(First published on blogcritics.org) How do you make a movie? According to horror and fantasy queen Sybil Danning, the rules have changed. Danning, whose acting credits include Hercules, Howling II, Grindhouse, and Halloween has added producer, writer, and director to her resume. I spoke with Danning at PopConLA. PopConLA debuted this year, running July 5 – 8 as a new convention for fans of […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) PopConLA, a new popular culture convention debuted July 5-8, spotlighting fantasy/sci-fi, art, music, fashion, extreme sports, and other pop-culture memes. It hosted a Screenwriters Panel as a part of a series of indie-TV-Movie events. The panel of working professionals shared their take on how to succeed in TV and Hollywood. They conducted […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) Music can make or break your indie film, TV show or Internet series. Getting the right music means working with composers, music supervisors and/or licensing library tracks. PopConLA, a new popular culture convention which spotlights fantasy/sci-fi, art, music, fashion, extreme sports and other pop-culture memes, brought together a stellar group of veteran composers […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) A new convention for fans of popular culture, PopConLA, debuted in Los Angeles, July 5-8. The new event describes itself as the “Popular Culture Convention, about ‘All Things Pop Culture’, including Art, Design, Fashion, Music, Xtreme Sports, and of course, Movies & TV.” The new fandom conclave ran concurrently with the International Television Festival, […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) Attack of the Bat Monsters by writer/director Graham Kelly Greene is an independent filmmaker fairy tale. It premiered in 2000 at the Dances with Films festival and, even though the soundtrack wasn’t finished, it won the Best of DWF Award and got good reviews. Then, like so many other quality indie films it disappeared […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) Friday was a dead night at the Dances with Films film festival (now in its nineteenth year of bringing the best of the independent film world to the heart of Hollywood), but in a good way. The two “dead” films that screened that night were Dead Dad and Detention of the Dead. Dead Dad, the West Coast […]
(First published on blogcritics.org) “Dare, Dream, Do” is the mantra of the Dances with Films independent film festival, May 31 through June 7 at the Chinese 6 Theaters in Hollywood. On opening night they lived up to their slogan for the year, “Dream Big or Go Home,” with the biggest red carpet parade I’ve ever seen. My […]
(Originally published on Blogcritics.org) “I realized that the remains of hundreds of U.S. Marines were buried under thousands of garbage filled trash bags,” recalls 93-year-old Leon Cooper. At that moment, Cooper, one of the last remaining survivors of the WWII Battle of Tarawa, redirected his life to rectifying this outrageous situation. Steven C. Barber’s new documentary, Until They are Home, […]
(Originally published on Blogcritics.org) Ailuromortuusphilia [ahy-loo r-uh-mor-toos-fil-ee-uh] noun a liking for dead cats, as by indie film directors. While viewing a preview of Kill List (unrated, directed by Ben Wheatley), I realized my place in psycho-babble science had been secured: I had discovered ailuromortuusphilia. Or, in short, why do indie film makers love dead cats? In Kill List, which I’m sure will […]
(Originally published on Blogcritics.org) Pastor C.L. Bryant got in big trouble. His church fired him as pastor. The NAACP stripped him of his position as Chapter President. Did he steal funds? Engage in immoral behavior? Run naked down Main Street? Worse! He joined the Tea Party. His story is told in the new film “Runaway Slave”, directed by Pritchett […]
(Originally published on Blogcritics.org) “Finally, something liberals and conservatives can agree on.” No such thing, you might be thinking, especially in the current hyper-volatile pre-election atmosphere. You might be even more skeptical when you find out this claim comes from a Hollywood script entrepreneur. But you’d be wrong. My initial contact with Jerrol LeBaron was […]
(Originally published on Blogcritics.org) Cancer, a marathon, thievery and a touching story are a lot to pack into a thirty minute film. That, however, is what producer/screenwriter, and American Film Institute (AFI) grad student, Sara Hills is doing in her film, You Got This. This film is the thesis for Sara’s Masters in Fine Arts from the AFI Conservatory. […]
(Originally published on Blogcritics.org) Someone whose name has been lost in time said, “Pain reminds us we’re alive — love reminds us why.” Based on this observation, it’s safe to say that the characters in debut Director Dennis Lee’s Fireflies in the Garden are very much alive. Fireflies in the Garden sets us down in a family reunion […]
(Originally published on blogcritics.org) I put off viewing Hell and Back Again because I was expecting a heavy-handed anti-war diatribe. What I found, however, was a creative and intimate portrait of one of our nation’s warriors. The documentary takes us along with 25-year-old Sergeant Nathan Harris on two journeys. The first journey places us with Harris’ Marine […]
(Originally published on blogcritics.org) As my daughter and I left the preview for Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, we couldn’t help but overhear two other reviewers trashing the film. “It was so repetitive…I didn’t think the motivation of the college girl was sufficiently established to support the romantic relationship…the dialogue was not convincing.” I wanted to […]
(Originally published on blogcritics.org) Circus Vargas came through town a while back. It had been years since we’d been to the circus so my wife and I decided to go. This is not a big “sports arena” circus like Ringling Brothers. Circus Vargas sets up old fashioned big top tents in a mall parking lot, sometimes has […]
(Originally published on blogcritics.org) Cowboys & Aliens screenwriters Mark Fergus (First Snow, Children of Men, Iron Man) and Roberto Orci (Star Trek, Transformers, Fringe) beamed down to The Los Angeles Film School the night before Cowboys & Aliens opened to share observations about life in the warp-speed lane with students and fans. The film begins in the old west when a stranger […]
(Originally published on blogcritics.org) Take three freaky characters with tenuous grips on reality and stick them into an aging apartment building in a rundown neighborhood of Montreal and what do you have? Good Neighbors. You also have a film noir mystery which rivals anything the Coen brothers (Blood Simple, Fargo, No Country for Old Men) have ever done. […]
(Originally published on blogcritics.org) The creative process – with its joy and disappointments, its triumphs and tragedies – is for many artists an intensely private experience. The writer in front of a computer or the artist alone in a studio has the privilege of privacy. This is not the case for those who express their […]
(Originally published on blogcritics.org) Writers, long domesticated by publishers, producers, and other men in suits, are now empowered to break through the barriers and take charge of their careers as never before. That was the message writers Jim Sorenson (Transformers Animated: The Allspark Almanac, Vol. 2 ) and Courtney Joyner (Stealing Candy) shared at the Alameda Writers Group (AWG) July general membership […]