After a seven year wait, the final volume of cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s graphic novel series The Metabarons is getting a long-overdue English language release this week. What follows is an interview I did with Jodorowsky back in 2002 for the much-loved, but sadly no-longer-with-us, comics magazine Borderline.
Back then, LA-based Humanoids Publishing were busy releasing sumptuous volumes of Jodorowsky’s comics translated into English. At the same time, two of his most famous movies -El Topo and The Holy Mountain – were fiendishly difficult to get hold of due to a decades-long feud between Jodorowsky and former Beatles and Rolling Stones manager Allen Klein, who owned the rights to the films.
That’s no longer the case as the two men finally reconciled prior to Klein’s death last year and both films were subsequently restored and released on DVD. English translations of Jodorowsky’s comics, on the other hand, are now fiendishly difficult to get hold of.
Some seven years after it was first published in France, the concluding volume of The Metabarons – cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s brilliantly insane graphic novel series – is finally getting an English language release next week. This is something of a big deal for Jodorowsky fans like me who have a poor grasp of French and rely too heavily on Babel Fish.
Here’s a substantially revised and updated version of an article I wrote some years ago about Jodorowsky’s life and work. I’ve embedded some video clips from Jodorowsky’s films ‘El Topo’, ‘The Holy Mountain’ and ‘Santa Sangre’. If you’re unfamiliar with his films ‘El Topo’, ‘The Holy Mountain’ and ‘Santa Sangre’, then it’s worth pointing out that they are – as they say - NSFW (or ‘Not Suitable For Work’) and leave it at that.
Here’s my next batch of 25 favourite films of the last decade, taking us from number 50 to number 26. Each one has a lovingly hand-crafted piece of haiku. Any resemblance to any haiku appearing in any of my previous end of year lists is purely coincidental.
What follows is the first part of the hideously overdue rundown of my Top 100 favourite films of the last decade. Not a Top 20, not a Top 50 but a Top 100. You can see why I’m doing this in installments.
Most lists like this are published in late-December or early-January, but most lists like this don’t contain lovingly hand-crafted haiku summaries. You get what you wait for. This delay has also given me the chance to catch up with films released in 2009 that I didn’t manage to catch last year. That helps to explain why some films included in this list didn’t appear in my Top 10 Films of 2009. That, and the fact I’m pathologically fickle.
Of course, strictly speaking, the first decade of the twenty-first century started in January 2001 and ends later this year. In that sense, then, this list has actually come early. The only problem with following that line of thought, however, is that I’d have to reconfigure the chart to include films that haven’t been made yet. That’s too much hassle.
The dates I use are UK theatrical release dates, which are often later than US release dates. As a result, this list contains films you may think belong to the previous decade.
I sympathise with these films. I’m often accused of belonging to a previous decade, too.
__________________________________
100. 3:10 to Yuma (dir. James Mangold, 2007)
Cowboys Crowe and Bale
Evoke a simpler era
(Train arrives on time)
99. Moebius Redux: A Life in Pictures (dir. Hasko Baumann, 2007)
Or, The Life Arachnid with Peter Parker. A slyly clever parody by Jeff Loveness which -- like Anderson’s actual films -- you’ll either get or you won’t.
I’m probably the last person in the world to see this, but here’s a tremendously funny movie mash-up that features Darth Vader reimagined by Guy Ritchie:
I meant to write this on Friday night, but I was sick so I didn’t.
Friday would have been the 75th birthday of Mr Elvis Aaron Presley, a name you probably won’t need to look up in Wikipedia. Like most anniversaries (or, for that matter, most things in life), the news coverage was a fairly predictable affair. Stock footage covering both ends of his career followed by smug observations about Elvis impersonators and obligatory soundbites from eccentric fans, which invariably consisted of a random great granny from The King’s original target demographic (who, ideally, doesn’t much care for modern music) juxtaposed with some young arsehole with a quiff. I assume the latter was “going through a phase” and his or her parents were probably into Britpop or hip hop.
Personally speaking, I’ve always been rather fond of Elvis. My parents’ were part of his original target demographic, you see, and some of the first songs I ever heard were by The King. In psychological circles that’s known as imprint vulnerability. I’m also old enough to remember what I was doing when I first heard that he’d died. I was putting on a snake belt and getting ready to go to infant school.
In any case, in memory of Elvis I planned to spend Friday night watching Bubba Ho-Tep and listening to Gravelands by The King and Porcelain Monkey by Warren Zevon. Unfortunately I was sick, so I didn’t. To the best of my knowledge, Bubba Ho-Tep, Gravelands by The King and Porcelain Monkey by Warren Zevon did not feature prominently in the mainstream media’s coverage of the Elvis anniversary. I suppose that’s the reason why God created the Blogosphere and idiots like me.
Bubba Ho-Tep, in case you don’t know, was a blackly comic but strangely touching independent film directed by Don Cascarelli that was released in 2004 or thereabouts. It featured the mighty Bruce Campbell playing an aging Elvis who cheated death in 1977 and now finds himself living in a Texan rest home. Together with an elderly black guy -- who may or may not be JFK -- he has to face down a deranged mummy who’s preying on the souls of pensioners.
It’s one of my favourite movies of the last decade, and I cringe a little as I type that. Blog logic -- or blogic, if you will -- states that I’m now have to follow through on that comment by churning out a list of my favourite films of the decade. More bad haiku, then.
Gravelands, on the other hand, is a 1997 album which features cover versions of songs by dead rock stars performed by an Elvis impersonator from Belfast whose real name is James Brown. Yes, I know that sounds like the ingredients for some God-awful novelty record, but it really is quite wonderful. ‘The King’ really does sound like The King, the musicians really do sound like the Takin’ Care of Business Band and the choice of songs is priceless. They make it sound as though Nirvana’s Come as You Are, Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart and AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie are new additions to the Presley back catalogue. To put it another way, it gives us a weird glimpse into a parallel world where Elvis got to live for another couple of decades and Rick Rubin helped him rehabilitate his legacy.
Finally, there’s Porcelain Monkey by the late Warren Zevon, which featured a blistering riff and some brilliant lyrics:
From a shotgun shack singing Pentecostal hymns
Through the wrought iron gates to the TV room
He had a little world, it was smaller than your hand
It’s a rockabilly ride from the glitter to the gloom
Left behind by the latest trends
Eating fried chicken with his regicidal friends
That’s how the story ends
With a porcelain monkey
Zevon, however, was not what you might call a fan of Elvis. In an interview in 2000 he said:
“He furthered the cause of ripping off a culture we’ve already oppressed for 400 years in my country. But I don’t know how much is individual brilliance, genius, and how much is just the currents of culture. Being at a cultural crossroads can be luck, you know? Don’t be absolutely sure that Soundgarden wasn’t as good as the Rolling Stones. They just came 30 years too late to be innovative.”
I’m a big fan of Zevon’s, but that’s a pretty harsh and iconoclastic position to take, even by his standards. The 6th Century sage Chilon of Sparta once said “Let only good be spoken of the dead”, but if that’s the case then how have Channel 5 documentary makers managed to stay in business? And does this lofty ideal still apply when the person wagging a finger at a dead rock star is another dead rock star?
I can’t say for certain, but I do know that Zevon’s Life’ll Kill Ya is one of my favourite albums of the decade. I cringe a little as I type that, too.
I guess that means I’ll be churning out even more bad haiku.
As a blogger, I’m contractually obliged to produce and publish annual lists of things wot I like. It’s one of those tedious tasks in life you try to put off until the last moment and always bitterly resent, like getting your car serviced, completing a tax return or flossing. If I don’t do it, though, bad things might happen. I could lose my weblog licence, get a nasty email from Technorati or even end up with a terrible gum disease.
So what follows are my favourite films of 2009 at this particular moment in time. These are movies that were released in the UK between 1st January and 31st December 2009 that I watched during this period, and it doesn’t include any films that were released during this period that I watched last night with Clare. Which is a shame, really, because otherwise Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell might have been a contender.
Just like last year, each entry comes complete with a lovingly hand-crafted piece of bad haiku.
