Posts Tagged ‘David Lynch’

At the recent Golden Globes, Kathryn Bigelow and Jodie Foster commingled on stage and off; Bigelow as a Best Director nominee, Foster as the recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award.

By gracing the cover of the February 4 issue of TIME magazine, Bigelow joins Foster once again, this time as only the second female film director to adorn the publication. Foster did so back in October 1991.

The cover shot was taken by Paola Kudacki, the accompanying interview-profile conducted by Jessica Winter with help from Lily Rothman. Female power all around for this one.

Read more

Who should play a young Dennis Hopper? That tantalizing question frames Mike Fleming‘s Deadline item about the launch of Ex Machina Media Group. The company’s first project will be Rebel in Paradise (My Life and Times of My Buddy Dennis Hopper), based on partner Della Manitou‘s friendship with the actor and book of the same name.

Several other bits of Hopper-related news recently caught FishbowlLA’s attention. In a Wednesday Q&A with The Guardian, architect Amanda Levete brought up his name when asked about the best advice she was ever given:

About four years ago, I sat next to Dennis Hopper at dinner. I’d just come back from Las Vegas, where we’d been commissioned to design an art gallery. I’d found it apocalyptic. When I told him so, he just said, “Relax, babe – if you can’t enjoy Vegas for a few days, there’s something wrong.” He was right: I was being far too uptight.

Read more

It’s not exactly tuneful. But man oh man, the accompanying video for David Lynch’s single “Crazy Clown Time” – debuting today on VICE’s YouTube music channel Noisey – offers a gigantic amount of visual entertainment. Seriously, when’s the last time you watched a punk dude willfully set his mohawk on fire?

The song is the title track from Lynch’s first-ever solo album. The director-singer describes his music video’s setting as “intense psychotic backyard craziness, fueled by beer.” Read: the Twin Peaks-Blue Velvet maestro’s version of March Madness. With Tim Roth thrown in for good measure.

Read more

Longtime San Francisco resident George Kuchar passed away Tuesday night at the age of 69. Kuchar wore many hats – visual artist, teacher, author – but he is best known for his work as an underground filmmaker. From the San Francisco Bay Guardian:

By himself and with his twin brother, Mike, George Kuchar — who influenced innumerable young artists while teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute — directed over 200 films, as wild and creative as they were low-budget, and almost always boasting titillating titles: Color Me Shameless (1967), Hold Me While I’m Naked (1966), The Devil’s Cleavage (1973). He also wrote the screenplay for 1975 horror-porn-turned-midnight-classic, Thundercrack!

John Waters, Todd Solondz, and David Lynch are among those who count Kuchar as an artistic influence. Waters contributed an introduction to the twins’ 1997 book, Reflections from a Cinematic Cesspool, now out of print. Hopefully we’ll see it someday on Google Books…

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar will be the latest big name filmmaker to guest direct the AFI Fest. Almodóvar’s formal title will be “Guest Artistic Director” for the festival’s 25th anniversary in November. As part of his duties, Almodóvar will curate a series of films that have inspired his work. He’ll also screen his 1986 film Law of Desire.

Almodóvar takes over for David Lynch, who manned the post last year.

Press release after the jump:

Read more

When Alex Thaler came to LA in the late 1990s to try his luck as an actor, it went the way it does for most Tinseltown hopefuls. Though he did audition for the occasional commercial, the bulk of his paid professional activities involved waiting tables at a now-defunct Pizzeria Uno’s on Santa Monica Blvd.

During this time, Thaler also started to get more serious about composing music, and thirteen years later, he has launched a funny, squeaky YouTube sock puppet character, Leland, a.k.a. “The Singing Film Critic.” Check out his clever rhyming take on J.J. Abrams‘ Super 8:

Read more

Gustavo Turner will be stepping down as music editor of the LA Weekly on May 20th. He is not, however, falling off the masthead. Turner will stay with the paper as a contributing writer. Assistant music editor Rebecca Haithcoat will become acting music editor once Turner retires the post.

Gustavo Turner with David Lynch. Photo by Sean Teegarden.

Turner’s email to colleagues is after the jump:

Read more

You know how when some artists get old they completely lose their edge and become mere shadows of their former selves? Well, not our Mr. Lynch. The acclaimed director is now selling coffee, and it is &#@!% surreal:

David Lynch Signature Cup Coffee Commercial #1 by Flixgr

Hat tip Laughing Squid

David Lynch took a stab at live webcasting last night, directing a streaming broadcast of Duran Duran’s concert from the Mayan in Los Angeles. We’re gonna say, short of sending creepy old people on stage to do esoteric things, he did the best he could. Mostly that involved superimposing effects and images on top of the live concert feed.

Rolling Stone‘s Steve Appleford says Lynch’s cameramen were roaming the stage throughout the entire concert, which we would imagine would be pretty annoying. But it didn’t seem to bother Appleford too much, as he called the concert “spectacular.”

Check out the whole show here if the above track isn’t your favorite. We have to admit, “Girls on Film” was pretty spectacular indeed.

This could be interesting. Pitchfork says that David Lynch of Mulholland Drive fame will be directing a webcast of an upcoming Duran Duran concert at the Mayan in LA on March 23rd. Lynch details his concept for the webcast in the press release: “The idea is to try and create on the fly, layers of images permeating Duran Duran on the stage. A world of experimentation and hopefully some happy accidents.”

The webcast is part of an online series called “American Express Unstaged” which partners famous directors with equally famous musical counterparts. Last year Terry Gilliam directed an Arcade Fire show while Spike Lee took the helm of a Roots/John Legend production.

Can’t wait to see what kind of “happy accidents” Lynch can come up with live on the web this year.