Someone has been digging around in the Norwegian film archives to unearth this little Archeological doc from 1999. I have my suspicions, as only one part 1 of 3 of The Goblin Man of Norway seems to be available at the Norsk Film Komite site (the other two are dead links), but it is gorgeously shot and scored, so have a look. It plays like Errol Morris meets John Carpenter and that is pretty darn sweet. The first 6 minuteas are embedded in the Twitch Player after the jump, or downloadable or streamable in the links below.
Continue Reading "What is The Goblin Man of Norway?"...
The folks over at DVD Drive-In have broken the news that Legend Films has acquired the rights to a number of back-catalog titles from Paramount, including Saul Bass’ mind-blowing man vs. ant saga Phase IV! Other titles skedded for issue via Legend include overlooked ‘80s gem The Sender (it’ll almost make you forgive director Roger Christian for Battlefield Earth), fondly-recalled genre spoof Student Bodies, and dystopian sci-fi must-see ZPG.
Legend has here-to-fore been known for budget re-issues and (gulp) colorized versions of classics, so here’s hoping their work on these titles will reflect the solid nature of the catalog they’ve acquired. Worth noting, too, that they’re home to work by MST3K alum Mike Nelson. Look for a release via Legend’s website on April 1st, and find them in stores this June / July.
You gotta love Turner Classic Movies ("TCM") for respecting the breadth of the term “classic”, applying it equally to silent films as to countercultural indies. Case in point: tonight’s doublebill of Twitch favorite Jamaa Fanaka, whose Emma Mae (aka Black Sisters Revenge, 1976) and Penitentiary (1980) are boasting their late night TCM premieres tonight at 11:00PM and 12:45AM PT (3 hours later ET), respectively.
I recently ran into TCM’s Director of Programming, Charlie Tabesh, at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, and welcomed the opportunity to congratulate him on his continuing creative programming; not only the Val Lewton retrospective a month or so back, on which I piggybacked The Evening Class Val Lewton blogathon, but the Charles Burnett showcase, tonight’s Fanaka double bill, and their upcoming June focus on Asian and Asian American representation in film. Let it be said in print that Charlie Tabesh is guiding the art of exhibition right into the 21st century by championing films that might otherwise never be seen. Though Fanaka’s films might not align with everyone’s notion of “classic”, their historicity is unquestioned and their impact on independent filmmaking seminal. Kudos to Charlie Tabesh for recognizing same! And a loving shout-out to my man Jamaa for his television debut!
Cross-published on The Evening Class.
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Monday, January 21, 2008), Turner Classic Movies ("TCM") is bringing the work of long-heralded independent filmmaker Charles Burnett to the forefront with a primetime marathon that kicks off with his award-winning 1977 drama Killer of Sheep. The marathon also includes Burnett’s 1983 feature My Brother’s Wedding, as well as three of his short films, all making their first appearance on TCM. TCM’s tribute comes as interest in Burnett is experiencing a resurgence, thanks in part to the long-delayed theatrical release of Killer of Sheep last year. Burnett will be featured during the primetime marathon introducing each film with TCM host Robert Osborne.
“To be able to present a slate of Charles Burnett’s films is a particular honor for everyone here at Turner Classic Movies,” said Charles Tabesh, senior vice president of programming for the network. “Burnett is a cinematic voice that needs to be heard, and there’s certainly no better day to introduce him to the many film lovers who haven’t experienced his work than on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We are proud to be able to show these amazing and very insightful films, as well as being able to pair them with a daytime line-up of eight classics celebrating African-American life.”
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Last year’s Palm Springs International Film Festival profiled the New Romanian Cinema with a sidebar that included 12:08 East of Bucharest, Love Sick, The Paper Will Be Blue, and The Way I Spent the End of the World. At PSIFF08 they followed through with this year’s crop: the Oscar-snubbed 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, California Dreamin’ (Endless), Icons and an archival treasure screening of Lucian Pintilie’s long-banned Reenactment, cited by many of the New Romanian filmmakers as influential upon their own work.
Paraphrasing the PSIFF08 program capsule, Reenactment was a critique of socialist realism and a reflection of the cruelty of the Communist authorities. The film was banned because, according to one critic, “It was dominated by a sense of the tragic … and nourished by a profound civil and cultural awareness.” It tells the story of Ripu and Vuica, students who celebrate one evening by drinking too much. They attack the bar owner and break a window. Days later, a policeman, a judge, and a film crew take them to the crime scene. Instead of spending time in jail, they must work as actors in a state-sponsored documentary about alcoholism where they will faithfully reconstruct the events of that day.
Film historian and critic Milos Stehlik of Facets Multimedia in Chicago introduced this rare title.
Continue Reading "PSIFF08: REENACTMENT (RECONSTITUIREA)—Introduction by Milos Stehlik"...
Aaron Woodley‘s Rhinoceros Eyes is a film that is well loved around here - an in Canada the DVD for this much delayed film has been out since August last year (keep in mind it won the Discovery award at TIFF in 2003!) A little tidbit from Aaron Woodley‘s website indicates that on February 19th, 2008 an American DVD is forthcoming. (FYI, the Canadian disc has a commentary track, a forty five minute doc by Woodley, and short film Downpour, but information is not available regarding whether or not more or less special features are on the forthcoming US DVD).
Stephen Randall, the Deputy Editor at Playboy magazine and editor of Playboy‘s monthly Interviews, has applied his editorial talents to compiling The Playboy Interviews: The Directors, published by MPress. He has selected 17 subjects who best represent a window into the creative minds of some of cinema’s true artists—alphabetically, Robert Altman, Ingmar Bergman, Joel and Ethan Coen, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Federico Fellini, John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, Spike Lee, David Mamet, Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Quentin Tarantino, Orson Welles and Billy Wilder—spanning nearly 40 years from the June 1963 interview with Billy Wilder to the November 2001 interview with the Coen Brothers. Eastwood and Stone are each interviewed twice, decades apart, to provide a fuller grasp of the span of their careers.
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Just walking in the door after a Rue Morgue ‘Cinemacabre’ presentation of a 35mm print (a reasonably clean one at that) of Fred Dekker‘s 1986 Rom-Zom-Com classic Night of the Creeps. Fred Dekker and actor Steve Marshall were in attendance (apparently they had not seen one another for nearly 2 decades, so there was a bit of an emotional reunion). During the Q&A that followed the screening, Dekker indicated that it is his wish that any forthcoming DVD has the original ending (occasionally seen on the TV and eBay bootleg versions of the film) involving the alien thread at the beginning (and sequel-open to boot); he is not happy with the studio imposed ‘jump-scare’ ending. Thus a nifty Director’s Cut of the film could be on its way in the future. Do not, however, expect that any time soon. Sony remains the rights holder of the picture and they seem to have no interest in doing any thing with Night of the Creeps in the immediate future. There is a certain enthusiasm in some quarters to harass and cajole the Sony folks to get them to release this (see Swarez’s post below) to a fan-base that would love to file aCreepsDVD either along side between Slither and Night of the Living Dead or more appropriately between David Cronenberg‘s Shivers and Ed Wood‘s Plan Nine From Outer Space.
Twitch’s own eagle-eyed logboy spotted David Miller’s icy, tightly-wound jab at Kennedy lore, Executive Action, up for pre-order on DVD. Fans of ‘70s-era American cinema and those with an interest in the JFK assassination are advised to give the film - a clear precursor to Oliver Stone’s live wire re-structuring of the events of November 22nd, 1963 - a look when it’s released by Warner Brothers on October 23rd.
No word on special features yet. Warner has a penchant for including vintage promo material on some these back-catalog releases so here’s hoping. Regardless, it’ll be nice to retire the old VHS copy once and for all.
Because I can never get enough of a good thing, and despite the fact that Jack Hill provided generous context and backstory to both Spider Baby and Pit Stop at Dead Channels Sleazy Sunday double-bill, I still had a few threads I wanted to pursue. He was gracious enough to grant me some time Monday morning before heading north to the wine country. We countered the cool San Francisco morning by sitting close to the overhead patio heaters at the Phoenix, until driven away by bullish cigarette smokers.
I won’t be the first to mention that softspoken Jack Hill does not come across as the man who was one of Exploitation Cinema’s reigning champions, proponent of tits and ass feminism, and blaxploitation classics such as Coffy and Foxy Brown. Perhaps it’s all the years of meditation he’s practiced that has allowed him to keep his career in moderate perspective and to persevere through the ebb and flow of popular appeal. He certainly comes across kind and centered.
Continue Reading "2007 DEAD CHANNELS—Interview With Jack Hill"...
Not only did Jack Hill provide killer prints of Spider Baby and Pit Stop for Dead Channels Sleazy Sunday double-bill, but he attended the screenings to introduce each film and to field questions afterwards. His audience, though slight, was respectfully enthusiastic, filling the Roxie Film Center with their audible appreciation. This was my first opportunity to watch Jack Hill films on the big screen and—along with my filmbuds Michael Hawley, Jonathan L. Knapp, Frako Loden, and Joe Loree—we agreed this Sleazy Sunday event was one of our favorites in recent memory. I’ve conflated his two introductions and his two Q&As into the following entry.
Continue Reading "2007 DEAD CHANNELS: JACK HILL ON…."...
It is time to grow that 5 O’Clock shadow and break out the dusty Stetson because this years Venice Film Festival is presenting a fabulous opportunity to take a look at some of the more obscure entries in the Spaghetti Western oeuvre. Restoring films from Pasquale Squitieri, Lucio Fulci, Giorgio Capitani, Eugenio Martin, Giorgio Ferroni and Riccardo Freda from mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, the festival is aiming at screening the films that have not been widely shown for decades. The festival is highlighting the bulk of the genre rather than placing emphasis on the sub-genres most famous director, Sergio Leone. (Note that Sergio Corbucci’s Django will be on display.) This sidebar is to be hosted by Quentin Tarantino.
Takashi Miike’s spaghetti-styled western Sukiyaki Western Django is also to be screened at Venice - In Competition - with the often delayed and re-edited Hollywood film, Andrew Dominick’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (which is not a done in the Italian style, but it is nice to see Westerns even made at all).
Venice Spaghetti Western Sidebar
Full Venice Line-Up
[Source: Reuters]
The good folks at Sony / MGM will be releasing William Wesley’s outstanding creature feature Scarecrows, reviewed here, on DVD September 11th, 2007. No concrete details on the disc just yet, though it’s rumored it’ll be a bare-bones release. No confirmation yet either whether it will feature the “R” or “unrated” version of the film. We’ll keep an eye and ear out.
Thanks to DVD Drive-in for the artwork!
