How Squee Is Your Deathmetal?

BabyMetal's "Hungarian Style." What the...?!

My college freshman godson Josh has apparently developed a rather Punk style sense of late, much to the delight of his mother and myself, 80's New Wavers who spent many a 90 Cents Thursday night at City Gardens, being served Kamikazes by the future Jon Stewart and dancing the night away to Thompson Twins; early Sinead O'Connor; Oingo Boingo; Billy Idol; The Plasmatics; The Ramones; The B-52s and so many more. 

Today, Josh's mom shared a link with him on Facebook about the latest Japanese musical sensation, BabyMetal. We all know how insane Japanese pop culture is. We acknowledge and even embrace it, shaking our heads the whole time. BabyMetal somehow struck a nonsensical chord with your Uncle P, and I just loved it not only for its outrageous bizzaro-ness, but also for the earnest performances of its very entertaining trio of 14 -16 year old singers/dancers known as Su-Metal; Moametal and Yuimetal. I haven't found a video for "Hungarian Style" (though I am dying to know how a Japanese Pop/Metal trio might interpret a good old Csardas) but the trio's first big single is below. Love 'em or hate 'em, here's BabyMetal with "Gimme Chocolate!":

How adorable was that? Of course, one hilarious commenter on Jezebel said: "Somewhere in Norway there is a metalhead in corpse paint standing in a forest crying tears of blood.” Yes. And somewhere in southeastern PA, a weird, middle-aged gay man is taking (and hopefully sharing) great joy in the absurdity that is BabyMetal. Of course, this is hardly the first time we've witnessed adorable gals shrieking to the strains of electric guitars gone mad. Remember last season's "AGT" contestant Aaralynn and her lovely little ditty "Zombie Skin?" I sure do:

They're so sweet at that age...

More, anon.
Prospero

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Review: "The Lords of Salem"

I'm in the minority and actually like musician-turned-director Rob Zombie's 2003 debut film, House of 1000 Corpses. Conversely, I am among the majority in really liking it's brilliant 2005 sequel, The Devil's Rejects. And his fake trailer for Grindhouse (Werewolf Women of the SS*) is hilarious. I was dubious when I heard he was remaking John Carpenter's career-maker, Halloween but was pleasantly surprised that he actually did it some justice. Then came the remake's sequel, which proved disastrous. Still, I had hope for Zombie's latest film, The Lords of Salem. The trailer looked like another trippy, creepy 70's-referencing movie, much like his first two films but influenced this time by Hammer Studios. It won me over with it's weird and wild imagery:

The film's conceit is among the oldest of the genre's old chestnuts: "The Witch's Curse." What a great starting point. Screw history! Let's burn us some real witches in Salem. Naturally, the head witch curses the female descendants of the original colony and makes the descendant of the clergyman who condemned her bear the Devil's child. Trust me, this is not a spoiler and I'll tell you why. Despite hoping for an original and actually scary take on the trope, Zombie takes ideas from dozens of other (and much better) films about witches, the devil and the anti-Christ; throws them all up on the screen and hopes they stick. 1/3 of the way through the film's 101 increasingly absurd minutes, it starts to become apparent that they don't. Another 15 minutes in and the movie stops making any damned sense at all and it becomes an exercise in directorial indulgence for predictable, uninspired shocks; bizarre imagery and as many references to other works as he could fit in. 

There are some highly uneven performances from the cast of genre veterans, which includes Dee Wallace; Meg Foster; Bruce Davison; Patricia Quinn; Ken Foree and Maria Conchita Alonso with cameos from Michael Berryman and Sid Haig. An unrecognizable Foster comes off the worst as the curse-spewing witch, Margaret Morgan, out-hamming Al Pacino in Scarface and William Shatner in almost anything. Wallace, Quinn and character actress Judy Geeson seem to be at least having fun as crazy, elderly satanists while Davison and Alonso make an unlikely pairing work. Zombie's wife, (Sheri Moon Zombie) continues to be his muse and leading lady, though at almost 40, Moon Zombie's child-like performance is ridiculous (though only slightly less ridiculous than her awful dreadlocks and her eclectic, pop-art perfect apartment down the hall from Old Scratch). As for those amazing visuals in the trailer? Yes, they're in the movie. But so are dozens more that serve no purpose other than to perplex or disgust or cause some sort of reaction without any rhyme or reason. Note to Rob Zombie: No one wants to look at flabby, old naked ladies (not even flabby, old straight men); your wife still can't act and no matter how much you draw on imagery from Bosch; Fever Ray; Roman Polanski;  Ken Russell and David Cronenberg, The Devil should never look like a frog in a chicken suit as played by Chuy Bravo. My friend Michael and I (as well as the rest of the small crowd at the 8:10 show) laughed out loud at one too many things that were obviously not supposed to be funny, while often asking ourselves aloud: "What the...?"

I suppose it's good to know that Zombie knows his genre's history, but knowing the stories hardly makes him a story-teller. In the end, The Lords of Salem tries too hard to be too many things at the same time, hitting the audience over the head with heavy-handed imagery and totally uninspired references to far better works. While some critics are calling it 'daring' and 'ambitious,' I think The Lords of Salem is self-indulgent twaddle from someone who should know better. Bizarre for the sake of being bizarre is never interesting. Honestly, who actually decided to release this crap? I hope he or she gets fired for it. 0 Stars Out of Four.

Have a marathon at home, instead. Rent Rosemary's Baby; The Sentinel; The Devils; Lair of the White Worm; Naked Lunch; Altered States and The Fly and have an actual good time watching movies with the same themes and visuals, made by actually talented directors. What the hell happened to the guy who made *this?:

I'll never get the time back that I wasted on this POS, but Rob Zombie owes me $11.00, damnit! The Lords of Salem is rated 'R' for violence, nudity, male masturbation, gore and language. It should be rated 'P' for Pee-yew!

More, anon.
Prospero

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Bizzaro Forgetten Gems: "Liquid Sky"

While visiting my usual haunts, I came across a video teaser (via) for a group (or song - not sure which) called Sparkles and Wine. I have no idea exactly why, but watching it sent me right me right back to the weirdness that was the 1980's and Russian director Slava Tsukerman's 1982 film Liquid Sky. Performance artist and model Margaret (Anne Carlisle) is addicted to heroin and sex. She has so much sex that aliens, who live on the endorphins produced by heroin and orgasms, land on the roof of the building across from her apartment in order to consume her many partners' (including male model Jimmy - also played by Carlisle) endorphins. Much mayhem ensues.

I saw this movie with my friend Deb (the mother of my godson) at the Ritz* in Philadelphia. We were both very into the music, fashion and "F*ck You" attitudes of the anti-mainstream, just like every other 20-something of the time. Loaded with time-lapse images, outre dialog and loads of folks on the fringe, Liquid Sky was (and is) very much a product of it's time.

Carlisle and Tsukerman went on to a few more projects, though neither has been heard from in the U.S. since the 90's and few (if any) of the rest of the cast has gone on to do anything significant. It may not exactly be brilliant, but Liquid Sky is certainly indicative of the anti-establishment movements of the 50's, 60's and 70's, simply replacing Beatniks and Hippies with Punks and New Wavers.

"Delicious, delicious. Oh, how boring."

More, anon.
Prospero

*Also where I saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch for the first time.

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Lost Arts

Briefly mentioned in Jurassic Park, the Flea Circus is mostly a thing of the past. Dark Roasted Blend recently featured a fabulous post about this lost art which was sometimes real, but more often a bit chicanery.

Trained fleas would be put on display, along with a variety of tiny props, giving the illusion that they (the fleas) were willingly participating in any number of "Circus" acts. In all honesty, they were merely displaying typical flea behaviors, while tethered to miniature wagons, swings, chariots and other paraphernalia. And more often than not, there were no fleas at all; merely mechanical and/or magnetic devices controlled from afar. I like to think of it as "Micro-Theatre" and like the long lost Coney island attractions of the early 20th Century, sorely wish I could have seen them in their heyday. Now I'm all itchy...

Not to be outdone, the good folks over at MatchstickMarvels.com have posted a fascinating look at a matchstick sculpture of J.R.R. Tolkien's "City of Kings," Minas Tirith, built by someone who obviously has way too much time on his hands. Check out this picture below and then click the link to see the work in progress. Impressive, geeky and very cool.

Personally, I would never have the patience (or skill) to pull of something so massive and detailed. Though the Fantasy/Sci-fi geek in me has to admit to loving it a lot. Kudos to matchstick sculptor Patrick Acton, whose models include matchstick recreations of the USS Iowa; the Spaceshuttle Challenger; the U.S. Capitol and the Titanic, all of which can be seen at his Matchstick Museum in Gladbrook, Iowa. Acton's models can also be seen in Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museums around the world.

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