Well, ol' Father Geek is back with the latest from Downunder including (what else?) a bit more on the New Zealand and Australian censorship woes, annnnnd Latauro's look at the brillant, ultimate date flick... BEFORE SUNSET...

Memories is a good thing if you don't have to deal with the past.

AICN-DOWNUNDER

Before we get into the Australian film censorship debacle with the Australian Family Association, a bit of news regarding New Zealand's battles. IRREVERSIBLE came out on July 29 in NZ, and the Society For the Protection of Community Standards (I really do have difficulty typing that name without collapsing in a fit of giggles) didn't like that at all. Their application to have the film's classification reviewed takes place this Monday August 30. In the meantime, they applied for an injunction to prevent any further screenings of the film taking place. This application was denied by the New Zealand Board of Review. SPCS has since applied to the High Court to stop the film playing. At time of writing, the outcome is not yet known, but rest assured we'll print the outcome in next week's column.

Last week, I printed an interview with Richard Egan from the Australian Family Association (http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=18204). As you may have noticed from recent AICN-D columns, the AFA is the organisation that has been lobbying the Federal Attorney-General and the Office of Film and Literature Classification to have films such as IRREVERSIBLE and ANATOMY OF HELL reclassified (read: banned). They were unsuccessful with those films, but succeeded last year with Larry Clark's KEN PARK.

It wasn't easy getting a straight answer out of Mr Egan. My questions on what problems the AFA had with these films and why they were lobbying to have them banned was met with the same answer each time: they contravene the OFLC's guidelines. This is an interesting argument in that it says nothing at all. It would appear that the AFA is more concerned with everyone following the rules, than with the actual content of films. The guidelines are used by the OFLC to *guide* them to a decision regarding a film's ratings. They are not rules that are set in stone, they are guidelines. Each film is unique, and must be judged on its own merits.

No, what I wanted to know was: what problem does the AFA have with these films? The answer came buried in a document attached in an email (printed in the previous column), explaining why the AFA qualified as a "person aggrieved":

Among the objectives of the Association are the following:

(a) to cultivate within society an appreciation that the integrity and well-being of the family is essential to the stability, morale, security and prosperity of the Australian nation;

(b) to analyse laws and policies for their effect on the family and to formulate and promote corrective measures as necessary to uphold an protect the rights and responsibilities of families.

What is a family? Well, it's purposefully impossible to define (vagueness is a great asset in an argument). We'll assume that they're talking about the nuclear family. Two parents (a man and a woman, of course) and a few kids. Okay. What impact would a film like IRREVERSIBLE have on this family?

Well, it's rated R18+. That means that anyone under the age of eighteen is forbidden from seeing the film. By law, if you're under eighteen you can't smoke, you can't drink, you can't drive, you can't watch restricted films. You are a minor. In this situation, the only people watching this film are mum and dad, both (we presume) over eighteen. What effect does this have on the family? It's not going to incite them to have sex - unless the kids are adopted, that boat has sailed.

It's impossible to predict the effects (if any) the parents watching this film will have, and so far we've had no satisfactory explanation from the AFA as to what problems this will raise. Children sneaking into films? Not if the cinema staff are doing their jobs correctly. Mum and dad showing their new IRREVERSIBLE DVD to the kids? Well, they could just as likely to show SHOWGIRLS or BASIC INSTINCT, and in any case, doesn't the problem then lie with the parents who seem to get off on showing their kids overage films?

When you actually take a microscope to the issue and introduce nuance, analysis and *actual* argument, it becomes pretty damn clear that the only issue here is that the Australian Family Association doesn't like sex.

And that's a shame, because sex is a lot of fun.

NEWS

Massive indie production ($US50M) LORD OF WAR has begun production under the eye of Kiwi Andrew Niccol (GATTACA). Shooting in Germany, New York, South Africa and Romania, the espionage film features Nicolas Cage, Ethan Hawke, Jared Leto, Bridget Moynahan, Monica Bellucci, Jeffrey Wright and Donald Sutherland.

* There's talk that producers Pattie and Dennis Wright (DOGS IN SPACE) have tapped Mac Gudgeon (THE DELINQUENTS) to write the screenplay on the life of Australian war veteran Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop.

* SAFETY IN NUMBERS, co-directed, produced and written by David Douglas will start shooting in Sydney late September, after sourcing all of its budget from private sectors.

AWARDS AND FESTIVALS

AUSTRALIAN WRITERS GUILD

Got a cool script between five and seven minutes lying around that somehow neatly fits into the theme of "Heart of Melbourne"? Then submit it before September 20 and you could see it performed on the closing night of the LP Morgan Screentalks even on October 21. Check out entry forms at www.awg.com.au

BOX OFFICE

HELLBOY took first place on opening week, but looks like it may drop a fair bit in its second. LADYKILLERS took an impressive fourth despite its arthouse release. Australian "comedy" THE CROP didn't even scratch the top ten, nor did US crime caper flick STEAL, which opened with literally NO advertising anywhere.

The Boxoffice leaders are...

• 1. HELLBOY
• 2. WHITE CHICKS
• 3. MAN ON FIRE
• 4. THE LADYKILLERS
• 5. I, ROBOT

RELEASED THIS WEEK

Jackie Chan beats up Jules Verne, Matt Damon IS making a lot of money, Kim Bauer gets kidnapped and sold to porn producers, Rush does Clouseau, a cool Samurai film comes out, and a cool Samurai film comes out.

Here's the new crop...

• AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS
• THE BOURNE SUPREMECY
• THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
• THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS
• THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI
• ZATOICHI (THE BLIND SWORDSMAN)

REVIEWS

BEFORE SUNSET

Linklater's film is a thing of beauty. People will say it's boring, that nothing happens, that it lags and has no point, that the ending is a cop-out... and who knows, maybe you will feel that as well... but maybe you'll see it as I did.

Yes, the entire film is two people walking around Paris talking. Real-time. Not a lot of cuts. But there's something else going on here. This isn't a sequel like the LETHAL WEAPON films (and I can't believe I name-checked that series in a review for BEFORE SUNSET). This isn't let's-put-the-characters-in-a-new-situation. If you loved BEFORE SUNRISE, as I did, you always wondered if Jesse and Celine met up six months later. Watching WAKING LIFE, I got excited when I saw the segment with Hawke and Delpy. Even though it was never said who they were, I liked the idea that they got together in this surreal dream world. It almost didn't matter if they'd got together in "real life"; they had in dreams.

But with the device of Jesse's book, the characters are able to discuss their history as if it was a film. It's an obvious direction to go, but cleverly executed. Jesse discusses the ending of the book/film with film critics, and we see the three types of people: the pessimist who thinks they never met up, the optimist who thinks they did, and the one who thinks it doesn't matter, or doesn't care.

When Celine turns up and the two start talking, we soon find out that one turned up and the other didn't. It's interesting and surprisingly un-disappointing. There was a lot of romanticism with never knowing if they met up in the first place. I mean, we want to know but we don't, right? That's why they never exchanged contact details, so they wouldn't lose the magic. That is, I suppose, why it's good that this film is a separate entity. We're still given the choice of not watching it, of retaining that mystery.

But SUNSET is about something else. It's about life setting in, the very thing the twenty-something characters in the original were afraid of. This is a film about thirty-somethings who want to recapture that romance but can't get rid of their responsibilities long enough to do so.

It's an intensely personal film, for all involved. The script is credited to Linklater, Hawke and Delpy, and even if we're never 100% sure which element is coming from which source, it's clear that it's a verbatim account of *somebody's* life. It's what gives the film its authenticity.

Linklater, whose streak of everything-he-touches-turns-to-gold is frighteningly consistent at the moment, keeps the film going at a calm momentum. The cinematography is beautiful, the locations perfect. But it's the ending that does it. When the "Directed by Richard Linklater" card came up and the audience realised it was over, there was an amused groan that translated as "Fuck you, Linklater"... but strangely, not a pissed-off one. Everyone realised that we were given another question mark, but not the same one as before. I've seen it described as a cop-out; it's anything but. It's a truly beautiful film that deserves a follow-up in another decade.

NEXT WEEK

- Steven Soderbergh begins work on OCEAN'S 1, promising a series of prequels that will deal with the political nature of the Universe while also appealing to children

- Geoffrey Rush completes his trilogy by signing on to THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ROBERTO BENIGNI and THE LIFE AND DEATH OF STEVE MARTIN

- Jackie Chan to appear as Wasabi, the comical Asian manservant of Pierre Bezukhov (Dylan Moran), in a new family-oriented version of WAR AND PEACE

Peace out,

Latauro

AICNDownunder@hotmail.com