Russ Meyer In Memoriam

Those of you who know me, know that I love movies. Those of you who know me well, know that my friend Jay is in my opinion the world's greatest source of B-Movie information. Jay is a veritable imdb in his own right. I think his parents were wise in naming him John Ford, his knowledge of film deserves the title. Were he a member of this small community, I am certain he would have written some wonderfully droll prose regarding the life and films of Russ Meyer. Alas, he is a busy man and has yet to join our community of friends, and it is up to me to fill his all to proficient shoes.

Loving movies is easy, loving bad movies is not. This is not because of any difficulty in watching the films themselves, they are often products of sophisticated (even sometimes brilliant) talent. The skill level of bad movies often surpasses what some consider worth watching. No what makes loving bad movies hard is your friends. Most of my friends have a hard time understanding my enjoyment of AIP or Hammer films. And God save me when I venture into Sexploitation territory. I very much enjoy, but as the above caveat should make clear have nowhere near the sophistication of Jay when it comes to the genre, watching a good Sexploitation film. "Why?" you ask, "After all, Christian you are a Graduate Student in Political Theory. Surely you are more intelligent than to enjoy such sexist trash!" Why? To be honest, it is the innocence of such films that continually brings me back. When these films are being exploitative, they are often making fun of exploitation at the same time. When they aren't, it is still usually in the name of farce or satire (I can't remember which is appropriate in this case). In Sexploitation, nowhere to be seen is the grim reality of a Taxi Driver Jodi Foster prostitute. These films are meant to be fun...dammit.

Which brings me to Russ Meyer, who died last Saturday at the age of 82 suffering from dementia and succumbing to pneumonia. The internet movie database describes his career as follows:

Meyer found fame with his 1959 filmmaking debut The Immortal Mr. Teas, a movie that changed the standard "nudie film" format by working in an actual plot – as well as the amazingly endowed women that would become his trademark. In essence creating a new film genre, Meyer cemented his reputation (and his legacy) in the 60s with cult classics like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! And Vixen, which poured on violence as well as healthy doses of sex antics. It was the latter film's success that attracted the interest of 20th Century Fox, which signed him to helm the 1970 major studio release Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which was scripted by film critic Roger Ebert ; a year later he made his most mainstream film, The Seven Minutes, which featured then-wife Edy Williams . With the advent of hard-core pornography (Meyer's films were titillating but never explicit) and the demise of drive-ins, Meyer found his career success waning...

My friend Jay introduced me to Meyer with Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! a fun and sexy version of anIn Cold Blood story (after all these are killers for a thrill) with a twist that the "victims" aren't as helpless as they otherwise might be. I loved the film and found it funny, sophisticated, and in an over-the-top way appropriate for the genre well acted. Today, if Tarantino were doing the project, it would be graphic and cold and missing something (much like his Bride is less appealling than the women in Switchblade Sisters). But how does Meyer-friend and screenwriter Roger Ebert describe the women in this film?

Meyer's extraordinary women are of course fascinating to those with breast fetishes, but look a little longer and you will notice that the breasts are not always presented as centers of desire. Instead, they're weapons used to intimidate men.

Tura Satana's character is the "Bride" of her day, bad kung fu and all.

It is no mistake that a majority of the discussion here is about Meyer's Pussycat it was one of his most popular films, along with the Roger Ebert scripted Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Meyer made many other films, including an awkward version of Fanny Hill. Of course the "master" of the Sexploitation film would attempt that piece, but as the IMDB article points out his work was not pornographic in its eroticism and at it's best the women were intimidating rather than desirable. In his Fanny, the narrative isn't as expicit as the source, nor is the lead as intimidating as his usual female fair. Thus the awkwardness.

I don't think that it was an accident that one of his last films, though not his last, had a title combining two of his cult classics Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. and was once again a partnership with Roger Ebert. It always seemed to me that Meyer made films because he liked it and I wish more filmmakers made movies just for the fun of it.

Movies about RPGs

As you all have figured out by now, I am one of those crazy types who spends weekends in muggy rooms "adventuring" in worlds beyond imagination. That's right...I play role playing games. Worse than that, I am a hardcore fan of Dungeons and Dragons, especially the newest edition (3.5). I have been running the same campaign now for almost 4 years and the characters are getting ready for the "earth shattering" finale.

It has long been a ritual in my gaming group (started by Rob, Josh, and me about 5 years ago) to have new players watch the awful how to play RPGs film "Dragonstrike" which accompanied a D&D intro game of the same name.





I also recommend that my players watch the following films at some time in their lives because they capture the feel of RPGs, not high fantasy, but RPG fantasy. The kind of meaningless collaborative storytelling that happens when you have no editors and people just want to have a good time. The movies are: Krull, Ladyhawke, Lord of the Rings (animated), Sword and the Sorcerer, Hawk the Slayer, and of course Conan the Barbarian. In addition I have a full set of the episodes of the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon as well.

Recently, a company called Dead Gentleman Productions made a movie called "The Gamers" and it has been a huge success in the gaming community. It has all kinds of in jokes about RPG sessions, like what happens to PCs when their players don't show up for a session (or they show up late and leave early). But I didn't think the film was very good. The acting is aweful, the special effects lame, and the story well that actually felt like a module. Not a good module, but it still felt like a module. On the other hand, one of Jody's students at USC (she was his TA) made a film with a similar concept also called...you guessed it "The Gamers". This time though, the acting was better, the special effects were better, and the story? Well, it still felt like a module, but it was fun. What made this movie better was the actual fact that the characters (the main ones not their PC counterparts) actually have dialogue hinting at relationships beyond what we see in the film. We have kids from different backgrounds here. Oh, and the 3D graphics rendered church is pretty cool too. I recommend that you check out the website and watch the longer trailer. Neither of the films had a budget, one is 15 minutes long (you can't see it or buy it unless you can get it from Phil Broste himself which is worth trying to do) and the other is 90 minutes. One is made by someone who loves gaming, but isn't sooooo cooooool that he has to poke fun at it. The other one is made by gaming geeks who want to be cool and so throw in a lot of negative stereotypes. It's still fun though.

But I recommend Promoting Broste's USC film. I have seen the whole thing and I would rather have the world think this is what gamers are like rather than the Trekkies presentation the Dead Gentlemen give us.