Marlon Brando performing a Tahitian dance with his beautiful wife Tarita Teriipaia on French TV in 1967. The event was a fundraiser for UNICEF.
 

 
As someone who has seen a hell of a lot of documentaries on Frank Zappa, I’d have to say that this 1971 Dutch TV doc is probably the very best. Featuring Frank composing, puttering around the house with Gail and babies Moon and Dweezil, plus interviews with various members of the GTOs. We also see Frank and Gail go out for burritos in Los Angeles, Miss Lucy tells an anecdote about pissing on Jeff Beck’s chest and Zappa airs his views on “the revolution” (“It’s a matter of infiltration.”) and why he doesn’t want to be the President, but has thought about it. There is a less savory section where Zappa discusses giving VD to his wife in a very matter of fact way….

With some shit-hot concert footage from the Flo & Eddie incarnation of the Mothers, shot at the Fillmore West, Nov 6 1970. This VPRO documentary was directed by Roelof Kiers.
 

 
LA Curbed put together this wonderful video of famed modern architect John Launter’s sexy architectural designs as in Hollywood for his 100th birthday.
 

Mike Saputo’s poster design for this year’s Fantastic Fest.
 
I’m convinced there’s no better city in the world to be a movie fan than Austin, Texas. Add this to our bragging rights:

Beverly Hills, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library is partnering with the Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse theater chain to archive the company’s growing collection of original film posters designed by contemporary graphic artists. The first group of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Mondo posters arriving at the Herrick will include the latest print, a poster for the classic horror film “Frankenstein” (1931), created by Drew Struzan.

The Alamo Drafthouse began producing limited-edition silkscreen posters in 2003. Mondo, the company’s art boutique, now produces more than 120 posters annually, and through it prominent artists such as Martin Ansin, Shepard Fairey, Olly Moss, Tyler Stout and Ken Taylor are commissioned to create new art for classic films, as well as alternative posters for contemporary movies such as “Inglourious Basterds,” “True Grit” and “Thor.”

“We are always seeking out the unusual, and the Mondo collection certainly fits the bill,” said the Academy’s graphic arts librarian, Anne Coco. “We are looking forward to working with the Alamo Drafthouse to ensure that its contribution to the art of movie posters will be around for future generations to appreciate.”

This ongoing gift from the Alamo Drafthouse will be housed along with the Herrick’s existing collection of more than 38,000 movie posters. The posters in the library’s collection are stored in climate-controlled vaults, and are scanned and entered into the library’s online catalog, where they can be viewed by the public.

“We’re extremely grateful to the Academy for its interest in archiving Mondo’s poster collection,” said Mondo Creative Director Justin Ishmael. “We’re fans of movie art, first and foremost, and to have our artists’ work archived alongside some of the classics of movie poster art is an incredible honor.”

The Margaret Herrick Library poster collection includes a wide range of works created by noted graphic artists, such as the Stenberg brothers’ constructivist poster for “Man with a Movie Camera” and Wiktor Gorka’s arresting poster for the Polish release of “Cabaret.” The library also holds all of the film posters designed by Saul Bass, including his groundbreaking key art for “The Man with the Golden Arm.”

The Austin Film Festival and Fantastic Fest are coming up in the next few months and Dangerous Minds will be there.

Check out some of the stunning movie posters at Mondo’s website.

Here’s a taste:
 

Shepard Fairey
 

Jesse Philips

 
Along with Dangerous Minds, it’s Harry Dean Stanton’s birthday. Hard to believe that he’s 85 years old.

Here’s an amusing and rare clip of Harry in A Fistful Of Dollars.

When A Fistful Of Dollars was aired on the ABC Sunday Night Movie in 1977 network execs felt a prologue needed to be shot to give Clint Eastwood’s character less of an amoral edge. They wanted there to be some clearly defined motivation for the carnage that followed in Sergio Leone’s existential western. Thus, they hired director Monte Hellman (Two Lane Blacktop) to create this intro with Stanton (who appears nowhere else in the movie) and a stand-in for Eastwood.

Neither Leone or Eastwood had anything to do with this scene. The reaction shots of Eastwood were inserted using footage from other scenes in the film. This results in some unintended humor.
 

 
There seems to be some confusion: This October will see the release of The Thing, which is, apparently, a prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing. If that’s the case, then I’ll save my dollars as I know the ending - everyone is killed except an Alaskan Malamute that escapes (after a disastrous helicopter chase) and infects Kurt Russell’s science station with an alien life form.

If it’s a remake, well - why bother?

John Carpenter’s The Thing was a remake of Howard Hawks’ classic 1951 film The Thing From Another World.

Hawks’s original was an unforgettable classic, an adaption of John Wood Campbell, Jr.‘s fanastic short story, “Who Goes There?” - and is one of the greatest science fiction movies of the 1950s (along with Them!, Inavders from Mars and Invasion of the Body Snatchers).

As for Carpenter’s remake, I thought it one of the best films of 1982 - it reinvented the original, gave it a dark, terrifying twist, and had incredible special effects by Rob Bottin (and Stan Winston).

So now, here’s a new version, which leaves me thinking “O, FFS,” as it again confirms Hollywood’s bankruptcy of ideas , and the unwillingness or inability to invest in new talent, new ideas, and new scripts. But make your own mind up - here’s the trailer and the official synopsis:

Antarctica: an extraordinary continent of awesome beauty.  It is also home to an isolated outpost where a discovery full of scientific possibility becomes a mission of survival when an alien is unearthed by a crew of international scientists.  The shape-shifting creature, accidentally unleashed at this marooned colony, has the ability to turn itself into a perfect replica of any living being.  It can look just like you or me, but inside, it remains inhuman.  In the thriller The Thing, paranoia spreads like an epidemic among a group of researchers as they’re infected, one by one, by a mystery from another planet.
Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has traveled to the desolate region for the expedition of her lifetime.  Joining a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, she discovers an organism that seems to have died in the crash eons ago.  But it is about to wake up.

When a simple experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate must join the crew’s pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing them off one at a time.  And in this vast, intense land, a parasite that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish.

 
Here’s a bunch of clips of amazing people doing exceptional things in front of other very lucky people which I curated for our pals at Network Awesome, many of which have turned up in previous blog posts here on Dangerous Minds. Probably the first of many to come ! Special thanks to Shannon Fields, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Dave Madden and Eddie Ruscha.
 
Hamlet Gonashvili - Gogov Shavtvalav

Cutty Ranks - Sleng Teng Riddim

George Harrison - Wah-Wah

Rimpa Siva - Tabla Solo Calcutta 1997 Part 6

John Cage - Excerpt from “Good Morning Mr. Orwell”

Wolfgang Dauner & Et Cetera - Raga

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Dino’s Song

Judee Sill -The Kiss

Yes - And You And I

Nara Leão - Camisa Amarela

Tim Buckley - I Woke Up

The Carpenters - Ticket To Ride

Turkmenian shredding

Tony Oxley - Combination

Derdiyoklar Ikilisi - 1984 Show
 

 
Originally posted on 03/30/11

 
Belladonna of Sadness (Kanashimi no Belladonna in the original Japanese) is an unusual art house Anime film made in 1973 and directed by Eiichi Yamamoto.

It was unusual on several counts: First off, it was an X-rated erotic Fantasia-esque feature length animation produced by by Mushi Production. Mushi Pro is the studio responsible for classic childrens fare like Astroboy and Kimba the White Lion. It’s easy to make the case that Osamu Tezuka, the company’s founder, should be regarded as the Walt Disney of Japan. In fact, it was Tezuka’s wide-eyed way of drawing characters that influenced Anime profoundly. Although Tezuka had already stepped down from the company three years earlier, it’s still not easy to imagine Disney producing soft porn cartoons just a few years after Uncle Walt’s passing…

Based kinda/sorta/somewhat on the Joan D’Arc story, Belladonna of Sadness also incorporates vampires and orgies into her tale (?!?!). Butterflies that take flight in the shape of a vagina and other things. As I have never seen a copy with English subtitles, it is rather difficult for me to say exactly what is going on in Belladonna of Sadness, although I can report that that Kuni Fukai’s stunning visuals (reminiscent of the work of Gustav Klimt and Aubrey Beardsley) are quite incredible eye candy and unlike anything else I’ve seen.
 

 
Originally posted on 08/04/09.

Yellow Fury
 
The Warriors oil on collage baseball cards by artist Ryan Jones for the “Crazy 4 Cult 5” exhibit at Gallery1988 Melrose. Each baseball card measures 9 x 12 inches and are all listed at $350.00 each. Sadly, it looks like they’re currently out of stock.
 

Blue Fury
 
See Red Fury after the jump…

 
Al Pacino as Phil Spector. This photo was taken in mid-town Manhattan during the filming of an HBO bio-pic on Spector being directed by David Mamet.

I’m not buying the look. Pacino just doesn’t resemble Spector to my eyes (he looks like an aging Rock Hudson). But taking into account Pacino’s tendency to create some over-the-top characterizations we might not notice the gap between reality and artifice. I’m looking forward to it.

Via indiewire