Lo Sound Desert (2015)
I’ve always been obsessed with desert rock (Desolation Center), which I first discovered thanks to Kyuss and all the bands that spun off from that influential time. You’d probably know Queens of the Stone Age if you don’t know this scene, but I’d also recommend any of their Desert Session group albums if you want […]
Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful (2020)
We’ve often discussed the line between arthouse and grindhouse. There’s a similar division between glamour and smut. As one of the great masters of photography, Helmut Newton found fame exploring the female form. But were the women in his pieces empowered or exploited? These provocative, sensual and at times subversive images are the real stars of […]
Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel (1983)
Imagine a film so plagued with legal and productions issues that even the pseudonymised Alan Smithee doesn’t want to take a credit—and it took almost 30 years before the film screened to a mass audience. Such a film is Rock ‘N’ Roll Hotel . . . yes, we know the hotel’s sign uses an ampersand, […]
Suburbia (1983)
You’re Penelope Spheeris and you amazed the disenfranchised punk and metal hoards with your debut feature film: 1981’s epic punkumentary The Decline of Western Civilization. (Yes, we did DoWC II and DoWC III). Yeah, we know her most popular film—and the highest-grossing film of her career—is the rock-centric (and very cool) Wayne’s World. But that’s […]
The Mentors: Kings of Sleaze Rockumentary (2018)
The Mentors started in Seattle but moved to Australia, where its three original members — Edon “El Duce” Hoke, Eric “Sickie Wifebeater” Carlson (guitar) and Steve “Dr. Heathen Scum” Broy — turned their garage punk metal into its own genre called rape rock. They were pretty much unknown until the PMRC hearings exposed America to […]
Desperate Teenage Lovedolls (1984)
“Thanks for killing my mom.”“Hey, no problem.”— Kitty Carryall and Patch Kelly What do you get when you shoot a film for less than $300 on Super-8 film with a bunch of your friends from the L.A. punk scene (Dez Cadena of Black Flag and DC 3, Jeff and Steve McDonald of Red Kross, Vicki […]
Drive-In Friday: Movie Punks
Punk rockers have had it rough on screen. Either they’re playing a gang that needs to be taken care of by the law or they’re ruining neighborhoods or they’re just plain dumb. Very few films take the sheer unbridled joy on punk and shove it in your face in an enjoyable way. This week, we […]
Rockbitch: Bitchcraft (1997)
For years, whenever I’d look through someone’s list of bootlegs, they always had this movie listed. I always wondered why and then I watched this movie. Rockbitch used to be called Red Abyss and was, like most magic-based things in the UK, part of a matriarchal, polygamous pagan community. The band was called Cat Genetica before […]
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