Russ Meyer has passed away. I know/realise he hasn’t made any films for about thirty years but his movie Mud Honey did give birth to the band of the same name, so there is one tenuous link to our little music land. And generally on a personal note, back around 1995/1996 I had the greatest time discovering his movie stuck on the early hours of Sky Movies Gold where Sky rightfully almost seemed to be embarrassed to be showing them (a move later repeated by Channel Five years later).

Russ Meyer films are utterly tacky, tasteless and exploitation but at the same time pretty funny (in a giggle way) and the sort of films you felt/feel at the same both dirty and hip time watching. My personal favourite is Beneath The Valley Of The Ultravixens, complete with regular appearance of Charles Napier who later turned up as one of the pursuers in the A-Team and cameo by AWOL Nazi Martin Borman. The film is question features a nutty town in smallville America where everyone is at it with eachother to disastrous consequences all narrated excellently by an Uncle Jesse (Dukes Of Hazard) style character delivering a basic “this is the state of the nation” address on small town America, the theme of which, albeit done completely differently, seems to be the main subject of so many of the fantastic US independent films.

The most famous two Russ Meyer movies are probably Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! which is basically everything the band The Cramps ever stood for on screen and Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, pretty much the story of Courtney Love and Hole done twenty years early.

Anyways, whatever, I’ve just always enjoyed watching (the good) Russ Meyer movies is all.

Posted: 09|23|04 at 4:53 pm. Filed under: film and video, people.
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