G-A-Y Day(s)- Curt McDowell- Thundercrack! (1975)- DVD9 (PAL Format)

Homeslice here, just chillaxin' with my homegirl...on G-A-Y Day(s)!

I bet you didn't know that today was the anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Well, around here at ForTheDishwasher we are up on all that historical shit, so we decided to celebrate the Stonewall anniversary by having G-A-Y Day(s)! Yay!

But homeslice...I didn't know that you were G-A-Y.

I'm not. Although I've always thought Ryan Seacrest looked handsome in a suit.

That's pretty fucking G-A-Y, homeslice.

You think? Oh well, things could be worse. Here's Thundercrack to kick off G-A-Y Day(s). Enjoy...and quit picking the cucumber out of your salad. There's starving children in Biafra!




From Steven Puchalski at Shock Cinema:

If you're at all familiar with underground cinema, than you've probably heard tales about this flick for years. But actually seeing the damned thing is a different matter entirely. Crass, sick and hilarious, this no-budget b&w feature is filled with the essence of pure, undiluted cinematic derangement. Like the earliest works of John Waters, it revels in taboo-shattering shocks and an undying love for Hollywood kitsch. Glorious overwritten by George Kuchar, and directed by the late Curt McDowell (who was one of Kuchar's first students), it's a torrent of comically-lit cliches, heated to the point of lurid parody.

The time: A dark and stormy night. The setting: An old, secluded mansion -- the home of the terrifically obscene Mrs. Gert Hammond (Marion Eaton), who staggers about the place with heavy, mismatched eyebrows and a vomit-caked wig. And as the night progresses, more and more visitors arrive at her doorstep, stranded by the inclement weather. One guy has a fear of ladies' girdles, another is the Christian wife of a country western singer, a few more were in a car wreck, and George Kuchar himself shows up (and steals the show) while transporting circus animals.




The characters then proceed to fight, fuck and spout pages and pages of dialogue, while Marion plays voyeur through secret peepholes -- watching the males play with vacuum-powered penis enlargers as she masturbates with a huge cucumber. A smorgasbord of 42nd Street goodies are left out for the guests' disposal (the predictable array of blow-up dolls, jellies, dildos, et cetera), and they're certainly tested out thoroughly.

Everyone has dark, nasty secrets. Everyone has weaknesses which are eventually exposed. And all the men have hairy asses (which we get in WAY-too-loving close-up). Of course, the best is yet to come, when the viewer is introduced to Marion's dead hubbie, who she had pickled in jars after he was killed by locusts; and her son, who's kept locked in the basement with Elephantitis of the balls. Plus, since the filmmakers have every other sexual combo on display, why not toss in a horny gorilla with a taste for young men, and Kuchar's indescribably demented story of having sex with an ape?!...




With a running time of over two hours, the film may sound like a task, but it never slows down and NEVER shuts up, not even for the sex scenes. Never one to waste film stock, Kuchar has the characters rambling incessantly, even in the middle of a blow job. This is a full-blown, near-perfect parody which cobbles together a cast of Irwin Allenesque characters, and then steeps them in hardcore sex and disturbing imagery, until it becomes a twisted, OLD DARK HOUSE-style soap opera.

The performers are all appropriately hyperactive, with Kuchar bringing power (and flying spittle) to every word. But the flick's true joy lies in George's gift for scriptwriting. The movie's packed with long, lush monologues, wall-to-wall revelations, plus dialogue so dense (and often drowned out by the score) that it's impossible to ingest in only one sitting. But is it erotic, you wonder? Not to the unimaginative mainstream viewer, but I certainly found something cruelly, crudely seductive in its fondness for fetish and secret pleasures. Without question, THUNDERCRACK! is one of the great underground sleaze epics, and a touchstone for all independent filmmakers to come!




Technical Information:

Title: Thundercrack!
Year: 1975
Country: USA
Director: Curt McDowell

Source: DVD9 Retail
DVD Format: PAL
Container: .iso + mds
Size: 6.98 GB
Length: 2:00:28
Programs used: ImgBurn

Resolution: 720x576
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Video: MPEG2 @ ~6200 kb/s
Frame Rate: 25 fps

Audio 1: English- Dolby AC3 Stereo @ 192 kb/s
Audio 2: Russian Overdub- Dolby AC3 Stereo @ 192 kb/s
Subtitles: Norsk, Dansk, Suomi

Menu: Yes
Video: Untouched

DVD Extras:
- Jack Stevenson Essay
- Slideshow
- Trailershow




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Thundercrack! Megaupload Links

Jennifer M. Kroot- It Came from Kuchar (2009)- DVD9 (NTSC Format)

A year ago, I had no idea who the Kuchar brothers were. Then leclisse and I stumbled across this poster tacked up outside a movie theatre in San Francisco and it was clear from the expressions on the young Kuchars' faces, and the sign proclaiming "pre-screening talk with the director and George Kuchar" that we had to see it.

We've posted some Kuchar films in the past, and we will undoubtedly post more as we find them, but here's the film that (for us) started it all.




From A.O. Scott at the New York Times:

George and Mike Kuchar, twin brothers from the Bronx, are among the most prolific and inventive American filmmakers of the past half-century, and perhaps the most eccentric. Avid moviegoers as children, they began making 8 millimeter epics, and after graduating from the High School of Industrial Arts in New York they gravitated toward the thriving underground film scene. Shooting cheaply, devising homemade special effects and casting friends and acquaintances, the Kuchars produced — sometimes in collaboration, sometimes apart — touchstones of the 1960s cinematic avant-garde like “Corruption of the Damned,” “Sins of the Fleshapoids” and “Hold Me While I’m Naked.”

Jennifer M. Kroot’s documentary “It Came From Kuchar” provides generous clips of these and later films, enough to give a flavor of the brothers’ blend of camp, melodrama, horror, psychological exploration and sexual provocation. (And also at least a superficial sense of the differences between them.) This sampling is fleshed out by interviews with George and Mike Kuchar themselves, and also with the usual talking-head parade of friends, colleagues, critics and students.




The portrait that emerges is affectionate and fascinating. The brothers themselves are un-self-consciously talkative, unassumingly odd and frequently very funny. “Did your parents get along?” George is asked. “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” he replies.

“It Came From Kuchar” opens Friday at the Anthology Film Archives, and will run this weekend alongside a multipart selection of the Kuchars’ 8 millimeter shorts. Ms. Kroot’s film, while more conventional in tone and structure than anything her subjects have ever done, is nonetheless a valuable and intelligent introduction and tribute to their anarchic, uncompromising and absolutely peculiar genius.




Technical Information:

Title: It Came from Kuchar
Year: 2009
Country: USA
Director: Jennifer M. Kroot

Source: DVD9 Retail
DVD Format: NTSC
Container: .iso + mds
Size: 7.22 GB
Length: 1:26:21
Programs used: AnyDVD, ImgBurn

Resolution: 720x480
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Video: MPEG2 @ ~6800 kb/s
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps

Audio 1: English- Dolby AC3 Stereo @ 192 kb/s
Audio 2: English Commentary- Dolby AC3 Stereo @ 192 kb/s
Subtitles: None

Menu: Yes
Video: Untouched

DVD Extras:
- Audio Commentary with George and Mike Kuchar and Director Jennifer Kroot
- Deleted/Extended Scenes
- Theatrical Trailer
- It Came From You! (short film competition winners)




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It Came from Kuchar Megaupload Links

Mike Kuchar- The Secret of Wendel Samson (1966)- DVD Rip (480p-x264)

What is the secret of Wendel Samson? And why is he trapped inside a giant spider web? Find out in Mike Kuchar's 1966 follow-up to his classic, Sins of the Fleshapoids. Starker and more sombre than Fleshapoids, The Secret of Wendel Samson nevertheless has the unmistakable melodrama of a Kuchar film and a musical score by the extremely talented and lovely Bob Cowan.




Excerpt from an interview with Stop Smiling:

SS: I was really impressed by The Secret of Wendel Samson (1966) and how touching that portrait of conflicting sexual feelings and guilt is. What inspired this film?

MK: There was a New American Cinema show at one of these theaters, a mixed program of different filmmakers. After the program ended, we would bump into each other in the lobby. Red Grooms [the versatile pop/mixed-media artist] said, 'I really like your picture, here's my telephone number.' I said, 'I like your picture, too. Maybe in the near future we can work on something together.' It was a start. I wanted to do something fantastical-looking, image-wise, but I had no idea of a plot. So I said, 'Well, I'll make a spider web, hang him in a spider web. Why not, that'll take two hours or something.' So I shot that, but then I started thinking it could be a metaphor. It kind of moved on from that. You see, sometimes I just sort of sit down and start somewhere, you just start writing and thinking and devising situations. I liked the way he looked photographically, so I said, 'You have nice orange hair, grow a beard. Let's take up some more of the orange.'




It's strange, he's not at all like [Wendell Samson] in real life, he's like a big silly kid, Red Grooms. Yet in the picture, it's strange, he took on, he walks like me, and he doesn't in real life. You know, creation, it's a psychic kind of thing, like a medium mystic. You just sort of go along in a trance, because something's trying to express itself. As long as I start somewhere, I'm actually opening a door. It's like talking to a psychiatrist; you open your subconscious. Things flow out, but it's not an overt, conscious thing. As you get into it more and more, you see how to maybe put the pieces together and come to a solution. But also, with the flashy gun malls at the end, the shooting gallery, I'm thinking that I'm making a movie, too.




SS: You mention on the DVD commentary being inspired by Orson Welles's film version of Kafka's The Trial. Were the psychodrama films of Deren, Brakhage, and Anger, and the way their films work out of sexual preoccupations in dreamlike atmospheres, were those also an influence?

MK: Especially Kenneth Anger, especially the more exotic ones. Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome. I really admired that picture. The exotic sensuality I found inspiring.

They opened doors and possibilities. It was like a sharing, in a way, seeing other people's pictures. Or else it energizes you. John Waters, the first time I met him at a party, he said Sins of the Fleshapoids kind of energized him to complete Pink Flamingoes. Something that energizes you or gives you inspiration, it gives you impetus to continue what you're doing.




Technical Information:

Title: The Secret of Wendel Samson
Year: 1966
Country: USA
Director: Mike Kuchar

Source: DVD5 Retail
Video Codec: 480p-x264
Container: .mkv
Size: 1.03 GB
Length: 0:33:24
Programs used: Womble 5.0, JoinVobFiles, RipBot, DVD Audio Extractor, MKVMerge

Resolution: 720x480
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Video: MPEG 4 H264 @ 3896 kb/s
Frame Rate: 29.97

Audio 1: Dolby AC3 English @ 192 kb/s
Audio 2: Director's commentary- Dolby AC3 English @ 192 kb/s
Subtitles: No




(Our prefered x264 player is Media Player Classic.)


Wendel Samson Megaupload Link

This is also included as a bonus feature on the Sins of the Fleshapoids DVD

Mike Kuchar- The Craven Sluck (1967)- DVD Rip (480p-x264)

The Craven Sluck tells a sordid tale of unhappy marriages and infidelity and stars Kuchar fan favourites Bob Cowan (in drag), Florain Connors (in way way too much make-up) and, of course, George Kuchar (with a Mod hair-do that puts Roger Daltrey to shame). Though it may be unclear what exactly a 'sluck' is, this movie is worth a watch. I promised more Kuchar and here it is in all its campy, soap-operatic glory!




Excerpt from an interview with Stop Smiling:

SS: The Craven Sluck (1967), with its trashy send-up of domestic melodrama, seems so ahead of its time from this vantage point (it could easily be a proto-John Waters film). You didn't like this film after it was made and suppressed it from distribution for a number of years. What are your feelings toward it now?

MK: I like the picture, I accept it. It was unfair for me to develop a complex about it. But sometimes that happens. You make your own pictures, and sometimes you have a complete breakdown. Because you put a lot of energy into it and then you're depleted. You're looking at it so many times, and sometimes you become allergic to yourself. You actually become allergic. It's a strange reaction and it can be dangerous. There's only been a very few films that I said, 'Nah.'

SS: What are the other ones?

MK: I've destroyed them.




SS: Really?

MK: Yeah. I take them completely out of circulation. But they were minor, not major things. You see, there's morally, a film can fail and all, but what it does, it's not contemptible. It's more like a fall. They're like expressions, and when they fail it's bad in that morally you've failed the idea or the concept. The people who watch it would perhaps feel it. That happens very, very rarely.

I also say you can be your film's worst enemy. Because you've seen it so much but you have to work on it in all these stages. When I work on a picture I do the entire thing myself. I do the lighting, the cutting,you get so involved that there comes a point where you can build a complex. Also, when you finish a picture you're very vulnerable. Sometimes when you invite somebody that maybe you shouldn't invite over to a screening and they say a negative remark, it can be extremely devastating. And unfairly so. What happens is you've opened yourself and given yourself and then something like that can all of a sudden change you because you've gotten to the point where you're getting allergic to yourself, you're beginning to self-hate. With The Craven Sluck it might have been that.

Maybe there's another part of me that's a perfectionist. I was very free-wheeling with The Craven Sluck. I was not meticulous with my set-ups and exposure readings. My perfectionist side said, 'Ugh, I'm too sloppy. Maybe this picture's too off the wall.' Eventually I think that wound up being a plus for that picture! [Laughs].




Technical Information:

Title: The Craven Sluck
Year: 1967
Country: USA
Director: Mike Kuchar

Source: DVD9 Retail
Video Codec: 480p-x264
Container: .mkv
Size: 669 MB
Length: 0:20:53
Programs used: Womble 5.0, JoinVobFiles, RipBot, DVD Audio Extractor, MKVMerge

Resolution: 720x480
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Video: MPEG 4 H264 @ 4800 kb/s
Frame Rate: 23.97

Audio 1: Dolby AC3 English @ 192 kb/s
Audio 2: Director's commentary- Dolby AC3 English @ 192 kb/s
Subtitles: No




(Our prefered x264 player is Media Player Classic.)


Craven Sluck Megaupload Link

This is also included as a bonus feature on the Sins of the Fleshapoids DVD