Cineforum

[Johann]

There is a famous movie house in Toronto called the CINEFORUM, an old, old house on Bathurst street that's been converted into a theatre. It's got a quote by Aldous Huxley painted in black on the front steps (I took a photo- will be up on FB tomorrow) and I look forward to attending my first screening with "Cocksucker Blues" which plays next Tuesday night.
The Cineforum is the most promoted theatre in the city, with it's white flyers EVERYWHERE.
If you haven't seen a Cineforum flyer and you live in T.O., you're fucking BLIND. They are on every street lamp, telephone pole and garbage bin.

A film historian named Reg Hartt is the host/manager and I went into the house about 2 weeks ago to ask about HWY, Jim Morrison's film from 1969. Apparently they screen it from time to time.
I was told to wait at the bottom of the stairs for Reg.
He appears at the top of the stairs and asks what I want.
I explain about HWY and how if they need a copy, I have one.
He says: Yes we're going to play it soon. Does your copy have the digital ticker?
"Yes"
Then you probably got it from the same guy I did.
"Subterranean Cinema? Do you also have Feast of Friends with it?"
He snaps: I can't talk to you now! Take a card!
Whoa, why so crochety?

Then last week I went in again, to inquire how I can find out when they are screening it again.
Reg is in the screening room (immediate right of the entrance), watching a Mae West film by himself, right next to the projector.
I say Hi and he remembered me.
I don't know when I'm showing it.
I say "You're a Legend among the city folk. Is that true?"
He says THAT AND FIFTY BUCKS WILL GET YOU A CASE OF BEER!
I don't know how to respond.
I ask what film he's watching.
She Done Him Wrong. I'm getting it ready for tonight. I can't talk to you now!

Groucho!

So, I'll let you know how his rants are. Maybe he's just under a lot of stress. Who knows?
He's in his fifties and seems like a dead-serious guy.
He does these big spiels before each screening that are supposed to be the cats pajamas.
I want to see the synchros he has with several films and of course the dirty bugs bunny cartoons he has.
This thread will be about my trips to the famous Cineforum, which is two blocks from my own apartment. How cool is that?

website ("Reg Hartt presents"):
www.cineforum.ca
The neon logo on the website is the actual sign that's in the bottom right window of the house. (FYI or UFI) ha ha

[oscar jubis]

Reg is a trip. I was going over his programming over the past few months. It's often inspired and slightly bizarre. Looking forward to future posts here. Thanks, Johann.

[Johann]

Last night was quite divine, an evening with the Rolling Stones.
I'll post a review later. (Have to get it together).

Reg has an awesome painting of Stanley Kubrick behind his projector. I asked him about it and he said that a friend did it for him. It's an image of Kubrick, with jet-black beard, looking like he's directing, with one of those giant mushroom clouds from Strangelove behind him. Absolutely awesome painting.
He's also got a giant poster of Clockwork Orange to the right of the movie screen, as well as vintage posters for Dracula, Frankenstein, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Phantom of the Opera (with Lon Chaney), Star Trek and a really strange poster of Charlie Chaplin as Rambo (!!) He's got other items in the screening room, like masks and stuff. Very very cool place to check out cool fims. He's got ergonomic office chairs as seats and the sound system is pretty kick-ass. (Great for the Rolling Stones!)
Reg was out on the porch with a patron who had a Scorsese t-shirt on (Shine a Light) and a vintage lips button.
He saw me and waved in as soon as I got there.
And he played the Maysles' Gimme Shelter until it was time for the BLUES.

Cineforum does indeed ROCK.

[Johann]

Cocksucker Blues

REPENT NOW. Mick Jagger is LUCIFER





This film is Rated X, an astonishing record by Robert Frank of the Rolling Stones 1972 "Exile" tour. This is a behind-the-scenes/backstage pass concert film that has no peers. I thought I knew the Stones well enough. But this film will show you those sides you might not have known were there.

After seeing it on a big screen, with a great sound system, I have to admit that it is the ultimate rock movie. All the debauchery, all the sex, drugs (drug use is off the charts here), and of course all the Rocka Rolla you can handle. It's all here, in one manic, insane, brilliantly edited tour de force of a film.

The camerawork is all handheld, very shaky but still watchable (like a Dogme film) and it appears as though Mick and co. learned a thing or two from Godard when they made Sympathy For the Devil together. There are some "staged" scenes. Pardon the pun- there are actual attempts here to make an art film, while the the tour rolled on. One scene that stands out is Mick and Bianca in a hotel room with a music box...

This is the raw, unvarnished Rolling Stones. The gritty and glammy Glimmer Twins in full drug addiction. One scene that was hard to watch was Mick completely smashed, fumbling with a home video camera and trying to form coherent sentences. WOW. If there's a reason why this film wasn't released to the masses, then that was it. Of course there are many other items of note that probably contributed to that, like the guy at the beginning of the film who had a huge vinyl record collection, a hash pipe, is so stoned he can barely think straight and pontificates about how he wants to make a porno movie. Craziness. Terry Southern, Ahmet Ertegun, Truman Capote and Andy Warhol all make "cameo" appearances, but I think they were unsuspectingly caught on camera. There are wild as hell scenes with people shooting heroin straight into their arms, buck-naked, spread- eagled groupies masturbating, and yes, a cock is sucked...
Bottles of Jack, people sharing blades of cocaine, Keith and Billy throwing a TV off the balcony of the Hyatt (Riot) House on Sunset Boulevard...it's just chaos. Off the charts chaos. And I loved every minute of it.

[Johann]

The film is BLUE-and-white and black and white. Tinted post-production, I gather. The titles are great: a white chicken scratch. It's done in a very cinema-verite style, very arty. They were trying to do something legit here, and believe it or not, it IS legit. Legit for the Stones!

There is an incredible sequence with Stevie Wonder joining them on stage. He's seated at a piano and does a great version of "Uptight (Everything is All Right)" and then Mick leads him to the microphone to finish with "Satisfaction". This film also has a KILLER version of "Midnight Rambler" and I think "Brown Sugar" was done twice (I could be wrong on that though).
The guy in the Shine a Light tee kept shouting "LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!" whenever there was no music. It was funny.

There are incoherent interviews, and OK interviews (like Mick on Dick Cavett's show)Tina Turner is seen in one scene walking out of the Stones dressing room after realizing that maybe these guys are freaks...Mick gets pissed off and preens in his dressing room mirror and mumbles something snide. In a side note, there's a scene in Gimme Shelter where Mick is watching the footage from Altamont and says "It's good to have a chick" in a concert or something to that effect, completely blasting past the fact that Tina's number was probably the best thing about that whole disaster of an event. He is a total, TOTAL egomaniac. He is "so vain". For real. The evidence is on celluloid!

They have black bodyguards that they shoot pool with, share a shot of liquor with. They give much respect to blacks in their music and in their lives. There is no one on this planet who are less racist than the Rolling Stones.

Mick gets his make-up done movie-style.
Mick the Valiant?
There were gay groupies for the Stones. Didn't you know that?
OK, maybe not the Stones. Just Mick.
Oh yeah. Mick swings BOTH ways. Sorry to break it to ya.
More scenes of the band backstage, in various stages of dress or undress. Scenes on the road, in cars, filming inside cars, the scenery going by, desolate hotel and motel rooms (one great scene is Keith in the lobby of some small-town motel, pulling the total rock-star trip, with his shades and ciggy dangling from his mouth, and the manager asks an old old lady "Do you know who this is?" as Keith signs autographs for the front desk staff. She shakes her head. Keith shakes her hand. Circus-atmosphere!

The whole film gives you the impression that the Stones were just looking for a good time. At all times. They seem to know somewhere in their souls (even in '72) that it's over, but good times can still be had. Great concerts can be played, if only for themselves- Mick has to cajole the crowds at certain points- they just seem to stand there and gape at the band. Mick's a great ringleader. It was entirely appropriate that he was the ringleader in the Rock and Roll Circus film.
Most people in the Stones orbit don't seem to understand them, aside from the "Let's have a party" vibe. And if they do, it's only in fleeting moments. A female fan is hauled off stage at one point after hopping up to sit, saying "I WON'T MOVE!!" and then gets hauled away by security. Charlie just seems bewildered the whole time, like he's vacant inside, wondering where he is.
This is a remarkable historic document.
Seriously.
This is footage of a band in the zeitgeist of their career, right after they made possibly the greatest album they could: Exile on Main Street, in France. There are scenes in Europe, footage from Montreal Canada (one guy is seen wearing a Canadiens jersey!)
There seemed to be a lot of irony in this film but I can't put my finger on it. It's a raucus piece of work. It is utterly amazing, actually. It's a very fluid art film, even though it has all the appearances of an amatuer effort, just thrown together by drug addicts and schizos.
The editing is what keeps it moving forward and forward. The songs simply destroy and if they never release this film, fine, but at least put together a soundtrack!
It would sell like nobody's business. Unless it already exists as another album- any Stones fans here who know?

Amazing that the band survived the tour.
They were dancing with death with all the drugs man...

[oscar jubis]

This is great stuff Johann. I'm enjoying this thread a lot. Thanks.

[Johann]

Thanks Oscar. Great great Rock 'n Roll movie that was.
You especially would appreciate it.
You're a Rolling Stones fan, yes? no?
I don't remember you saying.

[oscar jubis]

Love their music. Always did. Even when punk was king and it was not ok to let my friends know I still listened to the Stones. Jagger has always gotten on my nerves though, for one reason or another. Won't let that get in the way of the pleasure I get from the music, including his singing and stage presence.

[Johann]

I remember Lester Bangs writing at one point that the Stones were meaningless, that they didn't stand for anything.
I think they stood for rock and roll, stood for freedom.
They marched to their own drummer (Charlie!). ha ha
The only Stones songs that really grab me are
Paint It Black
She's a Rainbow (She comes in colors!)
Angie
As Tears Go By (Marianne's version)
Honky Tonk Women
19th Nervous Breakdown
(Hey! Hey! You! You!)Get off of my Cloud

and the Greatest Stones track:
SYMPATHY for the DEVIL

[Johann]

I went to see the classic *uncensored* Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny programme and it was awesome. Unfortunately I didn't bring a notepad or pen with me, so I just have to give you an idea from memory.

There were twelve shorts in total, and they were all brilliant.
Hilarious and classic. But they'e not as lurid as you might think.
I was expecting maybe some really raunchy cartoon business, but every cartoon was basically innuendo- no actual nudity, swearing or pornographic type stuff.

No, it was basically Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc fooling around, going a little further than they would for the regular 'toons. It seemed as though I was witnessing/eavesdropping on outtakes, on cartoons that weren't meant for the public. (Which they weren't). It seemed as though they had been through a long day of creativity and then decided to "do a take for ourselves" kind-of-thing. No real profanities, no really racy stuff. It's all implied, like Elmer and Bugs being lovers and such.
Mel Blanc is a voice character actor with no equal. His voices are so out there and funny it's incredible. He's the real juice behind these classic 'toons. The one that had me laughing the most was the one where Bugs is shot and Elmer is holding him as he's "dying". Bugs gives a death scene that should've won him an honorary Oscar. Sheer hilarity. And there is even a Mel Blanc Oscar campaign clip that Reg has. He makes his case for being an actor who should get consideration for an Academy Award, and hey, why didn't they give him one? He did more with his voice than most actors do on screen! Give it up for Mel *GENIUS* Blanc!

I wish I took notes, but c'est la vie. I have no titles, but there is one you'd recognize, the one we've all seen: Bugs and the Bull in the bullring. It is a classic on all fronts. But there were scenes that didn't make the final cut (two, if memory serves).
And of course I can't remember them...so sorry folks.
I think the majority of these were made in the 40's, during WWII, or in the fifties. Reg said after the screening that some of them were from the War but not all. And he loved having them, that they were brilliant. Couldn't agree more. Tix were only ten bucks, so maybe I'll go again and give you a better synopsis. (WITH TITLES, dammit!)

And of note is that in the two times that I've been to the cineforum, Reg hasn't done any speeches or spiels before the screenings. FYI.