Category: Film

I watched The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose (2006)

I bought a used DVD of this on eBay. I had heard of the Holy Modal Rounders but was not familiar with their music. Robert Christgau, a great writer about music, is a big admirer of theirs so I thought I would give the film a chance. The Rounders started in the early 1960s but most of the film takes place between 2000 and 2003. The music has been called psychedelic folk.

Here is the trailer and the entire film. I don’t normally post entire films but IMDB doesn’t show it streaming anywhere and the DVD is out of print.

I recommend the film. It certainly is honest and one of the two main performers, the late Steve Weber, doesn’t usually come across well. His behavior, to put it kindly, is erratic.

Peter Stampfel, who is still around, seems much more reasonable.

There are lots of performance clips and interviews with folks such as Christgau and Dave Van Ronk. Sam Shepard, who was in the band for several years, is also interviewed. There is even a clip of their appearance on Laugh-In.

I watched films by Billy Corben

Corben’s films are about athletes, Florida, drugs or more than one of those three. The first one I saw was Screwball (on DVD) about the Florida part of the baseball steroid scandal and it was very entertaining. They used kids to reenact the scenes and somehow that worked because the truth was unbelievable anyway. Corben’s films are filled with interviews and historical TV news clips from when the events actually took place.

I liked it so much I watched other films by him.

The U and the U Part 2 about the University of Miami Football team and Broke were ESPN 30 for 30 shows and I have them on Blu-ray collections. How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke inspired Broke. I got Cocaine Cowboys Reloaded on Blu-ray.

I got DVDs of Square Grouper, Limelight, and Cocaine Cowboys 2. I’d recommend all of them. He shows all sides of the story and gets his interview subjects to really open up and be honest about the good and bad times.

A podcast with Billy Corben, director of Cocaine Cowboys, Raw Deal, Square Grouper, and The U

The Phynx

The Phynx (1970) is not a good film but it is very entertaining. It’s someone’s idea of what would appeal to teenagers. It features an assembled band like the Monkees with songs by Leiber and Stoller.

It has an amazing cast of actors doing cameos. See this description from YouTube:

2,685 views Feb 12, 2024 What if a fictional rock band was recruited to play in a communist nation ? With Michael Ansara, Mike Kellin, Lou Antonio, George Tobias, Joan Blondell, Colonel Harlan Sanders, Xavier Cugat, Martha Raye, Ultra Violet, Pat McCormick, Rich Little, Maureen O”Sullivan, Johnny Weissmuller, Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey, Ed Sullivan, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Sally Struthers, Dorothy Lamour, Andy Devine, George Jessel, Trini Lopez, James Brown, Dick Clark, Harold Sakata, Busby Berkeley, Patsy Kelly, Joe Louis, Guy Lombardo, Marilyn Maxwell, Richard Pryor, Jay Silverheels, Rudy Vallee, and Clint Walker.

It’s available on DVD from Warner Archive but I also found this full version above on YouTube.