Episode 7 - Fist Full of Fulci

Episode 7 is a full-on Fulci-fest. We talk about two of Lucio Fulci's "classic" films. Zombie from 1979 and Gates of Hell from 1980. You will ask yourself why we subject ourselves to such inhumane situations, but I am afraid that we can not provide a sensible answer. Make sure your clothes have been scotchguarded, or else you might get some on you.

-Marty

Trick Baby

Last night I watched the 1972 film Trick Baby from director Larry Yust. The film is set in Philadelphia and focuses on two main characters. Blue Howard played by Mel Stewart and White Folks played by Kiel Martin. Martin's character ( who is only referred to as "Folks" in the film ) is the child of a black mother and white father. Despite his mixed heritage, Folks looks totally white and this is the key plot device that is exploited in the film. Folks and Blue are con-men and their cons are impressive bits of deceit. You get the feeling, while watching the movie, that they have kept their sights on smaller fish for the most part. A confluence of events, though, conspire to bring these two small-time hustlers into contact with a very dangerous group of individuals including corrupt cops and members of the mob. The plot is well laid-out and developed but it is fairly cut and dried. Director Yust manages to shoe-horn a good bit of character development into the proceedings and this is what really raises Trick Baby above other films of its ilk. Blue thinks of Folks as a black man, and it seems that Folks also feels the same. All the people around them though, both white and black, don't trust Folks and make no bones about saying so. Folks is a character who uses his apparent whiteness as a key component of the cons that he and Blue pull. It is an ultimate disguise and it raises questions of what really constitutes "race". At certain key moments we are shown contrasting views of white and black culture and the viewer is left to draw their own conclusions. We will see footage of a fancy dinner party attended solely by wealthy white people and interspersed throughout will be scenes from a bar with only black patrons. This sort of juxtaposition is not subtle, but it did not seem to be intended to illustrate any single specific idea. There was no "This is good" and "This is bad" statement applied in these comparisons, just the presentation of two very separate worlds. I think it forces the question of just how different are these worlds really, and if we were able to choose which world we wanted to live in ( which the Folks character could do ), which one would we choose. The bottom line on Trick Baby is that it is a well-told story of two charming con-men. There is also a lot in there to make you think about race in a broader context. Like the best blaxploitation films, there is more than meets the eye if you want to open yourself to it.
-Marty

Messiah of Evil

Messiah of Evil, aka Dead People is a 1973 film from director Willard Huyck who is probably more notable for his writing credits than his directing work. Don't let the fact that he directed Best Defense or Howard the Duck discourage you from checking out this atmospheric little known shocker. The story concerns a young woman traveling alone to a remote sea side California community to reconnect with her father from whom she's become estranged. She had been in communication with him via letters he would send to update her on his progress in regards to his work as a painter. His character being an artist allows for some really interesting set design when she finally arrives at his home. As his letters begin to take on a dark and somewhat sinister tone she feels compelled to go investigate the situation for her self. Along the way she begins to have strange encounters with an increasingly curious assortment of townsfolk. The film's sense of oddness within the confines of a seemingly average small town, put me in mind of David Lynch, but the overwhelming influence in my opinion is clearly H.P. Lovecraft. To reveal much more about the plot would be a disservice to you, as the way the story slowly reveals its self is what I found to be such a pleasure about this movie. There are some wonderfully creepy set pieces and the supporting cast all do a good job carrying things along. The film, although clearly a low budget effort, manages to have more of the creeping sense of dread and foreboding, the hallmark of Lovecraft's writing, than almost any film I've seen based on his writing directly. Clearly John Carpenter should have sat down and watched this before wading into Lovecraftian territory with In the Mouth of Madness, a mysteriously overrated film in my opinion. The gore in minimal, but effective and it is much more about the atmosphere and the feel of the film than pure shock value at any rate. I would highly recommend that any fan of 70's genre movies seek this little jewel out.

-Mike

Macabrelujah

Although Marty and I are currently in the process of developing some seriously insidious, CIA level market research information gathering technology, we have as yet been unsuccessful so we have no real way to determine what the exact demographic make up of our listeners might be. This being the case, I'm not sure how many of you folks are familiar with the original syndicated run of Elvira's Movie Macabre. This wonderful nugget of early to mid eighties cheese was, for me at least, an integral part of my development film wise and well...let's just say that there was alot of things for a teenage boy to enjoy about Movie Macabre. The reason for this post is to happily announce Elvira's triumphant return to the syndicated airwaves. The first episode of the new series even featured Night of The Living Dead as the feature film. It's unclear at this point if she intends to feature more quality films, NOTLD in my opinion is a classic, or if she will return to her more B movie roots, we can only hope. Long pre-dating MST3K, the lovely Mistress of the Dark's commentary about the films was almost always as entertaining as the films themselves. I would encourage you all to give Elvira a shot, I'm sure you'll find something to enjoy about Movie Macabre. Whether it's nostalgia for the days when horror hosts were a fixture of local Saturday night programming or a chance for some of our younger listeners to glimpse the good old days, I'll spare you the "back in my day" speech, I think we can all agree that Elvira's return is a welcome one for genre and B movie fans everywhere. Follow this link, Elvira on HULU, to get a little taste of the original series. Check your local listings for show times.

-Mike

Episode 6 Posted!

In Episode 6, Mike and Marty discuss two "classics" from the 80s that tried to cash in on the success of Ridley Scott's blockbuster 1979 film Alien. The films covered are 1980's Contamination from italian maestro Luigi Cozzi, and 1985's Creature from William Malone and featuring the inimitable Klaus Kinski. These are both low-budget, earnest efforts from guys who really really love to make movies, and though neither can be considered a total success, they are both worth your time if you can find enough patience to ignore some of the more glaring problems they each have. Enjoy the podcast and let us know what you think at "flickersfrom@yahoo.com".
-Marty

Italian Cinemeh

In Episode 5 of the podcast, Marty and Mike talk about two "epics" of Italian sci-fi, 1979's The Humanoid and 1978's Starcrash. These two are wonderfully bad with some recognizable faces littered amongst the cast. If you were a reader of Starlog magazine in the Star Wars era, you are probably familiar with at least Starcrash, and ,if you are like me, all it took was knowing that Richard Kiel stars in it to make me desperate to watch The Humanoid. These are far from good films, but they both are so utterly charming that, each time I would wake up from being bored to sleep, I found myself really enjoying them in all their ineffable badness. Enjoy the show and let us know what you think! Oh, and if you're concerned about whether your hog is on meth, here is a PSA that will give you all the information you need.
-Marty

European Horrors

This weekend I settled in for a back-to-back European horror-fest. The films I watched were 2004's Calvaire ( The Ordeal ) and 2008's Linkeroever ( Left Bank ). Both were good but in very different ways.
Left Bank reminded me very much in story and tone of Polanski's classic Rosemary's Baby. Subtle performances and striking cinematography combined to give the film a very somber mood with a constant sense of dread as the mysteries in the story were revealed. The story centers on Marie, a 22 year old girl who is training to be a world champion runner. During a period of forced inactivity, she meets Bobby who is the dean of the local Archer's Guild ( it is set in current time but apparently in Belgium there are still Archer's Guilds ). The two begin a relationship and Marie moves in with Bobby during her convalescence. Bobby's grandmother is the landlord of a large block of flats called Left Bank and she has managed to get Bobby an apartment there. Marie finds out that the apartment they are in was occupied by a woman who disappeared and that it was this woman's disappearance that left the apartment open and available for Bobby. She decides to investigate into the woman's disappearance and this forms the driving element of the plot. It is, at its core, a supernatural thriller, but it is couched firmly in the real world which lends weight to the festivities when things inevitably begin to get strange.
The Ordeal was even more impressive and much less fun to watch. It is a very dark ride indeed. I could not help but think of the work of David Lynch as I watched the film. The story follows along the familiar "fish out of water" storyline. The main character is a traveling performer/singer and at the beginning of the film is finishing up a stint at an old-folks home. He leaves the home a few days before christmas to head to his next show "to the north". The scenes at the old-folks home are weird, very weird, so I was disconcerted from the very beginning. Things become progressively weirder as car-trouble leaves our hero with the peculiar character of Mr. Bartel, who runs a defunct inn out in the absolute middle of nowhere. The Ordeal had me recalling scenes from things as diverse as Hostel, Last House on the Left, Deliverance, Martyrs and Blue Velvet. The performances are all utterly off-kilter and confounding. As things become increasingly heavy and dark, the goofy little idiosyncracies of the characters almost made me laugh in the midst of all the truly disturbing scenarios that the main character found himself in. As with Left Bank, the cinematography in The Ordeal was truly beautiful, with verdant landscapes full of dark, loamy soil and primeval forests. The world of the film is not the world we all live in, but a nightmare which I would want to quickly awake from.
Both films are highly recommended, with a strong warning about The Ordeal, the name is, in many ways, very appropriate.
-Marty

Dixie Dynamite

Over the past weekend I watched the 1976 movie Dixie Dynamite with my father and my 13 year old son. It tells the story of two sisters and their father who makes moonshine in a little shack behind their home as his primary way of making money to support the family. The girls are either in their late teens or very early twenties and both are super-hot in that "Daisy Duke" sort of way. Early in the film, their father dies during a police chase and the girls find themselves struggling to get by without him. There is an evil man in town who is trying to force the residents into foreclosure so that he can buy up their property. Christopher George is the local sheriff who had worked with the evil man in the past, but who now is having trouble accepting this property scam. The girls' uncle is played by the great Warren Oates and it is he who teaches the girls to ride motorcycles, which comes in handy later in the film. The titular "dynamite" is on display a lot as the girls begin to exact revenge on the evil man. They go totally "Robin Hood" on his ass as they rob his businesses and distribute the money to the locals to help them keep their homes. I should also mention that R.G. Armstrong does a fine job as the president of the local bank.
The story really clips along, there is some totally entertaining motorcycle races, the girls wear some impossibly tight shorts, there is gunplay and explosives galore...what is not to like? It was a total crowd-pleaser too, we all agreed when the final credits rolled, that Dixie Dynamite was a good way to spend 90 minutes on warm summer night.
-Marty

Episode 4: My Podcast with Andre

Episode 4 has been posted! In this show, Mike and I talk about the 1981 film My Dinner with Andre which stars Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory. If you haven't seen this film, or you saw it years ago, I think we'd both urge you to watch it now. The film drips with wonderful bits of philosophy and is a multi-level experience that reveals itself slowly with each subsequent viewing. We hope our conversation convinces you to give it a shot. Let us know what you think.

-Marty

Inception

This weekend I saw Christopher Nolan's new film Inception. I was lucky enough to see at an IMAX theater which probably added to the overall power of what was already a VERY powerful film. My friends Leif and KMO sat on either side of me, with all three of us silent through the entire 148 minutes. The only sounds I made were frequent utterances of "wow". There is not much to say about the film that wouldn't spoil the brilliant way that the plot is revealed. Suffice it to say that if you're interested in the movie, avoid as many reviews as you can. My only exposure had been through the trailers and the astounding review score that is mounting on IMDB.
As far as, non-spoiler information goes, the performances are consistent and excellent. The effects shots are seamless and fantastic. I left the theater, once again, in awe of Christopher Nolan. He has yet to disappoint ( The Prestige was good but not great to me ) and consistently proves that he is a filmmaker to watch and an artist with a unique and important vision.
The themes in the film of dream-worlds, and the deliberate altering of what goes on within them, was very interesting in light of my own experiences with lucid dreaming. If you have never had a lucid dream, I urge you to read about them and the various recommended techniques for cultivating that skill. The feeling, when you are in the dream-world, and you decide that you want a thing to be, and summoning it physically into existence...that is a feeling that is hard to beat, and hard to imagine if you've never done it.
One thing we did speak of after the movie is the question of who we would recommend this movie to. It is challenging in a way that I don't think the typical film-goer would appreciate. It doesn't guide you into its world or its ideas. When the film starts, it is up to the audience to piece together the world, the characters, and the ideas. The script does this all brilliantly, but I wonder just how large of an audience the film will attract. I will be impressed if a sizable mass of humanity appreciates the film.
Would I recommend "Inception" to my grandmother? no...but to those three people reading this? I totally would urge you to see it, and see it soon, before some sucker spoils it for you.
-Marty