Chicken Ranch

Nick Broomfield's first feature documentary relates the goings on at the Nevada brothel which gives his film its title (and which was the inspiration for the musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas). Despite the fact that the establishment has pretensions to class, and the clients fly in on a light plane to get their rocks off, it is a tawdry affair, more like a refugee camp than a bordello, the women, who are remarkably unattractive, even making allowances for 80s fashion, being little better than sex slaves. The plastic-covered furniture, the hard-faced madam, the unctuous owner holding forth on man's need to "promulagate", the trailer trash women, the cheap punters - it's a pathetic calvacade guaranteed to produce detumescence in all but the desperate and yet another indictment of the sex industry.

DVD Extras: Part of a series covering the director's career, in addition to a director's commentary,t he DVD features Part 1 of the Nick Broomfield History in which the director takes us through his career, discuss his approach to documentary-making and shows us clips from a variety of his works, from his fascinating first film Who Cares, made in 1970 about Liverpool's inner-city slums to Driving Me Crazy, 1988. Along the way he also tantalizingly alludes to a documentary about Lily Tomlin which apparently is never going to see the light of day. One can only hope that Kaleidoscope gets to distribute more of these titles. There is a DVD ROM feature with clips from some of these films.

Available from: Shock Entertainment

 

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