Stephen king's World of Horror (UK VHS)

Dinner and an old dusty video tape that I've owned for years and years but never actually watched: Stephen King's World of Horror.

This is a UK vhs and it clocks in at just over 80 minutes. Apparently this was released as a two parter in the US (and user reviews on IMDb talk about a version running 270 minutes!!!). Some of the contents was later used for a video series called This is horror.

The tape was alright. If you're a King aficionado you'll probably be disappointed as there's not all that much of him in the documentary. Maybe 15-20 minutes or so taken from two different interviews. The rest is clips from films, interviews with FX people, and behind the scenes clips. I quite liked the tape, though, as it's almost a peek into the American horror/splatter movie world of the 80s. I miss that period in horror.

I don't think SK's World of Horror has been released on dvd, but at least some nice gent has been so kind as to upload it to YouTube. And now it's also embedded in this post, weeeee! (you can also find links to the three "This is Horror" tapes in the info section under the video on YouTube).

Full video off a UK vhs tape:

"25 Years of Punk" - documentary

Here's an alright documentary about the history of punk. Yes, it's from VH1 and pretty polished but there's a still a ton of cool interviews.

JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN by Julien Temple (UK/Ire, 2007)

I taped this almost two hour documentary film about The Clash's legendary lead singer JOE STRUMMER the other day and watched it tonight. I must admit I was never a great fan of The Clash, sure "London Calling" is great and so is "This is England" but I much disliked the LP "Sandinista" (a triple LP no less) when it came out and since it was my introduction to the band it kinda mandated my feelings towards the band (not even sure I still got the record). But THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN is a cool film and it tells Strummer's story all the way from the (his) beginning. There are old interview bits on top of old footage and there's comments from a lot of old friends, both famous and not famous at all (and there are quite a few well known faces that pop up in old footage but that aren't interviewed).

Director Julien Temple has done a lot of music videos but personally I remember him for his earlier (and great) documentary on The Sex Postols, THE FILTH AND THE FURY. I taped the film off the joint French/German channel ARTE TV and most of the dialogue is voiced over in German but altho this is a well made documentary I'm not so sure I'll bother to plunk down the dough for a DVD. This TV print will do. Highly recommended if you're a CLASH fan or just wish to watch a good doc on alternative music history.

The above screen grab is from Alex Cox's STRAIGHT TO HELL that Joe Strummer is in. I've only watched the film once, in 1988 at a "Punk all night" all-nighter at London's old and long gone Scala Cinema Club. What I didn't realise till tonight is that Courtney Love is in the film! It was the last film at the all-nighter and I have absolutely NO recollection the story other that some people walking in the desert. The other films were REPO MAN, DOGS IN SPACE and... hmm, I forget the last one.

JEAN SEBERG, AMERICAN ACTRESS - trailer

Back in the day, documentary films were "real" films but along with their becoming a full blown genre of their own we now have 6 trillion shit documentaries that were made by TV directors using whatever old footage they had lying around in their stations' archives. Over the last couple of days I've watched JEAN SEBERG AMERICAN ACTRESS (Switzerland, 1995) twice and it's so cool to watch a proper doc.

Jean Seberg played the American girl in Jean-Luc Godard's BREATHLESS (aka À bout de souffle) from 1960. She made films in both the US and France. She was involved with the Black Panther movement and got the FBI and CIA on her back. In 1979 she was murdered in Paris and dumped in a car. The inefficient French police wrote it off as suicide. The documentary has a kind of sadness to it that goes well hand in hand with Jean Seberg's sad and ultimately tragic life. I don't know if the film is available on DVD or VHS, I taped my copy off TV.