Rating: 
Summary: I don't eat fish
Review: LOVE SERENADE is an offbeat (I'm trying terribly hard to avoid the word `quirky') story of two sisters in a rural Australian town who find themselves in an increasingly acrimonious competition for the affections of the big city disk jockey who'd just moved in next door.
It's a tale of seduction, jealousy, and `wuv' played out between three compelling and convincing characters. At least they convince up to a point.
The last ten minutes or so contains scenes that are shocking and bizarre. The bizarre element, even though a hint or two is dropped during the movie, seems to have been inserted to take the sting out of the shocking element.
The core story, minus the strange stuff, was a plenty good enough movie for me.
Rating:
Summary: Quirky, Engaging Australian Film
Review: As "Dimitry", the "odder" of two sisters, Miranda Otto made quite an impression on me. I'm glad to have made her acquaintance through this charming film, which threw a new surprise at me every time I thought it might be wearing a bit thin. "Ken Sherry", the disc jockey who actually believes in his "Desiderta" B-S, is an unforgettable character.
Rating: 
Summary: A sharp comedy of manners from Australia
Review: Dimity & Vicki-Ann Hurley (Otto & Frith) are two sisters living in a small "nothing ever happens here" town called Sunray in Australia. They are a pair of misfits and they often fail to get on together but they are sisters and sticking together is important to them. One thing that they both share is that they are single and are looking for a man. Then one day big-city DJ Ken Sherry (Shevtsov) moves to town. Not just to town but he moves in next door to the sisters.The movie revolves around the attempts of each sister to to claim Ken as her man. Ken meanwhile is not interested in being claimed but he enjoys his dalliance with and manipulation of both women. This leads to conflict between the sisters and their relationship is sorely strained but, in the end, it is more important to them than Ken. That's the plot and there is not a lot to it and there is not a lot going on in the way of sub-plots either but the point of the movie is the humour especially in the relationship between the sisters as each tries a new ruse to win Ken's attention. Otto and Frith do a fine job here. A comedy double act demands a lot and most of the really successful ones have been between long established twosomes. Otto and Frith have not done this sort of thing together before and yet they deliver a series of gags both scripted and visual with real polish. Shevtsov too does a fine job as the DJ who is past his best and, knowing this, looks for a small pond in which he is able to be a big fish. My only real criticism is that the film is a little too long. It certainly does not need one hundred minutes to tell the story and the film would have more punch if some of the slower parts and weaker gags were cut.
Rating: 
Summary: "Would you like to come in and ease my loneliness?"
Review: DJ Ken Sherry (George Shevtsov) arrives in the small Australian town of Sunray to take over a tiny radio station. Ken moves in next door to the bizarre Hurley sisters--Dimity (Miranda Otto) and Vicki-Ann (Rebecca Firth). Vicki-Ann owns a hairdressing salon called the "Hairport," and according to Dimity, Vicki-Ann is "looking for a boyfriend." While Vicki-Ann throws herself at Ken, Dimity is standoffish. But Ken begins frequenting the drab Chinese restaurant where Dimity works as a waitress, and soon the sisters appear to be engaged in a nasty competition for Ken's attention. When Ken arrives in Sunray, he isn't exactly a breath of fresh air, but he seems exotic to the Hurley sisters. Ken plays Barry White songs endlessly at his shack of a radio station, and his glib lines impress marriage-obsessed, domineering Vicki-Ann and virginal, dowdy Dimity. Both Dimity and Vicki-Ann become fixated with Ken--and his ideas about life, love and relationships. But Albert, Dimity's employer, philosopher-cook, and nudist, remains obstinately unimpressed by Ken's behaviour, pick-up lines, and music choices. This film is not a romance--it's a bizarre and delightful black comedy. All the characters in this very small cast are sharply drawn, and the relationship between the sisters is--on the surface--normal. However, a real pathology exists, and Ken stumbles into it, and that's where most of the humour lies. Ken thinks he's really hit the mother-lode when he moves in next to the Hurley sisters, and he sees his actions as "setting them free." In reality, he unleashes them. If you like "Love Serenade," I also heartily recommend, "Walk the Talk"--an equally unusual and bizarre film by the same refreshingly unique director, Shirley Barrett-displacedhuman
Rating:
Summary: FANTASTIC AND FUNNY!
Review: I abolutely LOVED this movie! Both sisters and Ken Sherry were delightfully quirky and amusing. Its a great movie that is NOT predictable and is so interesting and funny. The acting is GREAT on all parts, the restaurant owner was a special treat. I would highly recommend this movie if you like more low key indie movies like Trees Lounge and Kicking and Screaming and the fantabulously underrated She's So Lovely.
Rating:
Summary: FANTASTIC AND FUNNY!
Review: I abolutely LOVED this movie! Both sisters and Ken Sherry were delightfully quirky and amusing. Its a great movie that is NOT predictable and is so interesting and funny. The acting is GREAT on all parts, the restaurant owner was a special treat. I would highly recommend this movie if you like more low key indie movies like Trees Lounge and Kicking and Screaming and the fantabulously underrated She's So Lovely.
Rating:
Summary: Different poster!!
Review: I actually just wanted to bring attention to the poster used for Love Serenade. In Australia we had something completely and I mean absolutely completely different to this, which I assume is what was used to market it in America. I have found this to be the case for many of our Australian films - the posters are made to be more colourful and 'lighthearted' I suppose is the word I'm looking for. Other examples I've come across are posters for Love and other Catastrophes and The Castle. Now onto the film, I thought it was great!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully weird, wacky, and funny to boot
Review: I first became aware of some of the great movies coming out of Australia and New Zealand in the 80s, and this movie is one of my favorites. It's a very quirky, off-beat, and darkly funny film that probably won't appeal to many moviegoers, but it shows what a good script writer, director, and just a handful of talented actors and actresses can do with what at first blush seems very mundane and not especially promising material. The movie hinges on its intimate portrayal of the several characters and their relationships, set against the backdrop of the small, dead-end, Australian outback town of Sunray, north of Brisbane on Australia's Sunshine Coast. There are only four main characters in the entire film: the two sisters, Vicky-Ann and Dimity, the DJ, Ken Sherry, and the Chinese restaurant owner and nudist, Albert. The whole movie revolves around these four odd characters and their equally odd relationships. The plot unfolds with the langourous pacing of a pitcher's duel, but the only real pitcher (more like pitchman) in the movie is the sleazoid, manipulative DJ, Ken Sherry, who pitches his cynical and self-serving philosophy of free sex and free love to the two inexperienced and naive neighbor sisters who are competing for his affections. At first charmed by Ken's smooth-talking demeanor, the three are soon involved in a bizarre love triangle, and the girls quickly find out that Ken is nothing more than a smooth-talking and manipulative cad. Besides Ken and the two sisters, Vicky-Ann and Dimity, and their relationships, which would be enough quirkiness for any movie except this wonderfully weird black comedy, there's Albert, the Chinese cook, who doesn't like Ken's unchanging roster of Barry White songs because they're always, as Albert says, "about procreation" (and tells him so). This is despite Albert's admitting to being a practicing nudist. Albert becomes obsessed with why Ken doesn't order his fresh prawns and only orders the beef with black bean sauce. Unlike the two smitten sisters, Albert isn't impressed with Ken one bit. Soon the story is enmeshed in a web of suspicions, as Ken is suspicious of Albert's prawns, Albert is suspicious of Ken's smooth ways with the women, and the two sisters are suspicious of each other's designs on Ken. In fact, the subject of fish and seafood almost becomes another subplot, as the characters talk about fishing, the giant marlin on Ken Sherry's wall, go for a leisurely canoe trip on the local river, and debate the freshness of Albert's prawns. As if that weren't enough, Dimity thinks Ken himself is part fish--he apparently has webbed toes and she thinks he has gills on his neck which exude a fatty substance! (This despite the fact that Ken doesn't like fish :-)). The two sisters have a blow-up when Dimity reveals her suspicions that Ken is really a fish. The movie opens with a fishing scene on the river and ends with another scene on the same river (which I won't discuss since it would ruin the plot, but it has to do with that infamous line from the first Godfather movie about Lucca Bratsi). As if all of the above weren't enough, add in a striptease scene by Dimity, some frank nudity and sex, and what will happen with the two enormous and mysterious storage silos that keep appearing throughout the movie, and you have one of the strangest, quirkiest, and funniest movies ever to come out of the great and exotic land of Oz. This movie has the potential to become a cult classic although I doubt it'll ever get the attention and fame that it truly deserves.
Rating:
Summary: Deliciously odd, funny movie!
Review: I saw this movie in the theatres when it first came out. I have never seen anything like it before. The cast was perfect, the sisters, the DJ and even the asian restaurant owner. Hysterical! The movie runs smoothly and pleasantly with odd surprises mixed in, and the ending is perfect. A must see foreign film.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Slow Burn
Review: Love Serenade is a one-off and highly novel arthouse movie based upon largely unknown actors and a narrow and quirky plot. This is very much a slow burn and it won't appeal to some, while others will be coming back again and again. The movie starts when big time dag, and one time DJ "Ken Sherry" rolls into a dead-end Australian outback town in his dated brown RX7 to the sound of one of Barry White's more seedy tunes. No sooner has Ken arrived on the scene than two backward country sisters, (one fiesty, one clueless and both desperate) start their own amateurish fight for Ken's effections. Ken is a big town sleaze who takes it upon himself to take full advantage of both naive sisters while spouting his own poetic brand of self-justifying hedonistic philosophy. With the local Chinese chef and nudist Albert as the self-appointed voice of reason (and superstition) the whole plot becomes increacingly bizzare. The ending really takes the cake and is a great moment the first time you see it. I should add that Ken's most redeeming feature is that he plays great music tracks from the 70's on his radio station, and the soundtrack to this movie is extremely enjoyable and well worth hunting down on CD.
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