Mr. Plinkett has given us a new review of Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I always appreciate these dissections.
Part 1
Part 2
Also, be sure to check out Raiding the Lost Ark: A Filmumentary -- full-length documentary about Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
More fun stuff:
When George Lucas Had Talent
Jonesing for the New Indy Film (Revised in Impossibly Funky).
Too many people abuse the term "homage" as a euphemism of "rip off" (I know I'm guilty of this myself, though I use it facetiously). When I use "homage" in this review, its intended use is the proper definition; "respect or reverence paid or rendered."
Ken Coffman's Fairhaven (ISBN: 978-0982773420) is a loving homage to the works of Charles Willeford, specifically the Hoke Mosely series (Miami Blues, Sideswipe, et cetera). The title plays off "The Grimhaven Manuscript" which I described in "Madness in the 20th Century" as:
An early draft for the second book in the Moseley series, New Hope for the Dead, is commonly known as "The Grimhaven Manuscript." Herein we witness Hoke burnt-out from his job as a homicide detective. He begins a quest for "absolutely nothing" and determines that this may best be attained through killing off his ex-wife and two daughters. Needless to say, Willeford's publisher refused the draft. The second (and successful) stab at the sequel, stands as not only the best of the Moseley books but of Willeford's oeuvre.
The Fairhaven of Coffman's title is Charlie Fairhaven, a rest home nursing assistant who finds too much pleasure in euthanizing patients around the Pacific Northwest. Curmudgeonly retired cop Jake Mosby (not to be confused with Hoke Mosely) gets reluctantly involved in the case when one of the customers at his decrepit bookstore dumps it in his lap.
Initially I was afraid that Mosby's grandson, Nort, would become a precocious source of comic relief a la Grandma Mazur from the Stephanie Plum books. Fortunately, Coffman handles Nort and all of the other oddball characters of Fairhaven well. Likewise, Coffman could have made Fairhaven more of a jokey send-up of Willeford. Instead, his references to Willeford's work are brief, appropriate, and appreciated.
Coffman excels at taught, compelling storytelling and has crafted a must-read for mystery enthusiasts, especially Willeford fans.
Buy it at Amazon.com.
I'm looking for some scripts for projects that are either completely dead in the water or that underwent significant changes from inception to production (or even thereafter).
Any help would be greatly appreciated:
I've been invited to be a part of the Outside the Cinema podcast's "Best of 2011" show. It's going to be broadcast LIVE on 12/29 around 6:30 PM EST.
Watch below or visit http://livestre.am/lJe.
iTunes users - please take a minute to rate The Projection Booth podcast. It's accomplished in three (or four) quick steps:
1) Click here.
2) Click any episode's "View in iTunes" link
3) Under customer ratings, click to rate one to five(!) stars
4) If you're not logged in, iTunes will prompt you to do so.
That's it! Thanks! Oh, and if you want to write a review, that's cool too.
2011 ended up being a busy year.
Though I took a few months off between touring Impossibly Funky around after 2010, I kept trying to work that publicity angle throughout the early part of 2011. I completed my second book tour in late May/early June and, in effect, I completed book touring altogether unless I suddenly find myself with some kind of lucrative publishing deal some day. I met a lot of great people but I sure didn't sell enough books to make the trip worthwhile.
A lot of the folks I met on my travels with Impossibly Funky in 2010 and 2011 ended up writing for me in the "Revenge of Print" issue of Cashiers du Cinemart. This came out a month early in August though I have yet to get all of the old school photocopied and stapled issues out to my distributor (and, thus, out to stores). In the meantime, CdC 16 is available via a print-on-demand service.
In March I co-founded a podcast, The Projection Booth. Since then there has been a new episode (or two) available each week. Nearly all of them feature interviews with the filmmakers behind the movies covered. It's been great connecting and/or re-connecting with folks and sharing my love of some terrific films.
Doing all of the research for the show has really helped bolster my confidence and led to benefits for other work that I've done in 2011 including the piece I wrote for the new Paracinema magazine all about horror parodies of the '80s and the chapter I wrote on Airplane II: The Sequel for an upcoming book from BearManor Media.
I had a blast hanging out with Greydon Clark in April at Horror Hound and in September. I'm still hoping to work with him on his autobiography (fingers crossed). I also had a lot of fun with the fine folks at the Blue Water Film Festival. BWFF marked the fist time that Chris Gore and I ever officially met (though we were both in The People Vs. George Lucas).
Along with Horror Hound and Blue Water, I also attended the CIMMFest in Chicago in April where I got to see the premiere of Freaks in Love, the Alice Donut documentary.
If you know me, you know how much I love to travel. 2011 marked the first year I'd been to Europe since 1991, and my first time on the Iberian peninsula. Andrea and I had a blast in Barcelona. I miss it just about every day.
Please feel free to go through the archives of this blog for more fun or check out the links below. Stay tuned in 2012 for more good stuff.
Links:
As a special holiday gift from me to you, I put together the songs that I used in the Robocop episode of The Projection Booth podcast into a music mix. It's a .zip file for easy download.
Here are some of the songs:
Robocop Theme - Basil Poledouris
Robocop Theme - Nintendo 8-bit version
Robocop (Who R U?) - B.O.S.E
OCP - Gama Bomb
Robocop - Sleaze Boyz
Murphy's Law - Priestess
Robocop: Streets of Detroit - Shiryu
Murphy, It's You - Al & Jon Kaplan
Download the Robocop Music Mix.
It seems that Robocop is in the air at the moment. Be sure to check out the deluxe cover story of Paracinema Magazine all about the film. Go Robo!
I'm really happy to see that my upcoming article on horror parodies of the 1980s has made the front cover of Paracinema 14. Being OCD, I went a little nuts doing the research on this one, talking to Jeff Begun of Saturday the 14th, Alfred Sole of Pandemonium, Greydon Clark of Wacko, Chris Bearde of Hysterical, and more. Stop by Paracinema.net to pre-order a copy now!
Dion Conflict interviews author Mike White (Cashiers du Cinemart) on his book entitled "Impossibly Funky: A Cashiers Du Cinemart Collection" in the rest room of a rep cinema in Detroit, Michigan.
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