"Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and ’30s" (1921-1947)

A master class in experimental film history... or how to prepare for MIXNYC 28

Please Don't Touch My Tomatoes

Josephine Baker, the "Toast of Paris" sings her delightful double-entendre novelty hit "Please Don't Touch My Tomatoes". The girl in the banana skirt enchanted the entire world with her dancing, singing and sheer radiance. The first black superstar, breaking barriers for many entertainers, and paving the way for civil rights and equality for all. - We've come a long way, and Josephine Baker was certainly at the forefront of the parade. The world is better, because Josephine Baker lived in it. Thank You, Miss Baker, for your generosity, your kindness and your inspiration to us all!

• Music

Janis: Little Girl Blue - Movie Trailers - iTunes

Get ready  AMY BERG has a new documentary to pop that will make all of us happy

Janis: Little Girl Blue - Movie Trailers - iTunes

UPDATE: TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL the back story : Want to know the real story of WHY TAB HUNTER became unemployable in HOLLYWOOD and who was responsible ?

IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN Jeffrey Schwartz's TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL held over at the theater at 12th and 2nd ave .Please go .. . Tab Hunter was the 50's Hollywood DREAMBOAT to thousands of teenage girls around the world. With his blond all -American good look complete with a steve Canyon (the comic book hero with a marine like profile) jaw line. But Tab Hunter was an industry creation and it was in the backrooms of the Hollywood velvet mafia that his career was killed career. He was sacrificed to protect the career of fellow gay actor ROCK HUDSON . Backstory; Rock Hudson and Tom Tyron, a nactor and writer, were caught sexually canoodling on the Santa Monica Beach and arrested . It made the police log published in the Santa Monica Daily Newspaper early edition.. but disappeared when a bigger story about Rock Hudson broke.. The same night of his arrest Rock and Tab's agent Henry Willson , after getting Rock out of jail, held a secret meeting with members of the powerful velvet mafia and asked "What can we do to save Rock's career.   It was decided to get the world's most eligible bachelor married, Henry's secretary Puhyliss a quiet, butch lesbian was called and told to get dressed as she was going to Vegas to become Mrs Rock Hudson . Shocked, but she got dressed and met up with Rock at the Santa Monica airport and the next thing the world learned is ROCK HUDSON GETS MARRIED, not about the arrest of Rock and Tom on the beach in Santa Monica for committing crimes aginst nature. In the morring Henry blind tipped a reporter at the tabloid magazine CONFIDENTIAL about Tab Hunter being arrested when he first came to Hollywood simply for being present at an all male party  that the police raided . No charges were made. Confidential  ran with it and Tab,not Rock became a  deviant sex freak in the media.  His star tumbled from the Hollywood Sky... and  this is the background you should take into the theater and see how it is told ..not as directly as I have about how a very popular movie star became unemployable in Hollywood .. Well done Jeffrey Schwartz!   and yes Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner . John Waters etc all loved Tab.... and talk about him... And yes that is Tony Perkins lurking in the background..wouldn't you?

GO 

Q andA at SXSW FILM 2015  with Director Jeffrey Schwarz and TAB HUNTER 

last year TAB talks with the British Film Institute about his life today 

True confession :  Tab was who I wanted to be in high school .. and once found myself in the early '60's in bed with him in NYC  ..

What do Tab Hunter and Jason Holliday have in common.. Two docs playing right now will tell you

IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN Jeffrey Schwartz's TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL held over at the theater at 12th and 2nd ave .. Tab Hunter was the 50's Hollywood DREAMBOAT to thousands of teenage girls around the world. With his blond all -American good look complete with a steve Canyon (the comic book hero with a marine like profile) jaw line. But Tab Hunter was an industry creation and it was in the backrooms of the Hollywood velvet mafia that his career was killed career. He was sacrificed to protect the career of fellow gay actor ROCK HUDSON . Backstory; Rock Hudson and Tom Tyron, a nactor and writer, were caught sexually canoodling on the Santa Monica Beach and arrested . It made the police log published in the Santa Monica Daily Newspaper early edition.. but disappeared when a bigger story about Rock Hudson broke.. The same night of his arrest Rock and Tab's agent Henry Willson , after getting Rock out of jail, held a secret meeting with members of the powerful velvet mafia and asked "What can we do to save Rock's career.   It was decided to get the world's most eligible bachelor married, Henry's secretary Puhyliss a quiet, butch lesbian was called and told to get dressed as she was going to Vegas to become Mrs Rock Hudson . Shocked, but she got dressed and met up with Rock at the Santa Monica airport and the next thing the world learned is ROCK HUDSON GETS MARRIED, not about the arrest of Rock and Tom on the beach in Santa Monica for committing crimes aginst nature. In the morring Henry blind tipped a reporter at the tabloid magazine CONFIDENTIAL about Tab Huntrer being rrested when he first came to Hollywood simply for being present at an all male party  that the police raided . No charges were made. Confidential  ran with it and Tab,not Rock became a  deviant sex freak in the media.  His star tumbled from the Hollywood Sky... and  this is the background you should take into the theater and see how it is told ..not as directly as I have about how a very popular movie star became unemployable in Hollywood .. Well done Jeffrey Schwartz!   and yes Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Debbie Reynolds, Robert Wagner . John Waters etc all loved Tab.... and talk about him... And yes that is Tony Perkins lurking in the background..wouldn't you?

GO 

QandA at SXSW FILM 2015  with Director Jeffrey Schwarz and TAB HUNTER 

last year TAB talks about his life today 

True confession :  Tab was who I wanted to be in high school .. and once found myself in the early '60's in bed with him in NYC  ..

JASON AND SHIRLEY now at MoMA

.IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN JASON AND SHIRLEY at MoMA GO! Stephen Winter's has found the language of today to show how much and how little has changed for a black gay man . In a fair world Jack Waters would be being talked about for an Oscar an Spirit award

best preparation is to first look at Shirley Clarke's MASTERPIECE

PORTRAIT OF JASON .. Jason Holliday is one of the most vivid people  on screen you will ever see. Shirley and I were good friends and when we both living in LA at the  same time became each other's sanity test .. boy did we have fun

UPDATE:: Jim Fouratt's REEL DEAL; MOVIES THAT MATTER final report on best films at New Your Film Festival 2015 with Trailers print, cut, and paste on wall

NEW YORK FILM FEST final update best films w/trailers

JUST OPENED straight from the NYFF  one of the top films I saw at the festival    EXPERIMENTER

NYFF53: Michael Almereyda delivers the sleeper hit of Sundance to the NYFF. Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard) a Yale based social scientist conducts his human "Obedience" test and shocks us with just how far you can push a human even when v want to stop. Fascinating and disturbing. Highly recommended .. extra added treat : welcome back Winona Ryder! #NYFF, #filminc  Hello Spirit Awards!