The following reflects the views and opinions of Todd Burrows, and may not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of ZP International, LLC.
The pace is starting to pickup now folks. Just looking at the shooting
schedule and man oh man! Even with three weekends on and one off
the pace is a killer. This happens I know, I should be used to it. But
I am getting older and feel the years a little bit more.
Now that I am getting older its time for a ramble. Just saw Indiana Jones
and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. FRAKIN AWSOME!! The scene with the
nuclear blast was artistically fantastic. The humor of the ground-hogs classic.
The old jokes were getting a little tiresome but I could deal. But for me one
of the greatest scenes was at the end where Indy took the hat away. Classic
symbolization that he wasn’t ready to pass the hat on to a successor yet.
Quick question students. Does anybody else think that Disney’s newest
creation Wall*e looks a heck of a lot like Johnny 5 ? Compare and think
that maybe there might be a copyright infringement there.
Another question: Is the alien at the end of Indy 4 the same species as
the one from Close Encounters of the Third Kind? HMMMM.
Now for Hell-ephone, 3 scenes shot now and preparing for 4 and 5.
We are cooking with gas now. I have been looking at the footage, and I must
say that some of the experimentation we have been doing such as changing
speed, and some new equipment have been turning out great!
This could be the best film we have done! Now if only SONY would buy
the sucker and give us a few million for it. I could get that house I want
plus a tank of gas.
I think that’s enough of a ramble this time. So grab the popcorn
and your whip and enjoy some Commie fighting action.
The following reflects the views and opinions of Jerry Williams, and may not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of ZP International LLC
My name is Jerry Williams, and I’m a huge psychotronic
film fan from way back in the day. As I’m writing
this blog, I am watching the 1953 sci fi film Robot
Monster…the main gist of this ’shot in four days’
Phil Tucker cheapie is the monster(s) is an actor in a
gorila costume with a diving helmet called Ro-man.
It’s kind of an inversion of the invaders from
Mars(which was done at the same time). A friend of
mine asked me why I’m such a fan of such films from
the 50’s and 60’s…I guess in a nutshell, they are
cinema time pieces from a bygone and somewhat innocent
age. I studied literature, and knowing the standard
who/what/when/where of when a piece was written, you
gain new insight of something that may have escaped
your attention the first time around.
Take the aforementioned Robot Monster, I watched it it
college, but it was more of a ‘you gotta watch
this…it’s insane!’ cinema dare that you get from
friends in your twenties. I laughed, thought it was
insane or at least inept movie making and kind of
forgot about it. Fast forward a decade and now that
I’m making movies or helping out with other films in
the local area….now I’m deconstructing films that I
see into a poor man’s reader’s reponse…kind of what
literary critic Stanley Fish’s reader response theory
to romantic and modernistic literature.
Robot Monster is a monster bent on destroying the
earth’s last survivors, and finds love in the human
Alice. Discounting the convulted logic of the
film…I tried to transpose the cultural upheaval in
the film’s context…the cold war was raging and
atomic mutual destruction was constantly at everyone’s
thoughts. Ro-man is a symbolic marker of that fear
dressed up in a gorilla suit and diving helmet.
The ‘beauty and the beast’ archetype between Alice and
Ro-man has been a staple of literature since stories
first came around and is a standard in plays and
motion pictures. The ‘was it all a dream?’ end
segment takes it inspirations from the original what
is real fantasy story, Alice in Wonderland.
I’ve always said that the worst sin a film can do is
be boring….even convulted sci fi cheapie flicks like
Robot Monster have some cultural and cinema
signifigance buried in a gorilla suit and a bubble
making machine.
Jerry
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