THE MOVIES OF MY LIFE PHASE ONE: Candidates for 1974

Welcome to 1974, my first year as a resident of Queens County--although, since the apartment we’ve moved into is literally three blocks from the Brooklyn/Queens border, I am still in touch with my old neighborhood.  I’m going to PS 60--but because I am a couple blocks shy of being eligible for the bus, I have to walk some eight blocks to get there.  This may be the year they tried to put me on sedatives for my Explosive Mood Disorder (still just being referred to as ‘schizophrenia’) that caused me to sleep through many of my classes.

Anyway, here are you candidates for my tenth year of life:

THE GROOVE TUBE

There was a brief fad that lasted maybe four years for Sketch Comedy Movies--why, I have no idea.  Most everyone knows John Landis/ZAZ’ Kentucky Fried Movie, but three years before that there was this film written and directed by Ken Shapiro and featuring Richard Belzer (one of my favorite comedians) and Chevy Chase.  I know very little about this film other than seeing its gorilla mascot in the ads, knowing its reputation for being a bit smutty, and imagining it looks real cheap.  But this is a subgenre that fascinates me (you know, like the ‘Psycho-Biddy’ films) and I want to see more examples of this.

THE CARS THAT ATE PARIS

I have talked elsewhere about my love for Ozploitation Cinema, and how car-centric it could be.  This is a film about an Australian town named Paris that causes car accidents as a way of stimulating its economy.  All I remember of it was seeing the crazy posters featuring Volkswagen Bugs with spikes all over them.  But this was the second film directed by one Peter Weir, who will go on to direct such notable films as The Last Wave, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Year of Living Dangerously, The Truman Show and others.  It always amuses me when directors that have impressive CVs starts out by making such tawdry exploitation material, so I’m curious....

And speaking of directors who start out by making crap....

SEIZURE

This was the directorial debut of one Oliver Stone, a low-budget Canuckploitation horror flick featuring Jonathan Frid being terrorized by three of his literary characters brought to life--one played by the divine two-time Bond Girl Martine Bestwick and another played by Hervé Villechaize.  While Stone will own up to making it (unlike, let’s say Alan Rudolph, one of my favorite directors who refuses to acknowledge he made Barn of The Naked Dead), he is obviously embarrassed by it, and that makes me happy.  I do not like Stone, and I like to think that bringing this film up and discussing it will give him a twinge of agita late at night...

CHINATOWN

This is one of the more notable films on my List of Shame, which should be surprising to those of you familiar with my podcasting efforts given I have used variations of the line ‘It’s Chinatown, Jake.  It’s Chinatown’ as a punch line to some of my jokes.  It should be even more surprising when you take into account that I friggin’ bought the damn thing on DVD, have watched the Robert Towne interview that’s a special feature but never watched the film.

It is not the most notable film on my List of Shame.  No, I will not tell you what it is.

I think everyone knows what this film is about, who stars in it, the problematic director, and all that jazz.  The fact is, I’m hoping to use this project to finally Get Off My Ass and Watch This Thing.

There you go.  You’ll have one week starting tomorrow, March 22nd, to head over to my Twitter Page and vote for you choice of which film I will view and comment on.  Expect my thoughts on the winner of the 1973 poll, Fantastic Planet, in the next few days.  Have fun!

Hey!  Wanna Help Support This Blog And Get Cool Goodies In Return?  Then head on over to The Domicile of Dread Patreon Page and join me on my crusade to Make The World Stranger.  For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get new fiction and exclusive essays--like the review of Captain Marvel I posted this week.  Invest a bit more, and get other stuff including advance access to my new television podcast Thomas Deja’s Watching, the Patreon Exclusive Podcast Cinematic Mirage, movie commentaries...and even the chance to assign me articles that’ll be published on this very blog!