The Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978)

Jude (1996)

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977)

Hector's Top Ten Films of the 1930s

10.  Grand Illusion  (Renoir, 1938)

Two French soldiers escape from a German POW camp. This anti-war film was made two years before the largest conflict in human history broke out. Apparently, not everyone got the message.

Private Vices, Public Virtues (1976)

Last Cannibal World (1977)

Tentacles (1977)

Mädchen Amick

Mädchen Amick was born December 12, 1970 in Reno, Nevada to a musician and a medical office manager. She's 1/2 German, 1/4 Norwegian and 1/4 Swedish, if you want to start your own breeding program and were interested in the ingredients. Mädchen is German for "girl." It's pronounced "maid-shen" and "was chosen by her parents because they wanted an unusual name." She was raised in Sparks, Reno's twin city, and "encouraged by her parents to follow her own creative instincts where she learned .. the piano, bass, violin and guitar as well as .. tap, ballet, jazz and modern dancing." 

I've mentioned that the song I'd watch anyone do a serious karaoke version of is "Total Eclipse of the Heart." I haven't decided what my choice for interpretive dance would be. The frontrunner is "Somebody to Love" by Queen but after seeing this I'm willing to consider "Strong As I Am" by The Prime Movers. There are no videos of Robert McQueen High School's Modern Dance Team (the Lancers) circa 1988 on YouTube, but if there were Mädchen Amick wouldn't be on them because she dropped out of school a year earlier "to move to Los Angeles to model and act." 

Wild Beasts (1984)

Sugar Boxx (2009)

Cut and Run (1985)

The Man from the Deep River (1972)

A Viewer's Guide to the Characters of Boogie Nights (1997)

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The Internet asks "Tweed no Whirry or Whirry no Tweed?"

We wanted to start a feature where we answer your questions but since we have fewer than five readers (counting us) for now they will have to be questions we either ask each other or find on the Internet. Our first question comes from darktone, who asked me (and anyone else reading) the following on an IMDb message board on July 27, 2005:  

"Would it be [Shannon] tweed or would it be [Shannon] whirry? Which of them had better counterparts or 'assistants' in their soft-core flicks? If you could choose only one of them which would it be? Why didn't they do a soft core movie together? Would you like to see them in a threesome with another guy in a movie?" 

Frank Bauggs (?-1987)

Played by David Wolos-Fonteno in Death Wish 4: The Crackdown. 

Love and Death on Long Island (1997)

" .. study what happens to anyone beholding an actress--the spectator, the audience, or ourselves in any of our voyeur roles. And the most important thing in that vexed transaction is the way the actress and the spectator must remain strangers. That's how the magic works … For there cannot be this pitch of irrational desire without that rigorous apartness, provided by a hundred feet of warm space in a theater, and by that astonishing human invention, the screen, at the movies. And just as the movies were never simply an art or a show, a drama or narrative, but the manifestation of desire, so the screen is both barrier and open sesame. 

The thing that permits witness--seeing her, being so intimate--is also the outline of a prison." -- from the introduction to Nicole Kidman by David Thomson

Hector's Top Ten Films of the 1920s

I must confess that I haven't seen nearly as many films from the silent era (and very early sound era) as I should've. I've actually seen so few films from the twenties that in order to make this a "top ten" list rather than a "top eight" one I have to include two films that I'm not certain I've seen in their entirety. You might argue that I'm not qualified to create such a list, and you'd probably be right, but I have a great deal of appreciation for 20s films (particularly of the German Expressionist variety) and there are several films from this era that have impressed me so much that I can't bear not to include them in a "top ten" list of some kind. So, if you see that titles you feel should be here are missing (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Sunrise, Battleship Potemkin, The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Last Laugh) the reason I haven't included them is that I haven't seen them.  

Death and the Maiden (1994)

"Paulina Escobar (Weaver) is a housewife married to a prominent lawyer in an unnamed South American country. One day a storm forces her husband Gerardo (Wilson) to ride home with a kind stranger. That chance encounter brings up demons from her past, as she is convinced that the stranger, Dr. Miranda (Kingsley), was part of the old fascist regime and that he tortured and raped her while she was blindfolded. Paulina takes him captive to determine the truth. Despite attempts by both her husband and Miranda to convince her that he is innocent, Paulina is certain that he is the one, and forces her husband to be Miranda's 'attorney' in the 'trial' she arranges for him." 

This is the climactic scene, so if you haven't seen the film I recommend you watch it first. It plays better in context. Under the threat of death if he doesn't make a genuine confession, Miranda starts talking. 

A Viewer's Guide to the Minor Characters of Heat (1995)

Heat was a Los Angeles Crime Saga that employed a quarter of the actors in Los Angeles. You may have seen it once years ago. If it wasn't to your taste there isn't anything I can say but if you didn't get as much out of it as you might've because of the difficulty in keeping a couple dozen characters and subplots straight I can be of help. I've watched it about as many times as there are speaking parts in the film [hold for applause] so I've created a cheat sheet for you to print out and consult the next time you watch it. 

Sully (1951-1985)

Played by David Patrick Kelly in Commando. 

Hector's Five Most Unpleasant-Looking Gunshot Wounds

5. True Romance (1993)

Mistakenly thinking it to be White Boy Day, Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) arranges a meeting with (barges in on) his wife's employer (pimp), Drexl (Gary Oldman), in order to discuss terms for prematurely terminating her business contract with him (kill him). When Drexl rejects Clarence's initial offer of one thousand air molecules and Clarence expresses an unwillingness to negotiate further, voices are raised (punches are thrown) and legal action is threatened (guns are drawn). Drexl has a crack legal team (a violent disposition, a lot of guns, and a large bodyguard named Marty) in his employ and he soon appears to be on the verge of winning an extremely favorable judgment against (killing) Clarence, but Clarence finds a clause in the contract (gun) that effectively nullifies the agreement (enables Clarence to...well, just watch:)

Streets of Fire (1984)

"It's probably impossible not to enjoy .. " -- David Chute, Film Comment 

"People ask me what the story is. I say the Queen of the Hop has been kidnapped by the Leader of the Pack and Soldier Boy comes home to do something about it." -- director Walter Hill 

" .. the language is strange .. It's tough, but not with 1984 toughness. It sounds like the way really mean guys would have talked in the late 1950s, only with a few words different – as if this world evolved a slightly different language." -- Roger Ebert 

Here's my promise: I've never been to a Karaoke Night in my life, but for anyone reading this, if you agree to get up and do "Total Eclipse of the Heart" the way it should be done (broad, full-out emotion, put your all into hitting every note and don't stop if your voice starts to crack; interpretive hand gestures and arm movement optional), I'll do my best to attend (but if I can't and you put it up on YouTube I'll watch it at least 7-8 times). Because that'll never fail to be riveting. 

So You Want to Become a Vampire

Whether or not to let yourself be turned into a vampire is one of the biggest decisions in a person's life and like every important decision it can be based on what we've seen in movies. Say some tall stranger with pale skin, awesome hair and a vaguely Slavic-sounding name sits down next to you at Sbarro tonight and asks "Do you want to become a Creature of the Night, my child?" Don't be put off. That's how they talk. (It's how you'll talk, too. That's your first warning from me.) Calmly ask him to produce some fangs. If he can't, find the nearest mall cop. If he can, it's decision time. Will you be ready? I don't believe you will, so I've come up with a list of things to consider before baring your neck.

Piranha (2010) vs Drive Angry (2011)

"I am going to kill you, and then I'm going to defile your corpse."

One of the major differences between the exploitation films of the 1970s and what passes for exploitation cinema today is that such sentences appear in the scripts of the latter as dialogue and in the former as stage directions ("Jonah kills Piper and defiles her corpse").  When Jonah says these words in Drive Angry, the audience recognizes that the threat is an idle one.  In the exploitation films of the 70s such dialogue is unnecessary because the individual to whom these words would have been spoken has already been shot and the person who would have spoken them is already balls-deep in the bullet hole.

Pump Up the Volume (1990) vs Vision Quest (1985)

"My theory is that when it comes to important subjects there's only two ways a person can answer. Which way they choose tells you who that person is. For instance, there's only two kinds of people in the world: Beatles people and Elvis people. Now, Beatles people can like Elvis and Elvis people can like Beatles but nobody likes them both equally. Somewhere you have to make a choice and that choice tells you who you are." -- Mia Wallace, from a deleted Pulp Fiction scene 

It's reductive but it's a conversation starter so let's use it as a way to frame this. How you felt about high school can be determined by whether you're a Pump Up the Volume person or a Vision Quest person. The main characters, Mark Hunter/"Hard Harry" and Louden Swain, are complete opposites in many ways, among them attitude, lifestyle, aspirations and musical taste. Teenagers want to be or feel like Mark or they want to be or feel like Louden.
 

Hector's Five Sickest Projectile Vomit Scenes

If there's one thing that makes me want to fuckin' puke, other than warm beer, it's a half-assed vomit scene. I realize that in real life people don't repaint the walls with partially digested food when they throw up, but one of the purposes of film, and of art in general, is to show us something we don't witness every day. If I wanted to see someone produce two cubic centimeters of saliva-colored liquid after retching over a toilet for fifteen minutes, I'd go to a frat kegger. There's a reason that I sit around and watch movies all day and all night instead of going out and interacting with the outside world, and that's that I'm a lazy and misanthropic bastard. Oh, and also that real life is boring, and if I couldn't escape the depressing mundanities of everyday existence (an existence in which vomiting humans can't be used as backup fire hoses) by watching people launch their lunches into low Earth orbit in films like those described below, I'd... well, I suppose I'd get more exercise. But the point is this: If you're going to take the trouble to put a vomit scene in your film, do it right. If you're not sure how, read on.

MacGruder (1959-1994)

Played by John C. McGinley in On Deadly Ground.

Killed by a Propeller

William McNamara

William West McNamara was born March 31, 1965 in Dallas, Texas to a "professional race car driver .. and an interior designer." (Call him "Bill" or "Billy," please. Only his mother calls him "William.") He "attended" Columbia University and "studied" at the Lee Strasberg Institute. I assume those are euphemistic ways of saying he didn't finish at either one. The list of alumni on the Strasberg Institute's official page includes Rebecca Gayheart, Kevin Corrigan and Adam Sandler. It does not include Billy McNamara. (It also lists credits for some actors to help identify them but not others. It assumes you know who Kathy Griffin is but Dennis Hopper? He was in Easy Rider. Who doesn't know Catherine Hicks but Harvey Keitel? You remember, Pulp Fiction. Linda Hamilton? Sure. Angelina Jolie? Oh right, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.) 

Lots of famous actors are college dropouts. When they're asked why they left school on shows like Inside the Actors Studio the answer is often something like this: "I knew I would be an actor since I was seven or eight. My [m]om and I lived out in Los Angeles and one of her close friends was Valerie Perrine. She was like the Julia Roberts of the Seventies and we used to hang out at her house. She had all these interesting people over all the time. I hung out and watched these people and it was like hanging out at the circus or carnival. That's the kind of attraction it is." 

Hector's Five Wackiest Rape Scenes

A few days ago, I was watching a somewhat recent film (whose title I won't mention lest I be accused of spoiling it) that featured a scene in which a character was raped by a not-quite-human creature. The movie wasn't particularly good, but this scene did lead me to mentally catalog some of the more bizarre screen rapes that have occurred over the years (particularly in the 70s and 80s because -- let's face it -- films are a hell of a lot tamer and less creative now than they used to be). Here are the wackiest five, and if you feel I've left out an important one, say so.

Stone Cold (1991)

In 1991, the American action movie reigned supreme. The genre's rise to box office prominence had begun in the mid-80s with a string of one-man army flicks starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (Commando, Raw Deal, Predator) and Sylvester Stallone (Rambo: First Blood Part II, Cobra, Rambo III). By 1990, pictures starring the likes of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal were regularly posting domestic gross figures in excess of $40 million. Ticket sales for this type of film began to decline in 1992, and by 1997 most of these titles went directly to video. 1991 was the pinnacle of the action era and it saw the release of the definitive action movie: Stone Cold.

Stone Cold stars former NFL player Brian Bosworth as Joe Huff, an Alabama cop who's just been suspended for insubordination. It isn't clear exactly what Huff did to earn this punishment (punishment? The suspension is "with pay." That's what those of us who don't work in law enforcement call "vacation," and if insubordination was the key to getting more of it our managers would be greeted with "fuck you" choruses upon arriving at the office every morning), but it probably had something to do with his haircut. I'm jumping ahead, though. Let's back up to...

Elvira Parker (1929-1986)

Played by Anne Ramsey in Deadly Friend.

Head of the Family (1996)

The National Ledger (9/30/05)

"[For] Domino ... Keira Knightley sat down with the director and bargained with him over what parts of her body she'd expose ... 

She explains, 'It was one of the most extraordinary conversations of my career ... It was, 'I'll give you both [bleep] but you're not having my [bleep].' He said 'Fine, done it's a deal.'

'I don't mind about the boobs, not the butt ... I'm a woman. There's no reason to it.' 

Knightley had to pick a butt double for revealing lap-dancing and sex scenes in the biopic. 

Keira, 20, said: 'Tony brought three girls in to choose from. It was hard not to laugh but I didn't want to offend anyone.' 

'I decided to be very businesslike. They all had very nice bottoms and I chose one.'"

Nathan White (1936-1987)

Played by John Ryan in Death Wish 4: The Crackdown. 

The Last Boy Scout (1991)

"Great, the game's on. Go Stallions! 

A Star's a Star

If we've learned anything from American Idol (other than that music isn't a form of personal expression, it's something to have on in the background of a Ford commercial) it's that pop singing is easy. We were a couple of decades late to this realization but that's not our fault. We're not stars of film and television. They decided that way back in the 1980s. Let's look at some of their most famous efforts.

The Thunder Warrior Trilogy (1983, 1987, 1988)

I've always admired social activists. I see people sacrificing their free time to protest draconian immigration laws. I read articles about environmentalists who have been arrested for acts of civil disobedience aimed at preventing the logging of old-growth forests. I watch news reports about individuals who have risked their very lives to stop Japanese whalers from annihilating our planet's largest animal species. After years of hearing about these noble souls and their tireless efforts to right social wrongs, I've decided it's time to do my part. For the last five centuries, Native populations whose ancestors arrived on this continent thousands of years before have had to endure unimaginable atrocities at the hands of the white man. Thousands of activists over the years, many of Native American descent and some who had no Native ancestry whatsoever (technically, that would only include first- and second-generation immigrants, but I'm not here to argue about whether various politically correct terms make any logical sense) but were able to see that a terrible injustice had been perpetrated, have put their lives on the line and imperiled their families to fight for equality, rights, and compensation for the descendants of the victims of this centuries-long holocaust. I've thought long and hard about it, and I've decided to join that proud tradition.... by arguing for a DVD or Blu-ray release of the Thunder Warrior trilogy.

Ski School (1990)

One of the great film genres of the 80s and early 90s was the skiing-themed comedic sex romp. Beginning in 1971 with Apres-ski, and continuing into the 80s with such classics as Hot Dog...The Movie and Snowballing, this genre was explored primarily by a small handful of iconoclasts who had become sick and tired of the idea that teenagers had to be in a tropical locale in order to participate in wet t-shirt contests. Why, thought these cinematic revolutionaries, couldn't the wet t-shirt contest be held...at a ski resort? No one could come up with a reason. 

I'm not sure to whom to credit this epiphany, but it initiated a flurry......no.....an avalanche......uh........a whole lot of ideas and insights. Wouldn't a ski gondola be the ideal place for two curious youngsters to experiment with oral sex? And I'll bet out-of-control skiers are always crashing through the walls of buildings. Why not have the overweight buffoon character crash through the walls of the women's bathhouse while the Swedish women's ski team is having a steam in the nude? And we'll never need an elaborate set-up for the line, "Let's get you out of those wet things." We could use it every time a female character comes in off the slopes! And think of how many different occasions there'll be to use "pole" as a double entendre! When the guy behind the counter at the equipment rental shop asks the sex-starved older woman whose businessman husband is too preoccupied with work to satisfy her carnal needs which size pole she prefers, it'll seem completely natural! The ideas just kept coming until in 1990 a film was made that so perfectly embodied the skiing-themed comedic sex romp aesthetic that it would ultimately bring about the death of the genre. That film was Ski School.

The Patriot (2000)

When An American Carol came out as with every time a movie is labeled or promoted as a "conservative film" and turns out to be particularly bad (as AAC was said to be; I only use "said" because I haven't seen it myself) there was some discussion about whether conservatives "can" make good movies (or "good art"). It'd be a poorly-framed debate no matter what. It wrong-foots the "Yes" side from the start and it assumes that the political beliefs of filmmakers have to inform their movies and that most films can be said to have a specific ideology. There are plenty of "issue films," earnest dramas with heavy political undertones and satires that "really want to make you think," but most of the time the people behind the movie you're watching only wanted to tell a good story that would appeal to the broadest possible audience.

Private School (1983)

Peter Biskind's book about the "New Hollywood" era, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, closes with the idea that, to quote Peter Bogdanovich, "The cinema of the director went into eclipse at the end of the '70s. There was a general movement away from .. auteurism toward producer-oriented movies." If there ever was an "American New Wave," it's supposed to have ended in the early '80s. I disagree. I think that's when it began. 

The American New Wave was the cinema of the producer, not the director. If Truffaut and Godard saw American crime films from the '40s and wondered "What could we do with this, artistically?" men like Ben Efraim saw drive-in exploitation films from the '70s and thought "What could we do with this, commercially?" The latter is the American approach, and though he was an Israeli expatriate born on a kibbutz, Ben Efraim understood it better than anyone. 

Private School was the second film in his Private series (after Private Lessons and before Private Resort). I'm reviewing it first for two reasons. First, because Private School has as much to do with Private Lessons as it does with Private Benjamin, so the order doesn't matter. I know what you're asking yourself. "How can they be part of the same series if they don't have anything to do with one another?" Stop that. You're thinking like a director. Or worse, an auteur. Start thinking like Ben Efraim. I want so much for you to do so that that's the other reason why I'm doing it first. For you to understand what the true American New Wave was I first have to explain to you to why Private School is its masterpiece.