Warning to any coulrophobics or pupaphobics who may be a part of our readership: This video may not be for you; containing, as it does, both puppets and clowns and, in fact, a clown puppet. For the those of you without such qualms: Prepare yourselves for the bizarre traipse through a miniature forest that is the video for Chris Garneau’sDirty Night Clowns, a delightfully dark composition with some decidedly insidious undertones. The video, directed by Ryan Gibeau, is unsettling but beautifully realized. Puppetry has the ability to both undercut and magnify disturbing themes in equal measure with its cartoonish, exaggerated qualities, and that is on full display here. They also have a great behind-the-scenes feature for those who are interested.
En pointe moonwalking’s simply not something you see every day.
What’s not to love? Girl’s got wicked mad chops, and she doesn’t take herself too seriously.
World-renowned Polish composer Henryk Gorecki, “whose early avant-garde style gave way to more approachable works rooted in his country’s folk songs and sacred music and whose Symphony No. 3 — an extended lamentation subtitled Symphony of Sorrowful Songs — sold more than a million copies on CD in the 1990s, died on Friday in Katowice, Poland. He was 76.”
Legendary film producer Agostino (Dino) De Laurentiis passed away this Wednesday at the ripe old age of 91. De Laurentiis’s credits include over 160 films, including Dune (1984), Army of Darkness, Blue Velvet, Manhunter, Serpico, Conan the Barbarian, Barbarella, King Kong (1976), and Orca just to name a few. Two of the films he produced were Oscar winners: La Strada (1954) and Nights of Cabiria (1957) — both by Italian master Federico Fellini. Today The FAM honors this movie titan with two of his schlockier offerings: 1987’s Evil Dead II, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell and Bruce Campbell’s chin, and 1973’s Death Wish starring Charles Bronson , directed by Michael Winner.
First up is Evil Dead II, Sam Raimi’s remake/re-imagining/sequel/whatever to 1981’s The Evil Dead, featuring 100% less tree rape. De Laurentiis had approached Raimi about directing Thinner, part of a multi-movie deal with King which included Maximum Overdrive and Cat’s Eye but Raimi turned it down and instead directed Crimewave a crime/comedy he co-produced with the Coen Bros. It turned out to be a flop and Raimi subsequently had trouble attaining funding for Evil Dead II. King found out about this and personally appealed to De Laurentiis to fund the venture. A cult classic in the truest sense of the word, Evil Dead II is a love it or hate it sort of film. I personally love it and can’t help it if you don’t, Philistine.
Secondly is Death Wish, (based on Brian Garfield’s 1972 novel of the same name) Michael Winner’s brutal, exploitative revenge thriller about a pansy-ass liberal whose wife is murdered and daughter raped in their apartment, sending him off on a journey to gun down the punks who did it. This movie was originally set to be released by United Artist’s who had Sydney Lumet set to direct and Jack Lemon to star which would have been…interesting. Lumet had other obligations though and UA began to reconsider the nature of the story they had on their hands and eventually De Laurentiis and Paramount took over.
Critics and theatergoers alike were shocked by the violence in Death Wish which made it quite the box-office hit. In cities like New York, where crime had hit startling numbers in the 70s, it was especially popular. Critics, including Brian Garfield, were less impressed and reviews were mixed. Garfield disliked the film so much that it spurred him to write Death Sentence a sequel that focused on the increase and lunacy of vigilantism. Still, it’s considered by some to be a landmark film — the first to portray a citizen taking up arms against criminals in a modern setting. In addition to appearances by Olympia Dukakis, Christopher Guest, Saul Rubinek, and Hope Lange, Death Wish features the debut of Jeff Goldblum, as one of the hooligans who assault Paul’s wife and daughter (specifically forcing his daughter to perform fellatio on him, making for a performance creepier than his usual, creepy norm) and Denzel Washington as an uncredited punk-who-wants-to-rob-Charles-Bronson-but-gets-shot-instead (see Part 5 around 8:50 in the above play-list).
Perhaps there are better, more well-respected films that could represent Dino De Laurentiis’ career (see the aforementioned Fellini) but I’ll always remember him for having the willingness to get behind movies that others were too timid to touch even when the movies were complete bombs (see the aforementioned Dune). When no one else wanted to deal with the headaches of the image of a man cutting his own hand off with a chainsaw, amateur vigilantes, or Dennis Hopper, he was able to see the their value, in turn making the careers of people like Sam Raimi, David Lynch, Charles Bronson, and Dennis Hopper. He was one of the last of the old guard, financing films in less than upstanding ways and throwing money at directors purely on instinct. It may not have been the best way to go about business, but it certainly made of interesting results and for that, he will be missed.
Coilhouse comrade Jon Sung describes his indie chamber rock band The Definite Articles as “the Arcade Fire with a string quartet where the guitars should be.” Listening to the lovely songs on their new record, King Merriweather, one can also hear a bit o’ scrumptious John Vanderslice influence in the production values (they recorded at his and Scott Solter’s studio, Tiny Telephone) and some Northwesternly, Death Cab-ish ghosts in bandleader’s Shawn Alpay’s wistful voice. And a wee bit o’ Pinback in there somewhere. But different, of course. ‘Cause it’s all epically orchestrated n’ shizzle. But seriously, King Merriweather sounds like it was an intensely ambitious undertaking. Took over two years to make, and its instrumentation ended up including 30 musicians (including woodwinds, horns, harp, choir, and a dozen strings).
The SF-based band is celebrating its release with two live presentations of the album in its entirety on 11/19 and 11/20 (the Fri/Sat before Thanksgiving) within the rafters and stained glass of a breathtaking church designed by Julia Morgan. The core band will be joined onstage by many of the aforementioned session players. “These players come from a range of backgrounds, anywhere from self-taught to conservatory-level, but each will contribute something different and lovely to the music.”
Your needs are important, too. Don’t repress them. It’s entirely okay to say “no, actually, I don’t EVER want to open my refrigerator to find a leering, moustachoied Italo disco maniac turned leather couturier crouched inside with a bottle of prosecco.” No one’s going to judge you for that.
Madame Peripetie does it again. The Polish-born, Dortmund, Germany-based photographer, whose Insectarium shoot and collaboration with Eva Nyiri were featured on Coilhouse in 2009, has released a surreal, colorful new collection titled Dream Sequence. Some of the images can be seen here, and more can be found on her site.
Set against a stark, hazy black background, the dreamlike characters in these images appear to evoke haunted forests, chrome spaceships, traveling circus shows, and early ’90s NYC club culture. In almost every image, you can find a spray of brightly-colored wildflowers decorating the otherwise synthetic-looking subject, recalling these images of the Surma and Mursi tribes of East Africa by Hans Sylvester. Many more images, after the jump.
There is no disputing that much of Ok Go’s success stems their inventive and often complex videos. The video for their new single “Last Leaf” is no exception. Animated using 2,430 pieces of toast in lieu of celluloid, it makes for a finished product just as flammable but an order of magnitude more delicious.
A few weeks ago, Meltdown Comics held a screening for Grant Morisson: Talking With Gods– a new documentary revolving around the life and work of iconic comics trailblazer, Grant Morrison. In this first ever feature-length film about him, Grant talks at length about the extraordinary circumstances spanning his life and career thus far. Intimate, endearing conversations with a horde of esteemed collaborators and friends are interspersed with Grant’s own stories, and feature Warren Ellis, Douglas Rushkoff, Geoff Johns and many, many more. Also spotted in the doc: Allan Amato’s Issue 04 photos of Grant and his wife, Kristan. SCORE.
At Meltdown, the end credits rolled to a standing ovation. During the subsequent Q&A, guest speaker Taliesin Jaffe generously shared a tale which some of us will be able to identify with all too well. He spoke of a young, goth Taliesin, deeply involved in ritual magic and in the process of finalizing his sacred toolkit. The remaining, pivotal piece was a wand, and for this purpose has had acquired a human femur. No ritual tool is complete without a proper charge, and for this purpose young Taliesin brought his human femur to a convention, laid it in front of Grant Morrison, and asked him to sign it. Which Grant did, after some deliberation.
I caught up with director Patrick Meaney to ask if he could share his most memorable experience from the making of Talking With Gods.
Patrick Meaney: One of the most bizarre moments was watching the film with Grant himself, and participating in creating the next public incarnation of Morrison through his feedback on the film. It was totally surreal to go to someone and present them with ‘the story of their life,’ and then ask them to tell you what they think. We had discussed the idea that this film would, in a way, be his legacy, and would determine how people perceive him from here on out, so it was a big responsibility. Luckily he seemed happy with the final result.
In terms of bizarre magical correspondences, I wasn’t there for this one, but my DP, Jordan, was in New Mexico for a couple of days and wanted to get footage of a scorpion to illustrate one of Grant’s stories. On his last day there, he told the universe, “I want to see a scorpion today”. That afternoon, he was driving down the road and spotted something, stopped the car and there, waiting, was a scorpion. So, we got exactly the shot we needed.
Reviews of the film are popping up all across the ‘Wub – a bunch are collected here. More screenings are being listed here, you can watch one of the official trailers for Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods below, and the DVD is now available through the Halo8 store, and on Amazon.
