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Reviews
Cosi (1996)
Another dud from the Australian Film Finance Corporation
I found this one embarrassing to watch, from start to finish. At first it was just the bad acting; Mendellson was so droll and Friels wooden, and most others were just over the top, like they were acting in a child's pantomime but saying "f...k" a lot. Then the implausibility of the screenplay and plot really started to bother me. The cinematic and plot clichés were an insult to anyone's intelligence. How do they get away with receiving funding for this type of movie? What do they write in their grant acquittals? Do they keep a straight face? I don't think so. Well, I guess they all had a bit of fun making it, because Rozelle hospital's a nice place to hang out and everybody loves working with pigs on set.
Oyster Farmer (2004)
Nothing to recommend this film
My partner and I were just sitting around discussing some of the worst films we'd ever seen. The Oyster Farmer came up, being a really pathetic film, and so we looked on the IMDD website to read the user comments, and were shocked to see such a high score. I can only think that the comments were by other Australians who like to talk up their own country's products, like the way people vote on Eurovision Song Contest night. Or perhaps they liked the look of the river (although cinematically, so much more could have been made of that) so I guess they were just fondly remembering some childhood holidays there. So what's wrong with this film, you ask? Firstly, it's plot is incredibly contrived it is almost twisted around the location. Also, the acting is awful; very amateurish, and they've had little help from the Dirctor. Thirdly, the actors had so little to work with in terms of script; there are no characters in this film, only caricatures. Stylistically it is akin to the Australian soap opera Home and Away, only with worse acting and less character development. There is some comedy in the film; it takes the form of some dumb characters being dumb. The sex scene near the end is so out of place and seems completely arbitrary; I think it's there actually to provide a climax of sorts. So, for all those users who voted this empty little film-making exercise up the ranks, try watching it again, but more objectively this time. I'm sure you'll come to see that it's actually very lowbrow indeed.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)
A gaudily wrapped empty box.
Apparently the producers spent $50,000,000 on this, and there is little justification for it. An extraordinary waste of money, Gilliam's film is not so much confusing as confused. It suffers from an identity crisis, treading a tightrope between children's fantasy, action and comedy, and falls off it repeatedly. As a comedy it's rarely funny, as an action film it's not suspenseful enough, and as a children's fantasy it fails to transport the viewer into its world (and is not really appropriate for children). The film's only redeeming quality is its set design; there is some merit in the baroque visuals. However, the combination of a poor script (improvised?), tedious plot and ham acting have joined forces to drown this misadventure.