TASTE, TITS, TURDS AND TEDIUM
Programming an underground film festival is not necessarily as much fun as one might think. As with any festival that asks for submissions, one has to wade through an awful lot of bad films. With inexpensive digital technology, the number of bad films has gone up considerably. In the case of underground festivals, this problem is compounded by films which wallow in pervisity for the sake of peing perverse. How does one separate a film in which the characters become increasingly obsessed with excrement, from am award=winning Bill Plympton film like EAT which has a similar structure in that the characters increase their vomiting as the film goes on, or for that matter, Jean Luc Godard's celebrated tracking shot of cars pied up near the beginning of WEEKEND?
In past festivals, we've seen and shown films which push the b oundaries of taste - which, not so incidently, an underground film festival ought to do. We've shown television umages of the 9/ll World Trade Center planes in slow motion being watched by someone who is masturbating with an Americal flag over his penis, and another about pedophilia which ends with a cum shot on a chold's face. This year a former cohort in crime sent me a soft core porn film he made in Florida with some of the most breathtaking breasts this side of Russ Meyer, and there is another, deeply disturbing film which ends with a couple making love after which he sices off her breasts before slicing off his pwn penis. It's a darker version of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF.
In the case of the turd film, it hovers somewherebetween a film like PUCKING ZOMBIES, where the grossness is the point, and Plympton.s EAT. But it was way too long, and I did find it ultimetely boring. The screening group seemed to like it. Maybe it's a generational thing, and a friend of mine, not unknown for his liking of excremental humor, gave it his seal of approval. But I found it boring, unisteristingly animated, and, yes, no pun intended, tasteless. That I'm bothering to write about this at all probably is an indication that we ought to show it, just for the controversy, a;though I shudder to think about the audience that might attend.
In past festivals, we've seen and shown films which push the b oundaries of taste - which, not so incidently, an underground film festival ought to do. We've shown television umages of the 9/ll World Trade Center planes in slow motion being watched by someone who is masturbating with an Americal flag over his penis, and another about pedophilia which ends with a cum shot on a chold's face. This year a former cohort in crime sent me a soft core porn film he made in Florida with some of the most breathtaking breasts this side of Russ Meyer, and there is another, deeply disturbing film which ends with a couple making love after which he sices off her breasts before slicing off his pwn penis. It's a darker version of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF.
In the case of the turd film, it hovers somewherebetween a film like PUCKING ZOMBIES, where the grossness is the point, and Plympton.s EAT. But it was way too long, and I did find it ultimetely boring. The screening group seemed to like it. Maybe it's a generational thing, and a friend of mine, not unknown for his liking of excremental humor, gave it his seal of approval. But I found it boring, unisteristingly animated, and, yes, no pun intended, tasteless. That I'm bothering to write about this at all probably is an indication that we ought to show it, just for the controversy, a;though I shudder to think about the audience that might attend.
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