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! @_@