New Stuff~!
Got some "Fell off The Back Of a Truck" DVDs tonight at the video store. Regular readers will remember my Blue Underground score of April. Well, tonight I scored again. Here's the lineup for the evening:
Abel Ferrara's Driller Killer(1979) - Ferrara's first non-adult feature is a pungent piece of 1970's cult trash, rescued from obscurity by Cult Epics. Ferarra plays an artist who goes bonkers and starts killing derelicts with a power drill. The box says that the movie was intended to be similar to Texas Chainsaw, but bears a greater resemblance to Taxi Driver. We'll have to see about that.
In A Glass Cage(1986) - This is an obscure Spanish item, also from Cult Epics, which has to do with S&M and Nazis and child killings(Fun for the whole family~!). The liner notes suggest that this film is similar to the object of last week's torture, Salo, as well as Stephen King's Apt Pupil. I'd never heard of this until Cult Epics issued it, but I'm willing to give it a try.
And the gem of the evening - The Mondo Cane Collection. Blue Underground has issued the complete oeuvre of Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, the two men who pioneered the "Mondo" documentary style. They can also be blamed for planting the seeds of Reality TV, as well as inspiring such films as The Blair Witch Project and Cannibal Holocaust. Let's look at each title in the collection.
Mondo Cane(1962) is the original "Shockumentary" that started it all. It's shocking yet scattershot, bouncing from scenes as disparate as "manhunters" in New Guinea to a pet cemetary in Pasadena to scenes of people eating bizarre food. Pretty heady stuff for 1962. Nominated for an Oscar for the song "More". Fully restored from the original negatives and featuring a documentary about the Mondo phenomenon.
Mondo Cane 2(Mondo Pazzo)(1964) is more of the same as the first, this time including people eating bugs, Fakirs, and Buddists immolating themselves in Saigon. Also restored from the original negatives.
Women of The World(1963) is pretty much explained by the title, as the boys used outtakes from the first movie to build this documentary about women's roles in the bizarroworld of their films. Narrated by Peter Ustinov. Again, restored and uncensored.
Two versions of Africa Addio(1966), the 128-minute "English Version" and the 139-minute Director's Version, shown everywhere else in the world. This is where the boys started getting themselves into trouble. Africa Addio is an account of Africa in the early 60's, as Colonialism collapses amid a sea of revolution, blood, and chaos. The American version lasted only a few weeks in theatres despite critical acclaim, and reappeared in the 70's, shorn of 45 minutes worth of political commentary and released to grindhouses as Africa Blood And Guts. Prosperi and Jacopetti disowned the shortened version, and who can blame them? They narrowly escaped Africa with their cameras and their lives, but found themselves accused of racism, exploitation and murder. Both are restored and the American cut comes with the U.S. Press Book as a DVD-Rom supplement.
Next up are two versions of Goodbye Uncle Tom(1971), a spectacularly incendiary film about the slave trade. The 123-minute English language version is not so much documentary as docudrama, but the 136-minute Director's cut, never shown anywhere, is something else entirely. Jacopetti and Prosperi originally made Addio Zio Tom as an exploration of race relations in the U.S. which included scenes of race war politics and extreme narration, including the jaw-dropping declaration that blacks should rise up against their white opressors.(Am I the only one who thinks it odd that two Italian guys are suggesting this?). Needless to say, the boys had to recut the film and rewrite the narration, basically making the official release version a completely different film. The American version includes 8mm footage shot on the set of the film, and the Director's cut has been restored from Jacopetti's own personal print of the film.
Last, but far from least, is The Godfathers of Mondo, a new documentary that examines the careers of the boys. They discuss their lives as journalists, the "tragic misunderstanding" that made them internationally infamous, and the reasons behind their bitter post-Uncle Tom breakup. Also included are interviews with their cameraman, production manager, and film historians.
I can't wait to dive into this box. It should be entertaining.
Better than Salo anyway.
Abel Ferrara's Driller Killer(1979) - Ferrara's first non-adult feature is a pungent piece of 1970's cult trash, rescued from obscurity by Cult Epics. Ferarra plays an artist who goes bonkers and starts killing derelicts with a power drill. The box says that the movie was intended to be similar to Texas Chainsaw, but bears a greater resemblance to Taxi Driver. We'll have to see about that.
In A Glass Cage(1986) - This is an obscure Spanish item, also from Cult Epics, which has to do with S&M and Nazis and child killings(Fun for the whole family~!). The liner notes suggest that this film is similar to the object of last week's torture, Salo, as well as Stephen King's Apt Pupil. I'd never heard of this until Cult Epics issued it, but I'm willing to give it a try.
And the gem of the evening - The Mondo Cane Collection. Blue Underground has issued the complete oeuvre of Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, the two men who pioneered the "Mondo" documentary style. They can also be blamed for planting the seeds of Reality TV, as well as inspiring such films as The Blair Witch Project and Cannibal Holocaust. Let's look at each title in the collection.
Mondo Cane(1962) is the original "Shockumentary" that started it all. It's shocking yet scattershot, bouncing from scenes as disparate as "manhunters" in New Guinea to a pet cemetary in Pasadena to scenes of people eating bizarre food. Pretty heady stuff for 1962. Nominated for an Oscar for the song "More". Fully restored from the original negatives and featuring a documentary about the Mondo phenomenon.
Mondo Cane 2(Mondo Pazzo)(1964) is more of the same as the first, this time including people eating bugs, Fakirs, and Buddists immolating themselves in Saigon. Also restored from the original negatives.
Women of The World(1963) is pretty much explained by the title, as the boys used outtakes from the first movie to build this documentary about women's roles in the bizarroworld of their films. Narrated by Peter Ustinov. Again, restored and uncensored.
Two versions of Africa Addio(1966), the 128-minute "English Version" and the 139-minute Director's Version, shown everywhere else in the world. This is where the boys started getting themselves into trouble. Africa Addio is an account of Africa in the early 60's, as Colonialism collapses amid a sea of revolution, blood, and chaos. The American version lasted only a few weeks in theatres despite critical acclaim, and reappeared in the 70's, shorn of 45 minutes worth of political commentary and released to grindhouses as Africa Blood And Guts. Prosperi and Jacopetti disowned the shortened version, and who can blame them? They narrowly escaped Africa with their cameras and their lives, but found themselves accused of racism, exploitation and murder. Both are restored and the American cut comes with the U.S. Press Book as a DVD-Rom supplement.
Next up are two versions of Goodbye Uncle Tom(1971), a spectacularly incendiary film about the slave trade. The 123-minute English language version is not so much documentary as docudrama, but the 136-minute Director's cut, never shown anywhere, is something else entirely. Jacopetti and Prosperi originally made Addio Zio Tom as an exploration of race relations in the U.S. which included scenes of race war politics and extreme narration, including the jaw-dropping declaration that blacks should rise up against their white opressors.(Am I the only one who thinks it odd that two Italian guys are suggesting this?). Needless to say, the boys had to recut the film and rewrite the narration, basically making the official release version a completely different film. The American version includes 8mm footage shot on the set of the film, and the Director's cut has been restored from Jacopetti's own personal print of the film.
Last, but far from least, is The Godfathers of Mondo, a new documentary that examines the careers of the boys. They discuss their lives as journalists, the "tragic misunderstanding" that made them internationally infamous, and the reasons behind their bitter post-Uncle Tom breakup. Also included are interviews with their cameraman, production manager, and film historians.
I can't wait to dive into this box. It should be entertaining.
Better than Salo anyway.
posted by Jon M. at
12:50 AM
3 Comments:
Please. I already have one anal friend picking on my grammar. I don't need another one.
And now it's fixed. So there.
It's a good thing you have such nitpicking friends, JDM, or you'd embarrass yourself publicly.
Oh, wait...
(Pick on MY blog, you geocentric catamite...see what it gets you!)
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