Saturday, August 28, 2010

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Beautiful Proud Untamed

I recently came across FelixinHollywood's sensational posting about RKO's 1931 film sensation INGAGI about an ape-worshipping tribe of savages, their half breed furry children and the white safari leaders who saved a beauty from the beast. Turns out it was all just SAFARI-SPLOITATION 1930s style...a film posing as a documentary using old footage and filmed at LA's (now defunct) Selig Zoo.

Despite their highly publicized "embarassment" over the fraudulent taboo travelogue, RKO knew that movie goers would never fully shake their jungle fever. They created KING KONG and its sequel SON OF KONG which spawned MIGHTY JOE YOUNG and all the remakes with blonde starlets getting fingered by the big guy.



Audiences will always pay to see untamed lust and unnamed desire. Whether it's in the form of Germany's answer to Bardot as LIANE the JUNGLE GODDESS (1959)



or BO Derek getting her boob sucked by a chimp in 1980's TARZAN the Ape Man.



For myself and many other pre-adolescent gay boys watching TV reruns, the idea of being carried away by Tongo the Ape Man on Gilligan's Island was an ideal scenario. That lucky bitch, Ginger!





American television director David McDearmon (1914 - 1979) (left) talks to actor Bob Denver (1935 - 2005) (right) on the set of the episode 'Our Vines have Tender Apes' (broadcast January 30, 1967) of the CBS sitcom 'Gilligan's Island' as guest star Denny Miller (as Tongo the ape man) and regular cast member Tina Louise stand in the background, Studio City, California, November 16, 1966. (Photo by CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)

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And speaking of SON OF KONG, Have you seen SON OF GILLIGAN ??!! It's uncanny !

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Monday, August 16, 2010

Java Junkie

Tom Schiller's going to be showing some films here in LA this week, including this masterpiece that I first saw on SNL back in ... ?

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Beyond the Valley of the Showgirls!

Do you hear a clickitty-clackitty sound approaching? It's the hordes of drag queens trotting to the nearest cinema offering this steaming, glittery, fragrantly fabulous stew of HOT MESS:



Oh, honey, I'll be there with my Ja-pan fan to cool me down!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Reform School Girls


1986 Dir: Tom DeSimone With: Wendy O’Williams, Past Ast, Sybil Danning.

Tom De Simone who had previously directed such films as «L.A. Tool and Die»... yes the gay porn film... pulls out all the stops in this campy, over the top parody of women behind bars films.

When naive Jenny is incarcerated because of her involvement in a shoot out, she becomes the latest victim of the an all girls reform school/prison run by evil Pat Ast ( of the Andy Warhol fame) and Sybil Danning, who is usually an inmate in these type of movies.

No cliché is left untouched and the addition of Wendy O’Williams from the Plasmatics as one of the girls (she looks closer to 100 than under 18.... how long can you be in reform school anyway?). There’s the good counsellor, the mentally unstable innocent and tons of young girls in naked shower scenes. Where most of these films see inmates getting a drab jumpsuit and a toothbrush with a razor hidden it, this flick introduces the idea that Frederick’s of Hollywood should be outfitting our teenage prisoner system offenders. I have to say, I agree totally.

The dialog is tasteless and ridiculous. «Keep you hands above the sheets, we only clean them once a week!» and «Someone get me a towel» after the evil warden stomps a kitten to death (No, seriously, she does). The theme song by O’Williams, «So young, so bad... so what» is priceless and at the end good old Wendy gets to drive a flaming bus into a tower.

All and all a slammer classic! I have to admit my glowing opinion of the his film might be coloured by the fact I saw it in Revere (ask Miss lethal about Revere) with a gang of about 20 loud lesbians who scared the crap out of the other 10 people who came to see this cinematic masterpiece. We all dragged raced in the parking lot after.