For some days there's been this media press about Baz Luhrman having to recut his film 'Australia' to have a happy ending. He's come out and denied it saying he wrote 6 endings, shot 3 and decided on the happy one.Luhrmann is flying back to Sydney from New York with a day to spare to complete the film he has spent four years working on.
"I'm going back to the mixing desk to finish it in 24 hours," the director said.
"It's right on the edge, we're right up against it. I literally have to - on Friday night - push that button.
"This is really dangerous, I hope there's no problem with the plane going back."
I don't know how you feel about the media spin on this.
He scoffed at recent media reports that Twentieth Century Fox had forced him to change the ending of the movie so Hugh Jackman's character didn't die because audiences didn't like it.
"You really think that on my films people tell me what to do? I don't think so," he said.
"On my films I decide.
"I wrote six endings and I shot three," said Luhrmann, adding that he decided not to use the ending where Jackman's character dies.
"There is a death at the end of this film, but it's a surprise how that works."
Luhrmann said a rough cut of the film, also starring Nicole Kidman, had so far only been shown to US talk show host Oprah Winfrey and her audience, and Good Morning America host Diane Sawyer.
Kidman and Jackman appeared on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show on Monday that was dedicated to the film, where Winfrey said: "I have not been this excited about a movie since I don't know when."
Umm, that's just great Baz. I think Shakespeare wrote only one ending for each of his plays and he's still great after 400years. What are you afraid of? :)
It's probably true in as much as so much is riding on it that he just can't allow something like an ending not to be perfectly nuanced.
My bet is that there is not a single moment of black comedy in the whole thing, and we're supposed to just gobble up a tedious story that fetishes the landscape of Northern Australia, turning it into the next frontier of fiction - except Crocodile Dundee already hailed from there. I don't know why but I just can't get my hopes up that it will not be a waste of my time.
The notion of happy endings being lesser art and better business, actually is founded in the public's real behaviour. Nobody wants to leave the cinema on a down note unless they're getting something even better in exchange. That's the problem - not enough writers, directors, producers and studio execs have anything better to give than a happy ending. So happy endings it is for a Saturday night out for all of us, where we get confection instead of something better.
You don't have to be courageous to go with a sad ending, you just have to be good.
We're Crappier Than We Thought
The bad news according to Merrill Lynch - yes, they who got bought out a little while back thanks to the credit crunch - think Australia is the riskiest nation while Nigeria is the safest, thanks to foreign debt.
Australia was ranked riskiest on a table of rankings deduced from seven indicators. These were the current account financing gap, foreign exchange reserves/short-term external debt ratio, exports to-GDP ratio, private credit-to-GDP ratio, private credit growth, loans-to deposits ratio and banks capital-to-assets ratio.
As this country has zero national debt, a stable government and an apparently well-capitalised banking system we can take the Merrill report lightly. In any case, the nature of these things is a complete stab in the dark.
As one blogger put it: "Nigeria is clearly the least risky country in the world. Many Nigerians email me that they have $7.2 million that they wish to share with me on a 50/50 basis. They must be rolling in money!''
Still, it's worth looking at why Australia is at risk. The current account is coming home to roost and the economy is vulnerable to a flight of capital - not from institutional funds into banks but from foreign investors straight out of the country.
Though the Reserve Bank has taken the long-handle to the cash rate with aplomb, the boffins at the bank's headquarters in Martin Place will be quietly panicking.
We are now more susceptible than ever to our large private foreign debt. It is becoming expensive to service, even expensive for the banks to roll in the short term as the $A has fallen.
Offshore investors venture Down Under for two key reasons: to play in commodities and to enjoy the high yields. Commodities prices are getting smashed along with the unequivocally horrible economic and corporate data coming out of the US and Europe.
And as rates fall the attraction of Australia as a stable place to park some money is also diminished.
But there's a more pressing issue - the flip-side of the boom if you like - and that is the penalty for relying on overseas debt.
Despite a relieving thaw in interbank markets offshore, the RBA is not done with its liquidity campaign by a long-shot. And there may yet have to be draconian measures adopted to defend the $A.
Oh the agony. To think that our economy is a house of cards. I keep waiting for whole institutions to fall as the credit crunch works its way through the economy, but no, the same old fat cats are still driving around in their expensive Euro-cars, living on the waterfront, holding vast parties - which is why my workplace is berserk at the moment as we plan for all these fat cats to have their annual dos.
Yep, it's just been non-stop this year. Explain that to me!
Today's New Link
Today's Link Is Bambino's Bloggerama. I've added it to the sidebar so go check it out.
It's a blog that covers aspects of virtual culture as it emerges in blogland - or so I am assuming form the 7 artices on the front page plus alpha it also seems to b about Barbie Dolls. Go have a look. Here's a sample of the wit:
In Barbie Girls, the emphasis seems to be on dressing up your avatar (the power of the 'makeover'), buying stuff (clothing, etc). Here is an article about it in The Second Life Herald (unconnected with Linden Lab's SL). Players use Barbie Bucks instead of Linden Dollars. You can buy virtual furniture or 'furni' as they term it, or virtual pets. I suppose on the positive side, it is reducing actual clothing bought (and as quickly thrown away as last week's fashion) and unwanted real animal pets.
And yet, it is not THAT far away from a game that Mattel put out 40 years ago, in 1967, called "The Barbie World of Fashion game by Mattel". There was still that emphasis on fashion, cute guys, but it wasn't so insidious and was probably aimed at an older market. And the fashions actually looked like fashion - you know, related to art and design, not some sort of ghastly pink cyberchic masquerading as 'fashion'. Cheap disposable fashion, as in the real world, now represented virtually. How utterly pointless! Mattel also release Barbie's "Keys To Fame" game in 1963 but at least the premise of that was "your dream career comes true!". Gosh, a career! There's something that young girls today don't seem to aspire to. They just want fame, money and to be very attractive (and don't forget sexy, even if you are only a tween or younger).
What a shame that all that effort has been put into a game which adds to the already gargantuan effort by companies to further squander and possibly destroy the potential of young girls in the Western world. When I was pre-pubescent, I dreamed of being a ground-breaking scientist or an inventor or an investigator par excellence. I don't think I ever thought of being famous for its own sake or being a popstar/rockstar/fashion model. Now that seems to be all these girls want to be. What an awful waste!
You tell'em lady. :)
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