Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: First
Decade: 1990's
Director: Phillip R. Ford
This was a Jenifer pick for a watch party, and it was a gd delight.
Filmed circa 1983-85 in apartments and a few borrowed locations in San Francisco, this sci-fi epic follows a group of agents of the Empress of the Galaxy who are sent to Vegas in Space, a pre-fab pleasure planet with an all-female population, to find out what's going on with a crime wave. To infiltrate the planet, the agents have to change genders and pose as a girl-group performing 20th Century showgirl routines.
It's probably best to mention - the movie was made on no-budget by a group of drag queens and their friends, and the story of the making of the film sounds like it'd be a hell of a film or prestige HBO mini-series itself.
For something shot by people with minimal experience, it's a surprisingly coherent film, with ideas thrown at the screen every few seconds, tons of wild visuals only someone without proper training would even think of (apparently meth is also a bit of an engine behind the film), and characters with an ocean liner's worth of presence, if not acting chops. I expected to have some good laughs at the attempt and the "let's put on a show" aspect of the movie, but instead... the movie just worked. It's insane, high-voltage camp, and tragically ahead of what I think America was ready for. I mean, it's really funny, good stuff.
While watching the film, make sure you listen to the ADR'd background chatter.