Chas,

I think you've hit upon a good idea, and I would include science-
fiction, horror, and peculiar films which are apt to get little other
promotion. Being in a region of the country that gets little other
than mainstream fare and not reading many publications which would
give advance warning on such films, I would be in a poor position to
help with upcoming film fare, but I believe I could point out a few
films of the last four or five decades that may still be available on
video that are underappreciated. Sadly, I was talking to film arts
production instructor (in other words, he trains production people to
work in television) of my acquintance the other night on the phone
and he reports that a goodly number of interesting films from the mid-
eighties/early ninties are no longer available in any format, save
videos which may have been remaindered, including things
like "Broadway Joe," "Fabulous Creatures," "Last Exit from Brooklyn,"
the Hong Kong film "King of Killers," and "Grim Prarie Tales," all
small, intelligent films that failed to find an audience. We could be
doing each other a service by giving reviews of little known, odd,
and unusual films because despite the proliferation of product to DVD
there is still a good chance that all of us could come across decent
film fare that we may never see again and not realise at the time
that we would like to own a copy.

Lets all keep an eye out for things that are deserving of an alert.

Thanks,
Jon

--- In sonsofkong@y..., chasmithalpha <no_reply@y...> wrote:
> Yeh, "Tarantula" was the best! I still remember seeing the
newspaper
> ad as a kid...and I was too scared of what might be in the movie so
I
> never saw it until it was on TV a few years later! I wonder if
anyone
> has written a "Spider Horror Movie Overview", you know, an article
> in "Scary Monsters" or some other zine describing all the spider
> movies that have come out. There must be enough of 'em to make for
a
> good piece, though few stand out in MY memory.
> Another movie that looks really good in previews is "Reign of
> fire" which is apparantly some kind of disaster movie in which
> Dragons are real and come forth to destroy civilization as we know
> it, and the flick takes place after the collapse of our culture and
> the post-apocalyptic humans must fight back for their lives. Of
> course, like all previews, I couldn't glean much info other than
what
> I've just typed...but it sounds pretty interesting so far...and the
> CGI effects looked pretty good.
> (It used to be I could afford all the fantasy film mags and
would
> get info on all the neat upcoming fantasy movies...but now that
these
> zines are six or eight or twelve bucks apiece, I can't afford 'em
> very often...and fantasy films just seem to pop up on my radar
> suddenly. I mention that so as to say the following: why don;t the
> members here pass on info about any interesting upcoming flicks to
> see for the rest of us to read. We could have our very own "Fantasy
> Movie alert Squad" going on here, to let us all know what might be
> coming down the pike that would be of interest. I know I'd
appreciate
> such info, if members were to post an occassional update as they
> chance across such info. Whaddya think?