Big Screen Big Apple: Gen or Glenda Tonight

In conjunction with Tim Burton's exhibit, MoMA is going to be showing some of the best, and worst, of the cinema that influenced Hollywood's biggest Darkstar. Getting back to the worst(for some, myself excluded)catagory, tonight New Yorkers get the pleasure of seeing the genderbending classic Glen or Glenda, directed by Hollywood's most crossdresser and worst director, Ed Wood. And he's not only the director, he also has a starring appearance in full feminine garb. So give the wife the credit card tonight and tell her to hit up the Meatpacking with her friends. When the coast is clear, throw on her best dress and that wig you've been hiding since Halloween, cuz it's time to hit up the MoMA!!!


Glen or Glenda(1953):IMDB says"Cross-dressing B-movie auteur Edward D. Wood Jr. was unleashed upon an unsuspecting world with this purportedly sincere attempt at understanding transvestism rendered unintelligible by Ed Wood's unfathomable script, bizarre pantomime-esque vignettes and a visibly morphine-addled Bela Lugosi shouting about big green dragons. Written by Anonymous"

Glen or Glenda
January 22nd @ 4:30 PM, MoMA 11 West 53rd St.

Big Screen Big Apple: Zatoichi the Fugitive Tonight

Until May, the Japan Society is going to be spotlighting Chambara Film, you know, samurais and shit. Tonight, denizens of The Big Apple get a rarity few eyes should miss, or at least those who love chambara cinema. Everyone's favorite blind masseuse is going to be hitting the big screen. That's right folks...Zatoichi!He slices, he dices, and he can even relax muscle tension. Tonight be sure to stop by the Japan Society for Zatoichi the Fugitive.

Zatoichi the Fugitive(1963):IMDB says "Blind swordsman/masseur Ichi (known as Zatoichi, or "Masseur Ichi") angers a local yakuza gang when he defeats several of them in a wrestling match. When he finds that his long lost love Tane is nearby and romantically involved with a tough samurai in the employ of the gang, he remains in the village. Meanwhile, the young heir to the leadership is forced to confront his own fear and weakness when the gang insists he fight Ichi. Written by Jim Beaver {jumblejim@prodigy.net}"

Zatoichi The Fugitive
January 22nd @ 7:30 pm The Japan Society 333 East 47th St.

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday

Thankfully the holidays are over. As much fun as it was, it was just a little too hectic for my taste. I know I say the same thing every year, and have the same amount of relief when its over, but god damn it's rough on a man! Now that it's over, it's hibernatin' time. Not that I'll be spending the rest of Winter sleeping, but there will be a bunch of sitting on my ass in front of the tube, polluting my DVD player. Not only am I going to get plenty of movie watching done, I'm going to try to get in at least 15 blog entries a month.

Now for the biggest reason I'm writing this little ditty, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

Me, as in, Cinematografo Dei Trash, the very genre cinema blog you have your beady, little eyes focused on at this moment. It has been a year and a couple days since I started sharing my self-described expertise with the rest of the world, and I have learned quite a bit this past year. First off, it is really fuckin' hard to write a movie review every day. In the beginning I thought it might be probable, but it didn't take me long to realize it's not a good idea. Maybe one review a week, two if I'm lucky.

Second.....warm weather is a burden on my ability to sit in front of my computer. As much as I would like to spend a couple hours everyday updating this labor of love, when it's Springtime this guy wants to hit the parks and beer gardens! Hopefully this year I will learn how to better mange my time so that I may write more than 4 entries a month during the Spring.

I could go on and on with excuses about what I need to do to make this blog thingy a better experience, but in reality I just need more focus. I am proud of the fact that I am still going after a year. I haven't had a track record like that since my Livejournal days.

So here's to one more year!! Hopefully, if all goes well, you will be seeing a bunch more this year than in the last, and hopefully more contributors besides this guy!! One of these days CDT is going to be the Twitch of the realm of moustaches and car chases.

To another year!!!

The Goal: Watch and Review All Of Tantantino's Grindhouse Top 20

I would like to take a moment to thank those Figures of Greatness over at the Duece:Grindhouse Cinema Database. Besides being one of the greatest websites in the world of cult cinema, they are responsible for one of my newest and possibly most ambitious blogging goals to date. Yesterday the fine folks over at the Duece thought it would be a great idea to tweet Quentin Tatantino's list of his top 20 Grindhouse movies, one by one.

They aren't the only ones who thought it was a great idea.

Upon seeing this Holy Grail of Lists, I decided that it was part of my calling in life, besides being a amoral drunkard, to use this list to my advantage. I am going to watch and review every movie on this list, in no particular order. Thankfully, I've watched a couple, and maybe wrote a bit about them, so it should make my task that much easier. I don't know how long it will take me, but I will make sure I place a special marker in the title of each review to let all the little people in the blogosphere(myself included) when that days writings are going to be of the "special" variety.

I present you the list, as bestowed upon the rest of the world yesterday by our Grindhouse Gods over at The Deuce.

Quentin Tarantino's Official Top 20 Grindhouse Movies

1. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
2. Dawn of the Dead
3. Night of the Living Dead
4. Halloween
5. Coffy
6. Rolling Thunder
7. Five Fingers of Death
8. The Mack
9. The Girl From Starship Venus
10. The Last House On The Left
11. Master of the Flying Guillotine(OST review)
12. Wipeout
13. The Streetfighter movies ("You just have to kinda consider all three of them together." - QT)(II)
14. The Psychic
15. The Lady in Red
16. Thriller: A Cruel Picture
17. Suspiria
18. Hammer of the Gods
19. The Savage Seven
20. The Pom Pom Girls

Behold..the Massacrator trailer

While stuffing my face during my lunch break, I encountered a trailer over at Twitch(a site that gets much viewing time from many of us)that looked like a mouthful of awesome...The Massacrator.

I love the Terminator a bit more than I love Elvis, and seeing the two go head-to-head might be just as fun as watching Freddy Vs. Jason drunk. It's not the concept as much as the filming style that caught my attention. There is just something about grindhouse pops-and-tears mixed with stop motion animation that draw me to a film based on such a silly concept. I just don't see how such a beautiful idea could suck, and apparently I'm not the only one. The Massacrator will apparently be appearing at Slamdance 2010, and we all know those guys programming big festivals like Slamdance must know what the fuck they are talking about.

Like Levar Burton, don't take my word for it, but the trailer looks pretty fuckin' sweet.

Big Screen Big Apple:The Dark Crystal Tomorrow Night at 92Y Tribeca

When I was a child growing up in the 70's and 80's, nothing put a smile on my face like Jim Henson's Muppets. From Sesame Street as a wee child, to the Muppet Show when I was old enough to stay up for prime-time programming, it was all fun and laughs to me. That was until 1982 when I first saw the Dark Crystal in theaters and realized that some muppets could scare the living shit out of me. Of course I'm talking about the vulture-like Skeksis, along with a myriad of otherwordly Henson creations that change the face of the puppet industry. Thankfully I can relive my childhood fear tomorrow night at 92Y Tribeca. We'll see if the Skeksis still make my skin crawl.

IMDB says:"Another planet, another time. 1000 years ago the mysterious Dark Crystal was damaged by one of the Urskeks and an age of chaos has began! The evil race of grotesque birdlike lizards the Skeksis, gnomish dragons who rule their fantastic planet with an iron claw. Meanwhile the orphan Jen, raised in solitude by a race of the peace-loving wizards called the Mystics, embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of the Dark Crystal which gives the Skesis their power and restore the balance of the universe. Written by Anthony Pereyra {hypersonic91@yahoo.com}"

The Dark Crystal(1982)(Jim Henson)
Saturday December 12th, 10 PM
92Y Tribeca 200 Hudson Street

True King Will See The Light Of Day

About a month ago, I brought to light the story of two men, who happened to be really good friends of mine, with a dream to make a movie. Bife Productions set out to make a documentary about the more-human-than-human Steve Hawkes, but it order to finish said doc, they were going to need some help. Well ,thanks to the help of the outside world, True King is going to see the light of day!!

Tim and Peter were able to raise more than enough to complete the post-production, a great deal within the couple hours of the Kickstarter due date. I just want to give my sincere congratulations to the team over at Bife Productions. They worked long and hard, traveling thousands of miles and spending most of the production costs out of there own pocket. I would also like to thank all of there supporters who understand that this movie needs to be made. I'm dying to see it hit the festival circuit, and it will hopefully makes it way to NYC within the coming year.

Awesome job, guys! I hope this gives you faith to make more movies.

Big Screen Big Apple: Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster Meets MoMA Tomorrow Night

Even in a city as large as NYC, it's not very often that we get to a chance to see a classic piece of Grade-B sci-fi on the big screen like 1965's Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster. In fact, it's almost criminal that New Yorkers don't have a places to see quality cinema like Austin and LA does. Thankfully MoMA cares enough about us to add classic cheese such as this to their Nuts and Bolts showcase this month.

IMDB says:"When an atomic war on Mars destroys the planet's women, it's up to Martian Princess Marcuzan and her right-hand man Dr. Nadir to travel to earth and kidnap women for new breeding stock. Landing in Puerto Rico, they shoot down a NASA space capsule manned by an android. With his electronic brain damaged, the android terrorizes the island while the Martians raid beaches and pool parties. Written by Jeremy Lunt"

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster(IMDB)
Saturday November 28th 1:30 PM, 11 W 53rd St

An Independent, Modern Giallo: Black Aria

High Fives are owed to the fine folks over at the Giallo Fever blog for recently bringing to my attention new of Black Aria, a French-made homage to the giallo genre. From what I can tell reading a Babelfish translated review here, Black Aria consists of 3 sexy-and-violent mysteries rolled into one blood-soaked feature length.

Thankfully, a teaser trailer exists to entice the likes of a trash cinema fan such as myself. It may look like it was filmed on a short budget, but the special effects seem to be the bees knees(did I just say that?). Hopefully I can get a chance to see this modern throwback before it gets picked up or falls of the map. I'm hoping, of course, for the former rather than the latter.

Big Screen Big Apple:Tonight's Line-up NYC Horror Film Festival

Unfortunately I missed posting the first two days of the Festival because I am can't be completely aware of everything that goes on in NYC. If I was, I would probably get paid to do what I do. Regardless, the NYC Horror Film Festival is going to be haunting Tribeca for the rest of the weekend and it would be within everyone of you ghoul's interest to check it out.

Program 2 Friday November 20th at 7:30

Sweatshop:"Charlie has made a name for herself and her electronica parties – and the plans for tonight’s rave are her most extreme yet. On the edge of the city is an enormous vacant factory… and now, she and her friends have just over an hour to set up for an explosive rager without getting caught. The problem is, they already are. Her oversexed friends throw back a few drinks and begin setting up, unaware that they are being watched by something sinister lurking within the dark building’s endless corridors. With their attention quickly drifting away from the party and onto each other’s bodies, they begin to disappear into the night. With the music already blaring, no one can hear their frenzied cries of passion – and terror. Little do they realize, a beastly all-seeing presence resides in this enormous place, and it drags a mammoth, inhuman weapon that serves only one purpose: to end the lives of anyone who trespasses here. Charlie hoped tonight’s party would be the best she’d ever thrown. And now, it looks like it will be her last."

Attackazoids, Deploy!!: The making of Attackazoids,Deploy!!


Sinkhole:"A salesman approaches a mysterious landowner with an offer to buy the man's smoldering abandoned coal mines but finds that there is something far worse than a mine fire underneath the land."

Wheels of Death:"With her parents out of town, Wendy decides to take daddy’s car for a ride. Unfortunately, she hits a policeman on a bicycle along the way. Back home safe, Wendy fabricates a story that might exonerate her, but there’s one problem, she didn’t come home alone..."

Hunger

Death in Charge: I have personally seen Death In Charge at Royal Flush Festival this year and it was a great deal of fun packed into a short film. Have you ever wondered what the day to day life of the Grim Reaper was like?


Program 3 Friday November 20th at 10:30

The Revenant:"Officer First Class Bart Gregory is killed while fighting in Middle East. His body is shipped back to the United States and laid to rest, but before the lid can be put on his tomb, Bart inexplicably awakens in his coffin and climbs from his grave; confused, horrified--a moldy, putrefying living corpse--a Revenant. Bart desperately enlists the help of his best friend, Joey Leubner, in an attempt to ease his nausea and agony. Joey is shocked--and disgusted--by his putrescent pal’s return, but he rises to the occasion and tries to find a solution. When a panicked emergency room forces the confused corpse to flee, the two friends discover that there is only one cure for Bart's condition: Human blood. In their quest to keep Bart from decomposing Bart and Joey stumble into a solution—a way to obtain blood without taking innocent lives, becoming "The Vigilante Gun-Slingers”. But as their macabre crusade continues, they become entwined in an ever escalating cycle of violence and mayhem . . . all while cruising in a 1979 Camaro."

Elder Sign

CannibAlien

Abraham's Boys

Langliena:"A young man discovers a bloody and horrible secret in a shack in the woods."

Sounds like a pretty exciting night to me.