Evil priests. Lascivious
nuns. Mischievous monkeys in a graveyard. What genius dwells in
the minds of low-budget moviemakers. What quirky flourishes of inspiration.
What splendid deviance. What banal crap.
The entry form reads: We accept personal visions of
art, trash and everything in between! What kinds of stuff do people
actually enter? Of course, if you’ve ever been to one, you already
know. But do you ever wonder about the stuff that gets entered,
but never gets a public screening? Do you possess a perverse streak
that actually takes delight in the extremes of artistic output?
Then enter, I say. Enter the beautiful, putrid world of The Lucky
Charm Awards.
I love all the videos we receive. The good, the bad
and the ugly. Believe me, we got some ugly stuff this year. You
don’t even have to watch them to recognize their ugliness. The names
alone say it all: Puss Bucket; Hell on Earth II: Arena
of Death; Mein Skitzo; Axe and Ye Shall Receive; Slaughterville; Jesus Hates You; 90 Minutes to Die; Age of Demons; Vulgar
Display of Power; Here Were Hanged; Dick
and Jane Drop Acid and Die; and My Penis (and Her Feet).
What You Won’t Be Seeing at the Awards:
I do have some standards. Really, I do. I like to
shock as much as any fringe/ sleaze/ deviant video czar. But I also
draw the line based on public tastes and personal dislikes. It’s
moral caprice, and I have a right! And these are some of the clips
you won’t be seeing at this year’s Lucky Charm screenings:
My Penis (and Her Feet) Like The Pooch
burger at Seattle’s recently departed Dog House restaurant, the
title speaks for itself. My Penis is a video by a self-proclaimed
foot fetishist. A few decades ago a man like this would’ve been
locked up. But now we give people like Mapplethorpe cameras and
foot fetishists camcorders and art moves to the next level. Anyway,
not much happens in this video. We see the body parts in the title,
we hear the voices, but we never see their faces. It was certainly
horrifying. People who know me know I watch a lot of horror movies
and can stomach a lot of gore, but even I have a tough time watching
a man set his privates on a table while a woman in pumps teases
her heel and says things like "I’m gonna put my weight on that
thing." Maybe I’ll screen a black-out versiona nd let people
hear the audio. They won’t believe what they’re not seeing
The Headstrong Newspaper Woman This one’s a
period piece about a Little House on the Prairie-era murderess
who wants to become editor of a newspaper and is willing to seduce
and kill to get what she wants. Sitting in her jail cell awaiting
hangin, she performas fellatio on a guard. I can’t tell if it’s
real or she’s going down on a lifelike rubber version, and it’s
unsettling. I have nothing again NC-17 moments, but I will not tolerate
vagueness in a video!
Manic-A-Go-Go The main characters in this story
at a comedienne and a male stripper. I know this because it says
so on the box. But nowhere, nowhere in this video do you ever see
this woman onstage telling jokes or the man taking off his clothes.
Do people think they can simply make up an occupation for a character
without any relevance to the story?! At least no penises were involved
in this one.
What you will be seeing:
We’re having three nights of screenings this year:
1) An evening of Underground Horror, Gore, and Cyberspace Sex Fiends: The Bloody Best of the Lucky Charm Awards: Thursday, March
17, 8 p.m. at the Pike Street Cinema, 1108 Pike St., Seattle. I
love horror movies because so many beginning moviemakers use them
as their rite of passage. Oliver Stone, John Carpenter and Brian
DePalma got their start this way. Some successful directors like
Francis Ford Coppola and Jonathtan Demme have used them to revie
their careers. I see three trends this year: First, there’re some
pretty decent special effects. These videoteurs seem to know their
way around a blood squib. Second, there’re some surprisingly good
production values, with well thought out compositions and lighting.
2) Glitter Goddess of The Sunset Strip: Friday,
March 18, 8p.m. at 911 Media Art Center, 117 Yale N., Seattle. The
new thing we’re doing this year is screening a feature-length video
in its entirety. Creator Llana Lloyd will be on hand to talk about
this docudrama that combines personal footage and video re-enactments
of her life in the glam-rock 70’s and clips from the numerous talk
shows she appeared on and used as a therapist’s couch during the
80’s. Guaranteed lively discussion about the movie and Llana’s national
group, Children of Gays, will follow the screening.
3) Night of a Thousand Charms: The Third Annual
Lucky Charm Awards- Saturday, March 19, 8p.m. at the Seattle Art
Museum. The state of the art in low-budget videomaking, our wacky
night of video clips will include comedy, music, narrative, experimental,
and erotica. Regarding the latter, The Lucky Charm Awards are designed
to showcase the genres low-budget videomakers are working in. And
as we all know, people are using their cameras to make naughty videos.
It’s not that I have a problem with porn, except that it’s usually
boring. It’s because an erotic video should be based on a sensual
experience, not simply body parts. People like to look at naked
bods and though they’re turned off by monotonous pumping, they’re
intrigued by a happy medium. It is my contention that today’s experimental
erotic videomakers will be tomorrow’s master filmmakers. See them
here first. This night will also include our tribute to Super-8
moviemakers and our grand prize presentation for Rosa Mi Amour. MM
Share:
