By John Saleeby
December 1, 2007
Tell me one Movie Director who is cooler than Roger Corman -
Just one! Stanley Kubrick? Why . . . (Saleeby bangs the Kubrick admirer over
the head with a frying pan like Dick Miller does to a Cop in Corman's "A
Bucket Of Blood") Who else? Quentin Tarentino? Oh . . . (Saleeby holds the
Tarentino fan's head in a bath tub full of water like Shelley Winters does to
some stupid bimbo in Corman's "Bloody Mama") Anybody else? Kevin
Smith!?! Goddammit . . . (Saleeby knocks the Smith worshipping retard out of a
window of a skyscraper like Ray Milland does to some jerk in "X - The Man
With The X Ray Eyes) There! Anybody else? Huh? Anybody? I didn't think so.
Those of you have been too busy watching all that Kubrick,
Tarentino, Smith crap to get into Corman should run right out and pick up the
"Roger Corman Collection" DVD Boxed Set right now - You Smith idiots
will have to ask your Mom to drive you to the store. To learn about Corman,
here is an article about The Master that is so great I'm sure that if there is
any justice in this World the guy who wrote it must have become really rich and
famous by now (Saleeby stops writing to run up and down the street screaming
"SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!" for an hour)
Side A of Disc One starts this digital shindig with one of
Corman's least seen efforts "Gas-s-s-s", a Psychedelic Trip of a
Counter Culture Comedy no one seemed to like when it was released in 1970 -
Kind of late for such Hippy Silliness, I guess. Pre-National Lampoon
"Freak" Humor is always a pretty iffy proposition, although The
Firesign Theater was always . . . Oh, you've never heard of The Firesign
Theater? Maybe you'd better stick with those "Leave It To Beaver"
reruns on Nick At Night. But "Gas-s-s-s" is pretty funny - The US
Army accidentally releases a poison gas which kills everyone above the age of
twenty five so everybody is suddenly living on Planet Altamont. It's kind of
like "The Stand" only it's about Hippies so I call it "The
Slouch".
The B Side of Disc One keeps the Freak Out theme going with
"The Trip", in which Peter Fonda drops Acid and, after much Way Out
imagery and exclamations of "Wow!" realises that he doesn't want to
divorce his Wife after all. What? That's it? After I dropped Acid I realised I
didn't want to attack Tokyo and kill thousands of Japanese people with my
radioactive breath after all, what's with that bourgeois "divorce"
shit? Man, if "Gas-s-s-s" had come out in 1967 instead of "The
Trip" it would have been a BLOCKBUSTER! But "The Trip" is . . .
uh, groovy, mostly because of Peter Fonda and his co stars Bruce Dern and
Dennis Hopper. It's a Rat Pack movie for dudes who look at a rat and
hallucinate that it's six foot tall and is going to rape them with a great big
rat cock. There is also an audio commentary by Corman His Own Bad Sef to
"The Trip" but I never listen to those things anymore - What is this,
NYU Film School? Let's go out to Washington Square Park and score a dime bag!
"Careful, man, that's where I got busted!" Oh, David Lee Roth - You
so crazy!
Disc Number Two takes off like Speed Racer in the powerful
Mach Five with "The Young Racers", all about Friendship and Rivalry
between Grand Prix drivers ("Grand Prix" is European for
"Nascar" and if I'm the first one to make that joke the wise crackers
are seriously slackin' off these days) Pretty mundane stuff after watching
Peter Fonda stagger into a laundremat and lose his mind over a washing machine,
but of considerable interest due to the presence of the always fun William
Campbell as Joe, a sleazeball pig of a racing champion who somehow turns out to
be One Heck Of A Nice Guy by the end of the picture. You know, like all those
Bill Murray movies only Joe woulda nailed Scarlett Johanson without a moment's
thought. "The Young Racers"
was written by R. Wright Campbell, William's Brother, and that's R. Wright with
me!
After all those hippies and race cars you're probably
wondering when the Real Hard Core Roger Corman Shit is gonna show up. Be
careful what you ask for, you may not be able to handle it, bitch - Side B of
Disc Two is packing "The Wild Angels", Roger Corman's Masterpiece and
one of the best movies you will ever see in your Life. I'm only halfway through
all of the movies in this set so I don't have space to go on the way I'd like
to about "The Wild Angels", so here is an article about it that is so
good that if there is any justice in this world the guy who wrote it is making
millions of dollars in Hollywood and going out with Lucy Liu and Rosario
Dawson. SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!
Disc Number Three features "Bloody Mama" and
"A Bucket Of Blood" and, with titles like that, I'm sure it's safe to
leave in the DVD player next time the kids are alone in the house. "Bloody
Mama" stars Shelley Winters as Ma Barker and right now somebody somewhere
is pitching a remake starring Rosie O'Donnell. Not a very good movie, the best
part has Don Stroud and Bruce Dern stealing Scatman Crother's pig to use as
gator bait. Then Stroud shoots up an (obviously fake) alligator with a machine
gun while Scatman is trying to get some fishing done so Mister Scat gets on the
phone to the FBI who shows up to shoot everybody. But not Scatman - He is
rewarded with a new pig and another rubber alligator. The End. Oh, and Stroud
shoots himself in the (obviously fake) face with the same machine gun he killed
that alligator with. That's probably Scatman's favorite part of the movie.
"A Bucket Of The Blood", the oldest film in the
collection, goes all the way back to 1959 when Corman was beginning to think
about making "good" movies instead of merely "profitable"
ones and is also his first attempt at Comedy. "A Bucket Of Blood"
succeeds as a good, funny, and certainly profitable movie despite casting Dick
Miller as the lead instead of the bit part that annoying little creep plays in
practically every other movie Corman ever made. I look at Miller in all those
movies and imagine him following Corman around going "Hey, Mister Corman,
you gonna have an annoying little creep in your next picture? Huh? You gonna
have an annoying little creep in your next picture? Huh? Huh? Can I play an
annoying little creep in your next picture? Huh? Can I? Huh? Can I?"
Stupid Dick Miller - I bet he doesn't even have any Pulp records! But "A
Bucket Of Blood" is great - Skip the opening credits, tell your snob
friends it's a Jim Jarmusch movie, and they'll love it.
Disc Number Four is The Ray Milland Disc and therfore the
one most likely to jump out of your hand and roll down the street to the
nearest liquor store. If you've ever seen Milland as the Struggling Alcohalic
in "The Lost Weekend" you know that when it comes to playing a
sweaty, fidgety, miserable wreck of a human being Ray Milland was The Greatest.
At least until Conan O'Brien's first two or three years on "Late
Night".
Side A has "The Premature Burial", one of Corman's
Edgar Allen Poe related period pieces. Of all Corman's movies stuff like
"The Pit And The Pendulum", "The Fall Of The House Of
Usher", "The Busiest Fog Machine In Show Biz", etc. interest me
the least but at least "The Premature Burial" is kind enough to give
us Ray Milland instead of that god damn Vincent Price. Why did Corman make so
many movies with that douchebag when William Campbell and that nice Peter Fonda
were around?
But "The Premature Burial" is a good opener for
Side B's "X-The Man With The Ray Eyes" and if there was ever a movie
that you will need to get ready for it's "X-The Man With The X Ray
Eyes"! I said earlier that "The Wild Angels" is Corman's best
movie but only because "X" is one of those Old School Sci Fi Movies
that take forever to get to The Good Part. But it's just as well, if you ever
saw an entire movie as intense as the climax of "X" you'd tear your
eyeballs out at the end just like Milland at the end of "X". Man, if
that ain't the most upsetting thing you've ever seen you must have been
watching some crazy Japanese or Italian Horror DVD I haven't been able to get
hold of yet. Have you been watching that fucking "Cannibal
Holocaust"? I don't want to hear about it!! Get outta here, you . . . you
. . . MONKEY KILLER!!! When we decided to do this article Acid Logic Editor Wil
Forbis suggested I might be able to explain "X"'s final scene - Shit,
I'm the guy who saw "American Beauty" and thought it was one of those
crazy John Waters movies everybody was gabbing about. I can only surmise that X
Ray Vision had Milland seeing more than his mind could process and it drove him
insane.
And if I see just one more Roger Corman movie I'll be
flippin' out myself! What? You've got a bootleg DVD of Corman's "The
Intruder" with William Shatner as a Racist in the Civil Rights Era South?
Put it on!! And if I pull my eyes out then I might be ready to look at
"Cannibal Holocaust", maybe even "American Beaty" again.
Once I finally get to hear "Chinese Democracy"
I'll puncture my eardrums and to Hell with Everything.
John Saleeby
wrote for The National Lampoon while he was in high school, was a stand
up comic in New York, and has contributed to the net humor zines Schmuck.com,
Campaign Central, and the legendary American Jerk. He's on medication
now so he's probably a little nicer now than he was when you met him
earlier. Email - johnsaleeby@yahoo.com
