Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman star in the upcoming western epic AUSTRALIA(2008).
© 20th Century Fox
Maniac Gives Early Praise to Luhrmann's AUSTRALIA
By: Jarrod SarafinDate: Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Source: Mania Stewie
We still have over four months to go before Baz Luhrmann's western epic Australia debuts in theaters November 14, 2008 but that's not stopping early word from getting out on the film. In fact, a fellow Maniac who we will codename "Stewie" had a chance to watch a working print of the film. While obvious unfinished FX shots were left to the viewer's imagination, it seems he was impressed with what he saw.
After receiving his thoughts on the film, we talked about the unfinished footage and the current release date for the film. Given the work that needs to be done to the shots and the fact that the current release date has it sandwiched between Bond's Quantum of Solace (Nov 7) and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (Nov 21), there's a good bet an epic of this magnitude will get pushed to sometime in December. It would give the crew more time to finish post production and would fit better in that month. But of course, don't hold us to that.
Now, it's time for his thoughts. Here's what he had to say on the rough cut.
They told us (and from what I can tell, they weren't kidding) that we were the first audience in the world to see this film, and it was excruciatingly rough. The SFX are no where even CLOSE to complete (they were using computer models and paintings on more than one occasion.)
Visually...gorgeous. Graphics work to be done aside, this easily could be a contender for cinematography and direction Oscars. It was trying to be Gone with the Wind and Atonement all at once. The war scenes were *very* good, the Gone with the Windesque stuff had a ways to go, but was definitely entertaining.
It is going to be epic, it is going to be an awards contender (IF they can figure out how to end it. They threw in four or five different scenes that easily could have worked as endings and were definitely shot as such...but the film kept going and going and going.)
Kidman was stellar, but I've seen her play the role a few times before and that took away from it some. Jackman...I was going to say it's a career defining performance, but I think he'll always be Wolverine. On the serious side, this is at *minimum* as good as he was in Prestige.
On a sidenote, I heard a few people saying "God, he looked just like Clint Eastwood." as a testament to Hugh Jackman's visual likeness in the film.
There's a little boy in it named Brandon Walters who could swipe a supporting actor nod if the academy is feeling generous.
I didn't like the villian, definitely want to see his scenes cut, definitely want about half an hour cut from it for clarity's sake (it ran nearly 3 hours!), and the visuals definitely need polish (to put it nicely...to put it bluntly they should get the f'n computer models out of there!)
Gonna be a good film. Probably a better than good film. It's got Luhrmann written all over it in that it will probably be a "love it or hate it" movie, and will probably get slaughtered at the box office unless they market the HELL out of it.
Overall, my initial reaction was that you could split it into thirds: One part western, one part romance, one part war movie. Now I'm thinking that it could be looked at more as half western, half war movie, with romance woven throughout, but never dominating.
Beyond that, I don't think I should give away more plot than what's already been revealed. Suffice it to say, it may take a while to grow on you, but this has the makings of a brilliant piece of work that needs to be about half an hour shorter.
That said, it's definitely something I'll go back to see the final cut of.
---"Stewie"
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