Good Monday

Lately it seems that every single day brings with it more and more bad news of all kinds, whether it's on the cosmic scale of a total of 650,000 dead civilians in Iraq, or the further erosion of the ozone layer or the middle class, or on the more personal scale of hearing that Tower Records, C.B.G.B.'s, and PSYCHOTRONIC are closing up shop. So when I see/hear about something -- anything -- which proves beyond a shadow of doubt that wonderful and magical things can still happen on our jaded, cynical, backward planet, I feel a moral imperative to pounce on it, embrace it, and proclaim to the world... THIS IS GOOD!

This is a publicity photo taken on the set of HOSTEL: PART II, currently in production. It was leaked by the film's writer-director Eli Roth (the guy in the CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST T-shirt) on his blog and shows him directing one of the film's stars... the ever-beautiful Edwige Fenech! To paraphrase JERRY MAGUIRE, Eli had me at the T-shirt, but for him to be bringing Edwige Fenech back to the screen in a major American motion picture? THIS IS GOOD! Hell, this is practically Mother Earth momentarily back in balance, if you ask me.

And while we are honoring that which is (or was) good...

Re-fasten your centenary belts because Léon Klimovsky -- the director of WEREWOLF SHADOW, DR. JEKYLL AND THE WEREWOLF, VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES, THE DEVIL'S POSSESSED, THE SAGA OF THE DRACULAS, THE VAMPIRE'S NIGHT ORGY, THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK, and many others... also the man who gave Jess Franco his start in movies as a screenwriter... was born 100 years ago today. Yo le saludo, Maestro, y gracias.