A Trip Down Under

Comments (0) By Michael Fox Wednesday, Jan 27 2010

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Today, the expansive eight-day Mostly British Film Festival turns Mostly Australian, with three of the six features originating from the rough-and-tumble land of charming accents. The real-life murders of five Aussie journalists in East Timor in 1975 — and the ensuing coverup — propel the nail-biter Balibo (aka The Balibo Conspiracy, screening at 7 p.m.). Adapted by Robert Connolly from foreign correspondent Jill Jolliffe’s nonfiction book, the film stars Anthony LaPaglia as a man in search of his own self-esteem as well as the truth. Little-seen and underappreciated on its 2006 release, Candy (9:15 p.m.) is a grittily honest portrait of a boho couple (Abbie Cornish and Heath Ledger, in the last movie he made in his home country) who are truly, madly, deeply in love with each other and heroin. Moviegoers with a taste for both late-night creepiness and talented newcomers will lose sleep over Crush (11:30 p.m.), starring Emma Lung as a gal with both tunnel vision and extraordinary powers, whose seduction of a visiting American student (Chris Egan) kindles a profoundly unhealthy obsession. As opposed, you know, to those healthy obsessions the rest of us have.
Feb. 4-11, 2010