Ecstasy in Entropy

Not long before he ruined his entire cinematic aesthetic and dedicated himself to digital diarrhea and created the unbelievably embarrassing public access TV series The Adventures of Electra Elf (2005–2010) with his obscenely obnoxious and anything-but-sexy then-girlfriend/co-conspirator Reverend Jen Miller, Cinema of Transgression would-be-demigod Nick Zedd (The Bogus Man, Whoregasm) provided fairly good evidence that he might have actually grown up and seriously matured as a filmmaker, at least aesthetically speaking. Indeed, with his proudly degenerate experimental dystopian epic War Is Menstrual Envy (1992), Zedd demonstrated that he had finally developed some serious sense of mise-en-scène and tableaux construction and disposed of the intentionally absurdly stupid storylines that were typical of his early features like They Eat Scum (1979) and Geek Maggot Bingo or The Freak from Suckweasel Mountain (1983) so that he could put most of his emphasis on siring a singular aesthetic. Unfortunately, the film also demonstrated that Zedd’s taste in politics and music had become all the more innately infantile and just plain downright repugnant, thus hinting that all of his drug intake during the late-1980s rotted at least part of his brain. In his final film that was actually shot on real film as opposed to digital video, Ecstasy in Entropy (1999), Zedd ultimately managed to prove that you can unequivocally be simultaneously cinematically refined yet totally and unbelievably politically and morally retarded. Somewhat misleadingly described by Zedd himself as being about, “a group of intellectual warrior lap dancers struggling to overthrow the authoritarian structures of corporate state capitalism,” the 17-minute short was shot on black-and-white 16mm film stock (though a couple scenes at the very end are in color) and is notable for being the filmmaker’s sole work that was funded with a grant (Zedd was awarded a Chicago Underground Film Festival Completion Grant, though apparently the flick, not unlike a lot of Jim Van Bebber’s films, still remains a perennial ‘work-in-progress’).  Unquestionably one of Zedd's more ambitious and artistically accomplished cinematic works to date, Ecstasy in Entropy is probably the most strange and idiosyncratic stripper flick since Stephen Dwoskin's haunting feature-length avant-garde masterpiece Dyn Amo (1972).  Additionally, the film is probably the first (and last) ‘avant-garde fat acceptance’ flick as a work inhabited by beefy busted up meta-buxom old bitches who are well past their expiration date in terms of sex appeal, though I did not doubt that they are at their peak in terms of their carnal technique as chicks that give off the impression that they have sucked thousands upon thousands of dicks.  If you ever wondered what porn star Jewess Annie Sprinkle might look like pregnant, Zedd's film is probably the next best thing as the veteran fuck flick heroine has a massive protruding gut that is almost as large and saggy as her legendary cantilever bust.

 A piece of vaguely cultivated celluloid kitsch with semi-serious yet ultimately horribly failed agitprop ambitions, Ecstasy in Entropy is like an unholy aesthetically autistic marriage between old school film noir, the 1960s pseudo-Bergman-esque proto-pornographic sexploitation flicks of Joseph W. Sarno (who incidentally ghost-directed Sprinkle in her arguable most famous film Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (1981)), the slapstick titty titillation of Federico Fellini, and the primitive pre-Morrissey works of Andy Warhol, especially the screen tests (notably, Zedd also payed ‘tribute’ to Warhol with his previous short Screen Test 98 (1998) aka Why Do You Exist?). Featuring a decidedly debasing soundtrack that includes tedious tunes by old school degenerate jazz, Burt Bacharach, and hip-hop producer Chilly Chill, the film was made in the spirit of Zedd’s filmmaking approach The Theory of Xenomorphosis (1998) and the auteur’s Mexican baby-momma Monica Casanova gave a good idea of the film’s inner logic (or lack thereof) when she stated, “Through the vehicle of innovative movies like his two-screen WAR IS MENSTRUAL ENVY and low budget 16mm gems like ECSTASY IN ENTROPY, Zedd employs shock value in the service of xenomorphosis, a term he coined to describe what happens when the ‘domain wall of an alternate universe smashes your reality tunnel and neurological re-engineering occurs.’ In these films a 'union of opposites' provokes cognitive dissonance or atavism causing viewers and participants to change from within.” Of course, the only real change that the film will inspire in someone is a boner if they happen to have a fetish for fat beat up babes with big saggy butts and bosoms that resemble ancient mutant cow udders. Indeed, a flagrantly seedy yet extremely silly cinematic work that thankfully manages to unwittingly undermine any political message it might have due to the sheer stupidity of its sometimes cringe-inducing content, Ecstasy in Entropy is another rude celluloid remainder as to why Zedd’s lack of taste in women is only transcended by his lack of wisdom and insight when it comes to serious socio-political matters. A sort of A Gun for Jennifer (1997) for art fags on acid, the short is, not unlike the unclad trashcan divas that it stars, the sort of thing you might be embarrassed to let your friends know that you indulged in, even though you might find yourself revisiting it at some point. 

 Beginning with a credit sequence that is in the form of raunchy publicity shots that were taken by Cinema of Transgression filmmaker Tessa Hughes-Freeland (Baby Doll, Dirty), the film then cuts to a shot of lapsed Warhol superstar Taylor Mead (The Flower Thief, Lonesome Cowboys) lurking in a dark, seedy, and somewhat claustrophobic strip joint where infamous porn star Hebrewess and self-described “post-porn modernist” Annie Sprinkle (who previously appeared in War Is Menstrual Envy) is attempting ply the money out his hands by fondling and exposing her super saggy jumbo jugs, which are notable for having rather large baloney nipples. Even though exceeding effete man-child Mead seems about as straight as a circle, he is so hopelessly enticed by Sprinkle’s carny-like bargain bin burlesque routine that he begins harassing her saggy flesh with his trusty cane. When Sprinkle begins inserting her finger inside her mouth in a provocative fashion as if she is sucking a tiny cock, Mead naturally puts money in her oral orifice. At a certain point, Mead almost even seems strangely petrified by Sprinkle's extra fleshy funbags. As a lifelong whore who sells her gash for cash and who is largely infamous for her Public Cervix Announcement routine where she invited audience members to ostensibly “celebrate the female body” by viewing her fleshy pink void with a speculum and flashlight, Sprinkle also notably symbolically kisses a $100 bill as if it were he one true love.  Somewhat humorously, Sprinkle also shoves her borderline grotesque gazongas in the face of a hopelessly entranced East Asian chap. Since she is the only woman in the room that is receiving both money and male attention, Sprinkle is eventually ganged up on and attacked by all of the other discernibly used-up, aesthetically devitalized, and mostly fat bar sluts, who also moonlight as self-stylized anti-capitalist commie revolutionaries of the rather raunchy sort. Indeed, after one of the strippers begins to strangle Sprinkle with her own beaded necklace, the bordello of unflatteringly busty ‘big boned’ strippers begin a sort of unhinged carnal civil war while a poor lone Chihuahua named ‘Pinky’ sniffs their assumedly rancid feet. At one point, the mostly unclad wayward woman seem to be playing Sapphic leapfrog, with one of the women’s backs being plagued with seemingly dozens of grotesque zits.  Of course, one can only imagine what the room smelled like when these gleefully seedy ‘slapstick slut’ scenes were shot.

In what might be described as a sort of playfully pornographic intermission segment, a playful Jewish hook-nosed whore named Darryl Goldsmith performs an unsimulated blowjob on a guy the bears a striking resemblance to the main frog fag in French thief turned novelist Jean Genet’s sole directorial effort Un chant d'amour (1950) aka A Song of Love. Eventually, the real cock is replaced with what is obviously a plastic prick which repeatedly squirts the stripper slut in the face with seemingly gallons upon gallons of extra milky pseudo-semen. While the loads upon loads splash in her face, the stripper maintains a goofy smile on her face as if her greatest fantasy has cum true. After the rather explosive cumshot scene concludes, the viewer is bombarded with what is undoubtedly one of the most odiously obnoxious scenes in cinema history, which involves Warhol-esque screen tests featuring various strippers engaged in sensual poses juxtaposed with off-screen narration of different strippers spewing pro-commie idiocy in an exaggerated pseudo-seductive fashion, thus reflecting Zedd’s innately autistic incapacity for separating his ‘art’ with his glaringly incongruent and patently preposterous political views. Indeed, as Ms. Sprinkle pretends to look all fancy while smoking a cig that is attached to a flapper-esque cigarette holder, some strung-out-sounding Bitch mundanely moans, “Of course...The bolsheviks used to the term ‘socialist’ to describe their system to critically exploit its moral prestige while the West uses it to insult libertarian ideals by associating it with a communist prison state, thus undermining the popular perception that there could be progress towards a more just world.” Thankfully, these unintentionally ‘zany’ juxtapositions of beefy burlesque bitches and prosaic neo-bolshevik twaddle unintentionally makes Zedd’s rather ridiculous attempts at communist cheerleading seem all the more intrinsically moronic. After all, Zedd seems to forget that so-called ‘sex work’ is the sort of timeless trade that Marxist fanboys like to bring up when they are decrying the dehumanizing tendencies of capitalism. 

 While Zedd veteran Brenda Bergman (Geek Maggot Bingo and Why Do You Exist?) inserts a gun in her big mouth as if it is a cock, some dumb bitch moans, “Landlords are the enemy…the police are the enemy…the police are the servants of the ruling class, protecting their property from their rightful owners: the people that occupy and maintain their buildings and factories.” In a scene that almost unwitting mocks the tens of millions of chinks and gooks killed under communism, a topless East Asian chick with perky average-sized tits dances while some neo-bolshevik spouts classically contrived commie and anarchist cheerleading slogans like “Property is theft” and “Anarchy is shared self-interest, not irresponsibility.” Needless to say, when some stupid chick says, “you cannot be free until you renounce violence as a method of solving problems,” it is more repulsive and vomit-worthy than the canine coitus and cannibal scenes in Zedd’s debut They Eat Scum. In another equally absurd scenario, a haggard hag prepares to shoot junk into her arm as some dumb bitch quotes Marxist mass murderer Mao and states, “All reactionaries are paper tigers.” Of course, with socialist anti-values now being part of the thankfully rapidly dying American mainstream as reflected in everything from academia to MTV, leftist revolutionaries are nowadays nothing more than dried up old fecal matter that is about to be blown away in a tornado of uncompromising Europid fury. 

 In the final segment of Ecstasy in Entropy, neo-burlesque whore and famed fag hag, World Famous *BoB* (Zedd’s Lord of the Cockrings (2002) and John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus (2006))—a woman that could easily afford to lose about eighty pounds or so—is depicted reading a copy of Newsweek with the pseudo-Nietzschean headline “IS GOD DEAD?,” at least until she is rudely interrupted by a sneaky and sexually ambiguous Judex-esque quasi-ninja in high-heels. Indeed, the gender-confused ninja climbs down a ladder and starts strangling *BoB* for seemingly no reason, ultimately not realizing that the less than little lady has deadly funbags that make for fierce Fellini-approved wanton weapons. While the distinctly busty broad puts up a rather valiant fight, the naughty ninja manages to swiftly strip her completely naked, which proves to be not very hard since the cellulite-ridden chick is not wearing any underwear. In a scenario that was almost certainly influenced by the bare breasted brutality of generously endowed exploitation cinema Jewess Chesty Morgan in such conspicuously crude Doris Wishman anti-classics as Deadly Weapons (1974) and Double Agent 73 (1974), *BoB* knocks the ninja out cold with her fearsome fuck udders. Demonstrating that she is probably at least twice as strong Zedd, *BoB* even manages to lift the ninja’s lifeless body over her head like she is wanton wife of King Kong. Of course, the film concludes just as abruptly as it begins. 

 Notably, on the DVD Abnormal: The Sinema of Nick Zedd released by Rubric Records, there is some behind-the-scenes footage of Ecstasy in Entropy, which is almost more entertaining than the film itself and which demonstrates that Annie Sprinkles never seems to break her (pseudo)seductive porn star persona, especially when shamelessly attempting to flatter her directors. Indeed, at one point during the footage, Sprinkle can be seen kissing Zedd’s ass and stating to the director in an overtly salacious fashion, “Nick, you’re adorable. You’re SO adorable. I’m a big fan. I’m very…proud to be here,” to which he replies in an unintentionally hilariously meek and unimpressed fashion, “The feeling is mutual.” As Zedd proudly revealed in his book Totem of the Depraved (1996), Sprinkle helped to secure him temporary employment in the porn world, or as the filmmaker wrote himself, “I started making money writing porno stories and got a job acting in Kembra Squalor’s super-8 movie TRILOGY OF TERI with Annie Sprinkle. In this film, I was required to wear a dress, lipstick and makeup, and I did a scene where I pissed on a girl’s legs. Before doing the scene, I was given a pill that turned my piss fluorescent orange. I then modeled in the nude for Annie’s camera and appeared in ADAM AND ALL MALE magazine in leather pants with a naked girl. It was the first time I’d ever been paid to jerk off.” Of course, Ecstasy in Entropy can also be described as a form of masturbation where Zedd demonstrates that he is probably the only person in the world that gets a hard-on from flabby busted up old harlots quoting chink mass murderer Chairman Mao. 

 Despite his flagrant left-wing sympathies and innately infantile attacks against so-called “fascists” (aka any successful person with self-discipline and/or individual that he is resentful towards, like his ex-comrade Richard Kern, who he began referring to as “Nazi Dick”), Zedd once had the gall to state, “I am politically an anarchist and sexually a fascist—I don't think there is anything wrong with that.” Personally, I do not see anything “fascistic” about fucking fat chicks and drag queens and sucking on used blood-soaked tampons as Zedd has been known to do, but I digress. I think Jonas Mekas probably best summed up Zedd’s sexual degeneracy and its intrinsic relation to his special brand of cinema when he wrote in his article Notes on the Work of Nick Zedd, “I have always felt and I still do that Nick Zedd has swapped spirituality for flesh, love for hate and anger […] It was I think Amy Taubin who described Nick Zedd’s work as the Cinema of Transgression. Whereas I have always thought that a more correct description of it would be Cinema of Genitalia – since the Transgression of that cinema seldom, or ever go any further.” Indeed, Zedd’s idea of celluloid subversion is flaunting his debauched sexual fetishes, sort of like a baby proudly showing off their feces. As for his politics, Zedd, who grew up in suburbia and whose “father was a conservative person who lived a quiet existence as a lawyer and a bureaucrat for the US Postal Service,” could not be more conformist and mainstream, hence his vocal support of borderline wealthy kosher conman Bernie Sanders for President of the United States. Like commie messiah Karl Marx and most self-stylized work-shy commie types, Zedd is not actually a member of the Lumpenproletariat but a failed bourgeois who cannot compete in the free market and thus naturally believes that the government has the right to rob successful people and give their money to parasites and resentful losers like himself. Of course, what pro-socialist types like Zedd do not realize is that communism and capitalism are not all that different and are really two different sides of the same kosher coin in terms of their materialist Weltanschauung and mutual desire to destroy and ultimately enslave Europe and the rest of the world, hence why Hebraic Wall Street banker Jacob Schiff of Kuhn Loeb and Co. was the primary financier of the judeo-bolshevik revolutionaries that murdered tens of millions of white Christian Russians during the so-called Russian Revolution, just like how nowadays kosher capitalists like George Soros provide the funding for anti-white groups like Black Lives Matter and the flooding of Europe with highly hostile third world savages. Indeed, as Russian revolutionary anarchist Mikhail Bakunin once wrote in 1871 in regard to complimentary relationship between Jewish capitalist and communists, “Himself a Jew, Marx has around him, in London and France, but especially in Germany, a multitude of more or less clever, intriguing, mobile, speculating Jews, such as Jews are every where: commercial or banking agents, writers, politicians, correspondents for newspapers of all shades, with one foot in the bank, the other in the socialist movement, and with their behinds sitting on the German daily press — they have taken possession of all the newspapers — and you can imagine what kind of sickening literature they produce. Now, this entire Jewish world, which forms a single profiteering sect, a people of blooksuckers, a single gluttonous parasite, closely and intimately united not only across national borders but across all differences of political opinion — this Jewish world today stands for the most part at the disposal of Marx and at the same time at the disposal of Rothschild. I am certain that Rothschild for his part greatly values the merits of Marx, and that Marx for his part feels instinctive attraction and great respect for Rothschild. This may seem strange. What can there be in common between Communism and the large banks? Oh! The Communism of Marx seeks enormous centralization in the state, and where such exists, there must inevitably be a central state bank, and where such a bank exists, the parasitic Jewish nation, which. speculates on the work of the people, will always find a way to prevail ....”  Of course, like some many white shabbos goy clowns before him, Zedd is just another useful idiot who thinks he is being edgy and rebellious but is just really unwittingly supporting the same cause as that of the heeb degenerates in Hollywood, albeit at a more pathetic level.

 Undoubtedly, were it not for Zedd's obsession with obnoxiously flaunting his proud political philistinism, his films would be much easier to swallow and would probably leave not such a bad aftertaste, which is especially apparent in Ecstasy in Entropy as a kitschy cinematic work that seems like the degenerate result of the mongrel quasi-heterosexual brood of George Kuchar and Doris Wishman attempting to make what they believe is a bold and subversive political statement yet falling flat on their face.  Additionally, despite being apparently mostly straight, Zedd ironically has even worse taste in women than homos like Andy Warhol, Andy Milligan, and the Kuchar brothers. Indeed, while I certainly appreciate a woman with a nice hourglass shape, big tits, and especially a large but firm derriere, there is hardly anything erotic about the big burly Amazonian beastess of Zedd's little flick. While Zedd described himself as being “sexually a fascist,” his obsession with loud, large, and over-domineering women, not to mention the fact that he seems to have a special affinity for cross-dressing (in fact, in Richard Kern's short King of Sex (1986), he even sucks a guy's limp dick while in drag), demonstrates that he is the sexual equivalent of a neurotic and majorly masochistic French social justice warrior.  After all, real fascists, who fuck with their cocks, do not fetishize corpulent kosher cunts or washed-up old fag Warhol superstars, among other (sub)human rabble.  Still, Ecstasy in Entropy is seemingly infinitely more interesting than the average Russ Meyer flick, plus, at a mere 17-minutes, it never drags too much, even if the chicks in the film have tits that practically drag on the ground.

-Ty E