GRIND-FU INTERWEBS: ANDROGYNY

By Shyboy Tim

We had a lot of different double bills daydreamed up when there was funding for Grind-Fu Cinema.  Now that the money has dried up we're still left with the daydreams, and so you've been seeing these daydreams materialize on the Grind-Fu Interwebs as a proxy.  If you can't enjoy them in a theater, enjoy them on your laptop!

One double bill that I thought would be great was an androgyny double bill, featuring an influence and the son/daughter of that influence.  First up would be Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which was one of the first movies I ever picked up on DVD.  I only knew it by reputation, but I wasn't disappointed when I finally saw it.  It looks great, the music is tops (Wig In A Box was a big influence on the Shuffle Function Morning Show Theme), and it's an exciting movie from start to finish.  The fact that it was John Cameron Mitchell's first film (based on his off broadway production) is pretty awesome, and it's also cool that Hedwig was a big reason that Bob Mould finally came out of the closet.  Anything that motivates a person to do something that liberating is a good thing.

So I wanted to put the film on here, but I couldn't find it.  What I did find was video of the original off broadway production.  The sound is a little dicey, but it's an interesting artifact.

So that's the influenced.


The second half of the bill would be D.A. Pennebaker's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars:  The Motion Picture.  When it comes to the big daddy androgynous rock and roll icons, nobody is bigger than David Bowie, and his glam is all over Hedwig.  Since he just released his first album in ten years (It's called The Next Day and you should totally buy it), it seems like an appropriate time to feature Ziggy.

GRIND-FU CINEMA: THE GUY FROM HARLEM!

This Saturday we're unleashing the dreadful fury that is The Guy From Harlem!  For the third year in a row, Grind-Fu Cinema presents this unintended comedy masterpiece BECAUSE YOU DEMANDED IT!  You have nobody to blame but yourselves.  If you have never seen The Guy From Harlem you really should.  It's the best worst movie you'll see this year (until the next M. Night Shyamalan movie comes out.)

After the pure and unadulterated TGFM experience, get ready for The Guy From Harlem: Rifftrax Edition!  Mike, Bill, and Kevin really sink their teeth into this one.  I mean, The Guy From Harlem requires no running commentary to be hilarious, but the Rifftrax gang let loose with diabolical glee!

Also, Grind-Fu Cinema is FREE!  Bring snacks, your friends, and dress in layers (because the theater suffers from climate related mood swings) and enjoy a night of fun and questionable cinema!

I'm the new boy in town!  Where can I go?

GRIND-FU INTERWEBS: THE ORIGIN OF DIRK DIGGLER

By Shyboy Tim

It's hard for me to pick a favorite Paul Thomas Anderson film, but the sentimental favorite will always be Boogie Nights.  The look, the rhythm, the performances, the music... everything about it clicks.  I love how it shows that you can find family anywhere, even in the most unconventional environments.

Mark Wahlberg became a major film star with his performance as Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights.  The story of Dirk is loosely based on the life on John Holmes, one of the first major adult film stars.  Holmes' god given talents made him LITERALLY the biggest star in porn, but this success led to delusion, poverty, crime, and his unfortunate death from AIDS in 1988.  Naturally, this story needed to be told, and Paul Thomas Anderson was the one to tell it.  In fact, he started telling it much earlier than Boogie Nights.

Paul Thomas Anderson was 18 years old when he shot his first real film, entitled The Dirk Diggler Story.  If you've seen Boogie Nights you're already familiar with the story.  It chronicles the life of Dirk through porn and his descent into addiction and death.  It's a pretty sophisticated production for a high school kid, though that should come as no surprise.



While Boogie Nights was an expansion of The Dirk Diggler Story, you can find the origins for The Dirk Diggler Story in Exhausted, John C. Holmes: The Real Story.  Exhausted is an actual documentary that follows and glorifies the mythology of John Holmes.  Shots and dialogue from Exhausted are actually used verbatim in Boogie Nights to show Dirk Diggler's growing ego and addiction.



The Criterion Collection put out a laserdisc of Boogie Nights in 1997.  Most of the special features from it are included on the current DVD release of the film, but there is one major omission.  The laserdisc originally featured an edited version of Exhausted.  One cool thing about this is that you could watch it with running commentary by Paul Thomas Anderson, who talks about how the documentary influenced Boogie Nights, as well as why he loves Exhausted so much.  It's pretty entertaining, and it's currently on YouTube.

PATTON OSWALT FREESTYLED A BETTER STAR WARS FILM THAN ALL THREE PREQUELS COMBINED

RECORD STORE DAY GRIND-FU DOUBLE FEATURE!

GRIND-FU CINEMA PRESENTS

LAST SHOP STANDING:

THE RISE, FALL AND REBIRTH OF THE

INDEPENDENT RECORD SHOP

 

AND 

 

COTTON PICKIN' SMASH:

THE STORY OF THE

LEGENDARY STARDUST COWBOY

 

Saturday, April 20th @ 7:00pm

Wiecking 220 Auditorium

Minnesota State University, Mankato

 

FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE! FREE!

Celebrate a Record Store Day well spent by watching a Record Store Day-centric double feature!  Grind-Fu Cinema is proud to present the official Record Store Day 2013 documentaruy Last Shop Standing: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of the Independent Record Shop, along with Cotton Pickin' Smash: The Story of the Legendary Stardust Cowboy!  Both films are a blast, and are being shown FOR FREE!

Bring your own snacks, your own friends, and dress in layers, as Grind-Fu brings you this one of a kind double bill.

I'm the new boy in town!  Where can I go?

SUPPOSE YOU'RE THINKING ABOUT A PLATE OF SHRIMP

By Scooter Polanski

If I was going to make a list of movies that I had to beg, plead, bribe people to go to with me, Repo Man would be the first one on there. (For the record: this does not include any movies where a tantrum was thrown until ‘I got my way’--that is another movie list.)  I first saw Repo Man in Minneapolis at the Cedar Theater, 1984.

Really, my only relevant connection to the movie was the fact that Michael Nesmith had produced and that it had some potentially great music in it and I had really liked a vignette in the movie ‘Nightmares’ called ‘Bishop of Battle’ about a kid (Repo Man star Emilio Estevez) that was obsessed with a particular video game (Repo Man and Bishop of Battle also feature similar music from the era: Black Flag, etc.)



There are some films that just ‘form’ you or ‘push’ your sensibilities down a particular path that ‘lead’ you to another great movie that, possibly, you would never have experienced if you had not seen a particular movie in the first place. In this case, ‘Repo Man’ just out and out blew the ‘scales’ off my eyes and I saw the possibilities of film!

 By the end I was ‘exhausted’ (again, my emotionally ‘exhausted’ films are for another list.) It was parts absurd, existential, hilarious and this is why I think it still really holds up as a great film. The Repo Men themselves were ‘alien’ in the sense that they were disconnected from the ‘common’ populace world, and they work outside any moral or ethical code grounds. There really is nothing character wise that connects them with any particular time/place.

To me it’s joyous and refreshing and definitely a movie to be shared (hence the begging of my roommate at the time: “we really need to see this!”)

This week Criterion released ‘Repo Man’ on DVD and Blu Ray.

GRIND-FU INTERWEBS: A DAVID LYNCH SITCOM!

About a year after the disappointing conclusion of Twin Peaks, David Lynch and TP co-creator Mark Frost entered the world of sitcoms with On The Air.  David Lynch and a sitcom?  Yes, but don't panic.  It's not your standard multi-camera studio audience affair.  On The Air was the kind of sitcom that only David Lynch could create, and, unfortunately, the kind of sitcom that only David Lynch fans could love.

On The Air revolves around the production of a live variety show called The Lester Guy Show.  Lester is pompous and vain, and the station and production are run by the kind of characters that could only exist in a Lynchian world.  This leads to absurd conflict.  I think it leads to hilarious conflict, but this is not an opinion shared by many.  PROOF:  ABC only aired three of the seven episodes of On The Air.  In Minnesota it was replaced by episodes of She's The Sheriff.  Ouch.

Good ol' youtube.  Now you can watch all seven episodes completely Suzanne Somers free!

Shyboy

THE SHORT FILMS OF DAVID LYNCH: FREE TO WATCH ALL WEEK ON HULU!

Dear David Lynch fans-

Hulu and Criterion have made The Short Films of David Lynch available to view FOR FREE all week!  There's stuff on here that goes back to 1966, so you're getting some early glimpses of genius in the making.  And I don't want to hear any of that "I'm too busy to watch" jibber jabber.  There's a reason they're called SHORT films.  Jeez.

WATCH THEM HERE!

MORE SHOES, MORE BOOTS, MORE GARLIC: LES BLANK RIP

Influential documentarian Les Blank died.  We've spoken of his work on the show before, primarily his projects revolving around Werner Herzog.  His 1982 film Burden of Dreams chronicles Herzog's massive struggle to complete the film Fitzcarraldo in the jungles of Peru.  In some ways Fitzcarraldo was Herzog's Apocalypse Now, so you could easily compare the tone of Burden of Dreams to Eleanor Coppola's documentary Hearts of Darkness.


Another curious project of Blank's is called Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.  This short documentary shows Herzog living up to a promise he made to Errol Morris.  Herzog said he would eat his shoe if Morris ever completed his film Gates of Heaven.  The day after the bet was made, Morris went out and found camera equipment, and the rest is history.

GRIND-FU INTERWEBS: DELUSION

 

Decades before we had American Idol as a showcase for America to laugh at terrible and mediocre entertainers there was Chuck Barris and The Gong Show.  Chuck had a successful career creating TV game shows like The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game, but his most notorious idea came in the form of The Gong Show.    Every day Barris would showcase the bizarre and questionable alongside acts of real talent, while three celebrity judges watched.  The judges would then rate the acts on a scale of one to ten, but sometimes they could end the act early by hitting a gong.  This freak show only aired for two years, but anybody that saw it would never forget it.

I was gonna put The Gong Show Movie on the blog, but I couldn't find it anywhere.  That's o.k., actually, because it's kind of dull.  What I did find was several episodes of the show, and they live up to everything I remembered.  I'm going to post two that are particularly notable.  The first one has every single act performing the song Feelings, and the second one is the 400th episode show.  Get into it, and then we'll be right back with more stuff!

The King of Comedy wasn't a huge hit for Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro, but its reputation has grown in the years since its release.  Now I'd say it's one of my favorite films from those two, but that wasn't always the case.  DeNiro playsRupert Pupkin,  a delusional comedian of questionable talent that just wants to catch a break.  His big plan is to get on the Jerry Langford Show (Jerry is played by Jerry Lewis), which is the Tonight Show of the film.  Rupert and his fellow outcasts come up with a crazy plan to actually get on the show, and... well, if you haven't seen it I'm not going to ruin it.

ROGER EBERT: THE BALCONY IS CLOSED

One day after the 46th anniversary of his first day at the Chicago Sun Times, Roger Ebert lost his battle with cancer. He was 70 years old.  Growing up I religiously watched Siskel and Ebert on TV, and I think it was from them that I learned how to view films with a critical eye.  This fueled my love of films, and exposed me to more adventurous film experiences.  If it wasn't for them I might have grown up thinking the world of film only existed in mall multiplexes.

My film adventures eventually led me to the world of Russ Meyer.  His weird and wild movies are as crazy and exaggerated as the physiques of his leading ladies.  My favorite of Russ' films is Beyond The Valley of The Dolls.  You should see this film if you haven't.  It's an insane cartoon of a film (even though it isn't animated) and it's a look at the world of hippies and rock and roll as channeled through Russ Meyer.  Not only Russ, but Roger Ebert.  Ebert wrote this insane thing.

I wish the film was on youtube to embed, but it isn't.  What I found instead was a video from a 1990 screening of Beyond The Valley of the Dolls that featured a panel consisting of the cast, along with Roger Ebert and Russ Meyer.  It's worth watching if only for Ebert's explanation of how Z Man became a woman at the beginning of the third part.

But seriously, watch Beyond The Valley of The Dolls.  We'll talk.

Shyboy

COLOR YOU OBSESSED ABOUT COLOR ME IMPRESSED

Gorman Bechard's Color Me Obsessed is a great freakin' documentary about a great freakin' band.  I hope you're a fan of The Replacements, but if you aren't you might be swayed by all the incredible stories from fans in this film.  The band isn't in it, and neither is their music.  It's just people that lived with the band, loved the band, worked with the band, and were saved by the band.  The Replacements mean different things to different people, and you get all of those things right here.

Please buy this movie and support the filmmaker!

Shyboy

THE WALL OF SOUND (OR WALL OF HAIR)

 If you have been a long time listener of the show, then you know that I went through a pretty extensive Phil Spector phase a few years back when I read the amazing book 'Tearing Down The Wall Of Sound: The Rise and Fall of Phil Spector' by Mick Brown. He is someone that is easy to struggle with - I love his music but find him as a person to be horrific, but yet I can't turn away. Last night I caught the first hour of this documentary on BBC - and you simply have to watch it. It is from 2009 and his murder trial is a central part of the documentary, but his interviews are riveting to watch. This is two hours long but you won't be glancing
at your watch at all - although you may find yourself looking away from those crazy eyes!!


                                 

GRIND-FU INTERWEBS: STEVE McQUEEN

IF YOU THOUGHT MY GARRISON KEILLOR IMITATION WAS GOOD - then you ain't seen nothing yet!! This morning I pulled out one of my strongest imitations that I have in my skill set, my Steve McQueen from the film Papillion. Soon afterwards I learned that absolutely nobody knows what I am referencing with this dead on imitation. That can be fixed, thanks to the wonders of the world wide web. Here is the film in it's entirety. My imitation involved the isolation scenes with Steve McQueen, but if you heard me this morning that will be obvious!

Shelley

And since we can - let's make it a Steve McQueen double bill by adding the movie The Great Escape. There are more stars in this film than you can shake a stick at! This is the first part, but watch it on You Tube where the entire film is on a playlist.

GRIND-FU INTERWEBS: SAM PECKINPAH

Sam freakin' Peckinpah.  A true Hollywood maverick.  I just watched a two part feature on the wonderful Bad Ass Digest website about his career, and it made me want to revisit his films.  In particular, it made me want to revisit the most gonzo film he made:  Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia.

If Grind-Fu still had funding we had planned a Warren Oates double feature of Alfredo Garcia and Two Lane Blacktop.  Sadly, that day may never come.  That's why you're gonna have to settle for this interweb double feature.

I'll start the double out with the Bad Ass Digest features to give you an idea of why I want to revisit Peckinpah's films, and then... ladies and gentlemen... Warren Oates.

WARNING:  ALFREDO GARCIA IS DISTURBING AND VIOLENT AND EFFED UP.  IT IS NOT FOR CHILDREN OR PEOPLE THAT KNOW OF THE EXISTENCE OF CHILDREN.

Shyboy

Short Subject:  Bad Ass Digest presents Sam Peckinpah

Feature Presentation:  Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia

Feature Presentation:  Two Lane Blacktop