Pulp Librarian
@PulpLibrarian • 171,576 subscribers
Old books, movies and music. Keeping Twitter busy since 2014.
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Jabberwocky (1977). Terry Gilliam takes the Lewis Carroll nonsense poem on a suitably Pythonesque journey in this movie, helped by a range of British comedy stalwarts. Michael Palin is the slightly pedantic cooper's apprentice, who inadvertently takes the Hero's Journey to slay the vicious monster. It has all the usual Python silliness and Gilliam gore, including the decision to choose the King's Champion through a game of hide and seek, as jousting seems to be causing more carnage and bloodshed than it's worth...
Pulp Librarian26,012 views • 13 hours ago
Zero Hour! (1957). "Our survival hinges on one thing - finding someone who not only can fly this plane, but didn't have fish for dinner!" Troubled wartime pilot Ted Stryker must land a stricken passenger plane as the pilots and half the passengers have eaten poisoned fish. With his estranged wife Ellen as his copilot, and his angry former commanding officer Captain Treleaven in the control tower, can Stryker conquer his demons and land that plane? Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker wisely bought the rights to Zero Hour! before they made Airplane! (1980) as they do borrow much of the dialogue, plot and characters. That said, the 1957 film is still a fine melodrama. "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking."
Pulp Librarian51,233 views • 2 days ago
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Screaming Mimi (1958). Fredric Brown is a really good writer, and this adaption of his 1949 psychological thriller still holds up well. Anita Ekberg is the burlesque dancer who turns to a psychiatrist to help her overcome the trauma of a gruesome attack by a madman, only for a torrid love affair to ensue. As they hide out together, and Ekberg begins dancing again, another killer is on the loose and a journalist is starting to pry. There's lots of noir and giallo themes all mixed up in this one, plus some really good jazz and burlesque dancing. It's pretty pacey and you can sense that it would have both shocked and titillated a 1958 audience in equal measure.
Pulp Librarian28,109 views • 1 day ago
The Day Of The Triffids (1981). John Wyndham's "cosy catastrophe" gets a gritty Cold War survivalist style production by the BBC. John Duttine is the stoic everyman hero Bill, with the grim task of surviving in a devastated world. Emma Relph and Maurice Colbourne give powerful performances as Jo Playton and Jack Coker respectively, and they come to very different conclusions about the duty towards the blinded population and the necessity of long term survival. The Triffids in this are nice and chilling: it's hard to make a plant seem terrifying, but with their rattling hissing sound they gave many viewers nightmares.
Pulp Librarian37,046 views • 2 days ago
The Master (1984). Lee Van Cleef is a ninja master in this short-lived NBC TV show, returning to America to find his daughter. Tim Van Patten (later to direct The Sopranos) is his hot-headed apprentice. Bill Conti did the exciting theme music. Pitched as a rival to the A-Team, the dynamic ninja duo drive around in a van helping strangers in distress, having exciting fights and generally doing all the usual master/apprentice tropes. Only 13 episodes were made and maybe that was enough.
Pulp Librarian69,965 views • 6 days ago
Capricorn One is still one of the most entertaining conspiracy thrillers of the 1970s, with a great set up and a really strong hook: the faking of a crewed mission to Mars. It's sometimes a bit overlooked, maybe because it's a slow build up, but the payoff is worth it with some brilliant action sequences: Telly Savalas and Elliott Gould in a crop sprayer dodging helicopters, Gould driving at breakneck speed without breaks through traffic. It tapped into a lot of existing conspiracy theories and a general post-Watergate mood of distrust in institutions, and writer and director Peter Hyams delivers a strong thriller as a result. The two novelisations, by Ron Goulart and Ken Follett (writing as Bernard L. Ross) are really good reads. Hyams later sci-fi work also doesn't get all the credit it deserves. Outland (1981) is a solid 'space Western' that feels claustrophobic and tense throughout. 2010: The Year We Make Contact is also really good ("Piece of pie!"). Watching all three movies together makes for a fun (but long) evening! Capricorn One had its US release delayed until mid-1978 to avoid clashing with Superman. Audiences really liked it and the Jerry Goldsmith score, realistic NASA props and some great set pieces make it really work quite well.
Pulp Librarian64,991 views • 7 days ago
Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (2004). The importance of theme in literature...
Pulp Librarian30,512 views • 4 days ago
Chas & Dave: the Sideboard Song. First released in 1979 this surprisingly wasn't a hit, unlike the previous single Gertcha (reworded versions of both were used for Courage Best TV adverts!) It is one of the liveliest Chas & Dave tracks and it's a belter, so here it is performed on their 1982 Xmas special. Spot the number of classic Slazenger V neck jumpers in the audience...
Pulp Librarian17,024 views • 2 days ago
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Christopher Lee sings! If you haven't seen The Return of Captain Invincible (1983) then you should, not least for the musical numbers. Alan Arkin is the retired 1940s superhero with a booze problem, living in Australia and keeping out of sight. Christopher Lee is his arch-nemesis Mr. Midnight, who realises the Captain's fatal weakness is booze. Can Captain Invincible master his forgotten superpowers to save the world, or will the demon drink be his Kryptonite? Richard O'Brien and Richard Hartley contributed a number of songs, including Name Your Poison, to give it a slight Rocky Horror vibe. The budget is low, the comedy is madcap and in-between it does touch on some interesting themes about heroes and celebrity. The film tanked at the box office, not helped by a legal dispute over whether it counted as an Australian film and was entitled to tax breaks. It has found a new audience over the years and is now seen as a bit of an Aussie gem: a diamond in the rough.
Pulp Librarian255,881 views • 1 month ago
Babylon Zoo: Spaceman (1996). Originally used for a Levi's jeans ad in 1995 after a rare demo version was played on a Manchester radio station - that's how we rolled in the '90s! This was the only real hit for the Wolverhampton indie rockers when it was released the following year. Top 10 across all of Europe, No 1 in the UK, France and Germany, and then they faded away...
Pulp Librarian329,087 views • 2 months ago
Battletruck (1982). A Kiwi take on Mad Max, even if the lead actors are all American. Michael Beck battles James Wainwright after the Oil Wars leave the world in desperation. Shot on the Central Otago plains of New Zealand it's all action, lots of carnage and the aforementioned battletruck smashes everything in its path. John Ratzenberger's in it too!
Pulp Librarian237,790 views • 1 month ago
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Zardoz (1974). In a future Earth made up of immortals and savages, an assassin of the wastelands (Sean Connery) brings the gift of death to the bored, corrupt Eternals, having learnt the truth about them in an abandoned library. Which sounds fine, except John Boorman has other ideas. Many other ideas. And all of them will be put into this film. Some of them in a big floating stone head yelling "The gun is good! The penis is evil!" The Eternals live in The Vortex, which is a large country house. They have lose their sex drive and the need to sleep. Some - The Apathetics - are catatonic, until they lick Connery's sweat and go wild. Oh, and they have psychic powers. And they like going topless. To be honest there's little point in explaining the Zardoz plot: it's a bit confused. At one point Connery wears a wedding dress to escape Renegade Eternals. Later he fights a baboon. He also hits people with flour. And has an erection in a laboratory. It's very of its time: a fin de siècle film for 1960s idealism. You should watch it once.
Pulp Librarian49,786 views • 10 days ago
