Free reign

It's so nice when the brains behind the blog are all off busying themselves for the Toronto International Film Festival and us rural bumpkins can just kinda say, "Whu?," as we drag a broom around the empty place and sort of dwell on whatever we fancy and push the accepatable boundaries of run-on sentences while doing it, man. That's nice.

Last weekend while seated even slightly more into 'the sticks' for a spell, we returned to the warm chest of one of our all time favourite screen bounders, George Sanders, and re-watched his near final farewell to celluloid, 1971's Psychomania. I've got a dismal old dupe-y VHS around that was recorded at 24 hour speed but I've been itching to get a nicer copy to revisit so I got this cheap DVD under poor advice only to later find that it has a scene trimmed where our man George is introduced and something else that sounds wonderful also happens but I've forgotten what that one is. So, either we go for a UK cut of the film on DVD or find a special someone who has the nice, widescreen version that is OOP and too much at $100 or so but apparently is fully intact. Such decisions.

If you've never seen the film, I suggest you seek it out and bathe in the remarkably fun nonsense that it is. Basically, due to some family witchcraft history and a particular fondness of frogs, this young chap who is the head boy of a motorcycle gang (they're called 'The Living Dead'!) decides it would be terrific fun to willingly kill themselves in order to come back as indestructible immortals and continue their unique brand of childish mayhem and kill a few people who disapprove and tut tut too! So, they do, damned kids! And it's a joy to behold and there is a rather plaintive (and head-shakingly awesome) song sang at this young man's funeral party where he is in a hole and on his bike in full gear and a ton more of golden moments that make it all so worthwhile and enjoyable if you're in for a goof of a good time. I guarantee your smiles and good times, people.

And Sanders plays a butler and even though he is near his low moment of eventual suicide and acting in dregs clearly beneath him, the man is a true actor and professional to the finish and delivers a fine performance all around. A class act always.




Here is the type of awful, no-good goings on that these young and leathered limeys get up to. For shame!




And here we see the country of origin, UK quad for this treasure of cinema.

Pinks

Still one of my favourite films and the trailer is very exciting too. I just had a Hellman craving but I don't have the time to sit and watch the film right now so this clip will do just perfectly as a taste. Usually, a simple viewing of the opening moments of the film has me hooked in and I'm there for the duration and all the Oatesy goodness but I have avoided that here and now for us all. It's such a meditative film for me that I can't expain why it's so attractive. Like Barbi Benton, it's something entirely personal.

Memories of Forty Deuce

Revolve

"Leave the children home."

Fairy stories!

An excellent discourse from an even more excellent movie that I need to revisit very soon. You get it all in Jack and the Beanstalk and you get a good dose of Poitier's cool calm and Vic Morrow's classically dour delinquent. Does it come any finer? And then at the end, you see the squareness of the teachers still jiving Glenn Ford for trying and you can taste his frustration when he so presciently talks about thinking for yourself in the face of everything. It's boss.

have chair will travel

Suspect Video used to have a copy of this on VHS. Wonder if it is still available for rent...

If you can't have the real thing-- you do all kinds of unreal things

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Somehow after watching an Elliot Gould clip that Jesse sent me, I found this clip from DEEP END which I remember seeing at the B-Fest at the Bloor years ago. How it fit into a "B" category I will never know, but I am grateful for seeing it on the big screen. What a great poster! For more pics, visit this Russian film fan blog.

Orgone accumulation

Well, it's been a little spell since I've come across a nice marquee scene but there it was, smack dab in the middle of the excellent WR:Mysteries of the Organism as Jackie Curtis licks an ice cream on a NYC stroll through heaven.









And I totally love Milena Dravic's character (and her friend too!) for the sharp decorating choices she makes.

Michelangelo Antonioni: 1912 - 2007

Trailer for Zabriskie Point (1970).

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.

Spook Show Spectacular

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!

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.

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)

Depraved

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...

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.

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!

Anita - ur en tonårsflickas dagbok
Uploaded by klubbsuper8

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...

don't worry, Jenny is still wonderful!

okay, maybe I am bragging...

From: "John Landis"
Date: June 28, 2007 10:43:45 PM EDT (CA)
To: "Colin Geddes"
Subject: Re: XXX XXXXXX project

Colin - Great! I look forward to hearing from him. I just saw Jenny in London in the West End in the revival of EQUS, she's still wonderful. Onward and upward with the arts! - John

and we thought SHOCK WAVES was the best aqua nazi zombie film.

And the "Sticky Popcorn & Floors Award for The Best Trailer for a Movie That Doesn't Exist, but Could If They Finish The Script and Get a Producer" goes to:

(pssssst - follow this link to see the trailer)

David's so boss

Shit yeah!

Validation

I recently took a small step up from all the other, lowly Navin Johnsons in the world and got my name secured in a second book and I wanted to tell you so that you'd know and also so that you could go and buy the book because it is quite something to behold and altogether too weighty for mere words.

It is...



Nightmare USA by Stephen Thrower


I answered an online request at FabPress (notified by my friend in posters, Armin) for advertising materials for certain films and they ended up using 16 or 17 posters that had to tripped over to the UK. And I got a free book back with them! And it's a signed copy! And to top it off, I am one of 6 singled-out thanks in the image acknowledgements section. For real! Check it out.

Here are some examples of what you'll joyously behold when you're reading about stuff like gore and sex and murder and dismembered heads...









So, get a copy and learn about underground exploitation/horror films from the golden era of American filth, just like me. I must admit to knowing little so I'm looking forward to my education in horror as I tend to favour the sex part of the sleaze recipe and now I see a long list of movies that need to be seen coming up in the near months.

And I'll gladly sign any copies that you bring to meetings with me and my handlers. Just let us know in advance, please.


Yours in particular,
Michael Greenwood

It Rubs The Lotion On Its Skin

Old news for the web savvy, but saw a film (sorry, sworn to secrecy, but I will say that it was by the director of CHOPPER...) today with a cameo by Ted Levine aka Jame 'Buffalo Bill' Gumb and this came to mind. A catchy tune and great mashup vid by Greenskeepers...

ummm...

Found this graphic in an issue of Variety from Cannes advertising a festival in Turin, Italy.

The Bad Shepherd

Trailer for The Spook Who Sat By The Door (1973) - a pretty radical-looking bit of Blaxplo, courtesy of a major studio (United Artists) who abruptly yanked it out of the theatres three weeks after its release, not because it was a bomb (there were lines around the block in the inner cities) but allegedly due to FBI pressure that the film would spark race riots. Supressed ever since, it took Tim (WKRP) Reid to arrange the film's recent restoration and release on DVD. Can't wait to track a copy down for myself, because it looks awesome. Music by Herbie Hancock.

The Smut Peddler

This is one of my favourite trailers ever.