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Actors:

SAM NEILL

KEVIN HARRINGTON

TOM LONG

PATRICK WARBURTON

GENEVIEVE MOOY

TAYLOR KANE

BILLIE BROWN

ROY BILLING

JOHN MCMARTIN

People often ask me for recommendations of films to rent, and one of my perennial suggestions is the Australian comedy The Dish. It’s the living definition of a feel-good movie, but not the simplistic, button-pushing formula kind. It has a personality all its own and I daresay it’s irresistible.

Like so many great comedies, this one is rooted in the observation of human nature. It has a great premise that’s well developed (by screenwriters Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleinser, Jane Kennedy, and director Rob Sitch) but it’s the quirkily amusing array of characters that really brings it to life.

The Dish is based on a real-life incident. In 1969, as the United States was about to send a man to the moon, NASA realized that it needed a backup satellite to ensure that there would be no cutoff of communication when its space capsule reached the Southern Hemisphere. The likely candidate turned out to be located in the village of Parkes in New South Wales, situated in the middle of a sheep pasture.

The honor of being selected to participate in this historical event sends the residents of Parkes into a tizzy, and even occasions an official visit from the U.S. ambassador and the Australian prime minister.

It also places considerable pressure on the hardworking team of scientists who operate “the dish” on a daily basis, led by studious, unflappable, pipe-smoking Sam Neill. NASA has sent one of its own men (Patrick Warburton) to supervise the Aussie crew but the locals want to prove their mettle, especially when a couple of minicrises erupt.

Director Sitch weaves news footage from 1969 into his narrative and manages to build suspense into every stage of the story (even though we know the outcome of the moon mission already). Although the film opens in the year 2000 as an elderly Neill visits the scene of his former triumph, the movie unfolds in the present tense and has an ingratiating immediacy about it.

Sitch and his writing colleagues collaborated three years earlier on another highly entertaining film, The Castle (1997), and have since worked together on such television shows Down Under as Thank God You’re Here and The Hollowmen. But I suspect it’s The Dish that will have the longest life here in the States.

28. DISNEY’S TEACHER’S PET

(2004)

Directed by Timothy Björklund

Screenplay by Bill Steinkellner and Cheri Steinkellner

Source material by Gary Baseman

Actors:

NATHAN LANE

KELSEY GRAMMER

SHAUN FLEMING

DEBRA JO RUPP

DAVID OGDEN STIERS

JERRY STILLER

PAUL REUBENS

MEGAN MULLALLY

ROB PAULSEN

WALLACE SHAWN

ESTELLE HARRIS

JAY THOMAS

This may be the craziest animated movie ever to bear the Disney name. I know that’s a tall statement but I stand by it. In 2000, the studio’s TV animation division commissioned a Saturday-morning show from comedy writers Bill and Cheri Steinkellner and contemporary artist Gary Baseman, and hired a bright animator-turned-director named Timothy Björklund (who made his reputation on the hip series Rocko’s Modern Life) to direct. Teacher’s Pet never became a solid hit, but having waited a bit too long to commission a theatrical-feature version of its previous TV success Doug, the company gave a green light to the team to make this movie. I’m so glad they did.

So were other critics, who (like me, I must confess) had never seen the series. The theatrical arm of the Disney company had little faith in this feature and opened it without fanfare in January 2004—whereupon it won a bushelful of great reviews! Its lackluster promotion and marketing—and the fact that it’s so darned weird—kept it from becoming a mainstream hit, but I love it.

Here’s the premise; pay close attention. Mrs. Mary Lou Helperman is a schoolteacher, and as it happens, one of her students is her own son Leonard. Another pupil named Scott is in reality the family dog Spot (voiced with great comic brio by Nathan Lane). When Mrs. Helperman wins a