All It Has To Be

So, let me tell you about what I have been doing lately that has been bringing me much joy.

Many, many years ago, I was a foot messenger. That was back in the mid 1990s when I was young and ripe and moist and was still making my way through the world, blissfully unaware of the greatness within me. Being a foot messenger was really cool, I got to go to tons of places taht I would never have thought of visiting otherwise. It was totally cool to walk through these new neighborhoods and coming across places I never would have spotted.

My favorite street is still ST.Mark's place in the East Village right next to Tompkins Square Park. It was there that I came across Kim's Video.

I have allready stated my film preferences in an earlier blog, and I even discussed very briefly the types of films that i enjoyed. But there was another genre of film that I truly enjoyed as a kid, and those were the campy, weird b movies that played in Grindhouse theaters in Times Square (the real Times Square, not that sanitized crap that the tourists have infested now) Kim's Video was and still is the place where you go to find these amazing B movie treasures (or should i say Z movies considering some of the titles I was exposed to)

oh, what a joy. Even when I didnt have the money to buy anything, It was still a pleasure to walk into Kim's Video, go up to the second floor and lose myself within a universe of films that did not take themselves seriously, or where to graphic and mind blowing insane to be released by any mainstream studio.

BANNED IN 30 C0UNTRIES!! THE FILM TOO VIOLENT TO BE RATED!! DR BUTCHER MD!! (HE MAKES HOUSECALLS) The cover blurbs exploded across the dvd and vhs covers in a parade of capital letters and garish colors!! Films of every genre were represented, Blackexplotation, horror, action, western, sex, films from every corner of the globe sat side by side with the main stream stuff you could have picked up at Blockbuster or Best Buy, but here it was so much cooler..

How could you be in the vicinity of a movie called Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and not pick up the damn box just to see what the hell it was??

Sadommania
Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry
The Flesh Eaters
I Spit on Your Grave
Make Them Die Slowly
Cop Killers
Class of 1984
Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill!!

Thousands upon thousands of Grindhouse treasures just sitting there awaiting to be ingested by that part of my mental universe that could easily accomodate such madness, depravity (and really terrible acting)

Flying Guillotine
Grizzly
The Car
Maniac
New York Ripper
Slaughter's Big Rip Off
Zombie2
I Drink your Blood, I Eat your Skin

How the hell can you say no to films like that??

Now granted, these were not academy award winners by any means. these are not the films you sit your family down with a bucket of popcorn and say "We're gonna have a warm, wholesome family film night tonight!!"

No, sir, these films are for those of us who understood that not every film had to be art, or to tell a message. these films were for when you wanted to violently slaughter a few million brain cells (that sounds like a Grindhouse title by itself, doesnt it?)

the actor's knew what they were getting into when the participated in them, the writers knew what they were doing when they wrote it, and the directors knew what they were creating when they directed it. And I know what I am getting into whenever I wanna see something called The Bronx Warriors 1999.

I know where to go when I want to see something that has emotional weight. I know where to go when I want to be mentally stimulated. When I walk into Kim's video I am looking for something fun and cheesy.

I have been to Kim's video twice in the last three weeks. I have purchased (in no particular order) Lucio Fulci's The Beyond, The Copkillers, Don't Go in the House, Tenement (aka, Slaughter in the South Bronx) and for no reason, The Candy Tangerine Man (which features some of the worst camera work and lighting I have ever seen in a film) And you know what? I knew these movies were crap when I brought them, and I knew what I was going to be exposed to everytime I popped one of them in there.

and that's really the bottom line when I buy them. They dont all have to be epic achivements in cinema, Any film that i pop into the dvd player doesnt have to be a award winner. All it has to be is fun.