Ultraviolet was great, ita. And it really left me impressed with the quality(Perfect, or practically) of Elba's American accent. Because he doesn't *even* talk like that, but I can barely tell. Plus, you know a man is hot when you catch yourself thinking "Eh, what's a little heroin,"

Now that I look at his resume, that has to be it. It's the only thing I'd have seen him in with multiple appearances. And it was amazing.

Totally amazing. Such a perfect 6 episodes.

The only thing I know Chris Evans for is the Human Torch, but he did look good in the trailers.

Rare 70s horror film, Brotherhood of Satan, gets a screening on TCM this Friday:

Vintage '70s Ameri-horror-cana at its most grubbily disturbing, Bernard McEveety’s The Brotherhood of Satan (1971) was intended for adult audiences but invariably wormed its way down the film distribution chain to unsuspecting kiddie matinees, where its depiction of a physical world turned inside out by Devil worship warped a generation of impressionable young minds. The film’s first and second acts seem indebted to John Sturges’ Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) and Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968), respectively, but the subplot of soul transference by which members of a senior citizen Satan cult plan to shoehorn their corrupt souls into the fresh bodies of young children bears a Luciferian likeness to The Mephisto Waltz (1971), released earlier in the year. Offsetting its Gothic blandishments with a dusty desert milieu, Brotherhood kicked off a mini-vogue for shockers utilizing the American Southwest as a crucible for the war between Good and Evil, among them Enter the Devil (1972), Race with the Devil (1975) and The Devil’s Rain (1975).

Top to tails, The Brotherhood of Satan gets better mileage out of its smaller moments (God fearing folk asphyxiating in their Barcaloungers, a small town ice house filling up with the recent dead, an infernal birthday party complete with black-frosted red velvet cake) than it does in its big setpieces but those bits add up to a palpable atmosphere of dread and disgust. In his August 7, 1971 New York Times review, Roger Greenspun praised the film’s “uncomplicated acceptance of its supernature,” which he felt was “the essence of fantasy moviemaking” and noted “some wonderfully spooky scenes…in which nothing quite happens and which are the most terrifying moments in The Brotherhood of Satan.”

Race with the Devil

70's paranoid cinema (yes - everyone IS out to get you) at it's most drive-in friendly, with the bonus distracting casting of Loretta Switt (along with Warren Oates and Peter Fonda).

I'm scrolling through the TCM online schedule, which is nice because they even note the shorts they will be playing, and they go all the way through June.

Related to recent discussion here, Robin and Marian (San Connery & Audrey Hepburn) will be playing in an interesting quadruple bill on May 8th, along with The Lion in Winter, The Adventures of Robin Hood (Flynn), and Becket. If you like circlets, doublets and medieval snark this is your movie night.

I love The Lion in Winter and Flynn's Robin Hood--that's a great night of movies!

Isn't it, Kathy?

There's some cool stuff coming up on their schedule - a night of John Ford's cavalry movies, and several of Garbo's silent movies.

Speaking of shorts, I just Tivoed the coolest thing. It opens with Lionel Barrymore playing a suave, banker-like Satan in his Art Deco hell. He's got a raven on his desk, and a super hot goth swing era babe tending to him. She's got these fantastic victory rolls in her hairstyle that mimic horns on the head and looks fantastic. Anyway, Satan Barrymore gets Adolf Hitler on the phone (this is from '41) and tells Hitler how they'll ruin America, the one evil of evils, which will undo the country: Inflation!

Man, I wish I could do screen caps because Satan's goth swing babe is so cool.

So at the end of that short I also captured one of TCM's Word of Mouth pieces (tributes to a particular actor) and this one was about Bette Davis. Several actors lauded her influence and gifts (Jane Fonda, Gena Rowlands, Robert Wagner) but it was Ellen Burstyn (who looks fantastic in her older age, incidentally) who had the money quote. She actually had lunch with Bette Davis early in her career and relayed this choice advice from Bette:

"My advice to you, dear, at the beginning of an illustrious career is that not everybody can be your friend. So you choose your enemies. And when you see them you walk right up to them and say, 'You are my enemy.' And do you know how you recognize your enemy?"

"How?"

"Anyone who gets in the way of your work."

Badass.

megan, I've got the complete Wire and you're welcome to borrow it.

Wow, I missed a lot of shittalk and sarcasm about Kubrick (and, to some extent, about me) while I was gone.