When I started this blog a few years ago, the goal was to expound what I had been doing for assorted print magazines and webzines alike. Over time, that goal has remained steadfast, but in addition to that, it has helped bring some great connections in my life and hopefully converted the unconverted to film, literature and music worthy of love, attention and discourse.
That said, the time has been long nigh to take things to the next level and with that is an official website that is now officially live! Mondo Heather is now a big, bright website featuring some old chestnuts from this blog, as well as some brand newpieces as well. If you have enjoyed this blog at all, then you will love the website even more.
This blog will remain up as a document of the past, but for the present and future, ride the mindway and go to Mondo Heather.
It's intermission time and you are
primed and ready. Smuggled in snack food? Check. Overpriced soda the
size of an old school Buick's headlight obtained officially on
theater premises? Check. Your eager film-going tocks firmly in place
in your cush, stadium setting multiplex chair? Check. Mass exposure
to a barrage of advertisement and trailers that stink of crass
come-ons and hucksterism like a dead dog in the Texas heat? Sad in
its absoluteness.
What I am listing here is the
lego-block-steps that many of us go through when we actually venture
out of our home/caves and crave something bigger than our monitors,
phones or TV's can provide. Steps one and two are touch and go hence
interchangeable, but the last two are inescapable. Advertisement is a
necessary beast for businesses, so if it is cloying or cheesy or
IQ-drowning, it is simply the nature of things. It is what it is.
Where the true scares begin is when the film trailers start rolling.
Going to see George Miller's latest,
the incredible and powerful right down to its very core MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, I got a big faceful of the death throes of American mainstream
cinema. (MAD MAX is spared because it is essentially an Australian
film made by an Australian director, albeit with big American press,
money and distribution behind it.) The first two trailers were both
based on characters from Marvel Comics, with the first being ANTMAN
and the second being yet another version of THE FANTASTIC FOUR.
(Never mind the fact that the last two attempts at bringing the
latter comic to life have failed pretty tremendously.) There are
amazing films based on comics. In fact two of my favorite films ever,
THE WATCHMEN and GHOST WORLD, were both based on equal but
differently brilliant graphic novels. However, I feel like Hollywood
is really starting the tap the Marvel/DC archive bone dry with this
business. You can hear the execs practically ejaculating in their
well tailored slacks at the merchandising dollars alone. You too can
have an ANTMAN burrito from Taco Bell! (Note: I have no idea if that
tie-in will happen, but would it surprise you? Yeah, me neither.)
Even worse, both trailers looked basic
as basic could be. There might as well been flashing text cuing all
of us blank-faced living dead rubes on when to laugh, gasp or ooh and
ahh. At this point, they are banking on if they slap a comic book
hero emblem on a monkey trying to suck its own weiner, there will be
enough suckers to fork over their hard earned dough for the second
saddest breads and circuses bullshit fiesta ever. (The first being
reality TV, of course.)
It didn't get any better with the next
trailer, another dog & pony paranormal show in the form of THE
GALLOWS. Bad lighting, hackneyed horror cliches, a cast that are
blander than the wardrobe selection on Dawson's Creek and the use of
a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that put me in the mindset
of hoping that Kurt Cobain will haunt everyone attached to this banal
looking horror film. In short, it does not look promising. In this
age of legitimately eerie “creepypastas” and indie horror
directors who are trying to add new chrome to a jet lagged wheel, THE
GALLOWS looks both dated and about as scary as NEW YEAR'S EVIL. (And
if you have seen that film, first of all I'm sorry and secondly, you
know exactly what I am talking about.)
Lastly, there was arguably the best of
the bunch, Guy Richie's remake/reboot/regurgitation of THE MAN FROM
U.N.C.L.E It looks well shot but incredibly arch. Plus Henry Cavill's
Napoleon Solo reads less Robert Vaughn and more like George Lazenby
in need of a tall glass of Metamucil. Realistically, it's probably
going through the motions as much as the other three, but is a little
more stylish. It is like the jaded stripper who cares enough to look
a little put together and nice, but is still going to bump and grind
with all the internal eroticism of a POW camp.
The divine yang to the awful yin was
Miller's latest addition to the Mad Max universe. FURY ROAD is
everything that those trailers are not. Truly invigorating, visually
stunning with some scenes echoing shades of the most vibrant
surrealists coupled with the metal-on-dust hyper realism of a
post-apocalyptic universe, characters who stand out, composition that
echoes masters like David Lean and Sergei Eisenstein and best of all,
an actual and beating heart. A film as good as MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
feels as fragrant and sweet as the best love letter. Not that the
film itself is that light and airy. Far from it but it is so
incredibly well made by a cast and crew who clearly cared enough to
treat us, the viewer, with actual respect and affection. The fact
that this film is cliche-less seals the whole envelope with a blood
and tear stained kiss. I will write more in-depth about this
extraordinary film at a later date, but needless to say, it has left
a huge imprint on me.
In a way, the creative success of this
film and its contrast to so much of the trite and bait and hack of
mainstream American cinema has tapped into something I have long
suspected. The era of big budget American directors crafting true
masterpieces is dead. There's a 1% exception, as there is for almost
everything in life, but in the bigger picture, forget it. The waves
upon waves of “reboots,” which is just another word for remake,
is proof of this. There are good remakes out there, but for every
John Carpenter's THE THING, we get Michael Bay's colostomy bag of
horseshit.
Don't get me wrong, nostalgia is a
dangerous and fetid emotion and Hollywood was and will forever be
about the bottom dollar. To quote Bobbi Flekman from THIS IS SPINAL
TAP, “Money talks and bullshit walks.” The only problem is that
the bullshit is the thing, again with some exceptions, bringing in
the money. The more bloated things get, the more apparent it is that
the true viable hope of American cinema is in the hands of two
specific types. Those who are currently in the belly of the beast,
slaving to get out from the inside and pull some beautifully
subversive cards from their deck and the true blue independent
artists out there. And I'm not talking “Miramax” indies either. I
am talking the men and woman who are working class artists writing,
editing, producing and directing out of a true need and want to do
something that is their own. There is always hope in this life and
with American cinema, it is resting firmly in these two divergent but
similarly-goaled twin hands.
My first trip to the beautiful state of
California practically overflowed with film watching. Which is highly
fitting for about eighty different reasons.
Even better was that I got to watch some spectacular films but out of
the veritable Whitman's Sampler of good cinema, there was one film
among all the others that has continued to stay with me. In fact, it
is one of those that worms its way ever so neatly under your skin. I
couldn't stop thinking about it and in fact, still can't, which means
there was only one thing left to do. Write about it.
At the very core of
this Mesmer-worthy pull is the filmmaker/star/writer. A man of
somewhat slight physical build but yet contained a pure power that
only the most alpha and charismatic of males can have. On top of that
layer cake of qualities is the undiluted creative passion and fire
that only the truly brilliant, mad or a little bit of both possess.
The man in question is the inimitable Duke Mitchell and the film? His
last and unfinished until recently masterwork, GONE WITH THE POPE.
Going into the
film, the main thing I knew about Duke Mitchell was that he was an
entertainer that had popped up as the pseudo-Dean Martin to Sammy
Petrillo's Jerry Lewis-esque schtick in the C-Film, BELA LUGOSI MEETS
THE BROOKLYN GORILLA. The only thing I knew about GWTP was that it
was going to be a strange mafioso type film. Both of these are the
golden winners of the understatements of the year award because boy
howdy, I got sucker punched and in the absolute best of ways.
In GWTP, Duke plays
Paul, a career criminal getting released from prison after being
locked up for several years. Most would want to lay low after being
trapped in the ultimate cement jungle, especially with a loyal, sweet
natured wealthy blonde waiting for them. But Paul's not really given
that choice when he is immediately pulled back into the underworld
and is coerced into pulling off seven hits in two different cities.
In a brilliant move that I will not spoil because I love you, let's
just say that Paul is not a dude you want to ever underestimate,
especially in a double-cross situation.
Brilliant is a word
that one can attribute a lot to GWTP and the core of that is the
character of Paul. This man is one heartburst of a character and with
an absolute moral need to do right by his friends, who have also just
gotten released from the clink. We even see him give a pep talk to a
young, strung out long hair (played by Duke's son, Jeffrey Mitchell)
about staying off the junk. With the aid of his lady fair, he even
gets to take his boys out on a world wide boating trip, all to give
them experiences that they never had and would never get to have
without his help.
The big sweeping
shades of moral gray never quite leave and in fact, only grow
exponentially after the film's first act. One night of fun with the
boys leads them, all woman-starved from being in prison, to spending
the evening with a model-gorgeous black escort. It's bizarre because
some of the non-politically correct shit said her way would be
greeted with, at best, “what the fuck” and at worst, sheer
repulsion. The lady handles it with way more grace and smiles than it
deserves but yet, Paul ends up joking with her and being
affectionate. It's a brainmelt move because any other film would have
these characters as outright, cardboard cutout racist villains. But
Paul is clearly our hero of sorts and his attitude isn't totally
dyed-in-the-wool racist. It's a bit like having an older relative who
will say some heinously politically incorrect shit, but yet his best
friend is an African-American and more importantly, he is at least
NOT the kind of asshole to swing the “but one of my friends...”
old chestnut.
Paul is not that
type and from all accounts, neither was Duke Mitchell.
It's a move that
neither endorses nor condemns but better yet, is a slice of life.
Good people say messed up things and do messed up things. Anyone that
is willing to share this truth with you and not treat you like a
child weaned on John Wayne morality is a person that respects you.
Thank you, Duke Mitchell.
The moral
complexity further continues with Paul's ultimate grand scheme:
kidnapping the Pope and holding him for ransom until every single
Catholic pays fifty cents. Out of love for their friend and leader,
they go along with it but once the egg is hatched, nobody banks on
the crew discovering spiritual enlightenment. All of this leads to
the film's absolute pivotal moment, one that is not riddled with
bullets or machismo laden violence or bravura, but instead one
emotional scene that rings more true than a gaggle of any “Oscar”
worthy melodramas. The criticism of the Catholic Church is one that
is still being echoed over thirty years later and yet, the Pope in
this film is also a good man. Not a corrupt figure doing the ole soft
shoe on molestation charges and wearing Gucci slippers, but a quiet
older man with a sense of serenity and light around him. Yet
everything that Paul rips his heart open about the church, right down
to the lack of black faces in the pews, rings true.
The
rest of the film spirals into a strange climax that has to be seen to
be believed. Which is all part of the shocking beauty of GONE WITH
THE POPE. It is alternately well made and yet raw at its core, with a
fluidity and rhythm like no other. The closest filmmaker that had
that same fire spirit that Mitchell displays both acting and
directing wise with GWTP is John Cassavetes. Which may sound like an
odd comparison at first, especially since Cassavetes' films tended to
lack dialogue like “Why Me?” “Why not?” in the midst of a mob
hit, but these two men are cut from that same, we're gonna do it
anyhow cloth. The blending of the true-to-life lack of filter, zero
compromise and pure volatile heart are the hallmarks of artists like
this. That's why guys like Duke and Cassavetes will forever stand out
because their breed is as striking as they are endangered and
realistically, they have always
been endangered.
Duke Mitchell,
whose career as an entertainer remained solid enough to be deemed
“the King of Palm Springs” and have his own star in that famed
desert resort, that he didn't need to go into filmmaking. Looking at
his short but striking filmography, including the strong gut-punch of a debut with MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE and GONE WITH THE POPE as the crown jewel, a cat
like Mitchell did this out of pure need and love. There was no way,
even in the more liberal climate of the 1970's, that his films ever
had a chance to be blockbusters. There is no justice but it also
means he did something right by making a film so wild, wooly and with
his thumbprint all over it.
Bless both the
folks at Grindhouse Releasing and Jeffrey Mitchell, for making sure
that Duke's final film not only was finished, but that it is seeing
a more than proper Blu Ray/DVD release. (Complete with a bounty of extras, including interviews, deleted scenes and liner notes from uber-writer, filmmaker and Bizarro literature high guru, John Skipp.) Passing way too soon from this plane at the age
of 55, Duke Mitchell's cinematic legacy will continue to live on and
grow bigger than it was when he was still alive. If you want to see a
film layered with crime, love and religious conflict, then look no
further than Duke Mitchell's incendiary GONE WITH THE POPE.
Every genre of film has its presets of
expectations. If it's a Western film, you expect dusty landscapes and
dirty cowboys. If it's a Horror film, you expect some amount of
screaming, blood and at least one false scare. If it's a love story,
then you expect romantic pathos and a boy and a girl to meet and fall
in forever, soulmate-esque love in spite of a few dramatic
interruptions. Etc etc. All of this is why I love it when a filmmaker
can take these little category boxes of film, wield a boxcutter to a
bunch of them and then with some duct tape, construct something
actually quite fresh and different. With this build up, you may not
expect that the film I am segueing to is Jorg Buttgereit's sequel to
his underground dark comedy/horror film, Nekromantik, but segueing I
am! (Of course if you actually read the title to this article, then
you already knew where I was going with all of this.
In that case, never mind.)
Sequels
are generally a bit of a creative gamble. Is it a crude way to lure
in the rubes? Sure, if the minds behind it are bankrupt. A truly good
and worthy sequel is one that can use all of the right elements from
the first film and utilize that as a template to build a better
garden. With a brilliant and fun director like Buttgereit at the helm
once again, Nekromantik 2 is a fascinating film intertwined with one
of the strangest love stories ever told.
The
quote of “I just want to master life & death, ” courtesy of
Theodore R. Bundy, better known as Ted Bundy, one of the most
infamous serial killers from the past forty years, begins the first
frame, right before a flashback to Rob's (Daktari Lorenz) climactic
(literally and metaphorically) hari kiri scene from the first film.
Nekromantik 2 truly begins with a stylishly dressed and slightly
nervous looking young woman walking around a cemetery near a bombed
out looking building. The deeper she goes, the more lush the
vegetation grows, until she ends up in a more secluded section where
Rob is buried. In some perfect cosmic kismet, the first film's
death-obsessed protagonist ends up being dug up by a lovely lady with
similar post-living obsessions!
Digging
him up, she's able to move his corpse into her extremely colorful and
tidy apartment. The grotto-grunge of Rob's apartment from the first
film is replaced by clean, sunny walls and modern, neat-looking
furniture. Jars of assorted body parts/mementos from Rob's dayjob are
now an assortment of skull centric paintings and medical x-rays used
as art as décor. The red haired woman, Monika (Monika M.), lays his
body out and kisses him wetly with some tentativeness and a lot of
barely held back erotic charge, before she begins to undress him.
Meanwhile, we also meet Mark (Mark Reeder), a lanky looking young man
on his way to his dayjob of dubbing over rangy-looking porn.
The
dreamy edging into psychedelic camerawork that marked all of the love
scenes from the first Nekromantik starts to return as Monika attempts
to make love to Rob's blackened-by-rot form, but coitus interruptus
arises as she physically gets ill and cannot resume the lovemaking.
In short, Monika has the heart and drive for sexually loving the
dead, but not quite the stomach. There's something about Rob, though,
that makes her clean up his body, with her red lacquered nails
tenderly touching the imprint of his fatal gut wound and dress him in
fresh clothes. As Mark tries to plan a film date with an eternally
tardy friend of his, Monika poses with Rob for her Polaroid with a
self-timer, grinning like a new girl smitten with amour.
But
life's strange glory comes into play yet again, when Monika happens
to walk by the Sputnik Theater where Mark is waiting for his date.
Impatient, he chats her up and offers Monika the spare ticket. Going
to watch some bizarro world version of “My Dinner with Andre,”
entitled “Mon Dejeuner avec Vera” (aka “My Lunch with Vera”),
that consists of a highly chatty man and a less chatty woman,
completely naked and eating eggs, Monika and Mark quickly hit it off.
Soon, Monika will face the weirdest case of being “torn between two
lovers” ever, only to be outdone by one hilarious and volatile
resolution.
"Nekromantik
2" is a an intriguing and worthy sequel to its infamous and well made
progenitor. The fact that Buttgereit switched the focus from a
heart-sick and head-sick young man in the form of Rob, to the
love-sick and balanced-in-her-own-strange-way, Monika, is unexpected
and really smart. The eroto-death factor is still there, but with
Monika, her own flesh won't allow her to do what her heart wants to.
Even more intriguing is when she tries to dispose of Rob as she and
Mark start to get more serious, Monika grows emotional and keeps
Rob's head and genitals. (The latter comes into play with some great
twisted humor, as she puts it on a plate, wraps it in plastic and
places the severed member in her fridge like well-loved leftovers.
Which is pretty fitting, now that I think of it!)
Monika
is an unusually complex character, especially for being a woman. In
the cinematic landscape, whether we're talking mainstream pap or
underground DIY, women are more of than not, relegated to ether
bitch, sex/brain starved nymphet-nympho, frumpy friend or Holly
Sunshine: Pretty Girl Worthy of Love. So to see a female lead chase
her heart and desires that play far outside the boundaries of what is
“normal” (or legal for that matter), is pretty great. Especially
as her relationship with Mark starts to show more cracks, with him
unable to give her any sort of climax, Monika is forced to feed her
need. Granted, I'm not saying “Ladies, start digging up your
soulmate!” or anything, but there is an undercurrent of affection
and respect for this character that is refreshing. Monika M. is
likable as the lovely and chic girl with the strangest desires of
profound morbidity. There is an understatedness to her performance
that works quite well and helps keep the film anchored in an even
keel.
The
filmmaking quotient is even better here, with Nekromantik 2 featuring
more of budget with the former's 8mm format being replaced with a
more glossy looking 16mm print. That may sound like a sell-out to a
less-slackful underground film fan, but given that the plot is more
of a love story, a fact even mentioned by Buttgereit himself in the
intro to the lovely Cult Epics blu-ray release, it makes more sense
for it visually to look bright and crisp. The first film was more of
a tonally extreme film, so the 8mm format was perfect for it. The
camerawork and editing are even tighter, with some especially great
use of movement in the “hunt for Rob” cemetery sequence near the
beginning. One big link between the two films is the amazing
soundtrack, featuring more stellar work courtesy of Herman Kopp and
“John Boy Walton,” both returning from the first film. The fact
that such beautifully composed music is intertwined with a film about
necrophilia is all sorts of subversive sweetness.
Speaking
of great music, one of my personal favorite scenes is the musical
number that seemingly pops out of nowhere with Monika singing
“Squelette Délicieux” like a post-modern Zarah Leander. The fact
that the title loosely translates to, “Delicious Skeleton,” makes
me love this scene all the more. Beatrice M.'s cameo (Betty from the
original Nekromantik) is also a hoot.
It's
that combination of humor, heart and a willingness to explore
transgressive imagery and taboo topics that sear Nekromantik 2 into
the minds of any viewer worth his or her salt. There's still a bit of
the requisite gore and animal death, though neither are quite as
heightened as they were in the first. (A warning to the squeamish,
the animal footage involves Monika and her lady-gang of death-loving
friends watching footage of a dead seal getting dissected. It's
really gross but given that the animal was already dead and the video
in question looks clinical in nature, it is still a far cry from the
cruelty-tango of the Italian cannibal films of the 70's.)
It is
inconceivable to think that out of the two Nekromantik films, this
was the one that was quickly seized by German authorities, just a
mere 12 days after its initial release. To the extent that they even
attempted, and mercifully failed, to find and destroy that actual
negative. The reasoning? It allegedly “glorified violence.” Never
mind that the first one had more violence or even worse, the numerous
Hollywood action films that were more inherently immoral in their
revery of death and maiming. Especially coming off the heels of the
80's, where people were consistently being used as pure blow-up
fodder for the beefy, gun wielding hero du jour. Case in point: Which
film has a higher body count? Nekromantik 2 or any of the Rambo
films? Exactly.
Luckily
for us, Nekromantik 2 is still here and is out via another gorgeous
blu ray release from Cult Epics. If there's a supplement you would
want, this film has it, from director commentary to a
behind-the-scenes-featurette to trailers and even a moment of silence
via a home video peek into Jorg and friends' road trip to Ed Gein's
gravesite. This whole release is a fitting tribute to a great film
and director.
Nekromantik
2 is further proof that out of the unholy hordes of indie filmmakers
that emerged out of the 1980's, few are true auteurs like Buttgereit.
There was and is no director out in the cinematic landscape quite
like him. Even if 8,000 foolhards tried to imitate him, they would
fail because a real artist has their own unique fingerprint and that
is Jorg Buttgereit all the way.
There were few sanctuaries as enticing
growing up as the library. Stuck in a small working class burg and
feeling like I was destined for pariah-kid-stasis, the library was an
oasis that held many secrets, wonders and, most importantly, methods
of escape. It still holds a bit of that power for me today,
especially when it comes to glancing around and scoping out the
variety of materials. Sleek tomes and colorful paper magazines lining
up in a pristine formation and awaiting your eyes and hands.
The section that always pulls me first
is the new fiction. There's the usual mix of chick-lit,
science-fiction, historical dramas, something with a fantastical
dwarf on it and some tawdry knock off of “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
(Go ahead and feel free to channel your inner Kurtz here and go
“...the horror....the horror.”) One of those tomes could very
well be “The Hunt” by Brad Stevens. Brad first entered my
stratosphere with his excellent work in the film writing world,
including articles for my old periodical stomping grounds at Video
Watchdog and his Bradlands column over at the British Film
Institute's (BFI) website. “The Hunt” is his first fictive book
and stands out as a unique debut. “The Hunt” centers around Mara
Gorki, a writer whose work is massively successful overseas but is
restricted in her homeland, which is a dystopian United Kingdom where
women are treated like second to seventy first class citizens in
every conceivable way.
The hostile atmosphere includes the
legally imposed dress code of no pants or shorts for women over the
age of 18, including corporal punishment via caning if broken to the
rabid verbal abuse from various men of the cloth. However, the capper
being the titular “Hunt” itself. Basically, a handful of very
wealthy “gentlemen” pay for the privilege to hunt for women in an
abandoned section of the city that has been quartered off by the
government. As opposed to that old chestnut, “The Most Dangerous
Game,” instead of hunting to kill, these men like their kicks on
the sexual-sadistic side and track down these women, who are all
drafted in by the government. There are rules, included intentional
murder being one of the few actual taboos, but in a near future where
women are basically regarded as mentally stunted vessels for the
anger and damaged id impulse of key men who have been rewarded for
their misogyny as opposed to being educated against it, things get on
the vile side fairly quickly. It's a lesson that Mara learns
intimately when she ends up being recruited.
Now from that description and those
similar to it that you can read elsewhere online, you might be
getting images of some ghastly Eli Roth film meets “A Handmaid's
Tale.” The latter is somewhat close to the mark but you can
mercifully kill the former. While Steven's does not pull any punches
when it comes to the specifics of torture, his language neither
lingers or delights in it. His prose in general is very clean, neatly
written and yet has a quiet warmth and pulse to it that makes it all
the more compelling. It's an unusual mix to see that kind of writing
when it comes to such extreme material. The common tendency is to
glory in the guts and agony and have the prose practically wiggle
with every shriek, moan, leer and scream. But that is not the
literary voice here and it is Stevens' restraint coupled with his
clear love of his female characters, especially Mara and her partner,
cineaste and film writer, Yuki Morishita. (A relationship the two
naturally have to keep secret, since homosexuality is also
forbidden.)
Speaking of, his handling of Yuki and
Mara's relationship is quite sweet and feels authentic. “The Hunt”
also features some extreme snarking on E.L. James fan fiction gone
awry, “Fifty Shades of Grey.” As a whole it's a disturbing and
smart read with solid characters, a bit of conspiracy theory and a
peek into a future that doesn't feel too unreal whenever you see
another news story about women all over the world having acid thrown
into their faces, murdered for being a victim of rape or being robbed
of the choice to be in control of their own body.
Now that you have a book picked
out, you gotta have a magazine to go with it. With its striking cover
and lush formatting, the second issue of the brand new periodical,
Art Decades, is a fine choice. After its strong debut issue, Issue 2
continues in the fine tradition of loving art, unearthing past
artists and celebrating the ones that are currently creating. The
starting gate lets you know that the contents are gonna be good, with
the following Joe Strummer quote taking the helm: “The way you get
a better world is, you don't put up with a substandard any thing.”
It's a bold move from such a young mag but bold is good and it sure
as hell is better than boring.
The first main article is an excellent
piece by Tara Hanks entitled “Pauline Boty: Pop Artist &
Woman.” It's such a strong piece, offering fascinating and needed
insight into one of the most under-looked pop artists that emerged
out of the 50's and 60's. Boty was hampered by her gender, since
while the art world is still fairly male dominated now, it is still
miles ahead from the uber-macho atmosphere back when she was alive
and working. Dying at the young age of 28 did not help much either.
On top of that, knowing that several of her works are still missing
in action, makes pieces like this one so important. A good article is
a fun way to kill some time but a great article is one that plants a
seed.
After that, there's the gorgeous photo
layout, “My Time's Up,” based om The Raveonettes song of the same
name. With photographer Whitly Brandenburg serving as the melancholy
model backed by the twin muses of the aforementioned song and Jean
Rollin's film “The Iron Rose,” it is one of the most standout
visuals of the entire issue. Photographers Jeremy and Kelley Richey
make great and dreamy use of the cemetery locale, as well as
Brandenburg herself, whose presence has all the childlike beauty of a
doll but with the air of one who has seen and felt something far
older than her physical age.
Speaking of The Raveonettes, if you're
a fan of the Danish indie rock band, then you are going to l-o-v-e
this issue, since the “Time's Up” spread is followed up with an
in depth interview with the band, a small article from Kelley about
being a fan, a piece covering their entire discography and yet
another photo spread inspired by one on their songs. The latter is
based on the song, “Boys Who Rape Should All Be Destroyed.” (Love
the title and feels fitting after reading “The Hunt!”) The layout
itself is very nicely photographed but lacks the gritty gut punch
that one would expect, especially with having influences like Abel
Ferrara and “Lipstick” director Lamont Johnson noted at the
beginning. But just the mere fact that a layout exists entitled “Boys
Who Rape Should All be Destroyed” exists and is in this issue is
commendable in and of itself.
There's also a second part of Erich
Kuersten's piece, “Lou Reed in the Seventies.” (The first part is
in the debut of Art Decades, naturally.) It's a fun piece to read
with a Gonzo lilt, even though I have some personal disagreements.
(Giving “Metal Machine Music” one star is bad enough, but Reed's
masterpiece, “The Bells” only meriting two? Two?!) On the film
side of things, there is a brief but super-fun interview with the
great Mary Woronov conducted by Dave Stewart. Ms. Woronov alone is a
legend, but the fact that she name checks one of the most underrated
Warhol's Factory associates, writer Ronald Tavel, makes it even more
of a must read than it already was.
An equally sweet treat is Kent
Adamson's “Cannon Man,” which is his appetizer of a piece about
his time with working for the legendary Menahem Golan, the man, whom
along with his cousin, Yoram Globus, took over Cannon Films in 1979.
It was their reign that produced an amazingly wide breadth of films
ranging from Barbet Schroeder's “Barfly” and the way underrated
“Last American Virgin” to many a vehicle for action stars like
Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson. Adamson's writing pops and leaves
you wanting to read more and more about his time with this truly
unique character who left an undeniable imprint on film.
Back on the musical tip, there's also
filmmaker/writer Salem Kapsaski's revealing and creatively stimulating
interview with underground Italian musician Daniele Santagiuliana, as
well as Steve Langton's terrific and memorable piece about seeing Joy
Division live. (A pleasure so few ever will get to experience.) This
issue also features more stunning imagery, some good poetry and even
more great pieces by such talents as Marcelline Block, Silver Ferox
and more.
Art Decades Issue #2 is a more than a
solid follow up to its rock star debut and has planted seeds, some
definable and others more mysterious, that will surely take some
vivid and colorful bloom in the very near future.
This concludes our brief but hopefully
enriching and teensy bit chewy trip to the library. Make sure to keep
your slip and return the materials on time.
Picking the perfect title for your
film or any creative work for that matter, can be incredibly tricky.
A bland title will nearly guarantee your potential audience to take a
pass. A misleading title, much like reaching for what you think is a
hush puppy but instead is a cold, gross battered ball of corn, will
only lead to disgust and highly irritate. (Seriously, why would
someone do that? Cruelty has many, many forms, dear reader.) But a
perfect title will pique your interest and give you a hint of what
you are to expect from the work in question. Case in point, Bob
Chinn's breezy 1979 film, “Hot & Saucy Pizza Girls.” There
are, in fact, girls that are hot, saucy and work in a pizza joint in
this film. But the “Pizza Girls” is more than just a food-sex pun
of a film. Sort of. Anyways, let's begin!
The movie starts with a classic lit-up
sign, promoting “Country Girl Pizza. We Deliver.” Cut to inside
the rustic looking pizzeria where the restaurant's owner, John (John
“The King” Holmes) is interviewing a potential new delivery girl,
Ann Chovy (Desiree Cousteau.) The naive Southern Belle ends up wooing
her new boss over with some physical charms and she gets to join the
gang of ultra-lovely and highly sassy delivery girls, including Gino
(Candida Royalle), Shakey (Laurien Dominique) and Celeste (Christine
de Shaffer). If the film had been made a bit later and in a different
region, we would also undoubtedly have Totino, Red Baron and Tony.
The girls start to make their
deliveries for the day, with the customers ranging from one intensely
enthusiastic hayseed (the always reliable Richard Pacheco) to a bored
and lonely housewife (Vicky Lindsay). Meanwhile, a slight and shifty
man in black is blatantly trying to keep tabs on the pizza girls'
comings and goings. Turns out this gentleman, aptly named Inspector
Blackie (John Seeman), is a detective determined to bust Country Girl
Pizza for being a front for prostitution. While we're on the topic,
the phrase,“pizza brothel”, might be one of the best to have
emerged out of the valley of language in a long time. Say it out
loud. Let it roll off the tip of your tongue. Now think about the
connotations. Nice, isn't it?
Anyways, further intrigue emerges as
the cowpoke from earlier is buddies with a group of fried chicken
enthusiasts led by Henry (Paul Thomas), who also has used the
ebullient services of the pizza girls. Turns out, they don't cotton
too well to the world of pizza encroaching on their great true love
of fried chicken. Never has a hatred of pizza fueled such diabolical
tomfoolery. The intrigue gets even weirder when the boys choose to
employ the services of the San Francisco “Night Chicken.”
Apparently this never seen but heard on screen fowl-tool-of-villainy
is six feet tall and has a penchant for rape. (As all overgrown night
chickens do!)
After one of the girls gets violated,
John immediately knows it is the Night Chicken. We then find out from
him that, “We have been after this chicken for ten years!” I
guess local police weren't too worried about giant poultry sexually
assaulting various people? Anyways, with the aid of his coworker and
sidekick Bob (director Bob Chinn), John and company are determined to
crack down on this truly foul fowl. Will the gang succeed or lose out
to perverse man-birds and fried chicken enthusiasts? What about
Inspector Blackie and the wholly guile-less Ann? For that and more,
you'll just have to grab some hopefully non-carcinogen riddled
popcorn and watch for yourselves!
“Hot & Saucy Pizza Girls” is an
amazingly silly film but the best kind, since it knows it's
ridiculous and completely revels in it. It is truly a fun, airy
little film that has all the appeal of a naughty and light comic
book. The fact that you have a subplot about women getting violated
by a monstrous chicken and yet, the whole still plays very sunshine
with no dark clouds, is nothing short of amazing. It helped,
undoubtedly, having Bob Chinn at the helm. Chinn is most famous for
directing a number of the “Johnny Wadd” films, which also brought
“Pizza Girls” male star, John Holmes, to major fame and
notoriety. The two men had a great rapport with each other and that
definitely shows here, with Holmes being incredibly likable and quite
funny as the manager of Country Girl Pizza. (Though it is Bob who
gets the great line, “I just don't want to get fucked by no
chicken!”) Speaking of funny, Richard Pacheco also merits a kudos
for his eight-miles-outside-of-Hee-Haw cornpone bumpkin who sings
“Get Along Little Doggie” mid-coitus. Eternally underrated John Seeman is funny and physically adept as the mysterious yet wondrously nerdy Inspector Blackie.
The titular pizza girls are all
supremely lovely and likable, including such classic adult legends
like Desiree Cousteau (“Pretty Peaches”) and Candida Royalle, as
well as the equally wonderful but more on the cult side starlets
Laurien Dominique and Christine de Shaffer (who was great as lunatic
Babsy in Johnny Legend's mind-blowing “Young & Nasty Teenage Cruisers.”) Here they get to be sassy, gorgeous and funny, with
Royalle and de Shaffer both carrying off a very strong,
take-no-prisoners pizza delivering style. Cousteau is her usual
charming Betty Boop by way of small town Southern USA self and
looking every inch a 1970's version of a Vargas girl.
The pseudo-twang-country music is
fittingly goony, right down to it being listed as “Lousy Music,”
that is credited to “Lon Jon.” (Surely, his real name.) The film
is well shot, with all of the colors popping in a pastel yet vibrant
type of way. Another stellar remastering job courtesy of the skilled
folks at Vinegar Syndrome does not hurt either. Speaking of the DVD
release, there's also a short but very informative interview with
noted adult film director and “Pizza Girls” producer, Damon
Christian.
“Hot & Saucy Pizza Girls” may
not reinvent any cinematic wheel or even the wheel spokes themselves,
but it is a very cute, dementedly whimsical movie that features some
good comedic performances and is the only film to date that has
combined the notion of a pizza brothel with a menacing six foot
chicken/creeper. That alone spells it out better than any paint by
numbers nature velvet scene available at your nearest family oriented
hobby store.
When it comes to crime cinema, there is
real and then there's Duke Mitchell real and once you have witnessed
that, you will never be the same. Imagine if Cassavetes was a famed
lounge singer who once worked with a third-rate Jerry Lewis imitator
in a schlocky Bela Lugosi film and then would go on to make two of
the most volatile, straight from the soul-gut crime films in the
history of independent cinema. That, ladies and gentlemen, is Duke Mitchell.
His directorial debut was 1974's
Massacre Mafia Style, in which he also starred as Mimi Micelli, the
son of Don Mimi (Lorenzo Dodo), a massively powerful mafioso who was
deported back to Sicily when his son was only in his teens. Mimi
marries a woman of “...simple Italian heritage, a Saint..” who
bares him a little baby boy before she dies of cancer two years
later. Now, being a widower with a 6 year old son and a graying
father, Mimi plans to move back to the States and continue the family
business. Namely, moving to Los Angeles and getting a firm hold on
the bookies and pimps. Despite his father's warnings, Mimi goes
through with the move, hooking up with his old childhood friend,
Jolly (Vic Caesar), who is now a bartender. Mimi offers him a better
deal than serving up drinks to the Hollywood fringe and Jolly quickly
becomes his right hand man.
He manages to muscle his way back in
with his father's old crew via kidnapping one of the main guys,
Chucky (Louis Zito.) After severing his captive's ring finger, Mimi
gets the ransom money, releases Chucky just in time for his son's
wedding and attends the family event. His beyond brass balls
technique works and Mimi and Jolly are officially in business. Mimi's
pathway to mafioso supremacy quickly grows slick with blood, with him
even saying to Jolly early on, “Tonight we eat, tomorrow we shoot!”
It's not long before the gang want Mimi
off their back and to calm all the murdering down. (Which is a huge
testament, by the way, to how violent someone is when they have other
mob guys complaining about the amount of murder going on.) Even his
own father calls him, begging him to stop all of the killing. But
when Mimi becomes the target of a double cross, it is only a matter
of time for his life of crime and killing to take a monumental
ancient Greek tragedy turn.
Massacre Mafia Style is a gut punch
straight from the heart. What Duke Mitchell was able to do with both
this film and its masterwork of a follow up, Gone With the Pope, is
singularly brilliant. You have this cross-pollination of extreme
violence, gritty and highly un-politically correct language,
Cassavetes style verite (more on that in a minute), artistry,
intelligence and strangest of all, pure love. The latter is a lot
like obscenity. It's hard to properly define but you know it when you
see it and with Duke's work, it is all over the place. One of the
best scenes of this caliber is when Mimi and his compatriots are
having this big Italian lunch, prepared by one of the guys' mother.
Mimi launches into this terrific monologue about how they are the
ones that have disgraced this woman and all Italian mothers, with
their violence and crime. It is such an interesting choice on
Mitchell's part because with that monologue, he gives his character a
depth and underlying moral tear that is not typically expected.
Speaking of dialogue, there are some
real doozies here, with my personal favorite being the scene where
Mimi and Jolly go to kill the “Greek” and are confronted with his
massive bodyguard. After firing several bullets into the hulk of a
man, who promptly keels over, Mimi says to Jolly, “You know I'm
empty. Got any?” His partner says “I got two.” Mimi replies,
“Give them to him.” Jolly does just that, finishing the hit.
More tender audiences will probably
have a tougher time swallowing some of the more racial language used
throughout, a lot of which revolves around the pimp character, Super
Spook (Jimmy Williams). But it is all true to life because you are
dealing with characters who are rough, working class criminals circa
the 60's and 70's. It would be false to have these guys suddenly be
mindful of their language after gunning down x-number of people. On
top of that, if you're really sensitive, maybe picking up a film
called Massacre Mafia Style is not the best idea in the first place.
Going back to the Cassavetes theory,
Mitchell used a cast of mostly non-actors whom physically fit their
roles to a T, giving the film a more raw sort of feel. Which for a
movie like this, is such a harmonious move. It graces the film with a
sense of more realism that some of its more polished counterparts
lack. This coupled with some of the highly intense and bizarre
bordering on surreal acts of violence, make for a truly unique brew.
The latter includes a man in a wheelchair hooked up via electrical
cables to a urinal and another one literally crucified near the
Hollywood sign. (The crucifixion scene sports some great intercutting
with a religious choir, making the proceedings all the more
ghoulish.) What's even more crazy is that both of these incidents are
based on true events, with the wheelchair incident being something
that Duke personally witnessed during his days as a singer, with the
only exception being that in real life, the guy didn't die. In fact,
much of the film was loosely based on true events, all gathered from
friends and associates Duke had made in his music career. Cliches
exist for a reason and truth really is stranger than fiction.
After years of minor cult notoriety due
to its run under the title of The Executioner back in the
1970's, Grindhouse Releasing is doing Massacre Mafia Style justice,
with help from Duke's son, Jeffrey Mitchell and releasing it this
month on a 2 disc set. It is a true shame that Duke Mitchell never
got the praise and attention he deserved for his directing work while
he was still here, since he died at the young age of 55 back in 1981,
but there is no time like the present to raise a toast to the man and
marvel at this blood soaked cinematic patchwork quilt sewn together
with thought, hard work and love.
I'm trying to remember the first time
Kim Fowley came up on my conscious periphery. He, of course, was up
on my subconscious periphery from conception onward, as he was for
anybody born from the 1960's to now. His pale, long fingers and
electric brain contributed to works from artists as diverse as Helen
Reddy, his proteges The Runaways, Kiss, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper and
Warren Zevon, just to name a tiny handful out of hundreds. So, the
likelihood of your primordial brain being touched and infected by
something Kim Fowley had a hand in is incredibly strong.
But I think he must have popped up on
my conscious periphery with my friend Scott. We had connected via a
film fringe culture message board and hit it off. We started talking
about Kim Fowley and it just took one look at his credentials and
realizing the oodles of songs he had a hand in that I already loved,
coupled with some amazing pictures, which included a then current Kim
posing with a weird clown and teddy bears, for it to be instant love.
Scott and I would exchange the coolest and strangest Kim Fowley
pictures and stories we could find, with the both of us having just
the utmost reverence for the man. Scott once wrote that Kim was like
the bastard son of “Klaus Kinski and Boris Karloff,” a descriptor
that the man surely would have loved. But Scott's gone now and so is
Kim.
Born in the early Summer of '39 to
Shelby Payne and noted character actor Douglas Fowley (who was in my
personal cinematic touchstone, the Timothy Carey dancing epic Bayou aka Poor White Trash), Kim was an outcast from the beginning, as
noted in his feverish tone poem of a bio, “Lord of Garbage.” But
it is the ground of the outcast that usually springs the best and
wildest blooms and there is no better example of this then Kim
Fowley. He was a one-man music creating blitzkrieg, finding much fame
as a producer, songwriter and a performer in his own right. Phil
Spector might be more famous, especially for his work with some key
girl groups, but you know what? Kim worked with girl groups galore,
ranging from The Murmaids' incredible single, “Popsicles & Icicles” to spearheading the ultimate teenage rock band, The Runaways. Even better, Kim never murdered anybody (to my knowledge)
and retained his impish bordering on sardonic sense of humor to the
bitter end.
Fowley, in so many ways, was the Warhol
of rock and roll. Both men were brilliant, made great art on their
own and yet, often operated as creative conduits that attracted all
manners of colorful and talented people. One great Fowley quote that
lends well to this Warholian aspect of his genius is the following:
“I’m so empty that I don’t have
distractions. If somebody has substance or has developed something, I
have the time for them.”
But even that doesn't quite cover
it, because Kim Fowley was one magical human being whose dualities
would have made him an amazing cult leader, dictator or shaman in
another life. In this one, he was rock & roll's numero uno
zeitgeist that might as well have risen out of the sleazy, beautiful
and vital primordial ooze that all truly great ground breakers emerge
from. He was a hero to some and a villain to others and this you can
etch in blood and bone, there will never be another like Kim Fowley.
You are missed, Animal Man.
For a superb introduction to the scope of Fowley's work, please check out the fantastically groovy Mal Thursday and the "Kim Fowley Trainwreck-a-Go-Go" episode of his internet radio program, "The Mal Thursday Show."
The phrase “lost film” is one of
the saddest in the English vernacular. For being such a young format,
it seems inconceivable that any movie could already be vanished to
the ether of time. Of course, most know that a large portion of
silent films were lost due to both intentional negligence, since film
was considered a culturally disposable medium, and bad storage
habits, leading to severely deteriorated prints. Due to the flammable
nature of the nitrate, some prints would even spontaneously combust!
There's a new type of lost film,
though. There are films that are barely old enough to collect a
pension check that are marked as missing. People didn't really know
better back in the early days, but what is the excuse for the past
forty or fifty years? The flammable type of nitrate film stopped
being used after 1952, so it's not really the case of movie prints
literally bursting into flames. But then what is it?
A lot of it is direct kin to the same
kind of thinking that dates back to the early 1900's. Film was not
considered “respectable” therefor it wasn't viewed in terms of
preservation. Fast forward several decades later, with the tide
changing enough for people to start thinking in terms of cinematic
preservation. Ironically enough, most preservationists were thinking
in terms of “respectable” films. Genres and subgenres, like
adult, sexploitation, horror and underground, were, much like those
early silent reels, were regarded as disposable and crude
entertainment.
This kind of ignorance and pigheaded
elitism is borderline chilling, but there is a silver lining. As more
and more people are debating the future of cinema, there are those
who are working hard to fight for the preservation of all
film. Especially the type of films that have gone on unloved in
mainstream circles for too long. Front and center on this right path
is Vinegar Syndrome.
Unearthing everything from arthouse
gems (Nelson Lyon's “The Telephone Book,” Theodore Gushuny's“Sugar Cookies”) to ultra obscure cult films (Stanley Lewis'
“Punk Vacation”) to adult film classics (Alex DeRenzy's “Pretty Peaches,” Roberta Findlay's “Angel on Fire”), as well
as lurid oddities (Bill Milling's “Oriental Blue,” Howard
Perkins' “Baby Rosemary,”), they are more than a mere
distribution company. Giving the kind of love and care to prints that
is normally reserved by companies thrice as old and twice as big,
Vinegar Syndrome first come upon my periphery with their Blu-Ray
release of “The Lost Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis.” Being
someone whose teenage years were spent reading and re-reading and
then reading some more books like Michael Weldon's “The
Psychotronic Video Guide” and Re/Search's “Incredibly Strange
Film Book,” this was a release right after my own heart.
A simple basic release of such
previously lost H.G. Lewis films like “Black Love” and “Linda & Abilene,” would have been more than enough. Especially when you
take into account how many a cult film fan had all but given up on
these titles ever surfacing. But, even better, not only did they
surface but on a lush, re-mastered release to boot. It felt like a
gift and it was that key that unlocked for me, the world that is
Vinegar Syndrome.
In keeping with their forward-thinking means of preserving and distributing these fringe gems of the past, Vinegar Syndrome have started a fundraiser via Indiegogo. The VinegarSydrome.TV project is a motion to bridge their incredible library of cult films with the digital age by creating a video-on-demand channel for such a treasure trove of cinema. Given that their title database is going to grow by at least forty more titles this year, it is a undoubtedly a project worthy of any film lover's attention.
This world is many things. In the
splendor of life, this existence can be beautiful, harsh, strange,
sad and wondrous. For many artists, life is all of this times nine.
There's no 401K plans and financial instability will more often than
not, be an ever constant presence and yet, it is this blood-born
drive to create, to express, to scream, to whisper and to be seen
that drives you to create even when your more financially pragmatic
loved ones and friends are shaking their heads and asking when are
you going to get a “real job.”
The only true shame in being an artist
is the number of those who have dedicated the prime years of their
life to expression, and still end up having to struggle in their
later years. In the 50' and 60's it was the bluesmen who laid out the
blueprints for a large part of modern music and yet, rarely, if ever,
saw a dime for their hard work and toil. All that despite the fact
that there were definitely people making an obscene amount of money
off of them, meanwhile the artists themselves often lived in near
poverty.
There are too many sad variations of
this tale in all the arts, but one area in particular involves the
men and women who took creative, personal and societal risks and
forged new ground in the adult film industry. A sad but true factor
is that our society is still devolved enough to shame consenting
adults whose only “transgression” has been to have been naked and
having a fairly good time on camera. When you think of all of the
real atrocities that happen on this planet every single minute you
breathe, consensual adults having sex should really be nonexistent on
the list of things to be offended by.
Luckily, a trio of kind souls have
started a new non-profit entitled The Golden Age Appreciation Fund.
Founded by Mark Murray, whom along with his lovely wife Miranda,
organized the original Golden Age fundraiser back in 2013, Ashley
West whose work, both as a writer, an up and coming documentarian and
the primary force behind the groundbreaking and essential The Rialto Report and Jill Nelson, who is the tremendous author of the
quintessential biography on John Holmes (A Life Measured in Inches),
as well as the definitive tome on women in Adult film (Golden Goddesses). These three have come together and created this
organization, in which 100% of the donations goes directly to the
artist that they are aiding.
In a world where artists and performers
who have earned others millions of dollars and given countless joy to
a world wide audience, they should not have to worry about basic
necessities in their later years. So if you're a fan of the classic
era of this genre or just someone who wants to support artists who
are having to go through the harder aspects of life, please check out
the Golden Age Appreciation Fund.
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