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The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles. is presenting a fun group of them in a series called "Riot on the Sunset Strip Vol. II: Slight Return (To 1966)." The films include "It's a Bikini World" with '60s rockers the Animals, the Castaways, the Gentrys and the Toys, a very rare showing of "The Big TNT Show" with the Byrds, Bo Diddley, Ike and Tina Turner and Ray Charles (and produced by Phil Spector), another rarity in "Uncle Meat" with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and "Angel Angel Down We Go" with Jennifer Jones, Roddy McDowall and Lou Rawls. the final film, "Candy," from 1968, with Richard Burton, Marlon Brando, John Huston, James Coburn and Ringo Starr. It's hosted by Domenic Priore, author of "Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock'n'Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood." The series runs July 31 through Aug. 6.
Sunday, August 2 – 7:30 PM
UNCLE MEAT, 1987, 100 min. Frank Zappa began directing The Mothers of Invention’s one and only movie, UNCLE MEAT, less than two years after the group debuted at the Action on Santa Monica Boulevard (Halloween weekend, 1965), but it did not see release until 1987. Colorful footage from their "Absolutely Free"-era residency at the Garrick Theater in New York, and from the Sgt. Pepper/psychedelia-mocking "We’re Only in it for the Money" album cover shoot is mixed with orchestral bits from a 1968 concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The running monster gag stars band keyboardist Don Preston with office gal Phyllis Altenhaus; they eventually get into the shower for a hamburger massage. Zappa’s soundtrack (packaged in 1969 with a telling Cal Schenkel assemblage) set the agenda for art rock, its torque showing the consequences of reducing people to objects – the system treating human labor (therefore, life, aka "meat") as a commodity. Footage of early Mothers Ray Collins, Roy Estrada, Jimmy Carl Black, James "Motorhead" Sherwood, Ansley Dunbar, Billy Mundi, Artie Tripp, Lowell George, Bunk Gardner and Ian Underwood winds up presaging Richard Linklater’s 1991 flick SLACKER, plus you get Rodney Bingenheimer, Linda Ronstadt and others along for the ride at the legendary Hollywood Ranch Market on Vine Street. Bitchin’ camerawork by director of photography Haskell Wexler.
"Cafe L.A.: The Beat Generation in Los Angeles" Approx. 60 min. Produced by Domenic Priore and Brian Chidester. This now-updated 850-image slideshow brings you inside the coffeehouses and jazz joints of the greater Los Angeles area during the 1955-1965 era. Done with a local geography spin, the presentation is inspired by KNXT's "Ralph Story's Los Angeles" and Mike Salisbury's visual montage work in the Los Angeles Times' old (1966-1972) West magazine supplement. We go from Santa Barbara to Laguna Beach down the coastline, then north through Tustin, Buena Park, Pasadena, into Silver Lake, downtown L.A., a bit over to Western Avenue, South Central, up Fairfax and La Cienega and out to Sunset Strip. Beatniks in Venice, jazz and R&B pioneers downtown, pop artists on Restaurant Row and the earliest stages of folk-rock and psychedelia on the Strip are all captured, with a final run at the end of the artists on the L.A. scene. Introduction and live slideshow narration by Domenic Priore, author of Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock 'n' Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood and Beatsville.
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