Thanks must go to Cocktails for recommending an Australian film that sums up Australia in the mid-Sixties. They're A Weird Mob is about an Italian immigrant who arrives in Australia to find the magazine job he'd been promised doesn't actually exist, meaning he gets what work he can: a building site. He mixes with your average Aussie while all the time being mystified by the language and customs. Oh, and he falls in love.
It's a big Australian dream of making something of yourself and you can see its appeal. It's a light comedy, probably means more to you if you're actually an Australian and was the biggest Aussie film for years, apparently. Some lovely shots of Sixties Sydney, something I've not seen before, Neighbours' Helen Daniels as a barmaid and all the beer you can drink. But the underlying thing I got from it is that attitudes were quite British still. And they still used pounds, shillings and pence.
Then I checked out Don's Party, set in Sydney again, but this time on election night 1969. This was great, cringe-worthy stuff, like Abigail's Party with tits and a barbecue. It was made in 1976 and for the time I imagine was rather risque. Swinging, boozing, swearing, with boorish men and women who are either bimbos or shrews getting drunk and getting it on, while important election results are counted in the background. All mores were on show, sexual or otherwise.
My curiosity about this period is Aussie history is now partly satisfied. When are they making a film about the Beaumont children?
On another note, it was nice to meet Planet Mondo, Rockmother at The Urban Woo's birthday, and to see Roman Empress and Let's Look Sideways again. Great do, I was rather hungover the next morning, but it was a useful bridge-building exercise.
And have you seen Juno? You must, it's as briliant as they it is for once.
