It's official... Australia is just another flop for Nicole Kidman. Poor girl; she just can't open a movie. But don't let that keep you from seeing it. It's just like Margot at the Wedding or Cold Mountain or Dogville or The Interpreter in that it's just delightful. Really, it is. It's gloriously old-fashioned-- half '30s Western and half '50s war movie, with a strong line of The African Queen and Gone with the Wind providing a backbone and The Wizard of Oz there for thematics. Really, it basks in that kind of operatic ecstasy that Baz Luhrmann is known for. Nicole Kidman does her best Katherine Hepburn for the first half and her best Vivien Leigh for the rest. It truly is something special.
And Hugh Jackman isin it, too, doing his very best Humphrey Bogart and being rugged and gritty and all the while having a big ole heart of gold. He was recently named People magazine's 'sexiest guy alive'... sometimes I think he looks like a toad. And often times he has really unfortunate hair. And I'm bored with him playing Wolverine. But in Australia? Well, in Australia he earns the title.



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