Archaeology Corner: The Magnificent Seven (1960)

 

One of the upsides of all this coronavirus, being in lockdown etc is that I have the time not only to catch up on all the new films, good, bad and indifferent, on Netflix and to order DVDs of trashy horror movies and minor British gems like I Start Counting (with Jenny Agutter) but also to revisit films like the original Magnificent Seven, which I wouldn’t normally do, there being more pressing issues, like work, and travel to work, and socialising with friends, not that I did much of that before but I’ve realised how completely unnecessary it is now, and intend to do even less in the New Normal.

68½ – MOVIES, MANSON & ME (REDUX)

It’s fifty years since May ’68! What better way to celebrate than with a new, improved (i.e. shorter) version of my first book, 68½ – MOVIES, MANSON & ME? First published in 2016, the feedback I subsequently received, from both readers, was that, while they loved the sex, the drugs, the rock & roll, and even the movie trivia, they could have happily done without the “treatments” i.e.  the summaries of every script I had ever written. In so doing, or saying, they join a long and honourable list of film producers who never bothered to read my scripts either.

Every Album I Own: S is for Spirit

Was there ever a band as under-rated as Spirit, a drummer as tonsorially challenged as Ed Cassidy, or a guitarist as subtle and restrained as Randy California? Was that even his real name? Let’s hope not.

Archaeology Corner: James William Guercio & Electra Glide in Blue

No, it’s not a name anyone is immediately familiar with, unless your interest in the band Chicago extends to the man who produced their early albums (James William Guercio ) or you are such a rabidly fanatical Beach Boys fan that you know the name of their manager in the mid-1970s (James William Guercio ) or you’re even more of a Zappa/Mothers freak and have read the list of “material contributors” to their ground-breaking first (double) album, Freak Out , which, among such luminaries as Stravinsky, Stockhausen, Salvador Dali and Sonny Boy Williamson, lists one Jim Guercio.

Archaeology Corner: The Friends of Peter Boyle

I recently watched downbeat 1970s gangster movie The Friends of Eddie Coyle for the first time, and while it’s by no means a great film, or even a good one, it does feature another great turn from the wonderful Peter Boyle, here playing a Boston Irish barman/mobster with a contract on his fellow criminal Robert Mitchum.

68½

“68½: Movies, Manson & Me” is the first book by PlanktonProduktions, available as a free download from Smashwords, on Amazon Kindle (for 99p) and as a paperback, exclusively from Plankton Produktions (click on Buy above). A mind-bending journey through the outer reaches of the late 60s and 70s, the drugs, the movies, the murders, it’s equal parts autobiography, paean to the cinema of the time, DIY guide for aspiring screen-writers, and inquiry into the nature of truth and memory. “A true genre-buster,” says Nick Gilbert (no relation).

Once Upon A Time in Hollywood

So, Quentin Tarantino has made a film about the so-called “Manson Murders”. It had to happen. Tarantino and Manson are perfectly matched, even down to the love of the N-word. But just what IS the enduring appeal of, the fascination with Charles Manson?  I‘ve asked myself that question a hundred times, and been asked it as many. After all, I wrote a book “about” him, even if it was really more about me and all my unmade film scripts (including a Manson musical).

Buy “68½: Movies, Manson & Me”

Buy the paperback for only £6.00 including UK postage!