Rhapsodies

Because I felt I still needed time to clease my pallete after watching Holy Mountain last week, this week I went with AustralianComedies.

The first , Siam Sunset oppens with the most blatant examples of women in the refrigerator I’ve ever seen as one falls from a plane killing the protagonists wife in the first five minutes. His mourning is complicated by suddenly becoming the victim of a series of coincidences which includes recurring freak accidents and winning a all expense paid tour of the Australian outback. Which he takes as a leave from his job in a paint factory, where he is the principal paint chemist, to heal and find the perfect shade of orange, Siam Sunset.

When he arrives he finds the tour is packed with eccentrics as well as a mysterious woman who has run off with her mobster ex boyfriend’s cash. All this leads to a series of misadventures across the outback which ends with them stranded in the middle of nowhere… what could possibly happen next?

I mostly liked this film it’s biggest problem was it seemed to go back and fourth between being a romantic comedy and an ensemble piece and really couldn’t decide which it would be. Also the ex boyfriend seemed to be a reject from a crime drama and every time he was arround things stopped being funny and not in a good way.

The next my film I picked for two reason’s. First, the name, The Man Who Sued God, and second it starred Billy Connolly. Connolley plays an ex lawyer who having burnt out on the profession became a fisherman. When his boat is destroyed by a bolt of lightening he discovers that the Insurance companies won’t pay his claim due to an Act of God. In a reaction he decides to sue God for dammages. What leads is a marvelous satire about religion, media, business and the legal fiction of “An act of God in general.” All in all I mostly liked it. but once again if felt like I was watching two comedies shuffled together. One is a broad farce where Billy Connoly is allowed to clown around in all his glory and the other a much dryer satire where among other things the clergy considers the nonexistence of god as part of it’s legal defense. Ultimately my biggest nit-pic is in what is otherwise a film that I would gladly put on my skeptic’s viewing night list we keep being shown signs of “god’s displeasure” as things go on. Happily nobody in the film seems to notice.