In memoriam: Andy Copp - by Robin Bougie

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Re-posted here with kind permission of Robin Bougie.

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.

Andy Copp - R.I.P.

It's with much sadness that I post this but it has been reported that fellow blogger, underground film-maker and YouTube film reviewer ANDY COPP passed away on Saturday night. The cause was suicide.

I didn't know Andy personally but I certainly knew of him through reading his blog, Exploitation Nation, and like me he was a frequent poster on AVManiacs/DVDManicas film message board. I came across his YouTube videos quite a while ago and enjoyed them very much.

Andy was well known in the horror/exploitation underground which he was a part of for many years. The news comes via Richard Doyle on Facebook and AVManiacs and has been confirmed by Don May jr of Synapse Films. Ironically, Andy Copp's last YouTube review 10 months ago was a presentation of a Synapse DVD.

R.I.P., Andy.

So'eh... have you watched Prometheus?

This is pretty funny.

McCloud (1970-77)

I watched this with my dad in the 70s and have fond memories about it. I haven't really rewatched the show since then, except for one episode 4-5 years ago, and I've been meaning to make a revisit for years and years. A couple of years back I found out the only available seasons were 1 & 2 so I decided to order a bootleg with all 7 seasons from iOffer. Fortunately, I did one more check to see if more had been released in the passing years.

And, lo and behold, the full series (kinda) is out on Danish dvd now. Denmark is actually the only place in the world where it's released in its entirety. In Australian they've released 5 seasons so far. Unfortunately, the Danish version only includes the edited version of season 1 (6 episodes were edited into 3) and the pilot uses the syndicated title ("Portrait of a Dead Girl") instead of the original title (WHO KILLED MISS USA). And furthermore, an episode is missing entirely from season 3 due to (Ricky Nielson) music rights. The Australian set of season 1 from Madman has the original 6 episodes plus the edited ones. And they include the missing episode in season 3 but sans the music. I have my info partly from an Amazon user in the States, WIKI and IMDb. The Danish season 7 also includes the telly movie THE RETURN OF SAM MCCLOUD (1989).

I've ordered the Danish set but will also get the Aussie set of at least season 1. Henrik Larsen has the Danish season 1 and he says that although they are in the original fullscreen ratio they look slightly squeezed from top down. Buy, hey, at least they're on official dvd now!

Scandinavians can get the Danish seasons from cdon.dk at 100 DKK a set.

Episode listing with original broadcast dates.

A fitting end

2012 was a shitty year. My dad was ill most of the time going in and out of hospitals. I'm still without a job. I still suffer from migraines and the back-pains are worse. Fractions of my family are throwing garbage at each other while fighting over my poor dad - all while I'm trapped in the middle. I've run out of money and maybe 2013 is going to get even worse. But at least I was reminded that the bitchiness on the Danish collector scene is alive and well. No, wait, that's bad too, right? It's like living inside an old song by the THE CURE. Hahaha. Good thing I don't depress easily. So letting a revisit to THE ROAD be the last film this year seemed fitting enough. In the film, the end of the world is here but it doesn't end - it just gets even worse. But, still, there's a light at the end of the tunnel... maybe, just maybe. Happy fucken New Year, dear reader. Here's a toast to the new one.

PS: click here if you wish to read my review of the THE ROAD.

PS.PS: the cheery photo is actually a couple of years old from when things were, uh, great (!)

PS.PS.PS: Member-X (Kurt), thanks for the MMS you sent on New Year's Eve and it's not that I don't appreciate the gesture... but a Hitler-in-the-bunker video?? >_<

ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011) Joe Cornish, UK

Man, just wot ah needed! On the second day at my dad's his new wifey is already driving me nuts so tons of gore, violence, and bad attitude came in ALRIGHT! And all that and more is provided full-on by ATTACK THE BLOCK. Yay! Some nasty aliens land in a shitty part of London and for some reason they try and take on an even shittier block of flats. Bad idea: nasty teenagers live there. LMFAO.

I bought the 2-disc UK DVD and actually the extras are pretty cool for once.


PS: if anybody from fb is checking this blog; I couldn't be arsed with fb over Xmas and probably won't even check in till next year or something. Too many whiney cunts and their brown-nosing mates on there to deal with when it's fucking Christmas, haha.
- Oh, merry fucken Xmas by the way. Hope you got some good grub!

STAKE LAND (2010) Jim Mickle, USA

I've just finished watching STAKE LAND for the fifth time since I bought it on DVD in 2011! It's such an amazing film. I'll even use the word "wonderful" which is a term one can use much too seldom about new cinema. But STAKE LAND is a truly wonderful movie. The tone of the film is extraordinarily brilliant the whole way thru. There aren't that many movies that I've watched five times over a period of a year and a half!

STAKE LAND is a vampire movie but most teenagers who're weaned on good looking romantic vampires are going to get pretty disappointed with this movie. The vampires are NASTY and their clothes and faces are dirty with dried-up and caked old blood. And the same goes for the main characters. The story is basically two men's journey thru an America that doesn't exist any longer. A land that is no longer a country. Religious fanatics, crooks, cannibals (rumoured but not actually seen), and what else you'd expect in a territory with no law - it's all there. Oh, and vampires too.

STAKE LAND is definitely one of the best horror films I've seen the last couple of years. And the music is perfect for setting the tone. A tone of detachment and not belonging (two words that basically means the same to coin an old Damon Foster phrase from "Oriental Cinema"). Fortunately, there was no retarded producer who somehow felt it would be a grand idea to add a hip-hop track. Not even over the end-credits. Yay! Thanks. I usually never buy soundtrack CD's but this one I had to own! My DVD version is a reg. 1 2-disc release. Disc #2 has heaps of extras, obviously, but I'm not sure you need half of it. There are a bunch of "what happened to the characters prior to the storyline of the film" type videos and quite frankly, shit like that annoys me. They're almost "fan videos" or has the feel of paperbacks in the old days that were churned out to cash in on TV series like Star Trek or McCloud.

There are two commentary tracks, both feature the director and both have a ton of other people jabbering on about the film (sigh). I'll happily listen to an audio track by a director but when everybody from the guy who made coffee on the set to whoever made sure they had loo paper (I'm exaggerating to make a point here) I kinda lose interest. But forget about that shit, the film is what you definitely should watch if you haven't already.

STAKE LAND is highly recommended. And while you're at it you'll need to order another marvellous "the United States has ceased to exist and two guys try to make it thru the land to get to some other place" kind of film; THE ROAD (which I reviewed here). There aren't any vampires but it's every bit as awesome as STAKE LAND.

Screen grabs from the lost* LEWD LIZARD

*basically

The above subtitle line basically sums up what the film is about!


Here are screen grabs from maybe the sleaziest HK horror film!! LEWD LIZARD!!! It's not hard getting hold of a 4'th or 5'th generation dupe from a trader, a bootlegger, or a torrent site. However, I have just got hold of a fantastic looking DVD-R off a 1'st generation vhs dupe!! I believe it's the best copy there is anywhere!!! Well, "beautiful" compared to the washed-out 5'th generation dupes that is. The only release that ever existed in this world on home cinema format is a VHS in the US. I got my DVD-R from a collector who rented the tape many years ago. He made a VHS copy (i.e. a dupe) off the original tape and put his dupe in a box and forgot about it. It wasn't till last year when I made an online search for the film (after having got hold of two different WASHED-OUT 4-5'th generation dupes!) that he remembered his tape. Needless to say he couldn't find it and I've been bugging him about it for a full year. He finally found it and made the DVD-R that you seen screen grabs from here. If you read this, buddy, then: THANKS!!!

LEWD LIZARD (1985 - I think!) is the story about this guy, David, who goes overseas to study. His girlfriend says she'll wait for him and promises to marry him on his return. But after four years of studying he returns to an unpleasant piece of news; His girlfriend has married a local two-bit crook. David starts to hate women - and to cut to the chase as this isn't a proper review - he steals a handful of women's knickers and teaches venomous lizards to smell the women's "love juice" after which they get a "taste" for it. He proceeds to attack women he especially hates, sets the lizards lose on them and, well, you figure it out! Yes, the lizards sniff their way to the women's "love channels", slip in, the women write and moan in brief orgasms after which they die. LEWD LIZARD is so uber-sleazy I don't remember having seen anything remotely similar. It's a masterpiece in degradation. It's a crime to humanity (or horror fans anyway) that this isn't released in a proper version. The world needs to see this. The tape is dubbed in Mandarin, the picture is fullscreen, and the English subtitles are falling below the screen in three quarters of the film. And in the last quarter where you CAN see the subs they are cut off left and right, hahaha. But it doesn't matter much as the plot is almost as cartoon thin as a Turkish cult film from the 70s (and I'm not saying that in a critical way AT ALL).

Screen grabs from the lost* THE BRAIN STEALERS

*almost

Check Todd's cool review of the equally cool THE BRAIN STREALERS here. I watched it last night and it rocks!