Happy New Year! The fireworks are still booming throughout the 'Hood as I write (at 12:30am). Folks in Reseda, and all over the world, are very happy to usher in 2021, and even happier - no doubt - to see the end of 2020.
Well, I was hoping tonight to expand upon my Year In Review (my last blog was subtitled "Part One"), but in looking over my movie list for 2020, I don't see much in the way of Criterion art films, War Movies, Westerns, Musicals, Screwball Comedies ala Preston Sturges, Silent films or pre-code pictures that usually contributed to our compilations in years past.
What I do see, hehe, is hundreds of flicks watched on Youtube, for reasons explained in the previous blog.
In November we did watch the epic version of "Les Miserables", which clocked in just shy of five hours. It was a towering achievement by any standard, and if I recall correctly, I mentioned that - for me - it was now a candidate for the greatest French film of all time (the current contenders being "Children of Paradise" and "Diary of a Country Priest"), but that may have been the one-and-only Criterion release I watched all year.
So instead of listing the various "mas-tah-pieces" of every stripe that we didn't watch, I'm just gonna mention some of the notable sci-fi and horror flicks that we saw on Youtube, and maybe a couple of others that we actually watched on dvd.
In fact, here are two right now: in October, I acquired a couple of horror films I'd sought for years, both from Hammer Studios : "Plague of the Zombies" and "The Devil Rides Out". We watched them almost back to back (with "The Wolfman" sandwiched in between) on the consecutive dates of October 29, 30, and 31. If ever there was a Triple Scoop of horror, this was it, and while you are familiar with "The Wolfman", you should also become acquainted with the other two films, "Plague" in particular. They represent Hammer Horror at it's lurid best, and upon watching them for the first time, as I did after ten years of anticipation, you'll understand why the original dvd pressings became collectors items. ////
And now, let's present a Top Ten (or thereabouts) of our Youtube flicks. No particular order.
I'm gonna start with "Indestructible Man" starring Lon Chaney Jr. That one ruled, and would even be worth buying on dvd, if it was restored.
Another good one, in a decidedly cheesy way, was "The Brain From Planet Arous". It was somewhere around this time (and this movie) that we discovered the genius of John Agar. If you aren't already a fan, make it a point to become one in 2021. To say he enlivens any picture he's in is redundant. He's John Freakin' Agar, and in this movie he takes on a giant talking Brain in a cave. And the Brain is good special effects.
Let's see, we've also got "The Alligator People", a superior sci-fi worthy of a higher classification among all the B-movies. That one starred Beverly Garland, one of our favorite actresses of the 1950s.
"The Killer Shrews" also stood out, and starred James Best, who was a great actor in a wide variety of roles (watch him as a morphine addict on an episode of "The Rebel"), but who will always be remembered, by me anyway, for his portrayal of a Redneck Sumbitch, who orders William Devane's hand to be stuck down a garbage disposal in "Rolling Thunder". Sorry about the graphic description. Maybe you'd have had to be there.
"The Beast of Yucca Flats" is worth mentioning, even though it rivaled any Ed Wood film for cheapness. What it did have, as we noted, was a Zen quality, brought on by it's minimal, almost poetic narration, in which the narrator described why Tor Johnson was wandering the Mojave desert as a mindless killer, after absorbing the brunt of a nuclear test explosion.
A great horror re-run was "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things", perhaps the greatest Zombie movie ever made. They used to show it almost every Saturday night on local TV, for a while in the mid-70s, and my friends and I all had seen it several times. We thought it was a joke when we were teenagers, because of the campy portrayals of the hippie characters, including the performance of Alan Ormsby, the actor who also wrote and produced the movie. But in rewatching it 45 years later, I saw that it is much more than a camp classic. Rather, it's a genuine high achievement in the annals of horror, especially in it's art direction, which features "hand-made" Zombies that actually look like they've just come out of a grave. (Yeah, how would I know, right?)
Sorry about all the gruesomeness, but hey........it was 2020.
And last but not least, let's not forget "Teenagers From Outer Space, an eccentric but very original take on the Alien Invasion motif, written and directed by a young film student named Tom Graeff. The cliched title belies the thoughtfulness of the script, and cheesy as the production is (almost devoid of budget), Graeff manages to articulate a purpose behind his idea, i.e. why the Aliens must be stopped, and why Romance must endure. I was so startled by the competency of this film, that when it ended I had to look up Mr. Graeff. I was sorry to see that he met a tragic end, but for "Teenagers From Outer Space" he will always be remembered, somewhere in the Universe. ////
Let's do a few books before we call it a night.
I'll start with "Norco 80" one of the top five crime books I've ever read, and in fact maybe the best ever. If you like True Crime, give it a shot. You won't be able to stop reading.
I also recommend "Me & Lee" by Judith Vary Baker, the girlfriend of Lee Harvey Oswald. "1915" by Lyn Macdonald. I am just now finishing this book, and I almost don't know how to comment, because the horror of World War One, and the sheer agreement by all sides to participate in such a brand new form of technological warfare (and to subject millions of young soldiers to it), really defies description. It's almost as if it took place on another planet, with another species of human, so horrible is the battering of life. No other terrible thing in life compares, except for World War Two, which was worse. I do suggest you read "1915", however, though I know (and understand) that you won't. But for me, it's part of my job in life to try and comprehend these things. Here are a few more books : "The Paris Wife", "Worlds In Collision", "Gobekli Tepe", "Roadshow" by Neil Peart, "Survivor Song" by Paul Tremblay, "The Ox" (a biography of John Entwistle), "A Fast Ride Out Of Here" (about Pete Way),........and "The Temple of Man", by R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz" (already lamented over, several times).
Give 'em all a shot, but if you're short of time, go for "Norco 80". Holy smokes, folks. Wait til they make a movie out of this. ///
That's all I know for this evening. I wish the best of health for everyone in the New Year, and all good blessings.
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxo :):)
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