I meant to put this up here weeks ago, but it slipped my mind. "Grindhouse" was a great experience and was an intersection of two of my pet film theories. The first is "Trash chic," in which film elements once commonly thought as bad by mainstream critics and audiences are lauded by niche audiences. Interestingly enough, while "trash chic" was once the province of film nuts and fan boys celebrating the "it's so bad it's good" aesthetic, it's now considered almost mainstream.

The other theory is "The Movie Boys" in which there is now a handful of directors whose roots are not in journalism, fiction, still photography or theater, but in the appreciation of film. Sam Raimi and Joe Dante are two examples. They reference favorite films and use actors whom they admired as fans. Richard and Alex Gordon were the first "movie boys," especially Alex, who sought out characters actors he loved – he tried always to find a place in his films for Frank Lacteen, for example.

Anyway, I loved "Grindhouse," although the Tarantino sequence was too talky.


For many of us who grew up during the drive-in era, the new movie "Grindhouse" brought forth a number of memories about that movie-going experience.

The recently released film is a double feature of two new movies that capture the spirit of drive-in classics. The three-hour show is complete with trailers for other outrageous films that don't exist. The only thing that could make the experience more authentic is if the stereophonic sound was replaced with the tinny noise that used to come out of those speakers that hung on your car's window.

Although "Grindhouse" had great reviews, industry pundits noted it didn't make the money its opening weekend many thought it would. "Grindhouse" is not a film for everyone. In many ways it has the specialized appeal of an art house film. While I think its hyper-violence is so over the top it becomes satiric, the zombie blasting of "Planet Terror" and the serial killer antics of "Death Proof" might offend others.

Unless you lived in a major city, you couldn't experience a real "grindhouse" the movie industry term for a theater that ran about 18 hours a day with continuous showings of both main stream Hollywood fare and exploitation movies.

In markets such as Western Massachusetts, though, the place for low-budget exploitation films were drive-ins such as the Airline in Chicopee, E.M. Loew's in West Springfield, or the Parkway in Wilbraham.

With the weakening of the major studios in the late 1940s due to Supreme Court decisions that made them divest their theater holdings and the rise in the popularity of television, there was an opening for independent productions and foreign imports. There was also a rise in the teen population and the explosion of the suburb that created a new market for theaters located outside of traditional urban settings.

Add those ingredients with the fact that theater owners were investing in drive-in theaters and eager to try new productions to lure people away from their television sets, and you had everything you needed to create a fascinating 30-year slice of American movie history.

The restrictions of television carefully censored productions shown on a small screen in black and white were used by independent producers to their advantage. They realized they did have big stars or big budgets. To make their films work, they emphasized elements that the major studios shunned: controversial drama, sex, skin, actions and violence.

The producers frequently used the horror, crime and science fiction genres as their vehicles of choice.

The delirious violence and action in "Grindhouse" is way out of the budget league of the filmmakers Robert Rodriquez and Quentin Tarantino emulated. The two contemporary directors, though, effectively caught the subversive qualities of the exploitation film.

Although many people who made these low-budget wonders took pride in their work, the goal was not art, but money. The producers were more concerned with box office receipts than with reviews.

I must admit that after seeing "Grindhouse" my first reaction was to go through my videotape and DVD collection and assemble my own double-bills. Here are some suggestions if you want to continue the "Grindhouse" experience in your own home.

Something Weird Video (www.somethingweird.com) is the home for a wide variety of forgotten films and they feature some double feature DVDs. One great set is "Blood Suckers/Blood Thirst," a pair of films that have the very exploitable word of "blood" in their titles. Starring Peter Cushing and Patrick MacNee, "Blood Suckers" is an odd vampire film set in Greece and England that revolves around academics (!), while "Blood Thirst" is a vampire tale set in the Philippines that mixes the conventions of that genre with those of the detective fiction.

Another hysterical double feature is "Death Curse of Tartu/ Sting of Death," a pair of horror films from Florida director William Grefe. You haven't lived until you've seen a walking jellyfish man!

Something Weird also features collections of previews from dozens of drive-in movies. Since previews have to show you enough of the good parts to lure you to a show, they are frequently more entertaining than the actual movie.

Parents should be aware there is adult material on the Something Weird site.

There are dozens and dozens of drive-in movies available on DVD. Producer Roger Corman specialized in these films and among my favorites are "Death Race 2000," a darkly funny look at America's future, and "Hollywood Boulevard," a film that first time directors Allan Arkush and Joe Dante did for Corman on a remarkably low budget.

Corman produced a number of films in the Philippines that offered low labor costs and good filmmakers such as director Eddie Romero. Romero's trilogy of "Mad Doctor of Blood Island," "Brides of Blood" and "Beast of Blood" would make one of those great "all night" shows all the drive-ins featured.

While the era of the drive-in and the grindhouse is over, the films they featured live on and can still provide some low-rent guilty pleasures.

© 2007 by G. Michael Dobbs

Ah, joooooooooooooooooy!

There are so few films more blissfully complete in their wrongness as "From Here it Came." If you thought The Mummy was a slow moving monster, wait until you see a walking – kind of – living pissed off tree! How could you not love the great Paul Blaisdell's design of the tree god Taranga? Seriously! And that hideous close-up of supposedly handsome Tod Andrews? And the scene in which doctors "operate" on Taranga?

When will Hollywood make a big budget remake of this drive-in classic? When? When? But no CGI. Taranga must be imagined in loving latex.

Perhaps Nicholas Cage will read this and want to remake the film as his latest in a string of really bad career decisions.

One can dream.

© 2007 by Gordon Michael Dobbs

Here's a press release I received today. Interesting food for thought. I'll be curious to see how far this gets in the corporate owned press.

Bush Proposes Weakening of Federal Alternative Fuel Standards Today


Rose Garden appearance falsely portrays proposal as improving standards


In a Rose Garden appearance today, President Bush cynically portrayed his "20-in-10" alternative fuel standard as improving current federal fuel economy standards. In fact, the proposal is considerably weaker than current targets signed into law in 1992 by George Bush Sr.

“The president's policy is a retreat, not an advance. It would weaken existing federal targets for alternatives to petroleum fuel, not improve them,” said Julie Teel, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate, Air, Energy Program. “This shameful ploy proves that the president still doesn’t understand the dire consequences of global warming."

Reiterating the State of the Union address, today's speech will call for the replacement of 20% of U.S. gasoline consumption with alternative fuels by 2017 (i.e. "20-in-10”). This is much weaker than current federal targets established by the Energy Policy Act of 1992, which was developed in response to energy dependence issues raised by the first Gulf War. The 1992 law mandated the replacement of 10% of petroleum motor-fuel consumption with alternative fuels by the year 2000 and 30% by 2010. To attain this goal, the law first required a replacement of 75% of federally owned vehicles with alternative fuel vehicles by 1999. The Department of Energy was then required to determine if extension of the regulation to municipal and corporate fleets is necessary to meet the national 30% reduction target. If so, the Department is required to institute alternative fuel standards for municipal and corporate fleets.

The federal government violated the Energy Policy Act by not converting its own fleets to alternative fuel vehicles and not establishing a municipal and corporate standard when it was clear that federal action alone was insufficient. The Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth sued over these violations, winning one court order in 2002 and two more in 2006 requiring compliance with both aspects of the law.

In response, the federal government has increased the number of fuel efficient vehicles in its fleets. However, it has continued to refuse setting alternative fuel vehicle requirements for municipal and corporate fleets. Instead, on March 15, 2007, it issued a ruling which delayed the compliance date for a 30% reduction from 2010 to 2030. The rule is vigorously opposed by environmental groups and likely be challenged in court.

"The time for political games and pandering to opponents of meaningful alternative fuel requirements and greenhouse gas emissions caps is over," said Teel. Climate science shows that emissions must be reduced by 80% or more in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Reducing gasoline use is part of the solution, but to safeguard our children's future, we need rapid progress toward that goal, not a delay of twenty years."

Information on the Energy Policy Act and the Bush Administration’s refusal to implement it: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/programs/policy/energy/EPAct.html.

Information on the Bush Administration's decision to delay Energy Policy Act goals by 20 years: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/press/energy-policy-09-07-2006.html

© 2007 by Gordon Michael Dobbs