comedy

Forgotten Silver (1995): Peter Jackson’s Silent Film Precursor to The Independent (2000)

/ swampflix / 3 Comments

Five years before our December Movie of the Month, 2000’s Jerry Stiller comedy The Independent, went straight to DVD a very similar mockumentary aired on New Zealand television: 1995’s Forgotten Silver. Although Forgotten Silver covers cinema’s early, silent era while The Independent covers its B-movie & drive-in time frame, the two mockumentaries are very similarly minded both in their reverence for the medium they’re spoofing and in their depictions of madmen auteur directors possessed by their passion for filmmaking & troubled by their failure to secure proper funding for their art. While The Independent is a brilliant, must-see comedy for schlock junkies & Roger Corman fanboys, Forgotten Silver covers the same territory for cinephiles & Criterion fetishists.

When it was first introduced to New Zealand audiences, Forgotten Silver was framed as a true-life documentary of “forgotten” (read: fictional) filmmaker Colin McKenzie, who supposedly operated during cinema’s birth at the turn of the century through the tail end of the silent era in the late 20s. Much like how The Independent‘s Morty Fineman accidentally pioneered cinema in his quest to make movies about “tits, ass, and bombs” Colin McKenzie was credited here for accidentally inventing the world’s first tracking shot, color film, feature length film, talkie, close-up, and candid camera comedy, among other firsts. Although this list of feats is beyond preposterous for an unknown filmmaker (and they all end in blunderous fates like smut charges & miscarriages) its deadpan delivery & adherence to a traditional documentary format make it somewhat understandable that some television audiences were initially duped by Forgotten Silver‘s validity as a document of a real-life auteur. It’s got a much more wry, Woody Allen’s Take the Money & Run style of mockumentary humor in contrast to The Independent‘s more over-the-top, Christopher Guest-esque approach to comedy.

It’s difficult to say for sure if Forgotten Silver provided any direct inspiration for The Independent, but there are some undeniable similarities in their DNA. While Forgotten Silver is concerned with restoration of McKenzie’s entire catalog, The Independent follows the discovery & restoration of Fineman’s “lost” anti-herpes PSA The Simplex Complex. Also like The Independent, Forgotten Silver is mostly concerned with the completion of a single feature film, this time profiling the production of Salome, a multi-year production of a Biblical epic featuring 15,000 extras, a city-sized hand-built set, and endless funding issues that similarly plagued Fineman’s Ms. Kevorkian. The film also establishes its legitimacy as a documentary by enlisting several big names in art cinema – producer Harvey Weinstein, critic Leonard Maltin, and actor Sam Neill among them – to provide interview fodder. Peter Jackson, the film’s co-director/creator alongside documentarian Costa Botes, get the most screentime of all, framing the story of how McKenzie’s films were found & restored and what significance they have to the history of cinema at large in his talking head interviews.

The differences between Forgotten Silver & The Independent are just as apparent. Because Colin McKenzie was (fictionally-speaking) long dead before Peter Jackson brought his work to light, Jackson serves as the central voice in Forgotten Silver. Morty Fineman, on the other hand, is Jerry Stiller alive & at his loudest & most demanding, dominating The Independent‘s runtime. The films’ tones are also drastically different. The only time Forgotten Silver approaches The Independent‘s over-the-top ridiculousness is in its depictions of sub-Charlie Chaplin vaudeville routines involving cream pies that McKenzie filmed in order to financially support Salome. For the most part, though, the two films are remarkably simpatico. At heart, they both aim to resurrect long-dead cinema genres in loving spoof form. Forgotten Silver‘s approach is just more subdued & deadpan due to the nature of its turn-of-the-century subject matter. The Independent is a much flashier, more over-the-top comedy, which makes sense given its exploitation cinema homage. Both are great, must-see comedic gems for cinephiles in either camp.

For more on December’s Movie of the Month, 2000’s The Independent, check out our Swampchat discussion of the film, this transcription of Morty Fineman’s fictional filmography, and last week’s recommendation that you also watch the documentary Corman’s World to get the full picture..

-Brandon Ledet

 

 

A Night at the Roxbury (1998)

/ swampflix / 6 Comments

EPSON MFP image

fourstar

campstamp

My favorite soundtrack for kitchen work is a genre of music I like to call “Gay 90s”. Long forgotten pop acts like La Bouche, The Real McCoy, Snap!, and C&C Music Factory are great motivation for a stressful service industry shift & I’ve been relying on them for moral support a great deal lately. That’s why it felt like an appropriate time to revisit A Night at the Roxbury, a sublimely dumb comedy about a pair of club-hopping airheads who survive on a strict diet of tacky suits, Gay 90s club music, and bad cologne. I have fond memories of this movie from when I was a kid & I’m sure I’m not alone there, but it’s far from the universally loved Saturday Night Live-related properties like Wayne’s World or Tommy Boy or even the recent cult-inductee MacGruber. It’s tempting to say that the film was way ahead of its time, given how much costar Will Ferrell’s comedic stylings have become part of the cultural zeitgeist in the last decade (while Chris Kattan has been left behind & forgotten), but the truth is that the movie is so 90s it hurts. If you squint at A Night at the Roxbury the right way it can be seen as a Step Brothers prototype with a much  healthier family dynamic, but I’m not sure  that prescient element is strong enough to overshadow how much of the film is mired in 90s SNL & Gay 90s dance music – two things I happen to love very much.

The problem a lot of SNL sketches-turned-movies have is that they have no idea how to establish a sense of purpose. Recurring SNL sketches can sometimes feel stretched a little thin at two-to-five minute intervals, so the idea of sustaining these properties for full-length film can often be disastrous. A Night at the Roxbury is off to a worrisome start when it recreates its SNL sketch origins in its entirety in the opening two minutes of its runtime . . . which then leaves the question of just what the hell it’s going to do with the remaining 80. You can’t just build an entire film around two gross club rats bopping their heads to Haddaway’s “What is Love?“, right? The film provides some necessary background information its protagonists were missing, like a name (The Butabi Brothers), jobs (they work at their dad’s “fake plant store”), short-term goals (getting laid), and longterm aspirations (opening a dance club where the outside looks like the inside of a typical club & vice versa). There’s also a little tinkering with the sketches’ basic premise, where the brothers imply that they’re cokeheads & bimbos, by making them out to be wholesome virgins. For the most part, though, A Night at the Roxbury succeeds in expanding its limited origins by structuring the plot as a traditional love story. It just so happens that the love is shared between two brothers instead of two potential sex partners.

Of course, the film is more commendable as an irreverent comedy & a 90s time capsule than it is for its narrative strengths. From the brothers’ voguing-while-driving tendencies to the beach butts to Dan Hedaya (the dad from Clueless) playing a father figure to a throwaway line about “dancing The Macarena with Donald Trump”, the movie is an incredibly inclusive collection of the era’s trashiest calling cards. There’s also some completely purposeless irreverence in humorous details like washed-up actor Richard Grieco’s role as washed-up actor Richard Grieco and in random asides like the line “Yeah, yeah, yeah Joanie Loves Chachi, but does Chachi give a flying fuck about Joanie?” What’s most impressive, though, is how these elements are mixed into an oddly sad platonic love story about two over-primped buffoons who desperately want to pick up women but don’t know at all how to interact with them on a personal, intimate level. In that way, considering all of A Night at the Roxbury‘s irreverent humor, 90s time capsule charms, and oddly sad platonic love story the movie works kinda comfortably as a masculine equivalent to Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion, another comedy that’s earned a lot of goodwill simply through the passage of time.

As far as the film works as an onscreen version of Gay 90s Dance Music: The Movie, it’s pretty much everything I wanted it to be. La Bouche & all my old friends were there, including a bunch of hit-makers I had completely forgotten: No Mercy, Ace of Base, Amber, etc. There’s also six instances of Haddaway’s “What is Love?” playing in the film (once as elevator music), which felt like the perfect amount, considering how essential it was to the comedy sketch source material. The next time I’m jamming at work to LaBouche or The Real McCoy I’ll now have a very specific set of images to accompany the music, as well as a pretty easy to nail head-bob dance move. I couldn’t have asked for more.

-Brandon Ledet

 

Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever (2014)

/ swampflix / 1 Comment

EPSON MFP image

three star

campstamp

Do I have a soft spot for talking animal movies or something? Earlier this year I found perverse entertainment in the talking dog pro wrestling movie Russell Madness and then presented the talking-pig-saves-the-day epic Babe 2: Pig in the City for our August Movie of the Month selection. And now I’m here to report that the Lifetime Original Movie Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever isn’t actually all that bad. “Not actually all that bad” is far from high praise, I know, but for a made-for-TV movie about an internet meme in which the main character repeatedly breaks the fourth wall to complain about how awful the movie is, it’s a fairly surprising distinction. Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever knows exactly what kind of movie it is & doesn’t pretend to be anything more. It self-references its protagonist’s meme fame by adopting I Can Haz Cheezburger font for multiple gags. It willingly points out when it subs a stunt puppet for the real Grumpy. It “jokingly” promotes Grumpy Cat merchandise with little to no pretence. When its self-described “sappy melodrama” plot kicks into high gear, Grumpy complains “Don’t get sappy on me. Oh wait, I forgot. It’s a Lifetime Movie. Go ahead.” Self-deprecation & self-referential humor can sometimes be low hanging fruit, but it kinda works for this movie, given the limited possibilities of its Grumpy Cat: The Movie premise.

I guess a lot of what saves Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever from being the worst movie ever is in the casting of Aubrey Plaza as Grumpy Cat’s voice over (and as Aubrey Plaza in a sound booth). Just like when Plaza played a live-action Daria Morgendorffer in a spoof trailer comedy sketch a few summers back, the casting just makes way too much sense. Her comedic persona is basically of a human cat, right? Her wry, detached, disinterested sense of humor sets the bar so underachievingly low here (in a good way!) that it’s always possible for the movie to succeed. The plot involves some kind of depressive Gordy situation where only one grumpy preteen girl can hear Grumpy Cat talk. This girl gets mixed up in a small-time heist situation involving two rock & roll douches & a Peep Beep Meme Creep mall cop dweeb. While she thwarts their evil deeds Grumpy Cat shows zero interest in getting involved in the goings on. She just sorta riffs on the idiocy of the plot, hanging back, essentially life-tweeting/hate-watching her own movie. Imagine a family comedy with its own MST3k commentary built in, but skewing to a younger crowd & you pretty much get the picture.

Even though it aims a younger audience, though, the movie manages to get a few subversive jabs in there. It introduces its shopping mall setting as “a soul-sucking bastion of consumerism which serves to drain people’s bank accounts and alienate them from the true meaning of life.” Plaza also injects a lot of her own comedic persona into the role, especially in the way she calls her costars “terrible human beings” & “witches”. There are plenty of non sequitur asides distracting from the plot, but the most fucked up of all is a brief tangent in which Grumpy Cat is sentenced to prison (the pound) & promptly executed (put down). Quite the light-hearted gag, that. Worse yet is an exchange after the whole botched heist ordeal concludes & Grumpy Cat’s human’s mother asks her formerly-grumpy child, “Those guys didn’t do anything to you, did they?” & Grumpy Cat responds “That’s a different kind of Lifetime Movie.” I know this is a movie about a cat with a mean streak, but yikes. That one’s got bite.

For the most part, though, the moments I enjoyed most about Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever weren’t subversive at all. The film works best when it embraces its own hokey stupidity. When Grumpy is propped up in front of a green screen to simulate driving, flying, setting off explosions, or going Rambo with a cat-sized automatic paint gun are dumb & simple enough to get by on their own half-assed charm. My favorite moment of all in Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever, though, is Plaza’s line-reading of “We’re in a movie!” during the film’s action-packed climax. It’s a sublimely dumb moment in a thoroughly dumb movie about “the Internet’s biggest cash cat”. In 2014, Grumpy Cat seemed to be doing a lazy, half-hearted victory lap, soaking up the last of her short-term fame in moves like appearing on Monday Night Raw & starring in her own Christmas movie. Anyone tuning in for a dumb made-for-TV Christmas movie about a cantankerous cat should be well-prepared for what’s delivered here, especially considering how the film warns you of its emptiness with early onscreen references to Keyboard Cat & Nyan Cat (come to think of it, Lil Bub was snubbed). Grumpy Cat’s  Worst Christmas Ever doesn’t ask much of itself, which is oddly enough what makes the whole thing work in its own diminutive way. Well, that & Aubrey Plaza, who is delightful in her refusal to be delightful.

-Brandon Ledet

Required Viewing for Fans of The Independent (2000): Corman’s World (2011)

/ swampflix / 8 Comments

In our Swampchat discussion of December’s Movie of the Month, the 2000 Jerry Stiller comedy The Independent, we praised the film for feeling remarkably ahead of its time in terms of the modern comedy landscape. Long stretches of the film wouldn’t feel out of place in a modern HBO anti-hero comedy or post-The Office docucomedy, which is true even if both genres are pulling influence from the same souce as The Independent – Christopher Guest mockumentaries. That’s not the only way in which The Independent was ahead of its time, though. Most mockumentaries & spoof comedies wait until the material they’re mocking is actually released. The ever-prescient The Independent, on the other hand, was released more than a decade before the documentary it most resembles – 2011’s Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel.

Roger Corman not only appears in brief “interviews” for The Independent, but Jerry Stiller’s schlockmeister protagonist Morty Fineman mostly serves as a Roger Corman archetype (with maybe a little David Friedman or Russ Meyer sleaze thrown in for good measure). Fineman’s 427 B-movies oeuvre may seem comically oversized & impossible for a filmmaker to achieve, but the timeless Roger Corman (who began making film in the 50s & continues to work to this day) has a whopping 409 production credits (and 56 directoral credits) according to IMDb. For every infamous Roger Corman trashterpiece (Rock & Roll High Schol, A Bucket of Blood, Death Race 2000, Piranha, etc.) there’s dozens of titles lurking in the archives that no one remembers at all, a sentiment reflected in the way that a dozen or so Fineman features are represented throughout The Independent, but hundreds are listed in his filmography that runs in tandem with the end credits.

There’s so much Corman in Fineman that the connection is undeniable, especially if you consider the way that unlikely former Corman collaborators pop up in both The Independent & Corman’s World – particularly Ron Howard & Peter Bogdanovich. There’s also  the two directors’ love for Ingmar Bergman – reflected in Fineman’s herpes-themed The Simplex Complex & in the odd, real-life detail that Corman used to provide distribution for the Swedish auteur’s films at American drive-ins because he thought people needed to see them. The truest connection of all, though, is in the clips of the two directors’ films – Fineman’s fake & Corman’s real. Corman talks at length about the value of text vs. subtext in sneaking in political messages in trashy B-movies features, but watching clips of his work in Corman’s World suggests that the director might be more in line with Fineman’s confession that he was mostly interested in the “tits, ass, and bombs” than he was putting on.

Corman’s World is an invaluable documentary, one that should be required viewing for all movie lovers whether or not they’ve indulged in The Independent‘s delights. Corman himself is just so full of insight from decades of hands-on experience. I particularly enjoyed his rigid, formulaic approach to genre films, like the way he describes that creature features need their monsters to kill someone fairly gruesome easily in the film, then kill at regular, less-shocking intervals until the blood-all-over-the-screen finale. It’s also a delight to see such twisted imagery & violent, sex-depraved themes originate from such a calm, professorial source, a dichotomy he describes as the outer image vs. the unconscious mind. This detail is missing in Fineman’s character, who is just as explosive in his art as he is in his personalty. There’s also a Russ Meyer-esque sleaziness in Fineman that’s entirely absent in the oddly-refined Corman.

What’s most interesting, though, is the ways in which Corman’s career phases serve as a blueprint for the history of cult cinema. Corman started by making creature features & teen rebellion dramas in the 1950s. He then moved on to the much classier “Poe cycle” of his career, a string of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations that married art house aesthetic with B-movie camp (including February’s Movie of the Month, The Masque of the Red Death). This lead him to indulging in arty hippie movies & giving a shot to young Hollywood voices that positioned him as the paterfamilias of the golden era of New Hollywood. Once his collaborators outgrew him & left him behind (names like Scorsese, Bogdanovich, Coppola, and Fonda), Corman survived on a second wave of trashy exploitation cinema until big budget films he heavily influenced (like Star Wars & Jaws) effectively disassembled the drive-in movie market & drove him to home video cheapness & SyFy Channel mockbusters. The story of Roger Corman’s career is the story of modern cinema at large, something that could also be said about the fictional Morty Fineman.

A lot of Corman’s more artistic impulses are missing in the eternal businessman Fineman, but there really is something to say about Corman & his ilk’s ability to make interesting, profitable pictures on shoestring budgets. Fineman doesn’t have fictional credits that match up with Corman’s racial segregation protest film The Intruder or the soaring artistry of the Poe Cycle, but the two directors do hare an eye for finance. As (frequently Corman collaborator) Jack Nicholson puts it in Corman’s World, “A filmmaker who doesn’t understand money is like an artist who doesn’t understand paint.” The Independent is all about Morty Fineman securing funding for yet another B-picture & even though themselves don’t look especially promising, it really is awe-inspiring to see Corman still at work, stealing shots & cutting expenses for SyFy Channel originals (which are essentially Roger Corman knockoffs), Fineman & Corman are survivors, unlikely successes navigating inhospitable waters for decades on end.

Thankfully, Corman’s success story at the conclusion of Corman’s World is much more impressive than Fineman’s at the end of The Independent. Fineman secures funding for his next picture, surviving to see another day & attending a small-town film festival held in his honor. Corman, on the other hand, receives a Lifetime Achievement Oscar, a much-deserved distinction for a director who could film movies as memorable as Little Shop of Horrors in a weekend or provide an environment in which Peter Bogdanovich’s first directorial credit is something called The Gill Women of Venus (aka Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women). I’m glad to see Corman receive the recognition he deserves from The Academy, but it’s almost an even greater achievement that he earned a loosely-based mockumentary homage  in (the albeit little-loved, little remembered) The Independent. The Independent & Corman’s World are inescapably linked in my mind as celebrations of one of cinemas most criminally under-celebrated heroes. Even though one is fictional & the other is a documentary, they’re both indispensable in their reverence for a wonderful artist.

For more on December’s Movie of the Month, 2000’s The Independent, check out our Swampchat discussion of the film & this transcription of Morty Fineman’s fictional filmography.

-Brandon Ledet

Morty Fineman’s Filmography as Listed at the End of The Independent (2000)

/ swampflix / 2 Comments

Our selection for December’s Movie of the Month is The Independent, a straight-to-DVD mockumentary in which Jerry Stiller plays Morty Fineman, a Roger Corman/Russ Meyer/Ed Wood/David Friedman schlock director archetype with a grand vision & limited means. Way ahead of its time considering the modern comedy landscape, The Independent features great Christopher Guest-style character work in its talented cast of deeply flawed anti-heroes, but our favorite part of the film is its short-form B-movie spoofs handpicked from Fineman’s fictional filmography. There are dozens of titles from Finemans’ collection represented in the film in the form of brief clips & mock-up posters, but the only representation of his work as a whole can be found in the “complete filmography” that runs in tandem with the end credits, kind of like James O. Incandenza’s “complete filmography” footnote at the back of Infinite Jest.

Fandom for The Independent is scarce at best, so it’s difficult to find too much information on the film. I though it was a shame, for instance, that there’s no trace of Morty Fineman’s “complete filmography” listed online, since it is a pretty great collection of ridiculous one-liners. A lot of our conversation about the film centered on which of Fineman’s films we’d like to see realized, but since the complete list is only available in the end credits, I’m sure we missed a bunch of great gags worth exploring. So, here’s a complete transcription of Morty Finemans’ 427 feature filmography as it appears in The Independent. I don’t mean to make myself out to be a hero, but I feel I’m doing the world a great service here, just as I expect Fineman felt he was doing the world a service when he warned the troops about the dangers of herpes in The Simplex Complex or when he exposed the evils of marijuana in Panic Grass.

MORTY FINEMAN: A COMPLETE FILMOGRAPHY

1964
The Simplex Complex (Non-Theatrical)

1967
Corn: The Ear of Plenty (Non-Theatrical)

1969
Groovy Hippie Slumber Party
Free Love for Sale
Psychedelic Elevator
Brothers Divided
Mondo World
The Young Hip-Ocrits
The Mod, Mod Miniskirt

1970
The Student Coeds
The President Wore a Bikini
The Peacenik Orgy
Bummer, Ma’am
Teenage Flag Burners
Suburban Peepers
Pig Busters
Hillbilly Slip-Around
Panic Grass
33 1/3rd Sexual Revolutions

1971
L.S.D.-Day
The Naughty Swingers
Meter Reader Lolita
One-Eyed Wink
Sock It To the Man
Hot Pants Hoedown
The Evil Membrane
Luv Canal
His ‘n’ Hers ‘n’ His
Papa Woody!
The Eco-Angels

1972
Teenie Weenie Bikini Beach
Squished
Draft Dodger
Lawn Honkie
Crazy Dragonbreath: The Forgettin’ Tibetan
Shindig Motel
Strong, Hard and Black
The Free Riders (Chico and Chaco)
The Well-Marbled Goddess
Itty Bitty Fragidity
Sympathetic Vibrations
Diaper Service
The Peace Zombies

1973
The Moistening
Kung Funk: The Funky Fu
World War III
Diorhythm Method
P.U.!
Day Glo Decolletage
Legalize It
Der Ubergoober
Brothers Under the Covers
The Pollenators
Blood Haze
Neat But Not Clean
Amazon Hot Box
Giant Rabbit, Run!
Destination ‘Shroom
Bald Justice

1974
(Plain Ole) Pud
Draft Dodger II: Makin’ Canadian Bacon
Hollywood Squares: The Movie
Kung Funk II: The Spooky Fu
Coven of Witchiness
American Flesh
Our Gas Line Affair
Kidnap Those Kooks
Chicks With Hicks
I am Curious . . . You are Yellow
The Harlem Globetrotters Meet the Black Panthers
Giant Crab, Run!
Roachclip Motel
Venus De Mofo
Romeo-a-Go-Go
Buddy Cops: Bookworm and Garter Snake
The True Life Historical Search (For Genuine Real Stuff in the Bible)
Carnival of Mutants
Giant Rabid Dog, Run!

1975
Kent State Nurses
What Planet is This? (Oh My God It’s Earth!)
The Wrath of the Sabine Women
Truckstop Nurses
White House Crooks
C.B.B.C. (Citizen’s Band Before Christ)
Pull My Finger
Brick Sh*thouse
Puberty County Line
Strong, Hard and Native American
What’s Your Sign, M’Lady?
Kohutek, Run!
Swig and Guzzle
Smooth Move, Ex-Wife
Buddy Cops II: Hammerhead and Nailbiter
Life Spasm
Psycho Vet
BT off a Zombie
Infection
Something Big’s on Fire ’75
Bigfoot, All American
Gas, Grass or Ass
Pigeonholers
Assassin in a See-Thru Blouse

1976
The Foxy Chocolate Robot
Return to Moonshine High
The Greatest Bicentennial American Patriot
Da Brothers Bump
Cage Full of Waitresses
Draft Dodger III: The Me Decade
Contact High School
Hot Mamarama
Three Times Fast
Unknown Epidemic, Run!
Metaphors Are Like Dreams
Used Tissue of Lies
Wind and Rain and Wet T-Shirts
Dirt Claude
Ten on a Couch
Buddy Cops III: Strawman and Firebrand
Fat, Dumb and Fuzzy
Sand in my Teddy
Sex Doctor to the Stars
Third Leg’s a Charm
A Stranger Wears My Pants
Nuclear Nun
Wise and Foolish Vixens

1977
Psycho Vet II: The Reenlistment
Cattle Mutilation
Prescription for Justice
Tarzan of the Mall
Neurotica
Mythomania
Steel Hog Hunger Rumbles
Dirt Road Blacktop
Similes Are Dreams
Six-Chambered Heart, Four-Chambered Gun
Go Tell it on the Mountain, Just Get the Hell Out of My House!
Normal Horny Norman
Ebony, Fawn & Jade
Buddy Cops IV: Short Fuse and Longhair
FLK [Funny Lookin’ Kid]
The Family Jeweler
Driving Under My Influence (In Hypnovision)
Saturday Night Fever Blister
Hot Buttered Fingers
Talkin’ Dirty to the Dead
Abra-Cadaver
A Very Malcolm X-Mas

1978
Nanny Hooter’s Hootenanny
Recycled White Trash
World War III II
The Twin Ledgers of Justice
Aerobicaphobia
Gin Blossom Special
“Bang!” (There, I Said It)
Pong: The Movie
Tora! Tora! Tora!
Shuda, Wuda, Cuda
Fudge Factor
Strong, Hard and Chicano
That Rascally Mutt
Dying Kids
Cousin Bloodshot Buckshot
A Stiletto Affair
Buddy Cops V: Hayseed and Toughnut
Plumber’s Little Helper
Esperanto Girls
Baby Booty, Booty Baby
Where to, Brute?
Punks Vs. Jocks
We’re F.*.C.K.E.D.!

1979
Adolescent Sexopolis
Your Stepfather’s Mustache
Lover is a Five Letter Word
Hot Justice in Less than Thirty Minutes (Pizza Franchises as Heroes)
Disco Incantations
Uncle Tomboy
Dying Kids II: The Plague
Summer Bods (For Women)
Summer Bods (For Men)
Barnyard of Hate
Marry Me Heels
Buddy Cops VI: Milquetoast and Honey
Love Hears Everything
Fireball
Pigtails
Pants Full of Ambition
Keeping Secretions
Jungle Freaks
S-E-X! That Spells Sex!

1980
Hoary Old Truths and Truthful Old Whores
The Earth Movers
The Devil Needs a Drink
Asylum of Angels
Victoria’s Principles and Secrets
One Million Years A.D.
The Justice League of Superfreaks
The Love Bombardier
Dying Kids III: Schoolbus Full of Donor Hearts
The Bodacious Oasis
Buddy Cops VII: Flatfoot and Higheel
Did You Feel That?
Starring the Braless Cloggers
Andy Opia: Lazy Private Eye
Pencils Down!
Chunk of Change
Monster Truck Monster
He Bites!

1981
I See London, I See France
Casting Out Nines
Nazis of the Third Reich
Hooked on Classics: The Movie
A Tempting Fate
Solid Gold Dancer Murders
Alfpha and Omega and Pinky
The Ominous Attic
A Filthy Masquerade
Rock ‘n Roll Golem
Festering Destiny
The Despot Removers
Calamari
The Arouser
(Steam Rises At) The Hump Swamp
Throb
Trolling Stone Sober
Whale of a Cop
Nocturnal Suspicions

1982
Sick Gloria’s Transit
Sammy Davis Junior High
Don’t Pick at It
The Pagan Gladiators
Hello, Me!
Undercover Monk
The French Method
The Tender Gender Bender’s Agenda
Priapism Diary
Undulations
The Dirty-Minded Dozen
Death Toll: Turnpike of Destruction
Laughing Til I Hurt You
Joan of Arkansas
Large Angry Antennae
Wallets and Groins
U.F.O. Babes
Aromarama
The Mummy Blushes

1983
Psycho Vet III: Assignment Grenada
I Say!
Right to Live, Left to Die
The Pulverizer
Feelin’ Your First One
Madam Madman
Strong, Hard and Vietnamese
Muff
Two Humans
The Telltale Sheet
King Kong Christmas
Serrations
Foresaking No Others
Learn to Paint with Morty Fineman
Acupuncture Academy
Madam, I’m Adam
Pitbulls vs. Piranhas (Animated)
Which Way to the Money?
The Savage Rebel Savages
Heil, Titler!

1984
Christ for the Defense
Lottery of Doom
Shaft Canary
II Madam, I’m Adam II
Man in the Iron Lung, The
Stop it, You
Cannibalistic Missiles
The Rupture
Hip-Hopocratic Oaths
AKA Dickweed
Jazzercide
Two Humans II: The Humid Humus
A Lick and a Promise
Fistula
A Single Shard of Mercy
Philosophy of Desire
Acupuncture Academy II: Pointy, Pointy, Pointy
E. Teen
The Grounded Stewardesses
Sweet Sinews of Grief
You Killed My Partner, Now I Want Revenge
Cheerleader Camp Massacre

1985
Grounded Stewardesses II: Snowed in at Lake Tahoe
Lower Education
Camisole Man
Three Ho’ Punchout
Street Value of Seduction
The Long Tongue of Memory
Abrupt Reclosure
Ablation!
Blackout (Released in Europe as “Noir”)
Big Burning Boat
The Terrorarium
In the Eyes of the Apes
Arrows and Quivers
Get Down, Moses
The Mini-Computer Wore a Mini-Skirt

1986
Thong Monster
Akimbo Drumbeat
Teachers vs. Students
That’s General Psycho Vet to You!
Attack and Decay
Death’s Black Beemer
Aboriginal Sin
The Vile Turn-On
Dear God, No!
Perpetration
The Phantasy Cult
Thicker Than Blood
This Constipated Earth
Tactile Concentration
Heather, Tethered
Nude Cop
Grounded Stewardesses III: Mechanical Failure in Rio
Ten Million Ways to Die
Dreams, Wet and Arid
Celebrate for the Hell of It

1987
K-9 Bone Patrol
The Grammar of Longhair
1-900-TABOOOO
Twelve Angry Men and a Baby
Eden for Hedonists
Requiem for a Babysitter
Lascivious Neighborhood
Strong, Hard and Hmong
Geographical Bachelors
Grounded Stewardesses IV: Extended Layover in Miami
Large, Natural Laughs
To Hell in a Basket
Star Light and Coffee Black
Safeword Abductions
Trauma, Bwnt Trauma
The French (They are a Funny Race)
Planet Perverted

1988
The Heart is a Strong Muscle
Drive-By Drive-In
Elephant Walk
Searching for L’Ptetomaine
Love is the Right to Leave
I Do; Adieu
RoboHomo
Gladhand
Splattered Palate of Urges
The Moon’s White Torso
A Tube of Forgiveness
Rogue Mime, The Taoist Tatooist
Grounded Stewardess Christmas, A
Man With Two Things, The

1989
Telegasm
Dracula Lambada
B.F. DeeDee
I Smell London, I Smell France
Executrix
Temblor!
Insignificant Others
Sans-a-Belt Slackers
The Electrocutioner
Unnecessary Roughage
Perchance to Nightmare
Dead Cat Bounce
Thai Food Mary

1990
Supermodel Carnival
The Decapitators
Psycho Vet IV: Panama
That’s President Draft Dodger to You!
The Temptation game
Asphalt by Candelight
The Violet Catastrophie
Squall!
Compassion Fagigues
Herm-Aphrodite: God and Goddess of Love
Oh, Flagrant Fragrance! Oh, Pungent Ungent!
Tantric or Treat
The Uncensored History of Revealing Swimwear

1991
You’re Only Worth One Bullet
The Ignoble Calculations of Mme. F. and Her Pimp
Grounded Stewardess Reunion, A
Pomegranite: An Extended Metaphor
Desert Psycho Vet
Hollywood’s Private Personalized Plates
Aromatherapy Execution
My People are Naked
Song of the Pitiful
Vicissitudes of Wickedness
Fluff Pulp Babe
Supermodel Carnival II: Runway Runaways
Secrets the Mouth Won’t Tell

1992
Meal of Generation X
Def 2 Da Noiz
Draft Dodger Meets Psycho Vet
D.O.A. Hole
Obsessionary Income
Thrill Collector
Requesting Network Attention
First Lady Chatterly
Rap Riot
Supermodel Carnival III: Adam and Evil
The Whole of America

1993
Amateur Faces of Death
A Man and a Woman and a Deck of Cards
Psycho Vet Meets Hercules
Consortium and Loss
Duk ‘n’ Run
Two-Hand Solitare
Hot Squat
Uncle Sampire
Who Got the Soul Clap?

1994
Deep Bruise
Prickly Heat
The Sad Forehead in My Mirror
Large Bore Killers
Highest and Best Use

1995
Dessicant Sky
The Spanking Machine

1996
Learn to Paint with Morty Fineman
Learn to Cook with Morty Fineman
Learn to Make Love with Morty Fineman

1997
Arriverderci, Morty
Virtual Wife

1998
The Desert of Small Dreams
Tatoo II: Pierced by an Angel

2000
Ms. Kevorkian

For more on December’s Movie of the Month, 2000’s The Independent, check out our Swampchat discussion of the film.

-Brandon Ledet

 

My Father the Hero (1994)

/ swampflix / Leave a comment

EPSON MFP image

halfstar

Every now and then, The Dollar Tree will have a handful of DVDs for, you guessed it, only a buck! Recently, I was going through the infamous dollar DVD pile, and among 10 copies of Madonna’s flop Swept Away, there was a copy of My Father the Hero. After noticing that the film’s cast contained a couple of decent actors (Gérard Depardieu, Katherine Heigl, and Lauren Hutton), I decided to buy it. How bad could it be?

I could sense that the film was going to be pure garbage within the first five minutes, and because I absolutely love garbage movies, I was getting a little excited. The film starts off with Andre (Depardieu), a neglectful father, arriving to New York City to pick up his 14 year-old brat of a daughter, Nicole (Heigl), for a father-daughter trip to the Bahamas. At this point, the acting was horrific and Depardieu looked like Uncle Fester with his bowl cut wig from Addams Family Values. I was loving it!

Screenshot from 2015-12-07 10:37:29 (Modified)

Unfortunately, everything took a turn for the worse once Andre and Nicole arrive in the Bahamas. Nicole develops a crush on an island boy, and she tells him that she’s on a trip with her lover, Andre. Yes, she pretends that her father is her older lover. And it gets even worse! She then tells her crush that she has to pretend that Andre is her father so that they won’t get into any legal trouble. Why would anyone think that this would be a cute idea for a family comedy? I’m sure the writers thought that this “cute” lie would cause the duo to get into all sorts of funny, wacky situations, but instead, it made this film an excruciatingly painful experience.

There are too many awkward moments in this film for me to discuss in this article (it would literally be the entire film script), but here’s my top 3:

  1. 14-year-old Nicole wears a white thong bathing suit while lying out by the pool, and all of these creepy old guys are checking her out. Oh yeah, and her dad is at the pool as well.
  2. After Nicole makes it well known that Andre is her lover, she attempts to make her crush jealous by having a semi-sensual slow dance with her father. At this point in the film, I recall screaming “Please! Just make it stop!” really loudly.
  3. Nicole eventually comes clean and tells her father about her little white lie, but instead of putting an end to all of this nonsense, he agrees to pretend to be her lover for the rest of their vacation. I’m not one to preach about parenting skills, but I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t condone your child’s lies or pretend to be their lover.

I have one wish for this holiday season, and it’s to have all copies of My Father the Hero destroyed. Please, if you are able to spare a buck, look for a copy of this film at your local Dollar Tree and burn it.

-Britnee Lombas

The Night Before (2015)

/ swampflix / 2 Comments

fourstar

I should preface this review with the confession that Scrooged is my favorite Christmas movie. Bill Murray worship not withstanding, I feel like Scrooged is typically considered a minor, non-traditional Christmas comedy at best, not a typical go-to for the genre. I’m saying this because I greatly enjoyed The Night Before, but it’s hard to tell if its irreverent, drug-fuelled take on Christmas tradition will win over any longterm audiences, since it very much mimics the alcohol-soaked magic & pessimism of Scrooged. The Night Before not only mimics Scrooged‘s cynical, modern-world take on A Christmas Carol, but expands its adaptation scope to include touches of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Home Alone, It’s a Wonderful Life, and (duh) “The Night Before Christmas”. Its excessive aping of former Christmas tales approaches allusions the same way its characters ingest “every single drug in the whole world.” Scrooged was a cynical, surreal adaptation of a Christmas classic told through the lens of alcoholism & Reaganomics. The Night Before is a similar beast, but it’s much less picky about its controlled substances or its source material & its lens is obviously more of a social media-era millennial brand.

You might expect that a raunchy comedy featuring long stretches of a Jewish man sweating his way through an aggressive cocktail of cocaine & psilocybin mushrooms would have little care at all for Christmas tradition, but The Night Before is far from the tradition-breaking excess of this year’s Everly or Tangerine. At its heart, the film is a simple story about three friends learning how to reconcile the changes that come with growing up & what it means to be a family. The three buds in question are living out a chaotic holiday ritual in which they fuck, drug, and vandalize their way through Christmas Eve while most people are sleeping or preparing for the big day ahead. Fearing that they might be becoming “those kids who won’t stop trick or treating” they decide to have one last drug-fueled blast to put the tradition to rest. And because they’re adults with adult issues looming over them, this hallucinatory catharsis of an evening brings to the surface crippling anxieties about their families, their careers, and the difference between being a good friend & being an enabler.

I wasn’t entirely stoked about director Jonathan Levine’s other Seth Rogen/Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s buddy comedy 50/50, but I did respect it for aiming for a more melancholy, real-talk vibe than most of Rogen’s comedy vehicles. The Night Before is a pretty great compromise between 50/50‘s grim tone & Rogen’s more over-the-top Judd Apatow-style ensemble comedies. Much like a lot of comedies in Rogen’s past, The Night Before survives a lot on the strength of its extensive cast of great comedians: Tracy Morgan, Ilana Glazer, Jason Mantzoukas, Mindy Kaling, Lizzy Caplain, Nathan Fielder, and Jillian Bell, who is so much of a perfect romantic match for Seth Rogen that I’d love to see them repeat their chemistry for at least one more feature. There are a few celebrity cameos to boot, which I’ll try my best not to spoil here, except to say that the mystic weed dealer character made me quite giddy. What makes all this work as something more than just an empty comedic exercise is Jonathan Levine’s touch with the tender & the melancholy. The Night Before has some grotesquely cynical moments for sure, mostly in its obnoxious ad placement for Sony & Red Bull, but for the most part it does a great job of balancing its lavish fantasy-fulfillment partying with subdued moments of emotional fragility. The tough-as-nails front the three leads put on is a deception at best, as is the film’s own supposed hedonism. It’s truthfully an old softy at heart, a traditional Christmastime sap-fest concerned with the (literal) magic of the season & the importance of familial bonds. It just happens to be one that features a supernatural weed dealer & vigorous bathroom sex.

-Brandon Ledet

Movie of the Month: The Independent (2000)

/ swampflix / 5 Comments

EPSON MFP image

Every month one of us makes the rest of the crew watch a movie they’ve never seen before & we discuss it afterwards. This month Brandon made Boomer, Britnee, and Erin watch The Independent (2000).

Brandon: I first was alerted to the low-stakes indie comedy The Independent this past summer when Britnee posted an article about how our former Movie of the Month Highway to Hell happened to feature every member of the Stiller family: Jerry, Ben, Anne (Mearea), and Amy. An observant Swampflix reader, Tom Morton, was kind enough to point us in the direction of yet another film that featured every member of the Stiller clan, The Independent. I fell in love. I gushed heavily in my review of the film & added it to the growing list of our so-called Swampflix Cannon after just one viewing, despite it being a fairly simple, straightforward comedy. Something about the subject matter just clicked perfectly with my own pet cinema obsessions, especially in the B-movie spectrum. In the film Jerry Stiller plays Morty Fineman, a Roger Corman archetype who’s made a career out of schilling an infinite stream of schlock for decades on end. Unlike Corman, who is generally calm on the surface but expressive in his filmmaking, Fineman is on the same violently explosive vibe Stiller brought to his role as Frank Constanza on Seinfeld. He also (for the most part) lacks Corman’s thirst for making art films, like The Masque of the Red Death, and sticks mostly to genre fare that’s main selling point is “tits, ass, and bombs”.

The great thing about this set-up is that Morty is not only a stand-in for Corman (who appears as himself within the film), but also fills the role of countless other legendary B-movie directors & producers: Ed Wood, Russ Meyer, David Friedman, etc. In other words, he is schlock personified. Morty Fineman is the entire B-movie industry wrapped up into one convenient, hilarious package. A lot of the soul of The Independent is in the brief clips & promotional material for Morty’s work. There’s a Meyer-esque sexploitation pic about an eco-friendly biker girl gang, a wonderful mushroom cloud pun mockup for a film called LSD-Day, a Fred Williamson-falls-in-love-with-a-sexy-robot blaxploitation called Foxy Chocolate Robot, and so on. These schlock spoofs are consistently funny & evenly spaced from beginning to end, supported only by the flimsiest of narrative glue about Fineman’s struggle in his old age to climb out of financial ruin either by filming a morally-reprehensible musical about a real-life serial killer or accepting a film festival gig in a shithole town he dubs “Blowjob, Nevada.”

At the time of its release, reviews of The Independent were mixed at best, but I honestly believe it was ahead of its time. If pitched in the current cultural climate, it would make for a knock-out HBO comedy series. Its mockumentary format, improv-based looseness, tendency towards one-off gags & celebrity cameos, and loveable reprobate of a protagonist would all play perfectly into the modern HBO comedy. It’s a wonderful little love-letter to the schlock movie industry that recognizes its faults (like the literally fatal risks of some of the less-than-safe sets) as much as its glorious heights. I’m not going to pretend to know the entirety of Jerry Stiller’s career, but I will say this is the best feature-length vehicle I’ve ever seen for his brand of comedy.

Boomer, do you think part of the reason audiences did not connect with The Independent when it was released 15 years ago was that there was too much focus on the one-off B-movie spoofs & not enough of a fully-fleshed narrative to support a full-length feature? Do you think that breaking up the spoofs into a weekly sketch comedy format would’ve benefited the story it was trying to tell or was the film satisfying enough as a self-contained, low-stakes tale of a struggling, past-his-prime director trying to keep his family & his business intact?

Boomer: When watching this movie, the thing that struck me most about it was, as you noted above, how ahead of its time it felt. Debuting a year before the original UK version of The Office, it was not the first mockumentary, but it was made during a time when the tropes and rhetorical shorthand methodologies of the genre were largely unknown by the general population. I’d wager that if The Independent were to have been made after the airings of Arrested Development and, to a much greater degree, the US version of The Office, then the film would have seen wider appeal. We live in a world full of sitcoms that use talking head confessionals as a quick and dirty way of telling jokes in a more succinct way, for better or worse, even when the show itself doesn’t lend itself to that (for instance, it works for The Office, and that show eventually incorporated the film crew as part of the action in its final season, but why exactly do the Dunphys and Pritchetts of Modern Family mug for–and talk directly to–the camera?). I think it’s safe to say that, should there be an interested producer looking for a project, a series adaptation of The Independent would not be out of place in today’s television landscape.

I’m hesitant to commit to watching this hypothetical series, however. So much of what makes The Independent work is that the film’s tone never becomes too sentimental or unfocused on Stiller’s objectively reprehensible but subjectively human protagonist, and I feel like a series, even a serialized, single season adaptation, would find itself going to the well of emotional pathos much more than the source material did. The quick shots we see of his films contribute to the sense of his character, and his films convey a great deal in their (relative) understatement, regardless of how outlandish the films themselves may be. I get the feeling that an adaptation would rapidly experience diminished returns as we saw more and more of his body of work, pushing beyond their initial humor into exponentially more outlandish film outings that would undermine the film’s taut use of this device. Der Ubergoober, Truckstop Nurses, and The Despot Removers are all film titles that are pure perfection in the abstract but wouldn’t work, or would disappoint, if we were presented with them on film (although I have to admit that I would love to see Hot Justice in Thirty Minutes or Less, and Rock ‘n’ Roll Golem sounds like a blast).

That the film is simply that, a film, works best for me personally. That we see Janeane Garofalo’s Paloma exact revenge on facsimiles of the cheerleaders who spurned her in less than thirty seconds of Cheerleader Camp Massacre, for instance, shows that the strength of The Independent lies in knowing what to expand and what to explore only briefly. Given contemporary television’s tendency to decompress storylines at the expense of consistency and viewer patience, as well as the general saturation of the mockumentary-as-comedy style, I feel like a series adaptation would be a letdown. As a concept, it was ahead of its time, and now that its time has come, it has no real place among its contemporary peers.

That having been said, there are quite a few of these films that I would love to see in full, especially with a little MST3k-esque riffing. What about you, Britnee? Are there any of Fineman’s movies that you would desperately like to see as real films? Any that you think are best left imagined rather than realized? And why?

Blombas: Without a doubt, I would love to see Whale of a Cop (1981) as a full-length film. From what the trailer implied, a cop, played by Ben Stiller, is the human form of a whale, and he has a close friendship with a 8-10 year old kid. Stiller makes all sorts of whale noises, and he even spits out water! In the trailer, the kid is having one of those shoo-the-dog goodbye moments. Stiller looks all dopey-eyed and confused while this kid is crying up a storm and yelling something along the lines of “go be with your own kind!” I was crying from laughing so hard during this scene. How did the spirit of a whale end up in the body of a cop? Why is this super young kid with a bowl cut his best friend? These are all questions that I am dying to have answered. Hopefully, they were both once whales, but the boy fully turned into a human while Stiller is only half human. The police department recruited him because his special whale senses were helpful with their criminal investigations.

Another film that sounds like a blast would be A Very Malcolm Xmas. It’s never discussed during the actual film, but the title is shown during the credits (along with the rest of Fineman’s filmography). As an admirer of Malcolm X, I would love to know how Fineman would blend his legacy with Christmas traditions. As a lover of bad films and just being a curious person in general, I can’t really think of any fake Fineman movies that I would not want to see as actual films.

Other than the many “fake” film trailers featured in the movie, something in the film that really stood out to me was the duo that is Jerry Stiller and Janeane Garofalo. The chemistry between the two was so unexpected but, by God, it was extraordinary. They both have such different styles of comedy, and I think that’s why they got so many laughs out of me.

Erin, did you feel the same about Garofalo and Stiller? Would you like to see the two act in similar roles again? Or was this more of a one time thing?

Erin: I have to say, seeing Janeane Garofalo as a fake-tanned daddy’s girl was a lot of fun, since I’m most familiar with her acidic side, a la Heather of Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion.  And Jerry Stiller is perfect as Morty Fineman.  After watching The Independent, it’s hard to imagine him as any other role (although, I suspect that Stiller’s acting talents often lie in adding quite a bit of himself to his roles).  I liked seeing Garofalo and Stiller playing off each other, and the were really, truly believable as adults navigating a parent-child relationship.  Oddly enough, though, I would have to say that while I would like to see more of Jerry Stiller in similar roles, I’m not sure that I’m sold on Garofalo in similar roles.  I think that it might be because Garofalo was acting against type that her performance in this movie comes off so well, and I think that this kind of magic might lose its luster if repeated too often.

To change the subject a bit, I think that one of the things that made this movie so watchable was the pacing, the way that little glimpses of the Fineman world were revealed in a way that eased us into the madness of it all.  I wouldn’t have accepted the immediate introduction of Fineman’s car-dwelling ex wife, even after the strangeness of the opening scene.  However, by the time we meet her, we’re fully prepared for the next wacky turn of events. The Independent takes us by the hand and leads us happily down the lane, and by the time we think to ask where we’re going we’ve left the real world behind.  It’s the skillful story telling that makes me think of The Independent as a filmmaker’s film, something made not necessarily to entertain the masses but turn the lens of film back on itself.

The Independent is like watching a home movie.  I think, perhaps, that this home movie is meant for filmmakers, to see themselves and their passions through the fiction of a movie.  It’s interesting to see how the filmmakers portray themselves here – confident, persistent, optimistic, and terrible to live with.

What do you think, Brandon?  Is The Independent a self portrait, meant for filmmakers?  Is is self-indulgent, or a surreal confessional asking for atonement?

Brandon: So far I’ve honestly only thought of this movie as a film for schlock junkies. Fans of the trash auteurs of yesteryear will find plenty to chew on in The Independent, especially in those short-form spoofs & Roger Corman interviews. I don’t think that descriptions excludes filmmakers from the intended audience, though. A lot of filmmakers, even the ones who make endless piles of garbage, are really at heart just big movie fans who can’t help but make the the things they love. For example, Morty Fineman didn’t make hundreds of movies on accident. He made it because them because he doesn’t know what else to do with himself. It’s in his blood. Also, because he liked “the tits, bombs, and ass,” as he confessed in the fabulous scene in his ex-wife’s house/car Erin just mentioned.

Something I always wonder about directors like Roger Corman & Morty Fineman is whether or not they ever have time to actually watch movies for fun. In the documentary Corman’s World (which is required viewing, by the way) Corman recalls an anecdote where he was running almost a dozen simultaneous film production. When his wife asked him if he could actually name them all from memory, he could only recite the titles of all but two & then said something to the effect of, “Well, whatever the rest are, I’m going to cancel them in the morning.” Folks like Fineman & Corman are constantly swamped with shooting schedules & issues of financial backing, but their work is obviously influenced by the cinematic world surrounding them, so they somehow have to be watching movies in their leisure time. For instance, Fineman’s lost herpes PSA film The Simplex Complex was a spoof of Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Corman’s production of Joe Dante’s Pihranna was a thinly veiled response to Spiendberg’s Jaws (which, in turn, was heavily influenced by Corman’s own creature feature work). I have no idea how an over-productive schlock director could find the time to keep up with their contemporaries that way, given the near impossible weight of their workloads.

To bring it home to Erin’s question, if this film were made with any particular filmmaker in mind it’d be Roger Corman, but would he even have had time to watch it? Even his contributions as an extended cameo seemed to be brief & succinct, probably shot on a break between a dozen other projects. It’s interesting to think of a what a Fineman-esque schlockmeister would get out of The Independent, considering the film’s admiration of their work & acknowledgement of their sleaziness, but I’m not sure they’d ever have the time to engage with it in that way. Did Corman ever sit down to watch this movie even though he appears in it? I’m curious, but doubtful.

It seems that The Independent‘s best chance for a cult audience is in comedy nerds who enjoy a Christopher Guest-style mockumentaries & weirdo sketch comedy and in schlock junkies who genuinely love bad movies as an art form, even beyond the MST3k brand of sarcastic derision. My question is whether or not you’d have to exist in the overlap of that Venn diagram to enjoy the film for all it’s worth. It’s obviously difficult for me to discuss The Independent without droning on about folks like Roger Corman & Russ Meyer, so I’m wondering if someone without that sense of B-movie context would get the same kind of appreciation of the movie’s insular little world of shoddy filmmaking.

What do you think, Mark? Is familiarity with the world of folks like Roger Corman necessary for loving this film beyond a tossed off “That was pretty funny, I guess.”? Is being a fan of irreverent comedy enough to fully appreciate The Independent or do you also have to be a little bit of a B-movie nerd to get on its wavelength?

Boomer: It’s interesting to me that you mention Christopher Guest, especially since his movies were the first point of contact I thought of when viewing The Independent, not Roger Corman, despite Corman’s cameo in the film’s opening moments. There’s a fine line tread here between the kind of zealous schlock that characterizes Corman’s work and the nuanced character work that typifies Guest’s. To be honest, I think that an appreciation for the kind of work that Guest does may be more integral to the overall enjoyment of The Independent as a movie than an appreciation for Corman and his ilk. Guest’s films generally feature a mixture of understatedly human emotions acted out by larger-than-life characters in situations that are incredibly idiosyncratic, be it a high-stakes dog show or a folk music reunion concert. The characters that populate the faux-documentary, especially but not limited to Morty, his assistant, and Paloma, are very much Guest-type people.

Of course, the prevalence of Corman-esque style in Morty’s works themselves can’t be ignored, either. Morty is Corman as a Guest character, and it works very, very well. It’s not hard to imagine Corman creating a film like Bald Justice, and a line like “You’re gonna like Leavenworth; they’ve got a great barber,” could have flowed from his pen just as easily as it did from Stephen Kessler and Mike Wilkins’s. Overall, though, I think it would be easier to enjoy the movie if you knew Guest but not Corman, rather than Corman but not Guest, simply given the fact that the homages to Corman, while pitch perfect and hilarious, don’t carry the weight of the narrative in and of themselves.

I would love to see more films of this type. Maybe a satirical slasher film that centered around a Hitchcock type, or a desert island survival story wherein all the characters are the stars of a seventies sci-fi show reunited for a convention cruise that goes awry. Or, of course, more mockumentaries about eccentric artists who are secretly self-deluded hacks. What about you, Britnee? How would you adapt this format into a personal instant classic?

Britnee: I’ve always wished and hoped for someone to make a John Waters biopic that would depict his work with the Dreamlanders crew. Could you imagine such a treat? So when thinking about what sort of film I would like to see in the style of The Independent, I would love to see a film that follows the journey of a Waters-like director and his band of misfits. The crew would travel the country creating snuff films in small, all-American towns. They would have a cult following of all ages willing to “die for art.” If anyone with the connections and resources ever reads this, please, oh please, make this happen.

Come to think of it, there really aren’t enough films that focus on the careers of movie directors, and they have one of the most interesting jobs on the planet! When director roles are featured in films, they are usually portrayed in a negative way. Most of the time, they’re sleazy douchebags that promise cast members leading roles in exchange for sex. It was nice to see a director portrayed in a positive light in The Independent. Morty has so much passion for filmmaking, and he truly loved all 400+ of his terrible b-movies. What an inspiration!

Going back to the discussing the film’s unique style, I don’t think it would be as enjoyable if it were anything other than a mockumentary. Erin, if The Independent was not filmed as a mocumentary, but was still a comedy, do you think it would still be as likeable? Why or why not?

Erin: Interesting question, Britnee!  I agree with you.  The mocumentary style of The Independent is an important part of its charm.  It allows for Morty’s character to be portrayed as humanly as possible.

That’s where I connected most with The Independent, with its portrayal of humanity.  The hyperbole used in the storytelling lets the actors tell a deeply human story about the the struggle to balance the compulsion to create and live according to one’s own heart against the very real impact that every human has on those around him or her.
As fluffy and ridiculous as The Independent is, there are moments of genuine pathos and discomfort.  Those moments, in a way, make the movie. They use of comic relief and exaggeration to tell real truths about the human condition is one of our best introspective tools as a species.

Lagniappe

Erin:I really, really want to see Whale of Cop brought to fruition.  There’s no shame in that game.

Britnee: I’m so glad to know that there’s another film other than Highway to Hell that involves all members of the Stiller clan. I have to say, I really wish there was more Rita (Anne Meara)!  Rita (Morty’s ex-wife that lives in a luxury car) was probably my favorite character in the film, but she was definitely not given enough screen time.

Boomer: Rita was definitely a character that I would have loved to see more of, especially with regards to her relationship with her eternally devoted doorman/chauffeur/lover. I also really loved the moment of footage we saw of Rat Fuck; it was such a great, minimal joke. In my notes from watching the film, I noted that Christ for the Defense reminded me, at least visually, of Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, which never came up organically in this discussion but which I think bears mentioning, if anyone feels like watching a movie that Morty may as well have directed.

Brandon: When started doing Movie of the Month Swampchats this past February I joked that the cold weather was making us a depressed bunch. The first few movies we discussed (The Masque of the Red Death, The Seventh Seal, Blood & Black Lace, etc) were a morbid procession of death & pestilence. I’m glad to say we pulled out of the funk in the past few months & started having some fun with a few comedies & even a kids’ movie, but it’s also remarkable how the year came full circle, beginning & ending with Roger Corman, who directed Masque & had a large influence on The Independent. There are few filmmakers out there who I love more or who could better represent this site’s love of where trash meets art. Let’s hope next year’s just as tidy & well-rounded. It’s been fun.

-The Swampflix Crew

Da Hip Hop Witch (2000)

/ swampflix / 4 Comments

EPSON MFP image

halfstar

campstamp

When Britnee & I used to work together in New Orleans East, she once gently pressured me into taking a couple DVDs out of the trunk of her car that even she couldn’t stomach, despite typically having a much stronger fortitude than I do when it comes to total shit cinema. One of those putrid slices of schlock was Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, a movie so amateur that I had a hard time convincing myself that it was an actual, legitimate feature film & not some 80s punks’ super 8 home movies. The other was Da Hip Hop Witch, which I am sad to report is most certainly not a legitimate feature. It is, without question, a home movie (this time filmed on a camcorder instead of a super 8 camera). It just happens to be a home movie that features a long list of famous (and not-so-famous) rappers. Even accounting for the “film”‘s straight-to-DVD cheapness, it’s difficult to pull any entertainment value from Da Hip Hop Witch, except maybe from the schadenfreude of watching Eminem embarrass himself.

Because it is the sole moment of genuinely entertaining content in the movie, I’m going to transcribe here the entirety of Da Hip Hop Witch‘s prologue: “In December 1989, in the Newark Projects, there were a series of unsolved attacks and one murder. Residents claimed that it was an angry spirit, who became known as ‘The Black Witch of the Projects’. Ten years later, the attacks began again. This time, occurring in every inner city project on the East Coast and targeting every Rap star in the Hip Hop scene. An aspiring reporter determined to find out the truth and five white kids & a pug from the suburbs were determined to become famous for capturing Da Hip Hop Witch.” I promise that passage is much more fun than a proper plot synopsis would be. The only other chuckle-worthy bit of text in the film is the line, “Yo, check it! This is Salem, Massachusetts. You know, the place the witches are from?” Dear God. That about sums it up for the film’s enjoyable dialogue. For the other 90 minutes of runtime you’re pretty much left to fend for yourself.

If you haven’t yet guessed based on the film’s title, release date, or the phrase “The Black Witch of the Projects” in the prologue, Da Hip Hop Witch is a found footage Blair Witch Project spoof. Just by genre alone, the movie may already sound lazy to the uninitiated, but I swear it gets worse from there. More than half of the film’s runtime consists of staged street interviews in which famous rappers call the titular witch a bunch of names, coming off a lot like foul-mouthed schoolyard bullies. Imagine Eminem, Pras, Mobb Deep, Vanilla Ice, Ja Rule, and (for reasons unknown) graduation dances staple Vitamin C mumbling things like “That fucking bitch,” and “I was like, oh my God, what is up with this fucking bitch?” and you pretty much get the gist of what the film has to offer. To keep up the appearance that it has some sort of narrative structure, there are some non-Hip Hop Witch TV (as the interviews are dubbed in the film) storylines involving some late 90s, dreds-rocking, white hip hop kids & an investigative journalist all attempting to prove that Da Hip Hop Witch is a hoax created to sell records & garner buzz. Unfortunately, Da Hip Hop Witch is very real, and so is this piece of shit movie.

Perhaps the worst aspect of Da Hip Hop Witch is that it wastes a pretty killer title. I like the decades-late idea of a blaxploitation horror comedy like Blackenstein or Blacula (those are real movies, in case you’re wondering) updated for the late 90s/early 00s era. Besides the prologue & a laughably bad, Russ Meyer-esque tour of Salem’s street signs, though, the only value the film brings to the world is in embarrassing Eminem, as mentioned earlier. According to some reports, the blowhard, dickhole rapper’s lawyers attempted, but failed, to have his part removed from the film entirely & also tried to completely block the film’s distribution. A lot of the dialogue in Da Hip Hop Witch ranges from the misogynistic (women are feared & ridiculed because they might be the witch) to the transphobic (there’s a whole lot of “She looks like a man!” bullshit), but Eminem’s street interviews are are particularly cringe-worthy as they go on & on about how the witch tried to finger him. He just endlessly rambles about the witch’s “basketball fingers” and his own precious butthole to a near-obsessive degree and because he was such a hot comoddity at the time of Da Hip Hop Witch‘s release date, they kept every embarrassing second of it. If you dislike Eminem as strongly as I do, Da Hip Hop Witch provides a deeply satisfying feeling of knowing that he hated his contribution as much as he did, but the movie was released anyway.

The only stipulation is that the movie is so horrifically unwatchable that most people will never be able to participate in Eminem’s public shaming. Vanilla Ice also gets his fare share of embarrassments here, as Da Hip Hop Witch was filmed during his nu metal phase, but that detail is honestly more sad than it is satisfying. Every other rapper (and there are dozens involved that I haven’t bothered to list here) get by more or less unscathed. Ultimately, who cares who’s involved, since Da Hip Hop Witch isn’t a real feature film anyway? It’s a DVD version of a home movie that never should have left the confines of Britnee’s trunk. Well, Eminem cares. When the film was set to be re-released in 2003 (what? how? why?) the rapper managed to have its cover art that prominently featured his likeness scrapped before it reached the shelves, reportedly under undisclosed, Shady circumstances. As terrible as Da Hip Hop Wtich is on the whole, Eminem’s reluctant involvement still shines as a beacon of delectable embarrassment from within. I wouldn’t say that the full experience was worth it for that aspect, but it honestly didn’t hurt.

-Brandon Ledet

Spy Kids (2001)

/ swampflix / 2 Comments

EPSON MFP image

fourhalfstar

campstamp

I’m not always on board with what Robert Rodriguez is selling, but when he’s firing on all cylinders, his particular brand of of B-movie absurdity can be quite endearing. I think it might be a question of earnestness. he same intentional throwback-camp aesthetic that can be somewhat tiresome in titles like Planet Terror & Machete Kills work perfectly fine in more original-leaning material like The Faculty. In some ways, then, children’s media might be the perfect arena for Rodriguez’s schtick, since it requires a certain lack of ironic detachment. His first foray into the genre, 2003’s Spy Kids, is a case-in-point example of Rodriguez’s live-action cartoon hijinks & intentional genre send-ups working best without this usual hard-wink irony gumming up the magic. In a lot of ways Spy Kids plays like a feature-length cereal commercial (complete with ad placement for fictional cereal) that takes more than a few dark turns every time it can get away with it. For a quick glimpse into what I’m getting at here, check out htis clip of Alan Cumming singing the barnburner “Floop’s Dream” in one of the film’s more sublime moments. What the what?

In the film, the aforementioned Floop (played by Cumming) attracts the attention of international superspies/sexy parents through the children’s show/criminal operation Floop’s Fooglies. Floop’s evil deeds mostly revolve around genetic manipulation that turns former spies into horrific clown monsters he dubs “fooglies” & similarly ineffective world domination plots & extreme wealth eccentricity. When he abducts the parent-spies & threatens to turn them into fooglies, it’s up to their oblivious children to take up the family business & spring into action. The movie has a great deal of fun pulling humor from the spy industry’s goofier gadgetry (like an underwater SUV or an unwieldy jetpack), but for my money almost all of its best features revolve around Floops’s horror show of a lair. A virtual reality room that’s equal part’s Dodo’s Wackyland, Star Trek‘s holodeck, and the nightmare sequences of Ken Russell’s Altered States gives the movie a nice, surreal touch. Then there’s strange details like the “thumb thumbs” (humanoid flunkies made entirely of thumbs) and the fact that the Floop’s Fooglies theme song, when played backwards, is “Floop is a madman! Help us! Save us!”. And if you have any question of just how weird this movie gets, I’d like to direct you again to the “Floop’s Dream” clip. Go ahead. Watch it a second time. I’ve been practically running it on loop.

What I like most about Spy Kids is how the Floop’s Fooglies horror show is thoroughly mixed with its regular kids’ movie fare, as if it weren’t a nightmare vision of a saccharine hellscape. Regular old kids’ movie standards like poop jokes, McDonald’s ad placement, and goofy one-liners like “My parents can’t be spies! They’re not cool enough!” fit in very inconspicuously with the Floop-flavored terror as if the latter weren’t going to wake the pint-sized target audience screaming in the middle of the night. It’s an absurd, endearing combo that makes for  much more challenging children’s feature that what you’d typical expect from a movie with such heavy reliance on CGI & fake-looking, sanitized sets. I really should not have waited to watch Spy Kids as long as I did. Not only does it stand as an example of Rodriguez at his finest,  but it also gave the world the gift of “Floop’s Dream”, a clip I’m just going to leave right here just in case you haven’t watched it yet. It’s a beautiful thing.

Bonus Points: Besides the Floop insanity, I think Spy Kids is noteworthy for being a high profile film that not only gathering Latino greats Antonio Banderas, Danny Trejo, and Cheech Marin all in one feature, but also for writing in two Latino children as its leads (even if one of the actors they cast’s heritage wasn’t quite in line with that detail in reality). That’s a rare treat indeed. There’s also a great deal of implication that the “Machete” character Danny Trejo plays in the film is the very same Machete he plays in Rodriguez’s Machete franchise. That feature is no “Floop’s Dream”, but it’s a fun little tidbit to chew on, if nothing else.

-Brandon Ledet