This Just In: Australia is Not Awful!

Australia--the movie, not the actual continent--is not as terrible as some of the reviews might lead you to believe.  It's main problem is that it's at least four movies in one:  It's a cowboy movie, about the perils of ranching in a desolate place;  it's a World War II movie, about the invasion of Darwin by the Japanese;  it's a movie about the forced kidnapping of Aboriginal children by twisted racists;  and it's a love story, a movie about a grand passion between a British aristocrat and the Drover, her Australian cowboy.

One of the main reasons it's not so terrible?  One:  Hugh Jackman.  Shirtless Hugh Jackman.  (Not quite a Boomer, born in 1968.)  That's pretty much it, and it's enough.

Another problem, though, is the costar, Lady Sarah Ashley, played by Nicole Kidman.  She is so very very thin--the great Kathy Griffin calls her "a hanger with a head"--that she's a little scary.  Plus, there is not a line or a wrinkle or a crevice on her entire, 41-year-old face.  Which, also, by the way, Does Not Move.  Ever.