DAMAGED 2.0 Presents Louis's Belated Favorite Digital Video Discs of 2010!

I hate making best of lists, especially end of the year ones. Oh, don't get me wrong: I am completely egotistical enough to think that you actually care what media I thought was top of the pops for any given year--I just hate having to go back through my collection of DVDs and DVD reviews, making huge piles of both, trying to mentally discern what was okay, what was good and what truly moved me, for better or worse.

Like last year, I was able to pair down two sets: my five favorite reissues, repackagings and reduxs, while the next five are my favorite, well, I can't say straight-to-DVD, but, more like promo screeners of independent movies that might have had a theatrical festival screening, but aren't on...I don't know how to really explain how and what I consider these movies--let's just say they’re my five favorite indie screeners I got sent that I think need to be seen by a bigger audience. Does that make sense? No? OK, well, screw it then.

LOUIS FOWLER'S FIVE FAVORITE 2010 DVD REISSUES / REPACKAGINGS / REDUXS / ETC. (In alphabetical order.)

AMERICATHON (Warner Archive): Who would have guessed that the most timely movie of 2010 would be a 30-year-old comedy starring John Ritter? Definitely not me. But thank God for Warner Archive having the wherewithal to dig the lost 1979 should-be-a-classic AMERICATHON out of the vaults. Ahead of its time and ignored when originally released, it's a brutally hilarious Nostradamus quatrain that is well worth your hope and change.

ANTICHRIST and HOUSE (HAUSU) (Both Criterion): Proof once again that nobody is the cinephile's best friend like Criterion. 1977's HOUSE is every insane, incomprehensible, indecipherable Japanese pudding commercial on YouTube rolled into one fantastically bizarre 90-minute movie, while ANTICHRIST, Lars von Trier's recent, audience-dividing masterpiece of pure animalistic hate is as soul-n-psyche eviscerating as a motion picture has ever dared to get. Is it weird I consider that a good “popcorn” movie?

STARCRASH (Shout! Factory): STAR WARS, when you get right down to it, is pretty uninspired sci-fi that coasts along purely on the arrested-development nostalgia of fanboys. On the other hand, all the rip-offs STAR WARS inspired—especially the long-time-coming and well-worth-the-wait Luigi Cozzi disasterpiece STARCRASH—now those are the flicks we should be celebrating and holding conventions for! Who wouldn't want to see a hundred fanboys dressed like Count Zarth standing in line to get a $50 autograph from Marjoe Gortner?

T.A.M.I. SHOW: COLLECTOR'S EDITION (Shout! Factory): Widely regarded as the greatest concert film of all time, 1964's T.A.M.I. SHOW is a mind-blowing collection of the most stellar talent that rock ever produced, all on one stage in a non-stop set that rivals—surpasses—Woodstock. The slick swagger of Chuck Berry, the smooth sounds of Marvin Gaye, the sweet cheater anthems of Lesley Gore, the delightful wanna-Beatles songs of Gerry and the Pacemakers, the gleeful sand-in-my-shorts tunes of the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean and, best of all, a heart-stopping, show-stealing appearance by James Brown. With talent like that, it's easy to see why America forgave him for beating his wife. Four times.

LOUIS FOWLER'S FIVE FAVORITE 2010 DVD INDIES (OR UNRELEASED SCREENERS I LOVED) FLICKS (In alphabetical order.)

HUNGRY YEARS (Last Ditch Pictures): Just as the hack-filled behind-the-scenes world of reality television was mercilessly skewered in 2006's SPECIAL NEEDS, the brother-sister duo of Isaak and Eva James are back with HUNGRY YEARS, an insanely hilarious and just as damnifying look at the empty-souled, empty-headed and empty-gestured lives of various NYC activists who are so obsessive about their causes that it does more harm than good. Following the adventures of an neurotic “restricted calorie nutritionist” as she journeys outside her numerous self-imposed comfort zones, the James' create a scathingly comical and brutally honest portrayal of people desperate to find some sort of meaning in their lives without any type of self-awareness to go with it. And, just like SPECIAL NEEDS was upon it's release, HUNGRY YEARS is the funniest movie I've seen this year and further proof that the James' are this country's greatest untapped comedy resource. And that's something I truly do believe in.

POPATOPOLIS (Imaginaut): The excruciatingly entertaining warts-and-all indie documentary POPATOPOLIS chronicles the making of legendary b-director Jim Wynorski's latest opus, THE WITCHES OF BREASTWICK. This ranks right up there with other dreamers-with-a-camera docs like AMERICAN MOVIE and AUDIENCE OF ONE, but with one main difference: Wynorski is not some deluded jerk-off trying to avoid getting a real job! He is actually mega-talented and super-driven and, if given the chance, could be one of the biggest directors working today. It's a real tragedy to see the director of such fun, entertaining movies like RETURN OF THE SWAMP THING and CHOPPING MALL wallowing in the world of these mediocre T-and-A quickies. But not tragic enough to quit watching, natch.

SATAN HATES YOU (Glass Eye Pix): I know that the whole point of James (AUTOMATONS) McKenney's SATAN HATES YOU is a parody of 60s/70s Christian scare films, but I think it works even better than that because the wit here is so razor-sharp that you could show it to a local youth group and they'd be scared straight, no questions asked. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to wager my soul that McKenney, if he ever does get tired of the low-budget grind, could churn out some of the best faith-based horror movies for reals—maybe a movie version of the famed Hell House attraction? Or an anthology based on the works of Jack Chick?

SLOW TORTURE PUKE CHAMBER (Unearthed): Speaking of Satan, here's Lucifer Valentine's latest (and, apparently, last) entry into his notorious VOMIT GORE series, SLOW TORTURE PUKE CHAMBER. Finishing up the boldly fluid bodily-fluid-drenched tale of anorexic Angela Aberdeen and the consequences of her pact with Satan, Valentine tops himself in ways that, even after two previous films that have emotionally scarred me, I never thought possible. You can go ahead and cry and spew faux vitriol over pseudo-puke poseur-pieces like THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE or A SERBIAN FILM, but while you pretend to be shocked over staged depravity, Valentine is capturing it and documenting it all with the eye of a demonically-possessed voyeur. Ever wonder what they watch for pornography in Hell? Then pop this in and pop one out.

THE TAINT (Bolson Media Alliance): Looking for this year's BLACK DEVIL DOLL? Then you gotta check out THE TAINT, a defiantly un-PC genre-comedy that wants to destroy every sense of decency and morals that a viewer might be holding onto in these Last Days. An untested penile-enlargement drug gets into the water-supply, turning normal Joes into cock-crazed violent rapists who spew strings of bloody baby-batter in-between sessions of gleefully smashing female heads in with large rocks. Is it brutal feminist-minded satire or male wish-fulfillment masturbation fantasy? I'm still trying to figure that out for myself.