Approximation of a Top 30

[ie]

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! was on Turner Classic Movies, and I thought you might want to know that I thought it was great. A revelation, perhaps?

Of note was the fact that bookending the movie were clips of your typical conservative movie snob interviewing a fashion designer guy who brought in a night of movies for them to talk about (it was double-featured with The Philadelphia Story). The snob's reaction to the movie was typical, but it still had some decent information, I suppose. Nice though that there were no spoilers in the lead up, and more talk about Meyer than the movie in the follow-up, but still, the movie was great to see, even bearing the heat. My ice cream was melting within the first ten minutes, and there wasn't even any nudity.

Also, you say you like the introduction, Lord? All I got was just a black screen with some lines. Looked fancy enough to where I didn't think it could have been censored out, but after this talk of them dancing around... I think they did cut it a bit here and there. Thus why there was no nudity... (I know the movie doesn't have much, but they could've cut a nipple or some fuzz).

What'd I miss?

[lordofdance]

I saw this on VHS awhile back, but I still recall the opening "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to violence" or someything like that, and then BAM! there's the go dancers and that guy yelling KILL! KILL! while they boogied. Didn't you catch that, or was I imagining it? There wasn't any nudity that I recall. It comes close, but there's never any naughty parts on display.

My favorite part is when that annoying girl that they kidnap does that dance (before her boyfriend gets wasted). I rewatched that part six or seven times.

[ie]

Huh, I guess they did censor that, because all it had was a bunch of lines that looked like reverb on a guitar or something. No nudity is still fine by me.


What do you think of the Holy Mountain? I'm about forty-five minutes in right now, and holy mountain, it is one the coooolest movies ever made. ;D ;D ;D

Also, I saw Mo - the Boxer's Omen. It's... really weird. It's not quite a martial arts movie, it's not quite a low-brow low-fi science fiction epic, and it's not quite a porno. I did like it, though, the thought just kind of popped into my head toward the end "I need to see the Holy Mountain right away."

edit: In case you didn't see elsewhere, the Holy Mountain made my Top 20, easily.

[ie]

Also, if you use BitTorrent at all, I highly recommend Cinemageddon for your private (free registration, but once they hit 4000 users, they're closing it up) tracking needs.

Here are my bookmarks, over at the website, at the moment: Five Deadly Venoms (dubbed), Rabid Grannies, Manos: The Hands of Fate, Tetsuo 2, Boss Nigger, Electric Dragon 80.000V, a collection of the Zombi movies, Emanuelle in America, Foxy Brown, Coffy, Caligula, Three Outlaw Samurai and Naked Killer.

They do have some fancy snobby movies as well, but I don't notice.

[criterionmaster]

i listened to you and rented ms. 45, going to watch it now. i will come back with my thoughts.

[criterionmaster]

i watched ms. 45 and wasn't such a huge fan. all i could think while watching it was that the killings seemed waaay more pointless than those in i spit on your grave. did you feel that way, too? also, the lead girl's eye brows gave me a headache.



while it wasn't terrible, i wasn't super impressed by it. maybe if you posted what you thought of it, we could discuss. also, ie was wondering, and made me wonder to, if there is any philosphy in the film at all, or if you are suppose to think while watching? i didn't, but maybe i missed something.

[lordofdance]

criterionmaster said:

i watched ms. 45 and wasn't such a huge fan. all i could think while watching it was that the killings seemed waaay more pointless than those in i spit on your grave. did you feel that way, too? also, the lead girl's eye brows gave me a headache.



while it wasn't terrible, i wasn't super impressed by it. maybe if you posted what you thought of it, we could discuss. also, ie was wondering, and made me wonder to, if there is any philosphy in the film at all, or if you are suppose to think while watching? i didn't, but maybe i missed something.

I haven't thought much about her eyebrows, but I guess they are large and in charge.

Anyway, did I feel that the killings in Ms. 45 were more pointless? I guess I never was particularly concerned about that. I always kind of figured the killings were brought about simply because the poor girl snapped from being raped twice by two different assailants in the same day! Have you seen Repulsion by Roman Polanski? The girl in that kills numerous people just because she has a morbid fear of men. I never questioned how pointless those killings were because I knew she was nutty. Or in Taxi Driver. Why'd he choose that particular pimp? Certainly plenty of other pimps were doing similarly distasteful things throughout the city. I guess the question I'm asking is: Do the killings in Ms. 45 need to have a point under the circumstances? I don't know if they do.

As for the philosophy behind it... What is the philosophy behind I Spit On Your Grave? Women who are brutally raped and left for dead should be allowed to commit bloody acts of revenge? Or is it that violence is bad and the audience should be ashamed of themselves for seeing it as entertainment? We kind of discussed this in the cult movie section. I don't really know if there is a legitimate philosophy behind I Spit On Your Grave in the first place. I guess each person can take what they want from it, but I don't think the movie is all that philosophically profound. Ms. 45 pretty much can be viewed the same way. The only difference is that it's not as graphic as I Spit On Your Grave, so people aren't as provoked into finding some deeper message behind it. I Spit is so nasty that a lot of viewers feel more of a need to find a justification behind it, I guess.

To me, Ms. 45 is a better made movie. It's still exploitative, but not as crude in the way I Spit is. There is no Matthew, for example. I like them both almost equally, but in different ways. Maybe it was wrong for me to ask you to compare them. I mean, they are similar, but there is a substantial difference in the execution and style. You can't really look at Ms. 45 quite the same way. What do you think?

[criterionmaster]

lordofdance said:

criterionmaster said:

i watched ms. 45 and wasn't such a huge fan. all i could think while watching it was that the killings seemed waaay more pointless than those in i spit on your grave. did you feel that way, too? also, the lead girl's eye brows gave me a headache.



while it wasn't terrible, i wasn't super impressed by it. maybe if you posted what you thought of it, we could discuss. also, ie was wondering, and made me wonder to, if there is any philosphy in the film at all, or if you are suppose to think while watching? i didn't, but maybe i missed something.

I haven't thought much about her eyebrows, but I guess they are large and in charge.

Anyway, did I feel that the killings in Ms. 45 were more pointless? I guess I never was particularly concerned about that. I always kind of figured the killings were brought about simply because the poor girl snapped from being raped twice by two different assailants in the same day! Have you seen Repulsion by Roman Polanski? The girl in that kills numerous people just because she has a morbid fear of men. I never questioned how pointless those killings were because I knew she was nutty. Or in Taxi Driver. Why'd he choose that particular pimp? Certainly plenty of other pimps were doing similarly distasteful things throughout the city. I guess the question I'm asking is: Do the killings in Ms. 45 need to have a point under the circumstances? I don't know if they do.

As for the philosophy behind it... What is the philosophy behind I Spit On Your Grave? Women who are brutally raped and left for dead should be allowed to commit bloody acts of revenge? Or is it that violence is bad and the audience should be ashamed of themselves for seeing it as entertainment? We kind of discussed this in the cult movie section. I don't really know if there is a legitimate philosophy behind I Spit On Your Grave in the first place. I guess each person can take what they want from it, but I don't think the movie is all that philosophically profound. Ms. 45 pretty much can be viewed the same way. The only difference is that it's not as graphic as I Spit On Your Grave, so people aren't as provoked into finding some deeper message behind it. I Spit is so nasty that a lot of viewers feel more of a need to find a justification behind it, I guess.

To me, Ms. 45 is a better made movie. It's still exploitative, but not as crude in the way I Spit is. There is no Matthew, for example. I like them both almost equally, but in different ways. Maybe it was wrong for me to ask you to compare them. I mean, they are similar, but there is a substantial difference in the execution and style. You can't really look at Ms. 45 quite the same way. What do you think?

yeah, they are very thick eyebrows haha.

the only reason i found them pointless while watching it, because normally i probably would have never noticed, was because i was thinking about i spit on your grave, comparing them to some extent, and realized that she was just killing whoever she wanted to, but the woman in i spit on your grave was only killing the men involved, she could have easily murdered other people, but didn't. (or maybe she did after she got out of that boat haha) and no, i haven't seen repulsion, but if it is polanski, i will obviously check it out. yeah, now that you mention it, though, there are many films where there doesn't seem to be a point to the killings, so it was probably wrong of me to look for one in this film, and not in the others. i actually don't even like for films to give too many reasons for things that happen, well, films like this.

yeah, there is a very thin line of philosophy found in i spit on your grave, and i think the same thing can be said about many revenge films, except i just felt i spit on your grave did it best, so far. the reason i asked was because of ie, but then after i posted, i looked up a review of the film online, where the dude was talking about the same thing, kinda.

this was the review that made me think about it more: cansesclasseled.com/index.php?blog=1&m=200603

and yeah, they probably have to find a message or justification behind it so they don't feel so weird about watching it.

i thought they were both made well, but i like the crudeness of i spit on your grve. and i liked the lead actress more. and you could easily say that lady with the dog in ms. 45 is a kind of matthew-esque character lol. didn't she annoy you?

yeah, they are different, but i can definitely see why you wanted me to compare them, i would have probably compared them anyways. i think ms 45 is the weaker film, but it definitely wasn't a total waste or anything, i didn't hate the film.

[ie]

Just thought I'd tell you lordofdance, and I guess anyone out there that might be curious, that over the past few weeks, I've been trying to acquire the complete collection of Russ Meyer's busty body of work. Well, as much as I can for now.

Here's what I have so far: Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens; Black Snake; Common Law Cabin; Cherry, Harry & Raquel!; Eve and the Handyman; Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!; Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers!; Good Morning... and Goodbye!; Immoral Mr. Teas; Lorna!; Mondo Topless; Motor Psycho; Mudhoney; Pandora Peak; Supervixens; Up!; Vixen! and Wild Gals of the Naked West.

I've only seen bits and pieces of each, and all of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. I didn't get Beyond the Valley of the Dolls yet because it looks like it has a good R1 release, and I still need to find these harder-to-find movies - The Seven Minutes, Fanny Hill, Heavenly Bodies!, Skyscrapers and Brassieres, Erotica and The Naked Camera - but that's not too bad of a criterion collection right there.


Also, I've been checking out potential torrents on this website and a couple of the ones I was interested in are somewhat high on your list, like Vampyres and Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion. So, once again, great list. I'm not sure I enjoy camp or even so-bad-it's-fun movies as much as you, but I have room to grow and shit like that so who knows?