Casual mentions of Australia in films

emuboy

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I assumed it was because he's always appreciated Australian cinema, particularly the ozploitation scene of the 70s.

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It's good to see Australian cinema appreciated overseas, lots of people from overseas just don't seem to get Australian movies, like 'The Big Steal', 'Garage Days', 'Fat Pizza', 'The Wog Boy' or 'Muriel's Wedding'.

The Big Steal which starred Ben Mendelsohn, Claudia Karvan and Steve Bisley is probably my favorite Aussie movie of all time, and even now 30 years after it was made whenever I see one of the actors from this film in something else I always think of their Big Steal character.
 
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Tarantino mentions Australia a lot in Django as he considers Australia to be one of the most historically racist countries in the world

Words from his mouth

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Are you sure about that?

edgie is right in saying that Tarantino is a massive fan of Ozploitation films and he has spoken extensively about this in the past. I've never heard him outright label us as a racist country though.
 

STFU Donnie

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James Garner was on his way to Australia in Support Your Local Sheriff.

That's such a good film. Walter Brennan's exasperation with his son Bruce Dern (in an early role) always amused me. Especially over the building of the jail.
 

STFU Donnie

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I assumed it was because he's always appreciated Australian cinema, particularly the ozploitation scene of the 70s.

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You only need watch Not Quite Hollywood to see his genuine love for the genre.
 
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You only need watch Not Quite Hollywood to see his genuine love for the genre.
That's where I got it from.

I'm a bit of a QT critic though and I gotta say he's not often been able to replicate that style despite his attempts (that slow as Kurt Russell driving the car one).

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Hell no
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emuboy

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In the 1991 movie 'Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead' which had Christina Applegate in the lead role the mother goes to Australia for six weeks, leaving the five kids at home first with the babysitter, and after she dies taking care of themselves.
 
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In the '84 Frears film The Hit Bill Hunter gives John Hurt, Tim Roth and Terence Stamp an indulgent introduction to AFL (Hawthorn fan from memory).

A really random one is the 1990 Finnish film The Match Factory Girl where the regular oaf stepdad can clearly be heard watching an Australian Rugby League match (St George vs Canterbury). Even for an eclectic hipster like Kaurismaki that was bizarre.
 

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'Macloud' with Dennis Weaver had an episode set in Australia. He rode onto a soccer pitch when Sydney beat Melbourne in a soccer game long before a national competition.
 
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WireHawk

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In the '84 Frears film The Hit Bill Hunter gives John Hurt, Tim Roth and Terence Stamp an indulgent introduction to AFL (Hawthorn fan from memory).

A really random one is the 1990 Finnish film The Match Factory Girl where the regular oaf stepdad can clearly be heard watching an Australian Rugby League match (St George vs Canterbury). Even for an eclectic hipster like Kaurismaki that was bizarre.

In 'The Hit' Bill Hunter is watching the footy in his apartment in Spain. John Hurt is there to get rid of him. Hunter says
"That's my team Mitch. Hawthorn". But the teams playing are Carlton and Melbourne!
 
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In The Right Stuff they go to Muchea Radar Station. The usual aboriginal elder black magic bullshit occurs. The Americans go in to space. the end.
 
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In the '39 Wellman film The Light That Failed (great film by the way) Dick & Maisie spot a vessel which Dick identifies as the "Barralong" headed from Britain to Australia (there was the HMS Baralong in service in the early 1900s). The mention is set around 1890, not long before the reconquest of Sudan and published date of the Kipling novel.
 

emuboy

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There are some funny moments involving Australia and Australians in some classic UK comedies from the past.

In the Fawlty Towers episode 'The Psychiatrist' the bumbling Basil Fawlty is terrified of the titular psychiatrist and does everything to avoid him including hiding in wardrobes and bedrooms, but of course the psychiatrist sees every crazy thing Basil does. Basil's situation is not helped by the presence of an attractive young female Australian guest, who is at the center of most of the bizarre things that the psychiatrist sees, and also leads to trouble with Sybil after an incident with a ladder and the girl's bedroom ...

George and Mildred had an episode where they discuss emigrating to Australia as did Frank Spencer and Betty from Some Mothers Do 'Ave Em. The Goodies had an episode where cloned Rolf Harris's had escaped from a research facility and were on the loose in England, and it was up to the Goodies to capture and return them to the laboratory.

An Australian turned up on the doorstep in 'Steptoe and Son' claiming to be Albert's long lost son and Harold's half brother, but he turned out to be a conman. And another well know sitcom con artist, Dell Boy from Only Fools and Horses made the mistake of selling a shonky car to a tough Australian, who was none too happy about being ripped off and tracked down Dell Boy and Rodney, chasing them up the street.
 

Big_Birdy

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yeah looked nothing like Bells really, but they did have a Milk Bar!

The weird thing about this (and I wasn't aware that it wasn't shot at Bells until reading this thread) is that Australian Actor Peter Phelps is in the scene, IIRC correctly Johnny Utah walks past him and he says something like "s**t out there today" or whatever. So I always assumed it was shot in Oz and they put a call out for local actors to be in the scene.

But then, the Cop who asks Utah why is he letting him go has the most over the top fake accent possible, and the way he contorts his mouth to speak makes me think its an american actor putting on a horrible Australian accent, which makes sense if it was shot in the US. So how did Peter Phelps get in the scene? Did they fly him over from Oz for one line of utterly pointless dialogue (pretty sure the audience could tell the conditions were far from ideal without having it spelled out to them)? I guess he could have been in LA trying to make it big, but why bother going out for Australians at all if they are just gonna ham up the accents anyway?

The mysteries of cinema.
 
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