Just discovered this: you can now watch Todd Haynes' Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story on-line at FilmThreat.com.

I've had a bootleg copy of the movie for years: a tape of a tape of a tape. It looks pretty muddy, but that never diminished the effect. It's a very creepy, disturbing, darkly comic and cruel little film. The story is played out using Barbie dolls, mixed in with period footage and a brooding narrative. It's a hateful movie, really; Haynes seems to think Karen died because she was too white-bread -- you know, like anorexia is what happens to people who sing of good things not bad, happy not sad.

Richard Carpenter and A&M Records famously stopped the film from being released, considering it was made with actual Carpenters songs. Hard not to see their point; I'm not sure why Film Threat is getting away with it either.

But I'm not complaining.

It's brilliant.