Showing posts with label Jodorowsky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jodorowsky. Show all posts
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
El Topo at the Cinematheque May 8th - Jodorowsky fans take note!
Okay, it's somewhat lazy of me, but here's a first: I'm copyin' out verbatim a press release for the upcoming Jod screening at the Cinematheque. (It's late and I want to get to bed). All errors I didn't catch should be attributed to the authors o' the release!
A Friends of Jodorowsky presentation
The cult film that was the first “Midnight Movie” returns to the screen at last
A restored “El Topo” ready to blow minds again
Vancouver audiences will have their first chance in over 35 years to see the film that launched the midnight movie phenomenon and became a cultural icon to a generation. El Topo (The Mole) is an explosive tale of blood, sand and surrealism. Locked away for decades in the vaults of Allen Klein, the Beatles' former business manager, El Topo has not been distributed in years, nor issued on video (Al note: in North America. It's been available in Japan all along, with optical fogging on the genitals). When Klein’s son took over his father’s interests, it was decided to restore the film and let the world have another look. Now the film has been HD digitally restored and is being released to art houses and in a DVD set of the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky.
In the fall of 1970, filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky arrived in New York with a print of El Topo under his arm. There was no attempt to open the film in Mexico, where it was made, because Jodorowsky had had problems there with the censorship of his first feature Fando Y Lis. El Topo premiered at the Elgin theatre in New York City on the night of December 18, 1970, where it ran continuously every weekday at midnight, and at 1:00am on Fridays and Saturdays, until the end of June, 1971. Within two weeks of the first screening, El Topo was doing turn-away business. Ben Barenholtz, owner of the Elgin recalls that “within two months, the limos lined up every night.” El Topo became a must-see item.”
JOHN LENNON AND YOKO ONO INTRODUCED EL TOPO TO THE WORLD
Among the regulars at the midnight screenings of El Topo at the Elgin in the spring of 1971 were John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Ex-Beatle Lennon, was blown away by El Topo. He wanted his manager, Allen Klein to purchase the rights to the film. So in June, Klein’s Abkco Films acquired El Topo and re-opened it at the up-scale Broadway Cinemas in the winter of 1971 to mixed notices from mainstream New York reviewers. Regardless, the film became an art house cornerstone all over North America.
The power of El Topo lay in its ability to address the counterculture directly. It’s style is a synthesis of Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, and Jean-Luc Godard. El Topo’s relevance ranks highly amongst other important texts of the counterculture generation, including J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf, Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, R. Crumb’s “Mr. Natural,” and Carlos Casteneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan. No one who sees this film ever forgets it.
El Topo is playing at the Pacific Cinematheque in Vancouver on May 8 for one night only. Not since 1971 has El Topo been shown in its full glory.
Tuesday May 8, 7:30 pm at Pacific Cinematheque, 1131 Howe St. Vancouver.
More info: http://www.abkcofilms.com/
In the fall of 1970, filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky arrived in New York with a print of El Topo under his arm. There was no attempt to open the film in Mexico, where it was made, because Jodorowsky had had problems there with the censorship of his first feature Fando Y Lis. El Topo premiered at the Elgin theatre in New York City on the night of December 18, 1970, where it ran continuously every weekday at midnight, and at 1:00am on Fridays and Saturdays, until the end of June, 1971. Within two weeks of the first screening, El Topo was doing turn-away business. Ben Barenholtz, owner of the Elgin recalls that “within two months, the limos lined up every night.” El Topo became a must-see item.”
JOHN LENNON AND YOKO ONO INTRODUCED EL TOPO TO THE WORLD
Among the regulars at the midnight screenings of El Topo at the Elgin in the spring of 1971 were John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Ex-Beatle Lennon, was blown away by El Topo. He wanted his manager, Allen Klein to purchase the rights to the film. So in June, Klein’s Abkco Films acquired El Topo and re-opened it at the up-scale Broadway Cinemas in the winter of 1971 to mixed notices from mainstream New York reviewers. Regardless, the film became an art house cornerstone all over North America.
The power of El Topo lay in its ability to address the counterculture directly. It’s style is a synthesis of Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, and Jean-Luc Godard. El Topo’s relevance ranks highly amongst other important texts of the counterculture generation, including J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf, Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, R. Crumb’s “Mr. Natural,” and Carlos Casteneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan. No one who sees this film ever forgets it.
El Topo is playing at the Pacific Cinematheque in Vancouver on May 8 for one night only. Not since 1971 has El Topo been shown in its full glory.
Tuesday May 8, 7:30 pm at Pacific Cinematheque, 1131 Howe St. Vancouver.
More info: http://www.abkcofilms.com/
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Upcoming Jodorowsky and 70's DVD releases
Ah, what a week to put behind me. A final few days of high-maintenance students, last-minute Christmas shopping, my screening at Blim, and today, the seven-hour marathon screening of Satantango (thank you, Vancity Theatre!)... I'm exhausted. I may just get around to cleaning out the mold in my kitchen sink tomorrow; laundry can wait, as further activity will be necessitated by the holidays. At the moment, I'm stalling going to bed so I can just fuck around online for awhile - something I haven't really been able to do lately and am savouring. Some brief news about upcoming DVD releases, then:
If anyone missed it, Jodorowsky's feud with Abcko is at an end, and El Topo and The Holy Mountain will be seeing release on DVD soon. Jod's Myspace page is worth taking a peek at, if you're a fan - make sure you watch the video clip. It's been a long time since I've watched either of these films; I'm not sure how enthusiastic I am now - the huge fandom these films have garnered is a little off-putting, frankly, since a lot of the folks who triumph Jod don't know or care much about more "serious" cinema... but be that as it may, I used to love certain parts of El Topo. The grin on Jod's face when he asks his vengeful son to help him beg, the sooner to be able to kill him, is one of those moments that I carry with me everywhere. The second half of that film strikes some very personal chords with me...
A varied mixed lot of 70's cinema is due out soon, in fact. No news on US releases of Husbands, Death Watch, or Zabriskie Point - three old favourites of mine I'd happily revisit on DVD -- but Cammell and Roeg's Performance is coming out in February, with intense speculation on the net about whether it is likely to be a properly restored version. On the Criterion Forum, I also believe I noticed the news that Pasolini's Salo will be coming back to life as part of the Criterion collection. This is exciting to note, since I think there are flaws to my boot of it...
Vastly less important than Salo - tho' of note to me, since it's a film I have not seen - is the rather surprising news that the film "adaptation" of Desmond Morris' The Naked Ape - a book I am fond of - will be released in the new year. "Collectors DVD" site SuperHappyFun had been selling a version of it for awhile there, before the official release was annoucned. They also recently removed Ingmar Bergman's Face to Face from their lists - does that mean it's forthcoming in North America? (There IS a European release, I gather...).
Now if only I could find a copy of Emile de Antonio's In the King of Prussia! I see some crafty fellow has a used VHS edition on Amazon for $150... Hey, I wonder if anyone is selling pirate DVDs of Saul Bass' Phase IV (not the Brian Bosworth thing - it's a weird old SF thriller about human beings struggling to fight against, or adapt to, ant consciousness)...? I should check (note to self - check on Pontecorvo reissues, too). Seeya.
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Click here for a peek at what I got up to later that night. It's nearly 5AM now and I've been posting on Pointless Waste of Time (as Pemmican).
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