Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Not Boring)

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a 1965 by Russ Meyer, an auteur that produced, directed, and sometimes wrote low budget B-movies that prominently and constantly featured women with large breasts.

I am writing a movie review about it for a couple reasons. The first is that I saw it last week in a movie theater, Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg, NYC, to be exact. The original rule of this blog was that I would write a review for every new release movie I saw in a movie theater. There were some exceptions to that rule over the the years, but given that I watch less and less new releases in theaters (my son, my work, the fact that there isn’t a movie theater in my neighborhood), I may as well expand the rule to every movie I see in a theater, regardless of whether it is a new release. I would like to write at least two reviews a month, and at least 20 movie reviews a year, and writing a review about every theatrical experience will help narrow what movies I write about. After all, I’m not really seeing less movies. Also the movie reviews will be fairer. For instance, I was considering writing a review for Dune: Part Two, but would that be truly fair since I saw the movie at home instead of where I should have seen it, on the big screen (I was about to write that the visual aspect of it was not as impressive the second time around, but is that because it wasn’t or because I saw on a television set?). This review will also give me the chance to write about the theatrical experience, and perhaps, the future of it. Stay tuned for that after the movie.

What can we say about this movie? It takes place somewhere in the Southern Californian desert where our three large breasted heroines (villains?) spend their time drag racing convertibles. There is Varla (Tura Satana) who has black hair, a violent nature and a short temper, Billie (Lorie Williams) a blonde, playful and sexually reckless, and Rosie (Haji) who is Italian much in the same way that Chico Marx is Italian. That is, she speaks in an Italian accent and that’s it. On the other hand, her lack of a personality defaults her as the relatively sane one.

The first half of the movie concerns this trio’s terrorizing of a young couple. It starts out friendly, and I’m still not quite sure what happened, but ends in a murder of the guy and the kidnapping of the girl. Then as the trio are filling their gas tanks, the station attendant tips them off on an old man living in a nearby ranch that might be hoarding a large amount of money. He lives with his two sons, one of which reminded me of Dr. Frankenfurter’s creation in Rocky Horror Picture Show, i.e. he’s hot and very stupid. The old man is, like immediately, revealed to be sexually degenerate, and somehow this movie turns from a story about the trio kidnapping the girl to maybe saving her from this guy.

In between all of this nonsense are fast cars, fast women, a few murders, two sex scenes that both start and end inexplicably, one fried chicken lunch, and several lame but not annoying attempts at humor. I enjoyed it. As Roger Ebert (movie critic, and former screenwriter for Russ Meyer) wisely put it: a B-movie can’t be good in the classic sense, but they can achieve a certain level of distinction by not being boring. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Is the perfect example that statement. You can say a lot about what it is or isn’t, and the arguments will continue for as long as the movie is still watched, but something we can all agree is that it is not boring.

At the showing, the movie was (briefly) introduced by a film historian who informed me that the movie was a favorite amongst homosexuals and that Russ Meyer was an honorary member of the gay community. (This movie was part of a film series at Nitehawk titled Be Gay, Do Crime!). That is sort of news to me. Like, I was aware that gay film directors like breasts (see Almodovar and Penelope Cruz), so it was not hard for me to realize the connection with Russ Meyer when it was pointed out. But I think the connection is even simpler than that. The women in this movie don’t really act like women. (Of course, neither do the men act like men. The story isn’t written well enough). They do however, act and look like drag queens. Drag queens are the combination of the worst stereotypes of both men and women, the aggression and entitlement of the man, the vanity and vapidity of the woman. And although we can argue about whether being so extra is socially acceptable, I think we can all agree that drag queens are not boring. I like them well enough at a distance, like on a movie screen.

I am happy to report that Nitehawk Cinema showed Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! In its main theater for a 9:30 p.m. showing on a Monday night and that the performance was sold out. Importantly, because the movie is not a new release, Nitehawk will be able to keep most, if not near all of the take from the tickets receipts. On top of that haul, Nitehawk sells good food and alcohol, which probably bring in more money than the tickets.

I believe Nitehawk is the future of movie theaters. Not as many people see new releases in theaters nowadays because of their ability to see movies on streaming services or on demand at home on big high definition television set for less money and less travel. But the experience of watching a movie that cannot be paused in a dark room on a giant screen with a group of people (all of which intensifies reactions and minimizes distractions) is still the best way to watch a movie. Add catered food and mixed cocktails and you've got a high value experience. With the advent of social media, it is now easier for movie theaters to advertise for special events like the showing of old movies. And since tickets can be purchased online several weeks, sometimes months, in advance, the theater will have a pretty good idea of whether the night will be well attended and adapt accordingly. I expect Nitehawk could have even switched the theaters from the large room to the small room depending on demand if it was so required.

Another good development that I have heard of but not yet experienced has taken place. Movie studios are now able to own movie theaters. (The news is that Sony has purchased Alamo Drafthouse). This vertical integration was long barred because of monopoly restrictions, but (I am assuming) the splintering of American culture and diversification of ways to experience content has rendered those monopoly concerns moot. In the best case scenario, what this should do is allow more opportunity for smaller films to be seen in movie theaters. As it is, since movie theaters have to give a substantial amount of their take to the studios for new releases, movie theaters have an incentive to show only big blockbuster films that they know will sell a lot of high-price tickets. If the theaters don’t have to share the take (because the studio owns the theater) and they can serve food and alcohol (all you have to do is remove zoning laws) then the price of the movie ticket could conceivably remain low enough for people to be willing to watch a smaller movie in the theater. We will cross our fingers and see.

Godzilla Minus One (5/5 Stars)

“I have a question. Does this plan of yours mean certain death?”

“Of course it doesn’t.”

“Okay, well, those odds are better than the war.”

So goes a conversation in Godzilla Minus One in which a naval commander attempts to persuade a room of Japanese men to volunteer for a mission to fight back against Godzilla, a monster mutated to gigantic proportions by radioactive discharge of H-Bombs tests in the Pacific Ocean in post-war Japan. It is an extraordinary scene given the historical context. The first notable detail is that the commander is requesting cooperation, not demanding compliance. Japan, and particularly imperial Japan, before and during the war, was extremely hierarchical. Not only did figures of authority demand complete obedience (infamously to the point of death), but the subjects usually obeyed without compunction. The second notable detail is that enough men actually agree to the mission, after, importantly, others do not without shame or consequence. This is right after defeat in World War II, a conflict whose damage to Japan and its people was exacerbated by the imperial leadership’s willingness to sacrifice its soldiers/pilots in suicide attacks and its people in bombing raids far beyond the point of any realistic hope of victory (and, of course, the American’s stunning capacity for ruthlessness in carrying out the same). These men aren’t agreeing to this dangerous mission simply because the authorities are expecting them to. They accept it on their own terms and, specifically, they aren’t willing to risk their lives for nothing. They insist on a plan that makes sense and has a chance to succeed. In one movie scene, you can feel Japanese culture feeling around for the middle ground between gung-ho aggression and total pacifism.

In the annals of human history, there are not many parallels to a society being so thoroughly laid low as Japan was in World War II. What exactly happened has rarely been directly addressed in the history of cinema, American or Japanese. One of the best war movies ever made, Grave of the Fireflies, showed a fire bombing raid, a mother covered head to toe in bandages dying from burns, a sister slowly starving to death. Thankfully, it was animated. The subject matter was so intense that it would have been very hard to watch if the medium itself wasn’t one removed from reality. Godzilla has always been a giant metaphor for nuclear war of course, but here he becomes more than that, a giant metaphor for war itself. How the characters react to Godzilla reveals their feelings toward war, the present one with Godzilla, yes, but also the one that has just devastated the country. In East Asian fashion, the people still pull their punches when it comes to criticizing their leaders, but the metaphor presents the opportunity to indirectly express these feelings, and the writing by Takashi Yamasaki (also the director) is exemplary in this regard. The main dramatic through is the character of Koichi Shikishima, a kamikaze pilot that either smartly and/or disgracefully did not complete a suicide mission during WWII, and how he seeks to redeem himself against Godzilla.

After seeing this movie (and being floored by how good it was), I looked up the original movies from 1954. An apt comparison of Godzilla Minus One is the first Daniel Craig era reboot of the James Bond franchise Casino Royale. A similar idea behind both being: what if we took this very popular pulp entertainment and rebooted it as a well-made and produced, dramatically competent, movie. Well, here it is. According to Wikipedia there are 38 other Godzilla movies. I’ve only seen five of them (1954, 1998, 2014, 2021, and 2024) but I would be very surprised if Godzilla Minus One isn’t the best one. This isn’t just a great monster movie. It’s one of the best movies of the year.

Godzilla himself is a fearsome monster. He has come a long way from a man in a suit knocking over skyscraper models. There is the iconic scene of crowds of people running away from him as he stomps through Tokyo. Godzilla’s heat ray is a straight up atomic blast that prompts an extraordinary scene of not just physical destruction but emotional devastation. The movie won a well-deserved Oscar for Best Visual Effects and, somehow, this is a low-budget movie. Or at least relatively low, like 30 million dollars. I frankly don’t understand how that is possible, except to say that everyone else in the industry has much they can learn from it.