Thursday 6 December 2012

Mondo Hollywood





Hard to believe that the United States did cultural commentary and intelligent satire as good as anywhere around the world when this was made. What happened? Maybe it became obsessed by the veneer thin  pursuits of Celebrity and fame. The woman breast feeding the rather large infant went on to marry Frank Zappa who also appears in this documentary in a separate scene.
The film starts with the legend:
"All persons and events depicted herein are real. Any similarity to fictitious persons or events is purely coincidental."
The film presents a series of vignettes of the more extreme aspects of life in Hollywood - and Los Angeles as a whole - of the period, focussing on "the Hollywood the public does not know".[2] Personalities who appear in the movie include proto-hippie Gypsy Bootsstripper Jennie Lee, S&H Green Stamps heir Lewis Beach Marvin III, celebrity hair stylist Jay Sebring (later murdered by the Manson gang), psychedelic pioneer Richard Alpert (later known as Ram Dass), singer Bobby Jameson(with his then-girlfriend Gail Sloatman), housekeeper Estella Scott, actors Margaretta Ramsey, Theodore Charach and Valerie Porter, fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, artistVito Paulekas, surfer Dale Davis, skydiver Jim Arender, and beautician Sheryl Carson. Each personality provides a narrative for their own scenes. The film also shows various social and political gatherings, including an anti-communist crusade, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, a visit to Universal Studios by Princess Margaret, the aftermath of the Watts riots, a UCLA peace rally, and a children's fashion show. Other individuals shown briefly in the movie included Frank ZappaSonny and CherBobby Beausoleil,Alfred HitchcockBrigitte BardotJayne MansfieldRonald Reagan and severaltranssexuals.[3][4]

[edit]Production

Robert Carl Cohen (b.1930), who had previously made Inside Red China (1957), Inside East Germany (1959), Committee on Un-American Activities (1962), and Inside Castro's Cuba (1963),[5] was producer, director, photographer and editor of the film. The music director was Mike Curb, and the soundtrack featured songs by Davie Allan and the Arrows, and others.[3]

[edit]Reception

The film was promoted as "starring Jayne Mansfield", who had recently died, even though she only appears in it very fleetingly. It was first shown at the Mannheim Film Festival in 1967, and was then scheduled to be shown at the Avignon Festival. However, the French government banned it from being shown, stating:[6]
"This film, in the opinion of certain experts of the Commission [of Control], presents an apology for a certain number of perversities, including drugs and homosexuality, and constitutes a danger to the mental health of the public by its visual aggressivity and the psychology of its editing. The Commission proposes, therefore, its total interdiction."
The ban was later lifted. In 1978, when Mike Curb was running for election as lieutenant governor of California, his opponent, the incumbent Mervyn M. Dymally, claimed that the film was "pornographic" and that Curb "sang falsetto in a bath tub scene with two lesbians." Curb at first denied singing in the film, but then admitted it.[7] He won the election.
The film was later described as a "cult classic... [which] captures the underside of Hollywood by documenting a moment in time... when an inquisitive trust in the unknown was paramount, hope for the future was tangible and life was worth living on the fringe."[4] A re-edited and expanded "director's cut" version was premiered at the Moondance Film Festival on 10 June 2006.[4]

[edit]References

[edit]External links

Wednesday 5 December 2012

Double Indemnity






Double Indemnity is kind of like Dostoevsky's Crime & Punishment set on Hollywood Boulevards with insurance payouts. For me Jean Heather playing Lola Dietrichson is the movie candy. Very cute. There's a little bit of synchronicity with Bhowani Junction as trains play a major part in the movie.

If you have any black and white movies you recommend very highly leave a comment below. I'll download it and review it.

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Enter The Dragon






It gave me a little kick that the essence of the movie is this opening scene snapped above and the deleted scene embedded below those that is now available on the DVD but wasn't included in the original 1973 (important year that one) movie. The enemy is all illusion and that's so true and relevant it's nice that the video fell on the right moment as I flipped through it, and that the relevant clip came to light straight after.

Bruce Lee was so much more than an martial artist and for my money acts better than anyone else in the movie though there are some shockers in the movie. The download was excellent quality and I really loved the Hong Kong scenes. I miss Hong Kong a lot but it's never taken good care of me for one reason and another.




Monday 3 December 2012

Raise The Red Lantern





I haven't watched this for a decade or two but did last night and it's still an exquisite masterpiece. It's a tale about patriarchy but is flawlessly filmed and so tightly written it barely needs any props except for red lanterns. Watch it if you've never seen it. A classic.

Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days




I don't make a habit of watching ordeal cinema but this (Palme d'Or WinnerRomanian movie is the toughest film I've watched since Irreversible. I could only watch it in two halves because of the sheer exhaustion of being so tense at watching the very simple plot unfold. Not my idea of entertainment but easily the kind of cinema that shakes me out of my complacency that it is losing it's power as an art form. Watch this and you wont think films are just make believe.

While looking for a Youtube trailer I discovered the full length film with Thai subtitles. Go ahead. Take a drink.

A Separation





Very quickly the protagonists in this movie become quite annoying and I found myself siding with the judge and the daughter who is completely blameless and suffers the most. However this story's magic lies in it's ability to convey ambiguity and nuance. There isn't a single mistake that all parties don't make that I haven't made. That includes the couple above and the slightly over Islamic under educated couple who become embroiled in the lives of the more educated and upwardly mobile ones.

This is a move about everybody losing unless key insights are learned from mistakes made and in that sense is as fine an introduction to Iranian metropolitan life as a person could wish for. It won an Oscar for best foreign film of 2012.