I’m In Love With A Jersey Girl
I can’t lie — I’m pretty stoked that I helped spark an internet flavor-of-the-week. FourFour is one of the first blogs I started reading regularly about 5 years ago, and during America’s Next Top Model season I wait breathlessly with the rest of the internet for Rich Juzwiak’s incomparable weekly recap. But I am more than a fair weather fan – Rich is also an incredible aficionado of House music, R&B, gore films, and new surprises all the time — he is really wise beyond his years.
Every summer Rich heads home to New Jersey and visits the boardwalk at Wildwood where he documents it in all it’s trashiness and throw-back, out-of-place-redneck glory. So three years ago I dubbed him a VHS copy of Atlanta homegirl Ruth Leitman’s 1992 documentary WILDWOOD NJ. This was a tape that I rescued from Videodrome’s sale bin because I always loved it, and all of her other films including ALMA and LIPSTICK AND DYNAMYTE. I had the honor of doing a lecture with her several years ago at The Contemporary on kitch films from our childhood (Me: OKLAHOMA!, her: BILLY JACK). She was also a customer at Movies Worth Seeing where I worked for years and we used to chat a lot about documentaries before she moved away from Atlanta.
So it was crazy yesterday to see stills and clips from my tape all over the internet because of Rich’s wonderful review! Here’s his highlight reel (which has generated over 50,000 views in 2 days!):
The story also got picked up by Jezebel, Buzzfeed, and on G4 Tv’s “Around The Web” it was selected as the #1 video of the day! (Thanks, BazookaLuca!).
Ruth says she’s getting DVD orders by the second, so you should contact her and ask for yours – it’s truly amazing and would make a great, if much more heartfelt, double feature with Heavy Metal Parking Lot. She is in the process of remastering it now due to all of the sudden demand and will have it available on her site in a few days for $22.99 shipped. We’ll definitely get a copy for at Videodrome ASAP.
UPDATE: It’s available now – click on the “Wildwood” button. I ordered it for Videodrome.
But wait, there’s more! They showed a clip of this on G4’s “Attack of the Show” today in their “Around The Net” feature.
You can see it here:
http://g4tv.com/videos/39647/Around-The-Net-70209/
Starts at about the 7 min mark.
Whaaaa? The insanity continues! Thanks Luca!
I can’t believe “HOUSE” is on that episode too! http://djgnosis.wordpress.com/2009/03/01/house-1977/
Oklahoma???
the musical?
where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain?
Wayne – Yes. That’s what happens when you are raised in a fundamentalist household with 3 sisters. That movie is perverted with ridiculous sexual / rape subtexts!