Life's span & blind death; new this week at the buffet…

Whenever we're in the production stages of an issue of c14, I tend to get a bit of tunnel vision and end up immersing myself in assorted things being featured in the issue. With #27, for example, I spent a whole month watching Blaxploitation films and listening to Steve Wilson-era Rancid Vat (the subject of Thee Whiskey Rebel's column) and Turbonegro's Party Animals. (It was reviewed twice, by Falling James & Alex Richmond, who also wrote a great travel piece for that issue centering around her pilgrimage to the '05 Turbojugend Astra Meeting.)

Of course, with the production of a new issue comes new things to immerse myself in so for the past month I've been watching Herschell Gordon Lewis films (in preparation for our upcoming BMB retrospective) and listening to Redd Kross (with the Kommandant, in preparation for his interview with Steve McDonald.)

I bring all this up here because this week's menu offerings are also partially inspired by the next issue - specifically Dante's Six Pack Sinema column about The Blind Dead. I was really trying to wait until the issue was done to delve into this quad-rilogy but after the third read-through, I caved in. Thus this week's review of the OG of Blind Dead flicks, Tombs Of The Blind Dead.

Also new to the BMB this week, the Kommandant explores a mysterious exploration into the mystery of life, Lifespan.

Cursed castles & knife-wielding kooks; new this week at the buffet…

The Kommandant returns to his Corman Corner to catch Rog's take on Edgar Allan Poe's demonic tale of the ungodly, The Fall Of The House Of Usher.

And Bunny is pleased to meet the acquaintance of a macabre story of two motorcycle-riding, knife-wielding, shiv-shaving, arm-twisting, chain-lashing, scalpel-flashing, acid-throwing, gun-shooting, bone-breaking, pathological nuts and their pal the undertaker… The Undertaker And His Pals.

Kung-fu killers & slashed strippers; new this week at the buffet…

Bunny attempts to measure up to the confounding kung-fu of For Your Height Only and meet the Challenge Of The Tiger; while the Kommandant bares all about the terrifying dance of death that is Stripped To Kill II.

If Jason still haunts you, you're not alone...

...but if you are alone, especially if you're alone in the dark, then look out! Cause that's when he'll try to kill you.

Jason Voorhees doesn't really kill anybody in today's installment of 2006: The Year Of The 13ths, Friday The 13th Part V: A New Beginning, but don't worry - plenty of people do live long enough to die horrible deaths at the hand of some dude in a hockey mask and that's what we're all here for.

Murderous madmen, gun-toting gangsters and extra-troubled teens; new this week at the buffet...

We were supposed to host an in-house photo shoot for Thee Minks' upcoming 7" this past Sunday but the lovely Miss Liz Lixx rescheduled us, leaving the Kommandant and I with a rare day off. We considered staying home and working on the next issue of c14, which is due to go to the printer at the end of the month - for about a minute. Instead we decided to go out for brunch and hit a flea market in Lambertville, NJ.

The Country Host tends to be a little pricey for our tastes, featuring a lot of vendors selling expensive "antiques" of questionable age, assorted forms of advertising paraphernalia and hand carved seating made of trees. It's usually fun for browsing purposes though and sometimes there are tables filled with cheap junk - which is much more up our alley than brass clocks in the shape of various animals, giant coca-cola signs and tree benches. (Those are actually kind of cool if you're into that type of thing.)

My browsing resulted in the acquisition of two vintage enamel flower pins and a stack of sleaze paperbacks; plus a pair of sunburned shoulders. It was looking like the Kommandant was going to walk away empty handed - which hardly ever happens, as there are dollar record bins at pretty much every flea market we've ever been to and he hasn't met a dollar record bin that didn't contain a piece of vinyl he thought he might like. But then he came across a cranky old dude overseeing table after table of dusty old VHS tapes.

They seemed to be cast-offs from a defunct Blockbuster so the wobbly tables were laden with comedies, chick flicks and children's stuff but he persevered and unearthed copies of Mighty Peking Man, a movie we've already seen but agreed we would watch again; Stripped To Kill II, a Roger Corman produced sequel to a mid-'80s slasher flick neither of us had ever heard of; and a movie we kept meaning to rent in order to review as part of our Decade That Dripped Blood column but never quite got around to it, Sleepaway Camp. (Oddly enough the three tapes together cost a dollar less than it would have cost us to rent any of them from our local video store.)

I've been wanting to see Sleepaway Camp since I watched a somewhat recent interview with Felissa Rose where she reflects on her role as sullen pre-teen camper Angela. (The interview was part of the extras section on Troma's Slaughter Party DVD, which I reviewed earlier in the year; I totally and unknowingly spoiled the whole plot of SC in the one sentence I wrote about it in said review, so don't read that if you wanna be somewhat surprised by the ending.) I must admit, it definitely lived up to my expectations of being one crazy f'ed up movie. Interested parties can read the Kommandant's thoughts on this most unusual slasher flick here.

Also new to the buffet menu this week is a double dose of darkly lit film noir-esque "krimis", Monster Of London City and Secret Of The Red Orchid.

Hillbilly hellcats and psychic sea sirens; new this week at the buffet…

We have two new additions to the menu this week, served with a side order of self-referential trivia. The side order will be served first:

Do you know which star of Voyage To The Planet Of Prehistoric Women has had her portrait painted by Alberto Vargas, is rumored to have had affairs with Elvis Presley and Howard Hughes (among other famous men), and is one of the most famous people to ever grace the pages of our humble magazine, carbon 14? Why it's none other than fabulous blond bombshell Mamie Van Doren! The interview was done by the equally fabulous and bombshell-y, but not blond, Justice Howard and appeared in issue #20, along with some stunning photos of Mamie taken by Justice.

Please excuse the plug by the way, but I couldn't help myself from mentioning it - it's one of our biggest interview coups ever, right up there with Thee Whiskey Rebel's Merle Haggard interview and Falling James' two part Jayne County interview. Anywhoo, I now return you to our regularly scheduled update.

This week Bunny has her eyeballs singed by a scorching double feature of crazed country carnality, Hip, Hot And 21 and Hot Thrills And Warm Chills; while the Kommandant travels to a world where the women are beautiful and the men are spliced in from another movie, Voyage To The Planet Of Prehistoric Women.

A double dose of delinquency; new this week at the buffet…

The Kommandant learns a harsh lesson about schoolyard politics from the Class Of 1984.

And Bunny gets schooled in how not to behave around a nuclear power plant from the Class Of Nuke 'Em High.

Teenage Wolfman meets Teenage Frankenstein meets Teenage Dracula; new this week at the buffet…

If I may revisit a topic from last week, I think the Kommandant has finally kicked his WIP habit. At least temporarily. I'd like to take credit for that but, in truth, it was a dusty VHS tape he unearthed from a box in the basement over the weekend that provided the straw that - finally! - broke the back of this film rut. The offender: Amazon Jail. Trust me, the atrocities suffered by these imprisoned women was nothing compared to the atrocity of sitting through this movie. Watch at your own risk.

As for this week's offerings, we have a double dose of late '50s AIP teen trash, How To Make A Monster and Blood Of Dracula.

Thursday April 13th is Jason's unlucky day…

On this 13th day of the fourth month of 2006: The Year Of The 13ths please join us as we venture back to Crystal Lake a fourth time for the most inappropriately named installment in the series (aside from part 9, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday) Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter.

Caged birds & fully realized lovedolls; new this week at the buffet...

I don't know about the rest of you but in our recreational movie watching we tend to get into what I call a genre rut - where we watch a whole bunch of similar movies in a row. For reasons unknown to us all, The Kommandant's been on a bit of a WIP kick lately. Subsequently, in the past couple weeks I've seen more braless women and group delousings than I ever thought I would see in my lifetime. And I think I've developed a bit of a crush on Sid Haig. (On an unrelated note, am I the only one who's noticed how much a mid-'70s Haig resembles a current day Santino Rice?)

These genre ruts also seems to reflect what we write about on the site, and to that end one of this week's new additions is the Kommandant's completely biased thoughts on The Big Bird Cage, by far the cream o' the crop of the chicks in chains movies we've watched in this cycle. If you're only going to see one movie featuring forced female imprisonment, sadistic prison guards, stoned revolutionaries, and one really, really tall wooden structure that refines sugar and crushes mouthy slave girls, I highly recommend you make it this one.

Also new to the menu this week - but totally unrelated to the above paragraphs in any way - is the much anticipated (by me anyway) newly released director's cut of Dave Markey's sequel to Desperate Teenage Lovedolls, Lovedolls Superstar Fully Realized.

Lusty ladies & satanic schoolgirls; new this week at the buffet…

I interrupt our regularly scheduled weekly update announcement to bring you the following announcement from our friends at Zombastic Films…

YOU ARE AMONG THE FIRST TO HEAR THE BIG, BIG, BIG, BIG NEWS

This week we finally signed a distribution deal for North America. Image Entertainment is the company that will be releasing DIE YOU ZOMBIE BASTARDS! on DVD.

Image is also the home to the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Ed Wood, Mario Bava and Jess Franco as well as the Something Weird, Criterion & Playboy collections. We're simply thrilled to think that DYZB! will be hitting the stores in such esteemed company. We're hoping that the aforementioned hitting of the stores will happen before the end of 2006, but there's no way to tell for sure at this point. Things are certainly moving in the right direction, however. Fingers are crossed. Rest assured that we will keep you posted, O Zombastic Faithful.

Congratulations guys! You totally deserve it.

And now back to our update. Freshly uploaded to the buffet menu this week is an absolutely sacrilicious tale of sin and sisterhood, Don't Deliver Us From Evil, and a double dose of sleazy sexploitation shenanigans, She Mob & Nymphs Anonymous.

The Curse Of Debbie Does Dallas...

As we have already covered many times over, I love a documentary. I didn't necessarily love this particular documentary but I didn't not love it. I suppose you could say I liked it. It definitely had it's plusses and minuses though. On the plus side it had Herschel Savage (who I like for some reason) and interviews with Bill Kelly & Pat Livingstone. (If you read The Other Hollywood you may remember these guys as the main men behind the MIPORN operation. And if you haven't read that book, you really should; it's fantastic.) On the minus side, there was curiously little information disseminated and in the end, I realized I still didn't know what the title was making reference to. Was there a curse? And if so, what was it?

I think part of the filmmakers' thesis is that because Bambi Woods disappeared from the film industry, adult or otherwise, shortly after the film's release, that it "cursed" her career but I don't know; if I was her, I might have gone into hiding too. Just between you, me & the lamppost, Debbie Does Dallas isn't all that great of a movie. When the Kommandant & I watched it (purely for research purposes of course) I remember thinking that she kind of looked like she showed up on set to deliver lunch and wound up accidentally starring in a dirty movie that accidentally ended up being one of the most well known porn films of all time. I will say this much, when I eventually get around to seeing Desperately Seeking Seka there better be a fifty-something Seka by the end of the film.

Mysterious masked murderers and fanged femme fatales; new this week at the buffet…

Bunny attempts to unravel the mystery of who killed who, where, and with what buried deep within Jess Franco's Night Of The Skull.

And the Kommandant chimes in with his thoughts on the atmospheric and bloodless coup of Slaughter Of The Vampires.

The good, the bad and the confusing; or, random thoughts on random films I watched this month...

Petey Wheatstraw - The more Rudy Ray Moore movies I see, the more of an appreciation I have for the man. This is the third RRM flick; some of the regulars from the first two are back, my favorite being J.B. Baron, the redneck sheriff in Human Tornado. (Appearing here as the flustered and bumbling ghetto doctor.) Comedy duo Skillet and Leroy have major supporting roles, but Moore (in the title role) takes Wheatstraw over the top. Some of the intentional playing up of old stereotypes like watermelon eating are hilarious as well, and the birth of Petey is so ridiculous it's like the comedic equivalent of the delivery scene from It's Alive. Unfortunately, they just don't make movies like this anymore.

Moog - Moog is the perfect example of great subject matter and disappointing execution. The best thing this rambling, un-focused documentary has to offer are the frequently, possibly unintentionally, funny comments of Rick Wakeman. Mostly it's Bob Moog in various places talking to the camera or talking to various colleagues and musicians about experiences with the synths that bear his name. And the soundtrack is annoyingly loud, particularly during the interview sequences.

Beat Girl - A puzzling UK JD flick from 1960; the plot boils down to the teenage rebellion of a girl who's pissed at daddy and his new wife, who happens to be a "ancient" 24-year old foxy French babe. Turns out stepmom did a bit of strippin' and prostitutin' to make ends meet back in the day, which we learn courtesy of sleazy strip club owner Christopher Lee. (He is the saving grace of this picture.) The rest of it all boils down to the girl hanging out with her friends, trying to be cooler than everyone else; constantly saying and doing things that make her stepmom smack her in the face and her squaresville dad throw his hands in the air yelling, "These words! What do they mean? What are you saying?" After watching the film, I was left thinking the same thing—except I think I understood what they were saying.

A cornucopia of Sarno-ality; new this week at the buffet...

As you may imagine, I occasionally do other things besides watching and reviewing movies. One of my numerous "day jobs" is serving as the defacto art department for the record label the Kommandant & I run, Steel Cage Records.

As far as jobs go, it's a pretty damn good one; and one I rarely, if ever, complain about. Because I love to design shit! One thing I really love to design is posters. I can't speak for other graphic artists - maybe this is just a reflection of my other interests - but I take a lot of inspiration from old movie posters.

I bring all of this up here because I have taken a lot of inspiration from the posters for movies made by the director responsible for all three of this week's featured buffet items - Joe Sarno. Particularly I love his mid-'60s period where the majority of his films feature seamy tales of suburban sin. The poster for The Love Merchant, for example, inspired this Hot Damn poster I did for their most recent SCR release.

I hadn't actually seen the movie prior to making the poster, but now that I have, I definitely recommend it. It's right up there with Sin In The Suburbs or The Swap (And How They Make It).

Also new to the menu this week are two additional slices of Sarno-sploitation, The Layout and The Devil's Plaything.

3-D action & two-wheel traction; new this week at the buffet...

It's March 13th, aka the 13th day of the third month of 2006: The Year Of The 13ths, so prepare yourself for the snake jumpin-est, glass smashin-est, eye gougin-est, pointy object throwin-est entry in the series Friday The 13th Part 3.

Also new to the menu this week, the biggest, baddest, best-est biker blaxploitation movie ever, The Black Six.

Blasphemy and boobs; new this week at the buffet...

I know we're a little past the point of making a relevant statement about this year's Oscars but I'm not gonna let that stop me from saying how disappointed I was in this year's documentary film nominees. Seriously, I love nature too but fuck penguins. What should have been nominated (and if it had been, won) is Rock School, the documentary about The Paul Green School Of Rock.

It came out sometime last year I think, to a flurry of rock and indie film critic praise, and has been available on DVD for a little while but we just saw it last night so the topic is fresh in my mind. The subject matter is pretty self explanatory, but for the benefit of those of you who maybe have never heard of the school or the movie, TPGSOR is a music school for children aged 9 - 17; it was founded here in Philly in 1998 and now has branches all over the country. The school is staffed by local musicians - all of whom have put their musical skills to practical uses - so instead of just being taught how to play an instrument, the kids also learn about all the other stuff that comes with playing music with other people. Then they take it a step further and school them on how to do all of that on a stage in front of a crowd of strangers by letting them experience it firsthand. Very cool.

Meanwhile, despite it's Philly-ness and the fact that I know a couple of the people who have taught at the school at various points, I was totally clueless prior to seeing this film that I sorta kinda in a round about way know Paul Green, through another local musician who I used to hang out with and sorta kinda in a round about way date. Which is so weird because I've read articles about the school and seen the accompanying pictures, and even attended one of their early performances, but it wasn't until Lisa (then Paul's foxy girlfriend, now Paul's foxy wife) popped up on the screen and I was all "oh snap, it's Lisa" that I realized "oh wait, then that's Paul." Weird!

The director definitely captured his quick wit and twisted sense of humor, but the guy my memory conjures up from the days of Sweet Pussy & the fish counter at Chef's Market hardly ever raised his voice at me or demanded to know whether or not I loved Satan. On the other hand, when the Kommandant was teaching me to play bass there was a lot of teacher-to-student and student-to-teacher yelling so maybe that's a situational thing. But I digress. I bring all of this up not to be self-referential (although that is kind of what this thing for isn't it?) but mainly just to say, Rock School, the movie, and The Paul Green School Of Rock, the school, are awesome.

Speaking of Satan, this week's review offerings - Satan's Blood and Witchcraft 666 - are right in line with one of Green's favorite teaching touchstones; although neither are very musical or appropriate for children, aged 9 - 17 or otherwise.

Bunny & the Kommandant go to the Oscars; part the Kommandant...

Is it me or were the 2006 Oscars the most boring awards ceremony ever? I remember when the Academy Awards were wacky, entertaining and unpredictable - especially when Carson was the host. Alas, long gone are the days of people turning down their awards as political statements, streakers, crazy outfits and pointless dance numbers. Although, there were those zombified car crash victims...

I looked forward to seeing what John Stewart was going to do as host but, despite a few good one-liners that were about as political as he could get away with, for the most part he was a kinda disappointing. The clear highlight of the evening was when 3-6 Mafia briefly turned the show into the Source Awards. They also garnered the evening's most bleeps. (I don't know who was more surprised - the group themselves, or Queen Latifah when she opened the envelope.) Balanced against that were strange genre-spanning tributes that never went anywhere (I figured they were gonna give someone an special award or something, not just run a string of clips from assorted films Noir) and endless movie stars displaying their complete inability to read from a cue card. Or, perhaps, to read at all.

Despite managing to continue my decade-plus streak of not seeing any nominated film - at least not any nominated for these awards - I was as surprised as anyone (well, anyone being Bunny since she was the only person who knew about it) that I was 4-for-4 on my Oscar ballot; picking Best Actor, Actress, Director and Picture. I also hit on four or five other minor awards but missed on anything else of real significance. Some of the choices seemed like they were out of left field to me, but what do I know?

I do feel bad for Paul Giamatti, who's shaping up to become the Susan Lucci of the silver screen. Taking into consideration the Sideways snub last year and loss to Clooney this year - plus the fact that he really should have won for his role in Private Parts but wasn't even nominated - can only lead me to the conclusion that it's a conspiracy. Clearly Giamatti is doomed to never win an Academy Award because his father banned Pete Rose when he was the Commissioner of Major League Baseball. It is indeed hard out there for a pimp.

In closing, yeah - it sucked. But I'll probably still watch it next year.

Bunny & the Kommandant go to the Oscars; part Bunny...

By now we all know who won and who lost, so let's talk about what really matters - who looked good. I think the evening's attire, as well as the show itself, can be summed up in one word: yawn. I mean, I am as guilty of falling back on black as the next girl or boy. We all do it. But you know what? Wearing a black dress with sparkly accessories to your friend's wedding is one thing. Wearing a very expensive black dress with very expensive sparkly accessories to the Oscars is another thing. A lame boring thing! Am I the only one who longs for a swan dress, a gown made of American Express cards, or Cher?

Anywhoo, I don't have a whole lot to say about this year's Oscar fashions, which I think in itself says quite a bit, but it wasn't too hard for me to decide on a best dressed woman and man.

Best dressed woman: Michelle Williams

Much like the time the Kommandant made me go with him to a Siouxie And The Banshees show he was reviewing for the Philadelphia Inquirer and I wore a pink tank top and all the crazily-dressed Goths stared at me, any color was bound to stand out and draw attention to the wearer in the sea of black and nude red carpet attire. It takes some balls to wear a yellow gown though so you gotta give Ms. Williams props for that. As well as risking an onslaught of Big Bird references in the post-show commentary. (There's bound to be at least one; although I heard someone else refer to it as condiment colored.) I also liked the way she rounded out the ensemble with the vintage-y necklace, the un-done but totally done updo and the severe red lip.

Runner-up: Jennifer Lopez

I'm not really a J-Lo fan but, if nothing else, she can be counted on to show up at an awards show in something unlike what everyone else is wearing. I think I'm attracted to this dress because it's the same color we used on the walls in our guest room but I also like the shape of it. I feel like she over-accessorized though. I think she definitely could have gotten rid of either the earrings or the necklace; and maybe that short guy who was attached to her back.

Best dressed man: Tyson Beckford

I'm not sure he even was at the Oscars, but during the post show wrap up on E! I saw a taped bit from their pre-show where he took off his t-shirt and pulled his jeans down to his ankles, revealing a very well accessorized (meaning everything that could be seen above, below, and inside of) a pair of white boxer briefs. I think I heard them say he was donating the removed shirt to charity; the pants thing I suppose was a spontaneous act of charity directed towards all the hetero women and gay men in the audience. In the end the why and how of seeing Tyson in his underwear does not matter, I'm just glad to have seen it.

Runner-up: n/a

I couldn't really come up with a single worst dressed person, as I found everyone else to be kind of unmemorable. I was gonna go with that crazy ass hunter green Christian Doir jammy-jam with the pillow on the shoulder that Charlize Theron wore but I changed my mind. I still think that dress was wack but, in retrospect, I can't say she was poorly dressed because at least she gave you something interesting to look at and talk about. Actresses and stylists alike should consider this Project Runway conundrum before choosing next years Oscar dresses: what is a worse fashion crime - going too far or not going far enough? I believe the fact that Santino Rice is one the three designers chosen to show at fashion week answers that question.

A mish-mash of trash; new this week at the buffet...

As many of you already know, the Oscars are this Sunday night. The Kommandant & I will probably watch the show, even though we haven't seen a single movie nominated in any category. For me the Academy Awards aren't really about movies anyway. The event is more about fashion and glamour and bullshitting with your girlfriends / sister / mother the next day about whose hair looked good and whose dress was ugly. (Or whose hair was ugly and whose dress looked good.)

I would like to point out one of the little B-movie related blips on this year's Oscar radar screen though and that is triple nominee George Clooney. We can only hope that, should he actually win something, there's a Stuttering John type in the press room readied with a question or two about his pivotal role in Return Of The Killer Tomatoes or what it was like to co-star with Marsha Brady in Return To Horror High. I would also like to point out that no one should ever let Clooney forget these easily forgettable entries in his filmography because that bushy eyebrowed fool acts like his shit don't stink; and if I may paraphrase Outkast, his cinematic roses - past, current and future - totally smell like poo-poo.

Anywhoo, as for this week's BMB offerings - we offer up three films which I have been unable to link in any way, because they have pretty much nothing in common: Last Woman On Earth, Roger Corman's tale of what happens when a pair of apocalyptic boys and one girl are the only people left alive; The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave, a kitschy boobs and blood Euro-shocker form the '70s; and Touch Me In The Morning, a trailer noir epic from the demented mind of one of the dudes that starred in Cabin Fever.