05.02.2025
HARD TICKET TO HAWAII (1987)
dir. Andy Sidaris, 96 min. English languagePut down that Uzi and get into the hot tub, it’s an Andy Sidaris movie. Undercover agent Donna (Donna Spier, Miss March 1984) and pilot Taryn (Hope Marie Carlton, Miss July 1985) are in tropical Hawaii when they discover a ring of murderous traffickers and something something diamond smuggling? Not important, but the crooks try to take out the babes with a variety of insane explosives and there’s a deadly genetically-engineered snake on the loose, so Donna calls in her hunk boyfriend (Ridge from The Bold and the Beautiful) and his himbo buddy to help the gals take care of business.
Director-husband Andy and producer-wife Amy Sidaris’ second film in their Bullets, Bombs and Babes trilogy has all of those things, and so much more. Every mode of transportation, every form of weaponry, every possible excuse for someone to take their shirt off are all packed into 96 nonstop minutes. Trashy, funny, playful and strangely exhilarating— if you’ve never seen Hard Ticket to Hawaii with a crowd then you haven’t truly lived.
12.02.2025
THE LIVING END (1992)
dir. Gregg Araki, 85 min. English languageBalancing the crippling ennui of the end of the world with an endearing solidarity and genuinely radical political affect, The Living End is perhaps Gregg Araki’s most unsung work. Coming before his defining Teenage Apocalypse trilogy, it follows two HIV-positive young men going on a death spiral road trip across the United states to find oblivion. Extremely frank depictions of violence and sex are intermingled with Araki’s frank analysis of the moral implications of his characters nihilism create a film that’s as driven by pretence and posturing as it is critical of them.
What shines through between the low budget stylistic affect, the almost intentionally severed dialogue, and the notably choppy edit is Araki’s willingness to create true organic contact with the characters and their dispassionate positions on their own increasingly out of control lives. The ethos of ‘BE GAY DO CRIMES’ has perhaps never been more neatly elucidated on the screen as it is here, driven by the Punk ethos and a righteous fury at the system that are deeply affecting and incredibly enjoyable to experience.
19.02.2025
FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (1965)
dir. Russ Meyer, 84 min. English languageThe masterpiece of exploitation auteur Russ Meyer, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a fast and furious trip to the dark heart of America. Go-go dancers and maybe lovers Varla, Rosie, and Billie have ditched the club to race their sports cars across the weltering California salt flats, killing with abandon and kidnapping a young woman along the way. The dames hatch a plan to rob the isolated desert ranch of an old man and his beefcake sons, but vicious in-fighting and inability to control their desires may be their undoing.
John Waters called this “beyond a doubt, the best movie ever made” and who are we to argue. It’s certainly one of the most iconic thanks to the dynamite stars: the bewitching (and IRL witch) Haji, girl-next-door bikini model Lori Williams and the one and only reform-school dropout and nightclub superstar Tura Satana. Not all of Meyers’ works can cross over to a contemporary audience, but this one goes beyond camp and cult into grindhouse transcendence.
26.02.2025
MIAMI CONNECTION (1987)
dir. Y.K Kim, 86 min. English languageA feature length advertisement for Taekwondo made by an Orlando, Florida instructor that languished in obscurity for nearly three decades before being inadvertently discovered in an unmarked film canister purchased on eBay and re-released to wild acclaim. The story behind the making of Miami Connection is almost as wild as the plot of the film itself, which involves a new wave band of Taekwondo practitioner orphans who run afoul of a biker gang and a separate gang of ninjas who also ride motorcycles that are both vying for control of the Miami cocaine trade.
This is the best kind of good bad film, one made with purely honest intentions combined with a technical incompetence that results in inexplicably deranged stylistic choices that the film treats with absolute severity. All the fun of independent low budget cinema combined with the ridiculous flair of late ‘80s fashion, the influence of the era’s Ninja craze, an editing format that can best be described as concussed, an incredible amount of memorably ludicrous dialogues, and a genuinely boppin’ synth driven soundtrack.