F FOR FAKE - Orson Welles - "Truth And Lies" (1973)

Tonight's Super Saturday Night Special is Orson Welle's "F For Fake!" It's the best documentary made since Fellini's "Clowns!"..and possibly the best documentary ever made!

You will have to wonder, is this movie even real? And you might be right and you might be wrong, because the man behind the curtain pulling all the strings is the notorious.....

..................Orson Welles, the Joker, the Jester, and one of the best Prestidigitationers of all time!

"F For Fake" is a movie about fakes, forgers, hoaxes, and more, and because he's a freakin' genius, Orson ties all the stories together almost seamlessly!

World famous forger Elmyr de Hory explains that if you see a beautiful painting in a museum, why does it matter if Matisse painted it or if Elmyr painted it posing as Matisse, because the end result is the same, the viewer gets to see a great piece of art! Elmyr has a cool way of legitimizing everything he has ever done!

Elmyr is being interviewed for a book by the writer Clifford Irving, who is also known as a world famous faker because he was the author of a biography about Howard Hughes. The only problem was he never spoke to Howard Hughes once. Howard Hughes was such a recluse, Irving thought he'd never find out or notice!

So Orson is filming the faker and the forger, and mixing it all up with other freakin' fantastic phony stuff! Why is there a monkey in Clifford Irving's shoulder? Because the whole thing is happening on the island of Ibiza off the coast of Spain! (Although the IMDB says it was shot in France! Why would you expect anything to be what it is supposed to be?)

Elmyr quickly whips out a fake Matisse, claims it would be worth thousands of dollars, and then burns it!

There are so many great shots of Orson, I thought about just using the pictures of him, but this movie is too picturesque to do that!

I'm pretty sure it was Orson himself who drew this portrait of Howard Hughes!

Every night at some oddball hour in the dead of night, a courier leaves a small but perfectly wrapped package in a designated tree outside the Los Angeles home of Howard Hughes! What was in the bag? A ham sandwich that very rarely got consumed! That's right, WTF!?

I just love these shots of vintage Las Vegas!

While incinerating, I  mean iterating his own hoax on the world, Orson used footage from the movie "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers" instead of "War Of The Worlds," contractual problems, or just more deliberate confusion? The latter I'm sure!

"F For Fake" is credited as Orson Welle's last full length film, but he continued to act etc. until his death in 1985! Orson was looking good! Compare this picture to the way he looked in "Touch Of Evil" some 15 years earlier! It doesn't even look like the same guy!

Clifford Irving ended up spending 17 months behind bars for his little escapade into deceit!

"F For Fake" has more than it's share of eye candy footage, you might get a sugar spike watching it, like here's one sample, and......

........Here's another!

And then there's the story about the trombone player...........

.....................Oja Kodar, The mysterious girl.......................

.................and Picasso!

Orson Welles is, was, and will always simply be one of the best!

Fake, real, or just tomfoolery?  It doesn't really matter because Orson is entertaining, no matter what!
"F For Fake" is a Fabulist, Faburden, Facinorous, Factious, Fadoodle, Fain, Falsidical Farrago! Fuckin' A!

GODZILLA FINAL WARS / Toho Company - 2004

Today we gots giant monster mayhem in a story that goes like this... When the aliens Xilians invade Earth, they release their monsters to destroy the big cities in Japan. The Earth Defense Force formed by mutants is incapable to defeat the creatures, so, Commander Gordon decides to unleash Godzilla what has been trapped for many years, to fight against the aliens' monsters. Godzilla becomes the last hope on Earth to vanquish the evil aliens and the powerful Gigan!!

I'll start with this shot of a pimp confronting the police over a traffic stop. This is a fun scene that literally has nothing to do with the plot... Hey, nice Caddy!!

Then, Earth is suddenly invaded by the Xilians. Their huge mother ship hovers over the city before a hostile meeting with the Earthlings.

To show they mean business, the Xilians bring in the mighty Gigan! The thing stars tearing the crap out of the city just before...

A ton of fighters are released from the Xilians' mother ship! Again, the beauty of destruction.

A shot of another battle at an icy location... The rocket's red glare, the bomb bursting in air!

This is one wild and weird shot, three monsters in a dog pile on the monkey. Funny stuff!

The Earth Defense Force brings in an updated version of their original ATRAGON flying war machine. It gets through the Xilians' defenses and crashes into the mother ship!

Our hero finds the Xilians' leader and puts the hurt on him! It's pretty funny to watch him pounding away on the leader as we see Godzilla beating the stuffing out of the monster he's fighting on the screen!!.

Our heroes get away just before the Xilians' mother ship blow itself to Hell and back!!

Then, an upgraded version of Monster X appears and the battle's on!!!... The battle has Godzilla in a bad way until the table gets turned and the three headed monster goes down for the final count...

And, wouldn't you know, THE SON OF GODZILLA is back, this time he shows off his fiery breath, but, dad has his back turned! Tune in tomorrow when Eegah!! will have something special for us all...

CONJURING ORSON - Jeremy Dylan Lanni (2014)

 Jeremy Dylan Lanni has been my friend on Facebook for a few years now. We've never met or spoke to each other, but he sends me emails with links to his short films, and I haven't been disappointed yet! Tonight's Wild Wednesday 8 minute short feature  written, directed, and produced by Jeremy is called "Conjuring Orson!" It's well done, funny, smart, and informative, so what the Hell else could you want out of 8 minutes?

And so it goes, "Conjuring Orson" is a movie about making a movie about a movie!

The main scene is set at a seance!
Eileen Barnett is awesome as Madam Tana! Eileen has been all over TV for three decades now!

 Sarah (As The World Turns, All My Children) Glendening is Kristen Powers, and Clifford (Redlands) Morts are two film makers who want to remake the last but unfinished film of Orson Welles called "The Other Side Of The Wind," and they're seeking spiritual help to try and find out what kind of ending Orson had in mind!

 The skeptical third member of the party is Stuart (Not Necessarily The News) Pankin as an actor Eli Klein!

The ghost of Orson Welles is one of the hardest working guys in show business, Peter (They Live) Jason, who ironically enough was actually in "The Other Side Of The Wind" before it got scrapped!

 They ask some questions and Orson has some not so kind things to say about the film making business, and then..........

 ..........He's gone just as fast as he appeared, and he never got around to answering their question about the ending, so they're just going to have to come back and pay for another session!

 They didn't get the ending out of Orson, and I'm not going to tell you either!!

But you can go watch it yourself, and that would be my recommendation!

So what do you think? Orson's real last film that got completed was a documentary titled "F For Fake," so you can pretty much assume that this is 

not quite The End either!

The HORROR And SCI-FI MOVIES Of ARTHUR FRANZ 1951-9

Arthur Franz was in a pile of great Fifties Horror and Sci-Fi Movies, here are the movies he starred in from 1951-9. He did a few other horror movies in the sixties and seventies but I'm not including them for good reason...

In 1951 Arthur starred in the Universal sci-fi comedy, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN. In 1948, at the end of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, our boys meet The Invisible Man in a row boat, but, the voice was that of Dungeon Hero, Vincent Price!

Also in 1951, Arthur took a FLIGHT TO MARS with his pals! Man, does he look handsome in his space garb as he represents the Earth on their journey to the Red Planet.

INVADERS FROM MARS from 1953 is one of my very favorite flicks... In the still, we see David confirming that the UFO model he's shown by Dr. Kelston is the same as the one that landed in the dunes while Dr Blake looks on. If you don't recognize this scene, well, it's because it only appears in the reedited British version, which I watched again over the weekend!

Then, in 1957, Arthur appears in the very strange movie, BACK FROM THE DEAD. What I remember about this one is the weird sci-fi music Arthur plays throughout the movie.

THE FLAME BARRIER from 1958 is another one of my favorite movies, saw it when it came out. Arthur plays the older brother of a jungle expedition team that helps the wife of the dude in the space blob save the world!!

Another movie I saw at the time was Universal's MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS in 1958, Arthur plays Professor Blake who becomes the monster... The still shows Eegah's (!!) favorite scene!

THE ATOMIC SUBMARINE from 1959 is another all time favorite movie of mine. Arthur is perfect as the hard nosed Lt. Cmdr. Holloway. In the still, he shoots a flare into the eyeball of the giant cyclops monster! So, there you go, although Arthur was a very unhappy actor, his movies are always great to watch again and again...