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And here I was feeling guilty for giving "Australia" a decent review. Thanks, Dr. K, for making me feel justified.

Dear Mr. Kermode I am a really big fan and have had a number of letters read out on your Radio 5 Live show.

I am a budding film critic and would like you and all your fans who watch this blog to also check out mine:



Any feedback would be most welcome as would any advice on becoming a critic!

Nice review. Of course it's 'not really about Australia' but more importantly, does Kidman get her kit off?

I haven't seen this movie, would never see this movie in fact, because I thought Moulin Rouge and Romeo&Juliet, were mortifying, camp that somewhere went wrong and came out on the screen as a deliberate form of lifeless cliche that sees itself as "mythic" or "iconic" or whatever. The same sort of thing that went wrong with Coppola's film version of "The Outsiders". All the critiques, yours especially, only convince me that this Australia is more, more, more of the same. I write this to you because I'm curious about why exactly "accuracy" seems so incredibly unimportant to you. Critics always poo-poo that and I wonder why. Remember The Enigma Code or that Ron Howard (who you love) Beautiful Mind, in which very interesting facts were replaced by dull cinematic audience pleasing banalities, and critics thought those blurrings, changes and deletions were all right because of their "filmic" truth or something. The work of this Luhrman charater seems to me like an attack of a kind of superbanality. Why is his doing that whole hog to be admired? Why, I ask you?

Upon watching this video I went and had a look at a Boxing Day news release by Val Morgan, the big cinema advertiser here in New Zealand. The release encouraged advertisers to buy as space to cash in to "one of the biggest weeks of the year for the New Zealand Box Office"

I really liked two comments they made on films released on Boxing Day in New Zealand.

Twilight -"intoxicating blend of breathy romance and mild horror which will be must-see viewing for teenage girls."

Frost/Nixon - "For interested advertisors this is a chance to reach a quality audience as typical arthouse moviegoers are more likely than the general population to be highly educated, affluent, professional, and light commercial TV viewers."

In response to vanveen14. That is a rather closed off view don't you think? To never view another film by someone if you have not liked their previous output.

Also, if Dr.K was truly making the point that accuracy is unimportant (I don't think he was) then in some cases this is absolutley true. I'm not saying that cases such as U571 (where the nation involved in a dramatic event was altered just to appeal to a wider audience and disguised by the phrase 'based on true events') are valid, but I do not EXPECT films to maintain a level of accuracy. Lets face it, how dull would the world be if our best forms of escapism had to conform to the limits of the real world.

In most cases suspension of disbelief is perfectly acceptable.

And in Baz Luhrman's case it is to be truly encouraged.