Meshes

 

 (imdb)

MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON-1943-Weird black & white Avant Garde short by the American husband and wife team of Alexander Hammid and Maya Deren. It's dream-like imagery and unusual camera work, heavily influenced by LE CHIEN ANDALOU (1929) and L' AGE D'OR (1930), have made it an influential experimental film. A woman (Deren) may or may not be dreaming...

It was originally shown silent. 18 years later a soundtrack of koto and percussion was added. After the filmmakers divorced, both made other short films. Deren however became interested in Haiti and the Vodou religion. Some have said she killed a man by placing a curse on him!

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Cold

 

COLD STORAGE-1988-In this black & white overly arty “Eraserhead” influenced horror movie, a deformed young man (Glenn Pearce) lives in some kind of apartment building that's almost like a prison. He doesn't even know what it's like outside. He has sick dreams and kills a woman washing her clothes (he's not the only one there). The camera lingers on different objects and there's a lot of talk but it never goes anywhere.

 It has a good soundtrack though.

 Writer/director Paul M. Rinehard may have done more after this....

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I Liked Eno's Album Better

 

 (imdb)

TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN-1983-In a bleak future dystopia, 4 stuck up feminists plot to brainwash a hippie loser Billy (Bill Paxton) into an assassin to kill the minister of prostitution. It was shot in Wales and with the exception of American Paxton, all the roles are played by local townspeople. Originally based on a poem about the kidnapping of J. Paul Getty 3, it morphed into an adaptation of the William S Burroughs novel "Blade Runner (a movie)". Characters talk endlessly while radio broadcasts on the chaotic state of the world (depressed economy, famine, cannibalism, shortages) are heard. This black & white film had two directors.

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Clone-Zilla

 

AGON THE ATOMIC DRAGON-A giant dyno-lizard terrorizes the coast of Japan, stomping trees, buildings, an atomic reactor and a lighthouse. It's attracted to uranium. A reporter (Shinji Hirota), a government agent (Asao Matsumoto), a scientist (Nobuhiko Shima) and his female assistant (Akemi Sawa) try to stop it. This four part Japanese TV series was shot in black and white but tinted in sepia given it a very odd quality. It's a pretty cheap production but with much more than a passing resemblance to Godzilla. At one point Toho prevented it from being shown but later relented.

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Saturday Night Live Spin-Off?

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER-1984-Strange arty old movie feel (in black & white) fantasy that takes place in an alternate NYC (controlled by The Port Authority!) of the future. A young man named Adam (Zach Galligan; in GREMLINS the same year) wants to be an “artist”. He gets a job watching cars at The Holland Tunnel where Dan Aykroyd plays his boss and lives for a while with his aunt and uncle (Mort Sahl). The film turns color when Adam visits an underground land run by bums and watched over by Father Knickerbocker (Sam Jaffe in his second to last movie). Later he accidentally takes a bus to the moon. Bill Murray plays the ship's captain. In the bus lounge Eddie Fisher performs “O My Papa”! The government sends old people (including King Donovan, his real life wife Imogene Coca and Larry “Bud” Melman) there to shop. Eventually Adam becomes a great pianist and wins the love of a moon maiden named Eloy (Lauren Tom). 

This strange could be a cult film also uses stock footage and silent films and features a cameo by Lawrence Tierney at the end. Paul Frees is the narrator. It was written and directed by Tom Schiller a former writer on Saturday Night Live.

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Cool TV

 
A TV show I've been watching recently on ME TV is the western WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE starring Steve McQueen as Josh Randall, a tough but not so ruthless bounty hunter who sometimes helped out needy people for free and/or sometimes proved his charges innocent of the crimes they were said to commit. A few episodes have comedic overtones and Randall is kind of a buffoon but usually after killing a man he had some remorse. It ran for three seasons on CBS from 1958-1961.

 I like to watch these kind of shows mainly for the guest stars and WANTED had it's share: DeForest Kelly, Lon Chaney, Warren Oates, Martin Landau, Jay North (in a strange Christmas episode), Michael Landon, John Dehner (in several episodes), Jay Silverheels, John Carradine and James Coburn to name a few. For around a dozen episodes in 1960 Wright King was also featured as fellow bounty hunter Jason Nicholls (he played a different role in an earlier episode), King had a featured role in Elia Kazan's A STREET CAR NAMED DESIRE (1951), hosted a TV kid's show JOHNNY JUPITER (1953-54) and was in two episodes of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Later he had a small role as a simian doctor in the original PLANET OF THE APES.

 McQueen of course went on to super stardom with roles in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, THE GREAT ESCAPE, BULLITT and others.

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Boredom Radio

BORDER RADIO-1987-This pretentious black and white "punk" film seems ripe for "cult-dom". The boring story concerns a musician named Jeff Bailey (Chris D., the lead vocalist for The Flesheaters) who's hiding out in Mexico after he and his two friends Chris (Chris Shearer) and Dean (John Doe, guitarist in X) steal the money they were owed from a gig they played. Jeff's wife Lu (Luanna Anders, the director's daughter) searches for him. The confused plot also uses out of place documentary style interviews to move the story along. The acting is terrible. It had three directors. Allison Anders (who later made GAS FOOD LODGING and MI VIDA LOCA) co-directed with cinematographer Dean Lett. The other credited director is Kurt Voss who later made POISON IVY: THE NEW SEDUCTION. BR also features The Blasters' guitarist Dave Alvin and Green On Red performing in one scene.

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