Introduction: American Extreme Jack Sargeant and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas September 2016 American Extreme Issue 80 This dossier brings together a collection of articles on a number of filmmakers and filmmaking practices a little beyond Senses of Cinema’s typical focus. This serves as an introduction to and consideration...
The Pornographic Imagination Manifest: Notes On Usama Alshaibi’s The Amateurs (2003) Jack Sargeant September 2016 American Extreme Issue 80 “I think there was something internally stimulating to go (to) that space, collectively there was a high, a mutual fantasy, we forgot we were making anything – it seemed like the performance was really for...
Fear of a Black Phallus: Jamaa Fanaka’s Welcome Home Brother Charles (1975) Dean Brandum September 2016 American Extreme Issue 80 When African-American filmmaker Jamaa Fanaka passed away in 2012, director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive Jan-Christopher Horak stated that Fanaka was dismayed that his films were picked up...
Divine Dog Shit: John Waters and Disruptive Queer Humour in Film Stuart Richards September 2016 American Extreme Issue 80 John Waters is an icon of queer cinema, known for his use of grossness and bad taste. However, it is not grotesqueness alone that makes queer film akin to Waters’ work; his humour is distinctly politically...
Deracination, Disembowelling and Scorched Earth Aesthetics: Feminist Cinemas, No Wave and the Punk Avant Garde Maura Edmond September 2016 American Extreme Issue 80 This article discusses cinematic extremes - on-screen sex and violence but also extremes of grain and texture and production cultures - in the work of several women directors closely associated with the...
“A Malignant, Seething Hatework”: An Introduction to US 21st Century Hardcore Horror James Aston September 2016 American Extreme Issue 80 Abstract >> Hardcore horror meets at the intersection between pornography and horror. Films such as Fred Vogel’s August Underground trilogy, Shane Ryan’s Amateur Porn Star Killer series, Lucifer...
Goodbye, McFly: Crispin Glover’s ‘It’ Trilogy and the Cinema of Reaction Keva York September 2016 American Extreme Issue 80 In directing the taboo-themed It trilogy Crispin Hellion Glover broke away from his iconic role as George McFly in blockbuster Back to the Future (1985). In What is it? (2005) Glover’s insistence that he...
Making Revolutionary Love: Radical Sex and Cooptation in the Films of Bruce LaBruce Jasmine McGowan September 2016 American Extreme Issue 80 Using the starting point of the MoMA retrospective of the works of Bruce LaBruce, this article confronts the shifting perceptions of LaBruce as a transgressive provocateur of cinema. I argue that his most...
What’s Inside a Girl?: Porn, Horror and the Films of Roberta Findlay Alexandra Heller-Nicholas September 2016 American Extreme Issue 80 “What's inside a girl? Ain't no hotter question in a so-called civilized world.” – The Cramps, “What’s Inside a Girl?” (1986) “You know the money shots in porn films? Well, this was just a...
The Invisible Exploding Woman Alexandra Heller-Nicholas September 2016 American Extreme Issue 80 In July 1974 in the seaside city of Sarasota, Florida, television journalist Christine Chubbuck pulled out a gun while broadcasting the news and shot herself in the head on live television. The whereabouts of...
