For fans of HG Lewis, Vinegar Syndrome’s newest DVD/BD release of three of his rare films is one of the most interesting jewels in the collection of folks who fancy themselves Lewis fanatics. While the trio of films do not feature the gonzo and hysterical anarchy and grue Lewis mastered and transformed in to artistic expression, the trio of films do have marks from director Lewis who adds his own sense of lunacy on occasion, while worshipping the female form in the process.
Ecstasies of Women from 1969 has a real fancy free Russ Meyer vibe to it, and is a sixties sex comedy in every sense of the word. Lewis opens the film on a strip club where busty naked dancers bounce around on stage, with one of the dancers familiarizing herself with a group of male drinkers enjoying the show.
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
There’s a real under current of sadness and tragedy behind Rob Reiner’s “This is Spinal Tap.” As character Marty DiBergi, a commercial director looking to break in to film, Reiner stands back and films Spinal Tap, a group that is literally running against the clock to make some impact on music. Granted, the threesome of inept rock stars love music to death, but the sad fact is in all the years they’ve made music, they haven’t influenced anyone, nor have they managed to become legends like the Beatles or Led Zeppelin. Since music is an ever evolving and fickle medium, Spinal Tap has spent many decades trying to roll with the changing demand for different music and have literally lost all sense of their own identity. They produce massive presentations during concerts about druids and gothic cocoons, neither of which they have any interest in, and during desperate attempts to seem chic, they fail spectacularly.
Seal Team 6: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden (2012) [Blu-Ray]
Alas, even though there has yet to be a really world shaking event since September 11th, we’re now in an era of films where Hollywood is celebrating the government again. Starting with “Act of Valor” in 2012, in spite of the critical lambasting, the big deal is depicting events of the government where we succeeded. The big news these days is the elimination of Osama Bin Laden as an immediate threat to our country. And now with “Act of Valor” in the background, “Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden” is basically the branch off from the former, except much more Hollywoodized.
Breeders (1986)
Detective Dale Andriotti: Maybe when this is over, we can go out for dinner.
Dr. Gamble Pace: Okay, but I warn you right now… I have a tortured history with men.
Six minutes in, Dr. Gamble Pace as played by Teresa Farley escorts a police officer in to a young victim’s room in a hospital. The hospital room has only one small IV, no medical equipment, and the IV doesn’t seem to be hooked in to anything in particular. Obviously not holding to the discretion rules, Dr. Pace, dressed in average clothing and an awkward medical robe explains in a stilted and painfully performed monologue what the young girl experienced when attacked by a mysterious monster. While the girl is half awake an inch away. That’s about the time I thought: “Oh crap, this is going to be painful.”
Compliance (2012) (DVD)
Yes. People are this stupid. Just to answer the question you’ll be asking yourself over and over while watching “Compliance,” one of the most controversial movies of 2012. Supposedly a film that inspired one woman to slap her knees, shout “Oh come on!” and storm out of the theaters, director Craig Zobel’s infuriating dramatic thriller is a film that draws inadvertent parallels to Abu Ghraib. Where most of the armed officials who took part in the humiliation and torture of prisoners on the bases that they were merely following orders, “Compliance” sheds the light on a day in a fast food restaurant where a young girl was subjected to humiliating and degrading acts of torture and pain on the bases that folks were merely following orders.
Vamp U (2013)
Oddly enough “Vamp U” (formerly titled “Dr. Limptooth”) works much better as a horror movie than it does a comedy. Deep down it possesses the tone of one of those raucous horror comedies from the eighties that should rightfully star someone like Eddie Deezen or Linnea Quigley, and as a horror movie it’s a very effective tongue in cheek vampire film. As a comedy it’s a pretty decent riot, and one that may not inspire laughter, but will garner various giggles and chortles. When “Vamp U” decides it wants to be a straight up vampire movie, it’s a pretty wicked little throwback to the eighties, especially with Julie Gonzalo having a blast as the alpha vampire queen Chris, who begins sleeping with her vampire professor and turns in to a vampire mid-way.
Are All Men Pedophiles? (2012)
If director Jan-Willem Breure’s documentary “Are All Men Pedohiles?” ever gets a wider distribution deal, it definitely needs a new title. The title of the film posits the film as a thesis about the potential for all men to be pedophiles in the making. In reality, Breure’s film is really about pedophilia as a while and what it means to be one and to identify one. The title makes the assertion that it tackles the potential for all men to be pedophiles, when Breure interviews all kinds of subjects about pedophilia. He even interviews female pedophiles during the mid-point of the movie. So while the title does in a sense tackle the theory that any attraction to children can be deemed as pedophilia, Breure offers the example that men and women can be pedophiles and have sexual attraction to children of all ages, hence the title is really a misnomer of a sorts.