Amazon.com

Australian writer-director Rolf De Heer's 1993 semi-comic satire, Bad Boy Bubby, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival for its sometimes savage vision of a modern society in which a Kaspar Hauser-like figure suddenly appears. Nicholas Hope is masterful as 35-year-old Bubby, who has been shut within his corpulent mother's airless apartment all his life, enduring sexual exploitation and mom's lies about the outside world being poisonous. When Bubby's estranged father turns up, the boy-man seizes an opportunity to flee, and embarks on a dark journey to encounter the unknown. De Heer keeps his innocent hero moving from situation to situation, like a great blank slate (think of Peter Sellers in Being There) absorbing and repeating whatever he sees and hears. Meanwhile, the people who meet him perceive exactly what they want to perceive. De Heer may be on a Swiftian mission to underscore humanity's corruption, but Hope is brilliant at the more subtle job of constructing, using few tools, Bubby's increasingly complex inner life. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Awesome.
Get this movie. It's amazing and everyone should give it a try. It has some of the most sick and bizarre scenes in cinema history, yet it's just awesome. If you miss this rare cult classic you will regret it. This is a movie in a genre of its own.

Remarkable
In the film Bad Boy Bubby, the title character is a thirty-five year old man child who has been locked inside a cramped, dingy room by his abusive mother for his entire life. When Bubby's Pop suddenly shows up after a thirty-five year absence, Bubby is flushed out of his home, and the only world he has ever known, by his Mom and Pop, and into the "real" world, where he experiences equal measures of human cruelty and human kindness.
The film is at times bleak, harrowing, funny, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful. All of the actors do a very fine job, but Nicholas Hope's performance as Bubby is absolutely stunning. There's a long tradition of actors delving into roles of this type, Sling Blade, Awakenings or Rain Man for example, and while Hope's performance isn't as widely regarded as the lead performances in these three films, it surely would be if the film Bad Boy Bubby had received a wider release - especially in the United States, where until now it has been practically nonexistent.Now however, thanks to Blue Underground and this great DVD release a much wider audience will hopefully be able to see this exceptional film for the first time.
Once again Blue Underground has done a really topnotch job. The film transfer looks great and there are two sound options: a 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround and a Dolby Surround 2.0. Of special note, the sound for the film was recorded using a binaural sound system that is meant to allow the viewer the experience of hearing everything the same way the main character would.The extras on the disc are a 24 minute interview with director Rolf de Heer, who describes the interesting binaural recording process and reveals a lot of fascinating insights and details, including the fact that over 30 different cinematographers were used to shoot the film. There is a second 15 minute interview with Nicholas Hope who discusses his career before, during, and after Bad Boy Bubby.The short film that led to Nicholas Hope being cast in the role of Bubby, titled Confessor Caressor,is also included. And finally, there is also a theatrical trailer for Bad Boy Bubby and a poster/stills gallery. In all a great disc befitting a remarkable film.

The less you know before seeing this the better.

Here's one you haven't seen before.

And you just have to stay with it, because you probably won't know what to make of it for at least the first hour.

I saw this years ago at a Berkely art house. There was a warning posted at the ticket booth, which is probably the only reason I don't remember any walkouts. Recently it came to mind and I wondered what ever became of this bizarre little movie. Well here it is, thanks to the wonderful folks at Blue Underground.

The first half will probably surprise you, and the second half is likely to surprise you in an entirely different way. And I don't want to say any more than that.

SICK AND TWISTED
THIS MOVIE IS RARELY SEEN BUT I USE TO OWN THIS ON VHS AND ONLY WATCHED IT TWICE AND DIDNT NEED TO SEE IT AGAIN/BAD BOY BUBBY,ABOUT A MENTALLY HANDICAPPED MAN WHO IS TOLD BY HIS MOM IF HE GOES OUTSIDE HE WONT BE ABLE TO BREATHE AND HE WILL DIE/EVERY NITE HE HAS SEX WITH HIS MOM/HIS DAD COMES HOME ONE DAY FROM YEARS OF BEING GONE AND HE EVENTUALLY KILLS BOTH HIS MOM AND DAD AND TAKES HIS DEAD CAT AND GOES ON THE MOST BIZARRE ADVENTURE EVER INTO THE WORLD HE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT/HE ENDS UP GETTING ARRESTED FOR ATTACKING A WOMAN,TAKING UP WITH A BAND IN WHICH HE BECOMES LEAD SINGER/MEETING A WOMAN AND HAS A KID AND THEN KILLS HER PARENTS CUZ THEY ARE VERY RELIGIOUS AND DONT AGREE WITH THEIR BEING TOGETHER/I CANT EXPLAIN EVERY DETAIL OF THIS MOVIE BUT IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND/BY THE END YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO TOTALLY FATHOM ALL OF WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN BUT THE FIRST HOUR OF INCEST AND ABUSE IS ENOUGH TO PUT ANYONE OVER THE EDGE/I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS OR HEARD OF ANYTHING LIKE THIS/A MUST SEE FOR EVERYONE ... Read more

Amazon.com

This tender tale of love reignited begins when Andreas (Charles Tingwell)writes a letter to Claire (Julia Blake), the girl he loved in his youth.Though they've married other people (Andreas's wife has died) and had children who arenow adults, when they meet again, the passion they once felt returns. Butwhen Claire tells her husband, John (Terry Norris), he's devastated; hisstruggle to hold on to Claire threatens to ruin all of their lives.Innocence is quiet and slow paced, giving it a calm reflection onlove and mortality that turns, sometimes unexpectedly, to heartbreakingsadness. The actors are excellent, particularly Blake, who makes the risksClaire takes feel as immediate and unexpected as they would feel to ateenager. --Bret Fetzer ... Read more

Description

Three troubled lives, two desperate lovers, one inescapable fate. Russell Crowe stars in an action-packed, suspense thriller that skirts the fine line between love, loyalty and deadly obsession. While honeymooning in Australia, Midori (Youki Kudoh) deserts her husband to run off with her lover. When he gets cold feet, she's left alone and bewildered in a strange country. A trip to the bank to exchange money results in her being taken hostage, only to be saved by Colin (Crowe), the getaway driver. On the run, Midori's jilted husband and the authorities in hot pursuit, the pair set off on wild ride across the country, falling in love along the way. ... Read more

Reviews (29)

Unconventional Romance
Like most of the films Russell Crowe made in Australia, Heaven's Burning flies off in directions that you would never have guessed. While it is mainly a romance, it's memorable for its sick sense of humor. This movie revels in the absurd, never taking itself too seriously. The plot is over-the-top, and the actors are smart enough to play their characters straight (with the exception of the vengeful husband, and ex Men-At-Work frontman Colin Hay's verbally abusive, wheelchair-driving hitchhiker). Even the movie's premise is a surprise, and therefore I don't want to reveal it. If you are only familiar with Russell Crowe's American films, Heaven's Burning is a great place to start viewing his Australian filmography. While the ending is a bit predictable and slightly unsatisfying, it is a wild, wild ride up to that point. This movie is kind of the middle of the road, as far as Crowe's characters go. He's not the lovable sweetie of Proof or Sum of Us, and he's not the agressive powerhouse of Romper Stomper or L.A. Confidential. Rather, he's something in between, but just as magnetic. I apologize for my rather vague review, but this movie really needs to seen the first time without any expectations. I will tell you that Crowe sports Elvis sideburns in this film, and that alone is worth seeing.

Only for die-hard Crowe fans, otherwise - TV stuff!
This movie belongs to the type "chase'em up, kill them all!": after Colin (a rookie bank-robber out of need) saves Midori (a newlywed, obviously unhappy), they engage on a rollercoaster ride, heading to the ocean coast (must be some migration instinct with Australians, to always head to the ocean coast, especially in the movies e.g. see Romper Stomper), chased by Afghan butchers' clan, crazy Midori's husband (Japanese should sue the director for showing them in such unflattering light) and police, of course.

I've seen this movie on TV and that's where it belongs: it has a couple of "on-the-edge-of-the-seat" moments, a couple of fights, a couple of touching scenes (Crowe's character in love always touches a woman's heart), a couple of funny moments (mostly when portraying Australia being full of weird inhabitants)tha tare unevenly distributed over the usual B-type road-movie. Colin and Midori exchange maybe two dozens sentences during the whole movie, and it has pathetic Romeo&Juliette-style ending that had affected me in the way contrary to the intended.

Crowe must be a patriot of his country and in strong need of cash to participate in the film. 2-star stuff, but I'd add one more star for Crowe's ability to grow sideburns and wear overalls and still look terrific!

Positively operatic
For some reason, revenge tragedies have gotten a bad rap ever since the ancient Greeks stopped writing them. Even Shakespeare's big attempt at a revenge tragedy, Titus Andronicus, generally draws sneers from critics, even though it is a very powerful play with some beautiful poetry (see the film Titus when you get the chance). In a number of ways, Heaven's Burning might be considered a revenge tragedy and it turns out to be surprisingly good.

I'll be the first to admit that this isn't the kind of film that I would normally watch. And the film seemed a non-starter to begin with, with none of the characters seeming particularly interesting to me. Of course, that all changed when Russell Crowe as Colin made his first appearance onscreen. I've seen him in several other films in much higher-profile roles (The Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Master and Commander) and I can't honestly say that he made more of an impression on me in those films than he did in this little film that most people have probably never even heard of.

This movie started out extremely slowly and gathered steam as it went along. I was uncertain at first whether I would be able to sit through the whole thing, but when it got to the part where getaway driver Colin bumps off the guy who is about to kill bank robbery hostage Midori (Yoki Kudo) even though she didn't do anything wrong (other than a lot of crying, moaning and whining), I knew I was going to stay tuned until the end. That's one of the things that distinguishes revenge tragedies; the hero does some act that sets in motion most of the other acts that eventually lead to his downfall. In this case, the man killed by Colin has a father and a brother who are not amused. I was reminded of Verdi's opera La forza del destino, where the hero Alvaro accidentally kills the father of the heroine Leonora in the course of an elopement, setting off the chain of events that ends with Alvaro also killing Leonora's hell-bent-on-revenge brother Carlo, who nonetheless manages to kill Leonora just before he dies. Getting back to Heaven's Burning, Midori also plays her part in her ultimate fate by running off and leaving her newlywed and rather boring husband Yukio (Kenji Isomura). Many folks have commented on the racist aspects of the plot; however, the fact that Midori and Yukio are both Japanese adds an additional layer to the story that would not be present otherwise, since Yukio's attempt at revenge is not only motivated by love but much more by the fact that he has been dishonored (he even tells his friend that he can't return to Japan from Australia, where he took Midori for their honeymoon). So both Colin and Midori have done things that lead to their ultimate downfalls, and just to make sure their fate is sealed, they have gotten the cops involved by robbing a bank.

One other point where I was not certain I would be able to sit through the movie was the graphic torture scene. I couldn't even take comfort in the fact that Colin had to live through it because they couldn't kill Russell Crowe off, because I wasn't certain he was a big enough star by this point that he would be considered indispensable to the rest of the plot (he was). And other reviewers have pointed out that there is an awful lot of violence in this movie, some of it gratuitous. Was it really necessary, for example, for Yukio to shoot the friend who managed to dig up for him a gun that could not be traced?

The plot continues to build in intensity as the movie progresses, with a very few scenes of relief: the sex scene with its initial hints of bondage (there's probably some sort of symbolism here) and the delightful comic relief of Colin Hay as Jonah, the wheelchair-bound accordionist who drives everyone crazy with his playing of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, another one who for no discernible reason gets killed. Surely his playing wasn't that bad...

And speaking of Wagner, what really grabbed my attention was the final six or so minutes of the movie, played to the accompaniment of the Liebestod (love-death) music from the composer's Tristan und Isolde. Crowe, having been shot by Yukio before Yukio in turn is killed by Midori, is really superb here. It's very moving to watch the dying Colin try to reassure Midori by talking to her about the healing qualities of the beach where she is taking him, while smoking a cigarette at the same time (and he even has his seat belt on!). I won't give away the final part of the plot, other than to say that Wagner fans will recognize Götterdämmerung in the ending. I didn't think it was possible to make a more effective use of the Liebestod than Jean Negulesco did when he used it to accompany Joan Crawford's walking off into the ocean at the end of Humoresque; however, I found myself watching the ending of this movie over and over again, and I'm sure it was mostly for the music.

Overall a fascinating film, which I've given four stars to instead of five because of some of the gratuitous violence. Four-and-a-half is really more like it. Anyway, it's a film that I'd be more than happy to watch again--and in fact I'm going to have to get the DVD just to turn on the subtitles and catch Crowe's final words, which are covered up by the swelling Liebestod. Nothing Russell Crowe does deserves to be missed.

Racist tripe...
Crowe adds to his litany of race-bashing films (see Romper Stomper) with this drivel about an unhappy Asian woman who takes off with Crowe while pursued by her unhinged, Yakuza-like Japanese boyfriend. The stereotyping in this film sets a new high for cinema in the last 25 years. Not even Romper Stomper showed Asian men being this animal-like and inhuman (makes you think of the old John Wayne war movies). And of course, as always, it is the strong, virile white man who must rescue the waif-like oriental princess from evil yellow clutches. Disgusting. One scene has an old Aussie telling the evil "jap" that his tiny island nation with all its "little people" will be swallowed up by earthquakes and floods because of what they did in WWII. Jesus... And in the penultimate scene we get the Japanese gal telling off her hubbie: "You don't know what love is" before blowing him away. God... This film, like Romper Stomper (along with Rising Sun and Sixteen Candles) is basically just every racist white guy's fantasy -- nab the geisha gal while showing how asexual and hideous Asian men are. For once, I'd like to see the stereotype inverted -- let's see a strong, virile Asian dude get the white chick while blowing away racist rednecks. Now I'd pay to see THAT!

Why I didn't care for this movie
What's the point of all this killing and violence in a movie? It slurs Japanese and Arabs. People are murdered like popping corn, one after another continuously. Last I checked violent injury is pretty unpleasant, yet in this movie it is treated like candy, kill this one then that one pop pop pop. An utterly pointless movie and a waste of film. Next to Caddy Shack 2, this is the stupidest film ever. They talk about karma, but I would hate to have the karma of having made Heaven's Burning. ... Read more

Description

Charles Bremer is a recluse and collector of rare flowers and objects d'art. Loved and smothered by his mother, the past remains as real to him as his present life. Paul Cox's "Man of Flowers" is a film about the confrontation between modern art and traditional art; between modern love and traditional love; between modern life and traditional life. A film about art, insanity, loneliness and sex. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Director Paul Cox (Innocence) began his winning streak of offbeat pictures and off-center character pieces with this deft 1981 romantic comedy. Norman Kaye is a delight as the 40ish piano tuner with a whimsical streak who meets shy, sheltered single Wendy Hughes, a woman 20 years his junior, through a dating service. This unlikely couple hits it off right away, much to the disapproval of her smothering parents. Cox's deadpan observance of Kaye's wacky pranks is hilarious--Kaye convinces one woman that he's blind, and the confused look on her face as he wobbles back to his car and drives off is alone worth seeing the film. But at heart the movie belongs to the awkward, uncomfortable moments of new relationships that Cox so warmly captures in all their nervous excitement. Cox and Kaye followed this lovely little picture with the even more eccentric Man of Flowers. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more