Speaker 1: You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
Speaker 2: They all episode eight, you know, Honestly speaking, the numbers
Speaker 2: are growing every episode as far as listeners, and so
Speaker 2: I'm just extremely appreciative of everybody who's tuning in and
Speaker 2: kind of seeing this growing Vinegar Syndrome community. This is
Speaker 2: Punk Vacation of Vinegar Syndrome, an unofficial Vinegar Syndrome podcast.
Speaker 2: As y'all know if you've listened before, my whole purpose
Speaker 2: for the show is finding the joy and unfettered creativity,
Speaker 2: which I think really is something I connect with Vinegar Syndrome.
Speaker 2: I want to make this a podcast dedicated to bringing
Speaker 2: awareness and context to movies from any budget, anywhere around
Speaker 2: the world and during any time in history. I've been
Speaker 2: a subscriber since Black Friday of twenty twenty one, and
Speaker 2: through a different podcast, they Live by Film. I've interviewed
Speaker 2: a lot of the different OCN partner labels and members
Speaker 2: of Vinegar Syndrome and just slowly been watching them become
Speaker 2: an industry powerhouse and then slow slow and then quick
Speaker 2: quick as it goes, and I just wanted to track
Speaker 2: along and use this podcast to see kind of how
Speaker 2: high they can go. So I'm extremely honored and excited.
Speaker 2: Today there's a content creator and a YouTuber and and
Speaker 2: film lover named Sam Dunkley who's joined. Sam, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for making this time.
Speaker 3: Of course. Yeah, I'm very happy to be here. You
Speaker 3: put out on social media for you know, volunteers for
Speaker 3: interest to be on the podcast, and I DMed you
Speaker 3: and you're you're receptive to my my, you know, agreement
Speaker 3: to be on the show. So yeah, I'm very excited
Speaker 3: to talk about being Benega Syndrome today. I'm a big
Speaker 3: fan of the podcast so far. As you said, this
Speaker 3: is episode eight, and I think all eight episodes have
Speaker 3: been really, really good. It's a really good start to
Speaker 3: a podcast which probably should have had a podcast for
Speaker 3: this label like years ago. At this point, it's crazy
Speaker 3: that it's taken this long for someone to start one up,
Speaker 3: but it's been it's been a great ride so far.
Speaker 3: And yeah, very excited to be hit today.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Sam. And we're going to get into the movies.
Speaker 2: So we're today's topic. We're going to go over the
Speaker 2: movies that came out in October. As y'all know, it
Speaker 2: always takes a while to get them, so the it's
Speaker 2: a little bit weird six weeks after October first to
Speaker 2: be recording this episode, but it's just the way that
Speaker 2: it goes when they ship out the films and when
Speaker 2: people actually get them in. So everybody should be kind
Speaker 2: of you know, I should have the October movies at
Speaker 2: home now and want to use this as a guide,
Speaker 2: especially leading into the Black Friday Sale, which is coming
Speaker 2: up in about ten days. An hour or so, before
Speaker 2: we get into all of that, Sam, what do you
Speaker 2: do online? Like, you have a few different or you
Speaker 2: have a kind of a main personality, I should say,
Speaker 2: online on YouTube and other channel, So what do you
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, like everyone and their dog during the pandemic,
Speaker 3: I needed an outlet to talk about my like my
Speaker 3: main passion, which is film. So I started a YouTube
Speaker 3: channel called film Blog of Sam, in which I talked
Speaker 3: about physical media and films in general, and I sporadically
Speaker 3: release things on there. It's not like a regular up
Speaker 3: upload of things because I have a full time job
Speaker 3: and a family and I actually want to watch films
Speaker 3: as well. So I just, yeah, just I got to
Speaker 3: know a lot of people in the community, like the
Speaker 3: Ryan from Disconnected and various amounts of other people, and
Speaker 3: so yeah, I do that. And I have a podcast
Speaker 3: called Let's Watch two, which is like a film pairing podcast,
Speaker 3: and I've just recently started a blog on my website
Speaker 3: for Blu Ray Reviews, so that's also on Let's Watch
Speaker 3: two under the Blu Ray Reviews section. And just yeah,
Speaker 3: just just I like to guest on other people's channels
Speaker 3: and podcasts, which have done quite a number of times
Speaker 3: over over the last few years. And yeah, so that's me.
Speaker 2: You did agree. There's a really good episode recently on
Speaker 2: the Radiance podcast that you did that I want to
Speaker 2: point people to that make sure they go listen to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we spoke about the recent announcements that are coming
Speaker 3: out in January or February time, the recent slate anyway,
Speaker 3: and then we also talked about a Vault. It was
Speaker 3: like a part announcement, part volt episode. So we talked
Speaker 3: about a previous catalog title, The Elegant Beast, and we
Speaker 3: had a really sort of thoughtful, in depth conversation about
Speaker 3: that film, which I think went really well. And yeah,
Speaker 3: got on really well with Adams. So hopefully I can,
Speaker 3: you know, guest on that podcast again in the new year.
Speaker 3: So that was a really good, really good time.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and so it was good. It's fun to
Speaker 2: listen to as well. Sam. You before we started recording,
Speaker 2: you mentioned that Vinegar Syndrome is a label that you own,
Speaker 2: made possibly the most of and so, what what's the
Speaker 2: journey that got you to Vinegar Syndrome, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: are you were you always kind of a fan of
Speaker 2: French cinema. What's your journey been like to get you
Speaker 2: to this?
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm very similar to you because I've
Speaker 3: heard you say a few times your entry point to
Speaker 3: a lot of these types of you know, weird odd
Speaker 3: ball genre films and stuff that Vinegar Syndrome tend to
Speaker 3: release that aren't like, you know, the bigger titles that
Speaker 3: they've been putting out in more recent years is through
Speaker 3: art House cinema. So when I first started collecting boutique
Speaker 3: blu rays and stuff like that, it was Criterion Chat
Speaker 3: Criterion discs. I think the first ever disc I bought
Speaker 3: that I knew was a boutique later disc at the
Speaker 3: time was Gilder. Yeah, so it was the Criterion Discstint
Speaker 3: come over to the UK for quite a long time,
Speaker 3: so like the UK, and was a lot of behind
Speaker 3: on that, and I wasn't important things at that time.
Speaker 3: Now I import anything and everything to feed my addiction.
Speaker 3: And then through years and years of just exposure to
Speaker 3: various different types of cinema and watching all the classics
Speaker 3: and all the things that are regarded by many people
Speaker 3: as like masterpieces and stuff across different genres and territories
Speaker 3: around the world, I started to really want to push
Speaker 3: my sort of comfort level and push my understanding of
Speaker 3: more sort of low budget and just fringe cinema. As
Speaker 3: you mentioned. So I saw various different people on the internet,
Speaker 3: mainly on YouTube, talking about all these labels like Severin
Speaker 3: and Vinegar Syndrome, and I just went on the website
Speaker 3: and I just saw these things that I'd never heard of,
Speaker 3: and that excited and that excited me, and you know,
Speaker 3: you get I like on the Vinegar Syndrome site because
Speaker 3: you get to look through stills of what the film
Speaker 3: looks like and things like that in like really good quality,
Speaker 3: and they're usually pretty good at writing copy to sort
Speaker 3: of sell you the film. And I just picked up
Speaker 3: a few things. I can't remember what year it was
Speaker 3: I first picked up some stuff. Oh, whatever year Blood
Speaker 3: Games came out, whatever year that came out, is when
Speaker 3: I first started collecting them. And I haven't looked back
Speaker 3: since I'm not a subscriber right now, but I have
Speaker 3: been like a half year subscriber before when they've had
Speaker 3: like the July to December subscription in the summer. I've
Speaker 3: done that before when I've been able to afford it,
Speaker 3: and I filled in a lot of the back catalog.
Speaker 3: As I said, it's that I'm looking at them right
Speaker 3: now as we speak, because that's just the way I'm
Speaker 3: facing and the shelving in front of me, and it's
Speaker 3: a considerable amount of One of my shelving units is
Speaker 3: just Vinegar Syndrome, and then all the partner labels that
Speaker 3: associated associated with them. And yeah, and I've just been
Speaker 3: my tastes have leaned more towards the obscure and the
Speaker 3: weird and wonderful and as you said, just enjoying that
Speaker 3: unfettered creativity and just appreciating, you know, what some film
Speaker 3: filmmakers can do with so little, and just being completely
Speaker 3: enamored with that. I've just been really enjoying the journey.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I prioritize these sorts of things over more
Speaker 3: commercially available films that I know, you know, maybe get
Speaker 3: a lot more support. And I just love film preservation
Speaker 3: and restoration and I think vinegar syndrome at the forefront
Speaker 3: of that. And yeah, so I've just slowly over the
Speaker 3: time just been collecting loads of them and just really
Speaker 3: enjoying it. And I don't get to talk about them
Speaker 3: very often because one they're a US based companies, so
Speaker 3: even like serious collectors in the UK are sort of
Speaker 3: if they're interested, they're put off because it's the import
Speaker 3: cost and as much as they you have to wait
Speaker 3: for sales a lot of the time. I tend to
Speaker 3: pick up a lot of stuff brand new because I
Speaker 3: like to support things upfront, and I do wait for
Speaker 3: sales for some things. But there's not a lot of
Speaker 3: people in the UK to talk about the vinegar syndrome
Speaker 3: stuff too much that I'm like friends friendly with. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I think you're you're similar in me. You went through
Speaker 3: the route of art house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know you you nailed it. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think what it's always interesting to hear from people that
Speaker 2: had a similar background, because you know, I think what
Speaker 2: happened to me is because I was told that Corsa
Speaker 2: and Fellini and Antonioni and Bergmann and all these people
Speaker 2: are like good films, right, I just and I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a reason they're like that. They're amazing filmmakers. Felini,
Speaker 2: even with everything I've seen, he story remains one of
Speaker 2: my favorite. But like, these are amazing filmmakers doing incredible things,
Speaker 2: and they are on the other end of this. If
Speaker 2: you go up back to this idea of like, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of well untethered creative at least of not having
Speaker 2: a studio just dictating every move. There at the other
Speaker 2: end of it, where they're respected and they have distribution
Speaker 2: and they're at festivals, but they still get to kind
Speaker 2: of there are tours, right Yeah. And then the thing
Speaker 2: that I realized very quickly as I started watching some
Speaker 2: of these with vinegar syndrome is that these are also
Speaker 2: our tours. They're just not distributed in the same way.
Speaker 2: But they have this similar vibe to a lot of
Speaker 2: the art house stuff because they're allowed to go make
Speaker 2: the movie they want to. And that's just I just
Speaker 2: love it. I love anybody that can do that, and
Speaker 2: you get to see some wacky stuff, like we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about ghost Stands here in just a minute
Speaker 2: and Corpse Mania, And there's nothing really that connects these
Speaker 2: two movies other than this spirit of recklessness and just
Speaker 2: kind of like fun that you can tell the filmmakers
Speaker 2: or just doing whatever they want. And I like it.
Speaker 2: I like it a lot. Actually, it's good we're talking
Speaker 2: about art house because one of the ones we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about today is just a straight arthouse film.
Speaker 2: It could easily have been put up Criterion. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: for sure, Yeah, I think we can jump in. I mean, so,
Speaker 2: where where do people find you if they want to
Speaker 2: find you? Do you do you want people to go
Speaker 2: find you? And just watch two? Do you want people
Speaker 2: to find you? And film bloggers Sam like where do
Speaker 2: you want people point?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So like film blogger Sam is like my handle
Speaker 3: on like Instagram and YouTube, so yeah, you can find
Speaker 3: me by just such an that on Google really to
Speaker 3: be honest. And then my website is let's watchto dot
Speaker 3: com And I have a website there with which like
Speaker 3: has links to like my YouTube stuff as well. When
Speaker 3: then it has a few because I've only been doing
Speaker 3: it recently, some written reviews for some physical media releases. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you can find me there.
Speaker 2: Oh, I said, I said, just watch too. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: let's watch too that. Yeah, yeah, we'll put the links
Speaker 2: in the in the episode.
Speaker 3: Anyways, as the eighteen eighties do to a close, almost
Speaker 3: all of the Western tribes share the crushing hopelessness, and
Speaker 3: once again the white men's government wanted to reduce their
Speaker 3: reservations even further.
Speaker 2: So they were ripe for a Messiah.
Speaker 3: We're talking about murder here, doctor two, to be exactly,
Speaker 3: and there's nothing supernatural about fact.
Speaker 4: And that Messiah was Wellboca.
Speaker 5: We started preaching a strange mixture of Christianity and the
Speaker 5: old Indian beliefs.
Speaker 2: Called the ghost Dance religion.
Speaker 3: Among other claims, Wovoka.
Speaker 2: Swore that he had actually visited God in heaven.
Speaker 3: You've been under a terrific strain out in the desert
Speaker 3: at night.
Speaker 2: Your mind can turn somersaults, and whatever you see or
Speaker 2: hear can seem very real.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you he was there.
Speaker 2: All right. Well, let's get into it. So October is
Speaker 2: it was a huge month for them, just in terms
Speaker 2: of their core their mainline releases. They they always put
Speaker 2: out several movies a month, but I think this month
Speaker 2: was let's see what ghost Dance three six six movies
Speaker 2: just in their mainline.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty pretty stacked releases as well. So, uh, lots
Speaker 3: of a lot of bang for your buck for like
Speaker 3: a bundle for this month for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they there's some movies that you know, it's
Speaker 2: always interesting to me because I wasn't into regional horror
Speaker 2: or obscure horror in my teens. I when it was
Speaker 2: still VHS kind of going to the DVD I missed
Speaker 2: out on stuff Like so title forty one is Ghost Dance, right,
Speaker 2: And this is one of the ones that's really interesting
Speaker 2: to me because this is one that people had on
Speaker 2: their list of like, oh, I hope this gets a
Speaker 2: release one day, like a like a nice Blu ray
Speaker 2: release one day, and I'd never heard of it. Did
Speaker 2: you have any backgrounds to this film before seeing it?
Speaker 3: Absolutely none. As I've over the years become more more
Speaker 3: versed in like all these obscure films, just by association
Speaker 3: and being in forms and stuff, you get you get
Speaker 3: to hear about various different films and stuff, even if
Speaker 3: you haven't seen them, you become aware of them. But yeah,
Speaker 3: even Ghost Dance wasn't something that i'd come across, so
Speaker 3: when it was announced, I was very intrigued to check
Speaker 3: it out for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you know, a lot of these movies
Speaker 2: are Hollywood adjacent, this one really is not the only
Speaker 2: the only The most famous person here is probably the
Speaker 2: cinematographer who has had a pretty long career. His name
Speaker 2: was Fred Murphy, had a long career as a cinematographer.
Speaker 2: But the one thing that thought was really interesting in
Speaker 2: the interview and stuff associated with this disc was that
Speaker 2: the director and writer aren't even making movies anymore. They're
Speaker 2: just you know, they're just like businessmen. And they were
Speaker 2: pulled back in to talk about this movie and they
Speaker 2: got to kind of revisit and have fun revisiting it,
Speaker 2: which I thought was awesome. So, you know, this is
Speaker 2: truly like one of those movies that was a time
Speaker 2: and a place it was made. It wasn't quite didn't
Speaker 2: have the success the filmmakers wanted it to, and for
Speaker 2: the most part they I mean, you know, there's some
Speaker 2: people that, you know, some actors in here that had
Speaker 2: smaller gigs and just kind of maybe a working man's
Speaker 2: career as an actor. But for the most part, this
Speaker 2: is a very kind of insular, singular release. So the
Speaker 2: let see six thousand units and that I forgot to
Speaker 2: check before we were starting how it's selling. So go ahead,
Speaker 2: and I just while you give your thoughts, I'll check
Speaker 2: on how well it's selling for them right now, and
Speaker 2: then i'll find it. But what did you think of it?
Speaker 3: I have mixed opinions on this one. I definitely found
Speaker 3: it interesting and a nice sort of snapshot of a
Speaker 3: time and place. But let's start off with begin at
Speaker 3: the beginning of the film. I thought the first like
Speaker 3: ten minutes fifteen minutes of this film were really good.
Speaker 3: So it starts off with they're digging up like a
Speaker 3: burial ground site these like what they just professors in
Speaker 3: archaeologists or I'm not entirely sure what they are. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and they uncover this burial ground of what they think
Speaker 3: is a folklore legend person. And it's the whole beginning
Speaker 3: ten to fifteen minutes of the film. It's like there's
Speaker 3: no dialogue and it's mostly apart from the first bit
Speaker 3: at the beginning, it's in like night time and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of you know, not espionage, that's the completely
Speaker 3: the wrong thing, but like skulking around and secretive stuff
Speaker 3: going on, and it's very intriguing, and I was very like,
Speaker 3: where's this going? And the film was sold to me
Speaker 3: as being sort of like slasher esque, but obviously with
Speaker 3: a twist because there's some sort of supernatural element, which
Speaker 3: is not uncommon for slasher films to have supernatural elements
Speaker 3: for sure, but incorporating sort of Native American folklore and
Speaker 3: spiritualism and just possession of some description. Unfortunately, as the
Speaker 3: film progressed, I found there were some really cool set
Speaker 3: pieces that I really enjoyed, and I can definitely appreciate
Speaker 3: that the filmmakers were undeterred to fulfill their vision even
Speaker 3: though they were on a budget, and that goes into
Speaker 3: in the special features that they were kind of restricted
Speaker 3: in some senses and they had to sort of almost
Speaker 3: accept some like first takes with some things because they
Speaker 3: just had to, you know, move on, because they didn't
Speaker 3: have time to like reset everything and carry and like
Speaker 3: get the perfect shot sometimes. But I found the film
Speaker 3: a bit stale in places, if that's fair to say.
Speaker 3: The writing could have been a bit more inspired. I
Speaker 3: thought the performances were fine and it looked pretty good,
Speaker 3: but yeah, it does something didn't completely connect with me.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely glad I watched it, and the special features
Speaker 3: definitely elaborate on things, and there are some interesting characters
Speaker 3: behind the making of this film, which made me enjoy
Speaker 3: it a bit more. I love special features when they
Speaker 3: can do that, when they can shine some light on things.
Speaker 3: But it didn't completely work for me, but there are
Speaker 3: elements of it that did work and I did enjoy it,
Speaker 3: so it wasn't like a wasted time for me. But
Speaker 3: it's probably not one not I'm going to be watching
Speaker 3: again with anytime soon, but definitely an interesting different take
Speaker 3: on this sort of thing that I feel is quite tasteful.
Speaker 3: I don't know. It's always a very difficult thing to
Speaker 3: balance when you have sort of white filmmakers tackling this
Speaker 3: subject matter when it's not their culture that they're representing.
Speaker 3: But I feel that's that's that's that's tackled in the
Speaker 3: special features as well, or they the writer and stuff
Speaker 3: talk about how they feel about the subject matter and stuff.
Speaker 3: But I personally I wasn't offended by any of it.
Speaker 3: I thought it was done in a a in a
Speaker 3: good way, but I maybe other people would find it problematic.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I liked it, but I wouldn't say it
Speaker 3: was great. But yeah, what what did you think of
Speaker 3: Ghost Dance?
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh that's great. Thank you for getting into that.
Speaker 2: I think there's one quick thing. It's it looks like
Speaker 2: it's sold about thirty five hundred copies so far, so
Speaker 2: it's out of six thousand. They'll limited subcovery, so there's
Speaker 2: still a fair amount left. But it's selling pretty well.
Speaker 2: I think. I'm assuming it's probably selling well in the
Speaker 2: strength of the bundle is my guess, as opposed to
Speaker 2: people necessarily seeking this out individually. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: the fact that they made six thousand of these, it
Speaker 2: must have had a following them that they knew about
Speaker 2: going into this. There's a couple of points I just
Speaker 2: want to call out before I get into directly how
Speaker 2: I feel. So the filmmakers were from Arizona, and that
Speaker 2: you know, Arizona, New Mexico. It's kind of there's areas
Speaker 2: that are sort of called like the Southwest in America,
Speaker 2: and Native American culture is very ingrained in your day
Speaker 2: to day there. I don't know, I didn't go to
Speaker 2: school in Arizona, but I imagine that in elementary school, and
Speaker 2: you probably start to have a greater awareness of tradition
Speaker 2: and Native American history and stuff in that area than
Speaker 2: you would in other areas of even in the US.
Speaker 2: It's you know, there's a lot of people in New Mexico,
Speaker 2: which is next door. There's a lot of reservations now
Speaker 2: that have been there there. It's in that state, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of reservations. And in fact, there's one area
Speaker 2: called Chaco Canyon, which is really cool because they's it's
Speaker 2: one of the most untouched old worship sites that has
Speaker 2: been It hasn't been it's been preserved really well. So
Speaker 2: it's hard to get to because you have to go
Speaker 2: you know, you fly into an airport and then you
Speaker 2: drive two and a half hours to get there. Then
Speaker 2: once you get there, you have to go on a
Speaker 2: road that hasn't been maintained, and it's like this. But
Speaker 2: when you actually get to Chocoal Canyon, it's a little
Speaker 2: bit of an out of body experience because it's a
Speaker 2: place where people have been coming all the way from Mexico,
Speaker 2: which is just south of it. They've been coming up
Speaker 2: to worship at this one area for thousands of years,
Speaker 2: and so it's got you can see, like because it's
Speaker 2: so well preserved, you can kind of see the society there,
Speaker 2: and you can there's some houses that are still preserved
Speaker 2: and some temples that are there. It's a really cool,
Speaker 2: very spiritual, interesting area. My point of that is to
Speaker 2: say that I think when you grow up in the Southwest,
Speaker 2: you have a natural curiosity and closeness like proximity to
Speaker 2: that culture, right to Native American culture. So when these
Speaker 2: two college aged white dudes set out to make a
Speaker 2: movie about Native American culture, it's not like they were
Speaker 2: completely without context, even if it wasn't native to them.
Speaker 2: And one thing I did like is that they engage
Speaker 2: the local tribes fairly well in the writing of the
Speaker 2: folklore to make sure that they weren't being too offensive.
Speaker 2: So they did their appropriate amount of homework. There was
Speaker 2: one thing that was a little curious where they said
Speaker 2: that they were asked not to use this some the
Speaker 2: character of Nahala. I don't know if that's who's kind
Speaker 2: of like the main spiritual battie here in the film.
Speaker 2: I don't know that that's exactly the name from the
Speaker 2: tribe they were speaking with, but that character that they
Speaker 2: took they were asked not to use him as it
Speaker 2: was kind of important, I guess, And so if I
Speaker 2: remember correctly, and I don't know if I hope I'm
Speaker 2: remembering that correctly, but there was one thing they were
Speaker 2: asked not to use, and they did it anyways. And
Speaker 2: you know that that ties into what I really like
Speaker 2: about the special features was I got the sense that
Speaker 2: they were looking back and they had spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time really thinking about whether or not they did
Speaker 2: the right thing in making this movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get that. I get the sense of that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: from the special features, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They I don't think they were flippant about it,
Speaker 2: Like when they defended the content in the movie. They
Speaker 2: really it felt like it was coming from a thoughtful place,
Speaker 2: which I appreciated, and it felt like their intentions were
Speaker 2: in the right place. Even trying to like see if
Speaker 2: they could shoot on a particular area of the city
Speaker 2: instead of just like rolling up and shooting, they went
Speaker 2: to the elders and like asked permission to shoot there,
Speaker 2: and so they kind of if you can imagine the
Speaker 2: maturity of a bunch of twenty two year old kids,
Speaker 2: it felt like they were kind of ahead of their
Speaker 2: time and tried to do the right thing.
Speaker 3: Let me just say it that way, heart's in the
Speaker 3: right place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Whether or not they got it perfectly, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I'm probably not the best person to ask,
Speaker 2: but like it felt like their heart was in the
Speaker 2: right place. So I think I'm probably landing somewhere where
Speaker 2: you are. There are things in this movie I really like, Like,
Speaker 2: for example, they win this ghost of Nahala and and
Speaker 2: he kind of takes over a body. Right, So it's
Speaker 2: a movie where the spirit of Nahala, he's like an
Speaker 2: angry spirit, he's evengeful spirit. He doesn't like people coming in,
Speaker 2: does it. I can't remember if it specifically calls out
Speaker 2: white people or if it's just like like like non
Speaker 2: natives coming. I can't remember exactly how they frame it.
Speaker 2: But he's not happy with the progress that's affecting his people,
Speaker 2: and he embodies human, and that human goes on a
Speaker 2: murderous rampage.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: That's kind of the setup, right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: And the kills when Nahala is killing I thought were
Speaker 2: pretty good. They had some pretty gnarly kills.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a there's an impaling one in the museum.
Speaker 3: I think, Yes, that was that was that was a
Speaker 3: pretty that was a pretty gold kill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty good special effects or practical effects. As the
Speaker 2: as this long, like, uh, it's a is it a spirit?
Speaker 2: That's that one of the stuffs.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like an arrow or something those something.
Speaker 3: It's like I watched it like a week ago.
Speaker 2: No, it's okay, I saw it like three four weeks ago,
Speaker 2: so but it's I think it's as part of the display.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, it's getting.
Speaker 2: Killed on this Yeah, but it's it's slow and painful
Speaker 2: and bloody. It's good. I like it. It's a good kill.
Speaker 2: And then as the as they get towards the end
Speaker 2: and you start to kind of the it's more becomes
Speaker 2: more of like a almost like a spiritual battle with
Speaker 2: they They spend a lot of time in the film
Speaker 2: convincing one of the local tribes to like help, right
Speaker 2: because they they know how to ward off this Nahala spirit.
Speaker 2: And once they finally do and they start that battle,
Speaker 2: I think the practical effects are pretty cool as well
Speaker 2: as it starts to become more of a supernatural horror type.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's light. It's not like we're talking about
Speaker 2: interdimensions or something. But it's you can kind of see
Speaker 2: it's not just a human and I think that the
Speaker 2: effects there are are pretty well done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: But yeah, other than that, I don't know that there's
Speaker 2: too much to say about it. I think it's a
Speaker 2: fun slasher. As far as like what stood out, the
Speaker 2: cinematography does stand out. It's beautiful, and this guy, you know,
Speaker 2: Fred Murphy, certainly is a talented cinematographer. The only thing
Speaker 2: I'll say is that have you ever been to Arizona?
Speaker 2: By chance? It's a very specific question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I've never been.
Speaker 2: No, it's okay. The only reason I'm asking is it's
Speaker 2: kind of cheating to say it's good cinematography.
Speaker 3: Because oh yeah, especially with the scenic thing, like but
Speaker 3: just set up your camera and press go and you're like, wow,
Speaker 3: it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, it's really hard to find a bad shot there.
Speaker 2: It's like I always say this about Lawrence of Arabia.
Speaker 2: It's considered one of the most beautiful shot films ever, right,
Speaker 2: and I mean, who am I to argue it's amazing,
Speaker 2: it's stunning. But also where they're filming, it's like, I mean,
Speaker 2: come on, it's hard to have a bad. Shut, like
Speaker 2: they found some amazing locations for that film and then shut.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I agree. It's so very similar to some
Speaker 3: of the like Technicolor john Ford Western's yea, yeah, like
Speaker 3: there there are absolutely stunning to look at. But I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: but half the work is done by the natural environment.
Speaker 3: It's not It does look great, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 3: but I'm like, yeah, like you just find the location
Speaker 3: and point and shoot. That's that's simp oversimplifying, of course,
Speaker 3: but you know, the environment is definitely contributing quite more
Speaker 3: than what other you know, cinematographers' jobs have to do
Speaker 3: when they're working on sets and things like that.
Speaker 2: For sure, any any DP listening is throwing something.
Speaker 3: I'm sure they are and that that's fine.
Speaker 2: And no offense meant. But yeah, I know I kind
Speaker 2: of feel that way. It's it's like it's hard to
Speaker 2: shoot bad in Arizona, but the you know, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say the music is necessarily a standout, like it's okay,
Speaker 2: you know, I think the writing is probably a weak
Speaker 2: point in terms of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's fun. I mean, I can't say that
Speaker 2: I've seen any other Native American slashers where the where
Speaker 2: the focus is the killer itself is you know, angry
Speaker 2: at the white people and like out for revenge, and
Speaker 2: it's more than just like a standard slasher.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah, different, unique just didn't completely
Speaker 3: work for me. But you know, not everything has to
Speaker 3: I'm always happy to watch something that just you know,
Speaker 3: gives me knowledge on something that I've never I don't
Speaker 3: have no knowledge on. So yeah, it's good. It's it's good,
Speaker 3: but not great, as I said.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Now, I was trying to think of Hawd
Speaker 2: a segue between these next two. If this was a
Speaker 2: love letter to Arizona and Native American culture, I think
Speaker 2: released for eighty two kind of becomes a love letter
Speaker 2: to Paris in like a dark way. So it's I
Speaker 2: it's my It's the first Polanski movie I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: I've intentionally avoided his films.
Speaker 3: For whoa, this is the first Polanski film you've ever watched? Wow, Okay,
Speaker 3: I understand I understand why you'd avoid his films, But
Speaker 3: I think I watched a few of his films before
Speaker 3: I even knew about the allegations, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean it's hard to avoid them.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, I mean especially like, yeah, Rosemary's Baby
Speaker 3: and Repulsion and things like the classic films like Rosemies Babies,
Speaker 3: you know, in the pan in of like the greatest
Speaker 3: horror films I ever made. So yeah, anyway, but how
Speaker 3: did you what did you get out of your first
Speaker 3: Polanski experience?
Speaker 2: Well, it was pissed because I really liked it.
Speaker 3: It's so good.
Speaker 2: So oh, I guess we haven't mentioned the name, so
Speaker 2: we're talking about the tenant, Yeah, which is it's a
Speaker 2: film from let's see nineteen seventy six. This is a
Speaker 2: movie that has just a stacked cast. Probably most famous
Speaker 2: would be Shelley Winters, and then obviously Isabella Johnny, who
Speaker 2: most horror fans know from Possession. She has a great
Speaker 2: role here. Yeah, for sure, she's amazing in this, and
Speaker 2: then Melvin Douglas from The Changeling. So good, big cast.
Speaker 2: The movie shot in English, which is interesting. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: it's a it's a French film, fully, fully a French
Speaker 2: film in terms of there's no like Americans in Paris
Speaker 2: kind of thing, like, this is a movie about French
Speaker 2: people in France, and specifically about Parisians. I would say
Speaker 2: about this, this immigrant coming in and having a weird
Speaker 2: experience being in Paris, and but it's all shot in English.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious if you agree that this is primarily
Speaker 2: a film about an immigrant coming into Paris, or if
Speaker 2: you think that I missed the point.
Speaker 3: No, I think I think that's a fair interpretation of
Speaker 3: the film. A lot of people I would say that,
Speaker 3: and they're probably right. But Polanski's film The Piano the
Speaker 3: Pianist is his most personal film because he was a
Speaker 3: Holocaust survivor great and the film is about the Holocaust
Speaker 3: and and stuff. So, but there's a lot more personal
Speaker 3: stuff going on with maybe Polanski's psyche, with being someone
Speaker 3: who you know, survived all that I think is a
Speaker 3: very psychological film, more so than his other films in
Speaker 3: what is known as the Apartment trilogy, which you haven't
Speaker 3: seen obviously, so that would be Rosemie's Baby in Repulsion
Speaker 3: are sort of these connected thematic films that he made
Speaker 3: during his career, and this is the last, this is
Speaker 3: the last one in that sort of trilogy that are
Speaker 3: very connected with sort of the downward spiral of an
Speaker 3: individual and how they're surrounding the people that they interact
Speaker 3: with are influencing the way they feel and the way
Speaker 3: they act. But whereas this one differs from Rose Muse,
Speaker 3: Bray Baby and Repulsion is that this one is very
Speaker 3: ambiguous and whether what is happening to this individual is
Speaker 3: actually happening or if it's in their head, Whereas the
Speaker 3: other two films they play with that and then things
Speaker 3: get revealed, the truth is revealed about what the situation is,
Speaker 3: whereas this one is very ambiguous and a lot more
Speaker 3: pulling on the psychological elements because you can interpret it
Speaker 3: how you want to, but you never explicitly told what
Speaker 3: the motives are and what exactly is happening here. And
Speaker 3: I love that for that reason. I think this It's
Speaker 3: tough because rosemye Baby is so damn good as well,
Speaker 3: But I don't know, I think this one might be
Speaker 3: my favorite Polanski. Well, as you said, the supporting cast
Speaker 3: is so good and it's yeah, the cinematography is stunning,
Speaker 3: Like spen Nick Fist, who I always like to point
Speaker 3: out was the director of photography for Sleepless in Seattle,
Speaker 3: but he has obviously he was the dop for so
Speaker 3: many incredible wing Mark Bergmann films, so and he's just
Speaker 3: a very very talented photographer so well.
Speaker 2: And especially I think this film was very important to
Speaker 2: have like a sense of intimacy and kind of like
Speaker 2: closed rooms and claustrophobia, and that's a lot of what
Speaker 2: Bergmann was famous for it, right, So I think, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: having Nick Fist work on this was a good choice
Speaker 2: for that was probably very comfortable for him. But I
Speaker 2: love that you brought up the psychological aspect. So there's
Speaker 2: two things I think that really stood out to me
Speaker 2: in the tenant. One is, as you mentioned this kind
Speaker 2: of downward spiral of the human psyche, and I think
Speaker 2: never letting the audience know if it's in the mind,
Speaker 2: Oh well, we should mention. Polanski is also the main
Speaker 2: actor here, Yes he is, and he plays a Polish
Speaker 2: guy who's trying to get settled into France, and he's
Speaker 2: he does. I mean, his name is Cholkovsky, and that
Speaker 2: name is mentioned a hundred times. And I think that's
Speaker 2: also part of why it stood out to me that
Speaker 2: this is maybe a film about not fitting in, is
Speaker 2: because they just kept saying the name, and in most
Speaker 2: other films you just don't hear the name a hundred times. Right.
Speaker 2: But anyways, so one of them is about this character Cholkowsky,
Speaker 2: and you don't know for sure if all the bad
Speaker 2: things in the film are actually happening to him or
Speaker 2: if it's more of an inward downward spiral. The other
Speaker 2: thing that stood out to me is that, and I
Speaker 2: don't know if you're gonna say, I'm a sick person,
Speaker 2: but I found this movie to be quite funny actually
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 3: Oh no, it is, okay, it is extremely funny. I
Speaker 3: find it funny. I think it's it's like it was
Speaker 3: marketed as a horror comedy in a way, like psychological
Speaker 3: thriller slash horror comedy in a way that there is
Speaker 3: definitely some very humorous moments. I'm not saying like there
Speaker 3: was a few moments where because this is the second
Speaker 3: time I've seen this film. I've seen it before, but
Speaker 3: obviously on this brand new release it was the second
Speaker 3: time I've seen it. There it's not always like laugh
Speaker 3: out loud, but it's very There are a couple of moments,
Speaker 3: but there is just some very humorous goings on, which
Speaker 3: I was like, that was funny. I'm not sure if
Speaker 3: I should be laughing, but I am so Oh it's
Speaker 3: dark humor, right, But yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: The person who runs the apartment that he's in, is
Speaker 2: this like curmudgeonly or gay, And it's more it's I
Speaker 2: almost view it more of like Terry gilliam style of humor,
Speaker 2: where it's like there's humor in almost the anger sometimes
Speaker 2: and like yeah, yeah, the tension, it's just like they
Speaker 2: put humor into it. But yeah, I think there's movie.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, we could do a whole It
Speaker 2: would be very easy to do a whole episode just
Speaker 2: on the tenet. I have a lot to say about it,
Speaker 2: and I think it's even the way that it's interesting
Speaker 2: to see, you know, when I when there's a seat.
Speaker 2: There's a moment in the film when Polanski is the
Speaker 2: character of Chilkowsky, puts on starts putting on makeup, and
Speaker 2: then starts putting on a wig and starts dressing as
Speaker 2: a woman, and I was like, Oh, I wonder where
Speaker 2: they're going with this and where they went. I wouldn't
Speaker 2: say it's necessarily like a trans pro transgender movie. I
Speaker 2: don't think that's what they were trying to do with that.
Speaker 2: I don't like, I don't think that's why it's there
Speaker 2: in the film as like an advocacy piece.
Speaker 3: But no, I don't. I didn't read that from what
Speaker 3: from watching it either.
Speaker 2: No, it's it's it's just it's tied into the spiral,
Speaker 2: and I don't necessarily want to I'm trying to avoid spoilers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't go any further because you might
Speaker 3: spoil something for someone who it's.
Speaker 2: The spiral, right, Yes, but the way it's handled again,
Speaker 2: it's it's just one of those things which I love
Speaker 2: about so many art house films, and they it's if
Speaker 2: when you're in the hands of a masterful kind of filmmaker,
Speaker 2: they can put stuff in a movie early on and
Speaker 2: just say, like, trust me, you'll just watch the film,
Speaker 2: you'll figure it out. Just just sit with me in this.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to over explain, right, You're not gonna
Speaker 2: get a lot of exposition. Just let the film play out.
Speaker 2: It all a lot makes sense, I promise, mm hmm. And
Speaker 2: I think he does a very good job with that here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not having faith in your audience and just
Speaker 3: not holding their hand, which is a pet peeve of mine.
Speaker 3: Way too much exposition is a big turn off. I
Speaker 3: don't mind a little bit here and there for when
Speaker 3: it's necessary, But if it's an exposition, if dialogue is
Speaker 3: exposition heavy, I immediately get turned off when I'm watching
Speaker 3: a film, no matter how good the visuals or the
Speaker 3: story is, to be honest. So yeah, Polanski is very
Speaker 3: good at dealing with that. I'm not sure if you're
Speaker 3: based on your feelings towards the director, which are warranted,
Speaker 3: if you'll maybe vinegar Syndrome will put out. They probably
Speaker 3: won't because Criterion have those other ones, don't they, So
Speaker 3: you're you're safe at least from a vinegar syndrome standpoint
Speaker 3: for those the rest of the Apartment trilogy. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it's uh.
Speaker 2: I mean at some point I'll probably watch them films. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, there's so many things we don't even know
Speaker 2: about other filmmakers, right, Like of course, it's not like
Speaker 2: he's alone as being a scummy human and a rapist
Speaker 2: in Hollywood, like I it's it's a tension, right Like.
Speaker 2: I will eventually get to other Polanski movies, especially after
Speaker 2: seeing this and realizing why people like his movies so much.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you need to see Chinatown. That might be
Speaker 3: his best film. Jack Nicholson is incredible in it, and
Speaker 3: that it's like one of the best, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: one of the best scripts for a film, like screenplays
Speaker 3: for a film ever, Like it's so good as I'd
Speaker 3: be interested to hear your thoughts on that personally, but
Speaker 3: that's that's an aside. But yeah, you should. You should
Speaker 3: give him a go at some point. But I understand
Speaker 3: the trepidation with delving into such a problematic director's work.
Speaker 2: And the thing that just gets my good and then
Speaker 2: we can move on, is that he was unrepentant. And
Speaker 2: that's the thing that just kind of stuck with me
Speaker 2: is he just ran and again this is this is
Speaker 2: just my opinion. He ran like a cowrad didn't face
Speaker 2: up to the crime, and for some reason it's still celebrated,
Speaker 2: like I haven't been able to reconcile. I mean as
Speaker 2: a human he's celebrated, like there's a petition going around
Speaker 2: where people are just like saying bringing back or whatever. Right,
Speaker 2: So I just I've never been able to reconcile those two.
Speaker 2: But anyways, as a filmmaker, which we're talking about today,
Speaker 2: this movie is fantastic and honestly, like scene for scene,
Speaker 2: I don't think there's any fat like it's a it's
Speaker 2: just everything needs to be in the film. Every character
Speaker 2: is written to be unique and serves a purpose in
Speaker 2: the film. When it does go into some light surrealism,
Speaker 2: I think it's well contained and it fits the story perfectly.
Speaker 2: It's very easy to understand. Yeah, I just think this
Speaker 2: is an incredible film, and I was stunned that they
Speaker 2: got a new interview with Roman Polanski for this release.
Speaker 3: I haven't watched that. I felt a bit weird about it.
Speaker 3: I chose to listen to the commentary with Troy Howarth
Speaker 3: and Nathaniel Thompson, which was really good, so I don't
Speaker 3: I'd recommend listening to that one to any listeners who
Speaker 3: have picked it up, because it's they were always pretty
Speaker 3: pretty good guys to you know, accompany you through a viewing.
Speaker 3: I usually listen to like audio commentaries in the car
Speaker 3: because I don't have a lot of time to sit
Speaker 3: and watch films twice for the purpose of on audio commentary.
Speaker 3: Another aside, I'm glad that some labels are potentially or
Speaker 3: will be putting audio commentaries available on other platforms for
Speaker 3: people to listen to so that they don't have to
Speaker 3: sit and watch the film twice. I know that's I
Speaker 3: know that's a thing. Some labels will be doing that
Speaker 3: in the future, so I'm excited for that.
Speaker 2: But well, quick shout out to dev Crocodile, who's already.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, Yeah, yeah, yeah. No.
Speaker 2: In fact, it's funny you mentioned that. I'm actively going
Speaker 2: through Kat Ellinger's commentary for DOCTA Space Mission for the
Speaker 2: next time I travel.
Speaker 3: Oh nice, cool, cool, Yeah, I've listened. I've listened to
Speaker 3: that one.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I listened to that one in the car, so it
Speaker 3: is a good one. She's always a good listen and
Speaker 3: very informative. And I like the more generally, but the
Speaker 3: more academic type ones. I don't mind a fun one
Speaker 3: or one that's more of a hangout. They Cat I
Speaker 3: can be really good, but like I prefer the academic
Speaker 3: type ones, and people like Catallenger and Sam Deagan stuff.
Speaker 3: They do really cool academic or audio commentaries. Anyway, moving
Speaker 3: on absolutely.
Speaker 2: Well, I have absolutely no idea how to segue between
Speaker 2: the Tenet and Vinegar syndrome title four eighty three, which
Speaker 2: is Corpse Mania.
Speaker 3: Oh goodness, may I love this one.
Speaker 2: That's a fun movie. Holy girl. I think the thing
Speaker 2: that jumps out to me right away is just atmosphere.
Speaker 2: I think they like, this is just I don't know
Speaker 2: how they were able to do it, but it's like
Speaker 2: it has the atmosphere of like a noir mhm, with
Speaker 2: the smoke and the dark alleys, and like it's just
Speaker 2: it's got this you know, the killers in hiding and
Speaker 2: it's got this amazing atmosphere. But like what you see
Speaker 2: on the screen, especially in the first half of the
Speaker 2: film is a lot of really nasty, gnarly gross like
Speaker 2: worms and maggots, and it's like a lot of disgusting
Speaker 2: corpse riting that kind of stuff. And then back half
Speaker 2: of the movie it turns into something else entirely. It's
Speaker 2: just like what's going on?
Speaker 3: It does the genres do flip? I would say it's
Speaker 3: like a pastiche of different It's tonally all over the place,
Speaker 3: like but like in an enjoyable way, because some things
Speaker 3: where it flips too much, it can be like whiplash
Speaker 3: and I don't enjoy it. But when it's done in
Speaker 3: this way, I don't know what it is. It just
Speaker 3: seemed to strike a chord of me. I was. I
Speaker 3: was very into this one. Yeah, starts off disgusting, it's
Speaker 3: about the film starts off about necrophilia, so and you're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this guy likes doing it with dead bodies and that
Speaker 3: their bodies are decomposing and it's revolting. It's so disgusting
Speaker 3: and stomach churning. But then there are some like moments
Speaker 3: of humor in the film, which a lot of Hong
Speaker 3: Kong films incorporate into all of their genres, it seems,
Speaker 3: and that can land or not. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: like action films or sort of some of the well
Speaker 3: this is a Shaw Brothers feature precures film, isn't it so?
Speaker 3: But there's some of the more martial arts orientated ones
Speaker 3: where the humor doesn't necessarily land for me. But I
Speaker 3: don't know if like the directors or the film studio
Speaker 3: are like, you know, every film has to have some
Speaker 3: element of comedy in it, I don't know, to lighten
Speaker 3: the mood or just to break things up. But yeah,
Speaker 3: this one, this one worked a lot more for me.
Speaker 3: But yeah, this is this is a wild film, utterly wild. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like almost like a shallow as well slasher slasher,
Speaker 3: shallow noir. I wouldn't say body horror, but just disgusting
Speaker 3: body decomposing gooiness is just also incorporate into it, and
Speaker 3: the mystery element's pretty cool. And I really like the reveal,
Speaker 3: which obviously we won't say what's going on in the
Speaker 3: film as it's a spoiler, but I like the reveal.
Speaker 3: I thought it was pretty good. I sort of sort of.
Speaker 3: I didn't guess it because I'm not very good at
Speaker 3: guessing like the who the killer might be and things
Speaker 3: like that, which I like not knowing. I like being
Speaker 3: oblivious because then I'm usually surprised, whereas a lot of
Speaker 3: people watching it, Oh, I saw the killer coming a
Speaker 3: mile away, and I'm like, well, I didn't, And that
Speaker 3: means I enjoyed it. Probably enjoyed the film more than
Speaker 3: you did, because I'm usually more tapped into vibe and
Speaker 3: tone and just enjoying just the craziness of what's happening
Speaker 3: then to be paying too much attention to the intricacies
Speaker 3: of the plot sometimes. But yeah, yeah, I loved this one,
Speaker 3: and I thought it looked great. The the set design
Speaker 3: it was very lavish for the type of you know,
Speaker 3: the content is quite brow. I would say that's not
Speaker 3: to disparage it, but like, what is happening in the
Speaker 3: story is like disgusting and repulsive, but like the way
Speaker 3: it looks and he's set up and shot and stuff
Speaker 3: is it's very nice looking. Film looks very good on
Speaker 3: the four K. So, yeah, what were your thoughts on it?
Speaker 2: No, I agree, I have. So you know this is
Speaker 2: from the same director that made Boxer Zoemen.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, that's correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he is a hugely influential director in Hong
Speaker 2: Kong cinema. There's another film he made called I'm just
Speaker 2: trying to look it up. Drawing Hex I think, right
Speaker 2: is the other big one and yeah, Hex, that's right
Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty Killer Constable is another one that is
Speaker 2: when that people should watch. The guy's name is quite young.
Speaker 2: And the one thing I really like about this release
Speaker 2: is his son, who is living in America now. They
Speaker 2: actually got him on the film, and so you're hearing
Speaker 2: from his son, who's able to give a lot of
Speaker 2: I think, a cool perspective of like the influence of
Speaker 2: his dad and sort of where this movie fit and
Speaker 2: like some background that you may not have had from
Speaker 2: other people. So it's nice to get that angle here
Speaker 2: for the release. And then Sam Degan does a commentary
Speaker 2: which obviously is going to be extremely well researched and
Speaker 2: very interesting. And then one of my new favorite writers
Speaker 2: and historians is Erica Schultz from the Unsung Horrors podcast.
Speaker 2: She's just this incredible depth of knowledge and she gives
Speaker 2: a she writes the booklet of this. So anyways, there's
Speaker 2: a ton of context around this film, and for anybody
Speaker 2: who's interested in Cat three movies or some of the
Speaker 2: more perverse like Shaw Brothers films, there's just this is
Speaker 2: just like a perfect capsule of all of that. I think,
Speaker 2: not only what's in the film, it's but then with
Speaker 2: the special features, you just get a I think they
Speaker 2: really immerse you in this world and talk about why
Speaker 2: Quait Young is so influential in all these things. So
Speaker 2: I love that about it the film itself. I mean
Speaker 2: I don't know what to say, Like this is I
Speaker 2: love this kind of stuff, right, Like this is like
Speaker 2: I mean, this is like a like stick this around
Speaker 2: end of my veins, right, I mean, it's.
Speaker 3: It's exactly what we were talking about at the top
Speaker 3: of the show, Like we both come from like an
Speaker 3: art house sensibility, and we're we're now like going I
Speaker 3: want you to mainline Corpse Maniu into my veins because
Speaker 3: this is the sort of stuff that I live for.
Speaker 3: So I don't know how it's come to this, but
Speaker 3: this is my back. This is very much the sort
Speaker 3: of thing that I'm looking for when I'm trying to discover,
Speaker 3: you know, new cinema. To me, I wouldn't say it's
Speaker 3: like I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece or anything like that.
Speaker 3: But there's so much about this film. It's enjoyable if
Speaker 3: you're a little bit perves by Siey.
Speaker 2: And you know, there's one thing too that I think
Speaker 2: is true with a lot of Cat three films is
Speaker 2: that when they when they have the scenes where the
Speaker 2: so essentially there's there's like a few different women that
Speaker 2: this guy Lee either bias to be, like like the
Speaker 2: first woman he buys to be his wife from a brothel,
Speaker 2: like she's dying, and so the people in the brothel
Speaker 2: are happy to get rid of her right because it's
Speaker 2: like they don't know what to do with her. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but he takes her home and makes her his wife,
Speaker 2: and and then she just stays on with her after
Speaker 2: the death. Uh, And it's after she dies and then
Speaker 2: that starts to get like intimate with her. But the
Speaker 2: scenes where first of all, there's like the scenes with
Speaker 2: the maggots and worms crawling over the body is certainly
Speaker 2: grow but I don't think it ever goes over a
Speaker 2: line of where they just like force you to just
Speaker 2: like sit with it for too long.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I do think it's meant to be more entertainment in
Speaker 2: the sense of just like, oh, and then they like
Speaker 2: cut away, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, i'd say that's fair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do appreciate that about it and the Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know too much else to say. I just think, like, oh,
Speaker 2: I should mention Grady Hendrix does a really good video
Speaker 2: essay too. I always like his work. I just forgot
Speaker 2: to mention that. But I don't really know what else
Speaker 2: to say about the film without giving away spoilers and
Speaker 2: these things I just love. I think you nailed it
Speaker 2: when what you just said. I think there's something about
Speaker 2: the discovery of new films where I'm on the search
Speaker 2: for things like this because it doesn't tightly fit into
Speaker 2: any structure that I've seen before, and it sort of
Speaker 2: keeps surprising you if you just stick with it, it
Speaker 2: kind of keeps surprising you. And I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, completely, A great well said.
Speaker 2: This one has six thousand titles in the limited slip
Speaker 2: cover and it's already sold about thirty five hundred. And
Speaker 2: I should mention the Tenant, not surprisingly, is selling out
Speaker 2: pretty fast. It has eight thousand units and looks like
Speaker 2: it's about a thousand left already. It's selling pretty fast, again,
Speaker 2: not surprising. I don't know. I don't have anything else
Speaker 2: to say on Corpse Mania though, is there anything else?
Speaker 2: I mean, this is one I highly highly recommend for
Speaker 2: anybody who's If you've seen Boxer's Omen and you liked it,
Speaker 2: I mean, this doesn't feel like Boxer's Omen.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say I wouldn't even Yeah, knowing that it's
Speaker 3: from the same director, it makes sense, but I wouldn't
Speaker 3: say you would recognize that this is the same director
Speaker 3: per se. But yeah, if you enjoy the is the
Speaker 3: Weirder side of the Shore Brothers, or does any any
Speaker 3: weird Hong Kong films, or you have any interesting Category
Speaker 3: three then type films, then you should really check this
Speaker 3: one out. It's definitely a standout release from this year
Speaker 3: from Vinegar Syndrome in my opinion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this isn't just a figment of your fantasy.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm real, but still you see strange your
Speaker 1: lifetime change.
Speaker 4: Changed by miss.
Speaker 2: All right, So we are almost done with the mainline releases,
Speaker 2: and again there's three so far. There's going to be
Speaker 2: three more, but there all within a box set. So
Speaker 2: I was it's a released forty four. It's Forgotten Jolly
Speaker 2: Volume seven, which I was stunned. There already up to seven?
Speaker 3: Crazy, right, I mean, I have you but yeah, I
Speaker 3: would say, have you got them all?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because I've been you know, I've been collecting
Speaker 2: long enough to have them all. But like, I just
Speaker 2: just I don't know. It's just weird to think if
Speaker 2: Vinegar Syndrome has seven of like anything, because they're you know,
Speaker 2: part of what they do is offer so much variety.
Speaker 2: But this is, uh, there's three films in this. I
Speaker 2: think it's probably makes sense to give a little something
Speaker 2: about each of them, just three, as opposed to talking
Speaker 2: about it as a whole. It has five thousand boxes
Speaker 2: that were made and there's about a thousand left and
Speaker 2: this one does not have a standard. So if you're
Speaker 2: a collector of the Jelly sets, this probably goes past
Speaker 2: Black Friday. If there's a thousand left, but it also
Speaker 2: might not. I don't. I don't know that it for
Speaker 2: sure that it would go past Black Freddy.
Speaker 3: They've forgotten the Forgotten Jallie set. Yeah, not to try
Speaker 3: and cause fomo or anything here, but like they usually
Speaker 3: last a bit longer than other things. Maybe I don't
Speaker 3: know if it's just do with the price or because
Speaker 3: although I don't agree that every film in these Forgotten
Speaker 3: Jolly sets are forgotten, I have some not issues with
Speaker 3: that that's a bit extreme, but like I feel like,
Speaker 3: if you know, shallow films, a couple of the films
Speaker 3: in the previous this box set for me was completely unknown.
Speaker 3: But like previous box sets, there's been a couple of
Speaker 3: films across them that I've been like that, that's not
Speaker 3: that could have really done with a standalone release. But yeah,
Speaker 3: this this box set is one of my favorite Forgotten
Speaker 3: Jelly box sets for numerous reasons. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Actually it was about to say the same thing. I
Speaker 2: think they nailed it with this one. We're going to
Speaker 2: get into this in a second. I need you to
Speaker 2: cover me. The only one I couldn't get to this
Speaker 2: month because work travel got insane was Sweets from a stranger.
Speaker 2: So when we get to that, I'm gonna need you
Speaker 2: to take the lead. But starting off with A because
Speaker 2: they do it like it's for eighty four, and then A,
Speaker 2: B and C. Right, So starting off with A is
Speaker 2: missed there, which had an more English name of Dagger Eyes.
Speaker 2: And I think it's interesting to me because this film
Speaker 2: really seems to be built around Carol Bouquet for Suel,
Speaker 2: who was two years previously had been in a Bond
Speaker 2: movie For Your Eyes Only, she was a Bond girl,
Speaker 2: although I feel like they need to update the term
Speaker 2: bond girl. I don't love that term. But anyways, she's
Speaker 2: a Bond girl for me. Although she's great and for
Speaker 2: Your Eyes Only, she's most famous for being in Boon
Speaker 2: Weell's Boonwell actor. Yeah, for sure. I'm just blanking on
Speaker 2: the name of it. Do you is it? I just
Speaker 2: saw this movie like a month ago. It's just completely
Speaker 2: slipping my name my mind. It's I'm almost there. Uh.
Speaker 2: That obscure object of desire, thank you, I was, I
Speaker 2: was driving me crazy. The Obscure object of Desire is
Speaker 2: Boon Weell film. That is I think everybody should watch.
Speaker 2: It's on. It's just unbelievable movie looking into obsession, and
Speaker 2: I think it's it's it's kind of most famous for
Speaker 2: being a movie where Bonwell gets two separate women to
Speaker 2: play the same character. But it's not like an alternate
Speaker 2: reality thing. It's not like a there's no twist in
Speaker 2: the story. He just intercuts the women in different scenes
Speaker 2: depending on what's going on. And it's extremely jarring the
Speaker 2: first time you watch it, but in typoco Bounwell fashion,
Speaker 2: you every single time you watch it, you start to
Speaker 2: just kind of get into this groove of the film.
Speaker 2: And if you let it just happen to you as
Speaker 2: opposed to fighting that it makes no sense, it becomes
Speaker 2: very powerful and you get to see how they're These
Speaker 2: actors are used based off of the emotion of the scene,
Speaker 2: and they're used to pull different things out of the
Speaker 2: of the main character. So Obscure Object of Desire is
Speaker 2: an amazing movie. And Kara Bok is she has an
Speaker 2: interesting beauty to me because she's looking beauty. But I
Speaker 2: wouldn't say I wouldn't say she's like hot or like
Speaker 2: she's not like somebody who's like what's the word for it.
Speaker 2: She's not like somebody who I think is easily approachable.
Speaker 2: She has almost this like timeless, like statuesque kind of
Speaker 2: I don't know beauty that like, Yeah, it's to me,
Speaker 2: she's like somebody who's could be in a museum in
Speaker 2: a statue with very little effort. She just has this
Speaker 2: sort of of different presence to him.
Speaker 3: I agree with that. She's seems she has a she
Speaker 3: has a coldness about her that makes any sense. I
Speaker 3: think that is that is explored in the special features
Speaker 3: a little bit with some of the interviews. Yeah, she's
Speaker 3: she's very beautiful, but it is a different kind of
Speaker 3: beauty than what you might expect from other types of
Speaker 3: film stars. Yeah, it's very aloof and very sort of
Speaker 3: like giving off the vibes of don't touch me or
Speaker 3: don't get don't come too close sort of thing. If
Speaker 3: that makes any sense to anyone listening or to you.
Speaker 3: It's it's a very odd thing to say and how
Speaker 3: to describe her, but she's she. Yeah, she's definitely interesting
Speaker 3: to look at. What are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 2: Well, Miss Air again, and you know, we're fumbling through
Speaker 2: exactly how to put definition around it. But I think
Speaker 2: the reason that the beauty is worth calling out and
Speaker 2: this specific type of beauty that she has is worth
Speaker 2: calling out is because it's very central to this The
Speaker 2: way this movie shot this is my favorite one of
Speaker 2: the set overall. Again, I haven't seen k Sweets from
Speaker 2: a Stranger yet, but although I really like of session two,
Speaker 2: which we'll get to in just a second, but this
Speaker 2: is my favorite one for a variety of reasons, but
Speaker 2: I think mostly because the way that Miss Dara is
Speaker 2: shot it. The whole movie feels like this kind of
Speaker 2: dream in a way, and I love the way that
Speaker 2: they wove the story together. I think it's a very
Speaker 2: excellent script. I think it's fun to watch Gabriel Latin
Speaker 2: d John Steiner. It's like it's just they. I think
Speaker 2: they do a good job of pulling a good cast.
Speaker 2: As when you first meet Karl Book, you can tell
Speaker 2: she's a high dollar like sex worker and call girl
Speaker 2: who is just she has. She has a lot of
Speaker 2: agency in this film. She has a lot of power,
Speaker 2: and I think that her character is never written to
Speaker 2: be I'm subjected to men like she seems like she's
Speaker 2: always in control.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, I agree with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then there's an interesting element written in about
Speaker 2: where it almost feels like they're trying to call reference
Speaker 2: to Bond movies in a couple of different ways, which
Speaker 2: we can maybe get into, but I think there's definitely
Speaker 2: a tie into like bringing in a Bond girl. It
Speaker 2: feels like they would have gotten directions like make it
Speaker 2: a little bit of an adventure or something like that,
Speaker 2: but in some elements. But yeah, no, I like this
Speaker 2: movie a lot. I think it's I'm surprised it's forgotten
Speaker 2: in some ways, and I do hope gets more attention
Speaker 2: because of the release.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really enjoyed this one. It was very It's
Speaker 3: a very atypical yallow. You know, the stylists, stylistic trappings
Speaker 3: of what most people would associate with the yallow us are.
Speaker 3: They're there and they're not there, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: So it's we have, you know, a killer that their
Speaker 3: identity is concealed, but the perspective of the story and
Speaker 3: even though like most Shallows are very highly stylized, this
Speaker 3: is very different. And yeah, I was fascinated by this
Speaker 3: as I was watching it. It was good to see
Speaker 3: Gabrielle Tinti in something other than a Black Emmanuel film
Speaker 3: for me personally, because I've i got that box that
Speaker 3: recently or not recently, and I've been working one way
Speaker 3: slowly over it. But it was good to see him
Speaker 3: something different. He's been in a lot of Italian genre
Speaker 3: films and stuff. But yeah, that was great, And yeah,
Speaker 3: I do feel that the the not to spoil anything
Speaker 3: or to jump too far, well I am jumping too far.
Speaker 3: I'm jumping to the end. But I didn't like the ending,
Speaker 3: and I know, I know it was requested from the
Speaker 3: producers to add on this very shoehorned, like tacky ending
Speaker 3: onto the film, which does like affect my appreciation of
Speaker 3: the film a bit. And that was sort of like
Speaker 3: ties into the whole bond thing with like like a
Speaker 3: pro like a prologue that has sort of like ties
Speaker 3: things up and has a has a sort of maybe
Speaker 3: a happy ending. As such, I didn't like that aspect
Speaker 3: of the film too much. But from a visual standpoint,
Speaker 3: an audio standpoint, and just just the vibe of the
Speaker 3: whole thing, I thought it was fantastic. And just the
Speaker 3: context that's given from the special features and stuff. I
Speaker 3: was really impressed with some of the stuff that's on
Speaker 3: this disc. I really enjoyed the interview with the director
Speaker 3: in Rico van Zena, so he worked very closely with
Speaker 3: his brother, who's also who wrote the film. I think
Speaker 3: I think it's the other way. I think all the
Speaker 3: other round. You're right, you're right, it's the other way.
Speaker 3: So Carlo is the director, my apologies, and his brother,
Speaker 3: his brother wrote it, and there, to my understanding, they're
Speaker 3: very much they're very huge in Italy, like the household
Speaker 3: names that hasn't translated over into other countries and stuff.
Speaker 3: And to get this guy on the disc for an
Speaker 3: interview apparently is pretty impressive. And it's good to see
Speaker 3: the interview with Greg Snegoff, who is like a prolific
Speaker 3: dubber for Italian genre films, and he's actually in the
Speaker 3: film playing it, has a very small part as one
Speaker 3: of the police officers or invest all the detectives or whatnot.
Speaker 3: And here in his that's where you you understand what
Speaker 3: sort of person Carol Bouquet was on set and stuff.
Speaker 3: She was very cold and aloof and didn't socialize with people,
Speaker 3: and sort of like her character on screen, seems like
Speaker 3: she was very much like that. And I'm not getting
Speaker 3: the vibe that she was like a method actor or
Speaker 3: anything like that. So I think she was just translating
Speaker 3: into her character very well. And I don't suppose you
Speaker 3: had a chance to listen to the audio commentary either.
Speaker 2: I listened to the first fifteen minutes. I like a
Speaker 2: really a huge fan of Eugenio orcl Annie mm hmm.
Speaker 2: From a producer's standpoint, he's you know, the fact that
Speaker 2: they were able to get an interview with Enrico Vincina
Speaker 2: is you know, I'm going to assume that's attributing that
Speaker 2: to Oracle Annie because he's he's just such a master
Speaker 2: at what he does for these releases. And I love
Speaker 2: there's people in every country that do a good job
Speaker 2: of like setting the context for what was happening, Like
Speaker 2: Frank Jang does it for a lot of Straw Brothers movies. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I think Kline's kind of like that to me
Speaker 2: for Italy, where he just knows so much about the
Speaker 2: industry and he knows so much about the filmmakers and
Speaker 2: you really go on a deep dive. I'm excited to
Speaker 2: listen to this one. I only heard the beginning of it,
Speaker 2: but yeah, did you finish it?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've listened to the commentaries for all of these
Speaker 3: I'm just a nut for consuming special features and stuff
Speaker 3: on releases, So yeah, I've listened to it. It's still
Speaker 3: always good. Eugenio, Nathaniel and Troy they regularly collaborate on things,
Speaker 3: have been recently for a number of years, and they
Speaker 3: always seem to have a good back and forth and
Speaker 3: well researched and well thought thoughtful input into into the
Speaker 3: film's history and production and everything like that. So that's
Speaker 3: really worth your time to listen to if you if
Speaker 3: you like the film, and even if you didn't like
Speaker 3: the film. I always think these sort of things give
Speaker 3: more context and appreciation. But I like that one, and
Speaker 3: you said the next one, unless you have any thought
Speaker 3: more thoughts on that one, I thought Obsession, Yeah, Obsession,
Speaker 3: Obsession Accession A Taste for Fear was my favorite from
Speaker 3: the set. I adored this one for a number of reasons.
Speaker 3: I'll get into the film is again. I think this
Speaker 3: is the the atypical shallow box set. You know, all
Speaker 3: the of the rest of the most of the other
Speaker 3: ones in previous editions or volumes of the of these
Speaker 3: film forgotten jolly box sets they all have. They're all
Speaker 3: they're forgotten or sort of lost or forgotten about, as
Speaker 3: the title suggests, but there they are shallow films at
Speaker 3: the heart, and they're very sterary typical of what the
Speaker 3: genre has to offer. Obsession is a completely different beast.
Speaker 3: The whole yallow element is basically in the mystery, you know,
Speaker 3: that's just what it is as it translates, more or less,
Speaker 3: and this one is basically like a ninety minute music video.
Speaker 3: And I absolutely bloody loved it. It is so entertaining.
Speaker 3: It's very sleazy, and I don't mind saying that. I
Speaker 3: quite enjoyed that element of the film, and it's just
Speaker 3: very cool with its visually. It's shot in scope, I
Speaker 3: want to say it's shot in scope. It's very beautiful
Speaker 3: to look at, and it's widescreen and it has gel lighting,
Speaker 3: which is sort of associated with the jallow films can
Speaker 3: be a lot of the time, especially like AGENTO and
Speaker 3: things like that. But the soundtrack is very synth heavy,
Speaker 3: and I love that it's quite queer as well. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of celebration of you know, not just the
Speaker 3: female body, but male and just various different like queer
Speaker 3: things going on in the film, which I really appreciated.
Speaker 3: And I thought that this is very atypical for the genre,
Speaker 3: and I absolutely adored it. I don't I don't think
Speaker 3: it works completely, but there's a lot of films that
Speaker 3: I don't think work that I absolutely adore than films
Speaker 3: that I can't critique, but I like them less, if
Speaker 3: that makes sense. But despite its flaws, I was absolutely
Speaker 3: enamored with this one. And yeah, this is this is
Speaker 3: fantastic directed by I'm really bad at pronouncing things, but
Speaker 3: Raffanini is the surname, but Pete, I think that's how
Speaker 3: you say it. Starring Yeah, it's got starring Virginia Hay,
Speaker 3: who's probably best known from Mad Max in it, and
Speaker 3: it's just I had a blast with this one. I
Speaker 3: was smiling from ear to ear as it's very it's
Speaker 3: like a there is a through point with the plot
Speaker 3: and stuff, but it's very vignette. It's very elliptical in
Speaker 3: my opinion. So it's very very music video orientated, and
Speaker 3: there's stuff in the special features that explores like the
Speaker 3: influence on TV culture on the film industry, and that
Speaker 3: is very apparent in this film. It's very all about
Speaker 3: moments and just focusing in on very stylish there's a
Speaker 3: lot of sexuality in the film, and it's just a
Speaker 3: blastom start to finish. And I think there's some problems
Speaker 3: with the reveal of the killer, which is not which
Speaker 3: is not atypical of some of the of what the
Speaker 3: genre as to offer, which is just part of the
Speaker 3: time that it comes from, I guess. But yeah, you
Speaker 3: said that you preferred mystare, so like, what did you
Speaker 3: enjoy about Obsession? On what made it? What made my
Speaker 3: stair better for you?
Speaker 2: It's not to say that I didn't like, because for
Speaker 2: the first maybe forty five minutes or so of Obsession,
Speaker 2: I was ready to write that like this is my
Speaker 2: like the discovery of twenty twenty four for me, Wow,
Speaker 2: Like it's just for all the reasons you mentioned. I
Speaker 2: think the everything is so bright, Like the lighting is
Speaker 2: actually bright and strong use of color in the in
Speaker 2: the costumes and in the body paint, and in the
Speaker 2: way sexuality is explored, it's like not explored, like the
Speaker 2: way they the way they show sexuality in this is
Speaker 2: very like raw and passionate. But because they're taking pictures
Speaker 2: and not videos, it's like it's not pornographic, but it's
Speaker 2: there's nudity throughout the whole thing, and I think it's
Speaker 2: like a very like a celebration of the body, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I think there's some interesting choices, like the one
Speaker 2: woman who has an obsession over the bodybuilder woman. It's
Speaker 2: like a different it's like a different body type than
Speaker 2: you would typically see that obsession for, right, But it's
Speaker 2: crazy for this woman and like you see it in
Speaker 2: her eyes. And but then there's just like a there's
Speaker 2: like for the set for the shot. They got to
Speaker 2: get the shot, and they need somebody for the shot,
Speaker 2: and so there's this constant like looking for the next
Speaker 2: beauty to put into the shot. But yeah, I just
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's a stunning film. I
Speaker 2: love it a lot. And I think as it gets
Speaker 2: into the back half of the film, into like the
Speaker 2: actual plot, which is sounds weird, but it kind of
Speaker 2: lost me a little bit just in this I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, I just want this to be It almost
Speaker 2: felt like something Andy Warhol would make in the beginning
Speaker 2: or say it come from his factory. Yeah, and then
Speaker 2: it sort of I don't know exactly what it became,
Speaker 2: but yeah, but I like the movie a lot. I
Speaker 2: just think that mystaire for me, it was like a
Speaker 2: maybe like a little bit of a tighter story in
Speaker 2: a way. I agree with you. I don't like the epilogue.
Speaker 2: I think it's kind of a like why even habit
Speaker 2: like it adds nothing other than makes her feel like
Speaker 2: kind of gives her some agency, And I guess it
Speaker 2: comes like a strong, you know, action star, but I
Speaker 2: don't know that the film needed that. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: think these two in the same box. That to me
Speaker 2: is wild because whatever I'm going to ask you about
Speaker 2: Sweets from a Stranger next, but whatever is in Sweets
Speaker 2: of the Stranger. This already medically jumps up to one
Speaker 2: of my favorite boxes from Freneger Syndrome all together, but
Speaker 2: especially best jelly Bugs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so moving on to Sweets from a Stranger, this
Speaker 3: one is probably the most grounded of the films. Definitely
Speaker 3: less stylish, i'd say, like definitely from these Mystair and Obsession.
Speaker 3: It tells the story of sex workers that are being
Speaker 3: picked off by a mysterious unknown person and how the
Speaker 3: sex workers all band together to try and protect each
Speaker 3: other and try and find out who this person is,
Speaker 3: who is you know, killing their sisters as such, And
Speaker 3: it's a very so it's very There are exploitative elements
Speaker 3: in this film, but the film is extremely sympathetic and
Speaker 3: on the side of sex workers, which may not be
Speaker 3: the case in other, like Italian genre films of this type.
Speaker 3: So it's very you know, atypical in that in that instance.
Speaker 3: And it's really interesting to see how the different types
Speaker 3: of sex workers live their lives and how some of
Speaker 3: them like have families, and how they try and protect
Speaker 3: them from what they do to make ends meet basically,
Speaker 3: and yeah, it's multiple different sort of sub stories are
Speaker 3: included in this and we mainly follow this one character
Speaker 3: who has moved I don't think it says exactly the location,
Speaker 3: but she's moved away from her family home. And it
Speaker 3: pretends that she's working as like a stewardess, which is
Speaker 3: why she's away all the time, like an air air
Speaker 3: stewardess or whatever, and she's actually you know, walking the
Speaker 3: streets and picking up you know, clients, shall we say,
Speaker 3: And she gets embroiled in this in this ongoing sort
Speaker 3: of search for this killer whilst trying to protect herself
Speaker 3: and her newfound friends, and the way it gives you
Speaker 3: like the red herrings and stuff of like who it
Speaker 3: sort of indicates might be the killer is really well done.
Speaker 3: The script is extremely tight, I found, and it's got
Speaker 3: the most I say, it's got the best script of
Speaker 3: all three of the films, I'd say in terms of
Speaker 3: like cohesiveness and you know, really caring for some of
Speaker 3: these characters and having sympathy and an ununderstanding of what
Speaker 3: some of these sex workers are going through and understanding
Speaker 3: their viewpoint on what the one they do their work
Speaker 3: and stuff, because they're not all like coerced into it
Speaker 3: via like a pimp or anything like that. They're all
Speaker 3: like choosing to have this way of life, and it's
Speaker 3: just a really interesting insight into that told through like
Speaker 3: a shallow film with exploitation elements in it. So it's
Speaker 3: like a very not dichotomus, that's not the right word,
Speaker 3: but it's a very like there's two ends of the
Speaker 3: spectrum here where it's like trying to be it is
Speaker 3: it's not trying. It is a successful social socio political
Speaker 3: film with like a commentary on you know, the sex
Speaker 3: worker industry, but also it's using that in an entertaining
Speaker 3: way by also having things like nudity and you know,
Speaker 3: titillation along the way. So it's like it's an interesting
Speaker 3: a dynamic there, and I think it's great. And the
Speaker 3: special features again, these are all sort of produced by
Speaker 3: Eugenio and he has a commentary on here with Troy Howorth,
Speaker 3: and that's really good. I listened to that one in
Speaker 3: the car again. And then the director Franco Farini interview
Speaker 3: is really good. It's quite short, it's thirteen minutes, but
Speaker 3: there's a lot packed into that thirteen minutes, I thought.
Speaker 3: And then the composer. There's an interview with the composer
Speaker 3: Emberto Smaler. I apologize if I've butchered that, but that's
Speaker 3: really good because the score in this film is quite
Speaker 3: quite rousing. It's quite moving. I found in places, particularly
Speaker 3: when some of the elements of the story like are
Speaker 3: uncovered towards you. It's quite a hard hitting film towards
Speaker 3: the end, I thought, anyway, it's quite quite sad and melancholic.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I employ you to watch this one. I'm
Speaker 3: sure you will get around to it. You just said
Speaker 3: you've been busy, but it's yeah. For me. This is
Speaker 3: probably my favorite forgotten Jali box set that Vinegarson and
Speaker 3: put out to date. The combination between the films. I mean,
Speaker 3: The Obsession will probably make my top ten discoveries of
Speaker 3: the year for me personally, I was enamored with that
Speaker 3: film definitely has a lot of rewatch, but I haven't
Speaker 3: rewatched it yet. I've only watched it like last week.
Speaker 3: But I can see this one being like in regular
Speaker 3: rotation in my sort of Jalie watching you know future.
Speaker 3: But yeah, the box set concluded with all the special
Speaker 3: features and stuff is just such a great package and
Speaker 3: hopefully more people these tend to sell, so it's not
Speaker 3: like we're trying to, you know, convince people to get
Speaker 3: these ones, but they tend to more often than not
Speaker 3: get picked up in sales. I'd say, just from talking
Speaker 3: to people and experience in community, because these things aren't
Speaker 3: always the cheapest thing. But I think it's very worth,
Speaker 3: very much worth the worth the investment. And I love
Speaker 3: the artwork as well on these releases. I forget the
Speaker 3: guys named sam that's Robert Is it Robert samuelin that?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, his art His art is so good. He's done
Speaker 3: a load of like the slips and stuff, slip up
Speaker 3: covers for Vinegar Syndrome, and I'm a big fan of
Speaker 3: his style. And yeah, he definitely paints an appropriate picture
Speaker 3: of what's going on in these films. And yeah, big
Speaker 3: big fan of this box set. Yeah that's all I
Speaker 3: have to say about Sweets Sweets from a Stranger. I
Speaker 3: hopefully that's sold it to you to maybe watch that
Speaker 3: sooner rather than later. But it's a it's a good one.
Speaker 3: It's also got really cool. I don't know if you've
Speaker 3: seen Sallow at all, it's got there's a there's a
Speaker 3: really small but very great and very memorable performance from
Speaker 3: Laura Betty. And she plays a sort of an aging
Speaker 3: sex worker, shall we say. She's been around the block
Speaker 3: many times, and she has a small scene in the film.
Speaker 3: She is very very good and I was pleased to
Speaker 3: see her pop up in the film for for a
Speaker 3: brief period. Yeah, she has a small scene in the film,
Speaker 3: but it's very memorable when one of the one of
Speaker 3: the best, one of the best scenes in the film.
Speaker 3: So yeah, look out for that. You can't miss that.
Speaker 3: She's very distinctive individual. So yeah, so there we go.
Speaker 2: Huh. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think I feel the
Speaker 2: same way. This is probably if I if I was
Speaker 2: gonna say, get any of the forgotten Jolly Box. That's
Speaker 2: this is probably the one I would say to start with.
Speaker 2: I just the movies are so unique Obsession and Dagger
Speaker 2: Eyes or missed there. I just I don't know, I
Speaker 2: just they're just really it's not you know, there's like
Speaker 2: some films are forgotten for a reason, But I don't
Speaker 2: think any of these films are forgotten for a reason.
Speaker 2: Like I think it's this is truly like good finds
Speaker 2: to good discoveries for them. Now for the next three
Speaker 2: that we're gonna talk about, we can go somewhat quick
Speaker 2: because if I remember you saying correctly, you've not seen
Speaker 2: the two VSAs and the cinematograph release yet, right.
Speaker 3: No, No, I haven't got them. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm definitely interested in getting Shanks and mind Benders looked interesting,
Speaker 3: but like you know, we all have budgets, so you're
Speaker 3: gonna have to speedily sell me on these ones.
Speaker 6: Scorning in the cafeteria was just another example of the
Speaker 6: total disrespect these children have for a.
Speaker 7: Twenty As I said in the last staff.
Speaker 6: Meeting, Kingston High School has had the privilege to be
Speaker 6: selected by the Behavior Modification Research Institute as a test
Speaker 6: site for their latest achievement in adolescent psychology.
Speaker 2: So we have the VSA forty nine is Mind Benders,
Speaker 2: which is an Australian I mean Australian a Canadian like
Speaker 2: twice all right, it's not America, I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a Canadian teen comedy, teen sci fi comedy. So
Speaker 2: I really think they were trying to take that one.
Speaker 2: What's it called Weird Science.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to me, it.
Speaker 2: Really feels like a Weird Science kind of rip off
Speaker 2: a little bit. But it's you know, very goofy high
Speaker 2: school boys as like the leads, it's it's silly, it's
Speaker 2: you know, they're even from the first scene, you can
Speaker 2: tell this is not meant to be taken seriously in
Speaker 2: the sense it's like a it's a horror comedy or
Speaker 2: a sci fi comedy. And even the reveal of you know,
Speaker 2: kind of what's going on and like where the killings
Speaker 2: are coming from and all that is short, and then
Speaker 2: the movie is just kind of like resolves, So it's
Speaker 2: not like this is not a deep one. This is
Speaker 2: a silly high school So if a movie that you
Speaker 2: just throw on, if you're bor you know, if you
Speaker 2: just want to watch, if you're a big fan of
Speaker 2: maybe like the eighties teen DRAMs or comedies.
Speaker 3: I mean I do, I do like that genre. It
Speaker 3: feels more like hangout et yeah type thing, as you said,
Speaker 3: not if you're bored, but like it's put on, Like
Speaker 3: is this the sort of thing that's maybe appropriate to
Speaker 3: watch with family? Like, l is it not quite that style?
Speaker 3: Like because you could watch with with weird scientists, like
Speaker 3: like early teenagers could watch that and it wouldn't be inappropriate,
Speaker 3: Like what the on this one? Could you could you
Speaker 3: watch this with like a not necessarily a young family,
Speaker 3: but like maybe sort of fairly grown up kids sort
Speaker 3: of thing.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, I think fair enough. No you totally no,
Speaker 2: you could you could? Yeah? Yeah, I think you that's
Speaker 2: a really interesting question. I think you nailed it. I
Speaker 2: mean this is a it's not even really a John
Speaker 2: Hughes type. I mean, this is just like a teen
Speaker 2: sexy sci fi comedy but light on the sex. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's just more. Yeah, I mean, it's just more.
Speaker 2: I don't even know exactly where to put it. So
Speaker 2: one interesting thing from like a filmmaker perspective is this
Speaker 2: was a movie directed by Jeanie Joseph As a director,
Speaker 2: she's probably most well known for spookies and this one
Speaker 2: will put her on the map a little bit. But
Speaker 2: she had a long career as an adult actress, as
Speaker 2: a porn actress before she got into kind of directing,
Speaker 2: and so there's a there's a cool interview with her
Speaker 2: on here talking about this movie. Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's one of those ones that's
Speaker 2: a pretty clear black and white, Like you either like
Speaker 2: teen sci fi comedies and this sounds interesting to you,
Speaker 2: or it's just not gonna buy, Like this is a
Speaker 2: pretty straightforward wind in my eyes.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: The artworks very enticing. I love I love the slip
Speaker 3: on this. Yeah, so you know it's it caught my
Speaker 3: eye for definitely.
Speaker 2: So it's a little bit of a well you know what.
Speaker 2: I don't know how to say that without spoiling it,
Speaker 2: so let me just say I wouldn't focus too much
Speaker 2: on the sci fi part. It's in there. But if
Speaker 2: you're a fan of teen comedies with like a twist,
Speaker 2: small twist, I think this is right up your ally.
Speaker 2: And it it's probably lesser known because it's Canadian, I'm guessing,
Speaker 2: but it's a well made one, and it's it's very
Speaker 2: easy to uh, this could stand the way it looks,
Speaker 2: the way it shot, the writing, it could stand up
Speaker 2: with any of them.
Speaker 3: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, now we're gonna go in a completely different direction.
Speaker 2: So dial D for Demons was one I wanted to
Speaker 2: hate and I ended up liking.
Speaker 3: Why did you want to hate it?
Speaker 2: So it's it was. It came out in the year
Speaker 2: two thousand, and it's a very two thousand movie.
Speaker 3: And the way it looks okay in.
Speaker 2: The sense of you know, there is that it was
Speaker 2: like digital was kind of taking over. It wasn't like
Speaker 2: super high quality yet. And this is a movie about
Speaker 2: six teenagers or maybe no, not teenagers, six like young adults.
Speaker 2: They go away on this trip and the house is
Speaker 2: haunted and the horror starts right the scenes where it's
Speaker 2: just the six friends. They're super obnoxious. It's almost like,
Speaker 2: you know, like a Bad Friday the thirteenth movie or something,
Speaker 2: or just something where the way the characters interacting and
Speaker 2: she's like, oh my god, this is brutal, but I
Speaker 2: will give them credit because this is a So there's
Speaker 2: a pretty famous director who's behind this, a guy named
Speaker 2: Billy Tang, probably most famous for Doctor Lamb. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: the guy knows how to make people uncomfortable, and when
Speaker 2: the movie turns, he does a good job of keeping
Speaker 2: the surprises up and also keeping the the mystery up.
Speaker 2: Like there's some scenes in this movie in the back
Speaker 2: half that if you told me Kyoshi Kurosawa directed it,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't argue with you.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's my price.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, Like there's it's a good turn. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to say it necessarily looks like a typical Kyoshi
Speaker 2: Kursla movie because it is that low budget digital style
Speaker 2: of filmmaking from the early two thousands, but the way
Speaker 2: that he holds tension and uses music and the acting
Speaker 2: and everything to like build this horror is very well done,
Speaker 2: and I was surprised at how much I ended up
Speaker 2: liking this, even though you just have to get past
Speaker 2: the first fifteen minutes. There are some people that like
Speaker 2: a lot of those types of horror movies. Almost you
Speaker 2: see it more in slasher, I think, where it's like
Speaker 2: a group of friends getting together and then something happens.
Speaker 2: But this one is not a slasher. It's not I
Speaker 2: don't think really at all. It's just it's more of
Speaker 2: a it's probably closer to like Juan or you know,
Speaker 2: the Grudge or the Ringu. It's almost more along those
Speaker 2: lines than it is like a slasher. And the description
Speaker 2: of the killer and like what's going on is is
Speaker 2: well done. It's like a it's sweet, I mean not sweet,
Speaker 2: but like it's well done and it's surprisingly it's disarming
Speaker 2: in a way. It's not what you would expect. That's
Speaker 2: why I said kind of sweet. This almost has like
Speaker 2: a sweet spirit to it almost, which is but in
Speaker 2: a good way. Yeah, so dial do you for Demons?
Speaker 2: I would say this one of the two new vsays
Speaker 2: this month, This one is more in line with like
Speaker 2: what I enjoy mind Vendors for me is not one
Speaker 2: that I would typically buy, but I mean I'll keep it.
Speaker 2: It's it's not bad. I just I don't love those
Speaker 2: teen sci fi comedies as much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one thing before we move on to the last release,
Speaker 3: what did you manage to watch the video essay by
Speaker 3: Sam Degan on the on the disk? Because that I
Speaker 3: didn't realize she'd done that. That's usually a selling point
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really glad you called that out. No, I
Speaker 2: didn't get to the I was running out of time.
Speaker 2: But when I was watching this, I didn't get to
Speaker 2: the special features Undealathy for Humans, although I would love
Speaker 2: to hear Sam Deagan talk about Billy Tang because she's
Speaker 2: very good at Cat three in general, and this was
Speaker 2: a very very influential director, so I have to imagine
Speaker 2: that video, I say, is fantastic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 8: Malcolm Shanks here is no evil. He speaks no evil
Speaker 8: because he's too busy making good people walk. If you're
Speaker 8: nervous and you feel you people, Malcolm will show you
Speaker 8: how to relax. The great artist Marcel Marceau plays Malcolm
Speaker 8: Shanks and many other forms of life rated.
Speaker 2: Peachy all right? So I would say I'm a fan
Speaker 2: of cinematograph, and in that line, there are some movies
Speaker 2: that are great, but I have found the movie within
Speaker 2: cinematograph that now defines it for me.
Speaker 3: Okay, tell me more So.
Speaker 2: The cinematograph release for this month is a William Castle movie.
Speaker 2: It's called Shanks, and it blew my mind. So watching
Speaker 2: this film is I should mention they're up to the tent.
Speaker 2: So this is the tenth release in cinematograph and and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be abrupt and do one more interjection and
Speaker 2: say if just because people are thinking about the cell,
Speaker 2: this has twenty four hundred copies left as of it's
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say it's selling great initially, which is a shame.
Speaker 2: And this is one that I'm gonna say, like of
Speaker 2: all the ones we've talked about today, I would say
Speaker 2: The Tenant and Corpse Mania are both like ones that
Speaker 2: I would say or must have. And this is the third.
Speaker 2: Oh no, the Forgotten Jolly was really good too. Damn it.
Speaker 2: They did a good They did a good job this
Speaker 2: month in general. But okay, this movie feels like this
Speaker 2: is gonna be a very specific movie. Did you ever
Speaker 2: see Jack Demi's Donkey Skin?
Speaker 3: No, I've never seen that film.
Speaker 2: It's okay, So that's a it's another fairy tale, and
Speaker 2: then there's a this has it's This is a celebration
Speaker 2: of first of all, Marcel Marceau, who for years was
Speaker 2: the world's most famous mime, and this was him. He
Speaker 2: did a few roles just a few years before he
Speaker 2: made this. He spoke for the first time on camera.
Speaker 2: Oh no, oh no, it was after this he spoke
Speaker 2: for the first time on camera, and when he spoke,
Speaker 2: it was irony because mel Brooks got him to come
Speaker 2: into a silent movie. Mel Brooks made that movie called
Speaker 2: a silent movie. The whole thing was an actual silent
Speaker 2: film and the only person who spoke in it was
Speaker 2: Marcel Marceau and you got to hear his voice say no,
Speaker 2: just a little bit of playful irony. But this movie
Speaker 2: stars Marcel as a character who does not speak, although
Speaker 2: there is talkie talking in the film. There is music
Speaker 2: in the film. It's not a totally silent film, but
Speaker 2: he does not speak. He's a puppeteer and he finds
Speaker 2: this device that allows him to take dead bodies and
Speaker 2: move them around, almost like weekend at Bernie style. So
Speaker 2: it's not that they're reanimated, they're just they're recently deceased,
Speaker 2: so they don't stink yet they don't. They don't, they're
Speaker 2: not Their face is still the same color, you know,
Speaker 2: it hasn't started to get whiter or they've started to decompose.
Speaker 2: And he's able to move them around and have them walk,
Speaker 2: and like he goes shopping with them at one point,
Speaker 2: pull stuff off the shelf, and he's able to do
Speaker 2: all this control over them and then things turn a
Speaker 2: little bit. You get to see the character kind of
Speaker 2: has a little bit too much fun realizing that he's
Speaker 2: you know, can he now wants there to be dead
Speaker 2: people because he can play with them or and have
Speaker 2: friends now and like the world that he once right,
Speaker 2: But yeah, it is just amazing, Like like this movie
Speaker 2: is it's a celebration to I would say classic filmmaking
Speaker 2: and that they have a lot of They have like
Speaker 2: intertitles like a silent film would have, and it's a
Speaker 2: celebration of puppetry, that kind of old style of entertainment,
Speaker 2: like almost like a circus style entertainment. Right, he's set.
Speaker 2: Marceau himself has this really it's he has like a
Speaker 2: Geene Wilder style of like empathy and sweetness to him.
Speaker 2: So you know, Gene Wilder is this crazy guy, but
Speaker 2: when you need him to be emotional, he can pull
Speaker 2: it off, right, Yeah, yeah, sure, And I think Marceau
Speaker 2: has a very similar energy to me. Uh there's a
Speaker 2: weird relationship with a teenage girl, but it's never made bad.
Speaker 2: It's maybe a little bit uncomfortable, but keeping in mind
Speaker 2: that this is a fairy tale that is more common
Speaker 2: in fairy tales for an adult puppeteer to be making
Speaker 2: birthday gifts for this young girl and like helping her
Speaker 2: get ready for her birthday party and getting addressed for her,
Speaker 2: and like things like that that in any other context
Speaker 2: would be huge red flags. Because this is a fairy tale.
Speaker 2: I think it's Yeah, I think they pull it off well.
Speaker 2: That balance there, it's a very very delicate balance, but
Speaker 2: I think they pull it off. This is a movie
Speaker 2: that is weird to me.
Speaker 7: In all the beautiful ways, and when it gets there's
Speaker 7: moments that become very sad in it.
Speaker 2: And when it gets sad, I think it's also handled well.
Speaker 2: And then it the final the sequence or like near
Speaker 2: the end, there's a big sequence that changes color tone
Speaker 2: for a moment, and yeah, I just think, like I
Speaker 2: think that this is one of those movies that it
Speaker 2: is a singular experience. There's characters that enter the film
Speaker 2: late in the movie that have a big that are
Speaker 2: new and then have a big influence on the outcome
Speaker 2: of the film. So even from a writing perspective, it's
Speaker 2: not like you don't get to build up with this world.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's it's all done very much by
Speaker 2: somebody who just had like a very specific story to
Speaker 2: tell and told it without regard to a lot of
Speaker 2: filmmaking conventions. But yeah, it's just of all the finds
Speaker 2: that Liberty is able to pull in with the cinematograph line,
Speaker 2: this to me is just one of those movies that's
Speaker 2: going to stick with me for a long time. And
Speaker 2: I cannot wait to get into the Kim Newman commentary
Speaker 2: on this because I would love to hear Kim Newman
Speaker 2: talk about William Castle.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I love Kim Kim Newman's commentaries and just
Speaker 3: like his interviews and stuff on discs. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: probably gonna pick this one up in like what eleven
Speaker 3: days or so because the Black Friday so or yeah
Speaker 3: Black Friday stuff, so so I know it won't be
Speaker 3: on sale for then, but I'll just add it to
Speaker 3: my basket and purchase this one for it for it's gone,
Speaker 3: because I was interested in it. From what you've been
Speaker 3: saying about it, it sounds like I must must get
Speaker 3: disc So yeah, it's just it sounds fantastic.
Speaker 2: They brought in a lot of the heavy hitters, so
Speaker 2: there's essays by Heather Draine Alexander Nicholas Murray leader like
Speaker 2: this is you know, they really brought in the heavy
Speaker 2: hitters for this. Daniel Kremer has a good, good visual
Speaker 2: essay that I can't wait to check out. So and
Speaker 2: then there's you know, there's this thing in So you know,
Speaker 2: Monsieur Roulo and like Jack Tutti, right, Yeah, that guy
Speaker 2: Jack Tutti had this sadness in a lot of his
Speaker 2: films because he was sort of like mourning the world
Speaker 2: changing faster than he wanted it to change. And I
Speaker 2: think when you look at a lot of these classic performers,
Speaker 2: one thing they all had in common was the sense
Speaker 2: of like sadness in their eyes, right, And I think
Speaker 2: sol mar So does it very well. He has a
Speaker 2: deep sadness that is unique and I think it's just
Speaker 2: is wonderful. And I think that when the movie needs
Speaker 2: to go sad, it does it beautifully, and when it
Speaker 2: needs to be light he also has a good smile.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I just to me, this.
Speaker 3: Is a muston, awesome, fantastic. Well, I know you sometimes
Speaker 3: you usually talk about some of the partner label, but
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I have time to talk about those today.
Speaker 2: So it's Okay, it was a good month for partner releases.
Speaker 2: But you know, one other thing I'm gonna do is
Speaker 2: in December is a partner only month.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 2: So I'll probably spend a little bit more time just
Speaker 2: highlighting certain labels and talking about releases from the last
Speaker 2: few months in those things, because it's getting a wieldy
Speaker 2: in a in a good way. I love the.
Speaker 3: Partner yeah, for sure, I'm I'm Yeah, I pick up
Speaker 3: a fair amount of them, A big fan of like
Speaker 3: Agfur and I've been really getting into sav stuff, so
Speaker 3: I've got a lot of the Satin's Core stuff, interested
Speaker 3: in just so much the Canaloge Bleeding Skull. I've been
Speaker 3: a huge fan of the stuff that they've put out
Speaker 3: as like a budding label. So yeah, it's all it's
Speaker 3: all very overwhelming though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to do Yeah, I really like Cunnie
Speaker 2: as well. I think they find some really unique movies.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm gonna spend some more time on that
Speaker 2: in December. But now, look, uh love your perspective on film.
Speaker 2: It seems like we're we're aligned at a lot and
Speaker 2: what we like about movies and why we like them.
Speaker 2: So it's fun to talk to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been. It's been great. It's been great. Thanks
Speaker 3: for having me on the show. It's been it's been
Speaker 3: a blast. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you Sam. Well,
Speaker 2: that was awesome, Sam, Thank you so much for for
Speaker 2: doing that. That's cool. I love I love the passion
Speaker 2: and it's great to sit down with a fellow recovering
Speaker 2: snob as it were. Uh, let's see vinegar syndrome through
Speaker 2: that lens. We have a treat. Celeste Lacabra is back,
Speaker 2: so let's see. Let's see what's on the docket for
Speaker 2: the adult titles this month. My name is Catherine Burgess.
Speaker 2: I'm a Vogue model and star of the new X
Speaker 2: rated thriller Through the looking Glass. As I'm talking to you,
Speaker 2: I'm really dead. Through the looking Glass.
Speaker 5: Penthouse calls it a work of art, while Playboy says
Speaker 5: it's a landmark movie proving that hardcore can be handled
Speaker 5: with class. Come through the looking Glass and experience this
Speaker 5: year's most controversial motion picture. Through the looking Glass raated X.
Speaker 9: Okay, good evening everyone. My name is Celeste la Cabra
Speaker 9: and welcome back. It's fifteen Minutes with You, the segment
Speaker 9: where I review all the new titles on the Melusine site,
Speaker 9: So all the X rated adult and sexploitation films. Freaks
Speaker 9: and perverts rejoice as we are back yet again. This
Speaker 9: time we're only discussing one release, but it is quite
Speaker 9: the doozy, so I guess let's just get into it.
Speaker 9: You know what, though, First, I'm just going to say
Speaker 9: that I have decided on keeping that name because I
Speaker 9: think it is appropriate and I think it gives me
Speaker 9: a good barometer or a sort of time frame to
Speaker 9: shoot for so that I keep my yapping to a reasonable.
Speaker 2: Sort of limit.
Speaker 9: Okay, So the only release we'll be talking about today
Speaker 9: is Spine number three for the proper official Malusine line.
Speaker 9: The name of the film is Through the Looking Glass.
Speaker 9: It is directed by Jonas Middleton or Joseph as his
Speaker 9: real name is. And first, let me just say some
Speaker 9: things about the Malucine line in general, because I think
Speaker 9: that they continue to knock it out of the park.
Speaker 9: I have all three of them. I've watched all three
Speaker 9: of them, the first one being the Tale of Tiffany
Speaker 9: Lust and the second one being Blonde Ambition and then
Speaker 9: the third one being this obviously, first of all, the packaging.
Speaker 9: If you're a real packaging freak, like you've really got
Speaker 9: to get on these for real, Like they are so
Speaker 9: fucking cool, like they're they're like a dive a chocolate
Speaker 9: bars or something like they're so maybe that's not the
Speaker 9: best point of comparison because that's not actually a particularly
Speaker 9: boogie product or whatever, but they feel elaborate and sleek
Speaker 9: and beautiful and like Art Deco or something. You know,
Speaker 9: it's got that like very beautiful, classy New York aesthetic
Speaker 9: to the packaging, like they really did a good job
Speaker 9: in creating something unique. I don't know how to describe
Speaker 9: the shape in which the slip cases, but it's like
Speaker 9: maybe like a ribbon or something.
Speaker 10: I don't fucking know. It's like it's a top.
Speaker 9: Loading slipcase and then you can just see it on
Speaker 9: the website and then you can tell me that I
Speaker 9: don't know what I'm talking about, but it's almost like
Speaker 9: like a bass relief or something like you pull the
Speaker 9: top off, no pun intended, and then there's like alternate
Speaker 9: artwork underneath of it, and it's like in a kind
Speaker 9: of a like an arrow like a downfacing arrow shape,
Speaker 9: I suppose, and then you pull the slipcover out, and
Speaker 9: the slipcovers are completely custom made too, in that they
Speaker 9: are sideloading slip instead of top loading. So the sort
Speaker 9: of why access of the slowcover is the part that
Speaker 9: is hollowed out or open or where you insert the
Speaker 9: case itself, and then they come with booklets and art
Speaker 9: cards and it's just a whole thing. Also the packaging itself.
Speaker 9: The slipcases are like a very soft kind of matt
Speaker 9: finished to them. There's really nothing else like it, and
Speaker 9: you know, VS continues to up their game and invent
Speaker 9: new things in terms of packaging, but this might be
Speaker 9: my favorite like packaging that I've seen. Really, it's just.
Speaker 10: Gorgeous and it's a little bit of.
Speaker 9: A pain when you have to pop the disc in
Speaker 9: and out all the time. But in any case, the
Speaker 9: line has been exclusively four K at least so far,
Speaker 9: and all the transfers have been wonderful, and all the
Speaker 9: films have been really good too, Like Taylor Tiffany Lust
Speaker 9: is great, but Blonde Ambition Man is so fucking good.
Speaker 9: So that's your quick mini review on that. But I
Speaker 9: would say if you're trying to get into adult films.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna recommend that, and I'm gonna recommend this, And
Speaker 9: it just kind of depends. You're the meme of the
Speaker 9: guy at the Fork of the Road and you have
Speaker 9: two paths in front of you.
Speaker 10: Okay, here's to the left.
Speaker 9: You have Blonde Ambition, which is gonna be if you're
Speaker 9: gonna do like comedies and like lighthearted fair and maybe
Speaker 9: like classic Hollywood screwball stuff, romantic comedies, that kind of thing.
Speaker 9: If you're into that, you should get Blonde Ambition. You
Speaker 9: should watch that. And if you're into sick, depraved, fucking
Speaker 9: bizarre horror art house, you should get Through the Looking Glass. Okay,
Speaker 9: So gosh, there's so much to talk about with this.
Speaker 9: I will say that the supplements on this are excellent
Speaker 9: and you're gonna get your money's worth on this thing. Yeah,
Speaker 9: there's an entire second feature length film. It is a
Speaker 9: Middleton's first feature length film, and it's fucking awful. But
Speaker 9: we'll get to that in due time. Let's first talk
Speaker 9: about Through the Looking Glass. So it's essentially about a
Speaker 9: woman who is haunted by the ghost or a demon
Speaker 9: something like that. The visage of her recently deceased father.
Speaker 9: How do I talk about this without any spoilers? I'm
Speaker 9: not sure if talking about this would be a spoiler.
Speaker 9: Let's just say that she.
Speaker 10: Is tempted into.
Speaker 9: A world of depravity beyond a mirror in her attic,
Speaker 9: and so beyond that mirror there is just like fantastical
Speaker 9: worlds of sexual depravity.
Speaker 10: Let's just say that.
Speaker 9: If you know what the ICU is, if you've been
Speaker 9: a follower of my ventures and you're familiar with that,
Speaker 9: this qualifies as does the other film. There's a theme
Speaker 9: going on with this director. And look, I'm not judging
Speaker 9: or anything, but like, come on, man, something going on there.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 9: Anyway, the film is kind of a tough watch. It's
Speaker 9: not particularly erotic, although there are sub scenes that are
Speaker 9: fairly erotic and fairly sexy. I'm the lead actress is gorgeous.
Speaker 9: Jamie Gillis is in it as he always is, killing
Speaker 9: it as he always does. What else is going on here? Gosh,
Speaker 9: it's so much I don't know. A lot of the
Speaker 9: promotional material talked about it as being like a sort
Speaker 9: of landmark artistic achievement in terms of the erotic Space
Speaker 9: or like the sex film Space, and I would agree
Speaker 9: with that. I think Sam Degan said that it was
Speaker 9: the best hardcore film ever made. Is certainly one of
Speaker 9: my favorites that I've seen. Like, I wouldn't dispute that characterization. Oh,
Speaker 9: it was compared to Fellini. That's for you, Chris, So
Speaker 9: you should go ahead and get this too, host of
Speaker 9: this podcast.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 9: It's just there's really nothing quite like it, and it
Speaker 9: is so bizarre and so disturbing and so depraved, and
Speaker 9: there's also sexy parts in it. But like, you know,
Speaker 9: he said explicitly that he made this to kind of
Speaker 9: antagonize the type of audience member that would go see
Speaker 9: something like this, and I think he succeeded because I
Speaker 9: can't imagine anybody sitting down like wanting to jerk off
Speaker 9: to this and feeling like they got their money's worth. Like,
Speaker 9: I mean, sure, there's some parts. I mean maybe you
Speaker 9: will if you're just you know what, back in the day,
Speaker 9: you had to take what you could get, right, But like,
Speaker 9: this is clearly more of an artistic achievement rather than
Speaker 9: a sort of purient or erotic one. The context surrounding
Speaker 9: the film is so interesting and there's so much to
Speaker 9: get into. I'm like, I want to talk more about
Speaker 9: the film itself, but I don't want to spoil it.
Speaker 9: You know, like there's so much crazy shit that happens
Speaker 9: here that it's best experience blind. I think, Oh, there
Speaker 9: is like an endoscopic shot of sorts. There is an
Speaker 9: extended health sequence at the end. There is just truly insane,
Speaker 9: insane shit going on in here. And I don't know
Speaker 9: if you can tell I'm gushing it bit. I really
Speaker 9: loved it, but it's is not for everybody. There's going
Speaker 9: to be heavy trigger warnings and there's going.
Speaker 10: To be heavy caveats.
Speaker 9: I subjected one of my normy friends to this and
Speaker 9: they were less than enthused about it.
Speaker 10: So there's that.
Speaker 9: Okay, let's just go into the supplements.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 9: So there's two audio commentary options. One is like a
Speaker 9: new audio commentary.
Speaker 10: Okay.
Speaker 9: So Ashley Western, the REALTA Report is just all over this.
Speaker 9: I'm kind of shocked that this is like the first
Speaker 9: time that Finninger Syndrome and Ashley West and the rialto
Speaker 9: Report have like collaborated, because it's like a perfect match,
Speaker 9: and I think he's going to be doing a lot
Speaker 9: of this stuff going forward, which makes a lot of
Speaker 9: sense because, like, if you've listened to the Realso Report,
Speaker 9: which you should if you haven't, it is like genuinely
Speaker 9: a perfect podcast and like professional like documentary level journalism
Speaker 9: and historian or historical analysis going on, and so it's
Speaker 9: great to see him taking a very sort of active
Speaker 9: approach with this stuff. But he does a new audio
Speaker 9: commentary with the director, but also the episode that he
Speaker 9: did with Jonas Middleton is another option for the audio track,
Speaker 9: and since the podcast is only an hour long, it
Speaker 9: does just kind of stop an hour into it in
Speaker 9: the last thirty minutes are silent. I was kind of
Speaker 9: wondering how they were going to do that, but that's
Speaker 9: that option makes sense to me because the alternative is
Speaker 9: just to create an hour long video file of something
Speaker 9: of sorts, and that's taking up unnecessary space, So that.
Speaker 3: Makes sense to me.
Speaker 9: The podcast episode, it is available just on the regular
Speaker 9: Reals to Report feed. I would recommend listening to that
Speaker 9: even if you don't buy this release. It's a great episode.
Speaker 9: You'll learn a lot and you know, maybe it'll get
Speaker 9: you into the podcast if you never listened to it before.
Speaker 9: But really, okay, so what I want to talk about.
Speaker 9: I feel like I'm spoiling something here too, but this
Speaker 9: is just so fascinating. It's not spoiling the film. But
Speaker 9: the director was raised in a very conservative Baptist church
Speaker 9: in New Orleans, I think, or Georgia, deep South shit,
Speaker 9: you know. And that's not necessarily surprising in and of
Speaker 9: itself when you see the film. What's surprising is that
Speaker 9: he maintained that faith through the making of all his
Speaker 9: pornographic films and even to this day. And he kind
Speaker 9: of says, look, I'm gonna be upfront with you, like
Speaker 9: I justified this in my head at the time, like
Speaker 9: I was doing this to get get a career going,
Speaker 9: and this was kind of what I felt.
Speaker 10: I had to do. I was, you know, I was.
Speaker 9: I was putting in messages here to warn people away
Speaker 9: from this lifestyle. But you know, I'm not sure that
Speaker 9: I do this today because I think I was the problem.
Speaker 9: There's even a disclaimer slash like warning at the end
Speaker 9: of the booklet where he writes a message to the
Speaker 9: reader and to the audience like, Hey, I made this
Speaker 9: film to dissuade people from this lifestyle. I hope you
Speaker 9: take that away from this. There's an interview with him
Speaker 9: on this that Ashley West conducted apparently back in like
Speaker 9: two thousand and six, but it looks very contemporary, probably
Speaker 9: because Elijah Dreunner, editor, filmmaker, documentary and Extraordinaire over at
Speaker 9: VS cut together the video for it, so it looks
Speaker 9: pretty contemporary and pretty fresh. But in that one, he
Speaker 9: gets into his kind of current sort of views, and
Speaker 9: it's unfortunate, you know, like that fundamental is upbringing, definitely
Speaker 9: latched a hooks in. They're good, and you know he's
Speaker 9: kind of just has like dogshit politics. Now he's like
Speaker 9: talking about how a woman's place is in the home
Speaker 9: and like men are like weak willed and need a
Speaker 9: woman to keep them in line, and like men just
Speaker 9: want sex and as long as a woman can provide
Speaker 9: sex and like a good meal, like she's a good wife.
Speaker 9: It's just like, I don't know, you know, he can
Speaker 9: play the part of like a like a like a
Speaker 9: conservative family man or whatever, like a traditional values type
Speaker 9: of guy. But look, there are certain themes running through
Speaker 9: his work. I'm I'm pretty sure this dude's a freak
Speaker 9: and is just kind of repressing it.
Speaker 10: And I mean, you know what, do what you gotta do.
Speaker 9: Apparently he has a wife and a kid and he's happy.
Speaker 10: More powers to you. I guess what else.
Speaker 9: Okay, So there's the there's the sequence at the end,
Speaker 9: but without all the filters applied. It's just kind of
Speaker 9: a raw scan to kind of show a point in comparison,
Speaker 9: which is interesting. It's a quick locations featurette. There's a
Speaker 9: theatrical trailer for both of the films included, and uh,
Speaker 9: one of the things that I found intensely uncomfortable. The
Speaker 9: trailer for Through the Looking Glass is pretty good. It
Speaker 9: definitely sells the film. Like I was watching it and
Speaker 9: I was like, I mean, if I had seen this
Speaker 9: trailer back in the day, my fucking my ass would
Speaker 9: be seated, you know what I'm saying, Like, this looks
Speaker 9: dope as fuck. And then at the end it says
Speaker 9: is this something like, uh, scenes shot with the fourteen
Speaker 9: year old girl or something like. It says that explicitly,
Speaker 9: and it's so gross. Okay, So there is a fourteen
Speaker 9: year old girl in the movie. She's not in any
Speaker 9: of the explicit scenes, and she was actually sort of
Speaker 9: cast or I guess put in contact with the director
Speaker 9: by her mother, who wanted her to be in movies
Speaker 9: and stuff, and they took great care apparently to like
Speaker 9: make sure she wasn't around any X rated material or
Speaker 9: anything like that. But she is in the movie, and
Speaker 9: it is a little uncomfortable in and of itself. But
Speaker 9: to then put that in the promotion promotional material is like,
Speaker 9: pretty pretty gross. It's the implication is that you're gonna watch,
Speaker 9: you know, child sex abuse in a movie, and that's
Speaker 9: pretty fucked up.
Speaker 10: But that's, you know, that's its own thing.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 9: Okay, Cherry Blossom from nineteen seventy two. This one is
Speaker 9: not even on letterbox yet, but I'm going to add
Speaker 9: it as soon as I finished recording. But it's his
Speaker 9: first feature film. It's about a young girl who has
Speaker 9: sex with her aunt and then a bunch of other people.
Speaker 10: That's kind of it.
Speaker 9: So more entries into the ICU. It's a consistent theme,
Speaker 9: is all I'm saying.
Speaker 10: I don't know what's going on there, but this movie's terrible.
Speaker 9: It's fucking awful. It is excruciating. It is truly an
Speaker 9: endurance test. One last thing I'll say about it, and
Speaker 9: then I think I'm done with a segment.
Speaker 10: Oh real quick.
Speaker 9: There's a booklet in here with an essay from Ashley
Speaker 9: West And actually, I think if you pick one thing
Speaker 9: to engage with other than the podcast, which I think
Speaker 9: you should listen to regardless, read this essay.
Speaker 3: It's excellent.
Speaker 9: He really consolidates all the information and all the other
Speaker 9: sources into one place. The one thing I will note
Speaker 9: is that I'm not sure who edited this booklet, but
Speaker 9: it needed a second pass. There was some pretty egregious
Speaker 9: typos and clearly like a few sentences didn't make sense,
Speaker 9: and I'm pretty sure that they were just that there
Speaker 9: were mistakes they needed to be corrected.
Speaker 10: This is going to drive me crazy.
Speaker 9: If somebody knows what I'm talking about and can help
Speaker 9: me understand something. There's a sentence in there that has
Speaker 9: just like it looks like he kind of mashed the
Speaker 9: keyboard at the end, and I'm like, I was like
Speaker 9: googling that word is if I'm missing something, and like,
Speaker 9: I think it's just an egregious typo or something. I
Speaker 9: don't know what's going on there. Maybe I'm just missing something. Anyway,
Speaker 9: the essay is great. You should check it out.
Speaker 10: Oh, Cherry Blossom.
Speaker 9: One other thing that I'll complain about is that there's
Speaker 9: no subtitles for Cherry Blossom. It's fine that Vineger Syndrome
Speaker 9: has stopped subtitling all their special features. It makes my
Speaker 9: job harder, but I understand where they're coming from. But
Speaker 9: if you're gonna do a feature film on there, you
Speaker 9: should subtitle it. That's my little two cents there, Cherry Blossom.
Speaker 9: You know, it's his first foray into filmmaking, into feature
Speaker 9: filmmaking anyway. Apparently he did a short film that he
Speaker 9: owns the rights to. I don't know why it's not
Speaker 9: on here. His second feature is not on here either.
Speaker 9: I'm guessing there's going to be a follow up release
Speaker 9: with that in the shorts included. That would be great.
Speaker 9: But Cherry Blossom, Okay, this fucking thing has the worst
Speaker 9: dubbing I've ever seen in any film I've ever seen
Speaker 9: in my life. Like it's not even close. They're not
Speaker 9: even trying. They're not even attempting to try. There's they'll
Speaker 9: be fully like somebody is eating pussy and has full
Speaker 9: lines of dialogue, or like sucking dick and there's full
Speaker 9: lines of dialogue, or make out with someone and there's
Speaker 9: full lines of dialogue or it'll just be it'll be
Speaker 9: right on those person's face and their their mouth is
Speaker 9: clearly not moving at all, but there it is dialogue
Speaker 9: running as if a fucking person is speaking.
Speaker 10: That's annoying.
Speaker 9: But what's even more egregious to me is that like
Speaker 9: several times somebody will speak and the line that they're
Speaker 9: speaking will come several seconds before or after. Is like,
Speaker 9: just just match it.
Speaker 10: You did the thing. It's fine.
Speaker 9: Like they clearly they clearly did not have a script,
Speaker 9: and they're like, fucking go hard, do whatever, fuck each other,
Speaker 9: we'll figure it out and post. And then they just
Speaker 9: I'm not even convinced there was a script for the
Speaker 9: person in the dialogue booth, but whatever, they went off
Speaker 9: did their thing. It's terrible. It's just like if you're
Speaker 9: not gonna just like just don't just don't do it.
Speaker 9: Just don't do it, just do it right, write the
Speaker 9: script in the first place, or just don't have dialogue.
Speaker 10: You don't need it.
Speaker 9: It's fine, okay, because it's like mostly during the sex
Speaker 9: scenes that they're just like talking on top of it,
Speaker 9: and like you can maybe get away with like an
Speaker 9: inner dialogue kind of thing, but that's clearly not what's
Speaker 9: happening because they're communicating.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It really bothered me.
Speaker 9: One last thing I'll say about it, and then I
Speaker 9: think I'm going to wrap up the segment for today.
Speaker 9: You know, at some point when I was watching this,
Speaker 9: I was I told my friend I was watching it with.
Speaker 9: I was like, I feel like this is like the
Speaker 9: closest thing we could get to if like aliens tried
Speaker 9: to create a pornographic film.
Speaker 10: Like it's so bizarre, it doesn't work.
Speaker 9: It's like someone imitating what sexuality might look like. And
Speaker 9: then I was like, you know what fundamentalist conservative Christian
Speaker 9: is about the closest you can get to an alien
Speaker 9: trying to make porn. So okay, I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 9: The release is excellent, by it. Check it out. It's
Speaker 9: an important film. I think it's a really transgressive, fascinating one,
Speaker 9: especially given the context in which it was created. It
Speaker 9: was funded by a church. That's fucking crazy, right, All
Speaker 9: of his films were funded by like rich yuppies who
Speaker 9: go to a church in New York. Crazy shit, different
Speaker 9: world we're living, and let me tell you that's it
Speaker 9: subscribe to my YouTube channel if you want more stuff
Speaker 9: like this, support me on Patreon if you want. It
Speaker 9: is appreciated. I'm gonna hand it back over to our boys,
Speaker 9: and until then, remember that the wages of sin are
Speaker 9: our fear and death.
Speaker 10: Praise God.
Speaker 2: Okay, well we did at y'all. Episode eight in the books.
Speaker 2: Can't wait. On December first, or right around the first
Speaker 2: of December, we'll have Heather drain on. She's going to
Speaker 2: talk about a lot of different things, including a lot
Speaker 2: of the releases she's on and whatever is on Partner
Speaker 2: month that gets announced. So I can't wait. Right now.
Speaker 2: We know there's twenty one titles coming out, so it's
Speaker 2: going to be a busy, busy day and Heather's the best.
Speaker 2: So I can't wait to get that episode recorded and
Speaker 2: get it up to y'all within you know, the first
Speaker 2: couple of days of the month. All right, Thanks, She'll
Speaker 2: see you around.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to hear more shows from the
Speaker 1: Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network. Please select the link in
Speaker 1: the description.
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