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ABC News
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Special Event: Sunday Too Far Away 50th Anniversary
Join in the celebrations as ABC Radio Adelaide rolls out the red carpet for this piece of Australian cinema history with free double passes to win. Hosted by Weekends presenter, Deb Tribe, the event will include a private screening of Sunday Too Far Away, an informative Q&A discussion panel with members of the cast and crew, plus the chance to win great Sunday Too Far Away door prizes. 2 tickets for you and a friend to attend the 50th Anniversary Special Event Screening of 'Sunday Too Far Away' on Wednesday 4 June at 6pm at The Mercury Cinema. Chance to win door prizes on the night including: Framed 'Sunday Too Far Away' movie poster personally signed by Jack Thompson Framed 'Sunday Too Far Away' movie poster personally signed by Jack Thompson Subscriptions to The Mercury Cinema with free unlimited tickets to 300+ unique films across 800+ screenings, discounts and more for a whole year. This is one not to be missed! How to win: Tune in to ABC Radio Adelaide from 24 May. Listen out for the distinctive voice of Aussie screen legend Jack Thompson and get ready to call in. Tune in to ABC Radio Adelaide from 24 May. Listen out for the distinctive voice of Aussie screen legend Jack Thompson and get ready to call in. There will be chances to enter across the day, from Breakfast with Sonya & Jules, through to Evenings and then again on Weekends and Sunday Mornings . The first feature film produced by the SAFC, 'Sunday Too Far Away' was a critical and commercial success, gaining international recognition and winning four Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards, including Best Actor for star Jack Thompson. The film, about the struggles of itinerant sheep shearers in the Outback in the 1950s, spearheaded what came to be known as the 'Australian New Wave' of cinema. Its success helped pave the way for other significant Australian films produced by the SAFC, such as 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' and 'Storm Boy'. Join us to mark a piece of Australian cinematic history. Tune your radio to 891AM, listen live online at or download the ABC listen app and take us with you, so you don't miss out. See full Term and conditions
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How ‘Mad Max: Fury Road' became an unlikely Oscar contender 10 years ago
In the 10 years since Mad Max: Fury Road hit theaters, director George Miller's fourth outing in his post-apocalyptic franchise has become universally acclaimed as one of the greatest action movies ever made. Industry bodies like the Academy Awards do not usually celebrate action movies, so momentum has been building for years to create a new category honoring stunt performances. But even before Best Stunt Design finally becomes an official category starting with the 100th ceremony in 2028, Fury Road managed to score six Oscars from 10 nominations, making it the most-nominated film of its year, and still the record-holder for Australian movies at the Oscars. How did that unexpected paradox happen? Don't ask Miller; praise from the Oscars was the last thing he expected of his long-gestating franchise revival, and he remained befuddled by it for a long time. More from GoldDerby 'Sunset Boulevard' star Tom Francis reveals how he plays 'the complete and utter opposite' of Nicole Scherzinger's Norma Desmond 'Murderbot,' 'The Brutalist,' 'A Minecraft Movie,' 'Duster,' and the best to stream this weekend Making the 'Mission: Impossible' franchise, ScarJo vs. AI, catching up with the Gosselins, and what to read this weekend: May 16, 2025 'Who would have thunk it?' Miller told New York Times award columnist Cara Buckley in January 2016, shortly after the nominations were announced. 'The film was like last year, May, and I did not imagine I'd be back here talking about it, which is fine, you know, which is good. When you're in these awards seasons, and people have responded to the film in a positive way, then you say, 'OK, I'll enjoy the party as long as it lasts.'' As he references in that quote, Miller was not a stranger to the Oscars by 2016. Although best known for Mad Max, Miller has also made several movies not based on high-octane action or desert warlords wearing spikes and Speedos. He was nominated for Best Original Screenplay for 1992's Lorenzo's Oil, and for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for 1995's Babe (which he produced but did not direct). He even won Best Animated Feature for 2006's penguin musical Happy Feet. But until Fury Road, the Mad Max movies had gone unrecognized by the Oscars, and Miller didn't expect that to change. 'I used to joke in the cutting room, 'If we don't win an Oscar for this…' But I was kidding around!' Fury Road editor (and Miller's wife) Margaret Sixel told Kyle Buchanan in Blood, Sweat, and Chrome, a book-length oral history of the film. 'George would say, 'No, Margie, this kind of stuff is not Oscar stuff.' He dampened all our expectations.' What changed? The easiest way to say it is that Miller and his many collaborators made a masterpiece. Despite its relatively straightforward construction (the movie is basically one big car chase, there and back), Fury Road is filled with colorful characters and detailed world-building that feels outlandish and resonates with real-world oppression. Fury Road made money in theaters, but in a year dominated by other, even flashier franchise revivals like Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, it didn't even crack the top 20 of Hollywood's domestic box office rankings for 2015. Yet almost everyone who did see it raved about it — not just critics and fans, but also awards insiders like Gold Derby's own Zach Laws. 'If ever there was an audience crowd-pleaser that deserved to be nominated, it's George Miller's bold, imaginative Mad Max: Fury Road, a revitalization of this Australian auteur's post-apocalyptic trilogy,' Laws wrote on this very site following the film's May 15-17 opening weekend in the United States. At that early stage, Laws correctly predicted that Fury Road would win Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design, and Best Film Editing (proving that Sixel had been right all along). But he also advocated that the film should break through in the top categories of Best Director ('at age 70, [Miller] delivered the kind of nuts-and-bolts entertainment that makes the rest of the summer slate look like child's play') and Best Picture ('the film is not only a great entertainment, but a work of art'). Momentum kept building over the following months. According to Blood, Sweat, and Chrome, a decisive turning point came at the end of the year when Fury Road earned Best Picture from the prestigious National Board of Review. 'That NBR win gave the green light to anyone who was hedging in the critics' groups to be like, 'Yeah, I can vote for this,'' journalist Gregory Ellwood told Buchanan. Sure enough, Fury Road soon earned Best Director and other honors from the Los Angeles and Chicago Film Critics Associations. Then came the 10 Oscar nominations, often when an unconventional competitor maxes out, but Fury Road was actually competing, even for the top categories. In Entertainment Weekly's anonymous Oscar ballot that year, an anonymous 'Oscar-winning actress' advocated for it to win Best Picture ('this movie was the most engaging on every level. It's a great example of why I want to go to the movies — to be completely absorbed in a fictitious world. And I loved that there were so many women in the movie'). At the same time, 'an Academy Award-winning screenwriter specializing in high-stakes drama' pushed Miller for Best Director, saying Fury Road 'had more cinematic gusto than just about all the others put together.' Ultimately, neither of the big ones materialized. Best Picture went to the underdog drama Spotlight (which only won one other award, Best Original Screenplay). The Revenant filmmaker Alejandro J. Iñárritu received his second consecutive Best Director award. Was awarding Iñárritu back-to-back worth missing a singular opportunity to honor Miller for a movie that is much more remembered and celebrated a decade later? Oscar voters certainly seemed to think so; two other anonymous Academy members polled by EW back then praised how Iñárritu 'turned the difficulty of the location and the story into a cinematic spectacle' and 'introduced us to a visual world that we've never seen before.' Ah, well. No one's written a book-length oral history of The Revenant, and Miller himself was just happy for his collaborators who did win — who also thanked him in all of their acceptance speeches. 'We were disappointed that George didn't win, but basically, they were all his awards in a way,' Sixel said. Best of GoldDerby John C. Reilly movies: 15 greatest films ranked worst to best Ian McKellen movies: 12 greatest films ranked worst to best Octavia Spencer movies: 12 greatest films ranked worst to best Click here to read the full article.
The Guardian
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Parties, petty crime and a U-ey on the Harbour Bridge: a 40-year-old portrait of Sydney's underbelly gets a new life
When Going Down first screened at Sundance film festival in 1986, American audiences 'were so used to kangaroos and slow pans across the wide brown land', says director Haydn Keenan. Today, the under-seen film is being redistributed by maverick movie maven Elizabeth Purchell. To this day, Purchell says, 'most American cinephiles, if they know anything about Australian cinema, it's either the art house stuff like Picnic at Hanging Rock, or it's Ozploitation, like Razorback, BMX Bandits, The Man from Hong Kong – but not films like this.' Going Down is a rich descent into life in 1980s Sydney, following Karli, Jane, Jackie and Ellen on their last night out on the town together before Karli (Tracy Mann) takes off to New York the next morning. As it opens on an all too recognisable Sydney sharehouse in shambles, it is clear things have been going down for quite some time. What follows is a well-oiled portrait of sin city, devoted to the sensuous character of the former Kings Cross. The four girlfriends – two of whom also have writing credits for Going Down – sink into the night, plundering house parties and eventually becoming embroiled in what one of them calls the 'most mundane crime of the century'. More than 40 years on, the film is a remarkable certificate of Sydney's past life. In fact, Going Down was the first on-screen appearance of Australian actor Claudia Karvan, who shows up early in the film as a child playing on the street late at night with her real-life best-friend, the late Samantha Rebillet. The two girls form an unhappy family with Michael (Esben Storm) and Jane (Vera Plevnik) who masquerade as the girls' parents, deceiving a pharmacist for six bottles of Paracodin and Mandrax. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning 'I was only like 10 years old,' Karvan recalls. 'I'd never acted before. I just looked straight down the barrel.' She isn't sure that 'Mum was particularly enamoured with me doing [the film]' due to its adult subject matter – which also 'meant that I couldn't actually go and see the movie myself, because I was too young'. The film takes many exciting turns, including one remarkable U-ey in the middle of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 'We negotiated for three months, and they shut the bridge for 30 minutes,' Keenan remembers. 'You didn't have to pay. A cameraman just climbed over the barbed wire and up into the girders to shoot. I think Ryan [Gosling] spent $5m getting the same little stunt.' This was a Sydney where 'you could talk your way into places', Keenan says, and plenty has changed since he made his film: he recalls one audience member being astonished by the ample parking available in the city. As Karvan puts it, 'You don't really notice the shifting of time that much until you throw it into relief over 40 years and suddenly things you took for granted are extremely bizarre.' And nothing could be more bizarre than watching a pair of bickering newlyweds from Broken Hill park their Commodore in the heart of Sydney, outside the El Alamein 'dandelion' water fountain on Macleay St – a vehicle Karli claims as her own, driving off to the airport. Going Down, a fiercely independent production, is a blinding contrast to recent, sleek Hollywood films set in Sydney, such as The Fall Guy and Anyone But You. 'We started the film with enough money to pay the wages for the first week,' Keenan says. 'We didn't have enough lights to light night exteriors.' And while it may show sometimes – the director affectionately calls it a 'rough little picture' – the new 4K restoration has brought Going Down into sharp focus. Keenan's film has been salvaged by a series of crucial contributors. The Grainery, a restoration facility in Canberra, scanned negatives for the cost of electricity; Josh Pomeranz – Margaret Pomeranz's son – worked on the sound mix and colour grading after-hours at Spectrum Films. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion After Going Down actor Vera Plevnik died in an accident before the shoot wrapped, her friend, Australian Crawl's James Reyne, donated his songs for use in the film. 'It gradually built up a maelstrom of cultural creativity. People started throwing things in,' Keenan says. A twist of fate also brought Keenan and Purchell together. 'When I reached out to [Keenan], he was in … the final steps of the restoration,' she says. Purchell was about to launch her cult distribution company Muscle Distribution; the pair shared a DIY spirit. 'It was just right time, right place,' she says. In the film, Jane is accused of resenting Karli for leaving her behind in provincial Sydney. When Jane argues that Karli can do 'anything she wants here', it feels like wishful thinking rather than a guarantee. 'Part of it is cultural cringe. We need validation, we need to go out,' Keenan says – which is certainly true for Australians working in the film industry. But more broadly, he senses an 'unease' that exists in non-Indigenous Australians, 'a subconscious sense that we are strangers in a strange land, that we don't quite fit'. Going Down, too, is a strange film: proudly outré and gloriously coarse. (Pay close attention to the final gag, involving an appearance from Keenan himself, some egg yolks and a bucket of sesame bars.) Much like its main character, Going Down will soon take flight to the US. Let's hope it's not a one-way trip. Going Down screens at Bam, New York from 9 to 15 May before showing around the US and Canada until June
