The Fisherman's Daughter - Tzarevna Scaling (2020)

A fishmonger's daughter drinks some tea rumoured to cure insomnia and enters into a hallucagenic fairy-tale world where she must complete a series of tasks to determine if she has what it takes to become a Tzarevna (the daughter of the Tzar). Click on the image above to be taken to the full film.

The Naked Zoo (1970)

A seductive matron lives in Miami with her wealthy, wheelchair-bound husband. Frustrated, she beds a young author. The gravy train abruptly derails when her husband finds out, and murder ensues.

Canned Heat perform in the party scene, playing "One Kind Favor", from the 1968 record Living the Blues.

A cracker of an album:

Siddhartha (1972)

Siddhartha is the story of a young Brahmin and his search for a meaningful way of life. His journey takes him through periods of harsh asceticism, sensual pleasures, material wealth, self-revulsion and eventually to the oneness and harmony that he had been seeking. The story is based on the best-selling novel by German Nobel Prize winner Hermann Hesse.

Directed by Conrad Rooks.

Based on the 1922 novel by Hermann Hesse.

Photographed in luminous Eastmancolor by Sven Nykvist.

Colour. 82 minutes.

Filmed on location in India, both in Bharatpur, Rajastahn and in the holy city of Rishikesh, Uttar Pradesh.

Putney Swope (1969)

When its chairman dies, an advertising firm's executive board must elect someone to fill the position. Each member, unable to vote for himself, casts a secret ballot for Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson), the firm's only black executive, assuming he wouldn't receive any votes from the other members. But once in power, Swope makes radical changes to the firm -- like keeping only one white employee and refusing to advertise harmful products -- all under the firm's new moniker, "Truth and Soul, Inc."

Directed by Robert Downey Sr. in 1969, what unfolds is a chaotic, funk-infused critique of capitalism, hypocrisy, and the commodification of rebellion itself. Shot in stark black-and-white with bursts of surreal color, Putney Swope dances between absurdity and truth-using rhythm, satire, and unfiltered energy to mirror a society selling both progress and illusion.

Funeral Parade of Roses (1969)

Funeral Parade of Roses (薔薇の葬列, Bara no Sōretsu) is a 1969 Japanese drama art film directed and written by Toshio Matsumoto, loosely adapted from Oedipus Rex and set in the underground gay culture of 1960s Tokyo. It stars Peter as the protagonist, a young transgender woman, and features Osamu Ogasawara, Yoshio Tsuchiya and Emiko Azuma. A product of the Japanese New Wave, the film combines elements of arthouse, documentary and experimental cinema, and is thought to have influenced Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange (although many of the points of comparison can also be found in earlier movies such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Love Is Colder Than Death).

In ’60s Japan, Gonda the owner of a gay bar runs a parallel drug business there. He is in a relationship with a transvestite Leda who manages the place for him. But with Leda losing her youth and her geisha-sensibilities ageing, Gonda shifts his attention to the young and pop-cultured Eddie, another transvestite working at the bar.

Funeral Parade of Roses follows a non-linear narrative with throwbacks to Eddie’s childhood without a father who left early and a mother who found his masculinity amusing. It all pieces together in the end while also capturing and satirizing the buzz of the underground drug, film and gay scene of ’60s-’70s Japan.

This was one of Stanley Kubrick's favourite films.

The Mask (1961)

A young archaeologist thinks he is cursed by an Aztec mask that makes him have strange nightmares. Before committing suicide, he sends the mask to his psychiatrist, who soon plunges into the mask's nightmarish world.

The Mask (re-released as Eyes of Hell and The Spooky Movie Show) is a 1961 Canadian surrealist horror film produced in 3-D by Warner Bros. It was directed by Julian Roffman and stars Paul Stevens, Claudette Nevins, and Bill Walker. It was written by Franklin Delessert, Sandy Haver, Frank Taubes and Slavko Vorkapich.

In a contemporary review, Howard Thompson of The New York Times commended the film's acting and cinematography but criticized the film's nightmare sequences, soundtrack and melodramatic plot. The Hollywood Reporter praised the film as "a superior horror film".

In retrospective reviews, Time Out panned the film, deeming it "a bland and hackneyed murder mystery that was spiced up by surreal nightmare sequences" and "tacky" use of 3D. Brad Wheeler of The Globe and Mail gave the film one out of four stars, similarly criticizing its 3D and plot and stating that its appeal was "limited to genre fetishists and popcorn-chomping ironists". Conversely, Chris Coffel of Bloody Disgusting felt that, despite a thin story, the film's psychedelic visuals, makeup effects and set pieces made it an enjoyable B-movie in the vein of William Castle.

The film has since gained a fan following over the years and is now considered a cult classic.The film was also featured in a season 13 episode of the cult science fiction series Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Short Cuts (1993)

Short Cuts is a 1993 American comedy-drama film, directed by Robert Altman. Filmed from a screenplay by Altman and Frank Barhydt, it is inspired by nine short stories and a poem by Raymond Carver. The film is set in Los Angeles, in contrast to the original Pacific Northwest backdrop of Carver's stories. Short Cuts traces the actions of 22 principal characters, both in parallel and at occasional loose points of connection.
"Los Angeles always seems to be waiting for something. Permanence seems out of reach; some great apocalyptic event is on the horizon, and people view the future tentatively. Robert Altman's 'Short Cuts' captures that uneasiness perfectly in its interlocking stories about people who seem trapped in the present, always juggling." - Roger Ebert

Alice in Wonderland (1966)

With music by Ravi Shankar. Alice in Wonderland is a 1966 BBC television play, shot on film, based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It was adapted, produced and directed by Jonathan Miller, then best known for his appearance in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe. Miller's production is unique among live-action Alice films in that he consciously avoided the standard Tenniel-inspired costume design and "florid" production values. Most of the Wonderland characters are played by actors in standard Victorian dress, with a real cat used to represent the Cheshire Cat. Miller justified his approach as an attempt to return to what he perceived as the essence of the story: "Once you take the animal heads off, you begin to see what it's all about. A small child, surrounded by hurrying, worried people, thinking 'Is that what being grown up is like?'"

Sassy the Sasquatch

Sassy the Sasquatch, commonly known as just 'Sassy' is the deuteragonist in The Big Lez Show, a minor character in both the spin-off/prequel miniseries The Mike Nolan Show and the Mike Nolan’s Long Weekend and the titular main protagonist in the spin-off series, Sassy the Sasquatch. He is Lez's best friend and next door neighbour. Sassy lives and hangs out with a group of three other Sasquatches - Donny, Wayno, and Scruffy - as well as Owlanox and reside in a run down house next door to Lez.

One of Sassy's defining character traits is his ability to take excessive amounts of drugs without being injured or dying as a result. He is shown as being constantly high, whilst accusing other characters around him for being 'druggos' in the meantime.

Sometime after parting ways with Scruffy, Sassy is walking aimlessly around Antarctica watching the auroras, when suddenly a giant orb of light (which he encountered and involuntarily ate earlier in the show) erupts out of him and consumes him. He arrives in another dimension. After figuring out how to break free from this place, by using his imagination, he meets his Higher Self, who explains what he and his purpose are.

His Higher Self explains that he keeps erasing his memories and reliving his past. Confused at which past he's reliving, Higher Sassy shows Sassy all the experiences he forgot, including the universe in which The Big Lez Show occurred. After quickly (in our perspective) reliving through the events of The Big Lez Show, Sassy remarks how sad he feels about Lez's death. Higher Sassy is struck with the idea to send Sassy into the Jez universe, so he can have some closure and leave with the knowledge that Big Lez is alive and living his best life in another dimension. Returning with some proper closure and satisfaction with Lez's story, Sassy returns to his Higher Self. After Higher Sassy asks Sassy what he wants to do now, Sassy's last request is to relive the story once more. Higher Sassy is surprised but obliges, allowing Sassy to return to Earth in the year 1991, in a forest beside Nigel's ranch outside of Brown Town. After arriving, Sassy uses his interdimensional portals to retrieve Owly, Wayno, Scruffy, and Donny from their respective timelines. The five of them return to Nigel's property through the portal. The sight of this understandably freaks Nigel the fuck out who requests them to go back to wherever they came from. However Sassy's portal seems to break down, preventing them from leaving. With the five of them arriving on Earth in 1991, so begins their lives in Brown Town, which many years later, leads to the events of the entire Big Lez Show.

As his Higher Self reveals, Sassy is an interdimensional time traveler, or 'observer'. Sassy was splintered from his higher self (which is a sort of deity) for the purpose of exploring the multiverse, collecting memories and experiences, with which to ultimately return to his Higher Self to learn more about the multiverse. However after living through the events of The Big Lez Show, Sassy misses Lez after his death, and wishes to relive the story again. Sitting at the fire, after recounting the story to Nigel, Sassy eats his "magic jelly bean" which erases all his memories (and gives him a bit of a buzz), after which all he wants is to see a dinosaur. Right after this the aforementioned grey aliens arrive out of an interdimensional portal. Seeing this as his opportunity to see a dinosaur, he barges into the spacecraft and starts pressing buttons and generally fucking around with the alien tech. Obviously pissed off by this, the four aliens handcuff him and oblige to take him back to dinosaur times. They drop him off in handcuffs on Earth on the day of the KT mass extinction event 66 million years ago, completing the cycle which the series started off at.

It's unknown how long Sassy spent reliving this cycle of experiencing and forgetting, but he definitely did it a fuck-ton of times. Eventually however, after god knows how many cycles, Sassy makes the ultimate decision to cast his magic jelly bean into the campfire, finally breaking the cycle and allowing Sassy to live on to see and experience new things. After this he presumably returns to and becomes one with his Higher Self again, though it's never explicitly shown in the show.

BE PEACE

Jimi Hendrix (1973)

 

Jimi Hendrix (1973) from Robert Alan (Scoobzy) McDowell on Vimeo.

This documentary was made three years after Jimi Hendrix's untimely death. At the time it was an example of how a visual biography should be done, but some of the information in it needs revising in the light of new information uncovered over the years. The film contains concert footage spanning the Marquee in 1967 to his last UK performance at the third Isle of Wight festival in 1970; along the way we see classic performances at Monterey (1967), Woodstock (1969), Fillmore East (1969/70), and Berkeley (1970). A double album was released to tie-in with the film, containing the complete performances in the film, along with interviews with people in the film (not necessarily the same interviews). The film is worth seeing for Jimi's performances, and to hear what his contemporaries have to say about him (Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell, Lou Reed, Mick Jagger, Pete Townsend, and others).

The Big Cube (1969)

Former actress Andriana clashes with her step-daughter Lisa over their inheritance. Lisa and her 'hippie' boyfriend plot to drive her insane with LSD. Will they be successful in this diabolical plot?

Santa Sangre (in Spanish)

A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his armless mother--the leader of a strange religious cult--and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name as he becomes "her arms".

Bedazzled (1967)

Bedazzled is a 1967 British comedy DeLuxe Color film directed and produced by Stanley Donen in Panavision format. It was written by comedian Peter Cook and starred both Cook and his comedy partner Dudley Moore. It is a comic retelling of the Faust legend, set in the Swinging London of the 1960s. The Devil (Cook) offers an unhappy young man (Moore) seven wishes in return for his soul, but twists the spirit of the wishes to frustrate the man's hopes.

LET'S GO - Psychedelic era Vancouver 1968

LET'S GO examines Vancouver's psychedelic scene in 1968 on 4th Avenue, the heart of flower power. Bill Good hosts the show and among the celebrity guests in Part 1 are Country Joe (and the Fish), Pat Boone and Richard Pryor. The weekly Vancouver, BC edition of the CBC network series usually featured local bands and singers and occasionally celebrity groups like Eric Burdon & the Animals. In Part 2 the guests joining in the discussion were The Everly Brothers, The Beach Boys, Harper's Bizarre, Little Richard, Bobby Hebb, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra jr. with comments from Timothy Leary and the Beatles' spiritual advisor Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

The Substance - Albert Hofmann's LSD

 

THE SUBSTANCE - ALBERT HOFMANN'S LSD
by Martin Witz
35mm / HD, color-b/w, 89’, 2011
By coincidence rather then by design the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann makes a sensational discovery in the spring of 1943. He realizes that he is dealing with a powerful molecule that will have an impact not only on the scientific world. An investigation into our troubled relation with LSD. Told from its beginnings until today.

The Doors Are Open 1968

The Doors Are Open is a 1968 black-and-white documentary about the American rock group the Doors. It was produced by Jo Durden-Smith for Granada TV and directed by John Sheppard and first aired in the United Kingdom on 4 October 1968. The programme combines footage of the Doors playing live at London's Roundhouse venue, interviews with the band members and contemporary news snippets of world current affairs - protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention, French riots, statements from politicians and footage of the Vietnam War etc.

Syd Barrett: Up Close and Personal

A 2007 documentary. The rise and fall of original Pink Floyd front man Syd Barrett is charted in this documentary, which tells the whole story from the formation of Pink Floyd, through Barrett's creative genius, his shocking slide into psychiatric illness and finally to his tragic and untimely death. Includes interviews with many who knew and worked with him.

Grateful Dead England 1970 (The Lost Film)

The lost documentary of the Grateful Dead's first trip to England in May of 1970. As the story goes, the camera crew was dosed during filming and the project was abandoned. Leaving the film in a rough unfinished state.

The film features some great interviews and dialogue with the Dead, including the most extensive interview I have ever seen with Pigpen. There is a long sequence with Jerry and Micky before playing at the Hollywood 70 festival where they are clearly tripping. Jerry inparts some wisdom according to how the world looks for him. The fashion and the recording and music gear featured are a treat as are the amazing old cars in the background along with shots of London at the time.

The Hollywood Music Festival was held at Leycett in an area called Hollywood on the grounds of Ted Askey's Lower (pig) Farm at Finney Green, between Silverdale and Leycett, near Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England, on 23 and 24 May 1970. It was notable for the first performance of Grateful Dead in the UK and also for the performance of Jose Feliciano and Mungo Jerry, and featured such notable bands as Free, Ginger Baker's Air Force, Colosseum, Family, Black Sabbath and Traffic. The company responsible for the festival was Onista Ltd, who promptly went bankrupt unable to pay festival staff. Onista was an offshoot of Eliot Cohen's Red Bus company, with Ellis Elias and Elliot Cohen as the promoters.

Jimi Hendrix Experience | Live in Maui | Full Concert 1970

 

The Jimi Hendrix Experience on July 30, 1970 live in Maui. Some footage and audio has never been heard in 50 years. Just click on the image and it will take you there.......

Syd Barrett - Under Review

 

Syd Barrett - Under Review features rare live and studio performances from this hugely influential and legendary musician, interspersed with the independent review and criticism from a panel of esteemed experts.