MAD Magazine poked fun at everything — and changed the world. A peek behind the scenes at this culture rotting institution.
Check out the Kickstarter campaign for When We Went MAD!: A Documentary of Echh-ic Proportions. The project is already funded, but there’s no harm in kicking in some extra scratch… maybe they’ll make it 3-D!
The documentary will look at the legacy of the cheap satire rag, MAD magazine, which started out in 1952 and had its first offices on MADison Avenue. The “Usual Gang of Idiots” behind the publication will all be a part of the doc. Here’s a taste of what’s in store:
Izabela Kaczmarek-Szurek is a Polish-born graphic designer whose work ranges from poster art to illustration to textile design. However, it’s her knitting illustration (we think she may have invented this) project entitled ‘Extreme Knitting Calendar’ that has us making faces of awe.
She explains: ‘This calendar present an idea to knitting your favourite idol. This is my subjective selection of famous people. For these illustrations, I took 3rd place in the famous graphic competition “GRAFFEX”, organized by polish lifestyle magazine EXKLUSIV.’
Set at the 1956 General Motors Motorama, this is one of the key Populuxe films of the 1950s, showing futuristic dream cars and Frigidaire’s “Kitchen of the Future.”
Design for Dreaming (1956) is a musical sponsored film about a woman (played by dancer and choreographer Tad Tadlock; real name “Thelma Tadlock”) who dreams about a masked man (dancer and choreographer Marc Breaux) taking her to the 1956 General Motors Motorama at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and Frigidaire’s “Kitchen of the Future.” The entirety of the dialogue is sung, though the actors do not move their lips to their characters’ prerecorded voices.
Design for Dreaming has gained a small cult following, with some enjoying it for its perceived camp value, and others enjoying it for nostalgic reasons. One prominent showing of the film was as a short feature in a fifth-season episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K).
The BBC documentary series Pandora’s Box by Adam Curtis made extensive use of clips from Design for Dreaming, especially in the title sequence. Some footage was also used in the music video for Peter Gabriel’s 1987 single “In Your Eyes”, Rush’s 1989 music video for “Superconductor”, a 1989 commercial for the Nintendo Game Boy game Super Mario Land, a 1994 commercial for Power Macintosh, and in brief clips on an episode in the 2nd season of Penn and Teller: Bullshit. Clips were displayed during Nine Inch Nails concert performances. Part of the film, with dialogue, is played during the opening titles for The Hills Have Eyes. Some snippets (without dialogue) are played in the video watched by Michael Douglas during his physical in The Game and in the opening titles for The Stepford Wives.
Two years in the making, TPBAFK is a documentary about three computer addicts who revolutionized the world of media distribution with their hobby homepage. How did Tiamo, a beer crazy hardware fanatic, Brokep a tree hugging eco activist and Anakata, a paranoid cyber libertarian, get the White House to threaten the Swedish government with trade sanctions? TPBAFK explores what Hollywood’s most hated pirates go through on a personal level.
It’s the day before the trial starts. Fredrik packs a computer into a rusty old Volvo. Along with his Pirate Bay co-founders, he faces $13 million in damage claims to Hollywood in a copyright infringement case. Fredrik is on his way to install a new computer in the secret server hall. This is where the world’s largest file sharing site is hidden.
When the hacker prodigy Gottfrid, the internet activist Peter and the network nerd Fredrik are found guilty, they are confronted with the reality of life offline – away from keyboard. But deep down in dark data centres, clandestine computers quietly continue to duplicate files.
‘As much as I am celebrating the upcoming release of the film, it is a time of mixed emotions for me. When I started filming this project in 2008 I had no idea the launch of the film would sync with my main characters’ prison sentences. They gave me access to their private lives but won’t be able to share the premiere with me.
Anakata is currently serving his prison sentence and Peter and Fredrik are wanted. The trial against TPB is proof that the issue around copyright has not been solved. I hope their story will re-spark the conversation around civil rights in the digital age – beyond the so called Content industries. Let’s work together to find fair solutions to both keep the internet open while protecting everyone’s rights in the digital age.’
Please join us for the world premiere on Friday 8th and share the film as much as you can!
“Divine was my close friend and fearless muse. Who else could convincingly turn from teenage delinquent to mugger, prostitute, unwed mother, child abuser, fashion model, nightclub entertainer, murderess, and jailbird? All in the same movie? That’s why I am giving my full blessing to a new documentary feature film, I am Divine, to be directed by award-winning filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz.” — John Waters
We excited to present to you a brand new documentary about the most beautiful woman in the world… the filthiest person alive… the legendary, the outrageous, the one and only… Divine!
I am Divine will be a definitive biographical portrait of Harris Glenn Milstead, a.k.a. Divine, and will honor him in just the way he always craved—as a serious artist and immortal star. Telling Divine’s entire story, from his early days as a misfit youth in Baltimore through his rise to infamy as a cult superstar. Like the characters he portrayed in numerous films, Divine was the ultimate outsider. He transformed himself from a bullied schoolyard fat kid to a larger-than-life personality and underdog royalty as his alter-ego Divine.
Divine stood up for millions of gay men and women, female impersonators, punk rockers, the ample figured, and countless other socially ostracized people. With a completely committed in-your-face style, he blurred the line between performer and personality and revolutionized pop culture.
As outrageous and fun as its subject, I am Divine will combine movie clips, rare home movies and photos, television appearances and live performance footage with brand new interviews with John Waters, Ricki Lake, Mink Stole, Tab Hunter, Holly Woodlawn, Michael Musto, Bruce Vilanch, mother Frances Milstead (who provided her final interview just months before she passed away), and many more of Divine’s family, friends, colleagues, and devotees.
The Taipei-based airline Eva Air is taking adorable to the skies. Eva Air has had Hello Kitty-themed jets since 2005, but they debuted three new jets this winter (the first flight launched on December 26, 2011, flying from Taipei to Tokyo) in celebration of the airline’s 20th anniversary.
The three jets in the latest fleet, all A330s, each have a them: apple, magic and global. Not exactly self explanatory.
Along with the paint jobs, there are over 100 in-flight service items passengers get when taking a Hello Kitty jet. At check-in, passengers get Hello Kitty boarding passes and bag stickers. There are also headrest covers, utensils, snack, hand soap and lotion all in accordance with the theme. Did we mention the flight attendants? They all wear Hello Kitty aprons and insignia. The airline also boasts an entire Chinese-language Hello Kitty website for extreme fans.
Even the food is in the shape of the fucking Kitty. You’ll be puking pink after trying the Happy Meal.
Prague-based Dany Peschl’s photographs are cut to the bone with social commentary.
These photographies are only fragment of a long time project called “disturbation”:
‘In the recent series I retell in pictures several stories that should never be seen. The photos capture different people during various intimate situations in a “caught in the act” way. It made us unwanted spectators of strange rituals and obscure moments as simply everyday routine. Because it is. But “disturbation” is not artless opening of locked or semi-closed doors to children’s rooms, toilets or massage salons. Forget voyeurism and fetishism cliché. These photos aspire to reflect not just actual social issues. Politics, pop icons, pope… Therefore to speak only about intimacy as an act is deficient. It is also about what people hide inside themselves. In their inner space full of opinions, attitudes, thoughts, dreams and taste.’
Although most of the visual stories are mockumentary or reconstruction of true and sometimes false memories, the rest remains truly authentic.
One thing we like at ‘The Remains’ is a good pair of Juggs. And no one delivered more in that field than Chesty Morgan. A tiny (around 4 foot 8inches) but surprisingly attractive woman, for many she represents the epitome of the big-tit pinup queen.
Chesty didn’t have it easy in life. Born around 1928 in Poland, as Lillian Wilczkowsky (now Lillian Stello), losing both her parents when she was a child in the Nazi invasion in 1939. Morgan married an American and moved to the United States in the 1960s; her husband was later killed in a robbery.The police told her that armed robbers herded her husband and two employees into a refrigerator and shot and stabbed them to death. Tabloids call the crime “the icebox murders.”She began her career as an exotic dancer in the early 1970s.
Her billing title boasted that she had “The World’s Largest Naturally Occurring Bosom”. At one point, she had a poster entitled “The Spirit of 76 (Inches)” She was immensely popular on the striptease circuit in the 60’s, known for her 73-inch bust size. However, at some point, she came to the attention of the incredibly filmmaker, Doris Wishman. And in 1973, Doris cast Chesty in the role of Krystal in the film Deadly Weapons. This was followed in 1974 with Double Agent 73.
Deadly Weapons (1973) and Double Agent 73 (1974) — are among Wishman’s best-known and most outrageous work. The two films have become cult movies, due to their highly unconventional plots, which were written by Wishman’s niece, Judy J. Kushner. In Double Agent 73, for example, Morgan plays a secret agent who has both a camera and a bomb installed in her breasts. Such a thing might not seem wholly out of place in a comedy, but these films are played straight — the tone is more serious than a James Bond movie.
Wishman’s films are filled with contradictions, particularly about sex. Rather than erotic, many of her movies could actually be described as anti-sexual. In 1976 Federico Fellini is in New York to promote his latest movie, Amarcord, and catches a glimpse of Chesty. He invites her to be in his upcoming film, Fellini’s Casanova.
She dyes her hair black and flies to Rome. Casanova, played by Donald Sutherland, chases Barbarina, played by Chesty, around and around a table. Fellini cuts her part from the film, but her scene remains in a documentary that still circulates on the Internet.
Ms Morgan’s film career began again in the 1990’s. In 1994, filmmaker John Waters used footage of Chesty from the film Double Agent 73 in his 1994 film Serial Mom. Additionally, Waters wrote a role for her in his (never made) sequel to Pink Flamingos (Flamingos Forever).
You can watch here a compilation of clips of Miss Chesty in all her Glory. Loves to Chesty.
