A vividly eccentric and entertaining posthumous collection of essays, interviews, scripts, cartoons, and fragmentary jottings from one of the granddaddies of American avant-garde filmmaking. Best known for the underground (and much banned) classic Flaming Creatures, Smith possessed a highly original, camp- inflected aesthetic that inspired everyone from Andy Warhol to Robert Wilson. Consider his synopsis of the grand finale of his film Sinbad in the Rented World: ``In the confusion of the climatic [sic] roach stampede, the Lobster in his final priestly disguise with the forehead-earring of exoticism in his back pocket, is drowned in Plaster Lagoon and now is hardened over.'' As this illustrates, Smith's work was informed by a unique, gnomic argot and set of stylized obsessions bordering on fetishism. Hoberman (film critic for the Village Voice) and Leffingwell (curator for an exhibition about Smith that will open this spring) helpfully provide a kind of field guide to this world where ``Lobsters'' are greedy landlords, ``mynah birds'' are imitators, and the phrase ``scum of Bagdad'' is a term of high praise. But the queen of Smith's universe was the 1940s B-movie actress Maria Montez. Not only did she ``feature'' in many of Smith's films, she also inspired his aesthetic theories. In a seminal 1962 essay, included here, Smith turns the conventions of Hollywood film upside down. Naturalistic acting (``reptilian acting'') is bad; bad acting is good; visuals are everything and script/dialogue only get in the way; and kitsch is noble and uplifting. Though the issues it raises are far from settled, this ringing defense of ``pure cinema'' anticipates not only Pop Art but postmodernism as well. Much of the rest of this collection is either a reiteration or an elaboration of these core theories. Smith is perhaps too obscure for the general movie-going public, but as these pieces ably demonstrate, he is an important part of the American avant-garde tradition.
Pub Date: March 1, 1997
ISBN: 1-85242-428-1
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Serpent’s Tail
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1997
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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