Yuku free message boards

Nicole Kidman's candour comes undone

Article from:
January 12, 2009 11:00pm

NICOLE Kidman has been swamped by a tsunami of acid-strength ridicule after being globally quoted saying she's embarrassed by the film Australia and her performance in it.

The coverage has further damaged the film's reputation and director Baz Luhrmann - and Kidman who has been the subject of vicious blogging as a result.

A classic cut-and-paste beat-up turned into an internet phenomenon over the weekend with Kidman portrayed as agreeing with her fiercest critics about her role in the WWII outback epic.

Reports infested international media, quoting her as saying "I can't look at this movie" and that she and husband Keith Urban "ran" from reviews of the film.

"It's just impossible for me to connect emotionally at all with it," she is quoted in major mastheads around the world.

But the initial report published by the UK Daily Mail last week was based on a two-month-old interview Kidman had with 2DayFM's Jackie O.

After listening to the interview, Kidman's comments on the 2DayFM website were clearly light-hearted and self-deprecating on the day after the Sydney premiere. Selective quotes spaced minutes apart were culled into one damaging, but misleading, statement.

"It is quite ridiculous for anyone to believe the reports if they listened to the actual interview," a spokeswoman for Kidman said yesterday. "It's hard to believe some of the world's media have fallen for it."

On November 21 Kidman told 2DayFM she couldn't watch herself in any film - and Australia was only the second film she had watched herself in besides Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. She told them she was always embarrassed to see herself on film.

The weekend reports prompted The New York Times - which investigated and discovered the original interview - to publish an article headlined "The Perils Of Candour".

Nicole Kidman denies she trashed Australia

---

Hollywood actor Nicole Kidman denied Tuesday she was embarrassed by her performance in Baz Luhrmann's epic Australia and fled her homeland for fear of what the critics would say about the country's costliest film, dpa reported.

Last week Britain's Daily Mail quoted Kidman saying in a November 21 interview with a Sydney radio station that she "squirmed in her seat," couldn't "connect emotionally at all with it," and "ran" from the expected bad reviews.

Kidman's Sydney-based publicist said the Daily Mail report misrepresented what the 41-year-old actor had said.

"It's quite ridiculous for anyone to believe the reports if they listened to the actual interview," the spokeswoman told Sydney's Daily Telegraph. "It's hard to believe some of the world's media have fallen for it."

Kidman told the radio station that she was uncomfortable at the Sydney premiere because of the adulation she was receiving in her hometown and because she always blushed to see herself on screen.

She said she never reads reviews of her films, good or bad, and that she always found it impossible to connect emotionally with her finished work.

In a transcript of the interview, Kidman quotes film director Stanley Kubrick as saying, "When you read the script for the first time as an actor, that's the only time when you'll have an emotional response to it."

Australia, a film four years in the making, has been panned by critics and had disappointing sales around the world. Within weeks of opening in Australia, the World War II epic was being beaten at the box office by Kung Fu Panda and five other films.

The 165-minute marathon starring Kidman and compatriot Hugh Jackman is unlikely to feature in the Oscar awards or stay in cinemas beyond the end of the month.

The Australian government has come in for criticism for funding around a quarter of the film's 150-million-US-dollar budget and gearing a tourism promotion campaign around a film that has been termed a flop.

Tim Tams take on the US

The triple chocolate delight that is the Tim Tam, arguably Australia's favourite biscuit, is now being sold in the US.

Biscuit maker Arnott's says original and caramel Tim Tams are now available in all Target stores across America, thanks to a deal with sister company Pepperidge Farm.

The biscuit has long been embraced by Aussies, with the company saying we eat our way through 400 million of them every year, making it the world's most popular chocolate biscuit per head of population.

The deal comes as the biscuit enjoys some high profile exposure in the states. Two weeks ago, actor Hugh Jackman gave a packet of Tim Tams to all the members of an Oprah audience at a taping of the show, with the talk show host giving them her stamp of approval.

Source

Taste.com.au - November 2008

Hengist wrote:

---

Here's something about a posh, englishwoman heading off to the australian outback for a reality show. She didn't find "Mr Drover".

Rudd failing local film - Bana

By Sharri Markson in Los Angeles | January 19, 2009

Article from: The Daily Telegraph

AT the glistening G'Day LA dinner in Los Angeles, Aussie Hollywood heavyweight Eric Bana has criticised the Rudd Government for the bleak state of affairs of Australian film and tourism.

Speaking exclusively to The Daily Telegraph before he was presented with an award for excellence in film, the Munich star said the Federal Government needed to invest more money to boost film production in Australia.

"Not enough money is spent on resources for our writers and getting them better access to overseas talent and experience,'' he said.

"It would be great if a lot more of them would be exposed to the rigours of the overseas market.

"I have very firm views on this. I have my own ideas.

"We need all the assistance we can get (from the Government). We are too tiny and we are viewed as isolated."

Bana's comments were echoed by Victorian Tourism Minister Tim Holding who broke from the scripted speech of his interstate colleagues and conceded Baz Luhrmann's epic film Australia and its Tourism Australia marketing strategy may not increase the number of foreign tourists visiting our shores.

"It's a spectacular movie but time will tell whether the strategy works,'' he said at the dinner.

Bana admitted he had not seen the film Australia and said the G'Day LA dinner, which was held in the heart of Hollywood, was a rare night out for him and his wife.

"We spent New Year's at home in bed because we can never find a baby sitter on New Year's Eve,'' he said.

"We'll be watching the inauguration on TV."

The G'Day dinner, sponsored by the Federal Government and Qantas, was attended by 900 guests, who paid between $5000 and $10,000 for a table.

Black Hawk Down star William Fichtner presented Bana with an award for film excellence at the gala dinner, while fellow Aussie Rachel Griffiths received an award for excellence in film and television, presented by her Brothers and Sisters co-star Sally Field.

Despite the fact Australia was a disappointment at the Aussie box office and tourism forecasts are down, Tourism Australia chairman Richard Allert said he would consider orchestrating a second tourism campaign linked to another blockbuster film, if the opportunity arose.

Mr Allert insisted the marketing strategy for the film Australia was a success.

While Australia did not receive any Golden Globe nominations, Mr Allert said he was still hopeful it would win one award.

"We haven't heard the last of the awards,'' he said.

To read more go to The Daily Telegraph

Film director Baz Luhrmann blasts Nicole Kidman critics

Article from:
By Glenn Milne

January 24, 2009 11:00pm

DIRECTOR Baz Luhrmann has lashed out at the growing army of blog-based critics of Nicole Kidman - star of his latest film Australia.

He labelled them "just plain nasty".

Luhrmann said Kidman's treatment at the hands of the critics meant her recent hints that she could walk away from films had to be taken seriously.

Speaking before the G'day USA promotion in New York yesterday, Luhrmann took aim at Kidman's critics.

"Both Nicole and I, when you do what we do, really have to ignore it," he said.

"But 'annoying' is an understatement . . . as nasty as you can be is the game.

''He who slags the most is the coolest.

''It's nasty."

Luhrmann said Kidman was being humble when she told an interviewer Australia was not her best performance.

He said she had been quoted out of context when she reportedly said she did not want to see the film.

"It's been universally reported that she didn't like the picture,'' Luhrmann said.

''Forget nastiness, it's just a lie."

He described Kidman as a "great artist" and said it would be a shame if she turned her back on the film industry.

"It's disappointing in our country that you have to put up with a lot of rubbish - people who just knowingly set out to be destructive when they know it's not true."

Luhrmann said his $150 million epic would turn a profit despite the knockers, and pointed out it had not yet been released in Asia.

"It will probably be the No. 2 or No. 3 biggest Australian movie of all times," he said.

"We just didn't get an audience in America from the outset."