The Return of Bazura

Ok, so it’s not all-new episodes of the much-loved movie-based comedy program The Bazura Project, but it’s close: the Bazura team have finally got their website up and running and it’s a doozy.

We shouldn’t be surprised really. The Bazura Project always was a show that took a fairly obsessive view of a subject much-loved by obsessives, and the fact they never got to put a DVD out back when just about every other Australian comedy – even fellow Channel 31 stablemates like The Shambles and… that quiz show comedy where they gave away meals from a food truck or something… is a real shame. Commentary tracks!

This website goes a very long way towards making up for that lack. We’re fairly sure that “making-of” clip about how they did the opening credits to their “Guide to Sinema” (their ABC2 series and the only one not hosted on their site) is all new. Plus there’s enough behind-the-scenes stuff – not to mention all the episodes we only ever saw in blurry crap-o-vision because C31 reception was rubbish where we were a decade ago (by which we mean, a decade ago we were in an Australia without digital television) – to keep everyone but the most hardcore of fans stumbling over new (to them) clips.

Old movie news and reviews of old movies may not be your thing. We’re not entirely sure it’s our thing and we bought a copy of the collected reviews of Anthony Lane from a $2 book shop (it’s great toilet reading, seriously). But there’s also a whole lot of jokes and the thrill of watching a show get steadily better (or worse if you watch the episodes in reverse order). Also, it’s free Australian comedy and you can never have too much of that.

So that’s five stars from me David, which is also the most annoying film-related “joke” in Australian culture.