Thanks to reader Josh for tipping us off that Oprah went nuts for Australia on Monday’s show. Here is what she said:
“I have not been this excited for a movie since I don’t know when. I’m telling you, have I got the movie for you. It’s the best movie I’ve seen in a long, long, long, long time. It literally swept me off my feet.”
While this might be due to a shirtless Hugh Jackman it doesn’t really matter, does it? She also said “They don’t make movies like that anymore!” And she kept repeating “was that a movie? Was that a movie?”
She also said “This is the movie to see over Thanksgiving. it is epic, it is majestic, it is romantic, and the scenery is so gorgeous you can barely stand it – it’s everything a great movie should be.”
And then Nicole Kidman was interviewed – tall, gorgeous, plumped up in the face, Botoxed within an inch of her life. I’m sorry to be so petty but it freaks my shit out. I still love her and I’ll probably plotz for this movie too. More on Oprah.com.
No Response for "Oprah Goes All Out for Australia"
Oprah goes all out for Australia? Well then, it is decided. Australia will win Best Picture. We can now move on to next year’s Oscars.
Move along, there’s nothing to see here.
BTW, Oprah was literally swept off her feet? Hurm!
Oh, I think this is a Best Picture contender. Not so sure about Kidman or Jackman.
I don’t know. We have to wait and see how critics respond – I can’t find a single review for the film yet.
I swear she used these same words last year for Hairspray. Which probably means I’m going to love it.
i have said this on numerous oscar blogs how can you take kidman seriously in a period pic with millenium surgery,she looks weird and i used to love old nicole but this new bat shit crazed creature i
see really upsets me because is know one close to her saying “STOP NOW”
What movie did Oprah campaign for last year?
Is there a movie our there that can ride the coat tails of Obama’s feel good win??? It’s all about zeitgeists, y’alls!!
It definitely looks awesome. Beautiful imagery.
Oprah’s track record? She was much more for Crash than Brokeback, as I recall, she wasn’t much of a Departed fan but loved Dreamgirls. Last year she wasn’t much for No Country but she is a Cormac McCarthy fan – I don’t recall which movie or actress she loved last year. She loved Juno.
I think if it were up to Oprah Dreamgirls would have won Best Picture.
Yeah, I think its going to make a lot of impact in the technicals, and recent quibbles about the ending aside (there was similar controversy when Christopher lee was cut from Return of the King), I think it will make Best Picture and Director. That alone makes it worthy of consideration in the acting catergories….. BP nods usually drag an acting nod in somewhere.
I’m excited. It opens Boxing Day in the UK. Hurrah!
So, I was undecided about this movie but since Oprah loves it, I’m going to see it. Oprah has good taste and I had her instincts.
Give it up for the Big “O”
I know, crazy right…I was gonna completely avoid it, but now…geez, it’s true what they say about her, isn’t it?
I am very excited and I can’t stand Oprah but I am an Aussie so Australia is a must for me to see anyway.
And also living in Queensland I won’t get to see the interview because Oprah is on in the middle of the day and I am at work. I have seen 10 minutes on youtube – I thought the little I saw of Nicole she looked gorgeous and she seems very down to earth.
I cannot wait!
What was that? Oprah gushed over something to the point of ad nauseum? She’s never done that before! Stop the presses!
I hope this is great. Only a matter of days before some reviews. Debut in Oz next week!
Pass
I used to have no interest in watching this. Now I actually would willingly pay money to see this. Curse you Hugh Jackman.
@ Kezza
Finally someone who acknowledges Nicole. All these lunatics on this site seem to be more occupied with her botox supplements
I don’t need Oprah to tell me what’s good or not. I will see the film because I want to see the film and I will like/hate a film for the same reason.
As for Nicole Kidman. I think she’s a decent actress, but you have to admit she’s done something to her face and at some point it’s gonna be difficult to watch her onscreen.
I just want some Tim Tams now. Damn that Jackman
I never really noticed the botox until this photo–she’s really starting to head into Cher territory (or Joan Rivers, if she’s not careful).
I’m sorry to be so oblivious (I can never tell which celebrities have had plastic surgery)—but I cannot see what aspects of her face indicate the tell-tale Botox look. What features look obviously Botox-ed to you?? How do you know?
Michael
Enough with this talk about Nicole Kidman and botox. What is wrong with you people?
I just don’t understand it. On what grounds (based on that photo) can we speculate that Kidman has actually had Botox injections? (Not that I would want to suggest making any value judgment regarding its use).
I think she looks fine…
Michael: her face never moves. It has been frozen since Cold Mountain came out.
Screw you, Oprah… I’m going to see Transporter 3… Jason Statham for Best Actor in a Rut!
Ummm, you can see wrinkles in her face during the interview and in recent pics.
All I’m sayin’…
Australia will be shown to critics early next week. We will have some reviews by the 18th or 19th. I am sure some critics will criticize Nicole. Either her wooden acting or frozen face. I have a feeling that Jackman and the little boy will get most of the good acting reviews. And of course, many critics will give praise to Baz for his vision and ambition to make this epic. Time magazine won’t get a chance to review this film way in advance like they did “Titanic” which they gave a mediocre review on. We will have to wait and see if this film sinks or swims.
[...] ? Sasha Stone reports that Oprah Winfrey went gaga over “Australia” when she hosted stars Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman on her daytime talkfest Monday. Even though she saw the original downbeat ending, Winfrey enthused, “I have not been this excited for a movie since I don??t know when. I??m telling you, have I got the movie for you. It’s the best movie I??ve seen in a long, long, long, long time. It literally swept me off my feet.” Given the resounding success of Oprah’s last endorsement, rival studios might well wonder if Fox has a winning candidate here. Awards Daily [...]
Nicole looks gorgeous but she would look even better without the botox. It would be interesting to see her natural face again.
I’m glad hearing that Oprah loved the movie. She really went crazy about it. That means Australia is indeed an amazing film. I was always feeling that this epic would be majestic and breathtaking. I’ve seen all the trailers and podcasts of Australia and it always seemed to be something really special. Of course, you can’t tell for sure until you see the movie yourself. But would Oprah Winfrey react that way if it wasn’t good? Also, now that Baz answered to these rumors about the ending of his film, saying that he did shot 3 different endings, including the happy one and the ‘Drover’s death’ (both test-screened to audience) but finally decided another ending which hasn’t been screened and it’s quite a surprising twist, I feel really confident for Australia’s success, at least as far as it concerns the artistic result.
Here is a really interesting, though a bit spoiling, extract from Baz Luhrmann’s interview to LA Times:
LAT: Addressing reports that the ending had to be changed due to a poor response from test audiences…
BL: “What’s interesting is I wrote, I think, six endings in all the drafts I did, shot three, and I ended up concluding the film in a way in which I — probably more than anyone — least expected. And there is a death in the ending of the film, by the way — it’s a bit of a twist and I won’t give it away… And, incidentally, the two endings, by the way, tested completely the same essentially, you know? They really did in the numbers. But I came up with a third ending, and the ending that I’ve created about the film came from a place of a response, actually, to the thing that I wanted the movie to be — the important, big idea of the movie — how to amplify that big idea. And, essentially, that’s, as the little boy says, “The rain will fall. The grass grows green. And life begins again.” And that idea — that in a world that is so full of fear, and things are falling down, and people are somewhat concerned — Sending a movie out there that can leave people with a sense that, despite it all, you can go back to Faraway Downs, or that you can go on, and a sense of hope, is something I really felt personally I wanted the movie to give out… But I think the big story is how the actual ending I came up with, which is quite unusual — it’s not easy to say it’s ‘the happy one’ or ‘the death one’ — it’s something quite surprising. And it found itself, really.”
LAT: Addressing rumors that the runtime of the film is much longer than expected…
BL: “The length is the length that I want it to be. It’s the length that I think is the right length to be as inclusive as possible. I mean, my rough-cut, by the way, wasn’t that long; it was only about three hours. I mean, for an epic, it was quite nothing. And the running length of it was always between two hours-forty and three. And it’s probably — once I finish with it — gonna end up around two and a half hours, and I like that length. And, you know, it’s kind of what I had in mind, really; I thought the film, ultimately, would be at two-forty. It’s not really long for an epic work. I mean, ‘epic’ doesn’t just mean long, you know? It means big in its scale and its ideas, you know?”
LAT: How he feels going into the release, responsible for a film with a massive budget…
BL: “Will the film succeed? I cannot guarantee that. But is there a hunger for a movie like this? Yes. I mean, I am inviting all of America to “Australia” for Thanksgiving, and we’re gonna serve a cinematic banquet. And what I mean by that is that the film goes from comedy, to tragedy, to action, to drama — and yet, underneath it all is a big, emotional idea. And if it in any way puts out there for an audience a sense of hope, and uplift, and the possibility of going on stronger in times of adversity, then we haven’t wasted our time. Now I think the film has a chance of doing that.”
Oh, and I agree with backto1960: stop talking about Nicole’s face!! She was really sweet in this interview and looks very down-to-earth.
As for Hugh, he is my favorite actor and I hope this will be the film that will really work for him at last! I mean, ok, Wolverine was a smash success that boosted his career, sure X-Men Origins will be an even greater hit than the previous X-flicks but I think he is an actor with more capabilities and wider range. He has to move on, show to people what he is able to do like he’s already done with his stage career. He tried to show more in The Prestige, even more in the Fountain, but these films didn’t always worked with critics, specially the second one. He was prety good in Kate & Leopold but anyway this was too a failure. What makes me feel optimistic about Hugh is his new musical film ‘Cleo’. But first is Australia… Personaly, I’ve invested much on him. Hope he won’t disappoint. We’ll see…
Er, I just saw my comments posted… Sorry for the spelling mistakes!! Just a rush issue!!
Just came across another Luhrmann response on the Australia-ending rumors, this time at the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper:
Claims that the final scenes of Australia were re-shot to spare Hugh Jackman’s character from a tragic death have been vigorously denied by the film’s director, Baz Luhrmann.
“Are you kidding?” said Luhrmann when asked to comment on rumours that 20th Century Fox had forced him to change the ending. “It’s really simple: on a Baz Luhrmann film, I decide.”
The director said a story suggesting that he had been instructed to resurrect Jackman’s character, The Drover, after the studio backing the film was spooked by negative test screenings was “naive” and ” profoundly misinformed”.
“You’re talking about a studio [20th Century Fox] that has the highest-grossing film of all time [in which] the guy dies at the end,” he said. “It’s called Titanic.
“Do you think they came to me and said ‘whatever you do, please don’t have an ending like Titanic? That’ll never make any money? To be honest, it’s rubbish.”
Luhrmann was speaking from New York where he attended a tribute dinner in his honour at the Museum of Modern Art. He flies to Sydney today where he will spend about seven hours in a mixing suite completing Australia.
The film will have its world premiere in Sydney on November 18 and goes on general release on November 26.
Luhrmann said he shot three endings, screening two of them for test audiences – one happy, the other featuring The Drover’s tragic death. While both recorded almost identical test results, he had already decided on a third ending three months ago.
“There was always a struggle within me,” he said. “There’s the way Titanic ends and there’s the way Gone With The Wind ends.
“It’s neither of those. It’s an ending specific to this moment and it’s what I want the film to give out and what I need in my own life. It’s what I want to feel. On that level, it’s completely personal.”
Luhrmann said he also dictated the length of the film, which he estimates at about 2½ hours.
“I think the credits run for an hour and 20 minutes,” he joked. “That’s because everyone in Australia is in the movie.”
Luhrmann conceded the budget had run significantly above $US100 million ($148 million), but had been cushioned by the federal government’s 40 per cent rebate on film production. “It’s been an epic experience and life-changing and very, very testing.” he said
[...] sobre quem tem a informação certa sobre o filme, e no meio de tudo a Oprah é a única que viu uma primeira versão e amou. – Paris Hilton vai estar no novo filme de Todd Solondz. O filme é uma espécie de continuação [...]
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