Pink Angels (1976)

A bunch of badass-looking bikers are on their way to L.A. But they are GAY.

This is your movie, and there is really nothing else much to say. You can tell that the movie was meant to be a madcap comedy, because obviously making a serious drama about a bunch of gay bikers was just impossible for mankind back in the mid- to late seventies.

So you get your typical "gay" stuff.  Picking out clothes.  Prissy fights while grocery shopping.  Poetry.

Then suddenly, in a twist ending that turns the movie from embarrassing and ignorant to hateful, all the bikers are executed (not just killed, EXECUTED).  I swear to God, it just happens all of a sudden... one second they are all wearing dresses in a club, and you blink and then they are all dead.  It's like they had no idea how to end the movie.

Which is prophetic in a way, because I have to idea how to end this review.

*is suddenly executed*

Weekend with the Babysitter (1970)

A square middle-aged guy falls in love with the hippy babysitter and go on a romantic weekend getaway. Meanwhile, his wife gets kidnapped by drug dealers.

This movie is sort of a remake of the extremely entertaining The Babysitter. It gets confusing because the babysitter character has the same name but is played by a different actress, but the middle-aged guy is a different (but similar) character played by the same actor from the original movie. And instead of his wife being an intolerable boring old lady who's not interested in her husband at all, she's a heroin addict in this one. So there is a lot going on in this movie.

Unfortunately it lacks all of the charm of the original movie. It doesn't have the laugh-out-loud ending, and there just aren't enough scenes of the unhip middle-aged guy trying to fit in with hippies. The drug subplot, while funny in how exploitative it is, never becomes hilarious and is instead just tedious. Finally, you can't laugh at how wrong the babysitter exploitation aspect is because they try to make the relationship into more of a romance than a tawdry affair and so it loses points there.

But there is more to this movie than meets the eye! You can't help but notice that the middle aged guy is played by the same actor in both movies. "Wow," you think to yourself, "why does this guy keep getting this role? It just must be the role he was born to play, the role of a guy being suduced by the babysitter." All is well and good until you start doing some investigative work. Not only did this guy act in both movies, he wrote them! And then he helped to produce them. So you can imagine this guy writing his babysitter fantasy down and shopping it around Hollywood. And he has some trouble getting it made so he decides to pony up some of his money. And of course the only guy that can nail this role is him. And he makes the movie only it wasn't totally perfect- I mean, no junkie wife subplot, plus it was in black and white. And then he does it again... one year later!

So by now the story has taken a disturbing twist as you realize you are basically watching this guy's fantasy, which he thought everyone should watch and he paid good money to make sure of it. So I would recommend it as a case study of his descent into madness.

The Babysitter (1969)

Rising star prosecutor and totally square white guy George Maxwell is having an affair with Candy, the babysitter his totally uncool wife hired to watch their totally boring baby while they go and play bridge with a bunch of totally unhip old white people, like themselves. Before long a friend of his oldest daughter has snapped photos of his trysts but is willing to cut him a deal: let her psychopathic murderer biker boyfriend walk free and no one will find out about the pictures. However, the babysitter has some rough friends of her own and blackmailing Maxwell may not work out as planned in this fantasy movie land where having affairs with babysitters merits high-fives from your creepy boss.

Years from now, when mankind has been run underground and cockroach high technopriests send mercenary cockroaches to search the red desert wastelands for remnants of human civilization, they will find these DVD box sets and in their great libraries will be recorded that the high point of human home cinema was the rise and fall of DVD. Then they will send their cockroach cyborg slavemasters into the mines to hunt for more humans for technoconversion.

Never before in human civilization have we had this kind of access to these movies- the kind no one wants to watch- in stores which do not hand you your purchase in a nondescript paper bag. Sure there are plenty of movies that were released on VHS that have still not been converted to DVD, but the number of films- especially genre films (i.e. trash)- on DVD that cannot be had in any other format is mind-boggling. The rights to movies with no real audience can be cheaply bought (or not bought at all, since many of these kinds of movies are in rights-limbo) and released on DVD for pocket change, whereas the previous generation of home video required you release your movies on expensive VHS tapes.

Case in point, The Babysitter. I don't know if this was released on VHS tape. But I can assure you that this movie was not released in a box set with eleven other exploitation movies for $5.00 on VHS. I would also be welling to bet money (though not a lot) that you will not be able to buy The Babysitter along with eleven other movies on Blu-Ray for $5.00 a year from now. And while The Babysitter is a fine movie for ironic hipsters to enjoy for seventy-five minutes, I'm not sure I'd be willing to spend $25 on a special edition 3D Blu-Ray version.

On to the movie. It's got the best title ever because you read that title and you know pretty much exactly what the movie is gong to be about, thanks to the cultural baggage that babysitters carry. There are some surprises- the ending is ridiculous and laugh out loud funny and the relationship between Maxwell and the babysitter is developed far more than you think it would be- but you are basically getting your typical 60s exploitation flick that would have played second fiddle to some higher budget sex comedy or monster movie at the drive-in.

There are a bunch of hilarious things about the movie, including one of those awesome theme songs that features lyrics referring to the babysitter by name and telling you what she is all about, and tons of scenes of crazy 60s dancing that makes the stupid dancing of today look like dancing Shakespeare. And the acting ranges from professional to not-acting-just-talking, but more importantly it's a surprisingly entertaining watch. Not really my kind of movie but I'd rather watch this than some bloated 110 minute epic of the week we get in the theaters now.