Tony Scott has been threatening to do this for a while, but now the wheels seem to be turning on his next film, the LA-based remake of The Warriors! Says the Tiger...
"I really hate remakes, but the The Warriors is one of my all time favourite movies, and what I'm doing is kind of reinventing it. And rather than a gang it's going to be 30 guys who take on 3,000. It's Kingdom Of Heaven meets The Warriors."
I've spent many hours of my life in old Chinatown cinemas, an insitution that died at the end of the 20th century. With great movies, cheap double bill prices, and strange snack bar food, they were exotic detours where you could feel like a stranger in a strange land and not leave your own city. Now NYC has lost one of North America's last Chinatown movie theatres, the Music Palace. For some fond memories, read Grady's piece over at Subway Cinema:
Happy 90th Forry! Forrest J. Ackerman, the man who sparked the imagination of monster and horror and sci-fi and fantasy fans worldwide with his magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland celebrated his birthday on November 24th.
Just a quick post to honour the B-Day of Joe Dante. If you haven't seen his Masters of Horror episode, Homecoming, check it out as it is easily the best in the series (I still have to watch Miike's "Imprint" episode).
In the summer I watched CARQUAKE aka CANNONBALL projected outdoors from a super 8 print (at Dion's Wiltshire Drive-In) and spotted his cameo as the grease monkey who kinda saves the day. I got to meet him at the Sitges Festival in Spain in October and meant to tell him that but blanked!
The casting call makes it sound like Zombie is simply going to do a variation of The Devil’s Rejects with a slight Halloween twist. The description of Michael as a stringy-haired kid who likes torturing animals after his school mates mock him for having a stripper mom is banal. This is going to be the worst Halloween movie yet and that’s saying something.
Rootin - Tootin - Shootin - Singin - Yodelin Entertainment
"Also Good COLOR CARTOONS" - more fun images found at Greenbriar Picture Shows which looks back at a more "Golden" era of film as opposed to the "Rusty Tin" era that we dwell on here...
I just celebrated my birthday on the 23rd of Nov and the grand event involved gathering with a group of friends at a bar, then going over to the Rainbow Cinema at Market Square (in Toronto) to catch the late show of CASINO ROYALE. The new Bond was a treat, more reminiscent of ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE than any of the last installments. For more Bond-age, check out Poptique's BATTLE OF THE BONDALIKES (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and hopefully more in the future...).
As I got toasted and shared pints, people bring up the celebrities that I share birthdays with... Howie Mandel? I think not! I prefer to bask in the fact that I share my birthday with BORIS KARLOFF! Yup! One of the original big screen boogeymen! And I also share my birthday with his daughter Sara and my own sister's name is Sarah... coincidence? I think not! Lots of his works are finally getting decent DVD releases and for the diehard fan, how about an official life size wall mount? And no - that was not a hint of what to get me next year for my birthday.
The inspiration for this post came from stumbling across the Greenbriar Picture Shows blog, a look back at the "Great Days of Film Exhibition" where curator John McElwee has a two part posting on some of Karloff's films from the 30s and 40s including NIGHT KEY, THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG and ARSENIC AND OLD LACE. (Part One / Part Two).
Film Forum in NYC had a great retrospective including THE MASK OF MANCHU, THE RAVEN, THE GUILTY GENERATION (a prohibition-era Romeo and Juliet), THE LOST PATROL, THE HAUNTED of his work including THE HAUNTED STRANGLER, and of course, one of his best, the post modern take on his legacy, Peter Bogdanovich's TARGETS.
His last appearance in a major film, Karloff, plays an old horror film actor at the end of his career who must confront the new, late-1960s monster in the shape of a clean-cut, junior Republican multiple murderer. Although written and shot in 1967, it was released after the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy and thus had some topical relevance to then-current events.
Finally, here are two youtube treats - a 1960's TV commercial from the late 1960's with Karloff applying various torture techniques to his Ronson Comet lighter and Art Carney auditioning Karloff to take over the Chevy Show from Dinah Shore for the summer season, with his "Shiver Show."
Turns out recent history is a ripoff of an eighties Chuck Norris movie!
This is the kind of movie that would play at the Eaton Centre Cineplex (in one of the tiniest theatres in the complex) for three months. When I would go there on $2.50 Tuesdays I wouldn't even check the listings first; I would just see the most out-of-control movie posted on the marquee.
Thanks to Paul McEvoy, beloved master of mayhem of London, UK's Fright Fest along with Alan Jones (read his great blog, a delight for true genre fans) and Ian Rattray (Ian - start a blog or something so I can link you!), for sending this link to the new video for Knights Of Cydonia by the band Muse. Oh they certainly don't mak'em like they used to (or did they ever?)
From Kung Fu Fridays disciple Lars, comes this flickr gallery of Swedish edition posters. And they are for sale or trade, so if you are interestest, drop him a line!
"I usually start the month with a postman" - Rémy Belvaux, 1967-2006
Belvaux dining with the serial killer subject of his doc, Ben (Benoît Poelvoorde)
Just re-discovered the obit for the director of MAN BITES DOG (C'est arrivé près de chez vous aka which tranlates as It Happened in Your Neighborhood), Rémy Belvaux, who passed away in Septemeber. Pity this film never made the grindhouse circuit. The Ontario Film Review Board totally change the message of the movie when the cut out the rape and the child murder from the film. I remember the charged screening at the Toronto International Film Festival with Tarantino in the audience who was there with the CDN premiere of his own canine flick. Belvaux's other claim to fame was assisting in the ambush of Bill Gates with a cream pie in 1999. (source)
While JH has revealed the George Hilton in his hand, I am going to throw down a Tomas Milan! You've probably seen him as the sadistic mexican general in TRAFFIC, but back in the late 60s and early 70s, this Cuban actor was the shit for Italian pulp cinema. He would flip from playing Mexican raggamuffin banditos to smart talking tough street cops. One of my favourite spaghetti westerns starring Milan is FACE TO FACE (1967) aka ''Faccia a faccia'' co-starring Gian Maria Volontè, who played "Indio" in FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (and who despite passing from a heart attack in 1994 has a wicked official website). Directed by Sergio Sollima, FACE TO FACE is part of a loose political trilogy which includes THE BIG GUNDOWN (1966) and RUN, MAN, RUN (1967), all rife with anti-capitalistic and anti-fascist themes.Behind the dusty shoot-outs in FACE TO FACE is a heavy political allegory about the rise of fascism in Europe, but you can ignore the morality and enjoy the kickass Morricone soundtrack!
see this on youtube before somebody with no life complains... these cool kids from sweden are transferring vintage smut from super 8 to dvd! and they even have a myspace page.
The Imperial Six has a sister in Montreal. Le Parisien. (source)
I almost did a backflip when I rounded a corner heading to St. Catherine Street and came across this near clone of the Imperial Six's seventies sci-fi lobby, all white lighting and helvetica signage (The Imperial had a little something extra - TV screens behind glass, rolling previews...) I always thought the design was cool - no wonder Montreal's seen fit to keep theirs.
Le Parisien's programming is like the Carlton in Toronto - mostly francophone arthouse fare. The photo here was taken during the World Film Festival in the late eighties.
Oh you lucky people in Hollywood... do you even understand how privileged you are to see this? Saw this posted on 150 Days of Sodom where I also read a scathing review of the 3-D Night of the Living Dead (picked up for a supposed CDN theatrical by Alliance Atlantis).
There is a myth that KISS possess personal talismans which "transforms" them into their stage personae and endow them with "super-human" powers. They have developed unique Kabuki-like make-up "masks" which they wear on stage. They have never allowed themselves to be photographed "out of character" – this augmenting greatly their image of mystery and "otherworldiness."
From Variety October 17, 1979 - aka DANGER IN THE SKIES
Pulled from the trivia section of the IMDB:
Started shooting in Palm Beach, Florida in November 1978 according to articles in Boxoffice magazine. Articles said screenwriter Robert P. Davis was directing and that Robertson had co-written the script. "C. Gregory Earls of Cecil Prunier Productions is producing", said the Nov 20 1978 issue of Boxoffice. Apparently Robertson took over the directing chores.
Going through two Variety market issues that are filled fill of ads pitching projects that often never made past pre-production. Lots of glorious images and concepts and then some that you could understand being a challenge to finance... From 1978:
The poster on the right of this photograph could be yours...for only £12,000. It was taken from the Circus Cinema, one of the last porn theatres on the Deuce to close.
Here are more needlessly stylish porno posters from the 60's and 70's. Posters weirder than this one.
Robin Bougie, editor of the fabulous sleaze movie zine, Cinema Sewer, and contributer to Al Goldstien's legendary Screw Magazine, goes on a pilgrimage to 42nd street...
We came to Manhattan as younger generation classic porn fans, in search of the sleaze and depravity history has taught us about this place through word, verse, and cum-soaked porno house film stock. The Times Square and Deuce of yesteryear. We knew it was no longer, thanks to the crass, rancid Disneyfication of that section of the isle, but we came to hunt for even a lingering smell of jizz-coated ass…. just to say that we’d been there, and taken a loving whiff.
Read on to learn of their meeting with 70s porn legend Jamie Gillis and other icky things. The article is also available on The Cultural Gutter. And make sure you wash your hands after reading Robin's livejournal. Note: not safe for work... unless you work in an adult video store...
One of the most fascinating characters in the Lord of the Rings movies is Gollum. Like Frodo, Gollum is a hobbit whose original name was Sméagol. Hobbits are stout people with elf-like faces who stand half the height of men; they enjoy good company with hearty beer in the local pubs, as did Sméagol… until he saw "the one ring to rule them all.”
by all accounts, this film is supposed to be terrible, but what an amazing credit sequence! makes me want to flip and play with my long golden locks in front of a fan... directed by Robert Freeman, the photographer who shot the covers of "With The Beatles, "Beatles For Sale", "Rubber Soul" and "Help!" for The Beatles. and that theme song!? I want to trade in all my new Nirvana albums for the old Nirvana!
One of the best niche theatres I've ever seen was in Berlin - right around the Alexanderplatz, in the Balázs-Kino Hungarian cultural centre.
They operate a first-run theatre out of one of the conference rooms - a wood-panelled eurolounge socialist screening room. When I was there it was to see a late night screening of the mighty Vampyros Lesbos (in German with no subtitles). And they cranked the soundtrack.
They were serving cold bottles of beer at the popcorn stand (and they didn't even pour it into a cup!) and they showed cigarette commercials before the trailers. I'm surprised people didn't just start smoking at the screening, but I guess you have to have some rules.
Ahhh... what used to be Yonge Street. It was the main drag. If you straightened out Times Square, you would have an idea of its importance. So many cinemas dotted the street. Now... nuthin. With the literal fall of the Uptown in 2004, the street that means so much to the identity of Toronto is devoid of any space that shows films, with the exception of some of the live theatre venues that are transformed during the Toronto International Film Festival and some multiplex places in the north. That doesn't count. Here is an example of what played on Yonge Street (Fun Street), ironically, at "The Yonge" and some pics of the strip. The ad came from some time I researching library when I was thinking of doing a zine on Toronto's cinema history, long since abandoned, but revitalized thanks to the inter-web. Expect more of this in future postings.
Found these pictures on an obsessive little webpage documenting images of movie theatres in film. I remember seeing the Toronto-shot Exit Wounds - we were in the Uptown, and at one point the camera panned down to show the Uptown theatre sign - it was the first time I saw the theatre I was in in the film I was watching.
Here's the trailer for 1972's Trouble Man, which was recently released on DVD by Fox - a California pastiche of Shaft. Says the narrator: "He carries two guns. One to stop trouble and one to make trouble!" You have to want to love a movie where Mr. Carlson from WKRP plays a slumlord and the dad from The Waltons is a sleazy hustler. All this and a Marvin Gaye soundtrack too!
This is the exactly the kind of movie that would have been playing at the Rio, the last of the Yonge Street grindhouses - the home of '4 Big Hits' for 4 dollars. Movies from 9 am until 5 am. I saw a couple of blaxploitation films there - Shaft's Big Score! and Truck Turner with Isaac Hayes.
Okay, this is a Toronto-centric posting. That is where I am from. These are the streets that I roam. But before my time in the city, the cinema currently known as The Bloor was known as Eden and showed a very different kind of movie. Even though The Bloor reccently hosted Darryl's Hard Liquor and Porn Festival, what was regularly on the screen back in the day attracted a different kind of crowd.
"Video killed the spirit and showmanship that movies was all about and turned the mob-mentality of a theatrical screened movie into a solitary, consumer experience that plays into the arrested-development "collector" mentality of these nerds who just want to "own" everything that came out in a certain genre and sit there like lumps and fast forward through everything. But they don't own the movies, they just own the bad, shitty little xerox copy."
- Jack Stevenson
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