Lower the Curtain Down on Memphis

 This post first appeared, in a slightly different form, in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

My new film SMART HOUSE has hit streaming platforms; I will suggest catching it right here on Tubi, since you can see all three of my films there for free (including one in a Spanish dub).  And finally, my wife's colleague's teenaged kid likes one of my movies, even if it was made by an old person.  Won over one of my harshest critics.

I am thankful to director Joe Swanberg's microcinema in Chicago; "Late Shift at the Grindhouse" at Film Scene in Iowa City, Iowa; and the Englewood Theater in Englewood, Ohio for providing screenings of my movie before its street date.

I talked my wife into watching ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS, a box set of folk horror, during October, and we had a lot of fun with it.  Start with the Eastern European ones that lean into the folk more than the horror to see some unique and offbeat films.

My reading is finally picking up again and if you like my newsletter you'll probably like THE MILITIA HOUSE by John Milas.  It's about a couple of soldiers at a base in Afghanistan who get bored and decide to visit a spooky abandoned house they can see just outside the wire, a bad idea.  It absolutely scared the fire out of me, and I don't get scared very easily.  I'm about halfway through SILVER NITRATE by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and I can tell it'll be recommended by me as well.  It's all about the occult and old Mexican horror movies so you know I'm going to be down for that.

The last time I sent a newsletter I had knuckled down and bought a Mac Mini tricked out with Final Cut to re-learn editing, but it's all still in the box.  The truth is I've been struggling with depression and have had to enter an outpatient program that involves medication, therapy, and coursework.  Having untreated depression has derailed a lot of my day job and b-movie night life, as well as everything else, so if you are reading this and in the same boat as me, I encourage you to seek help before you hit the guard rail and spin out like I did.

Hoping to re-enter the b-movie world again with new projects before long, but until then, thanks for reading.

Suds and Soda

This post first appeared in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

 Heading to Dayton Saturday to put the final touches on SMART HOUSE, which needs to be done because we already have a screening, and it's back at the great venue Film Scene in Iowa City, Iowa.  We will be at "Late Shift at the Grindhouse" Wednesday June 21 at 10 p.m., and me and hopefully producer Henrique Couto will be on hand to answer questions after.  This is always a great, literate film crowd and the people who run the screenings are top-notch.

We have another screening in the offing, and it is a genuine surprise I think, so as soon as it is locked in I will have the info right here first.

A new Belgian website must not understand the U.S. film world too well, because they actually asked me to contribute to a series called "The Five Hidden Movie Gems of..."  It was flattering to be asked, and I thought you might want to read what I sent before the Belgians.  These are The Five Hidden Movie Gems of John Oak Dalton.
 

DEAD MOUNTAINEER'S HOTEL. I am curiously partial to Soviet-era science fiction but find many haven't seen Estonian director Grigori Kromanov's genre-bender, based on the book by the Strugatsky Brothers.

TATTOOED LIFE. I'm a huge fan of Japanese auteur Seijun Suzuki and although this isn't my favorite, it's one I've felt like I would like to remake, and is a good entry point for viewers new to his style.

THE RED CIRCLE. Again a huge fan of French director Jean-Pierre Melville and also sorely wish I could remake this one day. Fantastic noir.

ALPHAVILLE. The perfect film for my sensibilities, an insouciant genre movie through a New Wave filter with unapologetic DIY sensibilities, directed by Jean-Luc Godard to boot.

RED COCKROACHES. Cuban filmmaker Miguel Coyula's entirely original philosophical science-fiction film is a masterpiece of DIY filmmaking, looking like a 20 million dollar film but made for $2K, with ideas enough for a hundred movies.

My biggest regret in leaving the television and video world behind for marketing is that I have lost track of my editing sensibilities.  I feel like I was a pretty good editor back in the day, and in fact that was my entry point into the industry--assistant editing on Ivan Roger's priest-turned-hitman movie FORGIVE ME FATHER, editing all the action scenes such that I didn't see any scenes with anyone alive until I went to the premiere.

So I knuckled down and bought a Mac Mini installed with Final Cut X a few weeks ago.  I'm hoping it's like riding a bike, but I have to get it out of the box first and set it up.  I have a little low-level anxiety about it because my last true job in the video business was 2005, but I guess I can get on YouTube like everybody else and figure out how to do it again.  And I hope I still have a little magic left.  Tips from Final Cut X editors welcome.

Thanks for reading and I will have updates on SMART HOUSE again soon.

I'll Never See Your Smilin' Face or Touch Your Hand

This blog post first appeared in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

This week was my birthday.  I took it off, which is a luxury when I can do it.  Since I turned 50 I have always taken a leisurely, ironic stroll past the neighboring graveyard on my birthday (is it a surprise that I live next to a graveyard?) but that seemed a little close to the bone this year.  I've been struggling with my blood sugar and especially my blood pressure lately.  My glucose monitor has several choices to pick from after you prick your finger and I always hit "I feel fine" because there isn't one that reads I FEEL LIKE HELL QUIT ASKING.  But I will lasso this in.

The beast of it for me is that when my daughter was married in 2014 I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes (after having an incident of disorientation I thought was because of all the stress). I went down four pants sizes and lost around 50 pounds and have stayed off insulin. My doctor said I was 1 in 100 patients but it could still catch up to me one day. Which is funny because until a month or two ago I felt better in my 50s than my 30s.  But i guess I can't outrace the devil forever.

So now my son is getting married, and I am doing the ceremony, on September 10 (not a Satanic Mass).  The reception is at my house.  And I mentioned last time my dog died.

I loved my dog like a person. She was our empty nest baby when my daughter went to college. She was a princess. It happened very quickly, over 72 hours. I think she had a massive stroke at 14. Her face was notably slack and she was stumbling around, whimpering and pacing all night. She was a West Highland White Terrier and that's about all they have in the tank as well. It was a hard decision to make but I respected her too much to let her suffer very long.

So maybe hitting the stress button hard and getting on some meds.  It would be awkward for everyone if I died right before the wedding.

I'm wanting to get started on a new project, so I decided to push the reset switch and just sit on the couch on my birthday and watch movies.  I burned my free seven-day SHUDDER preview I've held onto forever and watched GLORIOUS and ONE CUT OF THE DEAD, the first because an Indiana guy wrote it and the second because so many people have talked about it.  GLORIOUS is funny and original, about a Cthulhu-type monster trapped in a rest stop bathroom, and I'll leave it right there as to why it is called GLORIOUS.  ONE CUT OF THE DEAD is an incredibly meta zombie movie about some people making a zombie movie, and the storyline keeps nesting like Russian dolls.  This is a great, wild movie I'd recommend to anyone for an October watch.

I was going to watch BROADCAST SIGNAL INTRUSION and make it a triple play but I took a nap, these new blood pressure meds take some getting used to.

Been trying to feed my head in other ways too; I finally decided to tackle Grant Morrison's run on DOOM PATROL, mostly because I saw all three volumes in TPB at the public library.  It never struck me as a younger comic book reader but I have wanted to tackle this head trip as an older guy.  It's not like anything else, which is the kind of thing I need to put my eyes on sometimes.

I read a book I could recommend to my subscribers called SLEEPWALK by Dan Chaon.  It's about a mercenary and his loyal dog in a dystopian near-future (struggling to keep up with our real one) who starts to question his life when he finds out he has a daughter.  Our tarnished protagonist rattles through various genres on a number of broken highways, and it's a pretty original read.

I got a Carhartt hoodie for my birthday which finally made me articulate how I'm ready to put this busted-ass summer behind me.  Wishing all of you the best.

Tuesday's Gone with the Wind

This post first appeared in my secret e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

Last Friday I had a chance to go to the Indiana University Cinema to hear Jim Jarmusch talk. He as an absolutely formative director from my early years of interest in cinema; STRANGER THAN PARADISE had a lot of influence on me, but MYSTERY TRAIN and NIGHT ON EARTH are two later, great movies, and I would recommend GHOST DOG: WAY OF THE SAMURAI as an entry point to anybody.

He said so many things that hit me right where I live:  that there are as many ways to make movies as there are movie directors, but there is only one way for a director to direct an individual actor, that a movie will tell you what it wants to be.  He talked about how you had to be interested in all different subjects to make your movies interesting.  He had a million stories about moviemaking but one of my favorite things he said was that, no matter the state of the world, his memories of the movies he's seen can't be taken away from him.  I have said forever, to make a good movie you have to come from a place of honest appreciation of movies; if you come from a place of cynicism, you'll get found out by the fans.  I got a tremendous charge from this trip.

Yesterday I was driving back from work meetings in Chicago and passed a Family Video in Frankfort, Indiana.  I thought I would stop and see if they were going to stock my movie THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE, which streets everywhere today.  It hit streaming platforms in October, but I'm old school, and was eager to see it on the shelf somewhere.

They actually had it, but had not shelved it yet, and let me take a picture without asking why, though I eventually told them, and they vowed to promote it.

It was a dizzying and humbling feeling to hold this movie for the first time, in a rural Indiana video store along Highway 28.

About 30 minutes later I passed another Family Video in Elwood, Indiana, and they had it too, and the staff there was very friendly and excited for me.

I think this is everything I hoped would happen; that the movie would appear on the shelf in small towns and all the highways and byways in America.  Because I hope somebody like me will see it, and be inspired to make their own movie.  Even if they see it and think "I can do better than that," as my wise old b-movie friend Mark Polonia says, if someone says they can do better than you, it means they can learn from you. 

And now it exists and is out loose in the world for real and for true.  If you see it anywhere, please send me a picture, or post one and tag it.

It's a long road.  I starting shooting at my own house with a group of friends and a handful of favors in March 2018.  Again, it is a humbling experience to see it exist now.  But if it wasn't feeling humble, all I have to do is remember this picture, from my first day of shooting ever as a director, wearing my sweatshirt inside out.

I have some news coming soon, and I promise my loyal e-newsletter people will get to read it first.  Until then, thanks for being there.

Their Names Are Written in Concrete

I've been fascinated by this Top Ten Movies That Influenced You meme, with images only and no explanations--but I had to go for a Top Twenty for myself, which are all the movies that have influenced my b-movie life, listed 1-20.  How many can you recognize?  Enjoy!

Some Came to Keep the Dark Away

 
 This post first appeared in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP.

I was extremely flattered to be invited back to the Farmland Community Center to screen THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE in the very location where we shot the "Outcast Swords" portion of the movie.  A lot of cast and crew from the movie were there, along with their families and friends, making for a very warm and friendly audience.  There were laughs and clapping and an audible gasp at the final reveal--so much so that my mother almost slid off her chair.  After, she told me, "you need to tell these people you had a normal childhood."

My wife and I didn't get too far in watching horror movies this October, but we both really liked HOLD THE DARK, which really wasn't as much a horror movie as it was billed which is okay because the title does not stick in my head well enough to tell people about it.  IT STAINS THE SANDS RED was really clever, and AS ABOVE SO BELOW made my stomach hurt.  THE DEVIL'S CANDY was solid enough.  But what we super binged on which I think counts is THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE which has real and genuine chills from beginning to (almost) the end and comes recommended.

While my wife is out of town at a conference, I have been catching up on all the obscurities I seek out and gather up from all different places.

I watched SHOT, which was an early 70s action film made by some incredibly ambitious University of Illinois students, and by ambitious I mean car crashes and helicopter stunts and gunplay, so much gunplay that these goofballs running around like this today would draw the attention of Homeland Security in about five minutes.  But it was a simpler time, when the fuzz could beat on longhairs who are just out trying to make some bread.

In the extras is an interview with the director, who did this movie and then went out to Hollywood for ten years and couldn't get anything going, except he had a memorable meeting with Orson Welles I wish he had talked more about.

I watched a double feature starring Peter Carpenter, BLOOD MANIA and POINT OF TERROR, shot back to back in 1970 and 1971 respectively, two hyperbolic titles for what are interesting but tame dramas with splashes of horror, leftover hallucinatory imagery from the 60s, and fuzzy rock chords on the soundtrack.  So naturally I loved them both.

Carpenter is an interesting figure who the internet can't find out much about, except he sort of appeared and through force of personality willed these two starring vehicles for himself into life.  And then mysteriously died, or maybe disappeared into obscurity.

I think why I like these kinds of movies is that it reminds me just how hard it is to make a movie, any movie, at any time, at any place.  This time last year I had pretty much just finished writing THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE for myself because I hadn't been hired to do anything for a year.  I have three screenplays turned into films that have yet to come out and a fourth that might not get made.  In this very newsletter I am typing right this second I was about to announce another project that had to be shelved earlier this week, that we were going to start shooting tomorrow.  But it was shelved with good reasons so I can't be too upset.

Everyone says when you are working on a movie you have to be telling people about your next one.  I was so wrung out at the end of shooting CRAWLSPACE that I could not get my head around another one; I thought I would be a one-hit wonder, and some day in the future somebody would find my movie and wonder where I went and how I died too.  But all my filmmaking friends who shared the pitfalls before I started shooting told me of this pitfall, too--that it gets in your blood.  So it may be time and past time to start working on the next one.

Until later, thanks for reading.

Some Velvet Morning

This blog post first appeared in I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP, an e-newsletter you can subscribe to from the sidebar.

Last time, I listed all the books that appeared in or around THE GIRL IN THE CRAWLSPACE, and this time I thought I would provide a list of all the movies and TV shows mentioned, many of which were influential in the movie as well.  Many of them appear in the scene I wrote about last time, the one that seems to be a lot of people's favorite (curiously enough) where the D&D group talk about all of their secret crushes.  I remember Erin Ryan telling me she watched all the trailers on YouTube to try to understand it, and Jeff Rapkin telling me he would wake up in the middle of the night, trying to recite his.  Here they are, in order:

DOLEMITE
THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS
DJANGO THE BASTARD
WONDER WOMAN (TV SHOW)
THE KROFFT SUPERSHOW (TV SHOW)
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (TV SHOW)
THE AVENGERS (TV SHOW)
WONDER WOMAN (MOVIE)
THE AVENGERS (MOVIE)
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
THE BIRDS
ZORRO'S BLACK WHIP
SUPERMAN II
ROSEMARY'S BABY
THE BIONIC WOMAN
HERCULES UNCHAINED
HERCULES VS MOLOCH
HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN
HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD
HERCULES AND THE TYRANTS OF BABYLON
HERCULES VS THE HYDRA
MANNAJA: A MAN CALLED BLADE
GOD FORGIVES, I DON'T
SARTANA THE GRAVEDIGGER
KEOMA
RETURN OF RINGO
A SKY FULL OF STARS FOR A ROOF
FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE
THE LAST OF THE RENEGADES
I AM SARTANA YOUR ANGEL OF DEATH
THE GREAT SILENCE
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE--ROGUE NATION

If you ever needed a horror movie to give you a spaghetti western primer, this is it. My love for Italian films in general has only increased by multiple trips to Italy chaperoning my wife's college class trips over the years as well.  But there are a lot of personal references here too.  I caught HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN on Saturday afternoon television one day and was scared badly as a child.  I saw FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE playing in Italian on television in Rome a few years back.  THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS shocking my sensibilities on Kung Fu Theatre as a teen.  A friend showing me DOLEMITE on VHS at work in the early 90s and having my eyes opened. I hope one or two of these ring out for you.

I am incredibly late to the podcast game, but the radio quit in my 2007 Honda and I just limped along without one for a while, listening to podcasts on my phone.  I would have to recommend the creepy-crawly podcast ALICE ISN'T DEAD, about a long-haul trucker traveling the lonely highways looking for her missing wife.  This is a three-season story from the people who made the breakthrough hit WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE which is over a hundred episodes and going strong, so I wasn't sure where to drop in.  I started listening to another standaloone one they did, WITHIN THE WIRES, but it has creeped me out so badly I am listening to it in very small doses.  The premise is exceedingly clever; the first season is presented as "relaxation tapes" that actually have a hidden message.  The second season is supposedly a recorded museum tour, and the third just underway is based on office dictation into a machine.  Pretty dang clever.

I am trying #inktober again this year to flex my creative muscles, even my flabby cartooning ones, and on the brink of doing more than I have in past attempts.  At the end of the month, I'll post the most popular ones here.

Until then, thanks for reading.

The Crypt-Kicker Five

This blog post first appeared as part of my secret e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP, which you can subscribe to in the sidebar.

We did okay in our challenge to watch only horror movies in October.  We saw 18, but were late starters because there are so many actually horrible things going on in the world that we couldn't bring ourselves to watch one some nights.  Even at that, we watched a lot of comedy-horror.

If I were to offer a Top Five, I have to go for sure for the two that gave me muddled nightmares the night I watched them--HONEYMOON from director Leigh Janiak and THE VOICES from director Marjane Satrapi.  The first is about a couple who decided to honeymoon at a remote cabin in the woods--always a bad plan--and the second is an inky-black comedy featuring Ryan Reynolds, who seems genial enough but hears his pet cat telling him to kill people.

To round out the Top Five I recommend HOUSEBOUND, a New Zealand horror-comedy from director Gerard Johnstone, where a woman ends up on house arrest in a haunted house; TUCKER AND DALE VS EVIL, which I know I am late to, where director Eli Craig turns a lot of horror conventions upside down; and Mike Flanagan's GERALD'S GAME, from the Stephen King novel, a sweat-inducing story that points out some things you should avoid doing if your marriage is on the rocks.  Honorable mention goes to I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE, which I recommend if you like slow, slow burns 70s style like I do.

The weather is holding, so my pal director Mark Polonia is chipping away at THE HORRIBLE ASP and SEQUENCE SIX, and if you follow him on Twitter a photo or two has leaked out.  When more leaks out, I will abandon the code names and tell you the real, astounding titles of both of these movies I wrote for him.

On my own front, I got some script coverage back from a screenwriter I trust on my project THE GIRL WITH THE GRINDHOUSE HEART.  He was right about a few flaws but gave me the greatest compliment ever by saying "This is really YOUR script!"  At least, I took it as a compliment.  I really let my nerd flag fly with this one.  I always think if you want to watch one of my movies, you like other things I like, and a lot of it is in there.

Thanks for sticking with me, and we'll talk soon.

Newton Got Beaned by the Apple Good

This blog post first appeared in my secret e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP, which wouldn't be a secret to you if you subscribed in my sidebar to the right.

A few days early, I finished my goal of writing three screenplays in six weeks, a feat I never thought I could master.  The scripts for the first first two, code-named KRASNIKOV and SEQUENCE SIX, have already been approved by the producer and are ready to roll on.  The last one, THE HORRIBLE ASP, I boomed out to director Mark Polonia this morning after ten days of feverish writing, getting up early and working through lunch hours and working late at night, and I hope to hear about it soon.

I wrote them so fast I don't think they could be any crazier, with demonic possession, time travel, alien invasions, telepathic sharks, zombies, creepy dolls, haunted houses, mad scientists, cavemen, crazy cat ladies, and of course caged women forced to fight for their freedom.  And a bunch of stuff I can't remember right this second.

If you think that last one was a riff on a movie I watched over, and over again, on late-night cable, LUST FOR FREEDOM, suffice to say I have waited a lifetime for this opportunity.  But what I am really riffing on, and what inspired me, was the work of b-movie director Thomas Carr, who in 1950 used a small troupe of aging western stars and shot six cowboy movies in 30 days using some pretty interesting methods that have not, to my knowledge, been replicated before or since.  I think this achievement deserves wider recognition, and have been such an advocate for Mr. Carr's work that I convinced Mark Polonia to buy these movies off of Amazon and see it for himself.  And, with my birthday money, I just did the same thing as a little present to myself for driving myself bats (and probably my wife) getting these done in time.

I actually deposited most of my birthday money like a good homeowner who wants new linoleum, but I also bought SUBURRA by Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo De Cataldo, which just came out in paperback from World Noir a couple of weeks ago.  I have had my eye on this one for a while, having seen the Italian film version of the novel as well as hearing about the Netflix series coming out soon.  It is a noir that takes place in the suburban area of Rome called Ostia (which I have visited via rail a number of times).  Eager to dive into the book, and report back.  Especially now that I have a little time on my hands.

Speaking of time on my hands, I did finish WESTWORLD, and liked it okay.  Every time it got a little overheated it would be a little philosophical again, and then veer back, and then veer back again.  But worth watching.

Thanks for hanging in there.  More news soon.

Live from Hoosierdance

This  post originally appeared, in a slightly different form, in my newsletter I Was Bigfoot's Shemp, which you can subscribe to here.
 
Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Hoosierdance International Film Festival in Kokomo, Indiana, where I was a festival judge for the screenplay competition. We selected a tidy little screenplay called DIRTY WINDS about the American Revolution and its impact on a group of people.  But look how sweet I got treated at the festival:

First I went to the Indiana short films bock, where I got to meet some like-minded people.  To me, this is the best part of any fest, especially a grassroots one.  I always say you can't push anyone's career ahead of yours, but if you catch the rocket, you can pull other people in your wake.  And that's what this is about, proving you are a normal person who seems able to meet deadlines and keep promises.

I saw a lot of good things, and I know I missed some things that played well, but from what I saw there were some standouts.

UNEXCEPTIONAL by Scott Carelli was a funny little alien invasion movie that played like the opening salvo to a full-length work.  RANDOM by Cindy Maples was a very tight genre short that I can't say much about without giving away the game.  But probably my favorite was MISREAD by Ryan McCurdy, about a schlub hired to drive a woman around who reads lips for a living.  The production was a little uneven, but I like stories I haven't heard before.

Next I went to the student films block, where I saw all the people that will push me out of the way one day.  They had a large, warm crowd for a mix of narrative and documentary shorts. David Stallard did an interesting doc called THE BLUE FLASH about an old guy who built two roller coasters in his backyard in rural Indiana.  THE NETWORK by Adam Nelson was a very polished-looking post-apocalyptic riff.  But what knocked me out was THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY by Alex Cook, about two orphaned brothers hanging on in a bleak rural setting. Very good acting and directing signaled that this guy has a tremendous upside.

Part of why I missed a few screenings was that I really ended up enjoying downtown Kokomo.  You can see when you visit that they are making an effort to revitalize the area with little shops and cool places to eat and have coffee.  They even have a self-proclaimed Geek Street, with a comic book shop, gaming store, toy store, with an Irish pub, coffee shop, and hipster record store all within shouting distance.  For me, a street of dreams, indeed.

I Snapchatted all day from there to test the app out for a work project.  You can find me on Snapchat at John Oak Dalton, to catch me next time.

I enjoyed being a part of Hoosierdance in just its second year, and I hope they have more to come.  At the end of the month I will be at the Blue Whiskey Film Festival in Chicago, and will have much to report from there.

Everything I Tell You Has Been Spoken

Like a lot of people on the magical interwebs I decided to try the "31 Days of Horror" horror movie challenge and watch 31 horror movies in October.  I knew I probably wasn't going to make it, because 1. I had to finish writing my own (secret) horror movie by October 30 and 2. I accidentally got addicted to Fargo and binged on the whole first season.

But I ended up watching 15, 14 of them that I had never seen (and I'm only counting Hocus Pocus once even though we watched it at the work Halloween party and I had it running at home on Halloween night), and that ain't bad.  I won't list them all, but my top five are:

1.  THE BABADOOK.  One of only a few movies to ever give me a nightmare the night after watching it.  It is especially unsettling if you are a parent, with an interestingly enigmatic ending.

2.  BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO.  Weird shocker about a sound technician working on an Italian horror movie, and maybe going crazy at the same time.  Best for fans of Italian horror of the 70s, but you probably already saw it.

3.  PONTYPOOL.  A burnt-out morning DJ at a remote Canadian radio station begins to realize that something terrible is happening in a snowstorm outside.  A claustrophobic, slow-burn mind game.

4.  HOUSE OF THE DEVIL:  Throwback-style horror about a young woman hired to babysit an unseen client at the start of an eclipse, and what could go wrong with that?

5.  GRABBERS:  Brisk horror-comedy is sort of a remake of "The War of the Worlds," only the aliens turn out to be allergic to alcohol, prompting the residents of an Irish village to get hammered and fight back.

Special Honorable Mention to HAUSU (HOUSE), a 70s Japanese horror movie that is not to be entered into lightly; a group of schoolgirls visit a reclusive aunt in a creepy old house, which makes it sounds like a normal movie, but is really only for those fans seeking the truly odd and unsettling.

Enjoy!

#BWIFF2012

I just got back from my third great year at the Blue Whiskey Film Festival with probably the strongest field yet of screenings and lots of interaction with filmmakers--I believe 20 out of 32 films screened in competition had representatives there either IRL or through the magic of Skype.  I really loved the french film A.L.F. which was the unanimous choice for Best of Fest, but there was plenty of other stuff on my personal favorites list, including Quitter, Machinehead, Being Bradford Dillman, The Guy Who Lived In My Pool, The Hole, I Am Bad, Things I Don't Understand, and Future Inc.; and a couple of really solid documentaries, including Average Joe, Kinderblock 66, and 5 Days in Denver.

Powering Up at BWIFF

I've said it before, you will never go hungry in Palatine.  One of my favorite things besides watching hours and days of films and then talking about them with people is going to eat at great places in the area.  Number one for me is Billy's Pancake House where we host the annual Filmmakers Breakfast and I continue to winnow away at my twilight years by trying (and failing) each year to eat something called a Meat Skillet.  I also always stop at the 24 Hour donut shop Spunky Dunkers, where you expect you might see Raymond Chandler banging away on a typewriter on the last stool.  And this year we had dinner at a new place that looked like a set Robert Rodriguez could film a shootout in.

Whiskey-ites

Part of my enjoyment in going to film festivals is living my life vicariously through more talented people like Gary Lumpp, Michael Noens, and Steve Coulter, who I took my (I think) sixth annual photo with.  They look the same, I am getting fatter and balder.

The Hoosier Silver Screen

My first trip to the Indiana University Cinema in Bloomington, Indiana, a hip, alternative film venue as evidenced by these two hip, alternative dudes.  This is me and director Miguel Coyula at the screening of his film "Memories of Overdevelopment."  I met Miguel some years ago when his movie "Red Cockroaches" played at Microcinema Fest in South Dakota, where I was a festival judge.  Since then Miguel has played in some less prestigious venues, such as Sundance.  He was so busy at IU we didn't even get to reminisce about sharing a bunk bed at American University in Rapid City.

Awake in the Heartland

I was sitting in the barber's chair reading TIME Magazine yesterday when I read this column from one of my film reviewer heroes, Richard Corliss, and for the first time felt compelled to write a Letter to the Editor.

Mr. Corliss,

I am a longtime fan of your work but take issue with your portrayal of Netflix in your recent article.

It is too easy to draw a parallel between the rise of Netflix and the fall of the local video store such as the one you mentioned in Manhattan. However that theory is contingent on the fact that you ever had that option to begin with.

I live in a town with the unlikely name of Farmland, Indiana, in which the closest video store is a Redbox at a McDonald's in a town ten minutes away and the closest Blockbuster is in the nearest city thirty minutes the other direction. There is also where you can find the closest movie theater (that you can't drive your car right up to the screen). I am fortunate to live on a road where the cable service runs past, connecting two towns, but many of my neighbors rely on spotty dish reception or digital rabbit ears.

Netflix is a godsend to me, a person who graduated with a film major in college (reading Film Comment voraciously at the college library), works peripherally in movies and film festivals, and yet lives in several square miles of cornfield. I am also a voracious reader and probably get a second strike for loving Amazon and my new Kindle. The proximity of a hip bookstore to my home does not bear discussion.

Those of us who live in the vast Flyover Country between our two coasts have learned to live without the instant gratification our metropolitan brethren yearn for but do still smart at those who take our cultural lifelines to task.

The Down Side of Up

Cinema Minima, a film site I have a lot of respect for in the independent/grassroots film world, recently remarked on a slow news day "Not 'Hollywood Independent'--writer John Oak Dalton is the real thing." Let this humbling statement not proceed the death knell of American Cinema.

Despite this great affirmation, like the stoic (which unkind reviewers might refer to as wooden) star of "Drag Me To Hell," I have started to wonder if I am under some sort of gypsy curse.

Both of my cars died within four weeks of each other, leaving my wife and I stranded in different cities. I cut through the ball of my thumb again while slicing a bagel. The garden hose on the outside wall leaked into the house and I came home and found the plumbers had to cut a big hole in our kitchen wall. We hiked around, as is our tradition, on Father's Day and saw a big timber rattlesnake sunning itself on the trail. Though we did not see it was a timber rattlesnake until we looked on the interwebs, which we did because when my wife (who believed it was a grass snake) poked it gently with a stick and said "Go away, honey," it rattled at her.

I do have to admit I watched "The Seventh Seal" again the other night and maybe that's where it all started. You watch a dude play chess with Death and you sort of have to take what comes. But with its eye-popping black-and-white cinematography, clear-eyed scripting, and a hard-assed performance by Max von Sydow, it is worth it. The down side is that you remember that most everything made today is disgraceful crap in comparison.

Even though I love this movie, I still love "The Bicycle Thief" more and wish I could make a movie like "Alphaville." If you have not seen these three greats, shut off the internet, set aside your Will Ferrell movie marathon, and get to work. Then come back when you get it done.

Until later I am at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

I Was Feeling Kinda Seasick

Sadly my pal, filmmaker Peter O'Keefe, just earned another lap in the Lake of Fire.

In other entertainment news, I am watching "Parks and Recreation" closely. Not because I hope that they realize they can improve the show dramatically by allowing Rashida Jones to wear a pantsuit like her mother, Peggy Lipton, was so famous for in "The Mod Squad." It is more to be on alert for unfavorable portrayals of Hoosiers.

Loyal readers may recall my campaign against "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," who made fun of my alma mater's basketball team with an ill-disguised jab at "Muncie State," thus inspiring my ire and ridicule. Few things have drawn as much attention to this blog from other sites (except for when I wrote about how my wife saw Maura Tierney and Goran Visnjic in Chicago taping "ER," drawing links from many Croatian "ER" fans), and my jibes at the shaky plotting and leaps in logic were surprisingly repeated on some TV fan sites.

All I can say in retrospect is that I am still blogging and "Studio 60" is off the air. Whether Aaron Sorkin is still weeping bitter tears at night over my witty and incisive posts, I have never learned.

So far "Parks and Recreation" is doing okay. They have accurately portrayed Hoosiers' love for Bobby Knight and Larry Bird, though they have overlooked other Gods in our Pantheon, among them Reggie Miller, Steve Alford, Bobby Plump, and the newly-elevated Peyton Manning.

But one thing.

We do NOT wear brown suits! At least, I haven't seen any since I visited my dad's Kiwanis meetings in the early 80s. Our great Flyover Country does get regular delivery of Old Navy clothes!

I will continue vigilantly monitoring potential defamation of Hoosiers; until then, I am at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

The Curse It Is Cast

My blogging has slowed down to a trickle of late, though I have been able to keep up with Twitter at a mere 140 characters at a time (and if you aren't on Twitter with me, Oprah, President Obama, Ashton Kutcher, John Mayer, and millions of others, why aren't you?).  I've also done okay keeping up on my reading.  

Perhaps the sluggish blogging was the letdown from reaching 1,000 posts at about the same time as my fifth anniversary of this humble site (which, scarily, is something close to a post every other day for the last half-decade, for loyal readers and poor mathematicians).  

Perhaps it was also the long winter, breaking a filling and getting a root canal, breaking the root canal, hosting the Chamber of Commerce at the office, then changing jobs, getting the flu (hopefully it wasn't the damn swine flu), having my wife get the flu (ditto), presenting at a conference, the end of a semester teaching video production, and a few other events I am forgetting as things are a bit blurry around the edges at present.

What else could have kept me from blogging about Watchmen, a cinema event I have waited for for several decades? 

Astoundingly, I find myself, while googling away, in the humble minority amongst fanboys in my unstinting praise for this film.  Why comic book fans have not marched upon Hollywood and pledged unyielding fealty to Zack Snyder I have no idea.

For a graphic novel long thought to be unfilmable, so much was there, including dialogue and even shots framed right from the comics.  Great casting and a reverent rendition.  The use of music and the idea to keep it in its 80s time frame were sure-handed.  The DVD release of extras, done practically concurrently, was innovative.   The opening gave me chills.  I think they actually improved the ending.  I honestly don't know, unless it was made into an HBO miniseries of something, how it could have been done any better, or by anybody else, or at any other time in the last twenty years or so.

My dream of Watchmen was realized.  My dream for the other milestone graphic novel of that era, The Dark Knight, may never come to pass, as too much time has marched by, and with it my fantasy of Clint Eastwood or Michael Douglas playing Batman and Arnold himself playing Superman, and wouldn't that have been a cool movie?

But one little thing about Watchmen scratched at the back of my mind.

At the end of the book (twenty year old SPOILER), asked to tarnish his curious code of honor to prevent the world spinning into Armageddon, the vigilante Rorschach utters the immortal line:

"Joking, of course."

A tagline for every disenfranchised comic book-reading, Star Trek-watching, D&D-playing dude of that era, and one my friends and I would utter when our own curious codes would be challenged or questioned.

"Joking, of course."

A line for the ages, missing from the definitive unfilmable film--which is why I must only give Watchmen a nine and a half.

Who's ready to go see Star Trek?

Give me a shout at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.

Benson, Arizona, the Same Stars in the Sky

Best-selling author Haven Kimmel went slumming and ended up staying at my house over Memorial Day. Read her highly subjective account here.

Actor Jason Smither has an update from the set of MENTAL SCARS here.

I found out the great Hoosier filmmaker Sydney Pollack just died. A few nights ago I saw him in a nice little French film called AVENUE MONTAIGNE. Contrary to what one might think, we have had a lot of great TV and movie people from here, as well as a notable number of vice presidents.

Now here's a dude doing some interesting stuff with ephemeral video, found footage, public domain stuff, and the like.

Someone pointed me to a "Lost Muncie" site that linked to yearbook photos from my long-closed alma mater, where I found a picture of my scrawny ass circa 1984.

Give me a yell at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.