Weird things were happening in the cinema of the commonwealth nations in the 1970s. Here in Canada, the existence of tax shelters and government funding meant to stimulate the local industry gave us David Cronenberg, Black Christmas and Meatballs. And across the world, in Australia, a similar situation led to a truly spectacular exploitation movie boom. Mark Hartley’s Not Quite Hollywood is a new doc that lovingly looks back at this truly strange moment in cinematic history.

Just as directors like Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong were making a name for Australian cinema on the international scene, canny shlockmeisters were making ridiculous comedies, horror movies and ballsy action flicks—known by aficionados as “Ozploitation”—that would mostly end up in the dying drive-ins and grindhouses of the USA. Interviews with fans like Quentin Tarantino and non-Aussie actors like Jamie Lee Curtis, Stacy Keach and Dennis Hopper (all hired to give name-value to various productions, much to the consternation of local talent) and Australian film critics, producers, directors (like George Miller) and performers give context to the non-stop barrage of hilarious film clips and archival footage.

I didn’t expect the subject to be able to carry a near-two-hour film without getting repetitive, but I was happily surprised to find I didn’t really want Not Quite Hollywood to end; it was just so entertaining and watchable. I was hooked. Anyone who’s a fan of trash or genre film of any stripe (or who wants to see what gave birth to the Mad Max movies) should check this out.

How truly strange that the week Roman Polanski is picked up by Swiss authorities for extradition on the sexual assault charge he’d evaded for so long, Chinatown should arrive in a new DVD edition, this one the “Centennial Collection.” It’s pretty hard not to draw parallels between the themes of sexual corruption and power in the film and real life… but whatever you think of the man, the movie is a masterpiece.