Memorial Day is almost upon us in the States, and we here at The FAM have chosen to begin our long weekend with sex, drugs, and violence, as is our wont. Today we present 1971’s Get Carter, directed by Mike Hodges and starring Michael Caine; quite possibly one of the greatest gangster movies of all time, British or otherwise. Based on the novel Jack’s Return Home by Ted Lewis — which took its inspiration from the “one-armed bandit murder” in the north east of England in 1967 — it tells the story of one Jack Carter as he weaves his way through Newcastle’s seedy underworld in search of the truth of his brother Frank’s death, supposedly due to a drunk driving accident. In his wake he leaves a trail of bodies and a river of blood.
There is an image of Michael Caine for many people, greatly influenced by The Cider House Rules and his role as Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred Pennyworth in Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, of a kindly, wise, and lovable older man with a cockney accent. For this audience Caine will be almost unrecognizable here. His Jack Carter is a ruthless man; death in a well-tailored suit. Carter’s rampage through Tyneside is relentlessly brutal culminating on a lonely, gray beach and ends on a note that takes the viewer completely by surprise, though the more astute will recognize the players from an exceedingly brief appearance at the very beginning of the film.
Get Carter is a highlight in a storied career and it remains one of my favorite movies. To be sure Caine has played many memorable characters besides Jack Carter, but few have had that kind of presence on screen. It’s a role almost completely devoid of pathos. Jack Carter is out for revenge, and he really doesn’t care how you or anyone else feels about it. All that’s certain is that he’ll get it, one way or another.
Crater Face by Skyler Page is an exercise in simplicity in every regard, from its story to its animation and Dan Deacon’s music. Despite this — or, perhaps, because of it depending if you’re of the mindset — it is completely engrossing, with an incredible sense of humor and melancholy packed into its four plus minutes.
Ellis Nadler’s fictitious deck of divination cards is a perfect combination of woodcut aesthetic and Hieronymus Bosch insanity; the tools of fortunetellers from some far-off, imaginary realm. Beautifully rendered they are the kind of work that begs to be made into a physical object.
Update: Reader Fritz Bogott contacted Mr. Nadler and posted his response in the comments:
“‘They are currently being made as a hand-printed fine art limited edition (details available later this year). However, due to great interest from people visiting my website I have now made them available to buy online as high quality digital prints. Just follow this link.’“
I think that any fan of David Lynch’s cult-classic television series Twin Peaks will agree that what the show’s legacy has really been lacking is a hip-hop tribute. Luckily, nerdcore rapper MC Chris has stepped up to the challenge, dropping an Autotuned ode to one of the most amazingly strange shows to ever appear on the magic picture box, presented here with fan-made video.
Weirdness and misogyny this week on The FAM as we present 1987’s The Confessions of Robert Crumb produced by the BBC (which includes the wonderful Arena opening and song. Seriously, I love that intro.) Unlike 1994’s Crumb by Terry Zwigoff (which is seeing a Criterion release this August) Confessions is less concerned with Crumb’s bizarre family and more concerned with the man himself. In that regard it spends much of its time letting Crumb explore and contemplate his objectification of women and self-loathing, preferring to be a catalog of the man’s various fetishes, to merely witness a day in the life of a dirty old man.
Both documentaries illustrate how difficult it can be to separate the artist from their art. A great fan of his work I can’t help but cringe as Crumb displays his current wife to the camera, showing off her musculature as if he were trying to sell the viewer a horse. It is, perhaps, admirable that one would be able to be so honest with the world, willing to expose one’s Id to whoever passes by, and it has certainly worked out well for Robert Crumb. I just can’t help but think that those images made living, breathing flesh are not nearly as entertaining when not on the printed page.
Simple and effective, Benjamin König aka Sperber’s illustrations are beautiful little vignettes and eerie portraits, many of them taken from fairy tales, all of them with a dark, creepy Edward Gorey veneer. I just love these, and it took all my strength not to simply put every single one behind the cut. He has a postcard set for sale that is seriously tempting me at the moment.
I’ve been staring at this illustration by Jerico Santander all morning. Staring, alt-tabbing over to actual work and then alt-tabbing back. Entitled “Only the Strong Survive” it’s a promotional piece for Calder Bateman — which a Google search informs me is a PR company. I’m just completely taken with it. What, really, is there not to love about Deer Hunter as performed by hamsters. Nothing, that’s what. This is, I suspect, exactly what the lives of hamsters are like when not in range of the prying eyes of humans: a shady underworld of illicit gambling and bloodsport, and no one will convince me otherwise. Click here for the full-size image.
Tom Tom Crew is, from the looks of their website, a hip-hop flavored circus troupe originating from Australia, that den of murderers, rapists, and thieves that lies adjacent to the place where the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed, where everything is upside down and roaming gangs of wallabies rule the streets. Tom Tom Crew’s website bills them as the future of Australian circus, a claim I can neither confirm nor deny, knowing as I do, absolutely nothing about Australian circus [Editor’s Note: or Australia for that matter]. What I can say is that they possess something called The Wheel, an ominous contraption consisting of a metal frame which holds a number of plastic vessels.
Into this insidious device, it seems that the Tom Tom Crew places a single percussionist. Where they come from, I can only guess. Perhaps they are merely street performers, shanghaied from the city squares and subway stations they usually occupy. Regardless of their origins, these poor individuals are forced to drum, seemingly for their very lives within the confines of The Wheel. Who can say how many of these performers perished in their attempts to conquer The Wheel before Ben Walsh. Possessing a skill that could only have been born from sheer terror, Walsh attacks the walls of his prison with astounding gusto and an effortlessness that belies the horrific reality.
It’s thrilling to watch, this battle for survival, hearkening back to the days of the Colosseum, when men lived and died for the entertainment of the masses. I pray the gods have mercy on Ben Walsh should he ever stop drumming. Certainly, The Wheel shall show none.
Brevity is the word of the day both in regards to this post and the film it features. Matthew Gordon Long’s The Anachronism tells the story of Katie and Sebastian, two Victorian era, aspiring naturalists who while on expedition one summer day discover a mechanical squid on a rocky beach. What secrets does this mysterious cephalopod hold?
The Anachronism wears its steampunk aesthetic on its sleeve, from the squid’s nod to Jules Verne’ 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to Katie’s parasol and Sebastian’s pith helmet and butterfly net. It’s a nice, well told little tale, with a surprisingly sinister ending. What it really comes down to is this: mechanical squid. Like you’re going to pass that by.
Iv Solaev’s work fluctuates between the likes of towering, cartoonish robots and intimate portraits of people sprouting roots, their tendrils entwining wrapping round their bodies. What really grabbed me was the brushwork, prevalent throughout. Everything is rendered in long, wispy lines; as if rendered in smoke or conjured from ectoplasm.
