Word comes this morning that, tragically, actor David Carradine was found dead in a Bangkok hotel room this morning, possibly a suicide. He was 72.
Carradine first rose to fame in the ’70s TV series Kung Fu as wandering monk/martial artist Kwai Chang Caine (a role originally sought by Bruce Lee). He’s as well or better known to later generations as the eponymous villain in Quentin Tarantino’s epic revenge saga Kill Bill. As Caine, a soft-spoken, hard-bodied Carradine helped form the culture’s idea of a martial artist, to the extent that many fixtures of the role have now become cliche.
Less remembered, unfortunately, are his turns as Woody Guthrie in Hal Ashby’s Bound for Glory or a rabble-rousing train robber in Martin Scorsese’s Boxcar Bertha. Also, if you haven’t seen Death Race 2000, do so now.
Carradine struggled with alcoholism and personal issues his entire career. In that time, he got saddled with a lot of dreck. Fortunately, he persevered and survived to get a role, in Kill Bill, that allowed him to show off his considerable talents. Managing to bring both seething villainy and world-weary gravitas, Carradine’s performance was a key factor in turning the movies into something more than a simple bloody rampage. In the pitch-perfect scenes like his initial entrance (at 5:10) or the grand finale below, he manages to add a hollow note to the fulfillment of The Bride’s (Uma Thurman) long, brutal quest.
Post-Bill, Carradine’s career enjoyed a bit of a revival and I’d hoped that in the autumn of his life he’d end up with juicier roles. Sadly, we’ll never know what the years to come might have had in store.
California-born dancer/singer Heather Parisi isn’t a household name in the US, but some of our Mediterranean readers might recognize her. Back in the late 70s, an Italian producer discovered the flexible 19-year-old sunning on a beach in Rimini. Parisi was set up with the best thrustiest jazz choreographer liras could buy, pimped out in one seriously bedazzlicious wardrobe, and became an Italian TV pop sensation overnight.
There are so many transcendentally Stupid/Awesome aspects to this video for her song “Crilù”, it’s hard to know where to start. Just… enjoy.
Gyrations atop a giant Rubik’s cube? Check. Uber groiny, hardbodied ballet dancers in metallic bowler shoes? Check. Intimated BJ three-way with male Moschino models? Check. Glittering Mickey Mouse butt cleavage? OKAY NOW THAT’S JUST GOING TOO FAR.
Clip via DJ Dead Billy, thanks. More Parisi videos after the jump. Additionally, if you appreciate this level of Stupid/Awesome 80s kitsch, you may also like:
Murder Rock (Italian horror director Lucio Fulci’s answer to Flashdance)
Actor Richard Beymer, who played Benjamin Horne in Twin Peaks, has a gallery of hauntingly beautiful black-and-white photos from his time behind the scenes on the David Lynch show. Even if you never watched the whole series (as – full disclosure – I still haven’t had the opportunity to!) – the photos stand alone as an enthralling glimpse at the synergy that evolves around any special production between the cast and the crew. The photos read almost as family portraits, permeated by a sense of camaraderie and playfulness. Lynch himself is always a wonderful photographic subject – this portrait of Lynch and Isabella Rossellini by Helmut Newton is one of my favorite images of all time. In the Beymer photos, Lynch looks genuinely happy to be working on the series with the equipment and people around him. The grainy processing of the film adds another layer of nostalgia over every shot. See all 49 images here. [via Flesh World – nswf]
The hits keep coming, and the new episodes are too good not to repost! Here are two performance-themed clips, with some more favorites after the jump, and still more new ones up on YouTube, the latest one having appeared just last week.
Two acquired tastes: British comedy, and the type of laughs that come within milliseconds of uttering the phrase “what did I just witness? That was so wrong.” If you’re allergic to either brand of humor, particularly the latter, stay back. Click away, because these clips will take you to a dark, dark place. To the rest of you assholes who think that dead babies are funny: welcome to the world of Jam, the most twisted sketch comedy series ever produced.
Jam is one of those great shows that’s been reduced to YouTube tatters due to music licensing issues. The episodes are interlaced with dreamy, ambient sounds by the likes of Low, Beta Band, Aphex Twin and Brian Eno. If you’ve never seen the show, let us begin at the beginning. Below is Episode 1, Part 1. It begins with “an invocation of sorts” (there was one of these at the beginning of every episode; here’s another opener), and leads right into “It’s About Ryan,” a sketch about two concerned parents asking their child’s godfather to gain the affections of a local pervert in order to keep him away from their boy (UPDATE: that video was removed by YouTube, so I’ve replaced it with a clip of “It’s About Ryan,” without the intro):
When dancing… lost in techno trance. Arms flailing, gawky Bez. Then find you snagged on frowns, and slowly dawns… you’re jazzing to the bleep-tone of a life support machine, that marks the steady fading of your day old baby daughter. And when midnight sirens lead to blue-flash road-mash. Stretchers, covered heads and slippy red macadam, and find you creeping ‘neath the blankets to snuggle close a mangled bird, hoping soon you too will be freezer drawered. Then welcome… blue chemotherapy wig, welcome. In Jam. Jaaam. Jaaaaaaam…
The show, written by Chris Morris (with occasional help from the cast) is a successor to Blue Jam, which ran on BBC Radio 1, and was described by the Beeb as “the funniest nightmare you never had.” In some ways, the radio show (which you can listen to here) went even further than the televised version. But since I love the look of the actors (particularly the crazy gleam in Mark Heap’s eye!), the TV version has always been my favorite.
Many of my most beloved Jam clips are now impossible to find online. They disappear, audio tracks get erased by YouTube. So watch these while you can! Type “Chris Morris Jam” into YouTube and enter a world stranger than you ever imagined. Below are some highlights:
Howdy! How about a lively morning cartoon to go with your fruity pebbles? Zoetica’s recent post on the lamentable declension of MTV’s programming reminded me of this little gem:
Created as a senior project by animator and RISD legend, Christy Karacas, “Space Wars” aired internationally on a charming, offbeat MTV show called Cartoon Sushi back in 1997. The content and mood of Cartoon Sushi was sort of a cross between Liquid Television and Spike & Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation. Sadly, it barely lasted a year on the air. Suprise, surprise.
A couple of years later, Karacas joined forces with Stephen Warbick to unleash BAR FIGHT upon an unsuspecting world. The film “was rejected from every festival it was ever entered in” and it’s a bit… well, let’s just say it’s more a Better Than Beer experience –or possibly Better Than Dimethyltryptamine– than anything else. Still, it’s under the cut if you think you’re feeling up to graphic, color-saturated gore and toilet humor this early in the morning.
Nowadays, we have no shortage of psychedelic, stream-of-consciousness mindbuggery from Karacas/Warbick; their show Superjail! premiered on Adult Swim last year. (Bless you, Cartoon Network, for picking up where Liquid Television left off.)
My last attempt at watching MTV lasted about 3 minutes into a show, I think it was called “Pimp My Band’s Paddy Wagon”, before I felt deeply insulted by the producers and clicked away to another channel. But it hasn’t always been this way! MTV used to actually be cool, as demonstrated below. Aidan Quinn narrates and stars in a stylish 1991 reading advert, featuring everyone’s favorite self-loathing insect, Gregor Samsa.
See, that actually makes me want to read! Now, imagine this commercial airing today. Though I doubt most 14 year-olds would get the reference, I’m willing to bet they’d have the same reaction I did. So why is it that the youth television of today is so incredibly, painfully dumbed down? What kid is benefiting from watching hours of bulldog birthday party-planning? [Really.] What happened to igniting actual passion and curiosity in our chitlins with music and art, instead of turning their impressionable brains into gelatinous lumps? While we wait for MTV’s golden age to return my solution is simple: I don’t have cable.
Ah, New York Public Access TV. Nothing quite like it. You got your mimes on skates, your free “math and educational skills” and everything in between. One day, there’s going to be a huge Coilhouse feature celebrating the golden age of pre-Internet Public Access. Today is not that day.
No, today, a Public Access treasure from the current century: the psychic show of one CB Walker. Real or fake, it doesn’t matter; whether CB is a comedian, a performance artist or a true crackpot visionary, the result is still hilarious. CB uses his psychic abilities to heal, comfort and advise. Suspicious of your lover’s fidelity? He’s got some advice for you. Do you have a deep, dark secret that you’ve never revealed? He knows what you did. Are you 19 years old? Do not call!
The best C.B. Walker clips appear on his YouTube channel, and above is my favorite one of all, in which C.B. gets accosted by non-stop prank callers. Whether CB is “fake,” the prank callers are definitely real. It gets funnier every time you watch! [Thanks, Kelly]
This incredible clip of Sparks appearing on TOTP back in ’74 speaks for itself. I have very little to add beyond mentioning that the entirety of Kimono My House is desert island playlist worthy, that I know I can’t be the only pervert who wouldn’t mind being the meat in a Mael brothers sandwich, and that I actually met douchebags in Williamsburg, Brooklyn who would chug the beverage SPARKS* ironically while simultaneously listening to the band Sparks and snorting coke off one another’s asses.
Istill say we take off and nuke Bedford Avenue from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
