Cultra Video presents: The Art Of Exploitation / Friday Double Features in February
"Grindhouse" culture has solidified its niche in the mainstream as one of cinema's great renewable resources for laughs and good times. Today's filmgoer is familiar with its seemingly bottomless pit of wild outfits, cheap thrills, eyecatching outré excesses of sex and violence -- it's fair to say we all know what's up. And god bless! But the most amazing thing about '70s exploitation is that it still has so much more to give. These films weren't all just mustaches and hot pants -- they were also, intentionally or accidentally, artistic outlets for aspiring film students, movie-loving outsiders, and all manner of dreamers. Sharing our point of view is the new DVD label Cultra Video, whose mission is to restore and release these long-forgotten exploitation gems with an emphasis on their artistic value, trashy good times or not. They've let us open their vaults and share their discoveries, with four great double-features plus a bonus mystery third film for each Friday night -- so let the festivities commence!
2/5 @ 8:00pm / Series: Cultra Video Presents: The Art of Exploitation Poor Pretty Eddie shown with The Loners
Poor Pretty Eddie - 8:00pm "There is a buffet of loathsomeness here." - The Video Vacuum
A hot and swampy reworking of Jean Genet's "Theatre Of The Absurd" touchstone "The Balcony" (weirdly making this Shelly Winters' second appearance in an "adaptation" of the play,) Poor Pretty Eddie is a cracked, campy, offensive and skull-peeling genre film that's hard to pin down into just one genre; it's a brilliant composite of blaxploitation, hicksploitation and Gothic horror laden with astounding pseudo-avant-garde visuals. Black singer Leslie Uggams gets trapped in a small Southern town full of dim-bulb racists (including a crispy-fried Dub Taylor, Slim Pickins and a homicidal Elvis impersonator) who rape and terrorize her repeatedly, until she extracts a queasy, greasy revenge. Right up there on the "race-baiting grindhouse gobsmackers best-of" list with Fight For Your Life, Poor Pretty Eddie is propelled even further by the lysergic, elliptical film editing of Frank Mazzola, master cutter responsible for the montage on Donald Cammell films like Performance and Demon Seed! Frank Mazzola will be here at the Cinefamily in person for a Q&A before the intermission!
Dir. Richard Robinson, 1975, 35mm, 92 min.
The Loners - 9:45pm
One character actor we rarely think of as once looking studly is Dean Stockwell, but The Loners features a brawny, albeit slightly ridiculous turn by Stockwell as an Indian half-breed on the lam from the law after committing a measly, accidental teensy-weensy bit of manslaughter, in a tale that's somewhere in-between Easy Rider, Bonnie and Clyde -- and Gigli -- ? Yup, that's right. Along with our loner hero and the desperate girl he picks up along the way, there's also a mentally retarded teenage sidekick. Aging legend Gloria Grahame also pops up as well as the oppressive mother figure (in the '70s tradition of former glamour queens playing oppressive mother figures, such in What's The Matter With Helen?), in this unassuming and tense character drama filled with heapin' helpings of violence, nihilism and nuttiness.
Dir. Sutton Roley, 1972, 35mm, 79 min.
Watch an excerpt from "Poor Pretty Eddie"!
Tickets - $10
2/12 @ 8:00pm / Series: Cultra Video Presents: The Art of Exploitation Fleshpot On 42nd St. shown with The Body Beneath
Fleshpot On 42nd St. - 8:00pm
Andy Milligan might not be as renowned or respected as Paul Morrissey, but his films not only cover the same obsession with inner city blight, hustlers, homosexuality, cross dressing, gender bending, and compulsive violence -- they also offer an even more intimate examination of New York’s seamy underground. In what is perhaps Milligan's most seminal effort, Fleshpot On 42nd St. follows hooker/petty criminal Dusty as she wanders around Times Square, eventually shacking up with Cherry Lane, a beleaguered cross-dresser. Starring porn vets Harry Reems and Laura Cannon in career performances, and featuring both Milligan’s trademark low-fi DIY approach to filmmaking and a tenderness to what would normally turn out to be rather squelchy sex scenes, Fleshpot is a crucial cinematic study of the people and culture of the long-lost Deuce.
Dir. Andy Milligan, 1973, 35mm, 80 min.
The Body Beneath - 9:45pm
Most artists have a muse, something that gets their creative juices flowing or gives them inspiration during a mental block. Andy Milligan's muse, one which might be surprising to the uninitiated, was Victorian England, which he usually recreated on his native Long Island. For The Body Beneath, however, Milligan was granted the opportunity to shoot in the land he’d so long been crafting across the Atlantic. Body is well within Milligan’s usual aesthetic -- a combination of gaudy and lurid -- but is also the director's highest budgeted work, and in it he pulls out all the stops with a bloody vampire tale of a fanged Catholic priest that's extremely polished by his usual standards. Nevertheless, his trademark handheld cinematography and bizarre dialogue survive in full force, making the film another deliciously bizarre odyssey into the mind of one of underground cinema’s most intriguing characters.
Dir. Andy Milligan, 1972, 35mm, 79 min.
Watch the trailer for "The Body Beneath"!
Tickets - $10
2/19 @ 8:00pm / Series: Cultra Video Presents: The Art of Exploitation Teenage Divorcee shown with Honky Tonk Nights
Teenage Divorcee - 8:00pm
Hard to believe that as early as 1971, there would already be nostalgia for the suddenly-bygone era of '60s free love, but San-Diego based filmmaker Laurence Mascott clearly had passion that would not die for the world of hippedom, and thus was born Teenage Divorcee (aka Josie's Castle), which is equal parts eccentric travelogue, drug bummer dramaturgy and salacious swinger smorgasbord -- all continuously punctuated by a giant sackful of lilting musical montages. Three friends (including Star Trek's George Takei and future Fright Night director Tom Holland) all become disillusioned and get divorces at the same time; their half-baked "great idea" is to move to San Diego and build a commune, and of course it quickly falls apart in a haze of drug deals gone south, uncomfortable tandem bike rides and icky Reinassiance Fair-themed orgies. This madcap sexploitation melodrama digs deep, showing everything Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice only hinted at.
Dir. Laurence E. Mascott, 1972, 35mm, 85 min.
Honky Tonk Nights - 9:45pm
Porn auteur Charles DeSantos' Honky Tonk Nights demonstrates the more noble aspirations of a sleaze-slinger; it's a light-hearted softcore mixture of comedy, romantic drama, and countrified tunes, set in a smoky saloon and plied with plain silly amounts of nudity. Here, sexploitation stalwarts Georgina Spelvin, Chris Cassidy, and Serena are cast in leading and supporting roles -- ones which really do require them to act, and to everyone's surprise, they do it quite well. What's more, stripper icon Carol Doda (and her Russ Meyer-approved bust) also features in a sumptuous side role; don't miss her go-for-broke performances of songs such as "The Pain of Life."
Dir. Charles DeSantos, 1978, 35mm, 71 min.
Tickets - $10
2/26 @ 8:00pm / Series: Cultra Video Presents: The Art of Exploitation Game Show Models shown with The Boob Tube
Game Show Models - 8:00pm
Having started off life as the off-kilter AFI-funded art film The Seventh Dwarf, Game Show Models is a unique beast, reconciling the nitty gritty of the music biz with a bunch of outta-left-field nudity and assorted sleaze grafted on at the eleventh hour. Stuart is a PR firm exec whose task is to help usher in a childish and churlish new singing starlet; he discovers that the entertainment biz ain't what it's cracked up to be after he beds her and she gets all weird, and after his co-workers start brandishing guns and making uncomfortable sexual advances on him! Whether The Seventh Dwarf was never fully finished, or whether it was purchased and re-cut with new footage, we'll never know -- but what's evident is that there's some haphazardly inserted scenes featuring a sex-themed game show (hosted by Dick Miller!), on which bearded professor-like contestants fondle naked ladies through glory holes and then later screw them while standing up. Y'know -- the usual. Featuring inexplicable cameos by film critic Charles Champlin and jazz cat Willie Bobo, and a bewildering downtown L.A. mime interlude, Game Show Models is a roaster of a rare breed.
Dir. David N. Gottlieb, 1977, 35mm, 88 min.
The Boob Tube - 9:45pm
The whopping success of the 1974 television parody sketchfest The Groove Tube ushered in a slew of quickie, uneven sex-filled clones, but none of them went the extra distance in getting so queerly specific as The Boob Tube, which exclusively covers the soap opera sweet spot. Composed of a phony daytime drama concerning a studly doctor and all the nymphets that want a bonk from his reflex hammer, the film is filled with the usual ludicrous plethora of twists and turns the genre calls for, and is periodically interrupted by some zany and naughty commercials. The Boob Tube's charm comes from its cast's sincere attempts to play it all straight-faced, and it also scores points for being puerile, witty and raunchy all at the same time.
Dir. Christopher Odin, 1975, 35mm, 82 min.
Tickets - $10
Post-Apocalypse Now! / Friday Double Features in March
The sky is falling, the sky is falling! Well, Chicken Little may be screaming in panic, but for some us, those are shouts of exultation. No more traffic, no more jobs, no more bourgeois bullshit. We're not interested in Armageddon itself as much as the world created out of its ashes, realms where gas shortages make roller skates the logical form of transportation, where people form neo-savage faux-punk clans, and where fashion is somewhere between "sports team" and "leather daddy". Worlds with more crossbows and axes than credit debt and taxes, and where the only nine-to-five grind is stayin' alive. Don't you want to wander the deserted streets of a new city, ride the open roads to your heart's content, and enjoy a quiet little earth all to yourself -- in-between shooting a mutant zombie in head once in a while for sport?
3/5 @ 8:00pm / Series: Post-Apocalypse Now! Damnation Alley shown with The Road Warrior Damnation Alley - 8:00pm
Amongst pulsating irradiated skies, giant scorpions, cockroach assassins and other nonsense left behind in the aftermath of a nuclear winter, Damnation Alley is a wacky, gung-ho prototypical "A-Team" adventure of hardy American military survivors leaving the confines of their NORAD-like headquarters to blaze across the countryside, hunting for other refugees and a path to the last remaining city not yet vaporized. You’ve got the crusty stogie-chomping team leader (George Peppard), the hotheaded young buck (Jan-Michael Vincent), the nervous wisecracker (Paul Winfield), the sultry foreign chick (Dominique Sanda), and the adolescent who’ll save the day (Jackie Earle Haley) -- all touring around in the RV From Hades: a gonzo, armored "Landmaster" that could easily make shredded cheese out of both The Car and Killdozer. Alongside the film's snap-crackle-and-pop exterior is also a surprising nihilistic undercurrent, with its creepy, somber missile attack prologue, and the fact that Peppard's Air Force major (the supposed hero of its post-apocalypse) also happens to be the dude who pushed the nuclear button in the first place!
Dir. Jack Smight, 1977, 35mm, 95 min.
The Road Warrior - 9:45pm
The phrase "high octane" has become a cliche in reference to action films, but George Miller's classic deserves it, as it remains for most film fans the pulse-pounding post-apocalypse film, often imitated but never outdone. The story here is rooted more in the Western tradition than the film's trappings would suggest: in a desolate fuel-depleted future, loner Max (Mel Gibson, in the role that made him a star) aids a small band of survivors trying to protect their precious oil supply from an invading barbaric horde. But what matters here is the punk-rock-meets-sports-gear aesthetic and the glorious, glorious vehicular mayhem. Miller's swooping frenetic camera work, coupled with stupefying, dangerous and real stunts make this easily one of the greatest car chase movies, as well as one of the most beloved actioners. If you've somehow escaped seeing it on the big screen before, you owe it to yourself to rectify that. One for the ages.
Dir. George Miller, 1981, 35mm, 91 min.
Watch an excerpt from "Damnation Alley"!
Tickets - $10
3/12 @ 8:00pm / Series: Post-Apocalypse Now! The Bed Sitting Room shown with A Boy And His Dog The Bed Sitting Room - 8:00pm
It's a shame midnight movies didn't really catch on until the early '70s, as Richard Lester's absurdly ahead-of-its-time, trippy post-nuke comedy The Bed Sitting Room seems perfectly pitched for late-night audiences, a la The Holy Mountain. A host of your favorite old-school British comedians (including Peter Cook, Marty Feldman and Spike Milligan) feature in the tale of twenty survivors milling about a desolate, debris-strewn apocalyptic wasteland, all performing twisted variations on their normal daily rituals. The BBC still exists, thanks to a newscaster who stands in front of a blown-out TV set offering background exposition, and many of the survivors are either mutating into furniture or animals, or being told they're dead even when they clearly aren't. As the darkly comic sketches pile on top of each other in front of increasingly surreal vistas (shot gorgeously by Lester's longtime cameraman David Watkin), the film's curtain call for humanity echoes the close of the '60s, an era whose shifting winds of change were as volatile as Pu-239.
Dir. Richard Lester, 1969, 35mm, 90 min.
A Boy And His Dog - 9:45pm
We all knew that the bomb would bring barren landscapes, pillaging hoards and a nightmarish restructuring of society -- but who foresaw telepathic dogs and underground sex carnivals? Harlan Ellison did in A Boy And His Dog, adapted for the screen by character actor L.Q. Jones. Billed as "A Rather Kinky Tale of Survival", the film follows teenage wasteland roamer Vic (Don Johnson), and the search for food and sex led by his mind-melded canine companion in a world in which man has become beast, and beast has become the voice of civility. The film's dark comedic visions are once removed from most others, as its action takes place after World War IV(!), indicating a wry resignation to the inevitability of a WWIII in one of the darkest entries in a genre that starts with the end of the world.
Dir. L.Q. Jones, 1975, 35mm, 91 min.
Watch the trailer for "The Bed Sitting Room"!
Watch the very Kubrick-like awesome trailer for "A Boy And His Dog"!
Tickets - $10
3/19 @ 8:00pm / Series: Post-Apocalypse Now! The End Of August At The Hotel Ozone shown with Glen And Randa (w/ director Jim McBride in person!) The End Of August At The Hotel Ozone - 8:00pm "Like Andrei Tarkovsky directing Mad Max with an all-female cast." - American Cinematheque
Hotel Ozone does not come from the realm of the fantastical or surreal. Unrelentingly bleak in its depiction of a human de-evolution, it's the stark Czech tale of a wise old woman and her band of feral female survivors foraging for food and mate-able males in a rural post-nuke landscape. Mangling wildlife for primal kicks and exhibiting no civilized tendencies, the womens' journey has them stumble upon one final survivor, a gentle old man keeping watch over a tiny gallery of pre-Holocaust artifacts at an abandoned inn. Hotel Ozone's tragic, Twilight Zone tone is just the right buffer between the audience and the terrifying bummer of its scenario -- right down to its final chilling frames. NOTE: Be advised -- this film contains scenes depicting realistic animal cruelty.
Dir. Jan Schmidt, 1967, 35, 77 min.
Glen And Randa - 9:30pm
"The city’s far, far away, over the mountains," the magician told him. "I was 15 when it was totaled. They was droppin’ dead in the streets for years." "Take me to the city," Glen said. But the magician had other business, so just like Prince Valiant on his quest for the Holy Grail, Glen set out for the city. The record of the journey is Glen and Randa, a primitive, desperate odyssey by the last bewildered survivors of an atomic holocaust. Neither moralizing sci-fi nor melodrama, despite its fanciful premise, the film is rather like a cinéma verité doomsday doc — a parable in newsreel form. Using a rigorously unadorned style, director Jim McBride and co-writer Rudy Wurlitzer convey a sense of primitive desolation, transforming contemporary landscapes into primeval heaths. Although the film is unsparing in its vision, its dour brutality is frequently alleviated by a cool eye for satire. Jim McBride will appear in person for a Q&A after the show!
Dir. Jim McBride, 1971, 35mm, 93 min.
Watch the opening minutes of "The End of August At The Hotel Ozone"!
Tickets - $10
3/26 @ 8:00pm / Series: Post-Apocalypse Now! The Last Man On Earth shown with Night of the Comet and The Omega Man The Last Man On Earth - 8:00pm
Everyone has fantasized about what it might be like to be the last person alive on the planet. Anything you could possibly want would be right there at your disposal. Sounds fun, right? Not quite, at least according to writer Richard Matheson, whose nightmarish short novel I Am Legend, later to become The Omega Man, was first adapted as The Last Man On Earth, an intriguing, underrated Italian production starring Vincent Price. Last Man presents Price as Robert Morgan, a former scientist surviving amidst a plague of vampire-like zombies. Barricading himself in an abandoned house, Price struggles to keep the ghouls out, and when a human woman suddenly appears, Morgan believes he's found the key to rebuilding society -- but fate holds some nasty surprises in store. Shot in gritty B&W, Last Man's queasy, almost documentary feel is a clear inspiration on George Romero's later Night of the Living Dead, and Price is excellent as the debonair gatekeeper of humanity in a world gone gear.
Dirs. Ubaldo Ragona & Sidney Salkow, 1964, 35mm, 86 min.
Night Of The Comet - 9:45pm
This '80s horror/comedy takes the Last Man On Earth premise and gives it a colorful and satirical shot in the arm. Valley girls Regina and her sister Samantha (The Apple's Catherine Mary Stewart and Chopping Mall's Kelli Maroney) are the only ones not interested in the great rogue comet scheduled to pass by Earth, and the morning after, find everyone else turned into piles of red dust -- which of course makes them ecstatic to be rid of annoying adults, to plunder high-end department stores and to play good music on the radio for a change. However, they're soon caught up in a deadly power play between the un-dusted zombie masses and a cabal of isolated scientists more interested in saving themselves than the whole of mankind. Lucky for us, our heroines are unafraid to get their coiffs mussed, 'cause they're pumped and accessorized for battle!
Dir. Thom Eberhardt, 1984, 35mm, 95 min.
The Omega Man - 11:30pm
The second stab at adapting Richard Matheson's classic post-apocalyptic vampire tale "I Am Legend", The Omega Man eschews Matheson's gothic horror for '70s grooviness. Charlton Heston stars in a role that's an analog of his characters from Soylent Green and Planet Of The Apes, but it's always a thrill to watch him to chew acres of barren scenery, and have moments of genuine psychotic glee, as in the scene where he laughs maniacally during a deserted screening of Woodstock (WTF?). The villains here are more an albino cult than vampires (led by Anthony Zerbe, who steals the show,) but in all it's a pretty rollicking good time and a must see for fans of pre-Star Wars '70s sci-fi. If nothing else, you'll get a kick out of watching Heston living in a bizarrely decked-out fortified penthouse pad, and barreling through the empty streets of Los Angeles in a giant red convertible while grooving to mellow tunes on 8-track.
Dir. Boris Segal, 1971, 35mm, 98 min.
Poor Pretty Eddie
Fleshpot On 42nd St.
Teenage Divorcee
Game Show Models
Damnation Alley
The Bed Sitting Room
The End Of August At The Hotel Ozone
The Last Man On Earth
