Australian/New Zealand movies: 1994

Banner year for Australian movies with two big hits in Muriel's Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert plus New Zealand also had a couple of great movies in Heavenly Creatures and Once Were Warriors. Also a good year for nudity with movies like Fatal Past, Ebbtide, Signal One, Traps and Metal Skin having their fair share of nudity. Then there's Sirens, which is just wall-to-wall nudity.

1994

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

One of the early successful LGBT+ movies. Three performers from Sydney, two drag queens (Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce) and a transwoman (Terence Stamp) get a gig to perform their act in Alice Springs and decide to hire a bus, which they name Priscilla, to get there. Along the way the bus breaks down and they come across Bob (Bill Hunter) who helps them get the bus back on the road. In the meantime, the three performers are stuck in the middle of nowhere where the locals haven't come across anything like them but seem to welcome something different. Just a strangely crowd-pleasing movie with a soundtrack that was everywhere at the time (and since) and is now a part of Australian culture.

No nudity in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert but there's some sexy scenes featuring Julia Cortez playing Bob's wife with a penchant for using ping pong balls which you can find here.

 

 

Body Melt

The first phase is Hallucinogenic. The second phase is Glandular. The third phase is...

Cult horror comedy classic with a very unique aesthetic and a truly bizarre sense of humour. A super drug is sent out to be tested by the inhabitants of Pebbles Court in a Melbourne suburb. After a journalist finds out the terrible secret about the drug, he is given a dose and dies horrendously in the court before he can desperately tell it's residents. Also helping get the drug out to the public is shonky doctor Dr. Carrera (Ian Smith, Harold from Neighbours) who's the brother of it's creator Pud (Vincent Gil) who lives with his mutated family on a farm. Meanwhile, the residents of Pebbles Court takes the drug and one-by-one succumb in the most ludicrously grotesque ways. A truly ridiculous movie that never takes itself seriously and is full of unique special and makeup effects that heighten the comedy. Plus it's great seeing fairly well-known or soon-to-be known actors get absolutely ruined along the way.

There's a pretty decent nude scenes featuring Regina Gaigalas plus another nude scene from an actress named Parthena.

You can find a synopsis with collages and HD videos from Body Melt here. A preview is below.

Regina Gaigalas in Body Melt

   
   
   

 

Parthena in Body Melt

 

 

Country Life

Ha, I don't remember this movie at all. Looks like it's an adaptation of the Chekhov play Uncle Vanya. That'll probably explain why I don't remember it.

There's no nudity in Country Life but there's a video of Greta Scacchi from the movie available here.

 

 

Dallas Doll

Black comedy/satire about a pro-golfer/motivational speaker Dallas (Sandra Bernhard) who meets a school boy Charlie (Jake Blundell) on a plane after she takes his girlfriend's seat and they hit it off. They meet once again and Charlie introduces Dallas to his family including mother Ros (Victoria Longley), father Stephen (Frank Gallacher) and teenage sister Rastus (Rose Byrne in her first movie). First mistake. Second mistake is spying her undressing through the window and falling for her, eventually losing his virginity with Dallas. Dallas then decides the seduce the rest of the family Poison Ivy-style, well except Rastus who despises her and is more interested in spotting UFOs. Dallas then sets her sights on taking over the whole town with her special kind of 'outsider knowledge'. A movie that has an interesting idea but gets too bogged down with Dallas seducing the family and doesn't focus so much on the more interesting stuff regarding Australians blindly thinking anything an American says is worth listening to. Bernhard is interesting casting and is both good and bad throughout the movie with Longley being the real stand out here as someone who becomes emboldened by Dallas's arrival. The movie ends in the stupidest way possible involving UFOs, it might've been better to just cut to credits.

Sandra Bernhard shows her breasts and bottom in a few scenes while Victoria Longley shows her breasts briefly.

You can find a synopsis with collages and VHS videos from Dallas Doll here. A preview is below.

Sandra Bernhard in Dallas Doll

   
   
   
   

 

Victoria Longley in Dallas Doll

    
   

 

 

Ebbtide

Tepid Adelaide-set erotic thriller where hotshot lawyer Jeff Warren (US actor Harry Hamlin) who takes over the cases of his long time buddy who is killed while investigating a case against a company accused of polluting the water around its plant which resulted in the death of a young boy. Turns out his friend is nothing more than an ambulance chaser who accidentally stumbled onto this case and what Jeff finds is a massive cover up involving it's two owners Ellen and Harry Fielding (New Zealand actress Judy McIntosh and John Waters). Jeff becomes obsessed with Ellen and they begin an affair which the Fieldings will use to frame Jeff for the murder of the real Harry Fielding (what?). Director Craig Lahiff was really going through a slump with this coming after another terrible erotic thriller Strangers. Co-written by Bob Ellis so you know that it's also going to be sleazy and it doesn't disappoint with Judy McIntosh's role devolving into being a sex object while Hamlin doesn't add much. Then there's the open ending, which is absolutely preposterous for a movie like this.

A few nude scenes from Judy McIntosh where she shows her breasts and bottom. There's also a scene with an unknown actress who shows her breasts, bottom and brief full frontal nudity.

You can find a synopsis with collages and VHS videos from Ebbtide here. A preview is below.

Judy McIntosh in Ebbtide

   
   
   
   
   
   

 

Unknown in Ebbtide

   
   
   

 

 

Exile

Minimalist Paul Cox period drama where a young man Peter Costello (Aden Young) is 'exiled' off to an uninhabited island off Tasmania after being found guilty of stealing sheep. He's left to his own devices and starts seeing and talking to a ghost (Norman Kaye) when he's not remembering things. Then a maid, Mary (Beth Champion), who works for Peter's intended love Jean (Claudia Karvan) hears about Peter and decides to join him on the island. They eventually get together and have a child while Jean's life falls apart after tragedy in childbirth. Later, Peter and Mary convince a priest (Chris Haywood) to marry them. Not a lot to this screensaver of a movie. Lots of contemplation and people doing the most basic of things. Low on the excitement scale.

Beth Champion shows her breasts during a sex scene and has a double for a breastfeeding scene. We also see Claudia Karvan briefly show her right nipple when she opens her blouse. She previously did extensive nudity in Cox's Touch Me.

You can find a synopsis with collages and videos from Exile here. A preview is below.

Beth Champion in Exile

   

 

Claudia Karvan in Exile

   

 

 

Fatal Past

Silly erotic thriller about Costello (Costas Mandylor), who impresses during a drug deal gone wrong and he is recommended by right hand man Fuller (Boris Brkic) to gangster David (Terence Cooper). He gets a job keeping an eye on David's mistress Jennifer Lawrence(!) (Polish actress Katarzyna Figura). She shows an interest in Costello but he knows not to go there. When an attempt is made on David's life, Costello saves the day again. Jennifer begins to have vivid dreams that she's a 1700s geisha in Japan which become startlingly real resulting in Jennifer and Costello having sex. They are eventually caught but before David can deal with them, he is murdered by rival gangster Peter (Steven Grives). Now Jennifer's vivid dreams point to both Costello and her dying so can they break the spell before Peter kills them? Rubbish mix of stock standard gangster plot and a baffling story of Japanese love gone wrong. Sticking with the ridiculous dream plot hampers the movie particularly during the silly ending. Tries to be a Zalman King-type movie (Mandylor would later go on to star in King's Delta Of Venus) but those movies are usually well lit and this looks like they forgot to pay the bills.

Katarzyna Figura shows her breasts, bottom and some brief full frontal nudity in a number of scenes. She was absolutely hot stuff in the 90s. Also Kelly Hall shows her breasts in a couple of scenes who I was only able to identify after a ludicrous appearance in an episode of Chances.

You can find a synopsis with collages and videos from Fatal Past here. A preview is below.

Katarzyna Figura in Fatal Past

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

 

Kelly Hall in Fatal Past

   
   
   

 

 

Heavenly Creatures (NZ)

I know you guys probably prefer the Lord of the Rings movies but Heavenly Creatures is absolutely my favourite Peter Jackson movie. Disturbing true-to-life drama about Pauline (Melanie Lynskey), a teenage girl who struggles to make friends until British girl Juliet (Kate Winslet) arrives and the two hit it off immediately. They devise their own world which the go to regularly and this begins to alarm their parents. They try to pull them apart but that only brings them closer together to the point where they devise a plan to kill Pauline's mother, which they carry out. Jackson moved away from his wacky horror movies to something far more serious and comes up with a complete winner that launched the careers of both Winslet and Lynskey. Not even a Harvey Weinstein butchering could stop it.

Both Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet show their breasts slightly under water in bath scenes plus Melanie shows her breasts briefly in the fullscreen version of the movie. I found a fullscreen video from someone else and featured it below but I had to fix the aspect ratio. I've also added my original collage from the VHS of the movie.

You can find a synopsis with collages and HD videos from Heavenly Creatures here. A preview is below.

Melanie Lynskey in Heavenly Creatures

1227kb 7sec 720x480 (brief breasts)

   
   

 

Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures

 

The Last Tattoo (NZ)

American co-production set during World War II when American soldiers rested in New Zealand. Kelly (Kerry Fox) is a nurse who is working on the stopping the spread of VD amongst the soldiers and locals. She has come across a particularly virulent strain and one of the people she has deduced who has it is Rose Mitchell (Katie Wolfe), but she seems to have disappeared and it's because of the murder of an American soldier who was going to be her husband. The American soldiers, headed by General Frank Zane (Rod Steiger) and Commander Conrad Dart (Robert Loggia) have reluctantly decided to investigate the murder and get the injured Captain Michael Starwood (Tony Goldwyn) to discreetly investigate. This means that both Kelly and Michael are looking for Rose, which disgusts Kelly as she is after discretion for her patients. She finds Rose, but Michael follows her and this chases Rose off. Meanwhile, the local union, who are involved in the murder are attempting to stop the truth from coming out. Despite the strange plot device revolving around sexual disease, there's an interesting movie working in the same areas as Death Of A Soldier helped by two good performances by Fox and Goldwyn.

Brief nudity from Kerry Fox and Katie Wolfe who also has nudity in a short also made in 1994, La Vie En Rose.

You can find a synopsis with collages and videos from The Last Tattoo here. A preview is below.

Kerry Fox in The Last Tattoo

   
   
   

 

Katie Wolfe in The Last Tattoo

   
   

 

 

Lucky Break
aka Paperback Romance

Romantic comedy where Sophie (Gia Carides) is a wannabe romance novel writer and when Eddie (Anthony LaPaglia) hears her reciting one of her stories, he instantly falls for her. He asks Sophie out but she is reluctant because she is disabled and thinks if he finds out he'll reject her. So she ends up rejecting him but is still keen. She spies on him and finds that he already has a fiancé Gloria (Rebecca Gibney). When she looks as if she's going to be found out spying on him, Sophie runs away but gets in a tangle and ends up breaking her disabled leg (lucky break!). She then meets Eddie at a party and she now has a way to hide her disability and still go out with him. They hit it off but time is running out with the cast set to come off and she still hasn't told Eddie about her disability. There's also a sub-plot involving a missing piece of jewellery that Eddie may have stolen and a weird detective Yuri (Jacek Koman) is chasing him. He also falls for Sophie in a Russian literature way. Utterly silly and nutty movie that goes from one ridiculous concept to another poorly thought out one until it lands on a crazy crime plot that doesn't begin until 30 minutes left in the movie. Kept thinking that it'll turn out that Sophie was faking her disability as there's that much ridiculous stuff going on. Gloria knows about Sophie and just lets her hang around Eddie like she's borrowing him from her. The concept just never works.

Brief nudity from Pandora Finch during a sex scene that is a recreation of one of Sophie's stories. There's also sexy scenes featuring Gia Carides and Rebecca Gibney,

You can find a synopsis with VHS videos from Lucky Break here. A preview is below.

Pandora Finch and Teresa Blake in Lucky Break

   
   

 

 

Metal Skin

Follow-up from Romper Stomper director Geoffrey Wright. Joe (Aden Young) gets a job at a supermarket and comes across Dazey (Ben Mendelsohn) and they bond over their obsession with cars. He also meets a Satan-worshipping shoplifter Savina (Tara Morice) who he ends up falling for. But not everything is fine in their lives, particularly Joe's, who's father is a lunatic who's about to explode. You'd think that a movie from hot director and starring four of the biggest young Australian actors at the time (including Nadine Garner) would be a winner, but it fails miserably. The movie is perpetually gloomy saturated in a dark blue sheen and none of the characters are all that interesting and they are completely messed up but that's nothing compared to Joe's father. Also for a movie about illegal drag racers there's very little drag racing.

Tara Morice shows her breasts in a number of scenes plus Nadine Garner shows her breasts in a late scene where she's has a deformed breast.

You can find a synopsis with collages and videos from Metal Skin here. A preview is below.

Tara Morice in Metal Skin

   
   
   
   
   
   
   

 

Nadine Garner in Metal Skin

   

 

 

Muriel's Wedding

Another crowd-pleasing movie, a comedy about ABBA-obsessed outcast Muriel (Toni Collette), who dreams of getting married but cannot attract a boyfriend let alone get a date. She lives with her no-hoper family in Porpoise Spit who is led by patriarch Bill (Bill Hunter) who is running for parliament despite his family's issues. After she steals some money and crashes a holiday with her 'friends', Muriel meets Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths) and they become friends so much so that Muriel goes to live with her in the big city. In the city, Muriel meets men but doesn't have much success at keeping them and Rhonda becomes disabled. Muriel then takes desperate measures to get married and decides to become involved in an arranged marriage with South African swimmer David (Daniel Lapaine). But Muriel's lies are about to fall down then her mother (Jeanie Drynan) kills herself and her father is helpless without her. Another mainstay Australian movie that had breakout roles for Collette and Griffiths also director P.J. Hogan plus it's the reason you never not hear ABBA still.

No nudity in Muriel's Wedding but there's a few videos from the movie available here.

 

 

Once Were Warriors (NZ)

Incendiary drama about a Maori family that about to fall apart in a most dramatic fashion. Beth (Rena Owen) holds together a family run by a drunken and violent patriarch Jake (Temuera Morrison). Things are on the edge after Jake's latest beating of Beth and coupled with oldest son joining a gang, another son well on the way to jail while teenage daughter Grace (Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell) is waiting for the day when she can leave home. After another particularly raucous party at home, Grace is raped by an uncle and it results in her killing herself and Beth finally decides to leave with the family. But Jake isn't taking it lying down. He'll be at the pub. A dark, violent movie of unrelenting horror with three great performances notably by Temuera Morrison and Rena Owen who went onto bigger international careers and less notably by Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell, who plays the eldest daughter and the heart of the family which breaks horribly when she kills herself.

Brief nudity from Rena Owen as she dresses.

You can find a synopsis with HD videos from Once Were Warriors here. A preview is below.

Rena Owen in Once Were Warriors

   

 

 

Point of No Return

Thriller where former military man Grady (Marcus Graham), now in jail, attends the funeral of his brother and on the way back home, he escapes custody and attempts to make sense of his brother's murder. His first stop is his old flame Kate (Nikki Coghill), who had moved onto his brother after Grady was jailed and gets her to reluctantly tag along as he heads to his brother's house. At the house, he finds Frank (John Arnold), who is ransacking the house looking for something. It turns out that Frank is looking for triggers for nuclear weapons that Grady's brother was flogging off to the Russian Mafia. While searching the house, Grady finds a zone activated hidden camera which captures of all things, Grady's brother's death at the hands of North Korean 'businessmen' who also seem to be after the triggers. While trying to figure out what to do next, a delivery man arrives with a box with the triggers. Frank also arrives back at the house with the North Koreans and they want those triggers real bad. With the cops closing in on Grady, he might just get out of this mess alive. Efficient thriller, that's about the best thing I can say about the movie because the plot is totally ludicrous. Spends most of the movie at Grady's brother's house then Graham plays his non-twin brother with a dodgy wig and moustache. It's not a particularly bad movie but it does wallow with very low intentions.

Nikki Coghill shows her breasts and bottom in a particularly lengthy love scene.

You can find a synopsis with collages and HD videos from Point of No Return here. Thanks to Umbrella for an unexpected HD release as before then it was near impossible to find in Australia. A preview is below.

Nikki Coghill in Point of No Return

   
   

 

 

The Roly Poly Man

Loony noir parody about private detective Dirk Trent (Paul Chubb) who decides to investigate a probable murder of a client he was investigating. She turns up alive but her partner dies in a bizarre fashion and Trent decides to keep investigating while 'dating' coroner Sandra (Susan Lyons). Also helped by trusty tech guy Mickey (Les Foxcroft) they comes across a conspiracy involving a brain slug that eats tumours but goes too far to explode people's heads. Trent thinks nutty doctor Henderson (Frank Whitten) is behind it but as the heads keep exploding, Trent is closing in on the killer but also closer to getting his own brain slug. Absolutely ridiculous plot but a total riot of a movie with plenty of laughs and things happening that are so unbelievable that it could only end in a way you'd never imagine in a thousand years. A sadly lost gem.

No nudity in The Roly Poly Man but there's a scene featuring Sarah Lambert in a bra that plays throughout the movie.

Sarah Lambert in The Roly Poly Man

14102kb 53sec 744x568 (bra)

 

 

Signal One
aka Bullet Down Under

Christopher Atkins comes back for a third Australian movie (after The Pirate Movie and the previous year's Exchange Lifeguards) for another Phillip Avalon special. This time it's a racist cop thriller where American cop Martin Bullet (Christopher Atkins) kills a kid during a bust and decides it's time to move with his Australian wife Charlene (Maureen O'Shaughnessy) and become a cop in Sydney. Meanwhile, Detective Jack Moran (former VFL footballer Mark 'Jacko' Jackson) is first on the scene of a murder with his partner Boza and in a chase with the supposed killer, his partner gets hurts badly. The actual killer is mentally impaired Frankie (Richard Carter) who panicked during a drug deal and his brother Doug (Alfred Bell) attempts to get the cops off his scent by serving up the supposed killer Tony who works for Chinese crime lord Chang Kai Chee (Kee Chan). Bullet joins Moran as his partner and they track Tony but he gets away. Tony tracks down Frankie and slaughters him while Doug continues to play both sides by giving the cops Tony again except 'Toni' (Virginia Hey) is not quite who they think they are. Fairly standard cop thriller but is surprisingly better than it has any right to be by having one helluva a twist. While the story is nothing special and the cops same old, same old, the twist adds some life to the movie that gets snuffed out with a pedestrian end chase. Jacko plays the only character he can play but plays it well enough to outshine Atkins and his whooping and hollering during his sex scene (yes, you read right) is fairly amusing which helps leaven the blow of seeing his arse.

Maureen O'Shaughnessy shows her breasts and bottom in a sex scene while Virginia Hey shows her breasts, bottom and occasionally full frontal nudity in a very physical and violent sex scene (where she's the one doing the violence) with Jacko. There's also nudity from a dancer at a club.

You can find a synopsis with collages and HD videos from Signal One here. A preview is below.

Maureen O'Shaughnessy in Signal One

   
   
   

 

Virginia Hey in Signal One

   
   
   
   
   
   

 

Unknown in Signal One

   
   

 

 

Sirens

Light comedy/drama set in the 1930s where young English reverend Anthony Campion (Hugh Grant) is asked by his church to visit notorious Australian artist Norman Lindsay (Sam Neill) and talk him into replacing controversial paintings including ones that are considered sacrilegious with more conservative paintings. The reverend takes his wife Estella (Tara Fitzgerald) to Lindsay's home in the Blue Mountains for what is supposed to be a one night stay, but the train is delayed indefinitely. Over their stay, the Campions are treated to a lifestyle they are not accustomed to. And the reverend is finding it impossible to talk Lindsay around. Meanwhile, Estella hangs around with Lindsay's models Sheila (Elle Macpherson), Pru (Tziporah Malkah) and the live-in maid Giddy (Portia de Rossi) and her eyes are opened to her own sexuality, which she has repressed because of her lifestyle. From director John Duigan, Sirens is a warm and honest film about sexuality and how it plays a part in art and life. The actors are all uniformly good, even the first time actresses playing the models, but the film is driven by Grant and Fitzgerald and both actors are well cast here. Definitely better than it's wink-wink nudge-nudge reputation, but if you just like that, there's plenty of nudity in this movie, that's for sure.

Extensive nudity throughout the movie from Tara Fitzgerald, Elle Macpherson, Tziporah Malkah formerly Kate Fischer, Portia de Rossi and Pamela Rabe.

You can find a synopsis with collages and HD videos from Sirens here. A preview is below.

Tara Fitzgerald in Sirens

   
   
   

 

Elle Macpherson and Tziporah Malkah in Sirens

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

 

Portia de Rossi in Sirens

 

Pamela Rabe in Sirens

   
   
   

 

Tara Fitzgerald, Elle Macpherson, Tziporah Malkah, Portia de Rossi,Pamela Rabe in Sirens

   

 

 

Spider & Rose

After spending the 80s making his little movies, Bill Bennett finally gets a budget and makes this road movie where ambulance driver Spider (Simon Bossell) is tasked with driving elderly Rose (Ruth Cracknell) home six hours away. She just survived a car accident where her husband died and he's on his last day on the job. Things get off to a prickly start when Rose wants to ride up the front with Spider and don't get any better when she goes off with a random driver Jack (Max Cullen) forcing Spider to chase after her. They finally get back together then get into an accident where Spider breaks his leg. But they get back on the road and bond before Rose is dropped off at home and receives a frosty reception from her family despite what happened and on her 70th birthday. Spider decides to emancipate her from her family. OK movie, the scenario feels incredibly contrived and the two of them aren't strong enough characters to carry the entire movie so it gets a bit boring along the way which probably explains why they get into so many pointless scrapes.

Nudity from Ruth Cracknell in a couple of scenes.

Ruth Cracknell in Spider & Rose

35694kb 2min 09sec 744x568 (breasts, bum, 'nude' in bath, in shower, lengthy)

 

 

Traps

Political drama set in 1950s Indochina where Michael (Robert Reynolds), an English journalist who has come to inspect a rubber plantation so that he can report back its success. Joined by his wife Louise (Saskia Reeves), a photographer, they stay at the house of the manager of the plantation Daniel (Sami Frey), a Frenchman who has lives with his daughter Viola (Jacqueline McKenzie). Turns out all is not well with Michael and Louise's marriage plus Viola wants to leave home, first by attempting to conjure a romance with their houseboy, Tuan (Kiet Lam), then becoming obsessed with wanting to follow Louise back to London. Tuan is torn between being loyal to Daniel and going off with his people who are beginning an insurgency against their French keepers. An interesting movie which mixes the political tension with the sexual and marriage tension that Michael and Louise are facing. It is a fairly good movie for the most part, but the ending isn't great, seemingly going too far in a certain direction without notice, causing what I feel to be an unsatisfactory ending.

Decent nudity from Saskia Reeves particularly during a massage scene.

You can find a synopsis with collages and VHS videos from Traps here. A preview is below.

Saskia Reeves in Traps

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

 

As usual there's a number of movies that had nothing to cap including the Paul Hogan starring comedy Lightning Jack, gay drama The Sum of Us, Brooke Shields starring thriller The Seventh Floor, prison drama Everynight... Everynight, religious biopic Mary, serial killer drama Ladykiller, feature movie made from the TV series Police Rescue (technically Cate Blanchett's first movie), family movie The Return of Tommy Tricker and teenage girl short feature Only the Brave. There's also a couple of New Zealand movies Kahu & Maia and Rugged Gold with nothing to cap.

There's a few Australian movies that I haven't been able to check including Baby Bath Massacre, Cops and Robbers aka Kevin Rampenbacker and the Electric Kettle, Gino, Girl, Lex and Rory plus Nocturnal which was available at one stage but doesn't seem to be anymore. There's also the Boulevard Films last gasp The Intruder that has never been released but could have some interesting stuff in it (it does star Tottie Goldsmith).

1995 is looking like it's going to be a slow year for nudity. I've got a few movies to look through but it's not looking promising.

 

Tags: Sarah Lambert, Ruth Cracknell