Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid
“The American grindhouse has long been a playground for fomenting radical notions among thrill seeking proles with a few bucks to spare and a taste for something right to the point. The high-brow critics call this exploitation cinema and wag their bony fingers at such fare for indulging in spectacle and bad taste and they aren’t totally wrong. The problem is that modern late-capitalist civilization has reduced us all to a slumbering horde of flesh-eating zombies and the spectacle of ‘bad taste’ or transgressing our prescribed bourgeoise sensibilities is the only thing that will ever wake us. I know because it has before and not that long ago. The neon bathed grindhouses of pre-Giuliani Time Square achieved this goal with a rash of garish subcultural revolutions while Godard sold out and every new wave became assimilated into Spielbergian Hollywood dreck.” (10/25/26)
https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/10/the-grindhouse-is-opera-of-oppressed.html