Escaping the Dog & Pony Show on Fury Road

 

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. 

Copyright 2015 Heather Drain

God, Murder & Palm Springs: Duke MItchell's Gone With the Pope

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. 

Copyright 2015 Heather Drain

Love Like Blood: Jorg Buttgereit's Nekromantik 2

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. 

Copyright 2015 Heather Drain 

The Library is Now Open: Brad Stevens' "The Hunt" & Art Decades Issue #2

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.

Copyright 2015 Heather Drain

Animal Man: Kim Fowley, We Miss You

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."

2015 Copyright Heather Drain

I Love the Dead: Jorg Buttgereit's NEKROMANTIK

It takes a hardy artistic soul to explore cultural taboos with a flat-out bare-knuckles, wild Turk type of approach. But it takes an even hardier (and often, beautifully mad!) artistic soul to incorporate comedy with said culturally taboo exploration. Ladies and gents, let me pull back the curtain and introduce you to Jorg Buttgereit's 1988 underground classic, NEKROMANTIK. It's not the first film to delve into the topic of romancing the dead, since an earlier example of that would be the Lyle Waggoner wonder LOVE ME DEADLY from 1973, but it is truly unlike anything made past, present and future. Necrophilia or not.

Looking like a cross between a scratchy handwritten note and bathroom graffiti, the film opens with, “Warning! Some of this film may be seen as 'grossly' offensive & should not be shown to minors!!!” That kind of lurid hullabaloo can only mean that you are either in for a fun smear-on-your-soul kind of dark ride or a just bad carnival ride. Mercifully, it is the former. After that, the actual opening begins with a woman peeing by the side of the road at night. As she is relieving herself, her flowery panties splayed, her male companion starts yelling at her from the driver's side to hurry up. Getting back in the car, they almost get hit by one car and then as he starts to bitch more about her small bladder, it's time to cue up the Bloodrock since they get in a nasty and very fatal car wreck.

The beginning credits roll over the highly gruesome crash site, including the woman being not so neatly bisected and her partner's eye dangling from his newly empty socket. Soon the J.S.A. (Joe's Streetcleaning Agency) show up to tidy up the accident scene. The newest member of the crew, Robert (Daktari Lorenz), despite constantly irritating his team's leader, quietly enjoys his job. To the extent of bringing home little mementos---this time around being the driver's now completely severed eyeball. In a beautifully composed sequence, we get to see Robert, in his Ed Gein-meets-junkie-esque pit apartment, meticulously prepare a jar of (presumably) embalming fluid for him to place his newest acquisition in. There's a great shot of some of his previous souvenirs, including a hand, some organ meat and what looks like a fetus. (Hey, it beats the hell out of Precious Moments figurines.)

He's greeted by his girlfriend, Bettie (Beatrice M.) who shares Robert's enthusiasm for the dead and their assorted bits. Later on, she takes a bath in some especially ruddy looking water while the sounds of an academic discussion involving fear, desensitization and even, briefly, the video nasties, plays in the background. The sound is emanating from Robert's television. As fear and the confrontation of it continues on, it triggers a particular troubling flashback for him, inter-cutting footage of a live rabbit being killed and promptly skinned with Robert performing an autopsy of sorts on a corpse and removing some lard-type gunk out of the incision. Adding to the no fun ambiance is the quite brilliant white noise soundtrack. The whole sequence is hard to watch but so well put together that it puts you through a seesaw effect of compelling and wanting to look away from your screen.

An interstitial sequence involving apple picking and the dangers of doing so near a drunken German redneck who is listening to military-style music and trying to kill innocent birds plays out. (Here's a hint. It doesn't end too well for our intrepid apple picker.) The J.S.A. are called on an unrelated case, this time involving removing a long decomposed body out of a pond. (One of Robert's teammates remarks, “Picked a good day to go swimming!”) Everyone goes home and Robert's boss tells him to take over the wheel, leaving him alone with the husked out, waterlogged corpse. Faster than you can throw on Alice Cooper's “Cold Ethyl,” Robert brings the body home, to a very delighted Bettie. It has been said that necessity is the mother of all invention and as Robert saws off part of a pipe, the truth of this old saying has never been brighter. Attaching the metal form of a luscious apparatus to their new “friend,” Bettie makes sure to sheath it with a condom before one of the strangest menage-a-trois' ever to be committed to film occurs. It is, despite all of its tawdry eyeball licking and rot-goo glory, strangely arty and as tasteful as a three-way with a drowned corpse is going to be. Also, I absolutely dare you not to get what I am going to call “Love Theme from Nekromantik” out of your head. It's a strangely sweet tune that is more befitting of a chaste lovers holding hands in a field than rubbing your naughty bits up on a putrefied body. 

The afterglow is nice but things soon deteriorate when Robert loses his job and Bettie, worried about where they will find the next one, ends up leaving him. Everyone has a breaking point and for Robert, Bettie's terse departure is it. His path of self-destruction leads him from drinking to killing a cat (in a mercifully faked scene) and inevitably, murder. There's also a hilarious dream sequence involving a lovely maiden in white and playing a game of hot potato with a severed head. All of this leads him to one fluid and anguished climax, which I dare not spoil here. You just really need to see this for yourself, not to mention the sweet little twist ending.

For being only 75 minutes, NEKROMANTIK packs a lot into its fairly short running time. Having first read about it back when I was in junior high and managed to find an issue of the long defunct magazine, Film Threat Video, I thought I knew what kind of ride I would be in for. The associated still, a shot of Beatrice M. cuddling up to her long dead amour, flanked by a picture of Charles Manson on the wall, backed my assumption up. But NEKROMANTIK is more than just an extreme tale of the love that is hopefully outlawed in your home country. Sure, it has plenty of inventive uses of gore, ooze, goo and outre imagery to horrify your family and delight your more hardy friends. But if NEKROMANTIK was simply just another gross-out gore film, it would not have the level of notoriety that it does today.

For starters, despite its extremely DIY origins, complete with being originally shot on Super 8mm and taking around two years to complete, the film is incredibly well made. There is some great camera work that is utilized with a keen eye on composition, especially during the sequence when Robert finds out Bettie has left him. Another visually remarkable scene is when Robert and Bettie sit down to eat dinner. As they smile and eat quietly in the bright primary red room, the film keeps cutting back to the squalid gray of where their lover is hanging on the wall. It's a truly rich juxtaposition. Equaling the cinematography is the editing, which is tight and rhythmic when it needs to be. There's some especially great editing during Robert's meltdown, where the film is cut back and forth between him murdering the stray cat and burning a picture of Bettie. Then there's the soundtrack, which is terrific and ranges from schmaltzy love tones to industrial white noise. The fact that one of the composers is credited as “John Boy Walton” makes it all the better. The acting is fun with both Daktari Lorenz (who is also credited as one of the composers) and Beatrice M. being especially good as the young, attractive and damaged necrophiliacs in love. There could not have been better casting. Also, keep an eye out for director Buttgereit as one of Robert's co-workers at the J.S.A.

Director Jorg Buttgereit with the film's love interest.

Buttgereit, who had made a number of film shorts (including HOT LOVE, whose poster you can see in the film when Robert goes to a local movie theater) before his feature film debut with NEKROMANTIK, manages to do the near-impossible and deftly include both a fabulously twisted sense of humor as well as genuine horror. Merging the worlds of comedy and horror can be tricky, which is why most films that have tried are usually terrible. (There are exceptions, but that is a different article!) Buttgereit handles it like a director twice his age and three times as experienced. (He was only in his early 20's when he started shooting NEKROMANTIK.) The fact that you have this humor juxtaposed with gruesome imagery and a subject matter that is automatically going to put a lot of viewers in an extremely uncomfortable head space is borderline Artaud-like. It is a queasy but needed combination. It's healthy. After all, art can only hurt you if you let it.

Formerly available via Film Threat Video and Barrel Entertainment, NEKROMANTIK has found a new home in the US via Cult Epics. Thanks to them, the film is now available in a definitive edition of the film and on Blu Ray to boot! This release includes both a HD transfer of the original Super 8mm negative, as well as the “Grindhouse” version that was taken from the film's sole 35mm print. The former features the film looking as crisp as Super 8mm footage shot in the mid-80's is ever going to look and the latter features the film looking especially gritty and murky. Interestingly enough, one of the disc's extras includes Buttgereit introducing this version at a film festival and noting that it was his favorite since it looked more “dirty.” Which is pretty apt. In addition to these two versions, there is also a director's commentary, a “Making Of” featurette, the aforementioned HOT LOVE short and the gem itself, the film's soundtrack. It's a beautiful release of a still very much controversial and striking film.

One of the most inspirational lessons that one can take from NEKROMANTIK (and there's a sentence I have always wanted to type out) is that it is proof that you can be a film school reject with limited resources and finances and still make something that is potent enough for people to still be shocked, repulsed and entertained by twenty plus years down the road. With the right vision, tenacity and attention to technical film details that you don't need a lot of money for, like good editing, framing and music, you can create something unforgettable too. Even better is that Buttgereit is still working on film to this day, including a segment on the upcoming anthology film GERMAN ANGST. Like any true fringe film, it's not for everyone but if it was, where would the fun be in that? Let other people watch the latest codified, bloated boring-as-beige Hollywood epic. Thanks to film distributors like Cult Epics and artists like Buttgereit, we have better alternatives.

Copyright 2014 Heather Drain

Mondo Round-Up: Goodbye 2013

Holidays like New Years can have a lot of mixed emotions. For some, it's an exciting time for an alcohol and stupid party hat induced revery. For others, it's the lingering reminder of all the stuff you wanted to, maybe even vowed, to accomplish that never happened. Call it ghosts of holiday resolutions. It used to be one of the most dreaded of holidays for me, but over the past few years, that anxious knot has dwindled down to more of a thoughtful observation and a low burning sensation that inevitably bleeds into ambition. “Failure” is the best opportunity to recycle the past and focus on the fresh, pristine white page in front of you.

For me, this has been an amazing year of seeds planted. Some big projects were put on hold, but potential bigger ones have started to take shape. All the 2012 superstitious fears are laid to waste as life keeps on and on again with the big message here is to never let fear rule you. Remember kids, the worst strain of regret is for the things you never did. And before I devolve into doing some hideous karaoke version of the Butthole Surfers “Sweat Loaf,” here is a Mondo Link round-up for your reading and visual pleasure! 

Happy New Years and let's make every moment smoke and sparkle in 2014!

 Movie Morlocks Tribute to Jess Franco

Beyond Blood Feast: The Lost Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis

Mondo Round-UP: Who the Fuck is Madison? Edition 

The Candy Web & William Castle Tribute!

Rupert Pupkin Speaks: Underrated Dramas & Underrated Horror

Lost Art of Flying Saucer Rock &Roll: Ghastly Love of Johnny X

Wet Nights on Neon Grounds: BillMilling's Oriental Blue

Paracinema's Notes from the Backroom

Fish Heads & Meat Babies: The MusicVideos of Barnes & Barnes

Lust, Mad Love & Dirty Talk: Nelson Lyon's The Telephone Book

In the late 1960's and early 1970's, there was something very special and weird in the cinematic waters. Underground cinema, thanks to mavericks like Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, the Kuchar Brothers and, of course, the granddaddy of them all, Kenneth Anger, was in a golden age and opened the gates up for more filmmakers to experiment. Throwing rocks at the windows of the mainstream, the seeds planted started to bloom. That said, there was no other film that quite blended the worlds of the art underground, traditional narrative, the irreverent spirit and juvenile sexual humor quite like Nelson Lyon's “The Telephone Book.”

Made in 1971, “The Telephone Book” is the type of film that you are never fully prepared for. It doesn't matter what you may have read about it, you will never truly understand what kind of ride you will be in for until you actually sit down and let the images unfurl in front of you. Even then, after the last frame is finished, you will be sitting there, possibly scratching your coconut head, wondering “what the hell did I just watch?” Of course, these are all positive attributes leading up to the fact that there is nothing quite like this film.

The center of this experimental whirlpool is Alice (Sarah Kennedy.) A blonde gamine with a spartan apartment wallpapered floor to ceiling with repeated images of human coupling. She does her morning stretches and listens to “dial-a-prayer” on the radio. Life is a series of weirdly sexualised but rarely sensual vignettes for Alice, with the apex being a chance phone call from the master of dirty phone calls. The velvet voice caller whirls Alice's universe, leading her on a wild goose chase for the elusive Mr. Smith (Mr. Mad from “Tennessee Tuxedo” himself, Norman Rose). Down the rabbit hole Alice goes, running into a ridiculous stag film star by the name of Har Poon (veteran character actor Barry Morse), a thwarted flasher/bargain basement psychiatrist (Roger C. Carmel, best known for his turn as Harry Mudd on “Star Trek”) and a creepy housefrau with sapphic intentions (Jan Farrand), all in the quest to find her dream obscene talker.

 “The Telephone Book” is one kinetic comic book of a film. Not in the sense of the superhero “Zap! POW!” splendor, but more in the sense of vignette pacing and colorful characters. Like a doll eyed version of Candide, Alice is basically this ethereal girl chasing after the one man that's reached out to her and her dysfunctional id. Everything is played out so light, but with all of these strangely dark underpinnings. When Alice's friend (a pre-fame Jill Clayburgh), who goes unnamed and wears an eye mask throughout most of the film, asks her why can't Alice try to find her dream man at home via her own telephone, our heroine reveals that if she spends too much time at home, she fears that she will kill herself. Even after she meets her dream man, there are precise barriers that will prevent them from ever having a non-payphone based union. Then there is the question that is never really posed after the two have an all night phone fest in the absolute most bonkers section of the movie. The film, which up to that point has been in black & white suddenly switches to color, which is then criss-crossed with Len Glasser's crudely striking pornographic animation. The question, for me, is what is left? Presumably, Mr. Smith will keep tantalizing random women with his absurdest erotic phone calls, but what about Alice? 

 

Will she keep chasing Mr. Smith or will the all nighter sonic eros-fest do her in? That's the problem when you reach the mountain is that you either have to find a new mountain or fall to the ground. “The Telephone Book” is such a good film that stubbornly refuses to make any of this easy for you, which is eternally an aces move. The way the film is edited is one hair away from feeling like a Burroughsian cut-up. At different intervals, documentary style interviews come up, talking to an assortment of reformed obscene phone callers. My personal favorite is the gentleman whose new kind of kicks involves farting down an deserted alley. Hey, at least it won't get you arrested! 

 

 

Early on, Warhol Factory Superstar/cult writer, the inimitable Ondine pops up behind a desk, serving as what could only be described as the loosest definition of a Greek chorus ever. His segments are not very long and sparse, which is too bad since Ondine was an incredibly compelling personality. Speaking of fabulous Warhol related figures, Ultra Violet shows up as a whip wielding tigress at Har Poon's studio, looking sexier than any of the nude girls there in her shiny black clothes and surly expression. Rounding out the 6^th degrees of Andy is go-go dancer Geri Miller, who was also in Paul Morrissey's “Trash.” Geri does her famous dance starkers for Mr. Poon's amusement, shimmying like both her rent and life depend on it. The ultimate Warholian move unfortunately is lost, with there originally being intermission footage of the man himself munching on popcorn.

 

Nelson Lyon created something really unique with “The Telephone Book.” Drenched in neurotic human sexuality but always a little too wry and caustic to ever be erotic, this is a film that straddles a line of being richly late 60's/early 70's and yet, due to its very own insane structure, is inadvertently timeless. Being sadly obscure for years, thanks to the continually stellar work of the fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome, we now have this film looking gorgeous and available both on DVD and Blu Ray. 

 

Visually striking in ways you could not even dream of, such as the unforgettable sight of a youngish and aroused William Hickey, and the attitude of a thumb delightfully up the nose towards the status quo, “The Telephone Book is a subterranean gem.