A year ago, I had no idea who the Kuchar brothers were. Then leclisse and I stumbled across this poster tacked up outside a movie theatre in San Francisco and it was clear from the expressions on the young Kuchars' faces, and the sign proclaiming "pre-screening talk with the director and George Kuchar" that we had to see it.
We've posted some Kuchar films in the past, and we will undoubtedly post more as we find them, but here's the film that (for us) started it all.
From A.O. Scott at the New York Times:
George and Mike Kuchar, twin brothers from the Bronx, are among the most prolific and inventive American filmmakers of the past half-century, and perhaps the most eccentric. Avid moviegoers as children, they began making 8 millimeter epics, and after graduating from the High School of Industrial Arts in New York they gravitated toward the thriving underground film scene. Shooting cheaply, devising homemade special effects and casting friends and acquaintances, the Kuchars produced — sometimes in collaboration, sometimes apart — touchstones of the 1960s cinematic avant-garde like “Corruption of the Damned,” “Sins of the Fleshapoids” and “Hold Me While I’m Naked.”
Jennifer M. Kroot’s documentary “It Came From Kuchar” provides generous clips of these and later films, enough to give a flavor of the brothers’ blend of camp, melodrama, horror, psychological exploration and sexual provocation. (And also at least a superficial sense of the differences between them.) This sampling is fleshed out by interviews with George and Mike Kuchar themselves, and also with the usual talking-head parade of friends, colleagues, critics and students.
The portrait that emerges is affectionate and fascinating. The brothers themselves are un-self-consciously talkative, unassumingly odd and frequently very funny. “Did your parents get along?” George is asked. “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” he replies.
“It Came From Kuchar” opens Friday at the Anthology Film Archives, and will run this weekend alongside a multipart selection of the Kuchars’ 8 millimeter shorts. Ms. Kroot’s film, while more conventional in tone and structure than anything her subjects have ever done, is nonetheless a valuable and intelligent introduction and tribute to their anarchic, uncompromising and absolutely peculiar genius.
Technical Information:
Title: It Came from Kuchar
Year: 2009
Country: USA
Director: Jennifer M. Kroot
Source: DVD9 Retail
DVD Format: NTSC
Container: .iso + mds
Size: 7.22 GB
Length: 1:26:21
Programs used: AnyDVD, ImgBurn
Resolution: 720x480
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Video: MPEG2 @ ~6800 kb/s
Frame Rate: 29.97 fps
Audio 1: English- Dolby AC3 Stereo @ 192 kb/s
Audio 2: English Commentary- Dolby AC3 Stereo @ 192 kb/s
Subtitles: None
Menu: Yes
Video: Untouched
DVD Extras:
- Audio Commentary with George and Mike Kuchar and Director Jennifer Kroot
- Deleted/Extended Scenes
- Theatrical Trailer
- It Came From You! (short film competition winners)
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It Came from Kuchar Megaupload Links