HALLOWEEN, A.M. ...

this morning, having re-watched the 1980 film, AltERED StATES......to study its soundtrack by John Corigliano....(Red Violin & The Naked Carmen) .....a deconstructed psyche against a backdrop of architectural music......on the heels of R.D. Laing's THE DIVIDED SELF and KNOTS, Desmond Morris' THE NAKED APE and Arthur Janov's THE PRIMAL SCREAM.....whose influences show in much cinematic art that emerged from the 1970's......

THE CLOSER ONE GETS, THE MORE ONE SEES.............

Miguel Angel Bermejo Castellanos

WHAT HAPPENED TO CHRIS COLLINS & LYDIA TENAGLIA'S PLAN TO ENSCONCE TONY IN TRAVELOGUE SAINTHOOD?

Zero Point Zero is still 'in production' on a documentary film about the Life and Mind of Anthony Bourdain......... After the wonderful biopic about Ruth Bader Ginsberg.... "RBG", recently, the sails of this ship should be full of strong winds....After the proposed film's eventual commercial run at film festivals...then movie theaters....then final landing on his later home turf, CNN, still broadcasting souped up reruns of "PARTS UNKNOWN", I'll eventually ooze some tearful lamentations during my way through it, like a teen-aged girl, who...pony-tailed and bobby socked, wept for a month over a photograph of Elvis, dead on his toilet seat or Kurt Cobain, inert in a pool of his own blood.....Until the next Icon stumbles and crashes into glamorous History.....

DIGGING UP SOME INVASIVE BAMBOO ROOTS ELICITED VISUAL MEMORIES AND EMOTIONS FROM YOUTH........

The Persistance of Images......over 60 years ago, I sat in the balcony....alone.....at the Lyric Theater......indulging in the latest William Castle Perceptovision movie....as Television grew to compete with Films that were shown, for revenue, at local theaters........Ever new gimmicks arose to attract audiences to sit in movie houses...Castle offered Life Insurance policies for kids that might die during his films......then theater seats, wired for mild electrical shock......red/blue lensed glasses for 3-D thrills....."magic" coins....."punishment" polls....even Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster, in drag............Noticing this bamboo root in the leaf bag this morning, I remembered 'the tingler'.....a crawling spinal cord, with nerve extensions, that resembled a giant crustacean centipede......for a few seconds, I was 14 again, sitting in the balcony, watching Vincent Price being stalked, then strangled by a renegade spinal cord...... There is an oblique correlation with The Manchurian Candidate here, I think.......

The Louisiana Gator Boys - Blues Brothers 2000

It's worth fast-forwarded to the final ten minutes of Blues Brothers 2000....if only for the Blues Showdown.......Isaac Hayes, Steve Winwood, Eric Clapton, Koko Taylor, Paul Shaffer, B.B. King, Billy Preston, Joshua Redman, Grover Washington Jr., Travis Tritt, Jack DeJohnette, Charles Musselwhite, Lou Rawls and more great Bluesmen.....on Stage, together........   A great 'double bill' with "Roy Orbison and Friends:   A Black And White Night" and it's largesse of 'Star' Musicians....... which set the Stage for 'BB 2000'.......

DANIEL'S CALLING IT A WRAP FOR HIS BOND-AGE.... WHO'S NEXT, I WONDER?

Today is the 'official' JAMES BOND DAY.......Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond, since Sean Connery........I wonder who the 'next' James will be.....Tom Hiddleston? Michael Fassbender? Henry Cavill? Or.....breaking the over half century tradition.....will 'it' be a black man? how about a woman? Idris Elba or Cate Blanchett, perhaps? Should I sell my Omegas yet? Will the newest Bond be sporting a machine-turned platinum dialed gold Breguet with guilloche.....oh...that would mean Ben Whishaw had been promoted from "Q", cut his teeth on London Spy, and beefed up for the role, wouldn't it? THAT ain't gonna happen!.....

a few years ago, Alex McDowell's wonderfully amazing production design and Hans Zimmer's soundtrack were about all I liked about MAN OF STEEL.....some great talents, brought together for yet another violent, blow-it-up flick, formulated to feed the aggressive role-playing fantasies of American Youth Culture.....What happened to any ideas we ever had about "a kinder, gentler nation"? It seems, to me, that folks just like to see things get blown to smithereens.....

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song - A MEMORY OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF MELVIN VAN PEEBLES DEATH THIS WEEK.......

I'd moved to Atlanta, shortly after Otis Redding's funeral.......partially, to escape the racism and sexism of Middle Georgia's Rightist Prejudices........In 1971, I went to the Theater, across P'tree Street from the then popular Cinerama Theater,  to see this Melvin Van Peebles' Urban Black Action Flick........So much for Atlanta being a cradle of Liberal Humanism........I was one of 3 or 4 'white' people in the audience....trying to watch the film through my dark 'Peter Fonda' sunglasses and some mighty tall 'Afro-cuts'...... After the Film,  I remember being asked by a Jimi Hendrix 'look-a-like', "Whuffo yu doin' in OUR movie house, whyte boah!"......How could I reply?  Me, dressing in  orange, turquoise and lime-green Toreador pants, and a Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club shirt......to a pissed off black racist wearing a Roberta Flack wig,  leopard-print polyester jump suit, lizard boots with chromed studs and a pound of gold-plated hipster jewels, who viewed P'tree Street at North Ave. as a demarcation zone.........Just a few blocks, South,  Atlanta's 'hippie' culture was dressed like the cast of 'HAIR'.......Wanting to engage in some peaceful inter-racial  interchange.....we....the Jimi imposter and I,  journeyed down to 14th Street, where a small army of yet another sect of Atlanta Youths with shoulder-length hair and 'face paint' were marching, with placards, deprecating the Vietnam War....   That evening, after donning a second hand Mr. Witt shirt, army surplus khaki pants and thrift store 1950's lace-up alligator shoes, Uncle Johns old Rolex watch and a Gupton-Jones Embalming School class ring, that i traded for at a pawn shop in Stonecrest,  I took my new Afro-acculturated acquaintance to The Piedmont Driving Club, where he was, summarily, asked to leave...... Go, Figure!