The Long Hair of Death
Italian Gothic horror from 1964 featuring Barbara Steele. Shot in glorious black & white, I was ready to give up on this one but the finale makes up for the non-sensical plotting of the first 2/3rds of the movie.
Month: December 2020
Hell Bound
1957 noir film about a gangster who organizes a heist of drugs from a ship at sea. The movie opens with the heist taking place perfectly—complete with cheesy narration. This is soon revealed to be a sales pitch film that was created to get backing from the mob. The rest of the film sees the real crew being assembled and, whaddya know, they’re all incompetent. I guess the movie was okay, but all the scenes just seem drag out. Even the final chase is goes on forever and nothing happens.
Hans Baldung Grien: Prints and Drawings
An excellent catalog of graphic artworks by this famous student of Dürer. A good chunk of this deals with how Baldung’s work relates to that of his former master. As such, many of Dürer’s and other possible source works are also included for comparison. All art history books should do this. Eventually, Baldung emerges from Dürer’s shadow and his prints are some of the most weirdly fantastic (in both senses of the word) prints to emerge from the Northern Renaissance.
All of Baldung’s images are presented in large and clear reproductions, many of which are printed at actual size. Unfortunately, any of his chiaroscuro prints and drawings don’t quite survive the transition to black and white. Those images end up being murky and difficult to read. A few color plates would have been nice.
As an added bonus, the writing is actually quite interesting with overviews of historical context, related source imagery, and thematic discussion. Not quite your typical drab art history narrative.
Lord Edgware Dies
A perfectly serviceable Poirot mystery involving the most despicable kind of people on earth. That’s right, theater people.