This is an episode of Post Mortem, a series that examined the “pathologies” of certain seemingly doomed artists who were touched equally by genius and madness. Other subjects included Beethoven, Virginia Woolf, Francis Bacon, and Nijinsky. This episode, about Montgomery Clift features interviewees like Kenneth Anger, Clift biographer Patricia Bosworth. Kevin McCarthy, and Barney Hoskyns.
The company who made this, Blackwatch Media, also produced the excellent Carry On Darkly documentary about the troubled personalities behind the iconic British Carry On film series of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Carry on Darkly is well worth looking for on the torrent trackers. I enjoyed it immensely.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the cinema… there’s Birdemic: Shock and Terror, which I maliciously tricked Jason Louv into seeing last night. But what I didn’t know—why would anyone know this?—is that James Nguyen, “The Master of the Romantic Thriller”™ who, uh, created Birdemic, actually directed an earlier movie in 2003 called Julie & Jack.
I haven’t seen it—and seriously doubt that I ever will—but apparently, Julie is actually dead and her brain and personality are stored in a computer. This is what Jack is all upset about. Apparently. (Note that actress Tippi Hedren is in both of Nguyen’s movies).
When I was looking for a photo to run with this post in the L.A. Times photo database, the caption for the above shot of Malcolm McDowell as the perverse Roman emperor Caligula read, ” ‘Caligula,’ with Malcolm McDowell as the ruler, shocked audiences in 1980. Now it seems just unpleasant.” That was from a review of a 2007 DVD release. Not a good one, obviously!
Many of those associated with the film, including screenwriter Gore Vidal and actors Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole and McDowell, wanted to distance themselves from Caligula but especially director Tinto Brass, now 76, who railed against the film’s producer, Penthouse magazine publisher Bob Guccione, for adding what Brass thought were “gratuitous” hard-core sex scenes. But now, inspired by the success of James Cameron’s billion-dollar Avatar, Brass wants to revisit the subject of “an abandoned project about a Roman emperor that was ruined by Americans,” implying he wants to do a remake of Caligula.
It remains to be seen whether Brass’s dalliance with 3D technology will spark excitement in other adult film producers. Thus far the porn industry appears to be adopting a surprisingly coy approach to the new medium, scared off by the high production costs. Added to this is the fact that most pornography is produced for the home-entertainment market, where viewers will need 3D TVs in order to enjoy it behind closed doors. “We’re very excited to do 3D production,” Rob Smith, director of operations at the Hustler Video Group, said recently. “But we don’t feel market penetration [of 3D TVs] has hit the level we need.”
The sad news for Brass, meanwhile, is that 3D technology is not quite the virgin territory he thinks it is. Other pornographic film-makers have been there before him, with 1969’s The Stewardesses widely credited as the first 3D adult movie. Shot on a budget of $100,000, this sensitive account of footloose cabin crew went on to earn a tumescent $27m from porn cinemas around the globe.
While it does seem rather obvious that 3-D pornography could help lead the beleaguered adult industry toward better days, the whole concept of a big-budget Caligula in 3-D — remember all the puking? — seems deliriously misguided. Production is due to start in Italy sometime in May.
The Letter (1940, William Wyler. Bette Davis)
The Maltese Falcon (1941, John Huston. Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor)
Shadow Of A Doubt (1943, Alfred Hitchcock. Joseph Cotten)
Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder. Barbara Stanwyck, Fred Macmurray)
Murder, My Sweet (1944, Edward Dmytryk. Dick Powell)
Scarlet Street (1945, Fritz Lang. Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett)
Laura (1945, Otto Preminger. Gene Tierney)
Detour (1945, Edgar G. Ulhmer. Ann Savage)
Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock. Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman)
Gilda (1946, Charles Vidor. Rita Hayworth)
The Killers (1946, Robert Siodmak. Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster)
The Big Sleep (1946, Howard Hawks. Humphrey Bogart)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946, Tay Garnett. John Garfield, Lana Turner)
The Lady From Shanghai (1947, Orson Welles. Rita Hayworth, Welles)
Out Of The Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur. Jane Greer, Robert Mitchum)
Brute Force (1947, Jules Dassin. Burt Lancaster)
Force Of Evil (1948, Abraham Polonsky. John Garfield, Marie Windsor)
The Set-Up (1949, Robert Wise. Robert Ryan)
The Third Man (1949, Carol Reed. Orson Welles)
Criss Cross (1949, Siodmak. Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo)
Gun Crazy (1950, Joseph H. Lewis. John Dall, Peggy Cummins)
In A Lonely Place (1950, Nicholas Ray. Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950, Huston. Sterling Hayden)
Night And The City (1950, Jules Dassin. Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney)
Sunset Blvd. (1950, Billy Wilder. Gloria Swanson, William Holden)
Ace In The Hole (1951, Billy Wilder. Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling)
Angel Face (1952, Otto Preminger. Jean Simmons)
Pickup On South Street (1953, Samuel Fuller. Richard Widmark)
The Big Heat (1953, Fritz Lang. Gloria Grahame, Lee Marvin)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955, Robert Aldrich. Gaby Rodgers)
Night Of The Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton. Robert Mitchum, Lillian Gish)
The Killing (1956, Stanley Kubrick. Sterling Hayden)
Elevator To The Gallows (1958, Louis Malle. Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet)
Touch Of Evil (1958, Orson Welles)
The Naked Kiss (1964, Samuel Fuller. Constance Towers)
Directed by Tamra Davis, the documentary features never-before seen footage of the prolific artist painting, talking about his art, and existing in the two years prior to his death in 1988.
The OST features music from Mike D and Ad Rock.
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child was released on Feb 21st.
And then there’s Birdemic: Shock and Terror, which I posted about earlier. Tara and I went to see it with Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin this weekend and I must say, Birdemic truly lived up to its good bad advance hype. It was bewildering, but hilarious. Tim and Eric’s Tim Heidecker, co-host of the screening we saw on Saturday night, stared out at the audience when the film was over and after a dramatic pause, asked “Don’t you all just feel like assholes for sitting through that?” In a sense he was right, although Heidecker admitted this screening had, in fact, been his fourth.
I was telling a friend today about the dubious cinematic charms of the utterly perplexing Birdemic and he asked me had I ever seen Gymkata? I had not and he suggested I look it up on YouTube. Here’s a brief review of it, from Film Critic:
I’ve seen Gymkata three times. That’s not a boast. The first time I caught it was on videotape in the late ‘80s. The second and third times it was on some late night cable station and I was either too sleep-deprived or inebriated to turn it off. I know it’s cliché, but the whole car wreck analogy fits almost too well. When Gymkata is on, I just can’t turn away. And I’m not alone - - the net is littered with sad accounts of similarly affected individuals.
Jonathan Cabot (Kurt Thomas) is a U.S. gymnast sent to the backwater country of Parmistan to participate—and hopefully win—The Game, a dangerous, obstacle-laden decathlon. Why? Because the U.S. government needs to set up a “Early Warning Earth Station for the Star Wars program” and sending in troops to do it is “out of style.” Indeed. Thing is no one has survived The Game in 900 years. There’s a reason for that, too. As if the course weren’t hard enough, contestants must maneuver through numerous ninjas, crazies, and Parmistani thugs that try and stop them.
A cheap plot description can’t do justice to the inanity on display here. Perhaps descriptions of a few choice sequences will: the film’s crowning triumph is the Village of Crazies, an entire hovel populated only with cannibal psychopaths and screaming schizos who try and claw our hero from the sky as he swings and vaults through the decaying town. What, that’s not crazy enough? How about the fact that there just happens to be a convenient pommel horse in the center of the town?!? Still not doing it? How about clumsy ninjas wearing fur vests? Or a guy named Thorg with a red headband and silver He-Man arm braces? Honestly, I could go on and on.
Did you catch the part in the trailer where he just happened to have the gymnastics horse to fight the baddies with? How does that get explained?
Not sure I could sit though this one. Yes, I’ll watch the movie with the poorly animated CGI birds that shit fiery bombs, but even I have standards.
Dangerous Minds pal Michael Simmons reviews When You’re Strange, the new documentary about The Doors from director Tom DiCillo (Johnny Suede, Living in Oblivion) on the Mojo blog:
DiCillo’s hardest task has been to do justice to the charisma of Mr. Mojo Risin’ (one of Jim Morrison’s many handles, in this case an anagram of his name); I saw The Doors live in January 1969 and can attest that Morrison glowed, generating tangible heat. And yet, 39 years since his death, the Morrison magic comes through loud and clear, as the film traces the transformation of 1965’s callow California kids into the jaded, burnt-out rock stars of 1971. Along the way, we witness every over-told incident in Doors history: Light My Fire and the subsequent string of hits, the adoration of trendsetters du jour like Andy Warhol, Morrison’s refusal to sell out - whether it be changing a controversial lyric for Ed Sullivan or selling a song for a car commercial - his increasingly self-destructive behaviour, the two books of poems published in his lifetime, the penis-flashing in Miami that never happened, and the poète maudit’s Parisian finale.
The musical contributions of the other Doors are emphasized, from drummer John Densmore’s deft swing to guitarist Robbie Krieger’s flamenco fingering and organist Ray Manzarek’s Bach mastery, serving to remind that there would’ve been no Doors without the other Doors. Morrison’s excellence as a singer is also noted, a fact often overlooked in the accounts of his antics. When he was younger, his vocal role model was Elvis; as he got older it was Sinatra and one can clearly hear Ol’ Blues Eyes’ in Jim’s caress of a note.
The footage feels fresh and intimate. There are clips of Morrison’s underground movie from his university days, a sweet Jim playing with children, fly-on-the-wall recording studio scenes, as well as the familiar live concerts where we witness Jim the consummate performer and Jimbo the inebriated clown. But it’s the shots lifted from Morrison’s own experimental films HWY and Feast Of Friends (the former the source of that Ford Mustang footage) that allow us entry into the omnivorous, risky, arty mind of the front Door.
Well, he’s actually purchasing LA’s New Beverly Cinema, which was once a grindhouse, but is now one of the city’s finest revival theaters:
“As long as I’m alive, and as long as I’m rich, the New Beverly will be there, showing double features in 35mm,” Quentin Tarantino told the Hollywood Reporter. He’s bought the 200 seat Fairfax District theater that has shown second-run double features since 1978 (Before that it was, appropriately, a grindhouse with live nude dancers, although it was built in 1929 and once showed first-run movies). In the mid aughts, hearing operator Sherman Torgan was having trouble keeping the doors open, Tarantino started paying the monthly expenses. After Torgan’s death in 2007, his son Michael took over operations, but the landlord had a buyer almost immediately. Since the Torgans had the right of first refusal, Tarantino stepped in, and after some extensive haggling made a deal to buy the theater.
Well, that’s great news for LA, but if the New Bev can find its white knight in Tarantino, surely someone else both “alive and rich” can step in and save the Bodhi Tree?
? I had not and he suggested I look it up on YouTube. Here’s a brief review of it, from 
