A Message to UVa: DISBAND YOUR FRATERNITIES--THEY ARE SCUM!

I try to avoid tirades on here, and avoid talking about my alma mater. But I couldn't be happier to see UVa's rotten, worthless, disgusting fraternities getting suspended. It should have happened LONG, LONG ago. When I was a student there, I was always acutely aware of those trashy frat thugs--entitled, misogynistic, hateful, tacitly racist little sheep. They were klutzy (and/or robotic workaholics) on their own, but in packs, they were dangerous, drunken Neanderthals. Their arrogant expressions practically shrieked "Do you know who my DAD is?"

The university kowtowed to them for fear of losing their filthy rich parents' endowments, allowing the worst of their inhuman behavior to go largely unpunished. I would like to voice my sincere hope that UVa's frat houses are bulldozed, the frat system abolished, and any criminals among their chicken-gutted ranks be sent to the meanest of America's penal institutions. I would love to see how big and brave and tough these guys are when confronted with a 6', 5" cellmate from Detroit who is about to turn his ass out.

To UVa's fraternities, and to any staff members who enabled them, I send my sincerest FUCK YOU.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/22/us/university-of-virginia-sexual-assault-allegations/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

For Sale- From the George Pal Estate- "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" Stylized Cast Portraits Painted by Joseph Smith

From the estate of producer/director George Pal (The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds) comes a set of twelve (12) large, framed original portraits by illustrator Joseph Smith depicting the stars of Pal's Cinerama film The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, in-character. Smith hand-painted several nearly identical sets of these stylized portraits to advertise the film. With the help of his wife, Smith built on the portraits by gluing pieces of actual fabric, beads, a toy crow on actress Beulah Bondi's shoulder, etc. to give them a unique, semi-three-dimensional quality. The set is comprised of portraits of actors Laurence Harvey, Barbara Eden, Carl Boehm, Yvette Mimieux, Clare Bloom, Walter Slezak, Oskar Homolka, Jim Backus, Buddy Hackett, Terry-Thomas, Russ Tamblyn, and Beulah Bondi. 

This set of paintings was on display in George Pal's Beverly Hills home for years. 

Sample images of the actual portraits for sale here are shown below. (To see a full set of similar paintings, refer to the hardbound Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm program book. It is not the exact same set--the types of fabric used, etc. vary, but most of their details match closely.) 

NOTE: The copyright notices are NOT on the actual paintings, only on the photos accompanying this listing. 

Joseph Smith's other distinguished credits as a movie poster artist include films like Ben-Hur, Spartacus, and Earthquake, among many others. 

Serious inquiries are welcome. 

  

Finding True Love in L.A.

Healthy advice about dating in Los Angeles from a longtime Angeleno friend of mine: "If the best that Charlize Theron can do here is Sean Penn, that should tell you something."

We Screamed, Screamed For Our Lives! And Loved Every Second of It!- LACMA'S William Castle Retrospective

How often do you leave a theater drunk with the sheer joy of what you've just experienced? I'm dazed and dizzy from the opening night of LACMA's William Castle Festival, a screening of Castle's inimitable The Tingler. The Museum pulled out all the stops in ways that would warm the long-dead director's heart: staff members were dressed as nurses and doctors at the entrance, and patrons were offered photo ops with a life-size Tingler. Castle's daughter, Terry, did a hilarious Q & A before the film began with another Tingler sitting on her lap. 

The audience's response was INCREDIBLE--this B-picture, over fifty years old and originally shot in two weeks, killed tonight. The totally receptive audience went berserk, won-over by Castle's and star Vincent Price's charisma and charm, and by the movie's sheer wonderful ludicrousness. When Price begged the viewers to "scream, scream for their lives," we all did. . . When the end title came up, we cheered and applauded madly, completely enamored of the bizarre catharsis of laughter and screaming we had communally experienced. Sheer, epic, unrelenting FUN. 

And I won a Tingler t-shirt. All for five bucks. 

THANK YOU, WILLIAM CASTLE!!!!!!!

THANK YOU, LACMA!!!!!!!

I can't recommend this series highly enough--for further information, check out LACMA's own Castle page:

http://www.lacma.org/series/let-there-be-fright-william-castle-scare-classics

A Message to the Family of WILLIAM CAMERON MENZIES, Wherever You Are

Earlier this year, the great movie production designer/director William Cameron Menzies (Gone With the Wind, Things to Come, The Sea Wolf, ad infinitum) was inducted into the Society of Illustrators' Illustrators Hall of Fame. Sadly, the Society was unable to locate any members of Mr. Menzies's family to present his award to. I am posting this message-in-a-bottle in the hopes that one of Menzies's descendants will read this and contact me. If you are out there and reading this, write to me via this blog and I will put you through to the appropriate parties.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Father's Day, indeed!

"Rick is dead! The People's Poet is dead!" R.I.P. Rik Mayall.

"This house will become a shrine, and punks and skins and rastas will all gather 'round and hold their hands in sorrow for their fallen leader. And all the grown-ups will say, 'But why are the kids crying?' And the kids will say, 'Haven't you heard? Rick is dead! The People's Poet is dead!'"

British TV comedy has lost one of its leading lights today, Rik Mayall, who has died at 56. Mayall's series "The Young Ones" was television's dark Yellow Submarine--unfettered imagination at work, where literally anything could happen at anytime--and Mayall was its rudder. His character, Rick, was the epitome of the worthless, trendy, self-important collegiate "radical" who can't do wrong right. Whether fantasizing about his superhero alter ego, "The People's Poet", or getting pummeled by his roommate Vyvyan's mum, Rick embodied the worst attributes of the pretentious scenesters of his own era and today. Half of the imbeciles wandering around Williamsburg, Brooklyn could be Rick's twins.

His performances were priceless.