Movie Details
| Title: | Mudhoney | |
| Director: | Russ Meyer | |
| Year: | 1965 | |
| Genre: | Drama | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.04.06 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.04.06 | DVR | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2006 MUDHONEY ...leaves a taste of evil! Confession time. Aside from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls I haven't seen any Russ Meyer movies. And even that one I saw before I knew who Meyer was. Oh, wait. I saw Fanny Hill too but it was on Cinemax Friday After Dark when I was like 12. So I don't really count either of those. Point being: I really don't know what a Russ Meyer movie is except women with big boobs. Well tonight that all changes. I guess. Mudhoney is a depression-era tale about a stranger who walks into a small dustbowl town looking for work and finds it on a farm populated with a nice old man, his lovely niece and her drunk bastard of a husband. The hubby spends all day guzzling home brew corn whiskey and rabble-rousing at the town cathouse run by a toothless woman (played by Princess Livingston) and her two blonde incredibly well-built daughters. It's pretty clear that meyer values a woman's aesthetic more than her acting ability - I guess i'm not saying anything particularly surprising there - but I got a big kick out of how one of these prostie daughters was a deaf mute. The actress was clearly the hottest woman in the entire movie (for me at least, none of them were really ugly... except for Princess) but man she must've really sucked as an actress for her character to be a deaf mute. Gee whiz she's hot though and luckily we get to see every hot woman's boobs at least once. Thanks, Russ! What's more surprising to me here though is that the movie's a workable drama. In fact, if the boobs weren't so big you might mistake the first 75 minutes of this movie as some Warner Brothers socially-conscious movie written by John Steinbeck or Tennessee Williams or someone. Well, maybe. The last 15 minutes though turn real dark, managing to make me feel pretty dirty and happy at the same time, which is a weird sensation that brings back memories of how Tarantino defined exploitation cinema one night before showing The House on the Edge of the Park. It's very anti-religion, darker side of human nature type mob justice human ugliness type stuff but at the same time the angry townsfolk are finally getting around to taking care of the guy who's been an incredible asshole for the whole movie. So part of me is on the side of the lawful protagonists but the other part of me wants the crazy preacher to hang the son of a bitch. It's very conflicting and the movie gets really crazy and chaotic. Awesome. So it wasn't all boobs and fun. Pretty good black and white photography, lots of cackling hick-looking people (especially one kid with a lazy eye. those are always fun), and really not that much nudity at all (but thankfully there is some, answering a little question I've had about TCM for a while now)... good movie! So to finish off the night and my little Russ Meyer Midnight double feature is the title he's perhaps best known for. A movie that I've had to kind of shamefully play along whenever it came up in conversation... not wanting to admit to people that I'd never seen it before. Well, in 95 minutes I will have no more shame! It's time for Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! |
