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Starstruck

An 18-year-old barmaid in a pub under the Sydney Harbour Bridge wants to be a pop star; her 14-year-old cousin wants to be her manager, and neither will take no for an answer. Gillian Armstrong’s 1982 new-wave musical — her swing into color and noise after the period restraint of My Brilliant Career — is Australian cinema at its most buoyant: talent nights, kangaroo suits, a tightrope stunt, the Opera House on New Year’s Eve, and songs that sound like the radio in 1982. Jo Kennedy and Ross O’Donovan, both little-known then, play Jackie and Angus with raw comic nerve; the family pub is always one brewery bill from closing. Production designer Brian Thomson (The Rocky Horror Picture Show) gives Sydney a carnival glow. A cult favorite of the Australian New Wave: ambition, family, and a girl who can actually sing.

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