Comments on: The creative fire of Australia: forgotten films

By: Ozzie Thinker

Ozzie Thinker — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 01:40:19 +0000

Agreed, Jon, with measure.

What about the Deniro-eske Jack Thompson? Or even the Deniro-eske Robert De Niro?

Jack is Australia’s own Michael Caine and, for me, he has it all and that’s why “squirt” Russell Crowe has modelled his career as a poor imitation; a fraction of greatness. Nothing against Crowe: his movies are usually “watchable”, but never, for me, much more than that.

It is clear though, as with all other genres, some’s “got it” and others “don’t”…..

I know he’s been rather over-marketed in recent times, but I think the great American talent at delivering “individuality” is Jack Black.

Best
OT

By: Michael Burns

Michael Burns — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 20:36:13 +0000

Yes its amazing how diluted the talent base is now Jon.
I find that whom are chosen to become the leading men and women in Hollywood to be quite irritating bunch if one enjoy the Art of Film…of course it’s not film anymore is it?
Hollywood has broken down completely; it has always been a greater part of the matrix.
But never so much as in present times. It’s so blatantly propangandist.
This nepotism that Hollywood has become; movie star children that have invaded an otherwise beautiful art form. As if being the spawn of matched Hollywood acting couples is the recipe of an artist…well he’s the son of so and so and what’s-her-name, “He’s got to be good, he has his parents genes for God’s sakes.”
The Arnies and the Bruces and Leonardos just don’t cut it with me. They play themselves.

From my acting school days my understanding came from the immersion of oneself into the character being play, almost like a possession of that script paper spirit. Finding the vices and virtues of the character to hang oneself onto, enabling one escape a personal reality
Rather, than the other way around, Now have the character playing the actor.
This long parade of celebrity having children who become actors have children to become actors…blah.
I agree on your choices of Australians and must say I was never so moved as when I saw Geoffrey Rush play David Helfgott…brilliant!
I like Geoffrey Rush he stretches as an artist, pushes and break through boundaries, that is the hallmark of a greater artist. Getting outside of oneself.

“I asked, ‘What is this guy?’ They said, he’s part-fish, part-bird, maybe a bit of lizard, and you don’t have to go through five hours of makeup to play him. That was good enough for me.”
– Geoffrey Rush

By: burrado

burrado — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 18:06:25 +0000

I went through a similar phase many years ago where I was almost starving for uncommon foreign films to get as far away as possible from the usual American crap. Anything to break the monotonous drone of brain dead acting and special effects. This was not as easy as it seemed at the time – and still isn’t judging by a quick search online. So many people trying to push foreign and domestic crap to make a buck, it’s almost a crapshoot finding anything worthwhile anywhere. I’m hard-pressed right now to even name the most notable ones I happened to come across then. But a couple examples of films that made me keep searching were Wages of Fear and La Dolce Vita. Those are probably not even the best examples. But they were enough at the time to make me think, where did this come from? Why haven’t I seen this kind of thing before?