→ A Movies By Women.com Article

→ Excerpts from Underground Film Column for Filmzone.com

by Sarah Jacobson

Live Nude Girls was a real jolt to see. It's about five women who have slumber party before one of them is about to get married, sort of a bachlorette party. It's raunchy, sexy, funny and smart and it was really familiar from a female perspective. The only drawback is that all the women are model perfect even though they're supposed to be older (except for Oliva D'Abo as a baby dyke). The director touched on the issue in the Q&A, that it was hard enough to get the movie made and she was able to get away with everything else except the actresses' body types. I'm completely sympathetic to that, it's the typical dilemma of trying to do subversive projects in the mainstream, but a lot of women I talked to felt that the realistic tone combined with the physical standards were hypocritical. I would suggest that you see this film for yourself and decide. It's really worth checking out, at least for the super sizzling hot fantasy sequences.

SLEEP (3 min) by Helen Stickler
I walked into this film late and had no idea what it was. I thought it was fantastic, brilliant surreal and weird with found footage usage that would make Craig Baldwin weep happily. It was only at the end that I found out it was Helen's first film. So I'm happy to say that I love this film not out of friendship to Helen but because it's fucken rad! P.O. Box 23008, Providence, RI 02903-0394, Cimatrix@aol.com

I, DOLL (57 min) by Tula Asselanis
Like idol, get it? This is a comprehensive, witty documentary on Barbie which puts emphasis on the-Barbie-as-evil-angle. We get the history of Barbie's origin (based on Lilli, an old German prostitute doll ), Barbie's eye shapes (from slanted to doe-eyed), her careers (from first career Stewardess Barbie to Presidental Barbie in 1993), and her group of friends (including a version of Growing Skipper who gets taller and grows boobs at the press of a button, and the story of how the manufacterer's arrived at Ken's sexy pubic bulge). The doc hits hard on issues like race, self-image, eating disorders and the disturbing fact that there are over 2,000 Barbie clubs for adults, but it never loses its sense of humor. Highly recommended. TulaFilms, 238 Cheswick Court, Alameda, CA 94502, (510) 814-9223, itsme21a@aol.com

ELYSAN FIELDS by Jerri Cain Rossi and Natalie Murrah (7 min)
Jerri Cain Rossi, named one of the up and comers of the Cinema of Transgression in Jack Sargent's book Deathtripping, pulls a strange twist with this Civil War era film. Her last film, BLACK HEARTS BLEED RED, was powerful, but had a definite hipster feel, especially with a psycho performance by Joe Coleman. In ELYASN FIELDS, the film feels like it was filmed during the Civil War era even though it's laid down with rock and horror film music. It explores the effects on women and on race in a fresh way. Particularly striking is the sequence where a bunch of rich white people are enjoying a decadent banquet with a black guy, then they turn on him and hang him over the table with the spoken word of The Last Poets on the soundtrack. The last shot of the film is a quote from Abraham Lincoln where he states that his only aim is to save the union and if could have done it without freeing the slaves, he would have. I heard that this is just a work in progress and the film is going to be a longer piece. I can't wait to see where Jerri and Natalie take it. 620 Frenchmen St., New Orleans, LA 70116.

GO GO MAMA RAMA by Kate McCabe (16 min)
This film at first reminded me a little of Addison Cook's WILD GIRLS A GO GO, with its hokey strip chick setting. At first there's a barrage of lame guys talking to the camera, spewing typical asshole strip customer lines and the whole thing seems a little stage-y. But once it gets into the strippers taking about their work and how they get $$$ out of the suckers, things start to get interesting. Then we get some hardcore stripping routine footage that is much sexier than anything out of SHOWGIRLS and the guys with their phoney lines get more convincing and more absurd. "I understand you, these other guys don't." "I'm being totally sincere when I tell you you have a gorgeous ass!" You start to wonder where she got such a wide array of loser guys and if any of them are typecast. Hot Pants Productions 2226 St. Albans St, Philadelphia, PA 19146.

GORILLA GIRL by Elisa Blatteis (14 min)
I loved this film. The set up is a freak show carny atmosphere where a sexy stripper chick supposively turns into a raging gorilla. All the characters are completely formed, from the Gorilla Girl to the Barking Carny Guy to Asshole Assistant to Little Girl Who Sneaks Into Show to Teen Couple in Audience and in the short amount of time you feel like you understand these people's entire lives. The set is totally convincing, I always felt like they were at on the carnival strip and the narrative is very well put together, building suspense and telling a great story. 253 W. 72nd #1707, New York, NY 10023, EBTN@aol.com

PORTLAND
Because I've been in the midst of the post-production whirlwind for my film MARY JANE'S NOT A VIRGIN ANYMORE, I haven't been able to get out of the house much to see anything new. Lucky for me, Greta Snider came by my house with her dog to borrow a video tape I had that she wanted to show to some friends. She brought over a copy of her new 12 minute film, PORTLAND.

I'm really excited to write about Greta. She's been a big influence on me. Her films are really powerful without a huge crew, budget or strict narrative. She's been doing DIY films for years, taking the camera and putting it into her friends' hands, teaching them how to shoot and process film, telling her own stories in a personal yet punk rock way. She also does this cool zine called MUDFLAP ($1 plus 2 stamps to Greta at P.O. Box 410894, SF, CA 94141) which chronicles her traveling adventures and documents her love for bicycles. In fact, her films are like zines, made up of different stories and patchworked together. Even though they are very experimental, they don't bore me like that self-indulgent avant garde shit I was forced to watch in art school. The first film I saw of Greta's is when I projected SHRED OF SEX at Kristin (star of I WAS A TEENAGE SERIAL KILLER and painting goddess) Calabrese's old gallery, the Three Muses Artspace, back in 1991. In the film, Greta was living in this house where everyone knew each other really well and she had everyone film themselves in different sexual scenarios. Some of my favorites are the girl who gets tied to the pool table and fucked with the pool cue, the guy who masturbates with his skateboard, the girl who masturbates with a telephone and Greta filming herself getting eaten out (I've always wanted to do that!). Her last film, NO ZONE, was a collection of four vignettes about different scenarios, one of which included the narration of Aaron Cometbus, who writes COMETBUS, one of the best zines around ($2.50 pp to Wow Cool, 48 Shattuck Square, Box 149, Berkeley, CA 94704).

In PORTLAND, Greta heads out with INMATE zine mistress Ivy, (who's in a band called Los Canadians which are currently on tour), to meet up with Iggy Scam, of the great SCAM zine and is in the band Hidden Resentments (punk rock not alternative, Greta says, also on tour right now). Their plan was to find each other, chill out and drink in Portland. Greta's one of the few people I know who would take a 16mm CP16 sync sound camera freight train hopping. During the majority of the trip, the camera, and the rest of their stuff gets locked into what they thought was an abandoned squat. So we get to see Ivy and a very inebriated Greta explaining how this trip to Portland was one of the worst trips of their lives. Not only do they hardly know anyone in Portland except for this kid who steals them mini-crowbars from Payless, but it rained. They were chased by mean hobos and one of the trains they were on gets abandoned in the middle of a field. Greta goes back early while Ivy hops trains to meet her in San Francisco. However, Ivy gets busted in Eugene, Oregon for shoplifting a bottle of wine and gets thrown in the workhouse for ten days!

There's lots of punk stuff in this film, footage from a punk show including a frantic moshpit, shopping carts, needle strewn streets, but the thing that makes this film ultimately punk is the great footage of the lighting-the-non-dairy-creamer-on-fire trick. The footage looks great. Some of it is really grainy black and white stuff that looks like it was optically printed, some straight up sync, some found footage (I mean, is there a filmmaker who's friends with Craig Baldwin in existence that doesn't use found footage?). The sound is great and disjointed with some rockin' music, one song by the infamous Trashwomen! My favorite line is, "I got married and Iggy and Ivy moved back to Miami" as we get to see a quick shot of Greta in her wedding dress. Greta's films are available through Canyon Cinema (2325 3rd Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 (415) 626-2255), as well as local San Francisco video stores like Leather Tongue (www.leathertongue.com), so contact them if you're interested in checking out PORTLAND.

Geometry. Karl Gauss. Barclay's. Ashley Galentine. Katrina Flener entered three films under different names to increase her chances of getting in the festival. The two that got in were the ones under pseudonyms, both of them are great. Geometry shows Katrina sitting in a chair talking about special relations in reference to smoking pot, cutting away to cute diagrams of her stoner ramblings. It's very witty. Barclay's is a hysterical verite-esque portrayal of a sex worker who gets a babe of a client who wants her to act out all the roles from the movie Heidi, among other things. Although there was no real nudity or fucking, it was one of the few films in the fest that was actually sexy. You go girl! Head-Quarters Prod. 44 Water St #4 NY, NY 10004, (212) 785-1085.

FEMME FLICKE This little gem is a total zine in the way that it's very personal and feels very hand-crafted. Its focus is on women in film, and not in the cheesy way that Premiere and the Hollywood Reporter do it in their once a year issues. Tina Spangler puts a lot of emphasis on chicks from the underground, like Pixelvision queen Sadie Benning, Stacy Richter (Invisible World) and even yours truly (in issue #3.) Each issue has consistently great articles, reviews, critiques, top ten lists and interviews as well as resources for girls in film. In issue #2 she printed an exhaustive list of films done by women directors that she updates in following issues. The thing I like the most about Femme Flicke is that Tina looks at everything critically and if she thinks something is fake or stupid, she'll call them on it, like musing on the irony of only being able to get Sadie Benning's film at $40 a tape when her work itself so DIY.

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