Best toon ever recorded!!!

One man, one Vreten

I've been wanting an Orgel Vreten lamp ever since I first saw one at a big indoor flee market (where I also found these awesome tapes) but their second hand one looked like it had 10 years worth of nicotine plastered onto it - and in addition to that the seller wanted $50 for it! I told him I'd pay him 25 bucks but the cunt argued a new one would be $100 at the store. Gee whiz, I just got an original lamp and it was exactly the same price as he wanted for his old stinkaroo fucker: 50 bucks!!! Only problem: you can only get them at Ikea and I live 3000 miles from the nearest Ikea shop. Anyhoo, my dad was gonna go there and I asked him to pick one up for me. He said what if someone stepped on it, but still, he got me one (yeah yeah yeah my jokes are crappy, next I'll be doing the "I flew in last night, my god my arms are tired"). So why a Vreten lamp I hear ya cry out. Well, cos it kinda gives ya the impression you're downtown Shanghai 1930 or something. It looks mighty cool and it creates a dim'ish light which means you can have it on while watching a movie and it won't be too bright and when you wanna go get a cold one from the fridge you don't have to switch on the bloody lights which are gonna kill the movie's atmos. Yeah-yeah no need to spell it out, brainiac, why don't I just get mah drinks BEFORE I press "play"! Well, COS I DON'T! ALRIGHT!! Haha. You should get a Vreten too!

Garden of the Dead (USA, 1972)

I came home yesterday after my last official day at the newspaper where I (kinda) work. I'd slept exactly one hour the night before and about three hours the night before that so the world was beginning to seem mighty surreal, I put my head on the pillow for two minutes and felt everything spinning and a headache working its way to the upper cortex, "fuck it" I though, I needta CATCH one piecea celluloid before I hit sleepyland. What did I dig out of the dusty archive? Why GARDEN OF THE DEAD naturally!! It's been sitting there unwatched for a couple of years and I figured the thought of ending the day with FORMALDEHYDE ZOMBIES (as the flipside of the cover promises) would be a SPLENDID way to finish the day (where I'd seen one of the editors getting the boot for being "too individual" gee gosh in mah book that's reason FOR HIRING someone!!!), and with a running time of 58 minutes there was even a chance of my actually making it to the end before dozing off. And I did and WOAH... I mean... man, FORMALDEHYDE ZOMBIES!!!

The plot: Inmates from prison camp are gone on smoking FORMALDEHYDE (!!!) and make a run for it only to crash their truck INTO A CEMETERY!! Shoot-outs with pursuing prison guards, lots of dead prisoners, formaldehyde seeps into the ground AT THE CEMETERY and y'all put two and two together and you've got the rest of the plot. Zombies attack the prison camp and they fight it out. Dead people. Zombies. Deteriorating faces. Awesome top of the crop makeup. I wish all films were like this.

The print from Something Weird Video is directly off a fullscreen 35mm print and look just fine. A little ragged at the edges but would you really want it any other way with these kinda trash-flicks!? The director is John Hayes and he also did GRAVE OF THE VAMPIRE which I watched a few years back on VHS. Must rewatch that one soon. GARDEN is definitely recommended! FORMALDEHYDE ZOMBIES!!!

Wild 50s

Awesome high resolution poster. I haven't seen this flick but I'd love to. :D

Great news... and terrible news!

The bad news first: SensAsian in Malaysia has closed down!!! There's a message on their website! Boo-hoo!!!

And the good news: ThaiCDExpress in Thailand has reopened!!!

Maniac bites dog

Check out this awesome new 10 minute American short film called MANIAC. The film pays tribute to the old Belgian serial killer movie MAN BITES DOG (C'est arrivé près de chez vous) about a serial killer who is followed around by a documentary film crew as he bumps off people. They even shot it in French and black & white like the original film (but not surprisingly the drunk monkeys at IMDb got it wrong and listed the language as English!!!). MANIAC is directed by Shia LaBeouf and stars Scott Mescudi and Chris Palko; These people are apparently well known rap artists but on this here BLOG we're gone on garage-rock, 60s punk, and stuff like the Birthday Party from the 80s so obviously we (royal "we" there!) have no knowledge of that! However, that DON'T MATTER NONE as this short film is by NO means a music video or some such but a grim and very violent horror movie. It's a great short and I highly recommend it.

PS: You might want to watch the film directly on YouTube as the picture on the blog is a tad too small to read the subtitles properly.

Chrysalis (Julien Leclercq, France, 2007)

I dvd-r'ed the French sci-fi film CHRYSALIS off Danish TV a couple of weeks back and watched it this morning. I hadn't heard anything about the film and thus had no expectations what so ever, so it was a pleasant surprise when it turned out to be a very cool, dark, violent, and cynical sci-fi film set in what we could call "Neo Paris post Bladerunner"!! The plot deals with this cop who thru out the film has a puss that looks like he was weaned on a pickle. His cop wife is brutally murdered and there's memory loss and shit. Watch the movie and find out. I was certainly entertained 100% thru out the entire film. I checked Amazon.com for a DVD release but several reviewers (who obviously knew French) stated that the English subs suck ass so I think I'm just gonna stick with my TV print; at least the French TV translators on DK TV are good. There's also a UK DVD but I have no info on whether it uses the same subs. I found three different trailers on YouTube, two in French and one in English. However, pretty much like the reported English subtitles the English narrated trailer sucks ass too (notice how they only use scenes without any dialogue in order to hide that it's not an English language film!!). The French trailer that I didn't use spends half of the time on boring credits. The one I'm posting here is alright. Don't ask me why it has subs in Portuguese. ^_^

The Model

My... gawd! This is now my favourite fan made video. Pure perfection!! BIG BLACK's rendition of that ol'e Kraftwerk fave added to this old 3 minute amateur film, MALIBU MERMAID, from the 1950s starring an unknown model (Adele Doleman) is just spitzenklasse!

The footage is slightly censored but you can watch the uncensored complete film here (but without the cool music).

Upcoming SANTIAGO films have a release date

As I've mentioned here before the next DVD set from SHOUT! FACTORY to contain Filipino co-productions is Lethal Ladies vol. 2 which is going to contain FLY ME and COVER GIRL MODELS. Both films are directed by Cirio H. Santiago and now there's a release date: January the 24th!

Like I've said earlier it's VERY exciting that we're getting FLY ME as it's never before been released on DVD and the scarce video releases (only TWO afaik; one in the US and one in the UK, incidentally the latter a double feature with COVER GIRL MODELS) are both as rare as had they vanished off the face of the Earth!

The set will also include the movie THE ARENA which isn't from the Philippines at all but it stars babatious Pam Grier (who were in some very cool Filipino flicks!) so that's not bad at all. xD

Best toon ever recorded!!!

...and you should lissen to it owl nite!

PS: It's not Sonic Youth as the uploader claims but SICCONE YOUTH (which in reality is Sonic Youth, LOLZ).

TRANCEFORMER (Stig Björkman, Sweden/Denmark, 1997)

I bought Stig Björkman's documentary about Lars von Trier on DVD thinking it was something I hadn't seen before - but I realise I had actually already watched the film (and possibly also taped it) when it was screened on Danish TV a number of years ago. Oh well, at least I've got it on DVD now and it was cheap too.

The cover states the director followed Lars von Trier for two years and if that's the case I must say I find it's a pretty weak documentary! It clocks in after a mere 52 minutes and it looks totally like a docu made for television. I guess it was co-produced by Danish and Swedish television but that doesn't mean it has to have the look of it! Von Trier's films are also co-produced with various TV stations but you could hardly claim they look like telly movies!

The interviewer does get to ask Lars questions about his background, phobias, etc. and the film does have some depth - it's just not enough! Quite a few of the people who work with Lars, both behind and in front of the camera, are interviewed but nobody has anything negative to say about him or delivers any embarrassing stories. This is of course fair enough if they all love him but... it would have been nice if the director had included conversations with for instance some of the people who turned Von Trier down when he started out; At one point Lars mentions no one wanted to produce his films. Why didn't they? (obviously cos they were retarded but it would still have made for better documentary to hear their arguments/excuses).

To me the most fun moment is when Ernst-Hugo Järegård talks about one time at the Cannes Film Festival when Von Trier was extra nervous. The reason? He was wearing Carl TH. Dreyer's old suit from 1928 that he'd got hold of somewhere!!

All in all a decent documentary that ought to have been much better in my view. Too much info is left out. And why isn't MEDIA mentioned at all!?

It ought to be compulsory viewing for documentary directors to watch the two hour CRUMB (about Robert Crumb) before they're allowed to film anything! Now, THAT is what I'd call a well made, incisive and gripping documentary film!

The DVD has subtitles in English and Scandinavian. There's no extras. If you're in Denmark you can pick it up from TP Musikmarked at 50 kr. but their stock is low so be quick (I had to actually place an order for my copy).

The easy way out...

Well, out to read BANNED IN BRITAIN #2 that is!! I posted the issue here the other day but this here being a blog means you'll have to click and zoom in on every page. Someone somewhere in Cyberspace has just uploaded the very same issue to a site called Scribd.com and it's actually a much better way to read the mag as you can just flick thru (or scroll) the pages. Thanks heaps to the uploader! You can download the full zine as well but it seems you'll have to upload something first. For BiB #2 go here.



PS: if someone is reading about this for the first time let's just get the legal stuff out of the way: I publish "Banned in Britian" zine and you're allowed to download it for free and to further share it, as long as you don't make any money on it (but if you do please send me some as I'm totally skint!!)

Color Me Blood Red (H.G. Lewis, USA 1965)

I've watched a few of H.G. Lewis' films in the past (and reviewed some of them for STAY SICK! magazine) but the ones I have in my collection are all on VHS (my first H.G.L. film was THE GORE GORE GIRLS on bootleg in Melbourne in the early/mid 90s!). So I thought it was finally time to GET THE LOT and ordered the Something Weird Video box sets THE HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS COLLECTION (6 films) and the H.G. LEWIS BLOOD TRILOGY (I forget how many films are in that one, haha).

I thought I'd watch them all in chronological order except for the ones I've already watched on VHS (which I'll watch at the end) so today I began with COLOR ME BLOOD RED from 1965 (the third film of the lot). Gee wauw!! It was awesome and I already wanna watch it again.


The ting is I read a review of it in a UK fanzine almost 20 yrs ago and the reviewer said something to the effect that apart from the gore scenes he thought it was rather dull (and he kept miswriting the title as "Colour Me Blood Red", I mean how hard can it be to write "color"!! >_< ). Well, I was part of that whole splatter fan underground scene back then but if there's one thing that annoys me when I look back upon that time it's how some spatter fans could not for the life of them look beyond the gore!!! No gore meant a film was practically worthless. Even without the FUN splatter scenes of COLOR ME the film is great!! The plot is fun, the characters/actors are fun, the music is cool, and the COLOURS OF THE FILM, MAN, OH THOSE KITSCHY COLOURS!!!!!


I could watch this film again for the colours alone (and I'm not referring to the red colour of the title). I watched the film twice as it also has a FUN AND COOL commentary track from Mike Vraney (you know, from SWV), H.G. Lewis, David Friedman, and some other guy. The entire 80 minute audio track is highly enjoyable but the one moment that stands out is when you get the real low-down on what the beef between Lewis and Friedman was all about (thee BEEF that meant they split up both professionally and as friends, and went separate ways!). COLOR ME BLOOD RED is highly recommended to anyone (not just gore film fans) who's into cool and alternative low-budget films.



John Waters with a couple of other Lewis titles.

Chambers

Here's the trailer for Cronenberg's feature film debut RABID from 1977 starring Marilyn Chambers and below is an interesting clip with Marilyn that I stumbled over on YouTube; it's also from sometime in the 70s.

More fun in the bunker...

I should charge that Finn for copyright violation. Not of the Hitler film, obviously, but of MY dogme videos!!! ^_^

Muzak in the mailbox...

I received these fine platters the last couple of weeks:

The Necessary Evils - "The Sicko Inside Me" CD
Spids Nøgenhat - "En Mærkelig Kop Te" CD
Spids Nøgenhat - "En Mærkelig Kop Te" LP
Baby Woodrose - "Love Comes Down" CD
Baby Woodrose - "Love Comes Down" LP + ltd 7"
Ciccone Youth - "The Whitey Album" CD
Pixies - "Boston December 9 2004" 2-CD

Chet Baker CD set:
"Chet Baker Sings"
"Playboys"

Miles Davis CD set:
"Kind of Blue"
"Ascenseur pour L'échafaud"
"Somethin' Else"

Scream of the Demon Lover (1970)

Last night I mentioned SCREAM OF THE DEMON LOVER in connection with my reivew of THE VELVET VAMPIRE as the two films were shown on the same bill in the early 1970s. It seems SCREAM is slightly more difficult to get hold of, at least in a restored version like VELVET. However, it shouldn't be too hard to find as there's DVD releases out from Something Weird Video, Sinister Cinema, Retro Media, and, eh, Sling Shot (!!). I think I'll go for the SWV version. :D

Dr, Ivan Rakowsky (ERNA SCHURER) seeks employment with bio-chemist Baron Janos Dalmar, a scientist who’s been doing experiments with the regeneration of carbonized matter since the death of his brother, Igor, who was burned alive during a dangerous experiment. Rumors abound that the baron is somehow involved in a series of grisly sex murders in the nearby village.

During her first days at the estate, Ivana is plagued by terrible nightmares that some kind of half-human, half-monster brings her to the dungeons of the castle and violates her. Meanwhile in the village, the murder investigations point suspicion to the Baron and warrants further probing at the castle. And as they spend more time together, Ivana and the Baron fall in love and get married. But strangely, she is still told to stay away from one room in particular, which come to find out, harbors a hideous family secret…

Product Details

SKU: 36032
Weight: 0.25 lbs
Format: DVD-R
Year: 1970
Color: Color
Starring: Erna Schurer
Co-starring: Carlos Quiney
Other cast: Agostini Belli
Directed by: JosÈ Luis Merino
Produced by: J.L. Merino

Price: $10.00

Ricky Hui - RIP

Unfortunately I've just learnt that Ricky Hui has died (8/11/11). He was only 65. So sad. :(

Ricky Hui was one of the funniest comedians ever. He was "the human Droopy" and he starred - and was the funniest character - in the Hong Kong movie CHICKEN AND DUCK TALK (and many other films). I taped that film from a now defunct Danish TV channel in the 1990s and I must have watched it at least 10 times if not more. Here's a link to the news bit on ihktv about his passing. The page is translated by Google so it's NOT that all HK translations are in wonky English like the old VHS subtitles. Usually I'd ad a "LOL" but now it's not even funny. Ricky died. RIP buddy.



Above: Someone posted a collection of funny scenes from CHICKEN AND DUCK TALK.



Ricky Hui was also a Canto pop singer and here he is on stage with his brother Sam Hui and some other guy. I accidentally stumbled over a concert on a HK TV channel that I was able to watch (via satellite dish) in the 90s. I seem to remember it was a channel broadcasting from the UK but it was HK TV. The concert was Ricky Hui and I could not stop laughing. He was doing this probably romantic love song but he just had THAT face! He cracked me up.

Scared to Death (USA, 1947)

Nicking a review isn't a very nice thing to do but I'm gonna do it anyway cos this write-up is great fun! Over to you, Michael:

---------------------------

By Michael Weldon
This almost surreal little film is remarkable for three reasons: it's in color, it's narrated by a woman's corpse, and it's the closest thing to a horror movie released in the lean year of 1947. Bela Lugosi (in a crooked, wide-brimmed hat and a Colonel Sanders tie) acts like he's in a trance. He lurks around peering in windows with dwarf pal Angelo Rossitto. Angelo, who was in two other Lugosi movies, also appeared in Freaks and played an alien in Galaxina. With villain George Zucco, idiot Nat Pendleton, one-time star Joyce Compton, and Douglas Fowley (who later directed Macumba Love). It's only 65 minutes long. Watch it closely and decide: Had the actors ever seen the script? Were some of them under the influence of a very disorienting drug? Fascinating in a different way from Bela's Ed Wood films.

- Michael Weldon, from "The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film" (1983)

---------------------------

I watched the film tonight and I wholeheartedly agree with Weldon; Almost surreal! But despite the qualities of whatever film Bela Lugosi was in he always gave his fullest! And I must say 1947 really WAS a lean year!! The year isn't even listed in "The Encyclopaedia of Horror Movies" book!!! O_O

There are 20 different public domain versions of this film out there. If you wanna purchase a copy I recommend you either get the reg. 1 DVD from Miracle or the reg. 2 DVD from Network. Someone who collects Lugosi films told me these two releases are head and shoulders better than the rest of the PD drek out there. I've got the Network DVD and can confirm it's of decent quality. There's no extras other than the trailer.

The Velvet Vampire (Stephanie Rothman, USA, 1971)

I re-watched the weirdo horror movie THE VELVET VAMPIRE yesterday on the new reg. 1 DVD from SHOUT! Factory! I own an old rare VHS but it was awesome to finally be able to watch the film in widescreen and with perfect colours. The print used for the DVD had a slightly crackling soundtrack in places but was otherwise very, very good.

Years ago, I remember reading reviews that would flat out dismiss THE VELVET VAMPIRE as a terrible horror movie but, well, if you expect something and it doesn't turn out to be what you expected needless to say you're bound to get disappointed (unless you're an open minded person - which a lot of reviewers just AREN'T! Or weren't in the old days anyway) and I think most reviewers aren't familiar with (or open to) these weirdo horror films and simply didn't get what they expected.

THE VELVET VAMPIRE shouldn't be viewed as an "ordinary" horror movie like a Hammer horror movie etc. In my view the film is rooted firmly in the WEIRDO horror genre, much like LEGACY OF SATAN (which is basically as if David Lynch had popped some baaad acid and made a horror movie, lol). THE VELVET VAMPIRE is awesome! I really DIG it. And the end... I mean THE END!! How weird is that ending!! (i.e. the scene of people with crosses and the vampire).

The film takes place in a present day setting (well, present day when it was made in 1971 anyway) and is the story about a young couple who're invited to visit a female art collector who lives in the desert. She turns out to be a vampire! There are a few other people in the film but it's a quite small cast, and we never really get to know any of them but the three main characters. From a male pig viewpoint I'd like to point out that the woman who plays the vampire, Celeste Yarnall, could give the dead a boner! Mein gott! The other woman (of the couple) is a babe too but nothing in comparison. Ahm, uh yeah, we were talking about... the plot!!

There are surreal scenes of the couple and the vampire making love in the desert and (not least probably due to the film being set in the "hippie era") a loose moral with the couple that might seem odd nowadays (or not). And very refreshingly the film doesn't blindly follow every vampire rule in the book; Just the fact that most of the film is set in broad daylight would make you scratch your head if this were a Hammer style film. Don't watch this movie and expect to be scared, it isn't very scary at all. And it doesn't have to be because like I said it has other great qualities.

There's a bit of blood in the film but no real gore. But it doesn't matter at all, it's just not needed. The filming is great, the sets are great, and the film's short runtime (under 80 min) makes for a very tight viewing without unnecessary filler. I wish more films were shorter. One more detail that makes THE VELVET VAMPIRE interesting is it was directed by a woman. There weren't that many female directors in those days in the horror genre (are there now?) and the fact that she made a fairly erotic movie (it has both male/female and lesbian scenes) makes it all the more interesting.



The new DVD is part of SHOUT! Factory's "Roger Corman's Cult Classics All-Night Marathon" series which is praised (and rightfully so) by fans for presenting the old films in fantastic versions! In the extras department there's an old scratched trailer (as much as I love these restored films I also love watching old scratched-beyond-belief grindhouse style trailers!) and a very cool commentary track by Celeste Yarnall. A highly recommended film!

It seems no one has yet posted the trailer to YouTube but I found another one from the early 70s from when the film ran as a double bill with SCREAM OF THE DEMON LOVER (which I sadly haven't seen).

The Road (USA, 2009)

I watched John Hillcoat's post-apocalyptic movie THE ROAD last night. I've wanted to get hold of it for a while but you know how it is... THERE'S SIMPLY TOO MANY MOVIES IN THIS WORLD TO KEEP UP!!

Anyhoo, I watched it and all the good stuff I've heard about it was true! It's really, really good. It's about a father and his young son and their travel thru a grey (as in very, very grey) destroyed America after some kind of apocalypse. It's never explained what happened in the last days and it doesn't matter at all. What matters is the result and what they have to go thru. The movie is a lot like STAKE LAND which I also watched recently and which is also about an older guy and a young boy travelling thru a destroyed land. However, altho I totally loved STAKE LAND this seems more grim as it's set in a realistic future that could actually (easily?) happen.

Altho STAKE LAND is also made to look very realistic it is of course within the boundaries of the old Marvel Comics moniker, "What if..." (What if Peter Parker had become The Hulk, etc). In this case it's just "What if we assume vampires really exist" - and due to the lack of, ahm, vampires THE ROAD is just all the more real.

I started off calling it a post-apocalypse film but that label almost doesn't fit! It is set in a post apocalyptic setting but we're missing the ingredients we usually connect with the genre (a genre all perfectly spawned by George Miller and MAD MAX II and the 20 Italian knock-offs that came right after). There are no road warriors, no funny helmets, no hunt for petrol, no funny (cool?) looking biker gangs, etc. etc. And no one wears clean clothes as in those films; In THE ROAD everyone looks like they haven't been washed for three years.

THE ROAD is quite long but doesn't overstay its welcome. Actually it just seemed to fly by and I don't think there was one single moment in the film that could have been omitted. One funny (interesting funny) detail is that this very American film about a fucked up America was made by a British director and the main cast is played by a Danish American and a South African! (Viggo Mortensen & Charlize Theron). The boy is played by Kodi Smit-McPhee (who is perfect for the part). Robert Duvall, the star from the best gang film ever, COLORS, is in there too - altho I didn't actually recognise him till be began speaking!

The soundtrack is awesome too, it's by Nick Cave and whatshisface and I actually got the soundtrack CD way before the DVD.

The trailer that I'm posting here has an introduction from Clever TV and the only reason I'm using that version (as there's also a YT upload without the intro) is that the presenter is just too fucken hilarious!! She doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about and tries to make it look HIP to introduce a grim, bleak and unpleasant film about the end of the world (or the end of American anyway). Haha.

The version I bought is the Danish DVD (50 kr. from Kvickly) which has a Making of, deleted scenes, and a commentary track by the director. I find it extremely annoying they didn't include the trailer but otherwise it's a good release.

I highly recommend THE ROAD (and STAKE LAND!!).

Tom Waits - "9th and Hennepin"

Some guy on YouTube made this awesome fan video for Tom Wait's "9th and Hennepin". <3

And the Finnish reality show on JACK J continues...

...this is exactly how I remember those early days of my laserdisc collecting!


PS: I have nothing to do with these uploads!!!

Jack the Ripper! A zombie! What's next? A devil doll from Hell??

As you'll remember I bought the complete KOLCHAK THE NIGHT STALKER set recently and I've finally got started on the series - and they're great fun! Kolchak is a night reporter on an old-fashioned newspaper (printed on paper! Remember those ones?). In the first episode he happens to run into Jack the Ripper hisself (yes, still alive after all these years and doing what he does best!) and in last night's episode Kolchak encountered one of the walking dead, a zombie! Two episodes down, 18 to go!! :D

... >_< ...

Could someone just go over to Kurt's (aka Member-X) house and whack him over the head with a dead fish or something!!!

Black Devil Doll

I watched BLACK DEVIL DOLL tonight and what an entertaining piece of exploitation / blaxploitation / sexploitation / dollsploitation / whathaveyouploitation it is!!! I got the reg. 1 DVD which is loaded with fun extra stuff (like approx 700 different commentary tracks!!). It's NOT a remake of Chester Turner's BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL but they were clearly inspired by it and as I've mentioned here before they tried to get Chester's film included on the DVD which I'm sorry to say they didn't succeeded in. Hopefully we'll see the original released on DVD some day. Now watch the trailer. It's the uncut one. :D

Watched "THE BUTCHER OF LA VILETTE" - can't wait for more!

Local television ran the third season of the gritty and very well written French crime show ENGRENAGES a few weeks ago and I don't remember the last time I was that captivated by a cop show!



ENGRENAGES (or "Spiral" as it's re-titled for the international market) is head and shoulders better than anything I've seen from the US for a looong time. I wonder if there's more stuff this good on French television and if there is it's one more reason to shake one's angry fist at Danish TV for having given us nothing but Anglo-Saxon films and TV shows for so many years! It wasn't till two or three years ago that some of the smaller channels began to screen films from other countries in Europe, other than Scandinavia that is.

I have the first season of ENGRENAGES on DVD and as soon as the third season finished (which I dvd-r'ed every episode of!) I could do nothing but race my imaginary sports-car (right out of The Persuaders) to the nearest Amazon store and order the missing season 2 right away! I received it today. xD



All three seasons are released on DVD in France and the UK. Unfortunately, I need the subs so I have to go with the UK sets - word is the quality of the French sets is better as they are 4 disc sets whereas the UK sets are squeezed down to 2 disc sets - but even so they look alright. The English subs are alright altho I wish I'd taped all three seasons from TV as the subtitles are much better translated in the Danish editions (which also means I won't bother ordering the third season on DVD).



Will there be a fourth season? I have no idea but somehow I kinda fear it could be a letdown, I mean how can you top season 3???

If you haven't already checked out ENGRENAGES I highly recommend you do. You'll find a brief beginner's guide from "The Guardian" newspaper here.

Better than the real thing

I bought "The Whitey Album" on CD yesterday and it's thee best SONIC YOUTH record ever. And it's not even a "real" Sonic Youth platter but by CICCONE YOUTH, haha. Why the members of SONIC YOUTH released this LP under the alias instead of putting it out under their real band name I have no idea. I remember reading back then that they felt the music was too different to be on a regular SONIC YOUTH record. Listening to it now - almost 25 years later - I actually think it fits the SONIC YOUTH mould in every respect! (but of course the person who wrote that was probably talking out his arse. Who knows why they decided to use the alternative name (probably because THAT in itself was very Sonic Youth'ian!). xD

PS: watch the video! Es muy magnificento!!

"The Consummata" by Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins (late 1960s + 2011)

I received the second latest book from every hard-boiled crime reader's fave publisher, Hard Case Crime; THE CONSUMMATA!! It was kicked off by Mickey Spillane back in the late 60s but he never finished the damn thing and then he croaked. Now his buddy Max Allan Collins has finished it and if nothing else the cover looks ...as always with Hard Case Crime... smashing! I paid £2.14 for my copy!!! It's brand new but has "review copy -not for sale" printed on the front cover (which is kinda neat me thinks). This is the first of the new books from HCC since their one year hiatus (due to being between publishers) that I see and the book format has (at least with this volume) changed from the small paperback size to slightly bigger and with a better binding (or at least so it seems). I'm not sure I'm all that happy with the bigger format, I mean the smaller paperback size is PULP size! But, anyhoo, the contents is the same I guess. But still. But ANYWAY I look forward to getting into this sucker despite size... but, uhhhhh, I've already got way too many unread books!! Argh.

Sorority House Massacre

I had a fucking three day migraine and completely missed Halloween! Major bummer!! Anyhoo, tonite I watched the first of my new massacre films that I received from Corman's eBay store recently; SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE 1 & 2, and CHEERLEADER MASSACRE. SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE is from 1986, directed by Carol Frank and Angela O'Neill is the main girl whose brother killed the rest of their family and is now out to get her too. Yes, the plot is nicked from HALLOWEEN! - and that's okay cos we don't watch these movies for their complex plot lines or deep character descriptions but the gore and the naked chicks! And SORORITY had lost of gore and boobs. I was certainly entertained. :D
Next up at Cinema J is the sequel. There's also yet another sequel called HARD TO DIE which I've already watched and which is pure gold. You should watch these films! Available on cheap ass DVDs (fullscreen, hardly any extras, no subs) from the Roger Corman eBay store.

PS: the trailer in this post is uploaded by the official Corman channel and it's the same as on the DVD. Don't ask me why it's got Spanish subs, it's the same on the DVD! @_@