending was a surprise (although I had been warned by my son), but somehow it seemed like the best way to end and it neatly eliminated any prospect of the pathetic sequel so many American films seem to spawn. Go and see it, and don't listen to the negative reviews - they must have been watching some other movie of the same name.

I've been a huge fan of Mick Molloy ever since the old Late Show days. I listen to his radio show each day, and I even have a signed copy of The Brown Album. Crackerjack and Bad Eggs were both very funny movies, and so I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. Maybe that's why I was so disappointed? It's a real shame when you get so much comedic talent in a movie, both in front and behind the scenes, and yet the result really isn't all that funny. It sort of sits at a slight giggle level for the whole time, and only rarely gets any better than that. The highlight is the songs, which are all pretty well done. It's obvious that the songs were what they spent all their time writing, and then just fitted the movie in around them. The story is so basic, it all just happens with nothing really happening, and I know that makes no sense but it's just the way it is. It's like, lets get the band back together, OK the bands back together, now we'll make some records, OK we're done. And the ending? Well, it's kinda funny, and kinda weird. It makes sense, but it's sort of in a we-don't-know-how-to-end-it kinda way. Maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to watch it? Who knows. It's far from terrible, but far from good. Which means it's solidly average. There is far worse than this around, especially when you compare it to other recent Australian comedies, but the Molloy boys, and everyone else involved, can do a lot better than this.

Fun movie with great lines. My boyfriend and I quite enjoyed it. It was really all one joke, but they didn't flog the horse too much.

Nice, light, fluffy stuff. Loved the songs and the fashion. Don't know what movie other people who've commented were watching. Did they expect Shakespeare? It probably could have been a neater plot/script, but we knew what kinda humour we were gonna get when we walked in the door. Maybe it was too subtle for some.

I thought the dry humour people were dropping on the sly was great. Australian comedies do have a particular style about them. Go Aussie cinema!