ScreenWize

If you’re Australian and watched Australian movies of the 1970’s and 1980’s, chances are you’ll remember Picnic At Hanging Rock, Breaker Morant, and My Brilliant Career. They’re all period pieces, finely crafted films that won awards and acclaim at home and across the world. Chances are you won’t remember a whole swag of other Australian films made at the same time, films with names like Fantasm, Roadgames, Stone, Patrick, Felicity, Plugg. These are just a few of the films that director Mark Hartley wraps up in the delicious category of Ozploitation, genre films full of gore, sex and action like you’ve never seen, films just as finely crafted as their art-house counterparts, but made for overseas audiences who were better able to appreciate the raw larrikin spirit at work.

Not Quite Hollywood is a superb celebration of Australian talent, featuring honest and fondly recalled stories from the actors, directors, producers and crew who worked on the sex-romps, horror flicks and action adventures that have been shunned and forgotten by history. The coolly designed and snappily edited feature length documentary also comes with plenty of carefully chosen segments from the films in question, and is sprinkled throughout with comments of adoration from American director Quentin Tarantino – a self professed fan of trash.

It’s a thoroughly well researched film, hugely entertaining, and fills a gap in the filmography of Ozzie culture. Grab a tinny, rev up the Holden, and head down to the nearest drive-in. You don’t want to miss this one!

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon