One of my favorite things—literally one of my very, very favorite things in life—is the absolutely genius Canadian comedy series, The Trailer Park Boys.

It’s a masterpiece. By the time I discovered the show—obviously 99% of Canadian television never makes it south—it had already reached the end of its seven series run on the Showcase network in 2007. My wife and I “binge-watched” the entire thing in like two weeks, watching as many as five of them in a row some nights. It was comedy crack, we couldn’t get enough.

When we got to the last one, I told her that I felt like I wanted to weep. She admitted to feeling the same way. It was like we’d lost old friends. It massively sucked not to have any more episodes of The Trailer Park Boys.

Things spiraled out of control from there…

Seriously, though, a year later at about 6pm on a night that we were having a dinner party, a friend of mine wrote to ask if I’d heard about “Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys,” the Trailer Park Boys 2008 Christmas special. We couldn’t scoot our guests’ asses out the door fast enough!

If you don’t know about The Trailer Park Boys, don’t feel unhip, because as we all know, there is an invisible forcefield around Canada that prevents most of her would-be cultural exports from getting out. Furthermore, consider yourself lucky—oh, that I would get to watch the whole thing again with fresh eyes. Now is a great time to discover The Trailer Park Boys as they’ve recently announced that they’re doing a new series (it’s already at the rough cut stage, apparently) which will be available at their SwearNet website. You can binge-watch the entire series (it’s on Netflix’s VOD) and then look forward to the new material. There’s even a new Trailer Park Boys film on the way, although frankly I’ve found their films not nearly as good as the TV series.

Speaking of long-form Trailer Park Boys, I noticed yesterday that the original low-budget 1999 feature-length “pilot” has been posted on YouTube. This is actually the very first TPB thing that we watched and it’s a good place to start, with a few caveats.

The film is shot in the “mockumentary” style and we meet coarser, less-lovable incarnations of Ricky and Julian. Julian has been told by a cheap psychic that he is about to die, and so he hires a documentary crew to follow him around so that the film made after his death will deter others from a life of crime.

Already, Julian’s trademark trope of ALWAYS having a drink in his hand makes its appearance, but he also frequently snorts coke off the back of his wrist, something that never happens in the TV version. Another not-so lovable plot line involves the boys’ ill-fated pet-killing-business (going by some of the YouTube comments, this seems to seriously piss off a lot of people who are seeing the 1999 film after they’ve watched the series. As someone with three pets who sleep in the bed, trust me, the “I’m not going to kill it, you kill it!” scene is fucking hilarious). The Bubbles character was not in the original feature, and without his “conscience” to temper the Boys’ out-of-control antics, this is the darkest display of the incompetent macho id as the series ever got.

I don’t want to oversell this. If the show is a 10/10, a perfect cut diamond of television comedy (and it most certainly is) then this is maybe a 6.5. If you love the show, you absolutely have to watch it, it’s a MUST, but be advised that it starts strong but starts to flag at a certain point. It does end strong, so I always tell people to maybe multi-task when they get to the slower parts and then when it picks up again, start to pay attention.
 

 
PS: The Trailer Park Boys are going to be making rare live appearances in Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Portland and Chicago starting on the 18th. More information on SwearNet.

 
1956 was a good year for Elvis Presley. He was young, good-looking, could sing, and wasn’t yet binging on those peanut butter, banana and bacon Dagwood sandwiches he loved so much. He had also moved from Sun Records to RCA Victor, where he had signed a then record-breaking $35,000 contract.

On January 28th, “Elvis the Pelvis” made his first screamtastic television appearance on Stage Show. This was quickly followed by hip-shaking performances on The Milton Berle Show, the The Steve Allen Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show.

By March he was in talks to make a movie, which led directly to a series of screen tests at Paramount Studios. In the first, Elvis performed a scene from William Inge’s play The Girls of Summer. According to the biography Down at the End of Lonely Street: Life and Death of Elvis Presley, his drama coach, Charlotte Clary described the singer thusly: 

“Now that is a natural born actor.”

The second screen test was for a supporting role in the Burt Lancaster movie, The Rainmaker. According to the film’s screenwriter, Presley only showed the acting ability of “the lead in a high school play.”

Then came Presley’s third screen test, where the King lip-synched to “Blue Suede Shoes” in front of a set of rather shiny curtains. It was a wild audition, with Elvis giving his trademark gyrations and sneer. This time, Weiss was bowled over by Presley’s performance and later said:

“The transformation was incredible…electricity bounced off the walls. ... [It was] like an earthquake”

The studio was similarly all shook up and offered Presley a three-picture deal on the spot, with an option to make three further films. Though he was not offered the role in The Rainmaker (that went to Earl Holliman), the “Blue Suede Shoes” screen test did lead to Elvis’ first movie Love Me Tender. Two weeks after his audition for Paramount, Presley had his first million selling single, “Heartbreak Hotel.”
 

 
I’ve always had a mild fascination with the art of plastic surgery. I’ve never had any cosmetic plastic surgery myself, but I’ve got nothing against someone who has if it makes that person feel better about themselves. Extreme plastic surgery—Jocelyn Wildenstein-level surgical augmentation—is a whole other story, but then again, if that’s what makes her happy, who I am to say… anything?

But what I really find interesting about these “vintage” 1930s nose jobs is how well they’re done. Apparently back then, plastic surgeons were simply better. Instead of carving out the perfect little “one size fits all” Hollywood-approved button nose for everyone, the surgeons gave their patients noses that fit their faces.

 

 
Via Retronaut

 
Does Austin really need another film festival? We must have well over a dozen in this town, including the high-profile Fantastic Fest and The Austin Film Festival. Is it possible to O.D. on movies? Nah. If you love cinema as much as I do, there’s no such thing as too much. But my loyalty to the flickering image will be put to the test next month when Austin hosts a brand new film event called Forever Fest, a celebration of “chick flicks.” Am I up for this one? And what exactly is it?

If you’re a lady who loves DIRTY DANCING, or a woman who’s seen SIXTEEN CANDLES a thousand times, or a guy who can’t stop quoting CLUELESS, welcome to the weekend of your dreams. Forever Fest is guaranteed to be more thrilling than your first kiss, more fun than your first co-ed party and more memorable than your senior year. It’s a festival that welcomes your inner teen while appreciating the fact that some things, like movies and people, just get better with age.

Forever Fest is the creation of Brandy Fons and Sarah Pitre. Sarah Pitre is the lead programmer of films for the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and hosts Girlie Night, a monthly series dedicated to slumber party favorites.  She is also the founder of ForeverYoungAdult.com, a website devoted to “YA fans who are a little less Y and a bit more A.”  Brandy Fons is the co-owner of Fons PR- a film and entertainment company based in Austin that oversees multiple films festivals and studio clients in addition to the legendary Alamo Drafthouse and their family of companies. Through her work in the Austin festival scene, celebrating a diverse spectrum of interests in film, gaming, and TV, she realized there wasn’t a festival opportunity dedicated to the chick flicks she loved.  Like puzzle pieces of magic, these two ladies were ready to unite on the day that Brandy Fons approached Sarah Pitre with the idea to establish a female-focused film festival.

I know Brandy Fons well from her dynamic presence at the past four Fantastic Fests I’ve attended. She manages to keep things moving smoothly at one of the most raucous film gatherings on the planet. Darting through the throngs of geeks and fanboys, Brandy is a blast of yin energy that lifts some of the yang a few inches above the primordial ooze.

When I got wind of Brandy’s new project devoted to romantic comedies and girly-pop I wanted to find out more. Shifting from the hard-core exploitation, sci-fi freakiness, splatter and martial arts mayhem of Fantastic Fest to John Hughes movies and pajama parties is a tonal shift as radical as Miley Cyrus going from teenyboppin’ to twerkin’.

In my talk with Brandy and her collaborator Sarah Pitre, I was struck by how completely devoted they were to a genre of film I knew very little about….or knew about and didn’t much care about. Why were two adult women willing to spend so much energy and money on films that most film snobs consider silly and shallow? Then I started thinking about a few of my favorite films and shit there were some movies that would fit right into Forever Fest’s programming. Valley Girl, Say Anything, About a Boy, Before Sunrise, The Sure Thing and even some of my beloved Truffaut, Rohmer and Bollywood flicks would be at home in FF’s template. Maybe not Sid And Nancy and The Honeymoon Killers, but damned if I didn’t have at least a handful of chick flicks in my list of guilty pleasures. Fuck art, let’s romance!

Brandy and Sarah are going to get this fest up and running whether or not their Kickstarter campaign meets its goal. They’re putting their money where their hearts are and that’s pretty fucking cool. For tickets and more info about Forever Fest click here. It runs from November first through the third.

The ladies get positively dreamy-eyed when they talk about their festival.
 

 
Straight from Japan, here’s some deliberate “camel toe” underwear to fulfill all your camel toe wearin’ needs. Why? I don’t know. Just go with it.

Anyway, I can’t find these anywhere online to purchase, but I guess you could probably just make a pair on your own (if this is what floats your boat). Doesn’t look too difficult.

Via WFMU

 
In 1971, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore toured Australia with their new show Behind the Fridge. It was so successful that they turned part of the show into a TV special, which was recorded in Melbourne in November of the same year. It was believed the tapes of this show had been lost, but they were discovered, almost a decade ago, in “some rarely-consulted corner of an Australian television archive.” These “lost tapes” were then packaged together and shown on Australian and British TV.

Pete and Dud: The Lost Tapes has been described as “a hugely enjoyable collection of what was to all intents and purposes new material from a couple of comedy legends,” which is true enough. Though, I might add that some of the comedy has dated slightly, and my own personal favorite (the brilliant and disturbing “Taxi Driver” sketch) was not included in the TV special. These minor quibbles aside, Pete and Dud: The Lost Tapes is an impressive and most agreeable piece of comedy history.
 

 
Bonus selections from ‘Behind The Fridge’ and in color too…after the jump!

 
If you’re a regular Dangerous Minds’ reader than you most likely know how much I hate the newly-released CBGB movie. It makes Tommy Wiseau’s The Room look like Citizen Kane. Over the weekend CBGB sold a miserable $4000 worth of tickets in New York City, the one place where the movie might have had an audience. That translates to less than 300 attendees (tickets are $14).. Dire. The upside: the film will have negligible impact on the way the club is perceived by future generations. Unless, of course, it finds an audience on Netflix. There it could turn into the next Birdemic.

For a grittier and more honest view of the early days at CBGB, check out Ivan Kral and Amos Poe’s 1976 cinéma vérité, low-budget (but beautifully shot) The Blank Generation. With its post-dubbed sound and chainsaw editing, the movie doesn’t work as a strait-on, conventional documentary but it does capture some important rock and roll history, a time when rock was starting to feel dangerous again.

And for those of you who think I’ve got it in for the hacks who made the new CBGB movie, you’re right. I do. For several years in the 70s, CBGB was my church and I get upset, real fucking upset, when people piss in the holy water.

The Blank Generation with

  Richard Hell
  Patti Smith Group
  Television
  Ramones
  The Heartbreakers
  Talking Heads
  Blondie
  Harry Toledo
  Marbles
  Tuff Darts
  Wayne County
  The Miamis
  New York Dolls
  The Shirts
 

 
Here we have a fascinating artifact from an unquestionably fascinating artist, Kim Gordon. It’s an 11-minute video called “Making the Nature Scene” that pretty much perfectly blends music, video, and text to create a kind of high-minded no-wave manifesto dedicated to the pressing subject of, well, using video in nightclubs.

Consisting of little more than a handful of slow pans across the fabled Danceteria, the entropic tinkling of experimental and pop music, and some hastily penned video text, “Making the Nature Scene” honestly looks like it was thrown together in little more than a weekend. The quasi-Ballardian text, which is also highly Warhol-influenced (and indeed, mentions Warhol twice), frequently confuses “its” and “it’s” and generally does great violence to apostrophes, something that will surely drive Richard up the wall.

In a more serious vein, the sheer chilliness of it all is a sobering reminder of how “cool” things were in the early 1980s. All that concentrated energy and thought to defend the validity of using video…. we have it better now. Art and creativity are no longer so sequestered; it’s hard to imagine that a young person today with any kind of resources wouldn’t be able to find or justify this or that injection of anarchic expression in whatsoever context he or she desired, whether it be a cheerleading session, a haystack, a magnet board, a collection of 1940s postcards, or an expanse in a Home Depot. You’ll find it all on Vine, right?

We leave you with a brief reminiscence from Kim Gordon about Danceteria and then, the video itself:
 

Mike Gira, from the Swans was someone I knew from art school and we used to hang out with him. I remember hanging out with him at this club Danceteria and Madonna was around. She was sort of sitting on his lap kissing him but then looking around the room for her next move Or whatever… But when her first record came out we thought it was cool because it was such minimal dance music and it was sort of lo fi.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Happy Birthday Kim Gordon
Unedited interview with Kim Gordon from 1988
Literary Youth: Kim Gordon to publish two books, make cameo on HBO’s ‘Girls’

 
My loathing of Glenn Danzig knows no bounds. He’s a dweebie power-mad troll who spends his life over-compensating for the fact that he’s no taller than a fire hydrant and just about as intelligent.

In 2011 he tried to incite a riot at Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin and ended up looking like a total asswipe.

This time, the prick tried to get fans in Florida to beat up some guy in the crowd shooting a video. As much as I dislike people holding up cameras in front of my line of vision at concerts, no one deserves to be beaten up for it.

Danzig’s a real tough guy when he’s on the stage, but not so tough offstage. Remember when Glenn got this asskicking?.

I guess the guy who took this video survived the lynch mob. He got it up on YouTube.
 

Fun Fun Fun Fest 2011, the year Danzig tried and failed to incite a riot. (This is not the guy who shot the video.) Photo: Mirgun Akyavas.
 

 
Via Brooklyn Vegan.

 
John Waters wants to give you a ride in his car. Come on, he says, hop in the front and I’ll give you the tour.

Well, what have you got lose? It’s raining out, the car’s warm, John’s got smokes, and what’s that he’s saying?

“The only thing I want to be is a negative role model for a whole new generation of bored youth.”

You know all about being bored, and you never did get those cha-cha heels for Christmas, did you?

But remember what your mother said about getting in cars with strangers?

Screw mom! I know John. He’s got fun in his eyes. He’s got a pencil-thin mustache. He’s the Pope of Trash, and he’s gotta car with which he’s gonna show me all the hot spots of “Charm City.” 

In this clip Waters takes a news crew around Baltimore (“Charm City”!) to promote his scratch ‘n’ sniff feature film Polyester in 1981, with a visit to Edith Massey and a few blessings from Divine.

Today, Waters is still working as hard but he no longer smokes, and watches what he eats. All the hard work has brought him three apartments across America-one in ‘Charm City,’ another in San Francisco and a pad in New York’s West Village. He spends his spare time hanging out in bars, reading books, going to film festivals, and collecting what he terms, “angry art.” (One recent purchase was a “deadly” canvas covered in mold.)

So now you know. And next time John stops to offer you a lift, hop in the car!
 

 
Double bonus, the “banned” ‘Shock Value’ trailer and interview, after the jump…