Disco Godfather (1979)

The fourth and last of Rudy Ray Moore's seventies starring vehicles, Disco Godfather (1979) represents something of a change of pace for Moore.  Gone is his usual 'Dolemite' persona, as is the usual stream of gags delivered in rhyme in favour of what seems, at first at least, an attempt at a more serious approach.  This time around, Rudy Ray is Tucker Williams, retired cop turned nightclub owner, the self-styled 'Disco Godfather', who is forced to exchange busting hot disco moves for crime fighting when drug sealers target his family.  After his nephew Bucky, an up and coming basket ball player, ODs on 'Angel Dust' and is hospitalised, Tucker declares war on this new blight upon his local community.  While on the one hand supporting various local anti-drug campaigns via his club, he also invokes his police reserve status, teaming up with his former boss to fight the drug suppliers on the streets.  Disco Godfather really is a curious collision of elements, clearly inspired by the popularity of the Disco craze, as epitomised by Saturday Night Fever (1977), the film's opening features Tucker, bedecked in white Disco gear, first of all DJ'ing at his club, ('Put your weight on it!'), before getting down on the floor to show off his moves, before quickly seguing into a social drama about the evils of drugs, finally morphing into an action-orientated crime flick.  That these elements sit together uneasily is to put it mildly.

The sermonising anti-drug messages of the sequences following Bucky's OD, with Tucker visiting him in hospital and being shown the various half-crazed long term 'Angel Dust' victims there by the head doctor feel particularly awkward in the context of the overall film.  Nevertheless, there is a genuine sincerity to these messages - Moore is clearly passionate about his cause here.  Tucker's concerns for the corrosive effects of these new synthetic drugs on his community are obviously impassioned.  This is the other side of the real Rudy Ray Moore: while his public persona might have been that of the brash 'Dolemite', a comedian who fearlessly delivered explicit and forthright material, in private he often spoke at his local church and took his mother to the National Baptist Convention.  This was a man genuinely concerned for his community, (it is notable that, even as 'Dolemite', in his films the character always seems to take time out from the pimping, shooting and bonking to right some wrongs in the community).  Sincere as he might be in his concerns, though, Tucker wastes no time in taking drastic action against the drug dealers.

The final part of the film sees  Rudy Ray return to familiar territory, as he Kung Fu kicks his way through various thugs and dealers, rousts pimps and prostitutes and dodges hitmen as unmasks a corrupt cop and finally penetrates the drug boss's 'Angel Dust' lab.  The fights are every bit as crazy as those in his earlier films, with Tucker single-handedly taking on henchmen by the dozen - just when it looks like he might be faltering, karate champion Howard Jackson (a regular in Moore's films, both as performer and fight arranger), just happens to be passing and offers him a hand.  'This as an 'Angel Dust' lab!' Rudy tells him. 'Great', replies Howard, 'let's kick some ass!'.  Just to add to the film's general weirdness, we are also treated to some truly bizarre 'trip' sequences, as Bucky and other victims suffer nightmarish hallucinations involving demons and ghosts.  Indeed, the climactic fight between Tucker and his associates and the gang at the 'Angel Dust' lab is intercut with scenes of the mother of one of the patients at the hospital trying to cure her daughter's addiction via exorcism, just to make the whole scenario even more surreal.  Finally, Tucker finds himself exposed to 'Angel Dust' by the bad guys and suffers a bad trip.

During this, he suffers highly traumatic hallucinations of his mother, but nonetheless keeps fighting, finally getting his hands on the gang boss, seeing him as a demon, attempting to throttle him to death before the intervention of a recovered Bucky.  These final trip scenes are enhanced with some animated psychedelic effects, rendering them even weirder.  By the end of the film, the early club sequences, with patrons getting down to those funky disco beats under the strobe lights, have receded far into the background, such is the shift in tone.  Despite the wild trips sequences and Kung Fu fights, as the film goes on, it becomes increasingly grim, with the hospital scenes, senseless murders of innocent victims and, finally, Tucker, although triumphant, still in the grip of his bad trip, screaming 'There's nothing wrong with me!' as the hospital ward beckons.  Unfortunately, the drama serves to show up Moore's limits as a dramatic actor, with him failing to convince in many of the later scenes.  To be fair, quite a lot of the performances are shaky, betraying the film's limited resources. That said, despite a low budget, the film itself has reasonable production values, the club scenes, in particular, looking good with nicely filmed and co-ordinated dance sequences.  The direction of one-time director J. Robert Wagoner isn't as solid as that of Cliff Rocquemore, who had directed the previous two Rudy Ray Moore vehicles, with a somewhat uneven pace, but is nonetheless efficient enough to keep things moving.

In the end, the biggest problem with the film is Rudy Ray Moore himself.  By the time he filmed Disco Godfather, he was in his early fifties and looks it.  His dancefloor scenes are uncomfortable to watch, like seeing someone's dad trying to 'get down with the kids' at the school disco.  While to, some extent, the fact that he is obviously middle aged helps some of the scenes of him in contemplative, world weary mode as Tucker begins to despair at the effects of drugs on his community, it also undermines, not just the dance sequences, but also the action sequences.  While we were willing to accept that Blaxploitation superman 'Dolemite' might be capable of these fantastical feats of martial arts, they just don't feel credible when being carried out by a more 'realistic' character.  Which isn't to say that Disco Godfather isn't entertaining.  While never hitting the heights of the sort of wildness seen in his, often anarchic, earlier films, it is still full of memorable scenes, with the slide into sheer whackiness in the last third providing an unforgettable experience.  The problem is that the elements just don't gel properly.  Nevertheless it still represents an interesting attempt on Rudy Ray Moore's part to break away from his established screen persona and formulas and try something slightly different and, indeed, more ambitious. 

Inside Argosy

OK, so here's my first attempt at scanning: some pages from this September 1958 issue of Argosy.  This is one of a batch I bought cheaply on eBay a couple of years ago - vintage US magazines seem to have little market in the UK, so when they turn up they can often be obtained at reasonable cost.  Argosy was one of the first all fiction pulp magazines, but, as the market for pulps began to dry up, it changed format to become a sort of upmarket man's magazine, printed on slick paper. This issue is pretty typical of that format.

This is representative of the sort of ads you'd find in the magazine during this period, emphasising its attempts to appeal to the 'rugged' male demographic interested in hunting and fishing.  Indeed, the issue includes several shooting and fishing related articles.

But just in case your man wasn't the energetic outdoor type.you could also order some 'high potency capsules' to 'perk' him up.  Although, I have to say that sleeping all day Sunday is my idea of a good time these days, so maybe I'm the target demographic...

This is one of the cover stories - 'Missile With a Man in It' - which is about the then new Lockheed F104 Starfighter, which, at the time of its introduction was considered pretty cutting edge in terms of jet fighter design.  Over the years of its service with the USAF, Canadian air force, Italian Air Force and Luftwaffe, it earned another nickname - 'The Flying Coffin', due to its high loss rate. Apparently, it wasn't an easy aircraft to fly, particularly at low altitudes and low speeds, (the short wingspan being ab issue).  Nevertheless, it remained in service with the Italians until at least the 1980s, so it must have had some virtues.

 

This is one of the supposedly 'true' stories carried by men's magazines.  This one falls into the 'Red Scare' category, chronicling the supposed torture methods of Hungary's then Communist regime.  It is illustrated with one of the magnificent paintings used in this genre of magazine.  Unusually for an interior illustration, it is in full colour - a characteristic feature of Argosy during this period.

Now we have an example of the sort of 'shock expose' beloved of men's magazines, this one concerning 'problem drinking'.  Mind you having highlighted the rising tide of alcoholism in the US, Argosy was still happy to [lug booze with full page, full colour ads:

Seen from a modern perspective, the prevalence of ads for alcohol, cigarettes and guns in these old magazines seems quite startling, but back then it was the norm.  (Well, in the US - in the UK we had the booze and fags, but not the firearms).

Speaking of guns, here's Argosy's regular column on the subject, reviewing some of the latest releases.  I know this just shows my prejudices here, but doesn't the column's author's name - Jeb Cole - just scream hillbilly?  I mean, I know that I've obviously been watching the wrong sorts of movies set in the US backwoods, but that just sounds like the kind of guy you'd find sat in a rocking chair on his porch, cradling the shotgun he's just reviewed.  Anyway, time to wrap this up with a look at the back cover, an advertisment for, well, guns:

This is just a sampling of pages from the September 1958 Argosy, but hopefully they give a flavour of the publication.  Maybe I'll do this again in the foreseeable future.  We'll see.

The Good, The Bad and the Living Dead

So, Ive been continuing my journey through a slew of low rent movies, courtesy of my Roku box.  This week I've already caught a couple of dubious horror films on one of those streaming channels that offer a variety of channels via the one app.  In this case, one of those channels is a linear ad-supported streaming version of Horrormax, showing, it seems, a selection of the worst movies from their library, (and that's saying something),  Anyway, I caught a double bill that kicked off with something billed on the EPG as A Haunting in New Jersey, which turned to actually be A Haunting in New England (aka Provoked, aka American Poltergeist).  From the off, this felt like one of those glorified 'home movies' we see too many of on streaming services nowadays, albeit with slightly better production values than average.  To be fair, it started reasonably well, with a team of TV ghost hunters drawing a blank at a supposedly haunted house.  Not an original scenario, but decently set up.  Following this disappointment, they try again, at a house whose occupants have been experiencing all sorts of weird shit.  Again, though, the team come up blank, with one of them so exasperated, he resorts to trying to call out the supposed entity haunting the property.  Inevitably, when he returns home, he finds that the entity has followed him home and it proceeds to menace him and his girlfriend with some low budget poltergeist activity.  The problem the film has is that not only does it never develop this idea sufficiently, but by taking this sudden plot turn, it abandons virtually all of the characters and the scenario it had spent the first half of the film setting up.  Various relationships and tensions between the team had been established, then forgotten about as it suddenly switched focus to only a single member of the team.  In the end, it chooses to follow an entirely predictable path, rolling to a completely unsurprising conclusion.

It was followed by Bruno Mattei's entry into the eighties zombie cycle, Hell of the Living Dead (aka Zombie Creeping Flesh and a plethora of other titles, depending upon where and when you saw it).  While largely inept, it at least has the virtue of being entertainingly schlocky.  While the credits proudly proclaim that the music is by Goblin, they don't mention that the makers were unable to afford to commission an original score, instead getting the rights to use a mash up of bits of Goblin scores from other films.  Which pretty much sums up the slipshod nature of the project.  Supposedly set in Papua, New Guinea, but, for budgetary reasons actually shot in Spain, it tries to convince us that we're in Papua by inserting bits of stock footage of jungles and wildlife.  Unfortunately, these seem to have been randomly lifted from wildlife films, possibly Mondos, with little regard for accuracy - I'm pretty sure, for instance, that there are no elephants in New Guinea, certainly not charging about in herds.  Just about every cliche of the genre is present: the jungle settings, the native village, the crack commando team composed entirely of trigger happy psychotics, Edward Mannix's voice dubbing their leader in the English language version and a plucky lady journalist heroine.  There's plenty of zombie action, with hordes of them being mown down by the commandos at regular intervals as they try to reach the mysterious chemical plant which lies at the centre of this outbreak of the living dead.  (This is another one of those eighties Italian films where people blast away with Tommy guns, a weapon obsolete for at least thirty years at this point - Italian props suppliers and armourers clearly obtained large numbers of them at some point and persisted in using them as props).  We even get a reprise of that recurring theme from Italian jungle films - that the best way to placate dangerous natives is by having a white woman bare her breasts at them.  Like I say, utterly slipshod, but hugely enjoyable.

Finally, yesterday I caught, courtesy of Otherworlds TV (a fairly obscure Roku channel that, nonetheless, shows some interesting cult and schlock movies across a range of genres), a 1969 Hong Kong action comedy crime movie Temptress of a Thousand Faces.  A wild and wonderful Shaw Brothers production, it pits a young police woman against the titular villainness, who is a master (or mistress) of disguise. It features furious kung fu fights, gun fights and car chases, with the villainness operating from a typically sixties underground lair.  Confusion abounds as she steals the heroine's identity to discredit her, particularly befuddling a pair of comic relief uniform cops.  As always with this channel, the print shown was of excellent quality, highlighting the excellent colour photography and decor of the underground lair.  It moves along at a breakneck speed for a  a very entertaining eighty minutes or so - it is well worth looking out for.

The Printed Word

Well, that was relatively painless.  I've just finished setting up a new printer.  Incredibly, it worked first time.  Mind you, I've only printed out a test page so far.  Moreover, I haven't tried using the scanner function yet, so there's still plenty of scope for frustration.  But, right now, all I want is to be able to print a document out.  Because that is the reason I've had to go to this trouble - I find myself in the position of needing to give a written response to a particular issue (which I might go into detail about once it is resolved), but having no means to produce a physical document with which to present this response in writing.  It isn't that I didn't have a printer.  It is just that it is so old that that there are no drivers available for it to work with anything above Windows Vista.  Which is a bit of a problem as my only available laptops run on Windows 10.  On top of that, as Lexmark stopped making inkjet printers many years ago, I very much doubt that I'd be able to find a compatible ink cartridge, even if I could get it to work with Windows 10.  So, a new printer was the only practical answer.  Did you know that, right now, new printers are like gold dust?  It is incredibly difficult to obtain one and, currently, very few models are available.  I finally managed to order a Canon via Argos, which arrived today.  

Apparently, these shortages of printers are worldwide and down to unprecedented demand thanks to so many people working from home during the pandemic.  Which doesn't really ring true - the whole point of remote working is that digitalisation means that physical documents aren't required - you just send them in appropriate format by email, or have them printed remotely at your workplace, (as I used to do when I was still working).  After all, we are living, so we're told, in the age of the 'paperless office', aren't we?  Anyway, the long and the short of it is that I now have a working printer.  All I need to do now is find things for it to print.  Like most people, I found my need to print stuff declined significantly over the years, which is why my previous printer went into abeyance.  Like most modern printers, however, this one also scans and copies, which will probably end up being its main role once I've got my pressing document printed off.  I have a fair amount of stuff - old magazines, books and model railway catalogues, for instance - which I'd like to include images of and from in posts here and previously I had to rely upon photographs of them taken on my phone.  Scanning them in would be a far more satisfactory solution.  If it works, that is.

Circus of the Stars

You see some strange things on the obscure streaming channels that I favour.  Last week I caught Circus of the Stars, originally broadcast on CBS in 1981.  Basically, it was US TV stars doing circus-type acts.  Marjoe Gortner has a truck driven over him, then crashes a motorcycle.  One of the daughters from The Waltons does a trapeze act.  A woman from Knot's Landing does escapology - she's tied to a stake and nearly set on fire.  And much more.  Lloyd Bridges, Angela Lansbury and Rock Hudson present.  I kod you not.  Apparently it was a regular event, running annually between 1977 and 1994.  It was clearly designed as a rival to ABC's Battle of the Network Stars, (an episode of which I also caught on the same channel), in which teams of performers representing each of the then three US networks competed against each other in sporting events.  Although we have a tradition of 'celebrity' versions of regular gameshows and contests, here in the UK we've never really had an equivalent to these sorts of shows.  Amusing as it might be to imagine, say, Arthur Lowe from Dad's Army representing the BBC, huffing and puffing his way to a heart attack in a sprint contest with Reg Varney from On The Buses for ITV, a British Battle of the Network Stars would never had been a goer. Particularly in the seventies, when we really only had two networks, (two of the three channels were both the BBC).  I suppose we've gotten close to Circus of the Stars with that Cirque de Celebrite show that ran for two series on Sky a few years ago, in which D-list 'celebrities' were trained in circus acts and competed against each other.  Which is where it differed from the US show in being a weekly elimination competition, rather than an annual special.

One thing I will say for these old US shows - beyond their sheer bizareness to UK eyes - is that at least they featured genuine 'stars', (ie, people actually starring in current TV shows), rather than the 'celebrities' (ie people who are famous for being famous, usually because they were on a reality TV series or YouTube), which tend to be favoured these days. It all adds to that sense of weirdness, to see Buck Rogers (Gil Gerard) in a running contest with Woz (Max Gail) from Barney Miller, or Robert Hays from Airplane trying to dunk Lou Grant (Ed Asner) into a barrel.  Actually, Buck Rogers was in the Circus of the Stars episode I saw as well, this time doing an act with elephants.  As I say, all very strange.  Borderline surreal, I'd say.  The longevity of these formats would suggest that they had enormous popularity amongst the viewing public.  But they do come from an era when US TV was dominated by three national networks, so huge audiences could be expected for special programming of this sort, (they tended to be scheduled to coincide with the Neilsen Ratings sweeps in Spring and Autumn).  Nowadays, of course, the TV market in both the US and UK has been fragmented both by the arrival of new networks, but also the advent of cable, satellite and streaming services, not to mention the plethora of repeat-based digital stations.  Would the chance to see someone from the One Show having knives thrown at them in a circus, or Huw Edwards taming lions, for instance, be considered 'special' enough by audiences to become a TV 'event' attracting them in their droves?  I somehow doubt it, with the number of distractions now on offer.

The Devil's Son-in-Law

Despite an interest in Blaxploitation films I only came to Rudy Ray Moore fairly late in the day.  For a long time I was aware of him mainly because of his energetic voice overs for Blaxploitation movie trailers, delivered, in  what might be described as rhyming couplets, in his distinctive gruff tones.  (His narration for the Dr Black and Mr Hyde trailer is particularly memorable - 'Don't give him no sass, or he'll kick your ass!').  Eventually, as I got into the genre more, I discovered that Moore had starred in a series of his own movies (also providing the voice overs for their trailers).  These films sit somewhat outside the mainstream of Blaxploitation, being very much vehicles for his 'Dolemite' stage persona.  Indeed, the key to appreciating these movies properly lies in understanding Moore's wider significance to American black culture in the sixties and seventies.  Prior to his film career, Moore was known principally as a stand up comedian, delivering most of his material in rhyme and in the character of 'Dolemite', a pimp and comedian who has fantastic adventures.  Not surprisingly his first, self-financed, film Dolemite (1975), concerned the adventures of this character.  Against the odds - he couldn't at first find a distributor for the completed movie - it became a popular success, resulting a sequel the following year.  This film, The Human Tornado (1976), was the first of the two Rudy Ray Moore films I recently watched.  In every way a better film than its predecessor, it might also be Moore's best movie.  It is certainly a lot of fun, particularly if you are a fan of Blaxploitation.

Kicking off with a taste of Moore's stage act, as Dolemite winds up a stand up tour in front of a club audience, the action quickly moves to his Alabama mansion where he is throwing a wrap up party.  Alerted to the fact that black people are having fun by a couple of hicks, the local redneck sheriff raids the party, only to find his wife in bed with Dolemite.  Facing a trumped up murder charge, Dolemite and his cronies (who include Ernie Hudson in a very early film role) flee to LA, where they get mixed up in a turf war between their friend Queen Bee and a local gangster and rival club owner, all the while trying to evade the sheriff.  All of this, of course, is just a framework for Moore to do his thing, which includes a non-stop recitation of profane rhymes, bizarre action scenes and even more bizarre sex scenes.  The film parodies just about every cliche of the Blaxploitation genre, replicating every sort of situation you'd expect to see in such a film, but executed in deliberately over-the-top fashion.  Dolemite himself is, in effect, the ultimate Blaxploitation hero - he's a successful comedian, a flamboyant pimp, an expert martial artist and a red hot lover, (in the words of the trailer: 'He's got a dong the size of King Kong!').  Interestingly, the one thing he isn't is a drug dealer.  Indeed, unlike many other Blaxploitation titles, drugs and drug culture generally don't feature in Moore's films.  Moore's fight scenes are neat parodies of those seen in other films, with supposed trained martial artist Dolemite flailing his arms around and jumping up and down wildly as he dispatches opponents.  The sex scenes are equally OTT, particularly the sequence where he tries to extract information from the gangster's wife by shagging her so hard the entire room starts collapsing around them.

While The Human Tornado successfully (and amiably) sends up the action and crime sub-genres of Blaxploitation, the second Rudy Ray Moore film I saw turns its attention to the horror sub-genre, as represented by films like Blacula.  Like The Human Tornado, Petey Wheatstraw - The Devil's Son-in-Law (1977), is directed by Cliff Roquemore and stars Moore as a successful and popular stand up comedian.  But while this time around he might be called Petey Wheatstraw, Rudy was a one character man and, like Dolemite, he delivers his act in rhyme, dresses flamboyantly and takes time out to right wrongs in his local community.  The plot sees Petey gunned down in a dispute with rival, mob-backed, comedians, but offered a chance to return to life and avenge himself by Lucifer, in return for agreeing to marry the Devil's incredibly ugly daughter and furnish him with a grandson.  To aid him in his revenge, Satan gives Petey temporary use of his magic pimp cane, which gives him near unlimited power.  Of course, being played by Rudy Ray Moore, decides to try and double cross the Devil.  Once again, the film rides along on a wave of Rudy's profane rhyming gags, punctuated by bizarre action scenes and some supernatural set-pieces where he harnesses the power of the pimp cane to exact vengeance on his enemies, (he uses it to force his rival stand ups to direct a stream of insults at their mob patron during their act, for instance) and a scene where he bonks a bevy of she devils into exhaustion.  The film's low budget often works to its advantage, giving some scenes a surreal edge, (the devil's minions, for instance, are represented by guys in leotards, wearing fright masks - their fights with Petey and his friends are consequently quite insane to watch).  While not quite as accomplished as The Human Tornado - it lacks that film's raw energy and inventiveness - Petey Whitestraw remains an entertaining and offbeat watch.

In the final analysis, of course, whether or not you like these films is very much dependent upon whether you like the brash persona and scatological, profane and frequently offensive humour of Rudy Ray Moore himself.  Personally, I like it a lot - his humour is both witty and insightful, although not for the easily offended.  Moreover, it always seems clear that he's never taking himself or his stage persona too seriously - it's all a parody.  Moore was hugely influential for a whole generation of comics like Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy (who played Moore in the 2019 biopic Dolemite Is My Name),  His use of rhyme in his act also earned him the epithet 'The Godfather of Rap'.  Despite the popularity of his films, by the end of the seventies he increasingly found himself playing supporting roles in other people's projects.  Frequently, he was reduced to performing cameos as Dolemite.  While he continued to perform and release comedy albums, the nature of his material ensured that he didn't get exposure in mainstream media.  Nonetheless, in no small measure thanks to his films, Rudy Ray Moore, (who passed away in 2008), retains an enthusiastic cult following.  If you haven't seen them, his films are well worth looking up.

Cinema of the Underdog?

So, we were talking about 'bad' movies I'd recently seen, weren't we?  Well amongst all the other weirdness I took in over the past couple of weeks, I caught a good dose of Blaxploitation.  Now, for many, the whole Blaxploitation genre belongs in the category of 'bad' movies.  While it is true that many of these films were made on shoestring budgets, with minimal resources, both acting and production wise, personally, I've always found the genre to have an energy lacking in many other, similar, films.  To be sure, I have seen some truly dismal examples of Blaxploitation, (The Man From Harlem, a film that really does play like a glorified home movie, springs to mind), but on the whole I've found them worthwhile experiences, often showcasing real talent, both in front of and behind the camera, tat couldn't, certainly in the seventies, find expression in mainstream cinema.  That's one of the attractions of Blaxploitation - it truly is the cinema of the underdog, the oppressed minority and the dispossessed.  Which undoubtedly explains its appeal across racial and cultural lines.  Certainly, when I first encountered Blaxploitation films, as a white teenager living in provincial Britain, they entranced me - I felt an outsider's sense of identification with their heroes.  They were generally downtrodden and abused, yet smart and capable, individuals who were sticking it to 'the man'.  You didn't have to be black to understand that as a teenager who wasn't part of the 'in' crowd in the late seventies.  (I hasten to add that, obviously,  I'm in no way trying to compare my provincial teenage experiences to the whole black experience).

One of the great things about Blaxploitation was the way in which it took more mainstream (and predominantly white) genres - horror with Blacula, gangsters with Black Caesar or private eyes with Shaft, for example - and filtered them through a black perspective, adding a whole layer of social commentary to familiar tropes and stories, whilst always remaining entertaining.  All of which brings us to the actual films that I watched, namely a couple of Rudy Ray Moore movies (which I'll deal with separately) and Detroit 9000 (1973).  Arguably, this latter film isn't a true Blaxploitation film, in that it has a white lead and a reasonable budget.  Even its main black protagonists aren't underdogs, but rather successful professionals.  It does, however, have a director with a background in Blaxploitation and does feature a largely black cast and, of course, is set in Detroit, a city that, only a few years earlier had been the scene of race riots and had a majority black population.  Nonetheless, it seems to have been inspired as much by tough cop pictures like Dirty Harry as much as by previous Blaxploitation crime titles.  Opening with a heist at a political fund raising function for an ambitious black politician with designs upon becoming state governor, it plays out as a gritty police procedural, with Alex Rocco's veteran detective Lt Bassett, still bitter at being passed over for promotion, (he finds that in the modern police force, just being a good cop isn't enough, promotion is instead all about politics), teamed up with Hari Rhodes' rising star Sgt Williams.  Interestingly, the film focuses less upon any racial friction between this duo of white and black cops, (Barrett hasn't been passed over in favour of a black officer, for instance, but rather a white former subordinate), and more on the wider politics of the situation.  Williams' main concern is that he is being set up as the fall guy for the police - if he finds the gang behind the robbery are black, he'll be accused of a cover up by the black community, whereas if he finds they are white, he'll have the white establishment accusing him of what we'd now call 'political correctness' in order to appease the black community.  

Ultimately, the film sets out to prove Bassett's contention that 'assholes are assholes' regardless of race.  Consequently, in the course of their investigation, Bassett and Williams find that everyone involved is crooked, corrupt or, at the very least, a hypocrite and that, in the end, self-interest always trumps race as a motivation for crime.  Even the two cops themselves aren't exempt from such scrutiny, with Williams' historical relationship with a hooker proving to be crucial and Bassett revealed to be desperate to find the financial means to send his invalid, racially bigoted, wife to a private care home.  Despite a gritty, shot-on-the-streets look, Detroit 9000 is somewhat more polished than most contemporary Blaxploitation movies, but nonetheless retains some of the slightly rough at the edges feel typical of the genre.  Director Arthur Marks moves it all along at a decent pace, with an effectively filmed chase and shoot out amongst various derelict Detroit locations, including an abandoned railway terminus and a cemetery driving the film to a morally ambiguous climax.  The acting performances are good, with Rocco, usually seen in supporting roles, often as a gangster, memorable as the gravel voiced Barrett, a man rapidly reaching the end of his tether, tired of departmental politics and torn between his duty as a cop and his duty as a husband. Finally, the lines between black and white, both literally in the racial sense and figuratively in the sense of right and wrong, are blurred.  It might not be a classic, either in Blaxploitation or wider cinematic terms, but Detroit 9000 is a highly enjoyable seventies crime movie.

So Bad They Are Bad

I seem to have watched a lot of bad films over the past week or so.  Of course, 'bad' is an adjective that can cover a lot of bases when it comes to film.  There are those that are poorly made, yet often still have some merit in terms of their ideas, characters or plot devices.  Then there are those that are 'bad' in the sense that they are offensive - they cover tasteless subject matter or controversial material in a tasteless way, (about the only films which make me feel this way nowadays are some of the 'Nazisploitation' titles). There are also the films that are so bad that they are 'good', in that their sheer ineptitude makes them endearing and entertaining.  Finally, there are those films which are, well, simply bad.  Into this latter category fall, in my opinion (and other opinions are available and might be equally valid), those films which seem to be overblown home movies made with mainly amateur casts who are friends and family of the producer/director/writer/director of photography/costume designer/teaboy.  (Such multi-tasking is less a sign of auteurism as it is ultra low budgets).  Not all micro-budgeted movies fall into this category - many are made by professionals wanting to make their own film independent of studios and financiers.  Often, these are pretty good and things like Amazon Prime and other streaming services, with their insatiable appetite for content, have provided them with a platform.  Unfortunately, they have also provided a platform for the amateur films, encouraging their makers to turn out yet more of them.

Now, the fact that they are home movies escaped into the wild isn't what makes them bad per se.  It is the fact that they are frequently knowingly bad, deliberately playing to the crowd who like to  watch such things 'ironically'.  That's what I really dislike about this type of 'bad' movie - that they are cynical attempts to create an instant 'cult' movie by people who clearly have no inkling of what it is that actually makes genuine 'cult' movies.  That, for instance, is what I disliked about Pervirella (1997), one of the 'bad' movies I watched, not that it was a largely amateurish glorified home movie, but that it was so clearly trying to be a deliberately 'so bad its good' film experience.  It had the air of something made by undergraduates who had seen every episode of 'Monty Python' and 'Rutland Weekend Television', yet had no grasp of why they succeeded, instead trying to replicate the 'zaniness'.  (To be absolutely fair, Pervirella does feature Jonathon Ross being decapitated and provides an ill-looking David Warbeck with one of last roles - he died later that year.  But none of this compensates for the feeling that you are watching someone's private joke - everyone involved clearly had a good time making it, but that doesn't transmit to the audience).  

Still, compared to Helen Keller vs Nightwolves, a film so bad I couldn't endure it to the end, Pervirella looked like a masterpiece.  Thankfully, the other 'bad' films I saw were more enjoyable - The Snake Woman (1960), Sidney J Furie's low-budget British b-movie, for instance, which feels like a provincial theatre company's dress rehearsal for Hammer's more accomplished The Reptile (1966), for example.  Or the deliriously bizarre Blood Freak (1971), in which a Vietnam vet hallucinates that he becomes a turkey-headed monster after smoking pot.  Not only is the monster wonderfully ridiculous, but the director keeps popping up in between the gore and violence to sermonise us about the evils of marijuana, finally collapsing into a coughing fit worthy of the Fast Show's Bob Fleming.  It's the best sort of 'bad' movie - one that those making it clearly didn't think was bad at the time.  So much more entertaining than the deliberately 'bad' variety.

Retirement Complex

I must be getting old: today I received an unsolicited mail shot from McCarthy and Stone, encouraging me to consider moving to their new retirement development on the edge of town.  That really isn't the sort of thing you want to get on a Monday morning.  I mean, I know that, technically, I'm semi-retired as, right now, I'm enjoying an extended break from working and even when I was last working, it was only part-time, plus I'm due to see a couple of work pensions start paying out in a couple of years time.  But I'm still quite some way off actual retirement age and getting my state pension.  But you don't actually have to be at retirement age to move into one of these retirement complexes - I'm eligible to buy a flat in the block my mother moved into a few years ago, for instance.  I think this reflects the era a lot of these places were put up in, the nineties and noughties, before the financial crash, when a significant number of people had good enough work pensions and private pensions that they could retire in their fifties, or earlier.  But I don't think that I'll be moving into one of these places any time soon.  Especially not one of the McCarthy and Stone built and run ones.  Apart from their new build prices being high, they are notoriously difficult to sell on due to the high service costs and ground rents.

To be fair, as far as I know, all of the big chains of retirement flat complexes share these features, not just McCarthy and stone.  The flat my mun bought is part of an older, independent complex.  Service charges and ground rents are about a third of those in the big chains.  Moreover, while more expensive, those flats in the big chain complexes are actually far smaller.  I know because, a few years ago, McCarthy and Stone put up one of their retirement complexes on my street, so I got a good look at them as they went up and see them daily.  Not only is my mother's living room about twice the size of theirs, but hers is also a two bedroom apartment, whereas most of those on my street seem to be single bedroomed, yet cost significantly more than my mum's.  (To be absolutely clear, her flat is in Salisbury, where property prices are generally lower than in Crapchester, but the comparison still holds if you look at the prices being asked local to her for similar retirement flats in the chain complexes).  Besides, if I do decide to move house, it wouldn't be to anywhere in, or close to, Crapchester.  I'm more minded to move back to my hometown, Salisbury.  I'd get more for my money there if I were to sell this house.  But, right now, I have no intention of moving into any kind of retirement flat, McCarthy and Stone or otherwise.  So their brochure went straight in the bin.

I, Monster (1971)

Despite the intriguing title, I, Monster (1971) is simply another re-telling of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.  Another attempt by Amicus to stray into Hammer's territory by producing a full-length Gothic feature, rather than their usual anthology films, the project yielded indifferent results, despite being a pet project for company co-owner Milton Subotsky.  Indeed, Subotsky was, arguably, the film's biggest problem.  His insistence on attempting to film it using an untried 3-D process which supposedly would have allowed audiences to experience stereoscopic effects without having to wear glasses, (according to those involved in production, only Subotsky could see the 3-D effect during rushes, everyone else experiencing headaches, instead), resulted in much footage having to be cut.  Consequently, the finished film runs only seventy five minutes, far too short for a feature at a time when most ran at least ninety minutes.  

Subotsky's adaptation of the source material didn't help much either - aside from changing the protagonist's names from Jekyll and Hyde to Marlowe and Blake and adding in some mild Freudian sub-text, it is pretty much a straightforward re-telling of the Stevenson story.  Unlike Hammer's attempt - 1960's The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll -his treatment doesn't attempt any kind of radical re-interpretation of the story and characters, something badly needed if I, Monster was to have any chance of distinguishing itself from the plethora of other adaptations.  Moreover, some of Subotsky's dialogue is pretty dire, defeating even the likes of Peter Cushing.  Nevertheless, the film's failure was, rather unfairly, laid squarely at the feet of first time director Stephen Weeks.  Despite the problems he had to deal with, Weeks does succeed in delivering a reasonably stylish looking film, bolstered by some decent performances from Christopher Lee as Marlowe/Blake and Cushing as Uttterson, (their presence alone indicate that Amicus saw this as some kind of prestige production..  Celebrated non-acting horror star and DJ Mike Raven also features.

Ultimately a hugely frustrating film - you can't help but feel it a missed opportunity for Lee to give another definitive horror performance, if nothing else - I, Monster does at least have a decent trailer.  I must admit that I haven't seen it in a few years, (it used to be a late night regular on British TV), but was put in mind of it by Talking Pictures TV giving it an outing in their 'Cellar Club' feature.  Despite its inadequacies, I, Monster is still worth a look, providing a fairly decent, in unsurprising, adaptation of the Stevenson story.

'Science is KIlling Your Love LIfe!'

Just for a change, instead of brutal Nazis torturing semi-clad buxom young women, this November 1961 Man's Action cover gives us brutal Cuban commies torturing semi-clad buxom young women.  It was a sign of the times that the 'Red Menace' was beginning to encroach on the previous monopoly Nazis had enjoyed for this sort of cover illustration.  As the sixties progressed, the location of this menace shifted from Cuba to Vietnam and China, (with occasional forays into Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe).  Indeed - assuming that this cover does illustrate the story 'The Commando Raid on Castro's Torture Fortress!' - it is interesting that, despite the story's Cuban setting, the scene has a definite Oriental feel to it, with the girl tied to a gong and the Far Eastern look of the torturers.  It might well be that this was a recycled cover, perhaps originally illustrating a similar story about Japanese tortures of young women during World War Two, but with some retouching to add the red star to one soldier's cap and the hammer and sickle in the background.  This sort of thing was quite common with pulp and men's magazines - those cover painting cost money, after all, and these publications were run on tight budgets, so opportunities to cut costs couldn't be passed over.

Otherwise, it seems to be the usual mix of adolescent male fantasies being catered to in this issue.  For once, notably, science isn't offering to increase your potency through new miracle pills, but rather is 'killing your love life'.  There's the usual World War Two heroics 'The "Battle Babies"! Combat Story of the 99th Division', along with the promise of riches: '$200,000 in Undiscovered Treasure!'  Plus the promise of sex with 'The Lustful Ladies of L'Esperance! Orgy at Prisoner's Bay'.  Ah, the allure of those sex-starved banged up bad girls, eh? Finally, let's not forget the photo feature promising readers 'The Most Beautiful Girls in the World'.  Man's Action was one of the longer lived men's magazines - it was still putting out issues until at least 1971, still using cover paintings rather than photo covers, as was becoming the norm by then.  That said, by then, the covers were using multiple recycled paintings, a couple would typically be used, reduced in size, on each cover.  The mix of stories, though, was much the same: commie torturers, juvenile delinquents, sunken treasure, wild animals and lots of sex and violence. The only difference being that the titles were more lurid as ever as the magazines struggled to attract readers.

Masque of the Fat Tosser

The problem with watching as many old films and TV shows as I do is that I end up finding myself framing everything in pop culture terms.  Hence, all these current revelations about lockdown-busting parties at Ten Downing Street have put me in mind of Edgar Allan Poe's 'Masque of the Red Death', or, to be more specific, the 1964 Roger Corman movies inspired by the story.  For anyone unfamiliar with both the story and film's scenario: while a plague (the titular 'Red Death') ravages the country, the wicked Prince Prospero hides away in his castle, with his fellow nobles, and happily continues with his various depravities.  Believing themselves immune from the plague, having sealed themselves off, Prospero and co engage in a series of extravagant revelries, culminating in a masque, during which the 'Red Death' himself appears as an uninvited guest.  The comparisons with Boris Johnson and his cronies seem irresistable - they too seem to believe that they are in a 'bubble' that sets them apart from the rest of the population and outside of the rules they make for them.  Moreover, they seem to think that their rule-breaking and revelries are OK, just so long as nobody else can see them.

Of course, it all breaks down if you try an reimagine the 1964 film in terms of Johnson and the pandemic - I mean, for one thing, Prince Prospero is played by Vincent Price rather than a fat smirking tosser.  Also, the elaborate sexual and sadistic games and culminating masque of the film make the real-life fumblings of Matt Hancock with an aide and the 'Bring Your Own Booze' gatherings at Downing Street look as sordid as they really were.  Of course, in real-life, Covid had already made its visit to Downing Street and proved, in comparison to the 'Red Death', a pretty crap harbinger of death with regard to the revellers.  Although, one has to wonder whether, as he looked Covid in the face, Johnson saw, as Price does in the film, his own face.  or maybe it was Dominic Cummings face?  But, overall, the analogy stands: an elite - who had been happily been using the pandemic to line their own and their friends' pockets  - believing that their wealth and power could protect them from the plague.  Sadly, in real life, Johnson has yet to suffer his comeuppance.  He's still PM and the Tories are still in power.  The best we can hope for, realistically, is that the Tory MPs finally tire of his blundering oafishness and remove him.  But they'll continue in power with the next idiot at the helm, clinging on for as long as possible before an election, hoping that the right-wing press can brainwash the electorate into voting for them again, regardless of their manifest corruption.

Witch Story (1989)

At their best, Italian exploitation cinema succeeded in co-opting the tropes of the English-language genre films they were cashing in on and subverting them,often the process resulting in something original, exceeding audience expectations.  Stylish and genre bending, the best of these films easily transcended their source material, creating a unique and distinctive cinematic experience.  But by the late eighties, Italian exploitation had really run out of steam, with the productions barely distinguishable from their (mainly) US progenitors.  Hence, we have Alessandro Capone's 1989 directorial debut Witch Story, (Original title, Streghe, literally Witches in Italian), being passed off in some markets as either a sequel to Superstition (1982) - to which it does bear a resemblance - or, somewhat mystifyingly, Larry Cohen's Wicked Stepmother (1989).  In common with many Italian exploitation pieces of the era, the film is both set in and largely filmed in Florida, with a mainly American cast.  All of which, while giving it more 'authenticity' in its attempts to ape the US product, also robs it of much of the distinctive feel of the best Italian exploitation.  The film's identity crisis extends to its story, which tries to combine elements from several popular horror genres, including the slasher movie, the demonic possesion genre and the haunted house movie.  

The end result is a lacklustre mess, which never finds a style and, rather than subverting the tropes of its models, simply regurgitates them.  It opens with a front lawn witch burning, a curse and a child jumping out a window, then flashes forward fifty odd years to the present, with a teenage brother and sister inheriting the house where it all happened and deciding to spend the summer there with their friends.  What follows is entirely predictable, as various of the teens are possessed by the ghost of the burned witch and stalk and slash the others and the ghost of the little girl keeps appearing to utter enigmatic comments.  Despite being set in a decrepit, run down old house, director Capone fails to create any atmosphere, nor does he bring any originality or style to the various killings, all of which are too well telegraphed to shock or surprise and are flatly filmed, too boot.  The closest thing to originality comes when a possessed girl leaps out from under the water of a pond, a whirring chainsaw in her hands, to dispatch one victim.  For the climax, the film lurches into Exorcist mode, with top-billed Ian Bannen over acting as the elderly priest who has lost his faith - his younger self had unsuccessfully tried to prevent the opening witch burning - but nonetheless waves his crucifix around in order to banish the spirit of the witch.  Just when you think that it is, thankfully, over, we get one of those utterly nonsensical 'twists' just before the end credits.

While Witch Story has a superficial glossiness to its production, it has little substance.  Despite the early promise of witches' curses being brought down on future generations, (a plot device that can yield excellent results, as in 1964's Witchcraft), it quickly degenerates into a generic slasher with supernatural elements, as a cast of indistinguishable and inter changeable teens get chased around an old house.  The supernatural threat is ill defined, the villain underwhelming and its supposedly sympathetic characters insipid and utterly uninvolving.  Overall, the film represents the sad decline of the Italian exploitation industry, particularly when compared to similarly themed films like Argento's Suspiria, made during the industry's peak, lacking completely any sense of style or audacity in terms of plot construction, visuals or characterisation.

True and Authentic Stories of War Criminals

Tasteless exploitation or public service?  An argument could be made either way for Normandy Publications' True and Authentic Stories of War Criminals. A men;s pulp that ran quarterly from 1961-66, (later issues shortened the title to simply War Criminals and apparently reprinted articles from earlier issues).  The magazine recounted the various crimes of mainly Nazi war criminals in lurid, pulp-style fashion, complete typical for the period artwork featuring scantily clad young women in mortal peril.  With World War Two still fresh in readers' memories and the full details of the horrors of the concentration camps still emerging via the trials of the likes of Eichmann, this sort of thing undoubtedly seemed ripe for exploitation by the publishers of men's magazines, who were already turning out lurid war titles like Battle Cry, chronicling various violent male fantasy versions of the war.  In the wider context of men's magazines, the use of war crimes as a basis for sensationalist semi-fiction was hardly surprising, effectively a cross over offspring of both the war titles and the ever popular 'True Crime' publications.  As such, War Criminals might be easily dismissed as being simply the most tasteless expression of the genre, exploiting concentration camps and genocide for entertainment.

On the other hand, there is an argument to be made that the magazine was actually performing an important public service by the popularisation of the subject, making the holocaust relevant for a new generation of readers without first hand experience of the war and the fight against fascism.  By the early sixties, Nazi iconography was beginning to reappear in western popular culture, with motor cycle gangs, for instance, sporting coal scuttle helmets and swastikas.  War movies of the period rarely addressed directly the actual war crimes committed by the Nazis, with Germans portrayed simply as a general purpose 'enemy', sometimes even as figures of fun.  There was also a degree of 'rehabilitation' for some wartime German military figures, like Rommel or Adolf Galland, who hadn't been closely associated with the Nazi party, (indeed, in the case of the former, his role in the 'Generals Plot' to assassinate Hitler was greatly exaggerated).  All of this, was, to a degree, understandable as West Germany was in the process of being transformed into a modern European democracy and military contributor to NATO.  But this also meant that there was a danger of the true nature of Nazism and its consequences being down played to the point that it would be largely forgotten, or simply consigned to the past, by younger generations.  War Criminals, in its lurid way, arguably ensured that the crimes committed in the name of the Swastika remained in the public consciousness and that the names o their perpetrators wouldn't be forgotten.

Whichever side one comes down on, there's no doubt that the very existence of War Criminals seems quite jarring to modern readers.  It seems unthinkable that publications in a similar format would appear today chronicling in lurid terms, say, the war crimes of Saddam Hussein, Isis or the Taliban.  One could just imagine the tabloid furore they would provoke.  Ironically, of course, it is these very tabloids which maintain the men's magazine tradition of sensationalising wars, crimes and assorted atrocities, the only difference being that they do it in the name of 'news' rather than 'entertainment'.

Rewriting History

I blame the prevalence of those bloody conspiracy fantasies, (they most certainly don't deserve to be referred to as 'theories').  Continued exposure to them, particularly, of late, in mainstream media, seem to have completely addled the brains of many US citizens. Because this, surely, can be the only explanation for so many people in the US apparently still believing that President Biden wasn't fairly elected and has somehow 'stolen' the election from Trump with falsified poll results.  Oh yes, not to forget the attempted insurrection at the Capitol by fanatical Trump supporters this time last year - that was actually a 'false flag' operation organised and carried out by liberals pretending to be crazy ass right-wing crackpots.  History, it seems, is being rewritten in front of us - and not ancient history, but the events of only twelve months ago that we all witnessed live on TV.  But it is the continued popularisation of conspiracy fantasies which has laid the ground for this, with their continued undermining of established and provable fact and their replacement with infantile fantasies about evil cabals manipulating the media, faking moon landings, pandemics and lying to us about the fact that the earth is really flat.  (Actually, there really is a cabal of individuals attempting to manipulate the media and governments, but they do it in plain sight.  But because they are simply the super-rich trying to make themselves and their cronies richer and not shape-shifting lizards drinking people's blood, or secret societies of peadophiles, nobody seems interested).

What next, I wonder.  If it looks as if Trump might be indicted for some of the shit he perpetrated during his term as president, might we have the spectacle of him and his people categorically denying that he ever was president?  Will we hear him denouncing claims that he occupied the Oval Office as 'fake news' and dismissing TV footage of him as president as propaganda faked by the liberal news media?  At the rate things are going, I wouldn't rule out seeing Rudy Giuliani standing outside a garden centre decrying former 'President' Hilary Clinton for her disastrous single term in office which she is now trying to cover up with baseless claims that his client Trump had, in fact, been president during those four years. We could see history rewritten on the largest scale yet, with all the usual extreme right wing fruit cakes busily manufacturing 'evidence' to try and convince the American people that there actually had been a Hilary Clinton presidency.  You can just see all the usual suspects ranting away on their podcasts and internet misinformation, sorry, 'news', shows about how the mainstream media have been involved in using their airwaves to perpetrate some kind of mass hypnosis to make America forget President Hilary Clinton and convince them that Trump had actually been president when, in reality, he had spent the past four years playing golf.  Crazy?  No crazier than people still believing that the presidential election was 'stolen', believing that Brexit was a good idea or voting Boris Johnson into Number Ten.  But remember folks, no matter how much they try to brainwash you, just remember that the world is not flat, Paul McCartney is not dead and they really did land on the moon.

Black Devil Doll (2009)

Did I mention that, over Christmas, I stumbled across another steaming channel on Roku that continuously screens the sort of low rent exploitation movies I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time watching?  It is rather like 'American Horrors', except that it streams more smoothly and its weekly rolling schedule actually does seem to change every week.  (The schedules on 'American Horrors' can be very erratic in terms of updating - it went for nearly a month recently without changing its line up - and don't seem to published anywhere, whereas this other channel not only has them on its website, but also shows them onscreen between movies.  Oh, and they also tell you what the movie is with an onscreen caption).  Anyway, this new (to me) channel, 'Otherworlds TV' shows some interesting films, (the filler between them is often pretty interesting, too).  Tonight, for instance, I found myself watching Black Devil Doll (2009).  This, of course, isn't to be confused with Black Devil Doll From Hell (1984), although it was made, apparently as an homage to this earlier film.  Both films concern the sexploits of possessed black dolls, with Black Devil Doll fashioning itself as a sort of Blaxploitation Child's Play, featuring a black militant rapist and murderer who is reincarnated as a black ventriloquist dummy.  Said dummy is acquired by a big breasted white girl, who proceeds to have sex with the doll, falling under its spell.  At its behest, she invites her equally large breasted girl friends around, then finds an excuse to leave while the 'Black Devil Doll' variously attacks, rapes and murders them, all the time uttering various surly, expletive ridden asides.  He even attacks and bum rapes the girl's would be rapper boyfriend when he turns up unexpectedly.

If this all sounds like an over-the-top parody, that's because it is.  Exploitation tropes are caricatured constantly - as emphasised by the design of the title doll itself, which comes complete with seventies Afro and 'Black Panther' style beret and speaks like the bad-assed hero of a poverty row blaxploitation picture.  What is clear is that the makers have gone all out to try and cause maximum offence: gross out scene follows gross out scene.  Each attack made by the doll just piles on a scene of misogyny and sexual violence and perversion even grosser than those that preceded it.  It's all here: rape, necrophilia, corprophilia, even explosive diarrhea so rancid it can burn through doors.  It's safe to say that if you are easily offended, you really shouldn't watch Black Devil Doll.  I suppose that I really should have been disgusted by its excesses but it is all so over the top, utterly puerile and obviously not intended to be taken seriously that is impossible to be offended.  But was any of it funny?  Well, I can't deny that it made me laugh, but then I am some kind of weirdo with a puerile sense of humour.  Actually, a lot of it leaves the viewer alternately aghast at the makers' audacity and open mouthed with incredulity as they keep topping each scene of grossness.  Nevertheless, even at around seventy five minutes long and being possessed of a commendably brisk pace, Black Devil Doll still feels too long, with his depravities eventually becoming repetitive.  I can't help but feel that it would have been more effective as a spoof trailer, highlighting the various grossly offensive acts of the title character in brief, tantalising snippets, rather than as a full-length feature.  Still, as it stands, Black Devil Doll is a unique piece of film making, reveling in its minuscule budget, porn aesthetic and clunky special effects.  That said, I'm not sure that I'd want to watch it again.

Not Back to Work

We're at that time of year when, traditionally, I rail about the fact that Christmas is a twelve day festival, so why the fuck do we allow the media, employers and the authorities to cut it off at New Year?  Of course, this year, thanks to New Year's Day falling on a Saturday, we got an extra bank holiday Monday, so most people won't be forced back to work until the 4th of January, rather than the 2nd or 3rd, as is usual.  But, for the second year running, that's not my worry - I have no work to go back to as I'm still enjoying my extended time out.  So, I can sit at home and enjoy my Christmas decorations for a few more days, (unlike those mean-spirited bastards on my street who already switched off their lights and taken down their decorations, despite it not yet being Twelfth Night).  I'm thinking that maybe I should leave the lights up longer - in some parts of Northern Europe they keep them lit until at least February - as it is depressing enough at this time of year without removing yet another source of cheer.  Also for the second year running, I have alcohol left over, despite buying far less than usual for the Christmas break.  I remember the days when I'd have enough beer to float a battleship in the fridge for the festive period - and I'd drink it all.  I guess that without that hellish job, I don't feel the need to spend a couple of weeks trying to relieve the stress by steadily drinking all Christmas.

While I didn't drink to excess, I did watch a lot of films over Christmas.  Usually, I buy all manner of stuff  I've been trying for years to catch up with on DVD to watch, but this time, in part because I was so late in realising that Christmas was imminent, I instead decided to catch up with all the stuff that had been sitting, unwatched, on my DVR.  It was an eclectic bunch of films - some of them have been on there for over a year.  Anyway, the more recent ones - Man of Steel and Spiderman: Far From Home - just confirmed that I can't enjoy modern superhero films.  Perhaps it is my age, but I find the style in which they are made too distracting.  I just find it impossible to focus on them: the plots and characters slip by in a flurry of action, camera angles and lighting effects without ever engaging me.  Judging by their box office returns, however, I'm clearly in a minority here.  To be honest, I found I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle - a lame but strangely likeable attempt at a British horror comedy - more engaging.  At least it had no pretensions of style or art and made good use of its back street Birmingham locations (which made a change from London).  It even raised the odd laugh.  I also worked my way through a number of late sixties and early seventies films I hadn't seen in years, courtesy of a streaming service I'm convinced is going to be shut down at any minute for rights issues.  It's amazing how little I remembered of stuff like The Omega Man, The Midnight Man, Busting and Dracula AD1972.  (The latter is far better than I remembered it).  So, all in all, not a bad festive period - which still has a few days to run.