The plan is informal at best for now, evidently limited to Joe Jonas's public avowal that he and his siblings have "reached out" to the filmmaker to direct their next music video. Ideally the project would build from the fertile seedling of their previous collaboration six years ago, when Joe shone as "Punk Kid On Roller Skates" in Luhrmann's Broadway adaptation of La Boheme.

But face it: Even the most modest comeback would help Luhrmann after the critical and commercial failure of Australia, even if it means forgoing the "Nick dies" premise of his original script for Disney's more upbeat ending. Then it's on to Camp Rock 3 and eventually the inevitable, bloated Kidman reunion-to-be-determined in 2015. You know. Baby steps.

• Joe Jonas to Baz Luhrmann: Dude, you free to do a video? [EW]

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.

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 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]