Viva la France!

Tonight's Georges Franju double feature was a lot of fun - and I'm pleased to report that everyone survived a full evening of subtitles!

Eyes Without a Face is a classic horror film celebrating it's 40th anniversary this year (more commonly known in the states under its alternate, if more exploitative title: The Horror Chamber of Doctor Faustus).

Judex is at it's heart a superhero movie based on a silent French serial of the same name. I thought it was excellent. And the bit at the party with folks wearing bird masks is priceless. You can check it out here:



We hope you'll be able to join us for our next party on February 21st. We'll be deciding on the theme for that in the next few weeks.

2009 Kick off!

This Saturday, 1/24 we kick off the Mad Movie Party 2009 season with a festival of films from French director Georges Franju.

From his Wikipedia entry:
Franju was one of the co-founders of the Cinémathèque Française. His first film was a 1949 documentary short, Le Sang des bêtes (Blood of the Beasts) which was shot in a Parisian slaughterhouse. It demonstrated his ability to combine the poetic and the graphic and revealed his ability to perceive the cruel and the uncanny within a realistic setting. Best known for his 1960 horror film, Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face), which was described by Pauline Kael as "[p]erhaps the most elegant horror movie ever made."

We are pleased to feature two of Franju's most famous films - Eyes Without a Face and Judex. We have withdrawn Blood of the Beasts from the schedule.

Doors open at 5:30 for food and refreshments, and we plan to begin the first feature around 6pm. We look forward to seeing you at our first monthly event of the New Year!

The Prisoner, Khan and Tron

What a day. Stan and I finally moved the Tron and Discs of Tron to the new house. And after preparing dinner for the Movie Party crowd, we got the double-whammy that we've lost The Prisoner himself, Patrick McGoohan, and Ricardo Montalban (Kahn).

So, Be Seeing You.

And KAAAAAAAHHHHHNNNN!

P.S. In all seriousness, in Slaughtered Lamb Cinema History, Montalban shall be remembered as the man who single handedly brought about the Planet of the Apes.

Bob Wilkins 1932-2009

I sat down to post a quick note about tonight's kick off of Joss Whedon's Firefly, and what a great time everyone had, only to encounter the news of Bob Wilkins' passing.



During the preparation for our All Day of the Dead celebration of Night of the Living Dead's 40th anniversary last October, I took the opportunity to use the event as a fundraiser to help with his care as he battled alzheimer's. You can read what I had originally posted about Bob here.

Suffice it to say, Bob was a major influence on me growing up, and he will be missed.

The 2009 Schedule

Our eyes may not be the same after tonight's 3-D marathon. We made it through the cheesiness of The Mask, and I'm actually proud to say folks stuck through Comin At Ya! in it's entirety. I think everybody's eyeballs deserved a break after that feat, so we called it a night without exploring the 3-D reinvention of Night of the Living Dead.

We also announced the official 2009 schedule, which tentatively calls for:

January 24
EYES WITHOUT A FACE/JUDEX

February 21
TOD BROWNING'S FREAKS

March 21
PHANTASM I-IV

April 25
MAD MAX/THE ROAD WARRIOR

May 23
TERMINATOR I-III

June 20
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE

July 18
TBD

August 22
LORD OF THE RINGS

September 19
NORTH BY NORTHWEST

October 24
THE THREE MOTHERS TRILOGY

November 28
WIZARD OF OZ

December 26
BEN HUR

In addition, we've finalized our first Wednesday night selection for 2009 - Joss Whedon's Firefly & Serenity. That will run for 8 weeks. Before we're done, we'll pick our next selection and announce that here.

Wishing you all a fantastic remainder of 2008 - we can't wait to see you in the new year!

John & Vonna

We're Comin At Ya in 3D!

Next Saturday is our 3-D Movie night. We'll be starting right around 6pm, so feel free to get here a little early to pick out a pair of anaglyphh glasses for the night.

We'll be showing an early 3-D shocker, an example of the 80s 3-D revival, and a contemporary feature.

First up is The Mask, a Canadian chiller from 1961 that I think it's acceptable for all ages. That said, the tagline was "The management is not responsible for nervous breakdowns!" and we'll stick to that.

Next up is the wild Euro-western Comin At Ya from the 1981. This one was rated R. It's tagline was "The Management Is Not responsible For Where The Screen Ends And You Begin!" If that's the best they could come up with, perhaps they'll understand if we stop this one before it's over.

Finally, we've got the 2006 entry Night of the Living Dead 3D. Here's your one and only chance to see Sid Haig in 3D, in this laughable reinvention of the classic film.

To kick things off, I'm planning to have brief tributes to Forrest J. Ackerman and Bettie Page, who we lost since the last event. That and a few new interesting trailers, and we'll have copies of the 2009 schedule to hand out as well.

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, and we hope to see you one last time before the New Year!

Bye Bye Bettie

1923 - 2008