rawlinson
Posts: 40194
Joined: 13/6/2008
From: Timbuktu. Chinese or Fictional.
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ORIGINAL: scarface666brooksy!!
Film #1 - Wake In Fright (1971, Kotcheff)
My Australian film odyssey begins with a film that shows the very negative aspects of the small-town in the outback culture. Ted Kotcheff's slow-burning and nightmarish film uses the out-back and small towns as it's desolate canvas, as we watch school-teacher John Grant (Gary Bond) slowly but surely descend to rock-bottom. On his way back to Sydney from his remote teaching job in Tiboonda, he stops into Bundanyabba, a slightly less remote location, but still rooted in the outback mentality. He encounters Jock (Chips Rafferty) a local police officer, at a local pub where Jock feeds him numerous beers and introduces him to the local gambling scene. John, who is more then a little disgruntled by the fact he's entered an agreement with the government, which forced him into a financial bond and his subsequent posting in Tiboonda, decides he's going to buy his way out of his self described slavery, by gambling. After a brief winning streak, he loses everything, including the money he needed to fly back to Sydney. "Luckily", the locals around the "Yabba" (including Donald Pleasence, Jack Thompson, Sylvia Kay and more) are more then happy to help him out with lodging and food, as long as he also participates in their lifestyles of rampant alcoholism, misogyny and kangaroo hunting. To say that Wake In Fright attacks the "bogan" mentality and small-town mindset of country Australia is an understatement. It savagely attacks it, not unlike the dog in the roo hunting scenes. The film shows casual alcoholism, hunting and more as bleak realities and negative aspects of the outback. The fact the film balances those themes and depicts a man's spiralling descent into madness so deftly, really shows why it is seen as a major work in Australian film history. It's a horror film without serial killers, or grotesque monsters. It's a horror film where the evil is casual human nature and how a reasonably innocent human being can be caught up in it's web. Truly distressing stuff.
Note: And yes, the kangaroo hunting scenes are incredibly upsetting. If animal cruelty or harm is something that you can't tolerate, even on film, you'd be best not to watch Wake In Fright.
Great review, mate. Glad you... well, liked is the wrong word, appreciated it. 
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ORIGINAL: matty_b
I would plough my way through MonsterCat 
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ORIGINAL: matty_b
I desire MonsterCat to go down on me.
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RE: Brooksy's Trek Through Aussie Film - 
It would take me a fair while trying to find someone who hasn't seen it let's just say. I shall add the other ones to the list! 
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