Insomniac Theater Presents: Miike Madness

Monday, May 9, 2011 10:22:00 AM

Recently, a friend returned my DVD of 2001's twisted love story Audition.  Audition was my first exposure to the to the world of Takashi Miike; I had ordered it on Amazon (pre-release!) on impulse, based entirely on the blurbs. I watched it once, then put it in the cabinet with my rusty nails, hand grenades, dirty syringes of smack, Rush Limbaugh tirades, everything that tastes good and other unhealthy things and forgot about it.

I don't know what possessed my to take it out and share it with Steve; perhaps the perverse image of him watching it in his lovely, suburban living room replete with high def tv and the assorted bric-a-brac of normal family life contrasted with the white knuckle horror of the final act was too much for me to pass up. He returned it with clenched teeth and a “don't ever do that to me again” look on his face.

Updates from the cellar

Olivia and I just finished watching a colorized Night of the Living Dead; I guess she has gotten over our Takashi Miike fest (post coming soon).  NOLD is still the scariest movie I have ever seen.

Last week I watched Audition and Ichi the Killer and have never enjoyed being repulsed so much.  I also saw the latest Harry Potter film, but haven't found much to say about it.

Problems of Leisure

Last night I saw a commercial for X-Box  that used the Gang of Four song, "Natural's Not In It," from their 1979 debut album, Entertainment. The song is a fairly straightforward rant against consumerism, the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts, (Wikipedia). Even though the commercial only features the funky, grinding guitar break and no lyrics, which mock  society's attempt to find fulfillment by acquiring the newest pleasure toys.  By definition, this attempt to stay abreast is a never ending (or winnable) battle because the objective will always remain out of reach.

The problem of leisure

What to do for pleasure

Ideal love a new purchase

A market of the senses

Dream of the perfect life

Economic circumstances

Insomniac Theater Presents: Grindhouse and Exploitation Treasures

Tuesday, April 26, 2011 08:20:16 AM

This morning Gilligan at Retrospace, the best blog for looking at the world of my childhood, published another fantastic post called 1970s Grindhouse:  You Can't Go Home Again.  In between the newspaper ads for horror and sexploitation double and triple features, he speculates on the demise the genre and reasons why it has not experienced the renaissance many thought it would.  

“ So, with Machete, Piranha 3D, and Drive Angry tanking at the box office, can anyone out there deny that the public at large does not want this kind of smut? Don't blame Hollywood. When it's offered in the theaters, no one goes to see it.  It's a sad example of how you may want things to be as they were, but you can never go home again.”

Heavy Rotation on my iPod: The Who, Live at Leeds

I opened a door into my past when I wrote about The Kids are All Right, the 2010 tale of lesbian love, lust and infidelity in sunny California.  While Juliane Moore has herself quick one while she's away, I found myself missing the music I listened to and loved when I was a teen-ager

Laura and the Vampires from Space

My friend Laura recentlywrote the following in her blog Buffalo. Asparagus. Love. :

Vampires in space would be a really stupid idea for a story....

Vampires in space would always be asleep, or always awake, or at their most dynamic, a lot like narcoleptics. 

 Queen of Blood, Planet of the Vampires, and Life force are the three that immediately came to mind. I am sure there are plenty more out there (please feel free to add to the list in the comments).

I had to respond, but could not come up with anything more intelligent than my paltry list and that her mother smells like elderberry wine.  To add insult to injury, she also made me a mix CD that is pretty rocking.  I seldom get mixed CDs so it was a real pleasure to recieve it, but again, it left me creatively stymied.

Then I had an idea, solve both at once.  Cheap, easy, and with a little luck, she would be pleased to have a CD that is the soundtrack for her own space vampire movie! 

Laure und der Raum Vampire is a startling and original film.  German science fiction films from the late sixties, especially with vampires, are a rarity, but writer and director Reid Hotz managed he create such a film

And what a movie!  Visually rich in that mod sixties, won't the future-look-really-cool style and a swinging soundtrack by Clause Harmony (the Mozart of Porn), Laura and the Space Vampire is worth watching just for those alone.  But has plenty plenty more to recommend it.

Starting off with an explosion on a space station at the edge of the Solar System the action doesn't let up until the breathtaking, for 1968, special effects blow out at the end of its 99 minute running time.  Hotz's iconoclastic view of the future turns several genre conventions on their side.  For example, the men are not square jawed, karate expert intellectuals and the women aren't, well, space stewardesses whose major purpose is to get rescued in the final act.

The nightclub scene from Laura 

The soundtrack can be downloaded here.

A question for the for the Horror Blogger community

Even though I have been blogging for a year, I am still a newbie.  One place that I wish I knew more about was how to make my sites more interesting and appealing to visitors.  I also would like to knoiw more about how to use advertisements.  Also, how about the...

I am not putting this here to ask a bunch of specific questions.  I want to ask only one:  could you please tell me what resources were particularly helpful in creating you magnificent page? Websites, books, 1-976 number?

As I posted to Cyberschizoid this morning, "It would be great if the Google had a hand book for blogging, instead of insisting that members should simply Google their questions to get answers."  I have been very frustrated with mining the blogger forum for answers; mostly I find other posts asking the same question I am asking, unanswered.

This the biggest problem I have with the Open Source philosophy; the learning curve for support is pretty high.  This isn't supposed to be a complaint, I am enjoying what I am doing and hope to continue.

Thanks

M

Thirsty for Love, Sex, and Murder

Turkey's 1972 thriller, Thirsty for Love, Sex, and Murder (aka Aska susayanlar seks ve cinayet, directed by Memet Aslan) is a pleasurable novelty. It is a thrill to see another country's take on familiar genres and formats, adding their unique cultural stamp.  The fact that Thirsty for Love is from a country that I know so little about makes it especially delightful.  I know nothing about the Turkish film industry's output form the early 1970s.

At heart, it is a melodramatic,  giallo, from Turkey.

A couple of quick ones

Last night my wife and I watched The Kids are All Right, the one without Keith Moon.  I am talking about the 2010, Lisa Cholodenko drama with Juliane Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Annette Bening.  Even though I was thoroughly prepared to scream out "Long Live Rock!" in full mod regalia, I was surprisingly not disappointed by the family drama we watched instead of the 1977 documentary about The Who.

The Fall of the House of Usher, 1928

"Psychadelic at times, this unusual and memorable movie version of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" has some creative details, and although it is one of the more obscure versions of the story, it offers a distinctive look at a couple of its many interesting aspects. The style is deliberately murky, and it has not so much as an inter-title, so that you do need to know at least the basic plot in order to understand what is happening. Check out the Jean Epstein version, too (also 1928).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018873/"

From the Internet Archive