The Screengrab : razorback

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: Oct. 4-10, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Hi, folks. I'm Lance, the Screengrab's monkey intern, and I'll be handling the Highlight Reel this week. Frankly I asked for this opportunity to address you today because I'm simply sickened that a few bad apples have once again set back my community's efforts to be taken seriously. Folks, it's hard out here for a chimp. Yet we've got these bozos in Japan running around with bottles of Jager for a handful of magic beans. Now it's true that I'm not compensated monetarily here at Nerve, but that's because it's an internship, fer crying out loud! Soon I'll be an editor here, and I'll be able to put an end to insulting stuff like this Top 25 Leading Men list. I keep asking the Screengrabbers, where is the list of top leading monkeys? They keep saying they'll get around to it, but I see them laughing when they think I'm not around. Sure, they'll throw me a bone by reviewing Me Cheeta: My Life in Hollywood, but they treat it as a joke! Believe me, folks, there are statues of Cheeta where I come from.

Anyway, I guess I've got to pretend that some of the stuff these clowns wrote is worth reading, so here are your highlights of the week:

New Reviews: Ashes of Time Redux, Fireproof, An American Carol

When British Comics Attack: Simon Pegg vs. Ricky Gervais

Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals (ha ha, very funny)

Ozsploitation! Razorback (more like pigsploitation, if you ask me)

Special Election Year Report

Dylan in the Movies

How Not to Interview Faye Dunaway

Nick Nolte Does His Own Stunts

Fargo's Marge Grills Sarah Palin

Gordon Gekko's Speechwriter Clarifies

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

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