CineSavant Column
Hello!
We’re told that ‘Film Masters TV’ is beginning to put top quality transfers on YouTube for free. An early posting is the Roger Corman teen crime epic Teenage Doll. We’d rather see them released on disc, preferably with a theatrical aspect ratio. But this is an excellent way to get a look at prime Corman, circa 1957.
They are billed as being in HD. Doll certainly looks better than the ancient Image DVD. The inference is that more gems from what was known previously the ‘Wade Williams Collection’ may be on the way. Here’s the YouTube page for Film Masters TV.
The show stars June Kenney, Fay Spain, Barbara Wilson, Ziva Rodan, Barboura Morris, Jay Sayer, Ed Nelson, Bruno VeSota and Richard Devon.
We’re also seeing some pretty lavish special editions come roaring in, for some really strange pictures. The discs plugged here come from two different labels. Vinegar Syndrome’s fancy boxes look good on display. The titles above all have mini-trailers online:
Chun Keung Chiu and Tai-Heng Li’s 1984 Shaw Scares Volume 1 with Sex Beyond the Grave, Hell Has no Boundary and Haunted Tales;
Nacho Vigalondo’s 2007 Timecrimes;
Michelle Manning’s 1986 Blue City with Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and David Caruso;
Dario Argento’s 1996 The Stendahl Syndrome with Asia Argento;
Claudio Fragasso’s 1990 Troll 2 with Michael Stevenson;
Rod Amateau’s 1987 The Garbage Pail Kids Movie;
and Chor Yuen’s 1983 Descendant of the Sun.
It’s quite a stack of strange movies …
Second up, we’d like to bring special attention to two bizarre foreign film released by Deaf Crocodile.
Director Ákos D. Hamza’s Sirius aka Szíríusz is a Hungarian picture I’ll have to investigate … it’s described as a romantic time-travel tale, like the popular picture Somewhere in Time. . . a playboy and a mad scientist go 200 years back in time and meet a beautiful opera singer. It’s got a real time machine, that looks like a rocket. The weird thing is that it is from 1942.
And finally, and perhaps most weirdly, Austrian artist and director Norbert Pfaffenbichler’s 2551 Trilogy is described as “a staggering combination of avant garde cinema, post-apocalyptic sci-fi / horror / monster action, dystopian political nightmare, silent cinema techniques, and endless subterranean labyrinths shot in abandoned WW2 bunkers in Vienna” … “myriad grotesque masks, industrial and death metal music…”
The full description is at the link; it’s three separate titles, and carries a pretty serious content warning disclaimer. We’re waiting anxiously for Deaf Crocodile’s January release of Krakatit; Here’s the
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson