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I recievied an invitation from both Chick Young at Trash Aesthetics and Gilligan over at Retrospace to participate in something called a "meme", but I am so out of touch I have no clue what that is (but that has never stopped me from getting involved before). Seems it originated from Piper and Brian over at Lazy Eye Theatre blog (a couple of the more active LAMBers) and there have been good fantasy film festivals so far by Chick, Gilligan and Barbarella apologist Becca at No Smoking in the Skull Cave. I do not know if Tal at Taliesen Meets the Vampires has contributed as of this moment, but I will plug his excellent site anyway, free of charge. The rules (as laid down by the crew at the Lazy Eye site) are:

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1) Choose 12 Films to be featured. They could be random selections or part of a greater theme. Whatever you want.

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2) Explain why you chose the films.

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3) Link back to Lazy Eye Theatre so I can have hundreds of links and I can take those links and spread them all out on the bed and then roll around in them.

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4) The people selected then have to turn around and select 5 more people.

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So, there you have it, now lets get on with the Uranium Cafe Film Festival . I think it was supposed to be some 12 day marathon, but we here at the Cafe know a lot of you have to work and maybe forking out a movie ticket each night for twelve days can be tough in these days of fiscal woe. So we are having a double feature each night for six days (with Chili Cook Off and Pentacostal Healing Revival over the weekend). Here are the films I decided to play and it was not easy to select 12 from the many I would want to see on the big screen ( I assume we are fantasizing that this is on some big screen venue and not over at my place on the sofa):

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Day 01 Japanese Cult Cinema/Matango-Branded to Kill

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Day 02 Exploitation Classics by Jack Hill/Switchblade Sisters-Spider Baby

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Day 03 Drifters and Desperados/Hombre-The Wild Bunch

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Day 04 Psychotic Women Haters/The Boston Strangler-Frenzy

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Day 05 Cops on the Edge/Bullitt-Dirty Harry

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Day 06 Monsters from Space/The Thing-Alien 3

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Branded to Kill-

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I have only been able to see this 1967 film by Seijin Suzuki in Japanese without subtitles so I really do not know what is going on all the time, but the film has a reputation for being “absurdist” and surrealistic anyway, so I am not sure if subs would help, and the experience of watching this visually mesmerizing movie is rewarding enough. The truth is Nikkatsu studios actually fired Suzuki for this film and the conflict following got him blacklisted by Japanese studios. It is the story of a hit man who himself becomes the target of another ruthless hired killer and of course a super sexy and dangerous girl. I don’t know what else you need to know, check it out. A longer essay of this odd movie is in the oven.

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Matango (aka, Attack of the Mushroom People)

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Matango is a 1963 film by Ishiro Honda and is a departure of sorts for the man who made the best of Godzilla and Toho monster movies. Bleak and claustrophobic the action and drama centers around a group of ship wrecked young Japanese people who suddenly realize there are reasons there are no birds and turtles on the foggy, dismal little island they find themselves on. Also released as Attack of the Mushroom People it found its way into late night TV in the 70's (I saw it on Project Terror in San Antonio as a wee lad) and eventually into VHS And DVD cult-dom, though never having been distributed in movie houses in the States. A longer review and critique is coming soon as I recently came into the original Japanese language version.

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Spider Baby -

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I understand a remake of this 1964 (though released in 1968) Jack Hill film is in the works, with Hill as a producer. I once had a signed copy of Spider Baby by Jack Hill but my buddy Matt inherited that when I left for China some years ago. The story revolves around f a family who suffer from a congenital disease that causes them to eventually regress in mental condition to imbecility. Gee, sounds familiar. It is a black comedy with some creepy moments and fine b/w photography. Lon Chaney Jr and Sid Haig appear in the film. I don't really know how the remake will turn out but will check it out if I can since Hill is producing it, and his original never got the distribution or attention it should have until only recently.

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Switchblade Sisters-

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Both Spider baby and Switchblade Sisters are films cited by Quentin Tarantino as heavy influences, though with Switchblade we can see a more direct influence on his work and the film was restored and released on his Rolling Thunder Pictures label in 1996. A gang deb flick with lots of great dialog and over the top acting, including squeaky voiced Robbie Lee, it is the type of action movie Hill became more associated with than horror/suspense pieces likeSpider Baby. It is really fun to watch and some consider it to be Hill's best film. There is a fight scene in the jail between the guards and the Dagger debs and you have to watch for the male stand in for the butchy female jail guard. Gets no better.

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Hombre-

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A psychological western starring a brooding Paul Newman as a "half-breed" Apache who inherits a hotel and suddenly finds himself reluctantly in the white man's world with a hair cut. Directed by Martin Ritt and based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, this is a moody and depressing film (and that is a thumbs up in other words from me) that deals with issues under the surface other than cowboys and Indians. Hardly a music score is to be heard and Richard Boone is menacing as the bad guy. No one is perfect and everyone finds themselves in the middle of the desert where a glass of water is more valued than the stolen loot most of them are trying to salivate over. A great film I have not not seen in way too long.

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The Wild Bunch-

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A totally great western (and film period!) by Sam Peckinpah about a group of mercenaries led by William Holden that try to get a kidnapped girl back from Mexican bandits and revolutionaries. The film is most famous for it cinematography and editing, using slow motion in ways that had not been done much before (like showing hordes of drunk Mexican soldiers being blasted to bloody smithereens). The men are all tough and ruthless, and there is a fine line between the good guys and bad guys. The violence is basically splatter film material and the acting and dialog is great from start to finish. Expect a longer critique one day. I love this movie.

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The Boston Strangler-

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I actually went to 1st grade in Boston at the time Albert DeSalvo (and perhaps another man as modern police theory speculates) was finishing up a series of 13 murders of women, many, though not all, found with stockings around their throats. While The Boston Strangler has receiived some criticism because of its liberty with the facts of the case that does not deter me from recommending this well made suspense film. Tony Curtis is out of character and does great here as the killer, and Henry Fonda is equally in fine form as police detective John S. Bottomly. A lot of unnecessary split scene photography and I have never subscribed to the “split personality” disorder, especially as it is shown here, but so what. It’s a just a movie and a damn good one at that.

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Frenzy-

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As far as I know 1972’s Frenzy was Hitchcock’s only R rated film. Of course back then it took much less to get an R rating than it does now. It is one of my favorite Hitchcock films outside all of his work with Jimmy Steward. Jon Finch plays Richard Blaney, a man with anger management issues who soon finds himself the fall guy for a series of neck tie stranglings that have been terrorizing the citizens of London, where the film was shot. Along with the iconic shower sequence in Psycho Frenzy contains one of Hitchcocks most graphic murder sequences. Finch is great as his life unravels and there is no where he can turn as all the evidence begins to point towards him. The ending is a classic ending where the killer is undone and apprehended and shown humiliated, rather than the stock ending of today’s film where the killer simply has to be killed off himself in some action scene or worse a hostage scene where the cop has had to lay down his weapon. Whatever happened to endings like this?!

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Bullitt-

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1968’s Bullitt created so many of the genre formulas for the 70’s cop movies and TV shows that is hard to image that they all seemed to come from one film essentially. Steve McQueen plays Bullitt, a outsider cop having issues with insubordination and driven by an instinct to bring the bad guy to justice (of any type) regardless of who is in the way, including corrupt city officials, here played by Man from U.N.C.L.E.’s Robert Vaughn. Of course the most famous sequence is the car chase, pitting Bullitt’s Ford Mustang against the hitmens’s Dodge Charger. Contrary to legend McQueen did not do the bulk of the stunt driving but he is still cool. Action packed and gritty with Jaqueline Bisset as his sensitive, artsy girlfriend who comes to realize Bullitt lives in a world she knows nothing about. The movie serves as a template for my next cop on the edge selection…

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Dirty Harry-

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“Dirty” Harry Callaghan, like Bullitt, is a cop more concerned with justice than with city politics and the rights of murderdous bad guys. Clint Eastwood with his .44 Magum is immortal in the role (and I do not think Clint is compensating for anything), and while the film is not really as good as Bullitt story wise in my opinion, it revived the spirit of the outsider cop film established by Bullitt and cop movies and TV shows have never been the same since. Reni Satoni is simply great as well as the serial killer Scorpio (based somewhat less than loosely on real life serial killer Zodiac). Full of classic quotes and action it is really the only one of the Dirty Harry franchise I really like. The other ones just got sort of cheesy and Callaghan became comic bookish, whereas here the character, like his Sergio Leone loner cowboy, simply stands mythic in proportions to the world around him. -

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The Thing-

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There was once a time in my life where I took acid for recreational purposes. I know, I know by looking at this site you may find that hard to believe, but one night my cousin and I returned to the basement TV room at his family’s place in Lexington Kentucky and while “peaking” we surfed and stumbled across John Carpenter’s 1981 successful remake of The Thing on early cable TV. Well, this film is a mind blower without hallucinogens so you can image the impact it had on me. I am sure I have seen this movie at least 20 times and was thinking of seeing it again here later this week. With nary a stock teenager or beautiful woman (other than Adrienne Barbeau as the voice of the computer chess game) to be found in all of Antarctica the ice bound crew of a weather station (or something) led by Kurt Russell as MacReady must contend with a shape shifting alien from outer space that seems all but unstoppable as it takes over the crew one member at a time. The special effects by Rob Bottin still stand up against any of the computer generated effects of today (and I like computer effects mind you). The action takes place in a totally claustrophobic atmosphere (really the best for any horror film) and the tension between the men becomes palpable as they all try to figure out who is and who is not a “substitute” for a real man. The film is not scored by Carpenter this time but by the maestro Ennio Morricone and is it one of my favorite soundtracks. The film bombed at the box office as it had to compete with Steven Speilberg’s E.T. but has endured and became very influential along with Bladrunner and Alien in reviving quality Sci-Fi films. And on a closing note, I am older and wiser now, please do not watch this on LSD, okay kids.

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Alien 3 -

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Sigourney Weaver returns as Lt. Ripley in 1993's 3rd installment on the Alien story, which has become my favorite and the one I have watched the most. The first two are great films as well while the Alien Resurrection thing is totally forgettable except for the swimming aliens. This was David Fincher’s first film (and the pressure was enormous I understand) and he did a bang up job with this dark and existential horror/sci-fi classic. Again, the mood is totally claustrophobic (like the 1st Ridley Scott Alien film) as there is no way off the prison colony she finds herself on alongside rapists and murderers and a really grumpy warden. The creature preys alone (in contrast to James Cameron’s army in Aliens) but is faster and more clever (as it was hatched from a dog) than the one that terrorized the crew of the Nostromo. A great well shot film with the character’s nerves pushed past the breaking point as the creature starts offing them one at time at its leisure. Some people criticize the religious and philosophical undertones to the film but they are the elements draw me to this film over and over. Well, that and the creature ripping the wailing inmates to bloody shreds.

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And don't forget, the big chili cookoff and pentecostal revival. Retain your ticket stubs for one free bowl of Texas chili and the casting out of two demons.

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A selection of really nice pictures of saultry Tennessee girl Bettie Page (or sometimes Betty Page if you are searching the net). There were really two types of photos from Bettie and one was the cheese cake style that Bunny Yeager did and the other was the “dark” stuff by Irving Klaw that got her into a bit of trouble later on. Some fans are divided on which represented the “true” Bettie while I have always felt both did. I have to admit that I like the dark, bondage stuff with Bettie while I cannot say I usually prefer this style from that period due to the quality. Or maybe I do prefer it but worry what people might say about me behind my back. But some of the dark style images with her were simply great photographs and Bettie’s radiant personality comes out in all of them. Klaw was essentially a “noir” phogograher of sorts but could take good pictures. The bottom two pictures (above images) with the stuffed leopard are from Yeager I believe while the others are from her infamous New York City work. She is simply too sexy for words and it is easy to see why she was 2nd only to Marilyn Monroe in the 1950’s as the most photographed model the US. Below is a link to her really excellent looking and easy to navigate webpage. It has improved vastly since the last time I checked it out.

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http://www.bettiepage.com/

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Also included are links to pages for Irving Klaw and Bunny Yeager to show the diversity of their work and how they both saw Bettie from different angles that helped create her angel-devil mystique.

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http://irvingklaw.com/

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http://www.bunnyyeager.com

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BETTIE PAGE BY HAROLD LLOYD

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A THUMBNAIL COLLECTION OF

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SHAPELY BETTIE PAGE

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A - Z LIST OF URANIUM CAFE TOPICS

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I cannot see the insides of these mags and will base my assumption on boyhood memory that the contents were probably mostly black and white on a pulpy paper similar to comic book paper. There may have been a few pages stuck in the middle in color that featured the cover girl or some other nubile tart. The stories were men’s stories of the time: detective tales, how to be a better lover, exposes into the world of crime or drugged up hippies and such. Scattered through the mag were really cool advertisements for all sorts of strange things and I am researching the net trying to find good scans of some of these ad pages. It is not easy. But I will not give up.

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I guess these gals are not as smolderingly perfect as the vixens that grace contemporary erotica (aka porn) but there is some quality I really find alluring about them. They are not skinny nor do they look like meth or heroin addicts. More the gin and tonic type with some barbiturates once in a while for a socially acceptable nod time. I really like the first picture of the girl on the European looking sports car. What a great magazine title: Scamp. It is simply a good photograph and she looks really coquettish and demure in a naughty fashion. And I want to read that article about how to get flabby without really trying. In fact, I think I did read it!

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The next two books do not even have cover teasers to lure you into their pages with promises of exciting reading material. I like the design on these books though. I am sure zebra skin is going to make a come back as a sofa pattern for bachelor’s apartments again pretty soon. I really dig that jazzy font for Vivid Tales. That girl is a real down to earth party girl I think. The kind your mother would like. Well, that my mother would like anyway.

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All the Adam magazines had these vibrant covers with contrasting lines of color and the models were more times than not in some outfit that made it all vibrate and shake more, like some Victor Wassily painting. I have more Adam covers in albums in the thumbnail gallery in the next post if you are curious. And why wouldn’t you be? So go on, take a look big boy. You know you want to.

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A THUMBNAIL COLLECTION OF

SWINGIN’ SEXY GIRLIE COVERS

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A - Z LIST OF URANIUM CAFE POSTS

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No doubt some of the most entertaining of the men’s “true adventure” covers to be created were the men against ruthless animal covers. As if Bushido warriors, Nazis, assorted dark skinned savages and commies weren’t enough, our hairy chested he-men had to also grapple with out of control varmints from every corner of the world. Now a couple of these covers may almost seem plausible in a far fetched way. For example the cover for MALE where the guy is tearing blood sucking leeches from his flesh in the swamps of Ceylon. The other MALE cover with two tough guys hacking up piranha is not really inconceivable. But it soon takes a turn for the near ludicrous (and therefore more thoroughly enjoyable) when the same magazine portrays some lost at sea heroes fending off a horde of savage meat eating water monkeys from their rubber raft. I am not a zoologist but I have never heard of such a thing happening. It would be a more interesting world however if it did.

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Even more stunning a revelation is that the masters of evil the Nazis had trained mandril apes from remote areas of Africa to eat pretty young half naked white girls alive. No fear however since always lurking nearby and out of sight is a stud with a gun. In this case a Tommy gun. Blast ‘em Joe! Not to be out done by their Nazi rivals in evil some stinking red commies tie yet another half naked white girl down with stakes and have a bunch of minks (a cute name for weasels) prepare to rip her flesh to shreds. These Nazi and commie guys were so evil and insidious you almost have to love them.

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When it is all said and done nothing compares to the horror our hero on the cover of True Men must contend with. It is a fate we all fear when lost in the wilds of Burma or Borneo but one we tremble to voice. What you ask? Devoured by a Bengal Tiger or gored by a jealous water buffalo? I wish it were that civilized a death he faces. No. I am talking about the most feared and vicious animal in all of the wild kingdom. You may have guessed by now riveted reader what savage beast I am referring to in hushed terms: yes, I am talking about flying squirrels. Meat eating, insane flying squirrels. Imagine the world we would be living in now had Spielberg selected this bloodthirsty beast as the heartless killer of his first film rather than that wimpy great white shark. My God, I shudder to imagine.

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A - Z LIST OF URANIUM CAFE POSTS

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