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Beautiful hand-colored film from the 1920s
09.01.2012
02:18 pm
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Pathé Color, a process developed in 1905 that employs stencils to colorize black and white film, adds an almost lysergic intensity in this short movie exploring the lives of a family in South America, the nomadic Taureg and a village in Mali. 
 

 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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09.01.2012
02:18 pm
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Happy Birthday Eldridge Cleaver
09.01.2012
01:39 am
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One summer when I was 17 years old I lived inside of a military surplus parachute that I erected like a tipi inside of an abandoned square dance hall in Los Gatos, California. I lived off of brown rice, rolled oats and a bag of 500 white cross Benzedrine tablets, which I consumed almost as voraciously as the books I read. This was the summer that I read Brautigan, Burroughs, Lao Tzu and perhaps most significantly Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul On Ice, a pivotal book for many teenagers of my generation. Cleaver and I came from radically different worlds but we shared something in common: a profound distrust of our government and a deep-seated hatred of racism. While Cleaver was a direct victim of racism and I was merely consumed with guilt and the shame of privilege , there was still a bond, no matter how tenuous, between my sense of cultural self-loathing and Cleaver’s outright hatred for his white oppressors, of which I was only a member genetically.

Soul On Ice got me off my hippie ass and down the mountain to the Bay Area where I went to the Oakland Branch of The Black Panther Party headquarters and volunteered to do whatever I could for the movement. A couple of Panthers with sardonic smiles on their faces handed me a bundle of “The Black Panther” newspaper and sent me out the door. I’d paid the cover price for the papers, 25 cents each, and when I was done selling them I took the revenue from the newspaper sales and donated them to the Panthers’ school breakfast program.  It was a good cause and helped to mollify some of my white guilt.

It’s Eldridge Cleaver’s birthday today and I hold him still in high esteem for writing a book that shook up my world at a time when my world needed some shaking. He was no saint by a long shot and renounced his radical roots when he became a born-again Christian, but there is no denying the power and eloquence of his early writings. I found them extraordinarily moving and inspiring.  In honor of Cleaver, I am sharing this excellent documentary on the Black Power Movement, All Power To The People! .
 

 
Part two of All Power To The People after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Marc Campbell
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09.01.2012
01:39 am
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GRIMMS: The most incredible 70’s Supergroup, you’ve probably never heard of
08.31.2012
08:40 pm
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GRIMMS was a like a collision between a busload of musicians, a van full of comics and a mobile library. As Supergroups go, GRIMMS was certainly the most original, literary and possibly hirsute, with their mix of poetry, music, comedy and theater.

Assembled from the movable parts of the Bonzo Dog Band (Neil Innes, Vivian Stanshall), The Scaffold (John Gorman, Mike McGear, Roger McGough) and Liverpool Scene (Roger McGough, Andy Roberts). GRIMMS was an acronym of the surnames of the original line-up Gorman (whose idea it had been), Roberts, Innes, McGough, McGear, and Stanshall.

Neil Innes later said of the band’s formation:

“I don’t know what attracted the Scaffold to the Bonzos; we were incredibly anarchic, which was probably something shared by the Scaffold as well. Hence Grimms, this leap in the dark.”

We all know about the genius of The Bonzos, so let’s jump to The Scaffold, that strange hybrid pop band made up from John Gorman (who would go onto star in the children’s show Tiswas, and its adult counterpart OTT with Chris Tarrant and Alexei Sayle in the 1980s), Mike McGear (Paul McCartney’s brother), and poet Roger McGough, who had been one of the 3 Mersey Poets, and was a member of The Liverpool Scene. The Scaffold had chart success with their novelty records “Thank U Very Much”, “Lily the PInk” and “Liverpool Lou”, the last recorded with Paul McCartney and Wings

Liverpool Scene was the Liverpool Poets: McGough (works include Summer With Monika, After The Merrymaking), Brian Patten (works include Little Johnny’s Confession and Notes to the Hurrying Man) and Adrian Henri (The Mersey Sound), and musician Andy Roberts.

GRIMMS changed shape over the years as band members left, moved on or lost hair. These were quickly replaced by hats, wigs and some very special talents, including Keith Moon (The Who), Jon Hiseman (Colosseum), Michael Giles (King Crimson), John Megginson,  Gerry Conway, David Richards, Zoot Money, and future Rutles John Halsey and Peter “Ollie” Halsall.

Their first album Grimms was a lucky bag of comedy, poetry and music released in 1973, which included Innes’ songs “Humanoid Boogie”, “Short Blues” and “Twyfords Vitromant”, which was followed later the same year with Rockin’ Duck and in 1975 their final album the 5 star Sleepers.

Unlike most list documentaries today (which miss out on such diamonds as GRIMMS), the seventies was an incredible time of experimentation and risk-taking. In 1975, around the release of Sleepers, the BBC (gawd bless her and all who fail in her) produced a strange series called The Camera and The Song. It was like a collection of early pop promos, with a film-maker interpreting songs by different artists - some good, some bloody awful. Into this mix came GRIMMS, and here are 2 clips from the show (opening titles and songs) featuring the genius talents of Neil Innes and co. Lovely!
 

 
More from GRIMMS plus bonus track ‘Backbreaker’, after the jump…
 
With thanks to Robert Dayton
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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08.31.2012
08:40 pm
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‘The Ambassador’: An Interview with gonzo journalist Mads Brügger
08.31.2012
05:56 pm
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Cheerfully intrepid—some might say kamikaze—Danish journalist Mads Brügger (The Red Chapel) is back with an outrageous new comedic documentary, The Ambassador. In the film Brügger dons some expensive white linen suits, employs a gold-plated cigarette holder and becomes the mysterious “Mr. Corzen,” a shady character who purchases—yes, purchases—an ambassadorship from the country of Liberia via an Internet broker! Hilarity—as well as blood diamonds, murder and bribery—ensues.

In the video below, I asked Mads some questions, like “Why did no one ever comment on the absurdity of a white Danish guy acting as the envoy from Liberia to the Central African Republic?”, if there was ever at any point during the making of The Ambassador when Brügger feared that his brazen ruse was about to be exposed and if he’s worried now that Liberia wants Denmark to extradite him!

Tonight in Hollywood, Mads Brügger will be at the 8pm screening of The Ambassador at Cinefamily and tomorrow at the 7pm screening as well, and the film has a one-week run there through September 6th.

The Ambassador is currently screening in New York, San Francisco, Austin and several other cities across America and on most major cable TV video-on-demand platforms.
 

 
Watch the trailer, below:
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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08.31.2012
05:56 pm
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‘Moebius Redux - A Life in Pictures’: Documentary in full
08.31.2012
05:55 pm
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A very fine documentary on legendary artist Jean Giraud (Moebius) featuring interviews with film makers Alejandro Jodorowsky and Dan O’Bannon as well as artists Philippe Druillet, Jim Lee (“X-Men”), Mike Mignola (“Hellboy”), H.R. Giger and Stan Lee.

Director Hasko Baumann seamlessly integrates Giraud’s illustrations into the movie as Giraud himself provides illuminating narration.

Includes a segment on the epically frustrating attempt by Jodorowsky to bring Dune to the big screen as he, Giraud, Giger and O’Bannon envisioned it.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.31.2012
05:55 pm
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Mashup: Donna Summer and Booker T & the MG’s - ‘I Feel Love’ / ‘Green Onions’
08.31.2012
05:12 pm
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A couple of years ago Dangerous Minds featured a Velvet Underground/Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell mashup that resonated with a lot of our readers and eventually went viral. The guy that did that mashup, joeypropeller, has created something new that shares some of the haunting ambient quality of his Velvets/Gaye project. Propeller’s blending of Donna Summer singing “I Feel Love” and Booker T and The MGs’ “Green Onions” isn’t all that crafty or gimmicky, it’s just kind of cool and eerie - an opium dream of sexy funk. And by pitch-shifting Summer’s vocal, the whole thing sounds like it’s being beamed in from another planet.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.31.2012
05:12 pm
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The Beastie Boys’ ‘Paul’s Boutique’ remixed and re-imagined from all the original samples
08.31.2012
02:34 pm
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Okay, this is an excellent way to end the workweek: A tribute to Paul’s Boutique by DJ Cheeba, DJ Moneyshot and DJ Food.

3 years in the making, 3 DJs working with over 150 tracks to recreate one of the seminal sampling albums of all time, at last Cheeba, Moneyshot and I can reveal ‘Caught In The Middle Of A 3-Way Mix’. Our tribute to the classic Beastie Boys album ‘Paul’s Boutique’ remixed and re-imagined from all the original samples plus a cappellas, period interviews and the Beasties’ own audio commentary from the reissued release.

 

 
See a list of all the samples used after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Tara McGinley
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08.31.2012
02:34 pm
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‘Get Your War On’ returns for the 2012 election
08.31.2012
01:53 pm
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After some time away, David Rees is bringing his unique take on modern politics back in time for the Mitt to hit the fan.

‘Hey, I might not know much, but I love this country. And I love the Fifth Amendment!’

 


Posted by Richard Metzger
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08.31.2012
01:53 pm
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Dirty Chairy: Clint Eastwood is a senile old Republican coot
08.31.2012
10:26 am
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As if it wasn’t already patently obvious to everyone paying even the slightest bit of attention, last night at the Republican National Convention, 82-year-old actor Clint Eastwood took to the stage and showed America and the rest of the world what the Republican Party is REALLY all about: Senile old white gits yelling crazy, incoherent shit.

Last night, without much effort, Eastwood’s loopy “skit” turned the house full of extremely Caucasian Republican convention goers “every which way but loose.” The rest of the country was just deeply embarrassed for the octogenarian Hollywood legend. The RNC apparently wanted Clint there as the embodiment of modern Republicanism, a stand-in for Ronald Reagan, if you will. Eastwood inadvertently delivered in spades, coming off like a sad, old, spaced cowboy, giving the, uh… strong impression, that the GOP is full of crazy elderly folks suffering from senile dementia.

At least they were happy to loudly cheer one on. As Michael Moore wrote at The Daily Beast this morning:

Speaking to Invisible Obama last night, in a performance that seemed to have been written by Timothy Leary and performed by Cheech & Chong, Clint Eastwood was able to drive home to tens of millions of viewers the central message of this year’s Republican National Convention: “We Are Delusional and Detached from Reality. Vote for Us!”

With his cringe-worthy word salad performance on the same level as Sarah Palin’s, someone close to Clint Eastwood should have said “NO” and said it firmly and hung up the phone when the RNC came a callin’. Looking at the evidence of last night’s pathetic televised fiasco—and his loathsome wife and spoiled daughter’s execrable E! network reality show, Mrs. Eastwood & Company—Clint seems to be going the route of Charlton Heston, a once legendary Hollywood star, who now comes off like a cranky, punch-drunk fighter who has taken far too many blows to his noggin.

I’m sure Clint being offered the presidency of the NRA isn’t far behind!

The best part? How NO ONE is talking about Mitt Romney today. They’re all talking about how crazy old Clint Eastwood went on national tee-vee last night and shit in his diaper!

NPR political correspondent Mara Liasson put it succinctly when she described the cut-aways to Ann Romney during Eastwood’s skit as like watching “the mother of the bride listening to a drunken wedding toast.”

The Clint Eastwood memes are proliferating like Tribbles today. You’ve already seen the “Eastwooding” meme, here are a few more:
 
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Watch and weep:
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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08.31.2012
10:26 am
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Eastwooding
08.31.2012
10:18 am
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Like we all knew this wasn’t coming…
 
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Via BuzzFeed

Posted by Tara McGinley
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08.31.2012
10:18 am
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