UN CHIEN ANDALOU - Louis Bunuel and Salvador Dali (1929); DVD
Surreal/Art/Cult, DVD, Used
Un Chien Andalou(1929) was an artful collaboration between two surrealistic masters in Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. These two artists were part of a surrealism movement in Spain that influenced the country's art. Bunuel and Dali had a fruitful but short film partnership that ended once each wanted to go their separate ways. After the early 1930s these talented artists would never work with each other again. For Un Chien Andalou(1929), Bunuel and Dali created images of eccentric force based on their day and night dreams. Surrealism was very popular in early 20th Century art especially during the 1920s. The surrealist movement took shape in places like France and Spain where it flourished for a period of time before falling apart in 1930s. Un Chien Andalou(1929) is a good example of what made the surrealist movement tick. Salvador Dali designs images with social and symbolic meanings. Bunuel's skills as a surrealist as first shown here would become more abstract once he started mastering his craft. Plotless short film that is basically a series of images. Un Chien Andalou(1929) is an 'Absolute Film' which relies on abstract imagery in an attempt to unnerve the viewer. In Bunuel's early films, imagery took precedent over things like dialogue and plot. In the history of cinema its a rarity especially since the beginning of the sound era for pure imagery to be the sole existence in a motion picture. Un Chien Andalou(1929) contains images that ranges from the erotic, frightening, funny, strange, and symbolic.
DER TODESKING - Jorg Buttgereit (1990); DVD
Graphic Horror/Cult/Underground DVD, New
Cult Epics presents the third release in the series Corpse Fucking Art; Jorg Buttgereit’s powerful masterpiece Der Todesking (aka The Death King), made in between Nekromantik (1987) and Nekromantik 2 (1991). Seven stories on Death and Suicide, each taking place on a different day of the week, enframed by the decomposition of a human body.
Warning: extremely graphic. Der Todesking, available for the first time on DVD and Blu-ray, is presented Uncut and Uncensored in a new High Definition transfer.
SANTA CLAUS: SERIAL RAPIST (Bill Zebub); DVD
B-Grade/Sex/Absurd DVD
A woman who is researching alien abductions for a book receives increasing reports of nocturnal attackers described as resembling Santa Claus. She enlists the aid of a scholar of mythology to see if the legend of Santa has a darker side, and what she discovers is more horrifying than she could never have expected.
A female figure sleeps, face buried in a pillow, covered only by a sheet of uninspired textile pattern. Something is off. Slowly an unseen force begins to pull the sheet off of her voluptuous figure. To our terror, it is Santa Claus! The intruder has his way with his victim with images of red velvet, white fur, nose piercings, and breasts, fill the tight close-ups spilling across the screen. Thus begins Santa Claus: Serial Rapist. This surprisingly pensive film delivers rape, Santa, and the philosophical ramblings of writer-director and star Bill Zebub. It all adds up to something that is thoughtful, yet painfully remiss of the absurdist possibilities that the title indicates.
ANTFARM DICKHOLE (2011); DVD
Bill Zebub B-Grade/Sex/Trash DVD
Hailed as having "the most WTF moments in movie history" Antfarm Dickhole is the story of rampaging army ants that have nested inside a living human man's 'dickhole'. The unwilling host discovers that when bullies attack him, the ants defend their penile nest. Thus begins a tragic tale of what happens when the powerless become powerful. After a painful encounter with some bullies next to an ant colony, Ant-Drew will never have to fear again, as an improbable, yet miraculous symbiosis begins. Now, he is unstoppable, and he thirsts for revenge. Is this a dream come true? Who could have ever come up with this shit? He's Got Ants in His Pants! - Later re-released as "Human Antfarm"
BLOOD DUSTER - THE SHAPE OF DEATH TO COME (2005); DVD
Mucic/Live/Grindcore/Australian DVD (with bonus poster!)
This is a fairly hefty DVD, split into two sections. One section contains a feature length mix of live gigs dating back to the early 90's intersperced with the lads crazy touring antics...serious antics. Eating spew off the ground, throwing piss at one another, and consuming copius amounts of drugs are only the beginning. Considering much of the live music footage in this section is bootlegged, the quality of vision and sound is excelent. Also the choice of songs that have been included is a good cross-section of the Blood Duster era's.
The second section of the DVD is a full concert recorded at the Ding-Dong in Melbourne. This innitially might be a dissapointment to those who like their crisp, clear sounding live DVD's but once you can accept the sound this gig is pretty fucking great! It's also a good representation of what Blood Duster shows were like. I have also included with this, an original 1997 'Straight outta Northcote' LP promo poster!! Oh yeah.........
GRINDSTONE REDUX: The story of the 1980's US underground music network (2009); DVD
Music/Art/Culture/Documentary DVD
GRINDSTONE REDUX is the story of the underground music network of the 1980s?and how it transformed the music business. In response to an industry with a narrow spectrum of work being released and promoted, artists decided to self-publish and distribute before the internet made it commonplace. The advent of affordable recording equipment, synthesizers and photocopiers made it possible for musicians and bands to form a network by producing home recordings and exchanging them through the mail. For the first time, musicians were able to produce and distribute their work without a major record company. They formed their own record labels, produced independent magazines and began the first generation of radio shows devoted to independently-released music. The network was supported by small, independent record stores (which have all but disappeared) where musicians could place their work for sale, as well as discover other like-minded artists and 'zines.
FUCK...I'M DEAD - GORE GRIND THRASH ATTACK LIVE (2006); DVD
Music/Grindcore/Live, DVD + CD set
Brutal Melbourne Goregrind legends "Fuck...I'm dead" released this live recording bootleg DVD, 40 tracks, mainly recorded at the ARTHOUSE in Melbourne in 2006. Includes all their classic radio hits including.... Anal abattoir, Bury the cunt in shit, Burnt to an absolute crisp, Inject me with AIDS, Toilet tantilizers, Slowly raped with a chainsaw and Spray me with fecal matter. The CD contains the first 26 tracks from the DVD at the Arthouse, tidied up a bit...... Brilliant!
FLYIN' CUT SLEEVES (1993); DVD
Documentary/Gang violence DVD
FLYIN' CUT SLEEVES, completed in 1993, portrays street gang presidents in the Bronx. The project grew out of the experiences of Rita Fecher, the film's co-producer, who taught in a South Bronx school in the late 1960's and early 1970's, became intimately involved with the gangs, their leaders, and the leaders' families and began to document their lives. Their world was the streets, set against a backdrop of uprooted families, cultural alienation, drugs and violence. Neighborhood teenagers responded by organizing into street groups known to the members as "families", but labeled in the most alarming terms as violent gangs by the press. In fact, the "families" had a stabilizing effect, enabling the youths to cope with their troubled environment. The political climate at the time, movements of national liberation and such organizations as the Black Panthers and Young Lords Party influenced the young gang leaders to aspire to be more than warriors and to become, to some degree, a positive...
THE KILLING OF AMERICA (1981); DVD
Documentary/Shockumentary/Cult DVD
Documentary featuring footage of some of America's most well known murders and assassinations. It's filled with a lot of statistics and done with a very serious tone giving it a sort of newsworthy 'importance'. (If narrator Chuck Riley's voice got anymore resonate of stern you'd swear he'd have to be a robot.) Yet it offers no real solutions and after ninety minutes of almost complete carnage does it only briefly mention the issue of handgun registration. Thus despite it's pretensions it's really at home with the rest of it's mondo/exploitation brethren which were made simply to cash in on the shock value of it's content. Just the way we like it....
GRAPHIC NOVELS! MELBOURNE! (2014); DVD
Art/Documentary DVD
Graphic Novels! Melbourne! uncovers an energetic, diverse and productive comics culture on the streets of Melbourne. It investigates the life and work of four graphic novelists in particular: Pat Grant, Nicki Greenberg, Mandy Ord and Bruce Mutard. There are also interviews with four international comic book luminaries: Scott McCloud, Shaun Tan, Dylan Horrocks and Paul Gravett, all of whom lend their perspective to the development of comics culture in Melbourne. Graphic Novels! Melbourne! is the definitive introduction to the Melbourne comics explosion!
BENJAMIN SMOKE (2000); DVD
Cult/Documentary DVD
This highly unorthodox documentary follows the crooked path of Benjamin (no last name). He lives in a hidden neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia called "Cabbagetown." Drag-queen, speed-freak, all-around renegade, Benjamin left the straight (in every sense of the word) world behind a long time ago.
SHUT UP LITTLE MAN (2011); DVD
Cult/Documentary/Art DVD
In 1987 San Francisco, Eddie Lee Sausage and Mitch Deprey began recording the squabbles of their stranger than fiction neighbors, the bigoted Raymond Huffman and the out and proud Peter Haskett. The recital of the pair's outrageous reality quickly took on a life of its own. This darkly funny documentary chronicles the history of Raymond and Peter, as well as what happened to former slackers Eddie and Mitch, who paint a picture of not only their outrageous neighbors, but also of San Francisco's Lower Haight neighborhood in the late 1980s. Interviews with others who were influenced by the recordings document their broad influence on a variety of artists, near and far.
