Baz Lurhmann, and the great gatters rip off, and please, never mind the effects of materialism, advertise here ...

(Above: a dinkum Aussie comic book version of The Great Gatsby. More here, and here).

There's surreal, there's dinkum Aussie comic versions of The Great Gatsby, and then there's the Australian film industry.

A little while ago, an Australian production company (Beyond) got done over by the Producer offset mob at Screen Australia, on the basis that the series it was making didn't meet the significant Australian test, and wasn't a new creative concept.

This finding was then supported by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal - you can find its full decision here as a pdf. The AAT similarly carried on in a righteous way about significant Australian content (SAC), and a new creative concept.

Well we're no spear carrier for Beyond, but you'd have to understand they might have been a little gobsmacked, by all and sundry preening and posturing about the imminent arrival of Baz Lurhmann's 3D version of The Great Gatsby for production in NSW, courtesy the Producer Offset. (Lurhamn's Gatsby to be filmed in Sydney).

Greater legal minds than mine will have to explain precisely how making a film of The Great Gatsby is an exciting new creative concept, presumably on the basis that the previous six outings were American-made dogs that failed to understand this classic American novel (there's a list of them here). Only a right-thinking Australian production will correct the situation ...

As for the Australian content status involved in making an adaptation of an American novel for the American market, involving Leonard de Caprio in the lead, and possibly Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan, no doubt the learned minds worked out that Lurhmann's creative Australian genius was a sufficient balance to all these international actors speaking in American accents, and cavorting on screen in a quintessentially American outing.

What's at stake here is a budget rumoured to be around the $120 million mark, which means if the Australian offset kicks in, Warner Brothers will be given a helping hand to the tune of some $40 million (the offset being worth 40% when spent on Australian items, as opposed to the 15% designed to attract runaway productions, currently useless given the A dollar's strength).

Naturally Kristina Keneally was delighted by this bit of pork barreling, and the state government has also kicked in an unstated amount, to grease the wheels, and make the pork barrel incredibly smooth and soothing.

You won't see any agitation in the Australian mainstream media, since another of the beneficiaries is Fox studios in Sydney, and in any case Fox has already made out like a bandit in the matter of Alex Proyas's exceptionally tedious science fiction film, Knowing, which had as much to do with SAC as the bible. (And yes I did want to stand up and shout at the screen at the final images of paradise).

Of course not everyone's excited. When I googled around, I stumbled on this little outburst:

Baz Luhrmann is the latest in a series of culture fuckers to come along and rape the classics having set his bloated bombastic sights on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s seminal novel The Great Gatsby...

...If the world doesn’t explode next year, then surely it will when Gatsby 3D hits cinemas in 2013. (Baz Lurhmann Spins F. Scott Fitzgerald In Grave).

There, there Teddy, not to worry, what would you Irish know about anything ... because Baz is going to bring a unique Australian accent and understanding to the book. That's why it's significantly dinkum Aussie content ...

I actually had a chance to take a squiz at an early draft screenplay and it's a ripper. It begins with the dinkum tones of an Aussie narrator:

Back when I was an ankle biter, my dad gave me some advice that I've been rolling around in my brain like a chook in an outhouse ever since.

"Whenever you feel like grousing like a wombat," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't been given the kind of leg up you've scored."

And then the narrator provides a little back story:

My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this back of Bourke shithole for three generations. The dinkum cobber Carraways are something of a clan and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Sheik of Scrubby Creek, but the actual bugger who started the line was my grandad's brother who came here in fifty-one, went off to fight the bloody Dutch in the Boer war, bunked down with Breaker Morant, and when he came back - unlike poor Harry, damn you, damn you English swine - he started the wholesale hammer and tongs business that my dad carries on today.

There's a lot more, and if I could single out just one inspirational moment, it's surely going to be the gunfight - well you can't just do a classic without a few guns - which will be enhanced by Nicole Kidman singing some of Chad Morgan's stirring ballads, as a poignant contrast to the death and destruction that brings the third act to a close.

So we beat on, dinkum Aussie battlers fighting the bloody current, borne back ceaselessly to the bloody past. (and luckily you can find The Great Gatsby here at Project Gutenberg for free, which is a damn sight cheaper than what you'll have to pay to finance Lurhmann's American epic, and then to see it in goggle-eyed dinkumrama).

And now for something completely different, and since Akker Dakker, the fat owl of the remove and Miranda the Devine are rabbiting on about carbon in the Sunday Terror - their emissions alone have placed the entire planet in jeopardy - I thought the time was right to drop in on the local religious establishments, and see how things were going on a Sunday.

And wouldn't you now, they've done a survey of Catholic priests, and things are grim, as explained in Going Under - the priesthood in Australia - The Tablet. Priests are getting old, and there's signs of discontent, and I particularly appreciated this comment:

The institution in this country is in a real crisis. As I keep suggesting before long it is only going to be relevant to those who love Latin, Fiddleback chasubles and Gregorian chant — and the Japanese and Chinese tourists on their bus rides to the cathedrals in the capital cities. It was a madness of an insane degree for JPII to move Pell from Melbourne to Sydney. More than anything that undermined the morale of the entire Church across this nation, it has caused division amongst the bishops, and has still not been fixed.

So even some Catholics believe in the Pellist conspiracy!

There's a summary of the survey's findings here and it also copped a mention in the Herald here, wherein one priest compared the fervour of the World Youth Day to the Hitler Youth.

Oh dear.

So it only seemed fair to head over to the nepotic Jensens to see what's up with the Sydney Anglicans, and clearly the financial pounding they've copped in recent years has had some kind of impact. (Jesus saves, but shattered Anglicans regret not having that luxury).

You see, there's Phillip Jensen getting agitated about filthy, dirty materialism in Who Stole the Ashes?

But while we lost this series of tests, we did not really lose The Ashes this summer and we did not lose them in England a season ago. We lost them some years ago when our society embraced materialism as its chief cultural norm. The game is now an entertainment not a contest, with professional celebrities not representatives, fighting for their lucrative careers not their nation’s honour.

Well I guess losing 160 million smackeroos would clarify an attitude to materialism.

And so Jensen rails at advertising and materialism creeping into every phase of Australian life, especially cricket, and not to mention the Sydney Anglican board room.

Australia did not lose The Ashes to the English on the cricket pitch – we lost them in the boardroom. We lost them to some smart business people who stole them from us and renamed them “The Vodafone Ashes”.

Indeed. I was so moved that I thought Jensen might be a handy ally in the raging against the dinkum Lurhmann making out like a materialist bandit with taxpayers' money.

But then I noticed Studies for Lent being advertised for a keenly priced $9.95 - not ten bucks, but yours for under ten bucks, at $9.95 - et tu Anglicans? - and below that an even more plaintive advertisement in bright yellow begging people to "Advertise Here".

Well it gave me a grand old laugh, and I couldn't resist a screen grab, just to show you the rant about the evils of advertising and materialism up against the 'advertise here' sign, and so once again the Sydney Anglicans have saved the day, and ensured that this Sunday will pass in blissful good humour ...

And if you click on it, you're led to this page, here, which helpfully explains the joys, and benefits of advertising with Sydney Anglicans. Ah Magoo, you've done it again ...