Here’s some great, candid footage of Grace Jones on the set of the 1986 film Vamp. First there’s an interview in some amazing Egyptian headgear, and then a strangely intimate video of her rehearsing for the role as the two thousand year old vampire Katrina with the film’s director Robert Wenk. I’ve been a huge fan of Ms Jones for a long time, but have to admit I have never seen this film, even though the whole thing is up on YouTube. I will someday, even if it is just for her amazing outfits, and the Keith Haring body art.  Although I get the feeling that you could dress her in random items pulled from a garbage truck and she would still look breathtaking, it’s funny how different Grace comes off in her interviews to her public image - articulate, funny, warm, even slightly goofy. I’d definitely hang with her.
 

 
After the jump, Grace rehearses for a scene in Vamp, plus the scene itself.

Previously on DM:
Keith Haring & Grace Jones: Flesh graffiti and the Queen of the Vampires.

 
Director Nendie Pinto-Duschinsky is currently finishing a documentary on mime and dance legend Lindsay Kemp, which is due for release this summer. Called Lindsay Kemp’s Last Dance, the film has had exclusive access to Kemp’s personal archive and offers unique and highly personal insight into the life and art of the reclusive genius.

Lindsay Kemp, who claims he began life in his mother’s lipstick and shoes, was born in South Shields, England in 1938, and has been a major figure in dance, mime and theatre for over forty years, during which time he starred, choreographed and produced some of the greatest dance productions ever seen. He famously taught David Bowie mime, and collaborated with Kate Bush. As actor he has appeared in Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane and Jubilee; and in Ken Russell’s The Devils and Savage Messiah, he also gave a memorable performance performance in the original version of The Wicker Man. Now Pinto-Duschinsky has filmed Kemp on a tour in Italy, Japan and the UK.

The world’s most famous mime, believing himself to be Queen Elizabeth I travels to Japan to face his own mortality.

What happens when genius is most active in advanced years?

Does an artist’s greatest work hover achingly close to the restraints of their own body?

A unique and captivating feature-length documentary, Lindsay Kemp’s Last Dance is the powerful story of the world’s greatest theatre performer facing his own mortality at 70. The film grew from a childhood meeting between the director of the film and Lindsay Kemp. This turn of fate brought about a friendship that was to take the director on a three year journey to Japan, Italy and the UK to film Lindsay Kemp’s Last Dance.

In contrast to this work and its core meanings, the director has been given access to Lindsay’s personal archive which contains very rare footage spanning his lifetime from his relationship with David Bowie to his work with Kate Bush. His seminal work Flowers, of which no other copy exists, is contained in this archive.

Deeply comical, provocative and emotional, Lindsay’s world onstage and offstage are one seamless act. With his cast of international performers, some of whom are ex-lovers, the score of Carlos Miranda is enhanced by a script in six different languages. Woven into the film are interviews with artists with whom Lindsay has worked. Lindsay comes across as a perfectionist and a seismic personality.

 
Previously on DM

Amazing Home Movie Footage of The Ballet Russes in Australia

 
With thanks to Steven Severin
 

 
If Mirrors Could Speak , a social engineering film from 1976 in which kids are transformed into malevolent clowns to depict various bad personality traits, has appeared on the web in the past. But the high quality of this upload makes it worth another look or a first look if you’ve never seen it before.

Cruel self-assessment is given a new twist as vulnerable grade-schoolers are forced to look into the deep blackness of their own souls only to reach the inevitable conclusion that they are unloved and they will spin out their meaningless years on this drifting rock before dying alone and afraid.”

Also known as Juggalos: The Early Years.
 

 
Seriously, Robert Broadus? Seriously???  Ay yi yi!

 
(via Cynical-C)

 
The next chapter, in which President Reagan introduces “Chairman Moe” of Liberia.

7/2/82 Caught off guard at his 12th press conference by Sarah McClendon’s question about “sex harassment of women” working in government, President Reagan waggles his head and says, “Now, Sarah, just a minute here with the discussion or we’ll be getting an R rating.” Many reporters – Sarah not among them – find this inane quip amusing enough to actually laugh at.

8/2/82 Seeking to convey the Administration’s displeasure with Israel over its attacks on Beirut, the White House points out the difference between a February 1981 photo in which President Reagan is sitting next to Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and laughing, and today’s photo, in which Reagan frowns at him from across a table.

8/11/82 President Reagan tells Time’s Hugh Sidey that he sometimes feels trapped in the White House. “You glance out the window and the people are walking around Pennsylvania Avenue and you say, ‘I could never say I am going to run down to the drugstore and get some magazines,’” he says. “I can’t do that any more.”

8/17/82 Introducing Liberian head of state Samuel Doe, President Reagan says, “Ladies and gentlemen, Chairman Moe of Liberia is our visitor here today, and we’re very proud to have him.”

9/6/82 The Washington Post reports that of President Reagan’s first 72 nominees to the judiciary, 68 are white males.

9/14/82 Defending his support of anti‑abortion legislation, President Reagan says, “I think the fact that children have been prematurely born even down to the three‑month stage and have lived to, the record shows, to grow up and be normal human beings, that ought to be enough for all of us.” Later, aide Peter Roussel acknowledges that the record shows nothing of the kind: the youngest surviving fetus was four‑and‑a‑half months old. (A three‑month‑old fetus is, at most, three‑and‑a‑half inches long.) Was Reagan aware of this? “He knew,” says Roussel, “but he said three instead of four and a half.”

9/30/82 Two days after President Reagan commits the Marines to an indefinite stay in Lebanon, David L. Reagan (no relation) becomes the first Marine to be killed in the conflict.

10/4/82 President Reagan suggests – and not, by any means, for the first time – that since he sees big help wanted sections in the Sunday papers, unemployment must be caused by a lot of lazy people who’d just rather not work.

10/4/82 Addressing an Ohio veteran’s group, President Reagan discusses plans to strengthen three military divisions in Western Europe, “two of which are in Geneva, and one, I believe, still in Switzerland.”

10/8/82 The unemployment rate hits 10.1%, the highest in 42 years. This does not overly concern President Reagan, who soon puts it in perspective. “Just remember,” he says, “for every person who is out of work, there are nine of us with jobs.”

All entries are excerpted from the “Reagan Centennial Edition” of my 1989 book The Clothes Have No Emperor, available here as an enhanced eBook. More to come.

 
“Look out! Here comes the Spider-Man…” BTW, sorry in advance.

Oh, and there’s an acapella version here.
 

 
(via Certified Bullshit Technician)

 
Folks might remember a post I did last year on Nujabes’ “Luv (Sic) Pt. 2” slow motion video shot in Japan and directed by Sou Otsukis. Well, Otsukis’ slowmo madness is back, and this time “Luv (Sic) Pt. 2” takes place in Cambodia. It’s really worth a watch. 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Goofy People Running in Slow Motion

(via Nerdcore)

Above, Pat Toomey says it’s not the size…
 
Senator Pat Toomey, that rotten shit who is the new Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, tells the CPAC attendees his political philosophy in a form that they can all understand, that of a simple children’s story. Amazing. How does a scoundrel like this get elected to the Senate in a state so full of poor and working class people??? The man clearly hates the poor, they’re just “useless eaters” to him and his GOP buddies. Toomey even puts Rick Santorum in perspective! The sight of Toomey turns my stomach. He’s anti-gay, anti-poor, anti-healthcare reform, pro-gun, says global warming is nonsense, was against the Bush expansion of Medicare prescription benefits when he was a congressman and thinks that the economic meltdown should have been allowed to continue to the bitter end! (Oddly, Toomey supported DADT repeal. Go figure).

If teabagger Toomey—who should immediately stop dying his hair—had his druthers he would deregulate Wall Street and put a doctor who performs a legal abortion in prison, but when it comes to politics, he’s all for baby-talking to his base of buffoons. CPAC is going to be quite a show this year. These fucks are just tuning up the orchestra before unleashing a full-on symphony of hate. Non-haters need not apply to speak at CPAC. Her reasons are her reasons, but I have to say that Sarah Palin looks especially canny by avoiding this cavalcade of asshats.

Bonus: If you really want to make yourself retch, check out the video of Newt Gingrich’s CPAC entrance to the sounds of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” What a tacky little man. You have to appreciate the brain-dead embrace of this guy by Christian conservatives. Newt Gingrich, a man who left his wife while she was battling cancer for a much hotter, younger woman, treated like a rock star by these people and not a moral pariah, which would be appropriate (the way John Edwards was shunned by Democrats). Extraordinary stuff.
 

 
There’s currently a lot of buzz around the electronic artist James Blake in the UK. In January he came runner up in the BBC’s Sound of 2011 poll, and last week he released his self-titled debut album on Atlas records. Having made a name for himself with his forward-thinking dubstep productions on the labels Hessle Audio and R&S, he has gone in a very different direction on James Blake.

Though some of the dub-style production tropes remain, the sound is much more folk influenced, with some of the tracks featuring just Blake on vocals with spare piano accompaniment. This is most definitely not a dancefloor record, it’s much more of a post-club album, with shades of Anthony Hegarty, John Martyn and even Laurie Anderson. It’s a definite shoe-in for a Mercury Music Prize nomination, and it’s the kind of worthy project the judges love to reward. But is it any good?
 

 
Some of the production on James Blake is stunning, but unfortunately this over shadows the actual songs, that to these ears could have done with a lot of refining and a lot less meandering. For a dubstep producer to make a move away from instrumental bin-shakers it would be useful to have a few more songs of the standard of “Limit To Your Love” or “The Wilhelm Scream” - I find what I am drawn to more is the intricate production of “I Never Learned To Share” or “To Care (Like You)”, which are hugely impressive without being particularly engaging. There is a sense that this is mood music rather than pop, and as such it easily begins to fade into the background.

A lot of the press buzz around Blake’s album is about dubstep “growing up”, which is misleading. Dubstep may be a cornerstone of his career, but on this album it sounds more like a footnote, or a production flavor used to shade a very different palate. Where this record seems more aimed at is the gap left in the market by Radiohead being on hiatus or, dare I say it, the coffee table. The album is definitely interesting, but it’s something I want to like more than I actually like. One day when I am in a particular mood I am sure it will hit the perfect spot, but til then, I will continue to listen to “CMYK” instead.

You can hear James Blake in full here, streaming on the Dutch website 3VOOR12.

James Blake is currently available on import in the States via Amazon.

Thanks to Kelvin Brown for the link.

 
To celebrate Bertolt Brecht’s birthday, here is David Bowie in the BBC production of Brecht’s play Baal, from 1982. It was directed by Alan Clarke, the talent behind such controversial TV dramas as Scum with a young Ray Winstone, Made in Britain, with Tim Roth, and Elephant.

Baal was Brecht’s first full-length play, written in 1918, and it tells the story of a traveling musician / poet, who seduces and destroys with callous indifference.

Bowie is excellent as Baal and the five songs he sings in this production were co-produced with Tony Visconti, and later released as the EP David Bowie in Bertolt Brecht’s Baal.
 

 
More of ‘Baal’ starring David Bowie, after the jump…