Category Archives: Editorial

This Holiday Season, Giovanni Lombardo Radice Needs Your Help!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you’re a fan of Italian horror, then you know who Giovanni Lombardo Radice is.  He danced for you in The House On The Edge of the Park.  He came back from the dead and helped to destroy the town of Dunwich in City of the Living Dead.  He went on an eating binge at a movie theater in Cannibal Apocalypse.  He’s appeared in three films directed by Michele Soavi, he recorded one of the greatest DVD commentaries ever for Cannibal Ferox, and he was a contributor to one of the most important books about Italian horror cinema, Eaten Alive.

However, there’s more to Giovanni Lombardo Radice than just a resume of showy roles in bloody movies.  He’s also a director, a writer, and an animal lover.  As anyone who follows him on Facebook knows, he can discuss the intricacies of William Shakespeare with the best of them.  He has appeared in films directed by people like Martin Scorsese and he is one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite actors.

Most importantly, while he has always claimed to be somewhat bewildered by the popularity of some of his films, Giovanni Lombardo Radice is an actor who has always been kind and gracious to his fans.   I’ve met several Italian horror fans who have told me about how excited they were to get a reply to a question from Giovanni or how touched they were to get a gracious message from him.  Myself, I can still remember how excited I was when Giovanni responded to a rather odd dream that I had posted in my online dream journal.  (The dream and his response can be read here and here.)

Recently, Giovanni posted the following on his Facebook page:

MY dog Tommy has hernia and most probably must have surgery. Just what I needed….if you read that someone robbed a bank to cure his dog it will be me.

Anybody who is lucky enough to be friends with Giovanni on Facebook knows how much he loves animals and how much he loves Tommy.  Speaking as someone who spends 8 hours a day looking at cute cat pictures, my heart went out to him.

Earlier today, Giovanni announced (again on Facebook) that Tommy’s operation had been a success!  However, Giovanni is also flat broke.  People tend to assume that a cult film star like Giovanni Lombardo Radice must be rich but that’s rarely the case.  It’s been over 30 years since Giovanni made (and was paid for) the films that most people know him from and films like The House On The Edge of the Park and Cannibal Apocalypse didn’t become cult films until several years after they were first released.  When someone buys a DVD or a Blu-ray of a film like The House On The Edge of the Park, the money goes to the film’s distributor, not to the actors who appeared in the film.  Though Giovanni Lombardo Radice is definitely a star to many of us, he’s also just a working actor who struggles to make ends meet just like everyone else.

So, Giovanni Lombardo Radice is currently asking for help.  He has set up a paypal account connected to his e-mail address, info@giovannilombardoradice.com and he is accepting donations of any amount to help pay for Tommy’s surgery.

As an actor, Giovanni has always been there for his fans.  Hopefully, some of them will now be there for him.

Thank you for reading this and for your consideration.  And, to Tommy and Johnny, I wish both of you all the best this holiday season.  Buona fortuna!

Tommy

Tommy

12 Random Things That I Am Thankful For In 2012

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So many things to be thankful for!

Today is the day that I (and perhaps a few others) look over the past year and ask myself, “What am I thankful for?”  I am happy to say that I have a lot to be thankful for right now.  I’m thankful for my family, for my friends, for my readers, and for my love.

Believe it or not, I’m even thankful that I’m now 27 years old!  When my family gathered together earlier today, I actually got to hang out with the grown ups!  Seriously, being an adult was a lot more fun than I was expecting.

Traditionally, Thanksgiving is also the day when I do a post entitled “10 Things That I Am Thankful For.”  So, here we go.  As I stated previously, I’m thankful for a lot of things in 2012.  Here, in no specific order, is twelve of them:

1) I’m thankful that The Cabin In The Woods and Sinister reminded me of why I love horror films in the first place.

2) I’m thankful for the Snarkalecs on twitter, the best group of people that a girl could hope to watch a SyFy movie with.

3) I’m thankful that this current season of Survivor is one of the best yet.

4) I’m thankful that someday, when I do have a daughter, I’ll be able to watch films like Brave and The Hunger Games with her.

5) I’m thankful that Richard Linklater directed Bernie and let the true citizens of Texas speak for themselves.

6) I’m thankful that Sarah Polley wrote and directed Take This Waltz.

7) I’m thankful for the TCMParty on twitter, the best group of people that a girl could hope to watch a classic film on TCM with.

8) I’m thankful that the final season of The Office is turning out to be a good one.

9) I’m thankful that Skyfall reminded us of why we all love James Bond in the first place.

10) I’m thankful that Branded eventually ended.  Seriously, I was worried that film was never going to come to a close.

11) I’m thankful that The Avengers turned out to be a lot more fun than even I was expecting.

12) I’m thankful that even a generally disappointing film year can still see the release of films like Life of Pi and The Master.

What do you think, Trailer Kitties?

Don’t worry, kitties!  Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers will return next week!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Scenes I Love: Saving Private Ryan

Posted on by Arleigh

With Veteran’s Day coming to a close I would just like to share a scene that encompasses the sort of people that make up the men and women of our military. While this scene is from Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan I think the sentiment shared by Capt. Miller to his squad works just as well today as we find more and more of our country’s civilians being called in to do their military duty as part of the nation’s Reserve Force.

Yes, the military now is an all-volunteer one, but it doesn’t count those men and women who make up the reservists force. These soldiers, marines, airmen and sailors have done their tour of active duty and decided to join the reserve force on a part-time basis. They do this knowing that when the time comes they might be called to answer the call from the country’s military to take up their uniform once again and deploy to a war zone as they have done so for the past decade in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These are doctors, police men and women, lawyers, teachers, construction workers and men and women from every walk of life.

I know that it’s not popular to venerate and admire these people in today’s day and age, because to do so means people like myself and others glorify war and against peace. People have become cynical to the point that they deride these people for getting themselves in the predicament of leaving behind their families and jobs to fight for a war they might not believe in. These people don’t understand the sacrifice and will to do their duty for their country even if its leaders might fail them in the end.

It’s not just soldiers of the US I speak to about celebrating but every man and woman brave and dedicated enough to do their job either as a volunteer or as part of their nation’s conscription call. It’s these very same people who understand the real cost of war and the first to wish for peace, but until the time comes when they’re not needed anymore they will always answer the call to do their duty.

 

Congratulations to the SF Giants: 2012 World Series Champions!

Posted on by Arleigh

Two years ago I celebrated the San Francisco Giants winning the team’s first World Series title since they moved to San Francisco from New York. Tonight they do it once again and it is a fine time to be a sports fan in the Bay Area. Looking like a mini-dynasty in the making I’m so very proud of this team and solidifies why my first sports love will always remain baseball and the Giants as the top sports team in my heart and soul.

So, congratulations to Sergio Romo for shutting down the feared Detroit Tigers line-up and for sporting one awesome beard. Congratulations to our city’s own Kung Fu Panda in Pablo Sandoval. No one’s talking and complaining about his weight problem now. He has achieved his inner peace and let this Dragon Warrior do what he’s good at even if it means eating and eating. Congratulations to Buster Posey who now has two World Series title under his belt and barely two full seasons of work as a major league baseball player. He’s the cornerstone of what looks like the team of the NL for years to come. Finally congratulations to Bruce Bochy. Let no one ever dispute whether he’s a Hall of Fame manager or belongs in the company of baseball’s great managers past and present.

Finally, congratulations to the rest of the San Francisco Giants, it’s fans, the City that has supported it and the rest of the Bay Area all the way down to San Jose who have supported the champs through thick and thin. Now let the celebration begin and let the parade of Champions start on Halloween.

2000 and Beyond!

Posted on by Arleigh

 

I wake up to a cold Thursday morning and what do I see but a classic Prince song staring up at me when I check the place. In order to segue from this Prince song into the new millennium of activity I thought it best to just say congratulations to everyone involved at this site for making it succeed beyond what I thought it would do when I first started it almost three years ago one bored December morning.

It doesn’t matter whether someone has posted just one thing or has been active since the start of their writing for me in the end they’ve been a major reason why I’m proud to say this site continues to be a unique place for people to visit. I’ve seen some criticize it for it’s chaotic nature. The site not having a clear and concise focus on just one subject matter. This place has always been a haven for those who want to write what they want and how they want without any sort of interference from me about content or style. I’m not the best writer in the world, but I know that I’ve grown in how I appreciate other people’s writing and passion for what they’ve been writing and posting at the site. I think this is what the place has become and that’s a place to exercise one’s passion for writing and discussion  about all things entertainment from high art to low brow entertainment. It’s a place to discuss, debate and disagree with a semblance of civility I find lacking in most places.

As my co-founder Lisa Marie would say this place is like a box of sleepy kittens and that is always a good thing.

So, time to celebrate the number that is the Prince song and move beyond the 2000th posting to the next 2000 and more.

 

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise? Take Eighteen : Costume Survey Results!

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

 

Well, the votes are in, and the most popular choice among commentators on this blog for the costume that batman should wear in our new hypothetical trilogy is — not the one in the picture above.  By my count we had three votes for the radically different Batman Beyond-style suit, and one for the 1970s-style suit. I can see good arguments to be made for both, but neither, I fear is quite what this new trilogy needs. Nope, the suit that, to me, best fits in with the version of Batman we want to portray here is the costume from Batman : The Animated Series. Let me tell you why —

First off, we’re going for something of a “throwback” iteration of the character here. Less emphasis on physical action, more on detective work. Less grim n’ gritty, and more heroic — but the character should be as mysterious, I feel, as ever. I think the animated series-style suit, as shown above from the Batman : Arkham City costume selection menu, speaks to those qualities a little better than the others. The Batman Beyond suit is too futuristic and too inaccessible to the general, non-Bat-fan public, and  the 1970s-style suit , in contrast, goes a bit too far in the other direction , in my opinion — it’s too closely associated with the comic bookas people remember it from their youth.

Now, there are certainly a couple things I’d change even with the animated series-style suit — I’d ditch the yellow oval around the bat, for sure, and lose the blue trunks, hood, and cape in favor of black — but I would keep the lighter grayish-black of the overall costume and then have the bat, sans yellow oval, be very dark black. But one thing I’d definitely leave as unchanged as possible are the exaggerated, whited-out eyes. Let’s face it — we’ve seen Batman’s eyes in every Bat-film, as well as the 1960s TV series, and it’s getting old. Whiting out his eyes gives him added anonymity and a more fierce and determined look.

But how’s he gonna see, you ask? Good question. remember the scene in The Dark Knight where he lowered those blinders over his eyes, whiting them out, and it gave him a kind of night vision? It looked pretty damn cool, didn’t it? Well, I propose the same thing, only it can be adjustable — he can see infrared-style, or with “heat-sensor” type vision, or with a type of “X-ray vision,” or even just standard — all depending on the verbal command he gives his suit via his cowl mic. In addition, the whited-out eyes will function as a type of transmitter to relay visual information back to the Batcave, something we’ll see in the very next scene that I get into. And yes, I changed the font for this paragraph on purpose just to drive home the point I’m trying to make here in the closest way that WordPress will allow.

So that’s how I see things. Even if you, dear reader, disagree with my choice, I hope I’ve laid out my reasoning for why I’ve decided the way I have in a way that makes both aesthetic and logical sense. To me, this costume is both mysterious and heroic and has a sort of retro high-tech feel without being a goddamn suit of armor like we’re used to seeing him wear in recent films.

So that’s it on the costume front, when next we rejoin this series — which will probably be in about a week or so, I’ve got some horror movie reviews to catch up on before Halloween — we’ll jump back into the story proper, so I look forward to seeing all of you back with me then!

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise? Take Seventeen : Costume Survey

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

 

One of these days, I probably really should get around to playing the Batman : Arkham City video game. Of course that means buying a video game system of some sort and that will inevitably lead to getting more games and more games means less time for things like movies and comics. It could even mean less time with my wife, at which point I know I’d be well and truly beyond all help. So I think I’ll refrain.

But still — a fair amount of what we’ve been discussing in this little (okay, not so little) Bat-thread of mine seems to revolve around ideas presented in this Arkham City game, and it’s rather flabbergasting that I’m freely swiping so many concepts for my imaginary new Bat-movie-trilogy from something I really have no first-hand experience with — but hey, that’s the way it goes sometimes, I guess. All of which brings us to the above-reproduced CG menu from the game.

How does that follow, you ask? Well, we’re at the point in our first Bat-flick where, having hinted at aspects of the costume in silhouette-fashion, and having given the new Batmobile it’s so-called “full reveal,” it’s time for Batman to arrive at the Gotham City docks and crash the little party Lucchesi and his men are holding there, so now seems like as good a time as any to show the Bat-costume in all its glory, hence the picture at the top of the post — which also comes, no surprise, from Arkham City. Apparently you can actually pick which of the various Bat-suits used over the years you want your Batman character to wear in the game, and that pic represents the menu of options that you as a player have to choose from.

Let me start by saying that none of them are exactly perfect for what I have in mind for Batman’s look in this new trilogy, but one of them sure comes damn close, in my opinion. Keep in mind, we’ve already shown that this particular iteration of the Batman is wearing his Kevlar-armor bodysuit underneath his costume, so the suit serve as his armor in and of itself as it has in the Christopher Nolan and, to a lesser extent, Tim Burton Bat-films. So that rules out, going from left to right,  option three and six as pictured. So — it’s survey time! In the next, shall we say, 24 hours, should you feel so inclined, please chime in here and let me know the following :

*Which of the remaining options you  would choose for Batman to wear in the new hypothetical trilogy;

*And which one you think I have picked out.

If nobody responds — it is the weekend after all — I’ll just chime in tomorrow night with my own choice, as well as detailing the small change or two (or three) I’d make to get things exactly as I picture them. Any and all opinions are welcome, of course, but in the end, as they say, there can be only one, and being the dictator of this thread means I’ll have the final say, but if you can lay out a solid argument in favor of your selection, it may just be enough to get me to change my mind!

Until tomorrow night, then!

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise ? Take Sixteen : The Batmobile!

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

This actually isn’t a diversion from where we were in the plot of our hypothetical Batman I  film. Well, okay, not too much of a diversion.

If you’ll recall, when we last left things the other day, Vincent Lucchesi, Gotham City crime “boss of all bosses,” was headed out to oversee an important shipment coming into town that his guys had neglected to find replacement “security” for once the cop-on-the-take they’d hired to fill that role, the always-crooked Lieutenant Flass, had been sent upriver by Harvey Dent and Jim Gordon. All of which means it’s time to cut to some semi-momentous shit that we’ve all been waiting for (assuming there’s a “we” out there still reading this interminably long series), namely our first scene of the Batman in costume, followed in short order by the debut of this new bat-trilogy’s version of the Batmobile.

So shouldn’t I be doing a post on the Bat-costume first, and then get to the car? Yeah, I suppose that would make sense, but bear with me while I explain how this whole little scene plays out in my mind —

We’ll cut from Lucchesi storming out of his plush penthouse office to Bruce Wayne attentively analyzing a series of shipping manifest numbers on the giant screen of his Bat-computer deep in his cave. Alfred is standing by, attentive as ever, while Bruce says something along the lines of “so if the pattern of Lucchesi’s shipments holds, his next one should be coming in tonight.”

“You intend to be there to meet it, sir?”

“That’s the plan, Alfred. Getting an entire crate of whatever it is he’s shipping in is out of the question, but if I can just get enough to fill up this vial, I’ll transmit an image through to you for analysis.”

“I shall be at the ready then, sir.”

“And speaking of ready — it’s time I got that way myself.”

At this point Wayne will press a button on a keypad control and a plexiglass case containing a Batsuit will rise up from the floor, but I’m thinking for now we should see it only from behind, and that his “dressing” scene should amount to shots of him suiting up in his kevlar under-suit, maybe snapping some gauntlets on his hands, etc. — no full view of him in costume yet, just hints of the overall picture, if you will. This will be followed up by an obscured shot of him breezing by Alfred and mouthing the word “car” into his cowl-mic, at which point a stone dais will rise from the deeper recesses of the cave revealing, in all its glory, the new Batmobile!

Now, when it comes to exactly which Batmobile we’re talking about here, I admit I hunted high and low through various online image archives to find what I felt would be the perfect model. I’m not interested in a repeat of Christopher Nolan’s “Tumbler,” nor did I want a carbon-copy version of Tim Burton’s more classically-inspired ride, although something more akin to the Burton version, based as it was on an amalgamation of several of the better comic book designs, was what I had in mind. Still, the picture-perfect model well and truly escaped me, until —

I found that image reproduced at the top of this post. It’s a conceptual CG mock-up by a guy named Danny Gardner done for the Batman : Arkham City video game. Never having played the game myself I can’t say for certain whether or not it’s the car — or, hell, one of the cars — Batman uses in it, but I think for the overall tone of this new imaginary Bat-trilogy of ours, it’s pretty well goddamn perfect. I’m sure whatever Hollywood designers were working on this film if it ever came to pas would want to tweak it here and there, obviously, but as far as a “this is the kind of thing we’re going for” blueprint goes, I think it’s great. It’s sleek, it’s modern, it’s bad-ass, and yet it’s got something of a timeless quality to it that I think would ensure it ages well along with the film itself. It would also blend into the night pretty seamlessly. What say you, dear readers?

And now, with the car out of the way, tomorrow we can finally get to the business of a “full reveal,” as the saying goes, of the Bat-costume itself!

Which Way Forward For The “Batman” Movie Franchise? Take Fifteen : Meet The New (Crime) Boss

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

The man you see pictured above is one Carmine Falcone, (former, as far as current Bat-continuity goes) crime boss of Gotham City. You may remember him from Batman Begins, of course, where he was played by Tom Wilkinson — a curious choice being that Mr. Wilkinson neither looks nor sounds especially Italian, but whatever.

He’s also largely immaterial to this post given that we’ve already established that the Harvey Dent/Jim Gordon/”Bat-Vigilante” trifecta has already locked him away at the start of our hypothetical Batman I  movie, but the slack left in the absence of him and the other incarcerated Crime Lords has been picked up, to an extent, in our imaginary flick by one Vincent Lucchesi, a name I dropped earlier but that we now will be meeting in earnest for the first time in a scene that, I freely admit, is heavily influenced by Nolan’s first Bat-flick.

Now, I confess — last time around, I left you with the distinct impression that our next segment would revolve around a TV interview with Bruce Wayne, but looking at things more closely over the last couple of days, I’ve decided that now might be a good time to introduce Mr. Lucchesi, since he’s going to figure prominently in this (again, completely imaginary) film, and because I think I’d like to show Batman in action for the first time at right about this point — although, fair warning, that’s going to be our focus tomorrow : one thing at a time, as always!

Anyway, I started this post with a picture of Falcone because Lucchesi is an entirely invented character (at this point — he’s going to eventually become a fairly well-known member of the Batman “Rogues’ Gallery,” but again, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves!) but he’s a bad-ass Gotham crime boss, and if you want to find pics of a bad-ass Gotham crime boss to kick off your blog post with, you’re stuck with Falcone images — this one, needless to say, from Loeb and Sale’s Batman : The Long Halloween (yes, again!).

If you’ll recall, busting Lucchesi has proven tough for the Dark Knight Detective because his deepest, darkest, most well-hidden secret seems to be that he’s importing an entirely legal, if obscure, experimental liquid compound through a string of front companies, and it seems only logical that in the two-day interregnum between Bruce Wayne’s “official” return to Gotham and his Monday morning chat-show appearance, he might want to have a look at one of these shipments in his Bat-persona.

To that effect, our next scene will show Lucchesi in a plush, Penthouse-type office, smoking an imported cigarette in a long holder, and meeting with a few of his less-than-trusted henchmen. Their conversation will be revolving around a shipment coming in that night, and Lucchesi will naturally ask who’s been tasked to provide “security” for the set-up. When one of the goons replies “Flass,” Luchessi will slam his fist on the desk and yell “Flass??????? You imbecile! Dent and Gordon just sent him upriver this morning!!!!!!!!!!,” thus hearkening back to our “Meet Jim Gordon” scene from a posts (but only a few minutes, movie-wise) ago. “Aren’t you clowns on top of any of the information that’s going around this town?”

“Gosh, we’re sorry, Mr. Lucchesi, so many guys been going down it’s gettin’ kinda hard to keep up!,” one of the toadies will stammer in response, to which Lucchesi will reply,” Well, it’s gettin’ too damn late to bring in anybody else, and I sure as hell can’t leave it to you nitwits, so it looks like I’m just gonna have to go down and oversee this operation myself. We’re at too critical a stage right now to leave it to a bunch’a goddamn amateurs!” At that point Lucchesi, immaculately dressed in an expensive Italian suit, will grab his equally-expensive Italian overcoat and hat and storm out of his office, his lackeys in tow behind him as he swears on his mother’s grave extreme vengeance, delivered with interest, upon Harvey Dent for all the trouble he’s been causing his operation.

If he knew the gruesome fate that was in store for him, he’d have stayed back at the office and farmed the job out after all —