"Blood and Black Lace"
Hell yeah, Mario Bava is the shit. As an admitted superfan of all things 70s and Euro--particul
ary things of Italian origin--it's a shameful fact that I spent a good amount of time nutting all over Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci movies before I even recognized the name of Bava, a grand pioneer of all things I'm "into," who was doing this shirt perfectly in the earlier 60s. Over the past few years, however, I've been able to rectify this matter by hounding down the bulk of his cinematic output (I highly recommend the two box-sets put out by horror fan favorites Anchor Bay). There have been countless words written about this film in particular by much more talented and knowledgeable dudes than myself, so I'll just sum up the entirety of the viewing experience by comparing it to giving your eyeballs some acid and then scaring the shit out of them, while your eardrums just chill with that joint you sold them and try to bang heartless Italian chicks sporting those glorious 70s Euro-titties. If that sounds like a good time, then get into this movie hard. If that sounds like a bad time, then you're weird and I'm totally not into you reading my blog anymore."The House with the Laughing Windows"
Here's one kind of in a similar vein to "...Black Lace" in that it's Italian, atmospherically spooky and more than just a little bit "trippy" in that way that only European genre films of the 60s and 70s seem to be. I read about this one in the fantastic 100 European Horror Films, the same book that introduced me to long-ignored surrealist gem "Malpertius" and essential bathroom reading for anyone who really does give a shit about good movies and good
bathroom reading. This one was a tad bit disappointing, though. It certainly had its fair share of quirky characters and cool locations, but the pace was pretty laborious and the scares were a little on the weak side. It's not a bad puzzler by any means, it's just lacking in the gut-punching weirdness that I tend to gravitate towards, and I honestly found it hard to maintain interest long enough to really care about the totally unexpected moment where the dude-priest's lady-titty pops out. The gore, when it comes, is pretty top-notch though, and the male lead was uncharacteristically attractive enough to keep my g/f happy, which in the end keeps my penis happy by transitive property."Harlan County USA"
This shit is the real deal. Prob
ably one of the best documentaries I've ever seen, and a total emotional investment for any viewer with even a modicum of human compassion. Not much can be said about the plotline, seeing as how it's just some real-ass history involving poverty-soaked coal miners attempting to unionize against the wishes of asshole fat-cat blah blah blah blah blah. It's your basic Neil Young song, and it's pretty fucking intense. But hands down the best thing about this documentary is the fucking people. Completely disregarding all of the bullshit about both education and fashion that has been pile-driven into your brain by standardized testing and the fucking Vice magazine "Do's and Don't's," try to view these people as the 100% real-life human badasses that they are. Yes, they speak a po-dunk local dialect that could be devastating to the ears of an English professor and yes, they can sometimes look like mongoloid mish-mashes of teeth, hair and fingernails, but these people are the grime-encrusted underdogs that songs have always been written about. The men are tough, the women are tougher, and if watching this doesn't constantly remind you of hanging out with your dad's side of the family then you are missing out on a large chunk of what really does make America beautiful and I feel bad for you."Tell No One"
I'll let this one speak for itself. My boy Jojo recommended it to me and the only way to truly sum it up would be: IT DOMINATES. Some people might describe it as a French "The Fugitive" featuring a French Dustin Hoffman, and that'd be an OK description I guess. The last time I watched "The Fugitive" I was on an airplane and in a moment that I can only justify through the phenomenon of high altitudes heavily affecting the human emotional response, I began bawling my goddamned eyes out and shouting at the tiny screen embedded in the back of the person in front of me's seat "Get him Dr. Kimball! Fuck that one-armed dude!!" That was probably a weird thing to hear a dude wearing headphones yell at the inanimate object in front of him. Especially if he was crying. But I don't care because it was an international flight and the drinks were free and fuck fellow airplane passengers anyway. Who are they? No one you should give a shit about. The only time you'll really need to form some kind of genuine relationship with those dudes and dudettes is if your plane crashes in the mountains somewhere and you have to eat them. And even then, would you really want to know them on a personal level? I wouldn't. But anyway, back to this amazing movie. It is amazing. I watched it twice in two days. The chase scene alone is worth at least a rental. And it almost even made me like a U2 song. U2 blows, and has always blown so that's a pretty remarkable achievement. That's why I'm not even putting a picture up for this one. I just want you to go out there and watch it. If you aren't at least a little bit blown away, feel free to send me an email at youarestupid@andwrong.com.
OK, so that aforementioned rain isn't happening yet. I guess it'd be in my best interest, and the best interest of the company, if I went outside and banged out an hour or two of napping in the hammock before I leave for work. Peace.
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