Not Quite Hollywood review

I'll be honest, I'm very finicky when it comes to documentaries. I imagine many people are, but I'm just a person where it's got to absolutely, positively be a subject I am completed interested in or I won't be able to care. So that said I've skipped the half a dozen acclaimed Iraq based docs of the past six years, several of the music based ones (although a few I do want to go back and watch Scorese's "Shine A Light", even though I heard it's not as good as "Gimme Shelter") and many involving politics which attempt to prove one suited parties form of thinking is better than another when in reality both are right and wrong and nothing will ever truly be solved by them. But that's a topic for another time.

Surprisingly the bulk of released documentaries about film mainly are on DVD's connected to the film itself, however earlier this year a film festival was set in geek capital of America Austin, Texas called the "Not Quite Hollywood" festival. Here they showcased boat loads of Australian exploitation films or as they're called ozploitation films. This was centered around the documentary made about their blooming film industry in the 60's and onward called "Not Quite Hollywood". If you're someone who loves film... more specifically varied forms of genre pictures including sexploitation, creature horror, sex comedies, high octane action films and pure trash cinema... then you need to pick this up on DVD pronto. Now if you're confused as to what any of that means then here's my best written definition I can muster. They are shoestring budgeted films that use extreme visual methods or subject matter or both in order to gain an audience.

The film begins with the first display of ozploitation films which were sex comedies of massively low brow standards. However you did get lots and lots of nudity... as will you get in this film. Later on horror started taking over and in many ways a lot of what we see in horror today spawned from some of their exploitation flicks as opposed to our own. They show clips from "The Howling III: The Marsupials" which is pure garbage, but it's hilarious how horrible it really is. Down the line you get pre-rehab, "Hoosiers" and "Blue Velvet" Dennis Hopper on the set of "Mad Dog Morgan" acting basically like the massive alcoholic and coke head he was at the time. But what's best is hearing EVERYONE living from that industry sharing stories about people and incidents and getting to see clips from films that are so far out there and ahead of their time that they could still stand up in theaters today.

Enter Brian Trenchard Smith who was something of an Australian Roger Corman (look him up to understand better what I mean), making grand scale films for the lowest possible price. And his films made a ton of money. In fact a lot of the final acts of this film involve him and his films. Of course there is a rather sad thought throughout which is, how come we don't get any Australian genre pictures now? The explanation is somewhat clear after the end of the 60's style of film making they had, in which all good things must come to an end and the ride from their type of cinema as far as large scale recognition like "Mad Max" seemed to be over. And as it stands the exploitation film market is largely thrown onto DVD with only a few voices like Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Eli Roth getting major attention for films that are really just nice looking exploitation films. And there's nothing wrong with that.

So I definitely urge you to go out and rent "Not Quite Hollywood". It's funny, gross, shocking and exciting, something many major films now don't quite do. It provides a lot of those basic forms of entertainment we tend love when it comes to movies, but be warned it is definitely like playing devils advocate with these film makers. These are films that are not good in the traditional sense of it's a well made movie (some exceptions of course). These movies by and large are great because of how outlandish and ridiculous they are. Not one of those shiny, pampered ass "The Fast and the Furious" movies could dare hold a candle to some of the Aussie car pictures, which was where I first learned about their... 'rich culture' in genre cinema. Get friends, rent the damn movie, kick back and enjoy; and who knows maybe you might want to start snuffing out some schlock ozploitation films for yourself.

"Not Quite Hollywood" *** 1/2 out of ****