“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

And now a special lil’ guest blog from loyal Mayfair patron and Slaughter Daughter, Sister Disaster

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You know that saying “If I had a dime…”? Well here’s my version:

I am engaged in casual conversation with someone I am just getting to know, and as always it comes out that I play Roller Derby with the Rideau Valley Roller Girls here in Ottawa. Full Disclosure: I am extremely proud to be a part of my League, and I talk about it all the time! The response to this new information about me first causes the individual to exclaim: “There’s Roller Derby in Ottawa? They still do THAT?!?”. Followed by their personal connection with Roller Derby when they were a kid. Here it comes: If I had a dime for every time someone said…”I remember Skinny Minny Miller, she was awesome!”, I would have more than enough money to build a roller rink and open my own derby focused skate shop!  Then I am asked the usual questions about contact and elbows and fighting and banked tracks…and my answer to that is, “Roller Derby sure has changed.”

A Brief History of Roller Derby:

Roller Derby was a depression era pass-time. It started as a marathon like race developed by Leo Seltzer in 1933. It was co-ed, had two teams, and participants wore Dominion Quad Roller Skaters while they whizzed around a banked track made of slate. Over the years personalities of the skaters were developed, team and skater rivalries grew, all becoming very theatrical. The game itself also changed during this time, becoming about points rather than a number of laps to be achieved, this brought on increased occurrences of penalties and fighting on the track. Joanie Weston, Ann Calvello, Gerry Murray, Midge “Toughie” Brasuhun, and of course Skinny Minnie Miller were just a few of the ‘Good’ and ‘Bad-Girls’ of Roller Derby. The last Roller Derby Game was held in 1973. Despite an attempt to revive it with RollerJam in the 1990′s, Roller Derby was no more…until it’s revival in 2000 by Bad Girl Good Woman (BGGW) Productions in Austin Texas. Thank Goodness for that! Over the last 10 years rules of play of developed, and we play on any flat surface we can find. Here in Canada we skate in hockey arenas that have the ice removed for the summer. We still have wonderful names: DDT, Semi Precious, Lady Shambles, Slavic Slayer. We love to wear fishnets, and shiny booty shorts. But we also wear knee pads, wrist guards, elbow pads, helmets and mouth guards as this is a hard hitting full contact sport. The only one developed for women. A place where we can be aggressive, flamboyant and most importantly: Athletes.

The Movie:

Kansas City Bomber was Hollywood’s stab at depicting Roller Derby at it’s height. This is for all those people out there who remember Skinny Minnie Miller! An inspirational story about a skater trying to make good…at least that’s what I think the story is about…I usually get distracted by Raquel Welch skating on a banked track without a helmet! An insurance nightmare, eek!

Sister Disaster

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the Rideau Valley Roller Girls present Kansas City Bomber
at Sunday Night Geek Night – July 4th – 9pm

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

A MODEST PROPOSAL

from the Mayfair Theatre

Ottawa’s oldest surviving independent cinema follows example of Roger Greenberg and Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) and requests a 30-year cinema monopoly

In an interview this morning, Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group (OSEG) member Roger Greenberg spoke eloquently about the potential impact of unfairly subsidized competition on his business.

We at the Mayfair Theatre feel for Mr. Greenberg and his partners, because, with a taxpayer-subsidized plan to build a new multi-screen cinema at Lansdowne recently revealed, we know exactly what he’s facing. So when he suggests that the only way to deal with the threat of potential competition is to prevent it by negotiating a monopoly with the City of Ottawa, we couldn’t agree more.

In fact, we would like to follow his example. After reviewing some of the details of the proposed deal between the City of Ottawa and OSEG, we would like to suggest that the City sign a similar agreement with the Mayfair, one that stipulates:

• The City of Ottawa will not subsidize or otherwise support the building of a cinema that competes with the Mayfair, anywhere within the city limits.
• If any new cinema is built with the support of the City of Ottawa, the partners of Mayfair Theatre will have the first chance to lease the space. A competitive process will not be allowed.
• Further, if the City of Ottawa supports building any new cinema, the Mayfair partners will also have the right to terminate their current lease, and the City (and its taxpayers) will assume all operational costs and responsibilities, and any debts remaining.

This agreement would remain in force for 30 years.

Oh, and if the city could reduce our rent to $1 per year for the same term (30 years) and pass all our building and renovation expenses along to taxpayers (we humbly agree to cap those expenses at $129,000,000.00), while allowing us to keep any and all profits, that would be great, too.

To echo Mr. Greenberg, “It stands to reason from our perspective that if a new cinema is erected by the city, with the limited number of movies that could possibly come to a cinema, it would have a very detrimental effect on the existing cinema, and that would affect both ourselves and the city.”

As taxpayers, we are partners in OSEG’s venture, and to quote Mr. Greenberg directly, “you would not want your own partner to go out and to create a competitive situation somewhere else.”

Amen, Mr. Greenberg. Amen.

On behalf of the cast and crew of the Mayfair Theatre, and in solidarity with the brave, beleaguered members of OSEG,

Lee Demarbre

Ian Driscoll

Petr Maur

Josh Stafford

Learn more about OSEG’s 30-year monopoly deal here:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Lansdowne+proposal+gives+developers+year+monopoly+stadium/3200107/story.html

and here:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/06/24/lansdowne-stadium-football-monopoly.html

If you’d like to let city council know how you feel about OSEG and the Lansdowne deal, or to propose your own monopoly, why not email them right now? Just copy and paste these addresses:

Georges.Bedard@ottawa.ca; Michel.Bellemare@ottawa.ca; Rainer.Bloess@ottawa.ca; Glenn.Brooks@ottawa.ca; Rick.Chiarelli@ottawa.ca; Alex.Cullen@ottawa.ca; Diane.Deans@ottawa.ca; Steve.Desroches@ottawa.ca; Clive.Doucet@ottawa.ca; Eli.El-Chantiry@ottawa.ca; Peggy.Feltmate@ottawa.ca; Jan.Harder@ottawa.ca; Diane.Holmes@ottawa.ca; Peter.Hume@ottawa.ca; Gord.Hunter@ottawa.ca; Rob.Jellett@ottawa.ca; Kitchissippi@ottawa.ca; Jacques.Legendre@ottawa.ca; Maria.Mcrae@ottawa.ca; Bob.Monette@ottawa.ca; Doug.Thompson@ottawa.ca;Shad.Qadri@ottawa.ca; Marianne.Wilkinson@ottawa.ca; Larry.OBrien@ottawa.ca
Cut.

There are a seemingly endless amount of facts about action movie legend Chuck Norris. In fact a book of extensive Norris facts was published in 2007 entitled The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About The World’s Greatest Human, which led to Norris filing a lawsuit claiming “trademark infringement, unjust enrichment and privacy rights”.

Here are a few things about Chuck Norris you might not have known:

Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

Chuck Norris counted to infinity – twice.

Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.

If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can’t see Chuck Norris you may be only seconds away from death.

Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn’t stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck Norris met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK’s head exploded out of sheer amazement.

Chuck Norris has already been to Mars; that’s why there are no signs of life there.

They once made a Chuck Norris toilet paper, but it wouldn’t take shit from anybody.

A blind man once stepped on Chuck Norris’ shoe. Chuck replied, “Don’t you know who I am? I’m Chuck Norris!” The mere mention of his name cured this man blindness. Sadly the first, last, and only thing this man ever saw, was a fatal roundhouse delivered by Chuck Norris.

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To see proof of the might and power of Chuck Norris, come see his 1985 thriller Code of Silence on Saturday June 12 at 11:45pm. And to learn more about Chuck visit www.chucknorrisfacts.com

Code of Silence Trailer

In 1977, the comic book magazine Heavy Metal was released in North America, introducing a new audience to Europe’s most amazing batch of artists and writers.

It didn’t take long for the film industry to take notice, and the next year, the animated anthology film went into pre-production. Producer Ivan Reitman (post Meatballs and a couple of years before Ghostbusters) and his Stripes screenwriters Dan Goldberg and Len Blum laid out the concept, based upon stories from Dan O’Bannon (Alien) and men now considered comics masterminds the likes of Bernie Wrightson, Richard Corben and Moebius. The film was directed by Gerald Potterson, who had gained experience working on such animated films as Animal Farm and Yellow Submarine. He oversaw an international crew of 1,000 artists from New York, LA, London, Montreal and Ottawa.

The 7.5 million dollar film grossed over $20 million in it’s domestic run alone, and garnered a huge fan-base thanks to the VHS era of home entertainment.

Heavy Metal at the Mayfair for Sunday Night Geek Night, June 6th at 9:30. Featuring DVD prizes to give away from Invisible Cinema, the greatest video store in Ottawa.

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

What better career move for an actor than to follow up one of the best movies ever, then to take a starring role in a movie about a high school student who becomes a werewolf and plays basketball? And, what’s the bigger suspension of disbelief, that Michael J Fox is a werewolf, or that at 5’4″ he’s a basketball player?

On May 30th at 9:15, for the second week in a row, enjoy the fine talents of one of our greatest Canadians in the setting of Sunday Night Geek Night.

Teen Wolf is presented by Invisible Cinema, with some fine 1980′s themed DVD’s to give away to some lucky teen monster cinema fans in attendance.

Get ready for another cinematic trip into Ed Wood/Tommy Wiseau territory. Birdemic: Shock and Terror (playing May 28 and 29) is a “romantic thriller” about what happens when a software salesman and his fashion model girlfriend find themselves trying to survive an attack of killer birds. Yes, think Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds crossed with The Room.

The film is the work of one James Nguyen, an upstart independent filmmaker who produced Birdemic for $10,000. After the film was rejected by the Sundance Film Festival, Nguyen traveled there anyway to stage a grassroots promotional campaign, which included driving in a van adorned with stuffed birds and banners promoting the film’s website (birdemic.com) This seems to have paid off, as cult DVD label Severin Films picked the movie up for distribution. Word of mouth from fans of bad cinema will inevitably follow.

By the looks of the trailer, the film promises seriously awkward performances, bad dialogue and laughably horrendous CGI birds. Check out the trailer plus a TV interview with the director below and you’ll wonder, who will survive?

birdemic
birdemic director interview