I’m gonna cut to the chase and say that American Hardcore (Sony) is NOT the definitive documentary on the history of hardcore punk, so all you straight-edge types and record obsessives can stop grinding your teeth and put the angry e-mails on the back burner (please). Yes, several significant (and not so significant) bands are overlooked by Paul Rachman’s film (which is based on the terrific book by Steven Blush) – the omission of the Dead Kennedys and Husker Du are probably the most egregious – but you still get lots of quality interviews with the foot soldiers that helped start the whole bonfire; Black Flag’s Henry Rollins and Keith Morris and H.R. from Bad Brains get the lion’s share of the face time, but folks like Kevin Seconds, Joey Shithead, Greg Hetson, Bruce Loose, and Al and Nancy Barile get to drop a sound bite or two to testify to their part in the movement. Lotsa rare and swell live footage makes it a definite candidate for look-see status, even if your fave band didn’t make the cut.

Also on the live moo-sick DVD front: Disorder: 20 Years in a Van 1986-2002 (Cherry Red) chronicles two ugly decades of assault on the eardrums of Europe by Bristol’s punk bruisers Disorder, while The Day the Country Died: The History of Anarcho Punk (Cherry Red) is sort of the UK counterpart to American Hardcore – it’s also based on a non-fiction book (by Ian Glasper) and features plenty of footage of and interviews with ‘80s-era hardcore types like the Subhumans, Crass and Toxic Waste. There’s also The Queers Are Here (MVD), an hour-plus look at the four-on-the-floor punk outfit’s ever-changing line-up and ceaseless CD output through live footage and videos culled from ’93 to the present, and New Bomb Turks: Raining On Edinburgh (Cherry Red UK), which highlights the band in their heyday – 1994 – with live shows from Scotland and New Jersey.  And lastly, a reunited Hawkwind (well, Dave Brock) perform with “special guest” Arthur Brown on Out of the Shadows (MVD), a 2002 live performance disc that includes an hour-long interview with Brock on all manner of cosmic things; and Canadian pummelers Kataklysm lay waste to the Fatherland in Live in Deutschland (Nuclear Blast), a live DVD/CD combo of the band in concert from 2006, plus a battery of live footage and video clips from the band in their home country of Canada.

As for feature films this week, I’m most interested in The Kadokawa Horror Collection (BCI Eclipse), a four-disc set of Japanese supernatural horror titles, including Isola, about a young woman with psychic abilities who discovers a girl with dangerous multiple personalities. But I dig the Japanese horror stuff, and you might not, so there’s always The Mailman (Anchor Bay), a likable low-budget (shot on DV) creepshow about a psychotic and manipulative postal worker (a redundancy, I know), or Wilderness (First Look), an effective and gory thriller which pits a group of young British convicts on an Outward Bound-style exercise who encounter a crossbow-wielding killer and his attack dogs. I can’t say much about Night of the Living Dorks (Anchor Bay) save for the fact that its plot bears an uncomfortable resemblance to Shrunken Heads (three dopey kids are transformed by a voodoo ritual), and that it’s a comedy from Germany. Take from those facts what you will.

Meanwhile, Image Entertainment continues to bring the Shaw Brothers’ amazing legacy of ‘60s and ‘70s martial arts and swordplay action to DVD with The Wandering Swordsman, a light-hearted (but action-heavy) adventure with David Chiang (The Water Margin, Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires) as a Robin Hood-style hero who tangles with a gang of tough criminals (including one dude with a pair of spiky golden fists). And BCI continues its Rarescope series of ‘70s Hong Kong action with Elimination Pursuit, a retitling of Three Famous Constables, which is best known as a starring vehicle for the amazing Pearl Chang Ling of Wolf Devil Woman fame, and the Shaw Brothers’ Duel at the Supreme Gate from 1968. And Tartan has modern-day Asian action with Bloody Ties, a Korean actioner about a hard-wired detective who teams with a crank dealer to bring down a local crime lord.

And finally, Image dregs the bottom of the ‘80s T&A comedy barrel for the obscure Hollywood High 2, which upset the fine folks at Exploitation Retrospect so much that they challenged their readers to find a more pointless film (fellas, I think I might have a few candidates). And if that’s not grim enough for you, there’s always Crackheads Gone Wild: Miami (MVD), the latest in the series of on-the-street interviews with real dope fiends, this time in Cocaine Country, U.S.A.  The title suggests plenty of Bumfights-type yucks, but from I understand, these are humor-free, mondo-style looks at life under the yoke of crack. If you gotta see more, go to www.crackheadsgonewild.com.

– Paul Gaita

First and foremost, a quick retraction, and then a depressing note: Immoral Women, which I mentioned last week, is a Severin Films release, not Subversive Subversive cinema, as I mentioned. And you should also know that some retailers are shying away from handling this title; publicist/screening Mike Watt (www.Hollywoodisburning.com) hipped me to the fact that a major chain has returned all copies of the film because of its “suggestive” cover (which shows a woman in several suggestive clinches with a bunny). And if that wasn’t enough, the company that provides subtitles for Severin’s product also dumped their upcoming DVD of Emanuelle Around the World (which will arrive in X and XXX versions on March 27) because of inappropriate content. We’re all about inappropriate content here at Sleazegrinder.com, so drop Severin a line and let ‘em know that you support their efforts to bring classic sleaze and smut to the people.

The Grudge 2 (Sony) is the sequel to the American remake of Takashi Shimizu’s frightening Japanese ghost story Ju-On, but it is NOT a remake of his 2003 sequel, Ju-On: The Grudge. I liked Shimizu’s American reworking very much, and I imagine if you did too, you’ll want to check out this go-round; suffice it to say that the American influence on the story nearly threatens to upset the whole apple cart and turn his horrifying mom-and-son ghost team into toothless franchise characters. But a third-quarter twist somehow reminds everyone that they’re making a Grudge movie, and the film gets back in black in a very mean and evil way. Which of course is a good thing. Extras include multiple featurettes on the making of the film (which devote a good deal of footage to Shimizu’s quiet but determined desire to keep his American co-producers from turning this movie into a colossal bore), deleted scenes (including a truly left-field alternate ending), and a trio of curious short films from director Toby Wilkins called “Tales from The Grudge,” which pit a string of hapless American types against the film’s groaning, mewling ghosts. They’re effective but don’t match Shimizu’s icy, impassive technique.

The other pick to click this week is Masters of Horror: Family (Anchor Bay), which comes from the vastly improved second season of the Showtime horror anthology. Family is the second go-round for John Landis (American Werewolf in London), and it’s a typically loosey-goosey story from him, with George Wendt as a fastidious serial killer with a nuclear family fetish who develops a fixation on the new couple next door. As with The Grudge, a last-minute shift into decidedly sick territory pulls this out of forgettable territory; the usual interviews with cast and crew and making-of featurettes are included on the disc.

The rest of the DVDs this week: Sony has Incubus, a slasher film starring Tara Reid that was apparently the first direct-to-download movie ever (is that a good thing?); also from the “we love a good gimmick” department, Sleazegrinder fave Angela Bettis stars in The Circle  (Hart Sharp Entertainment), a thriller which was shot in one continuous 96 minute take; Image Entertainmenthas the regional horror film Return in Red, in which the inhabitants of a small town turn into homicidal maniacs due to a secret electro-magnetic experiment, and Have Sword, Will Travel, a 1969 martial arts/swordplay actioner from the Shaw Brothers studios and director Chang Cheh (Five Deadly Venoms); and Kino has two of the best titled movies I’ve heard in a long time, I am an S&M Writer and Tokyo Trash Baby, two new sex-heavy comedy/dramas from Japanese director Ryuichi Hiroki, whose lengthy c.v. includes arthouse stuff like Vibrator (2003) and complete and utter filth like Captured for Sex 2 (1986). With a pedigree like that, these new flicks are gonna be must-sees.

Oh, and lastly… the 20-minute short film Disaster! The Movie (Universal), which some of you may have seen on Motley Crue’s recent tour, comes to DVD this week. The tag line for this Claymation parody of Armageddon is, “In space, no one can hear you fart,” and that, combined with the participation of the Crue fellas (who provide voices in the film), should make up your mind as to whether you want to give 20 minutes of your life to this project.

-Paul Gaita

Obsessive DVD consumers should break out that mad money fund they’ve been hoarding for the last couple of years -- and you deadbeats who haven’t might wanna sell off that extra amp or all those back issues of Gent to raise some cash, because there’s a veritable avalanche of sleazy discs hitting the shelves this week, and you don’t want to be caught out there without the funds to get them. What to purchase first? Well, your mileage may vary, but if it were my call (and it’s my column, so it is), I’d plunk down my dough for Blue-Underground’s double shot of features directed by company head Bill (Maniac Cop, Relentless) Lustig. Maniac, his legendary grindhouse gross-out about a depraved, mother-obsessed loner (the late, great Joe Spinell) who preys exclusively on women, returns to the digital fold with plenty of extras (most of which were featured on the out-of-print Anchor Bay DVD) including commentary by Lustig and special effects creator Tom Savini, a featurette on the grim off-screen life of Spinell, a radio interview with Spinell and co-star Caroline Munro, and best of all, the “Gallery of Outrage,” which complies the hateful reviews the movie garnered during its release in 1980. This is 42^nd St. fare at its grimiest, so if you like it raw and mean, don’t delay on this one.

Blue Underground also has Lustig’s tough-enough tribute to Italian cop-and-crime pictures, Vigilante, which partners classic hardcases Robert Forster and Fred “The Hammer” Williamson as average Joes driven to seek revenge against a gang of urban freaks. This is another former Anchor Bay title, and like Maniac, features the extras contained on that OOP disc (commentary by Lustig, Forster and Williamson, trailers, radio spots, and more). Meanwhile, Shriek Show wants to fill on those gaps in your DVD collection with the Wicked Women boxed set, which compiles three previously released titles: Jess Franco’s foxy-freaky Nightmares Come at Night (with the eternally hot Soledad Miranda), the completely deranged Italian monsters-and-sex spasm Werewolf Woman and the company’s self-produced Euro-sploitation tribute, Flesh for the Beast.

Shriek Show also has a few new releases on deck, like Home Before Midnight, a downer drama from Pete Walker (House of Whipcord, The Confessional) about a songwriter’s affair with an underage teen; Chris (brother of Mick) Jagger and ‘70s one-shot power pop band Jigsaw (“Sky High”) appear in the cast. They’ve also got another round of Tales of Terror from Tokyo (this is Volume 3, Part 1), which was a Japanese horror anthology for TV that compiled “true” ghost stories culled from its audience.

Also on the foreign fear tip: Neither the Sea Nor the Sand (Image), a spooky and little-seen British ghost story from 1972 about a recently widowed woman whose grief brings her late husband back to her… in slightly less than alive condition. It’s the latest UK genre title to be unearthed by Redemption Films. Meanwhile, Subversive Cinema has Immoral Women, another anthology of sexy stories from Walerian Borowczyk, which, true to form from the director of The Beast, includes much human-and-animal eroticism, along with sporadic bursts of violence. It’s definitely the sort of thing to try out on that lovely film major you’ve been hoping to unpeel of late. And Danger After Dark has Evil, which appears to be the first zombie splatter-comedy movie from Greece. Seems bloody as hell, which means it’s worth a look-see. Oh, and Dark Sky Films has Slaughter of the Vampires (great, great title), an atmospheric horrorshow from Italy circa ’62 about a vampire who plagues a house full of wealthy beautiful people.

Dark Sky also has another fun Drive-in Movie Double Feature, this time devoted to ‘60s-era Eurospy action: Assassination in Rome has cool American reporter Hugh O’Brien investigating the disappearance of a former flame’s husband, while Espionage in Tangiers has smirking secret agent Luis Davila hot on the trail of a missing disintegration ray. As with Dark Sky’s previous Drive-In Double Features, the disc includes plenty of trailers and spots for passion pit eats and treats. Dee-lish.

Speaking of passion… oh, these titles really have more to do with plain old hormones, but that’s nothing to hold against them. Newcomers Impulse Pictures (which is connected to online DVD retailers Xploited Cinema) has 1975’s Justine and Juliette, which offers a team-up of American porn king Harry Reems and Swedish sex kitten Marie Forsa in a hardcore showdown based on the writings of the good ol’ Marquis de Sade. Meanwhile, Private Screenings, which celebrates the late night cable skinshows of days gone by, has The Erotic Adventures of the Three Musketeers, a softcore edit of a 1992 hardcore costume flick from Paul (Edward Penishands) Norman and starring the late Jon Dough, Nina Hartley, Ron Jeremy, and other smut veterans. Private Screenings also has Love Scenes, a 1984 backstage Hollywood sex romp made for the Playboy Channel and starring Britt Ekland, Julie Newmar, Tiffany Bolling, and Monique Gabrielle. This one might be just right for that horny uncle with an upcoming birthday. Or for you, to be honest.

Okay, enough with the sex (yeah, I really wrote that), and back to the mindless violence. Sub Rosa Films has the Canadian-made zombie apocalypse nightmare Meat Market from 2000, as well as its 2001 sequel; Sleazegrinder hisself called the latter a “rich, greasy meal” for low-budget horror hounds (see review) and I’m not inclined to disagree. Also on the Sub Rosa docket is 1996’s Bride of Frank, a totally demented scuzz-athon about an unintelligible stewbum who attempts to balance his desire for love (well, big tits, really) with his homicidal impulses. Absolutely putrid, and therefore, essential viewing.

Also on deck this week: MGM puts The Silence of the Lambs back into rotation with a Collector’s Edition that’s simply a reissue of its 2001 Special Edition; Warner sweeps out the vaults with the Michael Crichton plastic surgery thriller Looker, which comes in a widescreen presentation and with commentary by Crichton, and the re-donkulous Gymkata, with fey Olympian Kurt Thomas taking on oily foreigners with his patented kung-fu-on-a-parallel-bar moves; and The Weinstein Company delivers Prey, about a family trapped in a wild animal park by hungry lions. On the music front: Death on the Road: 2003 Tour (Sanctuary) is a three-disc (two CD, one DVD) set from Iron Maiden’s tour of the same name; apparently, this is the third go-round for this title, which has been plagued by production and quality issues. And there’s Guns N Roses: DVD Collector’s Box (MVD), which culls interviews and early footage of the band from two previous GNR releases, The Prettiest Rock Star and Sex ‘n’ Drugs ‘n’ Rock ‘n’ Roll. Good for those who don’t have those discs, one supposes.

According to Sleazegrinder, Saw III (Lions Gate) has a cameo appearance by Betsey Russell. That’s the only reason I can think of picking up, but hey, I’m not you.

My pick to click this week is a double bill of ‘60s softcore smut from Something Weird and Image Entertainment. Their latest trashmovie tag team partners up Electronic Lover with The Spy Who Came (which is in the running for my favorite movie title of all time), which both make absolutely no sense but redeem themselves by featuring lots and lots of naked girls. Lover is the gooniest of the two – it’s about a slobbering goof who sends his manservant out on the streets of New York with a camera to pursue and film girls in various states of undress while he peeps on the action on a widescreen viewer. Spy stars Warhol performer Louis Waldron as a cop who falls into the clutches of an Arab sheik that plans to blackmail top politicos with his army of drugged girl slaves. That’s a lotta sleaze, but you also get the usual barrage of trailers plus a great educational movie from the early ’60s about computers, which back then, took up entire rooms and pumped out information on little cards. You’ll never bitch about slow downloads again after seeing it.

Speaking of double bills (and triple bills, and quadruple bills), SWV and Image aren’t the only ones with multiple movie sets on deck this week. The classy folks at Criterion dip a foot into late-show waters with the Monsters and Madmen set, which offers four (count ‘em, four) ‘50s creature features from producer Richard Gordon and his brother Alex (who had a hand in Plan 9 from Outer Space, among others). The King hisself, Boris Karloff, turns up in The Haunted Strangler, in which he plays a kindly doctor (natch) who discovers he’s really a deformed murderer; BK is also in Corridors of Blood as another kindly doctor who gets tangled up with body snatchers (including a young Christopher Lee) in his attempts to unwrap the mysteries of science. Rounding out the set is First Man into Space, which has an astronaut return from his rocket ride as a crud-encrusted, blood-drinking monster, and The Atomic Submarine, which pits a super-powered Navy sub against a flying saucer. Commentary by both Gordon boys, along with Tom Weaver, interviews with cast members, and original trailers make this four-disc set a gotta-have for the classic monster movie maven in your life.

Criterion also has single and double-disc releases of Akira Kurosawa’s seminal samurai movies Yojimbo and its sequel Sanjuro. Both star Bad Ass Hall of Famer Toshiro Mifune as the savvy wandering samurai Yojimbo, who in both films plays opposing sides against each other for his own benefit and amusement. Movie nerds who already know that Yojimbo was the inspiration for Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (and that Bruce Willis movie Last Man Standing, but the less said about that, the better) will be my-tee pleased by the extras, which include audio commentary by Kurosawa experts, lengthy making-of featurettes, and your own samurai sword. No, not really, but you do get some great essays and lots of other supplements, so it’s almost like having your own sword. Kinda.

Meanwhile, Sony has two double shots of ‘50s-era rock and roll flicks with lotsa killer performances that make the corny plotlines go down a lot smoother. Bill Haley and the Comets whips up a whap-a-dang in Rock Around the Clock (1956), which also features the Platters and ‘60s whiteboy rocker Ernie Maresca; it’s teamed up with its sequel, Don’t Knock the Rock (also ’56), which offers not only Haley but Little Richard, R&B wildmen The Treniers (never to be forgotten for their classic “Poon Tang”) and Dave Appell and the Applejacks. Sony also has Twist Around the Clock (1961), which is almost a blow-for-blow remake of Rock Around the Clock with Chubby Checker, Dion, and the Marcels replacing the Comets, with its sequel, Don’t Knock the Twist, starring Chubby, Gene “Duke of Earl” Chandler, and the Dovells. Real gone rockers will wanna see the Haley two-fer, while kitsch freaks will love the Twist pics.

And last but definitely not least, Fantoma has The Films of Kenneth Anger, Vol. 1. A huge influence on everyone from Martin Scorsese to John Waters, former child actor turned underground filmmaker Anger was obsessed with sex (hetero and homo), magic and the occult, and Hollywood iconography, and blended them in his short films to create a heady brew of pop culture references (Anger was the first to understand how to use music, especially rock and roll, to comment on the on-screen action) and eye-popping imagery. Volume 1 features his earliest films from the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, which culminate in the Technicolor fever dream Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome; its heady blend of mythology, wet dream images and magick trappings helped endear him to a generation of mystic-minded rockers, including the Rolling Stones and Jimmy Page (and oh yeah, Bobby Beausoliel of the Manson clan). Anger provides commentary for the disc, which also includes rare behind-the-scenes footage and outtakes, and a 48-page book on the man and his movies, which is introduced by Scorsese. Groovy.

What else, you ask? Okay, how about some tough guy action? Well, there’s The Yakuza (Warner), with a script co-written by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) and the very cool teaming of Robert Mitchum and veteran Japanese tough guy Ken Takakura taking on Triad gangsters to rescue a friend’s daughter. Or you can go with Lance Henriksen in Sasquatch Mountain (Monarch Video), which makes the second face-off between the Gravelly One and Bigfoot in recent months (the other being Abominable).

No dudes, you say? More girls? Right, got it. Well, Debbie Rochon stars in something called Apocalypse and the Beauty Queen (Vanguard Cinema), which has a former supermodel ruling a country with an iron fist after The Big One goes off; Gunnar Hansen’s in there somewhere too. Oh, and you can cut to the chase and just see lots and lots of breasts in Playboy: Totally Busted, Volume 3, which looks like dirty Candid Camera and is hosted by my favorite out-to-lunch porn star, Mary Carey. Or you can hit rock bottom and feast on Girls Gone Wild: Best Breasts Ever (Mantra). “Ever” is a tough label to live up to, but something tells me that Joe Francis is gonna give it the ole GGW try.

Oh, and if naked girls are just too vanilla for you, there’s a trio of light bondage titles from Pacific Media Entertainment (Pacific Media Entertainmen) that ought to provide a little zip for your next quiet evening alone. My fave title in the lot is Strange Stocking, which sounds like a horror movie based around laundry, but there’s also Twenty Tied and Ultra Tight Club, all of which promise to deliver the bound and gagged goods for those whose kink meter bends in that direction. And you can check out about a jazillion other like-minded titles on the Pacific Media web site, each of which pertains to a one particular bedroom flavor or another. Happy hunting.

– Paul Gaita