Rod Zuanic Movies
Rod Zuanic is an Australian supporting actor who has been onscreen since Fast Talking (1983). ~ All Movie GuideJeff Balsmeyer makes his writing and directing debut with the Australian romantic comedy Danny Deckchair. Rhys Ifans plays Danny Morgan, a building tradesman living in the Sydney suburbs with his upwardly mobile real-estate agent girlfriend, Trudy (Justine Clarke). When she chooses to postpone their vacation together in order to show a house to TV personality Sandy Upman (Rhys Muldoon), Danny takes matters into his own hands by fastening helium balloons to a chair and sailing over the city. Landing in the small town of Clarence, he meets and falls in love with parking cop Glenda (Miranda Otto). ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rhys Ifans, Miranda Otto, (more)
This Australian sitcom chronicled the misadventures of four twentysomethings, "on their own" for the first time in their lives. To save money and provide mutual moral support, the quartet -- Sophie (Maxine Klibingaitis), Lisa Danielle Spencer, Richard (Adam Willits), and Trevor (Rod Zuanic) -- shared the same apartment. It may sound a bit like Friends, except for the fact that the Australian series predated the American one by three years. Syndicated "down under" by Gary Reilly Productions, the 13 episodes of Hampton Court were seen in 1991. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maxine Klibingaitia, Danielle Spencer, (more)
The year is 1933. Ruby Rose (Melita Jurisic) is an Australian woman living with her Welsh immigrant husband Henry (Chris Haywood) in the Tasmanian highlands. Cut off from her superjudgmental family, for whom Henry had once worked as a humble farm hand, Ruby remains isolated in her tiny house. Superstitiously terrified of the dark, she begins developing her own folklore about the inky blackness that surrounds her each night; this folklore eventually develops into Ruby's own personal religion, created to ward off the evils that she imagines lurk in every corner. Only by venturing out of her house and rekindling her relationship with her embittered father is Ruby able to exorcise her fears. Almost hypnotic in its stark beauty, Tale of Ruby Rose is proof enough that writer/director Roger Scholes deserves to be far better known. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Melita Jurisic, Chris Haywood, (more)
Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train, written and directed by Bob Ellis, belongs to a genre of highbrow 1980s films which pushed the conventions of art house cinema. An unnamed fine arts teacher struggles to support her brother's drug addiction. To raise money, she moonlights as a prostitute on a midnight train. For each encounter, she dons a different identity, ala Cindy Sherman, and seeks out her john for the night. That is, until she meets the Man and falls for him which forces her to choose between her love or her lifestyle. Warm Nights does have the benefit of Ellis' characteristic fine writing, but it is generally regarded as one of the more dismal failures in this genre. ~ Brian Whitener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wendy Hughes, Colin Friels, (more)
Teenager Ellie (Tushka Bergen) is the only child of the widowed physician Neil McAdam (John Hargreaves) in this finely crafted drama, and the two spend their summers at the family cottage on the Australian coast. Ellie is bored and lonely until Margot Ryan (Heather Mitchell) comes to visit her parents who live next door. Ellie develops a close friendship with the 25-year-old woman and soon looks up to Margot, but she feels left out when her father and Margot fall in love. She becomes more upset when a proposed land development is slated to be built on the coastline and threatens the wildlife she has grown to love. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Hargreaves, Heather Mitchell, (more)
About 15 years after the events of Mad Max 2, nuclear war has finally destroyed what little was left of civilization. Grizzled and older, former cop Max (Mel Gibson) roams the Australian desert in a camel-drawn vehicle -- until father-and-son thieves Jebediah Sr. (Bruce Spence) and Jr. (Adam Cockburn) use their jury-rigged airplane to steal his possessions and means of transportation. Max soon winds up in Bartertown, a cesspool of post-apocalyptic capitalism powered by methane-rich pig manure and overseen by two competing overlords, Aunty Entity (Tina Turner) and Master (Angelo Rossitto), a crafty midget who rides around on the back of his hulking underling, Blaster (Paul Larsson). Seeking to re-equip himself, Max strikes a deal with the haughty Aunty to kill Blaster in ritualized combat inside Thunderdome, a giant jungle gym where Bartertown's conflicts are played out in a postmodern update of blood and circuses. Although Max manages to fell the mighty Blaster, he refuses to kill him after realizing the brute is actually a retarded boy. Aunty's henchmen murder Blaster nonetheless, then punish Max for violating the law that "Two men enter, one man leaves." Lashed to the back of a hapless pack animal and sent out into a sandstorm, a near-death Max is rescued by a band of tribal children and teens. The descendants of the victims of an airplane crash, the kids inhabit a lush valley and wait for the day when Captain Walker, the plane's pilot, will return to lead them back to civilization. Some of the children, refusing to believe that Max isn't Walker and that the glorious cities of their mythology no longer exist, set off in search of civilization on their own. Max and three tribe members must then rescue their friends from Bordertown and the clutches of Aunty Entity -- a quest that ends in a lengthy desert chase sequence that echoes the first two Mad Max films. Spence also appeared in Mad Max 2 in a different role, that of the Gyro Captain. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mel Gibson, Tina Turner, (more)
Fifteen-year-old Australian youth Steve Carson (Rod Zuanic) is a product of a home that can charitably be described as dysfunctional. His father is a drunk, his brother a slimy-dope dealer. Carson promises his social worker--and himself--that he'll escape this environment and make something of himself. Unfortunately, this involves grandiose and unrealistic schemes that lead to increasingly severe criminal acts. Fast Talking was co-financed by the Australian Film Commission and Merchant-Ivory. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rod Zuanic, Toni Allaylis, (more)










