A Man On His Knees (1979)

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I don’t read the trades or anything so I have no idea how many DVDs/Blu-rays/4K UHD disks are sold monthly. I don’t know how those decisions are made or what the margins are. I imagine there are still loads of homes that don’t stream. Whether it is a rural area without access, or older people who don’t understand how to connect, or people who simply can’t afford it. Or whatever. Lots of folks don’t stream movies and TV to their home. Some of those folks likely do buy the occasional disk. Lots of nerds like me collect physical media.

I’m fascinated by the rise of Boutique Blu-ray companies. Arrow, Criterion, Severin, Kino Lorber, and others are regularly putting out nice editions of all sorts of movies. Many of them are quite obscure and cultish. Yet here they are getting HD releases, often given new transfers and loaded with extras. I can’t imagine there are huge profit margins for these things. They seem to be put out by people who truly love movies and I’m all for it.

Radiance Films is relatively new to the market and they’ve been doing a phenomenal job. They seem to specialize in cult foreign language, genre films. But unlike Arrow Video and others, they seem to stray away from trashy films and b-movies. Their focus seems to be more on more artistic, meaningful cinema. They seem a lot like Criterion except they are choosing much lesser-known films.

I’m using the word “seem” a lot while discussing them. That’s because I don’t really know them that well. I’ve only reviewed a few of their films, and haven’t spent a huge amount of time digging through their stacks. So I could be wrong. I’m sure they sell some less-than-award-winning films as well.

My real point is that the films I’ve seen by them have been excellent. And now we’ll finally get to the film at hand. A Man On His Knees is an Italian crime film about a former bank robber just trying to get by. But when a mob lawyer’s wife is kidnapped and kept for days in secret in a building next door to his drink stand, our hero gets mixed up in trouble.

That sounds like a thriller, but in the hands of Damiano Damiani it becomes more art-house than grind-house and it is all the better for it. You can read my full review here.

Greedy People (2024)

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There is a lot of the Coen Brother’s filmography, especially Fargo, nesting inside of Greedy People. What with the violence in a small town, quirky characters, dark humor, inept burglars, and folksy musical choices. But the film can’t quite pull off that perfect Coen mix to make it more than just mild entertainment.

The script is full of characters with odd-ball quirks, but it rarely seems to know what to do with them, or how to make them actual fleshed-out people. In a similar manner the story is full of interesting incidents – some violent, some funny – but it never merges into a cohesive whole. Still, it is quite entertaining and very enjoyable to watch.

Will Shelley (Himesh Patel) has just graduated from the police academy and has moved his very pregnant wife Paige (Lily James) to a small, island community off the coast of South Carolina. A place he hopes will be a peaceful place to raise a family.

His smart, and gentle boss Captain Murphy (Uzo Aduba) assigns Officer Terry Brogan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), affable, abrasive, and redneck to the core, to show Shelley the ropes. Brogan has a few rules every cop should live by. The first of which is “Don’t kill anybody unless you have to.” Because it gets “messy.” Also, you should get a hobby because this is a small town and the job is boring.

Mostly Brogan shows Shelley where to get free coffee and doughnuts. Then he decides to stop by his married girlfriend’s house for some afternoon delight, leaving Shelley to wait in the cruiser. When a call comes in for what Shelley believes is an in-progress burglary he honks the horn at Brogan and then heads to the scene without him.

To say things go bad would be an understatement. He accidentally discharges his weapon when the homeowner (Traci Lords) surprises him. When she defends herself the ensuing tussle finds her dead, having fallen on a table loging a piece of it into her skull.

Brogan shows up, and they both freak out, but when they find $1 million in cash inside a box, they come up with a plan. Make it look like a robbery gone bad and they can keep the money.

To say things only get worse from there would be yet another understatement.

It is all very Coen-esque. Like the Coens the film is not afraid to get real dark, but it is also quite funny and enjoyable to watch. But unlike the Coen Brothers movies, this doesn’t have a lot of depth to it. It feels too scripted.

For example, Brogan’s hobby is listening to CDs to learn Mandarin Chinese. He, very adeptly, says something in that language and when asked what it means he notes it means “I speak fluent Chinese.” He’s learning the language because his girlfriend is Chinese. A guy as dumb and redneck as Brogan is learning to speak fluent Chinese is funny and quirky, but I’m not sure how realistic it is.

So much of the movie is like this. Characters are given quirks which gives the film character, but it all feels scripted. You can feel the writing in it. The plot is similar. This woman accidentally gets killed on Shelley’s first day. There happens to be a million dollars lazily stashed in a basket. The dead lady’s husband (Tim Blake Nelson) just happened to have hired a hitman to kill his wife on the same day Shelly accidentally did the deed. There are apparently two competing hitmen on this small island and they are easy to contact. Etc. There are a lot of coincidences and oddities that are completely unrealistic.

Still, the performances are good. Gordon-Levitt is excellent at switching from goofball to menacing villain from one minute to the next. Lilly James isn’t given much for her character to do but she makes it her own. Etc.

Call it Coen Brothers-lite. Call it pretty good.

Bring Out the Perverts: Tenebrae (1982)


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While Mario Bava may have invented the Giallo, it was Dario Argento who popularized it in 1970 with The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. Without that film, we wouldn’t be talking about Giallo at all. Then in 1975, he perfected the genre with Deep Red.

While the genre was a very popular one, it had its critics. Many criticized its overt sexualization of violence and its graphic violence towards women. In 1982, just over a decade after making The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and thus creating the Giallo craze, Argento made Tenebrae, a film that can be viewed as the director’s direct response to the criticism of his films. While the genre would continue to be popular throughout the 1980s and Argento would make several more, Tenebrae can also be looked at as a final statement about the genre from the director.

While The Bird With the Crystal Plumage opens with the killer typing something on a typewriter – he is the creator of the art, Tenebrae opens with the killer reading an already-published novel – he is an audience to the art. That novel, also titled Tenebrae, was written by our protagonist Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa) and it could rightly be considered a Giallo. It is about a killer who attacks women he considers to be perversions to society.

The real killer acts like a copycat to the killer inside the book (inside this film). We see him murder a woman who offers herself up sexually in order to get out of a shoplifting charge, and then later a lesbian couple with an open relationship. Like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, the killer believes he has been sent to rid the streets of so-called scum.

Peter Neal is in Rome for a book tour celebrating Tenebrae. His agent Bullmer (John Saxon) keeps booking him interviews in which Peter is constantly being asked about what effects the violence in his book may create in society. That’s Argento getting meta, as he was often asked similar questions about his movies.

When one of the murder victims has pages of his book inserted into her mouth the police begin asking Peter questions. Later the killer will slide quotes from Tenebrae under his door. Peter and his assistant Anne (Daria Nicolodi) start their own investigation.

The film is filled with scenes exactly what you’ve come to expect from an Argento-directed Giallo. There are sly camera angles, extreme close-ups, surprising jump-scares, blood-soaked violence, and a righteous score from Goblin (well, three of the members at least).

While the film does present lots of questions about violence and art – does it create violence in society or is it simply a depiction of the existing violence in society? Argento doesn’t give us any concrete answers. His on-screen surrogate, Peter Neal bats the questions away with pat answers, but the movie seems to indulge the idea both ways. Perhaps his films are a reflection of the real-life violence Argento was surrounded by, or perhaps his films influenced others to violence in society. Maybe a little bit of both occurred. It is clear Argento loved depicting violence in his films. I suspect he was never ever to truly untangle the reasons why. I love his films and abhor real-life violence so I have no pat answers either.

What we are left with is a pretty darn good little film filled with stylish violence and an interesting mystery. That is more than enough for me.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Trap (2024)

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I watched The Sixth Sense in the theatre when it first came out. I managed to see it before the surprise ending was ruined for me. I remember liking it that first viewing quite a lot. But then some friends of mine wanted to see it and I was visiting them in Arkansas so I felt like I couldn’t say no. Even though I was pretty sure that the film would disappoint since I now knew the surprise. It did disappoint. I was bored during that second viewing.

That whole day was weird. I was good friends with her in high school. But since going away for college I hadn’t talked to her in over a year. Her husband I didn’t know at all. So the day was full of awkward conversations and then this movie I didn’t want to see. I also randomly remember her listening to The Eagle’s greatest hits on cassette and I hate the freaking Eagles.

Anyway, The Sixth Sense was of course an enormous hit and made M. Night Shyamalan an instant celebrity director. He followed it up with the underrated Unbreakable and then the quite fun but rather ridiculous Signs, and then the very creepy but completely dumb after the trick ending is revealed The Village.

By this point, he was starting to feel like a one-trick pony where every movie had a surprise ending. Everybody hated Lady in the Water and The Happening became an instant joke.

Shyamalan was on the outs. But then a funny thing happened on the way to career suicide. People started liking him again. It was as if after all the hype died down, and expectations became low, people realized he was actually a pretty good stylist and while his scripts were often ridiculous, his films were rather fun.

Or maybe that’s just me. I like most of his movies. They are dumb, but he’s a skilled enough director to keep me interested.

Trap is an absolutely stupid movie. There are so many instances in the film where I kept shouting at the screen that whatever was happening wasn’t the way things work. People don’t behave like that. Concerts don’t have multiple random intermissions. Police don’t let serial killers hug their daughters and play with their son’s bicycles.

And yet, I still quite enjoyed myself.

The plot involves a serial killer named Cooper Adams (Josh Hartnett), known as “The Butcher,” (and this isn’t a spoiler as it was revealed in all the trailers, reviews, and the first ten minutes of the film). He’s kidnapped at least a dozen people, then killed them, then chopped them up into pieces and displayed their parts in public. But he’s also a decent family guy.

He’s taken his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see pop star Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan – the director’s real-life daughter who is in fact a real singer – you gotta love a dad who basically makes a movie to show off his daughter’s talents). But the cops and the feds have been clued into the fact that The Butcher is gonna be there so the entire concert is one big trap for him.

Cooper must find a way to escape so he can continue killing. And being a family guy. It is a testament to Hartnett’s skill as an actor and Shyamalan as a director that I found myself rooting for a serial killer for most of the film’s runtime.

Truly this is one of the most ridiculous films I’ve seen in a long time. Ridiculous decision after ridiculous decision is made by Cooper, the police, Lady Raven, and everyone really. My eyes rolled into the back of my head and then fell right out.

And yet, again, I quite enjoyed myself. Shyamalan never takes anything too seriously. He’s quite aware his film is dumb. But he’s having fun. And so was I.

Bill Evans – Hamburg, Germany (02/14/72)

Bill Evans Trio w/ Herb Geller
14th February 1972
Studio 10
Hamburg, Germany

Most of the seeds i do are actually “reseeds” of very good material i found here on DIME. As i’m not often seeding any “new material”, i appreciate make things
staying on the tracker, especially when it concerns quality recordings. Evans is a classic, ad a brillant one.

I made 2 different directorys as we got the concert from two different seeders. They were both seeded at different moments,
and i decided to make just one seed so that everyone can appreciate a complete recording… I think it fits on one cd.

Thanks to both original seeders.

The original source stays the same: FM source.

Sound quality is excellent studio one, maybe better than lot of commercial releases of Evans.
Hope you’ll enjoy, all this material was already seeded on DIME those 2 last years.

Personal:
Bill Evans (p)
Eddie Gomez (b)
Marty Morell (dr)
Herb Geller (fl) *>with him

Disc 1

1.Introduction by Michael Naura

  1. RE: A person i knew
  2. Turn out the stars
  3. Gloria’s step
  4. The two lonely people
  5. Sao Paulo*
  6. Stockenhagen*
  7. Nardis (incomplete)

Disc 2

  1. 1 Waltz of dissention *
  2. Quarter tone experiments *
  3. Northern Trail

Betty Davis – Le Castellet, France (07/25/76)

Betty Davis
“Riviera ’76 Festival Jazz-Rock”, Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet, France
Audience Recording (Sivad)
July 25, 1976 (Approximately 11:00pm)

Lineage (Sivad): Audience Recording (Sivad) > 2 UHER dynamic mics > Nakamichi 550 Portable Cassette Recorder > TDK Tape > TASCAM > Cassette Deck >
Vaio Soundcard 😦 > Audacity > HD

Additional Lineage to the above (RatedX): CD Wave > TLH Flac Level 8

Betty Davis – Vocals
Larry Johnson – Bass, Vocals
Fred Mills – Keyboards, Vocals
Carlos Morales – Lead Guitar, Vocals
Semmie ìNickeyî Neal, jr. – Drums

According to the MC Introductions: Betty davis dedicated this show to Miles Davis.

01 French MC Intro From The Stage :27
02 Instrumental ? 3:18
03 Nasty Gal 4:31
04 Dedicated To The Press 3:40
05 The Lone Ranger 9:46
06 He Was A Big Freak 5:49
07 Talkin Trash 9:23
08 Steppin In Her I. Miller Shoes 5:21
09 Instrumental ? 2:09
10 Shut Off The Light (w/Applause) 5:15

Total Time: 49.39

Note:

  • Thank you Sivad (Original Taper) on following through with my request and providing me with this show.
  • I originally received this show from Sivad as a single wave file therefore CD Wave was use to split the tracks.
  • I’m not an expert so keep that in mind when hearing the tracking specially between (05 and 06 + 09 and 10), Betty goes from one song to the next a la Miles Davis.
  • For the purist: Besides the tracking nothing else was done to the original received wave file. I leave it to the experts to remaster as they wish.
  • I can’t make the title of track: 02 and 09. I believe they are just instrumental, after careful listening to her albums none of theses appeared.
  • There seems to be a fade out after Track 08. before track 09 maybe the result of a tape flip. I do not know if any music is missing between these two.
  • From the liner notes of “Is it Love Or Desire ” this show is believe to be one of the last if not the last time the band played together.
  • Part of this show (Radio Broadcast) is still available on Dime thanks to acidhangover for the re-seed: http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=336120
  • In the above referenced torrent (comments section) fellow Dimer Stonethecrow provide us with an unreleased picture of this show (Thank you)
    published on a now dead French revue : “Musiq” December 2007. I have included that picture in this torrent.
  • In the above referenced torrent (comments section) Sivad comment the following:

” A bit of first-hand information on this one, as I’ve been lucky enough to attend this three-day outdoor event that was held at the Paul Ricard racetrack in Le Castellet (south of France) where, if I remember well, the previous week-end legendary Canadian driver Gilles Villeneuve on Ferrari had won the French Formula One Grand Prix. The festival was called ìRiviera ’76î and the main reason for me to get there was that Miles had to play the ‘ony European concert’ of that year. Of course, he didn’t show up ‘cos he had just begun his infamous five-year sabbatical, but nobody knew it at that time, not even Miles himself, I believe. The stage announcer said that, because of a sudden illness Miles couldn’t be there and he sent his former wife to replace him. I only knew vaguely about Betty Davis, but that night (July 1st, 1976) all of us found out what a blast she was!

For the chronicle, other artists who performed at the festival were: John McLaughlin’s Shakti, Airto Moreira (solo performance), Pat Martino (terrific), Tony Williams & Lenny White (with Brian Auger) Larry Coryell, Joe Cocker (who was too drunk to sing, sadly), Stuff (in my view one of the greatest bands of all time), The Crusaders, Joe Beck and some other I can’t remember now. As for the Betty Davis recording posted here (http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=336120),
it is not the complete set. I recorded with my trusty Nakamichi 550 the main acts, and at least half a dozen cassettes of that event still survive, Betty Davis included. One day I hope to find the time to make digital transfers of all the stuff I have recorded in the old days and put some of it on the web for all to share.”

In is above comments Sivad talks of the show being July 1st 1976 but when he sent me the file he mention the show to July 25, 1976 wich is probably right since the festival was held between July 23rd and July 26th.

As Sivad said in his e-mail exchange with me: “Considering it’s an open-air audience recording vintage 1976, I don’t think it could sound any better than this, particularly because the equipment I used was top shelf.
If you close your eyes it’s almost like being there: I had no wind shields on the mics, hence in some spots you can even feel the French riviera’s evening breeze!”

Sivad & RatedX: August 21st 2011

Ben Folds – Saratoga, CA (08/24/05)

Ben Folds
08/24/05
Mountain Winery
Saratoga, CA

Boxing
The Ascent of Stan
The last Polka
Gracie
All U Can Eat
Bastard
Gone
(Band Intro)
Jesusland
You To Thank
Careless Whisper (w/ Rufus Wainwright)*
Landed
(Banter)
Bitches Ain’t Shit**
Brick
Army
Philosophy
(Three Part Harmony Practice)
Not The Same

 
 *George Micheal Cover
**Dr. Dre Cover

(Odd Men Out Tour)

Original source notes:

ransfer: USB > Sony SonicStage V3.0 > WavMerge 2.1 >
Adobe Audition 1.0 (Normalize @98%) > CDWAVE Editor > Flac Frontend > FLAC > You
Taped/Transfered by: Danielle Hashem

New Lineage

Converted to WAV many years ago. I don’t remember how, probably via iTunes. Burned that to CDR, again years ago.

Ripped CDR to WAV file via iTunes then converted to FLAC with xACT. This was in April 2020.

Ben Folds – Urbana, IL (04/05/04)

Ben Folds
April 5, 2004
Univ. of Illinois – Foellinger Auditorium
Urbana, IL

Taper: Mark Makdad
Source: Shure SM81s > ART Technologies Tube Preamps > IBM T30 Thinkpad > SHN

REMASTERED VERSION

Remastered with taper’s permission by Jon Freeland
Path: Spark XL [C4 > Q6 > TC Denoise > L2] AIFF > xACT > SHN

Concerted to FLAC and tagged by the Midnight Cafe using xACT on March 18, 2020.

  1. Cooler Than You
  2. Zak and Sara
  3. Silver Street
  4. One Down
  5. All You Can Eat
  6. Polka/Hardee’s
  7. Rent a Cop
  8. Late
  9. Best Imitation
  10. Freebird/Rock This Bitch
  11. Careless Whisper *
  12. Philosophy > Misirlou ^ > Chopsticks $
  13. Sentimental
  14. Kate
  15. The Luckiest
  16. Army
  17. One Angry Dwarf and 2000 Solemn Faces
  18. Ultimate Sacrifice
  19. Champagne Supernova %
  20. Rockin’ the Suburbs
  21. Song for the Dumped @
  22. Hava Nagila/Eddie Walker
  23. Not the Same
  • Wham
    ^ Dick Dale
    $ Liz Phair
    % Oasis
    @ major key w/ bass

Recompiled by Jon Freeland 6-3-04.
Thanks to Mark Makdad for recording such an excellent show.
Thanks also to dmaster of toritraders.com for reorganizing and etree-ifying the setlist and files.

Bring Out the Perverts: Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)

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Lucio Fulci is sometimes called the Godfather of Gore. As one might assume from that name his films were often filled with gratuitous violence and loads of blood and guts. Honestly, his films are sometimes not much more than blood and guts. Some of his films feel like he thought up some crazy violent scenes that would be cool to film and then tried to piece a story around it. Even at his best, his stories aren’t all that well done.

He wasn’t a particularly good stylist either. His films rarely look great. There is often a kind of DIY approach to the way he shoots his films.

I’m making it sound like I don’t like his film, but mostly I do. I think The Beyond (1981) is quite good and Zombi 2 (1979) is fantastic. But I wouldn’t say that Fulci is a great filmmaker. There is a bluntness to his films that reaches right into your guts and pulls them straight out. That violence and gore created some truly memorable effects work and he could certainly create a scene that will stick in your memory banks.

But yeah, he’s not really known for his thought-provoking scripts.

Don’t Torture A Duckling then is a bit of an oddity in Fulci’s filmography. The gore is toned down a great deal, and there is a concentration on telling a real story. One with a social conscience even.

The story revolves around the murder of three young boys in a small Italian village. It shocks the citizens and creates a sort of moral panic. They must find the killer, even if it’s a scapegoat. The community must go back to normal.

The first pick on a simple-minded man, then when it’s clear he could not be the culprit they go after a wandering witch. Then they decide it could be Patrizia (Barbara Bouchet) a rich, classy woman from the city spending some time in the country. She talks funny and dresses in tight shirts and short skirts. Surely she has loose morals and could be a killer. Rumors and superstition lead the investigation, at least where the townsfolk are concerned. The police are relatively competent but it hardly matters.

This is a Lucio Fulci message picture. Rural Italy is run on superstition and religion, science and procedure take second place. Not even the Catholic Church is given a break.

I appreciate that he’s trying to do something more than his usual shocking violence and gore. I also appreciate that he spends more time than usual creating beautiful images. Most of the film was shot on location and there are some truly beautiful landscapes that he lovingly captures. But if I’m being honest it isn’t all that interesting to me.

I’m not entirely sure why this qualifies as a Giallo. Outside of it being a murder mystery, it has very few of the hallmarks of the genre. But whatever, it is worth watching just to enjoy Fulci paying attention to the story for once.

I previously reviewed Arrow Video’s Blu-ray release of Don’t Torture a Duckling for Cinema Sentries.