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Documentary on tattoo legend Stoney St. Clair
04.30.2012
03:03 pm
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Alan Govenar and Bruce Lane’s Stoney Knows How is a short and sweet look at one of the tattoo world’s great characters.

Stoney St. Clair started developing his craft at the age of 16. He learned the art of tattooing from some of the best skin pounders in the business, including Ted and Bob Liberty, Frisco Bill Moore and a stint with Charlie Wagner on New York City’s Bowery.

Stoney tattooed while using a wheelchair, which he called his “struggle-buggy.” It didn’t keep him from doing what he had to do, which was “to pursue my profession with intelligence and skill, wishing not to offend anyone, but instead, with my love of mankind, to do what good I can before I die.” Stoney passed away in 1980.

Director Bruce Lane describes his film:

Stoney Knows How is a visit with a master of the Oldest Art In The World - Tattooing. Disabled by arthritis since the age of four, confined to a wheelchair, his growth stunted, Stoney St. Clair joined the circus at 15 as a sword-swallower. A year later, he took up tattooing, and traveled with circuses and carnivals for 50 years. As we watch him at work, we see the determination which led Stoney to use his crippled hands in an art where mistakes are permanent, and we realize Stoney has overcome his handicap to heal himself and others with the magic of symbols. The film ends with a visit by New Age tattoo master Don Ed Hardy to Stoney, who gives him a souvenir tattoo.”

Here’s Stoney Knows How in its entirety. Cinematography by none other than Les Blank.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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04.30.2012
03:03 pm
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Who’s your real Daddy: The new Obama conspiracy theory, mind-rot at its finest!
04.30.2012
12:19 pm
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This just in via a WorldNet Daily email blast: Apparently, there’s a NEW hot-off-the-presses Obama conspiracy and although it doesn’t even rise to the level of patently ridiculous or highly implausible, that’s never really seemed to be much of a problem for the people at WND.  

If you have ever found yourself asking yourself, “Self, just how did Obama become a committed revolutionary Marxist?” then this is the movie for you, Jim-Bob:

With the release this July of Joel Gilbert’s full-length documentary, “Dreams from My Real Father: A Story of Reds and Deception,” the mystery deepens regarding who Obama really is.

“The film provides the first cohesive understanding of Obama’s deep-rooted life journey in socialism, from his childhood to his presidency,” Gilbert told WND.

Gilbert rejects the official story that the Kenyan-born Barack Obama was the president’s father.

Instead, he argues, Frank Marshall Davis, the radical poet and journalist who was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA, was the real, biological and ideological father of Barack Obama.

“I decided to investigate Frank Marshall Davis. His close physical resemblance to Obama was shocking, while Obama little resembled the Kenyan Obama,” Gilbert said. “How could this be?”

So that’s where it starts, this supposed “resemblance” (Maybe all black people look alike to the filmmaker?). Gilbert, the director of Paul McCartney Really is Dead, Elvis Found Alive and Bob Dylan’s Jesus Years, then spent “two years of research” looking into Obama’s revolutionary Commie Marxist background and good golly, look what he found!

“I unearthed two film archives of Frank Marshall Davis, one from 1973, the other from 1987, as well as Davis’ photo collection,” he explained. “I then acquired 500 copies of the Honolulu Record, the communist-run newspaper where Davis wrote a weekly political column for eight years.” Gilbert’s research turned shocking when he obtained seven indecent photos of Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, at Frank Marshall Davis’ house, suggesting an intimate connection between Dunham and Davis.

“I was not happy to include these racy photos in the film but found it necessary to substantiate the intimate relationship between the two,” he said. “Those photos ended up in a men’s mail-order catalog of nude women, likely sold to them by Davis. I placed black bars on parts of the photos to be respectful.”

To establish the foundation for the photos, Gilbert documented that Davis was one of the founders of a photography club in Chicago, known as the “Lens Camera Club,” and that he specialized in nude photographs.

Later in life, Davis also penned a scurrilous, autobiographical sex novel, titled “Sex Rebel: Black,” in which he detailed an illicit sexual relationship with an underage woman named “Anne.” Gilbert believes the name was a thin disguise for Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.

Gilbert reconstructs Obama’s autobiography, “Dreams from My Father,” and concludes that the tale of the goat-herding father from Kenya is a cover story, concocted to mask an inconvenient pregnancy.

But hey, wait a minute… Does this mean that the nutjobs at WorldNet Daily—the very home of the O.G. birther movement—are now disavowing the work of their own “ace” Obama gumshoe, Dr. Jerome Corsi???

Maybe not, as Corsi actually blurbs it?

“Deepens the mystery about who Barack Obama really is, and reveals Obama’s deep rooted socialism in past and present. A must watch film!”

Uh, Jerome, but would it not totally invalidate your own conspiracy theories, if it’s true??? Yeah, it would!

Has Sheriff Joe Arpaio seen this yet???

The truth, Gilbert argues, is that Barack Obama II was born from the illicit sexual relationship that rebellious teenager Ann Dunham began with Davis after her parents forced her to move to Hawaii.

Gilbert believes that when Dunham first arrived in Hawaii after graduating from high school, she used the sexual relationship with Davis to act out her frustration that her parents would not permit her to fulfill her wish to attend the University of Washington in Seattle with her Mercer Island High School friends.

Dreams of My Real Father takes proven facts and then adds in a few hefty dollops of what director Gilbert apparently describes with a straight face as “reasoned logic and speculation.”

Gilbert states flatly:

“The ‘Birthers’ have been on a fool’s errand. To understand Obama’s plans for America, the question is not ‘Where’s the Birth Certificate?,’ the question is ‘Who is the real father?’”

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.30.2012
12:19 pm
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Champion of subversive cinema: Amos Vogel R.I.P.
04.29.2012
01:08 am
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John Lennon and Amos Vogel.
 
Amos Vogel, one of cinema’s greatest friends and supporters, has died at the age of 91. Founder of Cinema 16 and director of the first New York Film Festival, Vogel championed and helped introduce the works of film makers like Roman Polanski, John Cassavetes, Luis Buñuel, Robert Bresson, Richard Lester, Yoko Ono, Maya Deren and Stan Brakhage to American audiences and the world at large. Vogel authored Film As Subversive Art (1974), a hugely influential book in which Vogel celebrates the…

[...] accelerating worldwide trend toward a more liberated cinema, in which subjects and forms hitherto considered unthinkable or forbidden are boldly explored.”

Vogel deeply felt that cinema could and was changing consciousness by altering our perception and challenging our values.

The most interesting films are precisely those that show things that have never been seen before or show things in a completely new way. This is something that upsets many people or prevents them from appreciating what is being shown to them. I, on the other hand, prefer to be upset, and one of my main criteria, in fact, in looking at films and in writing about them is the unpredictability of what I am seeing.”

Martin Scorsese on Vogel:

If you’re looking for the origins of film culture in America, look no further than Amos Vogel. Amos opened the doors to every possibility in film viewing, film exhibition, film curating and film appreciation. He was also unfailingly generous, encouraging and supportive of so many young filmmakers, including me when I was just starting to make my first pictures. No doubt about it — the man was a giant.”

Paul Cronin’s 2004 documentary Film as a Subversive Art: Amos Vogel and Cinema 16 is a wonderful introduction to a celluloid hero.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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04.29.2012
01:08 am
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Flesh-eating transexual vs. psychotic killer bees
04.28.2012
03:08 pm
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British film maker Ben Robinson has a wicked sense of humor and an amazing talent for re-creating the lysergic look of films by Dario Argento, Mario Bava (with Goblin-like soundtrack) and the tweedier, but equally bizarre, classic Hammer productions - particularly the ones with breasts and bongos.

Slash Hive and Trannibal, Flesh Feast are mock trailers for films that I only wish existed.

 
Now working as Benito Robinsini, Robinson has something newer and grander to assault the eyes and minds of film buffs: “the world’s first Arab sci-fi, musical, comedy, starring lounge singers Ahmed and Nahla, also known as ‘Topaz Duo’, fighting to save the world with music and love.”

This time around, Robinson has nailed the look of recent Bollywood and Kollywood sci-fi epics like Ra.One and Enthiran .

Mr. Robinson, you are a genius. Time for a feature length production, don’t you think?
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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04.28.2012
03:08 pm
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‘A Film About Punks And Skinheads’
04.26.2012
11:23 pm
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The 1983 documentary UK/DK: A Film About Punks And Skinheads features some great live performances from The Exploited, Disorder and The Adicts, among others. It does a solid job of capturing the tail end of the British punk scene as it was being supplanted by hardcore and the pop elements in the music replaced by something faster, more aggressive and humorless.

Featuring lively interviews with band members, journalists and fans… and lots of Crazy Color and mohawks. One of the better documentaries on the subject I’ve seen.

Exploited – Fuck The USA
Vice Squad – Stand Strong Stand Proud
Adicts – Joker In The Pack
Blitz – New Age
Business – Blind Justice
Adicts – Viva La Revolution
Varukers – Soldier Boy
Chaos UK – No Security
Disorder – Life

The Damned provide comic relief.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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04.26.2012
11:23 pm
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Happy birthday Giorgio Moroder
04.26.2012
11:23 am
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The Italian music maestro Giorgio Moroder turns 72 today.

In a career that spans well over forty years, Moroder has a strong claim to being one of the most influential producers ever. His ground-breaking work with Donna Summer brought electronic music to the masses with the smash “I Feel Love” in 1977, while the duo’s earlier collaboration on “Love To Love You Baby” set in stone the template for the extended, orgasmic disco mix. 

Then there are his seminal pop productions for the likes of Blondie, David Bowie, Sparks and the Human League’s Phil Oakey, plus his revolutionary synthesiser scores for Scarface, American Gigolo and Midnight Express (which bagged Moroder an Oscar for Best Score in 1978.)

Often written out of “serious” musical history because of his poppy tendencies, Moroder’s incredible legacy speaks for itself and has defiantly stood the test of time.

Here’s one of my favourite Moroder tracks, the less well-known “Utopia, Me Giorgio” off the album Giorgio from 1977 (here given the extended re-edit treatment by Disco Beard.) 19freakin’77 - that means this track is now 35 years old, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t sound as fresh now as it did back then:

Giorgio Moroder “Utopia, Me Giorgio (Disco Beard Anniversary Edit)”
 

 
Tip of the hat to World Of Wonder.

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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04.26.2012
11:23 am
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‘Black Velvet Bordello’: Heavy beats for you lovely freaks
04.26.2012
12:39 am
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Here’s a new video mix for all you deviants and freaks out there. I call it Black Velvet Bordello and it’s a mashup of punk disco, metal and industrial goodies with vintage erotica, experimental film, burlesque and Tijuana Bible-style animation.
 
1. Hyper Worm Tamer - Grinderman/Unkle
2. Invaders Of The Heart - Jah Wobble
3. Interlude - High On Fire
4. Submission - The Sex Pistols
5. Wot - Captain Sensible
6. Palaces Of Montezuma - Grinderman/Barry Adamson
7. Under The Thunder - Alien Sex Fiend

Not suitable for work unless you work in the charnel house of absolute reality where the skeletal remains of Timothy Leary copulate with the dark stars of your imagination.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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04.26.2012
12:39 am
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‘Night of The Bloody Apes’: Lurid, bloody, Mexploitation wrestling oddity (NSFW)
04.24.2012
01:19 pm
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I saw this trailer for gross-out Mexploitation cinematic “classic” Night of the Bloody Apes at a drive-in movie in the 1970s with my parents and younger sister. I must have been all of 6 or 7 years old. We were watching a Hercules/Hercules Unchained double bill featuring Steve Reeves when between films this incredibly lurid trailer came on…

What an impression it left! Scared the crap out of me and I had vivid nightmares about “bloody apes” for some time afterward. Looking at it now, it just doesn’t seem quite as scary, but it sure is a lot funnier than I remember it being.
 
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Bare breasts, internal organs, GUTS and, natch, female wrestling, this one has it all. You really have to wonder how many future serial killers this gory freakout inspired?!?!

Night of the Bloody Apes was a film directed by famous Mexican director René Cardona in 1968 (it’s a color remake of his pioneering blending of the lucha libre and horror genres.The Wrestling Women vs. the Murderous Doctor AKA Doctor of Doom from 1962) that was recut in the early 70s with extra nudity and insanely over the top gratuitous gore added (in the form of several minutes of footage shot during an actual open heart surgery). Etcetera, etcetera.

The English version of the film sports the most monotone, wooden, voice-over actors the world has ever known and the dialogue is a very literal and direct Spanish to English translation:

“I’ll say that’s absurd, the proofs are circumstantial, it’s more probable that of late more and more you’ve been watching on your television many of those pictures of terror,”

James Joyce himself could not have written that sentence! (And even if he could have, he didn’t.) The editing here is, unavoidably, so bad and amateurishly inept that it borders on the hallucinogenic, but that’s part of the charm and what makes Night of the Bloody Apes feel like it occupies its own sub-genre within a sub-genre within a sub-genre.

I’m not saying it’s good, I’m just saying there it is…
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.24.2012
01:19 pm
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Jules Nurrish: Bend It Like Gilbert & George
04.22.2012
05:45 pm
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Film-maker Jules Nurrish filmed and edited this homage to Gilbert and George’s dance sculpture Bend It. With Los Angeles-based performance artist and body builder, Heather Cassils and London-based performance artist and musician, Anat Ben David, who together perform their own version of the famous dance. Neat.
 

 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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04.22.2012
05:45 pm
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Lars Von Trier directs Donald Duck
04.20.2012
01:25 pm
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A mock trailer for a “Dogme 95” film Donald Duck movie from Icelandic television’s Mid-Island show. The pretentious checklist of the Danish avant-garde cinematic movement seems to be followed to the letter here.

From the YouTube description:

Donald leads a tormented life on the unforgiving streets of Duckburg, where sometimes he must betray his own conscience to make ends meet.

Donald has to raise his 3 nephews, deal with a cheating girlfriend and put up with working for his stingy uncle; the richest duck in down. This is a tale everyone can relate to.

Wait for Goofy’s appearance, you’ll be glad you did.
 

 
Thank you Edward Ludvigsen!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.20.2012
01:25 pm
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