I thought Ned Kelly was all right. I don't actually remember much of Orlando's part in it, though, except for being kinda skeezy, and there was a scene with him in a bathtub that was pretty nice.

How was Ned Kelly, apart from Orlando, ita? I liked the book a lot.

You mean the Peter Carey book, Lee? I read that last year--it was excellent. I don't think the movie was taken specifically from the book. They share the same source material, of course, but the focus differs. And the book is better, and makes more sense out of the legend (and has, I think, more of the quality ita was talking about: the "soul of a country" kind of thing).

He was skeezy. Macking on all the chicks. Getting them too. Which made me smile, because he's still so virginal in the movies that made it to wide release in the US.

In the end, I can see if you already believe in Ned Kelly, it working for you. Not an effective conversion piece.

Also watched James Dean with James Franco. Very nice mimicking. Of course, I know nothing about Dean, so I have no idea what was true, and what was made up. I guess it must be a lot, because they had at least one disclaimer.

I saw Starship Troopers last night.

Gah. Gah. Gah. Had to put on a bad Stargate episode afterwards to get the taste out of my mouth.

That's the worst movie I've seen voluntarily in several years. I used the fast-forward button liberally.

The weird thing is that Hugh Jackman can open a musical -- everybody, hands-down, agrees that the only thing that made The Boy From Oz worth seeing was Jackman, and that Jackman made it well worth seeing. They're closing it when he leaves -- even the producers know it's a lost cause.

Jackman can keep a musical alive, but not a movie.

That's a movie that gets film geeks at each other's throats, Suela. One camp find it a pointed satire on fascism and patriotism using visual tropes from propaganda films in interesting ways, the other (heretofore known as the "right" camp, as it's the one I'm in) feels that it doesn't work as satire because the commentary needs to be read into it, rather than being there to be understood. For the right camp, it's a flat sci-fi film loaded with dull 2-D characters.

Jackman can keep a musical alive, but not a movie.

You say that, but let them try and mount Swordfish! and see how that fares.

I'm glad he made the show, and not just in a rubbernecking sort of way -- it wasn't like Jordan selling Barons tickets, was it?

Didn't he get a Tony? Or at least a Tony nom?

That doesn't sound like Jordan selling Barons tickets to me.

Knowing nothing about the facts, I'm always deeply cynical of the amount of attention garnered by crossovers. But concomitantly happy when it's not a Barons thing.

But Jackman started in theater--it's not a crossover. Some actors, like Kevin Kline or Matthew Broderick, go back and forth between theater and film all the time.

He got a Tony, and it was an astonishing performance. The woman I saw it with said "He was as good as the show was bad."

So yeah, the show's closing because it sucks, but it's been a success because he was the star.