Fantastic Fest: "It is a celebration of geekdom at its geekiest"

Produced for public television station KLRU of Austin, All My Friends Are Vampires is a way-cool overview of the phantasmagorical frenzy that is Fantastic Fest, the world's wildest genre-movie exposition. I'm on screen to offer pithy commentary at the 11:30 and 15:00 marks (and off-screen, but still heard, at around 24:10). But, hey, you owe it to yourself -- and to director Mario Troncoso -- to savor the whole dang thing.

Happy Thanksgiving, movie fans!

As I have noted elsewhere: It's a melancholy fact of life that if you live long enough, you reach a point when you start to wonder: How many birthdays do I have left? How many Christmases? Independence Days? Thanksgivings?

For better or worse -- though I strongly suspect it's for the better -- I have no way of answering those nagging questions. But I do know this: You can enjoy all the holidays you want, any time of year you desire, at the movies. In honor of the day, here are two guides to notable flicks featuring Thanksgiving gatherings -- one from Time Magazine (including two personal favorites, Judd Apatow's Funny People, pictured above, and Jodie Foster's Home for the Holidays) and another from (OK, don't laugh) AARP Magazine (featuring a fave that, oddly enough, I had almost forgotten: Alice's Restaurant).

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all. And as I am wont to remind folks on occasions such as this: It's a miracle that we're even here and alive.

It's Take 4 for Houston Cinema Arts Festival

The hits just keep on coming this weekend at the 2012 Houston Cinema Arts Festival. And so, being the shameless gravy trainer that I am,  I have hitched my wagon to it.

A few days ago, I got a chance to interview HCAF artistic director Richard Herskowitz for CultureMap and, as you can see in the above video, KHOU-TV. But wait, there's more: I offer a guide to promising HCAF offerings here, and my own tribute to HCAF special guest Robert Redford here. (Redford -- interviewed here by CultureMap editor Clifford Pugh -- will be honored with the festival's Levantine Cinema Arts Award.)

And don't forget: After the 9:15 pm Saturday screening of the most excellent documentary Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp at the Sundance Cinemas, I will host a Q&A with director Jorge Hinojosa.

Because, really, it's all about me.

Four more years! Four more years!

Celebrating the RE-election of Barack Hussein I Smoked Bin Laden's Ass Obama. Let the good times roll, y'all.

Insert Laurel and Hardy joke here

Politics make for strange... bipartisan partnerships.

Scary stuff, kids! Talkin' 'bout horror flicks on Great Day Houston

Better late than never, here's a segment devoted to Halloween-appropriate movies, with me and Deborah Duncan, that ran last Wednesday on Great Day Houston.

Lena Dunham talks about her "first time"

The lovely and talented Lena Dunham made me laugh out loud with this video in support of President Barack Obama. At least, I laughed until, for the second time in less than a week, I was reminded that I cast my first vote in a Presidential election all the way back in 1972, for George McGovern. God, I feel old. As Vincent Price once said after he realized that, out of all the people in an old movie he was watching on TV, he was the only one still alive: "I put down the drink -- and picked up the bottle."

R.I.P.: George McGovern (1922-2012)

Two things that immediately popped into my head when I heard the sad news this morning about George McGovern's death.

First, he was the first Presidential candidate I ever voted for -- at a time when this country seemed even more divided and yet, strangely enough, at the same time, somewhat more civil than it is now.

Second: It has been impossible for me to read or hear McGovern's name ever since seeing All the President's Men without thinking of Hal Holbrook in that dimly lit parking garage telling Robert Redford, in the condescending tone of someone explaining the obvious to a none-too-bright child, that McGovern was the liberal Democrat that Richard Nixon and his flunkies wanted to run against in 1972, because he'd be so much easier to beat than Ed Muskie.

I have never ceased to agree with those who've praised George McGovern as a good and honorable man. But I still shudder when I consider how easily and ruthlessly he, and we, were manipulated by his opponent.

Joe Biden's here, and he brought doughnuts

You have to hand it to Joe Biden and the Democrats -- they're big on bringing junk food to the party. And I for one appreciate that.

Coming soon: Zombies Versus Gladiators. No, seriously: Zombies vs. Frickin' Gladiators

As H.L. Mencken once sagely noted: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." Wonder what the old boy would make of Amazon.com's announced intention to get into the movie production business with "crowdsourced" projects like... like... well, Zombies Versus Gladiators.

Latest reason I love being a teacher

Tonight, I had a student thank me -- actually thank me -- for screening His Girl Friday during a History of Film class at Houston Community College. But wait, there's more: He also said that he wanted to someday, somehow, make a movie as smartly written as this one. I told him: Good luck. I look forward to reviewing it.

A Capital film

I suspected -- and admitted I suspected -- I would like Costa-Gavras' Capital before I actually saw it last month at the Toronto Film Festival. And sure enough, the film turned out to be a slick and sensationally entertaining melodrama. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked while gathering production info -- i.e., the cast and crew credits I need to list for a Variety review -- and then something came up, followed by something else. So I didn't get around to giving the movie its due props. Until now.

Seven PsychoCATS (Get it?)

As the owner of three cats, I find this mildly amusing parody absolutely irresistible. But I must admit: The uncensored version is a lot funnier.

Let's see Lelouch's Les Miserables on DVD and Blu-Ray, OK?

Every great once in a while, I am reminded that, contrary to what we might sometimes think, not every great movie is available in the U.S. on DVD. Case in point: Claude Lelouch's Les Miserables (1995), one of my favorite films of all time. As I wrote years ago:

"Claude Lelouch's audacious and exciting epic is neither a film version of the long-running musical nor a traditional adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic novel. Rather, it is a sweeping and sensationally passionate drama that succeeds brilliantly on its own merits as a celebration of storytelling (and, of course, moviemaking) as inspiration and illumination. A magnificently ravaged Jean-Paul Belmondo plays Henri Fortin, an ordinary man whose life spans an extraordinary period in French history: Born at the turn of the century, he lives long enough to endure the cruelties of the Nazi occupation. Rootless and illiterate, he is introduced to Les Miserables at an early age -- in a silent movie! -- and embraces Jean Valjean as his hero, mentor and alter ego. So much so, in fact, that Henri agrees to help a Jewish family escape from Paris, setting into motion a fateful series of betrayals, reconciliations, reversals of fortune and triumphs of the spirit. There are images in Les Miserables that are as hauntingly beautiful as any in the history of cinema. And there are entire sequences that are nothing short of astonishing. Lelouch is one of the few contemporary filmmakers who remains capable of the grand romantic gestures that made many of us fall in love with movies in the first place."

If anyone at Warner Home Video reads this, take it as a plea: The upcoming film version of the stage musical is bound to be a great big hit, so why not give us a DVD/Blu-Ray of Lelouch's masterwork? Think of it this way: You'll be able to hitch a ride on the gravy train, and sell a whole bunch of units. 

This just in: Barack Obama is a colored person

A Twitter friend posted this with the message: "This is what Republicans see every time the President speaks in front of black folks." You know, I think he may be on to something.

Schwarzenegger: Yeah, I performed same-sex marriages while I was governor. You got a problem with that?

Looks like Leslie Stahl didn't get quite the answers she expected when she interviewed the former California governor and born-again movie star when she interviewed him for a 60 Minutes profile set to air Sunday on CBS.

Flashback: Anthony Perkins on making Psycho with Alfred Hitchcock

As Fox Searchlight prepares to launch Hitchcock in this year's Oscar race with a world premiere screening at the AFI Fest, I thought it might be a good time to offer as prelude to the film -- which deals with the making of Psycho, and stars Anthony Hopkins as the Master of Suspense -- this link to an interview I did years ago with Anthony Perkins (played in Hitchcock by James D'Arcy), who had some fascinating things to say about becoming Norman Bates.

Live from Fantastic Fest: It's Red Dawn

And guess what? The long-delayed remake doesn't suck. Seriously. You can read my Variety review here.

Samuel L. Jackson in Wake the F**k Up!!!!

Personally, I think this is Jackson's finest performance since Snakes on a Plane.

R.I.P.: Herbert Lom (1917-2012)

Most people remember Herbert Lom best as the ever-excitable, chronically frustrated Inspector Dreyfus opposite Peter Sellers' indefatigably klutzy Inspector Clouseau in Blake Edwards' Pink Panther movies. But I must confess that my most vivid impression of Lom as a screen actor was formed many decades ago, when, as a wide-eyed kid growing up in New Orleans, I saw the Czech-born, Brit-trained actor in the title role of Hammer Studios' 1962 remake of The Phantom of the Opera.

Lom's sympathetic portrayal of the acid-scarred outcast struck me as so affecting, so sympathetic, that I actually mailed a Christmas card to the guy in care of Universal (the film's U.S. distributor). Can you imagine my surprise and delight when, a few weeks later, I actually received a note signed by Lom himself, thanking me for the card? I was 11 or 12 at the time. It was like getting a personalized acknowledgment from God

Several years later, I was at a Hollywood event of some sort -- frankly, I don't recall precisely what it was -- when I had a fleeting close encounter with one of the guests: Herbert Lom. By that point, I was well into my 30s. But I turned into a kid all over again when I shook Lom's hand -- and gushed a thank-you for his long-ago thank-you card. To his credit, Lom didn't immediately call for aid from security personnel. Instead, he smiled -- indeed, he heartily laughed -- and spent a few minutes conversing with me about Phantom, the Pink Panther movies, and a few other notable films (including The Ladykillers, also with Sellers, and the original Gambit) he had done.

It's to my eternal regret that I never actually got to meet Lom's Phanton co-star, the late, great Michael Gough, another icon from my youth. But on this day when I celebrate the life of a splendid character who showed me such kindness, I marvel once again at the blessings I have received during my long career of getting paid to go to the movies.