The Dish
Let's take a moment to think about Elle McPherson. Hey, wasn't that fun??
You know, I've been thinking about the parallels between the Good Old U.S. of A. and the Land Down Under - Australia, or Oz, as the locals refer to her. Elle McPherson is a local in this sense, and thus has every right to be mentioned here. I suppose the direction here is that of Oz envy that many Americans seem to have, and I think I've gotten to the root of all this. Let's make a chart.
Oz - Founded as a penal colony.
USA - Founded by misfits and boat-rockers who would certainly have wound up in jail, had they not gone off to the colonies.
Oz - Part of the British Empire
USA - Same here. Made a big stink of it. Shots fired.
Oz - Proud as all get-out of their kooky relatives.
USA - True only in The Deep South.
Oz - Embraces its inhabitants' fiercely independent ways.
USA - Afraid of what the neighbors will think.
AHA!
See what I mean? We had the original blueprint for Australia, but we gave it away in the pursuit of assembly lines, tract homes, the Interstate Highway System, the atom bomb and Froot Loops. Well, maybe not Froot Loops, but for sure the atom bomb. We've encouraged the Australians to out-Oz us, and in so doing, have forever put this country on a tapioca lifestyle diet. Face it, we're dull. Walk around any town in the U.S., and it looks like any other town in the U.S. That's why we envy the Australians. They never totally sold out.
So what in the name of cough-drop-flavored marsupials does this have to do with the moovie at hand? Well, for one, while umpty-zillion of you were dumping your hard-earned shekels into the coffers of the moovie chains to go see the tapioca-flavored feature of the week "The Mummy Returns", I, and a few of my closest moovie-going strangers were clustered in a dark art house to see "The Dish", with Sam Neill, Kevin Harrington, Tom Long and Patrick Warburton. Written by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner, Jane Kennedy, and Rob Sitch. Directed by Rob Sitch. MPAA rating PG-13 for language (brief) Runtime 106 minutes.
"The Dish" is a tasty slice of Australia meets America in the Nixonian 1960s. In a time when so many moovies rely so heavily on special effects that you can't tell where the actors end and the animatronics begin, the most profound effects in "The Dish" are character development, a steady story line and believability. By the time the story really starts to unfold for you, the characters are familiar enough to be your friends, their challenges become yours, their frustrations frustrate you, and you're genuinely happy to see them prevail in the end. "The Dish" could have been a dismal failure but for the unobtrusive writing and smooth direction. Just as in real life, the entire story is really just a small handful of paragraphs, and if not handled artfully, it could easily collapse under its own weight. The writing shines and the actors do not so much play the characters as much as live them. The humor in this moovie sparkles with understated subtlety and a tongue-in-cheek wink to life on the island continent. Some fun.
so, anyway...
Just as the entire world's attention was about to shift a quarter-million miles away to watch h.sapiens americanus' first steps on the Moon, the small burg of Parkes, New South Wales, was preparing to act as a relay station for the signals from Apollo 11. Just outside town, in a sheep paddock, a huge radio dish stands at the ready to become a vital link in bringing Neil Armstrong's first steps onto the lunar surface into the homes of millions, and the dish's crew stands at the ready to become part of history. All this attention focused on sleepy Parkes gets the whole town worked up into a froth, as the once-invisible locals become international celebrities in their own right.
Being a typical small town, Parkes is inhabited by any number of odd characters - it's the same in the big city, we just don't make eye contact - from the Mayor on down. Parkes wears its mantle of greatness like a rented tuxedo - it fits, but it looks a bit tight through the chest.
Sam Neill anchors the cast as Cliff Buxton, the dish's Operations Director. Nothing fazes Cliff - a latter day Ozzie Nelson with a pipe. (It bears noting here that crimes of passion are rarely committed by pipe smokers - it would interfere with their puffing/stoking/lighting schedule.
If you want a steady handed decision-maker, hire a pipe smoker.)
NASA liaison Al Burnett (Patrick Warburton) is the perfect starched shirt, square-jawed forthright American to balance the slightly off-balance locals. He might have been Kent Manley in "The Iron Giant" if it had been live action instead of animated.
In some ways, "The Dish" reminds me a bit of "Local Hero" meets "The Coca-Cola Kid" - believable and totally entertaining, and with its fair share of running gags. Granted, it isn't without its flaws - a couple of the back story bits didn't quite connect, and could easily have been edited away, but such flaws are minor, at worst. They were more than made up for by the gentle humor and comfortable pace. I like a moovie that lets you relax and enjoy it. Relax and enjoy "The Dish". You'll find my three and a half cows out in the sheep paddock trying to open a tin of Vegemite. Eeew.
You know, I've been thinking about the parallels between the Good Old U.S. of A. and the Land Down Under - Australia, or Oz, as the locals refer to her. Elle McPherson is a local in this sense, and thus has every right to be mentioned here. I suppose the direction here is that of Oz envy that many Americans seem to have, and I think I've gotten to the root of all this. Let's make a chart.
Oz - Founded as a penal colony.
USA - Founded by misfits and boat-rockers who would certainly have wound up in jail, had they not gone off to the colonies.
Oz - Part of the British Empire
USA - Same here. Made a big stink of it. Shots fired.
Oz - Proud as all get-out of their kooky relatives.
USA - True only in The Deep South.
Oz - Embraces its inhabitants' fiercely independent ways.
USA - Afraid of what the neighbors will think.
AHA!
See what I mean? We had the original blueprint for Australia, but we gave it away in the pursuit of assembly lines, tract homes, the Interstate Highway System, the atom bomb and Froot Loops. Well, maybe not Froot Loops, but for sure the atom bomb. We've encouraged the Australians to out-Oz us, and in so doing, have forever put this country on a tapioca lifestyle diet. Face it, we're dull. Walk around any town in the U.S., and it looks like any other town in the U.S. That's why we envy the Australians. They never totally sold out.
So what in the name of cough-drop-flavored marsupials does this have to do with the moovie at hand? Well, for one, while umpty-zillion of you were dumping your hard-earned shekels into the coffers of the moovie chains to go see the tapioca-flavored feature of the week "The Mummy Returns", I, and a few of my closest moovie-going strangers were clustered in a dark art house to see "The Dish", with Sam Neill, Kevin Harrington, Tom Long and Patrick Warburton. Written by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner, Jane Kennedy, and Rob Sitch. Directed by Rob Sitch. MPAA rating PG-13 for language (brief) Runtime 106 minutes.
"The Dish" is a tasty slice of Australia meets America in the Nixonian 1960s. In a time when so many moovies rely so heavily on special effects that you can't tell where the actors end and the animatronics begin, the most profound effects in "The Dish" are character development, a steady story line and believability. By the time the story really starts to unfold for you, the characters are familiar enough to be your friends, their challenges become yours, their frustrations frustrate you, and you're genuinely happy to see them prevail in the end. "The Dish" could have been a dismal failure but for the unobtrusive writing and smooth direction. Just as in real life, the entire story is really just a small handful of paragraphs, and if not handled artfully, it could easily collapse under its own weight. The writing shines and the actors do not so much play the characters as much as live them. The humor in this moovie sparkles with understated subtlety and a tongue-in-cheek wink to life on the island continent. Some fun.
so, anyway...
Just as the entire world's attention was about to shift a quarter-million miles away to watch h.sapiens americanus' first steps on the Moon, the small burg of Parkes, New South Wales, was preparing to act as a relay station for the signals from Apollo 11. Just outside town, in a sheep paddock, a huge radio dish stands at the ready to become a vital link in bringing Neil Armstrong's first steps onto the lunar surface into the homes of millions, and the dish's crew stands at the ready to become part of history. All this attention focused on sleepy Parkes gets the whole town worked up into a froth, as the once-invisible locals become international celebrities in their own right.
Being a typical small town, Parkes is inhabited by any number of odd characters - it's the same in the big city, we just don't make eye contact - from the Mayor on down. Parkes wears its mantle of greatness like a rented tuxedo - it fits, but it looks a bit tight through the chest.
Sam Neill anchors the cast as Cliff Buxton, the dish's Operations Director. Nothing fazes Cliff - a latter day Ozzie Nelson with a pipe. (It bears noting here that crimes of passion are rarely committed by pipe smokers - it would interfere with their puffing/stoking/lighting schedule.
If you want a steady handed decision-maker, hire a pipe smoker.)
NASA liaison Al Burnett (Patrick Warburton) is the perfect starched shirt, square-jawed forthright American to balance the slightly off-balance locals. He might have been Kent Manley in "The Iron Giant" if it had been live action instead of animated.
In some ways, "The Dish" reminds me a bit of "Local Hero" meets "The Coca-Cola Kid" - believable and totally entertaining, and with its fair share of running gags. Granted, it isn't without its flaws - a couple of the back story bits didn't quite connect, and could easily have been edited away, but such flaws are minor, at worst. They were more than made up for by the gentle humor and comfortable pace. I like a moovie that lets you relax and enjoy it. Relax and enjoy "The Dish". You'll find my three and a half cows out in the sheep paddock trying to open a tin of Vegemite. Eeew.
