Australian/New Zealand movies: 1997

Split this update into two but there's only a few more movies than 1996 and it helps that I'd already capped most of the movies from this year. Not a lot of nudity in the first part of the 1997 update but there's some good stuff in crazy The Masturbating Gunman plus some good nudity in Blackrock and Epsilon.

1997

Aberration (NZ)

Creature horror thriller where Amy (Pamela Gidley) is on-the-run from her mob boyfriend and decides to hide out in a remote cabin. She is warned that something is off at the cabin but she doesn't care until something starts biting her. Amy decides to go the nuclear option and destroy whatever it is in the house but a local Marshall (Simon Bossell) decides to help her. But they find that the cabin is a infested by large mutant lizards and as soon as one is killed another bunch turn up. Can they survive the night intact? OK horror movie although mutant lizards seems a little underdone as a creature. Looks cheap but at least it has plenty of explosions and fire to attack the lizards.

Pamela Gidley briefly shows her bottom before getting in a bath although it may not be her as she does have a history of being flaky around nudity.

Pamela Gidley in Aberration

13785kb 55sec 656x400 (bum, in towel, 'nude' in bath)

 

 

Blackrock

Hostile, based on a famous play movie set in the regional New South Wales satellite city of Newcastle. Jared (Laurence Breuls) is a high school boy who lives with his mother Diane (Linda Cropper), who's just been diagnosed with breast cancer. There's a big party where everyone is going to be and Jared brings along his girlfriend Shana (Leeanna Walsman). Things get a bit hectic and Jared takes some time out and while doing so, he witnesses Tracy (Bojana Novakovic on debut) being raped by a group of boys. The next morning Tracy is found murdered. The students react by lashing out at those involved but Jared withdraws from the world having not done anything about it. When local surfer Ricko (Simon Lyndon), wants Jared to give him an alibi, he cannot hide from the world any longer. Highly strung movie that doesn't really get out of it's theatrical roots but has an important point about to say. Features a whole bunch of actors that would go on to bigger and better things.

Linda Cropper shows her breasts in a few scenes while Bojana Novakovic shows her bottom from a distance.

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

Linda Cropper in Blackrock

    
    
    

 

Bojana Novakovic in Blackrock

    

 

 

Brilliant Lies

Another movie based on a play this time from Australia's favourite playwright David Williamson. Susy (Gia Carides) is sacked from her job as a secretary which she claims is because she rejected the sexual advances of her boss Gary (Anthony LaPaglia). She is suing the company for $40,000 and it becomes a she said/he said case that gets more lascivious with both accusing one another of being very nasty. The case also brings up some demons from the past about Susy and her sister Katy (Zoe Carides) and the abuse they received from their father Brian (Ray Barrett). Skillfully directed by prolific director Richard Franklin, it's very talky and is full of histrionics, but also at times very clever and full of ambiguity. It's main issue is that being based on a play, the movie still feels very stagey.

There's no nudity in Brilliant Lies but there's a few sexy scenes which you can find here.

 

 

The Devil Game

Telemovie shot around Kangaroo Island in South Australia that follows frisky undercover cop Frankie (Jacqueline McKenzie) who has been called in by her handler John (Andy Anderson) for a drug case in the small town she grew up in. She ingratiates herself back into her sister Karin's (Asher Keddie) life who is not happy to see her and neither is her husband Steve (Sandy Winton). They are struggling and have been borrowing money from local business owner Robbo (Pauline Terry-Beitz). Frankie makes her presence known around town and attracts the interest of Muzza (Martin Lynes) who gets her a job but when Frankie rejects his advances, he goes cold on her fast. Meanwhile, American surfer bum Michael (Guy Pearce) seems very likely to be involved in the drug ring but he's also friends with Karin and Steve. Then Steve is found murdered after he apparently stole some of the drugs he was supposed to bring in after a drop-off and all of a sudden nobody wants Frankie in town. With the local police probably in on it and another branch of law enforcement attempting to muscle in, Frankie's going to have a hell of a time trying to get to the bottom of it. Very cynical telemovie that has a surprisingly decent cast (although Pearce's American accent still needed work) and ends in a not very satisfying way. McKenzie is very good in the lead and drives the movie quite well. Had never heard of this movie until recently when it turned up on Umbrella's streaming platform Broille.

No real nudity in The Devil Game but there's a couple of scenes featuring Jacqueline McKenzie that are available below.

Jacqueline McKenzie in The Devil Game

14755kb 53sec 768x560 (bra)

13190kb 51sec 768x560 (implied nudity/'nude' in shower, plenty of cleavage in nice dress, sex scene)

 

 

Diana & Me

Ill-advised romantic comedy from David Parker moving away from his usual collaborator Nadia Tass. Diana Spencer (Toni Collette) wins a trip to London with Woman's Day magazine and she takes her boyfriend Mark (Malcolm Kennard) and her main goal for the trip is to meet her namesake Princess Diana, who she's obsessed with. At a party, she gets her chance but in a mix-up, she ends up arrested with paparazzo Rob (Dominic West). Diana and Rob bicker their way around as they both chase after Princess Diana to their own ends to the point where they inexplicably fall for one another. A tepid romantic comedy with no conviction, a silly plot that lumbers to it's predictable ending but not before a truly baffling scene where Diana, Rob and Mark get into a car chase after Princess Diana. Then there's the obvious reshoots which are badly tacked on after Diana's death. The best thing that happened to this movie was Diana dying before it was released because otherwise it would've been completely ignored. It's still ignored but at least it's now just tasteless so there's one reason to watch it.

There's a scene featuring Toni Collette in the shower where you very briefly see her nipple above the frame.

You can find a synopsis with VHS videos from Diana & Me here. A preview is below.

Toni Collette in Diana & Me

 

 

Doing Time for Patsy Cline

Every few years dentist Chris Kennedy would shut up shop and make a movie ending with 4 in total (Glass, This Won't Hurt a Bit and 2005's A Man's Gotta Do). They were all very minor and Doing Time for Patsy Cline is no exception. Country music obsessed Ralph (Matt Day) leaves home to make it big in Nashville. He tries to hitchhike his way to the airport but is picked up by Boyd (Richard Roxburgh) and his girlfriend Patsy (Miranda Otto). Turns out they are on-the-run as Boyd has stolen drugs and this causes a detour in Ralph's plans with gangsters and the police after them. But that's OK because he's fallen for Patsy and dreams of 'making music' with her. Very light going but it's a fairly watchable movie with no real ambitions.

There's no nudity in Doing Time for Patsy Cline but there's a few videos of Miranda Otto available here.

 

 

Dust Off the Wings

Motor-mouth drama that focuses on the day before and the day of the wedding of Lee (Lee Rogers). As Lee watches his best friend Ward (Ward Stevens) pick up women, Lee tries to reconcile that he can't do that any more and is about to get married. Meanwhile, Ward talks to Phil (Phil Ceberano) who admits to sleeping with the bride-to-be one drunken evening and Ward doesn't know what to do with the information. So Ward tells the bride's friend Jenna (Kate Ceberano) who doesn't know what to do either so they let things go ahead as normal. At the buck's night, Lee gets a 'wedding present' from Roxanne (Tziporah Malkah aka Kate Fischer). On the morning of the wedding, Ward tells Lee that his wife-to-be cheated on him with Phil. He tries to get his head around it and whether or not to go ahead with the wedding. Ooof, what an awful, annoying movie full of annoying people who do shitty things. The central premise of the movie is so stupid that I just kept getting more pissed off the longer it is mulled over. Fuck off, I don't care, you're both fucking stupid, I hope you have a great marriage.

Brief nudity from Annalise Braakensiek and Alana Ross-Stevens plus other sexy scenes as it's set on and around Bondi Beach after all.

You can find a synopsis with videos from Dust Off the Wings here. A preview is below.

Annalise Braakensiek in Dust off the Wings

    
    

 

Alana Ross-Stevens in Dust off the Wings

    
    

 

 

Epsilon
aka Alien Visitor

Rolf de Heer cannot stop making movies. Low budget two-hander about an alien woman She (Ullie Birve) who arrives naked in the outback and comes across a lonely surveyor (Syd Brisbane) who clothes her then takes her on his journeys across Australia. Along the way they discuss how humans are destroying the planet and can't stop fighting one another. Not much more than that. It's a hard slog as it's 100 minutes of talking but there's some interesting moments.

There's an early scene where the alien goes to the surveyor and she is naked and we see full frontal nudity from Ullie Birve. She then puts on a shirt and we see her bottom as she gets angry. Of course Harvey Weinstein butchered the movie for it's American release pretty much cutting out the opening nude scene.

(Updated 4/8) Decided to have another look at Epsilon after Thursday's update because I could've sworn I made a redux series from this movie but I couldn't find it. So, I went back to the Umbrella DVD which has both the original version and the Harvey Weinstein butchering and made a video from each. There's more nudity than in the video I made in 2007 but at the same time you see slightly more in some shots in the original fullscreen video I made. The Weinstein/Miramax version cuts out nearly all nudity except when it was impossible to remove which is actually not a surprise because a number of Weinstein's cuts edit out nude scenes (also a lot more 'explaining' because he doesn't seem to understand anything). Can't find the fullscreen DVD I made the original video from but going by the narration which isn't in the uncut version, it must be the Weinstein cut.

You can find collages and videos from Epsilon here. A preview is below.

Ullie Birve in Epsilon

(original) 89564kb 5min 960x544 (brief full frontal nudity but mostly breasts, bum, extremely lengthy)

(alternate cut) 70688kb 3min 57sec 960x432 (brief bush and breasts, bum, extremely lengthy)

(fullscreen) 72706kb 3min 47sec 700x540 (brief full frontal nudity but mostly breasts, bum, extremely lengthy)

 

 

Highwater (NZ)

50 minute short about an advertising director Hugh (Michael Hurst) who gets a hostile welcome to a country town from business owner Jesse (Meryl Main) but likes his stay so much he decides to buy land and build a house hoping to bring his girlfriend (Katrina Browne) with him. As he spends more time in town, Hugh continues to tussle with Jesse as well as an endless number of useless builders. Over time he falls for Jesse and she falls for him and Hugh decides to toss in city life for something simple. By-the-numbers telemovie with every beat as predictable as the last one. Baffling to see Michael Galvin outside of Shortland Street and with a dorky goatee.

No nudity in Highwater but some sexy stuff from Katrina Browne plus thanks to the useless credits, there's an unknown actress in a bikini.

Katrina Browne in Highwater

13350kb 55sec 720x540 (plenty of cleavage in singlet top, shorts, nippy)

 

Unknown in Highwater

5801kb 25sec 720x540 (bikini)

 

 

Idiot Box

Grungy crime comedy with two losers Kev (Ben Mendelsohn) and Mick (Jeremy Sims) who decide to get out of their money woes by robbing a bank. Mick plans the heist while trying to get a date with the girl from the local bottle shop Lani (pop star Robyn Loau) and Kev, who's angry with everything and everyone, gets the weapons for the heist. Meanwhile, two undercover cops (Graeme Blundell and Deborah Kennedy) are after a violent bank robber who just so happens to cross paths with Kev and Mick. OK movie that is heavily influenced by American movies of the time but with a brutal Australian touch, There are some good moments in the movie but not enough to sustain it.

No nudity in Idiot Box but there's a few sexy scenes available here.

 

 

Kiss or Kill

Neo-noir thriller from Bill Bennett where two carefree drifters Al (Matt Day) and Nikki (Frances O'Connor) stuff up a robbery and go on the run across the desolate Nullarbor Desert with the football legend 'Zipper' Doyle (Barry Langrishe) in hot pursuit. Also following Al and Nikki are two cops (Chris Haywood and Andrew S. Gilbert). Along the way Al and Nikki come across a number of oddballs who both help and hinder them. As Zipper closes in, things become more desperate and violent. Incredibly oddball movie, surprisingly funny and with some truly bizarre moments. Probably Bennett's best movie even if he can't help himself with his French New Wave influences. It's oddness is it's strength and Day and O'Connor make great protagonists.

Some brief nudity from Eliza Lovell in a sex tape. There's also a fair bit of sexy stuff from Frances O'Connor.

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

Eliza Lovell in Kiss or Kill

    
    

 

 

Love in Ambush

Political thriller about Shelley Kincaid (Sigrid Thornton) who goes to Cambodia to find her brother who is a soldier that has gone AWOL as an excuse to flee her broken marriage. There, Shelley gets caught up in local intrigue involving the Americans, the French and rebel Cambodians and she elicits the help of expat Eddie (Gary Sweet) to get around this. Mostly forgettable stuff and Australian really do have an obsession with Asian political intrigue.

The only nudity in the movie is from some unknown strippers.

You can find a synopsis with VHS videos from Love in Ambush here. A preview is below.

Unknowns in Love in Ambush

    
    

 

 

The Masturbating Gunman
aka Masked Avenger Versus Ultra-Villain in the Lair of the Naked Bikini

Exploitation thriller from prolific low budget filmmaker Mark Savage. The Masked Avenger (Robin Brennan) is a man who helps people with a particular set of problems. He can find any woman in the world just by smelling their underwear, which he demonstrates when he finds a woman who has being kidnapped to be sold off to sex traffickers. But he has one weakness: He can't help but masturbate when he sees a woman. Meanwhile, Gunta (Peter Beitans) has just been let out of prison after 12 years and immediately takes control of his crew, who are listless and broke. He also proclaims that he is going to make a son with the most pure woman in the city. But all women seem to have become impure except for Sister Mary (Nene Powell), who is then kidnapped and brought to Gunta. There's just one problem with Gunta's plan and it's a big one; Mary's brother is The Masked Avenger and she just happened to leave a pair of her panties behind before being kidnapped. Completely ridiculous low budget Asian-influenced exploitation movie that works because it has a silly idea and just runs with it with glee. Lots of unrepentant silliness, very 90s (some of the references are the most 90s things I've ever seen) and a result that delivers exactly what it sets out to do. You could easily nit-pick it's faults but why bother, it's clunkiness is part of the charm. If you're into exploitation, this movie is a perfectly fine watch.

Nudity from Karina Wolf and three women named Susie, Shayne and Star.

You can find a synopsis with HD videos from The Masturbating Gunman here. A preview is below.

Karina Wolf in The Masturbating Gunman

    
    
    
    

 

Susie in The Masturbating Gunman

    
    

 

Shayne in The Masturbating Gunman

    

 

Star in The Masturbating Gunman

    
    
    

 

Part 2 from 1997 goes hard early with a shitload of nudity from the nudist beach comedy Maslin Beach, where pretty much everyone is naked. There's also good nudity in the telemovie One Way Ticket, the sparse sci-fi thriller Zone 39 and the New Zealand twentysomething dramedy Topless Women Talk About Their Lives.

 

Maslin Beach

Slice-of-life comedy set over a day at the South Australian nudist beach, Maslin Beach. Lots of little vignettes featuring the beachgoers including Simon (Michael Allen) and Marcie (Eliza Lovell) whose relationship is in a flat patch not helped by Marcie hating going to the beach so much so she never takes off her bathing suit. Gail (Bonnie-Jaye Lawrence) goes to the beach with her friends Paula (Zara Collins) and Jennifer (Jennifer Ross) and is desperate for love but all she finds is a sleazy beachgoer who wants to pay her for sex and an overly-attentive young boy. Then she spots Simon, who is re-evaluating his relationship with the philosophical ice cream driver Ben (Gary Waddell) and she decides to take a leap. Meanwhile, Kevin (John Doherty) makes his move on Marcie, who may finally leave Simon. Also around the beach, numerous couples and more do their own evaluating of their relationships. Mostly boring look at a day in the life on a nudist beach that never really finds an interesting hook beyond most of the cast performing nude. Most of the stories are similar sounding relationship dramas that get more than a bit repetitive which isn't great for a movie that is only 75 minutes long. The two main stories go missing for a fair portion of the movie and are then hastily resolved in an unsatisfying manner. There are a number of short vignettes that either make obvious observations or go on forever and the 'comedy' is pretty limited with the movie playing more like a soap opera. For a movie with a lot of nudity, it just isn't interesting at all.

All actresses bar Eliza Lovell are naked in Maslin Beach, many to list as you'll see below.

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

Bonnie Jaye Lawrence in Maslin Beach

    
    
    
    
    
    
    

 

Zara Collins and Jennifer Ross in Maslin Beach

    
    
    
    

 

Madeleine James in Maslin Beach

    
    
    
    
    
    

 

Kate Jenkin in Maslin Beach

    
    
    
    
    
    

 

Irena Westbrook in Maslin Beach

    
    
    

 

Tracey Korsten in Maslin Beach

    
    
    

 

Leylah Bond in Maslin Beach

    
    

 

Rachel Feary in Maslin Beach

    

 

Charmaine Lyle in Maslin Beach

     

 

Katrina Missen in Maslin Beach

 

Alison Sclander in Maslin Beach

    

 

Chelsea Stokell in Maslin Beach

    
    

 

Di Williams in Maslin Beach

    

 

 

One Way Ticket

Channel 9 telemovie based on a notorious Melbourne jailbreak which gripped the country for a week in March 1993. Mick Webb (Peter Phelps) has been put into the Remand Centre after being charged with murder and forms a friendship with the older Bertie (Chris Haywood). Meanwhile he meets prison guard Deborah Carter (Rachel Blakely) and they hit it off so much they begin an affair behind bars. With Webb about to spend the rest of his life in jail, he convinces Deborah to help Bertie and him escape. They go on the run in the Victorian countryside for a few days before being caught. Pretty faithful to the original story barring the need for a 'bathing beauty' scene which totally happened. But honestly the original story was far more fascinating and had everyone riveted for those few days.

Rachel Blakely shows her breasts while bathing in a river.

You can find a synopsis with collages VHS videos from One Way Ticket here. A preview is below.

Rachel Blakely in One Way Ticket

    
    
    
    

 

 

Paradise Road

Bruce Beresford directed this US co-production in Queensland that has a very deep international cast of actresses. A group of women from all over the world are imprisoned on the Indonesian island of Sumatra near Singapore during World War II by the Japanese army. Things start badly as the women are from different social strata and they don't get along but then a woman with a musical background, Adrienne (Glenn Close) decides to get the women involved in a choir to help with the spirits of the women that ends up frustrating their captors. Solid movie with an interesting story, different from the usual World War II prison dramas mostly because this one focuses on women. Also helps that the cast is jam-packed with well-known American, Australian and European actresses.

Brief nudity in a shower scene from Pamela Rabe, Anita Hegh and Dutch actress Johanna ter Steege amongst others.

You can find a synopsis with HD videos from Paradise Road here. A preview is below.

Pamela Rabe and Anita Hegh in Paradise Road

    
    

 

Johanna ter Steege in Paradise Road

    

 

 

Reprisal

Channel 9 telemovie that played in the coveted late Saturday night timeslot, so it was essentially dumped, this was a part of series of telemovies written by Peter Yeldham. Starring Peter Phelps and Clodagh Crowe in a rare lead role as two cops hunting down a member of a gang who performed a heist who is killing the other members of the crew.

Clodagh Crowe shows the side of her left breast in a sex scene. Georgie Parker also has an underwear scene.

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

Clodagh Crowe in Reprisal

    
    

 

 

Thank God He Met Lizzie
aka The Wedding Party

Don't remember much about this one except that Guy (Richard Roxburgh) is about to get married to Lizzie (Cate Blanchett) but has memories of a former lover, Jenny (Frances O'Connor), throughout the wedding day to the point that he seems more interested in her than his soon-to-be bride.

Frances O'Connor shows her bottom in a lengthy scene.

You can find a synopsis with collages and videos from Thank God He Met Lizzie here. A preview is below.

Frances O'Connor in Thank God He Met Lizzie

    
    

 

 

To Have & to Hold

Sweaty domestic drama set in Papua New Guinea from director John Hillcoat where Jack (French actor Tchéky Karyo) is mourning the death of his wife Rose (Anni Finsterer). Two years later in Melbourne, he spies romance novelist Kate (Rachel Griffiths) at a book signing and is immediately smitten with her and she with him. Kate follows Jack to Papua New Guinea and it becomes clear quickly that Jack has many demons and they are about to be unleashed. Jack's friend Luther (Robert Kunsa) has escaped from prison after losing an eye and is in hiding locally with the police looking for him. Jack's old friends bartender Sal (Steve Jacobs) and lapsed missionary Stevie (David Field) arrive back in town and Jack is none too happy to see them. Jack shuts himself off watching videos of Rose as Kate attempts to help him open up but this results in him giving her Rose's old dress which only makes things worse when he mistakes Kate for Rose and their relationship becomes more primal and violent with him even taking her passport. Then Luther, who Kate has been friendly towards, gives her evidence which could finally bring everything to the boil. Depressing movie with a flimsy concept not helped by Kate been dazzled by going to an 'exotic' location and acting more like she's researching for her next novel than actually being in love with Jack. As a twisted love story, the relationship is hard-to-watch. Tchéky Karyo is quite good as Jack but his character becomes so repugnant it becomes near impossible to watch by the end, especially the scene where he confronts Sal. Griffiths is alright but isn't given all that much to do beyond react to Jack and become sickly.

Very brief breasts from Rachel Griffiths after she rips open her dress.

You can find a synopsis with videos from To Have & to Hold here. A preview is below.

Rachel Griffiths in To Have & to Hold

    

 

 

Topless Women Talk About Their Lives (NZ)

Twentysomething dramedy that began life a 5 minute TV series before being re-edited into feature length form for a worldwide cinema release. Following the lives of friends living in Auckland who have complicated love lives and such, their world seems to revolve around Liz (Danielle Cormack). Liz is 17 weeks pregnant and has missed her abortion appointment and is now forced to have the child, much to her disgust. It doesn't help that she refuses to name the father and strings along friend and former fling Neil (Joel Tobeck) and her current boyfriend Geoff (Andrew Binns) and that relationship doesn't look like lasting much longer. Geoff's former girlfriend Bryony (Josephine Davison) is back from overseas and he'd very much like to continue seeing her. Meanwhile, Ant (Ian Hughes) has just had his appalling screenplay made into a movie in Germany and is about premiere locally and it's suddenly hit him he might be successful. Liz's best friend Prue (Willa O'Neill) and Mike (Shimpal Lelisi) have decided to get married and are doing so in his home in Niue. This is despite Prue worrying about the increasingly unstable Ant. How will they all survive the year? Best watched as the short form TV series because the movie starts not having set up any characters and we are put straight into the chaos and a lot is left unexplained in the movie. So it takes a while to work things out because the plot and characters are underdeveloped. A shame really as there are some good dramatic and comic moments throughout including a very interesting birth scene.

A pregnant Danielle Cormack shows her breasts and bottom while putting on lotion while Willa Ford shows her pubic hair. Also Frances Edmond shows her breasts while ironing and Megan Clarken shows her breasts while stripping. There's also scenes from Ant's movie called Topless Women Talk About Their Lives that features nudity from Claudia Schoenauer, Sabine Steffen, Liane Tietz and Anja Vogel. Not sure if they're German women or German women living in New Zealand as there's a long history of Germans in New Zealand.

You can find a synopsis with collages and videos from Topless Women Talk About Their Lives here while you can find further videos from the short form series here. A preview is below.

Danielle Cormack in Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

    
    

 

Willa Ford in Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

    
    

 

Frances Edmond in Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

    

 

Megan Clarken in Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

    
    

 

Claudia Schoenauer in Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

    

 

Sabine Steffen in Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

    
    

 

Liane Tietz in Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

    
    

 

Anja Vogel in Topless Women Talk About Their Lives

    
    

 

 

True Love and Chaos

A road movie with a crime sub-plot where Mimi (Miranda Otto) is heading to Perth without her boyfriend Hanif (Naveen Andrews) until he and his friend Dean (Noah Taylor) rob Dean's drug dealing brother Jerry (Ben Mendelsohn) and need to get away fast. So they tag along for the ride. At their first stop, Mimi meets drunken beardo Morris (Hugo Weaving) and has an instant connection to him but he's an erratic character and they reluctantly let him join the trip. Morris's presence causes friction between Mimi and Hanif and with Jerry on their tale with his needy girlfriend Ariel (Kimberley Davies), it's all going to explode in Perth. Perfect cast, perfect time but fuck me that second half of the film is a disaster. The 'connection' between Mimi and Morris is an all-time howler that ruins the film completely, not because of what it is which doesn't help, but because it so unbelievable. Then it just devolves into the usual Tarantino rip-off ending. Very disappointing.

Brief full frontal nudity from Miranda Otto.

You can find a synopsis with videos from True Love and Chaos here. A preview is below.

Miranda Otto in True Love and Chaos

    

 

 

The Ugly (NZ)

Serial killer thriller where inexperienced psychologist Dr. Karen Schumaker (Rebecca Hobbs) is the latest doctor to attempt to get to the bottom of notorious serial killer Simon (Paolo Rotondo). We find out that he had a very domineering mother (Jennifer Ward-Lealand) who refuses to let him know about his father and is bullied frequently at school mainly because he is dumb. His only friend is Julie but his mother stops them being together after Julie catches her reading a letter from his father. Not long after, Simon kills his mother. He tries to live a normal life but finds it impossible with the urge to kill rising and continued bullying in adult life. Then he meets Julie (Vanessa Byrnes) working as a veterinary nurse. Simon decides that he wants her for himself and kills her brother who he mistakes for her lover. This eventually leads him becoming closer to Julie but those urges won't go away and no one is safe. Not Julie or Karen. Serial killer thrillers were popular in the 90s and this one is not bad with a solid central relationship between serial killer and psychologist. Very nasty movie with a number of throats cut both dreamt and in reality and Rotondo plays a believable killer.

Brief nudity from Vanessa Byrnes.

You can find a synopsis with videos from The Ugly here. A preview is below.

Vanessa Byrnes in The Ugly

    

 

 

Under the Lighthouse Dancing

Drama about a couple, Harry (Jack Thompson) and Emma (Jacqueline McKenzie), who invite their friends including boat captain David (Aden Gillett) and Louise (Naomi Watts) for a weekend trip to Rottnest Island. Turns out that Harry wants to marry Emma that weekend but hasn't prepared a thing and when he goes around the island looking for a priest and a church for the wedding, he comes up short. Then Harry and Emma drop a bombshell: Emma has cancer and is dying so that's why they want to get married now. So their friends go about making their wedding happen no matter what. Soppy melodrama that begins as a dopey light comedy that doesn't really work and feels clumsy. Fairly predictable stuff for the most part although the wedding is nice

No nudity in Under The Lighthouse Dancing but there's some sexy stuff from Jacqueline McKenzie and Naomi Watts which you can find here.

 

 

The Well

Feminist drama where Katherine (Miranda Otto) lives on a farm run by her father Francis (Frank Wilson) and friend Hester (Pamela Rabe). Katherine works on the farm but hates it and wants to move out into the world but Hester likes Katherine and wants to keep her there. After Francis dies, Hester sells the farm and Katherine and her move to the smaller place with plans to go out to the world until tragedy strikes and puts their plans in jeopardy. About as boring as it sounds...

There's no nudity in The Well but there's a few videos of Miranda Otto available here.

 

 

Zone 39

Sci-fi thriller set in the near future about Leo (Peter Phelps), a lieutenant in the Federated Republics army, who are still fighting a war with the New Territories Union. His pregnant wife Anne (Carolyn Bock) is assassinated after she accesses classified information about the goings on in the disputed Zone 39. Racked with grief, Leo is forced into doing border patrol work in Zone 39, a job that is notorious for sending previous patrolmen crazy. Slowly, Leo becomes crazy because of the poisoned water source which he discovers thanks to the apparition of his wife. Leo is dying but he decides that he must work with the enemy to get the message out to the locals that they are in danger of being poisoned to death by their callous leaders. Strange little sci-fi movie that is surprisingly efficient considering it's obvious budget restraints. The movie is basically a single hander with Peter Phelps on screen nearly the entire movie and he does pretty well holding it together.

Carolyn Bock has a couple of nude scenes including full frontal nudity.

You can find a synopsis with collages and videos from Zone 39 here. A preview is below.

Carolyn Bock in Zone 39

    
    
    
    
    
 

 

 

As always there's a bunch of movies with nothing to cap including the Gillian Armstrong period drama Oscar and Lucinda, Russell Crowe and Yûki Kudô go on-the-run in the violent thriller Heaven's Burning, comedy classic The Castle, oddball rural comedy Road to Nhill, crazy Tasmania comedy thriller Back from the Dead, gay dramedy Violet's Visit, drama My Blessings and a bunch of family movies including dog comedy Paws!, kangaroo comedy Joey, sci-fi thriller Doom Runners and The Balanced Particle Freeway. And there's one further New Zealand movie with nothing to cap, the teen drama The Whole of the Moon.

Strangely there's a whole lot of movies I haven't been able to track down including Sanctuary, Going Once Going Twice, Terrain, The Alive Tribe and telemovies The Hostages, The Last of the Ryans and Fable. There's also the New Zealand movies Saving Grace, Memory & Desire and the co-production The Climb which apparently does have nudity.

1998 looks like it'll have a similar amount of movies to look at as 1997 so expect two updates.

 

Tags: Pamela Gidley, Katrina Browne, Jacqueline McKenzie, Ullie Birve