Are you sick to death of sleek cinema? An overbearing aesthetic that has trickled down so far that even the most whacko experimental films and unhinged underground movies strive to achieve a similar spotless surface perfection as those boring big-budget Hollywood films? Blech! Give me the awkward, the uncanny, the janky, the shonky, the half-baked, … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Jack Smith
The Wonder World Of Make Believe: The Hollywood Museum Is Fandom’s Most Important Institution
What is it about Los Angeles that inspires madness? Is it the consistently, unchanging beautiful weather? The constant void of those clear blue skies that would make André Gide sigh? Those palm trees perpetually swaying in the ocean breeze? The respiratory system-suffocating smog? Is it the Manson in the air? Or is it the ever-present … Continue reading
Down On The West Coast: Tracing The Intersections In “Axis Mundo: Queer Networks In Chicano L.A.”
In Brown: The Last Discovery of America, Richard Rodriguez articulates the particularities of brownness, partially based on his own queer Chicano identity. “Brown,” he writes, “bleeds through the straight line, unstaunchable–the line separating black from white, for example. Brown confuses. Brown forms at the border of contradiction (the ability of language to express two or … Continue reading
And If I Call You From First Avenue: Dialing Up Utopian Failure With St. Vincent And Alex Da Corte’s “New York”
“Utopia can never be prescriptive and is always destined to fail,” writes José Esteban Muñoz in his chapter “After Jack: Queer Failure, Queer Virtuosity” in Cruising Utopia. The chapter traces the queer utopian legacy of filmmaker Jack Smith through the work of contemporary artists and performers like Dynasty Handbag, Kalup Linzy and My Barbarian. This … Continue reading
Jeffrey Deitch’s “The Florine Stettheimer Collapsed Time Salon” And The Performance Of Allyship
It was probably the garish pink walls and the gaudy iridescent sea green curtains pushed to the side that drew me into Jeffrey Deitch’s The Florine Stettheimer Collapsed Time Salon at the 2017 incarnation of the Armory Show. I mean, how could I not resist something so irresistibly tacky?! Not to mention, the simply decadent … Continue reading
Conrad Ventur Remembers Original Underground Superstar Mario Montez
Before Andy Warhol even heard the term, queer underground filmmaker and aesthetic genius Jack Smith anointed legendary drag actress Mario Montez a “Superstar.” Named after Smith’s favorite campy Hollywood starlet Maria Montez, Mario Montez’s exquisite beauty and attention-grabbing acting style made him an underground film sensation, starring in Smith’s controversial Flaming Creatures, Andy Warhol’s uncannily … Continue reading
Rituals of Reductive Island: Why I Hated The Whitney’s ‘Rituals of Rented Island’
While I know this will certainly get me in trouble but try as I might, I can’t say it another way: I hated the Whitney Museum’s exhibition Rituals of Rented Island: Object Theater, Loft Performance and The New Psychodrama–Manhattan, 1970-1980. Even its Jack Smith-coined name couldn’t save the exhibition for me. Continue reading
The Brightest Of The Flaming Creatures: A Tribute To Mario Montez
One of queer film forefather Jack Smith’s “flaming creatures,” Andy Warhol’s “superstars” and Charles Ludlam’s “ridiculous,” underground drag actress Mario Montez sadly passed away this week in Key West. Continue reading
Filthy Dream’s 5 Films/Videos To Watch If You Hate BBQ’s On Labor Day Weekend
Inspired by my barbeque defection, here’s a list of transgressive, trashy, demented and thoroughly queer underground films and videos you can watch to help you endure the family vacation, block party, barbeque madness. Continue reading