Vultural

The Pedlar Man - 2023 - 6/10

Seaside yarn.
The stranger arrives at the busy quay, bustling with tourists and locals.
Masks he has to sell, and the crowds, giddy with delight, buy and wear.
Recommended by friends of Machen, this unsettling short smacks of Aickman or Ligotti.
I wonder if the creators were aware of Thomas Tessier’s Father Panic’s Opera Macabre.
English subtitles = https://www.mediafire.com/file/rj4xujncfr1qtsz/ThePedlar-2023.srt/file

Paris Police 1905 - 2022 - 6/10

Five years have passed since Paris Police 1900, yet the brutality of the 15th century endures.
Where the first outing wrestled with huge issues, the Dreyfus Affair, street riots, attempts to undermine stability, this focuses on bodily functions.
Prostitution, sodomy, syphilis, perverts, inverts, quack cures, who does what to who, and who photographs the deeds.
The themes are simply not as compelling.
Chances are, this would have carried more weight 40 years ago – and it never would have been made.
Acting and direction are stellar, lavish sets, gloomy cinematography, stark tone.

Various (Editor: Jones, Stephen) - Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

I usually avoid the Cthulhu Mythos, endless sidespins and attempts, even though HPL approved them.
This one is different, however, as the entries revolve around one story.
In addition, Mr. Jones, a superb editor, is a very known quantity.

First surprise, a discarded draft of “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” which Lovecraft was wrestling with and receiving feedback from his circle. Not essential, yet interesting.

“Brackish Waters”, set while World War II rages, reveals that a branch of the Order of Dagon had been established in California.

Usually, it takes one to know one. In “Take Me To The River” only a handful, a few chosen, are extended the invitation. Amateur musician, owner of a used bookshop is not one, although his friend, a madcap fool, draws the card. Invitees head to the cloudy waters of Bristol.

Brian Lumley’s “The Taint” covers Polynesian tales, grotesque jewelry, and a suicide. The seaside hamlet, a shambling outsider, and slow reveal. Fans of the Mythos are aware of Lumley;s ability.

My favorite had to be Kim Newman’s “Another Fish Story”. Mojave Desert, late 1960’s, Charlie country, Charlie being Manson. Enter Leech, recognized as Randall Flagg, Lucifer, Nyarlathotep, the whisperer of lies. Charlie wants to launch Helter Skelter. Leech prophesies a darker future:

“His favorite apocalypse was a tide of McLitter, a thousand channels of television noise, a complete scrambling of politics and entertainment, proud-to-be-a-breadhead buttons, bright packaging around tasteless and nutrition-free product, audio-video media devoid of anything approaching meaning, bellies swelling and IQs atrophying…”

Such are the nightmares of Mr. Newman. Humanity would never embrace this future.

I’m leaving out Hugh Cave, Steve Tem, Caitlín Kiernan. Sorry!

Fedogan & Bremer still stocks this, still stocks copies signed by Stephen Jones, modestly priced.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls - 2003 - 7/10

(I have not read Biskind’s controversial book upon which this is based.)
By the mid-1960’s, Hollywood was finished, going broke, audiences watching TV.
Who comes to the rescue? All the young kids with zest, fresh ideas, and stories for younger audiences.
Coppola, Scorsese, Speilberg, Lucas, Polanski, Friedkin, Bogdanovich, etc …
This makes for an absorbing view, especially for buffs who should KNOW most of the films and interviewees.
That said, the premise that Hollywood was a shuttered graveyard is wholly erroneous.
Studio outings included: Bullitt, Cool Hand Luke, Dirty Dozen, Funny Girl, Butch Cassidy, Planet Apes, ……
An alternative documentary covering similar territory would be A Decade Under The Influence, also from 2003 with many of the same participants, although that is equally biased.

Message In A Bottle - 2023 - 6/10

War explodes into the peaceful, happy community.
Family and neighbors decide to make the watery voyage to a new country.
Theatre story is all dance, set to the music of Sting.
My bride, one-time dancer, still aficionado, voiced her criticisms.
Dancers were great, choreography uninspired.
Ballet exercises mixed with break-dancing. Not telling a story, merely jumping about the stage.
Me? Music was poorly presented. Compressed mono.
Moreover, half the tunes hailed from Sting’s old group (who went unmentioned).

Boys From County Hell - 2020 - 6/10

“I was thinking we could route the bypass a wee bit and avoid those stones.”
“Local bullshite. There ain’t no 300 year old vampire under that cairn. You knock it down!”
And thus the ancient cairn is knocked down, and soon blood flows in the village lanes.
Witty comedy mixes alcohol and plasma, jokes and stakes.
Well traveled tale, yet the lads are a game bunch, if inept.
Friends, followers and foes of Abhartach, join Bram and refill your glasses with this one.

Lady From Chungking - 1942 - 6/10

Anna Me Wong leads the resistance in a small village, occupied by Japanese forces.
The Chinese are hiding weapons and biding their time.
Japanese general Kaimura, known as the Butcher, is arriving, which signals an offensive.
Meanwhile, two Flying Tiger pilots have crashed, one is captured, one rescued.
Fast moving chest-beater, laden with jingoistic propaganda.
Still, one watches for Anna Mae in a rare starring role, and she is terrific.

Turkish Star Trek - 1973 - 6/10
AKA - Turist Ömer Uzay Yolunda

Alright, Trek-heads! Check this one.
The Enterprise orbits planet M-113 where Professor Crater and his wife are the only dwellers.
Aside from desperately needed salt, they want to be left alone.
Complications follow when one of the landing party is killed, body drained of salt.
Finding a patsy, Professor Crater teleports Ömer away from a forced marriage, light years distant.
The whole Trek stuff is completely faithful to “The Man Trap” episode.
As for Ömer, he is a fast-talking buffoon, out of place, clueless, yet surprisingly quick to grasp.
He excels in annoying Mr Spak to distraction.
There is a lot to enjoy in this insane spoof, which abounds in other references.
Uncredited, but listen for “Echoes” by Pink Floyd.

Idle Wives - 1916 - 6/10

Ah, domestic bliss. Arguments and tantrums round the kitchen table.
Elsewhere, a husband dallies with an old flame, his suspicious wife spying from nearby.
While a young girl, defying her mother, goes out walking with a man of bad reputation.
By chance, all enter the movie palace to view “Life’s Mirror”.
Where they see on the silver screen, characters eerily enacting their own situations.
Morality film, brushed with melodrama, once feared lost, until two reels surfaced a few years ago.

Paris Was A Woman - 1996 - 6/10

Following the Great War, numerous Americans flocked to Paris.
The Twenties roared, the dollar was strong, and the Depression years away.
Among them, women, creative types, completely stifled in the heartland.
Writers, poets, painters, journalists, publishers, photographers.
Less recognized than the men of the Lost Generation because they were female.
Brief documentary highlights the leading lights, although the audio is often garbled.
Companion to the book of the same name, which is highly recommended.

Good People - 2022 - 6/10
AKA - Des Gens Bien

Their car skids off the road, hurtles downhill, explodes into flames.
Tom escapes, while Linda is burned beyond recognition. And they had been very much in love.
What the hey, she had been insured to the max, which will come in handy for Tom.
Debt, huge debt, embarrassing obligations.
Almost everyone buys his version of events. Almost.
Tom can barely keep his lies straight, his anxiety is soaring, while the sexual blackmail is best left unmentioned.
Extremely funny murder series lacks complete closure (producers gambled for a S02 and lost), yet any viewer with a passable IQ should be able to stitch this up.

Littlegood-Briggs, Sylvia - Old Children

Jack, walking with vague purpose, heard the child, trapped under fallen stones, crying on the other side of the wall. He rescues the child, only to see it seemingly disappear.
Jack is noticed, however, by a woman who advises him that queer things happen where he is, Hunters’ Wood, and worse at the top, Birdyard.
She introduces herself as Polly, then offers him job at her home, Blackwood Cottage, where she wants a stone wall built, rather a stone maze.
As mentioned, Jack has been noticed. He has a quality “not quite of the fields we know, with more than a touch of the fields don’t know.”
This section, Jack’s observations, training, experiences, make for engaging reading. Two thirds in, however, the author pivots the narrative, dropping Jack into the realm of the Fairy Feller. Jack is added into a caravan, similar to those of Edith Bikker’s The Night Of Turns.
For me, this proved to be a narrative error and I found myself reading with diminished involvement. It seemed as if Littlegood-Briggs lost interest in her own tale, or if she simply lacked the story-telling ability to properly fill and conclude the opening section.
What is here, is excellent, despite the feeling that the two halves have been crazy glued together.

Coup de Chance - 2023 - 6/10
AKA - Stroke Of Luck

Woody Allen continues his long observations of insecurity, infidelity and jealousy.
This outing, per the title, “chance” is a major element. Not Fate, chance. Randomness.
Alain sees Fanny on the sidewalk, and they share a quick conversation.
They had known each other in a New York high school, where Alain had been too shy to approach Fanny.
Not so now, as Alain increasingly flirts and hits on her, all the while aware she is married,
To a wealthy man, an older man, a very jealous and suspicious man.
A relationship drama (similar to Rohmer) shifts remorselessly into much darker territory.
Not the home run Allen fans always hope for, yet very good.
And a “good” Allen is still better than most films out there.

1920 - 2008 - 6/10

Lisa tries to tell her new husband, something about the house is amiss.
Men, as ever, never listen until too late.
The house is huge, gorgeously appointed, but the owner wants it torn down and replaced with a luxury hotel.
Young architect Arjun accepts the task of making preliminary measurements and new plans.
Not knowing about the previous architects, both of whom perished in the house.
The ”spirit” of the house is not going to go quietly.
Big, flamboyant Hindi film is wildly over-the-top, most agreeably so.
There are 6-7 plots, locked rooms, flashbacks, possessions, revelations.
Musical numbers, of course. Supernatural stuff is all old school, no CGI.

The Little Stranger - 2018 - 6/10

Dr. Faraday, village doctor, almost believes the family when they say they are cursed.
Or at least their home, Hundreds Hall, in the family for generations, has turned against them.
The house, as Faraday recalls from his childhood, is a far cry from the 1919, post-Great War fete he attended.
Wealth, a platoon of servants, glorious grounds, the effortless charm of it all – all gone.
Wars, crushing death taxes, village flight to the industrial cities.
Along with the house, the Ayres family, reduced to mother, invalid son, daughter, is a dying stock.
Gothic mystery, tinged with supernatural elements, proceeds slowly and darkly.
Go in expecting low-key events and you may appreciate this better.

Berlin 1933: Diary Of A Metropolis - 2023 - 7/10
AKA - Berlin 1933:Tagebuch einer Großstadt

Compiled from diary extracts, letters, newspaper reports, film, newsreel footage.
Month by month chronology from residents living in and observing events during 1933.
Early on, street battles continue between the Nazi SA and the Communist Red Front.
By the end of December, democracy was finished.
What staggers is how swiftly the National Socialists, once in power, moved.
Enemies were persecuted, imprisoned, murdered. Opposition intimidated and crushed.
Radio and film were soon brought to heel, public opinion controlled.
After 1933, events only picked up momentum.

Next Goal Wins - 2014 - 7/10

Bottom ranked football club from American Samoa has yet to score a goal, let alone win a match.
While in FIFA, the players are not professionals, they have day jobs, some are students.
Other clubs are better equipped and boast world class talent.
Seeking help, FIFA sends them a Dutch coach prior to the next qualifiers.
He is demanding, is an outsider, does not altogether understand the culture
Nevertheless, they begin to improve.
Big hearted documentary of teammates striving for a little respect.
Beware the Hollywood adaptation, reducing originals to stereotypes and caricatures.
English subtitles = https://subscene.com/subtitles/next-goal-wins-2014/english/3286581

Sick Of Myself - 2022 - 7/10
AKA - Syk Pike

Self-preening in the age of narcissism.
Some bleat that “look at me” is unique to our current era. Au contraire.
Narcissists are older than Gyges. Signe and boyfriend Thomas continue an endless line.
Thomas is an up-and-coming hot artist, whose “sculptures” are from stolen items.
Signe is an attention wannabee. She embellishes, deceives, fabricates.
Not enough to sustain interest, however, as she discovers.
Until she physically disfigures herself, then lying that hers is a rare disease.
My anger at these social failures soon gave way to laugh out laughter.
Very black comedy about one of the countless societal diseases afflicting our species.

Howard, Robert E - A Little Bronze Book Of Weird Tales

Now, this is an imaginative collection. Interspersed with colorful poems, there are six stories. All originally published in Weird Tales.
A Soloman Kane and a Kull, troubled by visions. A cursed home and a cursed book. Two midnight terrors.
A diverse sampling of Two-Gun Bob, bypassing the usual yarns.
Editor P. Gardner Goldsmith also provides a thoughtful introduction, rather than regurgitating Howard’s biography.

Architecture 101 - 2012 - 7/10
AKA - Geonchukhakgaeron // 건축학개론

She waits in his office, his old flame, who he pretends not to remember.
Yet, how could he forget? She was his first love, perhaps his only love.
Until she broke his heart.
Now she wants him to renovate her father’s home.

Bittersweet romance of the couple who drifted apart 15 years earlier.
Cross-cutting with them during their freshmen year in the university.
Hopeful, naïve, an aspiring pianist, an architecture student.

Encouraged by the professor to explore their neighborhood, examine it.
They share the bus, share dreams, only their envisioned futures differ.
Story will resonate with those who had “everything” with their first love, until they didn’t.

My Dearly Beloved Detective - 1986 - 6/10
AKA - Moy Nezhno Lyubimyy Detektiv

“No, I’m sorry, he is a fictional character. However, since we tired of endless people coming here with their troubles, we formed our own detective agency. And … my name is also Holmes.”
Delightful, if daffy, comedy of the famed Baker Street sleuths, Shirley Holmes and Jane Watson.
Main mystery is when Scotland Yard asks them to find their missing Inspector Lester.
This features a number of songs, one or two dance numbers.
Something for the more cultured amongst us.
English subtitles = https://subscene.com/subtitles/my-dearly-beloved-detective/english/3279578

Unseen Forces - 1920 - 5/10

Young Miriam is cursed with a gift. She can see around corners.
Meaning, second sight, psychic ability, witchy power.
Early on, she meets young Clyde, and the attraction is immediate and powerful.

Years later, they reconnect. Clyde suffers a social climbing wife, Miriam has unpleasant renown.
Some bless her for her ability, others denounce her as a fraud.
Story by Robert W. Chambers (which I why I chased this down).
Ultimately, this is a maudlin soap opera. In other hands, how much better this could have been.
A recently found copy is on the National Film Preservation Foundation’s website.
(no sound - I queued up Scriabin piano sonatas those worked fine)

The Crimson Canary - 1945 - 5/10

“And I’m telling you to lay off. You’re bad for him, you’re bad for the band, and you ain’t so hot a singer,”
Anita causes havoc within the jazz combo.
Not to worry, she soon winds up dead. And whom do we suspect?
Well, the group has five members.
The plot in this is as haphazard as the music. Almost all nonstop jazz, a minute of this, two minutes of that.
Coleman Hawkins does one number, Josh White two.
Cast are supporting team standouts, as well as amateurs.

The Lesson - 2023 - 7/10

Grad student and aspiring writer Liam accepts the job of tutor, prepping young Bertie for Oxford admissions.
Truth be told, Liam wants to brush up against the famous father, J. M. Sinclair, literary lion.
In any event, prepare for the joust, for there are seething undercurrents.
The death of an elder son is a poisoned chalice in the household.

Liam, the fledgling writer, is a keen observer of the dynamics. Better, he keeps his mouth shut.
This is a slow burner, coalescing into a nasty thriller.
Richard Grant, the supposedly retired major author, should keep you glued to proceedings.
In a few ways, this makes a stylish cousin to 2022’s The Menu.

Waiting For You - 2017 - 6/10

Near his death, his father spills a few secrets son, Paul.
“Brown … shoulda been mine … sacks of pearls … still in the house.”
At the funeral, Paul tries talking with his father’s fellow war veterans, now old men.
None are inclined to rake up the past.
Instead, following the slimmest of hints, Paul heads off for France.

Where a thicket of reserved characters, locked rooms, and admonitions to mind his own business, interlace.
Quiet mystery (perhaps too quiet for its own good) of the soul far from home, unsure of what he should be hunting for, unaware of how deep into the morass he is heading.