Fridae

Australian director Baz Luhrmann may be married with two kids, but everything he touches turn into Bright Dazzling Campy Melodramatic Fabulousness. For a married bloke with kids, then he must be the gayest straight man we know.

His wildly hyperactive Romeo + Juliet (1996) dragged the Shakespearean romance kicking and screaming into the MTV era. His pop musical Moulin Rouge (2001) was another dizzying assault on the senses.

And in his latest film Australia, he may have finally found a story to match his massive talents and ambitions. Costing a sensational US$130million, Australia is to Baz's country Down Under what Gone With The Wind must be to America. It is a big, spectacular, old-fashioned epic that mixes romance, war and adventure.

By the end of it all, you feel like you've just watched three movies for the price of one. Seriously.

Written by Baz with a team of three scribes, Australia tells the story of Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman, looking as impossibly elegant as ever) who travels from her home in England to Australia to visit her husband, who she suspects of having an affair. Instead, she finds her husband dead - killed allegedly by an aboriginal man.

She makes plans to sell his land and cattle, and promptly return to England. But when she discovers that a rival cattle company may be stealing her husband's herd and may even be behind his death, she decides to stay and get even. She hires a drover (Hugh Jackman in stunning shape) to drive her cattle through miles of arid land to get them to market�

The film's running time is 165minutes, so it's hard not to feel a little exhausted after such a long epic. But the actors are commendable, taking us through the elaborate plot even when it defies credibility.

Nicole Kidman - the muse of so many gay men and the object of lust of so many gay women - is ravishing as Lady Sarah Ashley. Her clothes are cunningly cut so as to accentuate every curve and crevice of her body. (If you observe closely, you can make out her G-strings.) Her acting is stronger than usual, and she displays a fine comic sensibility rarely seen in her recent works.

Meanwhile, Hugh Jackman is impeccable as always. Not only is he in fabulous shape, he'll show you why he was voted the Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine. Also worth mentioning is 11-year-old actor Brandon Walters, who plays a half-aboriginal child through whose eyes we witness the story.

Big, boisterous, ambitious and just spectacular to look at, Australia is the must-see epic for the Christmas season.