Who says I’m not always lookin’ out for you?

Your cinematic sugar mama has the documentary event you’ve been waiting for! “Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation.”

No, this has nothing to do with Ozzy Osbourne. This is all about the early days of Australian cinema.

Wait, wait. Don’t run away yet. Here. I’ll let the tag line of the movie sum it up best for you: “Finally, a documentary full of gratuitous nudity, senseless violence, car crashes…and a bit of kung fu.”

Ohhhh, daddy! They aren’t lyin’ one bit. I don’t think I’ve seen that much full-frontal nudity of both woman AND men, such violence and gore, such action-packed insanity in one 90-minute film in my whole life! Granted I’m not that old, but ya gotta admit I’ve seen my share of flicks.

They say you learn something new every day, and my brain was inundated!

Outside of “Mad Max” and maybe one or two other more modern films, I had never known much of anything about the Australian film industry. Apparently there wasn’t any such industry at all until the 1960s. As American films dominated the high-end film spectrum, Australia’s cutting edge filmmakers took the low road as they got started. They created wicked B-movies that got away with everything John Waters, William Castle and Roger Corman wished they could have put on a mainstream big screen.

I always knew the Aussies were fun, but Holy Cats!

The progression of Aussie films went from gross-out flicks, to sexploitation, gory horror, bloody action and, yes, kung fu. It all happened in the span of about 20 years from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s.

Mainstream Australians (particularly younger ones) ate up these homegrown movies. Some of these movies even saw minor success on the American drive-in scene. Some Australian directors even imported American stars such as Jaime Lee Curtis, Stacy Keach and Dennis Hopper.

Curtis, Hopper and director Quentin Tarantino give hefty interviews to the documentary, as do many early Australian stars and directors.

The most insane stuff they talk about in the documentary are the stunts. If it happened in an Ozploitation flick, it probably happened in real life. Motorcycles doing 140 mph, cars crashing while packed with explosives (and real drivers), stuntmen going over 100-foot cliffs–these guys had no problem risking life and limb of entire film crews just to get a good shot or sequence!

Watch this with a pen and pad handy. Be ready to jump on the pause button…to copy down the names of movies you want to now watch…not just to stare at the nekked people. Heck. Get yourself a Fosters and do it up right!

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Let’s see. They’ve already invented the iMac, iPod and iPhone. Asimov created “I, Robot.” What will they think of next? “iMurders.”

Horror fans, here’s the skinny. This isn’t a horror film. Sorry. Tricked by screener art of a computer mouse dripping copious amounts of blood, I thought we were covered for horror. After watching the longest opening credits in film history–they even stuck in a full scene between the two halves of the opening credits–I felt committed and couldn’t switch out.

The good news is that there’s plenty of gore porn and a drinking game headed your way!

“iMurders” is about a chatroom of friends being systematically picked off by a sadistic serial killer.

Mostly we just follow a chatroom member named Sandra (Terri Colombino). She’s new in town, has a nice landlady, a studly neighbor and good friends online. She’s being stalked like the others, but she’s blonde, so we mostly follow her.

Studly neighbor Joe (Frank Grillo) has a sis who is an FBI agent who is sorta working the case. She’s teamed with a partner who is trying his level best to be Laurence Fishburne.

The whole movie unfolds all herky-jerky. Definitely a B-grade mystery, you kinda wonder if it wasn’t a Hollywood welfare project. It was littered with known actors including (but not limited to) Billy Dee Williams, Gabrielle Anwar, William Forsythe, Charles Durning and Margaret Colin (Jeff Goldblum’s ex in “Independence Day“).

The cadaver FX are top notch! Great slit throats, convincing corpses who’ve been nicely carved up. Lots of gore. Blood everywhere!

One guy gets killed by a cordless power drill! What’s not to like. There’s even a few sex scenes.

Now that I’ve talked about sex and violence, it is time for a drinking game!

As always, use caution, and take away everyone’s keys. Let the games begin!

Bipolar Cocktails for 2: Rational thought is frowned upon by many characters here. Team up two people because no one can handle this challenge alone. One person takes a drink every time a male film character makes a totally irrational or illogical statement or jumps to the wrong conclusions. The other person does the same but for the female characters.

Slugs for Joe: Joe is the most sober alcoholic I’ve ever seen! He’s constantly drinking, but he never gets buzzed or wasted. Take a shot every time you see him with a drink, and see how you fare.

Desperation Inebriation: Sandra just can’t say no to the men who are pigs. Every time she takes back a man who is a jerk to her–or defends one who is a jerk–take a drink.

The Non Sequitur Hangover Guarantee: If you take a drink every time a character says something that makes little sense without further explanation–and fails to further explain–you’ll hate yourself in the morning.

And last but not least…

Professor Beergoggles: A girl would need some serious beer goggles to find anything sexually appealing about “The Professor.” Help the old coot out, and take a shot every time a woman hits on him. See if you can see what they see in him by the end of the movie.

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Mistaken for a sequel to “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” the Nia Vardalos vehicle “My Life in Ruins” seems to have been overshadowed by her breakout hit of 2002.

The two films have nothing to do with one another. They just happen to star Nia and be about Greeks/Greece. Nia also wrote “Wedding” and had little to do with the “Ruins” script, which is a shame, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Vardalos plays Georgia, a Greek-American woman living in Athens and working as a tour bus guide. She has a doctorate in Greek history but can’t get a university job to save her life. She applies her knowledge the only other way she can to make a living. She hates it. It shows, and her Greek co-workers all notice how she’s lost her “kefi,” her Greek joie de vivre or as Austin Powers would say, “mojo.”

And so she leads her latest tour of stereotypical and hellish tourists, Philistines with no appreciation for art, history and culture. Will she ever find her kefi again? With a hunky Greek bus driver carting them around, anything is possible–even if his name is Poupi Kakas (Alexis Georgoulis).

Overall, this is a very nice little romantic comedy. Better yet, you really take a tour of the beauty of Greece. (You really gotta see the Blu-ray version if you want the full tourist effect.) The cinematography is beautiful.

As enjoyable as this comedy is, it really rides as many stereotypes as it can. From characters to plot points and twists, there isn’t much here that breaks any new ground. As I said before, Vardalos wasn’t the writer, so don’t expect her sparkling wit and heart-felt character development in this script. Nonetheless, she is still very appealing as a romantic lead and comedienne.

The standout annoying tourist is played by Richard Dreyfuss, an aging American wisecracker who recently lost his wife. He’s funny to watch, even if his character is a canned stereotype. (And I really wanted him to mention something about sharks during the scenes where they’re on a beach. It’s just the “Jaws” lover in me.)

I think it is the film’s heavy reliance on stereotypes, wise philosophy off the bumper stickers of cars and its after-school special feel that bothers viewers the most. It bothered me, even if though I basically enjoyed the movie. Sometimes I don’t want to have to think that hard to appreciate a film, and this was nice for allowing me to kick back turn off the hyper-critical critic within me.

In summary: Vardalos is charming; the views of Greece are stunning and the comedy is easy to follow. Enjoy.

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