Summertime is always big for new releases at the box office. But Pride Month programming at Milwaukee Film is leaning into some new-to-you cult films and queer cinema classics. Summer CAMP! nods to the loud, the proud and the unapologetically dramatic.
Everything is covered — whether in sequins for Showgirls, or in copious amounts of fake blood for Sleepaway Camp. There’s a wide variety of films to experience what "camp" means to you.
To learn more, Lake Effect’s Audrey Nowakowski spoke with Jack Feria, the GenreQueer and shorts programmer at Milwaukee Film.
"I think just the Oriental Theater as a venue for this — I mean, it's ornate and it's gorgeous, but it is over the top," he says. "It's the perfect place to have a summer camp series."
Grease 2 (1982)
"Grease 2 moves us from the '50s, where the original Grease took place, and takes us to the 1960s. It's still T-Birds, it's still the Pink Ladies, but the roles from the original film are kind of swapped for this one. We have Michelle Pfeiffer as the sort of Danny Zuko character — the John Travolta role — and then this incredibly handsome man from England as our Olivia Newton-John, and so it's switched. The songs are just ridiculous and over the top," Feria says.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
"A great thing, too, about camp is that they're usually about people who are broken, or just kind of exaggerated emotions, and that's what you get with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? It's two of the greatest actors that we've ever had on the screen: Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. And it's one of those films where what's happening in the story is just as interesting as what happened behind the scenes — so one of those that there [are] a number of books and shows you can watch about the making of this movie," Feria says.
Death Becomes Her (1992)
"There's nothing like being in a theater of like, 150 people all just cackling as Meryl Streep tumbles down the stairs or as Goldie Hawn reveals a hole in the middle of her stomach because Meryl Streep has shot her," Feria says. "It's just a really wonderful time."
Showgirls (1995)
"It is a notorious film. I think if you are a fan of RuPaul's Drag Race and you've never seen Showgirls, you really should see it because you will find out that so many lines that either Ru says, or some of the queens say, come from this movie. Showgirls is a classic. I think one of the parts of camp is that something is very misunderstood. This film has really been embraced by the people that love it, and I think this will be the rowdiest of the screenings for summer camp," Feria says.
Polyester: In Odorama (1981)
Feria explains, "Growing up, John Waters was a big fan of William Castle, who was this horror film director in the '50s and '60s who made all these gimmicky movies. So, they would be stuff like, 'If you die from fright, we'll give you $1,000 to a beneficiary,' or you have these — not 3D glasses — but glasses that can show you ghosts ... all these little things that he would do to kind of do flourishes on films and make them events. So John Waters decided to adopt that with 'Odorama.' So, everyone that attends will get a scratch-and-sniff card, and when prompted on the screen, you'll scratch the corresponding number and you will get to smell a John Waters movie. It is an experience like no other."
D.E.B.S. (2004)
"I'm just going to read the poster line and then we can move on because I feel like this just summarizes a whole category of camp movies, crime fighting, hotties with killer bodies," says Lake Effect's Audrey Nowakowski. "I feel like there's dozens of movies that fall into that category, but D.E.B.S. is a classic."
Sleepaway Camp (1983)
"Who doesn't love a camp slasher? And this is one of the most notorious, whether for controversial reasons or just because of how ridiculous it is. This is a film that I distinctly remember in high school watching at sleepovers and being like, 'How did this movie get made?'" Feria says.
Milwaukee Film is a financial contributor to WUWM.
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