"Australia" Film

[ARCHINSTL]

OK - I already know it is a great film as that lustrous lady with the eyebrows is in it - what's her name...
Oh, Yeh - Nicole Kidman.
But seriously, folks - for you members down in OZ - what has been the reaction?
It opens here in STL in a week or so.
There is (apparently) quite a bit about the WWII bombing of Darwin. I just finished a book about Allied naval action in that neck of the sea in the very early days and that is covered, so it looks interesting.
Tom M.

[Mattel]

hmmm, I'm not rushing out to see it. IMO Nicole hasn't done much good since Dogville. Baz Lurhman - since Romeo and Juliet. The Misses and I will be probably go and see the new Bond flick before "Australia".

I have been helping a friend of mine (a marine archaeologist) out with a presentation he made to the Prime-Minister and governor-general of Australia this week regarding a gun and artefacts found after WW2 off the coast of WA which was related to the anniversary of 67 years since we lost Australias biggest destroyer (the Sydney) in WW2 and it's wreckage was only found this year (along with the wreck of it's nemesis the German boat called the Komorant). It went down with all on board except one body that was washed ashore a short time later.

Australias war time legacy in the media is dominated by the Anzacs at Gallipoli also the Kokoda trail and the poppy fields of France. Darwin and Vietnam are not often mentioned. Recently the ex prime minister Paul Keating publicly put his perspective that Gallipoli is overated, nothing to be proud about and that we pretty well got screwed by England and should not mythologise this battle to the level it is (good point I think).

Tom, I recently read a couple of fun "airport" type books by a guy called John Birmingham (who is quite a well known author in Aus) that had a revisionist history type plot where a modern international fleet get transported back in time into the middle of the battle of midway. They are fun, quick reading to paraphrase wikipedia: Axis of Time Trilogy
In 2004 he published the alternate history Weapons of Choice, the first in the Axis of Time trilogy, a series of Tom Clancy-like techno-thrillers. Many writers from those genres appear as minor characters. It was published by Del Rey Books in the US and by Pan Macmillan in Australia.
The series tells of a multinational peacekeeping force from the early 21st century being taken back in time to 1942, where its presence completely changes the course of the Second World War. In August 2005, the second book, Designated Targets was published in Australia. US publication followed in October.
The third and final book in the trilogy, Final Impact, was released in Australia in early August 2006, and was released in the US in January 2007. There are now two new Birmoverse books in the works, one set shortly after the end of the war, and another in the alternate 1980s, said to feature a dashing young RAF pilot: Richard Branson. One of these books will be released in Australia in September-October 2008.[1]
Anyway I picked these books up for $5, not really my genre normally but really enjoyed them for what they are....

[terceldude]

I wanna see this movie...