Awww, jeez. Rest in peace, Pete Steele. (Sorry to get a bit morbid, guys. Then again, it is almost Dia de los Muertos.)
Living the American Nightmare“is an independently made documentary shot in HD directed by PawL BaZiLe.” Its main focus is Myke Hideous, the relatively obscure artist and lead singer of Empire Hideous and the Bronx Casket Company who briefly filled in as lead vocalist for the Misfits in the late nineties, long after its best-known frontman, Glenn Danzig, had left the band.
Through various accounts from Hideous, in addition to a series of interviews with a variety of veteran musicians, from Danzig and Steele to Ramones mastermind Arturo Vega to Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, LtAN “tells the story of what it costs working class people to be musicians, and the pitfalls of success with no payoff.”
Judging by its teaser and trailer, the mood of the entire film’s gloomy but empowering. “The sacrifice to make a living as an artist is incredible, and we have a strong cast of guests in this film to explain misconceptions and realities. We’ve spoken to everyone from independent bands still [of] high school age, to Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of famers.”
According to admin on its Facebook page, Living the American Nightmare should be out by this year’s end, or early next. Rock on, fellas. Keep us posted, please!
“Trailer for the documentary La Santa Muerte (Saint Death), directed and produced by Eva Aridjis, narrated by Gael García Bernal, distributed by Seventh Art Releasing. Film synopsis: In Mexico there is a cult that is rapidly growing- the cult of Saint Death. This female grim reaper, considered a saint by followers but Satanic by the Catholic Church, is worshiped by people whose lives are filled with danger and/or violence- criminals, gang members, transvestites, sick people, drug addicts, and families living in rough neighborhoods. “La Santa Muerte” examines the origins of the cult and takes us on a tour of the altars, jails, and neighborhoods in Mexico where the saint’s most devoted followers can be found.”
Whoa… the DVD was only officially released on October 7th, but quickly checking Amazon, I see the distributor’s already run out of stock! Hopefully they’ll have it back in, soon.
It’s almost Halloween which mean it’s time to hunker down and finish off putting all those razorblades in the candied apples you bought if you’re going to have them finished in time for the trick-or-treaters. While you’re doing that, you sick, sick bastard, enjoy a few hours of macabre tales on film.
First up we have Eyes Without a Face (Les yeux sans visage) from 1960, directed by Georges Franju and based on the novel by Jean Redon. Eyes Without a Face tells the story of one Doctor Génessier, a surgeon looking to restore the face of his daughter Christiane, disfigured in a automobile accident. To this end the doctor, with the help of his assistant Louise, abduct young women in order to provide a face for transplant. For a film made in 1960 Eyes Without a Face contains what must have been a shocking amount of gore. The scene in which Génessier slowly removes the face of Edna Gruber is still effective in grossing out the squeamish and the slow degeneration of the transplant as Christiane’s body rejects it follows right on its heels. If you only watch one of these films I urge you to watch this one. Wonderfully shot by Eugen Shuftan, alternating between the serene and the grotesque, it’s an under-appreciated classic.
Next is 1977’s Suspiria directed by the one and only Dario Argento. Suzy Bannion, a ballerina from New York, travels to Freiburg to attend a famous ballet school only to discover that it actually houses a coven of murderous witches. What follows is a surreal hallucination of horror movie. Argento’s world is downright insane and his signature use of anamorphic lenses is in full effect. Also present is his pointed use of incredibly vivid primary colors, particularly red which is so bright here that the blood is almost fluorescent. The effect was achieved using the imbibition process utilized by Technicolor, the same process used in movies like The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind. In fact, as well as featuring Udo Kier, Suspiria is also known for being the last film processed using this method. Udo Kier alone should be reason enough to watch this one.
And there it is ladies and gentlemen, your Halloween flavored FAM. Enjoy the holiday and make sure you don’t eat those special, candied apples. They’re for the kids.
Conceived and animated by Cook, with music by Martín Capella, the short film, Deuce, “portrays an awkward encounter between a man and a woman that triggers their individual fantasies.” As usual, Cook succeeds in presenting a putrescent sensuality that’s simultaneously off-putting and mesmerizing.
In honor of Gail Dolgin, a powerhouse filmmaker and activist who passed away earlier this month after a decade-long battle with cancer, here’s Daughter From Danang:
Co-created by Dolgin with Vincente Franco, this acclaimed documentary features the deeply emotional and conflicted reunion of a Vietnamese mother, Mai Thi Kim, with her Amerasian daughter, Heidi Bub (birthname Mai Thi Hiep), 22 years after the war and Operation Babylift pulled them apart. “The 83-minute film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and was nominated for best documentary in the 2003 Academy Awards. It lost to Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, but Dolgin and her collaborator, Vicente Franco, shared the stage with Moore until they were booed off amid Moore’s anti-war speech.”
Click here to read a compassionate and comprehensive Q&A by the filmmakers.
It’s the week before Halloween people, so that means horror movies on the FAM. All horror from here to the witching hour (or twice, for those counting their Fridays). Today the FAM presents a double feature unabashedly ripped off from TCM’s programming schedule from the past month, comprised of two fine films from the classic Hammer Film Productions: The Devil’s Bride (or The Devil Rides Out in the UK) from 1968 and The Gorgon from 1964, both directed by Terence Fisher and both starring Christopher Lee, along with fellow Hammer superstar Peter Cushing in The Gorgon. Additionally, Devil’s Bride features a screenplay by Richard Matheson (author of I Am Legend and What Dreams May Come, among others, as well as a host of well-known Twilight Zone episodes) based on the novel The Devil Rides Out by Devil Dennis Wheatley.
Hammer is perhaps best known for their slightly more graphic takes on famous Universal monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy, as well as interpretations of The Phantom of the Opera, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Robin Hood, and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which featured a troupe of actors (most notably Lee and Cushing) and directors perhaps the most famous of whom was Fisher. The studio is also responsible for a great number of films without the benefit of well-known subjects and The Devil’s Bride and The Gorgon are two of the best examples of this.
The Devil’s Bride, for all it’s new-age influenced Satan-worshiping cheese is surprisingly effective, not only for Charles Gray’s turn as the villainous Mocata but for the quiet menace of the entity who he serves. Indeed, the best scenes feature mostly silent specters, such as the demon in the observatory. The Gorgon may be even more of a success, transplanting the traditional Greek myth of the Gorgon to turn-of-the-century Middle Europe and features some absolutely stunning work from cinematographer Michael Reed. And while the titular Gorgon may seem campy by today’s standards, she is incredibly effective in the brief glimpses leading up to her reveal.
Hammer’s horror films are some of the defining examples of the genre and, at the time, were shocking in their depictions of violence and sexuality. By the end of the 60s Hammer’s formula had lost most of its punch however, and the release of low-budget films like The Night of the Living Dead and Hollywood productions like The Wild Bunch made the studio’s offerings look downright tame. Still, the quality of the acting and production combined with an almost perfect level of camp makes these films a nessecity in any horror buff’s education.
Haven’t seen High School Confidential yet? It’s high time you did. (Double-decker pun intended, natch!) Directed by Jack Arnold, it’s a campy, unexpectedly sharp teensploitation romp that peaks with this adrenalizing scene:
The finger-snapping nihilist’s name was Phillipa Fallon, and that was her all-too-brief moment to shine.
Approximately mid-way through the Albert Zugsmith exploitation film masterpiece High School Confidential(1958), an attractive, quasi-bohemian woman strides on stage at a coffee house and belts out a beat poem that provides a delightfully nihilistic snapshot of the Cold War—including references to the space race and atomic evacuation. The fact that she happens to be accompanied by Jackie Coogan (who plays a heroin kingpin in the film) on piano is, like, pure existential gravy. Predictably, the teens in the audience appear to be digging Coogan’s incongruous ragtime key work and disregarding the depressing content of the lyrics.
B-movie actor and writer Mel Welles (1924-2005) was the person most responsible for the hep jargon —including “High School Drag”— in Confidential. He was recruited by producer Zugsmith for help in this regard because, as Welles recalled for interviewer Tom Weaver in 1988, “I was an expert on grass in my day…”
Up until very recently, precious little was known about the sneering sex bomb “who so memorably portrays the hipsteress delivering Welles’ boptastic words.” But just last month, after years of sleuthing and compiling, CONELRAD began to parse out Fallon’s story on a separate site devoted to her life and times. Installments are still going up.
Craig Welch’s short, animated, silent film from 1996 is the story of a strange, reclusive man obsessed with the mechanics of winged flight who one night receives a mysterious visitor in his dark and empty abode. Always in Welch’s animation benefits from a distinct, Edward Gorey inspired look which complements the strange and macabre subject matter quite well. Welch’s protagonist, as well as being enamored of wings, is also someone who has created around him a sphere of perfect and utter control. There is no aspect of his existence that has not been meticulously planned, going so far as to force this exacting mastery over other living creatures that make their way into his world. Whether or not his mysterious guest meant him any ill will is left unspoken but regardless she proves to be his undoing. Indeed it may be that she is more cipher than anything — a metaphor for that which he hopes to attain through all his miniature, bio-mechanical tinkering. However you interpret it, it remains a short journey well worth taking.
Watch this and see if you don’t agree that Luke Geissbühler deserves to win some sort of Coolest Dad of the Year award:
This is footage that Geissbühler edited together after he and his young son Max attached a Go Pro Hero HD video camera to a helium-filled weather balloon “that rose into the upper stratosphere and recorded the blackness of space.”
After months of research, planning, and flight tests, the intrepid duo and their friends traveled from Park Slope, Brooklyn to a remote area of Newburgh in Orange County, NY with their camera and GPS system carefully wrapped in a homemade styrofoam capsule and fitted with a parachute. The balloon that carried this hand-crafted vessel skyward was rated to burst at 19 feet in diameter, and reached a height of nearly 20 miles above the earth before that happened.
This was all done within FAA regulations. This is awesome. Not just in the colloquial sense of the word, but by its dictionary definition: amazing, awe inspiring, and provoking wonderment.
Gaze upon the glory of Krackoon a film about unchecked urban development and political corruption. It may also be about a bloodthirsty raccoon which happens to be addicted to crack cocaine. In fact, it is most definitely about a bloodthirsty raccoon addicted to crack cocaine; a plot perhaps unparalleled in its maniacal greatness. It is unfortunate then that this trailer features only the slightest glimpse of the ring-tailed drug fiend in the form of what appears to be a hand-puppet entangled in offal. Instead, we are treated to a number of gentlemen in varied locales addressing the camera. This strikes me as a grave misjudgment. I realize that a trailer should leave the audience wanting more and it would be a mistake (one filmmakers too often make) to include the best parts of your film only to have little left over for the feature; but for fuck’s sake, your film is about a raccoon that kills people and is addicted to crack. Certainly, it deserves more screen time than what we get here. Still, it’s enough to pique my curiosity in what Bronx Times columnist Fish Altieri has dubbed “[…] an instant cult classic”; a sentiment that I could not agree with more.
