Anchor Bay Announces Soon-To-Be-Broken Street Date!

Dread Central says Anchor Bay Entertainment is now reporting a Dellamorte Dellamore Cemetery Man DVD street date of June 13, 2006. Meanwhile, no change at the official ABE website. Huzzah!... ?

If anybody believes anything Anchor Bay says regarding this DVD anymore, you deserve to have a bouncing head bite you in the neck. The company has certainly long-ago wiped away any built-up benefit-of-the-doubt goodwill, by botching nearly every single Dario Argento release, including two in the last year. Me, I don't believe it until death, death, death comes sweeping down, and that little silver disc is in my house.

"I'm pointing this at you, Anchor Bay."

Well, raise a glass of red wine, and here's to crying, waiting, waiting, waiting, and hoping. Hold onto your R2's, folks!

Noni's Back

The Winona Ryder fan world is a-rock with "OMG"s this week, as the M.I.A. actress is the feature interview in the current issue of Another Magazine, and glowingly photographed in nine of the all-time heart-attackiest portraits of a human person. The WR Yahoo! Group is clogged up with exploded brains, and the ground shook from so many coffee shop habitués changing their desktop picture simultaneously. Classy, oversexed and vaguely unwholesome, let us hope the creamy cheesecake of these Mario Sorrenti photos starts dismantling Ryder's troubled image in the eyes of the public at large. In the fairly candid interview, Ryder says her legal trouble actually gave her pause to inspect her life and career. Which is kind of what I'd been hoping for.



Not only is this Ryder's return to cover-girl status since a 2002 W (which wasn't even to promote a specific project besides PR rehabilitation), but the head-rush inducing pictures have immediately joined the legendary ranks of the Esquire shoot and '95 Premiere photos in the gallery of Great Winona Ryder Photo-Shoots.

Below I am reproducing an "I told you so!" column I wrote almost a full year ago, on February 21, 2005. Amazingly, while the press seems to be agreeing that indeed Ryder is getting back in touch with the reason she became Winona Ryder, the world still hasn't seen the films that I predicted would turn the tide! Apologies to those who have read it before; I'll be back later today with an unruly Kill Bill essay that's taking a week longer than I thought it would.


Cut it out! I'm a child, for God's sake.

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Noni Ryder, Noni Ryder...

Winona Ryder's career took an unintentional plunge into disappointment in 1994. Such is the way I see it.

The critical establishment and average cineplex-goer, I am aware, does not see it the same way. Instead, were Ryder to make a "comeback," they would think she was recovering from a bruised public image, the fist being her arrest at Saks of Beverly Hills and subsequent prosecution. Ryder has not had a lead role in a major motion picture since, so frankly, the supposed damage has not been tested in terms of box office bankability.

After an 11 year string of increasingly dull roles, Ryder seems to be back on the train that locomoted her to cult stardom. It is part of the curse of a commercial film industry: as you make more money, you have to work in more widely appealing, less idiosyncratic productions. This is different from "selling out." Because it sometimes happens, as it did to Ryder, without your consent.

The 1-2 punch of Reality Bites and Little Women successfully sealed Ryder's fate, even as they bolstered her household name. Both make perfect transition points between Ryder's early and recent phases. The second half of her career thus far, is attempt after thwarted attempt to return to the Eden of her work preceding '94. Over and over, Ryder chose projects that seem to have the danger or genre-inverting quality that made her Rolling Stone's "HOT Actress" two times, that made her the pin-up of every misfit future English major... only to have those projects ameliorated into perfectly conventional junk. Little Women and Reality Bites may have ended up saccharine kiddie Merchant-Ivory and pioneering Gen-Xploitation respectively, but between the early-draft of Reality's generational malaise, and Louisa May Alcott's nearly counter-cultural free thinking, it's plain to see why Ryder chose them.

Dorky fandom likewise motivated Alien: Resurrection and could admiration for Joan Chen's dark feminist tract Xiu Xiu the Sent-Down Girl have prompted the abysmal Autumn in New York? Boys was notoriously re-written after Ryder signed on. We haven't even seen the film she thought it was, but vestiges of anti-authoritarianism remain... likewise for the botched and pedestrian Girl, Interrupted. You can see the cool, interesting and personal reasons behind Ryder's choices, even through the stained moss-green veil of wretched mediocrity: Desire to work with Scorsese is understandable. Age of Innocence is a bit dull.

Every generation is handed a few actors, pioneering, powerfully weird, revolutionary, and who embody that batch of brainy hipsters. And Ryder was among ours, our Brando, our Theda Bara, our DeNiro: she was on her way to being our Female Johnny Depp. But Depp found a way to infect mainstream movies with his weirdness when he felt like it and otherwise not participate. Ryder tries to shoot the same, but her guns are mis-calibrated.

Dropping out of Godfather Part III, Eulogy, Lily and the Secret Planting, but finding energy to stay in Mr. Deeds. Turning down Sleepy Hollow (bad move), nearly taking Conspiracy Theory (close call!), and willingly approaching Lost Souls (even worse move). Her best attempt at fixing this was auditioning for Fight Club. Time was, that choice wouldn't have seemed startling.

The Saks Incident, which prompts the world to suddenly pretend there is something wrong with our heroine? I see it as a beginning of Return to Form and reaffirmation of her counterculture roots. Raised on a commune, (etc. Timothy Leary blah blah, Ginsberg), she used to regale Premiere with tales of youthful lying, stealing, (vitamin C) addiction and early hints of insomnia, and prank the world by pretending to be engaged to Christian Slater. This is a reclamation of her older/ fresher/ more amazing public persona.

Whether one sees every film from Bram Stoker's Dracula on as a bad choice, an increasingly mainstream choice, or an attempt to return to form thwarted by circumstance, I tell you this:

Blow by blow, Winona Ryder is kickboxing her way back to the championship belt. With '04's Asia Argento freakout-project The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, she lands the first blow. With Richard Linklatter's Phillip Dick adaptation Through a Scanner Darkly, another. By reuniting with Michael Lehmann, who directed her very finest work in Heathers, for the drugged-out Mary Warner, wham, wham. Ryder is working with the coolest of the cool again. Where she belongs. She's earning back her turtleneck and black halo.

And a salesgirl told me she still shoplifts all the time.


Today's photoscans courtesy of the esteemed AGCN

Love the One You're With

Regular features (?!) return after the flying heart-swarm attack clears up tomorrow!

Friday Weirdness: I Was Just Starting the Second Coat!

Back to the Future fan art, courtesy of (read: stolen from) a young lady's Biff Tannen fansite (!): The Biff Tannen Museum!

I like this fantasy poster because it A) spells Spielberg's name wrong, and B) includes Biff because she's a hardcore Tannen fan, but she also realizes the poster can't be too Biff-centric, so he's just kind of hanging out on the perimeter.

A lot of people will probably be asking "where can I get those jackets Biff, Doc and Marty are wearing?" Answer: the future.

Tuesday Amazing DVD Cover: "Full House" - The Complete Third Season

Moving apartments to co-habitate with my favorite Scream Queen, I was recently in a position to repeatedly individually handle every single DVD I own. Blanket-statement-speaking, the world has accepted that home video packaging is ugly. They could be a place for an extension of the enclosed artistic expression like album covers. They could be tastefully designed objects, like book dust jackets. But they're usually a blurry photo of Chevy Chase with the contrast turned up, his pores painted out, and the Photoshop "glow" effect cranked up to 150... right? Right?

WRONG! Exploding Kinetoscope totally loves cover art!

This week: our universal love/hate/let's-not-talk-about-it relationship with "Full House" continues, with the upcoming Complete Third Season.

Woah, Deej, is this a Janet Jackson video?
The "Full House" covers aren't "ugly," but going far out of their way to be garish and look like an early-'90s shopping mall renovation. The color scheme isn't quite as good as the pink and bright green for First Season, but it's nice the design team is making sure cast photos are accurate for each season (pay attention, "M*A*S*H"!) I like the subtle idea of being able to tell where you are in the show's run by looking at Jodi Sweetin's cast photo on the sleeve.

The extra features list promises a "bonus montage showcasing Joey's impersonations."

Al Lewis, 1923 - 2006

Al Lewis
1923 - 2006
There are four performers whose portrayals of Dracula are so iconic that they will spring immediately to mind for the average American: Bela Lugosi, Max Schreck, Christopher Lee, and Al Lewis. In the 1960s, the pop culture relationship with monsters changed, and Lewis' Grandpa on "The Munsters" (the character's family name is indeed Dracula - he's Lily's dad, not Herman's) filled in the final facets of the character: regular guy, sarcastic Yiddish joker, and comforting family presence. If any "Munsters" cast member could hold his own next to Fred Gwynne, it's Lewis, eyes a-twinkle, cigar a-chomped.

Al Lewis passed away on February 3, 2006, in New York and is survived by his wife, Karen. Some men, when they pass, as with Ossie Davis last year, give one pause. This is very sad, I think, and he will be missed. But we should all be envious of such a life; there are not many ways to live more fully than Lewis did. Character actor, humanist political activist, restauranteur, sports scout, voracious scholar, circus performer, we've just lost another great show biz raconteur. Lewis' '98 Green Party bid for Governor of New York was one of the few show-biz personality political attempts that was more than a novelty or publicity move. The man demonstrated for the Black Panthers, he fought against imprisonment for non-violent drug crimes, and he was there at the Rosenberg execution - the roster of Lewis' activities goes on and on, and it is inspiring.

A fine remembrance of Lewis as an activist for social justice can be found at the Dissident Voice newsletter site.

Besides his indelible turn on "The Munsters" (the greatest gimmick sitcom of all time), and hilariously abrasive work as Leo Schnauser on "Car 54, Where Are You?", Lewis was a real gem among comedic character actors for more than 40 years. Lewis was a delight every time he popped up on screen, my favorites being appearances in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), The World of Henry Orient (1964), and most of all, the Kinetoscope-cherished They Might Be Giants (1971).

For more biography of Mr. Lewis, check out the "Munsters" season 2 DVD, containing a sweet biographical tribute featurette. (And don't believe iMDB's 1910 birthdate: he lied to get the "Munsters" job!)

As Grandpa tells Eddie Munster in the Cold War-razzing classic episode "Herman the Spy," (Al Lewis the radical must've loved this one - the Russians are lovable scamps, the American government are jerks, and military intelligence on both sides are idiots), in perfect '60s sick-joke style:

"Bury me deep this time! I don't want any crazy dogs digging me up again!"

Friday Weirdness: It's Not Against C-3PO's Programming to Impersonate a Tape Dispenser

Sigma ceramic company, 1983.

Why I should stick my tape out for you is far beyond my capacity!

Cruelty to Animals, Moonbeam Style!: PET SHOP (1994)

Do you feel gross and cheap after watching a Full Moon Entertainment horror movie? That's nothing compared to how you feel after watching a film from Charles Band's spin-off kidvid company Moonbeam Entertainment!

Your reaction to the wonders of Pet Shop will be similar.
In the least-magical swipe at the E.T. template possible, aliens disguised as cowboys (Jeff Michalski & real life spouse Jane Morris, straining the limits of their Second City training) take over a small town pet shop. They give away magical creatures disguised as normal pets to local children. When the creatures start dying from lack of Martian nutrients, the kids will have to bring them back to the Pet Shop, at which point the cowboy-aliens will kidnap them. And sell them as pets on their home planet. The plan gets foiled by the magical fuzzies themselves, and convoluted complications because one of the children, Dena (Leigh Ann Orsi), has been relocated to Arizona with the Witness Protection Program, and hit men are coming to murder her father.

Why do the alien cowboys not just abduct the kids in the first place? Why do the magic pets turn on their masters and protect the children? Will we get to see Cody Burger, retarded cousin Rocky from Christmas Vacation, sitting naked in a bathtub and talking to a puppet?

Only one of these questions has a good answer!


Good Burger? GREAT Burger!
God bless Mark Bridge's costume design!
Howling VI director Hope Perello follows all the classic Moonbeam Entertainment traditions, from mysteriously dingy cinematography (why do no other company's movies look like this?!), obsessive reworking of the Munchie scenario, and bragging in a making-of featurette (included on the VHS tape!) about the complexities of the creature effects.

Also in this insightful documentary short, Perello says the style she was aiming for was an attempt to make a live action cartoon. The elements of cartoons Perello tries to capture are apparently rows of tract housing with pastel paint jobs, and constant shouting from every character.

Should you be viewing the VHS edition, be absolutely glued to your seat for a special offer from personal pet-peeve, Mr. Courtland Mead himself (who does NOT appear in Pet Shop but does appear in Hellraiser: Bloodline), about how you can join some sort of Moonbeam fan society. Sadly, should one dial hotline number young Courtland lisps out, one is only offered "telephone sex," and not "a Moonbeam Entertainment sweatshirt."


This is your romantic lead, folks.
There's some preadolescent romantic weirdness between young local Mike (Spencer Vrooman, known around the Kinetoscope parlor for being in Boys) and fake-Brooklyn-accented Dena. He certainly feels comfortable crawling into the girl's bedroom window after having met her earlier that day, but it's only to A) tell her he knows her dog is really a mogwai, and B) trick her brother Charlie into trying to have sex with his fat sister by the pool (what? why?).

This is all more confusing than it needs to be (let's not get into the overwrought mob-informant subplot), especially for a film existing solely for 8 year olds to laugh at cute puppet creatures.


Oh my, that's adorable.
A little digging on the inter-web machine has turned up these creature designs by Mr. Pete Von Sholly. Suffice to say they are wishful thinking. "Wishful thinking" like how you wish you were watching Theodore Rex instead of Prehysteria!. Also some of these designs don't appear in the movie. Don't worry: the one that looks exactly like a Furby with spindly, greasy wings is very, very much in the movie.

The creatures basically look like stretched-out, patchy-furred versions of normal animals. Dena's mutated dog is the star beast, a puppy who, in transformed state, has bulging eyes surrounded by a patch of shaved flesh, and a toothless mouth with a gigantic overbite which doesn't allow said mouth to close. Dena happily stretches across her bed, clutching the pet to her chest, at which point it slyly looks down at her boobs. I do not exaggerate. Mike gets a turtle which knows how to play computer chess.


The original web-cam girls!
The film's grand entrance for its creature stars is a tilt-up reveal of one of the beasts clutching to the spaceship ceiling and pooping rainbow-colored droppings on its captor's face. And thus, Pet Shop never really decides if it's going for Gremlins mischief or E.T. schmaltz, not that it has the competence to pull off either. The comic highlight by far is a sped-up-motion montage (I trust all readers share an abiding fascination with sped-up-motion comedy: such a rich history, and always, every-time funny). In this scene, the town's children totally mess up the kitchen trying to whip up dinner for their pets, which they've apparently not even been trying to feed.


After that, the Pet Shop puppets play baseball (why do they know how to play baseball?) with a wooden spoon and a raw egg. The egg inevitably smashes over the beak of the space-turtle, the gooey mess is spread into the creature's eyes since the eyelids are immobile. Just as the slime drips slowly off the puppet's barely-articulated face, thus does Pet Shop critique itself.