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Alan’s Angel Angle

Joe Nolan — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 05:26:53 +0000

Reading some stories on Flipboard the other morning, I came across this piece about Alan Parker’s Mickey Rourke, Robert DeNiro and Lisa Bonet film, Angel Heart. Check out this headline:

ALAN PARKER’S ANGEL HEART IS ASTONISHING AS HELL

Obviously I had to flip this to find later and post here for y’all. Here’s a bit from this long, loving analysis of the iconic film…

English film director Alan Parker was first introduced to William Hjortsberg’s novel ‘Falling Angel’ almost immediately after its publication in 1978, but it took another seven or eight years for him to start working on its film adaptation, as the rights to the book passed from one pair of hands to the other. Parker loved the novel—a fine horror story of a hard-boiled detective accepting one job too many and finding himself up to his elbows in the occult and supernatural circumstances he couldn’t possible prepare himself for—and while writing the script he made only a handful of adjustments, determined to make sure Hjortsberg’s story is presented to viewers in the same dark, unsettling manner as the original. Even though he first approached Jack Nicholson to play the main role, the One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest star passed on the offer, much to Mickey Rourke’s delight. Upon meeting with Parker, as the filmmaker humorously puts it “looking like he always does off-screen, like an unemployed gas station attendant,” Rourke adamantly insisted he was not only the right man for the job, but the only one. After Robert De Niro finally accepted to take part in the project—and this happened only two weeks before the scheduled start of shooting—Parker was ready to embark on this ominous journey which would ultimately lead to the creation of one of the most haunting psychological horror films of the last half a century.

Check out the rest at the link above after watching this Mickey Rourke interview from the Angel Heart Blu-ray…

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Frank’s Wild Years

Joe Nolan — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 04:16:57 +0000

My last post celebrating Blue Velvet at 30 created a lot of fun comments and discussions on social media, and that made me glad that I’d bookmarked this great interview with Dennis Hopper. This chat covers Hopper’s work with David Lynch on the film, and looks back at the star’s storied, sordid, remarkable career.

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Radical: Muhammad Ali

Joe Nolan — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 04:07:19 +0000

I’m a huge fan of combat sports. Back in the day I’d occasionally post about fights here at Insomnia, but since the blog has zeroed-in on counterculture content, only an exceptional fighter might make an appearance. Over the weekend, we lost the great Muhammad Ali. Exceptional is one of the first words one might use to describe Ali’s truly beautiful expression of himself in martial arts as well as his iconoclastic role as an antiwar protester and a newly-converted member of the Nation of Islam in the 1960′s.

I could talk for hours about Ali’s jab or his dance-like defense, but for this illuminated tablet glowing before you we’ll let Ali talk for himself about race, god, war, class and fighting in the ring and out…

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Keef Hunter

Joe Nolan — Tue, 29 Dec 2015 03:49:52 +0000

Took a break from the blog for about a week while I was celebrating the holidays. I’m still celebrating the holidays, but I’m also back at this illuminated scroll, revealing the secrets of the sacred and the foibles of the fearsome. And sometimes — like today — I’m just posting cool little videos like this gem of an interview between Hunter S. Thompson and Keith Richards from 1993…

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Carpenter, Candid

Joe Nolan — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 03:56:23 +0000

I’m not a big horror movie fan, but that’s mainly because so many of the sub-genres and trends tend to be so limiting: shocking for shock’s sake, gore for gore’s sake. I also think its because I was spoiled as a Generation X kid who grew up during horror’s most recent golden age when directors like Sam Raimi, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg and John Landis were regularly unleashing masterful films that included hilarious gags, sizzling dialog, intelligent acting and groundbreaking concepts. Add to this list the director that probably hits that sweet spot between fun and scary more often than most — John Carpenter.

For this spooky October post I’m pointing at this interview in the Post Mortem series of chats with horrormeisters. Here, Carpenter discusses growing up in Bowling Green, Kentucky; going to film school; making his breakthrough movies like Assault on Precinct 13 and Halloween; television versus film; independent versus studio filmmaking; ambiguous endings; and the difference between shock and suspense.

Here’s the video…

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A Chat with Charles Bukowski

Joe Nolan — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 00:59:22 +0000

Film director Barbet Schroeder’s nearly four hours of interviews with the late poet Charles Bukowski have taken on an air of legend since their initial release on VHS in 1987. Various segments from the captured conversations have appeared on YouTube in the past, but this is the first time I’ve found the entire interview available as one streaming video, connected by the somber piano score that accompanied the original — the music was the sign-off tune for the German television station that aired the footage in 52 separate segments.

Schroeder shot the interviews over three years leading up to the filming of Bukowski’s autobiographical screenplay Barfly, which was also released in 1987. This version was culled from a reported 64 hours of footage, and it finds Schroeder and Bukowski talking about alcohol, violence, writing and women, and even includes a tour of Buk’s childhood home. Some of this footage ended up in the excellent documentary Born into This including the infamous scene of Bukowski kicking and chasing after his future wife Linda.

The Charles Bukowski Tapes has become a cult classic and it’s a real thrill to share these with you here:

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Michael McClure Reads Poetry to Lions

Joe Nolan — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 03:25:04 +0000

I’ve written about 2nd generation Beat poet Michael McClure on this here slate of light before. McClure joined up with Ginsberg and Kerouac when the New Yorkers made their way to San Fransisco, setting off a poetry renaissance and a worldwide youth movement upon arrival.

It’s easy to look back at the ’60′s with rainbow-colored glasses, but that’s no excuse to. A lot of wrongheadedness and naivety ran much of the ’60s counterculture off the rails. Of course, a lot of good art, music and ideas came from that time as well.

Sometimes, weird bits of 60′s countercultural expression that still turn up from that time seem just as absurd today as they must have 50 years ago. Here, McClure is interviewed before stopping at a zoo to read poetry to a lion.

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Joe Nolan