Mark Ellinger

Taboo: The Single and the LP

"Abner L. Fuqua clears his throat and I get mad and stand close to trains or cut my eyebrow off. Dorothy is Abner's wife. Abner can slap hard, like blue magic." - graffiti

Nudes: A Sketchbook

"Curt McDowell's NUDES (A Sketchbook) is a paean to the filmmaker's closest friends: a series of portraits (beginning with one of George Kuchar) based on stylized, often graphically sexual interpretations of his or her personality. The portraits also, at times, represent Curt's own sexual interests as he projects them onto the lives of others. My favorites are 'Barbara', a Pre-Raphaelite vision of woman and 'Ainslie', a musical spoof on glamour. The filmmaker's point of view ranges from compulsively erotic to light-hearted and self-debunking. A broad reading of the term 'romantic' would probably best describe the spectrum of extreme, even outrageous, possibilities which Curt embraces in this sketchbook/film." - Karen Cooper, Film Forum

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Orson Welles reads the poem especially for this film by Larry Jordan, which is dedicated to the late Wallace Berman, and is made possible by a grant from The National Endowment Of The Arts.

Confessions

"Just as outrageous is Curt McDowell's CONFESSIONS. McDowell, a graduate student at San Francisco Art Institute, opens his film with a confession to his mother and father, listing in exhausting detail his sins of the flesh."

The Devil's Cleavage

A shady motel manager becomes obsessed with a neglected wife.

True Blue and Dreamy

A real and favorite dream of mine, preserved on film to be relived over and over.

Peed Into the Wind

An hour-long saga of Mick Terrific, rock 'n' roll star, and the cast of 50 he encounters on his search for "Mr. Wonderful." “PEED INTO THE WIND smears across the screen like one of those dirty underground comic books. It’s loaded with a lot of big scenes and unusual looking people that make this epic resemble a clogged toilet. Unfortunately, since several of the performers were not as loyal as Ainslie Pryor and John Thomas, the plot is difficult to follow but in no way hinders the sewer-like sequences. It’s quite enjoyable and possesses the releasing power of an enema.” –George Kuchar. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2016.

Beaver Fever

Starring George Kuchar as "Hunk", Mrs. Ruby B. Davis as "Aunt Ruth", and introducing Melinda McDowell as the much-abused, sex bomb "Goldenrod".