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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Fascinatingly Awful...
I saw this film in my teens and couldn't believe just how bad it was. Now in my 40's, it's a stunner of a bad film that belongs right up there with the Golan-Globus musical disaster "The Apple". Every musical number is jaw-dropping bad. This film is a product of the 80's and should have remained there.
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Thank you so much for releasing this movie!
I fell in love with this movie many years ago and the great soundtrack and had it on American VHS. Thanks so much for finally releasing it on dvd.
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A JOYOUS, ENERGETIC NEW WAVE MUSICAL GEM!
At last, Gillian Armstrong's STARSTRUCK has come to DVD, and in a two-disc set with bonuses galore! When this Australian joy hit theatres in 1982, it was right at the start of the invasion from Down Under, when INXS was just beginning to make noise, Men At Work was bubbling under with "Who Can It Be Now?", BREAKER MORANT and Armstrong's own MY BRILLIANT CAREER were filling Art Houses. What a time! All Things Aussie became the rage of the next few years, and some enterprising movie theatres tried to make STARSTRUCK the next ROCKY HORROR with weekly midnight showings. It never reached that height of cult fever, but this quirky, colorful, bouncy musical found its own audience. (Bear in mind that STARSTRUCK is no ROCKY wannabe; its humor is more innocent and cheeky, its storyline more mainstream. It always reminded me more of A HARD DAY'S NIGHT and the television series THE MONKEES)
Jo Kennedy is the focal point, an aspiring singer named Jackie Mullins, her cousin Angus (played by the giddily charming Ross O'Donovan) trying every trick in the book, and then some, to get her noticed by the Powers That Be. A few pages are borrowed from classic musicals in that they would have to achieve fame to save their home, a wonderful pub, from the usual money-grubbers. Hey, we've got to have some conflict to get this thing moving, don't we? Jackie and Angus have a very close family (another strong point of the film), with the always well-coiffed Margo Lee, the wisecracking Max Cullen, and the bubbly, wonderful Pat Evison (as the matriarch) by their side. Also in the cast are John O'May as a television host and music promoter who gets one of the score's best songs (in a parody/tribute to Busby Berkeley that has to be seen to be believed!) and Geoffrey Rush, in his very first film, as a stage director with a LOT of hair!
The musical numbers are truly inventive and marvelous, each staged quite differently by choreographer David Atkins within sets designed by ROCKY HORROR's Brian Thomson. The energy just leaps off the screen, and several of these numbers look like they could have come straight off MTV (and MTV wasn't even on the air yet!)
Music, for the most part, is provided by Phil Judd and The Swingers, one of the hottest New Wave bands of this Aussie renaissance. Although they never made it really big in the U.S., you might remember their "Counting the Beat" as one of the best albums to hit during that period. Other songs come from many diverse writers, but they somehow have a cohesiveness that can only be the result of serendipity. Everything comes together so well and so right in STARSTRUCK that you'd never know how chaotic its production was.
Gillian Armstrong and producer Richard Brennan detail in the documentary on disc two just how hard it was to make this film and get everything to come out right. The logistics were more than tough, but their triumph is clear in every frame.
Other DVD bonuses include outtakes, extended musical numbers, deleted scenes, commentary by Richard Brennan, a look back by screenwriter Stephen MacLean, trailers, posters and more. Film transfer is pristine, the sound crisp and full.
If you haven't discovered STARSTRUCK, take it out for a test drive. And thank you so much to Blue Underground Video for releasing this wonderful New Wave musical here in the states.
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Phenomenal feel good movie. Where is the Soundtrack???
This is a great movie for those days when you need a pick me up. The acting is over the top but in this case and movie it works as they come off as larger then life. The scenes in the movie and the set design are surreal and over the top, so the actors made their characters larger then life and surreal and this is a very good thing as it allows the whole film to blend. The world this movie takes place in and the type of people it has living in it do not actually exist, but those of us that love this movie sure wish they did. The music choice could not have been better for this film.
If you listen to the commentary during the movie you will hear the director lammenting about how INXS was one of the bands possible for the movie and they instead went with the Swingers, with the future leads of Crowded House and Phil Judd. Thank god they went with the Swingers, their music style matches the entire rest of the movie to a tee. Had INXS been the band they used the whole movies feel would have suffered. The music in this is one of the major keys to its success and I find it funny that the director has missed this point. She should be thankful they went with the Swingers, otherwise this movie would be long forgotten. Phil Judd is a extremely quirky guy, and his screen persona matched this surreal movie very well along with his phenomenal mix of pop classics. The songs on this movie such as Monkey in Me, Body and Soul, Starstruck, One Good Reason (which can be found on "Counting the Beat" a Swingers CD that was recently available on Amazon), I want to live in a Box.
This movie came together as good as possible, despite the director. Thank god we cannot go back, and it seems that hindsite may not always be 20/20.
Now what do we need? THE SOUNDTRACK! Seriously, there is not a bad track on this whole movie, some of the best songs ever made, I would say the best the Swingers ever produced are actually on this movie instead of on their CD's. I really really hope the soundtrack is finally put onto CD. I got my $20 ready. This is the only movie I have ever attempted to record via a microphone and my TV's speakers, it did not work so well. This movie really needs a soundtrack release on CD.
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Overjoyed it's out on DVD
I saw this wonderful little movie in the theater during its first run in NYC with a group of Aussie friends. And promptly went back and saw it again the following day. I fell in love with the corny plot - we've got to put on a show to save the pub! Went out and bought the cassette soundtrack because the New Wave pop songs are great - memorable, bouncy, sing-able, and delivered with gusto. It's a charming film that can be watched over and over again. One of the great movie musicals. If you like the slightly wacky slant on the world from Oz, Gillian Armstrong's films, early '80's New Wave power pop, take a chance on Starstruck. You won't regret it!
