Yes, yes – I’m late.

And it’s even later here, so I feel even more guilty.

Of course I have an excuse; and unlike most of my excuses, it’s a really good one!

That old joker, 2013, decided to go out with a literal bang by dropping a tree on my house. Consequently I’ve been a little…distracted.

Not to mention behind in my New Year’s Resolutions by 1st January – a new record!

However…

2013 was indeed a right bee-yotch of a year and I for one am profoundly grateful to see the back of it.

And while I’m not going to make any foolhardy promises for 2014, either on my own behalf or on behalf of the others, I think I can say that we will at least be trying to get ourselves back in some sort of order.

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As always, our sincere thanks and gratitude to those of you who have stuck by us through a very rough ride, and here’s hoping for smoother (and more productive!) sailing in the future.

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And there it is: that terrible temptation to swear – and in front of witnesses! – that things are going to be different this year.

Instead of succumbing to that particular temptation, I will simply thank everyone who stopped by the blog in 2012, and particularly those who took the time to comment and chat.

Here’s hoping for a more productive year in 2013, as we continue the endless journey back and forth along the cinematic bell-curve!

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Giordano Bruno Mattei — alias Jordan B. Matthews… alias Stefan Oblowski… alias Vincent Dawn… alias Pierre Le Blanc… alias Frank Klox, and David Hunt, and Jimmy Mattheus, and Gilbert Roussel, and… oh, you get the idea — started working in the movies as an editor. It turned out he had a genuine talent for arranging the bits and pieces of other people’s movies. Unfortunately, that’s a a habit he took with him when he started making movies of his own. Far from being unhappy with the lack of originality in the Italian movie business, Mattei thrived on it. Even decades later, when times and fashions had changed, he kept “borrowing” from the same sources he and his colleagues had ripped off years ago.

But though he stole liberally from other, better films, he never seemed to understand what made those other films better. So he usually ended up stealing all the wrong things, and garbling them pretty badly. Still, his genuine talent as an editor meant his films, awful though they might be, were usually pretty well-assembled. His technical skill allowed him to make some of the most genuinely entertaining Bad Movies of all time. They are so consistently bad, and so consistently entertaining, that they formed a subgenre unto themselves, and approach the status of post-modern art.

Some artists have their statues built while they are still alive; others — the outsiders, the mavericks, the visionaries — must struggle to scratch their initials on the plinth. Say what you will about Bruno Mattei, one thing is certain: he left his defiant B.M. all over the history of cinema.

So join us through the month of November, as we celebrate Brunoween: the holiday that starts a little too late, and keeps going on and on, long after you wish it would stop.

 

There’s no doubt about it: Homo sapiens is an uppity species, very much inclined to overrate itself. A species that can always stand to be taken down a peg or two. A species that needs a regular dose of reality.

So join us as we take a look at some films in which Man receives a sharp, if not necessarily short, reminder of his actual place in the food chain.

 

 
It’s TEETH AND TENTACLES – all through August at the B-Masters’ Blog!

It is generally estimated that each season, over 500 ideas for new TV series get pitched to the executives of the major American networks, with only 20 receiving the greenlight for the filming of a pilot episode. Of these, perhaps eight will result in the production of a series, with no more than one or two surviving to a second season or better.

It’s a miracle, really, how so much crap still makes it onto the air.

As this brief outline makes clear, there are a variety of fates that might befall a pilot episode. It might air as is, the lead-in for the series to follow; it might be re-tooled, sending the series into a direction different from that initially conceived; it might be re-cut into a made-for-TV movie, as a way of recouping costs (or, in the case of Mulholland Drive, as a way for its director to score a Best Director win at Cannes and an Academy Award nomination while making the ABC executives look more than ordinarily foolish); or it might end up simply as filler, offering bewildered viewers a tantalising glimpse into the might-have-been…and the what-the-hell-were-they-thinking!?

So join us as we take a look at some of the pilots that made it – and others that never stood a chance.

It’s TO BE OR NOT TO BE – all through May at the B-Masters’ blog!

Some of you may have noticed that twelve years’ worth of domain-name changes, platform shifts, and sheer laziness have rendered the Grand Index substantially less grand than it might be.  I’ve noticed too, and more importantly, I’ve taken it upon myself to do something about it.  For the past month or so, I’ve been methodically going through the Grand Index, one affliated site at a time, making sure that all extant B-Masters reviews are linked under at least one title, and that all the links actually go where they’re supposed to.  So far, I’ve completed index rectification for 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting, And You Call Yourself a Scientist, badmovies.org, Jabootu’s Bad Movie Dimension, Teleport City, and The Unknown Movies.  Braineater is up next, and then I’ll turn my attention to the sites that are no longer active.  By the time I’m through, all the B-Masters’ reviews will be linked under all commonly used titles.  No promises as to when that’ll be, though…

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Well…I can honestly say there have been few years I’ve been as glad to see the back of as 2011…and I suspect I’m not the only one here to feel that way.

Thank you to all those who stuck by us in what has been a pretty lean stretch. The visits and the comments help more than you can know.

But no more of that! Here we are in those wonderful few days when we can kid ourselves that everything’s going to be different from now on – so let’s enjoy it!

Here’s hoping for a much better 2012; a year filled to the brim with – as opposed to occasionally interrupted by – monsters, maniacs, and mad science, nunchucks and ninjas, killer animals and amateur pilots, and dreadful, dreadful DVD covers…

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