The Breaking Time

Intermission, with riding crops (and singing)

I have a number of posts in the works, but reporting duties haven't proven kind this week, so the time to finish them isn't easy to come by.

In the meantime, here's Peter O'Toole singing "Dem Bones," from the sublimely strange 1972 movie The Ruling Class. Enjoy, and never trust an aristocrat.

Democracy is coming

I am an unrepentant Leonard Cohen fan, and one of the keys to his genius is his poetic brilliance. "Democracy," originally a good song, gains a new power spoken, in this old piece from the United States of Poetry.

It's today's poem and, I hope, tomorrow's.

Intermission, with Christopher Lee. Singing.

So a very busy week concludes with Journalist's Bane, or, as it's known to you lot, April Fools' Day.

You'd think that our professional appreciation for pitch-black humor and deception would make this a beloved holiday for my kind. Any enjoyment, however, is countered by the fact that reporting during such a time becomes a tricky business. "Oh, you're going to hold a mass protest? Sure. You have irrefutable evidence of governmental corruption? Riiighhht. Pull the other one, it plays Free Bird."

The above video is not a deception. Yes, that's Christopher Lee, as a supervillain. Talking to Alan Arkin. Who is in tights. Then f'ing Saruman starts singing an ode to booze.

It's from the little-remembered Richard O'Brien-penned musical The Return of Captain Invincible. The movie also includes this classic bit, best screamed at politicians, flacks, cyber-utopians, trust-fund anarchists and CEOs, in no particular order.

Happy Journalist's Bane, everyone. Serious posting will return next week.

Intermission, with music (and swords)

Yeah, it's been dry here this week, dear readers, and for that you have my sincere apologies. I suppose I could make the usual mumblings about being tied up with a heavy journalism workload or busy trying to set up an awesome film festival for my fellow Ashevilleans. All things that are nice and (relatively) sober.

No, those sneaky Germans at Silver Strain snuck out (terribly bootlegged) footage of what I and my terribly decadent friends have really been up to. But I admit the music is awesome. So while I recover from quaffing mysterious liquids out of smoldering goblets, enjoy. Blogging will resume shortly.

§ - TIMES 3 feat.☾∧† ◯ from § on Vimeo.

The Rundown: Sanity break edition

Holy shit, there's a lot going on out there.

This post, gloriously, is concerned about none of it. 

This post is about letting some steam off for a second and watching some utterly hilarious, random videos from around the internet.

There's Betty White. There's semi-literate gold prospectors with their own cable talk shows. Also, the muppets meet the Sex Pistols. And Pirates. Sodom-tastic pirates.

Enjoy.

Fashion on a leash

So a casting agency is trying not to be a casting agency but, apparently, a high-level subversion factory, despite doing work for unconventional types like Old Navy and Avon.

So they produce a "stylized take on the casting process," an oddly formal set of words that absolutely fail to describe the ominous witch's brew of arousal, group-mind claustrophobia, desperate striving and all-around deviance that is their one and only promo video, a work I also have to give credit for the best use of a Stooges song I've seen in ages.

So yes, if all of the above doesn't describe a product symptomatic of the lovely Breaking Time in which we live, I don't know what does. 

And yes, it does actually manage to be subversive: I still don't know quite what to think of the damn thing.

Poems for Friday: Plastic Bag

Fuck knows I love me some good Werner Herzog jokes. But occasionally he steps out of the darkness and reminds us of exactly why he casts such a long artistic shadow in the first place.

So it was that I came to the end of this week and realized that the above brilliant short film by Rahmin Bahrani, and narrated by Mr. Herzog, was the most stunningly tender piece of poetry I've encountered in some time. So enjoy, and remember: it's a wide world out there.

(Via, with many thanks, Coilhouse)

Perfect Noir

It's the first true rain in months, the water seeping down into the gutters, washing away the last filthy remains of the Ice Age. In the brief moments of respite from work, you look out the window and enjoy the feeling of everything sinking down wet, just a bit. You put on some Tom Waits. But something's missing.

Perhaps the perfectly distilled essence of film noir, downed straight as a shot, set to Massive Attack's "Angel"?

Yes, that's exactly it.

(via Andrew Sullivan)

We've got your number, Mr. Burton

Via Coilhouse comes this damn funny College Humor sketch on Tim Burton's movie-making formula. I lost it around the point where his phone only has Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in it.

This might be blasphemy for my generation, but I've never been a particularly big fan of Burton. He's definitely a genius and has made a number of classics, but with a few exceptions (Nightmare before Christmas) his movies have never really struck a chord with me. I'll admit this is purely a personal taste, as plenty of filmmakers hew to their one style tightly enough that they're ripe targets for a similar sketch, even when I happen to like their tricks (hello, Guy Ritchie).

But the ensuing discussion over in Coilhäuser land does open up the question of when a director's particular vision (which they all have) descends into self-parody or laziness. I think Burton's veering in that direction. However, my favorite Burton film in years, Sweeney Todd, was actually strengthened, I think, by an established story balancing some of Burton's tendencies. It helped that at one point in particular he even seemed in on the joke.

As noted, I'm not a Burton devotee, and thus less inclined to cut him some slack, but I'll offer a counter example in Martin Scorcese. While some of his output (Goodfellas, Casino) is certainly open to criticisms of descending into formula, it's worth comparing the more recent Gangs of New York, The Departed and Shutter Island. They do all feature Leonardo DiCaprio and I've got my individual criticisms, but for all Scorsese's common themes, he tells a drastically different story each movie.

I'd like to hear from you film buffs out there on this topic, especially the Burton fans.

All that said, it's a good time to offer up something from Danny Elfman that is decidedly not "lalalalalalaala bumbumbum didlydidly." Enjoy.

Wild in the Streets! Psychedelic youth seize America!

Believe it or not, at one point rock n' roll and young people were apparently terrifying creatures preoccupied with consuming strange drugs and shaking society to its foundations.

That, combined with the then-controversial debate over lowering the voting age to 18 and, fueled the exploitation film Wild in the Streets, which happened to hit during the riot year of 1968. As one might imagine, it's a little high on the scenery chewing. Observe the trailer:

Yeah, it's like that. Rock n' roll kingpin/LSD manufacturer Max Frost rises from a fucked-up middle class upbringing to become President by leading mobs of The Youth. It doesn't go well for the old. For all the camp, Wild In the Streets is a surprising amount of fun, and worth a watch if just for the scene of a heavily acid-dosed Congress. If you've got a spare hour and a half and Veoh, watch the whole thing.

The movie turned out to be a sleeper hit, and "The Shape of Things to Come," by Frost's fictional band, actually made the Billboard charts. It's largely forgotten now, and it does seem almost quaint in retrospect, that the youth of America were ever viewed, even satirically, as this kind of threat, or LSD as a wonder drug.

Wild in the Streets also marked one of the last moments that youth subcultures were implicitly associated with radical political change, with their very presence perceived as a threat. That's changed, partly for demographic reasons and partly because alt cultures, except for the occasional ritual protests, aren't really associated with political activism except of a defensive nature.

Nonetheless, Wild in the Streets remains an interesting over-the-top romp. I have to wonder, if a similar fantasia were made today, what would it look like?