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A trailer for Glenn Beck’s upcoming thriller The Overton Window
06.11.2010
12:55 pm
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A commenter on Digg.com writes that Beck’s new novel looks like “a cross between The Cat in the Hat and Left Behind.”

 

Posted by Tara McGinley
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06.11.2010
12:55 pm
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Tropic of Cancer: the movie
06.10.2010
08:45 pm
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Saddened to see last week the passing of underrated film director Joseph Strick.  You might not know the name, but there can be little doubt you’re familiar with some of the books he adapted into films.

If you’ve never seen his take on James Joyce’s Ulysses, it’s definitely worth checking out—if only for the rather graceful way Strick handles the closing monologue of Molly Bloom.  It was banned in Ireland for 33 years, but now, thanks to Chinese video site, Youku, you can stream the entire ‘67 film here.

Ulysses wasn’t the only 20th Century modernist classic the director would try to wrestle into submission.  Two years later, Strick brought to the screen Henry Miller‘s Tropic of Cancer.

While Miller’s initial hopes for the project ran high (in a letter to the Hungarian photographer, Brassaï, Miller wrote, “The film of Tropic of Cancer will be definitively produced and directed by Joseph Strick, who made Ulysses.  He’ll do it the same way.  No castration, no modification.  Bravo for him, I say!”), he was ultimately saddened that in no way would the production budget allow for a faithful recreation of Paris in the 30’s.  Hired as a consultant on the film, Miller’s visit to the set would be the last time the author set foot in Paris.

While Tropic of Cancer had Rip Torn as Miller, a definitely sexy Ellyn Burstyn as Mona, and incorporated generous portions of the novel into its voiceover, the film never had much of a chance to reach an audience.  It opened to middling reviews, and, more damaging, with an X rating (it’s since been rated NC-17).  Long available, to my knowledge, on bootlegs only, its opening moments follow below:

 
Joseph Strick, Who Filmed the Unfilmable, Dies at 86

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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06.10.2010
08:45 pm
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Barack Obama’s cameo role in Black Dynamite
06.10.2010
08:06 pm
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“Black Dynamite I wanna be just like you.” Based on a true story…
 
Thanks Elvin Estela!

Posted by Tara McGinley
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06.10.2010
08:06 pm
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Marvo-lous: British Experimental Filmmaker Jeff Keen
06.10.2010
07:27 pm
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Abstract non-narrative filmmakers deserve all the attention they can get, if only because so many of their techniques are absorbed into more conventional films. Moviemaker Jeff Keen only started making his own 8mm films in his late 30s, as his native Britain entered the adventurous ‘60s. His work was soon discovered by art journalists and ended up in the National Film Theatre, garnering funding support for his activities into the ‘80s.

Now in his late 80s, Keen lives in Brighton and is actively creating, although he’s reportedly sick with cancer. Thankfully, the British Film Institute released the Blu-Ray collection GAZWRX: the Films of Jeff Keen last year as a lasting document of his work. Below is his 1967 short film Marvo Movie, in which Keen backs his rapid-fire, Kenneth Anger-cum-Stan Brakhage romp through the areas of nature, decay, consumption and pop culture with a soundtrack that resembles the early chant-work of British occultist group Current 93.

 

 

Gazwrx: Films of Jeff Keen (3pc) [Blu-ray]

 

Posted by Ron Nachmann
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06.10.2010
07:27 pm
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The most basic form of mind control is repetition
06.10.2010
12:55 pm
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“It was 8:27 on a Sunday afternoon when Peters mind exploded…”
 
This looks like some sort of Zeitgeist parody. If so, fantastic!
 
Thanks, Marc Campbell!

Posted by Tara McGinley
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06.10.2010
12:55 pm
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Performance in the making: Donald Cammell & Mick Jagger
06.09.2010
05:06 pm
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Much like a TARDIS, a Borges short story, or Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg‘s 1970 film, Performance, is far bigger on the inside than its outside might indicate.  Starring Mick Jagger, James Fox and Anita Pallenberg, and with its primary action confined to that of a London flat, Performance manages to explore, in its uniquely heady and hypnotic way, such notions as gender, identity and madness as a function of creativity.

In fact, it feels at times like there’s so much going on within Performance‘s 105 minutes, in terms of philosophical scope and ambition, movies like The Matrix or 2001: A Space Odyssey seem almost puny in comparison.

And much like the London flat itself, Performance is a movie to lose yourself in.  Since my preteen exposure to it via the Z Channel, I must have watched it a good dozen times.  Nevertheless, the film continues to surprise me.  Disorient, too.

Part of this was due, no doubt, to the alchemical editing of co-writer/director Donald Cammell, who sadly, took his own life in ‘96.  Cammell’s ultimately tragic life and career is certainly deserving of its own post at some point, but, in the meantime, what follows is Part I of an absolutely worthwhile 3-part documentary on the making of Performance and the controversy that’s dogged the film ever since its release 30 years ago.  Links to the other parts follow below.

 
Performance in the making, Part II, III

Posted by Bradley Novicoff
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06.09.2010
05:06 pm
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Whimsical wedding cake toppers by Mike Leavitt
06.08.2010
01:26 pm
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John and Yoko - $1200
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John Cage and Merce Cunningham - $800
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Harold and Maude - Sold
 
Here’s a fantastic collection of wedding cake toppers by seattle based artist Mike Leavitt. It’s totally worth a look. From Mike Leavitt’s website:

No longer shall little random plastic people rule the top of your cake. Why suffer the cruelty of impersonal sculpture poisoning the cake frosting you lick from your fingers? Weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, retirement, online bingo… The cake topper figurines can be of any person in any style. Some ‘cake toppers’ aren’t even the bride and groom, just plain loved ones. The finished figures are protected and sealed from any frosting surface damage. For further protection, they aren’t posable with the multiple body part pieces like the action figures. These are finely crafted sculptures that will be enjoyed as long as the union of love that they honor.

(via The Jailbreak)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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06.08.2010
01:26 pm
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Art Clokey’s psychedelic masterpiece: Mandala
06.07.2010
12:31 pm
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Looking every bit like a Jodorowsky film made out of clay, well known psychedelics enthusiast and Gumby creator, the late Art Clokey’s little seen 1964 psychedelic masterpiece Mandala is a truly wonderous thing to behold.
 
Via Gumbyworld:

“Well, we shot that in our basement in Topanga. We had an 1100 square foot basement in a A-frame on a hillside. It was perfect for our needs. My whole family worked on it, my daughter and Gloria’s daughter. That was our second marriage for both of us. She had a daughter and I had a daughter. They were both artistic, and my son and Gloria worked with the camera. So it was a family effort all in clay.”
Art explained that the goal of Mandala was to communicate “the idea of evolving our consciousness from primordial forms to human form, and then beyond the human to the spiritual and eternal. The theme was the evolution of consciousness: we begin in the mud and we just go out and up.”
The film shows lots of masks and tribal images. “The masks were symbols of the condition that we live in where we are all behind the masks and the whole process of life is to discover who it is behind that mask,” Art told us. “Who are we? Who is that guy behind the mask we’re holding up there? That ‘s the purpose of all religion. You just have to find out who that guy is behind the mask.”

 
bonus goodness: Clokey’s title sequence for the 1965 cheese epic Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine with theme song by the Supremes !

 
previously on DM: Viva Art Clokey !
 
thx Carmel Conlin !

Posted by Brad Laner
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06.07.2010
12:31 pm
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Dennis Hopper’s screen test for Andy Warhol
06.06.2010
07:25 pm
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Music by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.06.2010
07:25 pm
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Pure: Movie clichés with music by The Jesus Lizard
06.05.2010
11:04 am
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(via Nerdcore)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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06.05.2010
11:04 am
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