Monday, January 12, 2015

where the tree once stood; where the tree shall stand once more

hi there

i believe the tree reference of the title to be a most suitable one for a post which, ostensibly if not mostly, relates to a film from the year that was 1963 which i purchased. there will be a tree, look you see, or at least a tree along the lines of how it is referred to in the title.

there was a documentary on the BBC, Friday i believe, about British heavy metal. as is always the case with BBC documentaries, the history was limited to purely a presentation of it as it featured those artists, or if you like artistes, who had agreed to participate in the documentary. one such example was the band Black Sabbath, or if you like the Sabs.

i, ladies and gentlemen, learned from this documentary that the band Black Sabbath extracted their name off of a somewhat obscure 1963 (or thereabouts) horror film called, oddly, Black Sabbath. the BBC showed the trailer, more or less in full, for this film as they discussed the origins of the name.



the above image, i believe, reveals to you my reaction to the trailer that they screened. as i was watching it, i said to myself, for i watched the first half of the documentary alone, "that looks like a bloody good film, that does". i thus consulted that notorious proprietor of the internet,  Mr Amazon, and found that the three disc special edition was of a reasonable, indeed favourable, pricing. i ordered it, then.

there will be plenty more - although no review, for it only arrived today - on Black Sabbath later in this post, but for now i suspect one or two of you might want some exceptional tree action, since that is pretty much what the title here alludes to.

i have been discussing with several people in the town who also verk there, for we are a friendly and social sort, the procession that is the removal of the official town Christmas tree. i say procession, but perhaps ceremony is the right way to describe it. no, the "massive fanny about" they are doing. for we are now beyond the sixth day of the start of the removal of it.

here is what remains, as of this morning and indeed as was the case this afternoon.



none of us have been able to work out or otherwise fathom why exactly they could not just arrange to take all of it away all at once, or in an absolute worst case over the course of two days. i mean, i do not wish to be critical, and i suspect the actual reasons are tied up in all that "health and safety" business they take so very seriously here, but it is getting to be quite depressing. it is quite like they are determined to erode the sense and sentiment of Christmas bit by bit, as if it were some sort of peculiar form of torture.

one can, at the least, take some comfort, solace perhaps, that in this very spot where remnants of a once proud tree lay scattered as if to waste, another shall rise, as and when the season dawns which calls for such presentation of a tree.

should you wish to read any sort of symbolic metaphors or meaning into this tree removal approach, or just that picture, well, you hardly need me to say yes or no.

more of this Black Sabbath thing? sure, why not.



i knew next to nothing about the film when i ordered. all i knew was what i witnessed in the trailer, which was a lot of Boris Karloff not dressed up as Frankenstein's Monster. i appreciate that the purpose of a trailer is to make the film look good, no matter what the film is actually like, but i have every confidence that the trailer has got this one correct.

when i opened up the package off of amazon, i noticed a discrepancy more or less straight away between the product i ordered and the product i got. here, see if you can spot it.



yes, that's right. amazon list and sell the film as an 18 certificate film, but when it arrives it is in fact a 15 certificate film. quite strange, and i wonder where they got their packaging from for the picture.

it doesn't really matter, for i did not buy it specifically for any 18 certificate material. this film was, after all, made in 1963 or something like that. it was a time before anyone thought it would be quite class to have gratuitous nudity or nookie in movies, and violence was not so much graphic as it was pedestrian.

the picture above the amazon screen shows the blu ray disc that is 33% of this three disc set. here, just to keep everything complete, are the 2 DVD discs that form the other 66%, or whatever.



it comes with a pretty hefty booklet too, which is increasingly rare for blu ray discs and just about something which no longer happens for DVD releases. the paper for the booklet is of a pretty good quality, although not the shiny, glossy sort we recently experienced with the Barbs.

i am, as i think you may have worked out, quite keen to watch this movie, but i suspect i will not get the chance during the week. i will make every effort, then, to look at it at the weekend. if possible i shall go further, dear reader, and try to post some sort of review. if it is worth it.

righty-ho, that will do for now, then. hope your week all started off in the most awesome way it could, and continues to be, simply, superb.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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