Sixties short film Vertige by Jean Beaudin mixed a time-stretched version of The Beatles “I Am The Walrus” results in a spooky ambient experience that has a decidedly lysergic feel to it.
Thanks to AngelMusification for the The Beatles’ time-stretch.
A behind-the-scenes report on the making of The Horror of Frankenstein, Hammer Film’s seventh Frankenstein movie, and their first without Peter Cushing playing the eponymous Baron. This time the role was taken-up by Ralph Bates, who added a certain amount of loucheness to Victor. The film also marked, what has lately been described (see The Ultimate Hammer Collection) as a “bold departure into comedy horror”, which it is, and therefore slightly misfires, undermining the films more horrific elements. But still, there is much to enjoy in The Horror of Frankenstein - Bates’ performance, the always watchable Dennis Price, and great supporting roles portrayed by Kate O’Mara, Jon Finch (soon to be Polanski’s MacBeth), Veronica Carlson, and Dave (Darth Vader) Prowse, who looks as if his make-up as the monster inspired the Kirgan’s in Highlander. Even Cushing makes a cameo on the doctor’s slab.
I am great fan of Cushing, who could be both polite and menacing, a rare talent, and he was never less than convincing in any role he played. Here in an interview Cushing discusses his thoughts about Baron Victor Frankenstein, while Bates discusses his approach to the role. First broadcast on the BBC April 28th, 1970.
With thanks to Nellym
Faye Dunaway is one hot mess in Frank Perry’s cinematic turd in the punchbowl. Happy Mother’s Day.
No… wire… hangers. What’s wire hangers doing in this closet when I told you: no wire hangers EVER? I work and work ‘till I’m half-dead, and I hear people saying, “She’s getting old.” And what do I get? A daughter… who cares as much about the beautiful dresses I give her… as she cares about me. What’s wire hangers doing in this closet? Answer me. I buy you beautiful dresses, and you treat them like they were some dishrag. You do. Three hundred dollar dress on a wire hanger. We’ll see how many you’ve got if they’re hidden somewhere. We’ll see… we’ll see. Get out of that bed. All of this is coming out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. You’ve got any more? We’re gonna see how many wire hangers you’ve got in your closet. Wire hangers, why? Why? Christina, get out of that bed. Get out of that bed. You live in the most beautiful house in Brentwood and you don’t care if your clothes are stretched out from wire hangers. And your room looks like some two-dollar-a-week furnished room in some two-bit back street town in Okalahoma. Get up. Get up. Clean up this mess.
Mommie Dearest in all of its appalling glory:
Zilla Minx of Rubella Ballet has put together a wonderful documentary that tells the story of the women who pioneered the British punk rock scene. This is a vital film that brings some balance to the lopsided male-centric history of punk.
Featuring women punk rockers from bands of the era including Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex, Vi Subversa of Poison Girls, Eve Libertine & Gee of Crass, Gaye Black of The Adverts, Michelle of Brigandage,Ruth & Janet of Hagar The Womb and journalists, authors and photographers Julie Burchill and Caroline Comb and more. This film includes interviews with the following women & rare footage of their 1980 s live punk gigs. Poly Styrene: Lead vocalist, X-Ray Spex. Gee Vaucher: Art Work, Crass. Eve Libertine: Vocals, Crass. Gay Black: Bass Player, The Adverts. Vi Subversa: Lead Vocalist & guitarist, Poison Girls. Julie Burchill. Author, Journalist. Lou Moon: Lead Vocalist, Evil I. Caroline Coon: Manager, Slits & The Clash, Journalist/Artist Zillah Minx: Lead Vocalist, Rubella Ballet Michelle: Lead Vocalist, Brigandage Helen Of Troy: Actress and Vocalist, FU2 Justine: Violinist, Grechen Hoffner Olga Orbit: Keyboards, Youth in Asia Nettie Baker: Author. Ruth & Janet: Vocalist & Guitarist, Hagar The Womb Rachel Minx: Bass player, Rubella Ballet Kara Minx: Child ballet dancer, Rubella ballet Mary: Bodyguard to Poly-Styrene.”
Watch it on Dangerous Minds and then buy it here. Support D.I.Y. films.
The story behind the 1977 Topps Star Wars # 207 C-3PO trading card (known as the “boner” card) is that a pissed-off Topps graphics designer decided to give C-3P0 a hard-on and a couple thousand copies of the card were produced and released to the public before the prank was discovered. Of course, the card is a collectible and you can buy one now on eBay for a mere 19 bucks.
Might make a nice gift for that Star Wars fan in your life.
“Madwoman of the Sacred Heart.” Graphic novel by by Moebius and Jodorowsky.
On the heels of sharing The Holy Mountain with DM readers, I thought an Alejandro Jodorowsky documentary might be timely and this is a good one.
In 1994 French film maker Louis Mouchet interviewed Jodorowsky and a bunch of his friends and collaborators, including director Fernando Arrabal, Peter Gabriel, Marcel Marcea and artist Moebius.
Jodorowsky is witty and wise as he discusses his masterpieces El Topo and The Holy Mountain, his failed Dune project, the Tarot, his role as a teacher and reluctant new age guru. He’s kind of like Freud on psychotropics.
I hope you enjoy this fascinating look into the mind of a modern magician and trickster who is constantly evolving and adapting to new technologies and formulating new philosophies.
“As soon as I define myself I’m dead.” ~ Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Alejandro Jodorowsky- Constellation 1/4 by zindabad7
Parts two, three and four here.
Sam Dunn’s Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey is a fanboy’s/girl’s dream come true.
An inside look at the Rodney Dangerfield of music, metal finally gets some respect in Dunn’s throughly entertaining and well-researched 2005 documentary.
In addition to being a hardcore metal head, Dunn has a degree in anthropology, so he not only brings a fan’s enthusiasm to the mix, he brings a scholar’s insight to a genre of rock that is often shunted-off as being music for dummies. Dunn sees more in the metal than just heavy thunder as he explores the social, sexual and religious aspects of the music’s culture. And as serious as that sounds, the movie manages to be smart without being plodding or pretentious.
Featuring interviews with Alice Cooper, Bruce Dickinson, Ronnie James Dio, Lemmy Kilmister, Dee Snider, Tom Araya, Pamela Des Barres, Donna Gaines, Chuck Klosterman, John Kay, Geddy Lee, Vince Neil, Rob Zombie.
This is some good shit!
Lee Hardcastle makes “claymations that are not for children”. We’ve featured some of Lee’s excellent work before, and this is his latest Clay Cat Cinema presentation, a bloody great version of The Raid, which thoughtfully differs form the original to avoid any spoilers.
Bonus: ‘Clay Cat’s The Thing’ in 3D, after the jump…
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo and The Holy Mountain truly define the meaning of the words “head movie.” Both films have the capacity to alter your consciousness while you’re watching them and long thereafter. Like the afterglow of a deeply profound dream, El Topo has been a part of me, shifting the gears in the soft machine of my brain, since I first saw it in 1971 at a midnight screening in Denver, Colorado when I was 19 years old. It was in every respect a spiritual experience.
Years later, when I saw The Holy Mountain the impact was less transformative than seeing El Topo, but I was still thoroughly blown away by Jodorowsky’s Technicolor alchemy. His celluloid transmission was light years ahead of its time. Made in 1973, the film’s look and attitude seem totally of the moment. Yes, it has its hippy dippy moments and goes soft in places, but overall it’s an amazing piece of film making that in its visual design - sets, costumes, symbols, color palette - is as cutting edge as anything made by contemporary directors like David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Chan Wook-park or Gaspar Noé. The movie is breathtaking. And it looks like it cost 20 times its $750,000 budget. Amazing.
If you’ve never seen The Holy Mountain, I suggest you see it on the big screen. Its visual wonders should be allowed to overwhelm and engulf you.
For home viewing, THM has been released in a beautiful Blu-ray transfer that is vast improvement over the fifth-generation bootlegged VHS copies that used to circulate among hardcore fans way back in the days before Jodorowsky’s praises were being sung by Marilyn Manson and Daniel Pinchbeck.
Normally I wouldn’t steer Dangerous Minds’ readers to a YouTube upload of something as visually sumptous as The Holy Mountain, but this happens to be really nice looking. Watch it and you’ll probably want to own it in remastered form, either on DVD or Blu-ray. Consider this as a kind of introduction, a full-length teaser, a first date with someone you’ll eventually marry.
Watch in 720p for a nice hi def image. This version has English dubbing, which is unfortunate but it doesn’t really diminish the overall experience.
While we have featured the work of Pieter Hugo here on Dangerous Minds in the past, I thought I’d pull it all together into one piece so that those of you who are not familiar with this amazing artist’s work could experience it now.
There aren’t enough adjectives in my vocabulary to do justice to the photography of Pieter Hugo. “Powerful,” “disturbing,” “visceral,” “empathetic,” “sad,” and “beautiful” are all appropriately descriptive, but the term “a picture is worth a thousand words” has never been truer than in case of this South African’s visual genius. So I’ll let the pictures do the talking after I share a bit of background on Hugo’s work
In the series “The Hyenas and Other Men,” Hugo documents the Gadawan Kura’ (hyena handlers/guides) who live in the shanty towns of Lagos, Nigeria and make a living by performing on the streets with hyenas that they’ve captured in the wild.
Hugo describes encountering and working with the hyena handlers:
In Abuja we found them living on the periphery of the city in a shantytown - a group of men, a little girl, three hyenas, four monkeys and a few rock pythons. It turned out that they were a group of itinerant minstrels, performers who used the animals to entertain crowds and sell traditional medicines. The animal handlers were all related to each other and were praising a tradition passed down from generation to generation. I spent eight days traveling with them.
In another series of photographs, Hugo evokes aspects of Nigerian films (Nollywood) in haunting photographs that recreate the surreality of cultures intermingling - Hollywood pop iconography (particularly horror imagery) mashed-up with Africa’s long and deep traditions of myth-making. Sometimes the lie is truer than the truth in these tableaus in which Hugo…
[...] asked a team of actors and assistants to recreate Nollywood myths and symbols as if they were on movie sets, Hugo initiated the creation of a verisimilar reality.”
As if Hugo’s photographs weren’t testimony enough to his extraordinary talents, he directed a very very cool video, Control...
[...] a “darkwave township house” cover of the Joy Division classic “She’s Lost Control” – is the fourth single to be taken from South African producer/DJ Spoek Mathambo’s album, Mshini Wam. The video was shot in Langa, Cape Town was made using a cast made up mainly of kids from the local dance troupe, Happy Feet.”
If you’re as impressed by these photos and video (how could you not be?), check out Hugo’s website where you can feast your eyes on more of his amazing visual gift.
More of Hugo’s photography after the jump…