Prisoners of the Sun

So i FINALLY watched my Russell Crowe movie that i have had FOREVER! It's an Australian show from 1990 that tells the real life story about the deaths of 300 Australian Prisoners of War after WWII on an island of Indonesia. To my surprise, it was a really good movie. Great plot, script, and wonderful acting. Just way too depressing for my taste. Ya know, beating and torturing soilders along with suicides and executions. I just wasn't expecting this movie to be done so well cuz, well... how many horrible old school shows have i watched for one of my actors? It was a good show, but i'll never watch it again. Too sad.

Russell is ADORABLE as always. He was so tiny and little! Really skinny too. He's hardly in the movie, but what else do you expect from his 1st movie right? He is the assistant to the main character who is a lawyer. So Russell is always walking around with a clipboard writing down information. The entire time you could tell he was really into the acting and wasn't taking this job lightly. He would be listening intently, like a real intern would do. Or if it was a "long day" he would be seen in the background yawning, maybe scratching an itchy nose, but you could tell every movement was for the camera. It was so cute! I loved it!
The best part of the dvd had to be the special features. They really marketed it as a Russell Crowe movie to try and boost sales. They had a music video of TOFOG's song "Memorial Day" which mostly showed staged war footage, but did show a bit of him singing with his guitar and being all around beautiful!
My favorite feature was a fairly recent interview with Russell and Bryan Brown (the main character, lawyer guy). Russell just GUSHED over Bryan and said how exciting it was for him to work with him. He loved watching and learning from Bryan, not only with technical filming stuff, but with how to treat other people working on the movie. Russell went on to say how he'll never forget how on his last day of shooting, Bryan walked up to him and congratulated Russ on his work. Russell said how that just really gave him that confidence to be like, "Yeah, I can make movies and this is a career I can be succesful at."
The interviewer asked Bryan if he could tell Russell would go on to be the Oscar winning actor that he his today and Bryan said, "John Travolta said it best that, 'The greatest actors just sneak up on you. They suddenly are just there!' He said when he was doing that tv show... oh what was it called-" and Russell without skipping a beat chimmed in with, "Welcome Back Kotter". I, 1) LOVED that Bryan was talking about John and 2) LOVED that Russell TOTALLY knew this little piece of Travolta Trivia! It made me love him all the more! (To finish what Bryan was getting at- John was in the shadows while filming "Welcome Back Kotter" and the attention went to all the other actors and then John just came outta no where with Saturday Night Fever and turned into a mainstream Star.) It was a cute interview and I love to see Russell just laughing and joking and being completely stricken with his costar.
Oh, my sexual inuendo for the film. Russ and Bryan are in the clinic trying to question an injured soilder for the trial. The nurse tells them that they aren't allowed to be there. She looks at Russell and says, "You, get out!" I gasped and said (cuz i always have to talk outloud to myself) "Who do you think you are? You don't tell Russell to get out!" Then my mind turned dirty (how could it not) and i realized, "Well, then again, Russell only needs to be inside for a few seconds to get the job done, then he's free to exit." I giggled. :)
So, it was a really good show that i will never watch again, but i LOVED seeing my skinny Russell. So cute!