No, It’s Not Cinema Verite

The American Film Market, which ended last week in Santa Monica, is an international bazaar offering film distribution rights for movies ranging from high-quality art to sex/violence cheapies--with the vast majority in the down-market range. “I’ve learned to drop my feminism at the door,” said one woman reporter. “There’s no place for it there.”

While it’s not up to Social Climes to judge what might be best for the Bulgarian late-night TV market or a first-run theater on Guam, we noted the thematic material.

Recurring topics included ninjas (“Lethal Ninja,” “Ninja Dragon,” “American Ninja 5,” “Little Ninjas and the Sacred Treasure,” “3 Ninjas” and “Surf Ninjas”); blood (“The Shining Blood,” “Bloodfist IV: Die Trying,” “Blood Money” and “Blood Warriors”), and, of course, killing (“The Killing Jar,” “The Killing Device,” “Resort to Kill,” “Paid to Kill” and “Killing Car”).

However, there are some titles that would be unique in any market. It would be difficult to categorize “Biker Mice From Mars” (“Three renegade Martian mice and their rock ‘n’ roll, motorcycle adventures”); “Hideous Mutant Freekz” (“Rock star becomes a spokesman for a toxic fertilizer company”); “Dead Dudes in the House” (“Yuppies buy a ghost infested mansion”), or “Vegas in Space” (“Space travel adventure features a transvestite cast”).

There was another called “Ed and His Dead Mother,” which, said the same female reporter, “at least has a role for a woman who could remain clothed.”

Cooking Up an Invite

The invitation of the week is the one to the premiere of HBO’s “Barbarians at the Gate” on Tuesday at the Director’s Guild.

In a cardboard box comes a standard-issue invite and a little package of Oreo cookies. The meaning of it all for those in the know: The movie concerns Henry Kravis’ leveraged buyout of Nabisco (makers of, yup, Oreo). But anyone who read the book on which the movie is based, or who follows New York’s nouvelle society, knows that Kravis’ wife, social x-ray Carolyne Roehm, indulges in one--and never ever more than one--Oreo cookie daily.

ID, Earring--and Map

Some of L.A.’s most established, reliable clubs are getting peripatetic. First that Sunday nightclub with the four-letter name abandoned its Silver Lake digs a few weeks ago, relocating to the Dragonfly in Hollywood. Then the venerable Kontrol Factory (one of the first clubs to play strictly industrial dance sounds) moved to the Probe on Highland Avenue after spending several months in Long Beach.

Now Social Climes has learned that the Crush Club, one of L.A.’s longest-running nightspots, is about to relocate. Crush, which has packed in sweaty dance lovers with ‘60s soul sounds for years, has left the Continental Club in Hollywood and is about to resurface at the Park Plaza Hotel near downtown on Saturdays beginning March 20.

The lesson: If you’re leaving the house at night, be sure you know where you’re going.