I’ve only seen a few Jet Li movies and I can’t say that I’m really a fan. Obviously, he’s got mad martial arts chops, but his movies (at least the few I’ve seen) don’t really do it for me.
Black Mask is an exception, sort-of. It is an utterly silly movie with a dumb plot and some terrible acting. But the action is so over-the-top and completely ridiculous that it won me over.
You can read my full review here.
My wife has been telling me to watch this French series for ages. It follows a group of talent agents as they navigate their professional lives (which involves a lot of crazy work with A-List French celebrities) and their personal ones (which involves a lot of craziness).
I finally sat down with it when I got a copy of the complete series and it is a delight. You can read my full review here.
George Lazenby has had a wonderfully strange career. His very first film was playing James Bond in Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) then he gave up that role thinking the 1970s would not be kind to Bond. Then he spent the next decade making wild European genre movies and has since played small roles in a variety of movies and TV series including a sting in some made-for-TV Emmanuelle rip-offs alongside Sylvia Kristel.
In A Queen’s Ransom, he plays an Irish mercenary out to assassinate the Queen of England on her visit to Hong Kong. The film actually shot footage of the real queen in her real visit to the Asian city and then basically built a movie around it. You can read my full review here.
1978.05.05 – New York, NY
I had a random hankering for a haunted house movie today. I could not for the life of me tell you why. But I went to my trusty Letterboxd and did a little search. Found some lists and landed on this incredibly creepy, moody thriller. It is one of those movies that sucks you in with its atmosphere, lighting, mood, impeccable costumes and set design. The fact that the story doesn’t quite succeed never really bothered me.
That story is about an eccentric millionaire who enlists three people to spend a week in the legendary Belasco house (also known as the Mount Everest of haunted houses also known as Hell House). The three people are Physicist Dr. Lionel Barrett (Clive Revell), a mental medium Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin), and a physical medium named Benjamin Fischer (Roddy McDowall). Along for the ride is Lionel’s wife Ann (Gayle Hunnicut).
It seems the house was once owned by Emeric Belasco a strange, eccentric millionaire who used to host wild orgies inside the house. After one such night of debauchery, dozens of people were found dead in the house, and Belasco missing. Ever since the house has been haunted by the victims of that night. Our heroes have been hired to prove the existence of an afterlife. Lionel has spent his career searching for said proof and comes with an array of scientific instruments. Florence is a mental medium meaning she can speak with ghosts but cannot manifest them in any physical way. Benjamin cannot speak to them but his presence allows them to take some physical form (which in this film mostly means they throw stuff about).
Sometime before the events of this film several other scientists and mediums undertook the same research and all but one died. That one is Benjamin who is only doing it again because he’s being paid a huge sum of money to do so.
Pretty quickly they hold a seance where Florence speaks to someone she thinks is Belasco’s son (or rather he speaks through her, using her body and his voice). Plates rattle, bottles break, furniture shakes. Later Ann will have some erotic dreams and will attempt to seduce Benjamin while in a trance. They will hold a second seance this time using lots of Lionel’s scientific instruments. Things go off the charts including some wacky ectoplasm flotation.
There are some goofy arguments between Lionel and Florence which amount to science versus spirituality except Lionel’s science is arguing that the crazy stuff that keeps happening is due to the natural energy that every human leaves behind. Since this house was filled with all sorts of insane things, that energy is supercharged.
Like I said, the plot is a bit of a letdown. Which is too bad because it was written by Richard Matheson (who I love) and it is based upon his book, but he must have been having a bad day. Everything else is terrific. It looks absolutely amazing. The set is fantastic and the lighting is divine. Everybody is taking things completely seriously which helps extend the creepy mood through all of the actual nonsense going on with the plot.
Definitely recommended.
High Noon changed the way I understood Gary Cooper. I think it was the first film I’d ever seen by him. I knew who he was even when I was a little kid. He was the strong, silent type. I thought that meant tough and mean. I wasn’t expecting someone so sensitive. Tough yes, but also caring.
He’s now one of my favorite actors. You can read my full review of the Blu-ray here.
Bruce Lee was supposed to have starred in this film. But he and director Wei Lo had something of a falling out and so Jimmy Wang Yu got the lead role.
It is a crazy movie with a ridiculous (and somewhat incomprehensible) plot. This is made a bit more comprehensible in the newly restored Hong Kong edit (it was chopped to pieces in the Internation edit upon initial release). But it still doesn’t make much sense.
But it is worth watching because the action is a lot of fun. I’m a sucker for Hong Kong action flicks and this totally delivers. You can read my full review here.
I’m American. I’m middle-class, male and white. I suppose I feel a certain sense of duty every once in a while. I work. I try to take care of my family. I pay my taxes. But I’ve never felt that innate sense of duty for anything that would make me forsake everything I hold dear in order to fulfill it.
I’m always fascinated with movies in which a character is willing to do completely insane (to my way of thinking) things due to a sense of duty.
In Tokijiro: The Lonely Yakuza the hero agrees to kill a man he doesn’t know, a good man, simply because someone gave him shelter for the night and asks him to commit murder. And that man he kills completely understands the situation. He fights for his life, but he doesn’t argue that murdering a stranger out of a sense of duty is completely nuts.
From there our hero has to take care of th dead man’s wife and child because the guy he killed asked him to. That concept is so foreign to me, and yet I love it just the same. The movie is pretty great all around. Filled with some great fight scenes, and rather moving emotional components.
I reviewed the Blu-ray here.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: While I have a very softspot for the original Planet of the Apes and its numerous sequels, I’ve never much cared for the more recent trilogy. I never even bothred with War For the Planet of the Apes. Can’s say I’m too excited about this one either.
Castle of Blood: Barbara Steele stars in this Italian haunted house thriller where a writer accepts a bet that he cannot spend the night alone in an old castle and finds himself visited by several people who were murdered there.
High Crime: Franco Nero stars in this pretty good little Italian crime thriller about a cop out to stop a crime syndicate. You can read my full review here.
Thieves Like Us: Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall star in this Robert Altman directed period drama about a couple of convicts who escape prison and go on a bank robbing spree. Vinegar Syndrom of all companies has this new 4K release.
Last Year at Merinbad: Kino Lorber gives this French classic the 4K treatment.
A Man Called Tiger: A very silly Hong Kong actioner (though it is set in Japan) which was originally suppossed to star Bruce Lee now stars Jimmy Wang Yu as a man who infiltrates the Yakuza in order to find out who killed his father. It ends with an amazing battle where Yu battles a bunch of dudes with hatchets and that’s all I need to say about that.
Tremors: 7 Movie Collection: The original Tremors (1990) is a wonderful blend of horror, comedy, and action packed thriller. It is about a small town beset by giant, under ground worm-like creatures. It is a bid-budget, b-movie that makes great use of everything (including a cast that includes Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Victor Wong, Michael Gross, and Reba McIntire. I’ve never seen any of the sequels, but this Wal-Mart exlusive Steelbook set might make me get there.
Door to Door Maniac: Johnny Cash stars as a crazed villain who holds a banker’s wife hostage while his partner robs the bank. You can read my full review here.
Succession: The Complete Series: I really need to watch this HBO series about a highly dysfunctional (yet ridiculously successful) family. All my online friends love it.
Nintendo Quest: Silly looking documentary about a couple of guys who try to collect all 678 officially licensed NES video games. As a guy who loved my NES (and SNES) back in the day this sounds fun.
The Mexico Trilogy: Robert Rodriguez made a name for himself with the ultra low budget El Mariachi. He became a star when he essentially remade that film with a bigger budget and called it Desperado. He finished the trilogy with Once Upon a Time In Mexico. I loved Desperado back in the day but I suspect it doesn’t really hold up. But if you dig these films then Arrow Video has a nice looking boxed set of all three.
Alphaville: Kino Lorber presents Jean Luc Godards masterful, wild, and weird science fiction classic with a new 4K transfer.
Real Life: Albert Brooks is one of those guys whom I feel I should really love, but I’ve never really bothered with. He wrote and directed this film about a documentary filmmaker who persuades a family to let him film their “real lives” and then constantly interjects himself in order to make it more interesting. Criterion is giving it their usual amazing looking release.
Mother: Another Albert Brooks comedy getting a Criterion release. This ones about a writer who moves back in with his mother to solve some personal issues.
The Watchers: Dakota Fanning stars in this thriller about a woman who gets lost in an Irish forest and is stalked each night by mysterious creatures.
Drive: I just rewatched this Nicolas Winding Refn drama about a stuntman who moonlights as a wheelman for a gang of thieves and it still holds up amazingly well. Sony Pictures is giving it a 4K release in a nice looking steelbook.
Franco Nero was one of the biggest Italian movie stars of the 1970s. Though he made a number of international and American movies I’m not sure if he was ever all that well known over here. Maybe he was. I really don’t know. These days he’s well loved by genre fans. His breakthrough role was Django a terrific Spaghetti Western that beget untold sequels. He made lots of other Westerns, Gialli, Poliziotteschi, and every other Italian genre film you can think of. He’s still working, too, having recently been in films like John Wick 2, and The Pope’s Exorcist.
Not all of his films were masterpieces (dude has starred in over 200 films so you gotta give him some slack) but I always enjoy seeing his face appear in anything.
High Crimes is a pretty good little crime thriller from the 1970s. Nero plays a no-nonsense cop who feels all the rules and regulations are keeping him from nailing the bad guys. The plot gets a little convoluted but the action sequences are pretty great. You can read my full review here.
Pink Floyd
Waking The Grapevine
June 29, 1972
Brighton Dome, Brighton, England
1 Careful With That Axe, Eugene
2 Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
Bass Guitar – Roger Waters
Drums – Nick Mason
Guitar – David Gilmour
Keyboards – Richard Wright
pro-shot recording ~17 min
I received this with no source info. All notes taken from Discogs.
themidnightcafe.org 