You know the advice students are always given in English classes where they are told to write about what they know about; well that adage has been applied quite a bit in the case of Almost Hollywood. It's actually very unusual indeed to find an exploitation film that it about the behind-the-scenes goings on featuring the people who make exploitation films. So hats off to the film-makers here for doing something that is simultaneously so obvious yet so utterly rare. Its story surrounds a film producer who specialises in soft-core exploitation films; he gets mixed up in murder and other shenanigans.
I have to say that I was pretty surprised with this one. It obviously was made on an absolute shoe-string budget, yet it actually displays a decent amount of ambition to not be a genre film but to be about the making of them. Sure, it's a comedy and some of it gags fall flat but it was surprisingly clever quite a bit of the time too, with some worthwhile things to say about the business and a few clever scenes where we in the audience don't know if what we are seeing is real or a film. So, yeah, well done I say for giving us something more thoughtful than the usual generic drivel. This one also has the good fortune of starring the Playboy playmate India Allen, who also is in on the joke, while still being kind enough to strip off once which was, of course, nice.
I have to say that I was pretty surprised with this one. It obviously was made on an absolute shoe-string budget, yet it actually displays a decent amount of ambition to not be a genre film but to be about the making of them. Sure, it's a comedy and some of it gags fall flat but it was surprisingly clever quite a bit of the time too, with some worthwhile things to say about the business and a few clever scenes where we in the audience don't know if what we are seeing is real or a film. So, yeah, well done I say for giving us something more thoughtful than the usual generic drivel. This one also has the good fortune of starring the Playboy playmate India Allen, who also is in on the joke, while still being kind enough to strip off once which was, of course, nice.