Racial recasting is rarely interesting but it could be used to make important statements. Black Panther is basically African Bruce Wayne and that highlights some issues with black hero worship in the West. Shouldn't racial recasting have some purpose bigger than meeting "diversity demographics"? How about ironic racial casting to actually disassemble racism? Could America swallow a black Donald Trump? Doubtful. Thats a movie idea right there.

Sean Astin on Django Unchained

I love this. Astin sensitively and intelligently explains the exploitative and faux-liberal appeal of Tarantino films. Many of his films are just vulgar and violent tomes of Tarantino's own complexes of sexism and racism with corny, insincere apologies tagged on that pander to the minorities he dislikes but wants to idolize him. Standard "polite bigot" behavior.

Sgt Kabukiman NYPD 1990 / The Evil Dead 1981 / Monty Python & The Holy Grail 1975

Kabukiman is Lloyd Kaufman & Michael Herz' comeback film after the drizzling Toxic Avenger 3 and is their last directing collaboration to date (with Herz becoming the primary producer). Kabukiman tweaks the Troma formula by satirizing/exploiting a big budget film (Batman) and toning down the sex & violence. Its more of a return to the screwball comedies Troma produced pre-Toxic Avenger. The film is low on laughs and the action is amateurish, but its heavy on social commentary and low budget charm.

Troma films have this unique quality of mixing slapstick violence and realistic violence, which is very surreal and creates a meaningful conflict in style. At the same time, you can't take the drama seriously or the comedy lightly (perfectly realized in the fist two Toxic Avenger films and the original Class of Nuke 'Em High). I actually think this element works better in SK than in Toxie 3. Whereas that film had a moody aura that was actually missing humor, SKN is humor with a dash of realism. It plays as a very modern film because of this gritty slapstick and artificial realism. Let's face it: Guardians of the Galaxy movies are Troma films minus the political activism, risky jokes or modest production. Kabukiman is not one of Troma's best but its one of their most sincere and least offensive.

The Evil Dead is not a masterpiece in my eyes, but its one of the most impressive debuts of a director to date. The technical know-how, genre-savvy and inventive low-budget creativity is almost unparalleled. The plot is a more conservative, lowbrow, exploitative remix of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, the early work of Wes Craven, an obscure film called Equinox and a few others (the nod to  Rosemary's Baby is almost groan-inducing). But the postmodern genre of "fan film" owes a lot to Evil Dead. Raimi takes what could've been absolutely absurd and kitsch and makes it absurdist and camp. The poor continuity, cheap FX and amateur performances work cohesively to create a Gonzo style. I've never found Evil Dead to be the emotionally intense or haunting commentary that truly great horror films are, but it has a claustrophobic mood and grim surrealism that perfectly bridges the 1970s to the 1980s. Its artistic entertainment, not entertaining art. Thats okay for such a small project and its still the best thing Raimi has ever done.

I grew up loving Holy Grail for its downbeat rhythm and strange, inexplicable laughs but only now do I recognize the intelligent design and commentary behind the carefully crafted surrealism. Holy Grail works as a series of deconstructionist sketches, each applying the group's shared Marxist philosophy to a different subject: monarchy, feminism, nationalism, militarism, homophobia, racism, generational transition, existentialism, nihilists etc. Cleverly the postmodernists tackle British modernism by starting at the source, the ridiculous legend of King Arthur and his insane, murderous, superstitious and literally criminal Knights of the Round Table. By today's standards, some of the humor might verge on insensitive, ex. the somewhat racist Black Knight skit is amended in Meaning of Life's Zulu skit. But overall its a witty, next-level and quite elementary guide to Western intellectualism.

Famously, Lorne Michaels and Chevy Chase met at a screening of Holy Grail and basically conceived SNL as the American "Flying Circus". Watching Holy Grail you find everything SNL lacked as a totally poser, hipster, neoliberal misreading of surrealist political satire. That show was more diverse, more populist and more upbeat, but not nearly as enlightened, dangerous or moralistic. I'm kind of tired of SNL being honored as such a groundbreaking institution of comedy when it never surpassed Python in the most important element: humor. 

rantin'

Ok, so some Russian hackers are indicted for attacking the Clinton campaign and a white supremacist teen shot up a school in Florida. Through the lens of filmmaking, I want to dissect these events and , maybe more importantly, the public's reaction to them. Also, I can work in the recent movie news about Black Panther being an unsurprising success. There is an intersectionality between these 3 things and its mired in chaotic, dishonest mainstream media politics.

I skimmed through some bad Hollywood films I planned to review, but couldn't bring myself to watch fully: Queen of the Damned, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Scott Pilgrim, Mr and Mrs Smith (which I watched & reviewed). I'm sickened by the false liberalism in these films. I'm deadened by giving time to their gross capitalist aberrations of reality to create a commercial dreamscape of comforting lies and smokescreen truth. This irresponsible mutation from public art to mass distributed propaganda has damned society. We have a generation who get their politics from bad TV & movies owned by news media companies that don't report the real news. The films put out by the so-called "Hollywood Left" have nothing to do with freedom, democratic choice, equality, multiculturalism or spiritual enlightenment. God forbid our art actually tell us to do more than consume and watch TV...

So I'm furious at how this recent shooting is being literally sold by the media as a bid for the same neoliberalism that hurt the Far Left. We are told to ignore weight of the reality of another deadly and violent outburst by a young citizen (always white, rightwing, male and white nationalist). The outburst of death, hate and evil is glossed over so we allign with news shows, argue on the same cattled social media sites and then vote for the same two deeply-connected and insidiously hypocritical parties of political careerists. Essentially the issue always turns to "how should the elite control the people better?" Maybe stop being the elite and share the wealth that we all have acquired in the name of duty & humanity.

I hate guns. I hate the gun-porn in movies. I hate gun-nuts in poor neighborhoods. And I most hate gun manufacturers and the NRA, two disgusting capitalist wings of the Aryan Brotherhood (since saying "white patriarchy" doesn't seem to annoy the right or mobilize the left). I'm all for taking money out of their hands to protect innocent people. Guns are a problem. I don't even think they should exist. But getting rid of the guns won't even phase the villains of society. These shootings are done by weakling soldiers in a bigger war. Their "alt-right" leaders are growing fascist regimes globally and have scary private power to prevent you from even becoming a threat. News propaganda, internet spying, brainwashing entertainment and bought and now CREATED politician puppets. The Republican party is run by scary thugs in secret societies who use business, religion and politics to poison the world and control its people to serve their pockets. And we have to stop relying on democrats, a party totally controlled by billionaire CIA agents from equally elitist, racist, sexist backgrounds. They work towards an almost identical end-goal: sitting on top of the pyramid while the world burns to ashes.

I accept that Trump is a foreign agent worse than Hitler ever was. He's not out to save white people. He's out to save wealthy libertine white dudes (as was Hitler, honestly). Hillary is a few shades less evil because liberals don't discriminate as they don't have the power to be discreet or have the popularity of white racism (anymore). Is he connected to the hacking? I dunno. It doesn't matter because he's done so many bad things and this avenue is not the best to catch him. What are some Russian hackers who are protected by Russia and probably KGB going to do? Trump's entire cabinet is full of slimy "soft criminals" and there have to be a zillion paper trails tying him to illegal action. The FBI & CIA seem determined to undermine him. Good. So maybe take focus off of Russia and look into Saudi Arabia, China, the Aryan Brotherhood, Fox News, even WWE. Every stinking enterprise that would give him a dollar and who he has repaid publicly. Its fucking madness that no news or public voices are following this REAL story. The population is lost in mindless, politically-stupid talks about Russia when we can't go to war with them. Cut off Putin's ties. Cut off Trump's allies.

And in the meantime, turn the page on liberalism. Black Panther is such a lame reflection of the last 8 years of propaganda. The concept of black capitalist nationalism is both absurd and toxic. It serves the neoliberal's side of the military-industrial complex's quest for capital and political power but not freedom and compensation for the working class. More Disney exploitation. The Marvel franchise has to DIE. Enough of these phony, braindead, overly emotional pleas for money to control our government. I mean, literally, Disney is one of the most dangerous and corrupt corporations in the world and have led the fight to cheat in business. They have helped elect every shitty president I've lived through with their conservative propaganda for children (and numerous child-brained adults). It seems particularly that rightwings and neoliberals just can't live without Disney, NFL, radio pop and all of the "American" institutions of excess and ignorance.

Where is the alternative? The independent voices? The Libertarian party in Europe was once a socialist federation that made the E.U. a luxury. But then they and American Libertarians turned to rightwing bullshit like sucking off corporations and selling out workers. They saw the injustice happening and decided to be on the greediest side of it. Because most Libertarians aren't Libertarian Socialist. They want the government to shrink so they can make as much money as possible. They believe capitalism is fair and will favor the workers. Has never happened. Americans live better than other nations just because we're on the winning side of capitalism. But we still trail capitalist AND socialist nations who aren't as rich. Why? Because money doesn't solve anything.

And money certainly doesn't make good movies. Its a resource. Thats all. Its a resource to get other resources, namely the commission of other people. The people are the real determiner of collective quality. Not selfish aims of the management or dumbass elitist egotism and bigoted self-interest. Its about the work. Doing good work for everyone and MAKING A LIVING doing it. Hollywood fat cats don't give much of a damn if the work is good. They ONLY care about their paychecks and residuals. Knobs.

The Bloody Judge 1969 / The Demons 1973 / Doriana Grey 1976 / Lorna the Exorcist 1974 / Sexy Sisters 1977 / Sinner - Diary of a Nyphomaniac 1973

I'm really in the last string of major Franco titles to review. These are particularly darker and more trying films from his more depressive and destitute days. I don't enjoy them as much, but they fit my current mood and reveal more of Franco's character and inner battles.

The Bloody Judge is some prime Franco. It could be the best work but maybe not the best film from his soaring commercial career in the late 1960s. Its just as disturbing yet alternately beautiful. Its smart and not at all exploitative. It feels sincere to its historical influences and you can measure it favorably to Hollywood of the period or this current age. Its plot-themes are very pressing: a psychotic conservative authoritarian and probable secret society member who is persecuting the impoverished population he presides over. Scary stuff. This and the other Franco roles are Christopher Lee at his most effective as an actor and a scary "horror movie" presence. Highly recommended!

The Demons follows the same vein but its made for a much sleazier producer with cheaper resources and questionable tastes. Robert de Nestle replaces Harry Allan Towers, which is not a totally skewed trade-off. Its so tawdry and lurid, you can't help but admire it. And a stoned Franco does a great job on damage control. I think this is probably the most tightly plotted and classically shot of de Nestle's time with Franco. It could be the most polished overall and its one of the most erotic and aren't Franco's film supposed to be erotic primarily? The film has some surreal, absurd, camp and kitsch treats as usual. Jess was really in a free-form mood with some impressive resources to bounce off of.

Doriana Grey fits the 70s definition of a porno. You can't quite interpret it the same as the traditional commercial narrative film or even the arthouse experiments or even the sleaziest softcore movies. But it can have the same value. Doriana Gray has the loosest of loose stories about twin Linda Romay's who are soul mates and need to make lesbian love... and maybe its all a dream. Its some heavy, artful, technically brilliant stuff to prop up a lot of graphic sex scenes. And it works. I wasn't thrilled by plot or character because thrills weren't the goal. I find the sex scenes alluring in concept and cathartic and beautifully staged. Pornographic cinema has always had its place and been an influential genre steeped in important cultural art. Franco channels something ancient in these erotic period pieces of the 1970s. I favor this to some more narrative but less erotic films.

Lorna the Exorcist came out earlier (another de Nestle film). Again, the plot is small and lifted essentially from merging Eugenie with other shit, Rumpelstiltskin perhaps (Faust is mentioned). This film sets the stage for following explicit sex films by Jesus Franco: hotels, long takes of scenery, extended love scenes and very obtuse but effective dialogue and minor action. Actually, Franco's Other Side of the Mirror led to this mini-genre in its X-rated cut. Lorna has a wonderfull psychedelic rock/electric jazz score and otherworldly photography and the performances are sharp. Its plot is more strange than anything that precedes it, but maybe more easy-to-follow than what follows it. This is not for everyone but Francophiles will rank it highly.

Sexy Sisters is one of many films where blonde actress Karine Gambier is masochistically tied up and abused mentally and physically by a brunette. I very much enjoy the film Franco made for producer Erwin Dietrich but apparently he stunted Franco's experimental camerawork. Their collaborations are always minimalist, polished and focused on erotica over statements or creativity. Thats fine. Sexy Sisters is one of the weaker of their films but it has decent dramatic plot, performances and great design on a dime.

Sinner is probably the biggest slam dunk out of this batch of reviews. It integrates an original story structure, haunting music, nightclub atmosphere, feminist romance and melodramatic tragedy. And it remains classy by rejecting the hardcore sex or sadism you might expect. This is more of a personal statement or responsible professional job. And it has that rare kind of Franco ending that is so open-ended that it drives you mad and forces you to meditate on the story's reality and its metaphors. I like when Franco's films are personal and still can easily convince the mainstream of his genius. I hope this film was a grindhouse smash because its one of the purest examples of drive-in aesthetics you can find. It might have been too sexy and unadulterated for most suburban drive-in's though.

Love Camp / Tropical Inferno / Women Without Innocence / Kiss Me Monster / Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun

All of the Jess Franco films I'm reviewing have a feminist edge and the first 3 are all produced by Erwin Dietrich, a Swiss who focused his productions on political subtext, extreme sexual content and moody, lavish locations. He's possibly my favorite producer Franco had in the 1970s as all of their collaborations have been strong so far.

1977's Love Camp tells the story of women abducted to be concubines for a communist rebel army. Most of the girls don't really care but our protagonist becomes torn in her heart between her bourgeois husband at home and the brutish but idealistic freedom fighter who rapes her. The film, if taken literally, will offend feminists but its merely an ironic satire of 1970s political movements, especially feminist and communist hypocrisy. Its brisk but heavy and entertaining.

78's Tropical Inferno is another Women in Prison film, this being the most brutal. The plot is a reworking of 99 Women, Sadomania and other Franco WIP films, with innocents and political radicals being oppressed by a fascist couple (a lesbian & male surgeon, naturally). But Franco is unleashed in this newest rendition, sparing no detail of gory torture or sexual manipulation. This is one of the most serious Franco films I've seen. Zero humor and the performances are as human as the production level can allow.

From the same year comes Women Without Innocence. Its the strongest WIP film of the trio with a tight, unorthodox and detailed plot, plus a supremely impressive performance from Lina Romay (who is absent from the other films). She plays a mental patient being triggered to remember details of a murder she witnessed. There's lots of bizarre subplots and very gorgeous cinematography, even for Franco. Most surprising is the unrealistic Romantic ending that the film receives. With the other 2 films it creates a satisfying dialectic where Franco delivers 3 vastly different worldviews of the same basic narrative.

The more I watch his films, the more impressed I am with this idea of "syncopated cinema" (a term coined in Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco). He returns again and again to themes, plots, characters, even locations to play jazz with broken expectations and new, biographic detail. He's not just creating new work but commenting and critiquing his old work. Its deconstructionism, self-analysis and creating a totally personal grammar of cinema from taking as little outside influence as possible. Its so much more authentic emotionally than most so-called postmodernists like Tarantino or De Palma who crib from other actors but don't actually bring much to it but fanboy or film critic commentary. Thats how Franco started out as a maker of mainstream exploitation films, but he quickly outgrew that while proudly retaining or parodying his roots in cheap mimicry. He parodies the parody he once was.

Kiss Me Monster from 1969 is evidence of this. After directing a couple decent Bond-esque spy films, Franco returned to the more liberal, hipster, feminist films he started his career with. His 2nd film ever followed the Red Lips detective agency, two cute Spanish girls who are prototype Mary Sue's, but who are so flippant and self-aware that the film becomes cute satire. KMM resurrects these characters as more mature post-oo7 super spies with a mean sense of humor and enormous sexual identity. The plot is thin and convoluted so we can have early touches of minimalism, long takes, expressionist lighting, cartooned gags and nifty dialogue. A lot of it is lost in the bland English dub, unfortunately. Still this film is worth a watch and sets up much better films. The film doesn't shy away from exposing assassination, secret societies, corrupt government officials and institutional abuses of power by elites and bottom feeders.

8 years later, Jess releases Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun. Amazing how much less money he's allowed but how much more creative freedom and experience he attained. This is why you can't down this director for working on small projects so frequently. And while Nuns isn't a masterpiece, its high above the quality of most grindhouse of what was the golden age of B-movies. Barring some heavy nods to Ken Russell & Roman Polanski and the basic theme of his own films Justine and The Bloody Judge, Nuns is a beautiful, tasteful, non-exploitative and respectful study of victimhood. Franco takes serious meditation in showing the hypocrisy of the Catholic church and decosntructing the inherent Satanic qualities of Christianity, while condemning dark occultism and libertine sadism. This film too ends with a Romantic and implausible ending, but Franco intended to show his own spiritual beliefs in karma and justice prevailing.

Apparently, Love Letters is a remake of his film The Demons. Expect a review soon! As that is a Robert De Nestle production, I'm sure its heavier on Gothic design and horror tropes. Dietrich as a producer gives Nun a polish, a cold calculated design, a sincere parallelism with Nazism that gives the film undertones of high art. This wasn't just S&M porn for German audiences. This was anti-fascist propaganda and medicine to cure the hearts and minds of survivors of institutional terror. That brave assault on German white nationalism is why this period of Franco's oeuvre ring so loudly today. He was one of cinema's great moralists and, as a villain says in Faceless, a "deep sentimentalist" underneath his spooky, sex-loving mystique.

"Budget, plot, continuity, suspense, action and drama are nonexistent. Absurdity abounds, and only Franco’s staunchest admirers will think the “comedy” is deliberate."

Thats from a review of a Franco b-movie. Dude, I think only a small handful of films weren't comedic. He worked in absurdism, deadpan, dark satire, spoof and slapstick from the very start of his career. He just learned to direct dramatically thanks to Welles. I would argue this is true of a lot of "serious" arthouse or cult directors. They are humorists.

Franco's running joke is similar to "The Aristocrats". He shows horror, immorality, insanity, transgression and personal themes of evil with the punchline that its always a mirror to society's collective Id. This he learned from Marquis de Sade and other bleak satirists like Voltaire and horror writers like Poe. Odd how so many decipher the lyrical quality of his films for biographical merit but don't see the obvious social commentary, philosophy and political-religious protest. These are the preoccupations of lifelong artists, so its beyond all critics.

Exorcism 1975 / Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein 1972

2 solid mid-tier Franco films, both stronger than they are weak.

Exorcism is a very small, restrained effort from Franco. He made it for EuroCine's Marius LeSoeur, maybe his most cheap and gritty producer of the 1970s, so its heavy on sexuality and low on plot action or even visual style. But the film is notable for 2 things: its wonderfully satiric plot & Jess Franco playing the lead. Perhaps this film is one of his most ordinary visually because he's usually the cameraman. Its a decent trade off because he IS a great on-screen performer. Jess plays a sadistic priest who mistakes a faked black mass as a real one and feels compelled to murder the participants to save them. Its a fairly lyrical, personal and darkly hilarious spoof of the Catholic church who censored and persecuted Franco for his Marquis de Sade-inspired works. It words doubly as the classic interpretation of people who can't read de Sade properly, like the murderer of Pier Paulo Pasolini. So while a minor film, Exorcism is still meaningful and effective.

Dracula Conta Frankenstein kind of blew me away. Its a campy tribute to old Universal horror films, intentionally absurd and yet evocative of the great influence those monster movies had on Franco's cinema. What do I mean? The film is packed full of mood, grim images, violence, archetypal villains and sorcerors. But its rendered in a cartoon style. The film is almost completely a silent film. Franco admits that he was inspired by Eerie horror comics and stages everything in the same rigid but larger-than-life style. DCF has some of Franco's most inspired direction outside of his more personal work. This is pulpy commercialism obviously, but Franco is having fun and is a real fan of the genre he's mocking. I can't tell if I like this more than its sequels Daughter of Dracula & Erotic Rites of Frankenstein. Its a perfect synthesis of both. Its probably a much more lavish and cohesive film than both.

I have to say I was disappointed that both films showed animal cruelty. I would've hoped Franco was kinder than this, but he did come from a totally different time and place, so I won't judge given his other philosophical contributions, but its very sad and disturbing. Be warned.

Broken Dolls 1999

Broken Dolls is maybe my favorite Franco film. It's his most personal, following the family of an incestual father who has damaged his aging family members sexually (a lesbian sadist mother, a whore wannabe-Aryan daughter, a transgender simpleton daughter and the passive voyeur of abuse and sex in... Franco's viewer) creating in the film's form a dark meditative erotic film that is only erotic in that it's not real, thanks to Jess' Id-developed "dream" aestheticism. But the subtext is so personal that it never turns pornographic but flows as a harsh analysis of the psychosexual and Hegelian dialectic, thus being a true work of Marxist rebellion to the white patriarchal binaries of Romanticism, religion, modernism, structuralism and all of the ruling empire moralities of hate, inequality and evil. In desecrating his father, Franco finds late in life catharsis to his original issues with women and intimacy.

This film, while professing a Jungian study of family archetypes, is one of the most Freudian works of cinema with Jess casting his own girlfriend as his mother. In this way, he draws scary parallels to his own father to address his conflicted relationship to him. The final scene is one of the most moving I've ever seen.

Lighting makes the acting. Actors need something to play off and light or shadow is the freest choice a director can give their subjects. It also serves the vanity of actors and especially actresses to step out of themselves and reveal what is left out of their on-screen character. But it's best released with subtle cues and minimal directing.

Every Lina Romay film is an abstract remake of Female Vampire. And Jess Franco knew what he was starting when he chose her for the role because each lead actress or actor, he creates an original plot to suit his impression of them on film. He plays jazz with story as the baseline. It frees him to be as loose as the narrative expectations are rigid. He deconstructs and journalists his emotional and intellectual sound through the changing collage of imagery he chooses to create.

Movies still strike me as the most spiritual experience outside of active living. It's so passive yet alive with hyper realism. Empathetic transposition of a catalogued soul's impression of self through sheer meaningless materialism. Poetry. But how many auteurs are artists? Not just technical stylists who imitate innovations or spark recycled trends. How many masters of the craft? If Freemasonry was real, why aren't these new Illuminati films, ya know, good?

Disney made some cool movies from time to time, but always by whitewashing some cultural history or painting some damaging untrue romanticized revisionist history. But Brave Little Toaster was my shit. And Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is some surreal industrial materialism. Toy Story is good. These feel catering to the new left revolution, while transgressing and utilizing the empire studio's vast capitalist resources. But these good movies were usually brought to Disney and funded the really lame rightwing military mother nurse fantasy and cast rates men into anonymous plastic Ken dolls. There's some insidious practice in exploiting children for gross personal gain. The young consumer is uninformed and doesn't care about price and youre putting a price on their parents love. And to make a profit, the consumer can't purchase anything worth its value. So we have an indoctrination into libertarian capitalist materialism, which is nihilistic and not above buying the government for unfair monopoly of market control. This why Ayn Rand's system of objectivism is so dangerous. It passes blame onto the other to fix a shared system. Socialism is for the people and by the people when it's truly communistic.

Salo of the 120 Days of Sodom 1975

Pier Paulo Pasolini died for cinematic expression. He made films so challenging that someone killed him over it. It seems ludicrous but his final film is such a testament to honesty and fearless protest that you have to say Pasolini's death was worth it. He became a martyr.

In a decade of such unspeakable evil and corruption and many films that tackled it head on, Salo stands apart. It doesn't name names or even have to point in the right direction of the elite oppressors. It simply holds up a mirror to evil and lets the audience figure out who the monsters are. Every scene of this film is part of a sober and academic study of the structure of government and capitalist abuse of power. The very psychology and methodology of exploitation and sadomasochism are laid out in a realist horror film, an anti-porno, a satire of the worst tragedies. And the result is a truly hilarious and moving work of beauty.

Whats scary is how much of Pasolini is in the film... and how much of everyone is in this film. We, as victims of the social game, all empathize with both sides of the madness, the victims and the predators. Because the evil protagonists of this film are the protected and aspired to leaders of our world throughout the course of human history. When its "dog eat dog", the puppy is a snack and the closest thing to a hero is the closest thing to a wolf.

Are the shocking events in this film to be taken as metaphor or as presumed realistic accounts? It doesn't matter. Because the ideas exist and the systems of society let them exist. Total freedom is not the same as total morality. Total power is not the same as total superiority. How can anyone find a fabricated film so offensive but be utterly apathetic to the reality that inspired it? Pasolini's murderer only confirmed that the truth won't just set you free. It might drive you mad. Welcome to the mad world.

Vixen 1968

For better and worse, Russ Meyer was the original Quentin Tarantino. He was a smooth talking hipster who made loud, funky movies that were immensely popular with a generation of young people because he embraced the sleaze and bad attitude they desired. But like Tarantino, Meyer didn't have much to say on anything. His films have no philosophical or political or even genuinely emotional or sexual wisdom to share. Cynically but cleverly disguised, their films are about pissing off the censors in hopes for shock value.

Vixen is incredibly well-produced and edited in an upbeat way that still plays easily. But its also a string of pointless (and dated) scenes of sex & violence with lame ass hipster lingo stitching it together. That makes its moronic and offensive kitsch seem like high, even arty camp when its not.

The plot of Vixen is that this spoiled, untamed, proud white trash republican chick has no sexual taboos. She cheats on her husband, has a lesbian fling and even seduces her brother, but she won't have sex with black people. Her racism is accepted and she doesn't really grow out of it or see error in it. Her enemy is the black boy her brother brings home. She insults, demeans and humiliates him throughout the film until he decides to sell her and all of his white "friends" to join the Communist Party. Racism is mean but communism would be evil. Russ Meyer has some ludicrous long dialogue where Cuba is modeled as a true picture of communism and only rich white men prosper because their fascism is somehow the same as Russia's?! Keep in mind that Meyer never once explains how capitalism is better and he foolishly identifies the opposite of socialism to be "democracy". The entire film comes from this embarrassing, delusional, dated rightwing macho patriotism that seeded today's so-called Libertarian Party in the United States. Most ironically is that Vixen only works as a film because of the furious editing techniques cribbed from Soviets.

I respect Russ Meyer for making some interesting, entertaining and sometimes insightful gems while on the outskirts of Hollywood, but he was a bigoted idiot just exploiting the hippie and feminist waves of filmmaking for pussy and dollars. Not my comrade.

Macumba Sexual 1983 / Voodoo Passion 1977 / Revenge in the House of Usher 1983 / Devil Hunter 1980 / Death Whistles to the Blues 1964 / Mondo Cannibal 1980 / How Seduce a Virgin 1974 / Mansion of the Living Dead 1982 / Fall of the Eagles 1989 / Dr. Orloff's Monster 1964 / The Awful Dr. Orloff 1962

11 Jess Franco reviews for you, bitch... Franco-mania!

Macumba Sexual is an almost masterpiece. Franco remakes "Vampyros Lesbos" with a transgender theme! Replacing the irreplaceable Soledad Miranda is the commanding Ajita Wilson, the most beautiful black she-male in cinema history. She's seducing Lina Romay (as her blonde actress title "Candy Coaster") to take her role as some pan-sexual goddess of lust. The plot is low on incident and keeps to maybe 3 locations, all around a hotel. Its a breathtaking experience despite this, gorgeous and alive with subversive sexual metaphors. Throughout the film, Lina is haunted by physical objects
that are both masculine and feminine at the same time while Franco never hides the fact that Ajita is transgender. He attacks the gender binary and really scrambles what an erotic horror film can be. For him this is an exploitative ride to attack homophobia and sexual insecurity. I don't know if its respectful to trans people, but I think its firmly on their side and is the most brave, entertaining and early examples of the subject in cinema.

Voodoo Passion is likewise a minor classic. Playing similarly to both "Virgin Among the Living Dead" and the formula of "Succubus" and "Nightmares Come at Night", I think Voodoo Passion plays better than all three. It has an impressive production, flawless cinematography, a beautiful score, truly erotic sex scenes, a game cast and some fabulous direction. It also irons out some flaws in the highly disjointed narratives of those previous films. You could only dock it points for being predictable, but Jess provides enough twists visually and narratively that you can call this a successful jazz variation.

Revenge/Usher is "final level Franco". You can't appreciate this until you know his oeuvre, biography and financial limitations. I would call it something of a no-budget masterpiece if Eurocine producers didn't poorly edit it into the kitsch it is today. Franco shot a fairly personalized but tonally correct version of Poe's classic with no budget. Had Jess had a few dollars more, it would be comparable to his Dracula. But Eurocine didn't like it, added 10 minutes of footage from Dr Orloff(!) and then added poorly done inserts to try and smooth it out. They did the same to "Virgin" apparently. If you know the story behind this film, its quite an eye-opener and an amazing demonstration of Franco's genius, but this is NOT for casual fans or horror fans.

Devil Hunter is a solid Eurotrash ride. Its a camp spoof of racist cannibal films made in Italy at the time and it still works as an anti-racist horror film. Franco shows great kindness for black people in his films, especially primitive tribes. This film paints the white characters as just as barbaric and maybe twice as depraved. Like the transgressive bits of transgenderism in Macumba, Franco displays his radicalism not in preachy dialogue, righteous characters or obvious gestures. He uses the power of ironic montage, contrast, dialectical materialism that he learned as a young admirer of Eisenstein. Devil Hunter is surprisingly long and quite absurdist, but its an epic enjoyment for his fans or anyone who is in on the joke. Also, just remember that the bug-eyed native is essentially "Morpho". This will make sense later...

Death/Blues is a small political thriller from Franco's early film period. Its gorgeous, well-paced and extremely heavy on dialogue. While its a refreshing break from many films of its time, it lacks the unique style that Franco would patent later. But it still has his hallmarks: anti-racism, proletariat sympathies, revenge, a sexy tropical atmosphere and a good soundtrack. Its evidence of Franco's ability to handle your regular commercial film but such a solid B&W caper is a footnote to his career and thats a compliment. I still recommend it for the time capsule appeal and the biographical nature of the story.

Mondo Cannibal is known as a piece of shit, but it has its moments. Its hated by fans of the cannibal genre because its low on gore, cannibals and action. But the plot is quite good and would be resurrected for "Diamonds...". This film is a bit of a chore because its maybe Franco's slowest and least artistic film, but it has (shockingly) some of the best photography of this period and the real sell is Sabrina Siani, who is inhumanly attractive and naked throughout the film. I wish this film was as progressive as the other Franco jungle films, but its no big loss because all of the natives are played by Italians! Actually, I suspect that was a joke and that the film is lampooning Italians taste for gore and their rampant anti-black racism. I've heard Franco diss Italian directors for their desire to be seen as white/American and this film is his rejection of the Italian schlock directors he is still lumped in with. In retrospect, this film was an intentionally "bad" anti-gore film.

How to Seduce a Virgin is a not-as-strong remake of the exquisite Eugenie, but it has its areas of supremacy. The sexual content here is excellent, the cast is different but equal, the production is smaller but more moody. This is kind of a dark X-rated doppelganger of a classic. There are some plot tweaks and maybe the best substitution is Lina Romay as the helpless minion. This might be her best role, likewise the underrated Alice Arno.

Mansion/Living Dead is basically a re-do of Bloody Moon, but serving Franco's sensibilities. We have some sexy Spanish girls at a hotel with a slasher. I still prefer Moon, but Mansion is close in quality. It leans towards a smaller, more absurd plot and a more hypnotic, dreamy style of directing. What Mansion does have is better dialogue, sexier lesbian action and a phenomenal female gimp character who steals the entire film each time she arrives. This film becomes a personal account of Franco's relationship with Lina and his own guilt in keeping this much younger, wilder woman to himself, a rather bookish man of small means. Many films from this period revolve around their real world romantic dynamic, its up's and down's and sadomasochism. Lina is more than a muse in these films. She's a strong actress with the unique gift of having a film told through her and about her.

Fall of the Eagles is the cheapest Franco film I've ever seen. It literally a couple really well-directed scenes about a Nazi love triangle before, during and after WW2 with some stock footage linking it together. The performances are strong from Christopher Lee and Mark Hamill (TWO fucking Jedi's directed by the guy who helped inspire Yoda!!!!) while Joe Estavez's son gives what might be the worst acting performance ever. The entire film is so uneven yet so watchable, a perfect time waster. Considering it cost nothing, I didn't feel cheated. It reminds me of the much worse Full Moon films that obsessively use WW2 as a backdrop. Despite its many limitations, Eagles IS a very serious, crafted and poignant story.

Dr Orloff's Monster is a well-made little thriller, way more conservative than its radical predecessor, but it introduces some important tropes into the Franco canon: adultery turning to murder (But Who Raped Linda?) and a young girl inheriting a dark castle of evil secrets (Virgin..., Daughter of Dracula). The plot and style of this film provides the gist of the much more entertaining Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, but you won't be disappointed in the noir-esque photography and what was once groundbreaking treatment of sex and violence. But its no match for...

The Awful Dr. Orloff. Finally I review the one that made Jess Franco a famous international genre director. I've watched it before but its much better with more context of what it spawned. Its been written that Orloff is a rip-off of Eyes Without a Face. Franco denies it and I believe him as The Brain That Wouldn't Die is also ridiculously similar to these two films. I think we have a case of 3 people thinking the same thing at once: surgical horror. They all were deconstructing Gothic horror films and predicting the rise of abused plastic surgery. Eyes is the classiest of the 3, Brain the most vulgar and Franco's little film is a perfect blend of both. Its evident how much the suggestive dialogue and rape-themed violence was in such a Catholic, conservative culture. And this is really the most expressionist and epic film of Franco's career. Its just a finely directed old school horror film that no one can fault. But Francophiles will take sweet pleasure in how personal the film reveals itself to be all these years later.

We witness the birth of Franco's most personal and repeated plot device: The Master and Slave. Dr Orloff (who would return so many times) is a mad surgeon based on Jess' army doctor father and in extension the Generalissimo Franco. He's an affluent, cruel, bourgeois monster, but physically and emotionally human in every way. Early on its revealed that his deep seated obsession with female flesh comes from his own insecurity about control, aging and dying. This rings as a confession of Jess' later lustful work as Orloff's violence is carried out by his demeaned bug-eyed relative, "Morpho". This is an obvious placeholder for Jess and Jess would even play the Morpho role in following films. Is Franco's entire filmography as actor/director his working through a tyrannical Father complex? Definitely.

This film has a solid climax but the rather hollow Dr Orloff's Monster might be even more personal as that film ends with the Morpho monster actually striking down the evil father character. Now read into Orloff killing women to preserve the image of his own daughter? (Or sister in "Faceless") The maternal side of Franco's anxieties would be explored in Jack the Ripper, sibling & daughter incest would pop up later. Having a Mexican father and Cuban mother, I suspect Jess' mother was dark-skinned, explaining his fetish for light skin but his distanced but bleeding heart for darker skinned women. Its so obvious why he found special balance in Soledad Miranda and then Lina Romay. The strange abusive childhood Jess had with some 8 siblings in a fascist militaristic surgeon's home spawned a lifetime of traumatic confessions on celluloid and video. The racial tension between his parents and the mixed heritage in Latin communities also left a huge impact on the little Jesus, turning him to jazz, political radicalism and becoming a malcontent who purposely deprived his genius from popularity.

I hope this sad but beautiful little genius is at peace now and that this amazing body of work will live on forever and become more legendary than it already is.

I'm watching Devil Hunter after recent Jess Franco watches Death Whistles the Blues, Mondo Cannibale and How to Seduce a Virgin.

I'm immediately struck by that zoned out, robotic but entrancing acting that characterizes later Franco. He admits that he asked untrained actors to do as little as possible because he didn't have time to coach them properly as actors. But when he had budgets and time, he got amazing performances quite steadily. Franco is the quintessential fast shooter of quality.

The Forbidden Zone 1980

Holds up. Fits along with the work of R. Crumb and David Lynch as post-hippie/punk deconstruction of WW2 kids culture. The frightening messages and imagery of Howdy Doody, racist cartoons and deadening B&W TV are satirized and recontextualized as some Hellish black mirror of our own universe... or something.

The film is well-known nowadays for being Danny Elfman's first score, but his brother Richard Elfman is a fantastic first time director. Like Rocky Horror, this was a stoned stage show put to film, but its extremely cinematic and alive technically. I don't think its accidental that its closer in effect to the classic surrealist cinema than any cartoon or musical or 80s spoof. Is it serious art or spoof? Both. You have to list John Waters as an influence on this type of camp.

The Omega Man 1971

I rewatched this seminal One Man Army vs Collectivism movie from Charleton Heston to see if it held up. Heston became an embarrassing gun freak and unapologetic white nationalist as an old senile man, but was once a popular actor who supported civil rights and had clever sociopolitical themes in his somewhat meatheaded action spectacles. He was the Arnold Swarzeneggar of his day. A smart Republican who wanted to do right by America. He's at least better than John Wayne.

Omega Man is superbly directed by Boris Sagal (father of Katey) and written with sly care by two 60s college professors. Based liberally on Matheson's anti-communist vampire epic I Am Legend (which inspired the better, more democratic Night of the Living Dead), this version is maybe the most topical to Trumpism. Heston plays a violent, paranoid psychotic pit against a not-hippie-but-totally-hippie band of mutants who survived WW3 after those dirty commies in Russia and China spread a fatal virus. The film claims they're after his "honky paradise". Our hero is an Ayn Randian pillar of excellence and individualism. The film is conservative but not far rightwing. Heston trashes footage of Woodstock and makes lots of lame White Man's Burden jests, but eventually befriends some kindly hippie kids who he can mold in his image. He literally dies in a ridiculous camp Jesus sacrifice but his sacrifice saves the world. Thats at least a departure from Rand where the hero wouldn't help anyone if it meant selflessness. Omega Man was meant to be some fluffy NeoLiberal "let's all get a long" turn towards traditional capitalistic nationalism and away from poststructuralism and Marxism on hippie campuses.

The film is offensive in many cases. It has some dry and dated views on race relations that weren't all that cute or nice even then. Heston's black female sidekick first appears in a visual joke where she's an "exotic" safari animal/trophy at the end of his hunting gun. The entire film plays like a paranoid white male power fantasy as Heston guns down the evil masses, expounds on the majesty of Western achievement and casts dour blame on all those evil foreigners who caused the apocalypse. I know that this film is one of Alex Jones' favorite films and its no shock. Its written as militaristic Christian propaganda that tries to be more inclusive and learned than its predecessor, but somehow ends up more vulgar and dumb. Like lots of 80s action films, it plays like gun porn for mass shooters on delusional solitary missions from "God".

But I still cherish this film as unironic document of American white male psychosis. There's a great featurette on the DVD that confirms that the at least Heston and Sagal knew they were negatively critiquing the mad patriarchal violence that had just killed JFK and MLK. Thats where this film is important and redeeming. Is this Jesus ending a piece of camp; intentional kitsch to mock Christian values? Its very possible as Sagal, a Jew, directs the film with too much bitter humor and unpleasant commentary to make it a dumb God & guns commercial. Its a study of the Jesus complex, a forerunner to Taxi Driver and Falling Down. It maybe asks wayyyy too much that we relate or worship this American psycho rather than fear it a'la Hitchcock. But in playing safely to the middle American yokels, its compromised effect is still decent. The film is stylish, brutal and even a bit creepy.

This film is not brilliant or even politically correct, but it was once progressive for a very conservative world. Its somehow more impressive than a film like 2017's Logan which has the same meathead republican morals, but Omega Man has the excuse of being old. Its way too gray morally and has a shitty view of utopia and an even shittier view of who the bad guys are, but its good kitsch.  

Mel Gibson is having a "comeback" but the last 3 major independent successes (12 Years a Slave, Moonlight, Get Out) were directed by black men who still haven't been offered a major movie.

Racism is openly displayed in media to help the pyramid from any black revolt by letting white men, no matter how insidious or inept, have free reign of the sandbox. They have the only voice that gets universal distribution and preferential treatment.

Disney, suck my DC

Comic books follow an almost identical logic and grammar as cinematic montage (just minus motion, sound and photography), yet none of these boring superhero movies feel like a comic book... except the recently corporately-produced comic books that feel like bad TV shows.

The Shape of Water is maybe a good movie, maybe an AMAZING movie, but judging from the people who have championed it, it feels like some oversold piece of fluff to steal Get Out's thunder.

"Some self-hating White Beauty and the Dark Beast bullshit thats exactly like everything the director's ever done" > "Rejection of abusive binary relationships and white female racism, written and directed by a black 1st time director"?

You're kidding yourself, Klan.

Disney has started some disgusting #WhatBlackPantherMeansToMe tag to congratulate themselves for remaking Thor Ragnarok with a black cast and smaller budget. Sure this is progress, but its still so far behind where big studios should be. How about an all black movie not based on a white created superhero? How about a serious adult work of art with stars PRODUCED by a black person? They won't allow that. Maybe "Exec. Producer" hahahaha

netflix

I'm using my mom's Netflix just to see what the fuss is for. Social media seems bought by Netflix as they ignore every other streaming or cable network. Netflix was once a good investment, where I watched dozens of foreign, classic or underground films. Now it's MTV for movies. Everything is aimed at teens, minorities and "alternative" liberals. It's pandering. The oldest films are maybe from the late 80s. This is poor education/entertainment for the youth and its insultingly cheap of Netflix to pad their service with so much crap to center on maybe 5 quality original shows. Netflix is just another TV channel. Maybe hipper than anything out there, but it's still shit.

I've watched more of Jesus Franco's filmography and I'm still enraptured by the amazing level of skill vs his utter obscurity. I watched many lengthy interviews with the late master and was happily surprised to learn his biography is what I expected. He has a sensitivity to brown skinned people and young exploited women because of his Cuban mother and has an intense dislike of military and sadism because of his army doctor father. He resents the Vatican for its censorship and the rightwing for their disenfranchisement of his mentor the Marxist director Berlana. He was the best student of Soviet montage in his film school but originally got into film for a living to support his jazz career as a social anarchist. He references Libertarianism positively, but this is the more liberal, socialized party of Europe. He's anti-capitalism and against slavery, sadism, censorship and controls and loss of choice and corporatized undemocratic free markets. He hates totalitarian, fascist tyranny from all institutions, so he doesn't even identify as a political filmmaker. He is a social critic and amateur philosopher with an insanely diverse private education in literature, aesthetics, government, history, race, everything that the European middle class arthouses promoted 50 years ago but the American mainstream is only now accepting.

But I'm still confused as to why he was never approached by a Roger Corman, Cannon or more forward-thinking producers of exploitative world cinema. He had a minor moment as a U.K. director and some films ran successfully enough in the U.S. theaters and even earned fans from future film legends like Roman Polanski & Roger Ebert. Fritz Lang loved "Succubus" and even met Jess for what I assume was a powerfully educational & influential chat. And everyone knows Jess was one of Orson Welles' assistants for a year or two.

Without any confirmation, its just a logical conclusion that he inspired a generation of more famous and successful European genre filmmakers like Bava, Jose Mojica Marins ("Coffin Joe"), Fulci, D'Amato, Rollin and probably much bigger independent directors. Cinephiles love him and directors are some of the biggest cinephiles. But why didn't he get more support from other filmmakers? Its as if he was blacklisted by that ruling Hollywood corporate elite in the 60s/70s/80s. Look what they did to Polanski, a similar European director who attempted to uncover bourgeois Satanic cultism and was left a persecuted, destroyed, ghettoized artist working in soft erotica for a buck. I see Nicolas Winding Refn following that path and joining artists like Takashi Miike who were just too indie. Maybe I'm dramatic and Franco simply chose to work in grindhouses, but thats just the popular excuse by so-called "lovers of bad film". Why is he compared to an Ed Wood when he was so profoundly popular, prolific and positive?

Racism? Nationalism? Capitalism? All of the above? Something else? Whatever the reason, it feels like cinema's biggest injustice that this master was relegated to such tiny budgets and grimy theaters throughout the 2/3rds of his career. He was ahead of his time and is the exact prototype of the artistic genre filmmakers that film schools create now. He was the original "film school brat" that Hollywood catered to in the 1970s and 80s. Perhaps they are involved in keeping he and other world directors out. I certainly assume a group of 5/6 powerful young players who watch everything foreign probably appropriated ideas from Franco and others while conveniently letting them fade into obscurity. Its like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, Elvis.

Jesus Franco definitely created a synthesis style from jazz, Euro and American cinema, Gothic literature and his own life, but he doesn't get the credit he deserves for helping create the modern horror film, the modern erotic film, the modern action film and the modern film, period. Cross genre films with multinational casts, testy sex and violence and a mix of highbrow culture and lowbrow geek obsessions. Fuck an Oscar or Walk of Fame star. Jess Franco deserves the best tribute Hollywood can give: a biography.

Blood of the Poet 1932 / The Brown Bunny 2003

I've seen Jean Cocteau's seminal film before but I was too dazed & delighted by the camp and absurdity to understand the meanings, but this recent watch was a really emotional education on the history of film grammar's development in surrealist montage. Silent film demanded more profoundly visual language to exceed its limits and also elevate its trappings. No shock that Cocteau's passionate experimental narrative is a post-Marx, proto-postmodern manifesto of Surrealism's social mystic mission to create a political status quo of equality and intellectual honesty. Its more than the typical propaganda film or empty whimsy or technical masturbation we got then and still get now. This a lyrical expression of existentialism for the poet turned auteur director.

Brown Bunny I have seen multiple times and I have a soft spot for it, but it is closer to egocentric masturbation. Vincent Gallo is a learned classical-style director but he can't get beyond his own endless self-reflection to say anything about the world. This is his tribute to Italian NeoRealism but missing all of the resonating substance beyond the Self. His rightwing politics are never explicitly referenced and thus more present in their highlighted absence.

Its not terrible. Its flawlessly directed but the loose script could've been even more loose if it had more powerful moments. There are many great technical directors and clever auteurs like this, but they tend to swing towards a more exploitative commercialist Libertarian view of film capitalism. They don't want help for themselves OR OTHERS but aren't totally socially conservative or fiscally liberal. They are your democratic republicans, "moderates". Opposed to corporately global NeoLiberalism violently, but also global Marxism simply for Nationalist or capitalist reasons.

But are they pure filmmakers? American indie directors like Jerry Lewis, Dennis Hopper, Troma, David Lynch, Russ Meyer, Scorsese, John Waters all started as Middle American conservatives who became more urban and liberal but muted their political radicalism maybe until it was too late. And thus their early work or even later work focus solely on exploiting the current situation instead of making progressive statements about wide subjects. (* I can't say that for Waters, Lynch and maybe recent Troma but...)  Conservative directors are focused only on personal subjects, selfish reflections and by default engage in a white nationalist patriarchy that their elder artists were against in the early 20th century. And so their art is often a stale copy, a remodernist painting of a true classic. Thats the Brown Bunny.

And this moderate, middle-of-the-road, non-committal statement of moral ambiguity and emotional grayness is the desired effect, a kind of racist stereotyping by Gallo. The title alludes to Gallo's isolated identity as a minority in a white political party and a member of a mixed blood race he has unhappy connection to. He sticks to mediocrity out of self-identifying, not recognizing the oppression of structuralism's false binaries. The film is thus a mix of classical and jazz tones, primitivism and futurism, disgust with white skin and comfort in it. This is racial self-hatred, shame, guilt and dysmorphia is so apparent and yet still not totally self-aware. There's a kitsch to this. Gallo follows in the long line of Latin directors exploring this unexamined, whitewashed and often demonized racial identity of "not being white enough", but he fears to confront it with anger, dread or revolution. Just fear and resolution.

Because of the commercial artist nature of the film industry, its attracted many talent producers who are capitalists first and artists second. They simply became unleashed independent voices when their commercial careers fizzled. That lends them better philosophy and craft than Hollywood puppet filmmakers, but they aren't totally opposed to the system and try to avoid conflict. Gallo made this film as a protest for his lack of Hollywood offers after the immediate cult success of Buffalo 66. But its a parody of his own narcissism, but still a textured and well-crafted one.

Gallo's Brown Bunny owes itself to many European, Asian and American filmmakers who opposed the apolitical theater he creates with their influences. Its the lazy postmodernism that De Palma and Tarantino often delve into, but they usually have something to say politically or socially beyond the wallpapering of references and gags. Gallo's message is just misanthropic rejection, hate and lack of empathy. He's a damaged man and thats what he wants to show. But does he work through it in his art? Does he arrive at any answers on-screen? Like the similar career of Crispin Glover, this a lot of provocative navel-gazing that is almost exhilarating and has some manufactured beauty, but its too derivative of better work. Its not a time-waster and in many ways I prefer The Brown Bunny to most films. But no one should be shocked this film was badly reviewed and may slip into obscurity. With his sensitivity, intelligence and skill, I hope Gallo finishes his directorial career with a real masterpiece that shows maturity and moral responsibility he performed in Buffalo 66.