Shameless Self Expression

Susie Porter stars as a lesbian PI (A lesbian dick?) who takes on the case of a missing literature student (Abbie Cornish) and poetry nut. She meets with (and is immediately attracted to) the girl’s uni lecturer (Kelly McGillis), a married woman. Things become even more complicated once it becomes a murder investigation, with Porter busy satisfying her libido and McGillis becoming a possible murder suspect. Marton Csokas (completely unsubtle) plays McGillis’ husband, William Zappa is an arsehole cop, Jim Holt is an aggressively homophobic poet, Deborah Mailman is Porter’s bubbly best friend, John Noble is the dead girl’s grief-stricken father, and Chris Haywood is Porter’s dad. Lots of familiar faces (including Bojana Novakovic, Brendon Cowell, Gigi Edgley, and Annie Jones) fill out the background.   Released in 2000, this Samantha Lang ( “The Idol” , “The Well” ) directed, Anne Kennedy (the New Zealand film “Crush” ) scripted adaptation of the Dorothy Porter novel is ind...

Set during WWI, this film charts the exploits of the title regiment of 800 brave Aussies, mounted soldiers who in a plan devised by British Intelligence officer Anthony Andrews, are called into action to save the Brits from impending Turkish-German doom and heavy gunfire. The goal is to take the Palestinian city of Beersheba. A youthful Peter Phelps is the enthusiastic young ‘un who tries to hang with the big boys (principally the taciturn John Walton, Tim McKenzie, Gary Sweet, and an Irish Jon Blake), but his reticence in pulling the trigger has him eyeing a stint as a medic instead. He also hooks up with a pretty nurse played by Sigrid Thornton. Tony Bonner, Anthony Hawkins, and Bill Kerr (as a Pom!) play the military bigwigs, Gerard Kennedy is a Turkish officer, whilst Serge Lazareff, Grant Piro, and Adrian Wright (the loony doc on TV’s “Prisoner” ) play assorted military men. It won’t stand as one of Australia’s finest films, but this 1987 war flick from Simon Wincer ( “P...

Adam Sandler goes 0-2 in 2011, and this awfully unfunny and desperate comedy directed by Dennis Dugan is even worse than “Just Go With It” . That’s quite an achievement actually (It also won more Razzies than any film previously, winning in every category. Bravo, Mr. Sandler!). In fact, it might just be the worst Adam Sandler vehicle I’ve thus far seen (And I’ve seen “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” !). Sandler and co-writer Steve Koren have taken a not very good concept of Sandler playing male and female twin siblings, and have proceeded to practically do nothing with it at all. Nothing good, at any rate. I knew from the trailer that this would be awful, but actually watching the film whole I honestly can’t believe that even the juvenile Sandler would stoop this low. The plot that has been inspired by this concept is absolutely appalling, and frankly insulting: Jack (Adam Sandler) is a crappy advertising exec desperate to get Al Pacino (Al, you broke my heart!) to appear in a...

Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler are trying to get into a college fraternity and agree to go out and get a stripper for a big frat party. Gedde Watanabe is the nerdy rich kid who has to come along because they need his car (He’s happy for the companionship, contrived as it might be). They venture out into the big city and come across something called the After Dark club. There’s dancers there, alright. However, they’re not your ordinary strippers...they’re also vampires! Before long, Rusler has been bitten in the neck by the beguiling Grace Jones (he thought he had a chance with her!), whilst Makepeace hangs around with a sweet-natured (and human) employee of the club, played by Deedee Pfeiffer. They’ve actually met before, but Makepeace can’t quite place her. Billy Drago turns up as a ghoulish albino thug whose biker gang menaces our protagonists, and Sandy Baron (Jack, Morty’s retirement village nemesis from “Seinfeld” ) is well-cast as the equally ghoulish owner of the After Da...