Category Archives: Ozsploitation

Upcoming talk: The motorcycle – rebel in pop culture

Posted on April 4, 2021 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

A heads up to Pulp Curry readers, that on Thursday April 22 EST, I’ll be giving a talk to coincide with the exhibition currently being hosted by the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, The Motorcycle: Design, Art, Desire. The talk is entitled, ‘The Motorcycle: Rebel in Pop Culture’.

Throughout the decades, motorbikes have been portrayed as a symbol of freedom and rebellion in fiction, music and on the screen. I’ll be taking you on a journey through the different representations of the motorcycle in youth and popular culture history, mainly in the United States, Australia and Great Britain. I’ll be examining what has given the motorbike its cool reputation as well as discussing how it has also functioned as a lightning rod for post war concerns around various youth subcultures. The talk will focus on film, but I’ll also look at the representation of the motorbike in music and pulp fiction.

The talk, which will take place on Zoom, will start at 7pm EST, is free & your time zone permitting open to anyone anywhere to attend. All you have to do is book at this link. I hope you can attend.

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Posted in 1960s American crime films, 1970s American crime films, Australian crime film, Beat culture, Book cover design, British pulp fiction, Crime film, Dystopian cinema, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980, Horwitz Publications, Men's Adventure Magazines, Neo Noir, New English Library, Ozsploitation, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Rollerball, Vintage pulp paperback covers

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10 great Australian westerns

Posted on February 28, 2020 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

To mark the UK release of The True History of the Kelly Gang (2019), Justin Kurzel’s bold reimagining of the sage one of Australia’s most famous myths, bushranger Ned Kelly, the British Film Institute asked me to write about my ten favourite Australian westerns. Not only is Ned Kelly Australia’s most famous bushranger – the name given to convicts who had escaped and survived Australia’s harsh environment to become outlaws – his legend forms a mini industry in film and television. In addition to Kurzel’s, Kelly has been the subject of eight films. The Kelly filmography forms part of a larger of body of Australian westerns, made by overseas and local concerns. You can read my piece in full at the BFI site here.

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Posted in Australian crime film, Australian noir, Australian popular culture, Australian television history, Bryan Brown, Crime fiction, Ozsploitation, Westerns

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10 great Australian crime films

Posted on April 13, 2018 by Andrew Nette| 6 Comments

To mark the addition of Ivan Sen’s 2016 film, Goldstone, to BFI Player, I was asked to write on 10 great Australian crime films. The piece is live and can be read in full on the BFI site here.

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Posted in 1960s American crime films, Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Australian popular culture, Australian television history, Bryan Brown, Crime film, Ozsploitation, Peter Corris, True crime

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Pre-orders open for The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

I’ll make this quick. Pre-orders are now open for an exciting new anthology, The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir, out through the New York based independent publisher, Three Rooms Press, this October.

I reckon the wonderful cover, which I just love, tells you all you need to know about the book. Fifteen stories of pulpy goodness, featuring robots, lizard people, vigilante killers and various other bizarre creations riffing off the conspiracy theories association with the Obama presidency (although I believe the current occupant of the White House also gets a nod).

The anthology is edited by one of the hardest working men in crime fiction, Gary Phillips, critically acclaimed author of mystery and graphic novels, including Peepland, Violent Spring, and Warlord of Willow Ridge. It features stories by a host of talented writers, including big guns such as Walter Mosley and Robert Silverberg. I represent the Melbourne contingent, along with my friend and fellow scribe, Liam Jose, with a dystopian science fiction heist gone wrong tale called, ‘Sunburnt Country’.

Alll the pre-order details you need to know can be found at Three Rooms Press site here.

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Posted in Australian noir, Horror, Ozsploitation, Science fiction and fantasy

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Pulp Friday: Patrick

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

Patrick #1I am partial to a good paperback movie tie-in and this week’s Pulp Curry features a beauty, Patrick, which I found in an excellent second hand book shop during recent travels in rural Victoria.

Published by Sun Books in 1978, the novel is based on the original screenplay by Everett de Roche of the influential Ozploitation film of the same name about man in a coma after murdering his mother and her lover by electrocuting them in a bath. The man, Patrick (Robert Thomspon), who strange psychokinetic powers, falls in love with his nurse, Kathy (Susan Penhaligon) communicating with her via an electric typewriter. He also uses his powers to ward off other potential male suiters in Kathy’s life and battle the hospital staff, particularly the Nurse Ratched-like Matron, Cassidy (Julia Blake).

The book was written Australian writer Keith Hetherington, who we have featured previously on this site. Hetherington, who was born in 1929 and I believe is still alive, had a long career, including writing Westerns and Larry Kent crime thrillers for Cleveland Publishing, fiction for Man and Pocket Man magazine, radio plays, television scripts, and various stand alone thrillers and a paperback tie ins for films such as Snapshot (1979) and The Chain Reaction (1980).

I love the cover for this paperback tie in, Robert Thompson aka Patrick’s creepy, penetrating eyes, although the copy I have, from which the front and back cover scan is taken, is slightly askew, the product of a printing fault.… Read more

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Posted in Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Horror, Ozsploitation, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Science fiction and fantasy

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