You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
Hey, this is Jason Kleeberg from The Force five podcast, a show that forces a guest to come up with a movie themed top five list topic and then we reveal our picks on air. Top five heist Films, top five Tier Jerkers, Top five movie Dogs. Every show you'll be asking yourself what would be on my list. Guests include directors, screenwriters, actors, podcasters, musicians, authors, and even a
professional wrestler. Subscribe to the Force five podcast and you won't just be a listener, you'll be a listen nerd. The Force five podcast available wherever you.
Are listening now, Hello there, and welcome back. What is this place?
As connected?
Disconnected? It's connected that reach the number that has been disconnected. Hello there, welcome back to the disconnected. I am here with somebody I've wanted to talk to for the longest time ever, with Liz Purchell. Liz, thanks for doing this.
Yeah, thanks for having me a longtime listener, first time caller.
Oh thank you amazing, I mean longtime listener of yours as well. For those that don't know, Liz is a film programmer, writer, film historian, and now curator of Muscle Distribution. Congrats, big month for you.
Yeah, I mean I think Muscle officially launched around March of twenty twenty five, so it is I think basically a year, even though it had been like a couple months before. That was when I started putting everything together. But like March feels like the beginning.
So and what all behind the scenes has been happening since March of twenty five.
Way too much, all at the same time, because it's just me and I'm a workaholic, which is a good thing but also a bad thing.
So maybe we need to talk after this and share some trade secrets because god, same, exactly the same that's been happening with me for the last year. Anyways, it's a big month castration movie up for sale today on the Vineger Center website. Undoubtedly, by the time that we've revealed this, it's probably sold like hotcakes, because this is a movie that people have been like eagerly anticipating that. Do you feel like a ground swell behind this movie right now? I do?
Actually, I mean it's felt really, I mean, it hasn't been a surprise, but it also has been a surprise.
I mean I was in La back in January for a pair of screenings that we did at Brain Debt Studios, and both of those were sold out, which kind of we figured was going to happen, But like, the audience felt very different than the audience I've been at the once before that, and it feels like it's breaking out into kind of like the more mainstream cinephile sphere, and so I'm just along for the ride and fascinating to see where it goes from here.
The feedback I've heard, which is weird because I don't normally hear a lot about the screenings of Brain did, but I had multiple people tell me that it was like an electron city in the air at these screenings, Like it was i don't know, like more than just an event, like a genuine feeling of like camaraderie behind a movement, which is so cool to hear, and I'm just I'm thrilled. I'm glad that it's getting this attention.
Yeah, which is it's funny to say all that for a movie that's four and a half hours, and.
That's part one, by the way. Yeah, Part two is five hours, so yeah, and you know, there's a lot to say about the Crest Castration movie. But I mean the first thing is it's it's an audacious film in multiple ways. The length is like the last on the list of audacious things about it. But for anybody that knows you, that's not a surprise to be associated with that type of movie. I mean, the type of films that you program, the type of films that you champion,
are that way. So why why those types of films? Why why is that the type of s number that you love?
I mean, for me, I think it's just I always want to see something that I haven't seen before, or I want to see work that provocative or transgressive, or you know, isn't just the same things that everyone's watching and talking about all the time. And I don't know, I don't know, maybe maybe I get bored a little easier, or I just I just always want to see something that excites me. And I think Luis Ward the filmmaker
is just flat out like a genius. And working with her on the movie and getting more and more involved with it. After Part one, which I just came on to distribute it, and then part starting with Part two, I've been much more involved with it. Has been like one of the most exciting and fulfilling projects I've ever
been involved with in my entire life. So the funny thing is is that when I was kind of getting everything with Muscle, you know, formulated, and coming up with like ideas for it, I think people mostly know me for queer cinema, which is, you know, one of my
big passions. But I didn't want the label to just be like a queer label or you know, any specific kind of thing, and so I kind of lashed onto like the phrase like scrappy misfit films, which I think kind of encompasses a lot of different things.
Yeah, but I.
Think over the past couple of months, like I've been half jokingly saying to friends that the tagline for Muscles actually, uh, freaks only, which, now that I have some very respectable films in the catalog, I don't know if I should be using freaks only, but I want to use freaks only for it.
So yeah, Well, I mean, if anybody were to look at any of the things that you've programmed, which they can on your website, you've got a really robust and up to date By the way, congrats that that is really difficult to keep it a website, very up to date, very good on the on due diligent there. The type of films that you are programming are I mean, first of all, all of them by themselves very hard to like put in a box because they're all so different.
But when you look at the list, you're kind of like, yeah, that makes sense that these are all grouped together in this way. You've programmed with the Austin Film Society, You've programmed with Nighthawk, You've programmed with the IFC Center in New York with Almo draft House. Where where did film programming start for you?
I mean, I think the first actual programming I ever got to really do was Christ and Malawson Found, which is a monthly series that I've been doing at the Austin Film Society since I mean basically shortly after COVID. I mean COVID. COVID didn't end, but when COVID kind of loosened up a little bit in theaters re opening.
I had wanted to program for many, many years before that, and just never really had opportunities apart from just doing like some guest spots at AFS or Alma draft House, both in Austin, where I was living at the time, And I mean, once I had the the AFS series, it just kind of grew and grew in Snowball Snowball from there, and yeah, I mean it's it's really a
big passion of mine. And the fun thing is that I I view the distribution stuff that I've been doing for the past years kind of like the Galaxy Brain, like the next level of that.
So it is film programming, curating for people that don't have to be in one place. So that's super helpful. Why film programming, then, what do you personally get out of it?
I mean, for me, I think part of it is that, like I grew up in Tampa, Florida, not recommended, which was a place where I was always interested in film. I had a lot of other passions. I was video games and all sorts of other things, but like I never lived somewhere growing up that had like a strong repertory scene. Like in order for me to go see the kinds of movies I wanted to see, I'd have to drive ninety minutes Orlando to go to the enz and or go to other cities just to like see
a movie. And so for me, It was this combination of sharing things that I'm interested in and that I would want to see as like an audience member, but also to be able to bring that to other people who, you know, maybe you're bored with what's going on otherwise. I mean, I've always kind of I've kind of viewed myself and my work as kind of doing what other people aren't and trying to fill in gaps that are being alive.
The films that you've programmed, are there any that you look back on now and say, holy shit, I did that? Like I was able to bring this movie to an audience.
I mean, I think one of the ones that I'm really really proud of was last year. I don't remember when it was, it might have been like March or April. I did a screening of Indy Warhol's Lamore at Anthology Film Archives in New York. And that's a film that's never been released on home video, it's not widely circulating online, it hasn't played theatrically in the US at least in
maybe three or three or four decades. And that was something that was coordinated between me and Brian Block, who does a lot of work with the Paul Morrissey Estate, and with Vinegar Syndrome and with MoMA. It was four different people all coming together to try to do a single screening as like a tribute to Paul Morrissey who had passed not too long or not too long before that.
And it was a funny thing where like I had seen like a bootleg version of the movie that had been passed to me, and I never really thought it was one of Warholer Morrissey's better works, right, But then seeing it with like a sold out crowd of people who like no one had seen it before. In that audience, it suddenly actually became like one of the one of their best movies. It really really works with the crowd.
And so for me, I guess I also kind of view programming as like performing these psychological experiments on audiences of I might not like this when I watch it by myself, but like, you know, if I can get twenty thirty, forty fifty one hundred people in a room, how will they react to it? I mean, so like the weird Wednesday stuff. I've been doing it at Alamo and Brooklyn has been a lot of that of I don't really love this movie, but how will this play with an audience and out of work?
Is because I've never had a chance to program like that at a theater, because I've always lived far away from any decent theater. Is is does it feel insular to do programming like that? Do you get a lot of personal one on one feedback or is it mostly just like standing in the room and listening to what people say after?
I mean, I think that's the great thing about Letterbox is that, like I'm at this point, I'm so conditioned to like when I get home or when the screening gets out, just checking out there or I mean, I I love just talking to people after screenings in the in the lobby or outside, or I think a great thing about New York because everything is all about walking. It's going to a bar with people after the movie and talking with them and seeing what they thought. But yeah,
I mean that's that's also a big part of it. It is a social thing, even though it is also for me a work thing.
Are you in New York now permanently? So? How how is life different now from from Tampa to New York? For you?
There was there was there's like a dew tour, So I was.
In campus in the middle. Yeah.
Yeah, I was in Tampa. Then I moved to Austin, got a job at a class at a public radio station out there because I wanted to be closer to the film scene there, because I knew there was a film scene in Austin, and kind of got there right in the wake of Me Too, which was really great, by the way. Yeah, I mean I miss I missed certain things that I'm glad that I missed, but also like I feel like I kind of got the last couple of good years in Austin because COVID really changed
everything in that city. It's like when things started reopening, It's like the two video stores both closed, the Alamo Draft House downtown UH closed and was bought by Joe Rogan and became like his anti woke comedy club, and the vibes were just like slowly shifting, and so things things that were feeling really dire, especially like the last year that I was there, when it felt like just about every trans person I knew in the city was
like slowly evacuating. And then of course at the end of like twenty twenty three, I did that myself, and so New York has been very different, and I think it's been hard in some ways, but it's also been really good in other ways. And I just love the film scene here, and I love how excited people are
about seeing things and doing things. And I think professionally for me too, it's great to just be surrounded by so many of my peers and people who also work in distribution their home video or theatrical or whatever.
The amount of resources alone has to be kind of like a miracle living there, I imagine.
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's great because I think when you're living in like a city, even like Austin, and you're doing all this kind of work that is very insular, sometimes it becomes very easy to take it personally or feel like you're the only one going through certain things
or struggling with this or having trouble with that. And so to actually have like a really strong support group in person into you know, hanging out with people who do lots of bonus feature stuff, or hanging out with people who have their own labels and you know, have that kind of social venting element too, it's been just
really really helpful and really good. And also, I mean, I think a big reason why I like doing this kind of work is because I like the people generally, and so it's great to have have it be a little more social even though it is still work.
Well, we'll get to all of muscle in a little bit, but one of the big things that you've done over the years too is contribute to discs and home video stuff. Obviously we're tap dancing around that quite a bit, but you've done stuff for Connie and Vinegar Syndrome and Altered Innocence and Severin and Dark Star and Imprint and tons of labels, like so many that can't even be named because you and I are similar, Like we'll break out with everybody. What was the first disc you were on.
I think the first thing I ever did was Sometimes Aunt Martha Does Dreadful Things, which was a thing for Agvahich of course is based out of Austin, and they were getting ready to do their Blu Ray release of that and they won the new commentary track and Brett Berg, who lives in la I knew he was a big fan of that movie, and I think he or Joe or someone there suggested bringing me in to do the commentary with Brett, and that was like pretty early in COVID,
and that was the first thing I did for them, and that kind of led to me starting to suggest ideas for leaf for releases for them. So like one of the first things that I pitched them was the films of the Gay Girls Writing Club, which had been a passion and like an obsession of mine for a number of years. I'd seen I'd heard about them just
through my research into like early course cinema history. And then I think it was Scarecrow Video teamed up with some like local Seattle preservation non profit to digitize a bunch of tapes in their collection, and they had something weird releases of some of those movies, and so those randomly showed up online one day and I was able
to see them that way. And then when I found out that the UCLA Film and Television Archive actually had the only surviving prints, like, I pitched that as a release and became a whole thing, And so that was kind of Those two were kind of my entry way into doing the disk stuff. And then I soon found myself working with Frank and Altered Innocence and doing some stuff with Vinegar Syndrome and Severn and just slowly kind of going all over the place with it.
The releases that have come out that are, you know, focused on even just the queer side of cinema from Altered Innocence being important vs. Getting their hand and at least a handful of them, AGFA championing some of the biggest ones, Severn doing a couple. I am. I'm so relieved to see the way that these are welcomed, like improving. It seems like over time, as it felt that way for you also, I think so.
I mean I think for me it's like I try not to get too sappy, but I do have this sort of field of dreams mentality with this sort of thing where it's like, if it's availab people will watch it. And the reason why a lot of these films just aren't as well known as they should be is because they've been out of circulation forever many years, like the one I always point to was so an Delicious and now Arbelos's release A Funeral Parate of Roses, which yeah, I mean that was a film.
It was.
It was fascinating, like when I was starting to really dive into my research and finding out that that movie was actually playing in the US, like in the late sixties, early seventies, and then continuing to play like festivals even
into like the nineties. But because it had never had like a home video release or hadn't been like theatrically re released, it's just like some like no one knew about it, like no one younger than the age of like fifty knew about it, right, And so to watch as that movie has like very quickly become like a canonical trans film, I think really kind of gave me this sort of idealism about you know, accessibility and canonization and how these things become you know, more well known
or how you know, how people take inspiration from them once they were actually able to see them. And so it's great that more labels have been able to start releasing more obscure queer films, and you know, kind of seeing that sort of cycle play itself out over and over and over again.
I especially with Frank over at Altered Innocence, I'm always amazed that he has been able to capture so much of like the pillars of queer history, which is kind of wild, like everything from coming out to taxi to the toilets. I think you're on that one too that he just put out right. That's I'm always amazed and just it's so cool to have them under one roof. And I know for a lot of people that doesn't mean much, but to see him continuously get big title,
big title, big title, and I'm just amazed. Frank is just a wonderful person.
Yeah, Pranks one of my favorite people. And he's been so helpful too with all the muscle stuff. And it's even though I'm kind of treading on similar ground, it's not like a competition thing. It's everyone's uplifting everyone. So it's been great to continue working with him on stuff. And I see him when I'm in LA and so yeah.
I approached Frank the same way when we were starting to do things, and he's just he's so willing to be open and transparent and say, yeah, I fucked this up, Please don't fuck that up, or here's the easy way to solve that, and it's just like every single time it's been exactly correct.
Yeah, he's been the encore wizard for me. Nice I'm trying to teach myself discothering, which has been a process.
Oh, discothering is crazy, so with altered innocence, and AGFA. Are there are there titles that that you've been a part of that you feel like more people need to get some eyes on, because I would love to hear that from a very personal perspective.
I mean, the one the ones that I've been really, really, really passionate about and proud of, I think I've kind of found their audiences. I mean, like the the Fred Hallsted films have been a big one because those who are also you know, it was impossible to see the complete version of those untilal MoMA restored them and then Frank released them. And then like the crazy thing about that was that was the first full disc that I ever produced, and it was a thing where I had
been trying. I'd been working on digitizing like the only surviving eight millimeter loops from Halsted's second feature, Trucket, which was like a lost film, and then we went through the pain of doing that, even though it was just like twenty minutes of the complete movie. And then like a week before the deadline, a VHS bootleg randomly popped up on eBay. Bought it. Sight and Scene had my friend Josh, who runs a record label called Dark Untry's
Records in San Francisco. He went and picked it up physically in person, drove it to a video lap to get it digitized, and we got it in and on that disc literally like the last couple of days before. Like it absolutely had to do location. And like that's something I'm still very proud of because I think that film really complicates and also enhances Hallsteed's legacy in a couple of different ways. And yeah, so I'm really proud
of that. And then I mean, I think one of the other big ones is Scarecrow in the Gardener Cucumbers, the Hollywood Lawn movie. Yes, was something that the Academy had restored a couple of years ago and they'd done a few screens of it, and then it was just kind of sitting there and didn't have any distribution. And when I came into Agphone when I was working there for about a year and a half, that was like my number one, like we have to go after this,
we have to get this. And seeing how that's another one that has also become this kind of quick instant, you know, standby of transfilm programming and you know, the transfilm canon or whatever has been just really really exciting.
That was one of the big ones that I wanted to mention at the end here because it was one of those titles where it gets mentioned that it was up for pre order, and I heard so many people go, oh my god, I never imagine this was possible. And so the the victory as a producer and as AGFA to be able to say we got it and finally have that agreement in your hand has to be immense. Yeah.
I mean, and the film, the film is great, and I mean it's it's funny because it's another one where it's It was kind of like a psychological experiment for me because a friend of mine, through a museum that he was working with on a project, had like a terrible looking at VHS bootleg of that movie, which was never released on home video, was unseeable, was not lost, and so like he and I watched it together one night when I was visiting New York, and I was like,
you know, Holly's great in this, Tally Brown is great in this, but the movie's not very funny. It kind of sucks. It's a shame, it's whatever. And then when when we found out about the restoration being available like a year later, my friend Larr Jimenez, who does Weird Wednesday at the Alma draft House in Brooklyn. He he, I pitched. I pitched the idea of doing a screening of the Restoration with and just kind of as an experiment to see, like how would this play with an
audience and how does the restoration look? Because like I hadn't even seen it, and like we I think we sold out that screening and it was like rapturous. People like went crazy for it, and it was a thing where I was all right, yeah, we have to do this. It's a great, great movie, let's do it.
So to think of that being I mean great word to think of that being rapturous with the crowd, I can't imagine. And not to mention Brooklyn like the best place possible to play that film with the crowd, well.
Even I mean the crazier thing is that that was when I was in Texas, So that was in Austin. Actually, oh that movie playing in the middle.
Oh you said, Laird, that's right, I forgot he's there. Yeah, that's incredible. God, yeah, that's it was such a great release. And the art turned out amazing on that and really captures what that film is. And God, just solid, solid package overall. Glad you were able to be a part of that one. Okay, some muscle, Uh where what is the genesis of muscle? How did this come to be?
I mean it was a thing where, you know, I was saying that there was this kind of transaxitus happening in Texas. I was living in Austin. I'd been working at ACA for almost a year at the time, and it became very obvious that like me and my partner needed to get out of Texas, and so we moved to New York and then unfortunately things didn't wind up working out, and so it was a thing where I was suddenly at a point where I needed to figure out what to do with my life and with the future.
And I was getting coffee with joe Yannick from Yellowvale one day and he was just like, well, why don't you start your own distribution company? And I've been thinking about it like a little bit, but like it just seemed like such an unattainable thing to me, and that kind of gave me the little oomph that I needed
to really seriously pursue it. And then so I think that would have been maybe April or like March or April of twenty twenty four, and then we launched officially in March twenty two, twenty five, and so it was a year of getting stuff together. It was kind of figuring things out. It was kind of trying to put together like a launch slate, Like I didn't want to just launch with one thing, so I was pursuing multiple things.
And you know, like throughout that entire process, like everyone I talked to was so helpful and so forthcoming and so excited and so wanting to help. And so like Eryl and Pearl at Connie, we're a big help. Frank get altered in this sense was a big help. David Marriott at Arbolus and Canadian International was a big help. Jonathan Hertzberg at Fund said he was a big help. It was a thing where like I don't see any
of these other companies as competition. It's just all people, you know, kind of working together but also not working together to try to do cool stuff. And so you know, it's it started. It launched in March to twenty twenty five, and now a year later, it feels like there's a lot of momentum and a lot of exciting things that I'm really proud about already, and it's it seems like it's actually like sustainable, and so it's exciting to me.
So March of twenty twenty six is the first physical release, and so for everybody that has somehow flown under the radar and not been able to hear what has been happening publicly for Muscles since March of twenty five.
Sure, I mean I think a big part of it has been I never wanted the company to just be like a boutique blue ray label. I wanted it to be kind of a larger distribution company, which of course is kind of what you're doing with town On now too. Because like as much as I love home video, I mean, when I was living in Tampa, it was it was like the God send to me. It was how I saw all this stuff. Yeah, but I think the home video world is kind of very insular in because it
is so totally collector centric. It's, you know, I want these films to kind of get out there as big as they can, and for me, theatrical and also digital or kind of the the big ways of getting you know, hype built around things. And so part of the reason why it's been this like long slow process before doing
any disks. Is because I wanted to focus on theatrical part of it was because we were going to launch the disc line with some other project that hasn't been announced yet that's kind of had some delays that I'm excited about. But it has been kind of a slow thing and because just wanting to try to, you know, do things the best I could, honestly, and so, you know, the good thing is that it's launched now and I
have a backlog. Of the bad thing is I have a backlog, and I have all these other titles that like I've released or I've been working on and things that are I was kind of hoping to have out by now, but now we're going to be kind of trickling out. And so I mean, if you go on Muscle's website and go to the page for our specific films,
that get pretty basically lets you know what's coming. I mean, I'm re releasing all the films of Wakefield Pool on Blu Ray, including his video work which hasn't been available too much. I have this Australian film from the early eighties called Going Down, doing the first ever release of Door, Switchman's Dildo Heaven, which is a masterpiece and a really
fun film. Working on a lot of really deeply obscure things connected to Easy TV, which was West Hollywood based video collective from the eighties and nineties, and so it's really it's been really fulfilling because it's a way for me to kind of follow my passions and to really just go all in in that sort of freaks only way and actually have it come together and makes sense.
And I think the thing that's been really cool with it is that even though I didn't want it to be one specific kind of thing, and I don't think it is all one beside laying, I think these kind of through lines have naturally developed between all the different things. I mean, doing all this stuff about like early video from the eighties and now doing stration movie and a couple other like new dio y queer and trance movies that are being shot on like ancient video equipment or
right now. Another another big thing for me is that I handle theatrical for distropics and also all of Vinegar Syndrome's hardcore catalog and thanks to some of the pink film studios that Vinegar Syndrome has been working with in Japan.
I've been also handling theatrical on all the films that they've been restoring to, and so I've got this massive catalog of like theatrical sex films, and that also ties in with some of the stuff that I am actually fully releasing myself and I have all the rights for.
And so the other the other, the one other, like massive thing that I don't think we've really publicly said too much about yet is that Muscle is also taking over theatrical for Elaine Mays Mikey and Nikki this year, and so Elaine May Door, Swishman.
Wakefield Pool Cool. Yeah, I want to see a double feature of Mikey and Nikki and Vju.
Now they're both movies about mail bonding and friendships exactly.
Yeah, it works very very much. Uh, the the I guess, like fraught rollout is not necessarily unheard of with a lot of this stuff. So it's uh, first off, empathies, A lot of that stuff is a problem and things come up and we all kind of not account on that. But it also, I mean, it rings so true with a lot of what I felt when I was doing some of this stuff, because I mean, let's just speak flat out blunt with everybody listening. It is really fucking hard to do all of this at the same time.
It is really hard to be focusing on theatrical physical media and then not to fully pivot the conversation. But one of the big things I wanted to make sure that we could talk about you got fucking Gestration movie up on the Letterbox Video Stories. That was huge. Congrats on that.
I mean, we were kind of shocked when we got the email, but like, I'm very thrilled by it. And yeah, I think it just goes to show that there's a demand for four and a half hour long trans mumblecore. Ye, why epics?
Oh the adjectives. I mean, not that we need to go into numbers. But first off, that had to have been huge for you. But how like a in a nebulous way, how did that do? Like was it incredibly successful? Do you feel like Letterbox was very happy with it?
We At the time that we're recording this, I have not gotten the first statement yet, but I will say that it's been really exciting because, like you know, I hate how much I'm constantly checking Letterbox for like titles and reviews and seeing how things are going. But like now every single time I open up like the Letterbox Stapp and I go to the Castration movie pages for that, there's at least one or two or three or four new reviews. And it's funny because like we've had the film,
the two films be available on like multiple platforms. Luis the director has had them on her gum Road page from the get go. I have them on the Muscle Vimeo vo D page, and now they're on the Letterbox Video Store. And so even though there's different ways of seeing them, and you know, some of them you can buy them, some of them you can only rent them.
You know, we weren't sure if a lot of people were going to go for the Letterbox once because of that, but like I keep seeing reviews that are tagged with Letterbox Video Store or seeing people mention it in their reviews, and I think people just want to see things however is most convenient to them, and so it's been really exciting to you know, have something like Letterbox be behind this you know, insane stupid project that we've been working on.
Well that and Letterboxed, you know, for anybody that's not associated with it. This is going to sound weird, but letterbox itself is like a culture. There is a culture of Letterbox. It is in a way, like a movement of people that love film that love I don't know, this very sinophile focused social media that's not social media in weird ways. So it's just to be able to get a film like this to infiltrate that is such a cool movement.
Yeah, And I very genuinely think that Letterbox is kind of like one of the greatest tools for film discovery. I don't really like using the word discovery for whatever reason, but like it's a way for people to find things
that they haven't heard about. And I think one example that's been really kind of confusing but also great to me is this movie Highway Hypnosis that I've been working on for basically a year now, and just like not to detour too much, but like that was something where I was doing all this work with easy TV, and I'd heard about this movie Highway Hypnosis, which was supposed to be kind of like an experimental feature about the Freeway Killer, which was not one but three gay serial
killers that were like doing horrible things in the early eighties and you know, I knew about this director who had never done much outside of Easy TV and was very obscure and had no way of seeing the movie. Thought it was thought it was lost. And then we were actually able to get in touch with him, and he's, you know, an incredible guy, and we've you know, become really good friends, and I'm working on all his work now.
But we did a one off screening of that with James Robert Baker's Blonde Death at Brain Dead about a year ago, which was fun because like the two movies were paired together when they initially played at Easy TV. But it turns out that Ken the Highway Ypnosis and Jim Blonde Death were both best friends for decades and so it was really meaningful to like have those two back together. And literally this movie that nobody had ever
heard of that is like the most obtuse. It's like an hour long landscape strobe flicker, tiny little bit of horror, but mostly just like an ambient movie. It's something that should not have like a cult fall, but like now it has like a genuine cult following, Like within a couple of weeks of that that that Brain Dead screening, like someone from Australia reached out to me wanting to book a screening of its Sight Unseen, and now it's played I think at least a dozen cities we had.
We did a big screening at the Music Box in Chicago and the Big House there. Yes had to sold
out screening at Anthology in New York. And you know, like for me, I think with distribution, I do, I take it very seriously and I feel like there's a responsibility like on my part or you know, there's part to do the best by the films and the filmmakers as possible, and so like that's what's really rewarding to me is being able to have these things kind of finally have their moment, you know, decades decades late, but still have them. And I think a letterbox is a
really big part of that. And I think that's been kind of also pushing this Castration movie momentum, which has been great well, and I.
Mean Castration getting you know, the Brain Dead screening is a lot the letterbox reviews, the gosh, the you know, people like podcast appearances and the way that everybody is just out there saying like listen, if you don't know Louise, you have to see these films, you have to share and like the story of the Gum Road and everybody
like get on there as soon as possible. It is I don't know, It's one of those things like if you if you're not on the train, you better freaking hop on like as soon as possible, because this is a thing and you want to be a part of it, and that alone can take this crazy places, especially for a film like this.
Yeah. And I mean the funny thing about it too that we didn't really get into is that when I was kind of formulating the idea from Muscle, like from the get go, it was only going to be a repertory label. I only cared about you know, I love a lot of new films, but like my my big passion is older films and restorations and re releases and
all that. And it was just like Louise coming into town again like last March for the first New York screenings of it, and then us getting launched one day and her saying, hey, do you want to distribute the
movie and me saying sure, of course. That like Muscle suddenly became like a distributor of new films too, and you know, now I'm working with Henry Hanson, who's a Chicago transfilmmaker, and I'm working with some other people, and now suddenly I'm kind of have this new niche of these of this very very underground queer DIY wave that's kind of bubbling up under the surface. That's been really exciting.
And so you know, it's stuff that other companies might not pay attention to, but I think people are and it's exciting to watch that grow.
So if they they being general consumers, are looking at your catalog, what do you want them to feel? Muscle is.
I mean, it's unavoidable. It's unavoidable. Castration Movie, Dildo Heaven. That's That's what I've been saying, is I've been saying that Muscle is the house that Castration Movie and Dildo Heaven built.
Oh man, uh, this is uh, this is gonna do very well.
You eat your heart out. I have BUILDO have an in castration move here you wish?
I mean that that alone is fun and important and exciting and transgressive and word I mean even that, like the word transgressive is overused for so many of these things. But the films that you have genuinely like the classic definition of transgressive. I'm so stoked to see how people are going to respond to these sort of things. But now you've got accessibility for the physical side through OCN, So so why choose OCN? And I'm assuming the obvious answer is because you're so infiltrated already.
I mean, for me it was it made sense as someone just starting out. And of course Jerbin and I have been good friends for many, many years, and yeah, I love so many of the people over at Vinegar Syndrome MINOC and I mean, my my personal film collection is on deposit in the archive, and working with like
Oscar and Lindsay has been like a dream. And so for me it's to have more opportunities to work with people who I really admire and respect, and you know, and also of course I go see and has its built in fan base, and I think, you know, maybe maybe my my releases aren't going to be the exact sort of cup of tea for people who are only buying like tank Girl or whatever. But my hope is that people will see these things and want to take
a chance on them. And also because I am strongly focusing on theatrical and digital, you know, we'll have a way to see them instead of having to blind buy something for twenty eight bucks or thirty bucks or whatever.
Well, and tank Girl, as we're looking back, I mean, tank Girl fits in a lot better with a lot of these films than a lot of the other stuff that Vinenger Ciners put out.
And I didn't essay for that one, so I didn't mean that in disparaging.
There's no Sidekicks, that's for sure. Sidekicks is much more male focused than many of these other titles. But yeah, to have to have the option to go through OCEN and get I mean just that sentence alone, to get Tank Girl and Castration Movie in one order is fucking insane to get that from one company. And it's it's so cool that the opportunity for that is there and somebody might just take a chance because they see it there.
And what I used the word earlier, but what an audacious first choice for a disc And now this is a two disc release, right.
M hm, And I think learning a big learning learning lesson. Don't do an extremely ambitious two disc release for your first release.
Yeah, Signing, Signing four and a half hour films, So a great, great choice for that first title.
But I mean, the thing, the thing I love about Louis Luis Ward the director, is that she has her own vision, and like, I just throw myself behind it full force because I believe her and I trust her. And so when she decides that she wants to split the movie over both discs, even though we could probably get it all on one, it's like.
Sure, of course, inion I get it.
But it's funny because like the disc it had, like the first disc ends with the ten minute intermission and then it says insert this too, so people will be sitting there for ten minutes watching the intermission and I then have to put the other disc in.
The I mean, speaking of the discs, when you when you launch the disc itself, the this is such a nerdy thing. I'm so sorry when you launched the disc. The muscle introduction is so nostalgic and has no reason to be because there's no nostalgia for muscle. It's not something that's been around for forty years. How did you choose it? It's incredible.
I mean, for me, it's kind of I kind of wanted to do something that was kind of playing with the past in different ways. I mean, the initial concept was to do something on analog video for like my video titles and something on like sixteen milimeters or eight milimeter for my film titles.
It's cool.
And the fun thing about being in New York, of course, is that there's so many people here, and there is this kind of weird sub scene of the trans scene here that's all about like analog video and analog photography, and like, I know, like multiple video artists out here. And so I went to one of my friend Janey, and said, you know, what would you be up to do a bumper for this? And she she went all in, all in on it. And my hope is to eventually rephotograph that off of a crt Onto film and then
have that be like the alternate version of it. It'll kind of look like one of the films where it's him shooting the TV with the camera.
Yeah, that is incredible. That is such a fun choice. And then to make that like the nostalgia for the format the nostalgia for the actual content of it. That's such a cool idea. Man, that's well done. Just seeing that for the first time, I was like, this is gonna be so perfect. I was so in from moment one You've made some great choices.
And then Louise kind of I mean, the fun thing about working with Louis too is that she's been involved in like underground film for over a decade, so she has a lot of like disc authoring experience from just working on her own movies. And so she did the menu designed for Castration Movie. She did the encoding and the authoring and all that, and so she did something that's kind of similar to another major label that I think should eventually pick up Castration Movie once it's all done.
Not gonna name the label, but it's a kind of riffing off of their design.
The menu itself is very close, but I love it and I hope people pick up on that because it is clean, it's easy to read, it's enticing, and it really draws you into like the making of and everything else that's on the disc.
I think the one thing I was disappointing is we wanted, if we could, we would have had the disc be a flipper disc, just simply go for the circle like two thousand.
Yeah later, God, yeah, that would have been fun.
That would be I mean, just to like jump way way back when you were asking about like things that I was proud of with like the production work. Yeah, I think one of my other favorite things was working with Frank and Vera Drew on the People's joker at
Blu Ray Solids. I threw out the idea of why don't we make this like an annoying early two thousand DVD and have the video of her telling people to like hurry up and choose an option, And she shot that like fifteen minute long video that plays in the background of that.
I think I talked about it on my show, but I put that in and I let it sit there for a minute, and the thing it reminded me of I think it was, this is so dumb. I think it was Shrek two that it like berated you when the DVD was in there, and my sister used to watch that movie all the time, and yeah, hilarious. I bring back fun menu designs everybody. It is so great.
The amount of times have been to like a walk in clinic and just like the Finding Nemo DVD menu has just been playing in a loop waiting.
Incredible. Okay, So getting back to Castration movie, for those that have not seen it, we probably shouldn't lay out what exactly is castration movie and why should people take a chance on it today?
I mean, I think people should take a chance on it because I mean, I will say the one thing is that it's four and a half hours long and we're not charging more for it, and so.
That's a hell of a chance to take. By the way, four and a half hours.
It is the most movie, as Louise has been describing it. Yeah, it's just a movie that's unlike anything else that's being made today. It is four and a half hours long, underground DIY, insane cringe comedy, but also a very emotional indie epic that was entirely shot with Louise's childhood high eight video camera. It is very long, but I think it runs very It goes by very fast, and also I think once you watch it, the length makes sense.
There's a reason for it. It's you're supposed to really just sink in and get to know these different characters. And I also think just the way that Luis has been making it has been really unlike anything else I've ever seen. And the first one was maybe a little more conventionally shot, but like I was very involved with the second one, which is five hours long, and that one was a one where not a single scene was shot more than once. There was no written out script.
Everything was kind of workshopped with each of the actors, like in advance of doing the one and only take of each scene, where we would kind of workshop, you know, at this point, this is gonna happen, that's gonna happen, camera is going to move here, this is going to happen.
And then, of course, because she's such a talented director, she would tell certain actors certain things, or give them secret knowledge that other people weren't supposed to know, or find ways to kind of mess things up in a very purposeful way. And so the movies have this very electric energy to them that is just truly unlike anything I've ever seen. And also I know that trans stuff has a very small audience, of course, but I think SIS audiences we'll get a lot out of it too.
And a lot of the people who have been coming out to the recent screenings have been like SIS people and more like normal Cinophiles, and they've been really really getting into it too. And so it really is just
like a modern of epic life. And it's an ongoing project, and we released Part two exactly two months after we shot it in September, and then the first chapter of Part three is premiering at BFI Flair in London this month, and then the full version of Part three, which is also going to be somewhere around five hours, is premiered later this year, and so there's five parts.
So wow. Well I can't wait until we can in three years pick up the the like ten disc box set from Muscle to get all of them together, and then hopefully that other company that can be flattered with the menu designs can put them.
It's already longer than the Decalogue and The Human Condition, so why not they need a longer movie.
And it's like a modern companion piece to a couple of the in kind of a couple of ways.
Yeah.
Interesting, Yeah, God, this is this is so cool. I mean, just watching your involvement increase over the years, watching the amount of Liz out in the world increase in a way that is meaningful to you and to the overall film society, whether that be in Texas or New York, has just been great. And now curating for the masses, that's a that's a big growth period. What's next for you?
You think I mean, for me, it's just further digging into my own obsessions and my passions and doing the things that I want to do and trying to make it financially sustainable, which I think it already kind of is. You know, I think the thing maybe people don't realize about this sort of maybe not the industry as a whole, but like this subsection of the industry is that nobody's
getting rich off this stuff. It's all we're all we're all fighting for crumbs, and so just getting to a place where I have enough crumbs so that I can like fully devote everything to it is kind of the goal and also have like a life beyond just working every single day, every single night. But it feels very attainable, and it's you know, been really it's been really exciting and something I'm very proud of that I haven't really
had to make any sort of concessions. Really, you know, I'm not going after things that I think are overly palatable. I'm following, following my whims and doing the things that make me excited, and so far the audiences have turned out for them, and that's been really really great.
Well, and this is a pretty rare opportunity to find two people that are both kind of entering this in a very unique and interesting modern way and taking a pretty big risk. How do you personally feel about the future of all this, Because you know, the Crumb's idea is terrifying, but in lots of ways, I feel like there's a lot more potential on the horizon.
I think there is.
I just think.
For me, I guess I'm really curious about the future of the home video side of things. And I know I'm on a home video centric show, and I don't want to be negative or anything, but but for me, like the thing that excites me most is theatrical just because it is such a tangible, you know, in person,
connective thing. Whereas when I'm doing stuffer, Blu Ray or UHD or whatever, I'm just kind of throwing it out into the world and then don't really know if people like it or if it's doing good or if it's bad or I mean, that was kind of always my thing when I was really doing a lot of bonus features, was I would never really hear about, you know, like the common terriors or people like the essays or this or the that, and I mean the fun thing about being in New York too, because there is such a
film scene here, Like I actually hear from random people all the time that they liked the commentary that I did for russ Meyer's Up, or the commentary that I did for Factory Girl, of all things. And so it's been really it's been cool to see that stuff actually, you know, have a meaning for people, and that people like it. It's just for me. Theatrical is exciting because it is really the way that these sort of revivals begin and that then carries over to the Blu ray well.
And still theatrically still the best way to see all of these movies. I mean, well, there's I shouldn't say all there's a handful of movies that have been very focused on the home video side, and we all know some of those things. But most movies in a group in a theater, super dark room. That is the best way to see these Let them wash over you, let you you know, no phones, fucking Alamo, don't don't change this process or all these other things. That's the way
to watch these films. Even it's one of those things where you should be lost in that world for four and a half hours and lived there.
I mean, I will say the funny thing too with like cat Strition movie, kind of going back to the whole psychological experiment thing, was that, like I before, before I signed on to a distribute it, like I had watched it like on Vimeo by myself, and I liked it a lot, But it was you watch it by yourself and it just makes you want to like claw your skin off because it's so the cringe. It's it's
so cringey in a good way. It makes you feel uncomfortable seeing these people say these things and do these things. It's yep, it makes you feel bad. But then when you watch it with more than one person, and especially if you see it in the theater with like a big crowd, like it is like one of the funniest comedies I think of recent memory, like the especially the first chapter in Cell Superman, which is about basically the making of an inceel, and so some of the scenes
in that are just so insanely funny. Like I remember, I think it was maybe a day or two after I agreed to distribute it, I went to one of the screenings that Luis was doing at the Roxy here in New York and I sat next to Joannick and he was like one of the very few SIS people in the audience and just listening to him like laughing, from like moment one to like moment four hours and thirty minutes later, I was like, Okay, there's an audience here.
I got this well well and full circle him being the one that urging you to distribute to begin with, that's gonna be pretty cool. I mean, Joe and his hair are great people haircut, I haven't seen it then. I wish I could see Joe in person, but god, the last time I talked to him, man, his hair was ninety percent of the screen when I interviewed him.
But I mean, yellow Veil is kind of the perfect example of one of these things they have exploded to be, you know, a a not just a distributor, but like a group that people are seeking out, a group of people that people want to be involved with, that people want that you know, excited to have associated with their name. And I could easily see this in you know, a very short period of time. Somebody's saying, muscle is the only place for me.
Yeah, already happening in a fun way.
Look at that Liz, anything else that I should bring up that I have not yet. You got a Criterion thing this month, you want to talk about that?
Yeah, I mean one of the things I'm excited about right now is that I've been in the middle for I think since maybe October, doing a very slow release
of seven films by German lesbian filmmaker Monica Troit. Film was like Seduction The Corel Woman, which starts udo Kier Virgin Machine, which is like a really great controversial lesbian comedy from the late eighties, My Father Is Coming, which is like a New York comedy starring any Sprinkle, And then a couple documentaries she made in the nineties and two thousands, like Gender Knots and Female Misbehavior. Those are films that, you know, kind of like what we've been
talking about this whole time. They were actually pretty big in the nineties and the eighties when they were first coming out, like even beyond just like the queer film festival scene. They were like on the odd indie film scene, right, and then they've just been kind of out of like widespread circulation in North America for you know, well over a decade. Like I wanted to I wanted to program them for many years, but I could never actually get
a screening together. And so now I'm distributing seven of those films through Muscle and bringing them back out and beginning this month March, those seven films are on the Criterion Channel, I think for like the next year or two.
And so I'm really excited for people to see them because I think they're really incredibly fun, incredibly transgressive, incredibly ahead of their time, films that you know, not enough people have seen, and especially with Udo kir recently passing unfortunately, like seeing him get cucked for eighty minutes in Seduction to cot Woman is just so great. It's like the lesbian version of Fosspnder's Corral. It's maybe better than that movie. And so yeah, and we're still doing screenings of those.
I think they're going to be coming to the Music Box in Chicago fairly soon after this comes out. And yeah, no, I'm very excited to help get her work back out there again because I think the films are so good.
Well, and I mean that means Boys in the Sand will be out soon, That means all these other things are finally going to be out there again for people to be able to see and rediscover in a way that they've never had a chance to before. So that's always cool.
Yeah. Yeah, it's really exciting and meaningful and overwhelming and stressful, but I think the good mostly outweighs the bad.
Yeah. With muscle, you've got the digital, you've got the theatrical, you've got the home video. If somebody wants to stay up to date on all of that, I assume social media and email list are the best way to go.
Yeah. I have an email list which you can find at the website, which is muscle dash Distribution dot com. I would say Instagram is actually probably the best. There is a Facebook page that I just mostly cross posts because I don't know about anyone listening to this, but I'm actually trying to stay off of social media because I think it's just bad for people in general. But the needs to promote out way personal feelings.
This is true, I hate it. But what is uh? And this might be a hard question to answer. What is if they just straight want to support muscle, not just follow, but support, what is the best way to support you? What is the thing that gets the most money in muscles pockets?
I would say honestly, like, if you want to, if you like the kinds of films that are in the catalog, either the ones that I am fully distributing myself or the ones that I am helping with theatrical with for Distripis in Vinegar Syndrome and the Sato films, go to your local theater and tell them that you want to
see them. I think sometimes with these very transgressive, very edgy, very obscure films, programmers just want to you know, I think they might want to show them, but they're nervous that people won't come out to them or that they won't have an audience for them, and so you know, maybe they're more drawn to just pick something from Janis Films or from some other massive catalog that they know is going to get you know, butts in the seats.
So I think people going to the theaters and saying, you know, you should show Castration movie, or show Turtle Vision, or show Rewind or show Radley Metzger film, or show this or show that. I think you know a it's a way to get these films seen by bigger audiences and out there more. But it's also a way for people who are interested in programming to hopefully find those
in roads to start doing it themselves. I think one of the things that's been really fun with castration movies specifically too, is that we have all these people who've never put on events any before, but who want to show the movie in their city or their town, and
so they're organizing these like very DIY screetings. And because you know, for me it's all about the films, I'm very flexible on terms and up to just do splits or very very very low minimums, or just finding ways to make it so the films can be shown and so that they can hit their audience. And so I think theatrical is kind of the way, but also by the Blu ray and I might be launching a substack or a Patreon or something like that.
So it's nice, very nice. Yeah, I'll be sure to link everything in the description below for everybody. But I mean, one thing that you just said is probably I think a great way to cap this conversation. Because all of your films that you are not even just your stuff, but the stuff that you're helping distribute theatrically for Vinnger Syndrome and destrip Picks, they all inherently are kind of event films. And that's easy to say about a four
and a half hour movie. I get that, but even something like Turtle Vision, it's just not a movie you accidentally go to is probably the best way to say that. And so these these are kind of in a way risky films for some of these theaters to program, because if people are not into it, they're just not going to show up. They're not going to take a risk on a Sato film that's about rape. They're not gonna, you know, follow up on any of these movies and
go this synopsis sounds enticing and just show up for that. Usually, so having you in your local areas say I want to see these films is probably quite meaningful to one of those local programmers.
Actually, yeah, And I mean, like like I said, like it's funny to talk about films like this with the Field of Dreams, you know, if you show up the thing, but it's really true. I mean I think part of it too that we didn't really talk about it is that, like I've been programming hardcore films for you know, three, four or five years now at this point, I shown shown all the big ones that have been restored. I've shown a lot of gay ones that are very obscure,
and audiences always turn out for them. I think audiences, especially younger yeah, you know, edgiar audiences really want to see this stuff and there's a really strong demand for it. I mean, last year I started an adult film series at Nighthawk here in New York called called skin Deep, and that was only going to be every other month. They didn't. They put it in the small theater, and then both of the first three screenings all sold out, and now it's a monthly thing that they're putting in
the bigger house. And so people really do want to see this stuff. And you know, I think that's maybe the next frontier is stuff that never plays in theaters anymore but should be inside well.
I mean for many of these smaller towns too, that have great art house theaters, places that are generally like forgotten entirely. We're talking like Oklahoma here in Kansas City, places in you know, small town Georgia that are not
able to see a lot of these things. People are hungry for films like this, and to be able to get that crowd out there with other people that are like you is of I hate to use the word, but it's one of those one of those ways where it's you seeing it's manifesting your lifestyle in a way that we all sometimes just simply can't do or have not felt the freedom to be able to do. And so it is a way to see validation in some
unique ways. And I really hope that is embraced by some of these smaller theaters and taking risk on because I think they'll be surprised that that people will want to see these a lot.
Yeah. I mean, I just look at what Harry Guero and Michael drum Bori have been doing with the Gap Theater in Pennsylvania were awesome. I had never even heard of wind Gap, Pennsylvania before the theater. I still don't know where wind Gap is. I don't know how far it is from Gurger Philly or where. But they're doing some of the most exciting repertory programming I can think of, and audiences are apparently coming out, and so you know,
it's exciting. They did Asato double bill the other night and showing hardcore stuff all the time on film and just really just going for it and people want to see it.
So I mean, they seem to be competing literally with like nubev, with people covering just their programming, people that are never going to show up at their theater, but just excited that the theater is doing it. That is, when you're doing it right, that's amazing. Yeah, Liz, this
has been a credit. Thank you for doing this. I'd love to have you back after a few more releases and people can get excited about it, because this is one of those things where if you are not continuously talking about it, this is one of those I can't say genres. This is like a group of films that could easily be overlooked by people and not championed enough, and so it's something that I'm probably not going to shut up about. So so thank you for being amazing.
Freaks Only again, it's got a good ring to it, I think, think I agree. The muscle shirt that says freaks only on the back, I don't know.
I cannot wait to purchase it, and you know that I absolutely will. Thanks for everything. Go follow everything Muscle below, everything Liz below. And honestly, I hope to see the Patreon or substack happen because I will be signing up myself. Oh thank you, Thank you for listening to the Disconnected podcast. There's one big thing that you could do to help the show, and that is to leave a rating and review on the podcast service of your choice. Thank you.
The audio commentary it's a dying art form, but here at one track, mind I your Wonky at Affable host Brian Luis Rodriguez analyze film through the prism of these embryonic forms of podcasting, one audio commentary at a time. Masterpieces, crapster pieces, live action animation, cult classics, films literally no one has ever heard of. No track is too small and no track is too big. Join me and my guests from the inn entertainment world as we keep these
features alive every other Tuesday. Hey, who else is going to discuss Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey one week and Citizen Kane the next us that's who Sure you have to put up with my voice, but there's a certain give and take in this industry. That's one track mine, part of the Someone's Favorite Productions family and available wherever you get your podcasts.
I am Adam Lundy, co host of They Live by Film, a podcast dedicated to bringing you film discussion and interviews from around the world. Every week, my co hosts Chris Haskell, Zach Bryant, and I discuss a wide range of films, from monumental classics like Vertigo and the Rules of the Game to the craziest schlockiest movies ever made like Deathbed and everything in between. We are also lucky enough to have sat down with some of the biggest players in
the boutique blu ray and film restoration game. If this is your thing, then come hang out with us every Thursday pm Eastern wherever you normally stream your podcasts and now as part of the Someone's Favorite Productions Podcast Network.
Thank you for listening to hear more shows from the Someone's Favorite Productions Podcast Network. Please select the link in the description.