Last Days Here, A Woman is a Woman, Hot Rod

Last Days Here, by Don Argott and Demian Fenton, 2011


So Pentagram was apparently an underground heavy metal band formed in the early 1970's. They were never signed on a major label, and mainly found an audience through bootleg recordings. I don't know a thing about heavy metal, really, but that these guys influenced an entire genre without releasing anything is pretty amazing. They never really went away, either. For the past 40 years, they sporadically reformed under numerous different lineups, always led by frontman Bobby Liebling.

Liebling is not just the glue that binds Pentagram together, however. It's safe to say he's also the reason they never stay together. In his 50's, addicted to crack (among other drugs), emotionally immature, and still living in his parents' basement, the guy is a mess. Last Days Here is a documentary about Liebling, in which his manager, Sean Pelletier, tries to get Bobby cleaned up and reunite the original members of Pentagram.

Last Days Here is pretty sad, but entertaining, too. We learn that Pentagram couldn't even get themselves together in the 70's, when members of Kiss came to their place to check them out. It could have been their big break, but it didn't work out. Liebling does give an honest go at quitting the drugs cold turkey, and even gets a girlfriend and moves out of his parents' house, but things go south when he freaks her out and she dumps him. He relapses and winds up getting a restraining order put on him.

Pelletier persists, though. He really wants this reunion to work out, and there is a kind of triumph when Pentagram is up on stage together at the end. There's even some hope for Bobby Liebling. It was nice to see this kind of documentary actually be pretty upbeat at the end. I hope the guy is still doing alright.

A Woman is a Woman (Une Femme est une Femme), by Jean-Luc Godard, 1961


Not that long ago, I watched Godard's debut film, Breathless. I can totally see why it's so highly praised, it's a great movie, and groundbreaking, to boot. And as much as I liked Breathless, I liked his next film, A Woman is a Woman even more. It may not be the superior film of the two (who am I to say?), but it's much more my kind of thing.

A Woman is a Woman is a comedy about relationships and sex, starring Anna Karina as Angela, a strip-tease artist who suddenly decides she wants a baby. When her boyfriend Emile (Jean-Claude Brialy) balks at this, they engage in a battle of wills, until his best friend Alfred (Jean-Paul Belmondo of Breathless) offers to impregnate her in his stead.

Why do I like it better? I just liked the way it feels. It's wacky and sexy and colorful. Godard shows off his playful side much more in this than the other two of his films I've seen, though there are certainly playful moments in both Breathless and Alphaville. Godard continues his experimentation with editing and sound design here, too. I loved the way the score would abruptly stop to make room for a line of dialogue or a sound effect, only to start right back up again. And it's even self-referential. The characters often look directly at the camera and smile knowingly at the end of a shot. At one point, a character says something like "I have to go, Breathless is on TV", and they also joke about Francois Truffaut's films Shoot the Piano Player and Jules and Jim.

A Woman is a Woman is my favorite Godard film yet. I hope he has other films along these lines. You should probably watch Breathless because it's great and important and it's a fun movie, too, but A Woman is a Woman is just pure smiles.

Hot Rod, by Akiva Schaffer, 2007


OK, while Hot Rod is no Jean-Luc Godard film, I found myself pleasantly surprised by it. It's just a dumb little comedy that seems pretty heavily inspired by those first couple Adam Sandler movies I used to watch over and over again when I was 14. But that works for me. I laughed a bit, and mostly chuckled, and I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

Saturday Night Live's Andy Samberg plays "Hot" Rod Kimble, a hopeless young wannabe daredevil, who must raise $50,000 to get a heart replacement for his step-father (Ian McShane). He decides to jump 15 buses, one more than the record set by his hero, Evel Knievel. That's it. Simple plot. Lots of silly jokes. It's made by The Lonely Island, the guys who did all the SNL Digital Shorts like Lazy Sunday and D*ck in a Box.

The supporting cast is pretty good here, though some of the talent is underutilized. Samberg's SNL costar Bill Hader, along with Danny McBride stole the show for me as Rod's "crew". Co-writer, MacGruber director, and fellow The Lonely Island guy Jorma Taccone is funny too as Rod's dim half-brother. Chris Parnell has a hilarious bit part, full of funny one liners. Isla Fisher does that thing I usually don't like in guy driven comedies, where she isn't very funny, and pretty much just serves the role of being a girl. But she does it a little differently. Usually in these movies, the girl acts shocked or appalled at the hero's weird, outlandish behavior, but in Hot Rod, she actually seems amused by him from the get-go, and even a little drawn to him. I liked that. Will Arnett has a couple good moments as her jerk boyfriend.

Anyway, Hot Rod is decently funny, and might grow funnier in repeat viewings, or if I had watched it with other people. Watching comedies alone is never as much fun. It seems like the kind of movie I would have gone crazy for in my early teens. It would have fit perfectly in my VHS collection alongside Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and Tommy Boy.

The Bicycle Thief, Goyokin, and Jiro Dreams of Sushi

The Bicycle Thief, by Vittorio de Sica, 1948


Vittorio de Sica's The Bicycle Thief (or Bicycle Thieves, depending on who you ask) is one of the best, most important, and most moving films ever made. That's not up for debate, it's earned that. Having seen the film, I can now acknowledge all those things, but I don't know, it was just so sad.

The Bicycle Thief is the relentlessly soul-crushing story of Antonio, an impoverished man who gets a job opportunity that requires he has a bike. He and his wife trade all their sheets to be able to get one, and even then, just barely. Antonio and his family treat the bike as their most precious possession. His son polishes it and has memorized every detail, down to a small dent. When Antonio goes to work for his first day, he carries his bike into the office, refusing to put it down. Then, on the job, which is riding around the city and gluing posters to walls, a man takes off with his bike.

Antonio goes to the police, who just trivialize the theft, as though it's not important. To Antonio, of course, it's the most important thing in the world. He, his son, and some friends go on a desperate search, combing the city for the bicycle. There are thousands of bicycles, and so on. The movie is just really damn sad. There are uplifting moments, and there's actually a lovely message of empathy and understanding to the whole thing. Though Antonio's desperation is blinding him to it, we can see that everybody is struggling, not just him. This is what drives people to steal bicycles.

I'm not NOT recommending the movie, it really is great, but just warning you, grab your hankies. No wait, don't use hankies, those are so gross, use a tissue. And watch something happy or fun afterwards, like cat videos or a cool-as-hell samurai movie or something.

Goyokin, by Hideo Gosha, 1969


I feel like Hideo Gosha was the last great director of the Japanese New Wave of the 50's and 60's. I don't know if this is a fact, because my knowledge is incomplete, but this is how it seems to me. While most of the other important directors of the time began making films in the 30's and 40's and were already well into their careers when they produced their seminal works, Gosha made his first film in 1964. Japanese cinema becomes a whole different beast in the 1970's, and I feel like Gosha kind of bridges the gap between the two styles.

In Goyokin, the great Tatsuya Nakadai (The Sword of Doom, High and Low, Kagemusha, among many others) stars as Magobei Wakizaka, an honorable samurai who looks on in shame as his clansmen slaughter an entire village to steal a shipment of gold. He can't go on as a samurai anymore and quits, but also promises his master and best friend, Rokugo (Tetsuro Tanba of You Only Live Twice and The Twilight Samurai, also among many others), that he won't report this transgression as long as it doesn't happen again.

Three years later, Magobei, living a peaceful life, is about to give up his sword for good when assassins sent to kill him tip him off that Rokugo is planning on butchering another village. Magobei decides to stop it from happening. Along the way, he stumbles across the girl who was the sole survivor of the massacre three years ago, and wins over a mercenary sent to kill him.

This movie is awesome. It's fun, with lots of action and adventure. Tatsuya Nakadai is totally badass as Magobei Wakizaka. There's a great scene where he is tied up and dropped into a deep pit of snow and left to die. The exact details of his escape are left to the imagination, but we're given enough of a starting point to marvel at how cool this guy is. Rokugo's plan to run a shipment of gold into the sea is pretty diabolical, and Wakizaka's plan to thwart this plan is equally clever. And of course, we get a deadly showdown between the two at the climax.

I've seen five or six of Hideo Gosha's films now, and dug them all. Though the film that follows this, Hitokiri, is a lot darker, the rest of the ones I've seen, such as Secret of the Urn have all had this kind of spirit of adventure. Goyokin is tons of fun.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi, by David Gelb, 2011


We're going to stay in Japan for our next review, though this is a very different kind of movie than Goyokin. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a documentary about Jiro Ono, an 85 year old man who owns a tiny sushi shop that purportedly makes the best sushi in the world. Jiro has spent close to his entire life making sushi, obsessing over every detail, honing his techniques, and looking for ways to improve it. He's like Van Gogh painting the same scene over and over again, trying to find the perfect colors to represent it. Or Stanley Kubrick obsessively looking through thousands of pictures of door frames, trying to find the exact perfect one to include in his film.

We also meet Jiro's two sons; the eldest is in his 50's and is still being primed to take over Jiro's restaurant someday. He has to live with the anxiety that even if his sushi is every bit as good as his fathers, people will somehow perceive it as lesser and thus put his business under. The youngest son has been encouraged to open his own sushi restaurant that is an identical mirror image of Jiro's place. Jiro was not the best father to his sons. He was too busy thinking of sushi, but I guess he's there for them now, in his way.

The documentary is fascinating, though it can be as repetitive and single-minded as its subject. Could you imagine living your life with your brain centered on all aspects of sushi and nothing else? Of course, he's not making the sushi alone. Along with his sons, he has several apprentices. They are given years and years of rigorous training. In fact, they said it takes something like ten years before they're even allowed to handle the eggs.

What's weird is, I'm not an adventurous eater in the least bit. I've never even had sushi, but I still could totally appreciate this movie and Jiro's work. I assume this sushi is the most delicious raw fish one could ever eat, if one were into such things as raw fish. It would be like if somebody in America would dedicate their entire life to cultivating the most perfect french fry in the world... Oh man, now I'm drooling. I've gotta go.

Switchblade Sisters, You're Gonna Miss Me

All I've wanted to do lately is watch movies. I don't really know why, but I've just been experiencing a hunger lately to take in as many films as I possibly can. I'm sure that's what those of you who know me think I'm like all the time, but truthfully, until fairly recently, I was happy to watch three or four movies a week, mixed in with countless TV shows, comic books, novels, video games, and websites, not to mention what passes for my piddling social life.

Suddenly, in July, I started watching a movie every single day, sometimes more than one. I watched close to 40 in that month alone, and that was even with me prepping a cross-country move! It looks like I'll come close to that again in August. In the last month and a half, I've watched 1/3 of the total movies I've watched all year!

Why am I telling you this? I have no idea. I just have so many movies to talk about right now, and the list of films I want to see keeps getting longer. The last couple months have felt quite fulfilling in that respect. I don't know how long I can keep up this momentum. Probably not long, since I'll be back to working full time by September. But I'll try to drag it out as long as I can.

The Switchblade Sisters, by Jack Hill, 1975

Watching old exploitation movies can often be a squirmy, unsettling affair. The violence doesn't usually take me aback very much, but the sex often can. Not that I'm prudish, I just don't really like it when things get rapey, as they often did in the 70's. In those cases, you usually just have to try to look past those scenes and try to appreciate the movie within the context it was made in.

Jack Hill's The Switchblade Sisters is actually a pretty well made film, despite the scenes that make you feel like a creep for watching them. It's about a gang of tough, kick-ass high school girls known as The Dagger Debs, who are like a sister sorority to a man gang called The Daggers. Maggie, a new girl in town, manages to work her way into the Debs, befriending the leader, Lace. Over the course of things, Maggie takes over the gang, throws out the guys, and changes the name to the much cooler sounding The Jezebels, and eventually, it all comes down to a big gang fight, with Maggie going up against her old friend Lace. Lots of violence and titillation along the way.

The Switchblade Sisters walks kind of a weird balance. The girls in the gang are strong, independent, three-dimensional characters, which is pretty impressive for its time. But the movie must also give in to the demands of its financiers and its target audience, so there's a lot of pretty tasteless stuff mixed in. You could almost say this movie is kind of feminist. You could also say it's not in the least bit feminist, and you would not be wrong. Overall, I did like The Switchblade Sisters. It has an entertaining story, and the lead girls were actually really badass. It's worth watching if you know that you're getting into some pretty gloriously trashy stuff. I know Quentin Tarantino is a big fan, if that's any indication.

You're Gonna Miss Me, by Keven McAlester, 2005

Rock and roll history and lore is riddled with stories of success and highly publicized accounts of tragedy. But along the paths of those famous stories are tangential stories of bands that almost made it, or artists who burned out before they even began. Bands who disintegrated after recording one ahead-of-its-time album. Artists who couldn't stand the attention. These stories are often just as, or more, interesting than hearing about The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, or Kurt Cobain again.

You're Gonna Miss Me is a documentary about Roky Erickson, lead singer of a 60's rock band called The 13th Floor Elevators, and apparently, the man who coined the word "psychedelic". They have some songs you might recognize, look them up. Erickson took too much LSD, was diagnosed schizophrenic, and committed. But when he gets out his guitar and sings, he still can make phenomenal music. A very interesting and pretty sad documentary, and an important side story in the Annals of Rock.

Grab Bag Movies that Start with 'The' Edition: The Sci-Fi Boys, The Twilight Samurai, The Baxter

I've been watching a ton of movies lately. Already 20 in July alone! It's because I'm moving in August and I won't have nearly as much time to watch movies once I get there. Anyway, here's another Grab Bag of mini reviews. Stay tuned for even more!

The Sci-Fi Boys, by Paul Davids, 2006

This is a look back at the early days of special effects and science fiction movies, and how a generation of young fans revolutionized the industry. It has interviews with lots of important figures, such as John Landis, Roger Corman, Forrest J. Ackerman, Peter Jackson, Dennis Muren, Ray Harryhausen, and Rick Baker. Lots of neat moments, including footage from old home movies by these creators as young fans.

The Sci-Fi Boys is a very loving and nostalgic look back at the old days of science fiction, B-Movies, and special effects. I liked it, but it's a subject I'm already interested in. It could have been livelier. There are actually some documentaries on B-movies that I liked much better than this. Check out Not Quite Hollywood and Machete Maidens Unleashed by Mark Hartley.

The Twilight Samurai (Tasogari Seibei) by Yoji Yamada, 2002
This movie is sooooo moving! The Twilight Samurai is the story of Seibei Iguchi, a low-ranking samurai with no ambitions to rise in the ranks. His only priority is taking care of his two young daughters (they lost their mother to consumption) and his senile mother, who doesn't even remember him. When his master assigns him with the dangerous task of killing an exiled samurai who refused to commit ritual suicide, Iguchi must obey or face a similar situation for himself.

The Twilight Samurai is a really beautiful movie. It won best picture in Japan and was nominated for the best foreign film Oscar here in America the year it came out. It's a vivid and realistic portrayal of what life must have been like at the end of the age of the samurai. Everybody should watch this movie. Be warned, though: It just might make you cry.

The Baxter, by Michael Showalter, 2005
Wet Hot American Summer is one of my favorite comedies, and I like to check out any and everything by the guys behind it. I had heard mixed things about Michael Showalter's The Baxter, so I've been avoiding it in fear that I might not like it. Well, those fears were unfounded, because it was a decent little movie, with a lot of little laughs.

Showalter plays Elliott Sherman, a nice guy who lives to be what he called a "Baxter", the guy who women settle for when they can't get the guy they really love. He finds himself in that very situation when he meets Caroline (Elizabeth Banks), and gets himself stuck in a romantic entanglement with her, her perfect high school boyfriend (Justin Theroux), and the temp that he falls for (Michelle Williams). It's kind of a deconstruction of the tropes of the Romantic Comedy genre, and it's kind of just being silly.

The Baxter isn't a great movie, it's really just OK, but it has a very good cast, including the above mentioned people, and smaller roles by Paul Rudd, David Wain, Ken Marino, Michael Ian Black, and Peter Dinklage. Showalter is one of those comic actors who can make me laugh just by making a face or delivering a line a certain way, and he got me a lot in this. If you like Wet Hot American Summer, The Baxter might be worth your time, especially since pretty close to everybody involved in that turns up in this too.

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That will be all for today. Twilight Samurai is my recommendation this time. Thanks for reading!

American Grindhouse

Any regular readers of this here webbity page can probably tell that I love watching B movies, cult movies, and other such cinematic oddities. I love the strange and fantastical, and many of my favorite movies are the ones that show me things that I have never seen or even imagined before. As an extension of that, I also love watching documentaries about such films. After watching them, I always end up with huge lists of movies I want to check out.

Elijah Drenner's documentary American Grindhouse is basically a complete history of exploitation movies, going back all the way to the dawn of cinema. It's highly informative, demonstrating through footage and interviews with experts, fans, and participants in the genre, how the societal mindset of each era was reflected in the usually cheap, often seedy films that played in the dingier, more rundown theaters across America.

I learned a lot, and perhaps saw some things that I can't unsee, such as a live birth (surprisingly, I handled it well), and footage from Tod Browning's Freaks, which I always kind of avoided, because that kind of stuff always makes me sad (it still made me sad).

I loved the section of the film about the films of the 1950's. I thought it was hilarious that there was an entire genre of Nudist Camp movies, just showing naked people frolicking and playing volleyball and stuff. That's such a strange, sexless way to sell sex that it could only have come from the repressed 1950's, you know?

The sixties are when things started to get pretty sick, which also makes sense because society was getting pretty sick, too. You know, turbulent times, and stuff. That's when the nudie movies got violent, and the horror movies got gory. I liked learning about Herschell Gordon Lewis, AKA the Godfather of Gore, who most of you might know from the scene about him in Juno. I'm not sure if I want to see his movies, but the guy was a trailblazer, taking horror movies to the over the top, Grand Guignol level.

A great debt is also owed to Roger Corman, who I have a particular appreciation for. He directed and produced so many independent movies, and found so many major movie talents in the process, that you could make an entire movie just on him. (What? They already have? I plan on watching that one too!) He was always able to tap into what the youth were looking for and, well, exploit it.

Eventually, in no small part due to Corman and the generation of talent he discovered and mentored (Scorsese, Nicholson, Dante, Demme, the list goes on...), exploitation movies became the mainstream blockbusters that we go and see today. Which is exactly why knowing this history should be important to anyone who loves the movies.

I seriously love documentaries like this. I always end up with huge lists of movies I want to see after I watch them. Did I mention it was narrated by Robert Forster? Pretty cool, right? Just be warned if you watch it: lots of nudity, lots of gore. Put the kids to bed!

Anyway, if you watch American Grindhouse and are still interested in learning about movies like this, might I direct your attention to the fantastic documentaries of Mark Hartley? Instead of the broad picture that American Grindhouse paints, Hartley narrows his focus to specific global movements or subgenres and digs deep. Not Quite Hollywood covers the Australian "Ozsploitation" movement, and Machete Maidens Unleashed covers Corman's exploits making movies on the cheap in the Phillipines in the 70's. Fascinating, educational and funny stuff. All three of these movies are on Netflix Instant (if you're in America, at least).

Shut Up, Little Man!

In the late 1980's, two twenty-something midwestern guys moved into a cheap apartment in San Francisco. Much to their chagrin, they soon discovered that their neighbors, two drunk old men, had violent screaming matches at any and all hours of the day. The thin walls offered little protection from the noise, so these guys did what any smartass twenty-something kid would do: they started recording the arguments. Little did they realize that these tapes would become an underground sensation.

Shut Up, Little Man! is a 2010 documentary by Matthew Bate that not just presents their story, but also attempts to piece together the story of these two miserable old men. They were Peter J Haskett and Raymond Huffman, one proudly gay, the other loudly homophobic, but nevertheless, they were roommates, and apparently the best of friends.

The guys, who go by the names Eddie Lee Sausage and Mitchell D, recorded Haskett and Huffman for months. At one point on a recording, one of the old men even comments that "Now the neighbors are recording us!" and they just keep arguing! They passed the tapes to friends, who in turn passed the tapes to friends, and so on. The tapes got so popular in their circle that they would have parties where they'd all get together and listen to the old men arguing live.

The Shut Up, Little Man! tapes were viral videos before viral videos existed. There were people back in the 80's and 90's who collected such tapes, recordings of prank calls, etc. Sausage and D's recordings became such an underground sensation that an indie magazine actually began to distribute them across the nation, a hit play was produced, and there were even early talks to make a Shut Up, Little Man! movie(!?!).

Shut Up, Little Man! is a fun little documentary. The phenomenon of tape trading interests me. I was quite young at the time this was going on, but if I was 10 years older, I bet I would have ate that stuff up. This movie reminds me a lot of the documentary Winnebago Man. If you watch the two movies back to back, you'll get a fairly decent account of the history of viral videos, leading up to the early days of the internet.

The Sweatbox

Disney's 2000 animated feature, The Emperor's New Groove, while by no means a classic, was an enjoyable movie, refreshing and different at a time when Disney was stuck in a holding pattern. It turns out, though, that it could have been a very different movie, and that it came out the way that it did is quite surprising.

The Sweatbox is a fascinating documentary by Trudie Styler, chronicling the troubled production of The Emperor's New Groove, and the frustration, disappointment, and heartbreak that such a troubled production can cause. Styler is the wife of the musician Sting, who was brought on to compose six new songs for the film. She was granted permission to make an all access documentary on the making of the movie as part of the deal.

Disney certainly didn't have a clue that the production was going to be such a mess. The Emperor's New Groove was a completely different movie at that time, an animated epic called Kingdom of the Sun, to be co-directed by Roger Allers, one of the directors of The Lion King. David Spade still voiced a bratty emperor-turned-llama and Eartha Kitt was still the villain but those are just about the only similarities.

The early scenes of the film are interviews with Sting, animators, and Roger Allers, and there is an enthusiasm there. Allers has been guiding this production, the story was his baby. As months pass, though, the story never seems to crystallize, it sounds like it's kind of all over the place. Then comes the fateful day when an extremely rough cut of the film is to be shown to the head honchos. They tear it apart, saying they can't tell if it's a comedy or a drama, don't know what exactly it's about, and the only things they like are two of the songs.

I felt really bad for Roger Allers, who guided the project from its conception, for three years, only to be told to change everything into something completely unrecognizable. He can't be blamed for leaving the project, to be taken over by his co-director Mark Dindal, who reworked it into a lighter, goofier story.

Of course, the problem with that is, there's not really any place for Sting's songs now. Sting had never written songs for a movie like this, obviously, and his growing frustration with the studio is beginning to show. He didn't expect to be called back for new compositions time and time again over a period of years, interrupting his touring schedule and other projects. All this resulted in was a song in the end credits and a soundtrack CD full of songs that don't really resemble the movie.

There are several documentaries out there about troubled movie productions, and I always find them heartbreaking, but impossible to turn away from. Perhaps the most difficult to watch is Lost in La Mancha, the documentary about the aborted production of Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote movie, in which everything that could possible go wrong does. The Sweatbox is a little different, in that the filmmakers actually pulled through and made a decent movie.

The Sweatbox was never released by Disney, who retained the rights to it, but it did play at a film festival or two. I was surprised to find it had leaked onto Youtube. I'm honestly not sure if it's still up or if Disney has found out and pulled it down, but I bet if you look, it's out there somewhere. If you're in any way interested in seeing what goes into the making of a Disney film, and how much of their lives the people involved put into making just one, I recommend you hunt it down.

Machete Maidens Unleashed!

Documentarian Mark Hartley has made a name for himself chronicling cinematic histories that nobody else seems to want to touch. With his first film, Not Quite Hollywood, he explored the creative energy and weird anything goes vibe of the Australian exploitation movie scene. Along with countless trashy ones, some genuinely good films came out of that genre, such as George Miller's classic Mad Max, and Richard Franklin's demented horror film Patrick (which Hartley is now set to remake).

Now comes Hartley's second film, Machete Maidens Unleashed!, about the cinematic revolution in The Philippines through the 60's, 70's, and 80's, spurred on by schlock producer Roger Corman. Like the Ozsploitation scene, this is a lesser known piece of cinematic history that still deserves to be told.

The Philippines offered many resources for Corman to exploit: extremely cheap non-union labor, real life jungle sets, and stunt men willing to do anything for a buck. Corman made his movies there one after another, cheap and fast, utilizing many of the same actors and directors. He explored and exploited many genres there, including many Women in Prison films, some blaxploitation, martial arts, and horror. Most of these movies were, of course, terrible, but some of them do have their moments. Actors Pam Grier and Sid Haig cut their teeth making movies in The Philippines, and The Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme got his start writing them. The fact that the movies were so trashy allowed him to sneak in some subversive political subtext in places where nobody would look.

Hartley's documentary is told in a series of interviews, with, among others, Corman himself, Grier and Haig, his trailer cutters Alan Arkush and Joe Dante, and director John Landis. The interviews are intercut with scenes from the movies themselves. There are a lot of interesting stories told. A particularly funny one is Arkush and Dante's story about the exploding helicopter, and how it found its way into many of the trailers they cut.

The history of Americans shooting their films in The Philippines ultimately culminates in Francis Ford Coppola bringing his infamous production of Apocalypse Now to the country. Since there's already an entire movie about how that went down, they just spend a few minutes on it, but it's still some of the most interesting stuff in the movie.

After Apocalypse Now, The Philippines started exporting their own products. We're introduced to Weng Weng, a dwarf action star who starred in James Bond spoofs such as "For Your Height Only". He was their first homegrown success story in the international scene.

Machete Maidens Unleashed! is an extremely interesting, often outrageous story. I love this kind of thing, I find the oddballs working on the fringe of the mainstream so much more interesting. I hope Mark Hartley keeps on making these documentaries and exposing the world to the stories behind all these weird grindhouse gems. Next up, he's telling the story of Cannon Films, the Israeli production company that produced the hilariously bad disco musical The Apple (WATCH IT, EVERYONE!), Breakin', its sequel, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Masters of the Universe. Can't wait!

Machete Maidens Unleashed! and Not Quite Hollywood are available on Netflix Instant if you want to see them.

Winnebago Man

Ahhh, the early days of viral videos. Remember when these funny, weird little videos would float around the web and people would laugh at them and pass them around for months? Nowadays, they rarely have that kind of longevity. We watch them, laugh, and forget the next day when somebody else's embarrassing video comes to our attention.

Winnebago Man is a documentary about one of the web's first viral video sensations. I had forgotten all about this video, but the moment they showed footage from it, it all came rushing back. The Winnebago Man, known alternately as "The Angriest Man in the World", is Jack Rebney. In 1989, Rebney filmed an industrial video for Winnebago. He was so comically nasty, grouchy, and foul mouthed between takes, that somebody on the crew saw fit to edit together the outtakes and pass the video around. 16 years later, it found its way onto a fledgling Youtube, and took the world by storm. It found its way into pop culture (we're treated to Ben Affleck doing an impression, and a reference to it on 30 Rock), and had countless parody videos and even an Italian knockoff made. The documentary's director, Ben Steinbauer, became fascinated with Rebney's tragically hilarious outbursts, and decided to track the history of the video, and attempt to track down Rebney himself, if he's indeed still out there.

At first, I thought this movie was going to lay a guilt trip on those of us who laugh at viral videos. You know, because these people are human too, and this kind of notoriety could cause a lot of damage to somebody's psyche. The Star Wars Kid is a good example of that. But it doesn't judge us for laughing at these people. We can't help it if these videos are funny. It does address these issues, and even talks to some other subjects of these unintentionally videos. It's all very interesting, and you do sympathize with these people.

Winnebago Man really takes off when Steinbauer finds Rebney. He lives alone, running a campground in Northern California. He seems to be calm, at peace, and able to laugh at himself. If that seems too good to be true, it's because it is. A week later, Steinbauer gets a call from Rebney, saying that was all a ruse. I'm happy to report that Jack Rebney is still the exact same man we saw in that video, and he's irate about the youth of today and their internets and Youtubes.

As the movie progresses, we come to sympathize with Rebney, and maybe even like him a little (don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to spend any time with him). He is who he is. He's grouchy and angry even towards people he likes. The climax is when Steinbauer convinces Jack to attend a Found Footage Festival screening of his video and do a Q & A. You get a sense that Jack has come to terms with this whole thing, maybe just a little.

Winnebago Man reminded me a great deal of last year's awesome documentary, Best Worst Movie, about the cult status of the hilariously terrible Troll 2. They both follow the effects of a new kind of fame, where maybe the people who love something aren't loving it for the intended reasons. These movies both humanize their subjects while still giving us permission to find them funny. We as viewers should just all be mindful that we're all just one accident or unguarded moment away from being a cult sensation ourselves.

Microcosmos

I'm going to coin a term for Microcosmos: Beausgusting. Microcosmos is the most beausgusting movie ever made. Bugs! Yuck!

Microcosmos is a nature documentary that uses miniature cameras to film bugs going about their daily lives. There is a little bit of narration at the beginning at the end, but for the most part, it prefers to just stand back and let the action speak for itself, which is set to the musical score. It's stunningly photographed, and insect behavior sure is fascinating to watch.

Wait a minute. I hate bugs! They're really gross, even more so close up. I don't know why I was drawn to this. The beauty of nature is lovely to behold from afar, I guess, but I wouldn't want to be there. I caught myself more than once unconsciously lifting my feet off the floor while watching this movie, like these bugs were crawling under me. That's how vivid Microcosmos is.

What do you have to look forward to? A spider wrapping up a cricket in its thread in slow motion. A bunch of waterbugs trying to escape massive raindrops slamming into a pond. A weird caterpillar conga line. And need I forget: two ladybugs doing it. That's right. They're having sex! Awwwww yeah. Hot girl-on-girl action.

All joking aside, Microcosmos is a thoroughly engrossing nature documentary, and it's totally worth checking out if you like things like Planet Earth or Life. But if you're at all squeamish about watching gross bugs doing gross bug things, like I am, you should enter this one with caution.