By the time, Harry and the Hendersons came along in 1987, he was already a has-been.
Some legends say that Bigfoot was forced to shave down in 1980 to find work on a TV detective series.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Bigfoot Superstar
The mid-1970s were Bigfoot's heyday. He starred in an indie feature film called Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot that we kids cried to go see ("Seven Years in the Making!"). He battled bionic man Steve Austin on TV and his likeness was used for a popular doll. He later became the star of a Sid & Marty Krofft 70s kiddie show called "Bigfoot & Wildboy". Those were glorious days for the hairy dude.
By the time, Harry and the Hendersons came along in 1987, he was already a has-been.
Some legends say that Bigfoot was forced to shave down in 1980 to find work on a TV detective series.
By the time, Harry and the Hendersons came along in 1987, he was already a has-been.
Some legends say that Bigfoot was forced to shave down in 1980 to find work on a TV detective series.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Jésus of Montréal
Released one year after “The Last Temptation of Christ” you’d think there was a christian revival going on at the time. This is no historical drama, but follows the life of an actor hired to play Christ in a passion play here in Montréal. The story basically follows pretty closely what you get in the biblical version, cleverly updating the situations with modern equivalents. The whole cast becomes entangled in a Catholic controversy as their play becomes a huge success despite or rather because of it’s unconventional look at the story. Their personal lives also begin to follow the story right until the bitter end when Daniel (the actor playing Jésus) dies and even has a resurrection of sorts. Lothaire Bluteau is great as the actor/christ/actor and the direction by Denys Arcand is spot on throughout.
This film made huge waves in the cinema world at the time and put Arcand on the map as a great Québec film maker. Several of his other films made waves as well, including “The Decline of the American Empire” (which I thought was pretty run of the mill) and it’s sequel made 17 years later with the same cast (which might be his best film ever).
Oddly, though released internationally, the DVD versions of this film were only in French until recently. This made it very hard to recommend to cinephiles who spoke any other language.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Happy "Sacheen Littlefeather Day" everybody!
It was 36 years ago today, March 27th 1973, when California actress Maria Cruz presented herself as "Sacheen Littlefeather" at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for the live Academy Award telecast and declined the Oscar for Marlon Brando (who won for The Godfather).Brando had written a fifteen-page speech to be given at the awards by Cruz, but when the producer met her backstage, he threatened to physically remove her or have her arrested if she spoke on stage for more than 45 seconds. Her comments on stage were improvised (see it on You Tube). She then went backstage and read the entire speech to the press. Exactly what became of the Oscar is unknown. Cruz posed for Playboy magazine (October 1973 issue) and appeared in a few films of 70s and 80s.
Cruz (of Apache, Yaqui, Pueblo, and European ancestry) spoke on behalf of Brando who was upset about the mistreatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government and in Hollywood westerns:
Hello. My name is Sasheen Littlefeather. I’m Apache and I am president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee.
I’m representing Marlon Brando this evening, and he has asked me to tell you in a very long speech which I cannot share with you presently, because of time, but I will be glad to share with the press afterwards, that he very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award.
Brando's speech contained the line:
What kind of moral schizophrenia is it that allows us to shout at the top of our national voice for all the world to hear that we live up to our commitment when every page of history and when all the thirsty, starving, humiliating days and nights of the last 100 years in the lives of the American Indian contradict that voice?
Seven months later, in October 1973, the pop song "Half-Breed" topped the United States Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks, becoming Cher's second number one hit.
The song's chorus went:
Half-breed, that's all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The Cult that went Hollywood
Synanon, initially a drug rehabilitation program, was founded by Charles "Chuck" Dederich Sr. in 1958 in Santa Monica, California. After a cathartic LSD clinical trial, Dederich split from AA and started The Tender Loving Care Club in Venice. He is said to have coined the phrase "today is the first day of the rest of your life." He created his own program to address the needs of hard drug users. By the early 1960s it had also become an alternative community located in the empty National Guard building in Santa Monica , attracting people with its emphasis on living a self-examined life, as aided by group truth-telling sessions known as the "Synanon Game."
LIFE magazine did a 1961 fourteen-page photo spread on this swingin' new self-help community on the beach:
http://images.google.com/images?q=addicts+source:life&ndsp=20&hl=en&sa=N&start=40
In 1967, Synanon purchased the Club Casa del Mar, a large beachside 1926 hotel in Santa Monica, and used it as a headquarters and dormitory for drug treatment.
Control over members occurred through the "Synanon Game." The "Game" could be considered a therapeutic tool, likened to group therapy; or a social control, in which members humiliated one another and encouraged the exposure of one's innermost weaknesses, or both.
Columbia Pictures produced Synanon (1965), directed by Richard Quine, starring Edmond O'Brien as Chuck Dederich, with Chuck Connors, Stella Stevens, Richard Conte, and Eartha Kitt.
By the mid-1970s, Synanon was attracting fewer addicts and more middle-class eccentrics in search of new adventures in living. Most "Synanites" paid a minimum $400 a month for room, board and uplift, but some contributed much more. One woman donated more than $1 million. Dederich made an annual salary of $100,000 and payed his top corporate officers from $30,000 to $50,000. Synanon's novelty business that made and distributed gifts items like pen and pencil sets for General Motors and monogram handbags for the airlines, actually helped Synanon accumulate over $30 million dollars in assets - including ten aircraft, and 400 cars, trucks and motorcycles. Dederich had also gone into cult leader mode. He decided that because he was giving up smoking, everybody else would too. In 1975 the women at Synanon began shaving their heads. Any that refused were ostracized. When Dederich's wife Betty went on a diet in 1976, all the other members had to count the calories. That same year Dederich concluded that Synanon had too many kids. So all the men were pressured into having vasectomies, except Dederich. "I am not bound by the rules," he said, "I make them."
George Lucas needed many people with shaved heads for his film THX 1138, so he hired some of his extras from Synanon. Robert Altman hired members of Synanon as extras for gambling scenes in his 1974 film California Split.
Synanon ultimately tried to become "The Church of Synanon" in the late 1970s (it didn't work).
Paul Michael Glaser starred in a 1984 TV-movie called Attack on Fear (The Light on Synanon) about the pair of married journalists (Dave & Cathy Mitchell) from Point Reyes, CA that exposed the controversial Synanon organization forcing a government investigation and winning their small-town newspaper a Pulitzer Prize.In 1989, Synanon's core group had disbanded permanently due to difficulties with the Internal Revenue Service which removed Synanon's tax-exempt status, and forced the org into bankruptcy and liquidation by 1991.
Six years later in 1997, Charles Dederich died of cardio-respiratory failure at age 83.
In 1999, Strangers with Candy debuted on Comedy Central featuring Amy Sedaris as "Jerri Blank" - a character based on Florrie Fisher, Synanon's most famous cheerleader, who traveled to highschools to motivate teens to avoid the drug-fueled path to addiction and prostitution. Her star-quality can be enjoyed in the short-film "The Trip Back".
Open the Goddamn Door
The DVD featurette has Marty Scorsese saying that the butler's door sticking blooper was left in final cut because Jerry entered with a great ad-lib "(Will ya) open the god damn door!?! I'm standing out there 8 minutes..."
Oh !! this movie is better than ever. Delusional Rupert and his lady friend taking train to Jerry's house in The Hamptons without an invitation? Genius!
Kim Chan (Jonno the Butler) died 5 months ago, October 2008. He was in his nineties.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/arts/television/10chan.html
From a 2007 NY Times profile:
Mr. Chan’s career path was an unlikely one. His father, Lem Chan, a philosopher, fled China in 1928, bringing young Kim and his two older sisters first to Rhode Island, then to New York, where the family got into the restaurant and laundry businesses.
One day, the father caught the son lying to cover up an afternoon whiled away at the movies. Presented with an ultimatum, Kim Chan chose to leave his family, only to end up homeless in Central Park before moving on to other laundries. He never fully reconciled with his father, who died in 1952. Both his sisters have also died.
It took nearly four decades in inconsequential television, film and stage productions for Mr. Chan to shake free of the day labor grind.
He spent those years adrift, working at restaurants and laundries. He made movie contacts by day, and hustled cards and slept at night on ironing boards crawling with bedbugs.
His big break came in 1983 in “The King of Comedy.”
C.R.A.Z.Y
In a shameless promotion of local (Québec) films, I’ve decided to write about a few, starting with “C.R.A.Z.Y.” . It won most of the major awards here, did well throughout Canada and was exported to a few other countries... where it was somewhat dismissed and from the reviews I read in the U.S. press it seemed misunderstood or at least badly promoted.
At it’s heart a period family drama focusing on a son who really would like to fit in with everyone else but can’t. He is obsessed with Bowie and flirts with homo and bisexuality (who didn’t in the 70’s?) which completely alienates him from his macho father who gives his older brother (a drug addicted loser) most of the attention and affection.
The father is oddly obsessed with the song “Crazy” and even has 5 kids so he give each a name starting with a letter from the word (Our main character is named Zach, making him the second youngest). Stereotyping would imply a casual questioning of sexuality on dad’s part for this choice of music, but that is really not the case. Also not the case was that this film is a “coming out” story for Zach in the current sense of the phrase. We actually never really are let in on Zach’s ultimate choice of sexuality if he ever makes one. It is clear he loved and still loved at the end his girlfriend, he does experiment with a guy while traveling the world (looking for a rare copy of “Crazy” so he can replace dad’s copy he broke) but he never really becomes a “gay” character... just one more in tune with who is really is. Most of the reviews I read in English really harped on this being gay story and nothing else.
I think the performances are really all great. The lead (Marc-André Grondin) just won France’s highest acting award (a 1st for a Québec actor) and everyone else is seems perfect in their roles. In the interest of full disclose, the father (Michel Côté) is married to the sister of a friend of mine and he’s a really charming person in real life. This was the first film of his I’ve seen (I hope he never reads this) and his reputation as great actor is well deserved.
Jean-Marc Vallée, the director and co-writer keeps the whole thing together and moving along. This film was “high budget” for Québec, about 5 million dollars. An American TV spot cost more than that, yet he manages a rich, detailed world with seamless effect shots and clever editing.
It is a tear-jerker, especially at the end but at the very last moment it pulls off a very funny gag that pulls together everything that’s happened before it.
I bought a copy for someone in the USA (a huge Bowie fan, so I thought he might relate) but he seemed to brush the film off. It makes me wonder if there is some “Québec-centric” element to it that doesn’t translate well outside the province.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Blaine from Nashville Pussy in Run Ronnie Run
I know Odenkirk and Cross were not happy with how things went with this film, but it's a piss, and it's because of them and not some director who locked them out of editing.
Now here's a non-sequitur clip 'cause it features Blaine from Nashville Pussy.
Now here's a non-sequitur clip 'cause it features Blaine from Nashville Pussy.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Lumet is relentless, both in his career and his direction. This is two hours of, "Why did I do this?!?!? Not the characters, ME." There's poetry buried deep in the dialogue by first timer Kelly Masterson. That guy who cheated on Uma does a great job, and looks like a first class hapless dope through most of the film. Philip Seymour (did-you-know-I'm-in-every-movie?)Hoffman's pink carcass in the beginning acts as an allegory for his overall persona - florid and heaving, not sanguine, yet remaining in the act, yet remaining as relentlessly as Lumet;'s presence until the end..
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Amélie - my current/ongoing obsession
"Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain" is a film that after reading a brief synopsis, I would have avoided like the plague. It screams “chick flick” . Jean-Pierre Jeunet, however is no “Beaches” imitator. His previous films such as “La Cité des enfants perdus”, “Delicatessen” and the tragically forgettable “Alien: Resurrection” (you can’t blame him for trying to make some money I suppose) made it impossible not to go out and see it.
The lead (the brilllant Audrey Tautou) has what in any other film would be portrayed as a very sad existence. (Her over protective and cold parents, the death of her mother, friendless childhood and her inability to relate to anyone or even form friendships other than a pleasant rapport with co-workers as a young adult). Under Juenet, this subject matter is transformed in to the sweetest, funniest film about 2 misfits, happlily living in their own solitary worlds of simple pleasures finding each other.
Sweet as Amélie seems, she certainly has a mean streak or at the very least, heightened sense of how social injustices should be punished. Nothing is simple for her. When she sees the boy of her dreams (Mathieu Kassovitz)... she can’t just ask him to take a coffee... she has to create the most elaborate scheme ever devised to meet him and at the same time, keep her distance. Being just as maladjusted as she is, he rises to the occasion and she realizes her goal, despite herself. I n some ways, it’s a throw back to those Astaire/Rogers romances in those absurd, yet somehow relateable stories.It gives hope to every social misfit, that being yourself eventaully can pay off in finding someone compatible and equally odd without compromising your soul, or even having the enter “the real world”, where ever that is.
For a film I would never had seen in normal conditions, I find that I can’t even look at the DVD without putting it in and watching the whole thing over again... and again. Am I so wrong to love this film so much?
His next film, “Un long dimanche de finançialles” with the same actress was equally good in some ways. Much more bitter sweet and with a scene so shocking in violence, yet so perfect to convey exactly how someone can completely lose their mind in the horrors of war, it was almost the “anti-Amélie” as a polio stricken women searches for her love lost in the war and actually succeeds but not in the way she had hoped. It leaves you to decide if she really even found him or just what was left of him.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Take Your Vitamin B-Movie Monster
Monday, March 16, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Alain Bashung est mort de cancer
Alain Bashung est mort
Actor. Musician and singer Alain Bashung has died of lung cancer at the age of 61. Starting out as lounge singer mostly in American venues he eventually made a name for himself in music. His CD « Fantasie Militaire » is one of my favoutite albums. It's wonderfully dark and moody with ambiguous lyrics... what could be better?
His acting career begain in 1981 in the film « Ma soeur chinoise » by Alain Mazars.
He often played here in Montréal, even giving a free concert at Les Francofolies one year.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Black Jesus
I have been waiting for this movie to turn up for years!
Based in part on the true story of Zairian military leader-turned-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, director Valerio Zurlini's compelling drama stars Woody Strode as an anti-colonial leader in a strife-torn African nation who is betrayed by a power-hungry follower.
The movie is up on you tube in parts.
Based in part on the true story of Zairian military leader-turned-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, director Valerio Zurlini's compelling drama stars Woody Strode as an anti-colonial leader in a strife-torn African nation who is betrayed by a power-hungry follower.
The movie is up on you tube in parts.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Company Way
I look forward to the 3rd season of Mad Men to see how 1963's Bert Cooper - President of Stirling Cooper - has made out with his merger.Bert is played by actor Robert Morse who in 1963 was on Broadway in the middle of his 4 year run as a coffee achiever in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". He won the Tony, learned how to do things "the company way" -- and reprised his role in the 1967 film.
In these harsh economic times - the lyrics are pretty spot on.
Q. "Is there anything you're against?"
A. "unemployment"
IN SEARCH OF -- syndication profits
When the syndicated TV series IN SEARCH OF debuted in 1976, I was spellbound. Leonard Nimoy was host. "He used to be Spock on Star Trek", my cousin told me. With my 9 year old TV-saturated brain I assumed that since Spock was logical and smart (and Nimoy wore a suit jacket and turtleneck and seemed informed) then IN SEARCH OF info must be true. I knew nothing about disclaimers or teleprompters.
The series conducted "investigations" into the pseudoscientific and paranormal (ie: UFOs, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness Monster). Additionally, it featured episodes about mysterious historical events and personalities such as Anna Anderson/Grand Duchess Anastasia, the Lincoln Assassination, the Jack the Ripper murders, infamous cults (ie. Jim Jones), and missing persons, cities, and ships (ie: Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa, D. B. Cooper, the Titanic, the lost Roanoke Colony). Some shows were really creepy and you didn't want to watch them alone. The film reenactments (of hunters terrorized by Bigfoot) could be captivating and terrifying.
Opening verbal disclaimer (by Nimoy): "This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones, to the mysteries we will examine."
End Credit Narration (by Nimoy): "Lost civilizations, extraterrestrials, myths and monsters, missing persons, magic and witchcraft, unexplained phenomena. 'In Search Of...' cameras are traveling the world, seeking out these great mysteries. This program was the result of the work of scientists, researchers and a group of highly-skilled technicians."
148 half-hour episodes were produced through 1982.
Fun facts:
There was a soundtrack album on AVI Records, released in 1977 and produced by W. Michael Lewis and Laurin Rinder, that featured the In Search Of Orchestra.
A few years later, Series creator Alan Landsburg would give TV audiences THAT'S INCREDIBLE! hosted by John Davidson, Fran Tarkenton and Cathy Lee Crosby (presenting fun factoids and real life freaks).
Now THIS Is A Barrymore
It looks like all that survived was the chin....
Two things:
Charles Lane, the cranky IRS Agent died recently in 2007 (102)
While to me it sounds like Dub Taylor is playing a wacky version of Quiet Village, it's author, Les Baxter was only 16 at the time.
Two things:
Charles Lane, the cranky IRS Agent died recently in 2007 (102)
While to me it sounds like Dub Taylor is playing a wacky version of Quiet Village, it's author, Les Baxter was only 16 at the time.
John Waters, Filth Elder
John Waters talks with Isaac Mizrahi
Forgot I had this!
JW appears on Isaac Mizrahi's (now canceled) show promoting "John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You."
I really like Mizrahi and enjoyed watching his program. I thought his interaction with the audience was great, as he's never afraid to speak his mind and denounce impractical fashion trends, etc.
On my YouTube channel, I've uploaded (from VHS) all 13 of Waters' commentaries for the films in the "Movies That Will Corrupt You" series. I tried using the bulk uploader to set them up chronologically, but it didn't quite work. Nonetheless, if you never saw this series, you can still check out what he had to say!
Forgot I had this!
JW appears on Isaac Mizrahi's (now canceled) show promoting "John Waters Presents Movies That Will Corrupt You."
I really like Mizrahi and enjoyed watching his program. I thought his interaction with the audience was great, as he's never afraid to speak his mind and denounce impractical fashion trends, etc.
On my YouTube channel, I've uploaded (from VHS) all 13 of Waters' commentaries for the films in the "Movies That Will Corrupt You" series. I tried using the bulk uploader to set them up chronologically, but it didn't quite work. Nonetheless, if you never saw this series, you can still check out what he had to say!
Just Wrong
Fuck this. Have they (HBO) nothing better to do?
Or is it just me?
Ooh-OOH one more thing: Is Adam Sandler gonna play David Maysles? In his little, tiny voice? The one that sucks like everything he does?
Or is it just me?
Ooh-OOH one more thing: Is Adam Sandler gonna play David Maysles? In his little, tiny voice? The one that sucks like everything he does?
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Alcoholism was never so funny!
I just heard on Howard Stern that UK comic/actor Russell Brand will be starring in a remake of ARTHUR (or "Arfa" as Brand says in his accent). Here's a toast to the one and only Arthur Bach -- Mr. Dudley Moore !!
His charm and wit and acting chops (at age 46) helped make the $7 mil dollar budgeted 1981 "small picture" into a boffo $95 million dollar Oscar-winning hit & classic.
Plus - Moore's supporting cast was superb: Liza as Linda Marolla, the likeable poor waitress with her loveable slob live-in Dad, fabulous John Gielguld as Arthur's tart-tongued fatherly butler Hobson, and screen vet Geraldine Fitzgerald as Arthur's concerned Aunt Martha.
The lines delivered by Moore are so witty and fun that the film plays like a giggly drunk's private jokes delivered to a buddy, ie: they're not hammered home to the audience which gives the film an adult vibe. This element was sort of lost on me as a 14-year- old at the film's 1981 opening weekend. I remember being more into Bill Murray's Stripes that summer.But now (in middle-age) if I had to choose between watching Arthur and Stripes on cable today ...Arthur would win out.
Thanks Dudley for the laughs -- and for the great movie lines:
"Don't you hate Perry's wife?!"
"You're a hooker? Jesus, I forgot! I just thought I was doing GREAT with you!"
"You must've hated this moose."
Monday, March 9, 2009
Happy "Heathens" Rejoice
Hell in a hand basket?
The new American Religious Identification Survey shows that Americans identifying themselves as belonging to a religious group is down across the board, with self-identified Christians down 11% in the last 18 years. The change is the greatest in the Northeast and the West, but in all 50 states, Americans saying they have no particular religion are on the rise. Because the U.S. Census does not ask about religion, the ARIS survey was the first comprehensive study of how people identify their spiritual expression…
The ARIS research also led in quantifying and planting a label on the "Nones" — people who said "None" when asked the survey's basic question: "What is your religious identity?"
The survey itself may have contributed to a higher rate of reporting as sociologists began analyzing the newly identified Nones. "The Nones may have felt more free to step forward, less looked upon as outcasts" after the ARIS results were published, [ARIS co-researcher Ariela] Keysar says."
--
There are several good non-theist subject films available on DVD:
Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God
http://www.juliasweeney.com/letting_go_mini/index.html
Bill Maher's Religulous
http://www.lionsgate.com/religulous/
and BBC's Jonathan Miller's A Brief History of Disbelief
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/atheism.shtml
Sunday, March 8, 2009
New Header?
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Crossfire
Halfway through so far, exquisite noir beautifully directed by blacklisted Edward Dmytryk. Strong anti racist message. Gloria Grahame very youthfully tarty. The mise en scene and lighting are genius. Robert Young plays the antipode of Marcus Welby. Robert Ryan - psychotic.
Plays March 14th on US TCM. Click here to set a reminder via email to watch it. (on the right)
Okay - Finished it:
It was ...... clean. The economy of script and commensurate direction made it work. Nowadays there'd be a 20 minute fist fight between either Robert Young or Mitchum and Robert Ryan, with Robert Ryan ending up getting impaled on a Star of David on top of a synagogue after being knocked off a taller building by a crane operated by Gloria Grahame, who saves Mitchum/Young at the last minute.
Oh yeah and all that mise en scene stuff still goes. Dmytryk is like Michael Curtiz. Exquisite.
Plays March 14th on US TCM. Click here to set a reminder via email to watch it. (on the right)
Okay - Finished it:
It was ...... clean. The economy of script and commensurate direction made it work. Nowadays there'd be a 20 minute fist fight between either Robert Young or Mitchum and Robert Ryan, with Robert Ryan ending up getting impaled on a Star of David on top of a synagogue after being knocked off a taller building by a crane operated by Gloria Grahame, who saves Mitchum/Young at the last minute.
Oh yeah and all that mise en scene stuff still goes. Dmytryk is like Michael Curtiz. Exquisite.
Prime Cut
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Celebrating Onna White
Onna White was from Inverness, Nova Scotia and danced in the original Broadway production of Finian's Rainbow. She became assistant choreographer to Michael Kidd. In 1956, she choreographed her first Broadway show: Carmen Jones.
She received 8 Tony nominations for Broadway shows though she never won. She did win an honorary Oscar for her work in Oliver! (1968) the movie. She and her mentor Michael Kidd (with his vast 50s film work) are the only choreographers to ever be honored in Oscar's 81 year history. Onna White truly made magic in Hollywood.
She attended an Egyptian Theatre screening of Oliver! a few years before she died at age 83 in her King's Road, West Hollywood condo in April 2005. She was a charming lady and it was a joy to applaud her dance sequences with her in attendance that night. I recently saw Ann-Margret dancing her ass off in Bye Bye Birdie (also choreographed by Onna White) and I was reminded again of Onna's talent at crafting a memorable dance scene. White was especially adept at choreographing dance numbers for actors with little or no dance training. Catch Buddy Hackett in The Music Man sometime - he works it.
Onna White: "When I look back on my career, I realize I had a lot of nerve. I had stride. I had guts. If you really want to be a choreographer, get down to business. Give it all you've got. You've got to prove yourself honey; and if you do - it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman."
Here are some of Onna White's dynamite movie moments:
Consider Yourself from Oliver!
London street movement in beautiful synchronicity
Who Will Buy? from Oliver!
even the pigeons fly to the rhythm
Marian The Librarian from 'The Music Man'
A flirty romp around the town library
Gotta A Lotta Livin' To Do from 'Bye Bye Birdie'
battle of the sexes thru dance
He Plays the Violin from '1776'
Blythe Danner as Martha Jefferson charmed Ben Franklin and John Adams (and audiences)
The "adult" School House Rock medley
Varla Jean Merman (a wonderful performer who says she's the love child of Ethel Merman and Ernie Borgnine) does her adult medley of School House Rock tunes
Varla peforms on the gay cabaret circuit and co-starred in the hysterical movie Girls Will Be Girls (2003) which spoofs several films with Hollywood as a subject, including Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Mommie Dearest and Valley of the Dolls.
Varla peforms on the gay cabaret circuit and co-starred in the hysterical movie Girls Will Be Girls (2003) which spoofs several films with Hollywood as a subject, including Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Mommie Dearest and Valley of the Dolls.
VIVA Anna!
How this movie was included in the Critic's Choice catalog, heaven only knows, but I had to look it up once I read the description: "Biller's faithful homage to '60s and '70s sexpolitation-with a feminist twist..."
And then the more I read about her, the more convinced I was that this chick is "one of us"! Hooray!!! It's on Netflix, too!
Now, I have two questions: How did she raise the $$ for this? It doesn't look that cheap! AND: ANNA, will you give ME a job??
And then the more I read about her, the more convinced I was that this chick is "one of us"! Hooray!!! It's on Netflix, too!
Now, I have two questions: How did she raise the $$ for this? It doesn't look that cheap! AND: ANNA, will you give ME a job??
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Coming for You
The Apple is one my favorite films.
A Golan-Globus 1980 production, set in the distant future of 1994, tells the tale of 2 nice kids from Moose Jaw, Canada who get corrupted by the devilish owner of an international music company.
Watch the hero get seduced at an orgy featuring less than subtle lyrics like:
"Fill Me Up With Your Fire"
"Drain Every Drop Of Your Love"
Stick around for the bed ballet !!
Deleted scene from 'Female Trouble'
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Batman Meets Superking
Tribute to Warren Oates
This past semester I took an intro to Video Production class and our final project called for a short film with a length of 2-3 minutes. I took the opportunity to go to the birthplace of one of my favorite actors, the legendary Warren Oates. This is what came out of it and I thought I would share it here. Please keep in mind this was the first time I had used a camera and also the first time I had used editing program (this was cut on Final Cut Pro) so I know it is primitive at best. Still, for those interested in where Warren came from and spent the first 13 years of his life, it might hold some interest.
I came across this on youtube!
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