k is for kira

wow, i can remember when this movie came out. to me, it was like Barbie was real, and she had her own flick. all the costume changes, all the different looks... it was a dream come true to a ten-year old girl. hey, don't get me wrong, i've seen 'xanadu' recently, and from a filmmaking standpoint, it kind of sucks. i mean, who ever came up with michael beck in a 'leading man' role? like he's the 'woodenest.' and the writing is like, thud-city USA. and i know a lot of people 'bag on' gene kelly for being in it, but i've been a gene kelly fan for a long time, and i'm here to testify that a lot of his old studio pictures were no better or worse than 'xanadu.' i take 'xanadu' for what it is... candy. pure candy for the eyes and ears. never underestimate the power of candy.

k is for the kit kat club

if there's one movie that makes me think fondly of my 'real father,' its 'cabaret.' directed by the great bob fosse and released in february 1972, this movie is only slightly older than jean-lucien and me. it was nominated for the best picture oscar that year, but the statuette went to 'the godfather' instead. the leading lady however did walk away with the 'ultimate prize.' liza won for best actress, as did joel grey for best supporting actor as the emcee. i still love this movie, and i still love liza and her devil-may-care portrayal of nightclub singer sally bowles. when i was a kid, i was mesmirised by the flawless and haunting musical numbers, but as woman, i find myself intrigued with the actual storyline. it was based on a german play called 'i am a camera' by john van druten... adapted by christopher isherwood. (i hope all that information is correct.) i think michael york's performance was generally overlooked. he's marvelous as brian, the british 'fish out of water.' he plays an englishman giving language lessons to pay the rent. he and sally meet, and he falls heedlessly into her world of flash, luxury, lust, and superficial pleasures. little do they know, reality, responsibility, and even hitler himself are right around the corner.

k is for ken russell

yes, i realize i've already given ken adequate praise on the planet, and often. but i couldn't let the k's go by without at least letting him have a slot. so, i wanted to post something obscure from one of his best films. so, a few hours ago, i threw my 'tommy' dvd in, and took some shots. i saw this frame of tommy's mother, (ann-margret) and step-father (oliver reed) primping and preening in the hallway just before going out for a night on the town, leaving tommy in the 'care' of his sadistic cousin kevin. (paul nicholas.) i liked the shot because it keenly depicted the arrogance and self-interest that frank and nora have settled into at this particular point in the story. they haven't given up on tommy's plight altogether, but they have no problem letting him 'just be' as they watch the telly, eat tv dinners, drink booze, and step out to escape their bleak and hopeless 'family life.' i also like this shot because it handily illustrates ken's eye for the theatrical. he has a great talent for getting his actors to go jussst a bit too far, just a bit over the top, in order to relate a mood or nuance or feeling. as in the best silent movies, the facial expressions in ken's films are often exaggerated, as are mannerisims, etc. but i like it. this movie is one of his best. (click to enlarge)

c is for comics

man, i feel kind of blue and tired tonight... but i don't want to leave monday unmarked. so, keeping with my latest crazy alphabet concept, here's a little comic slide jean-lucien sent me some time ago. its an unlikely duet between the charming man morrissey from his smiths days, and the half-in-drag micky dolenz from the very funny first season 'chaperone' episode. if you know the show, then you get the joke. it's hard for me to feel too blue when i dig on it.

b is for bitchslapped

hello lovers. i don't feel like i have a lot of energy tonight, but i figured i could add a bit more onto my wild psychedelic alphabet. i was clawing my way through some really old files, like two-rooms-ago, and i found this hilarious 'cartoon' jean-lucien made a couple years back. and since i've been rolling 'rope' a lot lately, i thought i'd post it. anyone who knows the movie will recognize farley granger as 'phillip' on the left, (getting slapped) and bitchy john dall on the right. (doing the slapping.) the two of them have a pretty strange relationship in the movie... are they roommates or what? its never made clear. but they seem to do everything together... drinking, smoking, entertaining, driving-up-to-the-country... and murder. and i hear on the weekends they play nightclub gigs as a new-wave shock duo called 'the chicken stranglers.'

custody

i love this shot. it is, of course, a still frame taken from stanley kubrick's wild masterpiece 'a clock-

work orange.' here we see the 'reformed' alex in unfortunate police custody. this is the start of one of the movie's most genuinely terrifying scenes. i don't want to give away too much of the plot, but i love this part. it illustrates that even the most calcified, steeped psociopath can feel panic and fear (and perhaps, even morality) when it comes to the taking of his last breath. this is one of the rare points in the story when alex is not in Control. its bleak and lonely and hard to watch. but i love it. it seems to suggest there are forces at work above and over our small mean population; laws and fates that bend themselves according to an Eternal Universal Standard. its scary because alex is no dummy; he knows the laws can and must apply to himself. unfortunately for his jailers, however... no Sentence is legitimate without a proper hearing. this is the saving grace that grants his escape.

shelley

i don't think shelley duvall gets enough credit. she is invariably the best thing in any movie she's in. i think the entire production of (the very underrated) 'popeye' would've shipwrecked without her fautless and charming protrayal of olive oyl. this shot is from the haunting robert altman film 'three women.' her performance in this film is so real i sometimes forgot i was watching a script. she manages to hold it together and go over the top all the while seeming oblivious to the camera. and i think she's just lovely. her lilting voice has a fragile rare quality i've never heard from anyone else. her often criticized portrayal of wendy torrance in 'the shining' is both horrifying and real. i just love her. nobody looks like her, nobody sounds like her, and nobody acts like her. she is a true cinematic gem.

oh boy

i love this slide. my partner and brother jean-lucien put it together a long time ago. its visually beautiful, but i can only speculate as to what it 'means' to him... but i love the patchwork of the sci-fi magazines and bits of cartridges from an atari 2600. the main image below is the 'butch variety' scarfaced morrissey from his hard, hot video 'boy racer.' i love the fast, hi-energy feel of the whole piece. its hot and charged and makes me almost taste the sugar-rich sparkling sunkist soda. i love my brother. he's the bravest and best there is.

shy eileen

yes, a girl who is always welcome to the 'planetcool' pillowfight... miss bernadette peters, ladies and gentlemen. this is a small shot i captured a long time ago from the 'pennies from heaven' dvd using old equipment, but its still quite lovely after a minimal amount of secondary tricking. i honestly don't think the following words have ever come out of my mouth: "gee, that sure is a rotten picture of bernadette peters." i find it hard to believe anybody has ever said that. she always looks lovely, pale, sexy, and practically perfect. here she is as miss eileen everson from the movie version of 'pennies' co-starring steve martin. if you've never seen it, you're missing a one-of-a-kind film. the musical numbers are astounding. and the bob mackie costumes are virtually deadly. its a sad film, from one point of view. personally, i think the script is just absolutely real. fate and chance and passion and drought all collide in a dazzling downpour of wrong turns and human mistakes. i stand by it. its hard and glittery and gritty and great.

screenland

here's a slice of notebook art i just ran accross whilst looking for some color. on the right, we've got the gorgeously scruffy and admittedly vulgar mr. eddie izzard, showing us he's number one! and on the left is a cutting of some antique screen magazine. that might be gloria swanson with the tigerskin, i can't quite tell. i used the strip as a heading decoration in one of my handwritten journals. i can't stand writing anything on a blank page. i've just got to glue something down to keep the visual hemisphere of my restless brain occupied during those inevitable writing pauses. pardon the four-letter word. i didn't think i needed to airbrush over it; after all, we're all grown-ups here, aren't we?

overlook hotel - july 4th ball 1921

this is (i believe) the final shot from stanley kubrick's 'the shining.' this photograph on the overlook wall, dated july 4th, seems to indicate that saucy jack torrance has indeed, '...always been the caretaker.' its actually not a bad shot of mr. nicholson. and i don't believe i'm wrong when i say i suspect he was superimposed into an actual photograph of partygoers from the 1920's. the other merrymakers in the shot seem to be legitimately antique. perhaps we're to infer that a swinging, jazz-age flapper's ball is close to jack's idea of heaven. not a bad place to spend eternity, if one were to have his choice. (click to enlarge... because size matters.)

eyesight to the blind : eric clapton and friends - video

its ken russell's birthday. its a rather holy day for me. so i thought i'd let ken take us to church. god bless the freedom of expression, and god bless ken russell. (imogen claire alert at 2:57)

father moon

here is one of my favorite shots from the whole film. it's robert powell as captain walker, alive in his child's imagination, providing light and hope from the periphery of the boy's damaged self. from a filmmaking standpoint, i am still puzzled as to how ken russell got this shot, and got it so flawlessly. just what kind of prop is robert powell holding? is it glass? a reflective web of silk? is it some kind of well-diffused bulb? i still can't tell. all i know is i don't see any wires. and it works. pure genius. wow.

father sun

this is practically the opening shot of 'tommy.' i've seen it hundreds of times... but looking at it just now, i realize that ken must've stood around and waited for the perfect sunset. its not a mat. its not any kind of special effects. (at least none that i've ever heard of.) just robert powell and the sky. and i can even tell its really robert powell. i could pick his shoulders out of a police line up. i don't even think i need to point out the genius of the plain composition. and i've always said that ken russell would've made a great director of silent films. i timed it tonight, and for the first 7:00 full minutes of 'tommy,' there is actually no spoken (or even sung) dialogue. everything is communicated by facial expressions and the lulls and swells in the music. and all of it so artfully done, you almost don't notice the lack of words. honestly, ken proves that sometimes words are entirely unneccsessary. amen.

victoria

ladies and gentlemen, may i present the lovely and talented miss victoria russell. yes, she's the hauntingly beautiful daughter of ken russell. here she is portraying the faithful sally simpson in daddy's stellar production of 'tommy.' she plays the devoted fan who encountered a mean twish of fate after standing against her father's religion and her mother's plain wishes. i think she's beautiful, and does a neat job of making the Fable of the Smitten come to life. i often wonder what she's doing now. (raising a family, if i had to make a bet.) there was a time however, when she cheered in purple satin pants and a silver sequined cap, risking convention and everything else, to touch the hand of the man who turned her on.

showgirls flee

here is another shot i really never considered capturing before, and i'm not sure why... perhaps its because the twisted image of a nubile showgirl in a gas mask scampering about bombsite rubble always seemed too scary. i'm not sure... it makes me wonder if ken ever saw (or heard tell of) such wartime spectacles; i'll never know until he grants me an audience. still, this is one of the images from 'tommy' that gave me unsettled dreams. just the thought of a cute young girl with a playful feather headdress running from exploding shells... as a five-year old, it made a fast impression. it was as if... at that moment... i realized that barbie dolls and poison were coexisting facts of life.

frankly, no

that is the answer to little tommy's question concerning his mother's new mate, uncle frank : "did he fight in the war?" you can almost hear oliver reed's thick flat cockney accent answering with a smug and gruff, '...not bloody likely." this is a shot i never tried to snag before, but i'm surprisingly pleased with the way it turned out. i managed to get frank like, mid-sneer... and the colors in the child's bedroom still came through. i actually split the shot in half and tricked each side separately. but it worked, i think. what a great shot, ken. it says it all. you are the best... even after over a thousand screenings, it still gives me chills. literally.

night off

nothing tonight, lovers. i'll be back soon. sweet dreams.

glam mouth

here's a shot i snapped from the wonderful and very worth-the-price roxy music dvd jean-lucien was kind enough to give me a couple of months ago. i've taken dozens of shots of bryan ferry, but whilst i was tricking this shot, (taken during a tv performance of 'ladytron' ) i found myself struck with the curious way his mouth turned up on one side and down on the other. i thought it communicated better in black and white, so i drained all the color out of it, and did some artful cropping to somewhat hide the overgrown lines in his hair. i never really thought he was that good-looking growing up, and though i find him very lovely now, the verdict is still out on the 'raw sexiness' question. like, sometimes he turns me on, sometimes he doesn't. but i still think its a pretty successful shot. and i love the song, too.

o daddy

i dont remember much about my father. i can't even see his face no matter how hard i try to imagine...

all i have are hazy, half-focused memories. there was a house in florida, and on one of the walls of that house, there was a reproduction of a richard amsel print. an illustration of bette midler. so here it is. i even remember it was to the right of the stereo and record collection, somewhere near some blinds. if that house still stands, i wonder if any trace of myself or jean-lucien still remains. its possible.