Made during the last year’s of General Franco’s right-wing dictatorship in Spain, La cabina (The Telephone Box or Phone Booth) is a disturbing little movie, which critiques the insidious potential of technology, and the mass indifference of the public to the plight of the individual.
Originally produced for Spanish television, La cabina was a highly regarded film on its release and deservedly won an Emmy in 1973 for Best Fiction. Directed by Antonio Mercero, who also made the award-winning films Planta 4ª (The 4th Floor) and La hora de los valientes (A Time for Defiance), La cabina contains a superb central performance by José Luis López Vázquez (star of Travels With My Aunt with Maggie Smith), as the hapless victim of a series of increasingly sinister misfortunes.
Ana Lola Roman is a singer, a musician, a dancer, a choreographer, a curator, a writer. She’s talented and beautiful, funny and smart. Has the looks of a silent movie star, a Louise Brooks in a Pabst film, with a hint of Audrey Hepburn, via Maria Callas and and Frida Kahlo.
An only child born in the early 1980s into a large Spanish family, that had emigrated to America, “during the whole Iranian Revolution Post-Oil Boom Era” in the late 1970s. The first 5 years were spent in a ghetto of Del City, on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. The family worked hard, worked harder, until they settled into a middle class suburb of OKC.
Her home life was European by nature, American by inclination. A heady mix of European sophistication and American pop, which informed her musical influences.
‘I’d have to say my first influences were a heaping helping of various flamenco singers listened to while in the back of my Grandmother’s Cadillac. It was a weird mix of environments and influences. Gracia Montes and Lola Flores…well, these women had soul, heartache, moxie, and power.
‘Mixed with that and the impending sensations of early MTV. I fell in love with David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” video when I was only 5 years old, developed a keen fascination with Numan’s “Cars”, and felt delightfully inappropriate when I witnessed Billy Idol’s curved lip.
‘I was only 5 years old when these things happened to me. And I knew right then that I wasn’t going to last long where I was. I was going to be restless for the rest of my life and end up somewhere as crazy as New York or Berlin.’
‘Then of course being 10 years old and seeing Siouxsie….that’s when everything fell apart and got worse, then I felt bitten by the vampire when Joy Division came along. That was the end of the road for my Oklahoma Journey.’
A small group of protesters weirdos calling themselves the “Bible Believers” confronted Muslims at the Deerborn, Michigan’s annual Arab International Festival last Friday, with a pig’s head on a stick…
In addition to the pig’s head – presumably intended to offend observant Muslims, who do not eat pork – Bible Believers reportedly carried signs calling Islam “a religion of blood and murder” and describing the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a “liar,” “false prophet,” “murderer” and “child molesting pervert.”
Deerborn, which has the nation’s highest concentration of Arab-Americans and whose population is one-third Muslim, has in recent years become a favorite destination for anti-Muslim activists seeking the spotlight. Pamela Geller of Stop Islamization of American (SIOA) staged an ersatz “human rights conference” there in April, and Koran-burning pastor Terry Jones, who runs the anti-gay, anti-Muslim Dove World Outreach Center, visited last April to tell a few dozen supporters – and an estimated 600 counter-protestors – that Islam is “of the devil.”
But of course Pamela Geller would be there… And where there’s anti-Islamic bigotry—and TV cameras—there’s gotta be Yosemite Sam Pastor Terry Jones, the buffoonish Koran-burning jackass from Florida…
This year marked the Bible Believers’ second appearance at Dearborn’s Arab International Festival. In 2011, several counter-protesters were arrested for throwing water bottles, trash and shoes at the group while its members – bearing signs calling Islam a “religion of murder” and calling on Muslims to “repent” – stood in the festival’s free speech zone. No arrests were made this year, the Dearborn Patch reports, though two festival attendees were detained and cited for disorderly contact.
Bible Believers is headed by Ruben Israel Chavez, a self-described “street preacher” from Los Angeles who runs the website Official Street Preachers, on which he rails against “homo sex,” Mormons, “drunkards,” Mardi Gras, “Pot Smoking Devils,” Billy Graham, and Oprah Winfrey, among others.
Susan Tyrrell always brought a unique and offbeat magic to movies she starred in…even the ones that sucked. Her film credits read like the index for a book on cult films. From Andy Warhol’s Bad to Marco Ferreri’s Tales Of Ordinary Madness and Richard Elfman’s Forbidden Zone, Tyrrell could ignite flicks that strained to be weird with flashes of her eccentric brilliance, often salvaging otherwise unwatchable pieces of crap.
Tyrrell’s free and fearless spirit was a rare thing in the increasingly uptight world of commercial cinema. And when she had a good role in a good movie she could create something great. Her performance as Oma in John Huston’s Fat City is absolutely heartbreaking, an embodiment of the dark night of a woman’s soul, and deservedly garnered her a Oscar nomination in 1973.
Tyrrell suffered from a rare blood disease, thrombocythemia, and lost both of legs in 2000. But despite the handicap, she continued to take on some small film roles, including an appearance in the Felliniesque Masked and Anonymous starring Bob Dylan.
I’m a loner. I don’t like beautiful people, but I find beauty in the grotesque. And in the sweet soul inside someone who has been able to get through their life without being a rat’s ass. Such people should be collected, should be swept up immediately and kept in a box of broken people. I’ve collected people my whole life. Sometimes it ends badly, but it’s absolutely never on my part. Because I know how fabulous I am. You’re just going to have to take my word for it - I’m an incredible person. I do good deeds, and I love people, but the only way I can do these things is to stay apart. Because you can just stand so much. But the people who you meet in your life, who cross your path, the ones who are decent, should be collected.” Susan Tyrrell.
Tyrrell died this past Sunday. She was 67 and living in Austin. Details of her death have yet to be released.
Here’s a clip from 1982’s Forbidden Zone, featuring a delightfully demented Tyrrell as Queen Doris of the Sixth Dimension.
If you haven’t seen the recent BBC4 3-part series, Punk Britannia, it’s pretty good, although I found my attention flagging during the well-trod 76-78 era in part two. Still the first and third installments, covering “pre punk” pub rock (Dr. Feelgood, Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe) and “post-punk” respectively, I liked quite a bit. Apparently The Weinstein Company is sending take-down notices to YouTube over some of the Joy Division content used in the series, but you can still find parts of the show streaming online (and on the torrent trackers, natch).
The “post-punk” entry, which we watched last night, had some great footage of The Pop Group, Crass, the Gang of Four, The Fall, Siouxsie and The Banshees and Orange Juice, but inevitably the centerpiece in any “post punk” piece would have to be Public Image Ltd., without question the greatest, most influential band of the era.
I was lucky enough to see PiL on Staten Island at the absolutely decaying and decrepit Paramount Theatre on March 26th, 1983 (also the final Mission of Burma show). Sadly by then the band was minus Jah Wobble (Pete Jones took over on bass) and the set list featured percussion heavy numbers from The Flowers of Romance. Watching John Lydon onstage was like watching a fucking demon having convulsions. Alternately, he’d just glare at the audience or turn his back and sing (I was right up front, a new pair of leather shoes were destroyed by the end).
I thought Keith Levene was astonishing to watch as well, but not just what he was doing with his hands. He was obviously smacked out of his skull and for much of the show Levene stared slack-jawed directly into the bright white lights that illuminated the band, like he was staring at the sun, practically drooling. Still his idiosyncratic guitar playing was always perfect. It was, without a doubt the single best, most powerful concert I have ever seen in my life, although it’s worth mentioning that it was but a few months later that Lydon sacked his band mates and took up with that awful New Jersey bar band as heard on the horrendous Live in Tokyo album.
Never mind the Sex Pistols, that story has been told so many fucking times that no one really cares anymore. When will BBC4 commission a proper documentary on the first three PIL classic albums?
Monty Python’s letter—apparently thousands of these were sent out—to judgemental people who had never even seen The Life of Brian but who found it blasphemous nevertheless:
Dear __________
Thank you for your letter regarding the film Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Whilst we understand your concern, we would like to correct some misconceptions you may have about the film which may be due to the fact that you have not had the chance to see it before forming your views. The film is set in Biblical times, but it is not about Jesus. It is a comedy, but we would like to think that it does have serious attitudes and certain things to say about human nature. It does not ridicule Christ, nor does it show Christ in any way that could offend anyone, nor is belief in God or Christ a subject dealt with in the film.
We are aware that certain organizations have been circulating misinformation on these points and are sorry that you have been misled. We hope you will go see the film yourself and come to your own conclusions about its virtues and defects. In any case, we hope you find it funny.
