Last night I re-watched Alfred Hitchcock’s last movie, Family Plot, released in 1976. I originally saw this in ’78 or ’79 in a drive in during the summer, and it remained stuck in my mind.
I re-watched it because it’s sort of research for a very long-shot of a project, but really I just needed an excuse.
Category Archives: Media
Radio Karavansara #3: Imaginary Girls
Nothing particularly clever for this new episode of Radio Karavansara, only a roundup of Imaginary Girls – some of them, like Sara, have been with me since my days in high school, others, like Gosport Nancy, are recent acquaintances. One of them, Lola, caused me no end of problems with my friends in university (and today would probably get J.K. Rowling’s knickers in a twist), and as for Pandora, she is a character in a few of my stories.
And because I did not feel like causing any embarrassment for the ladies, I have refrained from adding my voice to the transmission. I am sure no one will miss it – me least of all.
Enjoy the show, let me know what you think of the girls if you feel like, and stay safe out there!
Dangerous women
A little jazz for the young ones
I’m taking a moment to post about something I’ve just found out and it’s incredibly fun, and intelligent, and good.
In a nutshell: a bunch of musicians and youtubers (or youtube musicians, or something), got together to create a record of arrangements of classic children tunes, injecting in them all kinds of jazz goodness – off rhythms, key changes, triplets and quintuplets and what else.
The end result is a strange beast, a record of children songs that are also fun to listen to for grown-ups.
I started listening to jazz – properly listening to jazz, that is – with Dave Brubeck, and therefore I was spoiled for odd time signatures and exotic arrangements.
Thsi collection might be a good way to start the young ones on a strange musical journey they’d probably enjoy.
And all proceeds go to Save the Children UK, so you know you are helping a good cause.
Gotham and ghosts
One of the good things of working on a podcast like Paura & Delirio is, it gives me a good excuse to dig deep into movies to try and find something intelligent to say when we record our episodes, and as a consequence, leads me to discover more movies, stuff I missed the first time around.
For instance – we are planning a special episode (it’s all hush-hush, so no details, sorry), about a movie I know almost by heart, but while looking it up in search of ideas, I followed the thread of one of the screenwriters, and came to a 1988 movie I missed – a TV thing called Gotham, featuring Tommy Lee Jones and Virginia Madsen.
A supernatural noir – why not?
Yuko Takeuchi (1980-2020)
I am shattered at the news of the death of Japanese actress, writer and photographer Yuko Takeuchi, that was absolutely wonderful as a female version of Sherlock Holmes in the TV series Miss Sherlock.
She was 40 years old.
Lupin the 3rd – The First
I had heard about the new, 3D CGI animated movie in the Lupin the 3rd franchise about one year ago – more or less when I learned of the death of Monkey Punch, the artist and writer of the original manga from which the character was derived. I was curious about the movie, but for a number of reasons, I had no opportunity to watch it.
Until last night.
Karavansara 