Big Kill, Big Fun

It’s hard to know just what to make of Big Kill.  It’s got all the hallmarks of a low budget western- the plot is fairly simple (lots of discussion of rustling but I don’t think you ever see a cow), the same sets gets used over and over, the cast has a bunch of faces you kind of recognize, and a lot that you don’t.

But it’s also a lot of fun and made with love.  The sets, while few, are great.  None of the leads are big names but there’s a mountain of B-list or formerly A-now-B-list actors rounding out the cast: Jason Patric, Lou Diamond Phillips, Danny Trejo.  Their direction seems to have been pretty much “go have fun.”  These aren’t award winning performances, but you can tell they are all enjoying the freedom to ham it up and overact to their heart’s content.

Big Kill is written and directed by Scott Martin, who you almost certainly have never heard of and seems to have spent more of his career as a producer than anything else (I’ve been a producer, it’s a tough job).  He’s also one of the leads, as one of a pair of scoundrelous cowboys who help a tenderfoot find his way to Big Kill, once a big town and now a big mystery.  Frontier mayhem, organized crime, great sets and costumes, and Lou Diamond Philips at has gall derned best.  Go watch it.  Streaming everywhere.

Also, Stephanie Baren is amazing as Felicia Stiletto.

Scott Martin & Stephanie Baren

Felicia Stiletto

Quick Shots: Dust

I will now do my best to explain the film Dust.

It is a UK-Italian-German-Spanish-Macedonian spaghetti western.  

Yup, that might actually be the best way to sum this one up!

It’s actually pretty good, a nice mix of action, sex, and a hint of artistic flourish that you love in the cool spaghetti westerns of the 1970’s, although this one was released in 2001.  The narrative structure has been described as Cubist; it hops time frames and viewpoints like mad.  At first you might not realize you are watching a western, but hang in there!

Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love and every historical drama you loved) and David Wenham (Lord of the Rings, 300, Van Helsing, etc) star, which is way more acting chops than you might expect.  The story interestingly starts in the American west then ends up in the Balkan Wars of the early 1900s (and you may recall that pre-9/11 the Balkans were center of armed conflict, genocide, and geopolitical posturing between crumbling superpowers, whereas today most people either can’t find them on a map or vaguely know that Donald Trump’s 3rd wife is from there).

Great acting in an art film / western with sex and gunfights  Go see it already!

Midnight Theater Presents: Bad Beulah (sequel with Merkabah Rider coming soon!)

Not sure if the formal title is “Bad Beulah”, “Big Bad Beulah”, or “Bad Black Beulah”.  I’m not going to do any better describing this movie than the single review from the Internet Movie Data Base.  Turns out it’s pretty easy to find with a minute of searching the title, but the reference to the genie in the spittoon, while funny, really turned me off, so I’m giving this one a pass.  Fun poster and screengrabs, though!  

Hey, there's a genie in it, does this count as a weird western?  Maybe the Merkabah Rider makes an appearance.  Crap, perhaps I should watch it...

Here’s the review right off of IMDB:

Extremely low-budget porno has a woman working in a Western town where she's forced to perform sex. After the act she's cleaning out a spittoon when a genie pops out granting her a wish. From here we see various sex scenes involving the genie who manages to use his magic to change who he's having sex with, how many and, as the title states, their skin color.

BAD BLACK BEULAH is just one of the many forgotten porn titles to turn up on Exploitation.TV and if you're a fan of these things then you'll probably enjoy this one. The film was shot on an obviously small budget and it seems like the majority of the cast were probably picked up at the bus terminal and asked if they wanted to make some cash. There's certainly nothing special or overly memorable here and I'm willing to guess that the people who saw this in 1975 were probably on 42nd Street and this came on as the fourth feature.

Again, if you like this low-budget features that clock in less than a hour then there's plenty of sex here.

Firearms safety is important

Church social.  Or an orgy.  Hard to tell.

Campfires and Coffee

 

Every morning I get up, wander to the kitchen, feed the critters, and wonder what genre book, comic, or audiobook will entertain me over breakfast.  Then I crack open the coffee tin, take a sniff, and my mind immediately goes here.

Can't wait to go camping this season.

Best Placement for Stars & Bars

Another April, another time to consider the collapse of the Confederate States of America.  I ran across this image of a man in tiny Confederate panties and felt it really summed up the desperation of the Confederate conscripts; a poor man in a rich man's war, absolutely getting fucked in the ass.

Breckinridge Elkins, Robert E. Howard's comedic mountain man

Good grief, there is a Breckinridge Elkins web comic!  To be honest, I probably knew about this in my first time pass through this blog, but I had a chance to give it a good read lately and I really enjoyed it.  Not sure what else this guy has worked on, and it's amazing that the site is still up after a decade.  

Breckinridge Elkins is by far my favorite Robert E. Howard character, more so than Conan and Solomon Kane.  His mountain man stories are where Howard really started to come into his own as a writer and folklorist, and where he put most of his efforts in the last years or his life.  The Conan stories (the originals, not the pastiches or stories adapted into Conan stories) read like man managing his bipolar disorder through writing.  By the time we get to Elkins, it felt like he had passed a rough patch and was enjoying his professional life.

Then his dog died, his mother died, and he put a .38 in his own brain.  He was 36.

Breckinridge Elkins is a reminder that adversity can be overcome, life can be good, and it can also be fleeting.

Enjoy.

Why write a blog?

Your content is so awesome it generates ad revenue

(Nope- I currently have no ad services turned on)

To sell your own adjacent product

(Nope- after 11 years of intermittent posts I just put a link to my small collection of Kindle publications on this blog)

Vanity

(Nope- seriously, who the fuck reads this?)

So what's the deal?

On reflection this is more of a journal than anything else; in which case, I suppose I should have used LiveJournal.  A variety of therapists over the years have recommended writing in a journal, which has never really worked out for me.  This kind of writing, though, seems to be better.  Just knocking out the random narratives that run through my head, with bizarre pictures attached, may be just what the doctor ordered.

If the doctor was Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor.

Cowpoke Pinup of April