Five years in the Black Hole - despite the chaos

Good grief, forgot my own birthday!

It's now been five years since this blog began in September 2005.

But for the last six months it's been tough to keep the momentum going, as I've been cut off from my library of films, reference books and mags. There's also been some serious internet-deprivation, and a double number of cats walking over the keyboard, all of which has cut my output down to one article a week. I've worked hard to keep that as a minimum. It's always amusing when people assume that this site has a team of reviewers.

Thankfully I'm still getting the same number of visitors and have enjoyed talking to you via comments and Twitter. The facility to 'Follow' other blogs has been a huge help in keeping up with my favourite movie blogs out there. I always try not to write about the same films as everyone else, to try and provide different ideas for older movies to catch.

While Twitter is overwhelmingly preoccupied with new movies and what's in the pipeline, it's still good for signalling when new articles are posted on sites devoted to classic movies, cult and horror. It also brings good news about new DVD releases of cult classics. Though I get the feeling that many more people read my Tweets than my blog.


This last year, I've intensified the work on the Ultimate Guide to Barbarella (1968), and collected it all on a separate site for easy reference. The name was, ahem, chosen to be Google-friendly... Barbarella's Shagpile Cockpit.

When I get my life back soon, (after the builders allow us to finally move back in), I'm hoping to streamline the archive of past reviews, keeping the present categories but emphasising the films I recommend. I like to review Asian horror whether they're good or bad because English reviews are hard to find. But for everything else, I'd like to highlight only the good stuff I've seen, and tweak this site to become more useful as a place where you can come for ideas of what to watch - as a quick guide or a leisurely browse.

Of course, I won't be abandoning my trawl through the archives for my favourite films that aren't on DVD. While they can't be easily seen, I don't want them to get left behind in the global digital overhaul.

Thank you all for reading,

Mark Hodgson,
London,

Black Hole.

Happy Birthday, Gerry Anderson - thank you for the rock snakes

My first memory of going to the cinema was of being frightened by a Martian rock snake (above). My mum had taken me to see a movie that span off one of my favourite TV shows, Thunderbirds. Thunderbirds Are Go is still in my top ten, and after all this time never fails to entertain me from start to finish. During the Zero X expedition to Mars, man encounters a strange new alien lifeform that haunted my nightmares for years.

While Thunderbirds has always been derided for being entirely cast with puppet characters, and sent up recently with Team America: World Police, I've always taken it at face value, immersed in the stories. The modelwork and special effects were unprecedented for any TV show, even adult ones, for years to come. For a children's show, it didn't get any better for adventure, action and entertainment.


Thunderbirds is the pinnacle of Gerry Anderson's 'puppet years', inspiring me to watch everything he has ever produced. I have boxes of his shows, most of which are from the 1960's and 1970's. Fireball XL5, Stingray, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, UFO and Space 1999 are the best, but all his series have endured repeated TV showings and every subsequent home video format.

Despite moving into live-action TV back in 1969, Gerry has remained firmly associated with his puppet shows. He recently leapt into the CGI world with a reinvention of the Captain Scarlet series, using motion-captured 3D computer-generated characters for a terribly overlooked and gritty series.


I could talk about his work for hours, though these pages are fairly unaffected so far. I'm not alone though - there's these new books coming out for instance. Filmed In Supermarionation goes behind the scenes on the extensive special effects work involved in the shows, and two volumes of Century 21 reprints some of the beautiful comic strips that appeared in the tabloid-sized comic TV21. Also, Gerry's shows are being remastered for HD presentation. Fanderson, the fan club, is still thriving, and new merchandise still keeps coming out for shows that are over forty years old (besides endless Japanese Thunderbirds replicas, there's also a new Stingray CD soundtrack just out).


But, for providing me with so many thrilling memories, I can only say thank you, and...

Happy 80th birthday, Gerry. Wishing you many more.

Happy Birthday, Janette Scott

Wishing you a happy 70th birthday!

If you ever see a DVD or VHS of the movie The Day of the Triffids (1962), it's Ms Scott on the cover.


This year, she returned to the big screen after forty years absence, appearing with Simon Pegg in How To Lose Friends & Alienate People. I've not seen it yet, and therefore still think of her looking like her 1960's persona, when she was often a damsel in distress.


She was a good screamer, perfect for the Hammer films Paranoiac and The Old Dark House, and disaster movies like Crack In The World. Maybe she's still got another Hammer film or two to stick on her resume in the near future? Or maybe even a cameo in the forthcoming 2009 BBC TV series, when they produce another version of The Day of the Triffids.

KEN RUSSELL - 80 years of rude health

This week, on July 4th, Ken Russell turns 80. Bloody hell! Thankfully, the British Film Institute is marking the occasion with a season of his early work made for the BBC, before he charged into the world of profane feature films.

Of course, I would rather his movies got a screening as well, for they are among the most eccentric and outrageous ever made in this country. He had a unique way of celebrating the traditional arts in a whole new way. Even his approach to more mainstream studio pictures is cheeky and invigorating.



Growing up with Ken Russell

For years, his erotic, raucous, outrageous films could be regularly seen on late night BBC TV, when I was an impressionable schoolboy. The rather stuffy subjects of classical composers, like Mahler, and adaptions of Thomas Hardy novels, didn't appeal at all to me. But my mother clued me in that I might like them, and I quickly learned that anything directed by Russell wouldn't be dull. It could even evade most of the TV censors because of the arty subject matter. Cue full-frontal nudity, swearing and bawdy blasphemy…

Directing with flair, was his treatment of Gustav Mahler's conversion to Catholicism from the Jewish faith (in order to marry), treated like a silent comedy, as controversial and irreverent as a South Park episode, with a busty Nazi stormtrooper supervising Mahler as he first eats pork and tries out a life-size crucifix.

Another one I grew up with was Billion Dollar Brain, Russell's first major movie, mixing a 'new wave' directing style, James Bond shenanigans and classical music. Michael Caine's defining role as downtrodden spy Harry Palmer was almost lost in the midst of a beautifully photographed, epic ‘pop art’ thriller. (The DVD is currently missing a short scene because of the use of a Beatles' track in the background score.)

The Boyfriend was the only film of Russell's that could be shown early evening, and even that had a bawdy backstory trying to burst through the seams. The film was a homage to Busby Berkeley and the musicals of the thirties, and was made in 2.35 widescreen (the only release till now in the original aspect ratio has been on Laserdisc).
UPDATE April 2011 - The Boyfriend is now available from the Warner Archive 'DVD-R on demand'. Link to shop here.

At the end of the eighties, I caught up with his 'missing' films. Often written about and accompanied by scandalous photo spreads, but after their initial release, no chance of seeing them.


For a while, there was The Scala Cinema in Kings Cross - a trashy alternative to the National Film Theatre. Exploitation, way out, weird, horror, cult films were shown in triple bills for much less than a West End ticket. Alcohol was allowed in the cinema, feet allowed on chairs, bliss. 


Most importantly, I could finally see Warhol films, John Waters', Russ Meyer's and Ken Russell’s rarest, like The Devils, Savage Messiah and even his early short films. A few years on, and The Scala's audience defected to home video, when VHS eventually condescended to releasing more culty movies.

Mainstream critics vociferously hated his films when they were released because they were irreverent, ‘bad taste’, anti-establishment and tampering with the rules of film. Nowadays he only occasionally gets TV commissions. His legacy seems overlooked at present, despite being one of Britain’s rare auteur-directors.



Ken Russell on DVD 


His film's have slowly trickled out on DVD through the years. 


Portraying classical composer Franz Liszt as an early star of popular music, Russell casts rock stars Roger Daltrey, Rick Wakeman and Ringo Starr in this debauched and bawdy liberal interpretation of his life and works. Notable turns from Paul Nicholas (Tommy) as a vampiric Wagner, as well as Nell Campbell (The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and Fiona Lewis (The Fury, Dr Phibes Rises Again) as two of the many women in his life.
UPDATE: Russell's Lisztomania was released on DVD in the UK in May 2009.



The Devils, Britain’s answer to The Exorcist, but far more shocking and made several years earlier, has been carefully restored by Warner Bros, but they've delayed the DVD release for the moment. Frustrating, because it's now feasible that it could be officially released uncut.


Of the films that have had DVD releases, many are no frills, some are out of print, and only one had a decent special edition, Tommy. Probably more to do with the popularity of The Who than the director. 




Here's a list of recommendations of Ken Russell films and their status on DVD (this list was last updated on May 2011):

BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN (1967) on US, UK DVD
WOMEN IN LOVE (1969) on US, UK DVD
THE MUSIC LOVERS (1970) Update May 2011 - UK DVD available from June 2011
THE DEVILS (1971) - restored, but as yet unreleased
THE BOYFRIEND (1971) Update April 2011 - US widescreen by Warner Archive
SAVAGE MESSIAH (1972) Update April 2011 - remastered in US by Warner Archive
MAHLER (1974) on US, UK DVD
TOMMY (1975) on US, UK DVDLISZTOMANIA (1975) on UK DVD
VALENTINO (1977) on UK DVD
ALTERED STATES (1980) on US, UK DVD
CRIMES OF PASSION (1984) on US DVD
GOTHIC (1986) on US, UK DVD
ARIA (1987, one segment) on US DVD
SALOME’S LAST DANCE (1988) on US DVD
LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM (1988) on US DVD with commentary



Black Hole article on The Devils

Black Hole review of Altered States

Black Hole review of Lair of the White Worm