When 2010 came to an end, so did the brilliant series of twelve, once-a-month comedy shorts we were promised by Jackal Films last January. Jackal is the company set up by creative partners, director Jacqueline Wright and actor/writer Alice Lowe (Jaq/Al, geddit?). Alice is becoming a well-known face on British television from roles on Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, The Mighty Boosh, The IT Crowd, Little Britain, Angelo’s and in the cult film, Hot Fuzz. She also memorably portrayed David Bowie in Snuff Box. These short films are a marvelous showcase for what she (and Wright) can do.
The twelve Jackal shorts also feature some notable emerging UK comedic talent, including Simon Farnaby, James Bachman, Sharon Horgan, Robert Popper and Rich Fulcher and have TV level production values. I don’t think this was an easy—or quick—thing to pull off, twelve short films in one year, and that the quality was consistently very, very high is a testament to the talents of these two hard-working women. Obviously the reason to take on a workload like this is to be noticed professionally, and if there is any justice in the world, let’s hope the industrious Jackal partners are suitably rewarded with a BBC3 series commission in 2011 as well as an HBO or Showtime pilot over here.
You can see all twelve short films at the Jackal Films website (and at special theatrical screenings if you live in the right place). The final, December film, “This Christmastime” (Rock stars do their bit for a good cause with this festive single from 1983) has a rap in the middle of it by Rich Fulcher that saw me with tears rolling down my cheeks I was laughing so hard. Alice (as a Cyndi Lauper-type) delivers a befuddled plea about being a sister herself, that’s equally loopy.
It appears as if Amazon reviewers are having a good ol’ time writing reviews for Carrot Top’s 1998 film Chairman of the Board. I’ve never seen Chairman of the Board, but my God are some of these reviews absolutely hilarious.
“I have one word to describe the experience of seeing this movie - floored. Not since “Becket” with Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole (chronicling the unsteady friendship between Henry II and the Archbishop of Canterbury in 12th century England)have I been so impressed with performances by two actors. Larry Miller plays the antagonist with such deft nuance a lesser critic would swear he couldn’t act, until the climax arises wherein he chews scenery until his gums bleed. Carrot Top steals scenes and hearts with a continuous stream of hijinks, tomfoolery, and shenanigans that makes us laugh until we realize at the end of the movie that he’s also taught us how to love.”
“This story is just gripping and takes you on an emotional roller coaster you could only simulate if your cat died, followed by intercourse with Pam Anderson, followed by an infomercial on Tony Robbins, topped off with a Pizza Party thrown at your house by Jay Leno. I was so emotionally spent after this film, I called in sick to work for the next 5 days. Do yourself a favor and see this masterpiece.”
Read more reviews of Chairman of the Board after the jump…
A handful of images of the current goings-on in the airports of America. This is where we’re at, saw it for myself while traveling over the holidays. How do these pictures make you feel? It seems almost too obvious to state that I find this security theater horrifying and deeply depressing. We’re too stupid to take care of our sick and poor and we’re too stupid to be bothered by random public humiliation. What’s next?
More groping of the elderly, the infirm, children and nuns after the jump…
Lalo Schifrin puts the funk into the theme from Jaws as Legs & Co. are terrorized by cardboard sharks.
Schifrin’s discofied version of John Williams’ “Jaws Theme” appeared on the 1976 album Black Widow. The in-your-face bass groove and insistent wah wah guitar made this a big hit on the dancefloors.
The tacky glitz of Legs & Co. gets toned down in this extremely low rent homage to Spielberg’s shark shocker.
Network 7 was a love it or loathe it British TV series from the 1980s that changed television for good. Launched in 1987, it ran for two series, until 1988, and was aired on Sundays between 12 and 2pm, on Channel 4. There had been nothing like it, but there have been plenty of copies since.
Devised by Janet Street-Porter and Jane Hewland, Network 7 gave a voice to British teenagers and twenty-somethings, sowed the seed of Reality TV, and put “yoof culture” at the heart of the TV schedules.
Strange to think now, but back then youth TV was limited to roughly three shows: the educational Blue Peter, which was a cross between homework, the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides; Top of the Pops, the legendary chart run-down show, hosted by Jimmy Saville and “Hairy Monster” Dave Lee Travis; and The Tube an anarchic live music series from Newcastle. And that was that.
Set in a ramshackle warehouse in London’s Limehouse, Network 7 changed all this by taking its audience seriously and offering feature items, news stories, music and interviews on issues that were topical, relevant and often ground-breaking: from exposes on bank card fraud, to Third World debt, AIDs, bulimia, bullying and gangs. Network 7 was also radical in that it was presented by “yoof”, and made stars of Sebastian Scott, Magenta Devine, Sankha Guha, Jaswinder Bancil and Trevor Ward.
It was easy to see why Ward was the best of the bunch, for he didn’t try and be a traditional presenter, something all the others did (and often badly). No, he was himself, and tackled each story with his own clever and original take. Trevor Ward was the main reason for watching Network 7, it was like having a young Hunter S. Thompson presenting a TV show - for Ward brought a steely journalistic edge to what was basically a day-time series presented by young things.
I contacted Trevor to find out how he got started:
I was working for Mercury Press agency in Liverpool in 1987 under the brilliant and inspirational Roger Blyth when I was 26. Network 7 was a brand new Sunday morning show, like a thinking-man’s Tiswas. About halfway through their first series, they said they were looking for a reporter. The following week, they repeated their appeal, but this time they said the applicants had to be Northern. So I sent in my CV and was invited down to an interview on the set – a load of reconditioned caravans in the middle of a big warehouse in East London. Janet Street Porter and Jane Hewland gave me a merciless grilling and I drove home convinced I hadn’t got the job.
The next day, a researcher rang me and said I was on the final short list of three, and that we would be expected to come down to London the next Sunday to do a live audition on that day’s show. The viewers would vote in a live telephone poll for who got the job.
I thought it was a brilliant idea, even though there was a one in three chance it could end in nationally-televised humiliation for me.
That week’s show was coming live from a Rock against Racism festival in Finsbury Park, and we each had to find a story during the programme’s two-hour running time to present to camera in under a couple of minutes about half an hour before the end.
I thought it was pretty obvious that it would have to be a PTC rather than an interview if we were to successfully sell ourselves to the viewers in such a short timespan, so I harvested a load of juicy anecdotes from a bunch of bouncers and turned those into a script which ended with about six of them carrying me off camera. I was unaware of what the other two were upto, and later found out they’d chosen to interview people from worthy causes represented at the festival.
Anyway, I got almost half the votes, so was declared the winner at the end of the show.
You can gather from this why Ward was the show’s highlight - he approached stories in an interesting and intelligent way. Every fuckwit would have gone all hang-wringing and worthy, but not clever Trevor, and that’s why he is so good.
My first live story on Network 7 was on its Death Penalty programme. Network 7 was brilliant for pioneering viewer interaction, and viewers were regularly asked to vote on a range of issues. That week it was the death penalty and whether a particular Death Row inmate –whom we had a live satellite link with – should die. I was handed the London, studio-end of things. It was incredibly nerve-racking. My first piece -to-camera (PTC)– at the top of the two-hour programme – was a two—and-a-half-minute walking/talking shot – an eternity in TV time - referring to various modes of capital punishment – all without autocue.
That was the other thing about Network 7 it engaged with its audience, it was like a social network for news stories, features and information. And by god did they pump that screen full of information - from what was coming up, to the temperature in the studio. Even so, for a generation it was compulsive viewing, and opened the gates to more accessible, more informative, more entertaining TV.
Janet Street-Porter went onto to win a BAFTA for Network 7 and was then appointed head of “yoof” TV at the BBC, before, more recently, returning to journalism. Trevor Ward continued as a journalist (writing for Loaded, The Guardian, and working as an editor on the Daily Record) and presenter, and is now a highly respected writer, producer and documentary-maker.
There aren’t many clips of Network 7 out there, and sadly none with Ward, but the few that are do give a hint of what the show was like. This selection ranges from opening titles, an item on gay youth and “coming out” (which was highly controversial subject back then), Madonna in concert, and an interview with The Beastie Boys.
More clips of ‘Network 7’, plus bonus French & Saunders spoof and Trevor Ward documentary, after the jump…
James Dean interviewed by actor Gig Young for an episode of the Warner Bros. Presents TV show during the filming of Giant, and just thirteen days before his untimely death at the age of 24 on September 30, 1955. It says all over the web that this is an speeding PSA, but that’s not accurate, although they do discuss the topic. Instead of saying the then popular phrase “The life you save may be your own,” Dean ad-libs the cryptic line, “The life you might save might be mine.”
This segment was never aired for obvious reasons, but was added as an extra feature to the DVD release of Rebel Without A Cause.
Cinefamily, here in Los Angeles, is probably the single best art house cinema in America (or maybe it’s a tie with Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse). When such a hallowed venue decides to deviate from their normal mission of screening novel cinematic fare 365 days a year, in order to show just one single film for an entire week—they never show most movies even twice—this movie is, in all likelihood, fucking amazing.
Combining the gripping, unpredictable tension of a prime Polanski thriller, the perfectly-executed production design of a Wes Anderson contraption and the dangerous freaky-deakiness of a David Lynch nightmare, Dogtooth is easily one of the most unique filmic creations of the last few years, spinning forth from the dark imagination of new Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos. Topping critics’ lists as one of the best films of 2010, Cinefamily is proud to bring a full week-long of one of the coolest films you’ll see in 2011!
On par with Antichrist and Enter The Void for sheer audacity, this hyper-stylized, intoxicating mixture of physical violence and verbal comedy is the story of three teenagers perpetually confined to their parents’ isolated country estate, and kept under strict rule and regimen—an inscrutable scenario suggesting a warped experiment in social conditioning. Terrorized into submission by their father, the children spend their days devising their own games and learning an invented vocabulary (a salt shaker is a “telephone,” an armchair is “the sea”) — until a trusted outsider brought in to satisfy the son’s libidinal urges starts offering forbidden VHS tapes(!) as a key to the outside world.
Fully utilizing every last inch of onscreen space, Lanthimos paints the blackest of portraits here using austere, antiseptic visuals, and elicits total warped commitment from his entire cast, resulting in an indelible immersive experience into a claustrophobic emotional netherworld never before seen. Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, 2009, 35mm, 94 min.
Some of the YouTube comments posted beneath the trailer said things like:
“This movie sucked every peace of joy out of me.This is one of those movie that really have a deep impact. Still I liked it,the message is brought to the viewer in such a way that it crawls deeply in your soul. God I think I will need therapy after this.”
“The movie is totally sick..raped my mood.”
“Christ and I thought my parents were overbearing but these guys their love for thier children hinges on sociopathic.”
“One of the most disgusting films ever. It made my guts turn upside down. I am very confused about what people found in it.
Intrigued yet? The film starts tomorrow at Cinefamily, 611 N. Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles, California
Jesus being the first Vampire and George W. Bush looking to find the Holy Grail and drink his blood to become immortal (under orders from Hitler) - yeah, that has potential to be pretty wild, especially when you throw in Vlad The Impaler / Dracula, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and the Pope.
‘Wow. So what happens?’
A lot of “shocking things”.
‘Like?’
Well…
....there’s Christ having sex with himself, the Pope anally raped, female dolls mutilated and tortured, alongside plenty of racism and desperately offensive dialogue. But Zebub blows any sense of taboo-busting with a very long and apologetic introduction in which he explains that none of this should be taken seriously and that no offence is meant, not even to the President (Bush at the time). C’mon Bill, have the courage of your convictions!
‘Jeez…no wonder they used dolls.’
Yep.
‘And he got paid for this?’
Yep.
‘I’m in the wrong job.’
Maybe.
‘Is it any good?’
Not really. Here’s David Flint’s review:
Unfortunately, any potential is lost in a mix of really, really shoddy production values and the sort of clumsy shock-value humour you might expect to come out of a fourteen year old metalhead trying to upset his parents.The only good thing here is the cover art (and possibly some of the soundtrack).
‘Okay. Maybe I’ll give it a miss, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the trailer just to be sure.’
In 1970 Charles Bukowski flew from L.A. to the state of Washington to read his poetry before a bunch of students at Bellevue Community College. It was only his fourth public reading. Students videotaped the event but it was largely unseen until the late 80s when it began circulating among Bukowski’s fans. Titled “Bukowski At Bellevue”, the video is crudely shot and the tape itself damaged and battered with age. But the technical deficiencies (and a case of the nerves) don’t obscure Bukowski’s sardonic humor, wiseass growl and diamond-hard imagery. Here’s Buk before he became an international literary superstar.
Part of the pleasure for me in watching “Bukowski At Bellevue” is seeing the students in the audience and recalling what it felt like when I first discovered Bukowski in my mid-teens. His words hit my frontal lobes like a syntactical blackjack, slapping me out of my suburban stupor and propelling me into the life of a poet and provocateur. For that, he will always be my hero.
While the video occasionally freezes like a drunk wondering where the fuck he’s at, the audio is not affected.
John, Paul, George and…Jimmie? It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, does it? But for ten days in 1964, Jimmie Nicol was one of The Fab Four, drafted in to replace Ringo Starr on The Beatles first world tour.
Starr had collapsed with tonsillitis, and rather than cancel the tour, producer George Martin decided to call in a temporary replacement - Jimmie Nicol, an experienced session musician, who had played with Georgie Fame and jazz musician, Johnny Dankworth, amongst others. Lennon and McCartney were fine with the idea, but Harrison was a bit shirty, and at one point threatened to walk off, telling Martin and Brian Epstein: “If Ringo’s not going, then neither am I - you can find two replacements.” It was soon resolved and within 24-hours of the initial ‘phonecall, Nicol was playing drums with the Fab Three in Copenhagen. He later recalled:
“That night I couldn’t sleep a wink. I was a fucking Beatle!”
The next leg of the tour was Australia and Hong Kong, and Nicol soon found himself at the heart of Beatlemania. Fans screamed his name, his photograph was sent around the globe, and he was interviewed as one of the band by the world’s press. Nicol later reflected:
“The day before I was a Beatle, girls weren’t interested in me at all. The day after, with the suit and the Beatle cut, riding in the back of the limo with John and Paul, they were dying to get a touch of me. It was very strange and quite scary.”
He also gave an inkling into The Beatles’ life on the road was like:
“I thought I could drink and lay women with the best of them until I caught up with these guys.”
Ten days into the tour, Ringo had recovered and quickly reclaimed his place. Nicol was paid off by Epstein at Melbourne airport, given a cheque for $1,000 and a gold Eterna-matic wrist watch inscribed: “From The Beatles and Brian Epstein to Jimmy - with appreciation and gratitude.” It was like a retirement present. Within a year Nicol was bankrupt, owing debts of over $70,000, and all but forgotten. So much for his 15 minutes of fame.
“Standing in for Ringo was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Until then I was quite happy earning thirty or forty pounds a week. After the headlines died, I began dying too.”
Nicol went on to play with Swedish guitar band, The Spotnicks, but by the late sixties he quit pop music and relocated to Mexico. It was later claimed he had died, but as the Daily Mail explained in 2005, this was false:
At 66, his square-jawed looks have given way to grey jowls, the smile oblieterated by missing teeth. Anything that might remain of his Beatle haircut is tied back in a scruffy ponytail. But he still has his principles. Despite the lucrative rewards of today’s Beatlemania industry, he staunchly refuses to cash in….
It has even been reported that he died in 1988. This week, however, after a difficult search, I confirmed reports of his death are greatly exaggerated. One morning he could be foind visiting a building society, eating breakfast in a modest cafe, then returning silently to his London home. At this flat you could see sheet music through one window but no sign of any drums. He didn’t answer the door when I rang. If he got my messages about the new book, he didn’t reply.
When I eventually made contact, the conversation was predictably brief: “I’m not interested in all that now,” he said. “I don’t want to know, man.”
Here is footage of The Beatles’ tour of Australia and Jimmie Nicol’s time as the fifth Beatle - the Beatle who never was..
Rare clips of The Beatles on tour, plus Jimmie Nicol interview, after the jump…
A tantalizing teaser for a truly rare (as in I can’t find the complete thing on the innerweb) 1971 doc about husband and wife free-improv duo Paul and Limpe Fuchs (and their two small children) d.b.a Anima Sound. The Fuchs’ toured greater Europa in a most odd fashion: in a caravan pulled by a tractor going 20 kilometers an hour with the purpose of bringing their primitive musical expressionism to remote, uncultured public places. Looks utterly fascinating. Evidently this film did a tour of college film festivals last year. Won’t some kind soul in possession of a copy put the whole thing for us all (OK, a handful of weirdos) to view ?
LSD-25 is a goofier than average drug scare flick produced in 1967 for the San Mateo Union High School District in San Mateo, California. The entire film is narrated by a tab of LSD - a device that Bunuel would have admired.
This one has it all: over-the-top freakouts, groovy fashions, a Satanic mass, trippy visuals and little known factoids like LSD makes kids “paint themselves green.” It also features an obscure Jonathan King tune called “Round Round.”
Strap yourself in and “join the mind expanding world where colors and sounds and smells and tastes and people all take on new dimensions and qualities.”
A taste of computer games gone-by. Escape From New York as long play from the the bogus 1999 C64 game. The full video, plus a host of others, are downloadable here at Archive.org (no 276). And for all you need to know about the Escape From New York game check here.
