Hey folks, Harry here – this has been an incredibly emotion and hard month – and as soon as this goes up, I’ll start breaking down the first preview of the New Year. But this isn’t a full on rundown. You’ll notice a lot missing this month. The OBVIOUS ones are missing. The big mainstream and obvious titles. There’s a lot of them. But frankly – you walk into ANY store in the country and there they are – up front and in your face. You either like those films and are pre-sold on those titles. I mean, do you really need me to push the extended SIN CITY or SERENITY or CLONE WARS 2 or CINDERELLA MAN or 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN or THE SIMPSONS SEASON SEVEN or GALACTICA Season 2 – you know what I’m saying? This month – due to just needing to save time, I needed to cut it down, so I cut those out. So what you have here are the nitty gritty diamonds in the heap pressed discs. The ones you might not know came out or are worth checking out. January will be the full enchilada – but for now – this is what I’ve got for ya…

Dec 6, 2005

THE PINKY VIOLENCE COLLECTION - ( CRIMINAL WOMAN: KILLING MELODY / TERRIFYING GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL: LYNCH LAW CLASSROOM / GIRL BOSS GUERILLA / DELINQUENT GIRL BOSS: WORTHLESS TO CONFESS )

This was the discovery of the month for me. It’s a series of classic era Japanese Female Exploitation flicks from the classic era of the early seventies. In addition to the 4 films – there’s a soundtrack CD with the absolutely wonderful music from these flicks. I have to say – I was thrilled by the films for their badassness. Of course hot Japanese women are always a plus – but – take that TERRIFYING GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL: LYNCH LAW CLASSROOM – the opening of that film is fucking amazing. The scene is absolutely burned into my mind – and when it was over… I picked up my jaw and wondered what the hell else was going to come next. And it just got more exploitive and more fun. Same goes for the other 3 – they each opened with cool scenes and had really fun exploitive work. Now TGHS: LLC is the very best of the 4 films in my opinion – but the others compare to the best of the Jack Hill works of exploitation – only with hot Japanese gals! These girls kick an immense amount of ass – and take a lot too.

SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER – Criterion Collection

AAAAHHHH! About time Criterion gave this Truffaut film their treatment. First off – it’s a great transfer. Now – if you know the film, you probably have already picked it up. If you are not familiar – well – this is Truffaut’s great run at the world of noir, but the great thing about Truffaut is he knew the genre inside and out and in this, he turns the genre on it’s ear and the results are absolutely fantastic. It’s like he’d seen every Noir ever made and then made the one that adhered to a lot of the rules – but then did things that none of those other films quite did. Absolutely love this film.

WALT DISNEY TREASURES – DISNEY RARITIES – CELEBRATED SHORTS, 1920s-1960s

This is pure Gold! First – you get to see the EXTREMELY RARE first films that made DISNEY famous. The ALICE silent animated films. Then there’s classics like FERDINAND THE BULL, which is possibly my fave animated work of Disney’s. And so many others. Here. This is what you get:

* Alice's Wonderland
* Ben and Me_
* Alice Gets in Dutch
* Football, Now and Then_
* Alice's Wild West Show
* Toot, Whistle, Plunk & Boom_
* Alice in the Jungle
* Pigs Is Pigs_
* Alice's Egg Plant
* Social Lion_
* Alice's Mysterious Mystery
* A Cowboy Needs a Horse_
* Alice the Whaler
* Hooked Bear_
* Ferdinand the Bull
* In the Bag_
* Chicken Little
* Jack and Old Mac_
* The Pelican and the Snipe
* The Story of Anyburg, U.S.A._
* The Truth about Mother Goose
* The Brave Engineer_
* Paul Bunyan
* Morris, the Midget Moose_
* Noah's Ark
* Lambert, the Sheepish Lion_
* Goliath II
* The Little House_
* The Saga of Windwagon Smith
* Adventures in Music: Melody_
* A Symposium on Popular Songs

Like I said – it’s just fantastic. You get intros by Maltin and little docs about the early years and much much more. Fantastic Collection!

WALT DISNEY TREASURES – THE CHRONOLOGICAL DONALD, VOLUME TWO (1942-1946)

Ok – I trust you got Volume one. And I hope you got the Wartime Disney set. Because this – is absolutely a necessity for all us Donald Duck freaks. For you BNAT 7ers – You got your Duck Call – and I know you miss quacking along with DER FUEHRER’S FACE – well it’s on here. Along with a great deal others. This set is loaded with the WWII era Donald Duck cartoons. These are absolutely fantastic. Now – if you’re a nephews freak – this isn’t the set for ya – as these are usually solo Donald endeavors with occasional Daisy, Pluto, Goofy or Pete cameos. However, one of my faves is FRANK DUCK BRINGS ‘EM BACK ALIVE – essentially it’s PORKY IN WACKYLAND – but with Donald hunting Goofy. Fucking Awesome! Tremendously imaginative and hilarious!

Dec 13, 2005

BIG BAD MAMA – Special Edition

Hands down one of the greatest exploitation films ever made. With an Angie Dickinson so hot she’d peel the paint from the surface of a nuclear missile before it went… BANG! She’s just amazing. Add to that an absolutely fantastic turn by not just Tom Skerritt, but William Shatner ta boot! Fucking amazing film. Now this has been out for a while – but they’ve got a really great Retrospect and commentaries. This is essential exploitation.

DEATH RACE 2000 – SPECIAL EDITION

This is another of the essential works of Exploitation. Brilliant Bartel – this and MOTEL HELL are just two of my favorite flicks. DEATH RACE 2000, it just flies. Everybody in the film is sweating cool. First off – David Carradine, Quentin reminded the world that David is the man, but for those that loved KUNG FU – when they hit the drive-ins and saw his Frankenstein – thoughts of Karloff and Lee dropped to the curb, cuz while Aurora might’ve given Frank a hotrod, that hot rod isn’t worth the hubcaps on Carradine’s car. Where’s that fucking toy? In fact – the greatest slot car set of all time would be the cars from this film with little magnetic people to rundown on a track. God that’d rule – and everytime you hit one – the scoreboard attached would light up. Hell, they made WARRIORS toys – I can dream. Stallone is absolutely hilarious, in this, his best comedic performance to date. The Looking Back extra is a blast – and this is one of those films that’s fantastic for a group of friends to get in the mood for GRAND THEFT AUTO playing.

POST APOCALYPTIC TRIPLE FEATURE ( 2019 – AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK / 1990 – BRONX WARRIORS / THE NEW BARBARIANS )

You’ve got to love this, the best damn Italian Post Apocalyptic Trilogy of all time. Heh, now, I know what you’re thinking – but these were churned out by Enzo G Castellari and Sergio Martino – basically a pair of badasses in the Italian Cinema Machine. Making some of the coolest westerns, sword & sandals, war and Giallo films. These were a pair of THE men that made the world of Italian ‘sploitation the wonderful world it was – and this was their run at the post-MAD MAX and ROAD WARRIOR world of Post Apocalyptic cinema. We featured Enzo G Castellari’s 1990: THE BRONX WARRIORS at this year’s retrospect at FANTASTIC FEST – and it was awesome.

Dec 20th, 2005

ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER

Ok – if you give to shakes of a rat’s ass about film, you have either seen MUNICH or are about to see MUNICH. Now, you get a glimpse about what happened that terrible day all those years ago. And this film tells that day’s sad tale better than any piece of film has told a single day’s tale before. The doc is an absolute masterpiece in terms of doc filmmaking. And will tell you exactly why all those folks in MUNICH were as pissed as they were.

Dec 27th, 2005

CAGED HEAT

For some, the best film and the first time they heard of Jonathan Demme, it was SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. For others it was MELVIN AND HOWARD or SOMETHING WILD or MARRIED TO THE MOB and still others it was PHILADELPHIA. And one of those films, one of them is your favorite Jonathan Demme film. That is, unless you’ve seen CAGED HEAT. In the genre of Women In Prison flicks there are many films – and several are a fucking blast… but then there’s CAGED HEAT and it’s the fucking Death Star blasting every planet those films rule upon. This thing is just classic! And Demme hit it first film out of the gate for Roger Corman.

JACKSON COUNTY JAIL

I first saw this film in 35mm with a Quentin Tarantino introduction that was absolutely sizzling. Now – if you loved Yvette Mimieux in George Pal’s THE TIME MACHINE – where she’s one of the finest genre hotties in the history of SciFi – where here she is a decade older and she got that worn beauty that’s hungry for something alive, yet scared from the experience of pain. She’s amazing in the film. And Tommy Lee Jones – WHOA! Just amazing. Watching this film – it’ll fuck with you. It is a very powerful film and next to ROLLING THUNDER – it’s my fave Tommy flick of the seventies.

THE WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL

Ok – this is the hard sale of the lot. A fucking bird flick. I know. I thought the same damn thing when the DVD plopped into my lap. Parrots in San Francisco. Big Whup. You know how when you watched MARCH OF THE PENGUINS, that moment where suddenly they ceased being silly waddling flightless Chilly Willys and became characters. Well believe it or not, these damn parrots, they suddenly became characters filled with personality – and this wild personality in the trees and powerlines of San Francisco – so far from the rainforests and jungles they’d ordinarily call home. It really is an amazing film.