Flashman is a terrible Italian flick from the Sixties about a clumsy masked crimefighter who hangs out with a ditsy hippie chick and battles a crime-lord who's stolen an invisibility formula. The best thing about this turkey is the theme song, a sublime mix of spy-jazz and Batman.
[Link: Flashman Theme (MP3)]
As you may have noticed, I haven't been terribly inspired to post much lately. Seems like there's less and less fresh and interesting content out there on the Internets these days. An awful lot of good bloggers appear to have abandoned their sites in favor of tweeting, which I, quite frankly, have no interest in following (or doing).
However, I still stumble across the occasional gem, and the Punk Zine Archive weblog is a 24-carat lump of Cubic Zirconium mounted on an Iron Pyrite safety pin. It's just what it says it is, a huge collection of scanned punk 'zines from the Seventies and Eighties. Fascinating and addictive, you can easily waste a couple of hours here drooling over the fab guerilla artwork, amateur gig photography, and sophmoric, yet enthusiastic writing. I was both happy and sad to be reminded of a brief period in which a lot of people actually gave a shit about music, and wanted it to be something more than just the platform for vapid, Paula Abdul-blessed, cookie-cutter nitwits it's become today.
[Link: The Punk Zine Archive]
[Link]
I finally managed to obtain a copy of the incredible Eurocheese film adaptation of the classic Perry Rhodan science-fiction novels, featuring platinum-blonde Swedish bombshell, Essy Persson, nightmarish robots, and an incredible theme song by composer Marcello Giombini that sounds like Yma Sumac singing to Hawaiian surf music performed by the Hank Marvin and the Shadows.
[Link: "Seli" by Marcello Giombini (MP3)]
And for more Perry Rhodan goodness, please visit my pal, The Cartoonist.
As a complement to my collection of Psychotronic Film Title Cards, I decided to create a new gallery of Psychotronic Film Posters. Please revel in their quirky design aesthetic, oddball fonts, sensational subject matter, and gruesome, over-the-top imagery.
[Link: Psychotronic Film Posters]
Back in January, I unveiled a gallery of about 100 screencapped title cards from my ever-expanding collection of Cult, Schlock, and Psychotronic films. Since then, I've added almost 500 additional screencaps, so if you haven't visited in a while, it's time to take another look at this fantastic collection of incredibly strange fonts and thoroughly odd, downright guilty, cinematic pleasures. My most recent additions begin on page 32.
Steamtiki, a blending of Steampunk and Tiki genres, is a concept that's come up for discussion a couple of times in the Tiki Central forums, but I'm not convinced it's an idea that really works, because the Victorians viewed Polynesia as an inferior culture that they had a manifest destiny to conquer, Christianize, and replace with their own, which is almost the total opposite viewpoint of the mid-century Polynesian Pop movement, which looked to celebrate island culture, not erase it. Case in point, one of the most heartbreaking images I have is this 1881 litho of 4 proud, beautiful Tahitian girls covered from head-to-toe in missionary garb. I think that sums the Victorian attitude towards Polynesia up very neatly.
Nevertheless, some British woodcarvers are offering the opportunity to purchase these hand-carved Tikis, stuffed with 19th-century clockwork mechanisms and brass fittings, that are suitable for your next meeting of the League of Extraordinary Tiki Gentlemen.
[Link: Steampunk Tiki]
The always entertaining Atomic Surgery posted this cool article from an unnamed magazine showing famous Hollywood rubber-monstermaker, Paul Blaisdell, and his wife Jackie, creating the head and hands for the über-creepy Martians in the '50's science-fiction classic, Invasion of the Saucermen.
Speaking of Cool and Strange Music, my former editor, Dana Countryman, just sent me a link to the video from his latest collaboration with electropop pioneer, Jean Jacques Perrey, "Funky Little Spacegirl", from their latest album, "Destination Space". It's a very catchy tune, and a fun little CGI romp. Jean Jacques (who just turned 80) looks like he's having a blast.
[Link: Funky Little Spacegirl (YouTube clip)]
[Link: Funky Little Spacegirl Official Website (broadcast-quality clip)]
