Sunday,
March 14, 2010
(next of kin)
American pop culture is in a weird place. On the one hand, it's more fractured than ever, with the internet and hundreds of cable/satellite channels and the means of production and distribution being affordable to the average schmoe. At the same time, it's also more homogenized—the same movies get shown everywhere at the same time.
Once upon a time, a movie would be opened in just a few cities, and if it did well and the buzz was positive, it would go into wider release. This still happens with much smaller films (one of my favorite movies from last year, Big Fan, didn't play theatrically much outside of San Francisco), but the majority of mainstream movies open everywhere at once.
Right now, you can go pretty much anywhere in the country and find a Best Buy, a Marshalls, a Starbucks or twelve, and a movie theater playing Tim Burton's new crappy-looking Alice in Wonderland. The first movie to open wide, in fact, was Steven Spielberg's Jaws.
Up until the seventies and Jaws and the birth of the modern blockbuster age, movie distribution was a much more regional affair. Movies were created and sold to specific markets, to exploit what those audiences wanted to see. Ah, the golden days of the exploitation film. Anyway, the first five minutes of this clip from Tim Burton's Ed Wood (his best film ever, thank you drive through) is a decent summary of the system:
"I already presold Alabama and Oklahoma. Those repressed oakies, they go for that twisted, perverted stuff."
True then, and probably true now. At the time, however, the South was a major market for exploitation movies, and more than that, they liked seeing movies about the South. Movies made for these audiences seldom played in the rest of the country—who would want to see them—and are referred to as Hicksploitation. (I actually don't know if that's what they were called at the time. Probably not, because it feels kinda retconny, like something a modern writer coined to be clever. But it's an awesome word either way.)
The great explotation director Herschell Gordon Lewis ("great" in the sense of that he was prolific and groundbreaking, not in the sense that he was any good as a director, because he wasn't) knew this market well, and his followup to his groundbreaking gore film Blood Feast was a classic example of selling to that audience while still having a broader appeal. It also has the best theme song EVAR. I refer, of course, to his 1964 masterpiece Two Thousand Maniacs!:
Indeed, though he's mostly remembered today for his gore films, Lewis's very next movie Moonshine Mountain (also 1964, because why wait?) was pure Hicksploitation minus the blood:
(Quick poll: who else will always associate moonshine with The Dukes of Hazzard? Yeah, i knew I wasn't the only one.)
Hicksploitation continued on into the seventies, though the budgets got slightly bigger and some of the actors became movie stars, like ol' Burt:
He was also in what's probably the last great Hicksploitation film, and certainly the most in famous one, the mainstream Deliverance. Yeah, the one with the squealing.
Thanks to video and the end of regional film distribution and a general changing of the American cultural tide, the genre was pretty well dead as a genre by 1989, when this week's feature came out.
And if it hadn't been dead, this movie would have killed it.
Your hosts Jim Fourniadis, Tristan Buckner and Wylie Herman
will make sure the South doesn't rise again.
Upcoming Phlegms:
March 21, 2010
Steel Dawn
According to the movie poster, he is the desert warrior, carving the future with his sword. I'm pretty sure the sword is his penis.
Phallic wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, Dan Foley and other road warriors.
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| Bad Movie Night's Fifth Anniversary! |
March 28, 2010
Red Dawn
Patrick Swayze (not pictured here) plays a high-school football player leading a bunch of kids in a battle against multicultural commies.
Fun fact: being our anniversary show, this will be the sixth time we've done this movie.
Socialized wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Tristan Buckner, Jim Fourniadis and other Wolverines!!!11!!1
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April 4, 2010
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton in a very, very seventies movie sorta kinda not really based on Abbey Road. Or maybe it was Pet Sounds? One of those Rolling Stones albums.
Bell-bottomed wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Jim Fourniadis, Mike Spiegelman, and other lovely meter maids.
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April 11, 2010
Purple Rain
Animals strike curious poses, what with the heat between me and you.
Paisley pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Mikl-Em, Dan Foley and other glam slammers.
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April 18, 2010
Michael Jackson's Moonwalker
Gwen Stefani was right—this shit is bananas. Sure, she was referring to something else entirely, but it doesn't change the fact that this movie is B-A-N-A-N-A-S.
Wackiness which is neither bad, dangerous nor invincible ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, Maura Sipila and other Neverlanders.
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April 25, 2010
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
Spoiler alert: Snape is actually a good guy. (Or is that a different series?)
Pubescent pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, The Cock-Ts and other dropouts.
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May 2, 2010
I am Legend
Will Smith battles vampires in post-apocalyptic New York—with sass!
Fabled wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman and other myths.
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May 9, 2010
Bad Boys II
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence battle druglords—with sass!
Explodey pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Mikl-Em, Tristan Buckner and other not-so-good people.
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May 16, 2010
I, Robot
Will Smith battles robots—with sass!
Postironic wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, Tim Kay and other Uncanny Valley-dwellers.
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May 23, 2010
Wild Wild West
Will Smith and Kevin Kline battle a mad scientist and his giant metal spider—with sass!
Mild pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Mikl-Em, Maura Sipila and other westerners.
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May 30, 2010
Seven Pounds
Will Smith battles...um...well, we're not really sure. Existential ennui or jellyfish or something. But he does it with sass!
One hundred and twelve ounces of wackiness ensue.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, Dan Foley and other stingers.
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June 6, 2010
Star Trek: Nemesis
A bald guy fights his clone, who is also bald. Which makes them both like penises (like Swayze's sword!). What we're trying to say is, it's pretty gay.
Wackiness boldly ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, Ziad Ezzat and other new lifeforms.
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June 13, 2010, 6pm Special Event (in a box!):
Rhiannon and Sherilyn's
Star Wars Trilogy
Birthday Sleepover!
To celebrate Rhiannon and Sherilyn's birthday(s), we're going to riff on the first three Star Wars movies, the ones that (mostly) didn't suck.
Bring your jammies and blankets and get cozy.
Necking with the birthday girls encouraged.
Forceful wackiness will ensue. SHOW BEGINS AT 6PM, BITCHES.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Rhiannon Charisse and...
| 6pm: Star Wars - | Ziad Ezzat |
| 8pm: The Empire Strikes Back - | Mike Speigelman |
| 10pm: Return of the Jedi - | Mikl-Em |
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June 21, 2010
The Chronicles of Riddick
Vin Diesel (again with the baldies!) makes a horrible career choice, making this sequel to Pitch Black instead of the sequel to xXx or The Fast and the Furious. (Then again, maybe he was screwed no matter what.)
Gleaming wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, Dan Foley and other chromedomes.
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June 28, 2010
Planet of the Apes (2001)
Remember when Tim Burton's movies were creative and interesting and usually didn't suck? This film is not from that time period.
Wackiness ensues in a madhouse—a madhouse!!!
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Mikl-Em and other damn dirty apes.
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