Note: This review was co-written many weeks back (I’m linking late!) with the highly esteemed Ross Ruediger of Bullz-Eye and The Rued Morgue. Guess which movies I saw, and which ones Ross saw!

Forty-two years after his death, B-horror legend William Castle remains synonymous with cinematic gimmicks with names like “Emergo,” (a glow-in-the-dark skeleton that flew over the audience), “Percepto” (a small vibrator under some theaters seats) and “Illusion-O” (a “ghost viewer”). Though his modestly budgeted productions delighted the young, they were impossible to take seriously and never earned him the kind of respect given to less avidly commercial auteurs. Still, he was a solid movie craftsman of the old school with a buoyant attitude who worked with Orson Welles and Roman Polanski, and possibly influenced Alfred Hitchcock’s move into sensational horror with “Psycho” and “The Birds.” As a director, he was a competent craftsman whose essentially good-natured works aimed a bit low. As a showman, however, Welles, Polanski, and Hitchcock had very little on him.

READ THE REST AT BULLZ-EYE.COM

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The hype around “Paranormal Activity” is more than justified, but it still isn’t much more than an extremely well-made engine for getting a roomful of people to squirm, giggle, and actually scream in near unison. In a way, it’s entirely unfair that I’ve given this barebones video terror flick a slightly higher rating than an artful and far more fully developed horror construction like “Drag Me to Hell, but life isn’t fair and dramatic depictions of creeping death are even less so.

“Paranormal Activity,” which has been making the film festival rounds since last year, starts out in true post-”Blair Witch” fashion, eschewing ordinary credits and replacing them with titles implying that Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat may be less than completely healthy; the filmmakers thank their parents and their local police department for the use of the edited home video footage we’re about to see. After that, the set-up is about as simple as things get: Grad-student Katie believes that she has been dogged by a decidedly unfriendly presence of some sort her entire life, and that lately it has been getting worse. As our tale begins, her ebulliently arrogant day trader live-in boyfriend, Micah, decides to pursue the spectral whatsis by putting them both under constant videotape surveillance in their very large San Diego townhouse. (Since the movie is set in 2006, we can assume the careless Micah purchased the house via a highly suspect interest-only loan. Perhaps it’s just as well.)

READ THE REST AT BULLZ-EYE.COM

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[Today’s entry at Premium Hollywood had some FtY suitable material, so here it is again.]

Filthy lucre is today’s theme in movieland. Really, it’s every day’s theme, but it’s on my mind today.

* Nikki Finke, who actually makes money blogging, notes a pay cut for William Morris assistants, who already work ridiculously hard for the hope of decent money some day, and are expected to work a minimum of fifty hours a week. Presumably they get some overtime (though one wonders if they’re not working actually quite a bit more — Hollywood and Walmart have been known to have a few things in common in the past). They’d better because their boss’s brother is the White House chief of staff. Could get messy, otherwise.

Finke also has an interesting — inasmuch as I can follow it — look at some silver linings amidst the major studio’s fiscals clouds.

* A noted casting change in the third “Twilight” will probably not affect grosses perceptibly, but there’s no stopping those wagging tongues.

* And with all the fuss at Comic-Con, the appearance of anime genius Hiyao Miyazaki got all but ignored by the media, as far as I can tell. “Princess Mononoke” beat “Titanic” in Japan. If it had done so here, it’s fair to say he wouldn’t have been a relative afterthought.

* What of “District 9″? Given one of a few strong early reviews by Justin Chang, will politically trenchant, if thoughtfully violent/icky, Sci-Fi set in South Africa find a big enough American audience? (H/t Jeffrey Wells.)

* For those of you who live outside of California, it might be interesting to note that while mass chaos seems far away here, the state’s fiscal crisis really is effecting everything and everyone to varying degrees. People I know who work in the public sector out are personally experiencing furloughs and pay cuts to go with them, classroom sizes are ballooning absurdly and on it goes to some pretty scary and sad places.

It may not be directly related, but the Los Angeles Times report that the L.A. County Museum of Art is ending its weekend programming hits me where I live. As Anne Thompson points out, some of that may be due to some very canny competition from the terrific Los Angeles Cinematheque, a relatively very young organization that has actually come to the fore during the DVD era with two theaters at opposite ends of town offering some pretty great programming.

The Times‘ John Horn strikes a perhaps overly drastic or even borderline intellectually snobbish note on that point, though it’s true that this is not a golden age for art movies. LACMA was more prone than any other venue to offer works by such cinephile-only filmmakers as Bela Tarr, whose best known movie is the 7.5 hour “Satantango,” and will be closing out with the far-from-Frank Capra Alain Resnais.

Nevertheless, the museum’s Bing Theater was certainly not above offering crowd-pleasing fare from time to time and, indeed, not doing so would be to ignore a huge part of film history. Still, a cannier mix might not have hurt so much. Since they are talking of tie-ins with museum shows, programs similar to (or identical to) New York’s MOMA collaboration with Tim Burton might be in order. If regular film programming ever does return to MOCA, a little more Charlie Chaplin and a little less Maoist-period Godard might not be the end of the world, either.

Character actress Lorna Raver starred in the year’s best reviewed horror film, and all she got was this lousy button.

Being in the same general ethnic/religious cohort doesn’t give me the right to speak for writer-director Sam Raimi and his co-writer brother Ivan, but this Jewish kid was just a little bit traumatized when he first learned about the traditional Christian concept of hell. Judaism has no hell other than guilt and death, so learning about the fire, the pitchforks, and the eternal torment – and that millions believed that, by virtue of my non-Christianity, I was going to suffer all of it – was a little traumatic. I hadn’t even done anything bad enough yet to be grounded.

In “Drag Me to Hell,” Raimi and company fashion what is in some respects an only slightly less unjust universe, in which the failure to perform a single mitvah (usually translated from Hebrew as a good deed, but in reality it means the act of obeying a commandment) is transubstantiated from Jewish recrimination into Catholic punishment of the pre-Vatican II variety. In this case, a single selfish choice lands loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) in serious danger of eternal damnation after being cursed, Gypsy style, by Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), easily the least attractive woman of any age in Los Angeles. It gets worse; the woman has very sharp and very ugly dentures, and she’s not afraid to use them, right alongside the supernatural abilities available to all Romani movie females over age 60. Naturally, poor Christine’s relationship with her understanding psychologist boyfriend (Justin “I’m a Mac” Long, playing straight man for a change) will be somewhat strained as she is subjected to one bizarre supernatural attack after another – including surprise visits in her car, a projectile nosebleed (at least a pint’s worth), and the old eyeball-in-the-“Harvest Cake” trick.

READ THE REST AT BULLZ-EYE.COM

*****

Up to now, I’ve been a no-show at the several cinephile exams that have been hosted over the last couple of years at Dennis Cozzalio’s legendarily brainy film geek blog, Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule. Well, before splitting for a hard-earned vacation, Dennis has posted a new exam on film-related matters, up in honor of the cartoon dog genius, Prof. Peabody, which you’re all encouraged to take.

I’ve posted my responses in the comment thread over there already, but now that I’m a SLIFR slacker no more, I thought I’d make ‘em do double duty here because we know that my opinions matter, or something.

Here goes….

1) Favorite Biopic

“Lawrence of Arabia” – an obviously great film and a rather pedestrian choice given that I really like biopics, sometimes the cheesier and and more ridiculously fabricated the better. Therefore, quasi-demi-honorable mention is alluded this triumvirate of absurdly wrong biopics – “The Jolson Story” (it’s amazing how much Al Jolson’s life was just like the plot of “The Jazz Singer”!), “They Died With Their Boots On” (the love affair between Custer and the Indians your socialist history teacher doesn’t want you to see!) and “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story” (he didn’t just appear in action movies…he lived them!).

2) Dyan Cannon or Tuesday Weld?

It’s close, but I give it to Dyan Cannon for being hilarious onscreen and genuinely wacky offscreen.

3) Best example of science fiction futurism rendered silly by the event of time catching up to the prediction

The Jetson’s treadmill? I’m drawing a blank here.

4) Annette Funicello & Frankie Avalon or Troy Donahue & Sandra Dee?

Frankie & Annette – I grew up watching those movies on channels 5 & 9 (I think) out here up to age 10 or so. Not that those movies are in any sense “good” (I wonder if I could sit through any of them now?), but F&A at least have a certain amount of charm and sense of humor, which I really can’t say about Troy Donahue, at least.

5) Favorite Raoul Walsh movie?

Not really “White Heat,” and no, definitely not “They Died with Their Boots On”… The winner is “The Roaring Twenties” – by far. Just a magnificent entertainment. I need to see that one again some time soon.

6) Sophomore film which represents greatest improvement over the director’s debut

This is tough, but I guess I’m going to say Polanski’s “Repulsion” as it’s brilliant and “Knife in the Water” left me feeling merely 90 minutes older after it was done. Though, that was in college and I might have a very different reaction now. (Another possibility is “Rushmore” – though I loved “Bottle Rocket” quite a bit, so it’s dicey.)

7) Ice Cube or Mos Def?

Mos Def – because he convinced me he was actually English in “Hithchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

Favorite movie about the music industry.

Many, many fun movies in this category, but I guess I’m going to have to go with “Nashville.”

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“Nobody does it to you like Roman Polanski!” – Tagline for “The Tenant”

To a lot of us, he deserves the equivalent of a Nobel Prize for filmmaking, but Roman Polanski is still best known in the United States as – in Polanski’s own phrase – “an evil, profligate dwarf.” Some of that is because of his darkly puckish public persona, his Polish accent, and his height. Of course, the main reason is that, roughly 30 years ago, the 45-year-old director fled the country in the wake of an alleged 1977 poolside rape-by-drugging of a very underage teenager at the home of the vacationing Jack Nicholson. Jokes like the one about Polanski’s next movie being “Close Encounters of the Third Grade” aside, the details of the case have inevitably remained murky ever since: only two people in the world really know what happened, both of them were stoned and one of them was only 13 years old. Nevertheless, thanks to a superb piece of investigative filmmaking by documentary filmmaker Marina Zenovich, the facts surrounding the case have, at least, become clearer.

In just over 100 thoroughly engrossing minutes, “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” manages to tell three separate, but inextricably bound tales. One is the he-said, she-said mystery of just what happened that fateful night in the Hollywood hills between Polanski and young Samantha Geimer; another is the court case resulting from it; and finally the astonishing life story of Polanski – a subject that itself could easily fill several films. It includes a childhood spent fleeing Nazi death camps, and an unlikely, speedy rise from Polish film school to Hollywood’s A-list as a master of psychological horror and suspense. It also includes nearly unendurable tragedy when his pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate, was killed alongside several of her friends by followers of a sad little racist named Charles Manson.

Read the rest at Bullz-Eye.com.

Another pair of passings of fascinating, under appreciated, and, in their own way, pretty important entertainment figures, which I only just heard together about via a Twitter from my esteemed Bullz-Eye colleague, Will Harris.

I’m a bit pressed for time and not really expert enough in either’s career to do any kind of justice to them — I had even forgotten that Nina Foch was a hugely respected teacher at USC and AFI, whose work influenced teachers I’ve studied under. I certaintly didn’t know she was still teaching, right up until the moment she fell ill on Thursday. So, I’ll simply note the passing of two great women of classic-era film and beyond. The Los Angeles Times has good obituaries on both: Ms. Foch, who to me will always be Marie Antoinette from Scaramouche (and damnit, I wish I could find her crucial scene with the late Mel Ferrer to show you just how great she was), and Ms. Garland, probably best known today for D.O.A., her time on My Three Sons, and, to Angelenos and tourists, for her North Hollywood hotel.

Sad news via Greencine, the world’s best known and most beloved genre fan has passed on at age 92.

If you grew up a geek in Los Angeles — and, as the four semester president of the Venice High Science Club and, before that, the one term prexy of the Junior Count Dracula Society (an even odder story than it sounds), boy, did I ever — you could not avoid the man everyone knew as “Forry.” For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Ackerman’s work, he was basically the ultimate fan — “Mr. Sci-Fi” he was dubbed, for he apparently coined the name that many an SF geek with literary pretentions refused to use but that everyone else has taken up ever since. (Even though I haven’t been anything resembling a rabid science fiction purist for decades, I still can’t bring myself to call it that.)

He started his career as a literary agent, whose clients included, among many others, Isaac Asimov, his longtime friend Ray Bradbury, and (I’m pretty sure) the great pulp writer and screenplay collaborator Leigh Brackett (Rio Bravo, The Long Goodbye, The Empire Strikes Back). At the other end of the scale, his Wikipedia entry reminds me that he was also the “illiterary” agent to, you read it here, Ed Wood.

Despite what appears to have been some definite financial success on that account, however, his greatest professional achievement was probably as the editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, the backbone of Jim Warren’s crude publishing empire that later branched off into semi-adult black and white comic books — also led by another creation of Forry’s, Vampirella. He was also one of the primary founders of the LASFS – the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (as per its website “this world’s oldest continuously-meeting science-fiction and fantasy club”) which just had a convention over Thanksgiving weekend and which I hope he was able to attend.

Still, at least in these parts, he was best known and loved as the owner of the Ackermansion, his own home and the setting for easily the most impressive collection of horror and…okay…sci-fi related memorabilia and antiquities known to man. When, he moved to smaller quarters in 2002, a collective sigh was heard throughout L.A.’s Geek-American community.

I have two strong personal memories of Mr. Ackerman — who showed up at practically any sf/horror/genre film/comics event you could name for decades. One was when, prior to the first Westal Administration, he escorted my aforementioned high school science fiction club through the Ackermansion, showing off the original robot Maria from Metropolis and some of animator Willis O’Brien’s original models from the 1933 King Kong as well as the 1926 copy of Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories that had started him on his life’s journey at the age of ten. I also remember seeing him when I was probably seventeen or so at Westercon, the largest West Coast science fiction convention that wasn’t focused on Star Trek and that upstart newbie, Star Wars. It was a late night, 16mm screening of a movie that remains a big favorite of mine, the 1973 The Wicker Man.

Just before it started, I turned around and saw the then-sixty-something Forry sprawling across several chairs for an 11:00 screening of a movie he’d probably already seen a few times. (True, it was before even VHS was all that common and it wasn’t exactly easy to see.) He smiled and gave me a wave though he could not possibly know who I was other than just another fellow enthusiast. He was just happy to be watching an obscure movie on a bad projector in a hotel ballroom. A fan through and through.

UPDATE: It’s absolutely no surprise that there’s been a great deal posted about this notable passing since I first wrote this yesterday morning. You can find most of it via good ol’ Dennis Cozzalio’s predictably remarkable post. Of course, Dennis is a true blue horror fan of the first order, and like Guillermo del Toro, accepted monsters into his heart at an early age, so he very much knows whereof…. Anyhow, along with his personal reminiscences on the importance of Famous Monsters to him and to the horror world in general, he’s also posted a three-part video epic documenting his own 1998 visit to the Ackermansion. I call that appointment online viewing if ever there was.

Dennis also links to some worthwhile posts, including one from Tim Lucas, which alludes to some controversies I was totally unaware of. The only criticisms I ever heard of Forry or his magazines had to do with his coinage of “sci-fi,” and the crude writing and bad puns in his magazines. (As a blogger with a love of borsht belt humor, I’m hardly in a position to criticize on either score). Otherwise, everyone seemed to love him personally and respect his work as the ultimate fan and his friendliness to true geeks of all levels was legendary. At least on the most public level, what was there not to like?

Admittedly, the current version of the Famous Monsters wikipedia entry (which I’m not linking to because I’m somewhat suspicious of some of what’s in it right now) seems if not perhaps one-sided, more than a little strange, in its discussion of a lawsuit that, along with our barbaric health care system, reportedly had a lot to do with so tragically draining Ackerman’s resources and forcing him to sell off large chunks of his collection. But, hey, it’s Mr. Sci-Fi/Monsters, we’re talking about, so a little strangeness seems apt.

On a much more positive note, Dennis also links to Glenn Kenny and some extremely worthwhile comments. And it was via Kenny, I stumbled upon this really poignant 2003 Los Angeles Times article by Hillary MacGregor, who apparently tolerated a bit of flirtation from the late octogenarian with very good humor, reposted on their Daily Mirror blog. I was especially taken by a section discussing one of Forry’s lesser known passions…. the long-ago attempt at a one-world language designed to bring on world peace.

….In a mishmash of what sounds like French, Spanish and Italian that is somehow comprehensible to any liberal arts graduate, he tells a visitor her eyes are beautiful, her height striking. He is speaking Esperanto. “In the 20s and 30s, some science fiction stories of the future mentioned that everyone would one day speak Esperanto,” he says. “For me it was like time travel. It was like going 100 years into the future. And if I could bring back a bottle of something, I would be thrilled. At least I could bring back the language everyone would be speaking.”

Something about Ackerman’s snippet of Esperanto seems to capture the soul of science fiction, and of Ackerman himself. It speaks to a utopian vision cherished by people who fantasize about a world where Martians and Klingons and humans can all speak the same language and get along. It is the view of an optimist, the view of a man whose slogan is “Save humanity with science and sanity.”"

Again, what’s not to like?

This one’s pretty much for film geeks only (though the video below is recommended for all music fans)….

So, some time back, my highly esteemed blog-friend Brian Doan tagged me with the “12 Films” meme, which basically calls for the taggee to name 12 films he or she really wants to see, but hasn’t. Though I making any kind of selection found it a daunting task — I have two DVRs filled with movies I “really need to see” plus a NetFlix queue which is, I think, about 350 films long (a few are repeats of favorites or movies I want to take a new look at that I’ve seen before, but mostly not). I responded (eventually) with six films, with the other six to come…eventually.

But now, Brian has again tagged me again, with the dreaded “Alphabet” meme, calling for a listing of 26 films, one for each letter of the alphabet (”the” and “a”, etc., don’t count) we like or feel some personal connection or are favorites, or whatever. Since I still had a deficit of six films as yet to list in the original films-I-want-to-see meme, and to prove my point about the infinite nature of the first (especially considering my pretty omnivorous tastes), I have decided that I’m going to mutate this here ‘net virus and make it a list of 26 films I really want to see, but haven’t, in alphabetical order. I won’t be tagging anyone else with this, for I fear the viral responsibility. However, of course, anyone who wants to play is more than welcome.

The only trend I noticed here is a few notable films I’ve yet to see from directors I’m supposed to be sorta kinda expert on like Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock.

I should add that this was especially challenging for those less popular alphabet letter, as I’ve actually seen both Xanadu and Z (and wouldn’t even think of listing the former unless it was cut down to the one nice dance number with Gene Kelly and Olivia Neutron Bo…I mean Olivia Newton John — I love musicals too much to give it a pass and, while I’m not wholly immune to camp, my love of bad movies knows bounds, lots and lots of bounds). But okay, I admit the idea was born when I realized I’ve had Louis Malle’s Zazie dans le Metro on my DVR for a couple of years now. My musical tastes saved me elsewhere….

I have put asterisks next to films whose unseen status may be questioned by some (including me) or where I have a comment.

So, here goes….

Avanti
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia*
Cockfighter**
Diabolik
The Emperor of the North
Five Graves to Cairo
Green for Danger
Hallelujah, I’m a Bum
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten
Kagemusha***
Lifeboat
Mississippi Mermaid
Night of the Generals
One of Our Aircraft is Missing
Pistol Opera
Quo Vadis
Robin and the Seven Hoods****
The Spook Who Sat by the Door
Two for the Road
Used Cars
Verboten!
Wee Willie Winkie*****
X: The Unheard Music
YiYi
Zazie dans le Metro

And now, by way of thanking L.A.’s greatest all-time punk rock band for saving me….and, by the way, this is the first time I’ve seen this piece of film, which may or may not be in the X doc listed above. Why can’t more rock videos be this simple? Great stuff.

See asterisks below the fold…

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Thank you, Ms. Gale Garnett.