Check out this amazing music from a cool 60’s Italian Space Opera, Antonio Margheriti’s I Diavoli Dello Spazio, Space Devils. This score by Angelo Lavagnino reminds me of a Jack Nitzsche 60’s production.
compare it to this by Nitzsche and The Wrecking Crew.
See what I mean.
Here is a beautiful short film that is really a showcase for it’s amazing electronic score. The music and organized sound is by the great Eugeniusz Rudnik, a veteran of The Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES), check out The Saragossa Manuscript with music by Penderecki, another alumnus. This film is gorgeous, shot in 35mm color (It looks like Technicolor to me) in an old city that still had it’s Eighteenth Century charm. I can’t embed it here but I can post this link. So click the magic portal and be transported to another world.
SEE NYC in 1911. The Museum of Modern Art has transferred this footage shot in NYC in 1911 at the proper frame rate so people don’t run around like Keystone Kops on speed. They also added background sound, the result? It’s like taking a ride in a Time Machine, the people look and act like people(although dressed quite different) Check out the straw boaters a lot of men wear. The women’s clothes are pretty crazy too. It’s amazing to see these parts of NYC that are still there, like the Manhattan Bridge and my old neighborhood, 24th street and 5th across from Madison Square Park and the Flatiron building, The clock on the street is still there in front of what will be the Toy Center. Anyway travel back in time to where horses ruled the streets, marvel at the El Train and the crazy hats.
Here is a short film of E.A.Poe’s great story, The Pit and The Pendulumn. Made by the illustrious animator/ filmmaker Jan Svankmajer. Super creepy, great sound effects, wonderful design by his talented wife, it’s a masterpiece. It does take a few liberties with the original story, in Poe’s version the walls of the room come together like a flattened box, forming a narrower and narrower lozenge, the metal walls of which are red hot, ay the center of the lozenge is the Pit which the victim is forced to fall into, devilishly ingenious. Svankmajer has the metal wall push one towards the Pit, a slight difference, also the end of the story turns out differently. But the subjective viewpoint he uses does match the internal monolouge of Poe’s version, without a voice over. I think it’s an interesting creative choice. The fiendish decorations seem inspired by Hieronymous Bosch and are beautifully realized. What a cool film. So wonderful it was made, there aren’t enough works like this these days, personal, artistic, artisinal. Check it out.
P.S. Here is a translation of the Latin quote at the begining of the piece, it is from Poe’s story as well.
Here an impious mob of torturers, insatiable, fed their long-lasting frenzies for innocent blood. Now that the fatherland is safe, now that the cave of murder has been destroyed, in the place where foul death once was, life and health are open to all.
Everyone has seen an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, the short film by Robert Enrico based on a short story by Ambrose Bierce. It was even shown on The Twilight Zone by Rod Serling. But did you now it was only one chapter in a trilogy feature film by the great Robert Enrico? Here is a dupey looking copy of the first chapter Chickamauga, another story by Bierce about a particularly vicious Civil War battle at that Indian named location. It’s great, the production value of all the soldiers in the woods, the creative use of sound, the mood, all amazing. Europeans were fascinated by the American Civil War. It was the first modern war that used rifles, cannon’s, primitive machine guns on such a large scale. German officers came and toured the battle sites in preparation for their own warmaking. Enrico was obsessed with America of the 1800’s, he did a film based on Edgar Allan Poe’s Pit and The Pendulum that is worth checking out. Much truer to the story than Roger Corman’s Vincent Price vehicle, which I must say I greatly enjoyed as a kid.
Here is an excellent film that polarizes people in an unconventional way. Some people are repulsed by Charlie Manson, others are fascinated by the story of the Family. It is compelling stuff, the murder of a Movie Star, almost a ritual sacrafice. Manson preached love, environment, fair treatment of animals but he also brainwashed seemingly normal young people into committing heinous acts of murder. A very strange compelling case, hence the 60,000 pieces of mail Manson gets every year in prison. There is an interesting documentary on Manson called Manson but get the early one if you can the new one has a lot of horrible voice over. Anyway Manson Family Vacation deals with Manson peripharelly , although there is footage of him in the movie. It’s about two brothers and their strained relationship. I don’t want to go into too much detail, watch the movie, but the writing and acting are top notch. This is a funny film but funny in an intelligent, thought provoking way which I really like. And you can stream it on Netflix! So Bravo everyone involved with this film, great job. I understand this was made on weekends so everyone could keep their day jobs. That’s an admirable love of filmmaking.
Here’s a British Film Show called Arena. David Lynch is the host and he discusses Surrealist Films and the influence they had on him. Bad quality tape but a great show.
Hear Kubrick talk about and put down his first film. Then watch it for yourself and make up your own mind.
I just happened to watch Killers From Space today on YouTube. This is a movie I loved as a kid, a scene from it, where Peter Graves is menaced by a giant Gila Monster was in the Chiller Theater credit sequence!
It had a lot going for it, the desert, atomic bomb tests aliens with big bulging eyes, giant insects and lizards, stock footage of jets scrambling, A bombs blasting, military stuff up the wazoo, all things I was into as a 10 year old.
by the way this is Warren Oates in an episode of The Outer Limits that looks influenced by Killers From Space!
Anyway I noticed some strange similarities to the latest season of Twin Peaks, which I think was groundbreaking! Amazing! Visionary! I loved it. OK first of all the Atomic Bomb plays a big role in both, in Killers From Space the aliens use the bomb to mutate insects and reptiles to giant size to destroy humanity, in Twin Peaks the A bomb mutates a weird insect lizard thing that winds up down some poor girls throat. In KFS the aliens have strange uniforms, the belts of which bear a resemblance to the iconic zigzag pattern of the Black Lodge
and when the head alien is getting a report from one of his minions, the minion speaks in reverse! I don’t know if it was a subconcious influence or what. Did David Lynch see this gem as a kid with a Dan’l Boone coonskin cap on? Could be! Here it is on Youtube decide for yourself!
Here is one of the all time great newspaper movies. With Bogey, Ethel Barrymore and Kim Hunter. Written and Directed by Richard Brooks, based on the demise of The New York Sun, a paper that folded in 1931. I think it’s very relevant these days with all the attacks on the press and newspapers shutting down. We need newspapers and reporters to keep letting us know about all the crimes and corruption that infects our cities and government. And now you can watch it on YouTube.
Here’s an interview with the amazing Peter Sellers. Star of Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, he played Dr. Strangelove and several other parts in that film.
I know several people that worked on that film, Pablo Ferro, who did the incredible title sequence and Ray Lovejoy, he was the assistant editor on Strangelove. He was bumped up to editor on Kubrick’s next film, 2001, a Space Odyssey. He worked with Kubrick for many years.
Check out this all girl Muslim Heavy Metal Band! You can’t stop cross cultural idea exchange.