“Today over lunch I tried to improve morale and build a sense of camaraderie among the men by holding a humorous, round-robin discussion of the early days of the mission. My overtures were brutally rejected. These men do not want a happy ship. They are deeply sick and try to compensate by making me feel miserable.”

– Sgt. Pinback's video diary

On the other end of outer space, far far away from existentialist odysseys and crypto-fascist space operas, there's a little stoner cosmos where a small, dilapidated starship manned by long-haired freaks drifts about.

“You know, I wish I had my board with me… even if I could just wax it once in a while.”

– Lt. Doolittle

Dark Star started out as a highly ambitious, underfunded student film that, in a blessed pre-Lucas, pre-blockbuster universe, got recognised for its #counterculture glory. In the early 70s, when #surfing was not yet mainstream and a handful of restless pioneers continued west despite the lack of mainland, a cross-pollination between beach blond daredevils and stoner culture happened.

 

Carpenter's laidback space odyssey fully embraces the beach bum spirit; it's meandering, incoherent, and whatever the superlative of no-budget may be. With at its core: #boredom, the most honest form of cinema.

Despite Shirley Temple's clear statements of what was going on on set during her child actress days, her output remains wildly popular. Who cannot resist her precocious lines, her cute dimples and baby doll innocence? And tapdancing with ánd befriending a Negro, during the segregation years? Miss Shirley truly was wise beyond her tender age.

 

Shirley Temple was “discovered” at the age of three by then-casting director Charles Lamont and promptly shot to stardom is his satirical Baby Burlesks: short talkies starring toddlers in diapers (a burlesque being a short, humorous skit). The gag was that the kids behaved and spoke like adults, seemingly unaware of being #children.

“This isn’t playtime, kids, it’s work.”

– Charles Lamont, Baby Burlesk director

In the Baby Burlesk Kid 'N' Hollywood, Temple plays a Hollywood hopeful called Morelegs Sweettrick, who gets her break when the star doesn't feel like showing up (kids, right? no discipline).

 

While Kid 'N' Hollywood is relatively innocent, others in the series are much more sexualised (War Babies (1932) stars Temple as prostitute Charmaine) or plain racist (Kid 'in' Africa (1933) with Temple as Madame Cradlebait, bringing civilisation to Black kids portraying fearsome cannibals).

 

I'm not the one to take events from the past out of context and apply modern-day sensibilities to them, and with the advent of #ChildLabor laws for #Hollywood child actors, many of the horrors recalled by Temple and her peers are history. School is mandatory, long hours restricted, and using twins to split the workload is definitely not unheard of.

 

And then I watched teevee, and saw chubby, precocious blondes with dental plates to hide their missing baby teeth, wearing lipstick and baby-dolls, grinding and crooning with no backup in sight. And I remember Miss Temple say:

“Any star can be devoured by human adoration, sparkle by sparkle.”

– Shirley Temple

The opera world is in mourning. Edmea Tetua, the greatest singer of all time, has passed away. On a grande ocean liner, her friends, colleagues, admirers have come together to scatter Edmea's ashes near Erimo, the island where she was born.

“This is the funny thing abut sea voyages. After a few days, you feel as if you'd been sailing forever. You feel you've always known your fellow voyagers.”

During a tour of the ship, the passengers visit the boiler room where – urged on by the engine room crew – an impromptu operatic competition unfolds, all to the pulsating rhythm of the steamliner's bloated belly.

Vérités et Mensonges is what it's actually called, but you may know it as F for Fake. Orson Welles and three uncredited fellow conspirators – Gary Graver, Oja Kodar, and François Reichenbach – delve into the world of #art forger Elmyr de Hory by way of his biographer Clifford Irving.

“Back to the old tricks.”

– Orson Welles

Welles et al free-associate with concepts of art, lies, #deception, and #authenticity. #Houdin, Welles, #Picasso and Hughes, hoaxers, hucksters and artists in their own right. And then it's over: this work of art, this sleight of hand, this demonstration of factuality, an exposé.

Eating is taboo, and relieving oneself is performed on a toilet at a communal table in Luis Buñuel's Le fantôme de la liberté. The farce strings together events from #Buñuel's life (who was 74 by the time he made this film), with dreams remembered by both Buñuel and co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière.

“Madrid was filled with the stench of – pardon my language – food. It was indecent.”

– le professeur des gendarmes

The title references the opening sentence from Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto (1848): “A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism.”. What follows is a wonderful, free-flowing pastiche performed by a sublime cast.

A carnival-like parade.

“Do you still go dancing at night? I've stopped going. There are no dance halls here. But that's not the only reason. I was used to dancing with you. I'm not comfortable with other girls.”

– Giovanni in a letter to Liliana

In this political satire criticising Czechoslovakia's “normalisation” period, a journalist learns about bank employee Bedrich Hroch, who – while attempting to determine how much #gold the local #zoo's hippopotamus' needs for a tooth replacement – is swallowed by the animal.

 

With the man happily residing inside the creature, his journalist friend hatches a plan to use the “talking hippo” for political means .