Well I should get this out of the way upfront, there is no actual dynamite in this movie, or explosions of any literal kind. What this is is another wrestling documentary. It is not nearly as good as BEYOND THE MAT or my favorite, HITMAN HART: WRESTLING WITH SHADOWS, because it’s done mostly in that tv special kind of way with talking head interviews and Ken Burns style photo montages. (There is not all that much footage of the era they focus on.) But it’s a different and interesting angle on the wrestling topic. This one is all about lady wrestlers, told through interviews with a group of elderly women that used to do the deed back in the golden age.
Most of these women looked like b movie stars when they were young, but they were tough ladies with names like Gladys “Killem” Gillem, and as we know from the other wrestling documentaries, even if it’s fake, it’s a dangerous sport/artform/opera that destroys the body of pretty much anybody who does it long enough to be successful. (read the rest of this shit…)
This is a documentary about something I never heard of before, one of the first pay cable channels, one for movie buffs. This was in Los Angeles of course and started in the ’70s, before home video. The movie focuses on the obsession and tragic life of Jerry Harvey, who was the programmer for most of the time the channel existed.
(or DUFFY: A PRICK AND HIS DREAM)
This is not my favorite type of documentary, but it is an acceptable type. This is the type where the filmatism is not impressive at all, but it gets by completely on the fact that the subject itself is interesting. This is a movie about two sarcastic imposters who infiltrate the corporate world in order to make a point. They are activists, but not the frustrating kind who just make signs with awkward signs and chant “this is what democracy looks like” even if they’re being beaten by police for their political views (which I thought was NOT what democracy looks like, but I didn’t have a good way to chant that). These are the kind who are much more clever and ballsy.
Remember John Landis? John fucking Landis? The guy who directed THE BLUES BROTHERS and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON back to back? I was never much of an ANIMAL HOUSE man myself and I know most of the rest was a mixed bag but MAN, those two movies– that’s enough to call the guy a genius I think. At least, a former genius.
I’m sure alot of you out there have that Criterion edition of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. Yeah, me too. So you may remember a special feature on there showing Hunter S. Thompson filming his cameo for the movie, and that footage was actually an excerpt from this movie, BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER. The same movie I am now reviewing as we speak.
You might find this shocking. But I like Michael Moore. Fuck it man, I love Michael Moore. Not that I ever met the dude but I love his pictures and his TV shows. I think he is a great satirist who finds goofy ways to illustrate his points and make them sink in better (like the time on The Awful Truth when he hired an actual pimp to turn out the bitches and hoes of congress, or the time he handed out fluorescent orange wallets to black New Yorkers so they wouldn’t get shot by cops like Amadou Diallo did).
Did you ever see that skateboarding documentary DOGTOWN AND THE Z-BOYS? Well STOKED is like the depressing, fucked up David Fincher part 3 to that where all the main characters from part 2 (except the cat) get killed offscreen in the opening credits and Z-Boy shaves his head and gets infected and jumps into a pit of molten metal at the end and burns himself up. Except kind of worse. And metaphorical.
Well somebody loaned me a RUN RONNIE RUN screener and it happens to have THE REAL CANCUN on the same disc. Not sure what happened there but somehow accidentally I dropped the disc into the player and pressed a combination of buttons that caused it to play the movie and then also I watched the whole thing. It was weird.
Harry here – the idea that this film is reviewed the same day I review FINDING NEMO disturbs me. I don’t know why, but be afraid of Vern. He sees disturbing things. Perhaps, he is a disturbing thing.
