The Film:

Yeesh. Yeeeeeesh. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssshhhhhhh.

Just a few days after the premiere of "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith," a handful of fans gather for a roundtable discussion of all things Lucas. With the understanding that no topic was off limits, the conversation quickly turns to a debate over all manner of controversial subjects: abortion, gay rights, Iraq, religion.

This is the premise for "The Audience Strikes Back," and what a clever premise it is. You get the right group of fans - intelligent, well read, well spoken - and you have the makings for something special, a documentary not only about fandom, but about people.

But it was not to be. Writer/director Patrick Beacham instead wanted "Audience" to be his personal soundboard for every gripe, complaint, and moan to cross his brain in the past ten years, so he made this, not a documentary, but a mockumentar...Read the entire review

The Movie
In his introduction to The Audience Strikes Back, writer/director Patrick Beacham explains that the film was originally conceived in 1999 as a reaction to the profound disappointment he had with The Phantom Menace, the film George Lucas used to restart the Star Wars franchise. Along the way, another sense of disappointment and outrage stirred in Beacham, this one directed at the George Bush presidency. The director's challenge became combining those two "passions" into one narrative, which seemed like a realistic goal considering the "implied Biblical references" in the Star Wars fil...Read the entire review

The Movie:
The French have a history of belittling while borrowing and bastardizing Americana. Just when you think they're making a mean joke out of us, you find out that it's really because they love it more than they know how to process. Examples: Blue Jeans (our 49er gear becomes Très chic), Elvis (Johnny Hallyday and "French Rock"), jazz and gangster movies (the French New Wave), P-Funk ("French House" and Daft Punk can't stay away), Hip-Hop (Daft Punk again, but how about MC Solaar, or the endless exploitation of b-boy culture in their own consumer culture?), Detroit techno (Uh, Daft Punk, but also people like Laurent Garnier who is also obsessed with . . .), John Carpenter (he's gaining Jerry Lewis and Woody Allen status over there), and most recently - Quentin Tarantino. Now Francois Merlin's Witching Hour takes all of that, but also throws in some belated hostility toward Euro...Read the entire review

Akeimi gets into a fight with her boyfriend. After she finds out he has been cheating, she bonks him over the head with a liquor bottle and wanders around, eventually ending up in library devoted to manga where she meets Kyoko. Initially the two tussle but soon make nice, an economic as well as emotional convenience. Kyoko gives Akemi a place to stay, an a ear for her lovelorn bitterness, and an odd mentor of independence. Odd, because Kyoko supports herself as a prostitute, coldly shaking up with a number of sugar daddies while she dreams of making it as a manga artist.

I know saying that you watch Japanese pink cinema from a cineaste's point of view is like saying you read Playboy for the articles, but in my case it is true. There aren't many modern sex film genres that are known to sprout serious-minded directors, especially in the US where softcore sex films are relegated to whatever stilted, si...Read the entire review

The Movie:
Sacrament Films, the division of the Salvation Group that specializes in Japanese pink cinema (soft-core), has reissued The Slit-Mouthed Woman (or Kannô byôtô: Nureta Akai Kuchibiru), a little J-horror tale from 2005. Even if it was called Kuchisake in Japan, don't get this title confused with a more recent Slit-Mouthed with the name, Kuchisake-onna or Carved, which came out earlier this year; understand that both films are based on the same urban legend that has even been borrowed and referenced in Japanese and Korean animation since the early 80s. Directed by Takauaki Hashiguchi (Dollhouse, Woman Prisoner Torture), the eerie, yet low budget make-up effects were the work of Takashi Oda.

While pitching a story to her editor at Kira Magazine, Asagiri Yuoko (Mayu Asada) is placed on another more pressing story: "Urban Legend ...Read the entire review

There's not a whole lot to say about Okatsu the Fugitive (Yoen dokufuden Okatsu kyojo tabi, 1969), the third and last film of Toei's quasi-chambara trilogy about a female swordswoman, nor a lot of enthusiasm to be mustered up. Practically a remake of the previous entry, Quick-Draw Okatsu, it breaks no new ground, and its screenplay is on a level comparable to a Monogram B-Western of the 1940s, though longtime director Nobuo Nakagawa infuses it with a bit more style than it deserves. The Synapse/Panik House DVD is excellent, however, so genre fans can at least enjoy the attractive transfer.

Though star Junko Miyazono once again plays a ch...Read the entire review

Category III is nothing more than a rating, the equivalent to an "R" or "NC-17" in the States. A film can get rated Category III purely based on language or thematic content, but since it was first implemented in Hong Kong in late 80's, it became synonymous with extreme off the wall exploitative elements usually pertaining to violence and sex, often the two combined.

The heyday of Cat III films was the early to mid 90's, delivering such gems as The Story of Ricky, Erotic Ghost Story, Naked Weapon, Run and Kill, and Dr. Lam. 1995's A Chinese Torture Chamber Story is a softcore sex-shocker that quickly rose into Category III infamy for its imaginative gratuity and an infamous scene that would become a gold standard example of the dizzyingly extreme content the genre offered.

A Chinese Torture Chamber Story gets the ball rolling with an opening credit montage, text, and nar...Read the entire review

The Nude Vampire:

Ahh, Eurotrash, the pejorative that ruffles no feathers (at least where movies are concerned); fans love it, sane folks have never heard of it. For those not in the know, Eurotrash movies flourished from the '60s to the '80s, made on The Continent, these films were generally concerned with sex and death in various configurations. A lot of nominal auteurs flexed oodles of style (and little sense) with impunity by littering (or promising to) litter the screen with blood and breasts. Jean Rollin is a chief exemplar of the Eurotrash brand, and his 1969 effort The Nude Vampire is a shiny example of all that is good and bad in that sullied cinematic land.

It's nearly beside the point to lay out any sort of plot for The Nude Vampire. There really isn't any. Near as I can tell, a wealthy man and a few of his bored pals cook up a bogus suicide cult to amuse themselves while tryi...Read the entire review

The second of three Legends of the Poisonous Seductress films produced by the Japanese studio Toei in the late-1960s, Quick-Draw Okatsu (Yoen dokufuden - Hitokiri Okatsu, 1969) is not the proto-"pinky violence" film that its predecessor was, but rather a very conventional chanbara melodrama. (It's obviously also not a Western, despite the goofy title.) Though star Junko Miyazono and a few other actors from the first film are back, there's no connection between the two films. By program picture standards it's entertaining enough, and the transfer is excellent, as are Synapse/Panik House's extra features.

This time Miyazono is Okatsu Makabe, the adopted daughter of a strict, widower dojo master (Ko Nishimura). Okatsu is a fencing expert, much mor...Read the entire review

I wish I weren't reviewing this 'documentary', as even a negative review will give it what it wants, publicity. Believe me, this 'public service' film is so obnoxious and pernicious, it's scary.

The rise of the internet and radical talk show formats have given rise to a new freedom of information, but also an enormous proliferation of outright junk -- junk thought, junk opinion. Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement is the latest in a string of video productions from Alex Jones, a Texas talk radio personality who has previously warned against Big Government conspiracies to deprive Americans of their rights. Jones' alarm is for an enormous, knee-shaking conspiracy that would have Dr. Mabuse<...Read the entire review

Revenge of the Teenage Vixens From Outer Space:
Investors, check this out. Digital video processing programs have a plug-in called 'film look' which makes your shot on video subjects look somewhat like they were originally shot on film. Meanwhile DVD releasing companies are running out of classic movies to repackage, now mining the depths of '80s features to foist on the public. I'm working on a digital video editing plug-in called ''80s independent film school graduate look,' which makes your subject look like it was shot on 16mm for little money while you were in film school and it took you four years to complete the movie. If you're interested in that kind of thing.

The teenage vixens here have a pedigree similar to that which my plug-in will emulate, and that's not a bad thing, though to delight in such a movie is usually an acquired taste. Our vixens seem to have little over which to s...Read the entire review

In 10 Words or Less
Part warning, part party, all naked German girls

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Silly bad movies
Likes: '70s exploitation
Dislikes:
Hates: Manipulative whores

The Story So Far...
Based on Guenther Hunold's books, the Schoolgirl Report films were mock documentaries looking at the sexual exploits of school-age girls in Germany. With a great deal of nudity and, at the time, sensation stories of debauchery and explotation, the movies were a huge hit in Germany from 1970-1980, and across the world as well. The first volume was released in April. DVDTalk has a review here.

The Movie
Back in my hedonistic college days, i...Read the entire review

The Film:

The second installment from the Private Screening Collection, a little seen late-night cable-feature titled Christina (1984), offers a storyline that can quickly give you a headache of paramount proportions:

Christina Von Belle (Jewel Shephard) is a wealthy young heiress known as "The Playgirl Of The Western World". She is also beautiful to look at and as we soon discover with a ferocious sex appetite. (Un)fortunately she is kidnapped by an evil gang of lesbian-commandos (!), led by no other than ex-mainstream-turned-adult starlet Karin Schubert (Black Emmanuelle), who take on the difficult task of satisfying Christina's carnal yearnings. In the meantime the kidnappers also demand a large amount of money from their victim's family.

After a series of steamy action scenes Christina finally manages to escape the lesbian-commandos only...Read the entire review

The Movie

Arguably one of the most controversial imports of all time, Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox (aka Make Them Die Slowly) is an ugly, vile, and wholly unpleasant experience. But I guess that's kind of what they were shooting for, so it'd be hard to say the movie's actually a "failure." But really, and this is coming from a hardcore horror fan of 30+ years, this is one seriously nasty movie.

You're certainly not about to sit down with Cannibal Ferox looking for half-decent camerawork, interesting characters, engaging stories or anything resembling quality filmmaking, so let's cut right to the chase: This is the one with all the nasty-ass animal violence; rodents get squooshed by snakes, turtles get their poors limbs chopped off, gators get sliced & diced... Basically, one-third of this movie is a documentary about the culinary habits of Brazilian natives. Unfort...Read the entire review

The Movie

"Satan was an acid-head!" screams the butt-naked hippie psychopath we meet in the opening frames of 1970's I Drink Your Blood -- and this sequence does a fine job of foreshadowing the rest of the flick: weird, silly, ugly, and so damn loopy that you can't take your eyes off the thing.

Here's the plot. You'll love it.

A group of Satan-worshipping (and apparently shower-hating) hippies wander into a small town that's on the verge of extinction, harass, rape and torture a few folks, and then hole up in an abandoned house. So one small boy decides it's his job to save the day, so he serves all of Hell's Hippies a bunch of meat pies that have been laced with rabid dog meat. Needless to say, things don't end well.

The hippies are a colorful lot indeed, and that's kind of like me saying that fire is mildly warm or I Drink Your Blood is somewhat bizarre. The leade...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Claude Mulot's Black Venus begins when a man named Jacques (Emiliano Redondo) decides to take a tour of a house of ill repute wherein the various parties employed therein can be viewed by the convenient placement of some two-way mirrors. He stops when he recognizes one of the ladies, and he decides to tell us her story and how he came to know her.

Enter Venus (Josephine Jacqueline Jones), a beautiful woman who soon finds herself the apple of Armand's (Jose Antonio Ceinos) eye. He doesn't have two pennies to rub together but she allows him to create a sculpture of her and soon they begin a torrid affair. He finds in her the muse he's been looking for and they figure they'll be alright until the landlord comes looking for the rent and when Armand doesn't have it opts to take it out on Venus in trade. Venus resists and soon heads out to find work of her own as a model,...Read the entire review

Lady Libertine's back cover promises a, "boldly sexy epic about a cross-dressing teenage orphan....When the sultry virgin's gender-bend is revealed, her deflowering unleashes a shocking torrent of voyeurism, violation, sadism and submission that will blur the line between pleasure and pain forever!" Um...that never happens in Lady Libertine. She's not a cross-dresser per se, and there's no shocking torrent of anything in Lady Libertine, with the possible exception of poorly dubbed lines, read badly.

Supposedly based on an infamous anonymous Victorian erotic novel of sadism and sex, Lady Libertine tells the story of France (Jennifer Inch), a fifteen-year-old girl who, when her parents die and leave her penniless, is released into the custody of a cathouse madam. Before she can be instructed in the ways of the flesh, France dons some boy's clothes, an...Read the entire review

The War in Space (Wakusei daisenso, 1977) is pretty dreadful but, seen in the right frame of mind, a fairly entertaining attempt by Japanese studio Toho to cash in on the Star Wars craze. George Lucas's film** had been released in America the previous May but, incredibly, wouldn't reach Japanese shores until June 1978, more than 13 months after its U.S. premiere. Seizing upon all that swelling enthusiasm for a movie that, for the moment, was impossible to see, Toho rushed its own Star Wars-like movie into production for release that December, and the result was pretty much what you'd expect for a production thrown together in little more than two months on 1/25 the budget of its inspiration. The end product doesn't rip off Star Wars to the degree that parts of Kinji Fukasaku's better-known Message from Space (Uchu kara no messeji, 1978) do; on the other hand, The W...Read the entire review

The Movie

Spend more than, say, three minutes in the virtual company of Mr. Billy Connolly, and I bet you'll grow to really like the guy. The outspoken and enthusiastic Scottish comedian has become a well-admired character actor (The Last Samurai, Lemony Snicket, etc.) over the past several years, but that doesn't prevent the white-maned wildman from touring the entire globe while doling out a whole lot of chuckles.

As a stand-up, Connolly is most definitely from the "anecdotal" school of comedy. His concerts consist mainly of long and entertainingly rambling stories, ones that are frequently interrupted by different mini-stories, only to be picked up once the digressions are filed away.

Connolly can be raunchy, but he doesn't seem like a "blue-based" comic; he comes off as friendly and effusive, but also quite humorously impatient most of the time. Onstage he's got a lot of ...Read the entire review

The Movie

Produced in the early '90s by a bunch of Kansas horror geeks with a budget that probably could have paid for a weekend at a semi-nice hotel, Lief Jonker's Darkness is one of the cheapest, silliest, and splatteriest no-budget horror flicks you're ever likely to come across. What it lacks in every imaginable component of professional filmmaking, it kinda makes up for in enthusiasm and gore. For about 40-some minutes, anyway. Then the thing just gets pretty tiresome.

Shot on Super-8 and looking for all the world like someone's backyard barbecue reels, Darkness is about an invasion of zombie vampires and the dwindling number of humans who keep running away from said creatures. That's all I got for you, plot-wise. That was all I could glean from the actors' off-hand mumblings, but I distinctly heard the phrases "let's get outta here" and "no, run!" tossed about at least 30...Read the entire review

The first time I saw Bill Hicks preform was at my high school talentshow.&nbsp; Between the amateur bands and magicians, Bill walked on stageand did five to ten minutes of stand up and he had the crowd howling.&nbsp;At the end of his bit he announced that he was performing that weekendat a downtown club, and everyone laughed again.&nbsp; "No, I'm serious.&nbsp;Come down and check out my show." he replied.&nbsp; I've been a fan ofhis comedy ever since and mourned his passing in 1994.

He may be gone, but certainly not forgotten.&nbsp; Bill Hicks Live,a compilation of three concerts was released earlier this year and nowRyko has released a rarity, Sane Man.&nbsp; This concert performance,filmed in Austin in 1989, was only sold for a short time in that city andvia mail order.&nbsp; Though low gr...Read the entire review

Despite a prominent credit on the DVD's cover for Key Animation Director Hayao Miyazaki, Animal Treasure Island (Dobutsu Takarajima, 1971) bears little resemblance to Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, or even Panda! Go Panda!, which Miyazaki directed the following year. Overseen by Hiroshi Ikeda, Animal Treasure Island is colorful but bland, a film that strays too far from its original source with unamusing slapstick. Still, Discotek's DVD offers viewers a chance to see Japanese animation from a period rarely given its due, in a flawless 16:9 transfer showing off its good use of Toeiscope. The DVD's audio will likewise please both anime fans and general family audiences, offering both the original Japanese soundtrack with English subtitles and an original English track dating back to the 1970s.

The film - a Toei 20th Anniversary Production - is a singularly free ada...Read the entire review

The Product:
Many may know artist/producer/musician Brian Eno as a member of the seminal 70s combo Roxy Music. Others may recognize him for his imaginative and experimental solo works. Others will recall the name as the superstar producer behind such divergent acts as Devo, Talking Heads and U2. But few are aware of the man's innovative work in film and video. Rykodisc has collected two of his rarest works, 1981's Mistaken Memories of Medieval Manhattan and 1984's Thursday Afternoon and released them on one amazing DVD.

The Plot:
Though rather straightforward in their subject matter, Brian Eno's 14 Video Paintings is like the visual equivalent of the musician's masterful ambient albums. Each segment is scored by the artist's ambitious, atmospheric instrumentals, open and spacious works reminiscent of silent snowy days and windless open horizons. The first, ...Read the entire review

The remoteness of the world is essentially gone. The spread of technology and information has cast a connected net (no computer pun intended), that with very few exceptions, spreads everywhere. But, I still remember a time when the world seemed to posses impervious, unreachable locales where few men had tread. Back then I could imagine there might be places that held exotic mystery, danger, and unseen wonders. Today? Not so much. These days Leo Dicaprio takes a trip via prop plane and raft into the heart of the Amazon to observe one of its most isolated tribes, only to have one of the tribesmen, who stills hunts for his meals, doesn't wear a stitch of clothing, or seem to posses any modern tools, point at Dicaprio and say, "Titantic!"

Way back in the far simpler days of 1979 (but released in 1980), Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust took the stance that for all the civilized world's s...Read the entire review

The Film:
Unlike some people, I didn't watch the show Spenser: For Hire religiously during it's original run. I was in college back in those days, and I had other interests (like sex and booze) that I pursued more doggedly. I did watch the show from time to time, and thought, at least back then, that it was pretty cool. I was a fan of Robert Urich from back in the day on Vega$ and SWAT. And I really liked Avery Brooks as Spenser's ultra badass running mate, Hawk. But I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't one of those that was really upset when the show was cancelled after three seasons. In fact, I probably didn't realize it had gone off the air. What's more, I didn't even know that this series of made for television movies existed until they came out on DVD.

Based on the popular series of Spenser books by Robert B. Parker, and produced during the early 1990s ...Read the entire review

Set in the 1950s -- the same decade whose paranoia-tinged science fiction films inspired it -- 1982's I Was a Zombie for the F.B.I. follows the invasion of yet another sleepy little town by an alien menace. The aliens holster their space pistolsthis time around, though. Instead of dominating mankind by force, they've chosen a more subtle approach, teaming with a couple of escaped convicts to tamper with America's favorite soft drink and turn everyone who guzzles it into their mindless, obedient slaves. Of course, a couple of G-men and the obligatory female reporter get caught in the middle, and only they stand between the aliens and their complete and total conquest of the human race.

With a title like I Was a Zombie for the F.B.I., you...Read the entire review

The Movie:

What are Suicide Girls? Well, kind of a cross between Playboy Bunnies and the goth/punk/insert-whatever-alterno-sub-culture-group-you-want-here. It all started when a Portland, Or. photographer named Missy decided that it might be fun to take glamour/pin-up/burlesque shots of a different kind of girl than you might expect to model for such material. Rather than the cookie cutter types you see photographed for most men's magazines, she decided she'd focus on some different looking, but no less attractive, femme fatales and thus the Suicide Girls website was born. It's now less a website than it is a phenomena with not only an online presence but also a book of pin-up photography out, this here DVD (distributed by Epitaph Records) and a CD in the works (also distributed by Epitaph Records). The website has thousands of members and the number of girls who have modeled for the burgeo...Read the entire review

In 10 Words or Less
Learn to survive with one of Britain's best zombie fighters

The Show
Made back in 2002, "Danger! 50,000 Volts!" takes host Nick Frost (Ed from Shaun of the Dead) and puts him into dangerous situations, and with the assistance of an expert in the field, he shows how to escape the danger. Each episode features six segments, with the sources of danger ranging from heat stroke to being attacked by a bat-wielding maniac. Some of the advice might come in handy, like how to deal with frostbite, while others, like how to survive a falling elevator, are a bit outside the realm of realism.

The series seems to take a cue from the Worst Case Scenario series of books, which started in 1999 and spawned their own TV series, which wa...Read the entire review

Satanico Pandemonium (La Sexorcista) (1973), not to be confused with the Italian The Sexorcist (L'Ossessa, 1974), is a Mexican-made bit of Grand Guignol, "nunsploitation" made in the mammoth wake that followed Ken Russell's The Devils (1971), The Exorcist (1973), and bits from various Pasolini films. The Mexican picture, whose obscurity is such that no one seems entirely sure when it was released (accounts vary from 1972-75), is strictly by the numbers hokum, but Mondo Macabro's high standard of care make this another DVD sure to please fans of such offbeat fare.

The film is virtually plotless, and is apparently set at the time of the Inquisition. Sister Maria (Cecilia Pezet) is a pious, dutiful nun stalked and eventually raped by Satan himself (Enrique Rocha). Under the Devil's influence, Sister Maria soon commits all manner of mayhem, from the expected steamy lesbian af...Read the entire review

Graham Chapman is, of course, one of the founding members of MontyPython's Flying Circus.&nbsp; His writing partner was John Cleese andin addition to playing various characters in the show itself, he staredas King Arthur in The Holy Grail, and was Brian in Life of Brian.&nbsp;After the group's breakup, Graham had a number of projects also; he wroteand stared in the universally panned movie Yellowbeard, and pennedhis memoirs, A Liar's Autobiography Volume IV.

While publicizing his book, he made some public appearances where hetook questions from the audience.&nbsp; From this he hatched the idea ofa short tour, and in 1988 he appeared on several college campuses tellingsome of the stories he's collected over the years.&nbsp; Happily, a coupleof these talks were filmed, and now Arts Magic ...Read the entire review

Leave it to the Dutch to transform infamous, Skid Row provocateur, Charles Bukowski's seminal works into a hazy, dreamlike tale of unconditional love, lost and found. Belgian director, Dominique Deruddere's first feature, Crazy Love (1987), has been as much maligned and championed throughout its existence as Bukowski himself. Yet, seeing the hard-boiled, gritty and utterly American world Bukowski writes, tempered with quaint, personal, European sentiment gives the work a sense of otherworldliness that lends the film the semblance of a fable and makes the poison within easier to swallow.

Make no mistake, for as stunning as this film looks, aiming for artifice over reality, it still deals with those unsavory elements of society that are everywhere, from Brussels to Burbank. If not for the smooth, almost omniscient camera work and delicate direction from Deruddere, <...Read the entire review