It’s a new year and a new batch of Alamo posters has arrived. This January the Alamo Ritz will be screening the classic Godfather for the masses and to celebrate the event they’ve gone and made three posters for yall. The artists responsible are Jeff Kleinsmith, Tim Doyle and Billy Perkins.
I must say that Kleinsmith’s poster is my absolute favorite of the bunch but all are good and a must for fans of Italian stereotypes.
All three posters are available from mondotees.com of course but as a special variant Tim Doyle has made a wood version of his poster only available through gigposters.com. There are only 15 copies of the wood edition around so if you like that one you have to hurry.
You can get each of the signed and numbered posters separate for 30 bones each or as a set for 75 bucks, that’s a sweet deal.
Since everyone’s done lists of their favourite movies of this year, I decided to do something a little different. I think the title of this post is self-explanatory. I will try to give a short explanation about why I like these films, but my reasons may not always sound concrete or convincing. But that’s movies for you - inexplicable, incomprehensible, mysterious, subjective. If you should feel compelled to flame me for this, please do keep it civil though. Heh.
Ready?
Continue Reading "2008 Films People Hated But Which I Like"...
Not really movienews, but…
It will come as no surprise that we hold Hayao Miyazaki in extremely high regard here at Twitch. The man has created an unrivalled string of near-perfect to perfect movies and (co-)founded Studio Ghibli, which wins on average quality of releases when compared to, to… well, any other studio really (including Pixar).
But Mr. Miyazaki has also done manga on occasion, and these are a sight to behold. Yet while his “Nausicaä” is rightfully well-known across the world, his more recently released short story “A Trip to Tynemouth” cannot be found anywhere in an English-friendly version.
Still, that didn’t stop many Miyazaki fans from purchasing it in Japanese, for even if you cannot read what’s happening there are always his beautifully realized drawings to gawk at.
Especially for those people, Peter van der Lugt from GhibliWorld.com and some friends have painstakingly cobbled together an English translation.
If, and ONLY if you already own the original Japanese version and are interested in owning an English translation contact Peter.
For the last few years, I’ve posted paltry year-end lists, which has been due to the fact that I haven’t been able to attend as many screenings (and thereby, post as many reviews) as I’d like. Every year I make an excuse, give a reason, whatever. Well, this year, it’s the same old story. A measly twenty-four films to draw from. And as great as these top films may be, I can’t help but feel there a number of unseen films waiting to supplant some of these in the top tier. (I haven’t seen most of the big year-end “award” movies like “Revolutionary Road” or “The Wrestler”.) So I won’t give an excuse this year. Instead, looking over my list, I’ll just say, “Wow, ‘geek’ is right!” TWO comic books in the top spot?? Nice!
1. The Dark Knight
2008’s best comic book film is also the year’s best political and social commentary. So much has been said about this justifiably celebrated film, I feel like writing any more is completely unnecessary. It has been celebrated in almost every way - that is, until we got into the current awards season. Just wait - they won’t even nominate “The Dark Knight” for a Best Picture Oscar. (I’m not trying to be funny. They SHOULD nominate it!) And then Hollywood will spazz out when no one tunes in to the Oscar telecast. Christopher Nolan has made the best film of 2008. We know what the real deal is. And this is one time we’ve been dealt a Joker we want to hold onto.
Continue Reading "An American Film Geek’s Top 3 for 2008"...
And now the fun part. Since I only saw twenty-four 2008 films at the time of this writing, I thankfully managed to avoid most of the clunkers. But a few did slip by the quality control filters.
1. The Happening
M. Night Shyamalan tries to recover from the “Lady in the Water” debacle with a supposedly hard “R” rated horror film, but instead only finds himself chasing the wind. Some of the most dreadful miscasting in recent memory, and an amazingly embarrassing overall effort.
Continue Reading "An American Film Geek’s Bottom 3 of 2008"...
Everybody’s doing it, so why can’t I ? Hoping to do some catch-up during the Holidays, I tried to push the publication of my top 10 as far as possible. As it turned out, I spent more time at the day job than at the theaters and ended up missing a lot of the big titles released in 2008. That won’t stop me from giving you ten titles I believe you’ll enjoy during their theatrical run or on DVD later in 2009. Let’s also use the feedbacks section to hear about what you guys liked !
Continue Reading "More Best of 2008 articles ! What Simon liked this year…"...
Update: Alright, things should be back to normal. Let us know if you encounter any problems.
Sorry for the short notice, but we’ll be performing some routine maintenance and upgrades to Twitch tonight. The entire process should take approximately 20 minutes, but during that time both the site and the forums will be inaccessible.
We apologize in advance for any inconvenience.
A few weeks ago Mondotees head honcho Tim Doyle made a fantastic looking character portrait set of Robocop baddies and included as an extra a rendering of Robocop himself riding a unicorn, which we all know kicks ass. But it seems that wasn’t enough to satisfy Robocop fans because now they got collector favorite Tyler Stout to do his take on the material. This comes in two versions, one regular, which goes for 30 buckaroons and another metal version, the poster printed on actual sheet metal and goes for a whooping 250 dollars. If you really love a poster fan then this would be the gift to get him/her for Christmas, Hanukah or Kwanzaa.
Head on over to mondotees.com to grab this futuristic poster bad boy.
For their very last Terror Thursday horror movie screening ever at the Alamo Drafthouse and in the spirit of the oncoming holiday they will have a screening of the film that many say is the first Slasher film, Black Christmas on December 25th. Of course they are doing a fine collectable poster for the event and they got James Davis to do this yule time terror design.
Go to mondotees.com to get this 24x34, 3 color, signed and numbered bad boy to put under the tree of your favorite horror fan.
And don’t worry about Terror Thursday going the way of the dinosaurs, they are only changing the date and to a name with a better ring to it, Terror Tuesdays.
Going to take a quick moment here to plug one of my other efforts elsewhere. I’ve been writing for the AMC TV blogs for a good little while now, mostly turning in a weekly column tracking the buzz in the world of science fiction but I’ve done a couple longer form things for their horror blog lately that I’m rather proud of. Both are what they call Webstalker columns, an extended piece tracking fan chatter on a specific project. I’ve done two of these recently, one on the
Vinnie Jones is in the UK press after being smashed in the face with a glass in a pub brawl brought on when someone asked him about his role in X Men 3. Note to self: never ask Vinnie Jones about X Men 3. Following is an email the web-monkey sent me about this just because I find it amusing ...
Here are a few things I enjoy about this:
1. Someone got into a fight with a guy who plays characters with names like Bullet Tooth Tony.
2. It started when someone “asked” him about XMen3 (wasn’t pleasant I’m sure)
3. Vinnie doesn’t like this, retorts, so they glass him in the face with a pint glass.
4. Undaunted, only THEN did Vinnie start punching the guy.
5. The author closes the article making no mention of X-Men 3.
Stop fighting with Bullet-Tooth Tony.
Duh.
His passing may not have been unexpected but it is no less sad for that. After a lengthy illness the legendary Forrest J Ackerman passed away yesterday at the age of 92. Some people made films, Ackerman made film makers.
“What I am about to tell you may make me sound like a crazy person. So I need you to remember, to bear in mind very carefully, that I have an IQ of such monstrous proportions that if, for the sake of argument, I were totally insane - if the palace of my intellect were a scray ivy-covered mansion in Louisiana with peeling paint and dead flowers and a garden full of murdered corpses planted by a man named Jerry-Lee Boudain - I am so much more intelligent than anybody else you will ever meet that there would be no way for anyone to tell.
I’m not crazy. I just deal with physics which is so complex that it basically sounds - outside of peer-reviewed journals - like nonsense. Like contracts and tax law.”
We don’t talk a whole lot of books in these pages - appropriately enough since we’re a film site and not a book site - but every now and then I just have to make an exception. And, you know, it’s cold and blustery and snowy outside - perfect reading weather, in other words - and everybody’s out shopping anyway and I just so happen to have stumbled across the most remarkable new author that I’ve found in ages, so what the hell. Got a geek on your list? Pick up a copy of Nick Harkaway’s The Gone Away World. Heck, get one for yourself.
I picked it up yesterday and am about a hundred and fifty pages in. So far it’s got kung fu, pig-generated electricity, post apocalyptic truckers, ninjas, pipeline sabotage and a super-weapon that selectively destroys matter by stripping it of the information that defines it. It’s also got a fuzzy, shocking pink cover and is jam packed with astounding, energetic, constantly surprising writing. This is such an incredibly fully formed, totally unique piece of work that it’s pretty hard to believe that it’s Harkaway’s first novel, that he got it this right the first time out. Todd likes.
Here’s one for all of the local folk ...
If you’re at all a fan of Rue Morgue Magazine - and if you’re a horror fan, how could you not be? - then you are already aware of the brilliant artwork of Gary Pullin, AKA Ghoulish Gary. The man’s original artwork has been gracing the covers of Rue Morgue for a good long time now, work that has won Pullin much deserved praise from the likes of Guillermo Del Toro, Marilyn Manson and more. Pullin’s work is fantastic, iconic stuff that goes right to the heart of what makes people love horror - particularly classic horror - in the first place and Toronto folk are about to have the chance to view a whole lot of it up close and personal.
Pullin will be hosting an exhibition of his work on December 20th at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel, an exhibition that will feature not only his Rue Morgue work but also some new pieces not seen elsewhere. You can check a few of his works out at the link below, and make a point of checking out the exhibition if at all possible.
Ah Labyrinth, the film that made me take notice and develop a crush on Jennifer (Ass to Ass) Connelly that would last until this day. It is of course the awesome Jim Henson directed masterpiece that featured David Bowie as the goblin king all decked out in tight spandex and with a massive glam due on his head. I am a bit late reporting on this one cause the actual screening for this film was last week but the posters are still available and if you are a fan of the film, Bowie, Connelly or artist Todd Slater then you can pick up one of two versions of the poster, regular black or the blue variant.
Mondotees.com is the spot to purchase these so head on through the looking glass.
