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Wednesday, Dec 3, 1997
Shooting Stars: Celebrity Impersonations
What's it like to be "inside" of celebrity, to don the attire of attention? Do you feel estranged from the mundane? Can you explain the radiation of the stars? Anne McGuire's cool and careful I Am Crazy and You're Not Wrong (1997, 11 mins) gives us a veiled Judy Garland circa the early 1960s. What we see is the private Judy in agonized performance on the stage of final surrender. Wiggy Azian Nurudin impersonates the maestro of mass culture, Andy Warhol, in What Do Pop Art, Pop Music, Pornography and Politics Have to Do with Real Life? (1990, 20 mins). Cicciolina, Whitney Houston (played, respectively, by Clara Lusardi and Leslie Singer) and others have cameos on Warhol's cable show in this comic-doc about the fetishism of pop artists. In Kia Simon's shrewd Looking for Sly (1997, 26 mins) Gagik is the "real" thing, a Stallone lookalike from Moscow. Simon tracks this Russian-based Rambo to Los Angeles where he is determined to meet his body double. Gagik, a humble sculptor who has acquired elevated status at home, discovers the road to happiness is rocky.Also screened: Man Ray, Man Ray (William Wegman, 1978, 5:23 mins): Every dog has his day, every artist his dog. The Madonna Series and My Life As a Godard Film by Whitney Houston (Leslie Singer, 1987, 3 mins each): It's Singer not the song in these wigged-out mini-epics of celebrity crucifixion.-Steve Seid
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