Month: March 2017
WFC Guinea: Dakan
(March 31, 2017)I… was not prepared for this film! So many great and weird shots. Coupled with the sheer amateurishness of the acting, the lines and… well, everything, it’s just mind-bogglingly fun to watch. Part of the charm is host the aesthetics resemble 60s no-budget films coupled with a storyline about a gay relationship makes this seem … Continue reading WFC Guinea: Dakan
WFC Haiti: Meurtre à Pacot
(March 31, 2017)The DVD transfer is kinda odd and choppy. It’s like every seventh frame two frames have been dropped or something. As usual, Alex Descas is absolutely amazing in the lead role (as l’homme). The rest of the actors are variable, but fine. This film is about the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and … Continue reading WFC Haiti: Meurtre à Pacot
New Music
(March 29, 2017)Music I’ve bought and/or resampled this week.
BD80: Tendre Violette
(March 26, 2017)Tendre Violette by Servais & Dewamme (1981) Both Jean-Claude Servais (the artist) and Gérard Dewamme (the writer) are Belgian, which makes a first for this week’s little trip through Franco-Belgian comics, I think? All the other ones have been French. Very French. These stories were originally serialised in the Belgian (À suivre) magazine. I’m not … Continue reading BD80: Tendre Violette
WFC Fiji: Kya Dilli Kya Lahore
(March 26, 2017)It’s another one of those anti war satires! But this is rather amusing. I think, though, that it’s not a very Fijian film, so, er, foiled again. It’s rather incomprehensible. The lines are like “That’s why you also gave him two roses” which I take is referring to something, somewhere in the India/Pakistan war history, … Continue reading WFC Fiji: Kya Dilli Kya Lahore
Ipad, Screenshots and Linux
(March 25, 2017)It’s become increasingly clear over the past few months that many recent, fun-sounding films from countries with smaller film industries will never get a physical DVD release. The only way to see these films is via Amazon Prime, and since Amazon Prime isn’t conveniently available on Linux machines, I’m having to use an Ipad to … Continue reading Ipad, Screenshots and Linux
WFC North Korea: A State of Mind
(March 24, 2017)This isn’t really a North Korean film, because those don’t seem to exists outside of North Korea? But it’s a film about North Korea, so… This is a documentary about some gymnasts. And their parents and teachers and stuff. The filmmaker is sympathetic towards the people he portrays, I think, but the things these people … Continue reading WFC North Korea: A State of Mind
WFC Laos: ນ້ອງຮັກ
(March 24, 2017)This is my first attempt at watching a film via Amazon Prime. So many films these days never get a DVD release. Instead, the only way to watch these films seem to be via Amazon. You can’t even find them via dar torrentzes. In an additional twist, films are only licensed for US viewers, so … Continue reading WFC Laos: ນ້ອງຮັກ
BD80: Gotlib
(March 24, 2017)Rhââ Lovely 1 by Gotlib (1976) Gotlib was a prolific cartoonist, working from the mid-sixties until his recent death. He started out doing comics for the French Pilote magazine before co-founding two magazines, l’Echo des savanes and Fluide Glacial. Out of his dozens of albums, c. nothing has been translated to other languages. Runepress made … Continue reading BD80: Gotlib
BD80: Le génie des Alpages
(March 23, 2017)Le génie des Alpages by F’Murr (1976) Comme des bêtes by F’Murr (1977) Le génie des Alpages is a series started by F’Murr(r) in 1973. It was originally serialised in the French Pilote magazine and then collected in albums from 1976 on. The Norwegian editions I have seem to (unusually enough) to track the French … Continue reading BD80: Le génie des Alpages
BD80: Caza
(March 22, 2017)Scènes de la vie de banlieue by Caza (1979) Caza is a prolific French artist (real name Philippe Cazaumayou) who has been doing comics since the early 70s (and continues to publish to this day). However, very little has been translated into any language I can read. (Except various stuff in various issues of Heavy … Continue reading BD80: Caza
New Music
(March 22, 2017)Music I’ve bought and/or resampled this week.
BD80: Rebecca
(March 21, 2017)Rebecca by Brandoli & Queirolo (1985) Neither Anna Brandoli (artist) nor Renato Queirolo (writer) are prolific comics makers. Together, they’ve published five albums, and Brandoli has made one additional book without Queirolo. Rebecca remains their most well-known work. Rebecca began publication in the Italian monthly magazine linus (all in lower case, for some reason) in … Continue reading BD80: Rebecca
BD80: Simon du Fleuve
(March 20, 2017)The first batch of French(ish) comics I wrote a bit about a year and a half ago were mostly all comics that I had read many, many times as a teenager. This time out, I remember even less about these comics than I did the last time. First we have Simon du Fleuve (which means … Continue reading BD80: Simon du Fleuve
BD80 Reloaded
(March 20, 2017)Almost two years ago, I did a small series of posts on a bunch of Franco/Belgian comics. The urge to write about another small stack of them hit me all of a sudden, so: As with the previous series, I’ll be covering works that aren’t well-known these days. There’s not that much point in writing … Continue reading BD80 Reloaded
WFC Pakistan: دختر
(March 18, 2017)Hey! Clever film-making. I thought this film was totally going one way, but then it swerved a completely different way. Me like. It’s very exciting (in parts), has great cinematography (although the scenery is sometimes so pretty you might suspect it’s been sponsored by The Tourist Council of Northern Pakistan) and the actors are somewhere … Continue reading WFC Pakistan: دختر
WFC Dominican Republic: Guaguasi
(March 18, 2017)It turns out that Batista’s police weren’t very nice. This film has its charms, but it’s really oddly paced. It’s a satirical look at the Cuban revolution with an, er, simple? (OK, developmentally challenged) “hick” at the center of the story. Horror ensues. It’s a comedy of the “scathing satire” kind, which means that there … Continue reading WFC Dominican Republic: Guaguasi
WFC Kyrgyzstan: Beshkempir
(March 17, 2017)Quite Felliniesque. Man, the director put his young actors through a lot of really embarrasing scenes. And they do them very convincingly. For the most part. Sometimes when they have to emote too much it breaks down. I love the quiet scenes where the grandmothers are just working at some task or other, like spinning … Continue reading WFC Kyrgyzstan: Beshkempir
WFC Cuba: ¡Vampiros en La Habana!
(March 17, 2017)Some jokes I just didn’t get. Other jokes are easier. Until… Well, it’s like nothing else I’ve ever seen (vampires and mobsters and revolutionaries and oh my), and the madcap pace it’s going at is charming. But it didn’t make me laugh. It’s amusing. Vampires in Havana. Juan Padrón. 1985. Cuba. Cuban Old Fashioned sugar … Continue reading WFC Cuba: ¡Vampiros en La Habana!
New Music
(March 15, 2017)Music I’ve bought and/or resampled this week.
My New Concert Blog vs Useful Consumer Review
(March 14, 2017)I’ve been using a Panasonic GH4 camera for a couple of years to do concerts. It’s a very nice camera, but it has a few problems. 1) When recording video, it splits the video into 4GB chunks that I then have to piece together. It’s not a biggie, but it’s annoying. 2) More seriously, the … Continue reading My New Concert Blog vs Useful Consumer Review
Hard Boiled Monster Comics
(March 12, 2017)When I started the Fantagraphics re-reading project, I wasn’t really aware of the Monster and Hard-Boiled imprints. So when I bought a bunch of these comics and had a peek at them, I quickly decided to limit the project to “main-line Fantagraphics” only. It was spiralling out of control, anyway, so any way of limiting … Continue reading Hard Boiled Monster Comics
Groovy
(March 12, 2017)I’m resampling a lot of vinyl these days (because I got a spiffy record player and the earliest albums I sampled back in the 90s I only have in mp3 (and crappy mp3 at that), and I have to have everything in flac). You know. It makes sense. So the other day I was sampling … Continue reading Groovy
Twitter Translates
(March 12, 2017)I just noticed that Twitter helpfully offers to translate twitterers: Well, that’s reasonable… That’s… a guess, I guess? !?!?!1? To conclude: The AI revolution isn’t going to happen any time soon.
WFC Honduras: The Zwickys
(March 11, 2017)Some of the actors here are quite good, but the film doesn’t quite gel. And the hand-held camera is a bit on the annoying side. It’s an odd plot, and it grows weirder as the film progresses. But not in a good way. The Zwickys. Andres Valle, Carlos Valle. 2014. Honduras. Monkey La La 1 … Continue reading WFC Honduras: The Zwickys
WFC Liechtenstein: Der heiße Tod
(March 11, 2017)While researching films from Liechtenstein, I was intrigued by the extreme number of porn-sounding late sixties/early seventies films marked as being “from” Liechtenstein. I have no idea what’s that’s all about: Did Liechtenstein have looser porn laws back then? So I picked this one because it had a pretty high rating (4.8, ahem) among this … Continue reading WFC Liechtenstein: Der heiße Tod
House of Women
(March 8, 2017)After being exhausted by the Fantagraphics marathon I’ve somewhat avoided comics, but all exhaustion must come to an end, so I bought House of Women by Sophie Goldstein. I don’t really want to review it (it’s a sci-fi gothic horror story, I guess), because I don’t really have much to say other than “I liked … Continue reading House of Women
One Thing Leads To Another
(March 8, 2017)In the previous installment, I got a new monitor for my stereo computer. I thought everything was fine, but then I started noticing stuttering on flac playback. After some investigation, it seems as if X is on (and displaying stuff on this new, bigger monitor), and there’s network traffic, then the flac123 process is starved … Continue reading One Thing Leads To Another
New Music
(March 8, 2017)Music I’ve bought and/or resampled this week.
Mystery Object
(March 3, 2017)I’ve been a bit under the weather the past few days, but today I finally made my way to the post office and collected various packages. Among these was a package from a store I had ordered a bunch of LED lighting strips for the kitchen. Included was this pink mystery USB object, not mentioned … Continue reading Mystery Object
New Music
(March 1, 2017)Music I’ve bought and/or resampled this week.