Albeit with a soupçon of envy

(We talk a great deal on Ken Russell's You Tube clips Here are comments and some responses from You tube about Mahler that I really appreciated and enjoyed.)

I actually like slower films, like antonioni or traffaut. But there is something about Ken Russell that is magical. For me he is the closest thing to the bombastic silent film directors to make films in the sound era. I can totally imagine The Devils as a silent film.

langbry

Watched this yesterday and I'm still thinking about it. What it does that I've never seen anything else do as acutely is show two people, with the best will in the world, tragically failing to communicate because of the way their personal experiences have shaped their viewpoints. At the start they're so estranged that they seem like monsters of froideur. By the end we understand them and finally, they understand each other – thanks to music. [more]

JohnMoseley

• A very interesting movie, combining seriousness with camp. Powell is very good as Mahler, and a few years later he played Jesus Christ in Zeffirelli's excellent "Jesus of Nazareth". I guess if you can play Christ convincingly, everything else becomes a cinch!
  Thanks for uploading this!

  
  

  What a travesty. Stupid,banal, tasteless and an insult to Mahler. the fact it's consciously banal doesn't make it any better. Oh yes so over the top it's hilarious but I am somewhere between tears and laughter. Ken Russell is the anti Tarkovsky

  Pepperpiperwdiamonds
  
  You raise an interesting thought; Ken Russell is the anti-Tarkovsky. By being so excessive at being calculatedly over the top, Russell allows the intellectual cinema viewer to have a good laugh at themselves Tarkovsky, on the other hand, is excessive at being ponderously serious. One arisian shows humanity as something tragic, the other as something laughable.
  

  Thanks for the post and making me think about those two.

  forloveoffilm
  
  

  I actually saw the movie several times because of Robert Powell. It brought Mahler to my atention ant I beggined listening to his music. I also got interested in his biography. I came to appreciate both the composer and his music. Since I came to know and appreciate Mahler first of all because of this movie, I believe both Robert Powell and Ken Russel have done a great job, and the movie really reached its goal. To let people know about Mahler and his music.

  daniilsihastrul  
  
  

  Thanks for the upload. I thought is was a pretty crude attempt, frankly. Russell reduces key points in Mahler's like to absurdity. I'm not sure a movie could do someone like a Mahler justice, even if it's one man's "vision" of this genius of late romantic / modern music. His relationship with Alma was for more complex than Russell gives us. Alma was far more than a simple "hausfrau." She was a highly educated and beautiful woman who had notions of a career in music herself.

  flylooper 

  My response:
  

  @flylooper Oh I saw immediately how incredible Alma was! Ken more than did her justice and I'm a Mahler newbie. Remember Ken had about 90 mins tell one of greatest most complex lives ever. He has to fictionalize, condense but ultimately the truth is there; this incredible genius fought his way into the highest echelons of art and dealt with crap anti-Semitic people and the deaths of his most beloved family members to "live forever".

  BrickLaneBetty 

  
  

  I like the campy dream sequence bits, but it's almost a shame they're there because they give Russell this reputation for being a sort of trash king and overshadow the genuine intelligence of his story. Anyway, thanks very much for posting this.

  JohnMoseley 

  @JohnMoseley He's campy but never trashy there is a difference. Madonna, Paris Hilton and Al Adamson are TRASHY. Debbie Harry, Jayne Mansfield and Ken Russell are CAMPY. But seriously, Russell transcends even camp-he operates with his own rules. Those dreamy scenes are actually the truth!

  BrickLaneBetty

  @BrickLaneBetty Agreed. I was thinking of an older sense of trash – sort of Paul Morrissey, Russ Meyer, early John Waters trash (and I like all those directors). I was talking about the reputation it gives Russell and this film in particular. Everyone talks about Wagner's wife in a Nazi helmet and that stops the message getting out that, as you say, it transcends camp and is in many ways, up there with the best of 60s European art house filmmaking.

  JohnMoseley  

  @BrickLaneBetty Yup. It's a (bad) sign of the times that he can no longer get funding. He's also, as you would guess and hope, a fantastic bloke in person. Less to boast than because I think it might interest you (albeit with a soupçon of envy) a friend took me to dinner with him a few years ago in the Lake District. I talked about a short film idea I could barely articulate and he was brilliant at not making me feel like an idiot – as well as, of course, just being a great laugh.

  JohnMoseley 

  @JohnMoseley Oh I'm not surprised. Ken and his wife Lisi are my friends on facebook and they are the two nicest public figures I've ever interacted with. And Ken has outlived everyone he's annoyed !

  BrickLaneBetty

    

   

  
   
  
  

In The Highlands Of Scotland by Mr Pregnant

Beautiful music from a comic pop genius and one of today's most gifted performance artists. For Tura Satana's spirit too as she was of Scottish decent.

One MILLION With a BULLET!

Does this workout make me look like a you tube star?

I may look more like drag queen then me but I'm still overjoyed that the video has done so well and given me my first one million plus hits for a single clip on You Tube. My video would have been saved to favorites over three thousand times if You Tube had not suspended my account for 24 hours but oh well I'm just nit picking! It really is exciting because I'm now also in the "all time most viewed" for "people and blogs."
Ya gotta love the Universal Grid; you can be a virtual unknown and still climb the charts!

You Tube Bodhisattvas and Player Hater City

It's going to be very hot and sunny soon and I'm ready. There is a pool nearby and a

friendly neighbor

who stops by and sometimes stays over. All of these pictures (including the one with the fangs) are with me and my real hair, just out of the salon (no extensions or Super Amanda wig). I'm gradually going back to darker hair as everyone seems to like the gingham bra look and darker hair means closer to nature. I rarely look this perfectly coiffured, which so sad that it's so expensive to look sleek but I'm saving for bigger things. I hate everyone who thinks you have to have straight hair to be sophisticated--I HATE YOU!

For my birthday on the 29th I'm filming a cake and pie fight for YouTube along with the videos for

Third of Never

Speaking of hate, You Tube has been very going well with one of my vids at almost 1 million hits in 2 months but I'm finding the situation of "haters" and "hating" to be very tiring and perplexing. If some crazy freak leaves a comment here or even on My Space (which almost never happens) it's simply a matter of delete but on YouTube I find the effect of someone's nastiness is a VERY different story.
There you see the actual person visually or at least what they enjoy watching on their own channel as tons of energy and attention is fed from all over the world into the public viewing of all kinds of moving images; that somehow makes them more "effective." On You Tube I tend to fight back when someone leaves a really nasty comment but even when I try to burn the hater I know in my heart it's been a total waste of time.
What I don't consider a waste of time is when I hit back at channels with hate speech videos or total idiocy like a toddler in India left with a live Cobra who keeps biting her on the head but even then what's the point? The true Bodhisattvas of YouTube just allow any and all comments any place on their channels and videos and don't give a shit or allow themselves to be tweaked; invariably they are always guys. The girls always moderate their comments...

I'm learning about and refining a lot of unflattering aspects of my own attitude not only towards the rogue viewer but my fellow (and more popular) You Tubers. A woman with bible quotes who calls herself Ysbella Brave and sings karaoke style sits at the top of the charts and seems to me to be a Prozac glutted pro-life vision, cooing very decent but fauxish jazz and Marilyn Monroe mimicry; she also has twenty times the subscribers I have, is always featured on the front page and was just signed to small Warner label so she's particularly weak. Her attempts at rock are beyond the realms of Osmond and her separate vlogging channel on which she espouses heartfelt advice on 'pain and suffering' in between references to her animals being spayed is like hearing "Tammy Faye: The Early Years" book on tape read by Carol Channing wigged out on Quaaludes.

Most subscribed musician, Mia Rose, is an American Idol finalist type with a Charles Dodgson approved silhouette and a syrupy "bah bah goo goo" delivery of both original and covers including "Looks Like We Made It" performed with her hunched semi-prepubescent frame planted "golly gee" style on a twin bed in some anonymous room in God knows where USA. She just 'signed' with a small independent label and a crafty sounding bloke appeared in her latest video talking about how "great her successes will be" while she nodded approvingly alongside him like Humbert Humbert's take on C3PO. At least she can play guitar...

So I guess I'm a hater now too, articulate but still a complete and utter player hater.
Help me repent bitches! HELP!!!

What would Baba say?

Too Hot for You Tube?

A week ago this past Sunday morning I had

My YouTube Channel

Brick Lane Betty, suspended for 'violation of terms of use' the video they cited as the culprit was about as racy as Donny Osmond covering Lily Allen (but way cooler of course).
If you have haters, which anyone with a following on YouTube or the net can get they can flag your videos until the editors are required to judge if you're within the terms of use. These decisions are made indiscriminately and have lead to mostly innocent vids like mine being pulled and crazy and really vulgar vids allowed to stay.
It was very upsetting as I've put countless hours into my saucy Super Amanda persona and I'm building a very loyal fan base as well as attracting interest in my writing.
After about 24 hours of defiant emails to the editors my account was 'reinstated' apparently a VERY rare move on You Tube's part.

No real reason was given but as three previously pulled videos oddly reappeared on my account post reinstatement, I'm positive I was hacked by someone...I'm still very happy that it's back!

All my stats (now pushing 1.7 million views on my main accounts) are still untouched save for the videos people favorite; those were removed.
So know I have a video with 656,000 hits and only 15 people favorite it! AH SHOW BIZ!

So they announce The First Annual Francis Ford Coppola Presents Rosso & Bianco Theater Movie Contest winners on this FRIDAY! Please go to the previous post below and follow the link to give us a rating and check the other incredible Coppola Estate websites.
And in about two weeks I'm going to shoot footage for

Third of Never

"Everyday is a Lonely Night" and "Let My Love Open The Door!"


Anyway here are all MY Favorites!

Super Amanda Gone Wild (Alternate Edit)



HOWEVER MUCH I YOU TUBE:



TRUE GRIT!


SURREALISTIC BOOB PILLOWS
Boobs and Surrealism Part seven

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