|
Urchins of Ungawa (1994)
Character: N/A
In a garden of roses and memorabilia from darkest Africa, a man and woman ponder the joy of cooking and the companionship of cats. Goodies for the guts abound in this visual essay on feline friendship and far away places. An electronic voyage beyond the stench of house and garden that transports the viewer- and cat- to the promised land.
|
|
|
Anita Needs Me (1964)
Character: N/A
An overheated tale of lust, guilt, and Mom, made as a response to the French New Wave.
|
|
|
Weather Diary 1 (1986)
Character: Himself
George Kuchar travels to Oklahoma in search of tornadoes, spends most of his time watching TV and eating food.
|
|
|
Weather Diary 3 (1988)
Character: N/A
Set in and around an El Reno motel, the tape records George's growing friendship with a young weather expert.
|
|
|
Nudes: A Sketchbook (1974)
Character: N/A
"Curt McDowell's NUDES (A Sketchbook) is a paean to the filmmaker's closest friends: a series of portraits (beginning with one of George Kuchar) based on stylized, often graphically sexual interpretations of his or her personality. The portraits also, at times, represent Curt's own sexual interests as he projects them onto the lives of others. My favorites are 'Barbara', a Pre-Raphaelite vision of woman and 'Ainslie', a musical spoof on glamour. The filmmaker's point of view ranges from compulsively erotic to light-hearted and self-debunking. A broad reading of the term 'romantic' would probably best describe the spectrum of extreme, even outrageous, possibilities which Curt embraces in this sketchbook/film." - Karen Cooper, Film Forum
|
|
|
|
|
Electrocute Your Stars (2004)
Character: N/A
In this dream portrait, George Kuchar travels through snow confetti, strobe flashes and artificial wind as he describes his weather diaries. Then, George joins Janet Leigh in the shower. Wearing a red raincoat and a shower cap, reading comic books and blowing bubbles, he laughingly describes his bathing rituals and the making of his film, HOLD ME WHILE I'M NAKED.
|
|
|
|
Night of the Bomb (1962)
Character: N/A
The film combines teenage lust and deranged delinquency to create a cautionary tale for the ages.
|
|
|
|
|
A Passage to Wetness (1990)
Character: N/A
An island. A mountain. A City of Angels who scoop up the pellets dropped by other winged creatures.
|
|
|
Pictures at an Exhibitionist’s (1989)
Character: N/A
A wide-ranging look at pictures I collect on my walls and in my head. A look at pictures I concoct with my students at the San Francisco Art Institute, and objects d’art collected by those whose picture is taken by my picture-taking machine.
|
|
|
Cellar Sinema (1994)
Character: N/A
A descent into the blackness of the projected image and the curators who flick the switches and grease up all moveable parts for hot action when the lights go out.
|
|
|
Sherman Acres (1992)
Character: Ira
A drama in six episodes involving psychological breakdowns, marital showdowns, and messy obsessions. The characters include a wayward priest, a promiscuous school-teacher and her proctologist husband, teenage thrill killers, and an obsession-driven psychotherapist with an enema bag. Lots of special effects, as it moves quickly from one major crisis to another.
|
|
|
|
Indian Summer (1991)
Character: N/A
The colors of fall are muted by the fog of a lingering summer and the memory of that which is dark and naked among the dappled crimson.
|
|
|
Migration of the Blubberoids (1989)
Character: N/A
"The whiteness of winter cannot bury the blubbery things that splash and frolic among the frozen memories of Heathen harvests, in a land haunted by lard and ancestral lip-smacking." The collision of an overly dramatic film score/soundtrack with the banal yet enigmatic images of snow covered streets leads to a dissonant effect; the expectation of one is not fulfilled by the other.
|
|
|
Fill Thy Crack with Whiteness (1989)
Character: N/A
A music-filled tour of Christmas good cheer overtakes this gastronomically oriented excursion through the winter season of discontent and yuletime yearnings craving ignition.
|
|
|
Rainy Season (1987)
Character: N/A
Thanksgiving in California is the setting in which the viewer experiences "the depression inherent to festive occasions. There were many things bothering me at this time, or maybe it was one thing that broke into many pieces.
|
|
|
Portrait of Ramona (1971)
Character: N/A
This movie was made mostly in Brooklyn during some very hot and empty evenings. Since the evenings were so empty, Jane Elford, the star, urged me to get started making another movie (we had completed PAGAN RHAPSODY the year before). I said "okay," and launched her in a photographed series of telephone calls, not really knowing who was going to be on the other end. I was interested at the time in irrational, neurotic responses and so the heroine was put into unstable situations that I dreamt up because I was making a movie with a plot and there should be some action .... Many of the stars appear nude and all I can say is that because of the heat and the general, overall feeling of the film which is one of the usual desperation and explosive emotions, I couldn't see any other way of them playing it. The general tone of everything was ... "Why even bother to get dressed?"
|
|
|
Chigger Country (1999)
Character: N/A
Pastures filled with the bounty of a meateater's fantasy fill the screen with bellows of bovine origin as testosterone-driven madness runs rampant on 20,000 acres of Oklahoma soil. A lone female turkey stuffer prepares the goodies that will nourish the sunburned as they rocket skyward on the scales of numerical poundage to come crashing earthward in time for marinated hamburgers. A trip to the garden of Eden and its sanctuary for snakes with an appetite for dog meat.
|
|
|
|
Visitation Rites (2003)
Character: N/A
Alone in an Oklahoma motel room with a mute companion, the talkative one speaks the language of memory as pussycats feast from a canned cornucopia. Murals plaster the vacancy intrinsic to American angst as horse tails whip from annoyance the nagging gnats of tomorrow’s dung: a heap of uncertainty made impotent by the swashes of chipped paint that depict a netherworld of faded dreams and nostalgic neurosis for the future impaired.
|
|
|
Secrets of the Shadow World (1999)
Character: Himself
This three-part mini-series explores the mysterious and the mundane in a splash of digital dioramas that wipe across the screen in a cascade of electronic barfs. Zeroing in on the paranormal theories of UFO author John A. Keel, this leisurely exposition, which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, sweeps the viewer into a candy-colored world of scintillating mysteries made all the more intriguing by culinary digressions.
|
|
|
Weather Watch (1991)
Character: N/A
A window or two on the outside world is not enough, especially when you have such a lousy view of things as I had in this Oklahoma residential care home. The majesty of the console-model TV gave new dimension to the concept of time and space, and shrank it all down to a 21-inch lump of nature—a 21-incher that didn’t smell and permeate the atmosphere with discomfiture. A meditation on the elsewhere and wanting to be there.
|
|
|
That Woman (2018)
Character: Barbara Walters
That Woman uses as source material the original Barbara Walters interview with Monica Lewinsky, which is intercut with a re-staging of the interview. Ms. Lewinsky is played by a women bearing a remarkable physical resemblance to the original, and Barbara Walters is played by George Kuchar. The make-up, costumes, set, lighting, and camera set-ups, are a facsimile of the original, albeit without the stunning high-production values displayed in the network original.
|
|
|
Season of Sorrow (1996)
Character: Himself
Ice falls from the sky as tears plip-plop onto wall-to-wall carpeting. No degree of renovation can enliven the dead that we mourn in our hearts as the storm of the centuries assails our heads with memories of the passing parade that got rained on. A weather diary of May-time misery.
|
|
|
Chronicles (1969)
Character: N/A
Mike Kuchar'ss lyrical portrait of everyday life, from making art to making love, all as the Vietnam War rages.
|
|
|
Xmas 1987 New Years (1988)
Character: Himself
A sweet and savory journey in the company of George traveling from Christmas to New Years, stopping for snacks, drinks, and pets.
|
|
|
Dingleberry Jingles (1994)
Character: Self
In Dingleberry Jingles, George discusses all things Christmas with his cat, attends a wedding, and of course indulges in a holiday delicacy or two.
|
|
|
Webtide (2010)
Character: Himself
Once again a seaside serenade of sloshing oils and simmering scallops fills the crannies of Cape Cod with dingle-berries of dubious delight! Join a crew of crustacean craving civilians as they shuck their shells of inhibitions to become the truly truculent trespassers of a salty sanctuary. Visit the chefs of chivalry as they skewer the squeamish with talons of titillating tidbits, each one a calorie crunching course in obese obtrusiveness and opulent oddness. Come one, come all, and sample a smorgasbord of simple pleasures in this vacation video of vicarious vacillations.
|
|
|
Portrait of Genie (2008)
Character: Himself
An ex-student of mine opens up in the privacy of her home and shows me her etchings (watercolors) as we talk of art and things that slip under the fabric of daily attire. - George Kuchar
|
|
|
Water Sports (2007)
Character: Himself
A trip to the Marin headlands at the Golden Gate of San Francisco Bay headlines this video diary. The viewer gets to eves and eye drop on various verbal and real time activities that are of a wet nature now and then. There’re boats and bodies and some spoken unspeakables amid the splendor of natural and unnatural expressions befitting the rim of a pacific paradise at low tide.
|
|
|
|
Encyclopedia of the Blessed (1968)
Character: N/A
" ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE BLESSED culminates my involvement with artist Red Grooms and Mimi Gross. It is a diary of our work as we head for the Pacific Ocean in a suicidal plunge for theatrical infamy. The film traces the construction of two craven images made in the likeness of myself by Grooms and Gross. Then it switches to the sandhills of Nebraska where fat cattle walk around. There the film explores Grooms' biggest construction, "The Chicago Installation." The film rolls relentlessly onward to the West Coast showing, for the first time on any screen, a theatrical production we three put in the University of California. It marks my directorial debut on the stage and Red Grooms' comeback after ten years of exile from live theatre." - George Kuchar
|
|
|
Cult of the Cubicles (1987)
Character: Himself
Writes Kuchar: "It's New York in the summer and I set out to track down some high school friends who have burrowed deep into the 'big apple.' The viewer gets to see how far they've eaten their way to the core in this 45-minute study of urban denizens in the grip of Newtonian damnation." Here, Kuchar visits his mother in the Bronx, chats and eats with old friends in their claustrophobic New York apartments, and muses about friendship, growing older, and a time when the "streets of New York were cleaner, and so was I."
|
|
|
500 Millibars to Ecstasy (1989)
Character: Himself
The dark and sloppy side of touring college towns with your work. An internal expose of external secretions that unfortunately make it to the boob tube in full color.
|
|
|
Scarlet Droppings (1991)
Character: Himself
Taped in Normal, Illinois, during the height of autumn, a snapshot of a young girl triggers a meditation on dying innocence and sizzling sausages as a low, winter sun ignites the smoke of greasy longings and meat-eating hunger.
|
|
|
Point 'n Shoot (1989)
Character: Himself
A lavish home is visited, shutters click, bottoms are exposed, water splashes and a welcome wetness stains an area unquenched for so long. A jacuzzi bubbles to life in a bedroom community that floats to sleep on aqua-filled rubber.
|
|
|
Rocky Interlude (1990)
Character: Himself
A trip to a barren landscape of jagged peaks and deep crevasses becomes a playground for an over-dressed hiker and his beefcake buddy as they secrete and imbibe fluids from various containers.
|
|
|
Snap 'n Snatch (1990)
Character: Himself
A sort-of music video that focuses on and under young women and men engaged in focusing video and movie cameras on other young men and women.
|
|
|
Award (1992)
Character: Himself
A behind-the-scenes look at the man behind the trophy and the poisons that taint an otherwise jubilant jamboree.
|
|
|
Uncle Evil (1996)
Character: Himself
The young and the innocent at the mercy of a palpable presence oozing menace and scarlet-stained goodness as a strawberry sundae melts under the glare of future hell-firestorms in search of kindling.
|
|
|
The Inmate (1997)
Character: Himself
The splendor of a mountain lake is clouded by the musings of a brain in memory mode. The head relives the heartbreak of suburbia and the vacancies that fill every motel on the edge of nowhere. The body moves through a rainbow palette of indelible stains that color the journey with the hues of heaven and hell.
|
|
|
The Kingdom By The Sea (2002)
Character: Himself
The spirit of poets permeates the space/time occupied by an assortment of dinner engagements that occasionally erupt into physical or verbal assaults on the taste buds. Flowers of evil are absent from this foray into the spoken word, as the message is one of courage in the face of carnivorous tendencies. An archivist shares his dream with us while the dreamers dabble in their own brand of munchies meant to nourish rather than negate. Mortality hovers over the hovels of the hungry as poetry becomes as concrete as the pastry offered we mortals on planet Earth.
|
|
|
Burnout (2003)
Character: Himself
A metropolis awash in electrical overdrive crashes in the heat of summer and sends a Bronxite into the clutches of a waterworld further north. It is there that we witness the cooling fogs and diving mammals of maritime yore and sail free in winds of a nautical nature. A nature that fills the summer sky with twinkling tidbits and the tummy with protein rich denizens of Neptune’s soup. A tour of the towering turrets of tomorrow land and the spatial splendor of yesterday’s yearnings captured on both chemical and electrical media.
|
|
|
Supercell (2004)
Character: Himself
Clouds abound in this short meditation on vaporous masses that flow across the borders of our windowpanes, leaving in their wake the wreckage of discarded diets and sugar coated emptiness. Into those holes that surround us with the sweetness of puffy dough we plunge into a landscape of desolation and rebirth, never again to deny the terror that piles up in the sky like a malignant mound of virgin pudding. A mass of revolving turbulence hell-bent on defying gravity in the name of vertical instability and electrical insanity. A supercell for the supersized who flee its windy wrath.
|
|
|
Song of the Whoopee Wind (2005)
Character: Himself
A California Christmas season ushers in an array of holiday visuals designed to feed the hunger of soiled souls in search of truffle filled delights. A glittering seaport of electric lights helps the viewer to see through the murk of isolation as various species claw their way through the bountiful gifts that a rainy season delivers. Awash in joy and Juju statues, the unclean celebrate a rebirth dipped in chocolate as reptile and mammal unite in a dark hunger for foil wrapped ecstasy
|
|
|
The Hairy Horror (2009)
Character: Himself
A chance encounter with a sober student reveals the mystery of a woodland wonder that has left a mark on his youthful psyche just as it leaves huge footprints on the forest floor. A short meditation on a tall terror in the trees that shade shadowy giants from the glare of sanity.
|
|
|
Coven of the Heathenites (2008)
Character: Self
A summer sojourn is fleshed out for maximum solar exposure in this video travelogue of sun, sea and epidermal exhibitionism. The states of mind and geographic localities are awash in a flow of imagery that rushes in on a tide of both Pacific and Atlantic origins. The people and places that bathe in this magnificence add both a sacred and profane froth into the salty brew; a witches brew of sculpted creations bubbling up with volatile violations from the depths of unfathomable needs.
|
|
|
Going Nowhere (1992)
Character: Himself
Writes Kuchar: "It was my 50th birthday this year (1992) and my friend's birthday, so I explored our position in time and dusty place with a prognostication on future inertia." In this chapter of his ongoing Video-8 diary, Kuchar's birthday becomes an occasion to ponder mortality, dust, agoraphobia and relationships. Documenting the hilarious yet ultimately melancholy dramas of the everyday within the claustrophobic confines of his apartment, Kuchar may be going nowhere, but, as he notes, "at least we're going nowhere together."
|
|
|
Why Are You Weird? (2009)
Character: Professor
Curtis Jackson is studying performance art at one of the most prestigious art schools in the nation, yet he is still unable to live down the shame of his devastating past as a high school swimmer who was exposed as having webbed feet. In this heartwarming, coming-of-age tale, Curtis must overcome his insecurities and finally win over the girl of his dreams, all while still trying to explore his creative path and get a good grade at the end of the semester.
|
|
|
Domain of the Pixel Pixies (1998)
Character: Himself
Sort of a portrait of the videomaker Anne McQuire, who surfaces midway from this waterlogged landscape of El Nino disasters to dispense charm and chocolate within the confines of her concrete office. There is also a flood of imagery that flows in and out of art museums, viewing facilities, and eateries that are perpetually haunted by yours truly along with the spirit of hoboism that feeds on apple pie America.
|
|
|
Xmas 1986 (1986)
Character: Himself
"In Xmas 1986, George Kuchar’s mother Stella has come to stay with him for the holidays. After a series of dinners with friends, Stella’s repeated discussions about her shingles and Kuchar’s ominous film-noirish narration, Kuchar rescues the morale of a dinner party gone bad thanks to an undercooked ham by presenting his hosts with a very memorable holiday gift." – Kyle Riley
|
|
|
|
|
The Shadow Glass (1976)
Character: N/A
The Shadow Glass is roughly based on Ewers' 'Student of Prague'. It concerns a young man who, feeling incapable of surmounting the harsh realities of love and life, sends his reflection cut to procure and win for him the object of his desire. Rather than being his servant and slave, the reflection takes over and controls the life of the man. In frustration and anger the man kills his reflection in order to be set free. The reality of the situation is the reality of suicide. The entire film could be interpreted as taking place in a brief second–for as long as it takes pull the trigger.
|
|
|
River Windows (1966)
Character: N/A
"A film counterpointing the hard reality of the present with the fantastic actuality or imagining of the idyllic past. This is best realized in the halting transition from the journey through time back to the watery one that evoked." –Ken Kelman
|
|
|
Andy Warhol's Unfinished Symphony (1975)
Character: N/A
A clarification of the '60s and its plastic society; taking archetypes of the American landscape to deal with the search for human identity and our alienation.
|
|
|
|
George und Mike Kuchar (1977)
Character: Self
Portrait of siblings George and Mike Kuchar, who have made a name for themselves in the US underground scene with low-budget films.
|
|
|
A Night with Gilda Peck (1974)
Character: N/A
A vehicle for the talented Mrs. Kathleen Hohalek, as the tenant of the Pyramid Penthouse, with George Kuchar and Bob Hohalek as the burglars, "Slug," and "Boom Boom," John Thomas as "the Copper" and Ainslie Pryor as "the maid."
|
|
|
George Kuchar: An Interview (2005)
Character: George Kuchar
Since the 1980s, Kuchar has been creating brilliantly edited, hilarious, and often diaristic tapes made with dime-store props and not-so-special effects, using friends as actors and the "pageant that is life" for his studio. In this interview, Kuchar, in a generous, gregarious mood despite the Manhattan summer humidity, discusses his life and the full range of his work from the early collaborative films to his most recent tapes. Conversational anecdotes, frank and witty, provide insight into Kuchar's working methods, as well as the work itself and its reception in various quarters.
|
|
|
Vermin of the Vortex (1996)
Character: Self
Alienation in academia beneath the chandeliered opulence of a political correctional facility that caters to clashing cultures with chicken fajitas and carefully worded alphabet soup. Features George at the Flaherty Seminar and the Chicago Underground Film Festival.
|
|
|
|
Return to the House of Pain (1988)
Character: Self
Return to the House of Pain documents my walking through the turf and sludge of the Big Apple and many worm holes... I chomp my way back west and gnaw on all that sinks stomachward and beyond in vertiginous aching.
|
|
|
Arizona Byways (2001)
Character: Self
A cactus-strewn desert becomes the backdrop for this series of filmic stopovers. Great natural beauty clashes with manufactured outdoorsmanship, as a tired body and sluggish mind seek the oblivion of hotel hospitality in an arid region of artistic aspirations. The viewer is introduced to a world of prickly plants and satin-skinned succubi who prowl the alleys of western decay to staple their fig leaflets on the vertical shafts that poke unsheathed at the virgin skies of southern Arizona. The sheaths are administered, and the population prepares for cinematic coupling in a city park earmarked for culture. Enter the masculine caves that spilled forth their glittering guts onto a surface world as desperate for gems as it was for water. Witness this natural spectacle all packaged and delivered in the form of a vacation video, and marvel at the mavens of movie-making as they bombard the public with a cacophony of celluloid under the moonlit, desert sky.
|
|
|
The Warming of the Hell House (1990)
Character: Self
A trip across the bay to Concord yields a harvest of non-fruit-like beings who celebrate a housewarming that simmers with macho machinations and family discord. The mood is upbeat while the company is lowbrow, and coming out of the bushes rather than the woodwork.
|
|
|
Foto Spread (1991)
Character: Self
A photographer comes to my home to take pictures and gets a lensful. His mouth and his shutter snap away as I aim my finest attributes at his cold and hard equipment.
|
|
|
|
|
The Butchered Beefcake (2011)
Character: N/A
This video diary visits two sites that exhibited Kuchars visual works this past year, culminating at the VOLTA ART SHOW in N.Y.C., where he sold some paintings and a photograph.
|
|
|
Vintage Visits (2010)
Character: N/A
Another edition to Kuchars weather diary series, this particular one has more social intercourse occurring in the prairie hovel which houses the hidden longings of he who seeks sustenance from the void. The void acts up in the beginning and then simmers warmly in the glow of companionship from fellow travelers on this Route 66 to who knows where? Perhaps to that pillar of pancake perfection known as Denny's (the restaurant, not the deity).
|
|
|
The Nutrient Express (2010)
Character: N/A
A trip to Winnipeg introduces the viewer to moments of Canadian cuisine and to the easily digestible tidbits that make up the WNDX Film/Video Festival. Come join the movie buffs as they beef up on eye candy and tummy truffles, all the while indulging in a masticating miasma of minutia that's easy to swallow. Wash it all down with some river views and Mr. Coffee secretions and you'll get a taste of the treats that await all who head north to appease the more southerly rumblings of the human anatomy.
|
|
|
Tummy Ache Times (2010)
Character: N/A
It's the season of joy once again and this video depicts the tasty and the troublesome in big, heaping spoonfuls. Witness a social whirlpool of whipped confections and stripped confessions tastefully prepared in soupy symbolism. See man and domesticated mammals share in the bounty of a cosmopolitan cornucopia. Feast your eyes and ears on the snap-crackle-and-pop culture of a city simmering in smut. Swallow it all in the 4:3 format and good luck in the digestive department.
|
|
|
Calorie Cottage (2010)
Character: N/A
Encompassing both Thanksgiving, Christmas and the exploding New Year's Eve celebrations, this holiday video is chock full of chicken and chatter befitting the season. There's a turkey in there too and a hungry clan of consumer ready to eat you out of house and home (with a house made specifically for that purpose). Come join the merry mayhem as young and old devour what's left of the old year to burp up the new one!
|
|
|
Delectable Destinations (2010)
Character: N/A
This time, the call of the west sends Kuchar packing to Oregon, California and Arizona. You too can experience the dizzy delights of a whirlwind tour and witness wonders seen through the savage eye of a Sony camcorder. Actually, the adventure is rather mellow in mood and should spare the viewer a need for the ever looming and inevitable barf bag. See Phoenix in all its rocky royalty! Relish in the student clogged ivy halls of Portland! Immerse yourself in a technicolor rendering of Irvine, California. And don't worry, the trip isn't that long, as that savage eye has a short attention span.
|
|
|
The Unmentionables (2009)
Character: N/A
Frisco anxiously awaits the pyrotechnic birth of a New Year while the remnants of holiday greenery still burn bright in all the right places. One of those places gives shelter to an Abyssinian animal of lethargic nature, while all about her the rumblings of tummies in turmoil foreshadow the gluttony of her bipedal guardian.
|
|
|
|
The Unclean (1967)
Character: Himself
Lost film featuring vignettes of individual couples in a bathtub
|
|
|
|
George (1976)
Character: N/A
George (1976, revised in 1988) is a portrait of George Kuchar composed on a J-K optical printer with 4 scenes always running simultaneously through frame alternation .
|
|
|
|
Tomorrow Always Comes (2006)
Character: N/A
A 1940s campy film noir sex romp comedy thriller. Harlem, Chinatown, Park Ave. It’s the same old story. Boy meets girl, boy gets dead, girl gets rich. Real rich. With Bill Rice, George Kuchar, James Tigger! Ferguson, Armen Ra, Mimi Gross, Megan Pearson, Mariana Newhard, Kimberly Lewis, Meghan Love, Jenny Weaver, Amalia Rosa, and Royston Scott. Music by Marc Ribot and Brett Flute. — Anthology Film Archives
|
|
|
|
Bayou of the Blue Behemoth (1993)
Character: N/A
The waters run deep as massive jaws chomp and bubbles burst in a world gone mad with technological delusion and prehistoric puppetry.
|
|
|
Lumps of Joy (2004)
Character: N/A
A holiday video of good cheer and feline ferocity, this annual tradition of videotaped festivities centers on the oriental and occidental tidbits that make the season worthy for bipeds on wheels as they pedal from one calorie laden event to another. Along the way we meet many champs and chumps as they chomp away at the remaining moments of 2003. Ahead lie the lumpy treats of a New Year in need of NutraSweet.
|
|
|
|
L.A. Screening Workshop (1988)
Character: N/A
George spends a week in Los Angeles on business and at eating engagements. “I eat in Beverly Hills and do my business behind closed doors for a change....”
|
|
|
|
Mecca of the Frigid (1988)
Character: N/A
George visits underground filmmaker Robert Nelson in Milwaukee, and they brave the cold on Lake Michigan.
|
|
|
|
George Kuchar Goes to Work with Today's Youth (1992)
Character: N/A
As a video journal shot by George Kuchar’s students in his Underground Drama class at the San Francisco Art Institute, George Kuchar Goes to Work offers a unique glimpse into the frenzied chaos that was his directing method. Documenting the production of a new video with the help of his class, Kuchar orchestrates everything from women in cages and flaming baby dolls to explosive blood splatters and ballet dancing. A high school student also happens upon the set during a visit to the college. As this bizarre spectacle begins to cohere around him, the young student watches on with equal parts amazement and perplexity. In an attempt to ease the young boy’s confusion, Kuchar offers a piece of hedonistic advice that rings true through all of his works: ‘it all goes up in smoke, so sniff it while you can.’
|
|
|
|
Ann Arbor (1993)
Character: N/A
It stands as a mecca to 16mm film, and weathers the withering breath of a shifting climate. Bundled-up in opulence and optimism, the film festival goes onward and upward while I succumb to a glacial deposit that proves unflushable.
|
|
|
Oh Hi Anne (2017)
Character: Himself
An epic tale of love and loss. Made using voicemails the Kuchar brothers left on her home answering machine, the artist reveals George and Mike in all their candid honesty leading up to and following George’s untimely death in 2011. McGuire floats their voices along a river of digital scribbles and her own voice in singer/songwriter mode. The beauty of the piece lies partly in how the voicemails, used as-is and chronologically, contain an entire narrative about love and loss in a DIY style reminiscent of the Kuchars.
|
|
|
Meow Meow (1970)
Character: N/A
An animated short about a man who finds a cat that turns into a lion. The lion becomes a famous singer who is kidnapped by gangsters. Uses animated cutouts.
|
|
|
Swamp (1990)
Character: Uncle George
Swamp uses the soap opera format to play with the structure and expectations of the family melodrama. Following the melodramatic format that "if it can happen, it will happen," coincidence and unlikely events abound in a gleeful send-up of lurid intrigue, threatened morality, and endless double-crosses. With looped and repeated edits, fast-paced action, and aggressively funky video effects, Child layers on artifice and excess in an overdone remake of the TV serial.
|
|
|
3 Stories About Evil (2008)
Character: N/A
A very black mix of comedy about relationships, the media, children's beauty pageants, sex change operations and personal problems.
|
|
|
|
The Slasher (1958)
Character: N/A
An insane, deformed killer stalks the grounds of a resort house, bringing sudden violence to those of easy virtue and godlessness.
|
|
|
Beaver Fever (1974)
Character: Hunk
Starring George Kuchar as "Hunk", Mrs. Ruby B. Davis as "Aunt Ruth", and introducing Melinda McDowell as the much-abused, sex bomb "Goldenrod".
|
|
|
Gastronomic Getaway (1991)
Character: N/A
Writes Kuchar, "The magnificent Mono Lake becomes the centerpiece for this car trip through Yosemite National Park and the splendors of roadside pastry. Majestic mineral deposits rise from the salt laden waters as the bloated and bulimic revel in nature's nutrients."
|
|
|
Chili Line Stops Here (1989)
Character: Himself
A journey that begins in a Kansas City hotel and ends up in New Mexico. The bumpy ride is fuelled with libidinous juices as it lurches through college dormitories and sun-baked ghost towns. Rocks are lifted and things crawl out for all to see.
|
|
|
Precious Products (1989)
Character: Himself
In Precious Products we are subtly reminded of this country’s obsession with consumerism and narcissism. George, with his ever-present video-8 camera, attends an opening of Precious Products—an exhibition of artworks satirizing art as commodity. He leaves the art world of San Francisco to spend a Christmas holiday with friends in their opulent home. Ironically, this is the home of a celebrity (another kind of commodity), Russian defector/ballerina Natalia Makanova. Surrounded by all the luxuries of life and Makanova’s image, George muses about death. Panning over a dressing table laden with products, he focuses on a People magazine and comments, 'We are precious products, all of us.'
|
|
|
Metropolitan Monologues (2000)
Character: Himself
The New York City summer is fueled by the sultry emanations of hot air that tumble off the tongues of potential thespians as they attempt to decipher the gastric guesswork embedded in the prose of the pre-production process. The video camera flits across the boroughs of NYC in a splash-dash sojourn of sumptuous banquets and bohemian bombast, while the down-to-earth wisdom of the seeing impaired helps to guide the protagonist into detours of wisdom befitting his putrid project. A theatrical play incubates in the balding head of the videomaker and as its presence makes itself felt among the various victims of his vision, we share with them the horror of advancing age and the descriptive diatribes toward the destiny of the decrepit damned.
|
|
|
|
|
|
East by Southwest (1987)
Character: N/A
A trip to Boston to visit a local filmmaker in his studio is followed by a journey to the cinematic facilities of SUNY College in Purchase, NY, and then to the kitchen and living quarters of my mother in the Bronx. My mother is in her most candid mode as we relate and debate. My brother Mike suffers dental woes, too.
|
|
|
|
Sunset After Dark (1996)
Character: George Kilman
A struggling screenwriter finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation.
|
|
|
Hitchcocked! (2006)
Character: Self
A tribute to the work of Alfred Hitchcock, featuring contemporary filmmakers, writers, performers, and cultural critics.
|
|
|
|
Wild Night in El Reno (1977)
Character: N/A
"In the late spring of each year the Great Plains states of the U.S. experience a season characterised by destructive tornadoes of awesome force. This is the time of year when the underground film- and video-maker George Kuchar leaves his San Francisco home to make his annual pilgrimage to the nidus of these frightening storms. As hail and twisters batter the heartland, Kuchar holes up with his video camera in an inexpensive motel room somewhere in the vast prairies of Oklahoma and waits." - Jesse Lerner, Storm Squatting at El Reno (at cabinetmagazine.org)
|
|
|
Brakhage (1998)
Character: Self (archive footage)
BRAKHAGE explores the depth and breadth of the filmmaker’s genius, the exquisite splendor of his films, his magic personal charm, his aesthetic fellow travelers, and the influence his work has had on generations of other creators. While touching on significant moments in Brakhage’s biography, the film celebrates Brakhage’s visionary genius, and explores the extraordinary artistic possibilities of cinema, a medium mostly known only for its commercial applications in the form of narratives, cartoons, documentaries, and advertising. BRAKHAGE combines excerpts from Brakhage’s films and films of other avant-garde filmmakers (eg, George Kuchar, Jonas Mekas, Willie Varela, Bruce Elder, and others); interviews with Brakhage, his friends, family, colleagues, and critics; archival footage of Brakhage spanning the past thirty-five years; and location shooting in Boulder, Colorado and New York.
|
|
|
Video Album 5: The Thursday People (1987)
Character: N/A
The comings and goings of the late underground filmmaker, Curt McDowell—and the people and activities that came and went along with him—are the themes that run through this existential diary of daily life. McDowell was dying from AIDS-related illnesses during the production of the diary. “An elegy for McDowell, the videowork captures Kuchar’s mournful remembrances of his long-lasting friendship with the young filmmaker. But it also has the inquisitive charm, perverse humor, and quirky candor that places Kuchar’s visual expressions in a gritty niche all their own.”
|
|
|
|
|
Bill's Hat (1967)
Character: N/A
"The whole film are non-art portraits of people in which they do what they want with this hat – and therefore, act or stand in front of my camera. It’s only love: therefore it can’t harm you". Joyce Wieland.
|
|
|
Underground New York (1968)
Character: Self
A rare behind-the-scenes view of the exploding New York “underground” in the late sixities, a turbulent time and place that was to change American culture forever. A German TV crew, led by journalist Gideon Bachmann, explores the epicenter of the sixties revolution in art, music, poetry and film and interviews the main players in the “New American Cinema,” that was born on the streets of New York. Against a backdrop of cultural upheaval in all of the arts and growing political agitation against the Vietnam War, Bachman interviews the most prominent figures in “underground film,” including Jonas Mekas, Shirley Clarke, the Kuchar Brothers and Bruce Connor, and visits the most notorious location in the New York art world of the era - Andy Warhol’s Factory - to conduct an interview with the genius of Pop Art himself.
|
|
|
Meet The Kuchar Brothers (2006)
Character: N/A
Provides a rare glimpse into the world of George and Mike Kuchar, underground filmmaking brothers from the Bronx. Get to know the Kuchars, casually hanging out with John Waters at a party, looking at old yearbook photos with their high school classmate Gerard Malanga. Sit in on an extensive interview with the brothers at Anthology Film Archives.
|
|
|
The Gates of Gomorrah (2002)
Character: Self
Shutters click in this clothes-dropping exhibition of photographic exposures sure to quicken the pulse of those in need of extremity expansion. The voice of artistic reason rises above orgiastic visuals that splash across the pages of glue-bound volumes oozing with sticky subjects of a carnal persuasion. Come and rejoice in the mayhem and frivolity that only Eros unchained can deliver. The soiled and the damned live again on the glossy pages of glue-bound tabloids ticketed for hell and beyond. Witness the innocent and the fun-loving as they become documented fodder for light sensitive materials too hot to handle. Get down and dirty with a deluge of messy mischief destined to flood your libido with a backwash of coffee table books that will titillate and terrify. Meet the man behind the mayhem and marvel at the clarity of it all. It’s also a cake-bashing, birthday celebration.
|
|
|
Bloodrape (2011)
Character: Grandpa
Notorious underground all-girl vampXcore band Bloodrape sets out on a reunion tour to destroy everyone's flesh/feelings.
|
|
|
Sparkle's Tavern (1985)
Character: Mr. Pupik
Siblings hide their ownership of a bordello from their mother. When she is visited by a man who shares the joys of sexual enlightenment with her, her entire world is turned upside down.
|
|
|
|
The Secret of Wendel Samson (1966)
Character: N/A
A young man's struggle with his sexuality overtakes his life, driving him deep into his subconscious where guilt and fears of physicality chase him still further. Cornered by an intangible terror, he realises he must either break out or break down.
|
|
|
|
All Smiles and Sadness (1999)
Character: Monologue Narrator
McGuire constructs a murky black and white soap-opera world of endless, timeless, and placeless limbo, where the characters talk to each other entirely in clichés, bad poetry, and other contrite forms of speech — a short TV show in which nothing is resolved. The video culminates in an absolutely stunning monologue performance by legendary underground film and videomaker George Kuchar.
|
|
|
Wieners and Buns Musical (1972)
Character: Forrest
A musical about an unhappy couple and the man that stands between them. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2015.
|
|
|
Taboo: The Single and the LP (1980)
Character: N/A
"Abner L. Fuqua clears his throat and I get mad and stand close to trains or cut my eyebrow off. Dorothy is Abner's wife. Abner can slap hard, like blue magic." - graffiti
|
|
|
Vault of Vapors (2009)
Character: N/A
One of Kuchars weather diary series out in Oklahoma. The tone is wistful, the surroundings wispy (with some puffs of pungency). The TV is on and the porcelain is smeared with some residue atrocity from a previous passion. But all is well as emptiness persists beyond the four walls of this prairie mausoleum.
|
|
|
I, an Actress (1977)
Character: Director
An actress and a director run through a melodramatic scene, speaking to a mannequin.
|
|
|
|
Lust for Ecstasy (1964)
Character: Father Nelson
“LUST FOR ECSTASY is my most ambitious attempt since my last film…. I wrote many of the pungent scenes on the D train, and when I arrived on the set I ripped them up and let my emotional whims make chopped meat out of the performances and the story…. Yes, LUST FOR ECSTASY is my subconscious, my own naked lusts that sweep across the screen in 8mm and color with full fidelity sound.” – George Kuchar
|
|
|
The Craven Sluck (1967)
Character: Morton
A desperate, married woman meets a mysterious man who she blatantly desires. Through some twists and turns, things do not go over as well as she seems to wish.
|
|
|
Born of the Wind (1964)
Character: N/A
A tender and realistic story of a scientist who falls in love with a mummy he has restored to life.
|
|
|
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2007)
Character: Self
In this entrancing documentary on performance artist, photographer and underground filmmaker Jack Smith, photographs and rare clips of Smith's performances and films punctuate interviews with artists, critics, friends and foes to create an engaging portrait of the artist. Widely known for his banned queer erotica film Flaming Creatures, Smith was an innovator and firebrand who influenced artists such as Andy Warhol and John Waters.
|
|
|
Hold Me While I'm Naked (1966)
Character: N/A
Presented as loosely autobiographical, Hold Me While I’m Naked centres on the tribulations of an independent filmmaker, frustrated at every turn as he tries to make a film that pretends to artistic merit.
|
|
|
Sins of the Fleshapoids (1965)
Character: Prince Gianbeno
One million years in the future, the human survivors of a nuclear war are served by robots called "fleshapoids." One day, fleshapoid Xar runs wild, kills its mistress and seeks its mate, a servant of wicked Prince Gianbeno.
|
|
|
Law of Desire (1997)
Character: N/A
The story of Trelita, a Chicana sex worker with an abusive boss and a dead boyfriend (who she may or may not have murdered). It is the second episode made in the Clit-o-matic: The Adventures Of White Trash Girl! series about female superhero White Trash Girl. It has been referred to as part #3 in an ongoing series.
|
|
|
Screamplay (1984)
Character: Martin
A talented writer, Edgar Allen, arrives in Hollywood with big dreams but is quickly pulled into a world of madness and depravity. A detective investigating a series of murders discovers that they are similar to the murders that occur in the new script by Edgar. Who will survive and what parts will be left for them?
|
|
|
Maggots and Men (2009)
Character: N/A
A utopian re-visioning of the Kronstadt Uprising of 1921, featuring film history's first cast of over 100 transgender actors, paints a portrait of formerly pro-Soviet sailors at the Kronstadt naval garrison who rebelled against the perceived failures of the new Bolshevik state.
|
|
|
|
|
365 Day Project (2007)
Character: Self
This exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ 365 Day Project, a succession of films and videos in calendar form. Every day as of January 1st, 2007 and for an entire year, as indicated in the title, a large public (the artist's friends, as well as unknowns) were invited to view a diary of short films of various lengths (from one to twenty minutes) on the Internet. A movie was posted each day, adding to the previously posted pieces, resulting altogether in nearly thirty-eight hours of moving images.
|
|
|
|
Tootsies in Autumn (1963)
Character: N/A
[A] cautionary tale about past-their-prime thespians caught up in a typically Kucharian vortex of madness. - Anthology Film Archives
|
|
|
Divine Trash (2000)
Character: Self
The life and times of Baltimore film maker and midnight movie pioneer, John Waters.
|
|
|
Galaxie (1966)
Character: Self
In March and April of 1966, Markopoulos created this filmic portrait of writers and artists from his New York circle, including Parker Tyler, W. H. Auden, Jasper Johns, Susan Sontag, Storm De Hirsch, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg, and George and Mike Kuchar, most observed in their homes or studios. Filmed in vibrant color, Galaxie pulses with life. It is a masterpiece of in-camera composition and editing, and stands as a vibrant response to Andy Warhol's contemporary Screen Tests. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2001.
|
|
|
Confessions (1972)
Character: N/A
"Just as outrageous is Curt McDowell's CONFESSIONS. McDowell, a graduate student at San Francisco Art Institute, opens his film with a confession to his mother and father, listing in exhausting detail his sins of the flesh."
|
|
|
Boggy Depot (1973)
Character: Damon
A musical for the whole family. A rural operette starring Ainslie Pryor and Geore Kuchar, told through song and rhme.
|
|
|
Peed Into the Wind (1972)
Character: N/A
An hour-long saga of Mick Terrific, rock 'n' roll star, and the cast of 50 he encounters on his search for "Mr. Wonderful." “PEED INTO THE WIND smears across the screen like one of those dirty underground comic books. It’s loaded with a lot of big scenes and unusual looking people that make this epic resemble a clogged toilet. Unfortunately, since several of the performers were not as loyal as Ainslie Pryor and John Thomas, the plot is difficult to follow but in no way hinders the sewer-like sequences. It’s quite enjoyable and possesses the releasing power of an enema.” –George Kuchar. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.
|
|
|
|
|
Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton (2013)
Character: Self
A chronicle of the iconoclastic life of gay poet, filmmaker, and spiritual visionary James Broughton, one of the defining voices of the sexual revolution, whose groundbreaking artistic celebrations of sexuality and the body influenced generations of the 1960s and '70s to profoundly embrace life and ‘follow your own weird’.
|
|
|
The Mongreloid (1978)
Character: Himself
A man, his dog, and the regions they inhabited, each leaving his own distinctive mark on the landscape. Not even time can wash away the residue of what they left behind.
|
|
|
It Came from Kuchar (2009)
Character: Self
It Came from Kuchar is the definitive, feature documentary about the legendary, underground filmmaking twins, the Kuchar brothers. George and Mike Kuchar have inspired two generations of filmmakers, actors, musicians, and artists with their zany, "no budget" films and with their uniquely enchanting spirits.
|
|
|
Bongwater (1998)
Character: Homeless Man
David is an artist and a pothead. He's fallen in love with the beautiful and sexy Serena, and things are going simply splendidly until poor David's house burns down. Serena doesn't need the bad vibes, so she splits the scene and runs off to New York with rocker and junkie Tommy. Lonely David finally turns to the sweet, sweet comfort of marijuana and his strange menagerie of friends to forget about his lost home and love
|
|
|
Eat My Makeup! (2010)
Character: N/A
With George Kuchar, Marie Losier, Jason Livingston, Paul Shepard. Five winsome damsels picnic on the roof of a warehouse in charming Long Island City, a forest of skyscrapers gleaming across the river. But when a swarm of flies interrupts their feast of chocolate-covered pretzels and cream-pies, the young ladies run amok.
|
|
|
Thundercrack! (1975)
Character: Bing / Medusa
An eccentric and alcoholic widow hosts a motley assortment of travelers - four men, three women and one gorilla - who arrive one eventful night to get out of a torrential rainstorm.
|
|
