April 2009
1957 - WHAT WAS ON
“48 Photos of women on TV taken late at night by a lonely photographer in 1957. Encrusted with 50 year old dust and emulsion the photos of women from melodramas and late-night talk shows are not only a record of one person’s peculiar obsession but also a virtual catalog of the kind of roles women played in the popular entertainment of the era.”
March 2009
THE GENTLE ART OF THE CHRISTIAN CROSSOVER TRAILER
OK, so what could possibly happen in this movie except for the obvious final scene where no doubt every single character comes together to sing about Jesus? Is it like Footloose, except instead of dancing its praise bands? Maybe it’s like dreamgirls but instead of dreamgirls it’s praise bands. What? OK, what is a praise band? Is that even a thing? Nevermind, I don’t care. I was thinking about posting this yesterday, but didn’t feel like it until I saw the absolutely AMAZING C Me Dance trailer, also on Videogum.
Yes, this trailer is a perfect storm of unintentional hilarity. It is a Christian Dance movie Thriller, and that is just all you need to know. Her dancing is so beautiful and inspirational and she was in the advanced stages of having slowly rotating eyebrows until god chose her to tick off satan? Then god threw leaves at satan, and he was all “naum ashta taya” 8-ball contact lenses and that girl’s all like “Get me out of this lake, you’re my saving GUH-RAaaaaaCE?” And then that ladyvoice whispers, “THE DEVIL WANTS YOU TO STOP DANCING, REVERSE FOOTLOOSE!”
So much can’t-make-the-tears-come-out, crunch-face crying going on. To think, she just wanted to dance and hang out. Let’s just put all the inter-titles together and call it a day:
A GENTLE ART FROM A GENTLE SOUL WILL CHANGE HEARTS FROM A SINGLE TOUCH WILL FACE EVIL
I’m in the advanced stages of wanting to watch that movie.
Finally, C Me Dance piqued my interest enough to do a quick youtube search for related lulz and oh boy, did I find related lulz. Here is the trailer for The Bike King and the Ten Commandments.
Oh. Man.
A TRAGIC DISCOVERY A FAMILY’S STRUGGLE A BOY’S DREAM AND GOD’S LOVE AND GOOGLY EYES AND A MOTORCYCLE AND FROSTED TIPS and yeah, that’s basically it.
Here’s my impression of God: “I love you! I love you! Here’s a CD I burned for you! I love you.” Nailed it.
last night i dreamt i had really long sideburns. mutton chops really.
YOU CAN LET THEM GET CLOSE BUT YOU CAN'T LET THEM SIT DOWN
“It was a Thursday night, and like all the Thursday nights in all the bars in all the cities in all the world where young people live, the Hard Rock Cafe brimmed over with boys and girls. This was Los Angeles, so the boys wore T-shirts and sunglasses and shorts, and the girls wore miniskirts and Madonna hairdos. Over the blare of rock music, the boys and girls were shouting jokes and stories to one another, talking about their jobs and their classes and their dreams, eating enormous cheeseburgers and washing them down with swigs from long-necked bottles of Corona beer. The waitresses were dressed in punk uniforms, and they smiled and laughed as the boys and girls floated from table to table, partying with the endless spirit of those who have no place to return to, no person waiting nervously at home, no responsibility the next day that could possibly be more important than this night, right here, right now.
At one round table in the middle of the room sat a group of boys who seemed to exude a magnetic force. As the boys toasted each other and chugged their beers, the prettiest of the girls would find some excuse to walk by the table, and they would eye the boys as languorously as they possibly could, hoping for an invitation to join them. The boys knew that they had this force, and they stared back with equal vigor—choosing with their eyes the prettiest of the pretty and beckoning them with their smiles. Without fail, the girls would come, and they would stay, bringing with them all the charms they could muster. There were many boys in the bar that Thursday night, many of them as handsome as those at this one round table, but these boys—these young studs, all under 25 years old, decked out in Risky Business sunglasses and trendish sport jackets and designer T-shirts—they were the Main Event.
A girl named Alice straightened her long, white T-shirt over her blue skirt, brushed her jet-black bangs away from her eyes, patted her hips with her hands, and walked slowly to the table. She went to the handsomest of the group, the boy with the firmest chin and the darkest sunglasses. She knew that he was Rob Lowe and that he had been in The Hotel New Hampshire, and she probably also knew that he was involved with an actress named Melissa Gilbert, but from the open, white-toothed smile he gave her as she walked over, she felt confident.
“Hi,” she said. He took her hand and shook it.
“Nice to meet you,” he said.
“My name is Alice,” she said.
He did not tell her his name. He had already turned his head toward a pretty blonde who had just walked by and turned her head toward him. He flashed the blonde his open, white-toothed smile; she returned it and walked over to the table.
But by the time the blonde girl arrived, Rob Lowe had long since forgotten she was coming. He had turned back to the table, where his friends had once again lifted their bottles in a toast: For no reason, with no prompting, for what must have been the twentieth time of the night, the boys were about to clink bottles and unite in a private pact, a bond that could not be broken by all the pretty young girls in the room, or in the world, or even, perhaps, by the other, less famous young actors who shared the table with them as friends. As the bottles clinked, the boys cried together at the top of their lungs, “Na zdorovye!”—Russian for “good health,” but really something else, a private signal among the three famous boys that only they understood. After they finished their toast, the three boys turned their attention back to Alice and the other girls who surrounded the table, and smiled. The girls smiled back.
If Rob Lowe seemed to be inviting all too much attention from the girls, Judd Nelson acted as though he wanted nothing to do with it. His fame, too, helped attract them—they recognized his tough-guy looks from his role as the wrong-way kid in The Breakfast Club and sought his attention. But as Alice sat down in an empty chair next to him, Judd Nelson announced to anyone within earshot, including Alice, “There is a line. When someone crosses the line, I get angry. And when someone sits down at the table, they have crossed the line. You can let them get close”—he looked around at Alice and the swarm of girls—“but you can’t let them sit down.””
—-BONUS SCHADENFREUDE—-
“Estevez wandered around the club, and Nelson went to the dance floor, where the tune of the moment was “ABC,” by the Jackson Five. Nobody seemed interested in talking to McInerney. Nelson walked up to one of the loudspeakers and started dancing directly in front of it. But no one was dancing with him, and it was too dark for anyone to notice that there was a movie star dancing with a loudspeaker. So after a few minutes, the anonymity appeared to be too much for him; he sat down with a dejected look and started complaining about what a horrible club it was. Then he suggested they leave.”
THE BIRTH OF HOLLYWOOD’S BRAT PACK
ANDREAS GOLDER
Migraene, 2004, oil on canvas, 230 x 180 cm
