Hello!

Yet another foreign Sci-fi disc has us curious … the watchful Gary Teetzel forwards some links relating to an obscure but fantastic Sci-fi movie that we’ve only seen on compromised DVD releases.

Almost 20 years ago, we were knocked over when Robert Skotak introduced us to  Kosmitcheskiy reys: Fantasticheskaya novella, a Russian movie from 1936 depicting a sophisticated voyage to the moon. It’s a terrific movie, packed with gigantic miniature work and employing lots of sophisticated stop-motion animation. It’s a missing link in realistic Sci-fi space movies, between Fritz Lang’s  Woman in the Moon and George Pal’s  Destination Moon.
Germany’s Der Ostfilm is offering a Blu-ray of the movie with the German title Kosmische Reise. We’re going to keep our eyes peeled to find out if the quality is good. Although made in 1936 ‘Cosmic Journey’ was a silent film, and existing prints add a soundtrack that cuts off the left of the frame and puts composiitons out of whack. We can’t expect that issue to be solved, but we’d want some kind of quality improvement.

The text says that the show is Region A compatible and has English subtitles, something Gary confirmed at an English sales site called  Wicked Visions.

→  Included on the Blu-ray is the 1935 Russian Sci-fi item  Gibel Sensatsii (Loss of Feeling), the wild tale of capitalist Jim Ripl, whose aim is to replace all workers with robots. In the film still (it enlarges) Ripl is playing his saxophone while the assembled robots dance. Der Ostfilm offers several other Eastern-block Sci-fi pictures in DVD and Blu.

In the ‘say it ain’t so’ category of news, correspondent Ted D showed us over the weekend that something we thought we knew about 4K discs, just isn’t true. 4K discs can have Region coding. Ted purchased a German Plaion 4K of Planet of the Vampires and was surprised that it wouldn’t play on his domestic player.

The  Diabolik sales page confirms this. This presents a problem for reviewing — I have an all-region 4K player, and thus might not notice a Region-blocked disc … so many Blu-ray ads say they’re Region coded, but are not. So I hope we haven’t steered readers toward pricey discs that they can’t play. It’s a lot of responsibility, and the most we can do is offer a flaky disclaimer. First warning — if you’re not All-Region equipped, be wary of imported 4K discs from Munich-based Plaion Pictures.

For the last couple of months, various people have been circulating a disturbing ‘AI Nighmare’ video from  the VAPE called Vilage Live. It’s a horror video sampler, a selection of vignettes conjuring horrific tableaux. It’s demented, for sure. Part of the uneasiness with the images comes in trying to reconcile the realistic elements with the weirdness of AI image manipulation, with its ‘animation’ that’s at least 50% a morphing effect. So watch if you dare … it’s technically Safe For Work, but no apologies for psychic damage.

I once got the same jolt from a creepy old pocketbook my friend Douglas Haise showed me, Charles Addams’  Dear Dead Days: A Family Album. It’s a weird ‘concept book,’ as if Addams’ fictional ‘Addams Family’ characters had kept a Seriously Morbid Scrapbook. Amazon reviews describe it as ‘an answer to the ‘good old days’ nostalgia craze of the early 1960s,’ ‘loaded with photos and period art of coffins, cadavers, funeral carriages, freaks of nature, and more.’  If I recall, the sub-par photo quality in the pocketbook made it all seem even creepier — identifying the subject of some photos was difficult.

→  The warped visuals also remind us of my copy of Charles G. Finney’s The Circus of Dr. Lao … at least one edition was illustrated with weird art by  Boris Artzybasheff, some of which used similar physical contortions and distortions…

Hope that wasn’t too rough … Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson