Links links links

How to write every episode of Dr House, ever.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/write-your-own-house-episode/

George W Bush, movie producer. Perhaps something to fall back on now he is out of a day job.
http://www.psychotronicvideo.com/wow/bush/bush.html

Incredibly Strange Television

If you are a fan of The Incredibly Strange Film Festival, Xmas is coming early this year.


The brains behind the ISFF have a midnight-madness style TV show starting November 15 on MGM on Sky New Zealand. Two movies plus bonus weirdness every Saturday. Check out the quote below.
http://www.incrediblystrange.co.nz/tv/intro/


As part of the build up, there is a call to produce on air Incredibly Strange Television bumpers. Being an Evil Genius I have gone to the extra evil genius lengths of doing a couple of these in anaglyph (red/blue) 3d!

Embiggen the images below and watch them pop off the screen!

Bumpers should be linked here:
http://www.incrediblystrange.co.nz/tv/media/

My youtube compressed video insanity should be available here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/dazzleeh

Not Quite Hollywood - 2008

Incredibly Strange Film Festival

Not Quite Hollywood

One line review: The ultimate DVD extra to the ultimate never issued DVD box set of Australian exploitation films, Highly Recommended.

Look, here is the trailer. It has tits, blood, guns, car wrecks, kung fu, rock guitars and things exploding. All the stuff that makes trash cinema AWESOME. Probably not a work safe link.

www.notquitehollywood.com.au

If you liked the trailer, you will love the movie. If you don't like the trailer, there is probably entire sections of the dvd store you should just avoid.

Not Quite Hollywood is a documentary about the best of the 'worst' of Australian film making. It is authoritative, funny, exciting and will leave you with a LONG list of movies to track down and check out. From it I learned:

-Quentin Tarantino knows his exploitation movies (and he completely nails it as to why we watch these movies)
-Dennis Hopper was one psycho wing nut
-John Holmes had one monster dick
-Aussie stuntmen were gonzo
-Barry Humphries/Dame Edna has a razor sharp sense of humour
-Turkey Shoot - 1982 - is one of the greatest trash exploitation movies of all time - but probably was not worth shooting a stuntman over.
-You must be doing something right to get the Italian exploitation film industry making unauthorised spin offs of your movies
-Aussie stuntmen were REALLY gonzo (STUNT ROCK)
-Many of the behind the camera crews are still very proud of the movies they produced
-Some actresses are not so proud of the movies they stared in

Australia seems to have gone through all the same phases of establishing a film industry that other western countries did. As talent tries to step up from local TV to the big screen, there are two ways to go, 'prestige' culturally approved and state backed, and the stuff that has to make money. And making money generally means, doing something that people can't see on the TV, racy enough to draw the punters yet still able to somehow get past the censors. You know, tits, blood, guns, car wrecks, kung fu, rock guitars and things exploding.

The progression always seems to be cheap softcore smut, leads to cheap smut comedy (softcore with a script), then faked mondo, international co productions, imported faded 'names' to boost international saleability and a descent into tax write off funding and dubious backers.

If you are any fan what so ever of exploitation cinema, you must see this. Then you will need to track down dozens and dozens of titles you have not seen before.

Crazy Love - 2007

New Zealand International Film Festival


Crazy Love - 2007


One line review: Jaw dropping, decades in the telling, tabloid fodder, love story documentary.



I double dog dare anyone to go to this as a first date movie. Particularly if the guy in this date scenario has a beard, thick glasses and dem crazy crazy eyes. See the picture above for reference. Things here get creepy enough as it is, but that would be icing on the cake.

This documentary certainly starts off like a conventional love story. Linda and Burt are now very much in their golden years, and recount on camera their initial courtship and subsequent relationship. But this is certainly not your grandparents love story. Unless your Grandparents have spent the last 50 years in the tabloids.

Try, well to do boy meets girl. Girl is impressed by his cars, nightclub and aircraft. Girl dumps boy when she discovers boy already has wife and child. Boy obsesses about girl. Boy hires thugs to blind girl when she gets engaged to someone else. Boy goes to jail, becomes prison house lawyer to fellow inmates. On release, boy proposes marriage in TV interview. Blinded girl eventually accepts. And things are just getting warmed up. All manner of craziness ensues.

This has just an amazing series of modern interviews with the couple and their long standing friends, combined with historical material. It is certainly an eye opener into the dating habits of New York in the 50's, if you can cope with geriatrics talking frankly about sex and romance.

Burt comes across at times as a lovable rogue, other times, an out and out psychopath. Linda comes across as pragmatic and strong willed, seemingly reconciled with being married for more than 30 years to the man who maimed her. Clearly they are complex personalities.

You could take half a hour from this documentary and make an super sweet couple in love story (beginning, end, and NONE of the middle). Or you could take a different half hour selection of clips and make a self made man fights corrupt system from within story. Or a look back at half century of fashion, as Linda was quite the clothes horse. Or you could take bits and make a documentary about the changes in tabloid journalism over half a century. The montage of news paper headlines alone is worth the price of admission. You wouldn't believe they were true, accept they are.

The end result manages to be both creepy and endearing all at the same time, and raises all manner of questions, the very least of which is what is the difference between homicidal obsession and life long love?

http://www.crazylovefilm.com/

The Escapist - 2008

New Zealand International Film Festival



One line review: Clever crime caper / Brit prison escape flic, Highly recommended.

Prison lifer Frank has had bad news from outside. After years of keeping his head down and nose clean, he wants out in a hurry. As things get progressively out of control he pulls together a diverse crew of cons for a daring escape.

Top shelf actors, excellent script, fantastic execution. It feels like a cross between Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Se7en. A range of cockney crim archetypes, with an underlying grimness and quite the ending. The movie hops back and forth between two time lines, the planning for the escape, and the escape itself. This is very well done, and adds a lot as both the planning and escape escalate and spiral badly. And the ending, well, it will certainly gives a fresh perspective on the story preceding it.

Highly recommended, particularly to fans of the Brit crime genre.

Fear(s) of the Dark - 2007

Incredibly Strange Film Festival
Fear(s) of the Dark - 2007
aka Peur(s) du noir

One line review: French, animated, black and white, horror anthology, if none of those words put you off, it is highly recommended.

Horror anthologies are nothing new, and done right they can be a lot of fun (Amicus, I am looking at you). On the plus side, it can be an interesting way to mount a series of thematically linked ideas, without having to stretch them out to feature length. On the negative, there will always be weaker stories that are shaded by the segments you preferred.

So, all the segments of this are animated, black and white, horror related and are in subtitled French. If you have a problem with any of those elements, you are in for a rough time. If you are intrigued by all those elements, this comes highly recommended.

From a traditional 2d, through highly abstract to new forms of cartoon rendered 3d, each segment has its own visual style. And each style is used to tell a different type of story. Luckily for me, my favourite segments were the first, with Charles Burns body horror insect story, and the last, a strong visually inventive haunted house story.

Check out the trailer link, check out the pictures, if they arouse your interest, check it out.


http://www.primalinea.com/pdn/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70oVIphkXcw

REC - 2008

Incredibly Strange Film Festival
REC - 2007

One line review: Blair Witch with BALLS. Spanish zombie fest. Recommended to see with an audience.

Perky Spanish reporter and her cameraman are on a late night reporting fluff piece down at the local fire station. They go on a routine call out with the fire crew to help an elderly lady trapped in her apartment. The elderly lady is not so much trapped, as infected. Things go from bad to worse, to much much worse.

Yep, cinéma vérité horror has been done before, and everyone seems to have their own spin on it. Give a character a reason to have a camera with them, then put em through hell. Cannibal Holocaust was convincing and gory enough that the director had to prove in court he had not actually killed his cast. Blair Witch had atmosphere to spare and stealth marketing that convinced many of its veracity and drove it to massive profitability. Cloverfield put the mega monster spin on things. The only thing all films in this sub genre have in common is, if they are done poorly it kills the suspension of disbelief, done properly the plausibility can freak an audience out, and if you suffer from motion sickness the camera work is going to make you suffer.

REC takes a long time to get going, but when it does, things get suitably bat shit crazy. Think fast zombies in enclosed spaces. This probably wouldn't be as good at home on DVD, but in an audience with a bit of group think going on, there will be people (like the couple next to me) literally on the edge of their seat. Check it out while you have the chance on the big screen. Hollywood is already shooting a remake that will be out before the end of the year ("Quarantine - 2008")

The originals always seem to be better. Very glad I saw this in its original form with an appreciative audience.