Beauty Is Embarrassing

2012 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The life and work of a unique artist, Wayne White, a guy who writes dirty words on landscape paintings and made puppets with Pee Wee Herman.

Add this to the pile of documentaries about weird artists or otherwise-abnormal individuals that I like. White's an interesting guy because of his background in the hills of West Virginia or someplace like the hills of West Virginia and his emergence as this creative force in what I'd imagine is an area not known for treatin' people who make art kindly. I like art that seems to have been made by an artist who only wants to please himself. I also like my art with a dose of irreverence; the less serious the art, the more likely that I'll appreciate it, and White's funny word paintings don't really say much of anything but made the teenager inside me (poor choice of words?) giggle (that makes it worse, right?). That's the part of me that appreciates art, by the way--the immature side of me. It's the same reason I'd still watch Pee Wee's Playhouse, and White was a puppet-creating machine and puppeteer on that show. Seeing a bit of the behind-the-scenes stuff with that show was really great for this fan, of course. I also liked watching him make and then wear a giant LBJ head, and a gigantic and gigantically goofy museum piece was about the most whimsical piece of art that I've ever seen. This is a funny and inspiring documentary that almost approaches touching at one point, and I really enjoyed it. I just love creative people, and the world would be better off--at least way more interesting--if it was inhabited by more Wayne Whites.

My favorite part: White says, "You're only going to be on this earth for 80 years, so you better get on it. Time's running out." And then the next shot is him dancing in a giant LBJ mask. Beautiful editing there. 

My brother recommended this to me because he had noticed that I hadn't used the word "whimsical" on the blog for a while.

Here's a word painting that I stole from somebody on the Internet:

Blood Bath

1966 horror movie

Rating: 13/20

Plot: An artist who may or may not be a vampire kills attractive women and then dips their bodies in hot wax.

This one recalls the superior and more comedic (blackly) Bucket of Blood with its sculpting techniques and beatniks. Blood Bath, a movie that unfortunately isn't as interesting as the above poster makes it look, has an interesting history which explains why it's kind of a mess. Corman produced this movie and wanted Jack Hill of Spider Baby and The Wasp Woman fame to use footage of a movie Corman released in Europe but not in the U.S. He wasn't completely happy, so another director (Stephanie Rothman) came along and added a few scenes and changed the story around a little. So it's no wonder that this is disjointed and confusing. And it's too bad that it's slightly incomprehensible because the movie has so much style. There's great atmosphere early in the film with greasy atmosphere and impossible architectures and creepy bells, great black and white shots that look like they could have been in The Third Man or something. Later, there's a cool desert "He was mad!" scene and a nice shot of floating high heels in a swimming pool. The climactic scene, the only thing that even approaches horror, is effectively and efficiently dark and creepy. There's some cool movie artwork and even a little satire with some beatniks discussing the application of quantum physics to painting. This doesn't really overcome its convoluted production history or problems, but it is interesting enough to take a peek at.

Note: Like A Bucket of Blood, this has a very misleading title. There's sort of a bath, but no blood. And remember, you're not quite getting the cleavage or "the shrieking of mutilated victims caged in a black pit of horror" promised on the poster.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

2010 cave painting documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Werner Herzog and a bunch of boring people go into a cave to look at some paintings a child probably drew. See, they didn't have refrigerators in France 32,000 years ago, so cave parents just had their children draw on the walls. I'm not even a paleontologist, but I could figure that out. I have no idea why Werner Herzog didn't interview me for this movie.

This didn't thrill me, but it was nice seeing these pictures, the oldest human drawings we know of, even if it was just in boring old 2D. Some would say that Werner Herzog's narration gets in the way of his documenting, and although any of the 4 1/2 readers of this blog know exactly what I have to say about that, I thought his script here reached a bit. The outside-the-cave shots are really beautifully filmed. The inside-the-cave ones looked weird on my television, kind of wavy or something, probably the result of the 3D stuff. This didn't keep my interest for the duration, but it was worth watching.

I could probably paint a horse better than these people though. So overrated.

(Untitled)

2009 comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Avant-garde composer Adrian doesn't have a lot of fans while his brother, a painter named Josh, makes a pretty good living selling pleasant art--the painting equivalent to elevator music?--to hotels. Madeline owns an art gallery, making money off of Josh's work while showcasing the work of less-commercial artists. Josh brings Madeline to one of his brother's shows, and she becomes interested in him as both an artist and as a sleepover buddy. This creates all kinds of problems.

"Harmony was a capitalist plot to sell pianos!" Love that line. My favorite bit of comedy was when Goldberg's character was giving instructions on how to properly "play" a bucket to one of his "musicians," a scene that reminds me of the one in Scott Walker: 30 Century Man in which the documentary subject gives instructions on how to play meat percussively. The stupidly-titled (Untitled) gets avant-fart exactly right, and Adam Goldberg does pretension and frustration very well. It seems like he's an actor I see all the time, but looking through his filmography, I don't see a lot of titles that would make that true. Regardless, I never really like his characters. I'm not sure you're supposed to like his character here. He's a guy who needs to make compromises but refuses, neurotically. This takes some fun jabs at modern art(ists), both the visual artist and the sound artists like Goldberg's character. Thing is, while I think I was supposed to laugh at rather than scowl with the surly Adrian, I actually thought the music sounded pretty cool. I'm a sucker for kicked buckets though, and Goldberg apparently is classically trained in bucket playing, a real bucket virtuoso. I also liked the art pieces of character Ray Barko, a modern artist who uses taxidermy. Again, I'm pretty sure I was supposed to laugh at those works, but my favorite works of art are the ones that I can laugh at. The work of another artist, a character named Monroe, crossed the line from satirical to the unbelievably absurd. Like the only other Jonathan Parker (director) movie I've seen--Bartleby, with Crispin Glover--this seemed a little incomplete. I'm not sure it says what Parker wants it to say as completely or as coherently as it needs to. It's not a bad little film, but it should have been better. I did really like the last scene and the perfect look on Goldberg's face.

Galaxy 500 and Luna frontman Dean Wareham has a small role in this, by the way.

Art School Confidential

2006 black comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Jerome enrolls in an inner-city art college after high school graduation. He finds that art's a competitive game. He falls for a girl featured in the college brochure, a girl who, luckily for Jerome, does a little nude modeling for the drawing students in John Malkovich's Intro to Drawing class. An arch rivalry forms with another first-year student, Jonah, who seems to be standing in his way romantically and artistically. Meanwhile, a serial killer is on the loose. Oh, snap!

You have to look closely, but there is a brief Charlie Chaplin spotting in this movie.

This is 1/2 of a satirically fun comedy and 1/2 of a really dark satirical downer. Despite some foreshadowing, some dropped hints that things might turn uglier, it was still a little jarring. It forces you to switch the brain on though. So much of this centers on the main character, a straight man in a movie crowded with some more eccentric personalities. I liked the kid who played him, Max Minghella, a guy you almost recognize, then think you're just confusing him with Justin Long or somebody, and then later find out that he was in The Social Network. John Malkovich has a subtly comedic role as a drawing teacher/triangle artist. I enjoy Malkovich in comedies; of course, I think Malkovich actually might think all of his movies are supposed to be comedies. My favorite periphery lunatic is straight from the lunatic fringe, a failed Bukowski-esque artist played by Englishman Jim Broadbent. He's great and gets the best lines--"What are you laughing about, laughing boy?" and "I have to get back to my masturbation," a line followed immediately by The Facts of Life theme song. Despite this being a bit uneven and pretty thematically heavy, I enjoyed this enough to wonder if I really actually liked Zwigoff's Ghost World more than I think I did.

Waste Land

2010 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Popular Brazilian artist Vik Muniz befriends catadores who rummage through Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill and collaborates with them to use some of the recycled materials they save to make works of art.

The emotional impact of this caught me off guard, probably because I wasn't initially sure that I liked Vik Muniz's art or understood his motivations. The shots of the landfill and the catadores doing their jobs are pretty bleak, but you soon realize that this isn't about the location or a job that could easily be featured on one of those "Most Terrible Jobs Ever" television programs. At least it's not entirely about that. No, this is more about the individuals who work there, and the way this documentary (and Muniz) treats them as individuals is what makes this special. I enjoyed meeting these people, hearing about their pasts and problems and hopes and dreams, and most importantly, seeing the expressions on their faces that showed how much Muniz's work meant to them. More than any other documentary about art, you get to appreciate the impact that artwork can have on people, and that's a truly beautiful thing. This is a documentary that made me feel good.

My brother recommended this one.

Marwencol

2010 outsider artist documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Mark Hogancamp was severely beaten outside a bar by a few thugs. He wakes from his coma brain-damaged and traumatized and instead of dealing with a complicated real world that he can't control, creates a World War II town called Marwencol with soldier action figures and Barbie dolls that he can. Elaborate stories of romance and adventure develop in Marwencol, and Hogancamp photographs it all. Eventually, his "art" is discovered, and Hogancamp gets to show off his world at a New York City art show.

If you enjoy outsider art or stories about outsider artists like me, Marwencol's definitely a movie you should check out. It's the lone film of director Jeff Malmberg (although I do see film editing for fine works of art like The Hottie and the Nottie is on his resume) and he does a fine job giving us Mark's story objectively. The more Hogancamp's character develops in Marwencol, the stranger he gets, but Malmberg passes no judgement and it's obvious that his subject trusts him and considers him a friend. And I think that's what makes this so good. Hogancamp lets Malmberg into his little world, and we get an intimate look at both the little world and at its creator. Details about the latter (how he walks his army figure's Jeep every day; his love interests; some odd little surprises near the end) are interesting, but this movie's got another layer when the plots and subplots in Marwencol are shared. A lot of those reflect how Hogancamp sees his reality and how he deals with the trauma and the loneliness he feels after the attack, but they're also cool little fictions, the sorts of stories that Tarantino could probably tell really well. A third layer deals with Hogancamp's introduction to the world as an artist, something I'm not sure he's entirely comfortable with or really even cares about. It raises those questions about the purity and purposes of art. There's no denying that he stills of his characters interacting in Marwencol are pretty awesome though. I'm really really glad that Hogancamp shared this world with Malmberg and that Malmberg shared it with us in this great little documentary, a fascinating glimpse at a troubled mind and the very positive way that those troubles are dealt with.

Hogancamp's pictures:

Pecker

1998 John Waters comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A burger flipper named Pecker becomes an overnight art sensation after he shows off his photographs of his weird family, friends, and neighbors. His new-found fame stains those relationships though.

Pecker's likely a thinly-veiled autobiographical Waters joint, about as mainstream glossy as it gets for the director. My problem with Waters' movies is that he doesn't seem to be able to write anything funny and tries to make up for it with the crude and unusual. But where else are you going to get lines like these:

"Knock yourself out, butt plug."
"You teabag a customer again, and he'll fire your ass."
"Three times loser and he's sentenced to the chair but he's still got a boner."

And where else are you going to get shots of rats doing it, frequent references to "beaver," Virgin Mary ventriloquism, so many ugly people, and a scene with a guy getting it on with a washing machine? Add a really unusual soundtrack featuring novelty songs, nutso country, and indescribable alien lounge music, and you've got yourself a movie that's fun for the whole family. I don't know who this Edward Furlong is, but he seems like the type of actor who needs to be in television sitcoms, probably playing characters who are much younger than he is. At least this has the always-lovely Christina Ricci though.

Bucket of Blood

1959 delightful beatnik black comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Walter Paisley, an awkward loser, longs to be artsy-fartsy like the beatnik clientele of the Yellow Door Cafe where he works as a busboy. He buys himself some clay, sculpts a gray blob, and stabs his cat. When he's able to turn that feline tragedy into his first artistic masterpiece, he becomes a sensation around the Yellow Door, and the patrons begin to demand more.

More twisted fun from Roger Corman, this one, with its accidental kittycide and grotesque sculptures, also works as a biting satire of the art world. The production's cheap and, I'm guessing, quick, but they made the most of their limited time and monies. The beatnik stuff really dates this, but almost in a good way. I really liked the cool beatnik poet character Maxwell Brock (played by Julian Burton who was in The Masque of Red Death with Vincent Price), over-the-top and every bit of pretentious as he reads poems about ringing rubber bells and beating cotton gongs or saying profound things like "Life is an obscure hobo, bumming a ride on the omnibus of art." Paisley's sculptures, any which would look great in my living room, are really cool. I'd describe them, but it'd spoil things. Bucket of Blood is well-paced thriller and purposely funny, some of the darkest funny you might ever see. And the fact that it accidentally has something to say about creation and the art world along the way makes it even more worth the time. Oh, and ironically, I'm not sure there's any blood in this movie at all. And I don't remember seeing a bucket either.

Naked States

2000 documentary

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Spencer Tunick, artiste, travels America with the goal of photographing nudes in all fifty states. Art!

Part of the reason why I didn't like this was because of Spencer Tunick. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about the guy's demeanor rubbed me the wrong way. His "art" was a little too random, and I didn't like his photography anyway. As he asked a variety of people--men and women, conventionally attractive and less-conventionally attractive--to pose nude, he had this looky-at-me-giggle-giggle-I'm-an-artist attitude that I thought was intolerable. My favorite footage in the documentary was when Tunick went to a nude beach and figured he could boss everybody around while they were trying to enjoy themselves with naked beach bowling and other activities that ugly naked people do and then started whining when he wasn't getting his way. There was irony in his claims that he was somehow a savior for these people, that he was in some way liberating them from their fabric bondage while he was whining about them not doing exactly what he told them to do. I'm starting to believe that the less we know about and see or hear our artists, the better. I definitely saw far more of Spencer Tunick than I ever needed to see. Aside from all that, this isn't a good documentary anyway. It has the look and feel of your typical reality television show. I'm also annoyed that they left out Indiana because naked Hoosiers would definitely have bumped this up a couple points.