LUC Briefing 011: War

“This is the problem with civilians wanting to go to war. Once you’ve been there, once you’ve seen it, you never want to go again unless you absolutely fucking have to. It’s like France.”

-General Miller
In The Loop

The next LUC Briefing will be on the subject of: Art

i. Just War

An LUC favourite, this old soviet anti-war film – cut to Just War from the album Dark Night Of The Soul. Brilliantly renders the pointlessness of nuclear conflict in three minutes and 45 stylish seconds.

ii. How Docklands Became Vietnam For Full Metal Jacket

From the venerable Barry Norman on Film ‘87:

“It’s a derelict old gasworks in Beckton, not Vietman exactly but the next best thing for a movie director who doesn’t like to fly”

iii. The Main Casualty of The Thin Red Line Was Adrien Brody

Enjoy a bunch of actors chuckling about how Brody thought he was the lead in Terence Malick’s Pacific war epic, right up until the premiere of the film – that he was mostly cut out of.

iv. The Messy Death Of Hungry Joe

In 1970, a world before CGI, just how do you convincingly show a man being bisected by a low flying aircraft?

“The popular scene of Hungry Joe being cut in two by the airplane and falling into the water was done in two steps. (1) A plane runs into a breakaway dummy that was rigged to spray blood. After a cutaway, the second shot shows an actor or stuntman in front of the sky, holding a mirror in front of him angled to reflect more sky to match what is in back of him, making the top part of his body disappear. He then falls backward into the water making the trick become visible to the camera.”

v. All the people using The Battle Of Algiers as a training aid are probably missing the point

From an article on the Carnegie Council website:

“The Battle of Algiers was based on the memoirs of Saadi Yacef, one of the leaders of the FLN, who also starred in the film as a character modeled off his real-life role in the opposition movement. The film was banned in France for five years after its release.

Yet others hailed The Battle of Algiers, not only as a work of art, but as a model for both insurgency and counterinsurgency tactics, including the use of torture. The film has been used to train members of the Black Panthers and Argentine intelligence units. It has been speculated that Palestinian terror groups and al Qaeda may also use Pontecorvo’s film as a guide.

In 2003, The Battle of Algiers was screened at the Pentagon in order to offer some insight into the challenges surrounding the U.S. occupation of Iraq.”

LINK: https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/education/002/film/reviews/0005

vi. Did Bill Clinton pull a ‘Wag The Dog’?

From an article via CNN:

“In the movie, the president’s handlers invent a war to distract public attention from his sexual transgressions. In real life, was the Clinton administration doing something similar?

Cynical in the extreme, that was a question that some residents of the New York region could not avoid asking themselves Thursday. And it seemed to reflect not only the bizarre parallels between fiction and fact, but also the profound distrust that some Americans have begun to harbor toward a president who acknowledged misleading the public.”

ARTICLE LINK: http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/08/21/wag.the.dog/

vii. The Fallen Of World War 2

Sobering and stunning use of data and animation to illustrate the horror of the mind melting horror of the second world war.

viii. Rik Mayall’s SAS try to prevent World War 3

In the marvellously unsubtle Whoops Apocalypse, the world is heading towards nuclear combat due to an escalating conflict over a disputed British territory in central America (wonder where they got that idea?).

For reasons that are too confusing to go into, the SAS must rescue a british princess from Madam Tussauds – cue lots of mindless violence and swearing. Key Quote:

“No you can’t bring the fucking tiger, Donald. It’s more trouble than it’s worth”

LUC Briefing 009: Animals

“Animals give me more pleasure through the viewfinder of a camera than they ever did in the crosshairs of a gunsight.”
– James Stewart

“Animals have never betrayed me. They are an easy prey, as I have been throughout my career. So we feel the same. I love them.”
– Brigitte Bardot

“Do you know what I love about hunting? That I am no one in the woods, no one at all. I thought the animals might recognise me, but they didn’t. They did not even ask me for any autographs.”
-Zlatan Ibrahimovic

The next LUC Briefing will be on the subject of: Cities

i. Pound

Source of one of LUC’s favourite pieces of music (as playing in the video below), Pound is a film from 1970 about dogs waiting to be put down. The twist being that the dogs are all played by human actors, including the director’s son, one Robert Downey Jr…

VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfceSj5koBo

ii. All the stop motion creatures from the world of Steve Zissou

Eschewing bland-looking CGI imagery, Wes Anderson commissioned stop motion genius Henry Selick to make all the fantastical creatures for The Life Aquatic, here is a video summary…

LINK: https://vimeo.com/9160689

iii. Roar – The most dangerous movie ever made

From an article on IndieWire:

“Some of the injuries sustained in the course of production: cinematographer Jan de Bont was scalped, requiring 220 stitches; Griffith was mauled by a lion, which required facial reconstructive surgery; an A.D. narrowly escaped death when a lion missed his jugular by an inch; Hedren, who was also attacked by birds on the set of “The Birds,” endured a fractured leg and multiple scalp wounds; and Marshall himself was wounded so many times that he was hospitalized with gangrene.”

iv. Bronholme The Leamington Underhamster

The bunker’s latest recruit, in addition to being a syrian refugee is also a liviing homage to *that* amazing scene in the 1988 film Taffin. For full context please consult this excerpt from Adam & Joe

v. The Monkey In The Order Of The Black Eagle

An outrageously terrible and terribly watchable spy/action flick from 1987, The Order Of The Black Eagle compresses every James Bond trope into a cinematic meat grinder and then squeezes out the kind of film sausage that you know you shouldn’t really be consuming.  Giving probably the most restrained and believable performance of the whole cast, Boon The Baboon is a dapper primate, equally at home in a dinner jacket or driving his own Baboon sized tank. Mostly though he makes a sort of ‘up yours’ gesture at regular intervals.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c02N39OKfL4

Full film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqJadw0UdW8

vi. Eating a live octopus for Oldboy

From an AV Club article full of examples of how the film industry has violently messed with animals over the years, for the sake of our entertainment.

“There’s no CGI or fakery involved—getting that shot meant the actor had to eat four live octopuses in a row. It was a problematic requirement for Choi, a practicing Buddhist; he explained in interviews that he had to pray for each octopus, and in the behind-the-scenes video below, he apologizes to one of them before a take. It’s a kind sentiment, but still a horrible way to die.”

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv_OxuZzIxY

vii. Thomas Edison – What A Jerk

To win arguments about the benefits of Direct Current vs Alternating Current, Thomas Edison would electrocute just about any animal he could get his hands on, then film it, then charge people to watch the film. Suddenly Zack Snyder doesn’t seem so bad. This short film outlines his general arseholery on the matter…

viii. Some cute pandas playing on a slide

In contrast to the barbaric treatment that the film industry has dished out to animals in the past, new media seems intent on celebrating the more endearing attributes of our four legged friends. Indeed cute animal videos are beginning to endanger pornography’s reign as the main purpose for the world wide web. Using precise scientific methods we have determined that this is probably the best example.

LUC Briefing 008: Music

“A film is – or should be – more like music than fiction”
-Stanley Kubrick

The next LUC Briefing will be on the subject of: Animals

 

i. The Long Goodbye

In a move that is either an inspired piece of cinematic brilliance, or time-saving laziness, the score for Robert Altman’s 1973 film of The Long Goodbye consists of just one song, played in many different styles throughout the film. John Williams arranged all manner of variations, from jazzy efforts, to crazy mariachi music, although as it was the early 70’s there is no dubstep remix. You can get the idea from this montage

ii. Rappin’ For Jesus

Considering all the wild, wonderful and dubious things that LUC has ever shown, it says something that nothing has ever elicited a reaction nearly as shocking as this music video produced by a church outreach programme. There is no way of understanding the thought processes behind this – just make sure that you are not eating or drinking around the 35 second mark. Trigger Warning: Potentially lethal levels of awkwardness.

iii. Jazz As Visual Language

Leamington Spa’s very own Nicolas Pillai has just launched a book about Jazz as seen through the filter of cinema and TV. You can get it straight to your Kindle from Amazon right now, or for more info check out this interview with London Jazz News…

“Simply put, this is a book about how jazz has been mediated through film and television. We often ask ourselves, what is jazz? This is a question reflected by these film and television representations. Through image composition and editing, they present that question in visual terms: what is jazz? How has its meaning changed over the decades? What is its significance to the people who play it, who finance it, who listen to it or dance to it?”

LINK: http://www.londonjazznews.com/2016/11/interview-nicolas-pillai-new-book-jazz.html

iv. Just by Radiohead is probably the best music video ever

I know OK GO have made all those incredibly clever and entertaining videos and that R Kelly produced the demented disasterpiece that is Trapped In the Closet, but for LUC’s money the apex of the short form musical video is Jamie Thrave’s film for Radiohead’s 1995 release ‘Just’. Watch and enjoy.

v. Drinkenstein

Did you know that Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton once made a country and western musical together? If not it may be because the UN convention on human rights was used to cover it up.

The film in question, Rhinestone, features Parton teaching Stallone to be a country singing sensation as part of a bet with her sleazy manager over whether she will sleep with him. Yes, I know, the drugs in the 80’s must have been amazing. You may study this clip and assume that Stallone was labouring under some kind of contractual obligation, apparently not as he is credited as co-writing the script.

vi. The Time That Steven Seagal Played The Blues At Warwick University

There is not much to add to this, except that his band is called ‘Thunderbox’

vii. The Importance Of Music in Cinema

There is probably no better illustration of the effect of music on the experience of cinema than watching the lat few minutes of Star Wars without the stirring orchestral send off.

viii. Searching For The Brown Note

From an article on vice.com:

“There are dozens of YouTube videos claiming to be the real brown note, mostly with comments saying they don’t work – but occasionally the odd positive response turns up among the “South Park brought me here” messages. Commenters in these instances claim the noise cured their constipation, or that the brown note caught them by surprise and really worked, but were these historically trustful anonymous YouTube trolls telling the truth?”

Article: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/in-search-of-the-brown-noise

LUC Briefing 007: Monsters

NEWT
My mommy always said there were no monsters – no real ones – but there are.

RIPLEY
Yes, there are, aren’t there?

NEWT
Why do they tell little kids that?

RIPLEY
Most of the time it’s true.

The next LUC Briefing will be on the subject of: Music

 

i. Kim Jong Il’s Monster Movie

From an article on Vanity Fair:

“There were thousands dying in North Korea,” Fischer wrote via e-mail, “but at the same time here comes Kim Jong Il, and his idea of advancing the regime’’s purposes is to kidnap two South Korean filmmakers, trick some Japanese film crew members, drown them all in gifts and luxury, to play with rubber monster suits and make a Godzilla rip-off.”

LINK: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/04/pulgasari-north-korea-cult-hit

ii. Operating Jabba The Hutt

According to the marvellous short documentary “Slimy Piece of Worm-Ridden Filth – Life Inside Jabba the Hutt”, being one of the several puppeteers who operated Jabba The Hutt in Return Of The Jedi was even less fun than you may have imagined it would be…

iii. King Kong Lives (With a Computerised Heart)

Plot synopsis from Wikipedia of the 1986 sequel to the lamentable 1976 version of King Kong:

“King Kong, after being shot down from the World Trade Center, is kept alive in a coma for about 10 years at the Atlanta Institute, under the care of surgeon Dr. Amy Franklin (Linda Hamilton). In order to save Kong’s life, Dr. Franklin must perform a heart transplant and give Kong a computer-monitored artificial heart. However, he lost so much blood that a transfusion is badly needed, and to complicate matters, Franklin says there is no species of ape or other animal whose blood type matches Kong’s. Enter adventurer, and eventual love interest, Hank “Mitch” Mitchell (Brian Kerwin), who goes to Borneo (Mitchell theorizes that Borneo and the island from the first movie were once part of the same landmass) and captures a giant female gorilla who is dubbed “Lady Kong.” Mitchell brings her to the Institute so her blood can be used for King Kong’s operation. The transfusion and the heart transplant are a success, but Kong escapes along with Lady Kong.”

If you really want to, you can watch the trailer here:

iv. The Gingerdead Man

Is anyone genuinely surprised that when it came to casting a psychotic, murdering cake monster, the producers turned to Gary Busey?

v. Zombie Movies Are a Metaphor for the State of Society

Monstrous creatures and characters can often be explained as metaphors for exploring the worries and concerns of the author or filmmaker that created them.

Vampires are all about sex, alien invasions stories are often grounded in xenophobia and racism and the monsters in Troll 2 are literally an embodiment of the evils of vegetarianism.

Zombies seem to be more of a (slowly) moving target. Previously used as a critique of our blind consumerist nature, Zombie movies have changed since the turn of the millennium to express more contemporary fears and anxieties. All is explained in this article on Wired:

“This continues a long and distinguished history of zombie themes standing in for au courant topics like slave rebellion, communism, über-capitalism, technophobia, and globalization. However, how zombie tales—and their fans—deal with these issues has proven as problematic as, well, the problems themselves.”

Link: https://www.wired.com/2013/06/world-war-z-zombie-messages/

vi. Werner Herzog vs The Loch Ness Monster

Expressed as an equation:

Incident At Loch Ness = (Exit Trough The Gift Shop + Jaws) x (Grizzly Man / The Blair Witch Project)

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSN_l9fVALU

vii. Godzilla & Godzooky

Producer Joseph Barbera putting a brave face on things:

“The problem with the show was simply this: When they start telling you in Standards and Practices, ‘Don’t shoot any flame at anybody, don’t step on any buildings or cars,’ then pretty soon, they’ve taken away all the stuff he represents. That became the problem, to maintain a feeling of Godzilla and at the same time cut down everything that he did. We managed to get a fair show out of it. It was OK. Godzooky kind of got the kids going.”

viii. The Patterson Bigfoot Film Stabilised

Someone has spent ages stabilising the famous bigfoot home movie footage – but conjecture as to whether it is real or not still continues…

Article with videos at: http://www.relativelyinteresting.com/heres-what-the-bigfoot-patterson-gimlin-film-looks-like-when-its-stabilized/

LUC Briefing 006: Fashion

Despite what the denizens of our underground lair may think, LUC is an organisation that always has one eye on the considerations of fashion.

Our standard issue boiler suit went through over forty iterations until we found just the right shade of dark blue to engender a tone of kineticism and artistry as well as being able to absorb a reasonable amount of of blood or oil before the stains become too unsightly. Fashionable design is at its strongest when form follows function, which is why our standard staff haircut is a number 4 clipper all over – classic, timeless and extremely unlikely to get caught in any exposed machinery.

The next LUC Briefing will be on the subject of: Monsters

i. John Malkovich – Fashion Designer

Get saving up if you want to dress like someone from inside John Malkovich’s head.
“THERE’S ALWAYS GRATIFICATION IN SELF-EXPRESSION”, quoth JM in stylish capital letters on his web site. I wonder if he’d let us open a stockist fifty feet below Leamington Spa?

LINK: https://www.johnmalkovich.com/

ii. Gaultier and The Fifth Element

From an article on Girls Do Film:

“Gaultier did more than a thousand costumes… So a thousand costumes is like 10 collections but all for one movie. It’s an incredible amount of work people don’t even know about. For a thousand costumes, he may have even done 5,000 sketches before narrowing it down”

LINK: https://girlsdofilm.wordpress.com/2014/06/08/gaultier-and-the-fifth-element/

iii. A List Of Sewing Machines Featuring in Movies

From what is possibly a Singer 15-91 in Five Easy Pieces to the Florence Treadle in The Picture Of Dorian Grey, this list will satisfy all of your ‘what kind of sewing machine is that?’ needs during film viewing.

Link: http://cabinquilter.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/sewing-machines-in-movies.html

iv. Knock Off

A rip-roaring, enjoyably atrocious action flick from 1998, Knock Off features Jean Claude Van Damme as a salesman for a fashionable brand of Jeans. These particular Jeans appear to be counterfeit, as well as containing highly explosive rivets. In many ways an astute satire of the fashion world, as well as being the sort of film that features a man being shot by a missile at close range.

Also worth noting, the theme tune by Sparks is especially bewildering and has the air of a contractual obligation.

v. Become a Costume Designer in Just 9 Easy Steps

You might have thought that becoming a costume designer would take years of hard work, long hours and sacrifice to make it in such a highly competitive and cut-throat industry.

Apparently not.

Just follow these helpfully illustrated steps and pretty soon you’ll be costuming theatre and film productions the world over.

Link: http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Costume-Designer

vi. Pret a Porter – The Fashion World Satire That Virtually Everyone Hated

“Can you tell me what’s goin’ on on this planet? This is fuckin’ fruitcake time. I mean, is that fashion? Is it? I mean, is there a message out there? I mean, you got a lot of naked people wanderin’ around here. I mean, I been forever trying to find out what this bullshit is all about, and you know what? You know what? I have had it. I have had it.”

vii. The Rise and Fall of the Tron Guy

Probably the most famous clothing designer of the modern era, Jay Maynard aka The Tron Guy achieved a level of fame and recognition that most fashion designers can only dream of. After publishing an exhaustive, almost forensic, description of how to make a near-flawless Tron Costume, Maynard appeared all over the internet and TV, before possibly getting a bit big for his glowing neon boots. He was barred from appearing in costume at a screening of the 2010 Tron sequel and booed off a TV talent show. But hey, let’s remember the good times.

Link: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tron-guy

viii. Just How Do Movies Influence the World of Fashion?

From an article on Fashionista.com that could fit very nicely into Private Eye’s Pseuds Corner:

“His movies are like those vivid dreams we all have and don’t quite understand but can’t wait to tell everyone about the next day — similar, in fact, to Prada’s fall 2013 show, with its cryptic set and eerie score that oozed mystery.”

Link: http://fashionista.com/2014/07/fashion-in-film

LUC Briefing 005: Money

“Money Is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons”

– Woody Allen

“You gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women. ”

– Tony Montana, Scarface

“I’m living in America, and in America, you’re on your own. America’s not a country. It’s just a business. Now fucking pay me.”

– Jackie Cogan, Killing Them Softly
The next LUC Briefing will be on the subject of… Fashion

 

i. The Queen Of Versailles

A bizarrely fascinating documentary about the family of an unpleasant timeshare billionaire who have hit (relatively) hard times. Can loads of money make you happy? Apparently not.

ii. Margot Robbie’s Unfortunate Paper Cuts

From an article on The Daily Beast

“If anyone is ever planning on having sex on top of a pile of cash: don’t. Or maybe real money is a bit softer”

Link: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/08/margot-robbie-on-the-wolf-of-wall-street-and-the-perils-of-having-sex-on-top-of-a-pile-of-cash.html

iii. Do Tax Breaks Lead to Deliberately Bad films?

The whole sorry tale of Uwe Boll, his terrible, terrible video game adaptations and the complexities of German tax write-offs is akin to The Producers, but with all the jokes taken out and replaced by evasive accounting practices. There is still an annoying, dictatorial figure involved though.

Link: http://www.cinemablend.com/features/Uwe-Boll-Money-For-Nothing-209.html

iv. Maths and the Weight of Money Ruin the Plausibility of Fast Five

From an article on vulture.com

“In other words, after 15 seconds of acceleration, the pair would be dragging the vault at only 2.3 miles per hour. According to a quick mental calculation, 2.3 mph < 50 mph. By a lot.”

Link: http://www.vulture.com/2013/05/could-the-fast-5-safe-heist-happen-in-real-life.html

v. The severe cost of Hollywood Film Production

One of the most illuminating things about this breakdown of what it cost to produce the 2014 version of Annie isn’t the $11 million tax break or Cameron Diaz’s $7.5 million fee – what caught my attention was that the titles cost $101,500. I’d have done it for half that…

Link: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/custom/Meena/THR33-money3-AnnieCost.jpg

vi. Remember when The KLF Burnt A Million Pounds?

It seems almost quaint now, but the pop charts used to be home to the sort of mad situationist art terrorists who would quite happily troop off to a remote Scottish island and film themselves burning a million quid. It seems unlikely that Ed Sheeran will be doing something like this any time soon.

vii. Trying To Make Your Millions On Youtube Sounds Like No Fun At All

From an article on Cracked:

“There’s practically no difference between being an up-and-coming ‘tuber and a disaffected middle-of-the-rung ‘tuber. You’re producing the types of content that get good numbers, but from a corporate perspective, you’re too small to justify sponsorship. You’re in the same financial position as before, but with the added complication that your decent-sized following now recognizes you and judges your every twitch.”

Link: http://www.cracked.com/blog/how-becoming-youtube-celebrity-minefield-dicks/

viii. The Money Gun

Too lazy or too cool to throw your money at people manually? There’s a solution for that. Just think of the time this could have saved the Bullingdon club back in the day. Also a sensitive and playful foreplay accoutrement – what woman wouldn’t like to be treated like a stripper by a man with a toy gun?

Link: http://www.themoneyguns.com/

LUC Briefing 004: Conspiracy

As a shadowy, sinister, manipulative, not entirely credible organisation run by a cabal of mysterious figures, LUC has been dismayed to see how our conspiracy based operating model has been copied by an increasing number of governments without any credit being thrown our way at all.

Indeed now that the US is playing out a bizarre real life version of the Manchurian Candidate, it seems as good a time as any to look at the impact of conspiracy theories upon movies and also how the world of cinema is entwined with the murky world of conspiracy itself.

Please ensure your phone is in a Faraday cage and your tinfoil hat is firmly in place before proceeding any further.

The next LUC briefing will be on the subject of: Money

i. Randy Quaid’s Star Whackers

You may well be aware of actor Randy Quaid’s flight from the US to Canada to escape the ‘Star Whackers’ conspiracy that has been responsible for various Hollywood deaths.

You may not have heard this song that he has written about it though.

ii. The Bruce Lee Curse

From an article on Conspirazzi:

“The Triads, a group of organized criminals with ties to the entertainment industry in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, China, are top suspects in the murder of both Bruce and Brandon Lee. The Triads were angry with Bruce Lee for refusing to work in their movies, and in turn, held a grudge against his son, Brandon. The fact that the Triads had ties with the entertainment industry, only begs more questions. Was Brandon’s murder an inside job? The answer is simply yes, but the explanation is far more complex.”

(http://www.conspirazzi.com/the-bruce-lee-curse/)

iii. This Is Not A Conspiracy Theory

Check out this marvellous, episodic web series by Kirby Ferguson (who also made Everything is a Remix) about ‘the dark forces that shape our lives’. Described by the Guardian thus: “With a visual intensity often bordering on the cacophonous, the series occasionally feels like a PowerPoint presentation by the world’s most coked-up history professor.”

(more at: http://www.thisisnotaconspiracytheory.com/)

iv. Yes. You Are Living In The Matrix

The Matrix was released in 1999, bringing the philosophical idea that we are all living in some kind of simulation into the mainstream. Science has now proven that we are all probably living in some kind of x-dimensional hologram and even the likes of Elon Musk state that it is more than likely we are all probably part of some clever aliens version of The Sims.

What really gets the David Icke brigade going is all the coded details apparently built into the Matrix films – the best example being Neo’s driving licence, glimpsed for a second in the interrogation scene – which expires on September 11th 2001 – WE WERE WARNED!

v. The Parallax View Montage Scene

Right in the middle of this brilliant and disturbing 1974 thriller, an investigative reporter played by envelope-botherer Warren Beatty is subjected to a form of audio visual test by the sinister parallax corporation. A kind of reverse Ludovico technique, seemingly designed to work out whether the candidate would make a good political assassin, or possibly some kind of brainwashing technique. There is a really good analysis of this scene by DVD Savant, and you can watch the montage itself via the image below. Please don’t shoot any presidents afterwards.

vi. How To Make Sense Of Conspiracy Theories

If you want to get deep into the subject check out this extensive documentary by Rob Ager.

“Both conspiracy theories and the attempts to debunk them are a minefield of complex ideas that are affected by poor research, personal bias, denial, deliberate disinformation and cherry picking of information. This video offers a detailed study of the subject matter, based on extensive exploration of available documentation.”

vii. Debunking Room 237

Over the years all the conspiracy stuff about Stanley Kubrick directing the moon landings has gone from mildly entertaining to a load of overblown bollocks. The apex of this paranoid nonsense can be found in the documentary Room 237, which tries to tie even small incidental details of the film to a huge international conspiracy in an amazingly annoying way.

From an interview with Kubrick’s assistant and actor Leon Vitali:

Mr. Vitali said he never spoke with Kubrick about any larger meaning in “The Shining.” “He didn’t tell an audience what to think or how to think,” he said, “and if everyone came out thinking something differently that was fine with him. That said, I’m certain that he wouldn’t have wanted to listen to about 70, or maybe 80 percent” of “Room 237.”

Why not?

“Because it’s pure gibberish.”

(Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/movies/aide-to-kubrick-on-shining-scoffs-at-room-237-theories.html)

viii. Jacking It In San Diego

Looking back it is still hard to get to the bottom of that Invisible Children Kony 2012 video and everything surrounding it. Many now think the whole thing was a CIA fronted bit of propaganda to enable the US to deploy troops into an oil and resource rich nation on a phoney humanitarian pretext – a proper conspiracy.

But another more complex question remains: What led the director of the infamous video to go on a naked public masturbation spree on the streets of San Diego? Someone needs to get the Warren Commission back together, or at least the South Park writing team.

LUC Briefing 003: Games

Welcome to the third Leamington Underground Cinema briefing, this time our team of crack researchers (or should that be crack team of researchers?) bring you a bundle of information on the historically difficult intersection between the seemingly connected worlds of cinema and games.

Thanks to a new dietary supplement that has been successfully tested on the research team, from now on these briefings will be a weekly affair, appearing every Friday.

The next instalment will be on the shady, whispered subject of Conspiracy.

i. Nuke ‘Em

Satire it may have been, but in the late 80s everyone wanted the future to arrive quickly so we could play this apocalyptic family board game of nuclear paranoia rather than Monopoly.

Unfortunately, the actual Robocop board game that came out was a load of rubbish.

ii. The Most Dangerous Game

As the titular 1924 short story warns, hunting man is the most dangerous game. This is a trope that has been recycled repeatedly by the movies in various forms ever since. Notable examples include 1945’s A Game Of Death and John Woo’s Hard Target starring Jean Claude Van Damme and a mullet that was cited as a war crime by the UN security council.

The mad, bloodthirsty pinnacle of the genre is probably the 1994 version Surviving The Game, starring Ice-T, Rutger Hauer and the astonishing Gary Busey, who literally acts himself out of breath in this unhinged monologue…

iii. Choose Your Own Film Adventure

The idea of interactive cinema, where the audience determine the turns of the plot and eventual outcome, has been around for a while. An infamous early example was Mr Sardonicus, where the film was stopped and the audience voted on whether the villain should be executed at the end. Legend has it that no audience ever voted to spare the life of the hapless Sardonicus – which was helpful – because legend also has it that the alternative ending was never actually filmed.

Experiments in this sort of thing have never gone particularly well, or caught on to any great extent, probably because as Roger Ebert pointed out, movies are a collective experience, while games are more solitary and insular. Still this hasn’t stopped the idea from hanging around. Reports exist that the old line of Choose Your Own Adventure books have been licensed for adaptation, while Steven Soderburgh’s next film Mosaic will have some form of interactivity/multiple paths driven by a mobile phone application.

Where interactivity is working to a degree is in the world of YouTube, where all sorts of clever linked films can be found As is usual on the internet a lot of them involve zombies but others involve more meaningful stuff, such as the self explanatory Interactive Hot Tub Girl:

iv. Video Game to Movies // Movies to Video Games

It is fair to say that despite years of trying, no-one has made a decent film based on a video game franchise or property. When the laughable Mortal Kombat is held up as one of the better examples, you know that something is wrong. However, in an industry that is generally ruthless on ditching poorly performing ideas, Hollywood can’t stop banging its head against this particular wall. According to this article, there are no less than 56 video game properties currently being adapted into films – I haven’t checked but this may well be one of the signs of the apocalypse.

Going in the other direction, despite a lot of rubbish, rushed, blatant cash-in examples, there are actually some quite good video game adaptations based on movies. In 2014 LUC ran a contest for people to make game adaptations as part of our festival, the art department came up with this surprisingly gory take on Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, which you can play online by clicking the image below.

v. Video Game documentaries are surprisingly good

In contrast to the appalling narrative features that have sprung from the video game well, there are loads of really rather good documentaries about the creation and playing of games out there. LUC particularly recommends checking out King Of Kong, Ecstasy Of Order and Man vs Snake. Although you may end up having nightmares about some of the people featured in them.

vi. The Shining Board Game You Can Download for free

Visit this site to download a bundle of .pdf files and then warm up your printer for some table-based mad axe-brandishing fun.

vii. The Top Five Fictional Cinematic Sports

Number 5: The Transcontinental Road Race

Number 4: BASEketball

Number 3: Whack Bat

Number 2: Rollerball

Number 1: Skeet Surfing

viii. Tom Hanks Was In a Film About How Dungeons And Dragons Is Evil

“Mazes and Monsters reflects the strange moment in pop culture when polite society viewed role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons as a corruptive influence on younger minds. Many thought that immersing yourself in the fantasy fiction of an RPG could lead to flirtations with Satanism, occult worship — and, in turn, criminal behaviour.”

(article on Mashable: http://mashable.com/2015/10/28/tom-hanks-dungeons-dragons/#A12SpfkVsEqF)

LUC Briefing 002: Sex

Welcome to the second Leamington Underground Cinema Briefing. This time we are turning our focus to the potentially awkward subject of sex in the cinema – meaning sex as the subject of cinema, not having sex in the cinema – that would be antisocial, unhygienic (especially at the Leamington Vue) and quite probably illegal. Needless to say, some of the subject matter and links in this email are probably NSFW, but if you subscribed to this mailing list with your work address and are reading this when you should be working, then you probably don’t care.

The next briefing in two weeks time will be on the subject of: Games.

i. The Hays Code

From the 1930s to 1966, American Movies had to comply with the laugh-a-minute Hays Code, which governed exactly what could or couldn’t be depicted on screen in order to protect the moral values of the great unwashed. Here is the section dealing with matters of a sexual nature…

The sanctity of the institution of marriage and the home shall be upheld. Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing.

1. Adultery, sometimes necessary plot material, must not be explicitly treated, or justified, or presented attractively.
2. Scenes of Passion
a. They should not be introduced when not essential to the plot.
b. Excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures, are not to be shown.
c. In general passion should so be treated that these scenes do not stimulate the lower and baser element.
3. Seduction or Rape
a. They should never be more than suggested, and only when essential for the plot, and even then never shown by explicit method.
b. They are never the proper subject for comedy.
4. Sex perversion or any inference to it is forbidden.
5. White slavery shall not be treated.
6. Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races) is forbidden.
7. Sex hygiene and venereal diseases are not subjects for motion pictures.
8. Scenes of actual child birth, in fact or in silhouette, are never to be presented.
9. Children’s sex organs are never to be exposed.

ii. Franco: The Unforseen Consequence Of The Cruising Controversy

William Friedkin’s Cruising caused all sorts of bother in 1980. The tale of undercover cop Al Pacino becoming enmeshed in the S&M gay scene while hunting a serial killer was, to put it mildly, considered insensitive to the gay community:

“The mounting negative publicity prior to Cruising’s release forced Friedkin to add a text scroll to the beginning of the film, essentially informing the audience that not all gay men wear heavy leather and chains and have anonymous sex in Central Park.”
(from an article evaluating the film at: http://www.fringeunderground.com/cruising.html)

Apparently around 40 minutes of (partially non-simulated) gay sex action was cut from the film to get it past the censors at an ‘R’ rating. The legend of this lost footage eventually led to James Franco’s dramatic reconstruction/artistic meditation Interior Leather Bar, which to put it mildly was considered rubbish by the film viewing community:

“Thus do we arrive at an even more annoying question: what does it mean that James Franco is playing with the fact that we know that he knows that we want to know whether or not he sucks dick?”
(from filmcomment.com: http://www.filmcomment.com/article/review-interior-leather-bar-james-franco-travis-mathews/)

iii. A Handy Sex In The Movies Infographic

Quickly and easily trace the history of crotch based action on the silver screen with this neat and succinct graphical summary on Fandor.

iv. Cleanflix – The Weird Tale Of Mormon Edited Movies

LUC recommends that you check out the excellent documentary Cleanflix, the story of how an industry sprang up around the idea of editing mainstream movies to make them suitable viewing for Mormon families.

Often editing out anything vaguely sexy, but leaving in more violent scenes, this wildly successful enterprise was effectively shutdown by Hollywood lawsuits after a while.

In a genuinely ironic footnote, one of the figures behind the movement was then convicted of child sex offences and turned out to be using his business as a front for some kind of nascent porn empire.

v. Lesbians React To Sex Scenes in Blue Is The Warmest Colour

“I mean, in lesbian sex there’s a whole lot more crying”

(Video by Yeni Sleidi)

vi. Gilbert Gottfried reading 50 shades of Grey

As it seems the films based on the insanely successful ‘mummy-porn’ Fifty Shades novels are having all the erotic content heavily toned down (the next one is rumoured to have a ’15’ certificate in the UK) – here is a fully unedited blast of the sensual tones of comedian Gilbert Gottfried wrapping his tongue around some of the racier bits from the book…

(Video by Collegehumor)

vii. “The Thrill Of The Shunt”

There are many films that have (purposefully, or accidentally) depicted sexuality in a manner that could never be described as erotic or arousing, even to a particularly hormonal teenage boy. Films like Salo, Last Tango In Paris, Antichrist and Howard The Duck are all good examples of how cinema can use sex to disturb and repel.

However, for our money, the ultimate in movie turn offs is the bizarre orgiastic ritual at the end of Brian Yuzna’s gore strewn, the-rich-are-literally-eating-the-poor, satire Society. You can read all about it here. Consider yourself warned

(Article from http://colinjmccracken.com/)

viii. A CGI Shag With Shia Lebeouf

“We shot the actors pretending to have sex and then had the body doubles, who really did have sex, and in post we will digital-impose the two,” Vesth explained. “So above the waist it will be the star and the below the waist it will be the doubles.”

Read more at: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cannes-nymphomaniac-producer-sex-scenes-525666

LUC Briefing 001: Robots

Welcome to the first Leamington Underground Cinema Briefing – a new bulletin that will be emerging every two weeks from LUC’s cold war era subterranean lair. Each edition will provide important, possibly life-saving, information on a particular subject or theme through the murky lens of films, cinema and LUC. This time we are looking at the clanking, oil-ridden world of robots…

i. The First Robot In Cinema History

Try not to have nightmares about the jarring mechanical golem that featured in The Master Mystery, a silent film starring Houdini. Apparently it was referred to as an ‘automaton’ because no-one had taken the time to invent the word ‘Robot’ yet. A likely story.

You can read plenty more about this anxiety inducing vision and see it in action over at Boing Boing

ii. The Robot Cameras Of Automavision

“One of the main reasons for using Automavision was to ensure the actors couldn’t use any of their usual tricks. Thanks to the randomised framing and audio settings, they had no idea of how the camera was going to behave and therefore weren’t able to try to show off their best side or steal scenes. (Von Trier’s original idea had been to hide the camera altogether and film through a double mirror)”

More: http://www.7luas.com.br/all/research/researchblog/automavision-lars-eng/

iii. Bjork Sex Robots

If you’ve watched Westworld, you might have had a strange reminiscence tugging away at the back of your memory during the title sequence – most likely because you remember this stunning Chris Cunning Video from years ago.

iv. Artificial Intelligence Is Probably Going To Ruin Movies For Us All

Fairly soon we are all going to be replaced by Artificial Intelligence, algorithms and all manner of invisible robots that live inside software code. This could have fantastic implications for your leisure time, but our inevitable journey towards a cinematic singularity has depressing implications for film fans. Hollywood is already using ‘intelligent’ software services such as Epagogix (crazy name, crazy guy), to decide which films it will make (hint: the same ones over and over again).

Perhaps even more soul-sapping is the idea that neural networks and A.I.’s can bang out a decent film script. A recent experiment proved that this is either a) a long way off, or b) we are all going to have to adjust our idea of what makes a film engaging, entertaining, worthwhile and enjoyable – because the result of said experiment, Sunspring, is terrible.

v. Rocky 4 – Post Organic Intimacy

As robots become more human in appearance – perhaps even developing realistic personalities and senses of humour – people are almost certainly going to want to start having sex with them. The cinema of science fiction has often depicted robots that people have wanted to form sexual relationships with despite knowing that they are not real. This bold new facet of human sexuality seems less extreme when the robot in question looks like Sean Young in Blade Runner, or Jude Law in A.I.

One film that really gets into the nuts and bolts of human/robot intimacy is the subversive 1985 movie, Rocky 4. Seemingly an appalling jingoistic pile of crap, Rocky 4 was actually a trojan horse for normalising the seemingly transgressive love between a man and a pile of metal and plastic. In the space of two scenes, the irascible trainer Paulie forms an intimate and profoundly meaningful relationship with a robot that looks like this:

vi. The Butter Robot

Cinema has often dealt with the difficult existential questions around robotics and A.I. Think of the replicants in Blade Runner, HAL in 2001 and that dolphin in Johnny Mnemonic.

Probably the finest and certainly the most succinct exchange on the matter took place in LUC’s favourite animated universe, between Rick Sanchez and his latest creation.

vii. Robot Actors Lost In The Uncanny Valley

Wikipedia says:

“In aesthetics, the uncanny valley is the hypothesis that human replicas that appear almost, but not exactly, like real human beings elicit feelings of eeriness and revulsion among some observers. Valley denotes a dip in the human observer’s affinity for the replica, a relation that otherwise increases with the replica’s human likeness. Examples can be found in robotics, 3D computer animations, and life-like dolls among others.”

Really? This seemed almost flawless:

viii. Movie Robot Recognition Test

Time to prove your film knowledge skills – identify the films that each of these robotic characters appeared in. Fill in your answers on this form and we will select a winner from all those who get them all right to win an exciting prize.