Vultural

Next Stop, Greenwich Village - 1976 - 6/10

Circa 1953, 22 year old Larry decides to make the Herculean move!
From Flatbush to Greenwich Village.
There, the aspiring actor mingles with a boho set.
Writers, poets, thespians, wannabees, hustlers.
A film of moments, Village lite, and bad casting.
The actor playing 22 year old Larry is too old for the role, everyone else fine.
Shelley Winters unforgettable as his insufferable noodge of a mother.
Early film appearance of Christopher Walken who radiates presence.
Dave Brubeck music a highlight.

Alien vs. Predator - 2004 - 6/10

Coulda, shoulda, or maybe shouldn’t have.
Viewed outside the chronological canon, this remains a spotty actioner.
Weyland Corp. heads to the frozen wastes, then deep into a hitherto unknown underground environment.
Why? OK, forget that it’s a little vague here.
With the party are armed mercenary types … whom Mick Taylor could snuff with a chuckle.
Once the two main characters get going (A & P), then this is solid hunt or kill mayhem.
The human representative is OK, and having Lance Henriksen is a shrewd nod.
Enjoyable, for me, although I realize none of the installments after Aliens has ever measured up.

Two Women - 2022 - 6/10
AKA - Deux Femmes

Out making his cash runs, the village banker is murdered, car soon set ablaze.
Paris dispatches a veteran commissioner and a fledgling (female) magistrate.
Set in 1965, the inspector disrespects his female counterpart and hones in on the village outsider.
Colette, independent and financially well off.
She has sexual affairs, and, on the sly, assists with illegal abortions.
As ever, “guilty until proven innocent” applies in France.
The “two women” function as models for how females were (are) regarded.
This should pair well with Happening (2021).
Based on the real case: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_Georges_Segretin

Rucker, Lynda - Now It’s Dark

I recall reading Rucker’s previous You’ll Know When You Get There a few months after publication. A worthwhile collection that I enjoyed, it put Rucker on my radar as someone to keep an eye out for.
That book did not prepare me for this set.
Throughout, the tone is more seasoned, wearied, characters written as resigned or fatalistic.
Sylvia accompanies John to the cabin campground he has been visiting since childhood. As a couple, they are spent. Sylvia sidesteps confrontations and arguments, while John is bossy, argumentative, inattentive. Why does she – why do people – endure such martinets? In “The Dying Season” Sylvia asks herself just that, before recognizing the trap.
Searching the fringes led to disappearance. Adam liked the broken lands. Places between civilization, battered rubble and empty wastes. As if there was a rent in the fabric there. After Adam goes missing, his sister contacts a friend in “The Other Side” and they try to track his steps.
“Knots” will resonate with those who have slipped into the unequal relationship. One where identity dwindles, along with one’s ability to make decisions, even simple decisions such as what to wear, to eat, where to go for a walk.
David encounters Anna on the train in Romania. Just as well, since he has lost his passport, his money, and she offers to “fix things” with Customs officials. From that point onward, in “The Vestige” David becomes the proverbial stranger in a strange land.
Anyone who has traveled on their own, not part of a group, in the foreign land, ignorant of the language, without reservations, without phone, will relate. And yes, that is exactly how I travel.
Into “The Unknown Chambers” Catherine goes, questing for the forgotten pulp writer. Probably best left forgotten. This one is Lovecraft territory.
I’m leaving the rest for fresh discoveries. Rest assured, this is a carefully chosen and arranged collection, the stories building in intensity and emotional impact.
Swan River titles do not stay in print forever.

Trespassers - 2019 - 6/10

Their car breaks down on a lonely country road, so Ben and Lucy start walking.
They reach a farm – appears abandoned – and like all movie victims, proceed.
Even after the owner allows Lucy to use the restroom, she decides to explore the interior.
While Ben wanders out back. Why, oh why, oh why?
This is a pitch, and a good one at that, for a proposed larger film.

The Amazing Maurice - 2022 - 6/10

Cheshire cat Maurice and his rat cohort, travel from village to village.
Using their hired piper to rid the town of rat infestation … for a fee.
Yes, scamsters. Only this time, this town, they’ve run into an adversary.
Entertaining effort, draws from Shaun the Sheep entries, but without the heart.
No songs here. It does not seem aimed at children nor at adults.
This feels curiously underwritten. An attempt.
Voices ~ Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, Hugh Bonneville, David Thewlis, Gemma Arterton, David Tennant …

Radić, Vesna - Tendrilopolous

Rado abandons wife Branka for the English rose, Margaret. Accompanies her to England where he dies under suspicious circumstances.
The two women, Branka and Margaret, exchange a flurry of letters.
Asking, accusing, venting, flirting, libeling, competing, threatening.
This novella is uproariously funny, along with vulgar, graphic-pornographic, crude, and yet somehow sweetly revealing.
Vesna Radić is a self-confessed pseudonym, although the writer strikes me as a construct. I wonder if behind the façade is a male hand, or hands. Time and again, a clipped phrase, a chopped sentence, had me thinking, “only a guy would phrase it that way”.
Nevertheless, this is a hilarious read, a shaggy dog in and out.
Another one of a kind absurd gem from Corona/Samizdat.

Truck Turner - 1974 - 6/10

♫ There’s some dudes in a bar, with busted heads and broken jaws ♪
Yeah, and who did it? Truck Turner, fool!
Isaac Hayes is a lotta fun in this roaring Blaxploitation fest.
He and his buddy are skip tracers, bounty hunters.
After an especially deadly track, the pimp daddy union puts out the hit.
Violent film, punctuated with car chases and shootouts (nary a cop in sight).
A hospital sequence might seem to inform Hard Boiled decades later.
Funny throughout, as well, especially head pimpette Dorinda, a potty mouthed Nichelle Nicols.

I Came By - 2022 - 7/10

A pair of graffiti taggers hit homes of privileged wealth.
Until one explores too deeply in one home and sees something better left unseen.
A secret, and the home belongs to a powerful judge. Retired judge.
Superior thriller, written with very good logic.
None of the – “How’d that happen?” or “Where’d he come from?” plot cheats.
Most of the characters are intelligent, if flawed as individuals.
Each makes calculated moves, unaware other players observe them.
Smart film that does well by its audience. An ugly story, however.

Girl On The Run - 1953 - 5/10

Barebones outline finds Bill and Janet on the run from the cops and a powerful boss.
The charge? Murder. They are followed into the traveling carnival where the couple try to hide.
Janet joins the cooch show, Bill takes up boxing.
As far as plot, you got it. There ain’t much here.
Nonetheless, this gem is all kinds of fun for bad film aficionados.

The pace rolls quick. Diversions include fisticuffs, several cooch shows, and the exotic Gigi.
Renee De Milo as Gigi struts and gyrates and slinks through every scene.
The rest of the dance troupe vary substantially in appeal.
No one can act, even on high school level.
Not that you hunt down a sleazy, carny exploitation flick for acting.

Rose - 2022 - 7/10

Rose sits shiva to mourn a young girl, someone she did not even know.
She begins to talk. To us? To God? To the emptiness that is Life?
Rose grew up in the tiny shtetl of Yultishka, geography claimed/ignored by Russia, Poland, Ukraine.
Fleeing poverty, pogroms and Cossacks, in 1937 she moved to the safety of Warsaw.
In 1939, the Nazis arrived. Just another of God’s cruel jokes.
Maureen Lipman is an unforgettable one-person tour de force.
Remembrance, kvetching, wearied anger, resignation, fondness, righteousness.
How well you know your history (Auschwitz, Exodus, Palestine) may inform appreciation.
Nonetheless, for theatre fans, an essential performance of voice and facial expressions.

Watcher - 2022 - 6/10

Julia and husband Francis arrive in Bucharest, where he has a new job.
Early on, they witness the aftermath of a murder and learn a serial killer is targeting females.
Julia, who cannot speak Romanian, leads an aimless existence.
After awhile, she realizes she has attracted an admirer / observer / stalker.
Her husband, neighbors, police … no one believes her, so she starts following him herself.

Well turned thriller, with at least one funky descent.
The anxiety proverb rings throughout. “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean …”

Pearl - 2022 - 7/10

Grisly, slow burn thriller might try patience of viewers expecting more X (2022) excess.
This prequel, set in rural Texas during 1918.
Influenza still slaughters millions, while boys perish in the French trenches of the Great War.
Pearl, restless daughter of German immigrants, wants out!
Outta the farm, the one-horse town, her whole dilapidated life.
Like countless others, she daydreams about becoming a Hollywood star.
The exteriors glisten, like the Land of Oz, at variance with Pearl’s home.
Smiling study of madness, delusion and violent release.
Movie buffs, check the poster for Theda Bara’s Cleopatra, lost in a fire.

The Glass Wall - 1953 - 6/10

Stowaway Peter escapes Immigration, and although badly wounded, heads into Times Square.
There he is befriended by Maggie, another persona non gratis.
If caught and deported, Peter returns to Communistic Hungary and certain death.
Noir has docu-drama feel, and is a time-capsule for looking at the marquees.
Also to catch a session with Jack Teagarden and Shorty Rogers.
Gloria Grahame gives a luminous, raw performance.

Nightlight - 2017 - 6/10

Brooding short of isolated cabin dweller leaving meat outside his door.
Night after night.
What is out there? Why is the man tasked with this?
Mood, atmosphere, bleak environment.
Explanations? Best guess.

Blackout - 2021 - 6/10

Across Europe, the lights go out as the entire power grid fails.
No accident, either, but terrorism enacted by … there’s another problem.
Are “unfriendly” neighbors, who offer aid, actually guilty?
Four plotlines: two children (pointless, added for parental demographics).
Manzano, classic Hitchcockian type. Innocent who is the police’s prime suspect.
Nuclear power plant. Will it blow? When will it blow?
Bickering government officials.
Don’t probe too deeply and this thriller should satisfy. At six episodes, a digestible length, too.

Decision To Leave - 2022 - 5/10
AKA - Heeojil Gyeolsim // 헤어질 결심

The husband falls to his death in mountain climbing accident and disappears from the film.
While ruled an accident, one detective suspects the wife, even though she was in the city, working, at the time.
For reasons unknown, the pair soon develop an attraction toward each other.
The story shuffles like a mouse dropped in a dry well.
Characters appear and vanish to no purpose (detective’s partner, his wife).
The romantic angle is forced and the couple display negative chemistry.
Suspend disbelief for this? No, get a partial lobotomy first.

Cantwell, Adam - A Forest With Its Mouth Open Wide

This gathers numerous stories that previously appeared in a chancy Eastern European press, along with two from Egaeus and two from Raphus. All, I believe, are OP.
“Orphans On Granite Tides” essays the collector, the procurer, and the madman. A legendary journal, pages doled out in scraps, charts the departure from a far West paradise into – what? – bitter knowledge? There’s the puzzle. The original scribe could be gaining and sharing tortured wisdom, or could be rationalizing delusions. The collector has his own points, the procurer less.
In any event, this is one of the longest and most accessible tales.
Several stories come across as fragments. Perhaps they connected with adjacent works in the themed tomes from Romania. No idea.
“The European Monster Part 2” seems a cautionary parable of the powerful corruption of the omnipotent despot. And those who curry favor, or furtively retain their position. This was possibly a fantasy when originally published. Now the horizon looms darkly.
The closer, “The Chamber In The Universe”, studies the traveler, the banker, the investor, stranded at the pagan monument. In the middle of the broiling wastes. Will he be missed in time? Will someone even bother with a rescue attempt? Or will he, like the monument, become part of dust and discarded memories?
This hailed from the legendary And The Whore Is This Temple and, while it fittingly closes this collection, it may have been even stronger in that book.
Good to see these titles collected, and as of 2023 02, still available.

Lagaan - 2001 - 6/10

Native Hindi take on British oppressors at their own sport. Cricket.
Also a doomed romance between an English rose and Hindu boy.
Team India is wildly diverse, checking multiple demographics.
The caste racism is alluded to, though skirted.
Most unbelievable is the one-sided romance.
Sex-farm antics I might have bought, but emotional involvement, no.
Film looks great, and the sporting conflict builds nicely.
The match is exhilarating. Watch if only for that.

Shaun Of The Dead - 2004 - 6/10

I don’t know. Maybe during a zombie apocalypse, I might want military protection.
Maybe not. Armed troops might could shoot me, making me an unhappy meal distraction to aid a retreat.
So instead, slackers to the rescue? Brains fried from too much reefer?
Funny, gory, reverent to zombie rules,
For most Stateside, this was the first encounter with Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg.

Winter Walks - 2020 - 7/10

Quiet outdoor series proves a refreshing alternative to similar programs hosted by noisy blabbermouths.
A different host each week rambles along a favorite route.
This is winter, and one feels the cold simply watching.
Plus side, there are no turistas.
Hosts vary between perceptive and insightful and those who may be slyly self-serving.
Those sensitive to their surroundings resonate best.
“What was once this kind of powerhouse of industry and prayer and culture
and civilisation, became a memory, an echo. Just an outline of what it had been before.”
Rev Richard Coles (S01E05)

I Remember It Well: Conversation Judi Dench & Giles Brandreth - 2022 - 7/10

The pair sit onstage, converse, reminisce.
First half may appeal more to Brits. Theatrical career, fellow stage actors, experiences.
Better, perhaps, for those who might have attended those plays.
Nevertheless, this is priceless history.
Second half, films. Playing “M”. Mentioning leading men.
Dench is extremely careful here and does not dish.
The first ten minutes are somewhat awkward, her memory appears foggy as Giles asks about her childhood.
She is in her 80’s. Who recalls 70 years previous?

Seven Years Of Night - 2018 - 6/10
AKA - 7 Nyeonui Bam // 7年의 밤

Early on, he is reminded, the lake is cursed, haunted.
It had been flooded before the village was evacuated. People died.
Late at night, diving gear on, he plunges in anyway.
Caustic thriller of obsession, family violence, death, guilt.
A sunless realm, wallowing in gloom and reprisals.
Characters vary from outright unlikeable to unexplored ciphers.
Overlong.

See How They Run - 2022 - 6/10

1954. London, Theatre district. “The Mousetrap” celebrates its 100th performance.
      During the after-party, someone is murdered.
      Scotland Yard, occupied with the Rillington murders, can only send two members.
      Inspector Stoppard and Constable Stalker arrive and start to filter conflicting versions of events.
      Wry, quiet comedy best suited to those familiar with cozy mysteries and Agatha Christie.
      Having attended a performance of “The Mousetrap” will help, too.
      Packed with in-jokes, references, homages that may elude the casual.
      Inspector Stoppard, indeed.

Phillips, Thomas - Interiors (with Alcebiades Diniz)

Small volume of troubled souls.
In the oddly narrated “Pagan Dread”, driver and passenger head into the woods as far as their car will take them. Next, on foot, to a rendezvous with transfiguration.
This reads like a sketch, a pitch, and I wish Phillips had fleshed the narrative more fully.
“Living With Literature” is hardly that. Instead, this is the misery of the teacher or professor, evaluating yet another pretentious, insipid student paper. His voice oozes sarcasm in a tale funny yet barbed.
“Abattoir” explores boundaries. One’s home, and the implied, perhaps wistful assumption, of the safety within one’s home.
Finishing, Diniz offers an overview of the Utopia of Infra-Noir, useful for readers who come across similar publishers who reference this movement, but seldom provide historical details.