Chopping Mall
Chopping Mall was my first blog, which I started way back in 2009. It was dedicated exlcusively to ridiculous and terrible films, which I watched a lot of back then. (So much time, so little work!)
I’ve resuced the posts from oblivion, to be preserved here for …uh… whatever.
It’s a pretty clunky process getting them out of blogspot (XML export, eww) and into here, so there may be a few formatting issues.
Zulo (Hole)
Right. Zulo. Hmm…
Zulo is, despite being clever, intriguing, mysterious and a whole host of other good adjectives, at it’s heart a 77 minute long short-film.
For reasons I’ve never entirely understood, we don’t seem to have much of a tradition of short-films in the UK (or the US as far as I know). Sure, there are handfulls of short-films screened at film festivals but compared to the Spanish, we’re a bit thin on the ground in the short film category. Just google cortomentraje to see the wealth of - often free-to-watch- Spanish language websites devoted entirely to the short-film. It’s a difference that’s even reflected in the language; in English we say short-film, implying a mini version of a ‘real’ film, whilst in Spanish the words cortomentraje and largomentraje are given equal standing. Each exists in it’s own right, rather than one being a diminished form of the other. (As an interesting aside, the same happens in literature: the Spanish have cuentos and novelas whilst we only manage story/novel and short-story/novella)
Poster Hunt #9 - Blood Bath
A fairly late-in-the-month Poster Hunt, this classic and enticing poster comes from the B-movie super house that was American International Pictures.
This actually sounds pretty intriguing! From IMDb:
Roger Corman, noted producer/director, hired Jack Hill in 1964 to write and direct a horror film with the condition that he make liberal use of footage from “Operation Titian”, a thriller Corman produced with Francis Ford Coppola (!) in Yugoslavia, but deemed unworthy of USA release. Hill was given actor William Campbell, Titian’s star, and hired Lori Saunders (still using her original name of Linda Saunders, and soon Petticoat Junction-bound).
Terror on the 40th Floor
Sometimes, a review just doesn’t tell you whether you want to watch it. Sometimes, writing a review just isn’t appealing.
With these two things in mind, I present to you the ultimate im gimmick-y blog posting: the first 30 minutes of the film, blow by blow. There’s no spoilers (there’s hardly a plot), but hopefully it’ll give you an idea of whether you want to watch it (you don’t).
Angel Blade
The last thing I posted here (see below) was a rant/argument about how the “b” in “b-movie” didn’t mean bad. Sadly, as is so often the way when you try to make an argument, the next thing to come along so totally undermined my point that I’d have quite happily pretended it didn’t exist. But I shan’t, if only because admitting that there are exceptions to any argument is a good thing to do.
The 'B' in B-Movie Doesn't Mean Bad: A Rant.
As you can probably tell from just the briefest glance at this blog, I watch a lot of what would commonly be called ‘bad films’. Before we go any further, it should be made clear that this is a misleading and unfair label for these films. Films today tend to break down into depressingly few categories. They are either Big Budget, Independent, ‘Art-house’ or Foreign. Anything else tends to get labelled as bad. What’s even more disappointing is that, in the vast majority of cases ‘independent’, ‘art-house’ and ‘foreign’ often run together. So we’re left with: Big-Budget-Small-Brain-Blockbusters (the kind you eat popcorn with), Arty/Weird/Intellectual/Foreign/Independent (the kind you sip red wine with) and ‘the rest’ (the kind you drink lots of beer with).
El Crack
When you think of film noir, you think of it’s true home - America. We think of corrupt cops, mean streets, whisky on the breath of hard-working loner detectives and screeching tyres through the city.
As you turn towards the 70s, the real Noir has long ceased to be and is now replaced by the neo-noir. The relationship between these films and the original classic Hollywood output is confusing and often contradictory. They are at once parodies of classic noir, re-imaginings of the genre and cinematic love-letters to a genre left behind.
Poster Hunt #8 - Goliath and the Vampires
This gorgeous piece of retro poster-art looks back to a day when a film could be sold entirely on the strength of a poster. And looking at this one, you can see why!
SEE: The Revolt of the Faceless Humanoids? Count me in!
Big Screen Big Tune #2 - Django
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know that Ennio Morricone was the true king of the Spaghetti Western soundtrack but there were definitely some others out there too!
For the second Big Screen, Big Tune, we present Luis Bacalov’s theme song for Django.
Chorus: django!
Django, have you always been alone?
Chorus: django!
Django, have you never loved again?
Love will live on, oh oh oh…
Life must go on, oh oh oh…
For you cannot spend your life regreatting.Emily Booth
Emily Booth has, on reflection got to be pretty much the coolest women in horror. There are precious few people who take horror and genre-films very seriously and fewer still who try to drag it kicking and screaming, bleeding and oozing, into the mainstream’s attention.
In this respect, we ought to forget about Emily Booth being one of the coolest women in horror. She is one of the coolest people in horror. I mostly know her from the sublimely awesome show Shock Movie Massacre. You could probably count the number of recent television programmes about genre film on the fingers of one hand. Perhaps even after several of your fingers were sliced off in a Hong Kong based revenge epic…
World Gone Wild
After wading through a lot of horror recently (especially Vampires!), I was begining to feel the need to turn my gaze to something a little different. At this point, I usually sit down to choose between my other two favourite genres; is it to be Spaghetti Western or camp 80s Dystopian thrills?
I chose the camp 80s dystopia and World Gone Wild certainly didn’t disappoint.
Made in the 80s? Check.
A desert world where water has become the most precious commodity? Check.
Adam Ant as a bad guy? Check.
Killer frisbees, motorbikes, gunfights and moonshine? Check, check, check, check.
