The show was a live reunion special for Hey Hey, It's Saturday, a popular and long-running program down under that was cancelled a decade ago. During their Red Faces segment, which is similar to the American version of The Gong Show, six doctors performed a choreographed number in blackface and afro wigs pretending to be the Jackson 5. Thankfully, one of the judges hit the gong shortly into the number.

But what did the crowd do when they stopped the music. They booed! Harry Connick Jr, one of the guest judges gave the team a zero score and the judge who gonged gave them a one, even though the crowd was roaring to give them a 10! One female judge gave them a 7 out of 10 because she is apparently ignorant or, beause she's a sweet female sitting between two men judging a singing competition she thought she was Paula Abdul and took a handful of pill before the broadcast, so she didn't know better.

The amazing thing is that, as the show tells us, in 1989, the same group doing a very similar act won the competition! So, in 20 years, we've gone from this offensive form of comedy being wildly popular to being still popular with the masses, even though some people know better. In America, blackface is one of those things that you can only show if you're talking about how awful it is because, well, it is pretty awful. Sure, there are culture differences, but it's not like they don't have black folks in Australia who would get pissed off by this.

Luckily, they gave Connick some time at the end of the show to say that he wouldn't have done the show if he knew there was going to be such an act. "[Americans] have spent so much time trying to not make black people not look like buffoons, that when we see something like that we really take it to heart." Wow, and American is being the voice of cultural sensitivity? Australia must be really messed up.

Area unattractive person Natalie Portman may be working with the creepily-mustachioed Darren Aronofsky on a new supernatural thriller-chiller. Black Swan is about a prima ballerina who is suddenly threatened by a rival dancer—but is the rival dancer even real? The title is sorta interesting, given all the stuff about Black Swan theory and the creepy, tingling, post-millennial thoughts of destruction and apocalypse it evokes. But, yeah, this is just a movie about ghost ballet. So. [THR]

The Hallmark Channel is doing something with how commercials are aired, by like jiggering with the length and continuity of commercial pods, where like Mutual of Omaha will sponsor a whole, shortened commercial pod, and it's going to revolutionize, maybe, the way sponsorship is delineated and these are important things to discuss, no really they are, because TV is sorta scratching its head right now trying to figure out this whole DVR thing and industries rise and fall and Black Swans occur and here we are powerless to stop it and all, but mostly... Mostly we're just surprised that people want to pay to advertise on the Hallmark Channel. Really, guys? Really? [Variety]

That cutesy-sounding comedy You Again, about Kristen Bell being upset 'cause her brother is marrying a girl who used to make her life a living hell, has rounded out its cast with a bunch of fabulous broads. Like Kristin Chenowith and Sigourney Weaver and Betty White and Jamie Lee Curtis. The film's original title Lady Bits: The Legend of Bear Mountain now seems, more than ever, like it was the right one to go with. [THR]

Local butt-face Leonardo DiCaprio has signed on to star (and produce with his Appian Way movie making company) an as yet untitled thriller about online casinos. Yes, it's true. There are many online casinos and we've known many a young lad who've profited and suffered at their hands. Though that's all a kind of pallid-faced, blue-tinted early evening sadness sort of thing. Not really the stuff of thrillers. But, hell. If you can jazz up cellphones like they did in One Missed Call, sure, why not, you can jazz up internet cards. (Note: They did not jazz up anything in One Missed Call, which should have been called Just Don't Answer the Damn Phone, Shannyn Sossamon.) [Variety]

Thousands of sad people lined up on Sunday in Massachusetts. No, it wasn't a Bruins game. It was for American Idol! Determined to realize their dreams of becoming walking, talking, singing contracts, hopefuls like our proud homegirl Tiffany "Shorty" Dorsey from mighty Walpole (they've got a prison there, you know) showed up and belted-while-crying for the judges. We know it's happened before, Boston, but still some of us thought you were better than this. Nothing terribly Puritanical about weeping in front of Paula Abdul, is there? [THR]

Oh, more girlnews! Paramount has picked up an action-comedy pitch from Liz Meriwether called Honey Pot that is basically about if a bunch of ladies were superspies like Jason Bourne. Surely there'd be a lot more talk about periods and commitment! Meriwether is the salient cultural critic who is also giving us the upcoming TV pilot Sluts and the film Fuckbuddies. And no, we are not making those up! [Variety]

Stuart Beattie, who cowrote the documentary Australia, has been tapped to direct a movie version of Tomorrow When the World Ends. That book is part of a series (The Tomorrow Series) about a group of Aussie teenagers who band together to defend their homeland against invaders. Evidently the film has "youth-targeted themes and PG-13 sex and violence", so that's kind of exciting, but we thought we already covered all this with Home and Away. Isn't that what that was about? Australian teenagers? Saving Australia? Or something? [THR]

After a botched press tour, a less-than-rapturous box office take, and a tarring of director Baz Luhrmann as the new "black hole of cinema" (to say nothing of the bounty set on Kidman's ovaries), most of the film's principal players would be content to lay low and make no more noise until Australia begins its DVD afterlife. An insecure Kidman, however, only added more fuel to the bonfire when she confessed that she typically doesn't watch her own films, and being forced to sit through Australia made her "squirm."

Miss Kidman, who attended the premiere with country singer husband Keith Urban, said: 'I can't look at this movie and be proud of what I've done.

'I sat there and I looked at Keith and went "Am I any good in this movie?"

'But I thought Brandon Walters (an 11-year-old Aboriginal boy) and Hugh Jackman were wonderful.

'It's just impossible for me to connect to it emotionally at all.'

Fortunately for Kidman, she only has one more of her upcoming performances to sit through: Nine, in which the Weinstein Co's breakthrough advances in crotch-veil technology can be expanded upon to produce a private version where Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, and Fergie interact with a six-foot-tall, Botoxed sheath.

• 'I squirmed in my seat,' says Nicole Kidman as she reveals embarrassment at her performance in Australia epic [Daily Mail]

Luhrmann's postmortem addresses both the risks and challenges inherent in his epic $130 million flop, but more emphatically singles out the haters too cynical to look past the bad dialogue, Wizard of Oz bludgeoning, and generally boring three-hour runtime and embrace Australia's sincere core. So what if the movie wasn't good, he seems to say — and really, why is he explaining himself at all? Isn't this whole thing just your fault anyway?

"There are those that don't get it. A lot of the film scientists don't get it. And it's not just that that they don't get it, but they hate it and they hate me, and they think I'm the black hole of cinema. They say, 'He shouldn't have made it, and he should die'..."This is not (simply) a romantic comedy for 40-year-old women or action movies for 17-year-old boys, and that's not OK with some people. It's not OK for people to come eat at the same table of cinema." [...]

"When you do what I do, you expect to be covered in mud. But there seems to be a lot of misinformation...I'm used to the waves crashing around me. And what I do is stick to a craggy rock as they keep coming. And if you stick to it long enough someone else will stick to it, too, and then someone else and then someone else."

In other words, good intentions are of greater value than poor execution. We'd like to believe him, but it's a slippery slope; such an acknowledgment would potentially let Nicole Kidman's didgeridoo-rocking off the hook, and that is a craggy rock no one wants to cling to. Tough break, Baz, but lesson learned for Gatsby.

• Baz Luhrmann, with a defense as full-throated as Moulin Rouge [THR]

Alexander the Great
The Aussie chatted and chatted about this project back around 2002-2003, but then things kept getting delayed. The problem was that Luhrmann's labor of love was usurped by Oliver Stone's utterly bizarre and wretched Alexander (in which Angelina Jolie revealed herself to be a parselmouth). So that was a big disappointment! Leonardo DiCaprio was going to be in it and he would have had to like, you know, kiss boys cause Alex was that way and it would have been swoopy and swoony (because Baz is that way). Ah well. Instead we got DiCaprio in the dark muddle that was The Aviator and Luhrmann pulled some Christmas tree lights out of his brain and used them to fashion the creamy Australia. He says he still wants to do an Alexander movie someday.

Wicked
You know, like the musical? For fags and stuff? Based on Gregory Maguire's book, the Broadway musical is a smash hit and a movie version is sort of inevitable. And just last month word was whispered that Baz would be directing the celluloid version. That would be quite something! Nothing has really been substantiated about this rumor, though, so it's probably just the sad pipe dream of a theatre fan from lamesville Cleveland who wants to see Ewan MacGregor sing "Dancing Through Life." Though, we're pretty sure Baz is done with musicals. So this seems unlikely.

The As-Yet-Unnamed Futuristic Movie
Did you know we have a sci-fi blog? We do! It's called io9 and it's really well done and they recently actually spoke face-to-face with Luhrmann and asked him if he was going to do anything set in the future. He said he was thinking of something very specific, but that he didn't want to give it away. So is he one of those people who always kind of answer questions like that in the affirmative, so they seem busy and oh so productive? Like when someone is all "Richard, are you still writing plays?" And I say "Oh yeah, I've got a lot of ideas I'm working on" when in actuality I'm watching Jon & Kate Plus Eight while weeping? I think that's the case. I certainly don't dislike the idea, though. A futuristic movie from Luhrmann would certainly look cool. I just wish there was more concrete information. Then I could pass judgment. And stop weeping.

This Great Gatsby Business
Finke says it's definitely happening. She suggests James Marsden for a possible Gatsby. Argh. The old timey one with that crumbly DA from Law & Order is not that good, but I don't think Luhrmann's the right person to do Fitzgerald justice in the new century. He would probably do the swirling party motifs pretty well, but those boats being borne back ceaslessly? That takes a little more nuance than the flamboyant boy from Oz seems to possess.

"People are going to see Nicole playing it and think it's all right," award-winning actor, screenwriter and Aboriginal language teacher Richard Green told Tuesday's Sydney Morning Herald.

"It bastardises our culture. I will guarantee she has no more children. It is not meant to be played by women as it will make them barren."

Kidman, who suffered an ectopic pregnancy and a miscarriage during her former marriage to fellow actor Tom Cruise, gave birth to daughter Sunday Rose after marrying country crooner Keith Urban in 2006.

Way to hit her where it hurts, kind Oceania. Fortunately, what Green doesn't know is that Kidman is still planning to birth a child, Athena-like, from her smooth, shiny forehead. Yes, those were not Botox shots but fertility treatments, and once little Tuesday Cauliflower emerges her first act will be to suck on a didgeridoo too, just to be spiteful.

• Nicole Kidman warned after breaking Aboriginal taboo: report [Yahoo]

No, Australians are up in arms because Kidman played the didgeridoo on some wacky German talk show, which women are forbidden to do in many parts of the country (apparently, souvenir shops have special exemptions). Truly, though, this clip of Kidman and Hugh Jackman on Wetten, dass..? is both an amazing extension of Kidman's Awkwardness '08 talk show tour and a surreal masterpiece that can rival the stateside display of our nation's vice president-elect stoning and drowning TV's Elaine Benes under the stewardship of a famous lesbian. Watch as Kidman sits there, having no idea what the hell anyone is saying, eventually realizing that they want her to humiliate herself on-screen. What follows, we imagine, is something akin to how David Lynch might interpret the wedding night between Kidman and Tom Cruise: lots of giggling, tentative blowing, and an uncomfortable man in a three-piece suit dancing on one foot. [The Age]

WHAT'S NEW: Speaking of recipes, Four Christmases sure has a fresh one! Mix Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. Add two cups of diced ensemble players including Robrt Duvall, Jon Favreau, Kristin Chenoweth and Sissy Spacek. Flavor with ball-kicking, pratfall and baby-vomit jokes. Bake for two hours. Serve lukewarm. It's good for about $40 million over five days. Transporter 2 is a little simpler hors d'oeurve for the guys out there, with Jason Statham liberally seasoned with bullets, quick cuts and decibels, turning out $18 million before the main course on DVD.

But if you're allergic to the multiplex, you may be best best suited to skip ahead to this week's new home video releases; the art-house kitchen appears to be closed to deliveries for the holiday weekend.

THE BIG LOSER: Australia is almost three hours' worth of the expansive (and expensive, at $130 million) hisorical epic no one makes anymore. And despite Oprah Winfrey's lavish endorsement, there's a reason for that: It's one in a generation that actually finds any traction in the two female quadrants whose repeat viewings push it toward box-office longevity and, almost necessarily, Oscar luster. Fox needs half a Titanic here (thus its Hugh Jackman heartthrob push at non-starter Nicole Kidman's expense) to make this work, and for the sake of the studio and director Baz Luhrmann and all involved, we hope they get it. But the middling, $26 million reality — especially on Twilight's likely second week at No. 1 — is what it is.

THE UNDERDOG: Instant-message quibbles aside, Milk is far and away the best thing opening this weekend; expect sell-outs and a per-screen average of at least $39,000 in 17 markets. (It opens wide Dec. 12.)

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's new DVD's include Will Smith's brooding hero Hancock, the summer champs Meet Dave and Space Chimps, more Vaughn holiday frolic in Fred Claus, the TV knockoffs A Colbert Christmas and 24: Redemption, and just in time for the holidays/white-elephant gift exchange, Beverly Hills 90210: The Complete Sixth Season.

So will your Turkey Day food coma overlap into moviegoing? Is it more of a football-and-shopping weekend, or will the budgie-smuggling pull of Australia be just too challenging to withstand? In any event, have a fantastic holiday, and should you brave Space Chimps, please let us know what we're missing.

To be fair, Kidman (made up to look like an insane cross between a pilgrim and the Baroness from The Sound of Music) attempted to be diplomatic about the appearance, but Regis refused to have it, placing the blame for the encounter squarely on Letterman. Careful, Regis — a war with Dave is one that few walk away from as the victor. Just look what happened to John McCain! [Live with Regis and Kelly]

Hard to say exactly what went wrong, but things simply seemed off from the start, as Kidman seemed acutely unable of more than two-word responses, and repeatedly failed to pick up on David Letterman's conversational cues. "I'm just smiling!" Kidman insisted. Oh, so that's what that was!

• Late Show [CBS]

Dear Theater Manager and Projectionist,

I’m wondering if you could help me. I’ve noticed that when the film is being projected in the digital form we can lose the crucial character of ‘The Drover’ [Hugh Jackman] who is standing by the tree on the left hand edge of the frame in three shots in the final scene of the movie. [...]

The correct framing for scope is critical on this film and theaters should make sure that they are projecting the full width of the scope 2:40 image, and not cutting anything off on the sides. [...]

I really appreciate this effort as it means so much that the audience gets the full benefit of the staging, projection and sound.

I also hope that you get some value from the experience of this film.

Best wishes,

Baz Luhrmann

There's lots more about sound levels and the like, but that last line — underscoring the critical distinction between "valuing the experience of this film" and "enjoying it" — surely gave the perfectionist Luhrmann added pause. We envision balled-up drafts littering his office floor, each version bearing some new permutations of, "Please focus the projector whenever possible during calls to your girlfriend," or "Please remember to turn the speakers on before you disappear to the arcade," or "If you see Jason Statham onscreen, you're in the wrong booth," finally scrapping them all for the simple compromise of three accurately framed shots in the film's 160th minute. And why not? He worked hard for that ending!

· It's... OK! Todd McCarthy has the most substantial review so far in Variety, starting off:

The beauty of the film's stars and landscapes, the appeal of the central young boy and, perhaps more than anything, the filmmaker's eagerness to please tend to prevail, making for a film general audiences should go with, even if they're not swept away.

That's pretty much the consensus, in fact; THR blogger Steve Zeitchik invokes "the schmalztier parts of The English Patient," while Anne Thompson sighs Australia is "well done for what it is, assuming that you like old-fashioned Hollywood movies of the sort they do not make anymore."

·It's a melodrama! "Snidely Whiplash" comes up in both McCarthy's and Thompson's reviews of Australia's cattle-baron villains, and THR reviewer Megan Lehmann cites some "cringe-making Harlequin Romance moments between homegrown Hollywood stars" Kidman and Jackman. But roll with it, says Patrick Goldstein: "[It's] hopelessly cornball if you're not willing to embrace the material with the same childlike abandon you felt when you first saw Brigadoon or Singin' in the Rain."

·It's long! "A bladder-burster at 165 minutes," complains Lou Lumenick. It's a unanimous observation across the board, and not always in a critical sense — though Variety's McCarthy emphasizes a succession of lags after the big second-act cattle drive and a drawn-out ending. And Zeitchik writes, "[W]ith many slo-motion shots accentuating melodrama, one can only wonder if it would have might clocked in at 1 1/2 hours had all scenes been shot at regular speed.

·It's got bad CGI! Lumenick decries "a special-effects laden Japanese attack on Darwin that looks like rejected test footage from Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, and an even phonier-looking cattle charge toward a cliff." How phony-looking? Says McCarthy: "A dramatic stampede so CGI-heavy that it may as well have been animated."

·Nicole Kidman overachieves! Even Lumenick, one of the Oscar-winners most consistent critics, acknowledged "she gives the first performance I've liked since Cold Mountain." But how does she stack up against Jackman? "Pin thin and ramrod straight, Kidman gives one of her most engaging performances, occasionally harking back to the comic highs of To Die For," Lehmann writes. "Meanwhile, Jackman looks good in his Akubra bush hat."

·The Aboriginal kid is great! McCarthy says of young star Brandon Walters, "Eleven when the film was made, the attractive non-pro has a natural ease and winning way before the camera as the character who represents the tension in the country's racial divide and historical conscience." Lehmann gushes further, suggesting the "breakout star" lends Australia "its true heart."

·It's got a happy ending! Which, as you might already have heard, should make for a great series of DVD extras.

The Oscar-winning actress [...] acknowledged some of her recent films had not been a great success, saying she had "quirky taste."

"In terms of my future as an actor and stuff, I don't know," she told a news conference. "I am in a place in my life where ... I've had some great opportunities and I may just choose to have some more children. I've no idea what is in my future but I am very at peace with where I want to be. There are many things I want to do besides act."

Great. Kidman joins Angelina Jolie, Joaquin Phoenix and a surprisingly large surge of others currently diagramming their escapes from Hollywood — a celebrity trend we prefer to, say, Malawian adoption safaris, but which nevertheless gives us bittersweet pause. After all, for every break this might accord Naomi Watts, we just know Andy Dick is in a conference room somewhere slobbering through a callback for Captain America. Let's hope cooler heads prevail, even if Australia's box-office prospects don't.

[Photo: Getty Images]

• Stars walk the red carpet for 'Australia' premiere [Reuters]

• Nicole Kidman says she's unsure about future acting [Reuters]

• Baz Luhrmann's Australia is good, but not a masterpiece [The Australian]

The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that "disastrous reviews from test screenings" rejected Australia's original ending, in which Jackman's character dies:

One test-screening audience member described the film as "an action-filled tragedy'' and urged Luhrmann to change the ending.

"If they can tastefully tie this movie up into a solid story, with a nice pace - Baz will have a winner here,'' one reviewer wrote.

"And there is no reason to kill off Wolvie (Jackman) in this one - come on.''

Desperate for a hit and apparently not remembering the conclusion (or success) of their previous tragedy Titanic, execs at 20th Century Fox spent much of the week persuading Luhrmann to rewire a "more uplifting" ending. Thus the Telegraph's blunt headline, "Baz bows to Hollywood," a mournful reminder that a nation's pride, history and artistic ambitions are no match for the monolithic will of the men who brought you Meet Dave, Space Chimps and The Rocker.

As far as next week's deadline, the visionary Luhrmann remained coy: "I wouldn't say we are within schedule, but it's possibly within reach," he told the paper. At least he's retained creative control over uniquely unconvincing optimism. Look for Fox to have massaged that by the end of the day as well.

• Baz bows to Hollywood [Sunday Telegraph via The Guardian]

Last month Luhrmann told The Age that he was expecting to hand the 170-minute film to Fox one reel at a time while he tightened "mechanics of storytelling." (The Kidman/Jackman romance, though? Totally believable!) Over the weekend, though, he vaguely hinted that the Nov. 19 date was just another porous deadline:

[W]ith its much-vaunted release date just weeks away, on November 26, nobody has seen a final print of the film. Why? Because one doesn’t exist.

“We always thought it was extremely precarious,” Luhrmann admits. “We’re going to give it our all and at the moment it’s an absolutely real date. But I would not be truthful if I didn’t say it’s a little like landing a jumbo jet on an aircraft carrier in a storm…”

Which is to say... impossible? Fox, meanwhile, urged calm today; "We're not missing a deadline," a rep told Thompson. And even if they do, have you seen those recent Luhrmann-directed, state-financed tourism spots? The creepy ones with the Aboriginal kid from the movie? That's what this guy's rush jobs look like, so seriously — let him have as long as he wants.

• 'Australia': Where Is It? [TOH]

• Baz Luhrmann's epic gamble [The Age]

The 41-year-old Aussie, who gave birth to daughter Sunday Rose in July, said she and six other women [...] became pregnant.

"I never thought that I would get pregnant and give birth to a child, but it happened on this movie," Kidman told The Australian Women's Weekly in an exclusive interview for the magazine's 75th anniversary edition, released Wednesday.

"Seven babies were conceived out of this film and only one was a boy. There is something up there in the Kununurra water because we all went swimming in the waterfalls, so we can call it the fertility waters now."

So begins the long pilgrimage for thousands of baby-ready couples around the world, not to mention the whirring marketing machine at Fox, which this morning called an emergency meeting to plot the November launch ofits Australia tie-in Kununurra Baby2o™: "When Urban sperm aren't enough, head for the Outback." Let's all hope this savvy souvenir performs as well for everybody as Nic's Stolen Placenta Bites™ scored for Moulin Rouge.

• Nicole Kidman credits fertile water with pregnancy [AP]