FOOTLIGHT PARADE

MY FAVORITE XMAS ENTERTAINMENT.........BUSBY BERKELEY, NATURALLY.......I HAVE A BOXED SET OF HIS MOVIES....A SOURCE OF PERPETUAL JOYFUL ENTERTAINMENT........MERRY XMAS

Tom Ford, Colin Firth and Christopher Isherword......Nothing wrong with this Picture!

After Matt Tyrnauer's "VALENTINO, THE LAST EMPEROR", a new wave of Gay-themed films seems to be evolving......I'm eager to view Tom Ford's new movie "A SINGLE MAN".....It is sure to be stylish, tasteful, impeccably produced and flawlessly acted by Colin Firth and Julianne Moore, two of my favorite actors........What's next, a musical about Greg Louganis, with Zac Efron?

RUSS MEYER SEXPLOITATION DOUBLE FEATURE

I was just chatting with a friend from the 50's......the "event" that we each remembered from 10th grade was this tawdry double feature at Woody's Drive-In Theater. An older friend, 16, took our pack of 5 in a huge black DeSoto to finally view "adult" fare......Oddly enough, we were all laughing uproariously at "Mr. Teas"...... Only Bridget could bring home the goods, for me!


After it's run of a quarter century, Woody's was demolished.......I couldn't even find a picture of the old drive-in! Like the Berlin Wall, only some old aluminum letters with paint falling off remain, like Vixens in walkers at sleazy rest homes.......

TECHNICAL INTERJECTION

the latest generation of "sound bars" has just gone to market......the Yamaha is still too pricey, so I acquired the last generation of Philips' "3-speaker" systems for a seventh the cost......it sounds about 70% as good, but the math is good enough for my 45th tier of home theater equipment. The unit that I purchased even has an IPOD dock, to boot! Nevertheless, NONE of these "soundbars" can produce a stable soundfield, but...to a generation used to MPEG compression and digitally enhanced sound....this will be of little concern....and..to my generation....anything seems an improvement to old-tech paper cones disintegrating inside 4:3 tv cabinets, of course.....

GUYTANGO SAURA JULIO BOCCA CARLOS RIVAROLA

NEXT YEAR ON DANCING WITH THE STARS? MAN/MAN WOMAN/WOMAN or anything inbetween......why not.... American's Got Talent! of course, these guys aren't American......but they ARE Catholic!

THERE'S MERYL........ AND THERE'S ELLEN BURSTYN

Although I did agree that Mel was a better choice for "BRAVEHEART"......Ellen remains in my top-ten lists of favorite all-around actresses........ "PROVIDENCE", "REQUIEM FOR A DREAM" and "STONE ANGEL" should have placed her, eye-to-eye, with Meryl.......Perhaps it is her lack of Central European accents, for it is not her lack of emotional depth or intellectual prowess...

film school within a film.......

If I had known as a youth.........how would my life be different?

Du er ikke alene

HOUSE

 


I really love the sick bastard......there's always a third eye to the heart of things behind his actions.....and...each season gets more convoluted and abstract. Hugh's brilliant!

I HAD TOO MUCH TO DREAM, LAST NIGHT!

After compulsively devouring madelaines, a nutty-buddie, a dozen Rite-Aid spice drops and a bag of pistachios wrapped in chocolate covered basil leaves... last night, I fell into restless slumber from which emerged a dream within a dream within a dream. I was on the set of THE BOYFRIEND, posing as Tommy Tune. Only Twiggy knew what was going on; however, she was actually Alice (of Wonderland), who was really the casting director, Tim Burton. Ken Russell, the Director, was coaching Uncle Fester, who was to play Sibelius in Russell's BBC biopic, later that year...on one set; and, on another set, of Hermione's estate from WOMEN IN LOVE, Daniel Radcliffe was being made up as Shostakovich as he was composing the score, in wisps of smoke rising through the air to a balloon of clouds, upon which floated, en ballon, co-joined twins, Edvard Greig and Albert Einstein. My attention was drawn to an elaborate rising tap-dancing set, upon which I was to impersonate a dancing and crooning Dirk Bogarde, but Peter Warlock arose from a concealed elevator device.... as Dr. Who, shoving me away to capture the role while Hugh Jackman wept as his tuxedo fell into invisibility..... Actually, all of this nonsense was perfectly believable.....in my nocturnal rapture. Then I awakened, passively unable to move any part of my body, as I slipped into silent hysterical darkness and floated off to Slumberland en allonge with Winsor McKay, Ewan McGregor and Jeanette MacDonald.......And....to think....that I've had friends tell me that they don't dream at all or that they don't remember dreams, ever.

I dreamt of Kathyrn Grayson

My family never missed a Kathryn Grayson film, and Ms. Grayson was very popular, even in our little city.........This film was done years before I attended her later work like Kiss Me Kate or Showboat. It was an easy transition to Lily Pons and the vast world of highly trained voices.......
Both my father and I had crushes on this beautiful singer, and when I was 11 or 12, I was given a 78 of "Make Believe"........heavenly! The corny gold lame' worked for him....... The voice worked for me........

Hugh on top......

I know....his wife is really nice.......so's his boyfriend........ Is that Gerard Butler on the bottom?

ANOTHER WORK BY BLU...........

whose art and collaborations never cease to amaze and inspire me......

WAVES OF EMOTIONS

WE HAVE ONLY TO VIEW GARBO'S FACE TO DISCOVER ANY EMOTION THAT MAY BE COMMUNICATED.....TO VIEW BJORN ANDRESEN'S FACE IS TO CONFRONT AMBIGUITY.....

DIVA.....Wilhelmenia Wiggins Fernandez

Jean-Jacques Beineix came on the Cinema scene with this film, and MOON IN THE GUTTER and MORTAL TRANSFER........DIVA is so splendid! The cast is all but forgotten.....even it's Diva......Wilhelmenia, and the very sensitive Frédéric Andréi.... beautiful music by Vladimir Cosma......after a quarter century, I recall the exquisite choreography of image with music.....

henry and paul by orson...........serious funny

Mark Borchardt's upper case ordinary of clapboard concepts.....




"COVEN" is like a really bad Roger Corman flick, but this film about Mark's earnest pursuit of blue-collar intellectual and artistic mediocrity is splendid.... a contender, with Jonathan Couette's "Tarnation", for best film about making a film.....

FAUST

i was just sent a dvd of the restored film with new music........ sometimes i have mixed feelings about retro-fitted soundtracks and even find some of them offensively inappropriate.....not so with the new music for the Murnau film...... i'm still out for the vote on the Philip Glass music for "Dracula".......

SOLARIS

Altering the sub-atomic particles of the constructs in the mind of the protagonist, Kris Kelvin, in order that he manifest his own fears and anxiety, guilt and longings, the Planet, which is an organism functioning below Kelvin's research facility, levitating in an anti-gravity field, deflecting Kelvin's attempts to comprehend it's vastly alien intelligence, transforms the emotional centers of his psyche...... Like 2001, SOLARIS suggests what Hamlet said to Horatio, hundreds of years before, "there's more......than is dreamt of in your philosophy"......

ALFRED DOES 3-D

I'M WAITING FOR TURNER CLASSIC FILMS TO HAVE A 3-D "FESTIVAL"....I HAVE ALL THE ASSORTED TYPES OF SPECIAL 'GLASSES'.......THE JONAS BROTHERS JUST AREN'T IN THE SAME ART HOUSE, I'M AFRAID!

CINERAMA, SURROUND SOUND......EVERYTHING!

I HAD JUST GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE WHERE I HAD SPENT MANY HOURS AT SMALL, INTIMATE ART HOUSE CINEMAS IN NASHVILLE.....THE ONES WITH ROCKING CHAIR SEATS AND BEAUTIFUL HIPPIES SERVING EXPRESSO TO AUDIENCES OF 1-60.....THEN, NEWLY ARRIVED IN ATLANTA, NEW FRIENDS AND I TREKKED DOWNTOWN TO THE ATLANTA CINERAMA THEATRE WITH IT'S MASSIVE FLOOR TO CEILING SCREEN AND ENORMOUS SPEAKERS........WOW! AND KUBRICK! THIS EXPERIENCE TOPPED EVEN THE "LITTLE APRIL SHOWERS" SCENE FROM "BAMBI" AND EVEN THE SHOCK CHAIRS FROM 1950'S WILLIAM CASTLE FILMS LIKE "THE TINGLER".....OR MY THEN FAVORITE 3-D FILMS, "DIAL 'M' FOR MURDER" OR "IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE".


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PERFORMANCE

Mick's best film appearance, as himself....sorta.....in Nick Roeg's critically banned film, circa 1970.
I've yet to see the unrated version......Criterion, maybe? I think the film's great, so fuck you, Vincent Canby!

never underestimate the importance of good subtitles

there's something to be said about The Criterion Editions! I've seen so many hack jobs on subtitled foreign-language films......then...there are the re-edits that make the directors wish they'd signed better contracts for artistic control of their works.

IT IS THE NUMBERS THAT SANTIFY MAN'S HYPROCRISY.........MY CONFLICT IS WITH MANKIND

WHO KNOWS WHAT DESTINY THE JUDGMENTS OF MAN SERVE? WHEN CHAPLIN SPOKE, HE HAD SOMETHING TO SAY!

RESTORED FOOTAGE

IT WAS THE 1950's, AND SCENES LIKE THIS WERE JUST NOT ACCEPTABLE IN MAINSTREAM FILMS, EVEN CONSCIOUSNESS-EXPANDING FILMS LIKE REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. I WONDER IF 'CRITERION' WILL DO A 'DIRECTOR'S CUT' OF THIS GREAT MASTERPIECE. TEN PERCENT OF AMERICA IS NOT STILL PACKED INTO DARK AND LONELY CLOSETS........or are they? EVEN WITHOUT THIS SCENE, THE FILM SPOKE TO THAT PART OF ME THAT I THOUGHT, AT THE TIME, WAS A PART OF ONLY ME.

I WAS TOTALLY INFATUATED WITH ALL THREE OF THESE ACTORS, WHO ALL DIED TRAGICALLY....... DEAN, IN AN AUTO ACCIDENT, MINEO WAS MURDERED AND WOOD DROWNED MYSTERIOUSLY.....NICK ADAMS, WHO WAS ALSO IN "REBEL" ALSO DIED....OF A DRUG OVERDOSE.... THE LOST GENERATION WAS LEFT WITH ANNETTE FUNICELLO, TOMMY KIRK AND TAB HUNTER.......BUT........

MY FELLINI "FRIENDS" DANCE FOR ME

At 18, a world of Italian Cinema.....expressly FELLINI.....was made available at the Vanderbilt University Theatre, on campus........while my friends were making their way from the "bugaloo" and the "dog"....i was making my imaginary way to the streets of Rome to dance with the stars Federico's films, in a style that was immediately recognizable as "like my own".......so much for the "watusi" and even the "twist".....move away Chubby....make room for Nino!

Lex

In first grade, I had a fantasy of living with Tarzan and Jane in a beautifully decorated treehouse.....I could be "Boy" and swing from vines with Cheetah. Ironically enough, our neighbor Mr. Rodenhauser...across the street....had a large "monkey cage" at one side of his home, which housed a pair of chimps......although i could not romp about in the neighborhood with Mr. Rodenhauser's apes, I could swing from a rope dropped from a large branch of an immense oak tree in our yard.........I even styled my hair like Lex Barker.....my first homo-erotic fascination.......

SINGING IN THE RAIN

Still my very favorite musical........i studied tap dancing for a few years, and got a bit past "shuffle, ball, change", but was never a Billy Elliot, and definitely not a Gene! While my friends had "boy crushes" on Tim Considine and Annette, my eyes were on Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds......None of my friends were particularly interested in SINGING IN THE RAIN, but I saw it twice, alone in the first row of the balcony of the Lyric Theatre while my contemporaries were at the Grand Theater, viewing EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS or THEM. It represented, for me, a world far more colorful and optimistic than the rather drab b/w world around me........I dreamed in technicolor and Vistavision (or, in this example, Cinemascope)! Why couldn't Life imitate Art?



THE NEXT STOP.......INVITATION TO THE DANCE



THEN, ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER........

ECCLESIASTICAL FASHION SHOW FROM "ROMA"

this stands as my very favorite Ecclesiastical Fashion runway show.......as presented for the royals and the Pope! Ah, Fellini!

INAUGERATION OF THE PLEASURE DOME: PRE-SCHOOL VIDEO FOR KEN RUSSELL

this is certainly on the earliest "art films" in my recollection.....i originally viewed it in 1962/3 during a sidetrip from my high school "class trip"....while my classmates were watching the Radio City Rockettes or some other mindless drivel...I was watching this mindful drivel....it seemed a logical enough extension of my fantasy life and a primer for the LSD trips that I was to travel a few years later, as Queen Bone and the White Cobra were drawn by Magnetic Grapples into the Matrix of Destiny.

IS THERE A CORRELATION BETWEEN EXPRESSIVE AESTHETIC AND HANDWRITING?

THE LOST PROGRAM

In the late 60's I attended a performance of PARADISE LOST to experience the magic of Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev.....It was the most wonderful dance that I had ever seen!
Later, I saw Nureyev, seated with Ed Barnum, a local one-armed real estate Baron who had escorted him to dinner at Gene And Gabe's, then a trendy Italian Restaurant, and later...through the marriage of dancer, Teresa McGehee to gay restauranter, Gene...a nightclub called Upstairs......where local talents such as The Wit's End Players and Teresa's old friends from the Atlanta Ballet could find jobs as waiters, if not entertainers......what a segue! ... anyway.... I left the treasured program of the Royal Ballet event on a table Upstairs and drifted through the remaining hours of a dreamlike evening, not thinking...until now...about this.........and not realizing, at that time, the monumentality of the great dancers that had come to Atlanta.....Perhaps, if Gene had not seen Nureyev at his restaurant.......the Dance scene in Atlanta would have been different......Life is such a chain reaction....If THIS, then That, or if this then THAT.......If Rudolph and Ed had not been there that evening, if Teresa had not met Gene that evening.......perhaps The Manhattan Yellow Pages. David Sheppard Productions, Showcase Cabaret. Venetian Room. and Club Atlantis would not have experienced their brief materializations before fading into the sea of urban mediocrity.

ROBERTO BOLLE

THE NEW ARMANI "MAN".....sans ARMANI....




Franco Zeffirelli design.....Alexandre McQueen.......Annie Leibowitz .......Roberto Bolle and Coco Rocha! does it get any better?







WHO'S THE GREATEST LIVING DANSEUR?

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Toshi Yanagi /JIMMY KIMMEL BAND

although i do not watch "late night t.v."....i am excited by Jimmy Kimmel's hiring Toshi Yanagai to play with his "band"......yet another legacy of Zappa!

SALLY RAND

I met my step-father, Tom, in Chicago back in 1968 to dine in a restaurant that utilized topless serving girls..........Tom, who was somewhat embarassed by the scenerio, recalled the more "tasteful" experience of having attending a performance by Sally Rand at a Alabama State Fair, during his youth.......He had seen her famous "Fan Dance" as well as the "Balloon Dance" and thought our Chicago entertainment was tasteless and demeaning........Of course, we didn't leave in disgust, did we? The next evening I drug Tom to see a production of THE BALLAD OF BABY DOE....which was a far cry from ANNIE GET YOUR GUN! I wonder what he'd have thought of VAMPIRE LESBIANS OF SODOM! Tom was embarassed by Captain Eddy's Whizbang playing cards..........

the perfect face

the "ideal" face that represents the current standard for ideal beauty is always changing......this year, that look is a combination of Jamie Bell, Jude Law, Patrick Dempsey, Jensen Ackles, Hayden Christensen, Robert Pattinson and Milo Ventimiglia morphed together into this concoction.......Cinema technology will soon enable "creating" movie stars whose faces are exactly as needed........here comes Natalie Portman/Kiera Knightly to act opposite our new perfect man.....

ANDRE NOBLE

Yet another tragedy, now forgotten......well..he wasn't Michael Jackson or River Phoenix, or Keith Ledger or Kurt Cobain or any of the other countless number of established actors/performers who have succumbed to death by drug-poisonings and overdoses......Andre was on a naturalist expedition in Canada and died of an overdose of monkshood's sap......His legacy is the sensitive film, SUGAR, in which Andre and Brendan Fehr do their take on MY PRIVATE IDAHO.....

FOLLIES

age 12.. i was already interested in artsy movies like this one with Marilyn Miller.....they were shown on channel 17, and I watched them with our ironing woman, Lucy, who is, incidentally, still alive...she must be 100! I found some Ruth Etting albums at the goodwill store and discovered Busby Berkely much later......My parents liked Jerome Kern and George Gershwin, and I don't think they considered it odd that I liked much of the stuff they liked........At least I didn't argue with them over the "old stuff" that they preferred! I eagerly anticipated old Maurice Chevalier movies and loved the Gail Storm show and December Bride.......and...hehehe....Lucy and I watched the Liberace show after school! All those Korean era war films of the early 50's? I never gave them the time of day....Why should |, when Eleanor Powell, Jeanette and Nelson, & Fred and Ginger were around to lift my hopes for a world of Art and Music!

SPIKE JONES AND HIS CITY SLICKERS

A NATIONAL COMIC TREASURE, HE IS! As a kid in 50's Huntsville, I looked forward to this nonsense on Saturday mornings at the Lyric Theater.......I knew that there was "another world" somewhere out there and Spike was it's spokesman! I'd go out for some chocolate-covered maraschino cherries during the newsreel about the Korean "conflice"....then return for some good old Flash Gordon and a half dozen Looney Tunes....

Harvey Fierstein

Harvey was pissed that I crowned Chiwetel.......so here's last year's model.........with his boyfriend, Matthew Broderick.....

HEY, SHIRLEY, THE BOY'S ARE RETRASHING BROADWAY

This number...no pun.....from SWEET CHARITY, has retained its popularity, all these years, because it was SEXY! Now the emboldened outed stage performers can take it on! Remember Florence Henderson? She was part of the cast! Bob Fosse would have liked it, i think...What's next....let's see.....how about Swan Lake....no....the Ballet Trockadaro's done that already....years ago.......hmmmm.....how about STREETCAR with Harvey Fierstein in Brando's role and Megan Fox as Blanche.......hmmmm, maybe not! These boys could just as well perform in a naked production of the ballet, SPARTACUS......first, of course, the producers would have to replace Khachaturian's music with some really racy Sondheim or some blindly ambitious Phillip Glass.......well...that won't happen......Glass is a one trick pony, isn't he?

Chiwetel Ejiofor

Of the seemingly countless number of drag queens that audiences seem to be universally accepting of, Chiwetel Ejiofor is my personal favorite.. of the set which has included both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Dustin Hoffman, Guy Pierce, William Hurt, John Lone, Terence Stamp, Alec Guiness, Patrick Swayze, Tim Curry, Cary Grant....the list goes into the hundreds!......even teen movies have at least a few dozen examples......Dr. Frankenfurter, Hedwig and Tootsie...even Charles Peirce (a real drag queen) have even become iconic...Cross-dressing seems to be far more popular than the general public would ever like to admit......many heterosexual men are really attracted to women who look like drag queens, have silicon body parts, bleached and/or dyed hair and who exaggerate the 'fairer' sex's looks and ways.......On the other hand, many of these same people feel uncomfortable around these daringly explicit and other-worldly beings......I think every man should, at least once in his life, don an outfit that suits him and check out the "woman" in him........When I was 24, I was invited to a soire' at Clayton Spears', who was..at the time.....the manager of Atlanta's TIFFANY & CO store......he asked me to be outrageous because he wished to stage a theatrical event, at his home, to entertain his jaded clients.....so...I borrowed an Oscar De La Renta outfit from the Sak's 5th Avenue Designer Salon, then managed by my friend Ralphe Baker, had George Hererra of the Sak's Hair Salon and my friend Sonya Nickel create this femme persona from the neck up; and arm in arm with the most beautiful, sophisticated and intelligent man that I could convince to be my "date"....Rick O. Flynn, who dressed as a very young Mehr Baba, who had been something of a young dandy himself, I headed to the Plaza Towers, in size 12 heels.......making a very theatrical appearance.....Even though i was totally upstaged by my old acquaintance, Rachel Wells, who appeared, practically naked, oiled and glitter-covered...with a giant boa constrictor wrapped about his shoulders..and accompanied by two handsome oiled, Ethiopian Adonises. I have never felt the need to go to so much bother to create an "effect"......but I laud those who can and do......even Beyonce' has to haul ass to look like that! By the way....I went "as" Tallulah Bankhead, who...ironically enough... is from the same home town as both John (Rachel) Wells and myself.........

ESCAPING TO THE RENAISSANCE...... THE RESISTANCE OF THE SENTENTIOUS ESTABLISHMENT

THE ARTISTS WHO WERE THE RENAISSANCE WERE ALSO THE MOST CONDEMNED BY THOSE WHO SOUGHT TO DEFINE AND CODIFY IT.....THE TENDRILS OF RELIGION CONTINUED AND CONTINUE TO COIL ABOUT FREE WILL, COVERING THE WILLING EYES AND EARS OF WOULD-BE SENTIENT BEINGS, EMERGING, HEADS PUSHED BACK INTO THE NIGHTMARES OF IGNORANCE AND FEAR BY FEAR AND IGNORANCE, WHICH SEEK SELF-PERPETUATION........

....CARAVAGGIO ENTERS A DOOR INTO THE REALITY OF ART, NOT THROUGH THE T.V. EYE, BUT HIS OWN......

SHORTBUS

John Cameron Mitchell is the undisputed Prince of gay cinema....if only for HEDWIG and SHORTBUS. His work is not for BLOCKBUSTER'S, regretfully, which has no problem renting out a thousand varied direct-to-dvd slasher/basher films that I've never even heard of......but, please.....no homocinema.....I think John's films certainly transcend the sexuality in them.....elevated to Art.......but, still....no SHORTBUS for BLOCKBUSTER'S...

CASH IN THE JUNGLE WITH Alistair Appleton

When Alistair's not informing middle-class Brits that they can get £6o for their 1950's reproduction pine breakfront, or that the canceled stamp on an old postcard from Auntie Mame is worth a thousand, he's up to more visionary stuff.....and, he does add a lot of sex-appeal to the dreary task of dragging old stuff from closets, after all......Ali seems to know a lot about this, doesn't he? Hmmmmmmm.......Watch out for hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, Alistair...that old breakfront may look better than you would normally think! Alistair's just a well-rounded, intelligent and conscious fellow with his mind in lots of things....drinking the Universe!

http://www.alistairappleton.com/blog/

link to my blog entry about ayahuasca

NAUGHTY NEIL

I WAS SO GLAD TO SEE NEIL PATRICK HARRIS HOSTING THE TONY AWARDS THIS YEAR.....AND, DEMONSTRATING THE GROWING ACCEPTANCE OF HIGH-PROFILE GAY ACTORS AND PERFORMERS, HE ACTUALLY GOT AWAY WITH SINGING THIS DURING THE CLOSING CREDITS:

“Chris Sieber, please!

“Performing on your knees?

http://tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:88dTNJg6f9hGEM:http://www.broadwaycares.org/images/events/bares2002image22.jpg

He followed that with:

“I hope, tonight,

“When they’re high as a kite,

“To be there, when the Hair, cast disrobes!”

Harris continued:

“This show could not be any gayer,

“If Liza was named Mayor,

“And Elton John took flight …

“The curtain falls,

“I’m off to hit some big Tony balls!

LIGHTS DIM....ROLL CREDITS!

EPROMs by Mantic

Percy, Mary and Lord Gordon

as a youth, i got my take on historical artists through old 30's and 40's movies.......It was not until I was in college that I perceived them in any more realistic manner.......costumed Lady Caroline Lambs and Lord Byrons, Percy Shellys, Liszts......even Henri Gautier-Brezka......were introduced to me through the semi-biographical fictions depicted in old movies........In the 1970's my take on 19th century artists was through the eyes of Ken Russell's excesses..........My favorite writers, poets and composers seem to have arisen in the first 20 years of each century, when radical changes were taking place.........that time is again just ahead.....what is in store? Historical figures were the characters in Movies....Now, the Movie Stars are the characters whom the real characters once were..... What does it matter since Art reflects Life reflecting Art........It doesn't.....except to historical scholars, that is!





Mozart in the Age of Enlightenment by Seth Carlin

behind the red door.........still a celluloid closet

justin berfield and Ricky Dôminguez, Hayden Christensen and Trevor Blumas, aaron carter and elijah wood still remain closeted to their fans and the public.......
perhaps, some day soon, it just won't matter who does what with whom, in hollywood....
but...for now, anyway....mum's the word...

A teenager, watching Boccaccio '70, I was riveted to Anita's giant bosom....she had already dropped her ample brassiere to accentuate her buxom beauty.......an Italian delightful disaster.....

DENTAL ANXIETY

from age 5, when my mother tricked me into a visit to the dentist's "office" where I kicked the round milk-glass instrument tray across the room, breaking it and scattering probes and picks across the linoleum flore, fleeing from the huge,chromed hypodermic needles and pliers to the preferred environment of Becker's Notion's Store......I have always arrived at even my trusted and beloved dentist, Baxter Bender's, with high anxiety, high blood-pressure and unmitigated dread and fear.....I think this all began with my experiences with the old WWI army dentist that I first experienced as a kid.....



and, incidentally, "Little Shop......" remains one of my favored musicals....Frank Oz is a genius, isn't he!

DEREK JARMAN.......ARIA

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DEREK JARMAN.......ARIA
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THIS MAY BE MY FAVORITE VIDEO OF AN ARIA PERFORMANCE....... FROM THE FILM, "ARIA"...
AND THE HEAVENLY TILDA, TOO!

AMALIA .....MARIA

HOPELESSLY ROMANTIC

Pinter, Mamet....cynical realism....deep in our hearts we all dream of romance....even within the bitterest heart is this longing for the purest love......

THE ROSSELINI SEX EDUCATION VIDEOS

suitable for even the most conservative school system..........yea, Isabella!....tell it like it is.......A far cry from Saddest Music or Blue Velvet....I'm grateful that she is moving the educational filmmaking.......

The startling, the blaise....ho-hum, another ad for crotchless briefs.......from repressed silence to fun in the sun; but the ship still sails away!

THIS CLIP IS SILENT, BY THE WAY.....












visiting my friend Jon, in NYC, in my youth.....Jon and I went to Jon's mother, Dot's apartment across from the 55th St. Playhouse......One of her girlfriends stopped by, so we "boys" were sent to the moviehouse, down and out the front door, to view a collection of independent sticky britches erotic films...this was an eye-opening experience for me....wow! Afterwards, i delved into Highbrow Derek Jarman films in latin, no less; campy work like Pink Narcissus, which influenced aesthetic eccentrics like Guy Madden; and the films of Ken Russell as well as the low-brow work of Kenneth Anger.... A common thread is always repression, fantasy and masturbation....this world of "X-ness" is flowing into the world of popular sentiment, more and more...In Amsterdam, years ago, friends had dinner while watching a program on the proper use of condoms, while our Dutch hosts, uninterested in this "educational" programming, smoked pot with the local beat cop.........America's middle class is swimming in the miasma of it all, from Sogo to Funtown! Then, it's all down the slide to the world of guiltless pleasures, Giulietta.......who lives a fantasy, goes home alone.......right, Baz? Ask Jack Smith......!

TERRY GILLIAM'S MASTERPIECE?

taking a lead from the many-actors-playing-Bob Dylan, film, I'M NOT THERE.......due to the untimely death of Keith Ledger, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law all play the same then uncompleted role.........I'm certain that Gilliam has made a monumental work of Art, for he always has.... A fit last film for Ledger!

what does it take for David Fincher....

to take home an oscar? I thought both "Fight Club" and ".....Benjamin Button" were great cinematic works ......but...no banana!.....Even with Cate and Tilda.......


this Posies video from Fight Club scenes certainly bowls me over.....and it has Brad's briefest nude scene ever, to boot!

SAM ROCKWELL SHOULD DANCE WITH THE STARS

now in his early 40's....it's time for Sam to be acknowledged as the great talent that he is.....perhaps the new "Moon" flic will do more for him than "Confessions......".....

La Belle et La Bête

IMMEDIATELY PRESS THE "HQ" BUTTON!





if one fears, one keeps at a distance, that which one sees as the source of fear.......whether the fear is rational is irrevelant to it's presence..... fear of change, even for our own betterment, will effectuate our attempts to remove the source of the fear, which we see as something outside of ourselves......

HUGH AND ANN

HUGH AND BEYONCE





the best ACADEMY AWARDS CEREMONY......ever!

TWO FACES OF JIM HENSEN

THE FIRST GAY AMERICAN IDOL MAKE-UP TIPS....THE "UNNATURAL" LOOK

Adam was pumped about this week, and his Led Zeppelin song choice was all he could have hoped for. This was his comfort zone...he was totally in his element! We knew we could have some fun with his Liz Taylor, the rockstar, look this week. His skin was moisturized using Dermalogica Active Moist followed with primer (this helps the makeup go on smoothly); his skin tone was evened out using a warm colored cream foundation over his entire face. Under his eyes he needed a little more coverage, so the flawless concealer was carefully patted to make sure it blended in without compromising the coverage. To polish off the look, an airbrush was used to spray a thin coat of Temptu silicone base air foundations over his entire face. Then, to warm him up and set his foundations, a large powder brush was used to mix powder and bronzer which was dusted all over his face and neck. Now he was ready to play up his eyes. First, his lashes were curled using eyelash curler to help really opening up his eyes. Then, dramatic black liner was smudged on his upper and lower lash line. To give them a pop of color, an intense teal/sea green color, lined the inner rims of his eyes. This really made his “guy liner” stand out. Then, to give it an extra kick, NARS Bali taupe shadow was dusted across his lids. Finally, his lashes were coated using mascara, and his lips were touched up with tinted lip balm. He was ready to get the crowd on their feet and blow half the judges. This make-up routine has been officially adopted by Joan Rivers for her post-embalming procedures to be followed, rigorously after her death at 100!

However, if his private life is too "gay".....and he is deposed to "silver medalist" status (which he WILL be....mark me), he can always get a part in yet another Star Trek Reincarnation as an Orion glam-rock-alien........(i actually prefer this look to the punk-Liz.....) or star in a Freddy Mercury biopic......

ROOTIE KAZOOTIE

 

My grandfather got a Televiewing apparatus, housed in a bulky cabinet, in 1949....soon, there appeared such silly stuff as Captain Midnight, Winky Dink and Rootie Kazootie....... I still have the "magic decoder", the "magic screen" and my Rootie doll, a constant companion to the wooden modelling doll and Scarlett...yum, yum.......let's make a Kazootie Witch peanut butter, banana and jelly sandwich.

AND.....THERE WAS "WINKY DINK"..........



makes the junk on kiddy tv, now, look pretty sophisticated, doesn't it? {it was fun to draw on the screen, though...i had to remember to wipe the screen before my grandfather watched Edward R. Murrow's See It Now, however}

THE RACH......

In High School, I got lost in Tchaikovsky's 1st......my freshman year in college, i got really lost in this............

DOES TRACEY ULLMAN KNOW ASTRID?

ASTRID HADAD - Divinas pecadoras (reprise)

everyone likes fuck films......who're you kidding......

A friend asked me if any "good, mainstream films about homosexuality had ever been produced". I joking mentioned a few like LUSTER, TOTAL ECLIPSE, BILLY'S HOLLYWOOD SCREEN TEST....even the Showtime series that caused such a hullabaloo, QUEER AS FOLK....even PARTY MONSTER!..After viewing them, he commented, "they all have so much sex in them!".......I guess queers just have the corner on sex?.....Not! My friend, of course, a really closeted case himself, would relate to TORCH SONG TRILOGY, BOYS IN THE BAND, THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE or even BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN....and relegate "sex" to the back of that closet...And just think.....only a few decades ago, there was only hot, subliminal sex or flaming innuendo to anticipate.....I'm glad to see that as part of the past!

SHORT MFA THESIS FILM BY JOAQUIN BALDWIN

VIMEO is a source of HI-DEF VIDEOART.... THIS IS A CREATION OF PARAGUAYAN VIDEO ARTIST, JOAQUIN BALDWIN. YOU CAN SUPPORT HIS WORK HERE: http://www.pixelnitrate.com/


and there's "9".......also a Thesis Film...conceived and directed by Shane Acker.....

BUT DON'T WORRY......

 

there's always going to be someone like Lars Stefan to oil down and take the spotlight....and, a fine cameraman, he does his own photography.....
Lars invisions himself as Peter's suckcessor....why not? I wonder who's taking over
Madonna's old job.....

AGEING NARCISSIST

 

peter berlin, now, at 66....

PETER BERLIN

 

I met Peter at a party 40 years ago....he was the hot, gay photoshoot/sexfilm star, then....Now, one could pass him on the streets of San Francisco and notice the attractive, older man that Peter still is....now, as aways, a year or two older than I....getting his social security checks every month and wearing the faded denim jacket that once hung from his flawless frame almost a half century before......a paradigm for gay porno, for sure......

family role models

THE UNITED STATES OF TARA is another paradigm shift for quirky family role models for gays...... the characters all seem like people I would know and love........even Tara.....I certainly could have benefited from this video at Marshall's age...but had to do with SPIN AND MARTY.....It was another era....the '50's......deep undercover!

ROBIN HITCHCOCK .. THE DEVIL'S RADIO

Quirky poet, Robyn Hitchcock was certainly a unique manifestation of genius.......this is from STOREFRONT HITCHCOCK......a really marvelous recording project.....

WRVU LATE NIGHT RADIO SHOW -- 1964

after my friend, Bert Bottorff's European Baroque Hour...on WRVU....the Vanderbilt Campus Station......I hosted.a program....11-12pm.......of more modern and experimental music.....Subotnik, Stockhausen, Cage, Berio......not exactly Mozart or Chopin......Students would call in and threaten to kill me if I didn't play Paul Revere and the Raiders, Joan Baez or The Beetles......you'd think kids would be more daring and open.......pleeze......not some more Peter, Paul and Mary.....! WRVU finally cancelled my avante guarde program, replacing it with some 19th century romantic goulash that would blend into late-nite studies........fiddly dee!~

APRIL SHOWERS

Although Pinocchio is my favorite Disney movie......My favorite scene from a Disney film is this one......it touched me as a child and still does...... I think that the dynamics of this scene made a great impression on little me.......this lovely piece of animation stuck in my mind......

AND, SMEARED ON A DARKER PALETTE..... TOM WAITS

I love his roughest sandpaper voiced poesy.........I love extremes.......Ignore the middle ground.....it'll sink, overloaded....into the abyss of banality.....

MY FIRST "ART" MOVIES....... Oh, to live in Sugar Plum Fairy Land!

In the 50's, i could hardly wait for the latest MGM all-dancing-all-singing movie to open at the Lyric in lovely downtown Huntsville.....i would leave the Lyric, dancing on the broken sidewalks all the way to the Grand News Stand, where I could view pics of film artists dancing and singing as other boys stood around jockeying for position to review the latest comix, Mad magazine, and Tales from the Crypt......then...off to the Twickingham or Rexall for vintage scenerios, sodas, cherry cokes or malts, walls of boxed chocolates and fan magazines for Tab Hunter and Annette Funicello....I wanted Life to emulate ART......I still do!

ENKI BILAL

Les amitiés maléfiques

other films like BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS, just don't have this level of sophisticated and intelligent dialogue.....not to mention the brilliant Malik Zidi, who reminds me of a young Richard Gere, but more subtle and polished....virtually unknown in the U.S. a wonderful ensemble....

THE OBVERSE......THE WAY I'D LIKE TO REMEMBER CHILDHOOD

from a great film about Childhood........and a model, in a way, for stuff like "Malcolm in the Middle".........I imagine what that would be like, directed by Fellini....

THE HUNGER

Tony Scott directed my favorite erotic vampire film.....Chilled as I was as a voyeur from the dark, velvet-curtained balcony of the Central Theatre, in 1958, to watch Bela lure fragile hearts with his black cape and slicked-back raven's hair....a quarter of a century later, this complex cinema piece more suited my gaze into the dark currents of humanity.....

GREATEST SHOWER-STALL PERFORMANCE

my cynically sweet friend, Jay....singing a traditional Irish song that reaches deep within the heart......I wish Jay were more known...he is a wonderful singer and sensitive and funny, too.....