I have always been a great admirer of Nicolas Roeg and "Walkabout" is one of my favorite films. This is a film version of Roegs stage play and while most of the film takes place in a hotel room it still has some of Roegs cinematic flare. Very unique story is about a famous actress (Theresa Russell) who after a hard nights work on a film in 1954 goes to a hotel to visit a famous professor (Michael Emil) and together in his hotel room they talk. After awhile she wants to go to bed with him but as they start to get undressed her husband is banging on the door. Her husband is a famous ex-baseball player (Gary Busey) and he wants to know what is going on. The three of them in the hotel room talk about what is going on and what the future holds for them. Meanwhile, a famous senator (Tony Curtis) is threatening to take away the professors papers if he doesn't testify at a hearing. Theresa Russell is just excellent and while she's not trying exactly to impersonate Marilyn Monroe she does a wonderful job of exuding the phobia's and nuances that Monroe is very well known for. One thing the film does is show her as not only a woman on the verge of a mental breakdown but show her as a physical wreck as well. She talks of being unable to have children and at one point in the film she suffers a miscarriage. You can make an excellent case that this is Russell's best performance and I probably wouldn't argue. The film does an interesting thing in showing many flashbacks as the characters continue to talk about one thing and in the flashback we see one of many reasons for their actions. Busey also gives a good solid performance and it reminds me of what a strong persona he gives off on screen. Emil as the professor is a character that has many more things on his mind then we originally thought. The last scene in this film is a demonstration of his darker side! One of the highlights of the film for me is the little conversation he has with the elevator man (Will Sampson of "Cuckoo's Nest") and they discuss what Cherokee Indians think about at all times. But of course the famous scene in this film is where Russell demonstrates to Emil how she does understand the theory of relativity and uses toys to show this. The professor is delighted by her demonstration and so are we! Russell and Roeg are married in real life and they do admirable work when they are in collaboration and this is probably their best film together. Good performances and a very interesting job of directing make this a challenging and visually thought provoking film.

This was thought to be the flagship work of the open source community, something that would stand up and scream at the worlds media to take notice as we're not stuck in the marketing trap with our options in producing fine work with open source tools. After the basic version download ( die hard fan here on a dial-up modem ) eventually got here I hit my first snag. Media Player, Mplayer Classic & winamp failed to open it on my xp box, and then Totem, xine & kaffeine failed to open it on my suse server. Mplayer managed to run it flawlessly. Going to be hard to spread the word about it if normal users cant even open it...
The Film. Beautiful soundtrack, superb lighting, masterful camera work and flawless texturing. Everything looked real. And then the two main characters moved.... and spoke... And the movie died for me. Everything apart from the lip syncing and the actual animation of the two main characters ( except for Proog in the dancing scene ) looked fluid and totally alive. The two main characters were animated so poorly that at times i was wondering if there are any games on the market at the moment with cut-scenes that entail less realism than this.
Any frame in the movie is fantastic.. as a frame, and the thing is great if neither actors are moving. I'm so glad i haven't actually recommended this to anyone. I'd ruin my reputation.
Oh, and final fantasy had a more followable and cunningly devised plot.
this movie would get 10 stars if it wasn't for the tragedy that sits right there on the screen.