HARD ON REVENGE IN THE HOLLYWOOD FREAK SCENE: Savage Streets (1984)

Gritty, grotesque, and just plain mean, this whacked out revenge flick is sick and savage, as we find a gang of bruisers hassle, deal, steal, drink, rob, beat, fuck, and drug their way through their High School years on the sleazoid boulevard, taking and grabbing whatever they want. Their main focus becomes a group of equally raunchy- less criminal, hot mamas out for kicks and cocks, led with a bitch's nerve by Linda Blair- foul mouthed, feisty, and overprotective of her deaf sister. When the hard punks decide to gang rape the deaf girl, it sets in motion one of the single most outlandish, vulgar, ridiculous revenge motifs a fan of exploitation could dream for. The dark, permissive violence is a whiz bang thrill ride brimming with ugly dialogue- evil, crass, and amazingly humorous. Nobody in this movie likes each other much, everyone talks shit to each other- even the adults have no time for these nihilistic predators (the principle, played with exaggerated menace by the always awesome John Vernon, proclaims "Why don't you get your faggot asses out of here before I feed them to the cops!") The fun had here is of a cathartic nature, a way to see the bad side of things in such a way as to feel the disgust and displeasure of every wrong move these scumbags make- igniting a furor within the viewer that allows for the ultimate payback pleasure.  

ROCK N ROLL REDUCTION & THE NEW CORPORATE THREAT: Get Crazy (1983)

The movie you are about to witness tonight is a grand, vulgar, grotesque little comedy brought to you by the Director who made the now legendary Rock N Roll High School, Mr. Alan Arkush. It has all of the same attributes- gross out comedy, great music, colorful fun, and a villain hell bent on destroying true rock n roll music. In this case the enemy is a corporate devil named Colin Beverly, who wants to blow up one of the finest concert halls- The Saturn Theater- and replace it with a high priced, arena cum entertainment multi-plex. The Saturn Theater's owner, Max, refuses to sell out to the almighty dollar, stating "I put on shows at the Saturn so kids can see the stage, afford the tickets, and hear the music- so screw stadiums!"   Greedy industrialist Beverly retorts "This building is coming down and 88 stories are going up- So fuck you, and fuck rock n' roll!" This sets the scene, and off we go into a wild, wacky, wonderful night of new wave, punk, and hard rocking New Year's Eve fun, as romances flourish, drugs are taken, and the battle for salt of the earth, soulful entertainment versus crass commercialism rages onward. The movie is top heavy with rock stars- John Densmore, Lee Ving, Lou Reed- playing some parody of themselves, or other rock n roll stereotypes. Malcom McDowell does one of the single greatest Mick Jagger parodies you may ever see, the general vibe pure definition of what makes a great rock n roll experience- community, adventure, curiosity, and a willingness to have fun, enjoy the moment, and meet those who share this desire. Stadium shows represent the most commercialized, conformist wing of the entertainment business- they exist to maximize profit and diminish the living, breathing, feeling closeness of a theater- or club, show. Which is something entirely different, an institution that thankfully will never go away- no matter what money is on offer.

UNCHAINED & UNHOLY IN THE BLOOD OF A WESTERN MOON

Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino's new brutal shoes, make for an intriguing walk through 1850's Southern plantation life. Having not been a great fan of his previous, well adored film Inglorious Basterds, this surprised and excited me. I had an issue or two, however- namely Tarantino needs to stop using pop music in these things- the movie doesn't need it and it's a distraction. Second, the end revenge bit is slightly redundant (let us not be naive, all Taratino films resolve in this manor)- it should have figured in the last bit amending to the first shoot em' up where Django surrenders, avoiding the needless demonstration of Samuel Jackson's Stephen as the ultimate power whip on the plantation- we got that in the first scene in which he was introduced, clucking about the place as if he were the main man all down the line. Leonardo Di Caprio does some of his best work here- a cruel, mean, vicious man. The issues brought up about slavery, how this film addresses such, may be an empty suit. This is just a really good action flick, like all of his pictures. A great action director creates an environment that hyper activates the suspense- drawing you into the tension of the moment, and Tarantino does this very well here. Using the slave trade as back drop, a near master stroke in creating that vile place in which we cannot wait to get out of- like Nazi Germany, or a warehouse with a dead cop. The movie gets to say some things about slavery, demonstrating a gross, inhuman violence, used for both purposes of revulsion and cranking up the tension. While everybody was crowing about the importance of the story, they forgot to plainly understand that within a truly great action film- The Running Man, Terminator, French Connection- you have always been given a compelling, nasty gutter to swim through in order to make the catharsis work more for your brain than complete bloody nothing. I nearly agree with Spike Lee that this may just be a Slave Auction Spaghetti Western, but that would be missing out on a thrill ride of a film that says no less about racism than Do The Right Thing did- except Tarantino chooses to pick at the past in an effort to show the horrors of chattel slavery, and the revenge fantasy that plays out. As a grand statement on the slave trade itself it would be a failure in total, due to it's reduction of scope, depth, and complete perspective of the thing itself- it's almost too big a moral enterprise to have your cake and eat it too. While Spike Lee used humor and neighborhood characters eating at each other on the hottest day of the year to create his tension, Tarantino does what he knows best- how to kill the bad guys with an honest to goodness, righteous reasoning that is immune to objection of motive.

IN THE SHADOWS OF MURDER & BAD LUCK: Detour (1945)

One of the great, small film noir exploitations of the 1940s, this is a story of a man whose situation goes from bad to worse, all in the pursuit of love and success. Neither glamorous or pretty, this gritty, wicked little film follows a head over heels pianist in love with a singer, both determined to move to Hollywood, pursuing their dreams of a better life, a better career, a better way of being- to get married and play in the big leagues- to make it, to show the world their talent and all it holds. The dame makes the first move out to California, chasing the glory and the gold, as the piano player continues plying his trade in the east coast dive where they both began. Once the piano player gets the idea that he'll hitch hike after his girl- by hook or crook, broke or smoke- the plot is hatched and the trouble begins. Snappy, street issue dialogue, hot and nasty dames, dreams of a world more than either know. In Detour you get the guts and glow of the money chase, the affectionate punch you get when your heart goes boom and you are just trying to make it all work for yourself. Sometimes on the road to getting there, the most unexpected situations present themselves in the most haunting ways.

KIDS ON THE STREET & THE GUTTER LIFE : Streetwise (1984)

The movie  today is a film that details a place and time I have some first hand knowledge of- NW street kids in 1984. I was neither homeless nor unloved by family, but I spent so much time hanging out in downtown Portland around this time I got to know many characters similar to the ones featured within this documentary. At 14 your relationship with your parents can be tenuous if they fail to understand how it is you are developing, and you seek support and community elsewhere to salve those emotional wounds. Being very much outside what society and the system dictated I should be, I spent as much time as I could hanging around other kids my age with a similar emotional situation- shoplifting, smoking weed, dancing in the streets, hanging out at shows, trying to make sense of what the adult world wanted. These kids had a much tougher road to travel that I- they were mostly running from abusive homes, or kicked out, or were unwanted. I had some traits I bonded with- I was adopted, I had a tumultuous upbringing- a child of divorce, an outsider who lacked the ability to understand the kids at school. When I discovered the downtown hang around lifestyle, it clicked, and made sense to me in oh so many ways. But soon after I found my focus (music and writing)- and left the idle time wasting behind, happy I found place and purpose amongst what was once chaos and disorder. STREETWISE details many of the kids who had a harder time escaping, who have not found that focus. Some survived, some did not, some went onto better things. It is a privilege for us to be able to glimpse the real world as it happened in films such as this- before reality television manipulated such things into a commercial endeavor for profit and gain. "You gonna be downtown, you gonna be cool, you better learn the ways of the streets if you're gonna be doin' the shit that you're doin'." 

FIERCE FANTASIES & THE LEGENDARY CHILDREN: Paris Is Burning (1989)

Today's movie is a documentary that means quite a lot to me. It is a beautiful, touching, exciting, sad, wicked little film about poor kids not born into the more privileged lifestyle they covet and imitate. When it originally appeared I was living in Portland, Oregon and went to see it in the theater at Cinema 21 and it nearly blew the back of my head out. I was literally jolted into excitement by the dance, the dress, the desperation. It allowed me to reinforce my inner self, to value my uniqueness, to hold yourself accountable for your own system. I did not want to be like these fabulous children- I just wanted to a fabulous child. It was at a point when I was formulating the next phase of my existence, the real me that I was too repressed to become yet. And then I hit the streets of Chicago and let it all come out- at first going in for the typical mainstream cop out of fashion and follow, which lasted about 8 months until I unleashed the rock n roll motherfucker I truly am to this day- finally, one of the legendary children. Gay or straight, left or right, up or down, this film will give you a greater sense of the world and how others live and do, and how as much as you think you have the answers, whatever your background- there is an undeniable desire we all have to find our place in this mess of a universe that puts pressure against us every waking minute. So shake the dice and steal the rice, baby- this one is for you!

MIND CONTROL MELTDOWN & THE BRAIN POLICE: Split Image (1982)

Tonight's film is a superb, taut psychological thriller - this is one of the finest exploitations on the brainwash tactics of cults- how they lure kids with the promise of a better family than the one they are born into. This movie is an explosion of shouting, crying, and desperation. Michael O' Keefe plays an aspiring Olympic gymnast  who is lure into "Homeland"- a working commune- by a hot chick (played by Karen Allen), where he is then brainwashed into believing his previous existence was nothing more than "death in life," and is forced to burn his clothes and forget his past and feed the needs of the commune, which is run by a Jim Jones type psycho- dressed in all white, played with brilliant, subtle aggression by Peter Fonda. James Woods shows up as a bounty hunter who is hired to kidnap the kid and deprogram him. Woods sort of steals the show- his character is so unlikeable and nasty and foul mouthed. Brian Dennehy and Elizabeth Ashley play the parents in their best over the top, worrisome tone. This is one of those great little human dramas that is high strung, action packed, and hard boiled in it's effort to grab some truth through entertainment.