Rest in peace David Lynch

He passed away today at the age of 78.

The impact that this man had on the cinema arts can not be emphasized nearly enough.  Everything he did, be it surreal or more traditional storytelling, he made his own.  David Lynch showed us more than most what the camera was capable of doing when guided by a mind willing to step away from the safe path.  He saw the guardrails and crashed through anyway.

I first came upon Lynch's work when I was a high school sophomore.  I had seen the promos for Twin Peaks and they intrigued me terribly.  So I did something I rarely did and still rarely do: I watched its two-hour television premiere.  Twin Peaks sucked me in hard and never let go.  And it was the gateway drug for more of Lynch's unique vision.

Admittedly, I will never be able to confess ever "getting" Eraserhead.  But that's okay.  Somehow, I think Lynch wouldn't mind.

David Lynch was also a fellow Eagle Scout.

Thoughts and prayers going up and out for his family. 

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In memory of a good man

The sad word came late yesterday evening that Dav Gerrells, who owned and operated Cafe 99 in Reidsville, North Carolina for many years, passed away after a brief illness over the weekend.  I used to eat at Cafe 99 when I still lived in Reidsville and Dav always made me feel welcome.  The man was a thoroughly great guy and he was an amazing cook.

Early in 2007 I entered a filmmaking competition for the Fox television reality series On The Lot.  Entrants had to make a short film and submit it for the opportunity to be a contestant on the show.  Friends and family encouraged me to take a swing at it.  It was a very trying and strenuous two weeks from initial concept to finished product but in the end "Schrödinger's Bedroom" was in the can and shipped off on DVD to Hollywood.

We filmed the first scene of the movie in Cafe 99.  It's been a very long time since I'd rewatched this.  Thought I would share it tonight, in Dav's memory.  His establishment really helped set the mood for the film.  There are quite a few people in this film who I've had the honor and privilege of knowing for a very long time, and I think that Dav makes his presence felt in it, too.

So here it is, from February 2007: "Schrödinger's Bedroom"

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Happy 80th Birthday George Lucas!

 

It was on May 14th, 1944 that a little boy was born in Modesto, California.  Growing up he was a restless young man, with no clear idea of what he wanted to do with his life.  He finally settled on being a race car driver.  But a near-fatal car crash a few days before graduating high school put a damper on that idea.

Our hero eventually decided he wanted to go to college.  He enrolled in a junior college and studied everything from anthropology to sociology to literature.  While there he began experimenting with filmmaking.  He then ended up at University of Southern California, choosing to continue his studies in cinematography.  And he discovered that he enjoyed it, a lot.  A series of student films followed, and many of them gained notice for their groundbreaking and breathtaking visuals.

The young lad graduated from college and tried to enlist in the Air Force.  Unfortunately his many speeding tickets, of all things, disqualified him.  He was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War but was again disqualified from service, for medical reasons.

He then returned to University of Southern California as a graduate student.  After producing the short film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB he came under the wing of Francis Ford Coppola.  It wasn't long after that when the young man was given the opportunity to make a full-length adaptation of his film, and in 1971 came the release of THX 1138.

It was not a box office success.

Undaunted, our hero decided he wanted to make a different film.  One drawing from his experiences coming of age in Modesto.  That became the genesis of 1973's American Graffiti: a film that has become as classic as any.

Then, around 1974, our young hero sat down with a pad of paper and began writing the first draft of what he roughly titled "The Star Wars".

And the rest, is history.

On this very special day, The Knight Shift and its eclectic proprietor wishes a Very Happy 80th Birthday to George Walton Lucas Jr.  A man who perhaps more than most in our lifetime has impacted the world in so many positive ways than can ever be counted.

And I like to think that he still isn't finished with his craft.

Someday, I hope George Lucas once again shows us something we haven't seen before.

Before I close out this post, I want to share one of my favorite photos of Lucas.  It's from the filming of American Graffiti.  Here is Lucas, sitting on the floor beneath the countertop at Mel's Drive-In, directing Ron Howard:

I just love the pose Lucas is in.  That, my friends, is directing with dedication.

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Elementary school kids in Arkansas produced an AMAZING Indiana Jones fan film and you can watch it now!

This is... THE greatest thing that I have seen in a very long time.  These kids are... wow.  They are amazing!  They were able to pull off what a lot of us thirty and forty years ago were only able to dream of doing.  I know my best friend Chad and I used to plan out our own Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies.  How when we grew up we would be the next Lucas and Spielberg.  I like to think a little of that carried over to when we were making our films fifteen or so years ago.  Still a bit of childhood magic left.

But these kids, the young men and women of Oliver Springs Elementary School in Van Buren, Arkansas were not content to wait that long.  No, they went all out and they did it now.  It took them two years of fundraising and planning and then filming, but they succeeded in their mission: they made a professional-grade Indiana Jones fan film that stands as mighty as any movie ever conceived.

Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Aztecs finds the globe-trotting archaeologist in the swamps of Arkansas circa 1958.  On the trail of the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto, Indy runs afoul of rogue Russian agents who are looking for Montezuma's gold.  It seems that there is some mystical quality associated with the treasure: just the sort of thing that Dr. Jones has expertise in.

It runs half an hour but you are going to want more.  These young people have accomplished a film that is incredibly well-shot, smartly composed, exceptionally scored, and astoundingly acted.  These kids are performing their hearts out.  They get the world of Indiana Jones, maybe better than many adults.  And as if a cherry on top, they even got Karen Allen - Marion Ravenwood herself - to make a cameo appearance!

KSFM 5 News has more about the Oliver Springs Music Club and their film, and Arkansas CW Crew has posted a few interviews with some of the movie's cast and crew.

But, you are no doubt wanting to watch this for yourself.  I don't blame you!  There have been precious few Indiana Jones fan film efforts.  In fact the only one that comes readily to mind is the delightful Raiders of the Lost Ark adaptation that was made by Mississippi youngsters in the Eighties.  Well, Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Aztecs possesses no less soul, and has all the benefits of modern technology and cinematography.

I cannot possibly rave about this enough.  So click on over and watch Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Aztecs on YouTube.  Or, watch it embedded below.  Hint: click the link instead.  You'll better appreciate the wide aspect ratio these lads and lasses shot their film in.

Young men and women of Oliver Springs Elementary School, this blogger gladly salutes you!

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I have a LinkedIn page?!?

Actually I've had it for a very long time now (I think 2006).  I just haven't done anything with it until this week...

Some friends suggested that I "increase marketability".  So I'm putting myself out there in a way I might have not done before.  In assembling this I've become a bit astounded at all the experiences that have been racked up over the past decade or two.  In spite of having manic depression - or maybe because of it - I've wound up with a pretty impressive skills-set and collaborative history.  I also uploaded and included a portfolio of some of my video work, bits of which have never been seen by a wide audience until now (I'm particularly fond of the "Wacky Dead" clip).

Anyway, if you want to see the professional side of me, here's my LinkedIn page.

 

 

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AMERICAN GRAFFITI turns fifty years old this week

George Lucas's movie - the first for his own company Lucasfilm - American Graffiti was released fifty years ago tomorrow.  It premiered at a film festival and was followed with wide release soon after.  If you've never seen American Graffiti you really should do yourself a favor and watch it.  It's a film spanning the course of a single night, in the lives of a group of friends who are spending the final hours of summer break in 1962.  I don't know if "plot" is the right word to describe this movie as having.  But it's a mighty monument to a way of youth that isn't there anymore.  American Graffiti has a solid cast and a soundtrack that is just as much part of the film as those appearing in it.

Well, I thought that for the occasion we would go WAY back into The Knight Shift's archives, to when it was less than a year old in 2004.  At the time my friends and I were working on our very first film together Forcery.  The final scene takes place at Mel's Drive-In, from American Graffiti.  Short Sugar's Barbecue in Reidsville, North Carolina played the part of Mel's.  We shot the scene at the drive-in part of the restaurant, and then... this idea hit for something we could do as a homage to George Lucas's classic movie.  I told Chad Austin, who was playing Lucas in Forcery, about it and he was game for it.  He was already wearing the costume and makeup for the part anyway.

So here is Chad Austin as George Lucas in September 2004, in a recreation of the famous behind-the-scenes still from American Graffiti showing Lucas crouched beneath the counter while directing Ron Howard:

Wow.  That was September of 2004 when we made that photo.  So much has happened since then but it seems like just yesterday.

Of course George Lucas - the real one - got a lot of respect and admiration for American Graffiti and would use that goodwill when he was shopping Star Wars around to the studios.  I'm glad that he did, but part of me also wonders what it would have been had he made more films like American Graffiti.  The Star Wars franchise arguably stymied a lifetime of potential movies from this talented filmmaker.  But I like to think that Lucas still hasn't forgotten his greatest career passion.  Maybe someday we'll see him return to what makes him happiest in life after his family.

 I hope that he will.

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PBS documentary The Last One - about moonshiner Popcorn Sutton - is now on YouTube

The legend of Popcorn Sutton lives on!  Thirteen years after he tragically left us, Sutton is definitely not forgotten.  The "last of the old time moonshiners" has been the basis of many an Internet meme and last month was the now-annual Popcorn Sutton Jam in east Tennessee.  The man was the subject of a recent book packed with photos.  And word has it that his original recipe likker is selling well... legally of course.

For a number of years, North Carolina filmmaker Neal Hutcheson produced a series of documentaries for PBS featuring Popcorn.  Two months ago he posted onto YouTube a 2022 remaster of The Last One, which at the time was about Popcorn Sutton's alleged final brew of moonshine.  It's well worth a watch if you're at all a fan of Popcorn or have an interest in Appalachian culture.  It also boasts some awesome music!

 

Find more of Neal Hutcheson's work on his Sucker Punch Pictures YouTube channel.

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FORCERY is fifteen years old!

It really does seem like just yesterday when we were slathering that fake blood all over Chad's legs, and making a springtime drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway look like blizzard in the Colorado mountains.  And turning a cousin's living room into Skywalker Ranch.  So much happened since then and yet, our cast and crew became a family that has endured.  More than endured even.  And for that, I'm thankful that this project got seen through to the end.

Yes, it has indeed been fifteen years since the release of Forcery: that Star Wars fanfilm parody of the Stephen King movie Misery.  I'd wanted it to be ready before Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith but it didn't quite make it.  Still, it was late May of 2005 when it was first unloaded onto the Internet and about a year or so later it was "serialized" (because of time restrictions at the time) onto YouTube.  And then everyone could behold the tale of George Lucas (Chad Austin) being held captive by Star Wars-obsessed uberfan Frannie Filks (Melody Hallman Daniel).

I will be the first to admit: it looks a little dated now.  We shot it with a couple of standard definition camcorders, and I did my best to color grade it to look more cinematic.  The car going off the road in the blizzard well... no doubt someone could CGI that easily today.  And there is one effect that I wish we could do over again because it would be ridiculously easy to fix and that's my faulte entirely.  Sometimes I wonder if it could have been edited better but again, that's on me.

All the same, quirks and all, Forcery was a little film that could.  And it made its way from the living room of a few friends' houses to the big screen and some bigtime media recognition.  Clips of Forcery were heavily featured in the acclaimed documentary The People vs. George Lucas and I've been told that some of it was even shown on Japanese television (which would be one of two times that this blogger's work has been on TV in the land of the rising sun... but I digress).  Knowing that's your lifelong best friend being projected onto the screen at Cannes: it was more than a little startling.  Like, "we did THAT?!?"

But most of all, Forcery was a binding and bonding experience for those who came together to make it happen.  It would take reams of virtual paper to chronicle all the good that came of it.  And I'm too infamous already for writing long stuff, but here's one example that took place a few years ago.  Know this though: that I am now and will forever be proud of the effort that so many made to turn this little film idea into a reality.  THEY are the ones who Forcery is accredited to, far more than it ever could be to me.

Anyhoo, Happy 15th Birthday to Forcery!  And if you want to see it right now now now, you're in luck!  You can watch it in fairly large scale via the Forcery page on this blog and some nice chap uploaded it to YouTube.  So strap yourself in and prepare for fifty-four minutes of a film that some said couldn't be done and others said should not have been done.  They don't count though (but that's another story :-P )

And one last bit of fun: I turned what is arguably the most-quoted line of dialogue from Forcery into an animated GIF.  Feel free to use it elsewhere :-)

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David Lynch should direct a new Star Wars movie

Just a wild idea that popped into mind while thinking about yesterday's horrid news about the revival of Twin Peaks:

If David Lynch won't be returning to helm the new Twin Peaks, then he should be allowed to direct one of the new stand-alone Star Wars movies.

I'm serious.

It's been thirty years.  He's ready.

It almost happened anyway, with Return of the Jedi.  Apparently Lynch was George Lucas' top choice to direct the third Star Wars film.  But Lynch wanted to take the movie into... well, a different direction.  One that veered away from the vision of the saga's creator.  By all accounts the two filmmakers shook hands and each went their way: Lucas to pick Richard Marquand to direct Jedi.  And Lynch would soon after direct the sci-fi epic Dune, based on the novel by Frank Herbert.

That was more than thirty years ago.  And in light of how there will be new Star Wars films that will tell different stories apart from the Skywalker mythology, there is now room for practically every director to potentially bring his or her vision of Star Wars to the big screen.

Including David Lynch.

It would likely be the most disturbing and confusing Star Wars movie that could possibly be conceived by maddened man.  But I for one would trust Lynch to deliver.  Time and again he's proven himself to be one of the premiere filmmakers of our generation or any other.  And he does know how to realize a story that is approachable by any audience: witness 1999's The Straight Story for proof of that.

Disney should let David Lynch direct a Star Wars movie.  It's time.  If Lynch can't be given the resources to return to his own creation of Twin Peaks, then the Mouse House should seize the opportunity to put Lynch's brilliant mind to work in its favor.

But what would a David Lynch-directed Star Wars film look like?  This is after all the genius who made Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and so many other movies of dark atmosphere.  Personally, I think Lynch should shoot his Star Wars movie on grainy film, in black-and-white, with Seventies-style audio quality.  What if Lynch was directing The Force Awakens instead of J.J. Abrams?  It would probably look like this:

David Lynch, directing a new Star Wars movie.

It could happen.

It should happen.

Disney, make it so.

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The FORCERY Four, together again!

I don't know how else to put it, but there are some things that happened at Dad's funeral that despite the occasion were an amazing delight.  And I truly believe that Dad would have had no small measure of pride if he could somehow know that this celebration of his life brought so many wonderful people together to celebrate not only his own life, but also of the most precious things in all our lives.

During the service I spoke a few words about Dad and since the other ministers were sharing stories from his life, I did likewise and related some tales of how forgiving and relenting - even if he didn't understand what the heck I was doing - of the many stunts that I pulled during the life that we shared.  One of them was during the filming of Forcery: my first (and Lord willing still the first of many more to come) film project.  So there was Dad watching as we did things like setting fire to the living room floor of his house, having sledgehammers flying all over the place, "breaking" my best friend's legs etc.  Dad saw this one day and he started to leave.

"Are you headed out Dad?" I asked him.

"Uh-huh, way out," was his reply.  That got a good laugh from the very many who came to the service.

Well, as it turned out, Dad's funeral turned out to be the occasion of a reunion of sorts.  Because among those who came were Chad Austin, Ed Woody, and though it was a long drive for them Melody Hallman Daniel and her mother attended... and boy was my heart jumping for joy to see each of them!  Ten years ago we were all making Forcery.  And as things would have it, we wound up all together once again.

It hadn't been planned, but I really believe that it was something God let happen: the reunion of the Forcery Four.

So here - from left to right - are Ed, myself, Chad, and Melody (with her service dog Sasha) ten years later, just after Dad's funeral:

We don't look all that different than we did when we were making that movie, do we? :-)

And here they are, the stars of our show: Chad and Melody, AKA George Lucas and Frannie Filks:

For such a low-budget project, it is absolutely amazing where our little film has gone and has accomplished since then.  Melody shared how many of her former drama students and fellow faculty members come up to her to tell her they saw her in the Forcery footage that was featured in The People vs. George Lucas.  Chad and Melody were seen on the screens at Cannes.  Forcery was mentioned in Time and The Village Voice and a lot of other publications, and made a whole bunch of bigtime filmmaking-related websites.

I won't say that I myself am proud of Forcery.  Instead, I will say that I am proud of what we accomplished together.  We didn't become only friends because of Forcery: the four of us and others became a real family.  Chad and Ed, have long been my brothers.  Melody became as beloved to me as any sister.  And all of them brought amazing consolation to me when I needed it most.

That is what makes Forcery so special in my life... and it always will be.

But it better not be another ten years before we come together again!  We've already planned to reunite again and watch Forcery once more.  No doubt next time we will have even more family to share it with :-)

EDIT 11-27-2014 3 a.m. EST:  After attempting it multiple times and failing, I finally got Forcery, the entire movie, to upload as a single YouTube video!  No more having to jump to parts.  Here it is.  Enjoy!

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THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED footage found! Behind-the-scenes of Jerry Lewis' unreleased Holocaust film

Jerry's Kids, circa 1972:
You won't hear "You'll Never Walk Alone" the same way again...

It might be the cinematic coup of the decade: a seven minutes-long clip of behind-the-scenes footage from The Day the Clown Cried has been posted to YouTube.

Perhaps the most infamous movie never released, The Day the Clown Cried is the 1972 film directed, co-written and starring Jerry Lewis which ended up in a legal mess about ownership rights which kept it from being finished and distributed.  That was more than forty years ago.  Maybe it was for the best.

What was The Day the Clown Cried about?  Here's the synopsis as I first heard it: "Jerry Lewis is a clown in a Nazi concentration camp".  Lewis was playing a washed-up German clown named Helmut Dork (?!) who gets drunk one night and bad-mouths Hitler in earshot of some Nazi officers.  Dork gets sent to a prison camp, then winds up at Auschwitz where the kommandant uses Dork as a "Judas goat" for herding Jewish children into the gas chambers.  In the final scene, Dork chooses to walk with the kids into the chamber and die with them: making the children laugh as the Zyklon-B canisters drop through the chutes.

It was supposed to have been Lewis' first "serious" motion picture: something he had pinned Oscar hopes on.  He wanted to try something which wasn't comedy for a change.  So he went with a tragic story about the Holocaust.  It didn't end well.

(If you're interested, I wrote much more about The Day the Clown Cried on this blog four years ago.)

To this day nobody apart from Lewis himself and a few favored individuals have seen the entirety of The Day the Clown Cried.  Lewis purportedly has kept the only copy locked up in his office all this time.  Where he once was passionate about finishing and releasing it, he is now adamant that it will never be shown.

So this might be the most we'll ever see of The Day the Clown Cried, courtesy of YouTube user "unclesporkums"...


I'm gonna reiterate what I said four years ago: there's no doubt that The Day the Clown Cried would have been a box-office horror and likely would have upended Jerry Lewis' career for all time had it been released.  But even so, it demonstrates how Hollywood was trying to deal with the subject of the Holocaust: something that happened a quarter-century earlier and which people were still trying to grasp.  So it can't be said that Jerry Lewis can be faulted for trying.  If anything, he made an effort that should be appreciated.  A failed and flawed effort, but in retrospect it wasn't one that many others could have attempted.  Lewis' heart was in the right place.  He just lacked the proper pathos for the project, and I wonder if anyone at the time had it.

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Two amazing fan films: sequel to STAR TREK's "Who Mourns for Adonais?" and ARKHAM RISING

An awful lot of the homegrown cinema lately seems to have more heart and soul than most of the big studio productions.  These two fan-created films are some of the best that I've seen lately.

First up, it's a sequel to the original Star Trek episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?".  "Pilgrim of Eternity" has Michael Forest reprising his role as Apollo from the 1967 episode.  The script was written by Jack Treviño (who wrote the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes "Little Green Men" and "Indiscretion").  Christopher Doohan - son of James Doohan - plays Scotty and Marina Sirtis herself is the voice of the Enterprise computer.  And not being content with just one Apollo, "Pilgrim of Eternity" also has Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica's Lee Adama) as a redshirt security officer!


And then we have this: Arkham Rising.  Set during the events of The Dark Knight Rises, Arkham Rising takes us into Arkham Asylum just after Bane breaks open Blackgate Prison.  This very well could have been a deleted scene from The Dark Knight Rises.  In fact, I kinda wish it was.  Especially in how it attempts to answer the most tantalizing question left from that movie: "Where was the Joker?!"


The thing I like most about Arkham Rising is how it plausibly demonstrates that Batman really could have battled more of his rogues gallery than were depicted on-screen in the Nolan continuity.  If you ever wanted to see what a Nolan-esque take on the Riddler, the Mad Hatter and the Calendar Man could have been, Arkham Rising serves it up.  And if you go to the Arkham Files on the film's official website you can find stuff about the Penguin, Poison Ivy and Clayface.  I bet these guys could have even pulled off a Nolan-ish Mister Freeze, they did such a great job!

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Trailer for THE BROTHERS RAPTURE fan-made BioShock movie!

BioShock Infinite has been out for over a month. It's a game I haven't played an I'm not inclined to either. Why? Because in this blogger's opinion it's not a true BioShock game.

For me, the BioShock mythos will always be focused on Rapture: that city beneath the waves of the North Atlantic, not a brightly-lit metropolis floating Lord-knows-where in the sky. The first BioShock game was and remains the most intellectual and even enlightening video game I have ever enjoyed. It's difficult even calling it a "video game".  From what I've heard, BioShock Infinite's world of Columbia is a beauty to behold and has a degree of moral choice... but in the end it doesn't leave as strong an impression as Rapture.

I'll say it again: BioShock is high-brow literature of a whole new kind that hasn't been seen before. And its sequel BioShock 2 did a pretty good job continuing its themes.  And I think there's plenty, plenty of room for a BioShock 3 and more past that.  Maybe it could be a few years later in the 1970s and the U.S. and Soviet governments finally learn about Rapture and try to take it.  I'm not the first to think that and I hope that the folks at 2K have thought of it either... or any idea that would even more terrific!

Well anyhoo, the real BioShock saga has long inspired some amazing work by its fans and now a group of filmmakers has produced a film that looks just as good if not better than anything Hollywood is likely to crank out!  The Brothers Rapture (click here for its official Facebook page) is getting released next week on May 13th, but there's already a trailer for it.

And it is gorgeous to behold!


As the article at The Escapist describes it: " Set before the hidden city underwent cultural and physical collapse, The Brothers Rapture explores the people who thrived in a land without limits.  It appears to take the setting and theme of Bioshock and spin them out into an original story.  The trailer shows the brothers Charles and Arthur, artists newly arrived in Rapture.  They seem overjoyed at the freedom that Rapture offers them, until a shady figure in a dapper hat shows up offering to turn their very hands into tools.  Expect philosophical arguments and scenes of people shooting large vials of glowing goo into their arms."

Seriously, I don't know which I'm now looking forward to more next week: Star Trek Into Darkness, or this baby.

A thankful tip o' the hat to loyal reader Roxanne Martin for forwarding this along! :-)

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CALVIN AND HOBBES: THE MOVIE trailer

Unfortunately it's something fan-made and... eeeeeaaaaaAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH SOMEBODY PLEASE MAKE THIS MOVIE MAKE IT REAL SERIOUSLY MAKE IT REAL REAL REAL!!!

Bill Watterson should let us chip into a Kickstarter and get this produced! Make $50 million the goal and it will reach it in less than a day...


Props to GrittyReboots for the great work!  And thanks goes to Billy Cripe for finding this :-)

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Behold the world's oldest known color motion picture!

In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became President after the assassination of William McKinley. The Wright Brothers were still experimenting with gliders and motorized propellers. Tsar Nicholas II reigned in Russia and the British Empire mourned the passing of Queen Victoria. A child named Walt Disney was born in Chicago. Guglielmo Marconi used his newly-invented radio to send the first trans-Atlantic signal.

Meanwhile in England, a photographer named Edward Turner was experimenting with color negatives and the recent advent of motion pictures. Among other things Turner recorded footage of his three children, Hyde Park, and traffic in London.

More than a century later and after exhaustive research, it is now being reported that Edward Turner's film is the oldest color motion picture that has ever been found.

Wanna see it? Of course ya do!

The palette of the macaw is particularly striking. But after watching the soldiers marching and the Union Jack flittering, I can't help but wonder what might have been had Turner's process and Kinemacolor later on become more widely available. I mean, just imagine the color footage that could have been made of World War I a few years later.

Edward Turner himself passed away at the much-too-young age of 29 in 1903. But it's great to see him and his work getting appreciated today.

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Time for... THANKSGIVING WITH THE KRANZES!

I have reposted stuff on this blog twice in the past, on rare occasions. But never three times. This deserves it though (and no doubt will be posted again in years to come).

It's been two years since the last time I shared this YouTube video. And since this is the week of Thanksgiving (yes I've already begun preparing to deep-fry a bunch of turkey) and there are perhaps still a lot of people who've never enjoyed this before, I thought it was well worth posting again :-)

It's the short film Thanksgiving With The Kranzes. Produced a few years ago by aviation students, it's a dead-on hilarious parody of Ron Howard's movie Apollo 13.

It is Thanksgiving 1970. This year it's Gene Kranz's turn to host the traditional dinner for his NASA colleagues. The heroic crew of the Apollo 13 mission has been given the command of the kitchen. But then... something happens.

"Take-out is NOT an option!"

Watch now the film that the real-life Gene Kranz has taken to watching with his family every Thanksgiving!

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Darren Aronofsky's four horrifying anti-meth PSAs

Anti-drug ads have sure come a long way from an egg dropped into a frying pan...

Darren Aronofsky, the filmmaker behind Pi and Requiem for a Dream, has produced four public service announcements for the Meth Project, warning against meth abuse.

Here's one of them...

And that's not even the most disturbing example of Aronofsky's latest work.

GeekTyrant has collected all four of them for your convenience. But be mindful: these are all pretty harsh. One of them is intensely disgusting. Consider yourself duly warned.

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DUKE NUKEM FOREVER is out TODAY!

Yes, it really is! I even went out late yesterday evening along with good friend/fellow blogger and Eagle Scout Steven Glaspie to be at the local GameStop for the midnight release, just to behold it with our own eyes.

But that wound up not being good enough. I had to have some tactile sensation of it as well, so I bought a copy of the standard edition.

And though I hadn't planned on it, I wound up shooting and then editing together a lil' film to document the event for posterity. This is the first time that I've ever put together a movie with an iOS device. May this be the first of many more to come :-)

Anyhoo, here is... Vaporware Nevermore!

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Make Super 8-ish movies with your iOS gizmo!

As of this evening I haven't seen Super 8, but some of the coolest cats that I have the honor of personally knowing seem to be completely losing their minds about how incredible it must be. I'm gonna be catching it Sunday afternoon with friends and am really looking forward to it :-)

But in the meantime, thought I'd turn y'all's attention to 8mm Vintage Camera, a sa-weeet lil' app from Nexvio for Apple iOS devices that are camera equipped (doesn't matter if it's an iPhone, iPod touch or the newest iPad). 8mm Vintage Camera turns your newfangled Apple contraption into an old-school 8mm movie camera with all the fixins. Select from different lenses, various types of film stock, and you can even give it a classic camera frame jitter effect. I've had this app for a few weeks now and it has definitely become one of my favorites. Indeed, all kinds of fun ideas have crept into mind since I started playing with it!

8mm Vintage Camera is $1.99 on the App Store, and the current version (1.1) is a tiny 2.7 MB download. Click here to get to it on iTunes. You'll thank me that you did :-)

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THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS coming to North Carolina! I'm finally getting to see my movie on the big screen...

...well, parts of it anyway :-)

The People vs. George Lucas, Alexandre Philippe's documentary that has won beaucoups of awards at film festivals all over the world, has just announced a whole bunch of new showings. And one of them is right next door in Winston-Salem! Beginning May 9th it'll be playing at Cine Club on 311 West Fourth Street.

So why am I especially stoked about getting to see this rave-reviewed film? Here's the second trailer for it...

And here's the first teaser for The People vs. George Lucas...

That's none other than Melody Hallman Daniel and Chad Austin from Forcery, the first film that I ever made. I've heard that quite a lot of clips from it wound up in The People vs. George Lucas. So I'm not only looking forward to seeing Philippe's work, but also my own blown-up extra-huge on a real movie screen! This is gonna be an absolute hoot to behold :-)

EDIT 6:51 p.m. EST: I have just been notified that the screening at Cine Club has been moved back to September, because of scheduling conflict. I'll post more as we get closer to the actual date. We just have to wait a little longer, that's all :-)

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