The producers and the director of the Nicole Kidman-Hugh Jackman epic Australia are on the same page — just days before its Australian premiere on Tuesday, Australia isn't done. Luhrmann renewed the debate over exactly how unfinished the film is on the LAT's The Envelope blog, revealing that at the end of the "emotional cinematic banquet" there will be a death of some kind, even if he's not quite sure yet who buys it. Meanwhile, Fox co-chairman Tom Rothman tried to dismiss the controversy over the $130 million dollar film's "six endings." This barely counts as optimism when it comes to the film's still-ongoing editing process. Since they are shutting down a street in Sydney for the premiere, should the local authorities prepare for a riot or can Luhrmann deliver in time?When Luhrmann was palling around at the MoMA the other night, he was either joking about how pressing the situation was, or speaking the frightening truth: "We're right up against it, I literally have to on Friday night push that button." He admitted he's given himself 24 hours at the 'mixing desk' to put the film together. "This is really dangerous, I hope there's no problem with the plane going back," he managed.

Two weeks before Australia's Nov. 26 release date, Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann, who's worked four years on the $130 million dollar production set in the Outback, still doesn't know what movie he's making. After a rough cut was recently screened for critics who hated the film's downer ending, the studio reacted by putting pressure on Luhrmann to alter Australia. Fox is more keen on recouping the film's massive budget with what it hopes is a traditional crowd-pleaser. It appears Luhrmann has already complied with their demands, but is Australia destined to die even if its lead characters don't?Reports from the Australian Sunday Telegraph were that critics blanched at the unhappy ending of the 3-hour epic, and overall reaction in the film's native country has been harsh. The film has already been plagued by the idea its nationalist angle will hurt foreign box office. Scrutiny about the film's ending aside, when you don't have a cut everyone is satisfied with this late in the process, how can you expect audiences to buy into it?

Not much has changed in the last week since industry observers filed a missing persons report on Australia; Baz Luhrmann's $130 million historical romance is still officially unfinished with only nine days to go before its homeland premiere and 16 days before it opens worldwide. Again, Baz, don't hurry on our behalves, but! We learned a lot more over the weekend about those "mechanics of stotrytelling" so troubling the director in his quest to put his Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman epic to bed. And massive spoiler aside, it should make for a roiling eternity of second-guessing, DVD revisionism and studio-hating from Luhrmann loyalists.The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that "disastrous reviews from test screenings" rejected Australia's original ending, in which Jackman's character dies:

Director Baz Luhrman's historical epic/romance/tourism ad Australia is set to premiere Nov. 19 in its home country before opening wide here Nov. 26. It has a press junket in LA scheduled in between. And as of this writing, it has Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and $130 million worth of Fox's Oscar hopes tied up in an unfinished bundle in Luhrmann's editing bay. No one has seen much more than a couple stirring trailers and, according to Anne Thompson, an unfinished print that screened without effects for a lucky Oprah Winfrey audience (none of whom, of course, were critics). So with less than three weeks before the studio expects to introduce it to the world, what's taking so long?Last month Luhrmann told The Age that he was expecting to hand the 170-minute film to Fox one reel at a time while he tightened "mechanics of storytelling." (The Kidman/Jackman romance, though? Totally believable!) Over the weekend, though, he vaguely hinted that the Nov. 19 date was just another porous deadline:

Baz Luhrmann's boundless ambition may have met its match in a new pair of TV spots commissioned by Tourism Australia, an organization still reeling from its failure to entice international visitors two years ago with its bikini-clad representative scolding, "Where the bloody hell are you?" This time around, the tourism board opted for the more cheerful specter of an Aboriginal child whose fistful of fairy dust cures everything from burnout to bipolar disorder, all graphically allayed against the backdrop of America's inclement urban hellholes. Luhrmann's quick-cut horror show not only disappoints as a short film, but also tosses back in our face all the romantic tourist goodwill he'd accrued through his sweeping Australia trailers — themselves a far more uplifting endorsement of young native kids' rejuvenating powers, if Nicole Kidman's burnished features are any indication. Back to the drawing board, Baz! Judge for yourself after the jump. [YouTube]

Restaurateur Joe Bastianich turns 40 today. We're guessing lots of food (and wine) is in store this evening. Also celebrating: Director Baz Luhrmann is 46. Russian supermodel Eugenia Volodina is 24. Rapper Doug E. Fresh is 42. Supreme Court Justice David Souter is 69. LA Lakers head coach Phil Jackson is 63. Former American Idol contestant Constantine Maroulis is turning 33. And one of Bill Clinton's least favorite people in the world, Paula Jones, is 42.

· 2008's summer box office has exceeded all expectations. Go get drunk! It's on Hollywood! [THR] · Fox has pushed up the release of Australia two weeks to November 26 to give Baz Luhrmann the time required to finish the film. What say you, Nicole Kidman in a jaunty hat and polka dot kerchief? She approves! [Variety] · After the Burn After Reading boys packed up and sailed off, this year's smaller-scale Venice Film Festival feels kind of...meh? [Variety] · A Nielsen study reveals TV audiences are growing older, with the "55-plus age bracket" by far the fastest-expanding demo. You know what that means: A Big Brother: All Old Farts Edition is on its way! [Variety] · A John Lennon early-life biopic called Nowhere Man, directed by visual artist Sam Taylor-Wood and written by the same screenwriter as Control, is currently casting and in pre-production. [THR]