Romancing the Continent

Began this morning with the second half of Australia and baking. My cookie jar was almost empty again. I decided to try one of several cookie recipes in Prevention this month, Lemon-Glazed Gingersnaps. They came out very tasty, though not as thin as the ones in the magazine.

Australia is a very old-fashioned romance/western/war movie. Baz Lutherman, who also directed Moulin Rouge with leading lady Nicole Kidman, brings his trademark bombastic style to this tale of a proper English gentlewoman who comes to the title continent in 1939 to check on her husband and his property...and falls in love with the arid land, its people, and a handsome, hard-living cattle driver (Hugh Jackman).

The over-the-top style that worked with Moulin Rouge doesn't come off as well in a non-musical. While I enjoyed the performances and the meandering 30s style, it tries to cover waaaayy too many bases. It starts off like an Australian-set version of Romancing the Stone, then moves into more dramatic western territory, then becomes a typical Hollywood romance, then morphs into a war movie...and that doesn't even bring the lengthy subplot involving the treatment of Australia's Aboriginal people into it. Actually, if Lutherman had ended with a western without bringing the war into it, he might have had something. Beautiful film, but too long and slow to be recommended to anyone who isn't into older styles of movie-making or aren't fans of Lutherman, Kidman, Jackman, or hokey romances.

Ran the quieter, more holiday-related Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving and A Disney Christmas Gift while finishing the cookies and eating lunch. After lunch, I walked over to the Oaklyn Library for my first volunteering session there. I only had about a half-hour (the place closes at 2), so I did U through Z on the children's picture books. Also chatted with the kind elderly librarian, who unlike most of my neighbors, sympathized with my desire to get out of the Acme and find another job.

Thank goodness after the last few days, work wasn't really much of a problem. It was steady-to-busy all night, and other than I wish people wouldn't talk about the darn strike so much, there were no problems.