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Thou shalt not kiss

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Above, clips from Pamela's Prayer, another gem procured from the Holy Land Experience gift shop. This one's straight-up propaganda, warning teens against the dangers of dating and kissing. I guess the rationale was, "This pro-abstinence education is working so well! Let's kick it up a notch!" There's also a great subplot involving the puritanical father's job as a Christian-films librarian, which gives him cause to explain the importance of Christian cinema. That makes this shit meta-propaganda. If that isn't innovation in the field of proselytizing, I don't know what is.

"What does that mean?"

No really, what does that mean?

(Clip from the solid, if dry 2003 Brit Pop documentary Live Forever, which I checked out because of my revitalized interest in its subject matter.)

Shits and Dr. Giggles

Here's what I have to say about Tom Six's The Human Centipede (First Sequence):

Just kidding! Of course I have more to say than that. I just wish the movie were a tenth as good as this video.

The days, they seem to fall through you

No Distance Left To Run destroyed me. The gorgeously shot feature documentary chronicling Blur's career from the vantage point of their reunion tour last year was primarily a reunion in my head. It reintroduced me to this band of Brits that I haven't thought too much about since they meant so much to me during such formative time (late high school/early college years). The change in extremes was somewhat shocking. Instead of no-strings-attached nostalgia, though, Run confronted me with very tangible sense of the passing of time. 

We're a far cry from these days:

Haven't I done enough already?

In lieu of a post today, I'm going to direct you to my behind-the-scenes write-up of last night's RuPaul's Drag Race 2 reunion. It took hours and hours (the length attests to it), and so it's taken a lot of my brain space recently. My time on the set was seriously one of the highlights of my career (if not life) so far. I didn't really get that show at first, but now that I do appreciate it for the blank canvas that tells its contestants, "Entertain!" and then rewards them for doing so, I am completely smitten. Santino called it "the most significant show on television," and at this point, I'm thinking I might agree.

Baaaah!

Usually, I have a shot of the eliminated girl in this pre-post space.

 

But when a sheep shows up in a snout-harness, all bets are off.

Terrible-hunting: Neowolf

Trash is a drug that I don't mind crawling through the dumpster to find. In fact, I love crawling though dumpsters. Duh, right? What has this blog been if not a 5-year trove through the trash bins of pop culture? Scanning movies and TV to find the worst of its worst (aka the best) at this point feels like a sport. I have pages worth of work to prove my cinematic bloodlust, but my main driving force ever since Showgirls or Amazing Discoveries or Mama's Family has been trashlust. That's only strengthened since establishing this outlet, because for better or worse, I find that the pop culture I have the most to say about is the pop culture that I bond with the most. Good, bad, but never indifferent, my taste often relies on my reaction (as backward as that sounds). It follows that I've long believed that taste has more to do with why than what (and a lot to do with how if you're a writer or critic). To be completely objective, I can't be sure if I've convinced myself of this out of necessity or because it's so, but either way, it works for me.

It works so well, in fact, that it led me to check out Neowolf, a cheap, direct-to-DVD (as of this week), so-unscary-it's-scary horror flick that even its own director disavowed...

 

Aw, poor Neowolf. That's OK. I'll adopt you.

(Warning: One screen shot is slightly NSFW below, but it's worth it, I assure you.)

I wish I came up with this

This montage of people doing things the wrong way on infomercials would be the supercut of your nightmares if you could nightmare right, you incompetent boob.

(Note: I wonder if using a song from a group with a catalog as precious and online-unfriendly as the Beatles' in a YouTube clip is the editor's meta statement on the art of doing it wrong? I expect this to be soon muted, if not deleted entirely. Watch it while you can and appreciate the otherwise brilliance.)

(Via Videogum, BWE, Vulture, etc.)

Update: OK, duh, Everything Is Terrible did this first and without any canned music:

I feel like such an ass for missing this, especially after going on about how much I love EIT. I guess the lesson here is WE'RE ALL DOING IT WRONG. (Thanks, tone_def.)

Your daily dose of inanity

I am completely obsessed with this video game "trick" for Blaster Master (whatever that is!) that I ripped from the VHS Secret Video Game Tips, Codes and Strategies Vol. 2. I don't want to spoil it for you, but let's just say that Secret Video Game Tips, Codes and Strategies Vol. 2 is more committed to realness than anything else this side of RuPaul's Drag Race. Think of this as an endurance test.

Not my spring break

I bought a $1 copy of Luke's Freakshow 4 at the Meeker Ave. Flea Market, because I figured its portrayal of open-air, Spring-themed hedonism would be a good source of animated gifs with which to celebrate our seasonal warming. That idea died when I saw that a minute-and-a-half into the tape, cunnilingus is performed. This tape is so explicit, I don't even know what to do with it except squeal at it uncomfortably and often. A better title than Freakshow would have been Girls Gone Gynecological for all the exposed female genitalia (shockingly, there are more instances of labia than nipples) during these "party" scenes. For that, it has more of an edge than your standard amateur jiggle fest -- this is hardcore softcore porn, and for the most part, not fit for a blog that tries its best to be as non-pornographic as possible.

Luke's Freakshow 4 is so much more than porno, though. It feels cultural. It's not that I feel that the overt, at times comical-by-default nature of this public debauchery represents any one group beyond those who are engaging in it, but look: this is how people lived, however temporarily, however depressingly, in whatever state of intoxication. It's an extremely raw take on extreme human behavior, and the reality show/documentary freak in me can't help but be taken with how honest it all is even when portraying the showmanship of a girl shaking her ass to Miami bass (there's little pomp to her pump -- she looks busted, her bikini's a joke, she can't really dance). Surely, Luke's life reflects his art. How often can you say that about anyone?

While watching this 60-minute shockfest, it struck me that if I had actually been there, I would have reported what I saw, tit-for-tit. These wonders are, if nothing else, remarkable. Since I observed it anyway, 10 years and 1,000 miles removed, why not report it? I can't show this shit, but certainly I can tell it and that seems like enough. Below are some notes from my viewing.

(Note: The pictures are not very explicit, if at all, but the language is. I couldn't tell you about gaping genitalia via flowers and ponies, you know? Anyway, you've been warned.)