The movie is based on a poem by one of Australia's most famous poets. See this link for additional info and for the text of the poem:
http://www.snowymountains.com.au/The_Snowy_River.html On Nov 24, 2009, at 6:28 PM, John Sherrer wrote:
Hi JohnWhile we are talking about rivers, one of my favorites is the "Man from Snowy River". Is there any basis of truth for the legend?John http://WhiteCane.org http://BlindWoodWorker.com http://HolyTeaClub.comcom\whitecane http://anellos.ws ----- Original Message ----- From: JDM To: blindwoodworker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 11:46 PM Subject: [blindwoodworker] Re: 54Eucalyptus? G'day Larry,I've not seen, nor listened to, the movie "Australia." But, I did hear that it got a very cool disinterested response at the box office here in Australia. Most folk regarded it as a very corny set of out of date cliche's, that have no relevance to modern day Australia. After all, more than90% of Australia's 22 million people live in a major, highly urbanised city, with little contact to rural farm life. Most Australians recognised the movie for what it was, which is basically a Tourism advertisement, which hoped to attract international visitors. The basic story line was also heavily criticised here as a shallow cliche.But, as i've not seen the movie, i'm not really in a position to make any comment. So, below, i've copied and pasted 2 reviews of the movie, reviews which were made shortly after the movie's release here. The first review is from "The Age" a very conservative newspaper here, while the second review is from a radio station JJJ, marketed to the under 25's audience.OK, hope you enjoy the following 2 reviews. John Melbourne Australia. Review#1: "The Age" Newspaper: Jim Schembri, reviewer December 2, 2008 "Australia" the Movie. stars-2halfThere are moments while watching Baz Luhrmann's over-sized, over- long Outback weepie Australia when one wonders if there are any tablecloth cliches about Australia that have been missed.No, it all seems to be there. The horses. The cattle. The dust. The rugged Aussie loner. The Aborigine standing on one leg in a loincloth. The beer. The Kangaroos. About the only thing missing is a bloke named Bruce.It may not be the stuff from which classic films are typically born but such cliches provide a great featherbed of easy-to-digest references for the type of sweeping melodramatic saga designed to appeal to the lucrative "chick flick" market and to foreign audiences eager for an attractive holiday destination.By these measures Australia cannot be seriously faulted. With its open links to the Australian tourism industry, the film is a great advertisement.As entertainment, the saga, cringe-inducing as it often is, eventually delivers the type of big, crowd-pleasing, teary emotional pay-off that makes its many long hours and overcooked characters worth enduring, even if the film is 30 minutes too long.Set in the Northern Territory in 1939 on a remote cattle station with the fairytale name of Faraway Downs, Australia tells of the forging of a family. Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) is the prissy English aristocrat who arrives to make a go of the station after the murder of her husband, allegedly by a blackfella called King George (David Gulpilil).Helping her take her cattle to Darwin is the enigmatic Drover (Hugh Jackman), a no-nonsense piece of calender-worthy, girl-baiting Aussie beefcake.Glueing the story together is Nullah (Brandon Walters), a sweet- faced little boy of mixed blood whose stateless status and dubious parentage serves as the lightning rod for the film's over-arching themes of racism, responsibility, love and reconciliation."Review#2: "Australia" the Movie.review by Radio JJJ's, marc fennell 28 November 2008It's here! The movie that’s supposed to save the Australian film industry, rescue Nicole Kidman's career, justify Baz Luhrmans monolithic ego, heal the Stolen Generation, cure cancer, slice bread, place man on the moon andimprove upon the basic orgasm. it is.... AUSTRALIA…Gurd thy loins - The story of a british aristocrat (Kidman), her drover man (Jackman), her indigenous adopted child (Walters) and a shitload of cows traveling across the country has landed, and I believe if you read the fine print on your birth Certificate or passport you'll find that we'reall legally required to go see it. But is Australia all its cracked up to be… Well….. kinda.If you’ve ever seen So You Think You Can Dance you might’ve heard the term "Hot Mess" well Australia is a hot mess. The whole thing smacks of a movie that was half written, shot, reshot, rewritten, then reshot again then rewritten, reshot, re-edited, rewritten and then reshot and re-edited a final time.. then they watched it once more and decided to spend $20 million on blowing up Darwin and hearding some CGI cows off a cliff. That said, there are some truly stunning cinematic moments in Australia - the aforemention stampede, the bombing of darwin, the heartbreaking scenes of Aboriginal Children being ripped from their homes (well, Kidman's home) And David Gulilpill standing on some rocks peering into yoursoul is eery to say the least.But almost none of it flows and fits together. Some parts are large and majestic, then it'll become a cartoon. A bit of high-camp I can enjoy but, almost every 30 minutes on the dot the movie will stop to show us a bunch of Tourism Australia landscape shots. I kept expecting Jackman to turn to camera and say "You'llNever Never Know, If You Never Never Go".The plot's key turning points have either too much or not enough emphasis and are often in the wrong spot. The whole last half of the movie (The Bombing of Darwin and so on) could easily have been shifted earlier for a punchier, more wrenching ending. Like I said, this movie wasnt written it was re-written. And nowhere is that more obvious than in the amount of CGI used. The movie is filled with scenes that were half filmed on location, half on green-screen as reshoots. It's not that Baz Loman has bitten off more than he can chew, it's that he's bitten off more than he SHOULD'VE chewed and then pigheadedly insisted on munching through it all, even if it doestake 2 hours and 45 minutes.Yes, Australia is beautiful, Yes I cried a bit in parts. But lets face it, the outback is awesome and I'm a pansy. Tell ya what the biggest surprise of this movie was though… Nicole Kidman. I had all of my botox jokes ready to go, but y'know what? That damn woman won me over. Not for her dramatic performance but for her comictiming. She played the stuck-up English bitchhillariously. She nails it. And also young Brandon Walters, found via a nationwide callout, is stunning. Except for his voice-over narration. Another tell-talesign of an under-written flick.Finally though, if you want a new drinking game.. then try taking a shot everytime someone says "Crikey." I guarantee you'll be too hammered to notice the movie's glaring flaws, and instead soak up the sheer glory of watching the Director, Baz Loman, snorthis own ego through a wide-angle lens." ----- Original Message ----- From: Larry Martin To: blindwoodworker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 4:46 PM Subject: [blindwoodworker] Re: 54Eucalyptus?My wife and I just enjoyed watching the DVD Australia. What was the local reaction to the movie?On Nov 22, 2009, at 9:57 PM, JDM wrote:G'day again John,OK, I now understand, that 54 really puzzled me. But, as for Eucalyptus being easy to work, there is no single answer. I know of more than 300 varieties of the Eucalyptus genus, and each and every one has a different hardness, density, colour and grain patterning and so on. Here, in the State of Victoria the most commonly used Eucalyptus timber is Victorian Mountain Ash, though if the very same timber happens to come from the State of Tasmania, then it is called Tasmanian Oak. The different climatic conditions of the 2 States has a major effect on the hardness, density, workability and colour. Though Tasmanian Oak is truly a variety of the Eucalyptus genus, and completely unrelated to English, European or American Oak, it was called Oak by the early English settler pioneers because of its very similar appearance and working characteristics.Unlike the USA, where much of your timber seems to be flat sawn, all timber that is grown and milled in Australia is quarter sawn, or occasionally rift sawn. A consequence of this is that here we do not see any lumber which has the cathedral patterns of the growth rings on the board faces. In quarter sawn timber the growth ring cathedrals would appear on the edges of the boards. But of course, the thinness of the edges precludes the cathedrals from ever being seen.North American furniture makers seem to utilise these cathedral patterns as an integral part of their overall design to give their pieces a very characteristic American or Canadian look. Australian furniture lumber is all very straight grained, and character can only be imparted by the incorporation of knot marks, gum veins and shakes into the design.Below, after my signature, is a list of 284 varieties of Australian Eucalyptus.Hope this has been of interest, John Milburn Melbourne Australia.
Larry Martin woodworkingfortheblind@xxxxxxxxxxx
