Wednesday, December 27, 2006

MONDO FORD


It may be in questionable taste, but when I heard of President Ford's passing, I immediately flashed to this.

Friday, December 22, 2006

TV Funhouse - Christmas Day

Pretty long, but worth it. From the creator of Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog.

Evil... just plain evil.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Thursday, December 14, 2006

The Last AV Club: RAW FORCE! Sat. Dec. 23 2006 Screenland


It's truly the end of an era; like Joni Mitchell once sung, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."

Thanks, Gary, for some great times - and good luck in your new endeavours.
Here's a decent obit in the local KC weekly, The Pitch.


The AV Club bites the big one!

The Last AV Club
RAW FORCE

(1982 - Edward Murphy - 86m - 35mm)

11PM Saturday, December 23

Screenland, 1656 Washington, KCMO


The last AV Club AND our annual AntichristMas Show! It's like all three kings rolled into one!


After seven years of nocturnal admissions the Chucky Lou AV Club gasps its last with the essential kung-fu cannibal freakout: RAW FORCE.

"You have NEVER seen such a brain-blasting bone-smasher as the epochal omegawave that is, was and always will be RAW fucking FORCE!!! If you think you've been entertained in the past, here is a white-hot scholarship to FUN SCHOOL!! Let's open this sucker up and see what's inside, goddammit. Blue-skinned undead samurai? Check! Cannibalistic rump-chasing monks? Yes sir!! Drunken kung-fu yacht party? To the max!!! Wall-eyed flesh-trading seaplane pilot with a Hitler moustache? Man ohhh MAN!!! All this is, in absolute honesty, just the tip of the trashberg! Blowtorches blaze, teeth fly, bullets zing, dialogue is botched and cages full of virgins are sent to their heartless demise! So packed with action, you'll have to blink every 3 seconds to keep your eyes from catching on fire! The legendary Cameron Mitchell (THE TOOLBOX MURDERS) semi-stars in this Filipino/American co-production that would have brought the world to its knees if it wasn't 200,000 YEARS AHEAD OF ITS TIME! If you see just one movie in your entire life, it better be here, now, tonight: RAW FORCE! If you're blind, deaf and comatose, only one film will STILL kick your ass through the wall: RAW FORCE !! Look, I don't care if you're reading this at a funeral...scream it out loud right now: RAAWWW FORRRCE!!! - Zack Carlson, Alamo Drafthouse


Preceded by tearful trailers to AV Clubs gone by and at 10:45 (if time permits) the swan song of a woodchuck: an encore screening of our origin story Chucky Lou: The Story of a Woodchuck.

Plus: A visit from Santa and PRESENTS FOR EVERYONE!!!

Tickets $6.50. For more information call 913.522-4515.


On the first Saturday of every month for the last seven years the Chucky Lou AV Club has been Kansas City's only monthly nocturnal orgy of somnambulant celluloid, ravishing Kansas Citians with its weird revivals (Blue Velvet, Kiss Me Deadly, Beyond The Valley of the Dolls, The Long Goodbye), rediscoveries (Shogun Assassin, Candy Snatchers, Guru the Mad Monk, Poor Pretty Eddie ), KC premieres (Riki-O, Devil Fetus, Singapore Sling), homemade compilations (Trailer Trash, Mondo 16mm, Banned Toons ) and drive-in triple features (Sleaze Under the Stars) all shamelessly splayed on the big screen in splicy, scratchy, gloriously inconvenient film, except for the two times we cheated and showed DVDs.

Thanks to current home Screenland and everyone who came.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Bunker Hill News

Before I left for the weekend's adventure in Chicago, I got to attend the wrap party for BUNKER HILL, held in Lawrence. Normally, these things are held at the end of the principal shoot, but anymore (or at least the recent projects I've worked on), schedules are so tight and everyone is so fried from the experience, people scatter like the wind as soon as shooting is done.

Denise Low, 'Poet Laurete of Kansas', gives a pretty good description of the goings on (except that I don't think Saeed Jaffrey was there) - these poor photos I snapped off are a small visual record.



The main thing - besides seeing people again - was screening a short promotional trailer that had been cut together for the occasion. It looked pretty damn good... it gave a pretty good feel for the film without giving away any surprises. Hopefully, they'll use it, or some variation when the web site goes up next year. The first promotional artwork is also out, also impressive:



(a better representation can be seen at the IMdB listing).

So, I'm pretty stoked - and probably will be more so as they work through post-production.

Stay tuned...

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Amazon Unbox? It sux...

according to the terms of service, that is... I was lured by the listings of titles that were available (a good portion not on DVD release - like MANDINGO, for one - but you have to play them in the downloadable player, even the files that you download and burn to DVD. They won't play on a stand-alone player. And, it's only for the PC platform.

Always read the TOS, no matter what. And don't throw those VHS tapes or laserdiscs out just yet...

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Weekend in Chicago

I spent the last few days up in Chicago - and like most trips, it had good & bad moments...

I've been itching to road trip again, since having the Honda serviced earlier in the year - it was in good condition; the engine running well, despite one mechanic trying to convince me that it had a blown head gasket, when all it needed was to have the hoses replaced - I'd taken short hops in the car, but no big road test as of yet.

My friend Jon, (mentioned in the Archives previously with his film "Late Breaking News") is currently working on another documentary, about the Latin School in Chicago and it's "Nazi Mind" history class, which culminates with a simulation of the Nuremberg Trials. I was asked to help out with the filming of the simulation, and I accepted, of course.


It was a 12 hour session in one of the courtrooms in the Daley Center - some of Jon's other friends & associates were helping out as well, and it turned out to be impressive, considering that these are all high school kids doing college level work - and I sure as hell never worked as hard in college. I'm now anxious to see his cut of this sometime next year.

Things went very smoothly, which was great - I put off leaving for a day, due to the snowstorm that blanketed most of Central MO and IL. Counting up the amount of semis and cars embedded on either side of the highway between KC and Columbia, MO, that turned out to be a wise decision. However, I wasn't quite free of the weather, despite the clear highways.



The above is the result of an ice chunk blown off of a semi that I was in the process of passing, just south of Springfield, IL
Luckily, I wasn't hurt and the window stayed intact until I made it back home to KS.