by ·Comments Off on Films by Harry Smith 1939-1962

Not part of my slow delve into Film as a Subversive Art – my copy has no index, so I don’t yet know if Smith is covered within – rather a holdover from when I read Visionary Film. Quotes below are by Smith, as printed in the latter book.

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Film No. 1 (1939)

Fast, blobby, hand-drawn animation morphs along a speckled screen. I likened the characters to amoebas, then blew my own mind thinking about the similarities between actions on a microscope slide and on a film frame. “The history of the geologic period reduced to orgasm length.”

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Film No. 2 (1941)

Full moon circles pendulum and pac-man across the screen, a 2×2 grid of squares joining them center screen.

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Film No. 3 (1946)

Hashtag: The Movie… rectangles form the number sign, then more complicated grids and block patterns, some diamonds thrown into the mix, a lot more complex than the last couple films. The rapid-fire circles of the second movie broke up in compression artifacts on my video copy, but the brilliant colors of this one made up for that. “The most complex hand-drawn film imaginable.”

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Film No. 4 (1947)

Short, using an actual camera I think. Familiar circle and grid shapes, as lights, smearing across the screen in multiple exposure blends. “Made in a single night.”

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Film No. 5: Circular Tensions (1949)

The technique of the previous piece, refined and improved, with more colors coming in.

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Film No. 7 (1951)

Long and great, a huge leap forward. Looks like someone got a proper animation rig (courtesy of the Guggenheim Foundation) and applied all his favorite colors, shapes and patterns to it – brings to mind Oskar Fischinger (I wrote this before discovering that Film No. 5 was aka Homage to Oskar Fischinger).

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Film No. 10 (1956)

Another big change – instead of just shapes, we’ve got character-objects. They seem to be based on foreign historical/religious icons, dancing around and forming miniature pantomimes. “An exposition of Buddhism and the Kaballa in the form of a collage.”

Snake made of eyeballs:

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Film No. 11 (1956)

Some of the same religious icons/patterns as the previous movie, nicely synched to a Thelonious Monk piece. Possibly the previous films had also been synched, since per the literature, “Smith spoke of his films in terms of synesthesia, the search for correspondences between color and sound,” but the earliest films had no synched soundtracks, and Smith kept changing the music – including at one point awkwardly overlaying Meet The Beatles over the whole collection, as in my copy.

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Film No. 12: Heaven and Earth Magic (1962)

Small man with a hammer reconfigures objects, animals and women from/into pieces. Narrativish with sound effects, no music. Fully Gilliamesque, cut-out characters, always with something else hiding behind/beneath them. A house grows feet and walks off, machines with multi-hinged arms, umbrellas, syringes, eggs and watermelons, dripping liquid. One scene reminds me I haven’t seen Guy Maddin’s Odilon Redon in a while.

“8 shots for a quarter, win a kewpie doll,” funny to hear the carnival barker on the soundtrack the day after watching Gun Crazy. I don’t know if I can recommend watching 70 straight minutes of Harry Smith cutout animation. About the 20th time the magician brings out the hammer to reconfigure all nearby objects into new forms, I wondered if this wouldn’t be better served as an installation. And it might be appropriate to the depicted characters, but the sounds of crying babies and yowling cats never improve a movie.

“The first part depicts the heroine’s toothache consequent to the loss of a very valuable watermelon, her dentistry and transportation to heaven. Next follows an elaborate exposition of the heavenly land, in terms of Israel, Montreal and the second part depicts the return to Earth from being eaten by Max Muller on the day Edward the Seventh dedicated the Great Sewer of London.”

by ·Comments Off on Frenzy (1972, Alfred Hitchcock)

Maybe Hitch has always wanted to be this explicit, and the times/censors just haven’t allowed it. This is his sweariest, nudiest, grimiest movie, starring nobody, about a woman-strangling sex maniac who frames his buddy for his crimes. Double featuring with Gun Crazy – this one is less naturalistic, or maybe people in Britain just talk like this.

Our guy Jon Finch (Polanski’s Macbeth the year before) is washed up and broke, tries to get cash from his ex (Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Lady Macbeth in a different production) right as she’s serial-killed, so Finch becomes the prime suspect. He’s caught but escapes, and the noble cops keep following leads even after his arrest, so justice is eventually served. Hitch’s particulars have changed, but the structure is standard. Some attempts at levity worked for me (Bob dumping a body in a potato truck, then getting taken for a potatoey ride while searching for an incriminating pin he dropped), and some did not (the lead detective’s wife serving trendy foreign cuisine to her crestfallen husband).

Necktie Killer Bob (Barry Foster of Twisted Nerve) and victim Barbara Leigh-Hunt:

Our guy Finch is also friendly with next victim Anna Massey (Peeping Tom):

The rare female non-victim with her cop hubby and Sgt Speerman:

by ·Comments Off on Gun Crazy (1949, Joseph H. Lewis)

I’m sad that there’s bird killing in this movie, but at least it’s traumatic to young Bart, who remains gun-crazy but never shoots a living creature again. Going through a teenage Russ Tamblyn phase, he’s sent to reform school for breaking into a gun shop, and years later returns from the army as John Dall (just off playing Brandon-who-thought-he-was-god in Rope). Still gun crazy, he reconnects with his childhood buddies and sees the gun crazy Peggy Cummins (also love interest of Night of the Demon) in a circus. An impulsive Bart steals her away from drunken proprietor Barry Kroeger (Cry of the City) – they get fired, married, and live the high life with absolutely no plan until they end up broke in Vegas, and she talks him into doing holdups. On the run, they’re gonna give up the criminal life after One Last Job, a big one where they get hired by the targeted company and work from the inside. With no traumatic backstory to stop her, Peggy freely shoots civilians during their escape, and trouble quickly closes in when desperate Bart takes them to his hometown to hide out. Such great camerawork, especially in the car scenes.

Russ/Bart:

by ·Comments Off on TV/Q2/2021

Search Party season 4 (2021)

Dory has been kidnapped by Chip (Cole Escola of Difficult People), spends the whole season trying to escape with no help from meddling neighbor Ann Dowd (Tater Channing’s mom in Side Effects) who also gets kidnapped then quickly murdered, and no help from Chip’s aunt Susan Sarandon, sent by the family to burn down the house as damage control. Before that Chip tries to Overboard Dory into thinking she’s had a trauma and they’re a happy couple. Meanwhile in the world, Portia is portraying Dory in a movie, Elliott’s right-wing TV co-host is killed by Chantal, Drew tries to escape it all and dates theme park princess Rebecca Robles. A proper search party ensues, things kinda work out – it’s probably a step up from season 3.

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Archer season 8 (2017)

Dreamland season: comatose Archer dreams himself and his friends into a noirish period piece in which he’s avenging his dead partner (the actually dead Woodhouse). Feat. Jeffrey Tambor as the gangster-type who hires Detective Figgis, Eugene Mirman as a clueless rich guy, and Maggie Wheeler as New Yawk Trinette. Highlights: Pam’s houseful of secretly rescued women, Krieger’s pack of nazi robot dogs, robot Barry with a halberd. Proud of my former coworkers for working on a good show with a JG Thirlwell score.

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The Thick of It season 3 (2009)

Picking up an entire decade after I watched season two, afraid I’d have no idea what’s happening due to both my ignorance about British politics and having forgotten the first two seasons. But of course the show is just a constant stream of inventive insults, which turned out to be precisely what I needed to destress after a work day. This season was elevated by Rebecca Front as the new Minister of Whatever, and a doubling-down on Malcolm’s character, who now takes over every episode until he’s sacked at the end of the season.

Capaldi getting sacked:

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Solar Opposites season 1 (2020)

Another wicked Justin Roiland animated show full of refracted cultural references (Green Room callout in second episode). Grown-up aliens played by Roiland (brainy scientist typecast) and Thomas Middleditch (Silicon Valley) with two kids (one of whom keeps desperate shunken humans in the wall like an ant farm) and “the pupa” form a parody of a sitcom family, trying to fit in and eventually conquer (they kill a ton of humans every episode). Made me laugh, passed the time – late to the party, a third season is in the works. Andy Daly plays Tim, underdog hero of the people trapped in the wall, Alfred Molina his overlord rival, regular appearances by the usual gang of comedians and voice actors.

Terry, Corvo, Nanobots:

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Moonbase 8 season 1 (2020)

How did I not hear from all corners that there was a comedy starring Fred Armisen, Tim Heidecker and John C. Reilly as would-be astronauts? Maybe because it’s just pretty good and aired on Showtime.

Reilly with Atlanta’s own Ted Parker:

Armisen in mission mode:

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Tales from the Tour Bus season 2 (2018)

Just as great as season one, with more interconnections between episodes since the funk scene was close-knit, until the standalone Betty Davis finale. George Clinton, Bootsy, James Brown and Morris Day (and indirectly Prince) are covered, and if the stories aren’t all better than the country season, the music and performance footage are. Katy will attest that I had to put the show on hold for a few months to recover after getting hit hard by the Rick James story.

Still the best story:

by ·Comments Off on Rock Docs vol. 6: The High Ratty Blues

Devil Got My Woman: Blues at Newport (1966, Alan Lomax)

Either these performances were filmed outside of the actual Newport Folk Festival, or the Blues tent at Newport was just a house, capacity roughly 30. A couple songs each by Son House, Skip James, a couple other new-to-me names. The revelation here was Howlin’ Wolf (below, cash in hand) with added sax and drums.

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The High Lonesome Sound (1963, John Cohen)

Oh no, a narrator.
Oh no, Southern Baptists.

In a few Kentucky locations. No sync sound, and more exteriors and context than the blues doc. This (to its detriment) is more of a movie, the other one is more a document of a happening.

Banjoist Roscoe Holcomb:

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Ratty (2020, John Angus Stewart)

The making of King Gizzard’s Rats’ Nest. VHS aesthetic with poor sound recording, but I know the album well enough that it’s still thrilling to be here.

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I’ve watched a ton of fake online concerts, including:

Mountain Goats:

Parquet Courts:

by ·Comments Off on Bertrand Mandico shorts (2011-2019)

Boro in the Box (2011)

Just watched some early Borowczyk so I’m checking out Mandico’s terrific biopic. It is so reverent of Boro’s wife/actress, and so dismissive of Lenica. A bit of Cronenberg there at the end when the camera becomes a living organ.

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Memories of a Boobs Flasher (2014)

Elina Löwensohn solo show, repeats a four-minute monologue twice. It’s good to see that Mandico has had the same interests from the beginning, and The Wild Boys feature didn’t come out of nowhere but was a culmination.

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Prehistoric Cabaret (2014)

Absolutely the most GuyMaddinist shit I’ve ever seen, GuyMaddiner than some Guy Maddin films, but still with some Cronenberg edge. These are not complaints, this is what movies should be doing. The Boro camera reappears. More dialogue repetition, this one’s about a camera that is inserted into the body. In color and English, wild.

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Depressive Cop (2016)

A different sort of thing, in English again and partly filmed like a grey VHS dupe. More of those obsessions, merging with islands and becoming fruit/crab/milk. Aphex Twin t-shirt cameo.

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Blow Up, Le Cri dans l’Å“il (2019)

Let’s not forget Lynch in our list of influences. This is simply a montage of some of the best screams and yells and shouts in modern cinema, which keeps returning to Wild at Heart.

by ·Comments Off on Borowczyk & Lenica shorts (1957-1958)

Street Art (1957, Konstanty Gordon)

To begin with, a short doc on street posters, the profession Lenica and Borowczyk started out in – its history and function and form and prevalence. Narrator, upbeat orchestral music, the main attraction here is seeing a montage of good poster art.

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Once Upon a Time (1957)

Magic: the poster art comes alive. Wordless adventures of some ever shifting graphic design elements, fond of fashioning themselves into creatures and hats, interacting with clip art. Playful organ music, some strobing scraps of concert footage, a cute and inventive little movie.

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Requited Feelings (1958)

This one’s more limited because it’s based on someone else’s paintings (Jan Plaskocinski), which B&L bring to life the best they can through fast cuts and pans. It tells a story using intertitles of a man looking for love. The film editor would later make No End with Kieslowski.

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Banner of Youth (1957)

McLaren-esque abstract animated pieces, with separate quick blasts of every kind of news and sports and entertainment footage, a cultural survey in two minutes set to lively jazz.

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Strip-Tease (1957)

This and the previous short were commissioned advertisements for a newspaper, I think. Male and female abstract characters, she “strips” her outer layers revealing newsprint, the messages on which knock him out. Cuter than it sounds.

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School (1958)

A rifleman performs training exercises, is pestered by a fly, can’t get his rifle to fire, then dreams of dancing legs, all in live-stop-motion (or very low framerate photography). Some light horn music, heavy percussion and frequent whistle blasts. Composer Andrzej Markowski had already scored A Generation, and would soon do the MST3K-approved First Spaceship on Venus.

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Dom (1958)

This one is like an entire Flying Circus episode, bringing together all the techniques from the previous shorts into an anthology of episodes witnessed by a woman before she stops to make out with a decaying mannequin head. Before that, we’ve got sci-fi poster art, early cinema motion studies, archive photography and storybook pages, a man stuck in a time-loop room, and a stop-motion wig consuming or destroying everything on a table. I’d watched this before, ages ago, in a poor copy.

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Boro would go on to become a major director of nudie flicks, and I just found out that an early Bertrand Mandico film was a tribute to him.

The woman in Dom was Ligia Branice, aka Mrs. Walerian Borowczyk, who also appeared in La Jetee. Chris Marker also contributed to Boro’s Les Astronautes the following year, and must have been influenced by the photography in these films.

Lenica would later make the feature Adam 2, about a guy who escapes his drab life into an animated fantasy world, and a feature adaptation of one of Alfred Jarry’s pre-dada Pere Ubu plays, then a final half-hour short with Piotr Dumala.

by ·Comments Off on The Garden of Words (2013, Makoto Shinkai)

Picture this: you’re an acclaimed animation director following up your sci-fantasy epic with a smaller story, about an urban schoolboy who wishes to be a shoemaker, skipping class whenever it rains to draw sketches alongside a daydrinking woman under a city park gazebo. You have uniquely lovely visual artistry, especially outdoors in the rain, with your photoreal animation of water and light. The gazebo people don’t even know each other’s names, but gradually begin to encourage each other.

Now, do you leave good enough alone, or pivot to a tantrummy third act where she’s revealed as a disgraced teacher from his school and he comes to her apartment and declares he’s in love with her? Shinkai chose the latter. The boy also voiced Haku in Spirited Away, and she voiced the lead in Night Is Short, Walk on Girl.

by ·Comments Off on Rolling Thunder (1977, John Flynn)

Knots Landing and Family Plot star William Devane is a traumatized war vet who is pleasantly dispassionate to the investigating cops after his family is murdered and the killers run his hand through the sink disposal. Now with a hook hand, he gathers up war buddy Tommy Lee Jones and takes a revenge trip to Mexico.

Can pretty young Linda Haynes break through Devane’s armor? No

The year after Taxi Driver, Paul Schrader not a fan: “Schrader [says] he basically wrote a film about fascism, and the studio made a fascist film.” Looking up where I knew the director’s name from… wouldn’t have guessed Brainscan!