More Cult Classics

Sex Madness (1934)

Apparently down through the ages there has been a menace worse than the worst criminal, and that menace is...Syphilis. In this movie we will learn all about this evil, I presumed.
What we really learned was that New York leads to killing babies, or perhaps its being in burlesque anywhere that leads to babies dying.
This movies forward said the only way to save the youth from syphilis was through education, but the movie was really all about how their are lots of 'quack' doctors out there who claim they can cure syphilis but are really just stealing the money of their patients.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what this movie was saying. I don't they mentioned the word sex once, only that people needed to not be afraid of having the important talks. I guess that's an euphemism for sex.


Slaves in Bondage (1936)

Since all of the others movies of this Cult Classics collection have all been either anti something or pro something, so that I expected that this would be the same kind of film. But, it wasn't.
This film is about a couple of small time gangsters that in the start of the film at least are kidnapping girls to use as prostitutes. But they don't seem much like thugs, more like shysters. They do employ a bunch of thugs and at one point have a couple kill another one.
The premise is that Belle Harris runs a manicure salon, and puts ads in small town newspapers for jobs for pretty girls no experience necessary. The girls show up, Belle checks them out, if they're pretty they end up getting jobs as "entertainers" or are forced into prostitution.
Belle's partner Jim Harris does a bunch of other illegal things - like kidnapping the girl at the start. He's an all around bad guy. He ends up setting his sights on the heroine of the tale, Donna who has come to the city with her boyfriend Phil who wants to be a reporter.
Donna spurns Jim's advances, so Jim frames Phil to get him out of the picture and then tries to alternatively woo Donna or get her to work for him, and eventually decides to force himself on her, but by then Donna has talked to the local paper, and the editor called the police and they rescue her in a nick of time. All the bad guys go to jail, Phil gets the job and he Donna are to be married.
There was a point where I thought that there might be a message to the film, but it was a false alarm.
I can't believe I watched the whole thing. It helps that it was only 67 minutes long, but still. This was the best of the films so far, but that's not saying much. Interestingly, this film showed a dance number and 3 different vaudeville acts that were tangential to the story at best, but had they not been there, the movie would have only 50 minutes long.
These films were fun when I was younger, not this one in particular, as I've never seen it before, but these old cult classics that were so bad that they were good because you'd sit around with a bunch of friends at mock it while you watched, usually with some alcohol involved. But most of the films that I enjoyed were from the 50s, all of the flicks from earlier are down right depressing to watch. I'm sure watching them by myself sober is a mitigating factor as well. They just make me glad that I can exercise the right to make this one my last one.

Vampire Dreams

I'm a lucid dreamer. Every night when I go to sleep, it's like laying down to watch movies. Sometimes the movies are good, sometimes not, but they are often bizarre or extremely normal to the point of being boring.

Last night, I had a vampire dream.It wasn't like most of the vampire dreams that I have, in which I may or may not be a vampire, but am always being pursued by vampires who are stronger than I am. Last night I was a vampire and I was hunting. Typically my vampire dreams are about death and fighting the supernatural. Last night's dream was about sex and voyeurism. Don't worry, it's not one of those kind of dreams, and if it was, I'd keep it to myself, or at least save it for a script or something else appropriate. In fact, I probably won't go into much of the dream at all, as if there is one thing I've learned when relating dreams, it's that no one actually cares, no matter how much they say they do, unless maybe it involves them, maybe.

Vampires are portrayed as hunters in most modern media, but calling them hunters makes it seem like it's all about the food aspect and totally ignores the sex/lust aspect. This dream and it's contemplation has lead me to use the term 'stalker' when thinking of vampires. Lestat is cool when he's a predator, but not so much when he's a sexual predator. Actually, Anne Rice has probably come closer to portraying vampires as stalkers than anyone else in recent times, but the movie "Interview with a Vampire" did not. With the exception of vampires that shy away from human blood (like the good guys in "Twilight") vampires are typically stalkers, though a few are just hunters, but more likely killers more excited about the killing than about he food. It doesn't escape my notice that the vampires who shy away from human blood as food are also commentaries on abstinence.

It also occurred to me that a big part of being a stalker may lay in the pursuit of the victims. Vampires appear to enjoy the pursuit for the pursuit's sake almost as much as they enjoy actually capturing victims to feed on.

Vampires are not nice people, no matter how good looking they are portrayed.

Religiality

I'm not a religious person. At this point in my life, I'm not a spiritual person. I can't much stand organized religion, while I have oodles of respect for spirituality.

So, what exactly do I mean? Religion is a social grouping of individuals who share a similar, often particular, world view. That sounds pretty inocuous. By organized religion (a term often used which is why I chose it) I really mean dogmatic, institutional religion, you know like the Catholics or Sunis. For purposes of writing less words, I'll just refer to this as religion.
Not everything about religion is bad. You can get rich, you have unfettered access to young boys, if you work it right - no taxes, you're always right and you're one of the chosen few going to heaven.
Religion is great for soothing the masses. I honestly think that many people are attracted to religion because someone is willing to tell them what to do and to think. I'm not being the least bit fececious when I write this. Just look at all of the people that worship Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern or Phish or Widesperead Panic. Every junior high school student knows that life is much easier if you fit in and don't stick out. Religion offers you the whole package, what to think, what to do, who you can talk to, who to vote for. Religion is probably the greatest socializing force in the world outside of the family.
Spirituality is not the opposite of religion. It is one's personal quest to figure out the meaning of life, and how to live it along the way. Most importantly, spirituality is respectful of other people's spirituality. In your quest for personal enlightment, it's perfectly acceptable to study with others, or inquire, or do whatever it is that you need to do.
I have known many Christians and Jews and Buddhists who I consider to be very spritual. They read their respective texts and attend their respective places of worship, all while keeping their mind open and maintaining respect for other's beliefs.
Likewise, I have known many "non-religious" people who are just as bad as the "bible-thumpers", if not worse. I have set through more than one evening of hearing a blowhard rant about how there is no god and anyon that thinks there is a god is an idiot (or worse).

I think about this stuff a lot. My formal training is in Philosophy and Sociology, after all. I'm sure I'll mention another time my thoughts on politics in the U.S. and there are many, many parallels to be drawn, and in fact, more than a few players are the smae in both games.