Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Monday, October 9, 2017
Monday, October 2, 2017
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
EXPLOSIVE!!! Compilation: Tom and Jerry
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/43-wh0MUYg8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Braun Strowman and the Cruiserweights lay waste to Enzo Amore: Raw Fallout, Sept. 25, 2017
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-f-gdt9p-k0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Winston Churchill School CCTV
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sxCAlGeyhJE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Honest Trailers - Star Trek: The Next Generation
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-6Zc8Co2H3w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Soccer Trick Shots ft. Chelsea F.C. | Dude Perfect
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XM23h-eJ08A" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Trump and Russia: An Introduction to What We Know (and What We Don't)
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZYSjPZUqLdk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Hansen Unplugged: Anthem protests not about disrespecting the flag
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BNJUsE7pEs4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Trump's NFL Comments Have Everything To Do With Race
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xItHZZ3bvhY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
RAPPING FOR A JOB AT VAYNERMEDIA
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MuhbA_bB418" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Reading More Fables (I swear I'm not a furry)
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Molana Tariq Jameel Latest Bayan About Wife's Angry l HD 720 l 25 Sep 2017
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Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Monday, September 18, 2017
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Friday, September 15, 2017
Monday, September 11, 2017
Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Monday, August 21, 2017
Sunday, August 20, 2017
Saturday, August 19, 2017
Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Monday, August 7, 2017
First Look: Kino Lorber's THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY
Kino Lorber Studio Classics is set to release their 50th Anniversary Blu-ray edition of Sergio Leone's THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1967) one week from tomorrow, on August 15. I had the good fortune of being invited to provide the audio commentary for the US theatrical cut of the film, which most fans seem to feel is the definitive version and is making its Blu-ray debut in this release. It's a two-disc set and both the theatrical cut (162 minutes) and the extended cut (179 minutes) are included, both versions treated to 4K restorations. The extended cut is offered in this same set with optional audio commentaries by Sir Christopher Frayling and Richard Schickel.
As a contributor to the set, I received an advance copy of the set today, so I thought I might whet my readers' appetites with an advance peek. (Click on images to enlarge.) There has been some concern among the film's most ardent devotées about how this release is going to look, since MGM's previous Blu-ray release had a pervasive golden tint that was never part of the film's cinematography. As you see, that aspect has been eradicated. The blues in this new transfer are handsomely reasserted, and the depth of some compositions is actually dizzying. This film was shot in Technicolor and Techniscope, the latter being a two-perforation scope process that led to it being termed "the poor man's CinemaScope" back in the day. When I was a kid, and seeing a lot of sword-and-sandal pictures at my local theater, I could pick a Techniscope film out of a line-up because they were prey to excessive grain and a coarseness of detail, especially in depth. So I am sometimes astounded today by how much detail and depth it is now possible to digitally exhume from old Techniscope film - and Leone and Tonino Delli Colli choose their shots in this film as though they could see the technology coming that would someday unlock all of its power. Love seeing the original UA logo card back, too.
Pre-order now and get yours... for a few dollars less.
Text (c) 2017 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
As a contributor to the set, I received an advance copy of the set today, so I thought I might whet my readers' appetites with an advance peek. (Click on images to enlarge.) There has been some concern among the film's most ardent devotées about how this release is going to look, since MGM's previous Blu-ray release had a pervasive golden tint that was never part of the film's cinematography. As you see, that aspect has been eradicated. The blues in this new transfer are handsomely reasserted, and the depth of some compositions is actually dizzying. This film was shot in Technicolor and Techniscope, the latter being a two-perforation scope process that led to it being termed "the poor man's CinemaScope" back in the day. When I was a kid, and seeing a lot of sword-and-sandal pictures at my local theater, I could pick a Techniscope film out of a line-up because they were prey to excessive grain and a coarseness of detail, especially in depth. So I am sometimes astounded today by how much detail and depth it is now possible to digitally exhume from old Techniscope film - and Leone and Tonino Delli Colli choose their shots in this film as though they could see the technology coming that would someday unlock all of its power. Love seeing the original UA logo card back, too.
Pre-order now and get yours... for a few dollars less.
Text (c) 2017 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
Thursday, August 3, 2017
Catching Up With Your Friendly Neighborhood Blogger
I'm over 100 pages into a new book about a maverick filmmaker, but I'm not quite ready to announce that project.
I've also agreed to write two books for Neil Snowdon's Midnight Movies Monograph series (Electric Dreamhouse/PS Publishing) - one about Georges Franju's JUDEX (which will probably happen second) and another that hasn't yet been announced.
Speaking of PS Publishing, and Neil, my lengthy chapter on Nigel Kneale's literary works is part of their new book WE ARE THE MARTIANS: THE LEGACY OF NIGEL KNEALE, edited by Neil Snowdon.
And in what I personally consider my most exciting news, a very well-respected publishing house overseas recently accepted the first piece of lengthy fiction I've sold in twelve years. It will likely be published sometime late next year or early the following. It seems something happens with my fiction every twelve years; there were a dozen years between THROAT SPROCKETS and THE BOOK OF RENFIELD, and now a dozen years between RENFIELD and this one. It's not for lack of writing, just for lack of energy in showing that work around.
I'm also pleased to report that my work in audio commentary is continuing to pile up. My commentaries for the 50th Anniversary edition of Sergio Leone's THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (Kino Studio Classics), Mario Bava's ERIK THE CONQUEROR (Arrow Films), and no less than three already-recorded Joe Sarno titles are presently awaiting release, as well as a few other as-yet-unannounced titles. I am presently working on two commentaries simultaneously, and they will be followed later this month my continuation on the Sergio Leone series with A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS.
So there is a lot of me to look forward to! If you would care to know more in the meantime, I am the guest on the current episode (#27) of Bill Ackerman's excellent podcast Supporting Characters. In my day-to-day life, I actually speak very little, but somehow Bill managed to keep me talking for more than four hours! Fortunately he tightened the recording up a bit by extracting some hemming and hawing, and I am pleased to direct you to the final result here.
Friday, July 28, 2017
THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN (BARON PRÁŠIL) reviewed
(BARON PRÁŠIL)
1961, Second Run (UK), 1.37:1, BD-ABC, 85m (163m of supplements)
To watch a Karel Zeman film is to feel that all other filmmakers are impeded, that they were short-changed on the day the Angels distributed the tools of filmmaking. Pick a random Zeman film and you will see his mastery of black-and-white and color; live-action and animation; collage and sculpture; sobriety and humor; science and imagination. His creativity is like a fountain; it never stops flowing, never stops its own endless reinvention. A simple shot of a rose in the moonlight is enough to bring us to our knees.
Zeman, a Czech filmmaker who lived from 1910 to 1989 and made films from 1946 to 1980 (his first feature, CESTA DO PRAVEKU / JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING OF TIME, in 1955), belongs in the ranks of animators who became directors: Georges Méliès, Ladislas Starewicz, George Pal, Frank Tashlin, and even Mario Bava - but he is particularly well-placed among Pal and Starewicz, and a third filmmaker who never graduated to stage direction: Lotte Reiniger (best-known for her animated cut-out feature THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED, 1926). As a child, Zeman fell in love with the stories of Jules Verne and the illustrations of Gustave Doré and became a confirmed fantasist. His aforementioned debut begins realistically, with live action, but then almost imperceptibly melds into fantasy as a group of boys on a nature trip find themselves face-to-face with creatures that never existed in their own time. His second feature, VYNÁLEZ ZKÁZY / A DEADLY INVENTION (1958; released in English territories as THE FABULOUS ADVENTURES OF JULES VERNE), was a far more radical and delightful creation, a melding of different Verne scenarios into an original story, told in a conglomeration of live-action, trick shots, and animation that brought Verne's original book illustrations uncannily to life. After more than half a century, it remains the most commercially successful Czech film of all time - and the primary reason why there now exists a Karel Zeman Museum in Prague. This same museum has made it their mission to see Zeman's groundbreaking work better known and more fully appreciated; some years ago, they began releasing DVDs of his work, with VYNÁLEZ ZKÁZY released as a solo (and English-friendly) Blu-ray disc, while Zeman's first three films have also been released by them as a single-disc Blu-ray. Now the British label Second Run, which has long specialized in Eastern European cinema and previously released Zeman's BLÁZNOVA KRONICA / A JESTER'S TALE on DVD, has entered the picture with a glorious 4K restoration of what is arguably the filmmaker's greatest film, one that is tempting to interpret as a testamental work thought it perversely arrived well before the midpoint of his career: BARON PRÁŠIL / THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1961).
Perhaps it goes without saying in light of all I've just said, but this is one of the most important HD releases of 2017 and warmly recommended. The region-free disc can be obtained directly from Second Run or from retailers such as Amazon.co.uk.
(c) 2017 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
Thursday, July 27, 2017
BEYOND THE DOOR reviewed
Chi sei? / "Who Goes There?"
1974, Code Red, 1.85:1, BD-A, 108m
I had the unforgettable good fortune to see Ovidio Assonitis' BEYOND THE DOOR in its first release, in a multiplex that was also showing (unbelievably) FLESH GORDON, MANDINGO and LINDA LOVELACE FOR PRESIDENT. (As Lou Reed sang, those were different times.) While I had a sneaking suspicion of what was probably coming, the lights went down on an audience whose like I had never seen before in attendance at run-of-the-mill horror pictures; they were clearly anticipating another experience on the level of William Friedkin's THE EXORCIST, not quite realizing that such things come only once in a lifetime. Seven minutes later, and I am probably being generous in my estimation of the time, the walk-outs began.
I couldn't call BEYOND THE DOOR a "guilty pleasure" because I don't really feel any guilt for my film-related pleasures, but it is a film I've come to treasure for how riotously wrong it is, on so many counts - but, as time has gone on, I've also acquired a deeper appreciation for what, against all odds, is good about it. The story, in brief, is about a record producer whose wife, formerly involved with a man named Dmitri, begins acting strangely as a result of a pact that Dmitri has made with the Devil - while poised mid-fall through a suicidal car dive off a coastal cliff. She becomes both pregnant and possessed and Dmitri is offered a chance at escape from his pending ever-lasting torment if he can abort the child. To make matters still more preposterous, the woman - Jessica Barrett (Juliet Mills) - has already given birth to two children, Gail (Barbara Fiorini) and Ken (David Colin, Jr.), who are as much like Hellspawn as you'd care to imagine. They're both potty-mouthed poster children for OCD, with Gail a compulsive reader and collector of LOVE STORY paperbacks (hence her vocabulary) and Ken forever suckling at cans of Campbell's Green Pea soup. The kids are, in some ways, the best reason to see it, and their dialogue - attributed to no less than eight screenwriters on the IMDb - is enough to make you doubt your own sanity. (Like this from Gail, when her little brother wakes up crying: "Ken. What's the matter? You're gonna blow my mind. Man, if you don't quit crying, you're gonna have a real bad trip.") They also pass, in the context of this film, as acceptable - possibly because the family pediatrician and friend, Dr. George Staton (Nino Segurini), looks like Chevy Chase doing a vintage SNL skit.
(c) 2017 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Franco's DIE NACHT DER OFFENEN SÄRGE reviewed
"The Night of the Open Coffins"
Drácula contra Frankenstein / Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein / The Screaming Dead
1971, Colosseo-Film (Germany), 2.35:1, 82m (BD-A)
Though there has never been any particular shortage of it, Jess Franco's DRÁCULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN has always been a much sought-after title by his collectors. It had a badly-pan&scanned VHS release here in the States from Wizard Video back in the 1980s, under the title THE SCREAMING DEAD, after which it surfaced with modest letterboxing and a different title sequence in Japan, a version subsequently marketed here through Bill Knight's mail-order company Midnight Video. There have been subsequent DVD releases, both here and abroad, but they have always been marred by something - usually an inaccurate aspect ratio. This new German Blu-ray release, region-free, is the first ever to present the film in its authentic 2.35:1 format, but it's still not all that we hoped for. The nudity promised by a swatch of German lobby cards, for instance, does not materialize on this disc, which strongly suggests we may never see the alternate "adult" version that exists for so many other Franco titles.
The film is one of those dashed-off-on-a-napkin Franco plots: When Dracula's reign of terror is finally foiled, Dr. Frankenstein arrives in Transylvania (in a limousine driven by a misshapen chauffeur - though the film, up to that time, has the look of a period piece) and reactivates the vampire with his laboratory equipment, enslaving him to do his bidding. Drunk with success, Frankenstein unleashes his "New Gods" on the village - causing Amira, a gypsy sorceress (Geneviève Deloir, the future Mrs. Ivan Reitman, giving the film's best performance), to invoke the return of the Wolf Man on the night of the full moon.
Most easily obtained Stateside from Diabolik DVD or Amazon.de.
(c) 2017 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
AFTER THE FOX reviewed
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| Peter Sellers as film director Federico Fabrizi in AFTER THE FOX. |
AFTER THE FOX
Caccia alla volpe
1966, Kino Lorber, 2.35:1, 103m (BD Region A)
I suppose I could blame the fox hunting sequence in 1965's CASINO ROYALE for this, but I put off the great pleasure of making this film's acquaintance for decades because it looked from a distance like yet another out-of-control farce, with aging stars having much more fun than I would, running like geese around Europe to more woozily gallivanting Burt Bacharach cues. Mamma mia, was I wrong. This might be one of the best and funniest movies about the misadventure of making movies around, but it has the added bonus of specifically lampooning Italian film production - just as a new set of laws were falling into place that would bring an end to US/Italian studio collaborations almost overnight.
Neil Simon's first original screenplay posits Peter Sellers in the role of Aldo Vanucci, a.k.a. The Fox, a Fantômas-like master criminal (and master of disguise) serving an interminable prison sentence, who suddenly and brilliantly escapes from his cell when he learns from his visiting gang the not-quite-accurate but inflammatory news that his younger sister (a brunette Britt Ekland) is now walking the streets as a prostitute. After much disguised misadventure (allowing Sellers plentiful opportunity to parade his many faces), he discovers that his delectable sibling is only playing a prostitute in her first movie role. When Vanucci sees the complete deference paid to filmmakers by the general public, and particularly by the police, he realizes that he has been going about the criminal life entirely wrong. Hearing that billions in gold bricks are being transported from Cairo to a small village in rural Italy, he realizes at once how to mastermind the biggest heist of The Fox's career: by posing as an intellectual film director.
Enter "Federico Fabrizi," who uses his self-professed ability to "have ideas" to BS his way through any barrier, including the protective agent (Martin Balsam) of aging Hollywood star Tony Powell (Victor Mature in a somewhat meta role that paves the way to his appearance in HEAD, two years later). Seeing Fabrizi as a rescue from an early retirement, he eagerly accepts the opportunity to work opposite that new Italian sensation (Vanucci's sister) - the hilariously named "Gina Romantica" - and finds himself being asked to do things like run around without apparent objective because, after all, are we not all running around, never knowing what we are doing? And he loves it! Loves it! Mature's largely untapped gift for comedy, and his robust willingness to parody himself, are only two of the film's many points of appeal.
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| The great de Sica directing the great faux Fabrizi. |
Director Vittorio de Sica seems to have had the rare ability to rein in Sellers' frequent excesses to just the right measure to make him charming, elegant, and devastatingly funny. (They would work together only once more, in the following year's portmanteau film WOMAN TIMES SEVEN.) De Sica also appears as himself in a scene that one imagines could have inspired Francis Coppola's appearance in APOCALYPSE NOW) and a superb supporting cast that includes Paolo Stoppa, Lydia Brazzi, and the infallible Akim Tamiroff - in a fez, no less.
Kino's presentation is bright and colorful, conveying a welcome nostalgic sense of what it was like to see these big continental romps on their opening engagements. Aside from the main theme song (by The Hollies and Bacharach), which is far from the best thing either of them did, I find Bacharach's score even more inventive than his celebrated work for CASINO ROYALE, though very much in the same vein. There is no subtitle option. Extras are limited to an original trailer, viewable with Trailers From Hell commentary by screenwriter Larry Karaszewski (a big fan of the movie) and trailers for other Peter Sellers titles available from Kino.
(c) 2017 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
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