7 Days of Badalamenti: Day 5: Blue Velvet

 

The first non-Twin Peaks David Lynch film I watched, way back when Twin Peaks the original series had only recently ended and sent me into an obsessive flurry for more of his work, was 1986's Pacific Northwest Small Town Noir Blue Velvet. I wasn't sure what I was in for, but Angelo Badalamenti's grand opening credits theme immediately told me it would be more greatness. 

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Watch:

Last week, I watched Travis Stevens' new film A Wounded Fawn. Then I watched it again. Then I watched it again.

 

I am nothing shy of completely blown away. Everything about this one is fantastic; sure, there will be cries of "elevated horror" but f*ck that; if you read these pages you know I like my Bill Lustig as much as I do my A24. There is such a staunch tone to this film, from Ksusha Genenfeld's camera work to VAAAL's enigmatic but resonating score, that A Wounded Fawn instantly became my favorite of Travis Steven's films - no easy task considering how much I dug last year's Jakob's Wife. 

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Playlist:

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Zombi - Shape Shift

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Metallica - Lux Æterna (pre-release single)

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

In Slaughter Natives - Plague Walk My Earth (single)

In Slaughter Natives - Ventre

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (digipak)

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Pretty blunt - transformation through the sacrifice of earthly matters; in other words, a direct answer to an anxiety loop open in my mind: Knuckle the f*ck down and pay off the credit card before the no-interest period expires early next year.

7 Days of Badalamenti - Day 4: Meatloaf Mambo!

 

From Bob Balaban's 1989 surrealistic WTF Horror/Comedy Parents. Badalamenti is not the main composer on this one; that's Jonathan Elias. However, he does contribute two stunning tracks that totally help make the aural signature of the film.

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Watch:

Two nights ago I watched Eric Pennycoff's new film The Leech on Arrow Video's streaming service. This immediately jumped into my top ten films of the year. Not in my top ten Horror films, because The Leech isn't really a Horror movie, despite containing definite elements of the genre. 

Graham Skipper, Jeremy Gardner and Taylor Zaudtke Gardner all turn in outstanding performances in what I was happy to discover is a completely batshit crazy film about religion and the secrets its practice sometimes hides for people. I loved everything about this one and can't recommend it enough.

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Playlist:

Angelo Badalamenti - Dark Water OST

Public Memory - Veil of Counsel

James Luckett - May OST

Lustmord - Dark Matter

White Lung - Premonition

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

In order to attain emotional the fulfillment I seek, I have to put in the work and be prepared to undergo a transformation. This is pretty vague, or at least my reading it. As usual when I garner a head-scratcher, I chalk it up as something to watch for in my interactions throughout the day.

7 Days of Badalamenti - Day 3: Booth and the Bad Angel

 

From Booth and the Bad Angel, 1996's collaboration with James lead singer Tim Booth. The entire record is fantastic - this is one I ordered around the time it came out and didn't quite 'get' for a few years. But I was a Badalamenti completist, or at least as a pre-internet kid with limited funds could be at the time. I chose this particular track because, although I've never actually been able to confirm it, I believe it is the only song on the album that Badalamnenti contributes vocals to. 

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Watch:

Upcoming Horror flick Thorns looks like it's either going to be a fantastic Hellraiser-in-space riff on Event Horizon or a clumsy mess. 

Kinda difficult to tell from the trailer, right? I mean, there's plenty that looks cool from a distance, obscured by the quick cuts of the trailer's edit, but will those effects look cheesy in a more sustained experience? Only time will tell. I can say that I'm in need of an Event Horizon viewing. It's been over a decade, largely because the last time I watched the film, I found it to be a bit underwhelming when compared to the revelatory first viewing I had, many moons ago. Some films just live better in our memories.

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Read:

After finishing Night of the Demon last week, I dialed it back to a previous intention and began re-reading Irvine Welsh's The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. I haven't read this since it first came out in 2006, within a few months of my moving to L.A. I remember finishing it the night before getting on a plane to fly back to Chicago for a visit. 

A strange novel that has Welsh's unique flourish that makes his take on anything supernatural not only realistic but unique beyond anything I've seen in any other authors' work. Now that I think about it, I suppose the same way Spanish Authors tend to have a certain recognizable tone for works of Magical Realism - informed by location, religion, cultural distinctions and peccadilloes, the same would hold true for Scottish Authors. The idea that Welsh's work tips at times into its own version of Magical Realism actually makes a lot of sense. Either way, this is a weird one, mixing Welsh 

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Playlist:

SQÜRL and Jozef Van Wissem - Only Lovers Left Alive OST (Detroit Side)

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Public Memory - Veil of Counsel

VAAAL - A Wounded Fawn OST

Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks Season One OST

Angelo Badalamenti and Tim Booth - Booth and the Bad Angel

Deafheaven - Infinite Granite

Godflesh - Messiah

Ifernach - Capitulation of All Life

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Mixing in some of the dark thoughts I shy away from may help to fully realize an intellectual conundrum that has been causing me great pain. ie the unfinished short story I've been writing and re-writing off and on for going on four years. 

7 Days of Badalamenti: Day 2 - Who Will Take My Dreams Away

 

For Day Two, I wanted to go with my favorite track from The City of Lost Children OST that Badalamenti did for Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's hauntingly GORGEOUS film from 1995. 

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Watch:

A few months back, I read some advance praise for Writer/Director Paul Owens' first feature film, Landlocked. Finally, a trailer has landed:

Owens apparently built this narrative around old home movies, a fantastic idea that, in the wrong hands, would no doubt go horribly wrong. If this trailer and Fango's praise are any indications, here the execution meets the concept.

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Playlist:

Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me

Colors of the Dark Podcast Episode 49

Zeal and Ardor - Firewake (single)

Carpenter Brut - Leather Terror

The Mysterines - Reeling

H6LLB6ND6R - Side A

Beach House - Once Twice Melody

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Hot take on all these Cups? Don't let my emotions get the better of me. 

7 Days of Angelo Badalamenti Starts Now!

 

Well, it goes without saying that I'm doing a "Seven Days of Angelo Badalamenti" in honor of his passing. Let's start here, a video my good friend Jacob sent me yesterday to mark the man's exit through the big, red curtains. 

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NCBD:

What an irregularly slow NCBD. If I hadn't picked up some new titles, I'd be spending almost no $$$ this week. Can't have that, apparently...

I was hesitant going into Dark Web, but this Zeb Wells Event is so dripping with original Inferno vibes that I can't help but love it. 

Yeah, like I said above. I love it so much, double-dosing this week.

And, speaking of Events (fuck!), all this pre-emptive conjecture for the upcoming Sins of Sinister has me so fascinated with the idea that there are numerous Sinister clones running around the Marvel Universe that I'm now fascinated by this Mother Righteous characters and reading Legion of X. Damn again!

Ah! I can't love this horror show more. 

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Watch:

Speaking of Twin Peaks, Butcher from the Horror Vision has mentioned Steven C. Miller's The Aggression Scale several times, but this past weekend, as we recorded The Horror Vision episode on Joe Begos' Christmas Bloody Christmas, I finally cued the film up and when I saw the cast not only included three Twin Peaks Alumni - Ray Wise, Dana Ashbrook, and Derek Mears, but Jacob "Solomon" Reynolds from Harmony Korine's Gummo, well, there was no way I wasn't watching it right away. 

I was not disappointed.

This movie is brutal in the most enjoyable way because it's the bad guys that get f*cked up the most, and it's fun watching it. 

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Playlist:

Zeal & Ardor - Eponymous

Knorkator - Widerstand ist zwecklos

Ifernach - Capitulation of All Life

Lustmord - Dark Matter

Deth Crux - Bloody Christmas

Greg Puciato - Mirrorcell

The Notorious B.I.G. - Ten Crack Commandments (single)

††† - PERMANENT.RADIANT EP

SQÜRL and Jozef Van Wissem - Only Lovers Left Alive OST

Pop Will Eat Itself - Cure for Sanity

Neurosis - Given to the Rising

Isis - Panopticon

Made Out of Babies - The Ruiner

Rein - Reincarnated

Battle Tapes - Sweatshop Boys EP

Battle Tapes - In Too Deep EP

Battle Tapes - Polygon

Final Light - Eponymous

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Collaboration has been coming up a lot, so I need to re-focus on something I've been struggling to maintain. A big writing project that I make headway in and then have to set aside to tool around with short stories I am submitting to various publication markets. The trick here is to make more time and use it wisely, something I'm not always good at doing.

RIP Angelo Badalamenti

 

††† - Sensation

 

Really digging this new ††† PERMANENT.RADIANT EP, especially of late, opening track Sensation. The chorus has an epic slamming that kind of marries a slow, sensual plod ala When the Levee Breaks (not quite, but ballpark) to what sounds like the fanfare of some futuristic stadium rock. Add onto that all the swirling keys, guitars, and some cool vox FX on Chino, and you get a fantastic album-opener and lead-in to that brilliant first single, Vivien. 

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Watch:

Since it was only in the theatres for about a week, we missed David O. Russell's Amsterdam on the big screen but finally caught it on HBO Max last night.

 

This is the film that failed so hard at the box office - undeservedly so, in my opinion - that I've heard titterings about it being the death knell for anything that could be called an "adult drama" rolling out big and wide at theatres. If that's true, it sucks. I'll be sure to be more diligent about getting out to see those films on their first weekend because that might be all we get while Marvel and their clones - some of which I also am a fan of - further strengthen their stranglehold on every big screen in the major movie houses.

I think back to Autumn/Winter 2007. I'd been in L.A. a little over a year, and the Regal Cinema at the Rolling Hills Terrace on Deep Valley Drive was my perpetual weekend spot, primarily because they had a killer Soundsystem and were not afraid to turn it LOUD. That year, I saw so many great films - none of which were, if I remember correctly - genre. No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, and Charlie Wilson's War, spring immediately to mind. I can't help wondering if we'll ever see a roll-out of non-franchise films like that again. 2019 was a brief return to form; however, the pandemic may have been the real death knell for non-event films, the kind where two adults go to see a film unattached to properties or characters they are familiar with. And there's nothing wrong with big-budget, superhero blockbusters - I just hope that's not all there is to choose from on the big screen. Because I love seeing quiet, contemplative films like The Banshees of Inisherin at the theatre as much as I do whatever the next Avengers or whatever.

But I totally side-stepped my own set-up with my maudlin reverie. How was Amsterdam? Pretty damn good. I'll specifically say that Christian Bale is fantastic, as are all the performances. The script is a bit overly ambitious and the plot suffers from that, so there were moments where I was a little annoyed at what began to feel unmanageably dense, but those performances really anchored the film for me. 

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Playlist:

Metallica - Kill 'Em All

Metallica - Hardwired... To Self-Destruct

Zeal and Ardor - Firewake (single)

Zeal and Ardor - Eponymous

Lustmord - Dark Matter

SQÜRL and Jozef Van Wissem - Only Lovers Left Alive OST

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

It will require an effort of Will to make the breakthrough that will move me into the next phase of a project.