ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL

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"Rock, rock, rock, rock, Rock 'n' Roll High School!"

Those immortal words, written by The Ramones, kick off a super-charged coming-of-age comedy as chaperoned by, well yes ladies and gentlemen, The Ramones.

'70s era cultural signifiers abound in this Roger Corman-produced bonanza of low budget delights.

"Fun, fun, rock 'n' roll high school.

Fun, fun, oh baby.

Fun, fun, fun, fun.

Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock 'n' roll high school."

That the Punk band from NYC were soaking up California rays while making the movie, only adds to its fun vibe. The Ramones are at the height of their powers, tearing up the screen with determined musical attitudes shaped by Girl Groups of the '60s. Think, The Shangri-Las.

Who knew Punk was so sincerely romantic?

The proof in the Punk pudding nods toward be the beautifully innocent romantic intent in The Ramones' fantastic songs.

The teen dreams of the '70s are in roaring display, squeezed into every frame like a super yummy PB&J.

P.J. Soles is awesome as Riff Randall, The Ramones' biggest fan, or groupie if you will or if you won't. Romantic sparks fly in an out-of-this-world musical fantasy sequence with Joey singing "I Want You Around" to Riff in her bedroom.

Hot.

A girl's Punk dream comes to life, with Johnny playing acoustic guitar accompaniment to Joey's intimate love ballad.

I had the good fortune to be at Richmond Va's radio station-awarded "Rock 'n' roll high school, Richmond Open High School. Aimee Mann was in the equivalent of my home room. As such, the radio station gave us a free screening of "Rock 'n' Roll High School" at the Biograph Cinema in my VCU college neighborhood, the Fan District.

They gave us these great hot pink lettering on black t-shirts.

Oh, the memories of things teenaged Cole did in that t-shirt in 1979, my sophomore year at Open High. And yes, we did claim to get high openly.

Chills baby, straight up chills.

Mary Warnov gives a next level performance as Miss Togar, the high school's evil school principal. It's notable that Mary Warnov and her co-star Paul Bartel went on to make the romping BDSM sex comedy "Eating Raoul" together three years later.

It's clear that everyone involved with this miraculous Punk Rock document, is having a great time really going for it with everything they've got.

That the "Rock 'n' Roll High School" soundtrack is a truly perfect record, goes with the territory.

Rock out kids, "school's out for summer, school's out forever."

"I hate the teachers and the principal
Don't wanna be taught to be no fool
Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock 'n' roll high school."

Rated PG. 93 mins.

ERASERHEAD — SHOCKTOBER!

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David Lynch's filmic immersion into the surreal world of his distinctly odd protagonist Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) comes through in a creepy black-and-white black comedy that functions perfectly as a nerve-wracking exercise in existential horror.

Put it down to Lynch’s concurrent introduction to fatherhood, followed by a divorce during the making of the film, which he spent five years preparing and shooting. No matter how many films you have seen in your tiny lifetime, nothing can prepare you for “Eraserhead.”

Henry Spencer wears his black hair short on the sides, but straight-up on top in a cross between a jewfro and a pompadour that sets him apart from the gloomy industrial area of dark factories and empty lots where he works and lives. Is Henry Jewish? Does it matter? Keep asking questions.

Lynch revels in all things disorienting, upsetting, and mysterious. Uncertainties hang over every scene. Nance’s beautifully stylized comic performance complements Lynch’s high contrast visual design to give the film a sensitive emotional core. Nance’s Henry is every bit as devised as Buster Keaton’s or Charlie Chaplin’s alter egos were.

The bizarre chronicle follows fright wig Harry through painfully slow and strange events centered on romantic relations with his seizure-prone girlfriend Mary (Charlotte Stewart). Mary’s primary character trait is her frequent tendency to cry. And cry she does.

While on “vacation” from his printing job Henry visits Mary in her dingy apartment to meet her family for dinner for the first time. Mary’s mother (Mrs. X) skips the pleasantries. She is suspicious of “clever” Henry from the start. Mrs. X enjoys her own “seizure” during a spastic dinner episode. Before the visit is over, Mary’s mom interrogates Henry about whether or not he has had “sexual intercourse” with Mary. Henry valiantly tries to evade her burning question, but the gig is up when Mrs. X informs him that Mary has already had the “baby” which waits to be picked up from the hospital. The onus is on Henry to settle down with Mary and get married immediately. But what of the grotesque “baby” that resembles an infant calf, at least from the neck up?

There is so little dialogue in the film that you sometimes forget that the characters can talk. The arriviste filmmaker uses a richly layered soundscape of droning frequencies, in addition to things like the unrelenting pitch of a baby that won’t stop crying, to tweak the viewer’s mind. Stanley Kubrick had nothing on his faraway pupil. Lynch’s stark lighting design provokes a heavy mood of melancholia and potential violence. Kubrick repaid Lynch’s effort when he showed “Eraserhead” to his crew in preparation for “The Shining.”

Made in 1976, "Eraserhead" provided an offset balm to the crush of Hollywood blockbusters like "Star Wars" by way of “Eraserhead’s” repertoire status as a Midnight Movie. As a viewer, you can’t help be entranced by the filmmaker’s resourcefulness. As history revels, “Eraserhead” makes its point in an eloquently if gut-wrenching way that overloads your sensory perception. It’s not a comfortable experience, but it is highly entertaining. 

Not Rated. 89 mins.

PINK FLAMINGOS — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

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John Waters's second movie not only set the low bar for just how gross a midnight movie could be in 1972, “Pink Flamingos” remains to this day the most cogently transgressive and anarchic film ever made.

Nowhere else in cinema will you find a singing-asshole performer — with an extended close-up on his anus’s “performance” — sex between two people with a live chicken in the middle, indecent transsexual exposure, a flasher with a salami tied to his penis, a mock-incest blow job between a “son” and his transvestite “mother,” actual eating of dog feces, and an enigmatic terrorist drag queen played by the incomparable Divine.

Take that bitches.

Posters for the movie ran with the tagline, “An Exercise In Poor Taste” for good reason. “Pink Flamingos” foreshadowed Punk Rock’s fiery attitude of bitter irony, articulate viciousness, and acted-out aggression. When reporters interview Divine during the story about whether or not blood turns her on, she replies, “It does more than turn me on; it makes me cum!” Divine (Glen Milstead) remained a muse to John Waters right up until the actor’s death in 1988.

Every co-conspirator member of John Waters’s milieu of Baltimore’s underground cast and crew is a legitimate rebel with their freak-flag waving high. The film’s loose narrative involves a competition between rival outlaw groups for the title of the filthiest person alive. What could be more challenging to the status quo, and more liberating for its participants and audience, than to elevate poverty, filth, and rebellion to its highest possible rank of ultimate authority over society at large?

Divine (a.k.a. Babs Johnson) lives in a disused trailer home hidden on the outskirts of town with her egg-obsessed mother Edie “the egg lady,” her juvenile delinquent son Crackers, and his fetish-driven girlfriend Cotton (Mary Vivian Pearce). Cotton likes to masturbate while watching Crackers engaged in blood-smeared sex with random partners.

After a local rag decrees Divine as the “filthiest person alive,” Connie and Raymond Marble, a jealous couple of black-market-baby pimps, set out to dethrone Divine. The foot-fetishist duo kidnaps young women and imprisons them in their basement where their asexual butler Channing impregnates them against his will. The Marbels sell the babies to lesbian couples for $5000 per infant. Waters’s non-stop stream of sarcastic social commentary runs thick, wide, and deep. There is nowhere for an audience to hide. Every anti-establishment theme is pushed right up in your face and hung there for you to ponder.

“Pink Flamingos” is a genuine article of underground cinema (it was made on a $10,000 budget). Waters’s brilliant use of rock ‘n’ roll music — the sphincter performance occurs over The Trashmen’s “Surfin’ Bird” — sets the film’s goofy psychobilly tempo and tone. Aside from being a mainstay of the Midnight Movie repertoire, “Pink Flamingos” is a daring black comedy made enticingly entertaining by the outrageous character of Divine that Glen Milstead made all his own with the help of make-up artist Van Smith.

Rated NC-17. 93 mins.