Not Quite Hollywood documents the complete reinvention of the Australian film world after the implementation of the R certificate (Australia's version of the MPAA's R rating) in 1971. Turns out that before the certificate, the film industry Down Under was real dull ("If you saw pubic hair, you just about fell out of your seat!"), and after it, there transpired a great renaissance in Aussie film culture that involved lots of explosions, low-budget special effects, and approximately eight million shots of topless Australian women.
Australia was in the midst of its own cultural and sexual revolution in the early '70s, and the changing film industry quickly adapted to reflect that. The most successful films were absurdist or parodyâsex romps, low-budget slashers, and outlandish action-adventure storiesâthat appealed to the younger drive-in crowds. B movies like The Adventures of Barry McKenzie ("The Shameless Saga of a Young Aussie in Pommyland!") and Stork (a slapstick about a man struggling to lose his virginity), and later a swath of various subgenres made on shoestring budgets, eventually gained popularity outside of Australiaâmostly in the United States, but also in Italy, where an entire genre of Mad Maxâstyle rip-offs emerged.
Not Quite Hollywood moves along at a decent clip while covering all of this, and the material is entertaining enough (rampant nudity, stuntmen lighting each other on fire and getting shot at with live ammunition, Dennis Hopper on drugs), but the film's obsessive detail gets a bit tiresome toward the end.
Quentin Tarantino has played a significant part in bringing these "Ozploitation" films out of their mostly forgotten status, and, not surprisingly, he figures prominently in the commentary here ("Nobody shoots cars the way Aussies do. They manage to shoot them with this fetishistic lens that just makes you want to jerk off"). This film will likely enthrall male movie nerds and bore the shit out of their wives and girlfriends. 
