Taylor Mead Movies
- 2006
- Add Jack Smith & The Destruction of Atlantis to QueueAdd Jack Smith & The Destruction of Atlantis to top of Queue
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, All Movie Guide
- 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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lily Tomlin, Jackie Curtis, (more)
Jim Jarmusch's black-and-white feature Coffee and Cigarettes contains three vignettes originally released as short films along with separate yet somewhat related sketches. As the title suggests, most of the vignettes involve famous people smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. The first, "Coffee and Cigarettes," is a six-minute short from 1986 starring Stephen Wright and Roberto Benigni. The 1989 installment, "Memphis Version," stars Steve Buscemi, Joie Lee, and Cinqué Lee. The award-winning 1993 segment, "Somewhere in California," stars musicians Iggy Pop and Tom Waits. The remaining sketches include Cate Blanchett performing a duel role, a conversation with Bill Murray and members of the Wu-Tang Clan, and Alfred Molina and British television actor Steve Coogan as themselves. In its full-length version form, Coffee and Cigarettes was shown at the 2003 Venice Film Festival. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roberto Benigni, Steven Wright, (more)
- 2000
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Like Susanne Ofteringer's Nico-Icon (1995), Vincent Fremont's Pie in the Sky: The Brigid Berlin Story chronicles the life of one of the more colorful and unforgettable women to emerge from Andy Warhol's menagerie of artists, actors, lost souls, and hangers-on. The daughter of wealthy, powerful, and conservative parents who were fixtures of Manhattan high society, Brigid Berlin rebelled at a young age, enduring a whirlwind marriage and a spell at a fasting clinic in Mexico before making her way to Warhol's Factory, where she earned fame for her Polaroid photos and her habit of recording phone conversations. Although her parents weren't enthusiastic about their daughter's work in such Warhol films as The Chelsea Girls and Bike Boy, Berlin remained a fixture on the Warhol scene, gaining further notoriety for her one-woman shows and the paintings she created using her breasts as brushes. Among the people director Vincent Fremont interviews is filmmaker John Waters, who cast Berlin in a small role in his 1994 Serial Mom. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigid Berlin, John Waters, (more)
- 1998
- R
This "neo-noir comic thriller" from director Amos Poe focuses on struggling actress Eva (Barbara Hershey), a waitress who moonlights by making collections for her ex-husband, loan shark Al (Robbie Coltrane). Her day job is at a Lower Manhattan diner owned by Quint (Ian Hart). Others on the scene are Eva's new boyfriend Zip (John Leguizamo), aspiring actress Myrna (Lisa Marie), Al's girlfriend Simone (Debi Mazar), tough thug Gascone (Ron Perlman), and Al's driver U.B. (David Deblinger). Eva is ready to drop both collecting and acting, dreaming of a picket-fence lifestyle with her son Augie (Zak Kerkoulas), but Al needs her for just one more job -- locating the missing $600,000 stolen from him by Flav (Justin Theroux). Al also plans to stage a production of David Mamet's American Buffalo, and he offers a role to U.B. -- if he will kill Zip. Shown at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Barbara Hershey, Robbie Coltrane, (more)
- 1992
In this independently produced, short, meandering, plot-deprived, experimental, improvisational film, apparently intended as avant-garde fare, a group of pretentious white intellectuals gather at a vacant lot in Harlem for a party for a non-appearing guest of honor, a writer. In addition to the guests' vacant chatter, the film shows the black neighbors' reaction to this unusual neighborhood entertainment. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Zohra Lampert
- 1991
Taking an avant-garde approach, experimental Russian painter turned director Ari Roussimoff creates an offbeat addition to the horror genre. Troubled, doomed Paul returns to his home in an oppressive and stylized Manhattan (filmed in black and white) after spending time with a traveling carnival. As he wanders the gloomy streets in search of love and acceptance, he muses about the correlation between the grim fates of his family and his own destiny. Both his brother and his mother killed themselves, and now Paul sees the Spirit of Death beckoning him to do the same. He does not realize that Death is really only offering him more of the same. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1990
- NR
Fascinating documentary of artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol, combining rare footage with interviews with his friends and colleagues, including Dennis Hopper, David Hockney, Taylor Mead, and Sylvia Miles. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- 1990
- R
At one time, even the great Buster Keaton was a regular visitor of the mental health, alcoholic rehabilitation-center system. Since main-character Micha is obsessed with Keaton and everything that has to do with him, it is appropriate that after trying to pull a stunt on the public highways in imitation of the master (driving blindfolded), he winds up there as a result of the inevitable accident. The genial residents of the asylum have taken it over, following the death of the real doctor, and are having a grand old time there. They have elected O'Connor (Donald Sutherland) to run the place, perhaps because of his basement snake collection. One person after another dies in unintended mishaps, and the gardener (also an inmate) cheerfully disposes of the corpses. This odd international production features cinematography by the famed Sven Nykvist (who shot so many of Ingmar Bergman's films) and is the product of the stunning visual imagination of the esteemed art-house director Rebecca Horn. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Donald Sutherland, Geraldine Chaplin, (more)
- 1980
The "underground" of the title refers not to crime but to the half-hidden world of two-bit hustlers, "artistic" poseurs, aberrant lifestyles and shattered dreams. Small-time Manhattan opportunist Eric Mitchell latches onto Patti Astor, a once-popular movie star fallen into penury. He briefly lifts her spirits, but in the final analysis betrays her. Astor sorrowfully decides that she'd rather not live any longer. Lensed in 16 millimeter by producer/ director/ star Eric Mitchell, Underground USA is occasionally effective, though for much of the proceedings it suffers from trying too hard to be the Big Apple counterpart to Godard's Breathless. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patti Astor, Eric Mitchell, (more)
- 1979
- PG
Mark Reichart wrote and directed this disturbing tale of mounting paranoia, based on a story by Cornell Woolrich. Harlan (Dennis Lipscomb) is a New Jersey businessman who becomes obsessed with trying to catch the person who has been stealing sips from the milk bottle delivered to his doorstep every morning. His wife Lillian (Debbie Harry) complacently puts up with her husband's increasingly bizarre behavior. Harlan finally goes off the deep end when he captures the culprit --a homeless Vietnam War veteran (Sam McMurray). He reacts with such fury that he bashes the man's head in. Then, to hide his crime, he conceals the body in a Murphy bed in the abandoned apartment next door. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Lipscomb, Deborah Harry, (more)
- 1979
"Careerism" is the villain in this Soviet "message" film. Careerism is a term which, in Soviet usage, has to do with bureaucratic obfuscation, and a "careerist" is an unprincipled back-stabbing opportunist, who will do absolutely anything to get ahead. The argument of this drama is that the prevalence of careerism was a major factor in preventing the Soviet Union from achieving needed industrial progress. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Doukas
- 1979
Tally Brown was a star of New York underground films and a denizen of its underworld in the late 1960s -- about as far away as one could imagine as the destination for this classically trained opera and blues singer. In this documentary, Rosa von Praunheim relies on extensive interviews with Brown, as she recounts her collaboration with Warhol, Taylor Mead and others, as well as her friendships with Holly Woodlawn, Divine, and others. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tally Brown, Taylor Mead, (more)
- 1976
In this film, outspokenly homosexual filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim has documented his encounters with friends in the New York "underground" arts movement, the better-known of whom are William Burroughs (who says nothing for the camera), Andy Warhol (seen in the distance) and Fernando Arrabal (who is interviewed in Spanish). The emigrants named in the title are notable Germans who left the country before World War II, such as Greta Keller and Grete Mosheim. Reviewers at the time of the film's release considered it to have been a sort of paid vacation for the filmmaker rather than a serious effort. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William S. Burroughs
- 1970
- R
This satirical spoof on television commercials stars Taylor Mead, Sally Kirkland, Candy Darling, Tally Brown, Baby Jane Holzer, Sam Shepard, Frank Cavestani and 1960s radical Abbie Hoffman. Ultra Violet also appears and sings. Mead plays several roles including the President of the United States. Once considered taboo subject matters, sex and drugs are a main topic. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- 1969
This underground feature uses seven screens and three soundtrack recorders in the filming of a group of people who mumble incoherently and appear in various stages of undress. As in John Chamberlain's The Secret Life Of Hernando Cortez, Taylor Mead is the star. This is a movie about a party. Chamberlain certainly has ambition to build the vehicle but this one just doesn't go down the road. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Taylor Mead
Based on a James Leo Herlihy novel, British director John Schlesinger's first American film dramatized the small hopes, dashed dreams, and unlikely friendship of two late '60s lost souls. Dreaming of an easy life as a fantasy cowboy stud, cheerful Texas rube Joe Buck (Jon Voight) heads to New York City to be a gigolo, but he quickly discovers that hustling isn't what he thought it would be after he winds up paying his first trick (Sylvia Miles). He gets swindled by gimpy tubercular grifter Rico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) but, when Joe falls in the direst of straits, Ratso takes Joe into his condemned apartment so that they can help each other survive. Things start to look up when Joe finally lands his first legit female customer (Brenda Vaccaro) at a Warhol-esque party; Ratso's health, however, fails. Joe turns a final trick to get the money for one selfless goal: taking Ratso out of New York to his dream life in Miami. One of the first major studio films given the newly minted X rating for its then-frank portrayal of New York decadence, Midnight Cowboy was critically praised for Schlesinger's insight into American lives, with the intercut mosaic of Joe's memories and Ratso's dreams lending their characters and actions greater psychological complexity. While they may have been drawn by the seamy content (tame by current standards), the young late '60s audience responded to Joe's and Ratso's confusion amidst turbulent times and to the connection they make with each other despite their alienation from the surrounding culture. Midnight Cowboy became one of the major financial and artistic hits of 1969, winning Oscars for Best Picture (the first for an X-rated film), Best Director, and former blacklistee Waldo Salt's screenplay. Though the one-two punch of Midnight Cowboy and The Graduate (1967) proved Hoffman's range and Voight's Joe Buck made him a star, both lost Best Actor to classical cowboy John Wayne for True Grit. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, (more)
- 1968
This Big Apple underground art film is based on the classic Greek play Prometheus Bound and presents assorted characters, symbolizing Greek gods and their daily actions that signify the relationship between homosexuality and urban living. Andy Warhol and his Factory members populate the piece. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1968
Taylor Mead and Ultra Violet star in this independent production that features nudity and gymnastic sexual liaisons in a variety of places, including trees. Most likely this trashy underground film is of no interest to those other than naked-flesh fanatics. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Taylor Mead
- 1968
This experimental western from cult icon Andy Warhol concerns nine people in a ghost town looking for love. A truly twisted improvisational comedy should have emerged, but Taylor Mead's shrill screeching and some annoying in-camera editing results in a fairly grating experience. Ramona Alvarez (Viva) and her perpetually stoned nurse (Mead) run into five gay cowboys led by Louis Waldon. They all want to have sex with a handsome drifter (Tom Hompertz), except for the transvestite sheriff (Francis Francine), who can't be bothered about anything but his outfit. Ramona is raped by the cowboys then has sex with Hompertz and wants to form a suicide pact in the afterglow. Hompertz wants no part of such a pact, however, and rides off into the sunset with another man (Eric Emerson). All of this takes nearly two hours, and although there are some cute moments, it never comes together as a whole. Improvisation is difficult to stretch into a coherent feature-length film without at least some attempt at setting up individual scenes. Warhol does none of that here, although he would do better with later films directed by Paul Morrissey, this film's executive producer. His sole interest appears to be in putting attractive young men in front of his camera and having them seduce each other and act silly. Viewers will either be mildly amused, bored, or terribly annoyed, depending on individual tolerance levels. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Viva, Taylor Mead, (more)
- 1967
Viva make her film debut in this typical Andy Warhol exploitation film. She plays a waitress in a restaurant where, you guessed it, everyone is at least partially nude. Although she does not ignore the advances of men, they never get to have sex with her because of her incessant talking. All the men she meets seem to want nothing more than the pleasures of the flesh and make no effort to gain insight on her inane character. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Taylor Mead
- 1967
The medieval writings of Thomas a Kempis supposedly are the inspiration behind this Andy Warhol film. A young son reflects on his place in the world. Brigid Polk is the young boy's mother, with Ondine as his father. Nico plays the maid and Taylor Mead place a homeless man in this lifeless feature. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brigid Polk, Ondine, (more)
- 1964
Two 70 year old twin sisters are identical in every way except for their outlook on life. One gladly accepts her life as a grandmother working as a cashier in a grocery store. The other is an unhappy rich woman, superstitious and prone to complaining about imagined illness. Maybelle Nash plays the dual role of the women who are alike in appearance only in this independent film produced, directed and written by Jerome Hill. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maybelle Nash, Alec Wilder, (more)
