Rock's Cheapo Theatre of the Damned

"It's so good to be here with you"

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

Red Desert is definitely my favorite Antonioni. Nice write-up

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Thanks. I think I lean towards L'Eclisse (despite not being in love with L'Avventura and La Notte), although I'm well overdue for a rewatch of Blow Up and The Passenger.


Aside from those, I did enjoy Zabriskie Point, although the hippie bull**** did test my patience. The rest of his filmography is a blind spot for me. I know JJ recommended Beyond the Clouds with Irene Jacob* and Sophie Marceau, which very much sounds like my jam. And I think Crumbsroom gave a negative review to The Mysteries of Oberwald, which bizarrely makes me want to see it more. The mind works in mysterious ways.


*I did chuckle when I saw Jacob pop up in US Marshals as Wesley Snipes' girlfriend. Shouldn't she have been in a Bond movie instead? That's the standard Hollywood role for hot European actresses (see: Marceau in Three World is Not Enough).

Ooof, Oberwald. Pretty much for completists. It's a stone cold bore. And yet is also intensely weird. A strange mix I could not get my finger on. I'd love to read a fans positive take on it, because it just felt so...impenetrable. Unpleasing to the eye. Deliberately unlikable. I have no idea what he was trying to do.

Now I just have to figure out how to watch it.

FTR, the version I watched looked terrible. Blurry, bad sound and with murky bleeding colors in the print. It was the only available copy for a while, I believe. But I also think it probably always looked terrible. As said, I think that is part of whatever point Antonioni was trying to make with it. So if you ever do find a copy, and your response is 'ugh', you've probably found a pristine versions so stick with it and be sure to enjoy.

Also, regarding lesser watched Antonioni's, I've liked both Identification of a Woman and Story of a Love Affair a lot.



Well, maybe it's a stretch to say I like IoaW a lot. But it's lingered in my head for a very long time to the point I think I must have kinda loved it, even though I remember thinking it was pretty silly at times while actually watching it.

Based off of what I've seen from Antonioni so far, here's how I would rank his filmography. He sometimes leaves me cold, but I also need to rewatch a few of these.

1. Red Desert
2. L'Avventura
3. The Passenger
4. Le Amiche
5. Blow-Up
6. L'Eclisse
7. La Notte

I do not celebrate Christmas, which means that most of my favourite Christmas movies (Die Hard, Black Christmas, Trading Places) have **** all to do with the spirit of the season. (I make an exception for It's a Wonderful Life, which is inarguably a great movie.) And while in theory I like to take a "live and let live" attitude when it comes to things other people are into, I must admit I find the overly commercialized Christmas cheer we're assaulted year after year with a bit trying. And when I hear people talking about the "Christmas spirit" or some other crap, I'll be honest and say I sometimes find it a bit insufferable. When I watched The Stuff earlier this year, I found it resonated nicely with my innate distrust of anything that gets a little too popular. Christmas Evil, a psychological horror film directed by Lewis Jackson and starring Brandon Maggart, is a movie for those of us who get suspicious when someone is a little too full of Christmas cheer. I should note that it's very good, in large part due to the lead performance.

For a good chunk of my cinephilic life, I was predominantly concerned with direction in more technical terms. When it came to acting, I would find myself struggling to say something more substantial than a vague summation of quality ("pretty good", "not so good", etc). It's something I still struggle with, but I feel I've steadily become more attuned to the specifics of a performance (or at least tried to do so), and particularly how it's complemented by the direction. It's something that was very much on my mind as I watched Christmas Evil, which gets much of its effect from the way Jackson's direction evokes the isolation felt by Maggart, frequently opting to hold takes much longer than you would expect, letting you feel his psyche deteriorate in almost real time. The shot choices vary, but are always deployed purposefully. One affecting moment has him framed in a medium shot alone in his house as he hums "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town", while another has him stare into the mirror as he tries on a fake beard. The cinematography by Ricardo Aronovich, best known for artier fare (credits include Missing, The Most Important Thing: Love and Murmur of the Heart), reminded me of Black Christmas in the way it subverts the coziness we associate with this time of year, and of Gordon Willis' work in The Godfather in evoking a certain insular, psychologically intense quality.

I'd been aware of the title for years (although I only just realized that it's a pun; blame my Christmaphobia), and had assumed it would be a slasher about a killer in a Santa suit like Silent Night, Deadly Night. But despite a few gruesome moments, The actual movie is closer to a mix of psychological horror and character study, and the comparisons I've seen to Taxi Driver are surprisingly on point. Given its premise (a man grows up to be dangerously obsessed with Christmas after seeing his mommy do more than kiss Santa Claus as a child), this shouldn't work, but the measured direction and deeply committed lead performance make it resonate. While it's gained something of a cult following (in part thanks to John Waters' endorsement), I suspect audiences might have struggled with it in the context of the first slasher wave. If you own the Vinegar Syndrome release, you can get a taste of what audience reactions were with the comment card featurette they helpfully included. Some choice responses:

A few viewers expressed a tone of concern:

At least one took the wrong message:

But at least some got it:

That last person rated it "Excellent".

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Cannibal Apocalypse was released during the Italian cannibal wave alongside such notorious shockers as Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox and Jungle Holocaust AKA Last Cannibal World, but it doesn't feel a whole lot like those movies. For one thing, instead of the jungle, it's set in the US, and a lot of its tension comes from how the urban environment affects the proceedings. The other key difference is that the cannibals, rather than some othered group as in those movies, are characters we directly identify with. It's also quite a bit less violent and mostly lacking in animal cruelty (aside from one unfortunate moment involving sewer rats and a flamethrower), although I must admit it still got to me. Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age (I only turned thirty this year but have more grey hairs than I'd like), but there's something about the disarming way this movie slides into its gore that gives it an added impact.

The movie opens during the Vietnam War, where a squad led by John Saxon rescues a pair of POWs (Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Tony King) who have succumbed to cannibalism. (One detail that might stand out to sticklers for historical accuracy is that Sazon uses a Thompson submachine gun. While this was likely used in the movie because it would have been a readily available prop from World War II macaroni combat productions, I learn that this weapon was in fact used by the South Vietnamese army, so I concede it wouldn't be impossible that Saxon's character would be using the weapon.) Upon their return to America, Radice and King are committed to a mental institution for several years, but upon their release, they're quickly back to their old habits. Even worse, Saxon starts to feel the urge as well, and others may or may not be getting in on the act as well.

This is a portmanteau movie, where the different genre elements come together to complement each other in interesting ways. The Vietnam context gives it metaphoric value with respect to the characters' PTSD, the cannibalism adds the blood and guts, the zombie angle (which is cannibal-adjacent, if we must quibble) give the movie a welcome sense of escalation, and the urban thriller elements package all of this together with a certain immediacy. I am no expert in Antonio Margheriti's career, but despite being namechecked in Inglourious Basterds, it seems he doesn't command the same following (at least in my internet circle) as an Argento, Fulci, D'Amato or even a Mattei. But comparing this to my viewing earlier this year of Castle of Blood, I'd wager there's a certain flexibility in his directing style. His work here is far from the thick Gothic atmosphere of the earlier movie, but is still quite effecting in generating tension, particularly in the claustrophic finale in the sewers, where the militaristic presence of the police (including a cop with a flamethrower) mirrors the warfare of the opening scene. The performances also give this all a nice human element, with Radice playing another great nervy, unstable character and the ever-reliable Saxon turning playing a character who seems to form a sturdy centre for the movie...until he doesn't. Saxon claims that he was lured by a translated script that conveniently left out the violent content and was dismayed when he learned that it was a cannibal movie and not the strict Vietnam metaphor he assumed it was. If I can respond to Saxon, I think it still kind of works in that respect, and however unhappy Saxon was with the movie, his work onscreen doesn't betray it. If there's a movie where he phoned it in, I haven't seen it.

As I alluded to in my review of Christmas Evil, I do not celebrate Christmas, so generally do not respond too strongly to those that fit a strict definition of a "Christmas movie" (in that they're about the holiday). I prefer my Christmas movies to contain things like shootouts (Die Hard), death-defying stunts (Police Story, which I shamefully forgot to cite in that review), race- and class-conscious comedy (Trading Places), stabbing (Black Christmas, Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2, Christmas Evil). Well, you can add ****ing and sucking to that list because I had a very good time with The Passions of Carol, Shaun Costello's hardcore adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Now, what's most surprising is that this actually does meet that strict definition of a Christmas movie. While I was tempted to recommend this on novelty alone, porn parodies are a dime a dozen and not all of them have more than a cursory grasp of their source material. (I watched Re-Penetrator back in October, which has maybe a minute of the male lead playing Herbert West before diving into a prolonged sex scene for the rest of its runtime. I did enjoy that movie, as zombie Joanna Angel wearing gigantic platform heels is not without her charms, but an incisive parody it was not.) This actually commits to retelling the story, and despite the sex scenes, actually feels true to the spirit of the source material, rather than milking it for laughs.

Now, you don't need me to tell you the plot, as you're no doubt familiar already. But what you might not know is that in this version, Scrooge has a threesome with an Elvis impersonator played by Sonny Landham. Or that the scene moves to a room which looks like the inside of a washing machine. Or that Marley, as played by Mark Stevens, "died at [his] desk with a hard on" (to which Scrooge responds "Even the Grim Reaper can't shut you up"). Or that the Ghost of Christmas Past demonstrates the consequences of greed with a man wearing giant credit cards, doomed to have them turned down wherever he goes ("Surely you must take American Express"). Or that Scrooge's childhood room is decorated with pornographic drawings of what look like Raggedy Ann dolls (I suspect Costello's turn-ons are different from mine). Or that the Ghost of Christmas Present looks like a rotund oompa loompa who informs Scrooge that "[he's] so now that if there were a reincarnation, [he'd] come back as Bloomingdale's". Or that the Ghost of Christmas Future takes Scrooge on a tour through 42nd Street, where we see marquees telling us that theatres are playing movies such as Airport 1975, The Odessa File, The Love Bus and, in some particularly ominous shots, The Groove Tube. Now, you're probably thinking what the heck most of this has to do with Dickens' original story. Well, let me tell you about a little concept called "The Death of the Author", in that the author is dead and can't do **** all about any of it. (No, I haven't read the original essay. You're telling me that's not how it works?)

I understand Costello made this after a run of "one day wonders", ultra cheap pornos shot in an extremely short amount of time. This was him showing some ambition, to the point that he put effort into the screenplay, went over time and budget, and sank his own money into having this play at a non-pornographic theatre. The care shows in the results onscreen. This isn't as slick or stylistically fluid as the later films I've seen by him, but the relatively static visual style (which still looks good, mind you) is complemented nicely by the mise-en-scene, with almost every frame packed with at least one of red, green or white. It definitely looks like a Christmas movie, is what I'm saying. And it sounds like one too, thanks to the well chosen music selection (including the unexpected but not unwelcome use of "Tubular Bells"). Also, while these movies tend to be prevalent with the male gaze, you can see Costello trying to evoke the heroine's perspective with admiring shots of Landham's body in the first sex scene. Costello's use of a female pseudonym ("Amanda Barton") may have been a cynical move, but you do get the sense he wanted couples to be able to enjoy this movie without embarrassment, rather than purely targeting the raincoat brigade. And the movie is held together with some nice performances, including an unexpectedly sympathetic role by Jamie Gillis, and, despite playing Scrooge, a pretty endearing lead performance by Mary Stuart (credited as "Merrie Holiday"). On a technical level, she might not be the most refined actress, but she is extremely likable, and someone you actually root for to learn the meaning of Christmas (by having to witness a whole lot of ****ing and sucking). In its final moments, the movie holds on two shots of her overcome with joy, and her energy is infectious.

I finally caved and got a Criterion Channel subscription because I needed to see a Bergman to wrap up the Criterion Challenge on Letterboxd.


Sadly this means I will be watching less garbage next year.

Maybe there'll be a Doris Wishman retrospective next year.

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Captain's Log
My Collection

There is right now, although he's probably already seen them.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Ha! there sure is. That was supposed to be a joke

Lol I'll have to jump on that. I've only seen Bad Girls Go to Hell from her (which I remember enjoying, but don't ask me for specifics).

The Criterion Channel is the garbage can in that gif.

After several months of wringing my hands and grappling with the shame of spending embarrassing amounts of money on physical media, I finally bit the bullet and did what many trustworthy individuals in my internet circle have suggested and got a subscription to the Criterion Channel. I felt some immediate relief that it didn't contain literally every single movie the Criterion Collection had ever put out, so could still justify my profligacy (which was not helped by the fact that I had several incomplete free rental punchcards from the video rental place I used to frequent pre-pandemic, making me a truly loco gangster when it comes to movies). I was also helpfully informed that it contained a number of movies from exploitation auteur Doris Wishman, so I could still continue to pursue my trash-heavy cinematic diet. Now, while it would have been entirely on brand for me to christen my membership with a viewing of Nude on the Moon, it was in fact the fifth movie I watched (and third feature), following shorts from Lotte Reiniger and Karel Zeman, as well as His Girl Friday and The Raven. All of those were substantially more enjoyable than this.

In an age when sexual content is readily available with minimal effort, a film like Nude on the Moon might seem especially quaint. It's a relic from an era when movies used flimsy pretexts to present nudity to skirt censorship laws, often using documentary-like framing devices to give the movie "socially redeeming values". And it worked too, as boobs had only been invented a few years prior so these movies credibly offered educational value to the masses. (Don't believe me? Skim the Wikipedia article about evolution quickly enough and you'll come to the same conclusion.) Of course, with a title like Nude on the Moon, you can guess it isn't taking that trope all too seriously. It knows what the audience wants and serves it up. What might surprise you is how ********* long it takes to do so. It isn't until half an hour into this seventy minute movie that we actually go to the moon and see some nudity. Up until then, we have to listen to some lame-o scientists (one of whom has hair that looks spray-painted grey) talk about going to the moon, mount their spaceship (in a series of awkwardly framed shots conveniently hiding the absence of a real rocket, followed by a miniature shot, which was more production value than I expected, and interior shots of what looks like a freight plane) and finally land on the moon wearing discount Power Rangers costumes. This predated the original Kamen Rider by almost a decade. Did the creators of that beloved Japanese television series take inspiration from Doris Wishman? Smart money says no.

Once we're there we get what the title promises, courtesy of none too shy moon people who wear antennae and shiny underpants. Some of these underpants are too small to cover the entire posterior, so we get a fair amount of buttcrack if that's your thing. One of the scientists is intrigued by a moon lady wearing a cape, perhaps because she's played by the same actress as his secretary on Earth. (It's worth noting that the moon lady has a normal hairdo while the secretary has a ****ed up beehive thing going on, so point one for the moon people.) There's also a single moment of tension when the astronauts are captured by the moon people, but are promptly let go once they realize they can be friends. The setting looks an awful lot like a botanical garden, which is nice to look at but very obviously not the moon. Wishman also makes no attempt to simulate the low gravitational effects of the moon (a more ambitious film might use slow motion), but instead evokes them with glacial pacing, and also cuts down on costs by obviously dubbing dialogue instead of sync sound, a choice she foregrounds by making the moon people telepathic.

I did not quite enjoy sitting through this, as there are limits to my tolerance for drawn out crap where nothing happens and I already met my quota this year with a bunch of Ray Dennis Steckler joints. But at the same time, there is something endearing about this movie's blatant cheapness and lack of pretense. Wishman knows there's no point kidding ourselves about why one would want to watch this. (Educational value, of course.) And thanks to the bright, flat look and the genial, low-conflict tone, it's a very hard movie to dislike. Why stay mad at the moon people when we can be friends?