Thursday,
May 17: Perhaps you're already seen this...
Jim
C. sent me this last month and it still puts a smile on
my face.
Thanks Jim!
Real updates
and news are coming soon. Tomorrow is a big day!
Thursday,
April 26: Now on iTunes!
Monday,
April 9: Sci Fi Ohio
The 24 Hour
Ohio Sci Fi Marathon begins this Saturday at noon at the Drexel
Gateway Theater in Columbus.
We are honored
to have Automatons
(2006) included in the program which also includes Terry
Gilliam's 12
Monkeys (1995), Star
Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Fido
(2006), Flash
Gordon (1980), Takashi
Miike's The Great Yokai War (2005), Chopping
Mall (1986), Puzzlehead
(2005), Frankenstein
Meets the Space Monster (1965), Galaxy
of Terror (1981), King
Dinosaur (1955), Night
of the Comet (1984), Slither
(2006) and a ton of shorts, trailers and other goodies.
This event
is in its 24th year and promises to be a blast. Come come put
some calluses on your ass and stare at the futuristic delights
until your eyes explode!
The
24 Hour Ohio Sci Fi Marathon
Begins at Noon on Saturday April 14
Drexel Gateway Theater
1550 North High Street
Columbus, OH
Wednesday,
March 21: Bermuda Shorts
I was sick
with the flu this week, which wasn't so bad as I was able to
get in some serious couch time. I watched a bunch of "comfort
movies", which for me means 1970's horror and monster movies.
This is what I selected:
 |
 |
The
Bermuda Depths (1978) is a live-action TV movie brought
to us by those masters of holiday puppets, Arthur
Rankin Jr. & Jules Bass. I first saw this when I was
ten years old and have been haunted by it ever since.
Sporting an all-star cast featuring Carl
Weathers, Connie
Sellecca, Burl
Ives and some mopey
blonde guy who was on "Dallas", it's the story
of a man (played by the mopey guy) obsessed with a woman from
the sea that only he can see. She also has a giant, Gamera-size
turtle that Weathers and Ives are trying to capture. Seeing
the film all these years later, it held up much better than
I expected. If only our leading man wasn't so mopey.
Dean
Stockwell does all he can in the low-budget political satire,
Werewolf
of Washington (1973) about a wolfman working in the White
House. It's a strange film that mixes some Michael
Landon-esque werewolf attacks with Mad
Magazine-style spoofery. The tone here is so odd; it's really
hard to put one's finger on. The film is better than many folks
will tell you it is, if you share my taste in cinema.
Other stuff I watched:
Horror
Express (1973), like Werewolf of Washington can be found
on many a budget DVD collection. It's a classic "killer
on a train" story, but this time the killer is a prehistoric
Yeti-like monster whose stare boils the eyes of it's victims
as it steals their memories. Best of all this mock-Hammer
production features my heroes Christopher
Lee and Peter
Cushing along side Telly
Savalas who gives an absurdly ridiculous over-the-top performance.
The
Grapes of Death (1978) is one of the more straightforward
horror films that Jean
Rollin has given us. It is still a dreamy piece of Euro-trash,
but it focuses more on gore and lacks Rollin's usual lesbian
love scenes. It's kind of a zombie road movie where a woman
travels across the countryside where a plague has turned all
of the citizens into disease-ridden killers. Tasty.
In Bob
Clark's Dead
of Night (1974) (aka Deathdream) a soldier who was killed
in battle returns home from the war apparently alive. His odd
behavior freaks out everyone except his doting who sticks up
for him even after he goes on a killing spree. "I died
for you! You owe me!" the soldier cries as he feeds on
the blood of the townspeople. Good for him.
Frightmare
(1974) is definitely my favorite of this bunch. Pete
Walker takes the standard "lunatic released into society
and kills again" scenario and turns it on its ear by adding
a charming elderly couple and cannibalism. This is an excellent
example of British horror cinema at its finest.
I also had to clear a couple of things I had recorded off of
the DVR. The first was Sonny
Chiba's love letter to martial arts master Masutatsu
Oyama, Karate
Bullfighter (1975) that appeared on IFC
last month as part of their poorly named Grindhouse
series.
I also watched that cable TV staple Millennium
(1989) starring Kris
Kristofferson and Cheryl
Ladd. The film starts out cool enough, but then gets wacky
as we get a kooky look at 1989's view of the future in 1,000
years and things get corny. My favorite part of the film is
the interesting robot with human eyes named Sherman, played
by Robert
Joy.
I liked the TV
show much better.
Tuesday,
March 20
Friday,
March 16: The Hype Box
First off:
Automatons
(2006) is coming to Philly! It's one of the twelve features
selected to screen at the Backseat
Film Festival, March 29- April 1st. Specifics to come...
You can also get your very own copy of the Automatons
Soundtrack by the
Noisettes at CD
Baby! The CD includes all of the Noisettes' music from the
film as well as "Automatons Attack!" by Noah
DeFilippis and "water metal" by Graham
Reznick.
Here's one
of those tidbits of non-film-related nerdiness that I promised
a while back: Maybe you know that I collect many things, mainly
comics and toys. One of the centerpieces to my collections is
all of the Micronauts
that I own. On Dave Waugh's wonderful site Innerspace
Online, he's got a great
article on the "lost" 1997 revival of Marvel's
acclaimed Micronauts comic book series. The piece features an
interview with writer Shon C. Bury, his proposal and unpublished
plots for the first 5 issues and some nice artwork from the
series by Cary Nord.
I saw a
couple of much-hyped films this past week. While up in Maine,
Noah, Laree Love and I went to see 300
(2006) and we all loved it. Yeah, it was all empty calories,
but enjoyable nonetheless.
I finally took in The
Host (2006), after blowing off several opportunities to
see it sooner. I just didn't think it would live up to the hype.
As a general rule, often when a current film appears on the
cover of the Rue
Morgue (The
Hills Have Eyes (2006), Cabin
Fever (2002), House
of 1000 Corpses (2003)), I'm going to be disappointed by
that film. Of course, there have been several exceptions recently
(The
Descent (2005), Imprint
(2006), Pan's
Labyrinth(2006)) and The Host was certainly one of those
exceptions. All of the hype surrounding the thing was justified
and Dwiff was right in insisting that I see this smart and perfectly
crafted monster movie. If you haven't already, you MUST go see
it.
Speaking of Rue
Morgue, Angus
is on the cover this month. And they spelled my name wrong inside,
as Angus was quick to point out to me. At least they spelled
Automatons right.
I find The
Green Slime (1968), Kinji
Fukasaku's beloved Japanese/American/Italian creature feature,
to be incredibly frustrating to watch as an adult.
Yes, the production design is beautiful. Yes, it's got a wacky
rubber monster that looks like a cross between the creature
from It
Conquered the World (1956) and Sigmund from Sigmund
and the Sea Monsters. Yes, it's got a far-out psychedelic
theme
song that seems like it belongs to a different film.
But the lead characters are so annoying. they're just bickering
and passing the blame onto each other while the slime monsters
take over their space base. The worst is out "hero"
played with some truly amazing hair by Robert
Horton. He's basically a reckless, "take charge"
blow hard, who is arguably at fault for the creatures getting
on the space station in the first place and never receives any
sort of comeuppance.
Anyway, it's still a minor space-monster classic. Maybe I was
just in the wrong mood when I watched the movie. I don't remember
being this irritated by this film when I was nine.
Of course, I didn't really understand the Vietnam War then,
which is what Fukasaku claims that The Green Slime was a comment
on. That makes sense. No wonder it left me wanting to go out
and start a riot.
Thursday,
March 8: No Talking During the Movie
The last
week has been a busy one, so there's a lot to report.
"a
wonderful and unforgettable experience!… I love it!"
-- Patrick Van Hauwaert, Razor
Reel
That's from the latest review of Automatons
(2006) found on the Razor
Reel site from Belgium. Have you checked out this amazing
site? I've had a link to them for a while over there in the
sidebar, but someone recently told me that nobody ever looks
at any of that stuff. Anyway, I also recently did an interview
for the site. I'll let you know when it's up.
Automatons will have a screening Portland, Oregon this month
as part of the Longbaugh
Film Festival:
| AUTOMATONS
Saturday, March 31
4:00 pm
Clinton Street Theater
2522 SE Clinton St.
Portland, OR 97202
503-238-8899 |
I had pretty much moved on to just getting the film out on DVD,
but I hear that there may be more theatrical screenings coming
up. I'll keep you posted.
I've recently fired up SatanHatesYou.com,
the official web site of the next MonsterPants Movie. I'm happy
to report that our friend Angus
Scrimm has just joined the growing cast of Satan
Hates You (2008) as we go back into production this spring.
There are many many more casting announcements to come.
Angus will also be appearing in Glenn
McQuaid's I
Sell the Dead (2008) alongside Dominic
Monaghan, Ron
Perlman and Larry
Fessenden. It's the latest in Larry's ScareFlix
series. This supernatural grave robber tale very similar in
style and tone to the great Hammer
Films and promises to be pretty amazing.
For all intents and purposes I now live in the country now,
although I still venture back to Brooklyn fairly regularly.
Have I mentioned the wild turkeys? I'm obsessed with the flock
of 109 (that's the average amount -- I count them often!) wild
turkeys that hang out in our yard everyday. They can be pretty
loud sometimes and once in a while they fight. This month's
featured
MonsterPants YouTube video is a condensced version of an
hour-long battle that took place in the yard a few weeks back.
Notice the "referee" turkey. Very odd.
And now,
the movies of the month:
I neglected
to go see Terry
Gilliam's Tideland
(2005) when it played in NYC last fall. This was partly
because I couldn't find the time, but also because it wasn't
getting the best reviews from friends who saw it. It came out
on DVD last week and I watched it.
For the first 70 minutes, I wasn't into it at all. The performances
seemed awkward and the thing seemed to lack direction. But at
about and hour and ten minutes in, something clicked and the
film became the most amazing portrayal of an abandoned girl
losing her mind as she faced with all sorts of horrors and tragedies.
I'm guess what really made the difference is that it was at
this point in the film where she really started interacting
with the other characters and suddenly the performances click
and thing get disturbing.
It's hard to strongly recommend a two-hour film based on the
last forty-five, but for Tideland & Gilliam, I'll do it.
Have you ever seen Dementia
(1955)? It's a real cult classic that is required viewing
by anyone who visits this site. Somewhere between The
Twilight Zone and Carnival
of Souls (1962) lurks this shadowy 55-minute nightmare.
Best of all there's no dialogue throughout the entire film!
Sound effects are even kept to a minimum.
Dementia was the only film by writer / director John
Parker who fought with censors to get it in the screen.
It was re-released two years later as Daughter of Horror; with
spoooky narration by Ed
McMahon tacked onto the head and tail, but didn't fare much
better.
Bruno
VeSota, looking a bit like a bloated Orson
Wells, plays a rich bastard and Angelo
Rossitto has a cameo as a newspaper vendor.
Also completely
free of dialog is Tirano's
Claw (1994). At last! A Korean film that you don't need
subtitles for! It's all in caveman speak!
This is a must-see-to-believe film from Hyung
Rae Shim, who I think I met several years ago when he was
trying to sell his kaiju remake, Yonggary
(1999). He also plays the lead caveman in this film who
fights to protect a lovely cavewoman. A lovely cavewoman, who
you know is the star of the film the second she appears on camera,
because she's the only one in the tribe with perfect teeth!
In the world of Tirano's Claw, cavemen and cavewomen live side-by-side
with dinosaurs, pterodactyls, and giant rats, all played by
men in rubber suits. There is even a couple of domesticated
Triceratops that the cave people keep as pets! It's like the
Flintstones, but bloodier.
