Viewings: April 2022

Ti West's X was my favourite first time viewing this month. Other cherry-poppin' favourites were: the micro-budget acid trip that was Malatesta's Carnival of Blood; Alan Ladd's trenchcoat swagger in the excellent noir, This Gun for Hire; and Franco Nero channeling eighties action hero machismo in the one and only official Django sequel, Django Strikes Again. 

Also been watching bits and pieces of the Depp vs. Heard trial while tinkering with the design of the blog. Looks great in 4K, but not so much on a 1440p monitor. Not many options on Blogger, to be honest.

Film:

The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)

This Gun for Hire (Frank Tuttle, 1942)*

The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)

Villa Rides (Buzz Kulik, 1968)*

Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood (Christopher Speeth, 1973)*

Zardoz (John Boorman, 1974)

Lips of Blood (Jean Rollin, 1975)

To Be Twenty (Fernando Di Leo, 1978)*

The Long Good Friday (John MacKenzie, 1980)

Schizoid (David Paulsen, 1980)

Death Screams (David Nelson, 1982)*

Eating Raoul (Paul Bartel, 1982)*

Cut and Run (Ruggero Deodato, 1985)

Django Strikes Again (Nello Rossati, 1987)*

Doom Asylum (Richard Friedman, 1987)

Bad Boy Bubby (Rolf de Heer, 1993)

Dawn of the Dead (Zack Snyder, 2004)

American Mary (Jen Soska & Sylvia Soska, 2012)

Ballad in Blood (Ruggero Deodato, 2016)*

Pleasure (Ninja Thyberg, 2021)*

Ambulance (Michael Bay, 2022)*

The Batman (Matt Reeves, 2022)*

Wyrmwood: Apocalypse (Kiah Roache-Turner, 2022)*

X (Ti West, 2022)*

Television:

Peaky Blinders - Episode 6; Season 6 (Steven Knight, 2022)*

Mastermind - Episodes 29-31: Season 6 (Bill Wright, 2022)*

Emmerdale - Episode 9337 (Sharon Marshall, 2022)*

* First time viewings.

 

Dada Debaser Notes:

• Obviously slang for alcohol consumption back then, but Humphrey Bogart's "get wet" line in The Big Sleep takes on an amusingly whole new meaning today.
  
• It's reached the point where the overuse of Franz Schubert's Ave Maria has become a clichéd musical accompaniment to whenever any kind of twisted genius or violence ensues on screen. Matt Reeves' unreservedly mediocre The Batman is the latest example of this. The Soska sisters featured it best in American Mary with just a chicken on screen.
  
• Doubt I'll revist Ruggero Deodato's Ballad in Blood ever again. Basing an exploitative take upon the infamous murder of Meredith Kercher is a bit much, even for me. At least the rugged man is consistent I guess, but why didn't he reuse Riz Ortolani's superior Do It To Me instead of Sweetly as his choice musical throwback to House on the Edge of the Park, though?
  
• Between Doom Asylum and Frankenhooker, Patty Mullen really had all the trappings of a top tier scream queen. Shame we didn't get more of her. Discovered this month Tina from Doom Asylum was that blonde dancer from Beastie Boys' No Sleep Till Brooklyn video.
  
• Assumed that after what might have been thirty or so years since last viewing Zardoz it might have aged for the better. No such luck; still atrocious.
  
• Can't say I cared too much for the final season of Peaky Blinders. Intentional or not, the biggest highlights for me were the actors playing Oswald Mosley and his missus, hamming it up as a couple of sexually depraved, aristocrat fascists. They stole all their scenes.
  
• Ninja Thyberg's Pleasure turned out to be a double penetrating critique on misogynism in the porn industry and the vapidly blasé attitude of Gen Z starlets. Reminded me of Netflix's equally disturbing Hot Girls Wanted (2015) documentary.
  
• Haven't always agreed with Mark Kermode's opinions on Michael Bay films in the past, but his review of Ambulance was very accurate.
• Both Rolf de Heer's Bad Boy Bubby and Fernando Di Leo's To Be Twenty deserve obligatory  awards for radically shifting genres throughout. Daisy dukes and Gloria Guida are an ill combo.
  
• Not caught Emmerdale in a long while, but Meena's trial and its outcome were top quality television viewing for me: