p e n g u i n d e v i l

Not much watching for this week. Distracted with being sick and pondering taking a C class over the Internet… Is that nutty? Does that work? iClass? Well, we’ll see. So I’m messing around with that sort of fun stuff…

Watching-wise though, I’ve mainly been getting bored with History of Britain… I mean, I like history well enough, but when it’s just king this and king that, it starts seeming like a bit of stuff is missing and it gets a little dull. Last night we got to episode 5 with the black plague and he actually started talking a bit about more social effects on the regular folks. So that was an improvement… though I’m not sure if I’ll make it all the way through. And of course, more Alfred Hitchcock Presents

There were some watchings from weeks back that I missed last time. We watched Rock School. It was funny to watch it soo soon after School of Rock. It was obviously the idea behind the Jack black gig: A pushy annoying loud frustrated musician starts an after-school program for kids to learn music and then sets them off one a quest to perform at a big show. Anyway, it was pretty enjoyable. Though he certainly could be a mean fellow. All in the name of pushing people to be their best. Obviously an experience I’ve never been through, but it seems annoying. I would highly recommend it if you ever had enough interest to see School of Rock. It is an interesting contrast of a Documentary and a Hollywood dramatization of the same subject.

I also watched The Set-up. Now normally I am an unquestioning fan of any sort of Crime Noir. Possibly the best film genre out there (except I do get a bit tired of endless failures on the parts of our heroes), and this was not really an exception. It was well done & moving, with plenty of excitement and dames but… I gotta say. Boxing bores the living heck out of me. It always has. So much so that I’ve never even seen Raging Bull (though When We Were Kings is brilliant, I’m not sure why I make that exception). This movie’s got fisticuffs and lot’s of it. If you like good ol’ movies and you like boxing, this is one for you. I swear, though, the main fight seems like twenty minutes of watching them box.

I watched From Beyond again. That is one film that seriously needs a real release. Yes, it’s no Re-animator, but it’s an essential film in the HPL canon and this edition that I have (the only one I’ve come across) just doesn’t cut it. I’ve read reviews where folks refer to it as a bare-bones release but I think that are missing the point. It seems to me to be nothing more than someone pressing record on a dvd recorder and pressing play on a vcr with a chinese subtitled tape of the film in it: Okay picture quality, unremovable chinese subtitles (rather large), no chapter stops, no menus, no nothing. You put the disc in and it just plays. Anyway. Of course, it’s still a must see. Jeffrey Combs, and Barbara Crampton and the Gordon/Yuzna combination, the wonderful “fish” that the resonator brings to the fore, the gradual “more human than human”-ification of Pretorius. Highly recommended and much awaiting a real DVD of this classic.

from beyond 43:43

And then, last night, after getting bored of watching the bad lip-syncing of Brian Johnson in disc two of Family Jewels (playing the studio track over film of them performing only works well if you can’t really see their mouths and hands) I plugged in the ol’ VCR to watch Let There Be Rock. Talk about something needing a DVD release. The VHS are getting old and I don’t know about the other options: there are tons of stuff that certainly not this listed on eBay. I’m sure I could find a boot there, but I’d rather just get a real DVD. This is one of the all time classic music movies. Behind the scenes and on stage just as the boys are hitting it big, and nearly at the end for ol’ Bon. An awesome experience of the Greatest Band in the World.

Oh yeah and, just now, we watched Amelie. I know that this is a real love it or leave it movie for most people. I’m one of those who’s a big fan. The three of his films that I like are all wonderfully clever, very well shot and endlessly interesting. Though Delicatessen strongly remains my favorite.