What is a B Movie? Well if you
don’t know, honestly you probably shouldn’t read this blog. No offense.
So what B movies make up our DNA?
Well about a gazillion.
Of course there’s the obvious, Plan
9 and Ed Wood’s wonderful flimatic ilk.
But there’s also the other stuff…
Like, Something Weird. Check out
the trailer for this brilliant strange fest.
Godzilla vs the Smog Monster. Giant
radioactive environmentally conscious dinosaurs fight waste product monsters
with a hippy soundtrack? Yes that sounds great to us!
So dig your way through some fun B
flicks and let them mutate you as they may. Who knows maybe after watching a
few you’ll want to start your own B movie band.
Dudettes and dudes it’s as simple
as this, A. Lee Martinez is an awesome writer.
For those who don’t this
wonderfully talented scribe, he’s written ten novels. His books include the
Automatic Detective (it’s about a robot detective in a future city who’s best
friend is a talking gorilla who drives a cab), Monster (this one tells the tale
of a guy named Monster who catches monsters for a living), and Gil’s All Fright
Diner (which follows the adventures of a vampire and his redneck werewolf
companion who must deal with undead cows and a demonic magic eight ball).
Why do I dig his stuff so?
The wit, the inventiveness, the
willingness to play around with formula, the fact that they are not part of a
series or ongoing universe, all these things and the simple fact that, he is a
good writer.
His books aren’t any longer than
they need to be. The endings are well executed and fit the flow of the books.
Sometimes they are happy and uplifting, sometimes not so much, but again they
all work in the context of the novels style.
My two favorites of all his work
thus far are Chasing the Moon and A Nameless Witch.
But here is one of the coolest
things about his books. None of his books are bad. Most writers by the time
they hit ten books have at least one or two weak entries. Not one of his books
is even close to poor. That is one impressive feat and thus far they have all
had different flows, themes, and ideas. Sure of course his style carries across
his material but hey isn’t that what style is all about? And when you’re
writing about demonic ducks, trampy angels, and Lovecraftian insanity that is
some awesome style to have shine on.
So go get reading the good stuff!
The A. Lee Martinez stuff!
Thad Michaels was
the owner of the Starlight Drive In or at least he was the entire time I worked
there. I think he still owns the place even though it’s been closed for years
now and yeah don’t buy any of that crap that it’s still open. The last time I
drove by it there are weeds growing everywhere, the whole place is falling
apart, it’s pretty sad but drive in movie theaters are dead sure there are
still a few around but they're the ones that just don’t know they’re dead yet.
There
were a lot of funny things about Thad, don’t get me wrong, he was really a
great guy to work for, I mean he paid great for a movie theater, I still can’t
believe how much he paid me and no I ain’t going to tell you plus he helped me
get some great pieces of tail more than once. Still he was a bit weird. The
oddest thing about him was that, he always looked the same. He was one of those
guys that never looked older. I worked for him for twenty years and he looked
just the same as the first day I met him, his weight always seemed to be the
same too, he looked like a slim jock. Sometimes he talked strange stuff about
reality not being real for much longer or some crazy talk like that but hey he
was still a pretty cool guy and if you own a haunted drive in you’re bound to
be a little weird and that place was haunted for sure, I saw some of the ghosts
myself.
Thad
sure could pick the flicks. He hand picked most of the movies we ran and he got
us all sorts of exclusive deals which kept the place packed every night we were
open. Our lot was only empty at closing time even when it was pouring out. He
got us some great flicks like Vampire Hookers from Outer Space, it had some
pretty hot vampire babes in it and Thad hired some gorgeous chicks to walk around
the lot dressed like vampires, he even hooked me up with one and it was
awesome, he was the best boss I ever had.
We showed that
movie, Satan’s Sister it wasn’t really good but there were so many topless
broads in it that people loved it, I hated that stupid love song that was in
it, think it was called, Into the Sky it was a hit I guess.
He hooked us up
with some weird flicks too like that one Attack of the Prehistoric Beast, I
couldn’t figure out if it was a comedy or just two movies spliced into one.
Undead Kiss was
pretty out there too, there was almost no dialogue, just all sorts of
psychedelic music and messed up sounds.
I
don’t know how or where he found the Burning Witch but I’m pretty sure we were
one of the only places in the world that showed that flick. I heard the rumors
about a women getting burned alive at the stake in it but it didn’t look like a
snuff movie to me.
Vincent “Vin” Breen
Former
projectionist for the Starlight Drive In Movie Theater
There is a dearth of negative
energy on the interwebbies these days.
I’m really negative on all the doom
and gloom and I hate all the hatred on display on blogs, faceboot, and all the
other anti-social media outlets.
Count Robot isn’t on the net to be
a downer, a negative force, gloomy glum.
I am here to be a light in the
funhouse of the universe.
So you will not see me wasting my
time bad mouthing creative types and things that I don’t enjoy.
Rather you will hear me rant and
rave and enthuse about the greats and the maybe not so great artistic folk that
I do dig (writers like A. Lee Martinez, H.P. Lovecraft, painters like Van Gogh,
directors like Ed Wood and David Lynch, and music like Robyn Hitchcock, Rush,
the Beatles, and so so many more).
See I can’t just understand why its
worth my precious time on this sphere bashing something I don’t like when I
could be praising what is groovy to me. Why should I negatively promote what I
dislike? It should be all about the good.
We like acting in our friend Dan
Margarita’s videos as I’ve mentioned before
Dan writes some pretty funny and
cool songs.
DNA Girl acted in one of my
favorites of his. The tune is called Boston Love Song. It’s witty and wistful
at once. That’s a pretty hard thing to do and Dan does it quite well.
Here’s another one we had fun with
called, Now That We’ve Seen Each Other Naked. Again this is one of those tunes
that’s rare in that its funny yet warm and honest. DNA Girl puts in a cameo
like appearance in a pivotal role. She got her own trailer for her appearance.
I grew a moustache for this part. I swear it’s not the truth....
The track You’re Dead, So Shut Up
is of course about a husband nagged from beyond the grave by a zombie wife.
It’s from our cd, Naughty Kitty. The words were written as an ode to horror
punk. I’m a big fan of horror punk master monsters, the Misfits.
We’ve done two versions of this
video.
The initial stab at it (pun is
indeed intended) was too short. It didn’t capture the full visual story we
wanted to tell.
Included here in the blog is the
extended version, which is the better of the two. I added some swirling synths
to the beginning of the video so there was an audio bed for the full video.
In the story a mad scientist kills
his interfering wife and she returns to blab, blab, nag, and nag. He can’t
escape from her so he tries to kill her… again and again and again.
