Blown It All Sky High

Can you believe it took this long for me to see my first Ozploitation film?

To warm up for the momentous occasion, I began the evening at Amour for dinner.

There were people eating in the dining room, including a couple who appeared to be on a date night, but I was the sole occupant of the bar.

Edith Piaf was on the stereo, I had a flight of Roses in front of me and I had no idea what was in store. Already it was my kind of evening.

I chatted with one of the servers, a native of Louisiana (with the accent to prove it) who'd moved to Texas (and chortled over the differences in how the same words were pronounced differently in each state) and spent summers in D.C.

There was even a compliment on my joie de vivre and it's common knowledge how I appreciate a good compliment.

But the kitchen deserved more compliments than me.

Beginning with a sublime chilled vichyssoise, I moved on to vol au vent filled with creamed corn, pork belly and crawfish, a French take on southern ingredients so good I intend to go back and have it again.

And while I should have stopped there, I didn't, enjoying first an escargot and leek tart and then the tomato tart, as brilliantly colored as it was flavored. All hail tomato and corn season. I know I do.

When my server asked if I wanted dessert, I laughed. As if.

On this balmy evening, I did manage to find room for a perfectly lovely summer red, the luxurious and full-bodied 2012 Domaine Brusset, savoring every sip of my half glass and reveling in its depth of flavor.

While I usually eschew reds during the summer, this one was too beautiful to resist (yea, that's what he said).

Stuffed and happy, I said my farewells to go to the River City Not So Classic Movie Night, no doubt leaving behind a trail of envy at my plans.

Or derisive laughter.

Moments after arriving at River City Classic Bar & Grill, two sisters I'd met before asked if they could join me at my booth and I welcomed the company.

As usual, we got to see some pretty hilarious shorts before the main feature.

The first was about explaining sexuality to "the retarded" (yes, they used that word) and had a scene where a woman sits down on the bed where a teen is under the covers and asks him, "Do you know what a wet dream is?" and goes on to warn him that he'll have many more.

In another, Mom opens Johnny's bedroom door to discover him masturbating, so she a) explains the concept of responsibility for his behavior to him and b) promises never to open his door without knocking again.

Thanks, Mom!

It wasn't long after that a woman sitting at the bar moaned, "This just goes on way too long!" just as the scene where one guy at a urinal starts rubbing the back of the guy at the next urinal and we heard about inappropriate touching.

It was hard to top the hilarity and shock value of that gem, but the animated "Cautious Twins" about bad strangers preying on children had its moments, as did "Shake Hands with Danger," a film about workplace safety.

"Be careless for a moment, spend a lifetime with the blues," was the stated theme as machine parts went flying, body parts were bloodied and tractor treads rolled over innocent bystanders.

Finally, the room was darkened and "Gang Wars" began, starring, I kid you not, War Hawk Tanzania.

Only problem was that wasn't tonight's feature. Seems the planned film had been forgotten and belatedly collected, so five minutes into the gang wars, that movie was stopped and the real one put in.

"The Man from Hong Kong," billed as a co-production between Australia and Hong Kong, was a classic '70s martial arts film modeled on a James Bond flick.

It began with two bad guys exchanging briefcases (drugs and cash, no doubt) before the Hong Kong hood is captured and says to the Aussie cop, "Stick your head up your arse and close it around you."

I ask you, do we even have insults that good in this country? I think not.

The movie's theme song was instantly familiar, Jigsaw's "Sky High," a catchy Top 40 ditty that made me wonder how (why?) an Australian/Hong Kong production had chosen a British band to introduce the action.

Sadly, some things will forever remain a mystery.

One of the sisters sitting with me, the one with whom I'd shared my onion rings a few weeks back, offered me some of her chicken wings, so I had one before eating my hot fudge sundae, better than it had to be with real whipped cream courtesy of the kitchen and Ghiradelli hot fudge.

As you might guess with a cheesy 1975 "B" movie, cliches were rampant, such as when the woman who lands via hang glider asks the Chinese cop hero, "What's so special about the Special Branch?" and they cut to the two of them having sex.

"You're my first Chinese!" she squeals and the crowd let out a politically incorrect groan.

And because it was 1975, everyone -cops, drug dealers, old ladies on the street - had on bellbottoms and all the men had long hair and porn 'staches.

There was an inordinate amount of fight scenes, the kind where the added sound effects never quite match up with who was being hit at any given moment.

In car chase sequences, cars rolled and somehow immediately burst into flames. After the third time it happened, a guy near me said, "Never saw that coming!"

With a movie like this, nothing much happens that you don't see coming from a mile away.

When we finally see the big crime boss, Wilton, the same guy commented, "Oooh, pinky ring, bad sign." True that. Good guys don't wear pinky rings.

Mr. Big was played by George Lazenby, he of one James Bond movie fame and here sporting a Tom Selleck-worthy mustache.

He was the kind of evil man who entertains party guests by shooting an apple off his blond girlfriend's head with a crossbow.

The political incorrectness extended to the dialog with lines like "Never met a Chinese yet who didn't have a yellow streak." Ouch.

And don't even get me started on the special effects. As a guy in the booth beside me put it, "Is that blood on his track suit?  Cause it looks like strawberry jelly."

After our Hong Kong hero gets injured, he is rescued and whisked away to the country by a nubile young student whose father happens to be a vet and can sew him back up, good as new.

Once he's up and able, they go horseback riding and next thing we know, some singer who sounds suspiciously like Olivia Newton-John is singing, "Baby, baby, I think I love you," followed by sunny, dappled scenes of fields and lakes and the two of them looking intently at each other.

"On golden pond?" a guy joked. "Where's the barf bag?" asked a woman near me.

But while our hero may allow a temporary frolic, he needs to get back to business hunting down the bad guy. When the girl asks why, he says it's because he's Chinese.

She's already in love, so now she wants to be Chinese too, so she stretches her eyes sideways with her fingers and asks, "Will plastic surgery do?"

Wrong on so many levels.

"Do you think you've recovered enough for me to make love to you?" she asks our hero. "I think I can stand the pain," he deadpans.

Score!

As we're given a sunlit, lingering shot of her pre-orgasmic face, a girl at the bar called out, "I think he went down under!"

That, my friends, is what Ozploitation films are all about.

Of course there was a prolonged car chase that devolved into demolition derby style antics - hood flying off, doors snapped off, spontaneous combustion - but that was probably true of all '70s movies, not just martial arts films.

Or maybe that was the Australian contribution to the film (besides accents so thick they almost needed subtitles).

The whole movie was one unfortunate memory of bad fashion choices, best put by one of the sisters who said, "A lot of bad '70s brown outfits." Head to toe brown in many cases.

During the big climax scene, our hero stuffed a grenade in the bad guy's mouth and began wrapping tape around his head to hold it in.

"Oh, getting kinky now, huh?" someone teased from the bar.

Once the grenade went off, the secret cache of explosives detonated and the top of bad guy's penthouse was blown off, the cheesy familiar strains of "Sky High" came up as one of the truly epic Australian/Hong Kong, James Bond rip-off, martial arts movies ever made ended.

"That was amazing," a stranger said to me as I paid for my hot fudge sundae.

Never saw that coming.

Cranked Up Really High

I always get a kick out of waking up to a request for the pleasure of my company.

Wondering what you are up to tonight. I was thinking of going to Hardywood for the show. I could most certainly dance to a little funky soul this evening.

Best of all, it came from a wine seller friend who'd never suggested a rendezvous before. So with no evening plans until 8, I was more than agreeable to meeting up at the brewery despite no interest in beer.

A breezy evening, another new (to me) thrift store dress so why pass up a chance to see Photosynthesizers, Richmond's exemplars of live soul/rock hip hop?

Hardly surprising was that the Hardywood crowd was far more diverse than usual, a testament to the band's fan base.

Waiting for my friend, I spotted one of RVA's best singers headed toward me, so we chatted about a favorite country band and the fabulous beehive hairdo the lead singer wears.

Not long after, I found my friend along with two others and the party was on. We took up spots near enough the outdoor stage (my first outdoor show at Hardywood) to have a terrific view of the band members.

Not a one of my companions had seen Photosynthesizers (how that's possible, I don't know but I try not to judge) so they were immediately impressed by singer SamSun, a vision with her gorgeous Afro, black midriff top and body-hugging, calf-length, leopard skin skirt.

I think it was during the very first song that the wine rep leaned over and asked, "Would it be wrong to ask her out after the show?" Go for it, honey.

What's unique about Photosynthesizers is that they're a band who focuses on live performances rather than recordings. I think they put out one EP a few years ago, but the songs you hear at any given show are not available for home listening.

Personally, I love that because it only makes their performances that much more compelling knowing it's the only way you can hear it.

With a drummer, guitarist, DJ, rapper and singer, their sound spans genres and makes fans of people sure they don't like hip hop, probably because they've never seen it done with live instruments before.

The only disappointment was that there was no dancing, except in place, but there was plenty of that because it was impossible to stand still while listening to them.

Afterwards, we all chatted, trading "how I met Jimmy Sneed" stories, dating details and comparing notes on the new Metzger.

They were off in search of food when we split up while I left to go meet a friend at River City Classic Bar and Grill to see a couple of music documentaries.

Grabbing my favorite booth (it only took one visit for me to determine which had the best views of both screens), I barely had time to order before my girlfriend, looking adorable as always in a dress and sweater, showed up to join me with her cute photographer husband.

While early music performances played - Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry - the photographer brought up the topic of local music and why it isn't played more in between sets at local clubs and in restaurants. He had a valid point.

Finally, the first short began and the fun was on. "The Cramps at Napa Mental Hospital" was an unlikely free show in 1978 for a bunch of mental patients, an idea which begs the question, who in the world thought this would be a good idea?

The 20-minute film was chaotic with the band's innovative psychobilly (crazy rockabilly) sound inciting the patients to levels of frenzy probably not good for them.

Every time one of the patients tried to dance with singer Lux Interior, he'd shove them back off of the stage roughly. In one case, a patient grabbed the microphone from Lux and began shrieking into it like a, well, crazy person.

Maybe it was the madness on the screens or maybe the crowd at the diner just didn't care, but unlike Tuesday's film, people talked right through this one.

At one point, the old couple next to me got into a loud discussion of how warm she was and how comfortable he was.

"I don't know how you have that sweater on," the large woman wearing a sundress said to her scrap of a date.

"I don't have much meat on my bones," the old guy said, pointing out the obvious, something surely she already knew. "No, you don't!" she sniffed.

After the Cramps, we got the main attraction, "The Punk Rock Movie" from 1978 and shot on Super 8, so black and white mostly and grainy as all get out, only adding to the punk feel of it.

My friend was as excited to see it as I was but for different reasons. "I'm looking for fashion inspiration," she told me, impressed right away by the tie-over-the-t-shirt look we saw.

A lot of the footage was shot at London's punk-focused Roxy Club in 1978 during the mere 100 days that it was open.

Here's one tidbit I'd like to share with every person who wasn't alive in 1978 and thinks they know what punk bands dressed like: you haven't got a clue.

Every band we saw was dressed in button-up shirts, sometimes jackets, often ties and always slacks. The perception of punk bands as always clad in ratty, torn t-shirts is a figment of revisionist history.

We saw show footage of a 23-year old Billy Idol as a member of Generation X, along with backstage footage, including one scene of a band member pulling down his briefs and flashing his junk at the camera. No doubt that was considered punk at the time.

Female British punk band The Slits were shown alternately practicing music and teasing their hair ("I used to do that to my hair," my cute friend shared. "Maybe I'll start doing that again") but it was the drummer Palmolive's hard-hitting energy that was hard to look away from.

The Clash were shown playing and then on a day off, horsing around, on a kid's playground ride, looking young and carefree.

When band Subway Sect came on, my friend and I agreed that lead singer Vic Goddard was positively dreamy and her friend at the bar turned around and gestured the same. Oh, Vic!

Some of the most interesting scenes were of London cops investigating window displays at a punk shop called Sex. Apparently, they'd gotten complaints about the severed finger and plastic ears on display.

"Go home and jerk off and think of me!" yelled the transgender lead singer of Wayne County and the Electric Chairs before a woman leaned over and said, "You may not want to watch this" as the members of Eater bludgeoned a pig's head onstage before tossing it out to the crowd.

I know my friend was tickled pink when Siouxie (of the Banshees) came out in a tie over a jacket, yet another '70s fashion statement.

My only complaint by this time was how loud the diner crowd was, all but shouting over the movie as if it didn't matter because so much of it was music. Friend and I agreed we missed most of the dialogue because of the incessant chatter.

We saw a flier for a Slits show at - of all the unlikely places - a school's great hall at 5 p.m., not an especially punk time of day.

Then there was Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers (with a pink drum set) doing "Born to Lose," the lead singer sporting one long sleeve and one short t-shirt sleeve (plus a tie, natch), as well as them on the tour bus kidding around with Siouxie and the Banshees.

And speaking of, because it was 1978, there was footage of Siouxie backstage drinking vodka and popping pills (after the third vial, she asks, "How many of this one should I take? Oh, what the hell, I'll take two").

But I'll give her credit where credit was due. The woman could put on liquid eyeliner on a moving tour bus, no easy feat.

A film geek friend walked by about then and whispered, "Are you keeping track of all the dead punk rockers? Quite a few!" True that. Not a lifestyle that promotes longevity.

When the Sex Pistols start playing, we saw Debbie Juvenile sum up many people's feelings. "Oh, some decent fucking music at last!"

You could tell the movie had been made in another galaxy far away because gratuitous sexy close-ups were de rigueur. Often the camera lingered on a girl's breasts or the crotch of a girl in fishnets and panties, apropos of nothing.

The Pistols' show footage was notable for two reasons: it was Syd Viscious' first public gig with the band and Johnny Rotten is dapperly dressed in a jacket (granted he removes it early on), shirt and bow tie. Yes, bow tie.

And that, kids, is tonight's history lesson. You think you know what punk was about but you probably have no idea. Go back and do some research, maybe even watch "The Punk Rock Movie" and you'll learn a hell of a lot.

Maybe not how to tease your hair or apply liquid eyeliner on a moving bus, but enough to understand what punk was.

Hard and fast. People pogoing. And the best stage names ever. Drew Blood? Positively brilliant.

Just like my evening.

Steppin' on My Starter

I'm the kind of girl who loves a movie with a negligee and lingerie credit.

For a while now I've been seeing weekly listings for River City Classic Not So Classic Movie nights, intrigued at the concept of showing nothing but cheesy "B" movies in a diner, albeit one not exactly close to home.

But once I looked it up, I saw that River City Classic Bar & Grill was right across from the Amtrack station, a place I know well. Hey, I can do this.

Walking in, I liked it right away because one of the owners was friendly and funny and because amongst the variety of seating at the bar were two leopard print bar stools. Leopard! Now that's something you don't see everywhere.

I sat down at a booth directly in front of the screen and ordered an antipasto salad, pleased when they began showing previews to other cheesy movies on two screens.

Stuff like "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" "Humanoids from the Deep" and "Blackula." Good times, bad movies.

Meanwhile, a four top arrived, announcing to no one in particular, "The Johnny Cash fans have arrived." It was a practically full house for 1961's "Five Seconds to Live" starring the man in black and Ronny Howard (touted in the preview trailer as "the delightful new child star").

As we listened to Johnny sing the theme song he penned (and not for the last time) to the black and white movie, I spotted the negligee credit. That must be some major lingerie to get its own listing.

Johnny is a guitar-playing fugitive who hides out in suburbia, which he hates ("This suburb life ain't for me") where he meets a fellow bad guy at a bowling alley (where boys reset the bowling pins, not a machine) and they decide to rob a bank with Johnny holding the bank man's wife hostage.

When little Ronny made his first appearance on screen, everyone in the diner let out a collective "aww." Before long he tells his Mom that he's lost his bite plate. Apparently that's '60s speak for retainer, which he scooped off the rug and returned to his mouth without rinsing, causing some in the room to groan in disgust.

There was lots of commentary from the peanut gallery during the movie as we took in the Hollywood version of what suburban life was like circa 1961. Family breakfast. Hungover Dad telling Mom what was best. Kid focused on baseball.

We got our first taste of lingerie when the suburban Dad left for the bank but stopped by his mistress' house on the way. She was wearing an elaborate dressing gown to eat breakfast, the kind people never wear in real life to eat breakfast.

Once he and the kid are gone, Johnny insinuates his way into the house and takes the Mrs. hostage, strumming his guitar in between terrorizing her. He's just killing time waiting for his partner in crime to call and tell him whether or not he has to kill her.

But Johnny's a real man and he gets annoyed by how frumpy she looks, directing her to, "Remove the artillery," meaning the clips in her hair. "I like my broad to look sharp," he snarls.

And that's the thing. At no point in this film did Johnny Cash play anyone except Johnny Cash. Did he even pretend to play a two-bit thug? He did not.

When he forces her into the bedroom, she tries to make up the bed until he stops her saying, "I like a messy bed," and instructs her to put on the negligee he finds in the closet.

Of course, she's never actually worn it. Hubby bought it as a joke for her ten years ago (so pre-little Ronny) and it's been hanging there ever since.

That's when she decides to use her wily, womanly ways and play along with his amorous advances, letting him kiss and maul her without complaint, so he won't off her.

"I guess you girls are all alike when Johnny steps on your starter," he says in his most predatory tone. But he's right, we girls do like to have our starters stepped on.

Over at the bank, the other bad guy is trying to convince her husband that if he doesn't cash the bogus $70,000 check, Johnny will kill his wife at home.

The husband explains to the guy that he has a girlfriend and was planning to run away to Vegas with her that night. "Then I'll be doing you a favor," Bad Guy retorts.

Oh, no, will Hubs let Wifey be Johnny's next victim?

"Now we got a movie," the guy in the booth next to me cackled.

Back in suburbia, Johnny is alternating breaking decorative household pieces to upset his hostage ("I saved for a year to buy that!" she shrieks when he shatters a vase on the mantle) and strumming on the ole guitar.

"Johnny Cash, killing 'em with chords," a guy at the bar observed as Johnny sang "I've Come to Kill," another of his own upbeat compositions, to his victim.

I wouldn't think of ruining the big ending because everybody needs to see "Five Minutes to Live" once but I will tease you by saying that people get shot (and die) and Johnny wears a vest the entire movie.

Before going to see this not so classic movie, I'd messaged a film buff friend who said he'd seen it and that it had been fun.

Fun doesn't begin to describe it. Talking to some people I met tonight about the movie, the best they could do was, in one guy's words "awesome" and in another's," way better than I expected."

Are you guys word-challenged or what? That movie managed to skewer 1960s America's growing white middle class ennui and titillate with negligees while providing copious screen time for Johnny Cash to snarl and sing!

Translation: I will be back for another cheeseball, not so classic film as part of the weekly descent into the bottomless pit under the basement of the crypt of forgotten and forlorn "B" movies.

How can I not? The bar was set so high low tonight, I've got to go back and see what else they have.

Now we got a movie series.