Fleischer Brothers: In My Merry Oldsmobile
For an Oldsmobile commercial, the Fleischer Bros. created this extremely bawdy cartoon. No, they don’t make ’em like they used to.
MORE ...A Jazz Etude
In this serendipitously surreal short “A Jazz Etude,” tap dance extraordinaire Billy Burt dances up a storm in top hat, tuxedo tail and cane. Is he floating? And that screwy soundtrack … a mishmash of ‘Flight of the Bumblebee,’ ragtime fills, and 1930’s jazz cliches, is remeniscent of Carl Stalling or Raymond Scott. Still, I […]
MORE ...Trailer: Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla
“These films are going to be made regardless of who directs them. There’s a market for them and the studios are going to continue to make them. I’ve been doing this long enough, I think I can make them as good or better than anyone else.” – Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla Director William […]
MORE ...Hemp For Victory
Hemp for Victory, produced by the US government in 1942, made a case for increasing the domestic cultivation of Cannabis sativa. As WWII ratcheted up and the Japanese controlled the hemp powerhouse of Southeast Asia, a vital resource for the war effort, the filmmakers advocate US farmers focus on the “devil’s weed” as a cash […]
MORE ...Catacombs of the Cappuccini
A naive search for beauty, which is always the mark of love …
MORE ...Incendio
A brutal documentary account detailing the infamous Sao Paolo high rise fire of February 1, 1974. With a strange 1970’s era electronic music soundtrack, shocking photo-journalistic footage, iconic animation, and a deadpan narration, the film deconstructs the deadly conflagration and what went wrong.
MORE ...Newport Cigarette Commercial
If you miss the bus, don’t fret. A happy Newport cigarette billboard is bound to entertain you. And don’t forget, menthol lovers, ‘Newport tastes fresher, tastes better, too.’ Is it illegal to run a cigarette ad here?
MORE ...Hamburg Red Light District
Let us reminisce of beer celebrations held nightly during the 1950’s and ’60’s in the Teutonic hamlet of Hamburg. A phenomena that grew from a chronically disaffected population of post-war Germany, you may never see so many irretrievably plastered people in one place at one time ever again. It is in the legendary Rathskellers of […]
MORE ...The Terrible Truth
“Most teenagers start off with marijuana then decide to see if heroin has any kick. It does. Sometimes it only takes a few days to find out they can’t leave it alone. In order to get money to buy it they turn to crime and that’s the story … ” In this Cold War era […]
MORE ...Society of the Spectacle
“In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.” “The images detached from every aspect of life merge into a common stream in which the unity of that life can no longer be recovered. Fragmented views of […]
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