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Holy Liars
the
with Special Guest
Ramsay Mid wood
(from Austin, TX)
Live at FARM 255
Friday 9.11.9
NEWS OF ATHENS’ CINEMA SCENE
Why, Yes, I like to Sit Around by Myself. Why?:
My now-indispensable OVR (does anybody
remember when we had to videotape movies
we couldn't watch live? Like, about two years
ago?) caught Beat the Devil on Turner Classic
Movies last week, and I watched it yester
day. I'd only seen John Huston's 1953 cult
favorite on a cheap public domain VHS tape
years ago, and as far as I know it's currently
available only on various OVDs of similarly
dubious quality. TCM, of course, presented a
transfer that more than lived up to its usual
impeccable standards. Huston, collaborating
on the script with Truman Capote, is obvi
ously having a grand time here, and so is his
extraordinary international cast: Humphrey
Bogart and Edward
Underdown do a bit
of semi-surreptitious
wife-swapping with
Ms. Lollobrlglda
and Jennifer Jones,
while the hilariously
unsavory quartet of
Robert Morley, Peter
Lorre, Ivor Barnard
and Marco Tulll plot
away at some vaguely
illegal uranium-mining
scheme on a very dis
orderly slow boat to
Africa. Lollobrigida,
whose absurd lus
ciousness is simul
taneously celebrated
and mocked, is the
victim of perhaps
the earthiest bit of
art criticism I have
ever heard: regarding
a portrait she is painting of Underdown—in
profile—Lorre observes, witheringly, "He only
has one eye."
Film about Art about Music: On Wednesday,
Sept. 9, Cine presents a special screening
of the new documentary Died Young, Stayed
Pretty, which brings to light the troglodytic
subculture of the underground rock poster
movement. Director Eileen Yaghoobian will
be in attendance for the one-night event to
discuss her film after screenings at 7 and 9
p.m. Interviewees include Jeff Kleinsmith,
the Ames Brothers and Tom Hazelmeyer, an
artist who may also be familiar to folks my age
as the frontman for Halo of Flies and founder
of the legendary Amphetamine Reptile
record label. Featuring an original score by
Chicago musician and recording engineer Mark
Greenberg and posters from countless acts
including White Stripes, Melvins, Nick Cave
and Bob Dylan, this promises to be a funny,
fascinating look at a very freaky corner of pop
culture. Check out previews and some cool
images on the film's website: www.diedyoung-
stayedpretty.com.
The French, They Are a Funny Race: Athens
performance artist/musician (Melted Men,
Baby Hair) and avant-garde filmmaker Chris
Cogan will screen his 16mm film Tunnels in
his French distributor, Light Cone Cinema's
Preview Show at the cinema Action Christine
in Paris Sept. 16-19. Alan Flurry calls the
10-minute b&w/color film "a flickering win
dow to the jerky, dark terror of movement
and sound through which we are allowed pas
sage." Cogan screened it at Cin6 in February;
its exhibitions have been strictly limited
to projections of the 16mm print. This, I
believe, is the first outside the United States.
Congratulations, CC.
Thursdays at the Library: This week's iFilms
series screening. Sept. 10 at the Athens-
Clarke County Library, is Disfigured, Glen
Gers' 2008 film about the friendship that
develops between two women struggling with
the opposite ends of the "body issues" spec
trum: one is overweight, the other anorexic.
Showing Sept. 17 is Cocalero, a 2007 docu
mentary by Alejandro Landes about the bid
by Evo Morales to become Bolivia's first indig
enous president by representing the interests
of the nation's coca farmers, in opposition to
the U.S.-backed incumbent regime. All iFilms
screenings are Thursdays at 7 p.m. in the
auditorium of the main library at 2025 Baxter
St. For more information, go to www.clarke.
public.lib.ga.us.
Thursdays at the Art School: UGA's Ideas for
Creative Exploration (ICE) is off to a very
promising start with its new ICE-Vision film
series, which presents "a variety of world
cinema classics and subcultural curiosities"
curated by UGA Film Studies major Will
Stephenson. The ICE website (www.icean-
nouncements.com) is even using the same
blurbs by Chicago Reader critics Dave Kehr
and Jonathan Rosenbaum that served as
my introductory guide to the world of film
as a teenager in the '80s. The next film in
the series, on Sept. 10, is Stroszek, Werner
Herzog's ultra-bleak comic fable of three
German losers seeking a new start on life in
the promised land: Wisconsin. Sept. 17 is
John Boorman's classic 1967 revenge thriller
Pointe Blank—tragically remade in 1999 with
Mel Gibson as Payback —starring Lee Marvin
and Angie Dickinson. ICE-Vision screenings
are Thursdays at 8 p.m. in Room S150 of the
Lamar Dodd School of Art, 270 River Rd.
Finally: Check out Cine's website (www.ath-
enscine.com) for info on some exciting films
coming up, including the great looking, much-
buzzed comedy In the Loop on Sept. 11, and
on Sept. 18, the "Rumble in the Jungle" con
cert-doc Soul Power and high-camp thriller The
Room. And if you want to talk to me, write to
film@flagpole.com.
Dave Marr
Werner Herzog’s Stoszek screens at Lamar Dodd on Thursday, Sept. 10.
16 FLAGPOLE.COM • SEPTEMBER 9; 2009 ~'