At last! At last! At last!

Robert Downey Sr. has been a friend of mine since the late 1960s, and his films have been criminally neglected since then, and for years he’s been telling me about a box set of his movies coming out, and now, finally, it’s here from Criterion.

As Criterion’s notes point out, “rarely do landmark works of cinema seem so . . . wrong. Robert Downey Sr. emerged as one of the most irreverent filmmakers of the new American underground of the early sixties, taking no prisoners in his rough-and-tumble treatises on politics, race, and consumer culture. In his most famous, the midnight-movie mainstay Putney Swope, an advertising agency is turned on its head when a militant African American man takes charge. Like Swope, Downey held nothing sacred. This selection of five of his most raucous and outlandish films, dating from 1964 to 1975, offers a unique mix of the hilariously abrasive and the intensely experimental.

The set includes Babo 73 (1964), in which Warhol superstar Taylor Mead plays the president of the United Status, who conducts his top-secret international affairs on a deserted beach when he isn’t at the White House (a dilapidated Victorian), in Robert Downey Sr.’s political satire. Downey’s first feature is a rollicking, slapstick, ultra-low-budget 16 mm comedy experiment that introduced a twisted new voice to the American underground scene;

Chafed Elbows (1966), a breakthrough for Downey Sr., thanks to rave notices. Visualized largely in still 35 mm photographs, it follows a shiftless downtown Manhattanite having his “annual November breakdown,” wandering from one odd job to the next;

No More Excuses (1968), in which Downey takes his camera and microphone onto the streets for a close look at Manhattan’s swinging singles scene of the late sixties. Of course, that’s not all: No More Excuses cuts between this footage and the fragmented tale of a time-traveling Civil War soldier, a rant from the director of the fictional Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, and other assorted improprieties;

Putney Swope (1969), Downey’s most popular film, an oddball classic about the antics that ensue after Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson, his voice dubbed by a gravelly Downey), the token black man on the board of a Madison Avenue advertising agency, is inadvertently elected chairman. Putney summarily fires everyone else, replaces them with Black Power apostles, renames the company Truth and Soul, Inc., and proceeds to wreak politically incorrect havoc; and finally;

Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight (1975), ‘a film without a beginning or an end,’ in Downey’s own words, this Dadaist thingamajig—a never-before-seen, newly reedited version of the director’s 1975 release Moment to Moment (also known as Jive)—is a cascade of curious sketches, scenes, and shots that takes on a rhythmic life. It stars Downey’s wife at the time, Elsie, in an endless succession of off-the-wall roles, from dancer to cocaine fiend.”

Downey Sr. is a one of a kind original, a brilliant satirist, and a take-no-prisoners filmmaker. Buy this set immediately; these films are essential documents of the 1960s, and some of the funniest films ever made, and I honestly never thought they’d see the light of day.

And now they’re out on Criterion, no less! Congratulations, Bob; long overdue!!

Johnny Carson at work in the early 1960s on The Tonight Show.

UNL graduate Johnny Carson is the subject of a PBS documentary, Johnny Carson: King of Late Night, which airs Monday, May 14th on PBS.

Greg Braxton of the Los Angeles Times wrote a superb review of the documentary today, saying in part that after retiring from show business, Carson closed the door on any memoirs or biographical overviews of his career. However, “Carson was also being pursued by little-known documentary filmmaker Peter Jones, who unfailingly wrote him every year requesting an interview. His pleas were always greeted with a polite but definitive refusal from Carson’s longtime assistant Helen Sanders.

Then came a phone call in 2003. ‘It was Johnny,’ recalled Jones. ‘He said, “Thank you for all the letters … and you write a damn fine letter. I admire your persistence and style. But I’m not going to do anything [ . . .] I will let the work speak for itself. You may be the one to do something, but I will not cooperate or participate. I’ve said everything I want to say.”

Still determined after Carson’s death, Jones eventually earned the trust of Carson insiders. His painstaking commitment to getting to the core of the Carson mystique has resulted in Johnny Carson: King of Late Night, an engrossing PBS American Masters documentary that airs Monday. In the end, Carson is letting the work speak for itself. Many of the clues into the Carson mystique are provided by comments that the host made on the show during his monologues and interviews.”

You can read the entire article by clicking here, or on the image above.

Ian McEwan, the distinguished British author of such novels as Atonement and Amsterdam, had this to say recently about online criticism from people who clearly have no idea what they’re talking about:

“I don’t have much time for the kind of [Internet] site where readers do all the reviewing. Reviewing takes expertise, wisdom and judgment. I am not much fond of the notion that anyone’s view is as good as anyone else’s.”

Click here, or on the image above, to see this astounding clip.

This post has nothing to do with cinema, other than the fact that this amazing footage exists, and reminds me of Bruce Brown’s classic surfing film, The Endless Summer.

It seems that Garrett McNamara just broke the world record for largest wave surfed by successfully navigating this 90-foot wall of watery death in Nazaré, Portugal. The previous record—77 feet—was set by Mike Parsons in 2008. The instrumental on the soundtrack is entitled Ricochet by David Michael & Lee Pomeroy. Incredible footage- enjoy.

I have a new Frame by Frame video today on gay and lesbian identity in Hollywood cinema, past and present. You can access the video by clicking here, or on the image above; a transcript of my brief overview appears below.

“Hi. I’m Wheeler Winston Dixon, James Ryan Professor of Film Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
 and this is Frame By Frame. And today I want to talk about gay and lesbian identities in Hollywood cinema, 
from the beginning to the present. 
Hollywood has never been a leader in this area. Gays and lesbians  have always been marginalized in the cinema. Early portrayals of gay characters or lesbian characters in films were always stereotypical, 
and often deeply insulting. 
They were relegated to “pansy” roles or stereotypical “limp-wristed” roles, 
and these early films are very difficult to look at because they completely marginalize gays and lesbians as characters.

Interestingly, there were many gay people working in Hollywood during this period. Dorothy Arzner, the director… and George Cukor, of course, who was gay, 
and directed most of Gone With the Wind, until Clark Gable’s homophobia forced him out of the production. 
But you had to wait a long time in Hollywood before gays and lesbians were sympathetically and realistically portrayed on the screen. 
Even in the 1960s, you had films like Midnight Cowboy, The Boys in the Band, The Killing of Sister George, 
and Cruising, one of the most infamous films of all time, directed by William Friedkin.

It’s not until relatively recently that you have films like Sunday Bloody Sunday, which is the first real gay onscreen kiss, and Cabaret, which was a more direct look at the gay and lesbian lifestyle. An Early Frost, Parting Glances, My Beautiful Laundrette — these are films which basically treated homosexuality and lesbianism as part of the human experience. Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss, Poison, 
Swoon, The Living End — these are all films that basically portray things in a more positive light. And, of course, the ascendency of pop artists like Andy Warhol, who brought gay concerns into the mainstream, 
is another factor in moving films forward in this area.

There’s still a long way to go. 
American cinema is absolutely heterotopic. Gay-bashing jokes, unfortunately, still occur in too many comedies as a staple.This is something where Hollywood has a lot of catching up to do. 
It’s just like the same thing that happens with racism. 
Homophobia and racism, unfortunately, are part of American cinema, and go hand in hand, 
and they have yet to be erased in terms of the way that Hollywood represents everyone equally on the screen.”

Bet you never heard about this curiosity.

And I’ll also bet you’ve never had a chance to see this rare Pre-Code film, and dozens more like it.

Directed by John G. Blystone, She Wanted A Millionaire (1932) is just one of the many rare films that will be screened at the 48th annual Cinecon at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood — the 48th annual opportunity to see some of the most interesting, eclectic, and unusual films in cinema history, projected with typically immaculate skill by the IATSE Union Projectionists who keep the Egyptian Theatre (also home to the American Cinemathque) in top shape.

As Cinecon’s press release notes, “Cinecon is highly regarded among film fans for screening the rare and unusual films of the silent and early sound era—films that seldom get seen on a big screen. Cinecon combs the major film archives and Hollywood studio vaults to select often forgotten gems that deserve a fresh look and reappraisal. At Cinecon there is something for everyone—comedy, drama, musicals, Westerns. We show the latest restorations—and some one-of-a-kind rarities.”

At this point, only the first two films in the Cinecon 48 lineup have been announced, but they’re both pips; in the case of She Wanted A Millionaire, we get a “Pre-Code drama in which beauty contest winner Joan Bennett forsakes newspaperman Spencer Tracy for millionaire James Kirkwood . . . but the millionaire winds up dead after attempting to murder his wife by feeding her to a pack of dogs.” That’s a rather unusual narrative.

On a more serious note, there’s also the American premiere of a film by director John Ford long considered lost, Upstream. As Cinecon’s website notes, “one of a number of American silents repatriated from New Zealand by the National Film Preservation Foundation, this previously ‘lost’ John Ford film explores life among vaudevillians who reside in a theatrical boardinghouse and what happens when one of their number gets plucked from obscurity to play Hamlet on the London stage because of his family’s respected name in theatrical history.”

The Egyptian is one of the last homes of classical 35mm projection, and having just seen a double bill last week in Los Angeles at The Egyptian of Afraid to Talk and Okay, America as part of the LA Noir series, I can assure you that you’ll never see projection like this in your hometown theater; top shelf all the way, by perfectionists who clearly love every frame of the films they’re screening. Cinecon 48 promises to be a real treat for the genuine cinephile.

Click here for more information on Cinecon 48. It’s five days of movies that you’ll never get a chance to see anywhere else, screened in their original format.

Are you a band that wants to get their music out into the world, but also wants to bypass the conventional system of record companies? Then check out TuneCore, a digital music distribution system, the brainchild of impresario Jeff Price, as recently profiled in The New York Times by the prolific pop culture/music critic Ben Sisario.

Writes Sisario, “like any big music company, the offices of TuneCore, a digital distributor in Brooklyn, are lined with official-looking plaques certifying blockbuster record sales. But rather than the industry’s standard gold and platinum records, they are TuneCore’s own awards for its clients — like a rippled black disc representing 500,000 downloads for Nine Inch Nails — and the first sign of a company looking to challenge music’s status quo.

TuneCore was founded six years ago by Jeff Price, a veteran independent label owner, as a service for artists working under the radar of the mainstream music industry. Without a label, most acts cannot get their music onto iTunes and Spotify, but for $50 a year TuneCore will place any album on dozens of online services around the world and route all royalties to the artist.

That simple model — revolutionary when introduced — has made TuneCore one of the world’s major suppliers of music, and made Mr. Price one of the digital world’s most influential figures. In the United States, TuneCore represents about 10 percent of the 20 million songs on iTunes, and it accounts for almost 4 percent of all digital sales. ‘You wake up one day and go, “Oh, wow, the customers sold 600 million units of music and earned $300 million off their recordings,” said Mr. Price, the company’s chief executive.”

You can read the entire article by clicking here, or on the image at the top of this post; makes one stop and think about existing distribution models, and how they can be circumvented, jump started, and expanded.

Here’s the latest video in my Frame by Frame series, edited and directed by Curt Bright. This is the subtitled version; here’s a transcript of my text:

“Hi. I’m Wheeler Winston Dixon, James Ryan professor of Film Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and this is Frame By Frame. Science fiction films first came about in the beginning of cinema with Georges Méliès’ Trip to the Moon, but they’ve come in sporadic waves of interest.

I’m thinking, for example, of Things to Come, the fantastic British film, and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis in 1927. But a vogue for science fiction didn’t really hit till the 1950s in America, 
with things like When Worlds Collide, The Thing, which was one of the first great science fiction films, 
The Day the Earth Stood Still, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, when science fiction reflected a kind of Cold War paranoia.

The other thing about science fiction is that it’s tied curiously to the Western. As the westerns sort of became moribund, and now people don’t make too many westerns these days, science fiction became ‘the final frontier.’ As manifest destiny was more or less explored, space became the new frontier that had to be explored. And this, of course, led to the success of the Star Trek and Star Wars series, and of course, the dystopian science fiction films like Alien.

Now, that we’re here in the 21st century, science fiction has become an absolute generic staple. Science fiction films are more popular than ever. I think they offer a sense of escape; they offer a sense of wonder, they offer a sense of exploring something beyond what we know. The world has become very small now. We’re in touch with everyone around the world, whether we like to or not. Science fiction offers us a sense that there’s frontier out there that we don’t know.

There’s civilizations out there that we don’t know, and science fiction offers us a way to escape, but also it’s a commentary on the smallness of our world right now, and also it projects into the future the possibilities of what can happen, in terms of both good, or in terms of bad… as in Blade Runner, in which the future does not work. So science fiction projects both our fear, and our hopes, on the cinema screen.”

You can view the video by clicking here, or on the image above.

In Los Angeles last week for research on my new book, Streaming: Movies, Media and Instant Access, I ran into a very interesting guy who goes by the single name Irwin, and spearheads an ambient/techno/electronica project entitled Irwin’s Conspiracy. We met in a coffee house by accident, and found we had much in common; right now, Irwin’s main interest is cleaning up old soundtracks and sound files on films and other media sources to give them that 21st century snap, without sacrificing the warmth and depth of the original materials.

As he wrote me in an e-mail after our meeting, “I started fixing audio when working with Standard Films, the top snowboard film making company, doing lots of hipster compositions for them, then sound design, then they started sending me audio to fix.  I’m a bit obsessed with new technology with sound, sequencing and sound design. Even though I’ve gotten good at fixing audio, I’d say my main strength is in sound design and contemporary ambient breaks composing.”

Irwin’s web page adds that “music is powerful, very powerful. I gladly accepted it’s calling at a young age and the rapport has been endlessly intriguing. In 1996 I started a live electronic performance project called “Irwin’s Conspiracy Of Positive Intent” which was designed to inspire progressive artistic sensibilities. I’ve done a lot of performances as “Irwin’s Conspiracy” and the positive affects still resonate. Lately I’ve been having a blast performing/DJ-ing with a bit less gear to lug around. It’s incredible what modern technology allows a musician/composer to do with less, and sonically so much more!

Along with doing various compositions for film, TV and being honored to perform at venues like The Hollywood Bowl as a featured soloist with The Los Angeles Philharmonic and John Alexander Choir, as well as solo performances in places like Les Voûtes and Corsica in France, my main function will always be to push the abilities of sound/music– physically, technologically and mystically. Over the years, my interests, studies and abilities with the profound affects of sound continues to grow. I was intrigued when HBO’s television show True Blood asked me to be their trance inducing drumming vampire for what is now considered one of the most enthralling and popular seasons in television history.”

Interesting cutting edge stuff; you can check out Irwin’s website by clicking here, or on the image above.

Click here, or on the image above, to see Clarke’s classic experimental film Bridges-Go-Round (1958 in its entirety.

Manohla Dargis has an excellent, evocative piece today in today’s New York Times (4/29/12) on the work of pioneering experimental filmmaker Shirley Clarke, one of the founding foremothers of the American Avantgarde Film.

And at the same time, Dennis Doros and Amy Heller of Milestone Films have just released a restored version of her classic film The Connection (1961), based on the play by Jack Gelber; the film will play at the IFC Center in Manhattan first, and then migrate to DVD, along with many other of Clarke’s works.

As Dargis writes, “Dancer, bride, runaway wife, radical filmmaker and pioneer — Shirley Clarke is one of the great undertold stories of American independent cinema. A woman working in a predominantly male world, a white director who turned her camera on black subjects, she was a Park Avenue rich girl who willed herself to become a dancer and a filmmaker, ran away to bohemia, hung out with the Beats and held to her own vision in triumph and defeat. She helped inspire a new film movement and made urgently vibrant work that blurs fiction and nonfiction, only to be marginalized, written out of histories and dismissed as a dilettante. She died in 1997 at 77 and is long overdue for a reappraisal.

On Friday a new print of her first feature, The Connection, gorgeously preserved by the U.C.L.A. Film & Television Archive, opens at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village. The film is the first release in a multiyear endeavor by Milestone Films called the Shirley Clarke Project or, as the archivist and distributor Dennis Doros likes to put it, Project Shirley. Over the next few years Mr. Doros and Amy Heller, his wife and partner at Milestone, will distribute new and restored copies, followed by DVDs, of Clarke’s three documentary features: Robert Frost: A Quarrel with the World (1963), Portrait of Jason (1967) and Ornette: Made in America (1985), about the jazz great Ornette Coleman. A selection of her shorts will be included on the DVDs, giving viewers a chance to dig into Clarke’s legacy.”

You can read the entire essay by clicking here; I knew Shirley casually way back when, and she was always kind, mercurial, dedicated, egalitarian, and absolutely driven. It was a completely different scene back then, and Shirley Clarke was one of the prime movers.