Dodgy film of the week

El santuario no se rinde, on at 10 at the Filmoteca. Released in 1949, apparently it has the besieged Guardia Civils sing fandangos while they wait for the red notary to desert the French International Brigades and die honourably. The big question: will it be worse than Jean Renoir’s La Marseillaise, seen the other week?

True origins of Goebbels' "total war" slogan

Like all other biographies of Joseph Goebbels, Das Goebbels Experiment, seen the other night at the Filmoteca, dates the “Wollt Ihr den totalen Krieg?” (“Do you want total war?”) call to the February 1943 Sport Palace speech/Sportpalastrede. Here is the truth, as told me by a Dutch bass player: It is not generally known that…

True origins of Goebbels’ “total war” slogan

Like all other biographies of Joseph Goebbels, Das Goebbels Experiment, seen the other night at the Filmoteca, dates the “Wollt Ihr den totalen Krieg?” (“Do you want total war?”) call to the February 1943 Sport Palace speech/Sportpalastrede. Here is the truth, as told me by a Dutch bass player: It is not generally known that…

Theo van Gogh film @ the Filmoteca

Tomorrow at 7:30 they’re showing old fatso’s low-budget, quasi-real, low/high culture Interview (“The cabinet’s going to fall tonight and I’ve got to go and interview a pair of tits”; Dutch with Spanish subtitles(?)) as part of a Dutch film week. There’s a full programme here (PDF), but I make this the pick of the bunch.

What Theo van Gogh really said

There’s a deserved attack here by Franco Alemán on a lousy article by Carmen Montón in La Vanguardia, the paper for people who like to think they know about Foreignistan. She says that “[Theo]Van Gogh had exceeded the most extreme limits of provocation known in civilised countries.” This is not the view of the man…

Credit cards, our salvation

In line with Popbitch‘s punderful headline, “Does my bomb look big in this?”, the irrepressible Bina Shah has concluded that the only sensible riposte to the disasters afflicting us is to go shopping. She also compares the US to a giant cockroach. I think it’s less Kafka than kompliment, and that she’d have joined the…

Pigeon poo

Two old people were arguing this afternoon under the memorial to Joan Amades on Calle Carmen in the Raval about whether the pigeons should be fed. The argument proceeded along roughly the same lines as in the 1950s Parisian skirmish recorded in Juan Goytisolo‘s Señas de identidad (1966), in which the old man is determined…

Nacho interruptus

From the man who called Sylvia Saint a sow, sad news for those who believe that the only good Spanish film is a sex film. Fortunately Jesús Franco shows no signs of making good on his promise to die camera in hand.

Omagh en español

– One for Omagh, please. – Eh? – One ticket for Omagh. It’s a film that’s showing here. – Ah, you mean Oma[x] [ie, the “j” in jabón]. Are you from England? – Er… – Well that explains it. I did philology and in Ireland they say Oma[x]. – Er, well actually… – What do…