Deluxe Small Faces Reissues Coming Soon...

Following its mighty Kinks reissue campaign of 2011, the Universal Music Group has a similar one on the way for 2012 for one of the other great unabashedly British Rock bands. Four Small Faces albums--their eponymous debut on Decca, From the Beginning, and the eponymous debut on Immediate--will receive deluxe, double-disc editions. Their masterpiece, the semi-Rock opera Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, will receive a sprawling triple-disc revamp. Each set will include each album in mono and stereo and supplemented with bonus tracks. Unlike the staggered Kinks campaign, all four reissues will be released in the UK on May 7. Track information is not yet available, but you can pre-order each disc at Amazon using the links below.



Many thanks to The Second Disc for this scoop, and tune in next Monday for more Small Faces business here at Psychobabble!

David Lynch Fest Coming to NY's 92YTribeca

Huge news for Lynch freaks in the New York area. This February, the 92YTribeca will be hosting screenings of Dune, Wild at Heart, and (of course) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me in celebration of the 25^th anniversary of David Lynch’s big-screen continuation of his and Mark Frost’s small-screen sensation “Twin Peaks”. That’s mighty impressive considering the critical drubbing Fire Walk with Me received when it debuted back in 1992. However, Lynch fans have long championed this equally nightmarish and dreamy film, and it has enjoyed quite a bit of critical reevaluation in the ensuing two decades. Other “Twin Peaks”-related events are a panel discussion about the actresses of “Twin Peaks” hosted by Tom Blunt and a screening of the pilot episode with a new electronic soundtrack by Brooklyn’s Silent Drape Runners.

Visit the official 92Y site for more information. Here’s the schedule:

92YTribeca, 200 Hudson Street, Manhattan

Meet The Lady: The Women of Twin Peaks! 
Sat, Feb 11, 2012, 8 pm

Dune

Wed, Feb 15, 2012, 7:30 pm

Silent Drape Runners Present Twin Peaks: The Beginning

Sat, Feb 18, 2012, 10 pm

Live re-soundtracking to Twin Peaks.

Wild at Heart

Wed, Feb 22, 2012, 7:30 pm

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

Multiple dates/times are listed, click to see more information.

Thanks to Dugpa.com for this scoop.

Review: The Criterion Edition of 'Godzilla'

For many monster maniacs, Godzilla was a towering, rubber-suited ruffian with a heart of gold, practicing WWF moves with a giant moth and siring (or giving birth …what gender is Godzilla, anyway?) a cutesy pie, smoke-puffing baby-zilla. In other words, Godzilla was strictly kid’s stuff. This isn’t how the towering one got started. Ishiro Honda’s 1954 Gojira was a somber, sober allegory about the H-bombs that rained horror on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was shot in artful black and white, Godzilla didn’t do any crowd-pleasing capering, and Takashi Shimura, the respected actor who was a favorite of Akira Kurosawa, starred. Gojira was a serious film with a serious reputation for being one of Japan’s greatest.

Despite the content of the monster’s debut, the name “Godzilla” will forever pack connotations of fun and frivolity and skyscraper smashing. Criterion’s new double-disc DVD does a terrific job of emphasizing the seriousness of Gojira and the goofy joy of Godzilla. Honda’s film is presented in beautiful, high-definition on disc one. The bulk of disc two is devoted to the infamous 1956 Americanized version by Terry Morse. Retitled Godzilla: King of the Monsters, this version retains less than 60 minutes of the original film, loses all explicit references to Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and shoe-horns Raymond Burr into the plot in a cheap attempt to give Americans “someone to relate to.”  While this film retains some of Honda’s melancholy, it is closer in tone to the Godzilla films that would follow, particularly because of its awkwardness. It’s a sloppy mix of bad dubbing, bad translations, and blatantly phony attempts to make Burr seem as though he’s interacting with Honda’s cast. It’s also quite a bit more fun than the Japanese original.

The extras are similarly split. There’s a disturbing featurette about the radioactive ash-showered fishing vessel that inspired Gojira. J. Hoberman offers a grim and engrossing booklet essay titled “Poetry After the A-Bomb”. At the other end of the spectrum, there’s a fun featurette about the film’s impressive photographic effects and a totally neat Godzilla pop up in the packaging. Film historian David Kalat provides lively commentaries for both films, which are different enough to warrant them. Of course, those films are the main selling point of this DVD set, and they look and sound spectacular enough to entice Godzilla freaks who have more than their share of Godzilla stuff to purchase these films one more time.

Through the Past Darkly with ‘Between the Buttons’

Tap your foot and rhyme, trip back 45 years time… Swinging London in full swing… floppy hats and foppish brooches… skinny drain pipes and big round sunglasses under sunless skies… paisley, pinstripes, pop art… acid and nightly clubbing with Rock royalty… The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks… the artists’ art: Rubber Soul and Revolver, My Generation and A Quick One, “Sunny Afternoon” and “Over, Under, Sideways Down”… visitors from across the Atlantic: Bob and Brian bringing Blonde on Blonde and Pet Sounds back home… Chuck and Muddy stacked in the attic… out with Chrissie Shrimpton like yesterday’s papers; in with Marianne and Anita… all these ingredients in the soup of late ’66… when The Rolling Stones consumed their peers and times, the styles, the sex, the drugs, the lifestyle, the retro vaudeville and prog psychedelia, spat them out on a vinyl time capsule called Between the Buttons… see it more clearer…


…Between the Buttons starts as a laugh… a spate of writing in late 1966… Mick goes solo for the first time, discarding Chrissie with utmost cruelty on “Yesterday’s Papers”… Keith composes “Connection” without connecting with his mate, unknowingly foretelling

A Bloody Bevy of Hammer Horrors Coming to Blu-Ray

Blu-ray enthusiasts can look forward to seeing a lot of high-definition phony blood in 2012. The recently resurrected Hammer Studio has a huge Blu-ray campaign in the works for 30 of its classic titles. It all begins in March 5 when Dracula Prince of Darkness is unleashed in the U.K. (you can pre-order it using the Amazon.uk link below). Other titles in the works include Dracula, The Curse of Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Devil Rides Out, The Plague of the Zombies, Rasputin the Mad Monk, The Mummy's Shroud, and The Reptile. Marcus Hearn, author The Hammer Vault, will be overseeing the documentaries and interviews that will supplement these discs. No word yet on whether or not these same deluxe discs will make it to the U.S.



Thanks to Bloody Disgusting.com for this scoop.

The Beatles, Richard Lester, and the Art of Rock & Roll Movies

Press Goon: “Don’t you ever get a haircut?”
George Harrison: “I had one yesterday.”
Everyone: hysterics

If The Beatles could break up a room by drolly delivering middling quips like this, just think what they could do mouthing the words of a professional screenwriter! After all, they’ve already sent millions into frenzy doing nothing more than twanging their electric ukuleles, bashing their Ringo bongos, shaking their hideous wigs, and screeching “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Look at all the cash raked in on those awful Elvis films. Quickly, quickly! Get a writer! Get a director! Any will do! No budget is too small! Just get “The Beatles” up on the marquees before time runs out on this fab fad.

Dezo Hoffmann's iconic leaping Beatles. 
Rock & Roll wasn’t supposed to last, and Rock movies were even more ephemeral. The New York Times said The Girl Can’t Help It was “as meager and witless as a cheap pin-up magazine joke.” So what if Frank Tashlin infused it with the color and energy of a Tex Avery cartoon? So what if Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Fats Domino, and The Treniers pitch the pace into hyperdrive with their elation-inducing performances? The Times knew well they were just “grab[bing] the spotlight and beat[ing] out their agonized tunes… the way alert bullfighters rush into the ring when a companion is gored.” No one would remember the picture beyond 1957, but it doubled its budget at the box office. No one would remember a Beatles movie beyond 1964, but that sort of thing was guaranteed cash in the bank.

The Beatles didn’t seem to think much of the Elvis pictures, but they did catch The Girl Can’t Help It. Lennon was particularly turned on by the sights of Little Richard screaming while beating his piano standing up and Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps shaking off their blue caps during “Be-Bop-a-Lula” (a record he first heard from his mother, Julia, The Beatles often covered in their early days, and opened Lennon’s Rock ‘n’ Roll L.P. in 1975). The New York Times may have been quite happy to forget all about The Girl Can’t Help It. The Beatles weren’t. On September 18, 1968, they even delayed the night’s “White Album” session—and put their severe personal problems on hold—to convene at Paul’s place to watch the movie’s BBC debut. Perhaps Rock & Roll movies weren’t so fleeting. Perhaps they could have profound impacts, inspiring fledgling musicians to change the world and patch up damaged relationships. Perhaps a visionary director such as Frank Tashlin could make a difference.

Piper Laurie to Make Personal Appearance at 'Carrie' Screening in Jersey City

Sissy Spacek may have played the title role in Carrie, but the film's undeniable scene stealer is Piper Laurie, who psychoed it up as Carrie White's crazy Christian mom. Piper recently published her autobiography, Learning to Live Out Loud, and to promote the book she'll be making a special live appearance at The Landmark Loews theater in Jersey City on Saturday, January 28th. The event begins with includes a meet and greet at 5:15 pm. A screening of The Hustler (1961), for which she earned a best supporting actress nomination, follows. There's another meet and greet at 7:45 before getting down to business with an on-stage interview at 8:30 and a screening of Carrie at 9:15. Hopefully she'll field some questions about her stellar work on "Twin Peaks" (Mr. Tojamura is one of the all-time amazing fake outs!).

The Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre
54 Journal Square Jersey City, NJ 07306
(201) 798-6055

Admission for individual films: $10 adults / $7 seniors & kids.
(Also includes on-stage interview and "Meet")

COMBO admission for BOTH “The Hustler” and “Carrie”: $16 adults / $12 seniors & kids
(Includes on-stage interview & “Meet”)

Read all other details at the official Landmark Loews site here.