Here’s a short bit of Halloween fun from animation studio, A Large Evil Corporation.
Monthly Archives: October 2011
Musician and Activist Tom Morello Talks to Press About Occupy Wall Street
Former Rage Against the Machine member, Tom Morello, who has been playing for and talking to Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Los Angeles, speaks with reporters about what is going on with this explosive movement.
And here is a repost of my film, ‘One Day Occupy L.A.,’ which features an incredible live soundtrack of Morello playing for the protest in Los Angeles just this week.
Occupy Wall Street Movement Must Aim Toward Constitutional Amendment Enforcing Separation of Corporations and State
I believe that the eventual success of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which is spreading to many cities across the United States, depends upon its ability to change law. Ultimately, the movement must lead toward an amendment to the Constitution that bans corporate mixture with and influence over the state. It will resemble the separation of church and state, but it will be somewhat more precisely worded.
On Skid Row: Documentary Film by Sam Slovick
Sam Slovick made this 2008 documentary on skid row in downtown Los Angeles. The area is home to approximately 9,000 homeless people who deal with life on the streets, drugs, crime and serious physical and mental health issues. The film was made just prior to the massive economic collapse of 2008 when the numbers of homeless began to rapidly increase.
Parts 3 through 5 follow the jump.
A Short Statement on Gay Bullying
The kid in this video, Jamey Rodemeyer, went to school in Buffalo, New York. He was consistently bullied for being openly gay. He tried to help others by posting videos for It Gets Better. But he was hurting too much from all the hate and bullying. He killed himself. He looks to me like a really great kid who had a huge heart and wanted to help other kids who were in trouble. The world could have used this kid. He would have gone on to become a magnificent man with a lot to offer the world. But it won’t happen because people around him did not do what they needed to do. Kids feel helpless when the adults around them cannot handle the situation properly. Sometimes these people posing as ‘counselors’ and ‘teachers’ are just useless. You can’t always rely on them to help out when someone is bullying, harassing or attacking you. There are a lot of freakish idiots working in schools all across the nation. Really stupid people. Bigots. People who I wouldn’t even trust to put gas in my car.
If a school sees a kid bullying someone, that kid should never be allowed to pass the threshold of that school again. Never. It is unforgivable. These bullying kids are non-entities who can serve no useful purpose. It is a waste to educate them. Let them enjoy very short, painful and unproductive lives. Given a little leeway, these kids would progress to hanging people from trees for their sexuality or skin color. There are some kids who are forever beyond hope. Kids who bully gay kids are some of those.
I think kids who are bullied for being gay or for any reason at all should make trouble. Lots of it. They should call 911 if they are physically abused at school. A physical attack is criminal even if it’s committed by a student. I think kids should seek legal representation and sue the schools, the individual teachers, and the families of bullies. Gay kids who are bullied need to get their mean on and start figuring out how to fuck these people up.
As for the kind of bullying that happens socially or on Facebook, well that can be really vicious and can drive kids to despair. But that kind of thing leaves a trail. It can all be copied and saved for a nice big lawsuit. So kids, maybe you can think constructively about it. If some asshole is tormenting you on Facebook, save all the posts somewhere as evidence. Chances are there’s going to be some sort of federal law against this form of bullying soon. So all those bullying posts are going to count against those people in court.
A lot of teachers have read this site in the past. I’m not sure how I feel about that in general. But I would certainly address myself to a portion of this group by saying this: If you are a teacher who for reasons of your own or because of religious beliefs has allowed gay bashing or bullying to happen in your school and you have maintained a neutral posture, I want you out of the school. I want you jobless and living under a bridge. And then go fuck yourself. That’s the official business position of Candlelight Stories, Inc. Fuck you, fuck your credentials, and fuck your religion. Most religions hate gay people. It’s officially built into them. That’s why religions are for assholes. If you come here often and are offended by my attitude, go fuck yourself, monkey brain.
I stand with the gay kids. I stand with the ones who have put up with these bullying pigs long enough. I don’t like arguing the point with brutish, right-wing or worshipful jerkoffs. I’d rather break their heads. That’s how I feel about it.
One Day Occupy L.A.: A Film by Alessandro Cima
I went down to the demonstration to make a film. I liked the people there. They were very focused and happy. They were talking, explaining, arguing, educating, dancing, singing, playing, making signs, painting, photographing. Some of them made speeches at the microphone. Some read poems. There were lots of cameras.
The music and words in this film are by Tom Morello (http://nightwatchmanmusic.com), former Rage Against the Machine guitarist. He sings his own ‘Maximum Firepower’ and Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land is Your Land.’
The mood at City Hall was high energy and cheerful. The underlying anger and frustration of the movement seemed to be moving through a positive channel. It was exciting but also comfortable there because of the people and their open attitudes.
The Los Angeles police headquarters is directly across the street from the protest grounds. That’s where I began shooting my film – right into the windows of police headquarters. Several squad cars drove up First Street, but there was not a single cop anywhere near the protest area. The crowd is organized and respectful, but also very serious about its messages which are various and multifaceted.
The city has taken a protective stance over its protesters. I’m very proud of Los Angeles for this.
Occupy Los Angeles is one of the spreading protests coming out of the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York. Hopefully, the incredible momentum of the movement will continue and be heard very clearly across the country and the world.
The simple messages that I get from the protests are that government cannot function while it is under the control and influence of corporations. The economy cannot function properly while corporations and their extremely wealthy owners are allowed to operate without oversight and control. The country cannot pave its roads or build its schools or house its people while corporations and the wealthy play with money that is nearly tax-free, removing it entirely from the real world economy. The country cannot function as a democracy while its politicians and Supreme Court justices are working for corporations. The country cannot be free while racism and bigotry are increasingly seen as legitimate reactions to change. The country cannot be secure while corporations are given the power to run wars and people’s basic privacy rights are removed.
That’s what I see in the Occupy movement.
If every city in the U.S. could have as fine an Occupy movement as Los Angeles, they would be very lucky indeed.
Pacific Standard Time: Anthony Kiedis Celebrates Ed Ruscha
Red Hot Chili Pepper, Anthony Kiedis rides along with L.A. artist, Ed Ruscha. They talk about using words for art and how that inspires them. I like shooting L.A. this way. The film uses the car and the streets well. I think I even see some duct tape holding Kiedis’ passenger door mirror together.
VSV Taos to Topanga: A Film Visit with Artists George Herms and Dean Stockwell
George Herms is one of Los Angeles’ great artists, having been a founder of the ‘assemblage’ or found object kind of art. Actor Dean Stockwell has been making art for many decades and apparently lives out in the desert somewhere. I think he’s one of those fake grumpy guys. I’m familiar with them. They try to set you off balance by pretending to be asses. The filmmaker, Paul Hasegawa-Overcracker takes his friends to visit both artists at home. Watch for Herms’ personal definition of High Definition.
Right Here All Over (Occupy Wall Street): A Film by Alex Mallis
This film shows how the protesters of the Occupy Wall Street movement organize themselves in lower Manhattan. They seem to be forming something like a little community with food services, minor first aid, a library, battery charging and even video editing services for all the people covering the action. These people are working hard and have an uncommon seriousness about them. This is something new. These are mainly young people. They are waking up from iPod oblivion and showing the world that they can make a difference in a democracy decayed by a corporate stranglehold over the government. These are people who can see that corporate management structures have totally occupied and taken over the United States government all the way up to and including its Supreme Court. In fact, there is no other way to dismantle this criminal structure. It can only be broken up by massive groups of angry protesters who simply never stop coming.
The film was shot and edited by Alex Mallis.
Here’s a simple and clear opinion piece about the reform movement represented by Occupy Wall Street.
Nova Express: Epic Online Film Adaptation of the William S. Burroughs Novel by Andre Perkowski
Filmmaker Andre Perkowski is working on a huge 3 hour plus adaptation of the novel ‘Nova Express‘ by William S. Burroughs. It’s a wild, ragged, disjointed, warped, damaged, serious and funny mashup of found footage, original film and Burroughs’ reading voice along with others. It’s got those incoherently combined sci-fi and thriller elements that Burroughs so easily manipulated as if in a delirium. The film is itself a kind of cutup, mirroring the technique Burroughs used that involved gathering unrelated bits and pieces of other books and newspaper articles to formulate sentences that somehow ramble on without necessarily leading anywhere specific. The novel is about exposing the secrets of those who attempt to control all thought and life with virus-like ideas, machines and drugs.
Perkowski is a filmic oddball who delights in making things that are messy. He draws and collages to create new images, purposely ruining his images to create the unexpected. I think his mental immersion into Burroughs is leading him through his wonderful film with great assurance. Apparently, Perkowski is constantly adding to the film and changing it. He has at least six different ‘drafts’ of the film. As he goes, he posts chunks of the film on his YouTube channel which I happen to think is a fantastic idea. There are similarities between the way he works and the way I work on films like my ‘Yellow Plastic Raygun.’ I have often told people that I suspect the video scrubber button in non-linear video editors that allows a filmmaker to fly through a full length feature film in seconds is perhaps the single most important cinematic tool of the last thirty years. It is this little tool that allows for the searching and matching of cinematic elements that could never have been found in a human lifetime before the non-linear editor. So it leads to entirely new form of cinema. That’s what you are watching here with Perkowski’s film. It is a powerful work of new cinema and may well be the best adaptation of a Burroughs work that I have ever seen.
Here’s a great interview with the filmmaker that focuses on this film.
Part 2
Parts 3 – 10 after the jump…
Continue reading
Unions and Students Join the Occupy Wall Street Protests
Powerful unions have joined with the protesters at Occupy Wall Street. The movement is exploding across the nation, taking root in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The protests are a direct reaction to the inability of the government to fairly tax its people even in the face of a major worldwide financial catastrophe. With the shrill and irrational assertions of Republicans and their Tea Party people sounding like some sort of majority opinion, people are getting out in the streets to show what the real majority really thinks.
Bloodlust! – 1959 Horror Film
Here’s a horror film shot in 1959 and then released in 1961 about a group of young people who find themselves prey for a sadistic hunter on an island. It is quite obviously a rip-off of ‘The Most Dangerous Game‘ which was filmed in the thirties as a warm up for the sets and special effects of King Kong.
La Tentation de Saint Antoine: 1898 Special Effects Film by Georges Méliès
Oh that lucky fellow, Saint Antoine! To find myself in his shoes as he is ‘tormented’ by the temptations popping in and out of his little cave! My oh my! What a lucky guy! This is Georges Méliès experimenting with making people appear and disappear magically.
The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity: A Film by Guy Maddin
Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin made this short film which is inspired by an 1882 illustration by Odilon Redon that was in turn inspired by the writing of Edgar Allan Poe. It has a kind of wild sinister fantasy about it that fascinates me. I like the way Maddin builds little sets that end up looking almost like illustrations. He also does a quick visual quote of a great old French film called L’Atalante by Jean Vigo. This is a frightening and beautiful dream film.
Pacific Standard Time Celebrates Artist John Baldessari
Pacific Standard Time, the roaringly cheerful celebration by Southern California of its own art from the late 40s through the early 80s is releasing short videos to pump everyone up for its brand of art. I should be horrified by this silly video, but I’m not. I kind of like Baldessari’s big ass head on the wall. It works all the way up until he says ‘Art should be fun.’ Yeah, really? I dunno. Sounds like the kind of thing you say to an idiot.
But whatever. I’m going to see a lot of the exhibitions that are part of this festival. Should be really great.