sCARE Foundation to Honor Legendary Actor Malcolm McDowell with the 2012 Lifetime Achievemen​t Award!

 

Award To be Presented at the 2^nd Annual  Halloween Benefit Event on October 28, 2012 at the Conga Room at L.A.  Live 

SILVERDOCS Bookends 10th Edition with Inspiring Music Docs

 

DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’: EVERYMAN’S JOURNEY Opens Festival & BIG EASY EXPRESS Closes Festival

Longhorn the Comedian to Appear at the 2012 GI Film Festival

 

The GI Film Festival exposes its funny bone with the announcement that Longhorn the Comedian will perform at the 2012 GI Film Festival on Sunday, May 20, 2012. The performance will take place during the final awards ceremony at the U.S. Navy Memorial.

New Doc Patriot Guard Riders Hits GI Film Fest This Sunday

 

A new documentary, “Patriot Guard Riders” will be screened in WASHINGTON, DC AS PART OF THE GI FILM FESTIVAL this Sunday!

Berlinger and Sinofsky Honored at AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Charles Guggenheim Symposium

 

AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival, the American Film Institute’s annual recognition of excellence in documentary film, announced that it will honor Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky on June 19, 2012, at its Charles Guggenheim Symposium for their collective and individual contributions to the documentary genre.  The symposium, named after the late, four-time Academy Award winner Charles Guggenheim, honors filmmakers who have mastered the power of documentary and inspire audiences with powerful explorations of the human experience.  AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs – celebrating its 10th year in 2012 – will take place June 18-24 at the historic AFI Silver Theatre and surrounding venues.

GI Film Festival to Present Actor Joe Mantegna with the GI Spirit Award

Interviews: Howard Ford, co-director of The Dead; Alex Cutler, co-producer of Pig

Rob Freeman in 'The Dead'

If you’ve read my reviews of The Dead and Pig, you’ll appreciate the breadth of horror sub-genres that were represented at the 2011 Spooky Movie Festival in Washington, DC last October.

The Dead, written and directed by brothers Howard and Jon Ford, has an unprecedented combination of attributes: a zombie film set in West Africa with a heavy sociopolitical undercurrent (read my synopsis and review here). The film stars Rob Freeman and Ghana native Prince David Osei.

SKEW: An Interview with Director Sevé Schelenz

Sevé Schelenz isn’t your typical horror director. When I met with him to discuss his new film Skew, it felt more like I was picking the brain of an author than that of a filmmaker, particularly the way he explained the use of imagery and layering in his work. Skew begs our imaginations to run amok, proving that a less-is-more approach can prevail over the effects-laden fare that has saturated contemporary cinema.Though Skew is his first feature film, Sevé’s sapience seems on par with that of a veteran filmmaker, an unusual wisdom that is certainly reflected by the many awards the film has picked up along the festival circuit (including Best Feature at Urban Suburban Festival and most recently, the Indie Spirit Award in South Africa). I was fortunate enough to catch the screening of the film at the 2011 Spooky Movie Festival in Washington, DC, but not before talking to the Canadian director about his inspiration, technique and our mutual appreciation of John Carpenter.

The Millennium Bug at Spooky Fest 2011: An Interview With Actor John Charles Meyer

John Charles Meyer at the 2011 Spooky Movie Festival at Artisphere - Photograph by Michael Parsons

With guest starring roles on CSI: NY and Southland, appearances in over forty short films including leads in love/junkie and Affliction (not to mention his multiple stage performances), it seems difficult to capture the diversity of John Charles Meyer in one paragraph. In Kenneth Cran’s horror feature The Millennium Bug, Meyer adds a hell of a performance to his repertoire as Billa Crawford, the maniacal  backwoods antagonist whose comically menacing presence is overshadowed only, and quite literally, by a prehistoric creature on New Year’s Eve Y2K. Meyer was nominated for Best Actor at the New Orleans Horror Film Festival last month for the role.

The actor has escorted the film, so to speak, on a good portion of its 2011 festival circuit where both have become favorites among indie and horror fans alike. Naturally, when the film made its way to Washington, DC for the Spooky Movie International Horror Film Festival, I was anxious to find out what all the hype was about.

SPOOKY MOVIE FEST 2011: Director Matt Lockhart talks about THE WATERMEN

Director Matt Lockhart at the 2011 Spooky Movie International Horror Film Festival - photo by John Fackenthal, all rights reserved

I envisioned the making of The Watermen as sort of a Heart of Darkness situation in the marshlands of the Chesapeake Bay.

“I was pulling my hair out,” director Matt Lockhart told me. “The generator was busted or something, and we were completely shut down. I was like, ‘I think I could burn a hundred-dollar bill right now and it would cost me more to sit here and watch it than for it to actually burn.’”

And he says that he can’t wait to do it again. When I caught up with Lockhart after the screening of his feature debut at the 2011 Spooky Movie Festival, he seemed anything but stressed.