The ultimate in low-budget film-making, the Ormonds specialised in bad-taste drive-in movies until a plane crash turned their attention to God. Now, with a major reevaluation, their time has come
In 1986, Jimmy McDonough, the acclaimed biographer of Neil Young, Tammy Wynette, Al Green and Russ Meyer, was sent bundle of movie memorabilia in the post. Amongst the photos and posters was a black-and-white still from an obscure 1963 movie, of “a very voluptuous dame leaning over a guy without a shirt on,” says McDonough, speaking from his home in Portland, Oregon. “The guy has a ‘Myrtle’ tattoo on his arm, and she’s lighting a cigarette.” The words “and after the cigarette, we’ll …” ran across the image. “It looked very seamy,” says McDonough. Yet the title of the film, Please Don’t Touch Me, suggested otherwise.
There was a mysterious credit at the bottom: “Distributed by the Ormond Enterprises.” “My mind danced,...
In 1986, Jimmy McDonough, the acclaimed biographer of Neil Young, Tammy Wynette, Al Green and Russ Meyer, was sent bundle of movie memorabilia in the post. Amongst the photos and posters was a black-and-white still from an obscure 1963 movie, of “a very voluptuous dame leaning over a guy without a shirt on,” says McDonough, speaking from his home in Portland, Oregon. “The guy has a ‘Myrtle’ tattoo on his arm, and she’s lighting a cigarette.” The words “and after the cigarette, we’ll …” ran across the image. “It looked very seamy,” says McDonough. Yet the title of the film, Please Don’t Touch Me, suggested otherwise.
There was a mysterious credit at the bottom: “Distributed by the Ormond Enterprises.” “My mind danced,...
- 9/14/2023
- by Chris Campion
- The Guardian - Film News
Bob Dylan is an extremely influential and successful musician whose mere presence has terrified the people around him. Surprisingly, though, this has nothing to do with his fame or influence. While fans are starstruck when they meet him, Dylan has also surprised people by showing up in unexpected places. Before realizing who he was, they found his presence frightening.
Bob Dylan | Lester Cohen/WireImage People began hearing that Bob Dylan was singing ‘scary’ songs to students
Dylan has six children and a number of grandchildren. In 2007, he decided to pass on his musical knowledge to his grandson’s kindergarten class. Unfortunately, the class wasn’t exactly aware of his legacy as an artist.
Bob Dylan | William Lovelace/Express/Getty Images
Per Page Six, students began telling their families about a “weird man” who kept coming to their class to sing “scary” songs. Hopefully, his grandson had a little more appreciation for his classroom performances.
Bob Dylan | Lester Cohen/WireImage People began hearing that Bob Dylan was singing ‘scary’ songs to students
Dylan has six children and a number of grandchildren. In 2007, he decided to pass on his musical knowledge to his grandson’s kindergarten class. Unfortunately, the class wasn’t exactly aware of his legacy as an artist.
Bob Dylan | William Lovelace/Express/Getty Images
Per Page Six, students began telling their families about a “weird man” who kept coming to their class to sing “scary” songs. Hopefully, his grandson had a little more appreciation for his classroom performances.
- 4/3/2023
- by Emma McKee
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
As Showtime’s new limited series “George and Tammy” lays out, George Jones and Tammy Wynette may have had a messy personal life, but they made beautiful music together. Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain play George and Tammy, respectively, in a musical drama that’s filled with, surprisingly, a lot of facts. (It might not be that shocking considering it’s based upon their daughter Georgette Jones’ own memoir.) Creator Abe Sylvia’s six-episode series isn’t afraid to show the toxic love between the pair, as well as their individual high and low points.
But with a series like this, liberties are of course taken. So what’s real and what’s fiction?
Was George and Tammy’s first meeting that disastrous? (Possibly) Fiction.
The first episode sees Tammy Wynette meeting George Jones after a night of hard partying on his part. Knocking on his hotel room door Tammy...
But with a series like this, liberties are of course taken. So what’s real and what’s fiction?
Was George and Tammy’s first meeting that disastrous? (Possibly) Fiction.
The first episode sees Tammy Wynette meeting George Jones after a night of hard partying on his part. Knocking on his hotel room door Tammy...
- 1/9/2023
- by Kristen Lopez
- Indiewire
In 2012, Kier-La Janisse’s House of Psychotic Women hit bookshelves – forever altering how critics approached writing about film. Interwoven with deeply personal anecdotes and well-researched film history, Janisse charts horror cinema’s love of using the “crazy” woman archetype and how it altered, spoke to, and enhanced her life. The lines between memoir and movie review blur as Janisse explores the impact these texts (often overlooked films) have had on cinema history, hers, and ours – an approach that was then novel and boldly brought films like Possession into the esteem it has today. Her seminal book questions why and how horror films have used women’s psychological trauma, pain, and neurosis as the backbone of their stories. And, as importantly, how viewers can find catharsis and emotional resonance through their journeys with each film.
Ten years after its groundbreaking debut, Janisse rereleased the title under Fab Press in 2022 – including over...
Ten years after its groundbreaking debut, Janisse rereleased the title under Fab Press in 2022 – including over...
- 11/16/2022
- by Cass Clarke
- DailyDead
When Nicolette Larson was growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, she’d ask her friends to drive over bumpy roads so she could show off her Neil Young impression. As the truck moved up and down, she’d break out into a shaky vibrato.
Just a few years later, the singer found herself in a pickup again, this time with the very man she once emulated. Young — who first worked with Larson on his 1977 LP American Stars ‘n Bars, and briefly dated her afterward — was driving her around his Northern...
Just a few years later, the singer found herself in a pickup again, this time with the very man she once emulated. Young — who first worked with Larson on his 1977 LP American Stars ‘n Bars, and briefly dated her afterward — was driving her around his Northern...
- 6/21/2022
- by Angie Martoccio
- Rollingstone.com
When news of Dean Stockwell’s death hit last week, much of the coverage centered around his career as a child star in the Forties when he acted alongside Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly, his role as the holographic advisor Al on the cult time-travel show Quantum Leap, and his work in movies like Married to the Mob and Blue Velvet.
But he was also a part of the late Sixties–early Seventies Topanga Canyon art scene where he palled around with Russ Tamblyn, Dennis Hopper, George Herms, Wallace Berman,...
But he was also a part of the late Sixties–early Seventies Topanga Canyon art scene where he palled around with Russ Tamblyn, Dennis Hopper, George Herms, Wallace Berman,...
- 11/16/2021
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
The Dungeon of Andy Milligan Collection
Blu ray
Severin Films
1965-1984 / 1.33:1, 1:85.1.
Starring Neil Flanagan, Berwick Kaler, Maggie Rogers
Cinematography by Andy Milligan
Directed by Andy Milligan
“I should have killed Andy.” – Jimmy McDonough
In 1987 Andy Milligan was working on his latest film, a bloody revenge saga with a Frankenstein theme called Monstrosity. His biographer Jimmy McDonough was by his side, working the clapper, absorbing Milligan’s abuse, and taking notes on the final years of the director, still a poisonous devil when the mood took him. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1929, dead 62 years later in Los Angeles, Milligan wore his resentments like a crown, shoveling contempt on anyone who crossed his path—including his audience.
Made wherever the money was, New York, London or Staten Island, Milligan’s body of work spanned continents yet the results were anything but sophisticated—juvenile and uncommonly mean spirited, the films...
Blu ray
Severin Films
1965-1984 / 1.33:1, 1:85.1.
Starring Neil Flanagan, Berwick Kaler, Maggie Rogers
Cinematography by Andy Milligan
Directed by Andy Milligan
“I should have killed Andy.” – Jimmy McDonough
In 1987 Andy Milligan was working on his latest film, a bloody revenge saga with a Frankenstein theme called Monstrosity. His biographer Jimmy McDonough was by his side, working the clapper, absorbing Milligan’s abuse, and taking notes on the final years of the director, still a poisonous devil when the mood took him. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1929, dead 62 years later in Los Angeles, Milligan wore his resentments like a crown, shoveling contempt on anyone who crossed his path—including his audience.
Made wherever the money was, New York, London or Staten Island, Milligan’s body of work spanned continents yet the results were anything but sophisticated—juvenile and uncommonly mean spirited, the films...
- 5/4/2021
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Neil Young has announced plans to resurrect his lost 1982 LP Island in the Sun and finally share it with fans, although he has renamed it Johnny’s Island. “[It] includes a majority of unrelated tracks including ‘Big Pearl,’ ‘Island in the Sun,’ and ‘Love Hotel,’ plus others you may have heard before,” Young wrote on his official website. “It’s a beautiful record coming to you soon.”
Young recorded the album in May 1982 at Commercial Recorders in Honolulu, Hawaii, with a cross-selection of musicians from all eras of his career, including Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina,...
Young recorded the album in May 1982 at Commercial Recorders in Honolulu, Hawaii, with a cross-selection of musicians from all eras of his career, including Crazy Horse drummer Ralph Molina,...
- 2/1/2021
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
On August 26th, 1973, Joni Mitchell arrived at Studio Instrument Rentals in Los Angeles, where Neil Young and his band the Santa Monica Flyers were recording the boozy Tonight’s the Night. Joined by guitarists Ben Keith and Nils Lofgren, drummer Ralph Molina, and bassist Billy Talbot, Mitchell and Young tore through “Raised on Robbery,” soon to be released on her album Court and Spark.
If the Tonight’s the Night sessions were indeed a “drunken Irish wake,” as Talbot later recalled, this take on “Raised on Robbery” was the eulogy.
If the Tonight’s the Night sessions were indeed a “drunken Irish wake,” as Talbot later recalled, this take on “Raised on Robbery” was the eulogy.
- 11/18/2020
- by Angie Martoccio
- Rollingstone.com
Above: Jia Zhang-ke's The VisitWhile the future of film festivals remains uncertain, a coalition of 20 among the world's leading fests have joined forces to create “We Are One,” a new online film festival that will stream some of their films free of charge on YouTube, with optional donations going the World Health Organisation’s Covid-19 relief fund. Scheduled to run May 29 through June 7, “We Are One” may hardly be the future of film festivals, as per Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian, and the event will only feature titles from the partner festivals' previous editions, as Jeremy Kay reports at Screen Daily. Yet streaming has, for the time being at least, proved crucial in helping the industry stay afloat, and "We Are One" is certainly not the first fest to be rolling out digitally. Nor is this the first initiative to promise free access to its goods. In fact, the amount...
- 5/1/2020
- MUBI
On May 16th, 1974, Ry Cooder and Leon Redbone wrapped up a gig at New York City’s Bottom Line, but the crowd was told to stick around for a surprise. It was 2:15 a.m., and a man with a guitar appeared onstage. “This one is called, um … this one’s called, um … ‘Citizen Kane Junior Blues!'” said Neil Young, strumming the intro to “Pushed It Over the End.”
It was the public’s first glimpse of his deeply new personal album On the Beach, released 45 years ago, on July 19th,...
It was the public’s first glimpse of his deeply new personal album On the Beach, released 45 years ago, on July 19th,...
- 7/19/2019
- by Angie Martoccio
- Rollingstone.com
Neil Young has only performed “Motion Pictures (For Carrie)” once — at New York’s Bottom Line in 1974 — but that hasn’t stopped artists from covering the gut-wrenching On the Beach track for years. Singer-songwriter Steve Gunn released a rendition of the song via Amazon Music, a day before the album’s 45th anniversary.
Gunn’s cover gives the track a funereal touch. His stark, husky voice looms over the lyrics: “Well, all those people, they think they got it made/ But I wouldn’t buy, sell, borrow or trade/Anything...
Gunn’s cover gives the track a funereal touch. His stark, husky voice looms over the lyrics: “Well, all those people, they think they got it made/ But I wouldn’t buy, sell, borrow or trade/Anything...
- 7/18/2019
- by Angie Martoccio
- Rollingstone.com
Bob Dylan has invited only a tiny handful of guests onto his stage over the past decade, and Neil Young became one of them at a co-headlining show in Kilkenny, Ireland, this past Sunday evening. It happened midway through Dylan’s set when Young came out to perform the folk classic “Will The Circle Be Unbroken.” Coincidentally or not, they played the same song together in 1975 during their first onstage collaboration at Bill Graham’s 1975 Snack benefit in San Francisco.
They played together again at “The Last Waltz” the following year,...
They played together again at “The Last Waltz” the following year,...
- 7/16/2019
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
Elliot Roberts, who managed the careers of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Tom Petty and many classic-rock legends, died Friday at the age of 76. A cause of death has not been revealed.
“It is with a heavy heart that we can confirm the passing of Elliot Roberts. No further details are available at this time,” a rep for Young wrote in a statement on behalf of Roberts’ Lookout Management. “Roberts, among the most respected and beloved music industry figures of all time, leaves an indelible footprint as a pioneer and leader...
“It is with a heavy heart that we can confirm the passing of Elliot Roberts. No further details are available at this time,” a rep for Young wrote in a statement on behalf of Roberts’ Lookout Management. “Roberts, among the most respected and beloved music industry figures of all time, leaves an indelible footprint as a pioneer and leader...
- 6/22/2019
- by David Browne
- Rollingstone.com
Long before anybody had heard of Neil Young and Randy Bachman, they were two teenagers growing up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and trying their best to make their mark on the tiny local music scene. Bachman found success first when his group the Silvertones (who would eventually morph into the Guess Who) became the most popular band on the teen circuit and drew large crowds to their shows at dances and community centers. Young, whose own group the Squires made less of an impact, revered Bachman and learned much about guitar simply by watching him play.
- 3/11/2019
- by Andy Greene
- Rollingstone.com
Last week director Nicolas Winding Refn launched the free streaming service byNWR.com, a project he has been developing for the past two years. The site features rare, forgotten and in many cases never-really-known films from the fringes of film history. Throughout the year, he will release four volumes of content, each built around a specific theme that Refn and his team of archivists will piece together along with a guest editor.
For example, Vol. 1, “Exploitation Gems from the Southern USA,” is anchored by three 1960s low-budget independent genre films, like “The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds,” a gothic horror film shot in the Florida Everglades.
Refn’s passion for finding and restoring rare films is a little different than his cinephile-turned-auteur peers like a Del Toro, Tarantino or Scorsese. For starters, Refn often wasn’t familiar with the individual films or regional sub-genres when he started buying them. In...
For example, Vol. 1, “Exploitation Gems from the Southern USA,” is anchored by three 1960s low-budget independent genre films, like “The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds,” a gothic horror film shot in the Florida Everglades.
Refn’s passion for finding and restoring rare films is a little different than his cinephile-turned-auteur peers like a Del Toro, Tarantino or Scorsese. For starters, Refn often wasn’t familiar with the individual films or regional sub-genres when he started buying them. In...
- 8/8/2018
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
"It comes with a mystery attached." Infamous Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn has launched a brand new cinema website, open to the public today, called byNWR.com. The new website is essentially a specialized streaming service, available entirely for free, where Refn handpicks and highlights "meticulously restored" films. This has been his own personal hobby already that he has decided to let the public in on. And he insists there's no catch, or gimmick, or anything else, he just wants to offer up these films and enrich the world of cinema (and the internet) with these rare, long-lost gems. There is a new release every quarter, divided into three monthly chapters. For the first volume, Refn invited acclaimed biographer and journalist Jimmy McDonough to be the initial guest editor for "Regional Renegades" - all three films available now. So what is this all about? Refn explained the basic concept to The Guardian earlier this month.
- 7/30/2018
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Nicolas Winding Refn has announced he is launching a curated website of films, essays, photography, and more art in February 2018. The website, entitled “byNWR.com,” will be completely free for users, including the streaming films. Refn made the announcement during an appearance at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, France, where he described the project as “an unadulterated cultural expressway of the arts” that will “create a modern idea of what cinema will become.”
Read More:Nicolas Winding Refn Teases ‘Too Old To Die Young’ TV Series With Punk Track
The website’s mission statement reads: “byNWR shares Nicolas Winding Refn’s passion for the rare, the forgotten and the unknown, breathing new life into the culturally intriguing and influential. Quarterly volumes of content divide into three monthly chapters, each featuring a fully-restored film. These revived cinematic gems inspire a wealth of original content, curated by special Guest Editors.”
The...
Read More:Nicolas Winding Refn Teases ‘Too Old To Die Young’ TV Series With Punk Track
The website’s mission statement reads: “byNWR shares Nicolas Winding Refn’s passion for the rare, the forgotten and the unknown, breathing new life into the culturally intriguing and influential. Quarterly volumes of content divide into three monthly chapters, each featuring a fully-restored film. These revived cinematic gems inspire a wealth of original content, curated by special Guest Editors.”
The...
- 10/16/2017
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
“You don’t like country music, do you? You think it’s corny and twangy and kind of stupid? Well, you could be right, but it’s always good to keep an open mind.”
Like most fans of country music, Mike Judge is sick of people dismissing his musical genre of choice. A New Mexico native and consistent chronicler of working class folks from small American towns, it should come as no surprise to even casual fans that the “King of the Hill” creator has a penchant for musicians like Johnny Paycheck, Jerry Lee Lewis, and George Jones; so much so, he’s created a new, unique documentary series to honor their most madcap memories.
Though it’s unlikely to win over any of the haters Judge repeatedly alludes to, his latest primetime animated venture should entertain and inform devotees on the creator or country music.
Read More:The 10 Returning Shows...
Like most fans of country music, Mike Judge is sick of people dismissing his musical genre of choice. A New Mexico native and consistent chronicler of working class folks from small American towns, it should come as no surprise to even casual fans that the “King of the Hill” creator has a penchant for musicians like Johnny Paycheck, Jerry Lee Lewis, and George Jones; so much so, he’s created a new, unique documentary series to honor their most madcap memories.
Though it’s unlikely to win over any of the haters Judge repeatedly alludes to, his latest primetime animated venture should entertain and inform devotees on the creator or country music.
Read More:The 10 Returning Shows...
- 9/20/2017
- by Ben Travers
- Indiewire
When I'm out of town, mail tends to pile up, and when I get back, it's hard to sort the pile and figure out what to watch or read first. It was not difficult to figure out what to read first when I got back from Toronto, because one of the packages I had waiting for me contained "The Act Of Seeing," a new book curated by Nicolas Winding Refn and written by Alan Jones. That's all I knew about it before I sat down with it, but I immediately lost two full hours to just slowing paging through, taking in all the remarkable sleazy detail of each of the posters reproduced inside and getting lost in the crisp, engrossing text that Alan Jones has put together for each of the films. What posters? What films? When I got Refn on the phone to talk about the book, my first...
- 9/24/2015
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
If musicians were measured not by the number of records they sold but by the number of peers they influenced, Jj Cale would have been a towering figure in 1970s rock `n' roll.
His best songs like "After Midnight," `'Cocaine" and "Call Me the Breeze" were towering hits – for other artists. Eric Clapton took "After Midnight" and "Cocaine" and turned them into the kind of hard-party anthems that defined rock for a long period of time. And Lynyrd Skynyrd took the easy-shuffling "Breeze" and supercharged it with a three-guitar attack that made it a hit.
Cale, the singer-songwriter and producer known as the main architect of the Tulsa Sound, passed away Friday night at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, Calif. His manager, Mike Kappus, said Cale died of a heart attack. He was 74.
While his best known songs remain in heavy rotation on the radio nearly 40 years later, most folks...
His best songs like "After Midnight," `'Cocaine" and "Call Me the Breeze" were towering hits – for other artists. Eric Clapton took "After Midnight" and "Cocaine" and turned them into the kind of hard-party anthems that defined rock for a long period of time. And Lynyrd Skynyrd took the easy-shuffling "Breeze" and supercharged it with a three-guitar attack that made it a hit.
Cale, the singer-songwriter and producer known as the main architect of the Tulsa Sound, passed away Friday night at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, Calif. His manager, Mike Kappus, said Cale died of a heart attack. He was 74.
While his best known songs remain in heavy rotation on the radio nearly 40 years later, most folks...
- 7/28/2013
- by AP
- Huffington Post
If musicians were measured not by the number of records they sold but by the number of peers they influenced, Jj Cale would have been a towering figure in 1970s rock `n' roll.
His best songs like "After Midnight," "Cocaine" and "Call Me the Breeze" were towering hits – for other artists. Eric Clapton took "After Midnight" and "Cocaine" and turned them into the kind of hard-party anthems that defined rock for a long period of time. And Lynyrd Skynyrd took the easy-shuffling "Breeze" and supercharged it with a three-guitar attack that made it a hit.
Cale, the singer-songwriter and producer known as the main architect of the Tulsa Sound, passed away Friday night at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, Calif. His manager, Mike Kappus, said Cale died of a heart attack. He was 74.
While his best known songs remain in heavy rotation on the radio nearly 40 years later, most folks...
His best songs like "After Midnight," "Cocaine" and "Call Me the Breeze" were towering hits – for other artists. Eric Clapton took "After Midnight" and "Cocaine" and turned them into the kind of hard-party anthems that defined rock for a long period of time. And Lynyrd Skynyrd took the easy-shuffling "Breeze" and supercharged it with a three-guitar attack that made it a hit.
Cale, the singer-songwriter and producer known as the main architect of the Tulsa Sound, passed away Friday night at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, Calif. His manager, Mike Kappus, said Cale died of a heart attack. He was 74.
While his best known songs remain in heavy rotation on the radio nearly 40 years later, most folks...
- 7/27/2013
- by AP
- Huffington Post
Neil Young Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream (Blue Rider/Penguin)
If you want a (mostly) chronologically structured and exhaustively detailed biography of Neil Young, you want Jimmy McDonough's Shakey, a nearly 800-page tome published in 2002. If you want the full flavor of Young's mind and obsessions and thought patterns, full of quirky insights -- and what fan doesn't? – you will be unable to resist Waging Heavy Peace. Though either flawed or willfully eccentric, depending on one's perspective, it's mostly a compelling read.
I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason this book is non-chronologically structured and doesn't cover all of Young's career is that he read Dylan's Chronicles, Volume One, which does the same thing. But Chronicles is far more tautly structured and thorough in what it does cover. Young just rambles and free-associates.
Perhaps that's not as influenced by Dylan as by the haphazard birth of this memoir,...
If you want a (mostly) chronologically structured and exhaustively detailed biography of Neil Young, you want Jimmy McDonough's Shakey, a nearly 800-page tome published in 2002. If you want the full flavor of Young's mind and obsessions and thought patterns, full of quirky insights -- and what fan doesn't? – you will be unable to resist Waging Heavy Peace. Though either flawed or willfully eccentric, depending on one's perspective, it's mostly a compelling read.
I have a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason this book is non-chronologically structured and doesn't cover all of Young's career is that he read Dylan's Chronicles, Volume One, which does the same thing. But Chronicles is far more tautly structured and thorough in what it does cover. Young just rambles and free-associates.
Perhaps that's not as influenced by Dylan as by the haphazard birth of this memoir,...
- 11/6/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Back in 2009, I interviewed Nicolas Winding Refn about his movie Bronson, and in the course of our conversation he mentioned a director whose name meant very little to me:
The filmmakers I would have loved to meet are more obscure, like Andy Milligan. He’s a very obscure filmmaker who made films for Times Square in the 60s and 70s.
After our conversation, I went to seek out more information about Milligan and discovered that, little-known as he was, there was a book on him by the biographer Jimmy McDonough called The Ghastly One. (This book was, in fact, what got Winding Refn interested in Milligan in the first place.) I found that Milligan’s movies, however, were far from easy to get hold of.
That is seemingly beginning to change, though. The BFI has just recently put out Milligan’s Nightbirds through its excellent Flipside label, and to mark...
The filmmakers I would have loved to meet are more obscure, like Andy Milligan. He’s a very obscure filmmaker who made films for Times Square in the 60s and 70s.
After our conversation, I went to seek out more information about Milligan and discovered that, little-known as he was, there was a book on him by the biographer Jimmy McDonough called The Ghastly One. (This book was, in fact, what got Winding Refn interested in Milligan in the first place.) I found that Milligan’s movies, however, were far from easy to get hold of.
That is seemingly beginning to change, though. The BFI has just recently put out Milligan’s Nightbirds through its excellent Flipside label, and to mark...
- 6/15/2012
- by Nick Dawson
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Why the notorious Drive director paid £16,000 on eBay to buy up Milligan's films and bring them back to life
When I was about 12, I tricked my mother into buying me my first book about film: Splatter Movies, by John McCarty. That's when I became aware of Andy Milligan and started looking for videos of his films – such as Gutter Trash (1969), Fleshpot on 42nd Street (1973), Guru, the Mad Monk (1970) and The Naked Witch (1967).
When I finally saw them I was taken aback – first by their crudeness, and then by how difficult it was to sit through them. But, at the same time, I realised that here was a man who made films his own way, on his own terms. He used the medium as something he could streamline his consciousness into, and I found that fascinating.
I had moved to New York, aged eight, in 1978, too late to experience anything of the real Times Square.
When I was about 12, I tricked my mother into buying me my first book about film: Splatter Movies, by John McCarty. That's when I became aware of Andy Milligan and started looking for videos of his films – such as Gutter Trash (1969), Fleshpot on 42nd Street (1973), Guru, the Mad Monk (1970) and The Naked Witch (1967).
When I finally saw them I was taken aback – first by their crudeness, and then by how difficult it was to sit through them. But, at the same time, I realised that here was a man who made films his own way, on his own terms. He used the medium as something he could streamline his consciousness into, and I found that fascinating.
I had moved to New York, aged eight, in 1978, too late to experience anything of the real Times Square.
- 6/15/2012
- by Nicolas Winding Refn
- The Guardian - Film News
The Russ Meyer Show Featuring Kitten Natividad takes place in St. Louis this Friday, June 15th at The Way Out Club. Details at the end of this article.
Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, and Tom Stockman
Russell Albion “Russ” Meyer was born in California in 1922 and spent WWII as a combat photographer. In 1953 Playboy magazine debuted and Meyer was one of its first centerfold photographers. Meyer had a knack, and a passion, for photographing gorgeous, busty women and felt that the gals in the nudist camp movies that were popular in the ’50s were far too plain-looking for his tastes. In 1959, Meyer scraped together $24,000 and made The Immoral Mr. Teas, a quaint, colorful, and cartoonish movie about a nerdy fellow whose life is constantly interrupted by beautiful large-breasted women in various stages of undress. There was no sex in Meyer’s film and he made no pretense of presenting nudity as a lifestyle choice,...
Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, and Tom Stockman
Russell Albion “Russ” Meyer was born in California in 1922 and spent WWII as a combat photographer. In 1953 Playboy magazine debuted and Meyer was one of its first centerfold photographers. Meyer had a knack, and a passion, for photographing gorgeous, busty women and felt that the gals in the nudist camp movies that were popular in the ’50s were far too plain-looking for his tastes. In 1959, Meyer scraped together $24,000 and made The Immoral Mr. Teas, a quaint, colorful, and cartoonish movie about a nerdy fellow whose life is constantly interrupted by beautiful large-breasted women in various stages of undress. There was no sex in Meyer’s film and he made no pretense of presenting nudity as a lifestyle choice,...
- 6/12/2012
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
This article was originally posted in February of 2010 but is being reposted here with updates and to tie in to next week’s Wamg Top Ten Tuesday List “The Best of Russ Meyer”.
Mondo Topless (1966) is Russ Meyer’s send up of the swingin’ 60′s, a pseudo-documentary portrait of San Francisco, and most of all, a tribute to Meyer’s favorite subject; naked women! The 61-minute sort-of-documentary is sparse, even by Russ Meyer standards – just a rock soundtrack by The Aladdins accompanied by an overexuberant announcer who provides double entendre narration as stacked women dance about displaying their figures. Mondo Topless, which seems relatively wholesome now, was definitely a product of its time and requires historical perspective (and, despite the name of this column, it Is available on DVD).
With today’s endless cornucopia of internet porn, it’s hard to believe that less than 50 years ago, there was an...
Mondo Topless (1966) is Russ Meyer’s send up of the swingin’ 60′s, a pseudo-documentary portrait of San Francisco, and most of all, a tribute to Meyer’s favorite subject; naked women! The 61-minute sort-of-documentary is sparse, even by Russ Meyer standards – just a rock soundtrack by The Aladdins accompanied by an overexuberant announcer who provides double entendre narration as stacked women dance about displaying their figures. Mondo Topless, which seems relatively wholesome now, was definitely a product of its time and requires historical perspective (and, despite the name of this column, it Is available on DVD).
With today’s endless cornucopia of internet porn, it’s hard to believe that less than 50 years ago, there was an...
- 6/8/2012
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Neil Young and Crazy Horse are at it again, putting their trademark proto-grunge spin on a song most people associate with banjo-pickers and gold-rushers.
"Oh Susannah," which debuted on Stereogum this morning, isn't instantly recognizable as a cover of "Oh! Susanna," the 19th-century minstrel tune written by "Camptown Races" composer Stephen Foster. Like such venerable Crazy Horse tracks as "Powderfinger" and "Tonight's the Night," it features shambling rhythms, haunting harmonies, and the serpentine meanderings of "Old Black," the 1953 Les Paul that Young has been playing for most of his career.
But Young promised nothing less back in March, when he announced that he and Crazy Horse would be releasing "Americana," their first album together since 1996. At the time, he told Rolling Stone that the album, due out June 5, would feature "songs we all know from kindergarden, but Crazy Horse has rearranged them, and they now belong to us."
Not everyone...
"Oh Susannah," which debuted on Stereogum this morning, isn't instantly recognizable as a cover of "Oh! Susanna," the 19th-century minstrel tune written by "Camptown Races" composer Stephen Foster. Like such venerable Crazy Horse tracks as "Powderfinger" and "Tonight's the Night," it features shambling rhythms, haunting harmonies, and the serpentine meanderings of "Old Black," the 1953 Les Paul that Young has been playing for most of his career.
But Young promised nothing less back in March, when he announced that he and Crazy Horse would be releasing "Americana," their first album together since 1996. At the time, he told Rolling Stone that the album, due out June 5, would feature "songs we all know from kindergarden, but Crazy Horse has rearranged them, and they now belong to us."
Not everyone...
- 5/1/2012
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
Buxom beauty Kitten Natividad is known to movie buffs as the last of Russ Meyer’s busty starlets, having starred in the cult director’s final two films. Kitten’s untamed beauty, personal charm, sex appeal , and cartoonish 44-25-35 dimensions has left her image imprinted on the mind of many a young man who saw her in the Meyer films or her cameos in such mainstream fare as My Tutor (1983) and The Wild Life (1984). Kitten was also Meyer’s girlfriend the last fifteen years of his life and she appeared as a stripper at the bachelor party held by Sean Penn to celebrate his 1985 marriage to Madonna.
Francesca Natividad was born in 1948 in Juarez, Mexico, one of nine children. Her family moved to El Paso, Texas, when Kitten was 10 after her mom married a man from there. In 1969 she began stripping and got her first breast implants in Mexico...
Francesca Natividad was born in 1948 in Juarez, Mexico, one of nine children. Her family moved to El Paso, Texas, when Kitten was 10 after her mom married a man from there. In 1969 she began stripping and got her first breast implants in Mexico...
- 4/13/2012
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Roger Ebert referred to him as “that character actor with a smile like Jaws”. When author Jimmy McDonough titled his Russ Meyer biography Big Bosoms and Square Jaws, the bosoms could have referred to any and all of Meyer’s starlets but everyone knew the square jaw he was referring to could only belong to Charles Napier. After a stint in the army, Napier became a teacher and then got the acting bug. Russ Meyer recognized that his cartoonish grin and jutting chin made a perfect complement to the bigger-than-life women he cast in his films so gave Napier his first starring roles in Cherry Harry & Raquel, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls (both 1970), and Supervixens (1975). Napier was well-remembered in the original Star Trek episode The Way To Eden as the paradise-seeking hippie Adam and soon become an in-demand and familiar character actor in movies and TV and his growly...
- 10/6/2011
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
This first bit of news doesn't surprise me in the least as The Wrap reports David O. Russell (The Fighter) will no longer direct the adaptation of the Sony Computer Entertainment videogame Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. He never seemed like a likely choice and I just felt that as soon as he eyed Mark Wahlberg for the lead role and this video surfaced of a fan asking him to cast Nathan Fillion that it was the beginning of the end.
Of course, The Wrap's Brent Lang makes it sound far more amicable calling it a departure over "a difference in creative direction" which is certainly likely, but this just never seemed like a project Russell was ever going to see through to the end.
The story for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune centers on a 400-year-old clue in the coffin of Sir Francis Drake setting Nathan Drake, a modern-day fortune hunter on an...
Of course, The Wrap's Brent Lang makes it sound far more amicable calling it a departure over "a difference in creative direction" which is certainly likely, but this just never seemed like a project Russell was ever going to see through to the end.
The story for Uncharted: Drake's Fortune centers on a 400-year-old clue in the coffin of Sir Francis Drake setting Nathan Drake, a modern-day fortune hunter on an...
- 5/26/2011
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Taylor KitschWe'll start things off today with an update on Oliver Stone's next project, an adaptation of the Don Winslow novel Savages. Deadline reports the director is in talks with Taylor Kitsch (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) to play the two Laguna-based pot growers who get mixed up with a Mexican cartel and kidnap a female friend. The site also hears that Stone is looking at Salma Hayek to play the cartel matriarch. Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone) was once attached to play O, the kidnapped girl, but she left the project when she landed the lead in The Hunger Games. Olivia Wilde is one of the names being thrown around as a replacement.
Speaking of Aaron Johnson, he's also in talks, along with Jude Law, to join Keira Knightley in Joe Wright's Anna Karenina. The pic reunites Knightley with her Atonement and Pride and Prejudice director in yet another period piece,...
Speaking of Aaron Johnson, he's also in talks, along with Jude Law, to join Keira Knightley in Joe Wright's Anna Karenina. The pic reunites Knightley with her Atonement and Pride and Prejudice director in yet another period piece,...
- 3/21/2011
- by Kevin Blumeyer
- Rope of Silicon
If there was one American director deserving of a well-conceived biopic it would be the late auteurist filth-wizard, Russ Meyer. Born in 1922, Meyer received his first camera when his mother pawned the wedding ring from his absent father, before learning his professional trade as a combat cameraman during World War 2. When he returned from service he went from freelance photography to working for Playboy- where he had a notorious falling out with Hef in the grotto- before making his own comic book style sexploitation satires that can now rightly be described as classics, including Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.
Currently, Fox Searchlight are optioning the rights to Meyer biography, Big Bosoms and Square Jaws, by Jimmy McDonough, and the project is being overseen by Merritt Johnson, long-time assistant to the (now) Oscar nominated director David O Russell. Russell is rumoured to be thoroughly behind the project, although, post-Oscar hype, he has...
Currently, Fox Searchlight are optioning the rights to Meyer biography, Big Bosoms and Square Jaws, by Jimmy McDonough, and the project is being overseen by Merritt Johnson, long-time assistant to the (now) Oscar nominated director David O Russell. Russell is rumoured to be thoroughly behind the project, although, post-Oscar hype, he has...
- 3/19/2011
- by Ben Szwediuk
- Obsessed with Film
Fox Searchlight is in negotiations to buy a pitch package with David O. Russell directing a biopic about Russ Meyer, the maker of B-movies.
The pitch package also involves buying the rights to the book Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film. The book was penned by Jimmy McDonough and first published in 2005.
Here is a part of the book’s synopsis:
In a career that spanned more than forty years, Meyer created a body of work that has influenced a legion of filmmakers, fashionistas, comic book artists, rock bands and even the occasional feminist.”
Meyer died in 2004 and made over twenty films since the 1950s. He wrote, directed, produced, financed and often distributed his own pics—and placed with beautiful big breasts women in central roles, during the height of the sexual revolution. Some of his flicks include Faster, Pussycat! Kill!
The pitch package also involves buying the rights to the book Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film. The book was penned by Jimmy McDonough and first published in 2005.
Here is a part of the book’s synopsis:
In a career that spanned more than forty years, Meyer created a body of work that has influenced a legion of filmmakers, fashionistas, comic book artists, rock bands and even the occasional feminist.”
Meyer died in 2004 and made over twenty films since the 1950s. He wrote, directed, produced, financed and often distributed his own pics—and placed with beautiful big breasts women in central roles, during the height of the sexual revolution. Some of his flicks include Faster, Pussycat! Kill!
- 3/18/2011
- by Nikola Mraovic
- Filmofilia
The director already has several projects in his future with Uncharted: Drakes Fortune and Old St. Louis, not to mention some other potential projects even later down the road, but now David O. Russell can add another to his growing slate. Deadline reports Fox Searchlight is in the midst of picking up a pitch package that has the director attached to helm a biopic about Russ Meyer, the man behind such exploitation films as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Supervixens. Merrit Johnson is behind the script which is partly based on Jimmy McDonough's book Big Bosoms & Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film. Here's a synopsis of what's covered in McDonough's book: McDonough’s work paints a two-fisted tale of the legendary filmmaker who helped launch the sexual revolution with his scandalous Immoral Mr. Teas in 1959; caused a rip in the time/space continuum...
- 3/18/2011
- by Ethan Anderton
- firstshowing.net
Fox Searchlight is in talks for a biopic pitch package about exploitation B-movie director Russ Meyer for David O. Russell to direct. The pitch package also involves acquiring the rights to the book “Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film." The book was written by Jimmy McDonough and first published in 2005. Here is the book’s synopsis: “Russ Meyer, cult hero, creator of the sexploitation film, and the Wall Street Journal called the King Leer of Hollywood, made movies that filled the big screen with ‘big bosoms and square jaws.’ In the first candid and fiendishly researched account of the late cinematic instigator’s life, Jimmy McDonough shows us how Russ Meyer used that formula to turn his own crazed fantasies into movies that made him a millionaire and changed the face of American film forever. “This former WWII combat photographer immortalized...
- 3/18/2011
- LRMonline.com
Fox Searchlight is putting the finishing touches on a package that will allow David O. Russell (The Fighter) to direct a feature about Russ Meyer, the maker of exploitation B-movies like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Super Vixens. The deal would have a script written by Merritt Johnson. Johnson got his start as Russell's assistant on Three Kings, he recently co-wrote the celebrated HBO telepic Temple Grandin and scripted Lovelace, which will likely star James Franco and Kate Hudson in the leads.
Deadline reports that part of th deal involves getting rights to the Jimmy McDonough book Big Bosoms And Square Jaws: The Biography Of Russ Meyer, King Of The Sex Film. Meyer began crafting exploitation grindhouse-style films in the early 1960s featuring buxom actresses. He wrote, directed, produced and even distributed all of his films which he also owned the rights to until his death.
I like David O. Russell,...
Deadline reports that part of th deal involves getting rights to the Jimmy McDonough book Big Bosoms And Square Jaws: The Biography Of Russ Meyer, King Of The Sex Film. Meyer began crafting exploitation grindhouse-style films in the early 1960s featuring buxom actresses. He wrote, directed, produced and even distributed all of his films which he also owned the rights to until his death.
I like David O. Russell,...
- 3/18/2011
- by Tiberius
- GeekTyrant
Now, normally I try to stay above the studio fray, but this story has particular interest to me.The word on several movie sites this morning is that Fox Searchlight looking at the possibility of a Russ Meyer biopic with David O. Russell at the helm. This intrigues me because I'm a Meyer fanatic. There have been rumors of a Meyer film for years, and in fact, a script has been floating around out there based on Jimmy McDonough's awesome biography, Big Bosoms and Square Jaws, but as far as I'd been able to tell, it had no home. There is no talk of Fox Searchlight having acquired the rights just yet, so that first step is crucial to making the film work, I think. The...
- 3/18/2011
- Screen Anarchy
The Fighter director David O. Russell is negotiating with Fox Searchlight to helm a biopic of B-movie legend Russ Meyer, Deadline reports.
The script is to be written by Merritt Johnson, who was Russell’s assistant on Three Kings and the writer of the well-received HBO original film Temple Grandin. Johnson also wrote Lovelace, the still-in-development biopic of porn star Linda Lovelace, revolving around her relationship with her husband Chuck Traynor – James Franco and Kate Hudson are reportedly eying the leads for that film, which is not the Lovelace film Lindsey Lohan was to star in before her seemingly never-ending legal woes.
Meyer, who died in 2004 at the age of 82, was the director of such B-movie classics as Faster, Pusscat! Kill! Kill! and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (which was co-written by Roger Ebert). The bio would be based on Jimmy McDonough‘s book Big Bosoms And Square Jaws...
The script is to be written by Merritt Johnson, who was Russell’s assistant on Three Kings and the writer of the well-received HBO original film Temple Grandin. Johnson also wrote Lovelace, the still-in-development biopic of porn star Linda Lovelace, revolving around her relationship with her husband Chuck Traynor – James Franco and Kate Hudson are reportedly eying the leads for that film, which is not the Lovelace film Lindsey Lohan was to star in before her seemingly never-ending legal woes.
Meyer, who died in 2004 at the age of 82, was the director of such B-movie classics as Faster, Pusscat! Kill! Kill! and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (which was co-written by Roger Ebert). The bio would be based on Jimmy McDonough‘s book Big Bosoms And Square Jaws...
- 3/18/2011
- by Anthony Vieira
- The Film Stage
When they showed up at the Oscars only to lose the Best Director statue to Tom Hooper, both Darren Aronofsky and David O. Russell seemed to have very specific, very audience-friendly projects lined up next. Aronofsky was going to make The Wolverine, Russell was going to make Uncharted, and they'd both be rich and happy. Of course now Aronofsky has walked away from The Wolverine, and while Russell is still committed to Uncharted, he's signing on for so many other projects I'm starting to wonder. The latest movie to potentially get between Russell and the video game adaptation looks to be a biopic about the famous sleaze director Russ Meyer. According to Deadline Russell's in negotiations with Fox Searchlight to direct the project, written by Merritt Johnson and also including the rights to the Meyer biography by Jimmy McDonough. The film would cover the life and career of the famously...
- 3/18/2011
- cinemablend.com
Russ Meyer made cheap, grimy and oddly effective movies filled with violence and astoundingly buxom women. Consequently, he was an inspiration to, possibly even a hero for, multiple generations of filmmakers, musicians and artists who worked outside the lines. He was a gold standard, really, and films like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!; Supervixens; Up! and many more were great pictures for both exploitation fans and kids looking for some weird thrills in the days before the internet provided instant access to every possible human fantasy object. (And, yes, he directed Beyond the Valley of the Dolls from Roger Ebert's screenplay.) Now David O. Russell might make a film about Russ Meyer, who died in 2004 at age 82. Deadline [1] says that Fox Searchlight is working on a deal to buy the director's pitch for a film, with a script by Merritt Johnson (co-writer, Temple Grandin, and writer of the in-development Lovelace...
- 3/18/2011
- by Russ Fischer
- Slash Film
The Fighter director could turn attention to breast-obsessed film-maker who straddled indie and soft porn, reports say
David O Russell aims to follow the Oscar-winning success of The Fighter with a biopic of Russ Meyer, the large-breast-obsessed, Diy director of cult films such as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Supervixens, Deadline reports.
Russell is looking to adapt Jimmy McDonough's biography of the 1960s and 70s film-maker, titled Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film. Merritt Johnson, who worked as an assistant on Russell's film Three Kings, is being tapped to take screenwriting duties.
Film critic Roger Ebert, who collaborated with Meyer on the 1970 film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, tweeted: "I'm thrilled."
Meyer holds a unique position in Hollywood history as a director who straddled the worlds of independent film and the emerging softcore porn industry during an era that...
David O Russell aims to follow the Oscar-winning success of The Fighter with a biopic of Russ Meyer, the large-breast-obsessed, Diy director of cult films such as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Supervixens, Deadline reports.
Russell is looking to adapt Jimmy McDonough's biography of the 1960s and 70s film-maker, titled Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film. Merritt Johnson, who worked as an assistant on Russell's film Three Kings, is being tapped to take screenwriting duties.
Film critic Roger Ebert, who collaborated with Meyer on the 1970 film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, tweeted: "I'm thrilled."
Meyer holds a unique position in Hollywood history as a director who straddled the worlds of independent film and the emerging softcore porn industry during an era that...
- 3/18/2011
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
Filed under: Movie News, Cinematical
Buxom babes and the big screen -- that was the mantra that made Russ Meyer famous.
The original indie director, who populated his films with big-bosomed women, beginning with 'The Immoral Mr. Teas' in 1959 (the same year that John Cassavetes released 'Shadows') and continuing through such wanton epics as 'Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!' and 'Super Vixens,' was the king of exploitation films in the early 1960s.
Now Deadline reports that Fox Searchlight is looking at a pitch package that would have David O. Russell directing the Meyer story -- depending on whether or not the studio can get the rights to the Jimmy McDonough book 'Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film' -- with a script by Merritt Johnson, who co-wrote the HBO telepic 'Temple Grandin' and penned 'Lovelace,...
Buxom babes and the big screen -- that was the mantra that made Russ Meyer famous.
The original indie director, who populated his films with big-bosomed women, beginning with 'The Immoral Mr. Teas' in 1959 (the same year that John Cassavetes released 'Shadows') and continuing through such wanton epics as 'Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!' and 'Super Vixens,' was the king of exploitation films in the early 1960s.
Now Deadline reports that Fox Searchlight is looking at a pitch package that would have David O. Russell directing the Meyer story -- depending on whether or not the studio can get the rights to the Jimmy McDonough book 'Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film' -- with a script by Merritt Johnson, who co-wrote the HBO telepic 'Temple Grandin' and penned 'Lovelace,...
- 3/18/2011
- by Harley W. Lond
- Moviefone
Filed under: Movie News, Cinematical
Buxom babes and the big screen -- that was the mantra that made Russ Meyer famous.
The original indie director, who populated his films with big-bosomed women, beginning with 'The Immoral Mr. Teas' in 1959 (the same year that John Cassavetes released 'Shadows') and continuing through such wanton epics as 'Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!' and 'Super Vixens,' was the king of exploitation films in the early 1960s.
Now Deadline reports that Fox Searchlight is looking at a pitch package that would have David O. Russell directing the Meyer story -- depending on whether or not the studio can get the rights to the Jimmy McDonough book 'Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film' -- with a script by Merritt Johnson, who co-wrote the HBO telepic 'Temple Grandin' and penned 'Lovelace,...
Buxom babes and the big screen -- that was the mantra that made Russ Meyer famous.
The original indie director, who populated his films with big-bosomed women, beginning with 'The Immoral Mr. Teas' in 1959 (the same year that John Cassavetes released 'Shadows') and continuing through such wanton epics as 'Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!' and 'Super Vixens,' was the king of exploitation films in the early 1960s.
Now Deadline reports that Fox Searchlight is looking at a pitch package that would have David O. Russell directing the Meyer story -- depending on whether or not the studio can get the rights to the Jimmy McDonough book 'Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film' -- with a script by Merritt Johnson, who co-wrote the HBO telepic 'Temple Grandin' and penned 'Lovelace,...
- 3/18/2011
- by Harley W. Lond
- Cinematical
Fox Searchlight is in negotiations for a pitch package involving a biopic about famed exploitation filmmaker Russ Meyer, which "The Fighter" helmer David O. Russell would direct reports Deadline.
The deal, still being worked on, involves scoring the rights to Jimmy McDonough's book "Big Bosoms And Square Jaws". "Temple Grandin" and "Lovelace" scribe Merritt Johnson, a former assistant of Russell on "Three Kings", is penning the script.
In the early 60's, as the sexual revolution began, Meyer made a name for himself making grindhouse films with buxom actresses - films that he wrote, directed, produced and even distributed. Amongst his more famous efforts were "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!," "Up!," "Super Vixens" and the Roger Ebert-scripted "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls".
The deal, still being worked on, involves scoring the rights to Jimmy McDonough's book "Big Bosoms And Square Jaws". "Temple Grandin" and "Lovelace" scribe Merritt Johnson, a former assistant of Russell on "Three Kings", is penning the script.
In the early 60's, as the sexual revolution began, Meyer made a name for himself making grindhouse films with buxom actresses - films that he wrote, directed, produced and even distributed. Amongst his more famous efforts were "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!," "Up!," "Super Vixens" and the Roger Ebert-scripted "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls".
- 3/18/2011
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
Well, who doesn’t?
Deadline is reporting that a Russ Meyer biopic is on the way from Fox Searchlight and screenwriter Merritt Johnson (HBO’s Temple Grandin). The studio is wanting David O. Russell, who directed the seven-time nominated The Fighter as the film would be an adaptation of Jimmy McDonough’s book, Big Bosoms And Square Jaws: The Biography Of Russ Meyer, King Of The Sex Film.
Russ Meyer, who was the king of the sexploitation film in the 1960s, made a name for himself with cult classics like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Beyond the Valley of Dolls. He only cast women with, well there’s no polite way of putting it – big boobs.
Maybe this could be a loving ode to exploitation film making like Tim Burton did in Ed Wood? Thoughts?...
Deadline is reporting that a Russ Meyer biopic is on the way from Fox Searchlight and screenwriter Merritt Johnson (HBO’s Temple Grandin). The studio is wanting David O. Russell, who directed the seven-time nominated The Fighter as the film would be an adaptation of Jimmy McDonough’s book, Big Bosoms And Square Jaws: The Biography Of Russ Meyer, King Of The Sex Film.
Russ Meyer, who was the king of the sexploitation film in the 1960s, made a name for himself with cult classics like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Beyond the Valley of Dolls. He only cast women with, well there’s no polite way of putting it – big boobs.
Maybe this could be a loving ode to exploitation film making like Tim Burton did in Ed Wood? Thoughts?...
- 3/18/2011
- by Jon Peters
- Killer Films
Exclusive: Fox Searchlight is negotiating to acquire a pitch package for The Fighter helmer David O. Russell to direct a feature about Russ Meyer, the maker of exploitation B-movies like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Super Vixens. The script will be written by Merritt Johnson. Formerly Russell's assistant on Three Kings, Johnson co-wrote the celebrated HBO telepic Temple Grandin and scripted Lovelace, the pic about Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace and her manipulative husband Chuck Traynor. That film has James Franco and Kate Hudson circling the leads and Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman directing. The deal to tell the Meyer story is being hashed out, and part of it involves getting rights to the Jimmy McDonough book Big Bosoms And Square Jaws: The Biography Of Russ Meyer, King Of The Sex Film. Meyer began plying his trade in exploitation fare in the early 1960s, as the country was loosening...
- 3/18/2011
- by MIKE FLEMING
- Deadline
I think this is my longest collection of links yet. Enjoy!
Professor Chuck Tryon is working on a new book, which should be awesome since his first one was so great. In preparation, he’s interviewing indie filmmakers about their experiences working in our new digital culture and posting the results online. His first interview is up and it’s with fellow professor Chris Hansen, whose films are routinely reviewed on Bad Lit. Hansen provides some great, insightful answers about the challenges of still getting one’s films in front of viewer eyeballs amid the deluge of video online these days. The interview is up in two parts, and you should read them both: Part One and Part Two. In a vaguely related link, the Film Doctor linked to a superb article by Caitlin Kelly on True/Slant called appropriately enough “Why Crap Gets Read And Real News Doesn’t:...
Professor Chuck Tryon is working on a new book, which should be awesome since his first one was so great. In preparation, he’s interviewing indie filmmakers about their experiences working in our new digital culture and posting the results online. His first interview is up and it’s with fellow professor Chris Hansen, whose films are routinely reviewed on Bad Lit. Hansen provides some great, insightful answers about the challenges of still getting one’s films in front of viewer eyeballs amid the deluge of video online these days. The interview is up in two parts, and you should read them both: Part One and Part Two. In a vaguely related link, the Film Doctor linked to a superb article by Caitlin Kelly on True/Slant called appropriately enough “Why Crap Gets Read And Real News Doesn’t:...
- 6/6/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
"I need you out here," Russ Meyer told me on the phone in 1977. It was 6 a.m. He could not conceive that I might still be asleep. "Have you ever heard of the Sex Pistols?"
"No," I said.
"They're a rock band from England. They got a lot of publicity for saying 'fuck' on TV. Now they have some money and want me to direct their movie."
"The Sex Pistols?" I said.
"Their manager is a guy named Malcolm McLaren. He called me from London. He said their singers were big fans of 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.' They go to see it every weekend they're in London. It's playing at the Electric Cinema on Portobello Road."
No director except possibly for Stanley Kubrick was better informed than Russ about where his movies were playing. Kubrick used to call specific theaters to complain about light intensity. Russ used...
"No," I said.
"They're a rock band from England. They got a lot of publicity for saying 'fuck' on TV. Now they have some money and want me to direct their movie."
"The Sex Pistols?" I said.
"Their manager is a guy named Malcolm McLaren. He called me from London. He said their singers were big fans of 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.' They go to see it every weekend they're in London. It's playing at the Electric Cinema on Portobello Road."
No director except possibly for Stanley Kubrick was better informed than Russ about where his movies were playing. Kubrick used to call specific theaters to complain about light intensity. Russ used...
- 4/13/2010
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Mondo Topless (1966) is Russ Meyer’s send up of the swingin’ 60’s, a pseudo-documentary portrait of San Francisco, and most of all, a tribute to Meyer’s favorite subject; naked women! The 61-minute sort-of-documentary is sparse, even by Russ Meyer standards – just a rock soundtrack by The Aladdins accompanied by an overexuberant announcer who provides double entendre narration as stacked women dance about displaying their figures. Mondo Topless, which seems relatively wholesome now, was definitely a product of its time and requires historical perspective (and, despite the name of this column, it Is available on DVD).
With today’s endless cornucopia of internet porn, it’s hard to believe that less than 50 years ago, there was an entire industry based on a glimpse at women’s breasts. In the 1950s, when healthy male movie fans wanted to see females naked on-screen, their only choice were ‘nudist camp movies’ – a genre...
With today’s endless cornucopia of internet porn, it’s hard to believe that less than 50 years ago, there was an entire industry based on a glimpse at women’s breasts. In the 1950s, when healthy male movie fans wanted to see females naked on-screen, their only choice were ‘nudist camp movies’ – a genre...
- 2/11/2010
- by Tom
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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