I realize I'm jumping the gun a bit, after all it is only March. However, after just now stumbling upon this impending release I find myself chomping at the bit for October! Lucky McKee? Neil Marshall? Joe Begos? Darren Lynn Bousman? And the topper - Mike Mendez? Auteur of The Convent, my all-time favorite indie horror flick and one of my favorite movies ever, period? SOLD! And when you consider that, holy crap, it's already March and the first three months of 2015 have already flown by, well then, I guess it's just as good as June then too. And if it's just as good as June, then we might as well call it September, and if it's September, October's right around the corner! Depressing that time flies that fast yes, but at least now we have something to salivate for in the meantime as life hits warp speed on another year. And while I didn't find anything cinches October as the month of release, chances are it's a safe bet.
... the new collaboration between Eric Powell (The Goon) and Tim Wiesch, is the topic of discussion in this week's edition of Thee Comic Column, over on Joup. It's vertically challenged, nice and violent exploitation and, accordingly, a whole lotta fun!
Thanks to my cousin Jim for pointing out the fact that on this day in 1998 - 17 years ago - The Big Lebowski premiered. We had a viewing tonight in honor of the anniversary. Such an amazing movie. Some great music therein as well, from Kenny Rogers' totally out-of-character Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) to the Credence, to I Hate You by The Monks (which I'd never realized was in the film before) to this rustic little cover of one of my favorite Stones songs from my favorite Stones album, performed by Townes Van Zandt.
Dude, wherever you are seventeen years later, keep abiding sir!
For issue 19 we filmed at Torrance, California's newest and best independent book store, The Book Frog! And, here's the kicker - the green wall we sat in front of was so perfect Joe.Baxter suggested we use it as a green screen. I think you may agree that it turned out wonderfully!
Mr. Brown sent this to me recently but in the deluge of email I've acquired in the last few days I didn't get to it until just now. Very nice. It's so interesting to me how something that I know for a fact would have sounded extremely dated to me ten years ago now sounds smooth and, if not fresh, apparent, as in this is exactly where we should be right now musically, as older decades cycle back through out consciousness from a different cultural perspective.
Not only does Thomas Williams run the best damn music blog around, but he contributes A LOT to Joup, the online magazine my good friend Grez started a few years ago and I help run. One of Tommy's columns is Thank God for VOD, where he begins every entry with the acknowledgement that he isn't able to go to the theatre as much as he would like (same here) but VOD helps him see most of what he wants to. Of course, coupled with the difficulty heading out to the movies these days is the fact that a lot of the movies guys like Tommy and I want to see don't even open in more than one theatre in any given major population center, for a weekend at best, so VOD is a godsend. But I'm behind in my movies and I finally made it around to one Tommy wrote about last june, Joe Begos's directorial debut, Almost Human. I liked it a lot, it was a great nod to 80s sci fi horror, specifically as Tommy points out early Carpenter, and Begos crafted a very specific late night UPN tone - also as Tommy points out. I love the nostalgic approach when it's done right. And Almost Human is - there's definitely room for him to grow, but I got the same vibe from Almost Human as I did from Ti West's The Roost when it first came out, and if that's any indication, there's sure to be some great stuff following this debut.
Afterward watching the film, while researching Begos and the cast on IMDB, I stumbled across the trailer for Adam Green's new film Digging up the Marrow, and after watching it I am VERY interested. First, you had me at Ray Wise. Second, Green will forever get the benefit of the doubt from me because of Frozen. No, not the disney movie. I'm talking about the film where three college kids get stranded on a ski lift over a long weekend. Can you say traumatic?
Anyway, looking forward to seeing this quite a bit. And if you haven't given Almost Human a chance yet, you should. It's streaming on Netflix so that makes it even more accessible to most. Also, directly after I posted this I flipped over to Bloody Disgusting and found an article and pictures of Looper star Noah Segan on the set of Begos's follow-up to Almost Human, The Mind's Eye. Excited!
The new and final Beneath the Panels pertaining to Nameless #1 is up over on Joup. Issue #2 comes out this coming Wednesday, so this is a last minute wrap-up until we receive the next transmission from Morrison, Burnham and Fairbairn, courtesy of Image Comics.
