Jewish World Review Feb. 21, 2003 / 19 Adar I, 5763

Ian Shoales

Ian Shoales
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Consumer Reports

Aussie invasion!


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Are Australians taking over the movie industry? Here's a partial list:

Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Guy Pierce, Anthony LaPaglia, Cate Blanchett, Judy Davis, Bryan Brown, Heath Ledger, Rachel Griffiths, Geoffrey Rush, Dominic Purcell, Eric Bana, and on and on --- not to mention Paul Hogan, who at least knows how to talk like an Australian. Those other Australians sound more American than I do. I thought Anthony LaPaglia was from Brooklyn.

Why have they all come here? I have a theory.

Along with England and Hawaii, Australia is the destination of choice for movies and teevee shows when they run out of creative steam and decide to go for an exotic location: The Brady Bunch Down Under! My theory is that so many American movies and teevee shows have gone Down Under, there's no work for Australians any more. So they all moved here.

You'd think that KANGAROO JACK might have turned that situation around. It was one of those movies that set my teeth on edge just by looking at the poster. And that was before I saw the trailers, which depicted the marsupial as some kind of repulsive rappin' freak of nature. I don't believe I've held a movie in such contempt since the BIG CHILL. The reviews were pretty much unanimous about KANGAROO JACK: A more stupid movie will probably never be made.

And yet people paid good money to see the darn thing. It was a hit, however briefly.

But if rappin' kangaoos start showing up on Happy Meals, Australia's is going to see an invasion of entertainment mongers with bad ideas, the likes of which we have not seen since the most recent Martin Lawrence movie. Martin Lawrence Down Under must be stopped.

The solution is simple. To save Australia, America's top Australian movie stars must swear to boycott these movies. Stop them before they make the hip hop koala movie, with his wacky platypus pal. You know they will. Nicole, Mel, Russell. The fate of Oz is in your hands. G'day.

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JWR contributor Ian Shoales is the author of, among others, Not Wet Yet: An Anthology of Commentary. Comment by clicking here.

Up

02/11/03: This museum of my dreams would be no accident
02/03/03: Hasn't 'reality TV' always been with us?
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01/21/03: Spinning through the 'newscycle'
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08/14/02: Law and Disorder --- and Starbucks
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08/05/02: Time for some real cultural heroes
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05/20/02: The Files now Ex
05/14/02: Entangled in Spider-Man's web!?
05/02/02: April Showers May Come Our Yadda Yadda
04/24/02: From child murderer to milk hawker
04/10/02: New realities
03/21/02: You did it your way? I have to kill you now!
03/14/02: IN THIS CORNER … SUSAN LUCCI AND STEPHANIE ZYMALIST!
03/12/02: Life in the warehouse
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01/24/02: Suspension of disbelief has nothing to do with whether we accept something as real or not
01/22/02: Save the Grand Ole Opry?
12/15/01: If you truly want to appeal to the lowest common denominator …
12/11/01: KNITTING!
12/07/01: Conspiracy by the 'fat suit' lobby?
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11/12/01: The ectoplasm of a ghost economy
11/05/01: Sumner Redstone's passions
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10/29/01: Even in wartime, America can still bring it home
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10/08/01: War time lite
10/01/01: Confessions of a sarcastic scribe
09/11/01: The end of Mom
09/07/01: Boy Loses Girl, Boy Bites Girl, Boy Gets Girl
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08/31/01: I COPY, THEREFORE I AM
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07/31/01: Catchphrase history of the world
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07/13/01: Applying Newton's First Law of Physics to textbooks
07/10/01: The dumb and the dead

© 2001, Ian Shoales