Yes, a story about Lindsay Lohan on this website

I’ve expressed my undying love for the rawest film industry reporter out there, Nikki Finke, once or twice in the past. Unlike so many websites out there that live and breathe on the basis of advertising money from the studios, which undoubtedly plays into their consistently positive coverage of Hollywood movies, Finke’s website contains no advertisements by the studios.

As such, when a story breaks, she’s able to give the straight dope on it. Yesterday she reported that Lindsay Lohan had been dropped from the upcoming movie The Manson Girls for a variety of reasons, the biggest of which is that no one wants to work with her nowadays. It is set to be directed by the very talented and surely very demented (in a good way) Matthew Bright, who directed the two Freeway movies as well as the Ted Bundy biopic that First Look put out several years ago. The movie’s five week shoot, combined with its producers including Elie Samaha, Donald Kushner, and Brad Wyman, suggests that this was (and will when they get a new lead) likely to go direct-to-video.

So what is the career low for Lohan at this point? I Know Who Killed Me? Getting bitchslapped in writing by Robert Altman? Or getting dropped from a movie like The Manson Girls?

The very first response to Finke’s post sums it up pretty well, and made me laugh heartily.
Maover.

God bless you anonymous Internet poster.

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I wrote an article yesterday about a series of movies from producer David Dadon that were never released for a variety of reasons. The reason why I was actually putting his name in Google in the first place is the fact that I’d just watched the greatest Bulgarian-filmed action movie ever — Armstrong! Directed by Menahem Golan and starring the likes of Frank Zagarino, Kimberly Kates, Joe Lara, and Charles Napier, Armstrong made itself my favorite movie of recent memory due to the scene below.

Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith
Writer: Richard Manning
Starring: Ian Ziering, Shawn Lathrop, Milan Tresnak, Marc Antonio, Dichen Lachman, Jack McGee

I admire Brian Trenchard-Smith more than most directors that I’ve made contact with. It’s not a personal thing. I’ve liked the vast majority of industry people who I’ve had the chance to speak with at length. Trenchard-Smith is at the top of my list because of the beauty that he sees in the genre film. There’s a reason why he is one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorite directors, and it’s not because of the way he frames his angles or any of that nonsense. He knows that he’s not making high art. For example, Omega Code 2 could’ve been a drab, pointless, religious ‘epic’ like The Asylum’s 2012: Doomsday. With Trenchard-Smith at the helm, however, every actor seemed to have their volume turned up. The movie was fun to watch not because it had a great script, but because he had his feet firmly planted in the genre of the Christian epic and made a movie that was simply fun to watch. Dave Payne once told me, probably on the podcast, that when he was working for Corman in the 90s he found that many of the employees strived to make their movies bad. Trenchard-Smith doesn’t do this. He strives to take his movies, regardless of the budgets and talents involved, to a level where the average fan of the particular genre or genres he’s working in will have themselves a good, easily digestible 90 minutes of entertainment.

Aztec Rex, known internationally under the glorious title of Tyrannosaurus Azteca, is Trenchard-Smith’s twenty-first century take on The Valley of Gwangi, a 1969 movie that he cut the trailer for way back when about a cowboy who tries to capture a Tyrannosaurus Rex in a foreign land in order to place it in a Mexican circus. Aztec Rex keeps the foreign land idea and the main antagonist, but it takes the scenery to a completely different place. He made the movie in Hawaii, and its beautiful, lush landscape (captured by DP Paul Atkins) provides the backdrop of what I believe is supposed to be the 16th century in a land that has been untainted by the hands of Europeans.

Up until now that is. Captain Cortes (a virtually unrecognizable Ziering) and six of his men have set out to an unexplored part of the world in hopes of finding not just gold, but natives to rape of their land and religious freedom who can mine the gold for them. They find natives, but in place of gold there is a giant dinosaur that devours one of their horses, leaving only a leg behind. The natives have managed to keep “peace” with the monster by making a human sacrifice each night. When one of Cortes’ men wounds the monster that peace is disturbed and the monster is now ready for blood. The natives are also looking for blood, with one of them believing that the only way to save their society is to sacrifice not one, but all of Cortes’ men, Cortes included. Eventually a deal is struck, whereby the successful killing of the monster will lead to their freedom.

Aztec Rex has an extremely hot first half. There is a human sacrifice, a swordfight, a fiery performance by Dichen Lachman, tension between the Europeans and the natives, light character development that makes most characters recognizable, and some gory dinosaur deaths. In fact, the first half of Aztec Rex is almost a movie in and of itself, complete with what appears to be a conclusion.

The movie doesn’t end there though. It continues for another forty minutes or so, and these forty minutes often feel like they belong to a different movie. Even though the central conflict remains the vanquishing of the creature, there’s way too much attention paid to the conflicts among the humans.

As is the case with most SciFi movies, there are going to be a lot of people online complaining about the CGI creature upon its airing. Whatever. At times the creature looks awesome, and then there are times where it’s safe to assume that some shots were rushed. This is not a sign of technical incompetence, but simply a lack of money and time on the part of the effects company. This isn’t Jurassic Park. It’s Aztec Rex, a SciFi Channel Premiere movie, and I was more than satisfied with the effects.

I should note here as well that Trenchard-Smith is not afraid to pack on the red stuff. It’s not done in a “Zoom in on the limb as its removed from the body to gross you out” way, but rather in an often light-hearted “This is what it looks like when a dinosaur bites off your leg” way. This brand of humor plays into one of my favorite parts of the movie. While I didn’t catch much of his backstory, there is a Spanish monk who lives with the natives. At one point in the movie he explains why the natives they didn’t kill him. “I made myself useful. I taught Spanish to Matlal, Ayacoatl, and Xoxocin [younger characters in the film], convincing them that someday they would need it and I was right,” which indicates that the natives and the Spanish explorers were communicating in Spanish.

Keep in mind that the Spanish explorers speak English throughout the entire movie. This line was awesome and I imagine I won’t be the only person to be caught off guard by it.

Compared to the cinematic drek that tends to find its home on the SciFi Channel, Aztec Rex is a masterpiece. Compared to other movies in its budget range of a million dollars or so, Aztec Rex is still better than most, with its first half being among the best times I’ve had with a SciFi Channel movie in many, many months.

Aztec Rex premieres on the SciFi Channel this Saturday night at 9 PM EST. You can check out his appearance on the Your Video Store Shelf Podcast, and check out his excellent blog at Film Industry Bloggers.

Imagine this — you’re a director who just spent the last three months of your life making a movie. You worked 15 hours a day during pre-production for five weeks to make sure everything would run smoothly. You even managed to secure an actor with name value in a small community of fans, like a Frank Zagarino or Bryan Genesse. Then came the shoot itself where, despite some problems, your two-and-a-half, three week shoot came to a close with few problems. After that you checked in every so often with the post-production supervisor to make sure your movie would end up as good as humanly possible.

And then the movie never goes anywhere. Its negative sits around in a vault for a year, and then two years, and then three years, and then four years. Eventually it has to be moved to a freezer so that the film won’t be rendered unplayable. Its value in the market has plummeted, and the question of when it will be released has been transformed into if it will be released. At the very least, you’ve already been paid (hopefully), so at least your finances weren’t hurt by the deal.

That’s the reality for a group of filmmakers who made a series of movies for former Nu Image producer David Dadon’s Giants Entertainment, in and around 2000. Dadon, who did not return my phone call for press time, produced many movies that were simply never released. In 2004 it appears Dadon created Global Entertainment Holdings / Equities (GAMT) to try and unload those films into the market. Up until November of last year GAMT was a publicly traded company. Their stock peaked at $4.17 in April of 2006 and plummeted soon after. The stock is now valued at $0.00 and has not been traded for many months. Their website is no longer up. The phone number for the company goes to an answering machine.

The films left behind that still, as far as I know, have never been released in the U.S. are…

Bad Fellas (aka Bad Guys)– A Bryan Genesse action film starring Michael Madsen and Bryan Genesse.

$500,000 Payoff (aka Savage Season) — A Mike Tristano thriller starring Miles O’Keefe and Angela Nicholas

Cop on The Run - Action film starring Michael Madsen and William Forsythe

Daddyfox - Thriller starring Tara Daniels, Martin Hancock, and Malcolm Pitt.

Jungle Juice - Comedy from director Tony Vitale (Kiss Me, Guido) starring Christopher Walken, Morgan Fairchild, Rutger Hauer, and Robert Wagner.

Italian Ties (aka Face to Face) - Comedy from director Ellie Kanner (crazylove) starring Joe Viterelli, Dean Stockwell, Thomas Calabro, Madchen Amick, and Meat Loaf.

Innocent Man (aka Never Look Back)- Action / drama from Mike Tristano starring Frank Zagarino and Charles Burning

Revenge Games - Action film starring Shawn Hoffman and Alexandra Kaniak

Seventh Veil - Thriller directed by Albert Q. Chetwyn starring Christopher Rich

Sitting Ducks - Comedy starring Annabel Mullion and Serge Sorhic

Strike Behind Enemy Lines - Action film starring Frank Zagarino, Billy Drago, and Joe Lara

Ultimate Target (aka Ideas of March) - Action film from music video director Darren Doane starring Michael Madsen, George Cheung, and Gary Daniels.

Uninvited Guest - Thriller from Robert Hyatt (Deadly Ransom starring John Savage and Joe Lara.

Very Mean Men - Dark comedy from Tony Vitale starring Martin Landau, Matthew Modine, Ben Gazzara, Charles Durning, and Scott Baio. Variety reportedly called Very Mean Men “the funniest crime caper to come down the pike since Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.”

So what’s the story behind these films? As far as I know they were all produced and repped by David Dadon. When I contacted David McGuire of McGuire Consulting, who was listed at one time as Vice President of HD and Financial Public Relations for GAMT, he soundly denied being integral to the company. In fact, McGuire says the only contact he has with Dadon is for lawsuits.

I also gave Mike Tristano a call. Tristano is a veteran of this business. He has been supplying weapons and special effects work to movies of all sorts for many, many years. Tristano directed $500,000 Payoff and Innocent Man. “I’d heard the producer’s were having difficulties. There was a lot of money owed to vendors and there were a lot of liens put on the film because the producer didn’t pay people … They did like 12 movies and a lot of things were never paid off so I’m not sure how far it got into release. I know it saw overseas release because I was at AFM and it was being sold.” Specifically speaking about David Dadon, Tristano says, “David never screwed me.” After a pause, he laughs and says, “Of course I always asked for my money up front.”

Smart man.

Another figure in the industry, who agreed to speak to me off the record, told me several horror stories about Dadon nearly destroying his or her life.

There is a magnificent article on David Dadon on the Miami New Times website. It was written by Janine Zeitlin and details the various bankruptcies and lawsuits that appear to have plagued Dadon’s career.

In short — as much as we all love the likes of Frank Zagarino, Joe Lara, Bryan Genesse, Michael Madsen, Billy Drago, and Gary Daniels, I would not expect any of these to hit stores anytime soon.

The Internet Movie Database is lovingly referred to as the Inaccurate Movie Database by many. There’s a reason for that — while IMDb can be a tremendous source to discover movies you’ve never heard of and read what others thought about them, the procedures to add, delete, and revise information have never been that great. I’ve heard several stories from directors and producers who have tried to submit information about their own movies only to check the page a month later and see no updates or corrections made.

And then there are the times when people give themselves credits they don’t deserve. While talking to John J. Kelly, a producer who worked for PM Entertainment for many years before becoming arguably the most successful of anyone who worked for the company (he was the EP on Sean Penn’s Into The Wild), he brought up another reason not to trust IMDb.

On the IMDb for a later PM film called Chaos Factor there is a fellow named Guy Greville-Morris who is credited as ‘associate producer.’ I won’t be able to check the actual credits to the movie for a couple hours, but according to John, young Guy Greville-Morris was actually the production designer on Chaos Factor [ed note: he’s not listed anywhere on the film as far as I can tell]. This makes sense, since according to IMDb (it’s impossible to not use it), he was in the art department on various Zalman King erotic beauties like “Red Shoe Diaries.”

Who knows? It’s always possible that this was a harmless error caused by whoever entered the information in years ago. Then again, it’s also possible that someone wanted to pad their resume to get a producing gig, and this fellow figured that putting his name on an Antonio Sabato Jr. movie was the perfect route to success.

Just spoke to director Roy Knyrim, who is currently prepping to start shooting Death Racers for The Asylum on May 17th. Several websites have been reporting about the film, with much of the interest in the movie coming from the fact that the psychopathic rap duo Insane Clown Posse announced in a YouTube video that they would be starring in the film. Knyrim describes Death Racers as a “post-apocalyptic car movie.” Knyrim first hooked up with The Asylum as a result of allowing friend Robert Miller to build a dinosaur in his shop that can be seen in the upcoming 100 Billion B.C.. That same shop is now being used to build four Death Race cars. The movie is one in which everyone is a villain, but Knyrim says that ICP will be the villains you root for.

Since this is an Asylum movie, don’t expect the same sort of camp that the Insane Clown Posee have provided to the world through their music and their wrestling endeavors. Knyrim says they’re going to play it straight, but that some comedy will come from it being “real gory and real graphic” in the same fashion as Robocop or Running Man.

The film is already set for a September 23rd street date, and it’s always possible that the movie will be finished in time for a SciFi Premiere prior to that date. Of note is the fact that Death Racers will be playing upon the publicity of two movies. The big screen remake of Death Race 2000 comes out just three days after Death Racers, and with Speed Racer coming out in theaters on May 9th, it’d make sense for it to be hitting DVD in September.

Speaking of Speed Racer, The Asylum has Street Racer coming out May 27th. Can you feel the anticipation?

In addition to being a bad film-maker, Mr. Z. Winston Brown has a bad spelling problem. He is the man responsible for unleashing Vampiyaz and Zombiez on an unsuspecting public a couple years ago. In short, those movies sucked. Since then Brown has had a few comedies go out through Maverick Entertainment, including La Casa Loco and Jose’s Place. His latest is Superbadazz, which also is going out through Maverick on July 29th. The movie tells epic tale of a pair of down-and-out friends who decide to start a strip club in one of their father’s basement to make some extra cash.

Since this is a Z. Winston Brown movie, there’s a fart joke in the trailer, which can be seen on Maverick Entertainment’s listing for the movie.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see veteran Seduction Cinema director John Bacchus, who expertly directed me when I appeared in Kinky Kong, to make a cameo. I hear he and Brown are real good friends. Some say they’re so alike that it’s as if they’re the same person.

Of the nearly 900 movies that I’ve written about on this website, I can’t say that I’ve mustered up the energy to revisit more than a handful. There are a few films that I keep on my shelf specifically to offer to friends who come over and watch a movie (Creepies and Turbulence 2 are one of them), but those are the exceptions to the general rule that most b-movies aren’t worth watching twice.

Last night, however, was a day of celebration. I decided that I was going to make my girlfriend, who unlike the girl I was dating a couple years ago just absolutely hates my taste in movies, watch Air Marshal. Ohhh Air Marshal. Produced by the genre film factory Nu Image, Air Marshal was a part of an American Heroes package that the company started to pre-sell to international distributors post-9/11. Essentially what happens with a pre-sale is that a reputable company like Nu Image presents some poster art for movies that someone in the office whipped up. The buyers dedicate themselves to paying ‘x’ amount for ‘x’ movies, and knowing how much money they’re guaranteed to get from those pre-sales, Nu Image then sets forth on the path of actually producing the films.

I’ve seen all five of the American Heroes movies. Isaac Florentine’s Special Forces is, without a doubt, the best of the bunch. It’s probably one of the best direct-to-video action films of the 90s. Submarines is awful, and even though I’ve already used this joke in the past, I will again. How is an inanimate object a hero? Third was Air Strike, a military hardware film from Kickboxer director David Worth that is terrible and sentimental all in one punch. Then there was Marines, a fine stupid action picture from veteran Nu Imager Mark Roper. Last on the list, and the first for me to review long ago, is Air Marshal.

Outside of United 93 and Flight 93, which told the actual stories of the flight that crashed into a field on September 11th, I don’t seem to recall Hollywood doing many plane hijacking movies with Middle Eastern terrorists since 9/11. We’re coming up on seven years now and Hollywood has actually shown some sort of restraint. Nu Image made me proud by barely waiting a year to start Air Marshal, a movie about a federal air marshal who must stop an ever-multiplying group of mostly Middle Eastern terrorists from doing dastardly deeds with the plane he and fifty other people are on.

Actor Dean Cochran takes the lead as Brett Prescott, who has a name that just screams tough military guy. I called him “the ‘Dean Cain is busy’ of Nu Image’ way back when I initially reviewed the film. Cochran contends that he does not look like Dean Cain, but damn it Dean, you do. Dean’s been around the acting world for years, including getting melted into goo in one of the Amityville Horror movies. In this film his air marshal character is a soon-to-be father who is on his way back to the U.S. You know he’s a good guy because he turns down sex from a stewardess after having a phone conversation with his pregnant wife. Like all great action heroes, Cochran’s Prescott character ends up saving the day and never lacks the time to dispense a few quips at the enemies.

Longtime editor Alain Jakubowicz had what I believe was his first American directing gig with Air Marshal, which he also edited. The film is not incompetent like his second gig, Natue Unleashed: Tornado. It’s still one of the more uninteresting terror on a plane movies. Admittedly, it starts off at a heavy disadvantage because it was shot in Bulgaria. At the very least, though, many of the actors are American imports. Those who aren’t American appear to be badly dubbed over in post. The characters whose original voices do remain are mostly shallow, even for the genre we’re dealing with. There are occasional moments that work, and the fight scenes are all serviceable with Dean Ca … Cochran doing a fine job, but when the movie periodically settles into its “camera shakes while people have discussions” it tends to be more boring than most.

Cochran, despite knowing how to act and looking like a leading man, actually ended up appearing on a cable show “I Wanna Be a Soap Star” a couple years ago. While he didn’t win, he eventually did become a soap star, nabbing (according to IMDb) 11 episodes on “Bold and the Beautiful” as a Detective. He also had brief roles in both Lindsay Lohan’s Just My Luck (he’s the groom she kisses) and the spoof Meet the Spartans. Even though both those roles probably only required a minimal amount of time to film, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dean got paid more for a bit role in Just My Luck than to head over to Bulgaria and star in Air Marshal.

Tim Thomerson is in the film as well as a Senator aboard the plane. He’s as good as he always is, although he mostly just sits down and glares the entire movie. The highlight of the movie as far as his character goes is his and the passenger’s attempt to retake the plane. Just like on 9/11, they band together, say “Let’s roll,” and then approach the terrorists. The terrorists, however, had guns, and Thomerson gets shot in the arm.