tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12114421.post274459098877048353..comments2024-03-20T08:50:03.035+11:00Comments on Northern Lights : at the end of my tetherDavid Nicholshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13306950287048502105noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12114421.post-49631001055823882022008-08-02T00:03:00.000+10:002008-08-02T00:03:00.000+10:00Sophie 'felt ill' in empathy I hope, but I, like K...Sophie 'felt ill' in empathy I hope, but I, like Kirsty, was simultaneously laughing and thinking "poor David".<BR/>and O'Hare has at least 110 Gates.<BR/>Think about THAT next time you are trekking through Tullamarine.Ann ODynehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01159263330547329077noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12114421.post-67672582470020029252008-07-31T09:15:00.000+10:002008-07-31T09:15:00.000+10:00I felt ill just reading this post.I felt ill just reading this post.sophiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17548618118589419345noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12114421.post-84599203908136546202008-07-26T14:30:00.000+10:002008-07-26T14:30:00.000+10:00Lucy: I don't gad, it's a matter of principle. Dan...Lucy: I don't gad, it's a matter of principle. Dan: Bill only talked to me about Rock Records because I asked him - sensing, I suppose, that there might be some back story there. Kirsty: I will play the Dragon record, someday, to see if it was remastered. I'll let you know.David Nicholshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13306950287048502105noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12114421.post-74757170189424687742008-07-26T13:19:00.000+10:002008-07-26T13:19:00.000+10:00Well, I think I've been convinced not to see the O...Well, I think I've been convinced not to see the Ozploitation retrospective on at the Brisbane Film Festival in a week or so, I mean there's another film from Kazakhstan to see and I never thought I'd even see *one* of those never mind get the opportunity to see two.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, my reaction to your actual post was 'Aww, poor David', even while I was laughing at your telling of your tale of misfortune. Perhaps you can play the Dragon record to get you through, or will that ruin its pristine condition?Kirstyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14035268080440921379noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12114421.post-52111649424346172592008-07-26T09:30:00.000+10:002008-07-26T09:30:00.000+10:00Just to weigh in on a brief snippet from your seas...Just to weigh in on a brief snippet from your season in hell -- Rock Records DID "used to be good". Like, 25 years ago, when I would find passing references to intriguing-sounding artists like the Velvet Underground, Love, the 13th Floor Elevators and the MC5 in Creem Magazine, and then go 'round the corner from my summer job and invariably find LPs by all of them them the $3.99 bin.<BR/><BR/>The store was a major contributor to my musical education, but really went down the tubes when the CD "revolution" came in; I think the last interesting thing I found there was an import CD of The Bats' "Daddy's Highway" (with bonus tracks) in the fall of 1991. After a few experiences like the one you had, I stopped going there. In 1992.<BR/><BR/>There are some fine record stores in Chicago (including Hi-Fi and Reckless), but Rock Records hasn't been one of them since the first Bush administration. I don't know why someone would have even bothered mentioning it to you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12114421.post-43780054946397759752008-07-25T21:02:00.000+10:002008-07-25T21:02:00.000+10:00I haven't seen Pacific Banana.You're always gaddin...I haven't seen Pacific Banana.<BR/><BR/>You're always gadding about aren't youlucy tartanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09244574932248425378noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12114421.post-1628610174199405392008-07-24T08:52:00.000+10:002008-07-24T08:52:00.000+10:00Stephen, your commentary on my posts presents a ma...Stephen, your commentary on my posts presents a marvellous synchronicity of irrelevancy. The Not Quite Hollywood film sounds very good and I imagine in fact the only bad thing about it is its name. Showing my age but what are 'cans' ('tits, boobs, cans') and what is the difference between tits and boobs? (and cans?). If I saw a tit next to a boob, perhaps with a can inbetween, would it all become clear? I read the article, I guess it was in the Age, and I thought 'whoever thinks Pacific Banana is soft porn, hasn't seen Pacific Banana'; that said, I envy anyone who hasn't seen Pacific Banana - their innocence and joi de vivre perhaps still has a chance. Similarly anyone who has seen both Turkey Shoot and Long Weekend would not put them in the same brackets as 'thrillers' - it's like saying 'novelists (Dan Brown, Tolstoy).' You know what I think? I think Turkey Shoot is a shit film.David Nicholshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13306950287048502105noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12114421.post-64721670987964341132008-07-24T08:35:00.000+10:002008-07-24T08:35:00.000+10:00Not Quite Hollywood' a feature documentary abo...Not Quite Hollywood' a feature documentary about the history of Australian exploitation cinema opens the Melbourne Film festival this Friday night at Hamer Hall in The Arts Centre precinct. It's all sold out. But it gets a regular release in late August. It's very interesting and funny and has much banging on by Tarantino, something of an expert on Australian trashy films. Billy & I did the soundtrack, with little money at our disposal but much enthusiasm. It's a very 1970's guitar-pop type experience. I purchased Gillian Armstrong's 'Starstruck' DVD for $8 at JB's. It's dated brilliantly. The 'Swingers' are great. Anyway 'Not Quite Hollywood' includes so many shots of tits, boobs, cans, etc - its really quite bizarre. Though I just recalled seeing Yoko Ono's film 'Four' at the festival 30 years ago at The Palais I think. A short was a shot of hundreds of bottoms and was quite hypnotic, funny, and pretty.<BR/>Book your tickets for the Fairfax theatre gig – selling fast and that's it no more gig kids. Album is released on September 6th – one week before Steve kilbey and my birthdays on September 13. Two neurotics but wonderful Virgo's.<BR/>here is a bit from a story in today's Australian about it . . . The '70s also generated a raft of genre films that were culturally regressive, provocative and occasionally very successful.<BR/><BR/>The Barry McKenzie and Alvin Purple films are the best-remembered commercial beachheads for what became a fertile period for soft porn (including The Naked Bunyip and Pacific Banana), action (The Man From Hong Kong), horror (Dead-End Drive In, Patrick) and thriller films (Turkey Shoot, Road Games, Long Weekend).<BR/><BR/>Many were atrocious, particularly in the '80s as mediocrity flourished under the 10BA legislation that allowed film investors to claim a 150 per cent tax concession.<BR/><BR/>But most were ambitious and, despite their narrative shortcomings, they often recouped their money or played well overseas.<BR/><BR/>"Whether these films are good or bad, there's certainly an energy you don't find in a lot of contemporary Australian cinema," says Mark Hartley, the director of a loving, frenetic and very funny paean to this forgotten period of Australian cinema, titled Not Quite Hollywood.<BR/><BR/>"There was an enthusiasm and a can-do attitude in them that possibly doesn't exist today," he says.<BR/><BR/>Hartley's film is an exercise in can-do. The Melburnian's energy and scholarship excited the interest of some early investors but notthe Film Finance Corporation, which rejected funding for the film despite its historical significance.<BR/><BR/>"The FFC was a major, major stumbling block," Hartley says. "I could be totally wrong but I always got the sense we were suffering the same fate these films do, that we were still being seen as a documentary that wasn't necessarily worthy enough.<BR/><BR/>"It's not the public's reaction to these films that has remained; what has remained is the critics' reactions, which were scathing. When you talk to anyone who saw them or worked on them, they're fond and not embarrassed by these films."<BR/><BR/>Even the enthusiasm of Quentin Tarantino wasn't enough. The American director is an unabashed fan and collector of Australia's Ozploitation films of the period, to the extent that he dedicated the Sydney premiere of Kill Bill to Turkey Shoot director Brian Trenchard-Smith, much to the confusion of his unknowing audience. After Hartley sent his 100-page research document to the Hollywood auteur, Tarantino recorded a pitch on Hartley's behalf for Australian funding bodies. It didn't cut any ice here but it was enough to confirm pre-sales to the US and Britain, which then automatically triggered the FFC's money.<BR/><BR/>Revenge, as they say, is best served cold. And so it may well be on Friday night, in the depths of Melbourne's winter, when Not Quite Hollywood opens this year's Melbourne International Film Festival.<BR/><BR/>"It's kind of ironic that here's a documentary made of films that I'm sure never played a festival in their life," Hartley says, chuckling. The hometown premiere is reward for a director who has spent a decade pulling together archival footage and interviews with the players of the period, including directors Richard Franklin, George Miller and Philippe Mora, actors Barry Humphries, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dennis Hopper and Graeme Blundell, and fans such as Tarantino.<BR/><BR/>And it's an apt opener for the festival: not only is it rousing entertainment likely to split the film cognoscenti, it is also one of the first beneficiaries of MIFF's Premiere Fund.<BR/><BR/>The fund, established by the Victorian Government, will invest $1.6 million over two years in several theatrical films and feature-length documentaries.<BR/><BR/>While not a primary funding source, it has been attracting attention for its investments. Among the first batch of recipients having their premieres at MIFF are the documentaries Celebrity: Dominick Dunne, Bastardy and Rock'n'Roll Nerd.<BR/><BR/>By default rather than design, Not Quite Hollywood fits what appears to be a common theme among recipients, MIFF Premiere Fund manager Mark Woods says.<BR/><BR/>"Interestingly, what's crept through in most of the films is an Australian perspective looking outwards, or an international theme," he says.<BR/><BR/>Hartley is still surprised many Australians "have no idea we made films that even for a brief moment in time looked like they were trying to take on the world market".<BR/><BR/>And many directors from that period continue to battle in the world market.<BR/><BR/>Trenchard-Smith, probably best known here for the unfairly maligned BMX Bandits, lives in Los Angeles, turning out television movies and the occasional feature. His most recent, Tyrannosaurus Azteca, screened on US TV as Aztec Rex.<BR/><BR/>"Mark has probably made a comedic time capsule of the guilty pleasure division of Australian culture 30 years ago, and it's valuable in many respects because it reveals attitudes about sex and violence, humour, gender, mateship, class, politics and corruption that were evolving at the time," Trenchard-Smith says.<BR/><BR/>"So it operates on two levels: you can get all sociological about it or laugh at all the wonderful genre cliches."<BR/><BR/>Hartley says these films were directed and produced by men -- women, invariably, were disrobing on screen -- who loved cinema and became proficient at it, even as their films became increasingly outlandish.<BR/><BR/>Trenchard-Smith agrees. "I would like to think the whole arts, media and politics of Australia have, let's say, evolved a little since the days when I was making those films, and can see professionalism and merit in my old genre films," he says.<BR/><BR/>"And they might even have the wisdom to think: 'I wonder what he could do with an upscale script?"'<BR/><BR/>Hartley argues that many of the films have merit. Indeed, he has his eyes on remaking Richard Franklin's 1978 telekinesis thriller Patrick because special effects technology has finally caught up with its story.<BR/><BR/>Although Hartley generally praises the films, he allows scope within the documentary for critics to condemn them, including Lynda Stoner's succinct review of Turkey Shoot: "An absolutely putrid, puerile bunch of crap."<BR/><BR/>In distilling 150 hours of interviews and 100 hours of film footage, Hartley has attempted to show the films to advantage, "so people can understand that there was a quality to these films, even if it was only a visual quality". But he has one caveat. "I don't want people to sit there in a 2008 mindset," he warns. "That's not the way to watch it because you would literally be offended by every single word said on screen.<BR/><BR/>"I tried really hard to get you into some sort of mindset of the early '70s where there was a sense of liberation and people were embracing it. It wasn't seen as exploitation until later."<BR/><BR/>Not Quite Hollywood screens at the Melbourne International Film Festival on Friday and next Monday.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Love youse all<BR/>StephenAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com