Days Are Numbers will be holding our fourth fantastic film night on Thursday the 31st of May, but unfortunately, it may also be our last…

“Please don’t let it be your last!” I can hear you scream “Why won’t you be able to do any more?!” Well, it’s just that after we’ve screened Bigas Luna’s Anguish (at The Montpelier in Peckham, natch), I don’t think anyone’s ever going to want to sit in a darkened room with us ever again. You see Anguish, despite sounding like it should be an Ingmar Bergman biopic, is not only a gory slasher of the bloodiest order, it also comes complete with a mindblowing twist that’ll literally have you squirming in your seat.

Barton Fink’s memorably moody mogul Michael Lerner stars as a lowly and put-upon opthalmologist’s assistant, struggling to deal with patients who are less than enamoured with his creepy bedside manner, whilst at the same time slowly suffering the loss of his own eyesight. Worst of all, he lives with his demented, domineering mother (played with unsettling, scenery-chewing relish by Poltergeist’s pint-sized mystic, Zelda Rubinstein) who has a habit of hypnotising her son before sending him out to commit unspeakably gruesome murders. It is during one such slaying that the focus of Anguish suddenly switches, however, but I’m afraid I’m going to refrain from telling you just exactly what this twist is, so you’re just going to have to pop by The Montpelier two weeks from now… If you dare!

And trust me, Anguish is that wonderful and all-too rare (certainly these days) thing – a horror film which is even more fun to watch as a kind of Grand Guignol spectacle in the company of others, thanks largely to its relentless and mischeivous desire to unsettle. Spaniard Luna does such a wonderful job here of doling out the thrills, spills and almost unbearable tension that it’s a wonder he never worked in the horror genre either before or after this. A kind of lesser-acknowledged contemporary of his fellow compatriot Pedro Almodovar, Bigas Luna is perhaps best known for erotic, arthouse fare such as Jamon Jamon and The Tit and the Moon, but it’s really his earlier works (including crime thriller Bilbao and religious drama Reborn, which boasts an amazing performance from Dennis Hopper as a TV evangelist) that are most worthy of your attention.

And Anguish is the best of the bunch! Why not sample our specially commissioned trailer below to see if you think you can take it?

It’s turned out to be rather appropriate that, after much deliberation by Paramount in the early 70s, none other than Francis Ford Coppola was eventually selected to direct that ultimate familial epic of modern American cinema, The Godfather…

The beardy super-director sits at the head of a sizable and influential brood of his own, after all: You’ve got composer dad Carmine (who picked up an Oscar for his work on The Godfather Part II), documentary filmmaker wife Eleanor (who seems to specialise in films about other Coppolas), actress sister Talia Shire, director daughter Sofia and a pair of highly-regarded thespian nephews in indie fave Jason Schwartzman and crazed superstar Nicolas Cage. Perhaps the least renowned of the Coppola clan is son Roman, who has also followed in his father’s footsteps and taken up the chief position behind the camera. But while his little sister Sofia’s films are regularly met with rapturous critical praise and not inconsiderable box-office, the Coppola boy’s sole feature film to date seems to have slipped into obscurity, and undeservedly so.

CQ is a film in which the main characters are involved in the making of a film, but what sets it apart from most other efforts in this subgenre (Truffaut’s Day for Night or Barton Fink, for example) is how Coppola chooses to place as much emphasis on the ”fictional” film-within-the-film itself as he does on the drama going on around it. Jeremy Davies plays an American film editor in Paris, currently involved in the making of Codename: Dragonfly – a swingin’ Sci-Fi spy romp, in which a foxy femme agent is deployed to take down a band of revolutionaries who have taken over the moon (!). After the production sheds two different directors in quick succession, our young editor has his wish fulfilled when he is asked to take charge of the film’s completion… But with a crush on his lead actress and a controlling producer to contend with, is he up to the task in hand?

These days, Roman Coppola seems to have carved out a role for himself as Wes Anderson’s right-hand man and Owen Wilson-surrogate (having co-written both the underwhelming Darjeeling Limited and the upcoming Moonrise Kingdom), but based on the evidence here he really should get round to making another film of his own sometime*. Not only does CQ boast a plethora of fantastically rendered retro sequences from the decidedly Danger: Diabolik-esque Dragonfly (and you can really feel the love off them, this is no lazy spoof), but it also has a convincing and involving storyline running through it, an essential which has been oddly lacking from the aforementioned Anderson’s most recent work. The young Coppola also seems to have inherited his father’s knack for directing actors, and there are fine supporting turns from Gerard Depardieu, Diabolik’s very own John Phillip Law, Dean Stockwell, Jason Schwartzman (but, of course!) and Billy Zane (seriously!) – although I will say that the rather wet Davies doesn’t deliver the kind of charismatic Marcello-ish performance that this often impressively Fellini-esque film is calling out for.

*Well, I just checked and it looks like he has made another one – A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charlie Swan III, whatever that might be. It’s not come out yet, but until then the sublime CQ is more than enough to keep you busy. Check out the trailer below!

Welcome back, my friends… To the show that never ends.

Except it does end - It ends when the film ends, which is generally at around 10pm, but we can’t really get around that. Anyways, we’re proud to announce that for our fun-tastic third film night, we’ll be showing the one-of-a-kind, utterly bizzaro musical-comedy Forbidden Zone.

Now, you may not have heard of the director of this month’s selection - one Richard Elfman – but I can guarantee that you’ll have heard of his brother, Danny. That’s right! Danny Elfman - Hollywood composer extraordinaire and the man behind the world-famous, clanging cacophony that is The Simpsons theme tune. Well, once upon a time Richard and Danny were in a band together, and that band was called, erm, Oingo Boingo. And in 1980 that band decided to make a film…

Our adventure begins with an introduction to the mind-meltingly strange Hercules’ family as they bicker, bash each other and sing a merrie melody or two in the kitchen of their appropriately ”unique” Venice, California home - in fact, the only thing stranger than its occupants is what lies beneath the house itself - The Sixth Dimension, no less. After daughter Frenchy takes a wander into this “forbidden zone” in the basement, she quickly becomes the latest lust-object of its eccentric king, and subsequently the bitter enemy of its evil queen. With dad at work at the tar-pit factory, it’s up to ex-wrestler ”Gramps”, brother Flash and local uber-nerd Squeezit Henderson to delve down and rescue her, but with all manner of crazy creatures and surreal obstacles hindering their progress, they’ve got a heck of a fight on their hands!

Originally conceived as a kind of handover of band leadership from older Richard to younger Danny, Forbidden Zone marks the point at which Oingo Boingo enjoyed one last waltz as an outlandish cabaret act (at this point still known as The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo), before becoming a more straight-ahead new wave rock band. These theatrical origins are very much the lifeblood of the elder Elfman’s film, which often feels like a seriously oversexed and over-ambitious stage school end of year performance gone off the rails (a good thing!) - Although I should make it clear that you really don’t need to know anything at all about either brother or Oingo Boingo to enjoy it. Anyone who’s a fan of cult, kitsch or just plain crazy cinema will lap up Forbidden Zone, and that probably goes double for connoisseurs of oddball musicals, of which this could be the strangest ever made (imagine if Troma mounted an assault on The Rocky Horror Picture Show and you’re not even halfway there!).

Those good folks at Arrow Video are releasing a typically fun-packed and thorough blu-ray of Forbidden Zone on the 7th of May, which I really think you should all rush out and buy cometh the hour. You can check out their website and other releases by clicking the image below.

Before then, however, you should get yourself down to The Montpelier in Peckham on the 26th of April, where you’ll be able to watch Forbidden Zone in the distinguished company of us here at Days Are Numbers. If you cast your eyes below, you can check out a little trailer we’ve made… I guarantee that you won’t want to miss it!

Blimey, those crazy Italians love their comic books…

And long before the Americans started throwing millions of dollars at largely turgid screen outings for the likes of Batman and Superman, a wide range of Italy’s finest filmmakers (from Fellini to Bava) were citing their love for the artform and bringing their favourite characters to life. Naturally enough, the kind of comic books our continental cousins preferred were always that little bit darker, weirder and kinkier than those being favoured State-side, with the aforementioned Mario Bava’s mind-bending Danger: Diabolik being perhaps the most famous example. The darkest, weirdest and certainly kinkiest comic book film to come out of Italy at that time, however, has to Corrado Farina’s utterly bizarre Baba Yaga.

Based on a serial by literary-minded scribbler Guido Crepax, Baba Yaga tells the story of Valentina, a young and surprisingly not-male (for the 70s, anyway) photographer, who seems to earn her crust exclusively from taking pictures of other young women in various states of undress. Her snazzy life begins to change, however, after a chance encounter with a spooky witch in a sexy dress named Baba Yaga (giallo queen Carroll Baker), who seems to have cursed one of Valentina’s cameras, thus causing all her “fashion” shoots to end in disaster. Add to that some creepy S&M nightmares and the single freakiest doll in film history (which comes alive, natch), and you’ve got one hell of a kooky Euro-trip.

Baba Yaga does a splendid job in bringing the colourfully crazy world of Italian comic books alive, most notably in how it incorporates bona fide comic artwork into several sequences (most notably a sex scene!). What it does less well is come together as a totally satisfying narrative whole, but while pace and logic may lag from time to time, watching it amounts to an ultimately enjoyable and most likely unforgettable experience. Director Corrado Farina was certainly a unique and playful talent, but sadly he only made one film besides this - the equally striking vampires-as-capitalists satire, They’ve Changed Faces.

Sadly, that latter film (which was Farina’s debut feature, made two years earlier in 1971) is still not available to buy on DVD, but thanks to the fantastic Shameless Screen Entertainment, Baba Yaga is! Have a look at the trailer below… It seems to have gone for all the saucy bits over the surreal ones, but you’ll still get the idea!

Yes that’s right, folks! For our next trick, Days Are Numbers will fearlessly lead you into the heart of the Forbidden Zone thanks to our mucho exciting screening of Richard Elfman’s riotously salacious cult classic, erm, Forbidden Zone. As always, shennigans will take place at The Montpelier in Peckham on the final Thursday of the month (26/04). Admission is free (although the film may ultimately cost you your sanity) and the screening starts at 8.30pm!!!

In the meantime, please take a little look at the trailer we made below. Consider it a primer for the kind of audio-visual stimulation you’ll receive on the big night!

Hello and welcome to Director of the Month, your cut-out-and-keep guide to the very finest auteurs in filmland…

This Month: Joel and Ethan Coen

Nationality: American

D.O.B: 29/11/1954 (Joel) and 21/09/1957 (Ethan)

Years active: 1984 – present

Number of films (as a director-producer team): 15

Do say: “Quentin Tarantino got the mega-stardom, Wes Anderson the cult following and Paul Thomas Anderson the critical praise… But I think we all know, deep down inside, that 90s cinema really belonged to you two.”

Don’t say: “Which one of you really makes all these films?”

Who hell they? It was a widely-held belief just after the fact that the 1990s had shaped up to be a Golden Age for filmmaking in the US – perhaps even on a par with the near-mythical New Hollywood era of the 1970s. Now even if you don’t quite agree with that school of thought, you surely have to concede that many more exciting American filmmakers broke through in the period between 1990 and 1999 than have done in the whole of the 13 years since. OK, so Joel and Ethan Coen made their first film in 1984, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that they really established themselves - releasing a distinctive and uniformly high quality film at least every couple of years throughout the entire decade. And despite being just-about household names, not to mention the cornerstone of any discerning modern film collection, they never seem to really get the full credit and respect they deserve.

On the other hand, pretty much any Coen brothers film could be slammed for being as “derivative” as any of Quentin Tarantino’s (they wear their between-the-wars Hollywood influences on their sleeves), or for being as “affected” as anything by Wes Anderson (the Coens character you could expect to meet in real life is a truly rare thing)… But they never are. Their films seem to be almost as exempt from harsh criticism as they are from rapturous popular praise, but I have a hunch that this may be a result of the fact that the Coens have an easy, human and strangely contrivance-proof touch – something that you certainly can’t ascribe to Tarantino, Anderson or pretty much any of their other contemporaries (most of whom I like). They’re just really good at making really clever - yet strangely unfussy - films, and they almost never let you down. And that is why the Coen brothers were the best filmmakers of the 90s. So there.

Six of the Best:

Raising Arizona (1987)

Surely one of the most riotously entertaining films ever made? This is a head-spinning mix of screwball comedy, crime caper and modern day fairytale, and it’s certainly the most charming film ever made about child-napping! Nicolas Cage is on gloriously manic form here as a goofy ex-con pressurised by his sassy, police officer wife into abducting one of the “Arizona Quints” – the sprogs of a famous local businessman - a scheme which careens almost completely off the rails, of course. The Coens gleefully deliver the madcap (and occasionally quite touching) results in truly masterful style.

Miller’s Crossing (1990)

A breathtakingly and brilliantly plotted - as well as being in-turns comic and melancholy - film noir, it’s a crying shame that Miller’s Crossing isn’t held in quite as high regard as it really deserves to be. Borrowing heavily from the works of master crime scribe Dashiell Hammett (including Red Harvest, which also inspired Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars), Gabriel Byrne is suitably hard-boiled as the Irish hood caught up in a turf war between his fellow countrymen and a rival Italian mob. And if the enthralling, twisting plot wasn’t enough to draw you in, the tough and zippy dialogue is frankly some of the best to be featured in any noir of any period… “I open my mouth, the whole world turns smart.”

Barton Fink (1991)

So exhaustingly well-written in fact was Miller’s Crossing, that for their next trick the Coens were inspired to concoct this nightmarish tale of a neurotic writer struggling to come up with the goods for Hollywood. This is an intensely claustrophobic horror-comedy, which impressively manages to run the gamut between Roman Polanski’s The Tenant and a baggy-pants showbiz satire along the lines of The Producers. The cast are uniformly terrific, and while the ever-undervalued John Turturro is magnificent in the title role, fellow Coens favourite John Goodman steals the show as his sinisterly jovial neighbour.

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Almost a greatest hits compilation of everything the Coens have already shown us they excel at, The Hudsucker Proxy has bags of charm, snappy dialogue to spare and a playfully fantastical feel, which occasionally strides into darker territory. Tim Robbins stars as a country bumpkin-turned-corporate stooge, unwittingly elected as the president of a large New York company by Machiavellian board member Paul Newman as part of a dastardly scheme to bring share prices crashing down. Things take an unexpected turn, however, after he proves a massive success by almost literally reinventing the wheel - You know, for kids.

Fargo (1996)

Having shown their love of film noir, the brothers then decided to bring us their own unique variation on the formula (perhaps film blanc?), as double-cross, murder and mayhem pay a rare cinematic visit to the middle-classes of the snowy mid-west. One of the great “location” films, the perky, quirky accents and frozen terrain of Minnesota will forever be associated with sappy car dealer William H. Macy’s hare-brained plot to stage his own wife’s kidnap and collect the ransom, in much the same way you can’t think of San Francisco without picturing Steve McQueen. Fun Fact: Despite the pre-title card which claims Fargo is a true story, the whole thing is entirely fictional, and this bold claim otherwise was just Joel and Ethan’s typically idiosyncratic idea of a joke.

The Big Lebowki (1998)

While it might well shape up to be the last bona fide cult film (and I mean cult as in proper, Rocky Horror-type cult, not Gen Zzzz wannabe tosh like Donnie Darko), The Big Lebowski would still be one of the most memorable films of the last 20-odd years, even without its army of dressing gown-clad, White Russian-sipping super-fans. Despite the early 90s setting, this is as much homage to classic film noir as Miller’s Crossing, with Jeff Bridges’ washed-up hippie protagonist getting pulled into an intrigue that goes way over his head after a pair of inept heavies break into his house and pee on his rug. Having just read that sentence back, I am reminded of how hard it is to recount exactly what happens in The Big Lebowski, but that my friends is all part of its gloriously shaggy appeal.

What about the rest?: Blood Simple (1984) is a crackling neo-noir in which the plot to kill a promiscuous wife and her latest lover backfires not only on her husband, but also on his hired assassin (have you managed to work out yet that the Coens rather like film noir?)… O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) is a terrific Depression-era reworking of Homer’s Odyssey that comes complete with a charming folk and bluegrass soundtrack… The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) is yet another homage to the brother’s beloved noir, spinning a gripping yarn in which sheepish nobody Billy Bob Thornton blackmails the big-shot who is having an affair with his wife… The Coens took their first notable misstep with Intolerable Cruelty (2003), an uncharacteristically weak crack at a romantic comedy which at least yields some interesting moments… The Ladykillers (2004) is an ill-fitting American remake of the Ealing comedy classic that never really sparks to life… No Country for Old Men (2007) is an occasionally engossing and often infuriating neo-western, memorable not least for Javier Bardem’s turn as a poncey and preposterously Terminator-like killer… Burn After Reading (2008) got generally unfavourable reviews on its release, but in reality it’s a fairly decent espionage spoof that hits a few entertaining notes, even if it plays out in an overly zany key… Much more subdued in tone is A Serious Man (2009), which revisits the Coens Jewish, Minnesota routes… And True Grit (2010) succeeds where The Ladykillers failed in its rebooting of an old favourite, and indeed Jeff Bridges’ take on one-eyed western lawman Rooster Cogburn is superior to John Wayne’s earlier Oscar winning turn… Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) isn’t released until next year and – I’m very sorry to have to tell you this – it’s got Justin Timberlake in it…

“War! What is it good for?” asked Edwin Starr in 1969, before answering his own question with a highly conclusive exclamation of “Absolutely nothing!”

And while you really have to admit that the soul supremo was generally correct in his assertion, there is at least one thing that war is good for, and that’s war films. Yes, war films, perhaps the best by-product of war (apart from maybe the eventual restoration of peace and stuff like that), and there have been plenty of absolutely fantastic ones made over the years. Of course if you’re a lily-livered pacifist like me (or Edwin Starr!), then you’ll probably prefer anti-war films, but let’s face it we wouldn’t have those without war either.

So here is my list of the ten best anti-war films. I’ve decided to keep my choices largely combat-based and focused on the physical act of war itself (hence no Dr. Strangelove), and I’ve also ruled out one or two films that are a little too specific in their subject matter (you could argue that Downfall is an anti-war film, but it’s mainly a film about the last days of Adolf Hitler).

Let me know what you think I might have missed, but let’s not fight about it… War is hell, after all.

10. Three Kings (David O. Russell, 1999)

Chiefly remembered for the on-set war which erupted after star George Clooney had to “straighten out” famously temperamental director Russell following the latter’s abuse of an extra, this is probably the best film yet made about a modern conflict (in this case, the first Gulf War). A riff on the “men on a mission” template a good ten years before Inglorious Basterds, here our central trio of opportunistic soldiers (out to smuggle gold from Kuwait) find themselves forced to confront the desperate plight the war has inflicted on the people they are supposed to be liberating. The highlight is a scene that focuses on the horrific damage a single bullet-wound can cause – rather than the blanket carnage wreaked by the usual spray – and which is as strikingly original as it is grimly effective.

9. How I Won the War (Richard Lester, 1967)

The Beatles’ director-in-residence famously recruited none other than John Lennon to put in a supporting turn in this bizarre avant garde comedy about a doomed British Army platoon and the bungling Lieutenant who leads them to their deaths. Future Frank Spencer Michael Crawford (guess who he plays!) heads a sterling cast which, moonlighting mop-tops aside, features esteemed Brit thesps like Roy Kinnear, Jack MacGowran, Michael Horden and even Ethel from Eastenders! Lester employs several typically off-the-wall stylistic devices (including having each deceased soldier return to the platoon as a primary coloured ghost) to highlight the absurdities of war and lampoon the sometimes destructive vanity of heroism.

8. The Bridge (Bernhard Wicki, 1959)

Made a mere 14 years after the fall of the Third Reich, this is an unforgettably unflinching look at the brutal final days of the Wehrmacht and the Second World War in Europe. With the Allied forces steadily encroaching on a small Bavarian town, seven schoolboys – each just 16 years old – are conscripted into the German army and assigned the task of defending a bridge into the area. What subsequently unfolds amounts to one of the greatest films ever made about the tragically inevitable loss of innocence during wartime, and easily the boldest German film of the immediate post-war era.

7. Play Dirty (Andre De Toth, 1969)

This unfairly overlooked “Brits on a mission” romp plays out like a surprisingly sour and pessimistic flipside to the more bombastic, US-made likes of The Dirty Dozen and Kelly’s Heroes. Michael Caine – who always excels when playing slightly sinister characters – is on top form here as a cynical oil executive roped in to joining a dangerous mission to blow up a German fuel base during the British Army’s North African campaign of WWII. Play Dirty is an apt title indeed for a film which routinely depicts soldiers as being little more than terrorists and paid murderers, but while it is heavy on the anti-war rhetoric, it also delivers on the explosive, tension-packed set-pieces.

6. The Big Red One (Samuel Fuller, 1980)

Based on Fuller’s own war memoirs, the famously grizzled auteur had a remarkable war record which consisted of seeing action in North Africa and Sicily, before participating in both the D-day landings and the liberation of the concentration camps in Eastern Europe. A highly-decorated member of the US Army’s famous First Infantry Division (AKA the Big Red One), Fuller nevertheless reflects on his combat experiences with a mixture of anger and despair, peppered with the occasional burst of morbid humour. Lee Marvin stars as a war-weary Sergeant, unfortunate enough to be returning to the same battlefields he fought in during the First World War, while Robert Carradine plays his director’s onscreen alter-ego and poor old Mark Hamill gets to put in an impressive shift in at least one film that isn’t set in a galaxy far, far away.

5. Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)

We’re in the First World War now with a film about the court-martial and subsequent execution of three French soldiers charged with cowardice – this was so controversial it was actually banned in France until 1975. The greatest ever depiction of trench warfare, Stanley Kubrick’s typically breathtaking tracking shots bring the horrors of the frontline vividly to life. Kirk Douglas gives a career-best performance as the commanding officer who fights to save his charges, while Timothy Carey (surely the cult actor’s cult actor) is unforgettable as one of the doomed men.

4. Cross of Iron (Sam Peckinpah, 1977)

Not only is this notable as being the notoriously gun-crazy Sam Peckinpah’s sole war film, it is also unique for being that rare thing – an American film which deals with the Second World War from an exclusively German perspective. Two great James’ head an impressive cast – Coburn as a burnt out Corporal and Mason as a besieged Colonel trying to steer his company to safety, and ultimately coming up against a scheming Captain (played by rent-a-Nazi Maximilian Schell) whose desire to be awarded the famous Iron Cross could lead them all to certain death. Still a name commonly associated with gratuitous screen violence, Peckinpah makes no secret of how much he abhors the act of war here, and the end credit montage acts as a sobering testament to the futility of human conflict.

3. The Victors (Carl Foreman, 1963)

Released in the early 60s when triumphalism over the perceived Allied victory in WWII was still at a high-point, and revelatory documentaries like The World at War were a good few years away, The Victors was largely ignored on its release. This is hardly surprising as its downbeat tone still has the power to shock, especially as absolutely no punches are pulled when dealing with some of the more unsavoury activities Allied troops undertook during the war (viscous racism amongst US soldiers, brutal revenge killings enacted by the French, not to mention the general cruelty and exploitation inflicted upon “liberated” civilians by all). More a series of tenuously linked events used to depict the universal horrors of war than a conventional narrative film, the stand-out moment is a shocking scene in which a band of deserters are executed to the strains of ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’.

2. Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985)

Perhaps the most disturbing film on our list, and this should come as no surprise when you consider the subject matter - the Wehrmacht’s barbaric “scorched earth” campaign across Belarus, in which entire villages were burnt to the ground and the inhabitants massacred. These truly nightmarish events unfold through the eyes of a young peasant boy who joins up with the Soviet partisans to fight against the invading Nazi forces, but quickly loses his grasp on reality as a result of the sheer horror he is forced to confront. This is often referred to as the “Russian Apocalypse Now”, but Klimov’s film has a powerful and deeply unsettling style all of its own.

1. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)

Speaking of which, here is Francis Ford Coppola’s epic, horrific and psychedelic anti-war odyssey in all its sweaty, bewildering glory, sitting pretty at the top of our list. Seeing as the Vietnam War has always been controversial and is hard to paint as anything other than a catastrophic failure, the films made about that conflict belong to perhaps the most famous stable of anti-war films, and Apocalypse Now is the best of the bunch. The message contained at the dark heart of this film – that war can never truly be noble, and that it has the power to turn all those who partake in it to madness and savagery – could be applied to any conflict throughout human history, however - and probably a good few yet to come, sadly.

Hello everybody and welcome to The Audio Report! This is the place where you can check out what’s been tearing up my turntable or rather what I’ve been listening to when I’ve been walking down Tower Bridge Road during the past week or so. So, have I been sitting in the same room? Let’s find out!

David Cain & Ronald Duncan – March

Originally released in 1969 as a classroom education and improvised dance guide for children, David Cain and Ronald March’s The Seasons has finally been reissued on Trunk. With Radiophonic sounds and loops provided by Cain, along with the quite eerie poems and words recited by Duncan, this cult classic is an essential purchase for all you hauntology and BBC Radiophonic Workshop fans out there.

Egisto Macchi -  Camere Anecoiche

Round Table/Omni Recording Corporation have finally released the much-sought after Gemelli soundtrack, Il Futurbili, by Ennio Morricone’s most overlooked collaborator Egisto Macchi. Born in 1928, Macchi was involved in the astounding ‘Il Gruppo Di Improvvisazione’ with Morricone. He also composed scores for films such as LSD Inferno, Bandidos, The Assassination of Trotsky, as well as working on TV commercials with Mario Bava. This LP is a magnificent hybrid of avant-garde electronics and dark suspense-filled orchestral arrangements. Hurry, as only 500 copies have been pressed!

Julia Holter – In The Same Room

Nite Jewel member Julia Holter released one of last year’s most memorable records in the form of Tragedy, so it’s of little surprise that her 2012 follow-up, Ekstasis, is already shaping up to be one of the albums of the year. Inspired by mythology and that sort of thing, Holter manages to blend mad medieval vibez with some hallucinatory harmonies. Check out this Italians Do It Better-soundin’ harmonium ‘n’ whistle album track beauty below!

The Utopia Project – File #1

The Burrell Brothers are among my house music heroes. The inspiration behind the legendary New York house label, Nu Groove, Ronald and Rheji are responsible for some mighty classics from the early 90s NY House scene through their many production aliases; from N.Y. House ‘n Authority to Aphrodisiac, the brothers’ output is quite simply incredible. Veering from raw and rugged to deep and soulful, Nu Groove had its own distinct yet never predictable sound. Utopia Project’s File #1 is the most uplifting of the lot.

It seems that the whole 90s house revival thing is gathering a pace this year, with Defected releasing classic house works by the likes of Murk and MK. So it’s kinda not surprising that the wonderful Rush Hour have decided to mark nearly 25 years since the creation of Nu Groove by releasing a compilation chronicling the label’s golden period from 1988 to 1992. Make sure you grab your copy here.

Gloria Gaynor – I Kinda Like Me (Onur Engin Re-edit)

Here’s a not quite dance-around-your-handbags but more of a kick-your-handbags-gently-in–the-air track from the one and only Ms. Gloria Gaynor and I bet you’re surprised she did another song, let alone another female empowerment number!

Taken from her 1981 album of the same name, I Kinda Like Me is your standard early 80s disco track but this version is beefed up by Onur Engin, whose re-edit transforms the song into a stirring sophisticated dance number that would seriously burn up any sound system or dancefloor.

Andrzej Korzynski – The Man With The Pink Socks

I’m sure Alan won’t mind me saying that Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 film Possession is amongst Days Are Numbers’ favourite films, so imagine my excitement when I discovered that Finders Keepers were planning on releasing the long-lost and much-sought after soundtrack from Andrzej Korzynski! No exact release dates have been confirmed but keep your eyes peeled on this very site for some Possession type loveliness! Not literally of course, there wasn’t that much loveliness in the film….

Not all giallos (or if you prefer – gialli) necessarily have to come complete with a whopping great body count. In fact, there are a sizable handful of films that belong to the genre which spend considerably more time on the mystery than they do the murder…

Most of these more restrained giallos appeared in the late 60s, all but dying out after Dario Argento’s wildly popular The Bird with the Crystal Plumage came along in 1970 and cemented the genre’s bloody and manic, heavily set-piece reliant style. But for a while many giallos were content to focus on a small handful of characters (usually a trio), in an exotic, affluent “holiday” location with perhaps only one murder  occurring in the whole film – which would eventually be revealed to have been committed by the most obviously mysterious member of the group, anyway. Umberto Lenzi was the master of this early style, the best examples of which are perhaps his Orgasmo and Lucio Fulci’s Perversion Story.

That latter film stars Jean Sorel, who also plays the male lead in, erm, In the Eye of the Hurricane – which despite appearing the year after …Crystal Plumage, is very much cut from the same cloth as the aforementioned, low-key giallos of the decade before. Sorel (who appeared in so many gialli he could give George Hilton a run for his money as the male face of the genre) is Paul, a young and enigmatic ex-soldier who takes up with the vulnerable, yet exceedingly rich Ruth after she leaves her husband Michel. Soon Ruth begins to grow suspicious that there might be more to Paul than meets the eye, as first a mysterious red-headed lady turns up at their seaside villa and then Michel briskly re-enters their lives triggering a spate of near-fatal accidents to befall the new lovers - clearly some kind of plot is afoot, but who is behind it and who will be claimed as its victim?

Sadly director Jose Maria Forque is no Lenzi or Fulci (who, of course, both went on to turn in more raucous and gory giallos post-Argento), and the rather pedesterian In the Eye of the Hurricane will be of interest only to those looking for a taste of the genre in its early form. As a mystery it shows its hand remarkably and unsatisfactorily early on - I’m sure you can guess which of the characters is up to no good - and the whole shebang is alleviated only by the odd burst of the kind of endearingly kitsch-y, kinky drama that was another trait of these nascent giallos (and indeed, In the Eye of the Hurricane was known as Lusty Lovers in some territories). Forque would make another similar effort two year later in the shape of Tarot, which has an even duller plot than his previous film except with none of the cheery humour, although it is worth noting that it stars Lolita herself, Sue Lyon.

Whilst I do not condone people watching genre cinema as a purely “ironic” endeavour, there is a gloriously bonkers sequence from In the Eye of the Hurricane that I really must share with you, and luckily someone’s stuck it up on Youtube. Watch below as we begin with a pre-Spiderman “upside-down” kiss, before moving on to a pre-Austin Powers “objects conveniently obscuring nudity”-type sequence. As if that wasn’t mad enough, what happens next is certainly unprecedented in the history of cinema…

It’s that time again! Let us begin by sending out a big thank you to everyone who helped make the first Days Are Numbers Film Night such a stonking success. And to everyone who’s planning to turn up for round two, read on…

Italian neorealism, the French Nouvelle Vague and the New German Cinema (to name but three) may all be more routinely celebrated, but the postwar European film movement that is perhaps closest to my heart is the Czech New Wave (or Czechoslovak New Wave, to give it its full title). If there are any uninitiated out there who might expect the films of this movement to be drab, dogmatic and overtly social-realist (not unreasonably - Czechoslovakia was under communist rule at the time, after all), then allow me to put your mind at rest. The films of the Czechoslovak New Wave were easily among the most bizarre, imaginative and often gleefully absurd being made in Europe at the time (roughly 1962-1971) – with Juraj Herz’s pitch-black comedy/psychological horror film The Cremator being a case in point.

Celebrated Czech character actor Rudolf Hrusinsky gives an unforgettably skin-crawling performance as the superficially sober and moral, but secretly deranged, bureaucrat of the title, and to see him in action is worth the admission price alone*. As a cremator who seems to enjoy his work a little too much, he suddenly finds his services are very much in demand when the Nazi party begins to make inroads into middle class society in Munich Agreement-era Prague. The fact that his wife is Jewish – and therefore his children, too - may prove to be an obstacle to his social-climbing… But then again, he might be able to find some way around that.

The Cremator is quite simply the most convincing celluloid depiction of life in a Nazi-run society that I have ever seen, and it’s shockingly dead-eyed in its account of how a man would trade literally anything for the power that being a respected party member could bring him. That said, it is not a film which is purely concerned with recreating a moment in history, managing as it does to meld its dark drama to an artfully nightmarish mise-en-scene in a way that easily matches Roman Polanski at his best - even foreshadowing David Lynch’s work on Eraserhead in places. And believe it or not, The Cremator is also a very funny film in places, with a warring married couple regularly turning up to comment on various goings on like some kind of despairing Greek chorus – although what laughter you may derive from Herz’s remarkable film will inevitably be enjoyed in the dark.

*Of course there is no admission price at Days Are Numbers Film Night… It’s absolutely free!

Days Are Numbers are showing The Cremator at The Montpelier in Peckham at 8.30pm on Thursday the 29th of March. We hope to see you there, and until then here’s a trailer we made to whet your appetite…