Batturtle

2012-02-01T22:53:00.000-05:00

On the heels of DC Comics rebooting their whole universe in 2011, it was hard to imagine that they could possibly top that in any way possible in 2012. Then, early this-morning news came over the geek-er-web that knocked comic nerds on their ears. After much speculation, rumors and hints that this unbelievable event could ever happen, DC announced that they would publish a number of new comic mini-series set within the Watchmen universe. This summer they'll release a number of prequel tales, all without participation or approval of Watchmen writer and co-creator Alan Moore. Alan Moore has already in recent years been pissed off by unwanted adaptations of his work put into motion picture form. His name was noticeably absent from the film version of Watchmen. Dave Gibbons, the brilliant illustrator of the book, didn't have the same reaction, his name was on the film, and he helped out on some of the designs.

The first thing that I thought when I read the news this-morning was that the editors at DC better watch out, since I'm pretty sure that Alan Moore is a warlock with magic powers. The second slightly more serious thought was that I hate it when publishers do things like this, against the express objection of creators. Imagine if Calvin & Hobbes was coming back without Bill Watterson or someone other than JK Rowling was being allowed to write Harry Potter stories, and the creators were furious but couldn't do anything about it.

The third thing I thought was "Holy Hell, look at the writers and artists on these damn things!". Every single mini-series is being done by top notch creators. Not just A+ talent, but as a bonus, some artists who are incredible and don't even draw comics that month. Amanda Conner, my favorite artist, is on a book. Adam Hughes is drawing one, and I actually can't remember that last time he's drawn sequential art it's been so long. Andy Kubert is popular enough in his own right, add the fact that his legendary father Joe Kubert is along for the ride as well, and that's another must read comic. There are seven mini-series and I want to read every single one of them despite my objections.

I can see both sides of the problematic argument here. DC Comics owns these characters, they are a business, they will make money off of this decision. And, they will be giving money from the likely success of these new comics to original creators Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Plus, they clearly care about making the books the best quality that they possibly can by hiring this stellar group of comic book writers and artists.

I can't help but feel that DC is falling to reed and ease over true possibility of profitable creativity though. Instead of prequelizing arguably the best super hero comic ever made, why not tell new stories. Instead of a press release about Watchmen prequels, what if instead the press release was to announce all of these creators making brand new characters for the publisher. Not Superboy's, Batirl's or Kid Flash's...but actual brand new characters. I know that I for one as a comic book reader would have been just as interested in an announcement as such.

Like a Star Wars nerd complaining endlessly about Geore Lucas and Star Wars and then buying the Blu Rays anyhow, despite any hesitation I might have over fat cats disrespecting artists, I will read the hell out of all of these upcoming comics. Even though I'm afraid that Alan Moore might curse me and turn me into a frog.

2012-01-31T23:59:00.000-05:00

In 1993, Ghostbusters alum Bill Murray and Harold Ramis reunited for this bizarre time-bending comedy, and not so surprisingly the results were great. I'm pretty much a fan of Bill Murray at all times (except for maybe in Garfield movies), and Harold Ramis had proved repeatedly that he could write for Bill Murray with films like Meatballs, Caddyshack and Stripes on his resume. What I like about Groundhog Day, is that it's just a few steps off from being a weird David Lynch movie or horrifying Twilight Zone episode. Murray and Ramis and company pull off a comedic 'It's a Wonderful Life'-esque tale of repeating the same day over and over, that deserves repeat viewings.

On February 1st and 2nd at 9pm at the Mayfair, celebrate the weirdest holiday to be listed on your calendar, and enjoy multiple viewings of this modern comedy classic at the Mayfair. If the theatre sees it's shadow, winter is over! Or wait, is it the other way around?

More Batturtles

2012-01-30T23:57:00.000-05:00

Too tired to write anything too substantial or inspired this-evening. A somewhat heavy manual labour intensive day tearing down stuff from the NHL All Star weekend festivities followed by a rather slow paced four hour classic movie at the Mayfair has worn me out ('Gone With The Wind' - didn't impress me over-all, but blew my mind a little in how unlikable, unsympathetic, slave-owning, Yankee hating, and soap-opera all the characters were).

Anyhow, in sticking to yesterday's theme, here's yet another Batturtle related image that's not me that I found off of the interwebs. This one sticks a bit closer to my inspiration for the name, as it's drawn by Mirage Comics alum Michael Dooney, and is actually a Ninja Turtle in a Batman suit.

Alternate reality Batturtles

2012-01-29T23:25:00.000-05:00

I find it very peculiar and interesting that the word Batturtle might have similar importance and meaning to other people out there around the planet for different reasons. Thanks to the internet every once and a while I stumble onto an alternate universe Batturtle from my logo, like the one pictured above. No idea what it is, no idea who did it, but it too is called Batturtle. I guess it's the same feeling vice-versa for whoever did this picture of a Bat emblem stamped turtle flying out of the sunrise, surrounded by bats and some other stuff. He or she probably stumbles on my cartoony little Batturtle animation and also thinks "What the hell? Someone else out there uses the word Batturtle too?!"

I came to the realization that the word Batturtle has now been a part of my vernacular for 20 years. It's strange how a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles story (featuring one of the guys in a Batman costume for Halloween) followed by a random off the cuff sketch 'portrait' that a friend did (of a Ninja Turtle in a Batman shirt as me) has caused the word Batturtle to stick around in my life for two decades. I guess it's just as random of any other at the time seemingly nonsensical or unimportant in the grand scheme of things event that ends up sticking with you for life.

2012-01-28T23:59:00.000-05:00

Things with Crispin Glover were slightly less chaotic last night, mainly since he was already in town. He was in town and not having to be rushed to the theatre via being picked up in Syracuse thanks to the weather cancelling flights to Ottawa. Got to actually chat with him a bit before the show, and rather boringly to report, is just a lovely guy. After the live show and presentation of his first directorial effort, What Is It?, I wanted to get a couple of things signed. So I used what little power I have in this life to hop to the front of the line, and get an autograph before our loyal patrons then. I thought I would do so quickly, but then Crispin just wouldn't stop talking to me. Not sure how long I stood there with him, but it seemed like about 15 minutes. But I got a book signed for a friend, one for me, and my Willard DVD autographed with a nice personal message that he tagged on. And, since I was technically Crispin's employer this weekend, I think that puts me akin to the likes of Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton and Robert Zemeckis right?

Egg Farm!

2012-01-27T23:59:00.000-05:00

I didn't know what to expect from our first night of hosting Crispin Hellion lover at the Mayfair. I knew there would be something classified as a slide-show with live performance accompaniment, a film, and a Q & A. I knew the film would be bizarre at a level that might make a David Lynch movie look like something Chris Columbus directed. I also had a horrible feeling that the event might be a diva laden train-wreck of an evening.

Instead, I was surprised and stood corrected on all fronts. When I met Crispin he was friendly, polite and had a genuine appreciation at being able to perform and screen his work at our theatre. The live performance slide-show mash up was rather enthralling and definitely kept one's attention. And, thanks to Mister Glover, I have a new favorite thing to randomly and inexplicably yell, "Egg Farm!". The movie, although looking like a student film at times, and filled with maybe not the most top-notch of performances, was actually good. That might not sound like the most glowing of endorsement for his work, but I was expecting something pretentious and / or unwatchable. I found it neither.

'It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine!' is in crude layman's terms a cerebral palsy fantasy porn murder spree. It was completely unexpected from what I thought I was going to watch. And although it might make less desensitized viewers squirm in their seats during numerous scenes, Glover actually managed to pull of something as I described above in a strangely unexploited and with artistic merit of a manner.

Only pet peeve of the night, and a long running pet peeve of mine that I've run into every damn time I've attended a comic con or film screening related Q & A, is the person asking the rambling self-aggrandizing comment of a question that no-one understands and the guest has a difficult time answering. You sit there and feel the whole audience turning on the person as you try to contain your hatred for the pompous hipster types. For a very brief millisecond, I actually thought that the rest of the audience might turn on the person while they droned on for what seemed like a thirty minute long unending nonsense of a big brained query. Other than that though, everything was fine, and I look forward to Crispin's return to the Mayfair on Saturday night.

2012-01-26T23:59:00.000-05:00

A long day involving unloading a Whale exhibit and assembling some related things for a museum, followed by shooting my Painted Lips & Lolly Licks short at night. Back to work tomorrow at the museum tomorrow, which means not much time to rest before Crispin Glover hits the Mayfair Theatre (Jan 27th and 28th). The night Mayfair fans from near and far have been impatiently awaiting has finally arrived. There will be weird movies, there will be bizarre slideshows, and Crispin Glover will likely rein supreme. I have no idea what to expect, I know there will be eccentricity in the air, I'm just not sure if it will be positive or negative. I do know that I am going to try and get my Charlie's Angels DVD signed. And I do know that right now I must get some sleep and try and rest up a tiny bit before the landmark Mayfair event.

2012-01-25T23:59:00.000-05:00

I don't love everything that Bad Robot produces, but when I love something they do, I really love it. I loved nearly every second of Lost, and I currently love Fringe (though I'm very behind on the new season). JJ's Star Trek was unexpectedly fantastic, and gave me hope that in a world of remakes and reboots, maybe we can still have high quality entertainment even if filmmakers aren't allowed to do original material anymore thanks to Hollywood's cowardly nature towards new ideas. And the more that I think about Super 8, the more I think that it ranks right up there with kid classics the caliber of Goonies.

Those who dislike Alcatraz, the company's latest effort, will say it's just like Lost and Fringe. I concur with that thought. It is just like Lost and Fringe, and detractors will be complaining about the mystery and the unanswered questions and the confusing plot. Doesn't matter that it's only three episodes in, I'm sure that there are message boards filled with whining already. It's like getting twenty pages into a thousand page book and demanding an ending already 'cause you have no imagination and are impatient.

I don't watch a lot of episodic TV, most of my viewing time is filled with movies or late night talk shows, but I think it's safe to say that Alcatraz is my favorite new show of the year. I have no idea what's going on, and I look forward to being taken along for a Bad Robot-tastic time.

I'm a Muppet of a man

2012-01-24T11:57:00.000-05:00

I always complain about the Academy Awards and other movie trophies, due to my belief that movies are subjective and you can't in your right mind put the title 'Best' on something within a calendar year. Me and Harry Knowles thought that 'Scott Pilgrim vs the World' was the best movie of 2010, the Academy decreed to award it zero nominations, and I don't think it even made a ton of top 10 lists from various sources. Look at the history of cinema and there's an astounding number of films that are considered classics that never got a shiny trophy (for example: Do the Right Thing, Fight Club, Citizen Kane, Army of Darkness).

My anger towards the nonsensical and unimportant awarding of an art-form aside, I today am hypocritically ecstatic and proud that Bret McKenzie got a song nomination for 'The Muppets'. I was coincidentally listening to the soundtrack on my walk to work this-morning, I believe right around the time that they would've been announcing the contenders. I'm very happy for The Muppet crew, as the more I think about it, the more I think it may be my favorite movie of the year.

Plus it means that when I'm at The Mayfair watching the Oscars on the big screen on the 26th (being a hypocrite again, I know...I know...) that I'll get to see Jason Segal and Bret and Walter the Muppet sing the song live. Luckily 'Life's a Happy Song' didn't get a deserved nomination too...means I'll likely avoid crying. Maybe.

2012-01-23T11:54:00.000-05:00

No James Bond! Even you need a helmet to survive the rigors of solo non-spaceship style outer space travel! I think this is my new favorite bad movie poster. The strange logic of the character not wearing a helmet in space 'cause they want to show off the characters face reminds me of the stupidity of those running the Hollywood machine. Reminds me of how today you can't do a super-hero movie like Spider-man or Iron Man without showing the masked characters non-masked face all the time 'cause of Hollywood wanting that stars face on screen for as long as possible for your entertainment dollar.

Speaking of entertainment dollar, Tuesday January 17th at 7pm you can catch the third of four 007 double bills screening this month at the Mayfair. This one is a six degrees of Star Wars special, extra exciting for all the movie geeks. First, The Man with the Golden Gun features Sith Lord Christopher Lee out to thwart Bond's world saving plans. Then, Moonraker follows at 9:20pm. It was made specifically due to Hollywood scrambling to make more space movies after the unexpected universe shaking success of a lil' sci-fi film that came out of nowhere, which was of course Star Wars. Bond vs Darth Sidious AND Bond in outer space! What more could you possibly want in an evening at the cinema?

Ear books

2012-01-22T23:47:00.005-05:00

In one of the openings to a Stephen King book, where he always addresses his 'constant readers', the topic of the day was the audio book. Authors seem to have embraced the audio book as a legit means to reach their current fans and new sets of eyes, or in this case ears. Authors are not only participating in the production of these adaptations, they are performing the readings, or if not themselves they get A list talent to help out.

On the walk home from a bit of work at the Mayfair tonight I finished listening to Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell. I'm a big fan of Ms. Vowell's work, whether it be books like Assassination Vacation, or acting in The Incredibles. Her latest work is about Hawaii, and the tumultuous and rather horrible time that they had in becoming a member of the United States. Books like this one translate extra well into audio form thanks to being treated like an old timey radio play. For example, Unfamiliar Fishes features music from Michael Giacchino (he did the scores for Lost & Star Trek & Super 8!), and has an impressive ensemble cast that would make any filmmaker jealous. Where else could you possibly enjoy the acting talents of Paul Rudd, Keanu Reeves, Catherine Keener, and Bill Hader all in one place? And it doesn't stop there, you also get to listen to John Hodgman as Teddy Roosevelt and Edward Norton as Grover Cleveland!

As Stephen King said, we all love the Beatles, but sometimes you even might get tired of listening to Sgt Pepper one more time. So instead, why not try multitasking that road trip, bus to work or walk to the store by checking out an audio book? I also recommend the ones by comedians (Steve Martin, Lewis Black, Tina Fey), or Star Wars ones (they have litsabre and R2D2 sound fx in 'em).

2012-01-21T23:54:00.002-05:00

The Vixens, one of the three roller derby teams from the Rideau Valley Roller Girls that I love so dearly, beat a rival team from Rochester tonight (I believe the score was 128 - 96, but I might be slightly wrong on that). I wish derby was like hockey and there were eighty or so games a year and it was in the Olympics and I could watch it on TV all the time. Maybe some day. I mean, people actually tune in to sports channels to watch golf, darts and poker...someone out there being interested in derby tv doesn't seem that far fetched compared to that.

2012-01-20T23:54:00.001-05:00

The second book that I've finished reading in 2012 is another volume of The Complete Peanuts, this one from the years 1975 - 1976. It's still a book with pictures of course, as are most books I read, but this is at least a big fat hard-cover comic book. This is the 11th book I've read in the series, and I'm continually amazed at the quality. Most other comic newspaper comic-strips had their day in the sun and then become boring and repetitious. When was the last time Blondie or Haggar the Horrible or Family Circus was actually funny or had something interesting to say?

I saw an interview with Garfield creator Jim David back when the first Garfield live-action / CG animated film came. Somehow within this interview he managed to pretty much unabashedly admit that he didn't care about Garfield anymore. He spoke of how the the strip was farmed out to ghost writers and artists (they even showed footage of them), and that they put as little effort as possible into the thing yet kept making millions off of it. Now that's a ringing endorsement to go and pick up a Garfield book if I've ever heard one. Oppositely, Charles Schulz did everything on Peanuts for about half a century and never stopped caring and never stopped producing great timeless comics that puts pretty much everything out there currently in newspapers to shame. Pick up any of these volumes, you will be impressed. If you are not, maybe a gag about a cat in a bad mood who hates Monday's and loves lasagna would be more to your mindset and liking.

2012-01-19T22:36:00.000-05:00

Dear DC Comics,

I have been reading your comics my entire life and I love you very much. I have Plastic Man tattooed on my left arm, Big Barda on my right. I have four pages of original DC Comics art framed and up on the wall, and a Power Girl statue on display above the TV. Whenever I find myself questioning what I should do in regards to various life decisions, I ask myself, "What would Batman do?".

I must give you some regretful tough love though and hit you with some harsh honesty in regards to your new logo. Your new logo is horrible. It's not just horrible, it's sub-par and unpleasant to look at. It hasn't even become your new logo yet, and I already miss your old logo. The only thing that makes me sadder than your new logo is the likelihood that you paid some douche-bag company a truck-load of money to come up with that damn thing. For shame DC...for shame.

I'm going to print up some stickers of your old logo's to put over the new logo's for my Batman and Green Lantern and various other books come March.

2012-01-18T23:58:00.000-05:00

Word came down through the interwebs that Jeff Smith's masterpiece comic book Bone had been assigned a writer and director. Usually I'm pretty excited to hear about the latest comic book to bi screen adaptation. Bone, I am more than a lil' bit hesitant about though. Writer Alan Moore believes that his comic book stories are just that...comic book stories. His stories were created for that specific wonderful medium of paper, ink, colour and word balloons, and not meant to be seen at 24 frames per second with actors giving life to the dialog and cameras and fx houses turning drawings into reality.

It is extremely hard for me to pick out my favorite comic of all time, but with a gun to my head or if stuck on a desert island with only one book to read, it might just be Bone. I don't mind stuff like The Avengers, since it's not based on one particular tale. The filmmakers are drawing from a bi complex history and picking and choosing stuff that fits best into a couple of hours. With stuff like Bone though, picking and choosing is a bit more difficult. Bone has a beginning middle and an end. There are 1342 pages in the complete Bone story, and I'd be hard pressed in recommending what stuff can hit the floor without detracting from the over-all story.

I'm also not too excited about these characters having a voice. I always respected the hell out of Bill Watterson for never selling out and making Calvin & Hobbes cartoons or licensing out Calvin & Hobbes for merchandising. Having said that, my apartment is filled with various forms of comic book merchandising, and I think that some of the Peanuts cartoons are brilliant. Though sometimes I think that Harry Potter might hold a more romantic place in readers hearts if when they read the books over again they could do so without hearing Daniel Radcliffe's voice in the role of their favorite young wizard.

Though I must play devils advocate with myself and remind me that Scott Pilrim vs The World was my favorite film of 2010. And that that was a comic that I thought impossible to whittle down to a two hour movie effectively and still be respectful to the source material. Maybe I should just sit back, not fret, and realize that even though there are only about 3% original stories coming out of Hollywood, it doesn't mean that only 3% of the movies are good. I would be happy if Bone were left alone, but mayhaps it is possible that I will be happy with the movie too.

2012-01-17T11:52:00.000-05:00

If you want to look like a possible crazy person while you walk down the street, I highly recommend plugging in Patton Oswalt's stand-up album 'Finest Hour' into your mp3 player. Luckily I had on my big head-phones as I was out in public while almost doubling over in laughter (that is not an exaggeration as I am often prone to). Hopefully people realized that I was listening to something immensely humorous and not just completely lost my mind.

I like this ship! You know, it's exciting!

2012-01-16T17:19:00.001-05:00

I was going to excitedly write about how the new Star Trek movie started principal photography today. I was mistaken though, they didn't start shooting today, they started on Saturday! That means that J.J. has been directing cast and crew to do awesome things for three whole days!

A couple years ago I was fairly disinterested in what at the time was being portrayed as a Star Trek reboot. It was dark Star Trek times for me. I was pretty much a life-time fan of the franchise, and was coming off of hating the last two feature films and the last two tv series. I usually have no problem with remakes or reboots. I think that the more recent Ocean's 11 and True Grit are much better than their cinematic predecessors. And, John Carpenter's version of The Thing (also not an original) is one of my favorite movies of all time. The thought of someone other that William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley playing Kirk, Spock and Bones was quite unappealing to me. I found it disappointing that J.J. Abrams had to remake instead of just tell some new tales from the Star Trek universe.

When making a new movie featuring classic characters, I don't think an actor change is distracting if the character existed before the actor. Batman isn't Christian Bale. Dracula isn't Gary Oldman. Zorro isn't Antonio Banderas. James Bond isn't Daniel Craig. William Shatner on the other hand is Captain Kirk. Leonard Nimoy is Spock, DeForest Kelley is Bones. Seeing a bunch of young punks re-telling their adventures seemed boring to me. The first turning away from hate came with the news that Simon Peg was cast as Scotty. Turning away from hate part 2 came with announcement that Leonard Nimoy was going to make an appearance.

Then, having read a bit about the film and knowing that J.J. and company love a good alternate universe story (they even ended the teen soap opera Felicity with an alternate universe story arc!), I had a feeling that something better than a remake might be happening. And something better happened indeed. They decided to instead tell the earlier stories of the beloved sci-fi characters thanks to an alternate universe twist to the tale. Genius! Now they could do whatever they want to the characters and the universe without being stuck within the confines of a prequel. While at the same time not destroying the old universe and hence not pissing off fans of the classic series and films.

I went to see the movie, and was shockingly sufficiently impressed and blown away before the opening title even showed up on the screen. The prologue alone ended up being so impressive to me that I thought it might be hard for the rest of the movie to live up to the first handful of minutes. J.J.'s Trek effort ended up being one of my favorite movies of the year.

When J.J. goes and does other movies that I think are pretty great like Super 8 or Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, I now get a little sad that he doesn't just devote all of his time and effort to Trekkyness. So I just sit by and cross my fingers and hope that he puts a Gorn or some Tribbles in the new movie and count down the days to May 2013.

The ghost with the most

2012-01-15T23:45:00.000-05:00

Monday January 16th at 7pm, only at the Mayfair Theatre...Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!

I love Beetlejuice, Tim Burton, Michael Keaton and Batman. So I don't mean this in a negative way to towards their talent or those two films. But every time I see or discuss Tim Burton's classic film featuring a virtuoso performance from Michael Keaton in the titular role, I can't help but ponder in wonder at how Warner Bros looked at these two guys and thought; "Yes. We need a director and star for Batman. Our giant budgeted epic summer blockbuster potential of a movie is perfect for these two guys." I am happy they got the gig, and I guess it's no weirder than the guy who did Evil Dead II getting to direct Spider-man, yet it still astounds me a lil'.

Then I'll see you in hell!

2012-01-14T23:02:00.000-05:00

There's this nifty lil' geek website titled Star Wars Weather that let's you know what planet from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away your city is most like in terms of weather forecast.

My city is most like Hoth at the moment. This many degrees below zero levels of freezing cold is nothing new of course, meaning that my friends and I have for years joked about cutting one another open with a lightsabre in order to make use of each other in a life saving warming Tauntaun sleeping-bag fashion. That tasteless geek humour is of course then followed up by the statement "...and I thought he smelled bad...on the outside!". I also recently found out that there actually exists a Tauntaun sleeping-bag which one can purchase.

So, in conclusion...it is cold in Ottawa and I'll be yer best friend if you buy me a Tauntaun sleeping-bag.

2012-01-13T23:11:00.001-05:00

Some time in the not so distant past, the Mayfair played movies more along the lines of the titles as seen on the marquee in the photo above. In the 1970's, for I'm not exactly sure how long, the theatre was home to such films the caliber of Bed Bunnies and The Dirty Dolls. Ever since seeing that picture it's something that comes to mind every once and a while when I'm at the theatre, especially when we're showing family fare like How to Train Your Dragon or Winnie the Pooh.

Next month a night of short films somewhat akin to the adult fare shown back then returns to the Mayfair with the 4th annual Painted Lips and Lolly Licks festival. Today I finally ironed out and typed up the story outline that I'll be using for the short that I'll be at the last minute cobbling together with a few of my frequent collaborators. In true writer fashion it was a day of being distracted with watching David Letterman and 30 Rock, reading comics and general procrastination before getting the handful of pages out of my brain and into the laptop. Plans are to shoot on the 24th of January, which gives me ten days to get ready and a week and a half or so to edit it all together into it's final screenable product.

Keep an eye out around various Mayfair online places for further info on the line-up. And if you're free on the 10th of February, join us at either Mayfair (simultaneous screenings) for an evening of legitimate cinematic erotica...not porn, very classy stuff.

Everything that I need

2012-01-12T22:56:00.000-05:00

My earliest memory (I'm pretty sure) is watching the opening credits of The Muppet Show on a lil' black & white TV. My favorite song ever written for a movie is probably Rainbow Connection from the original Muppet movie. I love Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and Muppets Tonight and every time I see a picture or interview or behind the scenes footage of Jim Henson I get a bit choked up and sad that his life and career was cut so short.

Today I finally got around to seeing the new Disney produced Muppets come-back film simply titled 'The Muppets'. Ventured out to the wilds of Orleans to visit the Mayfair's sister theatre, since there's a chance that Disney won't let us play the movie at Mayfair Prime. I was pretty sure that I was going to love it, and it was not so surprising that I spent the whole damn movie on the verge of over-the-top weepy sentimental emotional wreck tears. I saw Jason Segal on Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show discussing that he did a bunch of interviews for the film along-side none other than Kermit himself. And that one interviewer had a joyful overwhelming tearful break-down upon meeting Kermit and that they all hugged and cried due to the power of the Muppets. That woulda' been me too if I had been there. Crying and hugging Jason Segal, a journalist and Kermit.

If there is any sense of judging true talent and greatness from those folks who run the Oscars, The Muppets should get at least three nominations for best song. I can't stop humming the title-track, and I do not mind. I want to see The Muppets and some of their human friends performing live at the Academy Awards ceremony.

The plot of the movie, which is not the biggest of a stretch for a movie involving Muppets, is that they have to put on a show to try and raise money to save their theatre. My dream is that the success of the movie instigates the actual Muppet Show's return to television. Then I can sit in the comfort of my own home singing along with my favorite felt characters and crying joyfully.

One! Two! Three! Four!

2012-01-11T18:48:00.001-05:00

I'm worn out and famished and typing like Frankenstein's Monster...which can only mean one thing of course. Today got some more work done on the geekiest tattoo sleeve in all the land! Luckily my friend and frequent tattoo getting chaperone accompanied me and we were able to distract each other with such high-brow and important levels of conversation topics like who should play Batman after cookie monster voiced Christian Bale Bat-retires after Dark Knight II (or Batman Begins III, whatever it's called, it's confusing).

The main bit of inking I got done today looks something like that Scott Pilgrim drawing as displayed above this text here. I would regale you with more exciting stories of permanently scarring my body with pretty pictures, but getting tattooing done makes me tired and starving and typing hurts my arm. So it's off to the couch and snack eating and movie watching for me!

Adult Entertainment

2012-01-10T17:34:00.000-05:00

Should have spent today working on the script and other pre-production stuff for my short film entry into this years Painted Lips and Lolly Licks Festival. In true writer / filmmaker form though procrastination and distraction kept me away from the sexy cinema making task at hand. I got a free pass to the art gallery that I had a small window of time to make use of, plus a little bit of grocery shopping, some dog walking, tattoo research and a then couple of Bond movies tonight at the Mayfair, and next thing you know the day is done.

Tomorrow and Thursday I will finish up some writing, look into locations and try and get some actors figured out. If anyone is interested in submitting something or would like further info, check out the website listed in the picture above. Deadline is for submissions is February 3rd, which inevitably means that I will be handing over my finished product to Lee (my Mayfair partner who's organizing the event again this year) somewhere around the evening of February 3rd.

I know you are but what am I?

2012-01-09T14:13:00.002-05:00

Tonight at 7pm Lost Marbles presents maybe the most requested movie in modern Mayfair times. Pee Wee undertakes his grand quest in hopes of getting back his precious bike in his self titled Big Adventure. If you can't make it tonight, you have a second chance Saturday afternoon (and if you like Pee Wee, very likely you'll want to stick around and watch Beetlejuice too).

I got the Blu-Ray of The Pee Wee Herman Show on Broadway for Christmas, and upon watching and greatly enjoying that, I'm even more enthused about tonight's screening of this 80's masterpiece. If you are not interested in seeing Pee Wee Herman, you may have to revoke your Mayfair membership card and go to the multiplex and watch something more to your taste like Transformers 3.

2012-01-08T23:39:00.000-05:00

One of my unofficial New Years resolutions for 2010 was to stay the hell away from the library. This was not meant as an anti-book depository stance, or to begrudge the fine institution that supplies free reading material to one and all. The resolution came to be because every time I went into one of our fine libraries in Ottawa, especially the main downtown branch, I would walk out with a stack of comic books and movies. Libraries have a long association with nerds, but somewhere along the line in the recent past, clearly some geeks started working there in a place of power as well. The place went on to have a better and more diverse selection of comics than a comic store or Chapters, with the added plus that the thins were free to read! There were genres ranging from mainstream and most identified sect of the super-hero tale, there was manga, kids friendly stories, biographies, foreign books, weird underground stuff...everything you could ever want no matter what sort of comic eek you might be. And on top of that, the extra distraction of a damn fine selection of movies that could be taken out on the free as well.

In an attempt to catch up on the dozens and dozens of books filling the shelves of my apartment going neglected and unread, I put a ban on myself going into libraries. I'm not sure if the experiment worked, because I continued to read voraciously in a non-library like manner, yet there are still a ton of books around my living quarters. And now the year long avoidance has come to an end thanks to a long ago museum pass becoming available (it was ordered before I went into hiding from the library). I went to pick up the pass, and next thing you know I was standing in the comic book aisle with a volume of The Complete Peanuts in my hands that I had not read yet. I've been making my way through the volumes the last couple years (back in my library hey-day), and as it claims on the cover of the books, it is indeed a masterpiece.

So, Grant Morrison autobiography, zombie anthologies, Bone spin-off, Marvel collections, Stephen King stuff, drawer full of 50 cent bin comics...for now you will all have to wait. 'Cause right now I have three volumes (or six years) of Peanuts books to read.

Red for TMNT

2012-01-07T15:19:00.000-05:00

A couple years back co-creator & copyright holder Peter Laird decided that he was done with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He sold them off to Nickelodeon, and put an end to Mirage Comics publishing. Having been reading every single issue of the black & white / all red head-bands original incarnation of the characters, this of course made me sad.

I figured the next re-booting of the characters would be more stuff along the lines of the rainbow coloured headbands Archie Comics / Saturday morning cartoon kind of stuff. Hence, when IDW announced that they would be starting up their own re-imagining of the series and the pictures released featured red head-bands all the way around, I was excited. The fact that IDW had co-creator Kevin Eastman was returning to the world of TMNT had me even more intrigued. I thought it was a great tip of the hat to the legacy of these characters that they were being portrayed in their original style. I never liked the rainbow coloured versions of my beloved characters. Mainly due to the fact that I know the colour change didn't happen for any kind of thematic reasoning. It happened because the toy company was worried about kids telling the characters apart, and they wanted to be sure that they could sell four action figures to kids (they eventually had such classy figures as TMNT in clown outfits). I was always able to tell the characters apart, even in a world where most the stories I read with them in it were published in black and white. I really liked the first live action movie, but I always thought if I were rich and mad with power that I'd take that film and frame-by-frame re-colour it to an all red head-band cinematic offering.

It just wasn't meant to be though. I saw an add for an upcoming issue in which Turtles with rainbow coloured were featured. Then, as I flipped the page of issue #5 of the current incarnation, my heart sank as Splinter handed out new more colourful head-bands to his sons. I can't stand reading stories in which my beloved Turtles aren't all wearing red head-bands. Just makes me think of selling out and betrayal of story in favour of profit. So I cancelled my subscription. A sad geeky state to be in indeed. Well, it means that my comic book purchasing budget remains even though, with Brian K Vaughn's new comic Saga on the horizon.

When I eventually get my TMNT tattoo at least I'll be able to always look at my arm and think of happier geeky TMNT times.

A (cult)ured Mayfair

2012-01-06T15:39:00.000-05:00

(cult)ure magazine presents the monthly tradition in journalistic excellence that is the This Month at the Mayfair article. Learn all about machine gun preachers, Crispin Glover dropping by, James Bond in outer space, the secret lyrics to every Danny Elfman film score, how Ilsa the She Wolf is more inspirational than Norma Rae, and our pitch to Hollywood for a movie about aliens fighting Shakespeare starring Will Smith and Jean Claude Van Damme.

Cue 007 theme

2012-01-05T21:10:00.000-05:00

Spent portions of the last couple days finalizing a bit of crossover stuff between the NAC and the Mayfair for our respective James Bond events. We have our 4th annual 007 fest starting this Sunday January 8th at 1pm with Goldfiner, and the NAC has their orchestra performing an event titled Bond and Beyond from January 19th through the 21st. We'll be screening eight classic Bond films, they'll be hosting a night of musical themes from the Bond films and other similarly themed film and television productions the likes of Mission: Impossible and The Pink Panther. Best of all is that by complete coincidence, both events avoid falling over each other on the calendar. You can catch every single film and enjoy a night out at the orchestra and get your complete James Bond fix in January. All of this should help all Bond fans in their inpatient anticipation for the new film Skyfall, set to be released November 2012.

A Perfect Storm?

2012-01-04T15:28:00.001-05:00

Tonight and tomorrow at 9pm at the Mayfair (Wednesday January 4th & Thursday the 5th) are your last couple of chances to catch one of the best films of 2011 (maybe the best film?). Take Shelter tells the tale of a simple man with a happy if not stress filled family life (long hours at work, bills to pay, and an adorable little daughter with hearing problems who they hope to get an operation for). Our hero begins having frightening visions of an oncoming apocalyptic storm that leads to even more horrifying events than the average destructive tornado filled thunderstorm does. That mixed with his obsession of building a backyard bomb-shelter in light of the oncoming storm which he believes to be on the horizon throws his life into turmoil. The film reminded me of a great Richard Matheson story. It was horror film from a certain point-of-view, not a Friday the 13th or Saw movie style of horror, but horrific in a fascinating way none-the-less.

That's about all that I want to say about the film. I'm always hesitant to play spoiler, I don't like reading reviews a lot of the time just for that very reason. I avoid trailers half the time just in case they're one of those horrible ones that give away the whole damn movie in a three minute time-frame (I think Ides of March was guilty of that).

Having said that, I did love this movie and do want to spread the word about it's existence in any little means that I can. Especially to let Ottawa folks know that they can catch it for the next couple of days in all of its big screen glory.

I haven't had a spare moment to figure out my favorite movies of 2011 list, but the more that I think about it the more I think that this one might be at the top (though I haven't seen The Muppets yet, and I do love those Muppets).

2012-01-03T22:39:00.003-05:00

Went to a big family hockey game outing last night. A post Christmas gathering, something that I got to attend on the free, and even though I admittedly care very little about the ins and outs of the sport of hockey anymore, a very fun event none-the-less. The team came back from a 2 - 0 deficit, and the captain scored in over-time to secure the win (on a night in which he was praised for recently scoring his 400th career goal).

The Senators were playing the Devils of New Jersey. Every time that team crosses my thoughts, all that I can think of is how awful their logo is. It would be so much cooler if they had a logo to match the monster that haunts the Pine Barrens of the teams State in which they are named after. Instead of a fairly basic NJ with horns, a ferocious horse bat amalgam would make a much more appropriate design for their uniforms. Or so thinks a fan of cryptozoology with a penchant for believing in monsters whose mind wanders whilst watching Canada's favorite sport.

Year of the Joss

2012-01-02T15:48:00.000-05:00

I was out at a New Year's party on Saturday night, and as the stroke of midnight hit everyone cheered in an appropriate manner. With my girlfriend in my arms, I looked her in the eyes and told her that I was so happy and and so lucky and so excited...to be in the same calendar year in which there will be not one but two Joss Whedon films released. Luckily for me, she threw her head back and laughed instead of punching me.

In my defense, I've been waiting to see The Cabin in the Woods for so long! An Eternity! Or, something more along the lines of three / three and a half years, more or less of an eternity. I was ecstatic to read about the film when it was about to go into production back in 2009, and I was heartbroken when Hollywood fat-cat idiots decided to push back the February 2010 release so they could change it into a 3D presentation. Yet another reason to add to the checklist of reasons to hate the current 3D fad. Then, thanks to MGM inexplicably going bankrupt, the complete and ready to go movie was shelved. I'm still confused as to how a film studio that has decades of Bond profits amongst other successes goes bankrupt. I have no money, but I'm not bankrupt, how are they bankrupt?

Luckily for comic geeks, Buffy fans and horror film aficionados, Lionsgate has heroically swept in and the over two years lost movie will finally hit theatres in April. In another twist to the Cabin in the Woods saga, after co-writing and producing the film, the next gig that Joss got was to direct and write the epic Marvel Comics super-team movie, The Avengers. That film stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor, who before finding success in that role, starred in the unreleased Cabin in the Woods.

Then yesterday I remembered something even more fantastic. There's not two Joss movies coming out in 2012, there's THREE! I forgot that there's also the independently produced adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing which Joss is writing and directing. And Nathan Fillion is starring in the damn thing! Good times ahead in 2012 indeed. I will of course do everything in my power to get these movies up onto the Mayfair screen.

I hope that you are as easily kept content as I am with my cinematic anticipations, and that you are as equally looking forward to the year ahead.

2011-12-31T21:54:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's already the end of 2011. Here's to a happy 2012 for one and all, and a big fingers crossed that it isn't actually the year that the end times hits us. I have a pretty good feeling that we'll all be fine, and our lil' planet will still be in one piece a year from now.

Boxes for all!

2011-12-26T23:06:00.000-05:00

My couch is filled with a ridiculous amount of clean laundry, gifts and a couple of board games to put back up on the shelf. Boxing Day is approaching it's end. I'm back home and another Christmas has come and gone. Time flew by again, as it always does for one and all. Didn't get to watch the amount of Christmas programming that I had hoped, didn't get to read as many Christmas stories as I had planned, but I did eat 50 pounds of cashews and ten dozen macaroons and a whole bunch of dinosaur shaped gingerbread cookies. I'm kinda' tired, kinda' feel like I don't have to eat again for a couple weeks, and very happy to be back able to sleep in my own bed tonight.

Then I will wake up tomorrow and go in for a shift at the Mayfair. If you are still on your holidays, and possibly with a kid or two to entertain, you should come in too. We'll be showing the original Muppet movie (Tuesday December 27th at 1pm). And if you haven't experience Kermit singing Rainbow Connection up on the big screen, amongst other great movie moments in the film, well then you my friend are missing out. Then you can come back in a couple days and see the follow up, The Great Muppet Caper (Thursday December 29th at 1pm). Both an excellent lead in to the brand new Muppet film, which will be up on the Mayfair screen before you know it.

X-Mas!!

2011-12-25T12:55:00.002-05:00

Remember that time Optimus Prime dressed up like Santa Claus and delivered toys to all the good little boys and girls? Good times, good times. Hope those of you who celebrate the putting of a tree in your living room and then sitting around it and opening boxes wrapped in brightly coloured paper to get gifts had a lovely morning. I was awoken by a rat terrier barreling down the stairs to where I slept on the floor on an air mattress and jumping me awake. She might as well have been screaming "It's Christmas!". Santa was good to me, got a giant stack of Christmas themed comics, a bunch of Blu Rays (Rocketeer, Three Amigos, Gremlins, Pee Wee on Broadway) and an insane amount of vegan approved candy. And, for the first time in forever, it's actually a snowy white Christmas outside. Take that Al Gore and your precious global warming conspiracies! If only I had gotten the life size Han in Carbonite, all my Christmas dreams would have come true. Maybe next year.

Happy Everything!!

2011-12-24T18:41:00.001-05:00

The great human distress that was a week and a half without the interwebs is over. I know that there are greater hardships that a person can go through, but I don't think there are that many in this day and age. If I didn't have one of them there smart phones, I really would have been at a complete loss to maintain anything in the way of productive and sane member of society status. I have no idea how the world worked without the worldwide web. I lived in that world for more of my life than not, but I think I've blanked it out like someone who survived some terrible accident.

It's been a busy time of year, as I'm pretty sure it is for everyone, whether you lean towards Christmas celebrations or not. There have been many a Christmas party, social events, work and then the scrambling of trying to buy gifts and prepare for attempts at a couple days of not doing anything except receive gifts and eat food. Went to see a very kewl rendition of a pair of old The Shadow radio plays at the Gladstone Theatre, which was a nice combination of geeky, festive AND legitimate theatre!

Got an invite to attend a free hockey game. I don't follow the game at all anymore, haven't for a while, but I do enjoy free things. Plus, it was not only free but also in a corporate box, so I got to pretend to be rich for the evening. Pretend to be rich, but still not buy the $5 cans of Coke. While there, one of my friends classmates (it was a graduation thing) started moaning and complaining about the Sens wishing everyone a Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. Whenever someone bitches about the war on Christmas, all I want to do is wish them a Happy Holidays. Or pretend that I'm Jewish and offended just to mess with them. Or remind them that they are being idiots and a wish of Happy Holidays is not meant as an insult, but as a nice thing to say to one and all no matter what religious belief, nationality, choice of holiday pass-time or whatever. If you have time to fool yourself that Christmas is being harmed by the onslaught of different holidays this time of year, you are a fool. Weigh the amount of Christmas movies, TV shows, albums, decorations vs say...Hanukkah or Kwanza or anything.

Secret Santa at the Mayfair this year got me a Gizmo action figure (last year I got an R2D2 thingy, the year before an Indiana Jones costumed Mister Potato Head). I had a couple different secret screenings at the Mayfair (I've said too much!). Been prepping for 2012 at the Mayfair, which is not only the year the world will come to an end according to some, but also the theatres big 80th anniversary. January kicks off with a visit from Crispin Glover, who will host two nights of eccentric film and other media. We'll also screen two of the most requested movies since Mayfair rebooted: Beetlejuice and Pee Wee's Big Adventure, and of course a screening of Friday the 13th on Friday the 13th.

Anyhow, for now I must return to Christmas prepping. Hope everyone has a Happy everything.

Don't forget the three rules...

2011-12-12T14:16:00.002-05:00

A couple years ago my brother and I, along with his girlfriend of the time, were spending our Christmas Eve gorging ourselves on food and watching a Christmas classic film at my mums house. The Christmas classic was Gremlins. My brothers now ex-girlfriend wasn't a giant movie buff, and hence wasn't familiar with the movie. When we said we were going to watch a Christmas movie, she had something in mind more along the line of something like Miracle on 34th Street or It's A Wonderful Life. She did not expect a film in which a mother defends her home against mischievous little bipedal reptilian monsters with weapons of knives and a microwave. She got quite upset with us in our definition of what a Christmas film is.

Gremlins takes place at Christmas time. The Hollywood back-lot town where the film is located is covered in a blanket of wonderfully fake movie-magic snow. There's Christmas trees and Christmas carols and we all learn a valuable Christmas lesson. It's as much of a Christmas film as A Nightmare Before Christmas, Christmas Vacation, White Christmas or any numerous versions of A Christmas Carol. I daresay it is the favorite Christmas film of many a people. It's certainly right near the top of the list of requested films from Mayfair patrons over the last few years.

Gremlins was executive produced by Steven Spielberg, written by Chris Columbus (who went on to write The Goonies and Young Sherlock Holmes for Spielberg, and direct a couple of Home Alone & Harry Potter movies), directed by Joe Dante (The Howling, The 'burbs, Matinee) and features an amazing score and an unforgettable theme song from the late great Jerry Goldsmith (L.A. Confidential, Poltergeist, Chinatown, a ton of Star Trek stuff).

And, have you ever wanted to have your very own Mogwai as a pet? Well, tonight you have two chances to win one of the fluffy little creatures thanks to our friends from Lost Marbles. If you win one though, please do remember the three rules: Keep it out of the light, don't get it wet, and no food after midnight. Very important.

Lost Marbles presents GREMLINS at the Mayfair Theatre - Monday December 12th at 8:30pm

Mayfair Best of Christmas Worst

2011-12-09T16:30:00.001-05:00

At #78 on the IMDb worst movies of all time list sits a little holiday gem titled Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. There are tens of thousands of movies made in the past century and a bit, and a mere 77 places away from what has been deemed the worst film ever made by humans sits a movie about Santa being kidnapped my Martians so their lil' alien children can get gifts too. If that's not accolade enough for a motion picture, it also can take pride in being a film roasted by the award winning, bad movie watching geniuses at Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Some twenty years ago in the far off time of 1991, Joel and his robot friends Crow and Tom Servo were forced by their mad scientist tormentors to endure this most stunningly awful of holiday treats. Amongst other bits of hilarity, the episode gains legendary status amongst fans for containing Crow's heartfelt musical rendition of "A Patrick Swayze Christmas".

Some people don't have an appreciation of bad movies. They don't spend their free time watching films about the Sharktopus or non-sequels to Troll or anything starring Nicolas Cage from the past ten or fifteen years or so. Those people are sane and wise and we can learn from them. Film fans like myself actually go out of our way waste our precious limited time on this earth to watch bad movies of our own knowing free will. Not quite sure why we do such foolish things, but I cannot lie about how much I do enjoy a good bad movie.

Hence, despite it being terrible, I encourage you to get out to the Mayfair for a truly great awful movie experience. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians tonight (Friday December 9th at 11:30pm) and returns for a slightly earlier encore screening on Sunday (December 11th at 9:30pm).

Mayfair Christmas-ing Begins

2011-12-05T01:24:00.001-05:00

Two posts in a row with a Christmas Carol theme.

The festive Mayfair season kicks off with Scrooged, a modern retelling of the greatest yuletide tale of all, A Christmas Carol. A 1980's version of the Charles Dickens literary masterpiece starring Bill Murray in the central role of a man who loses his soul amongst the greed and power of success. As in every version of the story ever re-imagined, the scrooge of a character is visited by ghosts of the past, present and future as the spirits attempt to teach him a valuable lesson about not being a jerk to everybody all the time.

The film features the talents of Richard Donner (the director of Superman, Goonies and Lethal Weapon), Michael Chapman (cinematographer of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull AND Space Jam!) and the musical score styling of frequent Tim Burton collaborator Danny Elfman.

As with many of the X-Mas-y themed movies we're showing in December, my harsh criticism of you if you don't like it is that you are dead inside. This thought does of course go against my view that movies are a subjective and not objective. It's a little course on my part mayhaps, but if Scrooged doesn't fill the most bah-humbug of human being with wonderful joy filled holiday feelings, there might be something wrong with you.

See Scrooged tonight (Monday December 5th at 9:30pm) at the Mayfair, and if you miss that you have a matinee second chance (Sunday December 11th at 1pm).

More (cult)ure magazine & the Mayfair

2011-12-01T15:03:00.001-05:00

Happy December! I blinked and realized that it's been over a couple weeks since my last posting here. I totally dropped the ball on writing about the last RVRG roller derby bout, various Mayfair things, my latest horribly painful round of tattooing, and that I finally finished reading all the premier issues of DC Comics New 52 (Favorite: Action Comics - Worst: Hawk & Dove). I'm also working on some new comic book writings and contemplating what to do for the 2012 Painted Lips & Lolly Licks short film festival.

Well, a new month brings a new interview from (cult)ure magazine movie nerd April Yorke with myself, the resident Mayfair Theatre geek-in-chief.

This month we talk about the various awesome Christmas themed films we'll be screening, ranging from family favorites like Elf, 80's classics like Die Hard and Gremlins, and cult horror classics like Silent Night Deadly Night. I also may have been somewhat quoted as calling Disney monsters. I don't actually think that they're monsters of course, especially since PIXAR took the reigns and started fixing everything there. I'm just continually upset that they don't let their older films out of those pesky Disney vaults for repertory cinemas to play. Michael Caine is my favorite actor, Christmas Carol my favorite story, and watching the Muppet Show is perhaps my earliest memory. Hence, I'm a little upset that we can't show Muppet Christmas Carol. On the off chance that anyone from Disney reads the article I hope they don't take offense, or y'know, they understand my sadness and just let us make use of their older films.

2011-11-13T19:46:00.006-05:00

Zap over to the CBC website and go to the 12:28 mark on Michael: Tuesdays & Thursdays - episode 109. There you will bear witness to the Canadian episodic television debut of the Mayfair Theatre in all of it's small screen glory for upwards of a minute and fourty-five seconds. The Mayfair has appeared in a couple of feature films and a number of shorts already, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time it's been in a TV show. If you are a Mayfair regular, I bet you might even yell "Lee!" and point at the screen during the scene. If not a Mayfair regular, doing so might be slightly less likely a thing to do.

2011-11-10T15:35:00.000-05:00

For the third year running, Team Mayfair and the readers of the Ottawa X-Press have crowned the Mayfair as Best Alternative to a Multiplex Movie in the Best of Ottawa 2011 Poll.

I appreciate the Mayfair winning the category yet again. As I do every year though, I find it peculiar that a year end poll is voted upon with an early November deadline. I also wish that it just said 'Best Movie Theatre in Ottawa', something about the wording of that bothers me (as it did the last two years). I guess just because I think that the multiplex is such a horrible movie going experience more often than not. Bitching aside though, I am quite proud of the lil' accomplishment, and hope to be complaining about the wording of the category again in 2012.

2011-11-08T20:39:00.002-05:00

I don't know about you, but whenever I see a single shoe on the sidewalk or in the middle of the road, my instant first assumption is that someone has been shoved into the back of a trunk, and in the ensuing kidnapping struggle the person's shoe has fallen off. My girlfriend, a more logical and smarter person than I, pointed out that when I see something like that, it's likely just a shoe from a change of shoes that has fallen out of someone's back-pack. I kid you not, I never even contemplated that in all the years of thinking that seeing a singular show in the middle of the road was the result of crime.

When discussed with one of my Mayfair brethren, he not only agreed with my kidnapping theory, we also then to the leap to the conclusion that a mysteriously left behind single shoe could be the result of alien abduction. My girlfriend still went with the boring and more real world lost object theory.

The reason that this discussion came up was that on a walk to the Mayfair last night, not only did we walk past a shoe on the sidewalk, we then walked by the much more bizarre abandoned baby stroller on a street corner. Not only an abandoned baby stroller by the way, it also had an empty wine bottle in it. And that's all of the story that I know. Will never know what the hell that stroller was doing there all alone on a street corner at nine o' clock at night. Though I will of course assume that the baby was kidnapped by drunk aliens.

2011-11-07T16:13:00.002-05:00

He fought his first battle on the Scottish Highlands in 1536. He will fight his greatest battle on the streets of New York City in 1986. His name is Connor MacLeod. He is immortal.

Tonight (Mon - Nov - 7th) at 9:45pm the mini-series of Lost Marbles 80s Nights at the Mayfair wraps up with The Highlander. There were many a sequel and spin-off to the 1986 fantastical swordplay epic, but let's just all pretend this movie is a stand-alone story and we'll all be a bit better off in the long run. The film of course features not only Sean Connery again not bothering with attempting to put on an accent that would fit his character, it also has Queen music and is from the director of geek cult classics the likes of The Shadow and Resident Evil: Extinction. And although there isn't really much in the way of Highlander merchandise floating around, Lost Marbles still managed to cobble together a couple nifty prizes to give away.

2011-11-03T20:32:00.003-04:00

The above sketch is titled - Batturtle will get there eventually. It is drawn by Jeff Matsuda, whom I remember from a Wolverine run written by Erik Larsen and the cartoon Jackie Chan Adventures. It has nothing to do with my Batturtle icon, but is interesting as a random something that has popped up on the internet, and then was e-mailed to me... as weird things on the interwebs have a tendency of doing. My Batturtle is a turtle / bat / pterodactyl hybrid kinda looking thing, this one here looks more like a turtle wearing a Bat costume. And not sure why he's yelling "Bruce Wayne!", kind of gives up the secret identity by doing so.

2011-11-02T18:40:00.005-04:00

My third in an ongoing monthly interview series about goings on at the Mayfair has been posted on the (cult)ure magazine website. Amongst other cinematic topics this month we discuss Sir Sean Connery's lack of attempts to disguise his natural accent, the genius that is Andy Serkis portraying a chimp, that I bare no ill-will towards re-makes, and that I really like baseball movies despise hating the sport itself in real life. And we concur on the thought that Highlander is amazing. Which you should too. King Kong Lives is not amazing per-say (though does have a very nice poster)...but is a very enjoyable bad midnight movie. And will make you appreciate Rise of the Planet of the Apes even more.

2011-11-01T18:13:00.003-04:00

The Mayfair is again nominated for 'Best Alternative to a Multiplex Movie Theatre'in the Best of Ottawa Readers Poll in the X-Press. I again appreciate the nomination, and again think the thing is worded improperly, since it makes it sound like multiplexes are a good place to go see a movie. As we all know, they are not. Anyhow, please tell all your friends and family and co-workers and enemies to go and vote for the Mayfair. Democracy!

2011-10-31T21:11:00.002-04:00

Besides for it's Halloween theme, the TARDIS jack-o-lantern has nothing specific to do with this blog entry, I was just looking around for holiday appropriate images and thought that this one was kinda' awesome. Halloween is my favorite holiday thematically, but one that I really don't participate in in the dress-up sense. In the past few years I've gone out trick-or-treating with a couple of my lil' fake nieces, but this year they went and moved to Hawaii. So I don't even have the fake-uncle obligation of taking them door-to-door and carrying their candy bags for them anymore.

What I do like about this time of year is scary movies, It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror episodes, the Thriller music video, monster comics and candy. All of which I have taken part in today or will take part in. Though to be fair, I take part in all of those things fairly often on any given day of the year whether it be October 31st or not.

The Mayfair is showing a one two punch of The Rocky Horror Picture show of course, so I made a rare trip out to the multiplex that I've grown to be so displeased with each and every time I go to get my dose of horror. At least I used my Visa points, so they didn't get any cash out of me. We saw Paranormal Activity 3, and it did not disappoint. I have been truly impressed and terrified by this franchise three movies in a row. I hope they end it with the third entry though, I think the story has now been told in a nice lil' trilogy package. I have a feeling that Paramount will look at the $50 million dollar cash-haul of a weekend for a $5 million investment and get a fourth entry ready for Halloween 2012.

I am off to watch Halloween cartoons and mayhaps another movie. Happy Halloween one and all. Please do feel free to give me your leftover licorice and Maynards gummy candy.

2011-10-28T14:26:00.005-04:00

Starting tonight the insanity that is the annual tradition of showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Mayfair during the Halloween season continues. You have a total of six chances to check it out on Friday, Saturday and finally on Halloween night itself. As an added bonus on top of the usual madness of throwing stuff and dressing up in bizarre costumes, the screenings are also accompanied by the Absent Friends Shadow Cast whom expertly preform a live rendition of the film in front of the film in progress. I think it would be kind of funny to do a non-participation screening and just sit and watch the actual movie. I seem to be in the grande minority in that thought though.

2011-10-27T22:35:00.004-04:00

A few months back I worked on the installation of a traveling exhibit that was making a stop-over in Ottawa at the Museum of Nature (or as I have always called it, the Dinosaur Museum) called Extreme Mammals. I've been meaning to go and check it out as a museum-goer and not a thing-setter-upper before it left town. Plus, I am cheap, and Thursday's they do a free admission thing at the museum.

Amongst many bigger, scarier and more extreme mammals was the Platypus. Not so extreme by normal measures, except for that it's part beaver, part duck, and has poisonous claws. Poisonous claws that the males uses to subdue the females for mating purposes. Or, in layman's terms, the little bastards propagate the species thanks to making use of roofie techniques that might be used by any number of sleazy douche-bags in meat-market bars. Another fine example of the insanity that is the miracle of nature and animal ways.

There are plenty of non-shocking and offensive animals to observe as well. If in Ottawa, you have 'till November 6th to check it out before I go in to help pack it up and it rolls on to the next town.

2011-10-26T22:10:00.004-04:00

Last night I got caught up in a naive attempt to try and do a good deed, and ended up being ripped off for twenty bucks. I didn't even realize that it happened, that I'd been evilly con-manned, until a good five or ten minutes after the thieving bastards plan had successfully come to fruition.

I was in the midst of a late night walking of the rat-dog with my girlfriend. A guy approached, who seemed very stressed out but polite and nice, and asked if he could borrow my phone because he had locked his keys in his car. I found myself handing over my phone to him, while chanting in the back of my thoughts "Don't steal my phone...don't steal my phone...". He did not steal my phone, thanked me for the use of it, and explained his trouble. He had not only locked himself out of his car and house, but his wallet was in his car, and hence he could not pay the tow-truck guy to help him to bust into his vehicle. Now, at this point, in retrospect, I have no idea why I fell for this. He really was delivering an Oscar caliber performance for the ages.

Next thing you know, I had not just handed over some cash but had gone to an ATM to get it first. I then accompanied my new friend to where his fictional car was parked. The locked out driver ran ahead to catch the tow-truck before it left. Alas, by the time we caught up with him, the non-existent tow-truck guy had left. My twenty dollars was taken, with the promise that it would be returned with a bonus momentarily (which I very Canadianly refused the thought of). We headed home, watched an episode of 'Arrested Development', and somewhere in the midst of doing so it donned on my that I had been tricked by a thief.

It's not the end of the world, twenty bucks lost into thin air does not destitute me. It did upset me quite a bit though, and couldn't help like being made feel like quite an idiot. Just another jaded evil happening that makes you think that it can be a really horrible planet filled with underhanded people more often than the opposite kinder type. This simple wrong-doing did make me feel a bit like going all Punisher vigilante justice onto the streets of Ottawa. But that seems like a lot of work, instead I will comfort my anger with Daily Shows and comic books.

2011-10-25T12:00:00.002-04:00

Tonight at the Mayfair we present what is possibly the scariest and most acclaimed horror movie double bill of all time. Now, ask any movie buff what the two best horror films / scariest films ever made are and you will get varying answers of course. I continue to stand-by my opinion that movies are subjective and not objective. That in mind though, as a mathematical equation if you took into account the thoughts of all the critics and filmmakers and fans, the number one and two spot on the scary movie list would very likely belong to The Exorcist and The Shining. So if you are brave enough, please join us tonight (Oct 25) at the Mayfair at 7pm and 9:20pm for a pair of true Halloween tradition masterpieces.

As an afterthought, why is it that now-a-days the non-film-studio / made by talented film-fans movie posters seem to be always better than the real thing?

2011-10-24T17:52:00.002-04:00

Killer63 has shown a number of Matt Fincer's Creepy Puppet Projects since the mini-fest began, and year in and year out they seem to garner the biggest laughs and applause from the crowd. If we were an actual festival that gave out awards, not to disrespect the other fine films, I'm fairly confidant that the Creepy Puppet Projects would continually win an audience favorite award. So, for your viewing pleasure, here is Matt's twisted contribution to last weekend's Killer63 screening, Happy Fuzzy Things.

2011-10-23T23:40:00.003-04:00

Too tired to make much of a posting tonight. Another round of Killer63 went very well, lots of nice response and praise for the set, and a very decent crowd in attendance, especially considering it was scheduled in the late late slot. I always get nervous and stressed during a screening like this, but again all went ok, and was a nice event for the Mayfair, a nice showcase for some indie filmmakers, and a nice ego boost for me. Got home at about 2am from that, then had to get back up for a split-shift gig at 4am, which I'm just home from now. Set up lights and stuff for some kinda' fundraising event that will involve Joe Montana. Long day. Think at one point I actually fell asleep on my feet for a brief second (and I'm not even joking).

Anyhow, just wanted to post 'The Last One', the short that I worked on with three of my friends that we did for this years Killer63. I wrote it in about half an hour, we shot in about four hours, Jeremy worked his editing magic over his great cinematography skills, and here's what the final product came out like. And if you're curious as many seem to have been, no there is not a plan for a longer version of this. A stand alone short story is it. Hope you enjoy.

2011-10-22T10:51:00.003-04:00

Images from Killer63 alum and Rideau Valley Roller Girl document-er Jeff Campbell's latest directorial effort 'Good Samaritan'. Tonight is the night for the sixth annual special Mayfair presentation of Killer63. It really falls under the time flies category for me, as it seems like just yesterday that a couple friends and I were casually chatting over the internet about organizing some kind of short horror fest for all of our friends to partake in. Now it's become an annual lil' Halloween event. An annual lil' event that always stresses me out for a few weeks then miraculously comes together at the last minute and everyone seems to enjoy.

So, a final reminder: Killer63 VI - Saturday October 22nd at 11:30pm at the Mayfair Theatre (1074 Bank Street in Ottawa). Fourteen new films from local filmmakers, a couple from Quebec, and even one from overseas. Last minute bonus news, we will have some give-aways thanks to our friends at Ottawa Horror.

2011-10-21T17:26:00.002-04:00

A late in the day reminder that tonight (October 22nd) at 11:30pm, the Mayfair is screening Zombie (also known as Zombi, Zombi 2, and I think a few other titles. Italian movies are so confusing in that sense!). All you need to know about this horror masterpiece is that this is the movie where a zombie fights a shark. If that doesn't pique your interest, I don't know what will.

2011-10-20T11:23:00.004-04:00

One of the short films screening tomorrow night at Killer63 VI is actually a music video from an Ottawa based band by the name of Zebrasseires. Check out Lone Fish, the song that inspired the video on their website, and then come out and see the video from the song on Saturday night (October 22nd at 11:30pm) at the Mayfair. And then the next time they play, go see them in concert. They are good. Listen to all the songs on the website...I'm not just being nice 'cause they're a part of Killer63.

2011-10-19T19:49:00.004-04:00

Co-ownership of an indie movie theatre has it's privileges, one of them being that sometimes I get to watch movies slightly in advance of everyone else. Along with a couple members of the press, yesterday I got to watch an advance screening of 'Attack the Block'. I had high hopes for a new twist on the alien invasion genre from the producers and many of the crew behind 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz'. It did not disappoint.

Any time someone bitches and moans that there aren't any good movies anymore, that it's all sequels and prequels and remakes and reboots, I point to movies like 'Attack the Block'. Filmmakers aren't out of ideas, movie studios are still making great stuff...it's just that instead of finding something better to watch you (and likely not "you"...but you know what I mean) went to see 'Transformers 3' or 'Fast 5' or brought your kids to see 'The Smurfs'.

So, if you are in Ottawa, do yourself a favour, find some time in your hectic schedule, and get over to the Mayfair Theatre to see 'Attack the Block' sometime between October 21st and 23rd or 26th and 27th. If you don't live in Ottawa, track down this movie and watch elsewhere!

2011-10-18T10:50:00.003-04:00

A screen-shot from the short film The Mask of James Henry, from Digger Films / directed by Steve Villeneuve. Steve and Digger Films are one of the returning alum to this years Killer63 line-up, amongst a mix of diverse offerings ranging in horror theme and sub-genre the likes of Creepy Puppets, zombies, apocalyptic tales, Twilight Zone fare, rock and roll, gore, comedy and more.

Below is the list of the films being screened (in no particular order), with a couple of late additions still to be announced:

KILLER63 year VI

Victor Perpetual – Ray Besharah

Employee of the Month – Olivier Beguin

She's Not Gone – Randy Smith

Lone Fish - Zebrasseires music video – Luca F

The Mask of James Henry – Steve Villeneuve

The House on Arch Lane – Alexander Steinhoff / Alexander De Lukowicz

Good Samaritan – Jeff Campbell

Six Minutes – Ralph Gethings

Profile of a Killer – Chris Chitaroni

Happy Fuzzy Things – Matt Fincer

Emily – James Campbell

Games Night – Fiona Noakes / Islam Balbaa

I've also finally posted a Facebook Events page, so now you can invite all of the people you know without the inconvenience of actual real-world interaction.

2011-10-17T13:49:00.005-04:00

Released only a week apart from that other 1982 Spielberg movie, 'E.T. The Extra Terrestrial', was a much scarier view of a modern American suburban family, 'Poltergeist'. The film went on to become a box office smash, was nominated for three Academy Awards, spawned two sequels, and is on various top 100 lists from the likes of Bravo, the American Film Institute and others.

The film also got quite a bit of legit media and tabloid recognition thanks to two things revolving around the production. There has been quite a bit of superstitious talk of trouble on-set while the movie and it's sequels were being made. There were also a number of deaths amongst the cast, which can really for the most part be considered coincidental considering the number of people that work on any film. Sadly of course, one of these deaths include that of young actress Heather O'Rourke, the young blonde actress who uttered the films often repeated catch-phrase "They're Heeeeere!"

There has also been back and fourth controversy to this day as to who was actually the creative force and director of the project. Most reports seem to lean towards that is actually much more a Steven Spielberg film than a Tobe Hooper film. The poster for the film has 'A Steven Spielberg Production' listed right at the top of the credits, he wrote the story, and he was a producer on the film. On top of normal film production duties in that effect, he also did some if not all of the storyboards and a number of actors said he was more of a director on the project than Tobe Hooper was. Spielberg has been diplomatic over the years to his involvement on the project and to Hooper's deserved directorial credit. I'm suspicious though and lean towards believing the rumors and reports that Spielberg was in fact the director of at least most of 'Poltergeist'.

'Poltergeist' may have been the first horror film that I saw. It was a PG film back before the advent of a middle-ground rating in-between PG and R, so kids could get away with watching it without seeming to break any censorship rules. It's the perfect kids scary story, and if you see it at the right age it has a good chance to scar you for life. Any numbers of phobia could result as an after-effect to watching the film, including that of clowns or trees or television sets or suburbia in general even. Some cross-over effect of having seen 'Poltergeist', the extended 'Thriller' music video and 'Night of the Living Dead' at a young age are to blame or to thank for my love of the horror movie genre I'd say.

See 'Poltergeist', another great pre-Halloween screening tonight (Monday October 17th at 9:15pm) as part of Lost Marbles Geek Nights at the Mayfair. Answer a relatively easy bit of trivia and you even might win a prize!

2011-10-14T14:06:00.005-04:00

Although the October installment of the 'This Month at the Mayfair' article came in a couple weeks late due to the poor interviewed being super ill and bed-ridden, it is at long last up on the (cult)ure magazine website for all to read. Went up on the site last night after we did a last minute interview to explore the second half of month, since some of the article was cut because the movies talked about had passed by on the schedule already. Upcoming programming at the theatre ranging from 'Winnie the Pooh' to 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' were all discussed.

Also for the piece we chatted about this-evenings Lost Marbles Geek Night presentation of 'Critters' (Friday October 14th at 11:15pm). The film is one of the rip-off / wannabe clones that came out on the heels and success of 'Gremlins'. Though it is a bit different since the monsters are from outer-space and they have intergalactic bounty hunters chasing them. The movie was directed by Stephen Herek, whose next film was 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and spawned three sequels (one of which was the first role for a young Leonardo DiCaprio).

A bit shockingly considering the movie was low-budget, B-grade, knock-off fare, Roger Ebert gave the film a positive review back in 1986. In surprising review situations such as this, I'm always reminded that Roger also liked the Tomb Raider movies. None-the-less, continue checking out our Halloween programming, and see if you like a movie about fuzz-ball alien eating machines terrorizing a small town as much as the most powerful film critic of all time did.

2011-10-12T14:20:00.004-04:00

Tonight and tomorrow at the Mayfair (Oct 12 at 9pm and 13 at 9:30pm) are your last chances to check out Bellflower, the knock-out directorial debut from Evan Glodell. Supposedly made for only a $17,000 budget, which I will say in a complimentary manner that I can't imagine a budget so low to be true upon seeing the finished product. I mean, the movie has a flamethrower and an amazing post-apocalyptic Mad Max style car in it ! Just one of those things alone has to cost about the much right?

My comment as the credits rolled, after a horrifically mesmerizing and explosive climax to the story was to say, "Well...that was something!". In terms of modern day film-making comparisons, it reminded me of 'The Devil's Rejects' style of characters seen from Rob Zombie mixed into the darkest of Quentin Tarantino's universe of storytelling. Somewhere around those two comparisons, mixed with slacker characters from Richard Linklater or maybe Kevin Smith if his actors did more than chat about Star Wars and lean on corner-store countre-tops.

All of the characters were very interesting and watchable, but I didn't like any of them. And that's a trait that seems to be lost in the storytelling styles within present day cinema. Everyone has to be too good now-a-days. Hence, it also reminded me of something you might have seen back in the hey-day of the 1970's. Something that might star Steve McQueen, except more disturbing. And I think it's the most impressive directorial debut I've seen in a long time.

I saw Bellflower last Friday night, unfortunately not many other people did. I think there were eight paying customers there that night. For the screenings tonight and tomorrow, I hope more people find their way to the theatre (maybe folks won't be so busy with Thanksgiving obligations and travels). I say that partially as a co-owner of the place of course, but also 'cause this is a movie that I hope gets some support, and that people get to see big screen style. I want to see another movie from these guys.

Don't just take my word for it, check out the Chicago Sun Times review from King of all the critics in all the land, Roger Ebert.

2011-10-11T16:42:00.002-04:00

As often in my attempts to keep a blog updated, I am guilty of being a day or two behind in planned writings. In this case, tardy in wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Or at least wishing my fellow Canadians a happy Thanksgiving, my American friends get no such well wishes until next month.

I again find myself thankful for many things as the holiday rolls past this year. Mostly for the simple things in life, like that The New 52 at DC Comics turned out ok, that it's only a couple months until the Doctor Who Christmas special, that I'm amongst a select few of people who get to wear a Rideau Valley Roller Girls hoodie as my gang attire, and that I now how 300 gigs to play with instead of the pesky 25 I had with the provider that I just broke up with.

I'm thankful that the small bit of power I have in life makes it possible for me to get Blair Witch Project and Highlander along with other of my favorite movies seen up on the big screen. I am thankful that more often than not my life seems like the plot of a sitcom or some form of John Hughes movie. More and more I find myself actually taking a moment to let it sink in that I'm actually part owner of my favorite place on earth or that I'm on a road trip with a posse of roller derby girls or that someone knitted me a Super Mario Bros scarf from scratch (how does a human do that!? I think I'd be about the same level of impressed if someone handed over a jet pack to me).

Hope you all are equally thankful in your lives and sitcom happenings. And next year I will try to post my Thanksgiving thoughts before Thanksgiving, but likely will be late again, but still thankful that I'm kept so busy doing awesome stuff and things.

2011-10-08T20:32:00.004-04:00

When you work freelance in techie related fields, whether it be rock and roll concerts or film production or boring corporate shows, you find yourself working on a wide range of diverse and strange stuff. I've done gigs for everyone from Cirque du Soleil to the Liberals to Kevin Smith in my day. I've pointed lights at KISS, painted sets for a Tori Spelling TV movie and helped piece together prehistoric monster museum exhibits.

Today I finished up crewing on the latest Brett Kelly B-grade independent epic, Jurassic Shark. You read that correctly. Not since Snakes on a Train or possibly Transmorphers has there been a greater mock-buster title. From what I pieced together from my few days of working on the production (didn't work on the whole thing) the movie is about girls in bikini's, evil spies clad in black, and a giant CG shark to be added at a later date.

Keep an eye out for the movie coming to a small screen near you sometime in 2012. Or if you live in Ottawa, I'd imagine that the premiere will likely be at the Mayfair sometime in the next few months. I just hope it means that rumor spreads thanks to misread imdb browsing that people will think I worked on a Jurassic Park movie.

2011-10-06T12:27:00.002-04:00

Tonight at the Mayfair at 7pm, the world premiere of Ottawa based filmmaker Brett Kelly's new western, Hell At My Heels. The director will be in attendance to intro the film, and I would imagine most of the cast and crew will be on hand as well.

Also tonight, right after that at 9pm, your last chance (for now) to see Kevin Smith's Red State. Red State marks arguably the first time that Smith has made a real move (no guys hanging out in malls and corner stores talking about various rude things, comic book stuff and pop culture references), and I think it's the best thing he's done since Clerks. And John Goodman is in it!

2011-10-05T12:11:00.002-04:00

I'm three weeks behind on extolling the virtues of Joss Whedon and his comic book writing skills, but I just managed to read the three weeks ago released first issue of Buffy season nine issue # 1 last night.

It's been over four and a half years since Buffy season eight hit the comic stores, and yet it seems to me that almost every time I meet a person who claims to be a fan of the series, they still have not checked out the comic book. How could someone claim to love Joss Whedon and his work, and yet not want to read the comic book that he writes and executive produces? And when Joss isn't writing the book himself, the other writers include Buffy and Angel writing alum the likes of Drew Goddard, Jane Espenson, Steven S DeKnight, Drew Z Greenberg, and Doug Petrie. It's the closest that we are ever going to get to another Buffy-verse TV series I think, and if you claim to be a Buffy fan, you should be supporting this book. If you don't want to hit a comic book store, or read comics in their monthly format, they collect them up into bigger fatter comics that you can buy at any bookstore or get on Amazon.

Comic books continuing on the stories of characters from other mediums is nothing new. Dark Horse has been publishing the further adventures of various Star Wars characters for years. There are a ton of Star Trek comics, and in more recent years there have been cancelled TV series like Charmed and Farscape making there way to the comic book page under the supervision of the shows creators and writers. Stephen King has even allowed for comic book prequel tales from the epic Dark Tower series of books to be published under his supervision.

Buffy season nine picks up with our central lead vampire slaying heroine living in San Francisco with a couple of roommates, hanging out with Spike, and...well...I guess I shouldn't say much else since there are so many damn potential spoilers stuffed within a fourty issue series.

Oh, and also go read the Serenity comics. Those are awesome too.

2011-10-04T12:30:00.003-04:00

Tonight at 8:45 (Oct 4) at the Mayfair the Halloween programming continues to roll along, this time with a presentation of the original (and the best) version of Fright Night. I was never a giant fan of the juggernaut 80's horror sequel franchises the likes of Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th, I seemed to lean towards other areas of horror offerings, and Fright Night was one of my favorites.

Writer / director Tom Holland brought to the screen something a kin to the John Hughes teen angst formula, but instead of having our hero go up against an evil principal or various forms of high school crisis, this one goes up against a vampire. Holland went on to direct a couple of Stephen King stories, and a number of very good TV horror offerings within series like Tales from the Crypt and Amazing Stories, but I think his first directorial effort was his best.

The film stars William Ragsdale (who also seemed to have peaked in Fright Night) as the teen in trouble, with the much more memorable vampire and washed up horror TV host turned vampire hunter roles going to Chris Sarandon and the late great Roddy McDowall. The remake does boast a rather impressive cast (including the 10th and best Doctor Who, David Tennant) and a script from Buffy / Angel vet Marti Noxon, but in this case as in most (with rare exception of your True Grit's and Ocean 11's) you just can't best the original.

2011-10-03T11:32:00.006-04:00

People may look back on it now as a gimmick film, but it should be of interest to any film fan that The Blair Witch Project was a true phenomenon. A dozen years ago, while horror fans were in the midst of slasher fare franchises the likes of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer & Urban Legend (amongst many other of the same ilk) came a little movie out of nowhere about kids getting lost in the woods.

In a time where the internet was twelve years younger and viral videos weren't commonplace, the brains behind Blair Witch managed to be in the right place in the right time with the right idea. Trick as many people as possible into thinking your fake horror themed documentary is a true story, reel in the free publicity, and try to make back $60,000 bucks. They managed to do just a little bit better than that and watched their no stars / no effects / no tripod film gross near $250 million in worldwide ticket sales.

I happened to be in California when the movie was in previews down there. My friend and I drove past a theatre with Blair Witch Project on the marquee and a line-up around the block. I had never heard of it, he explained what it was, and I was confused as to why anyone would care.

A few weeks later back in Ottawa, I sat in a theatre on a Friday afternoon with a couple of friends to watch the now much hyped film. I proceeded to be completely enthralled and petrified. I know there's some complaint in the inability for some to suspend disbelief as to why these characters refuse to ever turn off their camera whilst on the run for their lives through a scary forest. That point is valid. I managed to push that aside and completely enter the world that this was indeed a very real documentary about three dumb kids who try to make a documentary about the fabled Blair Witch and end up entangled in a fight for their life against... something. I have three theories as to what that something is, but I guess I shouldn't share them here on the off chance someone reads this who hasn't seen the film yet. It also didn't help that one of the characters names was Josh. That put me even slightly more in the centre of the action. I wasn't a camper before watching Blair Witch, but afterwards it certainly did't make me ecstatic at the thought of going camping in a tent in the middle of nowhere for fun.

At that screening, while the credits rolled I heard two women discussing that they couldn't believe that a film studio would allow for such a disturbing documentary to be shown. While working at Rogers Video I took three calls asking if the film was a real documentary. And, I have had three conversations in real life with people trying to convince them that it's fake. It was maybe the greatest pop-culture trick on the public since Orson Welles and his friends mistakenly convinced folks that aliens were invading in 1938.

So, tonight at 9:30 (Oct 3) we showcase The Blair Witch Project. Kicking off not only the Halloween season, but also a trio of scary films presented by Lost Marbles (and with prizes from Lost Marbles too!). Later in the month comes Critters (Oct 14) and Poltergeist (Oct 16 & 17).

2011-09-07T12:20:00.005-04:00

It's a pride filled time in a life-long comic book reading geeks life when they have a shiny new comic book out that they worked on for the masses to read. My friend and comic-con posse member Kris Waddell has a new mini-series out through Mirror Comics called Challenger. You can download it through mydigitalcomics for a mere 99 cents right now, and then sometime in the near future you can get a good old fashioned paper version. Go download it now! C'mon! It's only 99 cents! It'll slightly adjust the karma-wheel back in your favour to make up for all of the movies and music you've stolen off the interweb...and it's actually a really good comic too.

2011-09-02T16:18:00.010-04:00

What could be better than a screening of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas? A screening of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas preceded by a live performance by Sin Sisters Burlesque! Tonight - Friday September 2nd, starting at 11pm at the Mayfair.

In other Mayfair related news, I was interviewed by April Yorke of (cult)ure magazine in a piece called This Month at the Mayfair - September 2011. Learn all about how I never get tired of watching Aliens, about the star-studded and long-lost never released Grizzly 2, and why I think Quentin Tarantino was all down hill after Pulp Fiction. The beginning of what I hope to be a new monthly tradition.

2011-08-31T16:09:00.005-04:00

The summer has wrecked my schedule a number of ways thanks to a hectic work schedule amongst other obligations. No more so have things been delayed or halted than my attempts to keep a blog going on a regular basis. By slipping one in under the wire on the last day of August, I at least keep my streak alive of monthly updates, and will again promise to try to be more diligent with writings in the future.

Last weekend three friends and I took a lil' road trip to Toronto to attend Fan Expo 2011. I had a few missions set out for myself while there, succeeded in most of them. Got to meet Jeff Smith, and he not only drew me a quick Bone sketch, he also autographed and sketched in a book that I gave to one of my fake nieces for her birthday. Gaining me super big awesome fake uncle points for now and forever.

Watched the world premiere of an episode of Star Wars: Clone Wars season 4. It was advertised as the season premiere, but then the producer via pre-recorded message said "an episode" of the upcoming season. It had Ackbar in it and was very cool. And the eternal weirdness and joy of comic book conventions is the normalcy of watching a cartoon, mixed with the insanity of watching a cartoon in a room with dozens of folks dressed like Stormtroopers and Sith Lords and Slave Leia's. Many of them brandishing large firearms and / or laxer swords.

Went to a couple panels on the rebooting of the DC Comics Universe. They were actually quite interesting...well, to me anyhow...to a normal non-geek person, likely not so much. I have to admit that I've gone through the stages of grief on this subject and have come out the other side. I was in denial that they were going to do it. I was angry that they were doing it. I bargained the idea about in my head, trying to figure out if it could be stopped. I was depressed at the loss of my favorite universe. I accepted, and now I'm stressed about it, hoping it's good. And I have to say that listening to the editors and creative staff talk about it, seeing how much of a love of the game they have for the DCU, seeing how enthused they are at the challenge that lays ahead of 'em, they've really won me over. I'm still not sure if I believe the statement that this was 100% the decision of DC Comics and the powers that be at Warner Bros had nothing to do with it. But whatever the reason for zapping everything back to #1, I think they're giving it their all, I think they really want these to be great books, I think that they are super invested and want to make this the best DCU they can. I've gone from jaded to wanting to read everything they publish.

After hours one night we went to a club and watched a geek themed rapper by the name of Word Burglar. He was great. And not in a laughing at him, looking down at him, this is insane kinda great, but as in actually really talented and just happened to be rapping about GI Joe vehicles and Doctor Who. And he had an audience that when prompted all knew that TIE Fighter stands for 'Twin Ion Engine', and that they're not called that 'cause they look like bow-ties.

Spent the last day checking out a couple Q&A's. Katie Sackoff, for whom I didn't get to tell the story of how my friend and I set in motion a chain of events to get a baby named after her Battlestar character. Then, was blessed to be in the presence of William Shatner. That man knows how to keep the attention of a room. Whether it be with his stories of horse racing, working as an actor at a theatre in Ottawa in his youth, or Twilight Zone behind the scenes tales.

The bizarre highlight of the weekend happened when i was guarding my friends table in artists alley, I looked over the shoulder of some other friends I was talking to, and spotted someone I recognized. I excused my self, bolted around, headed out to the convention floor. I got out there, and lost sight of my target. I a panic, I looked left and right, then saw him. Big guy, glasses, beard, holding two giant bags of comics and swag. I approached and said "Excuse me Mr del Toro?". He turned around with a jubilant "Yes my friend!". Nicest professional geek in all the land, we proceeded to have a nice chat about various things, including the Mayfair. I can confirm nor deny that he gave me his e-mail and that he offered to record an intro for us if we show his films.

So, there are a handful of other stories, but those were some of the highlights from Fan Expo 2011. Oh, and for $5 I got the action figure of Lando wearing Han's clothes from the end of Empire. I love those obscure on-screen for 5 seconds Star Wars toys.

2011-07-08T10:34:00.002-04:00

A few years before Ghostbusters made them true geek movie legends, director Ivan Reitman, writer (and future Egon) Harold Ramis, and star Bill Murray made a true Canadian classic in the summer camp movie Meatballs. Catch it this weekend (July 9th and 10th at 2:25 both days) as a rare afternoon Lost Marbles Geek Night at the Mayfair.

2011-07-01T11:10:00.002-04:00

I don't know what the hell's going on in this comic book panel, but I would buy that comic book and the merchandising. This is the kinda' thing you stumble on when looking around the interwebs for a comic book image to accompany ones 'Happy Canada Day!' blog posting. Specifically I was looking for a Deadpool / Canada image, which you would think woulda' been easier to find considering he's Marvel Comics second greatest Canadian icon.

This year is the first in an age that I don't have a work obligation on Canada Day. The last few years I've done follow-spot stuff for Canada Day shows, and failing that I've fought the crowds to get downtown to tear down the stage post fireworks. I think there were cutbacks all over the place this year, so good news / bad news, I actually get the day off like most the rest of the country. Even the Mayfair is closed for the day, so I can't even go hang out there and watch movies! So far my Canadian content celebrations have mainly been the listening of Metric music.

I have no intention of braving the downtown crowds and wandering around with the masses. Especially since this year there's a prince and princess hanging out down there, meaning security, media, and maybe protesters will be at a much higher quotient. I think that there will be Canadian themed cupcakes from Thimble Cakes in my future, maybe some BBQ, and I am currently wearing a patriotic colour appropriate red t-shirt and matching Converse (ok, they're Maroon, but it's close enough).

2011-06-30T17:31:00.003-04:00

I said I'd try and do more than just write about roller derby and Mayfair related stuff here, but then kewl stuff keeps happening with roller derby and the Mayfair. So please put up with me while I once again make mention of something else incredible and Mayfair related. The latest bit of awesome, is a Mayfair poster being published in the legendary cinematic horror magazine, Fangoria. Within an article about the legacy of Planet of the Apes, there appears a poster from our recent Go Apes! fest. First BBC Radio, then Fangoria Magazine, then I'm pretty sure that it's straight to world domination.

2011-06-26T01:43:00.002-04:00

OverKill! from Jeremy Kennedy on Vimeo.

Friday night marked the premiere of the latest one-night-mini-fest at the Mayfair. Fake Trailers Reel Fest was a very entertaining night indeed, the audience in attendance (quite a good turn-out) were very receptive and all seemed to have a good time. It always does my heart good when folks come out to see the local indie filmmaking offerings which we manage to show occasionally on the big screen at the Mayfair.

My cinematographer, editor, and all around cinematic partner in crime for this short project just sent me a e-mail asking if he could post the proect online. The answer was of course yes. Especially since it's not using a bunch of copyrighted music like happened with my last short project. I've had real problems keeping on top of doing stuff like that with my work, nice to see that someone is doing it for me in this case. So if you didn't get a chance to see it at the Mayfair, I hope you enjoy watching it via web means here. Sit back, relax, and enjoy a couple minutes of fake trailer exploitative awesomeness (if I do say so myself).

2011-06-24T20:10:00.002-04:00

What's that? You hate awesome things? Hmmm...yes, likely for the best that you stay away from the double bill RVRG derby night on Saturday June the 25th.

2011-06-23T22:52:00.002-04:00

First of all...I've never seen previews spelled like that before. Weird. More importantly, Friday night marks the premiere of the Mayfair Theatres latest one-night mini-film festival screening extravaganza. On the heels of the romance and sex of Painted Lips & Lolly Licks and the horror that is Killer63, we now present to you Fake Trailers Reel Festival.

The evening will include an hour of new (or almost new) fake trailers from local Ottawa filmmakers, along with works from folks from Toronto, Montreal, the States and believe it or not we've even got an offering from the far off land of Australia. Our phony trailer-ness program include super-hero, mystery, horror, exploitation, puppets, derby girls, nurses, political commentary and spoof, amongst other topics and genres. Our original fake material will be accompanied by a collection of rare real classic movie trailers (along with a few surprises) from cinemas Drive-In and Grindhouse past.

Catch another great night of bizarre entertainment at everyone's favorite repertory theatre, Friday June 24th at 9:30pm at the Mayfair.

2011-06-22T18:03:00.003-04:00

Dunny's fall under the category of what some call useless dust collectors. I've heard directly from people who just don't get it. There are some who look at stuff like this and shake their head in confusion and wonder why an otherwise rationale human being would waste their money on this junk.

There are others who have an opposite point of view and instead call these lil' bunny lookin' things amazing pieces of artistry in the medium that is vinyl toy. I heard one rather poetic rationalizing of the mind of a collector in a documentary I once saw on the subject. I believe the interviewee was a toy designer, and my paraphrasing of what was said is that this world we live in is not perfect. The world outside our door is filled with things we don't like, packed with stuff we don't want to see or think about or have run across our consciousness. So, when we stumble on something that we think is awesome (even something as illogical as limited edition artistically decorated toy bunnies sold in blind-boxes so you don't even know which one you're getting) we want to surround ourselves with it. We make our own perfectly decorated little worlds in our living rooms and bedrooms. And my geeky ideal perfect world currently has fourteen Dunny's in it...it will soon have more.

Though when I go to Lost Marbles to buy some at the release party tomorrow, I can do without that snail-y looking one pictured above. Reminds me too much of some terrifyingly creepy manga I recently read titled 'Uzumaki'. Other than that, if I had the money to spare, I would try my best to get 'em all. And they would collect dust on my shelves while looking neat.

2011-06-19T23:37:00.004-04:00

A friend of mine once told me that she didn't watch hockey, not because she was opposed to it, but upon getting invested in watching a team it just became too stressful. It was time consuming and more often than not, ended in heartbreak 'cause a team doesn't bring home a championship every single year. I thought of that today as I watched my Rideau Valley Roller Girls take a defeat against the Forest City Derby Girls (of London, Ontario), in a well deserved victory for them.

It was a fun weekend to be sure, but during that last bout as I did my best to pay attention to my duties at helping out with score-keeping (or score-catching to be specific in the job titles monicker), I was definitely not happy in watching my girls have further unlikely a chance at winning the day as the point spread got further apart. There was stress and anger and frustration and quite a bit of harsh feelings put towards the referees accompanied by under my breath swearing.

As I have pointed out before to friends when they're feeling down about not succeeding at something, there is no shame in failure. There is shame in not trying, but no shame in failing. Wayne Gretzky played hockey for twenty or so years in the NHL. In those years he won four Stanley Cups. The greatest player of the game of hockey ever to skate on this earth only won four championships out of two decades of play!? Does that make Wayne Gretzky a failure? No more so than Martin Scorsese being a failure for taking so long to win an Oscar. Or Luke Skywalker being a failure for not saving his dad's life.

So, I must admit that I was slightly down today after the loss. I am proud of their silver medal though, and looking forward to them playing again next weekend. In a rematch of today's game no less!

2011-06-18T23:34:00.003-04:00

Day one of the Blood Spill on the Hill tournament went down today (though the blood was spilling in Navan...nowhere actually neat the Hill). I helped score-keep on roughly 75 - 80 games (that might be a slight exaggeration, but it all becomes a bit of a blur after the tenth straight hour of derby viewing). My Rideau Valley Roller Girls (playing under their newly branded, raccoon mascot logo showcasing team The Vermin) soundly thumped the team from Moncton 325 - 19. A good time was had by all, and although the Moncton team lost, they should be happy in the fact that they are hands down the coolest and most awesome thing there is about the city of Moncton.

2011-06-17T17:39:00.003-04:00

Don't tell anyone, but I find it completely impossible to hit deadlines for my own projects. If I make a deadline of June 3rd for a fest that takes place three weeks later, I can almost guarantee you that not a frame will be shot until sometime after that deadline passes.

Above is a picture from the latest deadline failing project of my friend and frequent collaborator on indie movie stuff here in Ottawa, Ray Besharah. He was nice enough to interrupt his rehearsal for a play that he's in the midst of prepping for to come to my place and shoot a quick scene for a fake trailer for the upcoming Mayfair Theatre event, Fake Trailers Reel Festival. It was a funny quick chain of events in terms of behind the scenes madness. I wrote up the one page scene of dialog around 8pm, he and my camera guy came over around 9:30, we were finished soon after. Then we ran over to the Mayfair to shoot some random cut-away shots of a couple burlesque girls. I love the from the hip guerrilla indie chaos involved in making weird little projects like trailers. Especially that you don't need a linear script or for stuff to make sense really. You just need something entertaining and attention grabbing that will fill two or three minutes of time and be awesome.

Our fake trailer can be seen premiering on Friday June 24th at the Mayfair along with a bunch of other original fake endeavors from near and far (local guys, American, even one from Australia) and a batch of rare classic 35mm trailers. Another weird movie night that could only happen in a city like Ottawa at a place like the Mayfair

2011-06-16T14:57:00.003-04:00

This weekend, my Rideau Valley Roller Girl friends host the Canadian Women's Roller Derby Association east championship tournament. A batch of teams from across Ontario and from as far off as the mysterious land of New Brunswick will touch down on the unsuspecting city of Navan for a mighty batch of gladiatorial roller-skate styled sports combat. Partaking in a regular old run of the mill two teams playing off against each other derby bout is something pretty action packed. Having no less than eight full roster teams hit your city for an event, well...that's something else entirely. Attend the tournament for all the derby excitement, and stick around to see if Navan is still left intact by the time things wrap up by Sunday night.

2011-06-15T16:12:00.003-04:00

The ultimate experience in grueling terror returns!

Stephen King declared that The Evil Dead was "the most ferociously original movie of 1982" (the movie is actually from '81, but I think most people saw it the following year). Considering that around that time horror films the likes of Basket Case, The Thing, Poltergeist and King's own Creepshow were released, he must have been quite a bit impressed. Amongst praise from other sources the likes of Fangoria Magazine, The Evil Dead became an indie horror phenomenon. And although it didn't quite make Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell household names, it did get their foot into Hollywood's door.

The Evil Dead is amazing in it's no-budget accomplishment. Although I like Evil Dead 2 better, and Army of Darkness the best, seeing the first chapter of the not quite fitting together trilogy big screen style is a real (and rare) cinematic scary good time. And of course, Ash isn't quite Ash yet either. He's not the selfish jerk of an anti-hero, he has no chainsaw arm and doesn't spout endless catchy quips and exude sexual innuendo. What the film has though is Bruce Campbell's big screen debut, hence is one of the most important films in all of history. For where would we be without Bruce Campbell?

Lost Marbles Geek Night presents The Evil Dead - Friday June 17th at 11pm, with an encore presentation on Sunday June 19th at 8pm (for those horror geeks who have earlier bedtimes).

2011-06-14T19:29:00.002-04:00

I don't think that there is anyone who would be terribly shocked that the director of such cinematic classics as Blackenstein and The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington did not achieve film-making perfection with his late seventies effort, Skatetown U.S.A.

Though, as with many a movie of this kind, the levels of awfulness it achieves does not detract from the level of enjoyment that an audience can take away from it. So bad it's good classifies a roller skating disco epic starring a Happy Days era Scott Baio and featuring the acting debut of Patrick Swayze, years before he partook in any form of Dirty Dancing.

If getting a chance to see the rock & roller disco movie of the year wasn't incentive enough to hit the Mayfair on Wednesday night instead of watching the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the show is also presented by the Rideau Valley Roller Girls. And they will be on-hand to partake in the experience of roller-skating movie action, and sell you tickets to the next RVRG bout. Which you will want to buy, because attending a roller derby bout in person is high on the list of the most of enjoyable ways that you can spend a night.

Skatetown U.S.A. - Wednesday June 15th at 9:15pm - for one night only at the Mayfair Theatre. A much more fun night than jumping on a band-wagon and cheering for a hockey team that you hated or were at least disinterested in the rest of the year. Promise.

2011-06-02T19:16:00.003-04:00

A few days ago DC Comics made the spoiler laced announcement that they will be re-booting their Universe again this September on the heels of their current Flashpoint event. The first time that they did this was the universe merging and retooling that was Crisis on Infinite Earths. Crisis was a story with a purpose, it took 45 years of jumbled continuity, multiple worlds and various versions and styles of iconic characters and smashed them all together into one singular planet and timeline. From then on in there were two kinds of DC super-hero stories, pre-Crisis and post-Crisis. There have been a few more instances of partial historical creative messing with DC history with story-lines the likes of Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis. None of these follow-ups completely big banged things back to a whole new square one though.

My initial queasiness over this new universe announcement is the feeling that it isn't done for any kind of creative reasoning, but as an idea from the on high corporate bosses at Warner Bros that they want these characters simplified for the movie going masses. I am not so naive to not understand that comic books as any other creative endeavor of this type need to still pay its creators and be profitable. I continually don't understand why comic book companies think that it's a good idea to appeal to the movie going public who aren't buying comic books vs appeasing the true comic book reader. Marvel deleted Peter and Mary Jane's wedded bliss due to it being different from what happens in Spidey movies. They're making sure that Steve Rogers is back in the Captain America costume for when the movie comes out July 22nd. And they're notorious for in recent years confusingly putting titles back to number 1, then changing their mind to put the title back to it's original run, then maybe just randomly releasing a Wolverine # 1000. Very confusing stuff. I thought DC was better than that.

DC will not only reboot. They will also restart 52 titles (52 is an important number in DC lore of late). Meaning that insanely long runs on books like Detective and Action will interrupt for the first time since the late 1930's. I do not like this. It seems even more out of place considering that there's been giant mythologies built up not only in the past twenty-five year, but very much in the last few years that will all be derailed. Grant Morrison (my favorite writer in any medium) has done some phenomenal things with the Batman books in the past few years. The biggest things maybe being the original Robin graduating up to donning the Batman cape and cowl, and Bruce Wayne's crazy son becoming a snarky boy wonder with delusions of grandeur. I also grew up in a world where my Green Lantern was a jerk named Guy Gardner, not Hal Jordan, and my Flash was Kid Flash graduate Wally West, not Barry Allen.

I'm not sure I want to read a shared universe where those characters don't exist. Do we really need to read about Superman meeting Lois again, or Batman meeting a circus performer kid sidekick, or all the rest of the bazillion histories of these characters? Seems kind of boring to me. Comics of late, much like movies and TV, seem very guilty of looking back instead of ahead. Especially Geoff Johns, one of DC's big creative inputs, seems to really not like the new. In his reign, he's brought back Hal Jordan Green Lantern and Barry Allen Flash. Which were two of the great DC death plot-lines and amazing pieces of comic book writings. He zapped things back to the norm that the masses would remember (or at least his generation of the masses, since both characters were in themselves re-toolings of older DC characters), negating the work of other creators. The past is important, icons are important, mythology is important...but how about let's evolve to some new stuff here?

Though, that fear change rant aside, this is not only a comic story, it's DC comics story. And I'm not convinced that this isn't really an erasing of 25 years of continuity, but just a JJ Abrams Star Trek style alternate universe. Plus, this does open up one very important possibility for me. This could mean that one of my favorite characters could now be magically back to life. If Blue Beetle is back, that just might be the bribe that I need to look the other way on all of this.

2011-05-30T00:10:00.003-04:00

This weekend the RVRG (Rideau Valley Roller Girls) kicked off their home season with what they dubbed a 'Coaches Pick' bout. Essentially an all-star game style event with girls from the league split up onto different teams. It is late and I'm tired and even though I worked as a score catcher at the event, at the moment I totally forget the score. I do know that team white came from behind and racked up a whole bunch a points to take the victory. I wasn't really cheering for either team (since they were all from my favorite Ottawa teams), but none the less enjoyed watching a great bout. You would think that the ladies might tone it down a notch since it was a inter-league team-mate vs team-mate event. They did not. They played as if it were the championship finals. I flinched a number of times while witnessing a hard knock down or wipe out. Looking forward to the next game in June. I wish there were more. And why isn't derby on tv? The sports channel plays poker, but not derby!? Madness.

2011-05-29T23:31:00.002-04:00

I love it when you tell someone about a movie and it is so out there that the person doesn't even believe that you're telling the truth and thinks the thing is made up. Hobo with a Shotgun has been one of those movies for me the past lil' while. I've told a number of folks about it who all basically said in return, "That's not a movie!". Clearly these people aren't keeping on top of their geek studies. This film is not only a new Canadian cinematic classic, it also holds the honour of being the project that graduated from being a fake trailer contest winner for the Rodriguez / Tarantino mega Grindhouse double bill.

You can witness the madness that is Rutger Hauer playing a shotgun wielding homeless person fighting evil in the streets of Halifax on Monday May 30th & Tuesday the 31st at 9:15pm at the Mayfair as part of Lost Marbles Geek Nights.

2011-05-23T16:04:00.004-04:00

On the heels of my Night of the Living Dead related travelings, an article from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the States came to my attention. Believe it or not, the topic of the piece was Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse. Who could ever have guessed that the CDCP was so awesome!? I hope that some people stumbled on this article, read it, and actually thought that the end was upon them, War of the Worlds radio-play style misunderstanding in full effect.

Also, I just noticed that the gravestone that I was so excited to see is actually for not one but two infants. Makes it seem even more inappropriate and morbid to take pictures and be in awe of such a thing as a movie prop. I hope that the lil' 1800's Kramer ghost babies understand that I mean no disrespect and do not haunt me.

2011-05-22T23:35:00.003-04:00

Another Vixens road-trip equals another thumping of the opposition. This bout ended up being the rather lop-sided final score of Vixens 212 - Pittsburgh 71, further proof that the Rideau Valley Roller Girls are producing some of the finest derby girls in all the lands.

If participating in another out-of-town RVRG bout wasn't enough fun, also found time to visit one of the filming locations of one of my favorite movies of all time. A trio of referees and I headed to the neighbouring town of Evans City, a lovely little place that still had some nice small town charm, real old fashioned architecture and an actual movie theatre. Why did we go to this seemingly random Pennsylvania location you ask? Well, to visit their fine cemetery of course, which just happened to be one of the filming locations for only one of my favorite movies of all time. The birthplace of the modern and most well known type of zombie happened there in the late sixties under the direction of George Romero, the movie was of course Night of the Living Dead.

Found the gravestone I was looking for incredibly easily. The driver parked the car, I stepped out, looked pretty much right ahead of me, and there it was. It's a strange thought at how gleefully excited I was at visiting this place filled with dead people, an actual working graveyard for which it's usual visitors aren't so happy. Was actually a slightly overwhelming feeling, I didn't break down into tears or anything (I'll save that for if I ever get to visit a Star Wars location), but it is a simple thing that I was able to do that I will definitely hold up on a pedestal as one of the highlight moments of my life. And something done that will make many a movie geek that I know very very jealous.

2011-05-20T00:28:00.003-04:00

What better way to spend the day that the rapture will befall our planet than partaking in some Roller Derby watching in Pittsburgh? Today I will venture road-trip style to Pennsylvania with my Rideau Valley Roller Girl posse (specifically the Vixens) as they psyche themselves up to do battle against the Steel City Derby Demons on Saturday. Besides for helping out at score-keeping in some manner, I hope to also eat some delicious American delicacies and maybe just maybe visit one of the shooting location of one of my favorite movies of all time. Will update the events of the trip if, y'know, the world as we know it still exists and we're all still around after the weekend.

2011-05-19T23:40:00.004-04:00

Indie cult director Brett Kelly (My Dead Girlfriend, Prey for the Beast) is maybe one of Canada's most prolific independent filmmakers. Brett has directed no less than eighteen feature films and has quite a few more projects on the way. I myself have worked on pretty much all of Brett's bazillion projects (well, more like eighteen or so I guess).

Brett Kelly Entertainment recently announced the release of a two disc, three movie set of some of Brett's earliest work titled NORTHERN FRIGHTS: THE EARLY FILMS OF BRETT KELLY. The set includes Kelly's first feature film, the lycanthrophic FERAL MAN (2002), the slasher/mystery FINAL CURTAIN (2004)and the boogeyman tale BONESETTER RETURNS (2005). The DVD set includes commentary tracks, behind the scenes footage, interviews and more. NORTHERN FRIGHTS shipped May 1st (I'm way behind in some of my blog notices as per usual, meant to bring this up earlier) and can be ordered directly from Brett's website at www.brettkelly.net

2011-05-17T17:19:00.002-04:00

Wednesday night (May 18th) marks the return of our Rideau Valley Roller Girls sponsored events at the Mayfair. Three more films will follow in June to August, and we kick things off with a campy tale of roller-skating seventies style. Our two heroes fall in love and must put a stop to a mob boss with evil hopes of closing down the roller rink so he can make use of the land for his own nefarious means (really...that's what it is about!).

Members of the trio of Rideau Valley Roller Girls teams will be in attendance, fresh off the landslide of a wind last weekend in Sudbury (197 - 25). And they'll have tickets on hand to sell for their home-opener, on Saturday May 28th.

I can't imagine that anyone would need more incitement than the thought of a movie theatre like the Mayfair packed with roller derby girls watching an old bad movie. But if you did, I can also tell you that there will be Auntie Loo's cupcakes on hand, and maybe a prize or two to give away.

2011-05-16T17:29:00.002-04:00

I'm not one who goes out of my way to hit the multiplexes for my movie watching. The only time I really go is when I have a sneak preview free screening pass, or on rare occasion when I make use of points off my Visa card (a bonus feature that is much more useful when one does not co-own an indie repertory theatre that he goes to all the time).

Tonight I will go to the Mayfair to re-see PAUL. I saw it making use of one of those sneak preview free screening passes mentioned above, at a very sub-par theatre. So excited was I to see the latest offering from Nick Frost and Simon Pegg though, I went to the bland little multiplex theatre to get to see the movie as soon as I possibly could. Tonight I get to re-enjoy this lil' geeky sci fi masterpiece, and this time the whole thing will actually be in focus!

2011-05-15T23:53:00.002-04:00

Road trip to and from Sudbury completed and survived (got home a lil' while ago, had to watch the Doctor Who scripted by Neil Gaiman before doing anything else). If you ever have an opportunity to take a road-trip with a trio of funny roller derby girls, I highly recommend that you do so. I cannot equally recommend that Sudbury be your number one destination choice to road-trip to. I mean no offense to the fine people of Sudbury, I ran into a number of swell folks, but I have to say that a large portion of the city was sketchy at best or scary at worst. Saw some hooligans loitering outside of a Tim Horton's that I'm pretty sure I could've asked where to find the nearest underground dog-fighting match or the hardest of illegal drug to purchase.

The game itself went smashingly well for my Rideau Valley Roller Girls, with a final score of 197 - 25. And the score wasn't even that high only because I was running the scoreboard, it was a well deserved victory. I mean, any time in a sport where you can subtract 150 points from the winning teams score and still win comfortably, it is a fine win indeed. All that, plus my friends and I got to go and check out one of the eight great wonders of the world, the giant nickel (ok...well, it's not really one of the eight great wonders of the world, but damn if it ain't a big nickel!). Next weekend the derby travels continue, this time a trip to the home of Mister Rogers and the birthplace of the modern zombie, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

2011-05-14T08:50:00.002-04:00

How do you top an excellent trip down to NYC, nothing less than the greatest city on earth? Sudbury! Sure, they don't have a Statue of Liberty or Empire State Building or Broadway or Nuts 4 Nuts...but they do have the worlds biggest nickel, and Nickel City Roller Derby. Hence, moments from now me and a stack of Free Comic Book Day reading material will be hopping into a car with a trio of Rideau Valley Roller Girls and road-tripping Sudbury's way. It's my first road game helping out the ref crew, madness and anarchy to ensue I'm sure

2011-05-13T17:19:00.002-04:00

I do enjoy the concept of the blog, despite thinking that the name itself is kind of stupid, and that I'm sure there's roughly 875,000 bad ones for every good one. I'm not even sure how I started up with this specific blog, I guess to spread the word about some Batturtle short film productions. Then more recently it became mostly talking about Mayfair stuff, and then after that about roller derby bouts. Mainly just stuff I like and participate in.

Lately, strangely enough, I've been actually getting compliments on the blog writings. From friends that makes sense, as they know who I am and might check in on this thing every once and a while. But then I got some praise from a complete stranger. Which is nice of course, but I can't fathom anyone reading about cool Mayfair movies that are upcoming and having any interest in it. I will take the compliment though.

It sparked in my brain that I've been meaning to do more frequent writing (which I haven't been doing too poorly at lately), and having more diverse writing topics. So, at the top of this entry you'll see a not too great, rather grainy photo (not the photographers fault, it was taken from a cel phone) of the pain in progress that is my latest tattoo. As I type along currently, I do so with outstretched arms akin to the Universal Monsters era Mummy. Funny that, since it's the ink of the Universal Monsters character Creature from the Black Lagoon that has caused this inconvenience to my right limb.

A couple years ago I had no tattoos, now I have six-ish. I'm a little bit of a late bloomer in the being tattooed game, and have a slight sense that I want to catch up and get finished off in a shorter amount of time. Not that I'm rushing into anything or just randomly picking designs out of a book (no Tasmanian Devil or flaming skull here). Each design has meaning, has been thought through, and I think looks rather cool (luck and chaos theory attached me to an excellent artist). Each design is also terribly geeky. I might look bad-ass from afar, but on closer inspection it is easily revealed that I am a giant fan-boy of a geek.

I am definitely not the type of person that one might call tough. I have hands like a princess and have never thrown a punch or been on the run from the law. Inexplicably though I can handle the pain of a tattoo. My first tattoo was an arm-band, and I got nice praise from tattoo guys in the shop about my ability to have that done to me and not having to take a break or scream and writhe in pain. And, as everyone says, they are indeed addictive. So far I'm lucky, and all my ideas will fit accordingly on my two arms (though even that initial boundary has been broken a little bit).

Creature needs a bit more work. That will be followed by a Star Wars motif and then finishing off the Doctor Who outer space theme (with TARDIS and all) that is also in progress of completion. And believe it or not it only gets more geeky from there.

2011-05-11T23:56:00.000-04:00

Next week the Mayfair will continue it's storied tradition of having special screenings presented by the Rideau Valley Roller Girls in conjunction with home games of their fine roller derby teams. The girls have their home opener on the horizon, and to celebrate the Mayfair will showcase none other than the 70's roller-skatin' classic 'Roller Boogie'. Not a roller derby movie of course, but alas there are only so many of those out there. We've already screened the likes of 'Whip It', 'Kansas City Bomber' and a number of documentaries...so now we switch gears to a roller-skate themed disco drama starring Linda Blair from 'The Exorcist', from the director of 'Commando' and 'Firestarter' (a strange resume indeed). I wouldn't say that this movie is good per say, but it is indeed thoroughly enjoyable in a movie experience that is so bad that it's good.

The Rideau Valley Roller Girls present their first of four films in four months of an extended mini-film fest: Roller Boogie - Wednesday May 18th at 9:15pm at the Mayfair

2011-05-10T22:51:00.004-04:00

A couple of months ago, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost produced one of the funniest things ever to appear on the interwebs, the failed attempts of a shot-for-shot remake of the Star Wars trilogy. It was smart, and hilarious, and wonderfully geeky. Those three things are more-or-less the cornerstone of the calibrations of these two gentlemen when they work together actually.

Watch any of the three projects that they've done with director Edgar Wright (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) and you with see all three of those descriptive traits. If you do not like any of these said projects, we cannot be friends. Harsh and irrational I know, but opinion on such matters are deal-breaker in nature for me.

The latest project from Nick and Simon will soon come to the Mayfair, titled PAUL, it breaks away from their frequent collaborator Edgar Wright. He was off busy directing my favorite movie of 2010, Scott Pilgrim vs the World. So the lads went off and had their film made by the director of Superbad and episodes of Arrested Development and Undeclared (impressive stuff all around).

The plot of PAUL? A couple of geeks from the UK stumble on an on the run alien after heading out from the San Diego Comic Con for a cross country U.S.A. road trip. Comedic amount of chase filled action and adventure ensues, along with a whole buncha comic book and Star Wars references.

The Mayfair presents a Lost Marbles Geek Night of PAUL: Monday May 16th at 9:15pm, with an encore screening on Tuesday May 17th at 9:00pm.

2011-05-06T11:10:00.002-04:00

One more sleep 'till Free Comic Book Day ! No tricks, no catches, no evil ploys to get your hard earned money. My favorite holiday of the year is unbelievably in it's tenth year. So, as per every year on the first Saturday in May, tomorrow I will be getting up bright and early and heading to a comic shop and elbowing children out of my way so I can get to as many free comic books as I possibly can. I hope you have time to do the same.

2011-05-05T18:50:00.006-04:00

Over the past couple years I've found myself slowly caring less and less about the game of hockey. Very unpatriotic, I know, but it has happened none-the-less. This turn hasn't happened because the Ottawa Senators went from being a great team to a playoff missing team, I'm not jumping off a band-wagon. I went to three games in the 2010 / 2011 season, 2 games that I won tickets to and 1 that was a birthday gift. I had a good enough time at each of the games, but continued to find myself just really not caring.

I used to care about hockey. I used to care a lot. I would watch games under great amounts of stress, holding my breath and coming out the end either ecstatic or in the pits of despair depending on the outcome. And I couldn't figure out why I stopped caring. I think it was a lot of things. I got jaded as to millionaires playing a game that kids like to play, I hated how players swapped teams so often that you lose track of who plays for who, and I know I got tired of people from other cities (I'm looking at Montreal and Toronto specifically) wanting to argue with me and being disparaging just 'cause we liked different logo's.

Then I realized what it really was that tore me away from a life long passion for hockey watching. It was roller derby. It was totally roller derby. A couple years ago roller derby came to Ottawa. I was very excited, having fallen in love with roller derby after having been hooked on an A&E documentary series from a few years back called ROLLERGIRLS. I went to the first bout that the RIDEAU VALLEY ROLLER GIRLS held here in Ottawa, and haven't missed a home bout since.

Soon after we started a tradition of showing Roller Derby themed movies at the Mayfair that the RVRG's presented. We've shown documentaries and stuff like Kansas City Bomber and Switchblade Sisters (which has an excellent climactic gun battle in a roller derby rink). I've even gotten involved on doing ref crew stuff, and now I find myself friends with a bunch of roller derby ladies.

So, to finally get to the point here, last Sunday in Montreal my Slaughter Daughters won the Beast of the East tournament in Montreal. Quite the accomplishment indeed, and I watch via the magic of the interweb while wearing my Slaughter Daughters shirt and matching red Converse. I don't know what the world record is for holding ones breath is, but I'm pretty sure that I broke it. Then, when the girls managed a stunning come from behind upset victory, I leaped to my feet, knocking over my chair and scaring the hell out of my cat. You can relive the glory (I'm pretty sure the greatest moment in sports history I thinks) thanks to the YouTube below.

Looking very forward to the home opener bout on May 28th.

2011-04-28T23:52:00.002-04:00

The fine and brilliant cinematic work of Bruce Campbell makes it's return to the Mayfair this weekend with a late late show offering of director Don Coscarelli's adaptation of writer Joe R. Lansdale's 'Bubba Ho-Tep'.

Small budget indie films with big imaginations often have a lot more heart and soul and quality than their big budget Hollywood counterparts. This film is no exception in that category in comparison to the average $200 million dollar rushed franchise blockbuster that turns out empty and soulless and just plain not good. It's too bad that we don't live in a world where it was more financially viable for a movie studio to fiance 100 movies of this size, instead of a solitary 'Transformers'.

'Bubba Ho-Tep' comes from Don Coscarelli, director of Beastmaster and the Phatasm series. The film was inspired by the story by Joe R. Lansdale, who besides for being a great writer of books and short stories, also wrote some of my favorite Jonah Hex comics and Batman animated episodes. And what's the story you ask? Why, that same ancient rehashed tale about an old age home where-in lives a man who may or may not be Elvis Presley. He befriends another tenant who may of may not be JFK (and also happens to be African American). Elvis is played by Bruce Campbell, JFK played by Ossie Davis. They team-up to battle a cowboy mummy who's terrorizing their fellow elderly.

It is all as bizarre and awesome as it sounds and you can catch it Saturday April 30th at 11:30pm at the Mayfair.