Despite, or perhaps because of, William S. Burroughs reputation for being a junkie who shot his wife and a general curmudgeon, he has been elevated to the status of god amongst the goths, punks, hipsters and other outcasts of the world. The self-proclaimed map maker, an explorer of psychic areas  and cosmonaut of inner space possibly took enough hallucigens to sink a camel, if such a thing is possible, but is perhaps best known for his contributions to literature in the form of novels Queer, Junkie and The Naked Lunch. A defining figure in the Beat Generation, Burroughs has appeared in everything from Even Cowgirls Get the Blues to narrating a re-release of Häxan: Withcraft Through the Ages.

In debut filmmaker Yony Leyer’s documentary William S. Burroughs: A Man Within, Leyser proves himself to be one of the disciples that would proudly sit at Burroughs feet. Digging deep within the archives, along with Burroughs own Rolodex of friends, ex-lovers, acolytes and well-wishers, Leyer attempts to create a pastiche of a man who lead one of the most interesting lives, and for whom “death has a special smell”. Beginning roughly at the time that Burroughs emerged as a poet of the Beat Generation, right next to Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, Burrough’s story (narrated by Naked Lunch star and former Robocop Peter Weller) is fascinating, disturbing, inspiring and sometimes just plain nuts.

The myriad of influences that Burroughs has had on popular culture are incalculable, from coining the term “heavy metal” to providing the inspiration for the title of Blade Runner. Yet William S. Burroughs: A Man Within is about the man himself, as the helpful title would imply. Concentrating for a large part on role Burroughs played in the gay liberation movement, and his own homosexuality, Burroughs notes in relation to his own activism that he had “a duty to do these things”. Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, from the band Throbbing Gristle and the subject of SUFF 2011′s The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, goes one step further in arguing that Burroughs chose a path that would bring him into conflict in all aspects of his life. This is not difficult to justify in someone who accidentally shot and killed his second wife during a game of William Tell with a .45.

Although the film travels through Burrough’s musical influences, with heavy commentary from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop and Laurie Anderson, William S. Burroughs: A Man Within is at its strongest when it simply attempts to strip back the outer layers of its subject and look at the inner workings of what made him tick. It may be a completely impenetrable task, but one its participants clearly relish being a part of.

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within screens at the Sydney Underground Film Festival on 9 and 1o September 2011.

Before This Is Spinal Tap came along and brilliantly spoiled our view of metal in the 1980s forever, there was a time when long hair and tough men in tight pants were the ultimate bad-asses. In 1986, Jeff Krulik made a short film called Heavy Metal Parking Lot, documenting the parking lot outside of a Judas Priest concert and in doing so, captured the pulse of the metal movement at the time. The tape was traded for years, becoming the subject of legend and eventually so popular that it warranted a 20th anniversary DVD release. Heavy Metal Picnic sees Krulik dip back into the archives to his footage of the 1985 Full Moon Jamboree, and it has largely been said that this acts as a kind of prequel to his famous underground tape.

With equipment stolen from CBS from the Reagan Inauguration earlier that year, a small crew of metal fans impersonate the real media and gain unprecedented access to the punters of the Full Moon Jamboree. The farm party to end all farm parties, it was loud enough to make the evening news, and raise the backs of the residents of the McMansions that surrounded it, but became an untouchable private gig of legend. Along with the plethora of archival footage, the makers and fans revisit the site of the original Jamboree and watch the tapes with twenty-first century eyes.

There have been a stack of documentaries on the metal scene over the last few years, including the excellent Sam Dunn film Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and the not-quite-stars of Sacha Gervasi’s Anvil! The Story of Anvil, and Jeff Krulik’s Heavy Metal Picnic sits somewhere in between. Where Dunn’s doco attempted to uncover the social anthropology of metal fans across the world, and Gervasi looked at a very particular band, Krulik’s compilation is an anthropological examination of a very particular event. Filled with the kinds of big hair, acid wash jeans, drug and alcohol fueled bare-chested buffoonery that some would rather forget, and others would love to relive, Krulik’s crew are more than just flies on the wall. Rather, they are willing participants, encouraged by and encouraging rowdy behaviour.

While the cameras used were an expensive novelty in the 1980s, especially in light of our current culture of mobile phone ubiquity, their presence at an event such as this in 1985 is nothing short of amazing. While the footage may be raw, and the long stretches of folks watching the footage is less interesting than the archives themselves, there is something blindly compelling about this singular moment in history being captured and now preserved for the ages. Mixed with discussions of gender and drug politics in the Reagan era, including a brief clip of Nancy Reagan appearing on Diff’rent Strokes, heavy Metal Picnic never scratches much beyond the surface. Even so, it completely manages to capture the spirit of an era, and may just be the forerunner to Girls Gone Wild. For that, the world will be eternally grateful.

Heavy Metal Picnic screens with Heavy Metal Parking Lot at the Sydney Underground Film Festival on 9 September 2011.

When avant garde filmmaker Sion Sono’s Cold Fish premiered last year in Japan, and earlier this year in Australia on the festival circuit, its misogyny and visceral brilliance divided audiences. Almost as if in direct response to this, Sono has released Guilty of Romance (恋の罪), a film that puts women in charge of the sex and violence, even if it may still be Sono indulging in liberal doses of both. Indeed, as the third chapter in the so-called “Hate” trilogy of films, that began with 2008′s Love Exposure, Guilty of Romance is very much the companion film – or more accurately, mirror image – of Cold Fish.

When police detective Kazuko (Miki Mizuno,Castle Under Fiery Skies) uncovers a brutally murdered body at the love hotel district of Tokyo, she also uncovers a complex tale of eroticism and repression involving Izumi (Megumi Kagurazaka, Cold Fish), the restrained housewife of a famous novelist on the verge of sexual liberation, and Mitsuko (Makoto Togashi, A Symmetry), a university professor with daddy issues who leads a double-life as a street hooker.

Fans of Sono will already be familiar with his over-the-top and brightly coloured view of the world, with bright pink paint being just one of the motifs throughout the film, and how these are used as a clever mask for getting to the root of the conflicting moral identities at the heart of Japan. The exploration of identity is the focal point of Guilty of Romance, with bare breasts a titillating metaphor for bare souls, and it is difficult to take some of the sex scenes terribly seriously when they have the focus of the Showgirls hottub scene. Yet Sono has an unmistakeable vision, and while we have managed to see this vision before, Guilty of Romance may be the more accessible version that audiences need to crack into his always fascinating world.

As a feminist polemic, it may be somewhat more difficult to justify Guilty of Romance, but this is precisely what makes Sono continually interesting to watch. Sono’s social commentary here is a tiny bit superficial, at least here he attempts to use women as something other than objects. Certainly, all of the women have been victims to a certain extent, but Sono’s real interest here is the struggle for personal and sexual identity, something that has often been dealt with in humorously perverse manner in his previous films. Drawing inspiration from David Lynch or even Ingmar Bergman, just with more liberal doses of explicit psycho-sexual encounters, Guilty of Romance is unlike any other film this year. Overindulgent? Absolutely. For fans of Sono, this will be par for the course.

Guilty of Romance screened earlier this year at the Melbourne International Film Festival. It will also screen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival on 9 and 11 September 2011.

SUFF offers a few intriguing offerings this year. Direct from the Melbourne International Film Festival come the likes of Opening Night film Super, the story of a DIY superhero starring The Office‘s Rainn Wilson, Liv Tyler and Kevin Bacon. Directed by former Troma writer James Gunn (Tromeo and Juliet), this is sure to attract a cult crowd.

Similarly, The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, winner of Best Documentary at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival, has had some success of the local festival circuit, and follows underground musicians Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV), and his other half and collaborator, Lady Jaye, who are so conjoined that they undertake plastic surgery to literally become alike.

Sion Sono’s Guilty of Romance comes highly recommended from The Reel Bits. Fans of Sono will already be familiar with his over-the-top and brightly coloured view of the world, and the final entry in his “Hate Trilogy” of films – following 2008′s Love Exposure and 2010′s Cold Fish, is an absolute must-see at this year’s SUFF.

The intriguing Trilogy takes one of the most famous film series of all time –  Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi – and splices them together as a three-way split-screen montage of all three films. For Star Wars fans who think they have seen it all, this may just stump you.

The eclectic mix of films also includes such provocative titles as Dad Made Dirty Movies, Heavy Metal Picnic and Run! Bitch Run!, and the real joy of SUFF is finding something new. For as little as $85, you can get an entire Festival Pass, allowing you access to all the films, including the opening and closing nights, the latter being Australian filmmaker Jon Hewitt’s X.

The Sydney Underground Film Festival runs from 8 to 11 September 2011 at The Factory Theatre, Sydney College of the Arts and the MuMeson Archives. For more details, check out the official SUFF website.

Bill Hicks may not be the most recognisable name on the stand-up comedy circuit, but when the Texas-born comedian died of pancreatic cancer the age of 32 in 1994, he left behind him an unfinished career and a string of baffled rednecks in the Deep South. Decrying everything from modern music, to religion and the conservative elements of politics –  while simultaneously praising the joys of smoking and taking drugs - Hicks usually held nothing back. It wasn’t until late in his career that he was ‘discovered’, particularly in the UK, and it is only since his untimely death that legions of fans have sprung up all over the world as they discover his comedy for the first time. Compared with the earlier Lenny Bruce, and sometimes described as “Chomsky with dick jokes”, his prematurely-shortened career continues to be influential to this day.

Hicks’ life was previously chronicled in It’s Just a Ride: A Tribute to Bill Hicks (available on DVD as part of the Totally Bill Hicks compilation), but British debut filmmaker Matt Harlock and documentarian Paul Thomas attempt something a little bit different with American: The Bill Hicks Story. Speaking with the ’10 people who knew Bill best’, the film uses still photographs and animation (in a similar way to the recent Allen Ginsberg docu-drama HOWL), along with interviews of Hicks’ family, friends and peers, and of course, vintage footage of his stand-up performances. While this animated technique may be off-putting at first, especially for those expecting a more traditional ‘talking heads’ documentary, it achieves a level of intimacy not seen in previous filmed portraits.

Of course, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Being told by the people who knew Bill best has the drawback of not covering every dark aspect of his life, although none of them pull punches when it comes to his failings. The audience is never fully introduced to Goat Boy, the uninhibited alter-ego that fascinated Hicks in his later years and was a creature of pure id (“Tie me to your headboard. Throw your legs over my shoulders, let me roll you like a feed bag.”). His pieces on abortion are strangely glossed over, and we get only the slightest hint about his outrage on the first Gulf War. Yet to truly understand Hicks, one must see his stand-up performances. Although Hicks is not around to speak for himself, we are lucky to have so many of his performances committed to CD and video. From the amazing early archival footage, through his first big break of Sane Man and the mighty Revelations (where he reached rock god status), we get a sense of what made Hicks special. His material still resonates today, partly because the issues he dealt with – flag burning, government lies, war in the Gulf, the collective apathy of the masses – could easily be ripped from the headlines and sadly still apply today. Up until recently, we didn’t even have to change the name of the President he was ranting about.

To go deeper, fans will need to look to Cynthia True’s heartbreaking American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story or Bill Hicks: Agent of Evolution, the tome by his lifelong friend Kevin Booth (and director of American Drug War: The Last White Hope). However, it does serve as an excellent and timely gateway into the world of Hicks. Sixteen years after his death, Hicks remains as angry and as relevant to modern audiences as he did back in his prime. As the representative of the filmmakers reminded us at the Sydney premiere as part of the Sydney Underground Film Festival, Hicks was always more popular in Australia and the UK than he was in his home territory. Fans will find that American: The Bill Hicks Story covers most of the main reasons we love Hicks, and new fans will find this a great primer before dipping their toes into the waters of Dangerous or the essential Arizona Bay. Weeks, perhaps years, of indecision in various parliaments around the world have left most citizens apathetic to government deception and actions that are not in the best interests of the people that elected them. This film reminds us why we should always maintain the rage.

Overall rating: ★★★★

American: The Bill Hicks Story is released in the UK on DVD 27 October 2010, boasting over 5 hours of bonus features. Madman Entertainment will be distributing this in Australia, with a local release date TBA.

Portions of this review originally appeared in our review for Bill Hicks – Sane Man back in 2006.