Quentin Dupieux, director of the killer tire movie Rubber, premiered the first chapter of his newest project at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It’s called Wrong Cops, stars Marilyn Manson and Mark Burnham, and looks crazier than a bag full of rabid weasels.
Manson plays a techno-loving street hustler named David Dolores Frank. Burnham is the demented Officer Duke who sells dead rats stuffed with pot to kids in exchange for blow jobs and cash.
Dupieux plans to extend Wrong Cops into a feature length film. Ninety minutes of this may be more than civilization can bear.
Beat Street won’t win any awards for authenticity. It’s Hollywood slick and full of unintentional laughs but it does have some of the flava of the era and features performances by Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Melle Mel, the Treacherous Three, Doug E. Fresh and Jazzy Jay. Good holiday fun.
Philip K. Dick - The Penultimate Truth succeeds in shedding some light on the visionary author despite having an unnecessary framing device involving special agents that seem to have wandered into the film from the pages of one of Dick’s short stories. The screenwriter of the documentary, Patricio Vega, is also a writer of detective shows for TV networks in Argentina so I guess he couldn’t help himself. Fortunately, it’s only a mild distraction from an otherwise sturdy documentary directed by Emiliano Larre in 2008.
The film includes interviews with Dick himself as well as with three of his five former wives, his stepdaughter Tandi Ford, writers Ray Nelson, Tim Powers, K. W. Jeter and Dan O’Bannon, his therapist Barry Spatz, and numerous friends from his past.
It ain’t exactly Bullitt but 1955’s Family Affair, an industrial film from AT&T, does feature Steve McQueen’s first film acting role. In it he plays Freddie, a sailor on leave desperately trying to contact his girlfriend by telephone. McQueen is more Gomer Pyle than Thomas Crown in his movie debut.
Family Affair was intended to get ATT&T employees jazzed about the idea of a future where homes had multiple phones.
Bishopbriggs was where the trams from Glasgow ended. It was also where Dirk Bogarde spent his early teenage years, from 1934-37, living with a well-to-do uncle and aunt, while commuting to-and-from Allan Glen School in the city.
Glasgow shaped Bogarde, and though he hated his time there, he latter admitted, in his first volume of autobiography, A Postilion Struck by Lightning:
‘The three years in Scotland were, without doubt, the most important years of my early life. I could not, I know now, have done without them. My parents, intent on giving me a solid, tough scholastic education to prepare me for my Adult Life, had no possible conception that the education I would receive there would far outweigh anything a simple school could have provided.’
What Glasgow gave the young Bogarde, after his childhood idyll of Sussex, was “a crack on the backside which shot [him] into reality so fast [he] was almost unable to catch [his] breath for the pain and disillusions which were to follow.”
At Allan Glen’s School, Bogarde soon found himself “dumped in a lavatory pan by mindless classmates” because he spoke with “the accent of a Sassenach”. It was part of the cruelty that taught the young Bogarde to build a “carapace” against his peers. In his isolation he developed his skills as an artist and writer, and dreamt of escape.
Glasgow also offered Bogarde his first sexual experience with an older man - the dressed in beige Mr. Dodd, who he met whilst skipping classes at the Paramount Picture Palace - “the meeting place of all the Evil in Glasgow”.
Mr. Dodd seduced the young schoolboy with an ice lolly and a hand on the knee, during a performance of Boris Karloff’s The Mummy. Though Bogarde had seen the film 3 times before, he was keen to replicate Karloff’s performance, and so willingly returned to Mr Dodd’s apartment, where he was tightly trussed-up in bandages, all except his pubescent genitals, which thrust through the swaddling rags “as pink and vulnerable as a sugar mouse.” Mr. Dodd flipped Bogarde onto a bed, and tossed him off. Bogarde felt something terrible was going to happen, and offered up 3 or 4 “Hail Mary’s” in the hope of being rescued. Of course, he knew God’s help wouldn’t arrive, as he knew what would happen as Mr Dodd fiddled about.
When he left Glasgow, Bogarde was changed. He had developed the drive that would bring him success, and formed a personality that would keep the world twice-removed from the creative and sensitive young man he was at heart.
The following interview with this charming man was never broadcast on TV. Recorded in London for the release of the film Permission to Kill (aka The Executioner) in 1975, Bogarde discussed the movie, and his career with interviewer, Mark Caldwell.
The geniuses at Alamo Drafthouse and Badass Digest are at it again. This time they’re giving film makers an opportunity to win video cameras and movie-making software by creating a parody trailer where you’re challenged to mash-up a President with B-movie tropes. Perfect for an election year.
Here’s the press release:
Alamo Drafthouse and Badass Digest have teamed up for “The Commander-In-Chief: Ultimate Badass Filmmaking Frenzy”. The Filmmaking Frenzy is inspired by 20th Century Fox’s new film ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, which will open in theaters June 22. Badass Digest asks filmmakers to consider the possibility that Lincoln wasn’t the only president who moonlighted as an ass kicker. What if other presidents lead secrets lives with badass jobs and hobbies?
The Commander-in-Chief: Ultimate Badass Filmmaking Frenzy challenges filmmakers to pick any U.S. president from any era in our history and pair him with one of the “alternative occupations” listed below. To enter, filmmakers will write and produce a parody trailer for the film about the ass-kicking President of their choice and post it on the Badass Filmmaking Frenzy site. Audience votes, via Facebook likes, will determine the top five trailers, which will then be sent to the esteemed panel of judges. After careful consideration the judges will crown a winner from the top five audience favorites to be rewarded with a Sony HD professional camera and Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10 editing software. The second place winner will receive a Sony Bloggie Touch Camera. In addition to the prizes, the best entries will play before screenings of ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER at all Alamo Drafthouse locations nationwide. Once your film is uploaded, it’s up to you to spread the word. Share your film on all your social media channels and get your friends to watch and vote for yours.
Films will be judged on entertainment value and technical proficiency as well as historical accuracy and plausibility. This means filmmakers should do a little research before beginning filming. While this contest is all about creativity and originality, a flying George Washington wielding a light saber probably won’t cut it. All film entries must be submitted by 11:59 PM CST on June 18 to be eligible and voting will be open till 5:00 PM CST on June 21.”
And here’s an example of what they’re looking for:
Dark Side Of The Moon was broadcast on Canadian TV series “The Passionate Eye” in 2005. It was written and directed by William Karel.
CBC television describes the film thusly:
How could the flag flutter when there’s no wind on the moon? During an interview with Stanley Kubrick’s widow an extraordinary story came to light. She claims Kubrick and other Hollywood producers were recruited to help the U.S. win the high stakes race to the moon. In order to finance the space program through public funds, the U.S. government needed huge popular support, and that meant they couldn’t afford any expensive public relations failures. Fearing that no live pictures could be transmitted from the first moon landing, President Nixon enlisted the creative efforts of Kubrick, whose 2001: a Space Odyssey (1968) had provided much inspiration, to ensure promotional opportunities wouldn’t be missed. In return, Kubrick got a special NASA lens to help him shoot Barry Lyndon (1975).
Some of you may already be familiar with the theories discussed in this film and the “conspiracies” exposed…familiar enough to know it’s a deftly made put-on composed of manipulated archival footage, false documents, actual interviews taken out of context or altered with voice-over or dubbing, staged interviews and some real ones. Like all good satire or parody, there are truths to be found within the artifice. When truth and the lie seem indistinguishable, we’ve entered a zone in which both possess a bit of each other.
I prefer Guy Maddin movies in small portions, like an Italian dessert, and his short film Sissy-Boy Slap-Party is just the right amount of deranged fun to keep me satisfied without going into sugar shock..
Kenneth Anger meets Jean Genet meets Jack Smith meets The Three Stooges meets White Zombie in this slap happy tableaux that hints at all kinds of debauchery and yet is chaste enough to be shown at a Saturday morning kiddie show or used as an aftershave commercial.
Johnny Depp doesn’t float my boat. There is something too mannered, too knowing, dare I say, too cartoonish, about him. His performances seem plastic and make me think of Ken’s Barbie, or G.I. Joe, or Palitoy’s Action Man. The worrying thought that should any fan ever get Depp’s knickers down, would they be confronted by a Ken’s lack of genitals? Of course, Depp is probably hung like a horse with balls down to his knees, but his performances often seem to lack any. It’s perhaps why so many young girls like him.
His recent portrayal of Barnabas Collins may have been well meant but it left me cold, and he looked more like an updated Dr. Orlando Watt, than any cursed vampire. Indeed, the whole film was, as Kim Newman wittily noted, almost a Whitespoiltation version of Blacula.
When Jonathan Frid played Barnabas Collins he brought a depth of emotion and experience Depp is either afraid, or unable, to emote. Listening to Frid on these recordings, taken from the first Dark Shadows soundtrack album, only confirms the quality of Frid’s Barnabas.
During its limited theatrical release in 1983 Rock & Rule was discounted by critics and ignored by audiences. But over the past three decades it has steadily gained a cult following, particularly among movie geeks who get a thrill out of watching anthropomorphic animals singing new wave songs.
With its amusing cyberpunk plot, clever direction by Clive Smith and a pretty fine soundtrack by Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Cheap Trick, Debbie Harry and Earth, Wind and Fire, Rock & Rule kept me engaged and entertained for the duration of its tight 77 minute running time…which is saying quite a bit considering I have little patience for animated movies. And it’s hard not to like a movie featuring an evil Mick Jagger in the form of a large cat-like humanoid.
If you like Ralph Bakshi and Heavy Metal, you should get a kick out of Rock & Rule.
