The Dunes

2022, 1080hd

Johnny's comments:

A new Australian movie, The Dunes, is a thriller in which Nicholas (Martin Copping, also writer/director) is an Australian who is working as a reporter for the L.A. Times and married with a kid but is unfulfilled by the job. Then two things happen. The renter of his old family home has scarpered without notice and his elderly father (actually Robin Copping of Hexagon Films fame) has had another fall. So he decides to come back to Australia and after visiting his father, he heads back to his home town of The Dunes. He finds not much has changed and he asks an old friend Misty (Jacinta Stapleton, strangely uncredited) to tell his old girlfriend Beccy (Maria Volk) he is back in town. Meanwhile while lazing at his house and remembering a childhood incident, he gets a knock at the door from William (Tim Phillipps), whose car has broken down. He helps William but then he can't get rid of him and he ends up drinking with him despite giving up alcohol. Then William stays the night. He finally gets rid of him and gets a local Indigenous gardener Oracle Sam (Gregory J. Fryer) to clear the backyard but he refuses to, saying that something bad has happened there but Nicholas can't think of anything bad ever happening at the place. Beccy comes to visit and while they are outside a rancid smell overcomes them and they check it out and find a dead body barely covered in the yard. After calling the police, who are unhelpful, Nicholas and Beccy become close and then guess who comes knocking at the door again? William, and he's planning on sticking around one way or another.

Slow burning thriller that takes forever to get going and when it finally does the movie becomes interesting but not enough to save it. Get the feeling this movie would've worked better as a 60 minute movie as there's so much repetition, particularly of two scenes which seem related but turn out are only related in a tangential way. The ending is a bit hollow and the motivation for what happens more than a bit flimsy. The only interesting character is William which is great and all but NIcholas is on screen for the entire movie and he's boring, spending quite a lot time sleeping or remembering his childhood. It's not all bad but a tighter movie might've been the go here.

Interesting to see Maria Volk turn up in this movie as she's been in America for a while. She has a brief nude scene here, the scene itself is quite long and in context plays very differently to what you'll see below.

Maria Volk film clip (collages below)

The Apprentice

2014, 720p

Johnny's comments:

I also remembered that Maria Volk had a nude scene in a short film that was going to be a part of portmanteau movie but I couldn't remember what it was until I remembered that Anton Yelchin was in it. Turns out that The Apprentice was supposed to be a part of Movie 43, that absolutely terrible comedy movie, but word is that this segment was too spicy for that movie. Anyway, Anton Yelchin plays a morgue assistant who has to tend to a dead body who turns out to be a beautiful woman (Maria Volk when she was going by her real name Marsha Vassilevskaia). And well, we decides to fuck her and she comes back to life. It's pretty spicy but have you seen Movie 43? What's too spicy? Anyway it features Maria's best nudity to date (she was also naked in the American movie The Basement).

Maria Volk film clip (collages below)