Wednesday, 18 August 2010
Criterion turns on with Head
Criterion continue to astonish and mystify with their selection of films. November will see the release of a 7-film boxset called America Lost and Found: The BBS Story comprising of Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show, The King of Marvin Gardens, Drive He Said, A Safe Place and Head. Easy Rider and Last Picture Show are favourite films around here, but I'm really excited about Head, the wacky and surreal Monkees movie from 1968. The film follows the Monkees on a series of crazy adventures, mixing TV commercials, documentary inserts (including starting footage of the infamous head shot execution of a Viet Cong) and psychedelic effects; and featuring some of the band's best music. (the live performance of Circle Sky is a highlight). The screenplay was written by Jack Nicholson who can be spotted in a brief blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo when the film crashes thru the fourth wall to reveal the cast and crew, including director Bob Rafelson making the film - its one of the many delights of this acid-soaked Pandora's box.
Presenting the Image Accumulator
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David Cronenberg on Andy Warhol
Cronenberg fans should head over to the amazing Ubu website, a wonderful treasure trove of experimental art, films and sound, where you will find a 30min audio documentary delivered by Cronenberg about Andy Warhol and his influence on culture and Cronenberg's own approach to art and film making. The documentary is divided, chapter style into 21 downloadable mp3 files. Essential listening.
David Cronenberg on Andy Warhol (scroll down the page)
Be sure to pay a visit to the Unflinching Eye blog where Alymer has posted an incredible article on the influence of Cronenberg's ideas on contemporary art and design. Fascinating stuff...
David Cronenberg on Andy Warhol (scroll down the page)
Be sure to pay a visit to the Unflinching Eye blog where Alymer has posted an incredible article on the influence of Cronenberg's ideas on contemporary art and design. Fascinating stuff...
Sunday, 15 August 2010
Prince of Darkness
John Carpenter's 1987 film Prince of Darkness comes right near the end of a dazzling run of films that began with his debut feature Dark Star in 1974 right thru to his last film of worth, They Live, also from 1987. In Prince of Darkness, a group of theologians and scientists led by Father Donald Pleaseance and Professor Victor Wong, are held up in the basement of an inner-city church, deciphering ancient texts and carbon dating a mysterious canister of swirling green gas, that is, the very essence of evil - and it wants to get out...
Interestingly on the laserdisc commentary for Halloween, Carpenter acknowledged the influence of Dario Argento and Suspiria whilst making his iconic slasher classic, but the spirit of Argento is most felt in a sequence in Prince of Darkness when a character is slashed with a scissors by an assassin that could have wandered out of an Argento film. In fact this may be Carpenter's most Italian film - there's a scene where a man literally crumbles into a writhing mass of cockroaches, and the climax that recalls the mindwarp of the final act of The Beyond. There's also a nice bit of business involving a surreal dream sequence which reoccurs throughout the movie and appears as fuzzy video-shot footage, the kind of thing that's over used nowadays, but must have been quite startling back in 1987.
Carpenter's direction is as stylish as ever, truly he was a master of shooting in 'scope. Looking back on the film some 23 years later, the film has a pleasing sense of retrospection to earlier Carpenter films, namely The Thing and Assault on Precinct 13. In the latter film, Carpenter's heroes were surrounded by the Street Thunder gang, while here its a gang of murderous derelicts, led by a creepy looking Alice Cooper. Donald Pleaseance makes his third appearance in a Carptenter directed film, and Victor Wong and Dennis Dun return from Big Trouble In Little China.
In the current absence of a Blu-Ray, Prince of Darkness is best served by Momentum's R2 DVD, which sports a good transfer framed around 2:35, and comes with a commentary track by the director. I haven't sampled it myself, but when Carpenter's on good form, he's worth listening to. Incidentally, Hammer fans will appreciate Carpenter's homage to the studio during the opening credits where he credits his own screenplay to a Martin Quatermass.
Interestingly on the laserdisc commentary for Halloween, Carpenter acknowledged the influence of Dario Argento and Suspiria whilst making his iconic slasher classic, but the spirit of Argento is most felt in a sequence in Prince of Darkness when a character is slashed with a scissors by an assassin that could have wandered out of an Argento film. In fact this may be Carpenter's most Italian film - there's a scene where a man literally crumbles into a writhing mass of cockroaches, and the climax that recalls the mindwarp of the final act of The Beyond. There's also a nice bit of business involving a surreal dream sequence which reoccurs throughout the movie and appears as fuzzy video-shot footage, the kind of thing that's over used nowadays, but must have been quite startling back in 1987.
Carpenter's direction is as stylish as ever, truly he was a master of shooting in 'scope. Looking back on the film some 23 years later, the film has a pleasing sense of retrospection to earlier Carpenter films, namely The Thing and Assault on Precinct 13. In the latter film, Carpenter's heroes were surrounded by the Street Thunder gang, while here its a gang of murderous derelicts, led by a creepy looking Alice Cooper. Donald Pleaseance makes his third appearance in a Carptenter directed film, and Victor Wong and Dennis Dun return from Big Trouble In Little China.
In the current absence of a Blu-Ray, Prince of Darkness is best served by Momentum's R2 DVD, which sports a good transfer framed around 2:35, and comes with a commentary track by the director. I haven't sampled it myself, but when Carpenter's on good form, he's worth listening to. Incidentally, Hammer fans will appreciate Carpenter's homage to the studio during the opening credits where he credits his own screenplay to a Martin Quatermass.
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
There's road kill all over Texas... natural order of things
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III on the face of it, may appear to be the next installment of Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel's story of the Sawyer cannibal clan, but Jeff Burr's film is perhaps best described in today's vernacular as a reboot, and it was this break-away from the original sacred text that fiercely divided horror fans on its release in 1990. The plot of the film itself could be lifted from any one of the backwoods slasher films that came in the wake of the original film - a couple en route to Florida take an ill-advised turn off the highway only fall into the clutches of a family of killers with a taste for human flesh...
Leatherface gets his name on the title for this one, but had you missed the opening credits, you might think you were watching something more akin to The Hills Have Eyes. So far so cliched, but under Jeff Burr's direction the film moves at a fair lick and it's easily the best looking Chainsaw in the series - a scene where one of the killers is introduced, lit by the crimson glow of a flare is a visual highlight. What really impresses about Leatherface is its delight in sheer sadism, and takes the woman-in-peril concept as far as it can go - in the original film Marylin Burns was tied to a chair, in this film, Kate Hodge is nailed to one (causing much grief from the MPAA). It's gruesome, gory, and subversive too - one of the twists on the cannibal family is that it includes a 10year old girl, who delights in bringing a sledge hammer down on a victim's head. No wonder the British censors refused to pass this in 1990.
Performances are mostly great, the family get the best lines, and a pre-stardom Viggo Mortensen really shines as Tex, a cowboy who's charming, sly and deadly dangerous in equal measures. The Leatherface character is nothing special though - if you missed Gunnar Hansen from the first film, you might now be missing Bill Johnson from the second, but its not a big deal with Dawn of the Dead's Ken Foree among the cast.
New Line's DVD presents Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III in a fine looking 1.85:1 transfer. The film is uncut (with the useless R-Rated version on the flipside), and comes with a good commentary track from Jeff Burr and crew; a half-hour documentary on the making of the film, and some scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor. Highly recommended.
Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III on the face of it, may appear to be the next installment of Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel's story of the Sawyer cannibal clan, but Jeff Burr's film is perhaps best described in today's vernacular as a reboot, and it was this break-away from the original sacred text that fiercely divided horror fans on its release in 1990. The plot of the film itself could be lifted from any one of the backwoods slasher films that came in the wake of the original film - a couple en route to Florida take an ill-advised turn off the highway only fall into the clutches of a family of killers with a taste for human flesh...
Leatherface gets his name on the title for this one, but had you missed the opening credits, you might think you were watching something more akin to The Hills Have Eyes. So far so cliched, but under Jeff Burr's direction the film moves at a fair lick and it's easily the best looking Chainsaw in the series - a scene where one of the killers is introduced, lit by the crimson glow of a flare is a visual highlight. What really impresses about Leatherface is its delight in sheer sadism, and takes the woman-in-peril concept as far as it can go - in the original film Marylin Burns was tied to a chair, in this film, Kate Hodge is nailed to one (causing much grief from the MPAA). It's gruesome, gory, and subversive too - one of the twists on the cannibal family is that it includes a 10year old girl, who delights in bringing a sledge hammer down on a victim's head. No wonder the British censors refused to pass this in 1990.
Performances are mostly great, the family get the best lines, and a pre-stardom Viggo Mortensen really shines as Tex, a cowboy who's charming, sly and deadly dangerous in equal measures. The Leatherface character is nothing special though - if you missed Gunnar Hansen from the first film, you might now be missing Bill Johnson from the second, but its not a big deal with Dawn of the Dead's Ken Foree among the cast.
New Line's DVD presents Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III in a fine looking 1.85:1 transfer. The film is uncut (with the useless R-Rated version on the flipside), and comes with a good commentary track from Jeff Burr and crew; a half-hour documentary on the making of the film, and some scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor. Highly recommended.
Thursday, 12 August 2010
Martin Scorsese's American Boy
Filmed in January 1977, American Boy is a wonderful 55-min documentary about Scorsese's friend Steven Prince, a fast-talkin' New York hipster who appeared in Taxi Driver as a gun salesman, and New York New York as a record producer. Prince spins stories of his life, from his childhood when he tuned a fast buck selling bagels to wealthy New York Jews, to his adventures as road manager for Neil Diamond when he was just 21, and his experience with drugs from which he developed a serious dope habit.
Prince knows how to tell a funny story, but behind the hollowed out eye sockets there's a kind of world weary wisdom - Prince had watched a kid get electrocuted when setting up a stage show, and he himself shot a hopped-up stick-up man six times when he was working the til of a gas station. Prince rightly describes himself as a "survivor" and in one of the final scenes Scorsese tries to push his subject's buttons by asking him to describe his relationship with his dying father - something that is obviously painful for Prince, but he holds tough and remains composed. Watching the film I wondered if Scorsese had been a fan of Portrait of Jason, Shirley Jackson's 1967 indie documentary about a black, gay hustler. Certainly Quentin Tarantino has seen American Boy - the scene in Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman gets an adrenaline shot into the heart is lifted directly from one of Prince's anecdotes...
Prince knows how to tell a funny story, but behind the hollowed out eye sockets there's a kind of world weary wisdom - Prince had watched a kid get electrocuted when setting up a stage show, and he himself shot a hopped-up stick-up man six times when he was working the til of a gas station. Prince rightly describes himself as a "survivor" and in one of the final scenes Scorsese tries to push his subject's buttons by asking him to describe his relationship with his dying father - something that is obviously painful for Prince, but he holds tough and remains composed. Watching the film I wondered if Scorsese had been a fan of Portrait of Jason, Shirley Jackson's 1967 indie documentary about a black, gay hustler. Certainly Quentin Tarantino has seen American Boy - the scene in Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman gets an adrenaline shot into the heart is lifted directly from one of Prince's anecdotes...
Saturday, 31 July 2010
Lost In Space
I've just completed a marathon run of the 1st season of 60's cult sci-fi series Lost In Space. Lost In Space follows the adventures of the intergalactic pioneering Robinson Family who leave an increasingly over populated Earth to begin a new human settlement on the planet Alpha Centauri. However, their mission has been sabotaged by devious robotics engineer Dr. Zachery Smith who unwittingly becomes a stowaway on the Robinson voyage. Each week, the Robinson Family along with co-pilot Major Don West and an all-purpose robot face danger and adventure as they make their way across the galaxy to find a new home...
Lost In Space was an Irwin Allen production for CBS that ran for 3 seasons, clocking up some 83 episodes, airing between September 15, 1965 and March 6, 1968. It never enjoyed the street cred. that Star Trek has, mainly because the show made no bones about being silly and fun. Most of the comedy is provided by Johnathon Harris who plays the lazy, self-serving, conniving and devious Dr. Smith who's often selling out the family to some alien race in exchange for a ride back to Earth. Smith's funniest moments are his put downs to the Robot ("Quiet, You Hulking Mass of Mechanical Ignorance!") or his oft repeated mantra - "Oh, the pain, the pain"
Most people when recalling Lost In Space will remember the gaudy, candy-colored planetscapes that were featured on the show every week, but Season 1 was shot in black & white. Lost In Space, unlike Star Trek dealt with fantasy elements as well as sci-fi themes and was often absurd in its logic. Among the special guests who appeared in the first season included Warren Oates as a cosmic cowboy, Michael Rennie (the alien from Day the Earth Stood Still), and a 14 year old Kurt Russell as an alien prince. Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot also appeared as a special guest star in the episode entitled "War of the Robots"
Fox's Season 1 boxset collects all 29 episodes spread across 8 discs, plus as an extra, the original unaired pilot. Image and audio quality is very good, I imagine the materials were not as pristine as what Paramount used for their Star Trek series collections but the transfers are generally strong.
Lost In Space was an Irwin Allen production for CBS that ran for 3 seasons, clocking up some 83 episodes, airing between September 15, 1965 and March 6, 1968. It never enjoyed the street cred. that Star Trek has, mainly because the show made no bones about being silly and fun. Most of the comedy is provided by Johnathon Harris who plays the lazy, self-serving, conniving and devious Dr. Smith who's often selling out the family to some alien race in exchange for a ride back to Earth. Smith's funniest moments are his put downs to the Robot ("Quiet, You Hulking Mass of Mechanical Ignorance!") or his oft repeated mantra - "Oh, the pain, the pain"
Most people when recalling Lost In Space will remember the gaudy, candy-colored planetscapes that were featured on the show every week, but Season 1 was shot in black & white. Lost In Space, unlike Star Trek dealt with fantasy elements as well as sci-fi themes and was often absurd in its logic. Among the special guests who appeared in the first season included Warren Oates as a cosmic cowboy, Michael Rennie (the alien from Day the Earth Stood Still), and a 14 year old Kurt Russell as an alien prince. Forbidden Planet's Robby the Robot also appeared as a special guest star in the episode entitled "War of the Robots"
Fox's Season 1 boxset collects all 29 episodes spread across 8 discs, plus as an extra, the original unaired pilot. Image and audio quality is very good, I imagine the materials were not as pristine as what Paramount used for their Star Trek series collections but the transfers are generally strong.
Aliens - the Teaser trailer
The Alien series hits Blu-Ray in October and while the first film is my favourite of all the Alien films, I'm most excited about seeing Aliens on Blu-Ray. Aliens has always suffered from a dark, grainy image on DVD so it will be interesting to see how the Blu-Ray will handle it... Since the announcement of the Alien series hitting Blu-Ray, I've been listening to the group commentary from Aliens. This is the second time I've tuned in to this commentary and it's a good one - lots of fascinating insights into the production of the film from James Cameron along with the cast & crew.
Incidentally, the teaser trailer for Aliens remains my favourite trailer of all time. This one dispenses with dialogue (which the other trailers for Aliens have) and instead features a brilliant montage of clips from the film set to a terrifying atonal score. It must have been quite an experience to see this in cinemas in the Spring of '86. If you have the Alien boxset, the teaser trailer can be found on Disc 9, or check out the clip below...
Incidentally, the teaser trailer for Aliens remains my favourite trailer of all time. This one dispenses with dialogue (which the other trailers for Aliens have) and instead features a brilliant montage of clips from the film set to a terrifying atonal score. It must have been quite an experience to see this in cinemas in the Spring of '86. If you have the Alien boxset, the teaser trailer can be found on Disc 9, or check out the clip below...
Sunday, 25 July 2010
A Scream In the Streets
Students of Trash Cinema who regularly make pilgrimage to 42nd Street would do well to seek out Something Weird's DVD of A Scream In the Streets, (aka Girls In the Streets) a low down dirty-ass exploitation roughie from 1973. The plot - and I use the term loosely - concerns Ed Haskell, a hard-nose cop who's been assigned a new partner, Bob Streeker (?), a hot-head who hates doing things by the book. Together they patrol the streets of suburban LA in search of a serial rapist who's MO is raping and killing young girls whilst dressed as a woman...
Watching A Scream In the Streets you get the feeling that the production probably started out as a thriller in the vein of the new hard edge cop films that were emerging - Dirty Harry and The French Connection, but along the way got turned into a sexploitation flick - considering that every 10mins or so the story grinds to a halt for some borderline-hardcore sex. The direction, credited to Carl Monson is mostly flat and insipid, although the film does break out in two sequences - a Peckinpah-style shootout (cue meaty squibs and slow-mo), and a car chase that's sabotaged by some amateurish undercranking. As for the cops, its a wonder that these guys are not directing traffic, totally inept at law enforcement and spending most of the film bitchin' rather than arrestin'. Of course none of that hardly matters, A Scream In the Streets delivers plenty of sleazy thrills, and a jaw-dropping final shot (a splitscreen freezeframe, no less!) which suggests that that the film makers were probably not taking any of this seriously in the first place. Yep, I liked it.
This being a Harry Novak production, its not surprising the source print used for Something Weird's DVD is in great shape - sharp, bright and showing minimal wear and tear. The extras are the usually treasure trove of Something Weird flotsam and jetsam, and be sure to watch the extra called Harry Novak Crime Stopper, a highly amusing shot-on-video trip to the office of Harry Novak by the Something Weird crew.
Watching A Scream In the Streets you get the feeling that the production probably started out as a thriller in the vein of the new hard edge cop films that were emerging - Dirty Harry and The French Connection, but along the way got turned into a sexploitation flick - considering that every 10mins or so the story grinds to a halt for some borderline-hardcore sex. The direction, credited to Carl Monson is mostly flat and insipid, although the film does break out in two sequences - a Peckinpah-style shootout (cue meaty squibs and slow-mo), and a car chase that's sabotaged by some amateurish undercranking. As for the cops, its a wonder that these guys are not directing traffic, totally inept at law enforcement and spending most of the film bitchin' rather than arrestin'. Of course none of that hardly matters, A Scream In the Streets delivers plenty of sleazy thrills, and a jaw-dropping final shot (a splitscreen freezeframe, no less!) which suggests that that the film makers were probably not taking any of this seriously in the first place. Yep, I liked it.
This being a Harry Novak production, its not surprising the source print used for Something Weird's DVD is in great shape - sharp, bright and showing minimal wear and tear. The extras are the usually treasure trove of Something Weird flotsam and jetsam, and be sure to watch the extra called Harry Novak Crime Stopper, a highly amusing shot-on-video trip to the office of Harry Novak by the Something Weird crew.
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Kingdom of the Spiders
When cattle in a small town in Arizona turn up dead for no apparent reason, local vet Robert "Rack" Hansen (William Shatner, beefy) along with scientist Diane Ashley (Tiffany Bolling, gorgeous) investigate the mysterious circumstances only to discover that a shift in the balance of nature has given rise to a strain of highly aggressive tarantulas intent on feeding on the town folk...
Made in 1977, in the wake of Jaws, Kingdom of the Spiders is a superior example of the nature vs. man genre that was so popular in the 70's (Frogs, Squirm, Grizzly etc). The premise may sound schlocky on paper, but the film is anything but, delivering some real menace and suspense, successfully importing elements from The Birds and Night of the Living Dead, and bravely playing out with a quietly devastating ending. Interestingly the film's premise is close to the 1974 zombie film The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue, both films explore the consequences of mankind's interference with the natural order - in the case of Kingdom of the Spiders, pesticides have destroyed the tarantula's place in the food-chain, so they turn to humans for food.
Director Jon "Bud" Cardos gets great mileage out of the story with some slick low angle shots of spiders creeping around, and in particular two striking set pieces involving a crop-duster, and descent into a darkened cellar. Besides excellent work from Shatner and Bolling, the film benefits greatly from the extended cast - 5,000 Mexican tarantulas who are marvelous - there's no Fulci fakery here à la The Beyond, these creepy-crawlies are the real deal.
Worth applauding also the human extras who allowed themselves to be covered and crawled upon by spiders - no mean feat. Incidentally, Wes Craven would go one better in his 1980 film Deadly Blessing by placing a spider in Sharon Stone's mouth. Animal lovers should note that there is extensive stomping and other punishments doled out to the spiders, and the film if remade today would have to make extensive use of CGI to satisfy the American Humane Association. One to savour indeed.
My copy of Spiders is the 2002 Goodtimes DVD which was a good budget disc for its time, but can now be discarded for Shout! Factory's magnificent 2010 edition, with a superior transfer (and in its OAR finally) and worthwhile extras - commentary, interviews and some Super-8 onset footage). The film is best avoided by those with a sensitive disposition to the eight legged freaks of this world, but for those looking for a solid 70's chiller, Kingdom of the Spiders is highly recommended.
Made in 1977, in the wake of Jaws, Kingdom of the Spiders is a superior example of the nature vs. man genre that was so popular in the 70's (Frogs, Squirm, Grizzly etc). The premise may sound schlocky on paper, but the film is anything but, delivering some real menace and suspense, successfully importing elements from The Birds and Night of the Living Dead, and bravely playing out with a quietly devastating ending. Interestingly the film's premise is close to the 1974 zombie film The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue, both films explore the consequences of mankind's interference with the natural order - in the case of Kingdom of the Spiders, pesticides have destroyed the tarantula's place in the food-chain, so they turn to humans for food.
Director Jon "Bud" Cardos gets great mileage out of the story with some slick low angle shots of spiders creeping around, and in particular two striking set pieces involving a crop-duster, and descent into a darkened cellar. Besides excellent work from Shatner and Bolling, the film benefits greatly from the extended cast - 5,000 Mexican tarantulas who are marvelous - there's no Fulci fakery here à la The Beyond, these creepy-crawlies are the real deal.
Worth applauding also the human extras who allowed themselves to be covered and crawled upon by spiders - no mean feat. Incidentally, Wes Craven would go one better in his 1980 film Deadly Blessing by placing a spider in Sharon Stone's mouth. Animal lovers should note that there is extensive stomping and other punishments doled out to the spiders, and the film if remade today would have to make extensive use of CGI to satisfy the American Humane Association. One to savour indeed.
My copy of Spiders is the 2002 Goodtimes DVD which was a good budget disc for its time, but can now be discarded for Shout! Factory's magnificent 2010 edition, with a superior transfer (and in its OAR finally) and worthwhile extras - commentary, interviews and some Super-8 onset footage). The film is best avoided by those with a sensitive disposition to the eight legged freaks of this world, but for those looking for a solid 70's chiller, Kingdom of the Spiders is highly recommended.
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