alanj
Joined Oct 1999
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alanj's rating
Set in the Australian outback you might have thought this movie would have had more in common to the directors previous movie Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The (1994). At the London Film Festical screening director Stephan Elliot started off before the screening that this definitely wasn't the case, and telling us it was about the more obnoxious of his country folk.
This shows a side of Australia that is being rather swept under the carpet. Although raucous and rude in the first half of the movie the mood turns darker towards the end.
And don't forget to wait till after the credits end for an amusing extra.
There are some very funny scenes including Barry Humphries as a blind petrol pump attendant - which so outraged the US lead that he had to spend time recovering in his trailer - it was done fortunately in one take with Humphries ad libbing the scene. And an excellent performance by Rod Taylor as the leader of the community.
Shot in the height of the summer, due to Stephan Elliot becoming ill just before the original start date, the crew needed 36,000 gallons of water per day to survive and in one scene they had to fit the dogs in the scene with shoes to allow them to run across the set.
This shows a side of Australia that is being rather swept under the carpet. Although raucous and rude in the first half of the movie the mood turns darker towards the end.
And don't forget to wait till after the credits end for an amusing extra.
There are some very funny scenes including Barry Humphries as a blind petrol pump attendant - which so outraged the US lead that he had to spend time recovering in his trailer - it was done fortunately in one take with Humphries ad libbing the scene. And an excellent performance by Rod Taylor as the leader of the community.
Shot in the height of the summer, due to Stephan Elliot becoming ill just before the original start date, the crew needed 36,000 gallons of water per day to survive and in one scene they had to fit the dogs in the scene with shoes to allow them to run across the set.
An enjoyable movie, with depth and substance. Claude Lelouch's style of shooting close to sequence and only teling them the details of the scene as they are shooting gives the film a slightly documentary feel. One that is deliberate according to the director - and one felt slightly harrowing on the actors.
B Monkey, entertained but didn't add anything to my weekend. The London Film Festival gave the World Premiere of this movie which must have been shot before My Best Friend's Wedding when Rupert Everett was still an untouchable (according to Radford, Everett paid for and shot his own screen test because no one would give him a chance). He worked well as the out of it drug pusher whose life B Monkey is entangled with. The two leads, Jared Harris and Asia Argento work well together but this is still not enough to make the movie fully work. The London locations look great (even if with the usual cinematic ploy unconnected parts of town seem to be next to each other).
Overall I may not have gained much from seeing this film but I enjoyed the experience.
Overall I may not have gained much from seeing this film but I enjoyed the experience.