tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14340908898640058902009-07-04T10:12:58.322-07:00Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.comBlogger776125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-9865382000299583342009-07-04T07:58:00.000-07:002009-07-04T08:42:13.931-07:00

"A Ken Loach movie with a werewolf in it" is how the makers of WILD COUNTRY (2005) describe this rare foray into genre for the Scottish film industry. It's a great idea for a new cinematic crossbreed, especially for a movie about crossbreeding, but first-time director Craig Strachan doesn't pull it off.The film begins well, inside a Glasgow maternity ward as teenage Kelly Ann (Samantha Shields)

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-82306308257967767322009-07-01T08:07:00.001-07:002009-07-01T08:16:09.773-07:00

Don't forget, the week-long Spirit of Ed Wood Blog-a-Thon begins on Monday, July 6th, over at Cinema Styles. Wood's magnum opus PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959) turns 50 this year and a bunch of us are going to make some damn noise about it and/or Eddie in general. Be there or ... bevare!

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-70344164646256500542009-06-27T09:39:00.000-07:002009-06-27T13:04:07.760-07:00

... for young people today. They will never know what it's like to work really fucking hard to have a good time.Back before the Internet, you really had to use your imagination.Curiosity wasn't satisfied with the flick of a switch. You had to turn a lot of dials and keep an eye on the needle.You had to take actual risks but the air crackled with electricity.In the end, you were a whole person.

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-89322642417210821582009-06-25T15:07:00.001-07:002009-06-25T15:07:44.068-07:00

... we still have this guy.

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-28305187269073710322009-06-25T12:46:00.001-07:002009-06-25T12:53:47.704-07:00

I was never a fan particularly (I hated the show but if I had to pick an Angel it would have been Kate Jackson) and yet the death of Farrah Fawcett today has given me pause. When I was a young man, I used to love from afar and love hard but I fell out of the habit before I was out of my 20s. That was for the best, I think. But still... it just occurred to me that there will come a day and

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-89567806923246812082009-06-24T07:44:00.000-07:002009-06-24T08:24:00.329-07:00

I admit it freely, I'm a sucker for Armageddon porn. Science and logic be damned but tear up a major city or two and I'm Johnnie on the Spot. WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (1951), DEEP IMPACT (1999), THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004), CLOVERFIELD (2008) - I love 'em all.I love the high angle of Christ the Redeemer crumbling like wet bread over Rio de Janeiro and the vision of what I take to be the dome of

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-24926059261120662722009-06-22T10:51:00.001-07:002009-06-22T10:51:53.256-07:00

Offered without comment. Please feel free to supply your own.

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-29142649051143961632009-06-22T10:06:00.000-07:002009-06-22T16:31:42.481-07:00

I was saddened this morning to learn that Spanish actor Fernando Hilbeck died in April at the age of 75. The son of an English father and a Spanish mother, Fernando José Hilbeck Galvada studied philosophy in Peru before returning to the continent and getting involved in avant garde theatre in Italy. He got his start in films with bits in Michael Curtiz's FRANCIS OF ASSISI (1961) and Richard

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-12922444032667752902009-06-18T10:01:00.000-07:002009-06-18T12:23:26.875-07:00

While spinning DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) recently, I was struck with the sense memory of the acute dread I felt 30 years ago while watching the movie for the first time.It wasn't the expected shots that thrilled me/chilled me back then - the shotgun blasted head, the first zombie chomp, the charnel tenement basement- but rather cutaways, second unit stuff, that added color to the commentary but

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-25889005290036786162009-06-17T10:07:00.000-07:002009-06-17T11:37:54.628-07:00

You're a motel hooker. I mean, that's kind of where it begins and ends, survival-wise. But even if we forget that...You're involved in an annoying subplot and you have inconsequential dialogue about Valentine's Day that nobody wants to hear.Pink lipstick. Blue eyeshadow. Hula hoop earrings - do you have a death wish or something?You slept with the writer. Well, in the movie. But still.And

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-70657398499716739892009-06-16T09:49:00.000-07:002009-06-16T10:19:46.864-07:00

Sometimes it takes a real stinker to show us how fine a line it is separating ineptitude from genius. Take THE GIANT CLAW (1957) por ejemplo... routinely short-listed as one of the biggest movie turkeys of all time (mostly because of the big turkey in the movie), this Fred F. Sears joint has one of the great horror/sci-fi movie moments of all time buried in amidst all the falderol and

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-76382189655852864762009-06-14T07:27:00.000-07:002009-06-14T08:12:42.225-07:00

Although it begins well, with an early attack on Pennsylvania partiers inside a mine shaft, the 2009 (3D) remake of MY BLOODY VALENTINE soon slips into tedium and generica. The film not only wastes the contributions of old timers Tom Atkins and Kevin Tighe, but it makes of them bad actors in the service of a dull, plodding script that offers the audience a climactic choice of possible villains,

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-55783855716180868172009-06-10T08:10:00.000-07:002009-06-10T17:59:15.662-07:00

Looks like somebody caught the red eye to Kill Face City!This Kill Face confection is topped with a tasty chiaroscuro pout.You know a Kill Face is good when it doesn't have to look right at you.This Kill Face smells like condoms.Not even the best Kill Face can trump the Creepy Old Guy in a Jaunty Rawhide Cap Face.Are you eyeballin' me Slimy Alien Kill Face? That's not a rhetorical question, I

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-55912402672328973582009-06-09T10:57:00.001-07:002009-06-09T10:57:52.103-07:00

Nick Grinde - How To SleepUploaded by beautifulcynic. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.... with a little help from that scamp Robert Benchley.

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-71153857017787749142009-06-07T06:52:00.000-07:002009-06-07T09:40:59.458-07:00

Here we have a look at the post-Frankenstein/pre-Lewton Karloff, when he was shuttling from studio to studio as a free agent, playing various and sundry parts for Warners, Monogram and Columbia in addition to occasional gigs for his former home studio Universal. Karloff was by this point in his life in his "mad scientist period," in which all of his best laid schemes (to cure paralysis and

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-14148961369124746912009-06-06T08:05:00.000-07:002009-06-06T09:59:34.365-07:00

In Adam Gierasch's AUTOPSY (2008), one of the more recent After Dark Horrorfest's "8 Movies to Die For," a pretty young girl and her friends find themselves shut inside a foreboding hospital. It all begins innocently enough...... when our plucky young heroine is told to take the elevator to the 3rd floor.There's some suspense involved in finding the elevator...... and then she finds it. She

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-54850872570308943042009-06-04T15:01:00.000-07:002009-06-04T15:29:57.133-07:00

I like the look of the advance images from Glenn McQuaid's I SELL THE DEAD (2009), which will be playing theatrical dates here in Los Angeles within the next few weeks, but the publicity material being sent in advance of these screenings has me scratching my head. 18th century justice has finally caught up to grave robbers Arthur Blake and Willie Grimes. With the specter of the guillotine

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-72841710703596541152009-06-04T10:27:00.000-07:002009-06-15T15:13:05.111-07:00

George Romero apologists who can't admit that the brains behind NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) ran out of ideas well before DAY OF THE DEAD (1985) and has been running on fumes and enablers ever since are like those tragic minor characters in Romero's "dead" films who exist in denial that their infected family and friends aren't their loved ones anymore and keep them

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-22770932564226201742009-06-03T09:43:00.000-07:002009-06-03T09:55:16.037-07:00

The delightfully-named British artist Emma Mount (Bond girl or AVENGERS sidekick?) confesses a lifelong obsession with iconic femme fatales (and the occasional old timey ghoul). Quoted from her personal website:My influences are many, including paintings, pin-ups, magic, mermaids, funfairs, chocolate, dreaming, side-show banner art, AHenry fabric, kitsch, mexicana, halloween, hula, the seaside,

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-63568180507488756232009-05-29T07:47:00.001-07:002009-05-29T07:48:04.434-07:00

Here's a funny little Heineken spot featuring my utterly hilarious British friend Jonathan D. Ellis as the immortal Cunt... er, Count.

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-50766012207966627442009-05-28T14:12:00.000-07:002009-05-28T14:31:36.900-07:00

Arbogast is aggrieved to report the passing of actress Jane Randolph, whom you may remember as Simone Simon's rival for the affections of Kent Smith in Jacques Tourneur's CAT PEOPLE (1942). While Simon got all the loving close-ups and was bewitching as Hell in the flashier role of the slinky shape shifter, Randolph played the sort of woman I've always held in highest esteem - superficially plain

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-7434086171464470522009-05-27T10:28:00.000-07:002009-05-27T10:40:44.020-07:00

Okay...a.) Happy Birthday, VeePee, butb.) How freaking awesome is THE DATING GAME, GOTHIC EDITION? I mean, stylistically? With ground fog and body parts and Hager doubleknit slacks?c.) Did Price say "speaking as one monster to another" to Bachelor No. 3 because the kid was a Republican? And...d.) How painful was this to actually sit through? I actually quit about 7 minutes in.But wasn't

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-54191448035025018112009-05-27T10:22:00.000-07:002009-05-27T10:26:15.192-07:00

Yeah, you're old fashioned, cranky British dude, but we wouldn't have you any other way! Many happy returns of the day and from the grave. Have a short or a port or a snort of any sort!

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-41700793730777414202009-05-26T15:55:00.001-07:002009-05-26T15:56:29.242-07:00

Gone 15 years but never forgotten.

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1434090889864005890.post-66423655497540980932009-05-25T07:57:00.001-07:002009-05-25T08:40:09.564-07:00

Happy Memorial Day.I've had a partiality to cemeteries for as long as I can remember. We had an old one in my home town, not far from the town center and a stone's throw from the local technical high school. A narrow country road went over a shallow creek and just beyond this the cemetery lay on either side. One side of the graveyard was old, the other contemporary. It was the old, no

Arbogasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12670776992289080245noreply@blogger.com4