Friday

It's the weekend! What's to tell?
Well Patricia and Andy are moving today, hope that was stress free. My cousin Claire is enjoying herself with skip treats (husband Steve is a skip lorry driver and has been bringing home clothes, furniture, crockery and curtains), Matt is ill with somekind of flu - he looks SO unhappy, poor chap. Recieved a postcard from my old goth pal Francesca and it was SO positive, seems like things are finally looking up for her - Hoorah!
Going to record fair tomorrow (want to get loads of stuff to flog on ebay), then meeting Peter & Bex for beer in th 'John Snow'.

'Giants of Thessaly' DVD

Saw this peplum last night 'Giants of Thessaly' (I Giganti della Tessaglia). It's basically the Jason & the Argonauts story.

King Jason (Roland Carey) leaves his home, wife and son in search of the golden fleece. He makes his first (homoerotic) appearance rescuing a sailor gone over board during a violent storm. They land on an island run by a beautiful queen (Gaia - daughter of the great sun god Apollo) and her equally beautiful female subjects (island is kinda similar to Wonder Woman's home). Gaia (who has a cool indoor pond with an amusement-park style ride thing) takes a shine to Jason and asks him to stay over, however all the other vixens have been turning the sailors into sheep (!) and he realizes (with the help of Gaia's chained up sister) that she is a deformed old witch, who, in a rage puts a curse on him. He leaves the island and lands on another to do battle with a one eyed gorilla monster, with very foamy nostrils and mouth (and does bad Tommy Cooper impressions), anyway Jason kills him by piercing his only eye with a large arrow. It all get a bit vague here as I was tired (no, not bored) - Jason gets the fleece after a few hardships and they set sail for home, where his wife and child are being kept prisoner to some bad guy who wants to rule the kingdom. Jason and the sailors hide in golden aztec/tiki looking idols in the temple of Zeus and attack the bad guy and his army. Bad guy is killed and Jason is reunited with his queen and son.

Some of the things I liked about this film were, it had bits of completely over the top background music, ladies of the court in very 19th century blue dresses, very bad dubbing (Jason sounds Irish), a rabid gorilla monster and that Jason's father is so cool - he's blind, has a midget guide and carries a long staff. Shame the picture is so shitty though (and that Jason isn't played by Brad Harris).

Just thought, I saw 'A Queen for Caesar' ('Regina per Cesare' 1962) a few weeks back (Pre-cert big box, thanks to boot sale). That was pretty dull and Gordon Scott (playing Julius Caesar) is only in it for a few minutes, Tsskkk.

Satanic Sunday

Well, on Sunday (after recovering from horizontigo) I sat down to watch the DVD of 'Anche gli angeli tirano di destro' starring Giuliano Gemma and directed by E.B. Clucher (actually Enzo Barboni). It was okay but not really my cup of tea (how many slap stick gangster films are?). Giuliano Gemma plays a day-dreaming small time crook who mistakenly steals a suitcase belonging to a crime ring's boss and boards a train bound for New York. Aboard the train he meets the bosses gang (a bunch of fist happy thicko's) who he tricks into thinking he's a big time gangster, they send him to an area of the city so he can set up his own ring. While there he gets to meet Father O'Flanagan (played by the beefy Ricky Bruch, a man of little roles who was once a Swedish discus champion) who seems to be in control of everything. . .

It's a typical kind of gangster comedy, very much of it's time, with little to offer someone like me. There's an annoying kid in it for a start and a fight scene at the end that seems to go on for hours. Okay for a Sunday afternoon when you have a hangover and no energy to put something else on.

In the evening we watched 'The Brotherhood of Satan' directed by Bernard McEveety. With a tagline like 'The Prince Of Darkness Arises From The Bowels Of The Earth!' it looked pretty good. A father, his daughter and his new wife are on a road trip and get trapped in a small town, where several children have disappeared, the town is also inhabited by aging satanists who plan to use the children's bodies as receptacles for their own souls, enabling them to live again in younger bodies (hhmmm). Everyone (with the exception of the stranded family) seems creepy and un trust-worthy, especially the Sheriff. Strother Martin's character is 'Doc Duncan' the head guy of the tribe of devil-worshippers.

Apart from Strother Martin I hadn't heard of any of the other actors. Anyway, it was really good, a kind of 'Child's Play' meets 'Rosemary's Baby' meets 'The Stepford Wives'. . . Great opening and closing sequences, genuine creepiness and the main female character reminds me of a less camp Regina Carrol. One to keep!

Eurghhhh

Have hangover and spasms today, I've only been up an hour. We went round a friends house last night for an enormous meal and lots of alcohol. I look like David Beckham according to my friends, true I did shave my head yesterday morning, but that's where any similarities end, I also don't own any huge diamond earrings. . .

'Forbidden Zone' DVD

Well this one is certainly different!

Susan Tyrrell (Ramona Rickettes in Cry-Baby) is Queen Doris of the Sixth Dimension and Hervé Villechaize (Tattoo in Fantasy Island) is her husband, King Fausto. One day Frenchy (daughter of insane family living in a shack) accidentally enters the Sixth Dimension through a door in the basement. While there she becomes King Fausto's object of love/lust, much to the annoyance of Queen Doris. Frenchy's strange family enter the weird world to rescue her. . .

This 1980 black & white film is totally unlike anything I've ever seen. I remember seeing stills from the film in a book once (of Susan Tyrrell) and thinking 'that looks brilliant' which is why I got it. It's a weird musical fantasy featuring a frog-butler, a chicken boy, a topless princess, lots of giant dice, minstrels, large ladies in swim suits with ice cream and Warhol's Viva in a cage as the ex Queen (along with many other visual delights) The film was created by the avant-garde theater troupe/music group the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo and sometimes has the feel of an AmDram production, but don't let that put you off.

It's over pretty quickly (75 min) but the DVD has lots of special features including a long documentary and loads of deleted scenes.

Shame Viva didn't have more of a role.

'Squadra Volante' DVD

I am feeling totally mashed and sleepy but just wanted to mention that we watched this this other night. Another 'Squadra' film starring Tomas Milian (Ravelli) and directed by Stelvio Massi (The Case of the Bloody Iris). Hmm quite good, but no where near as good as 'Squadra Antiscippo' and sadly quite forgettable.

This time Tomas plays Ravelli, an Interpol agent who gets a new clue (after years of investigating) a robbery where his wife got killed by a gun man during a robbery/getaway (?) This leads him to a master criminal, who with his band of thugs are trying to escape the police after a robbery of millions of Lirer (not sure how to spell that, but it's the old currency of Italy!) Ravelli wants his blood and makes this his only goal during the film. . .

Ray Lovelock plays the villian and Stefania Casini ('Suspiria', 'Blood for Dracula', 'The Blood Stained Shadow') is his brassy girlfriend who wants to be a movie star. She's quite fun but her dubbed voice gets on your nerves after a while.

The soundtrack is another superb one - I cant remember who composed it and it's far too laborious to put the disc back into the machine to check but it is really good. The dubbed English track was too quiet (as I have noticed with lots of foreign DVD's with English language options) and all the extra scenes put into the film are only in Italian (roughly 10-15 minutes worth), there are lots of these at the beginning.

Not knowing Tomas Milian's films I am beginning to wonder if he only appears in disguise (!) because in 'Squadra volante' he wears sunglasses, a flat cap and 'smokes' a plastic cigar and in 'Squadra Antiscippo' he looks like a smelly Camden tramp with a penchant for wooly hats. Quite looking forward to seeing 'Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare' (yes another DVD I bought in Naples!) just to see what he looks like in that. Just realised he's in 'Don't Torture a Duckling' too but it's ages since I saw that. . .

Anyway going to fall asleep any minute.

Peplum meets Star Trek

So, I have finally watched the episode (33) of Star Trek entitled 'Who Mourns For Adonais?' and it's good, but easily forgettable.

The crew encounters what seems to be the god Apollo, who has the U.S.S Enterprise locked in a forcefield resembling a giant, green, human hand. Kirk and a landing party are transported to the planet's surface. Apollo wants all the crew on board to live on his planet and worship him as the ancient greeks did five thousand years before. He also falls in love with Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas (a buxon, blonde scientist) and she appears to fall in love with him, however Captain Kirk has other ideas and convinces her that living on this planet and worshipping this 'god' is a bad thing (really?), so she tells Apollo 'I could no more love you, than I could a new species of bacteria' (yeah!) while the U.S.S Enterprise fires at his power source (a roman temple type thing). All ends in Apollo's tears and the crew safely aboard the ship. Yay! Bad Apollo!

Episode also has a classic camp shot of Lieutenant Uhura mending some circuit boards under her console with a space age soldering gun and the biggest hair.

Wish, wish, wish, Brad Harris, Mickey Hargitay or Reg Park could have had starred in the role of Apollo. Instead, it was played by Michael Forest.

'Squadra Antiscippo' DVD

Watched 'Squadra Antiscippo' last night, or to give it it's dreadful US title 'The Cop In Blue Jeans'. Wasn't really the Italian police crime film I was expecting, but nonetheless I still enjoyed it. Tomas Milian plays a scruffy looking detective (Nico - who was once a conman/theif and looks like he smells) goes undercover to investigate a series of crimes commited by 'Baron' (Guido Mannari) and his motorcycle gang. When one of the thieves steals $5 million dollars from a wealthy, but corrupt, American businessman (Jack Palance, who is hardly in the film) people start to get killed. . .

What's to recommend?

Well there's an effeminate teetotal character who's only seen at a disco (answers to the name of 'The Nancy' or just 'Nancy' - nice hair too), a young female book-script-smuggler (she gets her clothes ripped off at the beginning, and could so easily been played by the lovely Edwige Fenech), a fat old tart who plays Nico's Aunt (claims to have been an exceptional whore!), loads of great motorcycle chase sequences (some looking quite impossible, like the chase up a very long stairwell), a death by a snooker ball, a theif displaying his big round bottom (to amuse some Japanese tourists, while the other thieves make off with their suitcases, strange, what would they do with all the dirty underwear?) and a fantastic score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis (Torso).

Hmmpff

Went back to work on monday, tsskkk. Where did my holiday go?

Watched 'Terminator 3' on sunday night, wasn't half as bad as I'd been led to believe. Had some very camp moments (ie: Arnie in that bar with the male stripper) and some very dodgy acting from Claire Danes (John, are we going to make it?) Not a film I will be getting on DVD, but one I'm glad I've seen.

Gave Matt his late Birthday present, a japanese copy of 'Kill Bill: Vol. 1.' Watched that on monday night, bloody brilliant! Was so good to see it again. Julie Dreyfus getting her arms hacked off was especially good, kinda reminded me of Udo Kier's fate at the end of 'Blood for Dracula', which reminds me, we are going to see 'Flesh for Frankenstein' in 3D at the National Film Theatre in two weeks. Yay!

Sunday Demons Of The Mind

Got up, just after 9am this morning. It's really sunny outside, nice. My hangover is totally gone and I can walk okay on my gammy foot.

Watched 'Demons of the Mind' last night, directed by Peter Sykes for Hammer. I had seen it before, when it put me to sleep but this time, I was quite interested. Patrick Magee is brilliant as Falkenberg, a hokum doctor trying to cure (hammy) Robert Hardy of his "heritage of disorder" (ie; incest, madness & blood lust). Gillian Hills & Shane Briant play his two kids, who spend most of the time locked in their rooms in the family's decaying castle/mansion. The real star of the show for me though was Virginia Wetherell (Inge), who also starred in 'Curse of the Crimson Altar', 'Disciple of Death' & the deliriously camp 'Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde' - she also does commentary on the DVD and sounds quite feisty. Anyway, I liked the film this time round, the look, the music and the casting (Marianne Faithfull would never have worked).

Gammy Legs and 'Cannibal Man' DVD

Yuk, I feel ill today. Met Matt and his work mates in a pub last night and went to the 'Slaughtered Lamb' in Farringdon. Drank far too many beers and fell over about four times. I have a swollen foot and a bad knee as well as the usual hangover. We have both got the squits too. Poisoned!

Watched 'Cannibal Man' directed by Eloy de la Iglesia. Was quite good, although it's a weird horror and quite slow. I thought it was going to turn into a twisted gay love story what with the young guy who was always hanging around Marcos's dingy house. The gore was quite minimal, except for the beginning of the film where you get to see various cattle being slashed open and their guts spilling out. Marcos isn't a cannibal at all, making it another misleading title. One to keep, me thinks as I liked the direction. Will also look out for other films by Eloy. . .

Pronto, Pronto. . . Pronto!

Well, we got back from Naples last night.

Holiday went something like this: flew out to Naples, got train to Salerno and stayed there for two nights in the 'Jolly Hotel' on the beach front. Had a day trip to Paestum and visited the museum (where one of the guards followed me around so much that I had to leave, having tattoo's does not mean you are going to steal or vandalize ancient antiquities). Salerno has some nice bars and restaurants, but two days was enough.

Got two buses to Sorrento, which both zig-zagged up and down the mountains and along the cliff tops, was quite scarey. Hotel in Sorrento was 'no smoking', tsskkk, had to lean out of window. Never, ever go to Sorrento, that is unless you are american and over sixty years old. The place is a complete tourist trap. Naff shops, selling naff nick-nackery. Had beers in one nice bar/cafe and went to a really up-market restaurant, where I walked out with pizza stuck to the sole of my trainers (yes, trainers). Also enjoyed the delights of two 'English Pubs', the one with a toothless hag who had droopy tits serving, was particularly appealing. Went to Pompei, which was lots of fun and enormous, you can easily lose the hundreds of tourists who travel in packs and go off and do your own thing. My impression of Pompei before we went was that loads of bodies were everywhere, just as the volcanic ash had killed and left them, but no, we only saw a few and those were in glass cases.

Anyway, left Sorrento on a boat going to Naples, it was saturday when we arrived and the place was SO busy. I was petrified. Booked into our hotel, where the owner spoke no english, cool! Hotel was either new or recently refurbished but it had no atmosphere at all, I can't describe it, it was just weird. Spent some time looking in shops, well the few that looked any good. God! Naples shops are rubbish! No big music stores, no big film stores, nothing! DVD's were so expensive too, roughly £20 - £26 each (that is unless you are into mainstream US films) Did manage to get a 2 disc DVD box set featuring 'Milano Odia: La Polizia Non Puo' Sparare', starring Tomas Milian & 'Milano Trema: La Polizia Vuole Giustizia, starring Luc Merenda and 'Squadra Volante' & 'Squadra Antiscippo' both starring Tomas Milian. Did manage to find some superb soundtrack CD's too, mostly all on the 'Easy Tempo' label (which I am listening to now). Went to the castle on sea front and the cathedral.

That saturday night (after five days of glorious sunshine) there was a huge thunderstorm followed by torrential rain. We got very wet, as we did almost every day for the rest of our holiday. Went to some churches, crypts, museums, bars & cafe's. . .

Got another boat, this time to Capri and booked into a really nice hotel, which we had got really cheap as it was out of season. The sun came out at last and we took a walk down the cliffs to the sea, where I threw rocks into the water and Matt took lots of photos. Found an ancient roman shrine built into a grotto, went to Anacapri on another tiny, tiny bus, walked around then came back on said bus. Had a meal in a nice restaurant which was full of local farmers and not a woman in sight, which was odd. Saw Judith Chalmers on a bus the following morning, which still makes me laugh.

Caught the boat back to Naples. Booked in to 'Hotel Caravaggio' - very nice. Our room had a pod like bathroom and a small lounge. More rain, went to another castle this time the one on hill/mountain. Went to Ercolano (Herculanium?) - more great ruins and so much better preserved than Pompei (well, it was covered so much quicker as it was nearer Vesuvious) More rain. That's about it really, we had kind of grown tired of walking around in the rain (my feet got wet & squelchy) and were looking forward to coming home. Our last day we spent wandering around, not really knowing what to do (our flight was at 7pm in the evening), went to another castle, by the port, it was really boring (!) and found a market selling shoes, porn and toys. Managed to get some more DVD's (cheap too - hurrah!): E.B. Clucher's 'Anche Gli Angeli Tirano Di Destro' with Giuliano Gemma, Michele Lupo's 'Africa Express' & Duccio Tessari's 'Safari Express' (both starring Giuliano Gemma and Ursula Andress - anyone seen her as the 'Queen of Chain' from Matthew Barney's 'Cremaster 5'? . . . just brilliant)

Well that's it for now. I have more washing to do and emails to write. What an exciting life I lead.

Pot Noodle

Am having a very lazy day today. I've half finished packing my rucksack and I'm waiting for washing to dry. Just eaten a pot noodle (chow mein) it was a bit horrid, actually. Must have another cup of tea (my 3rd today) to wash the taste away. Have spent the morning wasting my time looking at websites featuring squids and octopus (octopi ?). . . Then I searched for shops in Naples that sold CD's & DVD's. Don't think I'll be coming home with sacks of movies after all. . .

Have been going through my wish list at Amazon.com (well Christmas is almost here, yay!) I need too many films. My sister Jess is off to California in two weeks and I've given her a list of items to look for (Hammer Horror Collection Box Set, Alfredo Rizzo's 'The Bloodsucker Leads The Dance', The Blood Island Vacation Box Set, The New Avengers '77 Second Series Box Set, Doctor Who: The Key To Time - The Complete Adventure Box Set and Enzo G. Castellari's 'Tuareg - The Desert Warrior'. Phew! I hope she manages to find something for me, if she does, it will stop me having to pay huge import duties.

I've kind of worked out how to use my mobile phone. Gone are the fairground flashing lights, but I do have a ring tone that's SO high energy you wouldn't believe (sounds like a Ken Laszlo tune). . .

Well that's me for a ten days, must do my toiletries now. 'Be seeing you'