Gutbrain Records

Tuesday, 26 June 2006

Every so often I feel like watching a giallo. Whatever movie I choose frequently has great photography and lighting, often has a good soundtrack — Ennio Morricone composed several — and is almost always incredibly boring.

Most recently I watched Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye. It has great photography and lighting, a decent score by Riz Ortolani and practically no plot and no action. It stars Jane Birkin and has brief appearances by her then-partner Serge Gainsbourg, whose lines are dubbed into Scottish-accented English. There are also many shots of a grumpy-looking cat. I think it's supposed to be scary. Jane's pretty good in the lead but she really doesn't have enough to work with.

There are some good gialli out there, but there must be about a dozen boring ones for each good one. I don't much mind sitting through some of the lackluster examples, though. The more of them I watch, the more amusing I find this Do-It-Yourself Giallo Generator.

Friday, 02 June 2006

Thanks to everybody who came to the shows I played in Toronto with Chris Cawthray and Ed Zankowski. We had a great time and we'll play again in September.

Special thanks to Chris, Shauna and Lola for their hospitality. It was a blast staying at their place. One night we watched Napoleon Dynamite, which was very amusing. It reminded me of Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim. Coincidence? I look forward to Nacho Libre.

My favorite Jean-Pierre Melville movie, and one of my favorite movies of all time, Army of Shadows, is still playing at the Film Forum. I think it's in its fifth week. Go see it if you can!

As I've mentioned here before, I'm not particularly enthusiastic about all the remakes of movies that are being made. I'm refusing to see most remakes, in fact, just because they're remakes. If there's a special reason I think a remake may be worth seeing, then I'll go. I may also check out a remake of a movie I've never seen or that I've never been much interested in. For example, I've never seen The Poseidon Adventure, and I've never much wanted to see it, so I could go see Poseidon without a qualm. Except for the fact that I don't want to see Poseidon.

What I don't understand is why, in this age of digital special effects and hunger for genre exercises, nobody has remade Werewolves on Wheels. It's about a lycanthropic motorcycle gang and satanic monks! Okay, the original is perhaps awful, but all the more reason to remake it. I've said it before and I'll say it again, why remake good movies?