Absolutely spot-on parody of BBC documentarian Adam Curtis’s signature style by “psychonomy.” Perfectly encapsulates my own reaction to each and every one of his films:
In a landmark new documentary produced for YouTube, Adam Curtis has not examined his career and laid bare his style in the light of some confused academic papers he stumbled across on the internet. Instead, I have plundered various video archives and ripped him off, up, down, left, right and back again.
The documentary films of Adam Curtis are entertaining, for sure, and thought-provoking, too, but I always feel that he takes but one strand of a very complex braid of historical confluences, and then presents this sliver of history as if it is THE received truth in that authoritative BBC voice of his. I do enjoy watching his films (and I like his blog, too) but he completely fails to win me over to his arguments each and every time.
Van Jones, the former White House green jobs adviser and activist, is the lefty Boogeyman that Glenn Beck returns to again and again and again. To hear Beck tell it, Van Jones is some Darth Vader-type evil overlord behind the dark forces of Liberalism, right up there with George Soros hisself. Jones gave a fantastic speech at the Netroots Nation convention last week, where he first called Beck out:
I issue a personal challenge to my beloved brother Glenn Beck. I will debate you anytime, anywhere, at any point. I’ll give you an hour, you give me five minutes. And I will stand up for our values. But you would have to stop talking about us and start talking to us.
You got one week left before your show goes off. My phone is ringing. Call me! Call me, Glenn Beck! And let’s have this fight. Let’s have this discussion. Let’s have this argument. Let’s have this battle of ideas. Battle of ideas. And let’s fight for liberty and justice for all.
It was Beck more than any other conservative mouthpiece who hounded Jones into resigning from his White House post, but now Jones is challenging Beck to a debate. MoveOn is trying to raise money to air this 30 second spot during the final days of Beck’s Fox News program.
Fantastic, this is a debate I’d LOVE to see. If you’d like to see this, too, you can donate to MoveOn here.
A debate of IDEAS? I wonder if Beck will accept the challenge?
Take a look at Jones’ inspirational Netroots Nation speech and see if he lives up to Beck’s characterization of him as an evil Commie or not.
A kind soul has posted the new BB4 documentary,The Joy of Easy Listening on YouTube. If this is from the same team who did the great Synth Britannia doc, it should be pretty good. Watch it quick before it evaporates:
In-depth documentary investigation into the story of a popular music that is often said to be made to be heard, but not listened to. The film looks at easy listening’s architects and practitioners, its dangers and delights, and the mark it has left on modern life.
From its emergence in the 50s to its heyday in the 60s, through its survival in the 70s and 80s and its revival in the 90s and beyond, the film traces the hidden history of a music that has reflected society every bit as much as pop and rock - just in a more relaxed way.
Invented at the dawn of rock ‘n’ roll, easy listening has shadowed pop music and the emerging teenage market since the mid-50s. It is a genre that equally soundtracks our modern age, but perhaps for a rather more ‘mature’ generation and therefore with its own distinct purpose and aesthetic.
Contributors include Richard Carpenter, Herb Alpert, Richard Clayderman, Engelbert Humperdinck, Jimmy Webb, Mike Flowers, James Last and others.
Here’s the first part, you can watch the rest on YouTube:
The great Nile Rodgers has started uploading clips from his old TV show New Visions to his new YouTube account. This short clip gives a fascinating insight into the artwork made by Miles Davis, of which there is an example above, called “The Kiss”.
Here Miles talks candidly about the shapes and colours in his work and what they mean to him, in his wonderfully gravelly voice. It all seems very sexual. The only downside is that this video is agonisingly short - Nile, if you have the full length version of this episode then you HAVE to put it online for the whole world to see!
Bonus!
Another clip from New Visions, this time featuring guitarists John Lee Hooker, Carlos Santana, Robert Fripp and more:
The Great Satan At Large was a public access TV show that lasted one unholy episode in 1990 before being canceled by the deeply offended and seriously freaked-out management of Tucson, Arizona’s channel 49. Faced with obscenity charges and the possibility of 40 years in prison, the show’s creator and diabolical host, Lou Perfidio (the Great Satan), fled Arizona with blood-hungry Feds and rabid Christian dogs nipping at his cloven hooves.
Airing at the family hour of 6:00 p.m. on a channel known for its Christian programming, The Great Satan At Large featured dinner-time filth for the whole Satan-worshiping family. While chroma-keyed videos of Adolf Hitler, under-age strippers, titty twisters and masturbating jesters intercut with celluloid transgressions by Richard Kern and Nick Zedd glistered in the background like freshly slung wads of pixilated cum, the chain-smoking, beer-swilling Perfidio assaulted the viewer with every vile thought his unfiltered id could extrude. He was Johnny Carson re-incarnated as G.G. Allin with a twisted pinch of Anton LaVey and a schmear of Al Goldstein.
When he wasn’t incarnating Satan, Perfidio was a Temple University graduate, self-proclaimed “Greatest Pinball Player of All Time,” a contributor to Vending Times magazine, sportswriter, and raging alcoholic. His former friend Jim Goad of ANSWER Me! magazine described Lou “as a fat, bearded, farting, filthy-mouthed, passionate punk rocker” who drank so much that “in his twenties, he had the body of a sixty-year-old.” Despite being perpetually hammered, Perfidio could write and did so on his blog I Love Misery.
Lou died at the age of 43 in 2006 of MRSA, flesh-eating bacteria, pneumonia and high blood pressure - a hellish end for a man who would be God of darkness.
It doesn’t get more Lahndan Tahn than than this. Taken from a 1979 BBC TV Play For Today drama written by Barrie Keeffe and directed by RIchard Eyre, this clip sees Ray Davies’ mid-60s paean to young romance belted out on a rickety ole joanna by Queenie Watts. Watts was a well-loved Cockney performer who appeared in such classic British TV shows as Dad’s Army and Steptoe and Son. She and her husband Slim also ran the Rose and Crown pub in London’s East End, where they would perform with a band, entertaining a mixed crowd of locals, celebs and gangsters. Queenie’s take on The Kinks’ classic makes the connection between the swinging 60s and the city’s earlier music hall history, and it just drips Cockney charm. Cor blimey!
This Sunday night at 9p.m. on the USA network crime drama Law & Order: Criminal Intent, poet/rocker Patti Smith makes her acting debut. Smith will portray a Columbia University mythology professor. It was actor Vincent D’Onofrio’s idea to cast Smith in the role.
Titled “Icarus,” the episode, which also features guest star Cynthia Nixon, concerns the investigation of a Broadway musical after an actor dies on stage while performing a stunt. (Can you say, “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”?)
“I’ve never really acted, but I highly respect the craft,” says Smith. “I knew that it wasn’t going to be simple, but it was a little more daunting than I expected.”
I can’t embed it, but if you’d like a quick look at Smith’s performance, click here.
Below, a terrific live “Horses” on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1976:
A “super-rare” puppet of Thunderbirds’ Lady Penelope comes up for auction at the end of the month, when it is expected to fetch around $16,000.
Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward was the posh London agent for International Rescue, who held her own with the Tracy boys and their selection of incredible vehicles in the Thunderbird series. Lady P was also, if the Guardian is to be believed:
...the subject of many a schoolboy crush in the late sixties and seventies.
Personally, I preferred Wilma from The Flintstones and Elizabeth Montgomery from Bewitched, but each to their own.
The puppet or marionette is 20 inches high with a head full of electronics, which made the mouth to move. Lady Penelope’s face was based on a model from a shampoo advert, and her voice was supplied by Sylvia Anderson, co-creator with Gerry Anderson of Thunderbirds.
As Stephanie Connell an auctioneer at Bonhams explained:
“This puppet came from the collection of Christine Glanville, who died in 1999.
“She was the puppet maker for the series and this is super-rare and important. It was an important piece of TV history and although it was first shown in 1965 it has been repeated ever since and all generations are aware of it.
“This is an original Lady Penelope and there can be few, if any, left. She is wearing a 60s-style A-line dress and a cardigan. She has pink lipstick on and blue eyes and her hair is in a bob style.
“There are lots of genuine Thunderbirds fans and there will be lots of people who would love to have her.”
Bonhams are also selling Lady Penelope’s miniature writing desk, chair and bookcase from the original set, which is reckoned to fetch around $8,000. The auction takes place on June 29 in London.
Here is “Parker - Well Done!” - a ‘Fab’ disc from 1965, which featured Lady Penelope (Sylvia Anderson), Parker (David Graham) and Jeff Tracy (Peter Dyneley).
Doctor Who Girl’s Knickers is perhaps the single greatest site on the Internet. You think I’m kidding, don’t you? I am not.
Here’s what the proprietor has to say for himself:
I first started collecting knickers in 1983 when at the Longleat Exhibition I was sold a pair of Janet Fielding’s underwear by a make-up lady. But let me be clear on this; there is nothing “perverted” or “weird” about my collection. We all collect things we like, and I find knickers more personal than an autograph on the back of a plastic cup.
To date I have ninety four pairs of knickers which I think you’ll agree is a wonderful achievement! I have built this collection up by begging, borrowing and on three occasions stealing. I like to write to female Doctor Who celebrities for items of their clothing and over the years it’s become pretty clear to me that the way to ask is to not refer to their “knickers” but their “feminine undergarments”.
Once the full gallery is up you’ll see just how wonderful and original my collection is. I also intend to include a gallery of the various rejection letters I’ve received, as well as some of the more surprising replies.
People are *always* asking me if I have any men’s pants from Doctor Who. I’d like to make it absolutely clear right now that I am not a gay pervert. Lots of my very best friends are gay but the thought of asking for another man’s pants is frankly dirty. To this end I rather hope I’ve heard the last of one cast member who continually *insisted* on sending me items of his clothing.
There is a tab on the left for anyone from the press who is as interested and excited in these knickers as I am. Please feel free to browse the galleries and if you do use pictures elsewhere please do give me full credit for them.
Finally I’m *frequently* asked which item from my collection is my favourite. It’s so hard to say, but if I’m honest, if I’m really honest, then in all honesty and at the end of the day it’s actually the ones I got first of all - Janet’s.
I hope you enjoy my collection as much as I do all the time.
A
Where to start, right? (Or why even bother trying?). The real comedy here is in the details. Certain things slip out in his descriptions that are bust-a-gut funny. For instance, here’s his caption that is next to a shot of Freema Agyeman’s (supposed) panties:
She played Martha in Doctor Who and was rubbish. I got these knickers from the set when they filmed on location for the one with the scarecrows.
I can’t go into details because I might get arrested. They smell of lavender and last summer I noticed two bees sitting on them in August.
Okay, then… Here’s the caption next to Mary Tamm’s underwear. She played the original “Romana” before Lalla Ward took over the role:
These were a gift from a friend of mine who’s a fan and apparently had sex with Mary Tamm in 1991 at a convention in Cardiff. He swears it’s true and that he asked her for the knickers afterwards.
I didn’t believe him at first but then he sent my a letter of authenticity that he’d signed so I know he was telling the truth.
He even cliams that he bought seven pairs of panties from Joan Sims herself via a postal order. Joan Sims??? There’s more, intrepid reader, there is SO MUCH MORE to see at Doctor Who Girl’s Knickers.
It started when producer Barry Hanson asked writer Barrie Keeffe, one night, what film he’d like to see? Keeffe said he wanted to see an American gangster film set in the East End of London. There was nothing like it on at the cinema, so Hanson told Keeffe to write it. The result was The Long Good Friday, a movie regularly voted the greatest British gangster film, and one of the best British films, of all time. High praise for a movie that was nearly re-cut, dubbed and pumped out onto TV by its original parent company, ITC, who hated it.
I was lucky enough to see The Long Good Friday, when it was screened at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 1980 as the highlight to a mini-retrospective of director John MacKenzie’s work. It had an indelible effect.
MacKenzie was established as a major talent, having made the films Unman, Wittering and Zigo with David Hemmings in 1969, and Made with Carol White and Roy Harper in 1972. He had also achieved further success directing Peter MacDougall’s brilliant dramas Just Another Saturday, which won the Prix Italia, Just A Boys’ Game, which starred rock singer Frankie Miller, and MacDougall’s adaptation of notorious hardman, Jimmy Boyle’s biography, A Sense of Freedom. Now he had just completed a film that captured the essence of 1980’s Britain under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Written by Barrie Keeffe, a former journalist who made his name writing political drams for TV and theater, Scribes (1976), about newspaper workers during a strike, .Gimme Shelter (1975–7), a powerful trilogy that dealt with deprivation, frustration and anger of working-class youth, and the tremendous BBC drama Waterloo Sunset, starring the legendary Queenie Watts.
Keeffe wrote The Long Good Friday in three days, over an Easter weekend. Originally called The Paddy Factor, the story dealt with East End gangster Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) who plans to go into partnership with the Mafia to redevelop London, only to fall foul of the IRA. The film co-starred Helen Mirren, (who battled to make her character, Victoria, stronger), a young Pierce Brosnan, and Eddie Consantine, as the Mafia don.
The script came from all the stories Keeffe heard growing-up and working as a reporter on the Stratford Express, as he told the Arts Desk last year:
The seeds were planted then; it was a very fertile time, just before the end of the Krays’ empire, and a lot of my plays, and some of the incidents in The Long Good Friday, came from my experiences. For instance, one of the gangland punishments, if you strayed into someone else’s territory, was to crucify you to the warehouse floor. As a very innocent junior reporter, a young 18, I was sent to interview a guy in hospital. He was covered in bandages and I asked him what had happened. He said, with that wonderful East End humour, “Do you understand English, son? Well, put it down to a do-it-yourself accident.”
Filmed the same year as Thatcher’s election, The Long Good Friday predicted much of the change Conservative rule would bring to London and the British isles.
The Long Good Friday was obviously about the transformation of the East End. The Bob Hoskins character was talking about the end of the Docks and mile after mile of territory for “profitable progress” - I think that was his phrase. I saw the film again about five years ago and it has a scene showing this model of how the area would look under the developers. It underestimated it completely - it ought to have shown Canary Wharf looking like Manhattan. Looking at it, I was taken by the fact that none of us had foreseen the enormous scale of change.
The Long Good Friday was a film “raging” at what was about to happen to the country, the story of gangsterism / Thatcherism / Captialism coming face-to-face with terrorism / idealism.
Cast and Crew: The Long Good Friday brings together John MacKenzie, Barrie Keeffe, Barry Hanson, actor Derek Thompson, casting director Simone Reynolds to discuss the film, its making and its legacy. There are also interviews from Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren. Watching Keeffe and MacKenzie around a table together, there is still the crackle of creative tension, as writer and director both lay claim to the film’s success.
