Dear Johnny Depp, you're making it hard for us.

For years we've enjoyed the offbeat way you've enjoyed your stardom, the way you choose adventurous roles as well as mainstream movies, your rock star style.

Captain Jack Sparrow was a charmer even if the Pirates movies have become more difficult to understand than a treasure map that's been slurping around in the ocean for years.

Ed Wood, Donnie Brasco, Edward Scissorhands, Gilbert Grape, Willy Wonka, the Mad Hatter. The rakish good looks. Living in France with Vanessa Paradis. Three Oscar nominations. The guitar playing. The longtime friendships with Hunter S. Thompson and Tim Burton.

While Tom Cruise had Scientology and other Hollywood stars flamed out, you seemed to live the way we want movie stars to live. Enjoying the moment, nothing ostentatious, staying an artist.

We didn't care too much when The Lone Ranger bombed. Not much of a movie but at least you were trying something different.

Transcendence was no masterpiece either. We knew enough by that stage to skip Mordecai. Then Black Mass reminded us how well you can act, playing mobster Whitey Bulger.

But just lately, it's been a worry. That hostage-like video. A running spat with Barnaby Joyce over importing those dogs while filming Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales on the Gold Coast. Going back on your view in that video that quarantine laws matter.

Anyone can have a marriage break-up and it must be especially difficult after the death of your mother. Sympathies.

But Amber Heard filing for a temporary restraining order alleging verbal and physical abuse? Gee, that had us wondering whether to see Alice Through The Looking Glass.

It's that old issue: can you separate the art from the artist?

There are signs some of us have stopped believing.

While Through the Looking Glass opened on top of the Australian box office last weekend, it took just $2.9 million with a disappointing average of less than $6000 a cinema.

The previous week another uninspiring sequel, X-Men: Apocalypse, took more than twice as much - $6.4 million, averaging $11,200.

It could have been that the trailer for Through The Looking Glass looked disappointing, that Tim Burton did not direct the sequel or that the reviews were dismal. All doubtless contributed to the movie flopping around the world.

But, hey, we spent $30 million in this country on tickets for the year's biggest disappointment, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, so we must be either forgiving or desperate for entertainment.

There are times when you can't separate the art from the artist. Nobody admires Rolf Harris' paintings or songs any more; very few will chuckle about old episodes of The Cosby Show.

But we need you back on the rails, Johnny.

Even if you're asked about that hostage video on every talk show from now on, please never mention Barnaby Joyce again. Never dismiss the quarantine laws again. They do actually matter.

Get through the divorce giving Amber Heard as much dignity and respect as possible. And if there's any truth to the domestic violence allegations, face it, get whatever help you need then use your profile to speak out against it.

We'll accept Through The Looking Glass as a mis-step that comes from Hollywood's junkie-like craving for sequels but just get back to making smart choices about roles.

The thing is, it's not just about you. When movie stars stand for something, it makes us feel better about the world.

When they crash down, wasting all the luck that got them there, the opportunity that delivered unfathomable pay cheques, creative opportunities and what seem from the outside to be glamorous lives, it hurts us too.

You've long stood for a kind of artist we want in our world. A beloved figure.

Dear Johnny Depp, make it easier for us. We want to admire you again.

Taste of Melbourne Film Festival

A week out from Sydney Film Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival has revealed a "first glimpse" of its program.

As well as the already-announced world premiere of The Death and Life of Otto Bloom, an Australian drama directed by Cris Jones and starring Xavier Samuel as a man who experiences time backwards, the festival will screen Abe Forsythe's black comedy Down Under, which is set against the backdrop of the the Cronulla riots. That film is getting a world premiere in Sydney.

Also down for world premieres in Melbourne are Neil Triffett's Emo (The Musical), centring a "holy war" between Goths and Christians at a high school, and Fin Edquist's psychological thriller Bad Girl, starring Samara Weaving and Sara West, which is said to be "a boldly dramatic twist on the femme fatale."

Debuting ... Emo (The Musical).

Among the documentaries premiering are Ella, on Ella Havelka, the first Indigenous dancer at the Australian Ballet, and Monsieur Mayonnaise, on Melbourne's Mora family.

The Sydney festival opens next Wednesday with Ivan Sen's outback thriller Goldstone.

Dance Academy pirouettes into film

After building a worldwide audience over three seasons, the ABC television series Dance Academy is spinning off into a film.

Directed by Jeffrey Walker (Modern Family, Ali's Wedding), Dance Academy: The Movie started shooting in Sydney this week before heading to New York.

Taking up the story 18 months after the end of season three, when the characters have left the country's top ballet school, the film centres on a rising young dancer (Xenia Goodwin) who is having to come back from a devastating injury. The cast includes Tara Morice, Dena Kaplan, Thomas Lacey, Jordan Rodrigues, Alicia Banit and Keiynan Lonsdale.

Twice nominated for international Emmys, the series reputedly screens in 160 countries, including Netflix in the US, ZDF in Germany and Nickelodeon in the UK.

Xenia Godwin on the set of Dance Academy: The Movie this week.

KIdman snaps up vampire play

Nicole Kidman as a vampire? It seemed an enticing prospect when the Australian actress optioned the movie rights to the play Cuddles, a vampire thriller which has been a hit in the UK and now New York.

The play is written by British newcomer Joseph Wilde, who will adapt it for the screen with Kidman producing through Blossom Films.

"Joe's voice is so beautifully subversive," Kidman says. "He's exactly the kind of young writer Blossom is looking to support."

The company has already produced the Kidman films Rabbit Hole and The Family Fang and is currently shooting the eight-episode HBO series Big Little Lies, directed by Jean-Marc Vallee (Dallas Buyers Club) and starring Kidman, Reese Witherspoon and Shailene Woodley. It's based on Australian writer Liane Moriarty's bestseller about three mothers of kindergartners whose lives unravel to to the point of murder.

But Cuddles is the first planned movie for Blossom that is not intended as an acting vehicle for Kidman.

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