1988 Australian film
| As Time Goes By |
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 Film poster |
| Directed by | Barry Peak |
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| Written by | Barry Peak |
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| Produced by | Chris Kiely |
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| Starring | Max Gillies
Bruno Lawrence
Nique Needles |
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| Cinematography | John Ogden |
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| Edited by | Ralph Strasser |
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| Music by | Peter Sullivan |
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Release date | 1988 |
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Running time | 96 minutes |
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| Country | Australia |
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| Language | English |
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| Box office | AU $5,854[1] |
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As Time Goes By (originally titled The Cricketer) is a 1988 Australian science fiction comedy film directed by Barry Peak and starring Max Gillies, Bruno Lawrence, and Nique Needles. A few bars of the title song (extracted from the film Casablanca) are heard in the Australian version of the film but not in overseas prints, because of its high cost.[2]
Plot synopsis
Mike, a surfer from Penong, South Australia, receives from his dying mother a letter, written 25 years earlier, instructing him to meet its author at a spot 50 miles (80 km) west of the small town of Dingo on a certain date in 1989. The writer turns out to be an oddball alien in a time-travelling spaceship disguised as a roadside diner, "Joe Bogart's", dating from Manhattan project-era Los Alamos.
On the way he encounters Ryder, once a famous cricketer but now a small-town policeman, on the trail of a murderous motorcyclist and his sidecar-riding sidekick — accomplices of Weston, a land-grabbing weather watcher who believes the desert is about to become valuable pasture, and who develops a temporary alliance with McCauley, a UFO hunter who will stop at nothing in his quest for fame and fortune.
It is the surfer's pre-ordained purpose to recover the spaceship's power module, which had been lost overboard, but is frustrated in his quest by Cheryl, a ditzy fellow-hitchhiker, who fancies it as a hat (it is disguised as a "King Beer" emblem) and the UFO hunter, who believes he can discover something by prising it open.
He is assisted by Connie, Ryder's beautiful Mini-moke-driving daughter and love interest. Other characters include a weathered old bone collector, who hauls his "finds" in an ancient hand-cart, and Dingo's town storekeeper, involved in a never-ending fight against dust in his shop.
Accolades
Nique Needles won Best Actor in A Science Fiction Film (billed as L'Australieno) at the 1988 Fantafestival.
Tony Harrison called the film "bizarre and entertaining".[3]
