Let me just begin with the fact that I am loving the ‘re-discovery’ of Peter Watkins‘ filmography on DVD.  A good number of his films seemed to have skipped both repertory cinema and VHS (outside of rare and ratty VHS dubs) and remain only vaguely remembered, excluding of his Oscar winning The War Game, until the touring retrospective in 2005 which made stops in New York and Toronto.  As Terry Gilliam seems to amass a number of failed projects via large ambitions and curiously bad karma, Watkins seems to court distribution roadblocks with the combination of innovative narrative techniques (off-putting to mainstream acceptance) and confrontational up-to-the-minute politics (off-putting to conservative distributors).  To say that Watkins‘ films were ahead of their time is an understatement.  A gross one.  It is interesting that cinephiles are only catching up Watkins‘ work while the themes captured in his films are just as resonant and relevant today, in the case of Punishment Park (Twitch Review here) and Privilege more than 35 years ago.  Something about those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it…

London in the 1960s.  The Swinging ‘60s.  When Mod culture ruled and pop-stars strutted the earth (and the Ed Sullivan Show) like gods.  One band (you may have heard of them, named after a bug or some such thing) proclaimed that they in fact were “more popular than Jesus.” Part behind-the-scenes mock-doc (jumping the gun on This is Spinal Tap by more than a decade and a half), part fascism morality play (ditto The Wall) Privilege extrapolates a few years into the future on the trend of mega-popularity and influence of musical icons and the power over youth culture.  Call it social science-fiction.  Here in 1970s Britain (the film was made in 1967), the State and corporate interests have co-opted the influence of the biggest of the musicians and turned him into a tool; a means of molding and controlling the opinions and attention of the youth. 

Continue Reading "Seldom Seen:  Peter Watkins’ Privilege - DVD Review"...

Many of you out there probably lament that you cannot attend Weird Wednesday which happens at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz in Austin, Texas. Have no fear for this week, as I have the introduction the host Lars did for Jess Franco’s women in prison classic, 99 Women. Click ahead for a full video of his introduction and get a small taste of why this film series is so legendary and addictive.

99 Women is a really loving ode to women prisons and Rosalba Neri in thigh highs, that Franco helmed in a year he made around only 9 other films. The film is capped by one of the most eccentric and outright oddly brilliant prison ward performances in the history of cinema in the form of Mercedes McCambridge as Thelma Diaz.

Continue Reading "99 Women - Lars Weird Wednesday Intro"...

A demented lo-fi tumble into dark surrealism, Robert Martin Carroll’s undeservedly obscure ’89 opus Sonny Boy plays like the institutionalized cousin of the Coens’ saccharine-by-comparison Raising Arizona.  Anchored by a trio of outstanding turns from reliable genre thesps Paul L. Smith, Brad Douriff, and David Carradine (in drag and crooning over the credits), the film garnered relatively glowing critical praise and minor cult plaudits upon its initial release but has since faded into unjust obscurity.  Last seen on laserdisc courtesy of Media and 20th Century Fox, the film was once the property of ‘80s VHS mainstay Trans World Entertainment, with some rights resting with HBO.  Its exact whereabouts remain a mystery, a shameful fate for a film so consistently original and daring.

Continue Reading "Seldom Seen review | SONNY BOY"...

I’m throwing down the gauntlet on this one:  Rolling Vengeance is a dyed-in the-wool minor lost classic in annals of ‘80s exploitation.  We’ve been denied other superlative Reagan-era efforts like Night of the Creeps on DVD for some time but the thing is, people are calling for their re-releases - there are websites, even petitions.  Vengeance, on the other hand, seems to have slipped past even the most meticulous DTV aficionados.  Produced (in Canada, no less) at the height of monster truck mania in the go-go ‘80s, the film is a straight shot of over-the-top car crunching action and cheesy hard-rock ballads, the likes of which must truly be seen to be believed.

Part of the hicksploitation sub-genre (exemplified by Road House, beholden to Deliverance) that rears its gap-toothed head every so often with little rhyme or reason, Vengeance won’t sweep any retroactive award races and doesn’t fly in the face of genre conventions.  What it does do is play all the right notes to their hilt, something much easier said than done when it comes to balancing the polar elements that make for a memorable sleaze fest.  Vengeance has the great advantage of a script completely in tune with its roots, actors unafraid to give their all in intentionally outsized performances, and an oh-so-80s vibe throughout that’s tough to resist.

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“Take your shirt off and I’ll see what I can do.” If your dream is to hear Dirty Dozen vet Clint Walker grumble those words to a construction worker– and be honest, you know somewhere deep inside it is – look no further than Killdozer, the shark-jumping 1974 MFTV offering about, yes, a possessed, killer bulldozer.  While the spectacle of grown men unable to evade death at the metal maw of a slow-as-molasses earthmover may not make for an ambrosial 75 minutes, there are good bits of atmosphere scattered throughout and a spectacular synth-heavy Gil Melle score-cum-soundscape to reward diligent viewers – to say nothing of being able to simply sit back and enjoy one of the more harebrained concepts ever committed to populist celluloid.

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[It is films like that this one that I count myself privileged to write for a website like Twitch.  It is not often that this type of essential cinematic discovery comes along, and I’ll admit there is quite a heady-thrill when you are caught so off guard about a film.  I must confess that my experience of the Filipino film industry is rather limited.  That brings me into this particularly obscure piece of cinema with a lack of context politically and socially.  A good thing that this film deals with themes and images which are timeless and intrinsic enough to the human condition, certainly knowing the state of the country at the time (original release was 1985) has to add a fair amount of additional insight into the film, however it is not really necessary.  On a certain level, there is an art-house accessibility that should have had Silip picked up by Criterion (who put out Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s Salo) or Masters of Cinema or Facets years ago.]

Kudos to UK label Mondo Macabro for bringing this intense film out of obscurity and hopefully into a beloved place in cinema history.  Surely it belongs beside Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo as one of the defining films that go after the extreme side of the human condition.  It would be foolhardy (or too convenient) to label this film as simply an ‘Opera of Exploitation’.  Still, it does open with a man killing a buffalo with a hammer before disemboweling the beast and hacking off the head with an axe.  And he does so, not only in front of the village children, but in particular one grief stricken young boy who viewed the animal more as a pet than livestock.  He is told by the man, who during the process of butchering the animal for later distribution amongst the village folks, that the people have to eat.  It is a particularly strong way to end the innocence of the child, and also of any unsuspecting audience member.  The film is loaded with graphic sex, more than one grizzly murder and at one point, a hedonistic gang rape.  And yet, art this clearly is. Unlike many films labeled as extreme or exploitive cinema, Silip is a meticulously plotted, delicately structured and textured film that finds a sublime balance between thematic depth and shocking (occasionally even absurd) imagery.  The two hour plus film wraps it all up in package that speaks volumes about human repression, how people individually and collectively deal with guilt and the inevitable unleashing of the beast within if things remain bottled or suppressed for too long.  Speaking without irony or hyperbole Silip is a bona fide masterpiece.

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In order to both honor the MFTV achievements of director John Badham and supply more much-needed coverage to the indisputable treasure trove of titles which graced the small screen 30-some-odd years ago, this double shot of Seldom Seen will look at two Badham-helmed MFTV offerings this time out—1974’s Reflections of Murder and 1973’s Isn’t It Shocking?.

Oft-referenced as one of the pillars of the suspense genre, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique receives a classy, taut MFTV reworking as Reflections of Murder courtesy of director Badham and a stellar leading trio of Tuesday Weld, Joan Hackett, and Sam Waterston.

Continue Reading "Seldom Seen review | REFLECTIONS OF MURDER"...

In order to both honor the MFTV achievements of director John Badham and supply more much-needed coverage to the indisputable treasure trove of titles which graced the small screen 30-some-odd years ago, this double shot of Seldom Seen will look at two Badham-helmed MFTV offerings – 1973’s Isn’t It Shocking? and 1974’s Reflections of Murder.

The aged populace of a small New England town is being offed by a mysterious prodigal son in Isn’t It Shocking?, a perversely comic suspenser from director Badham.  Game performances from a veritable wax museum of classic stars including Will Geer, Edmund O’Brien, and Ruth Gordon complement Alan Alda’s hilariously gruff turn as befuddled town sheriff Barnes in stalwart ‘70s genre scribe Lane Slate’s engaging who-dun-it.

Continue Reading "Seldom Seen review | ISN’T IT SHOCKING?"...

Always quick to feed off real-life tragedy, the film world has only within the last few decades dared to critique with these early responses instead of simply spouting propaganda and waving flags.  Wide-spread public dissatisfaction with the war in Vietnam pushed a young, socially-conscious generation of filmmakers toward producing works which reflected the war’s negative impact on all facets of American life while the conflict still festered.  When the war “officially” ended in 1975, many soldiers returned to U.S. soil feeling, for the first time, like something other than heroes.  It’s this notion that fules the dark engine of John Flynn’s Rolling Thunder (1977), a genuine cult classic that wraps a chilling character study inside the bloody trappings of a revenge thriller.

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Perched as we are at the threshold of another shift in home video media, those old enough are encouraged to think back to the time when VHS really took off and mom-and-pop rental outlets ruled the rental roost (those too young, crack open your history texts). By the late ‘80s the VCR was ingrained in day-to-day life, bringing movies into our homes on our terms and allowing us to time-shift TV we’d otherwise miss. With a VCR (sometimes two or three) in nearly every household, the question of whether a technology so pervasive could endanger our well-being began to be raised. In director Jeff Lieberman’s funky, high-spirited Remote Control, the VCR as an agent of evil is explored in a tale as much an ode to ‘50s sci-fi as it is a comment on the home video explosion.

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I really tried getting this up on the weekend I swear and boy, am I pissed I can’t go.  I’m gonna make this short and sweet:

Be a part of the from-the-ground-up success story and test screen HANK & MIKE—This is the first time it’s being shown anywhere and you owe it to yourself to see this.  There will be Q&A with the creators following and they want your feedback - So get cracking ...  For honest, unbiased feedback, there are 2 rules:
THEY WANT REGULAR PEOPLE WHO THEY DO NOT KNOW.
INDUSTRY FOLK AND FRIENDS OF THE CAST NOT ALLOWED. (Friends, okay if you bring 2 ‘unknown’ folk with you.)

Date: Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Deluxe Lab
Street: 424 Adelaide East (corner of Ontario)
City/Town: Toronto, ON
Click for Map

Email:

Website and Trailer
Interview

June is Pride Month for the queer community and this year promises to be perhaps one of the richest celebrations in recent memory, beginning with the groundbreaking Turner Classic Movies broadcast of Screened Out: Gay Images In Film, a month-long 44-film tribute inspired by the Richard Barrios book Screened Out: Playing Gay in Hollywood from Edison to Stonewall, moderated by Barrios with Robert Osborne and interstitial commentary by Michael Musto, Ron Nyswaner, Charles Busch, Tab Hunter, Alan Cumming and Don Murray. TCM is airing the series every Monday and Wednesday in June at 8:00PM Eastern / 5:00PM Pacific.

Bookwrapcentral offers up a great sampling of video clips of Barrios discussing his book.

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This installment of Seldom Seen features a film some people might know about but haven’t gotten the chance to see since its only been released on VHS in America and I don’t know how wide it spread over the world. It features three highly respectable directors each doing a segment in this H.P. Lovecraft inspired anthology. Of course at the time, 1993, only one of them was well known but the other two would break out a few years later on the international scene.
The film is Necronomicon, co-produced and partially directed by Brian Yuzna and features the first filmwork by Chrisophe Gans (Brotherhood of the Wolf, Silent Hill) and the first and only US lensed film by Shushuke Kaneko (Gamera trilogy, Death Note). It’s also noteworthy that it’s produced by Samuel Hadida (True Romance, Resident Evil, Good Night and Good Luck) and Takashige Ichise ( Ring, The Grudge, Shutter).
It’s true that when this film was made nobody knew who Gans was or even Kaneko, who had a few films under his belt, but none of them had gotten him any attention overseas, so the film was marketed solely on Yuzna’s name. I remember reading about this in Fangoria back in the day and being slightly interested but then the film failed to make any waves and quickly disappeared. But it stayed in the back of my head all this time and when I looked for a DVD release of it, for my Gans and Kaneko collection, I found a superb version released in France three years ago. But more on that later.

Continue Reading "Seldom seen DVD review NECRONOMICON"...

Dennis Harvey’s masterful SF360 summation of this past month’s Sleazy Sundays series and the pervading grindhouse mania that’s crept into programming in nearly every major urban center in the States warrants a shout-out.  It’s a fun read, not the least for listing some of his most memorable moments at the Strand Theatre here in San Francisco.  When Roxy Music sang, ”Do the Strand!”, they didn’t know it was being interpreted so idiosyncratically down on Market Street.  My favorite moments at the Strand (that I’m willing to admit): a John Waters retrospective where I first saw Female Trouble; a David Cronenberg retrospective where I first saw Rabid and Brood; escaping the rain one day to watch a movie I knew nothing about, something called The Terminator.  Then there was the time I was terrified by a paper bag on one of the seats next to me.  It had been left behind by some previous patron and—as I watched the movie—the bag moved all by itself.  I was too terrified to do anything but look at it, increasingly distracted from the movie I had paid good money—well, cheap money—to watch.  Anyone else have some good Strand stories?

Dennis also profiles the final triple bill in this month’s series: Maniac, Preacherman, and Black Gestapo.  All in all, Sleazy Sundays has been a fun series and Dead Channels deserves something—maybe their comeuppance?—for indulging us our flashback to the sticky ‘60s and ‘70s.

But don’t think the mania’s over yet!!  Joel Shephard, film curator over at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, has booked “Broken Speakers and Broken People: A Real Grindhouse Double-Feature” on Thursday, May 10, at 7:30 & 9PM.

Joel writes: “In (a little belated) celebration of Grindhouse, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s tribute to the sleaze-pits of yore, here is a double-feature of fucked-up, freaked-out and forgotten 70s exploitation films.  Rather than a studied re-creation, though, this is the real thing.  In true exploitation scam tradition, I’ve decided not to announce the titles in advance, you’ll need to trust me and just show up.  I promise, though, that you will not be disappointed . . . suckers!”

Joel, baby, this has nothing to do with trust and everything to do with drooling unbridled curiosity!!  I can hope for “roughies”, can’t I?  See you at Sleazy Sundays and Broken Speakers/Broken People!

SF360 Sleazy Sundays article (Dennis Harvey)
YBCA Grindhouse Doublebill

Cross-published on The Evening Class.

There were a couple of things that sprang to mind at last Sunday’s “Sleazy Sunday” triplebill. First, Bruce Fletcher lies through his teeth. He had me thoroughly convinced that he had secured the best print in the world for Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires. The lights went down, I leaned back, and wham, pinkout with green scratchy lines. It was like some kind of mod madras plaid. Of course, this is absolutely appropriate—I dare say atmospheric—when it comes to emulating (simulating? stimulating?) grindhouse. That and the people walking in and out of the movie as they damn well please.

So then a few days later I went to watch the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse vehicle and I kept musing on how the two of them spent $50,000,000 to achieve the look that time and various “Sleazy Sunday” festivals had done to the Planet of the Vampires print. I’m here to say that Planet of the Vampires was much more realistic and convincing! Talk about throwing good money after bad….

Secondly, it’s very interesting to watch bad movies in a moviehouse with people who appreciate bad movies. If they’re really bad, people are catcalling and wiggling around in their popcorn, tossing out wiseacre comments and pretending they’re the new hosts of Mystery Science Theater. It’s all great fun. But here’s the thing. It’s also a very sensitive issue because, for example, the first film last weekend was this atrocious thing called War of the Robots that had more horrible blonde pageboy wigs than I’ve ever seen in my life, other than maybe Village of the Damned and its various sequels and remakes combined. It was easy—effortless—to make fun of that movie. Then comes Bava’s Planet of the Vampires, which all of a sudden quieted the audience down. Because, despite the plaid print, it was too good, goddammit!!

Anyways, Neil over at The Bleeding Tree has been kind enough to let me offer up my first two “Sleazy Sunday” reviews—Starcrash and The Dunwich Horror—to his ongoing Trashy Movie Celebration Blogathon. I really wanted to take part and really didn’t want to write anything new. I have just enough energy, however, to fully recommend this indulgence—nay celebration!—of all those films that are coming back around again. I’m a firm believer in recycling trash; aren’t you?

Cross-published at The Evening Class.

Trashy Movie Celebration Blogaton at Bleeding Tree.