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robincru21
Reviews
Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010)
I just don't get it Stuart
Brain to self: an obvious turkey on the shelf but you had to rent it didn't you.
The Pirates movies and Collateral were good writing. So WTF is this? Does this mean it was the directors who fixed those scripts and not Stuart Beattie? OK this is an adaptation from a kids book series but when it's an adaptation directed by a writer with Beattie's record one would expect the cheese filter would have extracted the cheese surely? So why did I just sit through 35 minutes of pan-seared saginaki before asphyxiating on it?
Schoolies flocked to this film and if they want to watch TV teen soaps each night or go see one like this at the movies, then good luck to the people marketing this film. Apparently they netted the audience they wanted in Australia at least.
AND for those reviewers scratching their heads over so many 'great reviews here' I offer this - IE how hard is it to get your PR person to write 20 glowing, congratulatory reviews for your own movie, then post them on IMDb? Reputation Management companies do this for a living. I recognized the same hand here in several wildly happy reviews.
The King (2007)
But where's the jester
This TV movie title tells us Graham Kennedy was the anointed king of the formative years of Australian television but the writers here failed by not showing enough of how he earned that reputation.
He was supposedly the funniest media entertainer of his era but besides brief moments with giant cat food cans and a cough medicine send up, we see very little proof. Although well- produced and Stephen Curry won an AFI Award for the role, all surviving close friends of the real Kennedy were united in their comments that there was nothing of the Graham Kennedy they knew in this production's portrayal. So what was missing? - possibly the profound brightness, warmth and humour he was most famous for. Curry is good, but on best advice he's playing an expedient character the writers have cooked up - the opportunity for a more memorable biography lost with the failure to expose the real Kennedy - the starting point for a decent biography.
More foolish again is the insulting portrayal of Channel 9 anchorman Geoff Corke, the first man on a TV broadcast in Melbourne. The lazy writers try to re-invent Corke as a dime-store Indian. Corke was a driving force in the founding of television production and station management. People like Corke had no predecessors or role models. They created and defined the technique of TV production and presentation. Corke was hugely popular - his wedding in Melbourne was an unprecedented media event there drawing a crowd of 15,000. Graham Kennedy was there too as best man. Only the dynamic of Kennedy and Newton combined managed to challenge Corke's position at the top.
The Nine Network's involvement in the production is obvious with the polite rendition of former CEO bully Frank Packer. This forlock-tugging production would have us believe Packer was the King. Of goblins maybe.
Archive footage of Kennedy on air shows him laughing until the tears stream down his face - with people like Corke stage managing Kennedy's live to air anarchy and loving it. That's what was uniquely Australian about this era of TV. It's largely missing in this movie.