Lord Love a Duck (1966)

[lester1/2jr]

                     This infamous space shot starts off as an insane misfire and gradually becomes strangely great.  It's by the guy who wrote "the manchurian candidate" "breakfast at tiffany's"  "the 7 year itch" and other oscar winning classics but don't expect ANYTHING along those lines.  It is apparently heavily informed by the more sort of progressive artistic stuff going on back East in Broadway and off broadway and you will notice this immediatly.  A super intelligent  weirdo of dubious sexual inclination  played by roddy mcdowell befriends an unbeliavably hot classmate played by Tuesday Weld and teaches her to use her teasing sexual prowess to get what she wants, even, at one point,  from her own father (??!).    What I liked abuot it is that it was so far outside the box,  there really aren't too many scenes like these in any other movie from this or any era.   It's sort of surreal,  and is literally surreal in some places like when the two are riding a gigantic foam whale around in the water.  it's starts off awkward and unfunny but stick with it you won't be dissapointed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6vHmloj-wQ

[peter johnson]

One of the things fueling the avant-garde at this point was LSD -- LSD was still legal in 1966, and people in every strata of the entertainment industry were drinking it like water.  This film came out at the same time as "Skidoo" and "The Loved One", also films like nothing else you'd seen then or since.  What happens when you dose brains that matured in the 20's and 30's?  Things like this movie --
It's fun to compare things like this to other films like Corman's "The Trip", which tried to confront the ur-fact of LSD in a straight-on exploitation fashion.
peter johnson/denny wow, man . . .

[lester1/2jr]

I watched "the loved one" last night in between the dreadfull, bombastic opening ceremonies in beijing.   It wasn't as over the top as lord love a duck but was similarly zany.  parts of it reminded me of Rochard Elfmans "forbidden zone" .  It was a little long at 2 hours.  the ceremony was a little long at 2 thuosand hours