This confirms my earlier suspicions, the Australia movie flopped at the US box office:
The much-hyped Baz Luhrmann movie Australia has flopped at the US box office on its opening day, according to reports.
Figures quoted from US entertainment newspaper Variety said the movie made a paltry $3.4 million on its Thursday opening in the key market.
That worked out at a per screen average of $1318, compared to the $35,055 per screen earned by teen movie and box office leader, Twilight. [Sydney Morning Herald]
It will be interesting to see what its total take on its opening weekend is on Monday because I don’t expect its number to improve much once word of mouth about how disappointing the movie is spreads.
I spent this Thanksgiving back in the US and my wife and I made sure to that we would go out and watch the movie premier of director Baz Luhrmann’s Australia movie. We were both expecting this film to be a great movie and a hit in the US considering the rather good impression Americans have of Australians and the sheer lack of quality movies currently being released.
However, since we are now back in the US we noticed a lack of promotion of the movie on TV. This lack of promotion of the movie was my first sign that maybe this movie is not as good as I expected. This lack of promotion of the movie became quite evident when my wife and I attended the premier of the movie today and the theater was nearly empty. Yes I know it is a holiday in the US by the theater literally had five people in it plus my wife and I.
Anyway my wife and I were still excited to see the movie anyway and even wore t-shirts and hats from Australia to the theater. I know it is corny but like I said before we were excited to see a film about Australia. However, after watching the entire film that would be as excited as we would get because the movie was a bit of a let down.
The Plot
Basically the movie is about British aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) who travels to Australia in search of her husband who went to the continent to sell his holdings in a cattle station there. Ashley thinks her husband is having an affair there and wants to confront him. With the aid of a man only known in the movie as the The Drover (Hugh Jackman) she travels to her husband’s cattle station in the Northern Territory Outback and discovers he has been murdered.
Ashley discovers that a rival rancher has been stealing cattle from the station in order to bankrupt it and then claim the land. To save the ranch Ashley decides to conduct one last cattle drive with the aid of The Drover and his friends to the port city of Darwin to sell the cattle to the Australian Army and receive enough money to save the ranch. During the cattle drive she falls in love with The Drover which watching the movie seemed extremely peculiar considering just a few days prior she was looking at the murdered body of her husband. That fact alone for me anyway killed any romance in the movie plus Kidman and Jackman if you can believe this, had very little chemistry in the movie and their dialogue was unimpressive. Finally, who wants to watch romance develop with a woman who is willing to dump the memory of her husband in such a short time? Not me, but I am willing to bet there are probably plenty of women out there who do the same thing to make out with Hugh Jackman.
Anyway if this movie just stayed with the cattle drive to save the ranch storyline I think the movie would have been much better then it is. However, the film continued on and on, and on some more, ultimately ending with the Japanese bombing of Darwin during World War II. This movie was so long (3 hours) that I felt like I was watching multiple movies, especially considering how the plot went in different directions. The whole bombing of Darwin storyline should have been saved for sequel and not even have been in this movie.
Problems with the Movie
Some other problems with the movie was the lack of character development in the movie that when characters die I could care less since the director spent little time developing any emotional attachment between the characters and the audience. I found it interesting that with two heavy weight stars in the movie like Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, the most memorable character in the movie was the young Aboriginal boy Nullah played by Brandan Walters who has never starred in a movie before.
Brandon Walters also happened to be the same kid used in the new Australia tourism commercials that are trying to take advantage of publicity from the Australia movie.
Also the movie used way to much computer animations and the animations were quite poorly done. Australia has incredible landscapes but for whatever reason the director Baz Luhrmann spent more time showing computer animations then the real Outback. When Luhrmann got around to showing some sweeping vistas of the Outback they were stunning, why couldn’t the entire movie had been like that?
Also the history and geography in the movie was inaccurate. For example they are conducting a cattle drive south to north in the Northern Territory to Darwin yet they end up in the Bungle Bungles in Western Australia. Some examples of historical inaccuracies was that while traveling through the Outback Hugh Jackman’s character sees a large American Army contingent traveling towards Darwin. The US Army never deployed a force to Darwin and they sure the heck wouldn’t be traveling through the middle of the Outback on no roads to get there. The US Army Air Corps at the time deployed aircraft at runway strips around Darwin but never deployed a conventional Army force.
Plus the most glaring example of historical inaccuracy was the bombing of Darwin itself. In the movie the entire city of Darwin was destroyed by the bombing killing many civilians. The movie even had the Japanese bombing a children’s school on an island just off of Darwin and then followed that by having a Japanese force land on the island looking to kill survivors. The Japanese during the first bombing of Darwin in February 1942 did not destroy the entire town and they never even landed a force on Australian territory.
Something else I didn’t like was the dwelling on the political topic of the “Stolen Generations” which is the claim that the Australian government for racist reasons was stealing Aboriginal children. This is far from being a cut and dry issue and yet throughout the movie the stealing of Aboriginal children comes up all the way to the end credits. The movie in my opinion didn’t need to dwell into such politics especially for a movie wanting to promote Australia because the film makes Australians look like a bunch of racists which is not the case.
Plus I found the depiction of the Aborigines in the film to be very stereotypical and not accurate with Aboriginal characters in the movie casting magic spells and communicating by telepathy. If you want to watch a film that gives a much better depiction of Aboriginal life in the bush long ago, I recommend watching Ten Canoes because the Australia movie does not.
In fact I found the low budget film Ten Canoes that does not have any English because the actors speak only their native Aboriginal language more entertaining then the big budget Australia film. That should tell you something about how disappointing this big budget movie production was.
Conclusion
The Australia movie should have been a Lonesome Dove staged in the Outback with sweeping vistas of Australia. Instead Australia was turned into a movie weighed down with political statements, a convoluted plot, and clunky computer graphics. This movie could have been so much better if the characters were more memorable, the storyline focused on the cattle drive and not political statements, and if less computer graphics and more sweeping vistas of Australia were used. This would have made the movie more enjoyable and even opened up a possible sequel to the film focused on the bombing of Darwin.
Finally I would be surprised if this movie does anything to really increase Australian tourism like The Lord of the Rings trilogy did to increase tourism in New Zealand. This is because first of all the movie is no where near as good as The Lord of the Rings and the movie did not focus as much as it should on the Australian scenery . Secondly with the movie’s heavy focus on the Stolen Generations, who wants to visit a country of white racists?
So yes the movie has a lot of problems and was a let down. I would be surprised if it even tops the box office this weekend and once word of mouth about the movie spreads it probably won’t even remain in the Top 10 very long. This is unfortunate for a movie that should have been a box office hit and will instead probably be destined to be in the discount DVD bin at Wal-mart in the non too distant future.
I figured this issue would be rectified once elected officials corrected the uncaring bureaucracy:
Australia’s immigration minister has granted permanent residency to a German family whose application was twice denied because their 13-year-old son’s Down syndrome was deemed a drain on the country’s health system.
The case provoked widespread public outrage, putting pressure on Immigration Minister Chris Evans to intervene.
On Wednesday, Evans ruled that the Moeller family was making a “valuable contribution” to their local community and that they would be allowed to stay on in Australia once their temporary visa expires in March 2010.
Bernhard Moeller, a doctor, moved his family to Horsham in western Victoria two years ago to fill a doctor shortage. He is the only internal medicine specialist serving 20,000 people in the area.
“Dr. Moeller is providing a much needed service in the area, the family have integrated very well and they have substantial community support,” Evans told the Senate on Wednesday.
Moeller told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a CNN affiliate, that waiting for the news has been stressful.
“But now I am really happy,” he said. “We’ve been jumping for joy.” [CNN]
The sinking of the Australian dollar is expected to get even worse:
THE Australian dollar will hit an all-time low of US47c by the middle of next year, a major French bank says.
Meanwhile, several economists are expecting official interest rates to fall to the lowest levels in almost half a century as Australia faces the biggest global economic turmoil since the end of World War II.
BNP Paribas says the domestic currency will plunge, from its present level of US65c, by the June quarter of 2009, as the economies of Australia’s major trading partners softened.
“The slowdown in the economies of Australia’s main trading partners, particularly in Asia, implies that export demand will soften,” the bank said in a global outlook report for December 2008.
“Nonetheless, net exports are likely to receive some benefit from the plunge in the Australian dollar exchange rate.”
The Australian dollar fell to an all-time low of US47.78c in April 2001 in the wake of the tech wreck.
A tumble to US47c would represent a 52 per cent dive since mid July when the Australian dollar reached a 25-year high of US98.49c. [AAP]
I think this news is going to spoil a lot of Australian vacation plans going to the US. However, I am willing to bet that domestic tourism by Australians will increase which is of course a good thing.
This picture of the day is from the Barrington Tops National Park in New South Wales:
Born from an ancient volcano, Barrington Tops National Park (NP), 40 km west of Gloucester, forms part of the Great Escarpment. Steep ridges rise from near sea level to more than 1500 m, and many untamed streams and rivers flow from their great heights. A wide range of plants and animals have made this rugged habitat home, including the Hastings River mouse, the rufous scrub-bird and the brilliantly coloured paradise riflebird. More than 50 rare or threatened plants and animals are protected in the Barrington Tops, which is one of the oldest national parks in the State.
Barrington Tops NP is only a 3 hour drive north from Sydney, making it one of the closest Gondwana Rainforest WHA parks to Sydney and Newcastle, and easily accessible to those with limited time or mobility. Whether you’re seeking adventure, a holiday, or simply a beautiful view, Barrington Tops NP has something for everyone. There’s a selection of outstanding scenic drives, as well as a variety of rainforest walks, such as the 2 km Polblue Swamp Track or the Blue Gum Loop Track in the south, or Gloucester Tops to the east. There is no public transport to the park. [Australian Geographic]
The story of the eleven pilot whales that beached themselves on a Tasmanian beach has been making some pretty big global headlines:
Australian scientists are using satellite technology to track 11 whales that survived a mass stranding in the southern state of Tasmania over the weekend. The long-finned pilot whales were the only survivors of a pod of 64 found beached near the small town of Stanley. From Sydney, Phil Mercer reports.
Volunteers spent the weekend tending to the stranded whales, which had beached themselves near Stanley on Tasmania’s north-west coast. Fifty-three of the large marine mammals died but rescuers did manage to save 11 others.
They were taken back into deeper water. Tracking devices the size of a matchbox were attached to the dorsal fin of five long-finned pilot whales.
The devices show the whales have been swimming freely in open seas in Bass Strait, the large body of water that separates Tasmania from the Australian mainland.
Scientist Rosemary Gales hopes the global positioning technology will last.
“That is a little bit of an unknown because we haven’t done this before. It partly depends on how often the fin, the dorsal fin is out of the water because it can only transmit out of the water and then that in turn has an effect on its battery life. But we are hoping several weeks at this point,” said Gales. [Voice of America]
Let’s hope these tracking devices do work and that these whales do no beach themselves again.
VICTORIA’S wild weather looks set to continue, with predictions of further flash flooding, gale-force winds and hail and snow in some parts overnight and today.
State Emergency Services responded to more than 200 calls for help across the state yesterday, mostly because of fallen trees and powerlines.
Two women were rescued after a tree collapsed on their car in Emerald. The driver, aged in her 50s, and passenger, aged in her 80s, were treated at the scene for hand injuries and taken to hospital.
For the third time in three years, East Gippsland residents sandbagged homes and businesses.
SES Victorian co-ordinator Stephen Warren said moderate flood warnings were in place for four rivers in East Gippsland.
“If we get a lot more rain it would affect towns such as Orbost and Bairnsdale. And predictions are we will,” he said.
At Mt Hotham, the coldest place in Victoria at -2.7C, there was a surprise snowfall.
Falls Creek also experienced a November fall, which residents said was the first in five years. [Herald-Sun]
Keep in mind that in recent years these late snows are not unsual. Last year snow fell in the middle of summer time on Mt. Hotham and two years ago it snowed across the Victorian high country on Christmas Day:
This is just another example of where this eco-loon can find his snow.
Just another example of Australia’s incredible marine bio-diversity that just so happens to absorb large quantities of Co2:
Large numbers of ‘marine ‘jelly balls’ that have appeared off the east coast of Australia could be part of the planet’s mechanism for combating global warming, scientists have said.
The jellyfish-like animals are known as salps, and feed on small plants in the water called phytoplankton (marine algae).
The plants absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the top level of the ocean.
Dr Mark Baird of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said salps were notoriously difficult for scientists to study in the laboratory and little attention has been paid to their ecological role until recently. (….)
Different species of salp have been found in waters around the world and attention is now being paid to what effect they may have on global warming.
Salps are also of interest because in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica they are thought to be displacing krill, an important food source for many marine animals.
By eating the algae, the salps turn the algae and their carbon dioxide into faeces which drops to the ocean floor. They also take carbon to the floor with them when they die after a short two-week life cycle.
This is thought to be a natural form of carbon sequestration similar to what scientists are trying to do with carbon capture from emission sources such as power stations. [Daily Mail]
Well these jelly balls could be nature’s answer to global warming if global warming is even happening considering scientists are now saying we are heading for an ice age.
This picture is from the Australian Traveler reader submitted picture gallery. Canberra gets a lot of flak from Australians but being someone that has traveled to Canberra many times since moving to Australia, Canberra’s reputation within Australia is not deserved. As this picture shows it is actually quite a beautiful area and since it is the nation’s capitol, the city has a vibe unlike any other in the country.
You can read more about my travels to Canberra here.
West Australia is home to many of the world’s largest fish, the whale shark, but leave it to a scientist to be excited about whale shark poo:
Catching an elusive whale shark as big as a bus taking a toilet break may not excite the average nature lover.
But for one researcher it was a rare opportunity to collect a poo sample from the world’s biggest fish.
Dr Mark Meekan said they had struck ‘scientific gold’, which will shed new light on the whale shark’s feeding habits.
Footage of the incident was caught on camera for the first time and appears as part of Whale Shark, a Natural World film tracing Dr Meekan’s year-long quest to find out more about the rare animal.
He said: ‘It does seem rather weird, someone being so excited about seeing whale shark poo. And I’m pretty certain that this is the first time it has been filmed.
‘But it is pretty rare – they are usually doing their business down in much deeper water.’ [Daily Mail]
As much as some of you all would probably want to see it, no video of the whale shark poo is available publicly at this time.
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