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Monday, April 17, 2017

Traci Lords At Ottawa Comiccon!!

The goddess of cult movies Traci Lords will be appearing at Ottawa Comiccon!!
www.OttawaComiccon.com
See you there, May 12-14!





Monday, April 3, 2017

Fantasia International Film Festival Submissions Are Open!


Just a quick heads up, but time is running out for submitting your short and feature films to the most prestigious genre film festival on the planet, Fantasia!!

All infos on their web site and Facebook presence:
https://www.facebook.com/FantasiaFilmFestival

Good luck to all!



Monday, March 20, 2017

Tim League Refutes Netflix¹s Reed Hastings On Movie Theater Innovation


Tim League Refutes Netflix's Reed Hastings On Movie Theater Innovation

The founder of the Alamo Drafthouse has some issues with Netflix's Hastings saying that the movie business hasn't innovated in the last 30 years.

The following editorial is written by Tim League, co-founder and CEO of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas.
http://www.indiewire.com/2017/03/tim-league-netflix-reed-hastings-response-1201795232/



Netflix. It seems like every other interview I give asks me about the "threat" of Netflix. I'll be blunt. Netflix doesn't concern me, and I think it is obvious after last week that the cinema industry is of no concern to Netflix either.

We are in very different businesses.

Let me define those businesses.

Netflix is in the business of growing a global customer base by being the best value proposition subscription content platform.

And they are doing a great job. Their portal is stable, intuitive, cheap and delivers plenty of great, new content every month. They also provide a fantastic financial opportunity for both emerging and veteran storytellers. I stand in awe of the audience they have built and the wealth they have amassed in such a short time.

But here's my business: Cinema. Cinemas are in the business of offering an incredible, immersive experience that you simply cannot duplicate at home. Our job is to put on a show and provide a great value proposition for getting out of the house, turning off your phone and enjoying great stories in the best possible environment. At our best, cinemas should also be local community centers with a real, tangible relationship to their surrounding neighborhood.

Last week, Reed Hastings once again dumped on my industry. He summarized the innovation of cinema in the past 30 years by saying, "Well, the popcorn tastes better, but that's about it." While our industry has not shown the vision and truly game-changing innovation of Netflix, Hastings' antagonistic approach to cinema inadvertently exposes an underlying disrespect to the creators and auteurs that drive this entire machine.

Our best and most talented, passionate filmmakers vehemently do not want their films to be viewed first and foremost on a phone, on the train to work, while checking email, while chopping vegetables for the evening meal, on mute with subtitles while rocking a baby to sleep, or while dozing off before bed. The reality is, most Netflix content is being "consumed" in a less-than-ideal environment.

Great filmmakers create content to share their fully realized creations in a cinema with full, rich sound; bright, crisp picture and a respectful audience whose full attention is on the screen. And because of that, when courting filmmakers young and old to create content for their platform, I wish Netflix would consider the relationship with cinemas built by Amazon, Hulu, HBO, Showtime and Epix.

They all believe in cinemas as meaningful partners. They also respect those filmmakers who want meaningful theatrical engagements for their films. They believe in the promotional partnership that successful theatrical engagements can give to word of mouth, awards consideration, brand loyalty and ultimately maximized financial returns.

Amazon, for example, will be at CinemaCon next week building and strengthening their relationship with cinemas instead of tearing it down the week before.

I got into this business because I love movies. I hold the cinematic experience to be sacred, wonderful and these days even therapeutic.  I love the shared communal experience and the charged conversations I have after watching a movie in a cinema. I want to forge relationships with companies who truly love movies, too.

I do not believe that cinemas are owed or grandfathered into an exclusive window before movies are offered ostensibly for free on platforms such as Netflix. I contend that cinemas have earned, and must continue to earn, an exclusive window by providing the experience that directors desire as well as providing a significant financial benefit to producers and financiers.

To close, I'll offer my flippant counter, as I was asked specifically to respond to Hastings' remarks of last week. Until a meaningful relationship is forged with cinemas, Netflix is not making "movies." They are instead funding exclusive-access commodities that help grow their subscriber base.

In "Lost in America," Albert Brooks told his wife, after she lost their entire savings at the roulette wheel in Vegas, that she no longer had the right to use the term nest egg.

"Do me a favor," he said. "Don't use the word [nest egg'. You may not use that word. It's off limits to you! Only those in this house who understand nest egg may use it! And don't use any part of it, either. Don't use 'nest.' Don't use 'egg.' You're out in the forest you can point, 'The bird lives in a round stick.' And you have 'things' over easy with toast!"

I, for one, would welcome the dialogue to forge a meaningful partnership for theatrical exhibition and promotion of select Netflix productions, but until we have that, I consider the term "movie" to be their "nest egg."

But even as I pen this probably unjustifiably snarky retort, I will acknowledge some underlying truth to Reed Hastings' words. We do, as an industry, need to invest in innovation. Cinema's primary threat today is not Netflix; it is ourselves. We must continue to maintain high exhibition standards, invest in new sound and picture technology, improve the digital experience for our guests, develop innovative ways to delight our guests and ensure that we live up to our one job – make going to the cinema an amazing experience.

If we do that, we should be able to look back on another thirty years of limited innovation to our core product and say, "Job well done, we didn't screw up what has always been and remains great about the cinema: the show itself."



Source: IndieWire.com
http://www.indiewire.com/2017/03/tim-league-netflix-reed-hastings-response-1201795232/

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

ORIGINAL PAINTINGS from Pink Floyd The Wall up for sale!


ORIGINAL PAINTINGS FROM THE WALL
Masterworks Created for the Album, Concerts and Film, from the Private Collection of Gerald Scarfe

"San Francisco Art Exchange LLC (SFAE) is honored to have been selected to exclusively represent the most valuable collection of Rock and Roll artwork to ever be offered for sale.

Epic in scale and steeped in Rock history, these original works of art are marquis collectibles for major individual, corporate and institutional collectors. Due to the extensive distribution of the imagery via album, live-performances, music-videos, and the film (along with the accompanying publicity), the artwork offered is among the most instantly recognizable and significant in pop culture.

The Wall album topped Billboard charts for 15 weeks, and in 1999 was certified 23x Platinum. It remains one of the best-selling albums of all time, selling over 19 million copies between 1979 and 1990 in the US alone. The film was critically acclaimed when it was released in 1982 and won BAFTAs for Best Original Song and Best Sound. Scarfe developed the film's entire visual environment before the project began and his characters became a mixture of live-action and animated imagery, all of which played an integral role in the surreal narrative.

The paintings now being offered have been carefully selected by the artist, Gerald Scarfe as his most important works, and include several of the most famous images in Rock history due to their association with The Wall. Iconic artworks such as The Scream, Giant Judge & Hammers (shown below), The Mother, and The Teacher are available, along with several other blockbuster pieces including the massive original storyboard created for the film which incorporates 50 original renderings (measuring overall, a whopping 8' x 3'). »

For complete list, visit:











Thursday, February 9, 2017

Horreur Sur La Route: Destination SHOCK STOCK!


Une annonce de mon ami Steve Villeneuve, du Requiem Fear Festival!
Un road trip mémorable avec une gang d'amateurs d'horreur, avec, comme destination ultime: SHOCK STOCK!

Black Flag TV est un fier commanditaire de l'événement.

"OKI la gang, embarquez avec nous! Ca va être FOU! Il est maintenant possible de réserver vos billets pour L'HORREUR SUR LA ROUTE VOL.01 : DESTINATION SHOCK STOCK (London, Ontario)

Nous vous invitons sur cette page pour vous inscrire officiellement!!"

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Kodak's New Super8 Film Cameras are HERE! See this review!

Kodak is bringing back Super8 film cameras!

It's every filmmaker's dream to shoot on real, actual film stock. Kodak - once again - reinvent the way people shoot films.

Concerned about processing your films and how to transfer to digital for viewing? Very easy. When you buy a Super8 cartridge, processing is included. You shoot your film, send the cassette to a processing center (address and shipping envelope is provided with the cartridge. Once processed, Kodak uploads your digital file (scanned in 4k) to their server, where you can pick it up or directly share with your friends.

There's probably tons of options available, like different resolution scans, or if you want to have the Super8 processed film stock sent back. Many of us still own - and love - their Super8 film projectors! (I blogged about it earlier, with a test sample of the camera!)




Wednesday, January 11, 2017

The Unspoken Crisis That Kills Local Comic Shops

Folks, don’t forget that when you order comics from your local shop, the store actually PAY upfront to get the books, and have them delivered to the store for you. If you don’t show up to pick up your order, it’s the comics shop you love who gets in trouble…!


"With the hastag of #BoostYourLCS hitting the web to help comics shops everywhere, Pack Rat comics in Hilliard, Ohio pointed out something else that is hurting comics shops… and it’s not lack of new readers, variant covers, late shipping books or digital editions…

It’s subscribers who order comics then don’t pick them up.

As the sign points out, Pack Rat has $1,481.20 in comics that were not picked up from their pull service in the last 3 months. Not I’m not sure if that’s cover value or the amount they paid, but either way those books are tying up their ability to order more inventory and since they are being held for customers, they can’t be sold.

If you are a subscriber at your local comic shop and haven’t picked up your books in a while… either head down and get them or set them free so they can find a good home and retailers can then cycle that money back into buying more books. Maybe we need #PickUpYourBooks

It’s the comic book circle of life… don’t be Scar."


Source: Bleeding Cool
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/01/10/unspoken-crisis-killing-local-comic-chops/



Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Alterna Comics Launching New Comics Line in Newsprint!

Independent publisher Alterna Comics is launching a new line of comic books where its single issues will be printed in newsprint and retail for $1.99 or less per issue.

"When I fell in love with comics, it was an entire experience. The stories, the imagery, and the paper. There was almost nothing else like reading a comic book. It was a fragile thing, but durable at the same time," said Alterna Comics' publisher Peter Simeti. "Printed on newsprint with a thin, but glossy, cover, you could roll the comic - not that you'd necessarily want to - and they were lightweight and had a floppy feel. The smell and feel of the pages is something that no longer occurs on the new comic book day release wall, yet it's prevalent in back issue bins across the country. Our goal is to create a comic book that would 'feel' like it just came out of a shop from 30 years ago."

From the 1930s to the early 1990s, most all comic books were printed on newsprint-quality paper. Following advancements in comic book coloring in 1992 and 1993, Marvel, DC, Image and others segued to glossier paper in order for the more nuanced coloring to register. With that came higher prices due to the changing paperstock; something Alterna plans to take advantage of by using newsprint.

"While most companies seem to be trying to out do each other with premium paper stocks and escalating price tags, we're aiming to make comics affordable and bring back a practicality to single issues. We're not in the business of making collectibles first and comics second. These won't be variant covers or variant issues, just basic comic books. We're happy to leave the premium paper stocks to our graphic novel line, which we will still be producing. Right now, we're aiming to launch this line with a few issues priced from $1 to $1.99, in Spring/Summer 2017."

Source: Newsrama