Film of the Day – Lifeforce (Tobe Hooper, 1985)
Science fiction in the 1980s seemed to go all morbid and pessimistic in a way it hadn’t since the 50s, didn’t it? It was probably a Cold War thing. You had the surprisingly grim Sylvester McCoy-era Doctor Who (I used to poo my pants at the Kandy Man) and The [...]
Russell Forever – Days Are Numbers presents Savage Messiah
Days Are Numbers are proud to announce that we are the latest addition to the impressive line-up of hosts for the Russell Forever season – a series of film screenings dedicated to the life and work of the one and only Ken Russell. And as if it couldn’t get any more exciting, the film we [...]
Film of the Day – Red Psalm (Miklos Jancso, 1972)
Today’s Film of the Day is quite unlike any film I’ve ever seen before – being a hypnotic mixture of polemic, musical and period drama. It sprang from the complex imagination of one of the most quietly influential and distinctive Eastern European directors of the 1960s and 70s… Miklos Jancso is responsible for some [...]
Director of the Month: Mario Bava
Hello and welcome to Director of the Month, your cut-out-and-keep guide to the very finest auteurs in filmland… This Month: Mario Bava Nationality: Italian D.O.B: 31/07/1914 Died: 25/04/1980 Years active: 1955 – 1979 Number of films (as director): 23 – NB pre-1960 Bava co-directed four feature films. I have decided [...]
Film of the Day – There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
Two years ago, on this very site, I did a list of my favourite films of the 2000s (I know, two years! Where does the time go?). I have to be honest and admit to the fact that, when I wrote that list, there were still a handful of notable films [...]
World of Giallo – Torso (Sergio Martino, 1973)
If someone (an unidentifiable masked assailant, say, wielding a very large knife) were to force you to name the key directors of the giallo genre, you’d just about have to start off with Mario Bava and Dario Argento, wouldn’t you? Who you went for next might be more of a case for personal opinion, but [...]
Film of the Day – Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965)
Brigitte Bardot, Jeanne Moreau and a gatling gun*… What more could you possibly want from a film? *You know; those funny, spinny proto-machine gun thingys from the westerns. Viva Maria! is quite possibly the single grandest film that one could associate with the French New Wave and the closest that movement ever came [...]
Days Are Numbers Film Night No. 1 – Leningrad Cowboys Go America!
Howdy! I trust you’re going to the first-ever Days Are Numbers film night (on the 23rd of February at The Montpelier in Peckham, in case you didn’t know)? You are!? Jolly good! And would you like to know a little bit more about the film we’re showing that night? You [...]
Film of the Day – The Shout (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1978)
Not so long ago we had a bit of a chat about the retroactively established 70s British subgenre folk-horror, didn’t we; listing the likes of The Wicker Man, Witchfinder General, Blood on Satan’s Claw and Tam-Lin as some of the more notable efforts that potentially make up this somewhat loosely defined category… [...]
Film of the Day – The Pornographers (Shohei Imamura, 1966)
Now before we begin, I don’t want to hear any giggling from the back, and I certainly won’t entertain any demands to investigate my download history… But, in all serious, it does continue to surprise me that more films haven’t been made about the subject of pornography. As an industry it’s always struck [...]