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March 31, 2018March 31, 2018

Happy Easter: How to Kill a Chocolate Bunny and Other Sunday Fun

Of the many chocolate bunny torture-porn videos available on YouTube (and be assured, there are many), by far the most aesthetically realized is How to Kill a Chocolate Bunny. With no fewer than three Leporidae-cacao executions (each achieved with heat-generating household appliances), How to Kill a Chocolate Bunny might be the Bambi vs. Godzilla of its time.

Chocolate bunny humor isn’t only an online video venture. The fine minds behind the above meme are nibbling at the market with their own comedic confection. But, the grandfather of chocolate bunny humor is, of course, ectomorphic comedian Emo Philips, whose early 80s standup routine included a gag in which a chocolate bunny is used as a means of psychological assessment:

“And [the psychologist] gives me a chocolate Easter bunny. And this shows how tricky those guys are. I eat the chocolate and I think, wait a second… this isn’t around Easter. “Was this a test?” He said, “Yes.” “And what does it mean?” He said, “Well, had you eaten the ears first you would have been normal; had you eaten the feet first you would have had an inferiority complex; had you eaten the tail first you would have had latent homosexual tendencies; and had you eaten the breasts first you would have had a latent oedipal complex.” I said, “Well, go on. What does it mean when you bite out the eyes and scream, ‘Stop staring at me!’?'” He says, “It shows you’ve a tendency towards self-destruction.” I said, “What do you recommend?” He says, “Go for it!”

If you can’t stomach killing a chocolate bunny, there’s always the carob option…

March 28, 2018April 23, 2018

NYTimes: Garlington and Bertotti’s Paper Arch at the Smithsonian

Congrats to pals Michael Garlington and Natalia Bertotti whose collaboration, “Paper Arch,” figures prominently in “No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man” at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. This is its first major national showcase. And, thanks to the artists’ generosity, a version of the arch also figures prominently in our film Pill Head, which we shot in their studio off hours. Elements of the proto-“Paper Arch” became incorporated into the film’s mise en scène and it leads to quite a third act plot point. We remain eternally grateful and cheer on our fellow Lumavillains!

Per the New York Times:

The 15-foot-tall ‘Paper Arch,’ which the Renwick commissioned, is made of wood, paper, fabric and found objects and conceals two peepholes in its base. It is covered in photos of people (including Susan Sarandon and Willem Dafoe), flora and fauna, and repeated prints of an eye — his mother’s — that Mr. Garlington has tattooed on his forearm. ‘Our tag line is ‘the horror and the wonder,’ he said. But for the arch, they decided, ‘let’s just put the wonder in.”

This snap of the artists installing the Paper Arch at the Smithsonian provides a sense of the project’s scale.

Below are some screen grabs from the rough cut of Pill Head that include the artists’ work-in-progress.

March 21, 2018March 21, 2018

Year to the day

Last year, we stood here convincing ourselves we could make a movie. This year, that movie is in the can. #pillheadmovie #indiefilm #postproduction #itcanbedone

March 14, 2018March 27, 2018

How to Celebrate Pi Day Like Dr. Strangelove

In honor of Pi Day, the annual commemoration of the mathematical constant pi, or 3.14 (hence, March 14), below are images from perhaps the most infamous pie fights ever filmed – then never screened.

Die-hard Stanley Kubrick fans have long known about the pie fight which was to conclude Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb but was inevitably cut (the reasons for the edit span studio pressure to various observations that it just didn’t play). It’s unclear whether the footage still exists, which may be why it has yet to appear as a DVD extra. What does exist are various, grainy stills that show Peter Sellers, George C. Scott and anyone else who happened to be in the War Room, covered in curd, crust and whip cream.

Photos from DR. STRANGELOVE’s tragically scrapped “Pie Fight” scene, which Kubrick originally wanted to end the film (and the world) 🥧🌎 pic.twitter.com/WM5Y9hfHwc

— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) January 29, 2018

A page at TerrySouthern.com recounts the missing scene in the screenwriter’s own words:

This footage began at a point in the War Room where the Russian ambassador is seen, for the second time, surreptitiously taking photographs of the Big Board, using six or seven tiny spy-cameras disguised as a wristwatch, a diamond ring, a cigarette lighter, and cufflinks. The head of the joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) catches him in flagrante and, as before, tackles him and throws him to the floor. They fight furiously until…

President Merkin Muffley famously intervenes:

“This is the War Room, gentlemen! How dare you fight in here!”

Then Turgidson insists that the ambassador is searched, including all “seven bodily orifices.” The ambassador will have none of it:

“Why you capitalist swine!” he roars, and reaches out of the frame to the huge three-tiered table that was wheeled in earlier. Then he turns back to General Turgidson, who now has a look of apprehension on his face as he ducks aside, managing to evade a custard pie that the ambassador is throwing at him. President Muffley has been standing directly behind the general, so that when he ducks, the president is hit directly in the face with the pie. He is so overwhelmed by the sheer indignity of being struck with a pie that he simply blacks out. General Turgidson catches him as he collapses.

Chaos ensues. Film history is made, then erased. Sigh. Happy Pi Day.

March 4, 2018March 4, 2018