Fellini Satyricon

Enjoying a late night screening of Satyricon, and watching the film for the first time with the English dub, I was pleased to hear the unmistakable voice of Michael Hordern. I wonder did any other noteworthy players lend their vocal talents to the film ? I could have sworn I heard the voice of Ian McCulloch in a small incidental part earlier in the film, but perhaps I was wrong - I seem to remember McCulloch's interview in the October 1992 issue of Dark Side, where he discussed his three-picture sojourn in Italy (Zombie Flesh Eaters, Zombie Holocaust and Contamination), and there was no mention of working with Fellini (surely not something one would omit from a self-appraisal). Incidentally, whilst browsing Satyricon's credits over at the imdb, I spotted two interesting credits: the The Minotaur was played by the great Anthropophagous Beast himself George Eastman, and a credit for music recording goes to electronic composer David Behrman. I know Tod Dockstader contributed some electronics to the soundtrack, but seeing Behrman name attached to the film was a pleasant surprise. Strangely though, there's no mention of Behrman's work on Satyricon on his official website... I'm starting to think that Fellini is a dirty word these days !

1/2 Mensch

I was lucky to score this nice clean copy of Einstürzende Neubauten’s 1985 film 1/2 Mensch from Discogs last week, with the 2005 Potomak DVD now out of print, it was time to cash in my old VHS rip for the real deal. The Potomak DVD comes with an Authorized by the Band label at the foot of the cover, and it’s an important distinction from the disastrous (and unauthorized) Cherry Red DVD released the same year (and still in circulation sporting the same cover!) The Neubauten-sanctioned DVD still has the characteristic softness of a VHS transfer but what sets the disc apart from previous editions is the audio which sounds truly incredible even on my rudimentary set-up. The film itself is marvelous, director Sogo Ishii had shot some concert footage of the band on their Japanese tour, but expanded the film to include Neubauten performing in a dilapidated Tokyo ironworks which was due for demolition. This portion of the film feels like an Industrial re-write of Pink Floyd’s Pompeii film, and there are interesting parallels between both films, not least of all the emphasis on music-making gadgetry – those tracking shots snaking around Pink Floyd’s bank of electronic and amplification equipment, Dave Gilmour extracting as much unconventional sound from his guitar as possible during Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, are echoed by similar shots of Neubauten’s bewildering arsenal of noise-making devices, with Einheit and Unruh harnessing percussive and textural sounds from drills, jackhammers, metal grinders, a close-miked-shopping trolley, a large gas cylinder, and at one point an unwieldy aluminum air duct. Interspersed amongst the factory footage are videos of tracks from the Halber Mensch album, including a striking sequence featuring the avant-garde Byakko-sha dance group, appearing as bio-mechanical zombies with a taste for metal fetishism – a startling vision which must have left an impression on Shinya Tsukamoto. The DVD comes with no extras – a Blixa Bargeld commentary would have been ideal, but the set comes with a CD of the music performed at the ironworks.

David Shire's Apocalypse Now

Currently listening to David Shire's unused score for Apocalypse Now which was recently released on CD by La-La Land Records... I'd consider myself something of an Apocalypse Now scholar but I must admit Shire's score passed right under my radar, so this is a wonderful surprise, and a fascinating piece of Apocalypse Now lore. Unlike Alex North's unused music for 2001 (which I could never integrate into Kubrick's film), Shire's all-electronic score is not that far removed from Carmine Coppola's soundtrack - it's perhaps a little too dynamic for the pace of the film (think Tangerine Dream's music for Sorcerer), but there are a few uncanny moments where Shire's score anticipates the music the Coppolas' composed for the Kurtz compound sequences - this may well be owing to a similarity in synthesizer equipment but it lifts Shire's music to a level beyond a mere rejected score. Fascinating too to imagine what kind of a film Shire was writing for considering the score frequently sounds like it strayed from something more phantasmagorical, and there are sections of music that reminded me of The Fog and Escape from New York, and at one point Christopher Young's Hellraiser ! La-La Land's CD is augmented with an excellent 25 page thick booklet packed with notes on the score, and apparently this release has a limited run of 2000 units so get your copy as soon as you can...

Another 100...

My top 100 Favourite films list posted recently generated some interesting discussion when I posted it on Facebook (prompting one person to ask in earnest where was Burial Ground, gasp!) so I thought a 100-200 list would be fun, and with no stubborn, immovable feasts to worry about (Apocalypse Now et al), the selection of films is far more fruitier and eclectic. This came together very quickly so it will be interesting to see if it holds up in a week's time - but I've scanned thru the list a few times and it feels rights... Honorable mentions go to Dead Ringers, The Cars That Ate Paris, Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me, The Carny and Gummo - all would have had a place on the list had I seen them within the last decade...

101 - American Friend, The
102 - Bad Timing
103 - Barry Lyndon 
104 - Beyond, The
105 - Big Trouble In Little China
106 - Black Sabbath 
107 - Boiling Point (Kitano)
108 - Boot, Das
109 - Brazil 
110 - Curse of the Cat People
111 - Citizen Kane 
112 - City of God
113 - Cockfighter
114 - Coming Home
115 - Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover, The
116 - Cool Hand Luke 
117 - Cruising
118 - Dances With Wolves
119 - Dead Zone, The
120 - Deep Red 
121 - Deer Hunter, The 
122 - Diva
123 - Dune 
124 - Eaten Alive (Tobe Hooper)
125 - El Topo
126 - Empire of Passion
127 - Enigma of Kasper Hauser, The
128 - Europa
129 - Evil Dead, The
130 - Filth & The Fury
131 - Forbidden Planet
132 - Frankenstein Must Be Destoyed
133 - Full Metal Jacket 
134 - Ganja & Hess
135 - Gimme Shelter
136 - Glengarry Glen Ross
137 - Godfather Part 2, The
138 - Gospel According To St. Matthew, The
139 - Haine, La
140 - Happy Together 
141 - Hidden Fortress
142 - Hired Hand, The
143 - Hour of The Wolf
144 - if…
145 - In The Mood For Love
146 - Iron Rose, The 
147 - Ivan's Childhood 
148 - Jackie Brown
149 - JFK 
150 - Killing, The
151 - Last Tango In Paris
152 - Lawrence of Arabia 
153 - Lemora
154 - Macbeth (Welles)
155 - Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
156 - Man Bites Dog
157 - Manhunter
158 - Mean Streets
159 - Medium Cool
160 - Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
161 - Monsieur Verdoux
162 - Mystery Train 
163 - Nashville
164 - Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens
165 - Nostalghia
166 - Offence, The
167 - On the Waterfront 
168 - Onibaba
169 - Paths of Glory 
170 - Picnic At Hanging Rock
171 - Pink Flamingos
172 - Pink Narcissus
173 - Planet of The Vampires
174 - Poor White Trash (Part II)
175 - Pusher 3
176 - Querelle 
177 - Re-Animator
178 - Red Desert
179 - Red River
180 - Repo Man
181 - Repulsion
182 - Return of The Living Dead, The
183 - Robocop
184 - Route One USA
185 - Santa Sangre
186 - Searchers, The
187 - Seventh Seal, The
188 - Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
189 - Shining, The 
190 - Shooting, The
191 - Short Cuts
192 - Slacker 
193 - Summer of Sam
194 - Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song 
195 - Tempest, The (Derek Jarman)
196 - Throne of Blood
197 - Touch of Evil
198 - Vanishing Point 
199 - Werckmeister Harmonies
200 - What Have They Done To Your Daughters ?

Laserdisc Collecting: The Thing (Japan, 1985, CIC)

Presenting the 1985 CIC Japanese laserdisc of The Thing. I’m afraid my copy didn’t photograph all that well but you get the idea. The Thing has been on my mind lately. I finally managed to watch my copy of the Arrow Blu a few weekends ago and was thrilled with the presentation. I hadn’t expected the transfer to be that much of a leg-up from the previous Blu, but I found the Arrow a much richer viewing experience, especially the final act which I’ve always thought something of a damp squib, but on this screening I thoroughly enjoyed the marriage of John Lloyd’s terrific subterranean production design and Dean Cundey’s fantastic lighting. But back on topic: last night I chanced upon the 2013 documentary Drew: The Man Behind The Poster, profiling the career of American film poster artist Drew Struzan, and in the segment I caught, Struzan was discussing his artwork for The Thing (the iconic painting of the shards of light emanating from the hooded figure). I was wondering if Struzan was responsible for the artwork on the Japanese laserdisc, which shows the shape-shifting alien in all its surreal gloopiness, but the credit goes to British artist Les Edwards whose original painting the laserdisc sleeve was derived from. Looking at the back sleeve, I was reminded of the still of Childs and Palmer, a scene which isn't featured in the film or found in the deleted scenes that come with the home video editions...

100 Favourite Films

This blog has been on a hiatus these past few months, I've been busy at work and any free time at home is spent running around after my 2 year old daughter. So for this first post back, I thought it might be a fun to publish something I was doodling with last year. Compiling your favourite-anythings is always a tricky business, but back in October I set myself a challenge one idle afternoon to compile my 100 all-time favorite films. Initially it seemed like a straight forward task – and the first 50 came quickly enough, but the second batch proved much more difficult - trying to keep the selection as honest as possible meant throwing out an awful lot of good stuff – case in point: Dead Ringers, one of Cronenberg’s finest pictures, couldn’t be considered because I haven't seen the film in 20 years. Upon completion the list was squirreled away to be dug up again at some later date for further contemplation, and now a few months later, looking at the list again, the experiment seems to have worked: when I dug out the list yesterday, I didn't feel like any revisions were necessary. A list of 100 films, but more than that, it represents 100 adventures, 100 seismic shocks, 100 fantastic memories from those formative film-watching years - it's being blindsided by Performance on Moviedrome on a Sunday night, it's seeing Weekend and realizing that French art cinema could be as psychotronic as any exploitation film, it's seeking out the music of Stockhausen after hearing it in the opening scene of Walkabout, it's discovering that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was as frightening as Horror films seemed to be when you were too young to see them...

Scanning down thru the titles, I can see the vast majority of films were discovered in the VHS era, which accounts for some glaring omissions – there’s almost no Eastern European cinema here, no Bavas, no Bergmans – the only explanation I can offer is that I came to appreciate these films much later in the DVD era. I’m disappointed also the list doesn’t reflect the amount of foreign language films I have in my wider collection, and apart from a Ford and a Hitchcock, there are no classic studio-era films to show off. Still, I’m happy there are a few we’re-not-worthy titles in there - Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Drugstore Cowboy, The Hitcher, Rumble Fish, THX-1138 – films I will fiercely defend to the death. So without further ado, deep breath…


001 - 2001: A Space Odyssey
002 - Aguirre Wrath of God
003 - Alien
004 - Aliens
005 - All The Presidents Men
006 - Andrei Rublev
007 - Annie Hall
008 - Apocalypse Now
009 - Blade Runner (The Final Cut)
010 - Blue Velvet
011 - Boogie Nights
012 - Bram Stoker's Dracula
013 - Burning, The
014 - Cannibal Holocaust
015 - Carlito's Way
016 - Chelsea Girls, The
017 - Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things
018 - Clockwork Orange, A
019 - Dawn of the Dead
020 - Day of the Dead
021 - Deliverance
022 - Deranged
023 - Devils, The
024 - Dial M For Murder
025 - Do The Right Thing
026 - Drugstore Cowboy
027 - Easy Rider
028 - Eraserhead
029 - Exorcist, The
030 - Falls, The
031 - Fellini Sayricon
032 - First Blood
033 - Fog, The
034 - French Connection, The
035 - Frenzy
036 - Godfather, The
037 - Good, the Bad & the Ugly, The
038 - Goodfellas
039 - Heat (Michael Mann)
040 - Heaven's Gate
041 - Hitcher, The
042 - Inferno (Argento)
043 - I Walked With A Zombie
044 - Jaws
045 - Koyaanisqatsi
046 - Kwaidan
047 - Last Waltz, The
048 - Lethal Weapon
049 - Long Good Friday, The
050 - Macbeth (Polanski)
051 - Mad Max II: The Road Warrior
052 - Man Who Fell To Earth, The
053 - Manhattan
054 - Martin
055 - MASH
056 - Mirror
057 - My Darling Clementine
058 - Natural Born Killers
059 - Night of The Living Dead
060 - Nightmare On Elm Street, A
061 - No Direction Home
062 - Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
063 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
064 - Paris Texas
065 - Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid
066 - Performance
067 - Phenomena
068 - Psycho
069 - Pulp Fiction
070 - Ran
071 - Reservoir Dogs
072 - Rumble Fish
073 - Schindler’s List
074 - Seven Samurai
075 - Shoah
076 - Solaris
077 - Sorcerer
078 - Stalker
079 - Straw Dogs
080 - Suspiria
081 - Taxi Driver
082 - Tenebrae
083 - Terminator, The
084 - Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The
085 - Thief
086 - Thin Red Line, The
087 - Thing, The
088 - THX 1138
089 - To Live And Die In LA
090 - Touch of Zen, A
091 - Traffic
092 - Two-Lane Blacktop
093 - Valerie & Her Week of Wonders
094 - Videodrome
095 - Walkabout
096 - Weekend (Jean-Luc Godard)
097 - When Harry Met Sally
098 - Wicker Man, The
099 - Wings of Desire
100 - Zombie Flesh Eaters