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DVD Reviews February, 2007.
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Topless Tapioca Wrestling
“Julie’s
weaknesses? Probably my nice breasts.” Food hijinks make me queasy. I don’t even like it when one kind of food touches another on my plate. Salad dressing mixing with gravy will have me screaming for the exit. So, I don’t think I’m the target demographic for this particular title. Strangely, nobody else at Sleazegrinder HQ wanted to tangle with topless tapioca either, so here we are. I have a puke bucket ready, just in case.
So, to the fights. They take place in an inflatable kiddie pool in what appears to be a photo studio. At first, the girls giggle and tease as they roll around in the gook. “It’s cold!” they laugh, as they loosen each other’s bikini tops. Then they spend multiple minutes attempting to pin each other, which proves nearly impossible when you are covered in goo. Finally, one of them just lets the other one climb on top for three seconds, and it’s over. Until the next match. And there’s a seemingly endless amount of them here. It all builds to a climactic grudgematch between Julie Simone and busty Latina Spicy J. I say ‘climactic’ because it’s at the end, not because it’s actually all that exciting. Basically, this is the kinda thing you’d want to see live, preferably with a belly full of hooch. On tape, it’s of interest mainly to those among us that like to see their women covered in food. And there can’t be that many people into this messy, gag-worthy fetish, can there? Don’t answer that, I don’t wanna know. Bonus: There’s another ‘feature’ here (it’s actually only 30 minutes long) called “Strip Tease Wrestling’. The title pretty much says it all. Or maybe it says too much. You decide. You also get a clutch of trailers for other Secret Key features, shot-on-video sexploitation spoofs like “The Breastford Wives” and “The House on Hooter Hill”, many of them starring quirky British porn star Taylor Wayne and her comically inflated boobs. Good thing they’re all comedies. -Sleazegrinder
-Stu “Killer” Gibson
‘Nobody knew
when we were starting, what songs we were gonna play, or how we were gonna
end the songs’
-Stu Gibson
“Fucking RE-tarrrrded…”
“I just HAVE to do it…Go to the office and put out records nobody buys” – Beat-Man
Opening with a live clip of label boss and Voodoo visionary Beat-Man playing truly primeval, nah, primed and palatably evil splurges of disembowelling squawlor that kinda makes you re-evaluate the world and basic laws of physics, and biology…Fuck, all sciences…while Little Richard literally melts and becomes mere wax for Billy Childish’s ‘tasche, with the unnervingly magical magnetism of a perfectly cast Jerry Lee flailing against type in Tobe Hooper’s most far-fetched Tex-Mex swamp-slayer orgy. It thus comes as no surprise in the following interview that he spins his own version of the crossroads myth, relating what set him on his path in such an utterly believable way you accept unblinkingly as you do his assertion that he talks to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in his dreams. Why wouldn’t he? If ever there was anyone doing it for the right reasons it’s this serenely crazed Swiss preacher of the most perversely perfect Rock’n’Roll in all it’s many hallowed beat(en) forms from grinding garage grimaces to madcap mountain music through psychotic nursery rhymes and corrupted Cajun. Passionate and driven to distract you, witness Zeno Tornado, The Dead Brothers, proselytiser extraordinaire Dink Winkerton and the equally, eloquently demented King Khan who may well become the Little Richard of this dimension. It’d be easy to say this is what every music doc should be like, but what other cerebral savage would ever be able to accommodate such a stable of glorious ragged but right cast of characters, never mind coming across them in the first place than Mr. Beat-Man? - Mr. Gibson
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Rolling
Stones – Rock Files: Truth and Lies
- A quite frankly outraged Stu Gibson
At this point, the real fun is in the dissection of the film, and to that end, there’s three – count ‘em – commentaries on deck, all chatty and fact-filled. One’s from producer John Fedele and DP Michael Raso, one’s a solo discussion from Raso, and the third commentary is from writer/director Tim O’Rawe. By the end of that, you will be able to write your senior thesis on Ghoul School. Oh, but there’s more! There’s a reel of action/effects scenes used as the bait for potential investors, which also comes with its own commentary. There’s a 9 minute “making of” featurette shot in 1990, presumably for the VHS release, the highlight of which is John Fedele snapping at his over-worked crew. There’s the original opening, which is some hilariously primitive computer animation. Finally, there’s a 3 minute segment on the making-of the DVD cover, starring the ever-lovely Erika Smith. All this and a gory ass-load of trailers, too. Of course, none of this extra junk will be of any interest to you unless you are really into zero-budget splatter flotsam from the no-class decade. Something tells me you do have a soft-spot for this kind of garbage, though. If so, this one will stink up the room nicely. -Sleazegrinder
-Shtu “Hic” Gibshon.
– Paul
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There is no
Topless Tapioca Wrestling League, of course, and these are not fighters,
they are softcore actresses and strippers. As such, they rattle off jokey
lines in pre-match interview segments, brainy stuff like, “Who would I like
to wrestle? Rosie O’Donnell. She’s so large and voluptuous, she could wear
three bras, all on different parts of her body.” And while it’s always
entertaining to hear Darian Caine’s hopeful lisp or Julie Simone’s wide-eyed
put-ons, this is not exactly the cutting satire they’re obviously shooting
for. It’s more along the lines of the pre-bang starlet interviews in your
average gonzo porn flick. It’s obvious that the girls are riffing most of
the time, so perhaps some actual lines should have been typed up beforehand.
That could have helped. But I suppose we are not here for witty dialogue, we
are here for tits and pudding. And there’s plenty of that. 
Perhaps out
of all the grievous fairytales in Rock’n’Roll history, none is more
poignant, and still potent, than that of the New York Dolls. A complex
enough mix of characters to cause a psychologist to have a cerebral hernia,
their tragedy-trampled tale of self-inflicted misadventures and sheer
silk-hemmed misfortune continues to charm and compel people. This tenderly
affectionate account documents bassist Kane’s dream of the band reuniting, a
hope he’d harboured through years of seeing attempts to carve a post-Dolls
career slip from his grasp. Finding no solace in cirrhosis or suicide the
Mormons somehow incongruously stepped in and saved him, or at least provided
some sense of peace in his final fifteen or so years. So ending in an
unfortunately perfectly fitting way for the Dolls with Arthur feeling ill,
going to hospital and dying two hours later of undiagnosed leukaemia, along
the way it’s a touching tale of the gentle giant’s plight. Working in the
Mormon temple library, we see his elderly co-workers struggling to
understand the concept of Arthur’s past life, one scene has Arthur sweetly
explaining his role as bass player, another sees him retrieving his guitar
from the pawn shop as he’d only had enough money to keep paying the
interest, but overall it’s his serene pleasure at half a lifetimes wish
fulfilled which makes this redeeming and heart-warming, providing as it does
a sort of ragged resolution beyond the general unhappiness at the root of
his life. While it’s a wish that an extract from the Book of Mormon is used
to suggest some higher power ordained that the reunion would happen this is
a truly bittersweet tale of a very sad vacation, and is a wonderful
testimony. 
When bassist
and songwriter Mr Ronnie Lane quit The Faces in 1974 it wasn’t to join some
other huge, or huger band, it was to disappear before he went the way of Rod
Stewart, ie, squarely up his own arse. Not for this heroically gifted and
garrulously romantic old-time minstrel the life of luxury, lame records and
leopard-print leggings. No. Ronnie buggered off and bought a run-down old
farm in the wilds of the English country side on the Welsh border – with the
cash in a plastic bag! – and symbolically nailed a gold-disc to the front
door. However, he didn’t become a Syd Barrett-style recluse but embarked on
an endearingly erratic solo sojourn, which makes up the bulk of this utterly
charming and touching portrait, not least The Passing Show itself – where
the indomitable Lane went on tour…taking a literal circus around with him.
Undertaking to follow the tow-path of country-tinged gypsy folk music a full
ten or so years before The Pogues and The Waterboys Lane’s status slipped
after an initial couple of albums before the MS that killed him in 1997 took
hold. Despite not making a penny from The Small Faces, losing it all after
The Faces and even managing to get ripped off for a million dollars by an MS
charity he’d helped run Lane took it all in stride in his humble bucolic
manner, displayed here mainly in an interview from 1987, where his pertinent
philosophy is ‘It’s a short movie, man!’. As a testament and tribute to
another one of those eternal talents that slumbers in the slipstreams this
film is second to none. If you’re a fan splash a drink or two around to
catch the tears in, if you’re a mere acquaintance then he’ll end up a hero,
by the time you’re halfway through the clip of Slim Chance doing ‘Done This
One Before’ you’ll be an avowed apostle. 
True to
Voodoo Rhythm’s catalogue of cacophonous, eclectic and often-times
incomprehensible arcade of cataclysmic curios this is tagged as ‘A movie to
ruin in any party’. Don’t be letting that fool you. Just as the records are
so this film is reason to have a party, shake a chicken in the middle
of the room, grab a guy, grab a girl, grab whatever’s near to hand the
Voodoo don’t judge, it just jives. Sure, your neighbours won’t like it.
Hell, even your hipster hepcat friends may not like it. But that’ll just
give you the redeeming eerie pleasure of noticing the subtle changes that
will come over them. 
This
puzzling documentary outlines the Stones well-worn history in a year by year
magazine style format, narrated by a chap who sounds like he studied
elocution by listening to John Peel’s late night shows in his sleep. Billed
as a major profile yet it’s painfully obvious that it’s been done on the
cheap. No actual Stones music features, and possibly worse, the music that
there is is just random incidental music. So, no, don’t expect any
insightful, tree-lined, addled adages from Keith, or desert-dry one word
interviews with old Charlie boy. As for the interviewees, the same 4 are
featured throughout and forty-four years of history is crammed into about as
many minutes. Aside from the bonus feature on 60’s Swinging Britain, which
was rather welcomely amusing, the main point of interest was that they,
either purposefully out of deference to the band, or by sheer ineptitude,
erased Dirty Work from the history books. Sure, it’s widely held to be the
worst Stones record ever. Well, here’s its companion piece, as this is a
pretty pointless waste of production costs. Avoid.
This one was
just re-released a year or so ago by Tempe, but Camp appears to buying up
every bottom-of-the-barrel, shot-on-video camcorder-splatter epic ever
spewed up in the 1980’s, and so, once again, Ghoul School. The plot of this
1990 hairspray n’ corn syrup fest has been recanted many, many times, so in
the sake of brevity, let’s just say it involves a Jersey high school circa
1988, some horror movie nerds, a zombie swim team, a heavy metal band,
frumpy talk show host Joe Franklin, and for about 4 seconds, former Stern
sidekick Jackie Martling. That all sounds like buckets of fun, but so does
spending all night in the monkey cage, until you actually try it. 
This
compelling, never crawling, account of the utterly unrepentant and
irrepressible piss-artist and poetic pratt MacGowan surely succeeds due to
the nature of its subject but also for its composition. Focussing more on
the man as an artistic force rather than on some sensationalistic sherry and
sambuca soaked spree of the unquenchable thirst, there’s many a fine moment
(an entirely legible interview from the mid-80’s came as a surprise!) of
music and memoir, not least the account of ‘Rainy Night In Soho’ and Shane’s
incredulity at a newspaper article calling his songs ‘simple’, along with
several alarming ones. The sheer fumbling, stumbling shambles that is seen
in private settings in the latter stages is staggering, the skeletal
death-rattle ‘laugh’ While his vehement anti-English idealism is wearying (I
was a good person then became a scumbag ‘cos of England) the honest
testimonies of friends and family shouldn’t be final. With a wound down
work-rate and output as unsure as his footsteps the film sheds no light on
any definite future plans aside from the now yearly Pogues re-unions.
Whether you view it as a squandered talent or a situation deserved for a
lifetime of self-destructive petulance this is required viewing for anyone
interested in the creative psyche as well as The Pogues firebrand folk
rabble-rousing.
I don't know who made the comparison to this being like "Citizen Kane".
Maybe it was used in the ad
The Norliss Tapes is a just-okay trip down the same TV spookshow path blazed
by director Dan Curtis' The Night Stalker and Night Strangler TV-movies,
which remain among the best horror movies ever produced for the tube. Roy
Thinnes (from Larry Cohen's '60 UFO-paranoia series The Invaders) stars as a
occult debunker who disappears while working on his latest book; his agent
(Don Porter) drops by his swank pad and finds a pile of audiotapes from
Thinnes' book-in-progress, from which