@ds3k programmed us some Arabesque as part of the #Bond_age_Choice programming series and then had technical difficulties that prevented her from joining us in the live tweet. We had to fend off Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren with only our wits and a very loose grasp of what was actually happening on screen. If you’ve got any idea what happens in Arabesque, we’d love to get some pointers. In the meantime here’s the Arabesque Live Tweet Digest!
INITIATE THE ARABESQUE LIVE TWEET DIGEST!
INITATE MISSION CHARADE 2! I mean, ARABESQUE! #Bond_age_
Welcome Trashlings, #Bond_age_ fans, Mobbers, TCMPartiers and any other Twatterers that stumble into this joint. Today is Day 3 of #TheFutureIsNow 3-day Live Tweet Back to the Future extravaganza. The #DriveInMob owns hosting duties for this, the final night of our Marty McFly and Doc Brown ceremony of worship. First up is BACK TO THE FUTURE 3 at 8pmEDT followed by FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND at 10:15pmEDT. I’ll house another location to watch BTTF3 but if you’re continuing on with the Mobbers to watch Frankenstein, you’ll have to skip over to the Drive In Mob site before showtime.
A huge thank you to everyone that participated and twattered with us over these three days! It’s been great fun uniting the live tweet groups and I hope we can do it again for some other worthy cause in the near future.
Okay so maybe it’s not exactly annual. But this is what I know. I know that this will have been the third live tweet of the ever popular, super mod, Mario Bava-helmed spy caper. I also know that we’ve been doing this #Bond_age_ thing for nearly three years now. If you do the math, that certainly seems like an annual tradition. Consider this: we’ve never repeated a #Bond_age_ IMPOSTOR! once, let alone twice. This third live tweet of DANGER: DIABOLIK will elevate this IMPOSTOR! to rarefied #Bond_age_ status. If we had rafters, we’d raise it to them. If we had a hall of busts, John Phillip Law and Marisa Mell would have their own busts alongside all the Bond actors, our favorite Bond girls, the U.N.C.L.E. boys, Patrick McGoohan and Ken Clark. After this third live tweet, we will have live tweeted only From Russia With Love and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service more often than DANGER: DIABOLIK!
Chew on that for a spell.
Wednesday, October 14th at 9pm EDT, #Bond_age_ live tweets DANGER: DIABOLIK (again!)
If you’re new to DIABOLIK do yourself a favor and join us for an amazing evening of twatter. If you’ve been with us through all the DIABOLIK! sessions you’ll know this is something you just cannot miss. Block off Wednesday night, join #Bond_age_ for the DANGER: DIABOLIK Live Tweet. Also, pile all your cash in the middle of your living room and prepare to get freaky.
The embed will appear on this site the day of the Live Tweet. Follow the #Bond_age_ hashtag. And if you still need a reason to join us, here’s the trailer:
Wednesday September 30th at 9:00pm, #Bond_age_ officially goes off the reservation. In our first #Bond_age_ Choice feature since The Quiller Memorandum a few months ago, #Bond_age_ regular @tapwateralice has given us the red pill (or was it the blue pill? Shit I forget). Say, Adam Slusar, why have you chosen this film, Beyond the Black Rainbow, to live tweet with the #Bond_age_ brethren? (Use #Bond_age_ hashtag, btw.)
Now more than ever, in the wake of movies like Kung Fury and Turbo Kid, it seems a new generation of filmmakers are looking for a slice of the ‘80s nostalgia pie. If you’re like me, and becoming disenchanted by major blockbusters aping the gritty realism and navel-gazing of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy (but hey, I like at least two of those movies so don’t bring out the pitchforks just yet), this might be a good thing; a growing trend in “neo-retro” aestheticism can only mean more opportunities for glorious synthesizer soundtracks and balls-to-the-wall ridiculousness. And who doesn’t love those things?
But while ‘80s pastiche and riffing on VHS action movie mayhem is easy enough to wrap one’s head around, the film I want to introduce is a different beast altogether.
Beyond the Black Rainbow is firmly established in 1980s retrograde – complete with a haunting synth score and 1983 setting – but don’t expect to find any cheesy one-liners or gun-toting heroics here. Our mute protagonist, Elena (Eva Allan) is a patient at the Arboria Institute under the care of the enigmatic Dr. Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers). Elena, who possesses strange powers, is kept seemingly against her will in what appears to be a nightmarish fusion between the space stations of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the deathtrap environments of Cube. Claustrophobic, grim and cryptic, director Panos Cosmatos channels the likes of David Cronenberg and Dario Argento in a film that defies a conventional plot description. You’re best to go into this one blind.
Being that this is my pick for the #Bond_age_ Choice live tweet, some of you might be wondering if Beyond the Black Rainbow has any ties to Bond? On one hand I could say “no”… but on the other hand, the dynamic between Elena and Dr. Nyle does bear a few striking similarities to that of Solitaire and Kananga/Mr. Big in Live And Let Die. And 1983 was the “Battle of the Bonds”, after all…
But in all honesty, I chose Beyond the Black Rainbow because it’s one of the most absorbing, strange and visually stimulating independent art films that I’ve seen in recent years. Open-ended and vague in certain respects (and I mean this in the best possible sense of the word), but nonetheless a film that rewards the repeat viewer and those who pay close enough attention.
I enjoyed my first experience and I hope you do, too. For as Buckaroo Banzai once said: “No matter where you go… there you are.”
(Beyond the Black Rainbow is available to stream on Netflix (CA), Google Play, as well as BluRay & DVD. An embed for the film will appear here on the #Bond_age_ site for the duration of the live tweet and then disappear immediately after the conclusion of the festivities.)
Wednesday (TONIGHT!) @ 9pm ET, #Bond_age_ live tweets the final film in the Ken Clark spy trilogy: SPECIAL MISSION LADY CHAPLIN, co-starring the great Daniela Bianchi.
Again directed by Sergio Grieco and Alberto de Martino but originally billed as “Terence Hathaway,” Special Mission Lady Chaplin finds our hero, Agent 077 Dick Malloy, mixed up with a Parisian fashion stylist, a missing nuclear submarine and a sixteen AWOL missiles. If you’ve seen any of the other Ken Clark entries, you’ll know the actually plot becomes irrelevant sometime around the 2 minute mark. The “plot” is just an excuse to give Ken Clark people to punch and women to ogle. And in this final 077 film, we’re given one of the finest women to ogle — Tatiana Romanova herself, Daniela Bianchi. Daniela gets to vamp and villain and sport a nun’s habit in a highly entertaining opening heist.
This movie is the reason I wanted to do all three Ken Clark films. Both From the Orient with Fury and Mission Bloody Mary have built up to this, the resplendent feather in Ken Clark’s EuroSpy cap. Mission Bloody Mary played fast and loose with genre tropes. From the Orient with Fury became an odd mixture of earnestness and parody coupled with technical “choices” that entertained and puzzled in equal measure. In Lady Chaplin not only do we get to see one of the great Bond girls in a featured role, we get a funny and well-paced spy romp featuring our favorite American EuroSpy export, Ken Clark and his hamfists of fury.
(Due to the size of the embedded file, please press play well before the start time of the live tweet. Once the video starts playing, press pause and the video will continue to load. This should prevent buffering and freezes during the live tweet.)
Agent 077: Special Mission Lady Chaplin – follow #Bond_age_ hash
