Savage Cinema

March 2004, Issue #4 (The Lost Issue)

I was utterly surprised by this film. I was expecting nothing more than some short scenes of our now-infamous actors smoking marijuana followed by trippy Willy Wonka scenes . Oddly, this did occur, but this film was much more than that. This film should be shown in every American History class in the United States. It not only showed the beauty of the country of which we reside, but it also spoke about the people that reside in it. You know the old saying, "Guns don`t kill people, people kill people", well after watching this film, it is a very true statement. We are afraid of what is different.

I finally got the chance to see this, the first installment of the El Mariachi trilogy just the other day and had as much a blast watching it as I did Desperado. Of course, it didn't have anywhere near as much action, but it's essentially the same movie. Afterall, Desperado was a demi-remake of it, but at the same time, if this was before it, it left a few questions that made me wonder about the series as a whole. Oh well, nevermind that, it doesn't matter. If you like Robert Rodriguez's style, you'll enjoy this, plain and simple. And just for the sake of readers out there, I won't mention the budget for the movie because it's getting annoying. I've yet to read a review that didn't mention how much this was made for.

Bob Berdella, Kansas City's most notorious serial killer, was most notably for luring young men to his home throughout the 1980s. He drugged them and tortured them, repeatedly experimenting to see how much pain he could cause them and still keep them alive. And when he went too far, his victims died. He cut up their bodies and set them out with the garbage. Finally, one victim jumped out a window and fled the house wearing nothing but a dog collar. With that incident, police broke the case, and Berdella confessed to six killings in a deal that spared him of the death penalty. The story behing Bob Berdella is quite gruesome yet fascinating. When exactly did he go "bad"? Growing up within 15 minutes from where the serial killer lived I have grown a much fonder interest. Over the course of the past three years I have conducted many interviews and completed extensive reseach on the man himself.

Director Richard Rush throws deaf 17 year old runaway Susan Strasberg into the Height Ashbury scene in search of her long lost brother played by Bruce Dern. She meets up with muscians Jack Nicholson, Adam Rourke and Max Julian who look after her and help scour San Fransisco in search of her acid-addled brother. During their search they promote their band, calm down a flipped-out friend with a circular saw, play some tunes with the Strawberry Alarm Clock, fight a bunch of hard-hat types and indulge in some downright hillarious dialogue.

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When walking down the isle of a video store your first impressions of this movie may decieve you. Your looking at the box cover and one part of you is saying, "This looks like a rip of the House on the Edge of the Park cover." Well maybe, but the movies have no similarity. When I had first seen this movie advertised it didn't appeal to me whatsoever. I thought it was just another trendy horror movie that a big budget studio put out to rob people of their money. Once seeing this movie at a friends house I discoverd just how wrong I really was. Like many reviwers say, "It was a wild ride!" Cabin fever has many tones, it can be scary, it can be creepy, it can be funny, and in several scenes can be just down right gross. This film is an instant classic. A perfect choice for watching with a female companion, you can show them how sick and demented you really are and let them enjoy this twisted little gem.

The arc of Jimi Hendrix's cometlike career is captured on the four-disc Jimi Hendrix Experience box set, which showcases the musician's mercurial brilliance and offers new angles from which to appraise his artistry. That the great guitarist's unreleased musings have been explored since his death three decades ago wouldn't seem to bode well for a multidisc collection such as this. But this retrospective boggles the mind merely by presenting how much Hendrix accomplished in a few short years and, in doing so, questioning what he would have achieved had he lived.

It’s the celebration of an era. At a mind-blowing price, this ultimate, beautiful, illuminating, and really groovy look at the 1960s counterculture is rich in illustrations and filled with the history, politics, sayings, and slogans that defined the age. For those who were there, this volume will flash them back. For those who weren’t, they’ll wish they had been. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll; peace rallies and riots in the ghettos; Flower Power, Black Power, and Gay Power; Mothers of Invention and Women’s Liberation; Woodstock, Monterey Pop, and Altamont. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: it all depends on whom you ask. But without a doubt the hippies transformed society. Every significant moment of the era comes vibrantly alive once again in psychedelic images, rare portraits of writers and musicians, dynamite poster and album artwork, and photographic records of political events that shook the world. Hundreds of unforgettable quotations come from seminal figures such as Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, Grace Slick and George Harrison.

A girl risks her life and plunges into a jungle hell in search of her missing sister. Throughout her perilous journey, she must fend off hungry cannibal tribes and avoid being served up as a sacraficial lamb for a good old-fashioned suicide cult! From Umbero Lenzi, director of Cannibal Ferox, Man From Deep River, and Black Demons. Features an all-star, international cast of exploitation favorites, such as Robert Kerman (Cannibal Holocaust), Janet Agren, Ivan Rassimov, and Me Me Lai.

With the knockout one-two punch of 1992's Reservoir Dogs and 1994's Pulp Fiction writer-director Quentin Tarantino stunned the filmmaking world, exploding into prominence as a cinematic heavyweight contender. But Pulp Fiction was more than just the follow-up to an impressive first feature, or the winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival, or a script stuffed with the sort of juicy bubblegum dialogue actors just love to chew, or the vehicle that reestablished John Travolta on the A-list, or the relatively low-budget ($8 million) independent showcase for an ultrahip mixture of established marquee names and rising stars from the indie scene (among them Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Julia Sweeney, Kathy Griffin, and Phil Lamar).

Louisiana's steaming bayous hide countless secrets in their murky, snake-infested swamps. One is the beautiful Desiree, whose animal magnetism drives men wild! Former "Playmate of the Year" Claudia Jennings is Desiree, and untamed Cajun poacher as savage as the alligators she traps. The corrupt sheriff wants her in jail, but his depraved kin have more lustful plans. Will they get her first? Will the sherrif? Or wil Desiree get them all? The backwoods explode in shotgun blasts and the roar of duelling speedboats until even the 'gators hide in this action packed tale that's as wild as the samp it was filmed in.

Bela Lugosi stars as Dr. Eric Varnoff, a mad scientist bent on perfecting an atomic ray capable of turning average citizens into superhumans. Protected by Lobo (Tor Johnson), a giatn man-servant, Varnoff freely experiments on the unfortunate souls who accidentally wander onto his estate, usually killing them in the process. But when the doc attempts to turn Janet Lawton (Loretta King) into an indestructible nymph, cupid shoots Lobo through his gargantuam heart and everything goes haywire. This is Ed Wood at his bets-giant rubber octopus, lost of mismatched stock footage, weird dialogue, and always something unexpected.