Australia - Crikey, it's a bloody good movie!

Emotive. Like the Titanic, like Jerry Mcguire (prob more of the latter). A sweeping epic, though you felt like you could have been swept away a bit more. It needed a bit more of a James Cameron touch. This is my first movie review - on paper (or on screen; is that right?) - so I want to get this out there.

I tear in movies.

I tear for Hope,
I tear for Inspiration,
I tear for Courage.

So yeah - I teared during Australia.

Perfomances are solid. I thought Kidman was exaggerating slightly initially but that played through after a while. Hugh Jackman is really getting down the tough sensitive guy thing down pat. I don't know if he could play Joker or do a Brokeback Mountain but he's alright.

I liked Moulin Rouge and you can see the Baz connection in both movies. You respect what the Director was aiming to do with the movie. You also get the feeling that perhaps this was just a bit too "sweeping" for Baz. Good attempt though mate. He really is a dreamer, a sort of fairy tale teller and you gotta respect that. One hopes that he stays true to that. I cannot think of many other directors that make a movie like a song. Australia is like a delightful Barry Manilow.

The movie also touched on very heavily one of my fave topics. Identity. Every Australian should watch this. It is a shame my seniors did not tell me the stories, did not pass on the real stories of the challenges they faced and the difficulties they went through and their seniors went through to allow me to live the life that I live. Being an Australian is becoming cooler by the day. We still have the Blacks though. :)

So ... all in all, a good movie, good acting, directing was perhaps a tad off as the flow could have been better and the movie could have come at me harder. Really nice characters, decent script - cinematography could have been better, lovely story (the quasi main focus on the Aboriginal Young'one got the heart strings). Definitely watchable and the tie in with World History is a strong feature.

It could have been an 8 but I am giving it a 6.75/10.

I'll leave you with a quote from the movie that I really, really liked:

"You lose everything, everything in life - all you have are stories" or something like that.

Good on ya mate.