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(Telegraph) Sad A directing career like Ken Russell's certainly rates a Telegraph obit, and you won't ever see another one using the phrase "onanistic and highly disturbed nuns"   (telegraph.co.uk) divider line 36
More: Sad, Ken Russell, telegraphs, Fellini, films  
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1322 clicks; posted to Entertainment » on 29 Nov 2011 at 1:05 PM   |  Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook   more»   |    Get this fabulous T-Shirt and impress the methane out of your friends! shirt it!



36 Comments   (+0 »)
   
 
quickdraw [TotalFark]
2011-11-29 10:42:27 AM
 
Apos [TotalFark]
2011-11-29 01:20:23 PM
Sounds like this chap was John Waters,Ed Wood and RuPaul all rolled into one...
 
Jonathan Hohensee
2011-11-29 01:21:16 PM
In college Ken Russel embarrassed (and yelled at) the department head of my film program in front of about 300 people. I like Ken Russel.

/And Crimes of Passion
/And the non-monkey spree parts of Altered States
/and the Devils.
 
vermicious k'nid
2011-11-29 01:22:09 PM
If you're looking for good "WTF".gif material, I HIGHLY recommend Lizstomania.

/"HIGH"LY
//what I did there, you see it
 
karnal
2011-11-29 01:26:01 PM
vermicious k'nid

If you're looking for good "WTF".gif material, I HIGHLY recommend Lizstomania.

/"HIGH"LY
//what I did there, you see it

I've got it on VHS somewhere....if I had a VHS player I would probably watch it again....Rick Wakeman as Thor was awe inspiring....ok, maybe not awe inspiring but pretty cool.
 
DrBenway [TotalFark]
2011-11-29 01:26:43 PM
Headline reminds me that I really need to see The Devils again.
 
jj325 [TotalFark]
2011-11-29 01:34:05 PM
Altered States and The Devils were awesome. I remember seeing Tommy as a midnight movie in the late 70's and being quite impressed. Though it might have been the acid I took before the show......
 
Foreground My Ass
2011-11-29 01:36:38 PM
DrBenway: Headline reminds me that I really need to see The Devils again.

img846.imageshack.us
Agrees
 
the dizzle
2011-11-29 01:48:06 PM
I only know what "onanistic" means because of that first Matrix game.
 
FlashHarry [TotalFark]
2011-11-29 01:48:08 PM
the best bit:

At the age of 62 he made his first television commercial for 20 years. The advertisement for frozen food was awaited with trepidation, and greeted with disappointment. Not even Russell could romanticise the inner life of a fish finger, and there was not a deranged nun in sight.
 
FlashHarry [TotalFark]
2011-11-29 01:52:44 PM
the dizzle: I only know what "onanistic" means because of that first Matrix game.

i39.tinypic.com

the origin of the term
 
You'd turn it off when I was halfway across
2011-11-29 02:07:09 PM
"What fresh lunacy is this?"

RIP you crazy bastard.

/"A crocodile?"
 
zez
2011-11-29 02:09:22 PM
I always thought that Ken Russell and David Lynch made similar styles of visual storytelling, except that Lynch could make the most normal thing seem bizarre and Russell would make the most bizarre scene feel almost normal.
 
karnal
2011-11-29 02:11:43 PM
zez

I always thought that Ken Russell and David Lynch made similar styles of visual storytelling, except that Lynch could make the most normal thing seem bizarre and Russell would make the most bizarre scene feel almost normal


Yeah - good one.
 
NDP2
2011-11-29 02:12:39 PM
My favorite Ken Russell movie is Garden Party.


/Definitely should not be obscure at Fark.
//Couldn't find video link.
 
Hyperbolic Hyperbole [TotalFark]
2011-11-29 02:22:51 PM
thought that said Keri Russell, and am displeased with the supreme lack of pics.
 
12349876
2011-11-29 02:24:47 PM
NDP2: My favorite Ken Russell movie is Garden Party.


/Definitely should not be obscure at Fark.
//Couldn't find video link.

Link (new window)
 
Beelzebubbles
2011-11-29 02:46:57 PM
I still love Lair of the White Worm, even though it's a big poo pile. But a GREAT poo pile! Amanda Donohoe running around naked painted blue, Catherine Oxenberg (post-Dynasty) having her virginity "tested" with a giantic phallus, the Pogues' song The D'Ampton Worm, and of course Russell's signature hallucination sequences marrying crucifixions with with Donohoe licking blood off of the "virgin tester." It really has it all.
 
Kozmopoliskepticalopsis
2011-11-29 02:57:45 PM
Huh. I confess ... I thought he had died years ago.

RIP crazy movie man.

/Tommy and Altered States were good
 
Alex DeLarger
2011-11-29 03:22:41 PM
RIP Ken Russell and your LSD-soaked films!

Beelzebubbles: Lair of the White Worm

LOTWW is still one of the best 'terrible' movies I've ever seen....

i.imgur.com

i.imgur.com

i.imgur.com

i.imgur.com


I rewatched The Devils a few years ago... Bombastic.
 
Beelzebubbles
2011-11-29 03:36:12 PM
Alex DeLarger : LOTWW is still one of the best 'terrible' movies I've ever seen....

If you haven't listened to Russell's director commentary on Worm, you must. You find out why Donohoe had to drown the boy scout and it's hilarious!
 
Pants full of macaroni!! [TotalFark]
2011-11-29 03:45:19 PM
Goodnight, funnyman.
 
Alex DeLarger
2011-11-29 04:02:11 PM
Beelzebubbles: Alex DeLarger : LOTWW is still one of the best 'terrible' movies I've ever seen....

If you haven't listened to Russell's director commentary on Worm, you must. You find out why Donohoe had to drown the boy scout and it's hilarious!

Aww! Please tell me now, it might be a while before I rent the actual DVD, my playstation is dying and I was using it to play blu-ray discs!

I have great memories of experiencing Russell's films in "art house" theaters with the audiences going berserk... probably stoned out of their minds... fun times! :)
 
Beelzebubbles
2011-11-29 04:22:35 PM
Alex DeLarger, according to the commentary the kid who played the boy scout agreed to do full-frontal nudity before the shoot but declined to do it the day of shooting, so Russell had Donohoe, unbeknowst to the kid, push his head in the pool and keep him under water til near-drowning. You don't promise Ken Russell nudity and back out, dammit!
 
Alex DeLarger
2011-11-29 05:04:41 PM
Beelzebubbles: Alex DeLarger, according to the commentary the kid who played the boy scout agreed to do full-frontal nudity before the shoot but declined to do it the day of shooting, so Russell had Donohoe, unbeknowst to the kid, push his head in the pool and keep him under water til near-drowning. You don't promise Ken Russell nudity and back out, dammit!

hahaha!! love it! Thanks!

Ken Russell-directed films/tv on Netflix streaming now:

Billion Dollar Brain (Michael Caine, Karl Malden)
The Music Lovers
Salome's Last Dance
Lady Chatterley (Joely Richardson, Sean Bean)

Time for a marathon! Unsurprisingly, no DVD's for The Devils or Lisztomania...
 
FlashHarry [TotalFark]
2011-11-29 05:07:36 PM
Alex DeLarger: LOTWW is still one of the best 'terrible' movies I've ever seen....

agreed. it was on HBO a lot when i was a kid. loved it.
 
ertznay
2011-11-29 06:51:03 PM
Altered States, Salome's Last Dance, Whore. The list goes on. A unique director who will be missed. His segment in Aria was on of the better.
 
James Scameron
2011-11-29 07:09:58 PM
RIP
KURT RUSSELL



//thats how i subbied
//
 
PhotoCindy
2011-11-29 08:10:05 PM
He was my favorite Big Brother housemate.

i2.cdnds.net

Totally, brutally, honest... I think he left the house of his own volition after two days.

Also, he directed a lot of movies that I love.

R.I.P., abstract lover of women.
 
fusillade762
2011-11-29 10:59:27 PM
"Gothic" is the one that freaked me out. Eyeball nipples, oral sex abortion, giant monster with a mechanical dildo penis, random horse on the roof. F*cked. Up.
 
Tyrone Slothrop
2011-11-29 11:39:19 PM
He was definitely a unique filmmaker.
 
MFAWG
2011-11-30 01:01:45 AM
I'll admit that the only film of his I've seen is 'Tommy', and I'm not ashamed to say that I still consider it a great film when viewed in the context of it's time.

This seems appropriate for the season, and it's one of my favorites:

Link (new window)
 
quatchi
2011-11-30 05:13:47 AM
Russell was a singularity. Seen most of his movies on the big screen at one time or another. Think Tommy, Altered States, Salomes's Last Dance and the Devils were his best. Even his lesser films like Worm, Whore and Liztmania were still eminently watchable and always an adventure.

RIP, zany guy.
 
Pandora's Litterbox [TotalFark]
2011-11-30 08:20:19 AM
Requiescat in pace, noble weirdo.

/and thanks for the films filling the many slots on my all-time fave50 list.
You were too out there to live forever but you made one hell of an impact during your time amongst us. At least with me and many of my film-loving friends you did.

Tribute film festival this weekend.
That's those plans sorted, then.

/Just wish the yellowbellies at Warner Bros would finally find the intestinal fortitude to ignore the uptight puritans who're still pretending its 1819 and pull the trigger on the release of the fully uncut version of "The Devils" on region 1 Blu-Ray.
 
caddisfly
2011-11-30 02:45:34 PM
I checked out the comments to make sure there was some love for Lair of the White Worm. That entire movie, while not exactly high art, captivated me. Great campy fun.

Now I'm really upset that Netflix doesn't carry "The Devils" as I've never seen it. Any ideas from you Farkers short of dropping $15 for a used version on Amazon?
 
Beelzebubbles
2011-11-30 04:38:20 PM
caddisfly: According to Amazon.co.uk, a special edition of The Devils is coming out next March (in the U.K.), but obviously it will be a Region 2 DVD. If you don't have an all-region player, you could always watch it on your computer. I bought a Region 1 DVD of it online about 2 years ago, but that disc (while uncut and in widescreen) was obviously a bootleg. I'd avoid getting the VHS because you really need to see it in its original aspect ratio (it is Ken Russell, after all, so you want the visuals in tact). Occasionally a DVD shows up on IOffer or Ebay, but it would probably be a boot.
 
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