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One Shot invites close readings of the basic unit of film grammar.Ed Wood.In a scene from Ed Wood (1994), Tim Burton’s biopic of the maverick filmmaker, Ed (Johnny Depp) and his fiancée Dolores (Sarah Jessica Parker) sit in adjacent armchairs. Ed, playing Glen, is pitched forward with a faint slouch, arm delicately draped against the chair for the illusion of support. Dolores, as Glen’s girlfriend Barbara, is haloed by the lamplight reflected on the wall behind her, perfect posture pressing her upper body into every corner of the seat. “My mind’s in a muddle, like in a thick fog,” he says, having confessed to being a transvestite. “I thought I could stop wearing these things.” She arches her head back, eyes closed, outstretched hands casting shadows against the fabric. She emerges from her trance and turns her eyes to her lover. “I don’t fully understand,...

The enduring legacy of campy cult favorite “Ed Wood” is still celebrated 30 years later.

The beloved 1994 film was directed by Tim Burton and starred Johnny Depp as the filmmaker known for helming B-movie greats, most infamously 1959’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” Wood’s other features include “Orgy of the Dead,” “Glen or Glenda,” and “Bride of the Monster.” He was awarded the Golden Turkey title of Worst Director in 1975.

Burton’s 1994 biopic “Ed Wood” was written by Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, and co-starred Bill Murray, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Martin Landau, who won an Oscar for portraying Bela Lugosi.

“Ed Wood” producer Denise Di Novi detailed her own love of the film three decades later, explaining why “Ed Wood” is one of the most personal projects for both her and longtime collaborator Burton to date. After working as the creative consultant on David Cronenberg’s iconic “Videodrome,” Di...

Comedian Jonah Ray discusses his favorite year in cinema (1994) with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Airport (1970)

Airport 1975 (1975)

Airport ’77 (1977)

Airplane! (1980)

Basket Case (1982)

Destroy All Neighbors (Tbd)

Satanic Hispanics (2022)

Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)

Black Christmas (1974) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairings

Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s franchise power rankings

Tales From The Crypt (1972)

Donnie Darko (2001)

Pooka! (2018)

Pooka Lives! (2020)

Harvey (1950) – Joe Dante’s trailer commentary

Ed Wood (1994)

Black Dynamite (2009)

Bride Of The Monster (1955) – Alex Kirschenbaum’s review

Glen Or Glenda (1953)

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957)

Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Frankenweenie (2012)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Dumb And Dumber (1994)

Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery (1997)

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)

The Mask (1994)

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)

Scream (1996)

Evil Laugh (1986)

The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Forrest Gump (1994)

Clerks (1994)

The Search For One-Eye Jimmy (1994)

Cabin Boy (1994)

Scary Movie 2 (2001)

Scary Movie 4...

In a 1996 interview with ArtsBeatLa, Tim Burton said that, after directing "Ed Wood" in 1994, he wanted to make a B-movie of his own. "Ed Wood," a biopic about the legendary Z-grade filmmaker, covered the title character's life from just before his breakout feature "Glen or Glenda?" in 1953 through the premiere of "Plan 9 from Outer Space" in 1959. In recreating some of the most notorious "bad movies" of all time, Burton became intensely interested in both their mechanics and their iconography. And...

The post Jack Nicholson Wanted Mars Attacks! to Be a One-Man Show appeared first on /Film.

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“Welcome To The Club”

By Raymond Benson

Kino Lorber and Something Weird Video continue their collaboration to present “Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture” with Volume 11—Girl Gang/Pin-Down Girl, a double bill of so-bad-they’re-funny early 1950s “crime” movies. They were marketed as such, but they were really what passed for softcore in those days. If the movie ratings had existed then, these two gems would likely have been rated “R.”

These delicious and suitably sleazy pictures in the “Forbidden Fruit” series were made cheaply and outside the Hollywood system. They were distributed independently in the manner of a circus sideshow, often by renting a movie theater for a few nights, advertising in the local papers, and promoting the scandalous title as “educational.” It’s certain, however, that in this case both Girl Gang and Pin-Down Girl are not...

In today's Horror Highlights, we have an exclusive preview of Ithaqa #3, an announcement of the virtual edition of the Sleepy Hollow International Film Festival, a Troma double feature at the drive-in, and the return of Servant!

Exclusive Preview of Ithaqa #3: "In issue #3 of Ithaqa, the consequences of Mookie and Ruth's night of drinking turn deadly. Rosie offers Harvey answers, but at a great cost, while Margaret and Hazel come face to face with the "spirits" they have been investigating."

Writer: Michael Watson

Artist/Cover Artist: Theresa Chiechi

Letters: Lucas Gattoni

Editor: Lisa VillaMil

To pick up a copy of Ithaqa #3 for yourself, visit:

ComiXology link: https://www.comixology.com/Ithaqa-03/digital-comic/895352?ref=Y29taWMvdmlldy9kZXNrdG9wL3NsaWRlckxpc3Qvc2VyaWVz Print copy link: https://www.ithaqacomic.com/buy-the-comic/ithaqa-issue-3-the-high-priestess-physical-copy

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Sleepy Hollow International Film Festival Announces Virtual Edition: "Having made its amazing debut last October in the cradle of...

In today’s TV News Roundup, HBO announced the premiere date for “Lovecraft Country,” and Tubi announced it will add 30 seasons of Bob Ross’ “The Joy of Painting” to its streaming library.

Dates

HBO has announced its upcoming drama series “Lovecraft Country” will debut on Aug. 16 at 9 p.m. and be available to watch on HBO Max after airing. Based on the novel of the same name by Matt Ruff, the series follows two childhood friends journey across a monster-packed 1950s Jim Crow America in search of a missing father. The series comes from afemme, Inc., Bad Robot Productions and Monkeypaw Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. Misha Green, J.J. Abrams, Jordan Peele, Bill Carraro, Yann Demange, Daniel Sackheim and David Knoller serve as executive producers.

CBS All Access has announced its new animated comedy series “Star Trek: Lower Decks” will premiere on the streamer on Aug. 6. New episodes...

Before we delve too deeply into the weeds, this viewer finds it imperative to make two big caveats. First, any finished movie, as Tfh Fearless Leader Joe Dante often preaches, is a bit of a miracle. Completing a project, especially a low-budget indie like Bride of the Monster (1955) that culled resources together from disparate backers and was at one point shut down three days into production due to a lack of funds, is a feat to be applauded. I am fully aware of that reality, even though I will take pains to explore the many shortcomings of this notoriously flawed cheapie chiller. Second, the actual protracted production of this picture, which was at one time to co-star Bela Lugosi and his fellow Universal monster luminaries Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr., is as compelling as the movie itself. So we’ll be touching on some behind-the-scenes morsels, too.

Bride of the Monster...

Transilvania Film Festival audiences have been savvy about off-beat films from bizarre quarters for many years, thoroughly appreciating the efforts of fest organizers, who scout out and embrace provocative work. This year, Czech Republic’s Shockproof Film Festival has been given carte-blanche by Transilvania to program its own selection of schlock gems.

The lineup surely ranks as highly as any in its embrace of film that is both cheap and offensive – and thoroughly relishing both qualities. Shockproof founder Petr Saroch, who has been screening “all forms of low-brow, bad taste, trash and fun outside of the realm of run-of-the-mill” for 14 years at Prague’s Kino Aero, says Transilvania crowds should expect the best of the worst this year.

Aside from sleaze classics such as José María Forqué’s extraterrestrial dictator flick “Nexus” (1994), William Castle’s parasite horror gimmick “The Tingler” (1959), “Trash Humpers” (2009) by Harmony Korine, and Anthony Hickox’s “Exodus...

Conrad Brooks, the actor whose résumé of rotten movies includes Plan 9 From Outer Space and five other collaborations with cult writer-director Ed Wood, has died. He was 86.

Brooks died Wednesday after a series of health problems at Berkeley Medical Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia, family spokesman Edward Hopf told The Hollywood Reporter.

A native of Baltimore, Brooks first met Wood in 1947 while on a trip to Hollywood with his brothers. He then played four characters in the cross-dressing/transsexual docudrama Glen or Glenda (1953), which marked Wood's directorial debut.

The pair went on to work together in...

MaryAnn’s quick take… A hilarious ode to talentless passion. James Franco gives the bizarre Tommy Wiseau depth without solving his mystery, but skips a deserved zing at Hollywood. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

I have not read the source material

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

I don’t think you need to have seen the 2003 cult film The Room to appreciate The Disaster Artist, director and star James Franco’s hilarious ode to the talentless passion that birthed it. But I was glad that I had finally seen it for the first time just before I attended a screening of Artist. Because I’m not sure that I would have believed Artist’s depiction of the astonishing awfulness of The Room — Franco reproduces essential scenes from the film in all their crummy glory — if I hadn’t already witnessed the horror for myself.

Mark Harrison May 19, 2017

From the currently playing Their Finest to the likes of Bowfinger and Boogie Nights, we salute the movies about making movies...

If you haven't caught up yet, Their Finest is currently playing in UK cinemas and it's a gorgeous little love letter to perseverance through storytelling, set against the backdrop of a film production office at the British Ministry of Information during the Second World War. Based on Lissa Evans' novel, Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy play characters whose access to the film industry has been contingent on the global crisis that takes other young men away from such trifling matters, and it's a real joy to watch.

Among other things, the film got us thinking about other films about making films. We're not talking about documentaries, even though Hearts Of Darkness, the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, may be the greatest film about...

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Seed of Chucky is the best Child’s Play movie by John Waters that he never directed. And to me, it’s probably the most underappreciated entry in the entire series, because if you take a moment to look at what Don Mancini did with this 2004 sequel, you’ll realize it’s a brilliant celebration of B-movies that also cleverly mixes up the Child’s Play franchise formula once again.

Seed of Chucky picks up after the events of Bride of Chucky, addressing the deaths of both Chucky (voiced by Brad Dourif) and Tiffany (voiced by Jennifer Tilly), and the birth of their unlikely progeny, who was rescued from the graveyard by a ventriloquist named Psychs (Keith-Lee Castle) and now works as a dummy named “Shitface” (voiced by Billy Boyd). One night, Tiffany and Chucky’s offspring sees what...

Director Patty Jenkins is best known for her 2003 biographical crime-drama “Monster,” the indie hit that saw Charlize Theron win the Academy Award for Best Actress, but her career since then has been almost entirely in television. That changed when Jenkins landed the directing job for Warner Bros. “Wonder Woman,” which stars Gal Gadot in the lead role and is set to hit theaters in June 2017.

Read More: ‘Wonder Woman’ Director Patty Jenkins Fights Back Against Anonymous Attack on Film

In a recent interview with THR, Jenkins said she told executives at Warner Bros. that she wanted to make “Wonder Woman” more than 10 years ago.

“I’ve always been moved by the idea of movies that are personal but still have a huge reach,” Jenkins told THR. “‘Superman’ had that effect on me when I was a kid — it rocked my world. That kind of movie was always the brass ring...

“Would you look at Lumpy! He’s sure grown, huh? And I think his voice is changing!”

George Lucas and his intergalactic entourage don’t stand a chance when St. Louis Shakespeare’s The Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre takes them on in December. The uber-talented Smoking Monkeys adapt a cult film (or TV show) into an onstage farce once a year. Plan 9 From Outer Space, Reefer Madness, Glen Or Glenda, The Star Wars Trilogy, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Stupefy!: The 90-minute Harry Potter, and last year’s Mad Max – Live! have all been the victims of sidesplitting, Pythonesque parody courtesy of The Smoking Monkeys. This time these lunatic thespians are calling their show The Making Of The Star Wars Holiday Special! – A Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre 20th Anniversary Special!

And rumor has it that Charles Bronson will be making an appearance hawking Mandom Cologne!!! It doesn’t get any better than that!

Give them the attention they deserve, and Edgar Wright‘s movies, TV shows, and music videos will start to exhaust with allusions to the culture from which they spring. These are not necessarily name-drops of the typical “geek” variety, but allusions in narrative, structure, and visual expression that evince a creative brain cycling through item after item.

So, yes, it will hardly surprise anybody that Wright has seen a lot, yet I’m still intrigued by a chronologically ordered, 1,000-title Mubi list he co-created with user Sam Disalle. For being free of comments about any choices, this proves all the more intriguing in how it must stand alone. Sunset Blvd. and Notorious, sure, but Glen or Glenda? Could I make a connection between Ed Wood‘s camp classic and, say, Scott Pilgrim? (Don’t answer that.) The bonus, as opposed to ten- or twenty-title collections: you’ll probably never see everything here,...

“If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die historic on the Fury Road!”

St. Louis Shakespeare’s The Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre adapts a cult film into an onstage farce once a year. Previous adaptions have included Plan 9 From Outer Space, Reefer Madness, Glen Or Glenda, Game Of Thrones, Harry Potter, and The Star Wars Trilogy (!!). In 2011 they helped celebrate Vincentennial, the Vincent Price 100th Birthday Celebration with a stage presentation of one of the home town horror star’s classics: The Abominable Dr. Phibes in 3D, a sidesplitting, Pythonesque parody.

This year, those crazy Smoking Monkeys are presenting Mad Max – a spoof of all four of those great Mel Gibson action movies (and that Tom Hardy one). So join Mad Max and a cast of rowdy characters in an epic race for guzzolene, freedom and a better life beyond Thunderdome…in 60 minutes or less. That’S Right!

I've seen it all. New York City is soon to be home to Beetle House, a Tim Burton-themed bar. Slashfilm says the establishment, which comes from the same guys who created a Will Ferrell-themed bar last year, will embody the feel of Burton's films...but probably not Batman. The whole idea — even for the most average of Burton fans like myself — sounds pretty cool. The drink list gives you a feel of the place. It all sounds good...but man, look at those NYC drink prices!

It’s Showtime: Bulleit Rye whiskey, 2 shots of espresso, simple syrup, dash of peychauds bitters, lemon peel garnish. $16

Beetlejuice: Muddled blackberry and limes, Tequila, Blackberry schnapps, Angostura bitters, splash of cranberry. $14

Edward’s Lemonade: Old fashioned with Orange bitters $12

Alice’s Cup of Tea: Peach vodka, Gin, rum, tequila, peach schnapps, sour mix, splash of coke. $14

The Headless Horseman: Hendricks Gin,...

Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Metrograph

You’ve read of Rainer Werner Fassbinder‘s ten favorite films — now you can see them. The German titan’s beloved titles are celebrated in a new series: Johnny Guitar screens this Friday; Saturday offers Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Night of the Hunter, and the rarely seen The Red Snowball Tree; on Sunday, one can...

'Finding Neverland' movie: Johnny Depp as James M. Barrie, with the Llewelyn Davies family: Kate Winslet, Freddie Highmore, Joe Prospero, Nick Roud and Luke Spill. 'Finding Neverland' movie review: Losing reality Back in 2001, German-born director Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace, World War Z) brought a much welcome non-Hollywood touch to the independently made psychological drama Monster's Ball. Besides the daring (if way overlong) sex scenes, that film imparted a refreshingly realistic atmosphere that was much enhanced by Forster's minimalist approach. As the title implies, his follow-up effort, Finding Neverland (2004), has absolutely nothing to do with reality, whether Peter Pan author James M. Barrie's or anyone else's. Even so, Forster's early, no-nonsense directorial touch is sorely missing from what is little more than your usual big-studio holiday movie whose “magical moments” might as well have been created by a computer. 'Finding Neverland' plot: James M. Barrie...

“My girlfriend still doesn’t know why her sweaters are always stretched out!”

Tim Burton’s Ed Wood screens Thursday December 5th at 7:30pm at Schlafly Bottleworks

Ed Wood tells the story of the world’s worst movie director. Ed Wood Jr. was the man behind a number of inept American b-pictures such as Glen Or Glenda, Bride Of The Monster and his bizarro world masterwork Plan 9 From Outer Space. Wood (played in the film by Johnny Depp) had an incompetent directorial style, which included casting a group of non-actors that included dope addicts, transvestites, a struggling TV horror queen and the fading Hollywood legend Bela Lugosi. He was content to botch scenes by allowing his actors to muff their lines and he also mixed day and night shots together with no disregard for continuity. Ed Wood also focuses on the way his erratic career and behavior affected...

Review by Stephen Jones

The New Girlfriend is the sort of middle-brow, forgettable movie you’d stumble upon while watching Showtime in the mid 90’s. It has what it views as a tantalizing hook, seems to know very little about it, but thinks that knowing about it at all is enough. With the movie’s particular hook, cross-dressing, that probably Would have been enough in the mid 90s. But that was 20 years ago.

I’m not really in a position to delve into a movie from the perspective of trans issues. It’s not an experience I know well enough to speak from. But the main characters agreeing that “gay is less embarrassing than tranny” even had me cringe a little. This isn’t a movie I’d throw under the “transphobic” label, because in the end it seems to be on the side of David/Virginia being alright after all,...

Don’t have time to binge watch the entire first season of Game Of Thrones? The lunatics at The Magic Smoking Monkey Theater group have the perfect solution!

In the tradition of their internationally-acclaimed 1-hour productions of The Star Wars Trilogy, The Ten Commandments, Lord Of The Rings, the Smoking Monkeys are proud to present The One-Hour Game of Thrones Parody! And it’s coming to St. Louis this month

St. Louis Shakespeare’s The Magic Smoking Monkey Theatre adapts a cult film into an onstage farce once a year. Previous adaptions (besides the hour-long ones I mentioned) have included Pan 9 From Outer Space, Reefer Madness, and Glen Or Glenda. In 2011 they helped celebrate Vincentennial, the Vincent Price 100th Birthday Celebration with a stage presentation of one of the home town horror star’s classics: The Abominable Dr. Phibes in 3D, a sidesplitting, Pythonesque parody. These guys stage the most...

If Christian Kane gets hungry this weekend at Wizard Works Comic Con, he’ll likely head over to the Tenacious Eats Presents Super-8 Super Snacks event Saturday at 2.

We were going to show the Marvel Super-Heroes cartoon, it turns out there’s a moratorium on all things Marvel at this time (thanks a lot, Avengers!), but the show will go on!

Tenacious Eats “movies for Foodies’ is a one-of-a-kind event where food is prepared and plated in front of you while you watch a film on the big screen. We’ve covered many of the movie-dinners here at We Are Movie Geeks. Now we’ll be teaming up with Tenacious Eats this Saturday at Wizard World Comic Con for an event we’re calling Tenacious Eats Presents Super-8 Super Snacks. It will be from 2pm to 2:45pm in Room 106 at America’s Center

We will be showing a pair...

Here is your chance to own some of the best personal items belonging to arguably cinema's worst director: A collection of notebooks, candid photos, press clippings and more amassed by infamous B-movie extraordinaire Ed Wood, the filmmaker responsible for the critically reviled cult classics Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen or Glenda and the inspiration behind the Tim Burton biopic of the same name, has hit the auction block.

Rr Auction in Boston is selling the contents of a leather briefcase and two trunks that Wood used to store his "various publicity-related ephemera,...

Nicki Minaj’s latest album The Pinkprint drops in four days, but fans already have a taste of the rapper’s new songs, including her latest collaborations with Ariana Grande and Beyonce.

Minaj teamed up with Grande on the Jessie J song "Bang Bang," but risque new track "Get On Your Knees" is the duo’s first duet. The sexy club track is all about female domination, and the chorus repeatedly implores their men to skip the cute stuff and "get on your knees."

"I don’t need a dozen roses / you ain’t gotta wine and dine me, no / I don’t need a pretty boy / getting all emotional," Grande croons over the chorus. "You gotta beg for it, beg for it."

Minaj gets down and dirty in her rap verses, referencing yet another diva when she rhymes, "Got me seein' them fireworks / I’m on my Kate Perry (sic)."

News: Nicki Minaj’s New Song...

Today's roundup of news and views has to begin with A.O. Scott's essay, "The Death of Adulthood in American Culture." We're also looking at pieces on Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975), Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941), Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie (1971), Edward D. Wood Jr.'s Glen or Glenda (1953), Adrian Lyne's Flashdance (1983) and Walter Benjamin on the nature of film. Plus: Jessica Chastain will star in Xavier Dolan's first film in English, Isabelle Huppert has three projects in the works—and more. » - David Hudson...

Today's roundup of news and views has to begin with A.O. Scott's essay, "The Death of Adulthood in American Culture." We're also looking at pieces on Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975), Preston Sturges's The Lady Eve (1941), Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie (1971), Edward D. Wood Jr.'s Glen or Glenda (1953), Adrian Lyne's Flashdance (1983) and Walter Benjamin on the nature of film. Plus: Jessica Chastain will star in Xavier Dolan's first film in English, Isabelle Huppert has three projects in the works—and more. » - David Hudson...

One of Tim Burton's absolute best films is Ed Wood starring Johnny Depp, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Bill Murray, and Martin Landau (in one of his finest performances as Bela Legosi). Based on the life of infamous director Edward Wood Jr. who directed some of the worst films ever made, including Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen or Glenda, Burton's biopic on the crossdressing filmmaker is hilarious, sad, and uplifting all at once, standing as one of the most original flicks of the...

“I know I had a mental breakdown. I know I had it in an airplane. I know it looks to you as if the same thing is happening again, but it isn’t. I’m sure, it isn’t!”

That gremlin on the wing. William Shatner, the only one who can see it. He’s suffered a breakdown and is on another plane with his pretty wife. She manages to keep him calm for quite a while as he fidgets and twists in his seat. Terrified that the creature is going to bring down the jetliner, Shatner takes a gun from a sleeping policeman! Obviously “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, this classic Twilight Zone episode, was made way before Tsa regulations that would have required a federal Air Marshal to tackle, subdue, and snap the neck of the on-board troublemaker. This is one of the most famous episodes of “The Zone” and...

With all the good press big budget films get today, We sometimes forget that out there in the cinematic shadows lay some of the worst movies ever laid to film. Today we take you on a voyage into a world of shoddy production value and atrocious acting. Welcome to the… Ten Worst (and undoubtedly Strangest) Movies Ever Made!

*Summaries Courtesy of IMDb*

10. Plan 9 from Outer Space

Premiered: 1958

Directed By: Edward D. Wood Jr.

Summary: Aliens resurrect dead humans as zombies and vampires to stop human kind from creating the Solaranite (a sort of sun-driven bomb).

9. Troll 2

Premiered: 1990

Directed By: Claudio Fragasso

Summary: A young child is terrified to discover that a planned family trip is to be haunted by vile plant-eating monsters out of his worst nightmare.

8. Santa Claus

Premiered: 1959

Directed By: Rene Cardona

Summary: With the aid of Merlin, Santa Claus must defeat the evil machinations of...

We’ll be honoring alternative lifestyle with a slate of Super-8 Movies celebrating Lbgt culture on April 1st at the Way Out Club! It’s Super-8 Gay Movie Madness, a fabulous night of gay-themed films shown on the Super-8 sound condensed format projected on our massive screen.

On April 1st we’ll be showing: The Village People and Bruce Jenner in Can’T Stop The Music, Tim Curry as the sweet transvestite Frank N. Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show, a Judy Garland Double Feature of Easter Parade and Wizard Of Oz, the Ed Wood cross-dressing opus Glen Or Glenda, Lesbian Vampire ‘70s style in Vampyres, Frank Sinatra battles a gay serial killer in The Detective, Midnight Express, Bette Midler in The Rose, Joan Crawford in Straight-jacket, Karen Black in Airport ’75, It Conquered The World, the silent version of Ben Hur, and the gross educational film Coping With The Discomforts Of Pregnancy.

The '80s and '90s brought us some of the best cartoons ever made, but one thing that made '90s cartoons so special is how irreverent and pop-culture oriented they were. Suddenly we were inundated with shockingly adult innuendos and obscure movie references that flew over the heads of most children watching these cartoons. Horror films were no exception - these show-runners loved to drop references to everything from horror classics to '80s slashers. Here are ten of my favorites:     The Critic - "Miserable" (1994)   The Critic was short-lived but beloved by fans for its hilarious movie parodies that lampooned everything from Orson Welles to Ace Ventura. The most memorable horror spoof was entitled "Miserable" wherein titular critic Jay Sherman gets kidnapped by his biggest fan in an obvious parody of Misery (1990). Even the gruesome woodblock/sledgehammer scene makes an appearance.     Bobby's World - "Adventures in Bobby Sitting...

Name: Dallas Buyers Club

Release date: Nov. 1, 2013

DVD release date: Feb. 4, 2014

Run time: 1 hour, 57 mins

Box office: Limited opening weekend: $260,865; Wide opening weekend: $2.7 million; Total domestic box office: $24.4 million; Worldwide gross to date: $30.4 million

Rotten Tomatoes score: 94 percent

Dallas Buyers Club movie math: (And the Band Played On + No Country for Old Men) x (Blow + Glen or Glenda + The Machinist)

Tweetable description: If Ron Woodruff only had 30 days left to live, you know what he’d do? Start an HIV treatment drug ring and live for seven years. #Nbd

What Chris Nashawaty said: Thanks to McConaughey’s and Leto’s...

New Delhi, Feb 13: Actress Kirron Kher Thursday said that the country deserves capable ministers and that there is no substitute for hard work for either men or women.

"Male or female candidates, both have to work hard. You can't force people on the country if they are not skilled," she said.

Kirron, who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (Bjp) in 2009, praised the party for giving opportunities to women.

"Bjp has several women who are capable. Most spokespersons of Bjp are women," Kirron said at Vote Lo Suraksha Do, a session held at the political conclave Panchayat Aaj Tak here.

Some of the prominent women leaders and spokespersons of Bjp include Sushma Swaraj, Smriti Irani, Nirmala Sitaraman and Meenakshi.

A discussion on Kansas City public radio about cult movies prompts this week’s Question. From Kcur.org 89.3Fm:

In his 1981 book, fittingly titled, Cult Movies, film critic Danny Peary defined cult films as “special films which for one reason or another have been taken to heart by segments of the movie audience, cherished, protected, and most of all, enthusiastically championed.”

Our own film professor, Thom Poe, divides up cult films into different areas. Some cult films fall into the “so bad they’re good” category. This would include anything made by Ed Wood or more recently, anything made by The Asylum.

Another category would be considered “quality” cult films. These are films that didn’t get any notice when they were first released, but over the years, have developed very loyal followings. Films like Shock Corridor, Freaks, Donnie Darko, and The Big Lebowski keep audiences returning to theaters year after year.

If you missed Italian Stallion when I played it last year at my Super-8 Sex Movie Madness show, you’ll have another chance this weekend when I screen it (in it’s glorious condensed 18-minute super-8 cut) at the Super Swingers ’70s Night at The Way Out Club this Saturday Nov 23rd beginning at 9pm. I’ll be showing Italian Stallion and some other films of that nature that are not pornography, but a certain type of R-Rated film that one may have enjoyed at the Drive-ins in the 1970′s. The other swinging films I’ll be screening that night include Flesh Gordon, Swinging Stewardesses, Ed Wood’s Glen Or Glenda, and a ’70s Sexploitation trailer reel.

The Way Out Club is located at 2525 Jefferson Avenue in South St. Louis

Bell Bottom, platform shoe wearing, chevron mustache and side burn sporting, vintage 1970′s Funk Funk Funk is strutting your way...

Sneak Peek a new background performer casting call for Marvel Studios' "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (aka working title "Freezer Burn") filming Monday, May 13 to May 16, 2013:

From Betsy Royall Casting, Csa  (Washington, DC):

"...we are casting union and nonunion adults and kids (8 +). The 15th & 16th are the larger days. The 16th is the day we will be needing a lot of kids.

"If you are available to work and are a 

Union talent, please email [email protected]

In the subject line: Union / Male or Female / "Freezer Burn" and list All dates avail. (You must not have any time restraints on these days)

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car type

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phone

email

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If I can use you, I will email you asap.

Non-union Talent: please email [email protected]

In the subject line: Nonunion / Male/boy or Female/girl / "Freezer Burn" and list if...

It’s like I always say: “Why read the book when you can see the movie?”, and in the case of Harry Potter I say “Why see eight films when you can see Stupefy, The 90 Minute Harry Potter !?” Now, I don’t need to read the Harry Potter books because I was lucky enough to have seen Stupefy, The 90 Minute Harry Potter when it played at Lindenwood last fall. All of the performances were sold out but there is good news for Potter fans. Stupefy is back for an encore run, this time at The Regional Arts Commission right here in St. Louis!

The Harry Potter saga was presented so fast that the lunatics at The Magic Smoking Monkey Theater group are bringing him back for an encore run of their hilarious play. Stupefy, The 90 Minute Harry Potter is a fast-moving stage production that is a parody of all eight...

The 2013 MTV Movie Awards aired Sunday night, with "The Avengers" picking up most of the popcorn statues. There were a few bizarre categories, notably "Summer's Biggest Teen Bad A**" featuring four movies that haven't come out in theaters yet.The show ran long, and winners for Best Female Performance and a number of other categories weren't announced at press time. Oddly, there was a separate category for Best Latino Actor (why couldn't they be included in Best Male or Female Performance) and no winner was announced for that, either!The winners that were announced are bolded below:Movie of the Year"The Avengers""The Dark Knight Rises""Django Unchained""Silver Linings Playbook""Ted"Best Male PerformanceBen Affleck - "Argo"Bradley Cooper - "Silver Linings Playbook"Channing Tatum - "Magic Mike"Daniel Day-Lewis - "Lincoln"Jamie Foxx - "Django Unchained"Best Female PerformanceAnne Hathaway – Les MisérablesEmma Watson – The Perks of Being...

Around these parts John Carpenter's The Fog is a true favorite so we're happier than a leper pirate with a new hook that the film is finally getting the Blu-ray and DVD treatment that it so deserves. Check out the new artwork!

As per the Scream Factory Facebook page...

Look what just rolled in…our newly retro-styled designed artwork for John Carpenter’s The Fog! This new “remix” of the ghostly classic comes to us from artist Justin Osbourn. As always with our Collector’s Editions, the reverse wrap will have the original theatrical key art (the iconic one with Jamie Lee Curtis bolted up against the door). DVD & Blu-ray streets 7/30. More details on extras forthcoming, but we can say it will be packed.

I swear if The Scream Factory was one living human being, we'd propose. Male or female. We don't care. Check out the new cover below.

Visit The Evilshop @ Amazon!

Sneak Peek a casting call from "The Amazing Spider-Man 2", currently shooting in New York, looking for 'clowns', 'mimes' & 'magicians'...

"...Clowns, Mimes & MAGICIANSShoot Date - 4/1/2013 Thru 4/15/2013Special / Male or Female / All Ethnicities

Ages: 18 - 50

"Grant Wilfley Casting is seeking: Men & Women with Real/ Professional Clown, Mime, Magician experience & ability.

"Regular Clowns & French Mimes are great! You must have your own costume, accessories, make-up, etc.

"We are looking for people who can show up ready to go.

"If you do Not fit this breakdown please do not submit, it is a waste of everyone's time!

"Email a recent picture and contact info to [email protected]

Write the role for which you are submitting in the subject line of your email..."

"...for 'Peter Parker' (Garfield), life is busy. Between taking out the bad guys as 'Spider-Man' and spending time with 'Gwen', the girl he loves, high school graduation can’t come quickly enough.

April 2nd at The Way Out Club will be a night of racism, sexism, homophobia, and perversion! It’s Super-8 Politically Incorrect Movie Madness where we’ll be showing a dozen films on Super-8 Sound Film (most in condensed format) guaranteed to offend the sensibilities of everyone in attendance. Prepare to be outraged!

We’re not out to insult or anger anyone with Super-8 Politically Incorrect Movie Madness but to show the ways Hollywood has presented a host of now-taboo topics over the past 80 years. We have two of the infamous censored Looney Tunes cartoons long-banned from broadcast due to their racial stereotyping: Jungle Jitters (1938) and All This And Rabbit Stew (1941) featuring Bugs Bunny hunted by a slow-witted Black hunter who sounds and looks like Stepin Fetchit. We’re showing two of the bizarre pre-code Baby Burlesque shorts: in Kid N’ Africa (1933) Shirley Temple is terrorized by cannibals played by...

Review by Sam Moffitt

Bad movies have been a cult all their own at least since the publication of the Medved Brother’s book The 50 Worst Movies of All Time. Although my bet is that it started with the publication of Joe Dante’s article the 50 Worst Horror Movies of All Time (Or was it 25?) in Famous Monsters of Filmland in the 1960′s I had that issue and had seen some of those movies. I assumed Joe Dante was a grown man and found out years later he was about the same age as me when he submitted that article to Forry Ackerman. I loved reading Famous Monsters and Monster World but it never occurred to me to write an article and submit it as Joe Dante did (and Stephen King as Forry later told in interviews, although he made it a point not to publish fiction).

After the Medved...

Seemingly keeping Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 (2004) relevant as the only Spider-Man movie without a funeral scene, a new casting call has just surfaced for the second installment to director Marc Webb's Amazing 2014 sequel. Once again courtesy of On Location Vacations, under the working title London Calling, the call also reveals exact shooting dates and vaguely what scenes will entail. SAG-aftra Featured Friends & Family Mourners (Feb 14th) London Calling 2/14/2013 Background / Male or Female / All Ethnicities /18 – 70 Grant Wilfley Casting is seeking: SAG-aftra Men & Women, 18-70 age range, to portray Friends & Family Mourning at a Funeral/ Wake. The scene is scheduled to film February 14th, 2013. This is very featured & I will be submitting photos to the Director. SAG-aftra Core Scientists, Engineers, Technicians (multiple dates) London Calling Background / Male or Female / All Ethnicities /22 – 65 Grant Wilfley Casting is seeking: SAG-aftra Men & Women, 20s-60s age range, all...

It.s like I always say: .Why bother reading the book when you can just see the movie?., and in the case of Harry Potter I say .Why bother seeing eight movies when you can just see Stupefy! The 90 Minute Harry Potter !?.

That.s right; the lunatics at The Magic Smoking Monkey Theater group are presenting Harry Potter faster than you’ve ever seen him before! Stupefy! The 90 Minute Harry Potter is a stage play that is a parody of all eight Potter movies and if you.ve seen the Magic Smoking Monkey gang.s previous skewers of Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Glen or Glenda, or The Abominable Dr. Phibes, you may know what.s in store. These guys stage the most gut-busting spoofs imaginable and you.ll never look at Harry Potter quite the same way when their done. All 8 movies in 90 minutes! Will Voldemort win?...

It.s like I always say: .Why bother reading the book when you can just see the movie?., and in the case of Harry Potter I say .Why bother seeing eight movies when you can just see Stupefy! The 90 Minute Harry Potter !?.

That.s right; the lunatics at The Magic Smoking Monkey Theater group are presenting Harry Potter faster than you’ve ever seen him before! Stupefy! The 90 Minute Harry Potter is a stage play that is a parody of all eight Potter movies and if you.ve seen the Magic Smoking Monkey gang.s previous skewers of Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Glen or Glenda, or The Abominable Dr. Phibes, you may know what.s in store. These guys stage the most gut-busting spoofs imaginable and you.ll never look at Harry Potter quite the same way when their done. All 8 movies in 90 minutes! Will Voldemort win?...

Terry Pratchett has brought a lot of joy in my life, so it's very sad to note that his disease has progressed to the point that he can't use a keyboard anymore, and has written his last four novels with dictation. But he wants Discworld to live on, and says that it will be in very good hands when he can no longer write, the hands of his daughter, Rhianna.

Chris Geidner has a fairly stunning summary of three years of study done on marriage equality ads, and how those focus groups shifted the power in the recent election in the favor of marriage for all. The basic ideas seem obvious in retrospect: Focus on commitment, not rights; show people who have struggled with the idea of equality and evolved; and make sure people know that their kids will be taught their morals at home, by their parents, and not in schools.

Not pornography but a certain type of R-Rated film that one may have enjoyed at the Drive-ins in the 1970′s is the focus of Super-8 Sex Movie Madness November 6th at The Way Out Club. In this edition of our monthly film festival (now in its fourth year!) where we show edited version of movies (average length: 15 minutes) on old-school Super-8 Sound film, we’ll celebrate the days when men were hairy and women were natural (and hairy). We’re showcasing Sylvester Stallone in an 18-minute condensed version of The Italian Stallion, a 1970 soft-core sex film (originally titled Party At Kitty And Studs) he starred in six years before Rocky that was re-titled to cash in on his Oscar-winning success. It has to be seen to be believed! The other films we’ll be showing to fit this month’s theme are the Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood’s 1957 cross-dressing classic Glen Or Glenda,...

In 1970, six years before he ran up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to Bill Conti.s anthem in Rocky, Sylvester Stallone claims he was living in a bus shelter and needed money. So like many hungry actors he agreed to star and appear nude in a sex film and was paid $200 for two days work. The resulting film was a 60-minute drama with a $5000 budget titled Party At Kitty And Stud.S.

So what does the audience get for Stallone.s $200 gig? Basically, it is a standard-issue early 70s skin flick but it.s the type of arty skin flick popular at the time, two years before hardcore features like Deep Throat broke through to the masses. A .sex. film at that time meant lots of nudity and simulated intercourse. Hard-core penetration footage could be found in shorts and .loops. but features at this time usually just...