THE MOVIE OF MY LIFE PHASE ONE: Candidates for 1976

Our Country’s Bicentennial Year...which meant my mom dragged me and my two brothers to see the Big Ships as they passed the Statue of Liberty on July 4th.  We’re still living on 76th Street, and I’m hanging with my next door neighbors Amy and Frankie--and spending Far Too Much Time with Joe, who lived up the block, was a general Bad Influence and stole some authentic Neal Adams X-Men comics (the debut of Sauron!) by ‘borrowing’ them and claiming they were lost in a fire.  Joe is intrinsic to one of my moviegoing memories, as we took the journey all the way to The Oasis on Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood from our Woodhaven homes to see Godzilla vs. Megalon all by our lonesomes, a journey that required two buses.

Anyway, your candidates for 1976 are as follows...

BUGSY MALONE

As I’ve mentioned before, I love musicals.  This an obscure-bordering-on-cult-film here in America, but it’s apparently quite celebrated in England (right, Andrew Leyland?).  Given that Paul Williams did the music (I know y’all are oohing and ahhing because of The Muppet Show, but my fondness for his work comes from The Phantom of Paradise, the only film of Brian DePalma I actively like) and that it’s a gangster epic played entirely by kids with guns shooting marshmello fluff, I’m surprised I didn’t watch this sooner.  And if you choose this, I finally will.

THE PASSOVER PLOT
I could just point out that in this film, Zalman King (a man whose...vigorous acting style I discussed during last year’s Halloween Horrorfest) plays Jesus.

But it’s not just that.  It’s one of a rash of films that sort of grew out of the paranoia of the Nixon Era, based on a book that posits that the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was actually a well staged stunt to sway his followers to revolution against the Romans.  From everything I can glean, it’s kind of silly in a ‘We’re Gon’ Blow Your Mind, MAN’ way, so I’m intrgued.

Also....Zalman King as Jesus.

THE MESSAGE
And speaking of somewhat ill-conceived religious epics, here’s a biography of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, directed by Moustapha ‘that guy who brought us those cheap-ass Halloween sequels John Carpenter wanted to delete from continuity twice’ Akkad.  And what fascinates me about this film is that Akkad films this biography without depicting the subject of said biography, his wives or relatives.  There are some scenes of characters addressing the camera as if it is Mohammed as well as shots of Mohammed’s sword during battle scenes, but no other depiction of the prophet or his inner circle.  I’ve been told it’s both inept and extremely well-shot, unintentionally silly and respectful.  I want to see it and decide for myself.

SILENT MOVIE
I know there are people who think Spaceballs is a classic, but I am not one of them.  I do think both Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein are major classic, but after that I have issues with his stuff (issues I feel come from Brooks deciding to take center stage in front of the camera, especially doing so without the genius that is Gene Wilder).  This is the film that he followed up Young Frankenstein, and I'd like to see if my hypothesis that the more Brooks takes control, the less effective his comedy is.

There you go.  You’ll have one week to head over to my Twitter Page and vote for you choice of which film I will view and comment on.   Have fun!

Hey!  Wanna Help Support This Blog And Get Cool Goodies In Return?  Then head on over to The Domicile of Dread Patreon Page and join me on my crusade to Make The World Stranger.  For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get new fiction and exclusive essays.  Invest a bit more, and get other stuff including advance access to my new television podcast Thomas Deja’s Watching , the Patreon Exclusive Podcast Cinematic Mirage (I plan on the first episode, focusing on Tales From The Crypt: Dead Easy, dropping in July), movie commentaries...and even the chance to assign me articles that’ll be published on this very blog!

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#617

You may have heard of it in hushed whispers.

You may have speculated on what it contains.

Well, it’s finally here....that episode where Des and Daryll, drunk on truly heroic amounts of alcohol, attempt to present a coherent review of Creepshow 2.

Will they survive the experience?  Only way to find out....

The trailer is below, as is a tour of the locations 30 years later, Gregory Nicotero talking about the upcoming TV show, Dorothy Lamour (Creepshow 2 was her last film) being harassed by a  very young Sinbad and Stephen 'On and On’ Bishop on an ultra-obscure TV show, and music from Wooden Indian Burial Ground!

Listen to Dread Media #617 here

IF EVERYBODY’S DOING IT, WHY CAN’T WE: Coming To You Live and Direct!

This is just a head’s up for everyone.

Tomorrow at approximately 12 noon EST, I’ll be going live on my Facebook Page to talk about what’s going on with the Patreon Page. 

Among the things I will discuss is my Special Birthday Offer, where you can assign me an article to write for this very blog (a benefit reserved usually for the $10 tier) if you sign up to be a Patreon at the $3 tier or greater between now and June 23rd at midnight.  The article you choose--whether a review or a think piece, whether about a movie or a comic or something else--will show up during the Summer Fan Takeover Friday in July and August. leading up to Halloween Horrorfest 2019!

I’ll also be discussing the first episode of Cinematic Mirage, which I plan to bring out within the next four weeks.  This is a Patreon Exclusive Podcast available to subscribers at the $5 tier or above, and will cover either movies that were announced but never reached fruition or films that were mentioned in passing as being considered that my mind filled in the blanks way too fast (like the Freddie Vs. Jason II I've always played out in my head...)

I’ve included a little....teaser as to what the first episode (the beginning of a three part sub-series!) is all about.  If you don’t get it, you might after tomorrow!  I will answer questions during this time if you’re interested.

I look forward to seeing you all there!

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#616

It’s time for another Recent Movie Round-Up over here at Chez Reddick!  Des gives us his take on the Jordan Peele flick Us, I stomp through my feelings on Godzilla: King of The Monsters, and we unite to celebrate the Awesomeness That Is Sam Elliott when we cover the rather...strange character study of The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then The Bigfoot!

The trailers are below (or in the case of Us, a dissection of the trailer since I already posted the trailer), as is some behind-the-scene footage, an animated musical version of Godzilla, and a...surprising proposed sequel.

Listen to Dread Media #616 here

THE 31 CHARACTERS 31 DAYS CHALLENGE DAY TWENTY EIGHT

Even though I fell down on the promised ‘One character for every day’ event, you should still contribute to RAINN.  There’s a movement to reduce women to property--the phrase ‘consensual rape’ that’s being dropped by certain Alt-Right ‘Conservatives’ to justify their anti-abortion stance both chills and outrages me.  Please donate to this organization devoted to helping women and children stand up for themselves after being violated.

This event is to create 31 characters, one for every day in May (although at this point, it's going to take until the end of June to finish this thing) , that will be featured in an upcoming project I’m working on tentatively called Strikeforce Liberty.

If you are a Domicile of Dread Patreon, you’ll get a short podcast discussing the creation process for each character.  I made one of these podcasts available to the general public here.  If you’d like to hear all of these podcasts, get other exclusive goodies like reviews and essays, and can spare at least a dollar a month to support my efforts to Make The World Stranger, go here to sign up.

Please enjoy, and please donate.

Three more to go....

THE WEEKENDER

Name: You couldn’t pronounce it without dislocating your tongue
Location: Where the action is!
Occupation: Professional Partier

The appearance of Abarrax didn’t usher in an influx of aliens.  That doesn’t mean we didn’t have other visitors from off Earth.  Take, for example, The Weekender.

The Weekender has an annoying habit of invading our galactic space at the most inopportune time, usually under the influence of some sort of suspicious substance. and interfering in her quest for A Kickin’ Party.  She has a habit of making things more complicated than they need to be and making a mess wherever she goes.  Many heroes suddenly find themselves trying to get rid of the Weekender instead of dealing with the emergency at hand as her near-limitless power mucks everything up.

While The Weekender is more a nuisance than a menace, she becomes something of a priority every time she shows her hungover, spaced-out head for every policeman, goverment agent and hero in the immediate area.

So if you know of someplace off-planet with a cool happening....could you send her there?

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#615

Do you know the difference between a monster and a monsta?  You’re about to find out this week as we celebrate the Tremors franchise!  First Darryll joins Des to cover the original film, then I join him for the most recent entry, Tremors: A Cold Day In Hell.

The trailers for both movies--and both the TV series Syfy aired in 2003 and passed on last year--are below, as is a brief discussion of The Bobbit Worm, an actual living thing that could be related to the Graboids!

Listen to Dread Media #615 here

THE MOVIES OF MY LIFE PHASE ONE: Lisztomania (1975)

As you may have gathered from some of the essays here at the Domicile (especially the ones that praise the work of Phillipe Mora), I have a weakness for directors who are a little on the flamboyant side.  We don’t have as many as we used to these days, but in the 70‘s and 80‘s there were a couple of greats....and none was greater than the one and only Ken Russell.

Yes.  Roger Daltry is riding a giant phallus worshipped by women...

Ken Russell was one of those directors whose vision was so out there that I sometimes wondered if he was legitimately insane.  The best of his films are unlike anything you would expect from it’s subject matter--and this film is typical of that.  It’s obstensively about Franz Liszt, drawing parallels between his life and that of Roger Daltrey, the modern rock star that’s playing him...but it evolves into this story where Lizst is fighting against a Frankensteinian Richard Wagner, complete with Nazi uniform and guitar that spits out bullets, with a plane that is powered by the voices of the five female leads and shaped like a pipe organ.  When you view a Ken Russell film, you are entering another dimension....and unlike Rod Serling’s (or Jordan Peele’s) dimension, there’s no moral message for you to glean at the end of it.

That’s not to say that Lisztomania is without meaning.  There is a point Russell is making about how music in itself is neutral; we see Liszt taking Wagner’s work and turning it into a piece of fluff in the first act, only for Wagner himself to turn it into a call to arms for the Aryan Race towards the end of the second.  But this thesis is submerged under the bizarre choices Russell (who apparently genuinely loved classical music judging from how often he returned to the subject in his career) makes in both casting and visual design.  I mean....Ringo Starr plays The Frickin’ Pope!

Daltrey is okay as Liszt, I guess.  He doesn’t bring a lot of gravitas or nuance to the table, but I don’t think Russell intended him to.  I really liked Fiona Lewis playing Liszt’s first wife Maria, but to be fair I kinda crushed on her since I saw her as the weirdly film noirish mad doctor in Strange Behavior.  I was so...overwhelmed by the visuals and strangeness that supposedly there are small roles by Aubrey Morris, Nell Campbell and Oliver f’in Reed that I didn’t recognize...and I love those guys.

I really adore Ken Russell; one of the results of watching this was making me want to watch/revisit more of his work.  But I will admit that it’s not for everybody, and he falls flat on his face as much as he succeeds.  Russell is an acquired taste, and it may be a taste you won’t be able to stomach.  I recommend this, although I ask you to use discretion.

Hey!  Wanna Help Support This Blog And Get Cool Goodies In Return?  Then head on over to The Domicile of Dread Patreon Page and join me on my crusade to Make The World Stranger.  For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get new fiction and exclusive essays.  Invest a bit more, and get other stuff including advance access to my new television podcast Thomas Deja’s Watching, the Patreon Exclusive Podcast Cinematic Mirage (I plan on the first episode, focusing on Tales From The Crypt: Dead Easy, dropping late this month or early next), movie commentaries...and even the chance to assign me articles that’ll be published on this very blog!

KILLJOY STANDS REVEALED!

You wanna know how cool Chauncey K. Robinson is?

Yesterday, she consented to become a villain in the super-hero serial/novel/I’m-still-not-sure-what-it-is-yet Strikeforce: Liberty.  I had problems finding a proper illustration or photo to go with the identity I came up with her, the mirth-murdering marauder Killjoy.  I mentioned this to her....and she came up with one of her own!

She didn’t have to do that, but she did!  I am so grateful she took the time to do this, and very pleased she is my friend.  If you have not yet, please check out her YouTube channel and blog, both under the banner of The Twisted Girl Next Door.  Also check out her writings at People’s World and follow her on Twitter at @MsChaunceyKR!

Remember, this going-on-longer-than-I-expected event is to benefit The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN).  The Alt-Right--which has become just 'The Right--is waging an active war on women’s right, which includes taking away a lot of the tools women who have been sexually assaulted can use to recover and rise above the trauma.  The fact that some of these so-called ‘representatives’ of our country are trying to make ‘consensual rape’ a common phrase to wave away the rights of victims enrages me.  We need to make a united front to resist the attempt to turn our Democracy to a Theocratic Dictatorship, and that includes supporting groups like RAINN to help those victimized by sexual violence.  Please donate here

God willing, tomorrow we’ll see the debut of The Weekender!  Keep an eye out on this very space....and thanks again to Chauncey for going above and beyond in her participation in this event!

THE 31 CHARACTERS 31 DAYS CHALLENGE DAY TWENTY SEVEN

Even though it’s June 3rd and I still owe you five characters doesn’t mean you should blame RAINN.  There’s a movement to reduce women to property--the phrase ‘consensual rape’ that’s being dropped by certain Alt-Right ‘Conservatives’ to justify their anti-abortion stance both chills and outrages me.  Please donate to this organization devoted to helping women and children stand up for themselves after being violated.

This event is to create 31 characters, one for every day in May (although it looks like, due to my depression, that said event will bleed into early June) , that will be featured in an upcoming project I’m working on tentatively called Strikeforce Liberty.

If you are a Domicile of Dread Patreon, you’ll get a short podcast discussing the creation process for each character.  I made one of these podcasts available to the general public here.  If you’d like to hear all of these podcasts, get other exclusive goodies like reviews and essays, and can spare at least a dollar a month to support my efforts to Make The World Stranger, go here to sign up.

This time, my friend and official Twisted Girl Next Door, Chauncey K. Robinson, has agreed to let me turn her into a chilling madwoman haunting the world of Strikeforce: Liberty!  Besides being a YouTube star reporting on all the latest in horror film and television, she’s the social media editor and frequent contributor for People’s World.  She and I don’t always agree, but I love having a conversation with her and enjoy her horror-positive view on life.  Please follow her on Twitter at @MsChaunceyKR and check out her blog!

Thanks loads, Chauncey!  One day, hopefully, you and I will have our discussion on Doom Patrol on an episode of Thomas Deja’s Watching.

Please enjoy, and please donate.

KILLJOY

Name: Chauncey K. Robinson
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Occupation: Journalist

Cherophobia.

The fear of happiness.

Some people struggle with it all their lives.  It’s more common than you would think.  But in the case of Chauncey Robinson, whose fear crippled her for years, she ultimately decided to fight her fears with all her blackened soul.

As she showed her public face as a respected internet journalist, Chauncey created another identity, an identity that would confront the thing she feared the most.  Slowly, she introduced herself to the world, and laid out her mission on a special website she created, a website called killjoy.com.

Reality is darkness.  Reality is suffering.  Those people who try to resist this absolute are fooling themselves.  And those people who seem to interfere with the dismal nature of reality need to be put down.  And Killjoy will do what she must.

Killjoy has attacked, sometimes killed, beloved performers and celebrities.  She has assaulted charities designed to help impoverished countries and areas, sometimes through physical means and sometimes by draining their finances. She has triggered bombs at stadiums during family events.  Killjoy has even intruded on Chauncey’s public life--if an associate displays too much affection and appreciation for her, that associate mysteriously disappears.

In her more sane moments, Chauncey knows this is an insurmountable task.  She knows she cannot win.  But someone has to rage against the gaudily colored light.  And she is determined to rage with all her might until she breaths her last.

Next: She’s a strange visitor from another planet, but she’s here for the festivals...meet The Weekender!

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#614

It’s Italian Zombies and the birth of Good Ol’ American Gore in this week’s episode.  First Des and Darryll get all Etruscan as they review one of the many, many films that tried to pass itself off as Zombie 3, Burial Ground.  Then Rich The Monster Movie Kid delves into the first of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Exercises in Extreme Violence, Blood Feast!

The trailers are below, as is a tour of creepy real-life burial grounds and the Misfits playing a medley of their hits including ‘Bloodfeast’

Listen to Dread Media #614 here

Phase Six of...THE HONEYWELL EXPERIMENT!

As Virginia and I prepare for The Summer of Slime (starting next month) at the OcaDecaGonaGon, we end up sending our lab rat Honeywell to a post-apocalyptic Long Island City in the seminal Italian ‘homage’ to Escape From New York...or The Warriors, 1990: The Bronx Warrior!

(I know I said Long Island City.  You have to trust the man who’s lived in New York City his whole life.  That ain’t The Bronx.)

Join us as we discuss how director Enzo G. Castellari took this idea and spun a whole trilogy out of it, the acting ‘charisma’ of Marco Di Gregorio, the Clockwork Orange road show, gratuitous Joe Lynch love, and, of course, the presence of the great Fred ‘Hammer’ Williamson, who we will come back to in future phases.

You can find this colorful conversation here

So bang on a drum, jump on your Hawg and join us!  We’ll have a big, city-shaped cake for you!

If you would like to support podcasts like this, have at least a dollar a month to spare (and that’s not much, honestly), and would like to receive goodies in return, please consider becoming a Domicile of Dread Patreon