Don't Pretend Like You Aren't Curious What's Up With Billy From Gremlins

If you love Gremlins like I do, then you probs would have been as much of a freak as I was on the first day of class during my senior year at NYU when lo and behold Zach Galligan was my audition technique teacher at Stonestreet Studios. That was a long (but true) sentence.

He's totally effing cool and also happened to be a fantastic teacher. And with the 3G Art Show going on here in LA celebrating Gremlins, I thought posting a little something about this short starring Zach wouldn't be so random?

An official selection at the Boston Film Festival,

12 Floors Up is a dark comedy that follows movie producer Spencer Hawkins (Zach Galligan) as he tries to survive a pretentious Manhattan cocktail party. As he attempts to navigate his way through the evening unscathed, Spencer stumbles upon eccentric guests, annoying stories, and a murder.

Actually sounds pretty enjoyable, no?

The film also happens to co-star another face from my NYU days, an actor named Gil Zabarsky, with whom you are about to become obsessed. In fact, now that I've seen this clip, I have a new goal called "Make Gil Famous." Mission. Starts. NOW!

Am I right or am I right?

For more info on the project, head to their official site. To help make Gil famous and make Gremlins fans everywhere squee at the sight of Zach Galligan, post this clip everywhere and anywhere.

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I'll Never Pronounce Machete With A "Shh" Sound Again

That's kind of an awkward title for a post. Do I care? Nope!

Ma Che Te!

Okay, I've been seeing a non stop barrage of dislike/indifference for Machete over the Twitters and I just gotta put it on the record that I 2000% disagree. I don't know if my opinion was affected by the fact that I knew next to nothing about this film beforehand, especially any critics' reviews of it, but I loved it. I thought it was ridiculous AND ridiculously fun, possibly the best time I've had at the movies this year. Yes, Scott Pilgrim was epically joyful, especially considering I saw it with thousands of fans & the cast at Comic-Con and Metric performed afterwards, but I was also so high on just the experience, that I don't remember much of the actual movie AND I had so much riding on the movie being awesome, that I was almost too concerned with that to fully enjoy myself. Machete, I didn't give a shit whether it was actually good or not, I didn't know what to expect, I only assumed that it would probably be silly and violent, and I had a great effing time.

I've heard criticisms that there wasn't enough action and between the action the film was dull. Maybe I'm easy to please (Yes, I'm easy to please), but I thought there was a lot of action and didn't find any part of Machete to be dull. I was actually completely engrossed in the story - I wanted to see the bad guys get their intestines ripped out and the good guys have lots of sex at really inappropriate times. And whattya know, they did! I've also heard the opinion that there is too much plot for such an ill structured narrative, but again, lots of plot goes with the territory with this genre of movie, but I understood everything that happened just fine. So. Don't get that criticism either. Also, I would switch teams for Michelle Rodriguez. In a heartbeat. Damn. The entire movie may be worth it just for her.

I never understand vocal distaste from bloggers when it comes to movies like this. Sure, it was silly, and sure I'd expect confusion from non-genre fan critics, but like, really? Genre fans hating on it?  So many fun items were used as weapons! Steven Seagal had a stupid accent! Frank Lapidus in a suit! Lindsey Lohan showing off her busted meth face! Danny Trejo! A taco truck! What's not to enjoy?

After the movie, I definitely had vegan tacos and sparkling margaritas. Delicious and perfect way to cap the evening.

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Simon Pegg Finds Me Geek Art

Reason #94 you should follow Simon Pegg on Twitter: He links to things like this, James Hance's Relentlessly Cheerful Art. Pegg's favorites were the Muppet paintings, but I was more partial to the ones featured below.

"Help"

"The Dark Starry Night"

"These Are The Droids We're Looking For"

Check out the rest of his art and purchase some for yourself here.

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Publishing Houses of Interest

I want to recommend two small publishing houses that I think might be of interest to you ATFG readers.

The first is Pill Hill Press, a small publishing company based in Nebraska that specializes in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. Their novels are fun, pulp reading. I recommend reading Matthew Moses’ Proxies of Fate, a sci-fi/historical fiction thriller set in the Great Depression about aliens who battle over the fate of Earth. Yeah, I said aliens AND the Great Depression. Awesome.

The second is PM Press, an amazing publishing company based in California with a wide selection of fiction and nonfiction works in different mediums. I like their selection of books, which include leftist political nonfiction, noir, and graphic novels. Check out Rick Dakan’s Geek Mafia, a fictional crime novel about a man working in the comic book and gaming industry. Also, I highly recommend Summer Brenner’s I-5: A Novel of Crime, Transport, and Sex. It’s a dark story about sex trafficking that takes place on the dismal Interstate 5. Brenner writes in this beautiful noir style that sucks you right into her novel.

So if you’re looking for some new reading, check out what Pill Hill Press and PM Press have to offer.

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Joseph Gordon Levitt + Rian Johnson at Summer in the City

Screenshots from my 87,736 videos of HitRecord.Org's Summer in the City, run by Joseph Gordon Levitt. Here, Rian Johnson joins JGL on stage to read a Tiny Story. I almost forgot this happened because five glasses of Prosecco happened first.

Head here to watch the evening in its entirety, though the stream is not close up as my videos are. I'm the drunk girl swooning over JGL. Oh wait. That was everyone. At one point my Inception ring tone goes off a bunch. Fingers crossed you can hear it in the live stream?

xposted at Cineboobs

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I Just Ate IN A Bioshock Level

I mean, listen. I don't get easily frightened by Japanese restaurants. In fact, normally I find them to be quite pleasant and full of delicious nom noms. But tonight, ATFG token male (and new Cinematical rock star) @davidehrlich, took me to some place that may or may not begin with a K that was ACTUALLY FROM THE CITY OF RAPTURE. All that was missing was actually being underwater. Well, and I guess splicers trying to kill me would have been more fitting than live humans eating shumai, but life isn't perfect.

I decided to snap some photos of the location, so you could be as totally freaked out as I was.




If only I had been able to show you the inside of the bathrooms as well



Loooooong room



The other side of the loooooong room



Circus of fucking values



The music was just as creepy as you're hoping it was



Look at all the THINGS to explore! And the two splicers!



Counter to go behind and shit ton of alcohol to drink. Good thing I have that tonic that makes alcohol good for me instead of bad :)



What. The. FUCK. isthatinthatroom.



The sign leading to the restaurant and the zombies overlooking it...



The cotton candy machine. Okay, so this photo doesn't SCREAM Bioshock, but whatever, we got to make our own cotton candy, you're jealous

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:New York City, New York

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Vote For Outdoor Cinema Food Fest's Fall Movies!

The Outdoor Cinema Food Fest is letting us vote for which movies we want to see in the fall, along with which movie we want to see on Halloween.

Head here to participate!

I voted for Back to the Future, Almost Famous, Fast Times...(have never seen it), Goonies, Edward Scissorhands, Ghostbusters, The Matrix, Raiders of the Lost Ark and volunteered Anchorman.

For Halloween, I voted for Scream cause it's terrifying, obviously, and one of my most favorite movies of all time. I love Shaun & Zombieland, just don't wanna watch a comedy on Halloween. I wanna scream. Thus - Scream!

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