Monday, May 31, 2010

Heineken? Fuck That Shit!

Dennis Hopper's Dead!


Pabst Blue Ribbon!!!

Dennis Hopper: May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010
Dreams Don't Die - But He Does

Dennis the Menace passed away this Memorial Weekend and the bartender at Baltimore's Sidebar paid homage to the Hollywood Bad Boy turned Nutter Character Actor and latterday Neo-Republican and Ameriprise Financial "Dreams Don't Die" TV pitchman with this sign referencing Hopper's Pabst Blue Ribbon-loving character "Frank Booth" from David Lynch's cult classic BLUE VELVET.



Early on in his career, Hopper was a James Dean wannabe, a rebel without a pause - except for the pretentious "Method Acting" that Dean and Brando whole-heartedly embraced - or a purpose or a direction, who purposely self-destructed his career and fucked over anything and anybody that got in his way. And, again like BLUE VELVET's Frank Booth, he also would "fuck anything that moves."



In Laid Bare: A Memoir of Wrecked Lives and the Hollywood Death Trip, author John Gilmore quotes 20th-Century Fox casting head Lee Wallace opining of Hopper: "Hopper is a boring and shallow person - not a pretty boy but a runt, though maybe if he drives himself crazy enough some spark will fly so at least he'll appear interesting, until he burns up. Not only is he a boring actor and a boring person, he is devoid of any screen personality. Without that, you have no commercial appeal - the only unforgivable sin in this town. When he's older he might make an interesting character actor, but right now he's what we call 'dead meat'..."

Boy did Wallace hit the nail on the head! Despite a starring role opposite Linda Lawson in (Kenneth Anger pal) Curtis Harrington's cult indie Night Tide (1961), his much ballyhooed directorial debut in the cartoonish anti-Hollywood calling card Easy Rider, and a few decent latter-day dramatic supporting roles in Hoosiers and Elegy, Hopper remains best known as a Kook Character Actor in independent films. And, of course, those "Dreams Never Die" ("Wrong!") Ameriprise TV commercials. I'm talking Hopper's crazed American photo-journalist in APOCALYPSE NOW, Feck in RIVER'S EDGE, "Lyle from Dallas" in RED ROCK WEST, and of course, Frank Booth in BLUE VELVET. That said, here are some of the finer moments from Hopper's character acting Nutter's Hall of Fame.

FOUR SCORE: MY FAVE OVER-THE-TOP HOPPER ROLES

FRANK BOOTH in BLUE VELVET
"Don't You Fucking Look at Me!"



FECK in RIVER'S EDGE
"Check's in the mail!"; "Did you love her?"



LYLE FROM DALLAS in RED ROCK WEST
Lyle says "Choose life!"



APOCALYPSE NOW
Manic Yank photojournalist who says of Kurtz: "The man's enlarged my mind!"



APOCALYPSE NOW may have provided the inspiration for Hopper's subsequent Ameriprise catchphrase ("What will they say of him [Kurtz] - that he was a kind man? That he was a good man? WRONG!!!"). Of course, Hopper's performance was even better when reimagined in the body of Piglet in Todd Graham's APOCALYPSE POOH. Who knew?

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Violet Budd posing in lingerie..

Violet Budd
I found some loose pics for the beautiful Violet Budd (real name Lauren Budd), posing for -what I could pick out, how scary is that- Figleaves and Jugendstil lingerie.
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DENNIS HOPPER (1936 - 2010) - The Mienfoks Tribute


Easy Rider - Billy

This was the film that embodied the spirit of the 60's or at least it was the film that pop culture thought embodied the spirit of the 60's. What Easy Rider really was was the embodiment of the freedom that America always advertizes but rarely delivers. This film more than any other conveyed why most people prefer NOT to be free. This was Dennis Hopper's Citizen Kane, the work that both defined and destroyed him. although Hopper unlike Orsen Wells was able to make his peace with hollywood. Hopper like Wells started out as a golden boy starring along with James Dean at the cutting edge of the method acting world, but after Dean's death only Hopper, Jack Nicholson(rarely considered a methodman because he is so good at it),Deniro, Pacino, Duvall and Walken seemed to continue true method acting in the post Brando world...


"What the hell is wrong with freedom? That's what it's all about"



Apocalypse Now - The PhotoJournalist

The truth was Hopper was as drug crazed as his character during the shooting of Francis Ford Coppola's Viet Namese  Magnus Opus.

"Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you"... I mean I'm... no, I can't... I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's... he's a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas..."



Blue Velvet - Frank Booth

I was never a huge David Lynch fan, but Hopper took the role of Frank Booth, the kidnapping, torturing, nitrous oxide inhaling psychpath to unbelieveable levels of awesome weirdness. Here are some memorable quotes:

"Don't be a good neighbor anymore to her. I'll have to send you a love letter! Straight from my heart, fucker! You know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker! You receive a love letter from me, and you're fucked forever! You understand, fuck? I'll send you straight to hell, fucker!... In dreams... I walk with you. In dreams... I talk to you. In dreams, you're mine... all the time. Forever"

"Hey, neighbor! You shit-for-brains, man! You forgot I have a police radio! One well-dressed fuckin' man knows where your fuckin' cute little butt's hidin'! Stupid fuck! Fuck with me, man! Here I come, ready or not! You fuck! I can hear your fuckin' radio, you stupid shit! You got about one fuckin' second to live, buddy! You're one sorry piece of shit, mister. Hey, pretty, pretty! What the fuck? Where are you? Where are you?"






True Romance - Clifford Worley

This scene is a masterpiece on so many levels: the writing is seminal Tarrentino, the direction from Tony Scott stiches together many qualities of the characters as the give and take between Hopper and Walken explodes into laughter and terror,...but for me the incredulous look on Walken's characters face is the money

"...if that's a fact, tell me, am I lying? 'Cause you, you're part eggplant"



Shaking The Cage - Awesome documentary about the making of Easy Rider











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Elisandra Tomacheski giving the look..

Elisandra Tomacheski
here's another two sets for the beautiful 24-year old Brazilian model Elisandra Tomacheski. Great face.
HT dionyx @ UMC.
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Elisandra Tomacheski
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Megan Fox is packing heat..


here's a phenomenal shoot for Megan Fox, posing in briefs for New York Times magazine. If HQs come about, I'll post them here.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley by Ellen Von Unwerth..


In case you missed it (I did), here's the beautiful English Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, shot by Ellen Von Unwerth for the April 2010 issue of GQ magazine. There's rumors (okay, maybe I'm behind on that as well) that she will replace Megan Fox in the upcoming Transformers 3 movie.