NYFF ’12: Up the Valley and Beyond (short)

He has been called the most successful independent filmmaker of his era.  Yet, there was no secret formula to his films.  The hallmarks, so to speak, of Meyer’s oeuvre are impossible to miss.  Todd Rosken dramatizes the sexploitation pioneer’s creation story in Up the Valley and Beyond (trailer here), which screens as part of Shorts Program 1 at the 50th New York Film Festival.

Meyer was a war hero, as he is happy to explain to anyone who asks.  During the post-war pre-Mad Men era, he sets out to reinvent himself as a pin-up photographer.  However, he has difficulty finding a subject that truly excites his artistic sensibility, if you will.  Then a colleague refers him to Eve Turner, a diva model whose qualities unmistakable—both of them.

Meyer fans will be surprised the grindhouse auteur never even picks up a movie camera in Valley, so there will be no behind-the-scenes treatment of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!  Still, Rosken and co-screenwriter Bobby D. Lux cleverly hint at the roots of frequent Meyer motifs.  As Meyer, Jim Parrack’s performance is somewhat akin to Johnny Depp’s Ed Wood, portraying his earnest gusto with almost guileless naiveté.  In contrast to Wood though, Meyer’s cinematic vision is easy to “get,” continuing to reverberate with fans decades after his glory years.

Although it is part of the shorts program, Valley would also be a good fit for NYFF’s Cinema Reflected sidebar.  It certainly captures the enthusiasm of a particularly idiosyncratic filmmaker.  Quite a presentable period production with a number of affectionate laughs, Up the Valley and Beyond is recommended for all cult movie fans when it screens this coming Monday (10/1) and Sunday, October 14^th, as part of the first short film programming block at the 2012 NYFF.

On-Stage: Go-Go Killers

It was a time when women were women and the men were girly. Actually, that time is ten years in the future, as envisioned through the prism of 1960’s exploitation film. Inspired by the work of soft-core auteur Russ Meyer, as well as more PG-rated girl gang fare, Go-Go Killers (trailer here) is an extravaganza of dancing, fighting, and male emasculation, now running at the Sage Theater, appropriately located in Times Square, the historic home of grindhouse cinema.

Of course, Times Square is respectable now, so the halter tops and hot pants stay safely donned. Go-Go is more about dancing and attitude than that other stuff. In 2019, the Tri-State area is largely a wasteland, except for Manhattan, where real estate prices never seem to fall. The rich get richer, but one by one, they are being assassinated by roving girl gangs. (In the exploitation tradition, the politics are kept simplistic to the point of self-parody.) Marietta falls in with one such gang, the Furies, after being violently cast aside by her jealous ex-fiancé Eugene St. Ives, the petulant son of the fourth richest man in the country.

As fortune would have it, Marietta quickly has the opportunity for some payback. The Furies have a mission to take out #4, and kidnap the ineffectual son Eugene as well as Nelson, their creepy family friend, who also happens to have a place on the top 50 list. Let the class warfare man-bashing begin, and dig that crazy beat.

Logically, the biggest attraction of Go-Go is the spirited go-go dancing, choreographed by director Rachel Klein. She stages the dance numbers with a high energy, groovy “boots-were-made-for-walking” retro charm. There are also some great dancers in the surprisingly large troupe, consisting of the Furies, their rival Gorgons, and distinct Gold and Silver Go-Gos. Elizabeth Stewart is a particular standout as Electra, the leader of the Furies, who whips her pony tail menacingly around, like a medieval morning-star.

It is safe to say dramatic realism is not really Go-Go’s goal, but there are definitely some charismatic performers on-stage, particularly Stewart, Jillaine Gill, and Reagan Wilson as Electra, Godiva, and Pandora, the original Furies. Although Go-Go is really about as risqué as Chicago playing right across Times Square, it embraces the subversive spirit of Meyer’s cult classics. More Roger Corman than Russ Meyer, it might sound like a guilty pleasure, but it is really more of a groovy nostalgia trip. Good clean camp, Go-Go runs Fridays and Saturdays through May 30th.

Photo credit: Lisa Soverino