Australia

Fans of Moulin Rouge (buy it) Beware! If you thought romantic involvement with Kid Rock was Nicole Kidman's low point, look further down... While watching Australia I felt like I got a two-for-one deal, paid for one movie, got to watch two. I'm the first one to love long movies (Benjamin Button is one of my recent favorites), because when something's good, you want more of it, but when something's bad, more of it just makes you nauseaous.

Australia, to begin with, has a very ambiguous title, it can lure you in out of plain interest or curiosity as to what happens there, you guess there might be a good story lying behind it, and then you figure it can have so many things revolving around it, instead of a story it turns out to be a mixture of stories... as it is ambiguous, it is ambitious.

Australia= Rabbit Proof Fence (Buy it) + City Slickers (Rent it) - the actually funny Academy Awards Show Presenter (Crystal vs. Jackman) + Pearl Harbor (Avoid it) - Alfred Hitchcock's wisdom on how the length of a movie should be less than your bladder can hold. 

So while the first part is a somewhat bearable coming of age comedy, with a musical touch and a teaspoon of romance (and this is the good part), the second part completely takes over another theme of the movie that's not part of the original "cattle drive".  If you want some insight into the Australian policies that took away half-castes from their families, do yourself a favor and watch the aforementioned Rabbit Proof Fence... if you're curious to watch how Nicole Kidman is directed by Baz Luhrman again, watch Moulin Rouge again,(this way you'll also avoid the painful sight of damaging botox, silicone, etc.),  if you want to see Hugh Jackman sans shirt, save yourself three hours and surf the net... if you want to see Australia, a 27 hour flight in coach should be less painful.  Needless to say, I rate this movie with an Avoid it!