VW's Favorite DVDs of 2010: Bill Cooke

VW contributor Bill Cooke now offers a short list of some of his favorites of the past year. He's a film critic and teacher, corporate media screenwriter, video producer and the co-director of the horror film FREAKSHOW (1994). -- TL

By Bill Cooke

THE GREEN SLIME (1969, Warner Archives Collection)
This lunatic clash between astronauts and alien blobs -- a co-production between American and Japanese filmmakers -- is undeniably silly but a whole lot of fun. At last, the longer, English-language version is given a beautiful widescreen transfer by the folks at Warner Home Video, even if it’s only part of their manufacture-on-demand service.

STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR (1940, Warner Archives Collection)
The Warner Archive Collection strikes again with this great little prelude to the film noir movement. John McGuire stars as a witness to a murder case. Is poor little Elisha Cook Jr. really the killer, as McGuire originally thought, or is it the mysterious Peter Lorre—the Stranger on the Third Floor? Includes a bravura, expressionistic nightmare sequence.

COLUMBIA PICTURES FILM NOIR CLASSICS II (1954-1958, Sony)
This second batch of Columbia noirs might not be as essential as the first, but still contains a few gems for aficionados. In spite of the title, Jacques Tourneur’s NIGHTFALL (1957) is mostly set in bright, snowy countryside, and features Brian Keith and Rudy Bond as two of the most sadistic bank robbers a suffering noir hero ever met; PUSHOVER (1954) stars Fred (DOUBLE INDEMNITY) MacMurray in a fascinating echo of his old noir self as he destroys himself once again for money and a dame ( Kim Novak); Fritz Lang’s HUMAN DESIRE (1954) is an American update of La Bête Humaine, and features Glenn Ford as a railroad worker pulled into a mariticide; and CITY OF FEAR (1958) adds Cold War fears and a tense Jerry Goldsmith score to the mix, as hood Vince Edwards unwittingly carries around a stolen and volatile container of radioactive material.

THRILLER (aka BORIS KARLOFF’S THRILLER, 1960-1961)
Finally -- the most important gothic horror television series comes to DVD, complete and with a number of great audio commentaries by an all-star line-up of genre experts.

VW's Favorite DVDs of 2010: Michael Barrett

Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe, not keeping an eye on their little boy, in Lars von Trier's ANTICHRIST.

Next up with his list of favorite discs from this past year is Michael Barrett. Mike is a fairly new contributor to VIDEO WATCHDOG but has already distinguished himself with numerous reviews and, particularly, his well-received and widely-cited article "While We Were Dreaming: Millennial Unreality at the Movies," which appeared in VW 152. He also reviews for PopMatters.

By Michael Barrett

ANTICHRIST (Criterion)

Advice on grief therapy: don't go in the woods. Controversial among art-house types unfamiliar with the last 10 years of torture porn. I haven't seen those either (including PASSION OF THE CHRIST), but assume this fits in. Astoundingly stylish and mesmerizing, like a music video or commercial (that's a compliment).

THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX (MPI)

Like AVATAR and FANTASTIC MR. FOX, another course in modern terrorism. A giddy, riveting whirl dissecting public and private, state and individual violence.

DOLLHOUSE (20th Century Fox)

When your amnesiac heroine can become anyone, your show can do anything. With the second and final season now on DVD, Joss Whedon's head-spinning marvel is the acme of Millennial Unreality TV.

FANTASTIC MR. FOX (20th Century Fox)

Slightly preferred to PONYO or TOY STORY 3.

FANTOMAS (Kino on Video)

Louis Feuillade's series, with excellent commentary by David Kalat, is my favorite silent release in a year that includes Flicker Alley's similarly wonderful releases of MISS MEND, the original CHICAGO and CHAPLIN AT KEYSTONE.

ICONS OF SUSPENSE: HAMMER FILMS (Sony)

Most overall satisfying box of the year compared with 3 SILENT CLASSICS BY JOSEF VON STERNBERG, COLUMBIA PICTURES FILM NOIR CLASSICS II, OSHIMA'S OUTLAW SIXTIES, AMERICA LOST AND FOUND: THE BBS STORY, and ROBERTO ROSSELLINI'S WAR TRILOGY. Find out if I'm wrong.

MOTHER (Magnolia)

Korean Miss Marple gone very dark. Confident, stylish, disorienting, gripping, laced with deadpan humor, and of course about amnesia.

THRILLER: THE COMPLETE SERIES (Image)

My favorite classic TV box of the year, closely beating out SGT. BILKO, THE GOLDBERGS and ELLERY QUEEN.

THE WHITE RIBBON (Sony)

Black-and-white, literary, totally absorbing mystery of life in a pre-war village where sinister goings-on are going on. A strange what's-happening movie that may be compared with DILLINGER IS DEAD or SALTO, so please do.

YOU THE LIVING (Palisades Tartan)

Bleak skits, with jolly music and moments of wonder, about how we make ourselves miserable. Funny, sinister, surreal, compassionate follow-up to SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR.

A note on the rules: This alphabetical list is confined to things I saw for the first time in any form in 2010, or else it would look very different in a year of Kino's THE COMPLETE METROPOLIS and PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, Criterion's THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, RED DESERT, BIGGER THAN LIFE, MODERN TIMES and BLACK NARCISSUS, or Disney's DVD/Blu-Ray combos of FANTASIA and FANTASIA 2000. Along similar lines, I excluded any films about Leonardo Di Caprio dreaming of another Oz remake, although I liked 'em all. There was no way to shoehorn in MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW or Ozu's THE ONLY SON/THERE WAS A FATHER, so their incandescence goes unmentioned. And there you have it--only ten titles!

VW's Favorite DVDs of 2010: David Kalat

We missed last year because our heads (okay, my head) was elsewhere at the time, but I thought it would be an opportunity to reassert Video WatchBlog by asking our most frequent contributors to deck our halls with lists of their Favorite DVDs (or Blu-rays) of 2010. This first list comes from David Kalat, whom you may also know as the impresario behind All Day Entertainment, as the author of books on Godzilla, Dr. Mabuse and J-Horror, and whose exhaustive and entertaining audio commentaries appear on such discs as Kino's FANTOMAS, Masters of Cinema's METROPOLIS and THE COMPLETE FRITZ LANG MABUSE. More lists from other VW contributors will be posted throughout the week ahead, so stay tuned. - TL

By DAVID KALAT

This is ostensibly a Best Discs of 2010 list, but my options for selection are (self) limited.

If, for example, I were to encourage you to get INCEPTION (Warner) on Blu-Ray, I wouldn't really be commenting on it as a disc. I’d just be identifying that as one of the best movies of 2010. Similarly, anything I might say about MAD MEN SEASON THREE (Lionsgate) is not so much a comment on the discs themselves as an exhortation to watch MAD MEN on TV. Since this is intended as a best discs of 2010, I want to avoid the most current of items, so as not to indulge in mission creep.

Another problem: I was involved in the FANTOMAS set and the Masters of Cinema version of the restored METROPOLIS, so there's a conflict of interest. Obviously I would never write something like "Hey, I did the audio commentary on METROPOLIS with Jonathan Rosenbaum--you should go buy that!"

For that matter, these things represent low-hanging fruit. If you need this blog to tell you to get FANTOMAS or METROPOLIS, you probably aren't the kind of person who would read this blog.

I'll break my own self-imposed rules, though, to plug LOST KEATON - SIXTEEN COMEDY SHORTS 1934-1937 (Kino on Video). There's a whiff of conflict of interest to my recommending this, since my name's on the box. In my defense, I have no idea what I am supposed to have contributed. All I remember doing is making some suggestions about bonus features that then weren't followed. Kino has an ongoing Buster Keaton line-up, and I'm definitely in conflict-of-interest territory on some of these releases, but I feel OK saying LOST KEATON rocks. Keaton's talkie-era comedies are routinely slagged off by film historians and some books on Keaton contemptuously ignore these films altogether. Well, I say "phooey!" Don't compare these wonderful shorts to THE GENERAL, compare them to other talkie comedy shorts of the 1930s -- and you'll have to agree they have a integrity and personality unmatched by the competition.

I'll also break my own rules (that's the magic of self-imposed rules--it's easier to ignore them) to give my hearty recommendation to DOCTOR WHO THE COMPLETE FIFTH SERIES (BBC Warner) and SHERLOCK SEASON ONE (BBC Warner), even though I'm really just gobsmacked with love for having seen these on TV and have yet to break the shrink-wrap on the discs themselves. No matter -- these two shows were inarguably the most exciting, thrilling things to appear on any medium this past year.

Call it Steven Moffat worship if you must. The guy has a rare gift for reinventing familiar pop cultural figures in ways that pay deep tribute to their roots, yet feel fresh and new at the same time.

After more than 30 seasons and almost 50 years, DOCTOR WHO (under Moffat) somehow arrived with a deeper resonance and a brain-meltingly demanding plot intricacy never-before-seen. The new title sequence is duff, but the show inside is sparkly and wonderful. SHERLOCK manages to include nods to minutiae of the original novels without alienating newbies or feeling like fanboy service. The opening episode "A Study in Pink" samples the pieces of Doyle's A STUDY IN SCARLET and produces a 21st century dance remix, that echoes the original but is surprising and original at the same time. Take that, Guy Ritchie! Seriously, I saw the Ritchie monstrosity a few months before Moffat's version, and the comparison is ridiculous.

I know there are haters out there who see the Warner Archive as the video equivalent of the End of Days, but if you're upset that Warner felt there was too small an audience to justify a mass market release of, say, BREWSTER MCCLOUD, your gripe isn't with the Warner Archive but with the DVD buying public.

Me, I'm a full-blown convert to the Archive and its nascent cousins at Sony, MGM, Paramount, etc. VIDEO WATCHDOGgers have probably already found their way to obvious treasures like the remastered THE GREEN SLIME, but there's a gem lurking in the Archive back catalog in danger of being overlooked: Anthony Mann's THE TALL TARGET. This is an episode of 24, set in the 1850s, with the lone rogue agent battling a vast government conspiracy to protect the President (Honest Abe). Most Civil War-era movies sidestep racial issues or address them in cursory, insincere ways. This one goes head-on -- and does so in a subplot, handled in the margins of the tautest, tensest action thriller made before the 1970s you ever seen.

Speaking of non-traditional media outlets, if you like slapstick comedy and silent movies, then you should seek out Chris Snowden's Unknown Video. That's the name of a video label that "publishes" on DVD-Rs sold online through a blog. The latest entry, NICKELODIA 3, is a compilation of Really Old silent comedies from years whose first three digits are 191. Among the highlights is the brilliant "Versus Sledgehammers," which has a winning title, and then manages to live up to that title. But the world needs more sets like this... plus it comes with a spiffy Charlie Chaplin magnet!

It used to be that you’d need to rely on a non-traditional outlet to access something like HAUSU (HOUSE) on a DVD-R bootleg or file-shared download. But since we live in a world of infinite possibility, this cult gem has been given a deluxe rollout by the Criterion Collection in the US and Masters of Cinema in the UK. It’s a TEN LITTLE INDIANS-style old dark house thriller with Japanese teenagers killed by ghosts, but you don’t watch this for the plot. It’s a truly unique vision of horror that comes as close as any movie ever has to capturing a nightmare on celluloid. It’s more strange than scary, but no self-respecting fan of psychotronic cinema should go walking around without a knowledge of this loopy masterpiece.

If you have a choice between getting MOON (Sony) on Blu-Ray or DVD, opt for the Blu-Ray. This is meant to be savored on a big screen, so plug that BR disc into a home theater setup and settle in for a treat. It’s a head-trippy Millennial puzzle-box of identity confusion rendered in a 1970s-style DIY ethic of model miniatures and practical effects (and the least amount of CGI needed to hold it all together).

Speaking of tributes to 1970s cinema, BLACK DYNAMITE (Sony) sort of belongs to that same world as Larry Blamire’s Lost Skeleton movies in that it is a genre parody that perfectly captures the aesthetic of the original sources. What makes this extra special is how filmmaker Scott Sanders and star Michael Jai White manage to have their cake and eat it too. They don’t just parody blaxploitation movies, they also deliver the perfect example of a blaxploitation movie on its own crazy terms. Everything you might want from a Dolemite or Fred “Hammer” Williamson movie appears here, along with the jokes. Easily the single most entertaining thing I saw all year.

I know I’m likely to drop this recommendation on deaf ears with this crowd, but if you grow tired of SF and horror and hunger for a classic screwball comedy, the Warner Archive has resurrected Wesley Ruggles’ SLIGHTLY DANGEROUS. Lana Turner is an unhappy girl trying to make her way in the big city who hits on the bad idea of pretending to be an amnesiac—and this leads into her pretending to be the long-lost heir to a wealthy recluse whose daughter was stolen from him when she was just a baby. What makes this work is Turner’s superb performance as a reluctant crook caught up in a deception she doesn’t believe in and wants to end, but can’t—and character actor Walter Brennan giving a career-best performance as the anguished papa. I’m not going to bother complaining that Warner should’ve put this out on mass market instead of DVD-R, because I realize there is so little audience for something like this anymore. I suspect most of you reading this will say, “Eh, I don’t watch romantic comedies,” but you’re only cheating yourself.

Kim Newman already reviewed the Hammer Collection ICONS OF SUSPENSE (Sony) in a recent VW. I have little to add except to say that maybe many of you like me were so hungry for the restored (THESE ARE) THE DAMNED, you jumped on the Region 2 import from the UK long before the ICONS set came along, and maybe you are on the fence about whether the additional movies are worth the additional money to rebuy THE DAMNED. Hell, yes, they are! Maybe not MANIAC (you can comfortably skip that one) but the rest of the collection is absolutely worth duplicating THE DAMNED to get your grubby little fingers on. Excuse me, I’m off to rewatch CASH ON DEMAND. Happy holidays!

First Look: VIDEO WATCHDOG #160

The next issue of VIDEO WATCHDOG will take you on many journeys... to Camp Crystal Lake and Curious Goods in two respective in-depth studies of the FRIDAY THE 13TH series on film and television... up the Amazon and into an old dark house in two new releases from genre humorist Larry Blamire... to Stark Industries and to Allenby Manor in turn-of-the-20th-century London, where a young woman heiress inherits a family curse along with her fortune. All this, plus THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, THE LEMON GROVE KIDS MEET THE MONSTERS and much else besides!

More details can be found here, along with the usual clickable four-page preview. Enjoy!

Farewell to Monicelli

Please join me in bowing your head in memory of the great Mario Monicelli, who bade this world farewell today.

Best-known for BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET, he began his career writing comic screenplays with his longtime associate Steno, directed the first Italian film in color (TOTO A COLORI) and wrote and directed numerous comedies, two of which were shot by Mario Bava (VITA DA CANI, GUARDIA E LADRI). He was actively directing as recently as 2006, when he made a feature with Bava's grandson Roy working as his assistant director.

Today, at age 95, Monicelli leaped to his death from his Roman hospital window, a few days after being admitted for prostate cancer.

Ingrid Pitt, 1937-2010

My favorite Basil Gogos painting, executed for the cover of MONSTERSCENE #8, was in her likeness. I was never as dazzled by THE VAMPIRE LOVERS as other Hammer fans were, finding Ingrid absurdly mature to be playing a character so young and ethereal as Carmilla, but I always liked her COUNTESS DRACULA and thought she had her most exquisite moment onscreen in THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD -- if only THAT briefly evoked vampiress had a full feature in which to flex her wings!

But it is the flirtatious, warm-blooded, real life woman I am remembering now, from our meeting at the October 1994 Chiller Theater convention. She understood men and knew how to play them; in the few days we spent in the same hotel, we ate, argued, flirted and talked together -- about her early life in Poland and about the death of her SOUND OF HORROR cast mate Soledad Miranda, among other things -- and she spoke of her pain in ways that made me feel it too. When I checked out, she was there at the front desk to kiss me goodbye.

Ingrid Pitt was in fact the reinvention of a Polish girl named Ingoushka Petrov, born to obscene poverty in war-torn Poland, whose adolescence was scarred (as she told me) by peers who jeered her as "flat-chested." She was not only an actress but also a published writer and entrepreneur, with four novels and several more anthologies and memoirs to her credit. I heard she could be a shark in business, which I respect, as I do the fact that she managed to found a cottage industry out of being Ingrid Pitt, scream queen and survivor. Now the surviving is over and the enduring may begin.

Rest in peace, dear lady; you've left your mark.

Where I've Been, Where I'm Going

If you're looking to get my attention, putting my name on the cover of your magazine is certainly one way to do it. Yesterday I received the first two issues of THE JOURNAL OF INTERSTITIAL CINEMA, which its editors kindly sent to me, and I was pleasantly surprised to find my Millipede Press book about David Cronenberg's VIDEODROME the subject of an essay/review in the second issue. It's weird to see my own name and work sandwiched between "Great cheapskates of cinema!", "The obituary of a playing card!" and "Necksnappers!," I suppose because nothing seems more mainstream to me than me, but that's the beauty of it.

Published and written by (one assumes, the pseudonymous) Grog Ziklore and RJ Wheatpenny, JOIC celebrates the cinema that falls between the cracks not only of genre but of general notice. The first two issues strike me as an intriguing conglomeration of Steven R. Johnson's DELIRIOUS, Charles Kilgore's ECCO and Bill Landis' SLEAZOID EXPRESS. There's a tabloid element here ("Reel Tragedy," a look at an NYU film student's suicide, appears to be real reportage but reads like a comic item) but the writing is consistently intelligent. It's a pleasure to see people sidestepping the internet to inject some ink back into life and life back into ink.

The three-page VIDEODROME review doesn't mention who published the book, which won't make my publisher too happy, but people will be able to find it anyway. My guess is that RJ Wheatpenny reviewed it because he (I'll assume he's male) is legitimately interested in the subject and author, and not because he was sent a review copy. His cogent assessment of the film and the book concludes with a lengthy paragraph (anyone else would call it a page) about me, personally. I'm called "the father of modern genre film writing" and the Bava book is called "the best book ever devoted to a single filmmaker," which is very flattering, before Wheatpenny goes on to some closing notes on the current oddities of my career arc:

"After its publication [the Bava book] and the 2008 release of his VIDEODROME book, Lucas seems to have transformed in his own way. He still publishes and contributes to VIDEO WATCHDOG but is less of an influence on its tone, and he's ceded the magazine's prime real estate to a varied stable of contributors. His Video WatchBlog... is rarely updated anymore, and he now seems to prefer the instantaneous (and largely uncritical) feedback of constant Facebook updates... Judging from his online posts, he's more enthusiastic about music and script-writing today than the movies on which he's built his reputation, and although he's not abandoned them, he seems as set on a different creative course after his VIDEODROME book as Cronenberg was after releasing his film." (page 20)

Very interesting viewpoint, and not at all untrue. Its inaccuracies, if any, stem from Wheatpenny knowing the public me rather than the personal me. My Facebook page, where I've spent most of my public time this past year or so, is a personal page though it welcomes most everyone who asks to be admitted. Music has always been a passion of mine, equal to if not greater than my love for films, which have been my vocation. My FB wall is a vehicle that lets me express my thoughts about music, for which I have no other outlet, and also to interact with a large number of people. And just as I once used all my free time between issues of VW to work on the Bava book, I'm now working toward establishing a career as a screenwriter, though I don't actually discuss those pursuits much on FB.

Certainly, as RJ speculates, finishing the Bava book and publishing the Cronenberg book did something to formally close a big chapter of my life. From my own viewpoint, finishing the Bava book was like awaking from a nearly lifelong dream, wherein I had actually nourished the point of view that such a marginal obsession would be enough to hold and keep me for a lifetime. Many in my audience seem to think that completing these projects would simply free me up to tackle others -- a book about Jess Franco, for example. But not having these projects, especially the Bava book, to occupy me didn't have that effect; instead, I locked myself into this blog for awhile and continued to give and give and give, without taking anything in to nourish me. And I became aware that there were sides of life, of my own life, that I was not exploring and which were the only ways I could recapture the rush I felt when I was humming my way through a work in progress. So I made myself the work in progress. Swimming, vegetarianism -- I've told this story here before.

Being a published novelist as well, I also determined to redirect my life toward achieving something more as an artist in my own right, rather than writing about other artists. Because spending my life alone at home in front of the computer 24/7 was no longer all I wanted from life, my writing turned to screenwriting. (It's my informed view that neither VW nor my fiction is likely to support me through my old age, so as I near my autumn years, income becomes more of a concern.) I've been seriously screenwriting now for four years; I've written seven different scripts, including multiple drafts of each, and I've optioned two. The people who have read my most recent feature script, an adaptation of Orson Bean's ME AND THE ORGONE, tell me it's the best thing I've ever done. I've yearned for more creative interaction, but I don't like spending long hours writing the best possible version of a story only to see it thoughtlessly fudged by other hands, so my thoughts have had to turn to directing. It's the only way for me to ensure that I'll finally be judged for what I've written, rather than for what was rewritten. I didn't think it was in my personal nature to be a director, but now that I have experienced what one gains by being surrounded by a supportive crew, I've learned otherwise.

In a couple of weeks, I'll be returning to the Factory at the Douglas Education Center in Monessen, PA to direct my own first film work. The subject is an adaptation of my novel THROAT SPROCKETS, which could now be loglined as "MAD MEN meets TRUE BLOOD" though it was begun in 1987 and first published in 1994. When I met Guillermo del Toro at the Saturn Awards in 2008, he told me he considered THROAT SPROCKETS "the perfect MASTERS OF HORROR story." I'll be directing a promotional trailer and a representative dialogue scene from the book, which executive producer Robert Tinnell will then use to attract funding for the full feature, which we hope to shoot sometime next year.

I'm not even going into everything I've gone through in the last couple of years, but even this much disclosure should show that I haven't lost my interest in movies -- on the contrary, that interest has expanded to encompass much more activity, and activity in the truest sense. Meanwhile, VIDEO WATCHDOG continues to come out on schedule, I wrote more than half the contents of our 20th Anniversary issue (#158), and I'm constantly brainstorming new directions the magazine might take to keep it vital and growing as the marketplace continues to undergo radical change. But I thank RJ Wheatpenny for the interest shown by his essay and I recommend those of you on the lookout for a new and unique fanzine to give THE JOURNAL OF INTERSTITIAL CINEMA a try.

"We grudgingly have a website," its editors admit on the back cover. You can find it here while they remain on the technological fence, or beat the odds by sending US cash money ($3.00 for the 24-page #1, $4.00 for the 28-page #2) to Journal of IC, 387 Grand St. #902, New York NY 10002.

First Look: VIDEO WATCHDOG #159

Ever since we began VIDEO WATCHDOG, I've wanted to devote an issue to the art and artists of movie dubbing. Our next issue's interviews with Ted Rusoff and Peter Fernandez finally realize that goal. Interior contents previewed here.

THE DEVILS: Spanish DVD Report

Vanessa Redgrave as Sister Jeanne in Ken Russell's THE DEVILS.

I finally received my copy of LOS DEMONIOS, Warner Home Video's Spanish DVD of Ken Russell's THE DEVILS (1971), from Starscafe last week and was able to screen it last night.

First the good news: it preserves the film in what appears to be its accurate 2.35:1 ratio for the first time in any video format, and it's the crispest, clearest copy of the film on video to date; I couldn't stop watching it though I intended only to do a quality check. The precise black lines around every white brick in the city of Loudun are as visible as they should be. Now the bad news: it's non-anamorphic -- so the slim Panavision image remained but a frustrating sliver set in the center of my large widescreen monitor -- and it's the recropped, censored US cut. The image quality could be slightly brighter, but it is impressive in its recovery of the minutiae of Derek Jarman's brilliant set design and Shirley Russell's ornate costume designs at the very least.

The disc includes audio tracks in Spanish and English with removable Spanish subtitles. There are no extras. The running time is 103:37 in 25 frames-per-second PAL Region 2, which works out to 108m 2s in 24 fps NTSC. However, running time is no indicator of completeness as the US cut made use of substituted footage to cover offending sights while keeping the soundtrack intact. This is particularly noticeable during the convent orgy sequence and the burning of Father Grandier (Oliver Reed) in the film's closing minutes. The fact that this official DVD release, though Spanish, contains the US cut of the film very likely foreshadows a problem consumers will contend with in the event of a US release: the British cut is definitive.

Warner's OOP British VHS release, though zoomboxed at 1.78:1, remains the one to see for content, if you can find it, but this one has its own value as the most vivid memento of David Watkin's tremendous cinematography. Some unedited screen grabs follow. Click to enlarge.

The onlooker with the long blonde hair to the left of actor Michael Gothard is actually the famous fashion model Twiggy, a guest on the set.

The Only Reliable Film Magazine in the World, says Quentin Tarantino

My friend Daniela Catelli (the author of Italian books on THE EXORCIST and William Friedkin, and an Italian translator for parts of MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK) sends the following message from Rome:

"Thanks to Quentin Tarantino, now you’re famous in Italy! This is from the only independent newspaper in Italy, IL FATTO QUOTIDIANO, and it’s a small daily column written by Luca Guadagnino, a film director who’s in the Jury at the Venice Film Festival with Quentin Tarantino. You will find the scan attached, this is the translation:

“Here’s some advice from jury president Quentin Tarantino: The only reliable film magazine in the world is VIDEO WATCHDOG, a [bi]monthly publication that reviews only the films on DVD without submitting to the market rules. Instead, VW follows the taste and the analytical depth of his founder, the greatest film historian Tim Lucas, author of – Tarantino claims – the best book on films ever written: MARIO BAVA ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK. Tarantino-Lucas-Bava: cinema is truly without borders.”

I'm most grateful to Quentin, whom I've never met and with whom I've never spoken, for these astounding, purely unsolicited and heartfelt words of praise. There are three huge compliments in that little paragraph. Color me blushing.

So come on, you Tarantino fans... embrace paper! SUBSCRIBE!

Audio Commentary Alert

I've been delving into Image Entertainment's forthcoming THRILLER box set ($149.98, streets August 31) in preparation of writing a detailed review. There aren't many audio commentaries on the first two discs, but I recommend Steve Mitchell's interview with director Arthur Hiller on the series pilot "The Twisted Image." It's pretty good -- a little dry, occasionally off-topic, but informative just the same.

Sadly, the Richard Anderson commentary for "The Purple Room" episode of THRILLER (its first Halloween offering and first true horror episode) is an embarrassment.

Moderator Steve Mitchell asks Anderson what it was like to work with Boris Karloff during the filming of the intro sequence, and Anderson tells him... but with the episode digitally restored, it is now painfully obvious that Karloff is acting in front of a rear-screen projection of Anderson and the other cast members! Therefore, they never met -- at least not during the filming of this episode! (As a commentator in this set myself, I can understand how Steve made the mistake in formulating his question because we commentators were recording while viewing reference prints in much poorer condition than is purveyed here. My old TV copy of this episode, too, makes it look like Karloff and the actors were all standing on the same soundstage.)

Furthermore, Anderson recalls thinking "PSYCHO!" when reading the script. Well, PSYCHO was released in June of 1960, and "The Purple Room" aired in late October 1960 and was obviously filmed some time earlier... still, I guess this MIGHT be possible... but when Anderson notes that the episode makes use not only of the PSYCHO house (true) but the PSYCHO interior including the stairs (BONG!), he makes anything else he says for the remainder of the track, well, regrettably suspect. As a speaker, he is one of those people with a talent for saying a lot but with very little actual content.

Late in the episode, Anderson admits to never having seen it. On the positive side, he's quite good in it.

First Look: VIDEO WATCHDOG #158

In VIDEO WATCHDOG #s 114 and 132, Bill Cooke covered the entire Johnny Weissmuller catalogue of Tarzan pictures. In the forthcoming VW #158, film journalist Frederic Lombardi makes his VW debut with a critical overview of the five Tarzan films made immediately following Weissmuller's departure -- starring Lex Barker, Cheeta and five different Janes! All of these films, as well as the follow-up adventures starring Gordon Scott, Jock Mahoney and Mike Henry, are all now available from the Warner Archive Collection.

Also in this well-rounded issue, I wax nostalgic on my life-long love affair with the poster for THE ASTOUNDING SHE MONSTER (1958), Shane M. Dallmann tackles a host of recent genre blockbusters (SAW VI, HALLOWEEN II and ORPHAN), Kim Newman is tickled by William Grefé's Floridian frights STING OF DEATH and THE DEATH CURSE OF TARTU, Ramsey Campbell burrows into the horror western THE BURROWERS, Douglas E. Winter documents the shortcomings of the soundtrack releases of Michael Mann's MANHUNTER, Constantine Nasr reviews Bill Warren's gigantic KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES - THE 21ST CENTURY EDITION, and my "Watchdog Barks" editorial ponders the escalating absurdity of the Blu-ray supplemental extra.

Go here for a preview of the issue, including four free sample pages and a complete rundown of what's inside!

Remembering Peter Fernandez

I regret today's announced passing of legendary voice artist and director Peter Fernandez, best-known to the general public as the voice of Speed Racer, at age 83 after a reportedly long fight with lung cancer.

Like many of his colleagues a seasoned radio actor, Peter became one of the main voice staples of the New York-based Titra Sound studios, which resulted in his perenially youthful voice -- which aged sublimely into what David White earlier today characterized as "a gravelly tenor" -- being heard in countless American International pictures imported from Italy and Japan (everything from BLACK SUNDAY and ALAKAZAM THE GREAT to MOTHRA and THE LOST WORLD OF SINBAD), as well as dubbed imports like ULTRAMAN, SPACE GIANTS, GIGANTOR, MARINE BOY, PRINCE PLANET and, of course, SPEED RACER.

He went on to direct the English versions of numerous European import features in the 1960s through the '80s, including CINEMA PARADISO and various works by Lina Wertmuller. He continued to work as a voice artist/director as recently as Nickelodeon's COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG in the late '90s, and last appeared onscreen as one of the racing commentators in the excellent live-action feature SPEED RACER a couple of years ago. He was also a very nice man.

GIRLY and GOODBYE GEMINI reviewed

Judy Geeson and Martin Potter as two siblings born under a bad sign in GOODBYE GEMINI.

Here is a link to my review of Freddie Francis' GIRLY and Alan Gibson's GOODBYE GEMINI, two psychological horror pictures from 1969 and now available on DVD from Scorpion Releasing, which is featured in this month's issue of SIGHT & SOUND.

FILM COMMENTs on Video WatchBlog

My sincere thanks to Ben Simington, Paul Brunick and the editors of FILM COMMENT magazine for including Video WatchBlog on their new list of "The Top Film Criticism Sites." Forty or so other sites were so honored, and with this article including such prestigious bloggers as Glenn Kenney, Dave Kehr, Paul Schrader, Matt Zoller Seitz and Gary Tooze (whose impressive DVD Beaver is referred to as "the next generation heir to Tim Lucas of VIDEO WATCHDOG," making me wish, in my advanced years, that I could bequeath him some of my bills as well as my legacy), to be part of this roll call is a major professional compliment.

Update: Paul Brunick informs me that the list has also been cross-published at SLANT Magazine's The House Next Door blog, click here, which offers a more attractive presentation, share widgets and user comments.

Happy Ba Steele Day

My god it's all so lovely when you can go out and it's a Wednesday and the sun is shining down like golden buttah and you're 23 and brown as toast, sitting outside at a quaint little trattoria with Alberto Moravia, who wants to write a screenplay for you -- molto piacere as long as I don't have to crawl out of another freaking coffin or come oozing around the side of another marble column! Prego, cameriere, another bottle of Valpolicella -- affretatevi, if you please! Federico may be calling!

The Buried Pleasures of SUSPIRIA

Every Dario Argento fan, upon seeing SUSPIRIA for the first time, reacts to this shot of Suzy Banyon (Jessica Harper) entering the secret domain of Mater Suspiriorum with the same gleeful note of recogition. Here the art direction seems to pay specific tribute to Argento's directorial debut, THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE [L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo, 1970]. But upon reviewing parts of the film again, I noticed something I hadn't caught after I don't know how many viewings.

In the opening scene at the Freiberg airport, we are given this subjective shot of the exit, whose double glass doors precisely mirror the double-doored art gallery entrance where Tony Musante is trapped to witness the attempted murder that sets BIRD in motion. Since this scene was not actually shot at a real airport, it is quite possible that this exit was literally composed of the same set components as were used in the earlier film.

Another celebrated SUSPIRIA moment among the eagle-eyed is this almost subliminal image, from Suzy's point of view, as her taxi drives her through the Black Forest. As a flash of lightning casts unbidden shadows, we see what appears to be a maniacal hand wielding a wicked blade.

I've always considered this flash -- which exists outside the main narrative but serves to make the night appear full of unimaginable horrors -- to be one of the movie's moments of real genius. It looks so spontaneous but it must have been extremely well planned. But again, while revisiting SUSPIRIA recently after I don't know how many viewings, I happened to catch another subliminal during the taxi sequence -- possibly unintentional -- for the first time.

Right after Suzy presses a piece of paper bearing the address of the Tanz Akademie to the glass separating her from the taxi driver (Fulvio Mingozzi) -- another glass barrier! -- there is yet another flash of lightning, revealing yet another subliminal. What? Didn't catch it? Here, have a closer look...

Yes, that's a reflection of Dario Argento himself, evidently directing the scene from the back seat of the taxi! To the best of my knowledge, no one else has previously documented this hidden image (if so, I'll happily credit them) and it's a particular delight to discover after all this time. It makes me wonder how much still remains to be unearthed from the endlessly rich textures and scenics of SUSPIRIA -- buried references to all of Argento's previous features, perhaps?

I can cite two other examples right away. If something seems familiar about Albert (Jacopo Mariani), the malevolently grinning child in the background of this shot, it is because Master Mariani wore the same, or very similar, shoes and socks when he previously stepped into frame at the end of the startling pre-credits scene of DEEP RED [Profondo rosso, 1975]. My thanks to Thomas Rostock for confirming this in his note below. And isn't Daniel (Flavio Bucci), the school's blind piano teacher, an echo of Karl Malden's Franco Arno in THE CAT O' NINE TAILS [Il gatto a nove code, 1971]?

I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I suspect this film still has much left to reveal.

A Better Beginning: Reprinting VIDEO WATCHDOG #1

Publisher/art director Donna Lucas restoring the images accompanying a discussion of HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN in VW's first issue.

While VIDEO WATCHDOG magazine has been marking its 20th anniversary, VW publisher Donna Lucas has been quietly engaged in one of the greatest restoration projects in the magazine's decades-long history. No, it's not the ultimate exposé of how CATACLYSM became part of THE NIGHTMARE NEVER ENDS, nor is it a meticulous comparison of five different versions of Jess Franco's LA COMTESSE PERVERSE... it's Donna's own painstaking digital recreation of VIDEO WATCHDOG #1.

When we decided to reprint our premiere issue, Donna's first idea was to scan the contents of a surviving copy and turn it over to our printer. Simple, right? However, the realities proved more complex. First of all, the original paste-up boards used to create the issue -- with PMT (photo mechanical transfer) illustrations affixed with spray adhesive to windows cut into each laserjet-printed page -- were long missing. Secondly, the original print job was so clumsily executed that a straightforward scan yielded typographic results that were somewhere south of acceptable. Fortunately, a thorough search of the attic at Chez Watchdog yielded a box of considerable value, containing not only the original layout boards but also most of the original illustrations and drawings that Donna used to create this landmark issue back in 1990.

Original artwork by Stephen R. Bissette and yours truly awaits its chance to be rescanned.

The discovery of the original artwork, as well as some photographic material, proved to be a real godsend to this undertaking, as the scanning of the PMT images, whether from a printed copy or from the original PMT's, tended to throw up some nasty moiré patterns. However, by meticulously rescanning each layout page in high definition from the original sheets, and inserting completely fresh digital scans of the issue's stills and original art from the original materials whenever possible, Donna has ensured that the 20th Anniversary edition of VIDEO WATCHDOG #1 will be much more than just a reprint.

"If you were to ask me what percentage of the pictures are now in better quality, I'd have to say 100% of them!" Donna explains. "Even when I didn't have access to the originals, I removed specks and dots and flaws from what I had to work with. Some pictures that were badly cropped in the original, like the center spread from SUCCUBUS, will be seen in this new printing as they were meant to look the first time. Likewise, some pictures that were too dark in the original issue, like some of the shots from CUT AND RUN, have been brightened, so you can now see the actors' expressions and can tell what's going on in them. We are also printing this new edition on paper that's consistent with the way VIDEO WATCHDOG is printed now, so it will be light and flexible in ways the original wasn't."

The text in the issue has not been changed. The only variation that has been made to the issue in terms of content is its back cover. Whereas the original edition showed an image from the Jess Franco film THE AWFUL DR. ORLOF, the reprint edition offers a scan of the same back cover image taken from Donna's and my own personal copy, inscribed to us in gold by Franco and his wife and longtime associate Lina Romay.

"I've always felt that our first issue stood apart from every other issue we did, in terms of quality control -- or the lack of it," Donna says. "When our readers receive this new, improved version of #1, I think they're going to feel like their collection is complete for the first time!"

Orders for the 20th Anniversary edition of VIDEO WATCHDOG #1 (at the printer) are now being accepted here and at our toll-free number, 1-800-275-8395.

FIRST LOOK: VIDEO WATCHDOG #157

Donna is just now putting the final touches on the inside covers, but the front cover -- an image of Romy Schneider from HENRI-GEORGES CLOUZOT'S INFERNO made still more scintillating by Charlie Largent -- is ready for unveiling!

You may note that this is indeed our 20th anniversary issue and, for the first time in those 20 years, my name is on the cover. Other contributors like Kim Newman and Steve Bissette have had this honor, but this is a first for me, in this country anyway. For those of you who have been clamoring for me to write more for VW, I actually wrote more than half of this issue -- the Franco essay alone is our longest single-piece feature article ever, practically novella-length at 34 pages (advertising free, of course), plus there's three-page "Watchdog Barks" editorial and I also reviewed some films, including CLOUZOT'S INFERNO. So no one can say I didn't give this anniversary issue my best shot.

Also in this issue, David J. Schow performs a post mortem on FEATURES FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, a book that McFarland and Company withdrew from sale slightly more than a month after its publication date. It's our longest book review ever! Plus Kim Newman on SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD, John Charles on some Paul Naschy rarities, and much more. For more details, visit out Coming Soon pages here.

Press Release: It's Official

DIRECTOR IRENE MIRACLE AND AUTHOR/PUBLISHER TIM LUCAS OF VIDEO WATCHDOG TO COLLABORATE WITH THE FACTORY DIGITAL FILMMAKING PROGRAM AT DOUGLAS EDUCATION CENTER

'The Baggage Claim' Will Begin Filming in Late July 2010 at Douglas Education Center

MONESSEN, PA., May 17, 2010 – On any ordinary day, walking into the The FACTORY Digital Filmmaking Program complex at Douglas Education Center (DEC) would be both exciting and imaginative - as students learn the building blocks to develop a positive career in filmmaking. These days the ambiance is absolutely electrifying as students and teachers gear up for this summer’s “The Final Product” production.

Golden Globe-winner Irene Miracle (director of DAWNLAND: CHANGELING as well as an actress noted for such films as MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, Dario Argento’s INFERNO and PUPPET MASTER) and students from The FACTORY Digital Filmmaking Program at DEC will team up to produce THE BAGGAGE CLAIM in late July 2010. The film is based on a screenplay by Tim Lucas, Saturn Award-winning writer/publisher of VIDEO WATCHDOG magazine, and the cult fiction favorites THROAT SPROCKETS, THE BOOK OF RENFIELD, and the epic biography MARIO BAVA – ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK. THE BAGGAGE CLAIM will be produced under the auspices of The Final Product - the last course students enrolled in The FACTORY Digital Filmmaking Program at DEC will take prior to graduation. “The Final Product exemplifies the Factory’s philosophy of immersing students in a real world production situation by teaming them with working filmmakers on viable projects,” said FACTORY director Robert Tinnell. Previous productions have been directed by Tom Savini, whose make-up effects school is part of Douglas Education Center, as well as by Tinnell, an industry veteran whose directing credits include FRANKENSTEIN AND ME and whose screenplay for THE LIVING AND THE DEAD will be directed by Brad Anderson in the coming year.

Irene Miracle is eager to begin collaboration with DEC. “What delights me about Robert Tinnell and The FACTORY Digital Filmmaking Program at Douglas Education Center is the feeling of being surrounded by an incredible number of like-minded poetic creators, and that together we’re all aiming for the stars. That may explain why this little film we are planning will be so crowded with people, quick scene changes, and a heart beat that takes the world into a quick dance.”

Screenwriter Tim Lucas notes, “I sat down and wrote THE BAGGAGE CLAIM in a single sitting, in longhand, hardly changing a word as I typed it up. Irene loved it, and when Robert Tinnell came aboard and we saw what was possible with his resources at DEC, we revised it together with an eye to those possibilities. It was one of the happiest writing experiences I’ve ever had.”

Lucas goes on to say, “In some ways, THE BAGGAGE CLAIM is an opportunity for a group of artists experienced in horror to speak more warmly to our audience by sharing what we’ve learned about life and relationships by this point in our lives, while telling a story in an unmistakably fantastic vein.”

DEC students enrolled in The FACTORY Digital Filmmaking Program will have a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience in a variety of positions during the creation of the digital production of THE BAGGAGE CLAIM. All aspects of filmmaking will be put to use while students work hand-in-hand with film industry professionals. Education and experience will be used in the field in a green screen environment.

“My students and I are thrilled to be working alongside this wonderful group of film professionals,” said Robert Tinnell. “There is a tremendous need for students to have practical, hands-on film-making experience prior to graduating into the real world of professional filmmaking, and I am very pleased that DEC is creating an atmosphere where creativity and learning are one in the same in achieving that aim.”

For more information, call 412-684-3684 or visit www.dec.edu.

Here's a link to the actual press release.

Joseph W. Sarno 1921-2010

Joe Sarno and his wife/assistant Peggy Steffans Sarno, photographed in 2002.

Michael Raso of RetroSeduction Cinema has contacted me with the sad news that writer-director Joseph W. Sarno passed away this evening at his home in Manhattan after a short illness. He was 89.

Sarno toiled in the sexploitation industry, but I dislike referring to him as a sexploitation or even an exploitation director, though his films were certainly sold this way. In films like SIN YOU SINNERS (1963), SIN IN THE SUBURBS (1964), RED ROSES OF PASSION (1966), CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG AMERICAN HOUSEWIFE (1974) and ABIGAIL LESLIE IS BACK IN TOWN (1975), he introduced to American "dirty movies" new and serious dimensions of human psychology and a profound sensitivity to female sexuality in particular. He may well have been the erotic cinema's first proponent of sexual experimentation, which he explored not salaciously but as an exposé of human relationships, yearnings and frailties. His films deal with infidelity, group sex, paganism, sexual accessories, encounter group therapy and, most recurrently, "mind-fuck" situations -- the kind that come about when a free spirit visits a conservative village and liberates its pent-up energies. (I once asked Joe if Pasolini's TEOREMA had been an influence, and he not only hadn't seen it, he'd never heard of it.) Above all, his films are about how people change other people.

Most of his work was shot in the state of New York, with the exception of a trilogy of Florida works made in 1968-69, though he sent his biggest shock waves through the genre with the 1968 release INGA, which introduced Marie Liljedahl and commenced a whole series of films shot in Sweden, where he and his assistant wife Peggy (who, as Peggy Steffans, had starred in the 1963 Adolphus Mekas film HALLELUJAH THE HILLS) "vacationed" every summer.

INGA was historic for filming what may well be the first authentic female orgasm ever shot, and Sarno's insistence on authenticity was one of the secrets of his success. He once told me that, in several of his softcore films, the actors had actual sex below frame to authenticate the passion in their lovemaking scenes -- and it can be felt. (As I think back over his work, for me, the most erotic moment may be a pointed glance between two lesbians who haven't yet connected in THE YOUNG EROTIC FANNY HILL, a moment that makes an otherwise subpar offering rewarding viewing.) Among his Swedish films are THE INDELICATE BALANCE (1969), DADDY, DARLING (1970), THE SEDUCTION OF INGA (1971), YOUNG PLAYTHINGS (1972, with Christina Lindberg), LAURA'S TOYS (1975) and BUTTERFLIES (1975, with Maria Forsa), all of which offer production values wholly on par with the work Ingmar Bergman was producing at the same time.

Aspects of fantasy and horror entered Sarno's work with VEIL OF BLOOD (1973), the LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS-like A TOUCH OF GENIE (1974), the Jekyll/Hyde spoof THE SWITCH, OR HOW TO ALTER YOUR EGO (1974) and SACRILEGE (1988). Beginning in the early 1970s, Sarno also very quietly began directing hardcore sex films under a series of aliases, but they all contained telltale thematic ties to the work of which he was most proud. Notable titles in this grouping include THE TROUBLE WITH YOUNG STUFF (1977) and the INSIDE films devoted to sex-stars Gloria Leonard, Jennifer Welles, Annie Sprinkle and Seka.

I first discovered Sarno's work at the drive-in during the 1970s, and I knew it was different and important then. Andrew Sarris recognized Sarno's value nearly a decade earlier, praising it in the pages of THE VILLAGE VOICE. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to champion his work to a new generation of fans in the VHS and DVD era, and even more grateful that I had the pleasure of speaking with him occasionally by telephone. This is a great loss for real adult cinema and, for me, a personal loss.

"Mata Hari's Filing Her Report..."

Anyone who knows and loves Dario Argento's SUSPIRIA will readily smile at the way those words sounded as they were spoken in the film by the catty, young ballet student Olga, played by Barbara Magnolfi... but in fact they weren't spoken by Magnolfi at all. This, and Olga's other great line ("Names that begin with S are the names of... SNAKES!"), were actually dubbed by the American actress Carolynn de Fonseca, whose eternally breathy, warm, girlish and schmoozy voice was a hallmark of Italian film dubbing for close to five decades.

It's my sad duty to report -- from her husband Ted Rusoff (the nephew of Samuel Z. Arkoff and a dubbing actor/director/legend in his own right) via VW associate editor John Charles -- that Carolynn de Fonseca passed away about six months ago. According to Rusoff, they worked together on "approximately 1200 dubbing projects over the course of 45 years."

For those of us who adore the Italian cinema and were raised on its dubbed imports, who mentally drew lines of continuity in accordance with the invisible family of voices they shared, this news is tantamount to learning that Vincent Price's wife in THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1963), Nevenka in THE WHIP AND THE BODY (1963), Cleo in TERROR CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE (1965), Aura in THE WITCH IN LOVE (1966), the eponymous narrator of THE WILD WORLD OF JAYNE MANSFIELD (1968), Edwige Fenech's ditzy best friend in BLADE OF THE RIPPER (1971), the nymphomaniac in SLAUGHTER HOTEL (1971), Maciara in DON'T TORTURE THE DUCKLING (1972), Gianna Brezzi in DEEP RED (1975), Anita Ekberg's KILLER NUN (1978), the Roman landlady in INFERNO (1980), the woman in love with the refrigerated severed head in MACABRO (1980), the mother with the breast-fixated zombie son in BURIAL GROUND (1981) and the tragic Frau Bruckner in PHENOMENA (1985, "These are the things that can happen in the life of a woman!") have all left us in one fell swoop.

A remarkable compilation of some of her dubbing credits can be found on her Wikipedia page here, and on her IMDb page here. She also made various onscreen appearances which are noted in these filmographies.

We send our sincere sympathies to Mr. Rusoff and our eternal gratitude to Carolynn de Fonseca for a lifetime of mostly invisible, yet highly distinctive, service.

"Her Mind Was the Most Erotic and Dangerous Part of Her Body."

Mimsy Farmer seduces Robert Walker, Jr., posing as her long lost brother, in ROAD TO SALINA.

... so read the US posters for Georges Lautner's largely forgotten ROAD TO SALINA (1970), which lingers, if at all, in the popular memory as an embarrassment made by an aging Rita Hayworth shortly before her retirement from the screen. I watched it tonight, for the first time uncut, and can't figure out why it has acquired such a low reputation.

It still awaits its DVD debut, so you can only see it via an old Charter Entertainment VHS or DVD-R, where it's badly cropped and less than smoothly dubbed, so that works against it... and yes, at 52, Rita Hayworth is no longer GILDA, but that's not the movie we're watching. Rita's actually fine, playing a delusional woman in middle age, sick with loneliness, who mistakes a young drifter for her son, missing for the past four years; Robert Walker Jr. (the son of one of Hitchcock's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, fresh from his near catatonic appearance in the commune sequence of EASY RIDER) is very watchable as the boyish, spaced-out protagonist with Clint Eastwood's DIRTY HARRY haircut, who decides to take a break from his bad luck and be mothered for awhile... but he soon gets sistered too. Mimsy Farmer is electrifying as the sexy, teeth-baring, peroxide pixie whose free and faux-incestuous ways tempt Walker to stick around for awhile in a "hot box" in the middle of nowhere.

I would argue that ROAD TO SALINA is exactly what a Seventies film noir properly was and should have been: the depiction of a steamy Venus Fly Trap that you or I might easily wander into, and not be too quick to extract ourselves from -- not another second-hand gumshoe story set in a Hollywood B-movie version of the 1940s.

8th Annual Rondo Awards Results

BEST FILM OF 2009 -- DISTRICT 9
BEST TV PRESENTATION -- "DOCTOR WHO": 'The End of Time'
BEST CLASSIC DVD OF 2009 -- AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON: FULL MOON EDITION
BEST CLASSIC DVD COLLECTION -- THE WILLIAM CASTLE COLLECTION
BEST TV COLLECTION -- "ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS" (S4)
BEST RESTORATION -- FAUST (1926)
BEST DVD EXTRA -- "Beware the Moon" documentary
BEST DVD COMMENTARY -- Fred Dekker: NIGHT OF THE CREEPS
BEST DOCUMENTARY -- AMERICAN SCARY
BEST BOOK -- BELA LUGOSI AND BORIS KARLOFF: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration by Gregory William Mank
BEST MAGAZINE -- RUE MORGUE
BEST ARTICLE -- "Bad Moon Rising" by Jovanka Vuckovic
BEST COVER OF 2009 -- MONSTERS FROM THE VAULT #26
BEST WEBSITE -- Dread Central
BEST HORROR BLOG -- The Drunken Severed Head
BEST CONVENTION OF 2009 -- MONSTER BASH (Pittsburgh)
BEST FAN EVENT -- TRIBUTE TO FORREST J ACKERMAN
FAVORITE HORROR HOST -- Count Gore De Vol
BEST HORROR PODCAST -- RUE MORGUE RADIO
BEST CD -- STAR TREK II: WRATH OF KHAN
BEST HORROR COMIC BOOK -- BATMAN: GOTHAM AFTER MIDNIGHT
BEST TOY, MODEL OR COLLECTIBLE -- Twilight Zone's "Talking Tina"
COUNT ALUCARD'S CONTROVERSY OF THE YEAR -- "No, but I can burn one for you." Studios offer some classics on DVD-Rs only.
CLASSIC MOST IN NEED OF DVD RELEASE OR RESTORATION -- ISLAND OF LOST SOULS
WRITER OF THE YEAR -- GREGORY WILLIAM MANK
ARTIST OF THE YEAR -- GARY PULLIN
FAN ARTIST OF THE YEAR -- ROBERT SCOTT
DVD REVIEWER OF THE YEAR -- KIM NEWMAN
MONSTER KID OF THE YEAR -- ELIOT BRODSKY of Monsterpalooza
THE MONSTER KID HALL OF FAME -- The six latest inductees are: Bill Lemon, Ray Meyers, Dennis Druktenis, Robert "Bob" Carter, Frederick S. Clarke and Bill Warren.

Rondo Voting Ends at Midnight Tonight

Hey, everyone! Today is the last day for voting in the 8th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards, so get right over to the Rondo website and cast your ballot! Vote for whomever and whatever you like; the important thing is to participate -- but naturally Donna, the Kennel and I would appreciate your votes for VIDEO WATCHDOG and its contributors wherever appropriate.

This blog has been extremely intermittent of late, so I would not feel right about accepting the Best Blog Award. I encourage followers of this blog to consider Pierre Fournier's Frankensteinia blog instead; it is in the truest spirit of these awards and got my vote.

I would also particularly like to remind you of the INFERNO screening at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, nominated as Best Fan Event. It was a great evening, we had an audience that snaked around the block, and a terrific 30m Q&A with Irene Miracle and Keith Emerson. I'd love for them both to have Rondos of their own!

Full contents details about our next issue, VIDEO WATCHDOG 156, including free reading samples, are now posted under Coming Soon on our website, or you can find yourself magically transported there by clicking here.

First Look: VIDEO WATCHDOG #156

Cover just completed -- isn't that a beauty? We will be posting full contents details and free samples on the website's Coming Soon page in the days ahead!

Frankensteinia, Edisonia, Fournieria, Rondomania!

Over at his Frankensteinia blog today, Pierre Fournier observes the centenary of the the Thomas Edison Company's FRANKENSTEIN (1910), featuring Charles Ogle as the Creature. On a more poignant note, this means, in a broader sense, that the Frankenstein movie, as a subgenre, turns 100 today. The mystery critic known as Arbogast on Film has selflessly spearheaded a movement to encourage voters to elect Frankensteinia as Best Blog of the Year in the current Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards competition -- and, as much as I think Mr. Arbogast is similarly deserving, I think Pierre's blog cuts more to the quick of Classic Horror, not to mention Monster Kiddom. You could do worse than to vote Pierre Fournier Monster Kid of the Year.

Rondo voting ends in less than two weeks! Visit the Rondo Awards website soon to cast your ballot! And please remember VIDEO WATCHDOG (and Best Fan Event nominee INFERNO Midnight screening) as you make your selections!

Farewell to Carol Marsh

I just learned from the Classic Horror Film Boards that CAROL MARSH, the British actress best remembered as Lucy in Hammer's DRACULA (HORROR OF DRACULA, 1958), has passed away at the age of 80. Marsh, who made a wonderful Alice in the 1949 version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, ironically passed away on March 6, the day after the release of Tim Burton's new version. As memorable as she was in both films, my favorite of her roles may well be her first, as the strangely feral innocent enamored of Richard Attenborough's kid gangster Pinky in BRIGHTON ROCK (1947, pictured).

Image from PRIX DE BEAUTÉ (1930)

There are many striking images of Louise Brooks in this movie -- happy, serious and tragic -- but I found the simple yet profound introspection of this one particularly striking. This movie was made on the cusp on sound (a silent version also exists), and it may be the movies' earliest attempt to depict the private relationship between an individual and their music. (The film could actually be described as a chronicle of the ironic role played by a favorite song in a woman's short life.) I was very moved by this camera composition, shot by the great Rudolph Maté, and by the actress's willingness to be this naturalistic and intimate with the camera when most other women in her profession were still striking melodramatic poses. This shot actually reminds me of certain similar moments involving Soledad Miranda in EUGENIE DE SADE and Thora Birch in GHOST WORLD. A full review is forthcoming in VIDEO WATCHDOG #156; available on Kino on Video, $29.95.

Get Rondo-ized!

"Don't hurt that Rondo, Rondo!" VW publisher Donna Lucas takes a protective stance outside the auditorium where the 6th Annual Rondo Awards were held at WonderFest in 2008.

In an effort to spread awareness of VIDEO WATCHDOG's various nominations for the the 8th Annual Rondo Awards, Donna and I (with the approval of our writers) have decided to make available -- for a limited time -- the complete texts of the four nominees for this year's Best Magazine Article award.

Stephen R. Bissette's "Let the Twilight In", an in-depth study of TWILIGHT and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, can be read here.

Eric Somer's "Down the Block from Bergman: THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and Beyond," an examination of the influence of Ingmar Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING on Wes Craven's THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, the recent remake, and other horror films, can be read here.

Kim Newman's "DVD Spotlight: MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION, a detailed history of the 1966-70 British TV terror anthology, can be read here.

And Shaun Brady's "Weird Scenes Inside the Fun House: The Making of MALATESTA'S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD," a production history of the 1972 Pittsburgh-made surrealist horror film, can be read here.

And here is a link to a special Rondo link page now added to our website, which also features direct links to a five-part HD video of my Q&A with INFERNO star Irene Miracle and composer Keith Emerson, which has been nominated for Best Fan Event.

Also, please don't forget to consider any of our many hard-working contributors for your vote in the Best Writer and Best DVD Reviewer categories, and remember that both our cover artist Charlie Largent and our art director Donna Lucas (whose layouts make VW's feature articles soar) are eligible in the Best Artist category.

Rondo Awards: 7 VIDEO WATCHDOG Nominations!

The nominations for the 8th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards were announced this evening, and I'm proud to share the good news that VIDEO WATCHDOG has been nominated for seven awards this year, including Best Magazine. Also, though I've been delinquent in my duties here for most of the year, Video WatchBlog has been nominated once again for Best Blog.

I'm especially proud of VW's showing in the Best Article category, with two first-time feature contributors netting half the nominations. The VW nominees in this category are:

"Down the Block from Bergman: The Last House on the Left and Beyond" by Eric Somer, VIDEO WATCHDOG #151.

"Let the Twilight In" by Stephen R. Bissette, VIDEO WATCHDOG #150.

"Mystery and Imagination" by Kim Newman, VIDEO WATCHDOG #151.

"Weird Scenes Inside the Fun House: The Making of Malatesta's Carnival of Blood" by Shaun Brady, VIDEO WATCHDOG #153.

Also nominated for Best Magazine Cover is Charlie Largent and Donna Lucas's cover for VIDEO WATCHDOG #147. Charlie's name alone appears on the ballot but all of the text and vertical stripe material is added by Donna after Charlie turns the central graphic in.

Though it's not a VW nomination per se, I'm also (even especially) elated to see that the INFERNO midnight screening at LA's New Beverly Cinema last October -- where I hosted a screening of a beautiful 35mm print of Dario Argento's masterpiece and interviewed the film's star Irene Miracle and its composer Keith Emerson before a sold-out audience -- has been nominated for Best Fan Event.

It's not every midnight movie, even in Los Angeles, that draws a crowd that snakes around the block -- and that night, the audience was packed with celebrities like directors Ernest Dickerson, John Gulager and David Gregory, writers F. X. Feeney and Richard Heft, West Coast horror cognoscenti galore, and legendary actor Clu Gulager right there in the front row! You can see the whole Q&A on YouTube by searching for "INFERNO Q&A." It was one of those evenings when magic really was all around all of us who were there, and I am overjoyed to see that magic spreading to the Rondo nominations! Rondos for Keith Emerson and Irene Miracle... how cool would that be?

Congratulations to all the nominees! You can find your Rondo Awards ballot and a full list of nominees here. Now vote!

Larry Blamire Tells Some of All

Larry Blamire. Writer, director. Actor, artist, activist. Lyricist, lore-icist. Husband, healer, skeleton wrangler. Callamo mountaineer, science doer, protector of deer. VIDEO WATCHDOG cover boy. (Yeah! Don't forget that!) Flim-flam man, flip-flop model. A median who has worked his way up from the early, lowly level of comedian. Glib habitué of screening rooms, Bronson Cave and barbecue pits.
But what drives him? What pushes him on to conquer mountain after molehill? Where will it all end, and will there be some goofy gag that we can only see if we sit through the end credits?

The undeflectible interrogators at Bantam Street recently cornered the handsome cotton-haired director of the classic LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA and the soon-to-be-released classics THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN and DARK AND STORMY NIGHT and refused to let him out of the hot seat until he had answered every last one of their questions.

Unfortunately they only came up with four and they weren't very good ones, but Larry -- being a professional -- gamely gave them his all. Then his al, and finally his a. If this had been ROLLING STONE, the cover would have read "Blamire Remembers" and the world would have wept.

But enough preambulating. Here's the goods.

Larry comes clean about his favorite classic TV show here.

Larry tells us the latest beans or spills the dope about upcoming Bantam Street projects here.

Larry takes us behind the scenes of his songwriting process here.

And finally, Larry confesses why he's taken to carrying a spoon with him at all times here.

So far, he's taking the Fifth on everything else, but I understand he's being grilled 'round the clock like an olive bread panini, so stay tuned to the Bantam Street website for more thrilling revelations as they are extemporized.

Stacie Ponder Interviews Me

... about blogging, horror and French head cheese on her outstanding blog Final Girl. Click here for the goods.

Greg Shaw and the Roots of Rock Fandom

Three years ago, Suzy Shaw and Mick Farber produced a book called WHO PUT THE BOMP: SAVING THE WORLD ONE RECORD AT A TIME (Ammo Books, 301 pages, $34.95), which collected the cream (or creem) off the top of the late Greg Shaw's seminal rock fanzine WHO PUT THE BOMP (1970-79). To be honest, I still haven't seen that book, so I must imagine its pros and cons from the largely enthusiastic customer reviews at Amazon.com, and some idea of that book is probably necessary to reach a fully accurate assessment of the recently released follow-up volume, BOMP 2: BORN IN THE GARAGE, subtitled "Greg Shaw and the Roots of Rock Fandom 1970-1981," edited by Suzy Shaw and Mike Stax (Bomp & Lit Publishing, 312 pages, $15.95). That said, I found myself completely and utterly absorbed in reading its articles and perusing its discographies, first as a reader and music buff, but foremost as a former fanzine publisher myself.

I don't know how the first BOMP book handled the backstory of the fanzine that, along with Paul Williams' CRAWDADDY!, launched serious rock criticism and inspired the likes of CREEM and ROLLING STONE, but BOMP 2 does a very thorough and self-contained job. The Foreword is by rock reissue producer Alec Palao (you can thank him for the ZOMBIE HEAVEN CD set), which in itself already says something about the fertile impact of WPTB on its readers; he reminisces about his early exposure to photocopies of the zine circulated among friends, which he consulted like "an oracle, where discographies are ancient runes, and the fragments of commentary, pearls of an ancient, knowing wisdom." The introduction by Kinks biographer Jon Savage deals more specifically with WPTB as a product of Greg Shaw (1949-2004), and as a product of its time, a time that also saw the issue of such classics of rock archaeology as the NUGGETS compilation, an album that might have been unthinkable without the audience Shaw had organized. In just a few pages, Savage covers a lot of frontal ground and also subtle subtext, such as how Shaw's enthusiasm was dissipated over time by the fluctuations of what was happening in music in the present tense, as a business and as a mutating beast of the music he loved. Then there's Mike Stax's amazing 12-page overview of Shaw's entire publishing history, including WPTB, the APA zines METANOIA, LIQUID LOVE and ALLIGATOR WINE, and the newsstand-circulated BOMP (including its unpublished 22nd issue).

Ken Barnes follows this with a detailed history of his own long involvement with Shaw and his creation, and other key personalities behind the scenes, capturing perfectly the feel of a time when records were a rare addiction and knowledge of bands like The Velvet Underground or The Seeds was like a secret handshake among a cognoscenti only able to identify itself being cultivated by rallying points like WPTB -- an audience largely recruited from the subcultures of comics and science fiction fanzines. Much of what Barnes writes about Shaw strongly resonated with my own memories of meeting and working with Frederick S. Clarke of CINEFANTASTIQUE, which was in its own way a cinema analogue to what Shaw was doing for rock. Artist William Stout (who also provides a magnificent cover) writes about Shaw's tenebrous involvement in his past life as the artist for some classic bootleg album covers, such as TALES FROM THE WHO. And then Greg's widow, Suzy Shaw, offers her own compelling, frank memoir of Greg and what has happened with the Bomp empire (which went on to include its own record label) since his death. All this accounts for only the first 40 pages of the book, which amply rewards your $16 investment (cheap)!

What constitutes the bulk of the book are scanned pages from WPTB's ten-year history, focusing on material germaine to what Shaw considered the bread and butter of his musical ethos: garage rock: The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Seeds, The Flaming Groovies, The Shangri-Las, The Cryan Shames and Dave Edmunds -- but also curiosities like Shindig, producer Jack Nietsche (Ken Barnes delivers the definitive study of this guy), Dutch rock and Beatles novelties. There's a LOT of information here, perhaps not ideally organized for quick retrieval, but the book certainly projects a world you can get lost in.

As a former fanzine publisher myself, and as someone who used to swap my rags for a great many sf zines, I was especially moved by what this book recaptures of that subculture in terms of its fannish mindset and cartoons (many of them by William Rotsler, who I didn't realize at the time was the director of MANTIS IN LACE, THE GIRL WITH THE HUNGRY EYES and many other genre-tinged sexploitation flicks) -- some of which my experienced eye recognized as having been traced onto mimeograph stencils! That said, for many readers, the most compelling aspect of this retrospective may well be its collection of Shaw's editorials (which chart the growth of his brainchild as well as the scene it helped spawn, and the friction between his quixotic musical sensibilities and what was happening in music at the time) and -- something evidently omitted from the first volume -- samplings from WPTB's legendary letters pages, which includes correspondence from such luminaries (and later luminaries) as John Peel, Lester Bangs, Lenny Kaye, Greil Marcus, Kim Fowley, Richard Meltzer, Ed Ward and Jay Kinney. (Might that letter from Tom Miller on page 160 actually have been written by the future Tom Verlaine?)

Any book that brings back to my nostrils the fragrance of mimeo sheets, typewriter ribbons, staples and fresh vinyl warrants my highest recommendation. I guess I'll be heading off to Amazon for Volume 1.

Post Mortem with Mick Garris

In this premiere webcast, presented in five segments, Mick Garris interviews Oscar-winning hair-raiser Rick Baker, most recently responsible for Benicio del Toro's makeup as THE WOLFMAN. Quality hosting by Mr. Nice Guy, who takes a more conversational/less intrusive-interrogative approach, and handsomely produced and directed by Mr. Even Nicer Guy, my pal Perry Martin. Check it out.

First Look: VIDEO WATCHDOG #155

For full details and a four-page, click-to-enlarge free sample, see the Coming Soon area of our website.