‘Casablanca’ has slipped a rung in the list of the greatest movies ever made. ‘Backyard Ashes!’ Bergman’s ‘The Seventh Seal’ has got nothing on it. That chess game is dead boring by comparison. The drama! The pathos! The barbecue! The googley! It has everything! And it has more!
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‘Citizen Kane,’ move over. This is an instant classic. ‘Last Year at Marienbad’ is so last century. Why bother? [Confession: I thought that at the time.] But before cinema history is revised let’s go back to the beginning.
Blue ticket in hand I set out from the Ack-comedy on the 370 bus which wound about to Coogee Bay Road where I dismounted and walked around the corner to the Randwick Ritz, an Art Deco picture palace. Leaving the wind and the rain behind I flashed the receipt on my iPhone and entered. The password was ‘Cinema 2, on the right.’
The Best and Brightest showcase, unanswered emails, summer projects, the Machiavelli exhibit, the British International Studies Association conference paper, the remaining 400 pages of James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses,’ the Prague utopian presentation PowerPoint, mysteries of the slate roof, all of these fell behind in a thrice. The lights went off and the magic started.
After some initial stereotypes to set up the people, the place, and the tensions, time flew by all too quickly. There was so much snorting and guffawing I am sure I missed some imperishable dialogue. A fellow nearby slid off his chair laughing. At the end several patrons seemed unable to move, paralytic with amusement.
Shades of Big Merv, the key in the wicket, Dennis the Mo, Richie, body line, to say nothing of the specter of BRADMAN which hangs over it all with Wilma and Mack. Best for last, that ball from Seven-Eleven.
Oh, and the cat!
If only Roger Ebert could see this. He’d love it for what it is: Warm, witty, wise, and wonderful. Just like Wagga Wagga.
I do feel sorry for the professional critics who have to find fault with it, e.g. ‘rough around the edges,’ ‘a cast that combines professionals with some amateurs inevitably…‘ Here’s a perfect example: ‘Wearing its heart and hopes on its sleeve may help patch over the repetition and derivation that monopolises the movie; however, the passion of the production can’t conceal the standard and less-so elements,’ says one reviewer on ArtsHub giving it a measly two stars from five. But wait, ‘repetition and derivation that monopolises the movie,’ what does that mean? How can ‘derivation’ ‘monopolise’ anything. Is this Monash English? Only a self-described film critic can answer that. This Einstein also finds the references to cricket in a movie about cricket to be annoying. Go figure. I know what Spock would say…. [In this case, Spock is one of the cricket players.]
Such reviews are as infantile and self-obsessed as 90% of posts on Trip Advisor. This film is a GEM.
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