Scotch and a Sofa

After last night, I can now finally check off yet another elusive little film off of my list. One film that for some reason never crossed paths with me...CRIMEWAVE(aka The XYZ Murders)! I first learned about this movie when I read Bruce Campbell's "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor about 5 or 6 years ago. Being an Evil Dead fan, naturally, I devoured that book and my quest began. The "quest" was really not a "quest" per se, but I was pretty driven to see this damned movie. Why? Well, how can I put it? Basically, it's like the cinematic equivalent to The Justice League. Well, not as many superheroes, but really really important ones.

Crimewave marks the first collaboration between a few of my favorite filmmakers of all time; Sam Raimi, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. Who would not froth at the mouth at the mere mention of this team? Along with a screenplay written by this awesome trio and directed by Mr. Raimi, you can also add a bit part for Bruce Campbell as well and this sounds like something a little too good too be true. So that was it, I needed to see this movie! The only problem? It was out of print. I would only find bootleg vhs copies on ebay (which I refused to watch)for years to come, so I was relegated to sadly checkng imdb.com every month or so looking for any signs of dvd release. Eventually, I gave up and decided that it was one that got away. Until recently. I was casually searching through Netflix's catalog when I ran across it, there it was. It was there and I couldn't believe it. Crime-fucking-wave, directed by Sam fucking Raimi, 1980-fucking-5. Holy shit. click. This title has been added to your dvd queue. Availability: LONG WAIT. Really?! The 5 plus years that have gone by meant nothing to you? Why must I be tortured?

Fast forward a couple of months and my mail box smiles and spits out the dvd into my anxious palm (cue Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days") and I set into motion an event that has been years overdue: my viewing of Crimewave!

So was it epic? What the fuck was it about this movie that I felt the need to waste so much of your precious time building it up? NOT MUCH. Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome movie and I loved it, but is it important? Yes and no. It's important in the way that you can see early habits starting to form, habits that would become key signatures for these filmmakers who would go on to be considered by some to be a major force in keeping film original and extremely entertaining for us today. First and foremost, it's a fun, goofy dark comedy written by the Coens, so the dialog is totally off the charts and hilarious, even for an eighties comedy, and that says a lot, based on my belief that comedy is the genre that suffers the most with age. Some shit you saw 10 or 15 years ago just isn't that funny anymore, we all know that. What keeps Crimewave funny? I don't know, I think it's the over-the-top film noir delivery combined with cheesy(but totally effective)sound effects and cartoon-like situations. It almost seems as if after Evil Dead, Raimi wanted to amp up the silliness that was just an effective background tool for Ash and company and just went totally balls out and made a cross between The Three Stooges, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" and a live action Tom & Jerry episode. Watching this you can't help but imagine just how much fun Raimi had throwing every classic slapstick gag into this movie. You name it, it's in here.

The storyline is insanely surreal but simple. Two business partners are dead and an employee is framed for the murder. Through flashbacks, we get thrown into a plot that involves Bruce Campbell as a scumbag (or "Heel", as he is constantly referred to) that utters lines like "Hey baby, why don't ya come on over to my pad. We'll have a scotch and sofa", a sorry ass nerd (who is also the "hero" played by Reed Birney, whoever the hell he is) who is in love with the wrong girl and best of all, there are two "exterminators" that kill people with an electrocution device that has 3 hilarious settings: "RAT", "MAN" & "HERO". The movie is a blast and you'll love it if you love campy, goofy cult classics. The Budget wasn't the best, the acting is not top notch, but the talent is there and the fun is in your face, just stop being a tight ass and enjoy the damn movie.

Check out the clips below!

 

And here's the trailer (shitty quality)

Trivia:
-The name of the prison in this movie is "Hudsucker", a name they would reuse for the Coens' "The Hudsucker Proxy", a film where the trio would collaborate on screenwriting duties yet again.

-The Oldsmobile Delta that is featured prominently in the Evil Dead trilogy which also makes an appearance in this film (and many of Raimi's films to come, including Spider-Man), was Sam's actual car for quite some time.

Losing the Kung-Fu Grip

Dang! It's been almost three months since my last post...what the shit? I've been a little sidetracked friends, sidetracked by my vices, and for this...I apologize.

I have a couple of good movies at home that I gotta sit down and chew on, however, I can tell you this:

- District 9 was a really great surprise, I love those "Focking Prones" (fucking prawns)!!

- Of course Inglourious Basterds was a great time, but that goes without saying.

- Tokyo Zombie is a hilariously entertaining Japanese Zombie/Jiu-Jitsu/Stoner comedy that you should DEFINITELY check out.

- Z Channel was interesting but a little too California-centric for me to really feel the need to grab you by the shirt and tell you about it.

I will make up for my slacking ways and try to post up some good fresh reviews for you very soon, sorry to keep you hanging (as if anyone is really "hanging" on this blog anyway, lol).

OH WOW it's Real!

Light has shined on the art house scene in South Florida! Miami has really and truly been a wasteland for foreign and independent cinema for quite some time now. Not since the glory days of Lion Video, New Concept Video and the random art house theaters on the beach of yesteryear have I seen anything worth frothing at the mouth for. The excitement of seeing something new and exciting has officially left the building. I have heard great things of Miami Beach's Cinematheque, but unfortunately I have not heard of anything playing there to really make me want to jump out of my seat. Cinema Paradiso in Ft. Lauderdale is a great venue with a great eye for film, but it's just not Miami. So for a while now I have shaken my fists and ranted my hater rants about the lack of great cinema in Miami but all that has changed as of last week. Filling the void in the halls of celluloid relevancy, the OH-WOW Gallery has chosen to open its doors, kick back, slip on some chancletas and sit back while you invade their house, drink their free beer and eat their free popcorn. Amazingly, someone in Miami is showing you a great movie at no charge and feeding you booze...and they don't want to sleep with you, well they do, but not like that.
 

I have been to art shows at OH-WOW (including the amazing Scott Campbell show) and had heard about secret ambitious rumblings at the gallery, but this leap of good faith made me call up my good bud Luke for an outing. We arrived, got some beers, plopped our asses down, and escaped. What I'm talking about is the OH-WOW Gallery's movie screening series, which rocks. For the month of July, they will be screening art related documentaries at no charge, and their selection is not too shabby. I missed the first one (a screening of "The Cool School") but made it a point to check out their second screening last Thursday, which was a beautiful gem ."Captured" is a film about Clayton Patterson, a man that has photographed, lived, breathed, ate and shat the Lower East Side since 1979. The movie itself was an absolute testament to what was and always will be the blood and balls of what we know of the L.E.S., which is to always represent the lowest common denominator. For decades, the Lower East Side was a haven for the dirty, grimy, scary and the always interesting. Clayton Patterson made it his home, and one day decided to photograph it. Over, and over, and over. This eccentric photographer's eye scanned over the decades that defined this neighborhood magnifying it to reveal that and so much more. A true reflection of a scene that was really not a "scene" as defined by todays social cliques, but rather a refuge for the junkies, the homeless and the revolutionary minds of the eighties, this film penetrates. It puts the ugly scars, the bloody track marks and the dirty fingernails of Manhattan on display, but also puts the heart and soul of a city on a pedestal. Whether you've lived in New York or not, the Lower East Side matters. If the Statue of Liberty had a middle finger, it would be the L.E.S. From junkies to drag queens, Bad Brains and the Thompson Square Park Riots, Clayton was there, with his fucking camera, getting arrested (and selling his baseball caps) and in the muthafucking potaje of things.

All in all,a great film and a great place to see it at, I hope the OH-WOW gallery makes it a habit to do cool things like this more often (and I did hear of some very cool plans for future screenings, but I'm not going to ruin their surprise). The way it went down was like this; I knew (A) a good movie was playing (Captured), I knew (B) I hadn't hung out with my homeboy Luke in a while, and (C) I knew the cost was ZERO, so (D) I knew that shit would be dope...and I was muthafuckin' RIGHT!!! Check out "Captured" ASAP and do yourself a favor and go catch a flick at OH-WOW, you will not hate me, you will high five me and buy me beers.

OH-WOW is located at:

3100 NW 7 Avenue
Miami, Florida, 33127
305-633-9345


EARLY WARNING: Begin sharpening your claws now for the crudefest that will be: Neckface's first Miami solo show ever...at OH-WOW...on Halloween night, 2009. start. drooling.

Revolutions and Change.

I've had to delete my opening sentence like 5 times already, which is a bad sign. I've been away from this damn thing too long. Sorry folks, I suck. I know all three of you are pretty stoked to see me back and are probably wondering what the hell have I been up to. Well, not much, really. Actually to be honest, I just got tired of forcing myself to watch a documentary or a western just for the sake of the blog. I love watching them, but it started to feel like a job (like any responsibility should feel, which is why they suck) so I kind of wandered off and didn't come around here to often. But I never stop watching movies in general, so it kinda bothered me that I couldn't write about them because of the stupid corner I painted myself into by limiting this blog to only Docs & Cowboys. But forget it! Just as I predicted on my first post, I am veering away from my stupid blueprint (all in less than 6 months!) and am now going to write about any damn movie I wanna yell about. It's a fuckin' revolution and Shepard Fairey is making me some posters!! Not really. But it would be sweet if he did.

Now let's get to the movie that got me out of my rut and made me rethink my ways (okay, I'm being dramatic now, I'll stop) about my bullshit blog; Revolutionary Road. I was upset about missing this in the theater. I could've seen it a lot earlier, but I refused to watch the bootleg that someone lent to Mari (which means she saw it without me, I hate when she does that). So finally, I got to watch it on the proper dvd and now I'm even more pissed off about not catching it in the theater. I try to make it a point to catch films by good directors on the big screen, and man is Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Jarhead) a great one. If someone were to tell me that I had to choose only one guy to go on making movies about suburban decay and the ugly underbelly of the American family for the rest of my life, it would be Sam Mendes. For someone that is not American, he really dangles the facade of what is suposed to be a perfect family unit in front of our eyes and then just peels away, and away, and away. He did it with American Beauty and he's done it again with this adaptation of the classic Richard Yates novel.



On the surface, Revolutionary Road is about Frank and April Wheeler, a married couple (Leonardo DiCaprio & Kate Winslet) that begins to question the structure of the ideal 1950s' American married life and takes a magnifying glass the American Dream, so to speak. The weight of this story is carried by this theme throughout, but it's about so much more: the rejection of the idea that as Americans, we have to accept that complacency is king, that there is not much for you once you jump through hoops a, b and c. April realizes this and in some ways voices what most of us (at least I do) repeat to ourselves everyday; Are we really living our lives to the fullest? Is life really about working 40 hours a week at a job that you hate? Why are we not exploring our happiness? We all want to break out of the monotony, we all want an exciting life, but in order to do that, risks need to be taken and shit needs to get rattled. The film beautifully presents how these ideals, which have cemented themselves into our way of life, can ultimately be our unraveling.


It's a tough movie, the situations that Frank and April go through really sink into your mind and make you wonder where did we take that turn and who sucked the life out of life itself. Films like these are what I love about movies. It said something, it looked beautiful (any movie that Roger Deakins is the DP on will always make me happy), it motivated me (shit, it got me to get up off my ass to write another blog! Well, I'm technically still on my ass, but you get the idea.) and it made me think. Brilliantly acted by Dicaprio (does anyone else think that the older he gets, the more he looks like a young Jack Nicholson? Weird.) and completely stolen by Kate Winslet, you have to see it.

Snuff (not the chewing tobacco kind)

Yikes, this is a rough one, so let me start by telling you that this review is totally different from my other posts on here due to the fact that nothing funny will probably come out of this one (assuming that you've at least chuckled while reading my other posts). Snuff (2008) was a pretty unsettling and interesting look at the myth of the snuff film, an urban legend that has been around for decades. This really was a well thought out documentary, really covering all the areas of the snuff subject and venturing into areas that really raise questions about the dark corners of the human psyche.


  For those unaware, a snuff film is a film where a murder is captured on film, usually involving violent torture and sexual acts. In addition to some pretty disturbing footage and a jarring analysis of the twisted thinking that would avtually drive someone to commit such an act, this documentary tries to uncover any evidence that may be out there proving that these films in fact do exist. It's a scary world folks, and in this world, where money can get you basically anything, it would not surprise me if the snuff film is as real as the war in Iraq.


Speaking of war, one of the better strengths of this film were when the filmmaker (Paul von Stoetzel) and the interview subjects put the idea of what exactly is a snuff film under the microscope. The definitions vary from subject to subject, but some pointed out that maybe war coverage, especially the stuff from Vietnam and more recently, the onslaught of videos on the internet from the current war, could be considered snuff. Think about the horrible beheading videos that surfaced some years ago (which unfortunately do make a brief appearance here), those can be considered snuff to some, although the general definition would exclude these videos, because they were not created for profit or with the intent to get someone off, but all that is debatable. What is snuff? Does it exist? Who the hell would be sick enough to actually be involved at any level with this shit? I'm not sure, but this documentary is probably a good start to help you make up your own minds. All in all a decent documentary, considering that the stigma with the subject matter might make it a little difficult to pull off.

NOTE: After watching the clip, I realized that they fucked up on this trailer...that woman talking (with some pretty horrible acting thrown in for good measure) about the whole "enjoy" tape is not in the movie I saw! I watched it on netflix streaming, so maybe it's a deleted scene on the dvd?!I have no idea, so if someone does, please give me a heads up.

Annoyance Marches Onward to the Oscars and Beyond!

So "Man on Wire" took home the award for Best Documentary feature............yawn. As most of you know, I did not like this film. Okay, it had its moments but they were overpowered by the irritating energy that radiated out of the movie's subject,it was almost like a musk, that's how bad it was. The man at the center of this film, Phillipe, was just very very unlikeable to me. I seem to be alone here, because the rest of the world seems to genuinely enjoy this film. So if I hated the film (the guy really) and it wins an award, I should get a clue, right? I don't think so, I stand my ground on this one, sorry folks. I did find the actual act of crossing the towers of the WTC on a high-wire amazing, but I felt that the flow of the movie was very clunky and awkwardly punctuated by the peppering of weirdly paced bantering by Phillipe. Unfortunately I haven't been able to catch any of the other films nominated, but shit man, honestly, I don't see the greatness in "Man on Wire" and I think anything is better than this guy:

Even on TV for 45 seconds he turns my stomach

That is all, we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

They'll Pay You To Do What?!?!

I'm convinced that Japan has it ALL figured out, no fucking joke. the proof is in many things including but not limited to; technology, business, tradition, sushi, candy, karate, ninjas, samurais, bonsai trees, the coolest flag, sake, Daniel Larusso, pepper steak, geishas, insane game shows, Takeshi Kitano....and now this. The "this" I speak of is "host" bars.





Prior to watching "The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief", I had only heard of "hostess bars". Hostess bars are places where Japanese men(mostly married business types), go to sit down, have a drink, and enjoy the company of a woman or women, which they are paying for, of course. Don't get it twisted, this is not specifically a strip club or a whorehouse (although sometimes, of course, money can buy you anything), this is a bar where you pay for the drinks of the woman that is sitting with you, you pay for her time in how much you both drink. But what you are essentially doing is paying for company, not sex. Paying for a woman to listen to your problems, your dreams and your nightmares is really not too far removed from a psychologist, only in a sexy, fun, setting. I can see how that can make some kind of sense to a(and this is a generalization here) lonely, mid-life crisis man at the end of his rope, groping for attention from the depths of his wallet...but what about these "host" bars? Can there actually be a place on earth where the tables are turned? Where do you find women who are willing to pay men to hang out with them? Where is this Bizarro universe where a decent (and sometimes excruciatingly cute) woman needs to pay a dude to hang around her? That universe, my friends, is fucking Japan!!



While Jeff is hanging at the crib again, we, along with Mari, are cycling through the options of what to watch for what seems to be yet another one of our impromptu movie nights. Ever since this fucker has come back to town, it seems that we've tried to squeeze in as much movie watchage in before he takes off on tour again, which works out beautifully for us both, since we just can't stop watching movies. After like 2 or 3 suggestions, we go with Jeff's suggestion of "Big Happiness Space". He had seen it before and it did not take much for Mari and I to go "Whaaat?! Hell yeah, let's see that!"...naturally. We were expecting to be entertained, but man we were really sucked into this weird secret world that is the host bar scene. What happens here is something so interesting that once you start watching, you just can't stop, it's like watching animals fuck or people fall, your eyes are laughing but your mind is disgusted...okay maybe not disgusted, but just a little disturbed. The movie centers around a little corner of weird called Rakkyo Cafe, a host bar owned by the top dog in the male (sort of) prostitute game in Osaka: 22 year old Issei. This guy is a damn genius (sorry ladies, but it's true!) Everything about him is catered to what Japanese young women with money want, and apparently what they want is a funny, waif-like emo Barbie doll to spend thousands (I'm not kidding) and thousands (again, this is real money we're talking about)of dollars on...to party with them. with. no. sex. What the fuck?! How does this work?! And to make it even more fucked up, let me tell you that the no sex thing is the host's strategy. These guys will sometimes eventually have sex with these ladies, but once they do, the women rarely come back. So, in order to keep these girls hooked, they string them along and squeeze as much dough out of these girls. Pretty fucked up huh? You have no idea. What's worse is the revealing of the vicious cycle this lifestyle fuels. Watch this and take a shower immediately after.

17 Minutes of Sleeveless T-Shirts/No T-Shirts = Hilarity

In keeping with my heavy metal theme from my last post, I decided to share with you the greatest 17 minutes of film (actually a really old video recording....remember video?) dedicated to the rabid, drunk, stoned, usually shirtless and toothless metal fans of the eighties, and it goes by the name of Heavy Metal Parking Lot. This elusive documentary was the stuff of legend for quite some time. It was shot in 1986, and instantly became this bootleg that people just passed from one set of dirty grubby hands to another, dubbing it first, then passing it on. And on. And on. I learned from imdb.com that it didn't see a proper theatrical release until 1997. That's 11 years after the fact!! How awesome is that!? Not convinced? Well let me feed you some info on this documentary by describing what it is NOT. It is not complex, intellectual, introspective or engaging. What it IS is a document from the dirty bowels of the eighties; it's a twenty minute short doc about the fine ladies and gentlemen that inhabit the parking lot prior to a Judas Priest show in 1986. Period. This genius idea came to two guys (John Heyn & Jeff Krulik) out of nowhere. Heavy Metal was all the rage and Judas Priest was coming to their town...so why the fuck not? How the hell would they know that what they would capture would be pure, golden, molten lava-like scenes of magic? They didn't.

After hearing of this movie for at least 10 years, I finally was able to watch it (it got a pretty fine dvd release in 2006) and man, when I have to resort to a cliche to describe something to you, you know it's fucking good, but I seriously felt like I was in a time machine when I watched this! I was only 10 years old in 1986, but shit do I remember the fabulous fashions and of course, the music. The utterly hilarious and jaw dropping characters paraded before you in Heavy Metal Parking Lot are like the representatives of every slice of metalhead that existed in those days. There's really no way other than to present you with a snippet from one of the most memorable people in the movie, dubbed "Zebraman" by fans of HMPL. 

Behold!

 and make sure you don't rob yourself of these nuggets below.


twenty and....THIRTEEN?! Really?!



Yeah, it's like that. There's a river of greatness in these 17 little minutes, trust me. Mari and I could not stop laughing the whole way through. It's like a whip-it with no end...well actually it does end, so it's like a 17 minute whip-it, you almost devolve while watching it that's how powerful it is. But trust me, you want a full length feature, well, at least I did. It almost makes you want to go back and live it, but with teeth and shampoo. Please please please watch this and let me know what you think. Seriously, it probably took you longer to get through this post than it would've taken to watch Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

"Tron Funkin Blow"

 So yeah, the quote used as the title of this post has absolutely NOTHING to do with Tron, the 1982 neon dripping, ultra futuristic (not really anymore) film we all loved starring Jeff Bridges. Instead it's from one of the funniest scenes in a movie that totally throws you back into the opposite direction of the future, the filthy and sometimes hilarious headbanger past some of us experienced while growing up in the eighties and nineties. I'm talking about mullets, unnecessary acts of stupidity and violence, fire and usually alcohol....lots and lots of alcohol. The film is called Fubar, it's a mockumentary by Michael Dowse about two constantly obliterated and amazingly mulleted Canadian headbangers named Dean and Terry that just look like they were shot out of a cannon filled with Labatt, grease and Camaros, I know that's kind of hard to visualize, but trust me, it's accurate. It's obvious from the start that this is not a real documentary, thanks to the totally unnecessary disclaimer at the beginning of the movie, which makes no kind of sense to me whatsoever. I mean, why put so much effort into making what looks to be a legitimate documentary but then spoil it with a pussy ass disclaimer? It must be legal reasons, I'm sure of it. If someone knows, fill me in, I'm too lazy to research it right now.

There is no complicated storyline here, just hilarity by the kegfull. You follow Dean and Terry around for the entire film, and believe me, it never gets old, no matter how many times you see Dean faceflop into hedges/sidewalks/dirt/whatever, it is fucking funny. The guys basically spend their time doing whatever hockey haired gentlemen wearing nice cutoff shirts would do; get mega wasted, tackle each other, obliterate a bus bench, spray paint, yell vulgar shit at innocent people, litter, talk about the awesome band they will start one day, etc., a typical Saturday night for you and I, but they do it with such pizazz that watching this movie just makes you want to do it every day, not just Saturdays. The best part is that they are "aware" of the camera crew following them around, and the film crew even gets involved...really involved.




I had heard about this movie from my buddy Jeff, so I made it a point to try to get a hold of it by the time he got back into town. As usual, Jeff rarely disappoints on the recommendations and we watched it with a group and we absolutely loved it. I strongly suggest getting shitfaced and watching this with friends; you won't be let down. Make sure you have no snobby pricks in your midst that will dismiss this as a Jackass or CKY ripoff, this movie has very well written characters that are totally believable, if not to you, then you and I are different. And maybe we're different because you're talking to a guy that used to sneak cans of Old Milwaukee with his junior high buddy and draw pentagrams and the number 666 with lighter fluid on the sidewalk before lighting them on fire and shouting with glee through the streets of Hialeah(there's my metalhead past creeping up again), totally giving'r.

Tell us what you really think about Tron!

PS: I've gotten in a lot of movie watchin' this week with Jeff, so stay tuned for a couple more reviews!

Jingle, Django!

So I FINALLY got around to seeing Django, the legendary Sergio Corbucci western that spawned (literally) like hundreds of unofficial sequels. The title character was played by Italian actor Franco Nero, and for a while, after this movie, they would just throw the name "Django" into the title of anything he was in.....regardless of the fact that the movie had absolutely NOTHING to do with the original Django or even with the western genre, for that matter, which is pretty damn hilarious. Shit, okay, so where do I start? Well let me start with the beginning..the title sequence! If you love westerns, you must have already developed a love for really creative and interesting opening credits, but you've also probably developed a sinister glee for really really bad title sequences with ultra cheesy visuals or horrendously tacky music. This my friends, is definitely the greatest (worst) theme song I've ever experienced, it leaves you in complete awe at the suck. Bear witness to the spirit of 1966 below!




The story is basically your usual Spaghetti western fare. It was made in 1966 so it obviously borrowed from Sergio Leone's worldwide smash A Fistful of Dollars that put the genre on the map, which as we all know was a reinterpretation of Kurosawa's Yojimbo, which in turn is based on a novel called The Glass Key....exhausting, huh? But getting back to Django's plot, it basically is about a coffin dragging dude named Django that arrives into an incredibly muddy town (more on the mud in a bit) after rescuing a hot red headed piece of ass named Maria (played by Loredana Nusciak) that was tied up and being whipped by these sadist bandits. After killing them (in like a split second, of course) and going into the town for some r&r with Maria, sure enough, the town is being destroyed by two groups of maniacs; these crazy American red-hooded racist nutjobs (the sadist bandits killed were part of this gang) and Mexican outlaws that just love ears (more on the ears later). So voila, there you have it, instant Spaghetti western!! Without giving too much away, Django obviously starts getting involved in "cleaning" up this town by playing dirty and doing shit for his own benefit, which in this case is to avenge his wife's murder and some muthafuckin' gold, which I might add, is some of the fucking fakest looking excuse for gold I've ever seen in a movie, but who cares? Django goes on to single handedly mow down tons of dudes with his secret weapon...he's got a fucking Gatling gun in that coffin!! Lots and lots of dudes flying through the air and ridiculous blood effects ensue, of course, and then EVERYBODY wants a Gatling gun, monkey see, monkey want a Gatling gun!

This was Corbucci's predecessor to what most people consider to be his masterpiece Il Grande Silenzio (The Great Silence), but you can see the beginnings of what made him one of the better contributors to the Spaghetti genre instead of just a copycat. For example, in both The Great Silence and Django, the locations had an incredible role in the mood of the film. For Silence it was snow upon snow, the entire movie was utterly bleak and cold, and for Django it was tons of fucking mud. Dirty, filthy mud that just screamed misery and hell. I didn't understand why the fuck it never rained in the movie (I don't think it did), but the mud was freaking endless!! There was even a hooker fight in the mud! For some reason, Corbucci just loved to go with extreme weather conditions in his movies, go figure. Another trademark of Mr. Corbucci was violence and gore, well, violence and gore by the sixties standards which is pretty tame when compared to today's standards, but it still managed to get banned in the UK for like 25 years or something. The main reason for the hoopla and uproar in this film was a pretty effective scene where a member of the racist nutjobs gets his ear sliced off and fed to him before getting shot in the back, delicious! Watching this, you realize where Tarantino got the idea for the famous ear scene in Reservoir Dogs. It really looks like a piece of rubber covered in red paint, but damn is it cool looking!

Hooker mud wrestling and ear-tastic fake gore in this clip!
(sorry no subtitles, but you didn't come hear to read, did ya?)

A lot of fake blood, exagerrating stuntmen and mud make this film stand out, but one thing will stick with you forever, and that unsung hero is the theme song! The master behind this little ditty is a Buenos Aires-born man named Luis Bacalov, and I swear he laced that track with some subliminal shit, because tell me you aren't gonna walk around singing "Oh Django!!" to yourself for the next couple of days after seeing that video?!? Hell. Yes.

Check the trailer for horrible English overdub and More Sing-Song goodness!

Chik Chik Wah, Chik Chik Wah

The title of this post is a feeble attempt at spelling out what the scratch solo of Herbie Hancock's "Rock It" sounds like to me. That song really exploded on the scene back in good ol' 1983, where it blew minds, feet and eventually the turntable business. I remember being extremely weirded out by that video. Let's face it, I was about 6 or 7 at the time and the video was quite the acid trip. I didn't know what an acid trip was, mind you, but fuck, I knew something was not right with that video. Perverted mannequins, a robotic ostrich (?), a bunch of back and forth video editing, a robot hand smacking a mannequin head at the dinner table, just creepy props galore and that sound....that awesome sound.....chikachikachikachikachikachika. The scratch. How cool was that sound?!?! I was just floored when I realized that it wasn't an instrument, but a turntable! Shit was fresh, I thought it was an alien invasion, and apparently I wasn't alone.



Scratch is really one of my favorite music documentaries. I've seen it several times and just recently gave it another spin. I should've paired this with my "Planet B-Boy" post from a couple of weeks ago, but fuck it, I never think ahead and you pay the price by not having two companion documentaries to watch at the same time....I'm sorry and get over it. This is just one of those gems that if you love documentaries you should've definitely already seen or at least heard of it. It's a film from 2001 directed by Doug Pray. The reason I love this movie so much is kind of hard to explain. First of all, it gets me all weepy and nostalgic for the days of spinning on my back and wearing bad clothes. Secondly, the Deejays (or is it djays...djs?) highlighted are really the pioneers in hip-hop, electronic music and beyond, so this film helps to serve as a history lesson on the world of turntablism (as the kids with expensive sneakers like to say). And finally, the soundtrack and archive footage from back in the day let you know that this filmmaker really knew his subject matter. You get plenty of interviews and stories of how this appliance that was meant to entertain your abuelas and abuelos while they sat around has now become a total giant in the music world, competing with guitars and drums as the instrument of choice for the kids of the world. How the fuck did this happen?! People like to shake their asses man, plain and simple. And those people have short attention spans. Plain and simple.

But while people continued to shake their asses, turntablists like QBert and Mixmaster Mike (who replaced DJ Hurricane in the Beastie Boys) were trying to talk to aliens with the only tools they had; you guessed it, record players. I should say that these two guys in particular basically described the art of deejaying as just that; talking to aliens. It's kind of funny when you hear them philosophise on this theory, but what do you expect when your talking to guys who used to be in a group called "The Invisibl Skratch Piklz"?

Then there's DJ Shadow, one of the first artists of this genre that I was ever introduced to and still listen to even now. His segment is one of the most memorable in the film, the camera follows him into his secret world....an old Mom and Pop record store where he has been buying records for years upon years, in fact it's the record store pictured on his first album cover. The thing that might get your dick hard if you're into vinyl and like to collect all kinds of records is when he goes into the basement of this place. It is literally a record collector's wet dream, a place where you can probably spend weeks going through stuff and not even cover a fraction of what's down there. Stacked from floor to ceiling, asthmatics will start to freak out just thinking of the amount of dust in that place, but damn is it an awesome sight. Check out the asthmatic greatness below.



As a whole, this doc really lets you into the secret club of these gifted musicians working with two turntables. It's a refreshing (even now, 8 years later) look into hip hop and beyond, taking the focus off of the flashy emcee, no gangsta rap here, no stupid egos, just a bunch of nerds using technology to continue pushing the boundaries of what has become the biggest youth movements this world has seen in a long time. As you will hear most of the interview subjects say, Grand Mixer DST, the man behind the iconic scratching in Hancock's "Rock it", got it started, but what you hear and see in this movie, is far from the chik chik wah, chik chik wah.



...aaaaannd, if by some fucking horrible unfortunate act of circumstance, you have no idea who Herbie Hancock is or what "Rock It" sounds like, here is the video and song that dropped jaws and panties all over the world: