John Vaccaro Movies
- 2006
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The underground art of renegade performance artist, photographer, and filmmaker Jack Smith is explored through the images he created and the words of those who knew him best in filmmaker Mary Jordan's tribute to the man believed to have inspired some of Andy Warhol's most iconic works. A virulent utopian and anti-capitalist whose works spanned from the 1960s to the late-1980s, Smith gained notoriety early on in his career when he went battled the Supreme Court over the banning of his controversial work "Flaming Creatures." An enigmatic artist whose work remains on the fringes of the mainstream despite the praise of curators from the Whitney to the Louvre, the effects of Smith's powerful influence are explored in interviews with those who both loved and hated Smith. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- 2004
Directed by Craig B. Highberger and narrated by Lily Tomlin, Superstar in a Housedress offers a unique retrospective of the late avant-garde actor and female impersonator Jackie Curtis, who was discovered in the 1960s by experimental filmmaker Andy Warhol. In addition to rare clips of Curtis in various underground stage productions, the documentary is supplemented by a surprising amount of never-before-seen archival footage, scenes from Women in Revolt and Flesh, and candid stories about Curtis from those who knew her best in her heyday. Among the interviewees are Joe Dallesandro, Paul Morrissey, Holly Woodlawn, and Penny Arcade. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lily Tomlin, Jackie Curtis, (more)
- 1969
No President, Jack Smith's last 16 mm feature, combines found footage with his own production -- a crazed account of former Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie being abducted by pirates and auctioned off in a Baghdad slave market. A heavily made-up Irving Rosenthal plays Willkie in distress and Tally Brown gives a notable supporting performance as a feisty slave girl. Willkie himself appears in newsreel clips, posing with cows while visiting the Future Farmers of America (a wicked in joke from Jack Smith on behalf of all the gay men who were also members of their own FFA!). ~ Nicole Gagne, Rovi
- Starring:
- Irving Rosenthal, Doris Desmond, (more)
- 1965
By 1965, Jack Smith was exhibiting versions of Normal Love, mixing his soundtracks live and often re-editing the film as it was being shown. After Smith's death, Jerry Tartaglia prepared this restored 105-minute version, which premiered in 1997. Although shot on backdated color-film stock and paced more languidly than Flaming Creatures, Normal Love again features women and cross-dressed men in an idyll of sexual anarchy. Smith filmed almost entirely outdoors, emphasizing pinks and greens in the scenery, costumes, and props, and combining textural passages with allusions to film icons such as the Mummy and the Werewolf, Maria Montez, and Busby Berkeley. The inspired finale is set atop a massive pink cake (where the dancing Cake Cuties include Andy Warhol). The Yellow Sequence, an additional 20 minutes of footage -- in which gold tones predominate and the players include Tiny Tim -- was also restored by Tartaglia as an addendum to Normal Love, and the two films are inevitably shown together under the single title. ~ Nicole Gagne, Rovi
- Starring:
- Mario Montez, Diana Baccus, (more)
