The Screengrab : not quite hollywood

Ozsploitation! “Mad Dog Morgan” (1976)

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Inspired by the terrific documentary Not Quite Hollywood (now available on DVD in the UK, but sadly, not in the U.S.), the Screengrab is proud to present Ozsploitation!, our own survey of the golden age of Australian drive-in movies. Pop a tube, throw another shrimp on the barbie and try not to chunder.

The bushranger movie is the Australian equivalent of the American western, and the earliest such films date back at least to 1906’s The Story of the Kelly Gang, which is considered by many to be the world’s first feature film. (It runs about 60 minutes, if you want to nitpick.) It’s true that there aren’t quite as many classic Australian bushranger movies as classic American westerns, and it’s also true that most of them turn out to be about Ned Kelly. But let’s at least give them credit for longevity.

Mad Dog Morgan is a bushranger movie from the Ozsploitation era that turns out not to be about Ned Kelly. Instead it’s about Dan Morgan, who was never known as Mad Dog Morgan and, as it happens, wasn’t even really named Dan Morgan. Born John Fuller in 1830, this Irish-Australian horse thief, mean drunk and all-around desperado would churn through such aliases as John Smith, Sydney Native and Down the River Jack before settling on the name that became legend. Or if not quite legend, at least a Dennis Hopper movie from the mid-70s.

Director Phillipe Mora, whose work I’ve encountered before in the form of Howling III: The Marsupials, brings a short attention span to the early scenes of Mad Dog Morgan, in which the titular character fails at gold mining, is arrested for armed robbery, serves hard time in chains, is released back into the wild and goes on a crime spree with the assistance of his Aboriginal sidekick Billy (David Gulpilil of Walkabout and The Last Wave). It wouldn’t surprise me to learn there’s a three-hour version of Mad Dog Morgan somewhere, and that Mora turned in this version under duress; the edits and scene transitions often seem abrupt and arbitrary to me, although it would be equally unsurprising to learn that this is a stylistic choice meant to convey an impressionistic, kaleidoscopic approach to Morgan’s story. Either way, it sure got on my nerves.

I could never quite get a handle on how the movie regards its central character, which may have something to do with the fact that Morgan is played by Dennis Hopper at the peak of his drug-fueled wild and crazy period. Boasting a now-you-hear-it, now-you-don’t Irish accent and an impressive array of weird beards, Hopper often comes across more like a crazed hippie on an extended LSD binge than an outlaw who could manage to keep himself alive in the bush, let alone terrorize half of Victoria and New South Wales. It’s not an uninteresting take on the material, to be sure, but overall I think Mad Dog Morgan is best viewed in 1976, which unfortunately is no longer an option.

Previously on Ozsploitation:
High Rolling in a Hot Corvette
Dead End Drive-In

Ozsploitation! “High Rolling in a Hot Corvette” (1977)

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:30:00 GMT

Inspired by the terrific new documentary Not Quite Hollywood, the Screengrab is proud to present Ozsploitation!, our own survey of the golden age of Australian drive-in movies. Pop a tube, throw another shrimp on the barbie and try not to chunder.

I’ve had pretty good luck with my Ozsploitation selections…until now, that is. Granted, I had no reason to believe High Rolling in a Hot Corvette was any sort of lost classic. The title promises good times, but I learned long ago that such promises are not always kept by the exploitation film complex. Otherwise The Great Texas Dynamite Chase would be the greatest time I ever had (whereas in fact it barely cracks the top twenty). The only people who might have any interest all in High Rolling would be Judy Davis completists, as the actress makes her motion picture debut in it. She may leave it off her resume these days, but that’s why we love IMDb.

The fun begins in a Queensland carnival, where Tex (played by obligatory American import Joseph Bottoms, least of the acting Bottoms brothers) operates the shooting gallery on the midway. On a whim, he and Aussie buddy Alby (Grigor Taylor) decide to take a road trip, hitching a ride with a fella named Arnold in his snazzy corvette. When the gang stops at a motel for the night, Arnold makes an unexpected pass at Alby and an unpleasant bout of gay-bashing ensues. Tex and Alby make off in the corvette, little realizing that the boot (that’s the trunk, my fellow Americans) is full of marijuana.

Judy Davis plays a wispy young hitchhiker who plans to become a prostitute until Tex informs her that this will entail sweaty fat men squatting over her, belching and farting. She never really thought of it that way, but Tex is such an incredibly repulsive individual, this sort of thinking is second nature to him. Fellow Screengrabber Andrew Osborne and I have a little game we call Long Car Trip. For instance, he’ll say: “Long car trip – Bill O’Reilly or Rush Limbaugh?” Then I’ll have to pick one and come up with some sort of rationale for preferring to spend many hours trapped in a vehicle with this individual. In this game, Tex will always be the wrong answer – and yet here is a whole movie about taking a long car trip with him. Amazing.

The gang eventually ends up in Surfers Paradise, which is a real place that looks like this. A better movie would have done something more interesting with this unusual location (this is the “paradise” the Road Warrior refugees were trying to find), but in High Rolling, it’s just a scenic spot for Tex to pass out on his face. Eventually the plot kicks in again as the pot goes missing from the boot, the boys decide to hold up a tour bus, and Arnold and his buddies catch up with Tex and Alby for the big showdown. Unfortunately, they do not beat Tex to death with his own feet, which is really the only ending that would justify sitting through this irritating snoozer.

Previously on Ozsploitation:
Dead-End Drive In
Roadgames

Sundance Preview: Five Must-See Documentaries

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Beginning later this week, I’ll be bringing you the most comprehensive Sundance coverage possible by a person who isn’t actually going to be there. (Hey, it’s cold up there! Sure, I could have tried to fool you with this eight-year-old photo, but I don’t play like that.) But hey, I don’t have to be in Park City to comb through the Sundance website and engage in some uninformed speculation about films that may be of interest to you and me. Tomorrow we’ll look at narrative features, but today let’s look at five nonfiction films I’d try to see if, y’know, I wasn’t a thousand miles away.

BIG RIVER MAN

Normally a swimming documentary wouldn’t be my cup of tea, but having read up a bit on endurance swimmer Martin Strel, my interest in Big River Man is piqued. An endurance swimmer from Slovenia, Strel has already conquered the Mississippi and the Danube, but the subject of this film is his craziest feat yet: swimming the length of the Amazon river while consuming two bottles of wine a day. “In his fifties and rather overweight, his treacherous journey brings him face to face with many obstacles, including water predators, rapids, and toxic pollution… Part world-class sporting event, part circus sideshow, the film follows the colorful characters 3,375 miles over 66 days on history's longest, most perilous swim.”

NOLLYWOOD BABYLON

Could this be the Not Quite Hollywood of 2009? Well…probably not, but just as that documentary covered the too-little-explored Ozsploitation film industry down under, Nollywood Babylon promises the lowdown on “the wild and wacky world of Nollywood, Nigeria’s explosive homegrown movie industry, where Jesus and voodoo vie for screen time… a cadre of resourceful filmmakers creating a garish, imaginative, and wildly popular form of B-movie that has frenzied fans begging for more.”

TYSON

Screengrabber Andrew Osborne has an interesting James Toback story he’d like to share with you if he ever gets clearance from our team of lawyers. In the meantime, you’ll have to settle for this profile of perpetually embattled former boxer Mike Tyson (who made a memorable appearance in Toback’s Black and White). “Candid interviews with Tyson reveal an often-misunderstood persona that encompasses a broad spectrum of decidedly human instincts… Toback manages to crack Mike Tyson’s brooding exterior to expose both the best and worst of the most explosive and controversial enigma in the history of the sport.”

WHEN YOU’RE STRANGE

Tom DiCillo has directed one movie I love (Living in Oblivion) and then…a handful of other peculiar but not particularly good movies (Box of Moon Light, The Real Blonde). I don’t have any evidence that he’s the man to make us forget Oliver Stone’s bombastic biopic The Doors, but surely any nonfiction treatment of the story would be an improvement. The Sundance guide assures us DiCillo’s take is “far from a nostalgic journey and much more than a biopic,” consisting only of original footage shot between 1966 and 1971. We thank the director for not allowing Ray Manzarek another opportunity to gas on about making the myths.

WOUNDED KNEE

The above clip is not from the new documentary Wounded Knee, but rather from Michael Apted’s 1992 film Incident at Oglala. Sorry, it’s all I could find, but both films revolve around confrontations between the FBI and Indian activists at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. While Apted’s movie concerns the murder of two federal agents in 1975, Wounded Knee takes us back to February of 1973, when “a caravan of cars carrying 200 armed Oglala Lakota—led by American Indian Movement (AIM) activists—entered Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation and quickly occupied buildings, cut off access, and took up defensive positions. When federal agents arrived, they declared, ‘The Indians are in charge of the town,' and a 71-day standoff ensued.’”

Ozsploitation! “Dead End Drive-In” (1986)

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Inspired by the terrific new documentary Not Quite Hollywood, the Screengrab is proud to present Ozsploitation!, our own survey of the golden age of Australian drive-in movies. Pop a tube, throw another shrimp on the barbie and try not to chunder.

Our Australian friends sure love their post-apocalypses. Maybe this is because so much of their country already looks like the apocalypse has come and gone. (I mean this in the most admiring way, of course.) Or maybe it’s just because Mad Max made a shitload of money, paving the way for on-the-cheap end of the world scenarios. Ozsploitation titan Brian Trenchard-Smith is certainly a fan of what he calls “What if?” stories, and here’s another one that’s worth a look, depending on your tolerance for the sights and sounds of the mid-80s.

A quickie opening crawl advises us of a near-future in the throes of global economic crisis. (I know – crazy!) Society is breaking down, roving gangs of “carboys” are making the streets unsafe for law-abiding citizens, and the government is resorting to desperate measures to keep the peace. Our hero Crabs (Ned Manning) learns just how desperate when he takes his girl Carmen (Natalie McCurry) out for a romantic evening at the drive-in. He makes the mistake of purchasing two “unemployed” tickets, which sounds like a bargain until you realize this is a signal to law enforcement that you are not to be allowed to leave the drive-in – ever.

While Crabs is getting it on with Carmen in the backseat of the ’56 Chevy convertible he borrowed from his brother, two of his tires are stolen. He reports the incident to the theater manager, who informs him there are no spare parts, no phones and no way to leave the theater without an operational vehicle, since pedestrians are illegal on the freeway. Furthermore, Crabs and Carmen are not alone in the drive-in; indeed, it’s a veritable concentration camp of disenfranchised youth, albeit one with a fully stocked concession stand. Crabs soon learns he is virtually alone in wanting to leave the drive-in and get back to real life, which is understandable. The drive-in seems like a pretty fun place to me, although I reckon I’d get sick of the ongoing Brian Trenchard-Smith film festival eventually. (Turkey Shoot is among the features that can be glimpsed on the drive-in screen.)

Still, Dead End would make for a fun night at the drive-in, especially if the theater owners were willing to spring for replicas of the movie’s paddy wagons to patrol the grounds as the flick unspools. Sure, it’s made up of spare parts from Mad Max, The Warriors, A Clockwork Orange and Repo Man, but that’s a testament to Trenchard-Smith’s good taste. A testament to his bad taste is the incredibly dated look of the film, a mosh pit of punk and new wave styles, junkyard production design – heavy on the neon – and admittedly bargain-basement Casiontone score. Then again, if you spent your formative years in this era like me, you’re probably a sucker for this stuff. Trenchard-Smith lays the social commentary on too thick in the waning moments as the youth of the drive-in revolt against the influx of Asian immigrants, but there’s a reasonably entertaining car chase to cleanse the palate. I’ll give it three Foster’s.

Previously on Ozsploitation!
Roadgames
Long Weekend

Ozsploitation! “Roadgames” (1981)

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Inspired by the terrific new documentary Not Quite Hollywood, the Screengrab is proud to present Ozsploitation!, our own survey of the golden age of Australian drive-in movies. Pop a tube, throw another shrimp on the barbie and try not to chunder.

Richard Franklin’s Roadgames is like Rear Window on wheels. I wish I could take credit for that observation, but I cribbed it from the director himself. Franklin is a self-proclaimed Hitchcock buff; he directed Psycho II, but Roadgames is actually the more Hitchcockian achievement – a zesty soufflé of humor, action, suspense and a dollop of ambiguity. (I stole “soufflé” from Franklin, too – what can I say, the man is an astute appraiser of his own work.) It’s such a fun little flick, I have no idea why I’d never seen it before now.

Stacy Keach reveals a playful side that has eluded me until now as truck driver (or “truckie” as those whimsical Aussies call him) Patrick Quid. Driving a load of pork across the Nullarbor Plain to Perth, Quid has no one to talk to except his dingo Boswell. He manages to amuse himself nonetheless, playing harmonica and inventing stories about his fellow travelers of the only highway around. (Because there’s no other route across the continent, he’s always catching up to the same vehicles he’s seen at diners and gas stations along the way.) He’s particular intrigued by a man driving a green van, who he spots poking around a motel garbage dumpster in the wee hours of the morning.

We know something Quid doesn’t, as we’ve already seen this man put on a pair of racing gloves and strangle a naked woman in his motel room. Quid’s suspicions are heightened by a radio broadcast warning of a serial killer in the area. Although regulations forbid him from picking up hitchhikers, he can’t resist. His first passenger, a chatty middle-aged woman, soon develops her own suspicions about Quid. His second, attractive young Pamela (Jamie Lee Curtis), proves to be his match in the realm of serial killer theorizing. As they close in on the mystery man in the van, however, she may turn out to be his next victim.

The long road across the Nullarbor is marked by spectacular scenery, small pockets of civilization and a gaggle of oddball characters. Aside from a brief campfire interlude, Franklin keeps the pedal to the metal; memorable set pieces include a game of chicken between Quid and an inexplicably aggressive motorist hauling a boat trailer, as well as the finale in which truck, van and police car all converge in very tight quarters. Curtis, who was still the Queen of Scream at this point in her career, is fine in what turns out to be a fairly small part, but this is Keach’s show all the way – it may be his liveliest, most charismatic performance. As Hitchcock riffs go, I’ll take this one over most of the De Palma catalogue any day.

Previously on Ozsploitation!:
Long Weekend
Turkey Shoot

Ozsploitation! “Long Weekend” (1978)

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Inspired by the terrific new documentary Not Quite Hollywood, the Screengrab is proud to present Ozsploitation!, our own survey of the golden age of Australian drive-in movies. Pop a tube, throw another shrimp on the barbie and try not to chunder.

This one surprised me. The tagline, as you can see on this poster, is “Their crime was against nature…and nature found them guilty!” This led me to expect a sort of Outback Day of the Animals, complete with vicious dingoes and bloodthirsty kookaburras. Long Weekend is something altogether different: an elliptical and unsettling creepshow that defies easy categorization.

Peter (John Hargreaves) and Marcia (Briony Behets) are a suburban couple hoping to work out their marital difficulties with a camping trip. (Actually, Peter is the one set on the camping; Marcia would just as soon spend the long weekend in a luxury hotel.) From the beginning, director Colin Eggleston sprinkles ominous hints indicating that the trip is probably not such a great idea. We overhear a television news broadcast reporting an avian attack straight out of The Birds. We see Peter peering at Marcia through the telescopic sight of his rifle. The folks at the gas station claim they’ve never heard of the beach Peter and Marcia are looking for, even though it’s only five miles away.

All the while, as they make their way to their remote destination, Peter and Marcia bicker. He hits and runs over a kangaroo, the first episode in an emerging pattern of disrespect for the natural world. Later, he’ll toss his empty beer bottles on the beach or into the woods. She’ll shatter an eagle’s egg against a tree in anger. He’ll shoot and kill an innocent sea cow, thinking it’s a shark.

There’s a brief reconciliation, once they’ve finally reached their destination and set up camp. Still, nothing feels right, and it’s never clear where the threat is coming from. There’s a van parked down the beach. Unfamiliar animal cries pierce the night. Peter may be crazy – or maybe Marcia, or maybe both. The abstractions create a tension that pushes Long Weekend out of the realm of run-of-the-mill exploitation into unexpected, disturbing territory. The least satisfying reading of the film is a simple “nature strikes back” interpretation; although that’s one explanation for the fate that befalls Peter and Marcia, it doesn’t feel adequate when weighed against the movie’s enigmas. This is exactly the sort of buried treasure I’d hoped to dig up when I launched this foray into Ozsploitation, and that’s certainly worth four Foster’s.

Bonus attraction: Perhaps the best animal actor I’ve ever seen as the couple’s dog Cricket. This cute little fella can do both comedy and horror, and I hope he was well compensated with Snausages.

Postscript: Long Weekend was remade this year by director Jamie Blanks (Urban Legend). I haven’t seen it, but I’m given to understand it’s one of these “shot-for-shot” dealies. For your consideration, here are the trailers for both Long Weekends.

Previously on Ozsploitation!:
Turkey Shoot
Razorback

Ozsploitation! “Turkey Shoot” (1982)

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Inspired by the terrific new documentary Not Quite Hollywood, the Screengrab is proud to present Ozsploitation!, our own survey of the golden age of Australian drive-in movies. Pop a tube, throw another shrimp on the barbie and try not to chunder.

In the U.S., it was released as Escape 2000. In the U.K., it had the provocative title Blood Camp Thatcher. The original Australian title is Turkey Shoot, but by any other name, it’s the eleventy-zillionth exploitation movie to be inspired by The Most Dangerous Game. What we seem to have here is a post-apocalyptic society, or at least a dark, dystopic future of some kind – it’s a little hard to tell, because the opening fifteen minutes that would have explained what’s going on were never shot due to budget cutbacks. I don’t suppose it matters much; suffice it to say that there’s an oppressive regime in place operating prison camps for “re-education and behavior modification.” So-called deviants are rounded up, stuffed into yellow jumpsuits and dumped into these camps to perform back-breaking labor, learn to conform and receive abuse at the hands of the guards.

Among the latest arrivals at Camp 47 are Paul Anders (Steve Railsback), Chris Walters (Olivia Hussey) and Rita Daniels (Lynda Stoner), all of whom are selected to participate in the “turkey shoot.” They will be released from the camp (with no weapons) and given a three-hour head start, after which camp leader Charles Thatcher (Michael Craig) and his chief enforcer Ritter (Roger Ward, best known to U.S. audiences as Fifi from Mad Max, but perhaps more familiar to Aussies from the 80s TV series Professor Poopsnaggle) will hunt them. If the prisoners make it to dawn alive, they are free to go. If Thatcher and company catch up to them, they will die graphically violent deaths.

Turkey Shoot was directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, a towering figure in the realm of Ozsploitation. (We’ll encounter more of his work later in this series.) You might even call him the Down Under Roger Corman, and if not for its Australian setting, Turkey Shoot could have been shipped straight out of the Corman factory. (It’s a cousin to the “sports of the future” genre that includes Corman’s Deathsport – a genre I wrote about in this High Hat piece.) The Aussie flavor is somewhat lacking, what with the major roles going to imported almost-stars Railsback and Hussey, and the overall production is rather uninspired (although Trenchard-Smith deserves at least some credit for pioneering the co-ed shower facilities later appropriated by Paul Verhoeven for Starship Troopers). The gore is graphic, if cartoonish: machetes split skulls, machine gun fire separates heads from bodies. The most fun part of the DVD is the making-of documentary, in which none of the participants (including the director) has anything good to say about the movie. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before.

Bonus Attraction: A mutant beastie in half-assed Planet of the Apes makeup is ripped in half by a bulldozer.

Rating: Two Foster’s

Previously on Ozsploitation!:
Dark Age
Razorback

The Rep Report (October 17-23)

Phil Nugent — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:30:00 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO: The annual "Shock It to Me" horror film festival--or, as its promoters prefer to call it, "a bonafide Horror Convention in a theater setting"--is running at the Castro Theater this weekend, today through Sunday. The special guests scheduled to be in attendance include Sid Haig, a favorite actor of Quentin Tarantino and Rob Zombie, who co-starred with Lon Chaney, Jr. in Friday night's big feature, Jack Hill's 1964 Spider Baby. The movie itself is an unclassifiable blend of spook show, camp comedy, and homegrown American low-budget weird; it opens with Lon, Jr. singing the title song and just rolls on from there. Also on hand: Kathryn Leigh Scott and Lara Paker, stars of the late-'60s "gothic" daytime soap opera Dark Shadows, which made a sex symbol of Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), a lovesick 175-year-old vampire in a Beatles wig that had been through the wash a few too many times. The festival will be showing both the movie spin-offs from the Dark Shadows TV series, as well as the original Night of the Living Dead and the first of Hammer Film's revivals of the classic Universal movie monsters, Horror of Dracula and Curse of Frankenstein. Plus the fest's "infamous Zombie-Eating Contest" and the promised giveaway of "a real dead body to a 'lucky' member of the audience each night." We don't know the details, but if this were a movie, it would probably mean that somebody was going to get to drive home with Sid Haig in the trunk of their car.

NORTH CAROLINA: The programmers of the Escapism film festival, running this weekend (today through Sunday) at the Caroline Theater, boldly step up to the challenge of finding a way to make people scared even when they're in Durham, North Carolina, A.K.A. God's country. (Some of you folks who've never been there may think that I'm kidding. I weep for you.) The lineup this year has quite the international flavor, including the fast-becoming-legendary Australian-exploitation-movie doc Not Quite Hollywood, the Swedish vampire film Let the Right One In, Takashi Miike's self-explanatory Sukiyaki Western: Django, and the French sci-fi film Eden Log. There's also "the U.S. Theatrical premiere of 1989’s [straight-to-video] The Punisher (in an uncut, director’s edition to boot!)" Dolph Lundgren fans will want to line up for that one, though they risk being run over by people who hate Dolph Lundgren's guts and are in an MST3K-kinda mood.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: "Spooky Movie: 2008", the third annual "Washington, D.C. international horror film festival", has begun and runs through October 20, at Cinema Arts Theatre and additional locations. Unlike other Halloween festivals that pile on the fondly remembered scare classics, this one concentrates on the new and the unknown, including lots and lots of independently produced short films. That tends to mean a lot of amateurishness, but it can also mean a lot of fresh ideas from people with their own, deeply personal notions about what's scary--and besides, if you have to see amateurish festival films, amateurish horror films can be more fun to watch than any other kind. There are also documentaries on William Castle and the mythology of the snuff film. Plus, this evening's "Grindhouse Night" festivities will be hosted, live, by "Count Gore de Vol", in a heartening show of confidence that the recent sex scandal will not endanger his bid for re-election.

LOS ANGELES: There actually are a few theaters in the country that aren't showing horror films this weekend. "Spotlight on Miklós Jancsó", from October 17 through October 24 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gives viewers a rare chance to see four films by the Hungarian master in all their CinemaScope glory. The program opens with the director's first international success, 1965's The Round-Up, and includes 1967's The Red and the White, 1968's Silence and Cry, and the 1971 Red Psalm, rated by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum as perhaps the greatest Hungarian movie of all time.

CHICAGO: Last but not least, the 44th Annual Chicago International Film Festival opens today and runs through October 29. Things kick off tonight with The Brothers Bloom, writer-director Rian Johnson's follow-up to his Dashiell-Hammett-High-School first feature, Brick; it stars Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel Weisz. It's followed tomorrow by a "Black Perspectives Tribute" event honoring Sidney Poitier and Jennifer Hudson.

Ozsploitation! “Razorback” (1984)

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Inspired by the terrific new documentary Not Quite Hollywood, the Screengrab is proud to present Ozsploitation!, our own survey of the golden age of Australian drive-in movies. Pop a tube, throw another shrimp on the barbie and try not to chunder.

Last time we looked at Dark Age, about a giant crocodile on the loose Down Under. This week we’re looking at Razorback, which is about a giant wild boar on the loose Down Under. Totally different thing! I almost felt sorry for the big croc – he just wanted to be left alone. The razorback, on the other hand, just seems like kind of an asshole.

Plotwise, the movie is your basic Jaws in the Outback. It opens with grizzled Jake Cullen (Bill Kerr) watching in dismay as his house is ripped apart and his grandson dragged away by a big ol’ slobbery pig-thing. Shortly thereafter, American activist Beth Winters (Judy Morris) arrives in the tiny town of Granulla to fight for the rights of cute kangaroos. The locals don’t take kindly to her, particularly brothers Dicko and Benny, a near-feral pair who live in an industrial hellhole of a food cannery. When Beth disappears, her husband Carl (Gregory Harrison) sets out to find her, and crosses paths with not only Dicko and Benny, but the hideous hairy bundle of grunts and snorts known as the razorback.

Plot is a secondary consideration at best, however, when it comes to the supremely stylish Razorback, part of the first wave of MTV-influenced movies. I don’t mean “MTV-influenced” in the sense we use the term today, which is generally to disparage the incoherent slice-and-dice editing so many action movies use to simulate actual excitement. Razorback was directed by Russell Mulcahy, who was in on the ground floor of the music video age – indeed, he helmed the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” the first video ever aired on MTV, as well as a number of the early Duran Duran videos that put the network on the map.

Mulcahy brings those early ‘80s visuals to the big screen in Razorback, which is something of a candy store for the eyes. A brew of punk/new wave styles, Western motifs and post-Road Warrior junkyard aesthetics filtered through plenty of smoke machines, colored light gels and fisheye lenses, it’s certainly more stylistically adventurous than practically any contemporary American action/horror flick. In the Razorback world, it’s as if a Mad Max-like society exists in present-day Australia (which may have been a little insulting to those who actually lived in the remote Outback, but hell, they probably didn’t have movie theaters anyway). It all looks great (well, the pig may not be top-of-the-line), but it’s a classic case of style-over-substance; in other words, I really didn’t care who got eaten by the big, hairy boar. The lead actor contributes to this problem – it was common in those days for the Aussies to import an American star or two, but who ever went to see a movie because Gregory Harrison was in it? The revenge storyline is overplayed as well. Why is it that Jaws rip-offs never seem to remember that Jaws was not a revenge movie? Those guys in the boat were just doing their jobs, it was nothing personal. Make Jaws a revenge movie and what do you have? Jaws: The Revenge! So how is that a good idea?

Razorback is more fun to look at than it is to watch, if that makes any sense. And it’s even more fun to look at with four Foster’s.

Previously on Ozsploitation!: Dark Age

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: Sept. 20-26, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Due to the current economic crisis, the Screengrab Highlight Reel is suspending its campaign until further notice. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and although we would like nothing more than to draw your attention to some of our finest work, such as our list of the Top 25 War Films (Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven), or Phil Nugent’s indispensible That Guy! Special Godfather Edition, Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five, we cannot do so at this time. Our immediate attention is required elsewhere, or rest assured, we would direct you to the following posts:

Fantastic Fest Reviews: JCVD, Surveillance, Donkey Punch, Not Quite Hollywood, and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

Face/Off: The Godfather, Part III

When Good Directors Go Bad: The Road Home (Zhang Yimou)

Dark Knight: The All Talking-Head Edition

Unwatchable #67: Nine Lives

Charles Bronson’s MANDOM

Screengrab readers, we know you share our dismay that we could not take the time to tell you about these fine posts. As engaged, thoughtful Americans, however, it is your duty to check them out for yourselves. And remember, my looney bun is fine, Benny Lava.

In Other Blogs: Festivus!

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 15:30:00 GMT

At Beyond the Multiplex, Andrew O’Hehir previews the New York Film Festival. “Like any institution closely identified with New York City -- the Yankees, the Times, the Metropolitan Museum, the scum-sucking financial establishment that has ruined all of our lives and our children's as well -- the New York Film Festival makes a pretty easy target for crusading anti-elitists of all stripes…What's far more interesting about the NYFF after all this time is that it remains remarkably successful at its self-assigned mission, anachronistic and undemocratic as that may appear. In programming relatively few features (28 this year) -- most of them drawn from the major European festivals in Berlin, Cannes and Venice -- and in insisting on a pre-pop-culture vision of cinema as an art form, festival director Richard Peña and his staff have, perversely enough, proven to be shrewd table-setters for the fall film marketplace.”

Erstwhile Screengrabber Mike D’Angelo already has a page of NYFF reviews up, and it sounds like you can scratch Tony Manero off your list. “For those not temperamentally inclined to celebrate uncompromising cine-machismo for its own sake, however, this is pretty thin gruel, deeply unpleasant without ever coming within spitting distance of enlightening. Once you've been startled by Raúl assisting an old woman home and then unexpectedly pummeling her to death for her TV set, and then seen him pawn the TV in order to fund a replica of the multicolored Saturday Night Fever dance floor, you're good to go, literally -- everything that follows is more of the same. American Psycho didn't really work as a movie, but at least Bret Easton Ellis had a coherent idea, in that you can readily see the connection between '80s materialism, Bateman's sadistic violence and the transformation of Genesis into a Phil Collins solo act. How exactly does living under Pinochet translate to disco fever? Why are we watching Tony Manero and not, say, Roy Neary or Luke Skywalker?”

Also weighing in on NYFF is Vadim Rizov at The House Next Door, who finds Gomorrah comes up wanting when compared to our favorite TV show. “The problem with Gomorrah is that it could start and end anywhere. The Wire runs full arcs, tying social problems to well-developed characters; the war never ends, but the characters move on. Gomorrah is representative types running through a loop: today's Scarface-emulating young sociopaths are tomorrow's dead meat, but there'll always be someone to replace them. All five stories in Gomorrah's hydra-headed monster have rough conclusions, but anyone expecting a movie about mob life to end in any kind of upbeat fashion a) needs to watch more movies b) needs, indeed, to read up a bit more. Gomorrah is exactly what I thought it would be, which means there's no surprises.”

Dazed and Confused and Waking Life star Wiley Wiggins was a regular fixture around Fantastic Fest, and as this entry at his blog It’s Not For Everyone shows, he’s down with the Ozsploitation. “Brian Trenchard-Smith, fresh from his appearance in Not Quite Hollywood, introduced and answered questions about one of his very early films, The Man From Hong Kong. As one might expect from an Australian Kung Fu movie, the driving sequences are better than the fight sequences, and the main car chase in the. Movie is actually one of the most impressive filmed, mainly for the demolition-derby ferocity with which the cars slam into one another and a sureness in the photography and editing during the chase. The acting and plotting are the most memorable when they flirt with self parody. The movie was a lot of fun, but pales in comparison to some of Trenchard-Smith's crazier films.”

And in List-o-Mania this week, Filmbrain features Lost in the Sixties and Seventies: A Dozen I'd Kill to See. At number four is the 1971 obscurity You've Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You'll Lose That Beat. “Easily the holiest of grails on the list, this is a film I originally heard about back in the early 80s, but only recently confirmed that it does indeed truly exist. Dig this: an anarchic anti-establishment comedy that skewers then-contemporary mores that stars Zalman King (yes, that one) as a young man trying to find his way in New York City. Add to that a cast that includes Allen Garfield, Richard Pryor, and Roz Kelly (Happy Days' Pinky Tuscadero), and features music by Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Oh yes, Wes Craven worked on the film as well. I have never met a single soul who can honestly claim to have seen this film, so if you have, please do speak up!”

Ozsploitation! "Dark Age" (1987)

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Inspired by the terrific new documentary Not Quite Hollywood, the Screengrab is proud to present Ozsploitation! For the next ten or twelve weeks, or however long it takes you or me to get sick of them, we'll be checking out classics from the golden age of Austrailian drive-in movies. As you may or may not know, Australia was one of the few countries outside the United States to develop a thriving drive-in culture. They love their cars as much as we do, and apparently they also share our fondness for bare breasts, dangerous beasties, exploding heads and good old-fashioned automotive mayhem. If any of our friends down under are reading this, please bear in mind that I'm seeing most of these films for the first time and feel free to weigh in with your own memories and expertise.

We begin with 1987's Dark Age, which was screened this week at Fantastic Fest as part of a mini-Ozploitation retrospective centered around Not Quite Hollywood. Our director is Arch Nicholson, who was given the job based on his work as second unit director on the hit Razorback (which we'll be checking out next week). As it turns out, none of the footage he shot was actually used in Razorback, but I'm sure he didn't mention that in his interview. John Jarratt, who much later played the very creepy Outback killer in Wolf Creek, stars as wildlife ranger Steve Harris. Steve is an advocate for the protection of the endangered saltwater crocodile, but his cause is undermined when a giant croc turns up in the river and starts eating people, including a small child.

Steve explains to his superiors that the croc had no way of knowing that eating children is considered a bad thing, but they won't hear of it. He is ordered to kill the croc, and if he doesn't do it, there are dozens of poachers along the river willing to take on the job for the reward money. Efforts to track down the croc, known to the natives as Numunwari, prove fruitless, although the poachers are happy to blow apart any number of regular-sized crocodiles along the way. Steve is forced to turn to Aboriginal chief Oondabund (a wonderfully named character played by the equally wonderfully named Burnham Burnham from Howling III: The Marsupials).

Oondanbund agrees to help as long as they agree not to kill Numunwari, but rather capture him and return him to his billabong. (Rest assured I will capitalize on any and all opportunities to use the word 'billabong' throughout this series.) This entails strapping the nearly 30-foot croc into the back of an 18-wheeler for a high-speed chase through the bush, with the poachers in hot pursuit.

Some would say a killer crocodile movie is only as good as its killer croc, and by those guidelines, Dark Age comes up a bit short. The croc looks fine at night in the water, and there are some great overhead shots that accentuate the size and girth of the thing, but when it's called upon to move on land in broad daylight, Numanwari isn't quite up to the task. The movie is also weighed down by an obligatory on-again, off-again romance between Steve and his ex Cathy (Nikki Coghill), but in the end, all the right people get eaten. And that's the important thing.

Bonus Attraction: In a stunt that couldn't possibly have been planned the way it turned out, Burnham Burnham is flung from the front of the 18-wheeler as it careens out of control. He turns out to be one resiliant white-bearded old man!

Rating: Three Foster's

Fantastic Fest Review: “Not Quite Hollywood"

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:45:00 GMT

Granted, I haven’t seen everything, but it’s hard to believe there’s a more outrageously entertaining movie at this year’s Fantastic Fest than Mark Hartley’s “Ozsploitation” documentary Not Quite Hollywood. Virtually the entire history of the Australian film industry from its inception in the early ‘70s to the rise of home video in the late ‘80s is crammed into its 110 minutes, with a decided emphasis on drive-in fare over gauzy period pieces. And what drive-in fare it was – based on the evidence here, the Aussie exploitation movies were faster, cheaper, gorier and downright crazier than their American counterparts.

In the beginning, there was no Australian film industry outside the occasional international production such as Age of Consent with James Mason. With the introduction of the R rating in 1971, all of that changed. It began with lewd and crude sex comedies like The Adventures of Barry McKenzie and the very popular Alvin Purple series, featuring Fosters-swilling Outback yahoos getting it on with large-breasted, very nude women. By the middle of the decade, these movies had given way to action and horror pictures, most of them little-known in America. Aussie Roger Cormans like Brian Trenchard-Smith and Antony I. Ginnane churned out exploitation films with titles like Turkey Shoot, The Man from Hong Kong, Dark Age and Dead-End Drive In.

Apparently there wasn’t much in the way of regulation and oversight in those days; as we learn from interview subjects ranging from Barry “Dame Edna” Humphries to – of course – Quentin Tarantino, the makers of these films had few qualms about staging car crashes on public roads or setting their actors on fire. The stuntmen were up for seemingly anything, as you can see in the trailer below. (The official Not Quite Hollywood site has a number of vintage trailers for these films as well.) As with the Corman factory, a number of “respectable” filmmakers got their starts in Ozploitation, including Simon Wincer, Bruce Beresford and of course, George Miller. A few productions had sufficient budgets to import an American star or two, such as Stacey Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis for Roadgames and (most memorably) Dennis Hopper for Mad Dog Morgan.

Admittedly, this subject matter is right up my alley. As I never fail to remind you, my book Hick Flicks: The Rise and Fall of Redneck Cinema (which makes a great Halloween present) deals with the Southern-fried drive-in movies of the ‘70s and ‘80s, so watching Not Quite Hollywood was like stumbling upon a hidden mirror universe of that era. The Aussies even have their own word for redneck – “ocker” – and certainly a fetish for automobile culture to rival our own. (They also have spectacular, desolate locations, great accents and funny words like billabong and didgeridoo, and for these reasons and many others, I plan on catching up on some of these movies by launching a new weekly Ozploitation series here at the Screengrab, starting this Thursday.)

Not Quite Hollywood isn’t perfect – for all its encyclopedic breadth, it barely touches on the Aboriginal actors in Aussie cinema – but it’s a raucous, informative and often very funny roller coaster ride through a neglected time and place in film history.