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BIRDEMIC: SHOCK & TERROR released on DVD and Blu-ray today
02.22.2011
02:32 pm
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Last year, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim co-hosted a special screening of director James “The Master of the Romantic Thriller”™ Nguyen’s “so bad it’s good” feature film, Birdemic: Shock and Terror at Los Angeles’s beloved art house, Cinefamily. After a positively mind-melting 90-minutes had elapsed, Heidecker stood before the audience, microphone in hand, silently surveying the psychic damage the film had caused before asking: “Don’t you all just feel like total assholes for sitting through that?”

Cue 200 people laughing and nodding in vigorous agreement.

But, hey, you can’t exactly get this kind of entertainment just anywhere, all right? How many Plan Nine from Outer Space-type winners should the human race be allowed?

Birdemic: Shock and Terror “tackles topical issues of global warming, avian flu, world peace, organic living, sexual promiscuity and lavatory access.” You, know, all the big issues. Director James Nguyen, a 42-year-old Vietnamese refugee, wrote, cast and shot the film over four years, diverting money saved from his career as a software salesperson in Silicon Valley toward making his Hollywood dream come true. Nguyen’s dream might be Roger Ebert’s worst nightmare, of course, but I don’t think that the director was really thinking much about how the critics would react to his film (It’s hard to tell what he was really thinking).

In a recent interview about the film, co-star Whitney Moore had this to say when asked about people who assume Birdemic was “faked”:

I have spoken with people who believe that Birdemic was faked, and I always ask those people if they have met James Nguyen. If they have, and they still believe that he is some mastermind of irony and comic timing who can make a movie like Birdemic intentionally, then there is nothing I can say to change their mind. Nor would I.

In any case, it’s out today on DVD and Blu-ray from our friends at Severin Films and now you can see for yourself the film that’s seen “midnight movie” fans across the county get very… well, very perplexed, let’s just say… WARNING: Do not try to watch Birdemic: Shock and Terror alone. Not because it’s too scary or anything, but because it must be seen with others, others who, like you, yourself, should be stoned into complete oblivion for this dubious cinematic treat.  I think anyone who watches Birdemic: Shock and Terror by their lonesome would just be too pathetic. So don’t do it.

UPDATE: There will be a special midnight screening of Birdemic: Shock And Terror at Cinefamily, here in Los Angeles this Friday (1st anniv. screening, director & cast in person!)

Here’s one of my, er, um, “favorite” scenes from Birdemic: Shock and Terror... “Where’s Becky?”
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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02.22.2011
02:32 pm
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150 famous movie lines and catch-phrases in 11 minutes
02.22.2011
01:35 am
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The folks over at Exophrine put together this compendium of 150 famous catchphrases from popular movies dating back to 1932.

The entire list of 150 phrases can be found at the Exophrine website.

“Gooble gobble, gooble gobble. We accept her! We accept her!
Gooble gobble, gooble gobble. One of us! One of us!”
Freaks
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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02.22.2011
01:35 am
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The visions of Henri Michaux
02.21.2011
01:53 am
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In 1963, Belgian writer, painter and mystic Henri Michaux collaborated with film maker Eric Duvivier on Images Du Monde Visionnaire. It was produced by Swiss pharmaceutical company Sandoz as an educational tool to demonstrate the visual effects of mescaline and hashish. The film was based on Michaux’s experiences with psychedelics which he documented in his books Miserable Miracle, L’Infini Turbulent and Paix Dans Les Brisements.

Michaux denounced the film as not being truly representative of the psychedelic experience. He felt that Duvivier, who had never taken mescaline, had no grasp of the drug experience and that film itself was incapable of replicating the visionary aspect of tripping.

When it was proposed to make a film about mescaline hallucinations, I have declared, I have repeated and I repeat it again, that that is to attempt the impossible. Even in a superior film, made with substantial means, with all one needs for an exceptional production, I must state beforehand the images will be insufficient. The images would have to be more dazzling, more instable, more subtle, more changeable, more ungraspable, more trembling, more tormenting, more writhing, infinitely more charged, more intensely beautiful, more frighteningly colored, more aggressive, more idiotic, more strange.

With regard to the film’s speed, it should be so high that all scenes would have to fit in fifty seconds.

While I am sympathetic to Michaux’s frustrations on a spiritual level, I disagree with him about film not being up to the task of duplicating the psychedelic experience on a visual level. Of all the art forms, cinema can come closest to bending the mind in ways that approximate the psychedelic experience. The best examples of which are the films of Stan Brakhage and fragments of James Cameron’s Avatar.

More of an avant-garde tone poem than educational film, here is Images Du Monde Visionnaire in its entirety:
 

Thanks Rob.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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02.21.2011
01:53 am
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The Shining: Overlook Hotel Children’s Placemat
02.20.2011
02:09 pm
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Ha! Clever Overlook Hotel children’s placemat by artist Shane Parker. This is way cooler than a Denny’s “Moons Over My Hammy Omelette” placemat.

Click here to see a larger image.

(via Neatorama)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.20.2011
02:09 pm
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Are dreams messages from the future and do we ignore them at our own peril?
02.17.2011
05:06 am
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The Edge Of Dreaming, Amy Hardie’s investigation into the prophetic quality of dreams has just opened theatrically in Manhattan. It was broadcast on PBS last August. And you can stream it now from Netflix.

My dream life has been very active of late and I’m starting to pay more and more attention to the patterns of images and information in my dreams. I feel as though I’ve never taken my dreams seriously enough, which is odd, considering how much time I spend dreaming and how often the dreams do seem to be sending messages, teachings or warnings. So, Amy Hardie’s film is of great interest to me. Are dreams cognitive tendrils into the future? Should we give them more respect by simply paying more attention to them.

Do dreams, especially the portentous kind that you cannot easily shake off, predict the future? That question is investigated in “The Edge of Dreaming,” a deeply personal film by Amy Hardie, a Scottish science documentarian whose world was shaken after she experienced a series of related nightmares.

The first, in which her beloved horse keeled over and died, so alarmed Ms. Hardie that she ran out of her house in the Scottish Borders and found him dead of a heart attack. In the second, her oldest child’s father, who had died in 2004, appeared and told her sadly that her 48th year (the one that was coming up) would be her last. The third dream showed her how she would die.

Ms. Hardie, who is married to a psychotherapist, became obsessed with the possibility that the dreams were prophecies. She became even more frightened after she developed a mysterious breathing ailment that threatened to collapse her lungs.

“The Edge of Dreaming,” which carries her through her 49th birthday, does not have the trappings of a psychological horror film. Ms. Hardie, a self-described scaredy-cat since childhood, systematically searches for explanations, both medical and spiritual. She studies Jung; consults with Mark Solms, a neuroscientist; and ultimately revisits her dreams with a shaman. This shamanic journey is visualized in an extended montage sequence.

“The Edge of Dreaming” is not the confession of a true believer who has found the Answer but of an intelligent woman with an open mind and heart who embarked on a serious metaphysical quest.

If you have a Netflix account, stream here. This compelling interview with Hardie should pique your interest.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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02.17.2011
05:06 am
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Serge Gainsbourg sings in 1968 French gangster film ‘Le Pacha’
02.16.2011
03:17 am
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Serge Gainsbourg sings “Requiem Pour Un Con” from 1968 French film Le Pacha starring Jean Gabin.

What a sweet groove.

Posted by Marc Campbell
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02.16.2011
03:17 am
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Two of David Lynch’s Early Films: ‘The Grandmother’ and ‘The Alphabet’
02.15.2011
06:41 pm
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A taste of things to come - two of David Lynch’s early films.

The Grandmother (1970):

The plot of the Grandmother centers around a boy who, looking for an escape from his abusive parents, grows a grandmother to comfort him. “There’s something about a grandmother…It came from this particular character’s need - a need that that prototype can provide. Grandmothers get playful. And they relax a little, and they have unconditional love. And that’s what this kid, you know, conjured up.”

The film has little dialog and combines animation with film, in its exploration of the “myths of birth, sexuality and death.”
 
The Alphabet (1968):

[David] Lynch’s wife, Peggy, told him of a dream her niece had during which she was reciting the alphabet in her sleep, then woke up and starting bouncing around repeating it. Lynch took this idea and ran with it. First he painted the walls of his upstairs bedroom black. Lynch painted Peggy’s face white to give her an un-real contrast to the black room, and had her bounce around the room in different positions as he filmed. This footage was edited together with an animated sequence where the letters of the alphabet slowly appear and a capital A gives birth to several smaller a’s which form a human figure.

 

 
The rest of ‘The Grandmother’ plus Lynch’s ‘The Alphabet’, after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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02.15.2011
06:41 pm
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Breen-damage: Meet ‘outsider cinema’ auteur (and real estate broker) Neil Breen
02.15.2011
06:26 pm
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You snobby trash-o-philes out there, despairing of ever finding another film quite as good/bad as Ed Wood’s Plan Nine From Outer Space or something the late David F. Friedman produced, have been able to breathe a sigh of relief in recent years, haven’t you? The relatively low cost of pro/am video equipment has allowed people who would never otherwise be able to jump through the hoops of the Hollywood system, a chance to make a movie. Neil Breen is startling new entrant in the burgeoning genre of “outsider cinema.” Along with Tommy Wiseau (The Room) and James Nguyen (Birdemic: Shock & Terror), Neil Breen is doing something truly new. To be clear, I’m not saying it’s any good, merely that it’s “truly new.”

This weekend, at Cinefamily in Los Angeles, the evil overlords of holy fucking shit will have Neil Breen in person:

Many of Cinefamily’s HFS connisseurers have crashed up on the rocks trying to describe Las Vegas real estate agent cum visionary independent filmmaker Neil Breen. Inevitably, words and high-concept references fail, and one is reducing to just pressing a copy of actor/director/writer/producer/caterer Breen’s first feature Double Down into the confused hands of a future Breen-iac. The only way to understand Breen’s work is to just see it. Here…now…he’s graced us with another full-length excursion into his completely unique universe. This time around, Breen plays a messianic alien Being angered at the greed and corruption of the human species, particularly our lack of renewable energy and environmental consciousness—oh, and business-man crucifixions and time-stopped gang wars..and…well, as Neil put it himself, “This thought-provoking supernatural film is filled with surprising mystical metaphors, exciting twists….and a stunning dramatic conclusion.”

It’s imperative that you, the Cinefamily-goer, understand how sweetly insane this Saturday’s HFS show really is. Neil Breen has become one of our favorite filmmakers. Why? Basically, he turns the laws of physics inside-out, startles you with images you could never conceive of yourself, and delivers a left-field version of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s cracked worldview on the budget of a Troma film. Oh, yeah—and for his day job, he’s a Las Vegas real estate broker. Get ready to be Breen-damaged!

Saturday, February 22, 10:15pm. Come join The Man Who Four-Walled The Earth for a Q&A after the film! Get tickets here.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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02.15.2011
06:26 pm
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Trash film king David F. Friedman R.I.P.
02.15.2011
03:16 am
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Some of my most vivid childhood memories revolved around the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis and his production partner David F. Friedman. Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs! and Color Me Blood Red were taboo pleasures for a kid entering his teens. I grew up in the American south and exploitation flicks were standard fare at the sleazepit movie theaters in Norfolk, Virginia near where I lived. I was a connoisseur at an early age of the high brow horror of Hammer films but took particular delight in the blood-soaked thrills of Lewis and Friedman’s joint venture Box Office Spectaculars.

It all started with Blood Feast. In 1963 Feast for me was the kind of jaw-dropping experience that up until then had only been rivaled by the gory centerfolds of the National Enquirer, nudist magazines and Tijuana bibles. These were sights not intended for the eyes of innocent youth. But, by the age of 12, my innocence had long been pummeled into oblivion by my strong left hand. Lewis and Friedman had tapped into something that psychiatrists are still grappling with: the thin line between sex and violence. I was too young to get any tongue but not too young to watch young women having their tongues ripped out. I blame the movies for much of what made me into the sick fuck I am today.

My buddy Leo and I would scour the movie section of the local newspaper every weekend hoping and praying to see the Box Office Spectacular name attached to any new releases. If we scored, we’d take the 20 mile ride by bus into Norfolk and, along with a handful of sailors on weekend leave, watch the latest B.O.S. bloodbath. A matinee was fifty cents back then and a flick like Blood Feast delivered tremendous bang for half a buck. Short on narrative and plot, but long on explicit scenes of over-the-top gore, David F. Friedman knew exactly what his audience came for. Somewhere in Baltimore, John Waters was transfixed by the same blood red thrills as Leo and me. And later a film geek in L.A. by the name of Quentin Tarantino would discover a battered video of Color Me Blood Red, a tale of blood, guts and fine art, on a dusty shelf somewhere and feel a tingling sensation in his scrotum that later translated into a creative act.

In many ways, I credit Friedman for creating the D.I.Y. in-your-face energy that would later manifest in punk rock.

I’m not here to write an obituary or bio of David F. Friedman. There are and will be plenty on the Internet. I just wanted to share a few personal memories of seeing his films. The Deuce has a detailed bio on Friedman here. Also, Friedman wrote a wonderfully entertaining autobiography A Youth in Babylon: Confessions of a Trash-Film King . It’s out-of-print but Amazon has some reasonably priced used copies you can snag here.

The best way to honor Mr. Friedman is to share one of his Dixiefied gore classics with you. Two Thousand Maniacs! sent me stumbling out of the theater in 1964 with something resembling a religious experience. In its depiction of backwoods psychopaths in a frenzy of bloodlust it not only freaked me out for the obvious reasons, it touched a deeper nerve. I was beginning to wise up to the mob mentality that existed among the various factions in my school and neighborhood, the kind of group psychosis that lead men into wars like Vietnam. I was just a kid but I was already developing a distaste for the kind of cruelty people bestow upon outsiders and things they don’t understand and the glee in which they often display in treating the “other” with harsh injustice.

I may be giving David F. Friedman and Herschell Gordon Lewis credit for a political/sociological subtext in Two Thousand Maniacs! they never intended. But intentional or not, I think these two film makers were tapping into something in themselves that like all art, dreams and fairytales delve into universal truths. Two Thousand Maniacs! in its own bizarro way is a commentary on and critique of the conformity and narrow mindedness of the 1950s. Were the kings of trash cinema anarchists in disguise? Is Two Thousand Maniacs! a radical anti-war film? Or a situationist act of subversion that eviscerates the white supremacism that still prevailed in the American south in 1964—the year of its release and the year in which George Wallace ran for President?

Two Thousand Maniacs! in all its gory glory.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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02.15.2011
03:16 am
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‘Hi, Lloyd. Little slow tonight, isn’t it?’
02.14.2011
04:50 pm
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Jack Torrance laffs in your face.

(via the always fun If We Don’t, Remember Me)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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02.14.2011
04:50 pm
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