videorama-759-859391 I must admit, I've never really been a Russ Meyer fan. I've never been able to sit through his films. This excellent film is an exception, a one off. I've watched it a few times. One lovely asset is of course, Edy Williams, only she's not the only ho groovy chick in it. The way out psychedelic music, is another thing, I liked. This film was made at the start of the seventies, the year I was born, but found it's way to video 1990, via a brief run at the cinema once before. The movie really shows what the entertainment scene was, struggling actors, sleazy, mocking producers, who like to manipulate young philies, gays, and drag queens who may'be take their King Arthur roles, a little seriously, resulting a graphic beheading. Too, it shows you what the drug scene was like. Essentially the story follows a promising band, and dig the name, who roam town to town, ending up in the city of angels, only to receive, an all too painful lesson, on what it takes, if you really wanna make it. Their manager, a Greg Brady lookalike kind of guy, is in love with the lead hottie, Kelly, where soon a jealous and agonizing streak sets in him, where the easily led, Kelly, who buys this whole scene of B.S. begins an affair with a stud, wannabe actor/model, where this has disastrous results. Kelly tracks down her long lost Sister, where she finds out she's inherited a nice little nest egg, where this greedy producer, Porter, is trying to get his hands on it. This movie never bores. And it's written by American favorite, movie critic, Roger Ebert, of all people. He's created formulated a great movie, somewhat a treasure, with rich characters, and in my opinion, a very of matter fact account of Hollywood, this time. It's really good insight if you look, closer. He for one should know. It's inspirational, in a more discreet kind of way, where the footnote, at the end about about each character, serves the movie well. Almost two thumbs up, Roger. The very familiar, opening music score/anthem with the opening credits strolling up the screen, heralds it campy, insightful brilliance.

morrison-dylan-fan With my Russ Meyer marathon having unintentionally stopped in its tracks after viewing writer/directing auteur Russ Meyer's over looked title Black Snake for the IMDb boards Horror Challenge last year,I decided to celebrate my 9th year of being on IMDb,by taking a look at Meyer's ample epic.The plot:Visiting her aunt Susan Lake after manager Harris Allsworth has sent fledging all-girl Rock band The Kelly Affair up to LA,lead singer Kelly MacNamara is shocked to discover that Lake is planning to give her a third of her inheritance in a will.Fearing that he is about to lose out on a huge piece of cash,Lake's financial adviser Porter Hall attempts to stop Lake's plans by calling MacNamara and her band a bunch of 'dirty hippies'.Ignoring Hall's less than helpful advice,Lake tells MacNamara that along with the inheritance,she is also going to try and get The Kelly Affair to reach the top of LA's Rock scene.Getting introduced to a wild and extremely flamboyant manager/Rock producer called Ronnie 'Z-Man' Barzell,the band dump Allsworth as they set out to use all of Barzell's links in the industry.Renaming themselves The Carrie Nations,the band find their rise to fame to be matched by an increasing prescience of 'hangers-on' which leads to the group finding out how low the highs can go,as they go beyond the valley of the dolls.View on the film:Making his major studio debut,co-writer/ (along with Roger Ebert)director Russ Meyer shows an amazing determination to not soften his distinctive style for a major studio.For the film's eye-catching appearance,Meyer creates an irresistible fizzy atmosphere,with Meyer making the surprisingly good Rock songs (written by Stu Philips) scatter across the screen as Meyer brilliantly using dazzling colours,whip-pans and razor sharp editing to show the dizzy good times that the band experience.Bringing The Carrie Nation down to earth,Meyer uses muted colours to show the darkening of the bands lives,with Meyer entering into some unexpected proto-Slasher regions,which are met by Meyer breaking a large number of taboo's during the Nation's down with large dollops of overly- exaggerated charm .Whilst he appeared to be far too up-tight in his reviews for other movies which took a wonderful overly exaggerated approach to serious subjects,writers Roger Ebert and Russ Meyer reveal themselves to be a winning combo who are able to perfectly mix super sweet melodrama with off-beat 'women's pictures' shavings and delightfully bonkers slices of Slasher Horror. Making very good thumb nail impressions of each of the band members,the writers take a great kaleidoscope approach with the bands rise to fame,as Meyer & Ebert showing all of the wild and deranged frolics to be something which leads the band dazed,and very confused.Crashing down to earth,Meyer and Ebert pair up The Carrie Nations moments of doom with hilarious whip-smart one liners,which gives even the title's most dramatic moments a real Pop sensation.Shown as a group who has travelled up and down every dusty road,each of the beautiful Carrie Nations members give superb performances which compliments each of the different elements the other band members bring to the film.Taking on lead singer duties, the very pretty Dolly Reed gives a tantalising performance as MacNamara,with Reed giving hitting high-kicks as the band reach their heights,which are countered by Reed showing MacNamara's real unease at how to pull the band out of the doom that they are sinking into.Joining Reed,the stunning Marcia McBroom gives a fantastic performance as Petronella 'Pet' Danforth,with McBroom showing the joy fade away from 'Pet's' face,as the band start to relies the valley that they have entered.

appealing_talent This piece of awful tripe is not only the most cheap, tawdry, seedy and sordid mess I've ever had the misfortune to waste my time viewing, but it serves the added disgrace of discrediting, for me, every critique ever written by Roger Ebert. After seeing this mind numbing pile of trash, penned by him, how can anyone with any common sense, or even a modicum of good taste, consider his reviews remotely credible? I mean anyone responsible for writing such an unappealing and worthless script cannot possibly be qualified to pass judgment on other screenplays or on the filmed presentations of such. Furthermore, The actors, uniformly, suffer from the worst make-up and hairstyles of any movie I've seen and the costumes, as well as the production values weren't much better. The trite and overblown "message" at the end of the show literally made me shake my head in wonder. The bottom line is that this is the raspberry of all time, or the turkey of all turkeys...

jimrin ...I think I would have to blame the script more for my lack of interest in this movie. It seems it was intended as a parody of how conservatives view Hollywood. I saw at least one review refer this to the Reefer Madness of the 70s. The difference though is that Reefer Madness was intended to be a serious movie. In this case, even as a parody, to the group who would have such a view about Hollywood, it actually reinforces those views. Perhaps a much better parody would be to include those type of people who have such views in the movie to actually show how those people are being hypocritical or wrong about their views. As the movie stands, you have no empathy for the characters who all turn out to be selfish (well, at least, I am hoping that most people out there have little empathy for the characters)... In my view, for a movie to be successful, you have to have empathy with the protagonist(s). The campiness stylishness is great (if you enjoy that type of thing), but to me, the story and characters provided little interest.