Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Faraway Downs’ Is Plagued With the Same Issues That Made ‘Australia’ Overblown and Paternalistic: TV Review

Neighbours, the returning soap that has been playing elsewhere (Channel 5 and previously the BBC in the UK, has been released by its new home – streamer Freevee.The series will return to screens on 18 September, with new episodes releasing daily, Monday-Thursday, at 7 a.m. BST, on Amazon Freevee in the UK and the U.S.

A mum spent eight hours painstakingly hand-making 350 decorations for her Christmas tree - and said she saved herself thousands.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor Catherine Martin, the four-time Oscar-winning producer, costume designer and production designer of “Moulin Rouge,” “The Great Gatsby” and “Elvis,” says she is waiting to see what project Baz Luhrmann, her husband and longtime creative partner, will embark on next. Martin is at the Red Sea Film Festival with Luhrmann, whom she started working with on his debut feature, 1992’s “Strictly Ballroom.” Since then, there have been a series of projects marked by their striking visual style, netting Martin a number of nominations and awards. She spoke to Variety.

Despite withdrawing from I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! on 'medical grounds', Jamie-Lynn Spears attended the Dancing With The Stars finale on Tuesday, 5 December.The 32 year old, who is the younger sister of pop star Britney Spears, 42, reunited with her dance partner Alan Bersten at the finale, with the duo sharing several photographs on social media.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Something Special, the Seoul-based international format agency founded by format specialists Jin Woo Hwang (president and executive producer) and Kim In Soon (EVP & head of content) announce that ITV Studios has optioned the hit Korean celebrity format “Battle in the Box” for France, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. The deal was unveiled on Wednewday, the first full day of the Asia Television Forum and Market (ATF) in Singapore. “Battle in the Box,” created by Korea’s NMedia and represented globally by Something Special, has previously seen deals announced with Fremantle for Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal.

Chris Hemsworth wears a relaxed gray suit while stepping out for the 2023 Red Sea International Film Festival on Monday (December 4) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

John Bleasdale Guest Contributor A full house greeted Chris Hemsworth as he dropped into the Red Sea Film Festival for an In Conversation event with jury head, Baz Luhrmann. It was something of an Oz fest as the beginning of the conversation was dominated by George Miller and littered with references to fellow antipodean superstars like Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman and Mel Gibson. It was natural Miller was predominant as Hemsworth had flown directly from Comic Con in Brazil, where the first trailer of Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” was premiered.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief France-based multinational Studiocanal has launched Cultivator Films to facilitate local co-productions in Australia and will kick off with book-to-film adaptation “Kangaroo.” “Kangaroo” is scripted by Harry Cripps (“The Dry,” “Penguin Bloom”) and directed by Kate Woods (“The Lincoln Lawyer,” “The Umbrella Academy,” “The Good Lord Bird,” “Looking for Alibrandi”). Eastern Arrernte emerging director Samantha Laughton is set as a director’s attachment. Slated to start production in Alice Springs in the first half of 2024, “Kangaroo” is a Northern Territory-inspired story based on Chris Barnes, aka ‘Brolga,’ who is the founder of the Kangaroo Sanctuary in Alice Springs. Cultivator Films Australia is led by Studiocanal’s Australia and New Zealand CEO Elizabeth Trotman.

The Aussies took over Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival this evening as Elvis filmmaker Baz Luhrmann sat down for a career Q&A with actor Chris Hemsworth. 

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Tubi, Fox Corp.’s ad-supported video-on-demand service, is eyeing a bigger international footprint: The streamer has tapped David Salmon, former CTO of Endeavor Streaming, as executive VP and managing director of international. Salmon, based in the U.K., will report to Tubi CEO Anjali Sud, the ex-chief exec of Vimeo who started at the streamer in September. Tubi’s biggest market is the U.S., where it first launched.

K.J. Yossman Raw TV, the production company behind “The Tinder Swindler,” have set a new true crime documentary with Amazon Prime Video about the 1978 murders of Chris Farmer and Peta Frampton. Titled “Dead in the Water,” it follows the story of Farmer and Frampton, a young British couple who went missing in 1978 after going backpacking in Central America.

Jamie Lynn Spears has left ITV's I'm A Celebrity... on medical grounds after the actress was struggling with missing home. The American star is the second campmate to sensationally leave the jungle after food critic Grace Dent's exit last week.

It looks like Dove Cameron and Damiano David are officially a couple!

UK agency Casarotto Ramsay & Associates has hired Sara Johnson and Julie Fernandez, co-founders of Bridge06. 

Hunter Ingram SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from the film “Australia” and the limited series “Faraway Downs,” now streaming on Hulu. Fifteen years after the release of his 2008 epic romance “Australia,” Baz Luhrmann still struggles to find the right words to sum up its production. In this particular interview, he settles on one –– “fraught.” While shooting the film on location across its namesake continent, the native Australian director tried not to take it personally when the set-trained horses contracted a rare equine flu, or when the portion of the outback where they were filming received its first major rainfall in 150 years. But one thing after another repeatedly delayed production, and tested the cast and crew’s resilience.

EXCLUSIVE: Teresa Palmer (The Clearing, The Fall Guy), Miranda Richardson (Good Omens, Spider) and Danielle Macdonald (The Tourist, Patti Cake$) and a host of other names have joined Nicole Kidman‘s light-hearted Australian drama series The Last Anniversary.

Even in its original, nearly three-hour shape, Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia” was a lot of movie beyond just length. Sandwiched within that ambitious old school Hollywood undertaking—about an Englishwoman who inherits a sprawling ranch and the drover she teams up with herding cattle across an unforgiving land— was a broad screwball meet-cute romcom between Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman’s characters—at least at first, those rhythms are unmistakable—a fabulist fairy tale about dreamers, an idealistic ranching Western, a sweeping wild wilderness adventure, an immense historical epic (with elements of brassy, jazz-age chutzpah to add yet another flavor), a mystical fable about Indigenous people, and a grand, lush romance.

Sharon Stone is opening up about helping Leonardo DiCaprio several decades ago.

The bumbling cops at the center of Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement‘s comedy Wellington Paranormal are to present a podcast about the series.

I'm A Celebrity returned to our screens on ITV with a jam-packed opening episode on Sunday evening (November 19). Fans were excited to see the stellar line-up of famous faces as they got acquainted with the Australian jungle - and each other.