It was 1974 and in a titanic meeting of the artistic minds, cinema auteur Doris Wishman and the infamously-busted Chesty Morgan forged a collaborative tandem for the ages and left us with two of the most memorable sexploit features the world will ever know... And that is what we will be celebrating come the evening of Monday September 6th. Ladies and gentlemen, come one, come all and feast your eyes on the following...
We're proud to announce that this is without a doubt the most unrepentant, shameless trash we'll have shown at Bad Meaning Good to date. It'll be a festival, er, rather a breastival (I wish I hadn't just wrote that), of base and tasteless delights. It also goes without saying that we're always hard at work in efforts to bring you further and further down the rabbit hole of cinematic crudeness and we are of course delighted that you're along for the ride.
Alright... So, last Friday night was the opening for mine and Won Kim's 'Psych Out' gallery opening at The Beer Run Gallery in Pilsen. Now that some of the dust has settled and my mind is nearing operational levels once again, I thought I'd chime in with an update of the evening's festivities...
First and foremost I'd like to thank anyone and everyone, friends, family and otherwise, who were able to make it out to the event. It was nothing short of an absolute success and you all are the reason why. I can't express how happy we were to have such a great turn out and to sell as much work as we did so we sincerely thank every one of you.
I had our good friend Santi over at The Vast Difference come by to take some photos for us so here are a few highlights below and something of a narrative of what was on-hand for the evening. (For a more expansive collection of photos, click here for the Flickr set.) ...
The view from the outside.
It was blazing hot inside the gallery but a mostly lovely evening outdoors.
The four big pieces all in a row.
A shot of the installation we did in the front of the gallery.
... More work.
An early evening shot, before it really filled up.
Mine and Won's standing in the pantheon of artistic greatness is being discussed.
Hersh making some kind of obscene gesture in relation to his story about the previous evening's adventures. (I kid Hersh, I kid.)
No, in all seriousness, it was an absolute riot of a time and I'm overwhelmed at how well it did. For the record, six of the twenty pieces are still for sale and we'll be doing a second viewing this coming Saturday from noon to 3pm. Any and everyone will be welcome to attend so feel free to drop by and say hello... And don't forget your checkbooks! (Is that an antiquated statement?)
Here's the basics:
Saturday, August 21st
at The Beer Run Gallery
1104 W. 18th St. Chicago, IL 60608
12pm-3pm
By all means, shoot me a message or comment if you have any further questions. Apart from that, I hope to see some of you there!
So here's an update on my upcoming 'Psych Out' show I'm doing with Won Kim... You may remember I blogged about it here last week. I've decided to post an update with some pics of a few pieces of finished work that will be included in the show. I'm super excited about the show and hope any and all of you can attend! Pics below...
Big news on the art front: On Friday August 13th I'll be hosting my first ever art opening and it will go down at The Beer Run Gallery in Pilsen. This is big news for me for a number of reasons but is namely a big step for me as a fine artist and as a professional who has, since graduating with a BA in Illustration 5 years ago, made little use of my more hands-on artistic talents.
The show has been titled 'Psych Out' and will feature exclusively new and original, collaborative works that I've done with my friend and collaborator Won Kim (aka the spectacularly talented Revise CMW). The show has been given its title because of its dramatic aesthetic departure from Won's signature and established painting styles, but also because of the general psychedelic look and nature of the work itself.
I'm incredibly excited about the opportunity and am expecting a riot of a time to be had by all at the opening itself. Additionally, ALL of the art will be for sale and can be bought on either the night of the opening or during the gallery's weekly hours (Fri-Sun 12pm-8pm), or otherwise by appointment (to schedule an appointment call 312.226.4220).
All info pertaining to the event should be visible on the flyer above but here are the basics:
Psych Out
Friday, August 13th 2010
at The Beer Run Gallery (1104 W. 18th St. Chicago, IL 60608)
From 7-11pm
Free beer will be provided by Goose Island Clybourn.
Music will be provided by my fellow Bad Meaning Good collaborator and selector extraordinaire DJ Intel.
I will of course have more info to come on the subject of the show and will perhaps be posting some photos of completed work as the event nears. In the meantime, and by all means, feel free to add comments or get a hold of me via the contact form if you have any questions at all about the event.
Holy smokes!!! It's been more than a month since I last chimed in on ANYTHING on this blog... Really weak stuff on my behalf, I can't lie.
The good news is that I've got a huge gang o' new shit to drop on your various asses out there, starting with tonight's monthly 'Disco Obsession' edition of GGD at Berlin. From here on out we'll be hosting Disco Obsession on the last Wednesday of every month and will be playing the night in collaboration with Berlin mainstay and ongoing disco night resident DJ Pervy. Per usual, you can expect all disco, new and old, all night long.
Alright people, the coming month's Bad Meaning Good event is set in stone... Or rather, is stabbed, shot, fire-bombed, rocket launchered, run over by a car, kicked in the face, hip-tossed, and thrown through a window.
Yes, July's Bad Meaning Good will feature two cinematic high points for two of the 1980's very most prolific action stars. Ladies and gents, I present to you the Bad Meaning Good "Chuck-on-Chuck" extravaganza of 2010!
For serious folks, 'Lone Wolf McQuade' is absolute cinematic ownage. Norris paves a path of unrelenting destruction in this movie and never wavers on his quest for sweet, sweet justice and revenge. Best yet, he comes to blows with both the much beloved David Carradine AND a wheelchair-bound, little person crime boss. This movie pretty much has it all. It wants to be a western. It wants to be a kung fu flick. It wants to be an explosive, one man show-type 80's action flick... Guess what... It dramatically succeeds at all three!
Let's be honest here folks, 'Death Wish 3' needs no introduction. It may very well be the best film ever made. Charles Bronson pretty much wages war on the streets of NYC and what follows is positively some of the very most ridiculous action bad-assery that has every graced the silver screen. Just the thought of beginning to try and describe the awesomeness therein gives me a headache... There may indeed be language that both exists on this planet and has the capacity to properly capture the cinematic essence of 'Death Wish 3' but let me assure you, my grasp on English is not capable of doing so. It's quite simply TOO awesome.
Can't wait to see you all there! More info to come...
Tomorrow night I'll be playing an opening slot with Junior Boys at Smartbar. I played alongside them when they last played Smartbar about two years ago as well and remember having a fine time. This will most likely be one of the only sets I play this year in Chicago where I'll be able to really stretch out and work some proper techno tracks on a big soundsystem so I'll of course be coming to the table with some choice musical goodies and am very much looking forward to it.
After missing last week's GGD event, I'll return with a vengeance this week with the help of co-resident/conspirator Mr. Zebo and I'm hoping for a hot one. Evidently last week was the best turnout we've had in quite a while (it figures that'd be the one I miss) and since it's such a lovely day today, I'm expecting big things for tonight as well. The party rages from 11pm til 4 in the AM. See ya there!
In April of 2009, myself and DJ Intel launched the 'Bad Meaning Good' monthly movie event at The Burlington in Chicago (which takes place on the first Monday of every month). The idea behind the night is to screen cult classics, exploit movies, unintentional comedies and every other kind of film we collectively decide is so bad that it's actually good. In the ongoing search for the perfect 'Bad Meaning Good' film I've decided to take on a weekly (or AT LEAST once-per-week) blog entry in which I'll review, summarize and rate bad movies of every variety imaginable. The goal is to reach somewhere in the range of 75-100 posts within a year, at which point I'll look for a place to publish a first volume of 'Bad Meaning Good' reviews in book form. Stay tuned...
Summary:
'After Last Season' is a baffling, ultra lo-fi, would-be technological thriller unlike anything I've ever seen. The film deals with a pair of young interns researching neuroscience in a quest for answers regarding a rampant serial killer. Ultimately though, if you could imagine how 'Primer' may have turned out if it were directed by a schizophrenic 12 year old in 5th grade AV lab, you might begin to understand the forces at play here.
To make sense of the film's "plot" is an utterly frustrating endeavor and I'm not even sure the film's director could make a good case for the its narrative logic (let alone its nonsensical pseudo-scientific logic). Most of the film sees its two central characters, a man and a woman, using crude transmitters that while placed on their respective temples, grant them a one way, stream-of-consciousness brain "feed" of sorts. By that I mean that when these two are experimenting with the transmitters, they are both fed a kind of visual representation of one of their brain's thoughts which appears to them in the form of primitive 3D motion graphics (the transmission goes one way, meaning that only one of their brain's activities can be visualized at once). The majority of the film alternates between the real world that is the two of them sitting in a sparsely decorated room with their eyes closed and the representational world of the mind which consists of ugly, animated shapes moving around unintelligibly.
There are also some tangential plot lines and characters that come and go (mostly at the beginning of the movie), many of which I'm unable to logically connect to its main story. Believe me when I tell you there's some serious Ed Wood-ian shit going on here and an overarching sensibility of disconnect from both expository coherence and basic human communication. Sitting through the film in its entirety was at times an excruciatingly perplexing experience, full of so many head-scratching moments that it actually kinda made my brain hurt.
I'm just gonna face the facts: I haven't the faintest fucking idea what this movie was about. I'm not sure anyone involved in its production really did either. In the case of analyzing "bad" movies though this is of course a non-issue... Because if there is any fun or enjoyment to be derived from 'After Last Season' (and my initial sense is that there is very little), it is without a doubt BECAUSE the film is so ludicrous and unfathomable.
How 'Bad Meaning Good' was it?:
This film is so badly, spastically edited that it at times feels almost surreal or like a kind of outsider art. There are incessant cuts and edits, often within shots of the very most dull and simple conversations, and the film stocks and lighting fx are in a near-constant state of flux. There are shots of digital still frames that linger uncomfortably long and they even at one point made use of what I think was a green screen of an apartment hallway (as if there weren't an available hallway to shoot in). There was also a still frame of a building with text layered over it in post-production which I think was meant to convey that the building had big, block-y text attached to its exterior. Needless to say, this particular viewer was not fooled by the effect.
The lighting is often stifling and obnoxious, and the majority of the movie is lit with spotlights that leave huge shadows hanging off every object or person in the frame. Additionally, most scenes appear to be shot in unfinished rooms, leading me to believe these spaces may not have had electricity or lighting of their own and that the constant spotlighting may have been done out of necessity. What's worse is that the spaces often have exposed dry wall, errant 2x4's and unfinished ceilings. (Where the fuck do buildings look like this?! ) From one scene to the next it's completely ambiguous as to whether the characters are in public, work-related, or residential spaces and generally the viewer's sense of space is suffocatingly claustrophobic and devoid of natural light. It felt like it was filmed in some kind of hellish, insane asylum constructed out of budget-level Home Depot odds and ends.
There are props EVERYWHERE in this movie and in a bizarre twist of scientific logic, these props are often moving, being pushed about by an invisible force (a force which could be described as "loosely explained" at best). On top of that, basic objects like, say, a table, are often visibly just cardboard boxes with a makeshift cloth draped over them. Little to no effort is made to disguise this stuff and they even at one point submit an entirely unconvincing MRI machine that was clearly handmade out of foamcore, sheeting and other artificial materials.
... And all of this goes before we've even begun to speak about the acting or the script or any other of the hundreds of puzzling decisions made in the creation of this film. I don't even know if there are words available to describe some of it; it really is that particular breed of rare presentation that needs to be seen in order to be "understood".
I'm ultimately so confused by what I've seen in 'After Last Season' that my words feel like a futile attempt at reconciling the experience. This movie, however clinically and comprehensively awful it may have been, was definitely unlike anything I've ever encountered in film and for that reason alone, I feel like it must have some merits. When I think I better understand what those merits are, perhaps I'll chime in again. Until then, I'll have no choice but to remain amazed, a little bit embarrassed, and with an hour and a half of my life lost in the ether.
'Bad Meaning Good'-O-Meter:
4.0/10 (... Though this admittedly useless rating is surely subject to change over time and further examination.)
