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.”
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
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.
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.
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.
