| Archives of Nolan's Pop Culture Review | ||
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 THIS WEEK'S MOVIE REVIEW "Land of the Dead" by Mike Smith | ||
COUCH POTATO CONFESSIONS Are You Eating It -- Or Is IT Eating You?...Shades of Lynch....Early TV Preview by Vinnie Blesi | ||
ASIAN FILM UPDATE Hayao Miyazaki and "Howl's Moving Castle" by Peter Card | ||
ODDSERVATIONS Back....Con-Gort-U-Lations to Will Moiaty for "William Moriaty's Florida"....Dungeons & Dragons Illustrator Dies by Andy Lalino | ||
SPLASH PAGE Two Thumbs Down & a Bag of Doritos....Black Rednecks and White Liberals....Fuel Some Flames--Part Deaux by Brandon Jones | ||
CREATURE'S CORNER "Batman Begins" by John Lewis | ||
MATT'S RAIL Apologies....JawsFest by Matt Drinnenberg | ||
MIKE'S RANT Cancer....On The Subject....Movie-Going in the 21st Century....Or Maybe It's Just Those Southern Baptists....Oprah, I Hardly Knew Ye....Jaws: The Story, Part 22 by Mike Smith | ||
LETTERS | ||
Established A.D. 2000, March 19. Now in our sixth calendar year!
Number 274 (Vol. 6, No. 25). This edition is for the week of June 20--26, 2005.
Mike Smith reviews the film in This Week's Movie Review and has excellent things to say about it.
PCR's own Drew Reiber sat down and talked with George Romero a few months back in anticipation of "Land of the Dead". We are extremely pleased and excited to have this on Crazed Fanboy. Thanks to George Romero and Drew Reiber for this opportunity.
Basically, and without pointing too many fingers, back around the end of last March and beginning of April, there was a massive communication breakdown between some of us involved in an upstart venture. Certain things were said and not checked out for authority, feelings got hurt and relationships were affected. Thankfully, communications are re-opened and things are straightened out. Not only has Andy re-started Oddservations, but he has re-confirmed his pledge to attend NolanCon. And I couldn't be happier. Bygones are bygones, we move forward from here.
Fanboy Micro-Summit and NolanCon Meeting
Fast-forward to summer, 2005. With NolanCon looming on the horizon and that time of year when Ed threatens to travel southward, plans were made for Fanboy Summit II.
Planned for weeks and with the last-minute addition of the returning Andy Lalino, this year's Fanboy Summit took place last weekend at the site of NolanCon, The Best Western Hotel (nearest the airport), and more specifically, The Durango Steakhouse which is conveniently built into the hotel. Friday night would be the Summit. Saturday would be when Ed and I would talk turkey about NolanCon. Lots to do in a short time.
Andy Lalino was already at the hotel when Will and I arrived about 8:00pm. We got seated in the Durango and chatted up while we waited for Ed and company. Will showed Andy his new book, "William Moriaty's Florida" and Andy's mentions inside.
About quarter-to-nine, Ed Tucker, Byron Rocher, and Dan Tuchman arrived and joined us at our booth. PCR readers may possibly remember Byron from his many mentions, most notably from MegaCon articles and an inclusion in Ed's "Salvageland" article. This is a first for the elusive Dan Tuchman, however, who Will and I missed at last year's 4th of July shindig at Ed's. We were very pleased that Dan was able to make this trip! (This is not Dan's first appearance on this website---he is pictured presenting Dr. Paul Bearer with his plaque in Ed's historical interview.)
I hadn't planned on such late arrivals (which they all blamed on Dan, ha ha), or I would've taken the night off from the hell-pit. As it was, Will and I had barely an hour together with these gentlemen before I had to leave to clock in somewhere in the neighborhood of 10:00pm. William and I said our goodbyes, Andy decided to stick around a while. The others threatened to visit me at work and take pictures (Yeegads!! Evidence!!). That's why, due its unfortunate brevity, this year's meeting was more of a "micro"-Summit. True to his word, Ed & Co. showed up at the hell-pit (OK, OK, it's a 7-Eleven) just before midnight and we took a couple pictures for posterity. I'm sure posterity will be very grateful.
Saturday. My cab was over a hour late (I had to call two companies to get any attention) so my 9:00am breakfast with Ed & Co. didn't start till about quarter to 10:00am. One delightful hash browns and egg breakfast later (I'm really amazed there aren't more Durangos around---all of our experiences at this one have been very positive), and we're off to the conference rooms.
Ed set up his very impressive 16mm film projector in one of the two film rooms and started playing some trailers. We were soon joined by our concierge, A.J., who stated he was there to help for whatever he needed, and helpful he was (thanks for the passes, man!). Turns out, while we were talking films, A.J. and I discovered we have a mutual aquaintance I haven't seen in 15 years---so decides to call him right then an there on his cellphone and put him on! Jose Ortega, comic artist of some repute and actor in Brain Robbers From Outer Space, and I exchanged our first greetings since the early '90s.
OK, so we decide the acoustics in the film room are fine and there won't be noticable bleeding from the room next door.
All the convention rooms check out, everyone is very agreeable and the team is pretty excited.
Then Ed sat me down for the reality check about finances. I had to admit that I am confused and disappointed that, so far, I haven't gotten the support that I'd expected from the very artist community that I've fought so hard to support all these years. After further discussion that more fine-tuning was needed, we wrapped up and they brought me home. Theoretically, I could see them all again as soon as the 4th of July if things work out.
A note about NolanCon: The underwhelming support mentioned above is making it very difficult to predict and budget this project effectively. Even more shockingly, co-sponsor Neil McCurry hasn't had much luck interesting anybody in FREE MONEY via winning the NolanCon Film Fest, at least not yet. A renewed effort is underway to publicize the event, put out notices, print more flyers, and put out the TV commercials. The logic being probably not enough of the right people know this is going on.
Please help us out and send the NolanCon.com link to anybody and everybody you know. The film fest is part of NolanCon. I trust through better publicity we can find some hopefuls willing to take a shot at winning anything from a couple hundred bucks to several thousand dollars for their film project!
"Dead" Week!
Also...
The long-awaited sequel to the original Living Dead series by the zombie master himself, George A. Romero, hits theaters this week. Land of the Dead has generated enormous buzz in the fan world and looks to finally set right the tale of the living dead, previously diverted by such would-be fare as Return of the Living Dead and its sequels (I actually liked the first one, a little too much comedy), 28 Days Later (Romero-cloned English effort which seemed to infuriate fans more than satiate them), the dismal Dawn of the Dead remake (its source material was pure but they managed to lose all the meaning of it), and the delightful Shaun of the Dead (another English effort, but despite its obvious comical leaning, mangaged to get it right, and has fans that include Romero himself!)
The Return of Andy Lalino
Just as unexpectedly as he disappeared, the once and future prolific Odd One re-appeared last Friday, just in time to join us in a small Fanboy Summit at the site of this year's NolanCon, The Best Western. And while I'm glad we're re-united, it does leave me in a dicey position to explain to my understandably confused readership what the heck happened back there.
Long-time readers may remember last year's "Ed Tucker Invasion" when Ed came to Tampa on business and William, Andy and I were able to spend much of his first night here regaling stories of fandom. It was a great experience and set the stage for Will's and my road trip to Jacksonville, and to a lesser degree, this year's MegaCon and NolanCon. It was here the Creature Feature Fan Database was first proposed by Andy Lalino. I think it was Will Moriaty who later casually referred to this night as "The Fanboy Summit".
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE
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The Durango Steakhouse, a part of the Best Western Hotel, serves as our sanctuary for Fanboy (micro) Summit II. L - R: Ed Tucker, Byron Rocher, Dan Tuchman (holding Will's book), yours truly in my usual slouching position, Will Moriaty, Andy Lalino. Photo by our waiter--thanks buddy, sorry I didn't write down your name.
From my slouch I grab my camera and start snapping. Sharing my booth seat, William Moriaty (left) and Andy Lalino.
Directly across from Will and Andy sit Byron Rocher (left) and ED Tucker. Thanks to forced perspective, my two fruit marguaritas look positively enormous!
Continuing my pan to the right we see the man directly across from me, Dan Tuchman. Long-time readers may remember Dan as the man who presented Dick Bennick/Dr. Paul Bearer with his plaque in The Lost Interview of Dr. Paul Bearer.
I should've know better than to think I could get out of this! Ed & Co. follow me back to the legendary "hell-pit of despair" to see where I make a living (sort of). Holding gen-u-wine 30-year-old super-hero Slurpee cups are L-R: Byron Rocher, yours truly (in my native red smock), Ed Tucker, and Dan Tuchman. Although we both took versions of this picture, Ed's came out an eensy bit better, so this is from his camera. Photo by my work partner, Tom Green.
Birthday Wishes to Simon Lynx of ICON Studios who turned the big 3-0, Wednesday, June 22nd. Many Happy Returns!
