Now that's what I call a Cover

Thanks to the le-giallo Blog for alerting me to these releases from neo Publishing. The Blog has some tasty stills and interesting additions to the Giallo umbrella, I will have to take some time to try and read the rest of the reviews (my french not being so fantastique).

I felt I should add these in reference to one of my earlier posts because these covers combine style with the yellow background beautifully. The DVDs are subtitled in French, I'm supposing they are Italian language and not with English dubbing - oh darn it, I must get on an Italian course.

Amer

Checked out the trailer for Amer by Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. Love the poster, love the look, though I thought the trailer might be a little staid, I'm so wary of trailers these days. Looking at this though I'm hoping it could be a bit of Alain Robbe-Grillet meets Giallo, I hope so.

It's French/Belgian, I don't know many Belgian films apart from: "Daughters of Darkness", now if it was as stylish and as sinister as this film we are cooking.

Revival05 on IMDB says that the Giallo connection is not really justified although the motifs are all there, but the rest of the review means I will have to see it.... hmmm 'insanely imaginative imagery".

Cover Notes

Two for this evening.

I feel I've now moved into another level in my Giallo watching, and I don't necessarily mean in an upwards direction; this may be very unfair to these films, I haven't watched them yet, but this is my response to the covers from Shameless.

Now, I thank Shameless very much for making more Gialli available to the masses (although Italian dubbing would be a lovely addition), but compared to the mysterious and understated cover for the Blue Underground 2005 release of "Crystal Plumage" and the sumptuous Shriek Show version for "Woman in A Lizard's Skin" (I realise there are other complaints about the quality of the DVD), I can't help feeling that this has a negative effect on the perception on the product. Their cover for "Torso", which uses a still from the film, does not pave the way for the stylish delights therein, and is a bit of a spoiler. How much better is the sinister, atmospheric Anchor Bay 2000 cover, I have the recent Blue Underground release, which has an almost 60's poster look to it.

Consequently, I'm not expecting great things from these two - but, we shall wait and see.

Other favourites include:

"What have You Done to Solange" Shriek Show 2002

The NoShame Sergio Martino collection (these guys do do some delightfully stylish for other genres too)

"The House with Laughing Windows" Image Entertainment 2003

The "Perversion Story" cover above from Severin 2007

These are intriguing and stylish covers that you want on your shelf. I like the way Shameless have used the yellow as a nod to the books, which is handy because you will instantly pick them out on your shelves BUT, I'm not keen on these cheapo covers. I know there are people enjoy this look, but I'd love to see Shameless up their game a bit. I love schlock n'sleaze with the best of them, but I don't feel these are good examples of that either.

Early Christmas present to Self

La Dolce Morte by Mikel J. Koven - Scarecrow Press (and I am checking them out right now)
I am So going to enjoy this.

The first two lines:

"This book has three aims. The first, obviously, is an explanation of the giallo, albeit from a rather synchromic, rather than diachronic, perspective..."
I'm thinking "Cor!!!" in the manner of Norman Wisdom! I am getting my dictionary out and settling down to it shortly. All this and the sound of carol singers echoing in the park! Mmmmmm.

Pronto! Pronto! a go! go!

We drove back with our latest t-shirts hot off the press from the wonderful guys at October Textiles. This time I managed to take some film of the process. We've still got to take some pics with our models but the t-shirts will be for sale online later today.

There's a bit more to add but I just wanted to put the pics and film up for now.

Pronto Pronto

We're going to our printers next week to pick up our new t-shirts for "Pronto Pronto!" (popular request). Also we've decided to keep the url off this design. I'll be taking some pics of the printing process too.

Curtis Harrington's House Part2

Image © Tyler Hubby

I've just found out that the person who sent me the link to the pics of Curtis Harrington's house is film editor Tyler Hubby who has made a film profile of the director: House of Harrington, as well as editing Harrington's last film "Usher"; there's a mention of this gem in this lovely obituary on Alternative Film Guide by Andre Soares.