iPod Shuffle - now in colors

See more about the new color Shuffles at the Apple web site.

Science Fiction Short Film Festival 2007

If you're in the Seattle area you might want to check out the 2007 Science Fiction Short Film Festival, playing this Saturday at the Cinerama Theater. I haven't seen any of the films in question but that's the nice thing about shorts – if one sucks, it'll be over soon and something better will come along.

B-Fest 2007 - immediate post-Fest report

I yet live.

More to come.

Gone to B-Fest . . .

But I leave you with a little something to share the experience vicariously if you can't make it.


See you on the flip side.

B-Fest 2007 Primer, Part 2

The serious weirdness kicks in with Street Trash, a movie about the evils of drinking. Drinking toxic mystery sludge, that is! What is the proprietor of a certain liquor store to do when he finds a case of "Viper" in his store? Why, sell it off cheap to the local homeless of course! Oh, wait -- it melts people? What a great premise for a movie! Watch for writer Roy Frumkes as "the businessman whose face is burned off by the melting bum on the fire escape." (Source: IMDb.) Think that's great? There's even a 2-hour documentary about the making of the film called The Meltdown Memoirs.

The Hypnotic Eye is a personal favorite this year – it's a quiet little movie about a small-town police detective who finds himself investigating a stage hypnotist. The hypnotist, a heavily-accented Frenchman (I think) whose stage presence consists mostly of saying the same words louder and more urgently, may or may not be involved in a series of self-mutilation cases. The only way to know for sure is for the detective to allow his girlfriend to use herself as bait. It's not what you'd call art but it is a tight little low-budget, high-concept drama made ever-so-slightly cheesy by some over-the-top acting and the presence of Allison Hayes as the hypnotist's stage assistant. Sadly, The Hypnotic Eye isn't yet available on legit DVD.

Krull is the second '80s fantasy flick of the bunch, and I'm looking forward to hearing some good jokes at its expense. Lord knows there's not much entertainment value to it otherwise. Read the review of Krull at Stomp Tokyo.



Huzzah! Tarantula is the first giant monster movie in this year's lineup, unless you count the brief appearance of a giant crystal spider in Krull. I don't. This flick is pretty straightforward - mad scientist creates growth formula to help the world, spider gets hold of it and terrorizes mankind. Good stuff.

This year we get a lunch break instead of a breakfast break. The cafeteria will actually be open for business at that hour. Go fig!

Is your tummy full? Are you ready for a nap? Good, because the juvenile delinquent "thriller" Teenage Doll (aka Young Rebels) seems an unlikely candidate to stave off those forty winks. Roger Corman directed this picture about a young woman caught between two rival gangs. It's actually earned some faint praise from a few critics, but c'mon – we know better. Roger Corman was involved.

Feeling refreshed? Then it's time for some Chuck Norris! Invasion USA stars the Chuckster as an ex-CIA agent who returns to duty (I guess) to fight terrorism on home soil. If someone doesn't have Chuck Norris facts written up on posterboard for prominent display at the right moments during the film, I will be deeply disappointed. The only thing I really know about this film is that a defunct shopping mall in my hometown (Decatur, GA) was used for the terror-in-the-mall sequence, and that some of my classmates were extras. Oh yeah, and Richard Lynch is the bad guy. Really, what else was he going to do with that face but play bad guys?

We're rounding the corner with Mystery Short #3, and barreling our way into the home stretch with The Incredible Melting Man. Remember the melting people in Street Trash? Well apparently we get to watch at least one more person reduced to goo. Haven't seen this one (I'm not even sure the product behind that Amazon link is actually a legitimate release), but I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.


The final film of our movie marathon is King Kong vs. Godzilla, quite possibly the greatest giant monster battle ever committed to celluloid. OK, maybe not, but it's certainly the most recognizable. The monster suits are ridiculous and the plot only barely makes sense, but the film is big, fun, loud, and colorful – which is all that matters for the final film of any B-Fest. It's been much too long since a classic Godzilla film sat in the final slot of our beloved film festival. Godzilla '85 rounded out B-Fest 2003 and Godzilla 2000 closed B-Fest 2002, but the screening of Mothra back in 2001 was the last vintage Toho picture to bring down the curtain on a B-Fest. (And let me tell you, until you've seen Mothra projected in 35 millimeter in front of hundreds of sleep-deprived, deranged movie geeks – well, consider your Mothra experience incomplete.) This lack of Godzilla is entirely due to the rapidly vanishing film prints and not any particular desire on the part of A&O to exclude the Big G from the proceedings. Digital projection may come to our rescue, but the fact that B-Fest is no longer exclusively a film event will make that victory bittersweet.

So that's it, kids: B-Fest 2007 in a nutshell. As I type my bags are packed, my iPod charged for the plane, and my nerves all aquiver. Some people dig Christmas. For me, it's B-Fest. I can't wait. See you there.

Technorati Tags: b-fest, b-movies

B-Fest 2007 Primer, Part 1

It's during this time of the year that much of the film industry – including many of my fellow (and better-read) film bloggers – trundle off to the freezing wastes of Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. I'll admit a certain amount of jealousy at this. A healthy fraction of the year's best independent films make their first appearances in Park City, and I'd love to fight the crowds and inhale the reality distortion that surrounds the nation's most prestigious independent film festival.There's just one problem: B-Fest.

My beloved B-Fest – that annual 24-hour marathon of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror movies at Northwestern University – takes place during the second weekend of Sundance. The idea of missing the annual pilgrimage to those other snowy wastes (Evanston, IL) is as foreign to me as the thought of spending gobs of money to be part of the indie mob in Utah. Fortunately, until someone pays me to attend Sundance I don't have to choose. B-Fest wins.

This year's Fest has all the earmarks of a classic; organizers Wyatt Ollestad and Mona Yeh have pulled out all the stops and plunged deep into the catalogs of the campus film distributors to create a properly balanced B-Fest schedule. (The practice of allowing sponsors to pick films has been discontinued, allowing the festival chairs to more deliberately craft a program.) Of the fourteen feature films appearing at this year's B-Fest seven are in color and seven in black and white. We have good variation in genres, decades, and styles. Those who found last year's schedule too modern will heave a sigh of relief at the fact that there are a mere four pictures in the schedule made after 1980. It is, all in all, a very good thing.

As with last year, I will dispense with a B-Fest post-mortem and trump all those after-the-fact diarists with a B-Fest preview. This year's may be somewhat shorter than last due to time constraints, but I'll do my best to do each picture justice. Let's get started. You can follow along by consulting the festival calendar.

The first film on the docket will be familiar to most (if not all) of the auditorium's inhabitants. It's The Brain That Wouldn't Die, the movie that proves a little preparation and the right scientific know-how can overcome almost any problem. But hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Ahead! Bwa-ha!

Oh, never mind.

My own memories of this film focus mainly on the fact that, apart from the obvious obscenity of keeping someone's decapitated head alive and talking on a cookie sheet, the head in question is pretty unpleasant. Plus there's the horrible creature lurking behind the reinforced door. Like a single one of those doors ever failed to give way by the end of the movie.

All in all, a pretty good start for the event - black and white, classic, well-liked. Please, do your fellow audience members a favor and don't memorize the MST3K version of this or any other film at B-Fest before you arrive. The cute girl sitting in the next row up has seen that episode too, and she considers you completely pathetic for using their material.

Lest the masses find a black and white '60s yarn about a talking severed head too sedate, B-Fest pulls out the big guns with '80s fantasy-action fave The Beastmaster. Again, this one will be familiar to most of the crowd (in the '90s TBS played the picture so often that someone joked that the channel's initials stood for "The Beastmaster Station") but it is so ripe for the mocking that it's difficult to believe this won't be a hit. Marc Singer stars as the prince of prophecy blah blah animals blah blah Tanya Roberts topless.

After that, a mystery short, which is often the B-Fest staff's way of saying they don't know which shorts they'll get or will want to play in what order. Will Gavotte make a reappearance? Are we to be subjected to cartoon porn again? How about those hilarious "animals that talk" shorts? Sadly for some yet happily for others, What is Communism? appears to be lost for good. (If you really want to see it, the short is available on the DVD collection Target You: Cold War Educational Films from the Golden Age of Homeland Security.)



Then it's back into the features with a good old-fashioned monster movie in 3-D. Last year we saw the original Creature from the Black Lagoon in 3-D, which didn't fit the "bad movie" bill quite as nicely as this year's feature, Revenge of the Creature in 3-D! This flick is essentially a remake of the original, but the Gillman is captured and taken to Florida before he begins his reign of terror and his crush on a new love object. Given that they filmed the darn movies in Florida to begin with, I suppose it only makes sense to set the story there. My experience is that the 3-D in these movies is usually only mildly effective at best, and brain-splittingly annoying at worst, especially if the 3-D effect is the red-blue kind that gets lost as the film ages and begins to turn pink. We'll see what kind of shape this print is in.

At 11 p.m. the room will catch its breath for a bit while the B-Fest organizers give away some free crap – keep track of your ticket in case they call your number.

After that it's straight into the evening's main events, at least in terms of tradition: The Wizard of Speed and Time and Plan 9 From Outer Space. What can I say that hasn't been said dozens of times before? I haven't made up my mind whether I'll be sitting through Plan 9 this year or not. It's been a few years since I've done that and my batteries may be recharged to the point that I can endure a B-Fest showing. The other option is to hang out in the lobby with members of the B-Movie Message Board (one of the few real opportunities to socialize during the festival), so I'm keeping that option open.


The film after Plan 9 has to be big and loud to keep folks awake, and it looks like Savage Sisters, this year's exploitation flick, will perform admirably. Eddie Romero (The Twilight People, Mad Doctor of Blood Island) may be trying to catch that Black Mama, White Mama lightning in a bottle, but who can blame him for trying? Succeed or fail, the results will probably be entertaining. Gloria Hendry (Black Belt Jones, Black Caesar) and Cheri Caffaro (Ginger, The Abductors) provide the ass while Sid Haig and Vic Diaz bring the sass. I don't even know what that means, but it rhymes so I'm keeping it.

Mystery Short #2 (if they told you, they'd have to kill you) bridges the gap between Savage Sisters and the film to which I'm least looking forward, Invasion of the Star Creatures. Don't get me wrong, it's perfect B-Fest fodder. It's just that Invasion is a tame '60s comedy of the sexes in the same vein as Sex Kittens Go to College. It's also in black and white and scheduled to start at three in the morning, all of which adds up to Zzzzzzzz....

Next: melting hoboes and hypnotic eyes!

Technorati Tags: b-fest, independent film

Fun with the blogosphere

#1. The only word dumber than "blog" is "blogosphere." OK, and maybe "blogroll."

#2. I regularly use web searches to find out when other people write about key phrases like "ultraman" and "B-Fest." In the case of B-Fest, I came upon this – which immediately made me think about this.

Silly blogger, B-Fest isn't about proving one's superiority to the movies. It's about your friends making Dr. Pepper snort out of your nose at 4:30 in the morning while two hundred strangers sit around you in the dark. (I hasten to add that I'm not criticizing Jason's position. I just don't share it.)

Just four days left.

Technorati Tags: b-fest

First Life

I will comment to say only that this is totally hilarious.

If you don't get it, feel grateful. You don't want to know.

Yay! Dwight's back.

Color me relieved; I was afraid that Dwight's absence from Dunder-Mifflin would be an extended one and that we'd have to suffer without him for a while.

Oh. Did I forget to mention that I was converted to "The Office" in December and watched all of the existing episodes (some of them twice, as I eventually converted my wife) in the space of a month?

Cuz, yeah, that happened.

My theory is that Dwight is the show's actual protagonist. Everything else revolves around him. So far recent episodes are bearing out that theory. So I'm happy.

Pepto Monsters on YouTube - finally!

I've been waiting for the Pepto-Bismol "giant monsters" commercial to show up on YouTube, and now it finally has.


The theme song is completely obnoxious, but it's always fun to see giant monsters in a commercial. The five "monsters" featured here are Paul Bunyan (?), the 50-Foot Woman in a toga, a brown spiky-headed Godzilla-type lizard, a giant fly creature, and a giant belching robot. And they all dance that strange Macarena-like dance that indicates they need Pepto. 100% awesome.

Windows 386 Promo Video

Stick around past the seven minute mark. You won't be sorry, particularly if you heart the '80s.

Microsoft Windows 386 Promo Video on Google Video.

[via Daring Fireball]

Cinematical spins off independent film news as CineIndie

It's a great idea with a terrible name – separate your independent film coverage from your mainstream/studio coverage so the two camps can be free of the news that doesn't concern them. Hopefully this will allow for more in-depth coverage of the independent scene as well – not that Cinematical was lacking in depth, but clearly there's a lot more going on in independent film than the articles that grace their pages each week.

CineIndie (ugh - I might even have preferred IndieMatical) begins its run at just the right time as the Sundance Film Festival begins. (A nicely calculated move.)

Visit indie.cinematical.com now.

Technorati Tags: cinematical, independent film

There will be no "TriStar Godzilla 2"

...and a sigh of relief was heaved by geeks everywhere.

Last month the German movie news website Cinetech reported that Sony Pictures was considering a sequel to their American version of GODZILLA (1998) for the summer of 2009. Today, reps from Sony stated that there is nothing to the story, and the studio has no plans to make another Godzilla film.

Read the complete article about the rumored Godzilla 2 at Sci-Fi Japan.

If you have it, you're Bruce Campbell.

The man truly is a god among us.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

Do I wish I had an Xbox 360? Well, we're getting close.

The odds may seem stacked against you, but with a little firepower, a lowly man can slay the world’s most dangerous beasts. As you trudge through the knee-deep snow of this frozen wasteland, you’ll cross paths with a gigantic moth outfitted with heat-seeking missiles, a hyperactive worm that will devour you in seconds, and an agitated tortoise that makes Gamera look like a docile aquarium-bound pet.

Read the full review at Game Informer.

Nerds Unite!

Another great shirt from Threadless. Nerds, assembled Voltron-like, into a giant monster! I love it. Also, check out the 3-D glasses on the guy to the left in the photo. Nice.

LG to offer dual format HD DVD / Blu-ray player

File this one under "well, duh."

LG Electronics will begin selling a dual-format high definition player designed to call a truce in the continuing war between rival DVD formats.

The model BH100, dubbed "Super Multi Blue," will play discs in the Blu-ray format, backed by a group led by Sony Corp. LG is a member of the Blu-ray consortium. It will also play discs in the rival HD DVD format, which is backed by a consortium headed by Toshiba Corp.

The plot thickens, however:

But while it will display the full range of interactive features contained on Blu-ray discs, such as menus that appear while the film is playing, it will not play similar interactive elements contained on HD DVD discs.

It remains to be seen whether such "interactive features" really matter in the format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray. How many people actually listen to the commentaries or fiddle with the DVD-ROM features of the regular DVDs they buy now?

If I had to make a guess as to which format will be left standing when the dust settles, I'd have to put my money on Blu-ray (despite its stupid name). Sony is really getting its foot in the door with the Blu-ray drive in its PS3 systems, in terms of mindshare if not in terms of units actually shipped. More telling is the fact that Apple Computer has put its flag down on the side of Blu-ray – I wouldn't be surprised see some new Pro level Macs with Blu-ray drives introduced when Steve Jobs gives his big Macworld keynote address on Tuesday. Apple may not be the biggest computer manufacturer around, but the eyes of the tech world are definitely upon them.

Tori Spelling's "Cthulhu"

I don't know much about Lovecraft, but I know what scares the bejeezus out of me.

A Lovecraft movie starring Tori Spelling seems about right.

See "Bad Ronald" in a theater!

We all have films that we see as kids that haunt us for the rest of our lives. Years ago, Bad Ronald crawled into the recesses of my friend Loren's brain and it's been there ever since. If only Loren could come to Austin in late February – she could see it on the big screen, projected on film and everything. (Which is kind of odd, given that I think it was made for TV.)

That's just one week in the Weird Wednesday lineup for February and March, which host Lars posted on the Weird Wednesday Myspace page today.

Read the Stomp Tokyo review of Bad Ronald.

Shatner DVD Club shuts down

The ill-conceived William Shatner DVD Club has quietly closed its doors. Guess no one was interested in receiving Sci-Fi Channel originals and re-issued b-movies on a subscription basis, no matter how low the price.

B-Fest tickets still available

If you're tuned in to the B-Fest web site, you know that tickets to the annual event went on sale yesterday. Because of the increased coverage and internet hype about B-Fest tickets have become a precious commodity. Two years ago, the festival sold out in two days. Last year, the event sold out in just a few hours. This year, in an interesting reversal of the trend, there are still tickets available today. (I just called the box office a little before 1 p.m. CST.)

There are any number of reasons for the decline in demand for tickets (last year's controversial lineup, the earlier on-sale date, attendees discouraged by the recent years' scarcity of seats) but I'm curious to see how long it takes before the last seat is sold. Today? Tomorrow? Next week?

Reeler's Top 10 of Top 10 Lists of 2006

And I thought I hated Top Ten lists.

Just the possibility of ending up on the Reeler's Top 10 of Top 10 Lists of 2006 is reason enough not to write one – S.T. VanAirsdale takes critics big and small to task for top ten lists he finds self-serving, timid, or just plain boring. It's the only Top 10 list of the year I actually enjoyed reading.

Introducing the new Jabootu

Fans of Ken Begg's work at Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension will be excited to learn that the site has undergone a complete relaunch at jabootu.net. (The old site still stands at jabootu.com.) The monstrously long reviews, the more manageable nuggets, and the still quite lengthy blog entries have all been consolidated on one site in an attractive three-column format by Chris Magyar (formerly the TV writer for Stomp Tokyo), who has more mad WordPress skills than I previously suspected. Don't forget to check out the top bar to switch themes from the default "Segal" to see how the site looks under the watchful eye of other b-movie immortals.

Kudos to Chris and congratulations to Ken for nearly ten years of inimitable work in the unenviable world of b-movie criticism.