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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

While doing some research today I stumbled upon a thread at the Indie Club message board started by director, producer, and past podcast guest Christian Viel (Recon 2020: The Caprini Massacre, Deaden) on April 14th. Viel reportedly had problems getting paid by the Miami-based distribution company.

Be very careful with these guys. They are trying to stiff us currently on Deaden. I am going to have to get the lawyers involved and so on. Very unpleasant business…

We had two movies released through them and it was a nightmare both times to get our dues.

NOT RECOMMENDED! Do not sign with them and better yet, pass the word. Distributors have to stop trying to !$%* filmmakers!

This appears to be the same old story that distributors have been putting into action for years and years. Distributors seem to believe that because it will often cost a filmmaker more to file legal action for non-payment that they’ll actually recoup if they’re successful in their suit, that they can miss deadlines and simply choose not to send checks.

Christian explained further…

For Deaden, they contacted us directly and we made a deal as they blamed the problems on the intermediary… The deal was: First payment on delivery, second on DVD street date, Third sixty day after street date.

The first payment was hell to get, with every delaying tactics in the book but we finally got it.

Street date for Deaden was April 15, 2008. No check. I inquire. They say they can’t pay us because we did not provide them with a proper Chain of Title - yet have no qualms about releasing the film nationwide!!! - and despite numerous emails that confirmed with their employees the shipment and reception of said documents… Any attempt at resolving this amicably has been rebuffed… So now it’s time to get nasty, which is always unpleasant.

Christian explains what a Chain of Title is below. In short, if you don’t have one of these you (as a distributor) are opening yourself up to a plethora of legal liabilities.

We are talking about the payment for the license. Typically in the US, unlike foreign countries, because the advance is usually higher, they insist on splitting it in two or three. In our case it was one third at signature, one third at street date and one last third sixty days after street date.

So now they are basically stealing the film for a third of the License prize.

Chain of Title is this: the documents that links every person that might have a claim to the copyright or part of the copyright on the film certifying that they got paid and renounce to their rights entirely in favor of the production company or entity that paid them for: script, directing, producing, acting, composing music, editing the film. This allows the production company (or the entity that now own all the copyrights onto the film) to license it to third parties like Maverick. By releasing it nationwide while claiming we did not provide the chain of Title is stupid because if it were true, they would be exposed to serious lawsuits and would not last half a second in court. Even stupider, since I did most of these jobs except acting and script in this case, it’s not too hard to prove who owns the film… And we have all legal contracts for each - our chain of title for this film has been accepted worldwide so far… And they obviously felt safe enough with what they had to release the film without fear from everybody but the Licensor, which they are trying to stiff.

One lesson for young filmmakers is that threatening lawsuits in a legitimate manner (through an actual lawyer — not just saying “I’m going to sue you”) will often cause your check to magically appear. This post is from three days after the first post was made.

We resent them everything we already sent in terms of Chain of Title, threatened law suit plus a cease and desist to BlockBuster and Hollywood Video. We also asked for a notarized letter asking for acknowledgement of full and complete delivery in case they try to pull that card again in 60 days when the other payment is due. The check is in a Fedex truck somewhere. But it was a week of hell… Makes you feel like the contracts they force you to sign are worth nothing…

So it looks like Christian will get his money. Let’s hope.

The only real insight on Maverick I can give is that most of what I’ve heard about them has been positive. Their artwork can be shoddy and they care more about packages of movies than they do individual titles, but I don’t have much against them. I do seem to remember that a year ago this time Maverick was releasing four films a month. Now it’s down to three.

Hopefully all is well with the company.

Judd Nelson stars in the film. I’ve dug Nelson in quite a few of his roles from the past decade — Cabin By The Lake and The Lost Angel especially. I’d hope that he goes over the top for the film. I recently saw him in an old UFO Films movie called Lost Voyage where he (and the film) was dreadful. Even he couldn’t save that one, but maybe he’ll be able to prop Infected up a bit.

Sunday at 9. Watch it.

One of the questions I’ve had e-mailed to me about PM is what exactly happened to the company? One day they were producing and distributing action movies with some of the best car chases and explosions on the market and by that time next year they had disappeared off the face of the earth.

In April of 2000 the Pepin-Merhi (PM) Entertainment Group was sold to the Harvey Entertainment Company. Older comic book fans may remember the name Harvey Comics. They introduced the characters Casper, the Friendly Ghost and Richie Rich to the American landscape in comic form in the 50s and 60s. As time went along things dried up in the comic business, the owners retired, and the company was eventually sold off to a new entity that christened themselves Harvey Entertainment Company. After exploiting the comic properties for some years the company decided to acquire another property. The property they chose was PM Entertainment. The selling price? A cool $10 million — 6.5 million in cash and 3.5 million in stock, in a deal that included their library of more than 140 films and a couple syndicated TV shows.

Harvey bought out all three owners of PM, Joseph Merhi, Richard Pepin, and George Shamieh. Joseph Merhi and Richard Pepin had started the company together, thus the PM, in or around 1989 after splitting from producer Ronald Gilchrist’s City Lights company. Not long after the company’s inception Shamieh assumed ownership of a small portion of the company’s stock and headed up their international sales division. When Harvey bought out PM, Merhi and Pepin left to pursue other opportunities. Shamieh stayed on, continuing to run international sales, which had become more and more important in the 90s and into the new millennium due to the U.S. home video market not being as inviting of PM’s specialty product as it once was.

Harvey Entertainment changed PM’s name to Sunland Studios. PM’s core workforce was kept on and was told that things would progress as normal. They did for a short while, but not for long. According to Paul Volk, who was synonymous with PM over the years as a jack of all trades in the company, he was let go by Sunland just days after Shamieh and the company ended their relationship. As he was being fired he was reportedly told, “Consider yourself lucky because you have a head start to get another job.” Not long after much of the workforce was let go.

Three years after buying the company Harvey Entertainment sold off PM Entertainment for another $6 million to the Film Library Acquisition Corporation (FLAC). Around the same time period FLAC bought the CineTel Films (976-EVIL, Militia) library. By the time the sale was complete FLAC had changed their name to Echo Bridge Home Entertainment. Echo Bridge has distributed a lot of catalogue product since then, although for whatever reason only around 15 movies from the PM library have been released. At the very least the films have been given swank new box art, including Riot and Sword of Honor. It has also meant some films have gotten absurd box redesigns like Angel in the City, which sadly is not about a curvy young girl in leather trampling over Los Angeles and causing cars to explode.

Hope you enjoyed this small piece of PM history.

I’ve largely relied on my research skills and various connections to track people down that worked with PM, but there are a few that have managed to elude me.

Judy Yonemoto - A longtime makeup artist and hair stylist for PM from about 1987 - 1995. She has since gone onto bigger and better things, having worked on the entire run of “Malcolm in the Middle” and, since that shows cancelation, “Weeds.”

Wings Hauser - The great actor who directed three movies for PM — Art of Dying, Living to Die, and Coldfire. I sent an e-mail out to the address listed on his IMDb ‘Contact’ page, but I have no idea if it is real or not.

C. Thomas Howell - A longshot, but why not try? Howell directed and starred in Pure Danger for the company, and according to a source had a difficult time as a result of the largely comedic script being cut to emphasize the action element of the film. He also acted in a few other movies.

Jacobsen Hart - A writer responsible for many PM movies in the mid-90s.

George Shamieh - PM Entertainment’s Head of International Sales for many years as well a partner in the company from around 1991 until the end of the company. George is now the CEO of American Cinema International. I’m sending him an e-mail tonight but if any readers know him personally it would be a big help if you shot him an e-mail as well.

Now Kanganis is back with Impulse, which he both wrote and directed. It’s an interesting take on the worn out ‘evil twin’ storyline. Willa Ford, in her feature debut (until that Anna Nicole Smith biopic comes out), plays hopeless romantic Claire. Claire can’t seem to get her stuffy psychiatrist husband Jonathan to truly pay attention to her sexually. They’re trying, though, and this includes coming up with sexual fantasies for each other. Shortly after a suggestion from her husband that he will show up unexpectedly at some point to seduce her, Claire goes away on a business trip to San Francisco. That night she meets a man who looks so much like her husband that she assumes that it is him. They make lovely loves. The next morning, however, Clair discovers to her massive dismay that the man in her bed is not her husband — it’s a guy named Simon who just so happens to look like her husband.

And to add her problems, Simon is absolutely insane and obsessed with her, and willing to do whatever it takes to get back into her life. Come on, it’s an erotic thriller. Don’t tell me you didn’t expect that.

Impulse lives and breaths on the talent of actor Angus Macfayden, who assumes the role of both Jonathan and Simon for the movie. Macfayen apparently got very into the role, so much that he studied the sides of his face and pointed out to Kanganis how to best make it look like there were actually two actors in the role. Macfayden picks up the slack for Willa Ford, who, God bless her, isn’t very good. She’s just starting, so there’s time for her to learn. Macfayden, regardless of the role he’s in, improves the film when he’s on screen.

If you’re an erotic thriller kind of guy, Impulse is a perfectly fine genre film. Turn off your brain and enjoy.

At that point I had some heavy burdens on me because of school, so I pushed the site to the side and did what I had to do well enough that I’m happy with how things turned out. I recently connected with an old Internet friend David who, upon me telling him that my website was refusing to work, asked me for my information so that he could fix it. To show you how technically incompetent I am, David only took about ten minutes to fix it. Five of those ten minutes was me trying to figure out what my password was too.

The bad news is that I still won’t be posting here as often as I used to. I don’t think I’ll go over a week without posting, but I doubt I’ll be doing daily updates all that often.

The good news is that, if all goes according to plan, you will one day be reading a book with my name slapped on it. I have been doing research and writing snippets for years, and have finally figured out an idea. It has to do with PM Entertainment, which I’ll be writing a lot about, but it encompassed a lot more than just them.

Video Business’ Marcy Magiera recently wrote a piece in Video Business, which is reproduced on her blog, where she mentions how much contempt there is for genre films in the direct-to-video world.

There currently seem to be two ways of looking at the direct-to-video business. From one—the ‘call them DVD Premieres’ viewpoint—all direct-to-video product has been upgraded to extend major studio franchises. Think Disney animation, Dr. Dolittle and Bring it On Again… and again.

In fact, when Wendy Wilson and Laurence Lerman were reporting the DVD premieres story on page 8, they found many studio execs were anxious to talk about the biz, until they found out it was that genre direct-to-video stuff we wanted to know about, in which case they took a pass.

The word ‘schlock’ may have been used.

Not by us, of course.

This sort of condescending attitude towards the Dolph Lundgren and Jean-Claude Van Damme films of the world is common. This is despite the fact that they consistently make money for the companies that produce them. I’ve had many off the record conversations with semi-important people who, despite knowing full well that their bread and butter is in genre films, hate that they have to make these movies. They wish that they could make ‘real’ movies, but don’t and won’t because they know that, as Andrew Stevens used to say, there’s a market for sausage movies.

It’s a real shame people just can’t love the fact that they’re in the film industry, as I’m sure these movies would be a lot better if the people behind them actually cared to watch the final product beyond a bottom line, financial view.

HIV affects all racial groups in some way, but in the United States it is African Americans that are the hardest hit by the disease. Despite only making up 12 percent of the population, nearly half of HIV patients are black. As the HIV population grows, so does the amount of African Americans that are infected with the disease. To say that it is a serious issue would be downplaying its importance.

Abiding by the old South Park motto “Either everything is funny, or none of it is,” director Kevin Clarke decided to raise awareness of HIV in the black and Hispanic community by making a film where the main character has to deal with the pressure of finding out that he is HIV positive. Making matters worse, he has a pregnant fiance that he has to tell. Flipping Out is a comedy that also features a man addicted to “to crack laced marijuana blunts,” and another man, “a dilusional schizophrenic on house arrest.”

I spoke to Kevin Clarke a few minutes ago and he said the film came about as a result of him losing two family members to AIDS. Both of them did not know that they had the disease until it was far too late. “I wanted to make a comedy of that same concept so people can grab on a little more. I wanted it to be funny at the same time because it’s very important that people know if they have the disease so they can take the medication. I’m trying to educate and be funny at the time.”

The low budget urban comedy is going out through KOCH Entertainment on March 18th. Clarke says that Circuit City and FYE have agreed to stock the film, but it doesn’t look like a Blockbuster deal will happen.

How did I find out about this movie? Well, for some reason the folks at Dread Central, a horror website, were sent the sell sheet to the movie by Kevin Clarke and his company Miami Films. Foywonder then went ahead and forwarded it to me, knowing that I would have something to say about it. The only text in the e-mail sent to Dread was…

Please Forward this one sheet to one of your buyers. Predicted to be the best selling DVD in the USA and UK available for all regions. Click the
one sheet to view trailer.

I’m going to skip the absurdity of that statement and move on to the sell sheet. When I first saw the it I thought that Clarke and Miami Films were self-distributing the film. Why? Well, not only is KOCH not mentioned, but it’s poorly formatted, and they spelled ‘delusional’ with an ‘i’ instead of an ‘e.’

How this is going to turn out is beyond me. I don’t expect it to be good, but that’s not saying much since I’m not the target audience for the film. If the film had been able to get into Blockbuster I could have seen it generating some “any publicity is good publicity” off the idea of an HIV comedy, but I don’t see that happening. Still, if Clarke wants to generate some publicity it would do him good to send some angry “Letters to the editor” in various cities.

You can see the trailer at the Miami Films website.

Sell sheet is below.

HD-DVD is, for all intents and purposes, dead. The free market has spoken, and it has chosen Blu-Ray to be the DVD format of the future. ‘Future’ being the keyword, as the numbers for Blu-Ray ownership are still very low due a combination of high prices, low availability of titles, and most people simply not giving a damn about watching movies in high definition (myself included).

As of today I’m fairly certain that there hasn’t been a single direct-to-video film released to Blu-Ray (unless a DVD of a fireplace counts). Platinum Disc, a catalog distributor, looks to be ready to not only jump into the Blu-Ray market, but offer their discs at a price 1/2 lower than the Hollywood companies. On April 8th the company will be releasing the TV destruction movies 10.5: Apocalypse and Category 7: Day of Destruction, the TV miniseries Blackbeard, and the two DTV filmsThe Last Sentinel (starring Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson) and Curse of King Tut’s Tomb (starring Casper Van Dien) on Blu-Ray with list prices of $14.99.

There’s no artwork for any of these available yet, but I’ll try to find time to get it tomorrow.

See the similarities?

First Look Home Entertainment is releasing an indie film tomorrow by the name of The Perfect Witness. It was originally titled The Ungodly, but I guess First Look decided that they needed something more generic. Whatever the case, it certainly looks like someone in marketing at First Look has been following the news about Big Screen Entertainment Group’s horror film Babysitter Wanted.

Pretty scummy, eh?

Update February 22nd: To clear something up, Big Screen Entertainment Group did not contract Stockholm to do the artwork. Rather, international distributor Imagination-LLC contracted them. What company eats the cost of the artwork was a question I did not think to ask.

Word I got today is that BSEG and Imagination have known about the artwork snafu since August. Not only that, but two other movies are using that artwork. Allumination is using it for the rated version of the horror film Carver, and Dream Entertainment is using it to promote Darrell Roodt’s Lullaby overseas.

BSEG used the artwork first. The question is whether those in marketing at First Look knew about Babysitter Wanted when they approved the use of stock art in the final DVD campaign. I suspect that they did, and while there was no ’stealing’ of physical property and a lawsuit is not likely to occur, I do believe First Look knew about the film and the artwork. To me, it’s dishonest to proceed as they did if this is true.

Update - February 21st: Man I love this industry. Here is what it looks like from my angle at the moment. About a year ago Big Screen Entertainment Group contracted Los Angeles-based Stockholm Design to come up with some potential designs for their film Babysitter Wanted. Stockholm, who has designed a lot of slick, professional direct-to-video and limited theatrical artwork campaigns, came back to them with several pieces of art. The artwork that Big Screen chose was, at least in my opinion, the best and most marketable of the bunch.

According to a source Big Screen cut a hefty check for the rights to that artwork [edit: look above for correction] under the assumption that such a high price meant that they owned the physical elements of the artwork. According to the person at Stockholm I spoke to they informed Travis Stevens at Imagination-LLC (the company selling the film to distributors) only a month ago that Big Screen did not, in fact, own the image of the woman with the fingers on her face. Stockholm, however, did not make the artwork for The Perfect Witness.

As such, and I never believed this to start, there is likely no copyright violation coming from First Look. Unscrupulous business practices? Maybe. There is little doubt in my mind that First Look’s marketing division is familiar with Babysitter Wanted. They’re not big on horror nowadays, but considering they have a previous relationship with BSEG (they distributed the awful Jenny McCarthy movie Dirty Love) they’ve likely received distribution feelers. If First Look knew that another company was promoting a movie with the same piece of stock artwork yet still went through with the design of a campaign, that’s all together messed up and unfortunate.

I’ve still yet to hear from someone on First Look’s side officially. There was a post from someone who may work at First Look, but their publicist has been out sick.

Update - February 20th: For those interested in the story I’ve gathered some more information. Big Screen Entertainment Group has been using that particular artwork to promote Babysitter Wanted since May of 2007. The film was advertised in Hollywood Reporter and at Cannes, and has been screened with that artwork attached to it at the Sitges, Malaga, Horror Hound, and the Hollywood film festivals.

I haven’t been able to find out any details about when First Look picked up The Ungodly for distribution. The number I have for the director of the picture is no longer in service and a call to Arsenal Pictures (listed as a distributor on IMDb) revealed that they are only the international distributor of the film.

Earlier today someone by the name of ’scalia’s robes’ posted the following comment.

Well, I guess this would be an actual issue if “Babysitter Wanted” even had a street date attached to it. Has the title even been announced? “Perfect Witness” is locked and at retail…so who’s stealing from whom?
Looks like Big Screen Entertainment are the ones caught with their pants down here, not First Look…

“Street date” “Locked and at retail.” Sounds like industry lingo to me. As someone in the industry joked to me in an e-mail, “You are correct about that inside terminology. I barely speak that tongue!” The point of the comment escapes me, as someone who clearly understands the industry should realize that companies produce artwork when they’re trying to sell a film TO a distributor that will put their movie in video stores. Artwork doesn’t just magically appear only when a film has a release date set.

This is purely circumstantial, but here’s something nifty. When someone comments on an article I get an e-mail that lists an IP address. The IP address for ’scalia’s robes,’ when entered into Google, returns a post that links to the First Look’s website.

Big Screen Entertainment Group is now in the process of getting a whole new artwork campaign made. First Look, under their previous management, released their film Dirty Love last year.

I’m awaiting an official response from First Look.

Before the website went down I wrote about a conversation I had with low budget producer David Sterling (Camp Blood series, Gothic Vampires From Hell) about a few of his upcoming releases. At that time he told me Razor Digital Entertainment, a company with a weird name that primarily releases exercise DVDs but has distributed several of Sterling’s films in the past, was going to release three of his films on April 15th. First was The Curse of Lizzie Borden: Prom Night, which I previously reported. It had some fine artwork and was perfectly fit for release at the same time JS Cardone’s Prom Night reimagination was coming out in theaters.

There was no artwork for the other two at the time David and I spoke. I saw on the Razor Digital website that Queen Cobra and Things had artwork posted. David Sterling was referring to Queen Cobra as Snakes on a College Campus during our conversation.

When a deranged college professor meets an over-eager student, terror strikes the science department! Taking advantage of the unsuspecting girl’s enthusiasm, the professor runs experiments of a venomous nature.

Almost immediately, vicious murders take place around campus at a biting pace! Suddenly, the professor’s creature can no longer be controlled and has an appetite of its own.

Revenge against the man who has stolen her humanity is on the menu! How many innocent students will pave the way filling her taste for wrath!

So wait . . . The movie isn’t about snakes on a college campus? It’s about a woman that is turned into a snake? Or a snakegirl? That’s a damn shame. Regardless, how could that artwork entice anyone to rent Queen Cobra? The ‘Queen’ appears to be laying dead and motionless with a tagline “Where science meets slaughter”. So, is science behind the reason for her lifeless form? Who wants to see that? Who wants to rent a horror movie that comes packaged liked the cover of a cheap horror novel?

As for Things, a bloody anthology film that David produced for his first film, I’m not sure if the artwork is better or worse than the original. I’m inclined to say worse, since at least the original made me want to see the film out of a morbid curiosity to see just what sort of movie would have such a wacky box. What’s with the bricks? Why is it ‘Un-Rated’ instead of ‘Unrated’? It’s a very fun film though.

The co-writer of Bone Dry, Jeff O’Brien (Insecticial, Alien Incursion), is a friend of the site so I’ve been looking forward to seeing what is certainly his biggest film yet. It finally arrives on DVD through Allumination FilmWorks next Tuesday, February 26th.

Eddie, a mysterious young man trapped in a desert landscape, is forced to undergo a series of diabolical tests by an armed maniac looking for revenge. This dramatic thriller stars Dee Wallace-Stone (SONS & DAUGHTERS), Lance Henriksen (MILLENNIUM), and Luke Goss (BLADE II) as Eddie.

It’s a damn shame they didn’t wind up using the UK artwork (right) for the US release (left), as it is infinitely better and gives you a much better picture of what the film is about. And what is with putting Dee-Wallace Stone’s name before Lance Henriksen and Luke Goss in the description? I have all the love in the world for Ms. Stone, but no one is renting a movie that features ‘an armed maniac looking for revenge’ because it stars her.