Spittin' Wicked Randomness Vol. 3
Set your tivo for these movies on Turner Classic Movies over the next week:
Wednesday (Bogart day):
3pm: In A Lonely Place. Very good, low-key noir with Bogart as a suspected killer. The story is toned down from the book, and actually ends up being more interesting for it.
Starting at 5pm: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, High Sierra!
Thursday:
1:30pm: Dark of the Sun (1968): this seems like the kind of war movie you'd have seen on TBS or HBO in the 80s, but it utterly kick ass. Read Harry Knowles' characteristically raving, drooling review here!
10:45pm: Baby Face (1933): Early Barbara Stanwyck fucks her way to the top! One of her coolest roles.
Saturday:
8:30am: Caroon Alley: obscure British cartoons.
Sunday:
3am: Orson Welles' Othello(1952). Never seen this.
9:30am: Palm Beach Story (1942): Preston Sturges' wackiest screwball comedy.
9pm: The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1927): This is really awesome. An animated feature that predates Snow White by, what, 6 years? It's this weird animation made from silhouettes, and it's based on some Arabian Nights story.
Monday
2:30am: More cartoons!
3:00am: The Lost World (1925). Silent film with stop-motion effects by Willis O'Brien, a precursor to King Kong with lots of stop-motion dinosaurs. A Brontosaurus brought back to London wreaks havoc.
4:45am: I Walked With A Zombie (1943). Amazing noir cinematography, exotic Haitian setting, voodoo zombies, and the constant pulse of voodoo drums on the soundtrack. One of my favorite horror films. The fact that Jacques Tourneur is better known for Out of the Past is proof that genre-snobbery still exists among critics.
1pm: A Touch of Evil (1958). The greatest film noir ever.
3pm: Sunset Boulevard (1950)
10:45pm: Metropolis (1927). Art Deco Sci Fi.
Tuesday:
2:45pm: The Loved One (1965). Bizzarre dark comedy about the funeral industry, screenplay adapted from Evelyn Waugh's novel by Terry Southern. Fucking Great.
Now, how about a few Library CD reviews?
The Black Crowes - Lions: I haven't listened to these guys since their second album, and I don't know anything about the three albums that followed it. But this is awesome. They got all heavy 'n shit. Guitar-heavy psychedelic rock with some really good songs. I thought the guitar was doing some weird toggle-switch stuff at the beginning of the first track, but it turned out it was just the CD-Rom content trying to open at the same time, causing the CD to stutter. But then the second track DOES open with some weird toggle-switch effect, which I thought was the CD fucking up some more!
The Real Bahamas in Music and Song: This is the strangest thing I got. It's recordings (mostly of the same half-dozen singers in different combinations) of Bahamanian folk singers doing gospel songs (there are two songs about sailing, the rest is traditional American gospel) in a strange vocal style. The back-up singers basically repeat a chorus, over which a high-pitched front singer improvs. Joseph Spence, whom I've heard a little of before, is on this. He sings in an even weirder style, usually in the background (although he has a couple solos), that sounds like a gutteral groan. It's not what you would expect Bahamanian music to sound like, exactly, but it is amazing stuff.
James Brown - Live at the Apollo 1995: This unfortunately is not the album that has Al Sharpton doing a 5-minute introduction. Damn.
Vanilla Fudge: These guys are no Blue Cheer, but then Blue Cheer are no Blue Cheer (Vincebus Eruptum really only has two decent songs). I guess it's an unfair comparison, I'd just always thought of them together. But this album is from 1967, and they still have short hair and suits. Organ-heavy acid rock, more similar to...Procol Harum, maybe? It's all covers, and I was wondering about the song called "Bang Bang." Sure enough, it's Nancy Sinatra's Kill Bill theme, done in heavy psychedelic style!
Roscoe Holcomb - The High Lonesome Sound: Very effective for getting the kids out of the living room!
Hurry up and get one of the greatest rock-n-roll songs ever recorded from Spread The Good Word! Also, read this great piece about Films You Can't See (And Why You Can't See Them) from this week's LA Weekly. If nothing else, check out this guide to sources for hard-to-find movies. Reading is fundamental!
Wednesday (Bogart day):
3pm: In A Lonely Place. Very good, low-key noir with Bogart as a suspected killer. The story is toned down from the book, and actually ends up being more interesting for it.
Starting at 5pm: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, High Sierra!
Thursday:
1:30pm: Dark of the Sun (1968): this seems like the kind of war movie you'd have seen on TBS or HBO in the 80s, but it utterly kick ass. Read Harry Knowles' characteristically raving, drooling review here!
10:45pm: Baby Face (1933): Early Barbara Stanwyck fucks her way to the top! One of her coolest roles.
Saturday:
8:30am: Caroon Alley: obscure British cartoons.
Sunday:
3am: Orson Welles' Othello(1952). Never seen this.
9:30am: Palm Beach Story (1942): Preston Sturges' wackiest screwball comedy.
9pm: The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1927): This is really awesome. An animated feature that predates Snow White by, what, 6 years? It's this weird animation made from silhouettes, and it's based on some Arabian Nights story.
Monday
2:30am: More cartoons!
3:00am: The Lost World (1925). Silent film with stop-motion effects by Willis O'Brien, a precursor to King Kong with lots of stop-motion dinosaurs. A Brontosaurus brought back to London wreaks havoc.
4:45am: I Walked With A Zombie (1943). Amazing noir cinematography, exotic Haitian setting, voodoo zombies, and the constant pulse of voodoo drums on the soundtrack. One of my favorite horror films. The fact that Jacques Tourneur is better known for Out of the Past is proof that genre-snobbery still exists among critics.
1pm: A Touch of Evil (1958). The greatest film noir ever.
3pm: Sunset Boulevard (1950)
10:45pm: Metropolis (1927). Art Deco Sci Fi.
Tuesday:
2:45pm: The Loved One (1965). Bizzarre dark comedy about the funeral industry, screenplay adapted from Evelyn Waugh's novel by Terry Southern. Fucking Great.
Now, how about a few Library CD reviews?
The Black Crowes - Lions: I haven't listened to these guys since their second album, and I don't know anything about the three albums that followed it. But this is awesome. They got all heavy 'n shit. Guitar-heavy psychedelic rock with some really good songs. I thought the guitar was doing some weird toggle-switch stuff at the beginning of the first track, but it turned out it was just the CD-Rom content trying to open at the same time, causing the CD to stutter. But then the second track DOES open with some weird toggle-switch effect, which I thought was the CD fucking up some more!
The Real Bahamas in Music and Song: This is the strangest thing I got. It's recordings (mostly of the same half-dozen singers in different combinations) of Bahamanian folk singers doing gospel songs (there are two songs about sailing, the rest is traditional American gospel) in a strange vocal style. The back-up singers basically repeat a chorus, over which a high-pitched front singer improvs. Joseph Spence, whom I've heard a little of before, is on this. He sings in an even weirder style, usually in the background (although he has a couple solos), that sounds like a gutteral groan. It's not what you would expect Bahamanian music to sound like, exactly, but it is amazing stuff.
James Brown - Live at the Apollo 1995: This unfortunately is not the album that has Al Sharpton doing a 5-minute introduction. Damn.
Vanilla Fudge: These guys are no Blue Cheer, but then Blue Cheer are no Blue Cheer (Vincebus Eruptum really only has two decent songs). I guess it's an unfair comparison, I'd just always thought of them together. But this album is from 1967, and they still have short hair and suits. Organ-heavy acid rock, more similar to...Procol Harum, maybe? It's all covers, and I was wondering about the song called "Bang Bang." Sure enough, it's Nancy Sinatra's Kill Bill theme, done in heavy psychedelic style!
Roscoe Holcomb - The High Lonesome Sound: Very effective for getting the kids out of the living room!
Hurry up and get one of the greatest rock-n-roll songs ever recorded from Spread The Good Word! Also, read this great piece about Films You Can't See (And Why You Can't See Them) from this week's LA Weekly. If nothing else, check out this guide to sources for hard-to-find movies. Reading is fundamental!
posted by Chris Oliver at 1:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home