Curt McDowell

Quote:
“Welcome to Sparkle’s Tavern, a bizarre little hole-in-the-wall. In the Convenience Parlor in the back of the tavern are four more holes in the `Suck Stalls.’ When the chorus girls and headliner Sparkle aren’t singing and dancing, they’re servicing the leather-cowboy patrons. Buster, the proprietor (and Sparkle’s gay brother) runs around nervous all the time and occasionally helps out at the stalls: `All this [fluid] is going to give me the runs,’ he says at one point. These siblings are terrified that their fragile, obsessive-compulsive mother will one day discover her children’s secrets. When gang leader Jock `rapes’ Sparkle in his apartment already full of `whiskey-laden, naked’ bodies, his jealous, white-trash girlfriend, Brenda (comparable to actress Yvette Mimieux), spills the beans about Beth Sue (Sparkle) and her non-sensual, highly dramatic Mom. This info allows Jock to blackmail Buster and seize control of his tavern. Jock sends an invitation to Mrs. Blake for a free night at the tavern…Read More »

Synopsis
An incredible document of the LGBT film scene in the early 1980s (as well as artist Barbara Hammer’s off-the-charts charisma), AUDIENCE finds Hammer working in a more straightforward documentary mode than usual. Hammer interviews her largely lesbian audiences before and after screenings of her work, capturing their reactions to her radical, erotic, experimental films.Read More »

Quote:
One of Kuchar’s few feature-length works is this ribald pastiche to postwar Hollywood melodrama, that period when the studios were trying very hard to be adult. The intricate, overheated plot involves a nurse trapped in an unhappy marriage who escapes the big city in search of greener pastures in Blessed Prairie, Oklahoma. Swerving from earnest homage to dark satire, Kuchar simultaneously imitates and savages the legacy of Sirk, Preminger and Minnelli that inspired him, gleefully intertwining the suggestive and the scatological, while also pointing towards the later postmodern parodies of Cindy Sherman. The Devil’s Cleavage is also a rich time capsule of 1970s San Francisco, replete with cameos from Curt McDowell and Art Spiegelman.
– The Harvard Film ArchiveRead More »

Quote:
If you’re at all familiar with underground cinema, than you’ve probably heard tales about this flick for years. But actually seeing the damned thing is a different matter entirely. Crass, sick and hilarious, this no-budget b&w feature is filled with the essence of pure, undiluted cinematic derangement. Like the earliest works of John Waters, it revels in taboo-shattering shocks and an undying love for Hollywood kitsch. Glorious overwritten by George Kuchar, and directed by the late Curt McDowell (who was one of Kuchar’s first students), it’s a torrent of comically-lit cliches, heated to the point of lurid parody. The time: A dark and stormy night. The setting: An old, secluded mansion–the home of the terrifically obscene Mrs. Gert Hammond (Marion Eaton), who staggers about the place with heavy, mismatched eyebrows and a vomit-caked wig.Read More »