Movies I Been Watching!

Normally I'd give a individual review for the films I watch but those things barely get any hits so fuck'em.

Instead I am just going to give some mini reviews and a few thoughts...

Worm Eaters - I fell asleep a few minutes after I popped this sucker in the VHS player but then I woke up. Before I was fully conscious my head turned towards the TV and was startled by the site of half man / half worm people slithering across the screen. That alone was convencing enough for me to give this flick a second chance the next day. Very poorly made with a pitiful script the movie had just enough charm to keep me entertained and the eye candy wasn't bad either (ok one actress in particular). The lead actor (who also directed) is hilarious and the gross out scenes especially the ones with worms mixed with food will churn even the most iron belly fan of gross out flicks stomach.

Halloween 3: Season Of The Witch - Ok, not that rare of a movie. But a classic none the less, atleast in my opinion. Besides the score and producing duties handled by John Carpenter I really have no idea why this is associated with the Halloween franchise at all. This may get me hung from the cross but I think this is the best film in the franchise. The story is a little incomprehensible but I like the way they attempted to keep the movie entertaining rather then scary.

Hellmaster - This is just a deplorable film from start to finish. Features appearances from John Saxon and David Emge (Flyboy from Dawn Of The Dead dummies!) but they are pretty much useless. The movie has atleast 20 different endings and the charectors are all intertwinable. I think one was a cripple, another was a psychic that could read the minds of computers or something, who the hell knows. The movie isn't without a few bright spots, ok it has no bright spots but I did sort of like the part where the reporter is going into the basement and finds the freaks, the cross painted on the door was a nice touch. The bus these freaks ride around in is also pretty cool, although I am not sure who is driving the damn thing. The freaks themselves are a mixture of zombies, demons and hell they might as well just be a bunch of dead Leatherfaces possessed by the devil. Not very good and nearly unwatchable.

Tape Heads - Back when Tim Robbins and John Cusack were kind of cool they starred in this movie about a couple of slackers that dream of making music videos. The flick is highly entertaining, so much so that I am wondering why I never heard about it until I found it at a damn yard sale! This is a classic as far as I am concerned.

Interview With The Projectionist Part 2

If you missed out on Part 1 it is available in the archives of this blog.


John Miller: When I was in high school I used to occupy my time by hooking two VCR's together and bootlegging anime tapes for my friends. I'm curious what inspired you to become a bootlegger and the type of equipment you were using in the early days?

John Petrey: My inspiration came from different levels. First and foremost my earliest equipment used for bootlegging were two 4-Head JVC linear stereo VHS VCRs. I worked for Honeywell in those days and word got around that a guy in another department was selling some pornographic bootlegs and that his quality was terrible. I then rushed out and bought the two very expensive machines ($600 a piece back then) and immediately got me a membership at Todd Theatre's Video Rental. Copyguard didn't exist so that wasn't an issue and the picture was crystal clear! Needless to say I stole all of his business by renting the tapes for $4 and selling the copies for $25. It was easy to pocket $200 some nights, that on top of your paycheck. The other main reason was that I simply was an avid film lover and movies on videotape back then were anywhere from $29 to $79 on VHS. So copying was my only solution since I wanted a library and was getting married with a child in the picture and another on the way. Let's just call it prioritizing, ha!
Here's a funny one. The kids wanted to watch WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY so I put it in and we laid down to watch it. The kids and I dozed off while the film ran. WELL, I had recorded WW over an old porno tape SO imagine the shock I had after I had woke up with an angry wife shaking me pointing at the bumping and grinding on the TV! Thank goodness the kids were still asleep, ha ha!

JM: I always found it offensive to pay close to $9 a ticket for a movie then be forced to sit through a lecture about the harmful impact piracy has had on the film industry. Come to find out the statistics being used to make us feel guilty were completely bogus. What are your thoughts on this and as someone who has earned most of their living in the theater business how do you feel piracy has impacted the industry?

JP: Tackling what you said first about hearing the lecture after paying $9 for a ticket to me is a GREAT way to keep your customers at home. Why are they preaching to a PAYING audience to begin with? The Movie studios are just like every other profitable business. They cry poor mouth and then contradict themselves with James Cameron raking in over 2 billion dollars worldwide with AVATAR. My question is how much money do they need? I will say this however in their defense. Uploading screeners and CAM versions of films that have not even hit the theatre yet is flat out wrong, IF it's mainstream. Where uploading a Theatrical film IS justified (IMO) is when an import is uploaded that didn't get a large distributor and it would be impossible to see it here in the states any other way.These guys that download a film that's new (like Avatar) and sell them for $5 on a street corner are just asking to get busted. The irony here is how Piracy has sometimes HELPED the theatre industry is when someone buys a $5 crappy quality DVD or download the same version but it's enough to convince them that "HEY, THAT WAS A GREAT FILM. I WANT TO BUY THE DVD OR BLU-RAY WHEN IT COMES OUT!" Yeah, the studios say they lost that person's Box Office sale BUT they gained the disc sale! People DO NOT realize the revenue gained by the studios after a film has 'flopped' at the theatre. A movie may have done $22 million on opening weekend but then go on to do $50 million in rentals and sometimes over $100 million in sales!! But there are people in this world who are disabled, extremely poor or live 75 miles from a theatre that it would seem to me justified or not so important for an ocassional download.
It seems now days every street entrepreneur in America is hustling quality bootlegs of new releases. I was at a flea market and a kid had a booth set up handing out fliers, which I felt was a little bold. With the market so heavily flooded with product, why should I ever consider paying outrageous prices to go watch a crappy movie in a sterile theater ever again? This depends on the individual. I've seen people that are so fearful of the law and would never consider purchasing a bootleg disc where others wouldn't mind or not have any problems. But the reason you SHOULD consider seeing a film at the theatre depends on what kind of presentation you're looking for. When you say a 'crappy' movie for the ticket prices they want nowadays I would say no, you shoudn't have to or even want to. But if it's something you seem really interested in then MAYBE you could splurge on the ticket price and see it for the big screen, surround and all that. The theatre industry, mainly the studios are out of control. The ticket prices are what drives people to piracy in a lot of cases. I saw a movie last year in 3D and it was $12 a ticket. I didn't even receive a coupon for a reach around redeemable at the concession stand after getting f*cked at the Box Office. I wonder how the 'pirates' will survive in a digital world. Especially trying to CAM a 3D theatre screen. What are they going to do, pay $24 for the camera and themselves and set the glasses over the lense so the picture would come out, heh. I think from now on I will refer to the 'pirates' as 'Robin Hoods' since they rob the rich and give to the poor, ha ha!.

JM: I'd like to switch the conversation to collecting since I know you have an awesome collection. How many films do you think you own?

JP: I am right at 4,000 DVDs and 1,500 VHS. The disc numbers grow slower than they used to while the tape numbers have come to a halt, unless it's something extremely rare. It's a variety of films, TV Shows and Theatrical Trailers. Shamefully, I probably haven't watched 10% of my collection.

JM: If your anything like me I know you probably check every DVD rack, every box of old dusty yard sale VHS tapes etc. for potential discoveries. Where or were your some of your favorite spots to conduct your searches? Mine are Bananas (because they used to have amazing racks full of rare VHS!) and the Wagon Wheel Flea Market just because I know I'll always leave with something good.

JP: Having amassed so many I have actually slowed down to a crawl when it comes to getting out of the house to collect more titles. Bananas was my home away from home for a while! They eventually ran out of affordable, rare VHS tapes and I bought whatever LaserDiscs I wanted from them. I have not been to the Wagon Wheel in Years. The video store in Louisville Ky. called Wild and Woolly contributed quite nicely. If I do venture out for the rare hunt, I'll check Flea Markets, Pawns and last year I was buying the sellout at Video Exchange. 'The' tape to look for is "THE LITTLE MERMAID" and not just any copy. It has to be the first edition that says CLASSIC on it AND has.. ahem...a Penis head on top of one of the Gold castle towers in the artwork! Rumor was a disgruntled Disney employee drew it after a rift with the studio. I sold those first editions for $100 a piece. Imagaine, a VHS worth a hundred cash! Those were the days.

JM: What was the craziest discovery you have ever made, the one find that made you step back and say wow I can't believe I just found that?

JP: For years I looked for GALAXY EXPRESS, the American Version distributed by Corman that was a very short cut AND dubbed version of an Anime feature film titled GALAXY 999 which is twice as long. I started in the 80's since I used to rent it for the kids. It became a favorite of mine too. I wanted to purchase a copy and the years and search went on and on until I just stopped looking for it. Well, I was at a video store on Columbus here in Tampa that was selling out and I was looking at the tops of boxes and the Gold Embassy logo stood out. I plucked it out of the bin and gladly paid the man the $5 he was asking. Beautiful quality tape as well. How many times does that happen to us all? We kill ourselves looking for something and then it just drops in to our hands. BTW, if anyone ever finds or has a copy of "DEBBIE DOES DISHES", please let me know *wink*.

JM: Man, what happened to your website Cultrararevideos.com? It was the mom and pop video shop of the internet!

JP: The website became so popular that I became so burned out cranking out DVD orders and taking requests that I was getting near the end of my rope. THEN Warner Bros. leaned on me by saying I had infringed on 13 titles of theirs and sent me their form letter with the $250,000 fines and 5 years imprisonment. What a joke. What happened was I had checked out the titles on the gov. copyright website to check ownership. Warner snuck in and purchased the rights to 13 of my titles and then threatened me when they could have just requested that I remove the infringing titles. I just said the hell with it, emailed them that the site was being taken down and took a month off for vacation.

JM: Better yet, what inspired you to create Cultrararevideos.com?

JP: Cultrarare was created out of frustration from trying to find rare motion pictures. A bulk of these rare films are from the non politically correct era. Studios it seems from the early 90's on stopped putting out certain titles out from their catalogue that they deemed damaging to their reputation. For instance, many films you found releeased by the studios in the 80's on videotape never made it to DVD because minority groups or homosexuals were called a derogatory term. Why do you think I purchase a lot of titles on Warner Bros. Archive DVD? Most of these older films have so much non p.c. material that our thin skinned society would have a shit fit over if these titles were released in bulk on to DVDs today. At least they are releasing these titles to a select audience now. Probably found out the gold mine that was wasting away in their 'vaults'. Then there are the films that get lost because of music rights issues, etc. So I wanted to start a website that contained some of the rarest, hard to find movies that the studios were keeping from general population so to speak.

JM: You have been known to do some charity work to brighten the lives of sick children locally. Can you tell us about that?

JP: It was the fall of 2006 and Christmas was approaching. Well, anyone who has broken up after a marriage or been together with someone for 14 yrs and it ends, let's say it can take a while to get over especially if you've sworn to stay single since. I was depressed and wanted something to dig me out of my rut. Then I dug deep and thought 'who deserves to be really happy this season'? It hit me like a lightning bolt! The sick children at the All Childrens hospital in St. Petersburg! I then thought that since DVD creation was my strong point I would choose a theme park like Disney World, make the menus where these kids could experience rides they may never get to see. There are terminally ill kids of all ages that will see a fraction of your's or my lifetime and I wanted to let them experience what we see and hear. It's all about prioritizing. We as adults get mad when a trip to Disney or some other place gets moved around. A lot of these kids never get to see Disney. But it's not just Disney. I've since every Christmas picked a different theme park, Busch Gardens, Sea World, etc. So every Christmas I crank up the burners to produce 50 to 100 discs for the little angels.

JM: Can we expect a return to the Britton Cinema? Maybe after the current ownership folds we can sneak back in there and have a marathon of nothing but bigfoot exploitation films?

JP: Ha! I hope not. Just kidding. It would give me nothing but pleasure to sneak back in and run some late night Yeti material on the big screen. I think the ownership of Britton Plaza is missing out big time! There is empty office space upstairs above the BBQ place and a Bordello or mini-Mons with Joe involved attached to the theatre would make a lot of people happy, heh!

JM: What's next for John Petrey?

JP: After 8 car accidents it was time to file for disability so I am in the midst of 'temporary' retirement. It's a frustrating process but it's necessary when your spine is wrenched. I'll continue to collect discs at a slower pace and just enjoy the huge, private video store I've created. Who knew it would work out to my advantage since I'm home most of the time already at 46 yrs. of age!

Cult Film Review - Society!

The biggest thrill for me as a collector of cult cinema is the random discovery of an underrated gem. Sure there are the definitive must see's and the obscure rarities that exist mostly in legend, but then there is that other category of films that you just have to discover for yourself. A film such as Society fits snugly into that pleasent little grey area between exceeding expectations and not having any expectations to meet in the first place.

Our story revolves around Bill Whitney, a typical All-American rich kid with a bad case of paranoia. For some reason Bill can't shake the suspicion that he doesn't belong, like he is somehow different from the rest of his family and the members of his elite Malibu community.

For roughly an hour the film plays as sort of your typical late eighties teen comedy-drama hybrid. We follow Bill as he weaves through conspiracy theories, argues with his best friend and eventually falls in love with the local slut.

As the films innocent exterior slowly sheds into the finale, a much different story begins to emerge. It seems Bill had good reason for his paranoia after all. Turns out the wealthy really are different from the rest of us, according to this movie not only because they have more money, but because they are a whole nother species entirely!

I won't get into details but the last half hour is so gooooey and gross that it could make Peter Jackson blush(Pre-LOTR days). Personally I have never really seen anything like this and the film earns major points for creativity.

If anyone reading this has ever had a desire to watch an X-rated version of Saved By The Bell featuring incest committing wealthy slime monsters that feed off of the poor then this is something you should check out immediatly. Actually, everyone with a taste for the bizarre should find a copy Society and give it the once over.

Cult Film Review - Rolling Thunder!

After nearly a decade of being locked away as a P.O.W. in some Hanoi hell hole Major Charles Ranes has returned home to San Antonio to find that his whole life has moved on without him. His son, now almost a teenager doesn't remember him, the wife is out screwing around with the local goof troop law man and to top it off Major Ranes is stuck sleeping in the tool shed because he isn't capable of re-integrating back into society just yet.

The grateful town folk have scrounged up some gifts for the battered warrior, a shiny new red Cadillac and $2,500 worth of silver dollars, one for each day of his imprisonment. It is here that he begins to form a relationship with a military groupie that later becomes the Bonnie to his Clyde.

From here on out Rolling Thunder is hopped up on a bottle of crazy pills and bulldozes its way into history as one of the ultimate man films. After returning home Major Ranes is greeted by a group of outlaws hellbent on stealing the warheros $2,500 worth of silver dollars. These guys are bad to the bone, their acting superb and the violence they carry out --- remorseless.

Rolling Thunder isn't just your average revenge flick, it's better. A combination of Taxi-Driver meets No Country For Old Men with a grindhouse swag.

Tommy Lee Jones shows up in a supporting role as CPL. Johnny Vohden, a man who is just flat out bored with normal society. This is the most fun I have ever seen Tommy Lee Jones have on screen, whenever there is a gun in his hand with the possibility of a body being infront of the barrel Jones cracks this cold, demented smirk. The look of a man who is doing what he loves, killing.

Fans looking for a fast paced shoot'em up may be a little disappointed at the films slow pacing and the violence has little to no gore. Proving once again that the most effective violence is what takes place off screen.

Good Riddance Hollywood Video!

Many moons ago, my neighborhood had a small video store that was independently owned and operated in an old decrepit mall called Gateway, which I believe was actually one of the oldest in the United States. This store was called Pot O' Gold Video and I spent a good portion of my youth renting from this unique little spot that was full of old VHS titles, video games and other assorted goodies. During the pog boom of the mid-1990's it was even the destination for serious collectors to purchase slammers!

Despite the store's awesomeness and close-knit relationship to the community, it had outlived its usefulness at the mall and for whatever reason decided it needed a change of scenery up the road and ultimately folded shortly after. Part of the reason for the store's exodus from the mall may have had something to do with the mall being torn down and replaced by a bigger, kinder, gentler outdoor shopping plaza complete with an abundance of big name retailers, and most importantly, a shiny new video store that carried DVDs! A change in format a lot of independently-owned stores had trouble transitioning over to.

This new video store, complete with expensive snack racks, was called Hollywood Video. A corporate entity bigger and better than any mom and pop store in every way, shape and form. The community loved it. Sure, it cost more to rent from, and the minimum wage employees changed with the wind, but it was bright and shiny with pictures of celebrities on the ceiling.

And so it sat, for nearly a decade. Until technology caught up, the economy tanked, and consumers strapped for cash showed the same amount of mercy on their beloved store that the store itself showed on the little guys they bulldozed out of business years before, NONE.

So now, thanks to their competitors like Blockbuster with their fancy little DVD vending machines, and NetFlix with their order-as-you-go-with-no-late-fee policies, a place like Hollywood Video has become an inconvenient dinosaur. And good riddance. Their expensive per-night rentals, their idiotic late fees, the overpriced used DVDs they plop up for sale, and the crappy selection of mainly name brand titles deserve to be put into the ground. If I cared about movies as much as I claim to, I should have grown the balls to throw a molotov cocktail at this dump years ago. But I had a sneaky suspicion that economic Darwinism and the greed of consumers would eventually kill the mighty beast.

Anyways, glad to see this place dead in the dirt and I hope their investors lost a ton of money on this dump.

Cult Film Review - Allegro Non Troppo!

One of my co-workers, a former video store clerk, insisted that I borrow a few animation tapes he had stored away in some box at his house. The next day I was handed a white paper bag, presumably the very same that were used by his former employers during the 80's. Inside were two VHS bootlegs still sealed in the very same sleeves they were originally rented from. One was "Heavy Metal" the other "Allegro Non Troppo".

Weary that this was some sort of scheme to trick me into accidentally viewing a homemade porno flick, my fears were immediately put to rest by the smooth sounds of old VHS crackling and burning its way through my TV screen. Allegro Non Troppo was about to begin.

Intended as an Italian parody of Disney's Fantasia, the comparisons are hard to ignore. Especially when the films narrator himself initiates the comparison. At one point speaking to a Disney spokesperson by phone, our host shouts angrily, "inbred Californian"! Sparking a long running theme throughout that while impressive, western culture is destructive and cannot be trusted. At least that is how I took it.

Daring to go further then Disney ever could have imagined, the film intertwines the hard hitting social commentary of the animated shorts with the live action hi jinks of a dysfunctional orchestra. Themes ranging from our superficial standards of beauty to evolution and the long term effects of war are ferociously touched upon. Whenever you think the film is about to take itself to seriously, the orchestra shows up to lighten the mood.

When not animated the film is shot as sort of a pseudo documentary. What immediately struck me was how strikingly similar in terms of style and atmosphere this all felt to the Italian Mondo Cane films of the same era. Crude humor and skillful camera work stirred with an emotionally charged score and a pinch of over acting. I suppose it is an antiquated style, but I'd love to see it refurbished one day. What these films lack in terms of good taste they more then make up for with charm.

While Pixar fans may find themselves disappointed, I would argue that this film combines a little bit of everything that made the 1970's such a splendid time to witness the evolution of ballsy filmmaking. Allegro Non Troppo is worthy of induction into any fan's collection of cult titles.

Cult Film Review Raiders Of Atlantis!

I originally fell in love with Raiders Of Atlantis upon viewing its trailer a few years back on one of the 42nd Street Forever trailer compilation disc. The vivid colors, the wild music, post apocalyptic insanity and best of all director Ruggero Deodato. I had to have this film in possession lickity split or my head was going to explode into a million little pieces. Problem was where in the hell could I find it at? For a month I browsed every new and used movie retailer in the Tampa Bay area determined to make a discovery on my own without having to rely on the blandness of purchasing off of the internet. Sadly, I had to face reality. Fortunately though I managed to snag a copy on Amazon for dirt cheap that came in this sweet hard cover case.

I'm not going to get into much detail about what this film is about because honestly after watching it a few times I still really don't have a clue. Something about thieves, scientist, a nuclear submarine and the lost continent of Atlantis. The only point that is ever driven home is that the black guy has changed his name from Washington to Mohammed and really, that's all the viewer needs to know in order to enjoy this film. The rest is a melting pot of chaos that never really pulls together but is a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

The first thing that catches you about this film is the ridiculous theme song. A morbidly gothic disco track that sets the tone for the rest of the movie and fits perfectly from scene to scene. Deodato makes the most of every shot by making sure that nothing uninteresting gets in front of his lens. Each actor portrays their character to the extreme and every villain is a work of art. My favorite character is the lead bad guy, some dude that dresses in skanky black leather and wears a glass skull over his face. Also worth keeping an eye out for are the suped up cars and motorbikes the villains travel in, equipped with cool spikes on the wheels.

Although Raiders Of Atlantis is a complete mess of a movie I recommend this as must see TV to any and all fans of cheesy Italian cash-in flicks. Unlike most, this one delivers on the goods. The action flies fast and furious, the gore is cool and the images of destroyed buildings and various urban landscapes are some of the best you will ever see. Check it out.