Andre Perkowski, YouTube’s mixologist of camp and horror, presents Silent Shadow of the Batman, a new classic in two parts. Borrowing scenes from such beloved silent films as The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, The Bat and The Man Who Laughs, he’s cobbled together a chilling exquisite corpse. Watch the first part, in which Bruce Wayne’s fate is cemented by the murder of his parents and his decision to become something truly horrible to the simple, superstitious minds of all criminals is made.
Silent Shadow of the Batman, Part 2 can be seen here. Other shorts by Perkowski can be viewed on his YouTube profile page.
A stern, last-minute reminder from M.A.D.D. (Muftaks Against Drunk Driving): all ya boozers attending the launch party tonight need to BRING A DESIGNATED DRIVER, or use a taxi service. That goes double for anyone who so much as sips the Electric Lemonade. We don’t want to see your drunk ass behind the wheel of anything besides the gorgeous carousel horse Roxy‘s lending us for the photo booth.
Above is Kenneth Anger‘s 1954 film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome in its entirety. A film critic friend pointed me to it, with the simple statement “it’s weird, you’ll like it.” This came up along with news that Anger, 81, is terminally ill.
In some ways this seems a film out of time. It presages ’60s psychedelica (and would be re-released in a “sacred mushroom” version in 1966), yet the style is enmeshed in the occult revival of the fin de siècle. Watching it the first time, I couldn’t but see it as a glimpse into an alternate universe where the silent film era never ended and Aleister Crowley took the world by storm instead of dying in a flophouse.
With its lush array of images and allusions, Pleasure Dome is made to be unraveled – and indeed, there’s plenty of theories about it out there. Filmmaker Maximilian Le Cain sees communion, and writes “the movement of the film is essentially the passing of the gifts from one guest to another as they advance into a state of transpersonal ecstasy.” But film critic Doug Pratt perceives a hollow heart in the same revels: “an appropriately decorated Hindu-like myth re-enactment, with its spiritual core utterly rotted away; a disturbed revelry of desperate souls clinging to the outdated fashions and orgiastic memories of their lost time.”
Which is it? The absurdity’s there. Yes, that’s Anais Nin with a birdcage on her head. Yes, the Scarlet Woman gets her cigarette lit in the middle of the damn thing. Yes, jewelry gets guzzled in copious amounts.
But like any good ritual experience, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Turn the lights off, watch deeply, let the images pile up and hear Janá?ek’s Glagolitic Mass swell in the background: the whole scene takes on a strange, unexpected power.
Theremin-soaked electronica duo Zombie-Zombie cites John Carpenter and Goblin as two of their biggest influences. Appropriately, the “unofficial” music video for their Goblinesque tune “Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free” is a surprisingly complex re-enactment of Carpenter’s The Thing. It features stop-frame animated G.I. Joe dolls wandering stoically through carefully lit, finely crafted model sets, confronting one unearthly horror after another.
I was genuinely creeped out! And suddenly I’m deeply nostalgic for low-budget 80s horror flicks. Time to bust out The Stuff.
Post-Nerd Prom portrait of your pitiful narrator, afflicted with the dreaded Con Plague, or perhaps some form of eyeball-displacing orbital tumor.
Apologies for not updating in “real time” on Sunday, but I’ve been slimed. That is to say, I have succumbed to the dreaded Con Crud, and could not muster the strength to lift my fingers (blackened, trembling, tumescent with pus) to type this missive until now. Tonight (scabby, delirious, drowning in my own phlegm) I’d like to share a consolidation of ComicKAAAAAHHHHN postcards, and quite possibly my death rattle, with you.
To start things off, here’s a chick straddling a seahorse monster:
This cover image of The Fabulous Women of Boris Vellejo & Julie Bell is fabulous indeed. It would be even more fabulous with the addition of some strategically placed tiny bubbles, don’t you agree?
A comely consortium of Slave Leias gathered at Gentle Giant‘s booth this morning to pose with GG’s larger (and droolier)-than-life Jabba statue. Not pictured: legions of mouth-breathing Frito-eaters with cheap instant cameras and sweatpants boners.
“Pardon! Bonjour! Fromage!” (photo by Rafe Baron.)
One balmy summer’s eve a couple years ago, Herr Titler came into my life. I was standing in the wings of an ancient Brooklyn theater, reeling in the chaos of Amanda Palmer’s boisterous Fuck The Back Row film/music/theater revue night, when I beheld a broad-shouldered figure in a slinky cocktail gown and perilous high heels. With his sultry voice, his sharply parted/pomaded hair and villainous moustache, Titler was simultaneously demure yet forceful, domineering yet somehow… dainty. I tell ya, he KILLED it that night.
Having basked in his commanding presence, I have trouble understanding what zealots on either side of the ongoing Dr. Steel vs Dr. Horrible debate are getting their jodhpurs in such a twist over! For my money, Titler is all anyone could ever want in a singing musical madman, with the unexpected (but welcome) bonus of a truly fetching décolletage.
Like every other sentimental mooncalf who watched too many Merchant Ivory flicks as a young girl, I continue to allow the actor Julian Sands to occupy a very special place in my heart, despite everything. Never mind Warlock. Or Harem. Forget Boxing Helenaand Biker Mice From Mars. Put these sundries from your minds, my dears. Recall only A Room With A View, and Sands’ convincingly heterosexual ravishing of Helena Bonham Carter in a field of poppies.* It remains, to this day, one of my top picks for Most Romantic Moment in Cinema (seconded only by this tender scene from Myra Breckenridge).
I also happen to be a HYOOOGE fan of the Italian horror director, Dario Argento, so when I heard that he and Sands worked together ten years ago on an adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera, I was quite curious! Why had I never heard about this movie before? Why?! I promptly Netflixed it.
“I gotta be MEEEEEEE.” Julian Sands in Il Fantasma.
Why, oh, why, indeed. Yes, Sands and Argento work seamlessly together… in a So-Bad-it’s-a-Festering-Masterpiece kind of way, their combined efforts cradling the budding psychosexual genius of Asia Argento like two slices of moldy sourdough bread wrapped around a generous dollop of indeterminate ooze in a rat salad sandwich.
The movie is quite long, and something tells me few of you will appreciate the full length version as much as I did. Luckily, Genevieve, a brilliant columnist over at Defenestration Magazine, has provided us with this MST3K-worthy “abridged version”. I laughed, I cried, it was better than… that other Andrew Lloyd Weber musical. Enjoy:
While it’s my sincere hope that the wondrous Coilhouse Gushfest: Getting to Know You continues unabated, I can’t keep sitting on my hands with this one. Grace Jones has just released a new video for “Corporate Cannibal”, the first single off her forthcoming album, Hurricane (which features collaboration with Tricky, Brian Eno, and others). May Day is more heart-stoppingly badass than ever before:
Rawr. As previously mentioned on CH, Ms. Jones is my choice for It Girl of the 80s. Hell, let’s make her It Girl for ’08, as well. She’s sixty, she’s sexy, she’s scary as hell, and we should all bow before her fabulousness.
Extraordinary news! Metropolis, Fritz Lang’s astounding silent sci-fi magnum opus, was originally released in 1927 and restored in 2001, with at least 90 minutes of footage lost. Now, through a long chain of distributors, collectors and art funds the missing scenes have been found. These scenes fill gaps in the plot, expand characters that seem minor in current versions and complete the film – this is the Metropolis we were meant to see. The found film will need a lot of work but I have high hopes for a re-release. Private screening at The Edison, anyone?
Last Tuesday Paula Félix-Didier traveled on a secret mission to Berlin in order to meet with three film experts and editors from ZEITmagazin. The museum director from Buenos Aires had something special in her luggage: a copy of a long version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, including scenes believed lost for almost 80 years. After examining the film the three experts are certain: The find from Buenos Aires is a real treasure, a worldwide sensation. Metropolis, the most important silent film in German history, can from this day on be considered to have been rediscovered.
