Who's Next To Croak?

Started by cine, September 28, 2003, 11:07:39 AM

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PinkTeeth

New Name, Same Typos.

Jeremy Blackman

I hesitate to post this but just had to point out that Connery was robbed. He made the cut in the Endgame video though (where Boseman was replaced, ironically).


Alethia


Robyn


Drenk

Who's gonna draw God and Maradona doing a line of coke?
Ascension.

Robyn

Maradona would take it and say "It was taken with my nose, and a little with the nose of God"

wilberfan


Alethia

Lucky for Chuck, many people immediately think of Sam Shepard when they hear his name.

wilder

Mike McPadden



Quote from: Kier-La JanisseVery early in my career Mike McPadden was one of the first people to ever offer me paid work as a writer. He asked me to pitch a piece for the magazine Celebrity Skin, which I did ("Sexadelic Seventies Euro-Starlets") which ultimately they rejected, Mike told me, because believe it or not the magazine was a bit square. But it was important to me that someone believed in me, even though I had very little to my name at the time other than an error-riddled fanzine. When House of Psychotic Women came out, he was the very first person to feature it - even though it was on the Mr. Skin website and my face appeared next to a giant penis and I made him take it down because I was afraid my grandmother would see it. For years Mike would weave in and out of my professional life, and he wrote the endorsement we featured on the back of SATANIC PANIC, and I wrote something for his Teen Movie Hell book, and we planned to do more of this back and forth if he didn't have a million projects in the works all at one time like a madman. We both had pretty diverse interests and they intersected a lot. He always championed the unloved, the unloveable even - those misunderstood sleaze auteurs behind the camera, the awkward teenage horndogs in the sex comedies featured in his encyclopedic book TEEN MOVIE HELL, and the quiet, slightly terrified kids who never knew where they fit into any of this. He could see the things that linked the experiences of these underdogs all together and he wrote about them like gospel. One thing you could never say about Mike McPadden is that he was insincere. As I wrote to David Gregory earlier, his enthusiasm was boundless and contagious and that's why he needed four podcasts and all these book projects, because he just couldn't share his love of this stuff fast enough. I regret that we argued sometimes. Over dumb things like who loved LITTLE DARLINGS more. If you have someone in your life that you can even argue with about dumb shit like that then you better cherish them, that's all I'm saying, because most people don't give a fuck what you are talking about. Rest in Power, Mike.

An excerpt from an interview with Schlockmania:

QuoteIs it possible for a provocateur to have a second act in their career? It's worth addressing that question to author Mike McPadden, who has enjoyed a wild, often controversial career in print form since the dawn of the '90s. He appeared on the underground pop culture radar during the 'zine revolution with his infamous Happyland. From there, he straddled the worlds of print and online media via gigs for Hustler magazine and MrSkin.com amongst others.  Both his life and his writing were wild during these times.

Somewhere along the line, McPadden found a way to reconcile the wild interests of his youth and his brash voice as a writer with the changing directions of media and modern life. He got married, added crime journalism to his resume and entered the world of book publishing with books like his popular Heavy Metal Movies. His most recent work is Teen Movie Hell, a look back at the history of the teen sex comedies of the '70s and '80s filtered through a modern perspective.  In a way, it brings the reconciliation of his past and present full-circle.

Mr. McPadden graciously agreed to an interview with Schlockmania and the results are informative, witty and at times soul-baring.





Once upon a time, you were best known for the controversial zine Happyland and writing for Hustler. Teen Movie Hell finds you collaborating with several feminist pop culture writers and dealing with timely topics like #metoo in the context of discussing teen sex comedies. Could you describe the career/life trajectory that led you from the first extreme to the current one?

Basically, I started publishing when I was a kid—a bombastically immature, booze-soaked, drug-inflamed 23-year-old "kid," to be exact—and now I'm a 50-year-old married man who's been clean and sober for nearly 20 years.

Back when, though, in 1991, Happyland was my contribution to punk rock—specifically the form of punk that that stressed nihilism, decadence, and sick humor, as embodied the Butthole Surfers, the Melvins, Big Black, Fear, and the Dwarves as well as National Lampoon and the films of John Waters.

With that in mind, it was important for me to take aim at the anti-fun political crusaders that I felt co-opted punk and reformed into obnoxiously self-righteous do-gooder nonsense full of rules. I quit going to church without even having to get molested, so I had no time for anybody who swapped out that brand of moralism for the shit being peddled by Joe Strummer and Maximum Rock-n-Roll.

In terms of Hustler—first and foremost, I was a pervert. Beyond that, growing up in the 1970s, I perceived pornography as being equally opposed by the political right and the political left. Therefore, I reasoned that if both Jerry Falwell and Andrea Dworkin fought so vehemently against pornography that it had to resemble something close to The Truth.

Hustler combined everything I loved and lusted for most: dirty cartoons, gross-out gags, profiles of sickos, conspiracy reporting, horrifying imagery, underground artists, and an absolute commitment to always being the most extreme in sparking outrage and offending absolutely all points of view. Thus, Larry Flynt and his berserk publication very much seemed in the spirit of my take on punk.

Plus it was the most sexually explicit option on the newsstand. And again, first and foremost, I was a pervert.

All that stated, I am an outsider and I am on the side of other outsiders. I wrote repulsive, sexually unhinged material not because I was a misogynist, but because I wanted to defy "proper decorum" and lash out at constrictions I felt kept us all locked down. More than that, though, I thought that stuff was funny—because it was wrong and I KNEW it was wrong and, at the time, an audience could understand what was funny about that, too.

That's what's lost in today's discourse: offensive humor works because we KNOW it's offensive! THAT's the joke!

So in terms of my evolution, per se, after a brief panic and some of my own moral outrage—ugh—over the apparent embrace of censorship and public shaming that has come to dominate society, particularly in creative areas, I accepted the new reality.

"Political correctness"—for lack of a less heinous term—was an idea whose time had come and to attempt to fight against that is a fool's errand. Plus, I started to see good resulting from these changing mores. Not entirely, of course, but also not entirely NOT, either.

Just as the extreme elements of the '90s underground had, by the decade's end, come to define the mainstream via South Park, Family Guy, and There's Something About Mary, the young generation would dictate today's terms of engagement, and, to be sure, those rules seemed to be the actual opposite of what I had been used to—and I liked some of what was happening.

Politeness benefits everyone and that includes, as is most important to me, ME!

Also, I was already 40 when all this took flight. I practiced a lot of acceptance when it came to kicking alcohol and drugs, and I enabled myself to feel empathy and not just view the rest of humanity exclusively as targets.

Plus, it's pathetic and even disgusting to witness middle-aged men—and, yes, it's always men—kicking against those they deem "the pricks" of the present day. Twitter is full of such buffoons, as well as the at-least-as-awful pricks who kick in reverse. That's why I only use Twitter to promote stuff and then I zip the hell out of that cess-pond.

Toward the end of 2017, in light of the #metoo movement, it struck me hard that for Teen Movie Hell to work, it would require points-of-view other than that of a middle-aged married man for whom these films were made, and which almost universally revel in the objectification, humiliation, and exploitation of females.

Fortunately, I am blessed to know some brilliant film and culture writers who just happen to be women. I offered to hire them to contribute essays and this cabal of geniuses honored me and improved Teen Movie Hell immeasurably by agreeing to do so.

QuotePublisher To Send Proceeds of Mike McPadden Book Box Set to Family

Recently McPadden had been the host of the podcasts Crackpot Cinema and 70 Movies We Saw in the 70s, which explored countless near-forgotten films like Audrey Rose and Silent Running.

Bazillion Points announced that proceeds from sales of McPadden's "Silver Scream Shock box" set of his books would go to McPadden's family.

We spoke to McPadden last year on the release of Teen Movie Hell, and it was an eye-opening conversation. The book is an extensive look at the pre-internet era of teen comedies. We talked about why there's no longer such a thing as a teen sex comedy, why some people think Ferris Bueller is the worst, and whether Valley Girl is the most or least woke movie of the 80s.

Listen .






Quote from: Patrick DoyleI'd give this six stars if that was an option

This needs to be said up front- I'm NOT a big fan of rock n roll in general and I particularly dislike heavy metal. I'm also not that into trashy post 1970 B movies. I brought this book anyway because I've followed this writers career for several decades and knew that with a talent like his the 'what' he's writing about isn't nearly as important as the 'how' he does it. Mcbeardo is a rare talent these days- his insights range from insanely hilarious to seriously thought provoking, but are always unique and all his own. Every word rings true with the sincerity of a guy who really did sit down and watch every damn movie in this book with his own two eyes and makes you want to do the same. No matter what kind of movies you like- if you like movies at all- you will love this book.



jenkins

Quote from: wilder on December 20, 2020, 07:28:05 PM
Plus, it's pathetic and even disgusting to witness middle-aged men—and, yes, it's always men—kicking against those they deem "the pricks" of the present day. Twitter is full of such buffoons, as well as the at-least-as-awful pricks who kick in reverse. That's why I only use Twitter to promote stuff and then I zip the hell out of that cess-pond.

Toward the end of 2017, in light of the #metoo movement, it struck me hard that for Teen Movie Hell to work, it would require points-of-view other than that of a middle-aged married man for whom these films were made, and which almost universally revel in the objectification, humiliation, and exploitation of females.

Fortunately, I am blessed to know some brilliant film and culture writers who just happen to be women.

women are better people lmao I mean they just are. if a woman can't confirm it you're probably wrong. I suspect you already noticed it wilder but like I said my entire hardcore enterprise was validated by a woman. this context is funny because it's not that men had previously been bashing them, the fact is male employees didn't talk about hardcore movies. it was almost as if they didn't exist until she appeared (the um podcast theme that month was vinegar employees recommending vinegar releases)

respect to Mike McPadden

WorldForgot

Very, very dope interview and excerpts.
Thanks for sharing that, I'm eager to check out all of Mike "Mcbeardo" McPadden's writing now.

wilberfan


wilberfan

Michael Apted

His "Up" series was particularly powerful for me--being close to the same age (and going thru some of the same struggles) as those 'kids' he was following.   RIP.


wilberfan

Pat Loud

"An American Family" was a very big deal back in '73.  My (American) family devoured the show when it ran.  Albert Brooks parodied it with "Real Life".

jenkins

I never knew or forgot about this

QuotePat Loud, a California housewife who became known to millions of television viewers in the 1970s as the matriarch of "An American Family," a PBS documentary series that was by turns celebrated and blamed for ushering in the era of reality TV with its frank depiction of her private life....

Created by television producer Craig Gilbert, "An American Family" was a sensation when it aired over 12 one-hour installments in 1973. Decades before the Kardashians became famous for being famous, or the Gosselins of "Jon & Kate Plus 8" announced their divorce, Mrs. Loud and her then-husband, Bill Loud, allowed a camera crew to film their daily lives with their five children for 300 hours over seven months in 1971.

...Filmed in a cinema verité style, it followed the Louds of Santa Barbara through events both ordinary and monumental, among them a wildfire that menaced their house, Mrs. Loud's decision to divorce her philandering husband, and the revelation that their oldest son, Lance, was gay.

At the time, the anthropologist Margaret Mead declared the documentary-style genre "as new and significant as the invention of drama or the novel." Nearly four decades after the program aired, Washington Post television critic Hank Stuever wrote that it "remains one of television's most memorable and emotionally conflicted events."