Bill Barounis and Onar Films on DVD

Bill Barounis was a friend of mine in Greece who sadly passed away last year after a long battle with cancer. Bill was, among other achievements, the creator of the Onar DVD label which made many rare Turkish exploitation movies available in English subtitled versions. Below is a post and photo taken from the Mondo Macabro blog by Jared at Mondo Macabro DVD, re-posted here with their permission, on how to get some of these DVDs and, in the process, help Bill's family out.

I can heavily recommend "3 Dev Adam" ("3 Mighty Men" aka "Santo and captain America vs. Spiderman"), one of the most bizarre super-hero rip-off movies ever lensed!

~Brian H.



Last year our good friend Bill Barounis tragically died after a long battle with cancer. He left behind both a family and a large overstock of DVDs from his labor-of-love boutique label Onar Films. Thankfully, his friend Ali Murat Guven has endeavored to come to the aid of his grieving family by selling that overstock. I know there are many people who came late to the Onar party or simply weren't able to to pick up every discs at the time. Here's a chance to complete your collection and help out somone in need at the same time.

Here's Guven's statement on What and How:

ONAR FILMS DVD'S ON SALE
This sale is for the Family of our friend Vasilis "Bill"... The money will be send to his family.

For the orders outside Turkey: buyers add/pay their shipment . All will send to you with PTT (turkish post) Tracking number system. Sending time for Turkey is 1 week and Outside Turkey is 2 weeks. You can contact onarfilms.lastfilms@yahoo.com.
For the signed posters you have to mention your names!.
Ali Murat Guven

PS: I will add details for all your questions...

Prices and the list of the movies
25 lira - 11 euro - 14 dolar
30 lira: 13 euro - 17 dolar

3 DEV ADAM (LAST 85 copy) / Price: 25 lira
With a small poster signed by Aytekin Akkaya

ÖLÜLER KONUŞMAZ Kİ / AŞKA SUSAYANLAR (İki filmli DVD / LAST 80 copy) / Price: 30 TL
With a small poster signed by Aytekin Akkaya

KORKUSUZ KAPTAN SWING (Last 80 COPY) / Price: 25 TL

TARZAN İSTANBUL’DA (Last 90 COPY) / Price: 25 TL
With a small poster signed bu Kunt Tulgar

SÜPERMEN DÖNÜYOR / DEMİR YUMRUK DEVLER GELİYOR (İki filmli DVD / Last 70 COPY) / Price: 30 TL
With a small poster signed bu Kunt Tulgar (director of the Supermen Donuyor)

KİLİNK İSTANBUL’DA (Last 30 COPY) / Price: 25 TL

KIZIL TUĞ: CENGİZ HAN (Last 75 COPY) / Price: 25 TL

ALTIN ÇOCUK (Last 90 COPY) / Price: 25 TL

CASUS KIRAN (Last 15 COPY) / Price: 25 TL

CELLAT (Last 5 COPY) / Fiyatı: 30 TL

KİLİNK UÇAN ADAM’A KARŞI / KİLİNK SOY VE ÖLDÜR (İki filmli DVD / Last 80 COPY) / Price: 30 TL

This statement came sometime (last week) and I'd wager this no longer accurately reflect the numbers still in stock. Email for inquiries.

Bill was a man with a dream. He lived it, and he died with it. Keep that dream alive and order as many Onar DVDs as your wallet will allow.

MONTEREY POP: THE THINKING HIPPIE'S WOODSTOCK

With all the hubbub over the 40 year anniversary of Woodstock and this weekend's release of Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock" movie, I thought I'd throw up a little blurb about a sometimes ignored concert event that, to me, was just as important and MUCH more entertaining; The Monterey International Pop Festival held June 16th to 18th, 1968. The 3 day festival, the first of it's kind, laid the blueprints for the vastly inferior (in my opinion) Woodstock festival. The diverse lineup exposed many "new" talents who would go on to great success. The event was shot and released as a feature film, directed by the talented D. A. Pennebaker. Although not every act that performed made it into the final cut, the ones that did were pretty amazing and, in some cases, at their peak performance-wise: Big Brother featuring "recent discovery" Janis Joplin, a "pre-Tommy" The Who still in their snotty Mod mode, Otis Redding backed up by Booker T and the MGs (it don't get better than that, baby!), Jimi Hendrix, Hugh Masekela, Ravi Shanker introducing the west to sitar music, and others. Around 1976, when I was a little 11 year old snot-nose, I had the good fortune of taking a music class in middle school who's teacher, although a bit of a hot-head, was fairly hip. He'd often show us movies like this one that would have a resounding effect on me later in life. The thing that stuck with me the most about the Monterey Pop movie was the performance by The Who which ends in total destruction of their amplifiers, drums, guitars, etc.. I had never seen anything quite like it! For a 1968 "Love festival" type of event this was pretty eye opening to say the least!

"This is where it all ends."
Nico and Brian Jones digging the grooves.
Otis Redding seemed to steal the show and the star-studded audience was simply blown away! A few years later when I viewed the Woodstock movie I was pretty let down. To me it seemed overly long, self-indulgent and just plain boring a lot of the time. The Who's performance at Woodstock for instance, which they've acknowledged was not among their best, seemed bland and a bit pretentious by comparison, like they'd become "important" rock mega-stars all of the sudden. I suppose this is all just a matter of opinion. But if you have any interest in music and pop culture, you should really check out the Criterion label's 3 disc DVD box set with book that came out a couple of years back. It presents the original feature plus the full sets by Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding and unused band footage, unseen until this DVD release, which includes several of the groups that didn't make it into the feature film.

Check out the original theatrical trailer below! (Look for The Monkees' Mickey Dolenz in the audience.):

MONDO MACABRO BLOG-O ARE GO!

My favorite DVD label, Mondo Macabro, have finally started their own blog! Yes, I knew it was inedible, and from the looks of things they're they're off to a good start! They've already posted a 10 minute collection of totally fucking INSANE Lollywood (sic)* movie clips that yours truly had never seen before! Do yourself a favor, stop reading my boring-ass blog now and go immediately to the Mondo Macabro blog and check these clips out! Your brain will never be the same!

For me, the UK based Mondo Macabro label have not just put out a great cross-section of global trashploitation, but they also have the most interesting documentaries on their discs. You can always tell a lot of research and creative work went into them. And everything from the well written and highly informative liner notes to the other DVD extras, hell, even the dang covers, tells you these bloke's hearts are in the right place. To paraphrase Harry Flowers, these gentlemen "enjoy their work" and it shows. And now, being the conno-sewers of fine taste that they be, they've axed permission to quote yours truly on the front of their upcoming DVD release "Female Prisoner: Caged"!

My Mother will be so proud!

Yes, by quoting Horrorwitz on the front of this DVD (apparently Leonard Maltin was unavailable) MM have reached a new low! But you know, like all smart people, they realize that it's sometimes good to have friends in low places! And having that Trash Palace seal of approval only helps them to ensure the public that "Female Prisoner: Caged!" is 100% grade-A sleaze! (Which it is!) An early 1980s entry from Japan's Nikkatsu studios, I can promise you this: If you are a fan of women-in-prison films in general, if you enjoy seeing large-breasted Asian women beat the sushi out of each other, then this one will not disappoint! This is the third Nikkatsu DVD from MM and I for one am glad that these obscure Japanese movies are finally getting some international releases (with English subtitles too! Joy!).

If you think this fighting looks wild, wait'll you see them "kiss and make up"!

Amongst the many enjoyable Mondo Macabro releases are some long time personal favorites of mine: Juan Lopez Moctezuma's fierce supernatural nun horror film "Alucarda" and his chaotic, quirky and surreal Poe-based art horror "Mansion of Madness"; "Paris Sex Murders", the totally nutso Giallo with an all-star Euro-trash cast; Michel Lemoine's delirious Sadian horror "Seven Women for Satan"; the highly underrated dreamy French horror thriller "Blood Rose"; and the very best Jess Franco movie from his earlier period "Diabolical Dr. Z"! I can tell you as a long time collector of rare movies it is a bloody miracle some of these titles have seen the light of day in such nice looking and uncut versions! They should get an award for resurrecting banned titles like "Don't Deliver Us From Evil" (a movie who's DVD release still amazes me) and "Silip", an exploitation movie from the Philippines I had never heard of that left me slack-jawed (and one which they will surely burn in hell for!). Mondo Macabro are not a huge company and their labor-of-love elements show through. And sadly, it seems to me, that it's smaller labels like MM that have the most struggle in the massive DVD retail world. So support these guys so they can keep coming out with great titles like these for as long as possible!

Check out their blog and stop over to their official website for more amazing clips!

*Lollywood: Like Bollywood on speed with more fighting and sleaze.

LINKS:
Mondo Macabro official website: http://www.mondomacabrodvd.com/
Mondo Macabro blog: http://mondomacabrodvd.blogspot.com/