Japanese Vampire Movie Sanguivorous Slated For Stateside Release

Look, I make no claim to know if this thing is worth a damn. In fact, I could only get about two minutes into the trailer before I was bored stiff and turned it off. Some may find this terrific, some will find it tedious, but here you go, if you're into some artsy fartsy Japanese silent vampire movie, then you're in luck:

Tidepoint Pictures will release Sanguivorous ("Kyuketsu") on November 19th. It is the first Japanese avant-garde, silent vampire movie ever made. The film focuses on a young woman suffering from mysterious physical ailments who's horrified to discover that she's descended from generations of vampires. When with her boyfriend, she struggles to control her peculiar appetite. But it's in her blood...

Sanguivorous is written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Naoki Yoshimoto and features the renowned avant-garde butoh dancer Ko Murobushi. Earllier this year the film impressed audiences in New York, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Baltimore, and DC with screenings in conjunction with live musical accompaniment by Japanese percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and saxophonist Edward Wilkerson, Jr. This unprecedented event combined experimental filmmaking, cutting-edge contemporary music, dance theatre... and fangs.

Sanguivorous also stars Ayumi Kakizawa, Masaya Adachi, and Mutsuko Yoshinaga. Cinematography is by Katsuya Shinzato and Noaki Yoshimoto, lighting by Mitsuyo Watanabe and Katsuya Shinzato, production design by Takashi Yagi, and music by director Naoki Yoshimoto. The film is produced by Sachi Nagamatsu.

Phil Hall Tackles The Worst Movies Of All Time

Jerry Lewis as a Gore Vidal-inspired extra-terrestrial?

Immediately placed Visit To A Small Planet on my Netflix queue after hearing about this!

Press:

ALBANY, GA. - BearManor Media announces the release of The Greatest Bad Movies of All Time, the latest book by noted film writer Phil Hall. This new celebration of cinematic inanity will be available beginning August 12 for a suggested retail price of $21.95.

These are the films that inspire wonder - you are left wondering how seemingly intelligent people could gather together and spend money to create such bizarre productions. From A-list atrocities to Grade-Z zaniness, 100 of the most wonderfully warped anti-classics have been gathered together for this celebration of cinematic kookiness.

Relive the jaw-dropping spectacle of John Wayne as Genghis Khan, Halle Berry as Catwoman, Jack Palance as Fidel Castro, and Jerry Lewis as a Gore Vidal-inspired extra-terrestrial. Sing along with a naked Anthony Newley, tap your toes to a "Pennsylvania Polka" dance number in the middle of an unauthorized remake of A Streetcar Named Desire, watch a suicidal Elizabeth Taylor run amok in Rome and appreciate Coleridge's poetry with topless women.

Hook up with Edward D. Wood Jr., Phil Tucker, Tommy Wiseau and their peers in the so-bad-they're-good genre, and marvel at how cinema royalty including Stanley Kubrick, George Cukor, Michelangelo Antonioni and Clint Eastwood could conceive celluloid debacles of an unprecedented scale.

When it comes to shock and awe, nothing compares to The Greatest Bad Movies of All Time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Phil Hall is a contributing editor for the influential online site Film Threat, where he is best known for his long-running weekly column The Bootleg Files. His previous books include: The Encyclopedia of Underground Movies (2004), Independent Film Distribution (2006) and The History of Independent Cinema (2009). His film writing has also been published by the New York Times, New York Daily News, Wired and American Movie Classics Magazine.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER: Founded in 2001, BearManor Media is an independent book publisher specializing in titles related to all aspects of the entertainment world.

George Harrison: Living In The Material World

Nobody can question Martin Scorsese’s body of work, but there is growing evidence that his documentary work-specifically the films devoted to his generation’s pipers-is growing increasingly celebratory and decreasingly informative.

The word “forgettable” did not apply to a Scorsese film, but that is a good adjective for his last effort, Shine A Light, a late career concert documentary on The Rolling Stones. Shine A Light is not a very good indicator of how good the Stones were as a live unit, and it does not show them as anything but aging dinosaurs whose better days were well behind them.

He returns with Living In The Material World, nearly four hours of archival material pieced together to give us insight on this complex artist. The effort is deserved, as Harrison has probably been the most private of the members of The Beatles, with even his autobiography I Me Mine reading as a cherry-picked collection of memories that provide a basic overview of his life while not seeming overly concerned with digging too deep into touchy subjects.

Living In The Material World is no exception. Whether it is Scorsese’s own strategy or producer/spouse Olivia Harrison’s instructions to avoid controversial topics, the movie serves as a basic introduction to George while passing over his musical output with a vague eye.

You hear very little on the conflict between George and the rest of the Beatles, other than the common knowledge that his allotment of one song an album was beginning to be questioned.

Conversely, so little time is spent on his solo work the fact that after Harrison’s only post-Beatle masterpiece All Things Must Pass that there is little evidence to suggest that he had much to offer the music market after that record anyway.

Could it be that the dominance of Lennon/McCartney creativity during the Beatles prompted Harrison to work that much harder at his own craft and without it, he’d gotten lazy?

While I don’t expect a documentary to completely rail on the subject-particularly when the family is participating in its development-I do expect that it should be a fair representation of the subject.

Let’s be honest: I’m hard pressed to come up with an album’s worth of good George Harrison songs after All Things Must Pass and, to that point, even Scorsese agrees based on the song material he includes on this documentary. There is very little post-All Things Must Pass music underneath the endless praising and personal antidotes.

Even during the film’s first half, so much time is spent on explaining Stu Sutcliff’s role in the Beatle’s early development that you wonder, “Who is this documentary about?”

Added to this, the film spends an inordinate amount of time on John Lennon that you begin to wonder if Lennon’s own criticism of I Me Mine right before his murder made an impact on George’s life, to the point where the film goes out of its way on making sure John gets the proper credit.

And all of this makes you wonder if we really need four hours to tell the story of George Harrison.

Is, perhaps, the reason we knew so little about “the quiet Beatle” is because his first role was his finest? His comfort level and talents were best matched as the silent counter-balance to John and Paul and, without them, he began to notice the limitations of his own talents?

We’ll never know, particularly if Living In The Material World claims to be the definitive overview of George Harrison.

There’s a sticky feeling to it too, as we learn why Harrison felt such a connection to the Hindu religion, but we get little insight to the suggestion that Harrison was far from being the idealistic beacon that the film likes to hint at.

His friendship with Eric Clapton is given ample airtime, but very little is spent on the dynamic of Clapton’s approach to George’s first wife, Pattie, other than to describe the infidelity as nothing more than an off-shoot of the “freedom” within swinging London.

There is a bit of candid information at the end of Living In The Material World, when the severities of Harrison’s wounds resulting from the attack made on his life when an intruder stabbed him on New Year’s Eve, 1999.

Apparently, George was close to death after the attack and he is extremely lucky that his wife Olivia was there to beat the shit out of the assailant with a nearby fireplace poker.

All of this came after Harrison was undergoing cancer treatment, and there is a bit of suggestion that the attack also contributed to George’s health deteriorating, just before another cancerous growth was discovered.

The growth led to the Harrison camp getting involved with Dr Gil Lederman and his controversial cancer treatments in Staten Island. While there, Lederman managed to break the traditional doctor/patient role when the “good doctor” took Harrison’s frail hand to initiate a barely conscious autograph.

I use this story from the last days of Harrison’s life as an example. This may not have been the most glowing story of George’s life, but it was part of it and it serves as a perfect example of why Harrison shied away from the limelight that his career created. Even while he was dying, Harrison was forced to deal with fame when his primary focus should have been with his health.

It was a well-known story, but Scorsese leaves it for us to discover. And it makes us consider “How many other stories did Martin Scorsese leave out for the sake of making nice with the Harrison estate or for the sake of making his subject matter more like a deity?”

Cedar Rapids

I live in Cedar Rapids, so everyone in town is probably going to be at this movie.

You should come by and rob our homes when we're gone.

I've heard it's good. I've heard it's funny. I've heard that not a goddamn scene was filmed here.

I don't blame them. It stinks here. Literally. If you come into town from the south, you'll get a whiff of the corn syrup processing plant. Trust me, it smells worse than it sounds.

Then you'll run past some really weird chemical smell that will have you saying "Gross!"

Then you'll drive past the Quaker Oats plant, which again, sounds deceiving. You're thinking "Oats. What could smell bad with that?" but you're not understanding that it's nowhere near the delicious goodness of your apple and cinnamon oatmeal. This is like wet, milled oats soaking in some yeasty compound. It's gross. Trust me.

They call it 'The City of Five Seasons' while we call it 'The City of Five Smells.' We haven't quite recovered completely from the 2008 flood, which is a shame cause it had some character at one time.

I'd like to think we're getting back, but I'd be lying if I said we're close to a full recovery and that things are looking better. The reality is that it's frustrating, and I'd in no uncertain terms tell you to come visit.

Save your ticket for a few more years. Go see this movie instead.

Lemmy

One of the best Motorhead stories I have ever heard came from my cousin. We had both seen Motorhead in an arena setting, and while the set was good, the barking midrange of the band wasn’t conducive to the amphitheater we saw them.

He figured that the band would really shine in a more intimate venue, and at the first opportunity, he saw them at one.

It was the House of Blues in Chicago where he ended up, a nicely appointed venue with good acoustics. To be fair, it’s also a chain-with venues in several U.S. cities, fully attentive to the bottom line of its locations with high-priced beverages and calendars that assured the maximum level of occupancy.

Motorhead filled the House of Blues in Chicago, to the point where he believes the show was oversold. He relayed a first hand account of the venue filled to the rim with fans firmly entrenched in their section of real estate and absolutely no intention of moving an inch. Most of these hard-nosed fans looked like they would straight-up shank you if you allowed yourself to enter into their personal space. It was one of the few shows he had been to where he felt the potential for personal harm.

To make matters worse, Lemmy and company were ambivalent to any notion of personal accountability. Their “free market” approach meant that they focused only on delivering the music that the roomful of ruffians had come to witness.

The music was loud-ear damaging stuff. And while my cousin watched his footing enough to avoid any physical confrontations, he was ill prepared for Motorheads aural onslaught. Having neglected to bring ear protection, he cringed during the moments where Lemmy yelled “Do you want it fucking louder!” and the soundman obliged by turning the volume up accordingly.

So maybe the strategic areas of an amphitheater is the better place, or maybe it should come as common knowledge that if you’re going to a Motorhead show, your ears will indeed bleed profusely if you dare to enter with anything below a pair of cotton balls.

The newly released documentary film Lemmy attests to this infrequently discussed Motorhead truth, but it also discusses the more noted myths of Lemmy Kilmister’s past including the reported tales of heavy speed usage, the number of women he’s bedded, and the reports that he spends a lot of his waking hours playing video trivia at the Rainbow.

To these factoids, Lemmy pooh-poohs the reports of how many women he’s slept with, cautions that he’s known many people who have died from excessive drug use, and admits that his longevity is out of necessity instead of actual talent.

Because when you’re a vital member of the evolution of rock music, your limitations can actually be your strength, and for Lemmy he wanted people to experience what it might sound like if you used a pair of Triumph exhaust pipes as headphones while someone throttles the engine.

For Lemmy, his heroes are the Founding Fathers of rock: Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc. You can tell in his appearance how he relates to their generationally divisive music and you can tell in his performance how he viewed the strength of their output. To match wits them, he knew he had to be louder and faster than their material to appear as worthy enough to respect their legacy. and the rest of those first generation rockers that he identifies with. One could argue that those members were blessed with more God given talent than Lemmy, but they’d also have to accept that Lemmy represents a nearly as vital place directly behind those Founding Fathers.

In that section is Motorhead’s ambiguous blend of punk and metal. The union gave birth to an unruly bastard, an offspring that had no time to tease its hair or compose a power ballad. There seemed to be one speed to Motorhead-no pun intended-and they had to wait until payday before they could afford to repair the breaks on that bad motherfucker.

Lemmy does a fine job of chronicling the obligatory time line of his life, and viewers get a nice overview of his musical output from Hawkwind and beyond.

There are moments in his history that seem to only get a quick glance before moving on; I can’t for the life of me remember if the film discussed much about his work with Wendy O Williams or Girlschool. That’s a shame, as I don’t know much about those periods and his involvement with Girlschools’s Kelly Johnson.

Unfortunately, both of those high profile relationships don’t provide another side of the story; both women have passed away and there’s no archival footage presented. Instead, there’s a parade of talking heads, from hilarious recollections from The Damned to the incessant yapping and nutswinging of the ever-present Dave Grohl. He attempts to say something profound about how Lemmy is more of the real deal than someone like Keith Richards-implying that there is some unwritten rock and roll code that somehow negates integrity with financial success. What makes the entire argument a bunch of hot air is Grohl’s own output of palatable rock that pockets his own wallet.

Meanwhile, Lemmy continues to live in a cramped apartment, stuffed to the ceiling with shit and littered with trash and cigarette butts. I’d be willing to bet that anyone reading this-including Dave Grohl-that if they were presented with either the lifestyle of Keith Richards or Lemmy Kilmister, it would be a landslide for Keef.

We all know that Lemmy is a badass without Grohl or anyone else’s comments, and most of them on Lemmy are merely fluffy praise and little meaningful antidotes.

The film does dig more into the human element of Kilmister, at least as much as he’ll allow. He brushes off any chance to speak about the mother of his son with recollections of how she lost her virginity to John Lennon. There is an acknowledgement of another child who he’s never met, but you don’t know if his ambivalence towards that prospect as an example of his lack of emotional connection or an eerie comparison to a similar path that his own father took when Lemmy was two years old.

The only moment of real human levity comes when the filmmaker asks Lemmy what item in his apartment is the most valuable.

“My son.” He says without hesitation.

His son is seated right next to him when he says it, but you get the sense that Lemmy didn’t just come up with the response for the camera. His son wasn’t prepared for the answer either; you can tell that he’s visibly affected with the response

While these brief moments of emotional content are nice, you get the sense of impending doom with Lemmy, like the subject matter is drawing closer to a close either by choice or by some kind of health surprise.

Yes, much is made about Lemmy’s resilience to controlled substance history and his penchant for a bottle of Jack a day, but he certainly doesn’t seem as mentally sharp as his frequent comparison, Keith Richards.

It’s more than the slurring of words or continual tales of rock nostalgia. The bounce is gone from his movement-the chance of certain danger eliminate. His Los Angeles residency is the retirement village he was able to afford and the parade of visitors and fans his nursing staff.

It’s a bit sad, but it’s reassuring to know that he’s safe and, yes, when that time comes, Lemmy Kilminster will be missed.

Lemmy will be used as a vital part of that eulogy, of course, but it would have been better served with more detailed elements of his musical history to ensure that those who watch it will immediately want to seek out his recorded work as soon as the credits roll.

The Doors - When You're Strange

It’s true, there comes a point in every rock fan’s life where you discover The Doors and become absorbed in the myth of Jim Morrison. For me, it was right around the time of Rolling Stones’ cover feature on Morrison-you know, the one with “He’s hot, he’s sexy, and he’s dead”-which just happened to coincide with my first reading of the biography No One Here Gets Out Alive.

When I say “first reading,” it’s because I read that book religiously, resuming the story with every purchase of their small catalog.

I tolerated everything that appeared in print under the guise of “poetry,” mainly because I didn’t know any better.

I bought the American Prayer album, an embarrassing addition to The Doors catalog almost on par with Full Circle and the other album The Doors’ recorded after Morrison died. Let me be clear, however, and confess that I thought Jim’s words at the time were great, but the surviving Doors members sounded like a shell of their former self, devoid of danger and sounding like a bunch of middle age men cashing in on their frontman’s corpse.

Which they were.

My Lizard King spell ended with the book of Morrison’s poetry Wilderness, a posthumous compilation of his work that I found to be weak, particularly when compared to the Beat stuff that I had discovered around the same time.

I now feel that the Doors debut album is rightfully considered as a classic, deserving to be in any rock fan’s collection. Beyond that, though, is a matter of preference. I still rank Morrison Hotel pretty high and half of Strange Days and L.A. Woman. The rest is nowhere near the high of their debut and can only really be appreciated when you’re in full Jim worship.

I can’t dispute the band’s importance in my upbringing, and I’ve had to remind myself of their spotty history during moments of re-releases and rarities. I don’t think you can find a better live Doors document than Absolutely Live, can you? And if you can, I don’t think it would be very revelatory to me.

Which is what I felt about the new Doors documentary When You’re Strange; would there be anything new to be learned from it?

The answer was “No,” but what surprised me even more was how little the documentary was able to add to someone’s Doors knowledge, particularly after they’ve read No One Here Gets Out Alive.

The film is narrated by Johnny Depp in some utterly embarrassing prose that was no doubt written by someone hired to regurgitate the myth.

One of the most frustrating things for me was how the director would use footage from an era of the band that was obviously not from the time of discussion. I like my documentaries about musicians to follow linear timeframes, and I like the footage to be from the same period as the discussion.

Still, the inclusion of Morrison’s short film HWY is awesome as I’ve always been curious about it. They use some of the footage to suggest the obligatory “He’s alive!” myth, which is somewhat annoying-but to be able to finally see the footage of Jim in his beard, tearing around in his Ford Cobra Mustang is pretty great.

Speaking of annoying, Ray Manzerek has very minimal opportunity to let his piehole ruin the proceedings with another tale of how Jim was a shaman and what a great poet he was.

Of course, no documentary is going to dispute it if you happen to believe that Jim was a shaman, a poet, or the reincarnation of some Dionysian god. If you can stomach all of the story building and dippy praise, When You’re Strange isn’t a bad place to start when considering the Doors’ place in rock history.

After a few views and after a few more plays of their catalog, you’ll begin to notice the cracks in the impeccable façade that the band and their managers have created over the years.

The funny thing is, the documentary hints that Jim noticed those cracks too. And as much as he tried to dismantle the myth that he himself tried to create, he discovered that it was much harder to do-particularly when everyone around you is working overtime to build it back up or to enable your every whim.

And in that regard, When You’re Strange makes sure The Doors’ exaggerated relevance beyond the music they created is still in tact for another generation of young mope seekers.

They Just F*cked With The Wrong Mexican

We had a food day at work for Cinco de Mayo, which meant that I had to endure a continual comment of "Boy Todd, your tortilla wraps are spicy!"
That's kind of the point, isn't it?
Meanwhile, some chucklehead brings a bag of Doritos and called it good.
At least I didn't have a ton to bring home (only three didn't muster consumption) and the real joy came from seeing that Danny Trejo had a special Cinco de Mayo announcement "For Arizona!" in the form of a trailer for Machete.

Am I the only one who though that Death Proof was better than Inglorious Basterds?
Am I alone in thinking that Space Terror is the best movie Robert Rodriguez has ever made?
Do I hear any voices yelling "Awesome" at the idea that Rodgriguez is bringing a fake movie to reality?

A Statement Of Death

I just finished 1,200 words on the death of Jim Carroll.
Obviously, pretty influential on me if I’m going to invest that amount of time and energy to a man I’ve never met.
Immediately afterwards, I noticed the death of Patrick Swayze. And while I won’t pretend that Mr. Swayze had as big of an impact of Carroll, I won’t lie a suggest that I wasn’t a fan of Swayze either.
You see, Patrick Swayze is too easy just to pin as a joke. He made some shitty movies, no doubt, but they were usually entertaining when you lowered yourself enough to glance beyond the bad dialogue and impossibly stupid plot.
He was a dancer-a woefully effeminate art form-and his father was one of those hard-nosed masculine types. So for his entire life, there was this weird dichotomy of an obvious talent versus the type of role he must have thought his father might like. Take a look at his most famous roles, the ones that were his most successful, and they’re always the ones where the girls cite as a must see movie.
You know. Ghost. Dirty Dancing. Blah. Blah. Blah.
But what are the roles he continued to suffer through? Point Break. Roadhouse. Black Dog. You know. The good ones.
As entertaining as they may have been, you can tell that Swayze is going through the motions, perhaps unconsciously hoping that this role…THIS ROLE…will be the one that brings him closer to his father.
As for Jim Carroll, there’s enough documentation of his life that one need not wonder. He was a man of enviable truth-sometimes ugly and heart wrenching-and someone who had the good sense to document it.
Here’s one of my favorite poems from Carroll:

“For Elizabeth”
It is winter ending on earth.
The planets align tomorrow in March and grow more distant from the sun and each other like stray, worn soldiers retreating from an enemy that no longer exists.
It is a mild spring in purgatory.
In green limbo the children whose foreheads are dry, whose hands do not grow, are transformed themselves to seasons of birds circling an obelisk of shivering mercury. None are allowed prey, none are allowed heaven's crooked beak.
They are radiant swallows with thorns for tongues to feed on the shifting mercury from the mythology of God's hand, which I cannot break, even now, under this tearful scrutiny. I've tried.
I've tried.
I am allowing to pass through me a statement of death.
You, the catalyst of such distorted memory.
In that limbo the children move in some strange gravity within and outside Grace.
Their Lord is angry.
They have died with their innocence untested.
None knows what it has been or will be ~ each day it changes without changing ~ do you understand what I am saying?
It is the life you chose on this Earth, the life of junk and lies.
But that wasn't You, I knew You ~ you had perfect lips, eyes like a true child, your breasts unformed, an incandescent mind.
This place where I put you now, it is a cursed season, an awkward line, a flawed circle, a snake on fire devouring what tomorrow it will itself become.

Inglorious Basterds

It was opening night. I left the wife at home. I caught a little hell for sneaking out of the house last Friday to check out Inglorious Basterds. After all, Tarantino is one of the greatest living moviemakers of all time-I kind of got wind of that around Jackie Brown-and I’ll be goddamned if I can wait too long to see something new that he’s crafted.
I saw this one at the very cinema that I saw Death Proof (also solo and also late night). I also watched it with some obvious fanboys-we all laughed at the right moments, snickered with every ridiculous notion and applauded at the end of the film.
Except for me. I didn’t think Inglorious Basterds was worthy of my applause.
It is my least favorite in the Tarantino cannon. With that being said, I’d want to see it a few more times just to make sure that Death Proof doesn’t fall below it. Which reminds me that I need to see Death Proof a few more times to make sure of that. Which all leads you to realize how good Tarantino is: even with his also-rans, you want to see them more than once.
I want to see it for the things I missed-those subtle nuances that Tarantino always puts in his films, the homage to other films, the stuff missed from lengthy dialogues, and the other things that eventually get revealed in dvd commentaries. Did anyone feel that A Nation’s Hero was suspiciously like the final battle in Saving Private Ryan? Did you feel a little cheated how it was promoted as a modern-day Dirty Dozen only to discover that it was really about a French woman who singlehandedly ended WWII? Did you miss all of those musical discovers that Tarantino normally injects into his movies, like some older brother with a wicked record collection of obscure titles?
Me too.
But a Tarantino film at 80% is better than most of the tripe that Hollywood gives us. For example, I have a few dvds still in the packaging that were given to me as gifts that I still haven’t watched years after I’ve last seen them. If you were to give me a copy of Basterds right now, I would most assuredly watch it tonight-a mere week after my first viewing.
I’d even watch it with my wife this time.

The rankings (as of this writing):
1.) Pulp Fiction
2.) Jackie Brown (close second)
3.) Kill Bill (1 + 2 combined)
4.) Reservoir Dogs
5.) Death Proof
6.) Inglorious Basterds

A Righteous Dude

Before John Hughes, I never considered film directors. Of course today, I’m all about them. I’ll go to a movie sight-unseen based on a director, but when I was a teenager-forget about it.
It wasn’t until 16 Candles-a film that probably spoke to girls more than guys-that I realized that John Hughes had a way with capturing real teenagers interacting in real situations. Sure, there were moments when the dialogue was a bit too contrived, but you have to understand just how barren the teenage marketplace was back then. There was little that spoke to us, so for a filmmaker like Hughes to make a film that somewhat mirrored what we were going through at the time was special.
And to make the film entertaining and funny was memorable.
My favorite was-and still is-Ferris Bueller’s Day Off-a movie so good that I’ll still watch it (and laugh) when it’s on TV. Of course, some of the appeal has worn, especially since the edited version you find on cable doesn’t do justice to how accurate Hughes’ character study of teenagers was. We swore. A lot. And it was somewhat refreshing to see teenagers on screen decorate their banter with expletives. Without it, his films feel too innocent in places.
I started to question Hughes with Pretty In Pink. It was like they put together a great soundtrack and decided to make a film around it. I remember walking out of the theatres thinking that it wasn’t as good as his other films. It has its moments, but it’s true: it wasn’t as good as his earlier ones.
Maybe I was just getting older.
Apparently, he was too. He began making movies outside of the teenage realm, and some of them (Planes, Trains, and Automobiles especially) were ok. But they didn’t speak to me in the same way and, as a result, John Hughes no longer was one of those directors that I would pay admission for, sight unseen.
His passing surprised me, but what surprised me more was how he had turned into some kind of recluse. Who knew? I just assumed that he continued to make movies, albeit with diminishing returns. I mean, even though I didn’t follow his career, I was sure that a few of those second run features you see on HBO or whatever, would have been his creation. You know what I’m talking about: those movies like The Break Up or any of the last four movies featuring Matthew McConaughey. They all took some Hughes elements in account, so who’s not to say that he made a living just repeating a formula he helped create.
I was wrong. The man deserved more credit than that. To walk away from something that probably could have provided him with that type of career is impressive in some respects.
I wonder why he did it.
And now, it seems, we’ll never learn why.
To quote Sir Ferris: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop a look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

New York Doll

It made me cry.
Even though I knew what the outcome would be, I struggled to hold back tears.
All of the praise that New York Doll has received is totally deserved. It’s one of the best rock and roll documentaries that I have ever seen and a lot of this is because it is fundamentally different than most rock and roll documentaries that I have ever seen. Sure, there are the obligatory moments where the film reviews Arthur “Killer” Kane’s past, but it is far from an episode of VH1’s Behind The Music. Given Kane’s subsequent financial, emotional, and creative problems that plagued him after the Dolls split, this is a pretty major accomplishment.
I think a lot of this is because the filmmaker, Greg Whiteley, was a brother in the Mormon faith like Kane. It’s very obvious that Kane’s newfound faith played an intricate role in keeping him alive, grounded, and with purpose. Whiteley is not afraid to disclose the very “un-rock” criteria that the church practices. It does nothing to conceal the sheltered qualities of Kane’s Mormon co-workers and fellow members. Instead, it forgoes any righteousness and focuses on how the church’s structure helped Kane and even went so far as to help make Kane’s lifelong dream of having the Dolls reform a reality.
They helped get his fucking bass out of the pawn shop.
That’s right: the Mormon church helped a down and out member get their bass guitar out of a pawnshop so that he would be able to return to one of the most notoriously decadent rock bands in history.
How appropriate, as New York Doll is ultimately a story about faith anyway. Faith in Mormonism. Faith that a fellow Mormon will be able to follow the straight and narrow even in the face of an opportunity-for-sin rock festival performance.
Faith that the band will even get back together.
Kane spent more time wanting the Dolls to reform than actually being in the New York Dolls. But without that identifying band, his life seemed to have no relevance. His apartment was decorated with memorabilia. His conversations littered with glory day stories. His interactions with the remaining band members became nothing more than bitter accusations and envious glances. He was convinced that he was forgotten, unjustly left behind, and his eyes reflected it. His conversations littered with glory day stories. His interactions with the remaining band members became nothing more than bitter accusations and envious glances. He was convinced that he was forgotten, unjustly left behind, and that other bands of lesser talent had taken the same path the Dolls cleared beforehand and made tons of money in the process.
It’s clear that Kane’s prayers must have helped somewhat in making the impossible happen. It’s a hoot to watch Kane explain to two elderly ladies that he works with how the bass guitar contributes to the band-one that they’re obviously clueless about, but polite nonetheless-and then is whisked away days later to be doted on by adoring English fans.
Conversely, it’s heartbreaking to watch Kane come out of his shell to perform in front of those fans only to be diagnosed with leukemia and pass away just three weeks after taking the stage.
Again, his prayers were clearly answered.
New York Doll also paints a portrait of how some of his bandmates-namely David Johansen-could be a real prick even after decades of separation. The filmmakers don’t set anything up, they just allow those that would like to put their foot in their mouths an opportunity to do so. Johansen succeeds, chiding Kane for the rigid rules his religion presents. He even gives a seemingly sarcastic introduction to Kane as one of “God’s miracles” while on stage.
The miracle was the fact that the band reunited to perform. The reality was that Kane was probably the only one to pray for such a miracle to happen.
Unfortunately, it seems that the person in most need of a prayer or a miracle was Arthur Kane himself.

Control

I finally watched Anton Corbijn’s Control last night. It was better than I expected. At the end of the day, I would put it in the same category as other biopics like Ray or Walk The Line-probably putting it ahead of those two pictures, actually-but not much in terms of actually learning anything new about Ian Curtis or Joy Division.
Not that I expected the movie to teach me anything, but I wanted to get into the head of Curtis a bit more, even if it was a fictionalized account. Instead, it took the path of least resistance in the hopes of using two elements of Curtis’ short life-his relationship with his wife Deborah and his mistress Annik and his epilepsy-and created it into an easy to follow movie that can be enjoyed by non-fans.
Deborah Curtis’ autobiography Touching From A Distance is obviously used as the movie’s blueprint. I have the book and it was not an enjoyable read for me. It provided a lot of insight into Debbie and how much of an asshole Ian was, but it offered little sympathy into her husband’s genius. There’s an air of bitterness throughout Touching From A Distance and a little of it permeated into the film. Indeed, my wife’s first reaction to Ian Curtis was to think of him as a “jerk” and to completely overlook the talent that he had. She is not familiar with Joy Division’s work, whereas I was able to overlook some of the man’s fidelity issues because his work is complete genius.
The other focal point is Curtis’ epilepsy. It’s strange to consider that just thirty years ago there was a strong stigma attached to such ailments, to the point where they would present such a devastating event to the person it impacts. Control seems to suggest that Curtis’ “fits” were of such embarrassment that the mental recovery took longer than the physical. It also suggests that immediately before his suicide, Curtis experience a seizure that contributed to his decision to end his own life.
Of course, these are the liberties that a fictionalized account can take on a project like this. Joy Division drummer Stephen Morris acknowledged the discrepancy between the truth and Control, but admitted that the truth was probably too boring for film anyway.
Looking at the film from that perspective-an enjoyable piece of visual art-Control wins. Filmed in black and white, Corbijn has created a visually stunning piece of work. He has a keen eye and there are scenes where you see his talent as a photographer clearly at work. It’s his first feature film and Corbijn has entered the arena with a winner.
Sam Riley’s depiction of Ian Curtis is simply amazing. With little-to-no interview footage of Curtis available, Riley studied Joy Division’s performances from archival material and melded it with his interpretation of how the man presented himself off stage. At no point in time did I not believe his performance. I could not say the same thing about Joaquin Phoenix’s role as Johnny Cash or Jamie Foxx’s portrayal of Ray Charles.
Then there are the music performances. Corbijn had Riley and the rest of the fictional Joy Division learn the music and perform live, understanding how the chemistry of becoming a band would not only build credibility to their performance, but build a relationship between each other. The end result is an impressive working unit that adds just enough reality to make even a hard-line Joy Division fan like me to not get sidetracked into fixating on the fact that we’re watching nothing more than a Joy Division cover band.
With no new information provided, questionable source material, and a penchant for the more dramatic parts of Curtis’ life as focal points, Control is not to replace any true documentaries on the band. When you understand that-and you will after a few minutes into the film-Control becomes an enjoyable night at the movies that ranks ahead of similarly crafted films. The only real problem isn’t one with the film, but how you know it’s going to end.

Over The Edge

Happy Anniversary baby.
Got you on my….Mind.
Saw Over The Edge this weekend. First time in, like, twenty-eight years. I suppose I should let my wife watch it, but I don’t think she’d appreciate it as she was ONE when it was originally released. They aired it all the time on HBO back then, when meant it was permanently embedded into my brain for all of these years. Watching it alone made me feel like I was alone, age thirteen, watching the movie in my parents’ living room while they slept upstairs. It has a great soundtrack; the scene where they’re all going to this party and “You Really Got Me” is playing in the background as they go down to the basement is the reason why I bought Van Halen’s first record.
Actually, my Grandmother bought it for me at an electronics store in Bedford, Iowa and it was on cassette.

There’s a full accounting of the Mastodon show coming in Glorious Noise, but the overall consensus was that it was epic and completely amazing. The crowd was spotted with music geek types, most of whom stood agape as the band completely worked over a brutal two-hour set of Crack The Skye in its entirety and a transgressing set from the rest of their catalog. The Blood Mountain material was superb. I’m still a little pissed that they didn’t do “Blood & Thunder” but…what can you do.
Parking was a real pain thanks to an evening game between the Cubs and Great White, but we were advised to drive up an alley a few blocks from Wrigley Field and go see a guy named “Ziggy.”
Apparently, Ziggy has some parking space in the area and he plays guitar.
“We’re all doing a shit right when Mastodon goes on.” Advised the inked bartender at the Metro to her other co-workers. It was in preparation to get their head’s blown off from pure metal. Seriously, I stood right in front of the stage-right speakers and had to move after a few songs because it was making me queasy even with adequate ear protection.
There was a sign that advised how all stage diving and mosh pitting would not be allowed because of insurance reasons. Come to think of it, it’s been well over ten years since I’ve witnessed head-trauma inducing stage diving of any source. Thanks Progressive lady!
A dude in a wheelchair was selling bootleg t-shirts after the show for $10. They looked like they were made by a dude in a wheelchair with a red and black Sharpie.
A cute girl and her boyfriend were fighting in front of the Gingerman. He wanted to take her picture, supposedly to “document” her meltdown. She called him an “abuser.” A dude seeing that a weeping girl was somehow code for “Make a pass” asked with halfway concern if she was ok. She ignored him, and Mr. Concerned went home and beat-off.
After a mile jaunt, we found the car and went trippin’ on LSD.

Sooner Or Later, We All Sleep Alone

Isolation this weekend. I got back around 8:00pm Friday night after the Chicago gig (more on that later) and basically brought my bag up to the bedroom and crashed. By crashed I don’t mean sleep-it’s crazy what sleeping next to someone does to you when you’re alone-I just mean that I put my bags down, laid on the bed and watched Todd Phillips’ Hated: The G.G. Allin Story. After that, I started watching an episode of The Trailer Park Boys before I finally fell asleep. I must have hit the “sleep” button because everything was off the next morning.
I was awaken by the neighbor’s Guinea bird. There was lots of lawn activity, so it made the thing very vocal. I feel sad when it calls out, perhaps waiting for a response from its own order, only to hear nothing in return. Sometimes the kids and eye will mimic its all when we’re out back to make it feel less lonely.
The movie, in case you’re wondering, it’s very unremarkable. I suppose if you were to stumble on to G.G. Allin through this movie then maybe it would be very shocking to see him poop on stage for the first time, or when he punches people in the face. If you’re already hip to Allin’s antics though, it just becomes another glimpse into his retarded dogma. Very little is said on explaining why he acts the way he does and even less is said on why he’s even relevant.
At the end of the day a guy like me, someone who feels his actions and music are worthless contributions, isn’t provided with a lot of examples of why our negative view of the man should be compromised. He’s just a sad victim of child abuse by crazy religious parents who wanted to be a rock star, didn’t have the talent, so he relied on every shred of attention that he could muster. It’s the equivalent of a child throwing a tantrum with the difference being that a few people think that tantrum qualified as art.
The film does provide a fan who begins to explain how we could all live vicariously through G.G.’s actions, but then he gets sidetracked about how proud he was that he found a girl who was willing to pee in G.G.’s mouth especially for the birthday party he was throwing him. Then there’s footage of that event.
Then there’s footage of G.G. playing live, only to have the power cut after he starts pooping and hitting people. G.G. gets mad, can’t understand why they won’t let him play, and then he decides to go score some dope with some fans.
It’s the kind of movie I’m sure my wife wouldn’t have appreciated anyway, so what better way to enjoy the solitude.

Thrilla In Manila

Leftsez beat me to it, but trust me, I was going to blog about the HBO documentary Thrilla In Manila anyway, a film that focuses on the relationship, fight, and aftermath of the Muhammad Ali – Joe Frazier fights.
I was too young to remember those fights-the Foreman fight too. By the time I was aware of Ali, the myth making was in full swing starting with the "Black Superman" song. It wasn’t until he lost to Spinks before I realized that he was human, particularly when Spinks was just supposed to be a toothless walk over. Sure, he came back to win against him, but even then you could tell that something was wrong. The swagger slowed. The speech was slurred. They were all symptoms created during those Frazier fights.
Without knowing the back-story, you immediately think about how hard Frazier must have hit to create that kind of long-term damage. You’re swayed by the Ali myth-that Frazier was a patsy for the white man, placed to shut the loudmouth up as he returned to the ring after being banned. The reality-as the film shows us-was much different.
Joe Frazier was the embodiment of overcoming adversity, something that was totally ignored while Ali berated him in the press. Frazier wasn’t the most intelligent fellow in the world, but he may have possessed the hardest punch-until Foreman came a year later and put him on the canvas. The talent level of the heavyweights was so awesome back then that any one of those three-Ali, Foreman, or Frazier-would be long standing champions today.
But regardless of how dumb Frazier may have been, he was smart enough to know that fighters should take care of each other, and when Ali was feeling the pinch of not being able to get fight money, Frazier dipped into his own pocket to help him out.
A year later, Ali was calling him a “gorilla” and pitting Joe as the white man’s champion.
Joe pummeled Ali in that first fight and did nearly the same thing in fight number two. Ali was ready to “cut the gloves” before Round 15 in the second fight, an indication that he couldn’t go on. Frazier, on the other hand, was ready to go the distance, even though his eye had completely swollen shut and a previous injury made him equally blind to Ali’s right hooks. Despite Frazier’s protests, his corner stopped the fight. Even Ali’s corner deemed the fight-specifically the last two rounds-as close as you could get to having to men kill each other.
We all know what happened to Ali, but we seldom hear about Frazier. The entire Ali drama apparently stuck with him-all of the verbal abuse lobbied at him took a toll to the point where even now he’s resentful of Ali and the notoriety afforded him. Even his voice mail message on his cell phone makes light of Ali’s condition and attributes it to the blows he gave the champ.
Thrilla In Manila is just as riveting as When We Were Kings, the documentary accounting the Ali-Foreman fight. The main difference is that Kings helps retain the Ali mystique while Thrilla nearly dismantles it.

Here's Johnny!

My favorite theatre is Collins Road Theatre. It’s a six-plex theatre that features second-run titles and popcorn you can put your own butter on. They don’t play any commercials at the beginning of the movie and they have silly little contests at the start of the movie where they give away free popcorn. Every weekend, they play cult movies at midnight like The Warriors, Blade Runner, or some other awesome movie.
One of the weird things they have is in the lobby. The picture your looking at is a painting of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Notice the huge and abundant teeth that the artist has given him. There are other painting there too, and they are equally disturbing and just as poorly executed. Not that I could do any better, but you get the idea. You should see the rendition of Rocky.
We’re kidless during this spring break, so that means the wife and I get to act like a couple again. We decided to go to the movies and I checked out a few of the showtimes. I noticed Frost/Nixon and Revolutionary Road were playing and decided that the wife would probably want to see the latter more than a docudrama on Dick Nixon. I was cool with that; I saw Kate Winslet in The Reader a few months ago and I heard good things about her performance in Revolutionary Road. Evidently, I must have gotten the showtimes confused because we went to the theatre, got the tickets, and were directed to our movie room. We open the door and-fuck-darkness and the movie had already started. We find a few open seats and quietly sit down. We’re trying to figure out what’s happening and after ten minutes of this the credits begin to roll. We had effectively caught the ending of our movie before it even began.
We had to go back out to the lobby until are showtime began seating, forcing me to look at the horrific teeth of Jack “Torrance” Nicholson.

Friday the 13th

It’s Friday the 13, which means that there’s another Friday The 13th movie. God bless ‘em, I say, because the franchise got so close to parody that it only makes sense to take the idea and start over again, some thirty years later.
So close to parody? If I recall, in one movie they sent Jason in fucking space. What’s up with that? Is it so hard to kill the guy at the end before noticing that you didn’t actually kill him? Boom! Sequel!
But no, they had to take the series in this whole evil spirit thing and before you know it, Jason was actually dead but there was room for others to resurrect the spirit or some bullshit. That’s around the time that I started paying attention.
The first Friday the 13th movie that I saw was the second one. All of the older kids told stories of how the first one was so bloody that us younger kids were jealous that the ticket lady wouldn’t let us in.
Yes, things were so much simpler then. If you remotely looked like you were seventeen then they’d let you into the movie. None of this “Can I see your id?” bullshit. For the first movie, we barely had pubes, so there was no way they’d let us in and, to be honest, we were so dumb we wouldn’t know how to respond if they challenged our intentions to see this stupid slasher movie.
Oh yes, even at that age we all knew that Friday the 13th was stupid. Christ, it isn’t even that scary. We went because it was just a series of surprises followed by a brutal murder and the occasional tit shot. When you’re fourteen, you live for those tit shots; it’s the closest thing that you can get to a woman’s breast.
All of this, the feeling that you’re getting away with something, the tits, the surprise “It’s Jason” shots which caused the girls to scream and grab on to you tighter (if you went with a date, more on that later), the blood, it all added up to a value enhanced evening.
Friday the 13th Part II started with a recap of part one, which was great because I missed it and there really wasn’t a lot that I missed. I was there with my friend Tim. We sat next to each other and shared popcorn. None of this “let’s leave an empty seat between us so everyone knows we’re not gay” bullshit. I remember that happening much later…like when I was in my early twenties…and I totally ripped the friend I was with for doing it. Throughout the movie, I kept reaching over and running my fingers on the back of his neck, totally playing the part that I was gay and decided that there, in the theatre, I was suddenly going to make my move on him. Seriously. What the fuck is wrong with us guys?
Anyway. Friday the 13th II was far from scary. I’m sure we both jumped at the end when a disfigured Jason jumps out of Crystal Lake and attacks that girl in the boat and I’m sure we both looked at each other like “I meant to do that” just to save pride. There were a few tit shots and we got a chance to be “seen” by the older kids (particularly the chicks) just to show them how cool we were.
It didn’t work. A year later, we were still virgins.
And a year later came another Friday the 13th movie, part three if I recall, and it was in 3-D. It was around this time that HBO or some other premium channel began running Friday the 13th marathons on Halloween or, you guessed it, any date that happened to be 'Friday the 13th,' giving you an opportunity to get caught up on the series if you happened to miss the last one. I should note that at no time was I able to secure any chicks to go see a Friday the 13th movie. They all wanted to go to something more legitimate or to a proven blockbuster. I may have caught one at a drive-in, but I was stoned and making out with this chick Amy on a blanket near the back fence. I mean, why look for celluloid breasts when the real thing is right there.
Speaking of drive-ins, the last Jason movie that I saw was Freddy vs. Jason, a clear hint that both franchises had run there course until finally somebody said, “Let’s just throw the two of ‘em together and fight to the death, like those old b-movies from the 50’s.” It was awfully awesome, and I’m proud to say that I drove over two hours to see the movie from the back of my truck in an old drive in Moberly, Missouri. You had your choice: you could actually listen to the movie on your radio or through the traditional wired speakers attached to the post. When you did both, you could create this weird aural effect, which was cool. The whole place was great, it was like stepping back in time when things were simpler.
Keokuk did have a drive-in, which I was in high school that suddenly took off when they lowered the prices so that everyone could fit in the car and pay one price. They showed second run movies and it was a great place to get high. A tornado came through the edge of town and took out the screen and the owner’s chose to cut their loses and not replace it. I’m sure it wasn’t the first drive-in to die from Mother Nature.
It’s sad that kids today probably won’t get to experience the drive in, but there is a little bit of solace knowing that they’ll be able to experience the retardedness of Jason Voorhees. The new movie will probably feature unnecessary craftsmanship (better cinematography, high-end graphics and special effects, you know, clutter) and be far away from the spirit of the original movie.
That spirit came close in movies like Cabin Fever, but whoever’s at hand for the Friday the 13th reprise will probably try to make it into a horror movie. And anyone one that’s ever seen one of the original movies knows that Friday the 13th anything but a horror movie.
As that weirdo Ralph said “You’re all doomed! DOOMED!”