Welcome to the RWC Resource Center
Welcome to the Reel Wild Cinema Resource Center. Here you can read all
about what the world thinks of RWC. Collected here are a few articles that talk
about Reel Wild Cinema. Also you can find where you can go in the net and in
TV land to learn more about Sandra Bernhard and about RWC.
All of these fine articles were collected by Terry DuFoe
REEL WILD CINEMA
Annistons's own "Trash Film King" set to appear on USA Series
By: Bob Carlton
News staff writer
From the Birmingham News, May 1st 1996
David Friedman, the self proclaimed "Trash-Film King," was about to junk all
his old movies when he moved back to Alabama eight years ago.
Of course, some people might say the junk heap is the only place for sleazy,
cheapy flicks like Color Me Blood Red, Scum of the Earth and Goldilocks and
the Three Bares.
"I was getting tired of paying the storage on the negatives until this young
fellow named Mike Vraney who had started this company called Something Weird
Video,"
Friedman recalls.
A comic book collector and former manager for the punk band the Dead
Kennedys, Vraney was amassing a film library of his own. He bought the rights
to Friedman's flicks, and along with his partners Marty Sokol and Jimmy
Maslon. A $2500 bargain.
Clips from some of those films, most of which were made for less than the
catering bill on a major-studio production, are featured every Sunday night on
the USA Network's Reel Wild Cinema, hosted by acctress comedian Sandra
Bernhard.
The playlist includes camp classics like Friedman's She Freak and The Girl
and the Geek and Russ Meyer's Treaserama and Souls in Pawn. Friedman will be
a featured guest on the episodes entitled "Evil Carnival of Horrors," which
airs Sunday, and "Bad Ass Babes," which airs Sunday June 2. Friedman, who
lives in Anniston with his wife, Carol, flew to Los Angeles to tape the shows
last month.
"He was a sweetheart." Ms. Bernhard says of the 73 year old Friedman. "He
and Russ Meyer and the actress Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Tura Satana) were
my three favorite people.
"They were just the real deal," she adds. "They were the people who made
that whole genre come to life."
Friedman has become a fan of Ms. Bernhard's too. "It's amazing." he says.
"She's as corney as she can be, but she's a great worker."
Since it premiered April 21 in the 11 pm time slot follwing the popular Silk
Stalkings. Reel Wild Cinema has built a ferverent follwing. "We were going
through the mail this afternoon and we recieved literally hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of letters from the first episode," says Marty Sokol,
who along with Vraney and Jimmy Maslon, is an executive producer of the show.
Many of those are letters from people who remember going to the drive-in to
see these old favorites. And others are from fans like the 28 years old
Sokol, who wasn't born when the pictures first came out in the late 1950s and
early 1960s.
"I think the whole idea of Reel WIld Cinema is to try to bring back and have
people remember a time when movies were fun and they didn't need to cost $100
million," Sokol says. "They could be done with a little bit of showsmanship
and a little bit of sex."
Sokol got hooked on off-beat B-movies when he first saw Friedman's She
Devil's on Wheels while he was a freshman film student at Boston's Emerson
College.
"I bought this videotape to my dorm room and watched it like three years
straight."
Sokol says. "It changed my life quite literally . I never knew that movies
like this exsisted. It really opened a genre to me that is so extensive,
incredible and bizzare."
Sokol still goes to a lot of movies but says the new ones lack the pizazz of
the old exploitation pictures.
"Take a movie like Jane Eyre." he says. "It's too high-brow. They should
put buzzers under the seats and maybe people would go."
Such gimmickry was the forte of Friedman, who handed out airplane vomit bags
at his movies and parked an ambulance outside the theater in case any of the
patrons fainted during the show.
Paul Verhoeven's NC-17 rated Showsgirls, Ms. Bernhard says, is the only
recent movie that belings in the same, so bad they're good league with the
Reel Wild Cinema flicks. Trouble it, it wasn't supposed to be so campy.
"I'm sure the people who did Showsgirls thought it was going to be a
serious film but to me, it's camp classic, the first one in years," she said.
"I saw the film a couple of months ago, and I was totally beyond entertained."
Even though he alomst ditched all his old movies. Friedman ever the
huckster, is not suprised they've found a new life on the tube.
"One of my mentors, Dan Sonney told me one thing one time I always believe
that has been a source of both satisfaction and monetary rewards." Friedman
says.
"A movie is like a sack of flour. No matter how old it gets and no matter
how empty, if you shake it, a little more flour will come out."
And every Sunday night at 11 pm, there's a whole lot of shaking going on.
Q&A With Sandra Benrhard
By: Neva Chonnin
From the San Francisco Gate, 1999
Onstage, Sandra Bernhard is a comedian out of a
Wagnerian dream, sailing forth like a thick- lipped
Valkyrie with a lethal punch line. Her acerbic
observations are a bane to her delicately constituted
detractors and a joy to her army of sardonic fans.
Bernhard's current stage show, ``I'm Still Here . . .
Damn It!,'' which enjoyed a sold-out run in San
Francisco last spring, plays like a manifesto of one
woman's will to performative power -- even if she
doesn't have Madonna to make fun of anymore.
She does have Courtney Love, though, and Naomi
Campbell and Liza Minnelli, all of whom are
immortalized on the just-released CD of the show.
La Bernhard also has written her third book, ``May
I Kiss You on the Lips, Miss Sandra?,'' set for
publication on December 15.
In interview mode, Bernhard plays an earnest
doppelganger to her onscreen persona. She doesn't
much like feeble-minded scribes' attempts at humor,
and stays mum on topics such as the father of her
baby daughter, Cicely Yasin, born in July after
appearing onstage with her mother for months in the
form of a huge belly over a black G-string. You go,
girls!
We spoke to Bernhard via fiber-optic connection
between San Francisco and New York.
Q: How do you juggle doing a show every night
with keeping an eye on Cicely?
A: Well, it's actually a very good situation because
we can spend days together. I go to the theater
around 5:30, come home around 10 and sometimes
we hang out together then, too. And we hook up
again in the morning.
Q: So you never have nightmares about walking into
a room and having her scream because she doesn't
recognize you?
A: She's not that kind of kid. She's very happy,
well-adjusted and open. She loves to eat and laugh
and play and sleep. She's going to be fine.
Q: The last time we saw her, during your San
Francisco shows, she was just a belly. But she stole
the show.
A: Maybe that's why she's so happy now. She was
always surrounded by prenatal music and laughter.
Q: Did you get your girlish figure back?
A: Very much so. No stretch marks. I didn't have
any of the cliched things happen, and my body
bounced back really well. I used a lot of oils and
stuff, and I've been working out a lot and eating
right, so it just kind of snapped into its normal
cheetah-like frame. That's what one reviewer said,
anyway, something about how my ``slinky clothes
clung to my cheetah-like frame.'' I thought that was
pretty fabulous. I think if your skin is prone to
stretching, there's not much you can do. But I have
good elasticity.
Q: So tell us something about your new book.
A: It's a compilation of short stories, some fictional
and some real, some really personal and some funny
and insane. There are observations and poetry and
weird little moments and peeks into people's heads
and lives. It's a nice, nonlinear, strange book.
Q: Do you take a different approach to your book
writing than you do to your stage monologues?
A: My writing for books is something that people
can savor and take in slowly. It comes from a place
where I'm not worrying about a punch line. I want it
to be funny, but it's not geared toward laugh after
laugh after laugh. Or maybe it's just a different kind
of laugh.
Q: Where did you get the title?
A: It comes from that story that I tell onstage about
my house painter, Herminio.
Q: So Herminio is real? Does he know he's in the
book?
A: Herminio is very real. I don't think he knows
what the hell it is that I do with my life.
Q: Ever had any emotional reactions from any of the
people you mention in you stage show? Has
Courtney Love responded to your vignette about
meeting her?
A: Courtney doesn't give a s--. She's totally cool.
I'm sure she finds it very funny and flattering. She's a
super- intelligent, super-sophisticated chick. She
would accept it as a compliment to her cultural
iconism. How could she not love it? It's not a
potshot; it's a layered, textured piece about my
admiration for her while putting her in the proper
perspective.
Q: If you were a Web site, what would you call
yourself?
A: I don't know -- www.getreal.com, maybe.
Q: Any words of wisdom?
A: My words of wisdom are in my book. I think
that's what people like about my work -- I don't
beat them over the head with lecturing and
coercion. I'm not into offering insane religious
philosophy. I've been on a spiritual path, but it's
infused into my work in a much more interesting
way than just saying, ``You've got to be spiritual,
you've got to be compassionate.'' You've got to be
who you are and reflect goodness through that
instead of trying to become something else. My
work is really about acceptance and being
comfortable enough with yourself so that you can be
generous in spirit. I enjoy myself in a sensual way
because spirituality does not preclude sensuality.
They're both important parts of my life.
Q: On the album from your last stage show,
``Without You I'm Nothing,'' you have an homage
to Prince. It's kind of neat to go from that to the
new album's Moroccan call to prayer.
A: Well, music is music and it comes from the soul,
and Prince's music is really soulful.
Q: This year are you going to party like it's 1999?
A: Honey, I've been partying.
SANDRA "REEL'S" IN THE B LIST
By: Christy Slewinski
From the New York Daily News, April 25th 1996
Sandra Bernhard may just be the consummate television chameleon of the
'90s.
One day she's feisty, girl-lovin' waitress on ABC's "Roseanneanne." The
next day she's straight-jaced, straight-talking attorney on CBS' "Chigago
Hope." Flip to cable and she's hosting the A & E comedy special "The A-List"
or starring in her own salty, irreverent comedy specials -- like HBO's "Sandra
After Dark."
Most recently, Bernhard has taken on hosting duties for USA Network's "Reel
Wild Cinemas," in which she introduces viewers to some of the most offbeat,
low-budget B-movies ever made. The show runs Sundays at midnight, and luckily
for viewers boils the featured films down to fit the show's one-hour format,
offering only the best scenes.
"I like had films, and I like commenting on bad things -- it's one of my
favorite pastimes, as everybody knows -- so it was a good combination of
ideas," says Bernhard.
"Reel Wild" also features a string of eclectic guests.
"I'm so tired of seeing all these talk shows with people you see all the
time, anyway," says Bernhard. "Why not bring out some people who have done
interesting things in their fields?"
Like who?
"Like David Friedman, the director, producer and distributor of all these
sexploitation films. He did "She Freak" and a few other weird films. And
then there's (B-movie maker) Russ Meyer; I think he speaks for himself". And
then there was my favorite guest, Tura Santana. She was in "Faster, Pussycat!
Kill! Kill!, playing woman who kicks everybody's ass."
Send This Girl to Camp
By: Katrina Brown
From Total TV, May 7th 1996
Mystery Science Theater 3000 elevated B-movies to high art, and now USA -- a
longtime purveyor of hearty schlock -- is getting into the act. It should
come as no surprise, then, that the equally offbeat Sandra Bernhard, once
tagged as "good at being bad," is hosting Reel Wild Cinema (Sundays), the one-
hour series that revives those whimsical wonders of the 30s to the 70s.
"These are the films that you would go see as a kid and just have fun with and
get scared of because they were silly," the comedian explains. With campy
titles, such as The Girl and the Geek and Swamp Virgin, who wouldn't crack a
smile? Although the bold Bernard, known for her ability to shock, insists she
keeps the show's discussion as fluffy as the story lines -- "I don't get into
any sociopolitical analysis of the movies" -- she does voice a strong opinion
on the pretentions in today's filmmaking. "I think people take it too
seriously. I don't like the whole idea of 'how are we going to package this'
and how are we going to sell this. Back then, they just threw something out
there and people ran to the drive-in to see it because it was just less
selfconscious." Ah, mindlessness...now those were the days.
THE WILD NIGHTS OF SANDRA BERNHARD
by: Jamie Burfalino
From Time Out New York, May 11th 1996
With a prgramming schedule that includes Silk Stalkings, Acapulco H.E.A.T
and lioberal doses of Gilbert Gottfried, late night on the USA Network has
never been a place for the weak of heart. So the network's recent addition of
Sandra Bernhard to the mix comes as a shock to no one, least of all the star.
"I'm not surprised by anything these days." says Bernhard. "I never know
where I'm going to end up. And as long as I keep working, I don't care."
This time, Bernhard ended up as hostess of Reel Wild Cinema, USA's new
Mystery Science Theater 3000- style series that "salutes low-budget
explotiation films of the 50's and 60's." While USA raises its hip quotient
by adding Bernhard gets paid to lounge around a mod set and introduce
condensed versions of flicks such as Bloody Pit of Horror and Monster at Camp
Sunshine (the only production ever to intercut Civil Way stock footage with
scenes from a nudiest colony), while delivering deliciousy dry lines- "Don't
go away, we've got a film with really bad dubbing coming up next."
The show also features an interveiw segment, in which Bernhard sips fruit-
filled drinks with various counterculture personalilties. "My three favorite
guests are Russ Meyer, David Friedman, and the man who produced the
sexploitation films in the 50's and 60's; and Tura Satana, the woman from
Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! who drives that car and kicks everybody's ass."
says Bernhard.
The new job has also allowed the Hudson Hawk star to show off her own
predilection for low-brow entertainment. "My newest faorite bad film is
Showgirls.",
she says. "I thought it was brillant. I thought Elizabeth Berkley was
actually good." And it's no accodent that Bernhard's publicity campaign for
Reel Wild has included an appearence on Howard Stern's radio show. (Sandra to
Howard: "I'am so honored to be on the heels of (porn legend) Ron Jeremy and
Divine Brown.")
Now that Bernnard is a schlock jock herself, she has the perfect
prescription for fellow camp connoisseurs. "I just think it's fun to have a
show like this on Sunday nights, when people are bummed out about having to
face going back to their jobs and school," she says. "It's a fun thing to
kind of fall asleep to. To get into the late-night mood."
USA's `Reel Wild Cinemas' lets Sandra Bernhard do what she does best
By Christy Slewinski
New York Daily News
Sandra Bernhard may just be the consummate television chameleon of the '90s.
One day she's a feisty, girl-lovin' waitress on ABC's ``Roseanne.'' The next day she's a straight-laced, straight-talking attorney
on CBS' ``Chicago Hope.'' Flip to cable and she's hosting the A&E comedy special ``The A-List'' or starring in her own salty,
irreverent comedy specials - like HBO's ``Sandra After Dark.''
Most recently, Bernhard has taken on hosting duties for USA Network's ``Reel Wild Cinemas,'' in which she introduces
viewers to some of the most offbeat, low-budget B-movies ever made. The show runs Sundays at midnight ET, and luckily for
viewers, boils the featured films down to fit the show's one-hour format, offering only the best scenes.
``I like bad films, and I like commenting on bad things - it's one of my favorite pastimes, as everybody knows - so it was a
good combination of ideas,'' says Bernhard.
``Reel Wild'' also features a string of eclectic guests.
``I'm so tired of seeing all these talk shows with people you see all the time, anyway,'' says Bernhard. ``Why not bring out some
people who have done interesting things in their fields?''
Like who?
``Like David Friedman, the director, producer and distributor of all these sexploitation films - he did `She Freak' and a few
other weird films. And then there's (B-movie maker) Russ Meyer; I think he speaks for himself. ... And then there was my
favorite guest, Tura Satana. She was in `Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!', playing a woman who kicks everybody's a- .''
X X X
ON B-MOVIES AND BOWLING...A CHAT WITH SANDRA BERNHARD
From the USA Network RWC Press Kit
Sandra Bernhard has always had an affinity for the b-movie genre,
so it seems only perfect that she host USA Network's series "Reel Wild Cinema" (SunDay evenings at Midnight ET/PT).
The multi-talented Bernhard discusses "Reel Wild Cinema," b-movies, and a few other things.
(Q) Sandra on why she lected this project:
(A) "I like the whole b-movie genre, because I think it came from a time when people
were really mavericks and rebels and not under somebody's thumb tyring to make alot of
money. They were into subversive ideas and moods, and I think we've really
lost that in this country, to a certain extent."
(Q) Sandra on when she was first introduced to b-movies:
(A) "Me and my brothers used to stay up late Friday nights to watch these movies,
and we would be scared and freaked out-- and it was fun. There was that sense that the
silliest thing could scare you."
(Q) Sandra on the potential audience for "Reel Widl Cinema:"
(A) "The people that are going to watch this show are people that remember these types
of films. I also think younger kids, who are kind of on the cutting edge, may watch,
as well as slackers and freaks...cool kids."
(Q) Sandra on whether she's ever appeared in a b-movie:
(A) "I wish. Unfortunatly, the movies made now are like C-movies. There aren't
any more B-movies. Well, I guess "Showgirls" was kind of a B-movie without
tyring to be. They don't set out to intentionally make B-movies anymore; unfortunately."
(Q) Sandra on her favorite B-movie:
(A) "It's "The Collossal Man." It was about this guy who got exposed to radiation
and he started growing. He walks around the whole movie in a giant pair of underpants
ripping down telephone polls. That's one of my favorite B-movies."
(Q) And when she's not watching B-movies?
(A) "I spend alot of time with my friends and family, going to the movies,
going to the gym...and depending on what time of year it is, I like watching
bowling on ABC Saturday afternoons. I love watching pro bowling, it takes
me to another place."
(Q) Oh, and by the way, Sandra bowl's herself. Her high score?
(A) "Something not very good, like 110," she adds.
Also, if you want to read more about RWC, I highly
recommend that you check out Outre Magazine, issue number six. In it's pages
you will find a great article written by free-lance writter Terry DuFoe.
the cost of the back issue is $25.00, and is worth every cent. Get more
on ordering from the Outre Magazine web-site
Also, be sure to keep a close eye on NBC on Saturday nights at 6:00 PM (central)
On a recent episode of "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes, they showed a couple
of out-takes from Reel Wild Cinema. Currently, the show is in re-runs, so if
you keep watching, you have a good change of seeing them.
Onto Page Two
