The Actress Who Never Was or The Mysterious Case of Aya Takanashi: Recognize the Name? Probably not. Most movie resources only show one film on her resume. You will be hard-pressed to find anything at all about her besides this one film.

There are lots of listings which present her bare-bones mini bio. Aya was born in Chiba, Japan,in 1963. That would make her about 46 right now. She acted in a featured role in a movie made in 1992 when she was just 29. She’s 5′ 2 1/2″ inches tall. Now you have what has been called her bio in a trusted web source called IMDB – The Internet Movie Data Base.

Rotten Tomatoes which is another very good movie resource lists her in one movie but shows 0 Photos and 0 Trailers for her.

Not only that, I was unable to find even a single image of her on the Web.It’s like she never existed except for being cast as Tom Selleck’s love interest in the 1992 film, Mr. Baseball.

While the movie Mr. Baseball was never going to win any awards for acting for Tom Selleck, Dennis Haysbert, Ken Takakura, or Ms Aya Takanashi, or for Director Fred Schepisi, it could be called, at minimum, an entertaining baseball movie.

Selleck’s career peaked after 162 episodes of Magnum, P.I. which ran from 1980 t0 1988. This movie followed four years later. Dennis Haysbert is best known for his role as President Palmer on the 24 Series and as the spokesman for The Good Hands people, All State Insurance.

Ken Takakura was a big movie star in Japan for many years. His first credited role was way back in 1956. Now 78 years old, Takakura again came to international notice in Ridley Scott’s Black Rain in 1989. At that time, Takakura had already made more than 125 movies. He has long been known as the Japanese Clint Eastwood.

But what of Aya Takanashi? She has only this one film to her credit. I could  not find any pictures of her on Google. Not one of the main movie resources had anything more than scant info on her.

Okay, why was I even thinking of her?

Well I wasn’t. But last week the New York Yankees won the 2009 World Series of baseball. The MVP of the World Series was the Yankees’ Japanese star Hideki Matsui. Before joining the Yankees in 2003, Matsui had a lengthy baseball career in Japan. Known for his awesome hitting, in Japan, Matsui was called Godzilla.

And that made me think of Selleck’s movie, Mr. Baseball because the  tagline for that film was, “He’s the biggest thing to hit Japan since Godzilla!“

So I started to read some old reviews of the film, and then I decided to see what I could find on Aya Takanashi.

What I turned up about her was next to nothing. She did not have a career in the movies. There were no pictures of her to be found on the internet. I wondered why.

Needless to say – I have no real answers. All that I was able to find was unsubstantiated rumors and suppositions. Some say that the Japanese were offended by the film. At least in the beginning of the film, the Japanese were portrayed as being a humorless bunch, that were tied into following the concept of team harmony even when it was detrimental to the team. Of course generalizations about any country’s citizens are frivolous and should not be taken seriously.

Others have said that the Japanese were offended by the fact that Takanashi’s character, Hiroko, slept with Selleck’s character, Jack Elliot, without the formality of a courtship and marriage. Or even worse, that she portrayed a Japanese woman who had a sexual relationship with a foreigner (gaijin).

Obviously I am not telling anyone that Japanese should or should not be offended. I will reach no conclusions whatsoever on whether this sports movie was or was not offensive.

But either way, Aya Takenashi never worked again in either Hollywood, or in Japanese movies or Japanese television. Her career began and ended with just this one single movie. Was she black-listed? Did the powers that be decide to never employ her again for this ‘transgression’?

I have no answers to those questions. Like many of you who remember the film, I am mystified as to why we never saw Aya Takanashi again. Unless Mr. Schepisi, Mr. Selleck, or Aya Takanashi herself offers us an answer, we will all remain in the dark as to what really happened to this actress’s career.

There’s not much I can do about it, is there? But I can do one thing – this post will provide some images of Aya Takanashi from her role as Hiroko Uchiyama which up to now, have not been readily available anywhere.

After a long while of internal debate, I have fallen victim to one of mainstream society’s most precious online activities, blogging. I will blog what I like and when I like, only because I often feel the need to vent and type.

I will discuss nine films I have recently viewed.

 Kris (Crisis) (1946) by Ingmar Bergman

This is an early Bergman film, certainly different than those of this later career. The premise is surprising simple for a typical Bergman film. A young woman, raised by a woman who is not her mother, living a drab but pleasant life. She has a young man willing to devote himself to her, but she feels out of place, desperate for air and feeling the need to get away from the years of simplicity. And then her birth mother returns, hoping to take back her child and give her a life of ‘luxury’ waltzing around in expensive clothing and working in a salon she has spent years (without her daughter) to establish. Here is where the trouble begins. I won’t ruin the entire plot, but it’s an interesting film for Bergman fans. Unlike his later films, the cinematography here in rather uninspired, but that’s to be expected.

5/10

Requiem for a Dream (2000) by Darren Aronofsky

I cannot believe it has taken me this long to watch this film. It certainly lives up to the hype, but it’s certainly not as ‘brutal’ as some say it is, at least, not by my standards. Addiction is the theme here, whether it be to narcotics or diet pills. It only takes one person who has strayed into this path of habitual dependancy to drag everyone else it knows and loves with them. We have four stories here, all tied by this one person, and each equally devastating in both course and destination. It’s a film about reality, although it utilizes a bit of cinematic license. Good film, slightly overrated, but enjoyable in the most depressing of ways.

8/10

Die Höhle des gelben Hundes (Cave of the Yellow Dog) (2005) by Byambasuren Davaa

I admit; I’ve never seen a Mongolian film before. It’s a cute, lighthearted piece, with a simple premise of broad implications. A typical family, working in a farm whilst living in the age of technology. A little girl, no older than 6 years of age is responsible for a hell of a lot of work, and she never complains. That is, until she finds a puppy. Wolves have attacked the family’s livestock, and the father fears the puppy my have had influences from these undomesticated beast, and he orders his daughter to get rid of it. At first glance, this film progresses slowly, obviously discreet about its intent. But that doesn’t stop it from being charming. I do say, though, that it’s not for those who cannot tolerate slow-paced films, ’cause this is certainly one.

6/10

Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring) (2003) by Ki-duk Kim

What a gorgeously crafted film. The setting is to die for. The plot is fascinating; we watch a monk’s apprentice grow up from a rather devious little boy to, well, a devious young man. The monk, who is fantastically awesome, by the way, punish the boy for his actions in the most cleverist of ways. But whateverthe master monk does doesn’t seem to deter his young apprentice from falling under the tempations of some of the most wicked of sins. Very engaging film, and nice eye candy to boot.

8/10

La gloire de mon père (My Father’s Glory) (1990) by Yves Robert

Oh, how I love my French films. Having seen the double feature of Jean de flourette and Manon des sources, I kind of had high expectations for this films and it’s counterpart (the latter I haven’t seen yet). I wasn’t fully disappointed, but it’s still a nice little film, charming in all cases. Again, the premise is simple. Boy worships his father, and absolutely hates to see him outdone or even fail. The images of the desert countryside is gorgeous, to say the least, and the child, Marcel, is a joy to watch. I cannot wait to see Le château de ma mère. My damn DVD of it lacks English subtitles. I don’t speak French!

7/10

Evil Angels (1988) by Fred Schepisi

“A dingo ate my baby!” Certainly one of the most famous movie lines in history, sadly, the film it stems from is not as funny as the quote. It’s a bit of a social commentary, demonstrating the massive effect of baised media over the mainstream population and the faulty judicial system of Australia, which probably mirrors those of other countries *ahem* America! In any case, Meryl Streep is fab as always. You learn about dingos, a little about forensic science, mass hysteria, the Australian legal system. Good stuff, unintentionally funny at time, and it’s based on a real story.

6/10

Da hong deng long gao gao gua (Raise the Red Lantern) (1991) by Zhang Yimou

Okay, the only films I’ve seen of Zhang Yimou’s are the damned kungfu flicks, which aren’t bad, but just a bit bleh. This, on the other hand, is completely different. I can’t even describe it. Beautifully shot, we see two main colors, hot and cold, red and blue, passion and the passionless. We feel trapped, secluded and almost claustrophobic, but in such a large, luxurious mansion, how can that be? Everything is so subtle, yet so damn bold. The emotions, the setting, the story. Unfeeling to feeling, this film knows how to toy with you, and it does.

8/10

Monsters vs Aliens (2009) by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon

Well, this isn’t what I usually watch, but heck, whatever. It’s entertaining, the visuals and CGI are nice and up to par, voice cast is pretty good (I love you, Stephen!), in terms of fame, not always performance. But it’s kind of stupid, and not in the funny way, either. Quick, distracting, pretty, it’s entertainment as it’s blockbustery best, I guess, but there’s no redeeming substance. What else can I say?

4/10

Cat People (1942) by Jacques Tourneur

I love my atmospheric dramas, especially with a touch of suspense, noir, and horror. But this was not as great as I’d hoped, and I wasn’t hopin’ for much. It’s campy, both in its plot and acting, and the cinematography never really did wow me. The story kind of makes you go, “what the hell is this?” But it’s thoroughly entertaining, clever at times, but overall, just a bit… stupid.

5/10

Sorry for the lack of detailed reviews, but if you want to get more out of me, award me 3 units and A to put on my transcript.

Written & Directed By: Mark Hartley
Cinematography By: Karl Von Moller & Germain McMicking

FEATURING: Quentin Tarantino, Russell Mulcahy, Barry Humphries, Jamie Blanks, Russell Boyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Rod Hardy, Richard Franklin, Wendy Hughes, Stacy Keach, Ted Kotcheff, George Lazenby, George Miller, Philippe Mora, Greg Mclean, Steve Railsback, Fred Schepisi, Rod Taylor, James Wan, Jack thompson, Brian Trenchard-Smith, Leigh Whannell, Simon Wincer, Susannah York

A fun rollicking, No holds barred documentary about the Australian film industry from the beginning in the sixties to it’s peak during the 70’s and 80’s which produced more exploitation type movies then anything but also put several of it’s filmmakers and stars o the map. It also showed a emerging style of filmmaking that rightly deserves to be noted and noticed. Which is still kicking around today though unfortunately not as much.

This is a fun documentary with tons of clips from those movies. Which allows a viewer like myself to discover a lot of these films only half of which are still available to see in the united states. It let’s you in on some behind the scenes details on these films and what it’s influence was at home and abroad. While celebrating the directors who deserve credit for there strides in helping put Aussie films on the map.

You hae details from most of the people involved in these films from the actors, Producers Directors, Crew Members, Directors and the critics even Quentin Tarantino gets involved.

Without this ozploitation series of movies there would be no films as diverse As MAD MAX, WALKABOUT, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, MY BRILLIANT CAREER, STARSTRUCK, BMX BANDITS.

This film is a genre lovers wet dream my only complaint is that I wish it was longer.

I really enjoyed myself watching this if you are a true film fan. I think you will to. Its not just boring talking heads interviews, Because as fun and crazy as the films are. The filmmakers are just as crazy if not crazier as they tell stories of using real ammo firing at the actors in action scenes. Not using any proper safety precautions. A lot of things they couldn’t have gotten away with today. 

GRADE: A+       

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: National Ballet showstopper Greta Hodgkinson and husband Etienne Lavigne are infanticipating in January,

LANGSTROTH: on a Highwire

but La Hodgkinson will return to the company in time to dance next year’s production of Onegin, with an extravagant new design by Santo Loquasto. Meanwhile, she hasn’t exactly been idle. She’s been in front of the camera again, this time playing legendary ballerina Margot Fonteyn to Nico Archambault’s Rudolf Nureyev in award-collecting Moze Mossanen’s bound-to-be dazzling new Nureyev Arts special for Bravo! … ivory-tickler Ken Lindsay is celebrating his

NICO as NUREYEV

second anniversary at Statler’s. Village favourite Lindsay holds cocktail-hour court every Thursday and Friday nights …rising songbird Dawn Langstroth launches her new CD Highwire tomorrow before embarking on a year of touring to promote it. And yes, You Don’t Want Me, that  wonderful song she wrote with master musical storyteller Ron Sexsmith, is included

HODGKINSON: expecting

on the playlist …  young Aussie director Alexandra Schepisi, daughter of famed director Fred, recently completed a short film called One Night about a group of girls hanging out together. “It’s 23 minutes long and there’s only three lines of dialogue in it!” her proud poppa confides. Sounds intriguing … and when Robin Wright Penn took the stage at TIFF last week, was it just the guys in the theatre who noticed that her legs went on forever but her skirt didn’t? Just wonderin’ … BTW, the talented Ms Penn will co-star with James McAvoy in The Conspirator, based on the aftermath of Lincoln‘s assassination and directed by Robert Redford.

LIGHTS OUT: After almost eight years in the making, Jian Ghomeshi protégée Lights released her first CD this week. Stay tuned … Harry

KARPLUK: music for Erica

Connick’s new CD Your Songs features such golden oldies as Sinatra’s All The Way, The Carpenters’ Close To You and Nat King Cole’s Mona Lisa … look for Joss Stone to duet with Smokey Robinson on tonight’s Jay Leno Show … and EMI Canada released its Being Erica CD this week to coincide with the return of the time-bending Erin Karpluk-Michael Riley series and the release of the Season One DVD. Music from the show’s freshman year, which spans the same decades as the hit CBC series, features tunes by Melanie Doane, The Northern Pikes, Jesus Jones, Norah Jones, Marc Jordan, Fatboy Slim, MC Hammer and, of course,  Erica’s therne song, All I Ever Wanted To Be, by Lily Frost.

BUNNETT: among the first

SHARPS ‘N’ FLATS: High-voltage music-makers set to headline the inaugural season of Toronto’s newest concert venue, Koerner Hall, located in the Telus Centre for Performance & Learning on Bloor Street west, include Jane Bunnett, James Ehnes, Louis Lortie, Midori, Nico Mulhy, Peter Oundjian, Steven Page, Jon Kimura Parker, Quartetto Gelato, Ravi Shankar, Frederica von Stade, Sarah Slean, the Esprit Orchestra, and Richard Reed Perry of Arcade Fire. To sample the upcoming season, and order tickets, just click here.

ABSENT FRIENDS: Yesterday, In my eagerness to share with you some of the stellar names performing this season with the TSO, I automatically included T.O. favourite Erich Kunzel, who was scheduled to conduct three nights of Broadway show tunes here next month.  Would that it were so. After being diagnosed with pancreatic, liver and colon cancer in April, Kunzel passed away three weeks ago. Add his name to the September roll call – Larry Gelbart, Mary Travers, Patrick Swayze, and more – of absent friends who are sorely missed today.

TOMORROW:

Why Kiefer came home.

-/-

STARS IN OUR EYES: What a weekend for celebrity-spotting in Our Town.  In addition to Penelope Cruz, Colin Farrell, Jeff Bridges, Jason Bateman, Hugh Hefner, Drew Barrymore, Ewan McGregor (who walked the red

McGREGOR: took flight

carpet, then dashed to Pearson International to catch a flight) and too many more to mention here, Anne Murray hosted the stars receiving Walk Of Fame honours on Saturday night at the Four Seasons Centre. New sidewalk star owner Kim Cattrall, back in New York this morning shooting Sex And The City 2, also sparkled at George Christy’s 25^th annual filmfest family reunion at the Four Seasons, as did Michael Caine, Rachel Ward & Bryan Brown, Norman Jewison, Michael Sheen, Rex Reed, novelists Ron Base & Shinan Govani, Seamus O’Regan, Chaz & Roger Ebert, Ben Mulroney and An Education scene-stealer Carey Mulligan, who flew to Manhattan yesterday to start shooting Wall Street 2 with Michael

CATTRALL: Back to Manhattan

Douglas. A few blocks away at Il Fornello TIFF co-founder Bill Marshall & Sari Ruda hosted their annual All-Star Lunch for directors Fred Schepisi, Patricia Rozema and Don Shebib, satirist Rick Miller, filmfest veteran Tony Watt, columnist Martin Knelman, ex-Toronto mayors David Crombie & Art Eggleton and many more. Veteran filmfest programmer Hannah Fisher and producers Pierre Sarrazin & Suzette Couture were among the guests soaking up the sun and snacks at Tonya Lee Williams’ lively networking reception at The Pilot for her ReelWorld Indie Lounge. And producer Laszlo

CLOONEY: with Oprah

Barna and dozens of TIFF participants showed up to shmooze at the Canadian Film Centre soiree hosted by CFC chief Slawko Klymkiw at The Spoke Club.

Biggest crowd-pleasers of the weekend: George Clooney, who greeted cheering fans Friday night at the premiere of The Men Who Stare At Goats and then showed up with Oprah Winfrey on his arm for the Saturday screening of Jason Reitman’s crowd-pleasing Up In The Air. (My spies tell me Reitman’s Thank You For Smoking star Aaron Eckhart also was there. Who knew?) La Wnfrey herself drew thunderous applause last night at the premiere of Precious, as did Mariah Carey. But it was Michael Caine who earned the most affectionate TIFF standing ovations yesterday in his stellar Q&A session with Canada A.M. stalwart Seamus O’Regan.

TIFF TALK: TIFF visitor Tilda Swinton reportedly wants to star in a new screen version of Mame, more along the lines of stage & screen Mame Rosalind Russell than movie musical Mame Lucille Ball … popular music-makers Terri

SWINTON: new Mame?

Clark and Hawksley Workmen are among the entertainers appearing this week at the Hard Rock Café as part of the fifth annual TIFF-related Canadian Music Café …  Canuck luminaries ranging from Christopher Plummer, Norman Jewison and David Cronenberg to Margaret Atwood, Oscar Peterson and Louise Pitre are currently showcased in a new 30-year retrospective by photographer Edward Gajdel at the o born contemporary gallery on Yonge street … Bobby Del Rio is living the Actor’s Dream. He’s in every single scene of Mio Adilman’s short TIFF film Unlocked … and organizers of the Dubai International Film Festival pulled the plug on tonight’s planned Park Hyatt cocktail soiree. All in all, not Dubai’s best year for public relations. Maybe all the headline-grabbing fuss about the TIFF salute to Tel Aviv scared them off?

-/-

Australia

Director: Fred Schepisi

120 min

Synopsis

New South Wales, Australia, the turn of the twentieth century. Jimmie Blacksmith, a half Aboriginal young man is raised by a white preacher and his wife. After hunting with some Aborigines, he’s whipped for his disobedience. Jimmie, now old enough to make his own way, finds a job as a labourer on a farm owned by the Healy’s, building fences. He is underpaid, disrespected and punched by his boss when he infers he’s illiterate. Jimmie has a brief romance with Gilda, a white serving girl, whom Jimmie marries when she discovers she’s pregnant. The child is born white but Jimmie accepts it as his own and stays with Gilda.

Jimmie’s new employers, the Newby’s, encourage Gilda to leave Jimmie and stay with them. She refuses. Jimmie is sacked when his Aboriginal friends set up camp on Newby’s land. Jimmie ‘declares war’, originally intending to frighten Newby’s family, but begins a massacre, killing his wife and daughters. Jimmie and Mort, his half-brother, then go on the run, abandoning Gilda and their child. Jimmie commits revenge against all those who wronged him, including the Healy’s. Jimmie’s uncle is tried for his participation in one of the murders. Jimmie and Mort kidnap a schoolteacher and take him hostage. Mort later takes him to safety and is killed. After Jimmie is wounded, he takes refuge at a convent, but is caught and constantly beaten as he is taken away semi-conscious.

Review

Suddenly, as if from nowhere, Australian cinema exploded in the late 1970s, because of a combination of increased public subsidies in the arts and the emergence of a new generation of a gifted actors and directors, all of whom made an international reputation for themselves. Films like ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ (Peter Weir), ‘Breaker Morant’ (Bruce Beresford) and ‘The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith’ were critically acclaimed across the world and all tackled Australia’s heritage and history, but perhaps no Australian film of the era was quite so introspective in terms of examining Australia’s chequered and controversial past.

In recent years, there has been greater awareness of and contrition about the treatment of the indigenous population in Australia. The recent ‘Rabbit-Proof Fence’ (2002) examined the plight of the “stolen generation” – Aboriginal children removed from their families because of a state policy that can only be described as eugenics and reducing the Aboriginal population. As a caption informs, 270 000 Aborigines were killed by white settlers – they stole a country and destroyed a culture. ‘The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith’ entered this territory some twenty-five years before, when it was much more of a taboo subject.

Schepisi pulls no punches with his portrayal of white society, which is either stern and patronising (the preacher and his wife) or just overtly prejudiced (the various employers Jimmie works for). The latter seem to be playing to type, but it’s the former who are the far more interesting and one wonders whether Schepisi thinks that the intellectuals, like the preacher and the schoolteacher are those who are seriously undermining opportunities for Jimmie and others than the boorish, uneducated whites who spout racially-motivated obscenities. It’s these educated elites who are pursuing a systematic policy of wiping out the indigenous populations by taking Jimmie away from his natural environment and forcing him to integrate into a society he patently doesn’t belong to. The preacher whips Jimmie for associating with his Aboriginal friends and chastises him for having no ambition and being needed for higher things – pairing off with a white woman and reducing his caste over several generations for one.

Yet Schepisi is aware of the futility of the exercise. Jimmie can never be fully integrated into a white society as the likes of the Healy and Newby will always be there, prejudiced until the end, unwilling to treat Jimmie as an equal. At the same time, Jimmie will never be fully accepted into Aboriginal society. There’s one key scene where Jimmie assists the police to find an Aborigine who’s accused of killing a white boy. He even assaults the accused with some venom. This demonstrates how keen Jimmie is to become part of this white society, yet the colour of his skin will always hold him back. It’s the attempts to navigate and compromise between two radically different cultures that becomes Jimmie’s undoing and eventually compels him to unleash a wave of violence. Watch how Jimmie performs a native Aboriginal dance before the birth of his child and how his anticipation is cruelly mocked by the child being born white, clearly not his. Although he doesn’t blame his loyal wife, it’s the final insult – the child could have aided his integration but instead it makes it further impossible.

Also intriguing is how the film defies the rest of the themes of the nascent Australian new wave of film making. The likes of ‘Gallipoli’ and ‘Breaker Morant’ contributed to a wider project of myth-making about Australian history; patriotic and proud. Schepisi reveals turn of the century Australia, on the verge of becoming the confederation and therefore a united country, to be a very different place whatsoever to what Weir et al would have you believe. ‘The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith’ was based on real events that took place; not just the eugenics policy but the violence that was unleashed by festering resentment. Only recently has discussing the subject been acceptable. The new Australian Prime Minister publicly apologises for the treatment of the indigenous populations in the past. Watching ‘The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith’ is undoubtedly a chastening experience; difficult but an incredibly frank look of a country’s shame.

Reviewed by Gary Pollard (first aired on RTHK Radio 4’s “Morning Call”)

In the spirit of full disclosure I should say that I am not a fan of Baz Luhrmann.

Most creative people have two forces operating within them. One is the part that comes up with the ideas. The other, equally helpful if it doesn’t dominate, paralysing if it does, is the inner critic, the one that judges the idea and assesses if it belongs in the finished work. To me, Baz Luhrmann has the first element but none of the second, so he seems to think every idea that comes out of his head is a work of genius. It isn’t.

While “Australia”, most disappointingly, doesn’t tell us much about the country in the title, it is basically three movies in one. The first third is a farcical romantic comedy pinched from “The African Queen” that makes us wish we were watching Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart rather than Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. The second third is a Western, which could just as easily have been set in Texas. The final section is a war movie. It reminds you mostly of “Pearl Harbor”. And that’s not a good thing.

Unfortunately for you, unless you really are on Luhrmann’s wavelength, you will realise what you are in for within five minutes of the movie starting, and you’ve still got more than two and a half hours to go.

Kidman plays Sarah Ashley. Shes is a wealthy aristocratic Englishwoman who believes her husband has only gone away to the outback so he can have sex with aboriginal women.

She decides she will travel to Australia and force him to sell their vast cattle station in the Northern Territory and return home. She heads to Darwin from England with a mountain of luggage. Her husband, although he had warned her not to come, sends the Drover (Hugh Jackman), to take her the rest of the way to the ranch.

Romantic formula step one, the “meet cute”, occurs when the Drover, in a fight with a group of racists in a bar, pics up some of her luggage, hits someone over the head with it, and sends her underwear flying in the air. She makes an “eek” of disapproval, and purses her lips. In fact she spends the next forty minutes of the film being shocked, and giving vent to her shock in an English accent that’s prissy beyond belief.

As they are driving to the ranch, they pick up a drunk who climbs into the driver’s cab with them. Kidman goes “eek”. An aborigine runs alongside the truck and then jumps onto the roof for a lift. Kidman goes “eek”. Kidman sees a bunch of cute computer-generated kangaroos jogging along beside the truck. One of the guys on the roof shoots one of them. No prizes for guessing what Kidman does.

It embarrasses me, watching this film, to remember that I have sometimes considered Nicole Kidman a capable actress. Not one emotion from her, from beginning to end of “Australia”, is genuine.

When they make camp for their first night, she primly sticks her head out of the tent only to see Jackman stripped to the waist, pouring water over his extremely buff torso in the firelight. She is, once again, shocked and embarrassed.

Frankly I was more surprised: this grungy cattle guy is hygiene-minded enough to brush his teeth every night, with a toothbrush no less. Obviously there’s potential for romance there then.

Of course, she is married, but that doesn’t last long. As we knew would happen, by the time she gets to the ranch her husband has been killed, supposedly by an old aborigine called King George (David Gulpilil) but actually by Neil Fletcher (David Wenham), a hired hand of evil cattle baron King Carney (Bryan Brown). Carney and his henchman stole Lord Ashley’s best cattle when he was alive. Now he is not, they want to force Lady Ashley to sell her land and herd.

Most of this story has been told to us in poorly done narration by King George’s 11-year-old half-caste grandson Nullah (Brandon Walters). Because of his mixed-race status, he’s labeled a “creamy”, and has become a target of the local police, who want to send him to a mission school to have the black bred out of him. He becomes the movie’s main symbol for the “stolen generations” of aboriginal children, about whom it is exhibiting an anachronistic contemporary conscience.

This subject, incidentally, was much better handled by Fred Schepisi in “The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith” 30 years ago, and more recently by Phillip Noyce’s “Rabbit-Proof Fence”. Both are better movies than this.

When Nullah’s mother dies, Sarah decides to look after him, and also – with the Drover’s help – to herd their cattle to Darwin to sell them to the army for the war effort. This will help break the monopoly of the evil cattle baron. So the second part of the movie is the Western part, which owes little to Australia but a lot to every cowboy film you’ve ever seen. It also increasingly looks like “Lord of the Rings”, partly because of the scenes where the magical King George is standing on craggy outlooks apparently giving them spiritual help, and also because there are moments when cliff tops, stampeding cattle, and even the lone characters they are stampeding towards, are computer animated.

I won’t go into too much detail about this part except that of course, as always in this kind of movie, the frigid aristocratic lady starts to get interested in the grungy high-testosterone man. They eventually settle into a semi-domesticated bliss that shocks Darwin society. Oh, and Hugh Jackman cleans up well when he shaves and put on a tuxedo.

From there, the movie becomes a war movie, with the Japanese about to invade, and with Drover, lady and half-caste having domestic problems, and getting into stupid situations often solely because they are too dumb too tell each other what’s going on. It’s particularly absurd when Sarah is threatened by the bad guys and doesn’t tell the Drover so he will – conveniently for the plot – leave her for several months and give the bad guys the advantage.

Into all of this nonsense, Luhrmann brings his idiosyncratic taste in music, banging us over the head with references to “The Wizard of Oz” and “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, and somehow equating aboriginal song lines with Judy Garland. He also equates his own erratic story telling with aboriginal story telling, but that’s an embarrassment I don’t want to go into here.

Perhaps it’s Luhrmann’s fault that Kidman plays her character as such a one-note cliche, but her face has increasingly become an expressionless mask in recent films as she has tried to avoid any signs of age. And she didn’t have to go along with idiocies such as following up on the death of the half caste boy’s mother by saying to him in clipped English accent: “I’d like to extend my condolences”. She is terrible.

Hugh Jackman does rather better as the Drover. He handles this mess as well as can be expected, and sometimes better, but he’s no Humphrey Bogart. Here he’s  more the clichéd figure of women’s romance novels than a believable working class man.

And beyond all this you get the feeling, as with all his films, that Luhrmann himself just thinks it’s all nonsense, and that’s why he camps it all up and throws everything including the kitchen sink at it. Watching it, I couldn’t help thinking that once upon a time, epic movies like “Lawrence of Arabia, “El Cid” and “Doctor Zhivago” had characters big enough to match the landscape and the epic story. This one has paltry characters and a paltry story.

The final scene, with Nullah about to go walkabout, is accompanied by the “Nimrod” passage from Elgar’s Enigma Variations, and it’s swelling tones are meant to make us think “Australia, hell yeah”. The music is beautiful but is so very British and even colonial that it is absurdly misplaced. You might think there’s an irony intended here. But no, it’s just one last piece of evidence of the Luhrmann tin ear, for music and for storytelling, that we’ve been subjected to for two and three quarter hours.

As you might guess, I do not recommend it.

Segundo o American Film Institute, os dez melhores são estes:

1. “O Sol é para Todos” (1962), de Robert Mulligan
2. “12 Homens e uma Sentença” (1957), de Sydney Lumet
3. “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), de Robert Benton
4. “O Veredito” (1982), de Sydney Lumet
5. “Questão de Honra” (1992), de Rob Reiner
6. “Testemunha de Acusação” (1957), de Billy Wilder
7. “Anatomia de um Crime” (1959), de Otto Preminger
8. “A sangue frio” (1967), de Richard Brooks
9. “Um Grito no Escuro” (1988), de Fred Schepisi
10. “Julgamento em Nuremberg” (1961), de Stanley Kramer

Two New York socialites are taken in by a charming and urbane swindler whose con is that he is Sidney Poitier’s son.
John Guare’s hit Broadway play–about an Upper East Side couple who gets bilked by a young black man claiming to be Sidney Poitier’s son–receives a terrific screen translation in this film by Fred Schepisi. Though the play was discursive and episodic, Schepisi, working from Guare’s adaptation, makes it all flow like a fascinating evening listening to friends recount something that happened to them. But the story itself is also intriguing for the disparity it reveals between the wealthy, the would-be wealthy, and the have-nots yearning to be rich. Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland are exceptional as the couple who open their home to a young man they believe is a friend of their children (to whom they barely speak); Will Smith is fascinatingly glib as the young man, who claims that his famous father is casting a film version of Cats and offers his hosts roles as extras in the film. Smith finds the heartbreaking core of this character and Channing is haunting as a woman looking to make a connection, even with a confused young con artist. –Marshall Fine

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Other Products of Interest

• The Talented Mr. Ripley
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TEORIA DE LOS 6 GRADOS DE SEPARACIÓN

Es una cuestión que a mí siempre me ha llamado mucho la atención, tanto que decimos que el mundo es un pañuelo, esta teoría nos confirma porque nos parece que el mundo es tan pequeño, que es fácil encontrarte con alguien de nuevo o encontrar a alguien que tiene relación con algún conocido cercano, o que resulta que es el hermano de la ex novia del padre de tu vecino…

En otras palabras, la teoría plantea que todos estamos conectados a través de no más de seis personas y que la cantidad de conocidos crece de forma exponencial con el número de enlaces en la cadena.

Hace no mucho vi una seria americana titulada “Seis Grados” en la que los encuentros de los personajes se basaban precisamente en esta teoría, la pena es que al parecer no tuvo mucho éxito de audiencia y no se continuó la temporada dejando en vilo a todos los que vimos la primera con tanta ilusión, porque la idea y la serie eran muy buenas. Supongo que las expectativas eran muy elevadas ya que se trataba de un proyecto  de JJ Abrams, uno de los creadores de LOST

Reparto: Jay Hernández (World Trade Center), Bridget Moynahan (El bar Coyote), Erika Christensen (Traffic), Dorian Missick (Amor con preaviso), Campbel Scott (Elegir un amor), Hope Davis (A propósito de Schmidt)

También existe la película sobre la misma materia llamada “Seis grados de Separación” de Fred Schepisi de 1993 (aunque en otros sitios dice que es de 1995…)

Reparto: Will Smith, Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, Ian McKellen, Bruce Davison, Heather Graham, Anthony Michael Hall, Eric Thal, Richard Masur, Anthony Rapp, Catherine Kellner

Fue nominada al mejor guión original

Sinopsis: Los Kittredge, un rico matrimonio de marchantes de arte de Manhattan reciben, en mitad de la noche, en su lujoso apartamento de la Quinta Avenida, la visita de un joven negro. Paul, que así se llama, es amigo y compañero de su hijo en Harvard. Paul asegura, además, ser hijo de Sidney Poitier, y encontrarse en un apuro. Los Kittredge le ofrecen quedarse en su casa por esa noche y, en recompensa, el encantador Paul les prepara una cena y les maravilla con sus historias, en especial con una peculiar teoría sobre “El guardián entre el centeno” (por cierto, gran libro y 100% recomendable)… Basada en una obra de teatro de gran éxito en Broadway, se trata de una interesantísima comedia dramática que mereció mucha mayor repercusión. Inteligente y cautivadora, curiosamente las escenas que beben de su origen teatral (un hándicap en otros films) aquí se devoran, y en su parte más cinematográfica pierde gran parte del ritmo e intriga. Resumiendo la crítica: su primera hora es fascinante.

Opinión de Críticos:

(Film Affinity)

La teoría fue inicialmente propuesta en 1929 por el escritor húngaro Frigyes Karinthy en una corta historia llamada Chains. (Wikipedia)

Historia sobre la Teoría

En la década de los 50, Ithiel de Sola Pool (MIT) y Manfred Kochen (IBM) se propusieron demostrar la teoría matemáticamente. Aunque eran capaces de enunciar la cuestión “dado un conjunto de N personas, ¿cuál es la probabilidad de que cada miembro de estos N estén conectados con otro miembro vía k1, k2, k3,…, kn enlaces?”, después de veinte años todavía eran incapaces de resolver el problema a su propia satisfacción.

En 1967, el psicólogo estadounidense Stanley Milgram ideó una nueva manera de probar la teoría, que él llamó “el problema del pequeño mundo”. El experimento del mundo pequeño de Milgram consistió en la selección al azar de varias personas del medio oeste estadounidense, para que enviaran tarjetas postales a un extraño situado en Massachusetts, situado a varios miles de millas de distancia. Los remitentes conocían el nombre del destinatario, su ocupación y la localización aproximada. Se les indicó que enviaran el paquete a una persona que ellos conocieran directamente y que pensaran que fuera la que más probabilidades tendría, de todos sus amigos, de conocer directamente al destinatario. Esta persona tendría que hacer lo mismo y así sucesivamente hasta que el paquete fuera entregado personalmente a su destinatario final.

Aunque los participantes esperaban que la cadena incluyera al menos cientos de intermediarios, la entrega de cada paquete solamente llevó, como promedio, entre cinco y siete intermediarios. Los descubrimientos de Milgram fueron publicados en “Psychology Today” e inspiraron la frase “seis grados de separación”. El dramaturgo John Guare popularizó la frase cuando la escogió como título de su obra en 1990. Sin embargo, los descubrimientos de Milgram fueron criticados porque éstos estaban basados en el número de paquetes que alcanzaron el destinatario pretendido, que fueron sólo alrededor de un tercio del total de paquetes enviados. Además, muchos reclamaron que el experimento de Milgram era parcial en favor del éxito de la entrega de los paquetes seleccionando sus participantes de una lista de gente probablemente con ingresos por encima de lo normal, y por tanto no representativo de la persona media.

Los seis grados de separación se convirtieron en una idea aceptada en la cultura popular después de que Brett C. Tjaden publicase un juego de ordenador en el sitio web de la University of Virginia basado en el problema del pequeño mundo. Tjaden usó la Internet Movie Database (IMDb) para documentar las conexiones entre diferentes actores. La Revista Time llamó a su sitio, “The Oracle of Bacon at Virginia” [1], uno de los “Diez Mejores Sitios Web de 1996″. Programas similares se siguen usando hoy en clases de introducción de ciencias de la computación con la finalidad de ilustrar grafos y listas. (Wikipedia)

Estudo valida teoria criada nos anos 60

Nos anos 60, o psicólogo norte-americano Stanley Milgram criou uma teoria segundo a qual duas pessoas estão conectadas por outras seis.

Ele chegou a essa conclusão após realizar uma série de experimentos conhecida como Small World. Ele pedia a uma pessoa que enviasse uma carta a outra, como um amigo ou parente, para que o envelope chegasse a um destinatário desconhecido para o primeiro remetente. Segundo Milgram, cada carta era repassada, em média, seis vezes.

A teoria ganhou popularidade e, em 1993, inspirou um filme de Fred Schepisi (que contou com a excelente atuação de Will Smith). Com o crescimento das redes de relacionamento (como Orkut), também tem sido explorada com freqüência por especialistas.

No entanto, em 2006, a teoria dos seis graus de separação sofreu um duro golpe. A psicóloga Judith Kleinfeld, da Alaska Fairbanks University, verificou a pesquisa original de Milgram e concluiu: 95% das cartas não haviam chegado ao seu destinatário final. Fim da história?

Não por muito tempo. Ao que tudo indica, a Internet está ajudando a ressuscitar a teoria de Milgram. Pesquisadores da Microsoft estudaram os endereços de pessoas que enviaram 30 bilhões de mensagens instantâneas usando o programa MSN Messenger durante um único mês em 2006, segundo a BBC. E concluíram: quaisquer duas pessoas estão conectadas não por seis, mas por sete pessoas.

O banco de dados usado incluiu toda a rede de mensagens instantâneas da Microsoft, que representa cerca de metade de todo o tráfego de mensagens instantâneas do mundo. Para o estudo, duas pessoas foram consideradas conhecidas se tinham enviado ao menos uma mensagem instantânea uma à outra.

É um resultado interessante, mas a construção de redes sociais ainda deve gerar muita polêmica. É apenas questão de tempo para a divulgação do próximo estudo sobre o tema.