TURA! The Exploitation Icon

She once had the drop on Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., but she became beloved for giving significantly harsher treatment to far rougher customers. Tura Satana was Varla, the deadly femme-fatale go-go dancer in Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill, Kill!, a title with a lot of punctuation. There was even more violence. Dismissed as exploitation at the time, it is now considered a subversive feminist cult classic. Even total squares might recognize that cat suit (see below). Regardless, she had an army of fans, whose size and passion even surprised her. Cody Jarrett chronicles her mysterious life and flamboyant films in TURA!, which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Faster Pussycat was a chaotic tale of sin and payback. Unbeknownst to fans, it resonated with Satana’s own personal history. While merely nine years of age, she suffered a vicious sexual gang assault. Her attackers did not expect her to survive, but she did. However, instead of convicting her assailants, the court sent her to reform school, labeling her a slanderer. It is was an appalling turn of events, but it was only the beginning of her story. While the attack is documented, Satana and her family made unverifiable claims that she later tracked down the guilty, extracting her very painful vengeance.

Initially, Satana gained fame as a burlesque dancer, before it involved full stripping. Dubbed “Miss Japan Beautiful” by Japanese diplomats, Satana had “relations” of one kind or another with many big stars, reportedly including Tony Curtis, Tony Bennett, and even Elvis Presley. Being on the scene naturally led to film and TV work, including both the Man and the Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Yet, cult movie fans will always know and love her for Russ Meyer’s Faster Pussycat and Ted V. Mikels’ The Astro-Zombies and The Doll Squad.

Jarrett, who directed Satana in Sugar Boxx, talks extensively with her daughters and burlesque colleagues, while also incorporating a good deal of footage of the late Meyer and Mikels. Yet, even her family was surprised by some revelations, like DNA tests that proved their late mother wasn’t even Japanese, but primarily Chinese and Filipino. Nevertheless, she embraced her supposed Japanese identity, even during the immediate post-war years.

Taiwan B-Movies: On the Society File of Shanghai

It wasn’t called “Scar Literature” for no reason. This adaptation of the Mainland stories that chronicled the crimes of the Cultural Revolution during the brief respite of the “Beijing Spring” period literally turns on the source of one of the protagonist’s scars. Technically a “B-movie,” Wang Chu-chin’s On the Society File off Shanghai is also loaded with wider historical and cultural significance, as viewers can see for themselves, now that it is currently screening online (for free) as part of Anthology Film Archive’s Taiwan B-Movies series.

Former respected military nurse Li Li-fang has been arrested for the most likely fatal attack on Wang Hai-nan, the black sheep son of a high-ranking PLA officer. Public security inspector Shung is under pressure to simply find Li guilty and close the case. However, he insists on mounting an investigation to uncover her motives. Shung always has been politically unreliable like that, but he is really pushing his luck this time around.

During the course of the investigation, Shung discovers Li and Wang were lovers, who recognized a shared aversion for the Maoist madness underway in each other. Unbeknownst to both, Wang’s mother (long divorced by his ambitious father) was Li’s mentor at school, but the disgraced principal tried to keep her connection to her son secret, for his own protection, after she was denounced during the Cultural Revolution. In fact, Shung has to win a staring contest with the Red Cadres still tormenting her, just to ask her a few brief questions about Li.

Society File is one of the films that made Liu Hsiao-fan a star, specifically in the Taiwan Black Movie subgenre of female revenge films. Li Li-fang is not exactly the sort of avenging angel she would eventually become, but she is certainly intense—especially her classic, career-making scene, in which she stabs her chest, just to prove how fearless she is. When you watch her, you can see how she could become a Taiwanese exploitation icon.

Taiwan B-Movies at AFA: Taiwan Black Movies

Before Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang, there was Woman Revenger and Lady Ninja. Starting in 1979, there was an explosion of ROC exploitation filmmaking that not so coincidentally coincided with Taiwan’s super-charged economic growth and the development of the democratization movement. Hou Chi-jan surveys the films and their cultural significance in Taiwan Black Movies, which screens as part of Anthology Film Archive’s free online retrospective, Taiwan B-Movies.

Sort of euphemistically (but maybe not really), the Taiwanese “Black” or B-movies are referred to by critics as the “social realism” films. In fact, the film that launched the genre, Never Too Late to Repent, was a very realistic depiction of prison conditions. Those that followed cranked up the violence to levels previously unseen in local cinema, while pushing the sexual envelop as much as they could at the time.

Back then, the KMT was still anti-Communist (whereas it is now infamous as Taiwan’s pro-CCP party), so adaptations of Mainland “Scar Literature,” novels chronicling the horrors of Mao’s regime, could count on a little slack from the KMT censors. Ironically, the awkwardly titled On the Society File of Shanghai would give rise to a major Taiwanese exploitation subgenre: the women’s revenge film. Indeed, a number of the clips seen in TBM look like they could have come from a dingy print of Lady Snowblood, or something even tougher.

Hou’s talking heads represent a fairly wide spectrum of film criticism. Collectively, they probably express just as much disdain for these films, as they do admiration and nostalgia. Each point is also vividly illustrated with relevant film clips, but sadly, a number of these films are obviously not well preserved.

Lost and Found: Rediscovering the All-Time Worst Exploitation Studio

The schlock Silver Screen Cinema Pictures International (SSCPI) churned out must have been unwatchable since not even grindhouse documentary mainstay John Waters is willing wax nostalgic over the oeuvre of Morris “Stogie” Carlisle. Of course, mighty SSCPI never actually existed, but a small platoon of genre film bloggers and critics will pretend otherwise. Rather impressively, they mostly manage to keep a straight face in Jason Bailey & Mike Hull’s mockumentary Lost & Found: The True Hollywood Story of Silver Screen Cinema Pictures International (trailer here), which is now available on Vimeo VOD.

Carlisle’s grade-Z exploitation movies were reportedly unwatchable, but we will have to take critic Glenn Kenny’s word for it, because we can no longer judge for ourselves. “Tragically,” the entire SSCPI film library went up in flames just prior to their VHS transfer, thanks to Stogie’s cigar. That was it, they were all gone. All that was left of SSCP was a hefty insurance settlement. However, a cache of trailers was discovered three years ago, giving us a maybe not-so tantalizing glimpse at what we have lost.

The vintage grindhouse details are so spot-on and the talking head commentary is so persuasive, viewers will start to wonder if SSCPI maybe really did exist, but the cast listing in the end credits is a dead giveaway. In fact, Dave Bailey and Mac Welch are wonderfully sly as the supposedly late Carlisle and his semi-estranged frequent cast-member, Dick Haze. However, Clint Howard totally takes the cake appearing as Howard Clinton, a formerly famous star, who only shot a day’s worth of film with Carlisle, but footage of his portrayal of an angry cop barking order into a phone would be spliced into dozens of subsequent SSCPI films.

You have to give our colleagues credit for mining SSCPI for laughs. As usual, Grady Hendrix’s enthusiasm is contagious, while Kenny plays his bad cop, SSCPI-demystifying role to the hilt. Frankly, very few of the trailers within the film look tempting in any way, shape, or form, except perhaps Black Thunder, a.k.a. Grandmaster Brown (or should that be vice versa?). Nevertheless, anyone who has enjoyed nostalgic documentaries like American Grindhouse and Rewind This, spoofs like Turbo Kid, or neo-grindhouse films, such as Ladies of the House should appreciate the charms of Lost & Found. Highly entertaining, it is now available via Vimeo.

BUFF ’17: 68 Kill

Its called exploitation for a reason. Neither the filmmaker or the characters of this gleefully sordid, southern-fried caper gives a toss if it hurts your feelings or upsets your delicate sensibilities. People are going to get humiliated, beaten-up silly, and all kinds of dead in Trent Haaga’s 68 Kill, which screens tonight during the 2017 Boston Underground Film Festival.

A femme fatale vixen like Liza ought to be well out of the league of Chip, a truly luckless loser, but they probably deserve each other. She treats him like dirt and he keeps coming back for more. Unfortunately, he does not make enough money mucking out septic tanks to cover their rent, so every month she pays off the landlord in “services rendered.” Unfortunately for him, he lets it slip during their awkward pillow talk that he has 68 grand in cash, currently on hand, just begging for Liza to hatch a violent home invasion scheme to snatch it away.

Of course, that is exactly what she does, dragging the alarmed Chip along to ride shotgun. Seeing how easily Liza guns down her victims makes rethink their relationship, especially when he lays eyes on Violet (another woman reluctantly forced to service the late landlord). Chip is smitten and also horrified by Liza’s plans for their captive (they are utterly appalling), so he coldcocks his soon-to-be ex, grabs the money and the girl and starts running for all he’s worth. Obviously, Liza will be hot on their trail, with Hell following after her, but a group of sadistic white trash psychopaths might turn out to be a more pressing problem.

68 Kill is a lurid, nihilistic revel in perversity, but it is bizarrely entertaining to see how low it is willing to go. When Haaga hits rock bottom, he starts drilling into the Earth’s crust. This film just wallows in primordial sleaze, but you have to give it credit for making due on its promise.

Based on his performance as Chip, Matthew Gray Gubler would probably make a good whipping post. Seriously, it often just hurts to watch him. On the other hand, AnnaLynne McCord is beyond fierce as Liza, the villainess from Hell. However, Sheila Vand (as you’ve never seen her before) totally hangs with McCord’s Liza as Monica, the goth-trash psycho-hooker. Alisha Boe also keeps the audience off balance as Violet. She looks and acts sweet, but she archly delivers some of the dirtiest lines in the film.

To his credit, Haaga keeps it all zinging along. This is everything My Father Die aspired to be, but fell far short of reaching. Recommended for its sheer chutzpah, 68 Kill screens tonight (3/24) as part of this year’s BUFF.

My Father, Die: Southern Exploitation for People Who Hate the South

It is only due to the influence of his father that Asher Rawlings is the man he is today: a psychosomatically deaf-mute introvert. However, he harbors ambitions of becoming a patricidal killer. It would be an improvement. Revenge comes deep fried in Sean Brosnan’s grubby My Father, Die (trailer here) which opens this Friday in New York.

MFD opens with an ultra-stylized flashback that shows us how Rawlings’ dysfunctional family ran fatally off the rails. To teach him the birds-and-the-bees, his older brother Chester sets him up to peep while he pays a call on Nana. She is roughly Chester’s age, but their Neanderthal father Ivan stills considers her his exclusive sexual property. Therefore, the biker father logically murders Chester and beats the snot out Asher when he barges into their rendezvous.

Ten years later, the old man is released due to prison over-crowding, leading Rawlings to understandably freak out. Resolving the best defense is a good offense, Rawlings saws off a shotgun and heads out to kill his father like the rabid dog he is. Thanks to a violent encounter with Ivan’s old pal Tank, Rawlings gets the drop on him in his scumbag motel. However, he ill-advisedly assumes the battered Ivan is dead. You know what assuming does. Thus, Rawlings’ grudge match becomes a mutual thing.

Frankly, MFD probably sounds considerably more fun than it really is. Tonally, it is a bizarre mishmash, over-reliant on black-and-white flashbacks and ponderous narration recorded in Rawlings’ prepubescent, pre-tragedy voice. They are played so achingly self-serious, it makes you wonder if they were intended to parody pretentious indie films. Needless to say, if viewers can’t tell if considerable portions of MFD were meant to be satire that’s a problem.

Brosnan’s oozing contempt for the South also gets old quickly. Whether it is white power bikers or tent revival evangelists who secretly visit pornographic webchats wearing an S&M hood, his vision of Southern men is gothic in the extreme. How would Brosnan (son of Pierce) like it if Southern Evangelical filmmakers made a film in Ireland, portraying the Irish as nothing but drunks and terrorists? Obviously, that would be grossly unjust, but it would be about as fair as the treatment dispensed in MFD.

Since English Joe Anderson spends most of his time as “adult” Asher wearing shades and his late brother’s raccoon skin hat, it is hard to connect with the character and the performance. At least former Merseyside-born boxer Gary Stretch is impressively fierce as the dad from Hell. As Tank, Kevin Gage (from Wisconsin—technically not the South either, but much closer) chews the scenery and howls in pain with gusto.

So, what about that comma between “father” and “die?” Sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not. Its better off without it. Awkward title syntax just seems to generate bad karma. As it is, MFD is already too scuzzy in the wrong, non-retro sort of way. By refusing to fully embrace the payback genre and the bayou milieu, Brosnan ultimately sabotages his own attempt at neo-Southern exploitation. Not recommended, My Father Die opens this Friday (1/20) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Black Rock: This Trip is No Fun

Who goes camping on a remote coastal Maine isle during the off-season?  Psycho killers and their made-to-order victims, that’s who. There is nothing inherently wrong with a traditional slasher movie set-up, but the execution is decidedly problematic throughout Katie Aselton’s Black Rock (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Sarah has tricked her childhood friends Abby and Lou into joining her on a camping trip, in hopes that they will bury the hatchet.  Years ago, Lou bedded Abby’s boyfriend.  Still nurturing her resentment, the soon-to-be divorced Abby is not ready to forgive and forget.  When they run into three hunters, the thoroughly annoyed Abby gets sloppy drunk and flirty with Derek, the alpha male, who rather misconstrues her attentions.  This leads to all kinds of trouble.

When one of the sullen hunters tells the women what a hero Derek was in Iraq, no matter what they said at the court martial, we know what kind of movie we’re in for.  Yes, that’s right, they are unhinged veterans.  You might have thought the sleazy psycho Vietnam Vet exploitation film was an embarrassing relic of the 1970’s, but evidently Aselton and her husband-screenwriter Mark Duplass are determined to revive it.  Yes, this is how the Duplass household would like to thank all our men and women in uniform: by suggesting they are an inch removed from Richard Speck.  Really, you shouldn’t have.

Oddly, the first ten minutes or so show a flash of promise thanks to some caustically catty dialogue.  That promise is short lived.  By the time the bound women goad the craziest of the crazies into letting them go so they can hunt them down like real men, audience emotional detachment should reach one hundred percent.  Nor does Rock have the guts to go all in with its gender-based victimization and retribution themes, a la I Spit on Your Grave.  Instead, Aselton and Duplass basically follow the Most Dangerous Game template, chapter and uninspired verse.

To be fair, Kate Bosworth has some nice moments as the somewhat likably goofy Sarah.  However, Aselton and Lake Bell largely blend together as Abby and Lou (or Lou and Abby).  As their three antagonists, Jay Poulson, Will Bouvier, and Anselm Richardson never transcend their characters’ cookie-cutter stereotypes.  Of course, they are not supposed to.

As a horror film, Black Rock is a bore.  Yet, it has the potential to be something far worse.  It is easy to see unsavory elements repurposing the exploitation flick to demonize the American servicemen.  After all, we know the Frankfort terror attack was inspired by Brian De Palma’s Redacted and for weeks the administration blamed Benghazi on a youtube video.  A disappointment on every level, Black Rock is not recommended for anyone under any circumstances when it opens today (5/17) at the Village East.

The Baytown Outlaws: Necks Don’t Get Much Redder Than This

Speak & Spells must have trouble with the word subtle, because the Oodie Brothers are clearly not familiar with it.  It doesn’t seem to mean much to director-co-writer Barry Battles either, but he certainly knows his Skynyrd and how to stage an over-the-top shootout.  Viewers are in store for plenty of redneck exploitation action when Battles’ The Baytown Outlaws (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York.

The Oodies are good at killing.  Of course, it helps not having to worry about getting collared.  They are the secret weapon of Sheriff Henry Millard, who turns the boys on loose on every other deadbeat criminal in his county, thereby keeping the crime rate impressively low.  As the film opens, they have made a minor mistake, wiping out the wrong house full of thugs.  It is nothing Millard cannot cover-up, but there is a witness.  Duly impressed, Celeste Martin and her Daisy Dukes hire the Oodie Brother to whack her gangster ex-husband Carlos Lyman and safely return her godson, Rob.  Complications and bodies ensue.

It turns out Rob is basically a human bearer bond.  Presumably developmentally disabled and confined to a wheelchair, Rob will soon inherit a sizable trust fund, which will be controlled by his guardian.  He is more than the Oodies bargained for.  Nonetheless, they quickly warm to the lad in scenes that play like the Sons of Anarchy version of Savannah Smiles.  Have no fear, sentimentality is not Baytown’s priority.  Frankly, one gets the feeling the set erupted in laughter as soon as Battles yelled cut on the film’s big emotional scenes.

Baytown really bares its soul when five suggestively clad biker assassin babes tangle with the Oodies.  Ranging somewhere between a Southern-fried indie and an outright midnight movie, Battles goes for defiantly violent laughs and gets almost as many as Django Unchained in about half the time. 

This is no classic, but everyone is game, particularly Billy Bob Thornton, obviously enjoying every word of Lyman’s shamelessly politically incorrect dialogue.  Although he never speaks a syllable (relying instead on said Speak & Spell), Daniel Cudmore (Colossus in the X-Men franchise) has a real physical presence as Lincoln Oodie.  Clayne Crawford and Travis Fimmel also exhibit admirable energy as Brick and McQueen Oodie, respectively (but sometimes it is rather hard to tell them apart).  Eva Longoria does not have much to do beyond wear her short shorts and shoot a few guns, but Martin is still some of her best screen work, maybe ever.

Eschewing the faux vintage grindhouse look done to death in films like Hobo with a Shotgun, Battles keeps the meathead fodder snappy.  The occasional animated snippets lend Baytown additional character.  An entertaining guilty pleasure, The Baytown Outlaws is recommended for those who can appreciate its slightly sleazy charms when it opens this Friday (1/11) in New York at the Cinema Village.

NYAFF’11: Machete Maidens Unleashed!

Machetes and maidens: two great things that go great together and evergreen staples of Filipino exploitation films. Following up Not Quite Hollywood, his epic survey of Ozploitation, Mark Hartley gives the That’s Entertainment treatment to the scrappy low budget actioners produced in the Philippines. Prepare thyself for an education when Hartley’s Machete Maidens Unleashed! screens during the 2011 New York Asian Film Festival, once again bringing a heavy dose badness to the Lincoln Center, kicking-off this Friday.

Much like Tito in Yugoslavia, Marcos had plenty of military hardware laying about that he was more than willing to rent out to international productions. With the memory of the American liberation during WWII still fresh for older generations, the Filipino climate was relatively pro-America and definitely open for business. Yet, it took a visionary like Roger Corman to fully recognize the possibilities.

The Philippines made a star of Pam Grier, who starred in several women-in-jungle-prison films for Corman’s New World Pictures. Corman also recruited local talent such as Eddie Romero to grind out Brides of Blood movies for New World. As with protégés like Jonathan Demme, Monte Hellman, and James Cameron, who learned to crank them out fast and cheap under Corman’s tutelage before finding wider acclaim, Romero would eventually be recognized as an official National Artist of the Philippines. Yet, he happily sits down to talk about Black Mama, White Mama and similar cinematic milestones.

Like Hartley’s NQH, MMU will leave viewers thirsty for many of the films sampled in glorious detail. For instance, Bobby Suarez’s Cleopatra Wong looks particularly intriguing (killer nuns) and vaguely PG-13-ish. Whereas, many alumni of Corman’s prison films frequently express amazement at just how much they were able to get away with in terms of lurid sexual content—a point Hartley is not shy about illustrating.

Breezily paced, MMU features first-person interviews with Corman and scores of his American and Filipino colleagues, unabashedly gleeful in the naughtiness and profitability of their masterworks. While the commentary is not as laugh out loud funny as NHQ’s, it still has its moments, often courtesy of Corman vet John Landis. A good clean night at the movies (but best to leave the kiddies at home), MMU is a perfect example why NYAFF is pound for pound the most entertaining fest of the year. It screens with the straight-up legit Filipino exploitationer Raw Force this Saturday (7/2) at the Walter Reade Theater.

Daalder at AFA: Massacre at Central High

It is sort of the anti-Beautiful Boy. There is no hand-wringing or soul searching over why a tightly wound high student starts killing his classmates. Kids, killing is always wrong, but just like in classic EC Comics, many of young David’s victims sort of have it coming in Rene Daalder’s Massacre at Central High (trailer here), which screens during the Anthology Film Archives upcoming Daalder retrospective.

David is the classic lone wolf type, but the mid-year transfer student has entre into Central’s ruling clique through his friend Mark. Though we never get the details, the action-oriented David did him a major solid years ago. Now that Mark’s fortunes have reversed, he wants to return the favor. However, David is having none of his thuggish elitist gang. The instant dislike is mutual. On the other hand, Mark’s girlfriend Theresa recognizes David’s integrity. Trouble is inevitable. When David, an avid runner, is hobbled by the Mark’s running mates, he loses his outlet for his rage. Revenge will fill the void. At this point, Central gets a wee bit subversive.

It is no secret David is offing the campus bullies. In fact, his popularity soars as a result. For about ten seconds or so, Central becomes an idyllic community—and then it becomes Lord of the Flies. Clearly, Central argues human nature abhors a vacuum. Suddenly, there is an opening at the top of the social food chain, which many of the formerly tormented covet. Naturally, they try to form alliances with David, but he does not react well to their hypocrisy.

In between creative death scenes and the occasional skinny dipping, Central offers some shrewd commentary on the nature of power and those who desire it. It is worth noting one of Central’s most cravenly opportunistic power seekers is Spoony, the hippie dude, played by Robert Carradine. (Imagine this film on a double bill with Revenge of the Nerds.)

In a further irony of casting, Central features two future Eight is Enough alumnus in radically different high school contexts. Kimberly Beck (Nancy in the pilot only) is a bit awkward at times, but not terrible as Theresa, while Lani O’Grady (Mary) is convincingly spacey as the evil flower child Jane. Though he hardly looks physically imposing, Derrel Maury projects psycho intensity quite well. Yet, Andrew Stevens, later to specialize in naughty late night cable thrillers, probably shows the most complex dimensions as the thoroughly conflicted Mark.

There is a temptation to overstate the allegorical aspects of Central. Daalder certainly offers some psychological insights, but it still delivers for the drive-in market (indeed, the accompanying picture has been strategically cropped). Still, it is rather invigorating to see exploitation done with such ambition. An odd but entertaining combination of camp and existentialism, Central deserves its cult status. Adventurous film lovers should definitely see Central on the big screen while they can, as the centerpiece of AFA’s highly recommended Daalder series, this coming Thursday (6/9) through Sunday (6/12).

Exploitation Exploited: Hobo with a Shotgun

Trailers are considered the movie industry’s most important marketing tool, but does it really make sense to start with a clever teaser and re-engineer an original film from there? Much like Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, Jason Eisener’s Hobo with a Shotgun started as a gag trailer for a fictitious grindhouse film submitted to a contest co-sponsored by Rodriguez. Unlike Machete, at least Eisener’s Hobo (trailer here) makes no pretensions to socio-political relevance, simply delivering sleazy action when it opens theaters today, following its high profile Sundance screenings.

Like the High Plains Drifter or Sanjuro, a mysterious hobo rides into town on the rails. He has a past that we will never know, but he has a dream—to buy a mower and start his own lawn care company. He is in the wrong town for that. This vaguely Midwestern burg is owned lock, stock, and smoking barrel by Drake, a poor man’s Joe Pesci kingpin, and his two sadistic idiot sons, Slick and Ivan. The Hobo gets a taste of how things work in town when he foils an attempt to kidnap the local hooker with a heart of gold, earning himself a beat-down at the hands of the crooked cops. However, the Hobo comes back for more, this time with a shotgun in hand.

As titles go, Hobo with a Shotgun certainly represents truth in advertising. Its opening credit sequence also has the vintage grindhouse look down cold. However, as the film progresses, it veers closer in tone to 1990’s Troma than 1970’s exploitation. Not only is violence ridiculously over the top, the villains (particularly the evil twins) look like they walked straight out of a 1980’s world of Dippety Do hair gel and cheesy metal bands with flying V guitars.

Casting Rutger Hauer as the Hobo was an inspired choice. Shotgun essentially tries inverts the classic 1980’s schlocker The Hitcher, inviting audiences to root for Hauer’s drifter killing machine rather than another boring pretentious first-initial Thomas Howell character. Unfortunately, the Hobo is absolutely riddled with angst, adding a layer of grimness to what is intended as a blackly comic romp.

In truth, like Machete, a trailer’s worth of this Hobo might be just about right. The opening credits hit the perfect nostalgic note and there are three or four meathead pleasing action sequences. The rest of the film’s brutal and nihilistic connective tissue simply gets tiresome. Those looking for gory laughs might find them in Shotgun (at the expense of their souls), but legitimate grindhouse connoisseurs will more likely be disappointed. Not nearly as fun as the hipster amen chorus claims (not even close), Shotgun opens today (5/6) in New York at the Village East.

Delivering the Goods: American Grindhouse

It seems like every hipster filmmaker wants to make a retro-grindhouse movie these days, but the results are usually pretty lame. The truth is real deal grindhouse auteurs did not have time for posing. They had to get their shots before the cops shut them down. The subversive attitude of their oeuvre flowed organically from their dodgy working environment, thoroughly infusing the zero-budget cult films Elijah Drenner lovingly surveys in American Grindhouse (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

“Exploitation” films were independently produced movies with some grabby element to “exploit” that audiences could not otherwise find from mainstream studio fare. Though not necessarily limited to sex and violence, those were certainly the biggies. Drugs and circus freaks were also reliable hooks. Such films were typically booked into seedy pre-Giuliani-era Times Square-style theaters, often playing continuously without formal start times (hence the grind in grindhouse).

Drenner and his battery of film scholars start with the silent era, when Universal hit pay dirt with Traffic in Souls, a rather sensationalistic story of white slavery, carrying the fig leaf of a progressive reform message. It established the template many exploitation filmmakers would profitably follow for decades, including the so-called “Forty Thieves” emerging in 1930’s.

Grindhouse surveys a number of rather self-explanatory sub-genres, like the “birth of a baby” movies, the beach party movies, faux nudist documentaries, the “nudie cuties,” the “roughies,” women-in-prison films, Nazi-exploitation (exemplified with class and distinction by Ilsa the She-Wolf of the SS), and the ageless blaxploitation picture. Amongst his many talking heads, Drenner notably scored sit-down interview time with Fred Williamson, of Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem fame, who looks and sounds as cool as ever.

While Grindhouse focuses squarely on the filmmakers, it is not a cheap tease. Indeed, many of the voluminous clips from the seminal classics under discussion are real eye-poppers. Still, Drenner maintains the right balance of (half)-serious cultural history and the crowd pleasing naughty bits.

Well-stocked with wild stories and vintage scenes of pure lunacy, Grindhouse is a whole lot of fun, sort of like an old school Hollywood Boulevard version of That’s Entertainment. Like the “birth of a baby” films it documents, Grindhouse is in fact educational, but its subject matter is definitely mature. Yet ultimately, it is a winning tribute to genuinely independent filmmakers, marginalized and even demonized though they might have been. Heartily recommended to those who already have a good idea what they will be getting into, Grindhouse opens this Friday (2/4) in New York at the Cinema Village.

Sundance ’11: Hobo with a Shotgun

Trailers are considered the movie industry’s most important marketing tool, but does it really make sense to start with a clever teaser and re-engineer an original film from there? Much like Robert Rodriguez’s Machete, Jason Eisener’s Hobo with a Shotgun started as a gag trailer for a fictitious grindhouse film submitted to a contest co-sponsored by Rodriguez. Unlike Machete, at least Eisener’s Hobo (trailer here) makes no pretensions to socio-political relevance, simply delivering sleazy action at its Park City at Midnight screenings during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

Like the high plains drifter or Sanjuro, a mysterious hobo rides into town on the rails. He has a past that we will never know, but he has a dream—to buy a mower and start his own lawn care company. He is in the wrong town for that. This vaguely Midwestern burg is owned lock stock and smoking barrel by Drake, a poor man’s Joe Pesci kingpin, and his two sadistic idiot sons, Slick and Ivan. The Hobo gets a taste of how things work in town when he foils an attempt to kidnap the local hooker with a heart of gold, earning himself a beat-down at the hands of the crooked cops. However, the Hobo comes back for more, this time with a shotgun in hand.

As titles go, Hobo with a Shotgun certainly represents truth in advertising. Initially, it also has the vintage grindhouse look down cold. However, as the film progresses, it veers closer in tone to 1990’s Troma than 1970’s exploitation. Not only is violence ridiculously over the top, the villains (particularly the evil twins) look like they walked straight out of a 1980’s world of Dippety Do hair gel and cheesy metal bands with flying V guitars.

Casting Rutger Hauer as the Hobo was an inspired choice. Shotgun essentially tries to invert the classic 1980’s schlocker The Hitcher, inviting audiences to root for Hauer’s drifter killing machine rather than another boring first-initial Thomas Howell character. Unfortunately, the Hobo is absolutely riddled with angst, adding a layer of grimness to what is intended as a blackly comic romp.

In truth, like Machete, a trailer’s worth of this Hobo might be just about right. The opening credits hit the perfect nostalgic note and there are three or four meathead pleasing action sequences. The rest of the film’s brutal and nihilistic connective tissue simply gets tiresome. Be that as it may, those looking for gory laughs will probably find them in Shotgun, but legitimate grindhouse connoisseurs will more likely be disappointed. It screens again tomorrow (1/28) and Saturday (1/29) during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Presented by Sasha Grey: Modus Operandi

Neither producer nor star, Sasha Grey is “presenting” Frankie Latina’s new retro 1970’s exploitation midnight movie. So, after who knows how many adult videos and a starring role in Soderbergh’s digital quickie The Girlfriend Experience, Grey is evidently the new Oprah. Hey, that’s fine, I’m just checking. However, she picked an odd first film to lend her imprimatur to with Latina’s Modus Operandi (trailer here), which kicks off a week of midnight screenings this Friday at the IFC Center.

Presented by Grey and co-starring Danny “Machete” Trejo, Mark “American Movie” Borchardt, and Mark “Animal House’s Neidermeyer” Metcalf, Operandi reviews ought to pretty much write themselves. Of course, like fellow Wisconsin indie filmmaker Borchardt’s Coven, Latina’s story is largely incomprehensible. Perhaps it is the “additional material” contributed by Borchardt.

The McGuffin, such as it is, involves two briefcases filled with compromising material lost by front-running presidential candidate Squire Parks. To recover them, the CIA director, naturally played by the always seriously bad Trejo, recruits Stanley Cashay, a once lethal assassin who spiraled into a debilitating depression after his wife’s murder. Once he pulls himself together, he will have to contend with agency turncoat Dallas Deacon. As he pursues his quarry, people get killed and women walk around naked.

There are a lot of video gags strewn throughout Operandi, including a phony vintage commercial for 70’s Hindi Policewoman-esque TV show, which begs the question will we get an Ayesha Ayesha movie next? Do not even ask what Metcalf’s character “Copper Gore” has to do with anything. A member of the Wisconsin mafia, one suspects he just showed up to support his more eccentric colleagues. As Deacon, Borchardt is pretty much the same as he ever was, but Randy Russell might actually be seen doing a spot of acting as our anti-hero Cashay. Again, Trejo brings serious cult cred to Operandi that it really does not deserve.

In fact, anyone expecting Machete like attitude in Operandi might be a bit disappointed. Sure there is plenty of cartoon violence and a fair amount of nudity, but with its grainy look, surreal imagery, and surprisingly slow pace, Operandi often feels more closely akin to experimental film than a tongue-in-cheek gore fest. As a result, it is hard to know what to make of it, but it is surely not for a mass audience.

Ultimately, Operandi is a strange exercise in exploitation love that should have been much funnier, or at least more energetic. Fans of Grey and Trejo (you know who you are) probably will not let that deter them from the midnight Friday (9/10) screening, which the “presenter” and co-star will attend in the flesh, so to speak. In every way an odd film, Operandi runs September 10-16 at the IFC Center.

Spawn of Grindhouse: Machete

OK ladies, here’s some quality time with the man you can’t resist: Danny Trejo. Actually, he really can carry a picture, but it will probably be an overwhelmingly male crowd checking out his star turn today (and a pretty juvenile audience at that). Expanded from a joke trailer within the exploitation homage Grindhouse, Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis’ Machete (real trailer here) opens wide today.

Just about everything you have heard about Machete is true, except for the half-hearted attempts to back-pedal from its racially polarizing message. Machete is a former federale set up and left for dead by Torrez, a Mexican drug lord played by Steven Seagal (is this why he didn’t do The Expendables?) Of course, Torrez does not have what it takes to kill Machete, but the experience leaves the ex-cop slightly bitter and disillusioned.

Now working as an illegal day-laborer in Texas, Machete is hired by the mysterious Booth to kill a state senator making a name for himself crusading against illegal aliens. It turns out to be another set-up designed to boost the senator’s popularity. However, instead of conveniently dying, Machete launches an all out war against the senator, Booth, their Minuteman-like allies, and the money man behind them all, who wouldn’t you know it, happens to be Torrez.

Co-director Rodriguez can tap dance as fast as he can in friendly interviews, but there is no getting around the fact that his film explicitly argues anyone who favors enforcing our nation’s immigration laws is a racist who deserves to be murdered, preferably in a rather gruesome manner. Yet, that would be fine if Machete were truer to its roots.

Clearly, Machete deliberately models itself on the more militant strain of blaxploitation exemplified by Ivan Dixon’s The Spook that Sat by the Door and Oscar Williams’ The Final Comedown. Far from being liberal, these films are more neo-fascist than anything ever seen in vigilante films like Death Wish. In Door, an African-American CIA veteran leads an inner city insurrection against white America. Despite the premise, the film is not about reveling in victimhood, but expresses a message of self-reliance (albeit a violent and arguably racist one). Though not as empowering, Comedown is witheringly contemptuous of white liberals, depicting them as fair weather allies ready to sell out the revolution as soon as things get hot. Machete the film pretends to share this sensibility, but it is really just posing.

Lacking old school conviction, Machete is constantly taking time out from the sex and violence to check in with “The Network,” an underground social welfare organization run by the disturbingly named Shé. Door’s Dan Freeman would have no patience for this kind of do-gooder liberalism. Of course, the film’s political subplots are not just didactic, they are embarrassingly ill-informed. Imagine a state senator attempting to build an electrified border wall. In real life, the Federal government would have a thing or two to say about that.

If Machete would just stick to its roots it would be a more consistently entertaining film. Machete killing whitey with the help of hot chicks with big guns is nearly bullet-proof material. Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, and Lindsay Lohan all look quite healthy and are hardly shy in the film, each taking a turn with the irresistible Machete. Yet, the Avellan Twins and Cheryl Chin are frankly even more attractive, as a pair of gun-toting nurses and Torrez’s henchwoman, respectively. There is no question, the film understands what will sell it, and it is not the constant advocacy for even more social welfare spending in illegal communities. Yet for some reason, it cannot resist indulging in these relevant “teaching moments.”

On the plus side, Machete is not anti-Catholic. Our anti-hero’s Padre brother surreptitiously tapes his confessional, lusts after women, curses freely, and kills without mercy, but these are all good things in Machete’s world.

Danny Trejo has been a cult star for years because he is stone cold bad. Watching him turned loose is definitely good fun, though one suspects his is more charismatic to the Harry Knowles movie geek set than the Albas of the world. Still, there is no denying his considerable timing and presence in Machete. It would be interesting to see him as a straight action lead in a film not intended as either self-parody or a political statement.

While there is plenty of meathead entertainment in Machete, it frequently undercuts itself with its awkward political posturing. Indeed, trying to be PC in a “chicks with guns” flick is truly self-defeating. Memo to Rodriguez and Trejo: next time stick to the sex and violence. A ridiculously mixed bag, Machete opens nationwide today (9/3), including the Village East here in New York.