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Death / Hitchcock: 36 of the master’s death scenes synchronized
03.19.2011
12:12 am
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It’s not enough that British early-twenty-something film nut Charlie Lyne’s Ultra Culture is one of the best cinema blogs around.

Oh no. He’s also gotta do stuff like Death / Hitchcock, a wonderful tribute to a legend, and one of the most anxiety-inducing and ultimately satisfying short simultaneous montages you may ever see.

Dare you to watch it just once.
 


 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
24 Second Psycho
Psycho at 50: Zizek’s Three Floors of the Mind
Happy Birthday, Hitchcock: The Dali Dream of Spellbound

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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03.19.2011
12:12 am
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Iconoclast: Larry Wessel’s new Boyd Rice documentary
03.16.2011
10:07 pm
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Underground film-maker Larry Wessel is back with a four-hour documentary about the life, career and personal obsessions of the notorious Boyd Rice. Wessel calls Iconoclast, which was six years in the making, “a rollercoaster ride through the fevered mindscape of one of the most controversial and unique artists of the modern age.”

Boyd Rice may well be the only person alive who’s been on a first name basis with both Charlie Manson and Marilyn Manson. His career has spanned more than three decades, during which time he has remained at the epicenter of underground culture and controversy. Rice first came to prominence in the 70’s as one of the founders of the genre known as Industrial Music, and soon gained a reputation for live shows that were deemed the most abrasive, minimalist and loudest concerts ever staged (his shows regularly clocked in at 130 decibels, whereas a jet plane taking off was a mere 113 decibels). As early as 1980, he was already hailed as The Godfather of Noise Music. Since then, Rice has extended his creative pursuits to numerous fields, even lecturing at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, despite being a high-school dropout.

“My life”, says Rice, “is a testament to the idea that you can achieve whatever the hell you want if you possess a modicum of creativity, and a certain amount of naïveté concerning what is and isn’t possible in this world. I’ve had one-man shows of my paintings in New York, but I’m not a painter. I’ve authored several books, but I’m not a writer. I’ve made a living as a recording artist for the last 30 years, but I can’t read a note of music or play any instrument. I’ve somehow managed to make a career out of doing a great number of things I’m in no way qualified to do”.

Along the way, Rice worked as a celebrity bodyguard (protecting the likes of Julie Newmar and Maureen McCormack), owned a Tiki Bar (Tiki Boyd’s), starred in an exploitation movie (Pearls Before Swine), co-edited an influential book on low budget cult films (Incredibly Strange Films), and forged close personal friendships with such diverse Pop Icons as Tiny Tim and Anton LaVey.

Order the 3-disc set of Iconoclast at www.iconoclastmovie.com

A collection of Boyd Rice’s essays: Standing In Two Circles: The Collected Works of Boyd Rice, edited by Brian M. Clark is available at Amazon
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.16.2011
10:07 pm
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Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century, the soundtrack
03.15.2011
08:05 pm
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If I had to sit down and compile a list of my top favorite books—which would be difficult for me to do—there would most assuredly be a spot in the top fifty for Greil Marcus’s sprawling, idiosyncratic and essential, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century.

This book is about a single serpentine fact: late in 1976 a record called Anarchy in the U.K. was issued in London, and this event launched a transformation of pop music all over the world. Made by a four-man rock ‘n’ roll band called the Sex Pistols, and written by singer Johnny Rotten, the song distilled, in crudely poetic form, a critique of modern society once set out by a small group of Paris-based intellectuals.

Lipstick Traces, well, traces the critique of capitalism from the Dada art movement through the Situationist International and the May 1968 uprisings in Paris, through to the Sex Pistols and the punk rock explosion. In other words, it is the hidden history of the artistic opposition to capitalist society. It was heavily influenced by the revolutionary avant-garde punk zine “Vague” (a parody of Vogue, if that’s not obvious). I was reading “Vague” from my late teens—I still have most issues—and it had a great deal to do with shaping how I see the world. Marcus cribbed a lot from Tom Vague for Lipstick Traces, which is not to take anything away from Greil Marcus at all, but to simply give credit where its due.

Although I can recall a lot of criticism that was leveled at Lipstick Traces by reviewers when it first came out, the book’s thesis was, in my opinion, on pretty firm ground. It has certainly stood the test of time and has remained in print to this day. I’m told that it’s often used in college courses, which is unsurprising. A twentieth anniversary edition of Lipstick Traces was published by Harvard Press in 2009

But what many ardent admirers of the book don’t know, it that Rough Trade released a companion “soundtrack” CD to Lipstick Traces that came out in 1993. Like the book, it’s always had pride of place in my vast collection of “stuff.” The CD was rarely encountered in a world prior to Amazon.com (there’s not even a listing for it on Amazon today, either) but now, thanks to the fine folks at Ubuweb, these rare audio documents, lovingly assembled by Marcus, can be heard again. The selection runs the gamut of weird old hillbilly folk, doo-wop, to punk rock from the Slits, Buzzcocks. Gang of Four, The Adverts, Kleenex/Liliput, The Raincoats, The Mekons, a recording of the audience at a Clash gig, and best of all, the blistering mutant be-bop of Essential Logic’s “Wake Up.” Interspersed between the music is spoken word material from French philosopher Guy Debord, Triatan Tzara, Richard Huelsenbeck and even Marie Osmond reciting a brain-damaged version of Hugo Ball’s nonsense poem “Karawane” that must be heard to be believed.

Below, Benny Spellman: “Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette)”
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.15.2011
08:05 pm
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Wendy James wants to blow your mind

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In the late 1980s, Wendy James was the goddess of choice for many a teenager’s bedroom. She was sexy, beautiful and her band Transvision Vamp dominated the UK charts with their post-punk pop. Wendy was everywhere, a teenage wet dream, which kinda overlooked the singer’s real talent and incredible energy.  

It was her unacknowledged talent (and a fan letter from Wendy) that led Elvis Costello to write the pop princess her first solo album, Now Ain’t the Time for Your Tears in 1993. It was a bloody impressive recording, which kicked even her harshest critics into touch. But let’s not forget, the pop world is fickle, and riddled with jealousies, which means, sadly, there are always those who will not think about Wendy beyond the pull-out posters that once decorated their bedroom walls.

Now, this should be about to change, as Wendy James has released the best album of her career so far, I Came Here To Blow Minds, which she has written and produced herself. I spoke to Wendy over the ‘phone last week and asked her about the process of writing the album. 

Wendy James: ‘I wrote it in summertime in New York. I went up onto the roof of my apartment, with my guitar and worked on my songs up there. I write all the time, and have notebooks full of writing and songs all around. Then one day it just starts, and I have an outpouring of these songs and ideas, for about two months. And when I write I have to lock myself away. I just can’t enjoy other things. It’s kind of like a pressure cooker, and you put a lid on to stop it boiling over, but then you can’t stop it boiling over.

‘For me, it’s a very solo outpouring. It takes everything you’ve got for that moment in time. But it’s the ultimate thing for being an artist.’

It’s a cathartic process, and writing the last song, is like ‘waiting to exhale.’ On I Came Here To Blow Minds, Wendy’s songs range form the punky “New Wave Flowered Up Main Street Acid Baby”, through “Municipal Blues” and the jangly indie pop of “One Evening in a Small Cafe” and “You Tell Me” to the sixties’ Marianne Faithfull-like “Where Have You Been, So Long?”. The musical references are all there, and have developed over Wendy’s twenty-plus year career, from teenage pop star to older, wiser solo artist.

It started in her teens, when Wendy saw Joe Strummer of The Clash in concert and thought “I want his job.” Her wish soon came true, when she formed Transvision Vamp with Nick Christian Sayer in 1986. Sayer wrote the songs and James supplied the image. Three albums and a slew of hit singles were released, including “I Want Your Love” and “Baby, I Don’t Care”.

Wendy James: ‘Without really knowing, I was in Transvision Vamp. I didn’t really know what I was doing. But you learn really quickly, it was a fast track, you learn how to rehearse, how to deliver. It all came together so quickly. On the first album, I was just singing. By the second I wanted more.’

Their second album, Velveteen was a massive hit, but Wendy was growing up.

Wendy James: ‘Something in my soul was telling me I had to live in my own world. I had to do my own thing. Something was going on inside, and by the third album, it wasn’t enough.’

Then Elvis Costello wrote an album for her. 

Wendy James: ‘But still there was this inner voice, you know, these were Elvis Costello’s songs, and not mine.’

It took time. In 2004, James returned as Racine - ‘...the name I called myself for two albums…’ - and then began writing the songs for I Came Here To Blow Minds, which she recorded in Paris. Now, Wendy has plans to tour the UK, Europe and the US later this year. She is also working on songs for her next album.

An initial pink vinyl pressing of ‘I Came Here To Blow Minds’ is now available
 

Wendy James: “New Wave Flowered Up Main Street Acid Baby”
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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03.15.2011
05:45 pm
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Morgan Spurlock sells out at SXSW
03.15.2011
02:41 am
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Morgan Spurlock’s new documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a riotously funny, dead serious look at product placement, advertising and marketing in entertainment and the world around us and how it literally fucks with our heads. The entire movie was funded by the companies whose products are blatantly featured throughout the film. The movie exists thanks to the cash that Spurlock managed to extract from the very system he is critiquing. Exploiting components of the $412 billion marketing industry, Spurlock has created the cinematic equivalent of a virus devouring its host. It’s an ingenious bit of guerrilla theater that makes its frightening points while being highly entertaining.

Spurlock describes the concept behind The Greatest Movie Ever Sold:

Brands are everywhere these days. It seems like I can‘t go to any event these days without someone ―sponsoring it. Sporting events, concerts, anything. So, why not a movie? Better yet, why not a movie that examines the whole phenomenon that is actually paid for by the companies themselves. That was the jumping off point.
The movie documents both the absurdity and pervasiveness of product placement in our daily lives and I saw my role on this film as both a filmmaker and an anthropologist.”

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold was funded by Hyatt, POM Wonderful, Sheetz, Jet Blue, Mini Cooper, Ban deodorant and half a dozen other brands. The product placement and commercials that occupy virtually every frame of the movie have made the $1.5 million documentary profitable before it even opens in theaters on April 22.

Here’s the Q&A with Morgan after the screening of The Greatest Movie Ever Sold at SXSW on March 13. This footage was shot on a Sony HD camcorder by Dangerous Minds’ Marc Campbell who was wearing Levi jeans and Converse sneakers while sucking on an Altoid mint.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.15.2011
02:41 am
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‘Is Lady Gaga a member of the Illuminati?’
03.14.2011
09:31 pm
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Of the most searched-for topics on Google that lead random people to Dangerous Minds, perhaps the single most popular is “Is Lady Gaga a member of the Illuminati?”

I kid you not, there is usually at least one person, at all times of the day or night, who is visiting us to research whether or not the world’s biggest pop star is, in fact, a member of that most secretive of secret societies.  Another way way it gets phrased is “Lady Gaga” and either “Satanic conspiracy,” or “Revelations” but that’s obviously a dead giveaway of a Christian conspiracy theorist. Apparently, some people truly seem to believe that Lady Gaga figures into Bible prophecies (and it’s not just Gaga, it’s Jay-Z as well). This post is dedicated to them. It will be one of our most popular posts ever, in the long run, trust me.

Not saying that she is in the Illuminati, but if she is, Lady Gaga is certainly milking her membership for all it for all it’s worth to forward teh gayz agenda. From Joe.My.God:

The fastest-selling single in iTunes history, “Born This Way” has already sold millions of copies worldwide and has gone to #1 in more than 30 countries. Whether you’re a Gaga fan or not, you cannot deny the unprecedented impact of hundreds of millions of people singing out loud, that yes, we were born this way. Lady Gaga is pushing the movement forward in ways few could have possibly fathomed.

He’s absolutely right. That song is a wonderfully subversive, absolutely unstoppable meme. It’s a magical incantation of social engineering—it’s a spell—and Lady Gaga knows this. The nursery rhyme simplicity of the lyrics gnaw their way into your brain and don’t let go. The idea of a homophobe having that song stuck in their head all day is a pleasant notion, and you know fully well that’s happened a lot.

I think you really have to hand it to Lady Gaga. When she turned down the Target deal after they wouldn’t guarantee to her that they would shun donating to all anti-gay politicians, she was truly proving to her fan-base that she is who she says she is. It took a lot of integrity to turn down that much money. There could have been a way to “spin” it and still collect their cash. She could have played it off, if she wanted to, and yet she didn’t. The Illuminati could use more like her!
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.14.2011
09:31 pm
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Re-Animator: The Musical
03.11.2011
11:43 am
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Photo: Rachel Avery, George Wendt, center, Jesse Merlin. Credit: Thomas Hargis.
 
Even considering the vast number of the films-turned-Broadway-musicals that have been produced in recent years, few would have imagined Stuart Gordon’s bloody 1985 cult classic, Re-Animator, would be a likely candidate to join their ranks. But if you think about it, Re-Animator’s camp-gore trappings make it a natural for the musical treatment. Gordon and his collaborators went back to the laboratory, grafted a bit of Gilbert & Sullivan and a bit of Bernard Herrmann into the proceedings and et voila, Re-Animator is born again as an all-singing, all-dancing Grand Guignol.

Re-Animator: The Musical closely follows the plotline of Gordon’s film (based on the HP Lovecraft short story “Herbert West-Reanimator,” itself a parody of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein). The writing is witty, as sharp as a knife. The cast are wonderfully deadpan (the way camp should be played, of course) and the striking musical score can best be described (and this is a good thing) putrescent Sondheim. Couplets like “His psychosis gives me chills/He cannot love, he only kills!” cannot help but to inject life anew into Gordon’s 25-year-old grindhouse favorite.

If you recall Re-Animator the film, there was quite a lot of blood in it. The musical has even more. According to Variety, the gore effects were created by the same crew who worked on the 1985 film. I believe it. Patrons seated in the front three rows were given trashbag-like ponchos to protect their clothes, but on the night we saw the show, the first ten rows probably should have worn raincoats. And hats. And been issued umbrellas! (For the record, I sat in the middle and remained dry. Just don’t wear any couture and you’ll be fine.)

Jesse Merlin, as the villain of the piece, Dr. Carl Hill, plays the role for everything it’s worth, producing edgy comedy with a well-placed leering sideways glance or dismissive aristocratic grumble. For most of the second act Merlin’s character is in fact, headless, but it hardly seems to affect his operatic bass baritone vocals. Truly the guy is the Paul Lynde of his generation, but with a preposterously good singing voice. Who would forget this fellow with the mellow bellow having seen him perform only once (and headless)? Cheers’ George Wendt, too, gets huge laughs as the college dean who is zombie-fied when his dead body is only brought partially back to life by the reagent and Herbert West is played by Graham Skipper—who is excellent—with a touch of Rainn Wilson and Anthony Perkins thrown in to nice effect. The cast is rounded out by pretty Rachel Avery as Megan the chirpy sweet heroine and her earnest love interest (and West’s roommate) Dan Cain is played by Chris L. McKenna.

Re-Animator: The Musical is unique and terrific fun, the only thing I can think to compare it to is Little Shop of Horrors and if there is any justice in the universe, Re-Animator should enjoy a similar success. It’s not at all difficult to imagine a bigger budget production of this show pleasing audiences on Broadway for years. Re-Animator the Musical just opened last weekend at The Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, but demand for tickets—a bargain at $25—has been so strong that the run has already been extended. Get tickets here.

Re-Animator, the Musical, Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays through Sundays. $25. (800) 595-4849

Below, the trailer from the original 1985 movie. Yes, this is now a musical play!
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.11.2011
11:43 am
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Robert Downey’s high desert head trip: ‘Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos’
03.11.2011
06:43 am
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Robert Downey Sr.‘s stoned apocalypse Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight got its start in 1975 and then wandered all over the physical and psychic landscape tripping on counterculture mindgames, jazzbo attitudes and post hippie hipsterisms. This is Dada, surrealism and soap opera all mixed up in the salad bowl of your your brain.

The key to digging Downey is to understand that he was fucking with filmgoers expectations. People went to the movies to relax and enjoy the myths that solidified their world views, Downey’s movies are like explosions in some kind of postmodern nickelodeon, disrupting the linear flow at 24 fps. Approaching his films and expecting some soothing reality that reflects the real world is an exercise in frustration and possible nervous breakdown. What Jackson Pollack had done with painting, allowing the paint to paint itself, is what Downey does with film and narrative…he gives it the space to find itself. The result can be a series of happy accidents, genius or the ridiculous.

Behind it all, the music of David Sanborn, Jack Nitzche, and someone credited as Arica.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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03.11.2011
06:43 am
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‘Heavy Metal Parking Lot’ brought to you by American Express???
03.10.2011
08:00 pm
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Jeff Krulik and John Heyn’s Heavy Metal Parking Lot documents a tailgating party prior to a Judas Priest concert in the parking lot outside of the (now gone) Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, on May 31, 1986. It is one of the most beloved and legendary relics of the 80s & 90s VHS trading scene, of which I myself was a participant. It is a low-fi masterpiece, a work of demented genius and one of the funnies things you’ll ever see.

Twenty-years after the film was made, the music rights were sorted out and Heavy Metal Parking Lot was released legitimately for the first time in 2006.

Now, hilariously, one of the most underground things you could possibly get your hands on back in the day, a true holy grail for people who had heard of it, but who had no way of seeing it, unless they knew the right person, has been licensed by the American Express corporation as part of their SnagFilms website. Of all the things to find a corporate sponsor…  I guess it shows how far pop culture has come.

In any case, this is one of the best, cleanest versions of the film that I’ve yet seen. Brought to you by American Express, it’s Heavy Metal Parking Lot:
 

 
The Prequel: Heavy Metal Picnic!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.10.2011
08:00 pm
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Scientists examine ‘fever’ around Eric Clapton guitar auction
03.09.2011
04:42 pm
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There is an interesting article the New York Times about the fever caused by an upcoming charity auction of some of Eric Clapton’s guitars. “Fever” is the right word apparently, because the desire for these guitars (and other once celebrity-owned fetish items) seems to be somehow socially contagious:

Fortunately, social scientists have been hard at work on the answers. After conducting experiments and interviewing guitar players and collectors, they have just published papers analyzing “celebrity contagion” and “imitative magic,” not to mention “a dynamic cyclical model of fetishization appropriate to an age of mass-production.”

One of their conclusions is that the seemingly illogical yearning for a Clapton relic, even a pseudorelic, stems from an instinct crucial to surviving disasters like the Black Death: the belief that certain properties are contagious, either in a good or a bad way. Another conclusion is that the magical thinking chronicled in “primitive” tribes will affect bids for the Clapton guitars being auctioned at Bonhams in Midtown Manhattan.

Some bidders might rationalize their purchases as good investments, or as objects that are worth having just because they provide pleasant memories and mental associations of someone they admire. But those do not seem to be the chief reasons for buying celebrity memorabilia, according to a team of psychologists at Yale.

The researchers asked people how much they would like to buy objects that had been owned by different celebrities, including popular ones like George Clooney and pariahs like Saddam Hussein. People’s affection for the celebrity did not predict how much value they assigned to the memorabilia — apparently they were not buying it primarily for the pleasant associations.

Nor were they chiefly motivated by the prospect of a profit, as the researchers discovered when they tested people’s eagerness to acquire a celebrity possession that could not be resold. That restriction made people less interested in items owned by villains, but it did not seriously dampen their enthusiasm for relics from their idols.

The most important factor seemed to be the degree of “celebrity contagion.” The Yale team found that a sweater owned by a popular celebrity became more valuable to people if they learned it had actually been worn by their idol. But if the sweater had subsequently been cleaned and sterilized, it seemed less valuable to the fans, apparently because the celebrity’s essence had somehow been removed.

“Our results suggest that physical contact with a celebrity boosts the value of an object, so people will pay extra for a guitar that Eric Clapton played, or even held in his hands,” said Paul Bloom, who did the experiments at Yale along with George E. Newman and Gil Diesendruck.

As someone who was bitten—hard—by the collecting bug, I can certainly attest to the fact that you want that personal touch. And since there have also been various points in my life where I’ve had the money to indulge my mania, I can also tell you that a “collector”—if they’ve got the bank balance necessary to cover the cost—WILL blow it ALL on the right item. Been there, done THAT… and more than once, too.

Had I not gotten married, I’d have continued such behavior probably for the rest of my life. Once I got married, it became harder to justify why I needed to spend $300 on yet another signed William Burroughs first edition! My wife beat the collector out of me!

Below, Derek & The Dominos performing “It’s Too Late” on The Johnny Cash Show in 1970:
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.09.2011
04:42 pm
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