RECOMMENDED
John Waters calls George and Mike Kuchar his first inspiration, and that’s as good a place as any to start. Testimony to the lasting influence of the filmmaking Kuchar twins, makers of such movies as “Hold Me While I’m Naked,” is the warm power of Jennifer Kloot’s documentary, “It Came From Kuchar,” winner of best film at the 2009 Chicago Underground Film Festival. An unlikely but articulate raft of interviewees offer testimony to inspiration drawn from these “8mm Mozarts” of the 1960s; the independent and underground filmmakers onscreen include Waters, Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin, Cory McAbee, Gerard Malanga, Buck Henry, Wayne Wang and scholar B. Ruby Rich. For the uninitiated, the clips are tingly eyeball kicks. It’s a bonfire’s worth of anecdotage about filmmakers not yet in their dotage. 96m. HD video. (Ray Pride)
“It Came From Kuchar” opens Friday at Facets.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” in words and images will be published in Spring 2022.
Previews of that project on Twitter (twitter.com/chighostsigns) as well as photography on Instagram: instagram.com/raypride.
Twitter: twitter.com/RayPride
[…] Reviews of Jennifer Kroot’s documentary It Came From Kuchar! continue to flood in fast and furiously. Here are some more at: Tiny Mix Tapes, East Bay Express and NewCity Film. […]
[…] Reviews of Jennifer M. Kroot’s documentary It Came From Kuchar! continue to flood in fast and furiously. Here are some more at: Tiny Mix Tapes, East Bay Express and NewCity Film. […]