Looping WW2

Despite the cumbersome title, Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea is an amusing, light footed Czech scifi comedy from 1977. A bunch of aging, wistful Nazis decide to hijack a time travel tour and gift Adolf a suitcase nuke so he can win the war but their plans are stymied by the unfortunate death of the pilot and the whims of his twin brother who decides to take his place. This is low budget stuff but there's a decent plot with some nice paradoxes, a smorgasboard of satire, slapstick and farce and a brilliant performance from the lead who handles his double role with aplomb. It's not going to entertain everyone and isn't as accomplished as Kin Dza Dza but it's definitely worth a look.


The second World War provides the backdrop to another low budget time travelling tale, Enter Nowhere. Events bring an apparently disparate group of people together to a remote shack in the woods and as they figure out a way to continue their journeys a curious connection arises between them. It's a modest little mystery so the titchy budget doesn't matter matter much but the acting is a bit sub par with none of the 3 particularly convincing, still it has quite an interesting premise and that was enough to keep me watching.

Double 68 Bubble Gum

George Hamilton, before the indelible bronzing, stars, smugly, as a scientist researching human endurance for NASA but soon becomes the target of an insanely, improbably powerful psychic in The Power from 1968. Hamilton isn't much of an actor and this is mostly bog standard thriller nonsense with most of the scifi, other than the vaguely sketched paranormal powers, restricted to flashing dials and some expensive (now quaint) looking equipment and it isn't helped that there's more holes than actual plot but it has a kind of retro charm to it, particularly the party scene and the staring contest finale, so I guess at a push it'd keep you, like me, mildly entertained on a Sunday afternoon.

While The Power suffered from a lack of scifi, Goke: Body Snatcher from Hell probably suffers from a glut. A flight is forced into a emergency landing after a bomb threat/UFO flyby but the survivors are further endangered when a shape shifting, alien vampire thing stalks the crash site. Now this is a better reflection of 1968 with a crazed lurid palette, political sloganeering and dubious sexual politics all decorating a peculiar, quite barmy Japanese mish mash of scifi tropes. It's a decent enough watch with plenty of style but the acting is fairly ropey and it doesn't really make much sense.

Insistent Funk Array

Nolte in Ninety Six

Nick Nolte's a fairly patchy actor but he puts in an excellent turn in Mother Night, based on Kurt Vonnegut's novel of the same name. Nolte plays an aging American playwright arrested for his Nazi past and when tasked with writing his memoirs, reveals he was actually a spy recruited by the Americans who secreted coded information into his WW2 radio broadcasts. This is a bittersweet, intelligent meta fiction about the perils of patriotism and group identity and has a script and cast that nicely flesh out the nuances and consequences of the character's various deceptions.

A different Nick Nolte turns up in the crushingly formulaic thriller Mulholland Falls also released in 1996. Set in 40's L.A. Nolte leads the infamous 'Hat Squad' who keep the city clean of organised crime but get into some hot water while investigating the murder of a nuclear scientist's lover. I'm not sure why the hackneyed plot and factory floor script attracted such a bevy of famous faces but they growl, mumble, over and underact their way through the 90 or so mins of predictable. A year later and this attempt at neo noir was outclassed in every department by L.A. Confidential.

Mavericks Monographed

Wilhelm Reich, a colleague of Freud & Jung's, was an unusual, grandiose thinker whose theories of sexuality and political freedom have largely been ignored by the scientific community, eclipsed as they were by his later more er, esoteric work but they did find a resonance in the counter culture movement of the 60's and 70's. In 1971 Serbian director Makavejev created W.R. Mysteries of the Organism, a chaotic, kaleidoscopic view of Reich's theories interspersing various documentary pieces with fairly insane narrative sections all mashed lovingly together with a LSD fervour and revolutionary zeal. If you're unaware of Reich I wouldn't start here as it's more of a dialogue about his work than an exposition (and it's 70's styling probably an acquired taste) but it's a surprisingly entertaining watch with a bravado and intellectual ambition seldom seen these days. It's a shame there's not a 'straight' examination of Reich's work but this film succeeds at the very least in matching it's subject's idiosyncrasy.

R Buckminster Fuller, another unique intellect, was successful in a number of scientific fields and is probably most famous for his Geodesic Dome design, however his theorising went well beyond normal disciplines and still seems startling groundbreaking today. The World of Buckminster Fuller initially seems to take a more traditional approach, with Bucky himself explaining his theories straight to camera but 10 mins in and it becomes apparent that the film makers thought a cut and paste approach to the editing equalled style and it suffers badly without a coherent progression to the segments. This scattergun effect combined with the aging Fuller's slightly eccentric manner and speech, made me think, occasionally, of Rowley Birkin from The Fast Show which is a bit of a shame as though it lacks the panache of W.R, if you stick with it, it does offer an interesting, more comprehensive look at another neglected thinker's work.

Musical Mustering

Spooks Vs Skeptics

Rebecca Hall stars as a sceptical paranormal investigator in the classical ghost story The Awakening. Fresh from debunking a conniving spirit medium she's approached by a stammering Dominic West to visit a boys boarding school that's a touch haunted but her confidence in reason is soon shaken by the peculiar happenings. The strong cast and still, clean cinematography somehow offset the desperately unoriginal plot and it musters a reasonable amount of creepy but that's sadly mostly dissipated by the too obvious finale and the fumbled attempt at ambiguity in the final scenes. A decent film, just too derivative to be particularly effective.

A more modern bunch of ghostbusters set up shop in a family home in Apartment 143 another addition to the found footage subgenre. Already traumatised by death, the family are besieged by a poltergeist and seem to be on the verge of mental collapse when the cool headed boffins roll up with a truck full of equipment. As their investigation proceeds they're witness to a number of anomalous phenomena but they cling to rational explanations almost to the very end. It's quite a modest little film with some reasonable performances but like Awakening it's achingly predictable and any atmosphere is squandered by the clunky denouement.

Funk Redux & Blues Reflux

Thunder Soul is a documentary charting the career of the highly successful Kashmere High School Stage Band and their funkalicious musical output. The predominant focus is on the band leader/teacher, Conrad Johnson, and his influence in changing their performance from the usual standards to cover versions of James Brown and their own compositions and the culminates with the inevitable reunion performance held in his honour. I think the film would've benefited from some more of the music given I imagine most people are unfamiliar with their work but it's still a lovely watch with some genuinely touching moments and laughs as the band gather again and dust off their mojo but in the end a little bittersweet as Johnson's health deteriorates throughout the filming.


I've never been a huge fan of post-Cream Clapton but the documentary Eric Clapton & His Rolling Hotel is quite interesting for it's unguarded frankness, with Clapton appearing drunk and/or high throughout and coming across, mostly, as a bit of a tit. Filmed while on a train-based European tour there's some nice performances scattered throughout the film but it's the one on one interview segments with Clapton which are most revealing, particularly the discussion of Hendrix's death and the writing of Layla. It's not bad, a nice look at the life of a megastar on tour but I can't say it's worth watching unless you're somewhat interested in the career of Clapton. In this era of media management I can't help but suspect it's appealing candour is what's impeded a DVD release but if you are interested a VHSrip is out there.