Friday, 2 January 2009
Monster, Monster!
posted @8:51 p.m. by Richard Kelly
Hello again reader(s). Wait, though, is that a monster over there? There, behind you!? Or is it a list of ten great movie monsters, recently contributed by Gabriel Featherstone? Phew. The latter. I'm doubly pleased that Gabe has written in, firstly to give the site some action, and secondly because he includes The Thing (1982), and I have been minded at times to make it a prerequisite that any submission to this site include The Thing. That, or The Long Goodbye (1973). Gabe also gets TBDwDN points for including a film with Jenny Agutter, for reasons passim.
Friday, 31 October 2008
Halloween Extra: A little taste of Suspiria...
posted @8 p.m. by Richard Kelly
Friday, 31 October 2008
New List, New Lister!
posted @7:54 p.m. by Richard Kelly
Let me declare this parliament back in session, for the simple reason that one STEVEN COWIE has sent in a list, and also offered comments on a couple of the previous (see Stephen King and Video Nasties.) Stephen's list of ten is under the heading of FANTASTIC CINEMA, a broad church but a lively one none the less, and right for the night of the year when Jack o' Lanterns are offering their jagged grins all across the (un)civilised world... In advance of Stephen's choices but in relation to his comments thereupon, I will simply say that: 1. I know more than a few movie fans who will only go see New York Trashed By Monster movies in theatres equipped for HEAVY BASS. 2. Darren Aronofsky's new movie is indeed called THE WRESTLER and does indeed star Mickey Rourke. I hope to write about it elsewhere in due course, and hope that one day some obsessive Rourke fan will post a ten to this site...
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
My Favourite Year, and Yours...
posted @11:20 p.m. by Richard Kelly
A few years ago after the success of Peter Biskind's book on 1970s cinema and a minor rash of imitators, a reputable film-scholar friend of mine told me she was minded to write a tome called 'F&!k Off With Your F&!king Decades', so as to counter the trend toward boxing movies up in this 10-year allotment. A useful suggestion, since a historian such as Eric Hobsbawn has shown us how "the 19th century" was probably longer than 100 years, the 20th probably shorter. Paul Schrader once wondered quite appositely whether his AMERICAN GIGOLO was the first film of the 1980s or the last of the 1970s. If however one confines oneself to the virtues of a single year's releases, that's maybe a purer criterion. It suits the Academy. In the list that follows RAVI HOLY offers a chronological Ten of what he considers to be the outstanding single years in the history of movie production. Clearly his choices suggest larger preferences of time-period, pre-WW2 and most of the 80s and 90s not getting a look in. But the jury's still out, right? As the Chinaman declared on the question of the worth of the French Revolution, 'Too early to tell...'
