Watch the Whole Movie!
This week Sam brings in an seriously oddball in Street Trash, the tale of many, many, many insane bums that like to do horrible things to others.
Streaming Do's and Don'ts
The Great Superpower Debate
- Self-Replication w/many caveats - 6 stars
About Street Trash - Movie Information
Sam's Boring Bullshit
The year is 1986. Fresh off his first job as a Steadicam operator on the film Spookies, James Michael Muro, then 21 years of age would embark on expanding his short film into a feature. What would follow is the 1987 film Street Trash. Street Trash opens with a series of Steadicam shots and then quickly darts into the realm of nonsense. I was unable to find if the original short film was written by Roy Fumkes but the feature length work seems to understand the psyche of the bum completely, while not understanding genre or storytelling at any level. This film is labeled a horror, specifically a body horror. Now there are other films that ride the body horror angle without really being a horror, some of Cronenberg's work, none to this extent. If I had to pick a genre for this film it would be adventure. Though the misadventures of bums is not really an adventure, nor is never leaving a 3 block radius. Bumventure is not a subgenre of film, if it was this would be more of a bum-venture than a body horror. In some defense of it's classification the film is very goopy and considered by most fans of the melt movies to be a melt-erpiece.
Muro would go on to be an industry preferred Steadicam operator, Cameron has used him since The Abyss. He was probably too proficient an operator for his own good. His 67 credits at that position are from the obscure to the academy award winning, see Maniac Cop or LA Confidential. It wasn't until recently that he found his way back into the director’s chair, most recently the series Longmire.
Fumkes worked hard on the script. Unfortunately Vic Noto, who was cast as Bronson the day prior to the start of filming, didn’t get to read it, not until after they had wrapped shooting anyway. Noto recounted that he didn’t know what he was doing, didn’t know who Bronson was and didn’t know what the movie was about. Even after reading the script, Noto concedes that he still doesn’t know who Bronson is. Fumkes would then take the pen that turns pages on to such favorites as The Substitute and two of it’s sequels.
The lead is played by Mike Lackey, who also does the make-up. Bryan Singer was a production assistant on this film, he was probably paid in Drakes Cakes. The only sponsorship the film was able to secure was all the Drakes Cakes the cast and crew could eat. There is, of course, an exploding fat guy in this film. That which explodes out of him is the many boxes of Drakes Cakes that no one could eat anymore. Other than the Drakes Cakes there seem to be no financials on this film, the only count available is that the word fuck is said 128 times.
KAEOF:
- Who is your favorite bum?
- What genre is this movie?
- What is this movie about?
- James Lorinz from Frankenhooker in his on screen Debut.