Australia's year of comedy
The Age
17 February 2003
source: the age.com.au

There's been a drought this summer at your local multiplex, and it’s got nothing to do with shortages of those very expensive water bottles available at the popcorn counter. The deficiency has been Australian films. The last local offering was Mick Molloy’s lawn bowls comedy Crackerjack, at the end of last year.

Fortunately, all that is about to change. Between now and December, at least 20 Australian films are set to spool around the country, and that’s not counting Hollywood-financed productions shot here such as The Matrix. This year’s big-ticket item is Ned Kelly, which opens next month. Apart from setting out to redress the incongruous image of Mick Jagger playing our most famous lawbreaker, the Gregor Jordan-directed production on a Hollywood-size budget is armed with more Australian star wattage than any film since Moulin Rouge.

The cast includes a hirsute Heath Ledger, Naomi Watts, Geoffrey Rush, Rachel Griffiths and Joel Edgerton. Most of the new Australian films, however, are comedies, such as the send-up of the Kelly legend, simply titled Ned. Then there’s You Can’t Stop the Murders, a low-budget crime caper directed by Sydney-based comedian and first-time director, Anthony Mir, who also stars in the film along with Gary Eck and Akmal Saleh.

Among other films due for release are Fat Pizza, which is a spin-off from the SBS series Pizza; another food-themed comedy Take Away, which stars Vince Colosimo; The Wannabes, which is Nick Gianoppoulos's follow-up to The Wog Boy; a romantic comedy, Danny, which teams up Notting Hill's Rhys Ifans with Miranda Otto; a racy equine comedy set around the Melbourne Cup, Horseplay, and Tony Martin's first foray behind the camera, Bad Eggs, which, like Crackerjack, features leading performances from Mick Molloy and Judith Lucy.

"I think this is the year of comedy," says Jennie Hughes, who, as executive vice-president of Macquarie Filmed Investments, has been instrumental in securing investment in several of these features. "No matter how different they are, the common thread is that we want people to walk out and feel good about life, especially given that there have been such dire things happening in the world in the last couple of years. With Danny it's about a guy who is having a rough time and ends up floating away on balloons and meeting the girl of his dreams."

Despite the success of the likes of Lantana and Shine , at the lower end of the budgetary scale, history has shown that it's films that tickle the collective funnybone that often stand the best chance of hitting serious paydirt ( Wog Boy, The Castle and The Dish ). While many higher-profile releases last year dealt with indigenous themes, it was Crackerjack that had the biggest bounty at the turnstiles - the film has now earned about $8.3 million.

For investors such as Hughes, it's been this kind of result that makes her keen to provide Macquarie's backing for several of this year's comedies, including Danny, Take Away and Bad Eggs which have been made without any financial input from the country's main film-funding body, the Australian Film Finance Corporation. "We had such a good experience with Crackerjack that it gave us a higher degree of commercial confidence in these other films," Hughes says.

The corporation is also supporting comedies including Gettin' Square, Under the Radar, The Rage in Placid Lake, which stars singer Ben Lee, and Horseplay , which also has backing from Macquarie. Meanwhile, for those who prefer the more dramatic, some of the main films to watch out for this year are Love's Brother , a romantic drama that also tells the story of the first cappuccino machine in Australia; Japanese Story , which sees Toni Collette working as a geologist in the outback; and the new film from Rolf de Heer, Alexandra's Project , which has been Australia's sole representative in competition at the Berlin film festival.

And later in the year, there's The Night We Called it a Day, which is inspired by the events of Frank Sinatra's turbulent 1974 tour of Australia. As well as providing Joel Edgerton with his first leading role as a young music promoter, The Night We Called it a Day - which, like Ned Kelly, is being made with British production partners - will also bring an intriguing range of other trans-Pacific talent to the screen, including Dennis Hopper as Sinatra, Melanie Griffith as his girlfriend Barbara Marx, and David Field as Bob Hawke.

It tells the story of how the 57-year-old Sinatra was marooned in his hotel room after an outburst in which he referred to women journalists as "buck-and-a-half hookers". The chances are that at least some of these offerings will still be at your local multiplex when the final instalments of The Lord of the Rings and The Matrix roll into town next summer.