AFI Contenders

The names of the fifteen films eligable for this year's upcoming AFI Awards. Here are the titles.

The Bet, dir. Lee
Burke & Wills, dir. Torr & Zeremis
Clubland, dir. Nowlan
Dr Plonk, dir. de Heer
The Final Winter, dir. Andrews & Forrest
Gone, dir. Ledwidge
The Home Song Stories, dir. Ayres
Irresistable, dir. Turner
Like Minds, dir. Read
Lucky Miles, dir. Rowland
Noise, dir. Saville
Razzle Dazzle, dir. Ashton
Rogue, dir. McLean
Romulus, My Father, dir. Roxburgh
West, dir. Krige


Last year there were sixteen titles, and we have fifteen this year. I could've sworn there were a couple of other titles - where's December Boys still? It's frustrating to know that there are definitely plenty of other Australian films being made but because of distribution they aren't eligible. Titles such as September, Run Rabbit Run, Boxing Day and Corroboree are all screening at this year's MIFF so maybe next year? The big ommission is Academy Award winner Happy Feet. Strange that it wouldn't have been submitted considering movies like Moulin Rouge! have been. Gone and Like Minds are joint-productions, which makes the omision even more puzzling. Anybody know what happened there? It's not like it's not Australian enough!

I'll put up a preliminary set of predictions for awards just for a lark and based on next to no evidence at all! I've only seen three as of right now, unfortunately. I didn't get to see Razzle Dazzle or Clubland and the rest either aren't released yet or I just never got the chance to see them (Burke and Wills was a prime example of 'LIMITED RELEASE'!)

BEST FILM
Clubland
Dr Plonk
The Home Song Stories
Noise

These seem like a natural selection of Best Film nominees. But who knows. Audiences may go for Lucky Miles and it's good heart of Razzle Dazzle and it's laughs or blah yada etc.

BEST DIRECTION
Oliver Torr & Matthew Zeremis, Burke and Wills
Rolf de Heer, Dr Plonk
Tony Ayres, Home Song Stories
Matthew Saville, Noise

Nowlan seems like the natural exclusion because de Heer is, well, he's ROLF DE HEER MAKING A BLACK AND WHITE SILENT MOVIE. Noise is hailed (and very great) and Ayres is back! I threw in Torr and Zeremis for extreme hardcore independent filmmaking.

BEST ACTOR
Eric Bana, Romulus, My Father
Khan Chittenden, Clubland
Brendan Cowell, Noise
Nathan Phillips, West

I dunno. Bana and Cowell seems like good bets, but the others I dunno... wild guesses.

BEST ACTRESS
Kerry Armstrong, Razzle Dazzle
Brenda Blethyn, Clubland
Joan Chen, The Home Song Stories
Toni Collette, Like Minds

Alongside Blethyn, Chen and Collette there's also Susan Sarandon in Irresistable! What's with all the stars. I'm not sure if Armstrong will be lead or supporting, but I reckon she'll get in eitherway. Seems like a weak field, this category.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Rodney Afif, Lucky Miles
Stephen Curry, Rogue
Nathaniel Dean, The Final Winter
Kodi Smit-McPhee, Romulus, My Father

Not sure why so many people fell for Smit-McPhee, but every review seems to go out of their way to praise him so I threw him in with Dean (who's popular), Curry (who's got a career resurgance going for him and will surely be nommed for The King in TV categories). I threw Afif in because I liked him and I wasn't sure if they'd put him here for Lead.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Emma Booth, Clubland
Emily Blunt, Irresistable
Rebecca Gibney, Clubland
Magda Szubanski, Dr Plonk

I have no idea.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Clubland
Dr Plonk
The Home Song Stories
Lucky Miles

I think these are original

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
From my count there's only one adapted screenplay - Romulus, My Father. Maybe I'm missing one? But two? Or THREE? Crikies.

LOL! Okay then.

Don Hany is Hot

So, I saw Lucky Miles (Michael James Rowland's feature debut) yesterday, a cute little Aussie movie that takes the piss out of refugees, boat people and aussie police. It's an equal opportunist comedy. Make fun of the Iranians and the Australians. It's quite charmingly funny and Rodney Afif (left) is really great. Unfortunately it's way too long for a movie that can be boiled down to one five-word sentence "Refugees lost in the desert" and the main character (Kenneth Moraleda) was really getting on my nerves. B-

The best bit of the movie though was Don Hany. Yummy. He used to be on the short-lived White Collar Blue and since then hasn't really done much at all that I've seen. He is in that new(ish) Sigourney Weaver movie The TV Set. But, the best thing about him is that he's majorly good looking. The only picture I can find of him on the net that's bigger than 100x100 pixels is his IMDb profile image. So, er, here it is.

You may not be able to sense the hotness, but it's there when he's moving around on screen.


(if you click him, he grows)

I Should Be So Lucky

You know what's never not awesome? Winning free passes to movies! Even oscure Australian movies that I had never heard of before actually entering the competition. Super.