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Tag Archives: Krautrock
Kingpin [1996)
The concept of the “family” movie has changed since The Sound of Music in 1965.
Wikipedia, that grand arbiter of officiality, does not primarily recognize “family” as a genre.
They opt for “children’s film”.
Nonetheless, the Wiki article lists “family film” as an alternative name for this nebulous genre.
In 1965, The Beatles were still releasing albums like Rubber Soul.
1966 saw these same alchemists get a bit edgier with Revolver.
By 1967, the whole world was tripping balls to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
It’s important to document this sea change in pop culture by way of the personages pictured on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s:
-Aleister Crowley
-Lenny Bruce
-William S. Burroughs
-Karl Marx
-and many others.
Just these four personalities alone made for a shocking collection on the cover of what was sonically a hippy-dippy platter.
But maketh thou no mistake: The Beatles were self-consciously out to SHOCK!
1971.
By then, The Beatles were no more.
1968 had come and gone (violently). And The Beatles had reached their zenith (or nadir) of angst with songs like “Helter Skelter” (from “The White Album“).
There were no new Beatles albums in 1971.
Indeed, there was never again a “new” Beatles album
But 1971 gave us Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
And so, about four years late, Hollywood managed to weave the psychedelia of Sgt. Pepper’s into a bona fide family classic.
It took a while longer before Hollywood had another idea with legs (other than just borrowing from the great minds in rock music).
Aliens!
It is worth noting that the three original Star Wars films (1977, 1980, and 1983) were interpolated in 1982 by a cute alien named E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Sure, there were classic superheroes (like Superman in 1978), but the next real wave was another coup of futuristic thinking.
Time machines.
The Back to the Future franchise raked in whopping revenue of nearly a billion dollars at the box office over the release years of 1985, 1989, and 1990.
But still, no major taboos had been broken in this fragile genre.
There was no auteur conversant in James Monaco’s theories on “exploding genres”.
Yet, two films from this same period stick out as family-proto (not proto-family).
–1988: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? [ooh la la…stretching the genre like Jessica Rabbit stretched her red sequin gown]
-1989: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation [a real benchmark or signpost…perhaps not as racy a National Lampoon’s Vacation, but still edgy enough to elicit laughter during “the decline of the West” (as Oswald Spengler put it)]
Which almost brings us to the unlikely masterpiece that is Kingpin.
Randy Quaid had been counted on by the National Lampoon franchise for his peerless role of Cousin Eddie.
By 1996, he would become a priceless asset for the makers of Kingpin.
It is hard to chart how we went from The Sound of Music to Kingpin…even with the help of the inestimable Beatles.
If we are to really reach our goal (an explanation), we must follow the followers–the children of The Beatles.
-1970: Syd Barrett was still bloody mad (and brilliant) on The Madcap Laughs [especially the song “No Good Trying”]
-The Mothers of Invention released albums titled Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh [pretty odd, edgy stuff]
-and international artists like Amon Düül II (from Germany) gave the world a whole new organic, electro-bombastic sound to attempt to decode
-1971: The Krautrock invasion continued with CAN’s Tago Mago
-Tribal hippies Comus found the perfect sound with First Utterance
-1972: Hawkwind released their cosmic, perpetual-motion masterpiece Doremi Fasol Latido
-1973: Pink Floyd changed the cultural landscape with Dark Side of the Moon (perhaps presaging the space/aliens films which would preoccupy family film makers in the coming years)
-Brian Eno melted many minds with his masterpiece Here Come the Warm Jets (complete with the balding artist on the cover in drag)
But we missed something significant:
Led Zeppelin.
If the 1970s belonged to any one band, it was this one.
-their first two albums were released in 1969
-by the time of Led Zeppelin III (1970), they were competing against overt (though clownish) occultists like Black Sabbath [Jimmy Page of Zeppelin being a more covert, zealous admirer of Aleister Crowley]
–Led Zeppelin IV was released in 1971
–Houses of the Holy saw the light of day in 1973
–Physical Graffiti dropped in 1975
But as Led Zeppelin began to peter out, another group picked up the slack and streamlined the music. Their message was as tough as their humor was bawdy.
AC/DC slapped the world with High Voltage (1976), Let There Be Rock (1977), and other masterpieces which made for a loud world.
But music was just getting started in asserting its agenda for Hollywood.
Iggy Pop dropped two masterpieces in 1977. One light and tough (Lust for Life), and the other a much darker affair (The Idiot).
But the real earthquake…the real force which rent the curtain in the temple was Nevermind the Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols.
From this album in 1977, nothing was ever the same again.
And so the film under consideration, Kingpin, was born from many decades of broken taboos.
Some would call this “progressive” (and then proceed to solicit a donation).
Oswald Spengler might rightly have called it The Decline of the West.
But in the case of Kingpin, I can only call it funny.
I can’t pass judgement on film since 1965.
As to whether it is fit for families to view together.
But I can pass judgement on this film insofar as its most important merit.
It’s damned funny!
I was Munsoned by Cinema Paradiso. Long ago.
I thought I had a chance. But I was Amish. I just didn’t know it yet.
But let’s first start by talking about the dirtbags who frame this film.
#1 is Woody Harrelson (though he starts as just a protégé).
Woody has had an interesting life.
When I was growing up in San Antonio, one of our family shows to watch after the 10 p.m. news was Cheers. This gave us great comfort. Great laughs. And Woody played the character Woody Boyd. One of the bright spots of a great television cast.
But Woody Harrelson’s dad was a hitman (in real life). And he killed (in 1979) U.S. federal judge John H. Wood Jr. right here in my hometown: San Antonio.
It was a drug hit. Harrelson’s father hired for $250,000 to shoot and kill this judge outside of his home. The drug dealer who hired Harrelson got 30 years. Harrelson got life in jail.
Harrelson denied in court that he killed Judge Wood. He claimed he just took credit for it so he could collect the money.
Well, all of this backstory fits quite nicely into the dirtbag saint Woody Harrelson plays in Kingpin.
#2 is Bill Murray. Bill is an old hand (no pun intended). Bill’s character teaches Woody a lot, but Bill’s a real bastard in this film. Of course, this is a comedy. So his ostentatious cruelty is worth a few snickers here and there.
At this point it is worth mentioning the twisted (gifted) minds which brought us this film: the Farrelly brothers.
Peter Farrelly (whose birthday is two day away) and his slightly-younger brother Bobby Farrelly.
You might know them from their work such as Dumb and Dumber and the Jonathan-Richman-chalked There’s Something About Mary.
[N.B. Richman makes a great cameo in Kingpin. We may not have Lou Reed anymore, but thank God for Jonathan!]
The action of our film shifts from Ocelot, Iowa (“Instead of a dentured ocelot on a leash…”) to hard-scrabble Scranton, Pennsylvania.
[home of “Creepy” Joe Biden]
Randy Quaid (#MAGA) is fantastic as an Amish rube with a promising set of bowling skills.
Somewhere along the way, the opportunistic Harrelson becomes Quaid’s manager.
I got great joy out of seeing this.
Because there are few more difficult things than managing “personalities”.
I’ve done it.
Now I have an advanced degree in management.
And still, I know…it’s hard!
But back to family films.
This IS a family film.
But it is also an example of what the family film has become.
In general, this picture would not be suitable for young children to view.
That’s just my opinion.
But perhaps it’s a subgenre of family film.
It’s something which parents with high-school-aged kids MIGHT be able to enjoy with their children.
But I leave that discretion up to the parents.
Because the Farrelly brothers like to SHOCK!
It’s funny. They’re good at it. It has a point. But it might be too lewd for some families.
Speaking of which, it is a quite interesting device with which the Farrellys chose to frame their film: the Amish.
It borders on surreal, but this bawdy comedy always has the temperate presence of the Amish throughout.
In a certain way, I think it does great honor to the Amish.
From an entertainment perspective, it’s genius.
But this is also a road movie.
And we know strange things happen on the road.
I was just so impressed by Woody Harrelson’s acting. It’s effortless. Flawless.
And I was equally impressed by Randy Quaid’s naïveté. Truly an acting coup!
But the film gets REALLY interesting when Vanessa Angel hops on the bandwagon!!
Remember her from Spies Like Us, emerging from that snow-covered tent in her underwear?
Yeah, that’s her.
And it turns out that she’s a very good actress!
Ah, but thank God for condoms!!!
At the end, you will feel proud of your efforts.
To walk out the door everyday into a corrupt world.
We are all sinners.
But music saves us.
“Bad Reputation” by Freedy Johnston is a revelation.
And makes me wistfully recall my last days as a professional musician.
“I Want Candy” is such a tough beat! The Strangeloves!!!
“I Saw the Light” by Todd Rundgren is magical music at a magical moment in this film.
“Showdown” by Electric Light Orchestra is the perfect tune to pit Murray against Harrelson.
But the real eyeopener was hearing “Something in the Air” by Thunderclap Newman.
Such a magical song!
Great movie. Great acting. Comes from a place of reality.
-PD
Trainspotting [1996)
There’s something special about Scotland.
Several of my favorite bands are from there.
The Delgados. Teenage Fanclub. Primal Scream.
And it is this final band which really sums up this film.
The British really have never learned how to make films.
There are two major exceptions:
Chaplin and Hitchcock.
Why would they be exceptions?
Because they made their best films in America. Hollywood.
It’s ironic.
Because Chaplin and Hitchcock are perhaps the two best. Ever.
Hitchcock was the better director. Perhaps the most important ever.
But Chaplin was the bigger genius. His talent was limitless.
So my insult is not meant to imply that the British can’t make timeless films.
They can.
But perhaps not in Britain.
But this whole British blah blah blah.
This film is going in my new category: Scotland.
Another of my favorite bands (Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci) is Welsh.
I hope to have that category someday. Wales.
And last but not least: Ireland.
Which is not to say I don’t have a fond place in my heart for England.
I do.
Manchester. Liverpool. Bristol. Birmingham. Newcastle. I could go on.
But we’re here to talk about Scotland. And this film.
Trainspotting is, at once, a great film and not a great film. Simultaneously.
Let me explain.
7/7
Looks like as much of a false-flag synthetic terror…the state attacking its own people as.
9/11
Heroin addicts don’t know what day it is. Not to mention the “date”.
Heroin addicts don’t know what month it is. Even the year is a bit fuzzy.
They’re fairly sure that a new century has ticked over.
Ewan McGregor is pretty great here. In his too-small shirt. Accidentally shagging a minor.
Oops.
Ewen Bremner is good here. Especially the job interview.
Beautiful to hear English which begs for subtitles.
Jonny Lee Miller has the best hair. Like Thom Yorke once upon a time.
Bleach-blond chop.
But McGregor has the utilitarian buzz cut. The sad skinhead.
Spud on the curb. Talking up at Diane.
And Sick Boy always prattling on about James Bond movies. [like me]
Kevin McKidd is classic rifling through his VHS collection. Desperately.
Kelly Macdonald is a revelation.
But Robert Carlyle is really the only indispensable element of this entire film.
He’s not great. And yet he’s better than great.
Danny Boyle’s direction is generally daft.
It’s good. Then it’s great. Then it sucks.
But I’ll say this: this is an essential film.
You can’t know rock and roll without knowing this film.
Boyle lifted the DNA of rock (with the help of Irvine Welsh).
The story’s alright. The direction is passable.
But Robert Carlyle is a goddamned miracle.
He’s not conveying anything sublime.
But he’s conveying Scotland.
To me.
King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut.
Yeah, I know…Edinburgh.
But it’s just as applicable to Glasgow.
I hear it in the music of Primal Scream.
And it shows up in the music of another of my favorites: Spiritualized.
And I hear it in the ravaging sounds of Nick Cave circa Grinderman.
The Anglophone world.
We Americans speak the weirdest.
Especially in my neck of the woods. Texas. The South.
But even New York. The Northeast.
There’s one more essential element about this film: Iggy Pop.
From “Lust For Life” to “Nightclubbing”, these tunes are moments of crystalized perfection.
Even Lou Reed is well-represented with “Perfect Day”.
If you wanna understand scumbag rock and roll, see this film.
Because the rockers are alive.
They have shite lives.
They live on nothing.
Unless they get lucky.
But there’s a vitality to their way of life.
See them in their natural habitat 🙂
-PD
Sweet Toronto [1971)
Symptomatic of the times. Now. Then.
Read the news and it’s just about enough to depress you. If you’re not already cynical.
But here comes a boy and a little girl…trying to change the whole wide world.
Isolation.
If you find this film, it likely won’t be under its original title Sweet Toronto.
My copy says John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band: Live in Toronto.
Which shows you how much Shout! Factory thought of the director D.A. Pennebaker.
The changed the title of his fuckin’ film!
Sure, they tacked on a poignant interview with Yoko to the front end, but other than that it seems unchanged.
Reminds us of another director who got shafted making a music documentary: Jean-Luc Godard.
What is most widely available today as Sympathy for the Devil was originally to be called One Plus One.
The producers tacked on the title song to the end of the film (playing over largely inconsequential footage…at least initially) and retitled the sucker.
Godard allegedly punched the producer in the face after the premier…but I digress.
Why should you watch this film under consideration?
There’s a couple good reasons.
The first is Bo Diddley. Sure, it’s only one song, but it sets the stage (literally) for what follows.
Pennebaker uses Diddley’s music to usher in the motorcade of John Lennon and entourage.
And when we really get to watch Bo, he’s dancin’ and jivin’ and (by the way) doing a nice job of not stepping on his guitar cable.
It’s a long, jammy, droned-out piece: “Bo Diddley.” That’s right, the song is titled “Bo Diddley” by (who else?) Bo Diddley.
If you close your eyes you just might think you’re listening to The Velvet Underground. That won’t be the last time in the night for which those words are applicable.
Pennebaker keeps the train a’ rollin’ with a complete change of pace: Jerry Lee Lewis.
Again, it’s only one song, but the director builds the excitement of anticipation for the headliner.
Lewis…smoking his cigar…gold rings and jewelry on that pumpin’ right hand…up high on the piano…and occasionally a brown patent-leather ankle book (Beatle boot?) makes it’s way up to the top register to heel a little tone cluster of exclamation.
At this point, Shout! Factory (perhaps at the behest of Chuck Berry?) makes a decision to cut Chuck’s song.
And so we roll into Little Richard. Again, we can imagine…Prince, Michael Jackson…we are seeing the entire history of rock and roll compressed into 70 (?) minutes…from Jerry Lee singing a song made most famous by Elvis all the way to the headliner who will take us to far out, groovy places which may or may not still exist.
Little Richard has the most cracker-jack band. A couple of sax players…really tight.
And so after three fantastic performers in a row–three originators of rock and roll, we get the rag-tag Plastic Ono Band.
John starts ’em off nice and slow…reverent…”Blue Suede Shoes,” “Money (That’s What I Want),” and “Dizzy, Miss Lizzy” before the curve ball of “Yer Blues”…
So lonely…wanna die…ain’t dead already…know reason why.
Klaus Voormann hits a steaming helping of wrong notes throughout the early part of the set as bass player, but that’s why we love him, right? Reminds me of those bum notes which they left in (didn’t edit out) on John’s first solo album titled (what else?) Plastic Ono Band. But we also love Klaus because he drew the cover to The Beatles Revolver album.
But what Klaus lacks in precision is made up for by Eric Clapton on lead guitar. Clapton with his beard…denim jacket…a generally pensive look on his face the whole time which seems to read, “What the fuck am I doing here? Can’t believe I’m doing this.” Clapton never glares at Ono (at least not in the shots we receive through the miracle of montage), but one can’t help thinking that a musician of Eric’s caliber might have been perplexed (to say the least) regarding Yoko’s musical contributions to the night’s proceedings.
[Alan White is, of course, great on drums.]
And so we slink into “Cold Turkey”…premiered this very night in 1969. The rendition is like Booker T. & the MGs…very cool and groovy…laid back.
But most of all…about this film…John Lennon in a white suit…huge beard…long hair…little circular glasses. His presence…
Remember, this concert was about four months after the Montreal bed-in.
And so the band launch into “Give Peace a Chance.”
And it’s still the most revolutionary statement possible.
Musicians are the only ones who have ever done anything worthwhile…
Truth be told, the rendition of “Give Peace a Chance” is a little lackluster.
“And now Yoko’s going to do her thing all over you”
With those words (or something close to that effect), John takes us into the final act of this opera.
And it is powerful.
Yes, these grungy musicians actually succeed in making time stop.
Yoko wails like a woman on the sea lamenting her lost child.
For all the naysayers, Ono actually did have a good sense of pitch. It’s just that pitch (as the Western ear defines it…narrowly) is not her predominant concern (apparently).
It’s like the Damo Suzuki years of the German band Can…including their two Krautrock masterpieces Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi. The same criticism that Ono gets for her far-out howling is rarely leveled at Suzuki. Listeners of Can know that they are getting into an experimental vehicle when they plop a Can album on the turntable.
This, arguably, makes Ono even more revolutionary. To go from “Blue Suede Shoes” to “John, John (Let’s Hope for Peace)” is truly high art. The conceptual mind-fuck is equal to anything John or Alice Coltrane ever pulled-off.
And so it is that the night ends on a most bizarre note…a drone…three instruments perched against amplifiers feeding back…as if one is watching…and you will know us by the Trail of Dead.
You’ve gotta see it. Either it speaks to you or it doesn’t. For me, there are few more poignant ways to remember the radical genius that was John Lennon than watching a document like this.
-PD
殺人拳2 [1974)
[RETURN OF THE STREET FIGHTER (1974)]
There is no plot. Given. No love.
A darkened corner of cinema.
Haiku in reverse. Inversion of the form.
So we shall start in a roundabout way. Roundhouse. Pink Floyd. Hair. We owe Julian Cope immensely. Japrock. Like Krautrock.
It was a night when I wandered into a makeshift venue in Austin. I had hoped to see one of my favorite bands of all time (The Homosexuals), but was denied entry. Dejected, I drifted southwest. Perhaps it was destiny. Flower Travellin’ Band. What a show they put on! Really a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
I had read Cope’s book. Made quite an impression on me. Tracked down many gems: Speed, Glue & Shinki. No commas in tags. Les Rallizes Denudes. Feedback mayhem! Far East Family Band, J.A. Caesar, Masahiko Sato (Satoh), Far Out, Takehisa Kosugi, People, Blues Creation, Karuna Khyal, Kuni Kawachi, Brast Burn, Stomu Yamashta, Taj Mahal Travellers, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Kawabata Makoto, Yonin Bayashi…
I’m sure I left quite a few out. Lots of travelling…flower, Taj Mahal…
Why do I mention all of these Japanese hippie bands? Well, first of all they made great music! But it is pertinent because we get visual clues in this film which pull our minds to this little known Japanese subculture of the 1970s.
I am no expert on “Japrock”… I will leave that to Sir Cope. But I know to pay attention when a teardrop explodes.
When we first see Don Costello (Claude Gagnon), we are made to believe he is a mute hippie beggar…beaded and fringed (and most importantly, bearded like a Tenderloin tramp). If you want to see a short English-language Wikipedia entry, check out Monsieur Gagnon’s. It is so pithy that it begs for elaboration on this mysterious figure.
When I first saw Gagnon in this film, I immediately thought of that great Flower Travellin’ Band album cover for Anywhere (their debut album from 1970): a bunch of naked Japanese guys on motorcycles. What freedom that picture conveys! Who doesn’t want to have a group of wild friends with whom to take to the highway? Fuck everything! We’re free, goddamnit!!!
I was very fortunate to see FTB before their singer Joe Yamanaka died in 2011.
Return of the Street Fighter has some of that revolutionary spirit in it…even beyond Gagnon’s beard. Take for instance Yōko Ichiji. Her big Laurel Canyon sunglasses and bizarre schoolgirl hair never take her far from an 8-track player.
In fact, so much of Shigehiro Ozawa’s direction here has a psychedelic tilt to it such that one really sees martial arts in a whole new way. Ozawa’s Wikipedia entry in English is two sentences long.
So let’s talk about what we can: Sonny Chiba. To my eyes, he had improved his acting and fighting prowess considerably by 1974 (and he was already a bad-ass to start with). Chiba again portrays a character which might be best considered as the reverse of the Bruce Lee coin. Lee’s obverse presence is one of mischievous valor, while Chiba is just downright mean. But Sonny has a heroic side in these films. That’s the point. He’s a bad motherfucker, but you definitely want him on your side. You don’t want to have to face off against this guy!
In many ways, Ozawa makes this a more compelling film than the original installment. Two particularly artful and effective segments are the battle near the ski-lift and the detailing of weapons in the school (nunchaku, Okinawan sai, etc.).
In all this excitement I failed to mention Magical Power Mako (perhaps my favorite).
Now I am empty-handed and ready for karate.
-PD
paulydeathwish 