Excremental Ecstasy, Divine Defecation and Revolting Reception: Configuring a Scatological Gaze in Trash Filmmaking
by Zoe Gross
Based on paper given at B For Bad Cinema Conference at Monash University, 2009
‘A Kind of Bacall Quality’: Jamie Lee Curtis, Stardom, and Gentrifying Non-Hollywood Horror
Forthcoming
This article offers a radically revised vision of the nascent star personae of quintessential American scream queen... more This article offers a radically revised vision of the nascent star personae of quintessential American scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis (refocusing attention towards her widely circulated credentials as young career woman, Hollywood insider, and self-confident humanist), in order to reveal key ways in which the star personae of on-screen talent are utilized industrially to expand the potential audience of low-cost horror films through the premption of deeply entrenched discourses which historically have framed non-Hollywood horror as sexist, amateurish, male-geared product.
The Terror of Tiny Town: a dwarfsploitation movie with emancipatory value?
Submission to Popular Culture Association of Canada Annual Conference 2012. Accepted.
One year prior to the release of the all-time classic “The Wizard of Oz”, featuring the acclaimed Munchkins, Sam... more One year prior to the release of the all-time classic “The Wizard of Oz”, featuring the acclaimed Munchkins, Sam Newfield directed “The Terror of Tiny Town”, advertised as the first 'comedy western with an all-midget cast', starring “Jed Buell’s Midgets”. In this pastiche, conceived as a ‘weapon of mass distraction’ and categorized as a ‘pure exploitation movie’, diminutive actors are riding Shetland ponies and walking under the swinging doors of a local saloon. The “Terror of Tiny Town” is regularly cited among the Worst Movies of All Time. Various works of popular culture contributed to the movie acquiring cult status by recycling its title, re-interpreting its footage or through references in other movies; the film is ubiquitous on the internet and in social networks and blogs. The purpose of my paper is to demonstrate that the movie adapted American western genre stereotypes to a hitherto excluded category of actors and, by analogy to ‘blaxploitation’ movies, may have been instrumental in emancipating the short statured community. Although a black ‘midget’ featured in the film, it discriminated against ‘dwarfs’. It is likely that the absence of a ‘mirror audience’ prevented the movie to giving birth to a genre or even a sequel.
José Mojica Marins and the cultural politics of marginality in third world film criticism 1
This article seeks to revise and question the cultural politics through which Third World film criticism has... more This article seeks to revise and question the cultural politics through which Third World film criticism has historically constructed Latin American continental and national film canons. To this end it reassesses the highly politicized notion of an “imperfect,” marginal or alternative cinema promoted in the 1960’s by filmmakers like the Brazilian Glauber Rocha and the Cuban Julio García Espinosa by looking at the contemporaneous exploitation cinema of Brazil’s José Mojica Marins. The article suggests that what makes Mojica’s work significant is the fact that it challenges the elitist, high cultural standards on which Brazil’s Cinema Novo is judged the representative of Brazilian cinema of 1960s –by subverting the idea of what a an imperfect/marginal/alternative cinema is.
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Fetish or Feminist: Recontextualizing Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
by Anne Purcell
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) occupies an unprecedented position in American popular cinema. Somewhere between... more Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) occupies an unprecedented position in American popular cinema. Somewhere between the studio-produced rock and roll vanity blockbusters of the 1950s and 60s, and the more thematically complex artist biopics of the 70s and 80s, lies this little known and even less appreciated film by America’s most titillating independent filmmaker, Russ Meyer. Many critics dismiss Beyond the Valley of the Dolls as an exploitation film, but as this essay will demonstrate, the film’s categorization is much more complex. Straddling the lines between melodrama, exploitation, musical and ‘women’s film,’ Beyond the Valley of the Dolls occupies a uniquely forward-thinking position in terms of its feminist aspects that warrants attention. This paper examines these aspects, arguing that, although Beyond the Valley of the Dolls does show women in sexually objectified ways, it also emphasizes female power, sexuality and ruthlessness in a manner that foreshadows post-second wave feminist film scholarship.
Who is the pussy now? / Fenomén "rape-revenge" filmů z genderové perspektivy
published in Cinepur # 68, 2010
Directory of World Cinema: American Independent (vol. 2)
by John Marmysz
Directory of World Cinema: American Independent (vol. 2), edited by John Berrra. Intellect Books. 2012.
Synopsis and critique of:
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
The Passion of the Christ
Strange... more
Synopsis and critique of:
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
The Passion of the Christ
Strange Culture
Vigilante
The Wild Angels
Marmysz on Hawkins
by John Marmysz
Published in: Film-Philosophy. Volume 6, Number 8. April 2002.
A review of Joan Hawkin's book _Cutting Edge: Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant-garde_. A review of Joan Hawkin's book _Cutting Edge: Art-Horror and the Horrific Avant-garde_.
‘It was an experience that totally blew up in my face’: Steve Railsback and Turkey Shoot
Studies In Australasian Cinema, Volume: 4, Issue: 1, November 2010, pp. 73-79
The schlock horror film Turkey Shoot is widely regarded as one of the most disreputable Australian exploitation titles... more The schlock horror film Turkey Shoot is widely regarded as one of the most disreputable Australian exploitation titles in a genre already well noted for controversy. This short article frames the controversies that surround the film from production to critical reception, which sets the scene for an interview by Mark Harley with the film's star Steve Railsback, who reflects on the movie's production, his role, the controversy and the film's reception.