Gabe Powers

Post-WWII, following many years of decline, the Australian film industry was rescued by a concerted, government-supported effort to fund new films and train new filmmakers via the Australian Film Television and Radio School. As a result, more than 400 new movies were released between 1970 and 1985. Starting (arguably) with Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971), international audiences were introduced to a new brand of artistic drama, followed by a new brand of rowdy comedy in Bruce Beresford’s The...

Independent animation mogul Ralph Bakshi worked his way up from cell polisher to animation director at Terrytoons, the B-grade studio behind Mighty Mouse (1960), before striking out on his own with Bakshi Productions in 1968. Against impossible odds, through sheer tenacity and stubbornness, Bakshi built his solo career off of his 1972 feature debut, Fritz the Cat, which was the first officially X-rated cartoon released in US theaters. It was made with producer Steve Krantz and used...

Long before he had his Hollywood breakthrough with Rush Hour (1998) or his international breakthrough with Rumble in the Bronx (1995), Jackie Chan had his Hong Kong breakthrough with a pair of kung fu comedies in 1978 – Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master – both made under choreographer-turned-director Yuen Woo-ping. Chan had been groomed as a possible replacement for the late Bruce Lee at Golden Harvest as early as 1976, when he starred in Lo Wei’s New Fist of Fury, but he really...