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.
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.
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"?
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.
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?
Moebius' concept sketches for Duke Leto Atreides, Sardaukar soldier. More here.
After reading an interesting article on Alejandro Jodorowsky's art in Coilhouse 4, I decided to refresh my knowledge of the man, limited mostly to his films and Metal Hurlant work.
So I'm poking around his wikipedia article when I find this:
In December 1974, a French consortium led by Jean-Paul Gibon purchased the film rights to Dune from Arthur P. Jacobs. Jodorowsky was set to direct. In 1975, Jodorowsky planned to film the story as a ten hour feature, in collaboration with Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson, David Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Alain Delon, Hervé Villechaize and Mick Jagger. The music would be composed by Pink Floyd, Magma, Henry Cow and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Jodorowsky set up a pre-production unit in Paris consisting of Chris Foss, a British artist who designed covers for science fiction periodicals, Jean Giraud (Moebius), a French illustrator who created and also wrote and drew for Metal Hurlant magazine, and H. R. Giger. Moebius began designing creatures and characters for the film, while Foss was brought in to design the film's space ships and hardware. Giger began designing the Harkonnen Castle based on Moebius' storyboards, and Dali was cast as the Emperor with a reported salary of $100,000 an hour. His son Brontis Jodorowsky was to play Paul. Dan O'Bannon was to head the special effects department.
Dali and Jodorowsky began quarreling over money, and just as the storyboards, designs, and script were finished, the financial backing dried up. Frank Herbert travelled to Europe in 1976 to find that $2 million of the $9.5 million budget had already been spent in pre-production, and that Jodorowsky's script would result in a 14-hour movie ("It was the size of a phonebook", Herbert later recalled). Jodorowsky took creative liberties with the source material, but Herbert said that he and Jodorowsky had an amicable relationship.
I believe "holy awesome bat-shit" is the correct expression. The tale only gets stranger from there.
When the End of the Decade best movie lists were compiled recently, one of my personal favorites was mostly absent. Gangs of New York, Martin Scorcese's 2002 epic of operatic bloodshed and political corruption, got little love (with some notable exceptions) from the critics in their final wrap-ups, and failed to realize its grand ambitions at the box office when it was released.
It was further harmed by a lame DVD release that inexplicably split the film over two discs. That's a shame because, as well as being a damn good movie, this remains one of the most visceral tales of power and politics I've ever seen on the big screen.
The stunningly brutal opening scene has come to my mind more than once in the past few months, whenever people complain about the venality of politics or yearn for a more civilized time. Take note: these were the days of our forefathers.
That's politics or, rather, a handy metaphor for what lies at its heart. Whatever myths we paste over it, this is how a social species decides power. It's not pretty.
