"Kenny" Coming

I saw this movie on the flight to AU in 2006, and it's very charming. Given the engine noise, subtitles would have been a good idea, and they will include some for the American audience. The two very attractive women next to me on the flight told me that Australia is full of men just like Kenny - whimsically funny and down-to-earth.

The scene I like best is when Kenny and co-workers mount a desperate defense of a row of their company's port-a-potties, to keep them from being burned to the ground, in a post heavy-metal rock concert ritual:

AUSTRALIAN comedy Kenny will make its US debut during America's summer blockbuster season. The independent comedy will be released in the US on July 11, almost two years after it hit Australian screens in August 2006.

It will debut on screens across the US on the same day as two of the season's biggest blockbusters, Hellboy 2 and Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Australian actor Shane Jacobson, who won an AFI award for playing the film's titular toilet titan, will go up against Hollywood superstars Eddie Murphy (Meet Dave), Josh Hartnett (August) and Brendan Fraser (Journey to the Centre of the Earth) as the four leading men compete at the box office during the opening weekend for their films.

"I am bewildered and humbled," Jacobson, 38, said yesterday of his A-list company. "I'm just glad I'm not going up against them in a running race because I think they'd be a lot fitter than me."

His brother Clayton, who directed the film and the upcoming Channel Ten television series Kenny's World, said the American release had been a long time coming for the pair.

"I have been wanting to make films since I was nine years old so the idea of our humble, little film playing alongside Eddie Murphy is fantastic," Clayton, 44, said.

Hype about the quirky mockumentary, which has some sections subtitled to help American audiences understand certain phrases, has already begun, with The New York Times dubbing it "an Australian comedy about the world of portable toilets and the perils of waste management".

The film was shown a month ago at a special advance screening in Louisville, the city that was hosting the Pumper and Cleaner Expo, and Kentucky's Courier-Journal newspaper gave the comedy a thumbs up, with the headline "Kenny remains sweet despite stinky subject".

Jacobson, who is in the midst of an eight-shows-a-week schedule for musical Guys and Dolls, said he was disappointed not to make it to the US for the film's debut.

The two brothers have a busy schedule of phone interviews with US publications ahead of the film's release.

Kenny's US release comes a week before the premiere of new Batman film Dark Knight, Heath Ledger's final completed movie, and the screen adaptation of hit musical Mamma Mia!, starring Meryl Streep.