RIP The Producer from Hell

Woolly Valley's Deathwatch 2012 continues!

"The task set before the cinema today is one of contributing to people's development into true communists ... This historic task requires, above all, a revolutionary transformation of the practice of directing."

Kim Jong Il's On the Art of the Cinema (1973)

Kim Jong-Il - leader of the world's only hereditary Communist state, North Korea - has died. Sure, he was a dictator who ruthlessly suppressed his people, left millions to starve and lead his country into isolation from the rest of the world, but we here at Woolly Valley prefer to remember him as a fellow film fan. We remember him as a fellow film fan who had the guts to try and make a "socialist Godzilla" by kidnapping and imprisoning director Shin Sang-ok and forcing him to eat grass. We remember him as a man who dug on Elizabeth Taylor. We remember that he inspired the funniest bits of Team America, World Police.

And we remember him as one scary mother fucker.

RIP Bert Schneider

Bert Schneider collecting the 1975 Oscar for Best Documentary (Hearts and Minds)

Political activist and film producer Bert Schneider has died at the age of 78. Schneider was the muscle behind Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces and The Monkees.

Bert Schneider, 5 May 1933 - 12 December 2011

Charles Mingus’s 5-Star Rapturous Deadly Holiday Eggnog

"1.  Separate one egg for one person. Each person gets an egg.

2. Two sugars for each egg, each person.

3. One shot of rum, one shot of brandy per person.

4. Put all the yolks into one big pan, with some milk.

5. That’s where the 151 proof rum goes. Put it in gradually or it’ll burn the eggs.

6. OK. The whites are separate and the cream is separate.

7. In another pot— depending on how many people— put in one shot of each, rum and brandy. (This is after you whip your whites and your cream.)

8. Pour it over the top of the milk and yolks.

9. One teaspoon of sugar. Brandy and rum.

10. Actually you mix it all together.

11. Yes, a lot of nutmeg. Fresh nutmeg. And stir it up.

12. You don’t need ice cream unless you’ve got people coming and you need to keep it cold. Vanilla ice cream. You can use eggnog. I use vanilla ice cream.

13. Right, taste for flavor. Bourbon? I use Jamaica Rum in there. Jamaican Rums. Or I’ll put rye in it. Scotch. It depends. See, it depends on how drunk I get while I’m tasting it."

via skies of blue

RIP Cynthia Myers

Cynthia Myers, best known as Casey Anderson in Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, has died at the age of 61.