The Aristocrats is a joke that is told by stand-up comedians to stand-up comedians.  The opening line (“A guy walks into a talent agency…”) and the punchline (“What do you call the act?”  “The Aristocrats!”) is always the same.  The middle portion of the joke is up to the comic’s imagination.  Anything goes as long as he (or she) keeps these things consistent:  The guy, his wife, son, and daughter have sex with each other.  Urination, defecation, and vomiting aren’t required but it helps.  Points are earned if the comic can come up with the sickest shit imaginable.

The joke itself isn’t funny but the execution of the middle section can be depending on who is telling it.  This is where the comedian can completely let go and say virtually anything and get a laugh.  This documentary from director Paul (Comics Only) Provenza is essentially just interviews with a 100 comedians who tell us their encounters with the joke.  Some of them even tell their version.

It’s here where the movie sorta fumbles.  I honestly believe if the whole movie was 100 comedians telling the joke, it would’ve been great.  As it is, Provenza often cuts away to other interviewees while someone is in the midst of telling the joke.  Telling jokes is an art form that requires intricate timing.  By cutting away from the comedian in mid-joke, it ruins the flow of their version.

Some people actually get to tell their version of the joke with minimal to no interruption and it’s hysterical.  George Carlin, Bob Saget, and Sarah Silverman are among them and each one of them had me in stitches.  Drew Carey gets a special mention for doing a little hand motion at the end to accentuate the punchline as does Kevin Pollack who performs it while impersonating Christopher Walken.  Martin Mull tells a clever variation on it that is very funny as well.

The Aristocrats (the movie not the joke) loses points thanks to the sloppy editing.  Still it’s funny and fast moving enough for me to recommend it.  It’s definitely a treat just seeing all these great comedians (Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Don Rickles, etc.) in the same movie.

Before The Deadliest Catch, there was Killers of the Sea.  This documentary tells the story of Captain Wallace Caswell, a salty seaman who caught and killed dangerous sea animals with his bare hands.  When sharks and octopi come along and eat fishermen’s catches, robbing them of their payday, Caswell is called in to dispose of the pesky animals.  Throughout the film, Caswell fights a marlin with a rod and reel, kills a dolphin with his bare hands (the narrator calls it a “whale” but it’s really a dolphin), catches a bass with a giant hook, hacks up a hammerhead, repeatedly stabs a tiger shark, murders turtles, fends off a giant octopus, and almost loses his life while dueling with a deadly sawfish.

This flick was on a 50 Movie Pack of horror movies but it totally isn’t a horror flick.  It’s still fun in a hopelessly dated kinda way.  (Wait until you hear the horribly racist things the narrator says about Caswell’s black cook.)  If you are a member of PETA, the gratuitous animal cruelty will no doubt make you sick.  On the other hand, if you’re like me and can appreciate archaic cinematic artifacts like this one, you should be amused.

I think the best part of Killers of the Sea was it’s length.  It was only 49 minutes long.  The first 4 minutes was spent on opening credits, a crawl telling you all about Caswell, and THE NATIONAL ANTHEM!  I’ve seen a lot of movies in my time but I’ve never seen any movie begin with the flipping Star Spangled Banner!

Many will find this flick reprehensible but I thought it was a fascinating relic of a bygone era.  There is never a dull moment and the 49 minutes whizzes by in no time.  Besides, you can’t lose when the narrator constantly says shit like, “When you see Caswell climbing out of his pants, that means the battle is about to begin!”

Killers of the Sea has enough unintentional laughs to put it on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of the Year for 1937 at the Number 4 spot.

Anvil:  The Story of Anvil is just like This is Spinal Tap… except it’s a real documentary… and it isn’t very good.

Basically, Anvil was this heavy metal band that went on tour with Bon Jovi ONCE and thought they had a career.  For the next thirty years, they’ve been playing club dates to 14 people in skuzzy bars while eeking out a meager living in Canada.  Although a promising Eastern European tour goes nowhere (at one point they play in Transylvania), they remain optimistic.  After a lot of in-fighting, they cut a new album and eventually play a triumphant gig in Japan to a sold out crowd.

I thought this movie was a joke but apparently Anvil is a real band.  It’s hard to tell though when the director keeps making all these stupid Spinal Tap references.  Throughout the movie, Anvil visit Stonehenge, have a clueless female manager with a bad accent, and have speakers that go up to 11.  The drummer’s name is even Robb Reiner for Christ’s sake!

The big reason why I thought this was a mockumentary was that it’s called Anvil:  The Story of Anvil.  I guess the filmmakers were actually being serious when they named their movie that though.  Honestly, who calls their movie, Anvil:  The Story of Anvil?  That’s like Oliver Stone making JFK:  The Story of JFK.  Or watching a Kung Fu movie called Ricky:  The Story of Ricky.  It’s redundant as fuck. 

I think all of this may have been entertaining but none of the band members are really endearing.  While I admire their never-say-die spirit, they’re all just your average Canuck-leheads with bad hair, worse teeth and zero charisma.  Think of a heavy metal version of those dweebs from American Movie and that gives you a good idea of what to expect.  Lots of REAL rock stars like Slash and Scott Ian are seen talking about Anvil in the film’s early going and they’re quite interesting to listen to.  Maybe if the whole movie was about them TALKING about Anvil, it would’ve been good.

Save yourself 80 minutes and just watch Spinal Tap again.

Before HBO there was Z Channel.  Z was the first television station to play nothing but movies commercial free.  Since Z Channel was only an LA thing, I never got to see it but after watching this documentary, it seemed pretty damn cool.  They played everything from The Wild Bunch to art films from Empire Strikes Back to European sex flicks.  That shit would be right up my alley.

One of the reasons Z Channel had such an eclectic line-up was because of its programmer, Jerry Harvey.  He wrote a couple of movies but never really made it as a filmmaker.  That was OK though because his vast knowledge of movies made him an ideal programmer for the channel.  Harvey was a true innovator.  He was the first guy to show director’s cuts of films.  Before Special Edition DVD’s, the only place you could see a director’s cut was on the Z Channel.  Harvey even had enough clout to show Salvador on Z Channel during Oscar season, which resulted in James Woods getting a nomination.

Harvey had a messed up personal life though.  He came from a terrible family situation and drank a lot.  When Z Channel got bought out and started broadcasting baseball games to make money, he fell into a great depression and shot and murdered his wife before turning the gun on himself.

The scenes chronicling Harvey’s descent aren’t nearly as involving as the parts about Z Channel itself.  The details of Harvey’s personal life seemed like outtakes from City Confidential of something.  I didn’t mind them too much because this documentary showed a lot of tantalizing clips of movies I always wanted to see but never got around to checking out.  Films like Once Upon a Time in America, Bad Timing, and Heaven’s Gate (which is praised here despite its horrendous reputation) looked pretty tight from what they showed here.  I’ll have to Netflix them at some point. 

The requisite celebrity talking heads are fun to listen to.  They consist of mainly directors like Robert Altman whose films gained a second life from airing on Z Channel.  Younger filmmakers like Alexander Payne are also seen talking about Z Channel’s influence.  And of course Quentin Tarantino has to show up babbling on about some damn film you’ve never heard of.

<Special Note>  This review is coming from a Stones fan that doesn’t have much love for the Beatles, so be warned.

The U.S. vs. John Lennon is a solid documentary that chronicles how the U.S. government harassed, harangued, and fucked around with John Lennon.  You see, Lennon was very critical of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam so he wrote a bunch of irritating folk songs about it.  Dick Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover didn’t like those songs so they did everything in their power to get the Fab Fuck and his homely mate, Yoko Oh-No out of the States.

You know I’m kinda torn about how exactly to rate The U.S. vs. John Lennon.  I really hated how Lennon could live in our country illegally and have the balls to criticize our government.  His idiotic naiveté towards the war and hippie philosophy got on my nerves real fast, and his protest songs pretty much blew.  It also bugged me that Lennon tried to make himself out to be the “victim” in all this.  Seriously dude, did you honestly think that the American government WOULDN’T follow you around once you started hanging out with people like Abbie Hoffman and Bobby Seale? 

You don’t see Mick Jagger doing that shit do you?

Then again, the film itself is fairly engrossing and moderately entertaining.  I actually learned a lot of interesting factoids from the flick (I didn’t know that Tommy Smothers played on “Give Peace a Chance”) so I can’t hate on it too much.  *** for the documentation aspect of the flick.  ** for the incessant hippie bullstuff.  ** ½ average.

I was way too young to attend the infamous New York swinger's nightclub, Plato’s Retreat during it's heyday in the late 70's, but this documentary made the place look like a lot of fun.  Basically this guy Larry Levenson opened it up so lots of horny New Yorkers could fuck their brains out.  That is to say the man is brilliant.  Why hasn’t New York named a street after this guy?

Anyway, this doc chronicles the rise (disco, porn stars, and cocaine) and fall (the AIDS scare, prostitution, and cocaine) of the club from the 70’s to the 80’s.  After going to jail, Levenson ended up overweight, living in a basement, and driving a cab before dying of a heart attack at age 62.  That’s no way for a legend to go.

Even though a lot of porn stars (Jamie Gillis, Ron Jeremy, Fred Lincoln) and celebs (Buck Henry, Melvin Van Peebles, Ed Koch) are interviewed, it’s the real people that frequented Plato’s who have the best stories.  Old TV ads for Plato’s Retreat and (semi-hot) archived footage of people fucking in the club also add to the fun.  If the movie has a weakness, it’s that the filmmakers couldn’t decide whether to focus their attention on the club or on Levenson.  They try to cover both and as a result, the flick goes back and forth a little too much.  It’s not really a bad thing since the guy is pretty entertaining (especially when he’s interviewed by Phil Donahue).  It’s just that I think he was so interesting that he deserved his own documentary.

Best line:  “Levenson was riding a runaway tiger… of sex!”

Documentary filmmaker Ron (Grass) Mann directed this intriguing flick which (forgive the pun) sketches the history of American comic books.  Mann interviews such comics luminaries as William (Mad) Gaines, Will (The Spirit) Eisner, Jack (The Fantastic Four) Kirby, Frank (The Dark Knight Returns) Miller, and Stan Lee (who is interviewed while standing next to an awesome Spider-Man pinball machine); who all give their two cents worth about why comics are so great.  Mann also delves into the 50’s Senate hearings on juvenile delinquency where comic books were singled out as the number one destroyer of our nation’s youth; which lead to dozens of titles (including the beloved Tales from the Crypt) being discontinued and the eventual creation of “The Comics Code”.

I’m a rabid comic book fan, and although I thoroughly enjoyed this documentary, it still wasn’t perfect.  To me, Mann focused way too much on the underground comic scene.  While I did enjoy seeing Robert Crumb interviewed (years before he got his own documentary), most of the dudes Mann talked to I had never heard of and didn’t really care that much about.  Comic Book Confidential may not be the final word on the subject, but that’s okay because the parts where the artists narrated their own panels was super cool.  Hell, I’d watch a whole movie that was nothing but Stan Lee narrating old Spider-Man comics.  

Okay remember in Role Models when McLovin’ was participating in LARPing (Live Action Role Playing)?  Well, this documentary is devoted to that.  We follow the Seattle chapter of NERO in which nerds and virgins pay good money to dress up like Renaissance Festival rejects and hit each other with Styrofoam swords.  Most of these dorks play NERO because they got bored of Dungeons and Dragons.  All I can say is at least they’re actually going outside for a change.

The documentarians should be commended for never making fun of their subjects.  Trust me; it would’ve been easy to do.  They mostly just put a camera on a nerd and let them dig their own graves.  I particularly liked the one chick in blue face paint who was bereaved that her “race” of people, the Sea Elves had been vanquished from play.

What’s most interesting about the flick is when the organizer slowly starts to grow the fuck up and move on with his life.  (This still doesn’t stop him from him donning a bunch of vines and pretending to be a plant monster.)  I also got a good laugh out of the fact that his right hand man ditched him during one crucial event because he was too busy at home playing World of Warcraft.  

I don’t think you necessarily have to be a nerd to enjoy Monster Camp.  For some out there, this will be like watching a home movie.  For me, I got a lot of hearty laughs out of it.  

PS:  If any of you nerds are reading this and don’t like my review, I want you to know that I’m wearing a Crimson Cloak that renders me immune to all your spells.

If you are looking for a good documentary about the kidnapping of Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army, then look elsewhere.  Despite the title, Guerrilla:  The Taking of Patty Hearst is more about the formation of the SLA and how they used the Hearst kidnapping to serve their own needs.  If anything this documentary shows just what a bunch of fucking idiotic jackasses the SLA were. 

First off, they’d brag about helping black convicts escape prison (the SLA considered them “political prisoners”) and then they turn around and murder Oakland’s first black school superintendent.  Makes a lot of sense doesn’t it?  Or how about after they kidnap Patty, they make her old man start a “charitable organization” to feed the poor?  They say it’s their way of “playing Robin Hood”.  I call bullshit on that because if they really wanted to do charity work, they would’ve gone out and started the organization themselves and not resorted to kidnapping and terrorist activities.  The best part though is when one of the smug ex-SLA members swears up and down that he didn’t know anything about one of the SLA’s murders and then shortly after the interview was conducted; we see him being found guilty of the crime in a court of law. 

Guerrilla held my interest for the most part throughout its 90 minute running time.  The shitty thing is that we never get to hear from Patty herself.  (We do get to hear the tapes she made while with the SLA and see her in archived footage though.)  Since Patty never gets to tell her side of the story, the film consequently raises a lot more questions than it answers.  Oh well, I guess she was too busy starring in a John Waters movie or something.  If anything, this documentary is a unique time capsule of an age where dirty stupid hippies could murder and rob banks and still think they were “the good guys”.  

AKA:  Neverland:  The Rise and Fall of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

When I was in Sunday School, I asked the teacher why God would make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights to kill everybody on Earth.  She said that God “grew tired” of everybody except for Noah, his family, and the animals so he made a flood to wipe them out.  I persisted that God shouldn’t kill everybody on Earth just because he could.  She didn’t like that.  She told me that’s how the story goes and I responded that God seemed like “the bad guy” in the story because he killed everybody.  That made her REAL mad.  She said that I was being difficult on purpose but really, I was just asking questions, something an inquisitive seven year old kid SHOULD do.

I only bring this up because Bill Maher’s Religulous is kinda in the same spirit.  Like the seven year old Mitchy, Maher asks Christians, ministers, and scholars lots of questions about the validity and historical accuracy of the Bible and often comes across the same blindly abrasive answers that my Sunday School teacher gave me.  It’s almost as if Christians get offended if when you simply ASK a question about the logistics of Good Book.  For example, Maher asks people throughout the movie if they believe there really was a talking snake in the Garden of Eden.  Much to his surprise; they do.  When he laughs, they give him the evil eye.

Maher interviews several Christians (including some in a “Trucker’s Chapel”) and sparks a lot of interesting debates.  He also calls “Bullshit” on several people who manipulate “God’s word” to line their own pockets.  (He blatantly refers to one evangelist as a pimp.)  Maher even confronts Muslims on their beliefs; cheerfully pointing out their hypocrisies and misogynic attitudes and talks to Jews who go through a lot of trouble just to get around the strict Sabbath laws too.  The most interesting interview comes when Maher talks to the Jesus of a Biblical theme park in Orlando.  Jesus actually relays his beliefs in a more insightful manner than anyone else in the film and even makes Maher doubt his own atheist beliefs for a split second.

Throughout all the interviews, Maher infuses his trademark scathing wit.  In some interviews you can tell he’s merely poking fun (like the pot preacher in Amsterdam), but most of the time, he’s deadly serious in his quest for answers.  I like Maher a lot and he’s wonderfully funny here; making me hopeful that he’ll eventually do a follow-up sometime soon.

I also liked how director Larry (Borat) Charles sprinkled in clips from old religious movies (my aunt used to watch that shit incessantly on Sundays) and Biblical cartoons (the Mormon ones are the funniest) to hammer some points home.  There was even a great part where we see a clip of Maher in Cannibal Women and the Avocado Jungle of Death when someone muses that he “isn’t funny”.  

Like organized religion itself, Religulous isn’t perfect.  The laughs slowly dry up in the film’s second half and Maher’s pro-atheist rant in the end is a little too self-serving.  I also thought that Maher let the Scientologists off way too easy, but overall, these are minor quibbles in an otherwise eye-opening, thought-provoking, and funny 100 minutes.

Biggest laugh:  When showing outmoded beliefs from the Bronze Age, we see footage of the Kraken from Clash of the Titans and the heading, “Sea Serpents were a legitimate hazard.”

If you like Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolf Man and have 90 minutes to kill, you’ll definitely wanna check out this documentary.  It features tons of clips and behind the scenes footage from all of those classic Universal horror films as well as their many spin-offs and sequels.  Several noted scholars (David J. Skal), film buffs (the late Forrest J. Ackerman), and horror stars (James Karen from Return of the Living Dead) are interviewed and give their two cents worth about what makes those old flicks so damn great.

I was consistently entertained by this documentary but it isn’t perfect by a long shot.  The thing that ruffled my feathers the most was that it featured lots of clips from far too many non-Universal horror movies like King Kong, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Island of Lost Souls.  Although I certainly didn’t mind seeing all of these familiar clips, it felt a bit strange since this thing is supposed to be about UNIVERSAL horror movies for Pete’s sakes!

Having gotten that off my chest, this documentary is still quite worthwhile for fans of old school creature features.  I think the coolest part was when they traced the monsters’ origins to the silent era of cinema and showed how the real life horrors of WWI reflected the special make-up effects of the legendary Lon Chaney.  I didn’t really learn a damn thing from this documentary since I basically knew everything there was to know before I watched it.  (Lon Chaney was supposed to star in Dracula but died, Bela Lugosi was supposed to be Frankenstein but turned it down, Boris Karloff hated that the Monster spoke in Bride of Frankenstein, yada, yada, yada.)  That’s okay though because I’m a sucker for any flick that shows clips from old horror movies so I can’t bear to give it any less than ***.

OK, so my wife is knocked up (and yes, the baby IS mine... I think) and to help educate her and I on the whole birthing thing, she Netflixed this documentary about how hospitals try to rush women out of the ER so that the doctors can go play golf.  It also documents how the health care industry frowns upon midwifes and basically treats them like lepers.  We get to see women having home births under the care of a midwife and it's some pretty fascinating shit in a Discovery Channel sort of way.  One chick squats down and queefs her kid out and another woman gives birth in a kiddie pool.  Host Ricki Lake is even shown giving birth at home in her own bathtub.

As a straight-up documentary, the film will be somewhat polarizing as it's sorta one-sided.  The anti-midwife doctors all seem like douches (grainy Faces of Death style hospital footage is incorporated to show how barbaric doctors can be) while the midwifes are all portrayed as knowledgeable, earthy, and spiritual women.  If you're the kid who laughed all the way through all those birth-of-a-baby filmstrips in high school, you're going to have a field day with this flick.  There are about six birthing sequences and they're all pretty great.  (One chick's cooch stretches A LOT to accommodate a baby.)  Celebrity Skin enthusiasts will go ga-ga over the footage of a totally naked Ricki Lake giving birth.  She also breastfeeds a couple times, so if you're into Milk Maid shit, you'll get a total boner from that too.

My wife watched all of this as if it was a snuff movie or something.  Watching her watch it was almost more entertaining than the movie itself.  I can't say it was quite Four Star material, but there were plenty of nekkid wimmen in it, so I liked it just fine.

I missed out on the whole local television market Horror Movie Host craze but I always had a blast watching cable TV’s Joe Bob Briggs’ Drive-In Theater, Commander USA’s Groovy Movies, and Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Luckily, there are a lot of people who do remember the good old days of local horror movie hosts and they were kind enough to give their two cents worth on the phenomenon for this documentary.  You get to see interviews from such hosts like Vampira (the late Maila Nurmi, who was also in Plan 9 from Outer Space), Zacherle (who had a cameo in Frankenhooker), “Chilly” Billy Cardille (who had a small role in Night of the Living Dead), Count Gore De Vol, and many more.  The most time is spent on the reigning king of Cleveland horror hosts, Ghoulardi (Ernie Anderson, father of director Paul Thomas Anderson).

Most of the interviews and old footage is great to see but I was a little disappointed by the film’s structure.  There is no strong narrative and a lot of the interviews ramble on too long.  I was particularly grieved to see that no time was spent on either Commander USA or Joe Bob (who are both interviewed at least), although I understand because they were nationally syndicated.  MST3K is also discussed (for about a minute that is) and die hard Misties will be glad to know that series creator Joel Hodgson is interviewed as well. 

While it may not be the final word on Horror Movie Hosts, American Scary sure is a lot of fun that makes for a brisk walk down memory lane to a simpler time where late night TV meant fun; not infomercials.

Bodybuilder Chris Bell takes us through the world of steroids in this fascinating documentary.  Bell concentrates on America’s obsession and condemnation of the “performance enhancing” drugs and talks to several experts in the field of medicine, all of whom cannot offer conclusive evidence of their reputedly harmful side effects.  He also focuses a lot on his two brothers, both “Juicers” who are failed professional wrestlers and strive to achieve excellence as bodybuilders.

What’s most interesting about Bigger, Stronger, Faster is that Bell gives his own personal spin on the issue.  Growing up, he idolized guys like Hulk Hogan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone and pursued lifting weights to be as big and strong as those guys.  When it came out that ALL these guys used steroids (or in Stallone’s case, Human Growth Hormone), it left Bell shaken.  How could the guy who said, “Drink your milk, say your prayers, and take your vitamins” really be a Juice Head?  How could the guy who said that you could achieve anything in life “If you work hard and play by the rules” actually be using steroids?  How could Rocky, the biggest underdog of them all (and who fought Ivan Drago, a known Juicer) be on HGH?

Bell also focuses on the mentality in sports to “Win at any cost”, which is just slang for “TAKE STEROIDS!”  We learn that in the 1988 Olympics, Canadian Ben Johnson was stripped of his title because he used steroids, but they gave the gold to American Karl Lewis who (are you ready for this) was taking steroids too!  Lewis only got to keep his medal because the US had a better PR department.

Another interesting thing that Bell does is talk to classical musicians, all of whom take Beta Blockers for performance anxiety, begging the question:  Are these drugs “performance enhancers” as well?  And what about the American pilots whose own government hands out “Go-Pills” (amphetamines) like candy so they can fly the friendly skies?  And speaking of our governments, why would Congress spend more time debating steroids than say… the clean-up of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina?

In the end, Bell doesn’t condemn steroids, but he admonishes America’s “Whatever it takes” attitude to be the best.  Ultimately, the flick raises more questions than it answers.  That’s a good thing though.  That way you’ll have something to talk about when the movie’s over.

Daniel Farrands, the man who wrote what is probably the worst Halloween sequel ever made, directed this so-so documentary on the cinematic life and times of Jason Vorhees.  Farrands gathered a decent line-up of people associated with the Friday the 13th movies (from the original producer/director Sean S. Cunningham to the remake director Marcus Nispel) to sit and chat about the series and give their various takes about their experience in making the films as well as what Friday the 13^th means to them.  All of the actors who’ve played Jason over the years also talk a bit about playing everyone’s favorite masked maniac.

As a die hard fan of the Friday the 13^th series this was an OK trip down memory lane.  A lot of the material is regurgitated from Peter Bracke’s excellent book, Crystal Lake Memories and I’d highly suggest you read that instead of watching this doc.  At least that book interviewed Kevin Bacon, Steve Miner, Dana Kimmell, and Corey Feldman.  I could’ve also done without host Tom Savani’s constant mugging and the gratuitous promotion for the new remake.

What makes His Name Was Jason fun to watch though is seeing how well (or in some cases not so well) the females of the series have been preserved.  Adrienne King, Amy Steel, Deborah Vorhees, Lar Park Lincoln, and the two twins from Part IV all still look pretty good if you ask me, although I would’ve loved to see what Kirsten Baker from Part 2 looks like now.  His Name Was Jason isn’t the definitive documentary that fans of the series might’ve hoped for (I really wished Farrands had concentrated more on each individual film instead of painting the series in one broad stroke), but it’s a fun way to kill 90 minutes.  All in all, it’s more of a glorified DVD extra than anything else. 

I don’t think I would call Billy, the teenage subject of this painful-to-watch but fascinating documentary a “cool” kid.  He’s incredibly awkward, doesn’t have many friends, and has some kind of mental disability to boot.  In his favor though, he loves Friday the 13^th, An American Werewolf in London, and can openly quote dialogue from The Terminator.  He also likes to crank the KISS every now and then.  In short, Billy is good people.

Documentarian Jennifer Vendiiti followed Billy around school for a couple months and peeked in on his life.  He doesn’t have it easy.  He lives in a trailer, has a dad who is a crackhead, his stepfather isn’t around much and he has a rattail.  I got to give a lot of credit to his mother though because she seems to keep it together despite of everything.  Then something of a “plot” emerges as Billy starts up a friendship with a chick named Heather who is a year older than him and is probably legally blind.  Billy may be socially awkward but he can talk to the ladies better than I could at his age so I got to give him mad props for that.

I freely admit that documentaries aren’t my thing.  However, after a slow start, Billy the Kid really starts to suck you in and ultimately makes you care about the dude and for that, I commend it.  Besides, any movie that ends with KISS singing “God Gave Rock n’ Roll to You” is alright by me.

The Cramps are one of my all time favorite bands so with the untimely passing of frontman Lux Interior (nee Erick Lee Purkhiser) I thought it be fitting to throw this on in tribute of the man.  I saw The Cramps perform three times and each show was a blast.  Lux would often come out in skintight latex and high heels fellating the microphone and acting like a goddamn madman.  Usually by the end of the concert, Lux would have stripped down to nothing but a latex G-string and have broken the mic stand over his head.  He was one of the great ones.

If you never saw The Cramps live, you can check out this concert and see them in their rawest punkiest form, before they morphed into their psycho surf rock phase.  The concert was filmed in 1978 before the band released the seminal Songs the Lord Taught Us and features such classics as “The Way I Walk”, “Domino”, and “TV Set”.  Oh yeah, did I mention it was filmed in a mental hospital?  Yes, while Johnny Cash may have played prisons, The Cramps played mental institutions.  How fucking cool is that?

Filmed with a cheapie black and white video camera amidst the dozens of slightly deranged mental patients, the flick has an eerie feel that will get under your skin.  Think Gimme Shelter meets Night of the Living Dead and that should give you some idea of what to expect.  Patients bumrush the stage and grab the microphone and scream unintelligibly, dance around in a stupor and generally give you the creeps.  Ever the consummate frontman, Lux just rolls with it and with his freaky demeanor fits right in with the crowd. 

Its way too short (only 20 minutes) but it should make for a great introduction to the band if you’ve never heard of them before.  Lux buddy, you will be missed.  If you don’t believe me of how great this flick is, here’s the entire concert, courtesy of YouTube:

 

In 1974, a French performance artist and tightrope walker named Philippe Petit strung a wire across the World Trade Center and walked across.  Man on Wire is a documentary about that event and also covers Petit’s preparation and planning methods, his other tightrope walking feats (including tightrope walking across Notre Dame), as well as the New York City police’s reactions to his “crime”.  (He got off with a slap on the wrist.)

Petit remains an enigma for the most part because in on camera interviews, he always shies away from “WHY” he did it.  (“Because it’s there!”)  Basically, he did it because he’s a crazy ass Frenchie street performer and those fuckers will do anything for attention.  The actual footage of Petit walking across the World Trade Center is quite amazing, but I was a little bummed that the filmmakers had to resort to Unsolved Mysteries style reenactments for a lot of scenes.  At least one of these scenes is a Clockwork Orange inspired fast motion sex scene between Petit and a high wire groupie.  (There aren’t many of THOSE around; that’s for damn sure.)  To me though, the most fascinating part of the film was the stock footage of the Towers being constructed.  It was sorta chilling to think that something that took so long to construct could be decimated so quickly on 9/11. 

Man on Wire isn’t a perfect film.  It gets kinda dull in spots and featured way too many scenes of Petit riding around on a unicycle like a goddamn mime from Hell for me.  If anything though, Man on Wire is a good document of a crazy motherfucker doing something fucking crazy.  Although I have zero tolerance for street performers (especially French ones), even I have to give the man some props for doing something that insane. 

(Special Note:  I don’t want anybody giving me shit for calling Petit a mere “street performer” since he was performing 110 stories ABOVE the street.  His AUDIENCE was in the street looking up at him; hence a street performer.)

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, the man who wrote the seminal Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, pioneered the art form of “Gonzo Journalism” in which the writer covering the  story throws himself so deep into the story that he in fact, BECOMES the story.  Thompson wrote about himself in such a drugged out exaggerated way that his legend eventually eclipsed the writer.  The documentary Gonzo:  The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson chronicles Thompson’s legend remarkably well, but it also leaves you wanting to know more about the man behind the legend.

We follow Thompson through his tour of duty with the Hell’s Angels, running for the Sheriff of Aspen (on the “Freak Power Ticket”), working on both Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, and onto his drug addled decline of the late 70’s.  Much of this is fascinating although director Alex Gibney relies too much on Rescue 911 style recreations for my taste.  Gibney also uses way too many scenes from the film version of Fear and Loathing as well as stuff from the Thompson biography, Where the Buffalo Roam.  The problem with that is the footage of the real Thompson is far more intriguing (especially his appearance on To Tell the Truth) than the scenes from movies I already own on DVD.  Fear and Loathing star Johnny Depp narrates and reads excerpts from Thompson’s novels, but I really wished they would’ve interviewed him as well.  I’m sure he had some good Thompson stories.

These are really minor quibbles because the documentary is on the whole well done.  Any Thompson fan worth his salt oughta check it out. 

Porno filmmaker Alex (Pretty Peaches 3:  The Quest) de Renzy makes a foray into the documentary world to show us all how marijuana is shipped illegally into the country, used by hippies, and cracked down upon by drug enforcement officials.  De Renzy also travels around the world to such countries as Vietnam, Mexico and Nepal and shows how much more lenient they are with the mass production (and consumption) of pot. 

The biggest problem with Weed is de Renzy himself.  He’s in almost every scene, conducting interviews in the same snore-inducing matter-of-fact way.  He doesn’t have much screen presence and films the proceedings with little variety or pizzazz.  Weed moves at a snail’s pace; almost as if de Renzy went out and smoked a big old Bob Marley fattie before letting the cameras roll.  It also doesn’t help when most of the interviewees are totally square authority figures who like to hear the sound of their own annoying voice a lot.  The scenes of de Renzy in war torn Vietnam acquiring Vietnamese Cataract Cannabis are revealing, it’s just too bad that too much of the documentary is so damn boring. 

Not informative enough to be truly worthwhile and not unintentionally amusing to be put in the same category as Reefer Madness, Weed is a curiosity piece at best.  Stoners may want to check it out as a dated relic of a pro-pot perspective, but it will ultimately be too tedious for their drug-addled brain to handle.

Exploitation movie guru Johnny Legend made this entertaining video magazine showcasing the best (and worse) in horror films from today and yesteryear.  Legend interviews directors John (Animal House) Landis, Fred Olen (Cyclone) Ray, Brian (Society) Yuzna, and Ray Dennis (The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies) Steckler and tells a lot of behind the scenes stories.

Landis by far gets the most screen time and is easily the most entertaining as he talks about promoting his first film Schlock, making clay-mation shorts as a kid, meeting Rick Baker for the first time, being cut out of 2001 Maniacs, and how in the 70’s Hollywood Boulevard rivaled New York’s 42^nd Street for quality grindhouse movies.  Legend interviews Ray about his surf music album, how he put up money to make Star Slammer (outtakes and bloopers are shown), as well as his professional wrestling career.  Legend recounts with Yuzna how he weaseled his way into a small part in Bride of Re-Animator and Steckler pretty much just pimps himself.

Trailers for Schlock, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Society, Primitive Love, Bloody Pit of Horror, Invasion of the Blood Farmers (“Don’t eat before you see it, and you’ll have nothing to lose!”), and Death Farm are also shown and are a lot of fun.  Like most of Johnny Legend’s recent DVD releases, it’s a little spotty and jumps all over the place, but if you’re a fan of any or all of these directors (especially Landis), you’ll definitely want to check it out. 

If you were anyone who was anyone in the 80’s, you had to have spent hours upon hours in an arcade playing video games.  My poison was Ms. Pac-Man, but for Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe (pronounced WEE-BEE), the two subjects of this uneven but irresistible documentary, it’s Donkey Kong. 

In the 80’s, Mitchell set the high score world record at Donkey Kong and was celebrated as the best video gamer of all time.  Cut to the present day where Wiebe, a meek father of two, tapes himself beating the high score on a Donkey Kong machine in his garage.  The tape’s authenticity is immediately challenged by Mitchell and his cadre of kowtowing video gamers and Wiebe has to set out again and again to beat Mitchell’s high score and prove himself to his incredulous peers (not to mention Mitchell) and get into the Guinness’ Book of World Records.

This flick will be immensely enjoyable for most anybody, even if you didn’t spend any time in an arcade in the 80’s.  Right away the audience’s sympathies are with Wiebe.  He’s just a nice guy looking for a little recognition for doing something that no one was able to do.  Mitchell on the other hand is a conniving, pompous dickweed who couldn’t be any more full of himself.  As a human being, he’s thoroughly despicable, but as a movie villain, he’s the perfect guy you love to hate. 

Although I wish the filmmakers delved deeper into Wiebe’s family life, I particularly liked their use of some choice 80’s songs on the soundtrack to showcase Wiebe as the underdog. 

As much as you may loathe Mitchell in this movie, you have to admit, everything that comes out of his mouth is freaking hilarious.  You couldn’t find anyone as conceited as this guy, especially when he says shit like, “No matter what I say, it draws controversy… like the abortion issue.”

You know, whenever I tell somebody how many movies I watch per year (around 500) they usually tell me to get a life.  To the obsessive film buffs in this documentary, movie watching IS their lives. 

This documentary follows five diverse New Yorkers who have one thing in common:  They obsessively watch movies all day.  All of them are opposed to seeing a film on video and have to see them all in a theater.  Some see as many as five in a day and have to coordinate their movie schedules with the subway schedules in order to hit every movie they want. 

I thought I was pretty obsessive about watching movies until I saw the people in this flick.  While I DO keep ticket stubs and souvenir collector cups, I’m not quite as bad as some of these people.  For instance, I don’t eat constipative diets so I won’t have to get up and go to the bathroom mid-movie.  I have never seen over 1000 movies in one year.  I have never strangled a movie usher for ripping my ticket.  These folks do. 

While this documentary had a potential to be really interesting, unfortunately it’s not particularly well done.  It’s shot on grungy video and regards it’s subjects as more or less freakshows.  I kinda wished that the film focused a little more on the viewers’ tastes and considerable cinema knowledge rather than just show how OCD they really are.  If anything, the film served as a healthy reminder that my own movie watching obsession isn’t nearly as bad as I thought. 

Although you know things are pretty bad when you find yourself watching a movie about people who watch movies. 

Well, if you’ve been waiting for a Rolling Stones concert movie as good as Gimme Shelter, this one comes pretty close.  The ads simply read:  “Stones.  Scorsese.”  That’s pretty much all you need to know.  I’ll hit the highlights anyway.

The set list:  All the classics are here.  Satisfaction, Brown Sugar, Start Me Up, Jumping Jack Flash and Sympathy for the Devil.  Some Girls is the album most covered (four songs:  Shattered, Some Girls, Just My Imagination, and Far Away Eyes) with Exile on Main Street coming in a close second (Tumblin’ Dice, All Down the Line, and Loving Cup).

The guests:  Usually nothing stops the Stones dead in their tracks like guest artists.  (If you’ve ever heard Dave Matthews butcher Memory Motel, you know what I’m talking about.)  Thankfully, the guests are pretty good.  Jack White duets with Mick on Loving Cup while Buddy Guy helps out on Champagne and Reefer, but it’s Christina Aguilera who steals the show on Live With Me.  You may be grossed out by Mick dry humping a pregnant Christina, but it’s okay because their duet kicks ass.

The good:  Keith says eight intelligible words.

The bad:  The lyric, “Black girls just wanna get fucked all night” is missing from Some Girls.  I guess this was done to secure a PG-13 rating, but Mick was somehow able to slip in multiple F-Bombs in other songs, so I don’t understand what the deal was.

No matter though.  All I’m gonna say is that The Stones played She Was Hot.  That alone is worth four stars in my book anyday.

Martin Scorsese gets the best line of the movie when he says, “We can’t burn Mick Jagger!”

Shine a Light features enough awesome rock n’ roll goodness to dethrone Doomsday from the Number 2 spot on The Video Vacuum Top Ten of 2008, placing it just under the current king, Rambo.

Lucy Walker helmed this fascinating and thoroughly absorbing documentary about the Amish tradition of “rumspringa” in which an Amish teenager is allowed to go into the “Devil’s Playground” (the world) and experience life before he or she makes up their mind whether or not they will become a full fledged Amish person.  We see a group of teenagers who party, get drunk, get stoned, and use (and sell) crank.  While most seek refuge back into the open arms of the church to become baptized, there are a few who decide to stay among “the English”.  However, one girl retreats after her baptism and is shunned from her community and even tries to attend college (which in the religion is strictly forbidden). 

While at first this may seem like an extended edition of MTV True Life for the horse and buggy set, this documentary is actually very deep when probing into the lives of the diverse youngsters.  If you thought all the Amish were uptight prudes, wait till you see these kids sewing their wild oats.  It almost makes you wish you were Amish just to get invited to some of the wild parties these kids throw.  (One party has over 1,500 people in attendance.)  Of the kids profiled, the most intriguing is Faron, the preacher’s kid who deals meth and snitches on some other dealers to avoid doing time. 

Walker has a keen eye for detail and her subjects are all for the most part very forthcoming about all their illegal activities.  It would be interesting if she did a 14-Up style follow up someday to see where some of these kids are today and if they’re still with the Amish folk.  It would definitely be something to look forward to.

If you enjoyed Wordplay, the documentary about the ultra competitive world of crossword competitions, you’ll love this similar look into to the people who participate in Scrabble tournaments. 

There’s Marlon Hill, a black man from Baltimore who yearns for his homeland of Africa.  Matt Graham, a part-time stand up comedian who’s more worried about gambling on the “side action” that the tournaments provide.  We have Joe Edley, a former champion who uses the art of Zen meditation to help him form letters.  Most interesting is Joel Sherman, nicknamed “G.I. Joel”, not for his military background, but for his gastrointestinal disorder. 

We follow these players as they interact with each other, their families and other players.  The filmmakers also deftly contrast the competitive nature of the tournament players with the more laid back approach of the denizens that play in the parks of New York. 

As a die-hard Scrabble player, this documentary would have been fascinating on it’s own, but the diverse personalities of the four players is what makes Word Wars compelling.  Anyone who loves to play the game will want to check this documentary out, but even if you never played the game, you owe it to yourself to see it just to see the assorted oddballs the movie has to offer. 

After 45 years in the business, The Rolling Stones still remain the greatest rock n’ roll band of all time.  This entertaining four-disc DVD set (a Best Buy exclusive) was filmed over the course of the band’s worldwide A Bigger Bang tour and is a testament to their longevity and is further proof that the Stones will keep on rolling. 

The set contains two full length concerts, one in Austin, Texas and the other on the beach at Rio de Janeiro (where the band played a free concert to a whopping 1.5 million fans) as well as highlights from other concerts in Japan, Argentina, China, and even their live performance at the Super Bowl.  We also get lots of informative behind the scenes footage of what goes into putting on such a massive production.  There are a couple interviews with the band as well as a few one-on-one moments with them (like Keith Richards performing a melancholy charity song to benefit Katrina victims).  While the mini-documentaries don’t shed much new light on the Stones, the segment on China is by far the most interesting.  There, the band has to battle some puzzling censorship issues (they can’t play Honky Tonk Women, but Bitch is okay) and their very presence in China is a sign of the Communist regime loosening up a little. 

The performances are all hugely entertaining and the Stones once again prove that even in their 60’s, they can rock out like no one else in the industry.  They perform all their classics (like Satisfaction, Sympathy for the Devil and Jumpin’ Jack Flash), fan favorites (She’s So Cold, You Got Me Rocking and Tumbling Dice), as well as some of their new material (Rough Justice, Oh No Not You Again, and Rain Fall Down) which is pretty good.  We also see them duet with Bonnie Raitt (Shine a Light), Eddie Vedder (Wild Horses) and unfortunately Dave Matthews (Let It Bleed).  But the real reason to check this out is for the cool covers the band does of such diverse artists as Buddy Holly (Playing the Game), Waylon Jennings (Bob Wills is Still the King) and even Bob Marley (Get Up, Stand Up).

Although this isn’t the definitive look at the Stones, it’s still a great document of their recent tour and another excellent addition to Stones fan’s DVD collections.    

Of the band, naturally Keith gets all the best lines (when you can understand what the heck he’s saying that is).  My favorite is when he’s talking about going to Shanghai; Keith says “I hear they have a Chinatown there.”