Fuego (1969)

Directed by Armando Bo
Starring Isabel Sarli, Armando Bo
Rated X
Argentina

"I need men! I need men!"

Laura (Isabel Sarli) is a woman on fire! She’s a nymphomaniac, a sex fiend, whose depraved lust drives her to ever-lower humiliations. No one man can satisfy her, not even Carlos, her adoring and long-suffering husband. She struggles to stay faithful, but her insatiable snatch forces her to cuckold Carlos again, and again, and again.

Fuego chronicles the torment and frustration of their seemingly doomed love affair, while delivering eye-popping nudity and nonstop lewd behavior.

Directed by Armando Bo (the “Russ Meyer of Argentina”), Fuego starts as every movie should, with our buxom black-haired bombshell skinny-dipping in a lake, then getting toweled off by her horny lesbian housekeeper. Meanwhile, Carlos (Armando Bo, again) ogles Laura from a distance. His heart is gone.

When Carlos runs into Laura at a party, he proposes marriage almost immediately. She consents, and the two immediately get freaky behind a neighbor’s chicken coop.  While her reputation as a floozy is well-known around town, Laura still decides to make a go at monogamy. (This triggers a vicious and tearful beating from Andrea, her aforementioned lesbian housekeeper.)

The monogamy gig doesn’t go so well. As soon as Carlos leaves for work, Laura (decked out in a fur coat and silver gogo boots) takes to the streets, flashing her tits at male passersby, then grabbing a mustachioed horndog for a quick screw. When the deed is done, the dude scrams, and a frantic Carlos finds Laura in a post-coital stupor of shame and depression. Ever the loving husband, he forgives her and vows to help her overcome her “affliction.”

Still, Carlos’ jealous streak is getting hard to control. When he catches Laura humping the electrician, he delivers a flurry of laughable fake punches and draws a pistol, while a sobbing Laura’s pleads “Don’t kill him! Don’t kill him!”

Clearly it’s time to seek professional help. A psychologist/gynecologist (who looks like Van Helsing from the 1931 Dracula) diagnoses nymphomania, but not before a gynecological exam launches Laura into a leg-trembling orgasm.

As Carlos’ jealousy grows, Laura’s genital indiscretions set the scene for Fuego’s awesomely tragic finale. It may be a colossal downer, but how else could such a sordid dime-novel romance end?

 Isabel Sarli is a pulse-pounding pile of pillowy pulchritude. Her gravity-defying jugs explode from her dress in near-comic Jessica Rabbit fashion, while she devours both men and scenery alike. Barely a scene goes by where she doesn’t groan and squirm and fondle herself for no apparent reason. She can’t keep her hands off of herself, and who can blame her? The cameraman smothers the screen with Isabel’s eye-popping cleavage and swooning close-ups her pouty, dolled-up face. (As a slightly unsettling tangent, with all that make-up, Sarli occasionally resembles an extremely sexy version of Divine, the famous drag queen).

Sarli may be the star, but Armando Bo is still good as Carlos, the long-suffering husband. His anguished hamming is the perfect side dish to Sarli’s erotic hysterics. The two were real-life lovers and that chemistry translates to screen, in their face-smooshing tonsil-hockey (you can practically taste the saliva), their naked canoodling in a snow bank, and Bo’s gun-brandishing fits of jealousy.

The music is awesome, too. The tango-infused theme song is crammed with strings, bongos, and electric organs, all set to a painfully romantic melody. It’s a catchy as it is campy.

So you have a jaw-dropping South American sex symbol, ample nudity, torrid romance, groovy tunes, un-PC lesbianism, exhibitionism, and occasional acts of titty-tickling. What’s not to like?

Well, the pace. Fuego is a tight 90 minutes long, but it feels longer. The plot isn’t so much a story as a doomed behavior pattern: temptation, adultery, self-loathing, repeat. After three or so of these cycles, my mind started wandering, until Laura’s horny antics snapped my attention back to the screen. Even with Bo’s anguished over-acting and occasionally gorgeous camerawork, there’s not much to recommend Fuego when Sarli isn’t on screen. Still, when she is, hot damn is it worth the wait!

Availability: The Sizzling Latin Double Feature DVD from Something Weird Video.

-Paulo Phibes

Leslie, My Name is Evil (2009)

Directed by Reginald Harkema
Starring Kristen Hager, Gregory Smith
Rated R
Canada


"I don't care what Jesus wants." 

Charles Manson was a charismatic Schizophrenic folk singer who took advantage of the freewheeling 60's peacefreak movement, forming a loosely-knit harem of pie-eyed hippy chicks and preaching to them about a screwball endtimes scenario that involved Beatles tunes and machine guns bolted on dune buggies. Manson's loony dream ended in the senseless murders of seven innocent people, including actress Sharon Tate. The gruesome crimes shocked the world, and Manson became an iconic boogieman, the man who killed the 60's and ushered in the sick, sick 1970's. Naturally, given the bizarre and sensational crimes of the Manson family, there have been many cinematic interpretations over the years, from the infamous '76 TV movie Helter Skelter to Jim Van Bebber's gory, cruel, decade-in-the-making Manson Family (2003). Leslie, My Name is Evil (misleadingly re-titled Manson, My Name is Evil for the DVD release), mines similar territory, but from an entirely different angle: it's a fictional take on the Manson court case that focuses on one of Manson's female followers, Leslie Van Houten, and an idealistic young juror who develops a crush on her.

Van Houten (above, middle) was involved in the murders of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca on August 10th, 1969. Along with her accomplices, she was sentenced to death for the crimes in 1971. The sentences were later commuted to life in prison. She's still serving time. A former high school cheerleader, the photogenic and fashionable Van Houten was only 19 at the time of the Manson murders. Between her good looks and demented courtroom antics - she frequently lapsed into giggle-fits when the prosecutor described her crimes - she makes for a perfect cinematic subject, an acid-gobbling death-angel in denim that neatly encapsulates everything that went wrong in the late 1960's.

Directed by Canadian indie-film workhorse Reginald Harkema (Monkey Warfare), Leslie is a deep-black comedy that revels in the psychedelic excess of the Manson era, mixing  Giallo-esque period-piece production design with vintage news footage, wrapping it in iconic imagery and a doomy acid-rock soundtrack as it cleverly merges the nightmare world of Manson with the equally sadistic pro-war, pro-Jesus culture of American suburbia.

Straitlaced chemistry student Perry (Gregory Smith, Hobo with a Shotgun) meets Dorothy (Kristin Adams) for the first time at the library. She’s a cute but clearly insane Jesus freak. She shows him an awesome (but phony) Jack Chick tract about a hippy girl who takes acid and fucks the devil. Foreshadowing! He’s into science, but you know, you do what you have to get laid in this world.

Meanwhile, Leslie (Kristen Hager, Being Human) is at the women’s clinic, getting an abortion. So things aren’t going so well for her. At this point, Perry and Dorothy are an item. They even go to church together. That’s where Perry’s uptight dad (Peter Keleghan) meets Dorothy for the first time. He smokes (in church), and laughs about “gooks” with his son’s new right-wing, evangelical girlfriend. All systems are go for another  blandly patriotic nuclear family. Except....well, Perry's not entirely sure this is what he wants out of life. Things aren’t getting better for our girl Leslie, either. Now dad’s moved out, and mom’s no fun to talk to at all. Her nuclear family has thoroughly detonated.

Then there’s a pretty sweet montage to move the story along. Over a loner-folk jam, real video images of ‘Nam and college protests are mixed with scenes of Perry and Dorothy doing squaresville stuff while Leslie grows her hair long and makes out with a hippie folksinger on the beach. Said folksinger turns out to be future Manson cohort/patsy Bobby (Travis Milne). One night on the beach, while getting stoned and listening to Bobby jam, Leslie meets two of Charlie's girls, Sadie (Angelica Scannura) and Katie (Kaniehtiio Horn).

Leslie’s a little put-off by the fact that Bobby wants to go for a tumble with Laura (Sarah Gadon), another one of Charlie’s girls, but then Bobby calls her a square, and that changes everything. Who the fuck are you calling square, man? So she splits to visit this Charlie character.

Meanwhile, Perry’s not getting too far with Dorothy. There’s a scene where they make out in his convertible in front of a green screen sunset, but when he tries to go a little further, she shuts him down. “I love you, Perry,” she explains, “But I love Jesus more.”

Leslie goes to meet Charlie down the ranch. She’s a bit overwhelmed at first. Probably because he’s hanging from a cross at the time. He lays his rap on her, they make sweet Satanic acid-hippy love together, and she joins the family. Seems pretty gross - there's a lot of dirty feet and sleeping on the floor and whatnot - but she's into it.

Perry gets a deferment from a chemical company he’s going to work for once he graduates school, so he won’t have to go to Vietnam. This excites Dorothy so much she lets him get to second base while making out outside of school while, just a few feet away, cops bash in protestor’s heads.

Back at the ranch, Bobby shows up to jam with Charlie. First though, he takes some time out to make sweet murder-cult love with Leslie, who is now referring to herself as Lulu. During their post-coital cuddle, he finds out just how deep she’s gotten into all this Charlie jive when she starts ranting about how far-out he is. Bobby, clearly jealous, tells Leslie he’s thinking of starting his own killer-hippy commune, but c’mon, we know that’s never gonna happen, Bobby.

That night, around the campfire, they all drop LSD and have a Satanic jamboree! Even the seven-year old kid gets a dose. That seems irresponsible to me, but what the hell. Charlie does his acid-is-groovy-kill-the-pigs speech, and he and Bobby belt out their smash hit “Will You Follow Me to Hell?”. It’s a pretty sweet jam, I’ll give them that much.



Things start going bad for Leslie soon after. Bobby, on a dare from Charlie, kills a cop, and ends up in prison. In protest, Charlie orchestrates a murder spree. California trembles in fear of the hippy killers. The fear even spreads to the suburbs.

Leslie goes along for the second round of ritual murders, but doesn’t really get stab-happy until the victim is already dead. At least that’s how it looks. Hard to say, since the whole scene looks like a Dandy Warhols video. Check with your local weirdo true-crime enthusiast for more information. Anyway, long story short, Charlie and the girls end up on trial for murder. And then Perry ends up on the jury. Of course, this fucks up Dorothy’s grand plans, but what can you do?

The trial begins. Most of the testimony is about all the “balling” going on at the ranch. In fact, even the jurors, relaxing after a day of court, can’t stop yapping about Charlie’s sexy death squad. I mean, this is all next-level stuff, as far as crimes-of-the-century go.

Also, back at jail, Leslie reveals that she has a crush on Perry. Seems like the looming death sentence would be a bigger concern, but the heart wants what the heart wants.

He kinda digs her too, though. So it’s cool. The problem is, this trial is making him seriously hot and bothered, and Dorothy is still giving him this not-until-we’re-married routine.

One night, after a particularly antics-filled trial day (Leslie lunges at a testifying Laura, and everybody ends up flashing their yellow panties), Perry goes back to the hotel and has a psychedelic dream about stabbing Dorothy to death for Charlie and then getting to bang Leslie for his efforts. There’s some giant bloody boobs in the dream. FYI. That’s probably why Perry woke up sticky.

So finally, Leslie testifies. It doesn’t go well. Note to anybody on trial for murder: don’t mention how fun it was.
The jury goes into deliberations. Everybody wants to put the whole bunch of ‘em to death, including Leslie. Everybody except, naturally, for Perry. He won’t budge on the Leslie thing. And then…the ground rumbles. Earthquake! And during his most terrifying moment, Perry makes his decision.

It bears repeating that the actual title of this film is Leslie, My Name is Evil. The thoughtless, cash-grabbing name change for the DVD release is deceitful for two very important reasons. First of all, no one in the film has any last names, so if anything, they should have retitled it ‘Charlie, My Name is Evil’. Secondly, it’s not about Charlie, it’s about Leslie. “Leslie, My Name is Evil” is an amazing title. I’d buy the poster and the t-shirt. “Manson, My Name is Evil” sounds like something on the bottom rack of the video store. Aside from that dumb decision, Leslie is a frequently brilliant film that combines the overwrought true-crime docudrama with inky black comedy and a John Waters-esque sense of the absurd. Driving his influence/inspiration home, Harkema even cast a John Waters lookalike as one of the jurors. The film looks amazing, with all the throbbing colors and iconic fashion statements of the era fully represented. Every scene is stuffed with classic images, many of them perfectly staged reproductions of actual photos or footage.

Essentially, the whole movie looks like a really bitchin' MC5 gig poster from 1968. The soundtrack - which is fairly screaming for it's own release - is haunting and moody, with tracks from vintage 60's psyche-rockers like 13th Floor Elevators and West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band mixing seamlessly with contemporary drug-droners like Pink Mountaintops and Black Angels. Harkema's political point - were napalm attacks really any different than Helter Skelter coming down fast? - is pretty heavy-handed, and it's difficult to get away from the fact that we're reveling in a fantasy world that is based on real-life tragedy, but otherwise, Leslie, My Name is Evil is a cult classic in the making, a weird and wonderful film that takes one of America's ugliest moments and turns it into a druggy, brooding, frequently beautiful performance piece.

PS: You can hear the Movies About Girls cast talk about Leslie My Name is Evil on Episode 106 of the Movies About Girls podcast!

- Ken McIntyre

The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman Season 1 Ep 6 (2006)

The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman
Episode title: Peyote Ugly
Directed by Adam Kassen
Starring Laura Kightlinger, Nicholle Tom
Genre: Drunk-com

“Enjoy the cape!”

Perhaps the greatest innovation in television comedy in the 00’s has been the Completely Irresponsible Protagonist. Sure, this character has cropped up before, but usually as a sidekick: Leave it to Beaver’s teenage creep Eddie Haskel is clearly the proto irresponsible asshole, followed quickly by that whiny cretin Dr. Smith from Lost in Space. And who could forget Jack Tripper’s morally dubious best-bud Larry Dallas, or the willfully anarchic evil-nerd Squiggy? But it was in the past decade that these chaos-creating imps took center stage, from the UK Office’s clueless prick David Brent to Peep Show’s perverse loafer Jeremy, Trailer Park Boys’ drunk-bull-in-a-China-Shop Ricky, the entire cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and, perhaps the most irresponsible man…er, cup…in all of TV land, Master Shake from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Granted, he’s a milkshake, so it’s not like he’s beholden to the laws of a polite human society, but even for food, he’s a total asshole.

There are several reasons why this type of character would rise in prominence at this point in civilization. For one thing, they represent mayhem, and mayhem has quite suddenly become a major part of our lives, from the oppressive threat of terrorism to a cratered economy to the sheer terror of weather-gone-wild. We used to have a handle on mayhem. Now, it pretty much runs the show. Also, the internet’s relative anonymity has allowed many of us to unloose our inner id, flaming and trolling in with remarkable cruelty, saying things that no sane individual would, if they had to attach their name to their statements. In essence, Master Shake IS the internet, come to goop-spurting life, outing you for the lame-o you are, right in your stupid face. The Completely Irresponsible Protagonist is us, if we were willing to get punched in the nose every single day.

However, despite the fact that there are just as many girl-jerks on the internet as boy-jerks, television still favors the be-testicled asshole. On TV, at least, ladies are still the voice of reason, with a few very notable exceptions. Selma Blair’s Kim, from the short-lived American version of the long-running Australian series, Kath and Kim, was an amazing ly obnoxious character, a preening, over-aged mall-princess with so many different glares and withering stares she often appeared to be suffering from chronic facial tics. Sure, she was based entirely on an already established character, but even so, it’s rare to find a female lead in a sitcom that’s so gleefully repellent. Also worth noting is Nighty Night’s remarkable horror Jill Tyrell (Julia Davis, who also wrote the series). This pitch-black Brit-com (2004-2005) starred Davis as a beauty salon owner, stalker, and unrepentant sociopath who just might be the most disturbing sitcom lead of all time, ever.

And then there’s Jackie Woodman.

Laura Kightlinger was/is a mid-level stand-up comic who found fame and fortune as a sitcom writer for Roseanne and Will and Grace. She was also, briefly, a writer and cast member of Saturday Night Live (1995), and she’s acted in various TV shows and movies – from Lucky Louie to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy – since the early 90’s. Despite her mainstream success, much like fellow SNL alumni Norm McDonald, she always seemed more cynical and with-it than her roles and writing gigs would suggest. The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman, which ran on IFC for two painfully brief seasons in 2006-2007, certainly gives this theory some credence. In it, Kightlinger plays the titular Jackie, a boozy, drug-fueled entertainment journalist for a snooty LA magazine that she despises. She aspires to be a successful screenwriter, but is usually too drunk/hungover to accomplish anything. Her best friend, Tara (Nicholle Tom) is a ditzy, sexually-impulsive blonde-mess. In essence, they are the living embodiment of Master Shake and Meatwad, a lazy psychotic and her dimwitted companion out for cheap thrills. Kightlinger has stated that the show is, mostly, based on her own life, and that the stories are “85%” true. While that is clearly bad news for Kightlinger’s liver, it brings a gruesome sort of gravity to the show; Jackie is Laura without the dough, connections, and lucky breaks.

The first season was a straightforward raunchfest, but the following season added a few dollops of poignancy here and there. For example, in one episode, Jackie has to decide who she hates more – her mom's homophobic new boyrfiend, or her snotty, dismissive, gay coworker; in another, she has a pregnancy scare, which sobers her up for five minutes. Luckily, these dramatic moments are usually offset by a bolt of shock humor: Jackie and her drug-buzzing new boyfriend beat a punk rocker to a pulp in a club men's room, Tara has sex with a premature ejaculator wearing a clown mask, Jackie and mom guzzle whiskey and play Russian roulette. Shit like that. It's like Kightlinger knows, deep down, that she's supposed to have “feelings”, but she just finds them much less interesting than moments of druggy chaos.

Jackie Woodman was just hitting its stride when IFC pulled the plug; I imagine Laura would have pushed Jackie and Tara into doing some truly unspeakable things by Season 3. Luckily, we've still got these sixteen hair-raising episodes to remember Miss Woodman by.

In Peyote Ugly, Jackie wins a $10,000 grant from a Native American charity association to shoot a short-film; she applied for the grant as “Jackie White Pigeon Woodman”, justifying her actions by explaining to Tara that her grandfather lived on a reservation. Sure, it's because he was a down-on-his-luck drunk, but still. In a rare moment of moral outrage, Tara tells Jackie she thinks this is a bad idea.
“Well, there's two schools of thought on this,” says Jackie, sucking down a morning beer.
“One, suck it. And two, we already have the money, so who gives a shit?”

So, they cash the check and go shopping. Jackie spends $9000 on a belt and a lace shawl. The counter girl calls it a cape. That's gotta be a bad sign.

Back at Jackie's, Tara needs something to clean up the bloody Mary she just spilled, so she grabs Jackie's award letter. While she sops up the tomato juice, she reads what the letter says. Turns out Jackie has to submit five edited minutes of her non-existent Native American-themed film within two weeks or she has to return the money. Yikes. What to do?

Well, Tara smokes some weed. Meanwhile, a suddenly panicked Jackie digs up her original proposal and finds out it's supposed to be some bullshit about how the white man has driven the sacred Native American peyote ritual underground. Her theoretical film would document one of these “Sacred spirit quests”. Of course, you really have to be a member of a tribe to attend one of these things, so that's gonna be tricky.
“I need you, Tara,” Jackie implores. “You have this ability to connect with, and if the situation calls for it, to fuck, the common man.”
Tara agrees.
“Great. I'll go find my camera, you go find some Indians.”

Tara decides to hit the online personals to find a Jackie's “Indians”. She comes across a fledgling Native American actor named Russell Two Clouds, who agrees to get them into a peyote ceremony if they put him in their movie. Done and done.

Two Clouds turns out to be kind of a douche, reciting Shakespeare and mugging for the camera and whatnots. At least he makes good on his word, and takes them to the ceremony.

Here's the thing, though; once you're in the circle, you gotta drink the peyote punch. Those are the rules.

After projectile-vomiting on their guests, the now stoned-to-the-tits phony documentary filmmakers stagger away.
They both have a weird psychedelic trip with lots of bright colors and groovy sounds. Tara wanders off to renew her passport (or something), while Jackie stops at an oasis cafe where a mustachioed girl serves her drinks and seats her with a turtle who talks to her in her mother's voice.

After a day of tripping balls, night falls on the desert, and the girls decide to camp there for the evening. Luckily, the tribesmen have provided them with some sleeping bags. Tara doesn't think she can sleep, though. Jackie says she has just the thing, and lipsynch's Nancy Sinatra's “Sugar Town”.

That does the trick, and the girls slip off to slumberland.

And then they wake up a few hours later, covered in cuts and scratches from falling asleep in a patch of cactus.

Cut to: later that morning. The girls are back at Jackie's, wrapped in bandages.
“I work in an office, Jackie,” Tara whines. “I can't afford to be an insane fuck-up. What am I gonna do?”
“Call in sick,” Jackie suggests.
“And then what?”
“And then we'll buy a hat.”

Sounds about right. Oh, and what about the movie? Jackie sends 'em a cracked DVD. Hey man, it's not her fault if the post office destroyed the only copy of her masterpiece.

If you're a fan of chemically-dependent lunatics, you owe it to yourself to check out The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman. Season one is out on DVD. Season two...well, it's around. Snap 'em up to see Laura Kightlinger in the role she was born to play: Evil Laura Kightlinger.



- Ken McIntyre