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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Took us a lil' while to get this organized, as these cross-over business things do at times (boring red-tape stuff and figuring out logistics and schedules and other such dull things), but I'm happy to announce that at long last Auntie Loo's Treats amazing cupcakes will be available to purchase at the candy bar at the Mayfair. Just when you thought that we couldn't possibly be any cooler, we now offer you this! If you're familiar with the bakery, then you already know how awesome their stuff is. If you've never sampled their offerings, be sure to get one next time you're in to see a movie. Good news, bad news: you will be instantly addicted and contemplate a life-style possibility of eating cupcakes all day every day for every snack and meal forever. Which upon contemplation, really isn't that bad.

Sweet Tarts Takeaway, the web series that I worked on and will work on again in the future, is up for an audience choice award via the Mingle Media TV Network. So take a moment, click the link over to their site, and give the show 2 thumbs up. Preliminary voting is open through April, if it makes it to the next round I will be pestering for more votes accordingly.

That is a very small percentage of the amount of plastic spoons tossed haphazardly through the air during a screening of 'The Room' by the movies adoring fans. Adoring, yet possessing very poor choices in their cinematic tastes. Not that I'm up on any kind of pedestal for my amazing movie watching habits of course...I mean, I not only own a copy of 'Ultraviolet' on DVD, I watched it with audio commentary.

Tonight though (or I guess technically last night now)I sat in the Mayfair box office and got to witness a young woman burst into tears of joy as she stood a few feet away from Tommy Wiseau waiting to meet him and get an autograph. This happened last night as well but I missed it. I've been talking about 'The Room' and its director endlessly the last couple days. I am completely fascinated by the turn of events that would lead from a bad independent little movie undeserving of any attention at all getting attention. The chaos theory effect was amazingly in it's favour this time. 'Cause really the film should have come and gone and never be seen by anyone and sit on a shelf and be lost to ages.

Instead, Tommy Wiseau's horrible movie has sold out shows occupied by audiences who hang off his every word and cheer at his every statement, no matter how nonsensical or how hard to understand he is. And they have a hell of a good time yelling back at the screen, singing along with happy birthday wishes, and laughing uproariously for 99 or so minutes. I don't understand how someone could not be in on the joke. I would think that his feelings would be hurt by such a reaction. But he is totally not hurt by being mocked and laughed at, I promise you. I think that he thinks he's made a 'Citizen Kane' of a movie that makes him worthy to be thought of as being the caliber of a director the likes of Martin Scorsese.

If you like movies and haven't come out to see 'The Room', or more importantly seen 'The Room' on a night where Tommy is on hand to sign autographs and introduce the movie, you haven't lived yet as a fan of motion pictures. One last chance for you to attend, Sunday April 17th at 10:30pm at the Mayfair.

I should have done a post in the days leading up to our special event at the Mayfair in honour of our 20th month straight of screening 'The Room'. Failing having done that though, I now have to at least comment on the insanity that was having the director of what many a folk think is the worst movie of all time drop by.

It's a weird world that we live in, and now more than ever celebrity is in a strange place. Whether we blame YouTube or Charlie Sheen or TMZ for that, I do not know. The attendance of Tommy Wiseau at the Mayfair equaled one completely sold out show and one packed show. I understand the phenomenon of taking joy from a bad movie, I think it's safe to say that I have seen more bad movies than most. Not only that, I've for some reason done it on purpose. I'm not a movie critic that has to watch movies all day long to pay the rent. I will sit down with a friend and on purpose, when there are so many other worthwhile things to do out there, and watch 'Sharktopus'. We of course didn't expect it to be any good. And none-the-less spent 89 minutes of our lives which we can never get back watching a movie starring Eric Roberts fighting a horrible special effect of a half shark half octopus.

I was curious is Tommy Wiseau was real, or if he was like the fake documentary of 'Spinal Tap' or Paul Reubens playing Pee Wee Herman. I can confirm that he is in fact real. Bizarrely freakishly real. He functions very well in a world of adoring screaming fans, I can't imagine him buying groceries or applying for a passport. Here is a theatre full of people who are paying to see an awful movie and applaud the man who made it. And he seems to have no sadness over the fact that a whole lot of people are laughing at him, not with him. He posed for pictures, he signed autographs, he sang happy birthday to some lucky fans, he tossed around a football with people in line outside of the theatre, he schmoozed the fans next door at Quinn's while they grabbed a drink before the midnight show, and he never ever took off his sunglasses. A grown woman cried in his presence, akin to a teenage girl meeting a Beatle in the early 60's. A teenage boy spotted him in the lobby and started screaming and yelling and I was pretty sure that the kids head might explode.

It was one of those nights where on repeat occasions I was taken aback and couldn't quite believe that this was my life. I was given leftover fish & chips by the most horrible filmmaker of our time. And that was just night one! Two more shows tonight and a special last minute addition with Tommy sticking around for one more screening of 'The Room' on Sunday April the 17th at 10:30pm. More insanity to come I'm sure.

It would be a fair assumption that my favorite George Lucas film would be one of the Star Wars films. That assumption would be wrong. Disregard the Star Wars action figures and row of books on the shelves, the various formats of all the Star Wars films surrounding the entertainment centre or the Empire Strikes Back blanket on my bed. Forget that my family used to have a cat named Chewie or that I've got a Star Wars themed tattoo in the works.

There's no question that I hold those Star Wars movies up on a pedestal. I'm so enthralled with the series I even think the Ewoks are cool and that Hayden Christensen did a good job in Revenge of the Sith.

But no, my favorite George Lucas movie is American Graffiti. A simple lil' ensemble almost anthology tale about a night in the lives of a bunch of young Californians in the summer of 1962. The film features a big ensemble of soon to be stars playing immensely memorable characters, maybe the greatest soundtrack ever assembled, and a bunch of really cool cars. It's one of those movies that I'm pretty sure I will never get tired of. One of those cliche "If you were stuck on a desert island what five movies would you take with you" kinda movies.

And as the geek fates have played out, it marks back to back favorites of mine (Army of Darkness plays Sunday the 27th!) screening at the Mayfair for Lost Marbles Geek Night. Pre-Star Wars / Indiana Jones / merchandising mogul bazillionaire George Lucas directs and co-writes his somewhat of a true story about his youth, American Graffiti, Monday March 28th at 9:30.

A million or so years back (or possibly eighteen-ish) I snuck into a screening of Army of Darkness, not quite old enough to be allowed to see a restricted film. What followed was one of the greatest movie going experiences of my life, actually...let's just say the greatest. It's never good to put a movie too high up on a pedestal, makes the hype hard to live up to for people who haven't seen it. Having said that, Army of Darkness is unbeatable in the history and future as the best film ever made.

I recall that the Ottawa Citizen critic gave Army of Darkness the lowest possible rating, and proceeded to complain about every awesome thing about the film. Clearly he didn't understand the comedic genius of horror adventure perfection. It was at that moment that I realized that critics were meaningless, especially if they couldn't have fun at a movie like this, that all my friends and I had such a great time at and continue to cherish.

Near the top of my short list of great moments in my life was getting to briefly meet Bruce Campbell in San Diego. Not a real sit down, hang out and have a full discussion of course, but a nice Comic Con handshake none-the-less. I was attending a panel on the topic of Brisco County Jr, and at the end Bruce said that he had a lil' bit of time to sign some autographs. Now, Comic Con is enormous, and he was going to be doing said autographing a mile or so away (approximately). I did a Ferris Bueller worthy sprint to where he was signing, and I ended up being the second last person in line (the last person in line gets to hold up a sign letting the other geeks know that no others need line-up behind them).

Approaching the front of the line I was actually chanting in my head something along the lines of "Don't be stupid. Don't faint. Don't be stupid. Don't faint." I imagine I felt like a kid meeting the Beatles in the sixties. I did not faint, or scream, and managed to hold out my hand and say "It's an honour to meet you sir." To which Bruce responded, "It's an honour to meet you Josh". And at that point I did almost scream and make a fool of myself (Bruce wasn't using his super magic powers, I was wearing my film fest participant name-badge). But I held it together.

So, that was one of the greatest minutes of my life. Do not miss the greatest film of all time. Army of Darkness, a Lost Marbles Geek Night screening, happens Sunday March 27th at 9pm at the Mayfair Theatre. Insert one of numerous awesome Ash quotes here to wrap up the blog entry.

The other day someone told me that they were wearing their Maximum Overdrive t-shirt as they opened up the Mayfair schedule and were excited to see that their favorite movie, Maximum Overdrive, was playing at the Mayfair. Now, I often go off on rants on how movie awards and film critics are useless because movies are subjective to a person, not objective. In this case though, I had to flat out disagree with this persons point of view. Of the thousands upon thousands of movies ever made, of all that you have possibly seen ever, this one is the one you love the most? Peculiar.

Since then though, more and more people are telling me about how excited they are to see it. Seemingly not in an ironic love of B-grade movies kinda way. People seem to be genuinely looking forward to seeing this thing. Which is always great. The more people in the theatre the better of course.

And I'm a giant Stephen King fan, I've read all but his last two books, and will be on top of doing so as soon as possible. It's just that his movies, most of which he has nothing to do with (except for writing the source material of course) aren't always A+ in quality. None-the-less, this film (whether you think it's good or bad) holds a significant part both in motion picture and Stephen King history. It's the only film he's ever directed, the only film that AC/DC did the musical score for, and of course there's an awesome truck in it with a giant Marvel Comics Green Goblin head stuck to the front of it.

On top of the fun of the movie, we'll have a prize supplied from Lost Marbles, and if you'd like you'll be able to purchase one of the limited edition exclusive to the Mayfair posters produced by Skuzzles and artist Travis Bone.

Maximum Overdrive - Lost Marbles Geek Night @ the Mayfair - Friday March 18th - Midight

Bad news, the fat-cat powers that be have decided to back-peddle from the scheduled booking of The King's Speech and cancel on the Mayfair in the 11th hour. 'Cause they love the multiplexes better than they love the repertory theatres.
Good news: It opens up the schedule to show Sofia Coppola's new film, Somewhere. Considering that Lost in Translation is one of my favorite movies, this isn't the worst trade off in the world. Plus, we'll still get The King's Speech next month, along with a couple other Oscar films like Black Swan and True Grit.

The following is the lil' update / press release kinda' memo that was put up on the Mayfair website in regards to the situation:

-------------------------

Unfortunately, The Mayfair’s scheduled screenings of The King’s Speech (March 11-14 & 17) have been canceled.

Why?

In early February, we booked The King’s Speech from distributor Alliance Atlantis.
On February 27, The King’s Speech won four Oscars.
On March 8 (three days before we were scheduled to start showing The King’s Speech), Alliance Atlantis informed us that they would NOT be sending us the print of the film. They feel they can make a little more money if they continue to play it at The World Exchange instead of at your neighbourhood cinema.

In its place, we’re presenting Sofia Coppola’s critically acclaimed drama, Somewhere. (Which is brilliant, and you should definitely see.)

We sincerely regret any inconvenience.
If you’d like to let Alliance Atlantis know how you feel about the situation, you can leave a message on their Facebook page or call them directly at 416-967-1164.
We’re sure they’d be happy to hear from you.

CUT.

Behind the scenes in the Arts Court in downtown Ottawa on the latest episode of Sweet Tarts Takeaway. The first three episodes of season one are currently up and ready to watch on the interwebs. If you haven't checked them out yet, now is a good time to get caught up on the first three episodes before new ones start popping up later in the month. And the latest episode takes place mainly in what might be commonly referred to as a sex shop, perfect for online and more or less safe for work content!

Ever since the big poster for the March schedule went up in the lobby at the Mayfair, I think the number one thing that I've heard over and over again is "That can't be THAT James Taylor." It is indeed that James Taylor starring in this 1970's drive-in classic about drag-racing across the States. The same James Taylor who has won six Grammy's and sang his own brand of laid-back adult contemporary music to Homer Simpson while he was in outer space.

On Monday March 7th, the acclaimed film kicks off a month of car themed movies at the Mayfair for Lost Marbles Geek Night (with a nifty car type prize from Lost Marbles which will be given away to one lucky attendee). The other diverse batch of automobile themed movies on there way are Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive, George Lucas' American Graffiti and Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness. The last film isn't a car film per-say...but it does have an awesome car in it, and any excuse to show the greatest film of all time is a good one.