Superstar!

Reading this article at TimeOut I was shocked to see that genius Todd Haynes' genius Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story was voted the greatest music film of all time. "Music film" as in a movie about a real life musician (so, no musicals or This is Spinal Tap). Superstar really is quite amazing. Filmed entirely using Mattel barbie dolls, archival footage and the unauthorised Carpenter song catalogue - considering Haynes' unflinching portrayal of not only Carpenter's anorexia (demonstrated on the barbie dolls by simple scratching away the face) but also her brother's homosexuality and her family's cruely.


The film is banned, but many illegal bootleg copies exist both in hard copy and streamed on the net. The thing that struck me about Superstar was that, as the article also says, the musical scenes are incredibly moving and Haynes gets ample mialage out of the emotional distress that Carpenter goes through. It's a fantastic film, if only a 48-minute one, and I wish more people had the chance to see it.

Below is a very poor quality sample of the movie with Karen "performing" the song "Close to You". Haynes' next film is the equally strange-sounding Bob Dylan "supposition", which is out in America on November 21.

Fully Sick (no, really)

That title heading will be lost of a large number of readers, but 'tev. So, entries have been slow the last couple of days because I've been incredibly sick (I didn't even touch the computer yesterday, and that means it was bad), but I'm on the mend now so that's a good thing. In fact, compared to yesterday, I'm feeling positively spritely (if that's even a word). Anyway. I've updated my sidebar with new movie viewings and such.

One of the movies I watched recently (in the miscellaneous viewings) was Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (thanks for Adam from Crumb by Crumb for the hookup). The banned 1987 Todd Haynes film about Carpenter's singer Karen Carpenter. I was telling my friend Georgie about it and then just casually dropped into the convo that the film (all 43 minutes of it) is "acted" entirely (well, mostly) out of Barbie dolls. As soon as I said it I turned around and walked off. When I returned a minute later she was still a bit confused. But it's great. Watch it. But, er, I guess we're not meant to discuss it and keep it all hush hush right? Cause it's banned. Right?