Wednesday, December 24, 2008

RAMBU SPEAKS!!!

Hey you saw my post from a couple days back, yeah? Well, things may just look a teeny weeny bit better right now so with crossed fingers let's hope for the best.

Anyway, one thing I don't wanna miss out on is letting you all know... WE HEARD FROM PETER O'BRIAN!!! Yes, it's true!!! Ian received a letter from Peter O'Brian about a fortnight ago and here is the bit that concerns Peter's career and how he got started.


Please notice this is NOT the interview we've been talking about, this is "just" a letter. We would still very much like to make an interview with O'Brian but we just need to get things organised so that we are all able to be there at the same time! I'll let you all know.

Anyway, enough from me. I proudly present to you, finally, a word from an actor who has been "lost" for so many years. A mystical figure almost. And although I have fantasised and hoped for the day when someone would be able to get in touch with him and get the lowdown on his career, or even just find out who the heck he was, I've never really believed that it would happen.

Well, it did and although all due credit must go duefully to Ian I'm happy to be a wee part of all this. So, from Ian and me, here's your Christmas present:



PETER O'BRIAN's letter to Ian F:
[reprinted with permission]
I've been out here in the wilderness(Indonesia) for twenty years man. When I first came here on a teaching English throughout Asia mission, I had a ticket to travel the world and Indonesia was my second port of call. I was scheduled to stay five days in Jakarta, but after two days here I couldn't stand it, and took a walk down to UTA ( the French Airline I had my ticket with) when I was spotted walking the streets by film scouts. At the time they were looking for a Rambo look a like and there I was. They actually thought I was Sly, poor bastards. Anyway, the next thing you know, I'm down at Ram Punjabi's film studio ( Parkit Film) doing a fight scene with this Chinese fighter.

They stopped the fight scene after several minutes, and asked me into Ram's office to sign a contract as a leading man. I never did use that world trip ticket, in fact it ended up in the bin as I forgot about it and it just expired. That is destiny Ian.

Getting back to my story, so there you go Ian, from an English teacher to a Film star at the toss of a coin. Well, I wasn't going to let anybody step on my dreams; consequently, I signed the contract but not before scamming a role for my best friend as the Gangster boss, Craig Gavin ( real name Craig Smith). At first Ram, Gobin and Damu( the Punjabi Brothers) said, 'no we do not need a gangster boss especially one who looks like a gangster', and I said well, "either you take the two of us or forget it". They told me that they'd think about and let me know the next day.

We were best buddies on a world trip at that time, so we really didn't give a rat's arse about films or anything else for that matter. The next thing, I get the call saying, " OK, we'll keep him here as your manager and who knows, maybe we might find a role for him". On balance, the good old business, Indian minded producers put him to good use as a gangster boss where he shone.

We did two films together with the Punjabi Bros, and then Craig decided to stay back in New Zealand where we come from, not The USA as is wrongly stated here and there.

After getting a taste of Indonesia and its rich culture, gorgeous women, and exotic places, I decided to stay on and do another film with The Bros. I ended up playing the bad guy in my next film, called 'Forceful Impact', which stared an American Italian guy. It was fun raping and killing and not going to jail, so all in all it was a grand experience. Besides that, I'm not naturally an evil, or should I say bad guy; consequently, it was a real challenge to take on this role as a mafia boss.

After acting in seven movies I got married to the girl of my dreams.

We lived very humble lives there for three years before coming back to Indonesia. A year after being back, I ran into Gope Samtani, who is the main Producer from Rapi films. In our discussions, he asked me to make a come back in a film called "Time Game", which is basically a copy of Die hard one, but done in an apartment building through a terrorist genre. I was the hero, and did all my own stunts which is what I always do, and always enjoy doing.

Since a young boy, I've always loved danger and constantly found myself in hospital wards with broken arms, a back injury and some pretty serious cuts. Still, my principal is, you only live once, and after all, dying is easy; it's living that is hard. I've always believed that God will give me a good day to die, and when he's fit and ready to do so. I don't like living in fear and be robbed of some exhilarating moments.

By the way, that is not my voice in any of those films. They were all dubbed unfortunately.




PS: You can also read the above letter on Ian's blog "HK And Cult Film News" right here.

Monday, December 22, 2008

It's Christmas. Ho-hum.

Dear reader; I may not update this blog over the holidays so let me just wish you all a merry Christmas. I hope you'll have a nice time. Personally, it's already thee worst Christmas I've had ever!!! No fucking kidding.
Btw, I noticed I had twice as many Swedish readers yesterday as Danish readers, so thanks to everyone hinsidan. Incidentally, Sweden is also partly to blame for the downfall of this Christmas (in this household anyway!). Don't worry, I won't blame everyone with a Swedish flag. Well, maybe.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Lost Italian Spider-man film discovered after 40 years!!!

Patrick B. has this trailer on his blog so I'd better have it on mine too!

Yes, it's rather... surreal. LOL.

-And the truth behind the film:

Gory-Glory in the sun


It's not every day fanzine editors are interviewed on live TV about their publications (at least not on these shores) so big congrats go out to the two editors of Gory-Glory Magazine, Carl-Johan Rudnert and Magnus Carlsson, who were on local television in southern Sweden yesterday. Good on ya, fellas! The interview was part of the "Skåne idag" program and ran for about 10 minutes. You can watch the whole show online but (unfortunately) you have to sit thru about 25 min. before the interview. Gory-Glory interview.

The female interviewer (a real sötnös, rauw) asked the editors about how long it had taken to make the magazine, why they do it, and what kind of films they watch. She seemed surprisingly unaware of what was actually in the mag as she flicked thru it during the interview and proclaimed she couldn't take horror movies (because THE EXORCIST scared her), haha. Oh well, she did look cute so she's forgiven. At the end of the interview there was also a contest where you can win an issue of the mag (cheapskates! LOL) and the question is who is the pride of Landskrona in the horror movie field. Someone who starred in some of Lucio Fulci's films in the 80s. Hmm, how about Janet Ågren, lol.



Thursday, December 18, 2008

Bollywood Horror Collection Vol. 2!!!

The cover art for Mondo Macabro's second volume in their Bollywood horror movie series is here!



Looks pretty spiffy to me!!! And one thing I notice is their inclusion of English titles. Good move, MM!

Both films are already available on a double DVD in India (and has incidentally been sitting nicely on my shelf for about a year of so, lol) but hopefully the MM DVD will present restored versions + some cool extras.

Once again (like on the first volume) both films are directed by the crazy Ramsey brothers so no need to ask if you'll be in for a wild & crazy ride! However, if in doubt check out the trailers right here;




Purani Havelli - Trailer from Mondo Macabro on Vimeo.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

More crazy Lollywood stuff!

Part two of Mondo Macabro's "Lollywood Movie Madness" is up now!


Lollywood Movie Mayhem - Pt 2a from Mondo Macabro on Vimeo.

And here's part one again:


Lollywood Movie Madness - pt1 from Mondo Macabro on Vimeo.

EDIT: As you can see the videos are no longer here but you can watch them at MM's own Cult Movie TV site right here.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

No Christmas without The Gories

What can you say about The Gories? Other than they were the coolest garage cats to ever grace this sorry ass planet! I just found a handful of clips on YouTube from an amazing session. Check them ALL out. This is why music was invented.


Yep, mighty cool... even when drummer Peggy O'Neil fucks up, haha.













Unfortunately, The Gories are no more. Mick Collins formed the band in '86 and they split around '90/91. In the old days, every time Mick Collins started getting a little bit of succes he would break up his band and start a new one, haha. And I'm not even kidding. The Gories were such an awesome garage-rock band before garage-rock became trendy a decade later and everyone thought The White Stripes invented the genre, LOL.
Anyway, you should check old some of their old records, they won't bankrupt you as they only put out two ordinary LPs before they split; "House Rockin'" and "I Know You Fine But How You Doin'". After their split Tim Warren of Crypt Records put out a third LP on his (legendary!) label; "Outta Here" that contained previously unreleased stuff and he also issued the first two albums as a single disk CD entitled "I Know You Be House Rockin'" (two tracks are missing due to a lack of space). All 4 albums are still available from Crypt Records (located in Hamburg). "Outta Here" is both on vinyl and CD. Just get them, MOFO!

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Saturday, December 13, 2008

Some scoop-up!!!

Sometimes you're just plain lucky! I've been keeping an eye out for this Japanese video tape all week on eBay: It's the gory and over-the-top dark & nasty Hong Kong horror movie CALAMITY OF SNAKES. It's never been released officially on dvd (unless you count Brentwood's fucking bootleg!! Which I don't!) and the only way to get an official release is to head for one of the Japanese video tapes! Usually the tape goes for at least a 100 bucks but today everyone was asleep (apparently!) and I got it for a whopping 14 dollars and 50 cents!!! Totally brilliant! And it's the Cantonese version too! (both the Cantonese and the Eng. dubbed versions are out on Jap. vhs. The Brentwood boot carries the dubbed version).



And if that wasn't enough, check this out: Yesterday, I got the amazing Japanese poster for the totally über entertaining Indo flick LADY TERMINATOR!!! Argh!
Btw, it's the same image they used for the Jap. vhs! - which incidentally sits nicely on my shelf, YAY! :-)

RAMBU covers galore

German VHS (German dub, letterboxed). Thanks to Canisius of Cinehound forum for providing this.
[click scan for bigger size]

The Trashwomen live at Toad's Studio, SF, july 1993.

THE TRASHWOMEN!!! Oh man, how cool is this!!!

Friday, December 12, 2008

RAMBU covers galore

Very rare Japanese vhs (Eng. dub, fullscreen). Thanks to Michael Gustavsson of Cinehound forum.


This isn't a video cover but a cinema poster from Pakistan! Imagine having watched RAMBU at the cinema!!
[click scans for bigger size]

RAMBU covers galore

The RAMBU covers are pouring in as we speak. :-) :-) :-)

VHS from Sweden identical to the Danish tape with the identical cover from Hollywood Home Video (fullscreen, Eng. dub, uncut). Thanks to Lars Jacobsen for providing this one.

VHS from Holland (fullscreen, Eng. dub, uncut)
[you can click both for bigger sizes]

Another RAMBU for the road

Another Danish VHS, more common but still rare (Eng. dub, fullscreen)
[click for bigger size]

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Rare Rambu video covers

As this is slowly turning into a RAMBU fan club anyway (LOL) I might as well show you a couple of rare RAMBU vhs releases. Unfortunately none of them are mine.

EDIT: Woo-hoo! The Belgian vhs is mine now! According to Miltos (head honcho of Cinehound) it's more letterboxed than the Greek vhs and has better picture! YAY!

Belgian (French dubbed, letterboxed) video release. [click scan for a bigger size]

Photobucket

Photobucket
Front and back from ultra rare Danish release (Eng. dub).

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Killing a cat

...uh, no not really (actually it's a reference to The Cure's "Killing an Arab" which was censored off the reprint of the album, and of course I HATE and LOATHE censorship). No, curiosity killed the cat and THIS cat is a curious guy (I'm sure you're aware 'cat' is 1950s slang for at cool guy, right); Lissen, yesterday, completely out of the blue, I noticed a sudden interest in this blog from FACEBOOK! A shitload of hits actually. What's going on? Someone please tell me.
Obviously I DID expect Facebook fan groups and fan sites for JACK J to pop up at some stage...

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

No, no, I'm not green with envy just because IAN GOT THIS PICTURE FROM PETER O'BRIAN TODAY!!!

From RAMBU himself!!!


My mate in crime, Ian F. over in New Jersey, received this in the email today!!! Is that fucken cool or what!!!

Stay tooned to this blog for much more on Rambu and Indo movies in general.

PS: And if you're new to all this then do yourself a favour and click the "rambu" label at the bottom of this post and go ahead and read my other posts about RAMBU (the movie) and Peter O'Brian (who played the Rambu character).

Bollywood horror, Bollywood action, in other words... MORE BOLLYWOOD!!!

Hey, look what the mailman just brought me all the way from a small village in India:

RAAT (a horror movie)


INSAAF (a gritty and violent cop flick with song & dance numbers)


Obviously I haven't watched any of them yet and when I do I'd better take off the entire afternoon to do so; none of the films clock in before way after the two hour mark! Both are subtitled in English.
My apologies for the crappy cover scan quality, I just copied them off the seller's site.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Indian love

Welcome to WORLDWEIRD CINEMA ... the fake copy (lol)

Yeah, well, since it seems our friend Jared is off doing Stuff in the real world and won't be covering the world of worldweird cinema untill next year I thought I might as well take over as Jared.02 (haha) and start bring you some more stuff about weirdo cinema from around the world. Well, actually, screw the world what I'm really talking about is flicks from such places as Indonesia, the Philippines, Asia, and of course stuff from India and Pakistan. And as I'm sure you know already the main provider (at least in the West) of these amazing (or sometimes just right out weird!) films is of course Mondo Macabro and, incidentally, today they put up part one of a collection of multo cool'o clips from Pakistani trash films. This thing runs for about 10 min. so get yerself some coffee and enjoy this:


Lollywood Movie Madness - pt1 from Mondo Macabro on Vimeo.

- and when you're done with that go ahead and check out the "other" Worldweird Cinema blog. Although Jared is taking a break at the moment there's still tons of cool stuff to check out. Click here for Worldweird Cinema.

NB: If you'd like to keep the Lollywood special you might wanna download it right away. On the MM blog they say it's only going to stay on-air for about a month. No mention of whether it'll be included on a dvd or whatnot.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

KADIN DUSMANI

Oh goody! Onar's next release is on its way! KADIN DUSMANI (Woman Despiser) from 1967. And once again we are treated to a giallo... done the Turkish way obviously, LOL. It's due for early 2009.

Mondo Cane blog it ain't

No, much better: Mondo Macabro has a blog now and YOU should be a devoted follower/fan/disciple!

Here it be: MM.

Upcoming MM titles:
Female Prisoner: Caged!
Sins of Sister Lucia
The Bollywood Horror Collection: Vol 2 - Veerana/Purana Haveli
The Bollywood Horror Collection: Vol 3

Saturday, December 6, 2008

They survived the war. Kind of.

Hmm, say, how does that ol'e poem go? Is it: "Zombies, zombies, zombies everywhere"?? Hmm, maybe not but it ought to be, haha. While we're still waiting impatiently for that long awaited Dutch Nazi zombie movie (Worst Case Scenario) here's the (subtitled!) trailer for the Norwegian DØD SNØ (hvorfor fa'en ka' de ikke skrive SNE som alle andre!):

Sandie Trash!!!



My God, Sandie Trash just entered my life!!! And now I wish I'd taken up French classes when I considered it back in school. I don't know anything about them other than they're only two members and sound fantastic! They have a pretty cool MySpace page here. Check it out! More later!