Random DVD Round-up 7 - SUBURBAN MAYHEM

Like an Australian mash-up of TO DIE FOR and NATURAL BORN KILLERS, Aussie director Paul Goldman's (THE NIGHT WE CALLED IT A DAY) SUBURBAN MAYHEM is a lot of fun up until the point where, well, it isn't. The star of the show is Emma Barclay's Kat - a slutty media-whore intent on raising the cash to get her murderous brother a retrial, and willing to manipulate meat-heads into off'ing anyone who gets in her way. The first half of the flick is carried along on a wave of black humour, loud music, saturated colour, ludicrous characterisation and hilarious talking heads. However, as the movie hits the second half it falters without a remotely sympathetic character to anchor our interest. It's like a lurid rock song that lasts way too long. Indeed, Kat is such a monster of narcissism, and the director takes such evident pleasure in filming this teenage single-mum whoring it up, that one might almost be tempted to call this a rather misogynistic flick except for the fact that screenwriter Alice Bell is evidently taking equal pleasure in showing how simple-minded the guys are who fall for Kat's manipulation. Still probably worth a watch just for the bravura performance from Emily Barclay and for an early glimpse of the now Hollywood-famous Mia Wasikowska as Lilya.

SUBURBAN MAYHEM won 3 AFI awards and was nominated for a further 9. It played Cannes and Toronto 2006 and was released in Australia in 2006 and in the UK, New Zealand and France in 2007. It is available on DVD.

THE NIGHT WE CALLED IT A DAY - ring a ding ding!

THE NIGHT WE CALLED IT A DAY is a corker of a flick, that seems to have been somewhat overlooked by distributors and critics. It's essentially a long-drawn out one joke movie, but I think it has a lot of charm and a good few belly-laughs. It's apparently based on a true story wherein an ageing Frank Sinatra was brought to Australia by an upstart young promoter called Rod Blue for a comeback tour. Frank called an irritating young journo a two-buck whore, which caused all the Australian unions, headed up by a pre-premiership Bob Hawke, to go on strike. So you get two intransigent men who don't say sorry - Sinatra and Hawke, eye-balling it - and this young promoter who is one more cancelled concert away from bankruptcy, caught in the middle. What we get from all this is a nicely observed, frothy slip of a movie. Joel Edgerton is endearing as the chancer, Rod Blue. Melanie Griffith is convincingly ditzy as Frank's squeeze and Rose Byrne is suitably sweet as the straight girl with a crush on Blue. The only weak link is Dennis Hopper, cast as Frank. That's not because Dennis is bad - just that imitating Sinatra is near-impossible. For my money, Ray Liotta did it best in the TV movie, The Rat Pack. But this is more than compensated for by the sheer brilliance of casting David Field (notable as Keithy George in CHOPPER) as a young Bob Hawke complete with insane hair-do, aviator specs and bad suit. Genius. So for any of you looking for a bit of Ol' Blue Eyes nostalgia combined with a conventional heart-warming rom-com, knock yourself out.

THE NIGHT WE CALLED IT A DAY premiered at Cannes 2003 and goes on limited release in the UK this week.