Morning Deal Report: Scorsese Sings Sinatra

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:30:00 GMT

One Martin Scorsese picture that never made it out of development hell was an adaptation of Dino, Nick Tosches’ biography of Dean Martin, which was set to star Tom Hanks in the lead role. This was, of course, a terrible idea, and cooler heads eventually prevailed. Scorsese can’t let the Rat Pack go, however – he’s set to direct Sinatra, written by Field of Dreams screenwriter Phil Alden Robinson. “The deal comes after years of negotiations with Frank Sinatra Enterprises, a joint venture of the crooner's estate and Warner Music Group. Internal politics of the estate, where family members had to form a consensus as to how to tell the story and, more importantly, just how much of the story to tell -- was a hurdle that had to be overcome,” per The Hollywood Reporter. So…not exactly warts and all, then?

Lindsay Lohan is going to The Other Side. “Story centers on a grad student who must spend the summer working at a scientific institute on a remote island. She discovers an eccentric community of characters who are hiding a secret about a tragedy that took place many years before,” Variety reports.

Ozsploitation auteur Russell Mulcahy is back with Bait, a 3-D shark movie. “Upping the ante on peril, the film is set in a coastal town where a freak tsunami floods and traps shoppers in a supermarket with an armed maniac and a pack of hungry tiger sharks that have been washed into the building.” Jaws in a supermarket! I am so there!

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 : russell mulcahy

Morning Deal Report: Scorsese Sings Sinatra

Ozsploitation! “Razorback” (1984)