Girl At The Window (2022) - Movie Review

 

Studying a thing and being able to do that thing aren’t the same. As much as the phrase “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” genuinely annoys me for how condescending it is, and admittedly some of that may be insecurity about my own lot in life commenting on the work of others for fun and profit, there is some degree of truth to it. And that seems to be the case for Aussie director Mark Hartley here. The man has put a lot of effort into documenting the history of exploitation cinema, both here and abroad, to the point where his film Not Quite Hollywood is what originally coined the term ‘Ozploitation’. Between that and his documentary on the history of Cannon Films, Electric Boogaloo, the man seems to know his stuff. But looking at his own attempt to add to the tradition of Ozploitation cinema, he doesn’t seem able to apply much of it.

Wog Boys Forever (2022) - Movie Review

The original Wog Boy is one of my favourite Aussie films ever. It is everything I love about the self-deprecating Aussie sense of humour, used to highlight the multicultural patchwork that makes me appreciate the country I live in. It’s definitely a product of its time, and rather juvenile as such things go, but for a comedy that pokes at ethnic stereotypes while also taking the piss out of the social welfare system and local government at large, a lot of it is as accurate today as it was when it first came out.

Its sequel, Kings Of Mykonos, is a completely different story. An example of Adam Sandler-esque paid-vacationcore, it is so fucking dreadful as to be a fair bit worse than even the most dire examples in Sandler’s own filmography. When Kevin Sorbo is the most enjoyable part of your film, it might be time to reconsider what you’re doing with your life and who you’re inflicting it on.

And this is all without getting into writer/star Nick Giannopoulos going full Lou Interligi a few years ago and taking other comedians to court because he had patents on words like ‘Wog’. I may have a strange kind of respect for having the nards to take out a legal patent on an ethnic slur that is meant to target yourself, but using that to get all litigious on people who are also trying to reclaim it is pretty dicey.

With all this in mind, seeing posters crop up for this film had me going full rubberneck. I am willing to look past the legal shit (legal disputes between comedians is something I grew up hearing about, so I’m not as phased by it as I probably should be), but I’m really hoping that this returns to the first film, rather than continuing the sad display of KOM. And thankfully, that’s exactly what’s happened here.