Monthly Archives: March 2012

Roger Ebert called Alex Cox’s unexpectedly romantic dissection of the destructive relationship between Sid Vicious and Cloe Webb “Punk Rock’s Romeo and Juliet”. Johnny Rotten (aka John Lydon) was no fan of the film, claiming he’d been intentionally bypassed and that the movie was “the lowest form of life”. The soundtrack contains no songs by Sid Vicious or the Sex Pistols. Instead the music is contributed by Pray for Rain, Joe Strummer and The Pogues.

The brilliant J. Hoberman takes on The Movie Orgy in the latest issue Film Comment. It may be the final word on the subject, a great read that tackles as many pop cultural touchstones as The Movie Orgy itself.

And those lucky ducks in Seattle can immerse themselves directly in Joe Dante and Jon Davison’s headspinningly hilarious mega-mash-up when the Grand Illusion Theater presents The Movie Orgy this coming Saturday.

Check out Film Comment here and the Grand Illusion schedule here.

Ken Russell’s overpowering fantasia is a psychedelic reimagining of The Who’s 1969 rock opera, moving the period from post WWI to post WW2, with new songs added and many liberties taken with both book and music.

It made quite a splash in 1975, not only due to Russell’s brilliant pop imagery but the one-time-only debut of engineer John Mosley’s Quintaphonic Sound. Not since Disney’s Fantasound had theaters been asked to install a special system to reproduce such an unprecedented concert effect. Anyone who heard this presentation in the pre-Dolby era will testify that it was pretty darned impressive.

Franc Roddam’s acclaimed directorial debut is an edgy update of the working class kitchen-sink “angry young man” movement, a symphony of disillusionment based on the 1973 double vinyl concept album by The Who. Phil Daniels is so magnetic in the lead it’s surprising he never became a major player in British film. A true cult favorite, often cited as an improvement on Ken Russell’s earlier Who musical Tommy.

Judy Geeson is a universe away from to Sir With Love as an astronaut abducted and inseminated by a yucky alien who causes her to start slaughtering and devouring her fellow crew members before giving birth to slimy muppet-like baby aliens. Laudably unashamed of its own trashiness, Norman J. Warren’s intergalactic gorefest was trimmed a bit for release in the US in 1982 as Horror Planet. It can be seen in 5 parts here.

The fairly elaborate 1959 Soviet space-race movie The Heavens Call was acquired in 1962 by Roger Corman, who assigned fledgling filmmaker Francis Coppola to rejigger it for the US market by cutting, rewriting and dubbing it into a propaganda-free second feature. But those literal-minded Russkies had neglected to include the most important aspect of any sci fi movie aimed at kids: Monsters! The wacky scatological alien puppets added by Coppola turned up again in 1976′s Hollywood Boulevard. The original, full length Mosfilm production can be viewed with subtitles here. In SovColor!