Belated Plug: Nucleus Films Euro-CultRestoration Project.

Well, for the moment at least, life goes on, and another blogging responsibility that slipped through the cracks during this Halloween season and its ugly aftermath is the necessity of my telling you about Nucleus Films’ Euro-Cult Restoration Project, a recently launched crowd-funding initiative whose initial goals (it would be nice to think there will be more to follow, should things go well?) involve bringing lovingly restored and reconstructed versions of Lady Frankenstein (Mel Welles, 1971) and Death Laid An Egg (Giulio Questi, 1968) to the people.

To be honest, I recall finding ‘Lady Frankenstein’ a bit so-so when I watched it via a bootleg a while back, but I’m still looking forward to the opportunity of reassessing its virtues via the medium of a shiny new blu-ray. The real prize here from my POV however is ‘Death Laid An Egg’, a surrealist (in the legit sense of the word) art-house giallo whose blackly comic tone (yes, it’s set on a chicken farm) and Godardian formal transgressions ensure that it does just as much of an unforgettable hit & run job on its nascent genre as Questi’s legendary ‘Django Kill’ did on the Spaghetti Western.

At the time of writing, Nucleus’s campaign has not quite reached the amount needed to guarantee ‘..Egg’s restoration, so… I know the world at large has one or two other bigger fish to fry right now, but could you at the very least consider doing your duty for the preservation of bold & weird cinema and pledge some cash before the closing date crashes down at the end of the month? Nucleus are good guys with an admirable track record of movie-related shenanigans, and I am confident that they will do right by both these films and their customers, so come on – what have we to lose but our dignity?

All the further info you could wish for can be found in the link above.

Out in the Great Beyond…

Since I went cold turkey on Tumblr last year (whoever called it the blogging equivalent of crack was on to something), I often stumble upon extraordinary imagery and text elsewhere that I instinctively want to re-blog at the touch of a button, before remembering that NO, I can’t do that anymore.

But since we’re already on back-up generator / emergency lighting mode here this month, might as well take the opportunity to share with you a few wonders currently available out there in the ether, all in the reassuring form of a nice, old-fashioned links post (the blogging equivalent of a gin & tonic out on the patio, perhaps).

First off, my ongoing investigation of the history of Japanese gothic horror movies was blown wide open by this rather tremendous poster gallery, courtesy of Pulp International. Who knew there were so many films about ghost cats lurking in people’s ceilings? Grow up in a nation that traditionally favours light-weight, single-storey construction for domestic buildings and that probably becomes an easier childhood fear to relate to, I suppose. Awesome were-chicken on the poster for 1958’s ‘Akadô Suzunosuke: Mitsume no Chôjin’(“Red-Armored Suzunosuke: Three-Eyed Birdman”) too. The hunt goes on!

Secondly: you remember The Witchmaker? I still really like that movie. I’ll have to put the effort in to actually find a watchable copy of it one day, but in the meantime, how about these complete scans of the film’s pressbook & promotional materials, via the And Everything Else Too blog? Definitely worth a look.

Next up, Au carrefour étrange gives us a set of illustrations for Jacques Sternberg’s C'est la guerre Monsieur Gruber (1968). What does it all mean? I don’t know, but as is so often the case with French culture, a state of blissful ignorance seems the best approach when faced with such extraordinary pop-arty beauty.

If reading highly detailed and insightful articles on the world of ‘70s British smut and soft porn sounds like your cup of tea, Gav Crimson is your man, with this recent write up on George Harrison Marks’ 8mm epic ‘Aphrodisia’ (1970) being particularly worth your while. It’s odd that whilst I have little interest in actually watching most of the films that emerged from this particular demi-monde, I find reading about the events and personalities behind it quite compelling; go figure.

Staying with the UK, you are all reading TV Minus 50, I trust? A great blog.

And finally, you no doubt heard about what befell The Philippines last week, so, if you've ever thrilled to the adventures of Agent 00, Cleopatra Wong, or, uh, that guy with the moustache in  ‘The Killing of Satan’ - or indeed if you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about - you know what to do.

Kickstarterage.

When the ‘Kickstarter’ website / concept began to take off a few years back, I’ll admit I treated the whole thing with a certain amount of derision. (You want £10,000 to make a rock album? Fuck off - £150 of Maplins vouchers probably buys you more recording capacity than Sam Philips saw in his lifetime, and if that’s not good enough for you, get a bloody job like the rest of us etc etc.).

Filmmaking though is something that actually does take a certain amount of investment, and that generally involves a massive financial risk for all who venture into it. With the good / bad ratio horribly skewed toward the latter in what passes for the low budget film ‘industry’, and very few people willing to take a chance on the former, I find myself feeling a lot more charitable towards folks struggling to get worthwhile projects on screen, and as such, I’m interrupting our regular programming to inform you of a few such endeavours that have come to my attention recently.

First off, official Breakfast In The Ruins Hero Alex Cox is currently hunkered down in Boulder, Colorado, working on an adaptation of the late Harry Harrison’s ‘Bill The Galactic Hero’. Never less than ambitious, Cox is asking the world for $100,000 with which to realise this retro-fitted sci-fi epic, and, speaking as someone who actually really liked 2011’s Repo Chick, I have confidence in his ability to deliver entertaining, informative and generally ass-kicking satirical product for extremely low overheads. $88,000 in the bank with five days to go.

And secondly, those of you who keep an eye on the more interesting corners of weird-world-cinema type blogging might already be aware of Filipino b-movie super-fan Andrew Leavold’s long struggle to realise his self-explanatory documentary feature ‘The Search For Weng-Weng’. Without rehashing the details here, let’s just say that he’s obviously put a vast amount of time, research and obsessive dedication into the project over the years and has pretty much been taken to the cleaners for his trouble. For anyone half as interested as I am in the odd world of regional b-movie industries and suchlike, it looks to be an absolutely fascinating film and I’d really like to see it, so for heaven’s sake, drop him a few bucks.

Right, that’s the commercial break over with. You can turn the sound up again. Hope you enjoyed your trip to the kitchen.