Messrs. Weissmuller & McFarland

Targets (1968)

What do Roger Corman, Peter Bogdanovich, Boris Karloff and deranged Texas sniper Charles Whitman have in common? Targets, the 1968 Corman produced exploit flick that sought to mix silver screen behind the scenes drama with the violent current events of the mid 1960s.

Tim O'Kelly plays the young insurance salesman slowly unraveling ostensibly due to his experience in Viet Nam. On the other side of town a self-centered and eccentric director played by Peter Bogdanovich (of course) is trying to convince Karloff, the aging horror star, not to quit the business. He's got a new script cultivated straight from the current newspaper headlines, a mysterious story of real modern terror and he needs Karloff to make the picture.

After a few veiled warnings and a half-hearted attempt to explain his troubling thoughts to his wife our insurance salesman loses it. He guns down his family in their own home and heads for a nearby oil tank field where he can find his vantage point and start picking off drivers on the LA freeway. The whole thing ends with a showdown at the local drive-in. Karloff, Bogdanovich, et al. are there for the big bloody finish. An absurdist finale if there ever was one.

Snuff

I was trapped in the car and listened to Chuck Palahniuk's book Snuff, and now I have to post it here as a recommendation for it's wealth of quirky, old-school beauty tips of classic Hollywood stars as well as horrible tragic ends of Hollywood stars (In addition, the meaning of gang tattoos, toxic overdose symptoms of Viagra and effects of cyanide). While there seems to be some contrivance and deus ex machina kinda stuff happening, it was a jolly good and disgusting adventure, if one is, as always except in the case of documentaries, willing to suspend one's disbelief. His willingness probably comes from the juxtapostion of the violent death of his father and his father's girlfriend, which was basically a repetition of the same circumstances a generation earlier - history repeating itself.

Long Live The New Flesh!

One of my favorite movies is Videodrome, mainly because it deals with the horrors of Cable TV and home taping (on Beta!!!), which are two things that scared 1983 Hollywood more than the average person. Never before has Hollywood so nakedly laid out it's fears for the world to see.

Polanski Tate '68 - Fate Awaits

WHOOPSY - LINKS FIXED

Modern Screen May '68

Click para Grande


mmmmm.....yellowed!!

Bad Karma, Nice Lady Style

All enlarge upon viewer clickulation.....using actual working links, yay.

Variations on the Bubble Dance

Sally Rand


Benny Hill style


Charlie Chaplin


Sally Strand in 'Hollywood Steps Out'

Trailer Park

It is rare that I get excited about a movie based on the trailer, but I can't wait for ZOMBIE STRIPPERS to be released. From the trailer, I can gather that it has two plot devices that I really enjoy in cinema:

1) Zombies

2) Strippers

I know that this movie will probably suck, but what a concept! You just know Ed Wood is smiling down from Heaven.

Seeing Double

I have always been struck by the similarities between these two movie posters. The first one is for ANGEL (1984), a movie about a teenage girl who is described as a "High School Honor Student by Day. Hollywood Hooker by Night". The second poster is for ICE PRINCESS (2005) and this movie is about a teenage girl that goes "From small town Mathlete, To big time Athlete". In both posters the "good" girl is on the left chastely holding her books with her normal world featured in the background and on the right, the "bad" girl is displayed all tarted up for her secret life as Sin City looms behind her. Both girls have their backs to their secret other life showing that they are two sides to the same coin, different but essentially the same. They are going to have to decide which world to live in, but the hard line drawn down the middle of the poster tells us that once the decision is made, there's no going back. It's not going to be an easy decision to make because in both posters the normal world suffers from inclement weather as the storm clouds gather in Angel's world and the Ice Princess' farm has been immobilized by snow, but Sin City sparkles with clear skies and promises of fun.

Obviously, these movies aren't the same. ANGEL is a gritty low budget B movie about an underage girl that hooks when her family abandons her and ICE PRINCESS is a family friendly Disney picture about a young girl who wants to be a professional ice skater. Yet, I can't help but wonder why the same images were used to promote both movies. Is this how Hollywood sees teenage girls or am I reading too much into this?