On Monday I saw my second MIFF movie called Not Quite Hollywood. This time my trick of arriving a little earlier was to no avail as one of the ‘organisers’ -a loose term as they didn’t know what the fuck was going on- told us that the movie was delayed by about 15 min and just to rub it in she then condescendingly added that we should enjoy our time in the line. Thankfully this film was well worth the final 30min delay as it turned out to be one of the most funny & entertaining documentaries I’ve seen. As an added bonus there was even a Q&A session from it’s director and two others that had films featured in the doco.
As mentioned in my previous post it follows the rise & fall of the Australian made ‘Ozploitation’ movies that were released in America during the 70’s & 80’s. It’s best described by it’s director, Mark Hartley as containing “lashings of gratuitous sex, violence & fuel injected muscle car mayhem”. Throughout the documentary everything is told from the enthusiastic viewpoint of the actors & the maverick directors that really pushed the envelope within this period of films. The lack of droll voice overs and boring movie snobs (with the exception from one hilarious critic), also lends this film a real infectious fun quality to it.
The rock & roll credits -reminiscent of the film noir setting in Sin City- really got things off to a great start with the best looking opening credits I’ve ever seen. It then heads straight into the first set of movies from the 70’s appropriately subtitled under the category of boobs,tubes & pubes. It’s easy to see why these films were often labeled as exploitative as they really took advantage of the lax censorship board at the time and featured as much gratuitous sex & nudity as they could get away with (making all of today’s American Pie type movies look lame in comparison). This section of the doco is full of funny anecdotes - all the sections featuring Barry Humpheries are hilarious - and is definitely the highlight of the movie.
With self deprecating humor, full frontal nudity & exsessive doses of smut it wasn’t really surprising to find out why movies like Stork, Alvin Purple and The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, did so well at the box office. It was also interesting to hear that these unsung movies actually provided the funding and paved the way for the seminal classics that Australian film critics still rave on about today (Sunday Too Far Away, Picnic At Hanging Rock, My Brilliant Career, Breaker Morant, etc).
The next section of the documentary that obviously interested me the most was the focus on horror movies of the 80’s. While a lot of these definitely fit under the schlock category, some of them have a ’so bad they’re good’ appeal including Turkey Shoot & The Howling III which have to be seen to be believed. In contrast I found it surprising to see how well some of these other genre films still stand up today, including Patrick which was the biggest selling movie in Italy at the time and includes a scene that was directly ripped off by Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill. There was also the thriller Roadgames featuring Jamie Lee Curtis and the nature fights back genre established with Razorback & Long weekend. The later film contains a hilarious scene were a man gets attacked by a possum. Watching the footage from these films has definitely made me want to track down some of these hidden gems. In particular I can’t wait to get my buzz on while watching The Night after Halloween which features a maniac goes on a killing spree in a Mr Whippy van. This story obviously has nothing to do with John Carpenter’s massive hit, but by keeping with the exploitation theme it was obviously trying to cash in on it’s popularity.
The documentary then discusses the action genre films of the 80’s which features stories of renegade directors & ridiculously dangerous stunt scenes. These memorable instances of chaos were prevalent during the filming of Mad Dog and involved Dennis Hopper always being blind drunk on set, an Aboriginal actor that disappeared for days in the outback & multiple scenes that involved shooting live rounds of ammo next to actors heads. Another particularly entertaining story revolved around the directors of Stunt Rock who spent most of the films budget at the bookies. Since they had run out of time & money they couldn’t afford to get a real rock band for the lead part and just ended up hiring stage magicians instead.
Up next is the muscle car genre that obviously gave birth to the iconic classic Mad Max’ and ‘um’…. BMX Bandits? Personally this was the only part of the documentary that slightly lost my interest but this could just be a combination of the late running time and the fact that I’m not a rev head. Paraphrasing Tarentino’s words the cars featured in these cult film were ‘Orgasmic’ and therefore this segment of the film will undoubtedly be more appealing to those that dig their car chase films, which only seem to be making a comeback again with the likes of Death Proof and Death Race.
Final Verdict: I could keep going on about the other interesting stories featuring in this fantastic documentary but they’re much better told in the movie. If you’re a fan of dodgy and/or cult films this is a must see documentary. If fact even if you’re just a movie fan in general do yourself a favor & check this one out. Keep an eye out for it’s release on the 28th of August.
90 / 100 Pennies
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