History Film / HeDiedWithAFelafelInHisHand

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Each new location adds some more people, not just new housemates, but also new bit characters.

-->--'''Danny'''

''He Died with a Felafel in His Hand'' (2001) is a flamboyantly pointless housemates-from-hell story, based on a book by John Birmingham. Despite mediocre circulation, it’s become something of a CultClassic among unemployed yobbos, leftist uni students, and anybody else who's experienced the joys of shared-house living in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}. Memorable mainly for that scene in backyard Brisbane, plus a kick-arse soundtrack full of Australian artists and snappy writing that makes it the most quotable text since Creator/OscarWilde.

* LandDownUnder: As with ''Film/TheCastle'', Australia’s own version of the trope: Sydney is horribly plastic and full of anal retentives, Melbourne is a town of corrupt cops where it’s always raining miserably, and Brisbane is overrun with cane toads.

* MeaninglessMeaningfulWords: About half of Danny's lines, mimicking the faux-philosophical ramblings of [[TroperDemographics Australia’s semi-educated]].

* OnlySaneMan: Arguably, Danny. Despite spending virtually the whole movie in a HeroicBSOD, he’s more or less the OnlySaneMan by elimination.

* SacredHospitality: They serve tea and biscuits to the Brisbane landlord’s goon. While he’s threatening them.
--> '''Goon:''' Are any of you shitheads related to a [[DirtyCop copper]] or a [[SleazyPolitician poli]]? *{{Beat}}* (''back to phone'') Looks like we’re in the clear. *sip* Damn good tea.

* YourCheatingHeart: Anya has sex with Sam, walks over to Danny's room to ask for a cigarette and ends up making out with him. Sam really isn't pleased.

* BiTheWay: Every single female housemate (possibly excepting Tiger Girl), though it could just be [[EvenTheGirlsWantHer because of Anya]].

* YourCheatingHeart: Anya has sex with Sam, walks over to Danny's room to ask for a cigarette and ends up making out with him. [[CaptainObvious Sam really isn't pleased.]]

''He Died With A Felafel In His Hand'' (2001) is a flamboyantly pointless housemates-from-hell story, based on a book by John Birmingham. Despite mediocre circulation, it’s become something of a CultClassic among unemployed yobbos, leftist uni students, and anybody else who's experienced the joys of shared-house living in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}. Memorable mainly for that scene in backyard Brisbane, plus a kick-arse soundtrack full of Australian artists and snappy writing that makes it the most quotable text since Creator/OscarWilde.

* BiTheWay: Every single female housemate (possibly excepting Tiger Girl).

** There is no way Danny looks that much like NickCave by accident.

* [[AllThereInTheManual All There in the Novel]]: A lot of the film's dialogue and more obscure moments are lifted directly from the book. Reading the book isn't required to understand the film, but it does make a lot of things make a lot more sense, inasmuch as the film can make sense at all.

* TransparentCloset: Dirk.

* EveryoneSoundsSexierIfFrench: Anya's whole appeal. It also makes her sound more sophisticated when she starts to use sci-fi references as metaphors

* StrawFeminist: Sam, at first.

* ArcWords: Somehow everyone Danny's ever lived with has met his mum.

* LandDownUnder: As with ''TheCastle'', Australia’s own version of the trope: Sydney is horribly plastic and full of anal retentives, Melbourne is a town of corrupt cops where it’s always raining miserably, and Brisbane is overrun with cane toads.

->''"I've lived in 49 shared households in what seems as many years… I've lived with tent-dwelling bank clerks, albino moon tanners, nitrous suckers, psycho fucking drama queens, ACID EATERS, MUSHROOM FARMERS, FUCKING BROTHEL CRAWLERS, FRIDGE-PISSERS, HARDCORE SEPARATIST LESBIANS, AND OBSCURELY TIGER-SUITED JAPANESE GIRLS! AND NOW THE BEST FRIEND I'VE EVER HAD IN THE FUCKING WORLD WON'T EVEN FUCKING TALK TO ME! I'M IN A PSYCHO FUCKING NIGHTMARE FROM HELL, AND I'M ''FUCKING FED UP WITH IT''!"''

* WelcomeToHell: Sydney, during the segment 'Hell is other people' (which could have been the movie’s other title).

''He Died With A Felafel In His Hand'' (2001) is a flamboyantly pointless housemates-from-hell story, based on a book by John Birmingham. Despite mediocre circulation, it’s become something of a CultClassic among unemployed yobbos, leftist uni students, and anybody else who’s experienced the joys of shared-house living in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}. Memorable mainly for that scene in backyard Brisbane, plus a kick-arse soundtrack full of Australian artists and snappy writing that makes it the most quotable text since Creator/OscarWilde.

* [[AluminumChristmasTrees Aluminium Christmas Trees]]: One of the first shots in the movie is at the Brisbane house, where [[CrowningMomentOfFunny Taylor plays golf with a cane toad]]. Golf ain’t the half of it; cane toads have reached plague proportions and everyone turns a blind eye when it comes to how you kill them...
* [[AllThereInTheManual All There In The Novel]]: A lot of the film's dialogue and more obscure moments are lifted directly from the book. Reading the book isn't required to understand the film, but it does make a lot of things make a lot more sense, inasmuch as the film can make sense at all.
* ArcWords: Somehow everyone Danny’s ever lived with has met his mum.
--> '''Everyone:''' You really should ring your mum. She’s worried about you.

* AsianAirhead: Satomi, aka. ‘Tiger Girl,’ although it might just be that her English doesn't extend much further than, 'I move in now, yes?'

* BookEnds: Flip’s corpse shot. [[TheReveal It’s a lot more graphic the second time]]. Also:

--> '''Sam:''' Can’t. Gotta go out later.

* [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov’s Yarn]]: Danny’s masturbation story. It starts off as an off-the-cuff TallTale and ends up getting printed in Penthouse.
* CloudCuckooLander: Taylor before his ‘epiphany’ concerning prostitutes. He plays golf with cane toads, sets the washing-up on fire, calls for backup from neo-Nazis and shoots Danny in the head with a water pistol and declares, ‘If this were for real, you’d be dog meat by now.’

* DirtyCop: Apparently UsefulNotes/{{Melbourne}}’s finest work for the local casino. Almost TruthInTelevision at the time…

* DistractedByTheSexy: The guys’ collective IQ drops sharply around Anya. Milo almost becomes TooDumbToLive.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Everyone gets one. Danny likes to sit around and ignore/watch the chaos while playing 'California Dreaming'; Taylor likes to play cane toad golf and pretends to be a veteran of the Vietnam War; Sam frequently comments on how weird the guys are acting but doesn't seem to mind being there, Anya resembles an alien who got dropped onto a weird planet but does her best to adapt; Flip is dumb but sweet and well-intentioned; Milo is cocky and thinks he can achieve anything (while Otis just follows him around)… and that's just the Brisbane housemates.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Twenty-five grand for a Penthouse piece…

* [[GranolaGirl Granola Guy]]: Iain, from Melbourne, complete with a rant about how milk bottles are an inch too short to hold dried fettuccine. He's actually a rare example in that not only is he male, he's also younger than 30.
* GutPunch/[[WhamEpisode Wham Scene]]: The movie is very light-hearted, up until [[spoiler: Sam tries to kill herself.]] After that, things go ''very'' dark very quickly, and though the movie ends on a hopeful note, that's really the moment when everything starts going downhill.

* HiddenDepths/ IDidWhatIHadToDo: One of the cops in Melbourne apparently seems to think that police brutality plays a major part in the upkeep of society, and waxes on about it for a few minutes.

-->'''Flip''': What about that bit where they’re all pointing their guns at each other?

-->'''Flip''': Well, maybe it’s not really their guns they’re pointing…
* HomageShot: Neo-Nazis are brought in to deal with the rent situation. The youngest of them breaks into ''[[{{Cabaret}} Tomorrow Belongs To Me]]'', for [[RuleOfFunny some reason]], and the neo-pagans join in for a nice campfire sing-along. Doubles as a parody, obviously.
** When the neo-Nazis show up, Taylor (wearing camo face paint and armed with an M16 water-pistol) says, ‘I had to call in the cavalry to neutralise the rent situation. [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnyThing With extreme prejudice.’]] While ''[[Film/ApocalypseNow The Ride Of The Valkyries]]'' swells.

* IdenticalStranger: A real-life version: Romane Bohringer looks amazingly like [[{{NCIS}} Cote de Pablo]] in this movie.

-->‘Put it away, Russ.’

* SorryILeftTheBGMOn: When Sammy [[spoiler: tries to kill herself]], she puts on NickCave's "The Mercy Seat", which wakes Danny up. He turns it off, but when he discovers what's going on, the music comes back on.

* MeaninglessMeaningfulWords: About half of Danny’s lines, mimicking the faux-philosophical ramblings of [[TroperDemographics Australia’s semi-educated]].

* OhCrap: Danny has one after he hears Sammy in the bathroom at 3 AM, looks down and [[spoiler: sees water coming out from under the door.]]

* OneSceneTwoMonologues: Frequently. These people don’t communicate well.

* RatedMForManly: Milo’s [[Film/ReservoirDogs favourite movie]], the ‘bonding’ session over Elvis’ cover of ‘You Were Always On My Mind,’ cane toad golf, and everything Taylor does until his Melbourne brothel-crawl.
* RefugeInAudacity: Milo’s ‘condoms with Aboriginal tribal paintings on them’ spiel. That he and Otis were [[DrugsAreBad stoned at the time]] from a home-made [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome bucket bong]] isn’t really an excuse.

** "Berserk, gaga, talking in tongues…"

* SeriousBusiness: Writing. And Nick Cave. And neo-pagan moon festivals…
* SexForSolace: After she and Anya break up, Sam tries to invoke this with Danny, claiming that [[SexEqualsLove she needs to feel loved.]] When Danny refuses her, [[spoiler: she tries to commit suicide.]] It's actually double subverted because after all of that, they have sex anyway.
* ShellShockedVeteran: Parodied with Taylor. Not only is he not the American Vietnam veteran he acts like, he’s not even American (his accent switches halfway through).

* TheBet: Played straight when the guys go ga-ga over Anya.
* TheImmodestOrgasm: Sammy and Anya in the movie, but it's pretty much background music in the book. John even admits that he could 'listen to his housemates going at it all day' and used to position his chair at the point in the house of maximum creaking and groaning.

* WelcomeToHell: Sydney, during the segment ‘Hell is other people’ (which could have been the movie’s other title).

--> '''Sam:''' At least it’s warm.
* WorldOfChaos: Neo-pagan cultists want to sacrifice one of the housemates over a backyard fire for the winter solstice, and the landlord's goons are going to start breaking limbs if they don't get their money. The other housemates deal with it by calling in the local skinheads, who ride dirt bikes through the house, cut the back of the house off with a chainsaw and then stand around and sing ‘Auld Lang Sine’ with the pagans. Just another Thursday night in Bris-Vegas…

* RatedMForManly: Milo’s [[ReservoirDogs favourite movie]], the ‘bonding’ session over Elvis’ cover of ‘You Were Always On My Mind,’ cane toad golf, and everything Taylor does until his Melbourne brothel-crawl.

* BlackComedy: Oh yeah. [[spoiler: The pagans sacrificing Milo]] is played for laughs, as is [[spoiler: the cops threatening Danny and co]]. Very few serious scenes aren't played for black comedy, but two of them (Flip's death and [[spoiler: Sam's suicide attempt]] are immediately subjected to MoodWhiplash by some very funny lines directly afterwards.

Stars Noah Taylor, Emily Hamilton and, for some reason, Romane Bohringer. And while most of the people described in the page quote show up in the film, ''all'' of them show up in the book.

* [[AllThereInTheManual All There In The Novel]]: A lot of the film's dialogue and more obscure moments are lifted directly from the book.

--> '''Sam:''' At least it’s warm.

* {{Leitmotif}}: Danny plays "California Dreaming" by MamasAndThePapas every time he moves into a new house.

* LeftTheBGMOn: When Sammy [[spoiler: tries to kill herself]], she puts on NickCave's "The Mercy Seat", which wakes Danny up. He turns it off, but when he discovers what's going on, the music comes back on.

* {{Leitmotif}}: Danny plays "California Dreaming" by TheMamasAndThePapas every time he moves into a new house.

''He Died With A Felafel In His Hand'' (2001) is a flamboyantly pointless housemates-from-hell story, based on a book by John Birmingham. Despite mediocre circulation, it’s become something of a CultClassic among unemployed yobbos, leftist uni students, and anybody else who’s experienced the joys of shared-house living in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}. Memorable mainly for that scene in backyard Brisbane, plus a kick-arse Music/NickCave-centric soundtrack and snappy writing that makes it the most quotable text since Creator/OscarWilde.

* SorryILeftTheBGMOn: When Sammy [[spoiler: tries to kill herself]], she puts on NickCave's "The Mercy Seat", which wakes Danny up. He turns it off, but when he discovers what's going on, the music comes back on.

* RatedMForManly: Milo’s favourite war movie, the ‘bonding’ session over Elvis’ cover of ‘You Were Always On My Mind,’ and everything Taylor does until his Melbourne brothel-crawl.

* ForegoneConclusion: Flip dies.

* BrainyBrunette: Sam

** Anya, who obviously isn't fluent in English, and so she'll say 'how you say' before trying to get the right word.

* DeadpanSnarker: Sammy

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Twenty-five grand for a Penthouse piece...

* WorldOfChaos: Neo-pagan babes want to sacrifice one of the housemates over a backyard fire. The other housemates deal with it by calling in the local skinheads, who ride dirt bikes through the house, cut the back of the house off with a chainsaw and then stand around and sing ‘Auld Lang Sine’ with the pagans. Just another Thursday night in Bris-Vegas…