Moved from Warren, Ohio to Austintown (also known as the poor mans youngstown) - Dark Xmas ought6 took up residence at the America’s Best Value Inn and Suites, which I can assure you is neither a value or sweet. At $45 a night one would think any lodging establishment with running water would be a bargain, yeah, well one would think otherwise after staying at the ABV (and suites).

You know those investigative reports where reporters take black lights into hotel rooms to show off bodily fluids in the linens? Here the reporters bring in a Geiger Counter and antibiotics. I’m pretty sure I got herpes just from checking in, although it could have been when Mike Hartman of Silver Bullett Pictures shook my hand, who knows.

Oh yeah - there was a convention!!!!

I almost forgot about Ken Foree and Michael Berryman - stars of classic films such as The Devil’s Rejects, The Hills Have Eyes and Dawn Of The Dead. I actually did forget about Bill Moseley from House Of 1000 Corpses, it seems he forget about himself too since this was the second straight year he was on the guest list and didn’t show up…..but who did show you ask? Well lemme tell you somethin…..

Cerina Vincent from Cabin Fever

Danielle Harris of Halloween 4 & 5

Children Of The Corn star Courtney Gains….He was in Back To The Future for like 8 seconds and lists it at the top of his resume like he was a star, what a douchebag. Some people might knock me for calling him a douchebag, but seriously, if I can’t call Courtney Freakin’ Gains a douchebag than I am an absolute nothing in the film industry.

Oh yeah, also appearing were Barbara Nedeljakova of Hostel fame and our sweet ass super fuckin cool convention neighbor Brenna Lee Roth - star of numerous B horror films and also a singer with the band Bosworth, she was kind enough to pose for some photos, which are featured in our store, where you can buy our shit, which you should do right now…..

fine, buy shit after you finish reading.

Motor D graphic arts guru and all around nerdophile Darian whipped up a phenomonal new poster design that we unveiled for the first time, check it out…….

We made big playa style cash money dollars selling our fantastic and reasonably priced DVD’s, which of course you can purchase through our store, and even got half drunk in a mexican restaurant. We really felt like losers until everyone else including Michael Berryman followed suit and crashed Salsita’s with us. 4 pitchers and a plate of nachos later Motor D and Silver Bullett wrecked a hotel room and drank a case of Genny lights while staring out at the hotel pool….check it out!

All in all it was a weekend in another state with nerds and stuff, but it was cool.

The only thing that could have made it cooler was Skankasaurus dancing on a table while Carl Merritt blared Skid Row cassette tapes on his ghetto blaster. I wonder what she’s doing now…..oh that’s right, she’s pimping amateur Ohio wrestling through her own sexy website, don’t believe me, visit skankasaurus on the web at www.amandafire.com

I’ll never forget the look of defeat in her eyes when we saw her emerge from that dirty old mans hotel room last year after a bender that would have put Hemmingway in a coma.

Despite Carl Merritt and his “promo team” skipping this years event, we still had fun. Mike Hartman sold sleazy pictures of his wife Sherrie in order to buy that Bahama Mama hot dog from the gas station he’d been dreaming of, Darian got a speeding ticket, Frank got to hang out with Toby Radloff again and me, what did I get…..I won’t ruin it, you go ahead and insert your own joke.

Now go buy some fuckin DVD’s ya deadbeats

Here’s three quick reviews from local moviephile Weber or Demonic Weber as he is known in some circles. Great choices if you are looking for something to keep you entertained in doors that does not involve either crisco or twister.

Enjoy,

Frank

So I go to the video store, find couple of movies before the ballgames start. Tigers kicked the Yankees asses and Michigan beat Michigan State. Anyway, at the video store I find two movies, take them up to the counter. “We’re having a deal,” the clerk informs me “three for $9.99.” I jump for joy, all my dreams answered, I get to leave line and find another great movie to enjoy. Searching the shelves hoping to find that one movie that jumps at me, even though I just spent 10 hours to find two that were worthy of my superior taste. Coming back in disappointment to the counter, I spot it. The Return Tray. Was there a movie there that I miss looked? Is there some out there that had better taste in movies and rented a great movie and brought it back just for me? Or did they hate it, returned it early only to tempt my curiosity? Curious George must have been a fine film. A character worshiped by so many….. First graders. And I, I have so much in common with first graders. Then, I see it a treasure in the midst of trash. The golden print. The holy grail of moviedom. I take the movie to the clerk. “This is the movie I want.”, I proclaim with great confidence as the customers in line cheered. I found the perfect movie. Rushing home as fast as I can I whip into the garage, slam open the door, turn the TV on and pull the movie out of the case. Curious Friggin George. O cruel fate, the shame I felt as I loaded my DVD player could not be measured. By the way, if you believed a word of this story, you see what movies I reviewed. It’s all about misdirection.

REVIEWS…

THE PROPOSITION

Starring Guy Pearce (LA Confidential)
Charlie, played by Pearce, finds himself screwed over when he has to chose to either watch his younger (good) brother hang on Christmas Day or track down and kill his older (evil) brother. A grisly shoot out at the beginning of this movie suddenly stops and slows to a crawl in a character study of good versus evil. Half way through the film, the line between good and evil blurs. Can Charlie kill his brother? Can he let his younger brother swing from the gallows? Does evil beget evil? If a good person can become evil, can a evil person become good? The acting though not Oscar worthy delivers on intent but not in depth. A very good western but then again what is good?

DOWN IN THE VALLEY

Starring Edward Norton (Primal Fear, Fight Club) David Morse (St. Elsewhere, The Negotiator)Edward Norton surprises you every time you see him. He changes characters so often, even within the same film (Primal Fear), that you’re never sure what to believe from him. In Down In The Valley, he plays a gee-golly aw-shucks cowboy, Harlan, from South Dakota who falls for a young girl in the Valley. The father of the girl, played by David Morse, doesn’t trust Harlan or believe his wholesome image. Slow moving at the beginning but picks up a lot near the last quarter, you wonder if it’s ever going to get where it’s going. It not only gets where it’s going but twists and goes somewhere you’re not quite expecting. The ending was a little disappointing perhaps confusing. Still a really fun ride when you’re with Norton.

LUCKY # SLEVIN

Starring Josh Hartnett (Pearl Harbor, Sin City) Bruce Willis (Hudson Hawk, Four Rooms) Lucy Liu (Kill Bill, Charlie’s Angels) Morgan Freeman (Unleashed, Dreamcatcher) Ben Kingsley (Gandhi, Dave) Stanley TucciTypical setup pit two warring gangsters (Freeman and Kingsley) against one another, the exception is a stooge caught in the middle, Slevin (Hartnett). Every one’s against Slevin, he’s been beat up, robbed, mistaken for a gambler who owes some big debts, and his girlfriend’s cheating on him. This doesn’t bother Slevin one bit, through it all he just keeps smiling. Misdirection in this movie is a character own its own. Than once The Usual Suspects comes to mind in that you’re trying to put the pieces together. Good acting all around balance the glossy feel the film has. A well rounded movie.

Of the three above movies, my pick would be Lucky # Slevin. The others are great movies but you didn’t need to get through the slow parts in Slevin. Funnily enough, Slevin is the longest of these movies. Hope you found the reviews useful.

Give Em A Chance

-WEBER

Contributed by Weber

Motor D Films is proud to announce that the ultimate DVD of makeup and F/X for Halloween, Methods of the Macabre Volume 1, is now in stores in the Detroit area.

Now available at:
Lauer’s Novelties and Costumes
28063 Gratiot Ave
Roseville, MI 48066
(734) 775-0030

Just north of 696 on Gratiot, right next to Chester Boot Shop.

So if you are looking to start your career in effects or need ideas for that killer Halloween costume, this is the DVD and place for it.

Below you will find the first of many contributions by the star of the epic Motor D short film, Interview with the Vampire: The Count Chocula Story and the still unfinished masterpiece Coxalot, Mr. David Kandt. For those of you who have never met him or had the pleasure to watch a film with him, Dave displays a child-like wonder to every film he sees. It reminds me of the same youthful exuberance of a young boy who discovers that you can kind of see a boob in the scrambled porn stations on the old school cable hook-ups.

Enjoy

Frank

Snakes on a plane… Has the world ever created a greater killer? Consider time,
disease, famine, war, zombies, misfortune and even bad luck; these things are
nothing in the face of the imminent danger presented to us by a pile of snakes on an
in flight plane. I’m sorry, that’s “mother fucking snakes on a mother fucking
plane”, to be precise.

This movie will undoubtedly receive all kinds of theatrical criticism for lack of
plot, character development, special effects, creativity and cinematography. But
those are all easy opinions to hold because it’s easy to beat a guy when he’s down.
So the question really is, “What can be said at the benefit of SOAP?” Snakes on a
plane is a movie that at its inception was intended to be a serious drama / horror
film that wanted to scare the life out of those who are afraid of snakes, flying,
the dark, suffocation and drop down oxygen masks. What a bunch of sissies they
targeted! I’m a tough guy, so snakes “ain’t shit” to me. But if I were a sissy,
then I would have sissied my pants so badly the row of seats in front of me would be
wet, and angry.

A brilliant woman once said, “It’s the ability to see under what is shown that makes
the difference between assessing which [movies] are good and which are bad.”

SOAP, the unknown acronym for ‘Snakes On A Plane’ was a ferocious “jump out at you”
suspense flick with so much “out jumping” that it could make you ’startle’ even when
you knew with full confidence that a snake was about to do an “out jump”. Snakes,
the unexpected all time jumping champions of the world (you know, the creature with
no legs), can jump like mother fuckers. Up ladders, over persons, out of toilets or
whatever obstacle they needed to concur. But beware; their only motivation to do a
“jump” is for the love of doing a “bite”. So if your wang is hanging out, or if
your nipples are exposed for an awkwardly long time on screen, or if you’re ugly and
sleeping then a snake is sure to strike out against your gratuitous indulgence to
the audience.

So did I like the film? The answer is yes, but understand that this is not a movie
that you go see because you’re ‘double serious guy’ with some kind of super eye for
watching and critiquing real deal film. No sir. This is a movie that you go to see
with the good humor that it wasn’t intended for. It’s a cheesy idea that was played
out as well as could possibly be played out. Put yourself in the position of the
director; you come into work one day, the boss says, “Here’s your new project. It’s
called ‘Snakes on A Plane’.” After kissing ass sufficiently you go to lunch and
peruse the script. You immediately realize that you’ve been handed that one script
that is a total box office embarrassment that everyone openly loves to hate and that
your career is over and your only recourse is to make the best out of what was
dropped on your nuts. What would you do?

The answer is you pay most of your budget to get Samuel L. Jackson to frontline the
movie and spend the rest of your budget getting B and B+ actors and actresses to
fill in the remainder. The only actors that could have done an equally impressive
job in delivering the true calmness needed to handle that cursed situation of having
snakes on a plane would be Magnum PI, Sgt. Martin Riggs from Lethal Weapon or Claude
Van Damn from anything he’s played in… you know his typecast.

So before you go hating, just remember that if you were sitting in that window seat,
and the take off of the plane was bumpy, and it was a red eye from Hawaii, and you
hated snakes, then this documentary would have led to all kinds of government
funding to say that they’re sorry that you’re black.

But I digress.

It’s just a good movie for those who like to be entertained, not for those who are
demanding of the movies they watch. You’ll not be moved to make drastic changes to
your life, but you will love it! I next hope to see a sequel to this movie.
Perhaps “Snakes on A Truck”, or “Snakes in A Submarine”. Or maybe step it up a
notch to something like “Snakes AND Spiders Everywhere”.

Review Contributed by David Kandt