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.