Actor/director/photographer/art collector Dennis Hopper was pretty much down on his luck in 1983 and decided to stage an old stuntman’s ploy of “blowing yourself up”. I am sure there is some danger associated with this act like what if the protective blast resistant backing you’re nestled against gives way or the powder used in the explosive detonation burns you a bit. Anyway, Hopper chose to go through this publicity stunt to drum up some attention to a career that was faltering badly due to excessive drug use and drinking. Hopper makes it out alive and probably needed a drink or [More]
A very strange film courtesy of director Curtis Harrington. This film is by turns ambitious, clumsy, inspired, dull, beautiful, ugly, and creepy in atmosphere. Harrington compiles, at times, an epic space adventure that involves our world and the inhabitants of another planet. It seems that Earth has detected an interstellar message that aliens are headed toward our planet to establish a meeting of the races. It is soon discovered that the aliens were waylaid enroute and crashed on the planet Mars. Earth dispatches a rescue mission to assist the downed craft. Our astronauts recover one living specimen but soon regret [More]
I recently caught this movie again and I came away more impressed than I have in the past. The print I saw had been digitally restored and the imagery benefits greatly from the treatment. I include this clip because it shows a lot of the road trip that these two anti heroes (dope dealers, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda, travelling cross country on motorcycle “choppers” and taking it easy on the open road, while taking in the sights) initially debark upon. It also is accompanied by The Bryds’ “I Wasn’t Born To Follow”, a nice country rock style tune which [More]
Brief interview with the late Dennis Hopper discussing his troubled time on the set of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now”. Listening to Hopper in this interview, it is amazing how much more lucid he was at the time as compared with his binging days of the Late Seventies/Early Eighties when “Apocalypse” was made. I highly recommend seeking out “Hearts of Darkness”, a documentary on the making of “Apocalypse Now”. “Hearts” includes a longer take of the snippet of Coppola trying to communicate with a seemingly deranged Hopper on the set of “Now” shown at the end of this interview. Coppola [More]