The Hollywood film producer John Calley died September 13, at his home in Los Angeles, after a long illness.

Calley was responsible for The Loved One, The Americanization of Emily, Catch-22, and more recently The Remains of the Day, and the popcorn fodder Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code.

But it will be for his work at Warner Brothers that Calley will be best remembered, as the Los Angeles Times reports:

In 1969, [Calley] became executive vice president in charge of production at Warner Bros.; he became president in 1975.

“Under Calley, Warners became the class act in town,” Peter Biskind wrote in his 1998 book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-And-Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood.

“Urbane and witty, he gave the impression that he was somehow above it all, slumming in the Hollywood cesspool,” Biskind wrote. “As one wag put it, he was the blue in the toilet bowl.”

At Warner Bros., Calley created what Biskind called “an atmosphere congenial to ‘60s-going-on ‘70s filmmakers” and was known for relying heavily on his own taste in picking films.

Among Warner’s Calley-era bill of fare: Woodstock, A Clockwork Orange, Mean Streets, The Towering Inferno, “McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Exorcist, Dog Day Afternoon, Deliverance, Dirty Harry, All the President’s Men, Blazing Saddles, Superman and Chariots of Fire.

As a salute, here’s a brief video resume of that golden era of film-making.

Read John Calley’s obituary here.
 

Mean Streets (1973)
 

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
 
Clips of other classic films, including ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and ‘Mean Streets’, after the jump…
 

 
DM favorite John Waters is having a new exhibition of his photographs and sculptures called Rear Projection at the Arthur Roger Gallery, 432 Julia Street, New Orleans, LA, from October 1st – 29th.

Mr. Waters will be present at the opening reception hosted by the gallery on Saturday, October 1st from 6 to 9 pm, and will lead a walk-through of his exhibition on Saturday, October 1st at 1 pm. Now how cool is that?

Rear Projection is a movie term for the process whereby a foreground action is combined with a background scene filmed earlier to give the impression the actors are on location when they are, in fact, working inside a studio.  In John Waters’ latest work, this artificial and outdated visual effect is embraced and taken to extremes.

Using an insider’s bag of tricks and trade lingo, John Waters celebrates the excess of the movie industry. Word and image play permeate Waters’ work, and the movie industry and its various sleights of hand are a common target. Always ambitious and playful, some of the works are condensed narratives or “little movies” as Waters calls them.  Waters wickedly juxtaposes images from films and television that he captured by photographing his television set as they play.  His approach originated with a desire to retrieve stills from his own movies and developed into an appreciation for the overlooked and misrecalled.

Waters has said, “I’m concerned that people don’t remember movies; they remember stills that they’ve seen over and over in books so I try to photograph things in movies that you are never supposed to see.  Really, it’s about writing and editing.  I think up each of these pieces and then I have to go find the images that make a new narrative which many times is the opposite of or has nothing to do with what the director really began with.”

Check the Arthur Roger Gallery for details.
 

Old Chickens (2009) 9 C-prints (ed.1/5) 5 x 63 inches
 

John Jr. (2009) C print (ed.5/5) 32 1/2 x 26 inches
 

Rear Projection (2009) 9 C-prints (ed.5/5) 8 x 90 inches
 
More from the fabulous Mr Waters, after the jump…
 

 
I’m sure most Dangerous Minds readers are familiar with how well The Wizard of Oz syncs up with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album. However, I dig Jeff Yorkes’ take even better. Yorke paired up The Wiz with Floyd’s “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse.” It’s a new spin. 

 
Below, Dark Side of the Moon synced with Wizard of Oz.

Photo by Peter Berberian

Tonight at Cinefamily in Hollywood, I’ll be doing the second presentation in their “Show and Tell” series:

“A new Cinefamily series that invites artists, filmmakers, musicians and other cultural heroes to divulge their deepest, darkest media obsessions by opening their closets, digging through their attic and plundering their garages to curate an evening of whatever they want to share! From thrift store finds to late-night Tivo, from foreign film bootlegs to home movies, from the popular to the perverse –- all media will be presented live by the honored guests, as they take us on a personal tour of the audio, video and other ephemera that has inspired them, delighted them, or just plain freaked them out.

For September’s session, we’re thrilled to present a friend who is not only a true warrior collector of amazing one-of-a-kind artifacts, but also a fantastic chronicler of hidden underground culture: Richard Metzger, creator of Dangerous Minds and co-creator of Disinformation!

Simply put, Richard’s one of the world’s foremost experts on all things counterculture, conspiratorial and just plain crazy. From a childhood in West Virginia spent obsessively digging through libraries (“There wasn’t a whole lot to do except to tip cows and to read”), to a grown-up era of showcasing the work of folks he respects and admires on TV (Disinformation), in blogland (DangerousMinds.net) and in print (“Everything You Know Is Wrong”), Richard’s amassed a personal archive that overflows with impossibly cool items. This evening will be a closet-rummaging bonanza, as Richard shows you everything from his incredible archival print materials to priceless time capsule footage of the groundbreaking ‘80s NYC club scene (of which he was a part!) Plus, join us for excerpts of Richard’s music video work, highlights from the Disinformation TV show, and so much more!”

I’m going to be screening footage from my own collection and from the archive of the late NYC-based video artist Nelson Sullivan, who videotaped hundreds of hours of the East Village art scene and night life of the 1980s. A clip of Andy Warhol signing books at Fiorucci in 1987 with a wild cast of characters surrounding him, video of of the real life “outlaw party” thrown by “club kid murderer” Michael Alig in the Times Square McDonald’s as depicted in Party Monster, Bongwater, John Sex, and some other surprises and rarities.

It’s a double feature, first the “Show and Tell,” then a screening of a 2-hour interview with Robert Anton Wilson conducted by me and Genesis P-Orridge in 1997 for my old “Infinity Factory” talkshow. Ironically, what was once seen as the size of a postage stamp in a 56k modem world will be screened as if it’s Ben Hur…

Get tickets here.

 
Aren’t these something? Hand-painted movie posters from Ghana, for such Hollywood movies as Alien, Cujo, Evil Dead 2, Mission Impossible, The Spy Who Loved Me and Terminator.

For party games, remove title and guess the film solely by its art work. Or suggest even better titles - post yours below.

See more here.
 

 

 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
Via Thumb Press, with thanks to Anne Billson
 
More works of cinematic art, after the jump…
 

 
Nicely!

I highly suggest looking through Jeff Yorkes’ Vimeo account—he has many, many more fun movie mashups.

 
Julian Temple’s 1980 mockumentary The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle attempts to drain the last bit of blood from the corpse of The Sex Pistols. With Pistols’ Svengali Malcolm McClaren as his accessory in this crime against historical fact, Temple depicts the Pistols as a sham act with little or no bona fide talent foisted on an easily manipulated youth culture. Of course, he was wrong and would later do penance by directing the far more accurate documentary The Filth and The Fury 20 years later.

McClaren may have constructed The Sex Pistols but once his monster was out of the lab it was a genuine force to be reckoned with. The Pistols influence is as potent now as it was the day they were born. McClaren had a genius for promotion and anticipating/creating trends, but he was mad for thinking that the Pistols were solely a product of his own ego-driven machinations. The raw material was already there.

The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle may have been intended as a joke, but the joke ended up being on its creators, not the band or its fans. Temple may have been trying to make a satirical film about a rock band as pop culture product along the lines of Bob Rafaelson’s Monkees’ flick Head, but he did so without any of Rafaelson’s imagination, wit or charm. While Head was a surreal and entertaining romp, Swindle has the stench of something gone sour.

Chaotic, tiresome, but not without moments of brilliance (Temple is no hack) and great live music, here’s TGR&RS in its entirety. Very nice quality.
 

 
“Bloody Disgusting Punk-A-Rama Movie Mayhem”

Here’s a mix of stripped down punk and garage rockers slammed up against splatter flicks, Blaxploitation, biker movies, blood-drenched horror, and assorted Z-grade cinematic atrocities. NSFW or just about anywhere else.

01. “Satan’s Holiday” - The Lancasters
02. “I Put A Spell On You” - Peter And The Wolves
03. “The World Ain’t Changed” - Warden And The Fugitives
04. “David’s Mood” - Dave Lewis
05. “Title In Japanese” - Stalin
06. “Killer Men” - Gasoline
07. “I’d Rather See You Dead” - The Legionaires
08. “Absolute Ruler” - Rude Kids
09. “Ghost Power” -  The Cords
10. “Sick Of You” - The Users
11. “My Dad’s A Fucking Alcoholic” - Frantix
12. “Guaranteed Love” - Limey And The Yanks
13. “Mental” - Glueams
14. “Hillside Strangler” - Hollywood Square
15. “Cheater Stomp” - The Fabulous Playboys
16. “Goofy Foot” - The Lively Ones
17. “Stick To Your Guns” - Zero Boys
18. “Red Dragon” - Blackjacks
19. “Monkey Farm” - Tiki Tones
20. “Carry Go Bring Home” - Justin Hinds
21. “Latina” - The Sentinels
22. “Get Your Baby” -  Mark And The Escorts
23. “Let’s Get, Let’s Get Tammy Wynette” - The Maggots
24. “Hey Scrounge” - The Lively Ones
25. “This Generations On Vacation” - Shock
 

 
Ah, the delights of hair metal. Marc, you have really opened up a can of glam worms with that post on vintage Poison! Here in its engorged entirety is still the best document of the mid-80s spandex metal years I have seen, though how most of these bands qualify as “metal” is beyond me, as is the fact that most of these men were considered red-blooded, macho heterosexuals! This whole world has been undergoing a re-appraisal in recent years, possibly as being the last time mainstream rock was this fun, stupid and thoroughly enjoyable. To quote Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler “And then that pussy Cobain came along and ruined everything”.

Decline… Pt 2 has lots of recognisable faces (Kiss without their make-up, a surprisingly lucid Ozzy Osbourne, the Toxic Twins from Aerosmith, wisened elder Lemmy) but the real stars of the film are the musicians and fans plucked straight from the Sunset Strip who we have never heard from again. The “where are they now” pathos, especially at the end, is almost heart-breaking. But don’t let that detract from the fun, especially the sight of Paul Stanley on a bed full of groupies, and Chris Holmes from W.A.S.P. pouring fake vodka into his own face while floating in a swimming pool and shouting at his mother: 
 

 
My 1970s Tumblr supplies “inspiration drops from 1970s aesthetics and lifestyle.” A fine reminder to that decade’s rich diversity of music, film, politics, fashion, and some rather dodgy advertising.

See more here.
 
 
 

 

 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
More pix from the fab seventies, after the jump…