A retrospective of the work of film-maker Peter Watkins will take place at the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), in Oslo, between the 7th and 14th May.

Watkins is a great and important film-maker, whose career spans over 5 decades and includes such works of brilliance as Culloden (1964), the story of an English massacre of the Scots, retold as an analogy to the Vietnam War; The War Game (1965), the essential banned drama of the after-affects of a nuclear war; Punishment Park (1970), a harrowing imagining of the National Guard pursuing members of the counter-culture; Edvard Munch (1973), Watkins’ personal take on the life of the artist; and La Commune (de Paris, 1871) (1999), an examination into the cause and effects of political interpretations of historical events, through the re-telling of revolution in France.

The retrospective will include screenings of Watkins’ key films, with a discussion of his work.

Peter Watkins: A Retrospective will start with the screening of Edvard Munch, Watkins’s film on three decades of the life of the artist, and will be followed by a public discussion in which the director will address, together with members of the cast and the technical team, the meaning of the film, both at the time it was released and today. Edvard Munch, considered by Watkins the most personal film he has ever made, dramatises three decades of the life of the artist and provides a raw and haunting portrait of the creative process as embedded within the spirit and the social relations of its time.

This will be followed by screenings of Watkins’s other Scandinavian projects, The Gladiators (1968), Evening Land (1976), and The Freethinker (1992–94), a biography of August Strindberg with four different timelines and a spiral structure that will be shown on the 100th anniversary of the artist, writer, and playwright’s death in 1912. Additional screenings will include The War Game (1965), Punishment Park (1970), and La Commune (de Paris, 1871) (1999), films in which the dramatisation of historical past or the present results in revealing political assessments that are at the same time critical reflections on filmic language, distribution networks, and media in general.

Central to much Watkins work is the role of mass media within society and its insidious effects. Here, in an interview from 2001, Watkins discusses the damaging role of mass media, in particular the misunderstanding in the role of mass communication, and how the contemporary media landscape allows little space for independent and critical thought. Though Watkins may sound like a man with bad indigestion, his thinking and analysis is clear and still hugely relevant.

Fop details of Peter Watkins: A Retrospective check here.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

‘The War Game’: Peter Watkins terrifying film from 1965

 
Star Maidens, the long forgotten UK/German sci-fi/comedy TV series from 1975 takes place on the “highly advanced” retro-futuristic planet Medusa, where women live a life of luxury and the males are their subservient slaves. Two grunts steal a spaceship from one of their mistresses and set off for Earth, a planet where the equality of the sexes is—hey—a way of life!
 

 
Star Maidens was campy and cheap—the sets were reused from Space 1999 and incorporated tennis balls and air fresheners. The security guards all wore hot pants and platform shoes… How is it possible that Star Maidens was all but forgotten about until it was released on DVD in 2005?

Eagle-eyed otaku-types will recognize Gareth Thomas, who would soon go on to fame on Blake’s 7 and Judy Geeson, first seen as a teenager in From Sir to Love and later as the annoying British neighbor in Mad About You, as Fulvia, the Supreme Councilor. Dawn Addams as Clara, President of the Grand Council of Medusa, is recalled by fanboys for her roles in Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers, the Amicus portmanteau Vault of Horror and as the female lead in Charlie Chaplin’s last film, A King in New York.
 

 
After thirteen episodes, Star Maidens was toast, but the show aired sporadically in other parts of the world until the early 1980s. I think Star Maidens, like Baywatch, would translate pretty easily, don’t you? Someone should revive it!
 
The entire first episode of Star Maidens:
 

 
Star Maidens fan site

 
I was late to the Kenny Powers party, but I’m catching up. Thanks Richard.

HBO’s Eastbound & Down starring Danny McBride as former star baseball player Kenny Powers is filled with some of the most insanely funny, politically-incorrect humor on TV. Powers is a lovable asshole with visions of grandeur and a gift for fucking up on an epic scale. McBride describes him as…

[...] having all the qualities that an epic hero should, but they’re only the worst qualities. It’s completely ass backwards. He’s sort of the current state of the modern American hero.”

But don’t underestimate Powers. On the surface, he can be a clueless, mean-spirited narcissist, but deep down he’s Tony Robbins with a mullet. In this open letter to Tim Tebow, Powers lays some inspirational words on the Jesus-freak football player.

As Yogi Berra famously said, “it’s like Deja Vu came all over itself again.”

The more I read about Tim Tebow, the more I see similarities to my own life story. Our story begins with a young mother- to-be who wants an abortion. Instead, she mans up and has the baby, giving birth to a son-child.

This special son-child makes a life out of bucking the odds. Though neither the strongest nor the fastest, he excels at sports. Many experts doubt the remarkable lad. They tell him he throws funny, and that he doesn’t have the right physique for the game. It’s science, they say. He’ll only go so far.

But the Gifted Young Athlete refuses to let the doubters shit in his Wheaties. To hell with science. The Gifted Young Athlete knows that he has something stronger. He has God on his side. So he presses on and keeps a good attitude, and every time he beats the odds in life he proves the experts wrong.

Next thing you know, there are folks calling it a miracle. Maybe the Gifted Young Athlete is blessed by the Almighty, they say. Perhaps he really does have a fucking angel on his shoulder.

And suddenly the experts don’t look like experts anymore. By now, our hero has upset a whole lot of people. There are those who simply don’t like the idea of a man being favored by God. They feel his special relationship with Jesus diminishes their own somehow. If Jesus loves the Gifted Young Athlete, what does he think of the rest of us? Bunch of assholes?

So the haters multiply, and soon the resentment reaches a boiling point. And that’s when the torches and pitchforks and long knives come out. Yes, the world is given a savior but they choose to crucify him instead. Who’d a thunk it? The same old fuckin’ story.

Maybe that’s why Jesus likes us so much to begin with. He sees a little of himself in there.

You see, Gifted Young Athlete, people look at us and they see all they don’t have. It’s like, “homeboy’s over there gettin’ ‘er done! And Jesus loves him too! Fuck that guy.”

But can you really blame them? Wouldn’t you be pissed? Jesus helps us win at sports games, yet he’s nowhere to be found when poor people need important medicine for their kid’s infection, or when they’re late on a mortgage payment. Think about it. There are folks in Africa who get AIDS without even being gay. Yet here Jesus is, helping me & Tebow out in sports, just because we’re maybe a little bit cooler in his eyes. It’s a raw deal, plain and simple. Even though he’s hooking me up, I still see it’s kind of a cocksucker move on Jesus’s part.

But my advice to you, Mr. Tebow, from one Gifted Young Athlete to another: don’t kill yourself trying to make sense of all the madness. Just hold on to your dick and have a good time. Believe me, it’s all you can do. Make no apologies, either. Those are for weak people, and the haters will hate you anyway. It’s not our fault we’re awesome, playboy. It’s Jesus’s. As the gorgeous bitches in the makeup commercials used to say, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”

God Bless.

Kenny Powers
Shelby, NC

Here’s a taste of Powers and the art of the insult. There’s a certain cracked poetry in the way this knucklehead slings words. For more check out Kenny Powers’ Powerisms
 

 
John Candy as Gil Fisher, the fishin’ musician, is paid a visit by The Plasmatics in this wonderful bit from SCTV circa 1981.

This predated John Lurie’s Fishing with John TV series by 10 years. Goes to show you just how ahead of their time the crew at SCTV were.

Watch as Wendy O. Williams blows up things real good.
 

 
It was the French thriller Pépé le Moko, with its infamous gangster hiding out in the casbah of Algiers, that inspired Graham Greene towards writing his classic treatment for The Third Man. When he reviewed the Jean Gabin film in 1937, Greene wrote that it:

“...raised the thriller to the level of poetry…

It would take his collaboration with Carol Reed, firstly on an adaption of his story “The Basement Room”, filmed as The Fallen Idol in 1948, with Ralph Richardson and Michèle Morgan, and then on The Third Man for Greene to equal and better his original influence.

In Frederick Baker’s masterful documentary Shadowing The Third Man from 2004, we learn this and a host of other facts, as Baker delves into the making of one of cinema’s greatest films. I’m a great fan of Greene and adore The Third Man and can assure you there is much to treasure in this near perfect documentary.
 

 
A powerful performance from The Jam, recorded in Paris in 1981, and originally shown as part of the French TV series Chorus (presented by Antoine de Caunes, no less). Here The Jam thunder through:

01. “David Watts”
02. “Private Hell”
03. “Butterfly Collector”
04. “But I’m Different Now”
05. “When You’re Young”
06. “Eton Rifles”

It’s a fine selection of songs, which highlights The Jam’s musical progression from the influence of sixties Mods, through Punk to New Wave and onto Paul Weller’s distinct political commentary with “Eton Rifles”.  Excellent stuff. Mind you, it’s still hard to believe Tory PM and professional nincompoop, David Cameron was naive enough to claim he had a great liking for “Eton Rifles”, during a radio interview in 2008. However, the Eton-educated Cameron’s admiration for the song did not impact on his politics, something Paul Weller picked up on:

“Which part of it didn’t he get? It wasn’t intended as a jolly drinking song for the cadet corps.”

The song reached number 3 in the U.K. in November 1979, and was the beginning of The Jam’s dominance over the charts until 1982, when guitar bands were replaced by Blitz Kids, and synthesizers.

During their 5 years of recordings, The Jam brought an edge to pop music by fusing musical ambition to strong Left-wing conviction, which wouldn’t happen on such a similar scale until Pulp in the 1990s, and the likes of which are very much required today.
 

 
Pulp performs “Common People” and “Like A Friend’ last night on the Jimmy Fallon Show.

Jarvis Cocker is a rock star at a time when there ain’t a lot of ‘em left.

Pulp is on tour and if you’d like to see Mr. Cocker and his band, here’s some upcoming tour dates:

10 April 2012 Radio City Music Hall New York, NY, USA
11 April 2012 Radio City Music Hall New York, NY, USA
13 April 2012 Coachella Indio, CA, USA
17 April 2012 Warfield San Francisco, CA, USA
19 April 2012 Fox Theater Pomona, CA, USA
20 April 2012 Coachella Indio, CA, USA
23 April 2012 Palacio de los Deportes Mexico City, Mexico
4 May 2012 SOS Festival Murcia, Spain
6 July 2012 Ruisrock Turku, Finland
8 July 2012 B’estfest Tunari, Romania
13 July 2012 Fiera della Musica

“Peace and tranquility, my ass! Take one photograph of the wrong building here, and they’re taping electrodes to your reproductive organs.”

Seldom-seen and practically unavailable (until it got stuck on YouTube, of course), of all of the various Monty Python pieces, the 1979 short, “Away From It All,” is probably the least-known thing they ever made. It was screened before The Life of Brian, but only in theaters in Great Britain and Australia, where boring, groan-worthy travelogues were still being routinely shown prior to feature films.

Over typical “world travel” stock footage, narrator “Nigel Farquhar-Bennett” (John Cleese) becomes increasingly unhinged as the film un-spools. Clearly “Nigel” could use a holiday himself.

Stay with it. It’s extremely subtle… at first!

This has been going around on various torrent trackers for the past 6-7 years, but this YouTube upload is the highest quality version I’ve yet found.  Despite the numerous times the Python catalog has been repackaged on VHS and DVD over the decades, you’d think that this hilarious short would have been included at some point, but that’s not the case.
 

 
Sadly, Slade got lost somewhere in the mid-seventies. A car crash, a tour of the U.S.A., and misunderstood movie Flame, saw the band lose much of their following to Punk, Queen, Heavy Metal and Disco. A shame, as Slade were a far greater band than the critics and even the fans allowed them to be. Here, for no other reason than it is a fan-bloody-tastic cover, is Slade’s version of Steppenwolf’s “Born to Wild” - the final track from the classic Slade Alive! album - as performed live on Pop Shop from 1971.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
Bonus track ‘Hear Me Calling’, after the jump…
 

“My role is that of a reporter.” – Mike Wallace on the debut of The Mike Wallace Interview
 
With the death yesterday of TV journalist Mike Wallace at age 93, we’ve already seen many remembrances of him as the man who—along with producer Don Hewett—created the American institution we know as 60 Minutes in the tumultuous American year of 1968. It’s impossible to short-change Wallace’s 38-year legacy as both gate-keeper of that show and pioneer of the “gotchya question” interview technique that defines much of our current news media landscape.

But it behooves us to also have a good look at the man’s stint as the host of The Mike Wallace Interview, the spartan and penetrating late-night program that broadcast nationally from 1957 through 1960. Wallace was 18 years into a broadcast career (mostly as a radio announcer and game show host) as he launched the show based on Night Beat, a similar and more groovily-named program he’d hosted locally in New York a couple of years earlier. During the show’s tenure, he brought a fascinating array of folks to the American public eye, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Pearl Buck, Eric Fromm, Lily St. Cyr, Aldous Huxley and many others.

Besides its solid bookings and now-surreal-seeming live-ads for its benevolent sponsor Philip Morris, TMWI distinguishes itself with a bare-bones visual setting to focus viewer attention on the substance of the personalities interviewed. Dare I say the only two journalists I can think of who’ve truly adapted the show’s black-background format with similar grace and talent are Charlie Rose and Dangerous Minds’ own Richard Metzger.

Do yourself a favor and check out the digitized collection of interviews from the first two years of the show that Wallace donated to the Ransom Center at the University of Texas. Meanwhile, here’s Wallace throwing down with a 54-year-old Sal Dali on death, religion, politics and the fact that “Dali is contradictory and paradoxical in any sense.”
 

 
After the jump: more Wallace vs. Dali…