by MATTHEW HAYS

Those who haven't ever seen a Doris Wishman movie don't know what they're missing. The exploitation queen - without question a serious trailblazer - produced and directed a slew of popular low-budget films that dealt with sexy and sleazy issues as a means of making a fast buck.

And the folks over at the Parc, sensibly, have booked one of Wishman's last films, Let Me Die a Woman (1978), the bizarre genre buster about transsexuals. To say this film pretends to offer real insights into the lives of transsexuals would be unfair - much of the film actually does involve real testimonials and pleas for understanding what transsexuals are all about. Then there are the undeniably exploitative bits: fiction moves in as there are "reenactments" of trannies picking men up and bringing them home for sex, what happens when a male-to-female trannie has sex too soon after her genital-altering operation (here, she bleeds profusely and has to go to the hospital for another operation). It's pretty cheesy stuff, and often very funny, until we switch back to the poignant bits. This was transsexualism in a pre-Phil Donahue world, though the transsexual stuff was beginning to bust out on the talk show circuit (talk show hosts David Susskind and Mike Douglas are both mentioned). Adding to the sheer Wishmanality of it all are the long, leering shots of hormone-induced breasts and surgically altered genitalia. This is a really odd movie, for sure, and one exploitation buffs should not miss. Notably, its dramatic episode/documentary hybrid form is quite prophetic, seeing as many documentarians now use this technique (witness Forbidden Love or the work of John Greyson). Frankly, though I adore my DVD player and occasionally make love to it to thank it for all the pleasure it's brought me, there is something great about seeing a Wishman on the big screen. Parc people, you are truly sublime for booking this choice bit of Wishman weirdness.

Also on the Parc schedule is Cinemania, the documentary about several moviegoing nutjobs that premiered at Comedia, the Just for Laughs Comedy Film Festival. I warmly recommend this movie for all those who've wondered about my mental state over the years. Here's what seeing too many films does to a person! Actually, the folks in the film are very self-aware about their overboard fixation with the movies. They typically see five or six a day, can't stop talking about them and do virtually nothing else. One describes his eating habits, dictated by his need to avoid a bowel movement during the hours he's going to be sitting in the cinema. Clearly a bunch of obsessives, what's impressive is the way the filmmakers manage to present their subjects' nuttiness without being ruthless about it.

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