Another crazy dream.

I’m in the kitchen of the house where I grew up (and where my dad still lives). The kitchen looks like in the old days and I’m in the front of the fridge with a thermometer in my hand trying to figure out where to put it: in the fridge or on top of it? There’s already one in the fridge so I decide on putting it on top of the fridge (which would have been impossible in real life as there was no space on top of the fridge) but before I get that far my dad enters the kitchen. He’s about to go to bed but just wants to tell me that if I plan on putting the thermometer in the street in front of the mailbox maybe it’s not such a good idea as it was very icy this morning, and three men already slipped and fell there. So I tell him not to worry I’ll put it on top of the fridge. Then he says he’ll go to bed and I say the same although I plan on going to the lounge room to watch TV. He goes to bed, I turn the lights in the hallway out and quietly walk to the lounge room and as I pass my parents’ bedroom I can hear my mum asking if I’m going to bed and my dad saying he doesn’t know and maybe I’ll go and watch TV. He knew. So I get to the lounge room, close the door, turn the lights on and discover that my mum is lying on one of the couches with a blanket over her. Hmm, how odd, I’ve just heard her in the bedroom. So I wonder whether she might be the ghost of my real mum. Not that the mum in the bedroom isn’t my real mum, but still, in a way she isn’t since she’s dementia stricken and much of her real self is gone. I’m thinking maybe the mum on the sofa is my real pre-dementia mum. So I call out to her but there’s no response. I touch her arm and finally she wakes up. I repeat “mum” but get no response. So I get an idea; what if I take her to the bedroom and she meets my dementia stricken mum. Maybe their shock of seeing the other version of themselves will somehow merge them and the result will be a non-dementia stricken mum. So I ask her to get up and we walk to the bedroom. But the lights are already on and my dad is changing the bed sheets. Maybe mum had an accident. So I realise the mum from the lounge room isn’t a ghost mum but just my ordinary dementia stricken mum. My mum begins to criticise my dad for changing the sheets again. He doesn’t complain, he was so good in those days although it was hard work living with an ill woman. I decide to go back to the lounge room and watch TV. The end, I wake up.
In real life my mum passed away three years ago. For five years we saw her drift into an awful state. My dad isn’t the big strong guy he was then either. He’s ill too now although it’s another nasty disease, the ugly C. Life’s a bitch and then you die. When I woke up my apartment was stuffy and too hot so I opened a window to get fresh air. The phone ran. “Oh bummer”, I thought, “Maybe it’s the people from the Job Centre”. It was my dad. “Hey, they’ve got cheap Ali coffee at Bilka’s!”

Scanner Cop (Pierre David, Canada/1994)

Two weeks ago I talked about having bought SCANNER COP 2 and now I've finally got hold of the first film, not surprisingly entitled SCANNER COP. It's not actually the real first film as it's a (kinda) sequel to the first three SCANNERS films. Anyhoo, remember how I said SCANNER COP 2 was great? Well, this one was even better! Resonator (aka Chris Ho) of Cinehound forum told me they were better than the real SCANNERS sequels and I can only agree on that. Both SCANNER COP 1 and 2 are full of action and gory violence and mayhem and shit. There's no head explosion in SCANNER COP but I'm sure you'll survive this one entry without. LOL. I bought the Danish DVD which has absolutely no extras that are connected to the film itself. There are a handful of trailers for other films - and that's it! The Danish subtitles are fucked up as they're totally out of sync (the other Scandinavian subs are fine). Fullscreen picture. Highly recommended.

Check this awesome cover for the French DVD release:

trailer:

...but how will I ever find these wonderful tapes again???

I dreamt I was on a bus and the bus driver suddenly went into the back of the bus to speak to some passengers. I noticed we were about to drive into a ditch and went and stopped the bus. And told the driver off. Then I woke up and went for a glass of water. Once back on the other side I found myself in another vehicle, this time my dad's car and we were just about to go onto the freeway but coming up to it I noticed a petrol station and suggested we go in. The attendant offered us æbleskiver and I went into the back and found a huge rack of ex-rental video tapes. Half of them were old porn tapes but there were some very obscure films as well that I'd never seen before. I began piling them up on the floor. They were 10 kroner each and I had 400 kroner. I didn't want my dad to see the porn tapes so I asked him to go get me a bottle of water from the car. I began piling again. Just before waking up I had tapes for 300 kr. and it had become a problem. The attendant wasn't there, he was probably stuffing æbleskiver in his face, there were too many tapes to carry and I couldn't leave them as there were other customers and paranoid me was worried they'd grab them if I left. I wanted a trolley but couldn't find one. Ohh, the horror. Then I woke up again. Damn dreams!

Flesh Feast (Brad F. Grinter, USA/1970)

Just finished watching FLESH FEAST (1970). The 15-20 minutes of maggots, corpses and Hitler are fun. The remaining 50 minutes are the longest 50 minutes of any film. Ever! Michael Weldon called it "tedious". I tend to agree. The cover of my Greek vhs is awesome tho. Actually better than the movie itself. LOL. It was Veronica Lake's last film. She was a film noir star in the 40s and I bet she would have regretted making the film had she known this was going to be her last. I bought the tape from Bill Barounis (RIP) four years ago and paid 10 bucks for it. Best line: "I had notsching to do vith it. It vas Eichmann und Göring!"

Paul Naschy's last werewolf movie: Unwatched, unwanted, unreleased

Here's the trailer for the Brazilian horror movie WEREWOLF IN THE AMAZON (Um Lobisomem na Amazônia) starring PAUL NASCHY as the wolfman - for the very last time. The film is from 2005 and apart from a very few screenings at film festivals it remains unwatched and unreleased. The film was shot in Portuguese but Naschy speaks Spanish. There's a trailer on YouTube and altho I'm sure we'll see a release somewhere down the road nobody knows how long we'll have to wait.

ARTE Film Festival: MAMMUTH

The French/German TV channel ARTE TV screened the French movie MAMMUTH last night as part of their annual film festival and while I found the film to be extremely funny I must admit I didn't see the two-guys-jerk-each-other-off scene coming; It's not the scene as such but the fact that it stars Gérard Depardieu!! (and some old guy). It was slightly unsettling, haha.

Anyhoo, as I said the film was really funny. It's about this guy who retires from work but he hasn't got enough money so he decides to travel thru the country (France) in order to seek out his old employers and ask for his old worksheets so he can get a higher pension (or some such, I'm not familiar with the French system). The film is basically a road movie. Very funny. Very weird. Very different from other road movies I've seen.

The ARTE screening was presented by Isabella Rosellini who also introduced the other two festival films that were screened last night, SINGULARIDADES DE UMA RAPARIGA LOURA and TOURNÉE. SINGULARIDADES was directed by Manoel de Oliveira who was born in 1908 and made the film when he was 100 years old! I believe he's still alive.

Trailer:


Unfortunately, I couldn't find an English friendly trailer so here's a German dubbed one. There are French, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese friendly ones on YouTube if you prefer any of those.

EDIT: Like so many other trailers this one got deleted from YouTube, but fortunately I found another one right away. This one is even subbed in English and it was uploaded to YT in 2011. I see I posted my original post in 2012 (ten years ago!!!), so how come I didn't find it back then but had to resort to a German trailer I have no idea. But here it is anyway. And I've downloaded it as well just to make sure in case they delete this one as well! (14.06.2022)

Scanner Cop 2

I watched SCANNER COP 2 a couple of night ago and had a whale of a time (plus I ate some tuna while at it, haha). SCANNER COP 1 & 2 are kinda official sequels to SCANNERS 1-3, and in some markets they're apparently even released as Scanners 4 & 5. I still haven't bought SCANNER COP 1 but I've seen the sequels to Cronenberg's original film and, altho it's been a good number of years since I saw them, I remember them as being kinda lame compared to the first film.

This one, however, was pretty cool and certainly great fun. I'm told the first one (i.e. the first SC) is equally entertaining. Basically there's an evil scanner out to get our scanner cop hero and in the process he snuffs a bunch of other scanners in the most gory ways (and no, don't worry, we don't get cheated of a head explosion!). There's also a pretty chick but no nudity (but I don't think there ever was in any of the SCANNERS if I remember correctly).

SCANNER COP is out of DVD in Denmark and a few other places, and SCANNER COP 2 is released on DVD in Germany, Thailand and Canada. I bought the Canadian DVD from a store in Quebec via Amazon Canada. It has one of those double sided covers where you can choose between text in French and English. The DVD has absolutely zilch extras. For some reason they recorded the film twice on the DVD, one version in English and one in French. And I do mean they included the film twice! In other words, you can't switch between the two audio tracks while watching the film, you'll have to stop, go to the menu, and start again. Very strange.

And even stranger is the fact that while they used the original NTSC print for the English version they used a PAL master for the French version!? This means the French version finishes about four minutes quicker than the English version (i.e. because the print runs faster, there's nothing missing). Go figure. o_O

trailer:




Thanks for the info on the SC 2 releases to Member-X and Joachim Andersson.

"I come in peace"

- "You go in pieces"



I've just heard that SHOUT FACTORY are releasing DARK ANGEL (aka I COME IN PEACE) next year and that it'll have a commentary track by fave B movie star DOLPH LUNDGREN (certainly a fave on this here blog). Awesome piece of news!

Gentlemen, we have called you together to inform you we are going to overthrow the United States' government.

From MINISTRY's excellent album "Rio Grande Blood".

Is that flesh in your bag, Cronie?

Here's a photo of David Cronenberg visiting the Criterion video label a couple of months back and needless to say fans are now wondering what he was doing there. Are Criterion working on upgraded blu-ray releases of their old DEAD RINGERS and CRASH releases maybe? Or did he just want a Criterion bag?? Personally, I think he just went in to borrow taxi fare as he forgot he only had Canadian dollars in his pocket. LOL.

Btw, talking of CRASH; check this out! My new US laserdisc release of that much beloved film!! Well, most beloved by ME anyway. A lot of fans seem to think Cronenberg went over the line in perversity with this films but I beg to differ! It's one of my favourites of his films. I already have the Danish VHS and the UK DVD. Unfortunately, this old and way out of print laserdisc is the only proper release there is. It's presented in Cronenberg's preferred format of 1.66:1 (the DVD's and video tapes are either 1.85:1 or fullscreen) and as the only release it has a commentary track by Cronenberg. There's also a making of which may not be on any DVD's either but I'm not sure about that.