It mostly doesn’t work out when novelists become film directors. At best, authors seem to make bizarre cult classics: Tom McGuane’s 92 In The Shade comes to mind, and Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive has its memorable moments of coke-fueled camp. But both pale to the high weirdness and real-life violence in Norman Mailer’s Maidstone:

From the Criterion site…

Over a booze-fueled, increasingly hectic five-day shoot in East Hampton, Norman Mailer and his cast and crew spontaneously unloaded onto film the lurid and loony chronicle of U.S. presidential candidate and filmmaker Norman T. Kingsley debating and attacking his hangers-on and enemies. This gonzo narrative, “an inkblot test of Mailer’s own subconscious” (Time), becomes something like a documentary on its own making when costar Rip Torn breaks the fourth wall in one of cinema’s most alarming on-screen outbursts.

This week we celebrate the birthday of Rip Torn who turned 85 on February 6. Here’s Maidstone…

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Music posts

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…

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Counter Culture posts.

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…

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Cinema posts.