I’m surprised I did not hear about this earlier, because this sort of documentary is so totally up my alley. Nevertheless, this looks amazing. I’m going to request a screener so I can review it on DM. This looks unmissable. From the filmmakers’ website:

America’s 50-million strong Evangelical community is convinced that the world’s future is foretold in Biblical prophecy - from the Rapture to the Battle of Armageddon. This astonishing documentary explores their world - in their homes, at conferences, and on a wide-ranging tour of Israel. By interweaving Christian, Zionist, Jewish and critical perspectives along with telling archival materials, the filmmakers probe the politically powerful - and potentially explosive - alliance between Evangelical Christians and Israel…an alliance that may set the stage for what one prominent Evangelical leader calls “World War III.”

The film opens with portraits of three Evangelical families –James and Laura Bagg, a Connecticut couple who work as military jet-propulsion engineers, Tony and Devonna Edwards in McAlester, Oklahoma, and Dr. H. Wayne House in Salem, Oregon—all certain that upon Christ’s Second Coming they will be “raptured” or lifted into the skies to join Christ while the rest of humanity suffers for seven years during “The Tribulation.” The Edwards’ daughters, in particular, struggle with their own future. If they are raptured soon, how will they ever marry, or have children of their own? [RM note: How sick and twisted is it to inflict this kind of “thinking” on children? Horrifying to contemplate what emotionally destructive superstition like this can do to people’s lives. But, of course, the invisible man in the kingdom in the sky said it in the magic book, so therefore it must be true.]

Despite their very different lives and locations, all three families find the modern world laden with symbolism that suggests the End Times are at hand, and they proclaim the immense importance of Israel, where the battle of Armageddon will leave the earth ravaged, before Christ creates a new and perfect world.

The film then follows Wayne House and fellow minister Robert Dean as they lead a Christian Study Tour group to Israel—among the tens of thousands of Evangelicals who pour into the Holy Land each year. As Wayne and Robert baptize their entourage in the River Jordon, sing the US national anthem on the Sea of Galilee, proclaim love for Israel, and describe how the Dome of the Rock, one of the holiest sites in Islam, must be destroyed in order for Jesus to return, a revealing and controversial relationship between Christian Evangelicals, Jews, and Muslims emerges.

Finally, we follow Wayne House and Robert Dean to a massive gathering in Dallas, Texas, where Evangelicals debate, in highly sophisticated terms, the need to spread Biblical literalism to counter the dangerous effects of post-modernism. The climax of the conference comes as Pastor John Hagee, the enormously influential Texas Minister of an 18,000-member megachurch, declares, “World War III has started.”

 
Waiting for Armageddon

 
During my guest blogging stint at Boing Boing in Spring of 2009, when I posted about the traveling exhibit of the unseen and unpublished William S. Burroughs/Malcolm McNeil graphic novel, collaboration Ah Pook is Here, I suspected that a publication of the work would be announced shortly thereafter. It’s taken a while, but Fantagraphics will finally be putting it out in 2011, as Carolyn Kellog reports at the Los Angeles Times:

The project began with a Burroughs-and-McNeil collaboration in the 1970s on the comic strip “The Unspeakable Mister Hart,” which appeared in the British magazine “Cyclops.” The magazine folded, and the two decided they wanted to turn their work into a full-length project—at the time, Burroughs was 56 and McNeil was 23. What they conceived was so new that they weren’t sure what to call the form, and settled on “a Word/Image novel.” They worked for seven years but never found a publisher.

Fantagraphics, which included some spectacular images from the book in its announcement, describes the story of “Ah Pook Is Here”:

John Stanley Hart is the “Ugly American” or “Instrument of Control”—a billionaire newspaper tycoon obsessed with discovering the means for achieving immortality. Based on the formulae contained in rediscovered Mayan books he attempts to create a Media Control Machine using the images of Fear and Death. By increasing Control, however, he devalues time and invokes an implacable enemy: Ah Pook, the Mayan Death God. Young mutant heroes using the same Mayan formulae travel through time bringing biologic plagues from the remote past to destroy Hart and his Judeo/Christian temporal reality.

McNeil’s story of working with Burroughs on the project is sure to be interesting. “Fictional events in the text would materialize in real life. Very specific correspondences, not just similarities,” he told the website Big Bridge in 2008. “Such events might suggest that things are already in place and that with the right combination of words they can be made to reveal themselves ahead of time. That’s what Bill’s ‘Cut ups’ were about: ‘Cut the word lines and the future leaks out.’”

William S. Burroughs’ lost graphic novel coming in 2011 (Jacket Copy/LA Times)

Ah Pook is Here website (with samples of the artwork)
 
Below, Ah Pook Was Here in the form of a quite amazing short film made in 1994 by Philip Hunt, with Burroughs’ narration.
 

 
Welcome to episode 4 of the Dangerous Minds Radio Hour. Your hosts Richard Metzger and Brad Laner once again present for you a delectable plethora of magickal musical moments accompanied as always by the many quality insights and opinions that you’ve come to expect from the thinking fellows of Dangerous Minds.

John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers - “I’m Your Witchdoctor”
The Flying Burrito Brothers - “Hot Burrito #2”
Pink Floyd - “Heart Beat Pig Meat” (from Zabriskie Point S/T)
Phil Manzanera featuring Brian Eno - “Miss Shapiro”
Dave Grusin - “Birth By Descent” (from Candy S/T)
P.J. Proby - “You Don’t Love Me No More”
Harry Nilsson - “Are You Sleeping?”
Human League -  “I Love You Too Much”
Renaldo and the Loaf - “A Medical Man”
Residents -  “You Yes Yes Yes”
Genevieve Waite - “Love Is Coming Back”
Van Dyke Parks -  “Riverboat”
P.J. Proby - “Hanging From Your Loving Tree”
Angel Rada -  “Basheeba”
Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark - “New Stone Age”
End - “Shades of Orange” (produced/written by Bill Wyman circa ‘67)
Paul McCartney -  “Secret Friend”

 
Download this week’s episode
 
Subscribe to the Dangerous Minds Radio Hour podcast at Alterati

 
Are the Gregory Brother’s ambitions exceeding their musical grasp? Maybe. Well, bring in Weezer for some back up. For what this lacks in tightness, it makes up for in its epicness.

 
Janie Jones was a sixties pop celebrity who went from the clubs of swinging London to a jail cell in 1973. Janie had fleeting success as a singer, releasing several singles, including a novelty hit called ‘Witches Brew”, and performing in nightclubs on bills with David Frost and Peter Cook. But she was mostly known for her uninhibited sexuality and ‘fuck you’ attitude toward the stodgy and hypocritical British establishment. She hung out with actors, politicians and rock stars, including Marc Bolan, Tom Jones and Dusty Springfield. But her biggest claim to fame was when she was arrested and imprisoned for running a prostitution ring. Her high rolling friends were shocked at what was considered a harsh sentence for something as benign as arranging “dates’ for some of London’s most famous hipsters. This was the sixties after all, the era of free love. It was as if she were being punished for the behavior of an entire generation. Janie’s bust made her an instant cause celebre and the fodder for countless tabloid headlines.

When sentencing Janie Jones to seven years in prison in 1973 after she’d faced charges for vice and corruption, Judge King-Hamilton called her one of the most evil women he’d ever sentenced. Janie first hit the headlines in August 1964 when she appeared topless at a premier. A friend of hers, film producer Michael Klinger, had his new production ‘London in The Raw’ opening at the Jacey Cinema in Piccadilly. Topless dresses had proven to be something of a sensation in Paris and Klinger asked her if she would turn up at the films premier in a topless dress. She was known by her real name Marion Mitchell then and was accompanied by one of her sisters, Valerie. The two arrived in a Rolls Royce, stepped out of the car and let their wraps fall to their elbows, putting up a bold front for the photographers. “One must keep abreast of the times,” she said.

After Janie was released from prison in 1977, she became a punk icon when The Clash immortalized her in the song “Janie Jones.” She developed a close friendship with Joe Strummer, who supposedly idolized her, and Joe wrote a song for her called “House Of The Ju-Ju Queen.”  Along with the rest of The Clash and members of Ian Dury’s band, Joe went into the studio and recorded the tune with Janie doing the vocals. Joe paid for the session. Due to contractual reasons, the record was released with the band credited as The Lash.

Punk stars like Joe Strummer had also known what it’s like to have been vilified by the press. But Jones has nothing but admiration for the man whom she now claims, gave me back my dignity as an artist. As a display of her continued affection for the ex-Clash frontman, in 1992 she asked her good friend (and songwriter of some repute) Tony Waddington to translate her feelings into song. Two days later, he’d written ‘A Letter To Joe’ for me. I just seem to inspire songwriters, she says.

In the video that follows, The Clash perform ‘Janie Jones” in 1977 and Janie sings “House Of The Ju Ju Queen” and “Letter To Joe.” While The Clash’s song is a classic, neither of Janie’s songs are particularly memorable, though “Letter To Joe” is heartfelt and tender, but as pop culture artifacts they’re rock history. Joe Strummer’s muse: Janie Jones… who, by the way, is still very much alive.
 

 
“Witches Brew” after the jump…

 
As seen at the “9/12” Tea party rally today on the National Mall. Whether or not the red, white and blue burqa wearers are tea-baggers themselves or “infiltrators,” this costume surely must have been responsible for a whole lot of cognitive dissonance with this group!

Via Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs. Photo by Dave Weigel.

 
I will never think of this song the same way again. “Oi, fucker, fucker!” From TheMainMeal:

Another tic day, another song, this time I include a brief explanantion of just how knackering doing a song with severe tics can be…

(via Nerdcore)

 
Our knowledge of French New Wave cinema of the late ‘50s and early ‘60s is generally limited to the names of innovators and auteurs like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Goddard.

But although less well-known outside of France, director Claude Chabrol—who died earlier today at age 80—started the movement with Goddard and Truffaut, and became one of the most prolific filmmakers of his time, averaging a film per year until his death.

A Hitchcock acolyte like his compatriot Truffaut, Chabrol played a key part in mainstreaming La Nouvelle Vague. Although he smoothed out some of the genre’s signature styles—improvisation, quick cuts and scene changes, characters stepping out of roles or addressing the camera—Chabrol retained the sense of alienation that imbued Paris as the Algerian War was coming to its pathetic end.

Dealing in class, desire, and compulsion, Chabrol brought a new view of film to the masses. Check out this scene from his fourth feature, Les Bonnes Femmes (The Good Time Girls, 1960), which follows the travails of four angst-ridden shop girls, each dealing with their drab existences in order to follow their obsessions, whether it’s the city’s nightlife or that mysterious motorcycle man.
 

 
Get: Les Bonnes Femmes by Claude Chabrol (1960) [DVD]

 
“Search For Love” sung by Dimitri Tambossis in a scene from the Greek film I Theia Mou I Hipissa (My Hippie Aunt), 1970. This looks like a production number from Hair if Bob Fosse had choreographed it instead of Twyla Tharp.

Dimitri Tambossis went on to front Aphrodite’s Child with keyboard player Vangelis.

There’s a short but fascinating piece on Dimitri at Julian Cope’s Head Heritage website.

 
Scam artist/TV evangelist Todd Bentley is baaack, in case you missed him, and he’s got a new, much younger wife!
 

 
Since tattooed Todd has been to Heaven several times and all, why can’t his new wife be a prophet too? Seen here, Jessa Bentley describes a prophetic wacky dream she had starring Oral Roberts, a golden lion and a dancing elephant. Watch in pain as she unconvincingly describes this foolishness to the low IQ mouth-breathers in attendance—she clearly doesn’t even buy her own bullshit—then makes an extremely poor, almost air-guitarish attempt at “speaking in tongues.” This is quite something to see. 

Something depwessing.

Todd Bentley, you have to hand it to him, has really found a niche for himself and his, uh, “ministry”: People stupider than he is!

Take a gander at his Wikipedia page. No really, take a look. Next read this. Then watch this:
 

 
Here’s the caption from YouTube. Fucking hilarious:

Todd Bentley discusses the connection between God’s Glory and a release of wealth and finances in the Scripture. It’s interesting to note that almost every time the Glory of God falls on the God’s people in the Bible, there is a simultaneous release of wealth and finance.

As one wag said: “The Devil might wear Prada, but he’s definitely driving a Bentley.”

Via Christian Nightmares