Vincent Gallo.... C/D?

I liked Peranson's article. Also, Hoberman on Gallo was prime.

Great quote, but he does seem to be a tosser.

http://www.buddyhead.com/other/vincentgallo/page_3.html

http://www.suntimes.com/output/entertainment/cst-ftr-ebert04.html

Evil, but very funny.

Obviously, "The Brown Bunny" is not for the mass audience, but you gotta give it to Vincent though for making something totally uncompromising and getting a ten million dollar budget for such a small scale operation.

Sounds like "The Brown Bunny" is heavily influenced by "Two Lane Blacktop," a masterpiece of film that is often derided as dull and boring by people who think Kevin Smith is bold and daring and just fucking hilarious.

We just don't have the attention span for such films anymore, and I suspect "The Brown Bunny" is such a film. I commend Gallo, even though I haven't seen the film yet. I hope this is not his last film.

Vincent Gallo is simply fencing his persona within the film industry just like Matthew Barney hustles the artworld. That's what it's all about. Gallo is similar, but he is a "renaissance" hustler. But I don't believe he'll write the Great American Novel since he doesn't seem to enjoy reading novels.

Buffalo '66 was one of the greatest independent films ever made. Sure he borrows a hell of a lot from Cassavettes and French New Wave auteurs, but there one can emulate far worse.

Vincent Gallo is simply fencing his persona within the film industry just like Matthew Barney hustles the artworld. That's what it's all about. Gallo is similar, but he is a "renaissance" hustler. But I don't believe he'll write the Great American Novel since he doesn't seem to enjoy reading novels.

Buffalo '66 was one of the greatest independent films ever made. Sure he borrows a hell of a lot from Cassavettes and French New Wave auteurs, but one can emulate far worse.

yeah but Cub I don't see why you need to drag the Cremaster films into this--you're assuming (based on what?) that Ebert wouldn't like them, & using that to disparage his brown bunny comments--it's kind of pointless no?

also you must admit this is nonsense

Thank you, Raskolnikov.

It all comes down to this:

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls vs. Buffalo 66

Russ Meyer and Ebert all the way.

Some critics have become the greatest directors we have know, like the Cahiers du Cinema crew. There were really fanboys with a fanzine of their own. But they still worshipped Brecht.

I would watch almost anything over Ebert's colon. I'll take "The Brown Bunny" over the "Ebert's Round Brown."

It implies you're somehow separate from them. In reality, we're all individual voices IN the mass, and something which you like -- I'm not talking about film here, but anything in general -- might be seen by someone else as an indictment for you just being 'one of the masses' in turn. So I wouldn't be so quick to condemn.

http://www.nypost.com/gossip/36030.htm

Russ Meyer and Ebert all the way."

A-fucking-men. I liked Buffalo 66 but Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is a bizzare-o masterpiece of the highest order. Not a dull moment in that film anywhere.

Ned, I agree completely with you on the individual as one of many thing. I probably just came across as a bit aloof. That's just part of my nature though.

I do love this Ebert/Gallo feud. Gallo shouldn't take it too such a personal level with the Siskel comment. That's just as nasty as nasty gets. And Ebert is a funny guy.

What I would like to see is Michael Medved's review of "The Brown Bunny," because if Medved says it is a bad film then it must be good.

That would have been genius.

One of the most enjoyable nights of my life -- seeing a screening of Beyond at UCLA when it was still officially out of circulation, back in 1991. A huge number of old punk band folks and scenesters showed up -- chatted with one of the guys in the Droogs for a while -- and the panel was Meyer, Ebert and a good chunk of the actors, including the guy who played Z-man! Allegedly he had been ashamed of the film/angry with Meyer for years, but he was there and the conversation was all good fun. What's her name who played the lead Carrie Nation was wonderfully wry and witty (and is actually British! pretty good American accent in the film).

if Medved says it is a bad film then it must be good.

These days, Medved thinks anything and everything is a bad film that isn't pure fluff that celebrates a specifically monothiestic god.

aww yeah

http://members.aol.com/anakrid/photos13.jpg

In an interview with the online film publication indieWIRE, independent filmmaker, actor, photographer, painter, model, and composer Vincent Gallo said, "[T]he best interview of Vincent Gallo was done by Vincent Gallo. The best articles about Vincent Gallo were written by Vincent Gallo, the best acting performance of Vincent Gallo was directed and edited by Vincent Gallo from a screenplay written by Vincent Gallo; even the best photographs of Vincent Gallo were taken by Vincent Gallo. So you see, this is painful for me."

Listening to Vincent Gallo's Recordings of Music for Film, it's easy to see what he means. These experimental, reticent musings, culled together from his various movie scores (including Buffalo 66, The Way It Is, Downtown 81), are best taken as a personal experience from their creator. The only alternative is a direct emotional response from the individual listener. Everything else is bullshit analysis in lieu of pure feeling.

Gallo provides ample liner notes describing his experiences with the underground. Though he writes elegantly and pointedly about his artistic flourishes, his dogged passion to the medium, and indifference (or dislike) toward industry practice, it's best to save those reflections until after hearing the sounds as an egotistical listener. Divorce them from the movies they accompany, and they stand on their own as fleeting tone poems running a minute or two each. It's good to let the blues, the romance, the yearnings of Gallo wash over you. Try to believe the songs were written for your own introspection.

1. Her Smell Theme. The lonely strumming sounds become distracted by smoky drifts of another theme, as one guy in his apartment has wafts of perfume or sweat in his heartfelt recollections.

2. The Girl of Her Dreams. Discordant notes pile up, trying to get somewhere, forming a cluttered pattern. Underneath is a deep, low hum. Damned if I can't get it straight, but damned if I won't try.

3. A Brown Lung Hollering. The heart is too big for the chest and rattles against the ribcage, as striking sounds and saxophone foghorns erupt.

4. The Way It Is Waltz. A piano accepts circumstance and hopes for something more. It's atypical Gallo, and it's easy to imagine thoughts about some girl. And it must be raining.

5. Glad to Be Unhappy. A teasing little smile of a song has notes flickering away like a wry chuckle.

6. Brown Storm Poem. More waves of dread come creep, creep, creeping in.

7. Good Bye Sadness, Hello Death. Ah, shimmering epiphanies! Here's a song Martin Scorsese might have used in The Last Temptation of Christ, a full minute of wholeness.

8. Brown Daisies. The tune plays low, with its eyes looking at its feet as it walks down the street. It doesn't look where it's going, coasting on an instinctive rhythm and pace.

9. And a Colored Sky Colored Gray. A touch of blues guitar, sitting on the dock of the bay when it's overcast and a little cold outside. The clouds don't roll away, but they've merged into a deep bed for all your doubts to linger on.

10. Fishing For Some Friends. Friends are good, and sometimes absent. Let's take a more literal attack, though, and say the song is about a hunter stalking its prey -- only the guy is a doofy fisherman whose bait and tackle box rattles around as he struggles with his line.

11. Six Laughs One Happy. It's the lone triangle sound in this chamber expression piece that stands out for me and says "Bing! Bing!" Talk about your bright-eyed, perky individual in a room full of groaning hangovers. I don't know whether to embrace it or brush it away.

12. Sunny and Cloudy. Music to march to? A heartbeat and a clarion call go about their business side by side. Another day's work lies ahead.

13. No More Papa Mama. There are a few instruments at work here, but it's all about one guy playing alone on the guitar. Liken it to the guy camped out on the bench in Grand Central Station as busy, busy people are a gigantic blur around him. Yeah, he's moved out. And now what the hell is he supposed to do? Think, think, think.

14. Fatty and Skinny. Thick notes and thin notes -- I suppose they co-exist, though they don't interact. They only become more entrenched.

15. Her Smell Theme (reprise). Still that perfume... and all those bittersweet romantic thoughts and feelings have grown lucid, richer, and more vivid.

16. Lonely Boy. "Show a face from my childhood days," a voice sings. It sounds like an old recording of girlish, nostalgic charms (in fact, it's Gallo's vocal). "Now and then I start to cry," the voice pines, and it's really too bad. Romantics, prepare to be crushed under the weight of your own intense desire.

17. A Falling Down Billy Brown. So it goes, as it were. But you don't have to be happy about it. Those bastards...

18. Drowning in Brown. Let's all go to a midnight disco club, and maybe there'll be swinging trouble there.

19. A Somewhere Place. More nostalgic romanticism, but there's something so endearing about the small squeaks of the guitar that come before each lovely chord.

20. A Wet Cleaner. As Dennis Hopper advised Christian Slater in True Romance, "Just slow it down, maaaan!"

21. Sixteen Seconds Happy. Why is it that we associate happiness with wind chimes? But yes, it's tranquil.

22. With Smiles & Smiles & Smiles. There is no visual or verbal association for this tune. It's music for glazing your eyes over, which is not necessarily a bad thing. You want to find the closest couch or beanbag and sink into it, hearing stuff like this. The abrupt climax is slightly unnerving, and appropriate. Where did that vibe go?

23. A Cold and Gray Summer Day. The opening notes are left to linger in the air. This meditation on melancholy is obsessive, reflexive, subjective, compulsive, repetitive, hauntingly bleak, and startlingly beautiful.

24. Brown 69. It's a song with personality, and there's enough mystery about that person that you'd like to get to know them better. But does mystery preserve attraction? And is that a reason to return to Brown 69? The slow, sloping, downbeat rhythms have a meandering, quiet man's attractiveness.

25. Dum Beet. The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long. By the time you've adjusted your vision to the flashing lights, it's already gone.

26. Me and Her. Melodious complications that feel like the opening of a heartfelt ballad, and purposefully never get there. Keep up those defenses.

27. Ass Fucker. Experiments in sounds culminate in a festering nightmare. It ain't gentle, but it's quick.

28. Ass Fucker (reprise). "No, please! Please!" Hey, come back here! I'm not finished with you yet! (Or is he simply fixing the rusty carburetor?)

29. I Think the Sun is Coming Out Now. Some bleary-eyed optimism at the end of the tunnel, shaken and a little crazed but perhaps the better for having suffered through it. Then the music slowly fades away into nothing.