Alan Cassell Movies

Australian filmmaker Ted Emery directs the fish-out-of-water comedy The Honourable Wally Norman. Kevin Harrington stars as the down-to-earth Wally Norman, a foreman at a meat-packing plant who generally gets along with everyone in the small town of Givens Head. The upcoming election for the county seat involves the conservative Total Country Party member F. Ken Oats (played by comedian Shaun Micallef) and the Australian People's Party member Willy Norman (Alan Cassell). Due to a corrupt government scam, Wally's name appears on the ballot and he is approached to run for Federal Parliament. He decides to run just for the heck of it and brings his entire family along with him. Melissa Madden-Gray plays political reporter Rebecca Jane Thompson and John Singleton appears in a cameo role as the Prime Minister. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

Belinda (Deanne Jeffs) is a 16-year-old Australian girl who wants to become a ballerina. To make ends meet, she takes a job as an exotic dancer in a scrungy Sydney cabaret. Eventually she is able to pursue her original goal, but not before experiencing (and enduring) humanity at both its best and worst. Director/writer Pamela Gibbons reportedly based Belinda on her own early life. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This intriguing low-budget crime-thriller is reminiscent of vintage film noir detective stories with their distinctive atmosphere and musical scores. Price (David Bradshaw) is an investigative reporter with a nose for news. His editor (John Ewart) is always on edge, but the man may have good reason to be nervous. A series of murders (and one possible suicide) lead to suspicions about the activities of the government and their connection to secret scientific experiments. As Price digs deeper and deeper into his investigation, the plot twists and turns toward an ending that offers some fast-moving action. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

If the Perils of Pauline were set in a campy New York City with a dash of trash added in, Not for Publication would result, though the awful jokes and kinky characters are not going to be entertaining to everyone. Lois (Nancy Allen) is a reporter at a sleazoid newspaper, a paragon of yellow journalism that she is determined to turn back to its first incarnation as The New York Enforcer, a better paper. The not-so-good Mayor Franklyn (Laurence Luckinbill) adopts Lois as his personal assistant when she bursts into his office one day and strongly advises him to cut the pressure to shut down porn shops or he will lose the vote of New York's youth. She hires a photographer (David Naughton) to work in the mayor's office, planning to use his skills for her tabloid paper -- but then a quirky menage à trois arises between the mayor, the photographer, and Lois. After some undercover sleuthing in Long Island, Lois connects the mayor to various robberies that have occurred in the city and thinks of a way to bring back the New York Enforcer and handle the mayor at the same time. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This charming love story set in the 1950s brings together an older, crafty man, a somewhat innocent young man, and a former call girl with a pure heart in an unconventional menage à trois. When the two men come into an outback town they make the acquaintance of Joycie (Lorna Lesley) who has just been fired from her job and has no place to stay. The men invite her to live with them in their shack on the outskirts of town -- and while the three are happy together, a few puritanical (and some hypocritical) townspeople start to be more and more vocal in their opposition to the trio. Their intent is to make it too hot for the threesome to even consider staying in the vicinity. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

This Australian crime drama chronicles the life of notorious, keen witted, acid tongued 1920s Melbourne gangster Squizzy Taylor. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Director Bruce Beresford continued his tradition of putting socially disenfranchised characters front and center with this wryly observant comedy drama about middle class Australian teens that served as a stark contrast to the popular American teen films of its day. Friends from the Sydney suburb of Cronulla, Debbie (Nell Schofield) and Sue (Jad Capelja) are a pair of average schoolgirls who smoke, drink, have sex, and cheat on exams. The girls are also striving to become "surfie chicks," the groupies that hang around the surfer boy gangs of southern Sydney, pairing off with the objects of their affection. Adhering to odd rules that prevent them from eating or going to the bathroom in the surfers' presence, the girls get into trouble for their wild behavior, with Debbie eventually fearing that she's pregnant, leading to a fatal overdose of heroin for her boyfriend Garry (Geoff Rhoe). Ultimately, Debbie and Sue become disillusioned with the sexism and narrow-mindedness of their crowd. Puberty Blues (1981) was based on the book of the same name by Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey, a pair of real-life Sydney teens who wrote newspaper articles under the pseudonym "The Salami Sisters." ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Breaker Morant is one of the most acclaimed Australian films, telling a powerful tale of wartime betrayal and injustice. Henry "Breaker" Morant (Edward Woodward) is an Englishman living in Australia at the end of the 19th century. When war breaks out in 1899 between Britain and the Boers (descendants of Dutch colonists), Morant and a number of Australians volunteer for duty and are absorbed into the non-regular units of the British army. Acting under orders from his commanders, Morant oversees the execution of several Boer prisoners; it turns out that one of them was German, and in order to keep the peace with Germany, Britain agrees to courtmartial Morant and two other soldiers, sentencing two to death and one to life imprisonment. Based on a play by Kenneth Ross, Bruce Beresford's film is powerfully filmed and acted and has become a classic anti-war movie since its 1980 release; the script (co-written by Beresford) was nominated for an Academy Award. The final execution scene is nearly overpowering in its sense of tragedy and futility. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

In order to raise the money for his "breakthrough" film Breaker Morant, Australian director Bruce Beresford dashed off the guaranteed audience pleaser Money Movers. Terence Donovan masterminds a bank-vault heist that will potentially net his gang 20 million Australian dollars. The scheme predictably goes sour, but this conclusion is reached via a most unexpected fashion. Ed Devereaux, best known to American audiences for his leading-man gig on the TV series Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo, is second billed as "Dick Martin" (no, not the American TV-comic Dick Martin). Money Movers was based on a novel by Devon Minchin. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi