Monday, July 30, 2007

Ingmar Bergman: 1918 - 2007


Trailer for Last House on the Left (1972) - Wes Craven's (implausible but true!) remake of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring!

Best I could do on short notice.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Travel by blog

I think you should probably grab this mp3 file and listen while you immerse yourselves in this quick and painless study of one of our favourite fantasy places (but it's real!) where all the people look so beautiful that it aches and you can't keep count of how many times you fall in love on a speedy jaunt to grab a coffee without dropping your handful of funny change and currency. It's that good. It's Sweden!

First, it's a kingdom and it's in Scandinavia. These two things are really all that need to be said to get your blood rushing like mine does.

Let's not forget the important brouhaha that came about during the American exhibition of their famous dirty/art movie, 'I Am Curious Yellow', in the late 60s. The 'free' state of Massachusetts didn't see the kissing of certain things to be so conducive to how they lived their lives at the time but the courts were wise and its obscenity charges were turned over and we have all gained so much from those types of accomplishments and it was the frankness and bravery of Sweden that helped us. Thank you! Or should I say, tack själv!

Christina Lindberg is from there and she is super fine and so much so that I named my car after her and it is a Volvo station wagon and the Volvo brand automobile is from Sweden. For real!

Here is an example of a Swedish movie poster for a Swedish film called Thriller that starred Christina as well as a sex double for the raunchy bits. It's so cool that their posters look just like ours! We're not so different at all!




Abba, Turbonegro, Robyn and Bathory all come from Sweden and all are wonderful but especially Robyn. Definitely her. Wait! Edit! Turbonegro are from Norway which is also excellent.

Stockholm has a syndrome named after it and it's a pretty cool one too! I'm not kidding and you can look it up if you think I'm lying but you'll see I'm right and soon come to believe everything I say.

Because of all these (and there are many, many more, I promise you!) interesting facts, we here in North America are rightly fascinated by this charming country so steeped in pagan/nordic lore and full of righteous people and places. We can't get over them or how sexually advanced and licentious they are, it seems.








Now, as we've said before, we (I) would not be here if it wasn't for the sage advice of my Swedish friend, Lars Erik, and now I am proud to announce and direct you to the blog that he has just started that will celebrate the film posters that he fancies (Swedish! And others! And he can tell you what Farg means!) as well as whatever he damn well feels like expressing. And we will read it with rapt attention and we will soak in his words and we will grow because of it because Lars is Swedish and lives in Sweden and that is pretty goddamned cool!

They invented the zipper, people!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Two Inmates Brawl Over Woody Allen!

From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel...
"According to a criminal complaint filed Monday in Ozaukee County Circuit Court, the fight began about 5:30 p.m. July 9 during mealtime when James F. Lala, 31, of Grafton asked fellow inmate Corey T. Wilson, 36, of Menomonee Falls what he thought of Allen's marriage in 1997 to Soon-Yi Previn, an adopted daughter of Allen's longtime companion, Mia Farrow.

"Wilson told Lala that he thought that was perverted," the complaint says. "Wilson stated he continued to eat his meal when Lala came up to him and punched him in the face," and the two began to fight.

The fight lasted several minutes, with other inmates looking on until deputies restrained the two men with the help of pepper spray."

Okay, bring on the punchlines.

László Kovács R.I.P.

We're dimming the marquee and the lights at the concession stand this evening in honour of the great László Kovács, one of the two great Hungarian cinematographers who were central to the great look of seventies American films (the other being his lifelong friend Vilmos Zsigmond).

We could do a week of solid double-bills comprised purely of films shot by Kovács - Shampoo & Psych-Out, Five Easy Pieces & The King of Marvin Gardens, Easy Rider & The Last Movie (!), The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies & Ghostbusters, Freebie and the Bean & Targets! Plus he did additional photography on The Last Waltz, Close Encounters and Blow Out!

On top of this, Kovács and Zsigmond were in their graduate year of film school in Budapest when the 1956 uprising took place - together they shot footage of the attacks with borrowed equipment and escaped with the footage to Austria! This footage is incorporated into a recent documentary about Hungary in '56, Kovács' final DP credit.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

excuse me, but you have a spy in your ear...

Been taking after dinner walks the past few evenings as the weather is so great and the experience has been enhanced by plugging into my ipod and listening to THE PSYCHEDELIC SPY, this great 5 part BBC radio play that I found over at the ever mysterious GreyLodge (avail on bit torrent). Its a great throw back to tough guy spy pop culture and features the late Ed Bishop (from the UK tv show UFO and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), Joanna Lumley (THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA and ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE), Charles Gray (THE DEVIL RIDES OUT and and Ernst Stavro Blofeld in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER), James Aubrey (Ralph from LORD OF THE FLIES!). Highly recommended

“I set it in the ’sixties because that was quintessentially the decade of the spy film and I chose specifically the year 1968 because by then the whole thing had turned sour. After the Charles Manson murders and the My Lai massacre, the whole notion of killing for kicks ceased to be funny ….” (writer Andrew Rissik interviewed in The Times)

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

listen to the eyebrows...

What a find! I stumbled upon these pics of David Hemmings and his CRAZY eyebrows by accident and then found a link to Waxidermy where they have an MP3 from Hemmings LP "happens"! Can anyone get me the full album! I'll put it beside my Richard Harris LPs!



meanwhile in China...

Lets play spot the difference! Personally, I like the addition of the condom...

Monday, July 09, 2007

A Chilling Vision of 1995

Turkey Shoot! Too bad The Island bombed - This bit of eighties Ozploitation is crying out for a remake, with Viggo Mortensen instead of Railsback.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

the Klubbsuper8 Kids

Booted off of youtube, they've come back! Recently scored a number of their dvds (remember that package I mentioned that I have for you Mr. Greenwood?) and was very impressed. Expect to see some more postings about Klubb Super 8 soon!

EU sex flick rubs right the wrong way

The right hates the sexy trailer made to promo the film industry. Read why at The Guardian. Personally, I wonder why there is no Tinto Brass included in it...