possible of the impossible : Godard's NOTRE MUSIQUE (2004)

If you've seen any post-1968 Godard, you'll feel at home with NOTRE MUSIQUE.
Lack of story, suspence, action. Bare ideas.
Familiar didactic offscreen commentary.
That deliberate editing (anti-editing?) which is not building up an illusion of fluid continuity and seamless cuts but violently clashing images and sound.
To destroy, disembowel traditional narrative.

Grainy B/W newsreel footage VS oversaturated, fuzzy video.


Silence VS music.


No matter how much JLG pisses me off,I always find myself coming back for more.
A couple of weeks back I was left very frustrated with FILM SOCIALISME(this film was clearly designed to frustrate). Still, I was drawn to more Godard. NOTRE MUSIQUE is perfectly bearable (compared to FILM SOCIALISME) and very nice to look at.


Forget APOCALYPCE NOW. When it comes to cinematic war atrocities, Godrad's your man!
He clearly  knows how to pile on amazing stock footage from various sources to create an operatic, confusing, almost orgasmic collage of explosions and corpses.

Despite the grim subject matter, NOTRE MUSIQUE is not depressing and very easy on the eyes.

I would definitely recommend it over such  reasonably well-known stuff as WEEKEND(1967) PASSION (1982) or the overlong HISTOIRE(S) DU CINEMA (1988-1998)

bewildering and atmospheric: THE CATALYST

Jerome is a painter. He's eager to express pain and suffering on canvas. So eager that he chooses to cause/experience real violence in order to channel it into his work. His loved one falls victim to his obsession and soon other people who get exposed to Jerome's work begin to lose lives unable to cope with the anguish he so powerfully portrayed.

the happy couple

THE CATALYST is a recent short by Kidderminster-based filmmaker Thomas Lee Rutter (his brother Andrew John Rutter is also a filmmaker, the author of STATICA).
Recently I received a screener DVD entitled Quadro Bizarro which contains 4 short films including THE CATALYST. At about 17 minutes, THE CATALYST is quite tight and barrages the viewer with beautiful, grainy and at times surreal images. The creepy narration helps shape the unusual but vaguely connected scenes into a coherent whole.

 A cameo by the director himself (left)

The cast features Rutter's frequent collaborators Luke Coates (SHOE) and Corina Harper (A CHILD'S TOY).

Jerome and his work

I suppose it would be appropriate to bitch a little about the technical shortcomings of THE CATALYST. But I won't. Fuck it. If you want big explosions and well-recorded live sound you don't delve into UK no-budget DV filmmaking scene. And you don't come to blogs like TRASHFILMADDICT. You get my point.

 As usual, camera loves Luke Coates

There are moments in THE CATALYST which feel like pure Jean Rollin, others reminded me of American experimental cinema. But on the whole this is 100% Thomas Lee Rutter.
The music is effective and appropriate. Some of the cold electronic stuff made me think of Giovanni Cristiani's work for Fulci's DEMONIA (1990). But again, these are merely my associations.
What you get here is quality self-produced unusual stuff.

HALLOWEEN meets SUSPIRIA? 

THE CATALYST exists because Thomas Lee Rutter wanted it to. 
This is not a crowd-pleaser. It's a film that a man has made first of all for himself.
Not to win over financial backers or to gain commercial profit.
Depending on how tired you are of current studio product, THE CATALYST may strike you as either too rough or highly promising. If you liked the screengrabs I suggest you see for yourself.


Thomas Lee has recently started his own blog Carnie film production which covers his newest, most eccentric output.

a quality giallo: LO STRANO VIZIO DELLA SIGNORA WARDH (1971)

Setting: Austria and Spain.
Black gloves? - yes.
Murders and tits at even intervals? - yes.
A disco dancing scene? - No, but there is a party scene.
Bizarre flashbacks? - Yes.
Police procedural routine padding? - Yes, some.

It was without much hope that I put on this Martino giallo.
I'd had the DVD for a while and thought it was time to give it a shot. 
After 5-10 minutes I was hooked.


LO STRANO VIZIO DELLA SIGNORA WARDH exibits tremendous level of technical craftsmanship.You get plenty of shots of breathtaking fluidity as well as some original lighting effects.

Bruno Corazzari (THE BLACK CAT) has a great little part in the film.

He enters the story unexpectedly and has a brief but intense episode with one of the victims.

Ivan Rassimov. What a photogenic man! His first apperance in a surreal and violent flashback sequence is memorable and his powerful presence is really felt throughout the film.




If I had to criticize some aspect of LO STRANO VIZIO DELLA SIGNORA WARDH, I would focus on the the murders. Poorly executed. Some unconvincing slashings, some red blood sprayed. No wounds. Jess Franco-style almost.
Another problem is the trademark Martino lightness. The film doesn't try to grab you whole. There are self-conscious silly moments, but thankfully, not too many. The impact of suspence scenes is lessened a little but that's Martino for you. Only Dario ever took his black-gloved heroes totally seriously, I guess.


Now I am not a fan of Edwige Fenech, George Hilton or Sergio Martino. So when I say that LO STRANO VIZIO DELLA SIGNORA WARDH is a damn fine giallo, I mean it.
Superior to TORSO in every respect.

Tobe Hooper's CROCODILE is a pile of shit

Film proper starts after a terrinly boring opening ten minutes of exposition/filler during which the nondescript soon-to-be eaten healthy dumb teens are introduced.
Giant crocodile messily kills two fat ugly fishermen and then proceeds to dump their car in the lake, like some sort of a reptilian Norman Bates. So we know we're dealing with a cunning, devious huge monster here.


What doesn't work:
The way CROCODILE is lit is just terrible. Lazy-TV-movie kind of terrible.
Cinematography is really dull with dead-on, unimaginative framing.
Blood takes ages to get flowing. And during the kills the editing is fucking frustrating.
It's like they didn't have any good takes so they tried to paste together the briefest flashes of violence possible from the available poor footage.
Music is sleep-inducing. 
All the protagonists are mere cardboard cutouts.


I hate Adam Gierasch's sripts. He co-wrote such sad shit as DERAILED with Van Damme and Argento's sorry loser MOTHER OF TEARS. Gierasch apparently has  a small acting part somewhere in CROCODILE. Fuck it, enough about that guy.


What works:
Well, the cover image of the Russian VHS release of CROCODILE kind of worked for me.
That's it.


Utterly forgettable. No inventive kills. Zero tension.
CROCODILE is so flat-out-dull it's not even worth reviewing in full.
Not even at a blog called TRASHFILMADDICT.




For more giant croc mayhem read this review over at NINJA DIXON