You don't watch this kind of film expecting Citizen Kane or Sunset Boulevard, you watch it with a group of friends because it's an experience. Imagine going to a drive-in theater circa 1973, Chicago music is playing on the car radio as you pull into the space, turn off your radio, and put the speaker on your car window. A film like this immerses you in the early 70s as if you were actually there: bell bottom pants, afros, big jewelry, flashy cars, and lapels as big as mudflaps. In today's overly sanitized world, The Slams is a wonderful look back at a time when nothing was digital, and editing was done by hand with film, actors did their own fight scenes, the settings aren't faux gritty (they ARE gritty), and Lurch (Ted Cassidy) throws a ladle of bleach into Jim Brown's face. It's all very ugly, violent, and badly acted, as the body count piles up.
In keeping with obscure films, there's always one weird actor that you can't get out of your mind afterwards, and here it is a prison guard who laughs at everything; the actor's name isn't even listed in the credits on IMDb, but it's a hilarious performance, especially when he refuses an order to get into a dumpster. You have to see it to understand what I'm talking about.
I can see why Quentin Tarantino is obsessed with 70s films because they have a realism that is sadly missing from today's movies; it's almost like they pulled people off the street, put them into their costumes, and fed them their lines. There might have been a script, but everything looks ad-libbed or improvised on the spot, the way real life is. If anything, watching a film like this gives you the impression that today's films are too carefully planned, too perfect to be real. Wouldn't it be nice to have a little bit of realism alongside your CGI robots and multiple explosions?
In keeping with obscure films, there's always one weird actor that you can't get out of your mind afterwards, and here it is a prison guard who laughs at everything; the actor's name isn't even listed in the credits on IMDb, but it's a hilarious performance, especially when he refuses an order to get into a dumpster. You have to see it to understand what I'm talking about.
I can see why Quentin Tarantino is obsessed with 70s films because they have a realism that is sadly missing from today's movies; it's almost like they pulled people off the street, put them into their costumes, and fed them their lines. There might have been a script, but everything looks ad-libbed or improvised on the spot, the way real life is. If anything, watching a film like this gives you the impression that today's films are too carefully planned, too perfect to be real. Wouldn't it be nice to have a little bit of realism alongside your CGI robots and multiple explosions?