Just a small note. I watched the movie The Dry the other night, starring Eric Bana. I thought it was excellent – better than the book, actually. As an Australian, it had a lot of evocative imagery – a drought oppressed land, dry river beds and dusty soil and stark gum trees standing against an unshifting blue sky. Likewise, the script felt true to nature – laconic, abbreviated conversations with verbal shortcuts where a few words mean a lot.

There was a jarring moment in the movie, though. The Bana character, Falk, is given a beer, and it’s a Budweiser. Maybe that was done for the American audience, but I can hardly think of anything more inauthentic than that.*

I don’t think I’ve ever drunk a Bud in Australia, let alone been handed one. My local bottle-o has about 200 different beer varieties, local and international. If there’s Budweiser there, then I haven’t seen it (though I think it’s available at Dan Murphy’s). Most beer drinkers I know turn up their noses at it.

If you want to be authentic, then situated in a rural town in Victoria, the beer should probably have been a VB – though most of us turn up our noses at that, too, nothing is more Aussie.

But then, the guy that handed the beer to him turned out to be the villain, and maybe that’s the clue.

^{*Apparently some Budweiser is actually brewed here – tastes different, apparently. Still doesn’t make it legit.}