Archive for January, 2009
Monday the 26th of January is a public holiday down under for Australia Day (think along the lines of The Fourth of July for USA). This long weekend marks the perfect and patriotic time to take family and friends to see Luhrmann’s epic Australia.
If you’re living in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth or Sydney take a picnic, some wine and head on out one evening this weekend to your local moonlight cinema as they’re holding special long weekend screenings. Most shopping and event attractions are closed on the public holiday Monday, but many cinema chains will be open and are also holding special Australia Day screenings.
To those around the world, ex-pats and moviegoers alike, you don’t need an excuse to see this movie (again!), but now that you have one why not help the country celebrate in style?
SEE ‘AUSTRALIA’ THIS AUSTRALIA DAY!
January 24th, 2009
Congratulations to
Catherine Martin on receiving an
Academy Award nomination for her outstanding work in the field of Costume Design for
Australia. In a successful career with many accolades, this marks CM’s fourth Oscar nomination, having previously been nominated for Art Direction with her work on
Romeo + Juliet, and following through to win in the categories of Art Direction and Costume Design for the 2001
Luhrmann film
Moulin Rouge!
Though the film itself is not nominated, with Hugh Jackman as the evening’s dashing host and CM amongst the glamorous nominees, you can be sure Australia will be on the minds of many.
If you too are a fan of Catherine’s work, be sure to take a look at her original costume design sketches as featured in our gallery, or even visit her website to purchase a CM original of your own!
January 22nd, 2009
Official news that Australia will be arriving on DVD in the not too distant future! 20th Century Fox have announced that on March 3rd we (possibly USA only, thus far) will receive the film on Blu-ray Disc. For now the DVD extras are limited but, perhaps pending viability, director Baz Luhrmann has mentioned that he hopes to release a supersized version of the film on DVD by December 2009.
Features for the iminent release include:
Deleted Scenes:
- What about the drove?
- Angry staff serve dinner
- Australia: The people, the history,
the location featurette [Blu-ray only]
Behind-the-Scenes: [Blu-ray only]
- Photography
- Production Design
- Costume Design
- Locations
- Cinematography
- Sound
- Editing
- Music
- Visual Effects
source: high def disc news
January 14th, 2009
Time for a revisiting, all the way back to November 2008. Seems so long ago now, which is why it is particularly strange to have an interview released then, but all of a sudden make headlines now. In November, Australia was being premiered and the stars were out doing their usual media interviews.
Nicole Kidman took part in an interview with Australian radio hosts Kyle Sanderlands & Jackie O. Those who have listened to their show in our media section or from the 2dayFM website know that it carries a candid, friendly and jovial atmosphere. Amongst other things she discussed how she is self conscious watching her own performances in all her films, a known trait of this shy but accomplished actress.
It’s interesting to see the amount of times this very site has had to point out the lack of research conducted by the present day media. With all the eyes of the world on this film, Australia still stands tall despite taking many hits to the chest throughout its run, most of them undeserved, particularly the latest in regards to Kidman. The internet is a very powerful tool for spreading information, unfortunately there’s no one to separate fact from fiction. All it took was one small foreign site to mis-translate and state Nicole’s words grossly out of context and before you know it reputable news outlets were actually carrying fanciful stories about Kidman not being proud of her work in Australia, or unable to look at it.
“It is quite ridiculous for anyone to believe the reports if they listened to the actual interview,” a spokeswoman for Kidman said. “It’s hard to believe some of the world’s media have fallen for it.”
But eagerness to tear down a Hollywood star has yet again prevailed over the ability of many to convey a simple act of journalism. Fact checking. For this reason we encourage everyone to listen to the interview in question. Fan of Kidman or not, you’ll quickly see how misrepresented and out of context her alleged statements are. It also serves as a reminder to the consuming public, don’t believe everything you read.
We also recommend this insightful NY Times blog, stemming from the debacle about “The Perils of Candor” and how stars are just going to become more closed up when giving interviews in the future. After the hand that Kidman has been recently dealt with blown out issues from her TV and Radio appearances, one couldn’t blame her from shunning them altogether. Thankfully she’s a professional and continues to allow us insights into her career.
January 13th, 2009
Keen to find out what makes director Baz Luhrmann tick? Click on to your iTunes online store and you’ll be able to download a very special – and FREE – Q&A with the man himself.
Direct from New York City, Apple presents “Meet The Filmmaker” a 56 minute special in which Luhrmann goes in depth to discuss the making of his latest epic, Australia.
Also in a follow up to our article last week, ‘Australia Adds Up‘, detailing the success of Australia at the box office we’d like to draw your attention to this latest press release which includes some very exciting information, including the fact that at home Australia has now outgrossed Luhrmann’s last film Moulin Rouge! and other blockbusters such as Sex In The City, Mamma Mia, Indiana Jones and Qantum of Solice. By the end of it’s run in Oz Australia is set to be one of the highest grossing films in the last 12 months, second only to The Dark Knight.
January 7th, 2009
“Where’s the Australia Soundtrack?”, “Who composed the score?”, “Where can I purchase David Hirschfelder’s music from the film?” and again “Where is the Australia Soundtrack?” are just a mere few examples of many many e-mail enquiries, forum posts, and guestbook entries wanting to know what on earth Bazmark and 20th Century Fox are doing. Even a large amount of our site traffic is coming from other forums and serach results looking for the same thing.
At first it appeared there was simply a delay, but as time goes on it’s fast becoming a disappointing reality that the score for this film, by musician David Hirschfelder, may not be made available to the public. We’ve been told that the rights obviously lay with Bazmark and Fox, and beyond that it is unknown what the decision for release will be but, “at this point it doesn’t look likely”.
It’s a befuddling world we are living in when random films such as Just Like Heaven, Serendipity and The Wedding Planner have soundtracks made available but an epic film such as Australia cannot release a hardcopy CD containing the works of an award winning composer. Where’s the logic?
With the recent boost in interest generated by international filmgoers, there may still be a chance for the soundtrack to reveal itself yet. However in the meantime davidhirschfelder.com has generously put five full songs from the Australia score in high quality streaming format on the composer’s official website.
The website reads, “David spent 7 months on the project from temp to trailers to finished score. His imposing score at times combines frenetic percussion of pounding cattle hooves melding on the barren red desert and river beds to the majesty of a herd of wild brumbies galloping across the dusty plains. With over 2 hours of underscore it is hard to pick highlights…”
Tracks made available are Bombing of Darwin, Nullah Enchants Sarah, England to Oz, Stampede and Nullah is Safe. The website is best viewed using Internet Explorer.
January 5th, 2009
Only a mere days ago Australia was given wider international release into countries such as the UK, Germany, Italy and France; and filmgoers have flocked to see the epic over the holiday period. As the movie was released less than a week ago full Box Office figures are not yet available, however Variety is already reporting that the film is number one in Spain with a taking of $6.26m AUD, and doing just as well in France and Germany with $11.38m AUD between the pair. Slightly slower on uptake is the UK where the film opened at number 3 reports The Australian.
At home Australia continues to gain an audience. After spending several weeks at number one the film dropped to fifth place this weekend due to the influx of new films being released, but surprisngly against the trend it was the only film to increase its intake by three percent on the previous weekend. Perhaps showing that a lot of the adult target audience had waited until their holidays to catch the film. Based on AUD figures from UrbanCinefile, after five weeks of screening Australia is now at $25,281,120, which is interestingly still marginly ahead of blockbuster Titanic which took $25.8Mil in six weeks of screening down under. Also of note, Australia has replaced Crocodile Dundee II in the Australian Box Office hall of fame as fifth ranked homegrown movie of all time. Next in line for dethroning is Luhrmann’s own Moulin Rouge! with a taking of $27.7Mil it seems entirely possible!
What does all this mean? Overall BoxOfficeMojo states that as of December 30th Australia has currently made apx $91mil USD ($129,493,000AUD). With this fresh and successful wave of foreign market release Australia can enter 2009 with a steady and postive outlook for those who are interested in more than just artistic merit.
with thanks to: jackson_bay_mystery
January 1st, 2009
