George C. Scott emotionally weighs-in on the Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Episodes I-VI) Blu-ray box set.
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Darth Vader’s ‘United States of Noooooooooooooo!’
(via Cynical-C)
Maverick Salt Lake City-based indie filmmaker Trent Harris (who made the quirky cult favorite Reuben & Ed with Crispin Glover and Howard Hesseman) was working as a cameraman at a local TV station in 1979 when he met Richard LaVon Griffiths, AKA “Groovin’ Gary” (Griffiths’ CB radio handle). Harris was in the parking lot testing out a new video camera that the station had just bought and “Groovin’ Gary” was taking pictures of the station’s news helicopter. Their meeting, caught on videotape, would prove to be a fateful encounter for both men.
As he is initially revealed in the film, “Groovin’ Gary” seems to be a Jeff Spicoli-esque, late 70s stoner-type. He’s even got blond “feathered” hair. Gary is a bit of a ham-bone and describes himself as Beaver, Utah’s answer to Rich Little. He (somewhat inexplicably) seems to see his impromptu time on camera as an unexpected showbiz “break.” After doing some terrible impressions of John Wayne and other celebrities, he takes Harris over to his car and shows him his AM/FM stereo 8-track tape player—of which he’s very proud—and the engravings of Farrah Fawcett and Olivia Newton-John he’s had put on the windows. It’s banal, yet weirdly compelling.
“Groovin’ Gary” then invites Harris (via letter) to a talent show he’s producing at a high school in Beaver. A pageant that Gary himself will perform in. In drag. As his alter-ego “Olivia Newton-Dong.” He suggests in a letter that Harris might want to get to the local mortuary (?) at 8A.M. to shoot his hair and make-uo session.
During the make-up application (done by the mortician), he discusses his profound love of Olivia Newton-John. Even in full drag, he somehow does not come across as gay, more like someone who thought that they were about to do something just totally hilarious.
We see the talent show itself, with some truly soggy “talents” on display. Then “Olivia” is onstage and it’s weird, ending with a strange-looking masked man picking up Gary and carrying him offstage. To say that it’s a riveting performance is an understatement. Keep in mind as you watch this, that he orchestrated the entire talent show just so he could do this!
Afterwards “Groovin’ Gary’ happily recaps the event with Harris in his car. Harris drives off. Then the film cuts back to Gary, out of drag, doing a shitty Barry Manilow impression from earlier in the talent show. That’s how it ends.
The video below is out of sync, but it didn’t bother me that much.
Two years later, in 1981, Trent Harris directed a “dramatic” remake of the first video with a young Sean Penn playing the goofy kid from Beaver, Utah. There is an ending now, in the scripted version—based on what really happened or not, I have no idea—of “Groovin Gary” coming to the suicidal realization that perhaps his drag performance getting on TV would not be the best thing for his life in a small Mormon town and he tries to talk the Harris character out of showing it. The second film was made, apparently, for $100, and often recreated the scenes from the original video (Harris does not play himself here).
It’s not like this is the greatest thing you’ll ever see, but it is fascinating to see a pre-fame Sean Penn performing in drag (the short was made the same year Penn appeared in Taps). It seems clear that Penn picked up some tricks for his actor’s repertoire here that went right into his infamous character from Fast Times at Ridgemont High the following year. In many ways, this short was just a dry run for “Jeff Spicoli” and the next film in The Beaver Trilogy starring Crispin Glover.
After the jump, the final installment of The Beaver Trilogy starring Crispin Glover…
“Chaque jour une vie nouvelle” or “A New Life Everyday” claimed David Bowie’s advert for Vittel Water back in 2003. The ad was tied-in to the release of Bowie’s Reality album, and had the rock god sharing a house with his stage alter egos - including Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke, the Scary Monsters Clown and the Diamond Dog.
Sad to hear that pioneering underground filmmaker George Kuchar has died at the age of 69 in San Francisco. Kuchar’s high camp films, sometimes made with his twin brother, Mike, included Corruption Of The Damned, Hold Me While I’m Naked and nearly 200 other shapeless, formless weirdo films. Kuchar taught at the San Francisco Art Institute since 1971. The Kuchar Brothers were the subject of Jennifer M. Kroot’s delightful documentary, It Came From Kuchar (which you can watch on Netflix VOD).
Bradford Nordeen, curator of the Dirty Looks queer film series, wrote about George Kuchar for indieWIRE:
George Kuchar was a man of many careers. He began making 8mm films at the age of twelve, collaborations with his twin brother, Mike, on a camera gifted from their parents. These early works are sensational remakes of the movies that played in their local Bronx theaters. Even in their adolescence, the twins showed an alarming understanding of cinematic conventions, with special respect paid to woman’s pictures (George’s fave) and swords and sandals epics (Mike’s). Fusing toilet humor with wrenching pathos, these early films were profoundly camp and made a huge impact on a young John Waters. “The Kuchar borthers,” Waters would later explain in the introduction to George and Mike’s illustrated memoirs, “Reflections in a Cinematic Cesspool,” “gave me the self confidence to believe in my own tawdry vision.” Throughout his early career, George worked by day in commercial arts, an industry he described as “that Midtown Manhattan world of angst and ulcers.”
By the mid-sixties, however, the Kuchars were discovered by the burgeoning Underground Film movement and heralded by Jonas Mekas in his Village Voice column and in the magazine Film Culture. In the latter publication, George’s writings appeared alongside prominent figures like Andrew Sarris, Jack Smith and Gregory Markopoulos. After accepting an invitation to teach a summer course at San Francisco Art Institute in the early 1970s, George met Curt McDowell, a student-then-lover, who campaigned to secure a permanent faculty position for George, where he would teach for the remainder of his life. The duo collaborated on many films, including George’s “The Devil’s Cleavage” and McDowell’s experimental/horror/porno, “Thundercrack!,” where George also stars - opposite his character’s love interest, a gorilla.
George changed with the times, influencing a whole new generation when he embraced consumer grade video. He humorously described himself as “a traitor to his medium [film],” but George galvanized the video form with his signature gusto, yielding dozens of video diaries (most renowned were “The Weather Diaries,” in which George documented seasonal – as well as emotional – storms in Oklahoma). Also a skilled visual artist, George worked alongside leading graphic artists like Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith, exhibiting internationally. Recent venues included [ 2 nd floor projects ] in San Francisco, Mulherin + Pollard in New York and ADA Gallery in Virginia.
George inspired four decades of SFAI graduates, who played cast and crew to a yearly creature feature course, making movies like “The Fury of Frau Frankenstein” and “Jewel of Jeopardy.” George was cherished, by his SFAI students and international audiences alike, for his wild humor, exuberant spirit and intuitive production ethic; if something didn’t work in a “picture” (as George referred to all his works), he merely changed the story to suit the circumstance. This approach led to his magnum opus, “Hold Me While I’m Naked,” 1966 an early solo venture which became a film about isolation and filmmaking when regular actress Donna Kerness abandoned the project. The result was named one of the 100 best films of the 20th Century by the Village Voice. Truly one of the most visionary artists of his time, George’s impact on six decades of film, visual art and popular culture is immeasurable.
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Nothing is rare: George Kuchar’s 1966 underground masterpiece, ‘Hold Me While I’m Naked’
Marijuana is usually comically associated with “the munchies” and junk food binging, but a new study from France indicates something researchers weren’t expecting to find: Potheads tend to be skinnier than non-stoners. Via The Week:
What did the study find?
Dr. Yann Le Strat, a psychiatrist at France’s Louis-Mourier Hospital, looked at data from two studies of U.S. adults from the early 2000s and noted the weight differences between those who used cannabis and those who didn’t. In both studies, cannabis users had relatively low rates of obesity: 14.3 and 17.2 percent. American adults who didn’t use cannabis had obesity rates of 22 and 25.3 percent.Is this what researchers expected?
Nope. “Cannabis is supposed to increase appetite,” says Le Strat. “So we hypothesized that cannabis users would be more likely to have higher weight than non-users and be more likely to be obese.” Marijuana activist Michelle Aldrich isn’t all that surprised. “It’s true,” she says. “I don’t know too many fat marijuana smokers.”What’s causing this phenomenon?
“There could be many other reasons why pot smokers have less obesity,” says dietitian Andrea Giancoli. “Maybe they’re inclined to exercise more, be outdoors more, eat more fruits and vegetables.” Aldrich thinks it could be related to the body’s endocannabinoid system — a group of receptors, primarily in the brain, that respond to compounds in marijuana. But the bottom line is that the exact mechanism responsible for this correlation remains a mystery — for now.
One obvious thing I’m not seeing here is that many potheads don’t drink alcohol or don’t drink that much of it.
But if this isn’t reason enough to toke up, one of the oldest people who ever lived credited the chronic for her longevity.
PJ Harvey has won Britain’s 2011 Mercury Prize for her album Let England Shake, which also happens be one of my favorite favorite albums of the year.
Here’s a clip of PJ performing “The Words That Maketh Murder” at the awards ceremony
Harvey accepts her award after the jump…
“Tea Party Zombies Must Die” is a new first-person shooter game from StarvingEyes Advergaming, a company set up to make viral Internet games. Looks like they’ve got a winner in that department with this in-house produced game:
DON’T GET TEA-BAGGED! The Tea Party zombies are walking the streets of America. Grab your weapons and bash their rotten brains to bits! Destroy zombie Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Glenn Beck, the Koch Brothers, and many more!
Apparently the way this works is that the shooter, er, player, blasts their way into the Fox News studio encountering “Factory-made Blonde Fox News Barbie Who Has Never Had a Problem in Her Life Zombie” and then moves through the levels encountering the “Koch industries Koch Whore lobbyist pig zombie,” “Generic Pissed Off Old White Guy Zombie,” the “Pissed Off Stupid White Trash Redneck Birther Zombie” and the “Climate Change Denying Zombie.”
Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Brit Hume, Mike Huckabee and the ever hapless Rick Santorum also provide “undead” fodder for the game.
Cue Fox News making a huge controversy over this, and blaming Obama for it somehow…
Australian TV gameshow The Gruen Transfer brings together competing advertising agencies and pits them against each other in an almost American Idol-type scenario. A segment called “The Pitch” gives them a subject like “Child labor should come back” or a similarly controversial topic and asks them to come up with a 30-second spot meant to promote it. A panel of advertising industry experts judges the ads.
In the four years of the program, the only subject they had agencies actually decline to compete on was “Banning religion is a good idea.”
However, two agencies took the challenge and the results were pretty amazing (especially the first one, IMHO). Can you imagine something like this on American TV???
