Network Awesome
2012 -2014
ANDY WARHOL'S SCREEN TESTS: I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR (also at the Huffington Post and WFMU)
Warhol’s Screen Tests show the artist’s gaze at its blankest. Auditioning factory stars and starlets (and whoever might happen to drop by his notorious studio) in front of a locked or unlocked frame, these harshly lit studies function as portraits of the sitters. In the artist’s strategically vague or absent instruction of “no action”, the subjects squirm or pout, fidget or stare blankly. >>>
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE: THE STRANGE TALE OF CLARA ROCKMORE AND LÉON
THEREMIN (also at the Huffington Post)
There is something about the Theremin, both its sound and the manner of its playing, that is almost comedic. An all-electric musical saw, its over-familiar, spooked warble has become a staple of B-movie sound effects. A "good vibration" quickly reached for as shorthand for the uncanny, curdling quickly into cliché or cute eccentricity. The Theremin was and is however the sound of the future, albeit the sound of the future as first heard in the technologically-optimistic Soviet Russia of the 1920’s. Whether in Miklós Rózsa’s scores for Spellbound and The Lost Weekend, Bernard Hermann’s work in The Day the Earth Stood Still (or indeed Jimmy Page’s diabolic dabblings) the eldritch tones of the Theremin have served the movies well as a signifier that something is amiss. >>>
ANDRZEJ ŻUŁAWSKI: A MAN POSSESSED (also at WFMU)
Andrzej Żuławski’s “intellectual horror film”, Possession begins with the protagonist’s return from an unspecified but apparently dangerous assignment. In an empty room at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin, Mark’s employers plead with him to stay but he is adamant. His “subject” (and his pink socks) will elude them for now. Returning to his bland apartment in a 70’s housing complex, Mark (played somewhat woodenly by Sam Neil), finds his wife is leaving him for Heinrich, an intellectual martial arts expert with a wardrobe of silk shirts. >>>
DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY: HANS RICHTER (also at WFMU)
Shot in colour on 16mm with the sound post-synchronized, Hans Richter’s extraordinary portmanteau film, Dreams That Money Can Buy is a real curate’s egg. Completed in 1947 for a budget of $25000 ($15000 of which had come from Peggy Guggenheim), the feature length film took three years to complete. >>>
THE SCREAMERS: 122 HOURS OF FEAR (also at WFMU)
History, even punk history, is written by the winners. In the late 70’s, just before the straight edge aggro of hardcore swept the board, there bloomed in L.A a punk scene that was as musically adventurous as its suburban SoCal counterpart was orthodox. The light that burns the brightest often burns only briefly and for three or four years L.A was in flames. Among those fueling the fire were Tomata du Plenty and The Screamers. >>>
ATTITUDE AS IDEOLOGY: LINDSAY ANDERSON’S IF…
ERICH VON DÄNIKEN: CHARLATAN OR CHARIOTEER?
FANTASTIC VOYAGE: HAL SUTHERLAND MAKES IT WORK
HERZ ISN'T JUST THE CREMATOR: MORGIANA
NAKED BEHIND BARS: WOMEN IN PRISON
PETER FOLDES: HUNGER
THE EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA OF FRANS ZWARTJES
THE FIRESIGN THEATRE: THE MEN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
THE PERFECT NOIR: BILLY WILDER’S DOUBLE INDEMNITY
THE PROPAGANDA WAR: BOB HOPE’S VIETNAM CHRISTMAS SPECIALS
THE RINGING OF THE SURREAL CASH TILL: DAVID LYNCH'S COMMERCIALS
URBAN DECAY AND THE MONOMYTH: CASTELLARI’S BRONX
WHAT THE MICROSCOPE DOES NOT REVEAL: WATCHING NABOKOV