Monday, August 31, 2009

Autopsy of the Dead documentary is coming!

Autopsy of the Dead, a new documentary on the making of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead, is now available to order on Amazon.com. You can pre-order your copy through the Slaughtered Lamb Cinema Store link on the right.

With a running time of over two hours, and featuring all new never before seen cast and crew interviews, behind the scenes color photos, and a myriad of other cool extras, it looks to be a dream come true for Night fans. I personally can't wait to see what Jeff Carney and Jim Cirronella have assembled.

Check out the latest teaser trailer:

Friday, August 21, 2009

Unwigged & Unplugged on DVD!

If you missed the Unwigged & Unplugged Tour, our favorite concert of 2009, we've got great news! You'll be able to experience it on DVD September 1st!

At 2 hours, it looks like it will contain a full show - including an excellent version of Spinal Tap's Big Bottom, and the unforgettable reading of the Standards & Practices memo regarding the first attempt to air Spinal Tap on television. Also worthy of note are the inclusion of classic songs from A Mighty Wind and Waiting for Guffman.

I'm hoping the initial data is wrong and it's not formatted 4:3, but I'll take it any way I can get it. It's like Christmas (with the Devil) in September!

You can pre-order your copy today through the Slaughtered Lamb Cinema store link on the right.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Making The Empire Strikes Back


Jonathan Rinzler follows up his indispensable volumes The Making of Star Wars and The Making of Indiana Jones with next year's The Making of The Empire Strikes Back.

We had a chance to see some pages from this book at Ralph McQuarrie's 80th birthday party, and it will definitely be another must have volume for your library. You can pre-order your copy through The Slaughtered Lamb Cinema Store link on the right.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Return of the Universal Monsters?

Man do I wish we had the following film to pair with House of Dracula on Wednesday night: House of the Wolf Man.


"Dr. Bela Reinhardt (Ron Chaney) has invited five people to his castle to see which of them will inherit his estate. He has arranged for a competition of sorts, the victor shall be determined through process of... elimination," McGarr tells Bloody-Disgusting. "The film was shot in black and white, 1:33 aspect ratio and is a good old fashioned monster movie that you could bring your kids to."

Saturday, August 8, 2009

New Planet of the Apes illustrated novel coming in 2010

One of the problems with the immense scale of Comic Con is that you're bound to miss some really cool announcements from smaller publishers.

Case in point - Blam Ventures had original art on display promoting their forthcoming, fully authorized illustrated Planet of the Apes novel, Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes.

The premise for this first volume is telling the story of Colonel Taylor's fellow astronaut Landon - who we didn't see after the ape round-up until it is discovered later that he is in fact still alive, albeit lobotomized. An interesting unexplored area of the franchise - I do hope it leads to further explorations of our future world of talking simians.

You can read all about it on their website.

Tonight of the Living Dead

400 Lonely Things have done something pretty interesting. Using the soundtrack from Night of the Living Dead, they have created a "collage of treated audio."

It's definitely worth a listen.

You can download it on iTunes, or order a physical copy with liner notes on their website.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Remembering John Hughes - UPDATED!

Everyone has a favorite John Hughes movie - or several, as the case may be. I'd have to pick Weird Science as the one that reached out and touched me most directly, although Ferris Beuller's Day Off is a close second.

But forgetting about his golden years as a director, John Hughes was a gifted writer. He wrote each of the screenplays for the films he directed, in addition to screenplays for several classic films, including Some Kind of Wonderful and National Lampoon's Vacation.

We lost John today at the all too young age of 59. It's oddly appropriate that we had scheduled our 'Vacation Smack-Down' for our August movie party, pitting the original Vacation against Christmas Vacation in a battle royale to pick the best of the two excellent comedies. We'll get to some of his directorial efforts in the future, but for now, you'll get your chance to appreciate some of his body of work on August 22.

I only found out today that John's screenplay for Vacation was adapted from his short story, "Vacation '58" that appeared in National Lampoon. I'm pleased to be able to offer a link to that story for your enjoyment. Also, here is a link to the Foreword Hughes wrote to a 2008 reprinting of said story.

As survivors of the eighties, we'll forever be in his debt.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Pimp Your Poison

Next week we put Frankenstein and pals to bed, closing out the Slaughtered Lamb Cinema's History of Horror (1931-1945). Rather than jump right into another series, we're going to follow up our viewer favorite Pick Your Poison series with a slight twist offering everyone a chance to suggest what becomes our next regular Wednesday night programming.

Same general rules apply - you can select anything you want to show within 150 minutes, but this time you're selling the group on why we should select your series to run with on Wednesday nights. You might show a few episodes of a TV series, or a film in a series you're interested in. You might suggest a theme (Academy Award winners) and show one and describe what you have in mind for the series. We'll vote and schedule our next Wednesday night selections based on what's the most popular.

We'll draw lots for scheduling the Pimp Your Poison schedule next week, so be sure to show up (or let us know you're up for participating) and we'll save you a slot.