Cool Change (film)

Last updated

Cool Change
Directed by George T. Miller
Written by Patrick Edgeworth
Produced by Geoff Burrowes
Dennis Wright
Starring Jon Blake
Lisa Armytage
Deborra-Lee Furness
CinematographyJohn Haddy
Music by Bruce Rowland
Production
company
Release date
  • 10 April 1986 (1986-04-10)
Running time
89 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
BudgetA$3.5 million [1] [2] [3]
Box officeA$60,868 (Australia)

Cool Change is a 1986 Australian action film directed by George T. Miller. It stars Jon Blake and Lisa Armytage. [4] [5]

Contents

Plot

A park ranger is caught in a conflict between farmers and conservationists.

Cast

Production

The film was shot on location in Mansfield and the Victorian Alps. [6]

Burrowes said

My role is that of an entertainer. What one must not do is confuse the political reality with the entertainment reality. Cool Change I hope is not a polemic, not an exercise in didacticism. To make a low budget love story in the country, which is what I wanted to do... well, it would have been churlish to have turned one's back on the issue. It does not aim to solve the controversy of the High Country. [3]

Critical reception

The critic from the Sydney Morning Herald called the movie "a spectacularly simplistic propaganda piece for the cattle farmers of the Victorian high plains". [7]

According to the Ozmovies website:

The film will perhaps now be mainly of interest to an academic constructing a thesis on the environmental wars in Australia in the 1980s - there's rich pickings in the caricatures, stereotypes and confused treatment of the issues on hand in the film (such as the film explaining how the cattlemen are the guardians of the high country, caring for it, while at the same time the incompetent heroine is overstocking her run, and the cattlemen are conspiring to help her out). [8]

Box office

Cool Change grossed $60,868 at the box office in Australia, [9] which is equivalent to $132,692 in 2009 dollars.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Wenham</span> Australian actor

David Wenham is an Australian actor who has appeared in film, television and theatre. He is known for his roles as Faramir in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Friar Carl in Van Helsing and Van Helsing: The London Assignment, Dilios in 300 and its sequel 300: Rise of an Empire, Al Parker in Top of the Lake, Lieutenant John Scarfield in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, and Hank Snow in Elvis. He is known in his native Australia for his role as Diver Dan in SeaChange and Price Galese in Les Norton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Thompson (actor)</span> Australian actor (born 1940)

Jack Thompson, AM is an Australian actor and a major figure of Australian cinema, particularly Australian New Wave. He is best known as a lead actor in several acclaimed Australian films, including such classics as The Club (1980), Sunday Too Far Away (1975), The Man from Snowy River (1982) and Petersen (1974). He won Cannes and AFI acting awards for the latter film.

Sunrise is an Australian breakfast show program. It is broadcast on the Seven Network, and is currently hosted by Natalie Barr and Matt Shirvington. The program follows Sunrise Early News, and runs from 5:30 am to 9:00 am. It is followed by The Morning Show.

The Movie Show was an Australian film review program which was broadcast on SBS TV. Its history is divided into three parts, until it finally wound up in 2008.

<i>Weekend Sunrise</i> Australian breakfast television program

Weekend Sunrise is an Australian breakfast television program, broadcast on the Seven Network and currently hosted by Monique Wright and Matt Doran.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Blake (actor)</span> Australian actor (1958–2011)

Paul Jonathan Blake billed as Jon Blake and Sonny Blake, was an Australian actor who was primarily active in the 1980s. He appeared in several TV shows and films, including a leading role in Scott Hicks's Freedom (1982), before a car accident in 1986 left him severely disabled.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samantha Armytage</span> Australian television news presenter

Samantha Armytage is an Australian journalist and television presenter.

Josephine Mitchell sometimes credited as Jo Mitchell is an Australian actress and playwright with a lengthy career in theatre and television soap operas and serials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian Theatre for Young People</span> Australian national youth theatre company

Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP) is a not-for-profit national youth theatre company located in Woolloomooloo, New South Wales, Australia. It was founded in 1963 by Eleanor Witcombe.

Lara Jean Marshall is an English-born Australian actress, singer, and dancer. She is best known for her role as Lisa Atwood on the Australian television series "The Saddle Club" in the first two seasons.

<i>The Lighthorsemen</i> (film) 1987 film by Simon Wincer

The Lighthorsemen is a 1987 Australian war film about the men of a World War I light horse unit involved in Sinai and Palestine campaign's 1917 Battle of Beersheeba. The film is based on a true story and most of the characters in the film were based on real people.

<i>The Last Days of Chez Nous</i> 1992 Australian film

The Last Days of Chez Nous is a 1992 Australian drama film directed by Gillian Armstrong and written by Helen Garner. Made in a style that emphasizes naturalism over melodrama, the film centres on what happens after Vicki arrives at the house of her older sister Beth, whose French husband falls for her. The film stars Bruno Ganz as the Frenchman JP, New Zealand actor Kerry Fox as the impulsive younger sister, and Lisa Harrow as her older sibling. The cast also includes Miranda Otto and Bill Hunter.

Monkey Grip is a 1982 Australian drama film directed by Ken Cameron. It is based on the novel, also titled Monkey Grip (1977), by Helen Garner. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. The film was produced by Patricia Lovell and stars Noni Hazelhurst and Colin Friels, and featured an original soundtrack by Australian rock band the Divinyls.

Eadley Graeme Stoney is a former Australian politician.

Over the Hill is a 1992 Australian drama film directed by George T. Miller and starring Olympia Dukakis and Sigrid Thornton.

Scobie Malone is a fictional Sydney homicide detective created by Australian novelist Jon Cleary.

Boundaries of the Heart is a 1988 film starring Wendy Hughes.

This Won't Hurt a Bit is a 1993 Australian comedy film. It was directed by Chris Kennedy.

<i>Ladies in Black</i> (film) 2018 Australian film

Ladies in Black is a 2018 Australian comedy-drama film directed by Bruce Beresford. Starring Angourie Rice, Rachael Taylor, Julia Ormond, Ryan Corr and Shane Jacobson, the film is based on the 1993 novel The Women in Black by Madeleine St John, and tells the story of a group of department store employees in 1959 Sydney. The film was released on 20 September 2018.

Sydney Leicester Conabere was an Australian actor. He was notable for his work in theatre, film and television drama in a career spanning more than fifty years. In 1962 Conabere won the Logie award for Best Actor, for his performance in the television play The One Day of the Year. He worked prolifically as a stage actor from 1938 to 1989, particularly with the Melbourne Theatre Company and Melbourne Little Theatre, sharing the stage with Irene Mitchell in, for example, Lilian Hellman's The Little Foxes.

References

  1. "Production", Cinema Papers, March 1986 p62
  2. "Features Drama at former vice-regal residence Hello, hello: the real men drop in". The Canberra Times . 23 December 1985. p. 21. Retrieved 24 December 2015 via National Library of Australia.
  3. 1 2 Courtis, Brian (12 April 1986). "The saga of the man from Merrijig". The Age (Saturday Extra). p. 7.
  4. "Cool Change (1986) – George Miller | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related | AllMovie".
  5. David Stratton, The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry, Pan MacMillan, 1990 p224
  6. Greg Kerr, "Cool Change", Australian Film 1978–1992, Oxford Uni Press 1993 p187
  7. "Son of Snowy", Sydney Morning Herald 17 April 1986. Retrieved 10 May 2013
  8. Cool Change at Ozmovies
  9. "Film Victoria – Australian Films at the Australian Box Office" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 February 2011. Retrieved 28 October 2010.