Monsters and Madmen Boxset
Corridor of Blood, directed by Robert Day
The Haunted Strangler, directed by Robert Day
First Man Into Space, directed by Robert Day
The Atomic Submarine, directed by Spencer G. Bennet
Resonance DVD review, issue #54, 2007

It’s great when ghettoized features get respect, like these four chillers via production team Richard and Alex Gordon, restored to full visual and aural fidelity and padded with plenty of extras. While Criterion’s intentions are pure, not every title deserves the price tag such loving care demands -- First Man into Space and Atomic Submarine are nifty tall-tales for 1950s-era kiddies, but sometimes the bargain-basement approach better serves such fare, sandwiched between nine other nostalgic potboilers and priced for clearance at the local drugstore. Luckily, top-shelf Boris Karloff vehicles fill out the box, particularly the unrelentingly grim Corridor of Blood. Our hero portrays an 1840-era surgeon whose anesthesia research leaves him addicted to huffing painkilling fumes, forcing him into cahoots with graverobbers. Brutal depictions of primitive surgery and its horrific aftermath match any modern-day goreshow, and the desperate, drunken dancing of Karloff’s amoral cohorts is damnation in the flesh. FRED BELDIN

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Two Takes By William Greaves
Resonance DVD review, issue #53, 2007

Baffling yet strangely engaging, the rarely-seen 1968 experimental feature Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One turns the process of moviemaking inside-out and obliquely poses questions about sexuality, race and power along the way. Documentary filmmaker William Greaves assembles a crew in Central Park and divides the cameramen into three groups; one to film a pair of actors performing a short, emotional scene, another to document the first, while the third covers the entire process and any extraneous activity that occurs nearby. The crew, confused by Greaves' intentionally-vague explanations and irritated by the histrionic script (a shrill argument concerning homosexuality and abortion), follows instructions but later stages a passive-aggressive coup in which they film themselves privately debating the validity of their director's plan -- or if there is indeed any real plan at all. Greaves weaves this mutinous footage within shots of actors pondering motivation, cameramen loading magazines, and a loquacious drunk who stumbles out of the bushes for a climactic rant against society. The film was never properly released, although retrospective screenings in the 1990s inspired Steven Soderbergh and Steve Buscemi to sign on as executive producers for a 2003 sequel, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 1/2. It's more of the same, starting off with some unseen footage from the original shoot, then returning to Central Park with three camera crews (this time armed with digital video equipment) to film the same actors playing the same characters thirty years later. Both "Takes" are included on this Criterion double disc, but the new version can't replicate the unique experiment of the first, and even the original is more interesting conceptually than in execution. Still, meta-minded cineasts should check out this adventurous package, which includes an in-depth documentary on Greaves, a pioneering African American artist whose career deserves greater attention. FRED BELDIN

Fateless
Resonance DVD review, issue #52, 2007

Two abstract video pieces for your next freakout, soundtracked with the shiny harmonic drone of Australian electronic composers Martin Ng and Oren Ambarchi. Vigilance lulls one into boredom for endless minutes with vibrator hum and vintage-1983 video game graphics. Don’t worry, there’s an ambush ahead, as random sniper bursts of sound/light liven up the piece and send it careening off into more interesting places. 8 Seconds of Weightlessness follows with a similar simplicity, but this time the images rivet themselves into the retina. A palpable urgency suggests that communication is the goal, that we’ve intercepted some kind of indecipherable extraterrestrial code. Is it a message of goodwill or aggression? Fred Beldin

Pan's Labyrinth
Seattle Sound film review

Where do fairy tales come from? Director Guillermo del Toro finds the seeds within the collision of imagination and tragedy in the mesmerizing Pan's Labyrinth. A lonely, bookish girl, thrown into the maelstrom of civil war, learns that she is the reincarnation of an immortal Princess of the Underworld when a visiting faun charges her with three magical tasks that must be completed before the next full moon. Meanwhile, her cruel Fascist stepfather leads his army to a blood-drenched confrontation with freedom fighters, and our heroine must maneuver between the two worlds of fantasy and reality. Del Toro paints Pan's Labyrinth as a dark fairy tale full of ash, mud and stone, as graphic in its horrors as it is wide-eyed in its innocence, a haunting yet hopeful fable with one of the most disturbing happy endings of recent memory. Fred Beldin, 11-2006

Black Snake Moan
Seattle Sound film review

Director Craig Brewer makes high-ideal exploitation films, using the syntax of 70s-era drive-in flicks to redeem his low-caste characters. But while Hustle and Flow was a feel-good, fist-pumping tale of relative redemption, Black Snake Moan's ratio of storyline to sleaze means more thrills but less heart. Brewer tries to have it both ways, crafting a sympathetic portrait of a sex addict while depicting her half-naked in tight panties, covered in mud, blood and bruises and chained to a radiator. That's Christina "That Darn Cat" Ricci, a half-shirt festooned with guns and flags as accessory, flipping the bird to anyone who questions her career choices. Both dare the audience not to be aroused by this poor, suffering wretch, so when a troubled farmer and former bluesman played by Samuel L. Jackson nurses her back to health against her will, his temptation to take advantage is all the more palpable. It's another career-topper for Jackson, whose face betrays an inner struggle with earthly impulses even as he is steadfast to God, as badass as ever but never more righteous. Still, there's a thick coat of white trash fetishism that's hard to wipe off Black Snake Moan, making it far more effective as hillbilly grindhouse fare than thoughtful drama. Fred Beldin, 2-2007

Right Foot, Left Foot

filmthreat.com review

An office drone's midlife crisis is examined in this thoughtful, bittersweet short film. Adam LeFevre is the ordinary, overweight everyman who considers himself to be youthful in his middle age, but worries that his life is following no set path, that he's just taking "baby steps toward the big nothing." His relationship with his wife is stagnant, he's bullied by a beautiful but shrewish boss, and his son is a juvenile delinquent whose disrespect knows no limits. He can't even remember what he does for a living anymore, even after twenty years of the same job. Director Daniel Poliner takes the viewer into the subconscious of this weary character, and what we find isn't heroic, but it is very human.

"Right Foot, Left Foot" (subtitled “The Daring Young Man in the Cubicle”) is built with the logic of a dream, a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of memories and fears that folds in and out on itself. Our hero has imaginary conversations with a friend who died three years earlier ("it was more painful than they said it would be"), endures humiliating fantasies of schoolyard trauma and experiences flashbacks to the days when the love of his wife was fresh and exciting. Nothing is resolved, because as each question is posed, another one is drifting by right behind it. There are no answers anyway, only submission to fate and the search for some kind of truth in that acceptance.

Some may roll their eyes at the trials of a well-fed middle-management type, but anyone who has worked in an office for any length of time will recognize the ennui that cubicles, fluorescent lights and goal-setting workshops breed. It can be as numbing and dehumanizing as any factory and the work even more pointless when there's nothing of physical weight to show for it at the end of the day. "Right Foot, Left Foot" is hilarious, heartbreaking, confusing and enlightening all at once, a terrific achievement that never condescends to its subject, the workaday schlub who gets by, but doesn't know why. - Fred Beldin

Gallowsbird's Bark - Fiery Furnaces

The Stranger review

Lazy music writers can't resist comparing this sister-brother duo to another hipster "sibling" combo (the Carpenters), but while there might be a similarity in the art-school blues cut-ups and arch poetics, the Fiery Furnaces deserve more thoughtful press. Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger have crafted a timeless record, piecing together familiar scraps of the Velvets (guitarwise), Bowie (music hall piano burble) and Royal Trux (second-hand Stones blues), with a result as mysterious as their influences. Guitars mimic tambourines, assorted keys trickle over in carnival cascade, and it's cool as Vicks on a fevered chest. She's the lead voice, untrained but sweet and strong, singing inscrutable, endearingly awkward lyrics about married men, plagues and intercepted phone threats. He's the primary guitar, wringing out loose, rubbery riffs over swinging piano, delicate jangles and coarse wah-wah pedal workouts. It's an eccentric travelogue of antique landscapes, mapped out by devoutly modern children. - Fred Beldin, 11-2003

Full of Life

All Movie Guide review

Though novelist John Fante thought his literary career was over and forgotten by the time he started writing screenplays for Hollywood, his work gained critical prominence in the years following his death in 1983, and those who appreciate the pithy textures of his classic books will find similar qualities hiding in the corners of this domestic comedy. Adapted from his 1952 book, Fante is once again exploring his own life in a semi-autobiographical setting, this time the days leading up to the birth of his first child, when he is forced to reckon with the family heritage he had abandoned after leaving home. It's certainly lighthearted Hollywood fare, but Full of Life is also full of earthy edges, supplying gentle laughs and warm homilies without ignoring the realities of living. As Emily Rocco, Judy Holliday is fully pregnant in a film era that was squeamish about such blunt depictions of the "condition," and though her hormonal craziness is played for laughs, it isn't exaggerated for comic effect. Richard Conte, as Fante alter ego Nick Rocco, pigheadedly rejects his family's old world values in a desperate battle against his ethnicity. Salvatore Baccaloni is outlandishly Italian as Nick's hard-drinking father, boiling over with emotional hand gestures and broken English, but in his hands Papa never feels like a stereotype. The arguments over Catholicism which form the backbone of the story deal with the complicated reasons behind people's decisions to believe or not believe, and Nick's return to the church feels natural. The climactic childbirth doesn't shy away from Emily's pain and exhaustion, and modern viewers might be shocked by her casual cigarette and wine consumption while carrying the baby. Full of Life was a hit and Fante's screenplay won the Writers Guild of America Screen Award for Best Written Comedy the following year, but the writer never found the same satisfaction with his script work that he did with his novels. While not nearly as raw and truthful as books like "Wait Until Spring, Bandini" or "Ask the Dust," Fante readers should find interest in this big screen adaptation. - Fred Beldin

Janus - Sun Ra

All Music Guide review

This compilation of rare material from the Sun Ra Arkestra draws from tapes recorded between 1963 and 1970, and the space-age jazz shaman conjures up a variety of styles and moods along the way. A balmy tropical vibe greets the ears with the opener ("Island in the Sun"), but it doesn't take long for Ra to set his controls for the stratosphere, and soon, distorted gongs, haunted house organ, and homemade instruments are exploring African mysticism on the title track. "Velvet" is a more traditional hard bop cut, but some gleefully manic saxophone and French horn work lends a cartoonish anarchy to the tune. Chaos is certainly the form for the finale, "Joy," as Ra directs his boys to get free, and the musicians coast through gale wind discord into a calm, disturbing breeze. It all winds down to a lonely drummer whose solo (and the album) meets an abrupt end mid-lick. Taken from both live and studio performances, the tracks may once have been intended as a complete album, but they haven't been available previously except scattered between a few rare Saturn sides. Janus is hardly essential for anyone still combing through Ra's voluminous catalog of unique releases, but the hardcore contingent won't be disappointed. - Fred Beldin

Hey Jude! Hey Bing! - Bing Crosby

All Music Guide review

With a title track that was inevitably destined for camp irony, this pop music cash-in finds Der Bingle haphazardly wrapping his sonorous tones around a set of country and Top 40 standards with nary a relevant moment to be found. "Hey Jude" is delightfully clueless and secured itself a spot on two of the future Golden Throats compilations (a series of ironic packages of kitschy celebrity recordings) for Crosby's off-handed delivery and awkward revision of the song's climactic melody (the soulful "nah-nah-nah" becomes the mannered "pom-pom-pom"). It's a moment that certainly begged for ridicule from contemporary rock audiences, not to mention the jaded few who mine the past for cynical cultural missteps. The most appropriate number on Hey Jude/Hey Bing! is the album's other Apple-related track, "Those Were the Days," where the nostalgic longing for a lost age seems to suit the then-66-year-old vocalist. The rest of the album is filled out with limp country-pop numbers that range from passable ("Little Green Apples") to absolutely awful ("Lonely Street"), and producer Jimmy Bowen's syrupy strings and glossy background chorus do nothing to enliven the singer's apparent disinterest in the material. Crosby walks through every tune like a rehearsal, lending none of his classic warmth to these mismatched numbers. Reportedly, Crosby himself considered the album to be one of his worst, an opinion not likely to be disputed by anyone who explores this audible generation gap. - Fred Beldin