We all had them growing up, miserly old bloke school teachers who’d rather be anywhere than the schoolyard. Well, they've now made a movie about one: "Book Week".
Filmed in the Blue Mountains (that's in New South Wales, Des), the film takes the time-honoured school tradition of Book Week, where kids dress up as their favourite characters from books, as its backdrop.
Mr Cutler, a drunk, cop-bribing, strip-joint loving teacher and disgraced author looking for redemption, hates teaching literature. Not only does he have to 'teach' rather than 'do', but he's also left with the realisation that kids these days just aren't that into reading. The one bright spot comes in the form of a trashy zombie novel Cutler's managed to pen. Staring down the barrel of a return to the literary scene, Cutler's got to fight against his worse impulses and keep it together for Book Week.
While this little Aussie movie got some pretty mixed reviews, David Stratton's three stars were enough for me to lash out ten dollars for it on ebay. Or maybe it reminded me of the old response to a request, implying that one is being unfairly imposed on or taken for a fool, which was so prevalent in Australia in the sixties but never heard again since.
"I'm just going to have my dog shit on your lawn, hope it's ok?"
"Come on, mate, what do you think this is, bush week??"
