Friday, December 24, 2010

Thursday, December 16, 2010

The Killer Has Asthma! - Blake Edwards' "Experiment in Terror" (1962)


Blake Edwards died last night. I get the whole Breakfast at Tiffany's and Pink Panther thing. Loved Peter Gunn. I'll watch Victor Victoria, or even Micki & Maude on the right kind of day. But I think Blake hit a high note with Experiment in Terror. It's a shadow-binge late noir thriller about a bank teller in San Francisco that is taken hostage in her own home by a wheezing strangler who tries to coerce her into robbing her employer. Big emphasis on sound design and the Mancini soundtrack was perfect. Who knew asthma could be so creepy?

Saturday, December 11, 2010

My Favorite Xmas Song


Probably because I had to suffer through these two abortions every Christmas until I split in '82.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Coming on Blu-ray!


This showed up in my Amaazon.ca recommendations! Yeah!
In case you have no idea what I am talking about.... my write up.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Salesman


Not only it is a plethora of true Boston accents (oh, I love that "ehr" sound!), three deckers, snow-filled streets, smoking salesmen and women in curlers, there's so much more than just those tidbits to recommend this. Imagine trying to sell Bibles door to door now (or anything, for that matter.)

Albert Maysles is the reason I went to college.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

"Walt Disney Meets Lawrence Welk"

I've often blogged of my admiration of all things K. Gordon Murray. Finally, someone is making a documentary!

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Cher-lesque - the Queen Bee Buzzes Again

I saw the film on my birthday with a dozen 40-something gay pals and we all said the same thing afterwards: it was fun. At times, I must admit, I was thinking "okay I know where this is going...so can we please move on to the next song or Cher scene?"

The critics and fellow bloggers are all trying to top each other with clever summaries: "How do you get to Burlesque? Via Chicago past Xanadu on the way to Cabaret."

Cher is back, bitches. She reportedly even hired her own editors to make sure she looked swell after several years away from the big screen. When I read that tidbit I thought: wow, such a Babs Streisand move. It isn't hard to believe though- the 2 divas are contemporaries and Babs' hubby James Brolin (Cher's Malibu neighbors) even appears in the film's 11th hour.

All the roles are well cast- even the non speaking ones.

Cher summed up the film herself on her Twitter: "It's not Shakespeare! It's predictable but it's beautiful and FUN!"

True dat, Cher.

Cher will be soon hosting TCM ala Alec Baldwin/Robert Osbourne in a series of special events. She loves TCM and appreciates those well-worn functional B-film plots (like the one in Burlesque) that would have starred Alice Faye or Betty Grable back in Hollywood's golden age.

During the film, I was thinking to myself that the teens and 20-somethings who haven't seen anything on TCM or poked their heads beyond the last decade's horror film remakes & reality shows will find Burlesque to be a rare entertainment. THE BEST MOVIE EVER...they'll post on facebook. Bless their lil' hearts.

The real gritty drama of this film was behind the scenes when Screen Gems head Clint Culpepper greenlit his lover Steve Antin's screenplay and gave him the director role. That is how these things work, folks. Look how many times Sony has sucked Nora Ephron's balls in the last decade due to her alliances with studio Vice Presidents.

Anyway, Culpepper micromanaged as much as he could on his lover's film - which led to borderline fisticuffs on the set, we hear. No worries if they may be now broken up, Steve Antin is a survivor...and has kicked around Hollywood as an actor (The Last American Virgin; The Goonies; The Accused) and writer (Chasing Papi) for decades. He is well connected- his other ex-lover David Geffen helped convince Cher to take the role in Burlesque. Geffen dated Cher too.

Did I mention that insufferable Culpepper of Screen Gems also control freaked all over Cher's Graumann's Chinese Theatre cement ceremony? (I was there!) He was a first-rate boorish exec trying to boss Cher around at first - but she held her ground and her spotlight. I'm sure Cher understands that her legend is cemented and studio heads are quickly deposed and forgotten.

Cher was very cool - and gave fans more than an obligatory wave. She actually walked over and down the line of fans who showed up for her - thanking and posing her way deeper into our hearts.



The film Burlesque could make a great drinking game...

Take a shot everytime Cher licks her puffy upper lip.

Take a shot everytime a character talks about what THEY want ( I , I, me, me). That's very LA.

In her film debut, X-Tina is a likable ingénue with great lungs and no backstory, and her on-screen love interest (Cam Gigandet) is perfect for the role of a Hollywood metrosexual hottie who has to fuck a girl to prove he's straight. Did I mention he is a bartender/song writer? Yup, dude has his dreams too. How very LA-- and director Antin gets that. In this town, everybody has hidden talents or thinks they do.

Burlesque also delivers Stanley Tucci in his 2nd "gay Eve Arden" role. He is good and brings some heart and laughs to the film.

It ain't SHOWGIRLS camp - it takes heterosexual men to deliver those unintentional cult comedies (see also: Valley of the Dolls).

Burlesque just wants to entertain for 100 minutes, feature divas singing, flaunt pretty boy ass - and thankfully has no message to deliver other than stay true to your dreams and keep your friends & enemies close and your plastic surgeon closer.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Suggested viewing for Winter 2010: Point of Order (1964)


Emile De Antonio's surgically edited recap of the 1950's McCarthy hearings. Strange ideas for strange times. Seems pertinent....

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Good bye Countess Dracula


Ingrid Pitt, star of Countess Dracula, Wicker Man ( the awesome original) and many other thing died last night at the age of 73. Concentration camp survivor, actress and totally hot babe, it's sad to know she's gone.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Dr Nancy

In 2001 I made an hour long documentary about a local cable TV "star"... Dr Nancy Mroczek. Some cable companies provide free space and equipment for locals to make their own TV shows. Normally they are just call in shows or tarot card readers, but occasionally you get something really... different. I never liked the doc much, Nancy had provided me with some very poor VHS tapes of her shows and the interview went well but to be frank.. she rambles. So I decided recently to re-edit it down to 7 minutes, make it more video clip like and intercut her singing, dancing and rants with the much calmer personal interview. No Dr nancy film is worth seeing unless you show her in a cage in a leotard pretending to be a lab animal, of course. I've seen her show recently on you tube and she's become very "tea party" ish. Going on about Obama not being american, being communist and sending "earthquake bombs" to Haiti.

Voyons Donc!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Dem Bones

Hard to describe this one, but if you like your comedy surreal and British, you might dig it! Played at our fantastic Cucalorus Film Fest here in Wilmywood over the Joe Meekend. Oh, it's called "SKELETONS":

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Dino De Laurentiis Dies at 91


In no particular order: Serpico, War and Peace, Three Days of the Condor, Dune, La Strada, Conan the Barbarian, Army of Darkness, Barbarella, Blue Velvet, and my personal favorite, Nights of Cabiria. Those are just a few of the cinematic landmarks that Dino left behind.

It hits close to home as he built the studio in North Carolina that facilitated my initiation into film production. Ciao, Dino.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

A couple quick impressions...

Dana Carvey as Mickey Rooney on a panel where nobody stays on topic I suppose



The fabulous Jan Hooks as Bette Davis in her "video last will & testament". classic

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Monday, November 1, 2010

Saturday, October 30, 2010

WHAT?!?!?!!?

Does everybody use for film info? IMDB seems like a first class suckfest anymore.
Help please with something complete and reliable.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Coming Soon to your living room!

Hooray for those of us not living in a major metropolis! The restored "METROPOLIS" is coming to us! Turner Classic Movies will air Fritz Lang's masterpiece, commercial-free (of course) on Sunday, Nov. 7 at 8PM Eastern.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Coming Soon to the Slammer movie night

A mildly retarded group of young people are trained to work as covert militia.



Watch Jimmy learn how to diffuse a bomb -AND- the embarrasment of a sticky wet dream.

Watch Suzy learn how to dispose of an evil warlord -AND- a sanitary napkin.

Starring

The Guys from JackASS 3-D



and

Juliette Lewis as Ladytard



Special Appearance by UK singing star Susan Boyle as Madame President



Rated R for ...well, ya, you guessed it.

The Snake.

A comedy about a guy who joins a body image help group under false pretenses to pursue a bulimic girl after his buddies tell him a normal sized girl he was hitting on was too fat. Dark, funny douchery; the character exploits the bulimia, but the film does not. All the nobodies in it perform their asses off.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

"Tony, I see something terrible is gonna happen."



Girrrrl. you aint seen the half of it !




Yes, Kim Richards - that adorable tyke from Witch Mountain films and TV's Nanny & The Professor and sultry teen of Hello, Larry & Tuff Turf is having her big comeback on the most vile of the Real Housewives shows on Bravo. These ostentatious, neurotic, selfish, petty, desperate broads make the Orange County cows look like Carmelite nuns. Oh! it's so delicious.

And in the category of the "walking wounded" (I love how they call everybody a "housewife" even if they are divorced or single) is our Kimmy Richards. At age 46, she would rather stay at home with her brood of teens who don't really need her anymore and look at the old scrapbooks than go shopping with the other bitches or her bossy younger sister Kyle (who tells all of America that she promised their dying mom that she would "look after" her sister Kim.) Kyle didnt have half the career that Kim had - though she was in 1978's Halloween as little Lyndsey who ran for the hills at the end. Kim is stand-offish and pouty in social settings and claims she's shy...Kyle tells the audience that her sister is just judgmental.

The Richards sisters (aunts of Paris & Nicky Hilton) offer good drama to the show with their arguments and old emotional wounds exposed for the world to see.
KYLE: "...and after all I did for you!"
KIM: "After all YOU did for ME?!!!"



A reviewer at Defamer/Gawker summed KIM up this way:

Kim Richards
Oh dear. This woman is a little loco nuts, isn't she? There was this amazing, tour-de-force opening scene with her where she first said: "My mom gave me some really great advice. Don't make your kids your whole life." Who says that to a person, let alone THEIR OWN CHILD? "Don't make my mistake, daughter. I shouldn't have spent so much time loving you." Not that parents SHOULD make their children their entire lives, no of course not, but why say it? If you have to say it, you have a problem.

Then, just after that awful bit, amazingly in the same scene, Kim did this incredible reenactment of going out with her niece Paris Hilton that was just the saddest, most glorious thing I've seen since the last sad-but-glorious thing on one of these shows. "It's funny, I went out with Paris and the photographers were like 'Kim! Kim!' And Paris was like 'Huh?' And I was like 'I was here first!' and Paris was like 'Wha?' And the photographers were like 'Kim is an icon!' and Paris was like 'I'm an icon!' and I was I like 'But I was an icon first!' and the photographers were like 'Kim! Kim!'."

OK, I'm not really doing it justice. But it was so devastating. And did you notice how she clearly realized midway through her bizarre, spastic reenactment that it was a stupid, empty, braggy story and yet she couldn't stop? There was this cold bit of lightning in her eyes as she realized that she wasn't telling a very good story and you knew she wanted to just stop talking, but she couldn't. And then she laughed awkwardly as if it was no big deal that she, a grown woman with children, had just spent three minutes explaining how the paparazzi think that she is as relevant as Paris Hilton, her sister's daughter. Good work, lady. Some other good work is that Kim is looking for a new mansion to lease, rather than, I guess, buying a smaller more reasonable home. She's pretty post-divorce broke, yet wants to live in a mansion and have another kid, at 46. Good thinking!

Bosley Schmosley

Boy died.
He was Bomba too
Cheetah still rockin'.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

RIP Tom Bosley

Many of us recall the unmistakeable voice of Tom Bosley in our livingrooms from as long as we can remember. Maybe you first saw/heard him in his great performance in the Sunday matinee movie of Peter Sellers' The World of Henry Orient; as Hanna-Barbera's cartoon Harry in Wait Til Your Father Gets Home; or as the every-Dad of Happy Days during its Tuesday night reign in primetime. TV was very good to Mr. Bosley and he was very good for it. Rest in Peace, sir.




Tom talked about his legacy here:

Monday, October 11, 2010

John Carradine

I live in his old apartment and I'm pretty sure he's been popping around to visit.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Crawlspace (1986)


Klaus Kinski was obviously close to the end of his life when this absurd late-eighties horror hack job was put together. Directed by David Schmoeller--of Puppetmaster fame--it's the story of Dr. Karl Gunther, a former Nazi Officer hiding in urban America that still can't resist the urge to stalk and torture.

Gunther owns an apartment building that's wired and booby trapped to the hilt. He spies on his young female tenants by cavorting the air ducts, gazing at them through the vents, sometimes releasing rats into their rooms by remote control. He has headquartered himself in the attic with his Nazi propaganda films, torture device collection and a small, pasty Boo Radley-type boy trapped in a cage (?). As each tenant catches on to his wiles Gunther offs them with one of his toys.

The best scenes occur after each killing when Gunther ritualistically plays Russian roulette in his kitchen as a sort of haphazard penance. If the pistol doesn't blow his brains out he smirks in that diabolical Kinski way. Fate will let him continue; that is until one tenant played by Talia Balsam (of Mad Men fame) engages him in a fast-paced air duct chase that will blow your mind.

Tough to find a trailer for this one but there is a very fun short film made by Schmoeller regarding his experience working with the ever "difficult" Kinski. It's named after the motto incessantly repeated by the shooting crew throughout production:

"Please Kill Mr. Kinski"

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=2002093004

Seven Golden Women

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Lord Have Mercy!

Dedicated to all those lapsed Catholics here in the Slammer! Y'all know who you are! Who said nuns can't be groovy?

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Monty's Right Profile




















I had a recent conversation with a successful professional, who had never heard of Montgomery Clift - I was nonplusssed, owing to her apparent high degree of intellect but I also realized that exposure was exposure, so I strongly recommended A Place In The Sun and From Here To Eternity


The most interesting thing about his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor, (they were best friends) was that she saved his life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Clift#Car_accident

I also told her about one of my favorite Clash songs, The Right Profile chronicling his tragic post-crash addiction and depression.




Say, where did I see this guy?
In Red River?
Or a place in the sun?
Maybe the Misfits?
Or From Here to Eternity?

Everybody say, "Is he all right?"
And everybody say, "What's he like?"
Everybody say, "He sure look funny."
That's...Montgomery Clift, honey!

New York, New York, New York, 42nd Street
Hustlers rustle and pimps pimp the beat
Monty Clift is recognized at dawn
He ain't got no shoes and his clothes are torn

I see a car smashed at night
Cut the applause and dim the light
Monty's face is broken on a wheel
Is he alive? Can he still feel?

Nembutol numbs it all
But I prefer alcohol

He said go out and get me my old movie stills
Go out and get me another roll of pills
There I go again shaking, but I ain't got the chills

ARRRGHHHGORRA BUH BHUH DO ARRRRGGGGHHHHNNNN!!!!

Thursday, September 30, 2010

R.I.P. Tony Curtis - The Boston Strangler (1968)


So Tony died yesterday at the age of 85. Most people remember him from movies like Some Like it Hot, The Defiant Ones, and Spartacus. I was always a fan of one of his lesser known roles as Albert DeSalvo, the title character in the 1968 thriller The Boston Strangler. It was a stark film based on the real-life serial killer. It used that very 1960's split screen panel effect to show different character perspectives at the same time, mostly his victims vs. the detectives that were hunting him. There has always been speculation that DeSalvo wasn't the real killer. Regardless, Tony played it super straight and reserved and it still holds up in comparison to today's rock video style slasher pics.

We'll miss you, Tony. He died in Vegas (duh, of course he did).

Monday, September 20, 2010

RIP Rudolph

Somebody on Twitter said that her ashes will be spread over the Island of Misfit Toys.

Billie Mae Richards dies at 88; Canadian actress best known as voice of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer


more on her Rudolph trilogy here


Richards, who had suffered strokes, died Friday Sep 10th at her home in Burlington, Canada, west of Toronto, said Rick Goldschmidt, who documented the history of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and its producers.

Like most of the cast, Richards was a veteran of Canadian radio when the producers traveled north to assemble the voices for the program based on the 1949 song "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

Radio dramas were still going strong in Canada in the early 1960s, providing producers with a stable of voice actors, Richards told Filmfax magazine in 2005.

Her trademark — being able to speak like a young boy — was well-established when she took the part of Rudolph, the misfit reindeer who saves Christmas in the stop-motion animation production. She was credited as "Billy Richards," which further obscured her gender.

"Kids won't believe it when my grandchildren tell them that their grandmother is really Rudolph," Richard said in the Filmfax interview, but she said she could prove it by summoning the voice on the spot.

Producers Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass also went to Canada because they could record the voices for the special more cheaply, according to Goldschmidt.

Narrator Burl Ives, who voiced Sam the Snowman, was the show's only celebrity. He also was the only actor to receive long-term residuals, a point that rankled Richards and other Canadians in the production as "Rudolph" became a classic that is still shown during the holidays.

She earned residuals for three years, a business deal she regarded as a "sore subject," Richards said in 2000 in Toronto's National Post.

Yet Rudolph remained her favorite part, Richards once said, and she reprised the role in two sequels, "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" (1976) and "Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July" (1979).

Whatever Rudolph did, "he's doing it for a reason," she said in the Filmfax interview. "That's why it's been so popular. That and Burl Ives, for heaven's sake."

Born in 1921 in Toronto, Richards was the daughter of a silverware salesman who had aspired to a stage career.

She was taking dance lessons at age 2, and by 5 she was dancing and singing in stage revues.

During World War II, Richards joined the Canadian Navy and entertained troops in Canada and Europe.

After the war, she studied at the Lorne Greene Academy of Radio Arts in Toronto and went to work at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

For 25 years, Richards performed in radio dramas and had her greatest success playing a boy called the Kid on "Jake and the Kid," which aired in the 1950s.

She went on to act in more than 25 film and television projects, including Care Bears movies and animated TV shows.

As it became clear that she would be remembered for giving voice to Rudolph, "she really embraced it," Goldschmidt said.

As Richards said on National Public Radio in 2004: "What better legacy can you leave than a show that everybody loves?"

Richards had four children and 12 grandchildren as of 2005.

Oh, those Kooky Kuchars!

I skipped yoga class today and watched Kuchar movies instead. At least my Michael felt the stretch! I never realized eyebrows could be the shutters on the windows to the soul until today!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Friday, September 10, 2010

The Wrong Side Of Art








Just a simply fantastic collection of Grindhouse Movie Posters can be found here. Enjoy!

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

UK Humor (Humour) Fest at archive.org

Arthur Askey
Will Hay





Archive.org has started to list Arthur Askey and Will Hay films. Both are great and the kind of films that beg the question of "Why no US distribution?" It's not like there's a wealth of exclusively understood-only-by-the-British references. I will say that for once when I went to archive-org to look them up, (ex: Askey and ex: Hay)I was not presented with endless garbage occluding my search as is so often the case. So, yay.



Will Hay in Windbag the Sailor


Arthur Askey in Back Room Boy



Will Hay in Convict 99


Arthur Askey in Bees in Paradise




Arthur Askey in Ghost Train

I'd prattle on about their history and careers, but resources for that will hopefully be evident through the links provided. Instead just enjoy the comedy, IMHO underappreciated in their own country. We tend to rhapsodize about the Marx Brothers and W.C Fields, but Hay and Askey (along with Formby and others)were providing top notch comedy for the era that just never made it over here. Well, now, over here is the world.


Ann Prentiss

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Beautiful Proud Untamed

I recently came across FelixinHollywood's sensational posting about RKO's 1931 film sensation INGAGI about an ape-worshipping tribe of savages, their half breed furry children and the white safari leaders who saved a beauty from the beast. Turns out it was all just SAFARI-SPLOITATION 1930s style...a film posing as a documentary using old footage and filmed at LA's (now defunct) Selig Zoo.

Despite their highly publicized "embarassment" over the fraudulent taboo travelogue, RKO knew that movie goers would never fully shake their jungle fever. They created KING KONG and its sequel SON OF KONG which spawned MIGHTY JOE YOUNG and all the remakes with blonde starlets getting fingered by the big guy.



Audiences will always pay to see untamed lust and unnamed desire. Whether it's in the form of Germany's answer to Bardot as LIANE the JUNGLE GODDESS (1959)



or BO Derek getting her boob sucked by a chimp in 1980's TARZAN the Ape Man.



For myself and many other pre-adolescent gay boys watching TV reruns, the idea of being carried away by Tongo the Ape Man on Gilligan's Island was an ideal scenario. That lucky bitch, Ginger!





American television director David McDearmon (1914 - 1979) (left) talks to actor Bob Denver (1935 - 2005) (right) on the set of the episode 'Our Vines have Tender Apes' (broadcast January 30, 1967) of the CBS sitcom 'Gilligan's Island' as guest star Denny Miller (as Tongo the ape man) and regular cast member Tina Louise stand in the background, Studio City, California, November 16, 1966. (Photo by CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)

---

And speaking of SON OF KONG, Have you seen SON OF GILLIGAN ??!! It's uncanny !

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Monday, August 16, 2010

Java Junkie

Tom Schiller's going to be showing some films here in LA this week, including this masterpiece that I first saw on SNL back in ... ?

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Beyond the Valley of the Showgirls!

Do you hear a clickitty-clackitty sound approaching? It's the hordes of drag queens trotting to the nearest cinema offering this steaming, glittery, fragrantly fabulous stew of HOT MESS:



Oh, honey, I'll be there with my Ja-pan fan to cool me down!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Reform School Girls


1986 Dir: Tom DeSimone With: Wendy O’Williams, Past Ast, Sybil Danning.

Tom De Simone who had previously directed such films as «L.A. Tool and Die»... yes the gay porn film... pulls out all the stops in this campy, over the top parody of women behind bars films.

When naive Jenny is incarcerated because of her involvement in a shoot out, she becomes the latest victim of the an all girls reform school/prison run by evil Pat Ast ( of the Andy Warhol fame) and Sybil Danning, who is usually an inmate in these type of movies.

No cliché is left untouched and the addition of Wendy O’Williams from the Plasmatics as one of the girls (she looks closer to 100 than under 18.... how long can you be in reform school anyway?). There’s the good counsellor, the mentally unstable innocent and tons of young girls in naked shower scenes. Where most of these films see inmates getting a drab jumpsuit and a toothbrush with a razor hidden it, this flick introduces the idea that Frederick’s of Hollywood should be outfitting our teenage prisoner system offenders. I have to say, I agree totally.

The dialog is tasteless and ridiculous. «Keep you hands above the sheets, we only clean them once a week!» and «Someone get me a towel» after the evil warden stomps a kitten to death (No, seriously, she does). The theme song by O’Williams, «So young, so bad... so what» is priceless and at the end good old Wendy gets to drive a flaming bus into a tower.

All and all a slammer classic! I have to admit my glowing opinion of the his film might be coloured by the fact I saw it in Revere (ask Miss lethal about Revere) with a gang of about 20 loud lesbians who scared the crap out of the other 10 people who came to see this cinematic masterpiece. We all dragged raced in the parking lot after.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

I Think It's The Ass-Slapping That Got To Me

.....not that I'm into that sort of thing actually. Vitameatavegamin this ain't. Vita, yes. Meata, yes. But vegamin, no. Quite the seductive babe, one might say. This was long before she got that only occasionally appearing weird Charles Gibson brow, and way, way before getting all moved by the chickdudeish Wayne Newton and befuddled by Burton and Taylor on Here's Lucy or The Lucy Show.

The Celebrity Game

Although it contains Satan, it also has the great Oscar Levant as well as Lee Marvin and Louis Nye (!), Connie Stevens, Sal Mineo ... how could I not to post it? Besides, Carl Reiner!

Marvin looks pissed off just having to be there.

Thanks Dan.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Candlepins for Cash

As a native Bostonian, this is as ingrained in my blood as a lobstah roll or a frappe. How sick is it? Well, read all about host Bob Gamere heah before you watch, because it'll make it just that much sickah.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

"Quirky black comedy" is the new BAD!

I really don't have much to say about this film that hasn't been said in other movie blogs. There are sets and actors in this film. There is dialogue and some sex scenes. There is violence and melodrama. Apparently the director/writer/producer/leading actor, Tommy Wiseau, financed this himself to the tune of $6 million and filming took eight months. If that is true, about $5,999,964 is missing from the final product.

HOWLin' NILFs!

I saw the best NILFs of my generation glorified by Beatness, acting cool and NOT naked, strutting on screen nationwide looking for an Oscar fix....why not?

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Crusty Bad Makeup + Weak Plot = Horror Delight

Frankenstein's Daughter. It rocked (thanks to a performance by wacky sidekick character Harold Lloyd, Jr,) with Frankenstein turning babes into horrid henchwomen for no apparent motivation other than having an f'ed up great-grandpaw. The reason I watched this was because I read M.W. Shelley's Frankenstein recently so I was on a jag.





Sita Sings The Blues

Sita Sings The Blues was a strange experience for me because Nina Paley utilized a lot of stylistic elements I had been considering using for my next long-in-coming video. Annette Hanshaw recordings (I was looking for public domain music) Flash animation (I use Director 7) and lots of salvage imagery. It all comes together beautifully, and in her attempts to get copyright clearance, she became a fighter for free culture and as a result offers her film for free download at the official site. It's pretty wonderful, and beautiful and shows a great appreciation of the vibrance of Indian Culture


TRAILER:


ENTIRE MOVIE:


And oh yeah, my Mom used to sing a lot of those Annette Hanshaw tunes.