Author Archives: bandsaboutmovies

USA UP ALL NIGHT MONTH: Private School (1983)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Private School was on USA Up All Night on October 1, 1991; May 29, 1992; May 29, 1993; January 7 and July 23, 1993; April 15 and July 14, 1995; August 2, 1996 and May 23 and August 7, 1997.

I honestly can’t get my head around the fact that the same Noel Black who made the intense and upsetting Pretty Poison also made Mischief and Private School. Life’s odd.

Christine “Chris” Ramsey (Phoebe Cates) and Jim Green (Matthew Modine) keep trying to lose their virginity while his friend Bubba Beauregard (Michael Zorek) somehow hooks up with Betsy (Kathleen Wilhoite) and Jordan Leigh-Jensen (Betsy Russell). Chris and Jordan hate each other over Jim too, so there’s that.

Once Private Lessons did well, this was easy to get made. It doesn’t have anything to do with that movie other than bring back R. Ben Efraim as a producer, Dan Greenburg as screenwriter and that movie’s star Sylvia Kristel, who is reduced to playing a cameo as a new character.

Speaking of cameos, Martin Mull is a druggist, Paula Abdul is a cheerleader — she also choreographed the routine — and Brinke Stevens is in the shower scene.

But this is, at heart, a movie where the guys dress as girls Bosom Buddies style to sneak into the girl’s dorm and where sex acts are played over loudspeakers to humiliate people. The Cherryvale Academy for Women and the Freemount Academy for Men basically exist so that horny young men can look at bare breasts. The women are unfulfilled, the men go home to masturbate, such would be 1983.

At least this has a fun soundtrack. “You’re Breaking My Heart” by Harry Nilsson, “The American Girl” by Rick Springfield, “Rock This Town” by The Stray Cats, “Nasty Girl” by Vanity 6, “I Want Candy” by Bow Wow Wow, “Da Da Da” by Trio, “Li’l Red Riding Hood” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs and Phoebe Cates, performing two songs and not just starring in the movie.

Efraim was a big believer in market research and literally tested every single thing about Private School down to the title. He loved the word private in his movies and he also produced Private Resort.

FANTASTIC FEST 2023: A Guide to Becoming an Elm Tree (2023)

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Fantastic Fest 2023 is from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is playing here.

Directed by Adam and Skye Mann, A Guide to Becoming an Elm Tree starts when Padraig (James Healy-Meaney) seeks out how to build a coffin for his recently deceased — but already buried — wife and works with a mysterious carpenter. The carpenter demands that this not be a simple project and requires not just the skills of hammer, saw and file but also the study of the trees and how they will lend themselves to making the perfect container for his lost wife. However, Padraig finds a book in the carpenter’s house that allows him to get done faster, which as you can guess, just goes wrong.

Shot in stark black and white and filled with Irish accents that may seem imperceptible to American ears — the closed captioning is a must — this is a film that is filled with longing, loss and magic that still finds itself in the world. It’s definitely worth a watch.

USA UP ALL NIGHT MONTH: Orca (1977)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Orca was on USA Up All Night on December 16, 1995.

If you read comic books in the summer of 1977, there’s no way you didn’t know about Orca. Despite everything that nature — and SeaWorld — could teach us, it was time to meet a predator even more deadly to man than the great white shark. To quote Neko Case: “You know they call them killer whales.”

Orca raises the Jaws rip-off stakes: if the name Orca can be Quint’s boat, here, it can be an entire movie. Dino De Laurentiis called writer Luciano Vincenzoni (he also wrote The Good, The Bad and the Ugly) in the middle of the night and told to find a fish tougher and more terrible than the great white to make a movie that could go up against Spielberg’s. Vincenzoni’s brother told him all about the killer whales and the rest is scumtastic movie history.

Directed by Michael Anderson (Logan’s Run, Doc Savage), Orca is the kind of movie that critics have assaulted for years. I’m here to tell you that every single one of them is wrong. It’s a completely ridiculous film, a shameless reboot of both Jaws and Moby Dick, but by no means is it not entertaining as hell. And it has an incredible Ennio Morricone score, something that so many fish films could only wish they aspired to.

Captain Nolan (Richard Harris, who nearly died doing his own stunts and also would grow enraged if anyone dared compare this movie to any other film) catches fish and marine animals so that he can pay off his boat. His crew is looking for a great white, which comes after crewmember Ken (Robert Carradine, Lewis from Revenge of the Nerds). An orca saves Ken and Nolan decides to repay its kindness by capturing it. After he harpoons the whale, he learns that he’s killed its mate, which miscarries and drops a fetus onto the deck of the ship that the callous captain hoses off into the ocean while our titular hero/villain/sea mammal screams in anguish. This is when you wonder: how did this movie get a PG rating?

Novak (Keenan Wynn, The Dark, Piranha), another crew member, cuts the female loose and its mate drags her dead body to shore. The villagers all rise up against the crew, who demand that Nolan kill the orca, who has gone wild and is ruining local fishing. When Nolan refuses to put the fish out of its misery, it retaliates by sinking all of the fishing boats and breaking all of the town’s fuel lines, because of course killer whales can hold grudges.

That’s what brings Dr. Rachel Bedford (Charlotte Rampling), a whale expert, into the movie. She believes that orcas are like humans, a fact that Nolan can understand. He sees himself as one of the whales, as his wife and unborn child were killed by a drunk driver. He promises not to fight the whale, but it kills Novak, attacks Nolan’s house and then bites off the leg of his injured worker, Annie (Bo Derek in her film debut).

Nolan and his crew, including Paul (Peter Hooten, who was also in Derek’s first actual filmed movie, Fantasies, as well as the 1970’s Dr. Strange TV movie and Just a Damned Soldier with Mark Gregory), all take off after the orca, along with Native American Jacob Umilak (Will Sampson, the magical Native American in films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Poltergeist II). That’s when the orca goes buckfutter and wipes out nearly everyone by either grabbing them, biting them, crushing them and tossing icebergs at the boat.

The orca throws Nolan all the lace like a ragdoll, killing him, but leaving Bedford alive. We watch as Nolan sinks into the water in a crucified pose and the killer whale decides to swim under the ice. Now, there’s some conjecture here: is the killer whale trapped or has it decided that with its revenge complete, all it can do is die when faced with the path or revenge that it has wrought? I can see the poetry of this thought, but then I realize that I’ve just watched a film filled with no subtlety whatsoever, so perhaps the orca swam on, discovered a new mate and remains ready to wipe out all of humanity at a moment’s notice.

Orca is everything I love about movies: it’s big and dumb and bloody. It’s the kind of movie a fine actor like Richard Harris chews the scenery with just as much viciousness as a killer whale devours one of Bo Derek’s shapely gams. It also takes shark films to the next level. Every single one of the humans in this movie are amongst the dumbest people ever, doomed by the fact that they even know Captain Nolan. The moment he hoses Orca’s son into the icy waters, he’s sealed his fate. This is one of the few films where you root for the beast and savor its revenge.

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll be amazed at Bo’s bloody stump. I want more people to love this movie even a fourth as much as I do.

You can download the host segments from this episode on the Internet Archive.

USA UP ALL NIGHT MONTH: My Mom’s A Werewolf (1989)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: My Mom’s A Werewolf was on USA Up All Night on July 31, 1992; Septmeber 18, 1993 and April 22, 1994.

You may have asked, “Did the director of Death Spa make anything else?” I’m here to answer that affirmatively, with My Mom’s A Werewolf, an oddity that somehow unites some of my favorite disparate stars and plops them into a late 80’s comedy. This movie is ridiculous, yet it got me right from the beginning, thanks to plenty of cheesy synth and MTV era rock — I have a weakness for bands that only got their songs into one movie no one has ever heard of — as well as its loving depiction of a horror movie convention.

Leslie Shaber (Susan Blakely, who between Capone, The Lords of Flatbush, The Concorde … Airport ’79 and Over the Top is all over our site; she’s also Cherry Diamond in Dream a Little Dream) is a suburban mom who has a boring life and a husband named Howard (John Schuck, forever Sgt. Charles Enright from McMillan & Wife, as well as the 80’s version of Herman Munster, the robotic cop from short-lived 70’s series Homes & Yoyo and the Klingon Kamarag, one of the few Star Trek characters to appear in more than one more of the films).

Her daughter Jennifer (Tina Caspary, who makes appearances in tons of 80’s favorites like Can’t Buy Me Love, Teen Witch, Mac and Me and Annie) worries that her parents will get divorced, but she continually gets sidetracked by her horror movie loving friend Stacey (Diana Barrows, who would end up in a horror movie herself, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood). I mean, this girl loves movies so much that she has Prime Evil, Deathrow Gameshow and Galaxina posters up in her room. In fact, this movie mentions Galaxina more than anyone ever has.

They meet a fortune teller (Ruth Buzzi, of course), who tells Jennifer that she has the mark of the pentagram on her face and that soon, she’ll fight an unholy evil.

After being ignored by her husband while he watches football, Leslie goes shopping for a flea collar. The owner of the story, Harry Thropen (John Saxon, who is perhaps my favorite actor of all time) offers her a free flea collar while he eats a mouse. Seriously, he has the dirtiest and scariest pet store you’ve ever seen. So, of course, she falls for him and he ends up biting one of her toes, changing her.

This movie strangely treats the powers of werewolves like vampires, but hey, if you wanted to see Saxon shirtless, this movie is all for you.

This movie turns into sight gag city, with Jewish deli jokes, singing werewolves, a riff on the dentist scene from Little Shop of Horrors (the dentist is Geno Silva, who was the silent killer The Skull in Scarface) and the wolfen mom seeing John Saxon everywhere she goes.

It ends up being daughter against werewolf lord, complete with knowledge straight out of Fangoria. Oh yeah — Solid Gold host Marilyn McCoo and Marcia Wallace, who was the secretary on the original The Bob Newhart Show and Edna Krabappel on The Simpsons also is in here. Keep an eye out for Kimmy Robertson, who was Lucy on Twin Peaks too.

If you go into this expecting nothing to be serious and John Saxon quite literally chewing everything he can, then you’ll enjoy this as much as I did.

You can watch this on YouTube.

USA UP ALL NIGHT MONTH: Sorority Girls and the Creature from Hell (1990)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorority Girls and the Creature from Hell was on USA Up All Night on May 23 and December 18, 1992; January 21, 1994 and February 17, 1996.

Gerome Desenso (Glen Vincent) has escaped from the cops thanks to the accidental distraction of Denise (Stacey Lynn) and her spandex-tight bicycling outfit. She’s stuck all weekend with a geek named Sara (Lynette McBrearty, who co-wrote this movie with her husband, director John McBearty, who played a cadet in Taps and only made one more movie, the unreleased Roadside). The other girls are on their way to a camp owned by Kristina’s (Gloria Hylton) Uncle Ray (Doug Koth), who is in the middle of being possessed by a Native American spirit.

What will Belinda (Dori Courtney, Hollywood Hot Tubs 2: Educating Crystal) and Mary Anne (Deborah Dutch, who is in Tender Loving Care and Jokes My Folks Never Told Me; her IMDB lists her birthday as May 17, 1967, which would make her nine-years-old when she made her debut as the love interest in Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave) do when the killer is in the woods and so is a dude in an obvious mask that wants blood?

Also: Uncle Leo from Seinfeld.

Also also: A head rolls and there’s a homophobic rant by someone who is supposed to be the person we’re rooting for.

Also also also: This is Vicki Darnell’s last movie. She’s in Frankenhooker, Brain Damage, Senior Week and Alien Space Avenger. She shows up in the “for foreign investors” role as a stripper who is in this just to get naked.

You can download this from the Internet Archive.

FANTASTIC FEST 2023: Sri Asih: The Warrior (2023)

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Fantastic Fest 2023 is from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is playing here.

Sri Asih was created in 1953 by RA Kosasih, who is considered the father of Indonesian comic books. According to the Bumilangit Cinematic Universe Wiki, this is her origin: “Nani Wijaya, is the daughter of a wealthy family, is a bead of Goddess Sri from the Kahyangan Kingdom. As an adult, Nani works as an agent of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation to defend truth & justice. However, when he struggles, Nani can transform herself into Sri Asih by translating “Goddess Asih!”” This allows her to access her powers as the reincarnation of Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice and fertility who is still worshiped on the islands of Java, Bali and Lombok.

Her powers include strength, speed, durability, flight, duplication, a healing factory and the ability to grow in size. As a BCI agent, she already had martial arts abilities and detective skills, which add to her superhuman powers.

Sri Asih was such a popular character that she had her first movie made a year after she debut. Sri Asih was directed by Tan Sing Hwat and Turino Djunaedy. The first superhero movie made in Indonesia, it is sadly lost.

This version of Sri Asih is the second installment of the Bumilangit Cinematic Universe, a series of superhero films based on more than 500 comic book characters in the library of Indonesian publishing company Bumilangit which started with 2019’s Gundala.

Directed by Upi, who co-wrote the screenplay with Gundala director Joko Anwar, this tells the story of the third Sri Asih, who at the start of the movie is Alana (Pevita Pearce). For her entire life, she’s been a fighter and had to hold back the rage inside her. That makes sense, as she was nearly killed by the volcano that made her an orphan when she was just an infant.

After being raised by a female martial artist, she becomes an MMA fighter in her adulthood, which brings her into the cage against the privileged Mateo (Randy Pangalila). By the end, she will have to battle one of the top five villains of the BCU — the five commanders of the Goddess of Fire — known as Evil Spirit.

I may not know these characters at all, but I think it’s awesome that other cultures are attempting to leverage their own comic book mythologies — that’s why I hate that people talk down on comic book movies, because they are no different than the myths of any culture throughout time — and translate them to the screen and give themselves representation.

This might not have the budget of a Marvel movie, but somehow, the fights look better and the CGI looks just as good. At the end of this movie, there’s even a post-credits cameo. Much like how Sri Asih showed out at the end of Gundala, Mandala appears briefly.

For those of us in the U.S., Shout! Factory has the rights to this and will release it this year. Check it out when you can, because it’s such a cool opportunity to learn of the heroes of other places and see them in action.

USA UP ALL NIGHT MONTH: Tender Loving Care (1994)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Tender Loving Care was on USA Up All Night on April 21, 1995; June 1, 1996 and April 11, 1997.

Directed by Bob Wyatt, who plays Julio and only directed this and wrote the movie Death Match, the main selling point of this is that Rhonda Shear is in the cast as Julio’s dominatrix girlfriend. Rhonda is also in the movies Quadroon, J.D.’s Revenge, Galaxina, Party Games for Adults Only, Doin’ Time, Basic Training, Spaceballs, The Roller Blade Seven, Legend of the Roller Blade Seven, Return to Frogtown, Assault of the Party Nerds 2: The Heavy Petting Detective, Earth Minus Zero, The Fanatics, Desperation Boulevard, Prison-A-Go-Go! and You Are All Going to Die.

Her being a dom in this isn’t much of a surprise, as she often took letters from guys who wanted to see more feet on the show and did layouts for several issues of Leg Show. I didn’t have to do research to tell you that.

Here are some of the fine people who show up in the cast: Pamela Manning (who was the rack girl for W.A.S.P.’s early stage shows), Lori Morrissey (who is in Femme Fontaine: Killer Babe for the C.I.A. with Manning), De’Ann Power (who was in two Milo Manara adaptions, Click and Butterscotch: Mission Invisible), Lisa Throw (Shandra: The Jungle Girl), Jennifer Fabos (the 1995 Tony Guzman-directed Philosophy in the Bedroom), Antonia Dorian (Sorceress), Alina Fierra (who ate fire on the April 23, 1993 episode of USA Up All Night), Ron Jeremy (ugh) and Deborah Dutch (Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave, Hard to Die).

It’s not memorable for much other than Rhonda.

WELL GO USA BLU RAY RELEASE: Goodbye Monster (2022)

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In Shanhai Jing: Zaijian Gaoshou, which has been released in the U.S. as Goodbye Monster, a young doctor disobeys orders and uses an untested idea to defeat the Dark Spirit. The bad news? Well, he accidentally destroys the hospital and is banished from Kunlun Hospital, forbidden from ever practicing medicine again. But when a young boy comes to him for healing, he may have one more chance to redeem himself and somehow save his home.

Inspired by The Legend of the White Snake, Bai Ze has ruined his life. He believed that instead of keeping Dark Spirits simply at bay, they could be completely removed. Now a man without a home or a job, but still filled with way too much pride. He hasn’t learned his lesson yet.

Yet this movie is about healing, about getting over the past and trying to become a better person. Those are big ideas for a cartoon, but I found this effortlessly dealing with them. It may be better for older kids, but I think families will really like Goodbye Monster.

Goodbye Monster is now available from Well Go USA. You can learn more at the official site.

FANTASTIC FEST 2023: Enter the Clones of Bruce (2023)

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Fantastic Fest 2023 is from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is playing here.

Bruce Lee died in 1973 after four major movies: The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, The Way of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon. Yes, he had been acting since his teens and also appeared on The Green Hornet and worked in Hollywood, but he became a cultural force through those movies. The world of film—more than that, pop culture, martial arts, and cultural identity—were all shaped by a man who died at the age of 32.

Just when the world had started to love Bruce Lee, his sudden departure left a profound void in the cultural landscape.

What happens when the demand exists and there’s no supply?

You invent a supply to fill that vacuum.

Brucesploitation is a truly unique film genre that revolves entirely around one individual. Actors like Ho Chung-tao and Moon Seok transform into Bruce Li and Dragon Lee. The titles of these films are so reminiscent of Bruce Lee’s movies that they even incorporate footage from his funeral. These films, which initially portray the life stories of these actors, often delve into sequels of Bruce Lee’s films or even venture into the realm of pure fantasy, where Bruce Lee can be seen fighting characters like Popeye and Emanuelle in the afterlife.

Directed by David Gregory and featuring contributions from Carl Daft, Frank Djeng, Vivian Wong, and Michael Worth, Enter the Clones of Bruce is a film that not only entertains but also educates. It is a must-watch for those unfamiliar with this unique genre, as well as for those who have delved deep into its peculiar and potent flower.

David Gregory, known for his work on Al Adamson’s life in Blood & Flesh: The Reel Life & Ghastly Death of Al Adamson and the making of The Island of Dr. Moreau in Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s The Island of Dr. Moreau, brings us another gem. Enter the Clones of Bruce, like his previous works, avoids being overly academic and never ridicules its subject. Instead, it celebrates how Bruce Lee revolutionized the portrayal of Asian men in Hollywood and why his films were so crucial. It also argues that these imitations were perhaps just as necessary in the healing process following the martial arts legend’s death.

The true joy of this film is in hearing from the performers and how it made them feel to become stars while living in the shadow of the man they were impersonating. Like Bruce Le, who was in Shaw Brothers’ Infra-Man before changing his name from Ho Chung-tao and appearing in movies like The Big Boss Part II, Return of Bruce, My Name Called Bruce and many more, including a cameo in Pieces. Or Dragon Lee was once Moon Kyung-seok, the star of The Real Bruce Lee, Kung Fu Fever and Dragon Lee vs. the Five Brothers. Or Bruce Li, who was in Goodbye Bruce Lee: His Last Game of Death and Bruce Lee: The Man, The Myth.

The film also offers a wealth of knowledge from martial arts film experts, including Mike Leeder, Christophe Lemaire, Michael Worth, Christophe Champclaux, and Stephen Nogues. Their perspectives, along with those of director Lee Tso Nam, Golden Harvest producer Andre Morgan, Jean-Marie Pallardy, Uwe Schier, and Aquarius Releasing’s Terry Levene, provide a comprehensive understanding of the genre.

Perhaps one of the most insightful voices is Valerie Sou, professor of Asian studies at San Francisco State University, who explains why Lee meant so much to Asians not just in America but worldwide, as well as his cultural relevance to African-American audiences.

Even better, the film has many of the great martial arts actors of all time, including David Chiang (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin), Lee Chiu (The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter), Mars (Enter the Dragon), Phillip Ko (Heart of Dragon), Lo Meng (The Kid With the Golden Arm), Roy Horan (Game of Death II and the father of martial arts actress Celina Jade), Bruce Liang (The Dragon Lives Again), Caryn White (He’s a Legend, He’s a Hero), Eric Tsang (The Dragon Lives Again), Lo Meng (Five Deadly Venoms), Casanova Wong (Warriors Two), David Yeung (son of Bolo), Angela Mao (I lost my mind when she showed up and got emotional; obviously she was in Enter the Dragon but her films are so inspirational. She even thanks the audience for watching her movies, a charming thing to do); “Black Dragon” Ron Van Clief (Fist of Fear, Touch of Death), Wang Dao, Shan Charang, Japanese actor Yasuaki Kurata (Bruce Lo) and perhaps the greatest cinematographer of fighting ever — as well as a Bruce Lee comedy clone in The Fat Dragon — Sammo Hung.

Another amazing moment is when this film gets not just Joseph Lai but also Godfrey Ho to speak on the traditions of creating products in a demand vacuum. I couldn’t be more pleased with this movie!

Enter the Clones of Bruce does what every good movie about movies should do. It makes you want to watch all of the films in this. I love the stranger examples, like Fist of Fear, Touch of Death and The Dragon Lives Again, but I think Bruce Li in New Guinea might outdo them!

Severin also plans on a box set of Bruceploitation films that will include Challenge of the Tiger, The Real Bruce Lee, Dragon Lives Again, Bruce’s Fingers, Enter the Game of Death, Ninja Strikes Back, Clones of Bruce Lee (a movie that combines Dragon Lee, Bruce Lai, Bruce Le and Bruce Thai) and The Death of Bruce Lee. I’ll be first in line to buy it.

If you’d like to get a head start on the movies in this genre, I’ve compiled a Letterboxd list of the movies the film mentions. Watch them all, scream loudly at the camera and remember, “An intelligent mind is one which is constantly learning.” Or watching movies.

FANTASTIC FEST 2023: Blonde Death (1984)

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Fantastic Fest 2023 is from September 21 to 28 and has so many movies that I can’t wait to see. You can learn more about this movie and when it is playing here.

Teenage Mother may have been 9 months of trouble, but Tammy the teenage timebomb is eighteen years of bottled-up frustration about to explode.

Vern (Dave Shuey) and Clorette (Linda Miller) have moved Tammy (Sara Lee Wade, who was a set dresser from Friday the 13th: A New Beginning and Return of the Living Dead and worked in props on Lady In White and was also in Darkroom) from Mississippi to California and now that she’s off the farm, she’s never going back.

But despite the Baptist veneer, maybe Vern’s a little turned on when he spanks Tammy. Why else would he let her wear mommy’s high heels and walk all over his face? Mother isn’t much better, giving forced enemas to her daughter as punishment. Is it any wonder that when Tammy meets Link (Jack Catalano) she goes all Mallory Knox?

The two of them are in and out of bed when they’re not killing everyone in their way and oh yeah, staying away from one-eyed obsessed girlfriends and prison boyfriends and dead bodies stinking up the joint. These two make anything a party.

After all, Tammy says, “By the fourth day, Burt was starting to stink pretty bad. But we even turned disposal of his body into a fun-packed afternoon.”

References to Richard Gere being a coprophagy fantasy object, a last girlfriend who stood up on the rollercoaster and lost her head and an audacious final beat that was filmed — with no permit, come on, this is a $2000 SOV blast to your brain — inside the Magic Kingdom.

The James Dillinger who made this was really James Robert Baker, who left a “stifling, Republican Southern Californian household” to explore speed, booze, art and his hidden homosexuality as his father sent a private detective on his tail. He ended up going to UCLA for film and made two movies, the one we’re talking about and Mouse Klub Konfidential, which tells the story of a Mouseketeer who becomes a gay bondage pornographer and came so close to celebrating Nazism that the 1976 San Francisco LGBT Film Festival was scandalized and may have caused Michael Medved to abandon his dream of film making and instead become a film critic or whatever the fuck he is.

After five years of writing scripts, he was already burned out on Hollywood and started writing novels like Adrenaline, in which two lovers on the run battle homophobia and the oppression of gays in a Republican-dominated America; Fuel-Injected Dreams, which is about Phil Spector; Boy Wonder, the oral history of Shark Trager, who was born in the back seat at a drive-in movie and became a filmmaker and Tim and Pete, in which the lead characters deal with the AIDS crisis by planning to kill Reagan. That book was so controversial that he was labeled “The Last Angry Gay Man” and he couldn’t find anyone to publish his later books.

Baker ended up killing himself with carbon monoxide in his car, just like two of the characters in this movie — spoiler warning — which is a tragedy. After his demise, he became better known and Testosterone became a movie in 2003.

This gets compared to John Waters a lot but I think that’s because it’s the easiest comparison to make. People really talk like this, this kind of filthy explosion of violent noise and you can hear the need to be heard in every word. Now, you may have to strain to hear it, as the video quality is, well, shot on video in 1984 but you should lean in as close as you can.