Not Quite Hollywood (2008)

Too much of everything

Pretty Good

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

"Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!" is a celebration of some of the worst films ever made...and unapologetically so. It seems that back in the 70s and 80s that Australia created a film industry dedicated to the most low-brow of films. Nudity, violence, blood and cheese--these films made the American equivalents seem like films from the Criterion Collection by comparison! The film explores the history of these crappy films and features tons of clips and interviews to tell the story. However, viewers might want to think twice--there is a lot of blood and even more full frontal nudity throughout the documentary. It is NOT for the faint-hearted nor prudish! For what it is, it is done reasonably well and is mildly interesting.By the way, Australians will no doubt enjoy the film. However, as an American, I would have loved captioning as the accents (mostly on the clips, not the interviews) were occasionally hard to understand and some of the Australian terms were lost on me.

The story of the Australian film industry and its exploitation roots. Mostly its about its exploitation roots with lots of violence and nudity (with heavy emphasis on topless females).I'm really not sure what to say beyond that. Other than telling me a few anecdotes and putting a few faces to names this really didn't tell me anything I didn't know already. Actually what I'm really curious about is whether there were more movies being made then what they showed. With rare exceptions I think I've seen or heard of almost every film here (I think one of the film's I didn't see was I think Stork). It seems more like a greatest hits film.I don't know. I liked it I didn't love it.

Having watched "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!" is eventually going to cost me a lot of money in the long run, as I added yet another handful of obscure movies to my never-ending list of 'absolutely-must-track-down-purchases'. That is actually the main reason why horror and cult fanatics ought to check this spirited and cheerful documentary out! Not so much because it's highly informative and professionally made (which it is), but mainly because this literally is a gravy train of virtually unknown but seemingly delicious genre titles. You can watch this documentary with a pen & notebook next to you and just start writing down the titles of all out-and-out demented movies they show brief clips of, and I assure that near the end you'll have a whole page full! In case the extended title doesn't make it clear enough yet, "Not Quite Hollywood" is a documentary revolving on the Australian exploitation/B-movie industry in general. This production features tons of clips from movies of the different streams in cult cinema (vulgar 70's sex flicks, brutally gore horror and outrageous car/biker movies), interviews with practically all the pioneers of Aussie cult cinema (like Brian Trenchard-Smith, Richard Franklin and Everett De Roche…) and over-enthusiast testimonies for younger generation directors about how influential these movies were (Greg McLean, James Wan and particularly the always-hyperkinetic Quentin Tarantino). The footage and interviews covering the Sexploitation stream was the least interesting part for me, because I'm not that interested in those films. Still it was nevertheless worthwhile seeing, as this meant the launch of the Aussie exploitation industry, with director icons like John Lamond and Tim Burstall giving birth to Down Under sleaze and vulgarity. There's a surprisingly high amount of little interviews with lewd actresses of that time, so it's really fun to see them showing off their T&A first and then talk about how carefree this era was. The horror movies (comatose killers & outback chillers) and exploitation flicks (high octane disasters and kung-fu masters) are a non-stop spitfire of fantastic images, compelling background information, marvelous on-set anecdotes and enticing bits of gore. It's always a brilliant experience to watch so many of your cinematic heroes assembled in one documentary, and "Not Quite Hollywood" accomplishes exactly this.

I saw this film at the Amsterdam Film festival last week, what a blast from the past! This Doco was well executed and totally engrossing, accurate and entertaining. As an Aussie your not aware of the type of films we were offered at that time, its other nationalities which identify our styles years later, we just grew up with it and accepted it as the norm. Its great to see Tarrantino so enthusiastic about the Aussie film industry, the genre which was identified was the B films which at the time of release were considered OK, but these films have stood the test of time, what once was ridiculed as being rubbish is now being seen in a completely new light. I was surprised that Tarrantino talked at length about the film, "Long Weekend" which he considers on of his 5 favorite Aussie Horror films, at the time of watching it in the cinema i remember thinking this was one of the best made Aussie films i had ever seen... so... great minds think alike!!Watch this doco if you have any interest in the Aussie film industry, its a real eye opener and very well made. thumbs up and a big 10!