Goblin - Tenebre OST (1982)

Though often credited as a Goblin record, Tenebre is really a soundtrack composed by three former members of the Italian, prog-synth, rock freak out act. Once again working with Italian master Dario Argento, Simonetti, Pignatelli and Morante crafted a sturdy mix between the well known Goblin keyboard heavy sound and something approaching the more standard guitar based work that was popular at the time ( in all honesty the track "Lesbo" could have been omitted, it sounds like the theme tune to a dreadful beach set surf cop film/TV series). The film itself is one of Argento's most under rated efforts. As much as Suspiria and Profondo Rosso are well crafted classics, Tenebre holds a certain charm and nastiness about it. Goblin's iconic title track has one of the catchiest refrains going, I dare you not to be humming it after only a few listens. French dance gang Justice covered/sampled/homaged it on the track Phantom, off the "cross" album.

Goblin - Tenebre OST

Barry De Vorzon - The Warriors OST

Perfect Friday night music from a perfect Friday night movie. Walter Hill's 1979 classic The Warriors, as well as being all sorts of cool features a pretty sweet soundtrack by Barry De Vorzon (also responsible for the awesome soundtrack to lost 70's TV show S.W.A.T.) utilizing masses of synths coupled to a rock framework, chuck in a few original numbers and a little ditty co-written with Joe Walsh and here you have it.  I shouldn't have to fill you in on the plot at all but to summarise, it borrows its premise from Anabasis ( fuck you 300 ) by Greek soldier, mercenary, theorist and writer Xenophon. A truce is called amongst the gangs of New York, during the truce the main honcho, Cyrus is shot and The Warriors of the title are framed for the killing. The film follows the journey to evade cops and other gangs to reach their own turf in Coney Island. 

You should already know this film so lets look at the musical score. De Vorzon really hit the nail on the head with this one, managing to capture the city-at-night vibe as well as the tension and energy, its a constant chase film. Scene after scene of guys in vests running away from other guys in vests. The main title track is a good high energy number and a reprise of it is used for the coolest looking gang in the movie, the Baseball Furies, when they first make an appearance.

Don't mess.

The other main number from this was co-written by that dude from The Eagles, Joe Walsh and sounds pretty much like his day job. De Vorzon had collaborated with Walsh before hand on numerous occasions and when the film called for a closing number, "In The City" was written.

But enough of me warbling, here is the soundtrack. You should already know the film.

Barry De Vorzon - The Warriors OST

- I would also recommend the game. If you can't get enough of the film or just want to kick the shit out of people, steal car stereos and throw rubbish bins through shop windows its pretty much a must.

- Orson Welles was originally meant to provide a voice over for the film. They had planned on integrating excerpts from Anabasis read out by Welles. It never happened.

- The film was in post production at the same time as the vastly inferior The Wanderers. The Warriors beat it to the post, thank god.

Despite being a pretty full on sausage party there is the scummy but attractive, bra-less Mercy. 

Streets Of Fire - OST (1984)

Primarily made as a way for Walter Hill to combine, in his own words " everything I thought was cool when I was a kid" into one film. Which means you get lots of rain, neon, 50's greaser gangs, cool cars, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets, guns, fire, explosions and hot 80's women ( Diane Lane back then, come on!). He then managed to combine these with such cool things as Lee Ving punching out Rick Moranis, Diane Lane doing a pretty good lip syncing job, Micheal Pare over doing his tough hero act while still kicking lots of ass in his high waisted slacks, more ass kicking from a grubby, pseudo lesbian mechanic, William Dafoe in some PVC waders and a pretty sweet, pumping 80's sound track. With all these elements how could it possibly fail? Well it did, and turned out to be Walter Hill's biggest commercial failure. Despite being the main inspiration for Capcom's greatest future arcade achievement, Final Fight and being a true classic of cheesy 80's cinema. There really is no justice in the world.
The music was originally meant to involve Bruce Springsteen's song of the same title as the film, but on learning that it would be recorded with a different vocalist so Diane Lane could lip sync to it, he decided to pull out of the deal. Which left them with Ry Cooder, Jim Steinman, The Blasters (awesome) and Face To Face ( who also played the backing band The Attackers and also recorded the best song on here "Nowhere Fast") to fill out the soundtrack. Which they all do pretty well. its a solid effort from everyone. With the exception of "Nowhere Fast" and "Tonight Is What it Means To Be Young" most of the rest of this soundtrack has sunk into obscurity, which is a real shame as it contains some really good stuff. The doo wop tracks are good and both contributions by The Blasters are worth investigating.
Anyhow, here it is........................

Streets Of Fire - OST

Leslie Nielsen 1926 - 2010 RIP

Surely you can't be serious? Police Squad, Naked Gun, Repossessed. The master of deadpan passed away yesterday. Provider of many laughs and certainly one of the key influences on my sense of humour. Rest in peace.

Busey week.

Yes, the living legend himself, Gary Busey. This week involves re watching most of the Busey in my collection and reacquainting myself with his deranged genius. In the firing line are.......

Act Of Piracy

Bulletproof

Plato's Run

Hider In The House

My weekend is this..........

Gary Busey on the lam.

God bless Gary Busey and god bless Cex and its 40p DVD trade. Where else would you find a film of this calibre for that price.

Hired to Kill (1990)

Brian Thompson and Oliver Reed snogging! 7 female prisoners as fashion models! Awesome/terrible dialogue! A hugely anti climatic final battle! Thats why Hired To Kill is so awesomely shit and why I only paid 40p for it.

McBain (1991)

Why had I never heard of this film until the other day. Strolling through Morrison's it was sat there winking at me from the £1 DVD bucket ( alongside Swamp Thing). It could not be ignored. Especially seeing as it was directed and produced by James Glickenhaus, who was also responsible for Turner household classics like The Exterminator and Maniac Cop.
Christopher Walken has always been a favourite actor of mine. Despite the amount of shit films he puts his name to he still gives raises them up a notch in my opinion. Here he plays Bobby McBain who after being rescued from a Thunderdome style POW camp in Vietnam at the end of the war, splits a $100 bill with his Rescuer, Santos. If he ever receives the other half then he must repay his debt. Fast forward 18 years and Santos is leading a revolution against the Colombian President ( Victor Argo, great actor but pretty much sleep walks through this role). Who is a bad man. We know this by the level of armed security he has and the fact he orders prostitutes to the palace. Santos is publicly executed in a failed attack on the palace. Santos's sister, played by Maria Conchito Alonso ( the lass from Predator 2) goes to the top of a bridge in New York and calls in Walken's debt to Santos.
After assembling his old unit they set out gaining the funds to start the middle aged war against Victor. This means shaking down drug dealers and pretending to be Mossad whilst claiming responsibility for the Munich bombings. Once set up they fly off to Columbia and begin a pretty quick assault on a drug factory and then the Presidential palace. It all works out pretty much how you would expect it to. What makes the film that slightly bit more special than other low rent actioners is the obvious inconsistencies and silly events that take place. For example, a breach of Colombian airspace is resolved by McBain taking down a fighter jet with his pistol that he shoots through two separate windscreens at air speeds......



Its superbly silly stuff. neither windscreen is broken or anything. only Walken could do that. That pretty much kicks off many glaringly obvious but incredibly over the top moments. Being the military trained professionals they can stand in the middle of a huge firefight and let of sparse but accurate shots without being hit themselves. The youngest member of the team sacrifices his life so the revolution can continue after a failed bombing. The bad guys can of course never hit anything with there terrible aim and huge arsenal while the good guys tiny sub machine guns hit everything they shoot at.
This was blatantly obvious to the cast and film makers I can imagine, and they make the most of it with enthusiasm. Walken's team ( who feature Micheal Ironside with "real" ponytail and Windows from The Thing) cover the usual characters found in a military squad. All haunted by the past but can kill anyone in a instant.
I even think Walken knew how much of a silly adventure this was going to be but turns a limp script that bit better with his usual skill. He also sports the classic Walken fro. Which is worth the pound in my eyes. McBain is a fun enough action B-movie. not as good as Walken's similar film The Dogs Of War but neither is it trying to be. A quid well spent.



Yeah!

Recent viewings

Well had quite a bit to watch these past few weeks. Continuing my disintegrating bank account mission on great/shit films has led me to acquire the following...

Crocodile (2000)
Tobe Hooper's worst film ( I have seen at least). I am a sucker for giant monster/creature films so on a Poundland shopping spree it popped up on my radar. Usual teen slaughter fare. Incredibly annoying, intensely dis likable spring breakers get munched by a giant Egyptian croc. Pretty funny in places. mostly for the fact the animatronic crocodile is so much better than the naff Ocean PC game style CGI. No where near as good as Alligator (1980).



Cat In The Brain (1990)
Budget Luci Fulci "giallo". Cobbling together footage from his previous films to tell a film-within-a-film style story. Fulci plays himself as he begins to see scenes from his own movies played out in real life. Chuck in a psychiatrist and plenty of boobs and you have it. Not one of Fulci's best by any stretch but pretty enjoyable for many amusing death scenes involving chainsaws, wheelchairs, hooks, knives and plenty of other nasty things.

3D cover woo.

Loose Cannons (1990)
Buddy cop movie with Gene Hackman and Dan Akroyd. Completely silly and ridiculous, mindless fun. There is a plot about Nazi's and stolen film but the main attraction is Akroyd's schizophrenic detective putting on different characters and persona's. Hackman is pretty good in this but he does seem to be running on auto pilot for most of it. It does have Dom Delouise in as well. Which reminded me that there is a hilarious clip from SNL where Chris Farley plays Dom and the sadly missed Phil Hartman plays Burt Reynolds. Its pretty sweet. I can't find a trailer for this film but there is a song of the soundtrack performed by Katey Segal and Dan Akroyd himself.



Inglorious Bastards (1978)
The original "macaroni" war movie version. Tarantino loved this film so much he borrowed the title for his own and gave cameos to quite a few of the cast. Sort of like the Dirty Dozen but slightly dirtier. A bunch of American soldiers under court marshal manage to escape during a attack and make for the Swiss border. Along the way they heavy handily deal with racism, first love and loyalty and get caught up in a mission to scupper some Nazi rocket. Enzo Castellari believes this was one of his best films and I would probably agree with that. Solid, WWII action fodder. Plus its got Fred Williamson in it which makes any film that slight bit cooler.

Strange Bedfellows (2004)
Another Poundland buy. 100p got me a film where Paul Hogan pretends to be gay to get tax benefits. I would say that's a pretty sweet deal. The actual plot and story was ripped off whole sale by Universal for I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry (2007). Funnily enough this film was released in Europe as I Now Pronounce You Ralph And Vince. There is some sort of legal dispute going on about all of this. I would say this is the better film. Genuinely sweet and harmless fun if not a little heavy handed in its portrayal of gay culture. But its Paul Hogan pretending to be gay! So that is worthy of a pound.

The Fist Foot Way (2008)
The first film to really show off Danny Mcbride's acting talents. Tells the tale of a black belt Taekwondo instructor as his life falls apart. Its one of those films alongside Baseketball that is best watched late at night with your friends and some drinks. Features so many quotable lines that have now passed into use amongst people I know and has one of the best characters in Mike McAlister ( Jody Hill) as a intense martial artist. Will Ferrel liked it so much he released it through his own Production Company. So there.

Other than that everything else is still pretty crap. Thank god for Sabbath and The Dillinger Escape Plans cover of "Paranoid". Originally recorded for some Earache/Sabbath comp. I don't think it ever got released. it features the original DEP line-up and a swing break in the middle. Classy stuff.

The Dillinger Escape Plan - Paranoid

Now get out my house.

A Sad Song

From The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966). The scene where Tuco and Blondie are hiding amongst the POW in the Union camp. Lee Van Cleef is kicking the shit out of Tuco and a band of prisoners play this outside to drown the sound of his screams. Simply put, its one of the most achingly beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard.



Allegedly, Mickey Knox, the man responsible for making sure the English translation synched with the Italian actors mouths struggled for days to find the words to fit when the soldier tells them to play louder. He needed two words to fit. He came up with "more feeling" as the young prisoner starts crying.

What I watched this week....

Uhf.....



It made me realise the genius, physical comedy talent of Michael Richards and shed a little man tear for Trinidad Silva. God rest his soul.

What I watched this week

80's animated boobananza Heavy Metal.