Mike Nelson's New Project

Mike Nelson best known for his work on Mystery Science Theater 3000 is about to start a new job as content producer with Legend Films. As part of his new position Mike will be writing and performing downloadable companion audio commentaries to various DVD releases called RiffTrax, commentaries play in sync with your DVD.

So far there is only one commentary at $1.99 available for the Patrick Swayze atrocity Roadhouse (any fans of Nelson know this is his least favorite movie of all time so it should be great fun).

A commentary for Luc Besson's Fifth Element is comming soon.

You can visit the RiffTrax website to learn a little more.

My latest piece of photoshop art...

I call it Aria in the Underworld.

  

Any Daily Show fans out there remember God Stuff?

God Stuff was a short regular segment on The Daily Show where John Bloom (AKA Joe Bob Briggs)would discuss religous topics with his own special brand of humor and sarcasim. I just found out someone has been archiving these on You Tube so I thought I would start posting them. Exciting.

God Stuff 1


God Stuff 2


God Stuff 3

Girls with Guns # 8: Sara Foster

Girls with Guns #8: Sara Foster from D.E.B.S
  

Clerks

Saw Clerks 2 last week and really loved it, any fans of Kevin Smith should check it out. In any case for all you Clerks fans out there who can't get enough here are some Clerks related videos.

Trooper Clerks:


Clerks 2, Ringers Blow Scene:


Brokeback Clerks (Cute but not laugh out loud funny):


Peanut Clerks:


Clerks 2/ Joel Siegel Trailer:

Office Space Meets Superfriends

Someone with too much time put a part of the Office Space soundtrack over one of the old Super Friends Cartoons. TPS reports have never been so funny.

Unemployed Skeletor's Blog of Evil: Part 4

Part 3 left off with Blog #9, I however will only be posting blogs 11, 14 & 15 today. You can find the rest on You Tube if your interested in more karaoke fun, I just thought 11 & 14 were the funniest and 15 is the next regular video blog so enjoy!

Unemployed Skeletor's Blog of Evil #11


Unemployed Skeletor's Blog of Evil #14


Unemployed Skeletor's Blog of Evil #15


Oh and if you've missed any of the blogs up through now I'll be putting links to my previous posts up on the sidebar so check em out, they're all really funny!

Overlooked Movies: The Devils

“Where do you draw the line? This is the way it happened – those nuns were used for political ends, toted round France as a side show for a year. Do you ignore the actual historical accuracy and the fact that the Church, the politicians and the aristocracy were corrupt? I get so angry with the opinion makers who class it with the sex films. If we ignore history because it was unpleasant we’re going to end up with nothing but nature films.” ~Oliver Reed on The Devils

Cardinal Richelieu and his power-hungry entourage seek to take control of pre-rennaisance France, but need to destroy Father Grandier - the priest who runs the fortified town that prevents them from exerting total control. So they seek to destroy him by setting him up as a warlock in control of a devil-possessed nunnery, the mother superior of which is sexually obsessed by him. A mad witch-hunter is brought in to gather evidence against the priest, ready for the big trial.

Taglines:
Hell holds no surprises for them.
Never had there been exorcisms like this.

Fun Trivia:
This film was banned from Italy and its stars Redgrave and Reed were threatened with three years' jail time if they set foot in that country. Oliver Reed described this as his best performance ever.

Derek Jarman's sets (the later director served as production designer on this film) are modeled on the sets of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). Ken Russell wanted to avoid the clichéd look of period films and insisted on anachronistic, even futuristic, design.

While preparing for the climactic demolition of the city walls, a technician mistook a signal from 'Ken Russell' and detonated the explosives before the cameras were rolling. A large chunk of the set had to be rebuilt.

The film's combination of religious themes and imagery combined with explicit sexual content was a test for the British Board of Film Classification that at the time was under pressure from socially conservative lobbying groups. In order to get an 'X' certificate Russell made sacrificial cuts of some of the nudity. The film was kept from home video distribution and television screening until the 1990s. A two-and-a-half-minute sequence depicting crazed naked nuns sexually assaulting a statue of Christ was removed at the studio's insistence before the film was submitted to the BBFC censors, who removed a further 89 seconds. All of this material was presumed lost or destroyed until critic Mark Kermode found the complete "Rape of Christ" sequence and several other deleted scenes in 2002. Although some material may have been lost forever, the NFT was able to show The Devils in the fullest possible state in 2004. The film has never been released on DVD and although Warner Bros announced that the film would be released an uncut version in 2006, it now appears highly unlikely that the film will ever be released on DVD. The reasons for this are unclear. This uncut version premiered at the Brussels International Festival Of Fantastic Film (BIFFF) in March 2006.

Click here to watch some of Oliver Reed's best acting:


Fun Quotes:
Grandier: Hold my hand. It's like touching the dead, isn't it?

Barre: Sin can be caught as easily as the plague.

Jeanne: They always spoke of your beauty, and now I see it with my own eyes and it is true.
Grandier: Look at this thing that I am and learn the meaning of love.

Jeanne: Oh, Christ, let me find a way to you. Take me in your sacred arms. Let the blood flow between us uniting us. (moans) Grandier. Grandier!

Grandier: Call me vain and proud, the greatest sinner ever to walk God's earth, but Satan's boy I could never be. I haven't the humility.

The Quotable Oliver Reed:
"You meet a better class of people in pubs."

"My only regret is that I didn't drink every pub dry and sleep with every woman on the planet."

"I'm not a villain, I've never hurt anyone. I'm just a tawdry character who explodes now and again."

"I'm not as thrilled with myself as I used to be."

"I like to give my inhibitions a bath now and then."

"I have made many serious statements-- I just can't remember any of them. I guess they mustn't have been very important..."

For Fans Only A documentary made about the film featuring Ken Russells, Vanessa Redgrave and others:

New Releases on DVD for 7/25/06

Slow week...

Halloween: 25 Years of Terror
A documentary that follows the evolution of the 'Halloween' movies over the past twenty-five years. It examines why the films are so popular and revisits many of the original locations used in the films - seeing the effects on the local community. For the first time, cast, crew, critics and fans join together in the ultimate 'Halloween' retrospective. Loaded with special features including:
"Horror's Hallowed Ground" featurette, "Fans of Halloween" featurette, Halloween II and Halloween III extended interviews, Halloween Convention Montage, Halloween I &II panel discussion, Dean Cundey panel discussion, Halloween producers panel discussion, Halloween location still gallery, Halloween Convention Behind-The-Scenes gallery, Original artwork gallery, Exclusive comic book inspired by the series

The Beast Must Die (Calvin Lockhart, Peter Cushing)
Tom Newcliffe, a rich businessman and expert hunter summons six guests to his huge country estate which he has rigged up with video cameras and a high-tech security system. He tells them and his surprised wife that they are all to stay over a weekend and that all of them will be kept on the estate during that weekend. For each guest, dead bodies have followed in their wake and the way that the dead have been murdered means that one of the guest is a werewolf and Tom has summoned his guests here to discover who it is and to hunt it down... The film has a clip at the beginning asking people in the audience to try to identify the werewolf and near the end there is a 30-second "Werewolf Break" for the audience to think over the evidence... No special features.

Tarzan and the Golden Lion (James Pierce, Boris Karloff)
Flora Hawks is in love with the overseer of Tarzan's African estate. After a search for a legendary city of diamonds, Tarzon races with his pet lion Jad-bal-ja to save Haws from being sacrificed to a lion-god.

Great Film Icons #2: Jim Henson

"The words say, 'It's not easy being green,' but the song is about knowing who you are. And in it you hear Jim's message most clearly. He believed that people are good and that they want to do their best and that no matter how or why we might be different from anybody else, we should learn to love who we are and be proud of it." ~Ray Charles

James Maury Henson was born on September 14th, 1936 in Greenville Mississipi his family later moving to Hyattsville, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., in the late 1940s. In 1954 while still in highschool Jim had his first brush with puppetry working for WTOP-TV creating puppets for a Saturday morning children's show and the year after that, his first in college he created Sam and Friends, a five-minute puppet show for WRC-TV. Sam and Friends were already recognizable Muppets, and the show included a primitive version of what would become Henson's signature character, Kermit the Frog. Already he was experimenting with the techniques that would change the way puppetry was used on television, notably using the frame defined by the camera shot to allow the puppeteer to work from off-camera.

His success with Sam and Dave led to a number of TV appearences as well as a series of hundreds of commercials for Wilkins Coffee. These commercials where ahead of their time featuring two puppets, Wilkins and Wontkins who violently convince you why you should drink Wilikins coffee. Being puppets, they have been able to get away with a greater level of slapstick violence than might be acceptable with human actors.

Click here to view just a few of them:


In 1963, Henson and his wife Jane, also a puppeteer, moved to New York City, where the newly formed Muppets, Inc. would reside for some time. Henson devised Rowlf, a piano-playing anthropomorphic dog, the first Muppet to make a regular appearance on a network show, The Jimmy Dean Show. At that time Henson's long-time partner Frank Oz also came on board with the new company.

In the mid sixties Henson explored the field of experimental film creating a series of short films including Timepiece (1966) & The Cube (1969). His films recieved a lot of critical interest and Timepiece was even nominated for an academy award.

Click here to watch Timepiece:


In 1968, Joan Ganz Cooney and the team at the Children's Television Workshop began work on Sesame Street, a visionary educational children's program for public television, and Henson was asked to create Muppets to use on the show. Henson agreed creating some of the best known children's characters of all time including, Oscar the Grouch, Ernie and Bert, Cookie Monster, and Big Bird. Kermit was also included as a roving Television News Reporter. Around this time, a frill was added around Kermit's neck to make him more frog-like. The collar was also used to cover the joint where the neck met the body of the Muppet. At first the puppetry was separated from the realistic segments on the street, but after a poor test screening in Philadelphia, the show was revamped to integrate the two and place much greater emphasis on Henson's work.

Click here to watch a classic scene from Sesame Street: Born to Add


In the 70's Henson, Oz, and his team targeted an adult audience with a series of sketches on Saturday Night Live, set mostly in the Land of Gorch. Eleven sketches aired between October 1975 and January 1976, with four additional appearances in March, April, May, and September. The SNL writers never got comfortable writing for the characters.

The failure of the Muppets on SNL might have been a blessing in disguise. Starting in 1976, The Muppet Show was occupying Henson's attention in the UK. The show featured Kermit as host, and a variety of other memorable characters including Miss Piggy, Gonzo the Great, and Fozzie Bear. A vaudeville-style variety show aimed at a family audience, the show was a sensation in the United Kingdom and soon elsewhere in the world.

The Muppet Show ended after five seasons, but the characters have appeared in a long series of movies, beginning with 1979's The Muppet Movie. (One song from that musical film, "The Rainbow Connection", sung by Kermit, was nominated for an Oscar) 1981's The Great Muppet Caper and The Muppets Take Manhattan in 1984.

Fozzie and Rowlf on The Muppet Show:


The Muppet characters have also appeared in a large number of made-for-TV-movies and television specials. TV movie specials called Tales From Muppetland which were hosted by Kermit the Frog. The series included Hey, Cinderella!, The Frog Prince and The Muppet Musicians of Bremen. These specials were comedic tellings of classic fairy-tale stories.
Created out of his mother's old coat and a ping-pong ball, Kermit the Frog, in the beginning was not a frog, but a lizard-like character. He gradually evolved, and first appeared as Kermit The Frog in "Hey Cinderella!" and has remained so ever since.

A scene from The Muppet Movie, I'm Going to go Back There Someday:


The Rat Skat from The Muppets Take Manhattan:


Henson was also responsible for two non-Muppet Show-related movies, 1982's high fantasy The Dark Crystal and the 1986 Labyrinth, co-produced by George Lucas. To provide a visual style distinct from the Muppets, the puppets in these two movies were based on conceptual artwork by Brian Froud. Henson also continued creating children's programs— Fraggle Rock and the animated Muppet Babies—and new prime-time ventures such as the folk tale and mythology-oriented The Storyteller.

Jim Henson died of sepsis caused by severe bacterial pneumonia at the age of 53 on May 16, 1990. He had been ill with walking pneumonia for several days before his death but never told anybody, not even his family, because, true to his character, he didn't want to be a burden to anybody. By the time he finally sought medical help, it was too late to do anything.

A memorial service for him aired on PBS and drew millions of viewers and dozens of celebrities in reverence for his life and work. As per Henson's wishes, no one in attendance wore black, and a Dixieland jazz band finished the service by performing "When The Saints Go Marching In."



On the DVD commentary for the movie Love Actually, director/writer Richard Curtis describes an episode at Henson's funeral:

"At the end of (the funeral)...Frank Oz was talking and he suddenly lifted up Kermit's puppet and started to sing this song called 'One Voice'. And it turned out that all the guys in the memorial service had brought their puppets with them, and they lifted them up, and when you turned around and looked backwards there were fifty puppets all singing. And Big Bird walked down the aisle of Saint Paul's Cathedral, and they all came forward and just this massive chorus of puppets all singing...It was an extraordinary thing..."

It's Not Easy being Green:

Girls with Guns #8: Masuimi Max

Girls with Guns #8: Masuimi Max
  

Unemployed Skeletor's Video Blog of Evil: Part 3

Here's part 3 of my Unemployed Skeletor video blog posts...these are so fucking great.

In case you missed parts one and two here are links.

Skeletor's Video Blog of Evil: Part 1
Skeletor's Video Blog of Evil: Part 2

Unemployed Skeletor's Blog of Evil #6


Unemployed Skeletor's Blog of Evil #7


Unemployed Skeletor's Blog of Evil #8

Overlooked Movies: The Omega Man

"It's a spooky feeling to screw Moses." ~Rosalind Cash on her love scenes with Charlton Heston

Robert Neville, a doctor,due to an experimental vaccine, is the only survivor of an apocalyptic war waged with biological weapons. The plague caused by the war has killed everyone else except for a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people calling themselves "The Family". The plague has caused them to become sensitive to light, as well as homicidally psychotic. They believe science and technology to be the cause of the war and their punishment, and Neville, as the last symbol of science, the old world, and a "user of the wheel", must die. Neville, using electricty, machinery, and science attempts to hold them at bay.

Click here to watch the trailer:


Taglines
The Last Man on Earth is Not Alone
Pray for the last man alive. Because he's not alone.
The World Is Dead. One Survivor. Then The Others. Cralwing In Darkness. The Strangest Sect Of All. *Hunting The Last Man On Earth.*

Fun Trivia
The production company wanted a set that looked like an abandoned metropolitan area, but it was too costly to build. The producer drove through downtown L.A. one weekend and discovered there were no shoppers, so the majority of the film's exterior was shot on location during the weekends.

The 8-track that Robert Neville puts into his car stereo at the beginning of the movie can very briefly be made out to be Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night". What actually plays on the soundtrack is Max Steiner's "Theme from 'A Summer Place'".

The director Boris Sagal is the father of Married with Children's Katie Sagal.

British studio Hammer had planned production of Matheson's own scripted version of "I am Legend" entitled "The Night Creatures". However, after being deemed too graphic by censors, the script was rejected and the project lingered, eventually dying.

Heston discovered the Matheson novel, devoured it on a lengthy airplane ride, and brought it to the attention of producer Walter Seltzer. Seltzer agreed the book would make an excellent film and proceeded to make a valuable contribution when he suggested they change the title from "I Am Legend" to the much more exotic-sounding "The Omega Man," a reference to the fact that omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. Incidentally, Seltzer would also go on to produce yet another Charlton Heston movie with a distressing view of the Earth's future, Soylent Green (1973), in which Edward G. Robinson's dying scene really was his dying scene (he died within hours, having told no one on the set ahead of time).

Fun Quotes
Robert Neville: [Talking to moldy corpse in car dealership] How much for a trade-in on my Ford? Oh, really? Thanks a lot, you cheating bastard...

Little Girl: Are you God?
Lisa: Let's find out if he's even a doctor before we go promoting him, okay?

Lisa: Is there anything you can do, DOCTOR, I mean, seeing as how you've lost over 200 million patients?

Lisa: It's OK, Tommy. This is the man... and I mean "The Man," but he's cool.

New on DVD 7/18/06

Here are the exciting new DVD releases from this week:

The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. - The Complete Series
Hired by local robber barons, Harvard Law Graduate Brisco County, Jr. searches for the members of the infamous John Bly gang, the same men who killed his father, a famous marshal and western legend. Accompanied by his one-time rival and fellow bounty hunter Lord Bowler, Brisco rides through the West trying to bring his father's killers to justice. Along the way, he encounters mysterious golden orbs with strange abilities and colorful characters who help or hinder his mission as he hunts down the Bly gang one by one.

The best role of the Bruce Campbell's career by far!

Special features include:
Commentary by Bruce Campbell and Carlton Cuse on the pilot
Brisco's Book of Coming Things: video catalog of the show's signature references to future items and ideas
"The History of Brisco County" - retrospective documentary
Tools of the Trade: interactive Brisco lore featurette gallery
A Reading from the Book of Bruce
A Brisco County Writer's Room: round table with key series creative personnel
Booklet liner notes by Bruce Campbell

Meet the Feebles
Heidi The Hippo, the star of the Meet The Feebles Variety Hour discovers her husband Bletch, The Walrus is cheating and with all the world waiting for the show the assorted co-stars must contend with their own problems. These include drug abuse, extortion, robbery, AIDS and even murder. While this is happening the love between two of the stars is threatened by the devious Trevor the Rat, who wishes to exploit the young starlet.

Peter Jackson's weirdest movie to date gets a terrible DVD release here with no special features. It's such a shame since a few years back a special edition of this film was promised but never released.

Astro Boy - Greatest Astro Adventures
The first ever Astro Boy series created in full color, takes viewers on an amazing journey showcasing the true meaning of being a hero. Astro Boy learns the importance of kindness, compassion and selflessness in the face of life’s obstacles. Children and adults alike will enjoy this very influential animated joy ride and cherish its timeless message of hope. When a brilliant robot engineer named Doctor Boynton looses his son Toby in a tragic accident, the dedicated but heartbroken scientist uses his technical skills to construct a robot in the boy's image. But hope was lost when he realized the robot could never fill the void left in his heart
No special features.

Jack of All Trades - The Complete Series
American spy/adventurer Jack Stiles is sent by Thomas Jefferson to the tiny South Pacific island of Polau Polau to work with British spy Emilia Rothschild to stop the advances of the French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte in his bid for world conquest.

Wow two Bruce Campbell TV series on DVD in one week! Jack of all Trades was an hilarious show from the people who made Hercules and Xena it's ashame however as with most of the releases this week it has no extra features.

Jokers and Aliens and Predators oh my!

A few years back an enthusiastic Batman fan dissapointed at what cinema had given us in the way of Batman decided to make his own $30,000 fan film. Some folks claim it's the greatest Batman film ever made others call it a piece of crap, check it out in all it's 8 minute glory and you be the judge.

Batman Dead End

Fun with Star Trek

G4 has been airing marathons of the original Star Trek every saturday and it's got me in a Trek mood, so I'm sharing some fun Star Trek clips I found on You Tube.

G4 Star Trek Commercial


Star Trek Cribs (The Director's Cut)


Commercial Break: Incubus Trailer (the only movie ever made in esperanto


Dilbert vs the 7 of 9 Alarm Clock


and as a bonus here is the fight scene from Amok Time (I just love that music!


and because I feel like such a fanboy at the moment here is the Fanboy episode of Freakazoid! I love that show!

What House of 1000 Corpses Character are You?

Take the quiz:
What house of 1000 corpses character are you?

Baby
This sexy blonde is just like her mother, Mother Firefly. She is cute, funny, and evil. She seems to be "murder buddies" with Otis. Oh and, her favorite movie star isn't Marilyn Monroe.

Quizzes by myYearbook.com -- the World's Biggest Yearbook!

Unemployed Skeletor's Video Blog of Evil: Part 2

Here is my second post of Unemployed Skeletor's hilarious Blog of Evil. If you missed part 1 you can click this link to check out the first two blogs.

Unemployed Skeletor's video blog of evil # 3


Unemployed Skeletor's video blog of evil # 4


Unemployed Skeletor's video blog of evil # 5

I'm sorry what did you say?

According to Starpulse psuedo-celebrity Paris Hilton thinks really skinny women are gross.

"A lot of women are too thin. I think the ones who are getting really skinny look gross."

Now call me a liar here if you think I'm wrong but isn't Paris Hilton a really skinny woman? Like so skinny you just want to shove a side of beef down her throat so she'll gain a couple of pounds and be a little less disgusting to look at? Just saying is all. and P.S. normally I wouldn't subject you to a picture of Paris Hilton but I thought it illustrated my point nicely. Look at her, she looks so weak she can barely stand under the "heft" of her own weight.

Recent Art Project

I have a lack of stuff to post tonight so I've decided to share a recent art project, enjoy!

  

Girls with Guns #7 Dita Von Teese

Girls with Guns #7, Dita Von Teese
  

The Pirates of Dark Water

Does anyone remember a show from maybe ten years ago called The Pirates of Dark Water?
When Ren, a young son of a lighthouse keeper, rescues a stranger foundering in the rocks near his home, he learns the man was an aide to his true father, a great king. Ren is given a magic compass crystal that guides him to a dragon who shows him that the only way to claim his heritage is to find the Thirteen Treasures of Rule. Unfortunately, a pirate ship captained by the evil Bloth is also aware of this treasure and is relentlessly pursuing Ren for it. On his side, Ren soon acquires companions like Ioz the Pirate, Tula the Eco-Mage and Nibbler the Monkey Bird who help him in his quest. That quest becomes all the more urgent when Ren learns that the Dark Water, a carnivorous form of water that consumes anything it snares, threatens to envelope and destroy his world and only the treasures he seeks can stop it.
The story was pretty much ripped off from Star Wars but it was still a really great show. The animation was bright, the characters well-rounded and the creatures/ monsters were really creatively conceived.

This is one of the many lost cartoons I wish would come out on DVD!

Click here to watch the opening:

Girls with Guns # 6: Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia

Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia
  

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Meets Gumby

Anyone out there remember the Gumby cartoon Robot Rumpus? It was the one where that lazy bastard Gumby has a ton of chores to do and too lazy to do them himself goes to the amazing trouble of building robots to do them for him. That seems like the logical thing to do right? Of course the robots don't exactly work the way they are supposed to and Gumby gets his ass beaten by his dad...or something like that.

Anyways click here to watch Robot Rumpus get the MST3K treatment.

You wouldn't see anything like this on TV today...

I had no idea this even existed until I ran across it on YouTube.

Flintstones Cartoon Winston cigarettes


I'm not sure what disturbs me more, smoking cartoons or the blatent disregard of the welfare of their wives.

Overlooked Movies: One, Two, Three

On Sunday, August 13th, 1961, the eyes of America were on the nation's capital, where Roger Maris was hitting home runs #44 and 45 against the Senators. On that same day, without any warning, the East German Communists sealed off the border between East and West Berlin. I only mention this to show the kind of people we're dealing with - REAL SHIFTY! ~C.C. MacNamara's opening line

Berlin, after the Second World War: C.R. MacNamara presides over the Coca-Cola branch of Germany. He is working hard and trying his very best to impress the Atlanta headquarters, since he has heard that the European headquarters in London will soon be looking for a new head. Now, Coca-Cola boss Mr. Hazeltine asks MacNamara to take care of his daughter Scarlett, who is going to take a trip to Europe. Scarlett, however, does not behave the way a young respectable girl of her age should: Instead of sightseeing, she goes out until the early morning and has lots of fun. Finally, she falls in love with Otto Piffl, a young man from East Berlin and a flaming Communist, and marries him surprisingly. When MacNamara hears of this, he intrigues quite a bit with the help of his assistant Schlemmer to get Piffl into an East German prison, but when he also gets note of his Boss and wife coming over to visit their daughter in Berlin, he needs to get Piffl out again, convert him to Capitalism and present him as a fine young and noble husband in order to get his London post, and all of that very quick!

View a scene in three parts here:




Tagline:
Billy Wilder's Explosive New Comedy

Fun Trivia:
The building of the Berlin Wall had begun in the night of August 13, 1961, right trough the set at the Brandenburger Tor. The team, discovering the change in the morning, had to move to Munich to shoot the missing scenes on the parking lot of the Bavaria Film Studios, where a copy of the lower half of the Brandenburger Tor had to be built.

After he learns Scarlett is pregnant, James Cagney moans, "Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?" This was Edward G. Robinson's famous line from Little Caesar.

Billy Wilder made James Cagney do over 30 takes of a scene because Cagney kept saying "coat and striped pants" instead of "morning coat and striped pants."

In James Cagney's autobiography, he says that Horst Buchholz was the only actor he really hated working with because he was uncooperative and tried all kinds of scene-stealing moves, which Cagney depended on Billy Wilder to correct. Had Wilder not firmly directed Bucholz, Cagney said that he "was going to knock Buchholz on his ass, which at several points I would have been very happy to do".

When asked in 1974 why he made a film about Coca Cola, Wilder responded: "I just think Coca-Cola to be funny. And when I drink it, it seems even funnier to me."

James Cagney had such a negative experience making this film that he retired from films for twenty years until his cameo in the film Ragtime in 1981.

Joan Crawford (then on the board of PepsiCo) telephoned the director, Billy Wilder, in protest at the movie's Coca-Cola connection. Wilder then added a final scene in which Cagney emerges from an airplane to find (and kick) a Pepsi cooler.

Fun Quotes:
Otto Ludwig Piffl: Is everybody in this world corrupt?
Peripetchikoff: I don't know everybody.

Otto: I will not have my son grow up to be a capitalist.
Scarlet: When he's 18 he can make his mind up whether he wants to be a capitalist or a rich communist.


C.R. MacNamara: Ten minutes early! That's a hell of a way to run an airline! Planes are supposed to be late, not early!
C.R. MacNamara: Cigarette? Cigar?
Peripetchikoff: Here, take one of these.
C.R. Macnamara: Thanks. Hm, 'Made in Havana'.
Peripetchikoff: We have trade agreement with Cuba. They send us cigars, we send them rockets.
C.R. Macnamara: Good thinking.
C.R. MacNamara: You know something? You guys got cheated. This is a pretty crummy cigar.
Peripetchikoff: Do not worry. We send them pretty crummy rockets.

C.R. MacNamara: Are you out of your seventeen year old mind? Russia is to get out of, not to get into!

One, Two, Three is an Overlooked classic indeed, check it out!

Unemployed Skeletor's video blog of evil!

Wandering around MySpace the other night I came across a really great page called, Unemployed Skeletor with pink slip fist action!!! So if you've been wondering what good old Skeletor has been up to since the 80's check it out.

Unemployed Skeletor also does a video blog wich I will be posting over the next couple of weeks, it's so funny I was in tears.

Unemployed Skeletor's video blog of evil # 1


Unemployed Skeletor's video blog of evil # 2

Vintage Paperback Covers

I love these old pulp novel covers, the art is great but the titles and descriptions are even better!

Actually those saucer people aren't really that sexy
 

What exactly do you suppose a gutter star is?


Tee hee hee, sounds like fun until you fall and scratch your...um...private regions.
 

Satan was a lesbian? Man Satan sure was butch for a woman.


Was there ever a time when the description "chinks" was acceptable?
 

I'll just bet it did...
  

Oh No it's Bushzilla!

Found this on YouTube and even though the sound doesn't synch all the way up it's hilarious!

Bushzilla


and for more Bush fun check out Merna's Fouth of July post.

New on DVD Release Report 7/4/06

Dr. Who: The Complete First Series (2005)
Rose Tyler, a young shop assistant in a London department store, lives a humdrum and profoundly average life - until the night the shop dummies where she works wake up and try to kill her. Her life is saved by a strange man who only calls himself The Doctor, and intrigued by him, she finds herself thrown headlong into a hectic battle to stop an alien presence from invading Earth and annihilating the human race. She comes to learn that her new friend is even stranger than she thought - in fact, the Doctor's an alien adventurer called a 'Time Lord', seemingly the last of his race, who travels through time and space in his TARDIS battling evil where he finds it. And if she travels with him, she'll find herself witnessing the heat-death of the Earth five billion years in the future, meeting Charles Dickens in the past, and encountering lifeforms and invaders stranger than she'd ever thought possible. Only one thing is certain - it'll be the ride of a lifetime... (The box says it has 5 hours worth of extra features, what they are however is a mystery.)

Real Pirates of the Carribean (2006)
A History of Piracy through the Ages. With actual pirate ship footage and real life accounts, this extraordinary documentary will capture the true essence of what it means to be a pirate, whether two hundred years ago, or two weeks ago. Real Pirates Of the Caribbean will investigate the truth behind the legends of histories most infamous pirates as well as a look at modern day piracy on the open sea.


The Libertine (2004)
The story of John Wilmot (Johnny Depp), a.k.a. the Earl of Rochester, a 17th century poet who famously drank and debauched his way to an early grave, only to earn posthumous critical acclaim for his life's work. Features include, deleted scenes, making of documentary, director commentary, theatrical trailer.

And thats all that's fit to report.

Great Film Icons #1: Dario Argento

"Horror is the future. And you cannot be afraid. You must push everything to the absolute limit or else life will be boring. People will be boring. Horror is like a serpent; always shedding its skin, always changing. And it will always come back. It can't be hidden away like the guilty secrets we try to keep in our subconscious." ~Dario Argento

Dario Argento is the son of film producer Salvatore Argento and Brazilian fashion model Elda Luxardo. Argento recalls getting his ideas for film making from his close knit family from Italian folk tales told by his parents and other family members including an aunt who told him frighting bedtime stories. Argento based most of his thriller movies on childhood trauma, yet his own, acording to him, was a normal one. Along with tales spun by his aunt, Argento was impressed by stories from The Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, and Edgar Allan Poe.

He started his career in film as a critic, writing for various magazines while still attending high school, and then skipped college, electing rather to take a job as a columnist at the newspaper Paese Sera. While working at the newspaper, Argento started screenwriting. His most notable work was for Sergio Leone, collaborating with Bernardo Bertolucci on the story for the spaghetti western classic Once Upon a Time in the West.

Argento directed his first film in 1969, released in 1970 The Bird with the Crystal Plumage was a major hit in Italy and signaled the success he was about to become. Bird's story centers on A writer who is stalked by a serial killer after witnessing a murder attempt on one woman's life.

Early in his directing career, he continued to concentrate largely on the giallo genre (more precisely known as "thrilling" in Italy, as the word "giallo" usually refers to generic mystery works). The films, like the lurid yellow-covered murder-mystery novels they were inspired by, followed the suspense tradition of hardboiled American detective fiction while incorporating baroque scenes of violence and excess. While Mario Bava is credited with inventing the giallo film, Argento's passion in developing the genre has earned him widespread recognition as the key influence in popularising giallo cinema outside of Italy, and his unique vision has earned him acclaim as an 'auteur' director.

Argento directed two further successful thrillers, The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971) and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1972). Alongside The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, these initial three films are frequently referred to as Argento's "animal trilogy". The director then turned his attention away from giallo movies, filming two Italian TV  dramas and a period comedy (Five Days in Milan) in 1973 before returning to thrillers with 1975's Deep Red, frequently cited by many critics as the best giallo ever made. The film made Argento famous internationally, and inspired a number of other directors to work in the genre (John Carpenter has frequently referred to the influence Argento's early work had on Halloween). It also marked the start of Argento's long creative relationship with composer Claudio Simonetti and his Italian progressive rock group Goblin who wrote and performed the unforgettable soundtrack to Suspira as well as other of Argento's films. "Deep Red is my favorite movie. The character `David Hemmings' plays is very much based on my own personality. It was a very strong film, very brutal, and of course the censors were upset. It was cut by almost an hour in some countries." Argento on Deep Red.

Argento's next movie, Suspiria (1977), an extremely violent supernatural thriller, is considered by many fans to be his best work, alongside Deep Red. Freed from the constraints of the more conventional giallo format, Suspiria is a semi-surreal work of art, where plot and character become secondary to sound and vision. Argento planned for Suspiria to be the first of a trilogy about "The Three Mothers", three ancient witches residing in three different modern cities. The second movie of the trilogy was 1980's Inferno, which went even further towards pure art. However, so far he has not completed the trilogy.

In-between the two "mothers", in 1978 Argento collaborated with George Romero on Dawn of the Dead, earning a producer credit on the zombie classic. Argento oversaw a variant Italian edition of Dawn of the Dead, cut and structured somewhat differently with more Goblin music overlayed throughout.



After Inferno, Argento returned to more conventional giallo with Tenebrae (1982). Then attempted to combine giallo and supernatural fantasy together in Phenomena, also known as Creepers (1985), which was one of Jennifer Connelly's first movies. Phenomena also showed Argento's predilection for using new technology, with its many prowling Steadicam shots. Both of these movies received a lukewarm reception upon release (although each has been re-appraised retrospectively).

Click here to Watch the Phenomena Trailer:


Opera followed in 1987, and was, according to Argento, a "very unpleasant experience". Set in Parma's Regio Theatre during a production of Verdi's Macbeth, the movie was beset in real life by misfortunes that Argento suspected were caused by the traditional "curse" on Macbeth. Argento's father died during the production, Vanessa Redgrave dropped out of the project before filming began, he had problems working with his former long-time girlfriend and collaborator Daria Nicolodi on-set, and the cast and crew were plagued by minor accidents and mishaps. The movie was again not particularly well received by fans or critics (though I personaly think it's one of his best), despite showcasing Argento's skill with color and composition, and featuring some technically impressive camera movements (the ravens' descent in the Parma opera house is considered to be one of the director's most famous set pieces).

After the poor reception to Opera it seemed as though his career could not recover, despite a disappointing collaboration with George A. Romero on an Edgar Allan Poe anthology entitled Two Evil Eyes (1990), an unsuccessful stab at a mainstream Hollywood production (Trauma of 1993) and a disastrous TV version of Phantom of the Opera (1998), he continued to innovate. For example, his 1996 The Stendhal Syndrome, in which a policewoman (played by Argento's daughter, Asia) who suffers from a dramatized version of the illness is trapped by a serial killer in an abandoned warehouse, was the first Italian film to use computer-generated imagery (CGI). Furthermore, the opening of The Stendhal Syndrome was shot in Florence, at Italy's famed Uffizi Gallery, Argento being the only director ever granted permission to shoot there.


Many saw 2001's Sleepless, deliberately designed as a "comeback movie" with its strong giallo theme and numerous references to his earlier work, as a step back in the right direction. However, Argento's follow-up, 2004's The Card Player, a giallo about a killer whose murders are conducted during Internet poker matches with the Rome police, earned a mixed reception: fans appreciated the techno music score composed by ex-Goblin member Claudio Simonetti, but felt the film was too mainstream, with little of Argento's usual flourish.

2005 saw the TV broadcast of Argento's Do You Like Hitchcock?, in which he paid homage to Alfred Hitchcock after decades of being compared to him by critics. Later that year, he directed a segment of Masters of Horror, a Showtime television series. The story, "Jenifer", based on an old Eerie comics tale by Bruce Jones, was a departure for Argento, but provided him with some of his best critical notices in several years. Author F. Paul Wilson (The Keep, Repairman Jack) has stated recently that Argento will be directing an adaptation of his short story "Pelts" for season 2 of the series.

It has also been confirmed that Dario Argento has begun pre-production on his newest film, the conclusion of his Three Mothers Trilogy, under the working title Mother Of Tears. The film will be set in Rome and will center around Mater Lachrymarum. Dario himself and Jace Anderson share writing credits for this movie. A joint effort between the Itallian Studio, Medusa, and the American Studio, Myriad Pictures (which made Jeepers Creepers) will finance the production of the film giving it a large budget, at least compared to his earlier work, and Max Von Sydow has signed on to play an as yet unknown role.

Dario Argento Trivia:
He owns a horror memorabilia store located at Via dei Gracchi 260 in Rome named Profondo Rosso (Deep Red), after his classic giallo movie. In the cellar is a collection from his movies. The store is managed by his long time collaborator and friend Luigi Cozzi.

In November of 1997 Dario made a run for political office in Rome. (Though I cannot seem to find out is he won or not.)

His favorite director and a source of inspiration is Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman.

Has a twenty year old black cat named Liebe (German for love)

The Quotable Dario Argento:

"I like women, especially beautiful ones. If they have a good face and figure, I would much prefer to watch them being murdered than an ugly girl or man. I certainly don't have to justify myself to anyone about this. I don't care what anyone thinks or reads into it. I have often had journalists walk out of interviews when I say what I feel about this subject." ~Dario Argento on the women in his films

"We had many good directors - John Carpenter, DePalma - but things have become polluted by business, money and bad relationships. The success of the horror genre has lead to its downfall."

"The process of writing and directing drives you to such extremes that it's natural to feel an affinity with insanity. I approach that madness as something dangerous and I'm afraid, but also I want to go to it, to see what's there, to embrace it. I don't know why but I'm drawn."

Essential Viewing:
Once Upon a Time in the West(1968)(story by Argento)
A mysterious stranger with a harmonica joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad in this long frontier epic. Mysterious pasts and the strength of loyalties is explored amid lightning fast gun battles and stylish vistas.

Suspiria (1977)
A young American dancer travels to Europe to join a famous ballet school. As she arrives, the camera turns to another young woman, who appears to be fleeing from the school. She returns to her apartment where she is gruesomely murdered by a hideous creature. Meanwhile, the young American is trying to settle in at the ballet school, but hears strange noises and is troubled by bizarre occurrences. She eventually discovers that the school is merely a front for a much more sinister organization. Dark fairytale of the best kind.

Tenebre (1982)
With Argento's trademark visual style, linked with one of his more coherent plots, Tenebrae follows a writer who arrives to Rome only to find somebody is using his novels as the inspiration (and, occasionally, the means) of committing murder. As the death toll mounts the police are ever baffled, and the writer becomes more closely linked to the case than is comfortable.

Click here to watch the Tenebre Trailer:


Phenomena (1985)
Jennifer Connelly stars as a young girl who arrives at an eerie Swiss boarding school where the students are being butchered by a vicious serial killer. With the help of a wheelchair-bound scientist (played by Donald Pleasence) she discovers she has special powers (she can psychicly communicate to insects), and uses them to pursue the killer before she becomes the next victim.

Opera (1987)
A young opera singer (Betty) gets her big chance when the previous star of a production of Verdi's Macbeth is run over by a car. Convinced the opera is bad luck she accepts, and becomes the target (in Argento's unmistakable style) of a psychopath - a man she has been dreaming of since childhood. Don't believe the hype Opera is one of Argento's best, most scary films.

Click here to watch the Opera Trailer:


The Stendhal Syndrome (1996)
Dario Argento's thriller stars the director's daughter Asia as Anna Manni, a policewoman trying to capture a vicious serial rapist and killer. The problem is that she suffers from "Stendhal's syndrome", a psychosomatic disease that gives her dizziness and hallucinations when she is exposed to the sight of paintings and artistic masterpieces. When the maniac lures her into a trap inside Florences' famous Uffizi museum, her troubles are just beginning...