casxx Reviews

Bio-Dome (1996)

As bad as it gets

[1/10 · 6 December 2007]

This has to be the worse attempt at comedy i have ever seen. It was shocking as is reflected in the viewer's rating ave of 3.8. I first saw this about 10 yrs ago, and it came up again on cable...and man, it's worse second time around!, i just couldn't stomach it all again and switched off after 20 or 30 mins... I can only assume those that have given high rapts to this poor excuse for a comedy film are either die-hard Baldwin and Shore fans or family related.

After the film bombed in American cinemas, in Australia it was decided by it's distributors that it would be dumped straight to video-store shelves, even though it had huge Aussie-born singing star Kylie Minogue(Dr. Petra von Kant) co-staring. That just about says it all, because other then the closing credits there's nothing positive to say!

Anzacs (1985)

On par with Saving Private Ryan

[9/10 · 20 August 2005]

One good way of rating a movie is how soon are you willing to watch it again. Well i just bought the 3 disc set and it will be the 3rd time i'd have watched it in 3 months. Their are very few Aussie films that can match this production..Yea OK, we probably don't make that many films, but it's up there amongst our best.

It's about a group of 12 or so who volunteer to fight in the Great War, jubilantly thinking it would be just one long adventure. For a lengthy film it never loses it's pace. It doesn't focus too much or too graphically on each particular battle, but the film is so well done that it appears to. Andrew Clark(Barrington) is the standout with good support cast all round. Jon Blake(Flanagan) is worth a mention too as is Paul Hogan(Cleary) who steals the odd scene. You can't help getting caught up in this film. A must see, the full 524 min version, not the truncated version!

It's not a bad educational film either. I knew the diggers did us proud but i didn't realize how much of an impact we made in WW1 until i did some research on the net. The allies might have still won the war without the Aussies but definitely not by 11-11-1918. Also there was some documentary a little while back about how some schools in France have a kangaroo emblem in their classroom and how they play and sing Waltzing Matilda(Aussie unofficial National Anthem) every day. The reporter asked, 'why do the french have such an overwhelming regard for Australia'?. 'Because they came from more than half a world away to fight and die for us!', was the reply.