Cattle Drive on Drugs
A commanding majority of Rotten Tomatoes critics have today reminded themselves that Baz Luhrman, the director of Australia, is more or less certifiable (in a creative, go-for-broke sense of the term) as well as recognized the fact that Australia itself is a work of overwhelming psychedelic cinematic kitsch.
Many of them clearly emerged from their Australia screenings “drained and weakened,” as Salon‘s Stephanie Zacharek puts it, “as if suffering from a gradual poisoning at the hands of a mad scientist.” Or, as I put it on 11.20, as if “injected with Baz serum.”
It is marked, as the Chicago Tribune‘s Michael Phillips puts it, by “constant visual redirection, strenuous comic relief, a synthetically preordained, romance, on the verge of morphing into a singing-cowboy musical. With Zeros.”
N.Y. Times critic Manohla Dargis calls it “a pastiche of genres and references wrapped up — though, more often than not, whipped up — into one demented and generally diverting horse-galloping, cattle-stampeding, camera-swooping, music-swelling, mood-altering widescreen package…a testament to movie love at its most devout, cinematic spectacle at its most extreme, and kitsch as an act of aesthetic communion.”
Marshall Fine calls it “sprawling, silly, overlong and bizarrely bogus-looking. All of that scenery — and Luhrmann is dicking around on sound stages with green screens. Plot and character are both drawn in the broadest strokes; a subtle moment would die of loneliness.”
New York‘s David Edelstein says it’s “blessed with dialogue that defies parody. In one scene, the transplanted Englishwoman (Nicole Kidman) gazes moist-eyed on the rough-and-ready cattleman (Hugh Jackman) as he caresses an edgy stallion, and you know her line will be a clever variation on ‘You really have a gift with horses.’ Instead, she says, ‘You really have a gift with horses.’ It’s like that all the way through.”
I especially love this Edelstein riff on Kidman’s facial work: “I’ve always admired her gumption in working so hard to overcome a certain temperamental tightness — but that tightness has now spread to her skin. In one scene, she haltingly sings ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ to an orphaned half-caste; but watching that big immovable forehead, I thought of another bit from The Wizard of Oz: ‘Oiiil caaan.’
Aw, now that’s just mean. Botox addiction is nothing to laugh at!
Not that I think she uses it. I just think she isn’t a very expressive actress. She works best in minimalist roles like Birth.
Probably seeing this with the family tomorrow. Expect to enjoy it despite the critical drubbing (we’ll see).
“I especially love this Edelstein riff on Kidman’s facial work: “I’ve always admired her gumption in working so hard to overcome a certain temperamental tightness — but that tightness has now spread to her skin. In one scene, she haltingly sings ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ to an orphaned half-caste; but watching that big immovable forehead, I thought of another bit from The Wizard of Oz: ‘Oiiil caaan.’”
Personally I find comments like this one to be unprofessional and beyond the role of “film criticism” and more like some sort of personal stab by Edelstein, who really should be ashamed himself for making a comment about an actress’ physical appearance like this. And people wonder why there’s such a huge disconnect between the public and critics and why the latter are being laid off faster than MTA workers. This is SHAMEFUL.
It’s official! EDouglas IS Nicole Kidman.
Wells to Ed Douglas: All things that an actor has and projects are fair game for criticism once they take the stage or appear on-screen. As long as a critic writes well, lay on! The esteemed critic John Simon made a cottage industry out of ridiculing the physical oddities and shortcomings of this and that performer. Read what he said about Liza Minelli in the early ’70s: “[Hers] is a face going off in three directions simultaneously: the nose always en route to becoming a trunk, blubber lips unable to resist the pull of gravity, and a chin trying its damnedest to withdraw into the neck.”
Critics are being laid off b/c they’er commenting on the actors’ physical appearances? That’s a new one.
Nicole’s face is fair game, because her lack of facial elasticity is so distracting on screen. Her looks would not be even a remotely negative talking point if not for all of the hair dying, skin-lasering and God knows what else she has done to herself post-Cruise. The woman who gave interviews circa 2001 is virtually unrecognisable. As it is, she looks like a 55-year-old trying to look like a 40-year-old, and it is a tragedy because detracts from her work.
gruver1 Author Profile Page says …
Wells to Ed Douglas: All things that an actor has and projects are fair game for criticism once they take the stage or appear on-screen. As long as a critic writes well, lay on! The esteemed critic John Simon made a cottage industry out of ridiculing the physical oddities and shortcomings of this and that performer. Read what he said about Liza Minelli in the early ’70s: “[Hers] is a face going off in three directions simultaneously: the nose always en route to becoming a trunk, blubber lips unable to resist the pull of gravity, and a chin trying its damnedest to withdraw into the neck.”
you’re the best Jeff!
Manhola had the FUNNIEST line; I laughed out loud when I read it.
“Luhrmann is a maximalist”.
Maybe that’s been used before, but I’ve never heard it, and is there a better way to describe the guy’s sensibility, without really knocking him?
Baz Luhrman makes one appreciate the delicate subtlety of Ken Russell.
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