outback ordeal

‘Australia’ Inches Closer As Baz Luhrmann Caves to New Ending

1:45AM STV | Not much has changed in the last week since industry observers filed a missing persons report on Australia; Baz Luhrmann’s $US130 million historical romance is still officially unfinished with only nine days to go before its homeland premiere and 16 days before it opens worldwide. Again, Baz, don’t hurry on our behalves, but! We learned a lot more over the weekend about those “mechanics of stotrytelling” so troubling the director in his quest to put his Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman epic to bed. And massive spoiler aside, it should make for a roiling eternity of second-guessing, DVD revisionism and studio-hating from Luhrmann loyalists. More »

Whereabouts of ‘Australia’ Uncertain as Fox Buys Time For Baz Luhrmann

1:46PM STV | Director Baz Luhrman’s historical epic/romance/tourism ad Australia is set to premiere Nov. 19 in its home country before opening wide here Nov. 26. It has a press junket in LA scheduled in between. And as of this writing, it has Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and $US130 million worth of Fox’s Oscar hopes tied up in an unfinished bundle in Luhrmann’s editing bay. No one has seen much more than a couple stirring trailers and, according to Anne Thompson, an unfinished print that screened without effects for a lucky Oprah Winfrey audience (none of whom, of course, were critics). So with less than three weeks before the studio expects to introduce it to the world, what’s taking so long? More »