Do you come from the land down under?

Australia was really interesting. Like all of Baz Luhermans movies, it’s got parts that your just not sure of, that you have to let grow on you. Or you just hate it and movie on. This newest film of his is no different.
I’ll just put up a pro and con list for this one…first the bad:
CON
It’s REALLY long, with two VERY distinct halves. The first one wasn’t all that interesting to me, but the second was. Others may differ.
The movie has a hard time deciding how it wants to play its aboriginal aspect. On one hand we’re meant to have sympathy for the way they were treated. But then the movie shows them as bizarre mystical spirits that dance and sing and come and go as they please. I just felt it at odds with the rest of the film.
Signs of a rushed post production reared its ugly head at times with a couple shoddy special effects shots. But nothing was GLARINGLY bad, so that was good, but when the cattle are racing toward the cliff I shouldn’t be noticing how Nicole Kidman is at full gallop and her hair isn’t moving.

PRO
Hugh jackmans body
Nicole Kidman isn’t annoying, which she very easily can be. I think it was a bit of typecasting here, but that’s cool. He’s supposed to be a stuck up bitch, and that she does well.
The cinematography is amazing. It makes me want to go to Australia more than ever now.
The music. The most memorable sequence involves Kidman looking through the ruble after Darwin is bombed. All of a sudden you hear “somewhere over the rainbow” on a harmonica in the far off distance. As it gets louder she hears an aboriginal children’s choir singing it in their native tongue and she goes off running in slow motion of course through the smoke toward the music. It’s cheesy and melodramatic, and I LOVED that sequence more than anything else in the movie. It’ll also make more sense once you see it.
Hugh Jack man sticking up for his friend when he’s not allowed into the bar. His line of dialogue is SOOOO awesome, his delivery so intense, it’s worth waiting 3 hours to get to that point.!!