STARSTRUCK

Australian director Gillian Armstrong's own brilliant career was established worldwide with the critical and box-office success of "My Brilliant Career" (1979), her first feature length film. Like the intrepid heroines of "My Brilliant Career" and Armstrong's second film STARSTRUCK, the director opts for the unexpected and the untried. Venturing far afield from the period drama of rural Australia, this time Armstrong presents a zany, New Wave musical view of contemporary life in Sydney.



Jackie (Jo Kennedy) is determined to become a rock star and she's always dressed for the part in funky, punky outfits crowned with an orange mop hairdo adorned with a dog bone center. She makes the scene at the Lizard Lounge, confident in her red kangaroo costume, cheered on by her 14-year-old blue-haired cousin and manager Angus (Ross O'Donovan). The crowd goes wild for her first song and Angus is inspired to make her an instant celebrity. His enterprising ideas include Jackie's debut on TV news due to her tightrope walk between two skyscrapers.



Jackie captures the attention of a TV rock-show host who is offering a New Year's Eve band-contest prize of $25,000. The family hotel pub is going bankrupt and Jackie and Angus (like Mickey and Judy in the old-time musicals) must put on a show to win the prize and save the business.



STARSTRUCK's blend of original rock songs and dance (at times hilariously spoofing Busby Berkeley's choreography) is as delightfully outrageous as the costumes and Brian Thomson's (1975's "The Rocky Horror Picture Show") sets. The eccentric family members and pub characters provide a perfect balance to the kids' frenzied antics. Dolby stereo and veteran cinematographer Russell Boyd's ("Picnic at Hanging Rock," "Gallipoli," "The Year of Living Dangerously") camerawork radiate a vibrant energy.