There has been plenty to say about Roland Emmerich's recent film STONEWALL -- mostly negative, from its lack of historical accuracy to its whitewashing to its less-than-teriffic box office. The makers of the upcoming film STONEWALL: RIOT ON CHRISTOPHER STREET don't really care about historical accuracy either, but in this case, it's intentional.
S:ROCS, directed by Richard Griffin (DISCO EXORCIST, THE SINS OF DRACULA) reimagines the 1969 riots as a '70s exploitation film involving the Black Panthers, and the trailer looks like a hell of a lot of fun, even though some may consider the use of an important historical event blasphemous. I'd say it looks like it serves as a genre-loving response to the previous cinematic incarnations of the event.
Check out the trailer below, and watch for the film soon.
Patrick McGoohan is best known to cult film fans as the star of "The Prisoner," but the classic series amounted to only one year in an impressive career of credits both in front of and behind the camera. His resume as director includes a handful of television episodes (in most cases, appearing as an actor in the project as well), but as far as feature films go, McGoohan only helmed one -- 1974's CATCH MY SOUL, also released in a possibly different cut as SANTA FE SATAN.
CATCH MY SOUL, as its alternate title suggest, was filmed around Santa Fe, New Mexico, where McGoohan and his family had moved to after the end of "The Prisoner." McGoohan got the directing job at the behest of producer/writer Jack Good, the British music producer and occasional actor who had previously been responsible for both "Shindig!" and the now-cult-favorite-but-then-notable-misfire television special "33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee," which deserves its own entry in this blog at some point.
The film was to be a rock opera remake of Shakespeare's "Othello," a source material McGoohan had some experience with, having played the Iago part in the jazz scene-set 1962 film ALL NIGHT LONG. Good had originally developed the project as a stage play, which played in Los Angeles in 1968 with BLACULA's William Marshall and Jerry Lee Lewis (!) in the main roles. (And I now have a new addition to my "to-do" list when I finally get to time travel.) The production moved to the U.K. with a new cast shortly thereafter.
The film was made, but in place of Marshall and Lewis were folk singer Richie Havens and future TV regular Lance LeGault, reprising his role from the U.K. stage version. Also joining the cast were singer Tony Joe White, future VICE SQUAD star Season Hubley and the ever-welcome Susan Tyrrell, who had just gotten an Oscar nomination for FAT CITY. Conrad Hall, fresh off of COOL HAND LUKE and ELECTRA GLIDE IN BLUE, was brought on as cinematographer. Future TERMINATOR 2 editor Richard A. Harris put it all together.
You can read a lot more about the production in Tom Mayer's astonishingly well-researched piece here, but the film and the soundtrack were released in 1973 to mediocre-to-poor reviews. As was the custom at the time, the film was re-released in 1975 under the title SANTA FE SATAN, in an attempt to get some of that EXORCIST cash. It's been little-seen since.
"Little-seen" understates the point. The film was never released on videocassette or DVD, and may never have aired on television. Until last year, the film had been considered completely lost, even turning up in Chris Poggiali's "Endangered List" on his obligatgory-for-obscure-film-fans "Temple of Schlock" blog.
The film was finally located in 2013 under the SANTA FE SATAN title, in a trailer on a farm in North Carolina (!), and Mayer's piece has a full write-up of the film itself. He also details the possibilities of the alternate cuts -- none of which can be confirmed without the existence of additional prints.
SANTA FE SATANhad something of a re-premiere in 2014, as part of North Carolina's RiverRun International Film Festival. It was stated that this would be the final time the film would be projected due to wear, but a restoration campaign would be taking place.
So why I am my going into great detail about this film you can't see?
Well, because now you can at least see a part of it. A trailer has emerged for the film, containing the first publicly-available footage of it that's been seen in nearly 40 years. It's only sixty seconds, but at least it's verifiable proof that it exists under its original title, CATCH MY SOUL.
The soundtrack has been available for a while, and it's definitely a treat, especially if you're a fan of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. (I'm imagining the film being a bit like that, only without Ted Needy's emo savior.) It's not much to watch, but you can listen to it in full here:
Even if the film is a mess,its remarkable existence makes it a genuine curiosity. The tale of how two British entertainment figures randomly made a religious rock opera based on a Shakespeare play set in New Mexico is an undoubtedly compelling one, and any film distribution company worth their salt should be able to promote it with ease. (This seems like an ideal project for the newly-formed Etiquette Pictures or Grindhouse Releasing, whose recent issues of AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL and GONE WITH THE POPE have brought former obscurities to welcoming audiences.)
Update: Rumor is that CATCH MY SOUL will be making its way onto DVD (and Blu-ray?) next year. Keep your eyes peeled!
Art Linklater hosts this Russian animated film, given new voices by Tommy Kirk, Sandra Dee and Patty McCormmick. The film was also re-released in the 90s with new voice-overs from Kathleen Turner, Mickey Rooney and Kirsten Dunst.
Shot in 1982, this musical flick featuring Nelson, Sweet, Colin Quinn and Dick Shawn (among others) was thought to be lost for years, but has recently turned up, though it's still unavailable on home video in any format. Read more about it here -- and it looks like a lot of fun.
N!xau, the Namibian bushman who rose to brief fame with his role as a tribesman who goes in search of the origins of a Coke bottle in 1980's THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY, would have turned 70 today, at least according to IMDb. While GODS never led to much of a huge career or paycheck (he was reportedly paid a few hundred dollars for the blockbuster hit), he did go on to star in four increasingly low-rent and wacky sequels to the film, only one of which made it to U.S. shores but that proved to be much better in Asia. Here's the third entry in the series, the Golden Harvest-produced CRAZY SAFARI, also released as THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY III, in which me meets hopping vampires and the spirit of Bruce Lee.
The trailer for Carpenter's 1981 classic gets a remake using footage from Rankin-Bass's Christmas classics. And it's amazing. Why has this not been posted on every "cool stuff" blog around?
Sure, the idea of tennis pro Andre Agassi as a star of a made-for-cable action flick may be dated, but this sketch from "The Ben Stiller Show" is great anyway, thanks to Ernie Hudson as himself, Odenkirk giving the world's greatest (and possibly only) Armand Assante impression and some perfect narration.
Oh, sure, it was made for about two bucks on a lazy weekend in 1981, but Chris Maxfield and John Torretta's 8mm-lensed little fan film (using no doubt unlicensed Queen music) has a sense of exuberance and fun that plenty of similar homemade films today lack. This wasn't done to get famous, this was done because a bunch of guys had a lot of fun making a silly little movie. HARDWARE WARS is the clear inspiration.
Update: From what I can tell, it seems to be shot at this place in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, which is still open!
KILLER TONGUE gets a bad rap and, well, it kind of deserves it, as the movie about a woman that is overtaken by an alien with a giant, maniacal tongue and her band of poodles that she turns into men (including Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a complete mess. But it's not an uninteresting one.
Wynn Chamberlain, who passed away a week and a half ago in New Delhi at 87, was known as a painter and photographer who was friends with notable artists like Allen Ginsburg, John Cage and Andy Warhol, but he did make the occasional foray into film. His sole feature, 1970's BRAND X, was thought of as a lost film until its re-release in 2011. While the film still hasn't landed any larger distribution, one hopes that a wider audience will eventually be able to see the film starring Taylor Mead that the New York Times called both "devilishly, piercingly funny" and "smug, cruel and tasteless." I've read several synopses and I still can't guess what the heck it's supposed to be about. Check out Temple of Schlock's write-up here. (Trailer NSFW)
In 2006, Troma Films released POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD, a tale of zombie chickens. But the title was in conceptual use two decades earlier, when "Turkey Television," the short-lived spin-off of Nickelodeon's "You Can't Do That on Television," aired a trailer for a sequel to FEATHERS OF FEAR, in which the "ultimate horror returns to the screen" using vintage movie clips. Did this POULTRYGEIST inspire Troma's? I have no idea, so I'll say "sure."
Imperial Entertainment provided plenty of low-rent thrills during their time as a VHS distributor, and you can relive some of that excitement with this four minute promo meant for the eyes of video store owners. Michele Soavi's STAGE FRIGHT, which is pretty great, gives you free trick or treat bags! NINJA CONNECTION gives you ninjas! DEMONS 2 gives you excitement from its current theatrical release! And THE BALLAD OF DEATH VALLEY gives you a bland western made 17 years ago.
The New York City Porn Film Festival is currently seeking content for their festival to be held next February, and while they're touting it as the "first annual New York City Porn Film Festival," it's hardly the first of its' kind. The New York Erotic Film Festival was held for several years in the early '70s, and this (SFW) trailer hosted by producer Ken Gaul hypes a compilation of some of the best of the fest, including Chuck Vincent's THE APPOINTMENT and the animated BURIED TREASURE and EYETOON.
Written, directed, produced by and starring Craig Denney, THE ASTROLOGER is a maddeningly wild film released originally in 1975 that was thought lost for years. It's recently been found, and the strange, remarkable film tells the story of a carnival worker who becomes a world-famous astrologer after taking detours as a Kenyan drug runner. It's a one-of-a-kind ego project (the closest comparison I can come up with are the films of Duke Mitchell) that no plot synopsis can hope to live up to, and the American Genre Film Archive has done a fine job at taking it on as their first project to restore a 35mm film print. Here's the trailer, and watch for the film hitting midnight shows and DVD soon.
Why the heck isn't Yust's weirdly sweet and gleefully dark comedy on DVD? HOMEBODIES is the story of a group of seniors that find their apartment building under siege by a company threatening to tear it down, so they stage a series of "accidents" to save their home. Imagine BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED without cute robots and a much darker tone, and you get the general idea.
Today is the birthday of two '80s low-budget action icons -- Sandahl Bergman (RED SONJA) and the late Robert Ginty (THE EXTERMINATOR). The duo were teamed in the 1987 sci-fi actioner PROGRAMMED TO KILL (aka THE RETALIATOR), in which Bergman is a "Barbie Rambo killing machine," and Ginty is the man who has to take her down. It's.. not a good movie, but damn, does the trailer make it look pretty great. (A ridiculously young Paul Walker is in this as well, but he doesn't make the trailer.)
Stewart Main and Peter Wells' 1993 film DESPERATE REMEDIES is a film that should have a cult following and seems to have vanished off the face of the Earth. A New Zealand-lensed tale of high camp bodice-ripping, the film is pitched somewhere between a particularly smutty epic TV romance and a Guy Maddin film, utilizing vivid colors and often ridiculous costume and set design to great effect. While the reviews were good, the film was barely released in the U.S. and hasn't even managed to turn up on DVD. It's a shame, as it's a bit akin to Kenneth Anger doing an '80s Harry Alan Towers-produced erotic period potboiler.
Produced by choreographer-turned-exploitation mogul David Winters, this high-pitched political "satire" stars the titular adult film star in a presidential bid, with the likes of Micky Dolenz, Scatman Crothers, Chuck McGann and Joe E. Ross along for the ride. It's not good! The trailer is probably just offensive enough to suit your tastes, however. (SFW)
