More of this, Anon

I'm beat. I had a rough day at work today, but I'll be back tomorrow with a new post about my favorite zombie movies.

Until then...

More of this, anon.

Prospero

World AIDS Day

World AIDS Day is almost over and I sort of feel guilty... I didn't even wear a red ribbon today.

As many of you know, I am a founding board member of the James Tolin Memorial Fund , a non-profit which produces an annual theatrical event to raise money for both Arts Education and support services for NJ residents living with HIV/AIDS. In June of 2009, the JTMF will be producing Paul Rudnick's play The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told. The event will include a catered reception and a silent auction with loads of fabulous items up for bid. It will also honor the memory of a local actor who was lost to AIDS-related illness in 2001.

There is no denying that HIV/AIDS is a devastating illness which affects millions, worldwide (mostly in Africa and other under-developed regions). Still, HIV infection among young Americans (mostly African-Americans and Latinos) is on the rise. In Africa, ignorance, pride and fear are the greatest contributors to the disease. In the U.S., it's hubris. Advancement in medicine has greatly extended the life-expectancy among those infected, so many no longer see it as a threat. But make no mistake, AIDS kills.

When first identified in the early 80's, the Reagan administration did little (if anything) to support research and funding into its cure. That is, without a doubt, the result of the perception that AIDS is a "gay disease." The truth is, HIV/AIDS infections are higher among straights than gays, worldwide. And while education and safe-sex practices are still the best defense against this horrible disease, most people still think of it as a "gay disease." And there are still those members of the Religious Right who believe that AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. How sad.

So now, in the last half-hour of World AIDS Day, I urge everyone of you reading this to do something, anything, to help stop the spread of this pernicious and devastating disease. Write to Congress and urge more funding. Put a dollar in a collection jar. Attend a fund-raiser. Talk to your children about using condoms. Use a condom yourself. Every little bit helps. Just remember, the life you save may be that of someone you love (or even your own).

More movies, anon.

Prospero

Babies!

Today, for the first time, two of Zebina and Zebadiah's chicks emerged from the nest to try their wings.

First came a plump chick who I discovered amidst a great commotion and flapping of wings. It sat on the floor of the cage for quite some time (an hour or so) before attempting to fly, which it did, but not without quite some effort.

Not long after, I noticed the almost all white chick had joined its sibling. Both of them spent the better part of the day flapping about and testing their flying skills. Occasionally, one or two of the remaining chicks would poke its head out and look around, as though thinking about joinging the others but eventually all of them returned to the nest for the night.

I imagine that over the next few days I will see all six testing their wings. Zebina is still feeding them (their tiny beaks are still quite black and I imagine not ready to crack open the nutritious seeds and millet I supply until they have turned orange and red like their parents').

I'm quite enjoying this experience, but I suppose I have start calling around soon to see who will buy them, though I am tempted to keep at least the white one... I'll probably name it something corny like Znowball. Any suggestions? We shall see what we shall see, I suppose.

More of this, anon.

Prospero

My Favorite Cult Movies

I've always sought out bizarre and unusual films. Sometimes they are wonderful and brilliant and sometimes they are just trashy and weird for the sake of being weird. Some of them are visionary works of indie genius and some of them are... well, not. Whatever the reasons, the movies below have captured my fancy and I love them as much as I love any of the great Hollywood films. A caveat: not all of the clips I've gathered here are for everyone, and some contain a bit of nudity (not much, but a bit - bare breasts, mostly). Still, if you have the time (and can find them - some of them are particulary obscure), I recommend them all. Here then, is the list of my favorite cult movies, in no particular order:

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Liquid Sky (1982)

Russian director Slava Tsukerman and writer/star Anne Carlisle created this 1982 sci-fi musical about aliens who land on a rooftop across the street from a model/singer (Carlisle) who also happens to deal heroin. The aliens live off the endorphins produced by both heroin and orgasms, and soon everyone Carlisle sleeps with ends up dead. Surreal, punk-infused mayhem, Liquid Sky was the first movie I actually drove into Center City Philadelphia to see at an art-house cinema (The Ritz 5). I saw it with my art-major friend, Deb and we both loved it, though I'm not sure how well it holds up today. It's certainly a fascinating look at the times. "Delicious, delicious. Oh, how boring."

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Freaks (1932)

Best known for the 1931 Bela Lugosi version of Dracula, Director Tod Browning's Freaks was banned for decades because it was deemed too disturbing. It tells the story of a beautiful trapeze artist who marries a circus midget. When it is discovered that she only did so because he has money, the midget's friends band together to take revenge on the gold-digger and turn her into one of their own. The film featured actual sideshow performers which include several micro-cephalics and an appearance by the Hilton Sisters, conjoined twins who would eventually become teh subject of the underrated but truly brilliant stage musical "Sideshow."

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Pink Flamingos (1972)

Director John Waters has long since gone mainstream (Hairspray; Serial Mom), though his most outrageous and depraved movie set the benchmark for outsider filmmaking. Featuring Waters' personal muse, Divine as Babs Johnson, Pink Flamingos tells the story of the search for the "Filthiest Person in America." Incest; egg fetishes; a singing asshole and a grown woman in a playpen (the incomparable Edith Massey) are just a few of the many bizarre sights to be seen - not to mention the infamous dog-poop eating at the end. Singer Cyndi Lauper even managed to reference it on her first solo album ("Oh, Eggman, I love you!"). Not for the weak-stomached, I watched this movie on VHS at home, while a college student. My sister (in high school at the time) was making cookies and I begged her to stay in the kitchen several times.

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Re-Animator (1985)

Based on the H.P. Lovecraft short story 'Herbert West: Re-Animator,' this horror film was notoriously released without an MPAA rating. West (Jeffrey Combs of The 4400) plays a medical student who invents a formula that brings the dead back to life, with disasterous results. It features a scene that gives new meaning to the phrase 'giving head' and cemented Combs' career as an indy-Horror icon.

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Plan Nine from Outer Space (1959)

Often considered "The Worst Movie Ever Made" (though Lord knows, I've seen worse), Plan Nine is the Holy Grail of bad movies. Cult hero Ed Wood, Jr. made this movie based on 5 minutes of footage he'd managed to capture before the death of his friend and film hero, Bela Lugosi. It's about aliens using ressurected corpses to take over the world and features TV Horror Hostess Vampira, wrestler Tor Johnson and Wood's usual cadre of talentless bozos. Cardboard sets, wooden acting and hilariously bad dialog are just the beginnning of this awful and hilarious sci-fi flop. "Because all of you of Earth are idiots!"

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Brazil (1985)

Visionary director and former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam (Time Bandits; The Brothers Grimm) has said that Brazil is part of a trilogy which starts with Time Bandits and ends with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, in which he depicts the world as he thinks it should be. Grim, weird and obsessed with ductwork, it features Robert DeNiro as a terrorist plumber with a plan, Katherine Helmond as a plastic-surgery addicted mum and Jonathan Pryce as a beauraucrat caught up in the machinations of a dsytopian government. If you see this film , make you sure see the Director's Cut and not the sanitized studio version. Simply devastating.

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Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985)

1985 was a big year for cult movies, and director Tim Burton (Batman; Big Fish; Sweeney Todd) made his feature film debut with this tale about a boy and his bike. Paul Reubens' Pee Wee character went on to his own CBS Saturday morning show (itself a cult phenom, until Reubens was caught - literally - with his pants down in a Florida adult theatre). Wrtten by Reubens and the and the late, great Phil Hartman, Pee Wee's Big Adventure is still one of the funniest and most quotable movies to come out of the 1980's. Watch for appearances from Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson, Dee Snyder, James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild. "I know you are, but what am I?"

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The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Perhaps the best known and most beloved cult movie of all time, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was a commercial disaster when it was originally released. Based on the stage musical by Richard O'Brien, Rocky Horror became a phenomenom in the late '70's at midnight shows across the country. I was introduced to it while working my first professional theatre gig as a teenager, and immediately fell in love with it. Tim Curry reprised his stage roll as Frank N. Furter, a transvestite mad scientist from the planet Transylvania, who wants to create a perfect man to be his lover. O'Brien is Riff-Raff; Oscar winner Susan Sarandon is Janet Wiess and Barry Bostwick (an original cast member of Grease) is Brad Majors in this musical send-up of horror and sci-fi movies and so much more. "Don't dream it - be it."

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Forbidden Zone (1980)

Richard Elfman (husband to Jenna and brother to Danny) made this quirky little fantasy film starring Herve Villechaize ('Fantasy Island') and Susan Tyrell (Crybaby). In the basement of the Hercules' family home, lies a door to a giant intestine which leads to the Sixth Dimension. Forbidden Zone tells the tale of the Hercules family's attempt to rescue their daughter from the Sixth Dimension's evil King (Villechaize). Frequent Tim Burton collaborator Danny Elfman (then leader of the band The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo - later just known as Oingo Boingo) wrote the music and appears as Satan in the above clip. Oingo Boingo are probably best known for their theme song to another '80's cult classic, Weird Science. Forbidden Zone gives new meaning to the word "bizarre" and is probably best viewed while under the influence (not that I'm advocating that, but it certainly can't hurt).

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They Live (1988)

Horror icon John Carpenter (Halloween; The Fog) wrote and directed this sci-fi parable about aliens who have sublty and subversively taken control of the planet, using subliminal messages to enslave the human race. Former wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper stars as Nada, a down-on-his-luck jerk who discovers the plot with the help of a pair of filtering sunglasses. Keith David (The Thing; There's Something About Mary; Coraline) is on hand as a doubting Thomas and Meg Foster (she of the exceptionally pale blue eyes) is the reporter who claims not to believe. Funny, oddly sexy and oh-so-weird, They Live isn't exactly a good movie, but I find myself watching it every time it shows up on TV. "I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass. And I am all out of bubble gum!"

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Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)

The most recent film on this list, John Cameron Mitchell's transsexual fantasy punk-rock Off-Broadway musical translates brilliantly to film. Mitchell plays the titular Hedwig, whose botched sexual reassignment surgery left her with an 'angry inch' and a need to express herself through music. When the rock star Tommy Gnosis (Michael Pitt) steals her songs (they were lovers, once-upon-a-time), Hedwig and her band The Angry Inch start following his tour, playing to fans in a series of seafood restaurant chains called 'Bilgewaters.' Through songs and diatribes, Hedwig relays her story of love, rejection and redemption. The clip above is of my favorite number from the movie, "The Origin of Love," composer Stephen Trask's take on Plato's creation myth.

There are probaly a dozen or more cult movies I love, but these are my favorites. Did I miss any of your favorites? Let me know.

More of this, anon.

Prospero

Happy Thanksgiving

Just a quickie tonight. I'd like to wish all of my readers (all three of them, hah!) a very happy, safe and delicious Thanksgiving. I count all of you among the many things for which I am thankful , this year.

More of this, anon.
Prospero

Day Without Gays

Wednesday, December 10, 2008 has been designated as the "Day Without Gays." Members of the LGBT community are encouraged to 'Call In Gay' and stay home from work as part of a protest against recent legislation in CA, FL and AZ which ban same-sex marriage on civil level.

When I was in 7th or 8th grade, we were shown the movie version of Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock." I don't remember much about the movie, except that my classmates and I all laughed nervously at the scene portraying gay marriage. And although I suppose that at even at that age (12 or 13) I knew I was gay, I giggled along at the apparent absurdity of the scene. It's not so funny, now

Personally, I'm sick to death of being told who I can or cannot love and who I can or cannot marry. Especially being told so by the Catholic and Mormon churches. Church rules about marriage and reproduction were put in place for one reason only - to insure an ever-lasting supply of people who were so terrified of "hell," they would continue to make babies who would all grow up and make more babies who would be forever subjugated by (and give money to) the church. This rouse worked for thousands of years, until superstition started to give way to science and people started waking up to lies they'd been fed by the Vatican (and Salt Lake and Mecca and any number of religious headquarters).

But this isn't an anti-religious diatribe. Marriage is a civil rights issue. Don't believe in gay marriage because of your religious affiliation? Fine. But don't tell me that I am less of a person with less rights than you, because I don't believe in your God. Believe I am going to hell because I'm gay? Fine. But don't tell me I am not equally protected under the law because of it. I don't want to get married in your church, anyway. the U.S. Constitution says that all men are created equal. Not some. Not Christians. Not Jews. Not Mormons, Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses or Wiccans; not Whites, Blacks, Asians, Latinos or any combination thereof. All. Plain and simple. ALL. Why is this so hard to understand?

I urge all of my readers (no matter how many or few of you there are) to take part in the Day Without Gays. Maybe once the rest of country realizes how vital we are to the workforce and the economy in general, they will also realize how wrong they are in denying us basic human rights. So call in 'gay' on December 10th.

Okay - I really promise; no more politics (for a while, at least).

More of this, anon.

Prospero

Posting

I honestly don't know how the "professional' bloggers do it. I barely have time for a single post each day.

I'm tired and plan on taking a few days off for the up-coming holiday. I'll probably pop in once or twice before the week is over.

Thanks for reading and keep commenting. I really do love hearing from you.

More of this, anon.
Prospero