Day 2: NUDIE-ROUGHIES!

Okay, okay, I said 7 Days of Something Weird but.. do they have to be consecutive days? They do? Eesh :D

Anyway - hi Weirdos! Welcome back, in today's installment of 7 Days of Something Weird I'd like to talk about a REALLY niche genre of grindhouse film: The Nudie-Roughie. When we talk about what played in "Grindhouses" of the 60s, this is actually the kind of film we're usually talking about, although most people think of the much later blaxplotiation and sexploitation genres of the 70's.

Somewhere in the Venn diagram overlap between the almost quaint naughtiness of the "Nudie Cutie", the art house film, and the straight up porno, the "nudie roughie" generally had a plot, and (duh) nudity. It didn't show explicit sex, but made up for it with large helpings of disturbing and often downright violent subject matter. Fetishes, voyeurism, and sado-masochism were all fair game, usually in the context of a Freudian morality tale gone off the rails. Don't repress your urges, seems to be the main message of the nudie-roughie, or you'll end up like one of these guys:

The Sex Killer

This is one of my all time favorite SWV titles, because it's just so freaking bonkers. Tony, a frustrated voyeur, likes watching nude sunbathers on his off hours from the  mannequin "factory" (is the loud screeching in the background every time we cut to the factory location intentional, or was somebody just jackhammering the sidewalk on the day of shooting?). Since Tony can't work up the nerve to talk to an actual girl, he starts going on dates with a mannequin head. Half of the movie is him taking the mannequin head out to dinner, touching its lips, and staring lovingly into its eyes. Then, I guess he graduates to strangling women and having sex with their corpses? For some reason? This guy really needs to find a better way to relate to women.

Download the Sex Killer, $9.99, on the Something Weird Site.

The Animal

While The Sex Killer entertains mostly through demented camp appeal (seriously, it does - I'm not selling it well), the Animal - like the other films of director R. Lee Frost (The Defilers, Zero In and Scream) - is genuinely creepy and disturbing. It plays out more like a horror film or a psychological thriller than a goofy campfest. "Ted Andrews (John Alderman) is a booze-swilling, pot-smoking, mother-hating psycho who suffers from severe migraines and gets his kicks from invading the privacy of women." Alderman, in his first role, "actually manages to be both scary and strangely sympathetic at the same time."

Download the Animal, $9.99, on the Something Weird Site.

Strange Rampage

A smarmy "sex doctor" who "looks like a low rent Vincent Price" gives four personal case histories of his female patients in psychoanalysis who are victims of the "serious sociological problem" of having too many women competing for not enough men. Spoiler alert: the thin sociological pretext is an excuse to show women dancing around in their underwear,  pullling their shirts up for the TV repairman, and... making out with a mannequin? What's up with the mannequins?

I have a soft spot for this one because I did an intro to it on the VHS version of Strange Rampage, which I'm linking to because the actual trailer for Strange Rampage has too many boobies. Johnny was like "okay, give me something to come in on like do something with the whip or something, okay action." And I guess I did a... mean face? I don't know how to use a whip, really.  Enjoy!

Download Strange Rampage, $9.99, on the Something Weird Site.

Seven Days of *** SOMETHING WEIRD!! ***

If you are a true afficionado of the obscure, you may be familiar with the Something Weird Catalog. And by catalog I mean, literally, a mail order catalog.

Printed on newsprint, including the "Blue Book," which was the vintage porn section, it featured some amazing art from people like  Jimmy Zero, guitarist from the Dead Boys, Dave Stevens, and whoever drew the below:

The brainchild of Mike Vraney and partner Lisa Petrucci (whose kitch-inspired art also informed much of the distinctive Something Weird VHS package design), who lovingly found and restored a cache of obscure exploitation films that otherwise would have been bound for the dumpster, Something Weird Video was, and still is, an incredible archive of the cheap, crude, trashy and outrageous. It's as American as apple pie and as pervy as Times Square in its heyday. And it's all been uploaded to the internet for your viewing pleasure.

Well, not all. Recent crackdowns on online smut peddlers have really crippled SWV's online presence in the last couple of years, and they are hurting for sales. So I decided to dust off this old blog and come up with something people have been begging me to do for years now: give them some recommendations from the Something Weird Video catalog. It can be pretty overwhelming to try to browse on your own, so let me direct you to some true gems that you can DOWNLOAD RIGHT NOW and watch tonight. (No, I mean it. Seriously. Download these and watch them tonight. You'll be helping SWV and doing yourself a favor in the process.)

Who am I? Well, uh... I used to sell these headshots at the Something Weird Video Table back in the 90s, for $5 a pop. I'm the Jungle Girl.

I also introduced a few of those Something Weird videos back in the day,with Johnny Legend and the Aztec Mummy, which you might remember:

As I add to these blog entries I'll link them here. Burt for now, enjoy:

Day 1: SHE DEVILS AND TEENAGE HELLCATS!

Day 1: SHE DEVILS AND TEENAGE HELLCATS!

One of my all time favorite genres is girl gangs. Honestly, it's the only time you'll ever see a plot with more than two women with agency, talking about something other than a guy (unless, of course, they're discussing how to drag a man under their car, or dope him up with heroin and frame him for murder). It's all the fun of a classic gangster movie, but with an all-female cast!

If you're in the mood to join a girl gang and kick some ass - and who isn't, these days? - here are a few choice cuts from the Something Weird Catalog for you to try.

She Devils on Wheels

This is a good entry point for anyone looking for some candy-colored female empowerment in gold sparkly hotpants and leopard-print vests. The Maneaters, an all-girl biker gang, terrorize a small Florida town (always Florida!) initiate new members, and throw a lot of "orgies." Shot by Herschell Gordon Lewis for a reported $50K, it has one of the best theme songs ever composed "Get Off the Road": 

"We are the hellcats nobody likes! Maneaters on Motorbikes! We own this road, so you better get lost/when you hear the roar of our cut-out exhaust! F** off, or you'll find that you have/blown your mind! Get off the road!"

Download She Devils on Wheels, $9.99, on the Something Weird Video Site.

Teenage Gang Debs

"They all talk, fight, and love just one way: dirty!"  Surprisingly affecting and raw, Teenage Gang Debs was an early 60's juvenile delinquent film that should have been an also-ran, but somehow approaches "sleaze noir" (thanks, Johnny Legend, for the term). It "makes great use of some grimy Brooklyn locales, and has a tough mean quality to it which few JD films from the Golden Age were able to achieve." (John Harrison, the Graveyard Tramp).

This is one of my favorites, and is worth it just for the fight scenes alone.

Recently restored by the American Genre Film Archive, you can 

Download Teenage Gang Debs for $9.99 from the Something Weird Video site, here. 

Girl Gang

When the Motion Picture code forbade such topics as sex, drug use and general "immorality" from being addressed onscreen, a few enterprising producers took it upon themselves to actively flout the law, showing their movies in tents and makeshift theaters, and calling them "Roadshow" pictures. Girl Gang is one of these movies, and as a result it's as eye-popping today as it was when it was released in 1954.

Teenage tramps with torpedo bras roll a guy, steal his car, and sell it to an underworld sleazeball for drugs - and kicks. There's pot parties, gas station robberies, alcoholic abortionists, and a step by step instruction on how to cook heroin and use a needle.

Lower your moral standards and Download Girl Gang for $9.99 from the Something Weird site, today!

She Mob

At the absolute bottom of the girl gang rabbit hole, you'll find SHE MOB. "Big Shim," the "bitchiest dyke in the world," rules over her girl gang in leather pants and an eye-injuring cone bra that would make Divine jealous. Shim and her gang of horny prison escapees pull a "caper" which involves tying boy toy Tony to a bed and holding him for ransom, while they play poker to see who gets him first:

Meanwhile, Honey West knock-off, Sweety East, shows up with her pet leopard and gold lame pantsuit to save the day...

SHE MOB is another lost masterpiece that will be getting the AGFA restoration treatment sometime this year. In the meantime, you can

Download She Mob for $9.99 on the Something Weird Video Site.

Boccaccio '70

(Wow, it's been far too long since I updated this blog! Sorry guys - I've been busy in post-production for the original Variety Photoplays production, SCENE QUEEN (that's our website in progress but there's a lot more actual information in the Facebook group, please like us there or on Twitter to get updates!)


We here at Variety Photoplays headquarters were saddened to learn of the passing of Anita Ekberg - and even more saddened to observe that so few people seemed to even remember who she was.  But apparently the people at Mubi share our kind regard for the Swedish bombshell: in honor of her passing, they have restored my absolute favorite of her performances: The Temptation of Dr. Antonio.

Boccaccio '70

If you haven't seen "The Temptation of Dr. Antonio"  - and pretty much no-one has, because Boccaccio '70 doesn't seem to be available online anywhere in an English translation - you're missing something truly special. While the other entries into Boccaccio '70 seem dated (seriously, you can just fast forward through the vaudevillian camp of various guys ogling Sophia Loren's bazooms in the piazza), Anita Ekberg's playful turn as a billboard sex symbol come to life feels positively Third Wave. 

Here's a quick summary, cribbed from "The Judgement of Paris":

"The film introduces us to the eponymous Dr. Antonio, an unmarried, middle-aged moralist who has devoted his life to leading a crusade against the incursion of any form of prurience in an unnamed Italian metropolis. His mission confronts its greatest challenge when a new billboard appears in the centre of town, right outside his fourth-floor apartment.


The ad, which is nominally a dairy-industry promotion ("Drink More Milk" reads the text above the billboard), shows Anita Ekberg reclining on a plush sofa, like a Titian Venus.

And from the moment that the billboard is unveiled, Dr. Antonio begins a crusade against it--imploring everyone, from the Church, to town politicians, to the builders who assemble it, to take it down.

But the trouble is that no one can understand precisely what Dr. Antonio finds so objectionable about the image.

Undaunted, the doctor rails against the billboard, claiming that it will turn the city into a new "Babylon," or "Sodom and Gomorrah." And indeed, revelers do begin to assemble in the field around it. But their saturnalia is of a very G-rated variety. Instead of "debauchery," the billboard attracts balloon vendors, cotton-candy sellers, and a Punch-and-Judy show. 


Nevertheless, Dr. Antonio continues to denounce the poster in the most hyperbolic terms imaginable.

...
But then, one evening, while his church group is assembled at his home, he receives a visitation from the decried goddess.... "

 As the embodiment of the powerful feminine, you could really do worse than a gigantic Anita Ekberg. Larger than life in every respect, the giant sex symbol steps down from her billboard and chases Dr. Antonio around town like the 50 foot woman. She revels in her own beauty and sexuality, and tries everything to befriend Dr. Antonio, who- for reasons nobody quite understands - fears and hates her.  Sound familiar to anyone? I won't give away more of the movie, but seriously: somebody needs to let Jezebel know about Anita.

Boccaccio '70 is available to Mubi subscribers ($4.99/month). https://mubi.com/films/boccaccio-70

British Pathe Releases Entire Catalog Online

Because you don't have enough disasters and cute animal videos in your life already: British Pathe has released it's entire catalog of films on Youtube.



 


Go on, fall down the rabbit hole. It's Friday.

Vote for SCENE QUEEN for project of the week at Indiewire

Hi everybody,

Scene Queen is blowing up this week, and we've got lots of news to share about the movie!

 

1st: We're an IndieWire Project of the Day!

1st: We're an IndieWire Project of the Day!  Which means we're up for IndieWire Project of the Week, and yes - if we win that, IndieWire Project of the Month. So yeah, on top of begging for money for the Kickstarter, I'm about to be one of those annoying people who bugs you a million times to vote for their movie in a poll. But seriously, it's kind of a big deal because we could win a consultation with SnagFilms, and I love SnagFilms. 

So go vote, will ya? Do us a solid.

GO VOTE FOR SCENE QUEEN on IndieWire:

 

http://tinyurl.com/ns4oxl6

 

2nd: We're a Friday Download at BitTorrent!

Have you seen my seen my super amazing interview about Scene Queen on the BitTorrent Inc. Friday Download? I talk about online bullying, the inspiration for the movie, and why I think technology is changing the landscape of indie film for the better. Oh yeah. Cause I'm awesome like that.

There's also a download of EXCLUSIVE footage from the movie, as well as a chance to make your own video to include in the DVD extras. 

Check out the FRIDAY DOWNLOAD AT BITTORRENT:

http://blog.bittorrent.com/2014/08/01/friday-download-scene-queen/?shareadraft=baba4851_53da9bc4c3aee

 

3rd: We're still Kickstarting, Y'all!

There's nine days left to be part of the Scene Queen Kickstarter and we've already blown past our minimum funding goal of $10,200! Our new stretch goal is $15,000, and as a special exclusive reward to backers, I am offering to act out the entire movie with finger puppets for our backers if we reach our goal. FINGER PUPPETS.

 
 Check out the KICKSTARTER:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1126061693/scene-queen-a-movie-about-teen-bullying

And finally don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and yadiyadiyadiya.

https://www.facebook.com/SCENEQUEEN
https://twitter.com/Scenequeenmovie 
www.scenequeenmovie.com

SCENE QUEEN rules the Indie Scene!!

OMG YOU GUYS! We're an Indiewire Project of the Day! Thanks @indiewire!! http://t.co/5zCBeya8qF
— Scene Queen (@Scenequeenmovie) July 31, 2014

Snowpiercer on VOD Today!

So, say you're dying to see SNOWPIERCER - Bong Joon Ho's epic sci fi action movie set in on a train hurtling through the frozen landscape of a dystopian future enviro-disaster. You've heard it's got a jaw-droppingly awesome international cast, including Tilda Swinton, Mr. Vengeance, Captain America, Ed Harris and JOHN FUCKING HURT. But you live in some shitty backwater that the Weinstein Company never even heard of, and "limited release" means "you will never see this movie here, maybe it will go to Netflix if you are lucky?"

Well, good news for you, PEOPLE OF THE TAIL!!

Today, Korean director Bong Joon-ho's post-apocalyptic action movie "Snowpiercer" will expand to 354 screens around the United States, but also will grace many more personal screens around the country. As Indiewire reported earlier this week, distributor Radius-TWC announced plans to accelerate the VOD release date for "Snowpiercer" to this Friday, its third weekend of theatrical release — much sooner than most titles are available on digital platforms, unless they receive a day-and-date release. 

More, including commentary from theater owners and distributors like Tim League (Alamo Drafthouse) and Neal Block (Magnolia Pictures) can be found on Indiewire.

Rent the movie on iTunes and Amazon Prime for $6.99, or check out your other VOD viewing options on Gowatchit.

So, um. I'm making a movie.

The Kickstarter is live!! Help make a movie about being a teen in the age of social networks, selfies, and bullying: https://t.co/35fIBfEPJI
— Scene Queen (@Scenequeenmovie) July 4, 2014

A Bunch of Drafthouse Titles Go Exclusive to Amazon Prime

Good news, Amazon Prime members: You're about to get your Cheap Thrills, along with a bunch of other great Drafthouse films:

Amazon Snaps Up Exclusive Rights to Drafthouse Films

 

"The deal, made in conjunction with independent distributor Cinedigm, will allow Amazon Prime users to immediately view films from Drafthouse's unique library, such as this year's "Cheap Thrills," from director EL Katz, and Ben Wheatley's "A Field in England" as well as older films like 1970s quirky horror flick "The Visitor," and Abel Ferrara's cult classic "Ms. 45."

In the next few months, several additional films will be added to the roster, such as "The Congress," "Borgman," "Mood Indigo," "20,000 Days on Earth" and "The Dog."
 
Here's hoping the buzzworthy Cannes favorite, The Tribe, is next on the list!