Nicolas Caesar’s Grindhouse Nov. 1-15th

by Kimberly Lindbergs | November 2, 2009

Categories | News, Rants & Raves

Live in the Southern California? Still in the Halloween spirit? Looking for a fun way to celebrate the Day of the Dead aka El Día de los Muertos or All Souls’ Day? Consider stopping by the Hyaena Gallery located in Burbank California Nov. 1-15th and you can enjoy a display of art by my net pal Nicolas Caesar dedicated to Grindhouse Cinema!

From the gallery site:

On Exhibit: Nicolas Caesar’s Grindhouse

Location:
Hyaena Gallery
1928 W. Olive Ave. Burbank, CA 91506
Tel: 1-818-972-2448

Hours of Operation:
Tue - Sat = 11am - 7pm
Sun = Noon - 5pm
Mon = Closed

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Stalking Klaus Kinski or How I Worshiped a Madman

by Kimberly Lindbergs | October 18, 2009

Categories | Rants & Raves, Actors, Klaus Kinski

Klaus Kinski b. October 18, 1926 - d. November 23, 1991

Today would have been Klaus Kinski’s 83rd birthday and in honor of the event I thought I’d share something I wrote about the actor back in 2003 on Valentine’s Day.*

“One should judge a man mainly from his depravities. Virtues can be faked. Depravities are real.”
- Klaus Kinski

I don’t get star struck often. There are only a few celebrities that can make me weak-kneed and slack jawed and one of them is the deceased, but not forgotten actor, Klaus Kinski.

When Klaus appears in a film it’s impossible to take your eyes off of him. He always manages to steal whatever scene he’s in. He’s not conventionally beautiful or typically handsome, but his face is a remarkable canvas that seems to exude life itself. You can see the poverty Klaus suffered as a child, the time he spent in asylums and prisons, his unhinged sexuality, passion for life and unbridled anger pouring out of his eyes and every pore of his ragged skin. Real or imagined, this is a man who lived and loved life. The myth of Klaus Kinski the actor and Klaus Kinski the man are one and the same. And I fell in-love with the whole package.

I watched Klaus in many movies while I growing up and I was always awe struck by his presence. He appeared in countless horror films, thrillers and great spaghetti westerns throughout the ’60s and ’70s that ran on television when I was a kid and I couldn’t help but notice him. He was unlike anyone else. By the time I was a teenager I had seen at least 10 or 15 of Klaus Kinski’s films and I knew him by name. Klaus became one of my favorite performers and I started to actively seek out the movies he had appeared in whenever they played on television.

When I discovered Werner Herzog’s films in the late ’80s my interest in Klaus Kinski turned into a minor obsession. Herzog is an amazing director and his films with Kinski such as Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Woyzeck (1979), Fitzcarraldo (1982) and Cobra Verde (1987) are all incredible movies that managed to capture Kinski’s unrestrained personality and exploit his limitless acting talents to their fullest. I was also lucky enough to get my hands on a copy of Klaus Kinski’s autobiography in the late ’80s. Reading about Kinski in his own words was an eye-opening experience. His autobiography is a fascinating, lust-filled rant that is impossible to forget and to this day it remains one of the best biographies I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.

I didn’t have access to the internet or eBay back in the ‘80s so I had to satisfy my cravings for more Kinski by trying to locate films he had appeared in on video that were available at local rental shops. I also tried to buy posters for films that Klaus appeared in, but that wasn’t an easy task. I did manage to get my hands on a poster for Aguirre, Wrath of God, which hung proudly on my wall announcing to anyone who noticed it that I was a card-carrying member of the Klaus Kinski fanclub.

In the summer of 1991 I was an impetuous and slightly naive young woman living with two friends who both worked at a local video store. I occasionally did part-time work there myself whenever I needed a few extra bucks. It was a popular place for film fanatics and it had one of the best selections of videos for rent in the entire Bay Area. Colorful locals like director George Lucas were regular customers as well as other filmmakers who lived in the area such as Terry Zwigoff and Les Blank. When news got to me that Les Blank had started visiting the store on a regular basis I got really excited. I knew Les had worked with both Herzog and Kinski so I tried bumping into the director on the days the staff thought he might show up, but it never happened. I didn’t have a car so when I got a call telling me Les was at the video store I could never get their quickly enough. Finally I got word in the late summer of 1991 that Les Blank had casually mentioned that Klaus Kinski was actually staying in the area for awhile. Then another customer who owned an art supply store in town started casually mentioning that a “creepy” German actor actor named Klaus Kinski was coming in regularly to buy art supplies at her shop. When this all got reported back to me I flipped out! It seems that in his later years Klaus spent a lot of his free time in the Bay Area focusing on his art. With this new information handed to me I became determined to meet Mr. Kinski.

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My Favorite Scream Queen

by Kimberly Lindbergs | October 11, 2009

Categories | Rants & Raves, Horror, Actresses

Fall has finally arrived in all its gold and copper splendor. As I’ve mentioned many times before, Autumn is my favorite season. Summer be damned! I’m more than happy to see it go and I look forward with unabashed glee to dark mornings, cold evenings and watching lots of horror movies during the month of October.

Over at the TCM Movie Morlocks’ blog Richard Harland Smith has gathered together a nice collection of links to other blogs that are spending the month focusing on all things spooky and scary. I personally recommend making some time to visit The Groovy Age of Horror, Arbogast on Film, Frankensteinia, Cinema Styles and Final Girl where the fun never ends and the dead never rest!

I hope to find some time to write about a few of my favorite horror films that are in desperate need of a DVD release before the month is over, but in the meantime I thought I’d share some lovely pictures that I recently came across of my favorite Scream Queen, the beautiful and terrifying Barbara Steele from a 1958 issue of Life magazine.

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Mid-Summer Movie Quiz

by Kimberly Lindbergs | August 16, 2009

Categories | Rants & Raves

Over at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule you’ll find a new mid-summer movie quiz. Dennis Cozzalio regularly asks his readers and fellow film bloggers to share their thoughts and opinions about a variety of movie-related topics. Usually I just respond to his post, but new blogger comment limits have made that kind of difficult and I thought it might be wiser to share my quiz answers here.

1) Second-favorite Stanley Kubrick film.

A Clockwork Orange

2) Most significant/important/interesting trend in movies over the past decade, for good or evil.

Most annoying = the remakes. I’m incredibly tired of pointless and poorly done remakes. There are some remakes that I actually think are better or just as good as the original film such as John Carpenter’s The Thing and Cronenberg’s The Fly, but so many current remakes bring nothing new to the table and even degrade the original work. And even worse than that are the people who complain about remakes and still buy tickets to see them. Please Stop! If you don’t buy tickets the studios might start hiring writers again.

3) Bronco Billy (Clint Eastwood) or Buffalo Bill Cody (Paul Newman)?

Bronco Billy

4) Best Film of 1949.

It’s a tie between Carol Reed’s The Third Man and Kurosawa’s Stray Dog. Two films that share a hell of a lot in common and would make for one spectacular double feature.

5) Joseph Tura (Jack Benny) or Oscar Jaffe (John Barrymore)?

Since I haven’t seen either film I can’t answer this question.

6) Has the hand-held shaky-cam directorial style become a visual cliché?

Of course not. Any film technique that’s used well can be effective. The critical finger shaking going on about shaky-cam is much more annoying in my opinion. It’s like reading the reactions to sound when it first started appearing in silent movies. “It’s crude! It’s rude! It’s pointless and ineffective!” - I don’t agree.

7) What was the first foreign-language film you ever saw?

Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon. I saw it on a rainy afternoon when I was in elementary school and only about 9 years old. I cried so much during the movie that my teacher threatened to send me to the school nurse.

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Modern Mondays: This Is England (2006)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | August 11, 2009

Categories | Movie Reviews, Rants & Raves, British Cinema, Modern Mondays

As someone who came of age during the ’80s, I’ve become increasingly disturbed by the critical response to director John Hughes’ recent death. Over and over again I’ve been told that he was “the voice” of my generation and that he “defined the ’80s.” And instead of pointing out the crass commercialism that made up the man’s entire film career, The New York Times has let A.O. Scott proclaim that John Hughes was “our Godard.”

John Hughes may have been many things to many people, but there’s just no denying that as a director his career had a hell of a lot more in common with Michael Bay than Jean-Luc Godard. How any film critic who writes for the New York Times could call Hughes our generation’s Godard and get paid for it is beyond my comprehension. And as someone who was a teenager in the ’80s, I also find it deeply sad and frustrating.

I’m unabashedly naive and extremely sentimental when it comes to my childhood in the 1970s, but the 1980s ignites a different kind of nostalgia in me. It’s an unpleasant nostalgia that took shape while my innocence was melting away and my teenage hormones were raging. That teenage rage has carried into adulthood and occasionally manifests into fits of anger like the one you’re about to read.

It’s important to note that I’m not angry at John Hughes the man or the people who enjoy his films. I’m angry at the absurd critical response to the director’s death and I blame a culture that conveniently forgets facts in order to build critical arguments. If the cultural pundits and film critics are to be believed, an entire generation bought what John Hughes was selling them. But the truth is much more complex than that.

Hughes made films for mainstream America that resembled the Gidget movies of the late 1950s and early ‘60s. As a rebellious teenager I absolutely hated Hughes’ films. Hughes’ simplistic, Reagan-fueled, whitewashed, upper middle-class view of the world reflected everything that was loathsome about the ’80s in my mind. Hughes was a conservative baby boomer and a yuppie that spoon-feed my generation - so-called Generation X - the worst kind of ’50s nostalgia imaginable in order to make a buck. His films didn’t speak to me at all since I had much more in common with James Dean than Gidget. And John Hughes was no Nicholas Ray.

I’m told in countless obits written about John Hughes that some segment of ’80s youth culture found comfort in the way that his movies portrayed teenagers as well as outsiders and malcontents. But if you were actually questioning authority during the ’80s it was impossible to identify with any of the faux rebellion found in Hughes’ movies. The man preached conformity over and over again. The so-called “outsiders” in Hughes’ films rejected other teens like themselves so they could date popular jocks or beauty queens. In other words, if you followed the social rules laid out by John Hughes you’d get a “hot date” for the school prom and be “accepted” into Reagan’s America. Reality check; the real teenage rebels and outsiders didn’t go to school proms in the ’80s. They also skipped detention.

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Goodbye Childhood

by Kimberly Lindbergs | June 25, 2009

Categories | News, Rants & Raves, Television

Top: Farrah Fawcett Doll (Mego), The Jackson 5 Toon (Rankin/Bass)
Bottom: David Carradine Kung Fu Lunchbox and little me in the ’70s

Lately it feels like whatever remains of my childhood is slowly being flushed down the pop culture toilet. I couldn’t find the words for David Carradine’s death because I was deeply saddened by the news and everyone else in the world seemed to have something to say about it. As I’ve mentioned before, Kung Fu (1972-1975) was one of my favorite television shows when I was a kid, as was Charlie’s Angels (1976-1981) and the Rankin and Bass Jackson 5ive (1971-1973) cartoon. I saw some of these shows in reruns, but that didn’t lessen the impact they had on me. Like a lot of little preteen girls who grew up in the ’70s, I fondly remember that one of my first crushes was on a very young and incredibly cute Michael Jackson and for years I wanted to be a private detective thanks to the influence of Charlie’s Angels.

When I think about being a kid in the ’70s my memories are filled with Kung Fu lunchboxes, Charlie’s Angels’ dolls and Jackson Five records (or The Jacksons as they were called at the time) that my mom ordered from the Columbia Records mail-order club. David Carradine, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson were truly iconic figures of the ’70s (as well as the ’80s in Michael’s case) and thousands of writers will be eulogizing Michael Jackson for years to come. Whatever I have to say today really means nothing in the big scheme of things, but if you grew up with these people on your television, on your lunchboxes and in your toybox, they sort of take on an almost mythological status through the years that’s hard to explain. And yet, here I am trying to explain how their deaths make me feel, but frankly I can’t. It sort of feels like the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus all died within weeks of one another. This feeling isn’t helped by the fact that I recently experienced another death in my own family. June has been a cruel month.

I realize that the ’70s officially came to an end 30 years ago, but today it feels like they’re finally and forever over. At least for the little girl in me who still owns her original Farrah Fawcett doll.

. . . Earlier this year: Bob Wilkins 1932-2009

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Modern Mondays

by Kimberly Lindbergs | June 2, 2009

Categories | News, Rants & Raves, Modern Mondays

Cinebeats was recently mentioned (along with fellow bloggers Forward to Yesterday and Self-Styled Siren) in a piece by Danny Leigh for The UK Gaurdian titled The View: Why we love being stuck in the past.

In Leigh’s extremely thoughtful and well-written piece he discusses how the DVD age has made it much easier for film enthusiasts to loose themselves in the many forgotten pleasures of the past and in turn, forsake modern cinema. As much as I’m deeply flattered to have Cinebeats mentioned in Leigh’s piece, the ideas that he explores in his article are somewhat problematic for someone like myself who isn’t afraid or ashamed to call herself a “cinephile.”

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