The relaxation of censorship in Australia in the Seventies and Eighties produced such memorable films as Picnic at Hanging Rock, My Brilliant Career and Newsfront.
But those who remember that cultural explosion may have forgotten what it did for the rest of cinema Down Under.
It brought a whole slew of violently energetic genre movies to the screen such as Alvin Purple, The Man from Hong Kong and, the king of them all, Mad Max. Not Quite Hollywood tells the story of these so-called grindhouse productions which, though often of B-movie calibre or worse, proved to be great successes in the UK, America and Italy as well as in Australia.
Mark Hartley’s scattergun documentary posits that one director transcended this flourishing genre of "Ozploitation", which generally contrasted naked women with daredevil stunts. He was Brian Trenchard-Smith, who generally did everything better than anyone else.
Not all of the talking heads liked the stuff. Critic Bob Ellis, in particular, bemoans the rubbish which such skill was lavished upon. But Quentin Tarantino, looking more and more like a maniac nerd, just loved it, saying that one particular motorway sequence was better than an orgasm.
He’s the irritating downside of a film which almost persuades you that good old exploitation can sometimes make art look stuffy. But not quite.
Not Quite Hollywood
Cert: 18
