If you read these blog posts for the druggy rockin’ weirdness I’m usually posting you might not know that I’m a film and art critic in real life. I love getting spooky on Insomnia in October, but the other night I found a great opportunity to fold in some of my critical writing as well.

If you didn’t know, horror actor supreme, Vincent Price, was also an O.G. art collector. Price was so serious about art that he curated a collection of affordable art prints, reproductions, and even originals for Sears, Roebuck to sell to its catalog customers. Here’s an amazing video of Price explaining the Vincent Price Collection of Fine Art to Sears employees…

This presentation is for the employees of Sears as they are being introduced to a new product to sell, that is, the art collection selected by actor Vincent Price. It is not focused on the customers of Sears, only the sales personnel at the various stores. It is not meant to be entertaining, only informational. Vincent Price and his wife since 1951 had been very active in introducing art to the students at East Los Angeles College. One of the galleries at the college is named after Mr. Price.

Here’s some more from Artist’s Network…

It was a surprise to us to learn that on October 6th, 1962, Sears unveiled an offering of original works of art for sale at its store in Denver, Colorado. Sears had commissioned famous actor and art collector, Vincent Price, to assemble a collection of art and gallery paintings that would be merchandised through its stores, making fine art more accessible to all Sears’ customers. They gave Price carte blanche to travel the world to put the collection together. After that first opening in Denver, the program was broadened with exhibits of art in ten additional Sears stores and after the first 1,500 pieces of art has been sold, it was expanded nationwide to all Sears stores. The program ended in 1971, but more than 50,000 original artworks had been sold during its time.

The Vincent Price Collection, as it was called, included gallery paintings and other works by Rembrandt, Chagall, Picasso, Whistler and many contemporary artists of the day. It included a watercolor by Andrew Wyeth and a painting by Salvador Dali commissioned by Price.

Here’s the video…

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I recently got on a kick of remembering the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman before I realized that I’d missed the chance to observe what would have been the actor’s 50th birthday on July 23. Most of Hoffman’s fans didn’t know that he’d struggled with substances in his early 20s. And it came as a big shock to me when the actor died of an overdose of heroin and cocaine mixed with prescription tranquilizers and stimulants in 2014.

Just about a year before he died, Hoffman was interviewed by philosopher Simon Critchley…

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Today we celebrate the long strange life of actor, writer and director Buck Henry whose contributions to Saturday Night Live and scripting of The Graduate were crucial contributions to the countercultural voice that paved the way for the best of today’s contemporary comedy. Buck is 85 on December 9. Here he is discussing his twisted, gnarly, celebrated writing…

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Seems there’s always a significant anniversary to recount this year. Here’s another remembrance: this one marks five years since the death of Dennis Hopper.

Hopper was an actor, director, writer, photographer and art collector. He was good at each of them and occasionally great at every one.

Here’s a compilation of Hopper interviews presented by Charlie Rose in memoriam…

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In 1999, the documentary film American Movie captured the day-to-day struggles of Milwaukee based independent filmmaker Mark Borchardt. At the beginning of the film, Borchardt outlines a feature film he’s struggling to make. That film is called Northwestern, but Borchardt switches gears and decides to finish his short film ,Coven, in hopes that a successfully distributed short will allow him to secure funding and distribution for his masterpiece.

The doc is a classic that pictures Borchardt and his oddball film company in the throes of trying to realize what seems like an impossible dream: to create a great work of art while simultaneously tripping over themselves, their bad habits, troubled lives and the pressures of grinding out a creative life in the midst of working class America.

The doc made Borchardt famous and his finished cut of Coven proves that his dream of being a filmmaker was fueled by real vision and energy all along: The film is shot in starkly contrasting blacks and whites and Borchardt’s spooky framing of the desolate Wisconsin countryside in winter recalls George Romero’s compositions of the Pennsylvania countryside in Borchardt’s favorite film, Night of the Living Dead. And the director’s turn in front of the camera in the lead role of a writer struggling with drugs and alcohol is also commendable.

In the film, Mike is a freelance writer who’s barely making a living. He takes pills to work long hours and drinks so he can sleep. After a close call that lands him in the hospital, a friend convinces Mike to attend a support group meeting. But is the group just the helpful organization they claim to be or something more sinister?

Here’s Coven…

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25 years ago, in February of 1989, filmmaker John Cassavetes died. One of the greatest actors of his generation, Cassavetes mostly turned his back on appearing in front of the camera in favor of self-financing a series of highly personal, deeply polarizing films that continue to vex critics, actors, directors and audiences alike.

I discovered Cassavetes in a book a long time before I discovered him on a screen. He gave me some good advice at a time when I needed it. Paraphrasing: If you’re the kind of artist who hears a voice and you stop listening to that voice, the voice will stop talking to you. I made major life-decisions based on this advice from an interview in a book and I’ve never regretted it.

I first saw Cassavetes as an actor when I was a kid watching The Dirty Dozen on TV with my dad. I saw the films he wrote and directed much later when a retrospective came to my local art house theater in Nashville. The films were scheduled as double features, but I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to pay for each one. The woman taking tickets told me that if I could sit through the first one, the second one was free.

I love these challenging films and this challenging artist who was so maddeningly unrelenting in his love for his art, his family, his friends and his audience. He loved them all so much he’d accept nothing from them — or us — but the absolute best of ourselves. He expected revelations and he found them. And he filmed them.

Here is the man with his friends and family working on one of his greatest…

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