Wanna hear something cool?
WHERE WOLF is finally coming to print! I'm so f'n excited to partner up with the fine folks at
@EnPocalypsePub
to release the comic I created with Debora Lancianese and Jack Morelli in both hardcover and softcover editions beginning this summer.
M3GAN's success this weekend shows the missing ingredient many recent film releases have forgotten - actually letting people know your movie is being released. The marketing campaign was top notch and this weekend's success shows what can happen when you actually promote a film.
The best part of watching RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES with my fiancée, a woman who has never seen a Planet of the Apes film in her life let alone know what they’re about, was hearing her scream “What the fuck!?!” when Caesar spoke.
During the screening of TOP GUN: MAVERICK, a man in his fifties yelled out in what sounded like a fit of pure ecstasy during one of the aerial stunts. He sounded like he was being raptured.
I cannot wait for the dads of the world to experience this movie this summer.
It's crazy how successful IFC was in rebranding its IFC Midnight brand as Shudder and giving its films a theatrical window. You went from barely being able to see THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE in a theater to having IN A VIOLENT NATURE playing on almost 1500 screens.
CIVIL WAR - My butt is soooo clenched. I may never poop again. Technically stunning, emotionally powerful, it’s very existence an audacious triumph - this movie rules harder than a tape measure. I can’t wait to watch America react to this film.
#SXSW
I've seen a lot of people "demanding" studios stop screwing around and just release movies like BLACK WIDOW, MULAN, HALLOWEEN KILLS, SAINT MAUD and others straight to VOD. "We need new entertainment," they Tweet. "Who knows when we'll get to go back to theaters?" they blog.
Film critic buddies. Trust me on this - as somebody who has has been on both sides of the fence and has committed this faux pas myself - don't post pictures of the giant stack of screeners studios send you time of the year. It's not a good look.
TALK TO ME - Wow. Fucking wow. A group of teens in Australia learn the dangers of chatting up ghosts in this extremely effective horror film. Great energy, performances and - most importantly - scares. This movie is going to be huge when A24 releases it later this year.
So, in summary, learn to wait. Stop expecting studios to release everything they were supposed to release this year on VOD. There are hundreds of thousands of amazing movies available on DVD, Blu-ray, streaming sites that I guarantee you have not seen yet. Watch those films.
I revisited AMERICAN POP tonight. Ralph Bakshi's film is a 96-minute triumph - speeding through sixty years of American and music history while telling a subversive story about exactly what it takes to find success in the entertainment industry.
I love this movie so much.
If 2021 has shown anything it's that we need to sacrifice a bit if we're going to get through this thing. Wear a mask, don't go to nightclubs, spend a bit more time at home than you're used to during the summer, wait a bit longer for the movies you were wanting to see.
When theaters reopen - whenever that might be - they are going to need movies to show in order to crawl up through the debt of loans, bills, and overhead costs - all having built up into a mighty hill without the relief of revenue coming in since March.
Unless, of course, you think the theatrical industry should die - and, if that's the case, state that in your posts so that I can be sure to know your opinion is one I don't care to listen to.
Hey, you know that werewolf comic I made? I'm giving it away for free.
Deadline has broken the news that, beginning tomorrow(!!!) you can read WHERE WOLF at
@FANGORIA
, as a weekly webcomic. Every word in that sentence is blowing my mind.
For the most part, new movies haven't been made since March - if studios send everything they have that's completed to VOD, it's going to be that much longer before there is anything theaters can show that will bring audiences in at the numbers theaters need in order to survive.
EVIL DEAD RISE is a perfect recipe for the future of this franchise. Keep making self-contained nasty AF, gore soaked possession movies under the guidance of Raimi, Campbell and Tapert and I’ll keep coming back to the theater. Glad to see a new movie added to horror mom cannon.
Y2K- Finally, elder millennials have a MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE to call there own. A very funny, very dark movie about an AI uprising on NYE 2000. A great cast, a great collection of “remember this” moments for this Class of 2003 graduate.
#SXSW
My mom got me CRASH (not the racism one).
"I haven't seen it yet but I remember you talking about it."
"Thanks, mom!"
"Do you want to put it in and watch it together?"
"I do not!"
Scott Wampler was a very funny guy who made in incredible impact in an industry he loved. To die so young seems unthinkable. My thoughts are with all the people left with a Scott-sized hole in their lives tonight.
Thanks to
@Carydar
, the cat is out of the bag. I’m thrilled to be joining the team at Culinary Khancepts and leading up the programming at the soon-to-be-reopened River Oaks Theatre.
A huge thank you to Yi-Chin Lee for this fun photo.
After nearly twelve years of working for Triple Tap Ventures and the Houston/Lubbock/El Paso Alamo Drafthouse franchises, I'm excited to start a new position as Senior Film Buyer for the Alamo beginning today.
Happy 35th anniversary to THE FLY, my absolute favorite film. Cronenberg’s movie has everything I look for in movies: great comedy, great tragedy, and great monsters. I look forward to the day I can project my 35mm print in a movie theater again.
Welp.
All good things must end. After thirteen years (one-third of my life!), I've made the difficult decision to leave the Alamo Drafthouse. This is my final week with the company that quite literally changed my life.
So long, and thanks for all the buffalo cauliflower.
Nothing but respect for Tom Cruise's passion and martyr-like desire to single-handily save the movie industry. That said, if he yelled at me I would immediately start peeing myself and never stop.
I watched FREAKY last night and have thoughts:
I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine a scenario where Vince Vaughn gets nominated for Best Supporting Actor considering the year film has had.
The kids are alright. I dug this super progressive, super fun, super gory film.
IN THE HEIGHTS is a fantastic film - full of life, energy, and the celebration of community. Watching it in a theater today with a room full of fans was a magical experience.
EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE takes so many of the very real emotional struggles we humans peck our way through and transforms them into a life-affirming magical martial arts carnival ride. I love this movie and I love the fact I just got to watch it with 3000 people.
#sxsw
The Alamo Ritz closing sucks but, as somebody who has had to help close three different movie theaters over the last ten years, the spirit of a theater is not in the physical location, it's in the people who watched movies there and that's a spirit that even a priest can't kill.
Today I held a physical copy of my first graphic novel in my hands. I flipped through the pages. I smelled it. I used the book to flatten a receipt. I put it on my bookshelf and took a picture of it sitting between MAUS and BLANKETS, just for the shits and giggles.
🐺🖤
I am ready to leave Texas. I love this state and its mythology. It’s full of beautiful landscapes and rugged ambition but there’s a poison that’s taken hold of too many Texans - a fear that’s flamed by Greg Abbott and his cronies. I’m so sick and tired of Texas letting me down.
I love this ASTEROID CITY lunchbox and thermos. I never keep any Alamo Drafthouse merchandise (I have a cabinet full of pint glasses that I am actively trying to give away) but I think I'm going to have to pick up one of these.
Howdy, y'all.
WHERE WOLF - the horror/comedy graphic novel I made with Debora Lancianese and Jack Morelli - is now 100 percent uploaded and free to read over at
@FANGORIA
.
Earlier this year, I arranged for a Cameo message from Kevin Conroy to play to the Alamo team members about to work an incredibly long weekend for the opening of THE BATMAN. His message was, of course, incredible. RIP to one of the coolest cats around.
IMPETIGORE - A timely doc about global warming. Just kidding - this Indonesian horror film is chalk full of machete wielding villagers, skinless babies and deadly curses. Asian horror films rule.
#Sundance2020
On February 23 I decided, on impulse, to turn a script I had written into a graphic novel. As of this morning, three months later, I have a fully-illustrated 276-page comic sitting on my desktop. If you want to create something, create it. Any obstacle can be eventually overcome.
Calling all 35mm collectors. I would like to pay off some bills and take a vacation this summer and have decided to sell a good chunk of my 35mm collection. If you are a collector and would like to inquire about any of the titles, let me know.
This is probably the final weekend for a lot of folks to catch EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE in a theater - especially folks who live in mid to small-sized markets. Do NOT miss the chance to see this wonderful movie on the biggest screen possible.
THE TOXIC AVENGER - Macon Blair’s reimagining of the Troma classic features amazing monster designs and a tone that frequently feels like a live action Saturday morning cartoon. Peter Dinklage is, of course, great but Taylour Paige steals the film. I love Toxie’s look.
#FF23
I received good news today that is, essentially, life-changing. It's been a wild and oftentimes rough seventeen months but it feels like a weight's been taken off my chest for the first time in a long time and I feel a tingle of hope in the back of my throat. Baby, it feels good.
Take a seat, Liam Neeson. Step back, Wonder Woman. PSYCHO GOREMAN was the highest-grossing film at the Alamo LaCenterra yesterday. Our theater had the highest gross for the film in the state of Texas. I remember what pride feels like again.
Tickets:
Turns out trying to open a new movie theater during a global pandemic is hard. The Alamo East El Paso is still coming, just slightly later than planned. In the meantime, check out these incredible pictures.
WHERE WOLF, the comic I wrote about my love of print journalism, has a huge spread in the print edition of the Houston Chronicle today. 🐺🤯
Debora Lancianese’s artwork sure looks great in print - hint, hint…
Read the first two chapters today at !
I feel like my weight loss has been very gradual, to the point where it sometimes doesn’t feel like it’s actually happened. I see numbers on a scale, but I still feel like I have a ways to go on my journey. And then I see an old picture and feel proud at how hard I’ve worked.
SATANIC HISPANICS is a ton of fun - a collection of Latinx horror shorts with a killer HELLBLAZER-themed wraparound. Horror-comedy, creepy mind melters, political allegories, everything in between. Every segment in the anthology is fantastic and features great practical SFX.
Joe Manganiello is a beast but what’s super exciting is that Glenn Howerton kills as the film’s heavy. I hope this film leads to a long future of Howerton playing the bad guys in action films. He’s a natural!
Get excited for ARCHENEMY, hitting your eyeballs this December.
I have zero patience for folks in other states using this time to dunk on Texas right now. Yes, we have some bad folks in power making bad decisions but to insinuate that an entire state deserves what we get because of our collective politics? Fuck that.
BONES AND ALL opens wide in theaters tonight. Luca Guadagnino's beautifully dark romance stars Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell as a two nomadic cannibals trying to find peace with their own monstrous nature. A stripped-down acoustic version of NIGHTBREED. This movie rules.
This year is the tenth anniversary of
@JamesGunn
's SUPER. Over the last few months, I have found myself frequently thinking about the film. I believe, despite the film's darkness, it's the perfect movie about maintaining hope that we will get through 2020.
DECISION TO LEAVE is expanding into a bunch of markets this week, including Houston. Please, I beg of you, put your spooky shenanigans on pause for a few hours and go see Park Chan-Wook's absolutely stunning neo-noir.
The new CHILLING ADVENTURES IN SORCERY one-shot from Archie Comics is f-u-n! I love all the great horror comic book horror anthologies that get published in October. It’s almost worth putting up with the other eleven months.
I was absolutely blown away by THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. I had been told it was scary but I wasn't prepared for how scary. At one point I actually fell off my chair during a jump scare. I had been told it was emotional but the "Bent-Neck Lady" episode had me in tears.
After thirteen years, I'm hosting my final Graveyard Shift screening at the Alamo Drafthouse this weekend. It's a bittersweet feeling - I'm sad to be leaving a series I created behind, but I'm so excited that it'll continue on in my absence. You can't kill Graveyard Shift!
I watched
@LuckyMcKee
's MAY last night at a sold out screening and a dude started to audibly groan in emotional pain during the film's climax. The movie killed. I have never heard a Graveyard Shift audience howl with laughter as much as during the ice cubes on the nipples scene.
Because I don't give a fuck, I have programmed a 10th anniversary of one of my favorite films ever, OBSERVE AND REPORT. Come and see this movie with me, cowards.
I'm going to be spending a lot of time talking about PSCYHO GOREMAN over the next few days. It hits theaters and VOD next weekend and it's one of the best things I saw last year. If you like evil aliens, evil kids, evil aliens chumming around with evil kids, SEE THIS MOVIE!
A year ago
@adamegypt
unleashed the super cool DANIEL ISN’T REAL upon the world and, next month, he’s back with ARCHENEMY, a super slick, super brutal superhero jam that plays like a cross between the comic book work of Grant Morrison or Mark Millar and PUNISHER: WAR ZONE.
THE VISITOR FROM THE FUTURE is a very silly French comedy about a band of time traveling rogues’ attempt to halt the construction of a nuclear power plant and save the future. Like a DIY Jean-Pierre Jeunet film with a surprisingly sincere streak running through its soul.
I may not love every movie he makes but Robert Rodriguez is a big damn hero for spending his entire career making big, bold blockbuster movies that routinely have brown folks at the center of them. He has used his success to change the kind of movies being made about Latinos.
Movie recommendation: THE BOY AND THE BEAST (2015)
A beastly swordsman adopts a young runaway human as his protege. The film is sweet without being saccharine and full of specular animated action. Imagine THE IRON GIANT, THE JUNGLE BOOK, and DRUNKEN MASTER thrown into a blender.
You know that werewolf comic book I spent the last year making? I finished it this week - fully written, fully illustrated, fully lettered. To celebrate I hung out with this woofer.
Every time GRAVEYARD SHIFT is mentioned, I feel obligated to mention that I own the giant animatronic bat head from the film. It’s the only way I can justify the amount of money I spent on it.
Anyway, listen to The Kingcast this Wednesday. GRAVEYARD SHIFT rules.
This week THE KINGCAST is joined by THE SUICIDE SQUAD's Polka-Dot Man himself,
@Dastmalchian
, for our very first journey into GRAVEYARD SHIFT! Who knows what horrors lurk in that flooded basement?
Find out this Wednesday on THE KINGCAST, part of the
@FANGORIA
Podcast Network.
HALLOWEEN III is turning forty and, to celebrate, we're screening it at Alamo Drafthouse locations nationwide this upcoming week as part of Graveyard Shift.
Catch a special pre-recorded intro by
@Jfcdoomblade
and
@gorycoryhorror
before the film.
It's 2008. I'm working at The Eagle, thinking about a werewolf story I'd like to someday write.
It's 2020. I'm writing that werewolf story, inspired by my time working for The Eagle.
It's 2023. That werewolf story is now a published comic and front page story on The Eagle.
THE OUTWATERS opens in a bunch of theaters this weekend. I kind of loved this weird-ass found footage horror. It's much more interested in creating a vibe - albeit, a weird cosmic horror vibe that's gory as hell - than giving answers but it's a wild lil' gem that goes for it.
THE BATMAN was really good! But I'm also really kind of bored of this particular kind of Batman movie. Is it possible to really appreciate a movie and how well its made while also wishing we could see a Clayface or Man-Bat on the big screen every now and then?
It's been a long slow journey but today, for the first time in a decade, I stepped on the scale and weighed less than 300 pounds. I still have a long way to go to achieve my own personal health goals but I've got this.
In RED ROCKET, a movie set in Texas City, a seventeen year old girl inexplicably has a WILD BEASTS movie poster on her wall. I choose to believe that, in the film’s backstory, she saw BEASTS at the Dismember the Alamo marathon I programmed in Katy. Nobody take this away from me.
After over ten years of programming Graveyard Shift in Houston, I was asked to take the series nationally. Go big or go home so you can catch the EVIL DEAD trilogy (with video intros by
@HauntedMeg
and
@HorrorGirlProbs
) this March at an Alamo near you.
EARTHDIVERS, the new comic by Stephen Graham Jones, Davide Gianfelice and team, is out today and it’s fantastic - a morally complex punk-rock rage about a trio of indigenous people who craft a plan to travel back in time and kill Columbus in order to save the world from America.
Movie Recommendation: NECRONOMICON (1993)
This anthology features Lovecraft-inspired segments directed by Christophe Gans, Brian Yuzna, and Shusuke Kaneko and effects by John Carl Buechler and Screaming Mad George. Wowzas. Jeffrey Combs is Lovecraft in the wraparound. Goopy fun.
BOTTOMS - Two queer high school students start a fight club in an attempt to get laid. More ROCK ‘N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL or STUDENT BODIES than SUPERBAD. Crazy, silly, sharp satire smuggled into a very funny teen sex comedy. Rachel Sennott continues her comedic reign.
#SXSW