Callan is a serious minded and intelligent spy show that came out of Britain in the late 1960s. Edward “The Equalizer” Woodward plays a reluctant, obstinate but gifted (and handsome) killer who works for a shadowy government agency called The Section. Morals, plots and allegiances are ambiguous and you’ve really got to pay attention to appreciate the twists and plotting.
The thrills here are more subdued and psychological and Callan lacks the gadgets, cars and big explosions of typical spy fare. Not surprisingly, the recommendation came from good friend and spy aficionado Matthew (of the blog Double O Section) who also set us up with the similarly intelligent and complex Sandbaggers, which came to BBC a decade later.
Only the third series, the first in color, and subsequent are released on DVD, so if you do Netflix these prepare yourself to be dropped in the middle of major story arch – but don’t worry, you’ll figure out what’s going on in no time.
The centerpiece of Stretchin’ Out in Bootsy’s Rubber Band is the fantastic “I’d Rather Be With You”. It’s an absolutely perfect example of the kind of slow groovy/sexual innuendo/hip swaying spectacle that is funk at its best. A live, jammy, white-caped version is also worth a looksee.
I’d Rather Be With You, despite being a huge hit, was (blissfully) left off the play-lists of the oldies stations we grew up with, so it’s been spared the obnoxious overplaying that’s crippled so many genre classics and feels as fresh and exciting as the day it was made – but, even though I’m devoting so digital ink to this one song, I don’t want you to think that the rest of the album is mere filler.
Love Vibes (featuring the lovely vocals of Leslyn Bailey), Vanish In Our Sleep, and Physical Love – they’re all so much fun! Which is exactly what this album is all about, as is pretty clear from the rainbow font and motorcycle photograph on the cover. It’s absolutely perfect listening for the beginning of spring.
Before purchasing an original concert poster of the band Siegel-Schwall (from this week’s website pick, Wolfgang’s Vault) I was curious to know more about the unfamiliar band.
I found this phenomenal youtube clip where classical chamber music meets the blues and love it! Sadly it’s not exemplary of all their musical releases which (from a quick browse through iTunes catalog) seem more traditionally blues.
I have Ivanhoe Books to thank for introducing me to the incredible photo book Woodstock Handmade Houses. Each page has an image of the kind of quirky, bohemian interiors that pepper my wildest dreams: geodesic domes, reconstructed barns, stained glass, and Hobbit-like huts… there’s so much here to love and inspire flights of fancy of moving to deep into the woods and building my own home.
Authors Haney and Ballantine searched winding roads and hidden lots to find these amazing houses that represent a new kind of lifestyle that was popping up on the edges of society. Many images are below/after the jump for your enjoyment.
I think I like this Russian pop song (recently brought to my attention by Luke over on Rotating Corpse) most because of the complexity and depth of its lyrics.
It would seem that the goal of the latest local public service announcements is to make us sick to our stomachs with the consequences of our indulgent lifestyles (fingerless smokers or sodas made with human, bulbous, bile filled, reddish fat anyone?) but in Britian back in the 1970s they had their sights on the nation’s children, who time and again were shown the myriad ways they could be killed in every day situations.
The Apaches, a particularly gruesome film about a group of kids dying in various ways on a farm is a bit of a cult classic but the threatening drowning film “I Am the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water” is a favorite of mine (and I beg anyone with a heavy metal band to do a song with that title). There are tons of these on youtube (type in “British Public Information Films”); I’ve included some stills below/after the jump.
On a co-worker’s recommendation, I pushed the Diana Ross as young upstart fashion designer/model vehicle Mahogany to the top of my queue strictly for the over-sized jewelry (which, no doubt you know, I’m a big fan of – ever want to get me a gift, just type HUGE into the vintage jewelry section of eBay).
It’s a terrible movie, but the style is fantastic – plus, you’re exposed to constant flashes of the unbelievably broad smile of one the most charismatic men around (the great Billy Dee Williams) as well as a riveting and creepily realistic performance by go-to weirdo Anthony Perkins as a Machiavellian fame wrangler (at least, it feels accurate to me, though I’ve never personally been to the gun room of a Phil Spector type, but I imagine Perkins got it right).
The plot (which calls to mind a dumbed-down, simplified take on the story lines of Jacqueline Susann) is as thin as Ross, who plays “young” not entirely convincingly, but with an amazing amount of sassy charm – there’s a reason that this broad is a star! And there’s a reason her creation, Mahogany, is my style icon: it’s all kimono sleeves, rainbow gowns, jersey capes, feathers, statement hats, body paint, gonzo hairstyles, Egyptian influence, and sequined or Navajo wraps. LOVE IT. There are a good many stills to peruse below/after the jump.
You might recognize Hausu from a viral video I blogged about months back. Surely, you might assume, the entire movie can’t be as insane as that clip of the killer lampshade and those images of severed limbs and demonic cats… but if that’s what you assumed, I’m happy to report that you are so, so wrong.
To describe this film as crazy, schizophrenic, bonkers, and wild is a gross understatement; it’s an excess of experiments that will blow the mind of the viewer and open the doors of perception to any artist (especially those working in film and video) to just how far the boundaries and tropes of the medium can be pushed… It’s basically the craziest thing I’ll probably ever see and my grand kids will probably hear tell of its cinematic insanity.
What happens is this: a group of school girls go to visit one of their auntie’s for vacation. Before you know it, a decapitated head jumps around and bites a girl’s butt, an old lady has an eyeball in her mouth and dances with a skeleton, another girl is eaten and dismembered by a piano, and a man turns into a pile of bananas after enjoying some ramen with a bear. What, really, can you expect from a film that lives by the logic “Old cats can open doors, but only ghost cats can close them again.” The ghost cat in this case is Snowflake, the coolest Persian ever put on screen, who is frequently flung into the arms of actors by off-screen feline throwers. The movie certainly has a sense of humor.
Director Nobuhiko Obayashi is an experimental icon whose career only just began with this masterpiece of mayhem. His other titles include If She Looks Back, It’s Love, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Beijing Watermelon, I Want to Hear the Wind’s Song, and only just a few years back,Before That Day. While much of his work is even harder to come by than Hausu, here is a site that features some of his early experimental work. And despite what you or anyone might think based on the description, Hausu does not quite qualify as purely experimental. It was, in fact, a huge hit in Japan upon its release.
If you’re ever able to access a copy of this movie and you want to know what it might be like to be an insane person, do not let the opportunity pass you by; we have our good friends Matthew and Nora to thank so very much for the DVD-R we now proudly own. The IFC theater on 6th Avenue played it just the other night (sorry for not giving enough warning), in the meantime, gaze upon the stills I’ve gathered below/after the jump.
Fans of exquisite cinematography might be familiar with Bernardo Bertolucci’s classic The Conformist, scenes of which are frequently cited in serious discussions of the craft. It truly is a gorgeous movie and every single shot is an aesthetically pleasing piece of art. Photographer Vittorio Storaro‘s work here inspired Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather films.
The art direction and costumes, as well as the acting is all phenomenal. You might recognize Jean Louis Trintignant from the bizarre gialli, Death Laid an Egg, his love interests (Dominique Sanda and Stefania Sandrelli) are as lovely as the photography.
Of course, a movie is more than just the sum of its cinematography and leading ladies and this is one quite odd and coldly effective. I’ve never read the book by Alberto Moravia, but if it matches the tone and mood of Bertolucci’s adaptation, I’d assume it shares much with the work of Kafka and Sartre, although the specific horrors depicted here (giving up one’s identity and soul to a Fascist regime in order to fit in) are far from metaphoric; this story comes out of a very real and very recent chapter in Italian history.
It’s always been hard for me to believe that Pumping Iron is a great movie, not just as a piece of bizarro kitsch, but a respected documentary that frequently tops reasonable peoples’ lists of their favorite films… until I watched it, of course. The film, set during and before the 1975 Mr. Olympia competition in South Africa, follows the king of the sport, Aaanold as well as his upstart competition, a then sweet and dopey kid named Lou Ferrigno, his friend and fellow champion, Franco Columbo and other lesser known men striving to achieve success in the unique world of body building.
The movie shares much with some of my favorite documentaries: the well renowned The King of Kong and the criminally forgotten Derby in that it’s an intimate portrait of a small subculture that is strange to most of us; it’s always fascinating to get into the minds of people obsessed with what they love.
It’s a well made piece of vérité that’s infinitely quotable:
“It’s like I’m cumming all the time” – Arnold
“I’m the kind of person that’s like the kind of dog that’s going to bite back” – Mike Katz
“I was always dreaming about powerful people – dictators and things like that” – Arnold
“Milk is for babies. When you grow up you drink beer” – Arnold
After years of being unavailable, the DVD can now be widely purchased, so do enjoy!
Originally Aired 1967-1972
Bootsy Collins (1976)
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci (1970)
directed by George Butler and Robert Fiore (1976)