JINDABYNE

Well, last week saw cherry popper Paul Cooper exclaim as we left the nova after seeing Jindabyne:

Paul: Writing a soundtrack to a film would be easy

Me: What!? (wipes tears away from red puffy eyes) Are you a retard?

Paul: No, but a retard could write a soundtrack to a film...

Please foward all complaints to sonofjive@gmail.com

Ok! So! Moving on...pshft retard could write a sound track to a film...What. EVA.

There were mixed reviews to Jindabyne. The lovebirds (yes thats you Lu and Nick) thought it a bit heavy. And sometimes that got too much and you just didn't care anymore.

I don't necessarily agree with this but I can see where they're coming from. The movie is tense...the whole way through. There are awkward transitions between scenes at times and this sort of creates a discomfort with the filmmkaing which doesn't always completely engage you. What I found however, whenever this happened at the beginning of a new scene and my innner thoughts went *sigh* over it. don't care. By the end of the scene I was taken in again.

Laura Linney carried the film and I think she did it extremely well, I really felt for Claire who was trapped not only by what to believe and this weird thing that the man she loves did but also by her past, and some instability that she has had in the past. Man that sounds like such a shit review form some ex-arts uni student. What I loved about Claire's plight was this whole friction between feminine emotionality and masculine rationality...neither of these things actually exist becuase emotionality and rationality are of course linked...they have to be. But women's emotional states are still often described as unstable, over reacting or mentally ill particularly in comparison to the no bull shit ways of the Australian male...And now we come to the poor old Aussie males who never get a good wrap in Aussie films...they are always destined to fail in some way. And Jindabyne continues this, what is called the, AFC tradition.

I love John Howard. Always have always will...if there any quips about the motherfruiting (fully aware of work related coarse language filters here) roostersucking dispassionate American bottom fiddling evil evil man who leads our country and not the actor I will have your heart cut out with a spoon...

"Why a spoon? Why not an axe?"

Becuase it's dull you twit it'l hurt more!

Anyway Chris Haywood, well, he's a good actor and I recently saw a beautiful performance from him at the 11th hour Theatre in King John but he seems to be pretending to be Tom Long (you know the dopey police officer in Seachange). I reckon, only because I have enjoyed watching him perform in The Proposition, Candy and Australian rules, but I reckon Tom Budgee (is that his name?) would have done something really interesting with this character. Chris seems to go for the obvious almost cartoon like options for his innoscent character Billy.

Jindabyne is very similar in its 'its for older people' styled narrative to Lantana. But it feels more complex and interesting to watch. the pictures are very pretty too. Its pretty easy to get good pictures when your in that incredible landscape of Koziosko National Park. OH! I amost forgot, watch out for the little girl, shes a genius, slightly evil, but beautiful and innoscent all at the same time...Tom the son, is really good as well, but he's juct so cute that it makes me wary of him and his powers of manipulation.