spaghetti thriller (12. 437)

The cinephiles of the Flop House with a special guest deliver a very thoroughgoing treatment of the Italian murder-mystery film genre called giallo (the title an alternate native term) popular from the 1960s through the late 1970s—which although declined subsequently with other exploitation movies leaves a lasting legacy and influences in subsequent movements like slasher and supernatural narratives. Derived from a series of crime pulp novels published by the Milano-based Mondadori house who distinguished book themes by their cover colours, in this case yellow—including in their catalogue translated titles from Agatha Christine, whose And Then There Were None (originally called Ten Little Indians or Dieci piccoli indiani) was widely read and considered the template for the genre, laying out the essential elements later adopted by filmmakers of a killer hidden amongst a cast whose identity and motive are not revealed until the end—translated to the screen with psychosexual horror, an atmosphere of suspense, camp, lurid Technicolour, bombastic scoring (see previously here and here) and gratuitous violence. Suspiria is sometimes included for its stylistic similarities but rejected by purist for its supernatural character, though director Dario Argento made other films, with typically baroque and non-revealing titles, like The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Four Flies on Grey Velvet, that are considered classic gialli. Another interesting artefact was the prevalence of J&B scotch whisky in the films across the range of directors as a signifier of sophistication and manliness—Justerini and Brooks Ltd, founded in Bologna in 1749 and receiving a royal warrant to supply wine and spirits to the aristocratic households of London and later purveyors to hotels and restauranteurs. With shifting values, condemned as misogynistic, gialli fell out of favour but their later homage has occasioned a reevaluation of their consistent, if not indirect, message of the victims, almost exclusively women, not being listened to when airing their suspicions and fears.  Be sure to listen to the podcast for expert movie recommendations.

paper doll (12. 436)

Coinciding with tactics being employed by several toy manufacturers to mitigate the worst impacts of the US administration’s ruinous trade war—addressing specifically the comment from Trump that for Christmas that “maybe the children will have two dolls instead of thirty dolls and maybe they’ll cost a couple of dollars more”—including “pricing action” and differing “price points” for consumers, we enjoyed this latest comic from Ruben Bolling that’s an excellent alternative stocking stuffer for MAGA cultists with this printable dress-up Donald, though card-stock and printer cartridges will probably get pretty scarce as well by the time the holidays roll around, so it might be best to make one’s own.

synchronoptica

one year ago: assorted links worth the revisit plus a treasury of unsolved mysteries

seven years ago: a visit to Nordheim vor der Rhön, Go Fact Yourself plus EULA boilerplate

eight years ago: aggressive cuts to funding for the arts,  concept low-cost housing communities plus Trump’s Dark Triad undermining the government

ten years ago: Nazi kidnappings, more links to enjoy, wisdom from Poor Richard’s Almanack plus US resistance to engaging in WWII

eleven years ago: a trip to Hannoversh Münden plus strained US-German relations over survelliance

cog in the wheel (12. 435)

Whilst apologists and Trump’s re-shoring spokesmen declares that new US factory jobs will make up for redundancies manufactured elsewhere (despite the fact that even if heavy industry enthusiastically embraces the chaotic invitation, most labour has been automated and manpower replaced by machines), we were quite enthralled by this resonant 1925 parable endorsed by Lenin and Stalin for the potential for counter-messaging with children’s literature and adopting a method of propaganda reputedly employed by the bourgeoisie. Vintik-Shpintik (The Little Screw, Винтик-шпинтик) by Nikolai Agnivtev was agitprop for young readers, the best seller, quickly adapted into an animated short, relating how a factory is kept chugging along only with the cooperation of its smallest members. Much more from Public Domain Review at the link above.

🍿 (12. 434)

Having expressed concerns about overseas movie production for quite some time and appointing conservative actors Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson as special ambassadors to Hollywood as it burned, charged with bringing the film industry back bigger, better and stronger, over the weekend per social media post Donald Trump directed the Office of the US Trade Representative to levy a one-hundred percent tariff on “any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands,” despite the hegemonic surplus enjoyed by American studios and their exports. Describing the luring away of domestic filmmaking as messaging and propaganda and a threat to national security, it remains unclear how redirecting the flow of commerce could be implemented for international films—more like an applied service that could be taxed, with the authorisation from congress but not tariffed, most bigger budget motion pictures being cosmopolitan in nature and shot on locations around the world, other countries and states outside of California offering tax-incentives to make filming more favourable aside from any creative license or sense of authenticity. Domestic movies, produced anywhere, dominate the US box-office and it’s unclear by even what metrics a tariff would be imposed—American cultural imperialism means that international ventures would have less avenues for reciprocation but could translate into more quotas for US intellectual property, promoting native creative projects and possibly opening the door to incubating other intangibles, undercutting more sectors where American advantages reigns. Following his unilateral takeover the Kennedy Center as artistic director, Trump only wants to control the narrative but is instead inviting others to write the script for him.

synchronoptica

one year ago: a classic from T-Rex (with synchronoptica)

seven years ago: the Swiss guard to get 3D printed helmets, a floppy disk musical instrument, an ancient town without street names and numbers, the environmental toll of palm oil plus turnstiles for Venice to control tourist crowds

eight years ago: Trump regime accidentally discloses its agenda, kaiju rap plus WWII propaganda

ten years ago: more terror attacks in Germany plus formulaic writing

eleven years ago: a political rally in a skate park, Russia’s role in the Great Patriotic War plus the Pinocchio clause for thinking machines

the nightly (12. 433)

Via Nag on the Lake and Web Curios, we are directed to an internet radio station fronting a music appreciation society celebrating a selection the vintage, obscure, vaguely gloomy and positively atmospheric songs and film scores, chiefly from the 1930 to the 1970s with some real jewels from Italian and Japanese cinema. Moody but not maudlin, there are over four thousand titles in circulation and growing that are instantly transporting and transfixing, evoking the hard-scrabbling and noir, taking one to those liminal spaces and liminal hours.

kriegsgräberstätte (12. 432)

Scheduled to be in Bonn for the G7 summit during the week of the fortieth anniversary of V-E Day celebrations, US president Ronald Reagan agreed, as a demonstration of the strength and steadfastness of West German-American relations—feeling he owed Helmut Kohl a photo-opportunity for the public and political backlash the chancellor suffered for conceding to host ballistic weapons—to visit a military cemetery logistically close to the joint airbase of Bitburg. Although planned months in advance, the ceremony intended to commemorate the end of hostilities and the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht to Allied Forces, the event was overshadowed by controversy once discovered that forty-nine of the two thousand German soldiers interred at the site at Kolmeshöhe were members of the Waffen-Schutzstaffel, drawing condemnation from Jewish activists and others worldwide. An impromptu and unscheduled visit to the memorial Bergen-Belsen was added to the itinerary to limit the leaders’ time at the cemetery, a stop which met with resistance by the president’s handlers as it might awaken old memories. The botched execution on both sides strained relations between the White House and the Chancellery, both sides blaming each other and not helped by Reagan’s statement equating those “drafted into service to carry out the hateful wishes of the Nazis” suffered “just as surely as the victims of the victims of in the concentration camps.” In response, the Ramones recorded the single “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg” in June of that year, the co-starring chimpanzee of “Bedtime for Bonzo” employed as an epithet for the former actor.

synchronoptica

one year ago: alien autopsy (with synchronoptica) plus assorted links to revisit

eight years ago: a natural battery spanning a Norwegian valley, Valerian and the City of a 1000 Planets plus a clever and effective flyer

nine years ago: on tour in Cornwall 

ten years ago: The Meaning of Liff, more links to enjoy, populuxe design plus assorted trivia that sounds untrue

eleven years ago: fetishising fruit

11x11 (12. 431)

hot, cold, clash and burn: some performances from candidates for the 2025 Dance Your PhD contest with real EuroVision vibes—see previously 

man in motion: a biography of Eadweard Muybridge (previously) as a graphic novel   

pc connection: the raccoon mascot that made the catalogue stand out amongst industry uniformity—via Nag on the Lake   

popemobile: the pontiff’s conveyance used for his 2014 visit to Bethlehem to be converted into a mobile health clinic for Gaza   

oaf of office: arguing that due process is cumbersome, Trump defers to his legal team on whether it his duty to uphold the constitution 

pamflyt compiled of cheese, contayninge the differences, nature, qualities, and goodnes, of the same: an early Renaissance book on the staple food digitised and made available to the public

architecture of choice: AI buttons and the fat-finger economy pushing redesign and showhorning of non-options into everything   

sustained presence: Israel expands operations, evictions in the occupied territory   

papabili: the College of Cardinals’ report and coverage of the upcoming conclave—via Web Curios 

mingkwai: the rediscovery of an incredible antique mechanical typewriter prototype for printing Chinese characters—via Neatorama—with a video demonstration 

marge inalia: alert the grammar police, the Errorist strikes again

synchronoptica

one year ago: Expo '74 (with synchronoptica), the Cabbage Patch Kids’ maternity ward, assorted links worth revisiting plus the Grammies

seven years ago: more links to enjoy, lampooning mid-morning television, doggie bags plus election by Borda count

eight years ago: potential jail time for protesting the US attorney general, the Cornell carillon plays a tribute to the Grateful Dead plus even more links

nine years ago: gorillas sing little tunes as they eat, maps of Middle Earth, a market hall in Rotterdam plus a popular French tonic wine

ten years ago: Hee-Haw and the cancellation of Star Trek plus utopian thinking

fedifragous (12. 430)

Borrowing from the obsolete Latin foedifragus, the rarely used term which has occasion to be brought back into common parlance as the adjectival form for faithless, perfidious or treacherous in the sense of liable to break treaties or contracts or alliances.