Now I have a good reason to wait for 2020.
Category Archives: Media
Insomnia Movies: a Night with Dr Anton Phibes, part 2
For reasons beyond fathoming, Robert Fuest’s 1972 Dr Phibes Rises Again was distributed with the title of Frustration, thus severing any connection with the previous entry in this short-lived franchise. But it was not frustration that caused me to watch this movie right after the first one, but plain old insomnia.
A hot tea and an aspirin with Jerry Cornelius
And having spent the cold afternoon reading one of the English Assassin’s latest exploits, I curled up under a thick blanket, with a steaming cup of tea and an aspirin, and re-watched Robert Fuest’s The Final Programme, the 1973 movie loosely based on Michael Moorcock’s novel of the same title.
And this seems to be Fuest’s week here in my house – after the two Dr Phibes (from 1971 and 1972), now The Final Programme (1973) – and it becomes easy to spot the common themes in Fuest’s work: the surreal set design (Fuest was not only the director, but also the screenwriter and the set designer for Programme), the use of music-hall style music on the soundtrack, certain repeated camera angles.
So, what’s this all about?
Insomnia movies: A night with Dr Anton Phibes, part 1
I first saw The Abominable Dr Phibes, the 1971 Robert Fuest movie, back in the ’80s, on a late-nite horror retrospective hosted by RAI 3, the “intellectual” and “left wing” channel in Italy’s state TV. I am pretty sure I saw it in black and white, which of course is a crime, because part of the wonder of this old horror movie is the colors and the looks.
So I re-watched it last night, back to back with its sequel, as I was going through a bout of insomnia.
The Abominable Dr Phibes is classified as a horror-comedy (or vice-versa), and still it is pretty gruesome and it does have a melancholic streak, and a certain tragic greatness.
Continue readingLazy afternoon
This December is flying by at an incredible speed. It’s the 7th already, and I’ve tons of stuff to do and not enough energy to comb my hair.
So I’ve taken a day off, with tea and biscuits, and watched a few episodes of the old 1980s Hammer House of Horror TV series.
The Deadly Lady from Madagascar (and other dames)
I am experiencing some technical issues (and a bout of bad health), so I’m not doing much these days. I’m falling behind with my writing and with my post, and everything else. But I was browsing some old paperback art and I happened to spot this picture…
… and I thought, wow, that’s a story I’d like to write.
Turns out this is a Robert Maguire cover for a novel called The Deadly Lady of Madagascar, bt Frank G. Slaughter (nice name for someone writing about deadly ladies) that I will try and find somehow.
If I can’t write it, I can certainly read it.
Learning stuff
It’s that time of the year again, and I’ve enrolled in two new courses – well, I meant to enroll only in one, but then, you know how it happens, and I clicked on the button and… OK; so today I took the first lessons in two new online courses on Futurelearn.
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Karavansara 