All The Colors of Darkness: A Fan's Guide to Eclectic and Esoteric Cinema

Getting geared up for 24 hours of B-movie mayhem!

2010-10-26T09:40:00.003-04:00

Well, Halloween is very nearly upon us and this Saturday, thanks to those awesome guys at Exhumed Films, I'll be holed up at the International House theater near University of Penn here in Philadelphia, while 24 hours of B-movie madness is spooled out in front of me on screen. And you'll be along for the ride, hopefully the ride of your life, but we'll see. To bolster support for the event and to give those who haven't been to one of these shows before, a taste, so to speak of the kinds of things these guys have been known to show us, I'll be doing live blogging of the event. I don't have the 'playlist' but that's part of the fun. It's one big treat after the next. Hopefully they will have new films to present as well as the tried and true classics...hey, I'll settle for a Barbra Steele classic. LOL!

I will have my laptop in tow to write up the postings but seeing as I have a Twitter account, I'll be tweeting the films as they are being 'unspooled', that is of course I don't forget to send out the tweet. ;) In any event, this promises to be a whole lot of fun and a great way to relax after a very hectic week of nothing but mid-terms and school projects. I'm thinking of this as a mini vacation of sorts.

Until the weekend....

xxoo,

~Goddess of the Goblins :)

Ticked Off Trannies with Knives

2010-09-11T02:27:00.005-04:00

I'm so looking for to this one. The trailer looks flipping off the hook:

Not sure when this is coming out to theaters but I heard it's pretty soon. But I have to say that I'm so there. This is another genius release from Breaking Glass Pictures

A Man In His Life

2010-08-28T23:38:00.002-04:00

Not very much today, but I felt the urge some reason to visit my Open Diary and look over the small number of posts I had since I started it a couple of years ago..only 14 entries, but some pretty good writing resides there. I ran across this interesting item that I thought I'd share here. I was listening to NPR one day back in March 2008 and I came across this:

I liked this a lot and it speaks volumes. The author belongs to the New Humanist movement which is a new way to say that you're an agnostic. I liked this idea.

"A Man In His Life"

by Yehuda Amichai

A man doesn't have time in his life to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have a season for every purpose.
Ecclesiastes Was wrong about that.
A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse,
to eat and to digest what history takes years and years to do.

A man doesn't have time.
When he loses he seeks,
when he finds he forgets,
when he forgets he loves,
when he loves he begins to forget.

And his soul is seasoned, his soul is very professional.
Only his body remains forever an amateur.
It tries and it misses,
gets muddled,
doesn't learn a thing, drunk and blind in its pleasures and its pains.
He will die as figs die in autumn,
Shriveled and full of himself and sweet,
the leaves growing dry on the ground,
the bare branches pointing to the place
where there's time for everything.

By way of an update

2010-08-26T10:24:00.004-04:00

I took a look at my calendar and I realized that in two weeks classes start up for me again. UGH! So not ready. But the bright side is, this is my final year, I'll be done at the end of the spring semester. Phew! However, I have a lot of ground to cover in two weeks on ALL of my blogs, so I need to get busy. Here's what is being planned:

1) Three very important films are waiting to be screened by me and reviewed: Dream Boy, Run Bitch Run and The Lost Coast. This coming weekend is going to be spent watching these films and writing reviews, which will be posted here. If time permits, I'll try and get screen captures of these which I'll post. I knew there are folks waiting for my comments on these. :) I also have three Netflix films that need my review: The Free Will, Shank and Brokeback Mountain. I'll be posting my comments on these as well.

2) Coming in October, Halloween weekend in fact, those awesome folks at Exhumed Films are holding their annual 24-hour horror movie marathon. Seeing as I'll more than likely have my new laptop computer at that time, I'll try and do some live blogging at the event, provided of course the International House, where the show is going to be held, has wi-fi, or if I'm able to pick up a portable modem. But never the less, I'll be noting the films that are shown, and writing short reviews of them. They want to surprise the audience so they are not providing the 'playlist' ahead of time. They give you a program with a list of clues pertaining to each film. It becomes a fun game to guess the film based on the clue alone. It's not easy. It starts Saturday October 30th at 12 pm and ends at 12 pm on Sunday October 31st, at the International House (part of University of Penn, near the medical school), Philadelphia, PA. I sure as hell better not have any tests or papers due that weekend.

3) Film galleries/poster galleries: In my collection of images I do have screen captures as well as vintage poster art from some of the popular exploitation and horror films from the 1960's and 1970's. I'll be working on locating these and posting some of these within the next week or two.

4) More trailer trash.....I do believe there are at least some trailers in my collection that escaped being posted. I mean to remedy that situation soon. :)

5) So many movies, so little time: next up in my Netflix queue I have: Redwoods, Zombies of Mass Destruction (which looks politically 'incorrect' and funny as all hell) and Little Ashes.

It's going to be an insane couple of weeks. But it should be fun as well. I have tons of work to do on my other blogs so I'll be juggling time between all of them.

For now...

xxoo

run bitch run

2010-07-29T12:04:00.001-04:00

In the grand tradition of the revenge-for-rape exploitation films of the 1970's, films exemplified by I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, THRILLER A CRUEL PICTURE (aka., They Called Her One Eye), Ms. 45, and plethora of others, comes this fun looking homage. The guy doing the voice over for the trailer was perfect. ;) I'll be reviewing this one soon thanks to the kind folks at Breaking Glass Pictures.

Someone Knocking At The Door (Trailer)

2010-07-29T11:55:00.001-04:00

Do you like twisted shit like I do? Well, you'll definitely dig this one. The trailer gave the impression that it took as it's inspiration David Cronenberg's SHIVERS (aka., They Came From Within), but that would be taking away from the fun of this one. If gorey mayhem is what you're after, you don't have to look any further. :-)

The Lost Coast (Trailer)

2010-07-29T11:46:00.001-04:00

I saw the trailer for THE LOST COAST about a month and half ago and immediately I knew I had to see it. Even from the trailer, its eerie atmosphere drew me in and it could quite easily make my best top 10 film list of this year. After such mediocre theatrical releases of late, this film will feel like a breath of fresh to this celluloid princess. The kind folks at Breaking Glass Pictures gave me a copy of the film, so I'll be viewing it and writing about it this weekend.

Fuck the anemic Twilight Saga...here's what vampires are ALL about

2010-07-29T11:24:00.002-04:00

The moment I saw this trailer from Breaking Glass Pictures, I knew that this film was going to set the entire tired Twilight Saga on it's ear...or fang. ;) These are what vampires are all about: sexy, seductive, powerful.

Something Weird #8

2010-07-29T10:30:00.004-04:00

Seeing this is Something Weird Thursday, I continue onward with this very old classic. It's a moldy oldie from the bygone days of early internet. This one made the rounds via email in the mid-1990's. It's still as funny now as it was then. Take a look. This guy either is in bad need of a hug or a vacation.

Now I've showed you alcoholic monkeys...check out the hallucinating reindeer!

Awww...you have to leave it to the BBC to bring us these very cute animal videos. If you ever wondered what the secret behind the Mexican Jumping Beans was, wonder no longer...enjoy this one.

Sheer You!

2010-07-29T07:33:00.001-04:00

This is flipping hilarious!

QFest wrap up

2010-07-20T20:43:00.002-04:00

Well, the Philadelphia LGBT film festival, QFest wrapped up yesterday and after a busy weekend of watching some great movies, with the evening being topped off with a meeting with Michael Lucas and others from his production company, Lucas Entertainement, it was a very exciting weekend. As soon as my brains unscramble I'll give a better post/review including in a separate post my review of FROM BEGINNING TO END. Now, back to my nap.

Later kids,

xxoo

Funny stuff via Twitter

2010-07-10T17:50:00.001-04:00

"Dear confused teen girls,
Someone who sparkles and won't have sex with you isn't a vampire; it's a gay guy."

Anonymous

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.5

The Age Old question finally answered!

2010-06-21T20:30:00.003-04:00

A chicken and an egg are laying in bed. The chicken is stretched back smoking a cigarette with a very satisfied smile across his face. The egg is frowning, pissed off, and looking extremely frustrated. The egg pulls up the covers, rolls over and then says:

"Guess we finally answered THAT question."

Brought to you by those douche-bags at BP

2010-06-20T23:49:00.003-04:00

In case anyone was wondering what the initials for BP REALLY stand for:

1) Bone-heads. Probably

2) Begging. Pleading.

3) Baloney Phoneys

4) Big Phalluses

5) Bouncing Policies (like they had any..;-) )

Well, I'm sure there's more, but this is a start. ;-)

Blogging: It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it!

2010-06-18T19:50:00.003-04:00

Another viable solution for the oil spill

2010-06-18T19:40:00.004-04:00

Stay on target...must stay on target!

An army of kitty snipers!

Heavily armed, tactically trained kitties with guns to take out the clueless BP exec who fucked up in the first place. We'll need the army of these highly trained specialists to handle the problem...we need more in case one of them misses the target.

Oh and by the way, BP, you bunch of jackarses...don't bother any more to get someone to doctor pics of the oil spill's effects on the environment...too late, everyone has seen them!...what a bunch of losers!

UP YOURS, BP!!!

Our legal system at work

2010-06-10T08:06:00.002-04:00

These are indeed priceless.

A number of these are new. Enjoy.
The following quotations are taken from official court records across the nation, showing how funny and embarrassing it is that recorders operate at all times in courts of law, so that even the slightest inadvertence is preserved for posterity.

Lawyer: "Was that the same nose you broke as a child?"
Witness: "I only have one, you know."

Lawyer: "Now, Mrs. Johnson, how was your first marriage terminated?"
Witness: "By death."
Lawyer: "And by whose death was it terminated?"

Accused, Defending His Own Case: "Did you get a good look at my face when I took your purse?"
The defendant was found guilty and sentenced to ten years in jail.

Lawyer: "What is your date of birth?"
Witness: "July 15th."
Lawyer: "What year?"
Witness: "Every year."

Lawyer: "Can you tell us what was stolen from your house?"
Witness: "There was a rifle that belonged to my father that was stolen from the hall closet."
Lawyer: "Can you identify the rifle?"
Witness: "Yes. There was something written on the side of it."
Lawyer: "And what did the writing say?"
Witness: "'Winchester'!"

Lawyer: "What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?"
Witness: "Gucci sweats and Reeboks."

Lawyer: "Can you describe what the person who attacked you looked like?"
Witness: "No. He was wearing a mask."
Lawyer: "What was he wearing under the mask?"
Witness: "Er...his face."

Lawyer: "This myasthenia gravis -- does it affect your memory at all?"
Witness: "Yes."
Lawyer: "And in what ways does it affect your memory?"
Witness: "I forget."
Lawyer: "You forget. Can you give us an example of something that you've forgotten?"

Lawyer: "How old is your son, the one living with you?"
Witness: "Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which."
Lawyer: "How long has he lived with you?"
Witness: "Forty-five years."

Lawyer: "What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke that morning?"
Witness: "He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?'"
Lawyer: "And why did that upset you?"
Witness: "My name is Susan."

Lawyer: "Sir, what is your IQ?"
Witness: "Well, I can see pretty well, I think."

Lawyer: "Did you blow your horn or anything?"
Witness: "After the accident?"
Lawyer: "Before the accident."
Witness: "Sure, I played for ten years. I even went to school for it."

Lawyer: "Trooper, when you stopped the defendant, were your red and blue lights flashing?"
Witness: "Yes."
Lawyer: "Did the defendant say anything when she got out of her car?"
Witness: "Yes, sir."
Lawyer: "What did she say?"
Witness: "'What disco am I at?'"

Lawyer: "Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "Did you check for blood pressure?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "Did you check for breathing?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "How can you be so sure, Doctor?"
Witness: "Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar."
Lawyer: "But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?"
Witness: "Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere."

Lawyer: "How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?"

Lawyer: "And you check your radar unit frequently?"
Officer: "Yes, I do."
Lawyer: "And was your radar unit functioning correctly at the time you had the plaintiff on radar?"
Officer: "Yes, it was malfunctioning correctly."

Lawyer: "What happened then?"
Witness: "He told me, he says, 'I have to kill you because you can identify me.'"
Lawyer: "Did he kill you?"
Witness: "No."

Lawyer: "Now sir, I'm sure you are an intelligent and honest man--"
Witness: "Thank you. If I weren't under oath, I'd return the compliment."

Lawyer: "You were there until the time you left, is that true?"

Lawyer: "So you were gone until you returned?"

Lawyer: "The youngest son, the 20 year old, how old is he?"

Lawyer: "Were you alone or by yourself?" (Ummm...duh!)

Lawyer: "How long have you been a French Canadian?" (Oh, I don't know. Since my birth)

Witness: "He was about medium height and had a beard."
Lawyer: "Was this a male or a female?"

Lawyer: "Mr. Slatery, you went on a rather elaborate honeymoon, didn't you?"
Witness: "I went to Europe, sir."
Lawyer: "And you took your new wife?"

Lawyer: "I show you Exhibit 3 and ask you if you recognize that picture."
Witness: "That's me."
Lawyer: "Were you present when that picture was taken?"

Lawyer: "Were you present in court this morning when you were sworn in?"

Lawyer: "Do you know how far pregnant you are now?"
Witness: "I'll be three months on November 8."
Lawyer: "Apparently, then, the date of conception was August 8?"
Witness: "Yes."
Lawyer: "What were you doing at that time?"

Lawyer: "How many times have you committed suicide?"
Witness: "Four times."

Lawyer: "Do you have any children or anything of that kind?"

Lawyer: "She had three children, right?"
Witness: "Yes."
Lawyer: "How many were boys?"
Witness: "None."
Lawyer: "Were there girls?"

Lawyer: "You don't know what it was, and you didn't know what it looked like, but can you describe it?"

Lawyer: "You say that the stairs went down to the basement?"
Witness: "Yes."
Lawyer: "And these stairs, did they go up also?" (Uh...usual steps go up AND down)

Lawyer: "Have you lived in this town all your life?"
Witness: "Not yet."

Lawyer: (realizing he was on the verge of asking a stupid question) "Your Honor, I'd like to strike the next question."

Lawyer: "Do you recall approximately the time that you examined the body of Mr. Eddington at the Rose Chapel?"
Witness: "It was in the evening. The autopsy started about 8:30pm."
Lawyer: "And Mr. Eddington was dead at the time, is that correct?"

Lawyer: "What is your brother-in-law's name?"
Witness: "Borofkin."
Lawyer: "What's his first name?"
Witness: "I can't remember."
Lawyer: "He's been your brother-in-law for years, and you can't remember his first name?"
Witness: "No. I tell you, I'm too excited." (rising and pointing to his brother-in-law) "Nathan, for heaven's sake, tell them your first name!"

Lawyer: "Did you ever stay all night with this man in New York?"
Witness: "I refuse to answer that question.
Lawyer: "Did you ever stay all night with this man in Chicago?"
Witness: "I refuse to answer that question.
Lawyer: "Did you ever stay all night with this man in Miami?"
Witness: "No.

Lawyer: "Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods?"
Witness: "No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region."

Lawyer: "What is your marital status?"
Witness: "Fair."

Lawyer: "Are you married?"
Witness: "No, I'm divorced."
Lawyer: "And what did your husband do before you divorced him?"
Witness: "A lot of things I didn't know about."

Lawyer: "And who is this person you are speaking of?"
Witness: "My ex-widow said it.

Lawyer: "How did you happen to go to Dr. Cherney?"
Witness: "Well, a gal down the road had had several of her children by Dr. Cherney and said he was really good."

Lawyer: "Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?"
Witness: "All my autopsies have been performed on dead people."

Lawyer: "Were you acquainted with the deceased?"
Witness: "Yes sir."
Lawyer: "Before or after he died?"

Lawyer: "Mrs. Jones, is your appearance this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?"
Witness: "No. This is how I dress when I go to work."

The Court: "Now, as we begin, I must ask you to banish all present information and prejudice from your minds, if you have any."

Lawyer: "Did he pick the dog up by the ears?"
Witness: "No."
Lawyer: "What was he doing with the dog's ears?"
Witness: "Picking them up in the air."
Lawyer: "Where was the dog at this time?"
Witness: "Attached to the ears."

Lawyer: "When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the station?"
Other Lawyer: "Objection. That question should be taken out and shot."

Lawyer: "And lastly, Gary, all your responses must be oral. Ok? What school do you go to?"
Witness: "Oral."
Lawyer: "How old are you?"
Witness: "Oral."

Lawyer: "What is your relationship with the plaintiff?"
Witness: "She is my daughter."
Lawyer: "Was she your daughter on February 13, 1979?"

Lawyer: "Now, you have investigated other murders, have you not, where there was a victim?"

Lawyer: "Now, doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, in most cases he just passes quietly away and doesn't know anything about it until the next morning?"

Lawyer: "And what did he do then?"
Witness: "He came home, and next morning he was dead."
Lawyer: "So when he woke up the next morning he was dead?"

Lawyer: "Did you tell your lawyer that your husband had offered you indignities?"
Witness: "He didn't offer me nothing. He just said I could have the furniture."

Lawyer: "So, after the anesthesia, when you came out of it, what did you observe with respect to your scalp?"
Witness: "I didn't see my scalp the whole time I was in the hospital."
Lawyer: "It was covered?"
Witness: "Yes, bandaged."
Lawyer: "Then, later on...what did you see?"
Witness: "I had a skin graft. My whole buttocks and leg were removed and put on top of my head."

Lawyer: "Could you see him from where you were standing?"
Witness: "I could see his head."
Lawyer: "And where was his head?"
Witness: "Just above his shoulders."

Lawyer: "Do you drink when you're on duty?"
Witness: "I don't drink when I'm on duty, unless I come on duty drunk."

Lawyer: "Any suggestions as to what prevented this from being a murder trial instead of an attempted murder trial?"
Witness: "The victim lived."

Lawyer: "The truth of the matter is that you were not an unbiased, objective witness, isn't it? You too were shot in the fracas."
Witness: "No, sir. I was shot midway between the fracas and the naval."

Lawyer: "Officer, what led you to believe the defendant was under the influence?"
Witness: "Because he was argumentary, and he couldn't pronunciate his words."

Only in Europe

2010-06-09T10:21:00.002-04:00

This video clip demonstrates the need for more people to wear condoms (at least in the first two segments). The last segment of this video shows an example of very poor acting. This woman sound like she's never had an orgasm in her whole sexually active life. She's sounds more like she's trying to give birth or take a massive dump.

Download here:

The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

2010-06-09T10:18:00.002-04:00

OMG! I don't like commercials as a rule, but these are genius and very funny:

http://www.4shared.com/video/C4TWBKtc/Old_Spice_The_Man_Your_Man.html

Pepsi: That's How I Roll

2010-06-09T10:15:00.001-04:00

Download here:

In Honor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup!!!

2010-06-09T08:56:00.003-04:00

In honor of the FIFA World Cup which happens in only a few shorts days (WOOT!), I put together this little tribute. Our US team made the cut and I will be routing for our boys. But I also have a few others that I strongly route for:

1)US--my home team, natch! ;-)

2)Germany

3)Italy

4)Slovakia--my adopted home team :) (Hugs,boys...you can do it!)

5) Brazil--I believe they are the reigning champs and they will be defending their title.

6)Mexico--our neighbors to the south

JUMP AROUND!!!

I'll try and cover the matches as much as possible and post scores and highlights as I can get them. This will be a fun month ahead!

Dance With You

2010-06-07T18:28:00.001-04:00

No words, for I don't have any. I'll this song do my speaking for me.

xxoo

Someone came up with a viable solution to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill debaucle

2010-06-07T10:20:00.002-04:00

Well, now! Someone actually came up with a viable solution to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill FUBAR and places the blame squarely where it lays....

Thanks, BP! You fucktards!
Capital Hill is taking this one for you!

Oh, yes...welcome to Monday, people!

Dream Boy (2008)

2010-06-03T07:29:00.003-04:00

Here is the trailer from the next film on order from TLA Video. I don't know how I do it, but why is it that I always pick films with sad or disturbing endings (at least by some reviews of this film I've read). Still the film looks stunning. It was a main selection at Philadelphia's QFest last year.

Something Weird #7

2010-06-03T07:18:00.002-04:00

I'm back from hiatus with even more weird stuff to lay on ya. Take a look:

Smokers take note! They starting them out younger every year it seems:

A rice bra? Yeah, I'll bite! ;-)

But I want a wallaby NOOOOOOWWWWWW!

Look what he did! Look what he did! :-)

2010-05-27T20:36:00.008-04:00

I love bragging on my friends, especially when they exhibit such creative genius. One of my friend's hobbies is to find cool pics and edits them. He found this really hot pic of a pole dancer:

The Original image

His new and improved version! WOOT!

So seeing how great this result came out I offered him a challenge...

I found this very cute image of a kitty:

Notice how the light in the image totally obscures his body. You can see his front legs his back leg, his face but very little else. I wanted my friend to clean up the image as best he could so you could see more of his body make it so he glowed.

Here is the improved image:

You can see much more of the body now and the body a lot better. He even put a halo around his head and the way the light looks now, he looks like a heavenly angel! :-)

Can my friend cook, or can he cook? =)

I have a case of the Mondays! ;-)

2010-05-24T18:03:00.010-04:00

Don't tell ME I'm having a bad hair day!

Mondays don't suck....they just ARE! And this Monday in particular, totally sucked arse. My day started at around 4:30 am when I was wrapping up a slideshow for a friend of mine and I lovingly just finished uploading it to him, when my computer froze up and then decided to roll over onto its back (if it had one) like an armadillo road kill and died. I do believe that all the porn I was putting through this poor thing got to be too much for it's little megahertz to deal with and decided to give it up. UGH!!! So much for the only workable access I had to the Internet. My desktop had been out of commission for months. :-( So after troubleshooting it with my provider it was ascertained that the problem was with the computer hardware itself and nothing to do with my provider. Great! So I happened to spend the better part of 5 hours with HP tech support to finally get my internet working on my desktop. My brains still feel like they've been through the meat shredder so no real thought provoking post from me...just something fun. My friend loved my gift to him, a slideshow of some of his favorite beauties (and mine *wink). So knowing that made my ordeal seem less horrific. I made someone close to me happy and that made me joyous. :-)

So, heaving huge sighs of relief, I plan on resuming work tomorrow, here are some funny pics I found on the net to lay on you. I need to finish my Something Weird post from last week so maybe you will have a triple dose of weird. Maybe these can work in the meantime.

Enjoy!
xxoo

This is me after I got off the phone with HP tech support for 5 hours. I'm all done in.

Yep, but in my case it was my plate of spaghetti and meatballs.

Hmmm...so THAT'S what happened to my laptop. Never send a cat to do a mouse's job. ;-)

Damn you! Why couldn't you let me know my laptop was not long for this world? You prick!

LOL

Dumb Ass!

2010-05-18T18:19:00.001-04:00

This guy should be a candidate for the next Jack-Ass Award. ;-)

Here ya go, all you comic-Geekasaurs! :-)

2010-05-17T23:22:00.004-04:00

Well, we all know about the Periodic Table of the Elements....so

Here is the Periodic Table of Superpowers!

(Click on the image to make it bigger)

NewFest 2010, and other film festival news

2010-05-14T14:40:00.005-04:00

The film guide for NYC's NewFest LGBT film festival 2010 will be released tomorrow Saturday, May 15th with membership tickets going on sale Monday, May 17th and general admission tickets going on sale a few days later. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to be attending the entire week of the festival which runs June 3-13 but we'll have to see. I'll be posting the guide here as soon as it's released. This should be a great time. Not only will there be the films of course, but seminars as well. I hope there will be at least one on screen-writing.

No word yet on the schedule for Philadelphia's QFest which happens July 8-19th, but as soon as details come through on that, I'll also post them here. Local events always get me excited, and this is one I've been looking forward to for a while. Also coming soon is the schedule for this year's Philadelphia Independent Film Festival which happens June 23-27, 2010 and I'll post information on this one as well when it becomes available.

I'm going to try and cover all three festivals and blog daily updates...hopefully that will pan out.

Next couple of months, I'm going to be in movie heaven! WOOT!

It's a Freakin' Free-for-all! That's what I'm talkin' about!

2010-05-11T17:36:00.002-04:00

I hate that I missed out on this...Hustlaball 2010 London was off the hook!!

Hustlaball London 2009

2010-05-11T16:45:00.004-04:00

During my quest to find some video footage from the Hustlaball this year in London, I found this awesomely hot video clip from the one from 2009 with Logan McCree and Vinnie D'Angelo. WOOF! Smokin'! =)

From Beginning to End

2010-05-07T13:31:00.001-04:00

What a beautiful looking film? I can't wait to see this.

Pornography: A thriller

2010-05-07T13:12:00.003-04:00

Has anyone seen this vicious-looking, mother of a film? I just know that it's next on my 'must-buy' list at TLA Video. When it has gotten compared to the work of David Lynch and David Cronenberg, a couple of my favorite film artists, as well as getting heaps of press from genre mags such as Film Threat (a mag I've been following for years), this is going to be the next candidate for my genius list. This one looks amazing as hell!

Something weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd! #6 for the week of 5/5/2010

2010-05-05T11:51:00.005-04:00

Ok, guys, better guard your drinks! The monkeys are coming and they want YOUR COCKTAILS!

These little guys are so clever and they have great fashion sense!

SKUNKS! REPRESENT!!! Ain't spray-back a bitch?

Feelin' Goofy!

2010-05-05T11:15:00.002-04:00

Before I got on with my something weird posts for this week, I wanted to share with you some little music things from my teeny-bopper universe. If you are at least in your late thirties or forties, you may have heard of them. If you haven't well, here's some musical education for you. These bands were all about making you feel awesome when you listened to them. These were in a sense aural ecstasy and if you didn't feel happy with the world and everyone in it when you heard these, you should be declared clinically dead. (just kidding) Enjoy!

This has to be one of my all time favorite summer songs. I think of summers of my youth whenever I heard it. :-)

Your weekly dose of weird is coming up!

chuckle It's good to be bad!

2010-05-04T20:00:00.004-04:00

Wow! I'm going to be in b-movie heaven this weekend! Check out the trailer for BIRDEMIC:

The Birdemic Experience Tour 2010 Trailer from Severin Films on Vimeo.

Here is the official trailer for BIRDEMIC. This is b-movie trash at its best(?):

1990's and Beyond

2010-05-02T09:49:00.010-04:00

So, where does it all go from there? Good question. Around the mid- 1980's mainstream horror cinema took a nose dive, especially here in this country. If you wanted to see anything in the way of horror, you had to look elsewhere, namely the independent market or abroad. Blockbuster films continued to dominate mainstream cinema and continue to do so today. But for those that are hardcore like me have chosen to steer as far away from the horror mainstream as we could get. The mainstream horror market became saturated with remakes, remodels, rehashes or retreads of horror classics that were great in their day and should have been left alone; not to mention the onslaught of so-called torture-porn exemplified by such film excrement as the Saw series and the Hostel films. The fear arose that horror as a legitimate genre was truly dying a slow death.

However, around the late 1980s and to the mid 1990s, horror or in a more general term, independent film, was making a comeback, due largely to the Sundance Film Festival and other film festivals across the country and around the world. The Fantasia Film Festival would be a haven for new horror filmmakers to make a name for themselves, and bring new films into the horror arena. In the 1990's independent cinema was alive and well, thank you very much.

Here begins the showcase of films that have become my favorites within the last 20 years.

Let's pray this never, EVER happens! This one will receive a more detailed write-up when I can include clips of the interview with the author, Margaret Atwood.

Before he would grace us with Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo Del Toro gave us this bit of horror awesomeness

As film adaptations of books goes, this one is on the mark, maybe too well on the mark for comfort. It was an sad, tragic film and it kept very true to the soul of Jack Ketchum's amazing book, The Girl Next Door. To read my review of the book, go here.

Sadly, this film should have made more of an impact than it did (or what I mean to say, it should have seen a more wider release than it did). This film won numerous awards at every film festival where it entered. Then it kind of fell off the map. It played for a very brief time here in Philadelphia upon it's release, but then disappeared; to appear again on my Netflix list where I was able to finally view it. I feel that these events would never have seen the light of day if it hadn't been for this young Marine's courage. It's not an easy film to watch, yet, is truth, sometimes, ever easy?

This film was too outrageous for words. But in all honesty, have we seen anything this bizarre in a while? Oh, and don't bother with the edited version of this one...you need to see it full strength. There's a threesome scene that is off the hook funny as ass...until he kills them. Those who have a warped sense of humor like I do will really dig this film since I really couldn't take it seriously for a second. It's dark, nihilistic, and it totally pokes fun at the narcissism that was brought out in the Eighties when the story takes place. Naturally this film/book takes it all to extremes, but if you take it as the joke it's intended, it's a work of genius.

Yep, I'll be taking one for the team!

2010-05-02T08:45:00.007-04:00

But Jesus-Age-Christ! Could you at the very least have used some lube? Fuck, man! I'm beginning to feel my ass burn (and not in a good way) after watching The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. (And just think: I have to see two more installments of this shit after this one...they're making the final book in the series, Breaking Dawn into two films (yawn!)).

Recently they released trailer number two for this smoldering pile of melodramatic excrement. The question I know that is on everyone's mind is: if she hates this series so much, why is she bothering with it? The answer is simple: because I'm taking one for the team! I'm enduring this heaping pile of refuse so you don't have to. Yes, it's got eye-candy, truck loads of it. But that means squat to me. The reason why I'm going to continue to watch these turd balls is because I need to see how this train wreck plays out. I'm not going to bother reading the books because they're poorly written garbage. Am I an elitist? Only when it comes to films and writing. I couldn't get through the first book after reading 80 pages (and I was feeling tremendously generous that day). I'll watch the rest of these so I can appreciate all the better films that are out there, and that I have yet to discover and document here for all of you. Recently, I've seen a clip from a film that could very easily blow this heap into oblivion and very easily tie my number one pick of the five best horror films of the decade. The film is called Temptation, and the write up for that little beauty, or at least the trailer is coming up in a later post. Until then, I have to make you suffer with this, and I'll be seeing it come June 30th. *sigh* Well, someone has to. :-(

This may make you hurl

2010-05-01T00:57:00.004-04:00

But it made me laugh my ass off...

It's been a long time since we saw anything audacious and original in the way of horror in a while. And with the Hollywood mainstream bombarding us with remakes, remodels and retreads of tried and true classics, which quite frankly, I'm getting sick of, it's awesome to know that there are filmmakers out there, that are getting just as sick of it as I am. Here is the new one that is getting quite a bit of buzz and I plan on checking it out next week when it makes it's national release. Get ready to meet: The Human Centipede!

Finishing out the 1980's

2010-04-29T07:04:00.007-04:00

Or giving a good attempt to in the next couple of posts.

A much longer tribute post is pending for this film, but for me, this was one of the most heartbreaking and realistic portrayals of drug addiction ever made. It has more than earned its place on my list of 100 favorite films of all time. I'm not entirely sure that this trailer was the actual German one or a fan one someone put together, and I have yet to locate the English language one, but this may be the closest we'll get to having a trailer for this. It was released onto dvd a few years ago, with the English version (the over-dubbed voices may kill it for some people), and the German language version was without subtitles, which is only available as an import. (GRRR...) I made myself watch the original German version, and after knowing the English, I was still able to follow it. The only beef I have with the dvd version (Image Entertainment), they couldn't find a better transfer. Although most of the camera work was done with hand-held ones so it gave the film more of a documentary style, (which was the effect Ende wanted with this) still the transfer should have looked better than it did, with it looking grainy in places. But I'm not going to quibble over something so minor. At least it's available. Can't say the same for a number of films that haven't seen release here, let alone the dvd treatment. One thing I heard some people say about this film was about the language and jargon in the film. It should help to know that the events portrayed in the film happened during the seventies. When the film was released the real Christiane went with the director on a tour of America when the film came here. She was about twenty at that time. The film came out here around 1982. While I was in Germany on a band trip back in 1981, I heard some kids talk about it after they had asked about my music interests and I enthusiastically replied, I loved David Bowie and that I saw the films he was in. They happened to mention this one to me where he has a brief appearance in it, he lived in Berlin around the late seventies (when he and Brian Eno would collaborate on their famous 'Berlin Trilogy==> Low-"Heroes"-Lodger)and at the time the film was being made, he was on tour in Berlin. The film was based on a book she wrote, based on transcribed interviews she did for Stern magazine.]

One of the more interesting and gory of the Italian Alien, knock-offs that came out of the 1980's. Yes, the creature was a bit ridiculous, but so was this film, but it had very cool Goblin music :-):

This was a very nifty little scare film.

Despite what others have said, this was still a good later effort by Dario Argento. And along with the now classic kill in Suspiria, this film had one of the all time coolest as all fuck kills ever shot on camera. Way to go, Italian special effects peeps! Thank for rocking my horror film world for years!:

Something weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd! #5 for the week of 4/29/2010

2010-04-29T05:30:00.007-04:00

Good Morning, Peeps! And here is your weekly bit o' weird! :-)

I don't know what all the fuss here is about. Yeah, I dig it! She's a hot babe!

Now, I don't know about you, but I think I would have tried to find a better way to allude the police.

Ummm...yeah! Landfill owners take note! Hmmm if it works here, do you think it could work for Elizabeth, NJ? (I don't want to hear any jokes about my name being used. My parents have been ragging about that one for years.)

COOL! Actually, we made these too, except we used liquid nitrogen to put into the bottle and you get the same effect. Wonder if they ever found the bottle cap from the Mountain Dew bottle we used...hmmmm? Anyway, for us it was a harmless bit of fun and no one got hurt, and we got a lesson in ballistics, which was what our friend wanted to demonstrate to us.

Now I've heard of a Pussy Wagon, but this is ridiculous! ;-)

2010-04-28T19:38:00.004-04:00

Now this is going back a little ways, people, but it's still funny as hell. At this place you get it all: you can suck down your weiner while you're getting your's sucked. Too cool!

(click on the picture to enlarge image...trust me, it's worth it...these ladies were pretty ingenious. Until, that is, they got caught)

Swoon I fell in love with Travis Mathews' I WANT YOUR LOVE

2010-04-26T20:21:00.006-04:00

Ever since I watched this 14-minute demo clip on the Naked Sword website of Travis Mathews' new project, I WANT YOUR LOVE (Naked Sword is producing it by the way), I haven't stopped watching it and thinking about it. I truly hope that we will get to see a full feature version based on this clip. The idea of mixing hardcore porn elements with an art house feature, has always intrigued me.

I WANT YOUR LOVE deals with two best friends, Jesse and Brenden who playfully negotiate toward having sex together for the first time. It's a familiar situation, a very universal one that's not without consequences, the ramifications would be dealt with in the feature length version of the film. One can view the 14 minute preview clip for free on the page on the Naked Sword's website. After you view the clip, they offer a survey where you can let them know what you think. The official website for the project is here, and at the present time is still under construction but should be up and running soon. I'd like to share my comments to the survey:

I've always been intrigued by the concept of using porn as a way to tell a story, not as the main focus, but using the sex as a means of character development and plot. One of the things that got me interested and now, completely enamored with Raging Stallion's films was that they were able to take porn and use it as a means to tell the stories they wanted to tell without having to compromise their vision by having the interference of a ratings board or censorship. I love films that are not afraid to explore different subject matter and do it in as explicit a manner as possible, by doing it as realistically as possible. What I loved about this clip was that this situation is universal. How often have we wondered what would happen if we had a close friendship with someone and maybe out of curiosity or something else like mutual attraction or love, we wanted to see what would happen if we took that close friendship to the next level. The trust between us had already been established, so where does it or should it go from there? The question is going to be, what's going to happen to this 'newly defined' friendship now? Because once you've crossed that line (the sex/intimacy line), there's no going back. The dynamic of the friendship will be irrevocably changed. How it will be changed in terms of these two characters, remains to be seen. This clip represented something I'm very intimately connected with, having been in a similar situation myself. I loved this clip. I loved these two people and I want to see now what's going to happen to them. The way they handled it in a playful way was endearing and realistic. The way they talked to one another was realistic. They showed genuine affection for one another, and that was attributed to the great chemistry and report that Jesse and Brenden had. It's what made the scene erotic for me and it worked. I'm definitely looking forward to a longer feature based on this clip. I thought it was wonderfully done. I love plot-driven porn and I think there's an audience for it. As more filmmakers latch on to the potential of using hardcore as a plot element, as well as the addition of art house film sensibilities, I think more features of this type will begin to emerge, as more and more people embrace the concept as I have. That's when a trend stops being a trend, and becomes a new genre: art-porn.

A more official trailer is forthcoming, but I put together a teaser clip of sorts of my own. Also included is an interview with the director, Travis Mathews. I'm in full support of this project and I hope I'll get to see what happens next in the feature length version.

One from the Genius List Manhunter (1986)

2010-04-26T14:35:00.003-04:00

Before there was THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, Michael Mann directed the first screen adaptation of Thomas Harris' Red Dragon, MANHUNTER. This film was creepy as hell on the big screen when it first came out. I still love it.

Oi Vay! Here is our wonderful tax dollars at work!

2010-04-26T11:27:00.004-04:00

Our tax dollars at work as reported by the British press.

If you're not sure what "big government" implies, take a look at this . ... ..

But you have already read about this in your local newspaper .... oh no, you didn't?
OK then, you saw it on CNN... no?... oh well.

One from the Genius List: Raging Stallion'sTo The Last Man

2010-04-24T17:24:00.004-04:00

To the Last Man

Dir: Chris Ward, Ben Leon, Tony Dimarco

Written by Tony Dimarco

Date of Production: March 1, 2001 to August 30, 2008

Starring: Jake Deckard, Ricky Sinz, Damian Crosse, Logan McCree, Scott Tanner, RJ Danvers, Antton Harri, Tristan Jax, Damian Rios

Running Time: 5 hr, 48 min (total of both parts: The Gathering Storm: 3hrs, 07 mins.; Guns Blazing: 2hrs, 41 mins.)

After viewing The Visitor and The Drifter, and knowing this film's reputation (it swept all the major awards at the 2009 GAYVN's), I had to eventually check it out for myself. I had bought both parts back in December and there they were on my to-be-viewed pile, waiting for an opportunity. I watched the first part, The Gathering Storm, back in January but hadn't gotten around to the second, Guns Blazing. What the hell was I waiting for? A grand invitation? No, I wanted to view this film properly, the way it was meant to be seen. After all, I'm a purist, and although the film was presented in two parts, I didn't want to ruin the story's continuity by breaking it up. Then on a very cold, snowy Friday morning in February, I decided that I was ready to devote my entire day to just this film. I was going to be able to give it what it rightfully deserved, like any lover patiently waiting in bed for me: my complete and undivided attention. Since I was going to be camping out in my bedroom for the majority of the day, I grabbed a bag of cool ranch Doritos, a large (extremely large) mug of coffee (my beverage of choice...what? You thought I drank alkie on these excursions? Shame on you. I only drink alcohol when it's a really atrocious horror film I'm trying to wade through, like August Underground: Mordum. But that's not important right now. *wink* ). Then I snuggled into my blanket and got ready to be blown away...and so began my love affair anew. If I wasn't already impressed with Raging Stallion's productions, this one would reconfirm my opinion that these films look and sound so great you really forget that you're watching a hard core film. It's as beautiful and lavishly styled as any Hollywood production. It's an epic Western in every classical sense, albeit contemporary, thus leaving it timeless. Also worked into the storyline is a forbidden romance to help heat things up to tragic results in true Shakespearean style. And from the opening credits, I was hooked. I made a video clip combining the opening credit sequences of both parts of the film to show how wonderfully done they were, gorgeously photographed.

http://www.ragingstallion.com

The story introduces two groups of ranchers at odds with one another over water and land. The Double K Ranch, run by brothers Jake and Tanner Mallard, resides on the side of the valley that hardly receives any rainfall and on this particular season, they find themselves in a dangerous drought situation. Without water, they would run the risk of losing their family's ranch. The Flying V Ranch owned by Rick has the only water source, a well spring that's close to the river that runs through his property, and he's unwilling to share it with anyone. And as luck or coincidence would have it, his ranch resides on the side of the valley that receives most of the rain at every rainfall. There is a mythic aspect that I picked up on and that's why would one ranch receive rain and not the other. Is it just bad luck or misfortune that one of the ranches is on the wrong side of the valley? Or is there another metaphysical reason one seems blessed and the other cursed? Not sure I have an answer for those questions; it would be left to one's own interpretation, but it puts in place a very interesting conflict. Add to this already volatile situation, a forbidden love affair between two from each rival side, which could only have tragic consequences, and helps set the stage for more increased tensions and vengeful violence.

I will go on now to an essay I wrote in regard to the violence in this film, which caused quite a storm of controversy upon the film's release:

The Elephant in the Living Room: the Violent Element in Raging Stallion's TO THE LAST MAN (3/9/2010)

When I first heard of this film back in November and after hearing that it swept all the major GAYVNs in 2009, including best picture, best director, and best screenplay, I knew this had to be the next Raging Stallion film I saw/purchased. Yet, it would not be until a few short weeks ago that I was able to take the needed time required to view it. Divided into two parts, I knew that it was going to be an epic in every classical sense, and a porn western to boot. This had the coolness factor etched deep within it. There was no way I was going to pass this up. The controversy that surrounded the film was what honestly piqued my curiosity, and made me jump to the film’s defense from those criticizing it, even when at the time, I had not seen the film (to read my reaction to Chris Ward's blog post, as well as a link to his original post, go here.). The controversy seemed to stem from the use of violence within the framework of a porn film. So, what was I defending? I was defending a filmmaker(s) right to tell their story the way they wanted to tell it, that includes the portrayal of violence. Now that I’ve had an opportunity to see the film, I’ll defend this film to the death. It’s an awesome film with a great storyline. Within the subject matter, a Western setting, albeit contemporary, it makes complete sense. Truly, what Western film we’ve ever seen did not have violence to some degree. We always look forward in these films to the epic showdown, gun battle at the end, a classic struggle of good against evil, of the potential of good triumphing over evil. What I continue to prize Raging Stallion for is bringing back the art of cinematic storytelling, and in the case of this film, epic storytelling. As I watched this film, I remembered the joy I felt watching GONE WITH THE WIND for the first time as a child. The running time didn’t seem to bother me then, I was marveling at the scope of the story and its artistry, that even as a child, I was able to appreciate. I thought even more as I was watching TO THE LAST MAN, that they truly don’t make films like this anymore. This film is a classic in every way, worthy of my praise. So I picked it up, clutched it to my heart, and placed it lovingly on my genius list. There is truly so much to tell that when it comes time, it will be far easier for me to show it, and believe me…there is plenty to show.

The Elephant

Now, I know what you are all thinking: what’s up with the title? What elephant? Patience. I’m into the slow build. Bare with me; I haven’t had the requisite full pot of coffee yet. But if you hate suspense I’ll tell you and I hope I’m not spoiling anything for those who haven’t seen the film yet. The elephant I’m referring to in the title of this essay is the now notorious rape scene near the end of the film. I wanted to discuss this now because if I didn’t, for me, it would be like, (and I’m quoting my favorite comic George Carlin here), ‘the elephant in the living room that everyone sees but no one wants to be the first to speak up about’. I need to say right now (and I’ll talk more about it), rape scenes in films make me a bit uncomfortable (who wouldn’t feel that way?). But this scene, the way it was performed and shot was extremely realistic, and was absolutely without a shred of doubt, a killer scene. It fit completely within the story they had set as well as the characters themselves, so this was in no way, shape, or form, a gratuitous scene, like so many in other films, including most horror films. It was intense and frightening as fuck, and I swear at the end, I wanted to give everyone huge hugs for giving what could not be an easy thing to do for anyone involved with the scene, in front of the camera, or behind it. I likened its intensity to the scene in Gasper Noe’s IRREVERSIBLE, but far more frightening. As brutal as that scene was, it nowhere near touched my fear level the way the scene in TO THE LAST MAN did, possibly because it was two on one as opposed to one on one, a more expected, common scenario. But what both of these films had in common was the strong effect they had on me after viewing them. I felt an adrenaline surge as if I was on the fastest, scariest rollercoaster in the world. I felt my heart pounding, sweating and trembling. I couldn’t feel my legs for a bit but I knew I wanted to watch the films again right after, just like going back and riding that scary rollercoaster. It was the moment when I realized I’ve seen something of such raw, intense power, something so totally unique, and special, and I felt that it was the best sex I’ve had in quite a while. That in itself is glowing testimony to the people who created this work. That’s the effect a great film should have on the one watching. Well, after such an adrenaline high, I immediately had to sleep for about six hours straight, not waking up until 11:30pm that night. I was exhausted, pleasurably spent. I can hear the question now: was she talking about the rape scene? *chuckle* That was only a minuscule part of it. I was talking about the effect the film had on me overall, because I watched this film the way the filmmakers wanted me to view it: both parts, back to back, start to glorious finish, with only the obvious interruptions. It clocks in at just under six hours, a true epic. For me, a true lover of film, it was an orgasmic time, very well spent.
Seeing as I probably piqued your curiosity regarding the scene in question, I have only a brief clip of it. It's a scary scene; one of the scariest and intense by far, and Ricky Sinz easily took the front spot on my favorite villain list, unseating my favorite bad-ass, David Hess (who played Krug in Wes Craven's original 1972 classic, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT). Like I said, this was a killer scene. Afraid that folks would take it out of the context of the film, I wanted to give a bit of lead-in. Up until this scene, the tempers and tensions have been festering to the breaking point. Tanner (Scott Tanner), after only a few months before, has lost his own brother and seeing several deaths on both sides, decides that enough is enough. He decides to go to Rick to try and quell their differences and end the bloodshed, only to have Rick's fury unleashed onto him. This scene was not easy to do for anyone involved but I love and respect how it was done and handled. Trust me....as the scene in Irreversible, this one also wasn't easy to watch, and it truly scared the piss out of me...coming from a twenty-year veteran horror film fan, scaring me is pretty hard to do. These guys did it, and did it well...maybe a little too well for comfort. Still as much as it scared me, I loved the fact that it did. This scene too, would be the lead in for the final gun battle at the film's climax.:
Scene taken from Raging Stallion's film, TO THE LAST MAN Part 2 Guns Blazing. For more information on this and other Raging Stallion films, visit the studio website at: http://www.ragingstallion.com

I will say that if violence isn't your thing, both discs are provided with a sex-only version. I can't vouch for it but I'm sure it's just as entertaining as the full version I saw. I definitely recommend seeing the full version. This is epic storytelling I've been thirsting for since I don't know how long and as I was viewing it, I kept thinking that they just don't make films like this any more. When Hollywood has been bombarding you into sensory overload with features so loaded down with special effects eye candy, you can't find a story in it if you had a St. Bernard dog, it's extremely nice to watch something uncomplicated by technology and as in many of the scenes, beautiful (You'll soon see what I mean, if you haven't already).

Get ready for the new terrorist attack

2010-04-23T09:36:00.004-04:00

Prepare yourself for ultimate terrorist onslaught. These are the ones they forgot to mention in training. They are called, ZMD's or, Zombies of Mass Destruction. These weapons are far more dangerous than anything those foreign boys have got in their arsenal. They mean to forge a global invasion so massive, that only if we gather together, putting aside our differences, fighting as the human race against a common foe, can we have a chance at stopping them....hehe :-)

Oh, this film, guys, looks flipping insane; genius on a massive scale. This trailer had me in hysterics and I can't wait to see this. This film does for zombies, what The Lost Boys did for vampires. I loves my zombies. :-) The filmmakers of this one weren't going for the big gross out (but they're zombies...guess they're not Fulci zombies, with a lot of gut-munching); no the filmmakers were aiming to tickle the funny bone, and just the trailer alone, did it for me. And I'm still laughing at this thing! It's brilliant!

Ondine (2010)

2010-04-23T09:16:00.003-04:00

Coming out in June to kick off the summer film season, we welcome Neil Jordan's latest, Ondine. Judging by the trailer alone it looks to be a very gentle, cute, romance. I read one review of that said that the viewer didn't care for the mix of fantasy and reality. Huh? I was confused. In a matter of speaking, movies aren't real. Now there's a newsflash...they're supposed to be imitations of life or reflections of our hopes, fears, and our dreams. UGH! Hold me back, people! Hold me back! Anyway, I'm going to buy a ticket to this one.

Something weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd! #4 for the week of 4/22/2010

2010-04-23T07:51:00.004-04:00

I decided to extend my Something weeeeiiiiirrrrd! segment another day! Enjoy your dose of weird:

Have you tickled your rat today?

I knew that sturgeons were odd looking, but holy crap! However, it's deeply humbling that there is something still living that has been around this planet longer than you have.

With all the of the strange nature clips I've shown so far, it still never ceases to amaze me how Mother Nature really does take care of her own. :-)

I Believe I can fly

2010-04-23T07:36:00.001-04:00

Now, normally I'm not big on awarding video clips, but if I were, this should surely, without a doubt get the HOLY S**T! Award:

The soul of a film~ music

2010-04-22T15:32:00.005-04:00

This is a post I knew I had to get to at some point and the time was now. One day I had a discussion with a buddy of mine about a couple of our favorite topics: film and music. I had a penchant for asking kind of absurd questions, he knew this and at times he was amused by the things I came up with. The question I posed this time around was this: whether or not he thought that films were living entities. He looked at me not as strangely this time. He knew I was going somewhere with this discussion so he waited. I asked the question: if a film had a soul, what would it be? As if he knew what I was thinking at the very same moment, he answered me: that was easy. The score, the music. If a film's skeleton was the script, and actors formed the organs and other things and director was the brain (naturally), then what would constitute the heart of the film? The music. It helps define a film's moments, provides the film's heartbeat and pulse, its personality, its atmosphere. Without music a film is flat, empty and devoid of life. I've seen films that didn't have soundtracks or incidental music and in those rare cases, it worked. But without music, a film is dead. Music in film helps to set mood and pace and gives the film a firm footing on which it can stand.

I've been into film music, well since I've been into films. If I noticed a film had a neat soundtrack and it touched something inside me, I would search it out. Believe me when I say, that films sometimes can be a very important source of 'musical education'. Thanks to my introduction to the films of Dario Argento, I have a love for the band that composed the music for most of his films, Goblin. If you look back at those posts you would more than likely hear some of it. Goblin has scored other genre films as well but it would be the films of Argento that they will best be known for. There is definitely a benefit to keeping your ears peeled when you're watching a film. You may very well discover some new music, and if you dig it, go crazy and try and search it out. Thanks to my interest in Raging Stallion's films, I came across musicians that I was more than happy to add to my music playlists: J.D. Slater and Six Organs of Admittance. Any fans who've watched any of RSS's films have already heard of J.D. Slater's music and it's great stuff. Don't try to place him into a musical category. You'll fail in the attempt. He's one of those great musicians who is not afraid to experiment and break rules. With Six Organs of Admittance, I feel as if I'm being transported to another world and if my novel or any of my stories were ever made into a film, they would be the ones that would have to score it. Their music is sensual, ethereal, strange in places, but when you listen to them be prepared to go on a trip inside your head. Don't let that scare you. The musicscapes they create are very interesting. Perhaps with the three selections I'm going to share with you, will get you curious enough to search them out on your own. I've loved the journey I've taken with them so far.

It's all about the education and this is a part of it. I'm happy to be a part of your film education. Now, your musical education as well.

Six Organs of Admittance, "This Hand", from Dark Noontide

Six Organs of Admittance, "The Night Knows Nothing At All", from For Octavio Paz

Six Organs of Admittance, "Jade Like Wine", from Shelter from the Ash

If you liked these, follow the links to the page on Amazon's website to sample more tracks.

Because I feel inspired and because it's my favorite Bowie song

2010-04-22T12:12:00.003-04:00

David Bowie has always been my inspiration and source of empowerment. Listening to him throughout my high school years seemed to calm my raging soul. This song I want to share with you was the very first song I heard from him and the one that has become the most important to me. Of all the songs, he's ever recorded, this would be one of the most romantic that he's ever written. I knew that whenever I needed to feel powerful, when I didn't feel entirely strong within myself, I knew this song was there to give that which I needed, a personal anthem of sorts. We all have one. I loved this song from the moment I heard it, though it was the German language version of the song. Now, as then, I feel just as inspired. I grew to love this man and his music so much, that it never ceases to give me comfort. I hope somehow, you're able to take comfort in it as well.

From Bowie's 1977 album "Heroes", this is the title track (Lyrics: Bowie; Music: Bowie/Eno)

03 Heroes.wma

Something weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd! #3 for the week of 4/22/2010

2010-04-22T07:53:00.003-04:00

Batter up! I think this dude should try out for the Mets, don't you?

I wish I had this when I was in grade school. Check out Owl Cam!

Now the last segment of this clip made me realize the hidden use of the new Apple iPad...as a cat toy. Do you want one, Simba?

A day early but what the hell

2010-04-21T09:50:00.002-04:00

This is a bit early for my Something weeeeiiiirrrrd! entry, but I couldn't pass this one up:

Three by Jorg Buttgereit

2010-04-19T09:25:00.003-04:00

Jorg Buttgereit is truly a director I'd have a hard time putting into a category. One things for certain, he had a very interesting view of death, especially in his 1989 film, Der Todesking. In fact, his dark subject matter laced with black humor in some of his films, may keep most mainstream horror fans away from seeing them. With Der Todesking would be the first time a horror film actually moved me and my reaction by the end came as a pleasant surprise. A separate review of that film will be for later. Nekromantik, the first one anyway, would break all the rules of standard horror fare. While viewing the film one moment you'd be lightly chuckling and next you'd want to hunt the nearest bathroom. By gore standards, this one is pretty tame, as with his feature that would follow Der Todesking, Schramm. These films would be a small sample of the kinds of things that were starting to come out of the 1980's and would later spill over into the 1990's when independent cinema would make a comeback in a major way. The foundation would be forged here in the 1980's.

1980's Trailer Mayhem continues

2010-04-18T09:04:00.004-04:00

Forget about the shitty remake. This is the one and only Nightmare:

This one is a very early slasher but by far it's one of the best and sadly most overlooked. It was called Nightmares in a Damaged Brain, or just Nightmare It would be famed to be one of the UK's persecuted films as a video nasty and no true totally uncut version of this film remains. One of the controversies surrounding this film was that Tom Savini, the great make-up and special effects artist behind Romero's Dawn of the Dead and a slew of other horror films including Friday the 13th, wanted to have his name taken off the credits as the one who did the special effects for this film, which hadn't been the case at all. The person actually involved with them had consulted Savini on one of the effects for the film. But as one can see from the credits of the finished film, his name stayed.

This would be the decade for independent studios. Names like 21st Century Productions, New Line Cinema (which is still around as a distributor) and New World Pictures would be seen on some of the most popular horror films of the decade. If this next one doesn't make you go WTF?! then I guess I didn't try hard enough. No, one quite knew what to make of this piece of foreign drek called Liquid Sky I remember my brother and I watching it late one night and we were laughing the entire way through. Were these people seriously thinking anyone was going to understand this movie? I think if I saw this film again now I would have appreciated it more. But back then I just wasn't into anything that cerebral or surreal for that matter. But now, if I'm able to get a copy of it, I more than likely would have dug it. The only cool thing about it was the soundtrack and some of the odd special effects. To my knowledge this one never made to dvd and it's hard as hell to find. Vestron Video put it out on VHS many moons ago. I'd be surprised if it's still around.

This would be the only film that if remade and if Clive Barker was directing, I'd be curious to see. And this is still a killer film to see on the big screen.

Yet, again another 1980's classic is getting a Hollywood make-over. Ho-hum. But this little beauty still holds up and in its original uncut version, it packs one hell of a punch. This one went under the alternate title, Angel of Vengeance.

This is one of the rare exceptions that the remake far surpasses the original. John Carpenter's film was genuinely very scary and he also stayed true to the original source material which was a short story entitled, "Who Goes There?" This film definitely does an awesome job of playing with your feelings of paranoia and dread.

This would be the first movie I saw in a drive-in and because I wasn't use to seeing films of this type before, it scared the living crap out of me. I was only seventeen at the time. Nowadays, it's just a fun little scary movie.

Fuck the lame-o Twilight Saga! Now, THIS is what I call a vampire movie!

1980's: Horror as a genre take a nose dive, European and Asian independent markets will dominate horror, and a new rating is born

2010-04-17T17:41:00.003-04:00

The 1980's, in terms of types of films, saw a mixed bag of genres. Up until 1985 was when horror as a film genre began to wane making way for blockbusters. The market though thrived in both Europe and Asia as independent films began to make a resurgence. Filmmakers with tremendous vision were beginning to see the indie market as a means to break in. In the late 1980's a film would come out that would literally turn the horror world on its head and would introduce also a new MPAA rating. The film was called Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and it would create quite a stir in the not only the film world but it would prove to be a major pain for the censors, for how to you rate a film that is horrifying and intense in just its tone alone?

Henry would not have seen the light of day at all if it hadn't been for the steadfastness of the film's director, James Naughton and his desire not to compromise his vision. Originally completed in 1985, Henry made a successful run in the festival circuit but wasn't picked up by a distributor. He wanted to try the mainstream studios in the hope that the film would be picked up. He submitted his film to the MPAA ratings board and it was rejected but gave Naughton suggestions as to what needed to be cut to get an R rating. He did the cuts and resubmitted. Again it was rejected with the comment from the board that it was the overall tone of the film that was preventing them giving the film an R rating. The best it would get would be an X, or unrated. The problem was that most exhibitors won't show X rated films and no marketing firms would take out ads for them. Naughton out of frustration shelved his film. Until in 1989, the MPAA came out with a new rating, NC-17 would be replace the old 'X' rating. These films would denote adult contented material. Naughton was able to release his film with this new rating. I remember seeing it playing in the same theater as another film, also given the new rating The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover. However, as fate would have it this new rating turned out not to be the panacea filmmakers were hoping for (more on this in a later article).

1980's Trailer Mayhem

2010-04-17T12:20:00.003-04:00

Ok, guys, now it's back to film stuff on a more regular basis (WOOT!) To start the ball rolling so to speak and since I pretty much shot my wad with the two best known cannibal films ever made (there were more that came out throughout the 1980's), I will present to you least known zombie films ever made, starting things off with my own personal favorite, Zombie Holocaust or a.k.a., Doctor Butcher, M.D. And pay close attention to the dubbed in screams and out of sync too just to add to the comedic charm.

This next one is just such a hoot in a half. This thing is so bad that every time they show it at our local Exhumed shows it's become a favorite and it throws everyone into hysterics. The original Italian title translates to The Nights of Terror, a.k.a., Burial Ground, a.k.a. Zombie 3 (so it didn't get confused with Romero/Argento's Zombi, Dawn of the Dead, or Fulci's Zombie (Zombie 2), and the name we've affectionately given it, Ass 3. This time around the zombies seem to be quite ingenious seeing they take to using tools. Hehe...what a piece of delightful crap this one is.

Eaten Alive (by the Cannibals): is there any other way to be eaten? (on second thought don't answer that. *wink)

Now, here is the granddaddy of all zombie films, Lucio Fulci's masterpiece, The Beyond.

Backtracking: From the Genius list~Akira (1989)

2010-04-17T09:44:00.005-04:00

Before I get into more trailer mayhem by way of the 1980's stuff where Eurohorror reigned supreme and the indies were slowly making a comeback, I felt I needed to back track slightly and present to you some vid clips and a belief write up for Katsushiro Otomo's classic manga anime hit, Akira. Akira began its life as a serialized manga strip. As it grew in popularity, Otomo decided to release the manga as a series of books that were later translated into English when they eventually came to this country in the early 1990's after the success of the animated feature. In the mid 1980's, while the comic was still running, Otomo began work on his film version of the manga. But there was a problem: the story didn't have an ending so he had to create one that would work within the context of the film. Using teams of animators and utilizing many of the classic animation techniques that Walt Disney employed in many of his earlier films, Otomo would create a work that would ultimately set the standard for Japanese animation in character design and movement, and backgrounds, using multi-plane cameras similar to the ones Disney used, to achieve effects never before seen in animated films of that time. Each background of each cell was carefully drawn and painted by hand just as the Disney animators used to do, bringing back animation as a film art. The finished product is a landmark achievement when upon its release this would be the most sought after title at sci-fi/fantasy, even horror conventions. Japanese animated features produced since Akira would fail to have the same stylized look, preferring the ease of more computer generated animation that failed to have the same feel and warmth as the earlier features did. Akira's complex story line raise it a cut above a standard animated film.

Next in my Netflix queue

2010-04-17T09:30:00.003-04:00

Here are the trailers from two of the films that are next in my Netflix queue: Ciao and Redwoods, both available for purchase through TLA Video.

On Pre-Order from TLAVideo

2010-04-16T14:23:00.004-04:00

Here is the trailer for the latest dvd I placed on order with Philadelphia's own, TLA Video, Watercolors. It's due out in mid-May, and review will be following my viewing. A romantic tear-jerker that will place me in the proper spirit to help me pen my gay erotica novella due in July. To read a synopsis and find more information on this film, go here.

RIP Peter Steele 4/14/2010

2010-04-16T13:47:00.001-04:00

Continuing my tribute to one of goth-metal's icons, Peter Steele, bassist/singer for Type O Negative, here is the video to one of my all time favorite TON songs, Love You to Death:

In honor of the National Day of Silence: a little piece of my soul

2010-04-16T10:59:00.005-04:00

(This post is dedicated to my two brothers, Robert (left), affectionately named 'Bunn' and George (right), affectionately named 'Kitten'. As you can hopefully tell from this picture, the only one sadly I have of George, he had an insane sense of humor. He was dearly loved by my brother and my family and we were more than happy to adopt him. AIDS would sadly claim his life after I had graduated high school. Remembering what beautiful and unique people these two were, and seeing this picture, will always make me smile. Hope it does for you, too.)

A safe education is everyone's right. Everyone should be able to go to school and not have to worry whether they will be beaten up today, or made fun of, or otherwise ridiculed for what they are. I was a victim of bullying when I was a kid in grade school and I didn't know why but I was made so afraid that I faked illness to stay home. I was afraid to tell anyone, even my parents because I was that afraid that if anyone bullying me found out that I told, things would be even worse for me. My mother didn't know what to do when she started getting calls from school from the teacher's aide telling her what was going on. I had money stolen from me, I was beaten, molested, me and a friend of mine were lined up at the fence in the back of the school made to undress so they could further humiliate us. One of the boys called me a cock-teaser and tried to rape me, while the other kids laughed and cheered as I cried. We were far away from ear shot of anyone at the school. I was twelve years old. I didn't even know what a cock-teaser was. I was able to get away. My friend wasn't as lucky. She was beaten up and the next day, she wouldn't talk to me or talk about what happened. I had no idea why the two of us were singled out. I was smaller than the other girls, very shy. She was heavy-set. I was made to feel like an outsider. I watched others though they would have nothing to do with me. I felt lonely and afraid.

The only one who knew of what was happening to me in school was my brother, Robert. He was my white knight. When I told him what had happened at the fence yard he wanted to hunt those kids down and destroy them. I said what good would it do. Back then, it was the seventies things were a bit different then. You didn't talk about 'stuff'. But I needed to, needed to bad. When my brother went away to school I was devastated. My sounding board was gone. I never felt so alone in all my life. It was summer and I was to enter high school in the fall. How was I going to cope being without my knight all summer. I began to write. I started a journal and I wrote every day. I found I had a gift for writing. I took a book and pen everywhere I went so I could describe the things I saw and what I did. When something bothered me, I wrote about it. Just as I'm doing now and continued to do. There was something cathartic about my writing that it made me feel empowered that I had a gift to be able to express myself in the written word. I completed my first novel. Now we just have to see who would want to buy my little vampire/werewolf love story. It's not so little.

So, although I, too was the victim of horrible abuse, not from my family but from outside of it, I managed to find a way to cope, to survive, to 'lash out'. I know all too well how hard it is to find yourself and acceptance when you feel like the more you try to do that, the more they beat on you and the more beat down you feel. Don't let them do that! Don't let ANYONE take from you those beautiful things that make you who you are. If my brother had taught me anything, he taught me that it is far better to be true to yourself than to become what others want you to be. He also taught me that if we can accept within us those things that make us who were are, then others will hopefully accept them in us as well. Acceptance is a two way street. And even though he may not have felt accepted by others at times, he knew he was accepted where it really mattered: with his family and close friends. My brother was gay, and he loved life and the world around him and the people in it. He loved largely and selflessly. He had three great loves in his whole life: George, who he met in college and died of AIDS after I graduated high school, Rick, who died of complications after a long battle with cancer, and Me, the one person he loved most in his whole life, his baby sister, and the one to help tell their stories. From these three beautiful men, I've learned that every one is unique and special. We need to show that to the world. Bullying is a means to only demonstrate someone else's insecurity about themselves. To make themselves bigger, they want to make all of us smaller. The pen is mightier than the sword, people. I shared my story. Now go out and share yours.

My Heartfelt Message for the Day of Silence 4/16/2010

2010-04-15T19:56:00.002-04:00

Seeing as tomorrow is the National Day of Silence, I wanted to present my own message in a video clip of an endearing film from my childhood, or more accurately, my teen years. This beautifully put together clip I wish to give to you as a gift. No, I can't nor won't take credit but I sincerely don't think she would mind me borrowing it for this very special occasion. So, by way of sound and vision, here is my enormous hug to the world, with all the love I have behind it.

(Special dedication to my brother, Robert Joseph Young, RIP. You're always here in my heart)

Oh, no! Lock all your doors and windows! The Aliens have landed!

2010-04-15T14:01:00.002-04:00

...or not!

Type O Negative: Peter Steele Dead

2010-04-15T12:07:00.002-04:00

For Type O Negative fans, this is a day of deep sadness, for one of the great icons of goth-metal is now gone. :-(

Type O Negative: Peter Steele Dead

Something weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd! #2 for the week of 4/15/2010

2010-04-15T10:45:00.006-04:00

I'm starting something a little new and fun. Every week I'll be hitting you with a bit o' weird; sort of like a 'bit o' rough' but ...well, you get the idea. Seeing as my idol Herschell Gordon Lewis, the great film icon from the 1960's who brought us such bizarreness as The Wizard of Gore, Gore-Gore Girls and Blood Feast, (the company he help find is called Something Weird Video), in his tradition where he unearthed all kinds of film strangeness, I'm going to find for you the strangest bits I can grab. It's in the hope that they will amuse you.

So welcome to the first, or rather the second installment of 'Something Weeeiiirrrrd!:

(You have to use the link for this one, the site wouldn't let me embed the video...meanies!)

Hey, does this guy have his license yet?

This isn't exactly funny. This would make me go 'holy crap!' if I saw it. The miraculous thing was, both drivers survived.

This one was just a bit outside!

Well, I'd certainly not want to run into him in a dark alley!

There's no monument for Baba Yar...

2010-04-14T12:26:00.003-04:00

There is now. In the form of a poem, beautiful and heartfelt. Written by a Russian over his disgust over his country-men's actions or inactions during World War II. Baba Yar was the site of one of the worst mass murders. In the span of a few short weeks, 100,000 people were killed. The world has no place for genocide yet even now it continues. "Those who forget history, are doomed to repeat it" How very true. Yet, until we make the conscious decision to embrace diversity instead of seeking to destroy/persecute those that are different from us, there be more Babi Yars, more pograms, more hate speech, more death. So often we marvel at all the variations of life Nature offers us. So, then, why can't we also marvel and cherish diversity in ourselves.

BABI YAR

By Yevgeni Yevtushenko
Translated by Benjamin Okopnik, 10/96

No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself.

I see myself an ancient Israelite.
I wander o'er the roads of ancient Egypt
And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured
And even now, I bear the marks of nails.

It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself. *1*
The Philistines betrayed me - and now judge.
I'm in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,
I'm persecuted, spat on, slandered, and
The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills
Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.

I see myself a boy in Belostok *2*
Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,
The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded
And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.

I'm thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,
In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,
To jeers of "Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!"
My mother's being beaten by a clerk.

O, Russia of my heart, I know that you
Are international, by inner nature.
But often those whose hands are steeped in filth
Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.

I know the kindness of my native land.
How vile, that without the slightest quiver
The antisemites have proclaimed themselves
The "Union of the Russian People!"

It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,
Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,
And I'm in love, and have no need of phrases,
But only that we gaze into each other's eyes.
How little one can see, or even sense!
Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,
But much is still allowed - very gently
In darkened rooms each other to embrace.

-"They come!"

-"No, fear not - those are sounds
Of spring itself. She's coming soon.
Quickly, your lips!"

-"They break the door!"

-"No, river ice is breaking..."

Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,
The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement.
Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,
I feel my hair changing shade to gray.

And I myself, like one long soundless scream
Above the thousands of thousands interred,
I'm every old man executed here,
As I am every child murdered here.

No fiber of my body will forget this.
May "Internationale" thunder and ring *3*
When, for all time, is buried and forgotten
The last of antisemites on this earth.

There is no Jewish blood that's blood of mine,
But, hated with a passion that's corrosive
Am I by antisemites like a Jew.
And that is why I call myself a Russian!

**************************************************

NOTES
-----

1 - Alfred Dreyfus was a French officer, unfairly dismissed from service in 1894 due to trumped-up charges prompted by anti- Semitism.

2 - Belostok: the site of the first and most violent pogroms, the Russian version of KristallNacht.

3 - "Internationale": The Soviet national anthem.

For more on the translator of this poem, go here.

Philosophy of A Knife (2008)

2010-04-14T08:26:00.006-04:00

Philosophy Of A Knife (2008)

Dir. Andrey Iskanov

2008

Run time: 249 mins.

Unearthed Films

Just when you thought that they couldn't make a film that 'goes all the way', a la Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust, I may have just stumbled upon that film's evil twin in Andrey Iskanov's, Philosophy of A Knife. In fact, this film could very well be the Cannibal Holocaust for the 21st Century, yet it takes extreme film violence to a place I don't even think Deodato could have imagined. As you watch this film, though based on real life events, it's so hard to fathom that human beings could be so monstrously cruel to one another. For one of my graduate courses I had to read Daniel Barenblatt's book, The Plague Upon Humanity, which described in unflinching detail the biological and chemical warfare experiments done by Japanese scientists in the notorious Unit 731 (This would be portrayed in an earlier film but on a more exploitational level in Men Behind the Sun). The Nazis would perform similar experiments to their prisoners and concentration camp inmates, but nothing on this scale. Although his book was painstakingly researched, he tried to present the material with compassion for the victims and condemnation for the perpetrators. The big horrible stink of it all, is that even though the scientists stood trial for their crimes against humanity, they believed in their whole hearts that what they were doing was for the greater good. When they should have had their rights to practice science/medicine taken from them (many of the scientists at this 'camp' were doctors and nurses), they continued to practice after the war, sought jobs in academia and elsewhere.

Told in a narrative that is part documentary, part feature film, Knife gives us the gruesome, horrific story of the human experiments conducted by the Japanese during World War II. It goes into detail of the building of Unit 731 as well as the experiments that would be conducted there, experiments in biological and chemical warfare. But it didn't stop there. There was one horrible experiment I recall from the book and it was shown in the film as well, of a man, who had been infected with syphilis, forced to have sex and impregnate a young woman so the scientists could study the effects of the disease in various stages of fetal development. Many of the victims were forcibly infected with biological and chemical agents in order for the scientists to study their effects. The film documents many of the experiments that were carried out in uncompromising detail and definitely not for the squeamish. Even a hardcore gore hound like me had trouble stomaching many of the shots in this film. Despite that however, I couldn't help but be taken in by the film's artistry (if one could really call it that). At times it seemed self-indulgent but any director who would have the courage and audacity to be this true to his vision, is worth a look. As far as feature film elements, a couple stood out: a nurse who is forced to bear witness to the atrocities, has second thoughts as to whether what she and her colleagues were doing was right, and a sympathetic Japanese technician who tries to come to the aid of a young Russian girl who would eventually meet her fate.

This is a film that falls into the category of either you like it or hate it. There's strong opinions on both sides. Coming from someone who's actually read many accounts of Unit 731, this film teeters on the edge of exploitation but doesn't fall over. There are shots that run a little long and I've read one review of this film that some of the scenes are long to the point of being pornographic in their details. That reviewer didn't read Barenblatt's book, in which the experiments were carefully described, in just as uncompromising of a way as in this film.

Here is the downloaded trailer from Unearthed Films. Watch if you dare, but it should pretty much give you an idea what the film is like. It's a rough one, so don't say I didn't warn you.

Oh and in case you were wondering if the run time under the details of the film is a typo, well that's the correct run time. This bitch is 4 hours long and believe me...this one is not afraid to take a bite outta ya!

Something Weeeeiiiiiiird!

2010-04-11T11:58:00.006-04:00

Some say strange,I say so COOL!!!

From the genius list: Akira (1989)

2010-04-10T17:55:00.003-04:00

By way of a tease, here is the U.S trailer of one of the greatest Japanese animated films ever made: Katsuhiro Otomo's masterpiece, Akira:

My review and other film clips coming soon.

Shank (2009)

2010-04-10T17:33:00.002-04:00

Just by viewing this trailer alone, I may have found the next candidate for my genius list. Hopefully I'll have time to view it over the weekend. The review will be pending. And I'll try and get some screen shots.

OMG! How could I have missed this little beauty from the 1960's

2010-04-10T17:11:00.002-04:00

This one was fun. Thank god for the 1960's!

Changes, they are a coming! For the better, perhaps

2010-04-10T08:29:00.004-04:00

My apologies for the ominous title of this post...but, yeah, there's going to be some changes. Now, before a whole lot of you shoot me a bunch of emails saying "Don't delete your blogs! Please don't!", hear me out. For a start, I'm not going to do that. These have become my babies, my creative homes if you will, and I'm not giving them up. But I had a scare the other day that made me take a look at my babies and perhaps I need to do for them what I should have tried to do in the first place: create for them a better, bigger home so they can grow. (Huh?!) Sorry, I got ahead of myself, as I often do at times when I'm doing these 'stream of consciousness' thingies.

Thursday, while in the middle of publishing a post here, I got a message saying that the blog got removed and I could no longer publish any posts to it. WTF?! Investigating further, I found that my account had been disabled. Again:WTF?! I immediately thought: OMG! Did I suddenly do something I wasn't supposed to and they didn't warn me that this would happen? (They don't have to, you see.) I couldn't understand it but I went into a wild panic. I really felt like I had been suddenly booted out of my home, disenfranchised. These blogs are my babies, my creative little ones, my venue for my writing. What was I to do if I was denied access to my blogs, the only things that are keeping me sane right now? Then from wild panic, I went into proactive mode almost immediately. I thought initially, oh, crap, I'm going to have to rebuild these blogs from scratch. Raging Filly wouldn't be that difficult. I had the wherewith-all to save all the writing I did for that one. I also remembered what content I used. This one on the other hand, made me panic again. I had so many vid clips and other things, even some great writing, and my lists...christ, to re-do those again? A major pain in the butt! Then I thought, that's ok, now I have to find another home to continue my posts. I didn't have many options. Until I remembered that I used to do web sites not too long ago. I can't do HTML coding to save my life, but I was still able to do one and did for my writing a while back. The site didn't see much traffic but I wanted to say I did something. I used it to showcase my writing, my poetry. I found a place to host the site and then I bought a domain. I thought about the web site I was going to start to build and then I decided to do what I wanted to do with this blog and Raging Filly. Initially, I wanted Raging Filly to be a part of this blog because I felt that those films, although hard-core porn, with their plot-driven features, fit in with the spirit of this blog. But knowing how free-flowing the format of this blog is, those awesome films from Raging Stallion would get lost amongst the chaos here. So, I created their own home with Raging Filly, yet there has been cross-over between the two blogs, just as I had originally intended, giving the feel ultimately that both these blogs are in essence one large one. Thus the concept of my new website was born: to bring the content of both these blogs together under one roof, so to speak. The website will be called, Silvara's Lair, named after one of the character's in my novel. The home page with have links to both All the Colors of Darkness and Raging Filly. It's still going to be an adult-oriented site, just as these blogs are. I want to continue to be as free with my speech/writing/content as these films are with their own 'language'. I also wanted to be free to present the films the way I wanted to, to share with others as much of the films as I could or allowed to (copyright rules, folks!) I play things kind of loose here in terms of content, primarily because the rules governing 'fair use' are a little different in EU (I deal mainly with foreign/independent films for the most part)then here. And sadly enough, most of the films I present here in All the Colors are hard to find for the most part, and some titles sadly enough have been out of print for years and showing no signs of being re-issued. Seeing, many people may not have heard of these films, I've felt it was my 'duty' to make them unobfuscated from other film buffs. At no time will a film called, 'Tis A Pity She's a Whore' ever see a U.S dvd release. I have a foreign copy of this beautiful film, and I plan on displaying some of it here. 'Tis a Pity that film will never see a proper dvd release'.
The new domain I came up with explains my desire to merge both blogs: silvaraslair-theragingfilly.com and I've also set up a site email address: Goblingoddess@silvaraslair-theragingfilly.com

I don't have a go-live date set as yet. I still have a ton of school work to finish up, seeing as the end of the semester is April 25th. I hope that I will be ready to publish the site some time in the middle of July, but I haven't cast that in stone yet. I also have my first gay novella to write and turn in for consideration for publication on July 1st. With the Equality Forum here in Philadelphia from April 26-May 2, Philadelphia QFest in July, my plate is already looking pretty full. =)

I'm getting excited about this new creative venture. I hope you will too. For those who tried to visit the other day and was surprised that they couldn't, I apologize. But this will be looking great very soon. I won't change things too much I promise.

XXOO

A belated birthday present courtesy of RocketTube and The Sword..you guys RAWK!!! :-)

2010-04-09T10:32:00.004-04:00

Be still my heart...I feel as if I was given a belated birthday present. Here is my #1 crush, Logan McCree in a awesome performance in Amsterdam's first show, Love Child. They didn't know he could eat fire...HA! I did! The man is a joy to watch, a skilled dancer and performer. I noticed his grace in his scenes, and it's doubly evident here.

http://www.rockettube.com/Hardcore-Gay-Porn/Amsterdirk/40616/Logan-Mccree-At-Lovechild.html

Oooooh-My! Logan and Carlo are uber-sexy in this one:

http://www.rockettube.com/Gay-Porn-Stars/Amsterdirk/40619/Carlo-Cox-Logan-Mccree-.html

Holy Smokes! They're really going to do it!

2010-04-08T14:00:00.002-04:00

When I was watching the faux trailers in the Quentin Taratino and Robert Rodriquez's genius film Grindhouse, I really hoped they would make a film of this one. A few months ago, I found out it was true. Later on this month we will be introduced to a new vigilante hero, Machete!

Two of the best Italian cannibal films ever made!

2010-04-08T11:34:00.004-04:00

Horror as a genre would come up with some pretty strange things to shock its audience and in terms of Italian cinema, leave it to these filmmakers to take us to places we never dared to in even our darkest nightmares. There is plenty of debate amongst horror film historians on the origin of the Cannibal film. My personal theory is that it was an off-shoot of the zombie genre created by George Romero with his classic, Night of the Living Dead. There's also plenty of argument on what country started it first. Two Italian directors, Umberto Lenzi and Ruggero Deodato, would pick up the ball and run with it, giving us two of the most popular and notorious cannibal films ever made. Lenzi started the genre off, however, with his 1972 classic, Deep River Savages, a.k.a, Man from Deep River (not sure if this was a total rip-off of Lenzi's film, but there was a film in 1974 called Man called Horse starring Richard Harris which had a similar plot to Deep River, and would include as almost a plagiarized lift of the torture scene from Deep River). In 1976, Ruggero Deodato made his classic Jungle Holocaust, with almost as an in-joke, included many scenes from Lenzi's own film, in his. It would not be until 1979, Deodato would release a film that would set the entire world of horror on his head, create a banning frenzy (it was banned in Italy upon its release), would be one of the first prosecuted films to be placed on the Video Nasty list in the UK, and would make many people, even the most hard-core horror fans running to seek barf bags. In 1980, Lenzi would release his own classic cannibal film, and one of my personal favorites, Cannibal Ferox, a.k.a, Make Them Die Slowly. Of the two films, Ferox is the most watchable mainly because it has a more adventure film feel than Holocaust does (a better scripted story helped in this regard), feels less confrontational, but still includes some of the elements that have made up the cannibal genre. They both kick up the gore quotient to the max and one of the reasons these films could never be made again nowadays, are the scenes of actual animal death, more so in Holocaust, than in Ferox. I've had numerous opportunities to view both these films on the big screen and I have to say they both pack one hell of a punch in that format, more so than watching them on a small tv screen. (Gee, I wonder why *wink)

The story/review of Cannibal Holocaust (1979, dir.: Ruggero Deodato, running time: 98 min.)

Four filmmakers from a television studio, go into the Amazon jungle to film a documentary and are never heard from again. A search party led by Professor Harold Munroe, (played by Robert Kurman), an archeologist with NYU, finds the cans of film shot by the group as well as the camera, and brings them back for viewing by the television station. The remainder of the film is a film with-in film portraying the contents of the 'found' footage as watched by the television producers, showing in graphic and unflinching detail of their exploits and eventual fate. The group was involved in sensationalist journalism and incited the natives they encountered to revert back to animalistic tendencies by turning the group's own violence against them in what could be the most unsettling and violent moment in horror film history. Never before in the whole history of cinema has such a nihilistic film been made. The film captures the group being tortured, mutilated and eaten. Are they to be pitied or condemned? The answer to that question remains a task for the audience to answer. These violent scenes are quite realistic, sometimes too realistic for comfort, especially those involving animal violence, which has caused much of the controversy that surrounded the film since its initial release over twenty years ago.

In stark contrast to Deodato's 1976, Jungle Holocaust (a.k.a, Last Cannibal World, Ultimo mondo cannibale), Cannibal Holocaust is the ultimate cannibal film. As others in the Italian cannibal film canon will prove to be low key by comparison, Holocaust goes for the throat. One's initial reaction to this film will be, more often than not, of sheer disgust, as was mine when I first saw it. However, after numerous viewings one can learn to appreciate the artistry of the film, as it never fails to lose its impact. It can't be denied that Holocaust is a disturbing film and one that many may not want to venture forth to see, but it's beautifully crafted nonetheless. The opening sequence photography with Riz Ortolani's popular theme music, helps set the mood for the movie. The aerial view of the Amazon River basin gives the feeling to the viewer of a beautiful and yet, foreboding, alien place. The other pieces of music in the film help to add to the unsettling atmosphere. Using a simple narrative, Deodato presents a central theme of how violence begets violence. There is also a statement to be made regarding sensational journalism and those who distort reality and do all the evil they can for the sake of ratings or sales. We are shown a clip from a documentary the filmmakers made, "The Last Road to Hell". This footage is rumored to have been inspired by Africa Addio, a.k.a Africa: Blood and Guts, and that clip as well as this film as a whole, was a statement against the makers of that film, Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, who were rumored to have been charged with having incited the native people to riot and soldiers to stage executions for their cameras. Deodato's point is that no one is interested in facts and instead that the more blood and guts you give the audience, the better. However, it could also be said that he is also promoting the same sensationalism that he is supposed to be against with his film. The one startling question arises by way of a voice-over made by the Professor : "I wonder who the real cannibals are?" Wonder indeed. Deodato has been relatively prolific in various genres, including the giallo, but Cannibal Holocaust remains his best known film and truly a classic of the horror genre. If one has a strong stomach, and not many people do, this is one to be hunted out.

Images taken from the official website of Grindhouse Releasing's re-issue of the film.

One of the most macabre, and disturbing, now iconic images from the film. When I found out how it was done, made me marvel even more at the genius of Italian special effects people. Now I can reveal the secret of the famous 'anal/vagina impalement': they took a bicycle seat and mounted it onto a piece of thick balsa wood, which the girl is sitting on. They had her place another piece of similar wood in her mouth. Covered her with special effects blood and...behold! It's not so bad now, that you know how it was done. The next two images show close-ups of the effect.

"The one that goes all the way!"

The story/review of Cannibal Ferox (a.k.a Make Them Die Slowly, 1980, dir.: Umberto Lenzi, running time: 93 min.)

If you haven't seen a cannibal film before and want to get your feet wet, this is the film to start off with. It has all the elements that make up a film in this genre but it's a more watchable film. The story begins in New York City where drug dealer Mike and his scummy pal Joe have ripped off a gang of mobsters. They flee to the Amazon jungle where they hunt for emeralds and cocaine. Mike, in drug induced frenzy, tortures a native guide to death in front of his tribe. Around the same time, a group of students, Rudy, his sister Gloria and their friend Pat begin their vacation. They're searching for an Indio village whose people are rumored to practice cannibalism. Gloria is researching proof for her doctoral thesis that cannibalism as an organized practice doesn't exist. En route to the village, their jeep breaks down in the jungle and they're forced to continue the rest of the journey on foot. On the way, they run into Mike and Joe. Before long, Joe dies from fever. Mike and Pat get stoned on cocaine, have sex and Mike senselessly kills an Indio girl. That's the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back. The group is hunted down by the Indios and captured like prey. They're taken back to the village Gloria and her companions ironically had set out to find. Rudy meets a quick end trying to escape. Mike is castrated and later killed, his brains eaten (yumm!) Pat is hung by her breasts and dies a slow death (this scene took nipple piercing to an entirely new level *yikes). Gloria manages to escape with the help of a sympathetic native boy, who is quickly killed off. Just as it seems that all hope is lost for this girl, she is rescued by trappers and returns to America. Back in NYC, Gloria receives her doctorate and publishes her thesis, purposefully leaving out the details of her experience.

Ferox has all of the thematic elements that Holocaust had, the idea that violence begets violence and dares to ask the question whether this violence is indeed justified or not. Details about this film and others can be found on the Grindhouse Releasing website who had not so long ago released a reissue of the film on a gorgeous transfer making it the best it had looked in years.

The U.S trailer to Cannibal Ferox, and with this trailer they leave nothing to the imagination:

Thanks to YouTube, some genius person put together this mash-up, "it's everywhere you want to be". I can't take the credit for this one, though I really wish to, but this is flipping genius! =)

The Top 5 Horror Films of the past decade

2010-04-06T09:21:00.004-04:00

By way of a trailer mash-up, I present to you now the 5 best horror films to come out of the last decade (1999-2009). With my heart breaking over all the remakes, rehashes and retreads of old tried and true classics that I consider to be blasphemous to even touch, to find something truly original you have to go to the foreign/independent market. There, you will be guaranteed to find a treasure trove of films just begging to be plucked from obscurity and savored like a fine wine. But I have to warn you, as innocent as these films may seem, they all have teeth and they're not afraid to~~~~bite!

Just to celebrate the start of baseball season

2010-04-06T00:38:00.001-04:00

Baseball season officially started this past weekend, so to celebrate I'd like to share with you one of the greatest baseball skits of all time, delivered by one of the greatest comedic teams that ever lived.

Enjoy!

One of my favorite scenes from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds

2010-04-05T18:24:00.001-04:00

More 1970's trailer mayhem...

2010-04-05T11:44:00.003-04:00

And I'm not stopping until I'm done...

But not every film presented in these trailers are bad. There are some, the precious few, who have found their way to my genius list and favorite 100 list. Knowing what you have read and saw here so far, let's see if you can pick out my cinematic gems.

Without a doubt, this is the best sci-fi/horror film ever made. Brilliantly stylish, it's This Old House out in space.

"In space, no one can hear you scream."

"Love's Strange Ways" This wonderfully strange film had to be on my genius list. A dark and tragic romance...just the kind I like. ;-)

It's debatable, but I think this one is by far the best non-Dario Argento, non-Bava giallo ever made.

Now, I don't like stalk and slash films as a rule, but this one....It would go on to be the highest grossing horror film of all time and it would be the top grosser for Paramount. With dollar signs in their eyes and money in the back, the studio execs were going to milk this cash cow for all it was worth. And with about 10 sequels later, and a remake of the original film...please make it stop. (oi-vay!)

Only in the 1970's could they get away with showing one of the goriest trailers ever made...oh, and there's only one ape. ;-)

The 1970's: the final assault!

2010-04-04T14:22:00.004-04:00

Happy Easter! My Way

2010-04-04T14:15:00.003-04:00

The 1970's trailer frontal assault continues

2010-04-04T12:42:00.003-04:00

All The Colors of Darkness: A Fan's Guide to Eclectic and Esoteric Cinema

Getting geared up for 24 hours of B-movie mayhem!

Ticked Off Trannies with Knives

A Man In His Life

"A Man In His Life"

By way of an update

run bitch run

Someone Knocking At The Door (Trailer)

The Lost Coast (Trailer)

Fuck the anemic Twilight Saga...here's what vampires are ALL about

Something Weird #8

Sheer You!

QFest wrap up

Funny stuff via Twitter

The Age Old question finally answered!

Brought to you by those douche-bags at BP

Blogging: It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it!

Another viable solution for the oil spill

Our legal system at work

Only in Europe

The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

Pepsi: That's How I Roll

In Honor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup!!!

Dance With You

Someone came up with a viable solution to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill debaucle

Dream Boy (2008)

Something Weird #7

Look what he did! Look what he did! :-)

I have a case of the Mondays! ;-)

Dumb Ass!

Here ya go, all you comic-Geekasaurs! :-)

NewFest 2010, and other film festival news

It's a Freakin' Free-for-all! That's what I'm talkin' about!

Hustlaball London 2009

From Beginning to End

Pornography: A thriller

Something weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd! #6 for the week of 5/5/2010

Feelin' Goofy!

*chuckle* It's good to be bad!

1990's and Beyond

Yep, I'll be taking one for the team!

This may make you hurl

Finishing out the 1980's

Something weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd! #5 for the week of 4/29/2010

Now I've heard of a Pussy Wagon, but this is ridiculous! ;-)

Swoon I fell in love with Travis Mathews' I WANT YOUR LOVE

One from the Genius List Manhunter (1986)

Oi Vay! Here is our wonderful tax dollars at work!

One from the Genius List: Raging Stallion'sTo The Last Man

Get ready for the new terrorist attack

Ondine (2010)

Something weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd! #4 for the week of 4/22/2010

I Believe I can fly

The soul of a film~ music

Because I feel inspired and because it's my favorite Bowie song

Something weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd! #3 for the week of 4/22/2010

A day early but what the hell

Three by Jorg Buttgereit

1980's Trailer Mayhem continues

1980's: Horror as a genre take a nose dive, European and Asian independent markets will dominate horror, and a new rating is born

1980's Trailer Mayhem

Backtracking: From the Genius list~Akira (1989)

Next in my Netflix queue

On Pre-Order from TLAVideo

RIP Peter Steele 4/14/2010

In honor of the National Day of Silence: a little piece of my soul

My Heartfelt Message for the Day of Silence 4/16/2010

Oh, no! Lock all your doors and windows! The Aliens have landed!

Type O Negative: Peter Steele Dead

Something weeeeiiiiiirrrrrrrd! #2 for the week of 4/15/2010

There's no monument for Baba Yar...

BABI YAR

Philosophy of A Knife (2008)

Something Weeeeiiiiiiird!

From the genius list: Akira (1989)

Shank (2009)

OMG! How could I have missed this little beauty from the 1960's

Changes, they are a coming! For the better, perhaps

A belated birthday present courtesy of RocketTube and The Sword..you guys RAWK!!! :-)

Holy Smokes! They're really going to do it!

chuckle It's good to be bad!