Monday, July 1, 2013

Thanks(ploitation)!

Junesploitation is over, and it was a success. We have you guys to thank.

Last year, we were kicking around the idea of doing some sort of event to fill the space between F This Movie Fest and Scary Movie Month. We came up with (30) Stars of Summer. It was fun, but it was a lot of work and it felt that way. You can only watch so much of Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain before the month starts to feel like a real fucking drag.

This year, we decided to change things up and go with a more specific kind of a theme month. Junesploitation seemed like a good idea because a) I love exploitation movies and don't get to talk about them much on the podcast and b) selfishly, the idea of watching a bunch of exploitation movies in a month sounded fun to me. Because it's about me, see.

And it was great. While the categories afforded a lot of flexibility this year, everyone really embraced the idea of "exploitation" and stuck mostly to those kinds of movies. We got to see some cool movies we might not have otherwise seen and, if nothing else, learned a whole lot more about the exploitation genre. That's only possible because so many of you made the commitment to participating. The month only succeeded because of all of you.

So enormous THANKS to: Angela Hager, Brad Lange, Chaybee1, Clint J., Corbin Foster, Gil, Grey Weirdo, J.M. Vargas, Joseph Finn, JP, Leo, Luke Ciancio, Mac McEntire, Myke, Shannon Briggs, Sol O., Steve K., Tom Bartman, Tom Smail and anyone else I might be forgetting. And a big shout out to my FTM peeps Doug, Heath Holland, Adam and Erika for participating, too. Some of you did EVERY DAY. Some did ALMOST every day. Some did a few here and there when it was possible. ALL of you are great. Even if you only chimed in once, it means a lot to us. You wanted this thing to succeed. You wanted to be a part of it. You wanted to play along. You wanted to watch a band sing songs about ninjas and a guy with a reverse mohawk get blown up with a rocket launcher.
Look in the background! It's The Giggler!
We talk all the time both behind the scenes and in the comment section about how much we love and appreciate the community that has grown around our site. Junesploitation was an affirmation of that -- an experience that both brought us closer together as a community (we went through war [War!] together) and which reminded us of what a fantastic collection of fans we have. Everyone's enthusiasm before the month even started was energizing and encouraging, and the fact that so many of you made the effort to participate and expose yourselves to new movies is very much in the spirit of what we want to do at FTM. Reading the new reactions to movies I have seen and, even more, reading the reviews of stuff I now want to seek out has been a high point of the year for me.

Because what good is a movie site if we're not a) watching movies and b) talking about movies? Junesploitation gave so many of us the opportunity to get in on the act. It's great when we can all rally around a new release and share our thoughts on the this week's big summer movie, but this June we were talking about 15-20 different movies every day for 30 days. I'm no mathmagician, but that's something like 4,500 different movies this month. You won't find that on most movie sites.

How was the month for all of you? What was the best/worst thing you saw? Who knows what the future holds. Maybe we bring Junesploitation back next year and it becomes an annual thing, like Scary Movie Month and F This Movie Fest and Doug falling off the wagon. Maybe we do something different. I guess it's all up to what our ape overlords decide is best for the site.

In closing, I would like to dedicate this year's Junesploitation to the memory of Jim Kelly, the great blaxploitation/kung fu star who passed away June 29 at the age of 67. He kicked ass, and he embodied everything that we were celebrating during the month.

Here's to you, Jim Kelly.

17 comments:

  1. Many thanks for coming up with the idea in the first place. For me, the best part was seeing 4 movies that were clear inspirations for the great Tarantino: Foxy Brown, Switchblade Sisters, Django, and The Inglorious Bastards. I also want to give a special shout-out to Dead End Drive-In, Halloween 4, Death Wish 3 (the Giggler will always live on in our hearts), and Escape from L.A.

    In terms of the worst, the bottom of the barrel was Dracula's Widow. That movie is tedium on celluloid. Probably the biggest disappointment was One Down, Two to Go. That's particularly sad given the recent death of Jim Kelly, but listen - if you have 4 great stars of Blaxploitation in 1 movie, keep them together! They are only on screen at the same time at the very end, and their brief bit of trash-talking is the most entertaining part of the film.

    So once again, thanks to F this Movie for a terrific month!

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  2. I think my favorite part was seeing so many people enjoy Death Wish 3, a movie I've championed for years to anyone who would listen (and many who wouldn't). The community here truly is a fun and passionate cast of characters, and it's great to be even a small part of it. It's easy to get burned out by month-long events (ya burnt, Junesploitation!) but the enthusiasm was there in the comments every day. Thanks to everybody! Those who put it together, those who participated, and those who just read along and were hopefully inspired to seek out some of the movies that were discussed....thanks, everyone. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch Miami Connection again.

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  3. THE GOOD

    American Mary
    The Howling
    Night of the Comet
    Spider Baby
    Grand Theft Auto
    The Big Doll House
    Rogue
    Death Warrant

    THE BAD(In all the GOOD ways)
    Miami Connection
    Death Wish 3
    Killer of Snakes, Fox of Shaolin
    Cyborg

    THE MEH
    Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn
    The Delta Force
    Shivers
    The Horde
    The Guy from Harlem
    Silent Nigh, Deadly Night

    MOVIES I WANT TO SEE NOW
    The Last Man on Earth
    Black Belt Jones
    Escape 2000
    Rock N Roll High School
    Two-Lane Blacktop
    Senna
    Keoma
    Django
    El Topo
    Ganja & Hess
    The Snowtown Murders

    And so much more!!!

    Joysploitation!!!

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    Replies
    1. Escape 2000? That "Leave the Bronx" movie?

      Someone here gave it a good review?

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    2. No, not the one with Toblerone. :-) THIS ONE, aka 1982's "Turkey Shoot"
      (an Ozploitation classic).

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    3. Part of my faith in humanity is restored.

      :-)

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  4. I'm sorry I didn't have the opportunity to participate this month. This June was kind of crazy for me. However, I sure enjoyed reading everyone's reactions to what they watched. I also now appreciate that I have many new things to seek out, Miami Connection chief among them. That movie sounds amazing to me, especially since it (apparently) features my hometown of Orlando and alma mater of UCF.

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    Replies
    1. Er, I should say sorry I didn't get to participate LAST month.

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    2. Yeah, June went from okay to crazy in the middle of the second week. Still, I found somethings that looked interesting and that I want to seek out, so that's good.

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  5. I'm genuinely, seriously sad that Junesploitation is over. I hope it comes back each year.

    I wrote in my last column that I was going to keep it going, and I will. I'm still watching exploitation movies like a house on fire (and exploitation movies ABOUT houses on fire) and I don't want to stop. I got so much out of all the movies I watched in June. I'd gotten to a pretty pessimistic place concerning movies, deciding that almost no movies being released these days feel FUN. But what Junesploitation helped me to see was that there are hundreds and hundreds of movies that are literally nothing BUT fun. And some of them are Butt-Fun, which is a new subgenre of exploitation and my favorite kind of dirty movie.

    In many ways, Junesplotation acted like a big beacon of light in the middle of a dark time for me. Things that I've loved for a very long time were being reinterpreted for mass audience appeal and thus losing what made them so special to me. Whenever I find myself starting to feel beaten up by current Hollywood movies that can't seem to have fun even with the budget of a small country, I'll remember that my heart is in exploitation. It's also in a jar by my bed for special occasions (like Christmas), but for now, it's mostly in exploitation.

    And I had no idea that we just lost Jim Kelly. That's very depressing. Here's to you, Jim. You definitely brought a smile to my face.

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  6. You guys are all wonderful! And Junesploitation was wonderful because I sought out movies I never would have before. And now there's so much I want to watch! And that's great! Even the stuff I didn't really like from the month (Italian Horror), I still could appreciate it for what it was trying to do. So, I had a lot of fun and thanks everyone for being awesome!

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  7. JUNESPLOITATION!
    It was destined for greatness as soon as Roger Corman tweeted about it. Super Cool.
    I fell off the wagon about half way through due to my daily routine being that I'd watch the movies at night after my partner went to bed. So after a week of that i was getting so bloody tired for work the next day. A couple times I watched a movie part way through and feel asleep, so I couldn't count it, and other times a had the flick all picked out but something came up to prevent me from seeing it. But when you have 30 days to play with there were still a butt load of dirty flicks that I did see.
    The difficulty I experienced on most days of having to pick just one movie makes me excited about the prospect of Junesploitation returning one day. But even if it doesn't I now have a whole new list of must see movies that I think I'll be playing with for quite some time.

    My fiance, who is not a movie buff at all, was getting increasingly annoyed (not seriously so) at the amount of filth a kept watching. So the other day she says
    "so is Junesploitation nearly over",
    "yep" I said "then is only a couple more months to go until Scary Movie Month."
    "Awwwww, that's worse! Can't there be like a Chick-Flick-tember, or Interesting-Documentary-ober"
    Pfft. Women! Right, guys.

    Thank you so much Patrick for putting this on for us. The F This Movie community is so great and I love each and every one of the community events you put on and I'm so happy to be part of the awesome crowd that participates. Spread the word guys.

    Now we can return to our normal lives where we don't enjoy rape quite so much.

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    1. I hear you, brother. In fact, it sounds like we're living the exact same lives on the exact opposite side of the planet - are you incredibly handsome and well-endowed too?!

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    2. Nope. So i guess we have a match ;-)

      My family is Canadian, so maybe we're long lost brothers.

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  8. You're welcome! And of course thanks to you guys too - the FTM Crew and my fellow F-Heads all did a great job - it wasn't always easy but we did it!

    Hard to narrow it down to an absolute favourite, but in approximate order my Top 3 were Streets of Fire, Death Wish 3 and Switchblade Sisters with an honourable mention going to Dead-End Drive In.

    Looking back there was nothing I really hated, but the one I found least interesting was my Italian Horror! selection, Kill, Baby...Kill! (great title though) and the hardest one to watch was I Spit on Your Grave (1976).

    Looking forward to doing this again (and Scary Movie Month - frighteningly not far away!) but for now I'm just going to watch whatever the hell I want to watch for a few days, alright?!

    R.I.P. Jim Kelly AND those little narrow-headed tennis racquets with their tiny sweet spots.

    Also, Happy Canada Day to all the Canadian F-Heads - hopefully someday Roland Emmerich will make a movie where he blows up all of our shit so we have something special to watch!

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  9. RIP Jim "Dragon" Kelly.

    Even your 'fro was AWESOME!

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