From the crashing waves of a wintry Pacific to the haunted vestibules of a Bay Area mansion, allow entry to this motley crew of ravished revelers who bring their choppers down on an assortment of improvised bon-bons. The acting talents of those in search of holiday happiness find release in this smorgasbord of seasonal shenanigans that feasts on the bounty of the sea and the booty of the breadbasket to bake a nutty fruitcake of feisty spirits and smoked ham. The ocean rushes in as the characterizations run amok on the sands of time that shift unpredictably in this homespun yarn of tangled relationships and beached Bozos. Rejoice in the ethnic essence of forgotten ancestors as they chip away at the ancient varnish of antiquated angst to expose the grain of truth in a gingerbread house of spice and spaghetti. View the turkey and sample its stuffed innards and then awash thyself in the salty brew of a western waterworld.
Yuletide Surfers
George Kuchar
2000 00:15:00 United StatesEnglishColorMono4:3DV videoDescription
About George Kuchar
George Kuchar ranks as one of the most exciting and prolific American independent film and videomakers. With his homemade Super 8 and 16mm potboilers and melodramas of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, he became legendary as a distinctive and outrageous underground filmmaker whose work influenced many other artists, including Andy Warhol, John Waters, and David Lynch. After his 1980s transition to video, he remained a master of genre manipulation and subversion, creating hundreds of brilliantly edited, hilarious, observant, often diaristic videos with an 8mm camcorder, dime-store props, not-so-special effects, using friends as actors, and the “pageant that is life” as his studio.
In 1984 Kuchar received the Los Angeles Film Critics Award in the Experimental/Independent category. In 1992, he received the prestigious Maya Deren Award for Independent Film and Video Artists from the American Film Institute. In 1996 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. He taught at the San Francisco Art Institute for forty years, where he made many videos in collaboration with his students.
"...The best for last, though: the filmmaker George Kuchar... When the day arrives — and it will — to appoint an official United States cultural ambassador to Outer Space, Mr. Kuchar is the obvious choice. I will say no more. See his films. He is beyond enigmatic. He is it. I salute him."
— Holland Cotter, Review of the Good Morning Midnight exhibition at Casey Kaplan Gallery, The New York Times, July 27th, 2007
All title descriptions by George Kuchar unless otherwise noted.
Also see:
The World of George Kuchar, DVD Box Set available for Institutional and Individual Purchase