DVD OF THE WEEK

NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD: THE WILD UNTOLD STORY OF OZPLOITATION! *****
Dir: Mark Hartley
Starring: Quentin Tarantino, Barry Humphries, George Miller, Graeme Blundell

The emergence of Australian film in the late seventies, the time of Picnic at Hanging Rock, Breaker Morant and others is well known. But, until now, no one has really delved into the other side of Aussie film, until now…
This was also the time when decades of stifling censorship stopped and the floodgates were open for filmmakers who realised that gratuitous nudity and violence could fill the drive-ins and be profitably exported overseas. This film tells that story and a high and wild ride it is, narrated through interviews with all the key players and people who, around the world, were influenced by the grindhouse offerings of Australia, the biggest name being long-time booster of the weird and wonderful, Quentin Tarantino.
And it's great stuff. Compared to the staid New Zealand industry it is simply astonishing the openness in Australia to the rampant nudity of sex comedies like Alvin Purple and Fantasm or the exploitation gore of late seventies horror outings.
The film is divided into three sections: Ockers, Knockers, Pubes and Tubes; Comatose Killers and Outback Chillers; and High Octane Disasters, Kung Fu Masters. That roughly breaks down into sex films, horror films and action films. It traces the roots of Mad Max and other later movies back to a whole pile of wonderfully vulgar and over the top cheapies, and allows everyone a word, from the critic who describes a particular director as 'a maggot” to the director who says 'people say I treat women as sex objects. I guess that's true. I ask for sex and they object.”
This is fascinating stuff, as comprehensive as it is light-hearted and packed with moments that will make your jaw hit the floor, even as you laugh.

Ridley Scott is back in the director's chair in the Middle East for Body of Lies (****), wherein Leonardo DiCaprio is a CIA field agent caught between his controller's wishes and the situation on the ground. Russell Crowe, having put on 40lbs is the fat, sweaty and generally uncouth face of American foreign policy, while Mark Strong (a Brit we'll be hearing a lot more of) is the charismatic head of Jordanian security. There are double crosses galore and the complexity of the real situation is often hinted at, but the lack of character development means this never rises above being simply a very good thriller, expertly made.

Pineapple Express (****) is the latest stoner comedy from the 40 Year Old Virgin/Knocked Up crew. And very entertaining it is too. Imagine it as an action film where the two central characters are stoned wasters (Seth Rogan and an unrecognisable but extremely funny James Franco). And it works as both on the action side and the comedy. The two 'heroes” are likeable company and, to the filmmakers credit they do behave pretty much as you'd expect from a pair of stoned losers, only breaking into the sudden superhero qualities that ordinary people in action films seem to display at the very end. Good stuff.

Killing Zelda Sparks (***) is one of those Sundance-style indies, set in Nowhereville USA where a bad-boy local loser calls an old school friend (a straighter local loser), panicked by the news that the titular Ms Sparks is back in town. She was the femme fatale he was obsessed with at school, who seriously messed with his mind. Based on the play Barstool Words, which the screenplay opens up with multiple time shifts and plot twists, this pulls no punches and is violent and darkly funny, but – despite its grungy nature - is surprisingly likeable.

Val Kilmer awakes, beaten up and amnesiac in the desert, in Blind Horizon (**). In hospital memory flashes suggest he knows about a presidential assassination. To the film's credit, the local sheriff (an always-dependable Sam Shepherd) actually believes him. But, sadly, though the pieces are all here, clues are doled out too slowly, leaving the viewer bored or uncaring by the three-quarter mark and then revealing a whole lot of stuff that you already guessed in the closing minutes.