Barry Manilow - The Essential

For years, I've always thought of him as churning out really pedestrian muzak. Only changed my mind after his superb cover of Ol' Blue Eyes' I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter. However, this collection is patchy. There are some superb melodies here in "Could it be Magic?", "I Write the Songs" and "Read 'Em and Weep" but too many maudlin mush that is reminiscent of other people's songs. As with the Carpenters, there's too much harmonic complexity in the songs that elevate them above basic elevator music (nice pun, no?) but not by much.

Duran Duran's Red Carpet Massacre

This one is a big departure from the retro "Astronaut" (their last one). Seemingly to capitalise on the times, this one has minimalistic robotic rhythms, minimal funky guitar and lotsa beepy synths, as is wont with songs like Snoop's "Drop It Like It's Hot". Can't decide whether I like it yet, although the quirky lyrics and haywire melodies (their trademarks) are still apparent.

Cleo from 5 to 7

I kinda liked this. Touching and the verite elements are vibrant and echoes Paris in the 60s. The dalliance of Cleo with the soldier is also touching and nice and goes a good way without it blossoming into a full-fledged romance. Nice cameo from Godard as well, although that dude has really bad teeth.

Les Enfants Terrible

My first Cocteau movie. Not what I expected. The idiomatic voiceover is a nice touch. Could do without the bombastic music, though. And the ending is a bit cliched, although maybe fresh in 1950. Otherwise okay.

Dr. Mabuse (1932) (Part 1)

Oh boy! This is incredibly slow and boring. Nothing like the much better and faster paced "Spione", also from Fritz Lang. The background music's incredible, though. It's a silent movie about a master of disguises master criminal. A lot of allusions about Nazism, sure, but not overt enough. For the record, the first and second acts are good, showing an insidous mind but later falls flat.

Angel Guts : Red Classroom

This is my second pinku rape film from the pen of Takashi Ishii. Much better than High School Co-Ed, this examines the loss of innocence in a woman, frailty of men's ego and the desire to always do something better with your life. The sex scenes are pretty unerotic, though. Will be getting the rest in the series.

2 DVDs:-

Cronos (1997)

Guillermo Del Toro's Mexican zombie masterpiece. Nah, crap that, it's hardly a zombie movie, more like a deep premeditation on death and immortality that is both touching, harrowing and funny.

Somebody said Pan's Labyrinth was a retread on his earlier themes found in Cronos and Devil's Backbone and I just had to check it out. And yeah, it's great. Astute performance by Federico Luppi. I could do without Ron Perlman, who seems a bit under-used with none of his animalistic humour present. The effects are kinda crap as well, but this was shot on a shoestring budget.

Secret Window (2004)

I hated this. You can sort of see the twist coming up miles ahead. I won't spoil it for you but it's a plot device that most of you have seen before. Only thing likeable about this is Johnny Depp pulling facets from other characters he's played before, from Jack Sparrow to Edward Scissorhands, into the mix.

Stephen King wrote this and yeah, I hate his horror stories with a passion. Different Seasons was kinda cool, though, although I could have done without "Breathing Method" (Winter). Got some nice references to "Misery" in this movie, though.

1. Heaven 17 - The Luxury Gap

Energetic, melodic and austere pop. Looking back through a comp, the best songs are from this album. Come Live With Me, Let Me Go and Crushed by the Wheels of Industry are heavenly pristine.

2. ABC - How to be a Zillionaire

Brilliant synth horn stabs make this the synthpop equivalent of a James Bond soundtrack. Dancey as well.

3. Blancmange - Happy Families

Tense and terse, this is the epitome of all synthpop zeniths. Also sticks in my mind since I copied the cover for my art class and was highly praised for plagiarism.

4. Human League - Dare

Captures all the essence of a 12-year old boy's dreams. Love, travel, BBC television and Judge Dredd.

5. Duran Duran - Duran Duran

Everything sounded so fresh back then.

6. Orchestral Manouvres in the Dark - Dazzle Ships

Pretty nifty tribute to Kraftwerk's Radioactive. Musique Concrete at its best.

7. Yello - You've Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess

Multi-timbral polyrhythms. What more could you ask for? How about some surrealism?

8. Depeche Mode - Black Celebration

Catchy as hell, despite the solemn lyrics. Hated everything they put out after this.

9. Thomas Dolby - The Flat Earth

Not so much pop as orchestral jazzy sweeps. Redolent with atmosphere.

10. Soft Cell - The Art of Falling Apart

My cassette copy misses the Hendrix covers. But a pretty good summation of their career at the end. "Do you use their bodies like cigarettes? Do you use them for ego? Do you use them for sex?"

Stardust

Caught this on Saturday. Must say I'm pretty disappointed. The first half an hour had quite nice concepts before it degenerated into another Harry Potter rip-off, complete with ghosts and jaded-looking magic. Claire Danes also looked pretty old in this. Must be her plucked eyebrows. Charlie Cox doesn't do much here also except act laddy. The De Niro cameo is a bit superfluous as well, nothing much except a rehash of what he did in Analyze This/That and Meet the Parents/Fockers.

Angel Guts : High School Co-Ed

Mainly got this cos Mandi Apple recommended the series on her site - Snowblood Apple. Pretty boring as well. Plays like a cross between some Jack Nicholson exploitation biker movie and a really crap pinku (Japanese porn). Mainly about rape, although not as shocking or brutal as, say, I Spit on Your Grave. Cover warning "Contains scenes of sexual violence which may offend many viewers" is kinda crap false advertising as well.

Some books I got at a warehouse sale:-

Paradise Lost - John Milton - Been meaning to read this for years. A nice companion piece to Dante's Commedia, I should think.

The Rough Guide to Reggae - Interesting book although only the recount of historical lineage is interesting. The reviews are hardly spot-on or concise. It misses out Black Uhuru's Anthem (one of my fave ragga albums), all the Trojan Bob Marley releases and states that Burning Spear uses "jazz improvisational vocals". Huh?

Scar Tissue - Anthony Kiedis - Mainly got this cos my fren was taken aback by his wild lifestyle and recommended it to me.

Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux - Got this just because I'm heavily into the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, actually.

The Who - Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere - Chronicles 1958-1978 - Basically a tour and recording diary. Got this mainly because of the huge price discrepancy (a 90% discount) and the cool photos.

The Book of Angels - Ruth Thompson - Got some crappy art, but otherwise, got it cos it lists Lucifer Morningstar as an Angel (which he was, anyway).

From Hell

Just managed to watch this on DVD. Didn't get to see it when it was in the cinemas. Got it mainly because Alan Moore (one of my favourite comicbook writers) wrote the story. And, hell, don think I missed much.

The theory is interesting, although hardly plausible. The five prostitutes never knew each other. The conspiracy theory elements seems to be lifted from the Princess Di accident, although I wonder if the graphic novel was the source or a rip-off of said theories.

I was always fascinated with Jack the Ripper but to have it all spelled out so factually in your face just dims the mystique. To top it all off, the gore is subdued as if to avoid an NC-17 rating. Out of focus images of the corpses, inoffensive camera angles of autopsies just merely belittle the viciousness of Jack and the visceral shock of the murders. I was more disturbed by the actual released press photos. Only a brutal throat-slashing manages to capture his brutality.

Otherwise, I doubt the Special Branch is THAT malevolent. But it adds up to the general paranoia of the pigs so prevalent in Moore's work (see V for Vendetta).

Kudos for the excellent camerawork and set design, though. Johnny Depp's acting is pretty much hit and miss and I could do without the faux English accent. My favourite parts of the movie is that captures the social atmosphere of London, though not so much of that era (1888) but currently, especially the phrases - "You all right, mate?". So anachronistic?

Some other stuff I watched:-

Alien (2003 Director's Cut) - Not as ground-breaking as the other director's cut (Blade Runner). Just omits all references to Ash being an android beforehand (the speeded-up jogging in one place and Ripley's and Lambert's talk about him not keen on sex). Watched this again cos perplexed why it nearly gave me a juvenile heart attack at 9.

Planet Terror - Ahhhh, this is crap. Outlandish gore, sure. But hardly as cool as the movies it pays homage to, the zombie movies of the 70s. Other than a freakishly cool director's brother as lead and the machine gun prosthetic, there's nothing much to recommend this. I would have gotten a much bigger kick with "Machete", the fake trailer of which I heard is gonna be a straight to video release in 2008.

Double Indemnity - Some classic '40s film noir. Got this mainly because I read a lot of Raymond Chandler (he wrote the screenplay). Moves along at a brisk pace although the burgeoining morality of Hollywood at the time constraints what would have been a better picture. My copy comes with a second disc with the 1980 made-for-TV movie remake as well.

Day Watch : Chalk of Fate - This is rather boring after the phenomenal "Night Watch". Slow and ponderous and doesn't really expand the premise much. The intro is excellent, with the great Tamerlane wrecking an ancient Iranian keep. The eponymous Chalk of Fate should have been used to greater effect. To be fair, it does complete the storyline arc started in the first film. Not so sure I'm keen on "Dusk Watch".

Some DVDs and CDs I got (part two):-


Three Extremes - A "horror" anthology of three directors from Asian regions - Japan, Hong Kong and Korea. "Box" from Takashi Miike is totally crap, an art-house symbolic and surrealistic piece of nonsense that doesn't go anywhere. Reminds me of a toned-down Santa Sangre actually, which is superior in all aspects. "Dumplings" is alright - not that gruesome as foetus-consuming in China is common knowledge. Works well only because I'm familiar with the faces. "Cut" - my favourite - OTT acting, Argento-ish contraptions and gore! Dying to check out "Oldboy" now, from the same director. Rubbish ending, though.


Lady Snowblood & Lady Snowblood : Love Song of Vengeance - Two female samurai flicks that work much better than the movie Lone Wolf & Cub, as derived from its source material - period manga. Kazuo Koike of Lone Wolf fame wrote this and the director is sympathetic to the source - weird comic-like angles, video game-style violence, poetic in cinematography in parts and structured in chapters (the first one, anyway). Kill Bill may have riped the first movie off but in all aspects, I think Lady Snowblood is a much more superior movie, redolent with atmosphere, poetry and feels better throughout. I personally think Frank Miller's Elektra owes a lot to this as well, and seem to think he didn't endorse a reprint of the Lady Snowblood comic cos it makes him out to be a copycat. I liked its sequel better though, as Kaji Meiko (playing Snowblood) gets to wield a gun and the storyline is a bit denser and the motives of all the lead characters are more ambiguous.

CDs -


Yello - One Second & Flag - Very disappointed with both, as they neither feature the off-kilter jaunty rhythms nor the surrealism of "You've Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess". To top it all off, both also sound hardly as good as 1991's "Baby".

Miles Davis - Essential - Hardly a good retrospect of the great man's work, as there is too much early material here. But then again, two discs will hardly cover his career faithfully.


Elvis Costello - King Of America - My favourite Costello album, besides Spike. My first intro to roots music, redressed in modernity and visceral lyricism. My cassette copy's fucked beyond repair.

Some DVDs and CDs I got (Part 1):-

DVDs -

Cube - Interesting use of a minimalist set - it's only one room with six exits. Supposedly there are about a few thousand rooms set inside a huge cube, of which some rooms are booby-trapped. Can't say I'm too impressed with this. A lot of bitchin' and not enough suspense. The traps are hardly imaginative either although the intro is quite cool. Worthwhile only if the viewer worship maths.

New York Ripper - A bit of a let-down for those expecting the carnage of Lucio Fulci's other horror films, like The Beyond and Zombie (like I would know, I've only seen film stills). Mostly shot giallo-style, although I did find the killer's voice unnerving, funny, whacko and disturbing all at the same time - he talks in a Donald Duck voice, along with the quacks. Rather boring kills, except the broken bottle scene and the realistic eye-cutting. My second Fulci movie after a heavily cut City of the Living Dead. Still trying to find Zombie and The Beyond, which trailer scared the shit out of me as a kid.

Ichi The Killer - I loved this. Probably the goriest and most cartoonish of all the Takashi Miike films, I found the OTT violence hilarious. The plot doesn't make much sense neither does the open-ended ending. Lotsa offal, gallons of blood, one arm-yanking, one nipple-cutting, opening titles formed of semen, I just wish all Asian gangster films were like this.

The Pink Panther (1963) & A Shot in the Dark (PP2) - Mostly watched this cos I liked the remake. Total let-down. The film centres on David Niven instead of Peter Sellers, who is mostly an arbitrary character. The sequel to PP, however, is pure genius. Brilliant comic timing and none of the forced humour of the 70s sequels. The use of Cato is still fresh, not the over-used idea it later became.

Death Proof - Have lost interest in Tarantino as of late but was still desirous of checking this out. The first half is cool, brilliant music, likeable characters, ominous creepy-looking car, all culminating in THAT spectacular crash. The second half does away with all the jump cuts, squiggles, missing frames and has an extended chick version of the coffeehouse talk intro in Reservoir Dogs, which is hardly as interesting. Still, the chase sequence does evoke how it's done in the 70s and makes me recollect all those chase movies I watched as a kid. At the very least, it makes me wanna check Vanishing Point and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry. Got Planet Terror as well but haven't watched that yet.

Night Watch - Sci-fi horror apocalyptic action thriller set in Moscow? Rather inventive ideas, good acting and some nice effects. Pretty much the Matrix of Russian cinema. I liked this. Got its sequel, Day Watch, as well but haven't watched it yet.