The Club

An excellent film that goes behind doors of this sport that I couldn't care less about, it's like an Australian 80s Moneyball, but slightly better. The writing is incredibly strong and makes each character's motivations clear, except for Geoff who is purposefully (and comically) more vague. There's enough passion in this story here of this professional sport being corporatised into a No Fun League, aside from a tacky rushed ending, this passion is infectious.

If you are a fan of footy then you will like this, and if you're not a fan then this is not the film for you. I happen to like footy so I like this film quite a lot (the David Williamson writing helps a lot). It oozes the footy culture of the 1970s (the film was released in 1980), which is not to condone all aspects of this culture but simply to praise the film as a historical record of this time and place. It's footy in cinematic form and by far the best film about the sport in this country.

In retrospect, the changes in Australian football at the time of The Club's conception were in fact early signs of Neo-liberalism's encroachment into everyday life. Aussie football has since moved from a local game to a national one and has become increasingly corporatised. The Club does address how the old loyalties were fading, but Beresford spends far too much time on the particulars of backdoor politics and the eccentricities of the main players rather than on the symbolic meaning of it all.

69.000

To be honest, after the first mention of football, I'd lost all interest. There were some interesting bits and pieces; any time Graham Kennedy is on screen is enjoyable (as usual), and that random incest story. Jack Thompson's hair and moustache are annoyingly distracting and the story is pretty dull.