Not Quite Hollywood - 2008

Incredibly Strange Film Festival

Not Quite Hollywood

One line review: The ultimate DVD extra to the ultimate never issued DVD box set of Australian exploitation films, Highly Recommended.

Look, here is the trailer. It has tits, blood, guns, car wrecks, kung fu, rock guitars and things exploding. All the stuff that makes trash cinema AWESOME. Probably not a work safe link.

www.notquitehollywood.com.au

If you liked the trailer, you will love the movie. If you don't like the trailer, there is probably entire sections of the dvd store you should just avoid.

Not Quite Hollywood is a documentary about the best of the 'worst' of Australian film making. It is authoritative, funny, exciting and will leave you with a LONG list of movies to track down and check out. From it I learned:

-Quentin Tarantino knows his exploitation movies (and he completely nails it as to why we watch these movies)
-Dennis Hopper was one psycho wing nut
-John Holmes had one monster dick
-Aussie stuntmen were gonzo
-Barry Humphries/Dame Edna has a razor sharp sense of humour
-Turkey Shoot - 1982 - is one of the greatest trash exploitation movies of all time - but probably was not worth shooting a stuntman over.
-You must be doing something right to get the Italian exploitation film industry making unauthorised spin offs of your movies
-Aussie stuntmen were REALLY gonzo (STUNT ROCK)
-Many of the behind the camera crews are still very proud of the movies they produced
-Some actresses are not so proud of the movies they stared in

Australia seems to have gone through all the same phases of establishing a film industry that other western countries did. As talent tries to step up from local TV to the big screen, there are two ways to go, 'prestige' culturally approved and state backed, and the stuff that has to make money. And making money generally means, doing something that people can't see on the TV, racy enough to draw the punters yet still able to somehow get past the censors. You know, tits, blood, guns, car wrecks, kung fu, rock guitars and things exploding.

The progression always seems to be cheap softcore smut, leads to cheap smut comedy (softcore with a script), then faked mondo, international co productions, imported faded 'names' to boost international saleability and a descent into tax write off funding and dubious backers.

If you are any fan what so ever of exploitation cinema, you must see this. Then you will need to track down dozens and dozens of titles you have not seen before.