Vultural

Weighell, Ron - Child Of The Dawn

A grief stricken husband takes the plunge and embarks into the netherworld, seeking his wife.
Leighton is no adept, nor a master; he is a mere dabbler. A wealthy tourist, perhaps he assumes his earthly skills will serve in the chaotic afterlife.
Things go terribly wrong. Fortunately, an adept is at hand, Malcroft, as well as his disciple. Along with Leighton’s two adult children, both of whom possess gifts.

Once this story gets going, the energy is propulsive.
Three narratives, Leighton in the void, his artistic son and the disciple beside his near-lifeless body, while his spiritualist daughter and adept Malcroft race to Egypt, enlisting the ferocious Mona.
To attempt a summoning that Aleister Crowley shirked, and regretted to his dying day.
The Egyptian track is the meat of the book, and is a thumping, pulpy adventure.
Much of this echoes “Entombed With The Pharaohs” (HPL / HH), and is claustrophobic, dangerous, laced with exploits.

This can be read as a page-turner, in which case this is a lot of fun.
Weighell has jammed this with references, however. Readers with an interest in Egyptology will seize with delight. Me, I know major deities, I know Bast (living with felines means awareness of Bastet is de rigueur). The ruins of Bubastis? Never heard of it. Weighell makes it unforgettable.
Other references dance around. Aleister Crowley, to a lesser degree Austin Osman Spare.
Again, these are backgrounded. You can enjoy this book, knowing nothing of them.

Down the line, if curious, there are plenty of areas to explore.
The novel is an erudite cliffhanger from a master storyteller, with a fond afterword from Ron’s widow, Fran.

Sister Long Legs -1960 - 6/10
AKA - Chang tui jie jie // 長腿姐姐

Jingfang has two eligible daughters.
Although Binbin is underage and a terrible flirt, and Tingting pushes men away with those black frame glasses and her dismissive attitude.
And there are so few attractive (ahem, rich) single men available.
Plus, other women are pushing their own daughters front and center.
Romantic comedy of wealth and manners and assumptions.
For those who have lived or visited, this offers a peek at Hong Kong, way, way back when.

Groundhog Day - 1993 - 6/10

TV weather guy (Bill Murray) as a world-class, self-centered jerk.
He hates his job, hates the assignment (please, groundhog reports), hates the small town and the folk.
His contempt is all too evident.
Fate, however, can play cruel jokes, and not always on innocent rubes.
He is caught in a loop, one Groundhog Day follows another, with no end.
Of all the flimsy plots, yet this Rom-Com works, despite the concrete female thespian.
Murray is droll, sardonic, cynical, frustrated. Terrific range. Film has dated, though.

Film Emigration From Nazi Germany - 1975 - 6/10
AKA - Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland

Documentary made in the late 1960’s consists of interviews with those who fled Nazi Germany, or their descendants.
Five episodes, each with its own focus;
1 Why leave? Who helped them leave?
2 Those who went to France, Belgium, England. Worse antisemitism, work restrictions.
3 USA. Unions refusal techs, writers can only make suggestions. Free reins to composers and directors.
4 Hollywood restricts acting roles: Nazis, professors, scientists, later Communists and terrorists
5 War over. Return to Germany or remain? Forever an outsider.
These are long take, often labored interviews, and may be wearisome to casual viewers.
For cinema connoisseurs, this is a fascinating back alley.

Tabloids On Trial - 2024 - 6/10

Specifically, the British tabloids, from embellishing stories to outright lying.
Earlier, where were those journalists getting their facts?
Hacking phone calls, hacking voicemails, burglarizing homes.
Wait, friend! Isn’t that illegal?
Maybe, yet if the culprits are off-duty, freelancing coppers, then forget it.
The tabloids have a war chest of billions, with politicians and authorities in their pockets.
Who can fight? Who has enough financial firepower and cachet?
Think of a Prince. One the tabloids have been smearing for years.
One whose mother, the tabloids caused the death of.

Douglas Fairbanks: The Great Swashbuckler - 2005 - 7/10

90 minute biography from the Douglas Fairbanks Museum.
Tidy overview of his life, Broadway career, Hollywood comedian, then action icon.
Numerous clips from many films, quality varies depending on restoration.
Hosts do a good job encapsulating the man, painful personal history, achievements.
If nothing else, for founding United Artists with Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and D W Griffith.
One must overlook the somewhat amateurish quality of this.
Miking is not always the best, set choices are odd, and it feels like the budget was modest.
If you can forgive limitations, you should enjoy this labor of love documentary.

The Summer Of 42 - 1971 - 6/10

Coming of age story of teenage boy developing a crush on a war bride, husband deployed overseas.
Easy to see why, Jennifer O’Neil is absolutely radiant.
The photography is lush, soft focus. Music by Michel Legrand is unforgettable.
Much is accurate across years. Insecurity, fumbling dates, the attempts at being serious.
Seaside locations add a pervasive melancholy, compounded by the undercurrent of the ongoing war.
Funny, sentimental, aching at times.

The Importance Of Being Oscar - 2024 - 7/10

Meteoric rise, sordid fall, quiet resurrection of the Irish poet and playwright.
Infatuation with Miss Langtry, marriage to Constance.
The American tour, the burgeoning fame both for works and appearances.
Bosie, and only Bosie is listed as a dalliance.
Alastair Whatley one man show makes a spellbinding evening of wit, intellectualism and pathos.
Referenced: “Earnest”, “De Profundis”, “Ballad Reading Gaol”.
Essential for fans of Wilde.
Excellent companion to Prisoner C33 from 2022.

The Thirteenth Hour - 1947 - 6/10

Steve, swerving to miss a drunk driver, plows into a gas station.
No one saw the other car, his freight truck is wrecked, his license suspended.
How will he keep his small transport firm in business?
Especially with the larger competitor trying to quash him.
Add some murders, and Steve’s luck tumbles from bad to worse
Late entry in “The Whistler” series is a routine Noir with a few twists.
Surprisingly good restoration for a lesser B-film, commentary by historian Eloise Ross.
Richard Dix’s last film in the series, and his final film, period.

Shining Sex - 1976 - 6/10

A reserved couple invite a cabaret dancer back to their rooms.
Threesome, she assumes. Except it is anything but.
The female is an inter-dimensional, studying human behavior, the male is her servant.

Early on, the dancer is smeared and drugged with ointment.
This will inevitably kill her, but first she is tasked to assassinate three.
The plot in a nutshell, is SciFi, leaning toward Alphaville minimalism.
This is a lethargic, dreamlike mood piece, sopping with fluids.

Sex is used as control, seduction, extermination.
Losing track of time, which is a theme, equates to losing life.
The obliterating power of the long night, that grows into the lost weekend, then the missing week.
For sybarites, voyeurs, and fans of Jess Franco.

Of Unknown Origin - 1983 - 6/10

Rising New York corporate shark Bart is fast tracked to make VP, owns a beautifully restored brownstone, and has a gorgeous wife (Shannon Tweed debut).
And an oversized, especially destructive rat. Chewing power cables, infesting food stocks, shredding living areas.
While Bart has a major business deadline, the rodent takes greater priority.
Man vs rat packed with jump scares, tension, and ridiculous comedy.
Intentional or not – unsure.
The audience I watched with started laughing midway until the credits.

Music For The Movies: Bernard Herrmann - 1992 - 7/10

From Citizen Kane (1941) to Taxi Driver (1976).
Overview of extraordinarily gifted, if testy, composer and conductor.
Herrmann was one who broke with the style of compositions derived from the European Romantic tradition.
Talking heads include composers, musicians, directors, an ex-wife, friends.
Analyzed is his use of ostinati (repeating musical patterns), also the break with Hitchcock.
At an hour, this skims along and covers roughly a quarter of his film output.

The Good, The Bad, And The Weird - 2008 - 6/10
AKA - 좋은 놈, 나쁜 놈, 이상한 놈

Exciting Korean Western set in Manchuria, 1939, just before World War II.
An assassin is tasked with stealing a treasure map, carried by a Japanese diplomat on a train.
Things get messy when a lowly bandit winds up with the map first and flees on his motorcycle.
Further complicating matters, a bounty hunter arrives in pursuit of the hitman.
Add a large gang of thieves, add a Japanese army detachment!
Gunfights? You gotta be kidding. Likewise, topnotch camera work and incredible stunts.
Homage to Spaghetti Westerns, although lightweight, lacking the edge Leone would have given.
Pre-fame Lee Byung-hun, Song Kang-ho, Jung Woo-sung in over-the-top adventure.

The Mysterious Lady - 1928 - 6/10

Her mission: steal some plans off the Austrian officer.
Romance and lies. If necessary, seduction.
Garbo excels as the femme fatale, ala Mata Hari.
Conrad Nagel fine as the dashing, smitten officer.
Being an espionage thriller, the pace is low key, despite the stakes.
Evocative lighting by candles, cigarette smoke.
For those who never understood the “fuss” about Garbo, she is lovely in this.

Garuda - 2008 - 4/10
AKA - Paksa Wayu

Digging a new tunnel, workers hit a rock that cannot be drilled, or blasted.
In due course, they and two Western scientists awaken the petrified bones of a garuda.
According to Thai mythology, the creature is part man, part bird. All evil, and all angry.
An elite military squad is dispatched, but the action is minimal and shows budget constraints.
The creature is intriguing, as it seems to possess a sense of humor.
The directing is bad and the acting worse.
Bought this years ago from ThaiNetCity, who sold Asian DVDs for $5, fair when chancing unknown titles.

He Walked By Night - 1948 - 7/10

A beat cop accidentally interrupts a burglar and is killed for his interference.
Police manhunt of the cop killer is no mere procedural.
For one thing, the killer / thief is smart. Really smart.
He has devised a homemade radio set to eavesdrop on the police radio channel.
His patterns of crime, he changes those to muddy the trail.
Moody photography, eerie use of the Los Angeles sewer system.
Richard Basehart starred in several Noirs, this one of his best.
Audio commentary by film historians worth listening to, as well.

Night Shift - 2021 - 6/10

Rent-a–cop security guard prowls empty corridors and rooms.
Bored, he sets up and runs an old slide projector, viewing whatever images are loaded in the drum.
The screen grows progressively more disturbing.
Near-wordless short makes great use of lighting, editing and angles to sustain creeping terror.
In an ideal world, young director Jerrod Moore would get a crack at a B-film.

Marano, Michael - Stories From The Plague Years

Be not misled by the cover. Plague more often refers to AIDs, or drug addiction, instead of cholera or bubonic.
Likewise, do not be put off by the Cemetery Dance imprint, usually associated with pumpkins, Halloween, and coming-of-age nightmares. Breezy beach reads.
Not this outing.
Marano’s prose is dense, his style thickly textured, frequently elliptical with opening scenes returning by the conclusion.

“Displacement” listens to a creative serial killer. Why victims were chosen, and why an especially inventive method of dispatch employed.
The murderer, Dean, is a compelling, if arrogant, study. Unfortunately, the author seemed to tire of him by the end, and the tone shifted abruptly and, to my mind, not for the better.

“Little Round Head” is a stolen infant, probably human, possibly a discarded abortion, fostered by sewer rats. Throughout, I recalled the Harlen Ellison tale, “Croatoan”.

The final story, “Shibboleth”, is prescient, foretelling a global pandemic, the disruption and collapse of the supply chain, armed militias. The youthful pair venture out from the fortified city of Boston, hoping for improved chances in greener environments. Instead, they discover when lack of order occurs, human nature and good will plummets.
An ugly, telling prediction, and one we continue to tread closer to.

What Pauline Is Not Telling You - 2022 - 6/10
AKA - Ce que Pauline ne Vous Dit Pas

After yet another telephone argument with her estranged husband, Pauline decides to visit in person.
There, at her old home, she finds him on the ground, dead.
Rattled, she drives home, and only then does she summon an ambulance.
Pauline is an unreliable narrator, with strong motives to kill her husband.
Police are highly suspicious, as is the investigating judge.
Online, every yahoo spews their hateful opinion.
Human beings what we are, people up and down the social scale lie and lie and lie.
And believe and embrace our own fabrications.

Lake Placid - 1999 - 6/10

I forgot I owned this one! I forgot Brigit Fonda was in it, as was Bill Pullman.
Now, Betty White, she I remembered with clarity.
A mangled body surfaces in the Maine lake. The local ranger calls an animal expert to determine the predator.
In time, the sheriff gets involved, as does a creepy professor.
Despite the cast (I kid you not) this is, at heart, a B-film creature feature.
Only thing is, the writing in this is funny as hell.
A smart parody of an over-milked genre. Chomp, chomp.

The Flapper - 1920 - 6/10

Girl disobedient, Ginger, is shipped to a strict boarding school.
Where, she periodically escapes, chases young men, goes clubbing.
The glamorous life.
At a cost, however, which become the seeds of moral lessons.
Olive Thomas (who died young and under mysterious circumstances) shines in this.
The hijinks are playful, and she knows how to embody a teenager.
As a “flapper” she is an innocent version, not the sort who loses her stockings.
In a word, no steam, no oomph.

T-Men - 1947 - 6/10

T, as in Treasury. Agents mostly concerned with counterfeiters.
Two T-men go undercover to join a Detroit gang.
On the run, their own gang now extinct, they are studied and gauged by the new outfit.
Interesting mix of styles: Noir, police procedural, docu-drama.
Influential cinematography by Alton, Noir icons Dennis O’Keefe and Charles McGraw.
Listening to the commentary, the financial backers were mobster John Roselli and Production Code chief censor, Joe Breen. Quite the odd couple.

Louise Brooks: Looking For Lulu - 1998 - 7/10

Subsequent documentary that incorporates and supersedes the Arena episode.
Five parts devoted to dance, Hollywood, Berlin, the lost years, the resurrection and iconic fame.
Interviewees include Brooksie, biographer Barry Paris, costars, friends, neighbors.
Film clips from Silents to her final role with John Wayne, Weimar newsreels, plenty of photos.
Concludes with a poignant, haunting quote that will linger inside you for days.
“… I have failed in everything - spelling, arithmetic, riding, tennis, golf; dancing, singing, acting; wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of ‘not trying.’ I tried with all my heart.”

The Brides Of Dracula - 1960 - 6/10

Well, the young man was so handsome! And his mama kept him in those dreadful chains. So, of course, I helped free him.
So muses the pretty new schoolteacher, after she frees the Transylvanian vampire.
Named Count Meinster, by the way, no Vlad in this one.
However – one Van Helsing just happens to be in the neighborhood.
Hammer outing boasts Cushing, a good-looking David Peel, attractive females, Gothic sets.
Not completely predictable, this remains enjoyable in spite of a well-traveled narrative.

Dry Water - 2019 - 6/10
AKA - Auga Seca

Son Fran is an idealist, developing a process for dry water to help drought stricken regions.
Too bad his family is more profit oriented.
Their business is international export, and when a bloody death occurs at the pier, police visit.
And the detectives keep at it, since stories and evidence does not add up.
Two short seasons of corruption and investigation.
To tell the truth, I was happy with one, deciding it was more accurate to reality.