NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD (2008)

It can be difficult to create an all-encompassing documentary that looks at the history of cinema unless it’s on one very specific topic. How can you possibly cover everything that’s worthy of being covered? How can you convey what you want to convey when knowing you can’t possibly include everything that should be included?

Mark Hartley’s 90-minute documentary on Australian cinema, Not Quite Hollywood, finds a way. Split into three main sections — exploitation, horror, and action — Harley explores Australia’s movie making beginnings and the country’s efforts to at least get their movies into American theaters. Not Quite Hollywood excels not just as a respectable examination of Australian films and filmmakers, but also serves as a witness to the creation of the Australian aesthetic — a look and feel that would soon become known as “Ozploitation,” and which would aid filmmakers in transitioning from making films inspired by other people to establishing their own identity.

In the beginning, when filmmakers were focused on trashy sex pics, nearly soft-core porn, the influences of Roger Corman are almost tangible. Same goes for the horror phase, with obvious odes to Hitchcock, Spielberg, and H.G. Lewis. But once the doc transitions again to the action and adventure phase, much of which is vehicular in relation, you see filmmakers begin to step up and create their own works that would, in turn, inspire American filmmakers. George Miller, perhaps one of the few Australian directors to command the Hollywood box office (along with James Wan), most recently with Mad Max: Fury Road, is a notable exception of a director who, like John Carpenter or George Romero, started small with low budget productions and eventually changed the landscape of movie making.

Not Quite Hollywood is also often very funny, getting a lot of mileage from frequently cutting back to Australian film critic and full-time curmudgeon Bob Ellis for him to dryly voice his disapproval over certain titles, certain directors, or certain entire cinematic movements. Hartley also occasionally lets his camera linger on certain certain subjects whom other interviewees have suggested as having, er…interesting or combative personalities, in an effort to offer an inkling that maybe there was something to those claims. Inversely, stories about the utter insanity that Dennis Hopper engaged in during the shooting of Mad Dog Morgan, when compared to the interview portions with Hopper (who good-spiritedly appears) that present him as very calm, reflective, and absolutely honest about his past behavior, are equally amusing.

It’s no surprise that Quentin Tarantino turns up as a talking head, and probably gets more screen time than some of the actual Australian filmmakers whose films are being discussed, but the overly excited director helps to represent that next generation of international directors who were clearly inspired by Australian cinema. James Wan and Leigh Whannell also appear, with Whannell freely admitting that the scene in Mad Max where Mel Gibson offers a bad guy shackled to a flaming car a handsaw directly inspired one of the main concepts of their then-hit horror film Saw. (Not Quite Hollywood was produced in 2008.)

Even if you don’t have a particular interest in Australian cinema, you’d be wise to embrace Not Quite Hollywood anyway. Though the accents may be different and the environments more desert-ridden than cityscaped, the spirit of low budget filmmaking — and all the trials and tribulations that come with it — are universal.

FORCE OF NATURE (2020)

By now, whether we want to know or not, it’s become depressingly clear the industry that produces the movies we love, which enables us to lose ourselves in worlds of fantasy and engage with other like-minded movie fans, is filled with closets, and those closets are filled with skeletons, and those skeletons are hideous. Some of the most revered people in Hollywood have had their falls from grace become very public, becoming a hashtag on Twitter or a criminal charge that eventually leads to litigation. Sometimes these people escape mostly unscathed, and after a few years of chemical and reputational rehab, they can return to us and re-obtain both greatness and the respect from audiences and colleagues they lost. For others, their past misdeeds seem damn near unshakable, and no matter how many apology tours they make and teachable moments they profess to learn and movies they make to widen the time between their unfortunate past and their hopeful present, those misdeeds won’t vanquish. I speak, of course, of Mel Gibson.

For the record, I hate having to include this journey back down Shitty Memory Lane, and normally I abhor any other article or review that feels the need to shoehorn Gibson’s past misdeeds into said article or review and make it a talking point. Separate the artist from the art, as people often say, and ideally, that’s the way it should be. After all, Polanski still gets to make films that win Academy Awards, and Robert Downey Jr. still gets to play Iron Man 37 times and make 37 billion dollars at the box office. (For the record, I’m not equating them for their past misdeeds, as they're not even in the same league. I’m more pointing out that our favorite artists have engaged in varying degrees of terrible behavior and should be judged accordingly.) Which brings me back to Mel Gibson, and his newest endeavor as an actor, Force of Nature, which also brings me to my point: had Gibson not so dramatically, offensively, and disturbingly fallen from grace a decade ago, there’s no way in bloody hell he’d be appearing in something so ham-fistedly stupid and incompetently made as Force of Nature. Somehow directed by Michael Polish, who developed somewhat of a small, underground following after his two quiet and quirky indy dramas, Twin Falls Idaho and Northfork, Force of Nature feels like a script that would’ve been politely rejected by Gibson somewhere in the late ‘90s following his string of his warmly received thrillers Ransom and Conspiracy Theory. The reason I say that is they already made this movie in the late ’90s. Hard Rain, with Christian Slater, Morgan Freeman (his first of what would be many forays into mediocre genre entertainment), and the crazy Quaid brother, became legendary during its production and following its release because every single person creatively involved never missed a chance to describe how miserable a time they had making it. As far as’90s action flicks that don’t star Van Damme go, it was...a movie. The genre was kinda on its way out by then and would soon be revamped by The Matrix and Universal’s long-running Cars Go Fast series, and when genres die for a little, they go out neither with a whimper nor a bang, but a long and sustained whine that you wish would just shut the fuck up. That’s where stuff like Force of Nature belongs.

Emile Hirsch plays a cop named Cardillo too young to be burned out and cynical, but we know he’s burned out and cynical because he discourages his new partner, Jess (Stephanie Cayo), from responding to calls on the police band and also says “fuck” a lot. Following a meat-related disturbance call at a local grocery store (I’m not lying), Cardillo crosses paths with Gibson’s retired cop, Ray, who seems to be dying of cough and not that likeable. The Boston accent he’s trying on and the stories he tells about being a cop that don’t exactly paint his past in the best light immediately establishes that he’s going to be stubborn, violent, and tough as nails. You also know that he’s an asshole, because at one point he mutters to himself, “I’m such an asshole.” In the face of a growing hurricane, Cardillo and Jess force-evacuate Ray from his apartment and naturally run afoul of some pretty bad men, led by John “the Baptist” (David Zayas, playing a villain almost as boring as the one he played in The Expendables), attempting to pull off a heist of some rare black-market artwork. Naturally, Cardillo, Jess, and Ray are the only ones who can intervene, save the day, uphold the rule of law, and yadda yadda yadda – rest assured, had Gibson said no to this movie like he should’ve, Force of Nature would’ve been a Nicolas Cage vehicle through and through, because that’s exactly the kind of thing you’re getting.

The script is dreadful, finding ways to split up all the different occupants of the Puerto Rican apartment building where the majority of the film unfolds, which means that – yep, Gibson’s face prominently displayed on the cover isn’t as prominent as his role in the movie – leaving the film’s other bland characters to have heart-to-heart conversations about sad things which is supposed to make them feel like real people. The machinations of these well-worn tragedies feel so trite that you halfway expect Gibson to break down in a sad monologue about that one time on the force when he accidentally shot a kid and he’s been looking for redemption ever since. That doesn’t happen. Instead, Hirsch’s Cardillo takes the reins of the tragic backstory, which comes damn close to killing a kid, while Gibson’s Ray mutters about being poisoned by his own shit (literally), hence all the coughing. Meanwhile, in another apartment, a man named Griffin (William Catlett) is recovering from the wounds inflicted by his real lion named Janet he keeps locked in his closet and being cared for by Bergkamp (Jorge Luis Ramos), who may or may not be an escaped Nazi, and if you’re reading all that and thinking, “how on earth could Force of Nature be boring?,” well, my friend, that’s because you haven’t seen Force of Nature. (And if you think Janet the lion doesn’t figure into the bad guy’s comeuppance at the end, you’ve never seen a movie in your life.)

One would be tempted to think, and I wouldn’t blame them because I was hoping for this too, that Force of Nature might be good, at the very least, for watching Mel Gibson be old and irascible and shoot lots of bad guys in violent ways. While that does happen, it doesn’t happen nearly enough to make the overall experience any more than tolerable. Not as engaging or suspenseful as Dragged Across Concrete, nor at least as consistently if vapidly entertaining As Blood Father, Force of Nature, let’s hope, is the worst movie Gibson makes between now and the end of his career. Whether or not he deserves better than something like this kind of dismissible bilge is for you to debate, but what I can say, conclusively, is that audiences definitely deserved better.

FYI, the 1999 Sandra Bullock movie Forces of Nature is currently available via HBO On Demand. I’ve never seen it, but it’s gotta be better than this.

UNTAPPED BLOOD

Is it fair to say the glory days of Carpenter, Romero, and Craven are behind them? Should they fade into obscurity with what little respect they have remaining and perhaps work on their memoirs? Admittedly, Carpenter will always get a pass from me, but even the most cynical movie fan has to admit his "Masters of Horror" episode "Cigarette Burns" was damn good, and though his latest feature, The Ward, may have been derivative and cliched, the direction showed signs of life and enthusiasm. Is it Halloween or Escape From New York? God no - it's not even Vampires. But it's not the train wreck people say it is. However, I'll admit the Carpenter of now is not the Carpenter of '77-'88.

I don't mean to make it sound like without these heavy weights the genre is dead. Likewise, there are plenty of fresh faces out there giving us horror fans exactly what we need: James Wan, Brad Anderson, Lucky McKee, and the less heralded Christopher Smith, Jim Mickle, and Patrick Lussier.

But there are directors out there who have already shown a knack for our genre. Though they have yet to make an outright horror film, something is clearly festering inside these directors that needs to be explored.

Let's start with the most obvious:

Mel Gibson

I'm going to avoid going for the more generic argument by reminding you just how violent and splattery Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was. It's a cheap shot to the filmmaker, and it's also pretty disrespectful to the genre we're all supposed to love. But time and time again I've seen people disparage Gibson's very red Passion as nothing more than a torture porn film. "He should direct a Saw sequel!" I once saw a moron say—a moron who apparently believes that's all a horror film amounts to: chains and blood and flying limbs. It's an unfair statement on every level I can imagine. First and foremost, wherever your religious (or non-religious) views lie, there's no denying Passion was a powerful film. I personally don't have one faithful bone in my body – my time on planet Earth has been pretty instrumental determining that – but I was moved by Passion. Quite highly. And while the scenes of torture were effectively disturbing (and rightfully so), they are not the reasoning behind Gibson's potential as a genre director. No, I speak of the scenes where Jesus frequently sees Satan staring at him from within the crowd of the jeering and judging. And this Satan is not the Satan of biblical or mythical lore. It's not even the Satan created by Hollywood. This is a Satan whose body is emaciated, whose sex is indeterminate, and whose all-white skin makes him stand out as he floats smoothly throughout the crowd. He holds a too-large deformed baby in his arms, and he stares at Jesus with eyes filled both with spite and sympathy. And let's not forget the scene where Judas is harassed by demonic children with insane sharp teeth and monstrous sneers before the man hangs himself from guilt...

Perfect Project: The proposed Pet Sematary remake. And while I'd like for him to pull double-duty and appear in front of the camera as well, he's too old for Louis Creed. But he'd make a haunting Judd Crandall, wouldn't he?

 Sean Penn

Sean Penn's time spent behind the camera may be less heralded than Mel Gibson's, but that does not mean his films do not contain some genuinely creepy imagery. I speak primarily of The Pledge, the 2001 dramatic thriller not seen by too many people. It's the story of a retiring chief of police (Jack Nicholson) who makes a promise to a mourning mother that he will not stop looking for the maniac that took the life of her daughter. Early on in the film, Nicholson's Jerry Black has a nightmare in which he rushes into a church and sees before him a defiled altar covered in the blood of the murdered girl. And standing over her, covered in blood and with a completely insane smile on his face, is genre fave Tom Noonan. The camera rushes at his face with inhuman speed, forcing the audience up close against this walking nightmare. It is a scene that literally scared the shit out of me in theaters the first time I saw it. While The Pledge is a dark and somber movie for its entire running time, this nightmare sequence is the only jarring and graphic moment in the film. It is expertly assembled and crafted. While I get the feeling that Sean Penn would not work within our genre, figuring it was beneath him, I can't help but wonder what kind of output we could receive should he ever give it a shot. None of Penn's films have ever really been large in scope, as he instead chooses to focus on small and contained stories about flawed people. So find him something small and contained with horrific elements, and let him do what he does.

Perfect Project: While perhaps not obviously horror, I'd love to see what he could do with a fresh adaptation of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. It's a dour book with a not-too-optimistic look at our future, and it has an underlying political tone that someone like Penn could not resist. It would be a little outside of his comfort zone, but that might be good for him. Penn's last two directorial films were based on books, and his two films before that were original scripts. Him tackling the adaptation of the book himself could result in something bleak but wonderful.

Christopher Nolan 

At this point, I think Nolan can do no wrong. Now is the time for him to hop right into our genre and show what he can do. This man has run the gamut of all the genres thus far. He's given us thrillers and dramas, as well as both crazy mind-fuck and exhilarating action. What's left for him to do but a comedy? Horror, my friend—that's what. The melancholy tone present in all his films would mix well in the world of the horrific. I see him tackling quite well a Shutter Island-esque horror tale as you witness the psychological breakdown of your main character. But at the same time, he can go big, as he's proven with Inception and The Dark Knight. And speaking of Inception, the scene where Ellen Page's Ariadne first meets Marion Cotillard's Mal is shockingly creepy. Cotillard's glare as Ariadne and Cobb retreat back up the elevator - and those dark eyes follow for most of their ascension - is chilling. Besides, Insomnia (the director's most under-appreciated film—and my personal favorite) as well as The Prestige has shown the man can descend into darkness with the best of them and come out with something both thrilling and poignant. While his films may not be overtly horrific, it's the darkness that lie within his characters - and what they're willing to do to each other or themselves - that make him a perfect horror candidate.

Perfect Project: Guillermo Del Toro's first book of his vampire trilogy The Strain. Nolan has already proven he can handle the more fantastical with his Batman films, and it's about time Hollywood apologized for all the fairy vamps of late and showed that they prefer to rip off heads rather than go to geometry.

Nicolas Winding Refn

Bronson got his name circulating, but Drive put him on the map. Both critics and fans embraced the oddly quiet story about a mentally unstable Hollywood stunt driver who gets in deep with some very bad men. No, there's not a lot of driving in a movie called Drive, but that doesn't make it any less awesome, either. Refn has a creative mind, and there are shots in Drive that look ripped directly from Kubrick's version of The Shining. The motel room scene is incredibly suspenseful and dripping with red; and the scene where Gosling's character slowly approaches the entrance to Nero's Pizzeria wearing his humanoid face mask doesn't quite feel like it belongs in a movie that is essentially John Hughes' Taxi Driver. Shortly after Drive's release, Refn was courted for all kinds of Hollywood projects, including the now-filming Die Hard 5 (under the direction of John Moore - ugh). While it's probably best he avoided that particular project, you can't help but wonder what other Hollywood properties - actual or potential - that he would be good for...

Perfect Project: A adaptation of the videogame Alan Wake ("Eew, no!" you say). Refn's lead characters are unstable and solitary men on a not-so-typical journey. And there's no one more solitary than novelist Alan Wake, who begins to investigate his wife's disappearance, all the while set-pieces from his own novels seem to be existing in the strange town of Bright Falls.

Bill Paxton

I know, I know. The man already has Frailty under his belt —and the movie is damn good. Perhaps it was the pitiful box office returns from his directorial debut that scared him away from the horror genre (I believe it was the first Resident Evil that was sucking up all the horror fans' money that season at the box office), but with a pedigree like Paxton's, I find it hard to believe the man has not revisited the horror genre. For a man who got his start in films like Aliens, The Terminator, and Predator 2 (and was killed by each titular monster), along with the incredible Near Dark, I have a feeling the man is itching to get back into the genre. Bill Paxton's last few roles in film and television have been rather subdued and quiet—kind of strange for a man who played all manner of quirky and obnoxious characters in the past, such as Aliens' Private Hudson or Weird Science's Chet. The last "fun" part he played was in 2004's Club Dread, and his role as Coconut Pete showed he still wanted to party.

Perfect Project: Jonathan L. Howard has authored three books now in the Johannes Cabal series, the first being Johannes Cabal: The Necromancer. It is a highly unusual book about the dark arts, the debate over the significance of the soul, and a wager between man and devil. And your guide on this demented journey is the ever sarcastic Joannes Cabal. The book is goofy, horrific and laugh-out-loud funny. Paxton has already showed he's capable of doing all three...now let's see him do it all at one time.

Honorable Mentions: Oliver Stone dabbled once in horror with his creepy cheapy The Hand starring Michael Caine, but his penchant for slimy characters (like, say, Natural Born Killers) makes me want him to take on author Donald Ray Pollock's The Devil All the Time.  And if Bill Paxton wouldn't want to take on Johannes Cabal: The Necromancer, I can see the Coen Bros. picking up the slack, as the book's odd tone would perfectly suit their own quirky style. Lastly, (and oddly), Adult Swim's Tim & Eric have proven in many of their skits that they have a truly macabre sense of humor. Give them something splattery and ridiculous to sink their teeth into—perhaps an Evil Dead 2-ish film of teen hijinks and flying body parts. One thing is for sure, it would be R-rated, original, and entirely fucked up.