"SCORE": A Documentary About Great Film Music -- Watch the Trailer Now

BEHIND EVERY GREAT FILM IS A GREAT COMPOSER

‘SCORE’ ARRIVES IN THEATERS JUNE 16

This celebratory documentary takes viewers inside the studios and recording sessions of Hollywood's most influential composers to give a privileged look inside the musical challenges and creative secrecy of a truly international music genre: the film score.

Directed by Matt Schrader

Produced by Robert Kraft, Trevor Thompson, Kenny Holmes, Nate Gold, Jonathan Willbanks
Distributed by Gravitas Ventures

WATCH THE TRAILER


STARRING: Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, John Williams, James Cameron, Trent Reznor, Rachel Portman, Randy Newman, Howard Shore, Quincy Jones, Junkie XL (Tom Holkenborg), Alexandre Desplat, Harry Gregson-Williams, Brian Tyler, Joe Kraemer, Heitor Pereira, Steve Jablonsky, Thomas Newman, Bear McCreary, Moby, Garry Marshall, Jerry Goldsmith, John Debney, Steven Spielberg, Marco Beltrami, Christophe Beck, Tyler Bates, David Arnold, Christopher Young, James Horner, Dario Marianelli, Leonard Maltin, David Newman and many, many more!

Read our original coverage of the film

 

"SCORE": A Documentary About Great Film Music -- Watch the Trailer Now

Announcing the Lineup For Our First-Ever Animation Showcase! -- Midwest Independent Film Festival

First Tuesdays: Animation Showcase at the Midwest Ind FF!

Date:
May. 02, 2017

Time:
6:00pm - 9:30pm

Cost:
$10-15

@Landmark's Century Centre Cinema, 2828 North Clark, Chicago, Illinois

The Midwest Independent Film Festival presents its first ever Animation Showcase at Landmark's Century Centre Cinema on Tuesday, May 2nd, with festivities beginning at 6 p.m.

The best in animated filmmaking throughout the Midwest will take to the screen, including the World Premiere of Joel Benjamin’s WHEN IT FLOODS and the Chicago Premiere of 2016 Student Academy Award winner DIE FLUCHT from Champaign filmmaker Carter Boyce.

Fourteen outstanding animated films in all, with filmmakers in attendance for a post-screening discussion with the audience.

Here is the lineup for the Midwest Independent Film Festival's first-ever Animation Showcase!

Schedule
6:00 p.m.     Pre-Show Reception
6:30 p.m.     Producers Panel TBA
7:30 p.m.     Animation Showcase     
9:30 p.m.     After-Party TBA

Purchase Advance Tickets

About the Midwest Independent Film Festival
The Midwest Independent Film Festival is the nation's only film festival solely dedicated to the Midwest filmmaker, presenting audiences with regionally produced independent cinema every first Tuesday of the month at Landmark's Century Centre Cinema, 2828 North Clark in Chicago.  This year-round film festival sits proudly at the center of the independent film scene in Chicago and the Midwest and is dedicated to celebrating and strengthening that community.

This film festival is made possible in part by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, which receives funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Announcing the Lineup For Our First-Ever Animation Showcase! -- Midwest Independent Film Festival

THE DARK TAPES -- Movie Review by Porfle

There's more to "found footage" than just the convention of seeing an entire movie through the lenses of various cameras.  There has to be a good reason for it, and it has to add to a film's effect in a way that justifies it.  

Directors Michael McQuown and Vincent J. Guastini have scored on both counts with their excellent indy chiller THE DARK TAPES (Epic Pictures, 2017).  Not only is it well-written, well-acted, and technically impressive, but it manages to make "found footage" scary again. 

Basically an anthology piece whose segments relate to one another in some way (more or less), the wraparound story concerns a couple of college students who stumble upon the remains of a sleep research experiment gone wrong.  The lab is a shambles, the bed is bloody, and the professor and his assistants are missing.  Perhaps the footage on their video cameras will reveal what happened...

 

We meet Professor Callahan, one of those quietly obsessed types; Nicole, working on her doctorate in physics; and Jason, the group's camera operator. They're deep into their research into sleep paralysis, or "night terrors."  Callahan has a theory about the "shadow people" who often appear to those suffering from this condition--that they're actually trans-dimensional entities who exist in a different time continuum than ours. 

But before we get too involved in their story, we're then told the tale of David and Karen, a happily married couple whose beautiful new dream house turns out to be haunted by things that go bump in the night (and all day, too). 

After some pretty eerie events (footsteps on ceiling, a rubber ball that stops and rolls back to them) which gradually escalate into sheer terror, they finally call in a team of paranormal specialists in what will seem a familiar scenario to viewers of the SyFy Channel's "Ghost Hunters."

 

These "experts" are obviously in over their heads, and what follows is a nail-biting succession of scares taking place with that creepy night-vision effect that makes everything seem even scarier.  I'm not going to elaborate further, but suffice it to say that things (a) get a lot worse, and (b) do not end well.

After more with Professor Callahan's group we see the story of two young women running one of those cyber-sex webcam rackets.  This one also starts out rather uneventful until mysterious outside forces begin to interfere with the good clean fun, and suddenly Caitlin is trying to persuade one of her horny clients to get a knife and cut himself juuust a little bit.  And no, this one doesn't end well, either. 

Next is an intense segment called "Amanda's Revenge", which gives us further insight into the problem of "night terrors" and "shadow people."  After Amanda is molested at a party, she starts to experience strange intruders in her bedroom and feels as though they're performing sinister experiments on her.

 

With the help of her friend Ryan, she tries to fight them or at least record their presence.  What happens next is not only disturbing, especially if you have a primal fear of the dark, but leads right into the film's finale in which Professor Callahan and his assistants learn more than they ever wanted to know about the subject of trans-dimensional entities.

This final segment is not only nail-bitingly suspenseful, but it also contains at least one killer jump-scare that froze my blood ice cold.  The acting and direction are extremely well-handled, making it a prime example of using imagination and skill to get the most out of a limited budget. I felt pretty numb when it was all over, having been both thoroughly scared and thought-provoked.

Think of how the original "The Outer Limits" and "The Twilight Zone" used to fire up your imagination while giving you a severe case of the creeps, and you'll begin to understand how unnerving THE DARK TAPES is.  I started watching it around midnight--alone--and it wasn't long before I paused it and thought: "Okay, the rest of this can wait until daylight."


Order it now on iTunes

http://www.TheDarkTapes.com
https://www.facebook.com/TheDarkTapesMovie
https://twitter.com/TheDarkTapes
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgNUwjyuA3hv_fjpNHzmGww

Also available on Google Play, Vudu, iNDemand (Comcast- Xfinity, Time Warner, Cox, Bright House & more), Dish TV, Amazon, Vubiquity (Verizon Fios, Charter, Sudden Link, Media Com &more), Xbox, Playstation, Sling TV & Vimeo.

THE DARK TAPES -- Movie Review by Porfle

RETURN OF KUNG FU TRAILERS OF FURY -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

"My first two kung fu movies consisted of a double feature of super-cheap, super-obscure flicks at my local cinema one night back in the early 70s.  The titles have long receded into the sodden recesses of my memory but I wouldn't be surprised if their trailers appear somewhere on this disc."

My review of the previous kung fu trailer collection from Severin Films, KUNG FU TRAILERS OF FURY, began with this poignant moment of wistful nostalgia, and the same goes double for this new follow-up disc.

RETURN OF KUNG FU TRAILERS OF FURY, or "The Night the Kung Fu Trailers of Fury Came Home--Again", is more and more, and yet still more (35, to be exact)  gloriously goofy previews of all those cheapo kung fu flicks that were being churned out by the rickshaw-load in Hong Kong back in the 70s. 

 

Rest assured, this bursting-at-the-seams batch of fists 'n' feet potboilers contains no CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON-level epics.  It's all gloriously grade Z, as though Ed Wood himself had opened up a school for action directors in Hong Kong.

Often these condensed versions are better than the actual feature films, because they cut out all the boring exposition and lame character interplay and get right down to the pure, unadulterated chop-socky action. 

And that's what this non-stop parade of trailers is--just one furious clash after another, accompanied by some deathless dialogue and hilarious text exclamations such as "Intriguing story!" and "Good Actors From Many Nations Makes This Film Outstanding!"

 

The collection features about an equal ratio of contemporary urban dramas and historical tales with lots of flowing white hair and bushy eyebrows. Regardless of the technical quality of each individual film, the stuntwork and choreography are rarely short of amazing.

First up is THUNDERBOLT, and right off the bat there's some of that incredibly fake-looking wirework that we all love. YELLOW-FACED TIGER is yet another "new Bruce Lee" flick, this time offering Don Wong as the hero and none other than a young Chuck Norris as a formidable bad guy with an equally formidable moustache.

THE STORY OF CHINESE GODS, described as "China's first full-length color animation feature!" boasts a 3-eyed Bruce Lee character and some not-so-hot animated action.

 

Other titles include BRUCE AND THE IRON FINGER, SHAOLIN INVINCIBLE STICKS, INVISIBLE TERRORIST, REVENGE OF THE SHAOLIN KID, HELL’S WINDSTAFF, THUNDERING MANTIS, THE LEGENDARY STRIKE, KUNG FU KILLERS, CRAZY HORSE & INTELLIGENT MONKEY, THE AVENGING BOXER, and SNUFF-BOTTLE CONNECTION.  They add up to a full 134 minutes.

My favorite moment comes during the preview for a wacky comedy called KUNG FU MASTER NAMED DRUNKEN CAT, which, in addition to its distinct Benny Hill influence, makes this bold promise to potential viewers: "It's John Cheung vs. The Midget! Funny!"

It's interesting to see these trailers in Blu-ray since they're so wonderfully battered and scratched-up in the great grindhouse style.  Are we supposed to be happy that all the scratches and imperfections that make these old trailers so distinctive are now in high-def? 

Having grown up watching old movie prints in theaters and on late-night TV, I love that old beat-up look. These trailers have it in abundance, and it suits me just fine to see it so well-preserved here.  

The Blu-ray from Severin Films is widescreen with Dolby 2.0 sound and English subtitles.  The wall-to-wall commentary track is highly informative thanks to a panel of kung fu cinema experts including writer Ric Meyers ("Films of Fury"), Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival), Ric Stelow (Drunken Master Video), and martial arts instructor Greg Schiller. 

If you got a kick out of Severin's first volume of kung fu trailers, then RETURN OF KUNG FU TRAILERS OF FURY should strike your fancy as well.  It's solid entertainment for lovers of no-frills kung fu cinema. 

Buy it from Severin Films

RETURN OF KUNG FU TRAILERS OF FURY -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle