TV/FILM
The Bloody Brood (1959)
A young Peter Falk plays a murderous Beatnik kingpin with a subterranean Jazz lair. It’s wild man.
La Maldicion De La Llarona (1963)
Or The Curse of The Crying Woman. Uber-stylish Mexican gothic horror.
The Traitors US – Series 2 (10 Play)
The casting is entirely ‘celebrities’, with said alleged celebs being reality show contestants from Survivor, various Real Housewives franchises and some shows I’ve never heard of (The Challenge? Bling Empire?). Kind of ‘Who?-lebrities’ I guess. The producers are likely betting on this attracting viewers, but this show works much better with participants who don’t know anything about each other, casting celebrities means that there’s a limit to the intrigue they can employ in their game plan and the aspects of themselves they can choose to hide from their competitors. Also, one of the cast is named ‘Johnny Bananas’ which should be sufficient reason to cease stunt casting immediately.
Mary & George (Fox)
I’m just 1 episode in, but so far this is a hoot. More about it here.
The Black Sleep (1956)
Fun mad doctor horror although it wastes the talents of Bela Lugosi, John Carradine and Lon Chaney Jr.
Cry Of The Werewolf (1944)
If, like me, you love the Val Lewton school of thoughtful shadowy horror you’ll get a lot out of this gypsy werewolf tale. The cast includes Nina Foch and Osa Masson who are both excellent. Masson in particular gets to play dark and light and does both with great skill. An undiscovered classic.
Dead Men Walk (1943)
George Zucco is impressive in a dual role as a righteous doctor and his demonic brother. A few tweaks in the plotting could have made this much better though.
The Corpse Vanishes (1942)
Bonus Bela, thankfully this time he’s talking and not doing charades like in The Black Sleep. There’s an epidemic of brides dying at the altar which is a pretty weird premise for a horror film, but baby, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
The Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949)
A great late 40s cat-and-mouse murder thriller. Has a rather terrifying scene on the famous structure that at times looks positively dangerous.
The Brain Eaters (1958)
File under: Only if you’ve nothing better to do.
Many of the above films are due to the listings in the 1998 catalogue (or ‘catalog’) of the NYC grey-market ( meaning – unofficial, but not otherwise released) VHS retailer The Fang. I can’t remember if I ever ordered anything from them or just wrote away for the catalogue. It’s probably the latter as the postage was expensive. I created a Letterboxd list here if you’re interested in ticking them off your view list.
ONLINE
An interesting piece about the recent Jonathan Van Ness (Queer Eye) scandal and the parallels to Ellen DeGeneres and Lizzo.
SOUND
Sampled by Dimitri From Paris
French DJ Dimitri from Paris draws from a range of soul/funk/disco/lounge music in the sample he uses in his work. Here’s a YouTube playlist of some of his inspiration. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd1xC56TLFF88bzQMJmf5FkxLtSf05sKk
PRINT
Menergy: San Francisco’s Gay Disco Sound – Louis Niebur (2022)
I Want to Be a Vase – Julio Torres/Julian Glander (2022)
Corita Kent: Ordinary Things Will Be Signs for Us – Julie Ault (2023)
The Very Now 