In recent years, “making of” clips have been primarily about the intricate details of scenes involving a surplus of special effects. The Making of Godard & Others, however, focuses on the dreariness of being involved in a low-budget film. And it’s fairly strange on its own…
Tag Archives: Experimental
SATURDAY SHORT: JUDY’S SMILE (2011)
Rob Parrish’s approach to making shorts is by taking clips from the Internet Archive, and recording his own audio over it to change the story completely. This particular short was altered from an education film about hygiene, to simply a man monologuing about his lifelong abhorrence for his sister’s smile.
“Judy’s Smile” recently won a “Rosebud Award” at the Rosebud Film Festival. Parrish releases one new video a week at his site Next to Heaven.
SATURDAY SHORT: SNOWBALLS (2011)
“Snowballs” is evidently the more bizarre of Harmony Korine’s two shorts sponsored by the designer brand Proenza Schouler. (The previous Korine short in the series, “Act da Fool,” is also available on YouTube.) “Snowballs” features two characters in Native American inspired clothing, and, not surprisingly, white trash.
CONTENT WARNING: This short contains some profanity.
SATURDAY SHORT: HELPING JOHNNY REMEMBER (2010)
Using video editing software, Ashleigh Nankivell turned a dated social guidance PSA into a comedic horror short film.
LIST CANDIDATE: 200 MOTELS (1971)
200 Motels has been officially added to the List of the 366 Weirdest Movies. Comments are closed on this post; please comment on the official Certified Weird entry.
DIRECTED BY: Tony Palmer & Frank Zappa
FEATURING: Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman, Theodore Bikel, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, Jimmy Carl Black
PLOT: 200 Motels is a series of sketches, experiments and concert footage loosely organized as a reflection on the mixture of insanity and tedium experienced by a rock and roll band on tour.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: The movie’s wild visuals, absurd jokes and attention deficit disorder pacing are enough to bring it to our attention. But if anything sets 200 Motels apart from the other psychedelic cinematic noodlings of the hippie era, it’s Frank Zappa’s extraordinarily weird music—a unique mix of jazz-inflected blues/rock, avant-garde 12-tone classical music, and junior high school sex jokes.
COMMENTS: Ringo Starr plays Larry the Large Dwarf, portraying Frank Zappa. The Who drummer Keith Moon is a female groupie dressed like Sally Field in “The Flying Nun.” Theodore Bickel plays an omniscient Master of Ceremonies who brings Zappa’s band, the Mothers of Invention, a cheeseburger, and demands they sign for the delivery—in blood. Bickel’s character (or at least one of them) also explains the movie’s philosophy to the band: “You must remember that within the conceptual framework of this filmic event, nothing really matters. It is entirely possible for several subjective realities to coexist.” Zappa himself is barely in the movie and never speaks (or sings). He’s only briefly glimpsed in concert footage—although the other band members reference him as a godlike figure who spies on them through an empty beer bottle. Other than appeasing the great god Frank, the Mothers only care about three things—scoring dope, getting paid, and getting laid. The characters in this “surrealistic documentary” drift in and out of various skits, animations, and drug trips, and also find time to perform numbers like “Mystery Roach,” “Lonesome Cowboy Burt,” and an oratorio in praise of the penis. One highlight sees lead singers Kaylan and Volman taking a “trip” to everytown “Centerville,” which is full of churches and liquor stores and bathed in wavy zebra stripes that lysergically distort Continue reading LIST CANDIDATE: 200 MOTELS (1971)