Writing about movies, monsters, cinematic events and other wild trips
Be still my beating heart. This film. VIDEODROME. Cinema doesn’t get much better. And this beautiful 4K Ultra HD Special Release from Arrow Films even smells fantastic.
I’m proud to have contributed a retrospective roundtable discussion for the booklet with Cerise Howard, Dr Josh Nelson and Dr Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. But this is only a small portion of this special release, which is bursting with vivid viscerality.
Long live the new flesh!
If you’ve seen THE GIANT CLAW (dir. Fred F. Sears, 1957), you can imagine my squeals of delight when asked by Arrow Films to co-create a new commentary with the sublime Cerise Howard for their new boxset, Cold War Creatures: Four Films From Sam Katzman.
Producer Sam Katzman was a genius when it came to churning out cheap exploitation flicks that returned on their minuscule budgets in spades. He brashly ventured into anything he thought could turn a buck, from 1950s TV serials to films on rock ‘n’ roll and juvenile delinquency.
THE GIANT CLAW sits within his work in the Atomic Age monster movie sub-genre and delivers generously with a ‘plucked turkey’ monster so ridiculous you can’t help but love it. The other films featured in the boxset are THE WEREWOLF, CREATURE WITH THE ATOMIC BRAIN and ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU.
I only hope that Cerise and I managed to do THE GIANT CLAW justice in acknowledging the spirit in which it was made i.e. with tongue-in-cheek fun (or should that be ‘tongue-in-beak’?).
And because I can’t get enough of THE GIANT CLAW, here’s my gift to you…
Over the holiday break, while Plato’s Cave was on hiatus, I was asked by my good friend, Sally Christie, to join her and another good friend, Lee Gambin, (and his stunning dog, Buddy) on her special summer show on Triple R, Caught in a Celluloid Jam.
Sally used Caught in a Celluloid Jam as a forum to present some of her favourite topics/genres of cinema. The episode in which Lee and I participated focused specifically on satanic cinema. And what a hoot it was! I strongly suggest you take a listen and hear us rabbit on about approximately 20 films of the devilish kind.
But something else happened over summer… Plato’s Cave has changed!
Now under the name Primal Screen at 7pm Mondays on Triple R, Plato’s Cave gets a same-same-but-different reworking, which includes a new lineup of weekly co-hosts: Paul Anthony Nelson, Sally Christie and Flick Ford.
Old faithfuls, Cerise Howard and myself, will be making the occasional appearance as guests but, in 2020, everything’s getting a makeover, including the show intro, which sounds something like this…
It was International Women’s Day on 8th March 2019.
Programming and Content Manager at Triple R, Bec Hornsby, asked Cerise Howard and I from Plato’s Cave, and Megan McKeough from Zero-G, to talk about anything we wanted to talk about. So we chatted about women in film and we introduced our hour-long broadcast with the Duran Duran song, ‘Girls on Film’ (my personal highlight of the show).
One of the things we discussed was early women filmmakers, which meant the subject of Alice Guy-Blaché came up – one of (if not) the most criminally forgotten people in cinema. In talking about Alice, we were able to determine that cinema is not an industry that is new to female practitioners; it is one that was built by female practitioners. Somewhere along the way, the money men pushed the women out.
You can listen back to our broadcast here, and you can also find out more about Alice Guy-Blaché in a documentary that seeks to right a wrong, Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.
We owe a lot to Alice Guy-Blaché. Worship her.
This Monday 7th August at 7pm, our radio show Plato’s Cave will be transported from the Triple R studio to one of my favourite Melbourne spaces, Forum Theatre (or MIFF Festival Lounge), where we’ll be broadcasting live in front of a film-hungry audience on flicks at the 2017 Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF).
Since Thomas Caldwell will be assuming his own MIFF duties, joining the all-star (?) lineup of Cerise, Alex and I will be original Plato’s Caver, Tara Judah, flying all the way from the United Kingdom for the privilege. She’s a good egg.
We are not the only ones from Triple R broadcasting from the MIFF Festival Lounge. Things will be kicking off at 4pm with Fee-B-Squared and Maps going live-to-air with a number of guests, including the legendary Steve Kilbey from The Church.
Come along, nab a booth and a beverage, and hear some good radio, including us PC gals gabbing on like a foursome of witches drinking cups of tea (thanks to Alex for the featured image). Admission is free.
One of the gratifying outcomes of the RAW advanced screening and discussion panel with Barbara Creed, Philippa Hawker, Clem Bastow and Cerise Howard on 19th April has been the opportunity to write a wrap-up of the event for the incomparable Kat Ellinger and Diabolique online.
For those who were not able to attend, this is the closest you’ll get to hearing the panellists’ words, including sage observations from the likes of Cerise Howard:
“What is most monstrous in this film is heteronormativity… This whole hazing business… it’s rape culture writ large and is truly monstrous.”
Join Cinema Nova in Melbourne for an advance screening of Julia Ducournau’s stunning debut film RAW on Wednesday 19th April, followed by a panel hosted by me and featuring Clem Bastow, Barbara Creed, Philippa Hawker and Cerise Howard discussing ‘horror in the eyes of women’…
EMMA WESTWOOD 