Indie Sex
(Documentary TV Mini-Series/2007/Genius/IFC/Weinstein) + The Bettie Page Collection (Umbrella Entertainment/PAL Region
4/Zero Import DVD Set)
PLEASE NOTE: The Bettie Page DVDs that can only be operated on machines capable of
playing back DVDs that can handle Region 4 and Region Zero/0/Free and the PAL
format software, and can be ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment
at the website address provided at the end of the review.
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+/C Extras: C+/C Main Programs: B-/C+
We are
almost in a cycle of documentaries and mini-series that cover sexuality,
censorship of that sexuality or sex in filmmaking. The latest to take on the subject is the
Lesli Klainberg/Lisa Ades mini-series Indie
Sex, which offers an examination in four parts of the subject. To its advantage, it is thorough about many
recent films and even is good at remembering many landmark films. Unfortunately, a little more research on
their part would have made these episodes more definitive, missing some key
films in each of the following cases:
1)
Censored
2)
Teens
3)
Extremes
4)
Taboos
Teens actually managed to include Little Darlings (1980) but misses other
highlights of the teen films, including Roller
Coaster (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and takes the John Hughes cycle
too seriously. It is also not political
enough or aware enough of how the history of such films since the early 1970s
work.
Taboos is an uncut show offered as a
bonus when it is part of the series, which makes little sense, but it is also
the best installment of the program, with the best selection of clips, best
knowledge of history and made me wish the rest of the shows were this good.
In all
cases, the makers are a little too impressed with any representation of sex,
whether the films work or not, which is part of the problem with sex in cinema
today. It shows sex without doing
anything with it, no mater what form it takes.
It wants to make a split between mainstream and independent cinema, but
their approach to that does not always work either. However, there is more than enough here to
give the whole series a look and I commend them for what they did pull off.
One
subject the series addresses is the Bettie Page phenomenon, recently revisited
in a biopic of sorts shown here in a clip with the lead actress who played her,
as well as actual film footage of Page in some of her classic shorts. Though tame in many ways by today’s torture
porn standards, some of the suggestions of the material are still racy and many
DVDs are on the market with various feature films and compilations of her
work. Something Weird Video in
particular has issued just about all her known catalog.
Umbrella
Entertainment has collected all those works in a new 5-DVD set they are simply
calling The Bettie Page Collection
including the EastmanColor features Varietease
and Teaserama. There is also the documentary Bettie Page – Bondage Queen Collection
and 100 Girls Of Bunny Yeager. Oddly, one of the discs, The Irving Claw Classics, Volume One, is listed as both a main
program and an extra! Oh well.
Either
way, it is a crash course on everything you could want to see about Page and
cohorts joining and not joining her, plus you get a few other interesting
extras. They include Page talking in the
“ultra-rare colour burlesque feature” Striporama,
trailers for Varietease & Teaserama and David F. Freedman on
those two features.
All this
material over about 80 years is all in 1.33 X 1 block style presentations,
expect for some clips in Indie Sex
that are letterboxed, but that is very rare.
Even the Little Darlings
footage looks like old, partly unsqueezed 1.85 X 1 in a 1.33 X 1 space. The footage usually looks good there, but
there are all kinds of scratches, dirt and imperfections throughout the Page footage from black and white
shorts to color features. I like the
color film here more than any of the content and makes for a wacky look at
independent production and all are in Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono. Indie
Sex is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.
The only extras
on Indie Sex are the brief sex in
cinema milestones piece, an extended old stag film and more interviews from the
series, including with Tatum O’Neal, Peter Sarsgaard, John Waters, John Cameron
Mitchell, Piper Perabo and Rosanna Arquette for this 2-DVD release available
all over the U.S. and Canada.
As noted
above, you can order the import Bettie
Page set exclusively from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
- Nicholas Sheffo