HAPPY MONDAY ALL-BEEF LINKS

Good morning/afternoon, and welcome, as Elvis Costello once memorably put it, to the working week. If you’re like me you’re back at the office or otherwise into the daily bread-winning routine and beginning the time-thickening process of counting down the days until the big Christmas holiday break (14 business days, plus free shipping and handling). When I came today and started dusting off my keyboard (I haven’t been in the office for a Monday morning since September) I came across three items that brightened my day immeasurably and put me in the proper frame of mind for unparalleled productivity. Well, maybe that’s not exactly true, but they sure put a smile on my face and gave my brain a nice rubdown, and I share them with you now in the hopes that they’ll do the same for you.

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Bill R., proprietor of The Kind of Face You Hate, found a DVD copy of The Sadist in a bargain bin a couple of weeks ago, and this morning offers his well-considered thoughts on this minor masterpiece. What Bill does especially well, I think, is note how different the movie feels from some of the more celebrated trash classics that were James Landis’ film’s contemporaries (like the Herschell Gordon Lewis movies, for example), and placing The Sadist within a social context that highlights what makes it a cut about the average exploitation picture:

“My concern that The Sadist might follow the example of Blood Feast in terms of both gore levels and general quality were completely unfounded, and because The Sadist is less enamored of its own violence than H. G. Lewis is of the viscera in Blood Feast, while at the same time being far more blunt on the topic, Landis is able to construct moments that function like a kick to the gut. There is little to no actual blood in The Sadist, but I sometimes wondered if there wasn't more… I don't really know anything about the cult of fans that has grown around this film, but I have to assume that the scene most often commented upon as news of The Sadist was passed on by word-of-mouth over the years is the film's first killing, an act of violence the camera doesn't flinch from, even though I don't think we quite see what we think we do. But even if we just focus on what we do see, this film is from 1963, and it's presenting the audience with shocking violence that they would have a really hard time laughing about afterwards, like they could with Blood Feast.”

Click on the link to Read Bill’s entire piece, entitled “To Inflict Moral Insanity upon the Innocent”. (And stay tuned to the comments section for a discussion of the performance of the movie’s Charlie Starkweather stand-in, infamous B-movie icon Arch Hall, Jr.)

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Andy McSmith, in the London-based newspaper The Independent, passes along word that will be catnip to fans of a certain British crime classic:

“‘Hang on a minute, lads. I've got a great idea,’ is still one of the greatest pay-off lines in British cinema. It was uttered by Michael Caine, playing the London villain Charlie Croker, immediately before the credits rolled on the 1969 heist classic, The Italian Job. But for 40 years, no one has known what that "great idea" could possibly be, until yesterday, when Sir Michael revealed there was another ending.”

Read all about it here. (Thanks to David Hudson and Green Cine Daily for the tip.)

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Green Cine Daily is also beginning to gather up initial reactions to upcoming films like Frost/Nixon and The Reader. Among the more interesting are takes from Nick Schager and David Edelstein, both of which make me think it’s time to dust off the old David Frye albums. But reaching way back to last week’s column from Edelstein you’ll find, in addition to a review that makes an interesting link between Milk and Twilight, a brief summation of Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (how did the director resist tacking on an emphatic ! after that title?) in which the writer makes yet another unexpected, and hilarious, connection, this one between Luhrmann’s Oz and the Emerald City variety. Thanks, Mr. Edelstein, for helping to get my dutiful day started with a belly laugh.