Debbie does Giger

Maybe that should be Giger does Debbie... Anyway, I get to show you something cool about two of my favorite artists. 

in 1981 Deborah Harry released here first solo album, KooKoo, between the Blondie albums Autoamerican and The Hunter. For the cover, the Swiss designer H.R. Giger painted her portrait as well as directing two promotional videos - this was fairly fresh off of his Oscar win for his work on the film Alien. 

The Results, Ummm... See for yourself.

Here is a BBC interview with both Debbie and Giger...

Night of the Juggle

Night of the Juggler is an under-appreciated 1980's action movie directed by Robert Butler and starting James Brolin. An interesting note about the director: apparently, Sidney J. Furie directed the majority of the film before falling ill and being replaced by Butler.

Brolin plays Sean Boyd an ex cop with enemies on the force (one who is trying to kill him - wait till you see what Boyd does to him) who is tearing around the city of New York  - 1980's New York at that - trying to find his daughter who has been kidnapped in a case of mistaken identity. Plus a great cameo by ex porn star Sharon Mitchel working in a peep show. 

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On

This is one of my favorite documentaries...

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On is a 1987 documentary from Kazuo Hara about 62-year-old Okuzaki Kenzo. He was a veteran of the Japanese occupation of  New Guinea during  World War II who gained notoriety by slingshoting ball-bearings  at Emperor Showa protesting  the ruler's war crimes. The documentary follows Okusaki as he sets out to conduct interviews with survivors and relatives... Things get violent quickly but he ends up getting the information he wants.

You may need to play with the closed captioning on the video - they seem to be in Spanish so you'll need to set the Translate caption to your desired language...

 

The La Choy Dragon

Ah, Dilbert the La Choy Dragon... A mascot advertising heat and serve Chinese food that wasn't an outright racist stereotype.

The La Choy Dragon came from the Jim Henson Company and began life as a hand-in puppet before becoming a full body suit that ran around, touting the wonder La Choy Chow Mein from 1965 to 1967 and how it was cooked, by he himself, in Dragon Fire, while knocking stuff over. Early on he was paired with Mert, a meek Muppet foil later not needed because actual people took his place. He was voiced by Jim Henson himself and puppeteered by Frank OZ. If that all wasn't enough, his earliest design by Jim was that of a large bird - guess who that became.

 

After the break, Dilbert feeds some Boy Scouts, a Sad Bride, and the making of the La Choy Dragon...

Redux Riding Hood

Redux Riding Hood was a Disney animated short directed by Steve Moore that went on to be nominated for an Academy Award in 1997.  The Wolf is voiced by Michael Richards and his wife by Mia Farrow - you can also hear Adam West, Don Rickles, and Fabio as well as Dan O'Shannon narrating. The plot is okay, but what it lacks it makes up for in the production design - you can read more about the making over at Steve Moore's Flip Animation Blog.

A Mouse and His Child

A Mouse and His Child, stands with Watership Down and The Polar Express as one of those movies that is made for kids which really freaks kids out. So much so that Jessica M. makes a Traumafession over at one of my favorite site, Kindertrauma.
Anyway, A Mouse and His Child is a 1977 animated film based on the Russell Hoban book of 1967. It is about a mouse and his son whom desire to be self winding. It is voiced by Alan Barzman as the mouse and Marcy Swenson as his child - along with Peter Ustinov, Cloris Leachman, Sally Kellerman, Andy Devine, and John Carradine. So if you read what Jessica M had to say be forewarned.  

Phil Ochs

I've recently become obsessed  with Phil Ochs' music. I found out about him a few years back and only recently began listening to him. right now I think he tops my list of songwriters, but it's his voice that amazes me. There are a few singers that when I hear their voices and I'm floored - Cass Elliot, Scott McMicken of Dr. Dog are two  others - but Ochs tops the list.

Ochs was born in El Paso,  Texas in 1940. He attended Ohio State University for three years before dropping out and moving to Greenwich Village where he began singing at open mic nights and by 1964 was well established enough to release his first album. His songs were for the most part highly political and varied between extremely lighthearted and farcical to extremely dark in tone.  He suffered from Bipolar disorder and was a heavy drinker before his suicide in 1975 at age 35.

One of my personal favorites of Ochs' songs is the The War Is Over from 1968 - here he is singing live from The Bitter End... 

The beginning of The Shining, the end of Blade Runner

It seems like there is no end to the amount of information there is about Stanley Kubrick's The Shining of 1980 and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner of 1982, well here is something to add to the list...

Did you hear that? The closing sequence from the theatrical release of Blade Runner came from unused footage from the opening sequence of The Shining given Ridley Scott by Stanley Kubrick.

First Post

Collage exploring the romanticization of domesticity in advertising. 1/8 The Moon Room

I've finally launched a new personal blog! My old one, at this point, hasn't been updated in about a year. This blog works in tandem with my site, IHeartTanis.com, and is replace the blog called The Deep Channels, which never should have been attempted in the first place. Most of the first posts will come from TDC to save the information there.

Enjoy!