Random Notes, or: it’s neither pig nor pork

I’d like to thank Tom Sutpen and Dennis Cozzalio for their recent (and excellent) article contributions to Flickhead, Tom on Godard’s Hail, Mary and Dennis on Go for Zucker. Together with existing contributors Richard Armstrong and Nelhydrea Paupér, my dream of one day turning this into something more akin to an online magazine may happen. Thanks guys!

Are there any writers who are Theo Angelopoulos aficionados out there? If you’re willing to work for DVDs instead of money, please drop me a line at flickhead @ comcast dot net.

The Forrest J Ackerman Blog-A-Thon is set for Friday, November 24, in honor of his 90th birthday. If you participate, let me know and I’ll add your site to the blogroll that day. If you’d like to post banners for the event, here are two images:
Vertical: 118x269
Horizontal: 756x83

Thanks to John McElwee at Greenbriar Picture Shows for alerting me to the new, restored March of the Wooden Soldiers, which sounds terrific; but also for pointing out the book, Castle Films: A Hobbyist's Guide, which somehow slipped below my radar when it came out two years ago. The generation born in the age of home video have no clue as to the immense value ‘home movies’ were at one point, and Castle Films was the crème de la crème!

DVDs new and upcoming:

One of my all-time favorites, Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg’s Performance (1970) finally arrives in February via Warners. While viewing the film will be a joy (hopefully in a somewhat complete version — several edits do exist), it looks like Warners blew it on the bonus features. There’s no audio commentary listed so far (a round robin between Roeg, Mick Jagger, James Fox and Anita Pallenberg would’ve been amazing), and we’d hoped that they would have included Kevin MacDonald and Chris Rodley’s excellent documentary, Donald Cammell: The Ultimate Performance (1998), but that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. To read my notes on Performance, click here.

Due to a pile of other commitments, I’m unable to write anything extensive on Todd Solondz’s Palindromes (2004), but, after catching up with it recently, I was captivated by its sharp view of America’s contemporary obsession with Christianity, its unending preoccupation with its children, and the mistreatment of youth in the hands of those who profess “family values.” Plus, it’s got a great performance by Ellen Barkin.

The long-awaited arrival of Kenneth Anger on DVD happens in January, when Fantoma releases Films of Kenneth Anger 1. Since they’ve denied our requests for review screeners in the past, there’s no reason to think Fantoma will send us a copy of this. (Stingy, stingy…) But the disc is authorized by Mr. Anger himself, so the sound and images should be nice and sharp.