I love travelling. Can you tell? Aside from my trip to Philadelphia, I've also go a spouse outing to Cancun in March. And, after that, it looks like my good friend Rich Osmond and I will be jetting up to Montreal in July for the Fantasia Fest. I've always wanted to go to this festival but never have. Likewise, I've never been to Montreal before. I hear it's like a totally different country up there...
On a serious note, I was in a grocery store recently and found this horribly disturbing product name. If Michael Richards gets crucified for using the "N-Word," shouldn't Vlassic some shit for so brazenly employing the "M-Word"?!?
Good news. The Goodis folk are allowing me to register late for their shindig. Now it's off to the races trying to find a good package deal to Philly. Odd that I've never been to Philadelphia before but now I'll have been there twice within five months. Looks like my schedule's going to be pretty packed or else I'd be heading over to the Mutter Museum again. I just hope that I can get another delciious Philly Cheesesteak sammiches.
Again, looks like I'm going to miss hooking up with my "Philly boys" but there's always hope.
Wow. I can't believe it. I was looking online today to see if there's such a thing as a "David Goodis Archives" like those of John D. MacDonald or Charles Willeford -- both of whom were very friendly when I asked for help with my articles for past issues of Cashiers du Cinemart. Low and behold, Google turned up a "Goodiscon" happening in Philadelphia in early January 2007. Sure, I missed the entrance deadline by ten days but I'm hoping they'll forgive me on that and allow me to attend this event. It sounds right up my alley and the perfect way to wrap up my long overdue Goodis piece.
I'm hoping, too, to give them a copy of my subtitled copy of SECCION DES DISPARUS -- the rarest of the Goodis films. At the moment, I think I'm the only person with this and I hope they'll be able to appreciate it. :)
I really thought I had gotten over things like this. I mean, I wasn't the one that came up with the "Grateful That He's Dead" t-shirt that was worn to the Garcia "wake" on the Diag at UofM (way to go, Chesney) so I didn't see me finding "Bo Knows Death" or "Bo Knows Dead" that funny. But I do.
Pardon my gramatically incorrect headline. I just tend to revert to that line from Charles Willeford's Understudy for Love when I encounter baffling items such as my recent realization that so many of the works of Sam Fuller remain unreleased on DVD. Classic bad cinema like RUN OF THE ARROW and great noir like THE CRIMSON KIMONO are MIA while absolute trash gets DVD treatment. Hell, even some of Fuller's more glorious failures such as SHARK have a DVD release (thanks to star Burt Reynolds, I'm sure) but there are several classic Fullers that continue to haunt the "bootleg circuit" with nary a peep about a proper release.
Where are PARK ROW, CHINA GATE, VERBOTEN!, and MERRILL'S MARAUDERS? Where's the love and help from all of those talking heads who filled the air with their babble and praise in the awful documentary THE TYPEWRITER, THE RIFLE & THE MOVIE CAMERA? C'mon fellas. Put your money where your mouth is and get to work on releasing these gems for the world to see! Get to it, boppers!
Sometimes the hardest part of writing is figuring out a structure. I often treat the articles I write as exercies in architecture. Almost as much as what to say comes the issue of how to say it. Rewrites for me often are more about changing the placement of text (and trying to pare down my wordiness).
That's how it was, mostly, for the article I've been wanting to pen about David Goodis for the last six or seven years. I knew what I wanted to write, I just didn't know how to say it. Now that I've got the stucture down, I've finally been able to start plowing through this piece. Moreover, I've managed to get it halfway done with the "easiest" films left to go.
In Cashiers du Cinemart #14 Skizz Cyzyk and I chose our Top Fifty Modern Day Midnight Movies and LETHAL FORCE made its way to the top of the list. One of my most favorite films of all time, LF has finally gotten the DVD release it deserves from Unearthed Films! It's now available for purchase (or for rent)!
Alvin Ecarma's LETHAL FORCE boasts geysers of blood à la the LONE WOLF & CUB films, blazing guns (and latent homosexuality) from John Woo's A BETTER TOMORROW, and a bevy of stylistic and thematic nods to other favorite films from CONAN THE BARBARIAN to EVIL DEAD 2 to ARMOUR OF GOD. Even the temporary soundtrack present when I saw LETHAL FORCE at a riotous MicroCineFest 2001 screening (where it walked away with the Audience and Judges' Awards for Best Feature Film) possessed musical cues (and sound effects) from ENTER THE DRAGON, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, and other films of high regard.
Frank Pritchard stars as Jack Carter. He's a well-meaning patsy caught between his old friend, Frank Savitch (Cash Flagg Jr.), an unstoppable assassin, and Mal Lock (Andrew Hewitt), a wheelchair-bound super-baddie with a legion of white-masked goons at his command. Director Ecarma does well to keep things fresh in what could otherwise be a staid action film with wonderfully kinetic camerawork and large doses of dry-witted comedy.
The tricky hybrid of comedy and action could have easily failed, turning LETHAL FORCE into a ridiculous farce like THE NAKED GUN or a silly gest like THE JEWEL OF THE NILE. Rather, this small-budgeted film ($12K!) wonderfully succeeds on all levels. The film is technically adroit and chock full of laugh-out-loud outrageousness.
I really can't say enough good things about LETHAL FORCE. Each time I watch it, I find myself enjoying it even more than the last.
It looks like Skizz was serious. 2006 saw the final MicroCineFest. Ten years, man... ten years! I can't believe that I was a kid of 25 when the festival started -- I've changed jobs (and even wives) in the years since. Things in my life got pretty crazy but I always had the festival to look forward to. And, no, I'm not being dramatic.
Going down to Baltimore for MicroCineFest was going to a family reunion. Actually, it was far better. You always have relatives that you could give a shit about or actively avoid. But, the folks in Baltimore and the out-of-town filmmakers were almost always good eggs. They welcomed me to the group with open arms and made me feel like I belonged to a true community. Call it "The Cult of MicroCineFest."
Along with making some great friends and meeting some other terrific folks, my eyes were opened to some truly spectacular films. From TAKE A TRIP WITH JEFF from the first festival all the way up to COX & COMBES' WASHINGTON with the final fest, I caught hundreds, if not thousands, of amazing films and videos -- some that are uncomfortably close to my heart.
So what now? Many theories were floated over breakfast and beers in Baltimore last weekend. Do we go the Tyler Durden route and start setting up franchises in Atlanta, Brewster, and Detroit? Do we all pick a weekend and rent some cottages on Lake Michigan, armed with a box of video tapes? Or do we do the unthinkable and let ProjectorHead perish?
I've never set up a screening in Detroit but maybe it's time that I learned how. Bringing some culture to the Motor City might be a good thing. I can almost picture a Best of MicroCineFest taking place in some seedy cinema dive. Ahhhh....
On a serious note, I was in a grocery store recently and found this horribly disturbing product name. If Michael Richards gets crucified for using the "N-Word," shouldn't Vlassic some shit for so brazenly employing the "M-Word"?!?
Good news. The Goodis folk are allowing me to register late for their shindig. Now it's off to the races trying to find a good package deal to Philly. Odd that I've never been to Philadelphia before but now I'll have been there twice within five months. Looks like my schedule's going to be pretty packed or else I'd be heading over to the Mutter Museum again. I just hope that I can get another delciious Philly Cheesesteak sammiches.
I really thought I had gotten over things like this. I mean, I wasn't the one that came up with the "Grateful That He's Dead" t-shirt that was worn to the Garcia "wake" on the Diag at UofM (way to go, Chesney) so I didn't see me finding "Bo Knows Death" or "Bo Knows Dead" that funny. But I do.
Pardon my gramatically incorrect headline. I just tend to revert to that line from Charles Willeford's Understudy for Love when I encounter baffling items such as my recent realization that so many of the works of Sam Fuller remain unreleased on DVD. Classic bad cinema like RUN OF THE ARROW and great noir like THE CRIMSON KIMONO are MIA while absolute trash gets DVD treatment. Hell, even some of Fuller's more glorious failures such as SHARK have a DVD release (thanks to star Burt Reynolds, I'm sure) but there are several classic Fullers that continue to haunt the "bootleg circuit" with nary a peep about a proper release.
Sometimes the hardest part of writing is figuring out a structure. I often treat the articles I write as exercies in architecture. Almost as much as what to say comes the issue of how to say it. Rewrites for me often are more about changing the placement of text (and trying to pare down my wordiness).
In Cashiers du Cinemart #14 Skizz Cyzyk and I chose our Top Fifty Modern Day Midnight Movies and LETHAL FORCE made its way to the top of the list. One of my most favorite films of all time, LF has finally gotten the DVD release it deserves from Unearthed Films! It's now available for purchase (or for rent)!
It looks like Skizz was serious. 2006 saw the final MicroCineFest. Ten years, man... ten years! I can't believe that I was a kid of 25 when the festival started -- I've changed jobs (and even wives) in the years since. Things in my life got pretty crazy but I always had the festival to look forward to. And, no, I'm not being dramatic. 
