The book front.

Have a lot of books to read, many of which I don't finish. Right now I'm reading Roger Ebert's biography, LIFE ITSELF. I enjoy the stories of his life as a young newspaperman, hanging out in bars, and then being drafted into film criticism. I'm envious in a lot of ways. I think Ebert would like that, that despite all of his recent difficulties, that a reader of his memoir would ultimately envy his life. I work now, and wish I had more time to read. I only work part-time, but it still takes up half a day, every day. Still, I guess it's a good way to ease back into the world of work after being out of it for years. Still looking for something full-time, and something more stable. I'm also re-reading Larry McMurtry's LITERARY LIFE, in hopes that it will cause me to write again, something I haven't done in months.

Bud Spencer & Terence Hill - Crime Busters

Crime Busters

Some movies are just made for lazy afternoons. They usually don't require too much attention and can be enjoyed even while you're doing something else, be it chores or messing around on your laptop. Crime Busters, like many Italian films, is one of those type of movies. There's something reassuring about the combination of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer [love his jacket in this that has "JUMBO" written across the back in cheap looking lettering.] Doesn't matter if they are in the Wild West or on the mean streets of Miami, you know that Terence Hill will make a fool out of the bad guys, Bud Spenser will be a combination of irresistible force and immovable object, logic will probably take a holiday, and fun will be had. That sentence went a little long. So does CRIME BUSTERS. Hill and Spencer meet on the docks. Both are out of work and get on the wrong side of some kind of vague organized crime group that controls the union jobs. Both Hill and Spenser manage to get the better of their foes, but are still out of work so Terence [whom I always want to call Trinity no matter what movie he's in] has the idea of robbing a grocery store. But it turns out the grocery store is actually a police station, so to cover themselves our heroes decide to sign up for the force. A whole lot happens over the next 100 minutes or so and the mind can wander at times [the weird showdown between the good guys and some kind of weird Indian wannabe biker gang at the Orange Bowl really bogs stuff down] but it all works out in the end. Think I may try to re-visit some of the Trinity films next...

Noir noir noir....

I have tried to be on a "steampunk" kick lately but got sidetracked by an article about modern noir authors and have been trying to read all of the books mentioned since then. THE MOTEL LIFE is the first one and I blazed through it in a couple of days. It's about a pair of unlucky brothers who live in seedy Reno motels and try to hammer out an existence for themselves. Both have creative talents that they only use to pass the time and get through life, and there's a sense throughout of "what might have been." At first this seems like a typical Bukowski style pastiche of the boozing lifestyle, but this wouldn't be a noir if that's all it was. It's been a while since I read something that I kept wanting to get back to, and where I was disappointed to know it was over and that was all. Listening to black metal a lot, things I was into in my late 20s. Wondering if my mid-life crisis is coming up.

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man (1976)

Not sure how to embred, but here goes...I

Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man

Okay, I'm back. Saw several things since I last posted, not going to try to recount them. Let's just continue with the Italian crime theme. This one was nowhere near as good as Caliber 9, but was worth a watch. It almost seems like the Ambiguously Gay Duo at times, despite their attempts to molest/pick up nearly every female character in the movie [other than one of the old ladies.] Maybe they have something to prove. Lots of chases, busting of heads, gals taking their tops off, but oddly, the heroes never seem to be in that much jeopardy, as if the whole thing is a massive goof to them. It is unique in that these cops generally don't give a rats ass about hurting people or getting rough, the opening chase scene ends with one of them snapping the neck of a critically injured suspect, and it is not viewed as anything remarkable. I have a cousin who was stationed in Italy and he said the police there don't mess around, so maybe this is true to life...it also has some of the more ineffectual villains I've seen in a crime film. Directed by Ruggerio Deodato, which may explain the casual attitude toward mayhem.

Fernando Di Leo's, Caliber (Milano Caliber 9)

Watched this today on Netflix, I'd heard about it for years but had never gotten around to seeing it.

Lots of groovy music, double and triple crosses, people dropping off and exchanging mysterious packages that sometimes explode, and general mayhem.  I really enjoyed it and am going to check out more Italian crime flicks, although I think I might be starting out with the best of the lot.

Support horror and the independent press!

And win free books!

CEMETERY DANCE has been a great source for horror fiction from past and present, whether it be a special edition of old favorites from Stephen King or stories from newer writers. Anyway, they have a contest now where you can win $200 in free books.
And it has multiple ways to enter using e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc....

Do check it out at their homepage.

Some other stuff that happened....

Read COLD IN JULY, by Joe R. Lansdale, one of my favorite writers. A man wakes up one night to the sound of an intruder, whom he ends up fatally shooting. The intruder's father, who has just gotten out of prison, swears revenge. But then both men find out things are not what they seem...

That's not that great of a synopsis, but it is a fun little book. I have yet to be disappointed by Joe Lansdale--the first story I read by him was "Night They Missed the Horror Show" which I read at age 16 and basically warped me for life.

I finished a couple of Bill Bryson books. I don't believe I've finished anything else, but have a couple that I am almost done with.

Movies: Watched EASTERN PROMISES again. Also a documentary about Russian prison tattoos called THE MARK OF CAIN. Didn't see much else--we've had some very busy times this month that seem to finally be done with for a while. I'm not doing that good a job at this blog, I guess. Maybe next month will be better. I know I've seen other movies but can't remember much about them. I've had a lot of things I got on Netflix that I just let run in the background while doing something else. I don't think those really count.

The Call

WHAT I READ: The Call, by Yannick Murphy.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT: A small town veterinarian who has his son go into a coma after a hunting accident. A lot of other things happen too.
WHY I'M WRITING THIS WAY: The whole book is written like this, as a series of calls the main character gets, although sometimes the calls are not actual phone calls, sometimes it's his wife calling or someone else. Sometimes a call is only metaphorical.
HOW LONG I TOOK TO READ IT: Less than 24 hours, I started yesterday afternoon and finished this morning, probably a few hours total. It's short and the format makes it a quick read.
WHAT I THOUGHT: I really enjoyed it, the first really good book I've read this year that I wanted to keep reading. Interested to see her other books, although somehow I doubt they will be written like this.
OTHER BOOKS I REMEMBER LIKE THIS: The Cardboard Universe was a series of encyclopedic entries with two characters writing them and arguing throughout the footnotes. That particular author [can't remember the name, don't want to look it up] had another novel that had the same non-standard format but I never read it. Really enjoyed that particular book, though, it was a take-off on Philip K. Dick. sort of an alternate-universe where Phoebus K. Dank was an even less successful science fiction author.

Scoreboard for February...

The lack of holidays and focus on other stuff made this month a slow one for reading and watching.

Books read: 5 Movies watched: 9

Year to date:

Books read: 8 Movies watched: 23

Need to read more [have at least two books that I will probably finish this weekend, but still haven't found a book I've been nuts about.]

Watching Take Shelter....

..and it's like watching paint dry. I feel like I'm under the influence of sedatives.
I like some stuff abut it but it is very, very slow with not much happening. That seems to be the direction movies, especially indie movies, are going these days.

Finished A FAN'S NOTES, an autobiographical novel which I've been "working on" for years. It's by Frederick Exley and is nominally about a troubled man who lives in a small town and lives for alcohol and the New York Giants, especially Frank Gifford.
It's more than that, it's crazy houses and bad jobs, and lots of craziness. I like this picture of the author. He passed away about 20 years ago, wrote three books and a lot of articles. A FAN'S NOTES was the first of the three, I have not seen the others, although a couple of years ago I read a book called EXLEY that was about a kid whose dad was an obsessive fan of Exley and A FAN'S NOTES.

Deathstalker 2 (trailer)

Saw this sequel last night....even lighter in tone than the first, which wasn't exactly GAME OF THRONES. I think it might have been one of those Roger Corman specials where they'd shoot one movie and then shoot a cheaper one with the leftover sets and props. This is a lot smaller in scale than the first one, but a lot of fun. Wish the others would be availble on DVD or on streaming.

Good movie for beer drinking. I love how the closing credits end with the various warnings and disclaimers about the film's copyright being superimposed over a shot of the female lead's bare chest.

Also....

THE DEAD, not the 1987 John Huston film but a newish zombie movie set in Africa.

One of my favorite horror films is HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD, a zombie flick set in New Guinea. It's a terrible movie, but still has stuff that works, an overall downbeat feeling of dread. Part of what works is that the zombies are out in the jungle and just seem to materialize out of the bush. THE DEAD uses this to a great advantage.

The setting works for and against the film---one of the things that really makes zombie films resonate with people is the feeling of "What if..." and seeing a world that is not unlike the viewer's own world turned upside down. The African setting causes the film to lose that...the desert and savannah seem otherworldly, as do the zombies and survivors.

Still an effective film, and I enjoy the old style effects [no CGI that I could notice.] But I would not say it's "the best movie since the original DEAD films" as some have said. But I have thought about the movie since seeing it, and that is always a good sign.

Blood, breasts, blades, beasts....

This movie has everything, it was a staple of conversation back in 6th grade [mainly due to the large amount of nudity.] I revisited it in my college years and still enjoyed it, and just picked it up on DVD with a few other similar films. DEATHSTALKER is a lot of fun, a good antidote to more serious fantasy stuff. It holds up pretty well and doesn't look any cheaper than it did in 1983.

They don't make these kind of movies anymore, I guess they just assume people will watch Cinemax type stuff or just outright porn. My favorite part is the tournament with the little guy who wears horns on his head.

Warrior, come out and play.....

I love films about fighting, I guess I'm a closet macho steroid freak even though at the gym I stick to the weight machines and the recumbent bike. Today I watched WARRIOR which had a lot of good reviews. It was interesting in that it was about MMA instead of boxing, and I don't know if there have been a lot of good MMA movies. Wrestler Kurt Angle plays a vicious Russian fighter but he ends up kind of being a McGuffin.

The ending was kind of anti-climactic, but I still got into the movie overall. Nick Nolte basically plays Nick Nolte. I like that the movie went into a different direction than I expected, but the most exciting part for me was 15-20 minutes before the end.

MMA matches are so short that they are probably not as good dramatic fodder as boxing is, since there are only three rounds and generally MMA matches in the movies are way longer than most MMA matches are in real life.

Son of Frankenstein

Saw this on Me-TV with Svengoolie! I love the horror host shows, but most have to play the same nine or ten old public domain movies, but Me-TV or whomever pays for the Universal package of films. We had a "Scary movie" show on Friday nights when I was a kid but I could never stay up and watch it most of the time since it came on at 11:30. I remember once time as a kid I was able to stay up and I felt so proud of myself.

Anyway, this was one of the films that they often played. I have the Frankenstein films on DVD but this was the first time I'd seen this. It's surprisingly long for a film back then at 100 minutes. It's also strange in that the true villain of the movie is Ygor, who uses the Monster to strike back at his enemies. The Monster himself sort of takes a back seat.

It's also funny to watch and see just how many things were taken by Mel Brooks when he made YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN---right down to the giant knockers! Huh huh huh...

Finished two other books, House of Prayer No. 2 [a memoir] and Killer Stuff and Tons of Money which is about the antique trade. Enjoyed both, but I really inhaled Killer Stuff. I submitted a poem this week but don't know how it will turn out, it's for a literary journal and I sort of doubt it's good enough but I thought it was worth a shot.

Bird.

I always enjoy books about people obsessed with hobbies that are new to me. This is about birdwatching. A Big Year is an informal competition where birders try to spot as many different species as possible within their continent, state, or other region. This is the story of three birders who are going for the title [which is only for bragging rights.]

I've always enjoyed and noticed birds, so it appealed to me, although in the end they could not add much suspense to it.

I cannot find a book that really takes me away these days, but I keep looking.

CONTAGION

Just not as interested in putting up trailers/images for these bigger budget films, but this did get under my skin. I believe it was one of the first "bio-disaster" flicks to be produced with the cooperation of the CDC and various scientists.

I enjoyed it, it really brought home the whole idea from the Romero flicks that it doesn't take very long at all for everything to just collapse.

Battle: Los Angeles

More like Retreat: Los Angeles. My friend who played this for me said it reminded him of Independence Day, but this is on a much smaller scale, with most of the big stuff being shown through television broadcasts. A Marine regiment is charged with rescuing civilians from L.A. after an alien attack. It's a race against time as the Air Force is about to bomb the place. Of course they pick up a few civilians and some stranded members of other military units, and they end up finding a way to attack the alien command post.

It was strange in many ways...you don't really see much of the aliens who look more robotic, other than one scene where they find one of the creatures and try to determine its vulnerabilities. But it was really just 30 minutes of set up, 45 minutes of them trying to get away, and then 45 minutes of fighting back. The cast was small and not a whole lot really happens as far as the big scale of things.

I've noticed this about many of the bigger films of recent years. They build the entire film around something that would probably have just been a single sequence or two if it had been from a film during the 80s and 90s. The last Indiana Jones film was the same way, basically an extended jungle chase scene that took up most of the movie and might have amounted to maybe 15-20 minutes of one of the older films, but here it's pumped full of air and becomes the entire thing.