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Age of Consent, inspired by the 1935 autobiography of Australian artist Norman Lindsay, was sort of remade in 1994 as Sirens (alternate viewing choice #3), by Aussie director John Duigan. Sunny and sensual and good-natured and abundantly overflowing with nudity (of the male and female kind), it's a cinematic precursor to Viagra and was once aptly described as a skin flick for English lit majors. Sam Neill has the artist role, Hugh Grant is at the height of his mid-90s stammering/yammering wonderfulness and Elle Macpherson and Portia de Rossi are among the sometimes clothed, sometimes not, muses. Duigan had been working in the Australian film industry for over a decade before his 1987 semi-autobiographical tale The Year My Voice Broke received international notices.

Set in 1962 in New South Wales, it's a portrait of a love triangle of sorts with the sensitive Danny Embling (Noah Taylor) realizing his attraction to lifelong friend and fellow outcast Freya, even as she is becoming attracted to kind-hearted hooligan Trevor. Rewatching it (on VHS as it as never been released on a Region 1 DVD that I know of) it struck me how much it resembled the Corey Haim-Kerri Green-Charlie Sheen high school pic Lucas (alternate viewing choice #4) in its relationship dynamics. For all the emotionally authentic performances by the young cast, The Year My Voice Broke eventually succumbs to coming-of-age-itis and feels less like events are happening to Embling and more that they are happening to a character in a movie. Taylor is charmingly awkward in some moments while at other times coming on like a prototypical emo-rockabilly stalker, which, intriguingly, keeps him from being an entirely likable protagonist.

Duigan intended for Embling's story to continue in at least two other films but only one was ever made, 1990's Flirting. It's a case of a sequel doing considerably better than the first (with solid U.S. art-house distribution by Fine Line Features in 1992 and word-of-mouth driving the domestic gross to nearly $3 million) and of being more well known than the first film. Despite this, and a cast of fresh, soon–to-be-famous faces, Flirting has been out of print on DVD since its 2002 release, so grab it from Netflix if your local library branch or video outlet doesn't have it.

Set three years after The Year My Voice Broke, Flirting takes a subgenre of the coming-of-age-tale, the travails of life and love while at boarding school, and proceeds to become as specific and unique in what its characters experience (which of course increases the universality of its emotions) as My Voice wound up with an all-encompassing generic feeling. In describing its set-up, it seems almost impossible to imagine how Flirting doesn't succumb to the clichés of its genre. A checklist of key elements: An all-male school directly across a lake from an all-female school. Awkward mixer dances between the two institutions. Rugby matches. Cruel practical jokes. The gnawing pangs of an idealized first love. Repeated sneakings out and rowing across said lake for illicit liaisons with the opposite sex.

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