Mike welcomes Andrew Nette and Jedidiah Ayres back to dissect Dark of the Sun (1968), a brutal, kinetic men‑on‑a‑mission film whose pulp thrills sit atop a surprisingly rich political and historical foundation. The trio digs into the movie’s Cold War backdrop, its depiction of the Congo Crisis, and the real mercenaries who inspired characters like Curry and the sadistic Henlein — from “Mad” Mike Hoare to Siegfried “Congo” Müller, whose Iron Cross‑wearing exploits echo through the film. They explore Jack Cardiff’s muscular direction, the film’s obsession with logistics, its uneasy colonial gaze, and how Rod Taylor and Jim Brown anchor a story that veers from heist film to war movie to moral reckoning.
Chainsaws, trains, diamonds, and geopolitics collide in one of the wildest action films of the 1960s.
Australia month crashes to a delirious halt with 1997’s Welcome to Woop Woop. Directed by Stephan Elliott and adapted from Douglas Kennedy's The Dead Heart by screenwriter Michael Thomas, the film strands American grifter Teddy (Johnathon Schaech) in a surreal outback shantytown ruled by Daddy-O (Rod Taylor) and fueled by show tunes, superstition, and mob justice. Susie Porter co-stars as Angie, who drags Teddy into the warped social rituals of Woop Woop—Dog Day, asbestos mines, pineapple Christmas, and a kangaroo called Big Red.
Ben Buckingham and Rahne Alexander join Mike to dissect the film’s Cannes infamy, its grotesque fairy-tale politics, and Elliott’s post-Priscilla swing for the fences.