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.