“Flooding With Love for the Kid” is a micro budgeted ($96 to be exact) shot on digital adaptation of David Morrell’s 1972 novel First Blood, which of course was later made into the first Rambo film of the same name in 1982. But New York based filmmaker Zachary Oberzan has done something completely different and even radical. He has directed, shot, edited and acted in the film entirely on his own, playing all the characters himself.  And he even did it all in his small studio apartment, with basic props, costumes and crude digital effects!

David Morrell himself has praised the unconventional adaptation. It is much more faithful to the novel than First Blood the original film.

The film makes it’s Ottawa premiere this month: July 30 and 31! If you think you’ve really seen First Blood, you’ve never seen blood drawn like this!

Take a look at the trailer to see the crazy ingenuity for yourself!

This month, we present six movies directed by celebrated filmmaker Robert Altman (1925-2006) He’s revered as an accomplished artist who made his films outside the Hollywood studio system. When he directed M*A*S*H for 20th Century Fox, he later said “M*A*S*H*  “wasn’t released, it escaped!” Many of his films were made against the traditional interests of Hollywood. His searing satire of studio politics and the nastiness of Hollywood, The Player, remains even more pertinent today.

His trademarks as a director include “eavesdopping” shots of characters, biting and uncompromising dark humour, strong period detail (as seen in films like his Depression era bank robbers film Thieves Like Us) and overlapping dialogue. He was even known to take classic Hollywood genres, like the film noir, and twist them into his sensibility as you can see in The Long Goodbye.

If you haven’t seen any of Altman’s films, you’ll be off to a good start this month with several different titles from his filmography: his satiric take on disheartening army life in M*A*S*H, his version of a Raymond Chandler mystery transplanted in 1970s LA in The Long Goodbye, his look at various country musicians in Nashville, the classic cartoon characters of Popeye brought to live action, his no holds barred rip on modern Hollywood in The Player and mixed short stories of desperate living in California in Short Cuts, which Paul Thomas Anderson drew heavily from for his film Magnolia.

Altman’s career overlapped five decades and included lots of television and theatre work. The six films of his playing at the Mayfair this July, will give you a perfect sense of what made him a distinctive and challenging filmmaker.

ALT.CINEMA FILM FESTIVAL

M*A*S*H (1970) – July 5

Popeye (1980) – July 13

Nashville (1975) – July 13

The Long Goodbye (1973) – July 19

The Player (1992) – July 27

Short Cuts (1993) – July 27

A rare 35mm print of George A. Romero’s third zombie film Day of the Dead is coming to the Mayfair Theatre for one night only: Friday July 2 at 11pm! Presented by Zombie Info.

Night of the Living Dead showed you a desperate group of survivors holed up in a rundown farm house. Dawn of the Dead showed us a battle for the control of a shopping mall between two groups of survivors with the zombies in between. With Day, Romero puts his human characters deep in a mine, with zombies on land and zombies in captivity as science experiments several feet under as scientists go head to head with an iron-fisted military man and his soldiers. The scientists want to study the phenomenon and find a solution to the problem, the military just want to blast the undead bastards away. Who will prevail? Again, the zombies aren’t necessarily the villains. Especially when one test subject, a zombie nicknamed “Bub” (played brilliantly by Howard Sherman) starts to show rudimentary intelligence and even a sense of humanity.

Day is considered underrated by many of Romero’s fans, especially considering makeup f/x artist Tom Savini’s showstopping gore is among his best work. Romero envisioned this film to be his zombie epic, with his original script featuring a zombie army and major production design. However, he could only get the money to make the film he wanted if he cut down the gore and agree to make an R rated film (Dawn of the Dead was released unrated). Romero then chose to make the film at a lower budget and make big changes to the script in order to have the freedom to make an unrated picture. Many ideas removed from the original script were later utilized in 2005′s Land of the Dead.

With it’s claustrophobic setting, dark humour and eye-popping gore and an exciting action packed climax, Day of the Dead is a must for any zombie film lover.

Day of the Dead trailer

While browsing through vintage movie one sheets on ebay, a movie poster caught my eye. An illustration of a screaming woman being swallowed whole by a shark. It looked charmingly crude but exciting the way good exploitation movie posters should. The title stood out to me as well: TINTORERA! An exotic and almost rhythmic title. Immediately two words entered my mind: Jaws ripoff!

Not that Jaws ripoffs are bad. Many of them are quite entertaining in a goofy way. The success of Jaws in 1975 created an offshoot of exploitation ripoffs, Tintorera being one of them, a UK/Mexico co-production and directed by one Rene Cardona, Jr. who according to IMDB.com has directed about 99 movies.

The 1977 film (playing this Friday June 4 at midnight) stars British actress Susan George (Straw Dogs, Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry) and Hugo Stiglitz. If that name sounds familiar, it’s probably because you saw Inglourious Basterds, which featured a character named Hugo Stiglitz. Only Quentin Tarantino would name one of his characters after the star of Nightmare City

So if sharks on the big screen are your thing, and really they should be, come to the Mayfair and check out this rare shark-sploitation epic. Also, don’t miss the film that started it all: Jaws, which plays June 5 and 8 and the documentary about it’s making: The Shark is Still Working, playing June 4 and 5.

Tintorera Original Trailer

Since Hard Ticket to Hawaii was such a success last month and audience members showed a real curiosity towards more films by late filmmaker Andy Sidaris, the Mayfair is presenting another one of his 1980s masterworks, the tantalizingly titled “Picasso Trigger” a sexy art heist/spy thriller set in Paris, Texas, Hawaii and Las Vegas. The film is summarized quite beautifully on andysidaris.com:

“With a flourish, Salazar bestows upon the city of Paris a priceless artwork: the Picasso Trigger. Then he steps outside… and is wasted by a sniper’s bullet. But wait; a more subtle art has just been unveiled, an insidious work in progress. Salazar is a master of deception. And the assassination is a ruse that sets in motion his masterpiece: a scheme to blast his enemies to kingdom come while he lies low.”

If that doesn’t excite you enough, then check out the trailer which displays beautiful babes (thank you Playboy Mansion) exotic scenery, state of the art weaponry (check out a bomb attached to a boomerang!), explosions and the best actors soap operas can provide.

Picasso Trigger trailer

PICASSO TRIGGER (1988)
Friday April 23 at Midnight

“Harry, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it. Don’t wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men’s store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot black coffee.” -Special Agent Dale Cooper, Twin Peaks TV Series.

As part of our David Lynch Film Festival this month, we are also selling his special organic house roast of Damn Fine Coffee for $20 a can. So when you drop by the Mayfair to see Dune (April 11 & 12) The Elephant Man (April 17 and 18) and Lost Highway (April 24 & 25) come into the candy bar and pick up the kind of coffee you can only get from the man who brought you Eraserhead.

As the can reads: “It’s all in the beans…and I’m just full of beans.”

For more info visit davidlynch.com/coffee

On yesterday’s show, we shared our lists of the best films of the decade. It’s a thing people are doing. Here are each of the hosts’ lists. What do you think? Are we crazy? What did we miss? What should we have given a miss? Let us know – that’s what the comments section is for!

(And if what you read interests you, you could do worse than tuning in every Wednesday, from 5-6, live on the mighty 93.1, CKCU on your FM dial.)

Adrian Tripod’s best films of the decade

Adaptation
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Battle Royale
Borat
Capturing the Friedmans
Casino Royale
Dancer in the Dark
The Departed
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Exiled
Ghost Dog
Grizzly Man
A History of Violence
Kill Bill
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
The Life Aquatic
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Marie Antoinette
Mayor of the Sunset Strip
Mulholland Drive
The New World
Ong Bak
Palindromes
Shaun of the Dead
There Will Be Blood
This is England
Zodiac

Alvy Singer’s best films of the decade

2000

memento

high fidelity

saving grace

vinyl

2001

ghost world

in the bedroom

the royal tennenbaums

storytelling

2002

secretary

bowling for columbine

adaptation

2003

house of sand and fog

lost in translation

a mighty wind

elephant

2004

before sunrise

sideways

2005

Enron: the smartest guy in the room

A history of violence

match point

march of the penguins

The squid and the whale

2006

borat

volver

casino royale

the devil and daniel johnston

thank you for smoking

2007

the diving bell and the butterfly

no country for old men

sicko

2008

man on wire

the dark knight

milk

the king of kong:a fistful of quarters

in bruges

elegy

the wackness

2009

ponty pool

rip: a remix manifesto

frost/nixon

inglourious basterds

the cove

Colonel Trautman’s best films of the decade

THE TOP 10

There Will Be Blood

Mulholland Drive

The Queen

25^th Hour

Grizzly Man

The Royal Tennenbaums

Adaptation

The Dark Knight

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

WALL-E

RUNNERS UP

Caché

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

The Lives of Others

Barbarian Invasions

Hustle and Flow

El Aura

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

When the Levees Broke

Primer

Before Sunset

BODIES OF WORK

Steven Spielberg: A.I./Munich/War of the Worlds/Minority Report/Catch Me if You Can

Gus Van Sant: Last Days/Elephant/Gerry

Peter Jackson: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

ONES I’M SURE WILL BE ON OTHER LISTS

Battle Royale

Infernal Affairs

No Country for Old Men

Kill Bill

American Psycho

Requiem for a Dream

Ong Bak

The Host

King of Kong

Oldboy

Lists from co-hosts Carrie Nation and the Drunken Master still to come (whenever they get around to emailing me)!

Check back soon for more, and in the meantime, let us know what you think – what are  your top films of the decade?

Cut.

The Mayfair has been nominated in two categories in the ‘Best of Ottawa 09 Readers Poll’ in the X-Press. Hence, now I will shamelessly ask everyone to take a moment, link over to their website, and vote for us as ‘best alternative to a multiplex’ and ‘best film festival’ (for Silents is Golden’).

I should have posted this request a bit earlier…but didn’t think that a year end poll would close on Wednesday November 11th at 11:59PM. Y’know…’cause I thought the year ends at the end of the year.

Anyhow, if you have a chance to vote, it’s greatly appreciated by your friends at the Mayfair:

Ottawa X-Press Best of Ottawa Readers Poll 09

That’s the question the people behind RunPee.com set out to answer, and answer it they did, with a website (and now an iPhone app) that tells you the best time during a given film to run to the washroom.

The interface looks like this:

It tells you when the perfect pee break happens, what cues to watch for, how long you have to get there and back, and what happened while you were, ahem, powdering your nose. And if you’re using the mobile version, your phone will vibrate (because you would never leave your ringer on in the theatre, right?) a couple of minutes in advance to remind you that your pee break is coming up. Their selection of pee-break-vetted movies is limited right now, but they promise new listings on a regular basis.

So it might be worth looking into if you’re coming to see any of the following movies at the Mayfair this month:

Zombieland (four potential breaks)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (three potential breaks)

Jennifer’s Body (four potential breaks)

The Informant! (three potential breaks)

Inglourious Basterds (four potential breaks)

It’s true: technology really does make our lives better.

Cut.

The movie was adapted from the novella ‘The Body’, which appeared in the collection ‘Different Seasons’ (published in 1982). The idea for the collection came from his editor’s suggestion to try some non-horror writing out so critics and readers could see that he actually had the ability to be quite diverse.

The movie showcases an excellent tale of a group of friends on a summer quest adventure in the 60′s. What really shines through are the phenomenal performances of the four central actors (well…that and an amazing soundtrack). One can’t help but speculate upon the real life scenarios of these four young talents whenever the movie is watched.

Will Wheaton went on to portray the character that no one liked in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’. He survived the Trekkie anger and now makes his living as character actor and professional geek (he’s the ‘geek editor’ for ‘Suicide Girls’, had a column in the role playing game magazine ‘Dungeon’ and provided the voices for Aqualad on ‘Teen Titans’ and Blue Beetle on ‘Batman: The Brave & The Bold’). Corey Feldman had an excellent childhood / teen career for a while (‘Goonies’, ‘Gremlins’ AND a ‘Friday the 13th’ movie!) before his work delved into obscure horrible D grade ‘straight to video’ type fare. River Phoenix was securely on his way to becoming the next great American actor, until a fatal drug related night outside of a Hollywood night club. And, as an episode of ‘Family Guy’ recently pointed out, the fat kid grew up to marry Rebecca Romijn.

Rob Reiner directed the film, back when he was in the midst of making other great movies like ‘This is Spinal Tap’ and ‘The Princess Bride’. He felt such an attachment to the film and to King’s work, that he went onto name his production company ‘Castle Rock Entertainment’, in tribute to the fictional Maine town where a number of King’s stories take place. ‘Castle Rock’ then went onto produce two other great Stephen King adaptations, ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘The Green Mile’ (and the unrelated to Stephen King TV series, ‘Seinfeld’).

‘Stand By Me’, winner of the best adapted screenplay Oscar in 1987, plays Saturday October 24th at 1PM and Sunday October 25th at 2PM.