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R.I.P. John Barry (1933-2011) A rather dashing snapshot of a pre-Bond John Barry
British composer John Barry died Sunday Jan. 30th of a heart attack in New York.

If you read the sentence again, it’s simple, cold, and indifferent from notices of many other creative luminaries who’ve passed away, but Barry was perhaps Britain’s greatest film music export to the international stage, having scored the James Bond films and numerous genres without indulging in genre clichés.

Even if one examines his Bond films (eleven, and the most for any composer), Barry’s approach wasn’t bombastic, nor heavy in busy orchestrations for a multitude of elaborate sounds.

He could write elegant melodies, apply strings in the most lush, expressive manner without being melodramatic, and it wasn’t unusual to hear material going against the grain of scoring trends – slowing down the action and forcing the audience to concentrate on the character’s emotional stress level instead of scoring bomb blasts, gunfire, or a kinetically edited car chase.

He received four Oscar Awards in his lifetime: the title song for Born Free (1966), the pulsing, the eerie score for Lion in Winter (1968), the romantic classic Out of Africa (1985), and the elegant Dances with Wolves (1990). Barry also earned a BAFTA Award for Lion, a Golden Globe for Africa, and four Grammy Awards.

MCA kept both Africa and Somewhere in Time (1980) in print for years (the latter was also released as a gold disc) because they were catalogue favourites, and EMI repeatedly went back to the Bond catalogue because there’s hardly anyone who doesn’t appreciate one of the Bond films, let alone scores that were based around superb title songs (Lulu’s screeching Man with the Golden Gun excepted.)

I can recall the Bond scores being reissued by Liberty Records in the 80s, and EMI also released the albums during the early years of CD, with another wave remastered discs coming years later, some featuring much of the previously unreleased music fans had been screaming about for decades.

Among his Bond films, Goldfinger (1964) is the best-remembered, as well as his version of Monty Norman’s Bond theme, which Barry orchestrated and performed with his jazz band the John Barry Seven for Dr. No (1962).

From a commercial stand, Barry was an important figure in film music because he further exposed the general public to film music, but his style wasn’t always appreciated by critics. Films in Review’s Page Cook loathed his scores and would dismiss his work with acidic little salvos of bitter negatives, and not every Barry score was career highpoint – Follow Me (1969) has a haunting theme, but little variation and is maniacally repetitive.

I’ve always felt a composer isn’t fully responsible for a work’s success and failure because a score’s purpose is to satisfy the needs of a film, and what’s ultimately recorded and mixed into a film’s soundtrack is what the producer paid for, and the director wanted. If a score works, it’s because it’s part of the elements that make the movie; and if a score has a life beyond the film, it’s the composer’s success in crafting music that expands on a film’s themes and characters, and provokes the listener to experience emotions beyond the originating film.

I’ve never seen Somewhere in Time, but it is a lovely, impressionable work. To the opposite, I’ve seen the dreadful Raise the Titanic (1980), where Barry’s impeccable success capturing the emotional turmoil surrounding the Titanic legend, the elegance of the ship, the sadness of its loss as well as its passengers – all transcending the banality of Jerry Jameson’s direction, and the inherent cheapness of producer Sir Lew (“low”) Grade.

The moment Barry’s theme plays against a pre-credit prologue montage of stills from Titanic’s construction and launch, you’re hooked into a haunting journey that never really happens, and Barry’s music is perhaps the lone force that keeps one watching as Jameson’s film lumbers along until the finale, where the score and film coalesce into one magical moment where Lord Grade’s money allowed the ship to bob to the surface, and sail into New York City’s harbor in style.

As a child with a fleeting memory and attention span inherent to any grating rugrat, my earliest musical memory was Barry’s Born Free theme (with lyrics by frequent collaborator Don Black), which got regular play on radio.

Its impact and relation to the parting between lion and human was so profound, every single time that tune played in the car, I’d bawl – and baffle my parents. I can only assume Joy and George Adamson waving bye-bye to Elsa the Lioness was something akin to the death of a cherished pet in my dinky heart (or the disappearance of a favourite teddy bear), because there’s no other reason why Lion Song = Instant Sniveling & Crying.

For fans and novices, Barry’s work is easily accessible via the Bond films, and the aforementioned Oscar-winning character and romance films, but he accomplished a great deal in his 77 years. He was involved in stage musicals (Brighton Rock), orchestral jazz concept albums (The Americans), and he was an important proponent of getting jazz into film scoring, although that wasn’t a deliberate ploy.

Barry began as a jazz trumpet player, was respected as an arranger and composer, and also served as producer for a number of EMI -Ember artists in Britain during the early sixties, including Adam Faith, Desmond Lane, the England Sisters, and Bill and Bret Landis (see Allmusic for further info).

His collaborations with Faith made him a natural to score the singer’s early foray into acting, the sleazy-silly Beat Girl / Wild for Kicks (1960), whose score still holds its own and ranks as one of his best (and most fun) works. (The moody cue “The City 2000 A.D.” is a portent of the silky smooth jazz writing that made him an in-demand composer during the sixties.)

Most of his scores did enjoy commercial releases, and several key works left out were later re-recorded by Silva Screen, in a series of memorable productions with Nic Raine and the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (such as the aforementioned Titanic, the haunting Walkabout, and the epic Zulu).

Barry was also profiled in Geoff Leonard and Pete Walker’s John Barry: The Midas Touch, and Film Score Monthly’s site features a transcribed interview from 1996. Cinema Retro also features a podcast of Barry’s 2008 concert.

My favourites works? Off the top of my heard: Beat Girl (1960), Body Heat (1981), Boom! (1968), The Deep (1978), Frances (1982), The Ipcress File (1965), The Last Valley (1971), The Lion in Winter (1968), Night Games (1980), Raise the Titanic (1980), The Tamarind Seed (1974), and the Bond films.

Posted by Mark R. Hasan at 2:50 PM Labels: John Barry

31st Annual Razzie Award Nominees on Home Video "Thrprprprprprprprprp !!!" is the sound you're looking for.
Also announced this week were the nominees for the 31st Annual Razzie Awards, where Hollywood’s cinematic poo-poo is singled out, and a winner in each category is announced Feb. 26, the night before the Oscars.

Some Razzie winners actually have a good sense of humour, such as Paul Verhoeven, who showed up and picked up his prizes for Showgirls (see his infamy), as did Sandra Bullock, who was a good sport with the Razzie alumni.

The organization’s website is sort of messy, but they have a YouTube channel with a montage of past winners.

Those wanting this year’s tally need only look below, although I have to admit I’d hope there would be more variety. It seems the 5 Worst Picture nominees represent the nadir in all aspects of filmmaking for 2010.





Bounty Hunter, The

Burlesque --- to be released March 1

Cats and Dogs 2: Revenge of Kitty Galore


Expendables, The

Grown Ups



Killer Inside Me, The

Last Airbender, The

Last Song, The

Little Fockers --- to be released April 5


Nutcracker 3-D


Saw 3D, aka Saw: The Final Chapter, aka Saw VII

Sex and the City 2

Spy Next Door, The

Switch, The



Vampires Suck





Worst Picture

The Bounty Hunter (Columbia Pictures / Relativity Media)

The Last Airbender (Paramount  / Nickelodeon Movies)

Sex & The City #2 (Warner Bros.  / New Line / HBO Pictures)

Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Summit Entertainment)

Vampires Suck (20th Century-Fox / Regency Enterprises)


Worst Actor

Jack Black - Gulliver’s Travels

Gerard Butler - The Bounty Hunter

Ashton Kutcher - Killers and Valentine’s Day

Taylor Lautner - Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Valentine’s Day

Robert Pattinson - Remember Me and Twilight Saga: Eclipse


Worst Actress

Jennifer Aniston The Bounty Hunter and The Switch

Miley Cyrus - The Last Song

The Four “Gal Pals” - Sex & The City #2 (Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall,Kristin Davis & Cynthia Nixon)

Megan Fox - Jonah Hex

Kristen Stewart - Twilight Saga: Eclipse


Worst Supporting Actor

Billy Ray Cyrus - The Spy Next Door

George Lopez – Marmaduke and The Spy Next Door and Valentine’s Day

Dev Patel - The Last Airbender

Jackson Rathbone - The Last Airbender and Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Rob Schneider - Grown Ups


Worst Supporting Actress

Jessica Alba - The Killer Inside Me and Little Fockers and Machete and Valentine’s Day

Cher – Burlesque

Liza Minnelli - Sex & The City 2

Nicola Peltz - The Last Airbender

Barbra Streisand - Little Fockers


Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3-D (Special category for 2010!)

Cats & Dogs #2:Revenge of Kitty Galore

Clash of The Titans



Saw 3-D (aka Saw VII)


Worst Screen Couple - Worst Screen Ensemble

Jennifer Aniston & Gerard Butler - The Bounty Hunter

Josh Brolin’s Face &Megan Fox’s Accent - Jonah Hex

The Entire Cast of The Last Airbender

The Entire Cast of Sex & The City #2

The Entire Cast of Twilight Saga: Eclipse


Worst Director

Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer - Vampires Suck

Michael Patrick King - Sex & The City #2

M. Night Shyamalan - The Last Airbender

David Slade - Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Sylvester Stallone - The Expendables


Worst Screenplay

The Last Airbender, Written by M. Night Shyamalan, based on the TV series created by Michael Dante Dimartino and Brian Konietzko

Little Fockers, Written by John Hamburg and Larry Stuckey, based on characters created by Greg Glenna & Mary Roth Clarke

Sex & The City #2, Written by Michael Patrick King, based on the TV series created by Darren Star

Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer

Vampires Suck, Written by Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer


Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel



Sex & The City #2

Twilight Saga: Eclipse






Posted by Mark R. Hasan at 12:16 PM Labels: Razzie Awards

83rd Oscar Nominees on Home Video Image courtesy of A.M.P.A.S
This morning at 8am a few familiar faces strode forth to a podium and blew through nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards that'll be handed out Feb. 27, 2011.

For video clips, there’s the official Oscar site, which also contains the list of nominees by category and by film.

Those wanting to know what’s out now or coming soon to home video need look no further than below, where there’s an A-Z list of films, some linked to specific Amazon sites (Canada, U.S., U.K.) for further info, and in the case of music scores, to Soundtrackcollector.com.





Walt Disney Pictures Production (Walt Disney)



Porchlight Films Production (Sony Pictures Classics)


Another Year --- to be released Feb. 28 in U.K.

Thin Man Films Production (Sony Pictures Classics)


Barney's Version

Serendipity Point Films Production (Sony Pictures Classics)



Menage Atroz, Mod Producciones and Ikiru Films Production (Roadside Attractions)



Protozoa and Phoenix Pictures Production (Fox Searchlight)


Blue Valentine

Silverwood Films and Hunting Lane Films Production (The Weinstein Company)


Confession, The

National Film and Television School Production



Material Pictures Production (Sony Pictures Releasing (Screen Gems)


Crush, The

Purdy Pictures Production


Day & Night --- included in Toy Story 3 DVD

Pixar Animation Studios Production



Boo Production (Kino International)


Exit through the Gift Shop

Paranoid Pictures Production (Producers Distribution Agency)


Fighter, The

Relativity Media Production (Paramount)



Gasland Production


God of Love

Luke Matheny Production


Gruffalo, The --- available as Region 2 DVD in U.K.

Magic Light Pictures Production


Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Warner Bros. UK Services Production (Warner Bros.)



Dombey Street Production (Warner Bros.)



DreamWorks Animation Production (Paramount)


I Am Love

First Sun and Mikado Production (Magnolia Pictures)


Illusionist, The --- to be released Feb. 14 in U.K.

Django Films Production (Sony Pictures Classics)


Himlens hjarta / Heaven's Heart --- available in Norway

Zentropa Production (Sony Pictures Classics)



Micro-Scope Production (Sony Pictures Classics)






Representational Pictures Production (Sony Pictures Classics)



Marvel Studios Production (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment, Distributed by Paramount)


Kids Are All Right

Antidote Films, Mandalay Vision and Gilbert Films Production (Focus Features)


Killing in the Name

Moxie Firecracker Films Production


King's Speech, The

See-Saw Films and Bedlam Production (The Weinstein Company)


Let's Pollute

Geefwee Boedoe Production


Lost Thing, The

Passion Pictures Australia Production


Madagascar, carnet de voyage / Madagascar, a Journey Diary

Sacrebleu Production


Na Wewe

CUT! Production


127 Hours --- to be released March 1

Hours Production (Fox Searchlight)


Outside the Law / Hors-la-loi

Tassili Films Production (Cohen Media Group)


Poster Girl

Portrayal Films Production


Rabbit Hole --- to be released June 13 in U.K.

Olympus Pictures, Blossom Films and Oddlot Entertainment Production (Lionsgate)



Outpost Films Production (National Geographic Entertainment)



Columbia Pictures Production (Sony Pictures Releasing)


Social Network, The



Strangers No More

Simon & Goodman Picture Company Production


Sun Come Up

Sun Come Up Production





Tempest, The

Touchstone Pictures and Miramax Films Production (Miramax)


Tow, The

Charlestown Production (Warner Bros.)



Pixar Production (Walt Disney)


Tron: Legacy --- to be released April 5




Paramount Pictures Production (Paramount)



20th Century Fox Production (20th Century Fox)


Warriors of Qiugang, The

Thomas Lennon Films Production



Almega Projects Production (Arthouse Films)


Way Back, The

Exclusive Films Production (Newmarket Films in association with Wrekin Hill Entertainment and Image Entertainment)


Winters Bone

Winter's Bone Production (Roadside Attractions)


Wish 143

Swing and Shift Films/Union Pictures Production


Wolfman, The

Universal Pictures Production (Universal)


Posted by Mark R. Hasan at 1:51 AM Labels: Oscars

Turnabout North of the 49th 'No screwball comedies for you!'
TCM’s salute to Hal Roach this month is a great intro to the producing force that brought Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy together to create one of the greatest comedy teams in film, not to mention countless other teams, troupes, and series that were released by various studios (mostly MGM) during Roach’s heyday, the 30s and 40s.

TCM, in effect, is one of the few – if not the main – source for classic Hollywood films that used to air in prime time and after hours on indie stations when they weren’t showing syndicated programs. Many film fans in a pre-home video era could see classics in second run theatres, 16mm rentals, or by staying up late at night to catch the huge variety of titles sold to TV back in the 50s in large packages.

In the present era, where so much product is out there and more old product had fallen into the public domain realm (well, sort of, considering copyright limits keep getting extended beyond reasonable periods) you’d think whatever is listed on TCM isn’t subject to rights issues between Canada and the U.S., but that ain’t so.

Most of the Hal Roach titles screening in January aren’t available to Canadian subscribers, and with few stations here showing old movies in such volume and variety, and so little classic films being released on commercial DVDs in North America by the major studios, Canadians are being left out.

Usually what happens is a substitute title is slotted where the problem title was supposed to be. TCM doesn’t change their ‘coming soon’ bumpers because the material ultimately comes from a main feed, and there’s no sense in changing all those bumpers for a market 1/10th of the States.

The most amusing example of a singular film that never makes it to air on TCM’s Canadian channel [TCM-C] is Carol Reeds The Third Man. Actually, many of Reed’s late forties/early fifties films get blocked, because there’s either no rights holder in Canada, or someone does own the rights, but is a pinhead for not being aware of their ownership and/or for not negotiating some agreement to permit said problem title to appear here.

Third Man as always been a headache on home video here because the DVD and Blu-ray were imports, and from the angle of the film’s last distributor, Criterion, the film had a limited availability because the Blu-ray went OOP within a few years of its release. The title is currently available on BR only, via Lionsgate (courtesy of their Canal Plus agreement), and Maple carries it domestically, but in terms of TCM-C, it’s blocked out.

This of course brings me to Hal Roach, whose films were primarily distributed by MGM as well as RKO – two libraries mostly owned by Warner Bros.


Roach’s original Little Rascals shorts are distributed on home video by the Weinsteins, whereas the later forties shorts are via WHV on their Warner Archives on-demand brand. Most of the Laurel & Hardy feature films are available on DVD via KINO (who also have distribution in Canada), and some of those titles do appear on TCM-C.

The silent shorts are available from Image, but the sound shorts are apparently owned by Hallmark in the U.S., and to the immense annoyance of fans, the label’s done nothing with the films.

25-30 years ago, the sound shorts used to air on NBC’s Buffalo affiliate weekends, and I’d tape those beat-up 16mm shorts each week because they literally went through the A-Z catalogue of available titles, and the roster was considerable.

The only way to buy those shorts today are on Region 2 European DVDs, so this past Xmas I splurged about $35-40 on a complete set from Britain, courtesy of Universal. These shorts were part of TCM’s Hal Roach salute, but they were also blocked north of the 49th parallel, leaving Canadians out in the cold again.

Topper (1937) is probably my favourite comedy because years ago I rented it with my dad from the Fairview library on 16mm, and watched it endlessly. TVOntario also aired the film, in addition to the sequels Topper Returns (1941) and Topper Takes a Trip (1938) as part of Elwy Yost’s Saturday Night at the Movies and Magic Shadows series.

The first and third films are available on DVD via Lionsgate in the U.S., and the third also came out solo via Image, but the second film is apparently in rights hell. All three films aired last week on TCM, but TCM-C blocked them.

TVO aired the films a few times when I was a kid, and 30 years later the movies are without an owner in Canada. Weirdly, one can see a scene from Topper in TCM’s Media Room gallery. You can glimpse it, but it’s still forbidden fruit because of rights mismanagement.

TVO also aired One Million B.C. (1940) with Victor Mature (“Loo-a-na!!!”) and silky Carole Landis, but that title is also part of the no-show rule, as are several series I’ve never even heard of, including the Thelma Todd-Patsy Kelly shorts, the Todd-Zasu Pitts shorts, and more painfully, something called Screen Directors Playhouse where major A-list directors (Leo McCarey, George Marshall, Ida Lupino, Fred Zinnemann and John Ford, to name a few) helmed episodes of this short-lived, 35-episode TV series.

Screening this week is Turnabout, a 1940 screwball comedy in which a bickering couple make a wish that’s granted by a Buddha-like statue in their bedroom, resulting in each person inhabiting the other’s body. I haven’t seen the film in maybe 30+ years, and it’s also being blocked in spite of being aired, er, 30+ years ago on TVO.

I did read the original novel by Thorne Smith (same author of the Topper novels), but it’s a terribly dated, awfully sexist artifact with a one great concept and one good paragraph about manicuring toes.

The programming switcheroo isn’t just native to Roach’s catalogue – the aforementioned Carol Reed films (several distributed by MGM) – are blocked, as are some odd pre-WWII Paramount titles owned by Universal, such as the classic Fredric March-Veronica Lake fantasy-comedy I Married a Witch (1942), which also aired a great deal on TVO when TV sets were made of bricks, people sat on piles of loose straw, and TV signals were broadcast using aluminum-coated fishing wire that received aural blips and bleeps from some big-mouth on the corner block, shouting into a wide-rimmed megaphone.

Which begs the question: exactly whom does the copyright rules serve when 60-70 years after a film’s release, it can’t be shown by what’s become the central specialty broadcaster of classic films?

And in the case of the Laurel & Hardy films, it’s even more daft that the American home video distributor is sitting on the catalogue as the North American fans of the iconic comedians age, and at this point have bought domestic grey market or legit releases from overseas. The fans sort of win in the end, while the U.S. owner snoozed, and lucked out.

That’s a case of owner apathy – which happens with equal banality in Canada when a rights holder blocks the release of a home video title with which they’re not doing anything themselves, or produce their own substandard edition – but in the realm of broadcasting, it’s a more cruel cheat because unlike a DVD or Blu-ray, you can’t ‘import’ a signal.

As much as I enjoy TCM, it is consistently disheartening when my eyes widen after spotting a particular title, and then get really small from a growing frown after checking the Canadian schedule and finding not Laurel & Hardy, but substitutes Wheeler and Woolsey (who are perhaps 1/100th as funny and L&H).

Copyrights should be set at 50 years after a piece’s release. You, the owner, have 50 years to make money, archive the best prints and transfers, and create a nest egg for future endeavors. After that, you must compete within the international public domain and prove to consumers your print is better than the others.

It’ll ensure the film doesn’t disappear into oblivion, is priced according to a fair market value ($10 versus $20-$30 as an on-demand import), and forces rights holders to manage and exploit their wares, because there’s nothing more frustrating for fans of any creative work than seeing it blocked, or breeding dust in a file cabinet.

As more classic, specialty and antique titles make their way to digital and on-demand formats with region-specific distribution channels, there is a trend underway that’s very disturbing: the trove of films that once glutted TV and later home video is being redirected into controlled venues that cost more than the product is generally worth.

And it will backfire once the fans willing to pay a premium have reached their own saturation and budgetary limitations.

There is a theorem in which the doubling of an item’s price might cost a vendor 50% of its clientele; the vendor still makes the same, but he's pushed away clients who won’t come back, and will seek other and cheaper products.

The thrill of the search stems from hard work and discovery, not getting as far as the front door and finding it locked, with some partially hidden figure clearly asleep, and completely oblivious to your politely persistent knocking.

No one benefits from this silliness.

Posted by Mark R. Hasan at 4:36 PM Labels: Hal Roach, TCM

Graphic Social Horror Oh, this spider bites, alright...
Years ago, I was in film school, and part of the benefits of an overpriced education (which is now far more inflated than before) was the occasional screening of a film banned or too risqué within what was still then a very conservative province.

This was a year after lead smut-snipper Mary Brown was finally gone from the censor board, which under her tenure had demanded all kinds of cuts to films violent, provocative, or bearing genuine artistic merit. The best way to describe the 1980-1986 period when Brown was at the helm was myopic: there was no differentiation between crap and intelligence, and no effort to bring old standards in line with new standards.

Ontario was actually quite stupid within Canada because our board banned movies available in other provinces. We could understand Quebec – they share a more mature, less uptight regard for sex – but why our posteriors were tighter than others was a mystery, because I knew of no other body more conservative than our official censors.

Hollywood locked heads with the censor board when slasher films were in vogue – it was normal to hear of the latest Friday the 13th or Texas Chainsaw Massacre being released with massive cuts – as well as art films, and there were two certain places where Oh-Oh films were exempted: universities and film festivals, which probably still holds true for a handful of current flicks.

Among the more inane ironies within Ontario was the award-nominated NFB documentary Not a Love Story (1983) with its anti-porn message that few would ever receive because the doc was banned due to its hardcore content. The ridiculousness of its status – an anti-porn film whose filmmakers use objectionable material to argue a moralistic point rendered illegal by its argumentative tools – provides a snapshot of how conservative the board was in the eighties, and while the film is available now on DVD from the NFB directly, it’s still limited by specialized distribution towards schools and institutions.

Films with less socially provocative messages were also illegal within the province for a while – the longer version of Caligula (1979), the uncut Man Bites Dog (1992), the uncut Baise-moi (2000) – although a few titles remain technically illegal because they were never resubmitted to the revamped Ontario Film Review Board by the distributors due to the heavy submission fees.

(I’m somewhat fuzzy on it, but 10 years ago it cost something close to $500 to submit a work for approval, and a resubmission also mandated a fee payment, making the endeavor frustrating, and to some filmmakers, a bit of an easy governmental cash grab.)

When it comes to mainstream films, Canada is generally less worried now about bare boobs, bottoms, pickles and beavers than the U.S. (witness the airing of Stanley Kubrick’s un-fogged Eyes Wide Shut on pay TV while all video versions and theatrical prints were then being sourced from Warner Bros.’ U.S. distribution arm), and films like The Brown Bunny (2003), 9 Songs (2004), Shortbus (2006) and In the Realms of the Senses (1976) aren’t that big of a deal because of the context – it’s just sex. It might be orgiastic, indulgent or obsessive (with creative uses of a soft-boiled egg), but there’s nothing really immoral there (except for the egg).

Where things run into the red zone is when it’s sexual violence, and that’s still a problem for artists, filmmakers, and distributors of various materials.

When Abel Ferrara went from short films to porn in 1976 (9 Lives of a Wet Pussy), that one-time side-step likely happened because it was an easy way to make cash during a career slump. It was quick to make, and the adult theatrical market was still viable. The film was eventually released on DVD, but minus a rape scene that may have been fine by sleazy 70s grindhouse standards, but not in the present day. The only glimpses of the sequence seem to be in the trailer, archived on the special edition Driller Killer (1979) DVD.

This is a simplification, but it’s an example where the tone of an era (the seventies) was open to the integration of extreme social inappropriateness because the lack of boundaries (and the breaking thereof) was in vogue, and titillating to a small section of the porn audience and connoisseurs of Wrong Films.

The trailer doesn’t show the assault; the footage isn’t all that different than material in Death Wish (1974), where Michael Winner prolonged the glee of the rapists. Rape as part of the filmic porn experience is also present in some of the Nikkatsu Roman Porn films produced in Japan, and samples of the weird storylines and generally Wrong ideas for sequences are hinted at in the compilation The Nikkatsu Roman Porn Trailer Collection.

This isn’t to argue rape within porn is a good thing; sexual violence seemed to bleed a lot more on film in the seventies because of all the rule breaking going on internationally, via U.S. sexploitation films (begin in earnest during the mid- to late-sixties); the Nikkatsu naughties that must have circulated among collectors and bootleg markets outside of Japan; sleazy Italian crime films where serial killers and bank thieves clearly got off on having a hostage or kidnap victim in the back of a van or a basement; or that weird sub-genre known as nunsploitation, where rape or the stages of violation were allowable because the act was being committed by a demon, a bad priest, or a nun possessed by a demon seeking out untraditional stimulation, as in the spectacularly sleazy Malabimba (1979).

Within the works of major directors, sexual violence should’ve been depicted as non-constructive violence, but there were exceptions of which Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971) kind of stands out.

The film is about a nerd with a stunning British wife who moves to the British countryside and retaliates with furious carnage when said wife is raped by local scumbags. The problem for audiences occurs when the dramatized rape includes wife objecting, and then kind of showing a moment of relief – a signal that maybe the violent invasion was not so bad.

That’s the fine line where no director can tread because to infer some form of sexual violence is good is, well, bad. A male character is anally raped in Paul Verhoeven’s Spetters (1980), and to the recipient, it’s clearly not good. Peckinpah’s film treads into Wrong terrain because there’s a slight indication the wife liked it, which downgraded the director’s respectability for that film, and weakened the film’s anti-violence stance into a drama about filthy nihilism.

In an erotic thriller, the filmmaker has a bit more leeway because its characters dabble in forms of sexual gratification. If it’s consensual, sticking needles in privates is what those characters just happen to like. If it’s forced, you’ve got a serial killer erotic thriller in which the investigating detective is the moral auger, and it’s through his/her experiences during the investigation that we’re supposed to decide where things went bad, and why.

Fictional Example A: Roselyn, a bookish bank clerk, sets up a meeting with Roger, a studly companion she met in a specialty dating service called Make It Hurt. Roger arrives at her apartment (decorated in stainless steel furniture and cobalt blue paint), and after a drinky-poo or two, the two engage in roughie-toughie, un-cutie nudie behaviour. Roger gets carried away and does something that really hurts. Roselyn initially likes it, says No, then screams Stop It, but Roger is in a Zone, and not only goes beyond the pair’s agreeable parameters, but breaks her neck. Kind of like what happened in Donkey Punch (2008), except the filmmakers didn’t know what to do with their concept, and just made a stupid movie instead.

The investigating cop is horrified, and in his research finds the two liked being rough in their own worlds, and now the hunt is on, taking the detective into all kinds of risqué locales which start to… affect him… maybe pushing him to experiment with his own girlfriend or wife, and even when the crime is solved, said detective is now Changed, and what the audience is left to contend with is a moral figure / authority who now shares in the Wrong Behaviour.

That will puzzle some movie patrons because it’s a good person potentially validating consensual roughness. That’s sort of what happens in the post-mortem second half of William Friedkin’s Cruising (1980), where gay men engage in consensual roughness, and the undercover detective ‘went too deep’ and is now sexually fuzzy about many things.

In horror films, sexual violence is always there because any monster – serial killer, octopus demon, giant cabbage – confronting a cleavage-bearing woman, young adult or teen in the corner of an alley / hallway / bedroom / stairwell / garage / back seat of the car / rooftop / or weird dreamscape is poised to either kill fast, kill slowly, devour, or penetrate; and because any sexual violence (graphic or metaphorically) is done by a monster, it’s okay, because it’s not a real person.

Example B: when the alien creature in Alien (1979) approaches Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), it doesn’t use the double-teeth maw and punch-out her face or stomach; it impales her from behind with its long point tail. Moreover, Giger’s monster is deliberately designed to resemble a big erect penis, and the sound effects for Lambert’s suffering are a blend of hideous forced grunts. That’s sexual violence under camouflage (and black Gigerian humour).

In Takashi Miike’s episode of Masters of Horror, Imprint contains an assault on a woman involving needles by cruel women. Under the fingernails, between teeth and fleshy gums, in the privates, and on it goes, with the woman’s screams going on and on in Dolby Digital 5.1. That’s sexual violence, but the bad girls eventually pay for their nastiness, and there’s no doubt the victim is against the entire ordeal.

Graphic Sexual Horror [M] (Synapse Films), Barbara Bell and Anna Lorentzon’s documentary about the extreme S&M and bondage internet site Insex, implies and contains material that’s equally shocking because it involves women going through scenarios involving roughness, forced penetration, and sharp things, but it’s consensual: the models signed up for and went through various scenes in which levels of sexual and physical torment are prolonged.

That’s what subscribers paid to see online; it’s what the models wanted to experience out of curiosity, interest, and other peculiar personal reasons; and it’s what the site’s creator, PD (aka Brent Scott) brands as art, and for the most part the directors manage to balance excerpts with candid interviews, tracking the site’s genesis as well as PD’s gradual transformation (or natural evolution) into a self-described “monster.”

It’s clear the filmmakers – who worked with PD at Insex – wanted to make a documentary about the weird site that exploded to 35,000 international subscribers before its sudden demise in 2005, but the film’s focus had to be narrowed into something coherent.

Adding too many back-stories, laboring on the validity of porn, pornographic performance art, and the attraction to simultaneously dramatizing sexual violence that’s experienced by models with initially preset parameters would’ve turned the doc into a meandering mush, so they picked specific strands, and often let the material – anecdotes and footage – make their impact, and hopefully allow for some balance between shock and a candid dialectic on a group of people sharing extreme interests.

Is it art? Porn? The product of ill minds? That’s subjective, but Insex was an evolutionary step in the kind of sexual violence that’s been wafting in film for decades, dodging censors, sometimes getting lost on the cutting room floor, but nevertheless worming its way into mainstream media and making its way into a digital cyber medium that creates permanence.

If a film was banned in the pre-VHS era, you never saw it. During the era of home video, an uncut version likely existed as a foreign tape release, and perhaps on pay TV. And while things do get lost and replaced in the mass of crap that floats within the internet, there are always traces floating around.

Insex, however, tested the limits of laws, commerce, and undoubtedly influenced like-minded proponents of extreme adult play because several members from its troupe moved on to create their own venues, so while the original concept was digitally killed, pieces scattered and grew into similar-themed online variations, so perhaps PD won in spite of the government pressures that shut down the original site.

There is a correlation between Insex and the torture porn and exploitation genres insofar as both have pushed visual and contextual boundaries up to their legal limits (and have made inroads in making depicted material more available in the past decade), but the question for which there isn’t a definitive answer is what’s morally repugnant: the filming of extremes with consensual participants, or dramatizing non-consensual acts in a fictional work with editing to prolong torment, layered sound effects to test audiences, music to boost the titillation, and seeing details stylized by special effects to deepen the impact on audiences?

I’ve no idea, but I can understand what PD, in his original wacked-out concept was trying to do before his inner-monster blossomed. With the torture porn realm, beyond being a medium to test one’s limits of audio-visual hyper-stimulation, I don’t understand the torture porn genre because it also fetishes specific aspects of personal, physical, psychological and sexual assaults, 99.9% on an individual who’s been forced into an extreme situation by serial killer personas.

The good news, perhaps, is that Insex didn’t wallow in decapitations or forcing victims to lose appendages and be subsequently assaulted with them in very private orifices, but the site’s creator and came up with its own creative uses of water, metal, rope, and duct tape.

Posted by Mark R. Hasan at 5:16 PM Labels: Insex

Hammer Films I: Missing Links & Classics Please note: this moment NEVER OCCURS in Vampire Circus.
Yes, I could have used the heading "Hammer Time," but then even I would've winced at such a facile, dated pop culture spin. (It was tempting, though.)

Everyone has a favourite Hammer movie, if not a warm gushy spot in the heart for that special brand of bloody, busty, blazing colour series of horror films churned out by Hammer Films, a company that started out in 1934 with generic film fodder, but swerved into horror during the late fifties and sixties with adaptations of classic mummy, vampire, Frankenstein and werewolf tales + myriad sequels.

The chief talent included actors Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, director Ternece Fisher, and composer James Bernard, and a whole host of very serious creative people paying heat + water bills / having fun making horror films dressed with more blood, gore, and heaving bosoms than Hollywood was fondling at the same time.

Perhaps the main reason the Hammer films are so beloved is the sincerity that went into them. There was humour, but Hammer films were designed to be scary, not silly, and perhaps that's why fans treat them with special reverence, much in the way the Universal pre-Code thrillers are regarded as more daring than the sequels and hybrids and spoofs that followed soon afterwards in the late-thirties and forties.

As a studio, Hammer isn't dead - their first attempt to reboot the brand name for theatrical releases was 2010's English language remake of Let the Right One In, with the title shortened to the catchier, WASP'ier Let Me In - but their classic catalogue has often been a problem for home video releases because of censored prints for American markets, and the fact titles were distributed by whichever studio had the best offer - hence various titles released by Columbia, Paramount, Universal, Fox, and Warner Bros.

Anchor Bay brought a large collection of titles back into circulation on DVD, as did Warner Home Video, but there are those odd titles that haven't received their definitive editions.

Synapse Films may have found a solution by going after the missing gems and cult titles, and their first effort is Vampire Circus (1972) [M], a title many may have heard about (or heard score extracts from various compilation albums), but never seen.

Their special edition includes a Blu-ray and DVD copy of the film with identical extras, and is supposed to be the first of several Hammer titles from the label.

Another cult title is Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter (1974) [M] which creator/writer/director Brian Clemens (The Avengers) had planned to spin off into a series, then attempted to launch on TV, but no one seemed to care about the film - particularly Hammer, whose main production chief, Michael Carreras, reportedly didn't quite understand Clemens' approach to creating a fresh vampire series largely free of the tiresome cliches Hammer had been regurgitating during the late sixties and early seventies.

Not unlike Vampire Circus, Kronos didn't enjoy proper distribution, and disappeared, but its re-emergence on DVD (with a wonderful commentary track) via Paramount in Region 1 land rescued the film from oblivion... but then Paramount's recent penchant for deleting back catalogue titles caught up with Kronos, and it's now out of print again.


Kronos is ripe for further cinematic adventures, and Hammer should revisit the title, but with one caveat: Stephen Sommers must have nothing to do with it, either for film, TV, or as a dietary supplement with cranberry tincture.

In addition to covering the Paramount DVD, I've also included a review of Laurie Johnson's superb soundtrack [M], which BSX Records released as a limited CD which no Hammer fan should be without!

Four of the previously released Warner titles have been repackaged into the budget-priced TCM Greatest Classic Film Collection: Hammer Horror, and reviews of the vampire films have been also been uploaded - Horror of Dracula (1958) [M] and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) [M].

In Part II, I'll have reviews of the remaining two Hammers in TCM's set, plus reviews of Hammer's final feature film releases in the last stages of the seventies.

Posted by Mark R. Hasan at 2:30 AM Labels: Hammer Films, Laurie Johnson

2010 Golden Globe Winners 





Best Picture (Drama)

'Black Swan'

'The Fighter'


'The King's Speech'

'The Social Network'

Best Picture (Comedy)

'Alice in Wonderland'


'The Kids Are All Right'


'The Tourist'



Best Picture (Animated)

'Despicable Me'

'How to Train Your Dragon'

'The Illusionist'


'Toy Story 3'




'Biutiful' (Mexico, Spain)

'The Concert' (France)

'The Edge' (Russia)

'I am Love' (Italy)

'In a Better World' (Denmark)




Darren Aronofsky, 'Black Swan'

David Fincher, 'The Social Network'

Tom Hooper, 'The King's Speech'

Christopher Nolan, 'Inception'

David O. Russell, 'The Fighter'




Simon Beaufoy, Danny Boyle - 127 Hours

Christopher Nolan - Inception

Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko - The Kids Are All Right

David Seidler - The King's Speech

Aaron Sorkin , 'The Social Network'




Alexandre Desplat - The King's Speech

Danny Elfman - Alice in Wonderland

A. R. Rahman - 127 Hours

Hans Zimmer - Inception



Best Original Song - Motion Picture

"Bound To You" – Burlesque

Music By: Samuel Dixon

Lyrics By: Christina Aguilera and Sia Furler

"Coming Home" – Country Strong

"I See The Light" – Tangled

Music By: Alan Menken

Lyrics By: Glenn Slater

"You Haven't Seen The Last Of Me" – Burlesque

Music & Lyrics By: Diane Warren



Best Actress (Comedy)

Annette Bening, 'The Kids Are All Right'

Anne Hathaway, 'Love and Other Drugs'

Angelina Jolie, 'The Tourist'

Julianne Moore, 'The Kids Are All Right'

Emma Stone, 'Easy A'



Best Actress (Drama)

Halle Berry, 'Frankie and Alice'

Nicole Kidman, 'Rabbit Hole'

Jennifer Lawrence, 'Winter's Bone'

Michelle Williams, 'Blue Valentine'

Natalie Portman, 'Black Swan'



Best Actor (Drama)

Jesse Eisenberg, 'The Social Network'

Colin Firth, 'The King's Speech'

James Franco, '127 Hours'

Ryan Gosling, 'Blue Valentine'

Mark Wahlberg, 'The Fighter'



Best Actor (Comedy)

Johnny Depp, 'Alice in Wonderland'

Johnny Depp, 'The Tourist'

Paul Giamatti, 'Barney's Version'

Jake Gyllenhaal, 'Love and Other Drugs'

Kevin Spacey, 'Casino Jack'




Christian Bale, 'The Fighter'

Michael Douglas, 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps'

Andrew Garfield, 'The Social Network'

Jeremy Renner, 'The Town'

Geoffrey Rush, 'The King's Speech'




Amy Adams, 'The Fighter'

Helena Bonham Carter, 'The King's Speech'

Mila Kunis, 'Black Swan'

Melissa Leo, 'The Fighter'

Jackie Weaver, 'Animal Kingdom'





Best Drama Series

'Mad Men,' AMC

'The Good Wife,' CBS

'Boardwalk Empire,' HBO

'The Walking Dead,' AMC

'Dexter,' Showtime



Best Comedy Series

'Glee,' Fox

'30 Rock,' NBC

'The Big Bang Theory,' CBS

'Modern Family,' ABC

'The Big C,' Showtime




Steve Buscemi, 'Boardwalk Empire'

Michael C. Hall, 'Dexter'

Jon Hamm, 'Mad Men'

Hugh Laurie, 'House'

Bryan Cranston, 'Breaking Bad'




Julianna Margulies, 'The Good Wife'

Piper Perabo, 'Covert Affairs'

Elisabeth Moss, 'Mad Men

Kyra Sedgwick, 'The Closer'

Katey Sagal, 'Sons of Anarchy'



Best Actor, Comedy

Alec Baldwin, '30 Rock'

Steve Carell, 'The Office'

Thomas Jane, 'Hung'

Matthew Morrison, 'Glee'

Jim Parsons, 'The Big Bang Theory'



Best Actress, Comedy

Toni Collette, 'United States of Tara'

Edie Falco, 'Nurse Jackie'

Tina Fey, '30 Rock'

Laura Linney, 'The Big C'

Lea Michele, 'Glee'




Scott Caan, 'Hawaii Five-0'

Chris Noth, 'The Good Wife'

David Strathairn, 'Temple Grandin'

Eric Stonestreet, 'Modern Family'

Chris Colfer, 'Glee'




Jane Lynch, 'Glee'

Julia Stiles, 'Dexter'

Kelly Macdonald, 'Boardwalk Empire'

Hope Davis, 'The Special Relationship'

Sofia Vergara, 'Modern Family'



Best Mini-Series or Made for TV Movie

'The Pacific,' HBO

'Carlos,' Sundance

'Temple Grandin,' HBO

'You Don't Know Jack,' HBO

'The Pillars of the Earth,' Starz



Best Actor in a Mini-Series or Made for TV Movie

Dennis Quaid, 'The Special Relationship'

Ian McShane, 'The Pillars of the Earth'

Édgar Ramírez, 'Carlos'

Al Pacino, 'You Don't Know Jack'

Idris Elba, 'Luther'



Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Made for TV Movie

Claire Danes, 'Temple Grandin'

Hayley Atwell, 'The Pillars of the Earth'

Jennifer Love Hewitt, 'The Client List'

Judi Dench, 'Return to Cranford'

Romola Gara, 'Emma'



Cecil B. DeMille Award

Robert De Niro



Winners in Film currently / soon to be on home video:







Winners in TV currently / soon to be on home video:

The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Third Season

Glee: Season 2, Volume 1


Temple Grandin

You Don't Know Jack




Just uploaded are soundtrack reviews for a pair of video games.
Those familiar with Daniel Pemberton's prior work - LittleBIGMusic (2008), and particularly Monster Movies (2005-2008) - will know what to expect from a composer who crafts themes and arrangements using ideas from disparate idioms and periods.

His latest work, Kinect Adventures! [M] (1812 Recordings) features a half-hour of wild theme variations, but what I'm waiting for is a producer to hire Pemberton to score a wry British caper film about a team of multi-generational thieves with extreme music tastes. His sense of rhythm, fusion of crazy sounds, and knack for addictive melodic hooks make him ideal for such a project. Anyone?

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood [M] (Ubisoft Music) features a diversity of moods and marvelous balance of electronic, orchestral, folk, and liturgical elements.

Composer Jesper Kyd already has a solid background scoring video games, and his latest is an impressive work with meaty tracks - some melancholy, others pure action, but never predictable and cliched.

Posted by Mark R. Hasan at 11:21 PM Labels: Daniel Pemberton, Jesper Kyd, Soundtrack Reviews

Abandoned Matinees V: R.I.P. The York Theatre 

Still… Why triangles?

In 2002, the owners of the Capitol Event Theatre – another cinema converted into a multi-purpose hall - snapped up the York and spent a fair chunk on its renovation, rebranding the cinema’s shell into the York Event Theatre.

That’s where Gandhi ran in 70mm.

The good news is the proposed condo – dubbed The Madison - isn’t ugly; it’s actually a striking twin tower edifice that fits over the old York’s shell and the same-sized parking lot that existed beside the cinema during the eighties. The architects: Kirkor, who coincidentally designed the Toronto International Film Festival Tower atop the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

Piss off.

Posted by Mark R. Hasan at 1:05 PM Labels: Abandoned Matinees, York Theatre