No Homo

I work with a lot of high school students and I've hear them use this phrase more and more it seems. It's nice to see the folks at Infomania rip it a new one (no homo).


--Popkoff

Fat Guy goes Nutzoid

I wish I could find actual episodes of this show. Peru Ubu on Night Music:



"Breath" (mp3)



"Waiting For Mary" (mp3)

--Popkoff

Succubus (1968) a.k.a. “Necronomicon"

Jess Franco’s hypnotic and dreamlike sex-trip came out in 1968, but was easily one of the craziest movies to play Fantastic Fest this year. Surreal and completely incoherent, yet ethereal and endlessly entertaining, it calls into question whether plot is even a necessity when every scene is interesting and unique. It was right up my alley.

This was one of four Jess Franco films that were shown in honor of him receiving the first ever Fantastic Fest Lifetime Achievement Award. Senor Franco was in attendance for 3 of the films, along with his wife and muse Lina Romay. I saw all four films and the Q & A’s that followed and I have to say that it was definitely an education. Though I enjoyed all the Franco films in the series (especially “Venus in Furs”), I wouldn’t include “Bare Breasted Countess” on my list of film favorites from the festival, but I do want to note that it provide me with perhaps the best moment of the festival, and definitely one of the most touching film experiences of my life. The film stars Romay and features a hefty amount of nudity and eroticism. It also features Franco in a strong supporting role as the Doctor who suspects that Romay is a murderous vampire. It was filmed when she was only 20 years old, and she admitted before the screening that she did not feel comfortable watching her films. She also noted, along with Franco, that it was this film that was the catalyst for them falling in love. As the movie began, Miss Romay left the auditorium, but Franco stayed for nearly 25-30 minutes, which was longer than he had stayed for any of the other screenings. As the film approached the end Lina helped Jess back into the theater for the Q & A. While the finale played out on screen I noticed the two of them staring up at the images together. Lina’s vampire was sprawled out naked in a bath of blood, while Franco’s doctor bursts through the door with intentions of killing her. It was the first time in the film that the Doc had seen the Countess, and his urge to kill is quickly snuffed out by her incredible beauty. So there it was, the two of them 40 years on, watching their younger selves fall in love on the screen. It was truly moving and it reminded me of what Lars, the host and organizer of the event stated at the beginning of the series. He read a quote by Franco that appeared in an Austin Chronicle interview the week of the festival: “The cinema is not the way to escape our lives; it is the way to complete our lives.”

--Popkoff

At the Movies: THE MOVIE

Hey


My friends and I made a movie and it's in competition this weekend as part of an Alamo Drafthouse Filmmaking Contest. In order to make it to the finals (so that our film can be judged by an actual panel of judges), we HAVE to get VOTES. The goal of the contest is to make a fake trailer for a movie that does NOT exist. The fake movie trailer must be based on a television show that has never been turned into a movie before. We all worked extremely hard on it and it would really mean a lot to me if you could go over to filmmakingfrenzy.com and vote for our film: "At the Movies: THE MOVIE"

If you follow this LINK, it should take you right to it.

Thanks,
Popkoff

RockaFire Explosion (2008)

Ever since I saw the trailer for this bad boy back in July, I had been foaming at the mouth to see it. I remember Showbiz Pizza from when I was a kid, but I was even more excited to get an intimate look at the man behind last year's RockaFire Explosion YouTube Phenomenon. Simply put, about a year or two ago, a man in his mid-30's named Chris Thrash began to upload videos on to YouTube of his in-home animatronic band, Showbiz Pizza's very own RockaFire Explosion. He had programed the band to perform modern radio Rock hits. Although the music wasn't that great, what made these videos so fascinating was the fact that somewhere out there someone had the RockaFire Explosion in their house. The mere thought of that boggled my mind.

Let just say that after watching the documentary, my mind has been boggled 100-fold!!!! Beginning in February, the Alamo Ritz will be holding screenings of the "RockaFire Explosion" documentary and I strongly urge everyone to check it out and learn about the power of dreams and the unwavering strength of the human spirit. Okay, so that's a lot of praise, but seriously, this movie was a lot fun and strangely moving at times...no joke. It's all about the pros and con of nostalgia, and the bizarre places we find happiness.

Here's the trailer that changed my life.


The Rock-afire Explosion Movie Trailer from The Rock-afire Explosion on Vimeo.

Wendy and Lucy (2008)

This was a slow moving train that seemed to really bore the hell out of my friends. It did not bother me as much, but I understand why they didn't like it. It's the "deliberately paced" tale of Wendy (Michelle Williams), a woman on her way to Alaska to work for the Summer when her car breaks down in a small town. Low on cash and options, her struggles to figure out her next move are complicated even more by the mysterious loss of her dog and companion, Lucy. She spends the whole movie wandering around looking for her dog, barely scrapping by, and having strange encounters with the locals. The movie has garnered a lot praise recently and has surprisingly ended up on a lot of year end Top 10's. whatevs, it was o.k.

35mm Shorts (Passages, Frankie, The Adventure, Love You More) (2008)

This was the one shorts program this year that I actually built up. Whenever you build a movie for a film festival, they never screen it before hand so you never really know if you made mistake until it first screening. It's kind of like working without a net, and it can be pretty stressful watching it for the first time with an audience. Every approaching reel change filled my heart with anxiety, but alas, there were no problems on my end. Anyway there were 4 shorts in this one.

The black and white animated piece entitled "Passages" about a botched delivery of a baby, directed Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre. It was intricate, fascinating, sad, and infuriating.

The film "Frankie" about a 15 year old Irish boy who is preparing himself to be a dad. It was interesting, but not my cup of tea.

For me, one of the 2 standout films of this collection was the curiously hilarious and uncomfortable, "The Adventure," by writer/director Mike Brune. It's about an older couple on a leisurely drive through the woodsy country side that gets interrupted by a bizarre encounter with a pair of mimes. Really Great!

Love You More preview from Matt Cooper on Vimeo.
And finally, there was the other standout short, "Love You More," by Sam Taylor Wood. It's the completely badass tale of two teenager drawn together by the Buzzcocks' single 'Love You More' during the summer of 1978. Right up my alley!

Just for the hell of it, here's "Love You More (mp3)" by the Buzzcocks!