Two terrific pieces from the film issue that I missed
while I was out:
This is a great, long interview
with Joseph Lanza, whose book Phallic Frenzy “spends as many pages describing [Ken] Russell's onscreen
pageantry as its symbolic underpinnings: exaggerated phallic imagery, abrasive
anti-religious scenes, nude male wrestling, incontinence, rape and forced
enemas.”
Says Lanza, “Some people will look
at the book and say, "Phallic Frenzy? This must be pornography." Well, it's about penises,
but it's often about how terrifying they can be, and what the penis might have
represented to Ken Russell at various times of his life.”
In Will Doig’s charming piece, “Hollywood Square,”
Will talks about his love for mediocre Hollywood
comedies. Many of them feature John Candy. None of them are good date movies.
“Made in America is
not a film you want anyone to know you've seen, least of all a philosophy major
from the University
of Maryland whom you're
trying to have sex with. I knew, even as I was walking the box to the
Blockbuster counter, that I was torpedoing the date. I could have rented a
Cassavetes or a Schlesinger, but I couldn't stop myself. I was going to make
him watch this, dammit.”
