Warm up those broadband connections - Dr. Who's new season begins

Easter weekend will mark the launch of the new season of Dr. Who, reports the BBC. Rose's boyfriend Mickey joins the TARDIS crew, K9 and Sarah-Jane Smith return, and lots more. I can't wait.

[via Dark Horizons]

Review: Slither and Interview: Jessica Bendinger

Just a couple of new items up for your entertainment and education:

A new Stomp Tokyo review of Slither, which you'll recall I made positive noises about a couple of weeks ago.

Over on the Austin Film Festival Podcast we've interviewed screenwriter/director Jessica Bendinger (of Bring It On and the upcoming Stick It). No iPod required.

Enjoy.

B-Movie Writers - the blog

When I get some extra time on my hands (yeah, right) I'm going to plow through all the back entries of this blog, which apparently chronicles one screenwriting team's journey into the bowels of B-Movie land, and their heroic quest to create something entertaining and watchable... all while juggling the rules of B-Moviedom, the foreign market, and a bi-coastal writing partnership.

How did this escape my notice up to this point? The entries I've read so far are a lot of fun. Recommended for both writers and b-movie fans.

Cult Movies Podcast - new name, new episodes

It's been a while since I've mentioned the Cult Movies Podcast, and in that time we have not only released new episodes but also renamed the show as well. Scott didn't like how generic "The Cult Movies Podcast" was, so now we reveal - ta da! - Stomp Tokyo: The Cult Movies Podcast. Big effin' deal, I know, but at least this takes slightly more advantage of what little brand we've built around the Stomp Tokyo name.

At any rate, I haven't mentioned the show here on the blog since episode 14, so here's a quick recap of the episodes that have been released since.

Episode 15 - Zack Handlen joins us for a discussion of the future plans Hollywood has for beloved '80s slasher franchises.

Episode 16 - Zack's back as we talk about foreign directors making good (or not) in Hollywood.

Episode 17 - I interview Marty Baumann, creator of the Astounding B-Monster.

Episode 18 - Chris Magyar chimes in from a coffee shop in California, and I boast of all the movies I saw at SxSW. Unfortunately, very few of them have any cult appeal. Ah well, at least Slither was pretty good.

Episode 19 - Our first guest nerd of the female persuasion, Amy Morrison, joins us in the virtual studio. Amy provides moral support as we wade through the mess that is Entertainment Weekly's list of the 25 Worst Sequels Ever. What a bunch of wimps.

One more thing: I've been helping the staff of the Austin Film Festival to create their own podcast. If you're into filmmaking or just want to hear celebrity writers and directors talk about the movies they've made, check out the AFF Podcast, currently broadcasting its third episode with a fourth on the way. Not only does AFF have a huge backlog of recorded material from previous festivals, they also have some pretty cool interviews lined up for the near future. Stay tuned.

VH1 Classic plays 1 hour of "99 Luftballons"

One viewer donated $35,000 to Katrina relief and got to request an hour's worth of programming on VH1 Classic. His/her choice? 1980's protest video "99 Red Balloons" played over and over again.

Read the 99 Red Balloons story here.

10 Godzilla films shown in HD on Monsters HD on March 26

From the Monsters HD press release:

The mayhem begins with the Monsters HD production MONSTERS HD TOP 13 COUNTDOWN: GODZILLA’S GREATEST FIGHTS (Sunday, March 26 at 1:30PM), highlighting the top 13 battles in Godzilla movie history. We then move into Godzilla’s 1995 “death” in GODZILLA VS. DESTROYAH (Sunday, March 26 at 1:45PM), wherein the Big G battles the evil Destroyah, a monster created by the same Oxygen Destroyer bomb that first eliminated Godzilla back in 1954. Godzilla then comes up against his evil space twin in 1994’s GODZILLA VS. SPACE GODZILLA (Sunday, March 26 at 3:30PM), followed by a visit from an a gigantic caterpillar in 1992’s GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA (Sunday, March 26 at 5:30PM). Big G reunites with Raymond Burr in GODZILLA 1985 (Sunday, March 26 at 7:15PM) and then Monsters HD honors the Godfather of Godzilla music, the late composer Akira Ikufube, with a symphonic salute to his scores that accompanied many a Toho release in GODZILLA FANTASIA (Sunday, March 26 at 8:45PM). After that, we’re calling Monster Island (come in, Monster Island…) with 1969’s children’s fantasy film GODZILLA’S REVENGE (Sunday, March 26 at 10:15PM) in which a little boy envisions himself as pals with Godzilla’s son, Minya. Next, it’ s a battle to the death with Godzilla and his robotic clone in 1974’s TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA (Sunday, March 26 at 11:30PM). Godzilla’s son, Minya, shows up again in our next feature called (unbelievably enough) SON OF GODZILLA (Sunday, March 26 at 1:00AM) in which the tiny titan battles a giant spider and praying mantis with the help of his dad. As we head into the final stretch of MONSTERS HD’s ZILLA THRILLA THON, we pull out the big monster guns with some of the biggest fan favorites: 1965’s GODZILLA VS. MONSTER ZERO (Sunday, March 26 at 2:30AM) pits Godzilla, Rodan, and Oscar-nominee Nick Adams against King Ghidorah on Planet X followed by 1964’s GODZILLA VS. THE THING (Sunday, March 26 at 4:15AM) gives us the first battle between Godzilla and Mothra. And then we wrap it all up with the film that started it all, 1956’s GODZILLA – KING OF THE MONSTERS (Sunday, March 26 at 5:45AM), with Raymond Burr as intrepid reporter Steve Martin. By the time this marathon is over, you’ll want to destroy Tokyo yourself.

Find out more about Monsters HD at www.monstershd.com.

Well I'll be damned. "Slither" doesn't suck.

I sat down in the packed Alamo Drafthouse downtown tonight with the rest of Austin's culterati and ordered some coffee. A few of SxSW's late night screenings (including the surreal and mentally challenging Brothers of the Head) have taught me that staying awake can be a struggle in the wee hours. I needn't have worried; Slither is an old-fashioned monster romp that kept the audience hooting, laughing, and shrieking for 90 minutes. It was a boost to my faith in the power of the audience experience. I can't recall a creature feature this tight and this much fun since Tremors.

I won't go into much more detail since I intend to bang out a review over the next 48 hours or so. Suffice it to say that Slither, while far from a cinematic masterpiece, should tickle your horror bone pretty well. I fully expected a disappointment, but this was a pleasant (if gruesome) night at the movies.

SxSW - the actual film festival part

Welcome to the final days of South by Southwest – at least the final days of the film festival portion. With my trade show duties discharged I'm taking a few days to catch up on just watching movies. Roundabout Wednesday SxSW (or "Southby" as it's referred to when speaking) takes on a different flavor as the Interactive panels and trade show end, the film festival enters the round of second screenings, and the music festival begins. As my friend Lize pointed out, the cooler-looking web nerds and film geeks begin to look decidedly less cool compared to their counterparts who showed up for the music.

Christina and I went through something of a rite of passage earlier in the week when we were shut out of an advance screening of The Notorious Bettie Page, which was playing at the 300-something seat Alamo Downtown – a ridiculously small venue for a film that would obviously be popular with Austin's youth (and wanna-be-youth) culture. Fortunately for us, though, many of the badge holders now either have gone back home or moved on to the musical venues, so the movies are a lot easier to attend.

Yesterday I made it to Summercamp, Jumping Off Bridges, and Brothers of the Head. Documentary Summercamp (probably the lowliest of the three, at least in terms of budget) was by far the most enjoyable. As so often happens in film festival situations, the movies that I attend just to fill time between screenings I actually intend to watch are turning out to be the best so far. That was certainly the case (so far) today, as 51 Birch Street – another doc – was the standout of the day, touching me far more than either Even Money (with terrific performances from both Kim Basinger and Danny Devito) or Los Lonely Boys: Cottonfields and Crossroads. No offense to Los Lonely Boys and their fans (I am one), but it's a little early in this band's career to be making a documentary, at least if you want it to feel like more than a work in progress. Still, the crowd enjoyed it and you can't deny the stage presence of the Boys, especially when they're standing ten feet in front of you at the premiere of their collective life story. One certainly can't blame SxSW, given its history, for playing a documentary about local boys made good in the music business.

There are still a couple of screenings left for the evening: Darkon, a documentary about a live-action role playing (LARP) group in the Washington D.C. area, and a midnight screening of the new horror flick Slither. Hopefully I'll make it into that one, as it's back at the Alamo Downtown and likely to be popular with the cult film crowd, who are probably starved for material in the otherwise mainstream-ish programming of South by Southwest's film festival.

Watch for lengthier reviews of all of these films in coming days, once the screenings are over and I catch up on all the work I missed.

Holy swag bag, Batman.

Remember when I made that lame joke about celebrities donating their Oscar swag to charity? George Clooney actually did.

AOL Launches In2TV

Watch a bunch of old TV shows on the web for free. At least for now.

Naturally, you must have Windows XP and some piece of random software to get it to work. Sorry guys, I just don't want to see Wonder Woman that much.

Netflix to settle in "throttling" case

If you listen to the Stomp Tokyo podcast you might have heard us talk about Netflix's practice of "throttling," or delaying shipments of DVDs to customers who habitually rent large numbers of discs each month. Netflix does this, obviously, to protect its profit margins, but the recent class-action lawsuit against the company claims that it did so while promising "unlimited" DVD rentals.

This San Francisco Chronicle article details the latest developments in Netflix's attempt to settle the case.

With the settlement, Netflix will not change its business practices. But it did retool the fine print in its user agreement and will offer former customers free service for a month and current customers a free one-month upgrade, so that instead of renting one video at a time, for instance, they can get two.

[via Hacking Netflix]

The Wizard of Speed and Time short - now online!

For six years I've been trying to track down a video copy of The Wizard of Speed and Time short film, which shows to an enthusiastic audience each year at B-Fest. The wait is over. Quoth Chris Meadows in a comment to previous post:

Wizard of Speed and Time, the short, can be downloaded as a 700-megabyte DV codec AVI, from a color-corrected transfer from original film stock to DV under the auspice of anime-industry professional Neil Nadelman. Get it while there's still bandwidth to spare, folks. It may be torrented later on.

If you're interested in the full-length movie, well, we've got that, too. A 4.2 gigabyte DVD video file, compiled from the closer-to-directorial-vision laserdisc version of the movie, is torrenting right now. There are also 2-disc versions floating around, which have perhaps better picture quality—but with a transfer from LD you're probably not going to get full DVD quality no matter what.

Oh, and if you're worried about breaking the law, let me put your mind at ease: Mike Jittlov, the rights-holder, approves the copying and distribution of these films, given that there's not any possibility of a commercial DVD release at present; there's a "Special Karma Calming Notice" to that effect at the end of the DVD.

Personally, I'd like to see Stomp Tokyo review these films fully, rather than just the B-fest blurbs that are all Google's showing me on their site.

You may get your wish, Chris.

Edit: And now I can finally step through each frame to read that darn Easter Egg hidden in the short: "Help Mike Jittlov help us all."

Punk Like Me

Of the films I've seen at SxSW, the documentary Punk Like Me is the one that made me laugh and grin the most. It's a silly little movie – practically everything about it is contrived – but it comes off as natural and the picture has a strong voice that knows how to engage audience.

Rich Wilkes is a writer in Hollywood who decides to pursue his life-long dream of being a rock star – at the age of 38. (36? I'm pretty sure it was 38. Too late, that's for sure.) Figuring that punk rock is the easiest to fake your way through, he cons his way into joining the Warped Tour by telling the tour organizers that he wants to write an "undercover" piece for Rolling Stone. The Warped Tour buys it, and though Wilkes' own bunch of rockers breaks up mere weeks before the tour starts, he manages to cobble together a band from old friends and acquaintances. (The band's name is Carne Asada, "the world's first punk rock mariachi band," and their album is on iTunes now.) Using his own funds to pay for a swank bus and supplies, Wilkes takes the group on tour – including his half-nervous wife Amy as "manager" and, for a short time, their infant daughter.

Wilkes wrote and narrates the film in such a convivial way that it's easy to overlook the fact that most of the "drama" in the film is manufactured. With little real conflict other than that in Wilkes' head, the movie hangs on a flimsy thread. Somehow, though, it works – at least, it works in a largish theater with a big audience rocking out to the strains of the improbably-named song "Dirty Sanchez" or an ode to Star Trek's Wesley Crusher. At home on the small screen it might seem sorta dumb, but I had a great time and I suspect the audiences at the film's remaining SxSW screenings will too.

Learn more about Carne Asada and their first album, "Full Contact Mariachi."

The Hidden Blade

I have absolutely no time to write today, but I did want to mention that I got out to see The Hidden Blade last night at SxSW and it was great, though I'm not sure everyone would agree. It's seriously old school samurai stuff - though there's only one real swordfight in the film, the picture is heavy on the intrigue and honor without relying on Hollywood coincidences to put events in motion. It felt a little long but I didn't mind; it was one of the more serene motion picture experiences I've had recently.

A Prairie Home Companion - short review before I pass out

I am happy to report that Robert Altman's film version of A Prairie Home Companion did not disappoint – it has much of the warmth of the show and many of the musical moments and trademark subtle (and not so subtle) humor that made Keillor and crew famous. It does not, however, have much of a story and oddly there is no monologue from Keillor himself. If you're expecting some news from Lake Wobegon you will be disappointed. I grew up on the radio show and thus have the affection for it that makes me the movie's target audience, and I was able to forgive it the odd placement of Hollywood stars where the show's original performers (some of whom are present) would have been much more satisfying. There are purists who will hate the fact that Lindsay Lohan and Meryl Streep take up screen time, though I resist the notion that anyone could resent the appearance of Lily Tomlin. I suspect, however, that those who are unfamiliar with the program will be at something of a loss.

OK, that's it for now. Time for sleep.

SXSW Film Festival starts tomorrow

I'll be working during some of the South by Southwest film festival on the trade show floor. If you're attending with a Film or Interactive badge, stop in at the Bside Entertainment booth to introduce yourself and grab a free t-shirt. You'll also be eligible to win a free iPod with video if you wear the t-shirt to screenings during the festival. We'll be giving away an iPod a day at random screenings.

I will be covering some of the screenings with my critic's hat on, but as this festival (like most other "straight" festivals) doesn't offer much in the way of cult interest, I probably won't write entries as often or as thorough as the ones I worked up for Fantastic Fest. Still, there are movies like Brothers of the Head that seem weird enough to pique my interest. Stay tuned!

Sundance Channel launches "Asia Extreme"

From a press release:

Beginning on April 2 at midnight, Sundance Channel will be home to late-night destination Asia Extreme™, a showcase for the new wave of cutting-edge genre films emerging from South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand. Sundance Channel has recently licensed exclusive U.S. pay television rights to eight Asian feature films distributed by Tartan U.S.A, the premiere source for the action, horror and crime films from the East; these eight titles, among others, will form the cornerstone of Sundance Channel’s new Sunday night destination. Asia Extreme™ airs Sunday nights at 12:00am e/p. and kicks off with the U.S. television premiere of A Tale of Two Sisters, a moody horror film based on a Korean folk tale, directed by Jee-Woon Kim.

Oscar bag swag

A while back there were a flurry of posts around the blogosphere about all the swag in the gift bags given to each of the Oscar nominees. The gist of those posts mostly boiled down to "so that's why it's such an honor to be nominated," and they dutifully listed the outrageously expensive gifts lavished upon those who, by and large, don't need to be given things for free. (I'm sure they all donated the swag to charity. Right.)

What those posts missed, however, was the one bit of swag most likely to catch the eye of a b-movie maven: one can of Steven Seagal's Lightning Bolt Energy Drink. And despite the fact that it must taste like horse urine, I'm left thinking: just one can?

The Weinsteins find a new home at MGM?

According to this BusinessWeek article, the Weinstein brothers (formerly of Miramax, now trying to build their own film empire as The Weinstein Company) may be settling on a deal with what's left of presumed-defunct MGM Studios. The deal seems like a good fit – the Weinsteins need a major studio name, and MGM needs a fresh infusion of movies to get back into the production game. There are some complications involving Sony and some large cable TV interests, but it looks like we may be hearing that famous MGM roar in theaters again soon.

Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors opens tomorrow

The Chicago edition of Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors, presented by Anchor Bay Entertainment, will be opening this Saturday and Sunday, March 4-5, at the Wyndham Chicago O’Hare Hotel (6810 North Mannheim Road, Rosemont, IL).

The show includes a special preview of the upcoming creature feature Slither and guest appearances by such b-luminaries as Lloyd Kaufman and George Romero. If you're in Chicago and into horror it sounds like the place to be. For tickets and more info visit creationent.com.

Klugman remembers Randall in new book

Just heard this great piece from NPR's Morning Edition with a raspy-voiced Jack Klugman talking about his acting relationship with Odd Couple co-star, the late Tony Randall. (One of Klugman's vocal cords was cut during surgery for throat cancer.) His description of their mutual love was endearing, but my favorite bit is towards the end when he talks about the stars with whom he has worked and a poignant moment shared with Ethel Merman. Good stuff for classic film fans.

If you're unfamiliar with Klugman, I suggest you check out films like 12 Angry Men and Days of Wine and Roses, in which Klugman has some nice bit parts. His real masterpiece work, however, was on TV in The Odd Couple and Quincy.

Edit: As Marty points out in the comments, the impetus for the interview is Klugman's new book, Tony & Me: A Story of Friendship, an auto-biography of sorts with a bonus DVD included.