i have been in love with Australian cinema for years. it all started with "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" & "Muriel's Wedding". it then continued with films like "Love & Other Catastrophes", "Hotel De Love", "Cosi" & "Garage Days". (not sure if those were the Australian titles for all of these films or not.) the problem is that America doesn't get a lot of Australian films to choose from. even American made independent films have a hard time making it to theatres. the overload of bad Hollywood films makes it hard for anything to make it to the screen. we have to either rent them on DVD or watch them on channels like IFC or Sundance, and now we have Logo. i know Ben Lee is a household name in Australia, but in America he is still relatively unknown. (which is just unfortunate for America.) i recently saw him in concert opening for Aimee Mann. he blew me away. once i got home i checked out his website and that's when i learned about "The Rage in Placid Lake". i rented it thinking that he would have just enough charisma as an actor to make it entertaining. instead he blew me away again. i was also pleased to see Miranda Richardson in this also. she is such an incredible actress. i would love to find out about more great Australian films that i should see. so if anyone out there can recommend some, please do. and as far as recommendations go, it said somewhere on here if you liked "The Rage In Placid Lake" that you should see "Kindergarten Cop". wow, i am not sure how that conclusion was made. if you did see this and liked it, check out some of the titles i mentioned above instead. some similarly themed American films you might check out are "The United States of Leland", "Garden State", "The Battle of Shaker Heights" and yes even "Napoleon Dynamite". and if you like good music check out Ben Lee in concert (i get to see him again soon, with Ben Folds & Rufus Wainwright) or get his CD "Awake is the New Sleep".
