The old band back together, a lady asked if we were a support group!

Clown Versus Monkey: Into the Cube

http://www.clownversusmonkey.com/2013/04/clown-versus-monkey-into-cube.html

Many have seen this one, but never so pretty!
sd

The Black Hole DVD menu is hysterical

Lunch Hour: More Blabber Messing

this is all going somewhere, I promise

Lunch hour

I love you maaaaaaan

Clown Versus Monkey: In the halls of madness!

A little screen shot for youz guyz.

SD

Ten Random Thoughts on Oblivion!

 

1. Like sitting in a waiting room and flipping through Wired magazine, an issue of National Geographic, and an Ikea catalog.

2. I know it's hard to not drench your movie in Stanley Kubrick 2001 fan drool when making a serious science fiction flick, but I would love to see someone try.

3. I kept wondering if this movie had anything to do with Scientology. Like was this some disguised tract, like Cruise is handing them out at the mall or something. Who knows. I know nothing about Scientology. But that's what I kept thinking. It's a long movie.

4. His space suit looks like footy pjs.

5. I loved how everyone was just sitting around waiting for Tom Cruise to validate and or save them. Everybody just sits on their hands waiting for Tom to show up and get it done. I suppose he is Tom Cruise. 

6. Positive reinforcement time! Good job on all the industrial design stuff. Awesome detail and you could see all the inner workings. It was total gadget porn.

7. There are some twisteroos that I didn't see coming. If you take them to the logical conclusion, you could wind up with a giant mess, but we really don't want to mess with that right? This is heady sci-fi, but ya know, let's not get carried away.

8. I have never seen a post human earth like this. Really neat idea. Not just your typical ghost town with weeds growing in the street cracks.

9. Morgan Freeman looks great in goggles.

10. I want one of those swimming pools.

SHOW STOPPER! There's a shot that tracks a robotic drone through the set of Alien 3. It was neat. 

SHOW STOPPER 2!! That poster up there. Am I right? Come on. That is sexy.

How's the title sequence? It's all at the end and very pretty. But I was ready to leave.

Final Thought: This director is making the Black Hole remake. He keeps making movies that I want to see and this is strike two. I saw both his movies on opening weekend. He makes total geek bait. But both this and Tron 2 are pretty to look at but after 30 minutes you just want to go home and wash clothes or something.

PAIRS WELL WITH: American Beauty. I don't know why. Both are stories about everyday Joes caught in a rut and trying to buck the status quo to regain a feeling of belonging that they have lost. Just ruined the movie, didn't I.

For President!

The New Bull

Stop GMOs

Sketch Gutter

Note to self

When Clown Met Monkey: Under Construction

You want me to what? April 25th

Jungle Clowns Attack! Under Constuction

Coming April 25th

Before the Shrieker: Under Construction

Bring me Shrieker! End of April

Dr. Hammer: Under Construction

Get Hammered: End of April

Shelly's Ideal Childhood: Under Constuction

Coming End of April

Tiki Night Club: Under Contruction

Star Wars : Dream Fiction

Last night I dreamed of Star Wars. Maybe this was Episode VII anxiety manifesting, but here it goes. What I remember from the dream.

Luke was old, like Mark Hamill old, as was Han and Lea, so it must have been Ep. VII.

I am watching the movie in the dream, not participating, though it feels super 3D. I can smell the Gold Bond powder.

They have caught Han Solo, and they are going to dip him in a big vat of space evil to turn him into the ultimate killing space monster. He's all scared and worried and all the other cast are in these cages, like slaughter house cages.

This pit of evil, well, it looks like one of the vats of chocolate from Starbucks. Those can be nasty.

Somehow they escape and are running around the evil space station, and there I realize how low budget this one is because they shot it in the Mall of Georgia. They are running down Escalators and past Shoe Carnival and whatnot. I always hate when advance societies look like giant shopping malls.

In the end, they all get tired of running and fighting, because when does that ever solve anything. And so Luke makes everyone sit down to diner. Good Force and Dark Force all sit down around some hot space food and Luke wants everyone to talk about their feelings. Luke starts it up by looking Han in the face and saying that he feels that Han isn't ever there. like he is there, but his mind is always a million miles away. Luke needs Han to be there. Really there.

That makes the movie too awkward to continue and the end credits role, These are super cool end credits that look like the old Star Wars arcade game where everything was made of blue outlines.

Everyone in the theater is furious and dumbstruck by how terrible this was. It was Holiday Special bad. We can''t believe J.J. Abrams made such a terrible abomination and everyone reevaluates the prequels as not being that bad. Especially now that we have Episode VII: I Never Promised You A Space Station.

SD

ps - found this bit of awesome looking for  Star Wars Norman Rockwell.

Ten Random Thoughts: Life of Pi (2012)

From the creators of Air Bud

1.
So who doesn't love 3D? Come one, you look at the screen and things just pop out at you! In Life of Pi, it was like the message was right there in my face!

2.
I don't like 3D. Does that make me the most boring person ever? Good! Now let me finish my soup.

3.
I really thought that was a real tiger. I told my wife, "Man I can't believe that tiger." She said, "I know." I said,"I would have never gotten in that boat with a tiger!" She said,"With a cartoon tiger?" I said, "whatthahuh?"

4.
Richard Servello worked on the VFX and did a freaking crazy great job. Who's he you ask? Well he was one of the awesome dudes that swung in out of a digital tree and saved my ass back in 06 when I was finishing my ode to chicken movie and had no visual effects. Seriously, it was ridiculous: people running around playing guns, going pew pew pew. He was in Fort Lauderdale, I was in Atlanta, this is pre Facebook, so it was all a series of emails that ended with a reel of rad effect shots that I cut into the flick. And as thanks for all his hard work Richard has been taking the flack for all the crappy effects that I did myself and cut into the movie as an after thought. Life of Pi may have had some cool effects, but it was the Servello Factor that gave it the edge needed to bring home Oscar. That's the truth, Ruth.

5.
Ang Lee makes a family film and fills it with crazy LSD imagery  It's like that drunk elephant scene in Dumbo. You never know what that Ang Lee is going to do. He's pretty tricky that Ang Lee. Though this is perfect for Ang. He likes to make movies where people sit and stare and think about stuff. A big kung fu movie? Sure, as long as the warriors can sit down and sip tea for half the movie. Hulk? Can we show him meditate in the desert, admiring the way the sediment creates designs in the rocks? Sure Ang, whatever you want to do. Here is his ultimate movie because it's just some guy on a boat thinking about deep important spiritual questions. Ya know, for kids!

6.
And they advertised as a family film? I wouldn't know what to call it myself. Had I taken my kids though they would have rioted and started eating the other families in the theater.

7.
Spirituality. Religion. The big tapestry of life. Is there a great plan in the universe? Why are we here? Why do we believe what we do? Truth? Is there such a thing? I think the movie is trying to say... Look! A CG Monkey!

8.
But seriously folks, the movie gives every side a voice so what could have been shameless soap boxing came out even headed and thoughtful. And they even through in some bumper sticker platitudes that you can rattle of at your next dinner party.

9.
I can see why James Cameron was all over this. A boat sinks and there is a lot of day-glow raver sea life everywhere.

10.
Being stranded at sea is the most terrifying thing I can think of. That and being trapped in a coal mine. Oh, and being tortured in a prison. Oh, and being in one of those rooms that fill up with water. Eaten by a shark? Not so much. I think the whole time you'd be so surprised that it was happening it'd be over before you could rap your head around it. Underneath all the screaming and flailing my mind would be going,"So this is it? I'm getting eaten by a shark. Never saw that coming."

Showstopper! - That lotus flour on the island. What? It's Ang Lee! What were you expecting?

Rash Ramblings - Antiviral!

Long live the new Cronenflesh!

Do you remember when eXsistenZ came out and that awesome scene happened when Jude Law ate the fish and then turned the fish bones into a gun? Remember that warm feeling you got and just sat back in your movie chair and grinned and stepped out side your body, looked around and felt peace, inner peace because all was right in the world. Cronenberg is being freaky and there is balance in the universe.

So now David has gotten all that bio-horror out of his system, and who can blame him. After Videodrome, there is nothing more you can do with it. I would have retired after Videodrome. That movie ruins all bio horror, everything is "kinda like Videodrome" after that. Cronenberg owns the market. Or he did. Now he makes SMART IMPORTANT movies for SMART IMPORTANT people. That's great. Go for it. But sometimes I just want to see someones face pop open and a bunch of rubber snakes jump out.

With all that out in the open, I am thrilled that Antiviral is getting a little release in theaters. Son of Cronenberg has taken the terrible childhood that came from being Son of Cronenberg and redirected all those embarrassing moments into a film career.

You think your childhood was rough? Can you imagine what being raised by David "look into my skin gap" Cronenberg must have been like? Never inviting friends over. Never getting too close to people. Talking about your home life and watching people's faces go grey and slack as they slowly slink away. And not to mention when you hit puberty and David Cronenberg is up to bat to tell you what sex is all about. Nightmares upon nightmares.

I am happy that Brandon Cronenberg was released from the mental institution long enough to make a movie. Maybe he will be allowed to make a few more before the voices and dream monsters crowd out his field of vision. Doing this stuff can be therapeutic. I hope making these movies gives him some peace.

I can't wait to see it.

One last thought, does he run up to Dad Cronenberg with a DVD and go, "Look what I made! It's all your fault! Look what you did to me!"

SD

Ten QUICK Things on Clown Versus Monkey Part 3.

1. On schedule for the screening on the 25th.

2. You will see Shrieker this episode.

3. Moved around dialog today.

4. Here is a pick of the production spread sheet for this episode. It looks more crowded then it really is.

5. This episode you will meet Sluggo, the disillusioned clown who shuffles through his day job as a bug exterminator.

6. This will show the first example of UK Animator Rory Bink's work. We met through Satanic Chicken and he donated some animated hamsters.

7. A little trailer is in the works.

8. Love making these into little chunks. Little chunks are how we are going to start doing stuff.

9. The next project is like a Gothic decent into weirdness that I am designing with coffee bud Brad Bates. It is kinda like a Lovecraft thing, but with rod puppets and constructed backgrounds.

10. I like cereal.

SD

Ten Random Thoughts on EVENT HORIZON '97

1. Remember when this movie was awesome? Me too! Saw this when it came out and there were high fives all around. Alas, some movies should just stay in your brain as a nostalgia.

2. Plaza Theater showed this 4/9/13 as part of their Splatter Cinema series. So it played to a theater of enthusiastic fans, maybe 35 people. 35 people for a 16 year old Paul WS Anderson movie? The reaction to the film was stifled laughter. I really had to bite my hand through out the flick to keep from being the big loud Max Cady in the room. But it was tough man. Really one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

3. Remember how awesome the beginning of Blade was? I know! Very cool. Yet! Last time I watched Blade all I could think about in that first scene was a) if you lived forever, wouldn't you eventually get sick of techno and b) look at that freaking leather beret that guy is wearing, Blade should let him die. What does that have to do with Event Horizon? This! Don't rewatch movies you liked in the '90s. For God's sake, never watch The Crow again. You will start recalculating your entire life.

4. I will say that Plaza puts on a good show and I met the GM, a guy named John who is a real 35mm nut, the Plaza being one of the few remaining 35mm Projector theaters left in the area. So I have found a good home for the boxes and boxes of 35mm trailers I pilfered from Riverdale Cinemas during my 5 year tenure as a projectionist BACK IN DA DAY!

5. The print for this movie was immaculate  It looked like a brand new strike, not something they found in someone's basement. So I like to talk about how much I love the new digital projectors. Nevermind all that. 35mm is better. So much better. A pristine 35 beats in the face of digital. Movies are dead. I'm not a snob, but movies are over. In between reels there was a contrast change and a emulsion difference  making the next reel more saturated and darker, and in that moment I realized how much I missed that, and then wept silent bitter tears that all that will be gone in another year or so. I know, go to bed old man.

6. So Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, Black Hole, The Shining, and Hellraiser were tossed onto a butcher's block and hacked into bloody meaty chunks, and then shuffled and randomly reassembled into a Frankenmovie. That is Event Horizon. I can't hate it. What we have here is a big giant multi-million dollar fan film. It is wet with fanboy drool. Soaked. I know geek people hate on P.W.S. Anderson. But I "get him". He is a big kid, playing with the best toys, and making movies that are so high on geeking out all over themselves that being a good movie is an after thought. You got to be 14 years old while watching his movies, gorged out on comics and video games and sugar and horror movies. He is exactly the filmmaker we would have been at that age. He is living it. And he gets to wake up next to Mia Jovovich. Hate may be too light of a word.

7. I will say this, the production design and art direction of the Event Horizon ship is the star of the movie. Everything is dwarfed by that ship, no matter how loudly it tries to scream over it.

8. Every element is trying to scream over the other. The movie gets louder and bigger and wackier minute by minute. Every scene is trying so hard, throwing every trick in the book to make it dramatic and suspenseful  But instead of suspense  it becomes like a Schumacher Batman movie. Instead of atmosphere and dramatic weight we end up with disco on a pogo stick. If you can't be good, be loud.

9. Sparks + Fire + Everyone yelling + shaking the camera = awesome

10. Kathleen Quinlan acts circles around everyone in this. She is the only one that is a real person having a real experience. Everyone else is in comic book mode or on William Shatner overdrive.

SHOWSTOPPER - Fishburne's ridiculous big boy chair.

SHOWSTOPPER 2 - Neal's line, "Hell is but a word, the reality is much worse".

SHOWSTOPPER 3 - I need one of those spacesuits.

PAIR WELL WITH - Black Hole '79. Because that movie is awesome.

CLOWN VERSUS MONKEY: Clown Versus Monkey Thus Far

CLOWN VERSUS MONKEY: Clown Versus Monkey Thus Far: PART ONE! https://vimeo.com/53067955 PART TWO!! https://vimeo.com/62991099 PART THREE!!! Coming April 25th! http://blankstageprodu...

Clown Versus Monkey Thus Far

I took it all down, going to re-release in little chunks. Dig it!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDACEBCC010A757E6


PART THREE!!!
Coming April 25th!
http://blankstageproductions.com/get-connected-thursday-april-25-theater-crew-month/

Cameron made a scarecrow

10 Random Thoughts on Stoker (2013)

1. Chan-wook Park! Pound for pound the best guy making movies these days.

2. I would be very careful who I'd recommend this movie to. It's one of those friendship killing movies. I loved it, but would only recommend it to people in prison.

3. I forgot Nicole Kidman can act. Here she plays a long suffering lady who was trapped in a loveless marriage .. hey, wait a second!

4. Nicole Kidman has been 33 for the last 20 years.

5. I have never seen a movie with this look. Everything is starched and ironed, fresh from the cleaners. And powder blues, beige  and fresh white paint. I loved the art direction here, it almost was like animation how everything was of such a singular aesthetic. There is a lot to look at and it was all perfect.

6. Raise a glass to graphic match editing.

7. The uncle, Matthew Goode, has that wierd Heaven's Gate cult leader thing going on. His performance is incredible.

8. Mia Wasikowska, creepy girls will love her.

9. Nothing happens in this movie for 45 minutes, and you may start fidgeting thinking that this is Chan-wook Park's sterile, overly manored bid for Hollywood cash. But then the movie starts twisting it up, and doesn't stop, and I watched a lot of it through my fingers.

10. This movie has autism.

showstopper 1 - staircase and letters, I went woo-hoo!

showstopper 2 - a little speech on having kids

showstopper 3 - the stunned and dazed audiance staggering out of the theater

Everyone came out to clown versus monkey haha

Snaaaaake Plissken, I heard of you.

Ten Rambling Observations on REC 3!

1. Great transition from hand held camcorders to "movie vision". Something that has been needed to be addressed in these found footage movies is brought up and I thank the filmmakers for putting it in the movie.

2. The happy young couple are great! I could feel the love.

3. The wedding setting was awesome.

4. At one point, we get people in Midieval armor facing down the zombies, and that was great. It was like chivalry is not dead.

5. Along those lines, the movie descends into Medieval imagery as it progresses and its world comes apart. This could have been set in that time period. Just replace the chainsaw with a battle ax.

6. I like how the zombies are infected with old school demons. Very European of this movie. In the American remake of the series, this is all just another rage virus thing.

7. The way they freeze up the possessed is very in line with Biblical scripture. Not that this is a religious movie, Kirk Cameron isn't in it, but if you are going to do a demon movie, might as well get your story straight.

8. Along those lines, this is a super demon possession mega zombie virus that kills your body and fills it with a demon (i think) and that is a cool idea. The movie makes a statement about using secular machine guns against amped up flesh bags of bad mojo. So, a good movie to show your Sunday school class.

9. The ending I loved, this whole thing had a great vibe about being in love and family and what not. That it took place at a wedding, it made all the deaths better because you knew it was cousins killing uncles and and aunts killing nephews. You gotta dig how sick that is.

10. That being said. Zombies are not scary at all. Not after the last decade of ultra saturation. Heck, even Romero can't do it anymore. The only effective zombies are on Walking Dead (when they actually show up). But this has been done to undeath. I'm ready for Bigfoot saturation or something else. But I feel this way about most things. Slashers and vampires and ghouls. All this stuff is fun, but I guess staring into my own mortality and worrying about my family and parents and the seeming instability of the planet scares me now. So demon-zombies seem silly to me.

Showstopper - She does sport a mean chainsaw.

Showstopper 2 - the last shot in the movie (so literally this time)

Ten Reasons to See: John Dies at the End (2012)

1.  It made me think about this brave new HD world we live in where directors, ones who don’t guarantee huge box office, can get their films in an actual movie theater for people to see. This was shot and cut and shipped digitally to the Atlanta Midtown Art Cinema for what will be a week long run, just long enough for the real freaks and die hards to come see it. That for me blows my mind. I am a believer that you never really have seen a film until you see it in a theater. Hats off to Magnet for putting this out, if only so people like me would go see it.

2. Paul Giovanni. I could watch Giovanni do this type of stuff for ever. The only time I was thrown off the Giovanni train was his “furrowed brow” performance of some evil English King in some Netflix medieval movie (exhaustively researched sentence). Other than that one movie, P-Gi runs the circus for me. First time I’ve been this devoted to an actor since Turturro and Buscemi hit the scene back in the 90s. And he is a total Coscarelli fanboy, producing this movie and being one of the rebel rousers for Bubba Nosferatu  where he would play Colonel Tom Parker. Man I want to see that. If he did a movie with my favorite actress, Emily Mortimer, that would be on an internal loop in my house.

3. I have to say something about the digital stuff again. I am all about it, especially the colors maaaan, the colors. They are so vivid and gorgeous, I love’m. Other than that, we are dealing with something that is too perfect looking. I see so much detail in the frame; it can be rough to know what I’m supposed to look at. It’s too much info. I wish they could scale it back some. I get thrown by being able to see each individual pit on a cinderblock wall and every pour in an actor’s nose, not to mention them sweating through the makeup. This feels less like painting and more like pornography.

4. Wow! Coscarelli! Other directors take note. Cronenberg may be awesome and making movies for critics and grownups these days, but I am much more interested with what D-Cos has become. He is still pushing boundaries, still making interesting movies in our beloved genre, and doing it with an eye and certainty that these low budget movies rarely can afford. It was looking rough around the times of Phantasm 4, a cheap movie that was padded out with unused footage from the original. What an awesome bounce he is experiencing, starting with Bubba HoTep. With that movie, we have a precedence for our aging hero directors. Fans will follow them into unknown territory just so long as they retain their voice and keep their eyes intact. His movies now remind me of the Alive Pictures that Carpenter and Craven did in the late 80s, early 90s. Those were movies that had lower budgets, more directorial control. With Bubba and JDAE, Coscarelli has taken that model to the next level.  

5. This felt very Phantasm to me. It dealt with alternate dimension invaders and followed dream logic. The two leads make some homemade weapons and there are evil doubles and what not. It was D-Cos mixing his Phantasm troupes into a new narrative and just making something new and cool. This had an energy and drive that was lacking in Bubba for me. This is the kind of movie I want from this dude. Double this movie up with Phantasm 2, and then invite me over and feed me.

6. A lot of credit has to go to the book. The author David Wong is getting a lot of praise from internet circles and if you do a Google search for “best new horror novels”,  John Dies at the End is on all the lists that come up. His articles on Cracked.com are hysterical and so I’ll be grabbing the book soon. Didn’t read it before because it’s too much pressure on a movie to try to live up to your perception of the book. And movies always have a train to catch so they never spend enough time on the stuff I like, so whatever. The Shining, love that movie. Psycho, love that movie. But after reading the books I can’t help but feel the movies are weird little alternate dimensional visions of the story. I know Stephen King went back to “do the book”, but come on. The Wings guy? Are you serious? So now that I sound like one of those “not as good as the book” douches let’s move on.

7. Either you think women with missing limbs are hot or you don’t. I’m not going to make the argument here that you can’t have a truly beautiful house without a hole in the wall. That’s just an uphill fight, and you can’t make someone agree on that no matter what your logic is. All I’m saying is that when I see Fabianne Therese again in a movie, I’m going to be a little disappointed that she has all her limbs. Don’t look at me like that.

8. This movie has a really fun Ghostbusters seen through slacker vision vibe to it. The leads are a likable due that sort of shrug their way through the movie. I like the style. It is like the show Raising Hope where everyone has the “hey, we’re just acting here” attitude. We all know it’s just a movie/show/performance, and no one is trying to convince you otherwise.  

9. So what are you going to do with these digital effects. Well, there is a lot of practical in here as well. So for the die hards you can latch on to that. The digital stuff here is pretty pretty Photoshop, not convincing at all (except for those flies, don’t watch the trailer, it gives away all the great effects and paints a bigger movie than it really is). It’s the concepts behind the effects that are strong enough that you can go with it. Think of this movie as an underground comic come to life and you’ll be fine. Sure the art may be primitive but the ideas are fresh.

10. At no point in this movie did I say, “oh I bet this is going to happen”. Never. The movie follows a train of thought for a bit and it seemed to psychically know when I was getting board because it would toss something at me that would make me laugh or go “ah-ha-clever” or through the plot into a totally different direction. So unpredictable, low budget, idea driven, horror, comedy, sci-fi, movie with Paul Giovanni. What do we have to do to entertain you people? Gawd!

SHOW STOPPER! How did this movie know I hated gnats? Thanks for that!

SHOW STOPPER 2!! Glynn Turnman as “Detective” and everything he says is gold. Again, don’t watch the trailer until after the movie.

SHOW STOPPER 3!!! The old mall location. Fantastic.

PAIRS WELL WITH: Phantasm 2, but I said that already.

Breakfast in Nilbog