Day of the Dead is the Pick of the Week

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I’ve been debating for days whether or not I should purchase this week’s pick. I’m obviously a physical media collector. I have well over a thousand DVDs, Blu-rays, and UHD discs. I especially like collector’s editions with cool covers, posters, lobby cards, and other collectibles, plus all sorts of in-disc extras.  But there is also a practical side to me. That part wonders why in the world I’d pay $40 for a single movie. A movie I could easily watch for less.  Is a cool cover and some lobby cards really worth that much? Of course, there is also the UHD aspect, and that’s something.

Still debating it.  But it is a fantastic looking set which is why it is my pick. You can read all about it and more over at Cinema Sentries.

Waves of Lust (1975)

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I don’t know why I still watch exploitation movies. I know why I used to watch them – they are filled with exciting action, violence, and naked flesh, but I can get that anywhere now. Certainly in ways that are far better produced and more interesting than what appears in most exploitation flicks.  But when an offer for a film called Waves of Lust appears to me, I immediately say “yes.” 

I guess I’ll always be a sucker for this stuff. You can read my review of the film (which isn’t bad, actually) over at Cinema Sentries.

Solo (1970)

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One day I may stop singing the praises of Radiance Films, but today is not that day. I love, love, love the way they keep bringing to my attention films that I’d otherwise never hear of in nice sets, loaded with extras.

Solo is a terrific little French thriller about a couple of young revolutionaries in over their heads and how a jewel thief winds up lending them a hand.  You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries.

Grateful Dead – Dicks Picks, Vol. 2 – Columbus, OH (10/31/71)

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While doing a little research for this, the second volume in the Dick’s Picks series, I came across a Reddit thread asking why this volume wasn’t the first one. It is so good, they said. One of the answers was that Dick Latvala was so obsessed with “Here Comes Sunshine” from Vol. 1 that he just had to have it at the start of his series. If that’s true, then it might answer some of my questions concerning that volume, namely why did he choose the songs that wound up on those discs, and leave off the others. If Phil Lesh was as picky as they say he was during this period, then maybe Dick let him have his way with things as long as he got “Here Comes Sunshine.” That’s just speculation, of course, but maybe that’s also why Vol. 2 begins with “Dark Star.”

Actually, Vol. 2 includes the entirety of the second set, sans the encore. I read that they had initially planned on including the first set, but then somewhere along the line they decided it just wasn’t quite good enough. That’s a bunch of hogwash, as Set I is plenty good, especially considering the sets that have been officially released since then. I don’t know what this does to my claim that the Dick’s Picks series took a warts-and-all approach. Maybe they had to warm up to that concept.

This is the only volume in the entire series that’s just one disc. It is fantastic. Don’t skip this one, folks.

In my review of Vol. 1, I noted that while I love the Dead’s improvisational style, I don’t love it when they start exploring deep space. There are moments when a jam loses any semblance of what any normal person would call a song that I tune out. So, it seems funny then that I actually love me some “Dark Star” which is probably their biggest launching pad for exploration.

I don’t really know why that is, except that maybe the “Dark Stars” I’ve heard usually don’t get that wonky. Or maybe I just turn those ones off. Admittedly, I’m not an aficionado, and I absolutely have to be in the right head space.

The “Dark Star” on this is exceptional. It begins with that familiar bass line, then the band picks it up and immediately starts playing with it. An idea occurs to me as I’m listening. When the band started improvising, maybe they were always searching for a song – or like that line says in “Unbroken Chain” (which lends its name to Phil’s book), they were searching for the sound. Where do songs come from anyway, but musicians playing around until they find something.

There is a wonderful video out there of Paul McCartney just strumming his guitar and humming, which eventually turns into “Get Back.” There is another one where U2 are playing around with “Mysterious Ways” and suddenly they invent the riff to “One.” I feel like that’s what the Grateful Dead were often doing in their improvisational jams. Except, they weren’t in a studio trying to write and record an album; they were on the stage in front of thousands of people.

Often the jams went nowhere. Sometimes they led into songs that already existed. Sometimes they invented something new. Jerry Garcia would often play some chords or line up a rhythm and just kind of test it out for a little bit. If it worked, he’d play with it some more, and the band might join in. Sometimes it wouldn’t work, and he’d move on to something else.

He does that quite a bit in this “Dark Star.” He’ll lay down some lines, then move to some different ones. After a few minutes he returns to the song’s themes, then he ventures out a little bit more. It is seven minutes before he actually sings the first verse. Then they take off for a long ride. There are moments that I get annoyed. The notes hurt my ears, but then they always return to something more interesting. At some point the jam turns into something that sounds an awful lot like Archie Bell and the Drells’ “Tighten Up” which goes on for several glorious minutes. That jam alone makes this disc worth your money.

Then it turns into something else, and they try out varying motifs for a while. There is a moment right at the end when you can hear Bob Weir play the first few notes of “Sugar Magnolia” but Jerry doesn’t hear it, and he keeps firing away at something else. But the rest of the band caught it and after a few seconds, they dig in. Then Jerry catches it, and they launch right into the song.

It is a fine, well played version. Then they launch into an incredible “Saint Stephen>Not Fade Away>Going Down the Road Feeling Bad>Not Fade Away” medley that rocks my world.

“St. Stephen” has this great jam just before the final verse. The first second of “Not Fade Away” is just brilliant as well. The transition into “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad” is about as perfect as it gets. They’d been doing that medley for a while, so it wasn’t like the transition was something new, but it still slays. “GDTRFB” has a fun little jam at the end, before turning back into “Not Fade Away.”

All in all, an incredible set of music, and it makes Vol. 2 an essential album.

You can listen to the entire thing here on Youtube.

And you can listen to the entire show over at the Archive.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Fright Night (1985)

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I talk a lot about growing up in the 1980s and how the slasher genre helped shape my cinematic aesthetics. I loved the Jasons and the Freddys. But the truth is I watched those films at home, edited on basic cable. It wasn’t until years later that I watched them as intended and in order. But there was another set of horror films that I watched unedited even back when I was a kid. These were, well, not family-friendly as such, but they were more palatable to the grown ups allowing us kids to watch them on videotape.

Films like The Monster Squad (1987), House (1985), and my favorite, Fright Night (1985), fall into the comedy horror genre. They are goofy and silly but still provided some good scares. I loved them as a kid. But once I grew up, I more or less forgot about them.

About fifteen years ago, not long after my daughter was born, I rewatched Fright Night and its sequel. I was a little disappointed in both. They didn’t live up to my nostalgia. But the first one has been popping up in my streaming feeds the last few weeks, and I decided to give it another revisit. I seem to be doing that a lot lately – revisiting film I loved decades ago. Trying to see if they still hold up, I guess.

I liked Fright Night quite a lot this go ’round. It is a film from the 1980s that loves classic horror, and even Hammer-era horror. It is fun, and funny, and makes great use of practical effects, and has some very decent thrills.

Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) loves old horror movies. He watches them on a local station hosted by Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall), a Peter Cushing-esque old horror star. Whatever happened to those old shows where they show old movies with introductions by goofy, sexy, creepy, hosts?

We’re introduced to Charley as one of those old movies plays in his bedroom. He’s making out with his girlfriend Amy Peterson (Amanda Bearse), but when it cuts to Peter Vincent talking about one of his movies, she stops with the face sucking to tell Charley he should watch. She knows he’s a huge fan. But he’s got other things on his mind. Mainly losing his virginity. They fight over it a bit, but then she finally agrees, takes off her top, and crawls into bed. But then he notices something strange in the neighbor’s yard. Two men seem to be carrying a coffin inside.

Amy feels increasingly insecure and practically begs him to come to bed. But he’s too fascinated with what’s going on out there. She leaves in a huff, and it is only then that he seems to notice her again.

It is a fascinating way to start the film, as it tells us so much about these characters. He’s desperate to have sex with her. So much so that he doesn’t care about catching his favorite show. A show she is quite aware he loves (thus she cares about him, knowing what he likes) and uses it as an excuse to get his paws off of her for a bit. She becomes vulnerable, admitting that she’s just scared about losing her virginity and is willing to finally lose it with him. But then something real and weird and scary happens outside, and he suddenly forgets all about his girl.

That becomes something of a theme for this film. He’ll periodically declare his undying love to her, but then immediately become distracted by oncoming horror.

Anyway, over the next few days, he sees very attractive women entering the neighbor’s house but never leaving. One night he gets a binoculared view of the new owner, Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon), getting sexy with one of those ladies when suddenly he grows fangs. His new neighbor is a vampire!

He tries to convince Amy and his best friend Evil Ed (Stephen Geoffreys) of this, but they aren’t having it. He tries to enlist Peter Vincent to help him destroy the vampire, but he thinks Charley’s crazy. Vincent’s having a bit of a hard time himself. He used to be an important actor. Or at least he was working. Making cult films. Now he’s hosting a cheesy late-night show for local television. And he’s just learned he’s been fired from that. Because these days “all they want to see are demented madmen running around in ski-masks, hacking up young virgins.”

Amy and Evil Ed convince Peter Vincent to lend them a hand. Not in destroying the vampires but in convincing Charley that he’s mistaken about the whole thing. They figure they can visit Mr. Dandridge, give him a few vampire tests, and all will be well.

But of course, Dandrige is a real vampire, and the tests backfire. Now the gang will have to destroy him for sure, before he turns them into bloodsuckers.

Tom Holland wrote and directed the film, and he does a nice job blending the scares with the laughs. It isn’t really scary (or all that funny if I’m being honest), but I found it quite entertaining. It has a very enjoyable vibe.

The practical effects are terrific. When the monsters die, they die slowly, transforming into goopy, bloody corpses. There is a werewolf transition that rivals the famous one in An American Werewolf in London (1981).

Roddy McDowell is great fun. He plays the pathos of this aging actor perfectly, giving him a wonderful vanity mixed with terror as he realizes that all those monsters he fought on the movie screen are real, and that he doesn’t have near the courage his characters did. Chris Sarandon is a bit miscast in my opinion. He’s clearly having fun, which is infectious, but he doesn’t have nearly the sex appeal or menace a great vampire has.

This isn’t great cinema, but it’s great fun.

Birds of Prey (1968)

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Lino Ventura has become one of those actors I keep finding myself watching, almost by accident. He just keeps showing up in the films that I’m watching.  I don’t know why.  But he’s so good I never mind.

In Birds of Prey, he plays a killer hired to assassinate the president of some backwater South American country. Before he can do that, he is forced to wait in a tiny little village for several days, accompanied by a true revolutionary. A kid who will probably replace the president. The kid is idealistic while the killer is old and cynical. Their interactions make up most of the movie, and they are wonderfully played.  The whole movie is great.  You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries.

Aesthetics of a Bullet (1973)

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I’ve talked about Radiance Films many times in these pages, mostly because I review a lot of their films. They put out international arthouse films that I’ve never heard of, but I always appreciate. Well, mostly. I had a hard time with this one. It is a punk rock film about a pretty horrible person. I appreciated some of the filmmaking but struggled to find anything else to enjoy about it. You can read my full review here.

Five Cool Things And Whalefall

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This week’s Five Cool Things include Widow’s Bay, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, the Charles Laughton version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, and I Love Boosters. You can read all about them over at Cinema Sentries.