Well many of us won’t be old enough to recall the heady wave of Australian genre cinema that occurred in the 1970’s but director Mark Hartley has done an amazing job of capturing the wild frivolity of that very exciting period.

With guest endorsees such as Quentin Tarantino, Jamie Lee Curtis and Dennis Hopper rolling up to sing the praises of our pre-pubescent cinematic evolution, you begin to realise how far these low-budget, high risk spectaculars reached.

Titles like Death Cheaters, Dead End Drive-In and The Man From Hong Kong almost fly off the screen with a romantic hue, fed continuously by the fascinating narration offered by actors, critics, producers and directors, all of whom consciously point out just how reckless film production during this period could be.

Standards and safety may have suffered, but something that wasn’t lacking amongst these pioneering film crews was determination. It’s this fervour that makes Not Quite Hollywood so endearing. Want someone on fire… light em up; want someone to fall 60 meters into the ocean… throw em off a cliff; want a car wrecked, get someone poor bastard to wreck it. It’s perhaps the most Australian element to the whole film, an industry based on the “she’ll be right mate” ethos.

Not Quite Hollywood won’t make these B and C grade epics any better than they actually are, but it will give you a new perspective on a school of film that’s more a testament to grit than cinematic achievement… fun-a-plenty!

Not Quite Hollywood is out now thorugh Madman.