Ken Jacobs Movies

A grown man locked into an extended state of arrested adolescence returns to the nest while concocting a series of excuses as to why he cannot return to his wife and child in this existential comedy drama from filmmaker Azazel Jacobs. Mikey was preparing to board an airplane bound for California when he suddenly found himself fleeing from the airport and returning to the comfort of his parents' New York home. Even Mikey isn't sure exactly why he made the snap decision not to go home, all he knows is that he can't quite muster the courage to go back and assume the responsibilities of your typical family man. Of course, Mikey's doting mother is more than happy to enable her son's indecision -- and his father remains as emotionally distanced as ever -- but as time goes on, the grown-up man-child finds it increasingly difficult to make the choice between going back to reality, or drifting ever further into his second adolescence. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

One of America's leading experimental filmmakers embraces the technical and aesthetic possibilities of digital filmmaking in this project from Ken Jacobs. In RAZZLE DAZZLE The Lost World, Jacobs takes image elements of the past -- including antique stereopticon cards and film footage shot by Thomas Edison in 1903 -- and uses digital imaging effects to manipulate them into new forms and incorporate new textures. Jacobs' approach gives the individual pixels an identity of their own much as small-gage filmmakers have often used the grain inherent in their medium as part of their visual palate. Also incorporating a unique multidimensional process, Jacobs uses his striking bag of tricks to comment on the political unrest in 21st century America and national disharmony over the war in Iraq with his bracing clash of vintage and contemporary images and attitudes. RAZZLE DAZZLE The Lost World received its world premiere at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

When Ken Jacobs, Bob Fleischner and Jack Smith were studying camera techniques at CUNY night school in the mid-1950s, Jacobs met Smith through the pair's mutual friend Fleishner. Though Fleischner and Smith would eventually part ways, Jacobs was stunned to learn that in October of 1989 the pair died within a week of one another. In this feature length film, Jacobs responds to his loss by adapting the 1990 Nervous System performance piece "Luminous Threnody." ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A documentary profile of filmmaker John Waters, Divine Trash focuses on the bad-taste pioneer's early years, especially his 1972 breakthrough Pink Flamingos, which turned the director of Mondo Trasho and Multiple Maniacs into the king of midnight movies thanks to word of mouth about the film's gleeful taboo-bashing -- and a distribution deal with the fledgling New Line Cinema. Interviews with filmmakers who both influenced Waters (Paul Morrissey, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Mike Kuchar, George Kuchar) and were influenced by him (Steve Buscemi, Jim Jarmusch, David O. Russell, Hal Hartley) are interspersed with copious behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Pink Flamingos, including the infamous doggy-doo scene. Through it all, the witty Waters provides commentary, recollections, and one-line quips. Pete Garey, owner of the film lab where Waters learned the technical side of moviemaking, recalls his first meetings with the youthful auteur. Mink Stole and other Dreamland Studios superstars reminisce about growing up in suburban Baltimore with Waters, who as a youngster loved car crashes, puppets, and clowns. The director's strait-laced parents reminisce about the financial support they provided for Pink Flamingos, which they have never seen. Neither has Frances Milstead, who looks back on the career of her late son, drag terrorist and Waters muse Divine. Divine and late "egg lady" Edith Massey crop up in various archival interviews and film clips. The man who played the "talking asshole" in Pink Flamingos also appears, albeit anonymously and disguised. Various film theorists and critics debate the merits and meaning of the Waters oeuvre, while Baltimore critic Don Walls and former Maryland film censor Mary Avara express their incredulity about the director's success. Divine Trash won the Filmmakers Trophy for Best Documentary at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. Director Steve Yeager, a longtime friend of Waters, would go on to direct In Bad Taste: The John Waters Story and help Milstead write a book about her son. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

In the late '50s, Jack Smith was acting in a film for director Bob Fleischner, but the project ended when the two had a falling out. A fire subsequently destroyed most of what had been filmed, but in 1960, Fleischner gave the remaining footage to director Ken Jacobs, who edited it into this short, which features a manic Smith putting on makeup, playing with dolls, smoking marijuana, and wearing dresses. By 1962, Jacobs' own falling out with Smith had cooled sufficiently to enable him to record a soundtrack, for which Jacobs mixed 78 rpm records and strummed inside a piano while Smith improvised a hilarious confessional rant of poverty and desperation: "Why shave when I can't think of a reason for living?" ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

Shot in 1959, Scotch Tape is Jack Smith's first film -- a joyous, three-minute romp, in color, using Peter Duchin's rhumba "Carinhoso" for its soundtrack. Three young men merrily bop through the wreckage of razed buildings at the site of what would become Lincoln Center. Apparently, Scotch Tape was never edited and, instead, was cut in the camera by Smith, combining long shots and close-ups while filming mostly from overhead. The title comes from a small strip of scotch tape that was accidentally stuck on the camera and so is visible in the lower-right corner of the frame throughout the film. Note that one of the shimmying trio is Ken Jacobs, who'd begun directing Smith in 1957 with Saturday Afternoon Blood Sacrifice and Little Cobra Dance. On his own, Jacobs made such major works as Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (1969) and his multi-projector "Nervous System" series. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

This charming, short black-and-white comedy features Jack Smith as the mysterious leader of an even-more-mysterious cult, garbed in pseudo-papal regalia and adorned with jewelry and makeup. His followers do his bidding by abducting and cross-dressing an unsuspecting mailman. The triumphant Smith launches a processional and is soon joined by real neighborhood children in the streets of Lower Manhattan. Eventually, the police came along and the shooting ended, but not before director Ken Jacobs got a wonderful overhead shot of Smith trying to explain himself to the cops in their patrol car. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

Aired in numerous formats for over four decades, New York underground filmmaker Ken Jacobs' assemblage of 16 mm fictional footage, public service announcements, and snippets of Hollywood films didn't achieve mainstream critical acknowledgement until 2003, when the New York and London Film Festivals premiered its definitive, six-hour version. Star Spangled to Death is an abstract, political-philosophical treatise on the contradictions of life in America in the latter half of the 20th century, using excerpts from other films and news footage to touch upon issues of race, religion, and warfare. In the filmed material that punctuates the "found" footage, two characters referred to only as The Spirit Not of Life but of Living (Jack Smith) and Suffering (Jerry Sims) share conflicting views on day-to-day existence. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide