Francis Bacon and The Wall

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D O P E

D O P E

DOPE, is a 1968 documentary of the London drug scene. Featuring Donovan and Australian artist/dancer Vali Myers, the spectre of underground folk legend Geno Foreman, Marianne Faithfull talking about poppers, Syd's (Pink) Floyd in full UFO freakout mode, The Fool and mainlining in Richmond Hill, Dope is the definitive document of counter-cultural life in the capital during 1967.

Mere words cannot adequately describe this visual montage documenting the bohemian London drug culture of the late sixties...as they shoot up, eat, talk. In the spirit of the era’s avant garde film movement and evoking the subversive work of Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, Stan Brackage, and even Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, Dope never spares its audience a break . . . Dope is more underground than the underground. It’s sub-underground.

"Light and atmospheric, this is a heady drama perfumed with scenes of heroin and hashish."--Ira Cohen

Film by Flame Schon, aka Diane Rochlin (in collaboration with the late Sheldon Rochlin). link

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Repo: The Genetic Opera

Repo: The Genetic Opera

House-ridden Shilo often sneaks down to her mother's mausoleum to gripe and sing about her angsty misfortune, while Giles secretly guts people in his free time. But when Shilo wanders out into the city she gets entangled with the likes of GeneCo's president Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino), who had more than a passing interest in her long-dead mother. His three power-hungry kids (Paris Hilton, Skinny Puppy's Ogre, and Bill Moseley) bicker over who will inherit GeneCo and all the while the city looks forward to the corporation's upcoming opera.

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Werner Herzog and David Lynch

David Lynch making new films with Herzog, Jodorowsky

Werner Herzog and David Lynch are teaming for "My Son, My Son," a horror-tinged murder drama based on a true story.

Herzog and his longtime assistant director Herbert Golder co-wrote "Son," loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man who acts out a Sophocles play in his mind and kills his mother with a sword. The low-budget feature will flash back and forth from the murder scene to the disturbed man's story. A guerrilla-style digital video shoot on Coronado Island is tentatively set for March.

In a separate development, Lynch's Absurda production company has attached Asia Argento and Udo Kier to star with Nick Nolte in Alejandro Jodorowsky's metaphysical gangster movie "King Shot."

Marilyn Manson is touted to appear as a prophet in the "Sin City"-style film, which producer Eric Bassett said has enough sex and violence to guarantee an NC-17 rating.

Lynch is executive producing both projects, and Absurda is repping their sales rights in the Cannes market.

"Son" is produced by Eric Bassett, who also is producing "King" with his Absurda colleague Norm Hill and Clavis Films' Simon Shandor.

Herzog, repped by Gersh, is having a busy 2008. He was set to film "Son" in the summer but postponed it to direct Nicolas Cage in a remake of Abel Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant" starting in July. In the fall, he will shoot the Victorian-era drama "The Piano Tuner" for Focus Features.

All kinds of good film news! [via], link

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Wonderwall

WONDERWALL (1968)

An eccentric, lovable scientist falls in love with the girl next door - in an unusual way. Set in 1960's London, Wonderwall tells the story of a reclusive professor who becomes obsessed with a stunning model called Penny Lane. A psychedelic fantasy steeped in voyeurism, this film features a musical score by George Harrison with musical contributions from Eric Clapton and Ravi Shankar. Dutch designers The Fool, were set designers for the movie.

I like this film; but I like strange, psychedelic films so view it with caution it that's not your usual fare. It may remind you somewhat of Jodorowsky or Fellini. It's been showing on television lately and you can also get it at Netflix and at Yahoo!.

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Mods and Rockers Festival

Mods and Rockers Festival: Skidoo

Writer Paul Krassner shares his recollections about the 1968 acid-comedy film Skidoo directed by Otto Preminger. The movie has its first 35mm screening in Los Angeles in over 25 years on Saturday July 14 at the Mods & Rockers Film Festival in Hollywood.

Timothy Leary had a certain sense of pride about the prominent people he and his associates had introduced to the psychedelic revolution. He once told me the names of some of the folks whose lives had been changed by taking LSD. Among them: director Otto Preminger, actor Cary Grant, conservative think-tanker Herman Kahn, Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson, Time magazine publishers Henry and Clare Booth Luce.

"But," Leary told me, "I consider Otto Preminger one of our failures."

...(Preminger's) Skidoo was pro-acid propaganda thinly disguised as a comedy adventure. However, LSD was not the reason that the FBI was annoyed with the film. Rather, according to Gleason's FBI files, they objected to one scene in the script where a file cabinet is stolen from an FBI building. Gleason was later approved as a special FBI contact in the entertainment business.

One of the characters in Skidoo was a Mafia chieftain named God. Screenwriter Bill Cannon had suggested Groucho Marx for the part. Preminger said it wasn't a good idea, but since they were already shooting, and that particular character was needed on the set in three days, Groucho got the job. During one scene, Preminger was screaming instructions at him.

Groucho yelled back, "Are you drunk?"

When Skidoo was released in 1968, Tim Leary saw it, and he cheerfully admitted, "I was fooled by Otto Preminger. He's much hipper than me."

Krassner's just got tons of good stories, doesn't he?

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The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream

The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream
One event that gets far less publicity, but that was at the heart of everything that came both before and after it also sees its 40th anniversary this year. The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream took place on April the 29th 1967 and was the UK's first mass-participational all-night psychedelic freakout!

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream, an array of rarely seen 60s films, full-on lightshows, avant-garde theatre and bands both old and new.

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The Films of Alejandro Jodorowsky

Welcome to the bizarre universe of Alejandro Jodorowsky, a monstrous talent whose alchemical insights and sublime freak-outs epitomize an era of rare cinematic enlightenment-- provocative and psychedelic on a grand scale.

Thanks to the end of a bitter 30-year feud, the deranged, gruesome films of Jodorowsky have finally been released. (The films we've previously seen have been poor quality bootlegs.)

Amazon has a May 1, shipping date for this DVD package with El Topo, Fando Y Lis, and The Holy Mountain. It also includes a DVD of Jodorowsky's never-before-released first film, La Cravate and the La Constellation Jodorowsky doc and more interviews, scripts and such.

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Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

This weekend the little-known 1970 film will get a brand new score performed live by Espers, Philadelphia freak folk musicians — including a harpist, a cellist and an "enigmatic electronicist". Will you even need libation at the after-party?

What about a girl who gets her period and discovers her womanhood 'Alice in Wonderland' style? Not freaky enough for you? The 1970 Czech film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a nudie fairy-tale head trip, an Aquarian stew of Freud, Murnau, Hefner and the Brothers Grimm, complete with lecherous priests, a pubescent heroine and a vampire grandmother.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders
8pm Saturday and 9pm Sunday--March 10 and 11
Anthology Film Archives

Very cool that Espers is doing the music, but besides that, try to catch this old film sometime. You may like it if you enjoy wicked strange cult films.

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